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 UNIT. OF CAUF. LIBRARY. LOS
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 "PHYLLIS," "MOLLY BAWN," "MRS. GEOFFREY," "DORIS," ETC. 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY, 
 
 PUBLISHERS.
 
 TROWS 
 NEW YORK.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "Be ready for all changes in thy fortune." 
 
 IN the orchard the sudden burning sun is drawing up a 
 warm soft steam from the moist earth. Already the walks 
 are growing carpeted with the white and pink wealth of 
 the apple-trees that are now so old and gnarled as to be 
 venerable. 
 
 Soft gleams of light are stealing shyly through the 
 branches, and are clinging tenderly to the ivied walls of 
 the ancient gateway. Everything is so remarkably still, 
 that the humming of some bees in the blossoms near 
 sounds ridiculously loud, and the twittering of the spar- 
 rows under the eaves almost oppressive. " A sense of 
 heavy harmonies " makes itself felt, and every moment the 
 heat seems to grow more pronounced. Indeed, this April 
 sunshine is as hot, as languorous, as though it belonged to 
 its sister of June. 
 
 Last night the rain fell noisily, the morhing as it broke 
 was still washed with it, and the dawning was dull and 
 sorrowful ; but now a full and perfect noon is at hand, and 
 the air seems only the sweeter for the refreshing showers 
 that deluged the hours of darkness. 
 
 Some straggling rose-trees that are fighting hard with 
 the gooseberry bushes for room to fling wide their arms, 
 are, even thus early, covered with red buds ; drooping 
 honeysuckles are making gay the gaunt old walls, and over 
 there in the little three-cornered grass-plot that is the 
 joy of Angelica's heart a 
 
 " Lilacs cleaving cones have burst, 
 
 .The milk-white flowers revealing." 
 
 There is a bleating of lambs in the grassy fields below, 
 a sound of quick life in the haggard where the young 
 
 2130483
 
 4 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 calves are sporting in the spasmodic, awkward fashion 
 that they know. A cry from the lone cuckoo comes from 
 the dewy woods of Branksmere far, far below. Nature 
 has roused at last from its long rest ; the world is wide 
 awake ; a young and happy world, growing hourly into a 
 fuller beauty. Flowers are springing beneath the feet, 
 
 " And grace and beauty everywhere 
 Are flushing into life." 
 
 Even the gray old house itself, that looks as if centuries 
 of suns had gilded it from time to time, seems to-day to 
 have yielded once again to this latest Apollo, and to have 
 grown fresher, warmer, because of his embrace. 
 
 Outside the house, indeed, all is sunshine. Alas ! inside 
 all is gloom ! 
 
 They are sitting, everyone of them, in the old school- 
 room, in solemn conclave, and in a stiff, though unpre- 
 meditated circle. As a rule it is toward this rather dilap- 
 idated apartment they always verge when perplexed, or 
 rejoiced, or angered about anythrng. Margery is sitting 
 well forward on her chair with a little angry pucker on 
 her pretty forehead. Angelica, a little slender maiden, 
 with a face that resembles her name, is looking distressed ; 
 Peter, embarrassed ; Dick has taken his sleek head into his 
 hands, and is gazing moodily at the carpet as though bent 
 on piercing the inkstains to find the original pattern ; the 
 twins, sitting side by side in their little dimity pinafores, 
 are plainly ready for open war at a moment's notice. 
 
 " To think that she should be coming to-night ! " says 
 Margery at last. Now that Muriel has deserted the home 
 nest and is away on her wedding tour, Margery, as Miss 
 Daryl, seems to have gained a little in dignity. "When 
 it was a fortnight from us it seemed nothing even a week 
 ago we could breathe ! But now to-night ! " 
 
 " It is terrible. I feel half-dead with" fright," murmurs 
 Angelica plaintively. " What will she do ? Send us 
 away ? " 
 
 " Scatter us to the four corners of the earth, most likely. 
 Turrr us out of doors without a penny." 
 
 "Won't she give us anything to eat?" asks one of the 
 twins Blanche in an awe-stricken tone. She looks at 
 May, her twin sister, who is a plump little thing of about 
 eight or nine, with a glance of the deepest commiseration. 
 She herself is delicately fat too, and, indeed, the children 
 are so alike in all respects, that without a distinguishing
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE, 5 
 
 mark, it would at times be impossible to know one from 
 the other. Dormer, the old nurse, has sought to solve this 
 mystery by the means of two little ribbons, one white, one 
 pink, to be fastened somewhere on their frocks each morn- 
 ing." But what is easier to the frolicsome twins than to 
 change their beds at night, when Dormer is loudly snor- 
 ing, and confound by this means their identity in the 
 morning. To-day, for example, by this simple device 
 Blanche is May and May is Blanche. They are ingenuous 
 children, and their countenances do. not conceal the fact 
 that they are in a frame of mind distinctly hopeful, any- 
 thing in the shape of a row being sweet to their souls. 
 
 " Not so much as a crust," says Dick, the second brother, 
 lifting his pale student face from his hands to gaze at the 
 children with brilliant eyes in which a quaint gleam of 
 mirth is always shining. " Out you'll go, supperless. Oh ! 
 what a little time lies between you and utter destitution. 
 The day is far spent. Soon the night will be here, and 
 with it our unknown but ogreish sister-in-law. Poor little 
 May and Blanche, I pity you ! " 
 
 " It won't be worse for us than for you," says Blanche, 
 indignantly. But Dick has gone back to his original posi- 
 tion with his head in his hands. Perhaps he is enjoying 
 the situation a little ! 
 
 " So odd, her never writing us a line," says Margery. 
 " I argue from that, that she is sure to be a distinctly diffi- 
 cult person." 
 
 " But perhaps if we . Did any of us write to her ? " 
 
 asks Angelica, nervously. 
 
 "Certainly not ! Why should we ?" demands Margery. 
 "When first Billy wrote to say he was engaged to her, we 
 learned she was a person a a nobody, in fact, who 
 was being paid by two old people (cousins or something of 
 hers) to take care of them, and considering Billy, since 
 poor papa's death, is the head of the house, and must be 
 a baronet some day, we we naturally thought he should 
 have done better ; so we didn't write to her." 
 
 "And now the tables are turned," says Peter, stretching 
 his long arms lazily, "and she is the Croesus and we the 
 poor connections. Well, I should think she'd remember it 
 all. I'm rather repentant now we didn't write." 
 
 "Things are different now, of course. Then she was 
 goodness knows who now she proves to be General Or- 
 merod's niece, and has come in for a tremendous fortune 
 by his death."
 
 6 LADY ERANKSMERE. 
 
 " Why couldn't Billy have given us a hint," murmurs 
 Angelica. " Or, why didn't we write afterward." 
 
 " Because we were ashamed," guesses one of the twins 
 promptly ; she is instantly crushed. 
 
 "Nobody is ashamed!" says Margery, with a rather 
 heightened color. " But we need not waste time discus- 
 sing absurdities. The thing is that Billy and she are 
 coming here to-night from their honeymoon, and that I 
 expect we shall receive but scant civility at her hands. 
 Oh ! If Muriel were only here to help us." 
 
 " Now, that's a thing that makes me more uneasy than 
 anything," says Dick, suddenly growing intensely earnest. 
 "Muriel's marriage, I mean. Did you notice her face the 
 day of tiie wedding. It was a study. What was there in 
 it when she stood at the altar with Branksmere ? Was it 
 terror or nervousness or or hatred ! " 
 
 Margery has brushed a book off the table near her with 
 an awkwardness foreign to her, and now stoops to pick 
 it up. 
 
 " Hatred of whom ? " asks Angelica. 
 
 " Why, that is just it, of course. Of whom ; Staines 
 was in church, but I should think it was all at an end be- 
 tween him and her, or she wouldn't have married Branks- 
 mere." 
 
 "Yes, I saw Staines. Considering the marriage was so 
 private, and considering, too, that he had once been a 
 lover of hers, I thought it in excessive bad taste his being 
 in the church that morning," says Peter, slowly. 
 
 "Then where does the hatred come in?" asks Angelica, 
 curiously. Margery casts a swift glance at her, but the 
 younger girl does not catch it. 
 
 "Where, indeed," says Dick, a little vaguely. "Not for 
 Staines, according to Peter ; and not for Branksmere, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " Let us keep to the subject in hand," says Margery, 
 perhaps a little sharply. " How can you all guess and 
 worry about an imaginary ill, when the real thing is so 
 near ? " 
 
 "What a change it will all be," says Dick, suddenly, as 
 if following out a train of thought. " Billy, who has been 
 so seldom here, now master ; and Margery deposed from 
 her post as mistress for an utter stranger. Something telis 
 me we shall be not only the wiser, but the sadder for the 
 coming of this new young woman." 
 
 " Perhaps'she is an old young woman," says Angelica.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 7 
 
 " Catch Billy doing a thing of that sort," remarks Peter. 
 " Not likely. She's young, you take my word for it. And 
 they say youth is intolerant. Dick, I share your uncom- 
 fortable presentiment. I feel we have caught a Tartar." 
 
 "Poor old Billy ! If that be so there is a pebbly walk 
 before him," says Angelica, with a sigh. " And when one 
 comes to think of it, I believe Billy was about the best of 
 us, too." 
 
 " He was," says Peter, in the subdued tone of one who 
 is conversing about his beloved dead. " From my soul I'm 
 sorry for him ! Marriage with a woman of that sort a 
 virago as I feel sure she is, means eternal misery. Be- 
 cause if you don't murder her by quick means she murders 
 you by slow ones. Billy used to be as good-natured a fel- 
 low as one could ask to meet. What he is now, beneath 
 that woman's influence, I don't pretend to know. Dear 
 old boy ; he has my sympathy at all events. He was 
 always so quiet, so so Here his eloquence receives 
 a check. " What is the word ? So Confound it," says 
 he " what I mean is that he was so so " 
 
 " Quite so ! " interrupts Dick, gravely. " I entirely agree 
 with you ; and am sure he was all that and a great deal 
 more." 
 
 " I wish to goodness Muriel hadn't chosen this time of 
 all others to go and get married," says Margery, almost in- 
 dignantly: "she would have been the correct person to 
 receive them. She is always so calm, so self-possessed. 
 There is a dignity about Muriel that nothing could ruffle. 
 Not even a sister-in-law who is coming to drive us all into 
 the wilderness." 
 
 "A rash statement," says Dick, sententiously. 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Do you think twenty Mrs. Daryls 
 could make Muriel tremble ? On the contrary, the twenty 
 would tremble before her." 
 
 " My dear. Pray spare poor Billy. He is not the anx- 
 ious proprietor of a harem ; he is afflicted with only one 
 sultana." 
 
 "Pshaw! I'm not thinking of Billy," says Miss Daryl, 
 impatiently, " but of Muriel. I wonder you can all be so 
 blind to the fact that she is the one who could have coped 
 successfully with this this " 
 
 " Entr'acte," suggests Dick. 
 
 "This difficulty. She is the only person I know who 
 never gets frightened or flushed by pressure of circum- 
 stances ; who defies nervousness. Altogether," cries Mar-
 
 8 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 gery, with a glow of admiration, " I regard Muriel as one 
 whose dignity could not be lowered." 
 
 "She must be a phenomenon, then," says Dick, "as I 
 never knew anyone whose dignity could not be destroyed by 
 a well-planted blow in the stomach !" This low and rude 
 piece of information is received in utter silence. The twins 
 are guilty of an ill-timed attempt at a giggle, but are sum- 
 marily hushed into a silence befitting the occasion. 
 
 " Perhaps 'after all Billy's wife will be nice," hazards 
 Angelica, vaguely. Everybody stares. t This startling sug- 
 gestion puts Dick's vulgar speech to flight at once. It is 
 no more remembered. 
 
 "Nice! Nonsense. What would make her nice?" 
 demands Margery. " Did anybody ever hear of a nice 
 heiress ? They are all the poorest of poor creatures." 
 
 "No!" exclaims Blanche breathlessly. "Well, I never 
 knew that before ! I always thought an heiress was a per- 
 son with big bags full of gold ! " 
 
 "And?"' 
 
 " And now you say she is a beggar," says the child ex- 
 citedly. "The poorest of the poor." 
 
 " May blessings light upon your verdant head," inter- 
 poses Peter, gayly. " No, my good child, you are wrong 
 for once. Our heiress is not a beggar." 
 
 " She'll be worse than the usual run of 'em, I shouldn't 
 wonder," says Dick, with predetermined misery. "Her 
 being so abjectly poor when Billy first met her and fell in 
 love with her will only heighten the arrogance that I feel 
 certain distinguishes her now. That sudden springing 
 into a fabulous fortune will make her doubly unendur- 
 able." 
 
 There is so much grim prognostication in his tone that 
 Margery's heart dies within her. 
 
 "Oh, that it was to-morrow morning !" she cries pa- 
 thetically. Upon her, as Miss Daryl, will fall the horrors 
 of having to make a gracious display of welcome. 
 
 " I wonder when she became rich she didn't throw Billy 
 over with a view to gaining a more distinguished parti" 
 some one is saying when she brings herself back from her 
 dismal imaginings. It is Angelica who is speaking, and 
 her speech, savoring as it does in an aside sort of way of 
 a wish to take the part of the new-comer, is received with 
 a marked disfavor. 
 
 " I dare say she was ashamed ! Things had gone so far 
 with her and him," says Peter, who, though as a rule care-
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 9 
 
 less of his neighbor's shortcomings, seems determined to 
 find fault with the new sister thrust upon him. " But 1 
 expect why she didn't brave everything, even the world's 
 censure, was because Billy must get old Grumpy's title 
 sooner or later. And a title is dear to the soul of theflar- 
 venue." 
 
 "She can't be' called that, Peter. It appears she is as 
 well-born as any of us. But her father was so poor 
 that ' 
 
 " Well, yes. That's so, of course," acknowledges Peter, 
 magnanimously. " But what I mean is that she wanted 
 to be ' my lady ? ' ' 
 
 " ' Grumpy ' is good for many a year yet." 
 
 " I hope so. Until I can take my degree at Cambridge 
 at all events. I can't say I admire Sir Mutius as a private 
 individual, but as an uncle who can pay my college fees 
 he is pretty well." 
 
 " ' Sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thank- 
 less child/ " quotes Dick, mournfully. 
 
 " I'm not his child, the gods be praised," returns Peter, 
 stretching himself, lazily. 
 
 " Has a serpent got a tooth ? " asks fat little May, with 
 round open eyes and wonderment. " I thought they 
 sucked everything ! " 
 
 " I know one serpent who has got lots of teeth," re- 
 sponds her youngest brother, with calm, but crushing 
 force. " Regular molars ! " This last word seems full of 
 doubt and horrible suggestiveness to the listening May 
 " and it is coming here to-night ! " 
 
 "Don't be filling her poor little head with nonsense, 
 Dick," says Angelica, softly. 
 
 " I don't know how Sir Mutius could be poor mamma's 
 brother," ponders Margery. " One so soft, so sweet, so 
 
 perfect the other ugh ! " She purses up her pretty 
 
 mouth into a regular O of disgust. 
 
 "He looks so commonplace," continues Angelica, "so 
 vulgar. He says his lineage is above reproach, and the 
 title certainly is old but, Mumm ! Was there ever such 
 a name ? It suggests nothing but trade and champagne." 
 
 " Tell him so." 
 
 " Thank you ! I don't want my head in my hand." 
 
 " What a combination the entire name is. Sir Mutius 
 Mumm ! I'm certain our maternal grandparent was a 
 wit, and gave that Christian name to hi* only son as an 
 heirloom."
 
 ro LADY BRANKSMERR, 
 
 Margery leans back in her chair as she says this, and 
 forgetful of the coming misery laughs aloud. Such a 
 gay, pretty, heart-whole laugh ! It does one good to hear 
 it. 
 
 " Is it possible that I can hear you jest with such trouble 
 staring us in the face," says Dick, reproachfully. "Think 
 of to-night, and what it is bringing you." 
 
 " It will bring Billy too, though," says Blanche, with a 
 touch of defiance in her childish treble. " Billy won't let 
 her touch us." She has evidently great faith in the eldest 
 brother. 
 
 " Billy, indeed ! I expect we shall have to call him Wil- 
 liam now," declares Margery, gloomily. 
 
 At this Blanche gives way to a sudden, irrepressible 
 sense of amusement, and chuckles very loudly. 
 
 " Fancy calling Billy William ! Oh ! it's nonsense, 
 stuffy nonsense. ' Good-morning, William,' "putting on 
 a grown-up air " ' I hope I see you well, William ! ' Ha, 
 ha, ha ! I never could do that. I don't care what his wife 
 says, I'll always call him Billy. Why he doesn't look like 
 anything else." 
 
 " Wait till Mrs. Billy hears you. She'd be as mad as a 
 hatter if she heard such a disrespectful, frivolous term ap- 
 plied to HER husband ! " 
 
 " If she is," murmurs Angelica, patting the twin's dim- 
 pled hand reassuringly, " We'll tie her ! " 
 
 At this time-honored joke they everyone laugh in a 
 body, with all youth's tenderness for an ancient friend, as 
 though it was the freshest in the world. 
 
 " Mrs. Billy" repeats Margery softly from the low seat 
 near the fire. " Ah ! how I wish she was some one who 
 might be called that. It would so settle things." 
 
 " Don't delude yourself with false hopes ; I'm certain 
 
 . Blanche, if you persist in playing the fool with 
 
 those straws and the fire, you'll see yourself presently at 
 an untimely end ; and I don't suppose our new relative 
 will be pleased to find the house redolent of roasted pork 
 on her arrival." 
 
 " Peter ! Don't be horrid." 
 
 " Oh ! yes ; it is quite true," cries May, excitedly. " I 
 read the other day that Mr. Mongoose, the African ex- 
 plorer, declared human flesh was quite quite that is 
 be said we were all pigs." 
 
 " May ! If you will read abominable things of that sort, 
 please keep them to yourself. Oh ! dear, how the twi-
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 11 
 
 light is coming ; soon it will be night, and then I 
 
 don't in the least know how I shall receive her." 
 
 "Throw your arms around her neck. Press her to your 
 throbbing boo-o-som. Break into sympathetic sobs, and 
 cry, ' Sweet sister, how glad I am to welcome you to these 
 ancestral halls.' " 
 
 "Not if I know it," exclaims Miss Daryl, indignantly. 
 " I think I see myself, indeed ! " 
 
 " Very silly of you, my dear ; there isn't a looking-glass 
 within a mile of you, so far as I know." 
 
 " I wonder if she will be big?" twitters May, who is 
 rather irrepressible, alluding to the unknown Mrs. Daryl. 
 
 " Huge ! " replies Dick, promptly. " A regular strap- 
 per ! Stands five foot eleven in her vamps. And walks 
 about the farm all day long in top-boots and leggings, and 
 a cart-whip with which she lays about her, generously. 
 There is one small peculiarity, too, in our new sister, which 
 may be mentioned," continues Dick, leaning confidentially 
 toward the somewhat disconcerted twin. " She can't bear 
 little girls ! Any sort of girl is obnoxious to her, but little 
 ones drive her into a fine frenzy. I have heard from re- 
 liable authority that she could willingly nay gladly flay 
 them alive ! " 
 
 " Oh, Dick ! " says May, whimpering sadly. 
 
 " Fact, I assure you. I'm awfully sorry for you and 
 poor Blanche, but I don't see how I can help you. I 
 doubt there's a bad time before you." 
 
 " Richard to business ! " interrupts Margery, shortly. 
 "You'll give that child softening of the brain if you per- 
 sist in your present evil courses. I am sure, too, it is fool- 
 ish to be so down-hearted. Billy will see we are not alto- 
 gether flung upon the world." 
 
 " I dare say. But Madam will see that we march, 
 nevertheless. She will hardly like td have so many guests 
 perpetually in her house." 
 
 " Who can blame her ? /shouldn't like it either," mur- 
 murs Margery, sighing. " Perhaps she will effect a com- 
 promise, and propose keeping the children with her." 
 
 At this hopeful prospect the twins, without a word of 
 warning, set up a dismal howling. Dick's picture is still 
 fresh in their minds. They dissolve into floods of tears, 
 and are with difficulty even so far restored as to be able 
 to give a cause for their grief. 
 
 " Oh, Meg ! " cry they, flinging themselves bodily upon 
 Margery, " you wouldn't do it. You know you couldn't
 
 12 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 doit! Oh! don't leave us behind you. If you must go 
 take us with you. Don't leave us alone with her. Don't 
 give us up to that awful big woman with the cart-whip." 
 
 Their wailing is piteous, and rather oppressive. 
 
 " What a nuisance you are, Dick," says Peter impatient- 
 ly, " filling the heads of those silly children with such 
 folly." 
 
 " No no, dear little cats, we will all go together," Mar- 
 gery is saying soothingly to the twins. It is plain to 
 everybody that she is very nearly on the brink of tears 
 herself. 
 
 " Oh ! why are we not more fortunate or more rich ? " 
 she sighs. 
 
 " I shouldn't care to be rich. I should like to be 
 famous," says Dick slowly. 
 
 " I shouldn't care to be either. Extremes are a bore. 
 I only ask to be comfortable," puts in Peter, with another 
 lazy yawn. " Even Croesus had his troubles. Money 
 goes but a short way." 
 
 "With some people, certainly," laughs Angelica. 
 
 " On the road to happiness, I would have added, my 
 sweet angel," says Peter. " It's poor stuff, when all is 
 told." 
 
 " Is it ? I should like to have a\trial of it," returns Mar- 
 gery dryly. 
 
 But Peter is not listening to her ; he is instead caroll- 
 ing at the top of his fresh young lungs a verse in favor of 
 his merry theory 
 
 " ' Then why should we quarrel for riches, 
 
 Or any such glittering toys ; 
 A light heart and a thin pair of breeches, 
 
 Will go through the world, my brave boys.' " 
 
 " I don't think that's a nice song, Meg, do you ? " asks 
 Blanche, who has hardly yet recovered from the late storm. 
 " And I shouldn't like a thin pair of breeches when we 
 start would you ? Because winter will be coming on, 
 and we should be cold." 
 
 This infantile touch of caution, convulses Peter with 
 delight. 
 
 " What shall we do when first she is cross to us, Meg ? " 
 asks May, nervously , whose thoughts are still upon the 
 " big woman." 
 
 " Fall upon her and rend her limb from limb," suggests 
 Dick, severely.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 13 
 
 " Smite her, hip and thigh," supplements Peter. 
 
 " I wish Tommy was here," says Margery, suddenly. 
 "Though only a cousin, and quite the greatest fool I 
 know, still he is a sort of person that one can speak to." 
 
 " Or even Curzon," murmurs Angelica. " By-the-bye, 
 I wonder he hasn't been here all day ? " 
 
 " I don't see what good he would be except to sit in 
 Meg's pocket and stare at her as if she had seven heads." 
 
 " He doesn't sit in my pocket," returns Miss Daryl, in- 
 dignantly. " I never heard such a libel ! " 
 
 " Even if he did, he might sit in a worse place," says 
 Angelica, sweetly. 
 
 " Ah ! talk of somebody," cries Margery, quite forgetful 
 of her ill-temper of a moment since. " Why, there he is 
 coming across the lower lawn. I'll call him. He hasn't 
 heard a word about their coming to-night." 
 
 She runs to the window, pushes the casements wide, 
 and makes a wild effort to attract the attention of the tall 
 figure in the distance. 
 
 "Curzon! Curzon! Hi! Mr. Bellew! Drat him! I 
 don't believe he has got an ear in his silly head," says Miss 
 Daryl, who is not particular as to the nicety of her lan- 
 guage when immersed in the bosom of her family. 
 " Cur zon ! Curzon ! I say ! " 
 
 "Elegant language ! Superfine, upon my word," says a 
 gruff voice at this moment. Does it come from heaven or 
 the earth beneath ? A balcony runs outside the school- 
 room, extending from it to the library, and over this bal- 
 cony the voice seems to come. 
 
 " It's Grumpy himself," exclaims Meg, in a horrified 
 tone, falling back into Peter's arms. 
 
 " Uncle Mutius! " whispers Angelica. 
 
 " Then mum's the word," says Dick, throwing himself 
 hurriedly into the nearest chair. 
 
 The heavy sound of pottering old footsteps, the thud of 
 a stout stick, and now Grumpy ! 
 
 Sir Mutius, stepping through the open window into the 
 schoolroom, looks laboriously around him. He is not, per- 
 haps, aware that there is a young man behind him, who is 
 following his footmarks as fast as his legs can carry him. 
 
 " So," says Sir Mutius Mumm, with a sniff. "This is 
 how you comport yourself, Margery, when the eyes of 
 your relatives are not on you." 
 
 "As as I am now, Uncle?" demands Margery, who is 
 sitting in the demurest attitude possible to her, with her
 
 14 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 hands crossed dutifully before her. " I I am very sorry 
 to disappoint you in any way, but I would not abuse your 
 trusting nature, uncle, and conscience compels me to con- 
 fess that I don't always sit like this. Sometimes I stand.'' 
 
 "And sometimes you hollo, at young men out of a win- 
 dow," stutters Sir Mutius, angrily. " How dare you be so 
 impertinent to me, Miss ! D'ye think I haven't got eyes 
 in my head, eh ? " 
 
 " Even if you had, I don't see how you could hear out 
 of them," says Margery, who is in a mutinous mood. 
 
 "What I want to know is," returns old Grumpy, strik- 
 ing his stick savagely upon the carpet, "how you, who 
 probably call yourself a respectable young woman, can 
 explain away the fact of having yelled an invitation to a 
 young man across an acre of grass, and of having used in 
 my hearing such a low term as ' drat it.' I only wish your 
 Aunt Selina had heard you." 
 
 There is somewhere in the dim recesses of Mumm's 
 Hall, a gaunt spinster, sister to Sir Mutius and aunt to the 
 young Daryls, whose name Selina has been transmogri- 
 fied into Selma by Sir Mutius. 
 
 " That's very unbrotherly of you," says Margery. 
 " You should be anxious to spare her all the pain you 
 can." 
 
 There is a touch of open mischief in the lovely, broad 
 little smile that accompanies this wilful speech. 
 
 Sir Mutius swells with rage. He is a short, stout little 
 man, with a corporation, an over-weening opinion of his 
 own importance, a fiery eye, and a sandy wig. Besides all 
 these qualifications, he has a temper that knows no con- 
 trol. What the crushing remark he is preparing for Mar- 
 gery may be, is never known, because at this moment the 
 young man behind him comes into full view. 
 
 It is plain, however, to the Daryls, that he had not 
 known he was following Sir Mutius, because of the fall of 
 his ingenuous countenance as his eyes met those of the irate 
 old baronet. He is a tall, indeed, a splendidly-built young 
 man, with a figure that Hercules need not have sneered 
 at ; but with a face, alas, that falls far short of the figure. 
 His eyes, perhaps, are above reproach, so clear, so blue, 
 so straight-looking they are, but as for the rest of him! 
 his nose is impossible, his mouth huge, his cheek bones 
 distinctly en evidence. As for his mustache, it is not worth 
 speaking about at all, and his hair is abominably void of 
 curl. He is ugly ! There is no doubt about it, he is dis-
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 15 
 
 tinctly ugly ; but with this saving clause that nowhere, 
 under any circumstances, could he be taken for anything 
 but a gentleman. 
 
 The presence of Sir Mutius seems to freeze him in part. 
 He pauses with his foot midway between the balcony and 
 the schoolroom, and looks anxiously at Margery. 
 
 " Come in young man, come in," says Sir Mutius, in an 
 odious tone. " What are you afraid of, eh ? Seems to me 
 that a young fellow like you must consider himself almost 
 one of the family to enter a house through a window like 
 a burglar, as you have done." 
 
 "And as you have done," says the new-comer, smiling. 
 
 " Never mind me, sir. An uncle may come in by a win- 
 dow, I suppose when a young jack-a-napes Is there 
 
 no hall-door to this house, I ask, that you must needs 
 charge through a casement as though you were a mounted 
 dragoon, or the most intimate friend of the family." 
 
 " After all, Sir Mutius, perhaps I am that," says the tall 
 ugly young man, with a conciliatory smile. " Intimate, I 
 mean. I've been coming here, off and on, ever since I can 
 remember anything." 
 
 "Then the sooner you put a stop to your eternal com- 
 ings, the better," says the baronet, angrily. " Margery 
 evidently expects your visits, and 
 
 " Uncle ! " exclaims Meg, rising to her feet with a face 
 suffused with indignant shame. 
 
 "I assure you you are wrong. I did not come to see 
 Margery. I came to see Peter about a terrier pup," inter- 
 poses Mr. Bellew, with a haste that might be termed ago- 
 nized. " You remember, Peter ? " 
 
 Peter doesn't ; but with a noble desire to succor the 
 weak, declares at once that the Irish terrier in the yard 
 shall be Curzon's without any further delay. There is no 
 Irish terrier in the yard. 
 
 " Thanks, old man," says Mr. Bellew heartily. At this 
 moment he is indeed intensely grateful. 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it," declares Sir Mutius, with 
 true grace. " Terrier ! What terrier ? Which terrier ? 
 I tell you, young man," advancing on the astonished Cur- 
 zon but Angelica, who has been terrified all along, here 
 rushes to the rescue. 
 
 " Oh ! Uncle Grum Uncle Mutius," she corrects her- 
 self nervously, "are we not unhappy enough without your 
 adding to our misery ? Mrs. Daryl, Billy's wife, is coming 
 to-night."
 
 7o LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " I'm delighted to hear it. I hope she'll prove a woman 
 with a character," says Sir Mutius with a withering glance 
 at Margery. " You all require a person who would keep 
 you in order." 
 
 " To-night ! Nonsense ! Why, when did you hear ? " 
 asks Curzon in a low tone of Margery. 
 
 "A telegram to-day at one," curtly. Then with a return 
 to that grievance arising out of his frequent worshipping 
 at her shrine. " Now I hope you see what your persistent 
 and ill-timed visits here mean to me." 
 
 "That I love you." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! " says Miss Daryl, indignantly. 
 " They mean public castigation at the hands of that bad 
 old man. Oh ! how I wish you were in Jericho ! " 
 
 She moves away from him, glad in the thought that he 
 is stricken to the earth, and advances on her uncle. 
 
 " Now that you have made us all unutterably miserable," 
 she says tearfully, " I hope you'll go away. If that horrid 
 woman is coming to-night there are things that must be 
 looked to. See ? " with a little stamp. 
 
 " Dear Uncle Mutius, you will understand how busy we 
 are, and have been, all day, and how many things have 
 still to be done, and you will forgive Margery for seeming 
 a little overdone," puts in Angelica with her soft smile, 
 squeezing the impetuous Margery's arm just a little. 
 " You are going now ? Ah, that is good of you. Good- 
 evening, dear Uncle Mutius." 
 
 There are moments when the youthful Angelica, who is 
 yet only half-child, half-woman, seems older than Margery, 
 who is quite nineteen. Peter is twenty, Dick seventeen. 
 After Angelica there was quite a pause until the twins 
 came and the mother went. There was a pause, too, af- 
 ter the birth of Billy and Muriel, who are four and three 
 years ojder than Peter ; but after that the children seemed 
 to tread upon each other's heels, so fast they came. 
 
 The mother's death had been hardly felt, they were so 
 very young. But with the death of the father an event now 
 two years old there had come the sad knowledge of 
 money's value, and all the petty miseries that accompany 
 straitened means. 
 
 Sir Mutius Mrs. Daryl's only brother an old bachelor 
 who lived at Murnm's Hall, a place situated about four 
 miles from the Manor, where the Daryls reside, had looked 
 after his dead sister's children in a snappish, unsympa- 
 thetic fashion when the last blow fell, and the death of
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 17 
 
 Mr. Daryl had been followed by the certainty that he had 
 been living considerably beyond his means for many years, 
 and that nothing but debts and a very insufficient income 
 was all he left behind him except the eight children. 
 
 That was as I have said two years ago, and the sadly- 
 lively, merry-mournful family had up to this struggled 
 through all difficulties with a strength that only youth 
 could grant ; but now to-day fresh trials have seized upon 
 them. The eldest brother, Billy, to whom, indeed, the 
 house and land (such of it, at least, as is not mortgaged up 
 to the hilt) belongs, is bringing home a bride. A stranger! 
 Horrible word ! And who is to greet her ? Who ? There 
 is no one at all to go forward and face the enemy's guns, 
 now that Muriel is away. Now that Muriel is married ! 
 And so strangely ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 "When you come into any fresh company I, observe their humors ; 2, 
 suit your own carriage thereto ; by which insinuation you will make their 
 converse more free and open." 
 
 " THERE'S a ring at the door-bell ; did you hear it ? " cries 
 Angelica, rising to her feet, pale and nervous. "They 
 have come ! I feel it ; I know it, by the cold thrill down 
 my back." 
 
 It is some hours later, and the Daryls are waiting en masse 
 in the rather shabby library, and in the very lowest spirits, 
 for the expected coming of their brother and his wife. 
 Now at last all is indeed over ! 
 
 " Yes ! and there is the knock. They've come to a moral," 
 says Peter. The twins grow pale. All in a body move 
 solemnly toward the library door. 
 
 " Good heavens ! why isn't Muriel here to receive them ?" 
 gasps Margery, hanging fire on the threshold. " Why am 
 / to be the victimized one ? I feel as if I should like to 
 faint." 
 
 " Peter ! a pin," says Dick, with stern determination in 
 his tone. 
 
 "No, no. I'll go, of course," declares Meg, hastily. 
 
 "Only " She pauses, and looks as though she is on 
 
 the point of tears. 
 
 " Don't be a goose," puts in Peter, not unkindly. " She 
 won't eat you ! She can't even blow you into fine dust on 
 2
 
 1 8 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 
 
 so short an acquaintance. Here ! step out. Put your best 
 foot foremost. Quick march ! And, for goodness sake, 
 take that lachrymose expression off your face. It would 
 hang you anywhere. If she sees she is unwelcome, she'll 
 make it hot for us later on." 
 
 " She'll do that anyhow," says Dick, grimly, to whom 
 there is evidently a soup9on of enjoyment in the whole 
 affair. " Go on Meg. You shouldn't scamp your duty." 
 
 " I'm going," whimpers Margery. She takes a step for- 
 ward with what she fondly, but erroneously, believes to be 
 a valiant air, and tries to think what Muriel would have 
 done on such another occasion as this Muriel, with her 
 calm, haughty face, her slow movements that she hastened 
 for no man's pleasure, and her little strange smile, so cold, 
 so sweet, that could attract or subdue, as its owner willed. 
 There is a dignity about Muriel that she wishes she could 
 copy, if for " this occasion only " a savoir faire a sense 
 of breeding, a 
 
 " Blanche ! if you tread on the tail of my gown again," 
 breathes Miss Daryl at this point of her meditations, in an 
 angry whisper, " I'll tear you lirnb from limb." 
 
 This awful threat being received by the culprit with the 
 utmost indifference, the train once more advances. The 
 hall is reached. 
 
 " Mary Jane is just opening the door, and her back hair 
 is all down," telegraphs Peter, over his shoulder. He is 
 with the advance guard, and has, besides, an eye like a 
 gimlet. " It is sticking out like a furze bush," he goes on, 
 excitedly. " To the front Meg and don't give Mrs. Daryl 
 time to notice it, or our reputation is lost forever." 
 
 " And the time I took over that girl's get-up," groans 
 Angelica, despairingly. 
 
 " If you could just manage to throw yourself into Mrs. 
 William's arms and lean heavily on her, all will be well," 
 whispers Dick. " You're a well-grown girl, and weight 
 always tells. Do anything hurt her, even but don't let 
 her see our Mary Jane." 
 
 " Oh, why wasn't Muriel here," returns Margery, with 
 quite a shiver of nervous horror. 
 
 " Go along you'll do well enough at a pinch," says her 
 brother, noble encouragement in his tone, as he gives her 
 a friendly push that sends her with what the new-comers 
 imagine to be most flattering haste right into the glare 
 of the lamp. 
 
 Here, at the hall-door, there is a slight confusion. A
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. ig 
 
 little bundle, made up apparently of Eastern shawls, is 
 standing near the hat-stand. A young man is fumbling 
 hopelessly with these shawls, and Mary Jane, who has now 
 finally got rid of the small amount of wits that once were 
 hers, is curtseying profoundly and unceasingly. 
 
 " After all she isn't Irish, she is a Hindu," whispers Dick, 
 " she thinks she is once more in the presence of Vishnu, 
 the Pervader. See how she mops and mows. Poor thing. 
 She is very mad." 
 
 Margery takes the final step. 
 
 "You have come, Billy," she says, timidly advancing 
 toward the young man who is trying so hopelessly to dis- 
 entangle the little parcel of soft gonds. 
 
 " So we have, so we have," cries Mr. Daryl, in a cheery 
 voice. He is a man of middle height, the very image of 
 Margery, and he now abandons his efforts to unravel the 
 little form, to go to his sister and give her a hearty hug. 
 " Oh ! there you all are," exclaims he delightedly, seeing 
 the other figures drawn up in battle array in the back- 
 ground. " Look, Willy ! Here they all are in a body to 
 bid you welcome." 
 
 " Look ! " laughs somebody from beneath the mufflings. 
 " Oh ! how I wish I could. I wonder if I'll ever look with 
 living eyes on anything again ! I'm just smothered." 
 
 Billy having kissed the children, who are frightened, and 
 shaken hands with his brothers who are stolid, now once 
 more attacks the bundle and finally brings out from it his 
 wife with quite a flourish as if distinctly proud of her. 
 
 " He is new to it," says Peter, with fine contempt, turn- 
 ing to Angelica. 
 
 " She's she's pretty ! " returns Angelica, slowly, and as 
 if just awakening to something. 
 
 The greetings, the introductions, have been gone 
 through. Mrs. Daryl is quite a little woman, with clear 
 eyes, that have looked with leisurely keenness at each of 
 her new kinsfolk in turn. Her mouth, if firm, is pleasant 
 There is no self-consciousness about her, and no shyness 
 whatever. 
 
 " Nice old hall, Billy," she says, smiling, when she has 
 spoken to every one, and is at last at liberty to look round 
 her. 
 
 Nice ! All the Daryls exchange covert and furious 
 glances with each other. Nice, indeed! when they have 
 been accustomed to pride themselves upon it as being 
 (which it really is) the finest hall in the county.
 
 20 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " I should just like to see the one she has been used to," 
 mutters Peter, with extreme disgust. 
 
 " Dinner will be ready in about five minutes," says Mar- 
 gery, suggestively. "You must be very tired, and 
 
 " Dinner ! Ah, you should have mentioned that, Billy," 
 says Mrs. Daryl, brightly. "We dined at Wotton about 
 two hours ago, and to dine again so soon would be dread- 
 ful. As to being tired, I never felt fresher in my life. But 
 you must all go to dinner, and " 
 
 "We dined early. It makes no difference at all," says 
 Margery, slowly. "You will like a cup of tea instead, 
 perhaps ?" 
 
 " Presently. When -I have talked to you all a little," 
 arranges Mrs. Daryl, promptly. " I think in the meantime 
 Ah! what room is this ?" 
 
 Margery had led the way into the drawing-room. 
 
 "A charming room," declares the new-comer, briskly, 
 with a swift but comprehensive glance round her. " But 
 what ghastly furniture ! We must turn it all out of doors 
 or else relegate it to the garrets, and get something light 
 aesthetic satisfying eh?" with an airy wave of her 
 hand. Indeed all her ways seem to be specially airy. 
 
 "That's the prelude to turning us out of doors," whispers 
 Meg, gloomily, into Angelica's ear. "Well, nothing like 
 knowing the worst at once ! " 
 
 "What's outside?" asks Mrs. Daryl, pushing wide a 
 window-curtain and gazing into the still darkness of the 
 spring night. 
 
 "The garden." 
 
 " Ah ! I wish I could see that ! " cries she, eagerly. She 
 seems thoroughly untiring and full of vivacity. " Is it too 
 dark, Billy?" 
 
 " Much too dark, and too chilly, besides," returns he. 
 
 "How careful he is of her!" says Peter, in a moody 
 aside. " Seems to me she's as strong as a 
 
 He is evidently on the point of saying "a horse," but 
 some innate breeding forbids him. 
 
 " So she is," whispers Margery, back, who, perhaps, 
 understands him. And, indeed, there is something sug- 
 gestive of strong and perfect health in Mrs. Daryl's small, 
 elastic frame, and fair face and eager eyes. 
 
 "It is rather late for the children to be up," says Mar- 
 gery, addressing her new sister. " I think I will take them 
 away now, and give them their tea. Billy can show you 
 everything." With a faint smile.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 21 
 
 " Of course. If they want to go," says Mrs. Billy cheer- 
 fully. " But perhaps they'd like a holiday from their beds 
 in honor of me. Would you, mites ? " 
 
 But the mites are too impressed by the solemnity of the 
 occasion to do aught but hang their heads and behave 
 abominably. 
 
 ("Just like ill-bred little brats," declares Margery after- 
 ward, with an access of wrath that descends upon the 
 luckless twins.) 
 
 " Ah ! well, no doubt they are tired," says Mrs. Billy 
 genially, and so Margery carries off the disgraced babies 
 to their tea in the school-room, where they are speedily 
 joined by Angelica, Dick, and Peter. 
 
 " What idiot said brides were shy ? " demands Dick, pres- 
 ently. " Of all the effrontery, the coolness, the 
 
 "She is just what I said she would be." 
 
 "She isn't in the least what /thought she would be," 
 says Margery, "she she's worse. Did you hear her re- 
 mark about the hall ?" 
 
 "And about the furniture?" 
 
 "I suppose she'll give us a week's grace," says Peter 
 thoughtfully. " And then where are we to go ?" 
 
 " Ah ! you are here, then ? " cries a gay voice. The door 
 is pushed open and Mrs. Daryl enters as though certain of 
 a welcome. "They told me I should find you in this 
 room," continues she, entering as composedly as though 
 she had been an inmate of the house all her life. 
 
 "This is a very uncomfortable place for you," declares 
 Margery, rising pale and unsmiling from behind the tea- 
 pot. " Let me take you to the library. I have ordered 
 tea to be served there for you and Billy." 
 
 "That's tea down there isn't it?" nodding her head at 
 the elderly teapot so well-known to the twins. 
 
 "Yes but in the library " 
 
 " I know. I've been there. And very cosey it looked, 
 but not so cosey as this. I think old school-rooms the best 
 bits of a house, don't you ? And I should like some of 
 your tea, and so would Billy." 
 
 " She's evidently determined we shan't have even this 
 poor room to ourselves," mutters Dick, indignantly. "All 
 
 or none is her motto. Anvthing so indecent ! All 
 
 this pretence at bonhommie is a mere dodge to prove to us 
 that she is mistress of everything. That all the rooms 
 belong to her." 
 
 "Well so they do so they- do ! " returns Angelica with a
 
 22 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 fine justice. Then her feelings grow too much for her. 
 " But of all the mean actions " she says, tears rising to 
 her dove-like eyes. 
 
 "There were hot cakes in the library," says Mrs. Daryl, 
 who has seated herself at the table, and is plainly -waiting 
 for her tea. "Couldn't we have them in here. I'm cer- 
 tain the children would like them. Eh ? " She pulls May 
 toward her. Fat little May is not proof against this prom- 
 ising offer. 
 
 " I should," she says, shyly. She is staring at Mrs. Billy 
 with her finger in her mouth, so does not see the concen- 
 trated glances of wrath showered upon her by the entire 
 family. 
 
 "Good child !" laughs Mrs. Daryl. 
 
 At this moment Billy crosses the threshold. 
 
 " Billy, this little sister wants the hot cakes in the lib- 
 rary," says his wife, looking up at him. And after half an 
 hour or so Blanche and May are at last dismissed for the 
 night with as many scones on their conscience as size will 
 permit. 
 
 The new-comers follow them very shortly Mrs. Daryl 
 having at last confessed to a slight sense of fatigue. She 
 bids them all good-night in an airy cheery fashion, and 
 leaves the room, in spite of the tired sensation to which 
 she has acknowledged, in a breezy energetic fashion, sug- 
 gestive of a mind that governs the slight body and is not 
 easily to be subdued. 
 
 As she goes the storm bursts. 
 
 "Well!" says Peter, when the last sound of their foot- 
 steps has ceased upon the air, "well! I never !" He might 
 have said more. He could never have said anything that 
 conveys so expressively to his listeners the real state of 
 his feelings. 
 
 " It isn't well. It is ill," retorts Margery. " I it is dis- 
 graceful. She is determined to sit upon us." 
 
 " She'll have something to do then, that's one comfort," 
 exclaims Angelica hysterically. " And she can't do it all 
 at once either, there's such a lot of us." 
 
 "Don't be a fool ! " says Peter, who is in no humor for 
 jokes. 
 
 " Peter, don't be rude to Angelica," interposes Margery, 
 indignantly, whose nerves are by this time so highly strung 
 that she feels it a necessity to quarrel with somebody. 
 
 " Who's rude ? " demands Peter. " I only advised her 
 very gently not to jest on solemn subjects."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 23 
 
 " Very gently. You told her not to be a fool." 
 
 " Well ! Would you have me to tell her to be a fool ? 
 You're all fools together, it strikes me. There isn't a 
 grain of sense in any girl born." 
 
 "I say, look here! Have it out to-morrow, you two," 
 cries Dick, "but let us discuss the new Madam now, as 
 she no doubt is discussing us at this moment." 
 
 "That is, most unfavorably." 
 
 " She is no doubt abusing us like a pick-pocket," mut- 
 ters Peter, dejectedly. 
 
 "She is arranging with Billy for our immediate dismis- 
 sal, without a character, having paid all wages due." 
 
 " Perhaps after all we weren't very nice to her," says 
 Angelica, doubtfully. 
 
 " What's the good of being nice ? In books they always 
 do the correct thing at first, and get kicked out afterward 
 for their pains. I've read a lot about people in law. We 
 have done the incorrect thing, and we shall be kicked out 
 too, but we shall carry our self-respect with us." 
 
 "That's about all," puts in Dick, grimly. 
 
 " She is didn't anyone think her eyes lovely ? " hazards 
 Angelica. "And her hands very small ? Small as Muri- 
 el's?" 
 
 " No one," declares Margery, shortly. " Come, let us 
 go to bed and forget our misfortunes for a time if we 
 can." 
 
 Meantime another scene is taking place in the room 
 over their heads. 
 
 " After all, Billy," says Mrs. Daryl with a jolly, little 
 laugh as she closes the bedroom door, firmly behind her, 
 " you were wrong. They didn't fall in love with me at 
 first sight. You are a false prophet." 
 
 " They they were a little queer, eh ? " returns Billy, 
 thoughtfully. " I noticed it. But you mustn't mind that, 
 you know. It'll wear off, and and when they come to 
 know you and understand you, there won't be a difficulty 
 anywhere." 
 
 " It is natural, I suppose," muses Mrs. Daryl, gravely. 
 " They must look upon me as a female Jacob. A sup- 
 planter, a usurper." 
 
 " They mustn't be allowed to harbor that thought," says 
 her husband, turning quickly toward her, "you are mis- 
 tress here. The house is yours." 
 
 Some sudden remembrance checks him here, and drives
 
 24 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 the color to his cheek. " A barren possession," lie says, 
 laying his kindly, brown hand on hers, " I wish there was 
 something in it worth your acceptance." 
 
 " It seems to me there is a good deal in it." A second 
 little laugh breaks from her. 
 
 Daryl looks at her anxiously. 
 
 " Too much you think, perhaps ?" he says, a quick shade 
 falling into his eyes. 
 
 For just the moment it takes her to read his thoughts 
 she does not answer him ; then, 
 
 " So that is what you are thinking ! " she decides at last. 
 11 Have I deserved it, Billy ? I tell you, you are wrong 
 all wrong. The very spirit they displayed warmed my 
 heart to them as no silly untried tenderness would have 
 done. Had they thrown themselves into rny arms, and 
 affected a sudden love for me, I should have been trouble- 
 some, perhaps," with a little grimace; "but now! Why 
 they seem to be real grit all through, and I'll stand to 
 them for it, and make them like me, before I'm done with 
 them." 
 
 "That's my dear girl," says Mr. Daryl. 
 
 " How they withdrew from me ! Did you notice that 
 boy with the big eyes? How distrustfully he let them rest 
 on me ? I shall take him for a ride to-morrow, and bring 
 him home my slave." 
 
 " They will all be your slaves in a month or so." 
 
 " A month ! " Mrs. Billy gazes at him earnestly as one 
 might who is filled witli surprise. " How you underrate 
 my abilities," she says at last gayly. " Be warned in time. 
 Before to-morrow night I shall be not only tolerated, but 
 warmly accepted by every member of this household ! " 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " The drying up a single tear has more 
 
 Of honest fame, than shedding tears of gore." 
 
 SHE was as good as her word. By the next evening they 
 have all learned to smile upon her, by the end of the third 
 week they have all learned to positively court her society, 
 which is fresh to the last degree. Yet still they are a little 
 awkward with her, and a little uncertain as to her ulterior 
 designs for their welfare. 
 
 As for Mrs. Billy, she is very well-pleased with herself
 
 LADY BRAN T KSMERE, 25 
 
 so far, and with her growing relations with them, and hav- 
 ing no special designs in view, does not trouble herself to 
 invent any. 
 
 One day, toward the end of this first eventful three 
 weeks, she walks into the school-room rather aimlessly, to 
 find Margery there and the children. 
 
 " You here, Margery ? Why, what are you doing ? " 
 asks she. She is dressed in a pretty white gown of some 
 soft, warm material, the days being still a little chilly, and 
 is looking cool, and fresh, and radiant. Margery, on the 
 contrary, has a rather crushed appearance, and is distinctly 
 warm and openly miserable. 
 
 "Teaching the children," she answered shortly. 
 
 " Ah ! " says Mrs. Daryl, surveying the hot cheeks of the 
 three with evident surprise. Blanche, it appears to her, is 
 full of tears ; May just bereft of them ; Margery herself 
 seems on the very brink of them. 
 
 "What on earth are you doing it for ? " asks Mrs. Daryl 
 slowly. 
 
 " Because, however poor they may be, they must not 
 grow up altogether savages," returns Margery with some 
 sharpness. Her irritation has not arisen out of the pres- 
 ence of her sister-in-law, but is rather due to an extreme 
 exhaustion born of a long and fruitless argument with the 
 twins, who have obstinately declined to take to heart the 
 fact that twelve and nine make twenty-one. Perhaps Mrs. 
 Daryl grasps the truth of the situation, because the amia- 
 bility of her demeanor is undiminished as she sinks into a 
 chair by the table and settles herself, Parisian robe and 
 all, to business. 
 
 " Here ! Give one of them to me," she says, briskly. 
 
 " To teach ? " asks Meg, aghast. 
 
 " To try and knock something into her brain. It's the 
 same thing, eh ? But to judge by you I should say it was 
 no mean task. Give me Blanche. I expect she knows 
 considerably more than I do, but with the help of a book 
 I'll go in and win." 
 
 " Oh, no ! Indeed you mustn't. You haven't an idea 
 what a worry it is. Billy won't like you to do it," says 
 Margery, anxiously. 
 
 " Billy always likes just what I like." 
 
 "You will hate it." 
 
 "If I do I'll stop," says Mrs. Billy imperturbably. And, 
 Margery conquered, passes her over Blanche, and once 
 more returns to the disturbed argument with May.
 
 26 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 Five, ten, twenty minutes go by, with only a dismal sob 
 or two, and a dull monotone, or perhaps a dismal blowing 
 of the nose to break their deep serenity. Then suddenly, 
 all at once, as it were, an awful disturbance takes place. 
 Mrs. Billy has, without a moment's warning, flung her 
 book into the fireplace, and has risen impetuously to her 
 feet. Her fine eyes are flashing, her cheeks crimson. 
 
 " She ought to be killed that child ! " she cries, point- 
 ing to the terrified May. " She ought to be exterminated 
 before the world is made aware of her. She has no more 
 brains than a a fly." 
 
 "May!" exclaims Margery, glancing reproachfully at 
 the trembling culprit. Then some inward force compels 
 her to defend the little sister who is staring at her implor- 
 ingly with quivering lips. " Usually she is a very good 
 child," she says, holding out her hand to May. 
 
 " Good. Good ! " cries Mrs. Daryl, indignantly. " Then 
 tell me, will you, why it is she will persist in bounding 
 Europe on the north by the Mediterranean Sea ? I warn 
 you she is dangerous. She would turn the world upside 
 down ! " 
 
 Then in a moment the anger vanishes, and she lifts her 
 hands to her head, and breaks into a "fit of the gayest, the 
 most uncontrollable laughter. 
 
 " I wonder when I was in a passion before," she says. 
 " How it relieves one. The worst of it is it doesn't last 
 long enough with me ; I don't get the good out of it. It 
 evaporates before I'm done with it. Say, children, wouldn't 
 you like a run ? It's a most blessed afternoon. It's a 
 positive sin to be indoors, I think. And as for Europe, I 
 don't quite see that I -should cry over it, even if the Med- 
 iterranean did sit on its head." 
 
 11 1 suppose they ought to get through the lessons they 
 have prepared," begins Margery, doubtfully. 
 
 "So they have ; every one of them, because they haven't 
 prepared any. And from this hour out I fancy I know 
 what we'll do. Our tempers wouldn't last through much 
 of this sort of thing " rapping the lesson books " so 
 we'll just pay some poor soul to lose her temper for us." 
 
 " You mean " 
 
 " I mean a governess." 
 
 " You must not think of that," cries Margery, coloring 
 hotly. " We must not put you to that expense. My time 
 is my own ; I have literally nothing to do." 
 
 " Quite as it should be with a pretty girl," interrupts
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 27 
 
 Mrs. Daryl, quickly. " Ah ! experience has taught me 
 that." 
 
 " With so much time on my hands ? " persists Margery. 
 " I feel I can do nothing better than teach the children, 
 and " 
 
 " Learn to curse fate," interposes Mrs. Daryl, with her 
 merry laugh. " Not a bit of it ! Not while I'm here ! A 
 governess it shall be, and the children, believe me, will 
 learn as much from her in one month as they do from you 
 in six. We'll get an old maid, and make her very comfort- 
 able, poor thing ! " 
 
 " But " 
 
 " Not a word. Do you think I could sit still, or go out 
 riding, and know you were ruining your constitution with 
 such scenes as I have just gone through ? Tut ! What 
 do you take me for ? Come," changing her tone again as if 
 the subject is over and done with forever, " I want you to 
 show me the rooms in the west wing. They are all out of 
 order Billy says ; but that's what I like, it gives one scope 
 for one's imagination. It permits one to give the reins to 
 one's own taste in the matter of paints and gimcracks. 
 Come ! " 
 
 She slips her arm through Margery's, and the girl goes 
 with her a step or two. There is indeed no gainsaying 
 her. Then all at once Margery stops as if to argue the 
 point anew, and Mrs. Daryl, glancing at her, sees that her 
 eyes are full of unshed tears. 
 
 " Too much geography, grammar, and sums, and far too 
 much gratitude," thinks she, swiftly. 
 
 " Pondering on the children still ? " she says, smiling. 
 Then she glances back over her shoulder at the twins, who 
 are sitting disconsolately in their seats, chilled by the con- 
 sciousness of having signally disgraced themselves in the 
 late encounter. 
 
 " Get on your feet, you two," she commands, gayly, 
 " and pick me a bunch of daffodils for my room. And I'll 
 tell you what," beckoning them closer to her. " From this 
 day you shall have a whole month of pure and lovely idle- 
 ness while I look north and south and east and west for the 
 dragon I'm preparing for you." 
 
 She laughs so pleasantly at this threat that the twins 
 catch the infection of her mirth, and laugh too, and are 
 indeed so delighted with her and the promised emancipa- 
 tion from the hated studies that their equanimity is quite 
 restored. Can she, does she mean it ? A month, mind
 
 28 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 you. A whole long splendid month of delicious idleness, 
 with nothing on earth to do but to hunt at will the wily 
 butterfly ! Oh ! what an angel in disguise their enemy has 
 become. 
 
 They rise from their seats. Simultaneously, involuntar- 
 ily, they clasp hands. They draw near. 
 
 " Is it true," cry they in one breath. 
 
 ''As true as that you are both the very prettiest pair of 
 dunces ! " 
 
 Mrs. Billy, having given voice to this medicated assur- 
 ance, draws back, and, providentially in time, supports 
 herself against the ancient bookcase that for generations 
 has shown itself proof against the severest onslaughts. 
 This enables her to receive the shock of two small bodies 
 flung convulsively and without warning upon her breast, 
 with at least a show of valor. 
 
 " Oh ! " gasps May, hysterically, clinging to her, " wasn't 
 it a good thing for us that you married Billy." 
 
 " Flight, however ignominious, means life ! " gasps Mrs. 
 Billy, " so here goes ! " 
 
 She tears herself away from the grateful twins, seizes 
 Margery's wrist, and with her escapes into the cooler hall 
 outside. 
 
 " Now come and show me the uninhabited parts, the 
 rooms where the ghosts walk," she says gayly, springing 
 up the beautiful old staircase two steps at a time. 
 
 " Only there isn't anything so decent as a spirit," returns 
 Margery, following her, swiftly. "A sell, isn't it? It is 
 just the sort of rambling old tenement that should possess 
 a gentleman with his head tucked well beneath his arms. 
 But, alas, he has never turned up. Mean of him, I call it." 
 
 In truth, it is a very picturesque old mansion, though 
 sadly out of repair, with a queer, dusky hall of huge di- 
 mensions. A hall full of ancient cupboards and a big fire- 
 place where the traditionary ox might have been roasted 
 whole almost. The mantel-piece rises to the very ceiling, 
 which is vaulted, and both are so black with age that it is 
 impossible at a first glance to pick out and piece together 
 properly the carvings on the former. 
 
 Doors lead off this hall to right and left, and two long 
 corridors shrouded by moth-eaten curtains are dimly sug- 
 gested. Mrs. Billy is openly pleased with everything. 
 Standing on the top of the quaint staircase, as broad as it 
 is shallow in steps, she looks down into the gloom beneath 
 her, and seems enraptured.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 29 
 
 " It only wants a word here, a touch there," she mur- 
 murs, casting a glance full of artistic appreciation around. 
 " A prince might be proud of such a hall as that." 
 
 "It wants considerably more than a touch," says Mar- 
 gery, who after all is accustomed to the beauty of it, and 
 is not carried away by its charm. To her, the chairs, the 
 antlers, the tables are only so much lumber ; and, indeed, 
 the entire furniture throughout the house is old, not to 
 say crumbly. 
 
 " Well, it shall have it," answers Mrs. Daryl. " It is 
 worthy of all care and consideration." She turns, and they 
 continue their way, peering into this room, peeping into 
 that, to find them all dilapidated and shorn of decorations 
 of all sorts, the finances of the two last generations having 
 been found very insufficient when applied to the keeping 
 up of so large a house. The Daryis for the past two cen- 
 turies had apparently taken for their motto, " Love and 
 the world well lost," their beautiful wives bringing noth- 
 ing but their fair faces and a stainless ancestry to the 
 empty coffers of their husbands. It had not been Billy's 
 fault that he had been false to the creed of his ancestors. 
 He had loved, and had wooed and won his sweetheart 
 when she was without a penny in the world ; and does 
 not, because he could not, love her a whit the more to- 
 day in that she is an heiress to a rather fabulous extent. 
 
 " Take care," cries Margery, suddenly, " a step leads 
 down into this room. It takes one unawares as a rule. 
 But I want you to see this room of all others. The view 
 from it is so perfect, and the windows so quaint." 
 
 " Oh ! " cries Mrs. Billy as she steps into it, with an ad- 
 miration in her tone that leaves nothing to be desired. 
 " What a jolly little room." She looks round her. 
 " Quite a mediaeval little affair. It is a trifle too much for 
 me I confess, but you " glancing at Margery kindly 
 " you like it, eh ? " 
 
 "Like it ! It is an ideal thing a rugged poem !" cries 
 Margery. Then she checks herself, and looks in a puzzled 
 way at her sister-in-law. " You who have such a fine 
 appreciation of the really good, why do you disparage it ?" 
 she asks, slowly. " I thought of it all last night as a thing 
 just suited for you, as a retirement a retreat a pet place 
 to receive your favorites. It was a matter of covetousness 
 to myself many a time, but you see it would be thrown 
 away without its suitable adornments. Everything should 
 be of its own time."
 
 3 o LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Except its mistress," interrupts Mrs. Daryl, with a 
 light laugh. " That's the flaw in the present aesthetic run 
 of thought. We can't produce a real chatelaine. We 
 can't bring back a dame, severely Saxon, artistically pure, 
 from the nauseous grave. And all the high art gowns in 
 the world don't seem to me to do it. One can see the 
 nineteenth century training all through the puffs and wigs, 
 and pensive poses." 
 
 " You are a sceptic," says Margery, laughing. 
 
 " A Philistine, you mean. In some ways, yes. Exag- 
 geration, don't you see, is odious to me." Here she 
 laughs gayly in unison with her companion. " Tell you 
 what, Meg," she says, " this room shall be yours. I'll 
 have it done up for you, and you shall choose every stick 
 for yourself. You are Miss Daryl you see, and proper re- 
 spect must be shown you. The school-room will do for 
 the children well enough. It is comfortable, and there is 
 something quaint about the tables and chairs, and the 
 very inkstains of it. But the boys, I think, should have a 
 den of their own. Of their very own, eh ? A sort of a 
 snuggery where they might knock around at will, and no 
 one have the right to scold them for untidiness, eh ? " 
 
 There is something remarkably cheery in the way she 
 has of saying that frequent " eh " ? Some thought grow- 
 ing within the mind of Margery renders her dumb. 
 
 " Well ? Why don't you speak, eh ? And why do you 
 look at me like that ? with such solemn eyes ?" 
 
 " I was just thinking," the words coming from her 
 slowly, " that there are few women who could have come 
 as mistress- to a strange house and have adopted an un- 
 conscionable number of useless people in the sweet spirit 
 that you have done ! Why what are we to you ? " cries 
 the girl, coming more into the sunlight and spreading out 
 her hands as if in protest. " An encumbrance, a worry, 
 beings of no moment at all in the life that is just begin- 
 ning for you. Yet it seems as though you had made up 
 your mind to us to 
 
 " Look here ! If you only knew !'" interposes Mrs. 
 Billy. 
 
 She seats herself with very rash promptness upon a 
 moth-devoured seat in one of the windows, and pulls the 
 girl dow r n beside her. There is a secret nobility about 
 this seat in that though it totters to its fall, it makes one 
 last effort and manages to keep erect for still another half- 
 hour. How could it upset so charming a cargo ?
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 31 
 
 V Don't you get it into your silly old noddle," says Mrs. 
 Billy, who takes no thought for her language, "that I'm 
 making sacrifices for my husband's people, or anything of 
 that sort. It would be a downright fraud if you brought 
 your mind to that. I'm delighted, glad, thankful to have 
 you all here. Taken that in, eh ? Delighted see ? I 
 have been so long left alone, with only two old frowzy 
 people to stare at day after day fossils who were always 
 on the very brink of the grave, but who wouldn't go into 
 it that the sound of the laughter that comes from all you 
 girls and boys is, I consider, grand : the very sweetest 
 music. Taken all that in ? Why, that's right." 
 
 " But to be never alone with Billy " 
 
 " There isn't a ' but ' in the whole of it. I defy you to 
 find one, my good child," interrupts this energetic young 
 woman, promptly. " If you think I'm the sort to be mis- 
 erable unless my husband is in my sight all day, or I in 
 his, you've made a mistake, that's all. I'm not of the 
 sickly sentimental order by any means. Yet," glancing 
 swiftly at Margery, "you know that I love Billy with all 
 my heart and soul, eh ? " 
 
 "Yes," gravely. "I know it." 
 
 " I should, you know. He rescued me from a very 
 slough of despond. He was the first bright thing I had 
 come in contact with. I can tell you I rubbed myself 
 against him vigorously, and sparks was the result ! He 
 was charming to me, he treated me as though I were really 
 a young girl, and not a mere beast of burden a sort of 
 superior upper servant a being a degree better than 
 Martha in that I did not misplace my h's, and could sit in 
 a drawing-room without looking awkward. He came. He 
 loved me ; poor, dependent, as I was. And he is one of 
 you ! Do I not owe you love for his love ? " 
 
 "Your life was miserable?" asks Margery, bending 
 eagerly toward her. 
 
 " Monotony is the worst of all miseries to some natures. 
 They were not absolutely unkind, but I felt 'cribb'd, cabin'd, 
 and confin'd ' every moment of my day. Oh ! the horrible 
 readings aloud to that old man until my throat was sore ! 
 the eternal windings of that old woman's skeins ! I wonder 
 I never gave way to my inner promptings that I abstained 
 from murder or suicide ; I was alriost at the end of my 
 patience I can tell you when Billy came upon the scene. 
 Well, you know all that. And he loved me at once, some- 
 how ; all in a moment as it were just as I loved him."
 
 32 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "That is the true way." 
 
 "Yes isn't it? What a nice girl you are, Margery! 
 And I hadn't a single halfpenny then, so he must have 
 meant all he said, eh ? I like to dwell on that ; it makes 
 me feel right down proud, somehow ; but you mustn't 
 mind me. Then the old General died, and somebody 
 found out I was his nearest of skin kin what is it ? And 
 all at once I became not only an heiress, but an enormous 
 one." 
 
 " Not so very enormous," says Meg, smiling and pointing 
 meaningly to the little rounded thing talking so fluently. 
 
 "Eh ? oh, no! Of course not in that way. But it was 
 all like a fairy tale, wasn't it, now ? The night it was 
 finally settled and my claim to the money established be- 
 yond a doubt, I laughed in my bed I can tell you when I 
 thought of how comfortable I could make my Billy." 
 
 "Then?" 
 
 " Then we got married. I quitted forever the shade. I 
 rushed headlong into the sunshine. Billy and I dawdled 
 about a good deal in Paris and Brussels, but the first 
 glimpse of home I had ever had in all my life was on the 
 night I arrived here." Involuntarily, at this, Margery 
 winces, but evidently there is no arriere pense"e in Mrs. 
 Billy's conversation. " You all met me. You are, there- 
 fore, bound up in my first impression of what home means. 
 You were a continuation of the sunshine that had come to 
 me with Billy. This old house, all of you, everything, 
 seems blended into one sweet satisfactory whole. I 
 couldn't bear to be in an empty house. To confess a truth 
 to you," says Mrs. Daryl, bending forward, " I love noise ! 
 Taken all that to heart ? " 
 
 " Yes, all," replies Margery, earnestly. 
 
 "Then it only remains for you to take me there, too ! " 
 says Mrs. Billy, smiling. Margery, driven to a sudden im- 
 pulse, turns to her and flings her arms round her. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Oh ! them hast set my busy brain at work 
 And now she musters up a train of images, 
 Which, to preserve my peace, I'd cast aside 
 And sink in deep oblivion." 
 
 THERE is a silence, that lasts for quite a minute, then, "I 
 love you," says Margery, simply, a little tremor in her 
 voice.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 33 
 
 " That's all right. Quite right. That is just as it should 
 be," sweetly. "And now we are real sisters, without any 
 law about it." 
 
 "And we we thought we should have to leave the 
 Manor," begins Margery, a little guilty, full confession on 
 the tip of her tongue, but Mrs. Billy will not listen. 
 
 " Rubbish," she cries gayly ; "as if this dear old shed 
 isn't big enough to hold a garrison ! Why, if we do come 
 to loggerheads or a pitched battle, there's plenty of room 
 here in which to fight it out ; that's one comfort. Why so 
 serious, Meg ? " 
 
 " I was thinking May's thoughts. How well it is for us 
 that you married Billy ! " Her eyes are full of tears. 
 
 " And doubly well for me. By-the-bye, there is one of 
 you I seem to hear very little about Lady Branksmere, 
 Muriel." 
 
 Margery getting up from the crazy old seat goes some- 
 what abruptly to the window. 
 
 " We don't as a rule talk much of each other," she says, 
 after a slight pause. 
 
 " Well, do you know, I think you do, a considerable lot 
 at times," returns Mrs. Billy, with quaint candor. " But 
 of her never ! I knew her marriage was a surprise to 
 you all, because Billy was so taken aback by it (we heard 
 of it when on our tour). But why ? That is what I want 
 to know. Tell me about it." 
 
 " About it ? " Miss Daryl colors faintly, hesitates and 
 looks confused. " About what ? " 
 
 "Look here," says Mrs. Billy, good-naturedly, "if it is 
 anything that requires you to think before answering, of 
 what will sound well, don't mind it at all. I would far 
 rather you didn't answer me." 
 
 "Yet I should like to speak to you of her. It would be 
 a relief a comfort," exclaims Margery, eagerly, " though, 
 indeed, I hardly know what it is I want to say. You are 
 one of us now her sister as much as mine why then 
 should I be silent about her. My manner," impatiently, 
 " is absurd. One would think by it there was some mystery 
 in the background ; but in reality there is nothing." 
 
 "Things often look like that." 
 
 " It was all terribly sudden, terribly unexpected. The 
 marriage with Branksmere, I mean. She had always 
 avoided him, as I thought had had, in fact" with a 
 little rush "given us the idea that she rather disliked him 
 than otherwise, so that when one morning she came into
 
 34 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 the school-room and said in her pretty, slow, indifferent 
 way, that she was going to marry him in a month, we were 
 all so thunderstruck that I don't believe one of us opened 
 our lips." 
 
 "A wise precaution." 
 
 " I'm not so sure of that. I doubt our silence offended 
 her. ' Your congratulations are warm,' she said, with that 
 queer little laugh of hers you will come to understand 
 in time. It was cruel of us, but we were all so taken 
 aback." 
 
 " It was startling, of course. Tell me," stooping toward 
 Margery, and speaking very clearly, " was the other fellow 
 desirable ? " 
 
 " The the other f 
 
 "Why, naturally, my dear child. It would be altogether 
 out of the possibilities, not to think of him. When a 
 woman gets engaged and married, all in one second, as it 
 were, to a man whom she appeared to dislike very cordially, 
 the mind as a rule is alive to the knowledge that there is 
 another man hidden away somewhere." 
 
 "I know so little, I imagine so much," says Margery, 
 with quick distress, " that I am half afraid to speak. But I 
 always thought, until she declared her engagement to Lord 
 Branksmere, that she liked someone a great contrast to 
 Branksmere who had been staying down here with some 
 friends of ours for several months in the autumn. Whether 
 he and she quarrelled, or whether she threw him over, or 
 whether he tired, I know nothing." 
 
 " Pity I wasn't here just then. I'd have seen through it 
 all in the twinkling of an eye," declares Mrs. Billy, naively. 
 
 "Muriel is difficult, you must understand. One cannot 
 read her, quite. Yet I did fancy she was in love with 
 Captain Staines." 
 
 " Staines, Staines ! " 
 
 " That was his name. He was staying with the Blounts, 
 who live two or three miles from this. Know him ?" 
 
 " It is quite a usual name, no doubt," says Mrs. Daryl, 
 in a tone that might almost suggest the idea that she has 
 recovered herself. " Yet it gave to me a train of thought. 
 Know him ? Well one can't be sure. Short, little man. 
 Eh?" 
 
 " Oh ! no. Tall, very tall." 
 
 " Stout ? " 
 
 "Meagre, if anything. A handsome figure, I suppose," 
 doubtfully, " but too much of the hairpin order to suit me.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 35 
 
 But, at all events, I know he could lay claim to be called 
 distinguished-looking." 
 
 " Most dark men look distinguished." 
 
 " He isn't dark. Fair if anything." 
 
 " Fair, and tall, and slender. Ah ! he can't be the man 
 I mean," says Mrs. Billy, slowly. Then : "When do you 
 expect Lady Branksmere home ? " 
 
 " To the Castle, you mean. I don't know. She has 
 never, during all her wedding trip, written so much as a 
 postcard to one of us. Odd, isn't it ?" 
 
 "Suggestive, at least." 
 
 " Of what ? Happiness ? " 
 
 " Let us hope so. But what a long time to maintain a 
 settled silence ! " 
 
 " Too long. She is coming home ; we hear through 
 the Branksmere steward." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " Any day any hour, in fact. They have been sent 
 word to have the Castle in order to receive the new Lady 
 Branksmere at a moment's notice." 
 
 " I see," says Mrs. Daryl, thoughtfully. She had walked 
 to the window a few minutes ago, and is now staring out 
 into the shrubberies that guard the garden paths. Pres- 
 ently her gaze grows concentrated upon one spot. 
 
 "Margery, come here!" she says, in a low tone. 
 "Within the last minute or two, I have become aware that 
 there is a strange man in the garden ! He is gazing about 
 him in a most suspicious manner. What can he want ? 
 See ! there he is. Ah ! now you've lost him again. He 
 appears to me to keep most artfully behind the bushes. 
 Can he be a burglar taking the bearings of the house with 
 intent to rob and murder us all in our beds ? " 
 
 Margery, coming nearer, peers excitedly over her 
 shoulder at the suspicious-looking person in question. As 
 she does so her face grows hot. The bushes may hide his 
 individuality from a stranger, but to her that gray coat, 
 those broad shoulders, are unmistakable ; she gives way to 
 a smothered ejaculation. 
 
 "You know him ? It is true, then. He is a person of 
 bad character in the neighborhood," exclaims Mrs. Daryl, 
 looking round at her. 
 
 " Oh ! as to that, no ! I don't think it is a burglar," says 
 Margery, temporizing disgracefully. " It's it's nobody, 
 in fact. I fancy, as well as I can see, that it is a Mr. 
 Bellew ! "
 
 36 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "All!" Mrs. Billy grows even more thoughtful. "Mr. 
 Bellew seems rather struck with the house. An architect, 
 perhaps ? " 
 
 "N-o. Only a neighbor. A friend of the boys in fact. 
 He comes here to see them very often." 
 
 "That's kind of him," says Mrs. Billy. She laughs a 
 little. " One would think it was the house lie came to 
 see," she goes on, meditatively ; " at least, that portion of 
 it where the school-room windows begin. By the bye, 
 Meg, it is there you sit, as a rule, eh ? I'd keep my eye 
 on that young man, if I were you. He is up to some- 
 thing ; I hope it isn't theft." 
 
 " I hope not, "returns Miss Daryl, with an attempt at in- 
 difference. Then she gives way as she catches the other's 
 eye, and breaks into petulant laughter. " He is a thorough 
 nuisance," she says, in a vexed tone. " He is never off 
 the premises." 
 
 " The boys are so attractive," adds Mrs. Billy. " At that 
 rate, I expect the sooner I become acquainted with him 
 the better. Take me down, Meg, and bring me face to face 
 with him. As you evident'/ can't bear him, I suppose I 
 had better begin well and rout him with great slaughter at 
 this our first meeting. Shall I exterminate him with a 
 blow, or " 
 
 " Do anything you like to him," says Meg, who is evi- 
 dently full of rage when she thinks of the invader. 
 
 When they get to the small armory door, however, that 
 leads directly into the garden, she comes to a sudden 
 halt. 
 
 "I think if you will walk rather slowly, I will just run 
 on and tell him you are coming," she says rather jerkily, 
 looking askance at her companion as if a little bit ashamed 
 of her suggestion, and then without waiting for an answer 
 speeds away from her, swift as an arrow from the bow. 
 
 "Just warn him that I'm coming and so is his last 
 hour," calls out Mrs. Billy after her, convulsed with laugh- 
 ter. But Miss Daryl refuses to hear. She hurries on 
 through the old-fashioned garden, full of its quaint flower- 
 beds, and odd yew hedges cut in fantastic shapes past a 
 moss grown sun-dial, and the strutting peacocks and their 
 discordant scream, until at last she runs almost into Mr. 
 Bellevv's willing arms. 
 
 "Ah ! here you are at last," cries the young man in an 
 accent of undisguised delight as she comes up to him 
 breathless. " I thought you'd never come ! Such a cent-
 
 ADY BRANKSMERE. 37 
 
 ury as it has seemed. Three weeks in town and not a 
 line from you. You might have written one, I think ! I 
 got back an hour ago, and hurried over here to " 
 
 "Make an ass of yourself!" interrupts Miss Daryl 
 wrathfully, who has unconsciously adopted a good many 
 of her brother's pretty phrases. "And here!" looking 
 round her, " Is this the only place you could think of ? Is 
 there no drawing-room in the house that you must 
 needs be found prowling about the shrubberies ? Any- 
 thing more outrageous than your behavior could hardly be 
 imagined ! " 
 
 " Why, what on earth have I been doing now ? " demands 
 Mr. Bellew, in a bewildered tone. 
 
 "Mrs. Daryl has been gazing at you through an upper 
 window for the last ten minutes, and very naturally came 
 to the conclusion that you were a person of no character 
 whatsoever. She was nearer the mark than she knew ! " 
 puts in Miss Daryl viciously. " I didn't betray you." 
 
 "Mrs. Daryl ! What ! The new woman ? " anxiously. 
 
 " New ? One would think she was a purchase. What 
 an extraordinary way to speak of one's sister-in-law," ex- 
 claims Meg, who is determined to give quarter nowhere. 
 "Yes, she was so annoyed by your prowling that she is 
 coming round presently to give you a bit of her mind." 
 
 "Bless me ! I hope not ! " says Mr. Bellew, who probably 
 had never known fear until this moment. " I I think I'll 
 go," he says falteringly. 
 
 "You can't. She's coming. Why on earth couldn't 
 you have called at the hall-door like any other decent 
 Christian ? " 
 
 " Well, so I did," indignantly. " I did the regulation 
 thing right through. Knocked at the 'front door ;' asked 
 for Mr. Daryl ; heard he was out ; left my card, and then 
 thought I'd come round here to look for you." 
 
 " Well, I won't have it ! " decisively. " I won't be fol- 
 lowed about by anything but my own terrier, and I dis- 
 tinctly refuse to be made by you the laughing-stock of the 
 world. She was dying with laughter. I could see that. 
 I tell you she thought first you had designs on the house. 
 I had to explain you away. I had" angrily " to assure 
 her you weren't a burglar, but only a person called Curzon 
 Bellew." 
 
 This contemptuously, and as though Curzon Bellew is a 
 person distinctly inferior to the burglar. 
 
 " I won't come here at all if it displeases you," says Mr.
 
 38 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 Bellew, in a white heat. " Say the word, and I go for- 
 ever ! " There is something tragic about this. 
 
 "Go, and joy go with you !" returns she, scornfully. 
 
 "That is a kinder wish than you mean," says the young 
 man, clasping her hands. " No. I won't go. Would I 
 take joy from you ? And do your words mean that if I 
 went joy would of necessity go too ? " 
 
 "Goto!" repeats Miss Daryl, but in a very different 
 tone, and then, as though impelled to it by the glad youth 
 within them, they both burst out laughing. 
 
 After awhile Mr. Bellew grows grave again. 
 
 "Well," asks he, confidentially, "what do you think of 
 her?" 
 
 " Her ? You should speak more respectfully of such a 
 dragon as she has proved herself, if, indeed, you mean 
 Mrs. Daryl. But why ask me for a photograph ? She will 
 be here in a moment to " 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know," hastily. "That is why I want to be 
 prepared. What is she like, eh ?" 
 
 " All the rest of the world. She has a nose, two eyes, 
 and a mouth ; quite ordinary. Disappointing, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Then she isn't ? " 
 
 " No, she isn't ! " saucily. " What did you expect ? An 
 ogress ?" 
 
 " Why, that was what you expected," says Mr. Bellew, 
 very justly incensed. "You said 
 
 He is stricken dumb by the sight of a pretty little plump 
 person, who has emerged apparently from the laurel close 
 by.' 
 
 "You will introduce me, Meg," says the vision, smiling 
 friendly-wise at the disconcerted young man. " Is this the 
 ogress ? the tyrant ? the ~~ ' 
 
 " Certainly ! This is lv. Bellew, a very old friend of 
 ours," says Margery, in the tone of one who evidently 
 deems the Mr. Bellew in question of no account whatso- 
 ever. 
 
 "So glad to meet you, Mr. Bellew," says Mrs. Daryl, 
 with the sweetest smile. "Margery tells me you are quite 
 an old friend with all here, so I hope by and by we, you 
 and I, shall be friends, too." 
 
 Where is the ogress in all this ? Mr. Bellew feels his 
 heart go out to this pretty, smiling, gracious little thing 
 upon the gravelled path. 
 
 " You are very good," he stammers, feeling still some- 
 what insecure, the revulsion of feeling being extreme.
 
 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 39 
 
 " Billy was out then ? I am so sorry. One of the ser- 
 vants told me on my way here that you wished to see him. 
 Never mind. Perhaps what do you think, Margery ? 
 Perhaps your friend, Mr. Bellew, will dine with us with- 
 out ceremony to-morrow evening ?" 
 
 The two words "your friend " does it. From that mo- 
 ment Curzon Bellew is her slave. Margery murmurs 
 something civil, and presently Mrs. Daryl with another 
 honeyed word or two disappears between the branches. 
 
 " Well ? " says Meg, 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " She isn't quite the ogress you imagined, eh ? " 
 
 " Why, it was you who used to call her that," exclaims 
 Curzon, with some righteous wrath. "And now you try 
 to put it upon me. It is the most unfair thing I ever 
 heard of. You have forgotten, you know." 
 
 " Unfair ? " 
 
 " Yes. You said you were miserable at the thought of 
 having to live with an ill-tempered 
 
 "That's right. Put it all upon me, by all means. I'm 
 only a woman. Ill-tempered ! why, she is sweet. How 
 can you so malign her ? " 
 
 A voice comes to them through the twilight : 
 
 " Margery ! Margery Daw ! Where are you ? Come 
 in. The dew is falling." 
 
 Miss Daryl makes a step toward the house. 
 
 " Oh, Meg, to leave me without one kind word after 
 three weeks. How can you ? " cries Bellew, in a subdued 
 tone that is full of grief. 
 
 " Well, there," says Meg, extending to him her little, 
 slender, white hand, with all the haughty graciousness of 
 a queen. 
 
 " If I come to dinner to-morrow night, you will be glad ? " 
 
 " Glad ? It won't put me out in the least, if you mean 
 that," says Miss Daryl, slipping from him through the 
 dewy branches. 
 
 The day has waned ; night a dark, damp, spring night 
 has fallen upon the earth. There is an extreme closeness 
 in the air that speaks of coming storm. The shadow of a 
 starless night is thrown over the world that lies sleeping 
 uneasily beneath its weight, and from the small rivers in 
 the distance comes the sound of rushing that goes before 
 the swelling of the floods. Storm, and rain, and passion? 
 ate wind, may be predicted for the coming morn.
 
 40 LADY BRANKSMRRE. 
 
 Dinner long since has come to an end ; it is now close 
 on ten o'clock. Margery and Mrs. Daryl are sitting to- 
 gether in the library, before a blazing fire rather silent, 
 rather depressed in spite of themselves a little imbued 
 unconsciously by the electric fluid with which the air 
 seems charged. The windows leading on to the balcony 
 are thrown wide open. The fire has been lit as usual, but 
 the night is almost suffocating, so dense and heavy is the 
 still, hot atmosphere without. 
 
 " One feels uncanny, somehow, as if strange things were 
 about," says Mrs. Billy, presently, with a rather nervous 
 little laugh. " I can't bear lightning, can you ? And 
 there is sure to be plenty of it before the morning. What 
 a weird night. Look how dark it is without. Ah, what is 
 that ? " 
 
 " What ! " cries Margery, in turn, springing to her feet. 
 
 There is a sound of light, ghostly footsteps on the bal- 
 cony beyond, and from the sullen mist a tall figure 
 emerges, clothed from head to heel in sombre garments. 
 It comes quickly toward them through the open window, 
 the face hidden by a black hood, until almost within a 
 yard or two of them. Then it comes to an abrupt stand- 
 still and flings back the covering from its face. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 "Yea, this one's brow, like to a tragic leaf, 
 Foretells the nature of a tragic volume." 
 
 " AH ! Muriel ! " cries Margery, with a swift revulsion of 
 feeling from fear to excessive joy. " It is only you after 
 all." She runs to her and encircles the cloaked figure 
 with loving arms. There is a silent embrace between the 
 sisters, and then flinging her long covering somewhat im- 
 patiently from her, Lady Branksmere stands revealed. 
 
 A tall slight woman, with a statuesque figure exquisitely 
 moulded. And a bronzed head, superbly set upon her 
 shoulders ! She is gowned in some soft, black, clinging 
 draperies, against which her naked hands and arms show 
 with a dazzling clearness. There is a touch of sunlight in 
 the rich brown of her hair, but her face is pallid almost to 
 ghastliness, and beneath the great mournful eyes of deep- 
 est gray, purple shadows lie that tell of sleepless nights
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 41 
 
 and a mind torn and racked by cruel memories. Her chin 
 is firmly rounded, and her long, thin fingers are peculiarly 
 lithe and supple. 
 
 "Muriel ! To think of your coming back to us like this, 
 so suddenly, without a word ! " 
 
 " I am not coming back, however. I am only lent," 
 says Lady Branksmere, with a peculiar smile, that is alto- 
 gether without joyousness. 
 
 "This is Wilhelmina. This is Billy's wife," goes on 
 Margery, hastily, who might perhaps be suspected of be- 
 ing afraid to stop talking. She draws Muriel toward 
 Mrs. Billy, who, up to this, has been too surprised to do 
 anything. 
 
 "Ah ?" says the new-comer expressively, with a sudden 
 smile, which enables one to see that her perfect teeth are 
 somewhat squarely formed, and that her mouth is large, 
 and her smile, though beautiful, short-lived. 
 
 She goes forward and lays her pretty slender hand on 
 Mrs. Billy's arm, and looks at her long-and attentively. 
 
 " There was no exaggeration," she says at last, in a 
 quick restless way ; " one can see how it is. One can un- 
 derstand. I am glad Billy is happy." 
 
 She falls back from the sister-in-law after saying this, 
 and appeals to Margery. 
 
 " After all it is only barely just that some of us should 
 be happy," she says, with a little laugh that is too graceful 
 to be called forced, but that certainly never arose from a 
 glad heart. " You have a charming face," she says to 
 Mrs. Billy, looking back at her over her shoulder with a 
 little nod. 
 
 There is a peculiar fascination in itself in the restless 
 fashion of her speech. Mrs. Billy gives in to it. She, to 
 whom shyness up to this has been unknown, stands now 
 mute and wordless before this strange, lovely, imperious 
 girl, who as yet is too newly-wedded to have merged her 
 youth into womanhood, and who has stolen upon her 
 through the darkness, and dazzled her with her beauty. 
 She has marked each charm with a curious care. The 
 figure that would not have disgraced a Juno, the face so 
 like a sorrowful Proserpine ! She is like a Venus, too, 
 but in a pathetic fashion ; the ever blossoming gayety, the 
 orthodox frivolity of the one being in such sad contrast with 
 the mournful posing of the other. There is a condensed, 
 a sure but subdued, passion about Muriel, that puzzles 
 while it attracts the gentler nature of Mrs. Billy.
 
 42 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 Still Muriel is smiling on her ! Then, all at once, as 
 though the author of it is wearied, the sniiie fades, and 
 the light that lias grown within Lady Branksmere's eyes 
 dies, too. 
 
 "Well ?" she says, sinking wearily into a chair. " How 
 are you all, eh ? " 
 
 "As well as can be expected," returns Margery, gayly, 
 who seems overflowing with joy at having her sister with 
 her again. " How good of you to come at once. How 
 good, too, of Lord Branksmere to spare you." 
 
 Lady Branksmere stares at her for a moment. 
 
 " Oh ! yes ; he spared me," she says, with a peculiar 
 laugh that jars upon her hearers, and somehow reduces 
 them to silence. 
 
 Lady Branksmere, as though struck by the effect of her 
 words, and growing impatient beneath it, springs to her 
 feet. 
 
 "Show me the rest of the house," she says, hurriedly. 
 " I have thought of it, bit by bit, all the time I have been 
 away, but now I want to see it. Come." 
 
 As she gets to the door she turns again to Margery. 
 
 "Where are the children ? Can I see them ?" she asks. 
 
 "Of course. They have gone to bed, but if you will 
 come up 
 
 "Not now. I have plenty of time yet. By and by 
 
 when I am going " She checks herself and draws her 
 
 breath quickly. "Do you knew I was going to say home ? 
 I meant, back to the Castle. What a silly mistake ! But 
 for the moment I quite forgot." 
 
 She looks round her at the beautiful old hall, with a very 
 odd smile. 
 
 " And Billy ? And the boys ? " she asks at last, when 
 her uninterrupted reverie has come to an end. 
 
 " Billy has gone to a county meeting," says Mrs. Daryl, 
 very gently, "and has taken Peter with him. Dick, I am 
 afraid, is with the rabbits." 
 
 "Ah!" says Lady Branksmere. But even as she says 
 it she seems to have forgotten the twins, Billy, and all, 
 and lost herself in contemplation of a more self-contained 
 character. As if still musing, she walks mechanically 
 across the hall and into the drawing-room. Here she 
 wakens into the present life again. The scene she now 
 looks upon is not the one of her dreams ; all is changed, 
 and for the better, as she at once allows. 
 
 "What a pretty room you have made of it," she says,
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 43 
 
 turning with a faintly suppressed sigh to Mrs. Billy. " So 
 different ! That ghastly old furniture ! I am glad you 
 have relegated it to the celestial regions, as we used to 
 call the garrets long ago. Or was it to the infernal ones 
 it went ? I don't believe even cook would be glad because 
 of it ? What a room it was ! And they all clung to it so ! 
 I suppose I -am wanting in the finer grades of feeling, be- 
 cause, whenever / thought of it, it gave me a headache. 
 Well ? And so Billy is very, very happy ? That is one of 
 us out of the fire, at all events." She smiles again, an in- 
 different little expression of good-will that lasts just long 
 enough to make one aware that it was there, but no 
 longer. 
 
 " Dearest Muriel ! It is so good to see you again," ex- 
 claims Margery, caressingly. 
 
 "Is it ? " Lady Branksmere takes her sister's hand, and 
 pats it softly. Then all at once her glance wanders back 
 again to Wilhelmina. " I may as well tell you," she says, 
 " that I intended to take Margery to live with me at 
 Branksmere, but now that I have seen you I know she is 
 far better where she is." She looks intently at Mrs. 
 Daryl's bright face and says again, "Far better." 
 
 "She is quite happy where she is. Is it not so, Meg?" 
 asks Mrs. Billy, a little anxiously. 
 
 " Entirely so," returns Margery, hastily. In truth she 
 would have been rather afraid to begin life afresh with 
 Lord Branksmere, who is almost a stranger to her. Then, 
 some sudden remorseful thought recurring to her, she 
 slips her arm around Muriel. " I am without a wish now 
 you are home, again," she whispers, tenderly. 
 
 "Yes," says Lady Branksmere. She unwinds the girl's 
 arm very gently, and holding her hand looks at Mrs. 
 Daryl. " She will be safe with you," she continues slowly. 
 "And she can learn to love you now, as, once, she loved 
 me." 
 
 Her tone is calm to indifference, yet there is something 
 in it that brings tears to Margery's eyes. 
 
 " I can love you both, darling but you always first ; 
 you are my sister," she says tenderly, yet with a decisive 
 force, for which Wilhelmina in her own honest soul hon- 
 ors her. 
 
 " Oh ! as for me ! I expect that I have done with all 
 that sort of thing," returns Lady Branksmere, with a curi- 
 ous laugh. She drops languidly into a chair, and looks up 
 at Wilhelmina. " The comfort it is to know that you are
 
 44 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 you!" she says. " It makes home to them all. You get 
 on with Billy, eh ?" 
 
 Mrs. Daryl looks rather puzzled, and then a sense of 
 amusement breaks through everything. It is a good while 
 since she has given way to mirth of any kind, and an over- 
 powering desire to give way to it now fills her. 
 
 "Oh ! yes," she answers meekly, her eyes on the carpet. 
 She is battling with the wild longing for laughter, that it 
 will be such a betise to permit. It is all so intensely ab- 
 surd ! The idea of her not getting on with Billy, or he 
 with her ! 
 
 " You like being here ? " 
 
 " Very much indeed. The country is so altogether 
 lovely, and the children so pretty." 
 
 " Ah ! I see," says Lady Branksmere, who has a little 
 strange way of staring at people now and then, as if mak- 
 ing up her mind about them, that is somewhat perplexing. 
 " One can quite understand. You are here ; you pervade 
 everything ; you are, in a word, happy. When I ruled 
 here, things hardly ran so smoothly." She glances at 
 Margery with an expression that is half careless, half wist- 
 ful. 
 
 Mrs. Daryl comes to the rescue with a tender grace that 
 sits most sweetly on her. 
 
 " All day the children talk of you and long for you," 
 she says ; and even as she speaks as though to corrobo- 
 rate her words the door is flung violently open, and the 
 twins rush tumultuously into the room, and precipitate 
 themselves upon Muriel. 
 
 There is rather a paucity of garments about them, and 
 a thorough lack of shame. They are as lively as crickets, 
 and as full of conversation as a stream. They look tri- 
 umphant, too, as though they had discovered a plot 
 against them and had overcome it. 
 
 " It is only just this instant we heard of your coming, 
 and when we heard it, we ran. Why didn't you come up 
 to the nursery ? We were wide awake. I think Margery " 
 with a withering glance at that defaulter " might have 
 told us, but we found it out from nurse. Did you hear 
 Jumper has got a new pup ? He had lots more, but that 
 horrid Gubbins drowned all its little brothers and sisters. 
 And how did you like being abroad ? Was it nice ? Was 
 it hot ? Are they all the color of lemons ? Was Rome as 
 blue as the pictures say ? " 
 
 " Bluer," Lady Branksmere assures them, disengaging
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 45 
 
 herself from their somewhat embarrassing embrace, and 
 drawing them on to her knees instead. She seems more 
 at home with the two little dishevelled lovely things in 
 their night-gowns than she has been with what they would 
 call the "grown ups." "It was all blue; abominably 
 blue," she goes on lightly. " It was hideous because of 
 its monotony." 
 
 " And how is Lord Branksmere ? " asks little May, pret- 
 tily. As the words fall upon the air it occurs to most of 
 those present that the child is the first, the only one, who 
 has made a civil inquiry about Muriel's husband. 
 
 Lady Branksmere laughs aloud, but somehow, as if im- 
 pulsively, she puts the child away from her. 
 
 " You are a courageous little mortal," she says. "You 
 have actually summoned sufficient courage to ask after the 
 Ogre ! He is quite well, thank you." She casts a swift 
 glance at Margery from under her heavy lids, and seems 
 a little amused at the hot blush that has overspread her 
 cheeks ; but in truth Margery had dreaded to drag Lord 
 Branksmere's name into the conversation. How would it 
 have been received ? What answer would have been given 
 her to any polite inquiry as to his welfare ? 
 
 "This is not a visit to you you two," Lady Branksmere 
 is saying to the children. " To-morrow I shall make a for- 
 mal call upon you, in my carriage and with my cards, and 
 so forth, and will leave my respects, with some bonbons. 
 Pray be careful of all ! And now, considering the airiness 
 of your draperies, I would suggest a return to the nursery 
 and bed." 
 
 She dismisses the children, who appear to obey her in- 
 stinctively, and who are evidently much cheered by the 
 prospect of sweetmeats on the morrow, and then turns to 
 Margery with a half contemptuous light in her eyes and a 
 certain curving of her lips. 
 
 " Lord Branksmere is quite well, I assure you ; you 
 need not have been so nervous about making your in- 
 quiries," she says. " Don't you think you had better grasp 
 the fact at once, that he is your brother-in-law." 
 
 "Of course of course," hastily, "but you see he has 
 been so much abroad all our lives. We scarcely know 
 him, as it were." 
 
 " True ; we scarcely know him," repeats Lady Branks- 
 mere, musingly ; which remark, coming from the man's 
 wife, rather startles Mrs. Daryl. 
 
 " The castle has been exquisitely done up ; hasn't it ? "
 
 46 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 asks Margery. "We heard so, but none of us went over 
 to see it. Tell me Muriel," bending eagerly forward, 
 "have you seen the old woman yet? Old Lady Branks- 
 mere ? " 
 
 "Ye-es. What there is of her. She is nothing but 
 bones and two large preternaturally bright eyes. One can 
 positively hear her rattle when she moves in bed. She is 
 very trying," with a distasteful shrug. 
 
 "She is a witch," explains Margery, turning to Wil- 
 helmina. " Everyone is afraid of her. She is about 
 a thousand years old, and isn't thinking of dying. She 
 is Branksmere's grandmother, and he is by no means 
 a chicken. Oh, I beg your pardon, Muriel ; I only 
 meant " 
 
 " Branksmere is thirty-six," says Muriel, indifferently. 
 " By the bye," looking suddenly at her sister, " there is a 
 Madame von Thirsk staying at the castle living there in 
 fact. It appears she has been there for years as attendant 
 to the dowager. Ever heard of her ? " 
 
 "Never," with some surprise. "But I suppose an 
 elderly attendant would be little heard of." 
 
 " Elderly ! She is young, and remarkably handsome. 
 She seems to have made herself a position there, and to 
 have a good deal of influence. She came forward to re- 
 ceive me this evening, on my arrival, quite as if well, as 
 if she were mistress of the house, not I," with a rather 
 strange laugh. 
 
 Margery makes a little moue. 
 
 " I shouldn't like that," she says. 
 
 "No," returns Lady Branksmere, carelessly; "I shall 
 get rid of her." 
 
 She rises to her feet. 
 
 " I must be going. It grows very late." 
 
 " But, how do you mean to return ?" 
 
 "As I came. I walked across the park, and through 
 the lower wood. No, I want nothing. I brought my 
 maid with me, and I wish you would ring the bell and tell 
 her to meet me at the hall-door. Ah ! I knew there was 
 something I wanted to tell you : I met Tommy Paulyn on 
 my way through town, and he has promised to come to 
 me for a little while next week." 
 
 She kisses Margery, and then Mrs. Billy, and presently 
 is out again in the dark night. Here and there an unwill- 
 ing star has forced a way into the dull vault above her, 
 and a hot, sullen wind has arisen among the trees. Now
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 47 
 
 and then it touches one, but for the most part it is possi- 
 ble to forget it. Not a sound wakes the air : 
 
 " All things are hush'd, as nature's self was dead," 
 
 and only occasionally the density of the darkness is relieved 
 by the glimmering of a white patch upon the aspens. 
 
 The wood belonging to the Manor through which she 
 must pass on her way to the park that belongs to the Cas- 
 tle, is naturally well-known to Lady Branksmere. De- 
 scending into a little grassy hollow, with her maid close at 
 her heels, she comes to a standstill, and looks around her. 
 The clouds have parted for a moment, and a watery glance 
 from a watery moon makes the pretty hollow, that might 
 well be termed a fairy dell, distinctly visible. 
 
 Lady Branksmere looks round her for a moment, with a 
 sudden shrinking as though taking in each detail. Alas ! 
 how well-remembered it all is this dainty spot that once 
 had been a daily trysting place. She sighs heavily, and 
 then, gathering her cloak more closely round her as 
 though a sudden chill has fallen on her heart, moves once 
 more quickly homeward. 
 
 As she nears the Castle, a brilliant light from the draw- 
 ing-room streams across the lawn almost to her feet. The 
 windows are thrown open in the hope perhaps that some 
 cool air will travel inward. Muriel, dismissing her maid, 
 turns toward the veranda that is illuminated by the light, 
 and slowly, with reluctant feet, mounts the steps that lead 
 to it. The sound of voices reach her when she lias gone 
 half way, and when she has gained the veranda she looks 
 curiously through the open window nearest to her into 
 the room. 
 
 What she sees there dispels all languor ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " I vow and protest there's more plague than pleasure with a secret." 
 
 SITTING upon an ottomon beside a remarkably handsome 
 woman is a tall man of about thirty-six or so, dark-browed 
 and dark-complexioned, with a firm mouth and a nonde- 
 script nose. A heavy black mustache, partially streaked 
 with gray, falls over but hardly conceals his lips, which 
 are in a measure thin. His jaws, clean shaven, are squared
 
 48 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 He is not a handsome man, but a very distinguished 
 looking one that something infinitely better! That 
 he has lived all his time one may see at a glance ; that 
 he has immense self-control and great power of self-re- 
 pression one reads as one runs. But there is something 
 about the stern face that confuses one's analysis of the 
 soul within. A sadness, a suppression, a strain about the 
 whole man that contrasts oddly with the coldness of his 
 bearing, and is probably the outcome of some past and 
 terrible grief. 
 
 The woman seated beside him, and looking into his face 
 with a strange earnestness, is dark and slight, with glisten- 
 ing, melting black eyes and a lissome willowy figure. To 
 an outsider, Madame von Thirsk, instead of a woman of 
 thirty-five, would seem a girl of twenty-two. Lady Branks- 
 mere, regarding her from the darkened veranda, acknowl- 
 edges the fact. 
 
 " Yes ! It must never be betrayed : it must always rest 
 a secret between you and me," Madame is saying in a low 
 agitated tone, her hand pressed upon Lord Branksmere's 
 arm. Every word is distinctly audible to the quiet watcher 
 without, who is standing, motionless, a silent spectator of 
 the picture before her. 
 
 " Yet " begins Lord Branksmere, with some agitation. 
 
 " I tell you, man ami, there is no 'yet,' no hesitation in 
 this matter. It is between you and me. We two alone 
 hold this sorrow. Would you be false to your oath to 
 me, after all these years ? " She leans toward him. 
 
 Lady Branksmere, on the veranda without, smiles curi- 
 ously, and drops her eyes. 
 
 " It would make the whole thing in a degree vulgar were I 
 to see him kiss her," she says to herself. " As it is, the scene 
 is perfect. Well, I owe him little. For that, at least, I 
 should be grateful. Now, to break up their tete-a-tete ! " 
 
 She steps lightly into the room, and as she comes be- 
 neath the centre chandelier, throws back the lace veil 
 from her head and looks straight at her husband. 
 
 "Where were you?" asks he, quickly, rising as she 
 enters. Some color flames into his face. 
 
 " At home. With my people," returns she, not curtly, 
 or uncourteously, but coldly. 
 
 " Ah ! At Jwme ? " says Madame, as if not comprehend- 
 ing. 
 
 " Lady Branksmere is alluding to her old home ; to the 
 Manor," explains Lord Branksmere, stiffly.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 49 
 
 "Yes, to my home," repeats Muriel, smiling. 
 
 " It is strange. We thought you still here," says Ma- 
 dame, smiling, too. 
 
 Muriel stares at her inquiringly. 
 
 " We? Who ? " demands she. 
 
 Madame grows uncomfortably red beneath the other's 
 comtemptuous gaze, and loses herself for a moment in 
 the contemplation of her face. Then she rallies a little. 
 
 " Lord Branksmere and I," she answers equably. Then, 
 with a sudden glance full of seeming anxiety, " Was it 
 not late ? Was it not cold for you, out in the open air ? " 
 
 " You are very good to trouble yourself so much about 
 me," says Lady Branksmere, still with excessive and em- 
 barrassing civility, but without, however, making even a 
 pretence of answering her. 
 
 " Your friends," remarks Madame, with a sudden em- 
 phasis, "would naturally feel some anxiety about 
 
 " Would they ? " (Lady Branksmere interrupts her 
 lightly) " How do you know ?" she asks with the same 
 immovable smile. " My friends," copying the emphasis, 
 " are very far from this house." 
 
 " Ah ! no ! You forget your husband," Madame reminds 
 her, softly. 
 
 There is an instant's pause during which she watches 
 intently the two before her. Lord Branksmere on the 
 hearth-rug is staring frowningly at the wall beyond ; 
 Muriel, with a rather bored expression about her beauti- 
 ful mouth, is lazily unwinding the lace that had encircled 
 her throat. No spark of love lights either face. Madame 
 von Thirsk, letting her heavily fringed lids droop over her 
 eyes, permits a faint smile of satisfaction to curl her lips. 
 
 "You will excuse me," she says gently, taking a step 
 forward, " if I withdraw to see Madame, your grandmother, 
 before she retires for the night." 
 
 " Most willingly " returns Muriel, sweetly, but insolently. 
 She acknowledges Madame's graceful salutation, and then, 
 as if dismissing her from her thoughts as from her pres- 
 ence, drops languidly upon the lounge near her, and takes 
 up one of the periodicals upon the small table at her el- 
 bow. 
 
 Lord Branksmere opens the door for Madame, and a 
 few words pass between them on the threshold. His tone 
 is low, but Muriel cannot fail to understand that it is 
 apologetic. She shrugs her shoulders slightly, and turns 
 over a leaf with a little unnecessary quickness, then the
 
 50 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 door is closed, and Branksmere coming back to the fire, 
 stands looking down at her. 
 
 "You look pale. I hope you haven't taken a chill," he 
 says at last, politely. "Walking through the night air is 
 always a little dangerous." 
 
 " Not to me. It was a usual custom with me to go into 
 
 the garden after dinner before my When I lived at 
 
 home." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " Don't you think you will have to do a considerable 
 amount of explanation, now and then, if you persist in 
 refusing to remember that this is now your home ? " asks 
 Branksmere, with some irritation, badly suppressed. 
 
 No answer. She turns over another page and goes on 
 reading as though he had not spoken. 
 
 " You find it dull here, no doubt." This time the irrita- 
 tion is not suppressed at all. 
 
 "Here?" lifting her eyes languidly, inquiringly. "A 
 foolish accusation. One could hardly call a place dull on 
 a few hours' acquaintance." 
 
 " You could, evidently. You were hardly here one hour 
 when you left it." 
 
 " I was naturally anxious to see my brothers and sis- 
 ters." 
 
 " I had no idea," with a slight sneer, " that you were so 
 devoted to your brothers and sisters." 
 
 " It is possible that time will even further enlarge your 
 ideas about me," says Lady Branksmere, indifferently. 
 She leans back in her chair, and again has recourse to her 
 magazine. 
 
 " You remember, perhaps, that we are expecting some 
 people on Thursday ? " 
 
 " Yes. People ? Oh, of course ; your guests you 
 mean." 
 
 She has roused herself with seeming difficulty from her 
 story, and now returns to it. 
 
 " Your guests rather." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " I hope, at least, you will like the selection I have 
 made." 
 
 " I hope so," absently. 
 
 " Next time you can make your own." 
 
 " I dare say." 
 
 "I think, perhaps, it would be advisable thatyou should 
 know who is coming," says Lord Branksmere, irritably.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 51 
 
 "M ?" It is evident she is not listening. 
 
 " May I beg that you will give me your attention for a 
 few minutes ? " His tone this time is very much louder, 
 and Lady Branksmere lifts to him a glance of calm sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Ah ! you wish to talk is that it ? " she asks in a bored 
 voice, with an air of intense resignation, laying her maga- 
 zine upon her knees. "Well?" she looks at him lan- 
 guidly. 
 
 "I wish certainly to interest you in the affairs of your 
 household." 
 
 " If that is so, you are fortunate. I am already deeply 
 interested. I am, indeed, more than interested ; I am 
 curious May I ask who is this woman this housekeeper 
 this Madame who has just quitted the room, and who 
 a few hours ago welcomed me so kindly to my own 
 house ?" 
 
 " She is Madame von Thirsk. She can hardly be called 
 a housekeeper. She is a great friend, a very tender friend 
 of my grandmother's." 
 
 "A rare friendship ! May and December do not, as a 
 rule, lie in each other's bosoms. Twenty years ago Lady 
 Branksmere must have been pretty much what she is now. 
 Twenty years ago her friend must have been a little girl 
 of twelve or so. It is very charming, very picturesque, 
 quite a small romance. And this friend ; -you pay her ? " 
 
 " Certainly not." A dark flush rises to his forehead. 
 "Good Heavens; no," lie continues in a shocked tone. 
 " She is a very rich woman. She stays here for love of 
 Lady Branksmere." 
 
 " Ah ! For love of Lady Branksmere ! She looks well- 
 born, yet she resigns the world to take care of an old 
 woman. It is a marvellous devotion." 
 
 " Yes. A marvellous devotion," repeats Branksmere, in 
 a low tone. 
 
 " She seems clever, too. Has she " (with a little sneer), 
 " befriended your poor grandmother long ? " 
 
 "She has been with her, off and on, for the last seven 
 years I should say. She is quite an old friend with us all." 
 
 "With your sister-in-law, for example ? " 
 
 A shade crosses Branksmere's face. 
 
 " Of course, they have met, but not often. I have been 
 so seldom at Branksmere, and Lady Anne rarely comes 
 here in my absence." 
 
 " She, too, likes this Madame ?"
 
 52 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "I really can't say," impatiently. "What an interest 
 you take in her." 
 
 " Well ? " is not that what you desired a moment since, 
 that I should look after the affairs of my household ? A 
 good wife," with a curl of her red lips, "should follow her 
 
 husband's lead, and you By the bye, you seemed 
 
 quite engrossed with the conversation of your grand- 
 mother's friend, as I came up the balcony steps a little 
 while ago." 
 
 "Did I ? Probably she was telling me somethimg about 
 Lady Branksmere." 
 
 Muriel throwing back her head against the soft crimson 
 silk of the cushions laughs aloud. At this moment it oc- 
 curs to her how little she really cares. 
 
 "You are an excellent grandson," she says, looking at 
 him through half-closed lids. " Few would lose themselves 
 so entirely as you appeared to do, in a recital of their 
 grandmother's ailments, even with a handsome woman." 
 
 "All this is beside the mark," exclaims Branksmere, 
 abruptly. " Why I drew you away from your book was to 
 explain to you about our guests of Thursday next. I hope 
 at least, you will like my sister-in-law, Lady Anne." 
 
 "You forget I have already learned to do that. Lady 
 Anne is one of the few people I sincerely admire. She is 
 such a distinct contrast to myself that, if only as a useful 
 study, I should value her. There seems to be no angles 
 about her ; no corners to be turned. It seems to me in 
 every phase of life she would be possible." 
 
 " She is admirable always. Her girlhood, her wom- 
 anhood, her widowhood, have been alike without re- 
 proach." 
 
 "Talking of her reminds me that to-night I met some- 
 one else who is likely to suit me. I allude to my brother's 
 wife, Mrs. Daryl. She seems a little crude, a little brusque, 
 perhaps, but very desirable." 
 
 " I am glad you have found some one so much to your 
 taste so near you so near Branksmere." 
 
 "Yes, it is an advantage. Well!" carelessly "who 
 else is coming ? " 
 
 "The Primroses, the Vyners, Mr. Halkett, Captain 
 Staines, and " 
 
 Lady Branksmere knocking her arm in some awkward 
 fashion against the elbow of her chair, her magazine falls 
 to the ground. Her husband stoops to pick it up, and as 
 he hands it to her is a little struck by some indefinable
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 53 
 
 change in her face. Are her eyes brighter, or her lips 
 paler, or is it that 
 
 " You look feverish. I was right about that chill after 
 all," he says, slowly. 
 
 " If it pleases you, think so," returns she in a quick 
 hard tone. " Go on ; Mr. Halkett, Captain Staines did 
 you say ? " 
 
 " You should know him. He was staying down here last 
 autumn with some people, I believe. I know little of him 
 myself ; met him in Brussels about a year ago, and yester- 
 day, in Piccadilly, came face to face with him again. He 
 happened to mention the Vyners, so. as he is an agreeable 
 sort of fellow good connections and all that I asked him 
 to come to us for a fortnight or so. He seemed reluctant, 
 I thought. But I suggested to him that the commence- 
 ment of the season is always dull, and that a week or so in 
 the country would regulate him for it." 
 
 Lady Branksmere, gazing straight into the fire, with her 
 hands tightly clasped, makes no reply to this. Her statu- 
 esque face has grown a little more immovable. Her pose 
 is so calm that she scarcely seems to breathe ; only the rise 
 and fall of the pearls round her white throat betoken the 
 life within her. 
 
 When the silence has grown rather oppressive, she rouses 
 herself sufficiently to break it. 
 
 " There are others ?" she asks. 
 
 " Lilian Amyot and your cousin Paulyn : Briersly. 
 You know you refused to invite any of your own friends, so 
 I was thrown on my own resources." 
 
 " I know that. It was an absurd time to ask anyone, 
 with the season almost begun." 
 
 "As they are asked" stiffly "I hope you will make 
 them welcome." 
 
 " Even if I didn't I expect it would hardly matter in this 
 perfectly managed menagb " with a flash from her large 
 eyes. " This Madame De Von whatever she is, has been 
 at the head of your affairs for so long that it seems a pity 
 to disturb her." 
 
 " I fail to understand you," haughtily. " Madame von 
 Thirsk has certainly been useful, but " 
 
 " Therefore why should she not go on being useful to 
 the end of the chapter ? Why defraud yourself of her val- 
 uable services for the sake of " She breaks off impa- 
 tiently, with all the air of one who has been giving way to 
 speech for the mere sake of filling up a void, but who is
 
 54 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 hardly aware of what she is saying: "Why did you ask 
 these people here ? " she cries, turning now upon Branks- 
 mere with sudden passion. 
 
 " When you declined to spend your season in Park Lane 
 I thought it prudent to fill Branksmere." 
 
 " But why why ? " feverishly. 
 
 " Fearing " dryly " as I said before, that you would 
 find this place dull." 
 
 " I didn't expect to find it duller than any other place." 
 Her passion has died away from her, and the old insolent 
 expression has again crept round her lips. 
 
 " Meaning it would be dull anywhere with me ? " 
 
 Muriel shrugs her shoulders, but makes no reply. 
 
 " Is that your meaning ? " 
 
 "Would you compel me to make you a rude answer ?" 
 asks she, looking full at him with a contemptuous smile. 
 Her defiance maddens him. 
 
 "I should prefer a rude one to none at all." he exclaims, 
 with a sudden burst of fury. "Your insolent silence is 
 more than I can endure." 
 
 "And /should prefer to make none," returns she smil- 
 ingly. " How shall we decide ? " 
 
 Cool and composed she rises from her seat and looks at 
 the ormolu affair on the chimney-piece, that is ticking 
 loudly as if to warn them of the passage of time. 
 
 "Almost eleven ! Too late for further discussion, how- 
 ever pleasant," she says, calmly. "Good-night, my lord." 
 
 She waits as if in anticipation of a courteous word from 
 him, but receiving none, lifts her brows, and walks delib- 
 erately out of the room. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove." 
 
 "SUSPICION is a heavy armor." 
 
 " I am sorry to have disturbed you ; I believed the room 
 empty," says Madame von Thirsk with a little start, pre- 
 paring to close the library door behind her again. 
 
 "No, stay. As you are here, perhaps you will let me 
 consult you about these people who are coming to- 
 mori*ow." Lord Branksmere looks up at her with a frown 
 born of anxious thought. He pushes away from him the
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 55 
 
 letter he had been writing, but on which his thoughts were 
 hardly concentrated, being much more occupied upon a re- 
 sume of the last night's conversation with his wife. 
 
 " To consult with me ? " says Madame, opening wide her 
 velvety eyes. " But, surely, there is now Lady Branks- 
 inere ? " 
 
 " Who knows nothing of them whereas you have met 
 them all before," returns Branksmere, irritably. " To her, 
 they will be strangers ; to you, with the keen sense of an- 
 alysis that belongs to you, their idiosyncrasies, their vari- 
 ous desires, will be known, and I want them to be comfort- 
 able ; to feel satisfied with the new regime" He is speak- 
 ing hurriedly, almost, as it seems to her, a little nervously. 
 
 "Still, it appears in a degree foolish, doesn't if ?" asks 
 she, trifling with a pretty oak-ornament on the table. " If 
 your wife is to know these people later on, it would be 
 better she should be made tut fait with their dispositions as 
 soon as possible." She looks up suddenly. " Where is 
 she then ? I knew she was out, but I believed you were 
 with her." 
 
 It is a little cruel, and Branksmere gives way before it. 
 He flushes hotly. 
 
 "You must remember she is as yet a little new to every- 
 thing," he says, in a constrained tone. " And it is only 
 natural that she should want, just at first, to see a good 
 deal of her own people. Let her rest herself so. You can 
 help me to-day in her absence, as you have always done." 
 
 A quick gleam lights her eyes. She lifts them to Branks- 
 mere's face. There is in them a swift gleam of angry but 
 tender passion that it is as well he does not see. 
 
 "As I have always done," she repeats slowly. Then, 
 with a change of manner swift as lightning, she flings her- 
 self into a chair, and draws toward her ink and paper. 
 
 " Now for the names of your friends," she cried. " You 
 forget I don't even know so much. Lady Anne !" writing, 
 as he dictates to her "the Vyners, Primroses, George 
 Halkett, Mrs. Amyot, Captain St She drops her pen 
 
 and stares up at him " Staines?" she asks, incredulously. 
 
 " Staines. Yes. Tali fair man in the Tenth ; or was it 
 the Tenth ? Do you know him ?" 
 
 "Not personally. You will remember," paling, "how 
 complete is my seclusion as a rule when living at Branks- 
 mere ; so complete that my absences have gone unre- 
 marked. But yet, gossip reaches me, the most reserved. 
 I know something of this man."
 
 56 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Well ? " He waits for a reply, but nothing comes. 
 "Anything bad ?" 
 
 "So far ; no." 
 
 "An answer worthy of a sibyl." He draws his chair 
 closer to the table. A faint smile curls his lips. "Now 
 for your news," he says, banteringly. 
 
 " It is unimportant, perliaps ! He was staying down here 
 with the Adairs for a month or so last autumn." 
 
 " All last autumn, as I understand, and far into the win- 
 ter. But that is not a crime, is it ? " 
 
 " Did I suggest crime ? " The expression in her large 
 deep eyes is curious. " That first insinuation of it rests 
 with you" She leans toward him across the table, and 
 with outstretched arm and fingers attracts his attention. 
 " Remember ! " she says in a low tone. 
 
 " My dear Thekla, what ? You grow tragic. You re- 
 mind one of that everlasting Charles the First. And yet 
 we were not talking of him, but of Staines and his so- 
 journ with the Adairs last autumn. He is a great friend 
 of theirs." 
 
 " Is he ? He is then probably a favorite of the gods, and 
 all men worship him. The Daryls among others." 
 
 "Yes. He seemed to know everybody round here. And 
 now that I think of it, he specially mentioned the Daryls." 
 
 " He shows talent," says Madame von Thirsk, with a 
 very slow smile. 
 
 " He has been unfortunate enough to anger you in some 
 way." 
 
 "Pardon me. We have never met. I should not know 
 
 this Monsieur Staines is it not ? if he were shown 
 
 into this room unannounced." 
 
 "Then you are unjust to him without reason." 
 
 "Yes. But what have I said, then ?" asks she, laying 
 her beautiful hand protestingly upon her breast with a 
 rather foreign gesture. 
 
 " It is your manner, your whole air. As for Staines 
 himself, I know little of him ; so little, that your innuen- 
 does fall on sterile soil. When I asked him to come here 
 he happened to mention having been here before. That 
 is how I know of his intimacy witli the Adairs." 
 
 " Did he mention anything else ? His penchant, for Lady 
 Branksmere among other things." 
 
 She has risen to her feet and has turned a white deter- 
 mined face to Branksmere. 
 
 He. too, has risen.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 57 
 
 " Was that so ? " he asks in a terrible tone ; and then all 
 at once he recovers himself. He lifts his head and laughs 
 aloud. " Is that all ? " he asks derisively " Poor devil ! 
 why, what a mountain you would make out of your mole- 
 hill." 
 
 "Don't invite that man here, Branksmere," says Mad- 
 ame, throwing out her arms as though to ward off some- 
 thing, and advancing a step nearer. " Be warned in 
 time." 
 
 " Your warning comes too late," lightly. " I have in- 
 vited him. I expect him by the five train to-morrow. 
 Tut ! you forget Muriel's beauty ! " Her face pales, and 
 her hands, still outheld, drop and clasp each other vehe- 
 mently. "Men must see it. If I were to close my doors 
 to all who have bowed at Muriel's shrine, I expect I should 
 know but few in the county." 
 
 " I would not counsel you to shut your doors on those 
 who had loved her," says Madame von Thirsk, in a low, 
 meaning tone. Her eyes are lowered, her supple fingers 
 are playing inconsequently with a paper-knife ; there is 
 something in her whole air, subtle, untranslatable, but sug- 
 gestive of evil that fires the blood. 
 
 " On whom then ? " demands he, fiercely. 
 
 But Madame von Thirsk seems wrapt in thoughts of 
 her own. 
 
 "Your wife," she continues slowly, not noticing, or else 
 ignoring his burst of temper, " is one of the most beauti- 
 ful women I have ever seen." She pauses here and brings 
 her teeth together. There is a hesitation pregnant with 
 emotion, yet it passes ; and but that it leaves her nostrils 
 dilated, and that she drops a book she has been holding 
 down upon the table with a gesture that is almost ungov- 
 erned, one would scarcely be aware of it. 
 
 She has grown deadly pale, -but presently is calmness it- 
 self, and very nearly indifferent. 
 
 " If this man once loved her, why expose him to her fasci- 
 nations for the second time?" she says, with veiled eyes 
 and an extreme quietude of manner that should have 
 warned him. 
 
 " It is all mere gossip," declares Branksmere, walking 
 impatiently up and down the room. 
 
 "It may be so. Yet gossip hurts. What if this gossip, you 
 so despise, had gone farther ? " 
 
 " As how ?" He stops short and regards her threaten- 
 ingly.
 
 58 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " What if it had been " said she, " your wife your wife, 
 Branksmere ! had loved him !" 
 
 Branksmere with a sudden imprecation turns upon her. 
 
 "I warn you ! " he exclaims in a voice full of concentrated 
 passion, " 1 desire you not to go too far. I will have no 
 word breathed against Lady Branksmere ! " 
 
 Madame makes a movement as if to speak, then shrugs 
 her shoulders and crushes the desire. 
 
 " No. Not one word," she answers deliberately. " It 
 was foolish of you, my friend, to presuppose the word was 
 there ! Yet, hear me, Branksmere." She draws nearer, 
 and with folded arms looks gravely up at him. "After all 
 that has passed between us two, surely I have the right to 
 speak one warning sentence. Take it to heart. I tell you 
 it is madness to ask that man to your house." 
 
 " A madness I refuse to recognize," returns he, coldly. 
 
 "As you will, of course," throwing out her hands with a 
 little foreign gesture. " But there is much wisdom in the 
 saying, that ' prevention is better than cure.' " 
 
 " There is little wisdom in doubting ant's wife without 
 cause." 
 
 Madame laughs. 
 
 "Ah ! you have been too long abroad!" she says, with 
 downcast eyes. 
 
 Lord Branksmere, going over to the window, flings it 
 wide open. The room is growing insufferably hot. 
 
 " You would have me believe something," he says at last 
 in a stifled tone. " What ? " 
 
 " I have already said as much as I intend to say. For 
 all I know the mischief may be past and gone and // 
 may not ! If I were less your friend I should say less. But 
 last night something in her manner I hardly know what 
 but it made me fear for you. And think," with a sudden 
 flash from her dark eyes, " how it was she spoke of home, and 
 where she placed it ! Not here. Not here, Branksmere ! " 
 
 " How you distort things," exclaims he ; but he writhes 
 a little beneath her words. "The house that has been 
 home for the first twenty years of one's life is naturally 
 home to the end. In time this place, too, will become 
 dear, and " His voice dies away. There is some me- 
 lancholy in it. 
 
 " Ah ! So ? " murmurs Madame. " And she is there now. 
 In the present home, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes," returns Branksmere, shortly.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 59 
 
 But she is not. She has come back from her morning 
 visit to the twins, and is now making a tour of the Castle 
 with old Mrs. Stout, the housekeeper, as cicerone. The 
 galleries, the reception-rooms, and all the principal parts 
 of the house are known to her of old, but with the idle 
 curiosity of a child, she is now wandering aimlessly through 
 disused upper-rooms, and peering idly into dainty boudoirs, 
 and examining, with a leisurely interest, the spacious apart- 
 ments so soon to be occupied by her unknown guests. 
 
 Mrs. Stout, who is as discursive as she is fleshy, is hold- 
 ing forth in a rambling fashion about all the Branksmeres 
 dead and gone, both those under whom she has served and 
 those defunct before her time which has been indefinitely 
 prolonged. Her extremely engaging conversation brings 
 them presently to the passage that leads to the apartments 
 of the Dowager. They are situated in a side wing, some- 
 what apart from the rest of the house, an excrescence of a 
 later date, that juts out from the northern end in a rather 
 inconsequent way. It is a wing of large dimensions, and 
 as old Lady Branksmere's rooms can be counted on two 
 fingers, it occurs to Muriel that she would like to investi- 
 gate those beyond the Dowager's domain. She makes a 
 step, therefore, into the passage. 
 
 " Her ladyship does not receive to-day," says the house- 
 keeper, " but no doubt if you, my lady, desire to see her, 
 she " 
 
 " Not to-day," says Muriel. " But I should like to visit 
 the rooms beyond. This part of the house looks so strange, 
 so mysterious, so cut off from the rest of it, that I have a 
 strange longing to make myself acquainted with it." 
 
 The corridor leading to Lady Branksmere's room is .cut 
 off from the outer gallery by a huge baize door concealed 
 by a falling curtain of faded tapestry. Beyond these rooms 
 lies another door also hidden by a drooping curtain. Muriel, 
 as she speaks, moves toward it, and, laying her hand upon 
 the handle of the door, tries to open it. It resists her ef- 
 forts. 
 
 " The keys," she says, turning rather impatiently to the 
 housekeeper. 
 
 "I haven't them, my lady. The rooms beyond belong to 
 Madame Thirsk. No one is ever allowed to enter them," 
 replies Mrs. Stout, with an odd glance at her mistress, " ex- 
 cept Mrs. Brooks." Mrs. Brooks is the Dowager's attendant. 
 
 " But there must be six or seven rooms in this wing," 
 questions Muriel, coloring warmly.
 
 60 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Seven, my lady." 
 
 " Surely Madame von Thirsk does not require them all." 
 
 " Apparently she does, my lady. I have been here now 
 close on six years, and no one has ever gone into them save 
 Madame herself or Mrs. Brooks. They do say as how it is 
 haunted, but that of course is not for your ladyship to be- 
 lieve." Mrs. Stout drops a respectful curtsey and a sec- 
 ond glance at Muriel that declares her own belief in it at 
 all events, and that she could say a good deal more on the 
 subject if pressed. 
 
 "Haunted! By what?" asks Muriel, with some faint 
 show of interest. 
 
 " Ah ! That is what no one knows, my lady. There 
 have only been footsteps heard and and screams at odd 
 intervals. But the story goes that a former Lady of 
 Brankstnere flung herself from one of the windows in this 
 part of the house, because, poor lady, she was forbidden 
 to see her young that is ahem ! the gentleman she 
 fancied," winds up Mrs. Stout, with an apologetic cough. 
 
 " Locked up by the orthodox cruel parent, no doubt," 
 says Lady Branksmere, with a half smile. 
 
 " Well, not exactly, ma'am. It was a cruel husband that 
 time," murmurs Mrs. Stout, mildly. 
 
 " Husband ! " 
 
 " Yes begging your ladyship's pardon ! There was a 
 husband, sure enough, but it appears the poor creature 
 didn't take to him much, but had a hankering like after an 
 old lover of her's, as was most natural." 
 
 "Take care, Mrs. Stout," laughs Muriel, carelessly 
 making a weak effort to smother a yawn. " I doubt your 
 morals are not altogether sound." 
 
 " I think time will prove you wrong there, my lady," re- 
 turns Mrs. Stout, stiffly, crossing her arms on her highly 
 developed bosom with a primness not to be surpassed. 
 " Immorality has never been attributed to Jane Stout!" 
 She sets her lips into a round O, and flickers her lids rap- 
 idly. 
 
 " No. One can quite understand that poor Jane Stout ! " 
 returns Lady Branksmere, laughing again, as she casts an 
 amused glance at the housekeeper's full, fat face. " But 
 to your tale. I will not be spared one ghastly detail." 
 
 " My lord could tell you all about it far better than I 
 can, madam ; but the end of it was that the miserable lady 
 threw herself out of one of the windows on a starlight 
 night, and her body was found next morning in the stone
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 61 
 
 courtyard beneath, all crushed and mangled, and so dis- 
 figured that they scarcely knew her." 
 
 "A second Jezebel," remarks Muriel, with a faint shrug 
 expressive of disgust. " And now she walks the earth 
 again, you tell me, in dainty raiment as when she lived ? 
 or as they picked her up from the stained courtyard ?" 
 
 " Who can say, my lady ! " The housekeeper shrinks a 
 little as if terror-stricken. " Tis only known for certain 
 that sometimes, on moonlight nights, one can hear an un- 
 earthly yell that comes from behind this closed door. It is 
 (lowering her voice instinctively) the cry the poor soul gave 
 when falling." 
 
 Mrs. Stout looks fearfully over her shoulder to where the 
 shadows are darkening the gallery outside. Muriel shud- 
 ders. 
 
 " You did you ever hear it ? " she asks. The story has 
 begun to have a fascination for her, as strange as it is pro- 
 found. 
 
 " Once, madam," whispers the housekeeper, reluctantly. 
 " But the dowager-lady is sometimes a little nervous, 
 
 Brooks tells me, and I thought perhaps " She pauses 
 
 embarrassed. 
 
 " That the sound came from her, or else from a heated 
 imagination," finishes Muriel for her, smiling again. " Well, 
 the thought is uncanny, however it goes." 
 
 She shakes off the grewsome feeling that had made its 
 own of her, and once more glances at the carefully guarded 
 door. 
 
 " I must then apply to Madame von Thirsk for the keys 
 of this wing ?" she asks, slowly. 
 
 "Yes, my lady ; or to his lordship." 
 
 Muriel turns a cold face to the woman, and then as she 
 is about to speak, checks herself abruptly. There is 
 haughty astonishment in her glance, and Mrs. Stout, who 
 in truth had spoken without motive, grows hot and un- 
 comfortable beneath it. 
 
 At this moment the heavy baize-covered door is flung 
 open, and Madame von Thirsk steps softly out into the 
 corridor !
 
 62 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "That practis'd falsehood under saintly shew, 
 Deep malice to conceal couch'd with revenge.'' 
 
 "Words are like leaves, and where they most abound 
 Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found." 
 
 " You ! " The word falls from her as though without 
 her knowledge. Her eyes are fixed coldly upon M uriel. She 
 is so amazed that for the moment her self-possession for- 
 sakes her, and she speaks with a total forgetfulness of the 
 suavity so dear to her. 
 
 "Yes, it is I," returns Muriel, calmly. "I was anxious 
 to see this part of the house, but Mrs. Stout has told me 
 that it is to you I must come for the keys of it." 
 
 Mrs. Stout, with a discretion that does her credit, has 
 dropped a curtsey and is out of sight, upon the appear- 
 ance of Madame. 
 
 " It is true that my rooms lie beyond here," answers 
 Madame, now, with a little friendly nod between each word. 
 She has quite recovered herself, and as she speaks comes 
 a step or two nearer to Muriel, and then turning, proceeds 
 very deliberately to lock the door behind her. The action 
 is significant, and Lady Branksmere draws her next breath 
 somewhat quickly. 
 
 " Your rooms. Yes," she says, with a coolness that, 
 under the circumstances, is very nearly perfect. " I 
 would not interfere with them, as long as you remain 
 here ; but Mrs. Stout tells me there are at least seven 
 apartments in this wing." 
 
 " Six," corrects Madame, amiably, and with a full com- 
 plement of the most charming non-comprehension. 
 
 "What I wish to see," continues Muriel, stolidly, "are 
 the rooms out of these six that you do not occupy. Your 
 boudoir ; your bedroom ; are your own, but the others ?" 
 
 " The others," echoes Madame, with an expressive little 
 shrug. " Ah ! You do not know, perhaps, that I do a lit- 
 tle dilettante painting. Just quite a very little. But it is 
 a joy to me, and I hate that the servants should meddle 
 with my affairs, and " 
 
 " But six rooms for painting," interrupts Lady Branks- 
 mere, thoughtfully, but ruthlessly. 
 
 "Not altogether, you will understand." Then, with
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 63 
 
 graceful politeness, "you desire the wing, perhaps? It 
 has been, up to this, apportioned to your husband's grand- 
 mother, she being, unfortunately, attached to it for many 
 reasons and to me it is convenient, as being near to her, 
 so that at any moment, night or day, I may reacli her 
 without disturbing the household ; but, if you wish it " 
 blandly " we can, of course, move, we " 
 
 "I do not wish to disturb Lady Branksmere in anyway," 
 protests Muriel, haughtily. " I merely expressed a desire 
 to see this portion of my own house." There is distinct 
 expectancy in her manner, but Madame refuses to hear it. 
 
 "Ah !" she says, with an agreeable little smile, and slips 
 the key she holds into her pocket. She lets her lashes 
 fall over her eyes. There is something irritating in this 
 downward glance, something baffling in the very way the 
 meaningless monosyllable drops from her lips. 
 
 As though oppressed by the smoothness of her, Lady 
 Branksmere throws up her head with a brusqueness for- 
 eign to her nature. But there is something healthy at 
 least in the quick clear tones that ring through the corri- 
 dor. 
 
 "It appears then that I cannot?" she says, with a pale 
 smile. 
 
 " If, indeed, I might still consider this small portion of 
 your house" (with a peculiar bow) "as belonging to me 
 and my patient, Lady Branksmere, I should be grateful," 
 returns Madame, meekly. Her eyes are still lowered. 
 With one small shapely brown hand she smooths down a 
 rebellious bit of the costly lace that throws out the color 
 of her gown. 
 
 Lady Branksmere, conquered for the moment, angry but 
 speechless, makes her a slight inclination that is imperious 
 enough to emanate from a sovereign to a subject, and 
 turns away. But in a moment returns. 
 
 " You say the servants are forbidden to enter your 
 rooms," she says, looking straight at Madame. " No one, 
 then, has access there, save you ? " 
 
 "And Mrs. Brooks. She it is" (pointedly) "who sum- 
 mons me at night to the bedside of my patient when 
 my presence there is necessary, which " (with slow force) 
 "is very frequently." 
 
 "Mrs. Brooks only?" 
 
 " I have said," returns Madame, decisively. 
 
 "So?" says Lady Branksmere with extreme contempt. 
 " It seems a pity, Madame, you will permit no one to see
 
 64 * LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 these paintings of yours, which, I am sure, are well worth 
 a visit ! " 
 
 She turns away with an insolent air, and goes down the 
 gallery with her usual slow, and stately step. 
 
 But her heart is beating wildly, and a sense of defeat is 
 maddening her. Oh, how to get rid of this woman ! It is 
 the one thought that fills her, that torments her. It seems 
 it will be a more difficult matter than she first dreamed of 
 to turn her adrift. Her mind runs swiftly to old Lady 
 Branksmere, that aged, infirm creature, whose sole com- 
 fort lies in the ministrations of this foreign friend. By 
 what right could she deprive this helpless, stricken being 
 of her last joy ? How reconcile it to her conscience ? Yet 
 that woman's insolence ! The insolence of her ! She stops 
 short when she has turned a corner, and is out of sight of 
 her foe, and clinches her hands with uncontrollable passion. 
 Her face flames, and then grows deadly pale. The keys ! 
 She, the mistress, is to demand them prettily from her, or 
 from his lordship ! 
 
 Suddenly all the passion dies from her face. She grows 
 singularly calm. But her lips, as she moves onward, seem 
 to have taken a hard, stern, determined line. 
 
 From the south gallery comes the sound of many voices 
 and much laughter, and the welcome clatter of cups and 
 saucers ; the breath of innumerable roses, mingled with 
 the fragrant odor of the steaming tea, floats on the air. 
 The servants by ~ mutual consent have been relegated to 
 limbo, and the men are having a somewhat busy time of 
 it, carrying the little dainty Wedgwood cups, and their 
 gaudier sisters of Crown Derby to and fro, while paying a 
 gentle attention to the delicate hot cakes that are calling 
 aloud for notice from their gleaming tripods. 
 
 A huge fire of pine logs lying on the open hearth is 
 roaring, crackling, in a jolly inconsequent fashion, its 
 flames lighting up and bringing into prominence the ex- 
 quisite old chimney-piece of carved and blackened oak 
 that rises to the ceiling. In the deep cushioned recesses 
 of the windows tall palms and feathery ferns are flourish- 
 ing in monster pots of oriental ware, and well in the dis- 
 tance a stand of glorious daffodils and narcissi are sending 
 forth a subtle perfume. 
 
 A tall, lean old wolf-hound is walking majestically up 
 and down among the assembled guests from the gaudy 
 screens that cut off draughts from the lower end of the
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE, 65 
 
 gallery to the dim tapestry-hangings that ornament the 
 other end taking with a deep solemnity as his just due, 
 the pats and pretty words that greet him as he goes: 
 
 The walls are sparsely studded with priceless plates of 
 hideous colors and designs, and on a large black rug a 
 little sleepy puss is snoring blissfully. Taken as a whole, 
 it is a charming picture, and Lady Branksrhere, standing 
 on the Persian mat before the fire, in a tea-gowu of ancient 
 brocade, completes it. 
 
 She is talking to old Lady Primrose a placid person 
 with corkscrew ringlets, and a desirable son and is smiling 
 kindly. She is looking pale and slender and extremely 
 beautiful. The intense hues of the brocade throw out her 
 pallor and heighten the brilliance of her large eyes. She 
 is giving her whole mind apparently to her conversation 
 with the old lady, who has passed the bounds of hearing, and 
 has to be paid severe attention if you wish her to know 
 what you are at. Muriel's clear distinct tones suit her ad- 
 mirably, and almost awake within her breast the delusion 
 that her ears are as satisfactory as those of most people. 
 
 Everybody is talking more or less, and the soft hubbub 
 caused by the voices grows drowsy. Somebody at the up- 
 per end of the gallery is playing the piano very delicately 
 almost in a whisper as it were a fair woman of about 
 thirty-three with a charming face and a quantity of loosely 
 dressed golden hair. Besides letting her fingers wander 
 tenderly over the notes, she is conversing in an undertone 
 with a little man of a rather comical exterior, who is bend- 
 ing over her. This is Lord Primrose ; who, if Nature had 
 endowed him with corkscrew ringlets, would have been the 
 image of his mother. As she gets deeper into her subject 
 with him, the music, perhaps in accordance with her 
 thoughts, grows slower and slower until at last it reaches 
 an andante pitch. 
 
 " Lady Anne ! Lady Anne ! " calls a tall, ugly man with 
 a clever face, "is the time, the place, the hour nothing to 
 you ? Your music is always the best but I leave it to 
 you ! Should one play a funeral march amid the flesh- 
 pots of Egypt ?" 
 
 "Ah! pardon, pardon!" laughs Lady Anne, shrugging 
 her handsome shoulders. "But then, you must remember, 
 Mr. Halkett, I was not playing to you but to Lord Prim- 
 rose. He likes dismal things." 
 
 " How we go astray. I quite thought he liked you!" 
 says the ugly young man. 
 5
 
 66 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "Growing up among us;" begins a loud voice that 
 strikes everyone dumb for a moment. It emanates from 
 a short, stout person in a bonnet of a shape indescribable. 
 It comes, indeed, from Miss Mumm, the Daryls' Aunt 
 Selina. 
 
 "Good heavens! I quite thought it was a dynamite ex- 
 plosion," whispers the Hon. Mrs. Vyner, in her usual 
 affected lisp. " What a cruel voice ! And what is grow- 
 ing up among us ? Is it Primrose ? " 
 
 "Not at all. She is alluding to herself. She is quite a 
 young thing yet," says Mr. Halkett. 
 
 "She I Let her explain. She is going on with it," mur- 
 murs Mrs. Amyot, holding up a warning finger. 
 
 "Growing up among us," continues Miss Mumm, in 
 her loud, rasping tones, "is a most reprehensible and de- 
 testable er " 
 
 "Person?" suggests Mr. Halkett, considerately. 
 
 "No, sir! habit. A most reprehensible habit of drag- 
 ging into frivolous and idiotic conversations extracts from 
 Holy Writ ! Such a practice cannot be too heavily cen- 
 sured. The flesh-pots of Egypt have just been alluded to. 
 Does anybody know where they are first mentioned ? Are 
 such things to be lightly spoken of ? We know " with a 
 severe glance at Halkett "who it is who quotes Scripture 
 for his own ends." 
 
 Everybody is, of course, delighted. 
 
 " There ! " says Margery Daryl, who, in a big hat and a 
 white gown, is looking as pretty as possible. "You see 
 what Aunt Selina has called you ! " 
 
 "You mustn't condemn us all as frivolous, dear Miss 
 Mumm," Mrs. Amyot is saying, in her sweetest way. She 
 is a pretty little widow, with dark eyes and amber hair, and 
 the reputation of being a little well, just a little 
 
 "Yes, Muriel is quite all I can desire," says the spinster, 
 magisterially. " She is my idea of what a properly-con- 
 ducted young married woman should be. There are no 
 whisperings in corners here. No runnings up the stairs 
 and lingering in corridors ; no vulgar clasping of hands 
 beneath the cover of the table-cloth, as I regret to say is 
 the low practice of some young married folk. Muriel is 
 dignified. I could hardly fancy a situation in which she 
 would fail to comport herself with becoming grace." 
 
 "I, as you may possibly know, am always regarded as 
 quite a model, and there is your niece, Lady Branksmere, 
 for example, eh,?"
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 67 
 
 At this moment a servant throws wide the tapestry-hang- 
 ings at the end of the gallery and announces : 
 "Captain Staines ! " 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Suspicion sleeps at wisdom's gate." 
 "Knowledge is power." 
 
 INVOLUNTARILY Lord Branksmere lifts his eyes and turns 
 them upon his wife. 
 
 " I hope Jenkins was in time to meet your train ? He 
 started rather late," says Lady Branksmere, advancing so 
 very indolently to welcome the new-comer that as his hand 
 touches hers she is still on the border of the Persian rug. 
 Her voice is cold and firm as usual, her color unchanged. 
 Not so much as a flicker of her long heavy lashes betrays 
 the fact that she remembers that this man standing now 
 before her with a stolicism scarcely so perfect as her 
 own was her chosen lover only three short months ago ! 
 Her unconcern is so complete, so utterly without effort 
 (apparently) that Branksmere draws a breath of passionate 
 relief. He had almost forgotten where he was in his 
 eager examination of his wife's features, until startled into 
 remembrance by a whisper at his side. 
 
 It is scarcely a whisper either, rather a word or two 
 spoken involuntarily. Madame von Thirsk, standing be- 
 side him, with her lithe form rather bent forward, is also 
 watching Muriel's reception of Captain Staines with an 
 intensity of expression that surprises Branksmere. As 
 Muriel's cold, measured tones meet her ear she draws a 
 breath of admiration. 
 
 " Magnificent ! " she says, in the subdued voice that had 
 startled him. 
 
 "What?" he asks, sharply, turning abruptly to her. 
 She colors faintly, and then shrugs her shoulders. 
 
 "That old brocade," with a little supercilious glance at 
 Muriel's toilette, and an ambiguous smile. She moves 
 away from him with lowered eyes to where Mrs. Daryl is 
 standing in one of the windows. 
 
 " I say," says Mrs. Amyot, " that is Captain Staines, 
 isn't it ? Some little story about hinl, wasn't there ? "
 
 68 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " I never heard it amounted to that," drawls Mrs. Vyner. 
 " He was very decided cpris with her before her marriage, 
 but " 
 
 " With whom ? " 
 
 " Lady Branksmere, of course. Why, what were you 
 alluding to ?" 
 
 " Ah ? so ! Hadn't a notion of such an affair as thai. 
 But really one never knows what those immaculate-look- 
 ing women are going to be up to next. In love with him 
 before marriage, you say. And now she has him here ? " 
 
 " By Branksmere's desire, not hers. It was Branksmere 
 himself who specially invited him." 
 
 "Ah! now, that was kind!" exclaims Mrs. Amyot, 
 breaking into an irrepressible little laugh. 
 
 "What's the joke? "asks Halkett, dropping into the 
 chair nearest to her ras a rule he is always just there. 
 "Anything I may hear without detriment to my morals ? " 
 
 " One knows so little about t/iem ! " hesitates Mrs. Amyot. 
 
 " They are unobtrusive, certainly. I don't show them 
 off like Miss Mumm. You must take them for granted." 
 
 " I shouldn't like to take them at all," lisps Mrs. Vyner, 
 unfurling her fan. 
 
 " I shall tell Colonel Vyner about your incivility to 
 me," says Halkett, "if you persist in this persecution of 
 an unprotected young man. By the bye, is he here ? " 
 
 " He is always en evidence. One cannot escape him," 
 says Colonel Vyner's wife, with a soft grimace. 
 
 " Well, I still want to hear about what was amusing you 
 so intensely a moment since," persists Halkett, looking at 
 Mrs. Amyot. " If I may without blushing." 
 
 " That, certainly," casting a coquettish glance at him 
 from under her exquisitely fringed lids. " That pretty 
 accomplishment has been forgotten by you for many a day. 
 Mrs. Vyner arid I were merely discussing the amiability of 
 the present age ! " Here she leans a little toward her 
 friend. "My little story was not yours ," she murmurs con- 
 fidentially. "Sentiment had nothing to do with it. It was 
 something else. Gambling, debts, a row of some sort in 
 some club abroad. To tell you a truth I am always rather 
 vague about my little stories unless the subjects of them 
 happen to be " 
 
 " Your intimate friends," interposes Halkett gayly. 
 
 " Ah ! make ^acquaintances. It sounds better," returns 
 Mrs. Amyot, composedly. 
 
 "Talking of them," yawns Mrs. Vyner, "did you ever
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 69 
 
 see anyone wear like Madame von Thirsk ? How she 
 chooses her gowns ! It's talent positive talent ! Thirty, 
 if a day, and doesn't look twenty-two. I hope when I'm 
 thirty I'll look half as well." 
 
 " When will that be ? " asks Mrs. Amyot, mischievously. 
 
 " Never !" calmly. "I have made up my mind to go 
 from twenty-eight to fifty in a week. But pay attention 
 to Madame. She is worth it." 
 
 " She is very careful, certainly, and she is foreign. The 
 latter counts a great deal." 
 
 " I think it is all in those dear little soft high frills she 
 wears round her throat," says Mrs. Amyot, reflectively. 
 " Nothing betrays one like the throat. But I don't admire 
 her as much as you do. There is a sly, catty look about her 
 that annoys me. If I were Lady Branksmere " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " I should give her her walking-papers straight off." 
 
 "You should remember how good she has been to 
 Branksmere all these years or at least to his grand- 
 mother," murmurs Mrs. Vyner, demurely. "And then 
 he has asked Captain Staines to his house. There is such 
 a thing as gratitude." 
 
 " Oh ! Branksmere's all right," says Halkett, suddenly. 
 "And Lady Branksmere 
 
 " Is handsome enough to upset all our apple-carts," 
 laughs Mrs. Amyot. " Therefore, we owe her one ! But, 
 Captain Staines ! He wouldn't suit me at all events." 
 
 " I wonder who would ?" asks Halkett, carelessly, dart- 
 ing a swift glance at her. 
 
 "You do, admirably," retorts she, saucily. The answer 
 is so unexpected that the three burst out laughing. 
 
 " No no more tea, thank you, Mr. Bellew," says Mrs. 
 Amyot, looking up at Curzon. " But you can give me 
 something else information about that little woman in 
 the window talking to Madame." 
 
 " That is Mrs. Daryl. A new-comer altogether. She 
 married Billy Daryl lately, or he married her, I'm not sure 
 which. Anything else I can do for you ?" 
 
 " Yes. Go back to Margery," with a smile. " So," turn- 
 ing to Lord Primrose, who has just joined them, "that is 
 Mrs. Daryl ? Big heiress, wasn't she ? " 
 
 " Yes. She was the only child of her father, and he was 
 a rag and bone merchant." 
 
 "Not at all," corrects Mrs. Vyner, languidly. "Three- 
 lovely golden balls hung before his door, and "
 
 70 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " She didn't get a penny from her father," interrupts 
 Halkett. "There was an old General something or other, 
 an uncle of hers, who enriched her. She was in America 
 for the best part of her young life, then came back to 
 England, and was companion to two crotchety old cous- 
 ins, whom the gods (as they boast so much of their jus- 
 tice), should confound, and then Billy looked her up, and 
 then the General evaporated, leaving his winnings behind 
 him, and that's all. You'll like her. She's real grit, as 
 they say in her early home." 
 
 "Strangers are often interesting. I shall make myself 
 pretty to her," says Mrs. Amyot. " By the bye, she ap- 
 pears to know Captain Staines, at all events ! " 
 
 Muriel's chilling reception of him had somewhat dis- 
 concerted Captain Staines on his first entry. He had 
 closed his interview with her as speedily as possible, and 
 wandered away aimlessly through the gallery, stopping 
 now and then to say a word or two to those he knew. A 
 large part of the county had by chance chosen to-day to 
 call upon the bride, so that the place was rather full, the 
 guests staying in the house not being inconsiderable in 
 themselves. Staines, walking through them with his tall, 
 upright figure and handsome face, is distinctly noticeable. 
 He is a fair man, with a long, droopihg mustache, and 
 straight nose, and large, but rather light, blue eyes. There 
 is a little scar upon his left temple that rather adds to than 
 detracts from his appearance. Beyond all doubt he is a 
 man worthy a second glance, and yet there is something 
 about his face that to the thoughtful few gives ground for 
 speculation. Is it that the brilliant eyes are too closely 
 set, or perhaps a little shifty, or is it that there is a touch 
 of cruelty in the well-formed mouth ? 
 
 With some people, at all events, it appears he is hardly 
 a favorite ; Colonel Vyner receives his advances but coldly, 
 and Lord Primrose grows even more devoted to Lady Anne 
 as he draws near. Lady Anne herself is very gracious, but 
 then could she be otherwise ? Old Sir Stapleton Gore, 
 too, is very amiable to him, and Billy Daryl accepts him 
 with effusion. Billy had seen a good deal of him last 
 autumn, and now, under the impression that his sister, 
 Lady Branksmere, had not behaved altogether well to him 
 in throwing him over for a better parti, feels it incumbent 
 upon him to be specially civil. 
 
 Staines, turning suddenly round, finds himself face to 
 face with Mrs. Daryl.
 
 LADY BRAffKSMERE. 71 
 
 To a thoughtful observer it might suggest itself that 
 when he so finds himself he would gladly (for the time 
 being at least) be blotted out of remembrance. His pale 
 skin grows paler, and he so far foi'gets his usually perfect 
 manners as to omit to take the hand she holds out to him. 
 After an instant's hesitation : 
 
 "This is a surprise, is it not?" smiles she, calmly. 
 "But I should have given you credit for being proof 
 against all casualties of such a nature. It is the unex- 
 pected that always happens. Have you never yet taken 
 that to heart ? " 
 
 " Willy " begins he, confusedly. 
 
 " Mrs. Daryl " interrupts she, icily, and turns away. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," exclaims he, following her farther 
 into the window-recess. " I know nothing, remember 
 that. You are married then ? and to Daryl ? By Jove ! 
 You you are Lady Branksmere's sister-in-law ! " 
 
 "Yes. Why should that fact cause you emotion ?" asks 
 she, contemptuously, looking at his flushed face and com- 
 pressed lips. 
 
 " It doesn't," returns he, making an effort at compos- 
 ure. 
 
 "Is that so ? Then why have you grown so red?" de- 
 mands Mrs. Daryl, in her terribly straightforward way. 
 " Look here, my friend ! if you have come down here with 
 the intention of making it unpleasant for anybody, I'd ad- 
 vise you to chuck up that intention as speedily as possible. 
 I'm here, too ! " 
 
 " I don't see why you should attack me like this," says 
 Staines, sulkily. Then suddenly he lifts his head and 
 looks at her ; " can't we be friends ? " asks he. 
 
 " Friends ? No ! " 
 
 " Not foes, at least ? " 
 
 She is silent. 
 
 " Betrayal will cost you dearer than me" says Staines, in 
 a low, deliberate tone. 
 
 " I think not," slowly. Then she looks at him. " Cow- 
 ard 7" she says, scornfully. 
 
 "A woman's good name is a brittle thing. A touch 
 smashes it." 
 
 "Yet, I am not afraid. You will never be able to smash 
 mine ; whereas you will recall, perhaps, that little affair 
 with Grevecceur and " 
 
 Staines grows livid. 
 
 "Hah!" laughs she, lightly. "That touches you, it
 
 72 LADY BRANKSMLRE. 
 
 seems. Take heart. I am not going to set the social 
 bloodhounds on your track yet" 
 
 "Sign a truce with me then," exclaims he, eagerly. 
 
 " To be kept sacred just so long as I see you conducting 
 yourself properly," returns she, meaningly. "Now go. 
 The very sight of you is hateful to me." 
 
 She seems to breathe more freely when he has left her, 
 and turns with a glad smile to Margery, who draws near 
 with Curzon Bellew at her side. The girl is looking sin- 
 gularly pretty to-day, though perhaps a little petulant as 
 she generally does when Bellew is with her but charm- 
 ing all the same, with her dainty oval face, and saucy lips, 
 and eyes most wonderful laughing, roguish, wicked, ten- 
 der, cruel eyes guarded jealously by their long, curved 
 lashes. 
 
 Just now she is looking a little worried, but Mrs. Daryl 
 is not allowed time to inquire into the matter. Lady 
 Branksmere, sweeping up to them, lays her hand on Wil- 
 helmina's arm. 
 
 " I want to introduce you to Lady Anne," she says in 
 the softly imperious way that belongs to her and suits her. 
 Mrs. Daryl follows her. Half-way across the gallery Muri- 
 el looks round. 
 
 " So you know Captain Staines ?'" she says. 
 
 " Slightly, yes. I met him abroad, in Brussels, where 
 the old people went once and took me with them." 
 
 Then Lady Anne is reached and the introduction is 
 gone through. 
 
 Meantime Margery has sunk in a rather dejected fash- 
 ion, upon the deep window-seat, and is gazing out upon 
 the wooded hill, steeped in dying sunshine, and on the 
 lake far down below that is sparkling as if incandescent. 
 
 " You didn't mean it really, did you ? " asks Bellew, 
 presently. 
 
 " That I am not going to the County Ball, next Thurs- 
 day fortnight ? Certainly, I meant it. Why should you 
 doubt me ?" 
 
 " But your reason ? " 
 
 "Reasons rather, for they are 'plentiful as blackberries.' 
 But why should I give them ?" 
 
 "Give one, at least," pleads he. 
 
 " Take the principal one then. I haven't a gown fit to 
 be seen in." 
 
 " Oh, stuff and nonsense," says Mr. Bellew, with quite 
 a superior air.
 
 LADY BRANfCSMERE. 73 
 
 " I dare say!" indignantly. "That is just the brilliant 
 remark one might expect you to make. But there is very 
 little nonsense about it, let me tell you, and no stuff at all 
 not a yard of it or probably I'd go. But to appear 
 shabbily gowned is a thing I will not do. If I did," with 
 a withering and most uncalled-for glance at her slave, 
 "you would be the very first to find fault with me." 
 
 "/would?" 
 
 "Yes, you. Picture me to yourself in that heirloom of 
 mine the old white silk " 
 
 " You look lovely in it " 
 
 "Among all the others tricked out in their best bibs and 
 tuckers straight from White and Worth, and confess you 
 would be ashamed of me." 
 
 "Ashamed ! " 
 
 " Yes, thoroughly," with decision. " You needn't imag- 
 ine that you are a bit better than the rest of you, and all 
 men hate a dowdy woman." 
 
 " I don't see what that's got to do with you." 
 
 " Mrs. Amyot has been teaching you to make pretty 
 speeches." 
 
 "She has done nothing of the sort. I expect," indig- 
 nantly, "she has something better to do." 
 
 "Well? you needn't lose your temper about it. If," 
 provokingly, and with a side glance at him from under 
 her long lashes, " you are in love with her I see nothing 
 to be concealed." 
 
 "I haven't lost my temper about anything," angrily, 
 "and I'm not in love with " 
 
 " Anybody ! Sensible boy!" interrupts Miss Daryl, 
 gayly. " Keep to that till your hair is gray, and you'll 
 die a happy old man. No ! Not another word about this 
 odious ball. I'm not going, because I haven't a respecta- 
 ble rag to put on, and there's an end of it. The humiliat- 
 ing truth has been laid bare to you. Respect it, and help 
 me to forget all about it." 
 
 An expression that is distinctly miserable clouds Mr. 
 Bellew's face. 
 
 " I wish " he begins with a rush, and then comes to 
 
 a dead pause. 
 
 " So do I, for lots of things," agreeably. 
 
 " It was hardly that I was going to say. What I mean 
 is " coloring warmly " that if I could only have my own 
 way " Another eloquent hesitation. 
 
 " You would probably be the most wretched person
 
 74 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 upon earth. Have you never yet grasped that pleasing 
 truth ? Have you never read any of the highly improv- 
 ing, if slightly bilious tracts that Mr. Goldie distributes to 
 the young people of the parish every Sunday. Oh, Cur- 
 zon ! I doubt you aren't all you ought to be ! " 
 
 "Look here," says Mr. Bellevv, desperately, who hasn't 
 heard a word of the foregoing denunciation, " all that 1 
 want is to give you all thatjy0# want." 
 
 " Now, that is what I call true amiability," says Margery. 
 " Mr. Goldie will be proud of you yet. To give me all 
 that /want ? As, for example ?" 
 
 "A new gown for this ball !" blurts out he, miserably, 
 and then looks ready to faint with fright. 
 
 Margery has turned aside. The heavy amber-satin cur- 
 tains conceal her effectually from the sight of all but him, 
 and therefore she covers her face with both hands, in 
 peace. Her head is bent. She is trembling ! 
 
 Mr. Bellew's soul dies within him. Is she angry 
 hopelessly offended, perhaps? What the deuce made him 
 say that ? What imp of darkness persuaded him to offer 
 her such an insult? She'll never forgive it! It's it's 
 just the sort of thing that er perhaps a woman wouldn't 
 forgive ! Oil ! if she would only say something ! A jolly 
 good rowing would be a matter for gratitude if compared 
 with this. 
 
 The silence is growing intolerable. Curzon having 
 made up his mind to break it at all hazards, looks at her 
 nervously, and as he does so a certain little motion of her 
 shoulders becomes known to him. Is she crying ? He 
 grows cold with apprehension. He has, then, not only 
 offended but hurt her ! 
 
 " Meg ! " exclaims he, softly, but vehemently, " let me 
 explain. You are awfully angry now, I can see, but if you 
 knew the truth if you could see into my heart! Turn 
 round, can't you, and listen to me ? " 
 
 But Miss Daryl declines either to turn round or listen. 
 That mournful motion of her pretty shoulders grows 
 stronger, more pronounced. She is evidently convulsed 
 with grief. What on earth is to become of him if she 
 won't even hear his apology ? 
 
 " You will listen, won't you ? " stammers he, wretch- 
 edly. " I'm the unluckiest beggar alive, I do believe, but 
 in this affair I am innocent." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 "My dear girl, you must believe me."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 75 
 
 Not a word. Gracious powers ! What is he to do next ? 
 
 " If you go on crying like that," declares he, desperately, 
 "you will drive me out of my mind. Even if I had meant 
 it, you couldn't take it worse, but I didrit /" He throws 
 out his hands in frantic protest. "'Pon my soul I didn't ! 
 There ! the words slipped out somehow, but I meant noth- 
 ing. I swear it ! " 
 
 Miss Daryl, as though roused to life by this passionate 
 declaration, turns slowly round and surveys him through 
 half open fingers that are slender and pale and pink 
 tipped the most kissable fingers ever created according 
 to her adorers. 
 
 " Well, of all the mean speeches ! " she says, deliberately. 
 She is flushed, but not with grief ; her eyes are all alight, 
 her lovely lips parted ; she is evidently consumed with 
 laughter. " Then you won't give me that gown after all ? " 
 she goes on. " And when you had promised it too ? Oh, 
 Curzon ! I wouldn't have believed it of you. Was there 
 ever so disgraceful a transaction since the world began !" 
 
 "Margery," cries he, rapturously, "what an abominable 
 little actress you are ! What a fright you gave me. You 
 know very well ' 
 
 " You at last ! Yes, down to the ground," wrinkling up 
 her brows, and glancing at him with would-be reproach. 
 "Well ! Keep your paltry gown. It is not the first time 
 I have been deceived in you." 
 
 " You will let me help you then ? " 
 
 " Not now, certainly. Not after the base way in which 
 you have gone back on your offer. Oh, fie ! Mr. Bellew ! 
 It is my turn now to be ashamed of you." 
 
 " But will you ?" entreats he, pressing the point. 
 
 Margery breaks into low, soft laughter. 
 
 "No ; not I. Don't be a goose," she says, lightly, pat- 
 ting the back of one of his hands in a surreptitious amused 
 sort of way. " I think I see myself taking clothes from 
 you." 
 
 To say that Mr. Bellew is disappointed by this answer 
 would be to say nothing. 
 
 " It is all such humbug," he declares, gloomily. "Why 
 should a girl take a bracelet from a fellow, and not a 
 gown ? The bracelet would cost twice as much. And, 
 if we were married you would take anything from me. 
 Why should a few words make such a difference ? 
 
 " A few words very frequently create serious differences 
 between people."
 
 76 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " You don't follow me. I was wondering why the words 
 of the marriage-service read over a woman should make 
 her on the instant change all her views." 
 
 " I don't follow you there, certainly. I don't believe if 
 you were to read the marriage-service over my head every 
 day for a week it would make me change my opinion of 
 Mrs. Amyot, for example." 
 
 " I wonder if I shall ever hear that service read over 
 you." 
 
 " Well, I hope so." 
 
 "Margery" rising to the topmost pinnacle of hope 
 " do you mean it ?" 
 
 "Why not?" asks Miss Daryl, laughing. "Did you 
 think I had vowed myself to a life of celibacy ? " 
 
 "Ah!" says he, rather crushed by her gayety, "I see. 
 I didn't understand. I wonder," gazing at her anxiously, 
 " if you will ever marry me ? " 
 
 "So do I?" returns Miss Daryl! with undiminished 
 cheerfulness. " The question leaves a good field for in- 
 teresting speculation." 
 
 Bellew at this abominable speech, instantly changes his 
 expression for a wrath that knows no bounds. 
 
 " Don't worry yourself over it," he says. " It is no such 
 great matter after all. If not me, another ; and if not an- 
 other, someone else." 
 
 " That is a very remarkable speech." 
 
 " And you are in a very remarkable humor, it strikes 
 me. What have I done to you that you should treat me 
 like this?" 
 
 "Like what?" 
 
 " First, you refuse to go to this ball simply, I honestly 
 believe, because I happened to mention it to you, and you 
 saw my heart was set upon your being there. Had Prim- 
 rose asked you I expect your reply would have been Yes, 
 not No." 
 
 " To be Lady Primrose do you mean ? " 
 
 " That will come later on, no doubt. Just at present I 
 was alluding to the County Ball." 
 
 " How do you know he didn't ask me to go ? " 
 
 " Because you are not going. By the bye, what was he 
 talking to you about for the last hour ?" 
 
 " Of love ! " sweetly. 
 
 " What!" 
 
 " Love," with gentle reiterations. "Pure and simple. 
 Platonic love, you will understand."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 77 
 
 " I do," grimly. 
 
 " I thought he viewed the subject rather abstrusely, and 
 I told him so ; but he was very well up in it nevertheless, 
 and very interesting, too." 
 
 " No doubt. I fear I have been boring you all this 
 time," with elaborate politeness. " Let me take you back 
 to the others." 
 
 " I haven't feared boring you," says Miss Daryl, " be- 
 cause," she puts back one of the satin curtains delicately 
 and glances down the gallery. " Yes, I knew it," she goes 
 on pleasantly. " She is still occupying herself very amia- 
 bly with Mr. Halkett, so that you would have been rather 
 out of it, even if you weren't wasting your time with me. 
 Three is trumpery, you know." 
 
 This allusion to Mrs. Amyot and his supposed penchant 
 for her is treated by Bellew with the supreme disdain it 
 merits. 
 
 " However, if you are tired of being here, and would 
 like to try your luck with her again, go," says Margery. 
 
 Rather to her astonishment he takes her at her word, 
 and moves toward the opening of the curtains. 
 
 "And Curzon " she calls to him just as he is disap- 
 pearing through them. He turns upon her a smileless face 
 and a lowering brow. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " There is just one other thing," letting her pretty head 
 droop a little, and plucking with an adorable affectation of 
 nervousness at the blood-red flowers in her hand. "If 
 there is any dancing by and by, will you ask me to dance, 
 before you ask Mrs. Amyot ?" 
 
 She lifts her head and treats him to a very lovely glance. 
 It is timorously hopeful, and is therefore distinctly hypo- 
 critical because, as she well knows, she needn't hope at 
 all. All that sort of thing is done to overflowing by him. 
 She lets her large eyes dwell on his with mournful entreaty 
 that "some other time, some other day," would have ex- 
 cited only laughter in his breast, but just now incenses 
 him. She is looking a great deal too meek and 
 
 " On her mouth 
 
 A doubtful smile dwells like a clouded morn 
 In a still water." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaims he scornfully, turning on his heel 
 and striding down the gallery. 
 
 Miss Daryl gives way to soft laughter.
 
 78 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " I hope it will be a waltz the first," she soliloquizes, 
 
 contentedly. "Not one of them can dance as well as he 
 does." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " The past is in many things the foe of mankind: . . . For the 
 past has no hope." 
 
 MRS. AMYOT, when the idea of dancing through the af- 
 ternoon is propounded to her, is delighted with it ; so is 
 Mrs. Vyner in her languid fashion. So indeed is every- 
 body except Aunt Selina ! That sour spinster sitting on 
 the one hard, uncomfortable chair the gallery contains a 
 chair never intended for use, being severely ornamental 
 looks frowningly around her, and waits for the luckless 
 pause that may give her the opportunity of expressing 
 aloud her disapprobation of the. amusement in view. 
 
 Halkett, who from the beginning of their acquaintance, 
 has been greatly taken by her, now approaches her with a 
 winning smile. 
 
 "You dance, of course, Miss Mumm," he says, with 
 beaming artlessness, " may I have 
 
 "Dance! No!" interrupts Miss Mumm, adjusting her 
 pince nez with an air of stern displeasure. " I should think 
 not, indeed. I wouldn't be guilty of such lightness." 
 She is sixty if a day, and on an average weighs about 
 seventeen stone. 
 
 "No, no," says Mr. Halkett, soothingly. " Your actions, 
 I feel sure, are not open to censure of that sort. What- 
 ever you are " with profound and respectful conviction 
 "I am sure you are not light." 
 
 " It is a comfort to know that you, sir, at least have 
 measured me justly," returns Aunt Selina, gravely. "In 
 my time, that abominable romp called dancing was looked 
 upon as little less than sin. Decently-minded people 
 never countenanced it. We were content witli more in- 
 nocent amusements such as for instance ' Puss in the cor- 
 ner,' 'Blind man's buff,' 'Kiss in the ring,' ' Hunt the slip- 
 per,' and a variety of other simple sports." 
 
 Mrs. Amyot and Primrose who happen to be standing 
 near give way to wild mirth, in which Curzon, after a 
 faint struggle, joins heartily. Mr. Halkett, however, 
 seems much struck with Miss Mumm's remarks.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 79 
 
 " There is a great deal in what you say," tys agrees, sol- 
 emnly, "a great deal. We might all take it to heart with 
 much benefit to ourselves. There are possibilities about 
 'Kiss in the ring' before which the weaker attractions of 
 dancing pale. And as for ' Hunt the slipper ! ' why should 
 we not hunt it now? Mrs. Amyot, will you join me in 
 the chase ? Miss Mumm, I feel sure, will kindly give us 
 the rules." 
 
 "You all sit down on the ground," begins Aunt Selina, 
 carefully, " and make a circle." 
 
 "A mystic circle ! " 
 
 " If anybody is going to make anything go round and 
 round I won't play," declares Primrose. " I've had enough 
 of all that sort of thing in town. It makes me giddy for 
 one thing, and I can't endure spirits. They play the very 
 mischief with^one's nerves." 
 
 " If taken to excess," assents Halkett, gravely. 
 
 " One should throw a little spirit into everything one un- 
 dertakes," puts in Mrs. Amyot, who has not been listening. 
 
 " But there won't be any in this game at all, nothing 
 bordering on it, will there, Miss Mumm ? Not so much 
 as a bottle of the harmless, if slightly trying, ginger beer." 
 
 " Eh ? " questions the spinster, who is a little out of it 
 by this time. 
 
 "Lord Primrose," says Halkett, mildly, "is afraid you 
 will intoxicate him." 
 
 "Don't mind him, Miss Mumm," interposed Primrose. 
 " Nothing of the sort, give you my word. Was alluding 
 merely to that horrid juggling system they are carrying on 
 now of showing up one's grandmother after she has lain 
 quiet in her grave for half a century." 
 
 "What are you going to do ? To dance?" asks Lady 
 Branksmere, coming up to the group. 
 
 "Well, that is what we should like to do," answers Mrs. 
 Vyner, pathetically. " But Miss Mumm has terrified us 
 all. She says," demurely, " it is very wicked of us even to 
 long for such a godless amusement. She has taken hold 
 of Mr. Halkett's conscience and converted him, and now 
 we don't know what to do." 
 
 " Is he the keeper of all your consciences ? " asks Muriel, 
 with her low trainante laugh. " Poor Mr. Halkett ! " She 
 lets her glance fall suddenly on her aunt, who is looking 
 grimly from one to the other. " I hope, Aunt Selina," she 
 says with cold meaning, " that you will try to reconcile 
 yourself to our little immoralities."
 
 8o LADY BRAKKSMKRF.. 
 
 " No, Muriel ! I shall not" returns Miss Mumm, austerely, 
 rising from her seat. " I shall never permit myself to grow 
 lukewarm in a good cause. I have my principles, and I 
 shall stick to them, whatever may be tiie consequences. 
 Good evening, my dear. I shall not stay to countenance 
 the vulgar exhibition you and your friends are about to 
 make of yourselves. I shall avoid even the very appear- 
 ance of evil." 
 
 Muriel shrugs her shoulders. 
 
 "I am disappointed in you!" continues the spinster. 
 Lady Branksmere unfurls her fan and sighs profoundly. 
 In truth, she is feeling bored to the last degree. " I con- 
 ceive it will be my duty to invite you and your friends to 
 Barren Court in a day or two, and hope you will all come 
 to us. That is, to me and Sir Mutius " looking ungra- 
 ciously around. 
 
 "We shall be charmed," says Muriel, languidly. 
 
 "You will find it dull! " remarks Miss Mumm, severely. 
 " Let that be understood. Dull, but," with withering force, 
 " decent ! " 
 
 Without further ado, she takes herself off, and a universal 
 peal of laughter follows on the last echo of her footsteps. 
 
 " Anna, will you sing us something while they are ar- 
 ranging the things putting the footstools to one side ? " 
 asks Muriel. 
 
 Lady Anne Branksmere, who is never happier than 
 when her fingers are on the keys, moves briskly to the 
 piano. 
 
 "She sings?" asks Mrs. Vyner, vaguely. 
 
 "Oh, charmingly. Not magnificently or loudly, you 
 know ; but with feeling and all that sort of thing," says 
 Primrose. " Tell you a fellow who sings well, too. Staines. 
 Like a bird, he sings. Very hard to make him warble. I 
 expect he thinks it wise to make himself rather scarce in 
 that way. Adds to his popularity see ? " 
 
 " He would want to add something to it ; by all accounts 
 it is thin ! " whispers Mrs. Amyot. 
 
 " Eh ! Can't say, I'm sure," says Lord Primrose, rather 
 puzzled, to whom Staines is more or less a stranger. 
 " Thought he was rather a fancy article, run after a good 
 deal and that, eh ? " 
 
 Meantime Lady Anne's exquisite notes are falling on the 
 air. It is a little Neapolitan song she sings, soft, low, gay ; 
 and it sets the pulses laughing even before one gets to the 
 end of it. Every one is very effusive when she rises from
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 81 
 
 the piano, and compliments, sincere as they are pretty, are 
 bandied to and fro. 
 
 " Captain Staines, will you sing to us now ?" says Mrs. 
 Amyot, suddenly, who had been dying to make him sing 
 ever since Primrose had told her he was chary of giving 
 his voice to the world. 
 
 " I think not," returns Staines, smiling at her. " My 
 efforts would hardly please you, I imagine, after what we 
 have just heard, and besides " 
 
 He pauses, and the smile dies from his lips, which have 
 grown grave and thoughtful. 
 
 "Besides what ?" 
 
 " Simply that I believe I have forgotten how, that's all. 
 I had almost forgotten that I once used to sing until 
 to-day." His voice has sunk a little, Muriel who is stand- 
 ing near looks quickly at him. 
 
 " Let to-day then be the commencement of a new epoch 
 in your life's history," persists Mrs. Amyot, gaily. " Re- 
 turn to your old delights. Give place to song." 
 
 " To go back upon our lives is denied us," says Cap- 
 tain Staines, gently. "And to most of us the past is a 
 sealed book to which we dare not revert. I am sorry I 
 cannot please you in this matter, but," he turns his gaze 
 suddenly upon Lady Branksmere, and his eyes seem to 
 burn into hers and compel her regard in return, " music 
 has died within me." 
 
 " Through dearth of encouragement, perhaps," says 
 Lady Branksmere, coldly, reluctantly, and as one driven 
 to speech against her will by the steady glance of his eyes. 
 " If you were to try to make an effort to recover your 
 lost power, perhaps you might succeed." 
 
 " My lost power !" repeats he in a peculiar tone. He 
 looks down, and then continues softly, "Well, I will try, 
 if that is your desire." 
 
 " Not mine Mrs. Amyot's," says Lady Branksmere. 
 haughtily, with subdued but imperious anger in her tone. 
 
 " Oh, yes, mine certainly," laughs Mrs. Amyot, joyously. 
 
 The group at the piano divide and make room for him ; 
 and presently his fingers, with an uncertainty that is rich 
 in promise, travel over the notes, striking a chord here and 
 there, until at last the spirit moves him, as it were, and he 
 bursts into song. 
 
 His voice is not powerful, but clear and elastic, and for 
 exquisite timbre could hardly be equalled. The words fall 
 from him with a curious distinctness, and there is some- 
 6
 
 82 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 thing about his whole style so sympathique that it touches 
 one, and holds one spellbound. He sings too with a zest, 
 a brio, that startles even as it charms and creates the long- 
 ing for more : 
 
 "Est-il vrai qu'a tes genottx 
 Je te dis un jour je t'aimc ? 
 J'ai reve qu'alors toi-meme. 
 Me redis ce mot si doux. 
 Ah, ce n'est pas vrai ! Ah, non, 
 Ce n'est pas vrai non non 1 
 J'ai reve qu'alors toi-meme 
 Me redis ce mot si doux." 
 
 There is a passion in his voice as he ends, that quivers 
 through the room and the hearts of his hearers. Lady 
 Anne, a true lover of music, is profoundly touched, and 
 stands gazing at the singer with tears in her eyes. The 
 others are all impressed more or less as their souls are 
 capable of quickening, and Mrs. Daryl being among 
 those of the lower class has time to turn an almost invol- 
 untary glance on Lady Branksmere. 
 
 Muriel is standing well within the shelter of a velvet 
 portiere, but her face is in the light. It is pale, rigid 
 hardly a living face, so white it is, and still hardly flesh 
 and blood at all, but rather the mere simulacrum of a 
 breathing woman. Her hands hanging loosely before her 
 are tensely clasped ; she seems to have lost all memory of 
 where she is, and of those around her. A tremulous ray 
 from the departing sun falling through the painted win- 
 dow opposite lies, like a still caress upon her lowered lids. 
 
 The shadow of a terrible grief is desolating her beauti- 
 ful face. Some cruel thought a crushing remembrance 
 hitherto subdued, seems now to have sprung into fresh 
 life, and to have reached a colossal height. That music has 
 undone her, quite. Is she thinking of the singer only, 
 and how he had in the old days sung it to her again and 
 again ? Or is she grieving only, for the days when he had 
 sung it when she \vas free, with all the world before her 
 where to choose. Mrs. Billy gazing at her with reflective 
 eyes that have a kindly sorrow in their soft depths, cannot 
 decide which. 
 
 Somebody drags a chair with a little rasping noise along 
 the polished floor, and Lady Branksmere starts as though 
 violently awakened. In an incredibly short moment, as it 
 seems to Wilhelmina, she is herself again. She draws a 
 quick breath that is too nervous to be a sigh, and steps
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 83 
 
 with a slow, dignified motion, into the very centre of the 
 gallery. 
 
 "Thank you. It is a charming song," she says, indiffer- 
 ently, turning her gaze full on Captain Staines. " I always 
 think you are better worth listening to than most people. 
 Now, for your waltz," smiling at Mrs. Amyot. 
 
 She seats herself at the vacant piano and lets the first 
 bars of the last brilliant waltz float through the room. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " I will not let thee sleep, nor eat, nor drink ; 
 But I will ring tliee such a piece of eluding, 
 Thou shalt confess the troubled sea more calm." 
 
 " THE Dowager Lady Branksmere's love to Lady Branks- 
 mere, and she will be pleased to receive her this after- 
 noon." The message sounds more like a command than 
 a wish, and Muriel, with a little resigned shrug of her 
 shoulders, throws aside her brush and prepares to obey it. 
 
 "I vvisli I could go with you she is interesting, as fos- 
 sils usually are but the fact is she abhors me, I am too 
 large, too healthy, too fleshy for her," laughs Lady Anne, 
 wheeling round on the piano stool ; " I look out of place in 
 that ghastly old room of hers." 
 
 " I can't see that you are more robust than Madame von 
 Thirsk. Yet she tolerates her," says Muriel, with a keen 
 glance at her sister-in-law. 
 
 " She adores her," corrects Lady Anne. " There is some 
 tremendous bond between them ; I don't quite know how 
 the friendship arose, but it began about seven years ago, 
 about the year poor Arthur was killed. She always al- 
 ludes to her dead husband as ' poor Arthur,' and is al- 
 ways very kindly in her mention of him, though perhaps 
 she had hardly reason to be proud of him when he was 
 alive. To her, however, he had always been fastidiously at- 
 tentive, and his memory lives strong within her still. You 
 know Arthur was her favorite. He was the eldest, and it 
 was by a luckless chance that Branksmere came in for the 
 title. You know all about that duel ?" she is talking con- 
 fidentially to Muriel, and now bends over the table near, 
 so as to make her lowered voice heard. 
 
 " I knew he had been killed in a duel ; that is all." 
 
 " Branksmere, George, your husband, was with him at
 
 84 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 the time. He, George, hinted to me that it was a quarrel 
 about money ; but he was so distressed, that I knew the 
 wretched affair had arisen out of some fault of poor 
 Arthur's. He was rather wild, you see, and had an un- 
 governable temper. From what I could drag out of 
 Branksmere, who was most reticent about it, I should say 
 poor Arthur lost himself over some affair in a billiard 
 saloon, and grossly insulted the man by whom he believed 
 he had been cheated." She pauses. " He was shot dead," 
 she says in a low whisper, tapping her fingers nervously 
 upon the table. 
 
 " How terrible for you." 
 
 "Yes, terrible. But, do you know, now I can think of 
 it quite calmly. It all happened so long ago, you see. 
 Seven years is a tremendous space nowadays. Yes, it all 
 happened the year Madame first came to the castle. Poor 
 Arthur was killed about the beginning of the year, and 
 she came here about six months afterward. I remember 
 it perfectly. She was a friend of some people Branksmere 
 knew in Tuscany." 
 
 " She seems to have given up Tuscany and made her 
 home in England in Branksmere rather." 
 
 "Yes. I shouldn't mind that, if I were you. She is 
 very good to the old lady and useful when the Dowager 
 has one of her troublesome days. Going to her now ? " 
 
 " I wish you could come with me." 
 
 "I shouldn't be welcome." 
 
 "Would I do," asks Mrs. Amyot, amiably. 
 
 " I am afraid you would be worse than Lady Anne," 
 says Muriel, smiling. "You are too bright, too airy. It 
 is only ghostly, bony people like me she can endure. I 
 shall give your kind regards to Lady Branksmere, how- 
 ever, if you like." 
 
 " What a tiresome number of Lady Branksmeres there 
 are," remarks Mrs. Vyner, idly. 
 
 "Too many," acquiesces Lady Anne. "There is the 
 Dowager, there is me, there is Muriel. I felt so horrified 
 at the idea of being placed as No. 2, among the Dowagers, 
 that I went back to my old name, and became if not Lady 
 Anne Hare, at least Lady Anne. A safe return, Muriel," 
 as the present Lady Branksmere moves toward the door. 
 
 "Then I won't do?" asks Mrs. Amyot, pathetically'. 
 
 " Yes, you will, for me, admirably," says Halkett, who has 
 just stepped in through the window. " So take heart, and 
 a tennis racket at the same time. We are having such a
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 85 
 
 game out here. Come one come all of you and let's 
 make an afternoon of it." 
 
 Muriel crossing the hall slowly being in no haste to 
 gain the chamber where the old dame lies in solitary state 
 comes suddenly face to face with Captain Staines. A 
 longing to go by without waiting to exchange with him a 
 word of civility presses sore on Lady Branksmere, but the 
 doing so would be an act of discourtesy as they two are 
 circumstanced, so that, perforce, she turns a coldly smiling 
 face to his. Her heart is beating rapidly, almost to suf- 
 focation. It is the first moment since that happy far-away 
 past that she has found herself alone with him. 
 
 "You should go out; the others are on the tennis 
 groiind," she says, in a dull, stifled sort of way, keeping 
 up the stereotyped smile by a supreme effort. She nods 
 to him and goes quickly onward. 
 
 " One moment, Lady Branksmere," exclaims he in a 
 low tone, arresting her footsteps. " One only. What have 
 I done that you should avoid me ? " 
 
 " I do not avoid you," icily. 
 
 " I fear you do. I fear my presence here is a matter of 
 dissatisfaction to you." 
 
 His eyes are bent moodily upon the ground, a settled 
 melancholy is darkening his handsome face. If it is a ficti- 
 tious melancholy it is very well done indeed. 
 
 " But I have arranged about that," he goes on, gloomily. 
 "A telegram to-morrow will rid you of me. I shall leave 
 as suddenly as I came." 
 
 " I beg you will not do this thing. I assure you there 
 is no reason why you should," says Lady Branksmere, 
 haughtily. 
 
 Her proud lips have taken a still prouder curve, and she 
 toys with the fan she holds, in a rather rapid way that be- 
 tokens anger only half concealed. 
 
 "There is a reason," breaks out Staines, in a low tone, 
 full of suppressed passion. " If you are dead to the past, I 
 am not. I know now I should never have come here 
 now that it is too late." 
 
 "And why not here?" demands she, with flashing eyes. 
 The words fail from her angrily, impulsively ; even as 
 they ring in her ears she would have given worlds to re- 
 call them. The question is hers. She has laid herself 
 open to the answer ; ehe has in a manner pledged herself 
 to listen to it. A gleam of triumph shoots into his blue 
 eyes.
 
 86 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Because jw/ are here," he says, slowly. " Need I have 
 said that ? Did you not know my answer ? I was mad 
 when I accepted your Lord Branksmere's invitation, 
 but I could not refuse it. But now that I have come now 
 that I have seen" his voice sinks almost to a whisper 
 " when all the old sweet memories force themselves back 
 upon me, I feel I dare not remain." 
 
 " You will please yourself about that, of course," answers 
 Muriel, coldly. She turns away as if to pursue her course 
 up-stairs. 
 
 " To go will not please me," declares he, hurriedly. 
 
 " Then stay," indifferently. Her tone is admirably 
 calm, but the hand that holds her fan is trembling, and he 
 sees it. 
 
 " Are you a stone ? " he cries, vehemently. " Have you 
 altogether forgotten ? " 
 
 Lady Branksmere pauses abruptly and turns to him a 
 marble face. 
 
 "Altogether ! " she says, stonily. 
 
 " I won't believe it," protests he. " What ! in this little 
 space of time to have all, all blotted out ! Nay, I defy you 
 to say it from your heart. Now and again some thought 
 from out the sweet past must rise within your breast. Yet 
 love could never have been to you what it was to me. You 
 wronged me, Muriel, as only a woman can wrong a man. 
 You betrayed me." 
 
 "/;" 
 
 "You. Was I the one who first broke faith? . Have I 
 married ? And now, standing here together face to face 
 once more, you tell me I have no longer a place even in 
 your thoughts, that it is nothing to you whether I go or 
 stay ? " 
 
 His last words are a question. 
 
 " Nothing," returns she, slowly. And then, as though 
 suddenly mindful of her duties as a hostess she bestows 
 upon him a faint, wintry, society smile. " I shall neverthe- 
 less be very pleased if you will stay with us for a little 
 while," she says, languidly. 
 
 *'I accept your invitation," declares Staines, suddenly 
 almost defiantly, and turning away strides impatiently 
 down a side corridor to find himself all but in the arms of 
 Madame von Thirsk !
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 87 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul ; 
 And there I see such black and grained spots, 
 As will not leave their tinct." 
 
 WHAT has she seen ? What heard ? There has been no 
 moment given him in which to recover his equanimity. 
 So that his open perplexity is apparent to her. It appears 
 to amuse her. Looking him fairly in the face she breaks 
 into low laughter that has a touch of contempt in it. 
 
 " Well met," she says, airily. 
 
 " That, of course, if you allow it," returns he, gallantly. 
 He has recovered himself by this time, and now awaits 
 her attack if it is to be made. He has studied Madame 
 von Thirsk from a distance for the last year or so, and has, 
 during the few days spent now at B rank sine re with her, 
 come to one or two conclusions about her. 
 
 " Yet you scarcely seemed overjoyed to meet me a 
 moment since," smiles she, in her swift, curious fashion. 
 
 " Natural enough. You startled me. I might have 
 hurt you coming round that corner. By-the-bye I nearly 
 ran you down, didn't I ? " carelessly, but cautiously. 
 
 " Very nearly." 
 
 " Not a nice thing to be run to earth, eh ? " says Staines, 
 meaningly, with a bold look at her. <l But you see I was 
 in a hurry, and didn't expect you would have taken up a 
 position in this solitary spot." Again she is aware that 
 he is watching her. 
 
 " You seemed in hot haste, indeed," returns she, still 
 with that inexplicable smile that is momentarily exasperat- 
 ing him. " Quite as if you were running away from some- 
 thing. What was it?" glancing at him from under her 
 sleepy lids. " A second disappointment ? " 
 
 Staines' eyes contract. 
 
 ''Madame," replies he deliberately, "you speak in par- 
 ables. A second disappointment implies a first. You 
 allude to 
 
 Whatever half-formed plan Madame had in her head, 
 takes shape and color now. She leans forward, elevates 
 her shoulders, and makes a little graceful gesture toward 
 the hall where Staines has just had his interview with 
 Ladv Branksmere.
 
 88 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Madame is beautiful ! " she whispers, throwing out 
 her exquisitely-shaped hands with an expressive move- 
 ment. Then, with a complete change of manner that 
 enrages him even more than her affected gayety "All! 
 believe it or not as you will I have indeed felt sorrow for 
 you," she murmurs, with a glance full of deepest sympathy. 
 
 " ' A fellow feeling' " quotes Staines, with an ugly sneer, 
 "' makes us wondrous kind.' My disappointment as you 
 call it, was hardly greater than yours. Seven years is a 
 long time in which to strive, only to be at last undone ! " 
 Her color fades. She steps back involuntarily, and a 
 dangerous light creeps into her dark eyes. 
 
 " Come ! That was hardly fair of me," laughs Staines 
 in a conciliatory way. " But it was your own fault you 
 led up to it, you know. You shouldn't bring the war into 
 the enemy's camp unless you are prepared for reprisals. 
 Sorry if I appeared unchivalrous, but you would have it, 
 you know." 
 
 "You mean?" exclaims Madame, forcing the 
 
 words from between her clenched teeth. 
 
 " Pshaw ! Nothing, to make you look so tragical," re- 
 turns Staines, moving on a step or two. Madame follow- 
 ing, lays a firm hand upon his arm. 
 
 " You do not leave this," she declares, fiercely, " until 
 you have explained what it was you meant." 
 
 " That Branksmere was as good a parti as there is in 
 England," retorts he, contemptuously. " Take it, then, 
 as you insist on it." 
 
 "You know nothing nothing" cries she, with an angry 
 sob. All the passionate fire of love that has been consum- 
 ing her throughout these weary, hopeless years springs 
 into arms at this slight that has been cast upon it. Were 
 he, Branksmere, the veriest beggar that crawled the earth, 
 her whole soul would have gone out to him, as it went out 
 on that first day when when 
 
 She comes back to the present hour to find Staines is 
 talking to her in a low, earnest tone. 
 
 "Why should we quarrel over the fact that we have each 
 made a discovery of the other's secret ? Let us be com- 
 rades, rather. A common grievance such as ours," with a 
 short laugh, " should have the effect of creating between 
 us a link of sympathy." 
 
 He holds out his hand to her as though desirous at once 
 of forging this link, but Madame declines to see it. He 
 comes a degree closer to her.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 89 
 
 " Think," he whispers, impressively, " whether I can be 
 of no service to you in this matter ? " 
 
 "In what way, sir? " 
 
 " That I leave to your woman's wit to answer," returns 
 he, with a half-insolent uplifting of his brows. 
 
 She is silent her eyes bent upon the ground. That she 
 is deeply pondering on his words is plain to him. Very 
 slowly the warm color recedes from her lips and brow, 
 and a heavy frown settles upon her broad forehead. Her 
 breath comes from her heavily, and her mouth is com- 
 pressed. It is evident that she is the victim of a fierce 
 struggle, now taking place within her. She is in many 
 ways an unscrupulous woman a woman of strong pas- 
 sions, capable of knowing a love powerful as death, or a 
 hatred as keen and lasting as that love yet now the 
 thought that is presenting itself to her in all its naked hid- 
 eousness, appals and disgusts her. 
 
 " You can't make up your mind, then ? " suggests he, 
 mockingly. " Perhaps you think I over-estimate my pow- 
 er of usefulness." 
 
 "No. I don't doubt you there," she lifts her head and 
 looks at him steadily. Her eyes seem to burn into his. 
 
 " And yet you shrink you hesitate. I tell you there is 
 no need for compunction. They are less than nothing to 
 each other," says the tempter, slowly. 
 
 "It is of him, of him alone, I think," she breaks in, 
 vehemently. "As for her, let her go, I owe her nothing 
 but hatred for a studied course of insolence since the first 
 hour we met. But there is his happiness to be con- 
 sidered." 
 
 She has thrown off the mask a good deal, and in the ex- 
 citement of the moment seems to feel no shame in baring 
 her heart to this man. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " scornfully. " Is it not open to all the world 
 to read between the lines ? It was a caprice a mere pass- 
 ing fancy on his part a desire for a pretty face, of which 
 lie has already tired. The fancy, the caprice is dead." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that. If I were " she pauses. 
 
 " You would feel more free to act ? Why, look into it, 
 as it stands. Would a man who loved, neglect the object 
 of that love, as he does her? Would he deliberately and 
 openly betray, in a thousand ways " with a meaning glance 
 at her " his preference for another ? " 
 
 " There is no such preference as that of which you hint," 
 returns she, gloomily.
 
 go LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 ft There you wrong yourself. Yet, granting you are 
 right, does that make it any the easier for you to prove his 
 love for her? When does he seek her side ? When does 
 a tender glance, a kindly word pass between them ? Has 
 he even a forced srnile for her ? " 
 
 " No And yet " she hesitates, grows suddenly 
 
 silent, and Staines, noting the quick changes in her mo- 
 bile face, plays his trump card. 
 
 " Had he even the last lingering remnants of a worn-out 
 love for her," he says, with cold contempt, "would he have 
 invited me here ?" 
 
 "He was ignorant of your former relations with her. 
 He knew nothing," cries she, eagerly. "Nothing! I have 
 it from his own lips." 
 
 " Then he lied to you," declares Staines, coolly, giving 
 voice to his falsehood in a clear distinct tone. " For he 
 had the whole story from my lips, before ever I accepted 
 his invitation. Some absurdly Quixotic impulse drove me 
 at the moment to mention it." 
 
 " Is that the truth ?" asks she, in a terribly eager way. 
 The question is almost a whisper, but so wild, so intense, 
 that it thrills through him. She is looking at him with her 
 large glittering eyes as though she would read his very 
 soul. 
 
 " If you doubt me, ask him" returns he, boldly. 
 
 She sighs deeply, and throws up her head as if suffocat- 
 ing, and he knows he has won the day, and gained an ally 
 who will who shall be of incalculable service to him in 
 the gaining of the abominable end he has in view. With 
 Madame, indeed, the struggle is at an end. A gleam from 
 within is lighting up her dark expressive face a devilish 
 gleam. That Staines should know her secret is bitter to 
 her, but that she should suspect it she ! If treated with 
 coldness now, may he not at any moment betray her, 
 and to that woman of all others. No, that shall never be ! 
 She will enter into a compact with him, and so purchase 
 his silence. As for the rest, for the future it will reveal 
 itself. And if a fall should follow on the footsteps of that 
 
 haughty spirit, why, why . The cruel gleam upon her 
 
 face deepens in intensity, yet as though prompted by her 
 good angel to one last throb of compunction she turns to 
 Staines. 
 
 " You love her ? " she asks, hurriedly. 
 
 " I have not asked you if you love him" retorts he, 
 coldly.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 91 
 
 "True." She winces a little. 
 
 " It is then a bond between us, to help each other when 
 we can ?" demands he. 
 
 "A bond yes. But remember I pledge myself to noth- 
 ing," answers she, thoughtfully. 
 
 No explanations follow. There is no word of counsel 
 or advice. Madame von Thirsk as she sweeps slowly away 
 from him down the corridor does not so much as cast a 
 parting glance upon the man with whom she has entered 
 into a most unholy alliance. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "The careful cold hath nipt my rugged rind 
 
 And in my face deep furrows eld hath plight ; 
 My head bespent with hoary frost I find, 
 
 And by mine eye the crow his claw doth wright 
 Delight is laid abed', and pleasure past ; 
 
 No sun now shines, clouds have all over-cast." 
 
 MEANWHILE Muriel going slowly up the stairs to the 
 Dowager's room feels as though her feet are clad with 
 leaden wings. If she had been victorious in the late inter- 
 view with the man who had once been so much to her, it 
 was certainly a victory that cost her dear. However 
 strongly she had held herself at the time, she now feels 
 faint-hearted enough and utterly unstrung. Alas! what 
 sweet hours he had recalled, when life meant liberty and 
 love, and she was Muriel only untitled, unshackled, free ! 
 
 And that last accusation of his had smitten her sore. 
 Had she wronged him ? Had she betrayed ? Her mind 
 wanders back in a true line to the old days, the old glad 
 moments, when she had strayed with him through meads 
 and flowering tracts, made ricli with autumn's dying per- 
 fumes ; days when she had thought of him as the one man in 
 all the world for her. If she had then shrunk from a life of 
 poverty, sweetened even though it might be by love, why, 
 so had he ! 
 
 He had spoken much of that self-same wondrous love in 
 those past hours, had toyed with the idea of marriage ; 
 had presented many a pretty picture of wedded happiness 
 to her inward view, but always with a reservation. As her 
 mind now gathers about that past time, there comes to her 
 an even fuller conviction than of old, that there had always
 
 92 LADY BRAh T KSMERE. 
 
 inextricably mingled with the adoration, a tenderly ex- 
 pressed regret, a half-veiled renunciation of the joys por- 
 trayed, an unspoken yet clearly conveyed reluctance to 
 'cast his all upon the die.' 
 
 To her, too bred in it as she was poverty had seemed 
 then, all but a crime. She had. felt every word he had 
 hinted rather than said, so keenly had so abhored the 
 idea of dwelling forever in the ungilded paths whereon 
 her childhood's feet had trod, that she hardly paused then 
 to tell herself that he was counting the cost as no true 
 lover should. But now, to-day, when he has cast the 
 charge in her teeth, her whole soul rises up in arms, and 
 she defends herself to herself with passionate vehemence. 
 
 At least she had not been the more mercenary of the 
 two. They had been quits so far, and when, after her en- 
 gagement to Branksmere that wild letter of upbraiding 
 had come to her from the man who she believed would 
 understand and acquiesce in her decision whose own 
 doctrines she felt she had imbibed and was now acting up 
 to she had been struck with a sudden fear, but had failed 
 to comprehend. 
 
 She had quailed indeed when she thought of years filled 
 with sordid care, but it was he who had carefully pointed 
 out to her those cares. No earnest pleading had been 
 used to give her strength to endure for dear love's sake 
 alone. Even that letter, so replete with angry reproach, 
 had contained no entreaty to cast aside her allegiance to 
 Lord Branksmere, and fling herself with honest abandon- 
 ment into her lover's arms. Some hidden strain of knowl- 
 edge whispers to her, that she would not now be Lady 
 Branksmere had Staines been stancher, more persistent 
 in his wooing ; that there might have been a moment when 
 she would have counted the world well lost for what is 
 now lost to her forever ! 
 
 There had been no formal parting between them only 
 a last scene, that had not been spoken of by him as final, 
 though to Muriel it had seemed so. Still no farewell had 
 been spoken, beyond an ordinary one that breathed of 
 fresh meetings in the future and that night Staines went 
 up to town for an indefinite period, and next morning 
 Branksmere had arrived ; Branksmere ! who had proposed 
 to her the year before and had been refused, and who now 
 knelt at her feet again beseeching a kinder answer. He 
 had sworn he loved her, and she had believed him. 
 
 At this point in her meditations, Muriel drops into a low
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 93 
 
 cushioned seat in one of the staircase windows and laughs 
 aloud, softly, but with an indescribable bitterness. Yes ! 
 she had believed him. He appeared to her suddenly as a 
 way out of her difficulty. A steady barrier should, and 
 must, be placed between her and Staines forever; Branks- 
 mere should be that barrier ! That she could not endure 
 an existence bald of worldly comforts she had been led to 
 believe by subtlest means ; and now left to itself, with no 
 strength from without on which to lean, the poor reed 
 broke! She accepted Branksmere. 
 
 And now ? She rises wearily from her seat in the great 
 painted window, and goes on her unwilling way to the 
 Dowager's apartments. Now she has neither lover's nor 
 husband's love ! One she cannot, the other she dare not 
 grasp. Nothing is left her but the filthy lucre for which 
 she has paid away all the priceless gladness of her fresh 
 young life. Alas what dead sea-fruit it seems within her 
 mouth. 
 
 She shivers, a little as she reaches the heavy hanging 
 curtain that hides the entrance to the corridor, that leads 
 not only to the Dowager's apartments, but to those of 
 Madame von Thirsk. She stops short, and clasps her 
 hands together as though very cold, then pushes back the 
 curtain and enters the dreary corridor within. Beyond 
 her lies the other curtain that hides the large door that 
 leads to Madame's own rooms ; those rooms that no one 
 may enter save Madame herself, and 
 
 She draws a heavy breath. A sense of suffocation weighs 
 her down. It is the first time she has been here since that 
 afternoon when Mrs. Stout had escorted her through the 
 upper parts of the house in the character of cicerone, and 
 the remembrance of that hour lies now with a deadly 
 weight on Muriel. She rouses herself, however, and, turn- 
 ing resolutely toward old Lady Branksmere's room, knocks 
 gently at the door. 
 
 It is opened to her by a tall, gaunt woman, with a pecu- 
 liarly bloodless face and eyes deeply set and colorless, that 
 may once have been pale-blue, but are now almost as white 
 as the balls that surround them. She is a woman advanced 
 in years, but specially muscular, with long, lithe fingers 
 bloodless, too and a length of jaw that suggests the idea 
 that the mind is as firm as the body. 
 
 She drops back a step or two in a respectful fashion as 
 Muriel enters, and then returns to her station beside the 
 bed.
 
 94 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 The room is semi-lighted, the curtains being closely 
 drawn as if to kill all remembrance of the blessed sunshine 
 that reigns without. A smell of mould pervades the air, a 
 dull, damp, sickly odor suggestive of the idea that the 
 windows have been hermetically sealed for many years. 
 Some oak chairs, black with age and elaborately carved, 
 line the walls, that are painted a dull ochre ; arid a bureau, 
 oak, too, and blackened by time, and grim and uncompro- 
 mising in appearance, reaches half-way up to the ceiling, 
 which is vaulted. 
 
 A sullen fire is burning in the huge grate, and a black 
 cat, gaunt as Mrs. Brookes who had opened the door for 
 Muriel sits upon the hearth-rug staring at the flickering 
 flames with an expression of diabolical malignancy upon 
 its ebon face. As Muriel advances, this brute turns its 
 head slowly round and spits at her in a malevolent fashion. 
 Muriel, with a slight shudder, shrinks away from it, and 
 Mrs. Brookes again comes forward. 
 
 "Be quiet, then, my beauty, my sweetheart !" she mur- 
 murs, absurdly, to the creature, that, only half appeased by 
 her soothing, stands erect and arches its monstrous back 
 and follows Muriel's movements with its baleful eyes, green 
 as emeralds. 
 
 The dull flames emit a duller light ; through the closed 
 curtains a feeble ray is struggling ; Muriel peering anx- 
 iously into this obscurity, finds at last the occupant of the 
 room who has desired her presence. 
 
 In a huge fourposter of enormous dimensions, hung 
 with curtains of dingy satin that perchance a hundred 
 years ago was bright and fresh lies a figure, a mere shell 
 of our poor humanity ! A wizened, aged, witch-like face 
 looks out from the pillows ; a face that but for the eyes 
 which are supernaturally large and brilliant might well 
 be mistaken for a piece of parchment, and would probably 
 have gone unnoticed altogether in the twilight-gloom of 
 the apartment. These eyes burning with their inward fire, 
 convey to Muriel the sudden fancy that they have been the 
 consuming furnaces which have reduced the attenuated 
 frame to its present state of emaciation, yet have had the 
 power to keep the life within it all these interminable 
 years. 
 
 Two gaunt hands, delicately formed, but inhuman in 
 aspect, and more like claws than hands, are resting on the 
 faded but gorgeous counterpane ; every now and then they 
 pluck nervously, spasmodically, at the air. The lips, flesh-
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 95 
 
 less and drawn, fail to conceal the toothless gums within ; 
 and the scant and hoary locks brushed tightly back from 
 the forehead in the fashion of a past era, are bound by a 
 funereal band of black velvet that serves to heighten the 
 ghastliness of the half-living picture, and betray more 
 openly the skinny proportions of the weird old face. 
 
 Repelled, yet fascinated, Muriel gazes upon her hus- 
 band's grandmother! Although this is not her first intro- 
 duction to her, she now sustains a severe shock as she 
 looks again upon this melancholy wreck of what once was 
 one of nature's brightest efforts this belle of a bygone 
 day ; this poor spent frame now grown repulsive, that the 
 tomb should long ago have sought and gained ! 
 
 The Dowager seems unaware of her presence until Mrs. 
 Brookes, stooping over her, lays her hand upon her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "It is Lady Branksmere, Madam. She has come to sec 
 you at your request." 
 
 " Ay ay. I know. I am sick of the name," returns 
 the old woman, querulously. " There are so many of them. 
 My Lady Branksmere of to-day and she of yesterday 
 and she of the day before ! Why don't some of 'em die 
 eh?" she looks up at her attendant, w r ith a senile indig- 
 nation, as though blaming her for the longevity of the 
 women of her own house. Though who should die the first 
 but she herself! 
 
 "Eh? eh?" she persists, striking Mrs. Brookes with 
 her palsied hand. 
 
 " I don't know, Madam. Time will do it, perhaps," re- 
 turns the attendant, doubtfully. Time, it seems to her, 
 has been a long time dancing attendance on the uncanny 
 old person in the bed. 
 
 " Slaves count time," quarrels the miserable wreck, va- 
 cantly. " It has nothing to do with us. Who spoke of my 
 Lady Branksmere ? Was it you, Brookes ? You should 
 know better. She will never be my Lady now no 
 never ! " 
 
 " Hush, Madam " 
 
 " But what of her the little one ? She that ought to 
 have been my lady, but wasn't. What of her, Brookes ? Ts 
 she coming to me ? Tell me, woman, or I'll strike you !" 
 
 " Not to-day, Madam," soothingly. 
 
 "She should then. Memory is quick within me. All, 
 all comes back to me to-day. Seven years ago, Brookes. 
 Seven years. My poor little boy ! my poor fellow ! "
 
 96 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 She is beginning to ramble hopelessly. Her claw-like 
 hands are moving convulsively, and her eager, feverish 
 eyes are sparkling. 
 
 "Your ladyship will excuse her," entreats Mrs. Brookes, 
 turning to Muriel with a sedate curtsey. " It is not one of 
 Madam's good days." She curtseys again when she has 
 finished this apology, but not a muscle of her face stirs. 
 Is she really concerned, or too accustomed, perhaps, to 
 know any nervousness ? 
 
 "What is that you are saying, Brookes ?" cries the Dow- 
 ager, shrilly. " And who is that lurking behind the cur- 
 tains? Let 'em stand forward! D'ye hear? What arc 
 they hiding for, eh?" Here, catching sight of Muriel, 
 memory again (dull though her mind is with regard to 
 present things), takes fire, and she knows her. Old habits 
 return to her old dignity. It is quite wonderful to see 
 the way in which she draws herself up, and bends her stiff 
 old body to the young woman who is now the Queen Reg- 
 nant of the house of Branksmere. 
 
 " You do an old woman much honor ! I am very pleased 
 to see you, my dear," she says proudly, but sweetly, with 
 the full return of the grand old manner that had been 
 hers half a century ago. " Pray be seated. Brookes ! a 
 chair for my Lady Branksmere. It is a gracious action of 
 yours, my dear, to grant the dying a few minutes out of 
 your young life ! " 
 
 Here, alas ! the vital spark grows dull again, and re- 
 turns to its sad flickering that is but the prelude of its 
 death. The touch of strength the worn-out brain had re- 
 ceived, dies away, and, stooping forward, the old woman 
 twines her bony fingers round Muriel's white wrist and 
 breaks into futile mumblings mutteringsborn of the one 
 thought that clings to her tired mind. 
 
 " Have you seen her yet ? The little thing in her white 
 gown ? " she asks, mouthing and grinning horribly. " Such 
 a pretty creature. It isn't you I'm talking of, you will 
 know, because you are Lady Branksmere, and she isn't. 
 She can't be now they tell me. But she was the prettiest 
 little soul, and all in white in white." 
 
 " Recollect yourself, Madam ! " whispers Mrs. Brookes, 
 severely, bending over the bed and laying her hand, with 
 a warning pressure, upon the skeleton's arm. It may have 
 been a rather strenuous pressure because the old woman 
 breaks instantly into a feeble whimpering. 
 
 "Go away, Brookes. You hurt me. Go away, I say.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 97 
 
 Nobody understands me but Thekla. Where is Thekla. 
 Ah ! she knows the little one ! " 
 
 She pauses and gazes vacantly at Muriel. Then once 
 again her dying intellect so far revives, that her mind re- 
 curs vividly once more to the subject that had tilled her 
 before Brookes' interruption. 
 
 " Thekla knows ! she will tell you ! " she whispers, lean- 
 ing toward Muriel, who has grown very pale. The old 
 woman's strange words the evident desire of the attend- 
 ant to silence her, have suggested to her, strong confirma- 
 tion of the doubts that are already at work within her. 
 Seven years ago Madam had said ! Seven years ago was 
 Madame von Thirsk a pale, slender maiden ? Did she 
 wear a white gown ? Was it she who should have been 
 Lady Branksmere in her Muriel's place ? 
 
 She leans back in her chair and tries to concentrate her 
 thoughts, but she is unnerved and unstrung, and the effort 
 to analyze her fears is beyond her. Her meeting with 
 Staines, and his unjust accusation, had upset her more 
 than she was quite aware, and now this interview with the 
 Dowager has brought matters to a climax. 
 
 A sensation of faintness creeps over her as she sits still 
 and motionless beside the fourposter, hearing but not 
 heeding, the idle wanderings of its occupant. In truth, it 
 seems to her that she has heard enough, when she has 
 added the incoherent ramblings just uttered to the evi- 
 dence of her own senses ; the Dowager's broken words - 
 (her revelation as it almost seems to Muriel), these wild 
 gibberings of a crazy old woman have had in them, doubt- 
 less, the one great grain of truth ; a truth that forced upon 
 her at this moment seems more than she can bear. 
 
 A longing to escape to get away from her immediate 
 surroundings, to be alone takes possession of her. She 
 rises precipitately to her feet. 
 
 " Stay, stay ! " cries the Dowager, stretching out her 
 skinny hand as if to detain her forcibly. " You haven't 
 told me yet if you have seen her. She, who ought to be 
 you, you know ! " 
 
 " But it is seven years ago. Seven years ! No, Brookes," 
 testily, " I will not be silent ; I will ask her. Why should 
 she not be told. It is a sad story, and my Lady Branks- 
 mere here seems to me to have a tender heart. Ah ! it 
 would melt a harder heart than her's to hear the story of 
 the little one. Such love, such devotion, and all for 
 naught. Now it is too late ! " She beckons eagerly to
 
 98 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 Muriel. " You need bear no malice, my dear ; it is, in- 
 deed, too late, as you know. Nothing could make her 
 Lady Branksmere now ! Yet that is what she craves 
 what she cries for night and day. Sometimes I hear her 
 in tfie dead of night." 
 
 She leans forward, half rising in her bed, and stares 
 wildly at the opposite wall with a gaze, however, that 
 pierces through the solid masonry into the realms of a dis- 
 ordered fancy. 
 
 " I don't ask you if you see her now ? " she whispers, 
 wildly clutching at Muriel's arm. "I can see her for my- 
 self. Look ! Look, I say. She is there. There ! in her 
 little white frock, with What is that, Brookes ? What 
 ist/iat?" shouts she, violently. "Is it blood his Hood? 
 D'ye see the red spots upon her gown ? They are his 
 his, I tell you his heart's blood ! Drops drawn from his 
 pierced breast ! Oh, Arthur ! Oh, my pretty boy ! " 
 
 She points frantically with her palsied hand toward 
 space, and drops back exhausted upon her pillow inert 
 lifeless. 
 
 "You must not heed her, my lady ; she is not herself 
 to-day," says Mrs. Brookes, hurriedly, her face looking a 
 degree more bloodless than usual. " My late lord's death 
 made a terrible impression upon her. She sees visions at 
 times, or fancies she does. There is no truth in anything 
 she says ! I pray you remember that, Madam ! He was 
 her favorite grandson, you see, and his sudden death, 
 caused by such awful means, unsettled her poor brain." 
 
 "I know I understand," murmurs Muriel, in a stifled 
 tone, with the last remnant of calm that she can muster. 
 Releasing herself gently, but abruptly, from 'the Dowager's 
 grasp, now grown feeble and purposeless, she rushes pre- 
 cipitately from the room. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 He was so glad, that I cannot express. 
 In no manner his mirth, and his gladness. 
 
 FINDING the hall-door lying hospitably open, he enters 
 the house without the usual rat-tat, and traverses the hall 
 without meeting a soul. It is so unlike the Manor to be 
 devoid of flesh and noise even in unsuspected quarters,
 
 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 99 
 
 that thus to find the very entrance silent and deserted 
 suggests to Mr. Paulyn very sinister possibilities. He 
 goes farther ; but still no sound falls on his anxious ears. 
 Listen as he may, there come to him no squeals from the 
 fat twins, no violent 'arguments in Peter's dulcet bass, no 
 tearful expostulations on the part of Angelica, no indig- 
 nant remonstrances from Margery. Have they all been 
 spirited away ? Has Madame, the sister-in-law, crushed 
 their youthful gayety ? Where is the riotous band of 
 which he once was enrolled a member ? Where are the 
 shouts that rang last year ? A misgiving creeps over the 
 Honorable Tommy. Surely, this death-like stillness bodes 
 no good ! His cousins are in the hands of the foe ! 
 
 The library is reached and found empty. The school- 
 room is invaded with a sinking heart ; but here, too, deso- 
 lation reigns. Good gracious! Where are they? What 
 on earth has happened ? The piano is lying open, and 
 Mr. Paulyn, seating himself upon the music-stool he 
 never can keep himself off a music-stool looks mourn- 
 fully down upon the yellowing keys. 
 
 " I hope the new importation isn't playing the very 
 dooce with 'em all," he soliloquizes plaintively ; doubt, 
 that has suddenly grown into a grim conviction, desola- 
 ting his tone, which naturally is cheerful in the extreme. 
 " But it looks bad. No yells. No skirmishing. Not so 
 much as a cushion aimed at a fellow's head from behind a 
 half-opened door. It does look poor! It is one of two 
 things either they have all succumbed to the plague or 
 the cholera, or Billy's wife is an out-and-outer. Well, I'll 
 solve the riddle at once. If any of them are still in the 
 land of the living, this will fetch "em." 
 
 He lays violent hands upon the long-suffering instru- 
 ment, whereupon thunders uprise from it fulfilled with 
 that touching melody commonly known as " Tommy 
 Dodd." This soft and soothing air rings through the 
 room. It is, indeed, no exaggeration, and only allowing 
 bare justice to Mr. Paulyn's fingers, to say it rings through 
 the house. Mrs. Billy in the morning-room, hearing it, 
 drops her flowers. The cook in the kitchen stays to 
 hearken to it, with uplifted roller. The maid in the 
 scullery executes a small war-dance in time to the stately 
 measure, while crying aloud, "Why, that's Master Tommy, 
 for sure!" Mr. Bellew, making his usual entrance into 
 the house by means of the school-room window, is so stag- 
 gered by it, that he pauses midway, with one foot on the
 
 ioo LADY BRAMKSMERE. 
 
 balcony still and one on the carpet inside. And Margery, 
 rushing wildly through the hall, darts like a swallow into 
 the old room and literally flings herself into the musician's 
 arms. 
 
 "Dear old thing!" she cries ecstatically. " To think 
 you've really come ! Oh, Tommy, I say, how nice it is to 
 see you again ! " 
 
 She gives him a little shake as if to make more sure of 
 him, and then a smart thump between his shoulders. This 
 thump is full of love and good fellowship. 
 
 "Why there you are, Margery, old girl and how are 
 you ? " returns the Honorable Tommy, drawing her down 
 upon his knee, and expanding into a broad grin of the very 
 utmost delight. " Pretty well, eh ? Bearing up, eh ? Tliafs 
 right. Never say die is your motto, I take it ; and let me 
 tell you I admire your spirit." 
 
 "You ought to," says Margery, gayly, who is a little at 
 sea as to his meaning. "You have had plenty of time to 
 study it. What brought you down at this ungodly period ? 
 You, who are so fond of your Pall Mall ?" 
 
 " I'm not sure, unless it was to see you," returns Mr. 
 Paulyn, gallantly. " I met Branksmere one day in Picca- 
 dilly, and he seized hold of me as though he was a police- 
 man. ' Come alonger me,' said he, and I hadn't much of 
 an excuse ready, so I corned." 
 
 " It doesn't matter a bit how or why you came, so long 
 as you are here," declares Margery, lovingly. 
 
 All this you may be sure, is creating pure rapture in the 
 bosom of the young man, who is still standing transfixed 
 between the room and the balcony. His eyes are glitter- 
 ing by this time, his brow is black ! To say, indeed, that 
 Mr. Bellew is now on the verge of laying himself open to 
 a charge of manslaughter, would convey to you but a small 
 impression of the real state of his mind. Margery ! Mar- 
 gery ! sitting on that fellow's knee, looking into his eyes, 
 and actually thumping him ! (That loving thump had gone 
 to his very soul.) Good heavens ! What a sorry fool he 
 has been. 
 
 He brings the leg that has been lagging on the balcony 
 into the room, with a resounding thud that rouses the two 
 at the piano. They both look up at him, but if he had 
 expected to draw forth signs of guilt upon their counte- 
 nances, he has made a great mistake. So far from being 
 even disconcerted by his sudden appearance, Miss Daryl 
 maintains an unmoved exterior, and is sufficiently lost to
 
 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 101 
 
 all feelings of remorse as to continue her seat upon Mr. 
 Paulyn's knee. 
 
 "There you are, Curzon," she says, quite carelessly 
 which being a self-evident fact calls for no rejoinder from 
 the infuriated young man. 
 
 "Ah, Bellevv ! Glad to see you. How are you, old 
 chap ?" asks Paulyn, who seems to be overflowing with 
 good nature. 
 
 "Quite well, thank you." In a freezing tone, and with 
 a glance full of the deadliest hatred. 
 
 "That's all right! So am I," declares Mr. Paulyn, 
 cheerfully, as though sure of the other's reception of this 
 satisfactory news. "Oh, by Jove, here's Angelica." He 
 bundles Margery off his knee without apology, and hur- 
 ries toward his younger cousin, who pauses when she sees 
 him, and spreads abroad her pretty hands in sheer amaze- 
 ment, and colors generously. 
 
 Like a pale lily she stands, erect, slender, half-child, 
 half-woman. Mr. Paulyn, who is doubtless a person of 
 good taste, seems delighted with her, and kisses her warmly 
 .n cousinly fashion, an infliction to which she submits 
 calmly, but without any expressed disapprobation. She 
 even smiles upon him but from a distance, as it were and 
 seems rather glad than otherwise because of his presence. 
 
 "Well, she hasn't starved you, at all events. .You were 
 always slight, you know," says Tommy, gazing at her in- 
 tently. 
 
 This remarkable speech is received in an amazed silence, 
 that gives time for the door to be again flung open to ad- 
 mit the twins, who rush tumultuously toward him, and 
 fling their little plump arms around his neck. 
 
 " Indeed, I might even go further and say she has fat- 
 tened you," continued Tommy, holding back the twins at 
 arms' length, both to study their proportions and to avoid 
 their caresses, which are numerous and clammy. 
 
 This remark also seems full of puzzlement to those 
 around him ; even the twins, who never think of anything 
 under the sun, are roused by it, and look inquisitive. 
 
 "Well, how does she treat you ?" asks the Honorable 
 Tommy, sinking his voice to a mysterious whisper. " Is she 
 supportable, or the very devil, eh ? I'm afraid it's the latter. 
 But you'll have to bear up, you know. ' A frog he would 
 a-wooing go, whether his mother would have it or no ! ' 
 Old song ! 'Member it ? That's your case with Billy, don't 
 vou see ? "
 
 102 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "But " begins Margery, eagerly. 
 
 "Yes, of course. I quite understand all that. Beastly 
 hard upon you all. But what I say is don't give in to 
 her too much ! Hold up your heads. March ! Give your- 
 selves airs ! There's a lot of you, and only one of her, and 
 I don't see why the crowd shouldn't win the day." 
 
 "There isn't any day to win," declares Angelica, lifting 
 her pencilled brows. " It's won already." 
 
 " Then more shame for you a poor spirited lot! "ex- 
 claims Mr. Paulyn, scornfully. "To be sat upon at the 
 very first assault. I'm disgusted with you all. I believed 
 there was some sort of go among you, and now ? That 
 kind is she, eh ?" with a startling drop from the high falu- 
 tin' to the ordinary gossipv tone. 
 
 "She? Who on earth, Tommy, are you alluding to ?" 
 asks Margery, with some asperity. 
 
 "Why to Mrs. Daryl, of course," very justly aggrieved. 
 "Who did you think ?" 
 
 " How often have I warned you that your incoherency 
 will be your ruin ! From the way you spoke one might 
 quite as easily believe you were talking of the man in the 
 moon as of Billy's wife." 
 
 "If you exert your brain a little bit, you will remember 
 that I said ' she,' " retorts Mr. Paulyn, who is now deeply 
 incensed. "And I never heard of a woman in the moon. 
 Did you ?" 
 
 " Here she is !" cry the twins at this moment in a breath. 
 All turn in a slightly awed manner to the door. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 "He said, 
 Or right or wrong, what came into his head." 
 
 AFTER all it is only Mrs. Billy herself who meets their 
 expectant gaze Mrs. Billy, gowned in a charming cos- 
 tume of white serge, and accompanied by Dick. Her 
 bonny face is wreathed in smiles, and she accosts Mar- 
 gery in quite a radiant fashion. 
 
 " See here, Meg. I've got a real good thing to " But 
 
 nt this she stops dead short, and the good thing is lost for- 
 ever. She stares inquiringly at Tommy, who is gener- 
 ously returning the attention, having his round eyes fixed
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 103 
 
 upon her. At last Mrs. Billy gives way. She smiles 
 broadly. 
 
 " You don't help me, Meg," she says, with a little laugh. 
 " The situation, I have no doubt is full of interest, but as 
 yet I am rather in the dark. Is this," with a second swift 
 glance at Paulyn, " another of your young men ? " 
 
 At this question, uttered in the airiest manner possible 
 Mr. Bellew who up to this has maintained a silence 
 charged with dynamite breaks into a short, sepulchral 
 laugh ! It ends almost as it began, and nobody takes the 
 slightest notice of it except Margery, who casts upon him 
 a glance fraught with many meanings. 
 
 " Certainly not," she says, in answer to the question. 
 "It is only Tommy. Tommy Paulyn ; you know." 
 
 "Why, yes, certainly," says Mrs. Billy, beaming upon 
 the Honorable Tommy, and holding out to him a friendly 
 hand. " When did you come, eh ? I seem to have known 
 you for centuries, the girls talk so much about you." 
 
 " The girls " look scornful Tommy grins. 
 
 "They would, you know " he says, giving his shirt 
 collar a cenceited pull. "They are so fond of me." 
 
 Mrs. Daryl laughs. 
 
 "Isn't it true, Angelica?" persists Mr. Paulyn, un- 
 daunted by the dark looks cast on him by that sedate 
 maiden. " Don t you love me ?" 
 
 " Have I said so, Tommy ? " asks she, in her quaint, 
 grave, quakerish fashion. 
 
 " A thousand times," replies he. 
 
 " I will not contradict you. I leave it to your con- 
 science ! " says the slim, tall, childish, little thing, with a 
 lovely reproach in her soft, steady eyes. 
 
 " You leave it in safe quarters then," declares the irre- 
 pressible Tommy, who seems to find a special joy in teas- 
 ing her. "You have named as umpire in this case about 
 the best thing of its kind. Don't mind her, Mrs. Daryl, 
 she adores me. Come over here, Angelica, and sit beside 
 me. I have a whole budget of news to open to you." 
 
 He backs toward a sofa as he speaks a patriarchal 
 piece of furniture that has been in the family for genera- 
 tions. 
 
 "No, I will not," says Angelica, with all the sweet, cold 
 sternness of a child. " You have not said what's true I 
 will not go near you." 
 
 " Then you'll be sorry presently," says Mr. Paulyn, 
 with conviction. " When I'm gone ! I shall only be here
 
 104 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 for a week or so at the farthest, and who knows when you 
 will see me again ! " Here he seats himself heavily upon 
 the ancient sofa, which creaks aloud in an expiring agony, 
 Tommy being no small weight. " I'm a bird of passage, 
 you know ; here to-day, and gone 
 
 The word " to-morrow " is squealed out in a stifled tone, 
 the old sofa having given way beneath him and buried 
 him among its ruins. In his exit Mr. Paulyn may be said 
 to have surpassed himself, naught of him being left to the 
 admiring audience save a pair of perfectly appointed legs. 
 Heels up the Honorable Tommy disappears from view. 
 
 But these heels being discovered a little later on, to be 
 full of animation, and indeed, kicking vigorously, the un- 
 happy victim of a sofa's weakness is once more hauled 
 into sight by those around. 
 
 "Well, I'm da . I'm bio . Oh, confound it!" 
 
 gasps he, growing irritable over his inability to give way 
 to naughty language in the presence of the girls. " What 
 the dooce is the good of a sofa like that, eh ? Regular 
 man-trap, what ? I'll take jolly good care I don't trust 
 myself to its tender mercies again." 
 
 "You have taken care," cries Margery, who is roaring 
 with laughter. " It's in bits, poor old thing. And such 
 an old friend as it was, too ! You ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself, Tommy." 
 
 "Well, I'm not," says Tommy, and then he joins in with 
 the majority and laughs perhaps the loudest of them all 
 at his mishap. Even Mr. Bellew has been so far im- 
 pressed by the scene as to forget his wrongs, and give way 
 to moody mirth ; but now, recollecting himself, goes back 
 once more to gloom, and the shadow of the window-cur- 
 tains. 
 
 "Are you staying at Branksmerc.? " asks Dick. "Mu- 
 riel said something about your coming." 
 
 " Yes, at Branksmere. Fine old place. By the bye," 
 glancing round him, confidentially and evidently accept- 
 ing Mrs. Billy as a confidante upon the spot. " I never 
 saw anything so awful as Muriel is looking! Like a 
 handsome ghost. White as paper, don't you know, and 
 her eyes as big as a pond." 
 
 " Elegant description ! " murmurs Dick, admiringly. 
 " Been getting it up, Tommy." 
 
 " She regularly frightened me, I can tell you. I used to 
 be spooney about that girl," confesses Mr. Paulyn, in a 
 loud clear voice. " I loved her like like well, like any-
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 105 
 
 tiling you know ; and now to find her so pale and and 
 still, rather took it out of me. Somebody ought to see to 
 it, you kno\v. Branksmere must be treating her very 
 queer to bring her to such a pass. I can't get her out 
 of my head," declares Mr. Paulyn, earnestly. " Kept 
 dreamin' of her all last night." 
 
 "You're in love with her still," laughs Mrs. Billy, gayly ; 
 " that's what's the matter with you." She has caught a 
 nervous light in Margery's eyes, and thus comes to her 
 support and comfort. 
 
 "Not a bit of it," says Tommy, stoutly. "Only she 
 worries me. She's as good as my sister, you know. In 
 fact, all the girls here make up the only idea of home I've 
 ever known. And I'm certain Muriel 
 
 " Is quite happy," interrupts Margery, decisively, her 
 face a little pale. "Why, what silly notion have you got 
 into your head now ? Is Muriel never to have a headache ? 
 never to look pale ? Is she such a favorite of the gods 
 that all the ills of life are to be held back from her ?" 
 
 " What I want to know is," says Mr. Paulyn who is 
 hopelessly unimpressed by this eager defence, "why she 
 married Branksmere. He's a good old chap enough and I 
 really like him, but there was that other fellow, Staines ; 
 he's staying there now by the way dooced bad taste of 
 him, J think well ! she was going to marry him awhile 
 ago, eh ? " 
 
 " I'm jolly glad she didn't," says Dick. 
 
 " So am I," supplements Angelica. " Dancing-master 
 sort of man ! " 
 
 " She married Branksmere because she chose to do so," 
 declares Margery, slowly. " Who shall arrange for her her 
 reasons." 
 
 " Not I for one," says Tommy. " But " 
 
 " You will understand that there are to be no ' buts' in 
 this case," interrupts Margery suddenly, with a little flash 
 of anger. " I will not have Muriel's motives publicly can- 
 vassed. Do you hear ? " Her eyes are bright, her lips 
 tremulous. 
 
 "Ah! I've discovered it," cries Mrs. Billy at this uncer- 
 tain moment, with the brisk air of one who has at last 
 achieved a victory over a teacherous memory. 
 
 " What ? " asks Angelica, eagerly. 
 
 " What it was I was going to say to Meg when first I 
 came into the room. It escaped me then, but now I have 
 it recaptured. Margery, a word with you."
 
 106 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 She draws Meg aside, out of hearing, out of the late dis- 
 cussion altogether, and, whatever she says to her, in a 
 minute or two the angry flush fades from the girl's face, 
 and she grows calm again, if still a little sad. 
 
 As for Tommy, he is left upon the field in a distinctly 
 injured frame of mind. 
 
 "It is an odd thing if I can't discuss the girls well-being 
 among themselves," he protests indignantly. "It is all 
 very fine their pretending to be so independent, but I'm 
 their cousin, and a sort of a guardian, by Jove. In fact, 
 I feel as if they were all flung upon my shoulders now, 
 somehow. Billy is, of course, too much taken up with 
 his late purchase to see anything beyond his nose, and 
 Peter" (mildly), " is about the biggest fool I know ?" 
 
 At this one of the twins bursts into a fit of inextinguish- 
 able laughter. So pure, so jolly it is, that perforce most 
 of the others chime in with it. Mr. Paulyn, however, re- 
 gards the outburst with a grave eye. 
 
 "That child's not well," he says slowly. "Somebody 
 had better look to it. If that severe paroxysm continues 
 much longer I wouldn't answer for the consequences." 
 
 "What is it, May, Blanche?" asks Dick, who generally 
 addresses each of the twins by both their names, so as to 
 make sure of them. But May is still beyond speech. 
 
 " Pat her on the back, somebody, mild'ly but firmly," en- 
 treats Mr. Paulyn generally, shifting his glass from his 
 right to his left eye. "Give it her strong. Now then, 
 my poor child. Better, eh ? Well enough to explain ?" 
 
 "It's only this," cries May, with a faint relapse into her 
 explosive state, " that what you just now said of Peter, is 
 exactly what he said of you yesterday, that you were the 
 'biggest fool unhung.' That was how he put it." 
 
 "Ah! an improvement on my little speech," declares 
 Mr. Paulyn, unmoved. "Peter, if a little wanting, is still 
 a specially nice fellow, and to think me the biggest fool 
 unhung only proves the truth of my opinion of him. You 
 agree with me, Bellew?" dragging into the foreground 
 the morose young man among the window-curtains. 
 
 " Do I ?" says he, in a tone that warns Mr. Paulyn, "it 
 will be unsafe to follow up the argument." 
 
 "What is the matter with you this morning, Curzon ?" 
 asks Margery, who has again joined the throng. "You 
 look to me so sour, that I shouldn't think you would agree 
 with anyone." 
 
 " I don't want to," returns Mr. Bellew, with unwonted
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 107 
 
 force. His wrongs burn within him, and his anger waxes 
 warm. 
 
 " Lucky you ! as matters stand." 
 
 " I wonder you have the hardihood even to address me," 
 breaks out he in a vehement undertone his wrath at last 
 getting the better of him. He does not wait for her an- 
 swer to this, but turns abruptly aside, leaving her amazed 
 and indignant, and in fact, as she whispers to herself, with 
 a good deal " in for him ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 "Frowning they went." 
 
 MRS. BILLY is still laughing over May's" revelation of 
 Peter. 
 
 "Poor Peter," she is saying, "what a shame to betray 
 him. He certainly does say funny tilings at times." 
 
 "Not so funny as Dick," breaks in Blanche, airily, who 
 thinks she sees her way to creating a sensation at least 
 equal to May's. " He told us all about you before you 
 came. But I don't think he could have known, because 
 what he said wasn't a bit like you." 
 
 "What did he say ? Was it too flattering a picture he 
 drew ?" asks Wilhelmina, laughing again. 
 
 " Blanche ! " calls out Dick, who has grown very red. 
 "Go fetch me my fishing rod from the den, and I'll go 
 and get you some trout for your breakfast to-morrow." 
 
 " Not until you have given me Dick's portrait of me, 
 drawn from his inner consciousness," says Mrs. Daryl, mis- 
 chievously. "Now begin I was 
 
 " Tall very very big," nods the child, solemnly. " And 
 you are quite little after all. He said too, that you would 
 be a dreadful woman a sort of an Orson ! and that you 
 would 
 
 " Blanche ! " in an agony from Dick. 
 
 " You would hate little girls like me and May, and go 
 about the farm all day in topboots and leggings. You 
 wouldn't like leggings, would you now ?" 
 
 "No, no," assents Mrs. Billy. 
 
 "And he said you would always carry a cart-whip with 
 you, to strike the farm people with, just like Legree, and 
 Sambo, and Jumbo rec'lect ?"
 
 io8 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Perfectly. Oh ! Dick ! and so that was what you 
 thought of me. Say, Billy," accosting Mr. Daryl, who has 
 suddenly appeared in the doorway. " A fetching descrip- 
 tion, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " I'd have known it anywhere," says Daryl, who is now 
 shaking hands with and welcoming Tommy. "Staying 
 with Muriel, eh?" he asks. 
 
 " I'll tell you something," says Blanche, who is busy 
 adorning all Wilhelmina's buttonholes with primroses. 
 " Muriel isn't a bit like the rest of us. Is she now ? When 
 she gets in a rage 
 
 " Which is about once in a blue moon," interposes An- 
 gelica. 
 
 " She never stamps, or fumes, or boxes people's ears as 
 Meg does " 
 
 Here everybody laughs involuntarily. 
 
 "As anybody would do," corrects Blanche, with a peni- 
 tent glance at Margery. " She only stands straight up, 
 like this," drawing up her little fat body into an absurd 
 attempt at dignity. "And opens her eyes wide, like this, 
 and fastens up her fingers, so ! It is terrifying, I can tell 
 you," with a salient nod and the expressive little shrug of 
 the shoulders that is an heirloom in the Daryl family. " We 
 never vexed Muriel if we could help ourselves." 
 
 " Muriel was clever, it seems to me," exclaims Mrs. Billy. 
 " I wish you to understand, Billy, that now, at last, I know 
 the way to manage you. The wisdom of babes is astound- 
 ing. When next you give me a bad time /shall be terri- 
 fying. Blanche has just shown me how 1 shall draw myself 
 up, so," throwing herself into a pretty, but exaggerated 
 position, " and open my eyes, so ; and close my fingers 
 upon you, so," giving him a dainty little pinch, "and then 
 you'll be done for in no time!" She looks so bright, so 
 gay, so replete with honest life, so defiant, yet so loving 
 withal, that Billy must be forgiven for resorting to instant 
 measures for the reducing of her to order. He gives her 
 first a sound shake and then a sound kiss. 
 
 "And that's what Til do ! " says he. 
 
 " Billy! what a Barbarian you are ! " cries she, blushing 
 hotly at this breach of etiquette, but as they are all enjoy- 
 ing her discomfiture, she gives up expostulation, and pres- 
 ently her laugh is the clearest and merriest among them. 
 
 " Pity the ball next Thursday isn't a fancy one," says 
 Angelica. "You could manage to look a part I am sure. 
 As a rule, I ana told, the Madame Favarts look like Joan
 
 LADY BRA NKSMERE. 
 
 109 
 
 of Arcs, and the Marie Stuarts like Serpolettes. That must 
 rather destroy the effect." 
 
 "What are you going to wear, Meg?" asks Tommy 
 Paulyn. 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " 'Nothing.' My dear girl, consider. We are advanced 
 enough in all conscience, but there still is a line !" 
 
 "I'm notgoing," says Miss Daryl. "That is what I mean." 
 
 " Not going?" 
 
 " No. The fact is, I haven't a gown," declares Margery, 
 bluntly, disdaining subterfuge, and secure in the thought 
 that it is too late for anyone touched by her state to order 
 one for her." 
 
 "Nonsense, Meg," cries Mrs. Daryl, sharply. "Of 
 course you are going. Why, your gown came half an hour 
 ago by the mid-day train. I'm wool-gathering to-day. 
 That is another thing I forgot to tell you. It isupst " 
 
 But there is no longer a Margery to address. Miss 
 Daryl has flown from the room, and presently returns to 
 them with a mystic mass of tulle and lace carried rever- 
 ently between her outstretched arms. 
 
 "Ah ! Willy, what can I say?' whispers she; tears in 
 her soft eyes. 
 
 "Why you little pretty goose ! Did you think I could 
 enjoy myself without you ? It is all selfishness," smiles 
 Wilhelmina. 
 
 "There is Peter!" cries Margery, presently, in an ex- 
 cited tone (they have all gone into raptures over Worth's 
 last triumph by this time). "He is coming across the 
 lawn. He must see it too." She runs to the window and 
 waves her handkerchief with frantic grace. 
 
 "Peter! Peter! Peter! Pi i i per," calls she, gay ly. 
 At last he hears her, and leisurely (being ignorant of the 
 greatness of the occasion) crosses the lawn lower down 
 and comes up to her. 
 
 " Why on earth can't you hurry yourself," cries she. 
 
 "The day is long and patience is a virtue to be culti- 
 vated ! " 
 
 "Perhaps," ironically, "You think you have it." 
 
 "I knoui I have it." 
 
 " Pouf ! How men deceive themselves : 
 
 ' Patience is a virtue, 
 Catch it if you can ; 
 It is seldom in a woman. 
 But never never NE-VER in a man 1 '
 
 no LADY BKANKSMERE, 
 
 However, don't mind that, Peter! come in until I show you 
 my new gown that Willy has given me. Isn't it a beauty ? 
 A lovely thing ?" 
 
 " It is indeed a charming dress," says Peter, looking at 
 Wilhelmina as gratefully as though the gift to this, his fa- 
 vorite sister, had been made to himself. 
 
 ''Where is Curzon ? " he asks presently. "I thought 
 he was here." 
 
 At this they all looked round. 
 
 " He certainly was here a minute or two ago," says 
 Dick, who has been heaping ashes on his head ever since 
 Blanche's disclosure, but now thinks it better to assert 
 himself, if only to see how the land lies. 
 
 " He went away," says little May, blandly, " he was 
 cross with Meg, and I think lie didn't like Willie to give 
 her the pretty new frock, because the moment he saw it 
 he went out of the window." Oh ! terrible eyes of in^ 
 fancy what smallest mood escapes you ! Margery feels 
 that the gaze of those assembled is, by this untoward 
 speech, fastened expectantly upon her. 
 
 " I think he was vexed about something," she stammers. 
 " But I don't know what it was." 
 
 " He is walking up and down the garden," cries Blanche, 
 who has been peeping round the window. " He has his 
 eyes," excitedly, " glued to the ground. I'm sure, I'm certain 
 he is looking for cockroaches ! " 
 
 " Looking for a reason for his ill-temper more likely," 
 says Margery disdainfully. 
 
 "Go and find him, and have it out," says Mr. Paulyn, 
 good-naturedly. 
 
 ''Why should I? One would think it was a tooth you 
 were talking about!" returns Miss Daryl indignantly. 
 "Go and have it out with him yourself. He was looking 
 daggers at you all the time he was indoors. What have 
 /got to do with him ?" 
 
 " I leave your own innate sense of truth to answer that 
 question, Margaret," says Mr. Paulyn solemnly. 
 
 "No you don't," wrathfully, "you want to answer it 
 yourself. It is a most extraordinary thing, Tommy, 
 that you will interfere in the affairs of other people." 
 
 "It is my opinion that you have had a right down 
 flare-up with him," says the Honorable Tommy, un- 
 abashed. 
 
 " Do you really think, after all your experience, that 
 such an opinion as yours is of any consequence at all ? "
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. in 
 
 " A reg'lar shindy," persists Mr. Paulyn, untouched by 
 this scathing remark. 
 
 "Pshaw!" exclaims she, in an accent of unmixed 
 scorn, and stepping through the southern window may be 
 seen presently marching off in the 'direction of the wood, 
 a route that will convey her far from the garden made ob- 
 noxious by Mr. Bellew's presence. 
 
 She is hardly gone upon her solitary journey, when the 
 upper window is darkened by the incoming form of that 
 moody young man. He looks forlorn and crestfallen and 
 altogether out of it, as one might say. He comes awk- 
 wardly in, and gazes eagerly, but somewhat shamefacedly, 
 around, and then looks distinctly-blank. 
 
 " Looking for Margery ? " asked Peter blithely. 
 
 "No. Oh no," returns Bellew, with a miserable at- 
 tempt at a lie. 
 
 " If you are," insists Peter, with a noble disregard of 
 this feeble assertion, "you'll find her in the beech wood." 
 
 "She is only just gone," puts in Mr. Paulyn, with an 
 encouraging air. "The trail is still fresh. . If you hurry 
 you'll catch it." 
 
 " I'll catch it, anyway," returns Mr. Bellew, darkly, as 
 with a gloomy eye he drops once more on to the veranda, 
 and turns his footsteps in the track of his false love. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Spring half raised her drowsy head 
 
 Besprent with drifted snow, 
 " I'll send an April day," she said, 
 
 " To lands of wintry woe.'' 
 He came the winter's overthrow 
 
 With showers that sing and shine, 
 Pied daisies round your path to strow, 
 
 To be your Valentine. 
 
 IT is now close upon noon. In the wood a sombre light, 
 sweet and delicate, is playing upon the opening buds and 
 the greening branches. Through the heavy fir-trees the 
 sun is glinting, making warm patches of color upon the 
 mossy sward. The dells and smoother bits of grass are 
 gay with primroses and daffodils, and one tiny hillock 
 over yonder, is an actual white and purple glory of 
 hyacinth and blue bells. There are touches of coming
 
 112 LADY BRANA'SMERE. 
 
 summer in all the air, in the widening leaves, the dancing 
 rays, the warm, springy feeling of the turf beneath one's 
 feet. 
 
 The song of thrush and linnet greets one from every 
 bough. The sky is blue as blue can be ; the soft gi~ay 
 feathery buds in the hedgerows are growing fat ; earth 
 hath 
 
 " Put forth a thousand sudden flowers 
 To spread a couch," 
 
 and a languorous wind makes plaintive music in the 
 beech-grove below. 
 
 The pale dog-violets have all burst out a-flowering, and 
 already the meadows are gay with marguerites, white and 
 yellow. But the finest flower among them all is the fair, 
 pensive maiden, with lily drooping head, who steps be- 
 tween them with a careless grace, and crossing the bril- 
 liant meads enters the cool, dark woods beyond. 
 
 She is not singing as is her wont ; but goes with bent 
 head, and with lips mute and half-saddened, and with 
 lowered lids. Swiftly, too, she goes not lingering to 
 gaze with loving eyes at each fresh-born wonder at her 
 feet or to drink in more deeply the full ecstasy of the 
 air, or to hearken to the glad oratorios the birds are giving 
 in the mystic recesses of the wood, but hastening always 
 as though to escape from her very self. 
 
 Perhaps it is sometimes easier to escape from one's self 
 than from a determined lover. This thought occurs to 
 Margery, when, happening to glance back through the 
 thickening foliage, she sees Mr. Bellew afar off, plainly in 
 hot pursuit of her. It may be that she is not altogether 
 displeased with this discovery, because though she shrugs 
 her shoulders with a disdain that terrifies a simple robin 
 chirping on a bush near by, she still smiles, as if involun- 
 tarily, and a little gratified expression, full of vanity satis- 
 fied, curves her red lips. 
 
 She takes no outward heed, however, of the on-comer, 
 but pursues her way as though his near approach is a 
 thing unknown to her. There are, indeed (if the truth be 
 told), a good many little ways about Miss Daryl that might 
 seem to the uninitiated, genuine and guileless in the ex- 
 treme, but that in reality are disgracefully false, and meant 
 only for the discomfiture (and sometimes for the total 
 annihilation) of those whose greatest fault lies in the fact 
 of their loving her too well ! It must be admitted that
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 113 
 
 her admirers lead but a sorry life of it. She can take them 
 up so easily, and, alas ! let them down so easily again when 
 they grow tiresome, that their short spells of joy are as a 
 rule but matters for commiseration. To her it is possible 
 to be sweet, petulant, coy, cruel, almost in a breath. In- 
 deed, to follow out her manoeuvres, even for a day, would 
 be to some people a useful study. 
 
 Now, having arrived at a spot that appears to her to be 
 good for the inevitable interview with Bellew, she takes 
 up a position so full of melancholy, that the young man, 
 drawing every moment nearer, is almost crushed by it. 
 She is leaning in a mournful attitude against a huge 
 fir-tree, with her shapely head thrown well back against 
 the bark of it, and her gaze uplifted in pensive thought to 
 the azure heavens above. There is a sense of injury about 
 her lips, and her eyes are still angry. Mr. Bellew's heart 
 dies within him. Be she ever so guilty it is terrible to 
 him that she should look like this ! 
 
 A crackling of the dry leaves beneath his feet gives her 
 the chance of being aware of his presence. Slowly, very 
 slowly, she turns upon him the lovely, wrathful eyes, and 
 fixes him with a reproachful stare. 
 
 "Is no place safe from you ?" she demands, in an icy 
 tone. " Am I never to be alone ? I wonder after all the 
 cruelty you have shown me, you have the the hardihood" 
 with a swiftly malicious glance at him from under her 
 long lashes "to approach me." 
 
 "I wish I had not said that," says the young man, 
 humbly. " It was an odious word. How could I have 
 used it when speaking to you. But He looks at 
 
 her. 
 
 "But what?" imperiously. 
 
 " Margery ! think how I saw you first to-day." 
 
 " How you saw me ? In this old gown ! To which, if 
 you are not accustomed, you ought to be." 
 
 " It is a lovely gown, and you look lovely in it," says 
 Curzon gloomily. " But it has nothing to do with it. 
 When I came in through the window you were sitting on 
 
 that fellow's ' Here he stops short as if choking for 
 
 a moment or two, and then bursts out again " knee ! " he 
 cries vehemently, as though the hateful word has been 
 blown out of him. 
 
 "So that is it?" says Miss Daryl, regarding him con- 
 temptuously. " All the vile temper you displayed this 
 morning arose out of the fact that I sat on Tommy Paulyn's
 
 H4 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 knee ! " A little irrepressible laugh breaks from her, but 
 she stifles it sternly. No ! she will not give way to frivolity 
 on this occasion. His manner is altogether too abomin- 
 able ! " You might as well find fault with me for sitting 
 on Billy's or Peter's knee," she goes on scornfully. " It 
 would be quite the same thing, I assure you, except that I 
 should prefer Billy, he wouldn't jig one so. So that's all 
 the excuse you can give for your base conduct ? Have 
 you taken leave of your senses ?" 
 
 "No," says Mr. Bellew, his eyes on the ground ; "my 
 senses are with me now, as then. They were all with me 
 when I saw you kiss him ! " 
 
 " Is there anything strange in that ? I have kissed him 
 since I was so high," pointing to about an inch or so from 
 the ground. "You forget he is an old, old friend." 
 
 " So am I, yet you have never 
 
 " I should think not, indeed. You will be good enough 
 to remember that he is my cousin." 
 
 " One can marry a cousin ! " puts in Mr. Bellew, irrele- 
 vantly, but with the deepest anguish. It melts her for the 
 moment. 
 
 "Well," she says, impatiently ; " I'm not going to marry 
 Tommy, if that is what you mean." 
 
 " If," looking up eagerly, " I could be sure of that ! " A 
 little glow of hope comes into his face. 
 
 " Or anyone else, for that matter ! " 
 
 The glow fades, and he grows pale again but a touch 
 of determination comes into his handsome eyes. 
 
 " Look here ! " he says, gazing straight at her. " If you 
 are not going to marry him are you going to marry me ? 
 I want to get an answer to that question now." 
 
 " It is a pity, Curzon," remarks Miss Daryl, with a slight 
 frown, " that you will permit yourself such brusqueness 
 of demeanor. It is very distressing ! Your manner is 
 positively farouche at times ; it quite takes one's breath 
 away." 
 
 "Answer me," says Curzon, obstinately. 
 
 "Your asking me now suggests to me the possibility 
 that you are very desirous of getting 'no' for an answer," 
 replies Miss Daryl, with a stern glance. "After your 
 dreadful behavior of this morning, I wonder you have the 
 1 hardi ' " 
 
 "Is that wretched word to be remembered forever?" 
 interrupts he, desperately. " Good heavens ! how I 
 wish it had never been coined. Think how seldom I of-
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 115 
 
 fend you, and don't follow up this one sin to its death. 
 To my death, I verily believe it will be," winds he up, with 
 a groan. 
 
 " Seldom ? " repeats she. " How little you understand 
 yourself. In my opinion you are the most offending man 
 I know." 
 
 " You are talking nonsense ! " says Bellew, indignantly. 
 " I am your slave, as all the world knows. It ought " 
 bitterly " it can see daily for itself how abject is my sub- 
 mission." 
 
 " I don't want a slave ! " declares she, with an angry 
 glance suggestive of tears. "It is very rude of you to 
 suppose so. Am I a South American planter ? And to 
 talk of slaves ! If you called yourself Mrs. Amyot's sJiadow 
 you would be nearer the mark ! " 
 
 "Stuff ! " says Mr. Bellew, more forcibly than elegantly. 
 " You don't believe a word of that. And if I \vere in love 
 with her, it would only serve you right. We might be 
 quits then."* 
 
 "Why ? /haven't fallen in love with anyone in a hope- 
 lessly idiotic manner, have I? And as for 'serving me 
 right' (whatever that remarkable speech may mean), why, 
 if you think it would distress me, your falling in love with 
 anyone, you are immensely mistaken, and I would advise 
 you to dispel from your mind at once all such illusions." 
 
 This speech seems to Bellew to herald the end of all 
 things. 
 
 " You are cruel beyond imagination," he says, slowly. 
 " I hate a heartless woman." 
 
 " So do I. For once we are agreed. That is why I take 
 care never to part with mine." 
 
 " One must possess a thing, to be in a position to part 
 with it." 
 
 " True, oh king ! " 
 
 " Have you a heart at all ? " 
 
 " Have you ?" 
 
 "Who should answer that question but you you, who 
 possess it ? " 
 
 " Poof ! " says she, contemptuously, " you are but a poor 
 reasoner ; a moment ago you doubted my having such 
 an unsatisfactory article, and now you accuse me of hav- 
 ing misappropriated yours. How is one to grasp your 
 meaning ? " 
 
 "We are talking nonsense," declares the young man, 
 angrily. "We shall be quarrelling soon." There is no
 
 ii6 LADY BRAA 7 KSMERE. 
 
 irony intended in this remark, though it might reasonably 
 be supposed by an impartial listener to be full of it. 
 
 " I never quarrel," declares she superbly, uptilting her 
 charming nose, "except with the boys. They like it, so 
 I do it with them out of sheer good nature. But other- 
 wise " She shrugs her shoulders. 
 
 " Perhaps you think I like it, too ? " 
 
 " I have told you already that I should not dream of 
 quarrelling with you ; and as for thinking about you "- 
 disdainfully "I never do that." 
 
 " You are a shameless coquette ! " exclaims Mr. Bellew, 
 driven to desperation and bad language by this cruel 
 assertion. 
 
 Silence ! A terrible silence ! No woman, if born a 
 coquette, likes to be called so. Most women who couldn't 
 be coquettish to save their lives, are delighted if you will 
 call them so. Miss Daryl belonging to the first class is 
 now hopelessly offended. She turns deliberately away 
 from Curzon, and, clasping her hands behind her back, 
 commences an exhaustive survey of the landscape. 
 
 It is a rich picture that spreads itself before her. The 
 Manor woods, though hardly extensive, are in themselves 
 lovely, and beyond, adjoining them to the east, are the 
 forests of Branksmere the glowing heights and hollows 
 now rich with bursting verdure. Down, far away beneath 
 her, is the little leafy dell where Muriel had lingered on 
 that first night of her return home, to let wild thoughts 
 of a lost past grow warm within her breast. Dangerous 
 thoughts, treacherous, vain, that would have been better 
 buried out of sight, and killed for want of feeding. 
 
 To Margery, this pretty, innocent-looking spot seems 
 full of sadness. Reticent as -Muriel by nature was, and is, 
 still the younger sister had known much of her love-affair 
 with Captain Staines had known among other things 
 that this sheltered hollow was the trysting place of the 
 lovers a place to be avoided by her Margery all last 
 autumn, as being sacred to them alone. 
 
 She almost forgets Curzon now, as her eyes dwell upon 
 it, and unconsciously she sighs audibly. This resigned 
 expression of a hidden grief is misconstrued by her com- 
 panion, and compels him to speech. 
 
 " I think I am the most unfortunate man on earth," he 
 begins, with amazing calmness, considering the nature of 
 his statement. Doubtless it is the calmness that savors of 
 despair. " I have offended you twice to-day." Both these
 
 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 117 
 
 remarks being positive assertions, delivered in a tone thav 
 admits of no argument, Miss Daryl very wisely declines to 
 combat them. 
 
 Her continued silence is more than Mr. Bellew has 
 strength to endure. 
 
 "Meg!" he says, in a voice replete with misery and 
 contrition. His face so exactly corresponds with his voice 
 that Margery relents in so far that she permits herself to 
 be instantly down upon him. 
 
 " Now, once for all ! " she declares, " I won't be called 
 by that name again. Meg! It is monstrous ! It reminds 
 me of nothing on earth save a goat ! and that hateful 
 nursery rhyme the boys used to drum into my ears long 
 ago 
 
 ' Meg-a-geg-geg, 
 Let go my leg.' 
 
 Now, remember ! for the future I forbid you so to address 
 me." 
 
 " Margery, then," meekly. 
 
 " Certainly not. 
 
 ' See-saw, Margery-daw.' 
 
 That is, if possible, worse. Do you think I am without 
 feeling, that you so seek to annoy me ? I wish I had had 
 the transporting of my god-parents." 
 
 " I will call you by any name you choose," declares lie, 
 submissively. 
 
 "Margaret, then. There is something respectable about 
 that. No flippancy no vulgar rhymes are connected 
 with it." 
 
 " I am glad to know at last, what pleases you Margaret," 
 returns he, evenly, his gaze rivetted upon the turf at his 
 feet. If he dared he would have liked to smile, but such 
 a luxury, he feels, is at this moment forbidden him. He 
 therefore contents himself with staring rigidly at a tuft 
 of grass that in reality possesses for him no sort of inter- 
 est at all, and would have been called by him a shabby bit 
 of verdure had he given it a thought. 
 
 "You are longing to say something," says Miss Daryl 
 at last, who has been regarding him with profound dis- 
 pleasure for at least two minutes. "Why don't you do 
 it?" 
 
 " You are right. I want to tell you how glad I am that
 
 n8 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 you have at last made up your mind to go to the County 
 Ball." 
 
 "Willie made it up for me you mean. Don't mix mat- 
 ters." 
 
 "And to-morrow you are going to Sir Mutius Mumm's 
 afternoon ?" 
 
 " I suppose so. All the world is to be there, and one 
 should at least patronize one's uncle." 
 
 Bellew is quite aware that she has not as yet forgiven 
 him, by the little petulant fashion in which she keeps her 
 head turned away and directed to that grassy rendezvous, 
 that once had been so dear to Muriel. His eyes follow 
 hers, and grow a little wider as they rest on a solitary 
 figure a woman's figure that slowly and wearily enters 
 it, and sinks in a dejected attitude upon a mossy throne 
 that decorates its nearest side. It is not long a solitary 
 figure ! Even as they both gaze spellbound at it, a man 
 steps lightly from the brushwood outside and advances to- 
 ward it. There is a suggestion of surprise in the way the 
 first tall, graceful form rises to receive this last comer, 
 and then Bellew, as if aware that Margery has grown 
 deadly pale (though her back is turned to him) and that 
 she would gladly believe herself sole witness of this vague 
 scene beneath her, turns abruptly away, and concentrates 
 his gaze on the Branksmere turrets that are rising gray 
 and ived through the swelling trees. 
 
 In a very little while, in a moment as it were, he feels 
 the light touch of her hand upon his arm. Though light 
 still, it is heavier than usual, and, being the true lover that 
 he is, he feels a sense of pain thrill through him, that runs 
 from her to him. She is very white, and her eyes have a 
 strange gleam in them. She has evidently altogether for- 
 gotten that there was any disagreement between them. 
 
 " Take me home, Curzon," she says, faintly. " I am 
 tired ; deadly tired." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Some men are of a very cheerful disposition, and God forbid that all 
 such should be condemned for lightness. 
 
 Last night was full of tears, but now the sad reign of 
 weeping is at an end, and the passionate storm that raged 
 in the dark, small hours has left no trace on the smiling
 
 LADY PRANKSMERE. 119 
 
 earth, save the sweet shedding of white blossoms on the 
 garden paths. Great Pluvius has sunk to rest, and Dies- 
 pater, Father of Day, has arisen in all his might, clad about 
 with glorious sunbeams, and glad with the breath of many 
 flowers. 
 
 The tennis courts without are thronged with guests ; 
 the halls, the corridors, the vestibules are all full of them ; 
 and Miss Mumm, standing stiff and starch in her drawing- 
 room to receive the late arrivals, with her small curls 
 hanging crisply on either side of her pursed-up mouth, 
 is full of importance and, in a degree, more unapproach- 
 able than usual. 
 
 The room that acknowledges her presence is in every 
 way worthy of her, with its square stiff ottomans, its gilt 
 chairs covered with priceless tapestry, its heavily-moulded 
 cornices, and the general air of unbending propriety that 
 characterizes it. It is a last century room, not without its 
 charm if viewed in a certain light a room in which state- 
 ly minuets and graceful gavottes might have been treaded 
 in ancient days by dead and gone folk who thought more 
 of snuff than morality, and who saw greater glory in the 
 successful achievement of an intrigue than in the con- 
 quering of a kingdom ; people who simpered and lisped 
 in flowered sacks and powdered wigs, in lace ruffles and 
 high-heeled shoes, and got through life with the help of 
 an epigram or two, and a perpetual shower of wearisome 
 and carefully prepared but strictly impromptu (?) bon mots. 
 
 Miss Mumm is holding forth in her usual dictatorial 
 style to old Lady Primrose about Muriel, who, it appears, 
 after all, has disappointed her expectations in many ways. 
 Old Lady Primrose is feebly entering a protest here and 
 there, and is looking a little distressed, which is only nat- 
 ural, the person attacked being her hostess. 
 
 "She may be good ! " Miss Mumm is saying in between 
 her greetings to the wife of the local practitioner and the 
 Hon. Mrs. Hornblower, which differ widely in texture. 
 "She may be ; I'm her aunt and should know. And she 
 may be charming, too, as you say," with heavy and dam- 
 ning emphasis upon the "may." "But I fear she is care- 
 less. I have noticed many little defects in her ; many 
 leanings toward the frivolous side of life ; much desire 
 for riotous living. Yes, she is careless. I fear she won't 
 do." Here Lady Primrose, who is deafer than ever to- 
 day, grows very mixed, and begins to think she has gone 
 a good deal wrong in her understanding of Miss Mumm's
 
 120 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 discourse, and that she is alluding not to her niece, Lady 
 Branksmere, but to some incompetent upper housemaid. 
 
 "You are alluding to ?" she asks, uncertainly, an 
 
 anxious frown upon her furrowed brow. 
 
 "Why, to Muriel Lady Branksmere. Can't you follow 
 me ?" shouts Miss Mumm, as loud as decency will permit. 
 
 "Of course, of course. I can hear you. I beg you will 
 not distress yourself like that. One would think I was 
 deaf," says the old lady, irritably. 
 
 " She has got no stamina," goes on Miss Mumm. 
 " She's all for glow and glitter ; solid worth is of no ac- 
 count in her eyes. For example, look at the improve- 
 ments she is organizing up at the Castle. She has thrown 
 up a few earthworks and calls 'em terraces. Terraces, 
 forsooth ! and to manage that she takes away the walk be- 
 neath the arbutus trees that always was there even in the 
 days of the old man's grandfather, I'm told." 
 
 " So I've heard ! So I've heard ! Threw up everything, 
 an' went off with her in a post-chaise," mumbles Lady 
 Primrose, who is now dreadfully at sea again. Fortu- 
 nately she is not " understanded of " Miss Mumm, who pur- 
 sues her way unchecked by doubts. 
 
 "The avenue in itself would tell a tale. I was driving 
 up there yesterday, and saw weeds positively weeds- 
 growing at the sides of it. I stopped the carriage, got 
 out, and counted twenty ! With me, seeing is believing, 
 I take nothing on hearsay, but I counted those weeds with 
 my own eyes. Now, weeds are as pushing as parvenus, 
 and, like them, should be eradicated." 
 
 "Quite right, quite right. Have no sympathy with 
 Radicals myself ; can't endure 'em," quavers the older 
 woman, shaking her head in a palsied fashion. 
 
 " Why should weeds be found upon her avenue at all ? " 
 continues Miss Mumm, who is now mounted on her 
 hobby, and rides away again without hearing the ramblings 
 of Lady Primrose. "Of course, if one's servants are not 
 looked after, what can you expect. If I had forty as I 
 believe that silly young woman really has I should keep 
 my eye on everyone of them. They will do nothing, 
 I have learned from sad experience, unless the mistress is 
 after their tails morning, noon, and night. Now, weeds, 
 they will take no trouble about. Off they whisk the 
 heads, leaving the roots behind them, whereas if one hopes 
 to keep their place decent, they must be got out of the 
 ground root and branch."
 
 LADY BRANICSMRRR. 121 
 
 "Ay, ay. Root 'em out. Root 'em out!" gabbles the 
 old lady with senile enthusiasm. " Lord Foozil thinks 
 withjtw/. They shouldn't be allowed to live," with a wild 
 cackle. "That's what he says ;" cuck cuck. 
 
 "Eh?" says Miss Mumm, staring at her with sudden 
 suspicion. 
 
 " They shouldn't have a vote if he had his way. It's 
 monstrous how they're spreading. Country's going to 
 perdition. That's what he says. Clever fellow, Foozil ? 
 Eh ? eh ? " 
 
 " Pshaw !" exclaims Miss Mumm, indignantly, turning 
 on her heel and leaving the old lady still cackling and 
 mumbling contentedly over her Radicals. 
 
 Outside, the gardens being in unison witli the furni- 
 ture within- are simply exquisite. Give me an old world 
 garden, full of sweets and careless grace, to all the stiff 
 ribbon borders and stereotyped modern beds in the world. 
 Here the tall, trimly-clipped yew hedge conceals a pleas- 
 aunce made gay with flowers of a century ago, and the 
 gaudy hues of the strutting peacocks who walk in stately 
 fashion to each new-comer to demand the customary toll 
 of bread or biscuit. The small cries of countless robins 
 fill the air, little, gentle denizens that seem to have adopted 
 this calm retreat as their own special domain, where they 
 may hop about in undisturbed delight on the marble basins 
 of the fountains, and twitter frivolously to their hearts' 
 content from the shoulders of a dismantled Venus or 
 Apollo. 
 
 "Fair is the season with new leaves, 
 Bright blooms, green grass, 
 And cries of plough-lime." 
 
 The pleasaunce is crowded with gay groups dotted here 
 and there. Through the open windows beyond the wall 
 of rhododendrons come snatches of Mozart and Dussek. 
 From farther still the laughter of the tennis players, and 
 the triumphant cry that tells of a game won. Mrs. Amyot, 
 in a gown of sap-green, is lounging leisurely on a low 
 garden chair, and is holding her court gayly. A little far- 
 ther on, Lady Branksmere, in a marvellous costume of 
 Venetian red, looks like a spot of blood in the assembly, 
 while Angelica, leaning on the back of her chair, in a little 
 white nun-like frock, and with a wrapt expression on her 
 face, makes a charming contrast. 
 
 " Who is the old man over there ? " asks Lord Primrose, 
 presently, who is perhaps not so well acquainted with his
 
 122 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 host as might be termed advisable. Margery, who over- 
 hears him, laughs. 
 
 " Hush ! Mutius Mumm is the \vord for him," she 
 whispers, mischievously. 
 
 " What a name ! " says Primrose. " So that is really your 
 uncle ? You do him credit, let me tell you, and I should 
 think he wants all he can get. What's the matter with his 
 head ? He doesn't belong to any particular order, does 
 he ? " 
 
 At this, Margery, Angelica and Dick, who is lying 
 about somewhere near, give way to appreciative laughter. 
 
 "That bald spot was a thing full of interest to us for 
 years," says Margery, gayly. " We used to make baby bets 
 about, it. And every year it grew carefully bigger and 
 bigger! Such an old head as he has! First we used to 
 compare his patch to a threepenny bit, then as it increased 
 with our years and his, a fourpenny. Then it became a 
 sixpence, then a shilling, then a llorin, and then all at 
 once, as it were, it changed into a five-shilling piece ! 
 When it came to that point it staggered us a good deal I 
 can tell you. but Tommy" indicating Mr. Paulyn, by a 
 wave of her fan "came to the rescue. He surmounted 
 the difficulty. A brilliant thought occurred to him. The 
 first 
 
 "Of a long series," interrupts Mr. Paulyn, modestly, yet 
 with a reproachful glance at her. What had she been go- 
 ing to say? "I employed but one letter to effect the 
 desired comparison. It instantly made Sir Mutius' pate a 
 plate." 
 
 "A cheese plate," supplements Margery. "It stayed at 
 that for some time, but now it is a soup plate. We expect 
 no more from it. We feel it has done its duty." 
 
 "Why don't he do something for it?" demands Prim- 
 rose, casting an indignant eye through his glass at the dis- 
 tant Sir Mutius. " It's very abominable his going about 
 like that in his skin." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't talk so unguardedly, my dear fel- 
 low," says Halkett, gravely, " when you know there are 
 ladies present. Jt it's not decent! " 
 
 " Of Sir Mutius ? No, that's what I'm preaching," re- 
 turns Primrose, stolidly. 
 
 "What an absurd name it is," says Mrs. Amyot, laugh- 
 ing, " Mutius Mumm. Oh ! it is too ridiculous !" 
 
 " He and Aunt Selina, as he calls her, are about the 
 most absurd pair in the world."
 
 LADY BPAJfjeSMERE. 123 
 
 " As for her, she is delicious," protests Mrs. Amyot. " She 
 is a thing apart voice, ringlets, and all. It is a pity to 
 lose a bit of her." 
 
 "You had better make the most of her to-day, then," 
 says Margery, " because she is off to Shorebank next week 
 early. It is her one idea of travelling, and she does it as- 
 siduously every year. In reality Shorebank is about fifty 
 miles from this, but if it were at the Antipodes she could 
 not make a greater fuss than she does about going there." 
 
 "One can understand that. I told you she was delici- 
 ous," murmurs Mrs. Amyot. 
 
 Mrs. Vyner, crossing the sward indolently, comes up to 
 her. 
 
 " I have been playing tennis," she says, mournfully, with 
 all the air of one who has been sacrificing herself for her 
 country's good. 
 
 " Impossible ! Why you look as cool as a snowdrop," 
 puts in Captain Staines, looking up at her from his loung- 
 ing position on the grass. 
 
 " Do I ?" Her tone is of that order of indifference that 
 might be termed insolent. 
 
 "A charming compliment," says Mrs. Amyot, smiling 
 at Staines. Her smile is soft and kindly, she being one of 
 those women who very, very seldom frown on any man. 
 " But as to your playing" turning to Mrs. Vyner, who 
 has sunk as if exhausted on the seat near her "who did 
 you get to do it for you ?" 
 
 " Freddy Trant, of course. You know I never play Avith 
 anyone else. He does all the serving and takes every 
 ball." 
 
 " Useful boy ! And what did you do ? " 
 
 " I told him how good it was of him," lisps Mrs. Vyner, 
 calmly. "So it was, I think." 
 
 " I wonder how you managed the standing," says Hal- 
 kett. " Did you lean on Captain Trant, or did you do it 
 alone ?" 
 
 " Alone I did it," returns Mrs. Vyner, with a sigh. " It 
 tired me horribly, but no one should live entirely to them- 
 selves. Mr. Goldie told us that last Sunday. I've been 
 living to Freddy and it has brought me to death's door." 
 
 " I dare say you will rally here," says Lord Primrose ; 
 "the air is very mild." 
 
 " Was there ever so charming a bit of garden ? " exclaims 
 Mrs. Amyot, with unaffected enthusiasni. " It makes one 
 feel so far away from everything. I should like to steal it."
 
 124 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " As it stands or without its present occupants ? " asks 
 Halkett, in a low tone. 
 
 "Without." 
 
 " And not one single exception ?" 
 
 " One only ! " with a tender smile. 
 
 "Ah ! And that?" 
 
 " The Dachshund yonder." 
 
 " Some day you will drive me to suicide," says Halkett, 
 with melancholy foreboding. 
 
 " Beyond this garden there is another almost equal to 
 it," cries Margery, throwing a rosebud into Mrs. Amyot's 
 lap to catch her attention. " Will you come and see it ? 
 A year ago it was lovely. It must be lovely still." 
 
 "No, no. I am surfeited with happiness here. I shall 
 not tempt Fate further. You see a strange thing in me 
 a contented woman ! Find another companion in your 
 ramble." 
 
 "Try me, Miss Daryl?" says Captain Staines, springing 
 to his feet. In spite of the gayety of his air, there is some- 
 thing anxious about it. Some fine instinct tells him that 
 Margery both dislikes and distrusts him, and, for the fur- 
 therance of his plans, it seems to him of special impor- 
 tance that he should combat her prejudice. 
 
 "Everyone can come," returns Margery, very slowly, re- 
 garding him with cold, unfriendly eyes. " It is but a little 
 place, and I do not think it would suit you. It is nothing 
 but a small wilderness of sweets. It would, I imagine, 
 bore you." 
 
 " You have, I fear, but an indifferent opinion of my ar- 
 tistic tastes," says Staines, with an affectation of good 
 humor, but a rising color. 
 
 " I mz//ydonot think," with gentle insistance, " that you 
 would care for it. But," looking round her, " everyone can 
 come." 
 
 " Everyone \ When I asked your permission to accom- 
 pany you, I thought, perhaps 
 
 "Yes?" Her interruption, though quiet, is prompt. 
 " If you will follow Mr. Bellevv and me, you shall see for 
 yourself all the beauties of which I have raved. 
 
 She inclines her head slightly. It is a dismissal, and 
 Staines very wisely takes it as such. Her whole air and 
 manner has raised within him a sense of defiance of ail 
 rule and order, and, crossing to where Lady Branksmere 
 is sitting, he takes up his position behind her chair, and 
 murmurs some gay commonplace in her ear. Muriel
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 125 
 
 smiles politely. It is at this moment, when he is leaning 
 over her in a rather empresse attitude, and she has turned 
 a little in order to smile up at him, that Lord Branksmere 
 enters the yew garden. His eyes, that always in every as- 
 semblage seek for Muriel, now pursue their customary 
 search, and at last rest upon her and Staines. 
 
 A start, so imperceptible as to be only a thrill, runs 
 through him, and a little ashen shade mingles with the 
 natural bronze of his complexion. It is at this moment 
 that Madame von Thirsk slips her hand through his arm. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Oh ! he has passions which outstrip the wind, 
 And tear her virtue up, as tempests root the sea. 
 
 O dreary life, we cry. O dreary life. 
 
 " WHERE have you been, my friend ? " she asks, smilingly. 
 "This is the cosiest corner to be found anywhere, but 
 doubtless you have been endeavoring to help the old peo- 
 ple with their impossibles, according to the good-nature 
 that always distinguishes you. We have all been enjoying 
 ourselves here more than it is possible to conceive in this 
 prosaic age." 
 
 "So it seems," says Branksmere, biting his lip. Invol- 
 untarily his glance again seeks his wife's seat, and an evil 
 fire lights within his sombre eyes. 
 
 "Ah ! I warned you of that," says Madame, with a sud- 
 den little catch of her breath. " But you would have none 
 of my counsel." She casts her beautiful hands abroad. 
 There is a well-arranged sorrow, and an unutterable pity 
 in her tone. " It is not yet too late," she whispers eagerly. 
 " Get rid of hint ;" by an almost imperceptible gesture she 
 indicates Staines, who is still leaning over Muriel. Per- 
 haps she knows her man when she says this. 
 
 " I will drive no one from my doors," says Branksmere, 
 doggedly. " And you misunderstand me, as I warned 
 you before. It seems to me that you imagine I distrust 
 Lady Branksmere. Believe me, that is not so. Were it 
 the case, I should not seek to rescue her from temptation. 
 I should not care to retain a wife on such terms. I should 
 simply let iicr go." As he says this, he turns his dark, in-
 
 126 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 scru table eyes full on her. " But I do not distrust. And 
 once for all I forbid you to speak to me again in such a 
 manner." 
 
 There is a suspicion of passion barely subdued in his 
 tone. Madame von Thirsk, hearing it, turns to him aface 
 that has grown curiously white, but is yet full of repressed 
 power. 
 
 "You, too, misunderstand me, Branksmere," she says, in 
 a low vibrating voice. " Am I to be addressed as though 
 I were a common acquaintance after all? Dare I not 
 speak one word of warning ? /, the friend of ten long 
 years ? Am I nothing to you now nmv that this woman 
 of yesterday has dragged you into her silken coils that 
 are all so falsely woven ? " She clinches her hand. " Nay, 
 hear me hear me ! " she cries aloud, as with a stern deter- 
 mination he moves away. " If to me ungrateful, still for 
 your own sake be wise !" She takes a step toward him, 
 hardly knowing herself, what a revelation is on her tongue 
 in this impulsive moment. But he still persistently moves 
 away, and the moment is passed. Another comes, but its 
 fruits are off a different tree. " Go, then ! " she whispers, 
 in a tone that is almost a hiss. " The day will dawn when 
 you must listen." 
 
 She sinks back in her seat, and by a supreme effort re- 
 covers her self-control. Her blood seems on fire. Lift- 
 ing her eyes, she brings Staines to her side by an almost 
 imperceptible movement of her fan. By the time he 
 reaches her, her hand is quite steady again, and her voice 
 her slave once more. 
 
 " You are a little rash is it not ? " she says to him, smil- 
 ingly, drawing her skirt aside that he may take a seat upon 
 her garden-chair. " Monsieur can see ! Eyes have been 
 given him that are of use, dull as your insular eyes usually 
 are. As we have entered into a little friendly alliance, I 
 think it my duty to warn you." 
 
 "You are an admirable ally." Looking at her, Staines 
 can see something about her that is not altogether calm. 
 "Jealous, is he ? There is nothing strange in that, after 
 all. Jealousy is not dependent upon love." 
 
 "He thinks of his honor!" returns she, the words 
 coming from her in a sort of snarl. Her eyes are lowered, 
 the blood has forsaken her lips. Staines shrugs his shoul- 
 ders. After all, if she has serious cause for plaint, it is no 
 affair of his, and will only make her the more useful in 
 the little game he has decided upon playing.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 127 
 
 " He behaved honorably enough to her," he says, in a 
 subdued voice, gazing right and left with a careless air, 
 that would have deceived the most suspicious watcher. 
 " I hear the settlements were princely." There is some- 
 thing distinctly anxious about the glance that accompanies 
 this last remark. 
 
 " I only know one thing about them for certain," replies 
 Madame, in a slow tone. " He has settled a thousand a 
 year upon her, absolutely. Nothing could deprive her of 
 that. The twenty thousand was made over on her, irre- 
 spective of pin-money or anything else, before the mar- 
 riage. It was not her doing you will mind. It was his." 
 
 "Twenty thousand. Absolutely," says Staincs, medi- 
 tatingly. " A generous arrangement." A rather amused 
 smile curves his lips beneath his long, yellow mustache. 
 " Because after all one never knows what may happen ! 
 You are sure of this ? " 
 
 "Quite sure. Were she to abuse his confidence to the 
 utmost. Were she to commit the one unpardonable sin 
 
 in married life it would still be hers. Were she to 
 
 What is your plan ? " cries she, fiercely, breaking off in the 
 midst of her seemingly calm rejoinder, and growing ter- 
 ribly agitated. " There is something diabolical in your face. 
 What is your plan, your scheme ? Give voice to it ! " 
 
 "What plan should there be?" demands Staines, airily, 
 with a sudden movement of his body that throws up his 
 shoulders and flings out his arm and expresses generally 
 a half amused renunciation of the idea. "You hurt me 
 when you say I look diabolical ! Mildness is a prerogative 
 of mine. And would you call ours a scheme ? There are 
 two people whom we love. They are unhappy. We would 
 rescue them from their bondage we would lift the chains 
 that drag them down. Do you call that a scheme ? If so, 
 it is a pious one." 
 
 " It is a damnable one ! " replies the Hungarian, coldly. 
 "I do not defraud myself, if you do." 
 
 " This cold climate is killing your suavity, Madame," 
 returns he, lightly. There is not an iota of compunction 
 in his handsome, smiling face. 
 
 " Have you no remorse ? " demands she. " No mis- 
 givings ? No terror of the end ?" 
 
 "No soul?" supplements he, with an open derision. 
 " That is an efficient answer to all such questions." He 
 laughs aloud, and delicately flips a little passing speck of 
 air-down from his coat.
 
 128 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 Madame's hand tightens on a fold of her gown, and then 
 a laugh breaks from her, too ; low, but reckless, and out 
 of tune with all gentle sympathies. At this unpropitious 
 moment she lifts her head, and gazes straight before her 
 to where a little picture is being enacted, as if for her 
 special benefit. 
 
 Branksmere is bending over Muriel's chair. He has 
 evidently said something that is unpalatable, because on 
 the instant Lady Branksmere rises and confronts him. As 
 their eyes meet Madame can see that a very fury of re- 
 pressed rage and hatred gleams from the eyes of each. 
 Her laughter grows bolder as she turns her glance away 
 from them back again to Staines. 
 
 "You are right," she says, feverishly. " The present 
 includes all things." She throws back her handsome head, 
 and her great, lustrous, passionate eyes grow dazzling. 
 "Your plan?" she asks. "I am prepared for it now. 
 Let me have it." 
 
 " You accord me powers I don't possess," returns Staines, 
 with a malicious affectation of modesty. " I could not 
 formulate a plan to save my life, but 1 confess to you that 
 I should like to be of service to the woman I love. She 
 is now unhappy. It seems to me her burden is greater 
 than she can bear. Should it so happen that she should 
 elect to let it fail from her to fly from it with Why, 
 then 
 
 ''Yes? Then?" She is leaning toward him, ill-subdued 
 excitement in her whole air. 
 
 "Weil then By the bye, Madame," says he, in his 
 
 usual pleasant, airy tone, " permit me to remind you that 
 there are one or two people in this charming little nook 
 besides ourselves, and that perhaps a degree less shall 
 we call it interest ? Yes ? interest in this conversation on 
 your part would be advisable. Ah ! that is better. Well 
 ' then' was that where I stopped ?" 
 
 "Yes, yes. Go on," desires she, with quickened breath. 
 
 " Then it seems to me that Lord Branksmere might 
 readily sue for and obtain a divorce and find himself once 
 more in a position to wed a woman in every way more 
 suited to him." 
 
 His pause is accompanied by a look that says, plainer 
 than words, " You ! " but the word is not said, nevertheless. 
 
 " An admirable plot," replies Madame, after a moment 
 or two. She has grown very pale. " But there is such a 
 thing as failure."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 129 
 
 "Is there? I don't believe it," replies he, lightly. "All 
 I want is a little help : your help. If you want a first 
 lesson," rising as he speaks to let her understand the in- 
 terview has lasted long enough for safety, " learn this. 
 She has already done you the honor to be jealous of you." 
 
 He smiles until he shows all his white teeth, makes her 
 a little courteous bow, and strolls away jauntily across the 
 clean-shaven sward. Branksmere has disappeared, and 
 with an air of suppressed melancholy, he once again ap- 
 proaches Muriel. 
 
 " You look tired," he says, presently, when the man who 
 had been speaking to her has moved away. His tone is 
 full of solicitude, and of that nameless air of mingled rev- 
 erence and reproach he reserves alone for her. 
 
 " My face is for once, then, an index to my mind. I am 
 tired, bored rather." She speaks petulantly. The touch 
 of gloomy anger" that had despoiled the fairness of her 
 features when Branksmere had spoken to her, still lingers. 
 
 "Your sister spoke of a little paradise that exists some- 
 where near this. Will you come and look for it ? Exer- 
 cise will kill your ennui," suggests he, gently. 
 
 For a moment she hesitates. Then rising, moves away 
 beside him in the direction of a little iron gate overhung 
 with trailing ivy that leads to some quaint region beyond. 
 In silence they go, until the murmur of the voices they left 
 behind grows faint and indistinct, and fades presently into 
 the battle of the tiny rushing streamlet that greets them 
 as they turn a rocky corner. 
 
 It is a charming spot they have reached silent, calm, 
 idyllic. The little river tumbling over its pebbles makes 
 music at their feet. 
 
 It made such a noise as it ran, 
 Accordant with the birdes harmony, 
 Me thought it was the beste melody 
 That might be heard of any man. 
 
 Muriel, as if wearied, sinks upon a mossy couch, and 
 gazes with half unseeming eyes upon the laughing water. 
 Her heart is full of gall ; an angry fire burns within her 
 veins. A sudden wild longing for revenge upon the man 
 who she believes has married her only to dishonor her, 
 is withering every womanly feeling in her heart. 
 
 "Your sister was right," says Staines, seating himself 
 beside her. " It is a spot worthy of truest admiration." 
 
 " It is a little uncultivated bit of nature," returns she, 
 
 9
 
 130 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 drily. "We are so hedged about, and trimmed and twisted 
 into shape nowadays, that we persuade ourselves a for- 
 gotten spot like this is more worthy of regard than it 
 really is. What is it after all ?" looking depreciatingly 
 around her. "A three-cornered affair, decked out with a 
 moss-grown rock, a noisy stream, and a twilight effect 
 caused by a few giant firs in the background. We are so 
 clever, we mortals of to-day, that, given a good man or 
 two with any eye to artistic joinings, I don't see why we 
 should not manufacture just such another picturesque 
 angle in the course of a few weeks." 
 
 " It fails to please you ? " regretfully. 
 
 " On the contrary, it pleases me very much." 
 
 " It is out of harmony with you, then ?" 
 
 " It is I who am out of harmony with it ; with most 
 things," declares she, impatiently. 
 
 Staines glances at her from under his lowered eyelids. 
 She is looking straight before her as though brooding over 
 some hateful, if distant, thought, and seems lost to a sense 
 of his presence. She has let one of her gloves fall from 
 her a long, slender, dainty thing, sweet with the impres- 
 sion of the beautiful hand it has covered, and Staines, lift- 
 ing it from the ground, lays it on his knee, and softly, ten- 
 derly smoothes out the fingers of it one by one. His 
 manner up to this, if slightly tinged with melancholy, has 
 been prosaic and commonplace in the extreme, but this 
 action of his is replete with all a lover's tenderness. 
 
 " I wish I might do something for you," he says, at last. 
 
 "For me ! " His tone has roused her from her passion- 
 ate reverie, and turning, she sees him smoothing out the 
 glove's creases with a lingering worshipful hand. The 
 sight seems to anger her. She frowns impetuously. 
 "What is it that you could do for me ?" she asks, with a 
 touch of hauteur in voice and eyes. 
 
 " Many things," replies he, evenly, changing his meaning 
 deftly. " I could go to the house and get you some Co- 
 logne water ; or, if I might be allowed to advise, I could 
 tell you that a little of that cool stream there, if applied to 
 the forehead, would alleviate a bad headache." 
 
 His answer is so entirely different to what she expected, 
 that it not only rouses but relieves her. 
 
 " There is no remedy for a really bad one," she says, ac- 
 cepting his reading of her mood with a sort of inward grat- 
 itude. " It seems to me that mine will endure for ever." 
 Her laugh is a little dreary. " That is what all people
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 131 
 
 think when they are in pain, is it not ? A mere morbid 
 fancy that dies with the suffering." 
 
 " I do not care to think of you as being either morbid, 
 or in pain," replies Staines, in a low tone, without lifting 
 his eyes from the glove he is still slowly caressing. " And 
 sometimes, of late, I have imagined your mind was troub- 
 led." 
 
 " I am not exempt from trouble, if you mean that." 
 
 " 1 wish I could be of any use to you at all," says Staines 
 in a matter-of-fact tone, that, considering the situation, is 
 reassuring, and, therefore, trebly insidious. "If ever I 
 can help you in any small way please remember that we 
 are friends, at least." 
 
 She makes no direct answer to this, but presently, with- 
 out removing her gaze from the distant hills, she speaks to 
 him. 
 
 "Already you have helped me," she declares, gently. 
 "It was you who directed my footsteps to this place, and it 
 seems to me to be very good to be here. I feel calm, rested, 
 in spite of all my slighting words of a few minutes since." 
 
 Her tone has grown somewhat dreamy. She is leaning 
 back against the lichened rock behind her, and a transient 
 glory from the departing sun has settled on her head her 
 small shapely head with its wealth of bronze-red tresses. 
 Through the leaves of the dense trees the fading beams are 
 piercing, lighting up the strange weird beauty of her face, 
 her deep melancholy eyes and the mournful curves of her 
 sad, haughty lips. Gazing at her and marking the loveli- 
 ness of her, a curious thrill runs through Staines if Jm 
 should be the hand to lay that small, proud head low in 
 the dust of shame, what will the dread future hold for him, 
 for her ? How will it be between they two in ah the long, 
 interminable after years? Again that strange, nervous 
 foreboding oppresses him ; that sense of fear that still has 
 nothing in it of honest compunction or growing remorse. 
 It is at an end almost immediately. He shakes it from him 
 with a shrug of self-contempt and turns to her. 
 
 " You like being here, then ? " he asks, in a low tone that 
 seems to fall in naturally with the hour and the scene. 
 
 " It means almost happiness," returns she, with a deep 
 sigh. Her voice is still dreamy, absent ; her eyes, half- 
 hidden by her white, heavy lids, are looking into a tender 
 past, or a future impossibly bright. Then all at once her 
 mood changes. She comes back to her present with a 
 start, and turns a questioning gaze on Staines.
 
 132 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Tell me about Madame von Thirsk," she says. " I saw 
 you talking to her just now. I confess I do not understand 
 her myself, but you probably do. She is a friend of 
 yours ?" 
 
 "A friend? No," returns Staines, promptly. He looks 
 surprised, even a little shocked. " I know almost as little 
 of her as you do," he goes on, slowly. " But I think I 
 
 should distrust dislike " He breaks off abruptly. 
 
 " After all I am scarcely in a position to judge my knowl- 
 edge of her my opinion is based on such slight grounds 
 that 
 
 "That?" She leans toward him, and Staines rises 
 precipitately to his feet. 
 
 " Why will you press the matter ? " he asks. "It is all 
 
 mere conjecture. I a stranger to her and to . What 
 
 should I know ? And yet if I dared speak if I dared give 
 voice to the fear within me I should say beware of Madame 
 von Thirsk ! " 
 
 " That is a strange word to use," says Lady Branksmere, 
 coldly. " What should I dread from any mortal thing ? 
 You speak in enigmas, and you expect me to follow you ; 
 but I cannot." 
 
 "Perhaps you will not ! " His agitation is not alto- 
 gether feigned ; she looks so lovely, yet so entirely alone, 
 that his heart smites him through very pity of her. " There 
 are moments," he goes on, hurriedly, " when the truth of 
 all this dawns upon me. When I see you loveless, sad, 
 forsaken ! Oh, forgive me ! The thought is sacrilege, and 
 
 yet ." He throws out his hands to her as though in a 
 
 paroxysm of passion as though in momentary forgetful- 
 ness of the gulf that now divides them. " Muriel ! Muriel! " 
 he whispers, heart-brokenly. 
 
 Lady Branksmere taking a step forward moves him 
 aside with an imperious gesture. Her face is the color of 
 death but her eyes are brave and unflinching. 
 
 " It is time we returned to the others," she says, icily. 
 "We have been here too long already." 
 
 She sweeps past him, and he follows her without an- 
 other word. As they regain the crowded parterre beyond, 
 they come upon a group or two, and Lady Branksmere 
 stopping to accost one of those who help to form them, 
 Staines gets separated from her. From that group she 
 passes to another, oblivious of the fact that she has one 
 bare white hand, and one black one until she finds herself 
 suddenly face to face with Branksmere.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 133 
 
 " I am afraid you have lost your glove," he says, in a low 
 voice that vibrates with a terrible wrath. 
 
 Thus addressed Lady Branksmere glances down at her 
 hands, and for the first time becoming aware of her loss, a 
 slow rich crimson dyes her cheeks. 
 
 " I have not lost it. I dare say I shall be able to find 
 it," she says, rather uncertainly. 
 
 "Shall I ask Captain Staines to look for it? He was 
 your latest companion. He may know something about 
 it," suggests Branksmere, his gaze burning into hers. 
 
 " You are very good. But I beg you will not give your- 
 self so much trouble," returns she, steadily. " By and by 
 I can myself ask him if he has seen it." 
 
 "Do!" The word is a command! It strikes upon 
 Muriel, and sends her glance swiftly to his. Her large 
 eyes grown luminous in this fast-gathering twilight are 
 uplifted, and Branksmere studying them, with a heart 
 overflowing with bitterest anger, can see that they are 
 filled with an unutterable contempt. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 "Doubt is the effect of fear or jealousy, 
 Two passions which to reason give the lie ; 
 For fear torments and never doth assist ; 
 And jealousy is love lost in a mist, 
 Both hoodwink truth, and go to blind-man's-buff." 
 
 OLD Lady Primrose, with the prospect of the county 
 ball and its attendant tortures before her for the following 
 evening tortures, however, she would not have skipped 
 for worlds has retired to bed, worn out by Miss Mumm's 
 hospitality. Most of the others have followed her example. 
 Mrs. Amyot, indeed, who seldom cries for quarter, is still 
 in the billiard room having a last game, with Lady Anne 
 Branksmere, who is always good-natured, to keep her in 
 countenance. A good many of the men have already 
 sneaked off to the smoking den, and are now in bliss, 
 otherwise tobacco clouds. Lord Branksmere, opening the 
 library door, is startled to find it not empty, as he had sup- 
 posed, but in occupation by his wife. 
 
 She is standing on the hearthrug, with one arm upon 
 the mantelpiece, and a slender foot poised upon the fender
 
 134 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 bar. She is gazing into the fireplace, but is evidently 
 lost to all knowledge of the fact that the fire has all but 
 burned itself out, and that only a few charred and slowly 
 dying embers still remain. Where are her thoughts ? 
 How far have they wandered ? She looks sad and un- 
 certain, and as it seems to Branksmere very lonely. 
 Through the room the chill of a night that creeps toward 
 morning may be felt. 
 
 "The room is cold," says Branksmere, abruptly. There 
 is a touch of impatient pain in his tone. That little sense 
 of loneliness that seems to hang upon her has hurt him 
 inexpressibly. Going over to the hearthrug, he pokes up 
 the cinders and draws them together, and begins to pile 
 on the still smoking ruins some wood and coals. Muriel 
 sighs heavily as one might, who has been rudely wakened 
 from a sweet dream to an unblessed present. 
 
 " Is the room cold ? I did not feel it," she says, absently. 
 
 Branksmere, laying his fingers lightly over hers, is made 
 aware that they are cold as death. 
 
 "You are shivering," he declares, and, redoubling his 
 exertions, soon drives the wood into a flame that gives the 
 contagion to its neighbors, and sends a cheerful crackling 
 blaze up the chimney. Muriel, though still absent in 
 manner, seems conscious of the growing warmth and grate- 
 ful to it ; she draws nearer and spreads out her slender 
 hand over the sparkling flames. 
 
 "You should remember the summer is still hardly come, 
 and that the nights are cold," says Branksmere, with some 
 concern. He pauses, and then, after a slight struggle with 
 himself, goes on again : " I may as well tell you," he con- 
 tinues, with some difficulty and a considerable amount of 
 awkwardness, " that I regret the rudeness of my manner 
 toward you this afternoon." 
 
 "Yes!" says Muriel, indifferently, as though only half 
 attending. " I am very sorry you let it worry you. I had 
 forgotten all about it." 
 
 It has been to him so sore a remembrance during all 
 these past hours that he now cannot conquer the feeling 
 of offence her evident carelessness had occasioned him. 
 
 " Of course I should not have taken it so for granted 
 that that the % glove was in his possession at all," 
 stammers Branksmere. He is indeed very honestly sorry 
 for the part he had played, and has spent his time since in 
 persuading himself that there was no occasion for him to 
 play it. He has found a genuine pleasure in censuring
 
 LADY BRANKSMRRE. 135 
 
 himself for his hot haste in accusing her of what it was 
 probable she was innocent. True she had changed color 
 in a strange nervous fashion, but was not his brusque ad- 
 dress sufficient to bring the angry blood to the cheek of 
 any woman ? And if it had been, as he for that mad hor- 
 rible moment believed, would she have had the effrontery 
 to appear before them all with one naked hand to testify 
 to call attention to her folly? Would a woman court 
 scrutiny on such an occasion ? Would she parade her sorry 
 deed ; cry out upon the world to look and see ? Would 
 she not rather have removed the other glove too, so as to 
 kill observation ? And yet to hear her say it was not true ! 
 Only to hear her say it. How singularly silent she is. 
 She has made him no answer to his last remark. 
 
 "You have got it back ?" he asks, suddenly, staring at 
 her. 
 
 " No. I know as much about it now as I did then." 
 
 "But you asked him about it?" His face has flushed, 
 and though he despises himself for his cowardice he can- 
 not bring himself to mention Staines' name. 
 
 "No," indifferently. "I never thought about it since." 
 
 This is the strict truth. Her mind had been so taken up 
 with present humiliations, and tender, past recollections, 
 by wrath of to-day's yielding, and mournful desires of her 
 lost yesterday, that she had fondly but vainly believed to 
 be vanquished that all remembrance of that luckless glove 
 had slipped away from her. 
 
 " I am to understand, then, that you have made no search 
 for it ? " His expression has grown almost forbidding again, 
 and his sombre eyes are dark with passionate suspicion. 
 
 " None whatever ? " She faces round upon him now 
 with eyes angry as his own. "A moment ago you gave 
 me to believe that you came here to offer me an apology for 
 conduct that to many women would be unpardonable. 
 Am I now to regard that apology in the light of a clear 
 opening that was to give you the chance of offering me 
 further indignity? Is this generous or just? Can you 
 find no bolder road to your attack than this trivial affair 
 of a glove ? " 
 
 " Do you call it a trivial affair that breath of dishonor 
 should touch you ? " 
 
 " Your tone is an insult," breathes she with flashing eyes. 
 " I refuse to understand it." 
 
 " You understand it sufficiently when you make me that 
 answer. That my manner should surprise you is absurd-
 
 I 3 6 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 Do you believe it possible that I am the man to look 
 tamely on, while you " 
 
 "You must be mad" interrupts she, in a low, vehement 
 tone ; "mad, to speak to me like this! Do you think of 
 nothing. Do you imagine me blind, or a fool ? Do you 
 not see whither you are urging me or," lifting her hand 
 to her brow with a horrified air, " is it that you do know ! 
 Stand back from me ! Do not touch me !" Her horror, 
 her passion, has risen to a height. She confronts- him 
 with clenched hands and heaving bosom, and a marble 
 face, beautiful in its sternness and rigidity. 
 
 To Branksmere her rush of words bear but a partial 
 meaning. Of the fact that she suspects his friendship with 
 Madame von Thrisk, he is entirely in the dark. If a little 
 calmer he would assuredly have been struck by the extreme 
 excitement of her manner, but as it is, he is still carried 
 along with the tempestuous stream of his own suspicions. 
 
 "You tell me, then, deliberately, that you do not know 
 where your glove is ? " he demands, imperiously. 
 
 "I know nothing about it," returns she in a stifled tone. 
 Her passion is spent. Despair of her ruined life has again 
 set in ; her head sinks, her breath comes in long sad sighs. 
 
 It is at this moment that the door is softly opened and 
 Madame von Thirsk comes softly in. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 " Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep." 
 
 " And many strokes, though with a little axe, 
 Hew down and fell the hardest timber'd oak.'' 
 
 SHE has evidently been preparing her toilette for the 
 night. Her dinner gown has been cast aside, and instead 
 of it she is now robed in a soft negligee costume of pale 
 pink cashmere, half smothered in lace that hangs loosely 
 round her paste figure, yet rather suggests than hides it. 
 It trails in pliant folds upon the carpet, and is so far 
 drawn backward that her pretty shoes of white plush can 
 be distinctly seen. A heavy collar of yellowed Mechlin 
 lace falls away from her fair round pillar of a throat, and 
 her dusky hair is coiled upward into a high knot at 
 the back of her head that suits to perfection its strictly
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 137 
 
 classical shape. There is a touch of warm, living beauty 
 about her that makes itself felt, and brings Muriel, with 
 an angry sense of rivalry, to a calmer state of mind. 
 
 In Madame's hand is a little dainty lamp of the ex- 
 quisite Etruscan form, that sends up a lambent flame and 
 illumines and throws out the mystic shadows of her eyes 
 and the purity of her dark pencilled brows. She starts a 
 little on seeing Muriel and Lord Branksmere, as though 
 she had supposed them miles away, and then smiles 
 genially. 
 
 " I had no idea there was any one here," she begins, 
 with a careful hesitation that takes the place of the blush 
 she would fain have produced but cannot. " They told 
 me every one was in bed or in the smoking room, so I stole 
 down here to look for my book, I have mislaid again. 
 My books" with a little laugh "seem to be specially 
 artful. They have acquired a trick of hiding themselves 
 from me. I am always losing them." She has rattled all 
 this off very gaily. 
 
 "You do, indeed, seem singularly unfortunate in that 
 respect," returns Lady Branksmere, stonily. "Can I help 
 you to look for it ? Is this it ? " 
 
 "You have found my truant for me ! Ah, that is very 
 kind. Do you know I was on my way to .your room just 
 now ? I did not know that you and your husband" with 
 a charmingly comprehensive little nod at Branksmere, 
 who is looking black as midnight, "were enjoying a cosy 
 little tete-a-tete here all by yourselves ! " 
 
 She beams sympathetically upon them both as though 
 to tell them she is quite en rapport with the lover-like 
 sentiments she is so sure they entertain one for the other. 
 She seems happily blind alike to Muriel's cold stare and 
 Branksmere's poorly-suppressed ill-temper. Her manner 
 maddens Muriel. 
 
 "You wished to see me ? " she says, in an icy tone that, 
 however, fails to chill the effervescing Madame. 
 
 " For a moment, only. To do you a little service ; you 
 have done me one," with a graceful glance at the recov- 
 ered book, " now," playfullv, " I shall recompense you. 
 See ! " 
 
 She draws out from her pocket the long black glove 
 that Muriel had dropped in that little sylvan retreat where 
 she had passed so tranquil an hour with Staines. 
 
 " I have rescued it for you," cries Madame, archly. 
 "Captain Staines was very unwilling to part with it, let
 
 138 LADY BRANKSMRRE. 
 
 me tell you, but I gained it by strategy. Right triumphed 
 over by might this time at all events. I sought my op- 
 portunity. 1 laid in wait and came off victor in the end." 
 
 Her tone is quite amazingly playful. Even Branks- 
 mere might have been struck by the excessive gayety of it, 
 had not his mind been too deeply pierced by other sus- 
 picions, born or rather confirmed by her words. So then 
 Staines has been in possession of the missing glove all 
 along. He had even objected to give it up. By Theckla's 
 own confession she had been obliged to resort to strat- 
 agem to rescue it. Who but a lover would set such store 
 by a woman's glove ? A lover ! 
 
 His dark eyes grew furious, his lips white. Muriel 
 then had deceived him, not unintentionally, but wilfully. 
 That swift deep crimson blush of hers that has lived in 
 his memory ever since, had had its meaning its guilt! 
 It was not as he had tried to believe, the flush of righteous 
 indignation, but the quick coloring of fear. She had, too, 
 purposely misled him ; she had assured him she would 
 ask back the glove from Staines, supposing him to have 
 it. But she had not done so. She had perhaps been 
 happy in the thought that something belonging to her 
 was in his possession. Something ! Was he not indeed 
 the master of all ? Her heart her soul the love for 
 which he, her husband, had sought and toiled in vain ? 
 Were all things torn aside and the plain truth laid bare, 
 should it not be shown that he, Branksmere, was the 
 usurper, and, that other, the rightful heir? 
 
 His face has grown very gray, and his mustache is 
 twitching in a nervous excitable way. Madame is still 
 smiling ; but her eyes are keen beneath their mask of 
 pleasantry, and her glance travels swiftly from one to the 
 other of those before her. 
 
 Muriel, if inwardly a good deal shocked at the turn 
 events have taken, shows outwardly no faintest trace of 
 surprise, or anger, or any lesser emotion. That Staines 
 should have kept her glove is a revelation to her, and 
 causes her some astonishment, as she was honestly ignorant 
 of the fact that he had kept it. But that he should have 
 stolen it, only to let it be returned to her in this careless 
 public way surprises her still more. If all this is true he 
 had acted absurdly in the first instance, and reprehensibly 
 in the last. That he should by any means have let it slip 
 into the possession of a \voman against whom he had so 
 lately warned her seems strange, and a swift fancy that it
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 339 
 
 is all a mere fabrication of Madame's brain rises within 
 her. The strongest feeling she knows at the moment is a 
 sense of indignant anger against the smiling handsome 
 creature before her, who with a laugh upon her lips is 
 striving to make havoc of her life. After all, Staines might 
 have innocently brought home the glove and then flung it 
 on some table or ottoman that it might be seen and claimed 
 by its rightful owner ; it would have been a wiser thing to 
 give it to herself in person, but still this might have been ; 
 and this designing woman, seeing in part, and guessing in 
 part, had made up this plausible story out of it all for her 
 discomfiture and her husband's delectation. A bitter laugh 
 rises in her throat. Well ! let them concoct as many stories 
 as they please. The fact that her glove was found in any 
 man's possession will not take her into a divorce court, or 
 set her husband free. 
 
 " You have given yourself an infinity of unnecessary 
 trouble, I am afraid," she says, fixing her eyes meaningly 
 upon Madame. "There is nothing even to be gained by 
 it as," pointing to the glove, " I have lost its fellow, 
 and shouldn't have cared therefore if Captain Staines had 
 kept it forever." 
 
 "Its fellow? Perhaps Captain Staines has that too," 
 cries Madame, with a soft, amused laugh. " One must 
 confess that he is persistent. Ah, the deceitful one, to 
 pretend he had only this little glove as treasure trove !" 
 
 Branksmere, with a smothered ejaculation, comes up to 
 his wife. 
 
 " Has lie the other ? " he asks, in a low, but terrible 
 voice. The veins on his forehead are standing out in thick 
 cords. 
 
 Lady Branksmere laughs insolently. 
 
 "Madame von Thirsk is an excellent detective. Ask 
 her," she says, lifting her brows and letting her lips fall 
 into a disdainful curve. 
 
 " Answer me," fiercely. 
 
 " I shall give an answer to no man who addresses me in 
 that tone. Do not mistake me, my lord. I am not your 
 slave." 
 
 " You lied to me before," says Branksmere. " Perhaps 
 it is as well you do nut answer, lest you lie to me again." 
 
 Muriel turns livid. She leans back heavily against the 
 table, and glares at him. 
 
 " Coward ! " she pants between her clinched teeth. 
 
 Branksmere turning abruptly leaves the room. All that
 
 140 LADY BRANKSMERE, 
 
 has passed between him and Muriel has been uttered in 
 tones so low, that anyone desirous of not hearing might 
 easily pretend ignorance of having overheard a word. 
 Madame, now, with a softly spoken good-night moves 
 toward the lower door, as Branksmere disappears through 
 the upper but Muriel stops her. 
 
 " Stay," she said, in a clear, authoritative voice, " I want 
 a word with you." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " There was a laughing Devil in her sneer. 1 ' 
 
 " A HUNDRED if you will, dear Lady Branksmere," mur- 
 murs the Hungarian, suavely. She turns, and, coming back 
 to the centre of the room, drops gracefully into a chair. 
 It is a chair that places a table between her and Muriel. 
 
 "Your motive?" demands Lady Branksmere, curtly, 
 wheeling round upon her. She is very pale, and her rather 
 squarely-shaped mouth is hard and stern. 
 
 "Motive? I?" Thekla von Thirsk's handsome face 
 expresses the most unmitigated astonishment. " But how 
 then ? I do not understand." 
 
 " Exert that marvellous brain of yours a little, and per- 
 haps you may. What brought you here to-night, where 
 you knew Lord Branksmere and I were alone, with that 
 remarkable little invention of yours ? Speak, and quickly, 
 for I will know." 
 
 " You shall certainly know anything I have to tell you," 
 replies Madame, with a simple dignity that seems to bring 
 out and heighten the subdued passion of the other, and 
 drag it into an unenviable light. "It seems to me that I 
 must have distressed you in some way. But I know noth- 
 ing. I am entirely ignorant. If you would give me an 
 idea, a hint." 
 
 " No. Hints where you are concerned are valueless. I 
 have learned that," returns Lady Branksmere, with a cold 
 sneer. "You will speak without help from me." 
 
 "All this is very perplexing," exclaims Madame, quite 
 miserably. Then, as though some sudden light has broken 
 in upon her. " Ah ! pardon me ! Forgive me ! " she 
 cries eagerly, " if what I now imagine is wrong, but but 
 was there some mystery connected with that glove, and 
 has mine been the luckless hand to betray it ? Should
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 141 
 
 Captain Staines then, have been left in undisputed posses- 
 sion of it. Ah, how unhappy I am ! Dear Lady Branks- 
 mere, at least do me the justice to believe that my 
 wretched interference was unmeant. I knew not there 
 was anything between you and 
 
 "How dare you talk to me like this?" cries Muriel, 
 vehemently, trembling from head to foot. " Anything be- 
 tween me and Captain Staines ! What should there be ? 
 What scandal are you striving to create ?" 
 
 "It might suggest itself that it \syou who are creating 
 the scandal," returns Madame, with a curious glance at her. 
 " For me, I had not dreamt of such a thing ; and am only 
 too glad (now that you have forced the suspicion upon 
 me) to know from your own lips that no such thing ex- 
 ists." 
 
 " Glad ! " says Lady Branksmere, with a bitter sneer. 
 Her strong slender fingers close with unpleasant force 
 upon the book near her, move it to and fro for a mo- 
 ment or so, and then cast it from her as if by an uncon- 
 trollable impulse. All the time her eyes are fixed immov- 
 ably upon Madame, and her breath is coming and going 
 through her parted lips in short, impatient sighs. "There 
 is only one thing sweeter than the hearing of an evil tale 
 o*f one's acquaintance," she goes on presently, " and that is 
 the being able to bring one's self honestly to believe in it. 
 I am afraid your joy is checkered. Do you quite believe ?" 
 
 " I do not follow you, you talk to me in so strange a 
 fashion. All I can imagine is that I have hurt you in 
 some unknown way, either through this stupid glove or 
 Captain Staines. And as for him, why should I seek to 
 harm him ? He has ever been both kind and attentive to 
 me. I think him altogether charming," lifting her eyes 
 to gaze straight at Muriel. 
 
 "Do you. You want perhaps to know my opinion," 
 with a calm show of open contempt. "There is really no 
 reason why you should not." She pauses for a moment 
 as though considering. Madame is looking decidedly in- 
 terested, and a pale smile widens Muriel's lips. "I think 
 him good-looking," she says at last, dropping the insipid 
 remark slowly, as if the more to enjoy the other's disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 "Ah! Your tone makes your judgment harsh," says 
 Madame, apparently unmoved, though her lids droop and 
 her mouth tightens. It is a regret to her that she can 
 have nothing to repeat to either side. " You compel me
 
 142 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 to think you see nothing in him beyond his appearance, 
 which is undeniably good. Yes, you are severe. What 
 has he done to you?" Her tone her glance is inno- 
 cence itself, yet so full of a subtle insolence. 
 
 " Done to me ! " repeats Lady Branksmere, coldly, who 
 after all is hardly a match for her. " You are, it seems to 
 me, one of those who find all the world alike, until one 
 shows him his uncivil side. You refuse to praise the 
 bridge you cannot cross, however safe others may know 
 it to be. Your likes and dislikes are bound up in a very 
 personal centre. It is a doctrine, sound, if narrow. I," 
 with a short glance, "am far less amiable than you." 
 
 "Perhaps," suggests Madame, with lowered eyes, and in 
 a slow measured tone, "you are even more amiable. Per- 
 haps, indeed, you have proved yourself a little too ami- 
 able ! " 
 
 The insult conveyed is even heightened by her methodi- 
 cal delivery of it, by the total absence of passion in voice 
 and manner. Lady Branksmere turns cold ; she shrinks 
 back, and then draws herself up to her full height as might 
 an offended queen. 
 
 "You are a very daring woman !" she says, almost in a 
 whisper. "It may be even a little too daring for your 
 own good ! Is your position in this house so secure that 
 you can afford to make an enemy of its mistress ? " 
 
 A touch of despair that lies heavy on her heart tells her 
 that she herself has hinted at the truth, that this woman's 
 position in the household is unassailable. 
 
 "How am I to translate such a speech ?" asks Madame, 
 opening wide her fine eyes. "Are youthen my enemy ? 
 But why ? What is it then that I have done ?" 
 
 Lady Branksmere pales, and turns her head from side to 
 side, impatiently. The very directness of the appeal baf- 
 fles her. How is she to make reply ? How is she to ex- 
 plain to this woman that she is jealous of her influence 
 over her husband. Nay, death itself would be preferable. 
 
 "Are you my enemy?" persists Madame, looking bold- 
 ly at her. Something about her suggests the idea that 
 she is thoroughly enjoying the situation. 
 
 "You have run too fast with my words," says Muriel, 
 slowly. " I did not so much say that, as that it will be 
 impolitic of you to make me one." 
 
 "Ah, but it is my nature to be so open, so candid. I 
 am ever impolitic," cries Madame, regretfully. "What I 
 think, that I say. It is a fault, a grievous one, but what
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 143 
 
 will you ? Out it all comes before I have a moment in 
 which to reflect ; just as it happened to-night ah ! " stup- 
 ping herself abruptly, as though horrified. " There I go 
 again." 
 
 " To-night ? go on, what about to-night ? What did you 
 say to-night that should not be said ? " 
 
 " Something tells me that I shall have to get some good 
 doctor to cut out my tongue," says Madame, mournfully. 
 <; It will not be reasonable. You tell me to avoid making 
 myself your enemy. But how then am I to do it ? I 
 know of nothing that has been said by me that should 
 have offended you, and yet you are angry with me. Will 
 you give me a little idea, that in future may help me to 
 steer clear of all conversational shoals and quicksands?" 
 
 All the time she is speaking, there is a touch of amuse- 
 ment in the Hungarian's eyes that is plain to Muriel, how- 
 ever carefully the other tries to hide the tell-tales with her 
 sweeping lashes. It is an expression of triumphant de- 
 fiance, that , makes Lady Branksmere's blood grow hot 
 within her. 
 
 "I will," she says, coldly. " In future forget that I ex- 
 ist. Leave me out of your plans, your intrigues." She 
 comes a little nearer to her. " I have detained you too 
 long already, Madame. Pray do not let me keep you an- 
 other moment from your room." 
 
 She salutes her with studied politeness ; Madame re- 
 turns the salutation in kind, and, taking up her Etruscan 
 lamp, glides from the apartment. The book, however, she 
 had been so anxious to obtain is left behind her, for- 
 gotten ! 
 
 Lady Branksmere, as she sees it, smiles softly to herself. 
 To her this want of memory tells its own tale, and again 
 her pulses throb with angry contempt. For hours she 
 paces up and down the deserted library, unconscious of 
 the ever growing fatigue the increasing strain that is 
 weakening both her soul and body. Taking herself to 
 task for this thing, arid encouraging bitter resentment in 
 her heart for that piecing together all the trivial events 
 of the day and night, and working them into one inhar- 
 monious whole. 
 
 Doors throughout the house are opened and shut during 
 her vigil that of the smoking-room has been given its 
 last slam. Voices have sounded through the hall as the 
 men passed through, on their way to different apartments, 
 and one or two careless laughs have penetrated to where
 
 144 LADY BKANKSMERE. 
 
 she is walking up and down, friendless, alone, eating her 
 heart away. 
 
 And now at last the house has sunk into a calm, a quiet, 
 a deadly silence, that momentarily seems to grow more in- 
 tense, and winds up her already shattered nerves to almost 
 fever pitch. The fire has gone out for the second time, 
 and the cold, clear light of the still May morn is stealing 
 through the closed curtains, putting to shame the lamps 
 within, that indeed are now beginning to burn low. 
 
 Muriel, flinging wide the window, gazes out upon the 
 widening landscape. Sadly, reluctantly, comes up the 
 holy dawn. The moon is still alight in the heavens, and 
 a strange, sweeping wind is rushing down from the hill 
 tops, with an angry sighing. But still the darkness is 
 conquered. " Day's foot is set upon the neck of light," 
 and over all the sky is creeping a shadowy gray. 
 
 The unquiet soul within, gazing out on all the tremu- 
 lous beauty, grows sad with vainest longing. To her the 
 calm, sweet break of day brings only grievous regret the 
 contrast between it and the sullen storm that still rages 
 in her breast the inward crying for the return of that old 
 past life which she by her own act destroyed and bereft of 
 vaguest flavor, is almost too painful to be borne. She 
 closes the window with a little shudder and moves with 
 languid steps toward the door. 
 
 She gains the hall, and traverses, like one in a dream, 
 the wide marble staircase, that now looks grim and ghastly 
 in the stern light of the coming dawn. The statues in 
 the niches, as she goes along, peer out at her, looming 
 dark and forbidding, showing just enough of themselves 
 to assure the trembling passer-by that they bear human 
 shape, and may be therefore dreaded as possible enemies 
 lurking in hidden corners, to seize and devour the unwary. 
 
 Muriel shivers nervously, and a little thrill of positive 
 fear runs through her. She hastens her footsteps, and as 
 she comes to the last marble figure, an Ajax, breaks into 
 a veritable run that carries her past it and well into the 
 middle of the long gallery, before she pauses to recover 
 breath. 
 
 All here is cold, and still, and dreary. The moonlight 
 is still struggling in mortal combat with the day, and 
 through the many windows is casting a last flood of glory 
 over everything. Sometimes a passing cloud dims its 
 dying radiance, and now, as Muriel finds herself oppo- 
 site the tapestry curtain that conceals the door leading to
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 145 
 
 the apartments of the Dowager, and those forbidden ones 
 beyond in the haunted wing there comes to her a sound 
 through the ghostly silence of the night, that turns the 
 blood to water in her veins ! 
 
 " Great heaven ! What is it ?" Lady Branksmere, hud- 
 dling close against the wall nearest to her, listens with 
 bated breath and frozen lips for the repetition of it. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs. 
 Thou troubles! me ; I am not in the vein. 
 
 SLOWLY it comes ! now rising, now falling, now uplifting 
 itself into a sharp scream ! It rings through the gray 
 dawn ; a low wailing at the first, and then an unearthly 
 sobbing as of a spirit bound ; and always a cry that clings 
 and pierces to one's very soul. Again and again it sounds 
 with muffled force upon the ear. Muriel, shocked, terri- 
 fied, quite benumbed with the horror of a first supersti- 
 tion, can scarcely breathe. The housekeeper's tale of that 
 dead and gone Lady Branksmere who had flung herself 
 from the turret window in the mysterious rooms beyond, 
 and whose spirit, it was believed, came again on windy, 
 moonlight nights, to cry aloud for vengeance on her op- 
 pressors recurs to her with appalling clearness, and 
 strikes her cold with fear. 
 
 Her breath comes to her in long, low gasps, and her 
 hands, cold and leaden, hang helplessly by her sides. The 
 moments pass, and now the horrible sounds are stilled, 
 and a silence even more terrible takes possession of the 
 startled night. Unable to bear it, Muriel rouses herself, 
 and, pale and haggard with heartfelt dismay, makes a rush 
 for her own room. Before she can reach it, the weird 
 half-stifled sound breaks forth again, and almost at the 
 same instant, Branksmere, only partly dressed and look- 
 ing white and worried, steps from his own room into the 
 corridor. 
 
 Muriel runs to him ! For the first time in all their knowl- 
 edge of each other, she is unfeignedly glad to see him. 
 She lays her hand upon his arm, and seems absolutely to 
 cling to him in the agony of her nervous terror. She has 
 apparently forgotten all save that.
 
 146 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " What is it ? " she gasps. " What has happened ? 
 Speak, Branksmere, speak." Will she ever hear the human 
 voice again ? 
 
 " It is a fresh attack," replies he, hastily. " She the 
 the Dowager, is growing worse, I fear. The fits are 
 severer, more frequent." His agitation seems extreme. 
 "Do not delay me." 
 
 He lifts her hand from his arm, and would have hurried 
 past her but for the glimpse he gets of her face. He pauses 
 and gazes at her keenly in the uncertain light. 
 
 "Where have you been all this time ?" he asks. "Why, 
 you are still dressed ! Down in that cold room ?" 
 
 "Yes yes. But never mind that. What is the matter 
 with her ? What an awful cry. Is she in pain in grief. 
 Yet it did not sound like pain like like madness rather ! " 
 
 She stands before him trembling and shivering. 
 
 "A fit ? " replies he, shortly. " Forget it as soon as you 
 can ; it need not concern you. Go to bed at once ; this is 
 no hour for you to be up. I believed you asleep long 
 ago." 
 
 His manner though scarcely unkind is still authorita- 
 tive, but Muriel, spent as she is in mind and body, fails to 
 notice it. 
 
 " You are sure it is the Dowager ?" she asks faintly, her 
 thoughts still running on that bloody tale of woe related 
 to her by Mrs. Stout ; her mind's eye fixed with an ob- 
 stinate pertinacity upon the mangled remains of that un- 
 fortunate Lady of Branksmere, as they must have been 
 when found next morning lying cold and broken on the 
 court yard, paved with its cruel stones. 
 
 Had she been thinking less of this direful story and 
 more of Branksmere, she might have noticed the change 
 that had passed over his countenance as her question fell 
 from her lips. He starts violently. 
 
 " Who else should it be ? " he demands with a vehemence 
 disproportionate to the mildness of her query. "What 
 absurd ideas are you getting into your head now ? Get 
 some sleep, I tell you ; the day is dawning." He goes 
 away from her a step or two, and then comes back again. 
 "You are shivering," he says, half angrily, touching her 
 hand. " That absurd practice of yours, of sending your 
 maid to bed at twelve whether you are present or absent, 
 leaves you without a fire." 
 
 He moves into a clearer bit of light and consults his 
 watch.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 147 
 
 " It is now three. I don't suppose there is a spark left," 
 he growls impatiently. "No matter how unhappy one 
 may be, it is a betide to kill one's self. Go into my room for 
 a while. There is a good fire there, and warm yourself 
 for a moment or two." 
 
 " I am not so cold as you think. I shall," with a little 
 scornful glance, "probably live through the night. I am 
 tired only ; worn out. I want to go to bed." The dark 
 circles beneath her heavy eyes bear witness to that. 
 
 " I would advise you to look at my fire for a bit, never- 
 theless." 
 
 "No, thank you." 
 
 "What an obstinate woman you are," cries he, sudden- 
 ly. "You would, I believe, rather freeze to death than 
 accept a comfort at my hands. Be reasonable go to my 
 room. I swear to you," bitterly, " I shall not intrude upon 
 you there. I shall probably not see it again for hours." 
 
 Following upon his words comes again that awful cry 
 that strikes them both dumb. It trembles rushes through 
 the gallery with a faint horrible clearness, and then dies 
 away. 
 
 " Go, go," cries Muriel, in a choked tone. " Why do 
 you delay. No. I will not go to your room. Let this 
 decision of mine end the discussion." 
 
 "As you will," returns he, shrugging his shoulders, and 
 striding away from her into the darkness beyond. Muriel, 
 tired and saddened, goes to her own room, but has scarce- 
 ly locked the door when a knock sounds upon one of the 
 panels. 
 
 " Open ! " says her husband's voice, irritably. 
 
 "What is it you want?" asks she, wondering. Her 
 hesitation evidently creates in him a deeper sense of 
 anger. 
 
 " Not to come in, certainly," he rejoins, in a tone that 
 conveys a frown to the listener. " Here open quickly, I 
 tell you and take this from me. It is burning my fin- 
 gers." 
 
 Muriel flings wide the door, to find him standing on the 
 threshold with a huge burning log held between a tongs in 
 one hand, and a coalbox full of red-hot cinders in the 
 other. 
 
 " What a thing for you to do ! " cries Muriel, shocked. 
 " I wish " 
 
 " Let me get rid of it," interrupts he, ungraciously. He 
 brushes past her and deposits his cargo in the grate first
 
 148 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 the burning log, then the hot coals on the top of it. They 
 amalgamate instantly, and burst into a glorious flame. 
 " There. Perhaps that will keep you from the consequen- 
 ces of your folly," he says brusquely. "Your staying in 
 a fireless room till morning was grown almost into day." 
 
 All at once his face changes, and a crimson flush dyes 
 it. The calm light dies from his eyes, and a hot suspicion 
 takes its place. 
 
 "Were you alone? " he asks, in a terrible tone. 
 
 She has sunk into a chair, and is sitting with her hands 
 folded listlessly upon her knees. All the spirit seems gone 
 out of her. 
 
 "Quite alone," she answers, very gently. Then she 
 looks up at him. " Spare me any more insults for this 
 one night at least," she entreats, feebly. " I am so tired." 
 
 He turns aside from her abruptly, and, leaving the room, 
 continues his way to the Dowager's apartments. 
 
 The sun is well abroad before Muriel wakes. All the 
 birds of the air are singing, and nature, fresh and sweet, 
 is crying aloud to the lazy ones of earth to come out and 
 rejoice with it a cry she disregards. It is indeed close 
 on noon when she descends to the morning-room, only to 
 find it deserted by all but Lady Anne Branksmere, who 
 is idling over a set of charming etchings. 
 
 " Is your headache anything better ? " asks she, rising to 
 greet her with genuine kindness in her tone. She presses 
 a gentle kiss upon Muriel's white cheek. "Ah, you do 
 look ill ! How foolish to struggle downstairs so early with 
 this momentous ball before you this evening, at which 
 everyone is bound to look her best lest the county swear. 
 Come, let me establish you upon this lounge near the win- 
 dow ; turn your eyes from the light so, and lie still, while 
 I finish this etching." 
 
 Muriel, to whom Lady Anne is the most grateful creat- 
 ure in the world, after Margery, accedes to her request, 
 and, though refusing the lounge, sinks back thankfully in 
 a delicious old arm-chair that could easily contain two of 
 her, and closes her eyes against the light. 
 
 But her thoughts forbid rest. 
 
 "Anne," she says, presently, leaning forward, "what of 
 this woman, this Madame von Thirsk ?" 
 
 "Well, what ?" asks Lady Anne, mildly, though in truth 
 she is a little startled. 
 
 "You should know a good deal of her. Tell me what 
 you know."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERR. 149 
 
 Anne Branksmere, casting a shrewd glance at her, draws 
 her own wise conclusions. 
 
 "There is so little to tell," she says, when with a steady 
 hand she has put in a touch or two in her etching. "She 
 is, to begin with, a Hungarian of good birth, with a con- 
 siderable fortune. Some time ago she became acquainted 
 with the Dowager. How, I hardly know, but she seems 
 to have struck up a lasting friendship with her ; became 
 enamoured of her charms, no doubt," with an amused 
 shrug, "and has been devoted to her ever since. Via 
 tout" 
 
 " With just the rest left out," returns Muriel, delib- 
 erately. " You will not speak, then ? You like this 
 woman ? " 
 
 " Do not mistake me. I would speak, believe me, were 
 there anything to say, because I happen to like you better," 
 says Lady Anne, with quiet meaning. " But,' J. assure 
 you, there is nothing, or, if there is, I am ignorant of it. 
 Like her ? Well, I hardly know And you ? " 
 
 " I detest her," coldly. 
 
 " Now that I think her over, that scarcely surprises me. 
 I have grown so used to her myself in all these years, you 
 see, that I have forgotten to analyze my feelings with re- 
 gard to her. Yet it seems natural enough to me, that one, 
 a stranger to her, might fail to see her in a rosy light. She 
 has her virtues, nevertheless. She is a very angel to that 
 hapless old skeleton upstairs, who, you must acknowledge, 
 is not exactly attractive either in appearance or manners." 
 
 " That makes her devotion all the more remarkable." 
 
 "As I think I told you before, the intimacy between 
 them began almost immediately after poor Arthur's tragic 
 death. About that time, too, the old lady became a victim 
 to certain nervous attacks, brought on, they said, by the 
 shock she sustained on hearing of her grandson's death. 
 To me," says Lady Anne, thoughtfully, " it is always a 
 matter of wonder how she manages to still hold her worn- 
 out threads of life free of breakage, considering what an 
 additional pressure these attacks must make upon it. It 
 is seven years since poor Arthur died therefore for seven 
 years she has suffered from them. I never saw her in 
 one, but I have been given to understand they are very 
 distressing to witness. Yet Madame has been faithful to 
 that trial of friendship ; she has carefully attended her 
 all these years." 
 
 " Seven years ! A long time," says Muriel, absently.
 
 150 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "You have been a widow all that time ?" looking up at 
 Lady Anne suddenly, with a surprised gravity. " I won- 
 der you have never married." 
 
 " So do I," returns Lady Anne, frankly, with a slight 
 laugh. " But don't despair about me yet. I dare say I 
 shall marry Primrose before I die. I am fond of that little 
 man, and if the fact that he asks me regularly once a 
 month to share his life means anything, I should say he is 
 fond of me, too. Yes, I really believe he loves me, and for 
 myself alone you will be pleased to understand : I have 
 really no money worth speaking about, and he lias consid- 
 erably more than is good for him, or that he quite knows 
 what to do with." 
 
 It is rather amusing to see how the tall, handsome, Juno- 
 like woman revels in this thought and makes a point of it. 
 She draws up her posse figure to its greatest height, and 
 smiles pleasantly. She is evidently charmed with her con- 
 quest of the little man, who would almost have fitted into 
 her pocket. " And yet I don't know," she goes on, with a 
 quick sigh. " When I remember the past, and how good 
 poor Arthur always was to me, I feel as if I should never 
 marry again." 
 
 " Poor Primrose it is sad that a shadow should be the 
 means of depriving him of his desire," says Muriel, slowly. 
 " If, in time, you do bring yourself to accept him, I shall 
 regard him as one of the few fortunate ones of the earth." 
 
 " I drop you a curtsey," returns Lady Anne. " But to 
 return to our subject. I don't want you to encourage any 
 erroneous views about Madame. She is of inestimable 
 value to that old woman above, and her place would be 
 difficult to fill. Think what responsibility she lifts from 
 your shoulders. I hear those attacks of the Dowager's are 
 growing in strength daily. You could scarcely leave the 
 miserable old creature entirely to the care of servants, and 
 Madame is such an excellent go-between. If I were you, I 
 think I should look upon her in the light of a special 
 providence." 
 
 "What of her husband? She had one?" asks Lady 
 Branksmere taking no notice of Anne's last remark. 
 
 " Beyond any dispute. He was a respectable old Rus- 
 sian, I think it was with nothing to be said for or against 
 him. An amiable nonentity. He lived ; he died ! That 
 is all. There was nothing in between." 
 
 "He really did die?" 
 
 "Oh, dear, yes ; and rather early in the proceedings, I
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 151 
 
 believe. She is a bona-fide widow, there can be no doubt 
 of that." Then very gently : " If you want to get her out 
 of the house, Muriel, why not speak to Branksmere about 
 it ? I should think the Dowager's discomfort and objec- 
 tions might be squared." 
 
 Muriel is silent. Would it indeed be possible to do this 
 thing? She would have liked to discuss the matter, but 
 how explain to Lady Anne her doubts of Branksmere's 
 willingness to help her. The "speaking" to him might 
 not perhaps enable her to compass her desire after all. 
 She sighs impatiently. 
 
 "And yet I would have you consider, before taking so 
 important a step," continues Lady Anne, not noticing par- 
 ticularly her somewhat awkward hesitation. " Madame 
 von Thirsk is not an ordinary woman. She, and she alone 
 I am told, can manage the Dowager, when those direful 
 attacks have seized hold of her. A new face at such times 
 infuriates the poor old woman, and in fact no one except 
 Madame and Branksmere himself dare approach her when 
 she is suffering from one. I would have you think what a 
 world of trouble you are accumulating for yourself if you 
 decide on discarding Thekla. She is, beyond everything, a 
 woman of character." 
 
 " I can quite believe that. (Bad character," she tells 
 herself, with a sense of undying enmity toward the woman 
 in question.) 
 
 " She has proved it. For ten long years she has been 
 true to her trust." 
 
 " Do you honestly think," asks Muriel, suddenly, "that 
 she has wasted all those years through love of Lady 
 Branksmere ?" 
 
 Anne Branksmere lays down her pencil. "As far and 
 as honestly as I can judge. Yes" she says; "and, at all 
 events, of this one thing be sure : If she at any time enter- 
 tained a tendresse for Branksmere, he never entertained one 
 for her!" Once again she takes up her pencil. "Think 
 of to-night ! Think of to-night," she cries gayly, with a 
 sudden sparkling change of tone that kills any solemnity 
 that may have been in her manner before. "And dismiss 
 from you all distasteful fancies ; they are fatal to one's di- 
 gestion and ruinous to one's complexion."
 
 152 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 What ! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice ? 
 
 ALTHOUGH Muriel will not permit herself to receive as 
 gospel all Lady Anne has said, still her last words assuredly 
 carry with them the germs of comfort. In spite of herself 
 she is solaced by them. A longing to believe in them helps 
 her to a belief, as well as a desire to be at peace with her 
 self-love, which is strong within her. A woman may not 
 care for her husband such sad things sometimes are 
 but still to be slighted by him, and placed second to 
 another will always be very bitter to her. 
 
 Now Muriel feels softened, saddened. The wild thoughts 
 of last night sink into insignificance. Perhaps, after all, she 
 had too hastily judged Madame had been unreasonably 
 cruel in her manner toward her. Anne has dwelt upon 
 her good points, has shown them out, and assured her of 
 them. Anne ! whose judgment is always calm, and strong, 
 and sure. Has s/ie, Muriel, been blinded, led astray by a 
 mere fancy? and dulled by a prejudice that has no foun- 
 dation save in her own diseased and burdened brain ? 
 
 Through the house there is running the news of the 
 Dowager's last seizure, and of how Madame sat up with 
 her all the past night careless of fatigue. The old woman's 
 bodily foe had been, it is whispered, stronger than usual, 
 and those who watched with her had fought hard for 
 victory. The truth of this struggle is manifested -in 
 Madame's face, as Muriel sees it presently. Passing 
 through the hall with a slow and wearied step, she chances 
 fo enter the library, where Muriel, too, has wandered, and 
 not seeing Lady Branksmere, sinks into an arm-chair and 
 gazes absently at the fire. Her face is white, her eyes 
 heavy, her whole air stricken with a grief she seems so 
 anxious to conceal, that Muriel, who has issued impulsively 
 from her unmeant hiding-place in the window, feels she 
 dare not allude to it. 
 
 A desire to forget her own unestablished wrongs, to let 
 the uncertain doubt of the past weeks die, is great within 
 her as she moves toward the arm-chair, where the woman 
 she has been regarding as an enemy lies crushed and sor- 
 row-stricken. Before she can reach her, however, or make 
 her presence known, Branksmere enters the room.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 153 
 
 Madame raises her head, and, for the first time seeing 
 Muriel, starts a little. Instantly she flings from her the 
 air of dejection that had been hanging round her, and 
 taking up a box of bonbons lying on the table at her 
 elbow, seems to lose herself in a pleasant appreciation of 
 them. All suspicion of care quits her face. The mouth 
 that a moment since drooped sadly, now grows full and 
 red ; her eyes gleam. She leans back in her chair with a 
 comfortable gesture, and assumes an expression that 
 speaks well for her Men etre. Branksmere makes his wife 
 a cold salutation. 
 
 "You are in less pain, I hope?" he asks, politely. 
 " They told me your head was very bad." 
 
 "It was. It is no\v, however, free of the throbbing." 
 
 He bows again as though courteously pleased to hear it, 
 and walks past her down the room to the bookcase at the 
 lower end. Muriel going up to Madame holds out her 
 hand. 
 
 " You, too, had a bad night, I fear ? " she says, with a 
 faint smile, and in a tone that struggles to be gracious. 
 " I hope you have in part recovered from your fatigue ; 
 that you are feeling better ? " 
 
 " I am feeling well, thank you," with slow and marked 
 astonishment in voice and manner. She looks at Lady 
 Branksmere with a curious smile, while altogether refus- 
 ing to see or accept the proffered hand. 
 ' "Will you not take my hand ?" asks Lady Branksmere, 
 haughtily. 
 
 " Do you then wish me to accept it ? " 
 
 "Naturally," turning very pale, "or I should not be 
 standing as I now am." She is looking down upon 
 Madame in a stern rigid attitude, with her hand still out- 
 stretched. Madame laughs. 
 
 "Ah ! that is supremely good of you very sweet ! " she 
 murmurs, Avith a slight increase of the curious smile, and a 
 little shrug of her handsome shoulders. She turns back 
 deliberately to her bonbons, as though the dainty snow- 
 white hand of her hostess gleaming with its jewels is un- 
 seen by her. 
 
 " It is war then between us ? " asks Muriel, in a low, con- 
 centrated tone. " It is well ! Peace would have been im- 
 possible. I thank you for the chance you have afforded 
 me of learning our true positions with regard to each 
 other." 
 
 " You must acknowledge then that I am at least good'
 
 154 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 natured," says Madame, unmoved and always with the 
 eternal smile. " I have saved you a scene. Now with- 
 out any trouble you know! Try some of those sweet- 
 meats, they are altogether desirable ! " 
 
 "So good; so sweet! Quite like me!" replies Lady 
 Branksmere, contemptuously. 
 
 " Ah ? Yes ? " questions Madame, reflectively. " Well 
 perhaps so. Now and then one does find them hollow ! " 
 
 "What! the sweetmeats?" asks Branksmere, who has 
 ransacked the bookcase successfully, and has now come 
 up to them again in the delusive belief that they are chat- 
 tering to each other on friendly terms. " They are empty 
 at times, eh ? Nothing in them ! " 
 
 Madame, breaking into a low laugh of utter enjoyment, 
 rises to her feet and sweeps past him and out of the room. 
 Muriel, too, lias sprung from her chair, but he is hardly 
 prepared for the hurricane her face portrays. 
 
 With parted lips and flashing eyes she turns to her hus- 
 band. 
 
 " You meant that ! " she says, her bosom panting. "You 
 assist that woman in her insolence ! " 
 
 " Insolence ! In Madame ! I do not understand." 
 
 " You are innocence itself ! " Her voice has sunk almost 
 to a breath. She advances a step or two nearer to him, 
 and now twines her hands behind her back so that she can, 
 unseen, grasp the rung of the chair nearest her. This 
 gives her a help ; a sense of support ; and so standing her 
 beautiful figure looks positively superb ! She is dressed 
 in a satin gown of striped amber and black that adds to 
 her height, and throws out the delicate pallor of her skin. 
 
 " Send that woman away ' she says, imperiously. 
 " This Madame von Thirsk ? I demand this thing as my 
 right as your wife ! " 
 
 "Why should you demand it?" coldly. -"Our family 
 has been under heavy obligations to her for years." 
 
 " Are you under heavy obligations ? " 
 
 " It is at least impossible I should treat her as you de- 
 sire." 
 
 "You refuse, then? You, in effect, protect her against 
 me : what is this woman to you ? " 
 
 " To me individually, nothing! " 
 
 " Yet for her sake you insult your wife ?" 
 
 " My good child," says Branksmere, in a rather bored 
 tone, " you overdo the thing, rather. Believe me I would 
 willingly insult no one you, least of all ! "
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 155 
 
 " Words ! words ! " cries she, passionately. " You dare 
 not send her away even if you would. That is the unvar- 
 nished truth ! I am not mad or blind, Branksmere. If 
 you refuse to take a step in this matter I shall understand 
 that you rank your mistress higher than your wife." 
 
 Branksmere starts as though he had been shot ! The 
 veins swell upon his forehead. He looks at the beautiful 
 angry creature before him as though he could kill her. 
 He takes a step forward. 
 
 " How dare you speak so to me ! " he says in such a 
 terrible voice that Muriel secretly quails beneath it. She 
 throws up her head, however, with a dark frown, and 
 walks toward the door with a slow, disdainful step. On 
 the threshold she pauses to glance back at him. 
 
 " A.^ you decline to act, /shall speak to Madame herself," 
 she says, with cold distinctness, closing the door behind 
 her. 
 
 She crosses the hall and enters the blue anteroom that 
 experience has taught her Madame, as a rule, frequents. 
 It is a quiet little room that leads nowhere, and is of small 
 account in the household. 
 
 " Give me a few minutes," she says, going straight up to 
 the Hungarian, and addressing her without further pream- 
 ble. "After all that has passed between us of late, some 
 arrangement is necessary. When do you leave ? " 
 
 "Ask Branksmere ?" replies Madame, looking her fair 
 in the eyes. 
 
 " Lord Branksmere ! What has he got to do with your 
 going or staying ? " 
 
 " Ask him that, too." 
 
 For a moment Muriel looks so ghastly that one might 
 believe her on the verge of fainting. 
 
 " This is terrible ! " she says in a tremulous way. "Am 
 I to understand that you will not leave my house ? What 
 bond is there between you and Branksmere that should 
 kill within you all sense of decency and womanhood ?" 
 
 " Alas ! that I cannot answer you," says Madame spread- 
 ing wide her hands; "that I must again say to you ask 
 Branksmere ! " She looks up at Muriel with a half amused 
 air, and with a little mischievous smile that lurks like a 
 devil at the corners of her lips.
 
 156 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " 'Tis more easy to tie knots than to unloose them." 
 
 "THE question is, what it was you did say to her," ex- 
 claims Branksmere, with suppressed violence. He is look- 
 ing white and perturbed, and there is a rather set expres- 
 sion about his lower jaw. He has arranged his shoulders 
 in a forcible fashion against the marble chimney piece, and 
 is gazing darkly at Madame von Thirsk, as though demand- 
 ing from her an explanation. 
 
 " Say to her ? Why absolutely nothing ! Of what are 
 you accusing me, Branksmere? Do you not know me yet ? 
 I was silent, ominously so, perhaps ; but I confess I was a 
 little taken aback. Ask her Lady Branksmere to re- 
 peat to you a single remark I made voluntarily." Madame 
 lets her fine eyes rest on him a little plaintively. "It is 
 unlike you to misjudge me, my friend ; but the truth as- 
 serts itself ever. I tell you I was most scrupulously care- 
 ful to breathe of nothing that might betray you. I said 
 always when she questioned me, ' Ask Branksmere ! ' No 
 more, no less ! From first to last during the distressing 
 interview' and I confess," with a careful sigh " it has 
 disheartened me. I said nothing else." 
 
 " But 
 
 " You will not believe me then ? Ask her, I desire you." 
 
 " It is not that. I do believe you, but such a little thing 
 as that to to 
 
 " Make her lose her temper ? Ah ! you forget that a sore 
 heart makes one petulant." 
 
 " Why should her heart be sad above its fellows ? " asks 
 he, a sullen cloud making his face angry. 
 
 " There are reasons, ire's cher. I am your friend, always, 
 as I say, and I must speak. I ask you frankly, Branks- 
 mere, were you her heart's first choice? Ah! there! 
 not another word then. Many a woman loves well for 
 the second time, and you may yet be blessed ; but d pre- 
 sent ! To return to our subject. I tell you I have 
 
 been faithful to you all through, and I said to her 'Ask 
 Branksmere ' only because I thought it was the best thing 
 to say under the circumstances."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 157 
 
 " It is difficult to know what is the best thing," returns 
 he, gloomily. 
 
 " There I agree with you, but at the moment be sure I 
 was wise. I am at times, as you have reason to know " 
 with a quick flashing smile " rather too impulsive, and if 
 I had attempted an explanation dire might have been the 
 results. I should probably have said just the little word 
 too much, and our secret would have been imperilled." 
 
 " Our secret, as you call it, is carrying me rather too 
 far," says Branksmere. "Something must be done to les- 
 sen the pressure ; some explanation offered." 
 
 " I am almost sure I do not grasp your meaning. It is 
 impossible" exclaims Madame, growing deadly pale. " You 
 will not tell me that, after all these years, you are about 
 to enlighten another a stranger." 
 
 " Partially. Yes." 
 
 " Pah ! There is no such thing as a partial explanation 
 in such a case. Branksmere, pause ! Consider what it is 
 you contemplate. Have you forgotten how many your 
 revelation will dishonor ? There is Lady Anne." 
 
 " Poor Anne ! " replies he, sadly. " After all," lifting 
 his head, " perhaps publicity is the one thing that should 
 serve her." 
 
 " Ah ! You are like all other men. You think what you 
 want to think." 
 
 " I think only now that something is due to Lady Branks- 
 mere." 
 
 " And is nothing due to me, after all these long years ? 
 Do you, perhaps, imagine that I am happy, that I do not 
 suffer ? That the insults your wife delights in heaping 
 upon me are unfelt by me ? That I 
 
 " Let me speak for a moment." 
 
 " Am I a cypher ? " continues she, passionately, disdain- 
 ing to listen. " Is all feeling, think you, dead within me ? 
 I have borne much for you, Branksmere, but even pa- 
 tience has its limit." 
 
 "If you won't hear me -" shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 "You imagine, it may be, that I stay on here from 
 choice," cries she, springing to her feet arid confronting 
 him with her dark eyes all aglow. "A sorry choice ! It 
 is only true that I stay on here braving all things, for your 
 sake, to save your honor the honor of your house ! " 
 
 She drops back into her chair again and clasps her hands 
 tightly together. 
 
 " There are other reasons, Thekla," says Lord Branks-
 
 158 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 mere, slowly, his eyes on hers. " Do you dare to deny to 
 me that it is love that chains your feet and keeps you 
 here ? " 
 
 He smiles, and, leaning over her, lays a gentle hand upon 
 her arm. For a. full minute she gazes at him as though 
 she would read his very soul. Her color dies from her. 
 
 Does he mean ? If he should. She brings her teeth 
 
 down sharply on her under lip with such force that the 
 crimson blood, rushing into it, dyes it vividly, making it 
 gleam like a red shadow against the intense pallor of her 
 face. Has he forgotten all, or is it just now strongly with 
 him ? Then the quick consciousness fades. Cruel mem- 
 ory, strange hope all disappear ! Her lids droop over 
 her burning eyes. It is with difficulty she restrains her 
 fingers from rising to cover them. 
 
 " You are right," she answers, in a stifled tone. " Love 
 alone chains -me to this spot." 
 
 " I know it," returns Branksmere with a peculiar smile. 
 There is silence between them for a little while, and 
 then : 
 
 " It is unfortunate that her suspicions should have been 
 aroused," says Branksmere, slowly. " It never occurred to 
 me that it might be so, but you, as a woman should have 
 known." 
 
 "What are her suspicions," coldly. 
 
 She regards him keenly as he makes a pretence of pok- 
 ing the fire and notes the dull red of shamed confusion 
 that flames into his cheeks. 
 
 " Paltry ones, I confess but can you blame her that she 
 encourages them ? What must she think ? What trans- 
 lation of the difficulty presents itself to her ? " 
 
 "There is your grandmother, the Dowager Lady 
 Branksmere she should account for everything." 
 
 " For the whole air of mystery that surrounds us ? 
 Would it account to you ?" 
 
 " If I loved you. Yes." 
 
 The insinuation is obvious. Madame is glad within her 
 as she notes the sudden change that darkens his face. 
 Why should this truth not be held up forever before his 
 eyes. Staines' words recur to her at this instant standing 
 out before her in letters as it were of blood. 
 
 '"It seems to me that Branksmere might then readily 
 sue for and obtain a divorce that would leave him free to 
 wed another woman in every way more suited to him."' 
 
 " Love has nothing to do with this," says Branksmere,
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 159 
 
 breaking in upon her reverie. "It is a point where duty 
 touches one more than anything else." He is looking 
 haggard and miserable, but her heart remains unmoved. 
 
 " You will tell her, then," she says. " You have finally 
 made up your mind to break the most sacred oath a man 
 ever swore ? " 
 
 " I shall not explain everything," interrupts he, impa- 
 tiently. " You shall be kept out of it ; and there are other 
 things I only wish to give her what satisfaction I hon- 
 orably can. I feel that when one marries a woman, one 
 owes her fealty, loyalty, all ! and that I unhappily must 
 refuse her the entire confidence that belongs to her of 
 right." 
 
 " And she ? What does she owe you ? The same ? 
 Fealty ? Loyalty ? An entire confidence ? It is a very 
 charming conception, but . Well, I hope you are sat- 
 isfied, Branksmere." 
 
 " Why do you seek to torture me like this ? " cries he, 
 turning suddenly upon her with flashing eyes. " You are 
 an old friend ; but even such a one may go too far. Say 
 I once loved her; say my love is dead. Still, shall I not 
 writhe when her my honor, is attacked ? And who 
 shall say I have not been to blame with regard to her ? 
 She has had much cause for discontent. I will remove it 
 in so far as I am able." 
 
 " You can make all things clear to her if you will," says 
 Madame, rising and leaning her hands heavily on the table 
 before her. " Do. You have my full permission at least. 
 What is the old bond that unites us in comparison with 
 your wife's happiness ? " 
 
 " No. I shall leave you out of it. My honor is given 
 to you as well as to her. I do not forget ! " returns he, 
 slowly. Turning away from her he sinks into a chair by 
 a Davenport and mechanically takes a pen in hand. 
 
 "When will you seek to allay the fears of Lady Branks- 
 mere ?" asks Madame, in a voice that seeks in vain to con- 
 trol its contempt and its disappointment. 
 
 " To-night no," glancing at his watch. " It is already 
 too late. This ball will engage her attention, and just now 
 her guests require her. I shall wait. To-morrow." He 
 pauses, pen in hand, as though musing, forgetful of her 
 presence. " To-morrow " 
 
 He dips his pen into the ink, and, drawing a sheet of 
 paper toward him, begins to write rapidly. Madame, see- 
 ing herself so innocently ignored, steps on to the balcony.
 
 i5o LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Adieu, Branksmere," she says, courteously, glancing 
 backward. 
 
 " Adieu," replies he in a muffled tone that convinces her 
 he has for the time being forgotten her existence. 
 
 With a little frown she moves away out of sight of the 
 window, but a last thought recurring to her, she retraces 
 her steps, and once more enters the library. Branksmere 
 is still writing. As she stands, the heavy old gold curtains 
 fall round and hide her, and, possessed by the clever pa- 
 tience that usually characterizes her, she stands quite still, 
 leaning against the shutter, waiting until he shall throw 
 his pen aside. As she so stands she is quite concealed 
 from view. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " The passions, like heavy bodies down steep hills, once in motion, move 
 themselves, and know no ground but the bottom." 
 
 A FOOTMAN entering, lays an exquisite white bouquet upon 
 the table in the centre of the room. 
 
 " Macpherson sent these in, my lord," he says in a sub- 
 dued voice, seeing his master occupied. 
 
 " Hah ! very good. But wait wait," mumbles Branks- 
 mere, who is still scribbling rapidly. The footman stands 
 immovable. Presently Branksmere comes to a dead stop, 
 and flings down his pen. He looks up at the ceiling as if 
 for inspiration, and, finally seizing the pen again, he signs 
 his name at the end of the paper. He had meant to write 
 the formal " Branksmere," but some hidden force had com- 
 pelled him to inscribe the more familiar the less formal 
 "George." He dashes it off in a tremendous hurry as 
 though scarcely sure of himself and as though a little 
 ashamed, and, having twisted his note into shape, seals it 
 and thrusts it hurriedly into the white bouquet lying on the 
 table behind him. He has done it all carelessly and openly, 
 as one disdaining any pretence at secrecy. It is but a 
 manner of sending the note to its appointed place. The 
 footman, however, staring stolidly through the lower win- 
 dow, sees nothing of the transaction, and is even blind to 
 the presence of the curtain-hidden Madame, who, however, 
 as if to make up for his stupidity, has seen a good deal and 
 understood the rest.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 161 
 
 "Tell Bridgman to place that in her ladyship's room 
 vvitli my compliments," says Branksmere, rousing the ru- 
 minating footman to a sense of his presence. He points 
 to the white bouquet as he speaks, and then hastens from 
 the library, suddenly remindful of some small duty that 
 should have been performed an hour ago. 
 
 Madame, coming softly from behind the curtains as 
 though she had just entered the room from the gardens 
 beyond, rather startles the footman, as, with the lazy ele- 
 gance that distinguishes him., he is taking up the flowers 
 from the table. 
 
 "An ! Jenkins, I was just going to ring for you," she 
 says, pleasantly. "Can you tell me where his lordship 
 is?" 
 
 " He was 'ere this very moment, m'm, you've missed him 
 by a chance," replies Jenkins, graciously, who is a very 
 affable young man. Madame as a rule stands well with all 
 the servants, being smoothly spoken and liberal. " 'E just 
 went out as you come in." 
 
 " Ah ! unfortunate. Have you any idea where he has 
 gone ? " 
 
 "No, m'm. Seemed in a 'uriy, I thought. 'E give me 
 these flowers to give Mrs. Bridgman." 
 
 " For Mrs. Bridgman ? " 
 
 "Yes, m'm, to place in my lady's room, and then went 
 out hisself, quite suddent like. Want him, m'm shall I 
 see where 'e is ? " 
 
 " Yes. Though " musingly " it is of little importance. 
 
 Still Leave the flowers there, Jenkins, until your 
 
 return, and bring me word if his lordship is disengaged. 
 But do not disturb him if he is busy. Simply bring me 
 word where he now is." 
 
 " Yes, m'm." Laying the flowers once again upon the 
 table, Jenkins bows himself from the room and starts on 
 his quest. 
 
 Madame, taking up the bouquet, deliberately draws from 
 it the hidden note, and with unhesitating fingers breaks 
 open the seal. It is a short note, and not very carefully 
 worded, yet its contents both anger and perplex her. 
 
 " I shall have to run up to town first thing in the morn- 
 ing, but hope to return by the three o'clock train. May I 
 hope you will grant me an interview. There are a few 
 things I would say and explain to you. 
 
 " Yours. GEORGE." 
 ii
 
 162 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 This " George " that had so exercised his mind causes a 
 throb of anger in the breast of Madame. So ! He has 
 made an appointment for the morrow. An appointment 
 that means disclosure, confidence and to her, Madame, 
 ruin ! So long as the secret is her'sand his alone she holds 
 the cards, and can defy even his wife ; but that on^e dis- 
 closed, her reign will be surely over. The coward ! The 
 miscreant. That no love is lost between him and his cold, 
 irresponsive wife is believed by Madame, and yet for the 
 sake of a quiet life he would betray all ! Peace is his cry, 
 but it will be hardly " Peace with honor ? " She clinches 
 her teeth passionately, and pushes the note far from her 
 across the ebony table. How to prevent this interview! 
 How to shut his mouth ! Her very soul seems set upon the 
 accomplishment of this ! 
 
 To burn the letter, to fling it into those tempting greedy 
 flames over there, is a simple thing, but there is danger in 
 it. Nay there must be there shall be a less clumsy method 
 of gaining her ends. Mechanically she folds the note again, 
 and, lighting a taper, seals it with the Branksmere crest 
 lying on the table before her ; she even slips it among 
 the flowers again, but after a moment's reflection removes 
 it from thence and places it in her pocket. Yet she is no 
 nearer a solution of her difficulty now than she was before. 
 How dull her brain is to-day ! Impatiently she pushes back 
 the dark, clustering hair from her brow. She is so lost in 
 thought, that presently when Captain Staines lays his hand 
 upon her arm she starts violently and turns pale. 
 
 "Dreaming?" questions he, lightly. " Of the donor of 
 those flowers no doubt." 
 
 "You are right," with a curious smile, "though the do- 
 nation is not to me." 
 
 " No ? For whom then ? " His brow has grown sud- 
 denly black. 
 
 " For Lady Branksmere, from her husband ! " For the 
 first time she notices that he, too, is carrying a very exquis- 
 ite bouquet of white heath. As she sees this she breaks into 
 a low ironical laugh. 
 
 " She is favored," she says, in a bitter tone. 
 
 "He is coming out in a new light. To pose as the at- 
 tentive husband is quite a departure for him," says Staines, 
 with a wicked sneer. " What a farce it all is ! Yet she 
 will wear his flowers in preference to mine to-night." 
 
 " I hardly see how she dare do otherwise if She 
 lets a little pause drift into her speech that is apparently
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 163 
 
 occupied in blowing away a tiny dust-speck from her sleeve 
 " if you permit it. It is a rather early stage in the pro- 
 ceedings for her to defy openly her husband, and that thing 
 so far more important the world." 
 
 "Perilously early. But the question is, not whether I 
 will permit it, but how to prevent it. She will, as you say, 
 not dare to defy her world she will wear his flowers." 
 
 " While longing for yours ! " She regards him keenly 
 as she drops this sop to his pride. " It is true. She will 
 do this thing if " 
 
 "Well? " 
 
 "You give her the chance." 
 
 " Pah, riddles are a bore. Speak plainly if you will 
 speak," retorts he, rudely. 
 
 " Gently, my friend," says Madame, closing her eyes a 
 little. " There is nothing to be gained by loud speaking 
 save unenviable attention. What I would say to you is 
 this. How marvellously alike, both in construction and 
 color, are these two charming bouquets." 
 
 In truth they are wonderfully similar. The flowers are 
 not the same, but all are white and the delicate maiden hair 
 fern that springs up between the snowy blossoms of both, 
 renders the likeness even more remarkable. 
 
 " I see. You would have me destroy his, and send mine 
 in his name," says Staines, slowly. 
 
 "Poof! No! We must think of something less heavy 
 than that. It is a poor plot," returns she, with quite a gav 
 little laugh. " Of what use is the advance of intellect of 
 which we hear so much, if we cannot produce a safer plan. 
 And besides, touching both floral offerings " it would be 
 a pity surely to condemn either of these gracious things to 
 an ignominious death." 
 
 " What is your purpose, then ? " demands he, sulkily. 
 
 "Why, to exchange them, of course," airily. " Fair ex- 
 change is no robbery. It defrauds no man. And, indeed, 
 who shall say that your flowers do riot carry away the palm 
 of beauty ! " She leans toward him, and sinks her voice 
 to a whisper. " Send jiw/r.y up to Lady Branksmere with 
 her husband's compliments, and trust me to have his deliv- 
 ered later on with yours ! It sounds a pretty complexity, 
 does it not ? And it will work well, believe me." 
 
 Staines regards her fixedly. 
 
 "You would place me a good deal in your power," he 
 says at last, slowly. 
 
 "Your heart fails you ?" with a slight shrug. "Then
 
 164 LADY BKANKSMERE. 
 
 do not proceed, I advise you. Give up this little affair 
 To know fear is to insure failure." 
 
 "You mistake me. I do not fear you," coldly. "I un- 
 derstand myself sufficiently to know I have talent enough 
 to swear myself out of any difficulty should the worst come. 
 What I am now pondering is the possibility not of my 
 own failure, but that of your excellent plan. You think 
 she will select the flowers she believes to be Branksmere's. 
 But how if after all she should elect to wear mine ? That 
 would be one to him, and check to me, even though she 
 did not mean it." 
 
 "She will not defy him to that extent yet! I tell you 
 my scheme will not fall through, and will injure her materi- 
 ally in his eyes Jenkins will be back directly the mes- 
 sage I gave had no meaning in it. Shall I," indicating 
 both bouquets by a graceful wave of her hand, " change 
 them ?" 
 
 "As an experiment it will be amusing," returns Staines, 
 dryly. Taking up his own flowers he lays them ready for 
 Jenkins' hand. 
 
 " Do not let him see the others. Servants as a rule are 
 fatally troublesome," says Madame, removing the delicate 
 waxen blossoms that Branksmere had ordered with such 
 care, and dropping them contemptuously, if lightly, into 
 a safe corner, where they lie hidden by some falling 
 lace. 
 
 She has said nothing to him about the extracted letter. 
 To him, as to all others save Branksmere, her secret is un- 
 known, unguessed. But her mind is still full of subtile 
 workings that aim at the prevention of to-morrow's inter- 
 view between Branksmere and his wife. 
 
 "There is another thing," she says, softly, with careful 
 indifference, as Staines turns as if to leave her. " Some- 
 thing I learned by chance, and it has suddenly occurred 
 to me, may be of some small use to you. Having," with a 
 pale smile, "gone into partnership with you in this matter, 
 when I see an opportunity, however weak, of helping you, 
 I make a point of remembering it." She pauses, still smil- 
 ing as though for some acknowledgment from him, but 
 he betrays neither gratitude nor any other feeling. 
 
 " Go on," he says stolidly. Plainly he is unimpressed 
 by her profession of solicitude for his welfare. 
 
 " Branksmere has written to his wife demanding, of 
 rather entreating, an interview with her on the morrow." 
 
 " For what purpose ? Is it a quarrel ? " asks he,
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 165 
 
 sharply. She has succeeded at last in thoroughly rousing 
 him. 
 
 " Far from that. A reconciliation rather. A meeting 
 that threatens to be full of domestic tenderness, and will 
 upset your arrangements cleverly. Ha! You see how he 
 dreads your influence over her already, when he can con- 
 descend to beseech her." 
 
 " I wish I was as sure of that as you seem to be," re- 
 turns he, with a grim smile. 
 
 " He has to go to town by the early train in the morn- 
 ing, and has asked her to grant him a private audience on 
 his return." 
 
 ' When will that be ? " 
 
 ' Three o'clock." 
 
 ' And she what does she say ?" 
 
 ' Nothing, as yet." 
 
 ' She hesitates, then," eagerly. 
 
 ' Not so much that, as . The fact is," says Madame, 
 
 unfurling in an indolent fashion the huge black fan hang- 
 ing from her waist, " she has not yet seen that letter to 
 which I have alluded." 
 
 Staines regards her with an unfeigned curiosity that is 
 yet largely mingled with admiration. 
 
 " And you have ! " he remarks, dryly. " Keep your own 
 counsel about that, by all means, but give me a hint or 
 two that may still serve us. You have reminded me that 
 the victory of one means victory for both." 
 
 " Hardly but I am content to take my chance." 
 
 "She knows nothing yet, then, of his desire for this 
 interview ! And he has appointed three o'clock to-morrow 
 for it to take place ? Is this how the matter stands ?" 
 
 "Yes, and if by some lucky chance she should fail to 
 keep this appointment how would it be, then ?" 
 
 " You give me food for thought." 
 
 " Digest it then. If she should fail, let me remind you 
 that probably a reconciliation would be further off than 
 ever." 
 
 " Get that letter destroyed. If she knows nothing of 
 its contents she cannot keep the appointment." 
 
 " As I hinted to you before, my friend, you grow clum- 
 sy. Your constructions are too crude. A letter is a tangi- 
 ble thing when lost which is very seldom in these days 
 of admirable management one cries aloud for it. One 
 demands restitution. For the destroyer it grows awkward. 
 No ; better the letter should be delivered just a little too
 
 166 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 late. That rests with me. With you it remains to see that 
 she is nowhere within the castle-grounds at the time 
 named." 
 
 " Three, did you say ? " 
 
 " Have you thought it out ? " 
 
 "Give me time," smiling. "At present I can only 
 assure you that whoever fails to-morrow it shall not be I." 
 
 He lays his finger on his lip, and disappears through 
 the window into the gardens, as Jenkins' returning foot- 
 steps sound in the hall. 
 
 " My lord has gone up to one of the home farms, m'm, 
 with Mr. Donaldson," he informs Madame, regretfully. 
 Mr. Donaldson is the Scotch steward. 
 
 " Very well. It scarcely matters. Take these flowers 
 up now to Lady Branksmere's maid." 
 
 As she gives them to him she watches his face narrowly 
 as though to suspect any suspicion or surprise in it. Her 
 espionage goes unrewarded. Mr. Jenkins' countenance 
 continues what Nature intended it to be, a most satisfac- 
 tory blank. To the dullest observer it would be plain that 
 he has noticed no change in the bouquet, and that one 
 bunch of white flowers is to him quite the same thing as 
 another. He departs with a decorous languor of gait to 
 Mrs. Bridgman, and desires her to lay the fragrant heaths 
 upon my lady's table with "my lord's compliments." 
 
 Some hours later when Muriel is sitting in her bedroom 
 before her glass, letting her maid put some finishing 
 touches to a toilette of white and gold that already is per- 
 fect beyond description a second bouquet is brought to 
 her with Captain Staines' kind regards. A glance tells 
 her that it, too, is white, and pure and fragrant as that un- 
 welcome one that had met her eyes on first entering her 
 room this evening. 
 
 " No, not there ! " she cries a little sharply, as Bridgman 
 would have placed the new gift next to Lord Branksmere's 
 flowers upon the small buhl table near the screen, and 
 presently, dismissing her woman, she leans back in her 
 chair, and taking up both bouquets examines them with a 
 strange tightening at her throat. 
 
 Branksmere's delicate offering, following as suddenly as 
 it did upon the bitter scene that had passed between him 
 and her, had roused within her a very storm of passionate 
 indignation. It had come without a word, without so 
 much as even a poor message ; had been flung to her as a 
 mere stop-gap. During that last terrible interview, in
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 167 
 
 which she had imperiously demanded from him an ex- 
 planation of Madame's words, " Ask Branksmere," he had 
 almost promised her one, and now these flowers had been 
 sent to fill its place. These dumb things that cannot even 
 by their beauty heal the burning thoughts, the cruel sus- 
 picions, that hurt and tear her breast. 
 
 She had flung them from her in a very transport of 
 fury, as her anger waxed hotter within her, and then, with 
 a strange revulsion of feeling, had picked them up again, 
 and pulled out their best leaves and laid them tenderly, if 
 coldly, on the table. What if, after all, she had been mis- 
 taken. If! A sorry hope. She had cherished it for a 
 while an inconsequent five minutes or so and then had 
 laughed at herself for thus harboring a sentiment so 
 entirely without life. Would all her bosom's warmth re- 
 create it now ? And still it returns again and again with 
 foolish persistence. Oh ! to be sure only sure one way 
 or the other! 
 
 As Staines' flowers now lie side by side with Branks- 
 mere's, where she has laid them down, after a little strug- 
 gle with her better self, an expression that suggests re- 
 venge darkens her face. Here seems to be given her the 
 chance of disdaining her husband's puerile attempt at 
 patching up an injustice, already too far gone to admit of 
 any mending. To discard his flowers, to openly ignore 
 them and then give honor to his rival's ! A sweet revenge 
 indeed. She shivers a little as that word " rival " forces 
 itself upon her ; but she will not turn aside from it, or 
 give a decenter name to her meaning. With a cold sense 
 of self-contempt, she declares openly to herself, that this 
 lover of hers in the fond, careless, irrecoverable past, is her 
 lover still. 
 
 She taps the table impatiently with her fingers, and a 
 quick frown disfigures her brow. Once again she con- 
 centrates her thoughts upon the question which of these 
 bouquets shall she carry to-night? A great desire to 
 slight Branksmere, to betray publicly her scorn and loath- 
 ing of him, is great within her ; but within her, too, is a 
 nervous shrinking from the act itself. To abase him is 
 one thing, but to uphold another 
 
 Again that absurd doubt cries aloud for house-room in 
 her heart. It will not be killed. At times it may lie 
 scotched, but always life lingers in it. There is no love 
 for her husband to guide or restrain the wayward work- 
 ings of her soul, but yet some instinct warns her that his
 
 168 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 dark determined face hides no evil, and that his eyes have 
 never yet fallen before hers. She is but a woman too, 
 and her good name is dear to her. As yet no touch of 
 blight has come to it ; and and there is always Margery, 
 and pale Angelica, and the boys, and the children the 
 pretty, fat, innocent twins ! 
 
 When she gets to this point in her miserable waverings, 
 she clinches her teeth and draws her breath hard. Rising 
 tumultuously to her feet, she snatches up the flowers that 
 she alas ! believes to be Branksmere's, and, with white 
 lips and trembling fingers, goes down-stairs. 
 
 The other carriages have started ten minutes ago. Lady 
 Anne and Lord Primrose have waited to accompany her. 
 With a little hurried apology for the delay she has caused, 
 and for which Primrose has been devoutly blessing her, 
 they, too, step into the waiting brougham, and are driven 
 toward the town, the lights of which can be seen gleaming 
 through the tall lime-trees in the eastern walk. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 "And there's a lust in may no charm can tame, 
 Of loudly publishing our neighbor's shame." 
 
 NIGHT is waning ; already day's footsteps lie upon the 
 border of its kingdom. The stars, as though in defiance 
 of their coming foe, are shining with even a keener bril- 
 liance than distinguished them an hour ago. The ball is 
 at its height ; the waltzes are growing slower and more 
 languorous ; the band is at last becoming impressed by 
 the sad plaints it has been holding forth so long ; it be- 
 gins to excel itself to become, indeed, quite saturated 
 with melancholy. 
 
 It has failed, however to impress Margery Daryl witli a 
 sense of its own sentimental sorrow. She is laughing 
 gayly at this moment at the end of the room, surrounded 
 by quite a little group of admirers, among whom are con- 
 spicuous Curzon Bellew a man from Loming Barracks, 
 and little Mr. Goldie, the curate. The County Ball is 
 not only a fashionable but a very sociable affair, to which 
 both the Rectors and the Curates of the town around are 
 permitted to accompany their womankind without a rebuff 
 being delivered to them next day in the morning papers.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 169 
 
 Mr. Goldie has no Avomankind of any description, but 
 that hardly matters, and is quite looked over in the 
 general feeling of hilarity and good fellowship that at- 
 tends on this yearly re-union of the great and small. 
 "We shall just drop in for a moment or two to get a 
 glimpse of our friends," the rector is wont to say annually, 
 in his round, jovial voice, but Mr. Goldie's moment or 
 two has grown into hours, so loth is he to drag himself 
 away from the fair Margery. 
 
 She is looking more than ordinarily charming to-night, 
 in the pretty gown that Willie had given her. She is radi- 
 ant, happy many triumphs have fallen to her share, 
 many scalps to her innocent bow that is wrought curi- 
 ously, of sunny smiles and little speeches half shy and 
 half coquettish, and glances from two very wonderful 
 eyes deep, clear e'yes that brighten and glow and soften 
 as if by magic, sweet eyes that : 
 
 " Smile constantly, as if they in discreetness, 
 Kept the secret of a happy dream she did not care to speak." 
 
 Peter, too, is in high feather ; and, having given him- 
 self into the keeping of Mr. Paulyn, is having quite a gay 
 old time of it among the prettiest girls in the room. The 
 Hon. Tommy seems determined his protege shall make a 
 night of it, and what between the champagne and the 
 still more exhilarating glances of lovely eyes, and the 
 many incipient heartaches he is enjoying, Peter may 
 honestly be said to be revelling. 
 
 "Your brother seems to me to be er going it," says 
 Halkett, who just now is among pretty Miss Daryl's fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 "Ah ! Peter was ' born in a merry hour ! ' " returns she, 
 laughing. " Mark his increasing amiability," looking at 
 her brother with the liveliest admiration, as she sees him 
 paying open court to a young woman of the Roman nosed 
 type, who seems a good deal astonished, but decidedly 
 taken with his boyish gayety. 
 
 "His astounding effrontery, you mean," corrects Hal- 
 kett, mildly. " I myself with all my seasoning would not 
 take a small fortune to crack jokes with Lady Emma 
 Forbes, which it occurs to me is what he is now doing. I 
 wonder where that boy expects to go to. Watch him, he 
 doesn't look in the least frightened." 
 
 "The other way round rather," says Branksmere, who 
 has just joined them, with a little smile.
 
 170 LADY BKANKSMERE. 
 
 " It is cruel. It makes me feel old," sighs Halkett, 
 mournfuUy. " I can't keep up with the rising generation ; 
 already they distance me." He waves his hand toward 
 the animated Peter. " Last time I spent five minutes 
 alone in Lady Emma's company was in July, '84. It was 
 an exceptionably warm evening, I remember, yet when 
 those dire five minutes came to an end I was obliged to 
 fly to the nearest kitchen fire to try and impart some heat 
 into my chilled marrow. Yet there is the valiant Peter in 
 the same situation, warm and comfortable." 
 
 " More than that. Actually enjoying himself. Now he 
 is laughing. And and so is Lady Emma, by Jove. See?" 
 
 "Laughing! Oh, no, I won't believe that. Thanks, 
 no, I had rather not look and be convinced. Laughing ! 
 Lady Emma laughing ! Miss Daryl, this is our waltz, I 
 think. Will you kindly take me away?" 
 
 She does so. And passing by Mrs. Amyot, who is hold- 
 ing a court of her own, attracts her attention. 
 
 "Pretty thing, that Margery Daryl is," she says. " Soft 
 as a crayon sketch. She always seems to me the very in- 
 carnation of youth and spring, and freshness and er all 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 "You are. growing amazingly fresh and youthful your- 
 self," whispers Mrs. Vyner, mischievously. " What an 
 outburst ! What ravishing sentiment ! Is all that the re- 
 sult of Halkett's dancing with her?" 
 
 " Margery is charming but not to be named in the 
 same day with her sister, for all that," remarks Mr. Paulyn, 
 with conviction. 
 
 " No ? Well, it would ill become me to dispute it. 
 Lady Branksmere is certainly lovely." 
 
 "To a fault," finishes Mrs. Vyner, sweetly. 
 
 " That expresses it in a nutshell," says Primrose, laugh- 
 ing. " She is beautiful, we can all see, and yet is she ? 
 One hardly knows, after all. I confess, at all events, it is 
 a beauty that puzzles me. I am Goth enough not to be 
 able to understand it. She is too volcanic too repressed. 
 One is always wondering when the denouement will 
 be." 
 
 "Soon, I shouldn't wonder!" lisps Mrs. Vyner, with 
 the most meaningless air in the world. 
 
 " It will be curious when it comes. Those intense look- 
 ing women are generally very trying very. One cannot 
 conquer a natural anxiety to know if the waking up wiH 
 produce total extinction, or a new and healthy life."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 171 
 
 " Social extinction, did you say?" asks Mrs. Vyner, art- 
 lessly. 
 
 " No ; total." 
 
 " It is possible to go too far, Louisa," says Mrs. Amyot, 
 in a low tone, casting- a warning glance at her friend. 
 
 " Just what I think," returns tiiat irrepressible person, 
 unmoved, and in a clear voice that has lost a little of its 
 lisp for the occasion. " Much too far. My very own sen- 
 timents, I assure you. All ! talk of the dev an angel, I 
 mean there goes Lady Branksmere." 
 
 " How that white and gold suits her," says Mrs. Amyot, 
 admiringly. "White seems a favorite of hers." 
 
 " So does Captain Staines," laughs Mrs. Vyner, de- 
 murely, pointing to Muriel's companion. 
 
 "Funny selection," exclaims a tall man of the lanky 
 order, whose hair is a source of undying annoyance to his 
 friends and his coat collars, and whose general appear- 
 ance is a cross between a Methodist parson and an artist. 
 " I should'call Staines ugly myself." 
 
 "Oh, no! handsome rather." 
 
 " I agree with Varnyshe, ugly, ugly decidedly," exclaims 
 Lord Primrose, with emphasis. "All the outer veneer he 
 can put on does not blind me to the defects beneath." 
 He puts his glass aimlessly in his eye, and then drops it 
 again, and altogether looks as disturbed in spirit as a lit- 
 tle, plain, good-humored man can look. 
 
 "Ah! Lord Primrose!" murmurs Mrs. Amyot, leaning 
 back to look up at him out of her saucy eyes. " You 
 grow severe ! I shudder to think what will become of me 
 when you once see through my veloutine." 
 
 Her short, upper lip curls slowly in a mischievous smile, 
 and knowing herself a pet of his, she makes at him a little 
 inoue. 
 
 "You are a hypocrite to your veloutine," returns the 
 small man, gallantly. "You pretend it is of service to you 
 when it isn't ! " Mrs. Amyot is delighted. 
 
 " Ah ! Primrose ! " cries she, patting the edge of the 
 ottoman, " you shall have a share of my seat for that. 
 Come, take it. I know you are longing for the repose 
 Mr. Varnyshe is so fond of telling us about." 
 
 Indeed, Mr. Varnyshe has been waxing as eloquent over 
 his favorite theme as his brains will permit, with Lady 
 Branksmere as subject. 
 
 " The general impression is that of rest, but one is hardly 
 safe in believing it. Her eyes, the petulant under lip,
 
 1 72 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 mock at it. At the first glance she is an exquisite ' still 
 
 life,' if you will, but with a storm brooding on the distant 
 
 hill-tops." 
 
 The artist sniffs ecstatically, and then blows a sonorous 
 
 blast upon his poky nose. 
 
 "Would you have them impolite? How do you treat 
 those with whom you are on friendly terms ? " 
 
 " Ah ! you should know !" murmurs she, reproachfully, 
 glancing up at Paulyn, who is the speaker, and who forth- 
 with breaks into an irresistible laugh. " I don't scowl at 
 them, at all events, behind their backs. And I have re- 
 marked that Captain Staines looks as black as an Ethio- 
 pian when Mrs. Daryl's eyes are off him." 
 
 " Poor soul ! " says Primrose, reflectively. " I fear he is 
 not long for this world. Hanwell will be enriched by him 
 before many months go by." 
 
 "Ever hear any fellow talk of one's inside like him?" 
 bursts out Mr. Paulyn, indignantly, who perhaps has not 
 altogether grasped his meaning. " Doocid odd /call it, 
 and before ladies, too. One would think he was the private 
 possessor of a telescope that could see into a fellow, eh ? " 
 
 " Dwell on his many inches and be lenient," says Mrs. 
 Amyot, when she has laughed a little. " And bring to mind 
 at the same time your Bacon : ' My Lord St. Albans said 
 that nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret 
 four storeys high, and therefore that exceeding tall men had 
 ever very empty heads.' Poor Mr. Varnyshe ! One feels 
 for him after that. And it isn't my abuse, mind you. I 
 should be afraid to criticise anyone so many miles above 
 me." 
 
 " Mrs. Vyner, we miss you. You have not spoken to us 
 for quite five minutes. Your thoughts ? Give us those at 
 least." 
 
 " Alas ! I never learned how to think. Mrs. Amyot will 
 tell you so," lisps she, mournfully. " I was merely looking 
 at the little American woman with the robin's eyes. The 
 Daryl's sister-in-law, I mean." 
 
 " See how she watches Lady Branksmere's every move- 
 ment," exclaims Mrs. Amyot, amused. 
 
 " Or is it Captain Staines ? I am so wretchedly short- 
 sighted," protests Mrs. Vyner, regretfully. " Do you 
 know I often wonder, what it is Captain Staines can possi- 
 bly have done to her, or she to him ; they treat each other 
 with such a rigorous politeness when compelled to speak." 
 
 " If Lady Branksmere is to be bracketed as a ' still life,
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 173 
 
 how may Miss Daryl be designated?" asks Primrose 
 blandly. " As ' an interior ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes, yes. Very aptly put. And what a perfect ' inte- 
 rior ! " All love and peace and grace ! " 
 
 "You admire Miss Daryl the most, then," says Mrs. 
 Amyot, smiling. 
 
 "Ah ! Yes ! " responds the lanky man, with a loud sigh, 
 that speaks no doubt of the full heart. He moves away, 
 his hand thrust in an Irvingian mode into his breast, with 
 the elbow well prominent, and strides into space with fly- 
 ing locks. 
 
 " No wonder ! They are very pretty eyes. I suppose 
 he would rather have them on him." 
 
 "That I question." 
 
 " Fancy your remarking anything ? " says Mrs. Amyot, in 
 a tone that might be termed satirical. 
 
 " That surprises you ? Do you know, of late," ventures 
 Mrs. Vyner, meekly, "it has occurred to me that, perhaps, 
 I look more stupid than I really am ?" 
 
 She glances nervously, appealingly around her. 
 
 " You must not let that fear trouble you again," whis- 
 pers her friend gayly. "// isn't true ! " 
 
 Mrs. Vyner laughs. 
 
 " Anybody got their eyes on Aunt Selina," exclaims Mr. 
 Paulyn at this moment. " If so, he or she will be richly 
 rewarded. Such spite ! such venom could hardly be ex- 
 celled ! I like a thing well done, I confess, be it good or 
 evil. See how she glowers at Muriel. She seems to have 
 made quite a bete noire of her of late. Why ? I wonder. 
 What's she been doing ? " 
 
 "That is jugt what we all want to know," sighs Mrs. 
 Vyner, mildly. 
 
 " My gentle Aunt has her eye on her to-night, with a 
 vengeance at all events," says Mr. Paulyn. ''And what 
 an eye it is ! As a boy it used to regular crumple me up, 
 and even now it takes the curl out of me. Thank good- 
 ness she has taken up a new hobby. As a rule that eye 
 was dedicated to a discovery of my delinquencies." 
 
 The Hon. Tommy heaves a sigh of deepest relief. 
 
 " I'm very sorry if I offend you, Mr. Paulyn," murmurs 
 Mrs. Vyner with pretty impertinence. "But I must always 
 regard it as a personal injury that that old lady, your Aunt, 
 ever saw the light. Why don't you renounce her?" 
 
 "' Twouldn't have done you a bit of good if she'd been 
 born blind," returns Mr. Paulyn, gloomily, pretending to
 
 174 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 misunderstand her. " She'd have found you out all the 
 same ! " 
 
 The insouciance of this remark is hardly to be surpassed, 
 and being well understanded of the people round is irre- 
 sistible. Mrs. Amyot, bending over her fan, gives way to 
 silent mirth. 
 
 "You were right in what you said yesterday," she whis- 
 pers to Mrs. Vyner. " He is a nice boy." 
 
 " Perhaps if she hadn't been born at all it would have 
 simplified matters," says Mrs. Vyner, with some faint as- 
 perity. " She is a living nightmare." 
 
 " Puts on her clothes with a pitchfork, and is never 
 happy unless she is taking away somebody's character 
 shocking habits, both," murmurs Mrs. Amyot. 
 
 " Shocking, indeed," agrees Halkett, who has just come 
 up behind them, glancing at her with meaning. 
 
 " Ah, you ! " she cries, lightly. " Well, Mentor, and 
 where have you been all this longtime ? Instructing some 
 new pupil, perchance. We have been discussing Lady 
 Branksmere's charms in comparison with those of her 
 sister. I am prejudiced in favor of Margery, I own, but 
 public opinion gives the apple to Lady Branksmere. She 
 is the acknowledged beauty of the room to-night. Yes, Mr. 
 Paulyn, you were right when you said Margery's perfec- 
 tions were eclipsed by those of her sister." 
 
 "Perhaps it will add a little additional interest to that 
 remark of mine to know that it was not made in allusion 
 to Lady Branksmere at all," returns Mr. Paulyn, pleasantly, 
 "but to Margery's younger sister Angelica." 
 
 " They are a handsome lot, those Daryls," says Primrose. 
 " Beauty seems to run riot among them." 
 
 " And virtue" supplements Mrs. Vyner, sweetly. As 
 she says this with an ingenuous smile, and quite a generous 
 air, Lady Branksmere, with Staines still beside her, passes 
 by them, and, slipping through an open window, disappears 
 into the mystic recesses of the night. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 " My soul lies hid in shades of grief." 
 
 UPON the broad, stone-flagged terrace, great tubs of 
 odorous evergreens are dotted here and there, casting their 
 perfumes into the dewy darkness. A little harmless baby
 
 LADY BRANKSMERP:. 175 
 
 shower had fallen from heaven about an hour ago, and 
 still the large shining leaves are wet with it, and sparkle 
 softly in the moonbeams. Up above, the pale drifting 
 clouds have been scattered by a wandering wind, and now 
 the Queen of Night is sailing calm and tranquil in the 
 blue ether. 
 
 Down in the gardens the tall white lilies are nodding 
 their drowsy heads, and the sweet trailing roses are cast- 
 ing shadows on the closely shaven sward. The air seems 
 burdened with the warm scent of them. Pale disks of 
 light are lying in soft patches on the mossy turf, and now 
 and again a sleepy caw from the distant rookery in Branks- 
 mere Woods, that border on the town, is all that comes to 
 break the unutterable calm of the hour. 
 
 The tender-colored night draws hardly breath. It seems 
 more like a sweet twilight than the soft bordering on the 
 lines of a new day, and through the scented darkness a 
 little loving breeze is rushing \vith gentle petulance. 
 
 Far beyond again lies the fountain, its sprays rising and 
 falling in a lazy, musical fashion, suggestive of the thought 
 that it would fain slumber, but is driven into action by 
 some tyrannical Pixie, lying laughing in its basin where 
 the big white flowers are glistening among their swaying 
 leaves. Muriel coming to a standstill beside it, seats her- 
 self dreamily upon the marble edge, and, dreamily still, 
 pulls off her glove and lets her fingers play among the 
 opening buds that lie on the water's bosom. 
 
 Staines seating himself beside her watches her with a 
 curious intentness. Never before perhaps has he felt so 
 keenly the power and perfection of her beauty. The 
 mystic hour the soft breathing of the night- the sense of 
 farness, only rendered more acute by the swelling and 
 dying of the slumberous waltz that comes to them every 
 now and then upon the midnight wind all tend to bring 
 passion into life. It seems impossible that anyone should 
 be awake save they two ! All the world might indeed be 
 dead, and that sweet mournful music their requiem, with 
 only two to hear it ! 
 
 No human voice comes to them ; no whisper, only the 
 sighing of the rustling grasses, and the fond cooing of the 
 wood doves. The perfume of the lilies is wafted to them, 
 and s/ie, fairer than any lily, is sitting motionless upon the 
 marble basin, her head half turned aside. 
 
 Her white gown, with its touches of gold, is making a 
 vivid blot against the dark background of firs. The moon-
 
 176 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 beams have descended, and caught her, and are encircling 
 her with their white flames, playing among the folds of 
 her clinging gown, and glancing off the gems that deck 
 her. 
 
 "Diamonds to fasten the hair and diamonds to fasten the sleeves. 
 Laces to drip from their rays, like a powder of snow from the eaves. " 
 
 Presently, as though the silence has reached her even 
 through the armor of strange thoughts that have clothed 
 her, she lifts her head and looks round her with an air of 
 one suddenly startled. 
 
 " How apart we seem to be," she says discontentedly. 
 
 " I am glad of it," returns Staines, in a manner hurried, 
 impulsive. It seems to attract her. 
 
 "You are changed," she says, leaning forward and re- 
 garding him curiously. " What is it ? The moonlight ? 
 It always makes me, too, long to be alone ! " 
 
 She sighs as one waking from a rapture and a certain 
 little sense of vague but joyful rest that had sweetened 
 her lips, flies. She looks once again cold, loveless, im- 
 passive. 
 
 He checks the eager words he would have uttered, and 
 instead, stooping toward her, points to the white flowers 
 she holds. 
 
 " I hardly dared hope so much." 
 
 " So much ? " 
 
 " That you would wear my flowers." 
 
 " You mistake," she says, coldly. " These are not yours. 
 You will understand," quickly, with icy courtesy, " that I 
 thought yours charming; that I was much gratified; but 
 I have not used them." 
 
 " How then ? " with an admirably puzzled air, " you re- 
 ceived two bouquets the same ?" 
 
 " In effect, yes. But the flowers are different. Yours 
 were lilies, if you remember." 
 
 "Pardon me," smiling pleasantly, "mine were heath. 
 Whose the lilies were, I am at a loss to conjecture, but 
 certainly my bouquet was composed of heath." 
 
 Lady Branksmere flushes slowly. She feels perplexed, 
 uncertain. Had she made a mistake ? Surely Bridgman 
 had given these flowers last, with his lordship's compli- 
 ments. A sudden frown wrinkles her forehead. 
 
 "I do not comprehend," she says. "Of course there is 
 a mistake somewhere. But," steadily, "I repeat, I had 
 no idea I was wearing the flowers you so kindly sent me."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 177 
 
 " Ah ! That knowledge I liave taken to heart. Pray 
 do not be afraid 1 shall imagine otherwise," returns he, 
 with a touch of pride that is yet sadly humble. " I must 
 express my regret that that sorry gift of mine," glancing 
 at the flowers, "has occasioned you some annoyance. 
 Whoever sent you the other. flowers," with meaning, "is 
 to be envied." His tone is almost a question, and it gets 
 its answer. 
 
 " Lord Branksmere sent them," returns she, quickly, if 
 indifferently. Something in her manner, that Staines 
 chooses to translate to his own satisfaction, sends a sudden 
 light of triumph to his eyes. To him her hasty answer is 
 equivalent to a desire on her part to relieve him of all 
 jealous fears. She would have him assured that no other 
 man's flowers had been chosen in preference to his, but 
 that Branksmere's had been worn through a mere sense of 
 mingled fear and duty. 
 
 Her fingers are still in a listless fashion rippling the 
 calm water of the fountain. Seen by the rays of the 
 ghostly moon, they look like the fingers of a dead hand 
 floating there in their slender whiteness. Staines, stoop- 
 ing over the basin, takes possession of them, and forcibly 
 draws them from the water. The large drops falling from 
 them glisten like jewels. Muriel seems surprised by his 
 action, but not inordinately so. 
 
 " Let my hand go," she says, haughtily, disdaining to 
 make any physical effort to release herself. 
 
 "In one moment." Carefully, and with the utmost ten- 
 derness, yet with an obedient haste, he dries the hand he 
 holds the hand that once had lain in his idly, contentedly, 
 for. hours, yet that now chafes and frets at his touch. Per- 
 haps the impatience that thrills through it is not altogether 
 displeasing to him as he lifts his eyes and intently scans 
 the lowered lids and silent face before him. A sad face, 
 pathetic in its studied coldness, that hides as if with a 
 mask the workings of its owner's heart. Have her thoughts 
 travelled backward, too, to those old days of despised free- 
 dom, when poverty was the chief sorrow with her, and she 
 lived in the midst of a merry tangle of boys and girls, and 
 when there was one outside who 
 
 She comes back to the present with a sharp sigh as 
 Staines lays her hand now dry upon her lap. 
 
 "Don't put it in again," he says, quietly. "It is still 
 early in the year and the water is chilly. You may catch 
 cold." 
 
 u
 
 i-jS LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " I never catch cold " absently " as you may remem- 
 ber." 
 
 She regrets the words even as they pass her lips, and the 
 opportunity they afford him. He seizes upon it eagerly. 
 
 " Remember ! " he repeats, in a tone of strongly repressed 
 passion. " When shall I forget, I wonder ! What is there 
 in all the sweet days we passed together that I do not 
 remember? Yet" eagerly " do not misunderstand me. 
 Do not for an instant imagine that I regret one single 
 hour. Memory is now the only good that life has left me. 
 The memory" his voice sinks to a low tone full of pathos 
 " of a priceless past ! " 
 
 "Let the past lie," returns she, coldly. " What have we 
 to do with it ? Jt is gone, dead. No effort, however vio- 
 lent, can bring it within our grasp again." 
 
 " I have at least one solace in my desolation," says 
 Staines, in a low tone. "And that is the knowledge that 
 I suffer alone. It is, it shall be," vehemently, " a lasting 
 comfort for me to know that you are as free from regrets 
 as I am overshadowed by them." 
 
 "Shadows are movable things," with a faint shrug of 
 her shoulders. " It seems to me that at times you can 
 emerge from yours with a very tolerable success." 
 
 " Ay, but they always follow one. In reality (though one 
 may deceive one's self at times) there is no escape from 
 them. But be happy in the thought that they do not 
 trouble you that those old days so dear to me, are by you 
 remembered but as a foolish, passing dream." 
 
 "Would you have me believe you unhappy," demands 
 she, scornfully. 
 
 " I would have you believe nothing displeasing to you. 
 Mould your beliefs according to your fancy." 
 
 " I have none. I have lost all beliefs," declares she, with 
 a rather reckless defiance. " But don't waste time over 
 that speach. You look as though you had something to 
 say. Say it." 
 
 " You are wrong. I never felt more tongue-tied in my 
 life. I could tell you nothing that is not already old and 
 weary news to you. That I have loved, that I do love, that 
 I shall love you and you only -forever and ever ! " 
 
 His tone is so calm, so entirely wanting in the vehe- 
 mence that disturbs, that she seems scarcely called upon to 
 rise and forbid his further utterance. She sits quite mute 
 with her eyes downcast, and her fingers tightly laced, lying 
 in her lap.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 175 
 
 "It is an uninteresting tale, is it not ?" continues he, 
 quietly. " All on the one string. Yet for me it has varia- 
 tions. I can make my torture a little keener now and 
 then, by a careful reminding of myself that the woman for 
 whom I would have bartered every hope I possess de- 
 liberately of her own free will severed between us 
 every tie." 
 
 ' " For whom you would have bartered alii ' Why did 
 you never protest so much as that in those old days you 
 are so fond of recalling ? " inquires she, with a sudden cold 
 sneer. 
 
 " I thought I had protested more. I believed my soul 
 as open to your gaze as I madly dreamed yours was to 
 mine. I saw no necessity for words. I " dejectedly 
 "was mistaken upon both points. My failure was my own 
 fault, no doubt, but it is none the less bitter for that." 
 
 " If, indeed, you feel as you now pretend, you should 
 never have come to this house," declares she, with slow 
 distinctness, but he can see that she is trembling. 
 
 " I know that now, but then How could I tell 
 
 how be sure how it was with me until I saw you again." 
 He is speaking with extreme agitation ; at this moment, 
 indeed, he is sincere enough, and the woman before him, 
 standing gazing at him with head erect, in all her cold, im- 
 perious beauty, seems to him the one desirable thing on 
 earth. He had almost denied the truth to Madame von 
 Thirsk had refused at least to acknowledge it, yet cer- 
 tainly the honestest love he had ever known had been 
 called into existence by Muriel Daryl. The girl he had 
 accounted charming, a prize worth any man's winning, yet 
 that first love of his had sunk into insignificance beside the 
 passionate admiration he had felt on seeing her as Lady 
 Branksmere. The gorgeous setting of her new life had so 
 suited her and enhanced her every beauty, that the 
 memory of the girl grew dim before the splendor of the 
 woman. 
 
 He admires her finding a fresh charm even in her very 
 insolence toward him covets her daily, hourly, and with 
 his growing passion for her, encourages also a settled de- 
 testation of the man who, to use his own thoughts, has 
 stolen her from him. That she is mistress of the best af- 
 fection he has to offer is beyond question but that affec- 
 tion just falls short of what a true lover's should be, in that 
 his love for himself is by many degrees stronger than his 
 love for her could ever be. Still his regard for her is
 
 iSo LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 great enough to throw passion into his voice and a certain 
 fire into his handsome eyes. 
 
 " It seems to me," he goes on vehemently, "as though 
 I should come ; as though with my own eyes I must see 
 you, if only once again." He pauses. 
 
 " And ? " Her tone is stern, almost bitter, but her lips 
 are white. 
 
 " Now I know" returns he, brokenly, " my love still lives 
 nay has grown a thousand fold in its vain strength. I 
 have learned that time holds no hope for me. That I am 
 as sick of life as a man may well be ! " 
 
 "Why do you stay here if you are so unhappy ?" cries 
 she, suddenly. "Why don't you go?" She rises and 
 stretches out her hand with a quick impulsive meaning. 
 "Go, I beseech you," she exclaims, feverishly, and with 
 such an eager desire in her tone that one might easily be- 
 lieve her to be entreating more for herself than him. 
 
 " I cannot ! Some power chains me to this spot. It is 
 a fear, undefined as yet, but it is too strong for me it 
 holds me here." 
 
 "A mere morbid fancy," returns she, regarding him 
 fixedly. " You should despise such vague warnings." 
 
 " Not when they point toward you?" She pales per- 
 ceptibly, and would have spoken, but seeing the haughty 
 curve her lips have taken the scorn in her eyes of all 
 danger for herself and yet underneath all that the lurk- 
 ing terror that his words have called forth, to the very 
 blanching of her face, he prevents her answer and hurries 
 on deliberately. 
 
 " If I could manage to forget, or to be indifferent, I 
 might indeed make my escape ; but that is impossible. 
 Nor would I care for such oblivion. For " with an im- 
 patient sigh 
 
 'Even though I've shattered my skiff on the rocks, 
 The voyage was sweet while it lasted.' 
 
 No ! I would not forget. The very voyage that wrecked 
 
 my happiness will always be the dearest memory 1 have." 
 
 "It is folly madness," cries she, angrily. "You should 
 
 go-" 
 
 " Are those your orders ? " demands he, sadly. " Do not 
 
 enforce them. And there is another thing" he draws 
 nearer to her in an agitated haste, and his voice sinks to 
 a whisper, "how can I go, and leave you here alone,
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 181 
 
 surrounded by those who at least bear you no good- 
 will ! " 
 
 He breaks off abruptly as if in sore distress, but in reality 
 to mark the effect of his words. She has stepped back 
 from him, and her hand has dropped downward and is 
 clinging tightly to the cold edge of the marble basin. 
 
 " Give voice to whatever is in your mind," she com- 
 mands him, in a high, clear tone. But though her tone is 
 steady, there is something wild and strained in the glance 
 that accompanies it. What is it he is about to say to her ? 
 " Are you afraid to put your insinuation into plain words ? 
 The worst enemies, they tell us, are those of one's house- 
 hold who is it you would bid me distrust ? Speak ! 
 
 Branksmere ? His grandmother ? or perhaps " she 
 
 draws her breath sharply, and the squareness of her mouth 
 becomes more pronounced "Madame von Thirsk ?" 
 
 " You give me my opportunity," exclaims he, eagerly. 
 " Madame von Thirsk ! Do not trust her. I know but 
 little, I have no right to judge, but do not, I implore you 
 place faith in that woman." 
 
 A deadly chill passes over Muriel. Her own suspicions 
 thus echoed by another seem to enlarge them at once to a 
 gigantic size. But yet he may know nothing of that 
 darker fear of hers, of that shameful doubt that possesses 
 her soul by night and day. A terrible longing that this 
 last indignity may be spared her, nerves her to answer him. 
 
 " I fancied you were Madame.' s friend," she says, in a 
 tone she vainly strives to render careless. " Did I not see 
 you talking to her just now ? It appeared to me that you 
 held very amicable relations with her. I was wrong?" 
 
 " How can I say whether you are right or wrong ? She 
 has given me no reason to be otherwise than outwardly 
 friendly with her. It is only some hidden instinct that 
 bids me watch her, for your sake" He hesitates openly, and 
 then leans toward her in an impulsive way, that adds a 
 double and most sinister meaning to his words. " I would 
 be rid of this accursed doubt," he says in a low, condensed 
 tone, "tell me you, who should know what is it there is 
 between her and Branksmere ? " 
 
 Muriel leans heavily against the fountain no answer 
 falls from her lips. It is all over then ? The disgrace is 
 known ! Those miserable fears of hers were only too well 
 grounded ! A sense of suffocation threatens to overpower 
 her. She feels giddy, and a strange buzzing noise ringing 
 through her brain distracts her. She is not conscious
 
 182 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 until afterward that in this instant of agony she has un- 
 consciously flung out her hand and laid it, with a terrible 
 trembling in it, on Staines' arm, a trembling that betrays 
 her ! Instinctively as it were, she has turned to him for 
 support, for succor. His pulses throb with unusual force 
 as he recognizes this fact, and closes his own fingers firmly 
 over the beautiful slender ones that came to him of their 
 own accord. 
 
 Then in a moment it all passes away her agitation 
 the anguish the deadly shame. All is gone from her, 
 and she is herself again, save for an additional pallor in 
 her cheeks and a strained passion of fear in the gray eyes. 
 
 "Must no man dare to have an old friend?" she asks, 
 with an attempt at lightness, that is only a miserable fail- 
 ure. Her strength is insufficient for her while his eyes 
 pierce her thoughts, and, after a last wild struggle with 
 herself, she breaks down utterly, and buries her face in her 
 hands. 
 
 " My beloved ! That you should have to endure all 
 this ! " murmurs Staines, in a tone so low, so replete with 
 all the lover's fond indignation, that it is barely audible ; 
 yet it thrills through her. 
 
 And then in a moment as it were his arms are round her, 
 and he has pressed her bowed head down upon his breast. 
 She lies there passively. At this time when her very soul 
 is sick within her, it seems to her as if there was nothing 
 at all that mattered. What are honor, loyalty, faith ? 
 Words all words ! Nothing remains but the knowledge 
 that all the world is at liberty now to jeer at her, and 
 point the finger of scorn at her the despised wife. Good 
 heavens ! can such things be for her Muriel Daryl ? 
 
 O, the old days ! The happy days ! When she reigned 
 as a minor queen over them all ! When love brightened 
 her path. O, to be loved again ! To be able to forget 
 this part that has been assigned her the role of a woman 
 neglected by him who should be her guide, and guardian, 
 and protector. 
 
 And this man loves her! This man whose affection had 
 seemed to her a little cold, a little careless, in the past. 
 She had wronged him there. Now in the hour of her 
 desolation it seems good to her that love should not be 
 altogether denied her, that it may yet be hers, no matter 
 in how sorry a disguise it comes. To her, love is a pure 
 and holy thing passion has no part in it. To be deemed 
 the one thing needful, the best, the dearest possession life
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 183 
 
 can afford, by one human creature, is all she desires. 
 Ghosts of a dead sweetness rise before her, springing to 
 life again beneath the burden of her grief. Must she with 
 her own hands crusli them back into their graves again. 
 Is everything to be denied her? Why should she so 
 greatly dread the world what can it give her save its pity ! 
 She literally writhes beneath this thought, and a sharp sob 
 escapes her ! 
 
 Oh ! to fling it all from her. To rush into another, 
 freer life. To breathe again ! And here is a door open to 
 her a means of escape. 
 
 All at once a revulsion seizes upon her ; she drags her- 
 self out of his arms and stands back from hin. With slow, 
 shuddering gasps she catches her breath. Of what had 
 she been thinking she? A terror has fallen upon her, 
 strange, vivid, horrible ; a looking into herself that has 
 changed and darkened her face, and made her look like an 
 incarnate fear ! Whither is she drifting ? 
 
 " Muriel, you shall not feel it like this," cries Staines, 
 shocked at the expression in her eyes. " Hear me !" 
 
 " Nay, sir ; be satisfied ! " breathes she, heavily. " Am I 
 not degraded enough ? At your bidding all was forgotten. 
 I do not see how I am to look anyone of them in the face 
 again." 
 
 She is not thinking of the guests within, but of Margery 
 pure, sweet, merry Margery and of all the other girls 
 and boys who call her sister. 
 
 " Let us talk sense," says Staines, with a sudden rough- 
 ness, that under the circumstances is only kind. "The 
 question now is how can I help you. I have nothing to 
 offer nothing save my devotion." 
 
 " I want nothing from you," cries she, passionately. 
 " That least of all. Did the whole world combine, do you 
 think it could avenge such a case as mine ? And you, of 
 all others, how dare you offer me help ? You, to whom I 
 
 have shown ." Further words refuse to pass her lips, 
 
 and he perhaps slightly misunderstands the thing she 
 would have said. " No no help from you to me is pos- 
 sible," she says, presently. " Be sure of that. I will ac- 
 cept nothing at your hands." 
 
 She is white as death, and her great stormy eyes are 
 flashing. They fall upon the flowers she is still mechani- 
 cally holding, and, with a gesture of intense scorn, she 
 dashes them to the ground and treads them under foot. 
 She turns upon him like an outraged queen.
 
 1 84 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "Oh, that I could so trample out of sight all that troub- 
 les me," she cries, her fingers plucking convulsively at the 
 soft laces that lie upon her bosom. 
 
 As she so stands, beautiful in her grief and her cruel 
 self-contempt, a soft, low laugh rings through the shrub- 
 bery upon her left. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 "Woman's at best a contradiction still.' 
 
 " THIS retreat of yours is a positive sanctuary," says Hal- 
 kett, dropping leisurely on to a three-legged stool, with all 
 the air of a man who has worn himself out ia the perform- 
 ance of his duty. It is very dusky in this corner of the 
 balcony, and there is something soothing in the thought 
 that everyone is dancing in the rooms within, and that 
 one's own body is idly resting. He has addressed Margery 
 Daryl, but there are two or three others lounging in this 
 quiet, forgotten little spot, hemmed in by the tall shrubs 
 in their huge pots. There is enough light falling on them 
 from within, to cast a faint radiance on their darkness, and 
 to make the different faces known to a person with good 
 sight. But not enough to disturb the repose of the scene. 
 
 Mrs. Daryl is sitting. on the sill of the curtained window ; 
 Curzon Bellew is leaning over Margery's chair. Peter, 
 and a tall artillery-man called Herrick, who has for months 
 been rendered morose by an absorbing passion for Miss 
 Daryl, are leaning against the ivy, madly regardless of the 
 earwigs, and Peter's last pretty partner is amusing herself 
 with him from the depths of a cushioned lounge that, with 
 the aid of a big red fan, almost conceals her from view. 
 
 "If a sanctuary, who gave you permission to invade it ?" 
 asks Margery, gayly. She has been particularly right- 
 minded up to this rather late hour, and Curzon's soul has 
 been quieted within him, but now, all suddenly as it seems, 
 she wakes into a wicked life, and, sitting more upright, 
 turns a bewildering smile on Halkett. There is always a 
 little standing flirtation between them, though she well 
 knows where his heart is buried, and he knows he is less
 
 LADY BRANKSMERR. 185 
 
 than nothing to her when once the friendship boundary is 
 passed, still, for the purposes of teasing other attendant 
 swains, Halkett, as Miss Daryl uses him, is invaluable. 
 
 " What an unkind speech ! Have I not flown to you for 
 refuge ? And is this the spirit in which my prayer is re- 
 ceived ? Seeing you not alone, Miss Daryl, or even a deux, 
 I took the liberty 
 
 " Oh ! that is nothing. You are always taking that," re- 
 torts she, with a pretty pretence at scorn that finds its end 
 in the little laugh, tuneful and sweet. "The question is 
 what brought you ? " 
 
 "Need you ask?" reproachfully. "You know I am 
 always unhappy when 
 
 " She proves untrue ! " This speech is a whisper and 
 has allusion to Mrs. Amyot, but to Curzon and the tall 
 man next him, it is full of sinister meaning and creates 
 within them a ravening desire for blood. 
 
 "She always does," says Halkett, ignoring the allusion, 
 and looking sentimentally at her. "Who should know it 
 so well as you ? " 
 
 "Who, indeed." 
 
 "Yet you have most cruelly deserted me all to-night; 
 most wantonly you have flung me among the Philistines. 
 That I still live is no merit of yours. And all the time 
 you have been dreaming here, or in some other fortunate 
 spot, while he who would die to to 
 
 "Yes. Don't let it embarrass you ; I know all the rest," 
 puts in Miss Daryl, kindly. 
 
 " You should ! You have served an apprenticeship to it. 
 But to-night's success should not render you unmindful of 
 the pangs of others. To know that all the world is grovel- 
 ling at your feet might make you merciful instead of cruel." 
 
 il Perhaps you think you are amusing me ? " with a soft, 
 disdainful uplifting of her dainty chin, and a little dimp- 
 ling smile. 
 
 " My natural self-conceit never carried me as far as that." 
 
 "That is just as well," 
 
 " I don't think you are in a very pretty temper to-night. 
 A generous mistress uses the lash sparingly to her slaves." 
 
 " Her favorite slaves, perhaps. Besides, who told you I 
 ever was in a pretty temper ? " 
 
 " No on.e. I think myself, so far as / am concerned, 
 you never are." 
 
 " The lady of your heart is always good-tempered, of 
 course!" There is another innuendo in this remark ; Mrs.
 
 i85 LADY BRANKSMRRE. 
 
 Amyot at times being a little impetuous, to say the least of 
 it. 
 
 "No. Have I not just this moment told you she never 
 is to me." 
 
 Miss Daryl makes a little grimace. 
 
 4< The object of your affections," she begins, saucily, but 
 he interrupts her. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Daryl! 'The object!' For my sake if not 
 for your own, refrain ! I really cannot sit silent and hear 
 you call yourself names." 
 
 Wilhelmina in the background (who has been kindly 
 striving to keep the gloomy artillery-man from man- 
 slaughter) here so far forgets her self-imposed mission as 
 to burst out laughing. Margery follows suit, and present- 
 ly Mr. Halkett, though with a carefully aggrieved air, joins 
 in also. 
 
 " Now, where does the joke come in ? " demands he, 
 mournfully. 
 
 " That is what we all want to know," says Curzon, 
 speaking for the first time. As he makes this chilling re- 
 mark he throws up his head, and yawns in a bored way, 
 very successfully. 
 
 " All ? / don't," says Margery, gayly, glancing at the 
 unresponding Bellew from under her long lashes. 
 
 " No ? You are happy then in not being a prey to the 
 unsatisfied curiosity that is consuming me." 
 
 I am so far a prey to curiosity that I am dying to know 
 what you mean," says Margery, teasingly, who ought to 
 be ashamed of herself. 
 
 " I should think my meaning has always been perfectly 
 clear to you," returns he, with a steady glance that fails to 
 disconcert her in the very least. " By the bye, this is our 
 dance, I believe." 
 
 " Is it ? I I don't think I want to dance," returns she. 
 Halkett has gone over to talk to Mrs. Daryl, so that she 
 and Curzon are virtually alone. 
 
 " Don't you ? I wonder, then, why you come here ? " 
 says Mr. Bellew, in a practical tone. " The business of a 
 ball is dancing, one can sit and doze at home." 
 
 " There are other things besides dancing." 
 
 "True! There is flirting," says he, bitterly, which re- 
 mark establishes a coldness in the conversation that lasts 
 for many minutes. It is still at freezing point when Tom- 
 my Paulyn, unattached, runs lightly up the steps to their 
 left and precipitates himself upon them.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE, 187 
 
 "What are you all doing here in the dark ? " asks he, in 
 a loud, cheerful tone that seems to dissipate the peaceful 
 gloom at once. Shade to Mr. Paulyn means dulness, and 
 dulness death. "All in the dumps, eh ?" with a glance 
 at Margery and Bellew. " Been to the gardens ? They 
 are looking lovely. Try 'em and take my advice, they'd 
 kill your blues in a hurry." 
 
 " Did they cure yours, Tommy ? Was that why you 
 sought them ? " demands Margery, oh ! so sweetly. 
 
 " No, my dear, I leave the vapors to such thinly-minded 
 little girls as yourself. I defy any man, woman, dr child 
 to affect my nerves. To devilled oysters alone that proud 
 boast belongs. But, seriously, the gardens are awfully 
 well got up. Lamps everywhere, and stars and things. 
 Never saw such a satisfactory moon anywhere. The com- 
 mittee ought to be congratulated on its arrangements. 
 They ought to be presented with a Bible or something." 
 
 " Not good enough," says Miss Daryl. " According to 
 your account they have managed even the heavens admi- 
 rably. I don't see what could repay them." 
 
 " Will you come and look at them ? " asks Curzon, 
 meaning the gardens, not the committee, conquering 
 himself a little, in his fear that Halkett will be before 
 him. " It is a charming night, quite sultry." 
 
 " Cold, I should have thought," replies she, who had 
 certainly never thought about it at all until she saw her 
 lover's eyes fixed imploringly upon her, and heard the 
 note of activity in his tone. 
 
 " Pouf ! " exclaims Mr. Paulyn, lightly. " I like to hear 
 you beginning to be careful of your health. You aren't 
 more delicate than Muriel, are you ? And she has been 
 enjoying the midnight breeze with Staines for the last 
 hour." Tommy says this quite gayly, being ignorant of 
 any reason (or at all events unmindful) why she should 
 not so enjoy herself. He is blind also to the fact that the 
 smile has died away from Margery's lips, and a curious 
 gleam has sprung to life in the eyes of Mrs. Daryl. 
 
 Oblivious of the different storms his words have raised, 
 he rattles on gayly to whoever will kindly listen, and, un- 
 der cover of his converse, Bellew once more appeals to 
 Margery. 
 
 "Come," he says, earnestly. This time without a word 
 
 she rises as though glad of a chance of escape, and moves- 
 
 slowly, listlessly down the steps into the scented darkness 
 
 beyond. In silence, as though weighed down by some
 
 i88 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 painful thought, she goes, and he makes no attempt to 
 break in upon her voiceless mood, until most of the paths 
 have been traversed and the hope is borne in upon him 
 that her fears are not to be realized. 
 
 " What a fellow your cousin is to talk," he says, then, 
 with a very successful air of indifference. " I quite 
 thought by what he said that Lady Branksmere was 
 somewhere out here ; didn't you, eh ? " 
 
 " I know Tommy, and the wildness of his surmisings 
 better than you do," returns she, evasively, but a great 
 calm and comfort has come to life within her breast, born 
 not only of his words, but of the fact that Muriel is really 
 nowhere to be seen. How foolish she was to place any 
 dependence upon any words of Tommy's. One should be 
 badly off indeed, for a reliable authority on any subject to 
 go to him for intelligence ! With the restoration of her 
 peace of mind, returns also her sense of aggravation. And 
 it is, at this very moment, that Bellew chooses to make a 
 rather unfortunate remark. 
 
 "You look pale," he says, solicitously. I suppose it 
 would have ended very much the same way if he had said 
 she looked red, as her relieved feelings are ambitious of a 
 quarrel ; and besides, that last insinuation of his on the 
 balcony is rankling afresh in her mind now the greater 
 weight has been lifted. 
 
 " I am sorry I can't look like a dairy-maid to oblige you," 
 she says, with an ominous calm. " However, if my ap- 
 pearance offends you, I must try to correct it." She lifts 
 her hands and administers to her poor cheeks a very vig- 
 orous scrub that almost brings the tears to her eyes. A 
 swift, stinging flush rishes to her face. " Ncnv, are you 
 satisfied?" she asks, irately the "scrub" having hurt 
 her in a measure turning to him a wrathful, crimson 
 countenance. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean. I can't see why you 
 should speak to me like this," says Mr. Bellew, in an in- 
 jured tone. "When did I express myself as dissatisfied 
 with your face ? To me," with angry honesty, " as you 
 well know, it is the most beautiful face in the world." 
 
 " There is a certain class of people whom I detest," re- 
 turns Miss Daryl, unpleasantly, uplifting her pretty nose 
 in a contemptuous fashion. " You are one of them. 
 Flattery is their strong weapon, and I'm sure you've been 
 paying me meaningless compliments ever since I was 
 born."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 189 
 
 "Born! "with a rather derisive laugh. "You can re- 
 member since then ?" 
 
 " I have often heard," icily, " that there are few so clever 
 as those who have at command an unlimited amount of 
 repartee. Experience has taught me that there are also 
 few so wearying." She turns upon him eyes that are 
 half- veiled by their long lashes, and very aggressive. 
 
 " If I bore you," says Mr. Bellew, whose temper by this 
 time is almost as agreeable as her own, "it is most un- 
 reasonable of me to inflict my presence on you any longer. 
 Will you come back to the house, or will you stay here 
 while I tell Halkett 
 
 " There ! I knew it ! " breaks in she, scornfully. "Any- 
 thing like your abominable jealousy I have never yet 
 known ! Your rudeness to me just now upon the balcony 
 I pass over. I am accustomed to it but your rudeness to 
 that very inoffensive person does call for comment." 
 
 " How was I rude, may I ask ? " 
 
 " Do you then deny you were in a raging temper all the 
 time lie was was courteously endeavoring to entertain 
 me ? " 
 
 "Openly endeavoring to make love to you, you mean," 
 exclaims Bellew, his long suppressed wrath now fairly 
 boiling over. " Do you think I am blind, or a fool ? that 
 I can't see through things. I tell you, you were encourag- 
 ing Halkett in a disgraceful fashion, and that he seemed 
 only too glad of the encouragement." 
 
 " I must be a modern Venus," says Miss Daryl, com- 
 posedly, "to inspire all the different men you mention at 
 odd times with a due appreciation of my charms. To-day 
 it was Mr. Herrick yesterday Lord Primrose to-night 
 Mr. Halkett. Poor people ! It would cause them some 
 slight embarrassment I should say, were they to be openly 
 accused of their crime." 
 
 "It is not only " begins he, with increasing anger, 
 
 but she interrupts him, mischievously. 
 
 "Not only those I have named? True! there is still 
 Mr. Goldie who has also come under your ban. Even thai 
 estimable man, that small pillar of the church, cannot 
 escape your censure." 
 
 "To sneer at me, Margery, is not to convince me. I 
 have loved you too long to be callous on this point. If an 
 end to my dreamings has come, I would know it." He 
 lays his hand on her shoulders, and turns her forcibly to 
 such a position, as enables the pale moon to play more
 
 190 LADY BKANKSMERE. 
 
 earnestly upon her face. " It is my belief that at last you 
 have decided on throwing me over, to marry some other 
 man." 
 
 "Which of them?" demands she, shaking herself free 
 of his angry clasp. " Mr. Haikett, who is head over ears 
 in love with Mrs. Amyot, or Lord Primrose, who has 
 neither eyes nor ears for anyone save Lady Anne ?" 
 
 " There are others," says he, with a very determined face, 
 ignoring her burst of wrath. " There is Herrick and 
 
 She has changed color perceptibly, and started a little. 
 
 " Yes, Herrick," he reiterates in a despairing tone, that 
 is still warm with indignation. " See, when I mention his 
 name, how you change color." 
 
 " 1 suppose I can change color if I choose. Is a blush 
 a sin?" asks she, looking at him from the shadow into 
 which she has wisely retreated. 
 
 "No. But I will tell you what is. The deliberate 
 breaking of a man's heart. I have loved you all my life 
 I think through your scorn and indifference and you 
 suffered me, only to tell me now you are going to marry 
 Herrick." 
 
 "I am riot going to tell you anything," cries she, indig- 
 nantly, and to say the truth, a little hypocritically. " Am 
 I a Mary Baxter, who 'refused a man before he axed 
 her ?' Am I ?" 
 
 " Did you refuse him ? " 
 
 "How could I," evasively, "if he didn't give me the 
 opportunity." 
 
 " You give me your word he did not propose to you ? " 
 
 Thus driven to bay, Miss Daryl once more resorts to 
 righteous anger. 
 
 " Even if he did if they all did, what is that to you ? " 
 she demands, with her lovely eyes aflame. " You are not 
 my father, or my brother, or my guardian, that you should 
 take me to task and certainly you shall never be my 
 husband." 
 
 This terrible speech seems to take all heart out of 
 Bellew. He stands, as though stricken into stone, except 
 for the rapid gnawing of his mustache. Until this mo- 
 ment, in spite of his vehement reproaches, it had never 
 seemed really possible to him that all might indeed be 
 over between him and her. Does she mean it? Can 
 she ? His eyes are riveted upon the sward that, sparkling 
 with moonlit gems, lies at his feet. Will she speak again ? 
 Does she guess how he is enduring torments ? If she
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 191 
 
 moves away what is he to do to follow, to implore, or to 
 resign all hope, finally ? 
 
 The moments fly by unchecked. To Margery, his 
 silence is almost as inexplicable as hers to him. 
 
 If she repents the severity of her speech, however, her 
 countenance by no means reveals the fact. There is noth- 
 ing of the culprit about her, no smallest shadow of regret 
 darkens her charming face. 
 
 "If," she declares to herself, with undiminished rage, 
 "he should stand there, mooning, until the day breaks, I 
 shall not be the first to speak ! " 
 
 She has taken up her fan and detached it from the rib- 
 bon that holds it, and is opening and shutting it in an idle, 
 inconsequent fashion, that to the man watching her, with 
 moody, despairing eyes, is maddening. It startles her in 
 spite of her hankering after stoicism, when she finds it 
 roughly taken from her careless fingers and flung to a 
 considerable distance. 
 
 ''Have you nothing to say to me?" asks he, passion- 
 ately. 
 
 " Nothing," returns she, calmly, although her heart is 
 beating. 
 
 " Do you know you have told me that all things are at 
 an end between us ?" 
 
 He is speaking very quietly, and her heart begins to 
 beat even faster, with a more untamable speed. 
 
 "Well ! " cries she, pettishly. " It is all your own fault. 
 I won't have people jigging about after me, and pretend- 
 ing to look the deepest concern when there is no cause 
 for it. There is nothing on earth so tiresome as being 
 asked every moment whether one has a headache, or if 
 one's neuralgia is worse ; or if some iced water wouldn't 
 do one good ! " 
 
 "And all this," remarks Mr. Bellew, with mournful re- 
 proach, addressing the listening roses, "has arisen out of 
 my simple declaration that I thought she was looking a 
 little pale!" 
 
 Miss Daryl changes color, fights a short battle with her 
 gravity, and finally bursts into open mirth. 
 
 " I have been a cross goose, certainly," she confesses, 
 with heroic candor ; " but never mind. We are friends 
 again now, aren't we." 
 
 " We are not," returns he. 
 
 "Oh! that as you will, of course," stiffly; "but I 
 thought "
 
 iga LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " I am your lover," declares he, stoutly. " Nothing you 
 could do or say would alter that fact. You can throw in 
 the friend and welcome. But your lover I am, before and 
 above all else. And so I shall remain whether you wed 
 me, or some other man, or if you never marry at all." 
 
 " Do you know I think it will be that," says she, alluding 
 to the last part of his speech. " I am sure I shall never 
 marry never ! " 
 
 " Shall we walk on a little further?" asks Bellew, in the 
 severe tone of one who wishes to impress you with the be- 
 lief that he considers you are talking folly. 
 
 They stray beyond the pleasant garden, past numerous 
 groups of wanderers like themselves, and gleaming stat- 
 ues, not always in the strictest taste, to the shrubbery that 
 lies to the right of all these, in the well-planned public 
 gardens so dear to the hearts of the citizens. 
 
 " I really think, Curzon," says Margery, ^ayly, who has 
 quite recovered herself, shooting a charmingly saucy 
 glance at him from her adorable eyes, " that there is one 
 small thing for which an apology is due from you to me. 
 What was that little insinuation of yours about flirting, 
 eh ? You didn't mean it h'm ? " 
 
 She has the prettiest way in the world of uttering that 
 unspellable question, and Curzon goes down before it. 
 Nevertheless, with a last effort at maintaining his self-re- 
 spect, he ma-kes a poor pretence at not understanding her. 
 
 " Flirting ! " he repeats, with a vague air that would not 
 have imposed on an infant. " I'm sure I shouldn't say or 
 mean anything, intentionally, that would hurt you." 
 
 "That's all very well," replies she, persistently. "But 
 the thing is, did you mean that? I'm not a flirt, Curzon, 
 am I ? And you don't think so, do you ? " 
 
 There is no getting out of this. Mr. Bellew being 
 brought to bay surrenders with the basest cowardice. 
 
 " Of course not," he says, hastily. " I must have have 
 been a fool when I said that." 
 
 " Only then ?" mischievously. 
 
 " Then, and now, and always when I am with you," re- 
 turns he, vehemently perhaps a little sadly. 
 
 " I thank you for giving me your choicest hours ! " says 
 she, with a little grimace. And then: "After all, how 
 could I expect you to give me of your best, I, who am so 
 bent on being an old maid ? " 
 
 " You, who are so bent on breaking my heart ! " replies 
 he, gloomily.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 193 
 
 Miss Daryl laughs a soft, tuneful laugh that rings 
 through the cool night air. As she laughs she moves, and 
 parting the thick screen of leaves that hides her from the 
 fuller view beyond, steps on to the shorn plateau clad only 
 with moonbeams, that is musical with the sound of the 
 dripping fountain. 
 
 As she looks straight before her the laughter dies upon 
 her lips. Her smile grows frozen. There there in the 
 moonlight only a few yards from her, stands Muriel, her 
 face pale, ashen, all the marks of passionate despair upon 
 her beautiful face, and there, too, stands Staines. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 " Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence." 
 
 THE whole thing is over in a moment. Margery, like 
 one stunned, steps back again behind the kindly shelter 
 of the evergreens, and Curzon (who, too, has seen and com- 
 prehended all) follows her rapidly, anxiously, in her hasty 
 walk back to the house. 
 
 Not a word or sigh escapes her ; yet he, loving her, 
 knows the agony her heart is enduring, and understands 
 but too well the degradation and horror that is possessing 
 her. Her lips have grown white and fixed, her glance is 
 stern, all the pretty, petulant playfulness seems killed 
 within her, and her breath comes heavily. Her fingers 
 are so tightly clinched around her fan that he can see 
 through the gloves the very shape of her nails. 
 
 To induce her to break through this cruel reserve that 
 is still deeper augmenting her sorrow, becomes to Bellew 
 an imperative duty ; and at last, coming to a shaded spot, 
 where they two are virtually alone, he lays his hand gently 
 on her arm, and draws her toward him. 
 
 " Don't take it so hardly, darling," he says, very ten- 
 derly, though secretly rather anxious as to how his inter- 
 ference will be received. Will she resent it, and turn 
 from his sympathy coldly ? There is a pause full of doubt, 
 and then all at once Margery turns to him and lays her 
 head upon his breast and bursts into a passion of silent 
 tears. 
 
 " Oh, Curzon ! " exclaims she, in a bitter tone, clinging 
 to him in the abandonment of the moment. 
 13
 
 194 LADY BRANKSMERh. 
 
 "There is a great deal of unbappiness in the world, 
 Margery ; but you must not take things to heart as though 
 there were no hope, no remedy." He has his arms round 
 her, and as he speaks he stoops and presses his lips softly 
 to her pretty hair. Is he not her lover? Is she not the 
 one dear sacred thing to him upon earth. " How can we 
 tell what Muriel was enduring just now ? One cannot 
 altogether stifle one's heart-beats, and if she was bidding 
 an eternal farewell to the first love of her life, we should 
 feel nothing but pity for her." 
 
 He is not entirely sure of the genuineness of the picture 
 he has conjured up for her comfort, but he dreads her 
 dwelling too strongly on the fear that has evidently taken 
 possession of her. And in truth Muriel's ghastly face, 
 and strained attitude might as readily belong to the guilty 
 woman, as to her who is forever renouncing the one 
 sweet treasure of her past. 
 
 " Oh ! that I could dare believe you," murmurs Margery, 
 sobbingly. " But my heart misgives me ! " 
 
 Nevertheless she is comforted in a measure, and pres- 
 ently enters the house again with him, unhappy still, but 
 soothed and softened, and with a vague recognition of the 
 fact that his tenderness has been very pleasant to her. 
 All joy to be derived from her evening is, however, gone, 
 and she subsides languidly into a fauteuil in an anteroom 
 to wait with listless patience for the moment when Wil- 
 helmina will summon her to cloak herself and accompany 
 her home. Of two things she remains ignorant, that Mrs. 
 Daryl had been standing near the entrance by which she 
 regained the ball-room, and had noticed with wonder the 
 lingering traces of distress upon her face, and that Lady 
 Branksmere had followed hard upon her footsteps, and 
 had re-entered the house almost as she did, and by the 
 same route. 
 
 Muriel had caught sight of her sister on her homeward 
 way, and had told herself she never could be devoutly 
 grateful enough that the girl had not chanced to see her 
 at the fountain, as she stood there transfixed with horror 
 of herself, with the first terrible touch of despair upon her 
 face. That Margery had seen, and judged blindly but 
 correctly of the miserable truth, did not reveal itself to 
 her. But even now as she steps again into the brilliant 
 glare of the lamps she looks round nervously, for the 
 slender lissome figure of the girl, and knows a sense of 
 relief when her eyes fail to meet it.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 195 
 
 Wilhelmina she greets with a friendly smile, and, hardly 
 pausing to notice her expression (which, however, is 
 worthy of thought), moves on to where the lace draperies 
 of the windows form a frame for her. Staines, coming to 
 a standstill behind her, looks round him, and in turn meets 
 Mrs. Daryl's rather impressive gaze. 
 
 "Take care!" she whispers in a curious voice ; "you 
 remember our compact. I will be silent only so long as 
 you give me no cause to speak." 
 
 Elevated by the sense of triumph that is still warm with- 
 in him, he disdains all answer to this warning, only salu- 
 ting her with an almost defiant and certainly ironical bow. 
 
 " As you will," returns she, still in a low tone, "but at 
 least remember you are warned ! " 
 
 He laughs insolently, and flicks from his sleeve with an 
 unembarrassed air a small particle of dust. Something in 
 his manner strikes cold to the heart of Wilhelmina. Is he 
 so sure then ? Will her interference be of no use ? Has 
 it gone so far as that ? It seems to her at this moment 
 that the other woman is nothing to her, but Margery, she 
 will suffer. The memory of the pretty white face that had 
 passed her a few minutes ago, returns to Mrs. Daryl with a 
 vividness that is actual pain. The girl's tender heart will 
 be racked and torn for no fault of her own, but because 
 of 
 
 She becomes conscious that Staines is still gazing at her, 
 with that mocking smile upon his lips, and with a last 
 glance at him, so full of scorn and hatred that it should 
 have warned him though her words failed, she falls back 
 once more into the shadow of the window. 
 
 Staines, moving up to Lady Branksmere's side, addresses 
 her eagerly. No syllable had passed between them as they 
 walked in a strange silence back from the fountain, but 
 now he ventures to speak. 
 
 " At least do me the justice to understand I did not mean 
 to offend you," he says in a low tone, replete with humility. 
 
 "What is offence?" muses she, wearily. "No one, it 
 seems to me, has power to hurt me, save I myself. Yes," 
 turning her large eyes fully upon him, " I exonerate you 
 from all blame." 
 
 Her generosity should have disarmed him at least for 
 the moment ; but such vulgar sentiments are unknown to 
 him. 
 
 " Ah ! To be sure of your forgiveness," he murmurs, 
 eagerly. To her, his eagerness is but a form of honest,
 
 196 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 lingering regret, and her eyes grow softer, kinder as she 
 watches him. 
 
 " Be sure then," she says, very gently. 
 
 " Give me a proof," entreats he. " To-morrow, the others 
 are all going to the tennis affair at Lady Blounts. Are 
 you, too, going ? " 
 
 " No ! " with a surprised glance ; " I have decided against 
 it long ago. Tennis bores me. But what has that to do 
 with " 
 
 "To assure me of your pardon," interrupts he, quickly, 
 "say you will permit me, too, to set aside the invitation 
 for to-morrow, and to accompany you instead in your after- 
 noon walk. I feel that I have sinned in your sight. That 
 you might in time learn to look askance at me ; and all 
 such fears mean death ! But if the coming hours hold out 
 to me some hope, I shall surmount my fears ; I shall know 
 there is still life for me. Believe me, I shall not sin again ! " 
 
 His whole manner is so deferential, so humble, so mild, 
 that she is touched by it. 
 
 "To-night was a mistake, certainly," she says ; "but, as 
 I have already told you, I absolve you from all blame. 
 Yes ; to-morrow, if you wish, you can walk with me." 
 
 She sighs. Indeed all through her manner there is a 
 suspicion of mental fatigue. Turning her face from him 
 she looks listlessly around her, and as her eyes travel from 
 wall to wall, she becomes at last aware that Branksmere is 
 watching her from a distant doorway, with a burning, im- 
 movable gaze. 
 
 She starts visibly, and is conscious of growing nervous 
 and unsettled beneath it. She compels herself to sever 
 her glance from his, but presently is drawn back to him in 
 spite of herself, to find he has withdrawn his scrutiny and 
 is now apparently wrapt in contemplation of something at 
 the farthest end of the hall. There is, however, a set ex- 
 pression about his firmly closed lips, suggestive of possi- 
 bilities hardly wise to develop before an admiring public, 
 and a certain rigidity of jaw that should be marked dan- 
 gerous. 
 
 He had been aware that the flowers his wife held were 
 not those sent to her by him from the moment she had 
 emerged from the cloak-room, but he had been far from 
 imagining whose gift they were, until enlightened in a 
 charmingly airy and casual manner by Madame von Thirsk 
 somewhat later on. To the ordinary observer it would 
 hardly appear that Branksmere was a careful husband, yet
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 197 
 
 the ordinary observer would probably have been aston- 
 ished, could he know with what precision every movement 
 of his wife is known to him. And just now he is chafing 
 silently beneath the knowledge that Muriel has spent the 
 last hour in Staines' undisputed society, amid the roman- 
 tic accessories of a moonlit garden. 
 
 A very tumult of mixed passions is swaying him. That 
 she shall give him an explanation he is determined. But 
 not now. Not to-night. He has written to her, and con- 
 sidering to-night's work she will hardly dare deny him the 
 interview he has demanded on the morrow. Already the 
 night is far spent. In a few short hours he will be face to 
 face with her, and will get an answer to the questions that 
 are clamoring for utterance. 
 
 Perhaps he is hardly aware with what strange earnest- 
 ness his wife is perusing his countenance. His dark eyes 
 are half closed and sullen, and there is a cruelty about his 
 compressed lips that is almost murderous. Muriel, read- 
 ing him, sees something about him that warns her it will 
 scarcely be wise to bring herself into prominence in his 
 sight so long as she has Staines in her train, but a mad fit 
 of wilfulness is upon her, and a longing to sound him to 
 compel him to answer her to see if the fire so unmistaka- 
 bly smouldering within him will burst at her voice into a 
 flame, drives her to reach and address him. 
 
 " It is so warm here, it stifles me ! " she says to Staines, 
 who has been looking in a contrary direction to hers, and 
 has not seen Branksmere in the crowd in the doorway. 
 "Come into the hall." 
 
 She moves slowly through the thronged room toward 
 the place where her husband stands, but as she reaches it, 
 she sees he has quitted his position, and either because of 
 her coming, or for some other more ordinary reason, is now 
 moving indolently away fwm her, to the right, toward 
 some disused rooms, not got up in festive array, that still, by 
 means of the balcony outside, have access to the ball-room. 
 
 Possessed by her one idea, now grown obstinate, she 
 follows him with Staines always beside her into a side 
 room half lit and void of decoration, that had been origi- 
 nally intended to make an additional boudoir, but at the 
 last had been discarded as -superfluous. There is a good 
 deal of useless twine and wire flung into the corners, and 
 almost in the centre of the floor a heavy bar of iron lies, 
 that had been thrown there, presumably, when the work- 
 men had found no further use for it.
 
 198 LADY BKANA'SMERR. 
 
 Lady Branksmerc, not seeing it in the dim light, catches 
 her foot awkwardly in it, and stumbles. She sways ner- 
 vously, and puts out her arms as if with an involuntary 
 demand for help ; a little rounded " Oh ! " of alarm breaks 
 from her lips. 
 
 With an exclamation, Staines .springs forward and 
 catches her. His fingers close warmly round her lovely 
 naked arm, he has forgotten everything but her, even the 
 dark shades in the lower part of the room. He is rudely 
 awakened to the present, by an arm that, coming between 
 him and Lady Branksmere, hurls him backward to where 
 the wall checks and supports him. 
 
 When he recovers himself, it is to find Branksmerc star- 
 ing at him with an unpleasantly savage longing on his 
 dark, swarthy face. Staines goes down before that look, 
 and stands panting heavily, against the friendly wall. 
 
 Lady Branksmere has shaken herself free from her hus- 
 band's grasp, and has moved back from him with a slow, 
 recoiling motion. She has thrown up her small, queenly 
 head, and is regarding him fixedly. Her lips are pale and 
 parted, and her breath comes through them painfully ; but 
 her gaze is curiously steady, and in the large deep eyes 
 that burn into his there is scorn, contempt, and hatred ; but 
 no fear ! 
 
 Not a word is spoken. A strange horrible silence seems 
 to oppress all three. At length, when it has grown almost 
 beyond endurance, Branksmere breaks it. He bursts into 
 a harsh, grating laugh. 
 
 " I fear, Captain Staines, that my interference was rather 
 a rough one," he says, lightly, the dangerous devil still 
 lurking in his eyes. " But when you remember my excess 
 of zeal arose out of my anxiety for Lady Branksmere's 
 safety, I feel sure you will pardon my seeming discourtesy. 
 One or two old world beliefs still cling to me. I was ab- 
 surd enough to fancy," with a mocking smile, " that I, as 
 her husband, was the one to rescue her in a crisis such as 
 this." 
 
 In deference to the " lurking devil," which is still dis- 
 agreeably en evidence, Captain Staines bows an acknowledg- 
 ment of this curiously worded apology. 
 
 " I had forgotten the strength of my arm. I did not 
 hurt you, I trust?" says Branksmere, with a laugh, slow 
 and cruel, as he watches the other's discomfiture. Is there 
 a faint threat in his words? A warning of what the future 
 may contain for the lover who shall dare to come between
 
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 199 
 
 him and his peace ? He removes his gaze slowly from 
 Staines and bends it on his wife who returns it, haughtily. 
 
 "You have escaped this time," he says slowly. "But if 
 you will permit me to advise, I should recommend you to 
 avoid unfrequented places in the future. Beaten paths are 
 best. And one may trip once too often! " 
 
 It would be impossible to describe the rage in her eyes 
 as he finishes this speech. 
 
 " Sound advice," she returns in a low, choking voice. 
 " May I hope, my lord, that you yourself will take it to 
 heart ? " 
 
 A pale smile widens her lips for an instant ; a very ghost 
 of a smile. Then, as if by magic, her whole humor 
 changes, and she turns to Staines with the old calm, list- 
 lessness full upon her. 
 
 " This way evidently leads no whither," she says, indif- 
 ferently. "Let us return to civilization." 
 
 She sweeps leisurely toward the door by which she had 
 entered, and once again enters the world of light without. 
 Slowly,, with an unmoved front, she passes down the long 
 cool hall, dotted here and there with groups either stand- 
 ing or sitting, w r ho have gladly escaped from the heated 
 atmosphere within, to breathe more freely in the larger 
 space without ; past statues gleaming from their artificial 
 bowers of sparkling greenery ; past Margery, pale, with 
 downcast eyes ; past Lord Primrose in a shady nook pro- 
 posing once again to Lady Anne, who once again is giving 
 him an evasive answer, the memory of "poor Arthur" 
 being present with her to-night ; past all these and many 
 more goes Lady Branksmere, with Staines always beside 
 her, and always with head erect and a calm brow, though 
 in her soul is raging a tumult of passionate wrath that in- 
 creases rather than dies as the moments go by. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Now they interpret motions, looks, and eyes, 
 At every word a reputation dies. 
 
 MRS. AMYOT looks up as Lady Branksmere brushes past 
 the cosey nook that contains her, and regards her curiously. 
 
 "She is as impassive as a sphinx," she says, a little en- 
 viously.
 
 200 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Scarcely, tres chere ; she is safe to break out later on," 
 murmurs Mrs. Vyner, hopefully, who has sunk upon the 
 lounge beside her while waiting for their respective part- 
 ners to bring them the ices for which they pine. " Take 
 heart ! " 
 
 " If that be so she will find herself presently the centre 
 figure of an imbroglio that I for one should prefer steering 
 clear of. There is something odd about Branksmere's eyes. 
 Ever noticed it ? " 
 
 "Neither that nor anything else about him. Instinct 
 long since warned me he doesn't admire me, and I never 
 waste my time." 
 
 " I am afraid your little story about Lady Branksmere 
 and Staines, unlike the run of its order, has some founda- 
 tion." 
 
 " What are you afraid of ?" 
 
 " Well ; I should be sorry, for one thing, if matters went 
 too far. I like Branksmere, and I tolerate her, though I 
 grant you she is at times a degree impossible." 
 
 " If you said she is on rare occasions a degree possible, I 
 might follow you. As it is I have often warned you, 
 my good child, that those quiet ones are never to be trusted, 
 and I expect we shall have an explosion at the castle by 
 next autumn, before which dynamite would pale. But 
 hush ! here comes the colonel, and I know no one "- 
 glancing at the advancing veteran who calls her wife 
 "who so cordially detests scandal as that priceless fossil.'' 
 
 " Except me," supplements Mrs. Amyot, with a frank 
 laugh, "when it is directed against myself." 
 
 "I never feel like that," smiles Mrs. Vyner, serenely, 
 "conscious virtue would prevent me. The knowledge that 
 the scandal was undeserved (as naturally it would be) 
 would, in my case, raise me above all such weak fancies." 
 
 " Ah ! " says Mrs. Amyot, who seems amused. 
 
 " If the colonel means coming I wish he'd do it, and get 
 it over," exclaims Mrs. Vyner, presently, in a disgusted 
 tone. " He was steering for us with all sails set, and scold- 
 ing in his eye a moment ago, and now he has come to 
 anchor by Lady Anne. How I wish she would keep him 
 forever. There is a present, now, I would make her with- 
 out regret." 
 
 " It has always been a matter of speculation to me why 
 on earth you married him." 
 
 " He has a few pence." returns her friend, mildly. " And 
 I always hope he won't die until he has come in for the
 
 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 201 
 
 Bella! r title and diamonds, and made me, ' my lady.' After 
 that the dear old man may abscond as soon as he likes, for 
 me. Besides, I don't think there was any one else just 
 then." 
 
 "There was always Tom." 
 
 " Tom ! " with an accent of unqualified, if lazy, scorn. 
 " I wonder if Tom could tell you at this instant whether he 
 lias five pounds or five thousand in the world. Now what 
 under heaven should I have done with Tom ? He is all 
 very well I grant you, as this, or as that, but as a husband ! 
 No, thank you ! For the rest," with an unaffected yawn, 
 " I am positive, if you were to analyze it, one man is as 
 good as another." 
 
 "There is a noble broadness about your views that one 
 would do well to imbibe," says Mrs. Amyot, admiringly, 
 who seems, indeed, delighted with her. "I own, myself, 
 to a silly prejudice in favor of youth, but no doubt that 
 is a weakness. Ah ! Here comes your warrior at last. 
 And with what a lowering visage. He looks as if he were 
 about to order out one of his native regiments for instant 
 execution." 
 
 " He is only going to order me home. Don't be alarmed. 
 I shan't go," says Mrs. Vyner, smoothly. " He always 
 makes a point of removing me when he thinks I'm having 
 a good time, but I've learned by this how to square him. I 
 confess I have been doing pretty well to-night, and he has 
 a perfect talent for knowing when I'm enjoying myself." 
 
 " I wonder you are not a little afraid of him, there is 
 something about his under jaw that 
 
 " No. I am not afraid. I have secured myself. You 
 know that cousin of his, Elfrida West ? I wormed a little 
 secret of his out of her a secret belonging to his salad 
 days, and consequently to the last century that will stand 
 to me, if he ever dares to twit me with any of my short com- 
 ings." 
 
 " She betrayed him ?" 
 
 " She sold him for forty pounds. I paid her that down 
 for it. She was hard up at the time. She always is hard 
 up, that poor Elfrida ! and her woman had given her to 
 understand that she would wait no longer for her bill. So 
 she gave away the colonel." 
 
 " What a bore those dressmakers are ; one would think 
 one could have money for them the moment they choose 
 to ask for it." 
 
 " I was immensely oblip-ed to Elfrida's woman for all
 
 202 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 that. Out of simple gratitude I gave her quite a large 
 order the week later. She arranged me, you see. Yes, 
 doesrit the old man look furious ! Watch how he tries to 
 make mincemeat of his mustache. What has he heard, 
 now, I wonder ? " There is not an atom of concern or 
 consternation in her tone ; only a suppressed amusement. 
 
 "Perhaps he is tired/' suggests Mrs. Amyot, kindly. 
 " Borne down by the burden and heat of the evening, he 
 is naturally anxious to get home." 
 
 " He is unnaturally anxious, you mean, to spoil my sport. 
 To see me happy is to see him regularly on the champ. 
 He is, I assure you, the very dearest old thing ! " says the 
 colonel's wife, gaily. 
 
 "I hope you don't wrong him," persists Mrs. Amyot, 
 earnestly, who has an affection for Mrs. Vyner that, to tell 
 the truth of the latter, is honestly returned. " He is old, 
 you know ; he may be sleepy." 
 
 " He is'old enough, in all conscience. One might, per- 
 haps, indeed, say he is old enough to be once again young 
 enough to be eager for an early couch ; but that is not his 
 ailment." 
 
 Mrs. Amyot gives in. 
 
 " Well, I daresay, though a very charming man, he is a 
 little wearying at times," she says, leniently. 
 
 "He is about the most unmitigated nuisance I know," 
 returns the charming man's wife promptly, with a sim- 
 plicity truly edifying. 
 
 He has come up to her by this time, and now she throws 
 back her picturesque head against the satin cushion of her 
 chair, and turns up to his scowling one, a face that actually 
 beams all over with an affectionate smile. Even the keen- 
 est observer could not detect a flaw in it. 
 
 He is a tall, soldierly-looking man, at least thirty-five 
 years older than she is, with an imposing mustache, and 
 an irritable suspicious eye. He seems now just a trifle 
 unimpressed by her amiability. 
 
 "What's .the hour, eli ? Not going to stay here all 
 night, eh ? eh ? " 
 
 " It is dull, isn't it ?" responds Mrs. Vyner with a yawn 
 that is weak with weariness. " I had hoped, darling, see- 
 ing you so gay all night that you had not felt it, but as for 
 me I am positively done to death." 
 
 "Humph !" says the colonel, glaring at her. 
 
 " Are you coming home now ? These mixed assemblies 
 are very trying, don't you think ? The butcher, and the
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 203 
 
 baker, and the candlestick maker, you know, or at least 
 by their equivalents, in the rear of your own set. Don't 
 let me hurry you, Douglas, but I confess I should be glad 
 to put a termination to this dreadful evening." 
 
 " M m m ? " says the colonel, running up quite a full 
 gamut of suspicious query. "It didn't occur to me that 
 you were dull to-night." 
 
 " T hope I shall never so far forget myself as to look en- 
 nuyte," smiles Mrs. Vyner, sweetly. "But \.oyou" with 
 an upward glance full of the prettiest confidence; "the 
 truth surely may be confessed. I have endured agonies 
 since I entered this house. Indeed I should say plainly 
 that I have been insufferably bored only" with an ador- 
 able smile " I know that would vex you, because it would 
 not be nice to the poor country. It might hurt it if it 
 came to know. But really these mixed entertainments," 
 dolefully, "are very trying, and this one," with a disdain- 
 ful move, "is even a trifle more higgledy-piggledy than its 
 fellows. Oh ! yes. I have been dull. Very ! " 
 
 She sighs admirably, and shrugs her shoulders with a 
 little pout. 
 
 "The fact of its being- mixed is a special reason why we 
 should be careful to cast no slight upon it," returns the 
 colonel, severely, with a pompous updrawing of his 
 starched figure. He has changed his tune, having fallen 
 into the net prepared for him. "These er strange 
 people have their sensibilities as well as we others. Sel- 
 fishness, and er open disregard of the feeling of those 
 not quite in our class are defects that should \& crushed! " 
 He gazes sternly at her. As if overwhelmed by this re- 
 proach Mrs. Vyner subsides gracefully behind her fan, 
 from the shelter of which barricade she casts a mirthful 
 glance at Mrs. Amyot. 
 
 "You are always right," she murmurs, presently, in a 
 small submissive voice. "But I do so want to go home." 
 
 " I see the duchess has not yet gone. Perhaps, to avoid 
 even the appearance of giving offence, we had better stay 
 another hour." 
 
 He gives himself an air of determination and marches 
 off with his most military stiffness. 
 
 " Dear old man ! " breathes his wife, tenderly, following 
 his departing figure with a lingering glance replete with 
 feeling of a kind. " How generous ! how noble-minded ! 
 how self-sacrificing he is ! See how willing he is to resign 
 his own comfort and linger on here in a social martyrdom
 
 204 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 
 
 for an hour longer, now that he believes that I am not 
 enjoying myself ! Ah, Sir Robert, my ice at last ? What 
 a time you have been absent. I quite thought you had 
 been making it." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Who purposely cheats his friends, would cheat his God. 
 
 THE heavy, hot silence that is lying over every thing out 
 of doors, seems to have rushed inward and wrapt all the 
 house in its languor. Every available curtain has been 
 drawn to exclude the tyrant sun. The halls and galleries 
 are dim with a soft twilight gloom. The drawing-rooms 
 and boudoirs are suggestive of growing night, though it 
 is still early in the afternoon. The huge bunches of lily 
 of the valley are drooping and dying in their Chelsea 
 bowls. The tall tree-ferns are languishing. The dogs lie 
 upon the marble pavements panting for air, their mourn- 
 ful eyes looking liquid reproach at Nature, their red 
 tongues hanging helplessly from their jaws. 
 
 The stillness that reigns all round is great enough to be 
 felt ; no footsteps fall upon the tessellated floors, no gay 
 laughter rings through the deserted gardens. They have 
 all started on their fourteen miles drive through the richly- 
 wooded country to the tennis match at Lady Blount's. All 
 save Lady Anne, who has gone down to the village to see 
 the Vicar's wife a distant connection and a crony of hers 
 and Lady Branksmere and Staines. 
 
 Even the poor old Primrose woman has gone forth, true 
 to her colors. That she ought to have been in her bed 
 repenting her last night's fatigue goes without saying ; 
 but, like the gallant old soul she is, she has made a splen- 
 did struggle in the cause of Mammon, and has sallied 
 forth to-day to court fashion once again. Rather than 
 desert the past she has so bravely defended for over half 
 a century, she has braved the terrors of the miles and the 
 stony roads and is now jogging along the sultry highways 
 and bowling through the scented lanes as though age and 
 she have nothing in common. Not that the miles she 
 travels can seem, long to her, as she is at this moment lost 
 in slumber in a corner of the carriage, snoring frankly with
 
 LADY BRANKSMEKE. 205 
 
 her bonnet all askew, to the undisguised delight of Mrs. 
 Atnyot, who, with Halkett and Tommy Paulyn, have been 
 told off to take care of her. 
 
 Over Branksmere the stillness remains unbroken, save 
 for the discordant scream of the strutting peacocks upon 
 the terraces without, and the distant, drowsy cooing of the 
 cushat doves in the woods far down in the valley. At last 
 there comes a rustle of soft garments in the dim hall, the 
 click of a light footstep, and one of the big dogs rising 
 lazily gives himself a mighty shake, and goes to meet his 
 mistress. Almost at the same instant a side door is slowly 
 opened, and Captain Staines emerges from the gloom 
 beyond. 
 
 " Good morning, or rather good evening, now," he says, 
 in a carefully careless tone, taking her proffered hand, 
 which feels warm and tremulous within his grasp. Under 
 his idle air his nature is all alert, and he scans her features 
 warily to take note of any confusion that may color them. 
 But she is as cold, as indifferent, as self-possessed as 
 though last night's occurrence had never been. If he is 
 disappointed in his search for knowledge his face does 
 not betray him. 
 
 " True," returns she, as though the thought has been 
 forced her. " It is already noon." Her low, tragic voice, 
 soft and sad, seems in unison with the hour, the day, and 
 the solemn silence and dimness of the place. 
 
 " Your headache is better ? " asks he, hopefully. " I 
 knew the intolerable heat last night was bound to knock 
 you up. The arrangements were far from perfect. They 
 have made a prisoner of you all the morning." 
 
 "As a rule neither heat nor cold affect rne in fact, 
 nothing does, much," replies she calmly, ignoring, or not 
 seeing the motive of his speech. " But I confess my head 
 was a trouble to me to-day." 
 
 " I have been thinking that perhaps half an hour or so 
 on the island you know how fresh it always is there 
 together with the row across, would do you good," says 
 Staines, in an ordinarily friendly tone. 
 
 " There is scarcely time, is there ?" She looks at him 
 absently, as though it is a matter of indifference to her 
 whether she goes there or anywhere else, as indeed it is. 
 She glances up at the clock. " It is now very nearly four. 
 Those people" (smiling) "will be coming home again and 
 will expect me to be here to give them their tea." 
 
 " Tut ! that will not be for hours," retorts he, gaily.
 
 206 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Not until you have had time to be there and back again, 
 over and over. Free your conscience on that score. 1 
 promise you shall be back here before they are." 
 
 " That, of course ; I wonder if I could get to the island 
 and home again in two hours ? Now that you have put it 
 into my head, I feel as if the lake is the one thing I desire. 
 Oh, for a breeze ! And there might be a small one there." 
 She presses her hand wearily to her forehead. 
 
 "A foregone conclusion," cries he, gaily. " Let us start 
 at once then, if your return at the time you say is im- 
 perative." 
 
 Beneath his seeming bonhomie there is lying a strong 
 eagerness. Time is moving away from them, and any 
 moment now may bring Branksmere home to keep the 
 appointment with Muriel, of which she is ignorant, and 
 which Staines has pledged himself to prevent. 
 
 " Come, then," she says, languidly, moving toward the 
 open hall door, being already prepared for an afternoon 
 stroll, with the help of a huge hat with heavy waving 
 plumes and a pair of gloves that reach up to her elbows, 
 and a big white umbrella that breathes defiance at old Sol. 
 
 The walk through the shady wood beneath the scented 
 pines is rich with a sweet fragrance. The widening leaves 
 are casting shadows on the mossy turf beneath, and the 
 oppressive heat of the more open land is here subdued and 
 saddened. It is the fading away of spring, the dawning of 
 summer, a season full of 
 
 " Sweet days and roses, 
 A box where sweets compacted lie," 
 
 and where winds are hushed, and speech grows low, and 
 where a languorous noontide seems at one with the happy 
 laziness that fills our blood. 
 
 The way has seemed neither long nor wearying, though 
 it has been travelled in almost comparative silence, and it 
 appears a sort of surprise to Muriel when they at last 
 come to its end and emerge upon the borders of the lake, 
 where in a picturesque hut sits a ferryman during the 
 warm months to row the visitors at the castle to the ex- 
 quisite little island now basking in the sunshine, about 
 half a mile from the shore. 
 
 Stepping into the boat, Muriel, with a vague sense of 
 rest and pleasure fell upon her a rest that has been un- 
 known to her for some time draws off her glove and lets
 
 LADY BKAXh'SMERE. 207 
 
 one white slender hand drag idly through the pleasant 
 water. Great water flags touch her now and then, and 
 many other trailing weeds, wave-worn and drooping 'neath 
 the sun's hot glance. Gaudy flies of every hue dance 
 lightly on the ripples, and farther out upon the very 
 bosom of the lake the tremulous lilies sway indolently 
 with each softest motion of the wind or water. 
 
 Leisurely the boatman plies his oar, and presently brings 
 them to the tiny beach that belongs to the island. Still in 
 her new dreamy mood, Muriel steps ashore and walks 
 away from the boat and round the little curve of rock that 
 leads to the upper plateau. She has almost forgotten the 
 existence of Staines in this vague new born peace of hers, 
 and is altogether unaware that he has lingered behind her 
 to say a word or two to the ferryman. Presently, how- 
 ever, as she hears him hurrying after her, she comes back 
 to the present with a little start. 
 
 " You told the man to wait," she asks, anxiously. " You 
 know my stay here must be short." 
 
 " I told him that," reassuringly. " I warned him you 
 should be home by a certain hour, so I suppose it will be 
 all right. Let us forget time for the moment," gaily, "and 
 try to enjoy to the full this delicious afternoon." 
 
 A little trembling wind has arisen, and is blowing right 
 into their faces. It is so blessed a thing, coming as it does 
 after the intolerable heat of the morning, that Lady Branks- 
 mere, with a quick sigh of delight sinking on the soft 
 sward, throws off her hat and gives her burning forehead 
 to its cooling caress. 
 
 Far away the calm ocean is glinting brightly. " Above 
 the soft sweep of the breathless bay " the silver gulls are 
 flying, hovering, looking for their fishy prey. Inland 
 rushes the noise of the mysterious waves as they beat their 
 breasts against the stony rocks ! 
 
 And still Muriel sits here dreamily ; and still her com- 
 panion sits beside her, never addressing her, never striving 
 to break the curious silence in which she has enwrapped 
 herself, content in the thought that she is willing he should 
 be with her. A word here, an insinuation there, a careful 
 hint, the useful tact that teaches him when to speak and 
 when to be silent as on the present occasion upon all 
 these powerful means Staines depends to win his way with 
 her in the end. 
 
 "A falling drop," says Lucretius, " at last will cave a 
 stone," and in so far Staines agrees with him. Persever-
 
 208 LADY BRAffKSMERE. 
 
 ance, thorough and rigid, will win the day, long after more 
 daring methods have failed. 
 
 The yellow haze that hung over everything is now dying 
 away. Evening is declaring itself. Muriel's thoughts, 
 whether they be sweet or bitter, are certainly all master- 
 ing, as they still keep her chained to this island fastness, 
 although the day is declining, and the first wild glory 
 of the sun has departed : The flowers lift their heads as 
 the great heat dies, and over the lake the swallows dart 
 upon their homeward way. 
 
 Perhaps the strange sense of unreality that belongs to 
 evening begins to oppress her now, because she shivers a 
 little and lifts her head. Yes ! Her calm hour has come 
 to an end. She must rise up and go back to her unrest. 
 Is anything lasting ? Is it the cruel law that all good 
 things must have a speedy end ? And she had been happy 
 here ! The skimming swallows catch her eye as they flit 
 now so low down upon the water that almost their breasts 
 seem to touch it, now so far above her in the pale blue of 
 the air that their twitterings cease to sound in her ears. 
 Their very gayety disheartens her. They are free from 
 care, while she : 
 
 "Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, 
 How can thine heart be full of the spring ? 
 A thousand summers are over and dead. 
 What hast thou found in the spring to follow? 
 What hast thou found in thine heart to sing? 
 What wilt thou do when the summer is shed ? 
 
 Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow, 
 I know not how thou hast heart to sing. 1 ' 
 
 She sighs wearily, and rises to her feet. 
 
 "Come, let us return," she says, in a low tone. "It is 
 already past the hour." 
 
 He rises, too, in obedience to her commands, and she 
 going first and he following they arrive again at the small 
 beach. It is deserted, neither boat nor ferryman is to be 
 seen. 
 
 " How is this ? " asks she, coldly, looking round at him. 
 
 " It is very extraordinary it is inconceivable," says 
 Staines, gazing north, south, east, and west, with a large 
 amazement^ in his eyes. " I can't imagine how the fellow 
 could have misunderstood me, and yet " 
 
 " You told him to wait ? "
 
 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 209 
 
 " No. But I very fully explained to him that you 
 wished to be home at a certain hour. I am awfully sorry 
 if any mistake of mine has caused ' 
 
 She stops him with an impatient gesture. 
 
 "That is of no consequence at all, "she says, contemptu- 
 ously. "The thing now to be considered is what is best 
 to be done." 
 
 " He cannot be much longer away," begins Staines, 
 eagerly, but again she refuses to listen. She has taken out 
 her watch and is examining it with a frown of dismay. 
 
 " Half-past five, already," she exclaims in a low tone, 
 addressing herself, as though ignorant or careless of his 
 presence. Indeed, she turns determinedly away from him, 
 and begins to pace up and down the confined gravelled 
 space with angry uncertain steps. She is disturbed, un- 
 easy, and indignant with the man who, however unde- 
 signedly, has led her into a position that may be question- 
 able, and will certainly be termed imprudent, if discovered. 
 Any suspicion of Staines having purposely misled the 
 ferryman as to the real hour she had named for her return 
 is far from her, but in the first flush of her annoyance she 
 cannot altogether pardon him for having been its cause. 
 It is hard to forgive the clumsy carelessness that will in 
 all probability make her the cynosure of every eye when 
 she returns, at an overlate hour, to her wondering guests. 
 
 Again she looks at her watch. It was now close on 
 six o'clock, and still no sign of the ferryman. Good 
 heavens, if he were to forget to come at all ! If some ac- 
 cident should have happened to him ! As this horrible 
 thought suggests itself the blood surges up wildly into her 
 face, only to leave it again w'hiter than before. What will 
 they all say ? What will be thought of her by Mrs. Vyner, 
 with her sneering smile, by Mrs. Amyot with her amused 
 one ? What will be thought by Her teeth closed sav- 
 agely upon her under lip, and she turns suddenly upon 
 Staines with a fierce vehemence, scorn and angry misery 
 within her eyes. 
 
 "Do something /" she cries, bringing her foot down im- 
 patiently upon the ground. 
 
 " What can I do ? " desperately. " All that is left me is 
 to tell you how bitterly I regret 
 
 "All the regret of which you could be capable would 
 not get me home a minute sooner," declares she, impetu- 
 ously. " Why don't you act ? Why do you stand there 
 with that incapable look upon your face ? Surely " with a 
 14
 
 210 LADY DRAN'KSMERE. 
 
 feverish fire in her eyes" something can be done. Then? 
 must be a way of attracting the attention of some one on. 
 the opposite shore. Is there no signal you can make to 
 the man ? He may be there, he may hear you. The day 
 oh no," with miserable correction, " the evening is so 
 still, that any sound will carry that short distance. Try 
 something anything." 
 
 " There is no need, the man is coming," returns he, sul- 
 lenly, pointing across the lake to where a boat can be seen 
 pushing slowly through the water weeds that throng the 
 bank. Presently it is out in the more open water, and as 
 the man is rowing vigorously in about ten minutes or so 
 he reaches them. Staines goes up to him. 
 
 "What do you mean by being an hour late?" he de- 
 mands in a loud, angry key. He has gained his object, 
 her interview with Branksmere is now an impossibility, 
 and though she will probably reach home before the 
 others, this long, solitary ramble with him will undoubt- 
 edly damage her in the eyes of her husband. 
 
 "I'm not late, sir." The man is regarding him with 
 surprise in tone and glance. " It is not yet six o'clock." 
 
 " I desired you to be back here at five, sharp," declares 
 Staines, in a still more distinct and angry voice. 
 
 " Six, sir, begging your pardon," says the man firmly. 
 
 "Five, I told you! It is unpardonable her ladyship 
 should be subject to such neglect." 
 
 "I am very sorry, my lady," mutters the man, turning 
 to Muriel with a respectful air, cap in hand. " But I 
 quite thought as how the gentleman had said six." As he 
 speaks he glances at Staines with a curious, furtive air. 
 There is a persistency about his manner that occurs to 
 Muriel long afterward. 
 
 " You shouldn't think," says Staines, beginning to blus- 
 ter a little, but Lady Branksmere checks him. 
 
 " Enough has been said," she decides, quietly. " It was 
 a mistake it appears. Let it rest." She sweeps past him 
 to the boat. " The thing is to get home now with as little 
 more delay as possible." 
 
 The row across the lake is a silent one, and Muriel 
 springs upon the land with a sigh of relief. Staines, 
 pressing half a sovereign into the ferryman's hand, ac- 
 companies her swiftly down the narrow woodland path. 
 The ferryman gazing after him scratches his head reflec- 
 tively. 
 
 " What's that for now, I wonder ? " He ponders to him-
 
 LA D Y^BRA NKSMERE. 21 1 
 
 self, staring at the little gold coin upon his brown palm. 
 " He don't look like a gent as would be free with his tin. 
 To keep silence is it ? Eh ! But I knew 't were six 'e 
 said." 
 
 With hasty footsteps Muriel hurries home. Already 
 the god of day has sunk behind the hills in a red glory, 
 and twilight is coming up from the sea. It is that most 
 delicious hour of all the day, " This hour dividing light 
 from dark," but for Muriel it holds no charms. One ray 
 of comfort alone sustains her ; she remembers that 
 Branksmere seldom returns from town until the seven 
 o'clock train, and surely she will be safe in her own room 
 before that. As for the others she may escape them. 
 
 She may, and does for five minutes or so, but Branks- 
 mere is standing in one of the open windows as she and 
 Staines come down the avenue. Madame von Thirsk is 
 sitting in a low wicker chair near him. 
 
 "Ah ! " she cries, with an impulsive air of relief. " Here 
 is Lady Branksmere, at last ! We all know," leniently, 
 "how difficult it is to drag one's self away from the 
 warmth of an evening such as this ; but I am glad," 
 with a. kindly intonation, "that she has managed to get 
 home before the arrival of the others. Mrs. Vyner's 
 tongue is sharply pointed." 
 
 She sighs, as if sorry for Mrs. Vyner's tongue, and ris- 
 ing, moves toward the door. Branksmere makes her no 
 reply. His eyes have met Muriel's, and are resting on 
 them. Though some distance separates them, both can 
 see that the other's face has grown strangely pale. 
 
 After a moment or so Branksmere drops his glance and 
 leaves the window. 
 
 "That woman, again!" mutters Muriel between her 
 teeth. Her voice is very low, but Staines hears her. 
 
 "I have already warned you," he reminds her, bending 
 toward her. "It will be insult upon insult heaped!" 
 And then as she moves away from him through the dark 
 old hall, he follows her to say a last impressive word, 
 " Remember ! There is always a remedy ! " he whispers, in 
 a low tone.
 
 212 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 "Consider that the invisible thing called a good name, is made up of 
 the breath of the numbers that speak well of you." 
 
 SHE has barely time to go to her room and put herself 
 into the hands of her woman, before the arrival of her 
 guests, returning from Lady Blount's tennis match, makes 
 itself felt in the house by the sounds of gay laughter and 
 the click clack of high-heeled shoes running up the stairs. 
 Mrs. Amyot knocks at the door in passing, to ask if her 
 headache is better, and with a vile sense of hypocrisy full 
 upon her, she answers " Yes, a little," though the headache 
 certainly had been there in the morning, and no faintest 
 untruth had been uttered about it. 
 
 She is feeling tired, worn out in soul and body, and it is 
 with a sense of physical comfort that she sheds her walk- 
 ing-attire, and lets Bridgman clothe her in the looser, eas- 
 ier tea-gown, of white terry velvet, that sits so charmingly 
 upon her lissome figure, and is undesecrated by faintest 
 spot of color. As the maid is putting a last finishing touch 
 to her, Muriel asks her a question, that is yet hardly one. 
 
 " Lord Branksmere has returned ?" she says. 
 
 "Oh yes, my lady. He returned by the four o'clock 
 train. He inquired for your ladyship, but I told him you 
 had gone for a walk with Captain Staines, as your head was 
 bad." 
 
 "And?" 
 
 " He was put out, my lady, as was natural ; very much 
 put out. Afterward he had a late luncheon with Madame 
 von Thirsk, and after that went up to visit her ladyship, 
 the Dowager." 
 
 A strange look comes into Muriel's eyes. 
 
 " I am afraid he had but a dull afternoon," she says, 
 lightly, in a perfectly changed tone. " Did her ladyship 
 keep him long ? " 
 
 " No, my lady. But he was not so altogether dull as you 
 fear. Madame kept him company in the library for some 
 time. But he did seem real disappointed almost vexed, 
 one might say when he did not find your ladyship on his 
 coming back from town. He is in the picture gallery now 
 with Madame. Would your ladyship wish to 
 
 No ! Her ladyship would not wish to see him !
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 213 
 
 Bridgman being dismissed presently, Lady Branksmere 
 rises from the chair and her enforced calm, and begins to 
 pace feverishly up and down the room. So he had returned 
 then, at four! lie who had never yet been known to get 
 back from town until about half-an-hour before dinner! 
 What had hastened his movements to-day to-day, when he 
 had believed her safe at Lady Blount's, with all her guests ? 
 Was it an arrangement between him and Madame ? Had 
 she decided upon staying at home to receive him ? All his 
 air of disappointment at not finding her, his wife, at home, 
 must have been acted for Bridgman's benefit, for the sav- 
 ing of his own lost honor. Good heavens! what insults 
 are showered daily on her head ! Was ever woman so 
 hemmed in by them ? To stoop to deceive her waiting- 
 maid, to pretend surprise at her mistress's absence, know- 
 ing well in his heart all the while that the mistress 
 was miles away ! Oh, the shame ! the duplicity of it ! 
 She clinches her hands and her lips grow white with pas- 
 sionate resentment, and that sense of injury that only the 
 woman betrayed can feel. 
 
 What was it Staines had said at that last moment at the 
 foot of the stairs ? "A remedy ! " " There is always a 
 remedy ; always." She was to remember that. So she 
 does. So she will. Hah ! see that they do not drive her 
 too far. More than one can play at this damning game 
 that he her husband (oh! the ignominy of it!) has 
 chosen as his pastime. 
 
 She brings her teeth down sharply on her under-lip, and 
 stands as one transfixed, horrified, yet fascinated by the 
 terrible possibility she has permitted to dawn upon her. 
 Then suddenly she leans back against the table behind her, 
 and bursts into a low, wild laugh, that is more forlorn than 
 tears sadder than despair. Checking it abruptly, she 
 takes up her handkerchief, and, with the last remnant of 
 that reckless mirth still alight within her gleaming eyes, 
 goes to the south gallery to meet her guests. 
 
 Mrs. Amyot's voice reaches her as she steps from behind 
 a large screen. 
 
 " We are disgracefully late," that pretty butterfly is say- 
 ing to Lord Branksmere. " We richly deserve the scold- 
 ing that I hope Lady Branksmere will not give us. And 
 after all, I don't know why we stayed. It was stupid to 
 
 suffocation, and Lady Blount, as we all know, is . Well, 
 
 wretchedly so, isn't she now ? You agree with me ? " 
 
 " Entirely," says Branksmere.
 
 214 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " So you see Lady Branksmere had no loss. But I am 
 afraid she must have found it very lonely here, all by her- 
 self." 
 
 " Terribly lonely all by herself," returns Branksmere, 
 with a grim smile, looking straight at his wife as she 
 comes slowly toward them over the polished floor, her long, 
 white dress trailing behind her. 
 
 "Oh, no, I was not lonely," says she, in a sweet, clear 
 voice. " I went for a row on the lake with Captain 
 Staines, and the fresh breeze there did my head all the 
 good in the world." There is a touch of defiance in the 
 glance she directs at her husband. 
 
 "Ah, there is no doctor like a retired military man," 
 lisps Mrs. Vyncr, her little hesitation so slight as to be no- 
 ticed by only one or two. 
 
 " I hope, my dear Muriel, you took the herb-water I 
 prescribed for you this morning," pipes old Lady Primrose 
 anxiously. " I told your woman to be sure and make you 
 take it.. It is infallible. I always give it to Primrose in 
 town, when his head feels queer, and he says it works 
 wonders." 
 
 "So it does on the heads of the passers-by," mutters 
 Primrose, sotto voce, " because I always chuck it out of the 
 window." 
 
 " What a naughty little flower you are ! " whispers Mrs. 
 Amyot, with a smile and glance that brings back Halkett 
 to her side without a second's delay. He had been a little 
 inclined to wander afield, but this touch of coquetry, di- 
 rected at another, restores him to his proper level at once. 
 He forsakes Margery, who, accompanied by Bellew and 
 Peter, has come over, more to walk off a restless mood than 
 for anything else, and who, in truth, in her present mood, is 
 not desirous of his company. 
 
 "I'm tired," says Halkett, with a sigh, sinking down 
 beside Mrs. Amyot, who pulls to herself with a very gentle 
 but meaning action, the soft loose folds of her tea-gown. 
 The heavy black Spanish laces cling to her obediently, as 
 if -to endorse the decision of their mistress to draw back 
 from him now, at once and forever. But if this action of 
 hers has meaning, Halkett declines to see it. "I have 
 plenty of room, thanks," he murmurs, sweetly, "don't 
 crush your pretty gown. But country life is very vigor- 
 ous, is it not ? A ball last night fourteen miles of a drive 
 to-day, with unspeakable stupidity at the end of it. It is 
 just the trifle too much, eh ?"
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 215 
 
 " So you seem to think." 
 
 "Don't you? Bless me," says Mr. Halkett, leaning for- 
 ward to examine her more critically, "now I come to look 
 at you you don't seem to have a vestige of fatigue about 
 you. Not a hair turned. How I envy you your staying 
 powers ? How I wish," plaintively, " I were as strong as 
 you are." 
 
 At another time Mrs. Amyot might have laughed here ; 
 now she looks politely vague. 
 
 " I wish it too," she says, with a solidity that sits funnily 
 upon her in spite of her stern determination to have noth- 
 ing to do with badinage of any sort. " I could wish nobody 
 anything better than health like mine. Ah ! " Her tone 
 suddenly changes to one of warmest regard. " Is that you, 
 then, my Tinytuff ! my sweetheart !" holding out her arms 
 to a fluffy little white Maltese terrier, who is rolling toward 
 her with tongue en evidence. " Come here, then, to its mis- 
 tress, my love, my mouse, my cat." 
 
 She lifts the pretty thing on to her laces, and buries her 
 face in its silky hair. 
 
 " Odd, now ! " says Halkett, with a meditative air, " do 
 you know, until this very instant, I was always of opinion 
 that that priceless animal was a dog. Fact, I assure 
 you! Just shows how fancy will run away with one at 
 times." 
 
 " A passing fancy, yes," returns she, with a small, swift 
 glance at him from under her drooping lashes. 
 
 " It wasn't an evanescent affair by any means," declares 
 Halkett; "don't get yourself to imagine it so. On that 
 score no excuse can be laid to my folly. It was a.bonafide 
 belief. I would have sworn it was a dog ! " 
 
 At this moment a huge greyhound, that up to this has 
 lain perdu, approaching Mrs. Amyot, makes a snap at the 
 dainty favorite lying upon her lap, seizes it bodily, and, with 
 a savage shake, drops it onto the floor. A piercing shriek 
 bursts from the terrified Maltese, as it breaks loose from 
 its assailant and runs to hide itself among the lace skirts 
 of its mistress. The latter, who has turned pale with fear, 
 lifts it hurriedly and clasps it to her bosom. Meantime 
 Halkett has driven away the greyhound, who disappears 
 somewhere into the recesses of the curtained windows. 
 
 "What a savage beast," breathes Mrs. Amyot, faintly. 
 " How he terrified me, and my poor little lambkin here." 
 She caresses with tenderest looks the still trembling ter- 
 rier crouching in her arms.
 
 216 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "Don't!" entreats Halkett, feebly. "If you call it by 
 any other name, however sweet, I shall be undone. As it 
 is, my brain is on fire. If a cat, how can it be a mouse ? if 
 a mouse, how can it be a lamb ? if a lamb, how a cat ? Tiie 
 question goes round and round, and there is no answer to 
 be found for it anywhere." 
 
 " What a cruel, premeditated attack. Did you watch it ? " 
 demands she, gazing at him witli liquid eyes. " The 
 treacherous brute ! To make such a wanton war on my 
 poor little pet." 
 
 " It's my opinion that he hasn't done with him yet," says 
 Halkett, mysteriously. " There was a look in his eye as I 
 drove him off a greedy look that spoke of a banquet as- 
 sured on the morrow. Take my word for it, he has made 
 up his mind to your little incongruity ! He's as good as 
 gone already. I shouldn't put off the evil hour if I were 
 you : prolonged torture is wearing ; I'd pull down all the 
 blinds without an instant's delay ; put the household into 
 state mourning, and get up a pathetic funeral." 
 
 " I'm so glad you are amused," says Mrs. Amyot, with a 
 withering glance. 
 
 " I have always thought there was something wrong with 
 my countenance. Now I know it." Mr. Halkett looks 
 melancholy. " When I am literally sunk in a very slough 
 of despond 1 am told I am in wild spirits. Do you really 
 believe I should find amusement in the slaughter of your 
 little innocent? Your little rara avis? No! There is 
 nothing invidious in that appellation. No hidden sarcasm. 
 I see no earthly reason why that remarkable animal of 
 yours, if he can be a cat, a mouse and a lamb ail in one, 
 shouldn't be a bird, too ! " 
 
 "You are without feeling," says Mrs. Amyot, resent- 
 fully. "At least so far as /am concerned. For me you 
 reserve your nastiest moods. Why ? I wonder. What is 
 it that I have done to you ?" 
 
 "Ah! what, indeed," returns Halkett, leaning toward 
 her, and under cover of the small dog's hair stroking 
 with tender touch her little fair hand. " I leave your con- 
 science to answer that." 
 
 "You told me only last night I had none," murmurs she, 
 coloring delicately. 
 
 "I say many things," remorsefully, glancing up at her, 
 "that I don't mean. There is perhaps only one thing I 
 ever say to you that is entirely true ; entirely." 
 
 "And that?" The eyes that are gazing into his have
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 217 
 
 grown suddenly full of tears, and her breath comes with a 
 soft eagerness from her parted lips. 
 
 "Pah ! If I told you again, you would but laugh at me 
 as you did that first time," exclaims he, with a touch of 
 bitterness, and rising abruptly, he moves away from her. 
 
 Lady Primrose has now got hold of Muriel. 
 
 " I do trust, my dear, you did not stay long on that lake," 
 she is saying with ponderous anxiety. "Nothing so un- 
 wholesome as a water mist, and there was sure to be one 
 uprising on such a day as this." She is so deaf, poor old 
 soul, that she always talks at the top of her lungs, being, 
 perhaps, under the impression that her neighbors are simi- 
 larly afflicted, so that all she says is given to the gallery in 
 general. 
 
 "There was no mist, I think. I felt no unpleasantness," 
 replies Lady Branksmere, calmly. Only Margery, who is 
 watching her with sad eyes, notices the convulsive twitth- 
 ing of the white hand hidden in the folds of her gown. 
 
 " Of course, Branksmere, being with you, would see to 
 that," croons on the old lady, whose intellect having 
 grasped the fact that Branksmere was not at Lady Blount's, 
 can no further go beyond imagining, that if not there, he 
 must have been with his wife. "Nothing so good as a hus- 
 band, my dear," with a benevolent smile, " when all is 
 told." 
 
 Deadly silence, broken only by a murmur from Mrs. 
 Vyner, which is understood by all but Lady Primrose. 
 
 "You will bear me out," she is whispering, mildly, to 
 Curzon Bellew, " that I always said the dear old creature 
 was in her dotage. Doesn't that speech confirm it ? " 
 
 " But I think she looks tired, Branksmere she looks 
 pale," calls out the mistaken old lady across the room. " I 
 doubt you kept her on that lake too long." 
 
 "I don't think so," says Branksmere. He lifts his head 
 and gives way to a curious little laugh. "That lake pos- 
 sesses charms for her of which we know nothing. She 
 would have pined all day but for the benefit she derived 
 from its air." He says all this with the most natural man- 
 ner possible, but Muriel writhes and winces inwardly be- 
 neath each sharp cut. How dare fie take her to task ! 
 
 "That may be," goes on Lady Primrose, dubiously. 
 " But I suffered so much from headaches myself at one 
 time that I feel the greatest sympathy, my love," laying 
 her trembling- old hand on Muriel's cold, irresponsive one, 
 "for those who now have to endure them. I remember
 
 2i8 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 well how Primrose my husband, my dear used to have 
 to bathe my brows by the hour together with lavender 
 water. It was the only thing that did me good, and his 
 touch was gentle as a girl's. It was just before my son 
 was born," nodding across to where the last Primrose of 
 her life, at least, stands "blooming alone." "Ah! His 
 father was, indeed one in a thousand. I never could bear 
 him out of my sight in those days!" 
 
 "Your father must have been the most fascinating man 
 of his day," says Mrs. Vyner, who can be unpardonably 
 impertinent in her little babyish way. 
 
 " Now that I come to think of it, in spite of his many 
 virtues and they were many my father I fear would be 
 regarded by you as a very ordinary individual," replies 
 Primrose, simply. " But after all you know there are 
 women who not only love but respect their husbands." 
 
 " Specially when they are dead," smiles Mrs. Vyner, 
 agreeably, who is not to be subdued by any man born. 
 
 " Do you ever get Branksmere to try lavender \yater 
 with your head, my love ? " asks Lady Primrose of Muriel, 
 with gentle investigation. 
 
 " No." Muriel, who has grown even paler, shakes her 
 head. " I do not have so many headaches as you suppose, 
 and when one comes to me I find my maid can do for me 
 everything I require." 
 
 "Ah ? a maid is not a husband," puts in Lady Primrose, 
 strongly. 
 
 Everyone seems struck with this. 
 
 " 'Age makes the sage,' " quotes Halkett, gravely, in a 
 low tone. "Let us be grateful for small mercies, in that 
 the old lady has at last stumbled upon an incontrovertible 
 fact. Anyone," looking round him, " prepared to dispute 
 the truth of her remark ? Could & maid be a husband ?" 
 
 No one, it need hardly be said, takes any notice of him ! 
 
 " I always think one's own woman understands one so 
 mucli better than anyone else," says Mrs. Amyot, good- 
 naturedly,, seeing the set expression of Muriel's mouth, 
 and the ill-suppressed frown upon her brow. 
 
 "Well, at all events, she is looking too white to please 
 me," declares Lady Primrose with some faint insistance. "I 
 don't believe in that lake, I don't indeed. Don't take her 
 there again, Branksmere, if an old woman's advice is worth 
 following." 
 
 " I won't," returns Branksmere, and again he laughs, 
 unpleasantly. A suspicion that he is seeking to shield her
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 219 
 
 from Lady Primrose's censure, waking within Muriel's 
 breast, drives her to an open declaration of the realities of 
 the question at issue. 
 
 " Branksmere was not with me on the lake to-day," she 
 says, coldly, but distinctly. "He went to town by the early 
 train, this morning." 
 
 " Eh, my dear ? I quite understood him to say 
 
 What was it you said, Branksmere ? And if lie was not 
 with you, my dear, who was eh ? eh ? " 
 
 " Oh ! Lady Primrose! Do you know I quite forgot to 
 tell you until this moment but " breaks in Margery's 
 gay sweet voice "I have discovered that new knitting 
 stitch that so puzzled us last week. Willie knew all about 
 it. It is the prettiest thing : see " dropping on her 
 knees before her, and taking up the eternal workbasket 
 that ever accompanies the old countess " let me show it 
 to you now while it is fresh upon my mind. One. One, 
 two one, two, three a turn you quite see ? and then 
 back again. It has the happiest result." 
 
 It has indeed ! Lady Primrose growing enthusiastic 
 over the new stitch, Muriel makes her escape to a distant 
 tea table, where comparative calm is at least obtained, un- 
 til the dinner-bell rings, and she is enabled to make her 
 escape to her own room. 
 
 Dinner is a rather languid affair, most of the guests 
 being too tired to even make a pretence at conversation, 
 and by ten o'clock all have melted away to their several 
 apartments. Muriel, with a long sigh of heartfelt relief, 
 flings herself into a lounging chair in the pretty satin-lined 
 nest, half boudoir, half dressing-room, that opens out of 
 her bedroom, and gives herself up to the luxury of being 
 entirely alone, without fear of interruption. Now at last 
 she can think ; can review her day ; can give herself up 
 completely to the various emotions that are swaying her. 
 Leaning back in her chair in her black evening gown, she 
 presses her fingers against her aching lids, and seeks to 
 concentrate her thoughts. 
 
 A slight noise startles her. Hastily lowering her hands 
 from her face, she looks up. Lord Branksmere is stand- 
 ing on the hearthrug a few paces from her, gazing at her 
 interitlv !
 
 220 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 "Harsh springs, and fountains bitterer than the sea.'' 
 
 His face is white and stern, a sullen frown has gathered 
 on his forehead ; beneath his bent brows his eyes look out 
 on her, filled with suppressed fire. 
 
 " This is an unwarrantable intrusion," says Lady Branks- 
 mere, rising slowly to her feet, and standing now with her 
 hand resting upon the back of her chair. She glances 
 swiftly at the door as if to assure herself that it is indeed 
 locked, as when she herself five minutes ago had turned 
 the key in it. He must have come then through the bed- 
 room. 
 
 "Not more so than usual," coldly. " My presence any- 
 where is an intrusion now, if you happen to be there." 
 
 " What has brought you ?" asks she, haughtily, gazing 
 at him with ill-concealed dislike. 
 
 " I have come to demand an explanation," returns he, 
 deliberately crossing the room to close the door by which 
 he had entered. His very action has such determination 
 in it that it startles her. 
 
 " Explain ! What should I have to explain ? " replies 
 she, proudly. She lifts her eyes to his as though to court 
 his scrutiny experience having taught her perhaps that 
 this is the safest way to escape from it but to-night her 
 plan, if it is one, fails ; his eyes refuse to go down before 
 hers, he takes even a step that brings him nearer to her. 
 
 "You will be kind enough to tell me," he says slowly, 
 " what it is you mean by your friendship with Captain 
 Staines." 
 
 " Take care," cries she, suddenly ; " this is rather a dan- 
 gerous tone for you to take with me is it not ? Consider, 
 Branksmere ! before you rouse me to recrimination. Have 
 /no fault to find, think you ? have / no wrongs ? " 
 
 "Let us come to that later on, if you will," returns he, 
 in an unmoved tone. "At present confine yourself to the 
 question in hand. I wish to know how matters stand be- 
 tween you and your guest." 
 
 "Yours rather." 
 
 "True. I had forgotten his double dishonor there." 
 
 " Honor is a word that seems to trip lightly from your
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 221 
 
 tongue," sneers she, with ineffable contempt. " Is it then 
 a thing so dear to you ? '' 
 
 " So much of it as lies in your keeping, I shall at least 
 look after," retorts he, steadily. 
 
 Her large eyes flash. She flings the feather fan she has 
 up to this been almost unconsciously holding, far from her 
 toward a distant lounge. She misses her aim, however, 
 and it comes with a crash to the ground. Branksmerc, 
 with a coolness that literally grates upon her excited 
 nerves, goes slowly up to it, lifts it, and places it noise- 
 lessly upon the table near. 
 
 " That you have come here with the express purpose of 
 insulting me," exclaims she, bitterly, "is plain enough. 
 Yet I hardly think there was need for it. Every day, every 
 hour I spend beneath your roof is filled with such affronts 
 as only the meanest of your sex would dare offer to any 
 woman." 
 
 " I must again beg of you to keep to the matter under 
 discussion. As I have already said, I can listen to your 
 side of the affair later on." 
 
 " What is it you want with me ? " asks she, with sudden 
 vehemence. " Be quick ! Let me hear it. I am tired, 
 worn out. I would be alone." She beats her foot impa- 
 tiently against the floor. 
 
 " If you are tired, sit down," he pushes a low chair to- 
 ward her. His tone is still studiously calm. " I shall not 
 leave this room to-night until I have had an answer from 
 you, and come to some understanding." 
 
 " I am placed at the bar, it appears," murmurs she, with 
 a curious smile. " State your case then. Let me know 
 of what I am accused. What fancied wrongs are yours?" 
 
 " I seldom have fancies," coldly " I have refrained 
 from speech, until you yourself have rendered silence no 
 longer possible. When your name is made public prop- 
 erty, when it is in the mouths of all, I feel 
 
 " Be silent ! " interrupts she, imperiously, " I want none of 
 your comments. Tell me only of what it is you accuse me." 
 
 "Of your intimacy with your former lover," cries he, 
 with the first touch of violent anger he has shown. His 
 nostrils dilate, his breath comes heavily through his white 
 lips. "Last night you made yourself conspicuous with 
 him before the entire county ; to-day, under the pretext 
 of a headache, you absented yourself from your guests, 
 refused to accompany them to Lady Blount's, that you 
 might have an uninterrupted afternoon with him."
 
 222 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " It is false," returns she, vehemently ; " my head did 
 ache. I stayed away from Lady Blount's ; yet it was by 
 the merest chance that I went on the lake with Captain 
 Staines." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaims he, scornfully. 
 
 " Listen to me or not, as you will ; " haughtily " I had 
 no intention of going on the lake until long after they had 
 all gone to that tennis match." 
 
 " And was it the merest chance, too, that kept you on the 
 island with that fellow for three long hours short 
 hours, rather," with a pale smile. 
 
 "Did she tell you all that?" asks Lady Branksmere, 
 slowly. A strange little laugh breaks from her. "She is 
 indeed invaluable. What more did your spy impart to 
 you? Perhaps she told you too (though no doubt she 
 omitted that part of the story), how it was I spent so 
 long upon the island ? However, that hardly matters. 
 That would not be an interesting part to cither her or 
 you. Let me rest as vile as you both would fain make 
 me out." 
 
 " Can you deny that you deliberately refused to comply 
 with my request for an interview this afternoon ?" 
 
 " I know nothing of any interview. But if I am to be 
 unjustly condemned for so many things, one more is of 
 little consequence." Then all at once she turns upon 
 him, and her wrath breaks out. " How dare you so speak 
 to me," she cries, "you who turned back from town by an 
 early train to spend your time with Madame von Thirsk, 
 believing me to be safely out of your way at Lady 
 Blount's ! Oh, it is wise'ui you to turn the tables upon 
 me, lest I be the first to bring an accusation. But you 
 need not have sunk so low, I should not have questioned 
 you. Look here," cries she, throwing out her arms with 
 a gesture of weariness, " I suppose it is that I no longer 
 care. I give in. Do what you will without fear of censure 
 from me. I feel deadened, emotionless. You have killed 
 within me all feeling, all sensibility." 
 
 " To follow your rhapsodies is beyond me," says Branks- 
 mere, with a shrug. " But I regret that you should con- 
 sider it necessary to disclaim all knowledge of my having 
 asked of you that interview." 
 
 " When I say I know nothing of it, I speak only the 
 truth." 
 
 He looks at her searchingly, but her eyes meet his 
 boldly.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 223 
 
 " You mean to deny that you were unaware why I left 
 town to-day by so early a train ? " 
 
 "No," contemptuously. "On the contrary, I gave you 
 fully to understand that I am quite aware of your reason 
 for having done so." 
 
 "Attend to me," exclaims he, sternly. "Your flippancy 
 will not serve you here. That you got the flowers I sent 
 you last night I know, although you cast them aside that 
 you might wear others worthier in your eyes." 
 
 " There, too, you are mistaken," she is beginning hur- 
 riedly ; but she checks herself. She is tired of this useless 
 explaining. Why press upon him a fact he is so deter- 
 mined not to believe. "Certainly I received your flowers," 
 she finishes, coldly. 
 
 " And my note in them." 
 
 " There was no note ; no message of any sort." He re- 
 gards her for a moment very fixedly, and then his lips curl 
 in a slow, disdainful sneer. By a supreme effort she con- 
 trols her temper, and points to a distant table. 
 
 " There are the flowers you sent, go search them for this 
 supposititious note of yours." She had expected him to 
 take no notice of this command, but to her surprise, he 
 turns and walks doggedly toward the table indicated, lifts 
 the bouquet from the bowl in Avhich the maid had placed 
 it, and leisurely proceeds to examine it. " What a waste 
 of time to hope so to impress me," she mutters to herself, 
 watching him with a supercilious smile. A smile that 
 fades, however, and gives place to angry astonishment, as 
 he pulls from the centre of the flowers a note carefully 
 folded and holds it to her. 
 
 "You see I did write," he says, tranquilly, no touch of 
 triumph in his tone. Mechanically she takes the paper 
 from him, but makes no attempt to open it. She has 
 grown extremely pale, and her hands are trembling. 
 
 " I never knew it was there," she declares at last, like 
 one dazed. He bows profoundly. Is there a touch of 
 mockery in his salutation ? "I swear I never knew it," re- 
 peats she, eagerly, taking a step toward him. 
 
 " I do not ask for excuse or apology. Pray spare your- 
 self and me," returns he, icily. She draws even nearer to 
 him, her large stormy eyes fixed on his. She has thrown 
 up her head, and, with an action suggestive of unrestrain- 
 able passion, has crumpled the note she holds in her 
 clinched hand. 
 
 " You believe me ? " she demands in alow, choked voice.
 
 224 LADY BRAKK'SMERE. 
 
 " No ! " replies he with a terseness that is almost brutal. 
 
 There is a long pause, during which they stand staring 
 at each other, hatred and defiance in their gaze. Then : 
 
 " Coward ! " hisses she through her trembling lips. 
 
 " Nay, it is you who are the coward," retaliates he, calmly. 
 " It is through fear that you have thus lied to me." 
 
 " Do you think that I am afraid of you ? " cries she, sud- 
 denly, with vehement scorn. " You must be mad to 
 talk to me like this ! Where are you seeking to drive 
 me ? What is to be the end of all this, think you ? Afraid ! 
 And of you! I tell you I defy you to your face I defy 
 you ! " 
 
 The night is dark and chill, the wind has risen. A fire 
 has been lighted in the grate, and the red glow from it 
 lights up her shimmering gown, and quivers like a flame 
 around her shapely head and statuesque figure, now 
 strained to its full height. Her face is like marble, out of 
 which her eyes gleam dark and fierce. The intensity of 
 her passion only lends another charm to her exceeding 
 beauty. 
 
 " There is no occasion to tell me that ; you have done so 
 openly ever since our luckless marriage," says Branksmere, 
 bitterly. " I o\ve you many things." 
 
 "For the second time I warn you to beware," exclaims 
 she, losing all control. "Are your actions then so alto- 
 gether pure that you can afford to take me to task ? You 
 you who keep that shameless woman under the same 
 roof with your wife ! " 
 
 "Do you know what you are saying ? " demands Branks- 
 mere fiercely, grasping her arm. " Prove your words." 
 
 " Oh ! that I could," breathes she, wildly. " That I could 
 prove anything that would set me free from you." 
 
 " Free to give yourself to another!" He lets her go 
 abruptly, pushing her roughly away, and a sharp, jarring 
 laugh breaks from him. " Pah ! you play too open a game. 
 I fear it is not in your power to furnish yourself with 
 those proofs you so eagerly desire." 
 
 "You mean ?" Her voice is curiously low and 
 
 calm. 
 
 " That you would welcome any dishonor that would 
 fling you into the arms of your Iwer ! " 
 
 It is said ! Nothing can recall it ! There is a moment's 
 awful silence, and then Branksmere falls quickly back 
 from her, a dark red stain across his cheek where her palm 
 had struck him. It is all done and over in a moment, but
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 225 
 
 for a full minute he scarcely recovers himself. Then it is 
 to find the room empty. For in the tumult of her rage 
 Lady Branksmere had caught up a shawl and hurried from 
 the room the house ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 " I shall remember while the light lives yet, 
 And in the night-time I shall not forget " 
 
 THE stars are hidden by the dense bank of clouds that 
 makes dull the heavens, but a pale, watery moon sheds 
 here and there a vague pathway through the earth, that 
 helps her to find the woodland path that leads from the 
 Castle to her old home. Swiftly, mechanically, she moves 
 toward it, conscious of little but that she is leaving behind 
 her misery too great to be borne. 
 
 Her brain is still so disturbed, her thoughts so wild, that 
 she can hardly concentrate them upon any one feeling ; 
 yet through all the confusion a sense of self-horror per- 
 vades her being. She is ashamed ! that is the principal 
 pain ashamed down to the very innermost depths of her 
 soul. She had raised her hand against him ; she, Muriel ! 
 A touch of loathing, of cruel self-contempt, cuts into her 
 already seared and bruised heart. She is smitten with re- 
 morse, stricken to the earth not for him, but for her own 
 pride, for the dignity that had once enveloped her. 
 
 Yet she sheds no tears. Why should she ? What good 
 would they do ? Were she to weep her miserable eyes 
 blind, would she gain by it ? Would the Fates be at last 
 kind ? Would her grief propitiate them ? Would they 
 turn because of it, and succor her? 
 
 With blind haste she hurries along the little beaten track 
 beneath the shadowy leaves, until a sudden turn in it 
 brings her face to face with the walls of her old home, 
 gleaming gray in the growing moonlight the only home, 
 she tells herself, with sobbing breath, that she will ever 
 know. Some instinct draws her feet to the quaint iron- 
 bound door of the armory, and, laying her hand upon it, as 
 one might who is sure of entrance even at this late hour, 
 presses it from her to find her instinct true. The door 
 yields, and she moves quickly onward into the irregular 
 vaulted passage beyond.
 
 226 LADY BKANKSMERE. 
 
 It is unlighted, but a stray beam flinging itself through 
 the stained window at the lower end gives her a lead, and 
 shows her the stone steps that bring her finally to the en- 
 trance hall above. The house is wrapped in silence, though 
 at the farthest end of the hall one lamp is still burning in 
 vague, dull fashion. An intense longing to gain Margery's 
 chamber unseen, unheard, drives her to the staircase, but 
 on her way the sound of soft laughter, that seems to issue 
 from a room upon her right, checks her progress. Turn- 
 ing aside without thought, she opens the door of this 
 room, and enters it so softly that her coming is unheard. 
 
 Here the lamps are lighting brilliantly ; the heavy silken 
 curtains are closely drawn ; a small, but eminently cosy 
 little fire is coaxing an equally small kettle to sing with all 
 its might. There is a tiny tea equipage upon a gypsy 
 table, and upon another table near it a fowl delicately 
 roasted, a tempting pate a Dresden bowl full of straw- 
 berries, and a long-necked bottle. Before the fire, in 
 pretty, loose white robes, sit Mrs. Daryl and Margery ; at 
 the side, Angelica ; in a costume that might suggest to the 
 intelligent onlooker that she had been summoned from her 
 bed at a moment's notice. There is, indeed, an air of re- 
 fined Bohemianism about the trio, and a subdued desire to 
 prove to themselves and each other that servants are a 
 snare and a swindle, and that everyone could get on much 
 better without them. 
 
 "I don't believe a kettle, a small kettle, could take so 
 long to boil," Mrs. Daryi is saying, anxiously, leaning over 
 the fire. " When it makes that little fussy noise it's boil- 
 ing, eh ? " 
 
 " I'm certain of it," agrees Margery, gladly. " Let us 
 make the tea." 
 
 " It isn't thinking of boiling," declares Angelica. " I've 
 boiled hundreds of kettles, and I know all about it. First 
 it must sing, then the steam must pour out of its nose, and 
 then it is all over, and you take it up." 
 
 She is looking at Margery as she speaks, and at this 
 identical moment the kettle gives way to the ebullition of 
 which she has been speaking. Puff, puff goes the steam 
 all over the place. 
 
 "If you mean me" cries Margery, pushing back her 
 chair, "I couldn't do it, at all ; I couldn't really. It's an 
 abominable little thing. How angry it looks ! I wouldn't 
 touch it to say nothing of lifting it bodily from the fire 
 for anything that could be offered,"
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 227 
 
 As she speaks she turns quite round, and thus brings 
 herself face to face with Muriel, the poor, rich, titled thing, 
 who would have given all her possessions to-night to be 
 able to mingle with them, with a heart free from care, in 
 their gay idlesse. Even the fire has sent a vague touch of 
 warmth and comfort into her angry heart. As she meets 
 Margery's glance, she makes a step forward. 
 
 The rustle of her gown, joined to Margery's silence, 
 rouses Mrs. Billy from her tragic examination of the kettle. 
 She turns, and would perhaps have given way to the ex- 
 pression of dismay that rises to her lips, but for the swift 
 glimpse she gets of Margery's face. The girl is livid. In 
 a second Mrs. Billy has conquered herself, and is advanc- 
 ing toward Lady Branksmere with rather an increase of 
 the debonnaire manner that belongs to her. 
 
 "You are just in time," she cries, with an air of open 
 jollity that does her credit. " We have been dining at that 
 wretched old Sir Mutius Mumm's again, and, as usual, have 
 come home starving. The servants for the most part were 
 in bed, so Margery and I decided upon making a raid on 
 the larder for ourselves, and we haven't done so badly, 
 have we ? The only drawback to our success lies in the 
 fact that I had made up my mind to a cup of tea, and the 
 kettle has proved too much for us. But you have had a 
 good long walk, eh ? You are tired ? Meg," with a swift 
 glance at Margery, "will you and Angelica make yet an- 
 other predatory incursion and see if you couldn't impound 
 some Madeira." 
 
 Margery, obeying the look that bids her take Angelica 
 out of the room, beckons to the latter, and goes hastily 
 upon her errand. When the door has closed upon them, 
 Mrs. Billy turns to Muriel. 
 
 " Now, what is it ? " she asks, promptly. 
 
 "It is of no use your banishing Meg," returns Lady 
 Branksmere, coldly. " She must know it all soon. The 
 whole world will know it. I have left that place forever." 
 
 " You have left your husband ? " 
 
 " If you wish to put it so yes. For myself I feel more 
 as if I had left Madame von Thirsk and all the vile asso- 
 ciations that have degraded my married life." 
 
 "All?" questions Mrs. Billy with a searching glance. 
 That it is a hazardous hint to throw out to a woman in 
 Muriel's frame of mind she well knows, yet to refrain from 
 it seems cowardice. Lady Branksmere takes it rather bet- 
 ter than she had expected,
 
 228 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "You, too, condemn me then?" she says, slowly. "I 
 have no friend anywhere." 
 
 "Don't encourage morbid nonsense," says Mrs. Billy, 
 directly, in a strong, breezy tone. " See here : I think you 
 had better sit down and tell me all about it." She presses 
 her gently into an arm-chair. Exhausted, physically and 
 mentally, Muriel leans back among the cushions, and 
 sighs heavily. Then suddenly she breaks into a recital of 
 her wrongs ; not loudly or passionately, but in a cold, angry 
 way, that somehow is more impressive. Once or twice 
 during her hurried explanation of her presence, Mrs. Daryl 
 had changed color, and now it is with her face partially 
 averted that she speaks. 
 
 "This man this friend of yours Captain Staines," she 
 says. " He is in the way, it seems to me." 
 
 "Not in my way," haughtily. 
 
 "In yours, principally, I should say. Has he not, per- 
 haps, some other acquaintances who would be glad to re- 
 ceive him for a time." 
 
 " I shall not tell him to go if you mean that. I, who 
 have been so grossly insulted, shall not be the one to give 
 in, and by such an act almost acknowledge myself in the 
 wrong." 
 
 "Get rid of Captain Staines," says Mrs. Billy, a little 
 doggedly, and almost as though she had not heard her. 
 Neither of them had noticed the entrance of Dick some 
 minutes before, or if they had, had given it no thought. 
 He had been as usual buried in his beloved books in the 
 library, and had perhaps heard Muriel's coming. He had 
 certainly evinced no surprise at her presence on entering 
 the prettily lighted room where she now is, and had offered 
 her no greeting. As though fearful of disturbing her 
 story, he had dropped into the c.'nlr nearest to the door, 
 and, resting his elbows on a table close to him, had let his 
 chin fall into his palms and so listened intently to the re- 
 velation that in her hot wrath she had poured forth. Per- 
 haps he had had his doubts before about the happiness of 
 this, his favorite sister ; perhaps now he is bent on solving 
 them. There is something about the tall, pale, bookish lad 
 suggestive of suppressed but excited thought. As Muriel 
 pauses, hardly knowing what to say to Mrs. Billy's persist- 
 ence, he produces himself, and comes eagerly forward. 
 
 " Billy is her eldest brother. Billy should be told," he 
 says, with a touch of imperiousness in his tone that re- 
 minds one strangely of Muriel's own. He looks, as he
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 229 
 
 speaks, at Billy's wife, who receives the charge with great 
 gallantry. 
 
 "First" we must think," she says. 
 
 " If you don't tell him to-morrow, I shall." The embryo 
 statesman warns her stolidly, with a flame in his eyes that 
 belies the calmness of his tone. He lays his long, nervous 
 fingers on Muriel's wrist, who starts, and trembles out of 
 the sad waking dream into which she has fallen, and turn- 
 ing, looks at him. He is so tall, so pale, so young, this de- 
 fender of hers, so pure at heart. She draws her breath bit- 
 terly as she stoops and presses a kiss upon that loving hand. 
 
 When the boy has gone back to his midnight oil and his 
 ambitious dreams so surely to be fulfilled, she turns again 
 to Wilhelmina with a softened air. 
 
 " I didn't know he was here," she says. " Is he always 
 up so late ? " 
 
 "Very of ten." 
 
 " Too often," vehemently. " Did you see how white his 
 beautiful face was ? " 
 
 " Yes. It is desperately bad for him, I know, to so 
 squander his hours of rest ; but he is a genius, it seems, and 
 when you fall in with one of that sort, I guess you had 
 better give him plenty of line," says Mrs. Billy, with a sage 
 nod or two. She would perhaps have said more, but that 
 here Margery and Angelica re-enter the room ; Margery 
 pale and depressed, Angelica distinctly curious. 
 
 " Do not send me away again," cries Margery, softly, 
 appealing to Muriel. " I am so unhappy ! There is some- 
 thing wrong, I know ; something between you and 
 Branksmere ?" 
 
 "You see what folly it would be to aim at secrecy," says 
 Muriel, bitterly, to Mrs. Daryl. " Instinct has pointed out 
 to her the truth." 
 
 " Oh ! is it about poor George ?" exclaims Angelica, re- 
 gretfully, who had long ago elected to like " poor George," 
 and to find a wide field for pity in the barrenness of his 
 wedded life. " What an unfortunate thing it is that you 
 can't loye him ! " 
 
 This innocent speech has the effect of a bomb-shell 
 thrown into their midst. 
 
 " Go to bed, Angelica," cries Lady Branksmere, start- 
 ing to her feet and trembling visibly. " It is horrible that 
 children like you should be allowed to have a voice in " 
 
 " I am not a child," interrupts Angelica, plaintively, who 
 is indeed deeply grieved at the thought that she has in
 
 230 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 some way given offence. "And I did not mean to hurt 
 you, dear Muriel. It is not your fault, I know. It is quite 
 as sad a thing that he can't love you / " 
 
 Lady Brankesmere shrinks away from her. 
 
 " Angelica, how can you," cries Margery, indignantly ; 
 and Mrs. Billy, coming to the rescue, lays her hand on the 
 unfortunate Angelica's arm and guides her to the door. 
 
 " But what is it what have I done ? " protests she 
 through her tears. 
 
 "Everything nothing," returns Mrs. Billy, incoherently. 
 " You will understand when your own time comes. Never 
 mind what you have done ; what you have got to do now 
 is to skedaddle." 
 
 She pushes the girl softly out of the room, and Angelica, 
 in high dudgeon, disappears from the scene. Margery is 
 kneeling beside Lady Branksmere, and has taken her sis- 
 ter's cold hand in both hers. 
 
 "Tell me what has happened," she entreats, looking 
 round at Mrs. Daryl. 
 
 " There has been a misunderstanding. It will not last, 
 I trust," explains Mrs. Billy in a low tone. 
 
 "Why do you seek to soften matters," exclaims Lady 
 Branksmere, irritably. " I tell you, Margery, I have left 
 him. I have left a house where all day long I was insulted 
 by that woman's presence." 
 
 "If you think there is anything between her and your 
 husband," begins Mrs. Billy 
 
 " Think ! " 
 
 " Well, why don't you go straight to him and just put it 
 to him that you can't be happy while she remains at the 
 castle. Speak boldly to him. Throw yourself on his gen- 
 erosity. I believe half this is mere imagination of yours. 
 And at all events speak. Why should one be afraid of 
 one's husband ?" 
 
 "Ah!" A long drawn breath escapes Muriel; "you 
 are a happy wife ?" she says ; "you cannot comprehend a 
 case like mine." Her hands fall inertly into her lap in a 
 weary, purposeless fashion, that goes to Margery's soul. 
 
 " Demand the truth ! " persists Mrs. Billy, in a tone 
 slightly raised, in the hope of rousing Muriel from her sad 
 musing. 
 
 "And what if I have done so," says she at last, "and got 
 no satisfaction ? " 
 
 " Do so again and again until you do one way or the 
 other."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 231 
 
 "I cannot," declares Muriel, wearily. "I am tired of it 
 all. And even if I would, opportunity is denied me. That 
 woman of late haunts him ; they are together from morn- 
 ing till night." 
 
 " But not from night till morning," says Mrs. Billy, 
 briskly. 
 
 Muriel's lips grow white. She throws out her arms 
 protestingly. 
 
 " Who can say ! " she answers in a low voice full of terri- 
 ble suspicion, her eyes on the ground. 
 
 Mrs. Daryl is shocked : Margery bursts into tears. 
 
 " Oh ! Muriel, darling, why will you destroy your own 
 happiness by harboring such sad" beliefs. I am sure 
 Branksmere in his heart is true to you, but there are little 
 things that " 
 
 " Pshaw!" says Lady Branksmere, impatiently, pushing 
 her away. "Am I a fool to be cajoled by such words as 
 these. Put faith in him, you, if you will it will doubt- 
 less " (bitterly) "save you trouble but I who knoui ! 
 
 It is monstrous, I tell you." 
 
 " But it seems to me," persists Margery, eagerly, " that 
 he is not that that kind of person. He is too self-con- 
 tained perhaps but hardly dishonorable." 
 
 "Well, I have not come here to listen to Branksmerc's 
 praises," says Muriel, rising abruptly to her feet, witli a 
 short laugh. " If you are a partisan of his, of course I 
 need not trouble you with my views of the affair. If I 
 cannot get sympathy here in my old home, from my own 
 sister, I need hardly look for it anywhere. After all," with 
 a miserable attempt at indifference, "why should I expect 
 anyone to enter into my griefs." 
 
 " Don't speak to me like that, Muriel," cries Margery. 
 " Between you and me such words are cruel." 
 
 " Let us think what is best to be done," breaks in Mrs. 
 Billy, in a matter-of-fact tone. 
 
 " There is nothing to be done." Lady Branksmere turns 
 upon her with flashing eyes. " Do you imagine I am going 
 to truckle to a man who is not only false to me, but who 
 takes me to task for my behavior with with one who is 
 an old friend." 
 
 "An old lover" corrects Mrs. Billy, in a strange tone. 
 " Let us keep to the strict facts. You were alluding to 
 Captain Staines?" 
 
 " Oh ! Muriel, there is something to be said about that ! " 
 cries Margery, a very agony of nervous horror in her eyes.
 
 232 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 To have to speak ! Who shall estimate the misery of it ? 
 "Think, darling, think," she says, and then with trembling 
 hands outheld, she goes closer to her sister. "Oh, dear, 
 dear heart," she sobs. " Give up all thought of that bad 
 man." 
 
 " Who is bad ? " asks Lady Branksmere, coldly, with wil- 
 ful miscomprehension. " Branksmere ? " 
 
 "No, no," miserably, "Captain Staines. Muriel! Be 
 warned about him in time. I don't know why, but instinct 
 tells me to distrust him. Oh ! darling, I know you mean 
 nothing ever but what is good and sweet, but if you 
 could only understand how wretched you make me at 
 times." 
 
 "Do I?" Lady Branksmere is looking down at her 
 with grieved eyes. " Is it not enough, then, that I am un- 
 happy myself but that it must be my luckless fate to make 
 those I love unhappy, too ? One's life, one's circumstances, 
 what scourges they may be !" She sighs heavily. 
 
 " Have a glass of wine," says Mrs. Billy, who after all is 
 nothing if not practical. 
 
 At this moment the sound of a footstep in the hall out- 
 side makes itself heard. Muriel starts into an intenser 
 life, and, springing to her feet, looks with angry eyes to- 
 ward the door. 
 
 " It is he," she says. " He has followed me." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 " The hatred of those who are most nearly connected is the most invet- 
 erate." 
 
 It is, in fact, Branksmere's step. He had found his way 
 through the armory door that she had left open, and is now 
 in the hall. A faint light coming from beneath the library 
 door attracts his attention ; involuntarily he turns toward 
 it. and finds himself presently staring at Dick across a read- 
 ing lamp. 
 
 " Where is your sister ? " demands he, in an aggressive 
 tone. 
 
 " Margery and Angelica are in the next room, I think ; 
 the twins in bed," retorts Dick, frowningly. He has got 
 upon his feet, and is looking at Branksmere with open en- 
 mity in his glance. " Of my eldest sister you should know 
 more than me."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 233 
 
 "Is she here ? " 
 
 "That is a strange question for you to ask. Where 
 should she be at this hour but beneath your roof unless 
 she was driven to leave it." 
 
 " A truce to bombast," says Branksmere, impatiently. 
 " By your manner I can see she is here. Go and tell her 
 I wish to speak to her." His tone is imperious. 
 
 " You are a scoundrel," exclaims the boy, choking with 
 rage. 
 
 Branksmere shrugs his shoulders. 
 
 " Your manners are hardly your strong point," he says, 
 with a contemptuous lifting of his brows. " That however, 
 fortunately, concerns you, not me. Where is Muriel ?" 
 
 " With her own people. In her own home. What do 
 you want with her?" 
 
 "Not much at any time : yet there are moments when 
 even a husband may find it necessary to have an interview 
 with the woman he has married. Will ' her own people,' " 
 mimicking the boy's somewhat grandiloquent air to a 
 nicety, " permit it, do you think ?" 
 
 " I wonder you are not ashamed to mention her," cries 
 Dick, with a sudden burst of pr.ssion. " Yes, she is here. 
 She came half an hour ago. She went to Willy's bou- 
 doir. I followed her there, and heard heard you know 
 what I heard. She looked so tired, so worn." 
 
 " I don't, I assure you," says Branksmere, ignoring the 
 latter part of his speech. " You give me credit for far too 
 much perspicacity." 
 
 " She came in looking so white, so tired, so worn, that 
 even you, had you seen her, might have felt some pity for 
 her in your cold heart." 
 
 " I shouldn't," replies Branksmere distinctly. " Attri- 
 bute to me no extra graces, I entreat you. Pity for her is 
 the very last thing I should have felt." 
 
 " I should have known that," says young Daryl, in a low 
 voice, who is now fast losing his self-control. " Muriel 
 prepared me for it." 
 
 " Muriel is a fool, and you are another," says Branks- 
 mere, coolly. " 7 am not ! " 
 
 The blood recedes from Dick's brow and his large eyes 
 glow. With an inarticulate cry he rushes forward and 
 flings himself upon his adversary. In a moment he has 
 his young lithe fingers fastened into his collar. He is a 
 tall lad, but slender, and in less time than one can picture 
 it, his attack is at an end, and Branksmere has him in his
 
 234 LADY BRANKSATERE. 
 
 powerful grasp. Twisting his arms behind him so as to 
 leave him powerless and at his mercy, he looks for a min- 
 ute full into the boy's defiant face. 
 
 " The same blood," he says, with a sneer, that ends in a 
 groan, and by a sudden movement he releases his foe and 
 sends him staggering back a few paces from him. For a 
 little while he regards him with a stormy expression in his 
 eyes and then " Pshaw ! " he says, contemptuously, and 
 turning on his heel quits the room. 
 
 A few steps brings him to that other room where three 
 pale women are awaiting his coming. One, indeed, stand- 
 ing forward with her eyes afire as though eager for the 
 battle. 
 
 Entering, he closes the door heavily behind him, and 
 looks straight at his wife, taking no notice whatsoever of 
 Mrs. Daryl or Margery. 
 
 " It is rather a late hour for visiting," he says. "Are you 
 ready to come home ? " 
 
 " I am at home." 
 
 " Are you ready, then, to return to the Castle ? " His 
 voice, though subdued, is vibrating with rage. His face 
 is white, his lips set. There is a dangerous light in his 
 sombre eyes. 
 
 " To prison ? No ! " returns Muriel, defiantly. 
 
 She had stood up at his entrance, had even taken a step 
 toward him, and now confronts him with a whole world 
 of scorn in her beautiful face. Her bare arms, white and 
 rounded, are hanging by her sides, the hands clinched. 
 Her bosom is rising and falling tumultuously. She looks 
 surpassingly lovely in her scorn and anger ; but to Branks- 
 mere she might be a creature formed of Nature's worst, so 
 coldly does his glance rest upon her. 
 
 "I hope you will reconsider that answer," he says, slowly. 
 There is something in his manner and the set determina- 
 tion of his tone that frightens Margery. 
 
 " Muriel, take care ! " she whispers warningly, and places 
 her hand on the back of her sister's arm, and presses it 
 stealthily with fingers that are trembling with nervous ag- 
 itation. But Lady Branksmere takes no outward heed of 
 this gentle admonition. 
 
 " I shall reconsider nothing." The words fall from her, 
 coldly, clearly. 
 
 " Is that your final decision ? " As he speaks he makes 
 a slight movement toward the door, as though the par- 
 ley has come to an end. It is evident to all he is not going
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 235 
 
 to dispute the decision, or seek to alter it in any way. 
 Mrs. Billy goes quickly up to Muriel. 
 
 " I implore you not to let things go too far," she says. 
 " Be reasonable. The world's opinion is worth a good 
 deal." 
 
 At this, Muriel's long felt irritation takes light, and 
 flames into life. 
 
 "What do you all mean ?" she cries, with a burst of pas- 
 sion. " Do you want to get rid of me ? Am I a disgrace 
 to you ?" 
 
 " Muriel ! What folly ! My dear girl, think!" entreats 
 Mrs. Billy earnestly. 
 
 " What can I think but that I am not wanted by anyone, 
 here, or there, or anywhere ! May I not rest beneath your 
 roof for even one night ?" 
 
 "If you leave my roof (under such circumstances as 
 these) for one night, you leave it forever," interposes 
 Branksmere, sternly. 
 
 " An awful threat truly," exclaims she with a short laugh 
 full of reckless defiance. 
 
 "Oh! Muriel ! " implores Margery, beneath her breath, 
 who is now sobbing bitterly. 
 
 "Am I to understand that you encourage Lady Branks- 
 mere in her present conduct?" demands Brnnksmere, 
 turning furiously at this juncture upon Mrs. Billy. He 
 had not heard her whispered advice of a moment since, 
 and plainly regards her as an accomplice. Mrs. Billy very 
 justly resents his tone. 
 
 " I tell you what, Branksmere," returns she with consid- 
 erable spirit, "you ar.e taking the wrong turning here. 
 Muriel has hinted to me such and such matters, and I will 
 say that I think there are several little affairs down there " 
 pointing in a characteristic fashion in a direction that 
 she fondly but erroneously believes might take her to the 
 Castle, but which would be quite as likely to take her to 
 Japan " that you would do well to explain." 
 
 "You will permit me, madam, to be the best judge of 
 my own actions," retorts he, icily. 
 
 "No, I won't," says Mrs. Billy, with quite a beautiful 
 immovability. "In my opinion you are just the worst 
 judge. I think well enough of you, you see, to believe 
 you might explain if you only would, and I'd strongly ad- 
 vise you to do it before a crisis arrives. See ?" She nods 
 her head at him vigorously. 
 
 " I see nothing," replies he, coldly.
 
 236 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "Then all I can say is," exclaims Mrs. Billy, with ex- 
 treme wrath, " that I no longer blame Muriel, and that if 
 you were my husband I'd smash you !" 
 
 " Providence, madam, probably foresaw that," says 
 Branksmere, dryly. He makes her an almost impercepti- 
 ble salutation and turns again to Muriel. 
 
 "Are you coming?" he asks with a frown. 
 
 " Yes; she is," returns Mrs. Billy, unabashed. She throws, 
 as she speaks, a light shawl round Muriel in a way that 
 admits of no dispute, and indeed, Muriel, who is now look- 
 ing tired, and exhausted, and hopeless, makes no effort to 
 resist her. 
 
 "As you all wish it ; as I am unwelcome here, and only 
 a trouble, I will go," she says, wearily. 
 
 " Oh ! no, darling ! Do not speak like that," sobs Mar- 
 gery, clinging to her. 
 
 " But not now not just yet," goes on Lady Branksmere, 
 hardly heeding her tender embrace. " In a little while I 
 will go back. But not quite now." 
 
 "You will come now, or not at all !" Branksmere inter- 
 rupts her, doggedly. " I will have no gossip no damning 
 whispers." 
 
 Margery lifts her head impetuously, and would perhaps 
 have spoken, but that Mrs. Billy checks her. 
 
 " He is right quite right. Let there be no scandal," 
 she whispers, wisely. "They both came down to visit us 
 to-night. Both. Together. You will remember ? It was 
 an idle freak. There was nothing in it." She pushes 
 Muriel, as she speaks, toward the door. Branksmere, 
 who is standing next to it, puts out his hand as his wife 
 approaches, and though still with a lowering brow, would 
 have drawn hers through his arm. But, with a gesture of 
 extreme repugnance, she pushes him aside and hurries 
 from the room. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 "Jealousy is love lost in a mist." 
 
 " I DON'T see how we can do much more to the altar 
 without the grapes," says Margery, standing well back from 
 the rails, with her charming head delicately poised to one 
 side, the better to comprehend the effect of her Avork
 
 LADY BKANJCSMERE. 237 
 
 "They should be here by this time. I doubt that Branks- 
 mere's gardener is a man of his word ! " 
 
 " It is most remiss of him," says Mr. Goldic, severely. 
 Mr. Goldie is the curate ; a young man of faultless morals 
 and irreproachable clothes, with bolting blue eyes and nice 
 plump cheeks, who has been following Miss Daryl about 
 all the day (indeed, for the matter of that, all the year), and 
 who seems to have small object in life, except to stare 
 mutely at her, and hang upon her lightest word. So open 
 has been his worship, so reprehensible, that several of the 
 old maids flung loose about the parish have mingled exe- 
 crations of him with their evening prayers, and have all 
 had serious thoughts of reporting his abominable conduct 
 to the Bishop. 
 
 Mr. Goldie has cared for none of these things. He is 
 now regarding his divinity with a frown upon his slightly 
 narrow brow, meant not for her, but for the recreant min- 
 ion at Branksinere, who has dared to keep her waiting, 
 and who, in Mr. Goldie's eyes, is plainly on the fair road 
 to make acquaintance with the new gentleman who has 
 kindly come forward to relieve us of our criminals and 
 his rope. f 
 
 Yet again, a summer fair and sweet lies slain, and 
 autumn, that rich conqueror, is strewing the earth with his 
 spoils. From Branksmere all the guests have melted away 
 with sunny June some to a last week or so in town, some 
 to their own homes in the neighborhood, some in hot haste 
 to the Engadine, so intensely suffocating had the weather 
 proved here. 
 
 Tommy Paulyn has run down to stay with the Daryls 
 for a while, and Captain Staines, who had put in a month 
 with the Adairs, has now hired a neat little box of a place 
 about a mile from Branksmere, ostensibly for the shoot- 
 ing. 
 
 To feel one's self well into September that mildest, 
 tenderest, most mournful month of all the year (so full, 
 as it is, of a glad past, so fraught with cruel fears of a 
 harsh future), is to know a sense of the most chastened, 
 the most exquisite enjoyment. The vicar, for certain goodly 
 reasons, had been obliged to put off his harvest thanks- 
 giving festival until rather late this year, but now the 
 ancient, mossgrown church is alive with the voice of the 
 decorator, and is so disorderly in appearance, because of 
 the brandies, and flowers, and fruits, and vegetable offer- 
 ings, so profusely flung in a helter-skelter fashion among its
 
 238 LADY BRANKSMEKE. 
 
 respectable aisles and decent pews, that one feels instinc- 
 tively sorry for the lost dignity of the poor old thing. 
 Wreaths are hanging from, or twining themselves round, 
 every available pillar; flowers are lying about in a gor- 
 geous profusion. Nothing remains to be desired save the 
 Branksmere grapes. 
 
 " They will be here soon, Meg. It was my fault the 
 delay," says Lady Branksmere, who has come down to 
 look round her perhaps, because she certainly hasn't as- 
 sisted them in any way. She is looking pale, and not 
 altogether her best ; one must be happy to look that. 
 
 " Let us see to the completion of the chancel, then," says 
 Mr. Goldie, in his most pompous tone. " I fear those we 
 left in charge" (he says the "we " with a fond, but unfor- 
 tunately rather foolish look at Margery) " are not quite as 
 steady as we could wish them." 
 
 Miss Daryl, with an inward regret that she cannot make 
 him as unsteady as she could wish him, follows him into 
 the presence of a most boisterous group who are busy 
 among ferns and cauliflowers. Tommy Paulyn, on the 
 top of a ladder, is giving way to much abuse to the boys, 
 interlarded with tender speeches, directed at the bevy of 
 pretty damsels beneath. 
 
 " Dear me, Tommy, I never thought to see you so high 
 up in the world," Miss Daryl calls out to him, jeeringly. 
 She feels her spirits rise as she gets into the middle of 
 them, having been rather depressed by Mr. Goldie's atten- 
 tions during the last half hour. 
 
 " I'll descend to your level in a moment or two," re- 
 sponds the Hon. Tommy, affably ; " meantime I wish some- 
 body would do something. Here I am stuck up aloft, and 
 not a soul will give me a helping hand. Have those mas- 
 sive edibles run short, or do the ferns grow shy ? Who's 
 responsible for the loss of time ? Shiver my timbers ! but 
 I'll know the meaning of all this when next I set foot on 
 terra firma. Neat and appropriate remark, eh Miss Jones ? 
 Ladders are timbers. See ? If you were to shiver my tim- 
 bers at this moment I should be where should I be, Mr. 
 Goldie ? " 
 
 Mr. Goldie looks very properly indignant, and Miss 
 Jones having suppressed her giggle, Angelica casts a 
 withering glance at the unabashed Tommy. 
 
 "Come down," she says, sternly. Mr. Paulyn, though 
 plainly impressed by her severity, still hesitates. 
 
 " Angelica," he says, in a propitiatory way. No answer.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 239 
 
 "' Angel, ever bright and fair.'" Still the third Miss 
 Daryl maintains a dignified reserve. 
 
 "All right, then," says Mr. Paulyn, now driven to des- 
 peration, " I'll come down and have it out with yon." He 
 scrambles down from his perch, and, having inserted his 
 hand in Angelica's arm, carries her off nolens volens to have 
 it out in the churchyard. 
 
 " How pretty it begins to look," says Mrs. Daryl, gazing 
 round her at the bright leaves, and fruits, and flowers. 
 She addresses Margery. 
 
 " Very. They are all new designs, those arrangements 
 over there. Curzon got them from town. From what 
 house, Curzon ? No," to one of the twins who is soliciting 
 her consent about something, "Indeed, not. You know 
 you have a cold. You must not run about the churchyard 
 without some muffling." 
 
 " Oh ! Meg. But I'm so hot ! " 
 
 "Well," relenting in part. "You may go out for half 
 an hour or so, but no more ; because the evening is grow- 
 ing chilly. You must come in then, and put on your coat. 
 Now be off, but remember in half an hour I shall expect 
 you. I depend upon you to come." 
 
 The child's face falls. 
 
 " I think." she says, disconsolately, "that I'll put on the 
 coat now, Meg, before I go. Because I don't know what 
 half an hour is, and I'm sure I'm not to be depended up- 
 on." 
 
 Mrs. Billy, who is near, bursts out laughing. 
 
 " What a conscientious little creature ! " she says. 
 "There!" taking Blanche's hand, "you shall have some- 
 thing nice for that when we get home ; and now run away 
 and be happy without your coat, because I'll watch the 
 time, and I'll see that you are called in half an hour to do 
 Meg's bidding." 
 
 "I'm so afraid of her catching cold," explains Meg, apol- 
 ogetically. 
 
 " What an imprudent fear ! '* declares Tommy Paulyn, 
 who has once more returned to their midst in high feather, 
 with a propitiated Angel beside him. "Catch your cold 
 by all means, my dear Blanche, and hold it tight and bring 
 it to me, and I'll soon cut the head off it." 
 
 To Blanche this seems such an exquisite joke that she 
 runs off roaring with laughter in her small, happy way. 
 
 " Look at Meg trying to wear out her fingers with that 
 thorny stuff," says Peter, admiringly. " Was there ever so
 
 240 LADY BRA \~KSM ERE. 
 
 plastic a being. Indolent to-day, full of pluck to-morrow. 
 Her nails are one of her good points, she might consider 
 them." 
 
 " It seems to me," puts in Mr. Goldie, mildly, with a re- 
 proachful glance at the young men round him, among 
 whom are Curzon Bellew and Mr. Paulyn, " that Miss 
 Daryl might be spared such arduous work. Her zeal is so 
 great that it outstrips her strength." 
 
 " It strips her skin," supplements the Hon. Tommy, who 
 seldom minces matters. " It will play old Harry with her 
 hands, and they used to be tolerable." 
 
 "Your cousin, Mr. Paulyn, has the most beautiful hands 
 in the world," says the curate, solemnly. " So white ! so 
 fine ! " 
 
 <; Fine ! " echoes Peter, with a gay laugh. " They sJtould 
 be ! Why, I should think they ought to be almost kissed 
 away by this time ! " 
 
 Upon two of the audience this startling remark makes 
 a distinct effect. Mr. Goldie regards the speaker with a 
 sanctified disgust, and Curzon Bellew looks as if he would 
 like to slaughter somebody Mr. Goldie, who happens to 
 be nearest to him, first speaks. 
 
 " I am sure, Peter," says the reverend gentleman, with 
 ecclesiastical reproach, " that your sister would be deeply 
 grieved could she hear you ascribe to her such frivolous 
 ways." 
 
 " I haven't ascribed anything to her" declares Peter, who 
 is growing amused. "It is the young men who have re- 
 duced her poor paws to this present state of attenuation 
 who ought to be taken to task." 
 
 ''I think it is not well that you should in such a public 
 in fact in such a er sacred place, discuss your sister at 
 all. It would be offensive to many, I am sure, to be so 
 spoken of. Could she that is would she I mean "- 
 floundering hopelessly "were she the object of my affec- 
 tions I should 
 
 " Oh ! Mr. Goldie, to call poor Margery an 'object ! ' I 
 wouldn't have believed it of you. And we used to think 
 you quite her friend ! Margery ! " calling lustily, "do you 
 know what Mr. Goldie says of 
 
 "No, no ; no, I entreat!" exclaims the poor curate, al- 
 most laying his hand on Peter's mouth, who is in ecstacies. 
 " I meant nothing only to defend your sister from 
 
 "And who the deuce arejw/, sir, to set yourself up as 
 Miss Daryl's champion," exclaims Bellew, with a burst of
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 241 
 
 wrath that has been gathering above the head of the luck- 
 less curate for over a month. " When she needs a friend 
 to plead her cause she will know where to look for an older 
 one than you ! " 
 
 After this, chaos and a general rout. The bystanders 
 very wisely abscond, and even Margery herself very meanly 
 slips round a corner into the vestry room, feeling assured 
 that Curzon's black looks and Mr. Goldie's red ones, have 
 something to do with her. 
 
 But in the vestry vengeance overtakes her. Mr. Goldie, 
 either stung to action by Bellew's conduct, or eager to 
 ' put it to the touch, to win or lose it all,' follows her there 
 and lays himself, his goods and chattels, all (which is 
 very little) at her feet. It takes only a few minutes, and 
 then Margery emerges again into the wider air outside, a 
 little flushed, a little repentant perhaps for those half-hours 
 of innocent coquetry that had led the wretched man to his 
 doom to find herself in the midst of a home group com- 
 posed of Peter, Dick, Angelica, and Mr. Bellew. The lat- 
 ter is standing gloomily apart ; the others make toward 
 her. 
 
 " We saw him following you well ? What ? He must 
 have said something ! We saw it in his eye ; a sort of 'now 
 or never,' 'do or die,' look. Get it out, Meg, you'll beany 
 amount happier when you have got it off your con- 
 science." 
 
 " It is abominable of you all," exclaims Margery. But 
 even as this rebuke escapes her, so does an irrepressible 
 laugh. 
 
 "Come. No shirking," says Dick, as she makes a futile 
 effort to dodge them and gain the door beyond. "I told 
 you that gown \vould be the ruin of someone. It is too 
 racy." 
 
 " And you look simply lovely in it," declares Angelica, 
 who is devoured with curiosity, and thinks flattery a wise 
 medium for the extracting of secrets. " Now, go on, do ! 
 Tell us what he said to you. Did he propose to you ? 
 Meg ! on your soul be it if you lie." 
 
 Margery's glance roves from one to the other. It alter- 
 nates between an anxious desire to escape and be at rest, 
 and a mild longing to tell them of her latest victory. 
 
 "Well, to tell you the truth," begins she. 
 
 "Oh! come. That won't do. No lies!" says Peter, 
 promptly- " Did he or did he not ask you to marry him ? " 
 
 " Why should he do that ?" asks Meg, at bay. 
 16
 
 242 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Why shouldn't he ? I'm sure you've had him dangling 
 after you long enough for anything. And to-day you've 
 flirted with him at every opportunity, and pillar, until 
 even we thought you meant to accept him." 
 
 " Perhaps you thought right," says Miss Daryl, goaded 
 into retribution. This speech is received in silence ; evi- 
 dently they hardly know whether or not a grain of truth 
 may be hidden in it. Mr. Bellew lifts his head with the 
 quick action of one who is shot, and looks straight at her. 
 
 " Oh, no, Meg," declares Angelica, gently. " You would 
 not marry that conceited little man, I know. He thinks 
 too much of himself to be anything but odious. I'm sure 
 he looks upon himself as the ' Church's one foundation,' 
 without which it would totter to its fall." 
 
 " You shouldn't hurt my feelings," returns Margery, with 
 such a gay little laugh that at once equanimity is restored. 
 
 " Tell us how he got through it," says Dick, seizing her 
 arm. Perhaps there may be a brotherly pinch inclosed 
 in his grasp, because he receives an instant answer. 
 
 " Well, he said Oh, Dick, don't 
 
 "What a story !" exclaims Angelica, very naturally. 
 
 " No. He said first in a solemn tone, cpropos of the 
 decorations in other corners of the globe, ' It is a pity 
 they should waste so much time -over art, to the exclusion 
 of the more vital matters ! ' That was all." 
 
 "All about that" persists Dick, who would have made a 
 splendid Inquisitor. "But how about yourself? The last 
 remark was in the style of the best form of tract ; but 
 what is he like when spooning, eh ? " 
 
 " What did he say? " asks Angelica. 
 
 " He said," returns Miss Daryl, desperately, " ' Will 
 you ? Won't you ? Don't you ? ' At which I said (not 
 dreaming what the old absurdity was thinking of), ' Shall 
 I ? Shan't I ? Do I ? What ? ' And then it all came out ! 
 And I'm sure I'm very sorry, because I never meant to en- 
 courage him." 
 
 "Not you," says Peter. " A scalp more or less is noth- 
 ing to you, bless you. Well, and what did you say ? " 
 
 " No ; of course. I was so thoroughly unprepared that 
 
 " ' Meg was meek and Meg was mild, 
 And bonny Meg was nature's child,' '' 
 
 quotes Dick, sotto voce. 
 
 " You needn't jeer at me," says Meg, reproachfully. " I 
 may be bad, but, at all events, I am not worse ! And I
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 243 
 
 know I never led him on as far as I did the others, be- 
 cause " 
 
 She stops abruptly, her eyes having by chance lighted 
 upon the wrathful visage of Bellew, who has been loung- 
 ing in the shade of the lectern. 
 
 " It is just as well you didn't accept him. He wouldn't 
 suit you. He looks as if he belonged to one of the lost 
 tribes," says Dick. " Do you think he will bear malice ? 
 Must you give him a wide berth for the future ?" 
 
 " Poor Mr. Goldie ! No. He is a very good little 
 man," answers Angelica, pitifully. 
 
 " With a heart of Gold," puts in Peter, mildly. 
 
 " I say, children, where are you all ? " cries Mrs. Billy 
 at this moment, calling to them through the gathering 
 gloom. They run to her, all save Margery, who would, in- 
 deed, gladly have beaten an ignominious retreat in their 
 train, and so avoided the moody young man, so plainly 
 lying in wait for her. But he proves too much for even 
 her strategies. 
 
 "I want to speak to you," exclaims he, grasping her by 
 the ribbons that ornament the side of her gown, as she en- 
 deavors to slip past him. Of course the ribbons give way, 
 and he finds himself the happy possessor of them, with a 
 most indignant Margery demanding an explanation of his 
 conduct. 
 
 " I really do wish, Curzon, you would try to learn the 
 meaning of the word ' manners,' " she says, angrily, look- 
 ing at the ravished ribbons. " I have always told you 
 your temper will be your destruction. Now see where it 
 has led you." Secretly she is delighted at the chance af- 
 forded her of putting him in the wrong. 
 
 " I'm sorry for your gown," says Mr. Bellew, who indeed 
 does look rather shocked. " But speak to you I will. So 
 all this last month, when you were pretending to be so 
 quiet, you were cajoling that miserable Goldie into falling 
 in love with you." 
 
 "What do you mean, Curzon ? Do you know what you 
 are saying ? Are you going to tell me that I encouraged 
 him ? " 
 
 " You must have encouraged him disgracefully, when 
 he had the the audacity to propose to you." 
 
 " If you hadn't been meanly listening to what wasn't 
 meant for your ears, you wouldn't have known that." 
 
 "Certainly I listened. I shall always listen to anything 
 that concerns you"
 
 244 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Well ! Anything so dishonorable " 
 
 " I don't care a fig whether it is dishonorable or not. 
 I'm determined I'll know, at all events. So that's what 
 brought you to the weekly practice so regularly. All your 
 interest in the fiddling and psalming of this wretched vil- 
 lage choir lay in your desire to add yet another scalp to 
 your belt." 
 
 "Go on, don't mind me," murmurs Miss Daryl, with 
 ominous sweetness. 
 
 "It was Mr. Goldie this, and Mr. Goldie that. I must 
 have been blind not to see it all. You permitted him to 
 make love to you, and to consider himself your mentor 
 in all things." 
 
 "Did I?" with awful dignity. "I wasn't aware of it. 
 At all events," with an angry flash from her soft eyes, " I 
 never gave anyone permission to be my tormentor." 
 
 "There can be no more abominable coquetry, than the 
 leading on of a man to offer you his best, for the mere 
 pleasure of refusing him. You know you never meant to 
 marry him." 
 
 "Is that my crime? Would you prefer that I should 
 marry him ? " 
 
 " Margery ! What a speech to make to me." 
 
 " Are you to have all the pretty speeches to yourself? 
 Be happy, however, in the certainty that I shall never 
 marry either him or you." 
 
 " I have said perhaps too much. I have a beastly tem- 
 per, I know, though I never seem to remember it until I 
 am with you," says Bellew, brushing his hand across his 
 forehead with a sigh. " But you don't mean that, Mar- 
 gery ? " 
 
 " To marry Mr. Goldie ? " 
 
 " No, not to marry me." 
 
 "Certainly I mean it." 
 
 "Only last week you gave me to understand that you 
 would be my wife." 
 
 " ' Might ' was the word used, I think." 
 
 " Well, ' might ' let it be." 
 
 ' I've changed my mind since then." 
 
 "That's the fifth time you have changed it this year." 
 
 " Be satisfied. It shall be the last, I promise you." 
 
 " You mean," growing once more wrathful, " that you 
 wont marry me." 
 
 " That is it." 
 
 " But why ? " demands he, indignantly. " What's the
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 245 
 
 matter with me, I'd like to know. Why can't you make 
 up your mind to it ?" 
 
 "A jealous man makes a miserable home," quotes she, 
 sententiously. 
 
 " Who is jealous ? Do you think I should feel jealous 
 of that unfortunate little long-tailed parson in there ? " 
 pointing to the vestry door, behind which Mr. Goldie is 
 supposed to be seated, clothed in sackcloth and ashes. 
 " Give me credit for better sense than that. No, I am 
 only annoyed that you should er that he should that 
 er in fact " 
 
 " We should?" suggests Miss Daryl, demurely, as he 
 breaks down hopelessly. 
 
 There is a pause. He looks at her appealingly. There 
 is so much submission in his glance that Margery, whose 
 ill-tempers are fleeting, stealing a look at him from under 
 her curling lashes, forgives him. She struggles with her- 
 self for a moment, and then bursts into the gayest of pretty 
 laughs. 
 
 "I'm a cross old cat, am I not?" she says, penitently, 
 tucking her arm into his. " Never mind. I'm very fond 
 of you, after all, in spite of your many enormities." 
 
 "You are an angel," returns he, with all the sweet folly 
 of a real lover. He takes her hands and lifts them. 
 
 At this instant a piercing cry full of agony comes to 
 them from the inner porch ! Margery's face blanches. 
 
 "What was that? What?" she cries, in a terrible 
 whisper. And then "// was Mays voice," she says, and 
 rushes past him to the spot from whence the sound came. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 " A viper in the bosom, who, while he was chill, was harmless ; but 
 when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.'' 
 
 UPON the stone pavement the little form is lying quite 
 motionless. The ladder from which she had fallen is still 
 quivering from the shock. There is a moment's breath- 
 less pause, and then it is Lady Branksmere the cold, the 
 impassive who first reaches her. She gathers the little, 
 still child gently to her breast, holding her to her with a 
 pressure passionate but very soft, and looks up at Curzon 
 who, with Margery, is at her side almost at once with
 
 246 LADY BKANKSMERE. 
 
 a glance full of the acutest anguish. This little home bird, 
 this small link upon the chain that binds her to all things 
 good, is it going from her ? 
 
 The despair in her eyes startles Mrs. Daryl, and even at 
 this supreme moment sets her wondering. If this un- 
 demonstrative woman can thus love a little sister, how 
 could she not love She hardly finishes her own 
 thought, a moan from the child going to her very heart. 
 
 "Let me see," says Curzon, bending over Lady Branks- 
 mere's burden as if to take it. 
 
 " No, no," she entreats, eagerly. " But tell me the truth : 
 she is not " 
 
 " Of course not," interrupts he, hastily. " Her heart is 
 beating. The arms yes all the little limbs are sound. 
 It is only a light matter, believe me." 
 
 The child stirs uneasily in her arms, and, opening her 
 eyes, looks vaguely round her, then once more sinks into 
 unconsciousness. 
 
 " I will take her home with me. Who will go for a doc- 
 tor ?" demands Lady Branksmere, staggering to her feet 
 with Curzon's aid, but never loosing her hold of the in- 
 jured child. 
 
 " Peter has already gone. But we have told him to go 
 direct home," says Margery. "Dear Muriel, the doctor 
 will be there before us, so you see it would be madness to 
 take her to the Castle. Come with us, and hear what his 
 opinion will be." She breaks down a little. " Oh, it must 
 be a favorable one," she sobs, miserably. 
 
 After all, it is! "May had sustained a severe shock," 
 said little Dr. Bland ; had fractured her collar bone and 
 bruised one arm very badly, but otherwise there was no 
 reason for supposing she would not be on her feet again 
 in no time. Lady Branksrnere, having listened to this 
 comforting assurance, had suffered herself to be driven 
 home with the declared intention of coming up again to- 
 night to hear the very last account, at eleven possibly 
 certainly not before as there were some prosy old coun- 
 try folk to dinner. 
 
 It is now eleven, and a lovely, starlit night it is ; al- 
 most as the big clock in the further end of the hall gives 
 up its last stroke, Muriel steps across the threshold of her 
 old home, and wrapped in her big plush cloak hurries 
 along the hall and up the staircase to the room of the lit- 
 tle invalid. The hush, the silence, the lowered lamp, all 
 seem to impress her. She falls upon her knees beside
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 247 
 
 the pretty snowy cot, and gazes with anxious, sorrowful 
 eyes at its small occupant. 
 
 " She looks already better. She sleeps placidly," she 
 whispers, turning to Angelica. 
 
 "All is well with her," whispers Angelica back again. 
 "Do not be so troubled for her. She has taken nourish- 
 ment and spoken to us all, and to-night Willie and Nurse 
 sit up with her ; to-morrow night they have promised to 
 Margery, and the next to me " with subdued pride. 
 
 " Wilheimina is very good," says Lady Branksmere, ris- 
 ing to her feet. With the assurance of the child's safety, 
 there has returned to her her usual coldness and apparent 
 unconcern. They have all been apportioned their night 
 to watch beside the precious little sufferer but there is 
 nothing for her. She has been cast off from them. She 
 has chosen her own bed, so let her lie. She kisses An- 
 gelica and steals from the room. Below, Margery and 
 Mrs. Billy meet her. 
 
 " She is better ; immensely better." 
 
 " Going already, Muriel ? But we could send you home 
 in an hour or so. It is not so very late. Barely eleven." 
 
 " I have my maid, Bridgman. She is as good as a regi- 
 ment," returns Muriel, faintly smiling. "No, you must 
 not trouble yourselves. I shall come up again in the 
 morning to see how the poor mite is getting on." 
 
 Her manner is altogether changed ; is kindly, but no 
 longer consumed with anxiety. There is a suspicion of 
 strain about it, and a chill that communicates itself. 
 
 " Do let me order the brougham for you," says Mrs. 
 Billy, hospitably. 
 
 "No, thank you. No, indeed. Bridgman, as I have 
 said, is invaluable, and I shall enjoy the run through the 
 moonlit woods." 
 
 She bids them good-night, and disappears from them 
 into the darkness of the rhododendrons beyond. 
 
 It is an entire surprise to herself when half way up the 
 avenue, at the spot where one turns aside to gain the wood- 
 land path that will lead into the Branksmere domain, a 
 dark figure emerges from a clump of myrtles and stands 
 before her. It is Captain Staines. A sense of caution, 
 suggested by the maid's presence, compels him to meet 
 her coldly, and as one might who is surprised by her pres- 
 ence here at such an hour. 
 
 " Rather late for you, Lady Branksmere, isn't it ? Hadn't 
 a suspicion I should meet anything human when I came
 
 248 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 up here to-night for my usual stroll. As a rule my cigar 
 and I have it all to ourselves." 
 
 Even Muriel herself believes him. 
 
 " My little sister was not well," she explains, curtly. " I 
 came to bid her good-night, and hear the very last news." 
 
 Bridgman has dropped behind. In the increasing gloom 
 of the trees she is indeed nowhere to be seen. Captain 
 Staines taking Lady Branksmere's hand lays it courteously 
 upon his arm. 
 
 "To see where those treacherous roots are lying in wait 
 for us across the path is so difficult in this uncertain light," 
 he murmurs, apologetically. And then in a lower tone, " I 
 heard to-day about your grief, your anxiety. Oh, believe 
 that I felt, too, not only for your grief, but for the pain of 
 that dear little child." 
 
 His tone is so sympathetic, so replete with real feeling, 
 that Muriel's heart is touched. 
 
 " How is she now ? " he asks in a low whisper. " I 
 would have gone up to the house to ask, but you know I 
 am no favorite there." 
 
 The moonlight enables her to see the little sad smile 
 that mantles his countenance. Is she the cause of his rus- 
 tication ? A heavy sigh escapes her. She is feeling sore 
 at heart, and now this stranger, this outsider, how kind he 
 is, how good ; how anxious to learn of the little one's well 
 being. 
 
 "She is better," she answers, softly; "and as for grief 
 There is always grief." 
 
 " Not always. And even if there is, there is Love the 
 purifier, the sweetener of our lives, to step in and conquer 
 it." 
 
 " Is there ?" Her tone is listless. Already a doubt of 
 the love of those she has left behind in the old home is 
 torturing her. She feels cast off, abandoned. 
 
 " Does your heart hold a doubt of it ? Oh ! Muriel, if I 
 dared speak " 
 
 "Well, you dare not," interrupts she, coldly. "I have 
 your word for that. Once you forgot yourself. Once," 
 with a burst of angry honesty, " /, too, forgot myself. Let 
 there be no repetition of the folly." Then abruptly, "When 
 do you leave this place ? " 
 
 "I don't know. I cannot bring myself to leave it." 
 
 " But why why ? " with feverish impatience. 
 
 " I have told you long ago. I cannot leave you and your 
 troubles."
 
 LADY BRAVK'SMERR. 249 
 
 " What are my troubles to you ? " demands she, fiercely. 
 " Let them lie. There is but one service you can do me. 
 Yet you shrink from it." 
 
 "Why should my absence serve you ?" asks he, boldly. 
 "Do you think he cares ? Or is it that I give him a pre- 
 text for " He checks himself suddenly. " Do you think 
 
 I have spent no weary nights over this question of my de- 
 parture ?" he breaks out presently, with a passion that, to 
 do him justice, is only half feigned. "That I have not 
 tried to tear myself away ? I tell you that my love for you 
 is too strong for me. It binds me here. And besides, 
 there is the strange certainty that some day I may be of 
 use to you. Griefs thicken ; and if I can help you even 
 ever so lightly, are not all these weary hours of waiting well 
 bestowed ? You bid me be silent ; but how can I refrain 
 from speech when many of your sorrows are but too well 
 known to me ; your trials " 
 
 " Of which you are chiefest," cries she, with quick vehe- 
 mence. " Can you not guess what your staying means to 
 me! Scorn, insult, contempt !" She presses her hands 
 forcibly together. " Go ! " she mutters, in a low, com- 
 pressed tone. " When will you go ?" 
 
 " When you will come with me!" 
 
 The words are spoken ! Given to the air ! Nothing 
 can recall them ! 
 
 The thought that she is cold shivering is the first that 
 comes to her. She gathers the slight covering on her 
 shoulders tighter round her, and her large troubled eyes 
 look out from the lace hood that shrouds her face, with a 
 sense of vague fear in them that is very sad. She turns 
 them upon him. 
 
 " Is there no friendship ? " she asks at last, slowly, sor- 
 rowfully. 
 
 " What is friendship ?" returns Staines. "It is so poor 
 a thing that no man knows where it begins or where it 
 ends. A touch of flattery may blow it into a flame ; a dis- 
 pute about a five-pound note will kill it. I do not profess 
 friendship for you. I do not believe in it ; there is some- 
 thing stronger, more enduring than that. Muriel, trust in 
 me." 
 
 " There is no friendship, you say. Is there, then, 
 faith?" 
 
 "In those who love you ?" eagerly. "Yes. If I have 
 spoken too openly too soon, forgive me. But should 
 the day come " his voice sinks to a whisper " when es-
 
 250 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 cape will become a necessity to you and I do not think 
 that day is far off think of me. Remember me as one 
 who would gladly die to serve you. If for the moment I 
 have offended you, try to pardon me." 
 
 They have reached the grassy hollow beyond the wood 
 that lets the house be seen. Beyond them lies a bare slope 
 of lawn, and then the terraces and the drawing-room win- 
 dows. The latter are all ablaze. The twinkling lights 
 from them are blown here and there across the grasses by 
 the trembling breeze. Within the embrasure of one win- 
 dow two figures standing side by side can be distinctly 
 seen. 
 
 That one is Lord Branksmere, the other Madame von 
 Thirsk, becomes apparent to Muriel at a glance. 
 
 Branksmere is gazing idly inward, apparently at afreize 
 upon the wall opposite ; Madame (whose thoughts are busy 
 upon the pale beauty of the hour), outward : she had en- 
 tered the drawing-room half an hour ago, hearing Branks- 
 mere was there alone, but had found him unresponsive, al- 
 most ungenial. At this moment she withdraws her fine 
 eyes from the starry heavens and directs them keenly at 
 the moonlit lawn. As she looks a touch of triumph lights 
 her face. Staines then had managed this little affair! 
 
 " Ah ! " she says, in a low tone, but sharply enough to 
 attract attention. Lord Branksmere turns his gaze from 
 the freize he has not been studying, to regard her ques- 
 tioningly. He finds her glance riveted upon the world 
 outside, one hand upraised as though in horror. 
 
 "What is it?" demands he, listlessly. 
 
 "Nothing." She makes a movement as though to pre- 
 vent his coining to the window, and even changes her posi- 
 tion somewhat ostentatiously so as to get between him and 
 it. 
 
 "What horrible secret does the night hold, that you 
 would seek to hide from me ? " asks he with a smile. 
 " Let me share it with you." He comes nearer, but laying 
 her hand upon his arm she still holds him back. 
 
 "Warnings, I have learned, are thrown away upon you," 
 she says with slow meaning. " Why then should you seek 
 to make yourself uncomfortable." 
 
 Something in her tone enlightens him. 
 
 "Stand back," he says, curtly. And as she still affects a 
 determination not to stir, he puts her away with one hand. 
 Poor soul, his touch even thus gained is sweet to her ! 
 
 Going to the window, Branksmere gazes out into the
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 251 
 
 gloom beyond, that can hardly be called darkness. Night 
 is indeed made glorious by a moonlight, brilliant, clear, 
 and calm. Against the background of giant firs in the 
 very centre of the lawn two figures stand out prominent. 
 
 " You know I warned you," whispers Madame in his ear, 
 creeping close to him and laying a hand upon his arm. 
 
 Something in his face unnerves her' and renders her 
 tone tremulous. He shakes her off as though she were a 
 viper. 
 
 " Leave me ! " he says between his teeth, addressing 
 her, but never removing his gaze from the two forms ad- 
 vancing toward him across the dewy lawn. 
 
 For a moment Madame regards him strangely. There 
 is no rancor in her glance, there is nothing uideed but a 
 sudden despair. Is this to be the end of it all ? Has 
 Staines, her own common sense, lied to her? Is this 
 woman, this soulless creature who is incapable of appre- 
 ciating him, the possessor of his heart. Until this instant 
 she had disbelieved it, but now with that expression in 
 his eyes ! She had dreamed strange dreams of a divorce 
 a separation a time when she, whose whole soul is in 
 his keeping, might have stolen into his heart. But swift as 
 a flash all hope has died within her. The wages for which 
 she had so toiled will never now be hers ! And yet, great 
 Heaven ! how she has loved this man ; how she has ad- 
 mired the staunchness, the nobility of him ; the strength 
 that has enabled him to risk his chance of happiness, all 
 for the sake of saving the honor of another! A sense of 
 age, of weakness, oppresses her as she steals slowly from 
 the room. 
 
 Branksmere has not noticed her departure, he is still 
 gazing from the window. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 "Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be 
 
 evil." 
 
 MURIEL had noticed the abrupt going of Madame. A 
 curious smile full of bitterness rises to her lips. 
 
 "A precaution," she mutters to herself, "taken too late." 
 Staines has perhaps taken more notice of the presence 
 of Lord Branksmere.
 
 252 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "Shall I come with you any further?" he asks, in a 
 careful tone, that unfortunately misrepresents itself to her. 
 
 "Why not?" she answers, coldly, a touch of reckless 
 defiance in her voice. If a while ago it had occurred to 
 her that it would be well to give him a word of dismissal 
 before reaching the house, now she decides haughtily 
 within herself that that word she will not speak. Of course, 
 Staines is afraid for /ier, but she will show him that she 
 fears no man, least of all Branksmere ! 
 
 " As you will," says Staines, with a rather overdone as- 
 sumption of alacrity. 
 
 They have gained the balcony steps by this time. Bridg- 
 man has gone round the house to enter by another way, 
 and Muriel mounts the steps with a certain buoyancy in 
 her step, a tort of devilry of carelessness that surprises 
 even herself, and that her companion is far from sharing. 
 This touch of light excitement clings to her until she finds 
 herself face to face with Branksmere, who, as she steps 
 into the drawing-room, comes forward as if to receive her. 
 
 But it is not she he receives after all. His eyes, black 
 with passion, have gone past her, to where in the semi- 
 darkness the shrinking form of Staines may be seen. 
 There is something about the gallant captain's face at this 
 instant that suggests the idea that he believes his last or 
 at all events his second last moment has come ! 
 
 "We have had enough of this, I think," says Branks- 
 mere, in a dull, terrible tone, striding forward. Muriel 
 would have stopped him, but he puts her aside as though 
 she were an infant, and reaching Staines, seizes him by the 
 throat, and lifting him in his powerful grasp, drops him 
 right over the balcony. The thud of his body can be dis- 
 tinctly heard as it gains the ground. 
 
 It is all the work of an instant. It seems to kill the venom 
 in Branksmere and to do him good. Whether his enemy 
 is lying writhing in pain with a broken back, or has es- 
 caped unhurt, is of equal value to him, apparently, as his 
 face is almost calm when he closes the window and turns 
 to confront his wife. If he had expected an outburst of 
 sympathy for the sufferer on her part he is mistaken. 
 
 " I fear you have hurt him," she says, coldly. 
 
 " I hope so," deliberately. 
 
 " To have degraded him in my eyes you think a fine 
 thing. You forget that at the same time you were degrad- 
 ing me in his, and yours, and mine ! So be it ; it is your 
 own doing, remember. And after all there was scarcely
 
 LADY BRANXSMERE. 253 
 
 occasion for such a show of brutality." Her voice is per- 
 fectly even, there is no vehemence, not even the slightest 
 hint at passion in it. " I met him by accident as I left the 
 Towers, and he very naturally accompanied me here." 
 
 " I should fling you after him if I for a moment doubted 
 the truth of that statement," responds he, in a tone that 
 proves the demon within him, if scotched for the time 
 being, still rages. 
 
 Lady Branksmere, with a superb gesture, full of scorn, 
 sweeps from the room. 
 
 Three hours later, worn out by her angry pacing up and 
 down the floor of the empty ball-room, where she knew she 
 should be free from interruption, and where she could 
 think out her wild thoughts alone, Lady Branksmere slowly 
 mounts the stairs that lead to her bedroom. Most of the 
 lamps are extinguished, and only a dull gleam here and 
 there at far distances serve to make the darkness felt. 
 Down below, somewhere far away, a clock chimes the sec- 
 ond hour of morning. Through the windows of the corri- 
 dor along which she is passing a few straggling moon- 
 beams find their way ; pausing by one of the windows Lady 
 Branksmere throws up the sash, and leaning out into the 
 night, gazes downward at the white pavement of the court- 
 yard lying below. 
 
 That sad old story of that other Lady Branksmere who, 
 in years gone by, had found her death upon those cruel 
 stones, comes back to her. Poor soul ! A melancholy 
 life, a melancholy death, were hers. Married to the man 
 she hated, forbidden to speak to or to see the man she 
 loved. Reckoned by all a guilty thing because 
 
 A hot flush dyes her brow. She clenches her hand and 
 shrinks involuntarily backward, as though to hide away 
 from her very self. She had condemned that poor dead 
 dame. Had looked upon her as a lost creature a very 
 Jezebel ; and now ! How is she Muriel so much better 
 than her ? To what words had she listened to-night ? She 
 a wife ! 
 
 A shudder passes over her. In this vague mysterious hour 
 when all the world seems dead, and she and her own heart 
 stand here alone, what excuse dare she plead that judg- 
 ment be not passed upon her ? A cruel fear lays siege to 
 her soul ; a horror of what the future may hold for her, a 
 sense of drifting whither she would not go. 
 
 All at once the dull lamp that had been burning at the
 
 254 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 lower end of the corridor goes out, expiring with a melan- 
 choly flicker that startles and unnerves her. Once again 
 the vision of that unhappy woman who had been dashed to 
 pieces upon the pavement beneath presents itself. An 
 eerie sensation that suggests the near approach of some 
 impending doom takes possession of her : she is alone in 
 the gloom with only a few ghostly moonbeams to betray 
 the darkness and the unpleasant knowledge that this cor- 
 ridor is said to be haunted. With an effort to subdue her 
 foolish weakness she is about to proceed on her way, when 
 a sound comes to her from the Dowager's apartments be- 
 yond that freezes the blood in her veins. 
 
 It is the same awful cry that she had heard once before. 
 Along, low, creeping ciy, replete with anguish, and scarcely 
 human. Not the wail of an old woman. Even at this ter- 
 rible moment Lady Branksrnere wonders inwardly how she 
 could ever have thought it had fallen from the Dowager's 
 lips. It is clear, strong, piercing ; but unearthly ! 
 
 Her breath stops short. She had been toying with a 
 bracelet on her way up the stairs, and now it falls from her 
 nerveless grasp and rolls along the polished floor with a 
 little rasping noise. 
 
 To her heated imagination it seems as though this rolling 
 will never cease. A silence as terrible as the cry itself had 
 followed upon it ; as suddenly as it rose it had died. Had 
 a cloth been laid upon the screaming lips, or a heavy door 
 closed to deaden the sound ? 
 
 Again the sacred stillness of the night is desecrated, 
 again an appalling sound rings through the corrider. But 
 now the wail has turned to shrieking laughter, to a mirth 
 that makes the blood grow cold, and compels one's very 
 heart to stand still. Is there madness in it ? 
 
 Muriel, half wild with terror, rushes to her own room, 
 and closing the door with trembling fingers that will 
 scarcely obey her meaning, locks it firmly. Great 
 Heaven ! what mystery dwells within this dreadful house. 
 Her face is bloodless ; her hands cold ; she is shivering in 
 every limb. Must she dwell forever, then, in terror ? A 
 longing to escape gives her the strength to walk wildly up 
 and down her room, as some poor animal might do within 
 its detested cage. It is too late to return to the Towers ; 
 already it is two hours after midnight, and to free one's 
 self from this terrible atmosphere for only a few hours, 
 of what avail is it ? But to get away forever forever 
 forever !
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. . 255 
 
 She is still trembling with excitement ; she has fallen 
 into a chair, and her hands are hanging loosely by her sides. 
 Her breath is coming in short fitful gasps. Yes ; to go 
 forever. To leave all this, and the anger, and the impo- 
 tent protesting behind her ! What was it that Staines had 
 said ? 
 
 She grows even whiter, and leans back heavily in her 
 chair. Yes, she remembers ! Never had his wooing been 
 so impassioned even in the old days. It had not lain so 
 much in speech as in voice and eyes ; and yet What 
 is it? She pushes back the hair from her hot forehead, 
 and springing to her feet, gazes at herself intently in the 
 huge mirror let into the wall that reaches from floor to 
 ceiling : the white-set face ! but where is the love in it that 
 should shine, though it be guiltily ? What has come to 
 her ? Has she, indeed, lost all desire foreverything earthly 
 or heavenly ? Can she no longer love or hate ? Is her 
 soul dead within her ? 
 
 ' ' My face is foul with weeping, 
 And on my eyelids is the shadow of death. 
 Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow." 
 
 But to go with him ! To quit this cruel life for one 
 where She shudders violently and presses her 
 
 palms together. Yet surely no other life could be more 
 cruel ! And then there would be love. That he loves her 
 seems beyond all doubt. She would no longer have to en- 
 act the role of the neglected, forsaken wife, the woman cast 
 aside and abandoned. She lifts her hand to wipe the 
 moisture from her brow ! To go to leave it all. To 
 wake in some other clime free from the insulting chains 
 
 that so long have galled her ! To wake a dishonored 
 
 woman ! A false wife ! A meretricious thing with gar- 
 ments defiled, from whom all other women, good and 
 happy, will forever shrink with righteous disdain. Sweet 
 Heaven ; NO ! 
 
 She puts up her hand as if to ward from her some intol- 
 erable thought. The drops rise and cling to her forehead. 
 Her pxilse deadens. She stoops forward. She feels that 
 she is falling falling ! 
 
 Dropping upon her knees, she clasps her forehead close. 
 
 " ' A new and contrite heart,' " for this she prays. 
 
 And with prayer comes peace and a desire for good. 
 She rises presently with the longing for repentance strong 
 upon her : to find her husband, to confess all to him, to ask
 
 256 % LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 from him a confession in return (a confession she swears 
 to herself she will condone, whatever it maybe, if given to 
 her openly and honestly), is her new-born desire. Life has 
 forever lost its sweetness for her. Hope ! Bright Vana- 
 dis, that most desirable of all the Goddesses of Olyrnpus, 
 has given her up long since ; but still some poor return 
 may be hers. 
 
 To wait for the morning with all these wild, grievous 
 thoughts surging within her seems impossible. She must 
 go now. If asleep, she can wake him. She must go. 
 
 She steals to the door, opens it, and in spite of her fear 
 creeps along it toward her husband's room. Now, as she 
 nears the hanging curtains that cut off the haunted rooms 
 inhabited by Madame von Thirsk from the rest of the 
 house, she trembles visibly and pauses. Can she pass 
 them ? 
 
 Even as she hesitates the heavy curtain is swung aside, 
 and into the moonlight, that now has grown broad and full 
 and straight from Madame's apartments emerge the fig- 
 ures of Thekla von Thirsk and Lord Branksmere ! 
 
 Muriel, putting out both her hands behind her, steals 
 backward, and coming softly against a wall, leans against 
 it thankfully, and with the faintness of death upon her, 
 waits for what may come. 
 
 Madame's face is strangely pale and care-worn. She 
 looks as one who has just undergone a heavy trial. Her 
 eyes are still wide and wet with the traces of bitter tears just 
 shed. She is speaking, and the words are falling from her 
 hurriedly, as from one who is filled with grief. 
 
 "The past is over and done," she is saying, "and why 
 should I now be betrayed ? I have your oath, Branksmere 
 your oath remember that." She is deeply agitated. 
 
 " If you will keep me to it," replies he, moodily, his eyes 
 fixed upon the ground. 
 
 " I do hold you." Her voice has grown strong again ; 
 " it is but a small thing to you, perhaps, but to me it means 
 honor, all ! Have you forgotten everything, that you thus 
 speak lightly of betrayal ? Does it not concern you as 
 much as me ? " 
 
 " As much, indeed." His voice is low, and as he speaks 
 a sigh escapes him. 
 
 "Ah! you still acknowledge that. The love, then, that 
 belonged to those old days is not yet slain ? That is well ! 
 Why should the work of years be undone, to gratify the 
 cold fancy of an unloving girl !"
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 257 
 
 An inexplicable change darkens Branksmere's face. 
 
 " She has reason to be cold," he says, with a sort of sub- 
 dued passion. " This secrecy that she so resents ; this 
 melancholy tie that binds us you and me all tend to 
 render her unloving." 
 
 "Again you waver," murmurs Madame, moving closer 
 to him. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " You will be stanch ? " She lays her hand upon his 
 arm and her voice takes a low, seductive tone ; "you will 
 be true. It means life to me, Branksrnere, and you owe 
 me much. You have sworn to me already, but I would 
 have you say again that you will never be false to your old 
 allegiance." 
 
 " 1 shall not be false." 
 
 " The old love, then, still lives ?" 
 
 "It lives always." 
 
 "Oh ! Branksrnere," cries Madame, in a low voice, that 
 to the silent listener seems filled with passion. 
 
 Light and swift as a shadow Muriel moves away from 
 them, back to the room she has just quitted. All the soft 
 penitence is gone from her face. Her mouth is stern. 
 Her eyes are all ablaze with a fire that hate has lit. She 
 does not kneel this time. No prayer rises to her lips. 
 See flings wide the casement as though athirst for air, and 
 as the dawn comes slowly .up, and the first cold breath of 
 morn salutes her brow, her final resolve is formed. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 He is my bane, I cannot bare him, 
 
 One heaven and earth can never hold us both. 
 
 " IT'S the very deuce of a thing," says Mr. Daryl, ruefully. 
 
 " Well, it's just that," acquiesces his wife, with the utmost 
 agreeability. " But why she can't tug on with that poor 
 Branksmere is a puzzle to me." 
 
 " You know why she doesn't," puts in Dick, with a frown. 
 " She has explained it to you clearly enough, and you know 
 also that that evening he was here with her he failed to ex- 
 plain anything."
 
 258 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 > 
 
 " Still I believe there is some mistake somewhere. There 
 is a touch of strength about Branksmere's face that pre- 
 cludes the idea of falseness." 
 
 "Well, however it goes, it's the dickens of a nuisance," 
 says Billy, again, running his fingers with vague irritabil- 
 ity through his hair. It is close on eleven o'clock, and the 
 sweetness and light that may be derived from a sound 
 slumber commend themselves to him. " Something ought 
 to be done, I suppose, eh ? " His tone is deplorably want- 
 ing in vigor. There is even a suspicious ring in it that 
 might lead the hearers to suspect him of being only ambi- 
 tious of doing nothing ! 
 
 " Certainly, and at once," replies Dick, severely. 
 
 "Oh! not at once," remonstrates Meg, weakly. "One 
 should think." 
 
 "No, certainly not at once." Billy grasps at this eagerly. 
 "And to think ; to think hard is in my opinion essential." 
 
 " I don't agree with you : riot a moment should be lost," 
 persists Dick the implacable. " He is treating her bar- 
 barously, and she is our sister. If we do not stand to her, 
 who will ? You are the eldest, Billy. If I were you I 
 should make a move." 
 
 " There you are utterly out of it," returns Billy, deject- 
 edly. " If such a remarkable event could occur that you 
 should become me, I beg to assure you you wouldn't stir a 
 peg. To make a move is the very last thing in the world 
 I want to do, unless it be toward bed. You may think, 
 my good boy, that it is a simple thing to walk up to a fel- 
 low who has the misfortune to be one's brother-in-law, and 
 who up to this has seemed to you to be a very decent sort 
 
 of fellow, and tell him in blank verse that he is a . 
 
 Yes, yes, my dear girl, of course ! one should never go to 
 extremes in one's language, that I know : and after all I 
 didn't say it, did I ?" 
 
 " Well, I guess you did what you could for it," says Mrs. 
 Billy. 
 
 "After all, it seems a pity that Muriel married poor 
 George," murmurs Angelica, dreamily. " Perhaps it would 
 have all turned out better if she had married her first love, 
 Captain Staines." 
 
 " Oh ! no ! " The words break from Mrs. Billy's lips as 
 if against her will. Her voice is full of horror, and she 
 puts out one hand impulsively, as though to ward off some 
 danger. Everyone looks a little surprised ; her husband 
 in a sleepy, half-amused fashion.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 259 
 
 "Why, what has that blonde Apollo done to you ?" he 
 asks, lazily, " that you should break into such violent lan- 
 guage. Your behavior is far worse than mine was going 
 to be a few moments ago." 
 
 Mrs. Billy's laugh is perfectly natural as she turns to him. 
 
 "Don't like his face," she says ; " I hate those starved- 
 looking men. One never can be sure, of course, but I 
 don't think she would have been happy with him." 
 
 " Happier than with a man who has so grossly insulted 
 her," returns Dick, gloomily. 
 
 "As to that, Muriel was always rather fanciful. We 
 ourselves used to find her a little difficult," puts in Peter. 
 " And Branksmere certainly was awfully in love with 
 her when they were married, whatever he may be now. 
 He insisted upon making the most splendid settlements " 
 turning to Mrs. Daryl "and made her a present of 
 ^20,000 upon their wedding-day, so that she might feel 
 herself independent of him. Of course, if that story about 
 Madame von Thirsk is true he is the greatest scoundrel I 
 have heard of but is it ? She is such a nice little woman," 
 says Peter, sentimentally, to whom all nice little women 
 are dear. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't see how it is all to end ? " says Mar- 
 gery, despairingly. "As for Madame, though I think she 
 is like a cat, still I think she is, in some ways, a good soul, 
 and devoted to that dreadful old mummy up-stairs. That 
 is Why Branksmere is so attached to her, though Muriel 
 refuses to see it." 
 
 " Things grow worse between them every day." 
 
 " And that's a fact," says Tommy Paulyn, sauntering in 
 from the shrubberies, where he has been amusing himself 
 with the inevitable cigarette, and a pea-shooter meant for 
 the diversion of any prowling cat. " Do I give it the cor- 
 rect twang, Mrs. Billy ? to see those two glowering at 
 each other is enough to upset the nerves of anyone as 
 delicate as I am. It's a mistake, too," continues Tommy, 
 with a languishing air. " It gives us, the outsiders, a dis- 
 taste for matrimony." 
 
 " I don't see where the mistake comes in there," says 
 Angelica, scornfully. 
 
 " Don't you ? How dense you grow, Angelica. Can't 
 you see that I, as a Lord of the Creation, being disheart- 
 ened by such goings on, and afraid to cast myself at the 
 feet of let me say, for example you, an excellent chance 
 is lost to the girls of England forever."
 
 260 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " says the third Miss Daryl. 
 
 " By all means, old girl. Anything you wish," responds 
 Mr. Paulyn, amiably ; "your remarks, if short, are always 
 to the point. I didn't quite catch the last, but I feel it was 
 worthy of you. No affectation about your style ; no pre- 
 tence at an unhealthy elegance. Indeed, there is an ab 
 sence of starch about you generally that is very refresh- 
 ing." 
 
 " If you must talk so much, it is a pity you can't do it in 
 decent English." 
 
 " Do you mean to insinuate that my English is //zdecent ? 
 Oh ! fie, Angelica ; you hurt me very much ; I, who have 
 always so prided myself upon my You ask my opin- 
 ion, Mrs. Billy? Oh ! ah ! yes, to be sure. It is exactly 
 the same as yours, I assure you." 
 
 "Tommy! You have not been listening," declares Mr. 
 Daryl, sternly. " Don't mind him, Willie," to his wife. 
 
 "I give you my word. I really, you know, wouldn't for 
 
 anything " begins Tommy, mumbling hopelessly, and 
 
 squeezing energetically a bunch of leaves he has brought 
 indoors with him. 
 
 " It doesn't matter at all. The thing now is to know what 
 is to be done with Muriel. I'm afraid she imagines a good 
 deal." 
 
 "What she wants," declares Mr. Daryl, with the air of a 
 discoverer, " is a shock! A rattling good s/i0c& / She is 
 too one-sided an observer, too narrow, too self-conscious ; 
 and a shock of some sort would rouse her from her absurd 
 fancies and bring her to her senses." 
 
 " A shock, they say, is good for most people," answers 
 his wife, doubtfully ; "but then who is to administer it ? " 
 
 " Can I be of any use ? " asks Mr. Paulyn, earnestly, and, 
 it must be allowed, with the very purest purpose if for 
 this time only. As he speaks he extends his arm and flings 
 into the fire (the night is cold) the leaves he holds. They 
 are laurel leaves, and at once go off with a resounding suc- 
 cession of sharp bangs that would have put a small artillery 
 corps to shame. As if with one consent they all jump ! 
 Margery, indeed, gives way to a faint shriek. The untimely 
 interruption has occurred at a most unhappy moment, and 
 rouses angry feelings in their breasts. Indeed, I need 
 hardly say that everyone is extremely indignant. 
 
 " Is that what you call a shock ? If you can't help us, 
 Thomas, in our misery, at least have the goodness to refrain 
 from your eternal practical jokes," says Margery, sternly.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 261 
 
 Mr. Daryl, whom time and circumstance should have 
 sobered, has, I regret to say, subsided into uncontrollable 
 laughter and an easy-chair behind a convenient screen. He 
 is, therefore, unequal to the occasion. 
 
 " It wasn't a joke," protests the Honorable Tommy. "At 
 least not on my part. Who'd have thought a few innocent- 
 looking, green, very green, leaves, would have made such 
 a row ? " 
 
 Here another of them that had up to this escaped the 
 blaze is now caught by it and explodes noisily. 
 
 "Now, Tommy, there ! You're at it again. If nobody 
 else speaks to you about it I will," cries Angelica, wrath - 
 fully, who is plainly under the impression that up to this 
 everyone else has been absurdly mild about it. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that was my fault ? " demands 
 Tommy, in a highly indignant tone. " Why didn't it go off 
 at first, I'd like to know, instead of meanly dodging about 
 so as to get me into deeper disgrace ? You saw it all, Mrs. 
 Billy " appealing to her hopefully, as most people would 
 " and you will admit that that last confounded thing went 
 off by itself. Eh ! now. Didn't it ? " 
 
 But Mrs. Billy has disappeared behind her handker- 
 chief. 
 
 " There now, you've made her cry. I hope you are sat- 
 isfied now ! " says Angelica, vindictively. "You have 
 simply frightened her out of her life. And at such a time, 
 too," regarding him reproachfully, " to play jokes! " 
 
 . " It wasn't<\. joke, I tell you ! " almost roars the dismayed 
 Tommy. " It's no joke at all ! And I never knew those 
 vile leaves were surcharged with gunpowder, or I wouldn't 
 have touched 'em. I say, Mrs. Billy, don't go on like that, 
 you know. Eh ? Eh ? I'm real sorry, you know ?" 
 
 A little gasp escapes Mrs. Billy ; she lets the handker- 
 chief fall and gives way to wild merriment. 
 
 "It was so opportune, so deliciously apropos" she ex- 
 claims. " But one shouldn't laugh when one has so seri- 
 ous a subject on hand," growing grave again. " Poor 
 Muriel ! I am so grieved about her." 
 
 "It all comes of marrying a man without loving him," 
 says Margery. 
 
 " And I don't believe she cared a brass farthing for 
 Branksmere," supplements Peter. 
 
 "Well," declares Mr. Daryl, who has deserted the arm- 
 chair and 'is once again as solemn as anyone can desire and 
 considerably more drowsy. "If people will commit that
 
 262 LADY BRANKSMERE.. 
 
 sort of moral suicide they must expect a disastrous result. 
 What will you have ? " He shrugs his shoulders as though 
 in contempt of that sort of people. 
 
 "A brandy and soda, thanks," says Mr. Paulyn, abstract- 
 edly, who has mistaken the meaning of the last remark 
 and the -tone of the conversation generally. Everyone 
 laughs except Mr. Daryl, who remains preternaturally 
 grave, and regards the Honorable Tommy with a counte- 
 nance expressive of the deepest admiration. 
 
 " Thomas, thou hast said it ! " he remarks, at last. " This 
 Parliament," addressing his wife, "is prorogued indefi- 
 nitely. May the gods grant our next meeting may be a 
 merrier one. Come with me, ' true Thomas,' to the bil- 
 liard-room, where probably that gracious mixture of which 
 you spoke is awaiting us. Peter Dick, be in attendance." 
 
 They all disappear. The boys with Billy, Angelica to 
 her bed. Margery, going up to Mrs. Billy, lays her hands 
 upon her shoulders. 
 
 "What do you know of Captain Staines ? " she asks, 
 slowly. 
 
 " Not much," returns Mrs. Daryl, returning her gaze in 
 full. " And yet a great deal." 
 
 " You have met him before ? In some other part of 
 your life ? Ah ! I could see it. You know of 
 
 " Nothing to his good ! " calmly. " Yes, I knew him 
 in the old days." 
 
 "You you loved him ? " 
 
 "Certainly not," with healthy emphasis. 
 
 " He loved you ? " 
 
 Mrs: Billy smiles. 
 
 " My dear girl. You, who know the man, to ask such a 
 question ! Could he love anything beyond himself and 
 his own interests ? " 
 
 "See here," says Margery, growing pale, but not remov- 
 ing her earnest gaze from the face before her, nor her grasp 
 from her shoulders. "You have kept secret your knowl- 
 edge of him all this time. Why ? " 
 
 " Secret ? Does one mention every casual acquaint- 
 ance? " 
 
 " He was no casual acquaintance. Some motive kept 
 you silent. Speak, Willie ! Tell me what you know of 
 him." 
 
 "Do you, then, suspect me of an intrigue with him ?" 
 asks the other, gravely. 
 
 "That question is unworthy of you ! No. I ask for ''
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 263 
 
 she draws her breath sharply, and her lips grow white 
 
 " Muriel's sake ! If you know anything that might 
 
 The idea is cruel, mean, but I would do anything to 
 break the bond of affected friendship that exists between 
 them. Willie, if you know anything to his disadvantage, say 
 it. Do not hesitate : save her at all risks ! What is he to 
 us that you should refrain from speech that may help to 
 clear her eyes. Yesterday I met them again, she and that 
 bad man, down in that little dell we used to call ' Love's 
 Retreat,' because he and she used to walk there every day 
 when we thought she meant to marry him. Oh, if one only 
 knew of something that would turn her heart against him." 
 
 "I don't believe she in the least cares for him," says Mrs. 
 Daryl, looking at the ground. 
 
 " And yet " 
 
 "And yet to escape her present life she may commit any 
 folly. I understand her as well as you do. You would 
 hear what I know of Staines ? Hear it, then. He was 
 obliged to leave Brussels while I was there in rather aa un- 
 comfortable hurry. They had thrown him out of the club 
 window the night before because of his being a little too 
 clever about his cards." 
 
 " That is very bad," says Margery. " But there is some- 
 thing more. All that is outside your own experience of 
 him. And I would have that." 
 
 " Would you ? " 
 
 Mrs. Billy regards her intently. 
 
 " It is, as I told you, a trivial affair an every-day occur- 
 rence, probably," with a rather bitter intonation, " hardlv 
 worth so much reticence on my part. Asyou are so per- 
 sistent, listen, then. Once Captain Staines did me the 
 honor to ask me to run away with him. To give up 
 name and fame for him ! To accept shame for him ! I was 
 only a poor dependent then, to whom an insult might 
 safely be offered. The General and his money were not 
 thought of. It was really being good-natured to ask a 
 poor, overworked, tired, miserable little girl to leave her 
 
 life of slavery for Pshaw ! " cries Mrs. Billy, flinging 
 
 up her head. " Why should I at this hour feel so keenly 
 the treatment of a man so utterly base, so unworthy of any 
 thought." 
 
 " My poor heart !" says Margery, with deepest commis- 
 eration and self-reproach. "I should not have pressed the 
 question." She lifts Mrs. Daryl's hands and kisses them 
 softly one after the other. Then, "Does Billy know ?"
 
 264 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " How could I tell him ? No. A thousand times, no ! 
 What a disgrace : a horror. It was such a shameful thing," 
 cries Mrs. Billy, and then all at once her self-possession de- 
 serts her, and she bursts into a storm of tears. " Oh ! that 
 I could requite that man," she whispers sobbingly through 
 her set teeth, " that I could find myself once face to face 
 with him with the necessity to speak the truth full upon 
 me, and the knowledge that my betrayal would be his 
 ruin." 
 
 Who would have thought all this passion was in the 
 debonnaire little creature now encircled by Margery's arms. 
 Margery, to whom she clings because some innate knowl- 
 edge satisfies her that the girl on just such another occa- 
 sion would feel as she does just so true a friend, just so 
 true an enemy just as revengeful. 
 
 Her teai'S are dried as quickly as they fell. She shakes 
 back her pretty hair and looks up at Margery. A heavy 
 sigh escapes her. 
 
 " There ! I'm glad I've told someone," she says, " though 
 I just wish it had been Billy, not you. However, I shall 
 tell him some day, when Staines is well out of the way. 
 That will be soon." 
 
 Margery shudders some inward fear renders her for the 
 moment cold. 
 
 " No, my dear, nothing of that sort. Not while I'm here. 
 I'll prevent it all I can," says Mrs. Billy. " Don't make 
 yourself uncomfortable before you must." 
 
 " If Muriel only knew 
 
 " She shall know all in good time. I shall so far sacri- 
 fice myself, and at the same time satisfy my honor. And 
 now to bed. Keep my secret, Meg, until 
 
 " Forever," says Meg. 
 
 Half an hour later, Mr. Daryl, having effected his escape 
 from the other occupants of the billiard-room, enters his 
 own apartment to find his wife awaiting him, standing by 
 the window. As she turns to receive him there is no trace 
 of her late emotion about her. Her face is as bright as 
 ever, the customary smile with which she always greets 
 him as sweet. 
 
 " Life is fatiguing," says Mr. Daryl, sinking with a sleepy 
 sigli into the nearest lounging chair, " especially the part 
 of it that has to do with one's sisters. Muriel will turn me 
 gray even before you do, and Margery is nearly as bad. 
 She turns up her nose at every fellow she meets ; and as 
 for Bellew, she is playing old Harry with him."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 265 
 
 "I could tell you something about him," returns his wife, 
 mysteriously. " But I can't ; you'd be sure to tell it again, 
 and No, I can't indeed. I've promised." 
 
 " Oh, go on ! " says Mr. Daryl, with a criminal disregard 
 for the sacredness of one's word. 
 
 "Well," relenting, eagerly relenting, "you are sure you 
 will " 
 
 " Positive." 
 
 " Never ? " 
 
 " Never ! " 
 
 " Then I must tell you that last night, as I came suddenly 
 round the large myrtle in the corner of the garden, I found 
 Margery there with Bellew, and he had his arm round her 
 waist, and she didn't seem in the least annoyed. She 
 seemed, indeed, rather er comfortable, if anything. She 
 made me promise not to mention it, however, and I. did, 
 faithfully." 
 
 " So you did faithfully ! " 
 
 " Well, don't you think that means something ? " 
 
 " No, I don't. I have long ceased to place any faith in 
 such paltry evidence as that. To my certain knowledge 
 Curzon has had his arm round her waist off and on for the 
 last two years without the faintest result. For my own 
 part, I begin to think poorly of Bellew. If /were to have 
 my arm round a girl's waist for the five-hundredth part of 
 that time I should " 
 
 " Billy ! I wonder you aren't ashamed to speak to me in 
 that way." 
 
 " W/iy, my dear ? Would you prefer my addressing that 
 remark to somebody else ? I can't remember that in the 
 old days you saw any very great harm in having my arm 
 round your " 
 
 "We were talking of Margery," interrupts she, severely. 
 "Let us keep to some respectable subject." 
 
 " By all means. I should hate to wander into the paths 
 of vice. As to Margery, perhaps she means to marry 
 Tommy." 
 
 "Tommy! Nonsense! Who would marry Tommy? 
 He is just one of the nicest people I know, but as to mar- 
 riage ! why, he isn't in it at all. I could almost find it in 
 my heart to love him ; but to go to the altar with him, 
 that is a different thing." 
 
 " Mrs. Daryl, permit me to say that I object to that 
 speech," puts in Billy, in a tone descriptive of marital 
 sternness struggling with sleep.
 
 266 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "I am alluding to Margery," vaguely. "The idea of 
 your thinking she would accept Tommy. Who would 
 marry such an inconsequent person ? I know /wouldn't," 
 
 "Couldn't!" murmurs Mr. Daryl, drowsily. He has 
 managed by this time to get out of his coat, no more, and 
 is now plainly on the verge of a refreshing slumber. A 
 gentle somnolence has caught him. To even a careless 
 observer it might occur that he has made up his mind to 
 spend the remainder of the night in the arm-chair, his shirt, 
 waistcoat, and the rest of it. " Bigamy is not tolerated 
 in this slow old country." 
 
 "A good riling, too," declares Mrs. Billy, with warmth. 
 " What is your mind running on now ? A harem ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, my love ! Oh, fie ! " breathes Mr. Daryl, with 
 a gleam of consciousness. There is, however, a frivolity 
 about his horror that strikes upon his wife's ear. 
 
 " There are certain failings about you, Billy, that ought 
 to be corrected," she is beginning with emphasis, when a 
 sound comes to her that puts to flight all sensations save 
 that of wrath. It is a mild, harmonious snore that breaks 
 from Mr. Daryl's Roman nose, with an honest heartiness 
 that admits of no misconception. 
 
 " I do believe you are asleep ! " cries his wife, with ac- 
 centuated indignation. She draws closer to him to make 
 sure of the hateful fact, and as she does so a ready venge- 
 ance holds out its arms to her. Billy's barber had inad- 
 vertently forgotten to clip off one small lock just behind 
 his ear. This had been to Billy's wife a sore grievance for 
 a week past ; now it is a boon ! She seizes upon it, she 
 draws it briskly upward. With a wild shriek Mr. Darvl 
 is brought back to every-day life, and beats a retreat to his 
 dressinsf-room. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 " Where no hope is left, is left no fear." 
 
 Alas ! I lose myself, 
 'Tis pathless, dark, and barren all to me." 
 
 MURIEL'S fatal resolution once formed, she hastens the 
 completion of it. With a soul full of returning grace she 
 had re-entered the corridor that night ; with a soul void 
 of all belief and hope she left it. When next Staines met
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 267 
 
 her and she actually laid plain the way for him she re- 
 ceived his half-veiled aspirations in so friendly a spirit 
 that he was emboldened to place before her the plans he 
 had for so long a time framed. She acquiesced in all of 
 them : but so coldly, so indifferently, that he was both 
 puzzled and piqued by her manner. 
 
 To him, departure from this part of the world is impera- 
 tive : steeped to his very eyes in debt, both here and in 
 town, nothing is left him but an immediate and secret dis- 
 appearance from the land of his" duns. To live abroad on 
 that thousand a year so considerately bestowed upon Lady 
 Branksmere by her husband, is the little game that for 
 some time has presented itself to him as being worthy of 
 notice. The thought of leaving England with Lady Branks- 
 mere (who is the most desirable woman in the world in his 
 eyes), and this sum, seems good in his eyes, and her yield- 
 ing, however coldly accorded, a success. 
 
 It is a week later, and a cold, dull evening, rain-washed 
 and dreary. "A common grayness silvers everything." 
 No sight of moon is possible, and through all the air there 
 is a threatening of thunder. The clouds hang low, and out 
 of them the mountains loom, gloomy and grand. Rising 
 through the sullen mist their peaks rise upward like 
 spires, as if seeking for freedom. Between them the sky 
 shines red as fire. An appalling fire ! Weird and horri- 
 ble, that clings to one's memory as though it were a part 
 of Dante's Inferno. 
 
 And now the rain comes tumbling down : it descends in 
 torrents ; the whole face of the earth is made green by it. 
 
 " The dykes are filled, and with a roaring sound, 
 The rising rivers float the nether ground." 
 
 Hardly heeding the extraordinary blackness of the 
 growing night, Lady Branksmere, with a travelling cloak 
 thrown across her arm, turns the handle of her husband's 
 private room and enters it, to find him seated at a table at 
 the other end. 
 
 " It is a mistake to waste words in explanation," she 
 says. " Hear me once for all. I leave this house to-night, 
 forever." 
 
 "Ah!" says Branksmere. He rises to his feet and 
 pushes his papers slowly from him. Just so much time it 
 'takes him to recover himself. "And with whom?" he 
 asks, looking directly at her. His tone is calm.
 
 268 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Captain Staines," returns she, as calmly. If she had 
 expected to triumph in his burst of rage on hearing this 
 answer she is disappointed. Branksmere's face remains 
 impassive. 
 
 " May I ask the reason of this sudden determination ? " 
 he asks, presently. 
 
 " I think " coldly " you hardly need. I have no time 
 to waste." 
 
 " In such mad haste to be gone ? Even so, I must press 
 you for an answer, if only that I may be able to give it to 
 my questioners hereafter." 
 
 "Say that the atmosphere of the place proved too much 
 for me. I have no appetite for the mysterious, and the 
 sounds that reach one's ear at midnight in this house are 
 far from reassuring." She looks at him keenly as she fires 
 this shaft, but if a change passes over his face it is so fleet- 
 ing that she scarcely catches it. " Say I am unreasonable 
 fanciful, if you will anything" slowly, "but the truth ! 
 That is too shameful ! Say I don't care what you say," 
 she ends abruptly. 
 
 " I can readily believe it. A woman bent on taking such 
 a step as yours would naturally be indifferent to public 
 opinion. And so this is to be the end of it ? " 
 
 " I hope so. So far as you and I are concerned." 
 
 "Your chief desire is to escape from me ?" 
 
 " And her ! " 
 
 " Pshaw ! let us keep to sense. Your old affection for 
 this man has induced you to leave me ? I would at least 
 hear you say so." 
 
 " That you might feel your own conscience the lighter ? 
 Cease from taunts, Branksmere, and from hypocrisy, too. 
 You know you will be as glad to be rid of me as I shall be 
 to know that I have looked my last on you !" The wild 
 bitterness of her tone renders him silent. "A truce to 
 passion," she cries presently, with a great, impatience " I 
 leave you because life here is no longer bearable." 
 
 " You leave me to join your lover." 
 
 " Is that BO?" A slow smile curls her lip. "If it will 
 make you any the happier, leave it so." 
 
 "If that were not the case surely matters might have 
 been more respectably arranged," returns he, with a shrug. 
 " Did it never suggest itself to you that you might have 
 separated yourself from me in a more decent fashion ? 
 You might have gone alone." 
 
 " It is too late now for suggestions." Her tone is dull,
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 269 
 
 and in a weary way she taps the ends of her taper fingers 
 against the table near her. " I have given him my prom- 
 ise." 
 
 " Once you' made me a promise ! " He pauses here, but 
 her tired face showing no signs of relenting, he refuses to 
 continue his subject. "Did it never strike you that I 
 might prevent this rnad act of yours ? " 
 
 "And serve me as that ancient dame of your house was 
 served, who died rather than live a prisoner ? Well," witli 
 a scornful glance, " even though you should treat me so, I 
 should not die : Do not " with a little contemptuous 
 laugh "hope for that. I should only learn to wait, and 
 then all things would come to me. But I am safe from 
 you. To seek to detain me is the last thing that would 
 enter into your head." 
 
 "The very last. You speak truly there." 
 
 "At last you acknowledge something. Why not acknowl- 
 edge all ? " asks she, lifting to his a face that is passion pale. 
 " Your tendresse for Madame all,"" 
 
 " I almost wish I could. Then, at least, there might be 
 a chance of gaining absolution ; but as it stands, you see," 
 coldly, " there is nothing to confess." 
 
 "You lie to the last," she says. " And yet, even to gain 
 your wife, you refused to let her go." 
 
 " That would not have gained me my wife. And yet " 
 
 He looks at her strangely, with a face grown suddenly white. 
 "If I were now to prove false to my friendship and grati- 
 tude to my grandmother's faithful friend 
 
 " The time is past for all that," interrupts she, steadily. 
 " You would now do for the sake of your own good name 
 what you would not do for me. I thank you ; but I will 
 not accept the sacrifice. It is," bitterly, "too great." 
 
 "What charge do you bring against me ?" 
 
 " Many and many a one." 
 
 " And yet I hold myself blameless." 
 
 " Have a care, Branksmere ! The world may be cheated 
 by you, but I cannot." 
 
 " You give the world too much credit, it seems to me. 
 You pay it too rich a compliment. Its innocence is hardly 
 to be relied upon. You think yourself far cleverer than it, 
 yet the world, you should remember, has a thousand eyes 
 you but two. Yet it has not condemned me." 
 
 " It is my privilege as a wife," says she, slowly, " to know 
 you more intimately than most." 
 
 " A wife ! I have no wife ! " There is a world of con-
 
 270 LADY BRAXKSME'RE. 
 
 temptuous anger in his voice. His eyes flash ; for the mo- 
 ment he looks as though he could willingly annihilate her. 
 " My accusation ! " he demands in a tone that,admits of no 
 refusal. 
 
 " That woman" cries she, throwing wide her arms, and 
 drawing up her beautiful figure to its full height. " Do 
 you deem me a fool, or blind. She is your friend, not I. 
 She has rooms to which I have no access / in my own 
 house ! but where you are made welcome." 
 
 " If you must have an answer again to that, I swear to 
 you I never saw her rooms in my life." 
 
 "You swear that !" With her eyes still fixed on his, she 
 recoils from him a step or two, as if in abhorrence. " You 
 swear it ! " she says. 
 
 "From my soul I do. Nay, hear me. That night you 
 saw me in the corridor with her and " 
 
 " How do you know that ? " 
 
 " By this." Opening a drawer, he holds out to her the 
 bracelet she had dropped there when her terror at that un- 
 earthly scream had numbed her nerves. "You accuse me 
 of the worst ; but if you had only known why 
 
 " The time is over for explanations," exclaims she, hastily, 
 waving aside his words by a gesture of the hand. 
 
 Silence falls between them after this a lengthened si- 
 lence, broken at last by him. 
 
 "When do you go ?" asks he, abruptly. 
 
 "Now." 
 
 " Staines is in waiting ! " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I wonder you aren't afraid of my murdering him," says 
 he, casually, as it were, glancing at her with a half-indif- 
 ferent air. 
 
 "Pas si bete" returns she, with an insolent lifting of her 
 shoulders. "You know your own good better than that." 
 
 "You have probably made others aware of this move ?" 
 As Branksmere asks this question he regards her keenly. 
 
 "No. You alone know of it." 
 
 " It was extremely kind of you to give me such timely 
 warning. It takes away a good deal from the awkward- 
 ness of a vulgar discovery. I am sincerely obliged to you," 
 he says. " And now one other word before we part. Do 
 you think you will be happy with this Staines ? " He asks 
 this question in his coldest and most sneering manner, as 
 though propounding an ordinary question. 
 
 " I don't know. Is there such a thing as happiness ? "
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 271 
 
 asks she in turn, lifting to his her great sombre, mournful 
 eyes. " At least he loves me. I shall have love the one 
 thing hitherto denied me." 
 
 A curious gleam comes into Branksmere's eyes. For a 
 moment he looks as though some impassioned word must 
 pass his lips, but as suddenly as the longing came it went. 
 He subdues himself, and as if struck by the absurdity of 
 the impulse he has killed, he breaks into a low, discordant 
 laugh a laugh short-lived, but one so strange, that she, 
 half startled, looks at him. 
 
 " You are merry, sir," she says, gravely. 
 
 " Why should I not be ? If nothing else, at least grant 
 me a sense of humor. Surely the situation is full of it ! 
 It is perhaps the first time on record that Madame has had 
 the courtesy to inform Monsieur of her intention to dis- 
 honor him." 
 
 " You are wrong," indifferently. " I know of at least 
 one similar case. I knew the woman who so acted." 
 
 " You knew her ?" There is a cruelty in the emphasis 
 used. Muriel's lips whiten. 
 
 " She passed out of my old life," she answers, coldly. 
 
 "And into your new one ! In all human probability 
 you will meet her again shortly. I congratulate you on 
 your friends," with a low bow. 
 
 "And I, you on yours," meaningly. 
 
 " This last friend, to whom we are indebted for the even- 
 ing's conversation. You are aware, perhaps, that he is 
 penniless ? " 
 
 " I haven't heard it," listlessly. " But even if it is true 
 it will not distress me. I would welcome poverty any- 
 thing to escape the life I am now leading." 
 
 "You purpose leading another where money will be no 
 object, or at least where very little will suffice ? May I 
 ask if you intend living with your friend on your joint- 
 ure ? " 
 
 "Certainly not," flushing hotly. "That I formally re- 
 sign now, at once, and forever. And I think, my lord," 
 drawing up her figure with a superb gesture of injured 
 pride, "you will do me the justice to remember that up to 
 this I have spent so little of it as helped me to clothe my- 
 self as the mistress of your house should be clothed. I 
 used your money, not for my own good, but for yours." 
 
 " Does your friend know you are determined to ac- 
 cept nothing at my hands for the future ?" 
 
 " No."
 
 272 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " You have not mentioned the subject to him ?" 
 
 " No. There was no necessity." 
 
 "Ah!" says Branksmere, "I think, however, I would 
 have mentioned it had I been you ! " An unpleasant smile 
 darkens his face. " The money is yours, remember," he 
 says, presently. " I have no smallest claim to it. If you 
 decline to use it, it will in course of time lapse to the 
 Crown." 
 
 "That doesn't concern me : I have no further interest 
 in it." 
 
 " And he your friend really knows nothing of this ?" 
 
 "Why should he ?" haughtily. 
 
 "Ah! That is just it. Why indeed ? No doubt love, 
 the almighty, will be more to him than Did I under- 
 stand you to say vou leave this house to-night ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Will you permit me to order one of the carriages for 
 you : or has your friend arranged for all ?" 
 
 " You are pleased to be insolent, sir, but " 
 
 " The night is cold : let me at least " pouring out a 
 glass of wine "induce you to take this before encounter- 
 ing the chilly air." 
 
 "Thank you; no. I shall never again, I hope, touch 
 anything in this house." She moves toward the door. 
 Branksmere coming from the other side of the table and 
 following her, she turns upon him an interrogative glance. 
 
 " You will permit me to see you as far as the wicket-gate 
 that is the shortest way to the road," he says, answering 
 her unspoken question. " The night is dark and very 
 cold." 
 
 " But no farther," hastily. 
 
 "If you forbid it, certainly not. I presume you are tak- 
 ing the first step alone ? " 
 
 " Why, no. As it happens, you are leading me in it." A 
 short, untuneful laugh parts her lips. 
 
 " Captain Staines is not to meet you here ? " 
 
 " Why should he meet me here ? " she answers, evasively, 
 something in his tone, that rings through the remarkable 
 calmness of it, raising a feeling of mistrust in her bosom. 
 They have reached the large hall by this time, and are now 
 close to the door. 
 
 "What ! No backward glance ?" says Branksmere, with 
 a sneering gayety. " The last look is an orthodox perform- 
 ance. The staircase, they tell me, is of the very purest 
 early English type, and well worth remembrance."
 
 LADY BliANKSMERK. 273 
 
 "There is no need for a last glance. I shall remember 
 this house, believe me, to my dying day." 
 
 "The house is much in your debt ; you have honored 
 it too highly," returns Branksmere, with bitter meaning ; 
 as he speaks, he puts out his hand idly and possesses him- 
 self of a heavy hunting-whip lying on one of the tables. 
 He weighs it lightly. 
 
 "Why are you taking that?" demands she, abruptly. 
 With a sort of comfort in her frozen heart she remembers 
 that Staines is to meet her, not at the wicket-gate, but at 
 the one lower down, so that a meeting between the two 
 men maybe avoided. A moment later she smiles inwardly 
 at her fear ; surely the last thing Branksmere would do 
 would be to quarrel with the man who is about to rid him 
 of her forever. 
 
 " I shall probably step round to the kennels when I have 
 seen you safely on your journey." He accompanies his 
 careless answer with a light laugh. It jars upon her even 
 in this numbed mood of hers. When he has seen her 
 safely gone! He can already speculate upon the next 
 thing then to be done. Life will go on for him in the old 
 
 way, the dogs will be caressed, the Nay ! Life will 
 
 be a new thing for him, a joyous resurrection from the 
 ashes of the hated past where she took part. There is 
 something so thoroughly buoyant in his whole air that a 
 feeling of sickening disgust takes possession of her, and 
 weighs her to the earth. Oh, that all was over and done, 
 and she dead, and the cruel w r orld forgotten ! And yet, 
 alas, how w r ould death avail her ? What place can be for 
 such as her beyond the grave? 
 
 Why, she has been so little to him, so burdensome a 
 charge, that even a knowledge of the dishonor she is 
 bringing on him, and that will lower him in the eyes of his 
 world, is insufficient to quell within him the sense of glad- 
 ness, of relief, that has come to him with the certainty 
 that now she is about to pass out of his life forever. 
 
 Her step grows more hurried. Arrived at the wicket- 
 gate, she stops abruptly. 
 
 " Here we part," she says, aloud. And even as the words 
 pass her lips she becomes aware of a dark figure standing 
 in the shadow at the other side of the gate. A smothered 
 ejaculation falls from Branksmere. Striding forward, he 
 lays his hand upon the arm of Staines. 
 18
 
 274 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 "What hour save this should be thine hour and mine." 
 
 STAINES had evidently mistaken the place of appoint- 
 ment, or else had come this much further in his anxiety to 
 meet Lady Branksmere. His face blanches perceptibly in 
 the dull moonlight as his eyes meet Branksmere's, and 
 instinctively he retreats a step or two, and looks to the 
 right and left of him in a hurried fashion, as one might 
 who is meditating flight. 
 
 " Ha, sir ! Well met ! This is an unexpected pleasure ! " 
 says Branksmere, in a high, clear voice, and with a laugh 
 that makes the other's blood run a little colder in his 
 veins. 
 
 There is a dead pause. The heavens above, that a short 
 time ago showed inky black, have now rent their gloomy 
 pall to let a sullen moon shine through. She throws her 
 rays upon the three figures standing in an absolute qui- 
 escence, as if scarcely breathing, lighting up Muriel's pale, 
 death-like face, and betraying the strange immobility of 
 her features, and the utter lack of emotion that character- 
 izes even her pose. Branksmere's face is set, and around 
 his lips there plays a sardonic smile that Staines, standing 
 as far away from him as he dares, hardly cares to see. 
 
 "Your usual urbanity seems to have deserted you. 
 What ! not a word," continues Branksmere, breaking 
 through the silence, which is growing strained, and ad- 
 dressing Staines with an air of genial gayety that the latter 
 appears to regard as oppressive. He retreats still farther 
 into the shade of the laurels as Branksmere deliberately 
 approaches him as if with a purpose and with an ex- 
 pression in his eyes of suppressed but deadly fury. Per- 
 haps the scene would now have had a speedy end had not 
 an interruption occurred at this moment that attracts the 
 attention of all three. 
 
 Along the path that leads to the wicket-gate the sound 
 of running footsteps may be distinctly heard, and presently 
 a small rounded figure comes into sight, and in another in- 
 stant Mrs. Billy is among them. The surprise she evinces 
 at their presence here at this hour is open and immense. 
 Then her glance grows keen, and it takes her but a little 
 time to fully grasp the situation, or at least the headings 
 of it.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 275 
 
 " I have accomplished my task half-way. I wanted to 
 see you," she says, lightly, smiling at Muriel. "Are you 
 really going to Lady Blount's to-morrow ? If so, will you 
 come with Margery and me ? The night was so pleasant 
 after the heat of the day that I persuaded Peter to walk 
 out with me. He has gone round to the yard to see one 
 of the men about some dog, but I came straight on this 
 way. Lucky, eh ? Peter was just wild with me for want- 
 ing to come, as he said rain was in the sky, but now I'm 
 glad I fought it out with him." 
 
 Slowly she had been reading each face, one after the 
 other, and now, as a marked silence greets her little speech, 
 as no answer is vouchsafed to it, she knows her first sus- 
 picions were correct. She throws back her hood and turns 
 her gaze anxiously on Branksmere, who is deadly white, 
 and whose eyes are gleaming dangerously. There is some- 
 thing fixed, rigid, about his expression that warns her if 
 she can do any good she had better do it at once. With 
 Mrs. Billy, knowledge of this kind means action. She 
 turns her attention from Branksmere to Staines, who has 
 grown livid, and going deliberately up to him lays her hand 
 upon his arm. 
 
 " You here, too," she cries, in her gay, pretty voice ; 
 "the moon is too dull for it, perhaps but doesn't the 
 whole scene remind you of the old days, when in the gar- 
 dens at Wiesbaden we used to wander beneath the lindens, 
 you and I ? What tete-a-tetes those were what a lover's 
 time; and how you swore to me fidelity, ch ? To me! 
 Why, it seems like yesterday, so clear it all comes back to 
 me." 
 
 A murderous light rises in Staines' eyes. He would 
 have shaken off her hand, but she keeps that firm little 
 member so tightly clasped upon his sleeve that without 
 actual violence he cannot get away from her. From this 
 he would not have shrunk, but for the knowledge that such 
 violence would only damage his already injured cause. 
 
 " Ah ! and those other days," begins she, again, lightly, 
 but now with a thrill running through her- voice a thrill 
 of angry scorn. "You remember " 
 
 " Nothing" interrupts he, hoarsely, breaking away from 
 her at last. Lady Branksmere has roused from her leth- 
 argy, and has drawn a step nearer, her large gray eyes di- 
 lated, her breath coming from her heavily. 
 
 "Nothing!" repeats Mrs. Billy, .in a tone even more 
 distinct. She laughs a low, mocking laugh that has no
 
 276 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 music in it. " How short a lover's vows may be ! Let me 
 remind you : let me recall to your mind that never-to-be- 
 forgotten night at Carlsbad when first we met ! That 
 sunny morn among the flowers at Schlangenbad ; that 
 tender evening spent amid the falling dews. What ! has 
 all slipped from your treacherous memory ?" 
 
 Staines makes an effort to speak, but fails. 
 
 "At least you will remember that last night on which 
 we met ? What ? Not even that ? See, now, I think I 
 know something that will refresh your mind. It was on 
 that very night that the unpleasant little affair occurred at 
 the Comte de Grailes' rooms. Perhaps " (airily) " you can 
 remember that? It was a small mistake about an insignifi- 
 cant card, but it appears the Comte was paltry enough to 
 take notice of it. Ah ! You do recollect it ? " 
 
 "This is the man, then ?" asks Branksmere. 
 
 " Why, yes. Seeing him, how can you doubt it ? Mark 
 the noble bearing of him," smiles Mrs. Billy, pointing to 
 Staines, who is cowering before her. " Is he not the very 
 proper hero for such a romance ? " 
 
 "You knew this gentleman abroad ! You knew him be- 
 fore you came here ? " asks Lord Branksmere, who has 
 noted the gleam in her eyes and the suppressed indignation 
 that is making the small frame tremble. 
 
 " You have guessed it, Branksmere. This gentleman and 
 I are well acquainted." She stops suddenly, as though it 
 is impossible for her to go on, and clenches her hands and 
 lets a heavy, dry sob break from her. How is she to tell 
 it ? yet she has promised Margery to save this wilful woman 
 if it be in her power ; this woman who is now gazing at her 
 with a ghastly face and eyes that would pierce her soul ! 
 Mrs. Billy nerves herself for a supreme effort, she flings 
 from her all thought of self, and stepping more clearly into 
 the moonlight, throws out her hands toward Staines. 
 
 " This man," she says, in a clear, thrilling tone, " once 
 did me the honor to seek to dishonor me ! " 
 
 Her face falls forward into her hands. 
 
 "Great heaven! This is more than one should dare 
 expect of you," cries Lord Branksmere, in deep agita- 
 tion. 
 
 Mrs. Billy lifts her head and looks at Staines for the last 
 time. 
 
 " My husband knows all," she says, the words coming 
 reluctantly from between her teeth. "If you would retain 
 your miserable life escape from this without delay ! "
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 277 
 
 She turns aside as if to leave them ; then pauses to lay 
 her shaking hand on Branksmere's sleeve. 
 
 " Respect my story ! " she entreats him, in a low tone. 
 " I hardly know why I spoke." 
 
 "/ know," returns he, pressing her hand. In another 
 moment she has glided past them toward the house. 
 
 "Is this thing true?" asks Lady Branksmere, going 
 straight up to Staines. 
 
 He is silent. 
 
 " Speak, man ! Answer ! " cries she, imperiously, with a 
 stamp of her foot. 
 
 "N o," lies the miserable wretch, with falsehood 
 written in the very swaying and bending of his cowardly 
 frame. What she sees convinces her. 
 
 " Liar ! " she gasps beneath her breath. Her voice is so 
 low that Staines misses the word, and still resolves to play 
 the winning card if that be possible. 
 
 " It is a disgraceful fabrication, got up by that woman to 
 spite me, because I would not respond to her advances," he 
 declares loudly, his speech growing as low as himself. He 
 almost shouts his denial so weak he finds himself in physi- 
 cal courage that he seeks by such means to reassure himself. 
 
 " A very wild story, as you say ; no doubt false all 
 through," says Branksmere, with a sinister smile. " But it 
 was hardly to consider Mrs. Daryl's wrongs we came here 
 to-night. Let them pass until Daryl meets you ! What 
 we have now to think of is another affair altogether. By 
 the bye, what has brought you here ?" 
 
 He is now close to Staines, who makes a movement as 
 though to depart. Lord Branksmere, laying his hand 
 quickly upon his arm, gives him a sudden jerk that brings 
 him to the front in a second. 
 
 " My good fellow, don't go until we come to an under- 
 standing," he says. "From what I have learned, you are 
 anxious to take charge of Lady Branksmere from this day 
 forth and forever. Eh ? Why, speak up, man ; she is here 
 listening to you. She will want a spoken assurance of your 
 faith." 
 
 The gallant Captain, whose knees seem here to cease to 
 be a portion of himself, mutters something in a weak 
 whisper that as yet is unknown. 
 
 "You are modest," goes on Branksmere, still with a 
 diabolical calm full upon him. "We are waiting for the 
 lover-like statements that will declare your desire to take 
 charge of her you love."
 
 278 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 Goaded by this into speech, Staines makes answer. 
 
 " If you understand anything," he says, "it is, that I de- 
 sire nothing better than to spend my days insuring the 
 happiness of " 
 
 " Quite so ! " interrupts Lord Branksmere, curtly. 
 "You are, then, prepared to support her ? She is without 
 fortune, you know. There was a certain sum settled upon 
 her by me, but that she does not take with her." 
 
 "You cannot deprive her of it," cries Staines, hoarsely. 
 
 "True. But it appears she rejects her husband's gift, 
 with her husband. Speak for yourself here, madam," turn- 
 ing to his wife. "Is this so ? Is this as vou would have 
 it?" 
 
 " It is so," returns she, icily. 
 
 Any little blood that still remains in Staines' face now 
 flies from it. 
 
 "Well, sir?" questions Branksmere. "We await your 
 word." 
 
 But still the terrible silence continues. 
 
 Branksmere bursts into a loud laugh. 
 
 " Come, my gay lover ! What ! not a word ? Is the be- 
 loved one ungilded less desirable ? Come, now, one word, 
 then, if only for honor's sake. Still silent ? Why, how is 
 this, my lady ? Has this lover of yours no tongue ? Has 
 passion rendered him dumb ? Nay, reassure him, then. 
 Tell him he need not fear that poverty with him has any 
 terrors for you ! Still silent, man ! " 
 
 He leans toward Staines, and Staines, as though com- 
 pelled to it, once more answers him. His speech is ram- 
 bling ; it grows into a puerile mumbling at last. " He 
 should dread poverty for one beloved ! He had not deemed 
 it possible that she would have been so foolish as to 
 He breaks down ignominiously. 
 
 "The truth! The truth!" cries Branksmere, waving 
 his craven apologies aside. " What, swindler ! can't you 
 even raise your head before her whom you profess to love ? 
 Does not affection lend you courage ? Where are your 
 thoughts running now, eh? To that little affair in Wies- 
 baden, perhaps, that has damned you with the Junior Army 
 and Navy? Pshaw! how clear it all grows." Suddenly 
 he changes his tone. " You have not a penny in the world, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Not many, certainly," confesses Staines, recklessly, 
 driven to desperation by this last allusion about Wiesbaden. 
 
 " A mendicant, but willing to turn an honest penny,"
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 279 
 
 says Branksmere. " I know your sort, I think. Your 
 price to clear out of this ? Name it." 
 
 " Really " begins Staines, stammering. 
 
 "I know all that," interrupts Branksmere. " I will take 
 for granted all your surprise at my extraordinary way of 
 treating matters ; your astonishment that I should think 
 you capable of, etc. Let us come to the point. What will 
 you take to leave this place to-morrow ? A thousand, eh ? " 
 
 " I don't deny that it would be of use to me," says Staines, 
 in a surly tone. 
 
 " I am to understand, then, that you value your affection 
 at one thousand pounds. You agree to this sum ?" 
 
 " Well considering 
 
 " Go on. What am I to consider next ?" 
 
 " I had not prepared myself for an interview of this sort. 
 j " 
 
 " You have not had sufficient time to think over your 
 bargain. That can't be helped now, I fear. I am in a 
 hurry to get to the close of it. Come, sir. I await your 
 final answer with impatience." His fingers close over the 
 riding-whip he holds. 
 
 " It is all so new to me, you see," mutters Staines. " I 
 had not imagined you er -would have taken it in this 
 way. I should not, of course, like to drag Lady Branks- 
 mere into a life of pov 
 
 " If you mention Lady Branksmere's name again," says 
 Branksmere, in an unpleasantly slow sort of way, "I shall 
 kill you ! " 
 
 "Oh, it's not so easy to kill a fellow," says. Staines, be- 
 ginning to bluster a bit, Branksmere's enforced calm, up 
 to this, having led him fatally astray. " It seems to me 
 that for a fastidious man of honor, such as you boast your- 
 self to be, you have taken all this precious easily." 
 
 "Your price ! " says Branksmere, in an ominous tone. 
 
 " But, perhaps," with a sneer, "you looked upon me in 
 the light of a deliverer ; if so, you have spoiled your 
 own 
 
 " Your price!" says Branksmere again, breathing heavily. 
 
 "You offer me a thousand ; but you should take certain 
 things into consideration when making an arrangement of 
 this kind," returns Staines, who, having recovered from his 
 abject fit of cowardice of a moment since now flies to the 
 other extreme, and grows grossly insolent, with a view to 
 reasserting himself. " Silence on the subject of your wife's 
 character, for example, and "
 
 280 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Damnation ! " 
 
 Almost as the word leaves Lord Branksmere's lips he 
 has Staines within his grasp, and forcing him upon his 
 knees, and holding him by the collar of his coat, he drags 
 him along the ground until he has him at Lady Branks- 
 me 'e's feet. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 "Strong reasons make strong actions." 
 
 " LOOK at him, regard him well," he cries, in a low, ter- 
 rible tone : "what a brave front he shows ! How now, my 
 gay Lothario, where are your winning smiles ? Take 
 heart, man, all is not yet lost. That equivalent for your 
 disappointment shall be yours to-morrow morning, and 
 now, as earnest for your money you shall have this ! " 
 
 He lifts the hunting-whip, and brings it down with 
 savage force upon the shoulders of the kneeling wretch. 
 Like hail the blows descend ; the miserable hound making 
 no resistance nay even once or twice crying aloud for 
 mercy as the pain grows keener. 
 
 There comes a moment when Branksmere ceases to hold 
 him, and Staines, crawling nearer to Muriel, seizes her 
 skirt, and in a tone wild with terror implores her protec- 
 tion. In abject fear he clings to her, until Branksmere, 
 whose fury now is ungovernable, cuts away the trembling 
 fingers by a cruel stroke of the whip that is now nearly in 
 ribbons. 
 
 Lady Branksmere sickens a little at this sight, and lifts 
 both her hands to her head. 
 
 "Enough, enough!" she cries, faintly. "Let him go! 
 Would you take his life?" She drags Branksmere back 
 with all her might. " Let him go ; for my sake." 
 
 The words act like a spell. He flings the half-dead 
 Staines from him, as a dog might fling a rat, and turns 
 furiously upon her, panting more from passion than 
 fatigue. 
 
 "Ah! for your sake ! You love him still then, swindler, 
 seducer that he is ? " 
 
 "No, no, believe me. I was thinking of you then " 
 
 "For the first time, eh ?" He pushes her from him, 
 and looks back thirstily to where his adversary had fallen, 
 but that worthy had taken advantage of the interruption
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 281 
 
 to crawl away into the darkness like the reptile that 
 he is. 
 
 '' Come," says Branksmere, once more approaching his 
 wife. 
 
 " Where ? " asks she, shrinking from him. 
 
 " Back to the house." 
 
 " No ! Oh ! no ! " with a strong shudder. 
 
 " But I say yes," sternly. " What ! " with a stamp of 
 his foot. " Would you have this indecent farce go farther? 
 Back to the house, I say, and hide this night's work from 
 the world, with your life, if it yet be possible ; if," regard- 
 ing her fixedly, " I still can rely upon your word that you 
 have told no one but me of your intended flight." 
 
 " Why should you doubt it ? " asks she, coldly. " Did I 
 conceal anything ? When did I lie to you ? even of this," 
 with a comprehensive gesture. "I warned you. It is you 
 who have lied to me." There is no emotion in her tone, 
 no indignation, only a settled indifference. 
 
 " Have I ? " says Branksmere. He struggles with him- 
 self for a moment, and then goes on. " Let that rest, the 
 present has to be considered. Your miserable story is 
 
 known now only to you and me and " he hesitates he 
 
 is about to mention Mrs. Billy, who he is assured is cogni- 
 sant of all, but he refrains, " and to that cur," he winds lip 
 through his teeth. 
 
 " But after this to see you every day," falters she 
 faintly. "To be obliged to speak to look Oh! it is 
 horrible ! " 
 
 " If I can bear it, you can," returns he, significantly. 
 
 "True, you have shown yourself forebearing," she says, 
 and shivers a little as if with cold. And in truth she is 
 cold to her very heartstrings. Everything is at an end for 
 her. Her affairs have come to a deadlock. Hope, even 
 of a poor sort, is killed within her. Where is she to turn, 
 where to go ? How may life still hold sweets for such as 
 she ? "All is reaped now : no grass is left to mow," the 
 end indeed has come. 
 
 There is, perhaps, an accentuation of her grief in the 
 thought that she herself has had the chief hand in it. 
 With all the world before her where to choose, she had 
 elected to wed Branksmere without a loving thought to- 
 ward him, and now where is she landed ? Alas ! for the 
 barrenness of the coast, the cruelty of the rocks, the force 
 of the driving waves ! She is utterly bankrupt ; there is 
 no escape for her no hope nothing.
 
 282 LADY BRANKSMERR. 
 
 Not another word is uttered between them until they 
 once more reach the library, where she has mechanically 
 followed him. 
 
 "You are cold," he says, abruptly, marking the tremb- 
 ling of her frame ; "come closer to the fire." He would 
 have unfastened the lace wrappings round her throat, but 
 she repels him. 
 
 "Don't touch me," she exclaims, in a fierce, miserable 
 tone. 
 
 " As you will," returns he, shrugging his shoulders. 
 " You feel injured it seems, .yet I think you should feel grat- 
 itude at this moment of your existence, if never again." 
 
 " Gratitude to whom ? " 
 
 "To Mrs. Daryl. You should thank her all your days 
 for what she did for you to-night." 
 
 " Should I ? " 
 
 " She made a sacrifice for you that few women would 
 have made " 
 
 " And which I did not desire. Her story was a strange 
 one when all is told. What a confession ! Yet you fall 
 down before her. How much better is she than me ? Oh, 
 no, m?/" she cries, suddenly, as if in horror of herself, 
 " she is a good, a pure woman, and I dare not malign her ; 
 but what help she has ! Her happy marriage and the 
 love : always she has love," she ends, in a broken voice. 
 
 "She is, as you say, a good woman," returns Branks- 
 mere, coldly. 
 
 "And therefore a thing apart from the rest of your ac- 
 quaintances," sneers she. 
 
 "You at least, I repeat, should be grateful to her." 
 
 " And yet I am not," she laughs, suddenly, in a low but 
 rather wild fashion. 
 
 " Still hankering after that precious lover of yours," 
 says Branksmere, contemptuously. 
 
 "No. I am regretting only the .loss of the last hope I 
 had. Henceforth I am hopeless ! " Her sad laughter has 
 died from her, and now she hides away her face as might 
 one who is stricken to death. There is despair in her 
 gesture. 
 
 " I am sorry to have been the one to dissipate your 
 dream, yet that is the best service I could have done 
 you." Here his enforced calm gives way. " Fool ! " he 
 cries, savagely, " can't you see how it was ? " 
 
 "I do see, and yet if I had gone with him 
 
 "You never would have gone with him, at all events.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 283 
 
 If he had refused my terms, if he had addressed another 
 word to you, I would have killed him as I would a dog ! " 
 
 " Perhaps you have killed him," says she, indifferently. 
 
 " Such vermin die hard. Let no fears for him mar your 
 rest to-night. The remembrance of that check he is to re- 
 ceive to-morrow morning will keep him alive." 
 
 At this she winces. 
 
 " To persons of your temperament," continues he, 
 " safety is probably a dull good, yet believe me it has 
 its charms, at times. To-night you have returned to it." 
 
 " I have returned to my prison, rather," retorts she, bit- 
 terly. She turns from him and leaves the room. 
 
 Slowly she mounts the stairs, a small lamp within her 
 hand. Her face is ghastly pale, her blood feverish ; a 
 strong shrinking from finding herself alone with her own 
 thoughts leads her footsteps toward the heavy curtain that 
 has behind it the Dowager's apartments, and Madame von 
 Thirsk's. An idle fancy to waste her time by making 
 some inquiries about the old woman's health suggests it- 
 self to her. Moving with slow, indifferent steps, she draws 
 back the curtain noiselessly, and steps into the dimly- 
 lighted ante-chamber beyond. 
 
 Her senses are too benumbed to permit of her feeling 
 any very great surprise when she meets Madame von 
 Thirsk here. The Hungarian is leaning eagerly out of 
 the open window, as though in expectation of something. 
 The sound of Muriel's advancing footsteps reaching her at 
 last, she turns abruptly toward her. 
 
 It would be impossible to avoid noticing the expression 
 of blank dismay that overspreads her features as her eyes 
 fall on Muriel. The blood rushes in a crimson flush to 
 her brow, and then receding, leaves her white as death. 
 Evidently she is a prey to some very violent emotion, 
 against which she has had no time to guard herself. To 
 Lady Branksmere it occurs vaguely, that intense and ter- 
 rible disappointment is what is most plainly written upon 
 her mobile face. 
 
 " I have disturbed you, Madame," she says, coldly, re- 
 garding her with a judicial scrutiny that the other woman 
 plainly resents. 
 
 "Not at all. I was but looking on the night," she an- 
 swers in a somewhat quavering voice that is hardly so 
 carefully English as usual. 
 
 ^'A gloomy picture." On the instant it flashes across 
 Muriel's mind that this woman knew something of her in-
 
 284 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 tended flight. Why bad she looked so surprised, so baffled, 
 when she saw her? Had she been longing for her depart- 
 "ure ? Or more hateful thought still, and one that stings 
 more cruelly, was she waiting here for Branksmere ? Was 
 there an appointment arranged between them ? 
 
 Even as she ponders hurriedly on these imaginings, a 
 slight repetition of the cry that had come to her twice before, 
 startles her into more active thought. Looking round in- 
 stinctively to Madame she finds she has disappeared, and 
 that she is standing alone in the ante-room. Crossing 
 hurriedly to the Dowager's door she knocks. 
 
 It is opened by Brooks ; the pale, still woman who had 
 struck Muriel so many times before as being almost blood- 
 less. She checks Lady Branksmere as she makes a move- 
 ment to enter the room. 
 
 " Her Ladyship is not well to-night, my lady. I think 
 it will be wiser not to excite her with your presence." 
 
 " I do not remember that my presence ever excited her 
 before. Was it she who uttered that cry just now ?" 
 
 " A cry, my lady ? " The woman, who as a rule keeps 
 her eyes fixed immovably upon the ground, lifts them now 
 suddenly and glances at Lady Branksmere. They are pe- 
 culiar eyes, so light as to seem sightless. 
 
 " Certainly, a cry. You who were with her must have 
 heard it." 
 
 " She often cries aloud, my lady. I am so accustomed 
 to hear it, that perhaps I took no notice." Brooks's voice 
 is low, and a singular expression gathers around the cor- 
 ners of her thin lips. It is possible she had not heard the 
 cry from wherever it came, and is now hurriedly dwelling 
 upon that fact. A suspicion of excitement enters into her 
 manner, with a very open desire to get rid of Muriel with 
 all speed. "You will excuse me, my lady," she said 
 quickly. " I must return to Madam." 
 
 " Return by all means ; I shall go with you." 
 
 " Not to-night, my lady. I beg you will not come in 
 here to-night. I beg you will not disturb, distress " 
 
 " Has Lord Branksmere given you orders to forbid my 
 entrance here ? " 
 
 " No, my lady. But believe me it will be wiser not to 
 enter to-night. It will be better for you to leave this." 
 
 " So I shall when I have seen Lady Branksmere." 
 
 " You cannot see her ladyship to-night," says the woman, 
 in a tone of ill-suppressed anger that is curiously mixed 
 with fear.
 
 LA D Y BRA NKSMERE. 
 
 "Let me pass," returns Muriel, curtly. For the instant 
 it occurs to her that the woman means to resist her, but 
 a thin, high, terribly piercing old voice coming to them, 
 checks any further argument. It is the Dowager's. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 " I know him a notorious liar, 
 Think him a great way fool, solely a coward.'" 
 
 " WHO is there mumbling at that door, Brooks ? Let 'em 
 in ; let 'em in, I say. Am I to be kept imprisoned here by 
 you, with no one to give me ever a good-day ? Let 'em 
 in, I tell you." 
 
 "It is I, Lady Branksmere," says Muriel, advancing to 
 her, and leaning over her in the hearse-like bed in which 
 she lies. If it could be said of anyone so old that she 
 looks older, Muriel would have thought so ; older and 
 more enfeebled and ghastlier. The hair dressed in the 
 fashion of a long past generation, looks as though it were 
 clinging to the skull of a corpse, the wrinkles on the fore- 
 head resembled leather more than skin ; altogether the 
 poor old soul suggests the idea of having been forgotten by 
 death, and left here to slowly moulder above ground in- 
 stead of doing it more reputably in the family vault 
 among the bones of her ancestors. 
 
 "And who are you, eh? eh?" demands the old creat- 
 ure, lifting her weird face to stare at Muriel, whom she 
 had seen in the morning. " You are not the other one, 
 are you? " 
 
 "The other?" 
 
 " Yes, yes. The little one in her white gown. So 
 pretty ; so pretty," mumbles the old lady, her head nod- 
 ding as if gone beyond her control in her excitement. 
 " Such a little thing." 
 
 " Hush, Madam ! You don't know what you are say- 
 ing," interposes Brooks, sharply. " Sometimes she raves, 
 rny lady, and you know I warned you she was not well to- 
 night." 
 
 " She seems to me quite as usual. That strange hallu- 
 cination, or whatever it is that clings to her, never varies." 
 
 "You are wrong, Brooks; wrong. It was a white 
 gown ; and there was blood upon it bright specks of
 
 286 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 blood. Eh ? Eh ? I recollect it all. Eh ! Oh ! my 
 bonny boy my handsome laddie ! " Here she falls into 
 impotent weeping, until Brooks, with a sudden jerk of her 
 arm, brings her into another position, whereupon she is 
 all nods and becks and wreathed smiles again. This re- 
 ceiving of visitors, and the idle maunderings to them of 
 bygone memories, is the only means of consolation that 
 she acknowledges. Once Muriel had tried to read a Psalm 
 to her, but so great had been her indignation that she 
 never attempted it again. Now, having bidden her good- 
 night, she moves toward the door. As Brooks with her 
 eyes on the ground holds it open for her, another cry, 
 very low and subdued, seems to creep to her through the 
 semi-darkness of the apartment. 
 
 Muriel lifts her head sharply. 
 
 "There it is again. That was not Lady Branksmere," 
 she says, scrutinizing the woman's face keenly. But it 
 never moves. 
 
 "What is it, my lady?" 
 
 "That terrible cry. It sounded like the wail of a hurt 
 animal," answers Muriel, with a shudder. 
 
 " I heard no cry, my lady," says the woman, sullenly. 
 " But they do say this corridor is haunted." 
 
 With a last glance at her impassive countenance, Muriel 
 steps from the room and hurries swiftly out of sight, her 
 head throbbing, her heart beating wildly. What mystery 
 lay hidden in those rooms those rooms beyond the one 
 where the old dowager lay ? From whom came that wild, 
 melancholy wail ? What horrible thing is hidden in this 
 detested castle? And now to know that she must forever 
 dwell beneath its roof till kindly death releases her ! 
 
 She sinks upon a low stool, and lets her proud head fall 
 until it rests upon her knees round which her hands are 
 clasped. A forlorn figure, void of hope. Sadly, desper- 
 ately her thoughts wander, now here,, now there, but 
 after one brief dwelling on him that ends in a long drawn 
 breath of heaviest disgust never again to Staines. He 
 has dropped out of her life, and with his loss has come the 
 knowledge that love for him had had no part in the role 
 she had planned for her own acting. There had been only 
 the desire to escape, and the foolish belief in his love, and 
 above all, the longing for revenge ! 
 
 And now what is left her ? How can she endure the 
 daily intercourse with Branksmere the chance meetings 
 with Madame. These last may indeed be avoided, as
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 287 
 
 Madame for the last week or two has elected to dine in 
 her own rooms, stating as her pretext that the Dowager 
 is failing fast ; to attend whom is evidently an arduous 
 task, as Madame has grown singularly wan and dejected 
 during this fortnight. 
 
 The manner of the woman Brooks to-night has taken 
 strange hold upon Muriel. Of one thing she is assured, 
 that if anything secret lies within those rooms, she, 
 Brooks, knows of it. To solve the mystery ! to lay bare 
 this hidden thing ; to confront Branksmere with the dis- 
 graceful story he so fain would hide from her, his wife ! 
 It were well worth the trial. To get the keys, to open 
 wide this Bluebeard's closet, even though discovery be her 
 own ruin, is a task that seems so good to her that involun- 
 tarily she springs to her feet with flashing eyes and parted 
 lips, though still her dead-white face rests pale and color- 
 less. So be it then. If Branksmere compels her to re- 
 main within his doors, let him look to it ! for now, her 
 suspicions thoroughly awake, she will show no quarter, 
 but will lay bare this guilty secret, whatever it may be. 
 
 No sleep comes to her this night. Broad awake, she 
 lies, hour after hour, with her eyes wide in the darkness, 
 and her tired brain rushing through the arid plains of past 
 griefs and joys. She would gladly have broken away from 
 all such miserable memories, and wandered into the realm 
 of dreams, but such rest is denied her. Aloud she calls on 
 sleep to come to her, but all in vain ; each well-known 
 remedy she tries, yet fails in all. 
 
 " A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by 
 One after one ; the sound of rain, and bees 
 Murmuring ; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, 
 Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky ; 
 I've thought of all by turns, and still I lie 
 Sleepless. " 
 
 The dawning of the morn finds her still with her eyes 
 open, staring eagerly for the first faint flecks of light. 
 
 The chill soft breeze that heralds the opening day has 
 hardly yet arisen, however, and darkness still covers the 
 land a profound darkness that tells of the coming death of 
 Night. A figure, cloaked and hooded, emerging from the 
 quaint old oaken door on the western side of the castle, 
 looks nervously round her as she steps into the blackness 
 and tries to pierce it. Moving swiftly and unerringly,
 
 288 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 with light, firm footstep in the direction of the wooded 
 path to her right, she enters the line of elms, and makes 
 for a dense bit of brushwood further on. Arrived at it she 
 pauses, and a low "cooee" issues from her lips. It is 
 answered presently, and the woman, drawing a tiny lantern 
 from beneath her cloak, turns it full upon the man who 
 has answered her call. 
 
 It is Staines, though it is easier to recognize him by his 
 clothes than his features. Bruised, swollen, utterly de- 
 moralized in appearance, with a large strip of sticking 
 plaster across his Grecian nose, it is no wonder that the 
 woman on first glancing at him gives way to an exclama- 
 tion of horror. 
 
 "What is it; what has happened, then ?" cries she, in a 
 low tone. " I sent for you that I might learn how the 
 affair fell through, but I had not expected this." Madame 
 points expressively at his disfigured face. " Well, well, 
 well ?" she exclaims, impatiently, as he makes her no re- 
 ply. " How is it with you ? " 
 
 " It is all up," snarls he, hoarsely. " Nothing now is left 
 but flight." 
 
 "What, you have /ai/ed / " hisses she through her teeth. 
 " With the game in your hands you have lost ! Ach ! " she 
 gives way to a free curse or two in her own language, and 
 stamps her foot with irrepressible passion upon the ground. 
 
 " But only for the time being," she continues, eagerly. 
 " You will still win ? Is it not ? Patience patience and 
 your revenge for all will be sure." 
 
 " No it won't," says he, doggedly ; " I've done with it. 
 I'm played out, I tell you. That Daryl woman came upon 
 the scene, and damned my cause with her." 
 
 " Mrs. Daryl ! what had she to say to you ? " asks Mad- 
 ame, whereupon the ingenious Staines gives her his ver- 
 sion of that little romance in Germany. 
 
 "And this you kept from me," cries Madame, furiously, 
 when he has finished. "Ah! if I had but known. Her 
 silence might have been secured. I could have managed 
 that, when one remembers she had a husband with whom 
 she is in love. Fool ! Idiot ! could you not trust me in 
 such a matter as that. If your scruples about betraying 
 Mrs. Daryl's little secret were so strong, still " 
 
 " I don't think it was that," interrupts the magnani- 
 mous Staines. " It was that I felt secure in the thought 
 that she would not betray herself. But," sulkily : "There 
 is no use talking about it now."
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE, 289 
 
 "You will not make one more effort ? Your influence 
 over her, is surely strong' enough to enable you to con- 
 vince her that Mrs. Daryl lied." 
 
 " It is too late, I tell you ; she never so much as looked 
 after me when he when I that is when I left them." 
 
 " Oh ! to have toiled, and lied, and worked for this! " 
 cries she, wildly. " How I have labored to place that 
 woman beneath my feet that I might trample on her, crush 
 her, and now to be entirely baulked of my revenge, and 
 all through your imbecility." 
 
 " Hers rather. Had she not told Branksmere of her de- 
 termination to leave him, she would have been well out of 
 your path by this time. He would gladly have been rid 
 of her, I believe, but she misunderstood him when she 
 supposed he would make no fight for his honor" 
 
 " Well, you have lost your money," says she. 
 
 " Why ! no. It appears she had made up her mind not 
 to touch a penny of it." 
 
 " Hah ! " She comes nearer to him and examines his 
 features (which look rather mixed) in a curious way. "So 
 that was why you did not make a greater stand," she cries. 
 " When the money failed you, you cried off ! You have 
 been false to our bargain. You have destroyed the re- 
 venge which I swear to you was more to me than the 
 hopes of winning his love. Ah, poltron ! coward ! lache ! " 
 Her frame trembles with passion. She goes nearer to 
 him still, and turns the lamp, with an insolent air, on his 
 bowed figure, and the generally craven appearance that 
 marks him. "So he beat you!" she cries, exultantly. 
 " Beat you before her your ideal ! Ach the brave fel- 
 low ! " She breaks into a loud, derisive laugh. 
 
 " Go home you she-devil, before I murder you," 
 breathes Staines, fiercely. Seizing her by the throat he 
 shakes her violently to and fro, and flings her from him 
 into the thick darkness of the shrubs behind her. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 " Filled from the heart to the lips with love, 
 
 Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings." 
 
 "WELL!" exclaims Mrs. Billy, in a heartfelt tone. She 
 sinks into a chair and looks round her the very picture of 
 misery. " What a cruel shock to him, poor fellow. I as- 
 
 '9
 
 290 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 sure you the news has made me feel just anyhow ! Stick a 
 thing to go and happen to him." 
 
 " It is a beastly shame," says Dick indignantly. 
 
 "What is? What's the matter?" asks Mr. Paulyn, 
 sauntering into the room at Angelica's heels, with whom 
 it is quite evident he is not now on speaking terms. 
 
 "Why, haven't you heard ? " asks Mrs. Billy, with tears 
 in her eyes, " about poor Curzon ? The failure of that 
 Cornish mine has ruined him." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " cries Tommy. " What a horrid 
 thought ! Where is he ? Who told you ? It's a lie most 
 likely." 
 
 "No such luck," returns Billy dejectedly. "It's only 
 too true. Poor old chap ! I had a line from him about an 
 hour ago, and Peter has run down to him to bring him up 
 here. He can't be left by himself, you know." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " says Mr. Paulyn again, whose conver- 
 sational brilliancies seem to have deserted him, and who 
 appears to find a fund of consolation in thus entreating 
 blessings on himself. Instinctively his eyes turn on Mar- 
 gery, who is sitting a little apart from the rest, pale and 
 silent, but certainly the least moved of the lot. 
 
 " So that young man has come to grief, hey ? " calls out 
 a gruff old voice from the hall outside. "Never thought 
 much of him myself," Sir Mutius by this time has entered 
 the room. " Fools and their money soon part." 
 
 " Uncle Mutius, how can you so speak of him ; how was 
 it his fault ? " cries Angelica angrily. " Did he make the 
 hateful mine a failure ? You must see how cruel it is of 
 you to talk like that." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, miss! What d'ye mean by being so 
 saucy? D'ye forget that I'm your uncle, Angelica ? I tell 
 you that any one in this world who falls from riches into 
 poverty will be counted a fool by most." 
 
 "You see now, Angelica, what a reprehensible thing it 
 is to be so hopelessly ignorant as you are," says Mr. 
 Paulyn, shaking his head reprovingly at his cousin, who 
 looks daggers at him in return. 
 
 "Whilst men like William," goes on the old mischief- 
 maker, " who raise themselves from poverty to riches by 
 means of a moneyed wife, are always applauded." 
 
 If he had hoped to incense Mrs. Billy by this coarse 
 allusion to her wealth, he is disappointed. That small 
 matron casts a glance at her husband, after which they both 
 break into untimely mirth.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 291 
 
 "Ah! you can laugh, can you," growls Sir Mutius, 
 " when your chief friend is so sore smitten ! Poor comfort 
 he'll get from you, i' faith, in spite of all your protestations. 
 Well, I'm glad / never professed affection for the young 
 man. I've the less trouble now. How about you, Margery ? 
 He was a beau of yours. Eh ?" 
 
 "Most people like Margery," interposes Mrs. Billy 
 quickly, noting something mutinous in the girl's mouth. 
 "And Ctirzon affected us all, more or less. You must not 
 draw conclusions, Sir Mutius, from the fact that he was 
 here so often." 
 
 " Permit me to say, madam, that Mr. Bellevv, whom you 
 designate so familiarly as Curzon, was known to me long 
 before your advent, and that you can hardly post me as to 
 his affairs. I say he was in love with my niece Margery, 
 and that she had the very good sense to have nothing to do 
 with him. A fortunate thing now, Margery, as things have 
 turned out hey ? If you had engaged yourself to him you 
 might have had some difficulty in getting out of it, and 
 marriage with a beggar would hardly suit you eh ? ha ! 
 Oh ! Good-morrow, Bellew ; good-morrow ! " 
 
 "You are right, Sir Mutius, marriage with a beggar 
 means only misery," says Curzon calmly, who had entered 
 the room during the old man's speech. He is looking pale 
 and haggard, but not beaten. A great despair lies in his 
 honest eyes, born of a renunciation of a dear hope, but he 
 holds his head as high as ever, and there is no faltering in 
 his clear, sweet voice. 
 
 " It is quite true, then, Curzon ? Is there no chance for 
 you ? " asks Angelica, who lias run to him, and thrown her 
 arms round his neck to give him a loving kiss. 
 
 " None whatever," bravely, " in the way you mean. I 
 went up to my lawyer about it this morning, and it ap- 
 pears when all is over and done I shall be left with about 
 ^400 a year. The old place, of course, will have to go, 
 and He stops abruptly, and walks over to the win- 
 
 dow. Mrs. Billy and Angelica burst into tears ; the men 
 fidget. Margery alone remains calm and unsympathetic 
 as a statue. 
 
 "Oh ! hang it, you know, it's impossible ; a fellow can't 
 be swindled like that, without any redress," breaks out 
 Tommy, commencing to prance about the room. " Let's 
 all put our heads together, and try what can be done." 
 
 " Nothing can be done," says Curzon, turning round 
 again. " I've thought it all out, and in time I shall be
 
 292 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 reconciled to it. I shall forget it all that is " looking 
 down "nearly all ! And one can work, you know ; and 
 there's many a fellow hasn't even 400 a year." 
 
 " No, by Jove," acquiesces Dick heartily, who hasn't a 
 penny beyond what his brains will bring him. 
 
 "I dare say to some, therefore, that amount might mean 
 riches," goes on Curzon, pleading his own cause bravely, 
 " though I agree with you, Sir Mutius " looking at him 
 with a kind smile " that it really does mean beggary. 
 But that is the result of one's training." 
 
 " No, no, don't mistake me," says the old baronet, bring- 
 ing his stick firmly down upon the carpet. "Four hun- 
 dred pounds a year is not to be despised. It is an excellent 
 sum, excellent, and may be 
 
 "But not to one accustomed to as many thousands," in- 
 terrupts Mrs. Billy tearfully. 
 
 " I was going to say, when you so rudely interrupted 
 me," goes on Sir Mutius crossly ; "that if properly utilized 
 such a sum might make the foundation of a fortune. Now 
 abroad " spreading forth his hands and lifting his brows, 
 and casting his glance full of the liveliest encouragement 
 at Curzon " there is great scope for a young man's intel- 
 lect when backed up with a little capital. You might go 
 to New Zealand, for example a fine opening there or to 
 Australia, or to Canada." 
 
 " Or to the Deuce ! " supplements Billy cheerfully. " But, 
 after all, perhaps, none of us, however lucrative the post, 
 Avould hardly care to see him there." 
 
 " You are flippant, William," growls Sir Mutius, frown- 
 ing. 
 
 "What Sir Mutius means," says Curzon boldly, though 
 his lips turn very white, " is, that he would be glad to see 
 me well out of this country because of Margery. But there 
 he is mistaken. I assure you, Sir Mutius, your niece never 
 gave me any cause to hope she loved me, never even when 
 I had something to offer her, and now 
 
 "I am very glad to hear it from your lips, too, although 
 I knew it before. My niece, sir, is a young woman of 
 sense. She will marry well, if she marries at all." 
 
 "That is quite true!" The voice is Margery's, and a 
 sudden silence falls upon the room as she speaks. She 
 has risen from her seat, and is looking with her beautiful 
 eager eyes full at Bellew. " I shall do well indeed if I 
 marry Curzon ! " She advances toward Curzon in a slow 
 dreamy fashion, and then stops short and holds out her
 
 LADY BRANKSMER& 293 
 
 hands to him. " Will you have me, Curzon ? " she asks 
 softly. 
 
 " No no," cries Bellew, pressing her back from him. 
 
 " I understand the sacrifice, my Don't make it so hard 
 
 for me, Margery ; you are all so kind, so tender, and now 
 this from you ! my best friend, no." 
 
 <; Ah ! " murmurs she piteously, in a very agony of dis- 
 tress. " Why don't you know ? " she covers her face with 
 her hands. " Take me away from this," she whispers 
 faintly. 
 
 "Yes, go. Into the garden anywhere! believe her- 
 believe every word she says," cries Mrs. Billy, pushing 
 them both toward the door. 
 
 "Come back here, Margery come back I say," roars 
 Sir Mutius ; but Margery has gone beyond his lungs. 
 "And to think that I meant to make that girl my heiress!" 
 cries he raging. " But she shall see she shall see ! " 
 
 At present she sees nothing not even Curzon, who is 
 standing beside her a very monument of despairing love. 
 
 "Don't be so unhappy about it," he says gently, mistak- 
 ing her embarrassment. They have readied the inner gar- 
 den and are safe from prying eyes. " Do you think I 
 don't understand the generosity that prompted you to 
 speak when Sir Mutius was making himself so objection- 
 able ; do you think when you said, 'Why don't you 
 know T ? ' that I didnt know ? My darling, were you afraid 
 I should take you at your word ? I sometimes used to 
 think that as you liked me (you do like me, don't you, 
 Margery ?) and as it was in my power to make you happy 
 in many little ways, that it was no harm to try and induce 
 you to marry me ; but now Well, it is out of my 
 power to make you happy in the little ways now, and " 
 
 " Let me speak," cries she distractedly. " Oh ! Curzon, 
 there is something a small thing just one thing that I 
 must tell you." 
 
 " That you never really cared for me? Why, I knew 
 that, my love," replies he rather wearily. 
 
 " No. Oh ! no." She stands back from him, and glances 
 at him rather shamefacedly. Then comes a step nearer. 
 " It is only that I do love you so!'" she cries suddenly, 
 the tears running down her cheeks. 
 
 " Take care, Margery. Remember everything ! " says Bel- 
 lew, trembling. "I am poor. I have nothing now" with 
 deep agitation " worth offering, save my love. You know 
 that."
 
 2 9 4 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 
 
 " It is because I do know it that I speak. All at once I 
 seemed to know ! When you came into the room and stood 
 before us all, with that pale look upon your face, and said 
 that you were ruined, I felt at once that if you hadn't a 
 farthing on earth I was born to be your wife." 
 
 " My little sweet soul ! " says Curzon, in a low breathless 
 tone. He has not gone nearer. It seems as though he 
 can do nothing but look at her, so fair, so sweet, and all 
 his own. She has lifted her hands to her pretty flushed 
 cheeks, and now she raises her eyes to his shyly. 
 
 "Won't you have me for your wife, Curzon ? " she whis- 
 pers tremulously, and then in a moment she is in his em- 
 brace, their arms round each other, their eyes look long, as 
 though each would search the other's heart, and when at 
 last their lips meet, ruin and trouble and possible poverty 
 are forgotten, and a breath from heaven is theirs. 
 
 For love ! Thy purest and greatest gift ; let i:s, oh ! 
 Thou Giver of all things, be duly grateful ! 
 
 "You are sure you love me?" asks he presently, as 
 though fearful of her answer. 
 
 "Quite quite sure," earnestly. "And so happy in the 
 thought that you love me." 
 
 " You must have been happy in that thought a long time, 
 darling." 
 
 " How much you have borne from me," she murmurs 
 softly. " How bad I have been to you ! There is a line 
 somewhere that always reminds me of you ; you have been 
 so good, so patient. ' He was therewith full-filled of gentle- 
 ness.' I have thought it all out long ago, you see, but I 
 never was certain of myself until to-day." 
 
 " Until I told you that I had lost everything ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then I am glad that mine failed, '' says this foolish 
 young man, simply and truly, and from his heart. 
 
 "That isn't a very wise thing to say, is it?" murmurs 
 Miss Daryl thoughtfully. "And yet, do you know, I my- 
 self don't feel sorry." 
 
 "Of course, we shall have something," says he ruefully. 
 " But 400 a year ! It is penury." 
 
 "It is opulence," gayly, "with the love we can throw 
 in." 
 
 " Oh, Margery ! If I was sure you would never regret 
 it. But it looks to me almost like a swindle to get you to 
 marry me, now that I am worth almost nothing. If you 
 should ever reproach me it would almost kill me. Not that
 
 LADY BRAA'A'SMKRI-:. 295 
 
 that would signify at all," hastily. " Only I am afraid the 
 disappointment and the worry might make you miserable." 
 
 To this she returns no answer, save a terrible silence. 
 With her eyes fixed obstinately upon the ground she lets 
 a full minute go by without a word from her; a sure 
 method of betraying one's anger ! Curzon feels it. Her 
 indignation that touches him instinctively, yet is not un- 
 derstood by him at the moment lies like a weight upon 
 him. 
 
 " You are vexed with me ! " he says contritely. 
 
 " Have I no cause?" she answers, with quick reproach. 
 And then with a sudden, pretty shy impulse, she over- 
 comes herself, and drawing a little closer to him, winds 
 her soft arms around his neck as a child might do, and 
 raises her lips to his as though asking for a caress. This 
 demand, how sweet it is ! His clasp tightens round her. 
 
 " The cause, sweetheart ? " 
 
 " That you should ask it ! And yet I have given you 
 reason indeed to doubt me. But do not, Curzon. Try to 
 believe that poverty and privation with you would be 
 sweeter to me than life with any other man, had he the 
 mines of Golconda." 
 
 " I do believe you," says Bellew. 
 
 This, indeed, is the last doubt he ever entertains of her. 
 
 "You must forgive me if I pained you, but I have been 
 left so long without hope to comfort me, that certainty, 
 now it has come, has dazzled me." Then, "Darling, I love 
 you. How I love you," he breathes, rather than speaks. 
 
 She laughs softly, and the dawn of a blush breaks upon 
 her cheek. 
 
 " I know that," she says saucily. " If you don't trust me, 
 you see I trust you. But of one thing I warn you, Curzon, 
 that I am not married to you yet. There is many a slip, 
 you know." 
 
 "Not when one is fairly caught." 
 
 "Caught !" stepping daintily behind a huge rose bush. 
 " Who said that word ? Am /caught, think you ? Well, 
 a last chance then ! If you catch me before I reach the 
 yew-tree over there, I'll " 
 
 Most unfairly she starts away across the velvet sward, 
 straight for the desired harbor, giving him hardly time to 
 understand her challenge. But love has wings, and before 
 she has reached the aged yew she is in his grasp, and once 
 for all she owns him conqueror.
 
 296 LADY BRANKSMEKE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 " Every sense 
 Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense,. 
 
 And each frail fibre of her brain, 
 
 Sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide.'' 
 
 MADAME VON THIRSK has fallen asleep. A glorious flood 
 of October sunshine streaming into the library reveals this 
 fact. 
 
 Although so late in the autumn the clays are still bright 
 and enjoyable ; there is only a pleasant chill upon the air, 
 and the leaves fall softly to their graves through golden 
 gleams of sunlight. The wind that lifts them from their 
 boughs and wafts them to the breast of the earth is full of 
 vigor, and indeed the whole air is rich in a vitality that 
 should give him who breathes it renewed strength. Ma- 
 dame, however, seems to have derived small benefit from 
 it. Lying back in her chair, in a slumber so deep, so mo- 
 tionless as to suggest exhaustion, one may notice the lines 
 of care or anxiety, or perhaps subtly concealed sorrow that 
 marks each feature. Her lips are pale and drawn, her 
 cheeks sunken, dark shadows lie beneath her eyes, that 
 seem as though sleep had for some time past been a stran- 
 ger to them. She looks anything but her best ; to look 
 that, one must be happy, and grief and she appear to be on 
 friendly terms. 
 
 Lady Branksmere, who has entered the room in her 
 usual slow, lifeless fashion, so lightly as to fail to disturb 
 so heavy a sleeper, draws near to her through a sort of fas- 
 cination, and standing over her stares down upon, and 
 studies the face, so impenetrable as a rule, but now laid 
 bare and unprotected in its unconsciousness. 
 
 For a long time she gazes upon the woman she deems 
 her rival, a bitter smile upon her lips. Then her eyes 
 wander over Madame's elaborately simple toilette, over 
 the exquisitely shaped little brown hands so covered with 
 costly rings, over the carefully careless knot of ribbons 
 upon her breast, clown to her waist, where, something 
 catching her eye rivets her attention immovably and puts 
 an end to her idle examination. 
 
 After all it is only a kev. A well-sized key of a very or-
 
 7.1 DV BRANKSMRRK* 297 
 
 dinary type. In effect a door key! It could hardly be 
 termed an ornament, such as might be worn by so fastidi- 
 ous a dresser as Madame, yet it hangs now from her belt 
 by a slight but strong, silken cord. It had evidently been 
 concealed in the bosom of her gown, and had escaped dur- 
 ing her slumber, and is now lying so that any one may 
 see it. 
 
 Lady Branksmere's lips pale, and her eyes grow bright 
 as they rest upon it. Not for one moment does she hesi- 
 tate. She forms her purpose on the spot, nor falters in 
 the fulfilling of it. All is fair in love and war, and surely 
 it has been war for many a month between this woman 
 and her. Taking up a pair of scissors lying on the table 
 near, she cuts deliberately the silken cord, and possessing 
 herself of the key leaves the room. 
 
 Not once does her heart fail her. And when she stands 
 before Madame's door and fits the key into the lock, and 
 throws it open, and at last crosses the threshold of the for- 
 bidden chambers, no sense of fear, no desire to draw back 
 whilst yet there is time, oppresses her, only a longing to 
 solve the problem that for so many days has been an insult 
 to her. Surely, as it seems to her, the right is on her 
 side. As an outraged wife, she takes her stand. He 
 Branksmere had compelled her to return to his roof, had 
 cut from beneath her feet the sweet revenge she had so 
 carefully prepared, had foiled her effort to escape, by 
 which not only her, but his, freedom might have been se- 
 cured, and now Well, now let him look to it. If he 
 
 has insisted upon her return, and forced her to occupy the 
 position of head of his house, she will exercise the powers 
 given, and refuse to permit within her house apartments 
 denied to her. 
 
 She throws up her head, and it is with a sense of posi- 
 tive triumph that she steps into the first room and looks 
 around her. 
 
 A charming room, delicately but simply furnished. An 
 easel in one corner, a few water-colors lying loosely upon 
 the tables, and a low lounge, covered with a dainty cre- 
 tonne ; a Valerie jar or two, and a Dresden bowl, made 
 sweet with flowers ; a few Indian mats. A little breeze 
 that comes through the open windows wafts to and fro 
 the soft white curtains. Upon the hearth a gentle smoul- 
 dering fire. Altogether it is a restful room, that speaks 
 of a mind at peace with aH the world. 
 
 Muriel takes it in at a glance, and hastens toward the
 
 29 8 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 door opposite to the one she has entered. It leads to a 
 room, small, and evidently meant as a mere passage from 
 the room left to the one beyond, the door of which is par- 
 tially open. Muriel has half crossed this ante-chamber, 
 when a soft musical sound, coming apparently from some 
 place near at hand, causes her to stand still. The voice of 
 one singing. Yet hardly singing, either. There is not 
 sufficient coherence about it to let such a term be applied 
 to it ; it is rather a low harmonious crooning that breaks 
 upon her ear. The sound is sweet, and pathetic, and 
 young ! 
 
 Muriel's heart begins to beat tumultuously. A voice 
 here, a woman's voice, and Madame von Thirsk asleep 
 downstairs ! What can this mean ? Is she on the brink 
 of the discovery of some mystery that hitherto has come 
 to her, vaguely indeed, and never in such a guise as this ? 
 Who is this singer ? She pushes open the half-closed door, 
 and steps lightly into the room. 
 
 At the far end of it, seated on a prie-dieu, with her lap 
 full of flowers, sits a girl a pale, slender girl dressed all 
 in white. There is not an atom of color about her any- 
 where, and her face, which is a fine oval one, is, if possible 
 more colorless than her gown. Her eyes are lowered, and 
 she is playing in a curiously absent way with the blossoms 
 amongst which her fingers are straying aimlessly, and is 
 singing to them in that strange monotone that had star- 
 tled Muriel. 
 
 Now she looks up some instinct that tells her some one 
 is watching, making her senses keen. She stares straight 
 at Muriel, and her eyes are a revelation. They are blue, 
 but such an unearthly blue, and what is the cold dull gleam 
 in them ? And are they looking at Muriel, or at some ob- 
 ject beyond her ? Her fingers still play idly amongst the 
 flowers, whilst these strange eyes of hers are wandering 
 vaguely. 
 
 " Come in, come in," she murmurs eagerly, so eagerly 
 that Muriel ponders within herself as to whether she and 
 this white, smiling girl may not have met before under 
 different circumstances. That she betrays no agitation, 
 no awkwardness at thus coming face to face with the 
 hostess who has not invited her to her house, is strange 
 indeed. She is looking unconcernedly at Muriel, with a 
 smile upon her lips a soft, yet stereotyped smile that is 
 rather unpleasant. 
 
 Has she ever met her before ? Surely she must have
 
 LADY BRAXK'SMERE. 299 
 
 done so, so utterly without surprise, so friendly is the 
 greeting she accords her. And then that expression about 
 the mouth shadowy, but yet like who is it like ? 
 
 "More; have you brought more?" asks the pale girl 
 anxiously, leaning forward, the eternal smile still upon 
 her face. It seems to Muriel that she would be almost 
 more than beautiful but for the nameless something that 
 mars her expression. " I haven't nearly enough," she 
 goes on confidentially ; " see, it is quite a poor show 
 yet." 
 
 She waves her hand about the room blithely, but in a 
 rather disconnected way, and Lady Branksmere following 
 her gesticulations, sees that the apartment is literally 
 crowded with flowers, of all kinds and all hues, save one. 
 No crimson, red, or scarlet blossom lies among them. 
 
 She brings back her glance again to the girl, and now 
 regarding her more fixedly, perceives that the face is not 
 so young as she had at first imagined. A little shudder 
 passes over her as she meets the stranger's more direct 
 gaze, and sees that she has risen and is coming toward her. 
 Her glance is half-exultant, half-cunning. She creeps 
 closer to Muriel and whispers slyly. 
 
 " Do you know whose birthday it is ? " 
 
 " No," in a frozen tone. 
 
 " No ? Why it is his ! That is why the flowers are here, 
 the flowers he loves so well." Muriel stares at her. 
 Branksmere's passion for flowers had not come beneath 
 her notice. " By and by for dinner we dine late, he and 
 I I shall be decked with them. He likes to see me so. 
 His heart's ease, as he calls me. A pretty name, eh ?" 
 
 She is running her fingers up and down Muriel's arm as 
 she speaks, with a slow, lingering touch. Lady Branks- 
 mere abruptly moves beyond her reach. 
 
 " He dines with you ! " she repeats in a voice of disgust. 
 Then, icily, " Do you know who I am ? Whose house 
 this is ?" 
 
 "His," says the girl absently. "Oh! yes, he will come 
 to-night. Sometimes," dropping her voice, "he cannot 
 come, because there is some one below," pointing to the 
 ground, "who keeps him, holds him, chains him, so that 
 he dare not come. But soon she will be gone ; Thekla 
 says so." 
 
 "Who is he? Of whom are you speaking?" asks Mu- 
 riel. Her tone is so harsh, so strained, that even to her- 
 self it is hardly recognizable.
 
 300 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Do you know him, then ? Look, you shall see him." 
 She points to a distant table, where Muriel, who is feeling- 
 sick and cold, sees a large cabinet photograph of her hus- 
 band ! She knows it well its fellow lies in one of the al- 
 bums downstairs. 
 
 "He will come to-night?" she asks faintly, looking at 
 the girl, whose face is no whiter than her own. 
 
 "To-night, yes. It is his festival, see you, and we shall 
 keep it merrily! Listen!" She holds up one forefinger, 
 and advances upon Muriel, nay, actually presses upon her 
 in her eagerness, as Muriel instinctively recoils with hor- 
 ror from her touch. " If you wish it, you shall be invited 
 too ! I'll get him to ask you ; he refuses me nothing, but 
 don't let Thekla know. Thekla, little cat ! She would 
 keep me an eternal prisoner here, but he is on my side, 
 and you may rely upon his aid in getting you here." She 
 laughs gleefully, and again claps her hands. "We shall 
 outwit her," she cries. 
 
 " We ? " 
 
 "Ay. You and I and he, and " She pauses as if 
 
 confused, -and then goes on : " You will have remarked," 
 she whispers confidentially, " that she has grown very 
 stupid of late." 
 
 " Who has grown stupid ? " 
 
 "Why, Thekla. No," impatiently, "we won't have her. 
 You are new, fresh, strange. He likes strange faces, and 
 we shall coax him so, eh ?" 
 
 "What is Branksmere to you?" cries Muriel sharp- 
 ly. 
 
 " Do you not even know that ? Have they not told you ? 
 Why my husband!" returns the stranger, with a peculiar 
 little jerky wave of her hand. A low cry breaks from 
 Muriel. She staggers backward, and puts out her arms 
 as though to ward off some advancing horror. " To-night, 
 to-night, you shall be made known to him ! " goes on the 
 girl lightly. " But Thekla ! Why, she can stay " point- 
 ing to a small door, covered by a silken curtain, that up to 
 this has escaped Muriel's notice " with the old witch in 
 there!" Again the unmeaning smile widens her lips. 
 " They'll be fine company for each other, eh ? " 
 
 She laughs. To her dying day Lady Branksmere never 
 forgets that laugh. It rings through the room, yet where 
 is the mirth in it ? Oil ! the terrible discordancy of it, 
 the dearth of merriment in the eyes, the open, gaping 
 mouth !
 
 LADY BRANKSMEKE. 301 
 
 " You will come, you pale thing ! " she asks eagerly, 
 "and we'll sing to him, you and I. Say, is it 
 
 " ' Beauty sat bathing by a spring, 
 Where fairest shades did hide her. 
 Hey, nonny, nonny O ! 
 Hey, nonny, nonny?' " 
 
 Her voice now is slightly raised, her manner excited. 
 ' And we'll dance, too," she cries, catching up her skirts, 
 with both hands. "Sing hey! Sing ho! Hey, nonny 
 nonny, O ! " 
 
 She lifts her feet one by one in a jerky fashion and 
 sways to and fro in a very ecstasy of delight. 
 
 "Join in join in!" she calls to Muriel, and sways 
 more eagerly, and twirls herself round and round with a 
 terrible speed and laughs again. A wild laughter this 
 time, that ends in a wilder shriek. 
 
 Lady Branksmere, utterly unnerved, makes a movement 
 toward the door. Unhappily her flight conveys the idea 
 that she is afraid. The girl springs after her, clutches at 
 her gown, arid clings to it. A most horrible glare has, 
 come into her eyes. Muriel shrinks from her, and as she 
 does so, a large bunch of crimson ribbons, lying hidden 
 among the folds of the tea-green gown she is wearing, 
 is brought conspicuously into view and strikes upon the 
 sight of the stranger, and then it is all over ! 
 
 In a second with one spring she is upon Muriel, her 
 fingers round her throat, her eyes ablaze, the demon mad- 
 ness wide awake ! The fair, soft childish face of a mo- 
 ment since is now transfigured distorted beyond recogni- 
 tion, and the lips, purple and widely parted, are quivering 
 with a rage that knows no reason ! 
 
 Shriek upon shriek rends the air ! Great heaven ! Even 
 at this awful moment, when her breath is fast failing her, 
 beneath the clutch of the maniac's fingers, and when those 
 wild glaring eyes are gazing into hers, Muriel remembers 
 that terrible cry, and once again imagines herself to be 
 upon that luckless corridor at midnight. 
 
 Again and again that awful yell arises, growing fiercer 
 as time goes on. Not all the padding on the doors can 
 stifle it ! Closer and closer the mad-woman's arms clasp 
 Muriel in that deadly embrace, until at last, with a faint 
 groan, her victim ceases to struggle, and with a sigh her 
 head falls backward. 
 
 There is a crash a groan !
 
 302 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 " Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the phy- 
 sician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom 
 time cannot console ! '' 
 
 THE touch of cold water upon her brow, a struggle with 
 memory, and Muriel once more opening her eyes looks 
 languidly around. Everything has come back to her. 
 She remembers that last horrible scene, and wonders 
 vaguely how it is she is now alive and in her own room, 
 with Bridgman bending over her. Has Branksmere heard 
 of it ? And if so, why 
 
 Her eyes meet those of her maid, who is gazing solici- 
 tously at her, and sinking back again among her pillows, 
 she looks at her inquiringly. Was it Bridgman who had 
 come to her rescue ? Is the secret at last betrayed to the 
 household ? What does this woman know ? 
 
 " I fainted, Bridgman ? " 
 
 "Yes, my lady, but you are better now. You must not 
 try to think yet awhile, but just lie quiet and let me bathe 
 your head." 
 
 " Did you find me ? " 
 
 " Oh ! no, my lady, you must have been gone off in quite 
 a dead sort of way for a long time befoje I was called. I 
 'card the bell ringing violently, and I ran upstairs to find 
 you lying on the lounge in my lord's arms, for all the world 
 as if you were dead. ' Good 'evings,' says I, ' what's come 
 to my lady ? ' and then he just waited to see how you were, 
 my lady, and when you gave signs of coming to your breath 
 again, he had to run away to her ladyship, the Dowager, 
 he said." 
 
 So! He had thrown her over upon her maid's tender 
 mercies. Hour after hour had gone by and he had not 
 returned even to inquire how she was. It was half-past 
 three then, it must now be quite six o'clock, judging by 
 the darkness without, and the drawn curtains and the 
 lighted lamps, yet up to this he has studiously absented 
 himself. On the very first opportunity he had left her, 
 and hastened back to ; she shudders. Oh! what terri- 
 ble link binds him to that unfortunate creature ! 
 
 " Her ladyship is worse, then ? " she asks faintly, keeping 
 up the fiction.
 
 LADY BKANKSMEKE. 303 
 
 " Yes, my lady ; much worse. Not expected to recover, 
 I 'ear. Her screams was hawful a while ago. Quite un- 
 earthly, as I'm told." 
 
 The Dowager's screams ! Muriel almost smiles. How 
 plain it all is to her now. She shivers nervously. 
 
 "You are feeling ill again, my lady," says Bridgman, 
 anxiously, who is very fond of her. ' My lord said you 
 were to take this brandy, if possible, and said, too, he'd be 
 back as soon as he could. Do now try to take it, my lady." 
 
 " I want nothing nothing," returns Muriel, impatiently ; 
 "only to be alone. Go, Bridgman, go. I cannot rest with 
 anyone near me." 
 
 " But, my lady 
 
 " I promise I shall ring for you if I feel weaker," says 
 Muriel gently. " Now go, my good Bridgman. Ah 
 
 She starts and makes an effort to rise to her feet, as 
 Branksmere enters the room, even as the maid leaves it. 
 
 Pale as Muriel was before, she is now ghastly as she 
 confronts her husband. As for him there seems to be but 
 one thought in his mind. He conies up to her, his brows 
 contracted, and seizing her by the arm turns her to the 
 nearest lamp. 
 
 "You are safe, unhurt," he mutters, scanning her with 
 eyes that would seek to rend concealment from her. So 
 open, so terribly real is his anxiety, that it should have 
 touched her but she remains cold and unmoved. She 
 even withdraws herself from his grasp as though it is hate- 
 ful to her, and goes away from him a step or two. 
 
 " She might have killed you," he says in a low tone. He 
 looks white and haggard and is trembling in every limb. 
 "What possessed you to enter that room ? " 
 
 " If you expect me to apologize for my intrusion there, 
 you will be disappointed," returns she, slowly. " I see no 
 reason why I, as mistress of this house, should not enter 
 any apartment in it." Even as she speaks she remembers 
 how by her own act some time since, she had forfeited all 
 right to any claim upon this household, and the hot blood 
 mounting to her head almost choaks her. But he appears 
 to notice nothing. 
 
 " When I found you there," he goes on, " in her grasp 
 Mrs. Brooks was quite unable to drag her off you I 
 thought, I feared He shudders violently. 
 
 " I beg you will no longer distress yourself about me," 
 says Muriel, curtly ; "I am well, uninjured. All I now re- 
 quire," regarding him steadily, " is an explanation."
 
 3 04 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 He pauses, he is about to reply, when 
 
 "You shall have it," exclaims a voice from the doorway, 
 where Madame von Thirsk stands, pale and wild, her arms 
 folded upon her breast. " Follow me," she says, and as if 
 impelled to obey her command Muriel moves mechanically 
 forward, and with Branksmere pursues her way once more 
 to the ill-fated room that had been so full of danger for 
 her. 
 
 Standing just inside it, Branksmere pauses. 
 
 "She is better?" he asks anxiously, addressing Madame, 
 who had preceded them with a lighted taper in her cold 
 hand. 
 
 " Better ? " She regards him mournfully, and yet as one 
 who barely understands. " Ay ! she is better." 
 
 "And and sane ? " questions Branksmere in a subdued 
 voice. " There is no fear of a further shock for He 
 
 hesitates, he is evidently full of fears for Muriel. Madame 
 von Thirsk, with a cry of anguish, flings her arms suddenly 
 above her head. 
 
 " Sane ! Man, she is dead! " she cries in piercing ac- 
 cents. She darts forward, and flinging back a heavy cur- 
 tain lays wide an alcove, where upon a bed lies stretched 
 in all the majesty of death, a pale, still form. Tall candles 
 are burning at the head and foot of the bed ; from some 
 flowers, scattered upon the coverlet, a faint, oppressively 
 s\veet odor is filling the room. Muriel, spell-bound, gazes 
 at the silent figure : It is the body of her who a few hours 
 since had been so full of a giant strength. And yet now 
 how low she lies ! how motionless ! At last the poor, 
 tired brain has gained its rest, and that an eternal one ! 
 She is indeed dead ! And yet 
 
 Her mind, now vested with its garb of light, 
 Shines all the brighter for its former toil. 
 
 There is a serenity about the face of the lifeless girl, that 
 in its earlier days had seldom rested there. 
 
 Muriel falls upon her knees and covers her face with her 
 hands. 
 
 " Dead !" breathes Branksmere. "Great heaven since 
 when ? " 
 
 " Almost as you left her last the change came. She was 
 exhausted and quiet then, but as the door closed on you 
 she cried aloud to me to bring a light. The room was 
 flooded with light so I knew what that meant. In a little
 
 LADY BRANA'SMERE. 305 
 
 while she dropped back dead ! Dead 3 " She sways herself 
 to and fro. *' Oh I oh \ " she moans, and seems as though 
 she would have broken into loud lamentations, but she 
 checks herself violently, and clinching her hands looks 
 with a terrible despair in her glance at the quiet figure 
 stretched upon the bed in that grand complacency that 
 belongs to death alone. She is gazing upon all that be- 
 longs to her upon eartli cold, dull earth itself now soon 
 to Mother Earth to be returned, 
 
 u You want an explanation," she says in a hard voice, 
 addressing Lady Branksmere, "about her. Well, you 
 shall have it." 
 
 " She was ? " ventures Muriel, with trembling iips. 
 
 " My sister the one thing left me that I might love ! ' 
 She checks herself. The emotion dies from her. " To 
 the point," she says. " You are wondering at her pres- 
 ence here, you shall learn how it was. She," pointing to 
 the dead girl, "was the mistress of your husband's 
 brother ! " 
 
 A smothered ejaculation breaks from Lord Branksmere. 
 He makes a gesture as though he would speak, but Madame 
 suppresses him. 
 
 " The truth, the truth, Branksmere let us have the truth 
 at last," she cries wildly. The anguish of her face is mis- 
 erable, " Listen to me," she goes on hurriedly, speaking 
 to Muriel ; " she loved the late Lord Branksmere and he 
 loved her, but marriage between them was impossible be- 
 cause of his previous marriage with Lady Anne." 
 
 Muriel unclasps her hands from before her face and 
 looks up startled. 
 
 " You know that he was killed in a duel," goes on Ma- 
 dame, in a dull monotonous tone. "You do not know 
 who killed him. It was my brother, her brother ! For 
 our honor's sake he slew her lover too late ! The news 
 of his death came to her abruptly she " for the first time 
 Madame falters "was not very strong at the time, and the 
 shock destroyed her brain ! " 
 
 "Spare yourself! " implores Branksmere in a whisper. 
 " Let me explain the rest." 
 
 " I have promised Lady Branksmere the recital of this 
 merry tale," returns Madame rigidly, "and I shall keep 
 my promise. Hear the end," addressing Muriel. " Alas ! 
 no," sharply, " the end you see, but what there remains for 
 me to tell. To please his dying brother, and to conceal 
 my unhappy sister from the vengeance of our family, your
 
 306 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 husband consented to bring her here secretly ; no one 
 knew of her coming, save Brooks, Lord Branksmere and 
 Madame the Dowager, to whom the murdered man was 
 inexpressibly dear. Here she has lived unknown ; here 
 died. It is all ! Her tale is finished." She makes a mel- 
 ancholy motion toward the bed. " If in her life she ignor- 
 antly caused you pain, you can now rejoice in that she is 
 dead ! " 
 
 Her tone is bitterness itself, and the glance she cast at 
 Muriel full of undiminished hatred. Lady Branksmere 
 shudders. She had been calm, but now rising drops into 
 a chair with an exclamation of horror. 
 
 " Oh ! no, not that," she breathes faintly. 
 
 Branksmere regards her keenly. 
 
 " This is too much for her," he says, speaking rapidly to 
 Madame. "Let no more be said at present. You can 
 have any further explanation later on." 
 
 " I shall have no opportunity/' returns she, sullenly. 
 " Nor is there anything more that I would say. All now 
 is at an end." Her eyes fasten on Branksmere's hand as 
 it rests upon the back of his wife's chair. " Yes," she re- 
 peats, brokenly "all indeed is at an end 1 " 
 
 " Come ! " says Branksmere, leaning anxiously over 
 Muriel, whose beautiful face looks ghastly. He has ap- 
 parently forgotten all but her. As in a dream she rises to 
 her feet, and with a long, long sigh moves toward the door, 
 he following. Madame seeing him thus leaving her -for- 
 ever as it seems to her now without so much as one re- 
 gret, one kindly glance, feels as though her very heart is 
 being torn from her body. She puts up one hand as if to 
 still the throbbing of her throat ; she makes a swift move- 
 ment as if to overtake him ; her lissome figure sways to 
 and fro, through the intensity of its emotion,' and then 
 words break from her. 
 
 " A word, Branksmere ! " she cries, hoarsely ; "one word ! 
 It is my last ! I leave this house within an hour or two 
 never to return ; spare me then a moment, if only in 
 memory of the past ! " 
 
 "My dear Thekla, why do you speak to me like this," 
 asks Lord Branksmere, reproachfully. " My time is yours 
 when I have seen Lady Branksmere to her room." 
 
 Stung by his openly expressed concern for his wife, 
 Madame recovers her composure. 
 
 " Nay," she says coldly. " It is of no consequence. After 
 all, what word is left me now except farewell ? "
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 307 
 
 "Many, I hope," very kindly. 
 
 " Not one. I leave this house to-morrow morning, with 
 her." 
 
 " So soon ? " questions Branksmere with an expressive 
 glance at the curtain behind which that quiet body rests, 
 surrounded by light. 
 
 "Ay, at once, at once," returns she, with an impatient 
 gesture. " Oh, to be gone ! " She conquers herself pres- 
 ently. " There must be no scandal, Branksmere," she 
 murmurs feverishly. " All must be done in secret. I will 
 have no word spoken against her, either alive or dead. I 
 depend upon you to so manage this last office for her, as 
 you have managed everything else. Get us back to our 
 old home in France, I do beseech you, without the truth 
 being made manifest." 
 
 "You may rely upon me," gently. 
 
 "Ah, when have I not relied upon you ! " cries she, with 
 a swift wild outburst of grief that is terrible. 
 
 " But I would have you spare yourself," says Branks- 
 mere tenderly. " That poor soul " he bends his head re- 
 verently " her body must be removed from this with the 
 daylight, and I shall go with it. But you so overbur- 
 dened and crushed with sorrow as you are you must stay 
 on here for a while at least." His voice is full of the 
 deepest commiseration, and he turns his glance impulsively 
 upon Muriel, as though imploring from her a friendly word. 
 Muriel, who is not ungenerous, responds to it. 
 
 " I entreat, Madame, that you will remain here," she 
 says hastily, lest the good impulse fail her. "Why should 
 you leave now ; now, when your grief is so terribly fresh 
 to you ?" 
 
 " I thank you " replies Madame icily, turning to fix up- 
 on her a glance full of undisguised abhorrence " I thank 
 you for the first kindly word you have accorded me since 
 the commencement of our most distasteful acquaintance. 
 Now, on the eve of its termination, I thank you for it." 
 
 Lady Branksmere flushes. 
 
 " In spite of all you have said, Madame, I still beg you 
 will consider my house your home for the present." 
 
 "Your house could never be my home," returns Madame, 
 slowly. 
 
 Lady Branksmere, with a slight bow, quits the apart- 
 ment. As she gains her own room her husband, who has 
 followed her, checks her progress. 
 
 " I cannot enter into matters now," he says gravely.
 
 308 J-.ADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 "As you will have comprehended, I shall have much to do, 
 about the removal of the body before morning. I shall, 
 of course, go to France with it, and see it interred. Then 
 I shall return, to give you any further explanation that 
 may seem necessary." 
 
 " When will you return ?" asks she languidly, with down- 
 cast lids. 
 
 " On Saturday, I hope, by the last train. I shall be here 
 by ten o'clock. Will that be too late for you to receive 
 me ? I am anxious, now that the seal of secrecy has been 
 broken and my promise to the dead at an end, to tell you 
 everything." 
 
 " It scarcely seems worth while," she says, still more in- 
 differently. 
 
 "To me it does. Will you see me when I arrive ?" 
 
 "Yes." She turns from him with slow, tired footsteps, 
 and, entering the room, closes the door behind her. This 
 is her farewell to him. Branksmere, thus unceremoniously 
 left outside in the corridor, frowns darkly, and, with an 
 angry exclamation, strides back to the chamber of death. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 " He whom passion rules is bent to meet his death." 
 
 NEVERTHELESS, as lie re-enters the Castle to-night Sat- 
 urday his first thought is for her. He mounts the stair- 
 case quickly, and knocking at her door responds eagerly 
 to her permission to enter. He can see at a glance that 
 she is looking extremely ill, white and listless, and with 
 heavy purple shadows beneath her large gray eyes. The 
 slender hands, lying languidly upon her lap, look tired and 
 powerless, the blue veins standing out upon the backs of 
 them in thin pale cords. There is a suspicion of mental 
 fatigue about her whole bearing of a strain a painfully- 
 suppressed nervousness very trying, that is evidently tell- 
 ing terribly on her strength. She is dressed in a simple 
 white gown, with a knot of ribbon at her throat, and her 
 hair is bound at the back in a loose fashion that also be- 
 speaks weariness. She is lying back in her chair, and 
 there is enough weakness in her attitude to appeal to his 
 sense of pity very keenly.
 
 LADY iSRANKSMERE, 309 
 
 "You are ill," he says abruptly, when she lias given him 
 her hand, with an evident effort. 
 
 "A little. Yes. But it is merely because sleep has 
 failed me for a night or two." 
 
 " Has Margery been staying with you? " 
 
 " No. I would have nobody, though she wished to re- 
 main with me when here this morning." 
 
 " You should not have been alone after all you went 
 through," says Branksmere, impatiently. 
 
 " I am accustomed to be alone," returns she, dryly. 
 
 Branksmere looks as though he would have answered 
 this, but checks himself. There is a long silence, and 
 then, as though following out a train of thought, he says 
 slowly : 
 
 " I waited to see her buried. It was the last thing I 
 could do for her, whose fortunes were so unfortunately 
 mixed up with our family. Madame von Thirskgave you 
 an outline of her story ; I am hear to fill up the blanks. I 
 own that I have wronged you in keeping secret from you 
 her existence here, but my promise to the dead bound me 
 to silence." 
 
 "To the dead ? " 
 
 " To my brother," gravely. " It is a long story and a sad 
 one. It is more," exclaims Branksmere, with a sudden 
 vehemence. " It is a shameful one ! Not so far as she is 
 concerned. I would have you understand that. I I have 
 reason to know that she never knew of Anne ; that he had 
 concealed from her all knowledge of his marriage, and that 
 some ceremony had been gone through between him and 
 Adela Braemar that had satisfied her, and betrayed her 
 into believing herself his wife. She never knew the truth ; 
 for that, at least, I am grateful. Death seized on him, and 
 madness overtook her,-before it was discovered! " 
 
 " But her presence here ? " 
 
 " That, I admit, was an unpardonable folly. An action 
 I have had reason to regret many a day since. I might 
 easily have found for her a sheltei in some other place, 
 but just then I was confused, horrified, and could think of 
 nothing but the fact that my brother had confided her 
 to my care. And after all," says F3ranksmere, with deci- 
 sion, " I don't believe that I do regret it, save in what it has 
 made you suffer; or rather" correcting himself "be- 
 cause of the inconvenience it has caused you." 
 
 To this Muriel makes no reply, though perhaps he had 
 expected one, as he paused before going on again.
 
 3 io LADY BRAXKSMERE. 
 
 " I was in Munich at the time ; my brother (Lord Branks- 
 mere then) in Potsdam. A telegram received by me, ar- 
 rived too late to prevent any interference on my part, even 
 supposing it could have done any good, which it certainly 
 would not. Using all the speed I could, I only arrived 
 upon the fatal field as the shot was being exchanged be- 
 tween Branksmere and Adela Braemar's brother, who had 
 learned by chance the actual truth, and knew the dishonor 
 of his sister. I sprung forward only to receive the body 
 of my brother as he sunk insensible into my arms. He 
 was mortally wounded." 
 
 " But not dead ! " cries Muriel faintly. 
 
 "Not dead, no! He lived long enough to confess all 
 to me, and to implore me to succor the girl he had so 
 cruelly wronged, but so deeply loved. He gained my 
 promise not only to succor her, but to shield her from the 
 vengeance of her family, who had openly declared their 
 intention to take her life. With her biood they would 
 wipe out both her name and her disgrace from off the face 
 of the earth. They were a wild, lawless race, and it is 
 probable they meant to keep their word." 
 
 Muriel's face has grown like marble ; so cold, so still. 
 The word disgrace is ringing through her brain. That poor 
 soul! it had come to her most innocently, but what should 
 be said of one who 
 
 " He made me swear I would befriend her for his sake, 
 and that I would never betray her secret. I gave my oath 
 as he desired. I swore it to the dying. Yet there was a 
 time when for your sake I would have broken even that 
 solemn covenant, believing he would not have had me 
 keep it to the destruction of my own happiness." He sighs 
 heavily. " It is too late now, however, to lament over 
 that." He looks at her intently. 
 
 " Go on," she says, with lowered brow and lips com- 
 pressed. 
 
 " He died in my arms ! There was some small comfort 
 for me in the thought that my presence had soothed him 
 in his last moments, and that he had died satisfied that I 
 would befriend the woman he loved. At the end lie bade 
 me hasten to her and prepare her for the awful news that 
 awaited her. But his voice had grown thick and indistinct, 
 and I suppose I misunderstood what he said, because I 
 went first to the wrong house, and when at last I gained 
 the right address I found the body had been brought home 
 before me, and that by some unlucky chance the poor girl
 
 LADY BRAffKSMERB. 311 
 
 had met the bearers face to face, and that, in fact, the dead 
 man her lover her husband, as she believed had been 
 laid almost at her feet." 
 
 Lady Branksmere raises both hands to the side of her 
 head, as though to shut out the horrible scene, but no 
 word escapes her. 
 
 " I shall never forget that moment : Adela in her white 
 gown ; the dead man covered with blood ; the brilliant 
 sunshine ; the silence of the bearers, and through all the 
 gay, terrible laughter of some children playing in the gar- 
 den below. The girl said nothing, but she went slowly up 
 to him, and bending down laid her cold fingers on his 
 colder brow. 'Why, how is this, sweetheart ?' she said. 
 It was an odd little speech, wasn't it? There was really 
 nothing in it, and yet I shall never forget it. I can hear it 
 always. It thrilled through the room. The very men 
 ceased to breathe as they listened. It was something in 
 her voice, her manner, the cruel stillness of her. She 
 seemed to comprehend so poorly, and yet her comprehen- 
 sion was so complete so fearful in its consequences ! As 
 she leaned over him some drops of his life blood, warm 
 and red, fell upon her white gown. She burst out laugh- 
 ing then, and called to us to see how pretty they were. Jt 
 was an awful scene." 
 
 His voice has sunk very low ; it now ceases altogether. 
 He seems to be falling into a sort of revery, when a ges- 
 ture from Muriel brings him back to the present. 
 
 " There is more ? " she questions, feverishly. 
 
 " You shall hear it." He turns away abruptly, and going 
 to the window pushes back the curtains, and gazes out into 
 the blackness of the night beyond. " That night her child 
 was born ! " 
 
 Muriel, with a sharp exclamation, lets her Ian slip from 
 her to the ground. 
 
 "That night, too, it died happily! The mother's mind 
 died with it, but her body lived. Poor girl, her heart was 
 broken ; it was merciful that memory was taken from her." 
 
 " Was there no return ? No vague remembrance ? " 
 
 " None. After awhile strange fancies grew within her. 
 I bore a strong resemblance to my brother, and soon she 
 grew to connect me with him in some dull way, and later 
 on believed me to be indeed the Branksmere she had known 
 and loved. I alone could console her in her bursts of un- 
 meaning grief. I alone could control her by a word a 
 look when she fell a prey to the violence that at times
 
 3 I2 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 overcame her. That evening, when you ventured into her 
 room, had they not called me hastily, I do not know what 
 would have been the result. She was more violent then 
 than I had ever seen her." 
 
 " It was the fact of my being a stranger " 
 
 " No. It was the red ribbons on your gown. Ever since 
 that fatal morning when the blood of her lover dyed her 
 dress, it has been impossible to let her see anything even 
 approaching that color. The demon was raging within 
 her when I entered, her hands were on your throat. Mrs. 
 Brooks, with all her strength, could not sway her one inch 
 from you. But when she saw me she grew calmer at once, 
 and rose to her feet and came to me as a child might come 
 who knew itself in some disgrace, yet knew itself be- 
 loved." 
 
 " Was Mrs. Brooks the only one there ? I have a con- 
 fused idea that " Lady Branksmere hesitates and 
 
 frowns slightly, as one might to whom remembrance is 
 difficult. 
 
 "A correct one. Yes, Madame von Thirsk was there. 
 It appears she had arrived on the scene before Mrs. Brooks 
 knew anything of the matter, but was either too horrified 
 or too frightened to give the alarm. Mrs. Brooks provi- 
 dentially came in with a message from my grandmother, 
 or else all Thekla's influence might have been powerless 
 to save you." 
 
 He brushes his hand across his forehead, and draws his 
 breath heavily, but Muriel is too lost in a new thought to 
 heed him. So ! Madame had been there, and had been 
 too frightened to call for assistance 1 Too horrified to try 
 to save her from a cruel death 1 Death ! Ah, there lay the 
 charm of it. To see her indeed dead, Madame would will- 
 ingly have imperilled her very soul ! A sensation of sick- 
 ness creeps over Muriel, and compels her to lean back in 
 her chair and gasp for breath. Oh, the blessedness of the 
 relief that follows on the recollection that that murderess 
 has left the house. She had stood by, waiting for the life 
 to leave her ; had perhaps excited the wretched maniac ; 
 had gloated in the thought that soon her enemy would be 
 beyond recall ; had watched her struggles and laughed at 
 her efforts to free herself. Oh ! 
 
 A wild cry breaks from her. She starts to her feet, and 
 throws out her arms as if to ward off some fearful thing. 
 
 "What is it?" exclaims Branksmere, anxiously. 
 
 " Nothing ! Nothing ! " She has subsided into her chair
 
 LADY BRAXKSMF.RE. 313 
 
 again, and has covered her face with her hands. " Only 
 some horrible thought ! " 
 
 "You have listened too long to such an unhappy story," 
 declares Branksmere. " Some other time I can finish 
 
 "No ; let it be ended now forever. There is one thing 
 I want to know. She spoke of flowers a festival 
 
 " It was the anniversary of Arthur's birthday. She always 
 lemembered that, whatever else might be forgotten. For 
 months before she would question us as to the exact day 
 waiting and longing to do honor to it. He had a passion 
 for flowers, and to please him she would have the apart- 
 ments that belonged to her decorated with them on that 
 and on their wedding-day. Poor thing ! It was her de- 
 light to keep their rooms bright with them in the old days 
 in Hungary. She was very gentle in her calm days, but 
 when excited it was very difficult to manage her. She was 
 indeed a great responsibility." 
 
 "You had not to undertake it alone, however. You had 
 Madame to help you." 
 
 "Yes. That was fortunate," replies he, simply. "She 
 was devoted to Adela, and the poor afflicted girl clung to 
 her in her more lucid moments. Thekla alone, and 
 Brooks, knew of her being here. And Madame's avowed 
 affection for my grandmother made a good pretext for 
 her continued residence here an affection amply returned 
 by the Dowager. However, her presence made it impos- 
 sible for me to spend much time at home. Nor did I care 
 to live here until I met you." A mournful expression 
 has come into his eyes. " You asked me once if I had 
 ever seen Madame's rooms, and I told you no. That was 
 the truth. But I do not blame you for your disbelief. 
 Evidence was very strong against me. How could I ex- 
 plain that the rooms belonged to Adela, that Madame's 
 were on the other side of that wing ? You little knew when 
 you so harshly condemned me how sad a task was mine ; 
 to care for, to console, to govern that poor mad creature." 
 
 Lady Branksmere presses her hand against her throat 
 in a convulsive way, as if suffocating. 
 
 " It was easy enough to manage her when first she came 
 here at least so they told me. But lately the attacks of 
 madness had grown more frequent, and her screams were 
 horrible. They were unheard by the servants, fortunately, 
 who all believe that corridor haunted and never enter it. 
 But you heard her ? That night when I found your 
 bracelet "
 
 3 14 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 He waits expectantly for a word from her, but none 
 conies. Her back is turned to him, or he might perhaps 
 have noticed the growing pallor on her face. 
 
 " I would have spoken " he goes on in a low voice " I 
 should have betrayed all then but you gave me no op- 
 portunity you would not hear me." 
 
 " It was too late ! " Her voice is so faint as to be al- 
 most indistinct ; with difficulty she conquers the sensation 
 that threatens to sink her into insensibility. " Was it for 
 your oath's sake you kept silent all that time ? " 
 
 " For that and for one other powerful reason. There 
 was Anne ! His wife ! She knew nothing ; she never so 
 much as dreamed of her husband's treachery. He and she 
 were not, perhaps, altogether suited to each other. It was 
 a marriage arranged by the two families hers and ours ; 
 and no one fora moment pretended to believe it was a love 
 match. But outwardly they got on as well as the world 
 could expect, and at least she never knew of a rival, never 
 heard of a reason why his memory should not be respected 
 by her. His death helped to cover a multitude of faults 
 with her, and I fear she has often thought me cold when 
 I have not ardently responded to her kindly words spoken 
 in praise of his memory. How could I destroy her faith ? 
 How lay bare his infidelity to her? How could I dare to 
 wound that gentle heart? Was. / to be the one to teach 
 her to despise my brother ? " 
 
 He has grown agitated, and ceases somewhat abruptly. 
 Muriel, motionless, staring before her with wide eyes is 
 lost in a labyrinth of miserable suspicion. That story he 
 has just revealed to was it purposely told ? What has 
 this vile tale to do with her that it so clings to her brain ? 
 A woman shamed a woman lost ! And yet this poor soul 
 was more innocent than she Muriel who of her own free 
 will would have accepted the shame and cut herself adrift 
 from all tilings good. She interlaces her fingers tightly 
 and rising to her feet heavily because of the dull 
 strange lethargy that is fast conquering her, turns her gaze 
 on Branksmere. 
 
 " I have wronged you," she cries feverishly " beyond 
 forgiveness! That I know now! While you you ! Think, 
 remember well, what it is I should be now but for you ! A 
 thing lost, degraded." She is growing terribly excited, and 
 her eyes are like large coals of fire in her white face. " I 
 would have you remember ivell," she repeats again. " And 
 that it is of your wife such words may be used. Your
 
 LADY BRANKSMERF.. 315 
 
 wife, Branksmerc. Think of it ! That should make you 
 harder." 
 
 She has broken into dry sobs, and has turned aside to 
 hide her face upon the arm that is leaning against the 
 mantel-shelf. 
 
 " Hush ! " exclaims Branksmere sternly, but very anx- 
 iously, as he marks this growing agitation that is overpow- 
 ering her. He has come within the light of the lamp near- 
 est to her, and now seeing her face, it horrifies him. Her 
 lips are white, her eyes are as those of the dead. " Muriel 
 what is it?" he cries aloud. But even as he speaks she 
 throws out her arms convulsively, sways heavily to and fro 
 and falls senseless to the ground. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 My melancholy haunts me everywhere, 
 
 And not one kindly gleam pierces the gloom 
 
 Of my dark thoughts, to give a glimpse of comfort. 
 
 THE world is three weeks older to-day, and the events of 
 that past night seem to have happened quite a long while 
 ago. Three weeks, and as yet suspense and evil anticipa- 
 tion are not at an end. They had lifted her from where 
 she fell at Branksmere's feet, and carried her to her bed, 
 and Margery and Mrs. Billy had watched over her all 
 through that long night of insensibility until the dawn 
 came, and with it a glimmer of consciousness that died 
 almost as it was born. 
 
 In twenty-four hours she was in a raging fever. Her 
 brain was affected, and it seemed to those closely investi- 
 gating the case the great men from the town and the lit- 
 tle men from the country round that small, indeed, was 
 the hope that could be entertained. 
 
 All her lovely hair was shorn away. Her dry, parched 
 lips made feverish the beholder. Her large eyes a-flame 
 with the fire that was inwardly consuming her, turned to 
 each one a vacant glance, and from night to morn, and 
 morn to night, she rolled her tired head unceasingly from 
 side to side, calling always, always upon Mrs. Billy ! 
 
 No other being would satisfy her. Not even Margery, 
 with her cool, sweet touch and her loving tenderness. It 
 was ever for the sister, who was a stranger to her, that she
 
 3 i6 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 called. Perhaps for who can read the workings of a 
 mind diseased ? perhaps through all the sad riot of the 
 maddening fever that played such havoc with her brain, 
 she remembered that Mrs. Billy had been the one most in- 
 strumental in saving her from the miserable path into 
 which a wild desire for revenge would have turned her ; 
 that she had been the one to make it impossible for her 
 to step into the outer darkness. 
 
 At times she would change her cry, and ask irritably for 
 some members of her former home, but after Mrs. Billy, 
 the person she most frequently desired, was Tommy Paulyn. 
 If they had had the heart for laughter then, this would 
 have amused them, but all was too sad, too terrible, with 
 the shadow of death hanging over the house that might 
 perhaps never again be ruled by its mistress. At such 
 times as when she called upon him, Tommy was always 
 forthcoming, and would sit beside her for hours together, 
 with her poor, wasted hand that was too much bone now 
 for the skin, and too transparent to be beautiful, held 
 gently between both his own. His cousins learned to be 
 very fond of him at this time, and one cousin who shared 
 his watches with him learned something more the greatest 
 knowledge of all. 
 
 For Branksmere, his wife never asked. No faintest 
 mention of him crossed her lips. Save for her desire for 
 Mrs. Billy, her memory seemed to have gone back entirely 
 to her earlier days, before the thought of other love than 
 the home one, had entered her heart. She babbled of lit- 
 tle trivial scenes and girlish gayeties that they had imagined 
 long since forgotten by her ; and would talk to, and scold, 
 and laugh at the twins as energetically as though they 
 were really in her presence, and she back once more in 
 the old schoolroom with them. But of Branksmere, 
 nothing ! 
 
 He would steal in and out of her room all day long, and 
 very often during the night, and stand looking down upon 
 her, in silence, and apparently without emotion. The first 
 day he had seen Tommy Paulyn sitting with her hand in 
 his, he had changed color slightly, and had left the room 
 somewhat abruptly. But afterward he showed no sign of 
 having been surprised or offended, and was indeed more 
 attentive to Paulyn, and friendlier with him than he had 
 ever been before. The wrapt way in which he would 
 stand listening to the idle words that fell from the parched 
 lips, led Margery into the belief that he was hoping for
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 317 
 
 some word that might apply to himself, and it grieved and 
 distressed her beyond measure that such word never came. 
 But perhaps had she known it, Branksmere's anxiety had 
 been of another order, and the pain he may have felt at 
 finding himself ignored in her ravings, had been conquered, 
 by the passionate relief he knew in finding that the name 
 most hated by him on earth was also absent from her lips. 
 
 The loss of hope is cruel ! For two whole days it slipped 
 from them, and even now, to-day, when a little change for 
 the better has been noticed and made much of, still they 
 start and pale, and leel their hearts stop beating whenever 
 a door is opened suddenly, believing it to be a message 
 from one of the doctors desiring them to prepare for the 
 last sad change of all. 
 
 The weather, too, is dull and mournful, the rain drips 
 from the eaves, and a sighing of the winds in the pine av- 
 enue makes itself felt. All through the sullen afternoon 
 the misty snowflakes melt upon the window panes, and the 
 rushing breeze hurls itself against the casements in the 
 turret chamber, where Muriel lies half slain by the giant 
 enemy that had attacked her. The sounds of Nature enter 
 the sick room, in spite of all efforts to defeat them, and 
 rouse the tired patient to a sense of life. 
 
 Muriel, wide-eyed but silent, is lying in a weak prostra- 
 tion upon her bed, one hand, damp and nerveless, toying 
 feebly with the sheet. Upon the hearth-rug Margery and 
 Mrs. Billy are conversing in low tones. The fire is burn- 
 ing brightly, sending forth little cheerful noises with a vi- 
 vacity hardly to be equalled. 
 
 " Yes, she is better, quite better," says Mrs. Billy sud- 
 denly, addressing a tall figure standing in the doorway. 
 "I guess she's mending at long last." 
 
 Branksmere with a slow step crosses the room, and, bend- 
 ing down, looks at the pale occupant of the bed. They 
 are so accustomed to his ceaseless comings and goings 
 that the two on the hearth-rug continue their conversation 
 as though he had never entered. 
 
 Looking, he can see for himself there is more of a steady 
 light in the gray eyes than has been there for many a day. 
 She half looks at him, then lets her lids fall heavily over 
 the orbs beneath. Branksmere is fast losing himself in 
 some gloomy reverie, when the sound of her weak voice 
 coming to him across his dreamings, rouses him at once 
 into sudden nervous life. He stoops over her. x 
 
 "What is it I hear ? Birds?" she asks feebly.
 
 3 i8 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 in truth some melancholy robins have stationed them- 
 selves under the drooping foliage that has covered the win- 
 dow sill outside, and their twitterings have apparently 
 entered into her ear. 
 
 "Who feeds them now ?" she asks in that strange slow 
 way that a sickness nigh unto death has taught her. Her 
 eyes grown frightfully large, are fixed on Branksmere 
 expectantly. Then all at once her glance grows troubled, 
 and her breath comes and goes with a cruel haste and 
 labor. 
 
 "Oh ! how it all comes back ! " she cries faintly. Tears 
 rise and fall over her cheeks. With a feeble effort she 
 covers her face. The warm stinging drops wrung from 
 her soul trickle down through her emaciated fingers, and 
 lose themselves among the laces of her night-dress. 
 
 "Try to keep your mind from dwelling upon anything 
 that worries you," entreats Branksmere hurriedly, with all 
 the sound but useless advice of a man, given at such a time. 
 "Try to forget all." 
 
 "There is one thing I cannot remember," breathes she 
 feebly. " Do you know ? Where is she ? the woman who 
 wanted to murder me ? " 
 
 Branksmere, troubled, takes her hand, and holds it fast. 
 
 " Try to forget her," he says, believing she wanders, and 
 fearing to let her mind revert to the stricken Adela. 
 Muriel grows restless. 
 
 " I cannot ! " The words fall from her in a slow whisper 
 one by one. "She came into the room while that poor 
 girl was trying to injure me, and shq urged her with a 
 laugh to kill me. I can see her now. I see her always." 
 
 " She ? Who ? " He is somewhat struck by the extreme 
 lucidity of her manner. 
 
 " Madame von Thirsk ! " She turns her head with dif- 
 ficulty upon her pillow so as to face him, and speaks in a 
 low jerky fashion, but with strange earnestness. Branks- 
 mere grows deadly pale as he hears the name of Madame. 
 He had known truly of the enmity she bore his wife, he 
 knew, too, of the subdued but savage temper she had in- 
 herited, but that she should have longed for Muriel's death 
 It was too horrible for belief. Surely Muriel raves 
 and yet, the clear eye, the steady if weakly accents, the 
 soul that looks at him through every feature is this lav- 
 ing? 
 
 "I saw her," whispers Muriel, looking beyond him, as 
 though addressing herself rather than him. " She stood
 
 LADY BRA.VK'SirKRE. 319 
 
 just there, as it were. I know the very spot ; and she 
 laughed and told that poor mad creature to haste and 
 finish her work, calling out that I was an enemy of Ar- 
 thur's ! Were they both mad ? I had forgotten it all, but 
 now it comes back to me." She stares with widening eyes 
 over his shoulder, as though some vision beyond is dis- 
 playing itself to her. "Ah, keep her away!" she cries 
 suddenly, Avith a return of the old wildness, clutching con- 
 vulsively at the satin coverlet. 
 
 " She shall never again enter these doors never, never," 
 says Branksmere hurriedly, who is looking ghastly. He 
 stoops to reassure her more entirely, but she has sunk back 
 among her pillows into a quiescent state that is half sleep, 
 half insensibility. She seems tired and worn, but in a min- 
 ute or two she opens her eyes again and fixes them on him 
 as though surprised. 
 
 " What are you doing here ? " she a^ks, irritably. 
 
 " I came to see how you were going on." 
 
 "You are always coming. I have felt it through all. 
 But why do you come nowl There is nothing more to ex- 
 pect. I am getting well. Other people can die ; /can't." 
 
 The cruel innuendo he passes over in silence. 
 
 "That is good news," he says; "yes, I think you are 
 better." 
 
 "You do your part admirably," returns she, with a weak 
 attempt at scorn. " But you have been on duty long 
 enough. I wish now," her voice growing feebler, "you 
 would cease to consider all this attention so necessary." 
 
 She turns from him as well as her poor weak strength 
 will permit her, and he, deeply offended, steps into the 
 background. He had loved her. How he had loved her ! 
 With all his heart he had given his heart to her, and now 
 now ! There had been no half measures, no reserva- 
 tions, his very whole soul had been given to her for this ! 
 A pity for himself for the miserable being so cruelly de- 
 frauded by Fate of that for which he had paid so heavy a 
 price, possesses him at this moment, as he stands motion- 
 less, despairing, his eyes on the ground. 
 
 He had borne scorn, contempt, hatred ; nay, he had for- 
 given her that, for which most men would have spurned 
 her, and yet 
 
 "Are you there?" Her voice, faint and impatient, 
 comes to him and rouses him from his miserable thoughts. 
 .Thinking she is calling for one of those who usually sit be- 
 side her, he says gently :
 
 320 
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Is it Mrs, Daryl you want ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Is it Paulyn ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Who is it, then ?" 
 
 "Nobody," pettishly. She frowns, and then tears born 
 of weakness spring to her eyes. " I am so thirsty," she 
 moans miserably, "and nobody will give me anything to 
 drink. Nobody attends to me. Nobody cares whether I 
 live or die." 
 
 This most unjust accusation once past her lips, touches 
 her own sense of justice so keenly, that the poor thing, re- 
 penting of her wayward speech, falls a-crying most bitterly. 
 She makes a feeble effort to push away the cooling drink 
 he holds to her lips, but afterward, overcome by the crav- 
 ing for liquid of some sort to cool her burning throat, she 
 drinks feverishly of that he gives her. 
 
 She leans back exhausted ; and presently begins to move 
 her head restlessly from side to side. 
 
 " I am so hot so hot," she murmurs. Leaning over her 
 he lifts the pillow on which she is lying with the hope of 
 rendering her more comfortable. To do this he has to pass 
 his arm beneath her neck, and before he can remove it she 
 has fallen back in the exhausted sudden slumber of one 
 recovering from a wasting illness. Seeing she does not 
 stir, he, too, remains motionless, and presently he sees she 
 is indeed asleep. Afraid to move lest he shall wake her, 
 he kneels beside the bed, and tries to believe there is no 
 gladness for him in the knowledge that her head is resting 
 so near his heart. 
 
 Margery and Mrs. Billy at an early stage of the proceed- 
 ings had deliberately turned their backs upon the bed, so 
 that for quite an hour Brankstnere kneels there watching 
 his wife's slumbers undisturbed. Once indeed Mrs. Billy 
 had come up to him to whisper some unnecessary caution, 
 but in reality to slip a cushion beneath his knees, and after 
 that she and Margery had gone away, leaving him alone 
 with Muriel. When they return it is to find, he too, has 
 fallen asleep. His head is resting on the pillow. Upon 
 his dark lashes lie the traces of tears.
 
 LADY BRANXSMERE. 321 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 I've wronged thce much, and Heaven has well avenged : 
 
 Will no remorse, will no decay, 
 O memory, soothe thee into peace. 
 
 " NOT heard it?" says Lord Primrose, "why bless me, 
 I thought all the world knew it now. It's to come off in 
 the spring, and they are both as jolly as sand boys. You'd 
 hardly know Halkett, he looks so altogether gay, and Mrs. 
 Amyot has learned to blush. They were so long making 
 up their minds that no no sugar thanks not a scrap 
 I'm growing outrageously fat as it is that people began 
 to regard them as a sham. But after all, you see, they 
 meant it. It will be the marriage of the season." 
 
 Lady Anne Branksmere had come down to the Castle 
 on the first word of Muriel's illness, to help Mrs. Billy 
 and Margery in the nursing of her ; Muriel having shown 
 a strange impatience with the excellent hired nurse for- 
 warded from town by one of the doctors. 
 
 To have Lady Anne at the Castle means to have Lord 
 Primrose too ; his residence being situated on the borders 
 of the neighboring county, about six miles from Branks- 
 mere. Certainly he had been attentive before her arrival, 
 had been most assiduous in his inquiries as to the way 
 Lady Branksmere was going on, but when Lady Anne ar- 
 rived upon the stage there was no knowing how often the 
 ugly, pleasant, good-humored little man would not appear 
 during the day. As regular as clockwork he dropped in 
 in the afternoon once Lady Branksmere w T as pronounced 
 out of danger presumably to ask for her, but in reality to 
 get his tea from Lady Anne's fair, plump hands, and to 
 sun himself in her kindly smiles. 
 
 To-day he is smiled upon, not only by her, but by Mu- 
 riel, who is now brought downstairs to the library every 
 afternoon by Tommy Paulyn and Lady Anne, whose fine 
 arms make light of such a burden. 
 
 "You didn't know T , perhaps !" goes on Lord Primrose, 
 " that Mrs. Amyot is staying with us at present. The Ma- 
 ter is fond of that frivolous little person. So'm I, by the 
 way. Lots of good in her, in my opinion."
 
 322 LADY BRANKSMERE, 
 
 " You would have made a bad judge," says Muriel, smil- 
 ing faintly. " Good in everything, is what you see." 
 
 "Don't make him vainer than he is," entreats Lady 
 Anne, with the purely friendly smile that always charms 
 and exasperates him. " By the bye, where is Mrs. Amyot's 
 shadow Mrs. Vyner, I mean." 
 
 " Oddly enough, in the neighborhood too ; or at least 
 will be to-morrow. I met the Adairs, who told me she 
 was coming to them for a few weeks." 
 
 " She's grown awfully tired of the old Colonel, I hear," 
 says the Hon. Tommy, who happens to be present. 
 
 " Yes, by Jove. It appears she won't take him anywhere 
 with her now. Ever since he fell in for the Bellair title 
 she's led him no end of a life." 
 
 " One would think she might be grateful for that small 
 mercy." 
 
 " She isn't, though. She has got the whip-hand over 
 him in some unaccountable fashion, and she uses it un- 
 sparingly. She is worse to him than a dozen of those na- 
 tive regiments he used to storm about." 
 
 "Naturally," says Paulyn, "as he had the whip-hand 
 over them, and used it unsparingly, too, as I have heard. 
 Then he governed ; now he is governed." 
 
 " Poor old Colonel," laughs Lady Anne. 
 
 "Not at all; not at all. If, as they say, 'variety is 
 charming,' he should now be supremely happy. By the 
 bye, my mother and Mrs. Amyot, and Halkett, and in fact 
 the lot of 'em, want to come over to see you, Lady Branks- 
 mere, as soon as you can permit it, or feel strong enough." 
 
 " I am strong enough this moment. I shall be de- 
 lighted," says Muriel. "Tell your mother so, with my 
 love." 
 
 " But really so many you mustn't overdo it, you 
 know," protests Primrose. 
 
 " It will do her good," decides Lady Anne, gayly. 
 
 After a little bit Primrose fades away, by imperceptible 
 degrees, following Lady Anne's footsteps, who moves 
 gracefully from the Bohemian vases to the conservatory 
 and back again, and finally coming to a standstill in the 
 flowers' pretty home brings him to a resting point too. 
 M*argery and Tommy Paulyn have gone in search of the 
 twins who have been absent sufficiently long to make every- 
 one sure that now at last they have come to the untimely 
 end they are always courting, and Muriel left alone lies 
 back among her cushions with a tired sigh, and a vague
 
 LADY BRANKSMERR. 323 
 
 sense of having missed her place in the world. Nobody 
 wants her. She is a bit of useless lumber that ought to 
 be condemned to the attics without delay. 
 
 There is a pathos in the impatience with which she lifts 
 her head as Branksmere enters the room. 
 
 " I hope you feel better more yourself," he says kindly. 
 
 " That is the last thing you should hope," returns she, 
 with an ungraciousness born of miserable thought. 
 
 " Still," gently, " as I do hope it, give me if you can the 
 answer I would have." 
 
 "What is it, Branksmere?" asks she suddenly, with a 
 strange, tremulous touch of passion. She lifts herself on 
 her elbow and looks full at him with her great troubled 
 eyes. "Are you trying to arrange your account with 
 Heaven, that you thus seek to overburden me with a kind- 
 ness you cannot feel ? " 
 
 "It is a pity you look at things with such distorted sight," 
 returns he. " I feel for you only kindness. Believe that." 
 
 " Well, I don't ! " slowly. " I have tried to, but it is not 
 possible, I think. Even a small thing to forget it, 'is hard 
 and you, how could you forget ? Oh ! no ! " She puts 
 up her hand with a little natural gesture that betokens 
 more fully than words how impossible she believes it would 
 be for him to entirely obliterate from his memory the 
 past. 
 
 "What can I do to convince you," asks he in a tone of 
 sore distress! 
 
 "Nothing! And do not try to convince yourself. It 
 will be time thrown away. No man could forgive it. And 
 yet was it all my fault ?" cries she with growing excite- 
 ment. "If I had known at first; but I was treated as a 
 child, as a fool might be, and then, when it was toj late 
 the truth was hurled upon me ! " 
 
 She sinks back exhausted, and covers her face with her 
 hands. 
 
 " The crime was mine ; I wronged you," says Branks- 
 mere, gently but hurriedly dropping some perfume into 
 the hollow of his hand, and then pressing the hand against 
 her brow. She does not turn from him. " I believed time 
 would arrange all things. She had been for so long un- 
 discovered six years .'that I thought her secret would 
 have died with her. We knew she could not live for many 
 years, as she had an aneurism of the heart that might carry 
 her off at any moment." 
 
 "You trusted to chance. You trusted to everything
 
 324 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 save me," exclaims Lady Branksmcre, sitting up, and, 
 after a slight effort, rising to her feet. " You withheld all 
 from me. All ! Oh ! if you had but spoken ! But you 
 were deliberately silent. You refused me a wife's place. 
 You put me from you as though I were a stranger." 
 
 " How could I speak? How could I find it easy to ex- 
 plain with that solemn oath to the dead upon my soul ? 
 And to you of all others ! " He pauses. His last words 
 are full of a sad eloquence. What sympathy could he ex- 
 pect from her from the unloving woman who had with- 
 held from him always, even the common sympathy of a 
 friend ! " How could I give voice to my brother's dishon- 
 esty and to you who cared nothing for me : who would 
 have received the story with a sneer, it might be, or a con- 
 temptuous word." 
 
 "Ah !" The exclamation is so low that Branksmere fails 
 to hear it, so wrapped up he is in mournful recollection. 
 It is indeed almost a sigh. 
 
 " I feared to speak," he goes on hurriedly. " I dreaded 
 the thought that you might demand from me the dismissal 
 of that poor creature, and have driven her from the only 
 home she then knew." 
 
 "Was all that Madame von Thirsk's teaching?" asks 
 Muriel, cold and pale. "Am I so poor a thing that I have 
 not even common pity in me ! That I have lowered my- 
 self in your esteem I know ; but at least grant me some 
 human feeling ! " 
 
 There is a passion of despair in her voice. 
 
 " Do not speak to me like that," says Branksmere. 
 " You are as high as ever in my esteem. I remember all 
 indeed, but " 
 
 " As high as ever ? " interrupts she. " Is that true ? At 
 least when you married me no one could cast a stone at 
 me and now ! Though actually guiltless, in your secret 
 soul do you not condemn me ?" 
 
 " No." The assurance conies steadily from his lips. 
 Laying his hands upon her shoulders he presses her back 
 into her seat. "This excitement is bad for you," he says, 
 "and but that I know dwelling on this unhappy subject is 
 worse, I would not permit it. Now, hear me ! I knew 
 even when you consented to marry me that your heart was 
 not mine, but yet I trusted I hoped Well, never 
 mind that!" hastily. "At all events I believed myself 
 satisfied to take the risk. I knew you did not love me. 
 What I did not know" with the first touch of an impas-
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 325 
 
 sioned reproach in his tone " was that you loved an- 
 other !" 
 
 " There you are wrong," cries she, eagerly. " I cared 
 for him I swear it Bi'anksmere as little as I cared for 
 you." The words are bitter, yet they contain for him a 
 whole world of sweetness. 
 
 " You say that ! yet you were willing to go with him ! 
 To abandon me, who, however unsuited to you as you 
 might think, had surely the first claim on you. Your 
 words " regarding her with a glance of agonized uncer- 
 tainty "do not tally with your actions." 
 
 " You forget the provocation ! " returns she steadily, but 
 in a voice that is growing more and more fatigued. " There 
 was no love in me for you or him, but there was something 
 stronger that you created, the longing for revenge. You 
 had (as I believed) flung me from my rightful place, and 
 planted another there. I was nothing to you. You would 
 willingly have seen me out of your way ; while he (I was 
 mad if you like, but I would have staked every hope I had 
 upon it then], loved me. Great Heaven ! what folly it 
 was ; what a fool I have been all through ! " 
 
 " If you think that if you are sure there still might 
 be " 
 
 4i Xo no," she interrupts him passionately putting up 
 her hands as though to ward him off. Then in a calmer 
 tone " Let that thought be dead between us forever ! " 
 
 Branksmere, thus repulsed, draws back from her, and 
 leaning his arm upon the mantel-piece gazes moodily into 
 the fire. 
 
 The minutes pass slow-ly, awkwardly, and then at last 
 Muriel breaks the silence that has become almost unbear- 
 able. 
 
 " Does Lady Anne know ? " she asks, in a subdued tone 
 that somehow suits the moment. 
 
 " She is entirely ignorant." He does not lift his eyes as 
 he answers her, but continues his moody gaze into the fire. 
 " Everything was carefully concealed from her." 
 
 " She and I are in the same boat, then. We have been 
 kept, both of us, most cruelly in the dark. And why ? 
 Were we not women, with hearts with " 
 
 " She was ! That is why I decided upon hiding from 
 her her husband's falsity." 
 
 " And I am not ! Is that your insinuation ? It is very 
 bitter, Branksmere, but it is only just. You should indeed 
 be the one to scorn me. But I am sick of myself. It is
 
 326 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 of Anne I would now hear. You say you concealed all 
 from her, as from me. Did it never occur to you that 
 there might be too much secrecy ? Do you know " with 
 some swift vehemence "that but for all this diplomacy of 
 yours she might have married years ago, a good man a 
 man who not only truly loves her, but is worthy of her 
 love ? " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," says Branksmere, who 
 in truth has paid little attention to Lord Primrose and his 
 wooing. " Is there someone who 
 
 " There is Primrose. I tell you there has been too much 
 concealment in this matter. Have you not noticed ? Have 
 you seen nothing ? Primrose is devoted to her, and but for 
 a foolish clinging to the memory of a man who was false to 
 her, Anne would have given him not only her hand, but her 
 heart long ago." 
 
 " But are you positive ? Is there no doubt ? You may 
 perhaps " 
 
 " If you refuse to set this affair straight, I shall," declares 
 she quickly. " What! Is everything to be sacrificed to a 
 most ignoble memory? /am bound by no vows to the 
 dead ; I shall speak, even though you withhold permis- 
 sion." 
 
 " I do not withhold it," says Branksmere, gently, seeing 
 how flushed and exhausted she looks. " Do as you think 
 best about it, but spare my brother's name as far as you 
 can. I ask this for Anne, for his wife's sake, not for mine." 
 
 "Then I have your permission?" asks she. "Well," 
 with a sudden gentleness, " I am better with it than with- 
 out it." 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 "No lesse was she in secret heart affected." 
 
 "An! Lady Branksmere alone?" says Primrose, in 
 his usual airy fashion, as he enters the drawing-room about 
 a week later. " That speaks well for your strength, eh ? " 
 
 " It is hardly kind now to remind me I ever was an in- 
 valid. I have almost forgotten it," returns she, smiling 
 and pointing to a low chair near her lounge. " Anne has 
 gone to the Manor to carry a little commission to Mrs. 
 Dary 1 ; and Margery is, I dare say, arranging with Curzon
 
 LADY BKAWS.WEKE. 327 
 
 how they are to live on nothing a. year." There is no cal- 
 lousness in this speech, only a sort of tender amusement. 
 
 " I heard of Bellew's loss. I don't know when I was 
 more sorry for anything, especially when I heard of pretty 
 Miss Margery's decision. Yet they are not altogether to 
 be pitied ; they have love on their side," says Primrose, in 
 his quaint way. " But they will be rather out of the etcet- 
 eras of life, I am afraid." 
 
 " I am afraid so, too. In spite of anything /can do, I 
 am afraid so," says Muriel, a deeper shadow falling into 
 her eyes. " However, there is still a chance for them." 
 She sighs quickly, and throws from her with a swift sigh 
 the subject of Margery. " Do you know, I have wanted 
 to see you for some time. To see you alone, I mean," she 
 says, looking full at Lord Primrose. 
 
 " Now you have me at your disposal, deal gently with 
 me," entreats he. " By the bye, here are some violets," 
 drawing from a loose pocket a dishevelled but still sweet 
 bunch of those dearest flowers, "that only want a little 
 water to restore them to their pristine beauty and make 
 them perfect as of old. You would like them, perhaps ? " 
 
 " I am not a receiver of stolen goods they are Anne's, 
 I think," says she, smiling. 
 
 " Well, I dare say they were meant for her," confesses 
 the little man, whose nature abhors a lie in any shape or 
 form. 
 
 " We'll have them put into water for her," says Muriel, 
 ringing a bell close to her elbow. Then, seizing the op- 
 portunity given : " You have known Lady Anne for a long 
 time, have you not ? " 
 
 "Always, I should think. At least I have taken no 
 count of the time when she was wknown to me if she 
 ever was." He laughs whimsically. 
 
 " You are a friend of hers ? " 
 
 To this Primrose makes no immediate reply. He looks 
 at her fixedly, and then 
 
 "You know all about how it is with me, eh ?" he says 
 simply, looking full at Muriel out of his honest, if remark- 
 ably light eyes. " 1 have you on my side, eh ? " 
 
 " You have, indeed. Of that be assured" 
 
 " I have no need of assurance. I felt it always that 
 you would support my cause, I mean. Something in your 
 eyes told me you would help me, were help possible. Is 
 it?" 
 
 "There is always a chance."
 
 32S LADY BRANKSMERR. 
 
 "Yes? You really believe I need not yet take myself 
 off to the North Pole, or go a-hunting on the boundless 
 prairie ? Do you know ? " here he leans forward, and 
 changes his tone " I think she likes me in her soul, or I 
 should not have made myself a burden to her for so many 
 years." 
 
 "You are the one faithful man on earth, I think," says 
 Muriel, with sudden, if cold, enthusiasm. '' You are sure, 
 then, that she likes you ? " 
 
 " As positive as I dare be. But she cannot bring herself 
 to forget the the old ties. Odd. Eh ? Because they 
 weren't such very strong ties when one comes to remember 
 them. Not exactly ' all for love and the world well lost ' 
 sort of thing. You being one of the family probably know 
 all about it. . There was a difference, d'ye see ? " 
 
 " I do," dryly. 
 
 " I have often thought that you being so much Avith her, 
 and she being so attached to you, that er you might 
 have some influence with her." 
 
 " Oh ! no, no. I have no influence with anyone," de- 
 clares Lady Branksmere, hurriedly. " Do not mistake 
 about that." 
 
 " If you haven't influence," says Primrose, regarding her 
 keenly, " you have at least something to tell me." Getting 
 up from his seat he goes over to the window, and stands 
 so that he can look down upon her. 
 
 "There you are right," she says. "And yet, after all, it 
 may not be of use to you, so wayward a woman can be." 
 She checks herself as if uncertain how to proceed. "What 
 I have wanted to tell you is, that of late I have heard one 
 or two things of She pauses. 
 
 "Lady Anne?" eagerly. 
 ,"No. Of her husband." 
 
 " Of Arthur Branksmere ? " 
 
 " Yes. You knew him, I think ? " 
 
 " Intimately." 
 
 *' Any good of him ?" 
 
 "Well he's dead you know," says Primrose reflectively. 
 
 "A very eloquent answer. Dear Primrose ! for once be 
 sensible which means be selfish and take all the good 
 for yourself that can be acquired from what I am now go- 
 ing to tell you." 
 
 The story (a little shorn) that she lays before him fills 
 him with astonishment, though indeed his knowledge of 
 the late Lord Branksmere had prepared him for many
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 329 
 
 things. To him (as she had predicted) this story of shame 
 and horror brings hope and joy. Already Anne has been 
 disillusioned, Muriel believing it to be a false kindness that 
 would let her dwindle away the good days that yet remain 
 to her, in an absurd regret for one altogether unworthy of 
 even one forgiving thought. All mention of the unfortu- 
 nate Adela's name, or of her residence at Branksmere, has 
 been suppressed, the mere bare facts being laid before 
 Primrose. 
 
 "She knows? You told her? "asks Primrose. "And 
 she bore it how ? " 
 
 " Admirably. You must remember, you should," with a 
 smile, " be glad to remember, that duty had more to do 
 with Anne's married life than love. Duty too (a very 
 strained duty as it seems to me) has made her faithful to 
 his memory. But I will confess to you that when the first 
 shock of my communication the surprise, the awakening 
 was at an end, relief was the principal expression on her 
 charming face." She looks up at him and laughs kindly. 
 " It is charming, is it not ? " she asks archly. 
 
 " To be a just judge one should be impartial." Then 
 he comes over to her, and, taking her hand, lifts it to his 
 lip. "Whatever happens after this," he says, "I shall 
 never forget your kindness of to-day." 
 
 " Is that Anne's footstep ?" asks Lady Branksmere, ris- 
 ing on her elbow. " She has gone into the southern morn- 
 ing-room, I think. She is fond of that weird old chamber. 
 Should I be troubling you very much, Lord Primrose, if I 
 asked you to bring me word as to whether she did, or did 
 not, see Wilhelmina." 
 
 As Primrose hurries to the door, only too anxious to obey 
 this kindly command, she calls to him. 
 
 " Do not be in hot haste to bring me an answer," she 
 says smiling, " I am tired. I shall try for my forty winks 
 now I have successfully disposed of you. But bring Anne 
 back here with you for tea, if all goes well." 
 
 Anne is marching up and down the southern chamber as 
 Primrose enters it, her soft cheeks aflame, and an unwonted 
 fire in her mild eyes. 
 
 " Poor little wretch ! " she breathes warmly, staring at 
 Primrose, " to think he should have been so neglected so 
 ill-treated and all in one day." 
 
 "Oh, no," says Primrose, meekly, "there have been 
 many days." 
 
 " Pshaw! I am thinking of my bird," cries she. "He
 
 330 LADY BRANKSMERR. 
 
 was almost dead for the sake of a little water when I came 
 in. Servants ! what are they made for, I wonder ?" 
 
 " For our discomfort," soothingly. 
 
 " You grow sensible at last ! " breaking into a little laugh. 
 " But my poor bird ! Just think how he has suffered ! " 
 
 "Alas ! how kind you are to all the world to even its 
 dumb things save me," says Primrose, with a determined 
 sigh. 
 
 " You are not dumb, at all events. You sing your sor- 
 rows overmuch, it seems to me." 
 
 " Not overmuch ! they are too great for that. And if I 
 keep silence they would not be heard at all," after which 
 he joins her in her laughter, glad at heart to see how blithe 
 she can be in spite of those tidings so crushing to her self- 
 love, of which Lady Branksmere has assured him she is 
 now in full possession. To speak now or never, to strike 
 while the iron is hot, becomes a fixed idea with him. With 
 the words almost on his lips that he intends to say, he turns 
 to her, but is forestalled in his intention. 
 
 "It is a most uncomfortable world," declares Lady Anne, 
 before he has time to speak. She has sunk into a chair 
 upon the hearth-rug, and is gazing gloomily at the fire 
 which, in truth, has fallen rather low. 
 
 " Still, there are moments " begins he in a deprecatory 
 tone. 
 
 " Not many ; " still staring at the waning fire. 
 
 " You take a too despairing view of it, I think," says 
 Primrose earnestly. Evidently she has taken the news of 
 her husband's treachery very much to heart. " And, con- 
 sidering the time " 
 
 " That is what I am considering," interrupts she. " Have 
 you forgotten," with a glance full of the liveliest reproach, 
 " that this is the month of November ? " 
 
 Primrose racks his brain. Was this then the month in 
 which her " poor Arthur " came to such an untimely end ? 
 He cannot remember. 
 
 "What I mean is," he says, stammering a little, "that 
 time brightens all things." 
 
 " Eh ? " She looks puzzled. " I don't believe it," she 
 declares at last. 
 
 " Sure to, if people will only let well alone." 
 
 "You are all in favor of letting it alone." Again she 
 looked perplexed. "Now/amnot. I think" with some 
 force " there is nothing like a good stirring up ? " 
 
 " Good heavens ! Are you bent on raking up all
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 331 
 
 " No ! For the simple reason " with a disconsolate 
 glance at the nearly empty fireplace, " that there is so lit- 
 tle to rake." 
 
 Now this is taking a much more reasonable view of the 
 matter. 
 
 " I entirely agree with you," says Primrose nervously. 
 " In my opinion there is nothing like letting things die out." 
 
 " Die out ! " She regards him with some severity. " I 
 really believe you are trying to make me even more 
 wretched than I am." 
 
 "You know me better than that ?" softly. "You must 
 know how I feel for and with you. But consider would 
 you have it always before you ! " 
 
 " Certainly," says Lady Anne, with decision. She seems 
 a little disgusted. "You must be a person of a singularly 
 warm temperament," she continues with an approach to 
 scorn. 
 
 " Warm enough, at least, to make me long to comfort 
 you, if that be possible. You seem very depresssd," gaz- 
 ing at her with deep solicitude. " Is there anything that I 
 can do for you ?" 
 
 "Yes," says Lady Anne, "And I think you might have 
 done it before without all this tiresome preamble." 
 
 " Tell me how I can serve you," cries he eagerly, grow- 
 ing hope in his eyes. "All my life, as you well know, is 
 at your disposal ; and if " 
 
 "Well then, just ring the bell for coals, will you," says 
 she, turning once more with a shiver to the dying fire. 
 " As I said before, it is a most uncomfortable world." 
 
 " Anne ! " calling her by the more familiar appellation 
 in his chagrin, " do you mean to tell me you have been 
 talking of that er confounded fire all this time." 
 
 "Why, what were you talking of?" demands she, in 
 turn, staring at him. 
 
 "Of that is look here," mumbles he nervously, "you 
 have heard about Arthur, haven't you ? " 
 
 "Oh ! was that it ? " thoughtfully. Her brows contract, 
 and she looks distressed and a little forlorn. " I had for- 
 gotten it for the moment," she says, wearily. 
 
 " Don't try to forget it," advises he gently, persuasively. 
 " It would be impossible, don't you know ; but rather let 
 me help you to remember it with er equanimity. After 
 all he was never worthy of you, and " 
 
 "And you think you are," letting her eyes rest on him 
 with a reflective regard.
 
 332 LADY BRANKSMEKE. 
 
 " Not altogether ! But I think I might be so in time," 
 says he, being a very honest lover. 
 
 There is a short pause. 
 
 "Well, so do I," says Lady Anne frankly, holding out to 
 him her hand. "And to do you only bare justice, Prim- 
 rose, I don't think time is required. I think " (with a sud- 
 den beautiful softening of her gentle eyes) " you are worthy 
 of a far better woman even now." 
 
 This swift and sweet surrender takes him by storm. The 
 color springs to the little man's cheeks. 
 
 " Why should I dispute so foolish a speech," he says, lift- 
 ing her hand to his lips. "You know, Anne, what I think 
 of you. That your compeer is not to be met with upon 
 earth." 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 ' ' Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are enabled 
 to inspire." 
 
 "And then, then only, when we love, we live ! " 
 
 ALL the world outside is white with snow. The branches 
 hang low because of it ; the berries of the brilliant hollies 
 are so far covered that only a little touch of scarlet here 
 and there can be seen. Muriel, stretched upon her couch, 
 watches with a lazy interest a tiny robin with its pretty 
 crimson breast, that hops ever and ever nearer to the 
 crumbs she has placed upon the sill outside the window, 
 close to which she is lying. It must be a new robin, a 
 trembling, nervous little stranger, because those who have 
 visited her during the past month are now so tame as to 
 have grown over bold. There had come even a day when 
 they had pecked loudly at her window pane, as though to 
 demand the dainties she had forgotten to place for them. 
 
 The winds are sighing piteously. Ever and anon they 
 dash themselves against the sashes, as though they would 
 fain enter the cosey, firelit room with its delicate satin trap- 
 pings of rose and chocolate, and its subtle perfume that 
 suggests a raid having been made by someone upon the 
 winter houses. 
 
 Feeling a little tired and spiritless, Lady Branksmere 
 had refused to go to the library to-day, but had, instead,
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 333 
 
 ensconced herself in her boudoir, and, surrounded by peri- 
 odicals, had elected to sleep and read away the afternoon. 
 It is pretty far spent now, and, tired of her reading, Muriel 
 has sunk back on her couch, and closed her eyes with, 
 perhaps, a faint hope that sleep may visit her. 
 
 The room is warm, the scent of the flowers seductive. 
 She has grown presently so drowsy that the opening of the 
 door, though she hears it, fails to rouse her to a more open 
 declaration of wakefulness. 
 
 Whoever it is who enters stands irresolutely upon the 
 threshold of this, her own particular sanctum, as though 
 uncertain as to whether he shall enter or retire, and yet 
 evidently unwilling to go. Probably inclination conquers, 
 because, after a moment's pause he comes on tiptoe to the 
 fireplace, and, under the mistaken impression that its mis- 
 tress is asleep, seats himself cautiously in a huge armchair. 
 
 It is a glorious armchair, soft and roomy, and caressing. 
 Lord Branksmere has not been in it many minutes when, 
 overcome by the influence of the fire and the seduction of 
 the atmosphere, he falls into a sound sleep. 
 
 Had he dreams ? Were they rose-colored ? Did did 
 someone (alas ! how unlikely a someone) come to his 
 side and bend over him, and brush back with gentle fin- 
 gers the dark hair (of late eo subtly touched with gray) from 
 his forehead ? If his dreams were such, they were evi- 
 dently unfounded, because when he wakes presently with 
 a start, the room is as still as ever, and Muriel is lying 
 over there as mute, as motionless as when he entered. By 
 the bye it is as well she hadn't waked to find him slumber- 
 ing here within her own special den. She would hardly 
 have been gracious, to so decided an outsider. He smiles 
 bitterly to himself as he thinks this, and, rising to his feet, 
 creeps as he came on tiptoe to the door. 
 
 Being a man (poor creature !) he is of course clumsy, 
 and his creeping this time results in the fall of a little 
 cranky legged chair against a spider table crammed with 
 china. Some of this china most unkindly comes with a 
 crash to the floor. It isn't much of a crash, but it appar- 
 ently wakes its owner. 
 
 " Who is there ?" asks Muriel, sitting up suddenly, and 
 blinking in a rather more sleepy fashion than a sleepy per- 
 son really would. 
 
 ''It is I ; Branksmere," returns that individual confus- 
 edly. " There, it isn't broken," he says, picking the ugly 
 little cup off the carpet. " I'm sorry I disturbed you, and
 
 334 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 of course I ought to apologize for my intrusion here, but 
 finding you asleep I thought I'd wait and er 
 
 " But you didn't wait! Where are you going now?" 
 demands she, querulously, seeing he is making for the door. 
 
 "Nowhere in particular. More for a short stroll before 
 dinner than anything else. If you dislike being alone, 
 however, shall I send 
 
 "No one! If," fractiously, "you won't stay, I would 
 rather be alone." 
 
 She turns away her head, and buries it rebelliously in 
 the cushions. 
 
 Branksmere flushes crimson. 
 
 " Me ! Do you want me to stay ? " he asks. 
 
 " Oh, of course, I don't. I only desire to be left in 
 peace," cries she, impatiently. 
 
 Branksmere, drawing a low chair beside her couch, seats 
 himself deliberately upon it. 
 
 "Don't stick your nose into the cushions in that ridicu- 
 lous way," he says in his usual brusque fashion, "but turn 
 round, and explain to me what it is you really desire." 
 
 A low sound escapes her. She lifts her head and makes 
 a slight movement in his direction, and then sinks back 
 again as if exhausted. 
 
 " I feel so tired so tired, "she breathes, fretfully, wearily, 
 her eyes filling with tears as she acknowledges the fatigue 
 that is overpowering her. 
 
 " You haven't had your sherry and quinine that's it," de- 
 clares he, springing to his feet and bringing it to her. 
 " Now, sit up and drink it." 
 
 " No," turning away distastefully. " I hate it." 
 
 " That isn't of the least consequence," coldly, " you must 
 take it. So come. No don't do that ! You must, you 
 know.'' 
 
 He holds down the impatient hand she has raised. 
 
 " Must I ? " repeats she, with a little feeble exhibition 
 of determination. " Well, let us see ! " 
 
 "To please me, then," says Branksmere, roused to genius 
 by his anxiety. He could have sunk into the ground when 
 the words have passed his lips, but he has not time for 
 false shame, before the remarkable results of his speech 
 display themselves. 
 
 Muriel, when she has stared at him for a long minute, 
 drops her eyes, and, taking the medicine from his hand, 
 swallows it without another word. 
 
 " It is abominable," she says then, pushing him and the
 
 LADY BKAXA'SMEKE. 335 
 
 glass away from her and sinking back upon her couch. 
 She speaks harshly, as though with an anxiety to reassert 
 herself, and to destroy the suspicion of weakness her com- 
 pliance might have possibly given rise to, in his mind. 
 
 " It will be, I hope, only a passing disagreeability. You 
 will soon be able to give it up," says Branksmere. Then 
 he pauses and looks at her with a sudden intensity. His 
 face pales, as he nerves himself to say what for some time 
 has lain heavy on his mind. " You do not grow stronger," 
 he exclaims, blurting it out at last, in a rather spasmodic 
 fashion. 
 
 " No," she smiles. ''You, too, see that ? " She stretches 
 out her arms with a gesture of relief. " I am glad of it," 
 she breathes softly. " It is the best thing that could hap- 
 pen for both you and me." 
 
 " What is ? " sharply. 
 
 " My death ! I can't tell you," her voice sinking to an 
 exultant whisper, " how very, very much weaker I have felt 
 to-day and yesterday. It will be consumption, I suppose, 
 and a rapid one, I hope." 
 
 Branksmere, who has not recovered his color, regards 
 her keenly. 
 
 "You are wrong in one particular," he says slowly. " In 
 spite of all that has come and gone, I should not consider 
 it the best thing for me." 
 
 " That shows your folly," with a frown. 
 
 " Probably. Yet I would not wish myself wiser in that 
 matter. And why should things be always between us as 
 they are to-day. Consider. Life is short, shall we waste 
 it ? If, in the future, you could come to regard me as " 
 
 " No, no ! " with a burst of passionate vehemence, shrink- 
 ing from him, though lie has not attempted to touch her, 
 "put that out of your head at once and forever. What ! 
 Do you imagine you could be sincere in such a wish. Do 
 not act the hypocrite, Branksmere ! Shun that ignoble 
 part." 
 
 She sits up on her couch, and lifting one hand presses 
 back the loosened hair from her white brow. She looks 
 pale and haggard, and the great hollows beneath her eyes 
 give those lovely features a depth that adds to their bril- 
 liancy. She is looking subdued, but very beautiful in spite 
 of the fever that still lurks within her veins, and the crush- 
 ing memories that keep her low, and 
 
 "The passions and the cares that wither life, 
 And waste its little hour."
 
 336 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " I am no hypocrite, as you well know," returns Branks- 
 mere, with meaning. " But \\\\\\ you how is it ? Do you 
 conceal nothing hide away no desire in your inmost heart 
 of which the world must not dream ? You should think 
 twice," coldly, " before you accuse me of hypocrisy ! " 
 
 " You mean ? " demands she, with stormy eyes. 
 
 " I wish I could tell you even half that I mean," declares 
 he, rising to his feet and beginning to pace the floor with 
 uneven strides. "Will nothing ever deaden that memory 
 within you ? Must you always know regret? And such a 
 regret ! " 
 
 "You forget yourself," says Muriel. Her tone is cold. 
 She is trembling from head to foot. 
 
 " That is true," cries he vehemently. " I forget all. I 
 remember only you." 
 
 " Forget me, then ! " Her tone is full of an anger that 
 is more than half melancholy. " Blot me out of your re- 
 membrance. It is the one thing I most earnestly desire. 
 Oh ! " she clasps her hands together and looks full at him 
 with eyes wide and anguished. " Oh, that I could be sure 
 that your thoughts never dwelt on me." 
 
 "You cannot be sure of that," says Branksmere, doggedly. 
 
 " Is this my punishment ? Would you compel me to be 
 forever before you knowing you were remembering ! 
 See here," she cries, in an impassioned tone, holding out 
 her arms to him with a gesture full of entreaty. " Let me 
 go ! It is all I ask. After all, I doubt my chance with 
 Death. For once he may show the most mistaken mercy, 
 and instead of killing me may leave me here to a thing far 
 worse than his embrace. Oh ! Branksmere, think ! Think. 
 The shame of it it is the shame of it that is destroying me. 
 Let me go." 
 
 "You would have a formal separation ! That is impos- 
 sible," replies he, in a low tone. " Do not hope for that ; 
 I will not submit to it." 
 
 " Then you shall take the consequences," cries she 
 wildly. " I swear I will not live here, day by day witli all 
 the hateful, the shameful past forever before me. Have 
 you no pity, none ! Can you not see what it means to me ? 
 Or are you deaf and blind to all my misery ? " 
 
 " You would leave me, then ! " 
 
 " Forever. Can I go ? " with trembling eagerness. 
 " When may I go ? " 
 
 " This is your second effort to leave me," says Branks- 
 mere, calmly. Then all at once his studied quiet leaves
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 337 
 
 him, he goes quickly to her and, laying his hand upon her 
 arm, turns her where the light can fall more fully upon 
 her face. " So you would desert me forever. Forever ! 
 that is what you say. Is all my care of no avail ? Does 
 
 my silence count for nothing, my patience, my for 
 
 he checks himself. 
 
 "Your forbearance?" coldly. "Yes; you have been 
 forbearing. Do you think I forget ? Oh ! that I could! " 
 
 "If you could, I should be the first tiling cast aside ?" 
 His tone is a question. 
 
 " That is only the bare truth," returns she, icily. 
 
 He lays his hands upon her shoulders and bending her 
 a little from him, looks into her face. 
 
 " Are you human ? " he asks, huskily. " Have you no 
 feeling ? Great heaven ! " pushing her away and then as 
 suddenly laying his hand upon her arm and drawing her 
 back to him, as if to read her very heart " How deadly 
 cruel you beautiful women can be ! " 
 
 "Let m,e go," she says, in a tone dangerously low. He 
 loosens his grasp at once, and she steps backward feebly, 
 laying her hand upon the chair nearest her as if to steady 
 herself. 
 
 "Am" I so abhorrent to you, that my very touch can 
 bring such a look into your face ? " demands Branksmere, 
 with a frown. 
 
 The excitement and the agitation are telling on her ter- 
 ribly. She is trembling from head to foot. 
 
 " Go ! " she says faintly, pointing to the door. 
 
 " No, I shall not go," returns he with a settled determi- 
 nation. As though to strengthen his resolve he seats 
 himself. "Let us come to the root of this matter. You 
 desire a life altogether apart from me. Why ? " 
 
 " I have already explained," replies she sullenly. 
 
 " To escape from a past that is known to you and me 
 alone ; to obtain a freedom that will leave you open to the 
 world's crudest innuendoes. A woman separated from her 
 husband very seldom gains a martyr's crown in this life. 
 Be reasonable, I entreat you." 
 
 "You misunderstand 
 
 "On the contrary, I understand you well enough. You 
 desire leisure to brood over your griefs, to spend in a 
 vain regret, not for what you have wilfully resigned, but for 
 what you have lost." 
 
 " It is folly to waste insults on me. I am too poor a foe 
 for that," returns she coldly. " I have already told you
 
 338 LADY BKANKSMERE. 
 
 that regrets of the kind you hint at are unknown to me." 
 She moves her head languidly and looks at him. " If I 
 might be alone," she says, speaking as if with difficulty, 
 "or must I leave the " 
 
 With an impatient gesture Branksmere goes by her to- 
 ward the door. He has reached it, when suddenly, as if 
 compelled to it, he comes back to her, and taking her in 
 his arms strains her to his breast with an almost con- 
 vulsive clasp. 
 
 " You don't love me I know that," he says in a stifled 
 tone, " but swear to me before heaven that you love no 
 other man." 
 
 " I swear it," says Lady Branksmere, overcome by the 
 agony in his voice. 
 
 "Not," gazing fixedly and suspiciously at her, "that 
 devil ! " 
 
 " Oh ! no, no, no." She shudders violently. 
 
 Once again he presses her passive form to his heart, and 
 then, with quivering lips and sombre eyes, looks down at 
 her. Her eyes are lowered ; her features are still as 
 marble. 
 
 " Pah ! " he says, pushing her almost roughly from him. 
 " You have a heart of ice ! You are not worth it all ! " 
 
 He strides toward the door. He has gained it opened 
 it is on the threshold when a low cry breaks from her. 
 
 " Stay, stay, Branksmere ! " she calls aloud in a wild, 
 impassioned tone. 
 
 Closing the door, he returns to her side, slowly, as one 
 amazed, and awaits in silence her explanation. She strug- 
 gles desperately for self-possession, and then all at once, 
 as it were bursts into a storm of tears, a storm so heavy 
 that it seems to tear her frail body and shake it to its very 
 centre. 
 
 " It is nothing ! " she sobs vehemently. " Oh ! you should 
 not stay because I ask you. You should go. Why should 
 you obey any request of mine ? I must be mad to call to 
 you at all. But I could not let you go believing me alto- 
 gether heartless. I am not that. Ah ! if time could only 
 be given to me over again ; if these last hateful months 
 could be wiped from the tablet of my life, how different 
 all might be." 
 
 " The months of your married life ? " asks he with an 
 ominous calm in look and tone. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What madness possesses you to talk to me like this,"
 
 LADJ BRANKSMERK. 339 
 
 exclaims he suddenly. "Are you determined to defy me 
 to the last ? Have you no fear ? " 
 
 "What is there left to fear?" asks she mournfully. 
 " My own hopes, your good will, all I have bartered. If 
 these dead months I speak of had never been, you might 
 still She breaks off abruptly, and glances at him in 
 
 a half-frightened, nervous fashion. 
 
 "I might, what?" demands he, eagerly. His manner 
 lias entirely changed, the hidden wrath has been con- 
 quered a deep anxiety has taken its place. 
 
 " Do not pursue the subject. It is useless to go into it 
 now. The past is ever with me, there is no escaping it, 
 and the future is a void from which I shrink." 
 
 " Nevertheless, tell me." 
 
 She makes a negative gesture with her hand. It seems 
 as though she is afraid to speak, lest words bring with 
 them tears once more. 
 
 " Do not repulse me, I implore you," entreats he, laying 
 his hand upon her arm. " Speak say what was on your 
 mind what was on your lips just now ? " 
 
 Impressed by the solemnity of his address, she struggles 
 with herself, and at last some words fall from her. 
 
 "If time could roll backward. If this could be again 
 the year when first I saw you ; if you could be once more 
 
 my lover not my husband " She stops dead short, as 
 
 though to go further, to enter into explanation, to termi- 
 nate her sentence, is beyond her. 
 
 " I am your lover now, as I was then as I shall be al- 
 ways " says Branksmere in a low but steady tone. The 
 words have hardly passed his lips, when he has to go 
 quickly to her assistance. The color has fled from her 
 lips ; she sways helplessly, and but that he catches her in 
 his arms she would have fallen. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 '"Tis death to me to be at enmity." 
 
 LIFTING her he lays her gently on the fur-covered lounge, 
 and bending over her gazes with a terrible anxiety upon 
 her face that is now as pale as though death has already 
 claimed her for his own. Her beautiful limbs stretched 
 nerveless upon the couch show no sign of life ; the purple
 
 340 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 lines beneath the closed lids throw out more clearly the 
 marble pallor of the cheeks below. 
 
 If she has fainted, however, it is an insensibility of but 
 short duration. Presently she uplifts the heavy lids, and 
 sighing gently, moves her tired head from side to side. 
 Sitting down by her, Branksmere gently chafes her hand, 
 and after a little induces her to take a glass of champagne 
 he has procured from Bridgman. 
 
 After five minutes or so have gone by in absolute silence, 
 Muriel suddenly turns her eyes full upon him. There 
 is in them the fretful reproach of one who is either very ill 
 or very unhappy. 
 
 " These pillows ! " she says petulantly, " Oh ! how they 
 make my head ache." 
 
 " Let me settle them," softly, as though consoling a little 
 weary child, he speaks. He raises the pillows, and is still 
 arranging them, so that she must know comfort, when her 
 head falls back as if exhausted. Her eyes close, and 
 Branksmere, fearing she has again fainted, does not dare 
 to stir, hardly indeed dares to breathe, while she lies there 
 resting unconsciously within his arms. It reminds him of 
 that first day after her great illness when he had in such 
 wise supported her ; but then she had been indeed unaware 
 
 of his presence. Now . His heart beats quickly. 
 
 Stooping to examine more minutely the lovely wasted 
 face, he sees that she has recovered herself, and that two 
 tears have forced themselves from under her long lashes. 
 She is sensible, yet she has not withdrawn herself from his 
 encircling arm ! 
 
 The tears slowly, very slowly, travel down the wan lines 
 of her face, but her eyes go up to his. 
 
 " How good you are to me ! " she breathes brokenly. 
 She lifts the hand that is round her neck, and drawing it 
 still more tightly round her presses the fingers to her lips. 
 A thrill runs through Branksmere. Now, at last, when 
 despair has seemed his portion, is life, hope, joy coming to 
 him! " But you must not say such things to me. My lover ! 
 Alas ! all such times are gone for me. I am an outsider, a 
 creature with no interests, and in whom no one finds in- 
 terest. There are moments," she says, with a pathetic at- 
 tempt at calm that strikes him as being especially mourn- 
 ful, " when I feel the loneliness of it the desire for 
 something beyond something irrecoverable." 
 
 "Muriel, do not turn from me. Look at me. When I 
 used that word I meant it. Your lover. I am your lover
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 341 
 
 now, even now." His face has blanched, his tone is sharp 
 and impassioned. 
 
 "All that is folly," cries she excitedly, rising on her el- 
 bow. "You would be something more than human to for- 
 give what has happened. It is impossible, I tell you." She 
 draws her breath with an uncertain violence, as though 
 deeply agitated. Her eyes meet his ; suddenly she covers 
 her face with her hands. " Oh," cries she, with a wild in- 
 consistency, "if it might be possible. If I might dare be- 
 lieve " 
 
 " Believe this, at least, Muriel, that I love you." 
 
 "You could not love remembering." 
 
 " I suppose I could because I do." 
 
 " What ! Nay, Branksmere, why should you perjure 
 yourself to please a dying woman. Think, dwell on all 
 that has occurred, and tell me if you can still hold to your 
 words." 
 
 " Do you imagine I have not thought. And yet I love 
 you. To forget is not within the reach of any man ; and 
 though every smallest detail of your error" here his 
 voice falls "is fresh within my memory, I still swear to 
 you that you, and no other woman upon earth, can call my 
 heart her own." 
 
 " And if 
 
 " You think me weak, perhaps ? Is that my reward ? 
 Other men might condemn what you have done, but I 
 must be different from my fellows, because I see no fault 
 in you. I have forgiven all. I would if only you would 
 let me raise you to the very highest throne in my affec- 
 tions." 
 
 His dark eyes, large and eager, seek hers, and meet them. 
 What he sees there sends a swift flush into his cheek. 
 
 " Ah, my day has come, then," he cries, with vehement 
 exultation. " I have waited, but I have won." He takes 
 her face between his hands, and gazes intently into it. 
 " You will love me, Muriel ? Is that what your eyes say ? 
 Is that what your blush means ? Is that what your lip 
 would utter ? Oh, my beloved, for once let your lips speak 
 the real truth to me, of their own accord." 
 
 He leans over her, nearer, nearer still. Their breaths 
 mingle, coming swiftly through their parted lips, their eyes 
 grow to each other, there is one wild tremulous movement, 
 and then they are in each other's arms, heart to heart at 
 last, with all save love forgotten ! 
 
 The sound of footsteps echoing through the corridor
 
 342 
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 without rouses them at last to a sense of every-day life. 
 There is a subdued colloquy in the corridor without, and 
 Bridgman, having taken the salver from the footman, brings 
 it in and hands some cards to Muriel. 
 
 " Lady Primrose, Mrs. Amyot, Lady Bellair." She reads 
 this much aloud to show Bridgman she is her usual calm 
 self, and then breaks down and rather mumbles over the 
 others. 
 
 " You can't receive them ; it will be too much for you," 
 says Branksmere tenderly, when Bridgman has retired. 
 " I'll take an excuse, if you will." 
 
 "Tired, no. I feel strong, well!" cries she, rising 
 brightly if a little slowly to her feet ; " you have given 
 me fresh life ! " 
 
 There is something in her new-born gayety that reminds 
 him of Margery. In a moment, as it were, she has blos- 
 somed into a brilliant creature, hitherto unknown, unsus- 
 pected ; the great soft light that is illumining her eyes is 
 altogether strange to him. " I should like to see them," 
 she says eagerly. " I can give them a real welcome to-day. 
 I feel friendly toward all the world." Stopping short sud- 
 denly, and laying her hands on Branksmere's arms : "What 
 a different woman I am now ! Do you think they will know 
 me recognize me ? " 
 
 "/should recognize you," returns he tenderly, raising 
 her arms and inducing her to lay them round his neck. 
 " All these gone sad months you have not been my Muriel, 
 but now she has come to me. But, sweetheart, consider. 
 All this excitement, is it good for you ?" 
 
 "Very good," smiling, and in truth a faint, warm color 
 has stolen into her cheeks, and reddened her pale lips. 
 "Come !" she holds out her hand to him as she walks to 
 the door. 
 
 All at once she pauses and, lifting her hands to her au- 
 burn head, looks at him anxiously. 
 
 " Shall I do ? Is my hair all right ? " she asks him anx- 
 iously. There is something in the confidential glance and 
 tone that convinces him more than all that has gone be- 
 fore that she is indeed his own. 
 
 " Oh, darling ! To think it is all true ! " he says, some- 
 what irrelevantly, but out of the very fulness of his heart.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 343 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 "A woman who wants a charitable heart wants a pure mind.'' 
 "Hail ! holy love, thou word that sums all bliss." 
 
 " HERE she is," cries Margery gayly, as Muriel, followed 
 by Lord Branksmere, enters the room. " So glad ! " she 
 whispers lightly, to Mrs. Billy, who with Lady Anne has 
 been entertaining everybody. 
 
 They all rise in a body to receive the beautiful invalid 
 and to give her, in fact, a gentle ovation. But she looks 
 so unlike the orthodox thing so brilliant, so fresh, so full 
 of life, that surprise after awhile seizes hold upon them. 
 
 " By Jove, you know," says Halkett, who has run down 
 from town for a day or two to be near his bride-elect ; " I 
 never saw such a transformation in my life ; I wish /could 
 catch that fever." 
 
 " Don't," whispers Mrs. Vyner, now Lady Bellair, who is 
 near him, in her little caustic whisper ; " one fever at a 
 time is surely enough and yours is bad." 
 
 Mrs. Billy has pressed Muriel into an arm-chair close to 
 old Lady Primrose, whose corkscrew ringlets are a trifle 
 more pronounced than usual, owing to the fact that her 
 maid has pushed the poor old thing's front more to the 
 front than is desirable. But Lady Primrose, providentially 
 unaware of this, is in her most amiable mood, and having 
 embraced Muriel warmly, has fallen (through the heat of 
 her affections possibly) into a comfortable doze. 
 
 " Muriel, what has happened ? " asks Mrs. Billy, leaning 
 over the old lady's slumbering form. 
 
 "All that you, my best friend, could desire," returns 
 Lady Branksmere softly. 
 
 Lady Bellair having at last managed a tete-a-tete with 
 Mrs. Amyot (who, in a measure, has seemed to avoid her 
 ever since her entrance), now sinks into a low seat near 
 that lately affianced dame, and opens fire without delay. 
 
 "So you were afraid to tell me," she says, with a mali- 
 cious smile. 
 
 "Afraid!" repeats Mrs. Amyot with the absurdest as- 
 sumption of ignorance, that sets the other laughing. 
 
 " It is really true, then ? " 
 
 " Is what true ? " 
 
 " The horrible report I have heard about you." She
 
 344 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 throws so much mystery into this remark that Mrs. Amyot 
 gets off the line, and wanders into an unsound belief that 
 it is nothing so respectable as a report about her approach- 
 ing marriage that has shocked Lady Bellair. 
 
 "About me," she says, frowning slightly. "What! is 
 your last bit of scandal then about your friend ? Has it 
 come to that, Louisa ?" 
 
 "It has," declares Louisa tragically, who is delighted 
 with the turn affairs have taken ; "not that I believe it. 
 I don't myself think you could be guilty of it." 
 
 " That is so good of you ! We all know what that kindly 
 assurance means. Not only that you do believe the lie, 
 but that you are rejoiced in your heart that you can do so. 
 Well ! speak. Let me hear about this terrible ' it.' " 
 
 " If you compel me to mention it," demurely, "of course 
 I must. But before I speak be so good as to remember 
 that I have exonerated you in my own mind." 
 
 "Oh, never mind your mind," says Mrs. Amyot impa- 
 tiently. " It was never anything worth talking about." 
 
 "Well, but 
 
 " Will you go on ? " angrily. 
 
 " I am so afraid you will be annoyed." 
 
 " Put that fear in your pocket. I am annoyed already, 
 and it doesn't seem to have done you much harm, or 
 hastened your slander. Come, what is it ?" 
 
 " Hear, then, if you will, what people are saying about 
 it. They actually have spread it all over town that you 
 are going to be married! " 
 
 Mrs. Amyot leans back in her chair and gives way to 
 subdued but vehement merriment. Lady Bellair does 
 quite as much of it inwardly, but not a muscle of her face 
 betrays the fact. 
 
 "Oh! Nan," she says reproachfully. "It is a wicked 
 story I know, but I think you might ease my mind by 
 denying it." 
 
 " The world will be a blank to me, Louisa, when I lose 
 you," declares Mrs. Amyot at last. " You are a sort of 
 harmless laughing-gas, so far as I am concerned. Well 
 I'm glad you don't take my news worse." 
 
 "You acknowledge it, then, without blushing?" 
 
 "Why should I blush at my age ?" 
 
 " Because of your age ! You, whom I believed above 
 the weaknesses of your sex! You, who had lost and re- 
 gained freedom to deliberately fling it away again ! There 
 must be madness in your veins."
 
 LADY BRAXKSMERE. 345 
 
 " I don't look at it in your light." 
 
 "Evidently not. At least not now. But after ? " 
 
 " Never!" returns Mrs. Amyot, with force gathered from 
 a glance just gained from Halkett's eyes. 
 
 " Besotted fool ! " murmurs Lady Bellair, in a mournful 
 tone. " Can naught be done to save thee ? " 
 
 "Now, do you mean to tell me," begins Mrs. Amyot, 
 turning to her in a brisk way, " that if Lord Bellair were 
 to to deprive us eternally of his society you know that 
 you would never marry again ? " 
 
 " Catch me at it ! " says Lady Bellair, with more prompt- 
 itude than elegance. " If such an outrageous bit of luck 
 were to fall my way, I should know better than that. But 
 it won't," dismally. " Fancy your imagining I should trust 
 any man again after the mean, the disgraceful way Bellair 
 is behaving." 
 
 " What has he done now ? " 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear. The question is an insult. He 
 must have known that I married him in the full conviction 
 that he would have the decency to drop off the instant he 
 came in for the title. It is now fully six months since old 
 Lord Bellair made room for him, and yet up to this he has 
 declined to move on. Why, he is as lively as a cricket and 
 worse tempered than ever. There is no chance for me, 
 you see, because he looks with scorn upon tobacco, regards 
 brandy as an abomination, goes to bed as regular as clock- 
 work at ten o'clock, rises at a healthful hour, I am told, 
 and in fact eschews all methods of dying." 
 
 " I wonder if you mean all you say ? " 
 
 "Now don't give yourself airs, just because you are go- 
 ing to marry your own true love, as you think," says Lady 
 Bellair, with a contemptuous grin. " Mean it ? Rather ! 
 And only this morning he told me he never felt so brisk or 
 so lively for years, and quite looked as if he expected me 
 to be glad about it. Glad ! Do you call that being like a 
 gentleman ? It's downright low, in my opinion." 
 
 "Here he is," whispers Mrs. Amyot, in a subdued tone. 
 
 " Ah ! you ! " cries the fair Louisa, drawing her flounces 
 aside as if to make room for him on the lounge beside her, 
 with the prettiest air of welcome imaginable. " Is it not 
 charming to see our dear Lady Branksmere so altogether 
 her adorable self once more ? That gown, too ; what a 
 success and the color of it ? Somebody must have in- 
 A'ented it for her. Schalt, I shouldn't wonder ; isn't she de- 
 licious ? "
 
 346 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 " Don't know, I'm sure," growls the new old Earl gruff- 
 ly, as he passes. ''Never took a bite out of her." 
 
 " Darling old thing ! " murmurs his wife, apostrophizing 
 his vanishing back for the benefit of Mrs. Amyot, after 
 which she puts her face behind her fan and laughs im- 
 moderately. 
 
 " Somebody told me you never took him anywhere with 
 you now ; that you had by some lucky chance got him 
 well under your control, and kept him there." 
 
 " If you mean that I keep him at home, as a rule, you 
 are right. You can see for yourself he is not to be trusted 
 abroad without a keeper, his temper is so infinitely 
 stronger than he is. I was weak enough to consent to his 
 accompanying me here to-day (he heard Lady Primrose 
 was to be here, and wished to see her old flame of his, I 
 shouldn't wonder about the same century, eh ?) and now 
 you see what has been the result of my leniency. Dissi- 
 pation disagrees with him, and brings out all his nasty 
 points. But I'm so good-natured ! 1 am sure it will be 
 my ruin. Believe me, home is the best place for him. 
 ' Exempt from public haunt ' he can't do much mischief at 
 all events." 
 
 "Who is talking of mischief?" asks Halkett, drawing 
 near, and looking as affectionately at his betrothed as 
 decency will permit. 
 
 " I was," says Lady Bellair. "I can't bear mischievous 
 people, can you ? " 
 
 " I can some of them," returns he, with an expressive 
 glance at her. 
 
 "You are like me," returns she, unabashed. "Too 
 good-hearted by half. This is a cheap day, if you like. I 
 don't know when I have been so entertained as I have 
 been during the past hour by Nan." 
 
 "This, of course, means that she has been listening to 
 unlimited scandal," and Halkett casts a reproachful glance 
 at his beloved. 
 
 "Oh! yes. She's been at it again," continues Lady 
 Bellair, who is nothing if not malicious in a light and 
 playful fashion. "What!" with a careful artlessness, 
 " not discovered that trait of hers yet ? A poor lover, 
 say I ! He can't have studied you, Nan ; he hasn't given 
 you his undivided attention. You'll throw him over if 
 you have a spark of spirit." 
 
 "Whose spirit ? Yours ? " asks Halkett, who is always a 
 little amused, and a little angry when with her. " Do not
 
 LADY BRANKSMERR. 347 
 
 trouble your head about either of us ; we shall do very 
 well. To make a departure, have you noticed how well 
 Lady Branksmere is looking ? " 
 
 " There is nothing else to notice," with naive candor. 
 " We've noticed all the rest of you so painfully often that 
 it isn't to be done again. That's the worst of the country : 
 its gossip is so limited, and grows so remarkably stale. Yes, 
 Lady Branksmere is singularly improved. There is some- 
 thing in the whole menage brighter, fuller. How is it ? " 
 
 " A general rejoicing over her recovery, no doubt." 
 
 "A trifle more than that I fancy," dryly. " One looks 
 round and finds empty spaces surely. Madame missing. 
 Staines obliterated. It suggests a compromise, eh ?" 
 
 " Nonsense," says Halkett. 
 
 " Not at all, in my opinion. Very wise, on the contrary, 
 and very careful, but very poor j effect nowhere. I did 
 the heroine of our little comedy the honor to believe she 
 would have shown more pluck when the crisis came, 
 whatever Monsieur might do. It was easy for him, see 
 you. Madame was so decidedly passee." 
 
 " Pouf ; you know nothing," whispers Mrs. Amyot 
 lightly, who has grown very respectable since her engage- 
 ment. " Staines received his conge simply on account of the 
 discovery of that little affair of his in Brussels. Every one 
 knows it now. Branksmere, it appears, heard of it from a 
 man who was actually in the room when that king was 
 played, that was so decidedly de trop sort of usurper as 
 it were." 
 
 " Isn't she sharp!" murmurs Lady Bellair turning her 
 eyes full of a fond appreciation upon Mrs. Amyot. "And 
 what a pretty story, too. It comes in useful here. I like 
 ingenuity. I particularly admire the way in which that 
 canard has been made to fit." 
 
 She pauses to pull her skirts aside, and to smile on 
 Tommy Paulyn, who, with Angelica, is passing by, enroute 
 to the conservatory beyond. 
 
 " There is a whisper in the air that Paulyn is going to 
 settle down with that extremely youthful cousin of his," 
 remarks Halkett in a low tone. 
 
 " What ! that baby ? " 
 
 "It was Mrs. Daryl who whispered it to me She is a 
 funny little woman, who tells a funny little story very well. 
 Last evening, it appears,' May one of the twins found 
 Paulyn with Miss Angelica in a distant and rather unfre- 
 quented part of the shrubberies, in at attitude that struck
 
 348 LADY BRANKSMERE. 
 
 the child as being full of interest. He had his arm round 
 her. ' I think he was kissing her,' said Miss May, 'and 
 though she was very red, she wasn't a bit angry, and that's 
 what I couldn't understand, because Tommy is such an 
 ugly little thing ! ' ' 
 
 They all laugh. 
 
 "Well, I expect Tommy could," says Lady Bellair. " I 
 declare I call it absurd ! Everybody is going to be mar- 
 ried, it seems to me. Matrimony is an epidemic, and all 
 the world down here has caught it. Two fresh victims 
 have just gone by, who, it is apparent to every one, are 
 sickening for it. Then there are you and " nodding at 
 Halkett "you! Lady Anne and that insane little Prim- 
 rose, and last of all I hear that Margery, that pretty little 
 Daryl idiot, is going to throw herself away upon that ex- 
 tremely ugly young man who has come to grief with his 
 income, and isn't worth a sou. Sort of thing, after all, one 
 would expect from a girl with her eyes." 
 
 "It seems a sacrifice certainly," says Mrs. Amyot. 
 
 " I dare say not. I expect he is good enough for any 
 woman who could so sinfully fling away her chances. But 
 what is she going to do with her big pauper? Of course 
 his size aggravates the trouble. It must take such a lot to 
 keep up those shoulders of his." 
 
 " He has something, I believe," ventures Mrs. Amyot 
 doubtfully, gazing regretfully across the room to where 
 Bellew is talking to Billy Daryl. "What a young Her- 
 cules he is ! I'm more sorry than I know about it." 
 
 "There is nothing that so surely means poverty as that 
 vague ' something] " declares Lady Bellair yawning vaguely. 
 " He hasn't a penny worth speaking about, believe me. If 
 she doesn't very wisely cry off, before she takes the fatal 
 plunge, they will know what it is to be beggars. How 
 horrid it sounds eh ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, ma'am," says a gruff voice behind 
 them that makes Lady Bellair jump, for perhaps the first 
 time in her imperturbable life, and turns Mrs. Amyot crim- 
 son. Halkett had taken himself off a few minutes ago. 
 " That ' little Daryl idiot,' as you so politely term my niece, 
 will never be a ' beggar ' or a ' pauper ' either." Sir Mutius 
 Mu in in, thrusting his head forward, glares at Lady Bellair 
 and nods at her furiously. 
 
 " Really, Sir Mutius, I er 
 
 " She is my niece, ma'am, mine" declares Sir Mutius, in 
 a tone rich in offended dignity.
 
 LADY BRANKSMERE. 349 
 
 " I'm sure I congratulate her," returns Lady Bellair, 
 who has now quite recovered her self-possession. 
 
 " My niece, ma'am," reiterates old Grumpy, who has 
 now worked himself into a regular passion. " I must re- 
 quest," bringing his stick down upon the floor with an 
 emphasis that makes the Dresden shepherdess, upon the 
 cabinet close at hand, shake in her china shoes, " that 
 every one will remember that. My niece, ma'am, and my 
 heiress too ! D'ye hear that ? " He pauses, as though 
 what he has just said is astonishing himself also. "No 
 niece of mine, ma'am, need be a pauper, or a beggar, or a 
 vagrant. My niece " he sticks to this word aggressively 
 " as Mrs. Bellew, will be able to hold up her head as well 
 as " he stops short, and looks full in a malignant way 
 at Lady Bellair " the worst of you." 
 
 Without waiting for a rejoinder to this pretty speech he 
 hobbles away. Mrs. Amyot lifts her brows. Halkett, 
 coming up again, is desired to stand still that he may hear 
 old Grumpy's announcement. 
 
 " To be his heiress means a good deal," says Mrs. Amyot. 
 
 " Lady Bellair, they owe you an immense debt of grati- 
 tude," laughs Halkett. " In my opinion Sir Mutius would 
 never have left them a penny if you had not talked of 
 Margery's being, possibly, a beggar. I believe, in spite of 
 yourself, you have done a good action to-day." 
 
 " Well, really, I couldn't help it," returns she apologeti- 
 cally. 
 
 " I am so glad their happiness is assured," says Mrs. 
 Amyot warmly. " After all it is a poor thought I own 
 but money has a good deal to do with it. What ? Will 
 nobody agree with me ? Am I " with a reproachfully 
 amused glance all round "the only mercenary person in 
 the room ? Come to my rescue then, Lady Branksmere, 
 I beseech you." 
 
 Thus lightly appealed to, Muriel hesitates, and involun- 
 tarily glancing at Branksmere, she sees something in the 
 earnest gaze he has fastened on her that dyes her face a 
 warm, sweet crimson. 
 
 " I am afraid you have chosen a bad advocate," she an- 
 swers softly. " No, I do not think money has so very 
 much to do with one's happiness." 
 
 "What then ?" 
 
 " Love," says Muriel, in a tender, tremulous tone. 
 
 THE END.
 
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