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 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON.
 
 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON 
 
 ^ »ofa«l- 
 
 THEODORE RUSSELL MONRO, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'THE VANDKLEUB3 OF BED TOE,' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 SAMUEL TIXSLEY & CO., 
 
 10 SOUTHAMPTOX STREET, STRAND. 
 1878. 
 
 lAll rights reserved.']
 
 ?^2 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 e>, 
 
 10 
 
 18 
 31 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Brassingham Fajiily ... 1 
 II. The Freemans and the Amorys . 
 III. What the Brassinghams thought of 
 
 THEIR Neighbours 
 IV. Frank Freeman .... 
 V. What their Neighbours thought of 
 
 THE Brassinghams 
 VI. Water-cure Scandals . 
 VII. Mr. Brassingham explains Himself 
 VIII. Julian Ferrand .... 
 IX. Agatha Bonchurch 
 X. Loftus Tempest .... 
 XI. An Episode in Wharfdale Life . 
 "* XII. Bolton Abbey .... 
 ^^nXIII. Madame Julia Ferrand 
 "^ XIV. Violet's Lovers — the Adventurer 
 
 XV. AnneBrassingham gets INTO Difficulties 
 XVI. Anne Brassingham Seals her Fate 
 XVII. Violet's Lovers — the Millionnaire 
 
 38 
 
 5^ 
 
 74 
 
 97 
 
 107 
 
 124 
 
 142 
 
 161 
 
 192 
 
 206 
 
 227 
 
 235 
 
 247 
 
 /O
 
 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BKASSINGHAM FAMILY. 
 
 On the slopes of a Yorkshire valley stands a 
 huge, square pile of buildings, surrounded 
 by well-kept gardens, and, further afield, by 
 miles of yellow gorse and purple heather. 
 
 The Imilding itself is massive in structure, 
 gigantic in size, palatial in external appear- 
 ance and internal appointments. Thither 
 resort in crowds, during the autumn, tourists 
 from all parts of the British isles, some in 
 search of health, some for pleasure, some in 
 quest of both. 
 
 On entering the grounds one's social in- 
 stincts seem to burst into full bloom, in 
 harmony with nature's maturity, the gay 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 blaze of flowers, and. the exuberant health 
 and vitality everywhere visible in nature 
 and in man. As one walks along the wind- 
 ing shrubberies light laughter and young 
 voices are borne u^^on the autunuial air from 
 croquet-ground and tennis-lawn. Here are 
 grave elders pacing the velvet turf, there a 
 group of happy children feeding the water- 
 fowl in a tiny mountain tarn. Noav the 
 sound is the rumble of the bowling-alley, 
 or the creaking of strange macliines in the 
 gymnasium. 
 
 The month is August. The Wells 
 have attracted even a greater number of 
 visitors than usual. The house is filled from 
 basement to garret. Never before has there 
 been such a good season. The heat of the 
 day is over ; every one is out and stirring. 
 The measured beat of the battledore, the 
 thud of croquet-balls, the shouts of children, 
 the merry banter of young men and 
 maidens, the salutations of more staid and 
 sombre age, are heard far and wide upon 
 the evening air in the pleasure - grounds 
 of this Yorkshire paradise.
 
 THE 13RASSINGHAM FAMILY. 6 
 
 Among the visitors to the Wells, during 
 the autumn of which Ave speak, the family 
 of Brassingliam formed a conspicuous 
 group. 
 
 First, because they v^^ere in themselves 
 consj)icuous peoj^le in tlieir appearance 
 and air. 
 
 Secondly, because they formed a centre 
 round which rallied many less well-known 
 groups, who had never seen each other 
 before in their lives, but who all either 
 w^ere, or desired to appear, intimate with 
 the Brassinghams. 
 
 Thirdly, because among the ladies of the 
 Brassingham family some were very beauti- 
 ful, and some were very rich ; consequently 
 young men of all temperaments found 
 attractions in their society. 
 
 Lastly, Mr. Brassingham himself was a 
 person not easily overlooked in any society, 
 either for his wealth, his position, or himself. 
 Even had John Brassingham been one of 
 the bath - men at the Wells, instead of 
 a millionnaire who hajDpened to be the father 
 of some very attractive young women, he
 
 4 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 would all tlie same have foimcl himself the 
 object of regard of one sort or another 
 to almost every liiiman being who saw him 
 or spoke to him. Some men are accustomed 
 to occupy such a position towards their 
 fellows all their lives, and though it may 
 be often difficult to state in what this pre- 
 eminence consists, yet the fact remains, and 
 most people do not take the trouble to 
 contest it. 
 
 In the first place, John Brassingham was 
 a magnificent animal, a man wliom to see 
 was to ask who he was, so striking was 
 liis figure, so distinguished his air, so 
 resolute his face. In age he was somewhere 
 between forty-five and fifty. He Avas a man 
 of massive build, and had the appearance 
 of immense strength. His thick black hair 
 was beginning to be sprinkled with grey, 
 though the short square-cut beard was as 
 yet untouched by time. His face was 
 massive and square ; his eyes large, brown, 
 and bold. He was a man much admired 
 and mucli feared. The fact was that the 
 animal nature in him preponderated too
 
 THE BRASSINGHAM FAMILY. 5 
 
 largely. Those who loved him not, while 
 admitting the magnificence of his physical 
 j)roportions, usually added their opinion that 
 he was coarse or harsh, or sensual or brutal 
 even, as their language corresjDonded to their 
 degree of dislike. Perhaps he w^as ojDen 
 to all these allegations, but if he was strong 
 for evil he was equally strong for good, 
 while in all things the very strength of his 
 nature made him suffer the more. When to 
 a personal appearance of so distinguished a 
 type are added the facts that Mr. Brassing- 
 ham was a millionnaire and a widower, it 
 will not be wondered at that he was re- 
 garded with much interest by the lady 
 part of the visitors, many of whom thought 
 that to become the second Mrs. Brassingham 
 would be a very desirable arrangement. 
 Beyond the manifold attractions that John 
 Brassingham presented as a possible partner 
 for life, there was an air of deep reserve, of 
 mvsterv, almost of o-loom, about the mau 
 which increased the interest of the fair sex 
 in him to an almost unbounded extent. 
 No one could accuse him of a melo- dramatic
 
 6 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 air, yet no one could look at liini without 
 a conviction that grave sorrows had followed 
 fierce passions, and that tliere was a good 
 deal of the devil in him still, w^hich might 
 burst forth again as fiercely now as in liis 
 hottest youth. 
 
 In short, people at the Wells talked a 
 great deal about John Brassingham, and 
 any one who knew anything at all about 
 him or his family, or his misdeeds, or his 
 money, was plied with innumerable questions, 
 and his answers built up into an astounding 
 fabric of fact and fiction, which was varied 
 and exaggerated by every retailer, till the 
 past life of Mr. John Brassingham had 
 become as mythic as that of Agamemnon. 
 
 However, although every one asked who 
 he was, where he came from, Avhether or no 
 he had a grandfather, and other questions of 
 a like nature, yet no one doubted that he 
 was a wealthy widower, who with his 
 maiden sister and three young daughters, 
 and a certain Miss Violet Champneys, his 
 ward, formed a very important social nucleus 
 among the visitors at the Wells.
 
 THE BRASSIXGHAM FAMILY. 7 
 
 Miss LaYinia Brassingham, the sister in 
 question, was fast merging into the con- 
 dition of an old maid. At any rate she was 
 past forty, in person tall and bony, in man- 
 ners puritanical and straitlaced ; yet she 
 was a woman of some shrewdness and 
 warmth of heart, though she was at pains 
 to conceal any natural amiahilities which 
 might interfere with the severe opinions her 
 religion entailed upon her haloits of life. 
 She had striven hard to supply, as far as in 
 her lay, a mother's place to her brother's 
 children since Mrs. Brassingham's death ; 
 but she was not a sympathetic woman, nor a 
 tolerant one, and under these circumstances 
 her efforts, meritorious in themselves, had 
 sio:nallv failed. 
 
 Anne Brassingham, the eldest of the three 
 girls, was just what her mother had been. 
 She had inherited none of the singular 
 beauty of her father's family, in fact she 
 was a rather plain young woman, in no way 
 remarkable, except for a quiet persistency 
 of character which her friends called resolu- 
 tion — ^lier enemies, obstinacy.
 
 8 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 The next sister, Theodora, bore a strong 
 resemblance to her father. She was a 
 superb specimen of womanhood. Nature 
 had been very bountiful, some said too 
 bountiful, to her in the matter of physical 
 charms. She was altogether on a very large 
 scale, plenty of bone, plenty of blood, 
 plenty of colour, a wealth of raven hair, 
 large dark eyes, and a general appearance 
 of bounding animal life. 
 
 The youngest. May, but just emancipated 
 from the schoolroom, had also inherited her 
 father's vigour and good looks, but in her 
 everything was toned down. Her hair was 
 fairer, her stature smaller than her sister 
 Theodora's. She was altogether built in a 
 more delicate mould, though perhaps even 
 more attractive in her unobtrusive graces 
 than her more showy elder. 
 
 There had been brought up with them for 
 some years past Miss Violet Champncys, a 
 ward of Mr. Brassingham's ; a pale, blue- 
 eyed, auburn-haired girl, a little older than 
 May Brassingham, a little younger than 
 Theodora. Miss Champneys had neither
 
 THE BRASSINGHAM FAMILY. \) 
 
 the vigour of the two younger sisters nor 
 the calm persistency of character of the 
 eldest Miss Brassingham, yet in her own 
 sweet way she was both beautiful and reso- 
 lute. In figure she was small and slight 
 and fragile, and her manner was so quiet as 
 to seem demure. Such were the ladies who 
 formed the Brassingham family group. The 
 Misses Brassingham had a brother, a young 
 gentleman, moreover, who never suffered him- 
 self to be overlooked in anv societv in which 
 he might happen to find himself, who com- 
 bined in liis person and character the vigour 
 of Theodora, the beauty of May, and the 
 obstinacy of Anne. But this young gentle- 
 man was never spoken of save in a whisper, 
 and that never when Mr. Brassingham was 
 present. Indeed, very few people at the 
 Wells had any idea that there was such 
 a person as Mr. Charles Brassingham in the 
 world.
 
 10 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FREEMANS AND THE AMORYS. 
 
 The Brassinghams were standing in a 
 group at the portico of the Wells w^hen 
 a couple of hired vehicles drove sharply up 
 to the entrance, and before the ladies could 
 make good their escape a young man of 
 about seven-and-twenty leaped from the fore- 
 most carriage and shook Mr. Brassingham 
 warmly by the hand. 
 
 ^^ Freeman ! this is indeed a pleasant sur- 
 prise," said Mr. Brassingham, cordially; 
 while, to judge by the welcome the new- 
 comer received from the whole family, the 
 pleasure was not confined to Mr. Brassing- 
 ham alone. 
 
 '^ I am so glad to have this opportunity of
 
 THE FREEMAXS AXD THE AMORYS. 11 
 
 making you all acquainted with my mother," 
 returned Mr. Freeman, who from his manner 
 was evidently on terms of intimacy with the 
 Brassingham family. ^^ Mother," added he, 
 ^' this is Mr. Brassingham, of whom you 
 have so often heard me speak." 
 
 ^' Indeed, I seem to meet jow all as old 
 friends," said Lady Catherine Freeman, 
 warmly ; '^ my son has made me so well 
 acquainted with you by his letters and 
 descriptions. I have to thank you all most 
 sincerely for your kindness to my Frank.'' 
 
 ^' Here are some more old friends for you 
 to welcome," interrupted Freeman, looking 
 mischievously at Theodora and May. '' We 
 must not block the way, mother." 
 
 The second fly now drove ujd. From it 
 first emerged a young, fair, handsome fellow, 
 scarcely more than a boy in years, whose 
 laughing blue eyes flashed a merry challenge 
 to the assembled group on the door-step. Mr. 
 Eric Amory, for such was his name, though 
 among his intimate friends he was commonly 
 known as ^^ Cupid Amory," kissed his hand 
 somewhat pertly to the ladies in a body,
 
 12 
 
 and then assisted to alight a lady who 
 seemed in very delicate healtli, his mother, 
 Lady Amory. 
 
 Lady Amory's greeting was very different 
 to that of Lady Catherine Freeman. Not 
 that it was intended to be other than pleasant, 
 but there was a lackadaisical affectation 
 about the woman's manner that formed a 
 strong contrast to Lady Catherine's frank 
 urbanity. Lady Amory was a delicate- 
 looking, faded woman, who still bore the 
 traces of great beauty, but whose charms 
 were now so obviously the result of adven- 
 titious aids that it was almost impossible to 
 guess what might have been the character of 
 her beauty in more youthful days. Her 
 hair, which should have been grey, was a 
 red auburn. Even the lustre of her eyes 
 was the result of paint and pencil, not of 
 health. Though obviously nearer fifty than 
 forty, she had adopted a style of dress 
 suitable only to a young and pretty girl, 
 while her whole air betokened an assump- 
 tion of a social position to which neither 
 birth nor breeding had entitled her. Li
 
 THE FEEEMAXS AXD THE AMORYS. 13 
 
 trutli, Lady Amory, tliough occupying the 
 status of a knight's widow, was not a gentle- 
 woman ; and although she had contrived to 
 catch much of tlie suj^erficial gloss which 
 passes muster for refinement, vet she showed 
 her lack of D;"ood - breedino- in a thousand 
 trifles before people had known her a day. 
 Her husband had been a successful city mer- 
 chant, who for certain services rendered to 
 Government (nobody quite knew what), had 
 received the honour of knia'hthood. She 
 herself was but tlie daughter of a wealthy 
 tradesman. Her father had been a dolls'-eye 
 maker at Nuremberg ; but she had received 
 a fasliionable education, had mixed in certain 
 sets of quasi-fashionable people, and had 
 ultimately been presented to her sovereign 
 on attaining the much coveted title of 
 ^'my lady.'' She was a weak, silly, affected 
 woman, a prey to ^^ nerves," and a devoted 
 Ritualist. 
 
 People affirmed, and not without reason, 
 that young Eric Anior}^ must have ^' favoured 
 his father," as the country people are wont 
 to phrase it; for a young fellow with less
 
 14 LOYJ': LOST, i]i;t iionouh won. 
 
 nonsense about liim could scarcely have been 
 found. If his beauty was rather that of the 
 cherubj yet with his yellow hair and bright 
 colour and merry big blue eyes, no one 
 could deny that the sobriquet of '^ Cupid" 
 had been aptly bestowed. Without being 
 clever, he possessed a certain shrewdness 
 which enable him to hold his own in the 
 world, and he was as cordially liked by his 
 men-friends as by the gentler sex, which is 
 jDcrhaps the strongest proof obtainable of a 
 young man's soundness of heart and head. 
 
 While the ladies were doffing their travel- 
 ling dresses, Fraidv Freeman and Eric Amory 
 sauntered out into the grounds for an evening 
 cigar in the twilight. 
 
 '^Wliere is Charles Brassingham ? " was 
 the first question asked by Eric of his friend. 
 
 as soon as they were out of earshot. '^ Is he 
 not here with the rest of them ? " 
 
 •^ I forgot to warn you," returned the other, 
 '^on no account to mention him, or notice 
 his absence. There has been a worse row 
 even than usual between father and son, 
 and either Charlie left the paternal roof of
 
 THE FEEEMANS AND THE AMOEYS. 15 
 
 liis own accord, or was kicked out by liis 
 father. I have heard no particulars, indeed 
 the quarrel only occurred just before they 
 came here, and I have had no communi- 
 cation with Charlie as yet upon the subject." 
 
 '^ I dare say Ave shall be able to get it out 
 of the girls," observed Eric. 
 
 ^' I fancy not," replied his friend. ^^ I 
 think there has been some stronger cause 
 for a row than usual, and the girls hate 
 been forbidden to open their mouths on the 
 subject." 
 
 ^^ All the more reason they should ' split ' 
 on the first opportunity," said Eric. Mr. 
 Brassingham looks terribly down in the 
 mouth, though ; don't you think so ? " 
 
 ^' I think I never saw him so grave in all 
 the years I have known him," answered 
 Frank; '^ths fact is he has made a jDcr- 
 fect idol of Charlie, and sometliing has 
 happened to prove the idol is only clay 
 after all." 
 
 '^I cannot imagine what the row can 
 have been about," said Eric, reflectively. 
 ^' Charlie does not drink, nor does he
 
 10 LOVE LOST, IJUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 gamble, and as to women — why, if half my 
 mother has tolcl me about Mr. Brassingham's 
 own youth is true, it would only be the pot 
 calling the kettle black for the father to 
 come down heavily on the son." 
 
 ^^Both Charlie and his father are men 
 of passionate, ungoverned natures," answered 
 Frank Freeman, ^^ strong for good, it is true, 
 but equally strong for evil. The wonder to 
 me is more that they should have been able 
 to live together as long as they have, rather 
 than that there has been a regular ^ blow up ' 
 at last." 
 
 '' Charlie has the very devil of a temper," 
 said Eric ; '^ I saw him in one of his violent 
 passions once, and I sincerely hope I may 
 never see the like again. He is not par- 
 ticularly choice in his language, either, and 
 would probably treat his father to a piece 
 of his mind quite as liberally as he does 
 every one else." 
 
 ^' What you say is perfectly true," replied 
 Frank, '^yet, though I have been Charlie 
 Brassingham's closest friend ever since he 
 was my fag at school, I have never known
 
 THE FREEMANS AND THE AMORYS. 17 
 
 him lose his temper with me, even under very 
 great provocation. In school-days I was so 
 fond of the boy I could not stand his being 
 even spoken hardly to, much less thrashed, 
 and I think the same feeling has grown 
 with my growth, and strengthened with my 
 strength, for 1 can never see that he does 
 any wrong, Avhere I might condemn much 
 the same conduct in any one else ; or, even 
 if I am forced to admit anything against 
 him, I find so many excuses for his actions 
 that I end by acquitting him altogether.'' 
 
 '^ Charlie Brassingham is the one subject 
 on which you have never been amenable to 
 reason, my dear fellow," said Eric Amory ; 
 " I believe if he forged a cheque, or stole 
 the family diamonds, or even committed a 
 murder, you would find extenuating circum- 
 stances in his particular case, and cheerfully 
 commit perjury in his behalf." 
 
 To which Frank Freeman simply replied, 
 '^ Yes, I believe I should." 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHAT THE BKASSINGHAMS THOUGHT OF THEIR 
 NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 When the young men returned to tlio 
 portico of the house they found Theodora 
 and May Brassingham standing star-gazing 
 at the entrance. 
 
 Frank Freeman's intimacy with them 
 dated from his earHest school days. They 
 called each other by their Christian names, 
 and in most ways treated one another as 
 though they belonged to the same family. 
 
 Eric Amory's acquaintance was of much 
 more recent date, and consequently he could 
 not be so familiarly admitted to the inner- 
 most secrets of the Erassinghams ; but there 
 was something' about the man so winning",
 
 AVHAT THE BRASSIXGHAMS THOUGHT. 19 
 
 SO bright, and so honest, that no one ever 
 dreamed of keeping him at a distance, or of 
 resenting the graceful impertinences with 
 which he was wont to garnish his conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 '' Do tell us what sort of people are here," • 
 said Eric to Theodora, as he threw away the 
 end of his cigar. 
 
 '' The house is full to overflowing,'' 
 answered Theodora. '•' I should say there 
 must be nearly two hundred peoj)le here, 
 but the majority are from Manchester or 
 Liverpool, and these keep very much to 
 themselves." 
 
 '' Are there no j^eople here whom we have 
 known in town ? " asked Frank. 
 
 '' Vere Vereker is here,'' replied Theo- 
 dora, '^and Mr. Gerald Tresilian. They 
 form excellent foils to one another. Mr. 
 Vereker is more homely, more unkempt, 
 more severe in his words and ways, than 
 ever, while Mr. Tresilian has refined refine- 
 ment till he is little else than gloss, starch, 
 and varnish." 
 
 '^ You are too hard on them," Miss Bras-
 
 20 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR W0_\. 
 
 singham," said Eric Amory, laughing. ^' If 
 Vereker is a bit of a pedant, he is at any 
 rate one of the most straightforward of men, 
 and I look upon Tresilian as a Brummel 
 ■without Brummel's vanity or vulgarity. 
 What say you. Miss May ? " 
 
 ^^ One cannot help liking Mr. Tresilian," 
 answered May, shyly, ^^for he is always 
 thoughtful of others, even in the smallest 
 details of e very-day life, and his attentions 
 are never obtrusive — indeed, his manners 
 are those of a perfect gentleman, but I think 
 a little of his society goes a very long way, 
 at least it does with me, and after too long a 
 dose of his polished courtesies I almost long 
 for a talk with some of the ironworkers in 
 my fatlier's foundry, by way of an agreeable 
 contrast." 
 
 '^ To my mind, Mr. Tresilian's manner is 
 simply exasperating," said Theodora. '^ It 
 is so coldly, irreproachably perfect. His 
 hair, his smile, his collars, everything about 
 him, down to the varnish on his immaculate 
 boots, seems to say, ^ Behold me ! am I not 
 fashion personified ? ' "
 
 WHAT THE BRASSINGHAMS THOUGHT. 21 
 
 '^ He is elaborate in his dress, certainly /' 
 said Frank Freeman, '^ and fastidious in his 
 tastes, but I cannot see that he merits the 
 scorn you fling at him on these accounts. 
 In Paris he would be the rage; what you 
 think his faults would become the choicest 
 virtues. He is accomplished, he is well- 
 bred, and he is distinguished-looking ; what 
 more would you have ? " 
 
 ^' In other words he plays the fiddle, pays 
 empty compliments, and has a fine air of 
 being bored to death. That is not my sort 
 of man," answered Theodora decisively. 
 
 '^ Vere Vereker can hardly have fallen 
 under your majesty's displeasure for the like 
 reasons," said Eric, banteringly, ''he cer- 
 tainly holds up the mirror of fashion to no 
 one." 
 
 ''I dislike Mr. Vereker's bluntness almost 
 as much as Mr. Tresilian's suavity," returned 
 Theodora. ''It is only another form of 
 affectation; I like a man to be natural. 
 Mr. Vereker's bluntness is put on just as 
 Mr. Tresilian's blandness is put on ; a man 
 whose life is spent in dragging truth to
 
 22 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 the surface by tlie scruff of the neck, so to 
 speak, is simply a social bore, and reminds 
 me of nothing better than of a pig hunting 
 for truffles. The truffles may be worth the 
 finding, and doubtless form a valuable boon 
 to the world at large, but tlie finder is as 
 much a pig afterwards as before." 
 
 Eric laughed, but Frank looked pained at 
 this sally of Miss Brassingham's. He made 
 no further defence of Vere Vereker, how- 
 ever, feeling it was useless to waste time in 
 combating the prejudices of so self-opinion- 
 ated a young woman as Theodora. 
 
 ^'Tell us about other people," said Eric, 
 presently, appealing to May, ^^one likes to 
 know the distinguisliing traits of people who 
 are going to be in the same house with one 
 for some weeks." 
 
 '^ I have not made any special friends 
 here," answered May, ^M)ut Theodora has 
 found one girl who suits her, and indeed we 
 all think her very pleasant. Her name is 
 Agatha Bonchurch. She is a sort of ^ hum- 
 ])le companion ' to Mrs. Higgins and her 
 daughter, whom you may remember in
 
 WHAT THE BRASSINGHAMS THOUGHT. 23 
 
 Surrey, and, as slie happens to be a lady, 
 she has an uncommonly had time of it. 
 Mrs. Higgins would he my pet aversion 
 were it not for Miss Higgins's superior.claims 
 to that j^osition." 
 
 ^^ And the characteristics of this charming 
 jDair ? " asked Eric, laughing. 
 
 ^^Are evil-speaking, lying, and slander- 
 ing," replied May promptly. ^' They seem 
 to have nothing in the world to do but to 
 ferret out the skeletons in every one's cup- 
 board, and when they can find out nothing 
 to people's disadvantage, they invent with 
 the most deliberate malice. Beyond this, 
 they are enormously rich and atrociously 
 vulgar, and that is almost all I know about 
 them." 
 
 ^^ Quite as much as you may be supposed 
 to wish to know," said Freeman. ^' ^Vho 
 were those two men who passed into the 
 house just as our traps drove up ? " 
 
 '-' The big dark man was a Mr. Julian 
 Ferrand ; the other, with the sweeping fair 
 moustache, was a Caj)tain Philip Selfe," 
 answered Theodora. ^^I rather like them
 
 24 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 both, but papa seems to have a queer 
 aversion for the latter, whom he character- 
 izes as an adventurer, and although papa 
 seems to be a good deal taken with Mr. 
 Ferrand, he does not like us to be much 
 with him. I think he knows something 
 about him in the past he does not wish to 
 tell us, for he courts his society himself, yet 
 he never allows any one of us to be alone 
 with him for a moment. We cannot make 
 it out." 
 
 ^' They are both friends of some Tempests 
 who are here," added May, ^^ mother, son, 
 and daughter ; mother very loud and boiste- 
 rous, son slightly idiotic and much given to 
 brandies and sodas, daugliter a garrison 
 hack who, they say, is as well known in 
 Plymouth and Portsmouth as the barracks 
 themselves." 
 
 ^^Well! upon my word," said Frank, 
 ^^ you young people seem to have made the 
 most of your opportunities in investigating 
 your neighbours' characters. I remember a 
 Mrs. Tempest myself at Plymouth some time 
 ago, and I liked her very much ; fair, fat.
 
 WHAT THE BRASSINGHAMS THOUGHT. ^O 
 
 jolly sort of woman, somewhere about fifty, 
 with a loud laugh and a double chin ! Does 
 that descrijDtion suit the Mrs. Tempest who 
 is here ? " 
 
 ''You have hit her off exactly, Frank," 
 said Theodora ; '' she must be the same per- 
 son. And did you know Miss Tempest, too ?'' 
 
 '' I have danced with her," answered Free- 
 man, '' and I have seen her ride to hounds, 
 and neither as a waltzer nor as a horsewoman 
 can I name her match." 
 
 '' Quite enthusiastic, I declare," laughed 
 Miss Brassingham. ''Well, you will have an 
 opportunity of dancing all night with her 
 to-morrow, if you like, for we are going to 
 have a regular ball, and a lot of people are 
 asked from the other hydropathic establish- 
 ments in the neighbourhood. But here come 
 the Tempests," she added, in a qiuck aside. 
 "What a pleasure to watch your rapturous 
 greeting!" 
 
 " Give me your arm, Selfe — give me your 
 arm," said a woman's voice in a very loud 
 tone ; " take me out into the air. That draw- 
 ing-room is positively stifling."
 
 2C LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 The lady who thus addressed Captain 
 Philip Selfe by his surname so unceremo- 
 niously nodded familiarly to the Brassing- 
 hams (she always was familiar with every 
 one) as she passed out into the open air on 
 CajDtain Selfe's arm. She glanced inquiringly 
 at Aniory, tlien at Freeman, and, suddenly 
 letting go the captain's arm, she held out 
 both hands to Frank with a cordiality that 
 could not have been surpassed had he 
 been the oldest friend she had in the 
 world. 
 
 ^^ To think of meeting you here among the 
 wilds of Yorkshire ! " said she, still holding 
 his hands. ^^ How delighted Matilda will be ! 
 She is always saying she does not care to 
 dance after having waltzed with you. Selfe, 
 just go and tell Matilda I have met an old 
 friend, whom she must come and speak to at 
 once. She is just round the corner in the 
 corridor with Mr. Ferrand." 
 
 ^^ Indeed, Mrs. Tempest," said Frank, in 
 some confusion, ^^I cannot allow Miss Tempest 
 to take that trouble on my account, nor Captain 
 Selfe to run my errands for me. I shall hope
 
 WHAT THE BRASSINGHAMS THOUGHT. 27 
 
 to renew my acquaintance with your daughter 
 very shortly. May I introduce my friend, 
 Mr. Amory, to you ? " 
 
 '^And may I introduce you both to one 
 of my most vahied friends, Captain Philip 
 Self e ? " answered Mrs. TemjDest, as she 
 bowed to Amory ; '' but I shall let you make 
 further acquaintance with one another pre- 
 sentlv," added she, '' for I am dyino^ for one 
 turn round the garden before I go to bed." 
 So saying, she repossessed herself of Captain 
 Selfe's arm and vanished amono- the shrub- 
 beries. 
 
 '' I thought she was going to kiss you, 
 Frank,'' said Theodora, as soon as the re- 
 treating footsteps were no longer heard. 
 '' What a boisterous old woman she is." 
 
 ''I am glad she succeeded in overcoming 
 the temptation,'' answered Frank, with 
 o'ravitv; '^as to her manner, I rather like 
 it : it is so hearty." 
 
 '^ Captain Selfe seems very devoted,"' said 
 Amory, after a pause. '^ Has the old lady 
 money, or is it a hondjule Platonic attach- 
 ment ? "
 
 28 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 '^ Why Selfe is young enough to be Mrs. 
 Tempest's son," said Freeman. 
 
 '' Sons do not generally dance attendance 
 on their mothers after such a fashion as this," 
 answered Amory. 
 
 ^^I do not think it is anything more than 
 a matter of convenience on both sides," said 
 Theodora. ^^PajDa says Captain Selfe has 
 not a penny except what lie makes at cards 
 or at billiards, and he consequently finds it 
 advantageous to hang up his hat in other 
 peojDle's halls. In return he makes himself 
 variously useful, notably in the present in- 
 stance, by bringing home Mr. Lof tus Tempest 
 whenever that worthy young gentleman is 
 too tipsy to come home of his own accord." 
 
 ^^ Theodora ! Theodora! " interrupted May, 
 warningly; ^^do be careful what you say. 
 You may be overheard ; and anyhow it is not 
 kind to repeat what we have heard." 
 • '^ Rubbish ! " said Tlieodora, contemptu- 
 ously. ^' Frank and Mr. Amory may just 
 as well hear the truth from us as from any 
 one else. Everybody in the house knows 
 about it."
 
 WHAT THE BRASSINGHAMS THOUGHT. 29 
 
 ^^ Everybody does not know about it, 
 Theodora," pleaded May. ''People only 
 guess it from what hints the bath-men let 
 drop. No one in the liouse has ever seen 
 Mr. Tempest tipsy, and, considering the 
 frantic efforts his j^oor mother makes to 
 keep his secret, it is very cruel of you to 
 make such statements." 
 
 ''No one ever sees him tipsy because no 
 one ever sees him at all," retorted Theodora. 
 '*He is no sooner dressed than he is off 
 down to the hotel, and no one knows what 
 has become of him till Captain Selfe brings 
 him in at the back gate after dark ! " 
 
 A look of deep displeasure sat upon Frank 
 Freeman's rou^^rh-hewn face as Miss Brassino^- 
 ham persisted in her accusation; yet in the 
 deep-set dark-grey eyes there was perhajos 
 more sorrow than anger, sorrow that the 
 girl's nature should lack that feminine 
 instinct of protection which throws such a 
 halo over the sex, and causes them naturally 
 to come forward as defenders, not accusers, 
 of those whose faults or follies expose them 
 to the ridicule or scorn of men.
 
 30 LOVE LOST, r.UT iroxouR wox. 
 
 Even Eric Amory's bright face clouded 
 over with annoyance ; while lie yet shot 
 a look of gratitude to May for coming to the 
 rescue of a man whom he had not even seen. 
 Whatever men may think of other men 
 themselves, they always dislike to hear their 
 fellows run down behind their backs, and 
 more esj)ecially when the accusation comes 
 from a woman's lips. 
 
 There was an awkward pause. Evidently 
 no one wished the conversation continued. 
 Fortunately it was time for such sujiper as 
 the last arrivals had ordered, and the two 
 young men, after a few words of hurried 
 apology to the Brassinghams, hastened to 
 join their mothers at the evening meal.
 
 FRANK FEEEMAN. 31 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 FRANK FREEMAN. 
 
 Frank Freeman was not an orclinarv vouno; 
 man, as most j^eople fomicl out before they 
 had been long in his society. Every circum- 
 stance of his life, from his birth upwards, 
 had tended to produce intensity of feelings 
 and action in a temperament naturally ex- 
 tremely sensitive and highly-strung. His 
 mother, an earl's daughter, had offended her 
 own family bv her marriage with her 
 brother's tutor, Frank's father, a young man 
 of a very old Devonshire family, possessed 
 of great abilities and considerable personal 
 attractions ; but witliout a halfpenny, either 
 then or m the future, for he was not even an 
 eldest son. Of this marriage Frank was the
 
 32 LOVE LOf^T, BUT HONOUR AVON. 
 
 only offspring. Mr. Freeman had died when 
 the boy was scarcely more than a baby, and 
 though the removal of the husband from the 
 scene had admitted of a reconciliaticm be- 
 tween the wddow and her family, stipulations 
 had been suggested which Lady Catherine 
 could not brook, and Frank Freeman had 
 grown to manhood unknown to, and, as far 
 as jDossible, unacknowledged by, his mother's 
 titled relations. 
 
 The Freemans of Black Tor, an estate on 
 one of the outlying spiu\s of Dartmoor, had 
 been in the past, and still were by tradition 
 among the first of the great old families of 
 Devon. Though the present rejDresentative 
 of the house lived in the lodge at the gates 
 of his own joark, wdiich he had let to a 
 retired ironmonger from Glasgow, yet in 
 that exclusive society which forms an aristo- 
 cratic belt round the mountains of Devon 
 he was Freeman of Black Tor still. The 
 ironmonger paid a high rent, so high that 
 perhaps even in the lifetime of the present 
 owner the mortgages might be paid off, and 
 the king might enjoy his own again. Mr.
 
 FRANK FKEEMAX. 33 
 
 Carew Freeman was still immaniecl, and at 
 present his nephew, Frank, was heir pre- 
 sumptive to Black Tor. A man, however, 
 who, by reason of his jDoverty, is compelled 
 to let his house to a stranger and to live at 
 his own lodge, is hardly in a position to 
 contribute to the support of a nephew, even 
 if that nephew be his heir. AYhat little Mr. 
 Carew Freeman could do for his brother's 
 widow and her son he did with his whole 
 heart, for he dearly loved them both. 
 Whenever they chose to ask themselves to 
 the tinv cottao-e on the confines of Black 
 Tor, they were enthusiastically welcomed 
 and hospitably entertained, but money Mr. 
 Carew Freeman had, at present, none to 
 give. 
 
 After being educated at an English public 
 school until he was sixteen, Frank Freeman 
 had been taken to Grermany by his mother, 
 Avith a view to becoming a proficient in 
 languages and science at a cheaper rate than 
 was possible in England. There he had 
 fallen in with young men of an advanced 
 school of free-thought, and though it had 
 
 VOL. 1. D
 
 34 LOVE LOST, lUTT HONOUR WON. 
 
 been many years before lie liacl eman- 
 cipated himself from the rigid severity 
 of the dogmatic faith in which he had been 
 reared, yet he found himself very much 
 alone among his young English fellows 
 when he returned, at the ago of twenty- 
 three, to his native country. Since then, 
 in spite of all opposition from friends and 
 relatives alike, he had applied himself reso- 
 lutely to literature, and though after four 
 years' apprenticeship he still found his pen 
 an inadequate means of livelihood, yet he 
 was willing to submit to any privation 
 rather than earn his bread by any profession 
 which prevented his wandering at will 
 wherever inclination led. 
 
 In person he was above the middle height, 
 square built, athletic and symmetrical, with 
 remarkably small hands and feet. His 
 brown hair curled closely over his head, 
 his thick beard was trimmed short and 
 square ; his features were irregular, the 
 mouth large, the nose straight and massive, 
 but short ; his eyes were the chief feature in 
 his face, being large, brilliant, and of a
 
 FRANK FREEMAX. 35 
 
 deep dark-grey colour. His was a powerful 
 and manly face ratlier than a handsome one, 
 while such good looks as he possessed were 
 more the result of an intense vigour than 
 refinement of feature, such as he might have 
 been expected to possess in virtue of his 
 birth and ancestry. 
 
 His foreign education had developed great 
 natural gifts for music and painting. He 
 possessed a fine ear and a rich baritone 
 voice ; beyond these qualifications, he had 
 been excellently well taught both to sing and 
 to play. The result, as might be expected, 
 was that he was an accomplished musician 
 and a finished singer, which provided him 
 with an efi'ective passport to every circle of 
 society. He had been taught gymnastics in 
 Berlin, fencing in Paris, boxing in London. 
 While he was devoted to cricket and every 
 sort of game, he openly avowed that he 
 cared nothing for sport. A good horse- 
 man, he scarcely ever rode to hounds ; 
 a skilful marksman at the targets, he 
 yet refused all offers to shoot over his 
 friends' preserves. In his likes and dislikes
 
 36 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 he disclosed an intensity of feeling that 
 appeared disproportionate and unreasonable, 
 and made him manv enemies. Indeed lie 
 was in all ways too strong a natm^e to 
 be popular, too self-opinionated to glide 
 smoothly along the same grooves as his 
 fellows, too free from prejudice and too 
 eccentric in his notions of right and Avrong 
 to be approved of by orthodox people of 
 any sort. His Bohemian life, his freedom 
 of thought, his refusal to abide by any 
 ordinary social code, save that which he 
 judged best for himself, never ceased to 
 shock all Jtave the most large-minded of his 
 friends, and to array against him many 
 with whom it was his first interest to keep 
 on friendly terms. There was much of 
 crudeness about his character ; even Avhere he 
 was most in advance of his fellows in his 
 opinions and modes of thought, he showed 
 most plainly how undeveloped and un- 
 finished his powers of reasoning were. 
 Having deliberately left the school of 
 thought sanctioned by the caste to which 
 he had been born, and the creed in which
 
 FRANK FKEEMAX. 37 
 
 he had been reared, he found himself tossed 
 upon the boundless ocean of speculative 
 philosophy, without as yet sufficient know- 
 ledge or sufficient ballast to prevent his 
 drifting continuously from billow to billow, 
 sometimes descrying lights which held out 
 delusive hopes of a near haven, lights no 
 sooner seen tlian extinguished, leaving his 
 darkness greater than before.
 
 38 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHAT THEIR NEIGHBOURS THOUGHT OF THE 
 BRASSINGHAMS. 
 
 On the morning following the arrival of the 
 Freemans and the Amorys, the Brassing- 
 hams, accompanied by Miss Tempest and 
 Miss Bonchurch, and escorted by a large 
 contingent of admirers, had scaled the heights 
 above the Wells, with a view to sketching 
 the surromiding country. 
 
 Several of the elder ladies, who were unable, 
 by reason of their infirmities, to accomiDany 
 the young people, were sitting out of doors 
 in the shadow of a huge cedar, and among 
 them were Lady Amory, Mrs. Tempest, Mrs. 
 Higgins, and Lady Catherine Freeman. 
 
 In a hydropathic establishment tlie slightest
 
 WHAT THE XEIGHBOUKS THOUGHT. 39 
 
 introductions are sufficient for the making of 
 acquaintances; besides this, the ladies in 
 question were all more or less known to the 
 Brassinorhams, who formed a social centre 
 round which all could rally. The Brassing- 
 ham family being, as it were, common pro- 
 perty, the conversation very na.turally fell 
 into a discussion about them. 
 
 '^ You have known Mr. Brassingham many 
 years, I believe," Mrs. Higgins was saying 
 to Lady Amory, with a marked emphasis on 
 the '^ Mr.," as if she doubted whether her 
 ladyship) was quite received by the ladies of 
 the Brassingham family. 
 
 '' Oh, yes I I remember his marriage even," 
 answered Lady Amory, with an air of deep 
 scrutiny into the depths of her childhood's 
 memories, intended to apprise her listeners 
 of the great difference between her age and 
 Mr. Brassino-ham's. ^' Mv mother used to tell 
 me all sorts of stories of the time when she 
 and Mr. Brassingham were about in society 
 together. Wliat a handsome man he was! — a 
 perfect Don Juan with the ladies I — and in 
 those days there were such scandals about
 
 40 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 him ! If half of them were true, I can only 
 say it is a marvel that lie has not had a bullet 
 put in him hj one or other of the jealous 
 husbands." 
 
 Lady Catherine frowned ominously. 
 '^ Young" men will be young men, Lady 
 Amory," she said. ^^ Even if there were such 
 reports in the past — and I must confess that 
 I, wlio am tlie same age at least, or j)robably 
 older than Mr. Brassingham, never heard of 
 them except as the vaguest rumours — yet 
 surely time enough since then has elapsed 
 for us to allow a dead past to bury its dead." 
 
 Lady Amory shrugged her shoulders ever 
 so slightly, indicative of knowing more than 
 she cared to tell ; but she only said, very 
 quietly, ^' Sometimes it is not so easy to bury 
 what one has oneself called into existence." 
 
 ^' Good gracious. Lady Amory ! " exclaimed 
 Mrs. Tempest, Avho, ever hasty in jumping* 
 to conclusions, took her ladyship's words to 
 bear but one construction. '^ You don't mean 
 to say the man is a sort of — patriarch — a 
 father in Israel, witli half-a-dozen families in 
 the background ! "
 
 WHAT THE NEIGHBOURS THOUGHT. 41 
 
 ^^ You mistake me," murmured Lady 
 Amory, waving a heavily-jewelled hand in 
 deprecation of anything so coarsely material. 
 ^^ You mistake me-; I merely alluded to mis- 
 placed attachments, to hearts that might 
 perhaps have been saved some suffering had 
 it not been for Mr. Brassin ogham's manv fas- 
 cinations, not to— to his — " 
 
 ^^Illegitimate children," said Mrs. Tempest, 
 decisively. ^^ I always call a spade a spade 
 myself, and I frankly admit that is what I 
 thought you meant. It seems you did not, 
 and I beg your pardon." 
 
 '^From all one hears," interrupted Mrs. 
 Higgins, who, having caught scent of some- 
 thing wrong with regard to Mr. Brassing- 
 ham's son, was determined to leave no stone 
 unturned till she had ferreted out the truth — 
 ^^from all one hears, Mr. Brassingham has 
 quite as much as he can manage in the shape 
 of a — a legitimate son ! '' 
 
 '' Like father like son," said Lady Amory, 
 with a sigh; ^^ Charlie Brassingham is a 
 chip of the old block — as handsome, as 
 gay, and as violent as his father was before
 
 42 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 him. It is no wonder that two such natures 
 clash." 
 
 '^ They do not dasli," said Lady Catherine, 
 sternly, so sternly that Lady Aniory gave a 
 little jump in her chair. '^ Charlie Brassing- 
 ham and his father have always been devoted 
 to one another. My son, who has been on 
 intimate terms with both for the 2:>ast twelve 
 years, tells me that the attachment between 
 them is something quite extraordinary in its 
 intensity." 
 
 ^^ Doubtless Mr. Freeman speaks as he 
 believes," answered Lady Amory with some 
 asperity; '^ but I have it on very good 
 authority that Mr. Charles Brassingham and 
 his father are not on speaking terms; nay, 
 more, that Mr. Charles was seen, not a fort- 
 night ago, in very disreputable society in one 
 of the London suburbs, and that he then and 
 there expressed his determination, in very 
 forcible language, never to enter his father's 
 doors again." 
 
 ^M am really very much astonished," said 
 Lady Catherine. '^ The quarrel must have 
 been very sudden, for my son was staying
 
 WHAT ^HE NEIGH BOUES THOUGHT. 43 
 
 in Mr. Brassingbam's house not a month 
 ago, and certainly nothing unpleasant had 
 occurred then." 
 
 ^^ It was not told me as a secret," Lady 
 Amoiy continued; ^' and, of course, as my 
 house on AYimbledon Common is not a mile 
 from the Brassinghams', I should have heard 
 all about it long ago, had I not been away 
 from home of late. My informant was the 
 curate of a neighbouring parish to ours at 
 home, who liaj^pened to arrive here last 
 night shortly before me. His name is the 
 Reverend Silas Monckton. I think you must 
 know him, Mrs. Higgins: he lives quite 
 close to you at Barnes." 
 
 This was a home thrust, as Lady Amor}^ 
 well knew ; for every one about Barnes 
 neighbourhood was aware that Mr. Silas 
 Monckton, having for some time past kept up 
 an extensive flirtation with both ]\[rs. Hig- 
 gins and her daughter, had at length found 
 it impossible to choose between them, and 
 had transferred his attentions elsewhere. 
 
 Mrs. Higgins coloured uncomfortably and 
 stammered out that '' she had of course
 
 44 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. . 
 
 invited liim occasionally, as tlie curate of the 
 parish, but that from various reports that 
 had reached her, she had thought it better, 
 on every account, to discourage his visits as 
 far as possible." 
 
 ^^ Here comes Mr. Monckton himself," 
 exclaimed Lady Amory, as a rather cor- 
 pulent, sleek -looking individual advanced 
 towards the group. '^Good morning, Mr. 
 Monckton; I am just in want of your assist- 
 ance in supporting a statement I have made 
 about Mr. Charles Brassingham ; but first let 
 me introduce you to Lady Catherine Free- 
 man and Mrs. Tempest. To Mrs. Higgins 
 you can hardly need a fresh introduction.'' 
 
 Mr. Silas Monckton was one of the most 
 perfectly neutral-tinted men it is possible to 
 imagine. His face was colourless without 
 being pale, liis hair was mouse-coloured, his 
 eyes a dull watery grey. On each side of 
 his face an enormous brownish wdiisker 
 reached from his immense ears to his double 
 cliin ; he wore neither beard nor moustache, 
 and was by nature entirely destitute of eye- 
 brows. His theological opinions were as
 
 WHAT THE NEIGHBOURS THOUGHT. 45 
 
 neutral as the rest of liim, mind and body, 
 nor could one have told from liis dress or 
 remarks whether his doctrinal proclivities 
 were high, low, or broad. 
 
 ^' I was saying," continued Lady Amory 
 presently, when Mr. Monckton had acknow- 
 ledged his introductions, '• that I had heard 
 from you of your chance meeting with Mr. 
 Charles Brassingham. Lady Catherine Free- 
 man cannot be brought to believe in my 
 statement about that young man, so I want 
 you to endorse it." 
 
 '' I really know very little about Mr. 
 Charles Brassingham," said Mr. Monckton. 
 ^'I had met him sometimes at his father's 
 house, sometimes at otlier places in the 
 Wimbledon neighbourhood. One day, 
 about a fortniodit ao-o, I had occasion to 
 visit a dying woman at a small public-house 
 in Brentford, and as I passed the bar, I savr 
 a man about the same height and figure as 
 Mr. Charles Brassingham, standing talking 
 to the barmaid. AYliat chiefly arrested my 
 attention was his dress, which was that of a 
 gamekeeper; a velveteen coat, light corduroy
 
 46 
 
 LOVE LOST, LUT JiOXOUK V.'OX. 
 
 breeches and gaiters, and a brown felt hat. 
 Eemembering how extremely particular Mr. 
 Charles was in his dress, and also that the 
 London season was not yet over, I was 
 sufficiently surjDrised to stand a moment in 
 the doorway, looking at liim. He turned 
 round and asked me, in an angry tone, 
 what I meant by eaves-dropping, when, to 
 my astonishment, I saw he was not Charles 
 Brassingham ! In height and figure he was 
 like liim, in the shape of the face and in the 
 rich colouring; there was the same heavy 
 brown moustache, the same close-curling 
 dark hair, but the eyes and expression of 
 the two men were totally unlike. Charles 
 Brassingham's eyes are a deep lolue, this 
 young man's were brown. Before I had 
 time to exjolain myself, ho had taken a 
 stride across the bar-room and had cauoht 
 me by the collar, saying, with an oath, ^ he 
 would have no parsons prowling about on 
 his preserves.' Indeed, I do not know what 
 would have happened to me at the hands of 
 this young ruffian had not a voice which I 
 recognized as Mr. Charles Brassingham's
 
 WHAT THE NEIGHBOURS THOUGHT. 47 
 
 suddenly shouted from behind me^ ' Hold 
 hard, George ! This is a pal of mine ! ' 
 Released from the fellow's strangling grasp, 
 I tm^ned round, and stood face to face with 
 the real Charles Brassingham, dressed, how- 
 ever, in precisely the same manner as the 
 person he had addressed as George. Charles 
 Brassingham's words were like an electric 
 shock to the fellow who had collared me so 
 roughly. His whole look and bearing 
 changed ; his face softened. He roughly, 
 but heartily, ajDologized for having laid 
 hands on me, swearing that had he known 
 I was acquainted with Mr. Charles there 
 was nothing he would not have done for me. 
 ^^ Mr. Brassingham vouchsafed no explana- 
 tion of his presence there, of his rough 
 dress, or of his evident familiarity with a 
 man of the class to which his companion 
 l)elonged. After the exchange of a few or- 
 dinary remarks, I told him my mission to the 
 public-house, and intimated that of course 
 I should say nothing of my having met 
 him uiider such peculiar circumstances when 
 I again visited at his father's house. To
 
 48 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 my utter amazement, lie worked himself 
 into a violent passion, said he cared not 
 who knew where he was, or Iiow he lived, 
 and that he Avould never willingly set foot 
 within his father's doors again. I think he 
 would have proceeded to give me some 
 particulars of the estrangement between 
 himself and his father, had not the young 
 man he called ^ George ' laid his hand on 
 his shoulder, and said, ^ Gently, Charles, 
 gently ; little pitchers have long ears.' " 
 
 At this period of Mr. Monckton's story 
 Mrs. Higgins was heard to titter audibly, 
 and Mrs. Tempest w^as troubled wdth a 
 violent fit of coughing, which for a moment 
 interrupted the narrative. 
 
 Mr. Monckton, however, did not seem to 
 perceive any joke, and having waited for 
 composure on the part of his audience, con- 
 tinued, as if no interruption had occurred, — 
 
 ^' The influence of this young man over 
 Charles Brassingham seemed to be as great 
 as Charles Brassingham's over him. He 
 recovered himself almost instantly, though 
 with an effort, and sim2)ly saying, ^ I am
 
 WHAT THE NEIGHBOUES THOUGHT. 49 
 
 a fool; come along, George," he nodded 
 me a very informal farewell, and, linking 
 his arm into his companion's, walked oE 
 without another word. 
 
 ^^ The woman I had gone to visit either 
 could throw no light on the matter, or would 
 not. She had been bedridden for months 
 past, and seemed to know but little of the 
 usual frequenters of the bar. This, my 
 dear Lady Amory," continued Mr. Monckton, 
 turning his watery gaze full upon her lady- 
 shijD in a manner intended to imply devotion, 
 but which succeeded only in being comic, 
 ^^is all I know of this melancholy business." 
 
 ^^ I presume you have mentioned your 
 rencontre with Mr. Charles to his father?" 
 observed Lady Catherine. 
 
 '^ Indeed, I have not," answered the 
 Eeverend Silas. ^'Mr. Brassingham is not 
 the sort of person to whom one could carry 
 a tale of any of his own family ; Mr. Charles 
 makes no secret of his whereabouts ; his 
 father probably knows as much or more 
 about him than I do." 
 
 There was a silence for some moments. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUU WON. 
 
 The ladies were impressed — in very different 
 ways, perhaps, but still impressed — with the 
 strangeness of the clergyman's story. Also 
 some one surely must inform Mr. Brassing- 
 ham that his son was living, almost at his 
 gates, in intimate relations with a game- 
 keeper, or prize-fighter, or worse. 
 
 Mrs. Tempest was the first to break the 
 silence. Her curiosity was piqued on the 
 subject of the Brassinghams. 
 
 '' How long is it since Mrs. Brassingham 
 died ? " she asked. 
 
 '^ About four years," answered Mrs. 
 Higgins. ^^I knew her well, poor thing. 
 My house at Barnes is about the same 
 distance from Brassingham Park as Lady 
 Amory's house at Wimbledon is from the 
 same place, but of course Lady Amory is 
 too young to have enjoyed such intimacy 
 as I did with Mr. Brassingham's wife " (this 
 with a fine sneer, which was not lost upon 
 the bystanders or her ladyship herself). " I 
 always have maintained, and I always 
 shall maintain," continued Mrs. Higgins, 
 -warmly, '^ that Mrs. Brassingham died
 
 AVHAT THE NEIGHBOUES THOUGHT. 51 
 
 of nothing more or less than a broken 
 heart ! " 
 
 ^^ She was the most mireasonably jealous 
 woman in the world," observed Lady 
 Amory. 
 
 ^^ I deny it," answered Mrs. Higgins, with 
 more emphasis than politeness; ^M3ut even 
 had she been jealous, she had ample cause. 
 Besides this, Mrs. Brassingham was well aware 
 she had not been married for love. There had 
 been a terrible scandal about Mr. Brassing- 
 ham, immediately preceding his engagement 
 to the woman who became his wife, about 
 some actress or other, whom he ought to 
 have married and did not, if all accounts 
 were true. Plowever Mrs. Brassingham's 
 father, I remember, interfered — " 
 
 ^^How many more generations of Bras- 
 singham s are included in your biographical 
 sketch-book, Mrs. Higgins ? " asked Lady 
 Amory, with an impertinent yawn. 
 
 ''Mr. Brassingham's father interfered," 
 continued Mrs. Higgins, '' and put an end, 
 as he thought, to his son's liaisons^ by insist- 
 ing upon his marrying the plain heiress. Miss 
 
 LIBRARY — 
 UKIVERSFTY OF laiNOIS
 
 52 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 Anne Flint, wlio, poor Avoman, was the 
 mother of Cliarles Brasslngham and the three 
 girls who are here now, and who, to my 
 mind, was one of the most ill-used women in 
 creation." 
 
 '^Are any of her daughters at all like 
 her ? " asked Lady Catherine Freeman. 
 
 ^^ Anne is the very image of her, and very 
 like her in disposition as well," replied Mrs. 
 Higgins. ^^She was, too, her mother's 
 favourite, and much more a companion for 
 poor Mrs. Brassingham than the others, both 
 from being the eldest and from possessing 
 a much larger share of practical good-sense 
 than her sisters. Did you not know Mrs. 
 Brassingham, Lady Catherine ? " added she,, 
 turning to that lady. 
 
 '^ My acquaintance with the family has 
 been entirely through my son," answered 
 Lady Catherine. '* I never saw any of them 
 until last night. From all my son has told 
 me during the many years he has been inti- 
 mate with them, I should think Mr. Brassing- 
 ham himself was much to be pitied in his 
 married life. His wife appears, from my
 
 WHAT THE NEIGHBOURS THOUGHT. 53 
 
 ^on's description, to liave been a very cold, 
 proud woman, quite unable to comprehend 
 a man of so violent and passionate a nature 
 as her husband. But perhaps I ought not to 
 express any opinion, as I never knew them 
 personally." 
 
 ^^ I see that I am able to throw some light 
 ujDon the skeleton in tlie Brassingham cup- 
 board that even Mrs. Higgins, though she 
 has been on such intimate terms with the 
 family, does not seem to be aware of," ob- 
 served Lady Amory ; ^^ I allude to the famous 
 diamonds left to Mr. Brassino-ham bv his 
 maternal grandmother nearly thirty years 
 ago. Just before Mr. Brassingham' s mar- 
 riage these diamonds were missing, and were 
 found on the person of that very actress 
 whom Mrs. Higgins mentioned but just now. 
 She, of course, asserted that they had been 
 given her by Mr. Brassingham. He declared 
 that, having on one occasion lent them to 
 her, she had refused to give them up again. 
 At last she was induced or forced to give 
 them up under legal j^ressure, but she took 
 •care to let the newly married wife know on
 
 54 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 whose neck they had lain before Mr. Bras- 
 singham j)resented them to his bride. This 
 was the commencement of all the bitterness 
 tliat arose between Mr. Brassingham and 
 his yomig wife. But it did not sto]) here. 
 My mother, who knew all the circumstances, 
 and who even saw the letters written by this 
 woman, told me that they contained a threat 
 on the part of the writer that those diamonds 
 should not remain in the hands of the Bras- 
 singham family, but should eventually become 
 the property of her own sons by Mr. Brassing- 
 ham. During my own recollection two 
 attemj)ts to steal these diamonds have been 
 made at Brassingham Park. Since the second 
 attempt, which was while the corpse of Mrs. 
 Brassingham was still lying in the house, the 
 jewels have been placed in the bank. Not 
 even here, however, has the trouble ended. 
 The diamonds are not an heirloom, or so at 
 any rate Mrs. Brassingham chose to believe, 
 for she left them to her daughter Anne in her 
 will, stating that by her husband's gift they 
 had become her private property, and that 
 she could leave them to Avliom she chose
 
 WHAT THE NEIGHBOURS THOUGHT. 55 
 
 Mr. Brassingham denies that they were ever 
 given to his wife for her separate use and 
 benefit, and claims the right to give them to 
 whom he pleases, who, if he marries again, 
 will, of com-se, be his wife. The diamonds 
 are valued at ten thousand pounds, and are 
 at present at Mr. Brassingham's banker's. But 
 here comes Miss Lavinia Brassingham, so we 
 had better change the subject."
 
 1^6 LUV^E LOSTj BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WATER-CURE SCANDALS. 
 
 In a hydropathic establishment it does not 
 take long for people, who, in other circum- 
 stances, would have merely kept up a bowing 
 acquaintance for years, to become friendly, 
 almost intimate, with one another. The 
 advantages are, no doubt, great, that the 
 barriers of English exclusiveness should thus 
 be broken down ; but, on the other hand, 
 there are no bounds to idle gossip about 
 the family affairs of the visitors at such a 
 place as the Wells. People frequent such 
 places for the j)^^^poscs of health and 
 recreation. Idleness is the order of the day. 
 What more natural than that every one 
 should, in ride, or walk, or dance, discuss
 
 WATER-CURE SCANDALS. 57 
 
 his neighbours with his partner of the hour ! 
 People are constantly heard to exclaim, 
 more especially perhaps in establishments 
 of this kind, " How very small the world 
 is I " Genealogies are discussed, cousinships 
 established, stories of So-and-so's naughty 
 doino^s lono^ ao^o exao^o^erated or invented. 
 Everybody soon gets to know why the 
 Smyths have taken to spelling their name 
 with a '^ y " ; and at what particular period 
 of their career the '^ De Joneses " thought fit 
 to prefix the '^ De '' to their names; how the 
 Eobinsons had starved on eighty pounds 
 a year until they came in for that vast 
 fortune from a distant cousin ; how the 
 Spratts had made their money by '' Spratt's 
 Sauce " ; and the Dobbses theirs in the 
 tallow trade. Every one knew, or was sup- 
 posed to know, that young ^' Jinks "was the 
 illegitimate son of an English marquis by a 
 French dancer, and that Mrs. Tomlinson, 
 for all the airs she gave lierself, liad once 
 been her husband's cook I To pass un- 
 scathed through the gossip of a water-
 
 58 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 cure establishment people must be abun- 
 dantly godfatliered, their credentials must be 
 patent, their position unassailable, and if they 
 have a great sorrow or a skeleton carefully 
 packed away and hidden from the vulgar 
 gaze, let them be quite certain that the search- 
 ing lens of a hydropathist's telescope will 
 be sure to lay bare the innermost recesses 
 of their domestic history. No wonder, then, 
 that any information, scandalous or other- 
 wise, that could be gained about the antece- 
 dents of so conspicuous a family as the 
 Brassinghams was hailed as a perfect harvest 
 of gossip. Tlie position of Mrs. Higgins 
 and her daughter had been considerably 
 improved among the visitors at the Wells, 
 from the mere fact that she lived in the 
 same neighbourhood as the Brassinghams, 
 and all they had to tell was eagerly listened 
 to and dilated upon ; but unfortunately for 
 the Higginses, though Mrs. Higgins laid 
 great stress upon her intimacy in former 
 days with the late mistress of Brassingham 
 Park, the Brassinghams who Avere at the
 
 AVATEE-CURE SCANDALS. 59 
 
 Wells took pains to sliow that the ac- 
 quaintance was of the slightest and most 
 distant. Nor was Mrs. Higgins likely to 
 regain the ground she had lost in popular 
 estimation by the arrival of Lady Amory 
 and her son upon tlie scene ; for there was 
 no love lost between her ladyship and Mrs. 
 Higgins, while each resented the attempts 
 of the other to mount a higher rung of the 
 social ladder than the one upon which each 
 had hitherto rested. That the daughter of 
 a German doll's-eye maker should have 
 become ^^my lady" was an unpardonable 
 offence in the eyes of Mrs. Higgins, who, 
 being herself the widow of a very vulgar little 
 doctor in a country town, w^as wont to 
 stigmatize her ladyship as '^ Trade." Lady 
 Amory, on the other hand, whose settle- 
 ments had been derived from the doll's- 
 eye manufactory, considered herself as 
 moving in quite another sphere to ^Hhat 
 village apothecary's widow," as she w^as 
 w^ont to dub Mrs. Higgins beliind her back. 
 Doubtless the Brassinghams themselves
 
 GO LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 had not much to boast of in the matter of 
 birth. The Amorys Avcre the merest 
 mushrooms, representing the shop in every 
 way, whether wholesale or retail, yet 
 the shop still. According to Mrs. Higgins's 
 •creed, she herself was a gentlewoman, 
 because she had married a professional man, 
 and was herself the daughter of an army 
 surgeon ; and on this magnificent score she 
 deemed herself vastly superior in caste to 
 any shopkeej^er in Christendom. But the 
 Brassinghams had actually seen three gene- 
 rations. They were people who could 
 speak of their grandfather as a landowner 
 and a county magistrate, while avoiding the 
 unnecessary information that he had once 
 been no more than the overseer of the iron 
 foundry which had eventually become his 
 own property by his marriage with his 
 master's daughter. In Mr. John Brassing- 
 ham and his sister I^avinia there were still 
 latent traces of plebeian blood, which were 
 apt to show themselves more distinctly in 
 seasons of excitement or anger ; but in the
 
 AVATER-CUEE SCANDALS. 61 
 
 younger generation education had expunged 
 tlie mental strain, while the inherited 
 physical vigour of the low-born iron-founder 
 had been retained in its fullest perfection. 
 
 The Amorys were rich, the Higginses also 
 were rich, but the Brassinghams were many 
 thousands a year ahead of both in the 
 matters of social and pecuniary competition. 
 Therefore both Lady Amorys and Mrs. Hig- 
 gins were intensely, humiliatingly anxious- 
 to be considered on intimate terms with the 
 Brassinghams ; and, as neither allowed the 
 other's rights to the social status claimed, 
 they detested each other as only parvenus in 
 English society can do. Though Lady 
 Amory and Z\Irs. Higgins were themselves 
 not gentlewomen, yet they possessed that 
 kind of savoir faire which passes for good 
 breeding among persons of their own class^ 
 and they were both women who saw at a 
 glance whether other peo2:)le belonged ta 
 their own sets, or sets above them ; hence 
 they were both particular!}- anxious to con- 
 ciliate the good opinion of Lady Catherine
 
 62 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 Freeman and Mrs. Tempest, who, though as 
 far as tlie poles apart in manner and in 
 opinions and in habits of life, were yet 
 both unmistakably representatives of the 
 '^ upper ten." Apart from Lady Catherine's 
 title, there was that unfailing stamp of high 
 birth and breeding about her which was 
 apparent in her tone and carriage, in her 
 easy courtesy, and her perfect freedom from 
 all affectation. Mrs. Tempest belonged to a 
 different class. A soldier's daughter, she 
 had become a soldier's wife. As she her- 
 self expressed it, she had been in a marching 
 regiment all her life. If her manners were 
 free and her conversation somewhat brusque 
 and slangy, yet she preserved her dignity 
 throughout, and though not a woman of 
 a refined mind, nevertheless no one would 
 have denied her the status of a thorough 
 2-entlewoman. Her father had been fast, 
 her husband had been fast, her children 
 were fast, she was herself a thorough 
 Bohemian in her tastes and ways of life; 
 yet both Lady Amory and Mrs. Higgins
 
 WATER-CURE SCANDALS. 63 
 
 were well aware that Mrs. Tempest belonged 
 to a caste far above their own. 
 
 It has been said before that the Brassing- 
 hams had created a sensation among the 
 visitors at these Yorkshire Wells, partly 
 from their wealth, partly from their excep- 
 tional good looks, and partly from the air of 
 mystery and exclusiveness that pervaded 
 them all. It was evident that the Freemans 
 and the Amorys had not exj)ected to 
 meet the Brassinghams in Yorkshire, and 
 that the Brassinghams themselves were 
 far from pleased to find the Higginses 
 already inmates of the Wells. At a 
 water-cure establishment people want reasons 
 for every one else's appearance on the scene. 
 Those who are wise in their generation will 
 lie with promptitude and decision, giving 
 out as a reason, perhaps, that too many good 
 dinners in the London season have disagreed 
 with them, even though they may really 
 never have been better in their lives. 
 Certain it is, that unless people invent their 
 own excuses, their friends will do so for 
 them, and that, too, in a manner somewhat
 
 64 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 damaging to their pecuniary or domestic 
 reputation. 
 
 The Amorys had come for Lady Amory's 
 health. Good ! Lady Amory had taken 
 care to make out an elaljorate diagnosis of 
 her complaints to any and every acquaint- 
 ance at the Wells who would listen to 
 her. She had nothing on earth the matter 
 with her, except an inveterate desire for 
 gossip and scandal, which she could obtain 
 for four guineas a week at a water-cure 
 establishment in a more condensed and 
 agreeable form than could be had anywhere 
 else for the same money. But she lived 
 well and to some purpose. As the country 
 people say, she ^* enjoyed" ill-health at the 
 Wells to her heart's content, and by 
 this means avoided all searching criticism 
 of her reasons for being there at all. 
 
 The Freemans, of course, had come 
 because the Amorys had come, at least so 
 Lady Amory gave out. ^' She could not 
 have come alone," she would say, ^^ in her 
 delicate state of health, nor could she bear 
 to be parted from her boy,! and as Eric and
 
 WATER-CUKE SCANDALS. 6o 
 
 Frank Freeman were as David and Jona- 
 than to each other, and as Lady Catherine 
 was as her own sister in her affections, it 
 had been arranged that they should form 
 one party for the autumn trip." 
 
 As the Reverend Silas Monckton had 
 arrived after Lady Amory, that ladv 
 manao'cd to let it be o^enerallv understood 
 that he had come on her account ; and had 
 she only had the good fortune to arrive 
 before the Brassinghams she would have 
 certainly given support to the belief that 
 Mr. Brassingham had come on the same 
 quest. But people were at a loss to conceive 
 any ordinary reason for the arrival of the 
 Brassinghams. It was known they had no 
 Yorkshire connexion ; the ladies of the 
 family openly said they detested the mixed 
 society of a water-cure establishment. They 
 were all types of glowing, vigorous, splendid 
 health. Money was no object to them, 
 apparently ; why, then, had they not gone 
 abroad, as usual? Why, indeed? Theodora, 
 who had an unhappy knack of speaking the 
 truth in season and out of season, had 
 
 VOE. I. F
 
 66 LOVE LOST, liUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 affirmed that papa wished to be within a 
 day's journey of London and Brassingliani 
 Park ; and the refusal of the wliole family 
 to be drawn out on the subject of the idol of 
 the famil}^, Charles Brassingham, naturally 
 led the scandal-mongers of the Wells to 
 presume that the retirement of the family 
 to a Yorkshire dale was in some way con- 
 nected with mysterious and disgraceful 
 conduct on the part of the son and 
 licir. 
 
 As may readily be imagined, it did not 
 take long for the disclosures of tlie Eeverend 
 Silas Monckton and Lady Amory to become 
 the property of the whole establishment ; 
 and by the time the Brassinghams and their 
 satellites had returned from tlieir sketching 
 expedition, the probable misdemeanours of 
 the young Mr. Brassingham were a matter 
 of anxious conjecture to the Avhole com- 
 munity, not unmixed with a A^ague hope 
 that tlie diamonds, although they were 
 affirmed to Ije at tlie l^anker's, might prove 
 to be the source and centre of some thrilling 
 domestic drama.
 
 A\ATEE-CURE SCANDALS. 67 
 
 In this hope, at any rate, they were not to 
 be disappointed. 
 
 Lady Catherine Freeman felt that it was 
 impossible she should not consult with her 
 son as to Mr. Charles Brassinirham. It 
 seemed to her so extraordinary that a father 
 and son, however violent their tempers, 
 should suddenly, after man}- years of 
 strongest attachment on both sides, decline 
 to hold any communication with one another, 
 and that, beyond this, the girls of the family, 
 who Avere devoted both to their father and 
 brother, should at any rate appear to feel no 
 particular anxiety about so serious a rupture. 
 In general Lady Catlierine was a singularly 
 reserved woman, one who deemed it the 
 heiorht of ill-breedino- to discuss the business 
 of other people ; but in this case the friend 
 of her own only son, that son in whom her 
 whole soul was wrapped up, was the person 
 whose career seemed to be thus strangely 
 imperilled. As soon, therefore, as Frank 
 had returned with the Brassinghams to the 
 Wells, Lady Catherine drew him aside, 
 and proposed a saunter round the grounds,
 
 68 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 in order that she might state what she had 
 heard. 
 
 When she had finished her story, she 
 expressed her strong opinion that it was 
 Frank's positive duty to state to Mr. Bras- 
 singham in what company his son had last 
 been seen, even at the risk of being con- 
 sidered meddlesome. '^ If there is any- 
 thing really very wrong," she added, " it 
 seems most strange that the Misses Bras- 
 sin gh am should be in their ordinary high 
 sj)irits." 
 
 ^' I had some conversation with Theodora 
 during our walk just now," answered Frank, 
 ^' and I am convinced, from what she said, 
 that neither she nor her sisters have the 
 least idea of any more serious trouble than 
 there has often been before, when Charlie 
 and his father have fallen out. On several 
 occasions Charlie has left home in a violent 
 passion, swearing he would stand what he 
 considered his father's bullying no longer; 
 but he lias always turned up again when his 
 pockets were empty and his anger had 
 cooled down, and as Mr. Brassingham is
 
 WATER-CURE SCANDALS. 69 
 
 quite as quick to forgive as lie is to find 
 fault, tliey liave never yet been very long 
 apart. I susjDect, however," added Frank, 
 after a pause, ' ' that there are three persons 
 who know a great deal more of this present 
 quarrel than they will divulge. Mr. Bras- 
 singham is evidently very unhappy, more 
 than unhappy ; a look of care is on his face 
 I never remember to have seen before. His 
 sister is partly in his confidence, but he is a 
 man who would willingly make a confidante 
 of no woman. He certainly never did of 
 his wife, xlgain, it is my fixed conviction 
 that Miss Champneys is the real cause, how- 
 ever innocently, of Charlie Brassingham's 
 departure from home. I have formed this 
 opinion from a hundred trifling incidents, so 
 trifling as not to seem worth mentioning 
 indeed ; but Miss Champneys is evidently 
 suffering some deep mental trouble, which 
 she is trying to prevent any one seeing. I 
 should say that probably she loves Charlie, 
 and hopes that he loves her, but that this 
 sudden family jar came just when she had 
 most reason to suppose he would have told
 
 70 LOVE LOST, r>UT HONOUR WON. 
 
 ]ier so ; and that, in consequence, he lias 
 made, as yet, no proposal to her. In fact, I 
 asked Theodora point blank if Miss Champ- 
 neys was engaged to her brother, and she 
 most emphatically denied it." 
 
 ^'Yet they have been much thrown to- 
 gether," said Lady Catherine, musingly. 
 ^^ Surely the girls must have noticed any 
 attachment between them, if there had been 
 anything to notice." 
 
 ^^ Theodora admits that they all think 
 there is something between Charlie and 
 Violet Champneys, but she is quite positive 
 that there is no engagement, or even imder- 
 standing as yet," said Frank. 
 
 '^ Can it be that Mr. Brassingham objects 
 to his son marrying a penniless orphan?" 
 asked Lady Catherine. 
 
 '' I think not," said Frank ; '' Mr. Bras- 
 singham does not look for high marriages 
 for any of his children, and I imagine he 
 would be well pleased if Charlie would 
 settle down with a girl whom Mr. Bras- 
 singham so heartily approves as he does 
 Violet Champneys. No ; I suspect, it is
 
 WATER-CURE SCANDALS. 71 
 
 just the other way ; he does not thmk his 
 son is steady enough to many tlie young 
 ward for whose happiness he feels himself 
 responsible. Charlie has been more than 
 usually wild of late, and I suspect Mr. 
 Brassin^diam obiected to his maldne: love 
 to little Violet while he was mixed up with 
 the low lot it has lately been his pleasure 
 to consort witli." 
 
 '^I thought you told me Mr. Charles 
 Brassingham vras not an immoral young- 
 man, my dear Frank," said Lady Cathe- 
 rine. 
 
 ^^ Nor is he immoral, my dear mother. 
 But for all that he keeps low company ; 
 he is constantly about with questionable 
 characters, prize-fighters, betting-men, and 
 even poachers. He has got into a rowdy 
 lot, whose true character he probably does 
 not know. I know for some time past 
 it has been 3Ir. Brassingham's greatest 
 terror lest Charlie should get mixed up in 
 some disreputable affray, and land the 
 family name in the jDolice reports." 
 
 '^ How very dreadful ! " sighed Lady
 
 72 LOVE LOST, BUT JIONOUK WON. 
 
 Catherine. ^'Can nothino- be clone to save 
 
 him ? " 
 
 ^^ I believe I have more influence with 
 
 him than most people/' answered her son ; 
 '^ but he is quite as difficult to deal with 
 as his father. Neither of them will brook 
 any interference. However, I quite agree 
 with you that Mr. Brassingham nmst be 
 informed of what you heard this morning. 
 I will find an opj)ort unity this very day. 
 I fancy Mr. Brassingham is anxious on 
 many accounts with regard to his daughters 
 and Miss Chamj^neys. This acquaintance 
 of the Tempests', Mr. Julian Ferrand, 
 seems to me desperately smitten with Miss 
 Champneys, though at the same time he 
 is playing fast and loose with Miss Tempest. 
 Vere Vereker evidently means something 
 by his devoted attention to Anne Brassing- 
 ham; indeed I should not be surprised to 
 hear tliat he had already proposed to her." 
 
 '' Surely Mr. Brassingham would never 
 allow that match ! " said Lady Catherine. 
 
 '^ Wliy not ? It would be a most suitable 
 arrangement," answered the son. ^^ Vereker
 
 WATER-CUKE SCANDALS. 73 
 
 lias birth and brains, Anne has money. 
 They are both very worthy, very common- 
 IDlace, and very plain ; besides wliich, I never 
 heard of any one who wanted to marry 
 either of them, except the persons they 
 have apparently chosen. But here is Mr. 
 Brassingham alone, mother. If you will 
 go into the house I will ask him at once 
 about Charlie."
 
 74 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MR. BRASSING HAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 
 
 Mr. Brassingham listened with attention and 
 composure to Frank Freeman's statement. 
 For some minutes he made no reply; then, 
 with an effort to speak calmly, though there 
 was much of suppressed anger in the bold 
 brown eyes, he laid his massive hand on the 
 young man's shoulder and said, — 
 
 ^^ Had you been an}^ one else than Frank 
 Freeman I should have felt annoyed, indig- 
 nant even, that any one sliould presume to 
 attempt to make peace between my son and^ 
 me. I believe you to be an lionest fellow, 
 Freeman ; and you are one of tlie very few 
 friends my son has of whom he has any 
 reason to be proud. It is not my way to take
 
 :\[R. BRASSIXGHA^r EXPLAINS HIMSELF. i O 
 
 others into my confidence, Init I Iiave made 
 lip my mind to put a stop to all misiinder- 
 standino's about the nature of mv disaaree- 
 ment with Charles, and I cannot expect you 
 to help me unless I explain the facts to you 
 fairly and fully. I am considered a hard 
 man. I know, stern with mv children, and in 
 many other relations of life. I am a hard man. 
 I was brought up in a hard scliool, by a father 
 who treated his children as his slaves. If a 
 ffroom disobeved him the <2:room was dis- 
 charged on the spot ; if a son disobeyed him, 
 the son was told to go about his business and 
 get his living as best he might. I was not a 
 favourite with my father, I was too much 
 like him for that. I had a younger brother; 
 this brother was all in all to my father : this 
 brother disobeved him. My father was the 
 sternest of the stern; a man of iron will — un- 
 compromising, unforgiving. 3Iv brother was 
 turned out of doors with just the clothes he 
 stood up in. He went from bad to worse, 
 and died of drink and destitution, a beggar, 
 in the streets of Melbourne. I tell you this 
 to show vou what his other sons and dausfhters
 
 76 LOVE LOST, BUT lIONOUli WOX. 
 
 were loci to cxjicct, unless tlicy fell in with 
 his tyrannical will. When I was still an in- 
 mate of his house he found out that I had 
 contracted a liaison with an actress, and that 
 she had been seen wearing the diamonds left 
 me by a relation of my mother's. That I 
 should have been so besotted as to part with 
 these diamonds made my father believe that 
 I intended to marry the actress in question. 
 He considered the only way to stop this was 
 to see me married to some one else. He 
 looked out for a woman whom he considered 
 suitable, and then he told me to marry her, 
 adding that if I did not I might go and 
 share my brother's fate. To cut a long- 
 matter short, I had to yield. I married a 
 w^oman whom I had not seen twenty times in 
 my life before, a woman who did not love 
 me, and whom I did not love. There is no 
 hell upon earth. Freeman, like the hell of an 
 ill-assorted marriage. Such as it was, I had 
 my reward. Wlien my father died he left 
 me all he had to leave in the matter of land 
 and money. Wealth makes wealth, and I am 
 now a rich man. Yes, I have my reward I "
 
 Mil. IJKASSINGHAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. * i 
 
 The composure ^vitli wliicli ^Iv. Bras- 
 sin gham Lad hitherto spoken seemed to bo 
 deserting him. His emotion could no longer 
 be suppressed. As he went on the flash of 
 his great dark eyes spoke to a far deeper 
 passion than that of anger — the passion of a 
 consuming love. 
 
 ^' I can hardly tell what induces me to take 
 you into my confidence," he exclaimed, turn- 
 ing his gaze full on Freeman. ^'When I 
 have told vou all, vou will say you are the 
 last person to whom I should have made con- 
 fession ; l)ut I have known you since you 
 were a boy, Frank, and I believe that you 
 will always act in what honestly seems to you 
 the right way, whatever may be the result ; 
 also, I believe if a'ou o-lve me your word vou 
 will keep it. Is it not so ? " 
 
 *^ Certainly it is so, Mr. Brassingham," 
 answered Freeman, quite agliast at the vehe- 
 mence of the elder man's manner, and sur- 
 prised beyond measure that any cause, be it 
 what it might, could have so disturbed Mr. 
 Brassingham's calm self-possession. •' Cer- 
 tainly it is so; but forgive my saying, although
 
 78 LOVE LOST, J5UT HONOUR WOM. 
 
 I do not for a moment wish to appear as if I 
 were rejecting the confidence you wish to 
 place in me, yet, if it is • of a nature you 
 might wish retracted wdien you came to think 
 over it again, I feel that perhaps I had better 
 not hear it." 
 
 *^ It may seem strange," said Mr. Bras- 
 sin gham, '' but it is because you are so 
 devoted to my son that I have chosen you 
 rather than another to whom to unfokl the 
 true state of the case. I do not want the 
 advice of a man wiio woukl naturally take 
 my part, nor do 1 care to consult a man 
 whose attachment to Charlie would blind 
 him to all sense of justice between us. 
 But I do expect that you will strictly 
 keep my confidence to yourself, whatever 
 you may think of the disclosures I am 
 willing to make." 
 
 ''No one shall hear from me anything 
 you wish to communicate, Mr. Brassing- 
 liam," said Frank. '' Since you are pleased 
 to consider me a fit person for your con- 
 fidence, I am bound to believe you are right, 
 and I am grateful for tlie honour ; but
 
 MR. BRASSIXGHAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 7^ 
 
 your experience of life has been so much 
 i^reater than mine — in fact I should have 
 thought some older man than I would have 
 been able to advise you better.'' 
 
 ^' Most men of my own age would simply 
 tell me I am an old fool," interrupted Mr. 
 Brassino^ham. ' * I do not want the advice of 
 men of my own age. They are generally 
 men who have got beyond their youth and 
 the passions that belong to youth's season: 
 Either the cares of business, or domestic 
 sorrow, or premature feebleness of bod}^, the 
 result of a dissipated life, have dulled and 
 dimmed their sensibilities, so that they can 
 have no sympathy with me. I am as young 
 and as strong and as healthy now as when 
 I was your age. Age is not a matter of 
 years. Freeman; many a man of thirty is 
 old, many another of sixty is young. I 
 am not yet fifty, and during the past few 
 years I have seemed to myself to grow 
 younger and younger, till I stand, as it 
 were, once more in the very prime of my 
 manhood, and on the same vantage-ground 
 of strength and vigour as my own son I "
 
 80 LOVE LOST, liUT HONOUIl AVOX. 
 
 Frank could not liclp wondering what 
 was coming. As he glanced at Mr. Bras- 
 singham he could not but feel the truth of 
 what has just been said. My. Brassingham 
 rejoiced as a giant in his strength. His 
 magnificent figure, altogetlicr free from 
 corpulence, straiglit as a poplar, towered 
 aboA^e his companion, a very type of man- 
 hood in its ripest perfection. The bold 
 brown eyes had lost none of their brilliancy, 
 the short square beard was as black as tlie 
 raven's wing. The stalwart limbs had lost 
 none of their muscular symmetry. His 
 gait was firm and stately, yet elastic with 
 conscious power. Truly tliis man was right 
 when he asserted that he still stood in the 
 ranks of a vigorous and splendid manhood. 
 
 ^^And what is it that has brought back 
 to me all the emotions of ^^outh ? " con- 
 tinued Mr. Brassingham. " What is it that 
 has revived in me all the hopes and fears, 
 all the longings, desires, and ambitions that 
 these many years past have been either 
 unfelt or suppressed? I need not tell you 
 it is love ! You do not answer me with
 
 MR. BRASSIXGHA3I EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 81 
 
 a sarcastic smile ; you do not tell me there 
 is no fool so great as an old fool ; you 
 do not say that I should leave these follies 
 to my children I No ! These are the re- 
 marks with which my confidence would 
 have been met had I reposed it in any 
 man of mv own years, at least any with 
 whom I am on terms of more than ordinary 
 acquaintance ; and this is wh}' I have deter- 
 mined to give that confidence to you. You 
 are strong of will, so am I ; you are sturdy 
 and vigorous, so am I ; you are honest of 
 purpose, so am I. Hitherto you have 
 looked upon me as your friend's father, as 
 a man whose seniority made an impassable 
 gulf between you and him. as one whose 
 passions either were buried in a dead past, 
 or, if not so buried, ought, by all that is 
 usual and conventional, to be suppressed 
 or known only within my own breast I Rid 
 yourself of these impressions ; fling from 
 you the slough of conventional respect my 
 years have cast about your feeling for me. 
 Be my son's friend still, but be mine also. 
 You are old for yoiu^ age, I am young for 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 LOVE LOST, BUT IIOXOUR WON. 
 
 mine ; let us meet on the common gromid of 
 manhood, full grown and self-reliant, but 
 with all tlie passions of that manhood, all 
 its requirements, all its joys and griefs still 
 in their strongest and ripest development." 
 
 Mr. Brassingham had worked himself up 
 to a pitch of excitement such as Frank 
 Freeman had never before witnessed in him. 
 That this man, usually so calm, so dignified, 
 so self-contained, should thus break out into 
 raptures, like a love-sick boy in his teens, 
 was indeed astounding to another who had 
 hitherto admired him at a most resjDCctful 
 distance. Not all at once could the younger 
 man grasp the condition of mind which had 
 led the elder to descend from that pedestal of 
 veneration upon which Frank Freeman had 
 voluntarily placed him, and to crave so 
 eagerly the sympathy and suj^port of one 
 almost young enough to have been his own 
 son. 
 
 Still Freeman grasped the hand Mr. 
 Brassingham extended with a warm and 
 cordial good-will, pleased beyond measure 
 at the confidence to be reposed in him of a
 
 MR. LRASSIXGHAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 83 
 
 man Avhom lie had hitherto yiewecl Vvith an 
 intense admiration amounting almost to 
 hero-worship ; and determined that, whatever 
 that confidence might be, he woidd do his 
 utmost to be its worthy and most helpful 
 recipient. Having expressed himself to this 
 effect in a few well-chosen vrords. Freeman 
 felt that perhaj)s the less he said the better 
 until the unaccustomed garrulity of Mr. 
 Brassingham had had its full fling. 
 
 '^ My married life was a most unhappy 
 one," said Mr. Brassingham in continuation. 
 '^ I had never loved my wife; my wife had 
 never loved me. You will say that you 
 never knev\' us quarrel, that the unseemly 
 scenes one sees and hears of in some families 
 were consjDicuous by their absence at Bras- 
 singham Park. True I but the dull 
 monotony of mutual dislike is a far worse 
 curse in married life than the most violent 
 outbursts of conjugal recrimination. Year 
 followed year of dull hopeless lovelessness ; a 
 life all the more vapid and colourless because 
 unfilled by the more pressing needs of other 
 men. Wealth I had, therefore all stimulus
 
 84 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WOX. 
 
 to work Avas wanting ; position I had, there- 
 fore ambition had no charms for me. That 
 women arc supposed to make love fill up the 
 measure of tlieir lives is but because custom 
 has ordained tliat labour shall form no 
 portion of those lives. If a man's life be as 
 empty of all real work as most women's are, 
 his whole being will steep itself in dreams 
 of love, as passionately, as utterly as any 
 woman's under heaven ; perhaps all the 
 more fiercely and uncontrollably that his 
 nature and desires are more fierce and un- 
 controllable than hers. 
 
 '^ My wife died. While she lived I never 
 gave her slightest cause for jealousy ; 
 and even though we did not love each 
 other, yet the loss of the mother of my 
 children, the mistress of my house, the 
 sharer of my loveless career, could not 
 but leave a sad blank behind. I went 
 abroad. Lapse of time and constant change 
 of scene first made me accustomed to my 
 loss, then led me on to take pleasure in the 
 society of other women. By degrees my 
 age fell from me like a serpent's slough, the
 
 MR. BRASSINGHAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 85 
 
 depression rendered almost chronic l)y my 
 imlia2)j)y home rose off me like a heavy 
 cloud, and I looked out upon the world 
 again with the eyes of youth and strength 
 and freedom. While my wife lived I had 
 been to my children only a stern disciplina- 
 rian, now I began to grow towards them, 
 and in their youth to become young myself ; 
 but it was too late — too late, at any rate, with 
 the elder ones ; Charlie is like me in person, 
 more violent and more passionate than I, 
 and perhaps less forgiving; we have quar- 
 relled often, but he is my only son ; we 
 cannot quarrel long. Anne is like her 
 mother, in almost all ways her mother's 
 counterpart. She believes I did her mother 
 injustice. She took her part while she lived. 
 She cojDies her conduct towards me, even now 
 that her mother is dead. Theodora is self- 
 willed and unruly, and May is but just 
 emerging from childhood. Turn where I 
 would in my new-born longing to be loved 
 and love again, in my own family I met 
 with nothing but temper, rejDroaches, and 
 rebellion. Is it strange that all my powers
 
 86 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR AVON. 
 
 of body and mind should have at last con- 
 verged to one object of love, and tliat object 
 a fair and young woman ? Tell me, Free- 
 man, was I mad to throw my whole life into 
 this one dream of joy ? My life, that has 
 been full of all things else, was empty of 
 love, and therefore empty of all. I have 
 found love, therefore I have found all." 
 
 /'Indeed, Mr. Brassingham," said Free- 
 man, feeling how utterly feeble and useless 
 an}^ words of his v/ould be to stem the 
 torrent of this ]Dassionate heart, '^ indeed, 
 your conduct seems to me only perfectly 
 natural. You arc still young — young in 
 thought, and appearance, and vigour ; why 
 should you not share the feelings and 
 passions of youth ? Every one supposes, 
 and has supposed for some time past, that 
 you would be likely to marry again. Why 
 should you not ? " 
 
 ''Why should I not?" exclaimed Mr. 
 Brassingham, tightening his grasp on Free- 
 man till the pain was well nigh unbearable. 
 " Why should I not ? Because — because my 
 own son has taken from me the one only love
 
 MR. BRASSINGHAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 87 
 
 I craved on eartli ; niv own son has stolen 
 from me the one heart I believed to beat for 
 me alone, the one woman whom I could and 
 would have made mv wife." 
 
 '' AYhom you could and would have made 
 your wife ! " exclaimed Freeman, in amaze- 
 ment. '^Why, I did not even know that 
 there was any woman whom Charlie cared 
 for in the least. Explain yourself, pray, 3Ir. 
 Brassino'ham : this mvsterv is altoo;ether 
 beyond me." 
 
 Mr. Brassino^ham calmed himself bv a oTcat 
 effort. 
 
 ^^ Charlie kejit his secret," said he, after a 
 pause, ^' as well as or better than I kept mine. 
 Two years ago. Freeman, the only really 
 intimate friend I had died, having survived 
 his wife but a few months. His only daughter 
 was left absolutely penniless. She was about 
 the same a^e as mv youno^er oirls. Her 
 father, just before his death, besought me to 
 befriend her. I believed that I could befriend 
 her best by giving her a home with my own 
 children. She came to live with us — she, 
 the Violet Champneys whom you have
 
 88 LOVE LOSTj BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 known almost as one of iis, is the woman 
 whom botli I and my son love." 
 
 Freeman expressed, hj a sign, that he 
 began to comprehend, and motioned Mr. 
 Brassingham to proceed. 
 
 ^^ Charlie was away from home during 
 most of the first year she was beneath my 
 roof," resumed Mr. Brassingham, ^' and even 
 during the last six months he has been con- 
 stantly absent for periods of a week at a 
 time. I never noticed any love-making 
 between them ; on the contrary, I Avas led to 
 believe there could be none, at any rate on 
 my son's part, for he was hand in glove with 
 a set of disreputable tavern-keepers, and 
 spent most of his time with grooms and 
 jDrize-fighters and barmaids. My love mean- 
 while grew day by day stronger and stronger, 
 till I could no longer keep silence on the 
 matter. I asked Violet Champneys to be 
 my wife. She seemed surprised beyond 
 measure, but she did not actually refuse me. 
 She asked for time, said she was very young, 
 hardly knew her own mind, and so forth. 
 During this period of suspense she apj)eared
 
 MR. BRASSINQHAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 89 
 
 profoundly iinha23py ; so was I. Charlie was 
 supjjosed to be in London ; at any rate lie 
 was not at Lome. Violet was in the habit of 
 taking long walks, sometimes with May or 
 Theodora, but more often alone. Of late she 
 had chosen to be always alone. One evening, 
 after having been out by herself for several 
 hours, she arrived at Brassingham Park very 
 wear}', very pale, and very self-possessed. 
 I met her in the avenue of limes, just inside 
 the lodge gate. She put her arm within 
 mine, just like a tired child, and said, very 
 simply, apparently without a shade of em- 
 barrassment, ^ I will marry you, Mr. Bras- 
 singham, if you still wish me to be your wife.' 
 Need I tell you my answer ? '' 
 
 ^^ But I do not see what this has to do with 
 Cliarlie ? " said Freeman, with some impa- 
 tience in his tone. 
 
 ^^Onlythis,"saidMr. Brassingham, sternly. 
 ^' Xot a week later I found my son alone with 
 my betrothed wife, pouring out floods of 
 reproaches, anger, loA^e, devotion ; cursing the 
 father who begot him for having been before- 
 hand in the field, accusing Violet of shame-
 
 90 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 less treachery to liim, of engaging herself to 
 nic for my money and position alone. In 
 shortj he behaved like a madman, and when 
 he found he could not shake her resolve he 
 flung himself out of the house, swearing never 
 more to enter it." 
 
 ^^ And vour dauo:hters and Miss Lavinia," 
 asked Freeman, more and more amazed ; 
 ^^do they not know how matters really 
 stand?" 
 
 '^ No, they do not," answered Mr. Brassing- 
 hani. ^' Sooner or later they must know, of 
 course ; but Violet pleaded that no notice 
 shoidd be taken of our engagement until we 
 left the Wells and returned to Wimbledon 
 Common. As far as I know, Charlie has held 
 no communication with any of them ; and, 
 beyond him and me and Violet, the story I 
 have just unfolded to you is known, I believe, 
 to no one. I have asked — nay, implored — 
 Violet to say if she loves my son, but she 
 will not. She only says she will keep her 
 promise to me, yet something tells me that it 
 is my son, not me, she loves. Were it not 
 for him she would have loved me; now, even
 
 MR. crassixgha:.! explains himself. 91 
 
 if she marries me, I believe her love is lost to 
 me for ever. 
 
 ^' I have now put before you the circum- 
 stances under whicli this unhappy quarrel 
 between my son and myself arose," resumed 
 Mr. Brassingham. ^^ I have chosen to make 
 a confidant of you in the matter, because, 
 throuo'h the manv vears vou have been 
 on intimate terms with us both, I l)elieve 
 that you have become as much attached 
 to us as we have to you, and because I 
 believe you are of so just a character that 
 you will give to either or both of us an 
 unprejudiced and unbiassed opinion as to 
 what should be done. I desire above all 
 things to make Violet Champneys my wife ; 
 even if T deliberately abandoned my suit 
 T should none the less consider mv son a 
 most unfit person to whom to entrust her 
 happiness ; moreover, I have reason to 
 believe that, among the low people whom 
 he has aifected of late, he has formed con- 
 nexions, disreputable at any rate, and 
 which should have been entirely broken oft 
 before he spoke of love to a young and
 
 92 LOVE LOST, BUT IIOXOUK AVON. 
 
 innocent girl like Violet. I am no stern 
 moralist ; my own career, before I married, 
 would not bear investigation, and I am not 
 the man to be hard on another, much less on 
 my own son, for any peccadilloes of his 
 bachelor life. But, on the other hand, T 
 do not see why I should deliberately blast 
 my OAvn only cliance of hapiDiness in the 
 world, by resigning the woman I love to 
 a man whom I fully believe to be unworthy 
 of her, and whose passion I am not even 
 sure that she reciprocates ; and this even 
 when the man in question is my own son." 
 
 Mr. Brassingham paused and waited some 
 moments before Freeman made any reply. 
 
 '^ I feel much honoured by your con- 
 fidence," said Frank, at length, ^' and tliat 
 you. should base that confidence on any 
 resjoect for my character. If I have given 
 you the impression that I am an un2)re- 
 judiced man, that impression is only due 
 to the fact that my whole life is an effort 
 to speak and act without bias, in conse- 
 quence of my knowing too well that I am 
 by nature swayed by prejudices of every
 
 MR. BRASSIXGHAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 93 
 
 sort and kind. You have given me leave, 
 Mr. Brassingham, to speak to you as a 
 man of your own age. Pardon, me there- 
 fore, if I should sav anvthinc; that seems 
 wanting in respect to the real difference in 
 our vears." 
 
 " I w^ish yon to speak your whole mind," 
 said Mr. Brassin2:ham. 
 
 ^^In the first place, then," resumed Frank 
 Freeman, ^^ it is your duty obviously to 
 find out whether Miss Champneys had or 
 has now any feeling for Charlie which can 
 be rightly called love ; if she has not, tliere 
 is every possible reason to suppose that 
 she accepts you because she loves ycu, and 
 for that reason alone. Why not ? Few 
 men have so many attractions in a woman's 
 eyes as yourself. On the other hand. Miss 
 Champneys's conduct in first asking for time, 
 and then on a sudden unhesitatingly accept- 
 ing you, points to the probability that some- 
 thing came to her knowledge in the interval 
 which for ever dissipated any other dreams 
 in which she may have indulged, whether 
 those dreams had anything to do with your
 
 94 LOVE L08T, IJUT HONOUR WOX. 
 
 son or not. Before slie came to make your 
 house her home, we may j)^'^^^^^^'^® ^^^^ ^^^^ 
 too young to have formed any attachment 
 elsewhere. Agam, if it Avas something in 
 Charlie's life or intentions with regard to 
 herself that she was waiting to discover, 
 it is liardly likely tliat so young a girl 
 would be able to ferret out the matter un- 
 aided by some person or persons much more 
 up to the ways of the world than she is ; 
 nor is she the sort of girl who would have 
 the boldness to investigate any mystery of 
 the kind for herself. It is rather probable 
 that letters were sent to her by people who 
 were aware of vour son's attachment to her, 
 and had reasons of their own for wishing 
 him to marry elsev/here. If my surmise is 
 correct, it would be eas}^ enough for such 
 people to bring plausible reasons for Charlie's 
 desertion of her ; her very ignorance of the 
 ways of the world would strengthen her 
 credit of them, her discredit of him ; and 
 in the firm conviction that he was either 
 engaged, or maybe married, elsewhere, slie 
 may have determined to accept your offer.
 
 MR. BRASSIXGHAM EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 95 
 
 I am aware that this supposition cannot but 
 be most mij^leasant to you," added Frank, 
 as he noticed Mr. Brassingham wince under 
 the exjDlanation of Violet's conduct he had 
 suggested, ^^but you yourself feel that all 
 the possibilities of the ca.se must be looked 
 fairly in the face, and to my mind this 
 explanation seems to be a plausible one.'' 
 
 '^ I had never noticed any love-making 
 between them," urged Mr. Brassingham ; 
 ^^and I believe that I, worshipping as I do 
 the very ground she treads on, must have 
 seen her love for Charlie had anv such 
 existed." 
 
 In his heart of hearts Freeman thought it 
 would have been very strange if Charlie and 
 Violet had not fallen in love with each other, 
 considering their mutual attractions, their 
 youth, their singular beauty, and the close 
 propinquity in which they had j^assed two 
 3^ears of the most inflammable period of life. 
 He forbore to say so, however, and con- 
 tented himself with offering his services as 
 a mediator between father and son, in case 
 such services were needed.
 
 96 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 ^' I think it would be well for you to find 
 out Cliarlic," resumed Mr. Brassingham. 
 '' Of course, as matters now stand, it is best 
 that he should keep away from home ; but 
 as he must be dependent upon some one for 
 support, that one should be his own father. 
 He has no money, nor any power of drawing 
 money, nor any reversion which he could 
 morto:ai2:e to the Jews. He must, therefore, 
 be living by his wits or on charity, neither 
 of which courses is there the slightest neces- 
 sity for my son to pursue. On the other 
 hand, if he is too proud to accept support 
 from his own father, simply because that 
 father happens to be his successful rival in 
 a Avoman's aifections, he must take his own 
 line, and carve out his own career as best he 
 can." 
 
 ^^ As soon as we return to London I will 
 do all I can in the matter," said Freeman ; 
 '' but I see some of the guests are l^eginning 
 to arrive from the water-cure places for the 
 dance we are to have to-night, so perhaps 
 I had better go and dress. You may rely 
 on mj prudence."
 
 JULIAN FERRAND. 97 
 
 CHAPTER YIIL 
 
 JULIAN FERRAND. 
 
 Truth to tell, Frank Freeman was not 
 sorry to escape from this trying interview. 
 Though the feelings he bore towards both 
 father and son were of an iinnsually strong 
 nature, still it was but in the nature of things 
 that he should feel more of affection for the 
 younger man, more of respect and admi- 
 ration for the elder. He felt now as if one 
 strong attachment had been pitted against 
 another. To Mr. Brassingham he un- 
 doubtedly owed life-long gratitude for innu- 
 merable benefits, for generous hospitality 
 and an almost fatherly affection ; but, on the 
 other hand, his attachment to Charlie had 
 grown with their growth, and strengthened 
 with their strength ; moreover, their friend- 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 sliip had taken deep root in those early days 
 of youth's season when hero-worship phiys 
 SO large and so real a part in boys' lives ; 
 when every suj)eriority is envied, struggled 
 for, and venerated, with a blind entliu- 
 siasm unknown in more j)ractical and sober 
 after-life. On these accounts it was a 
 real sorrow to Frank Freeman to hear 
 that these two men, so closely allied to each 
 other by blood, and to him by the ties of 
 affectionate friendship, should have chosen 
 tlie same woman for their hearts' idol. He 
 would have preferred to hear the story of 
 their rivalry from some other source than 
 Mr. Brassingham, or even Charlie himself, in 
 order that lie might stand in the gap between 
 them, without any sort of bias or prejudice 
 in the matter. He had heard that story, 
 however, and only from one side. It was 
 his obvious duty, he said to himself, to learn 
 'the other side as quickly as possible, and in 
 the mean time to improve his acquaintance 
 with Miss Violet Champneys. 
 
 It was with tliis intention that liis eyes 
 sought out the lady in question, immediately
 
 JULIAN FEREAXD. 99 
 
 on entering tlie drawing-room, where some 
 two Lmiclred people were already assembled. 
 That she was an exceedingly pretty girl 
 Freeman had never disj)uted ; but until this 
 evening it had never been fully borne in 
 upon him tliat her tyjDO of beauty was one of 
 so rare and subtle an excellence. Perhaps it 
 was because Frank held the opinion that, 
 before all things, men and women should be 
 fine animals. Violet Champneys was not a 
 fine animal, hence her type had not attracted 
 Frank's critical eye. She was neither vigorous 
 nor vivacious ; on the contrary she was 
 small and slight in figure, subdued and reti- 
 cent in manner, pale of complexion, a girl 
 who, in all ways, gave the impression of de- 
 licate health. She talked but little j her con- 
 versation was commonplace ; she entirely 
 lacked enthusiasm for any of the pursuits or 
 pleasures girls of her age usually professed 
 to delight in. Yet she was by no means an 
 ordinary girl. There was about her a subtle 
 refinement, a dreamy wistfulness, an appeal- 
 ing grace, which won the sympathy and aJffec- 
 tion of both sexes, and brought more victims
 
 100 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 to her feet than Theodora's superb propor- 
 tions or May's brilliant colouring did to 
 theirs. Her eyes, of a bright light blue, were 
 more unconsciously eloquent than Theodora's 
 eyes of sensuous brown or May's of darkest 
 sapphire. 
 
 Bending over the sofa on which Miss 
 Champneys was seated leaned Julian Ferrand, 
 a man in all ways the opposite of the girl to 
 whom he was paying such assiduous atten- 
 tion. In magnificence of limb, in height, 
 and in animal vigour, Julian Ferrand at any 
 rate equalled, and perhaps excelled, Mr. 
 Brassingham. Moreover, he had youth on 
 his side, and that sort of good looks which 
 youth and health cannot fail to give. As a 
 rule, men admired him much more than 
 women, for men are more given to admire 
 superlative manliness and muscular power 
 than are the gentler sex ; perhaps, in many 
 cases, because roughness and coarseness are 
 not so distasteful to them as to women. Now 
 Julian Ferrand, though one of those splendid 
 animals who would have been the cynosure 
 of every eye in the ancient arena or the
 
 JULIAX FLEEAXD. 101 
 
 iDodein prize-ring, met ^itli but indifferent 
 success in the di^aT^dng-rooms of Englisli 
 homes. Men admired his immense strength 
 and his proficiency in all athletic exercises, 
 TN'hile at the same time they were silently 
 jealous of his physical superiority. Girls 
 laughed unconcernedly at the accounts, dwelt 
 on by their brothers with awe and admira- 
 tion, of Ferrand's colossal figure, his huge 
 arm, and enormous girth of chest. Gentle- 
 men of the '' Guy Livingstone" class are out 
 of fashion at present in well-regulated female 
 brtasts, especially when such athletes are 
 unprovided with a background of wealth, 
 land, and pedigree. 
 
 As far as society could gather, Julian 
 Ferrand was an obscure adventurer. That 
 he was well supplied with ready money was 
 evident enough ; his manners were gentle- 
 manlike, yet it was apparent to all gentle- 
 men that he was not quite one of them. 
 Though he rode well, was a first-rate boxer 
 and fencer, dressed to perfection, and spoke 
 French with a Parisian accent, yet there was 
 a subtle something about him vrliich rele-
 
 102 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 gated liim to 'Hho people" in the minds of 
 all those to whom education and refinement 
 were part of the atmosphere tliey breathed. 
 Without being vulgar, he lacked polish ; his 
 courtesy was clumsy : his bluntness was 
 workmanlike, natural, and real. 
 
 The Tempests knew as little about him as 
 the rest of the visitors at the Wells. He 
 happened to be the best billiard-player 
 among the men who frequented the billiard- 
 room, and Captain Selfe, who did not care to 
 waste his time on teaching tyros in the game, 
 soon became intimate with him on this 
 account. To be on friendly terms with 
 Pliilip Selfe was an ^^ Open, Sesame " to the 
 affections of the Tempests, who, each for 
 special reasons of his or her own, followed 
 wherever the Captain thought fit to lead. 
 
 When birds of a feather flock together it 
 is not necessary that all their feathers should 
 agree. Selfe had been an adventurer — of a 
 good-natured, easy-going type, perhaps, but 
 still an adventurer — and he immediately 
 detected in Ferrand plenty of responsive 
 traits. The society of most young men was
 
 JULIAN FERRAND. 103 
 
 tame in the last degree to Captain Sclfe. 
 Where pigeons presented tliemselves for 
 pkicking, Selfe performed the operation with 
 skill and consideration, being always careful 
 to preserve life at least in geese with golden 
 eggs. But pluckable pigeons had not put in 
 an apj)earance at the Wells in any great 
 number this autumn, and Captain Selfe Avas, 
 to use his own phrase, ^' having a damnably 
 dull time of it." 
 
 To be a sort of ^^ gentleman companion '' 
 to an impecunious, boisterous old lady, 
 hampered by a fast daughter who could not 
 be ^^got off" in the matrimonial market, 
 and a tipsy son who had to be ferreted out 
 and brou^-ht home six davs out of seven, 
 was not a position to be considered a sine- 
 cure by any man. What earthly reason 
 Philip Selfe had for making himself com- 
 panion, adviser, nurse, and man -of- all- work 
 to the Tempest family no creature could 
 divine. Still, there he was, occupying a 
 place in the Tempest family which the 
 breath of slander did not attempt to vilify. 
 Mrs. Tempest was a well-connected woman,
 
 104 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WOX. 
 
 her Imsband, the late General, had been a 
 man of mark ; and, though burdened with a 
 fast daughter and a tipsy son, Mrs. Tempest 
 was not a person who could be snubbed with 
 impunity in any society Avhatever. Hence, 
 through Mrs. Tempest's recognized position 
 in society. Captain Selfe's character had 
 become j^artially rehabilitated. Selfc again 
 stood godfather, as it were, to Julian Fer- 
 rand ; the Tempests admitted him to terms 
 of intimacy, and society was more or less 
 compelled to follow suit, especially as, if 
 notliing was known of Ferrand's birth and 
 antecedents, there could be no plausible 
 reason for refusing him admittance. 
 
 Though Frank Freeman w^as ever striving 
 to divest himself of all prejudice, and to 
 view persons and things from a purely 
 reasonable jDoint, yet he could not help 
 feeling strongly attracted towards Julian 
 Ferrand. Ferrand's splendid physique, 
 his animal vigour, his lion-like strength, 
 were qualities that in themselves ap- 
 pealed powerfully to Freeman's aesthetic 
 tem2)erament. That he was manly and
 
 JULIAN FEREAND. 105 
 
 courageous added to the glamour cast by 
 his physical perfections ; and as Freeman 
 watched him bending close over Violet 
 Champneys his mind had great misgivings 
 for the ultimate peace of the Brassinghams, 
 both father and son. For Freeman, in his 
 heart of hearts, felt sm^e that the auburn- 
 haired Violet had found out for herself some 
 flaw in the younger Brassingham's life 
 which severed him from her love ; moreover 
 that her acceptance of the father had been 
 prompted by the faithlessness of the son, 
 aided by the peculiar position she occupied 
 as a penniless dependent on the charity of 
 the elder man. But how would it be now, 
 when the man that had once been loved was 
 absent and disgraced, after deliberate de- 
 thronement from Violet's heart ; when any 
 fairly happy union with a stalwart manly 
 fellow of somewhere near her own age 
 might reasonably be hailed as a means of 
 deliverance from a marriage of convenience 
 with one old enough to be her father ? In. 
 social position there was no comparison 
 between Mr. Brassingham and Julian Fer-
 
 106 LOVK LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 rand, but Freeman was quite aware, from 
 his past experience of Miss Champneys, that 
 in all probability her unintellectual and 
 somewhat vapid nature would be stirred to 
 passion by Ferrand's marvellous electrical 
 power, where Mr. Brassingham's less vehe- 
 ment nature would produce no emotional 
 effects. 
 
 Had Freeman been himself a victim to 
 Miss Champneys's steel-blue eyes and auburn 
 hair he would doubtless have been more 
 readily stung into active antagonism with 
 Ferrand ; as it was, he was but an outsider, 
 interested, indeed, for the sake of two of his 
 best and oldest friends, in the fate of this 
 pale slip of a girl, but quite unable to fathom 
 the nature of the attraction that brought 
 three such models of superlative manhood to 
 her feet. While he was speculating as to 
 the course of events, Theodora Brassingham 
 touched his arm, banteringly offered him a 
 penny for his thoughts, and then, turning to 
 a lady who accompanied her, introduced 
 him to her new-found friend, Miss Agatha 
 Bonchurch.
 
 AGATIll BOXCIIURCII. 107 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AGATHA BOXCHURCH. 
 
 It has been stated of Mr. Frank Freeman 
 that he held a strong opinion that before 
 all things men and women should be fine 
 animals. This opinion lie was in the habit 
 of making public for the benefit of those 
 whom it might interest, and Theodora Bras- 
 sinorham, beino: his chief comnanion amono- 
 the gentler sex, had heard it more often 
 than she considered good. Doubtless the 
 iteration contained a compliment to her and 
 to her family, for the Brassingliams were 
 ver}^ fine animals indeed, and she j^erhaps 
 the finest of them all ; but Theodora knew 
 Frank too intimately to suspect liim of any 
 intention in the matter of pretty speeches.
 
 108 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 They were great ^^ pals," these two, Theodora 
 and Frank, but if either ever found it well 
 to go out of the beaten tracks of con- 
 versation, it was in the direction of blunt 
 fault-fniding, not complimentary effusive- 
 ness. Theodora herself j)laced an exag- 
 gerated value on personal beauty ; she was 
 aware of this herself, and frequently dis- 
 cussed the matter with Freeman, to whom 
 she usually talked much more freely than 
 to any members of her own family, male 
 or female. She had been in the habit of 
 asserting that her natural dislike to all plain 
 people of either sex was too inborn in her 
 for her to form attachments, in love or in 
 friendship, for people not gifted in the 
 matter of physical* beauty and vigour. But 
 in Miss Agatha Bonchurch she had found 
 a friend who had put to flight all her pre- 
 conceived ideas of the qualifications she 
 deemed indispensable to friendship. She 
 had begun to realize that there are qualities 
 of the mind so elevated, so commanding, 
 as entirely to dwarf and overshadow the 
 more conspicuous attractions of the body.
 
 AGATHA BONCHURCH. 109 
 
 Having found her own pet theories at fault 
 in her relations with Miss Bonchurch, the 
 o^irl naturallv desired that her friend Frank 
 should not remain victorious where she was 
 defeated, and it was with the half-mis- 
 chievous hope of the overthrow of Frank's 
 most cherished opinions that she had intro- 
 duced him to her new friend, Agatha. 
 
 Miss Bonchurch was the orphan daughter 
 of an officer who, as long as he lived, 
 had eked out an existence upon his pension, 
 but whose private means were absolutely 
 nil. On her father's death Miss Bon- 
 church found herself alone, really alone, in 
 this wide world, '' with none to bless her, 
 none whom she could bless." Her mother 
 had been Italian by birth, Italian in all 
 her habits of mind, tastes, and inclinations. 
 Rome had not only been her home, but 
 her heaven. In it she had found all tliat 
 had seemed sufficient to make life an eternity 
 of joy. Happy girlhood had expanded into 
 yet happier womanhood under the glow of 
 an Italian sky, among the thousand arts 
 that crown imperial Rome ; among ruins
 
 110 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 of an incomiDarable past, and rising hopes 
 of a still more incomparable future. Tiien 
 in the midst of all this happiness a man 
 had come upon the scene, an Englishman, 
 a youth with curled crisp locks and merry 
 eyes — eyes with the bright clear sparkle of 
 English manhood. Then had she weighed 
 Rome and its delights, home and friends 
 and sunshine, against the one new-found 
 love ; and love of course had won the day, 
 and she became the wife of a subaltern 
 in a marching regiment. If she found that 
 she had given gold for silver, that the ex- 
 change from sunny skies and liberty to 
 a Portsmouth barrack or a station in the 
 bogs of Ireland, did not advantage her, 
 she was woman enough never to let the 
 sad secret out. She had given to her hus- 
 band all. So perhaps had he given to his 
 wife all. But how many husbands and 
 wives find that the '' all " of one is to the 
 ^' all " of the other as the water of a moun- 
 tain tarn, to the limitless ocean ! Perhaps 
 the love Bonchurch had to give his wife was 
 all he had to dispose of. At any rate it
 
 AGATHA BOXCHUECH. Ill 
 
 was little enongli to starve her. She gvevi 
 oraver and o-rever and more wan. Private 
 means they had none ; they both began to 
 knovv" that they had made a foolish love- 
 match. Poverty pressed ujDon them harder 
 and harder. Child after child sickened and 
 faded ere it was known to the world even 
 by a distinctive name. Then the father 
 tried the tables and the tiivf, and the mother 
 clung to ]ier last surviving one, Agatha, 
 with all the agonized love of a slowly 
 breaking heart. Then God did what He 
 could for the woman. He snajDj^ed the frail 
 thread that bound her to her torture, and 
 Agatha found herself motherless. The devil 
 also did what he could for the man. The 
 turf and the tables gave way to the pot- 
 house and the pawnshop, and a few months, 
 steady uninterrupted dram-drinking com- 
 pleted the ruin long since begun, and 
 left Agatha a lonely, friendless, parentless 
 pauper. 
 
 Some years had elapsed since Miss Bon- 
 chuixh had been left to make her own way 
 in the world as best she might. She had
 
 112 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 been through much of the usual suffering 
 that falls to the lot of educated women who 
 are condemned by the laws of custom and 
 jiroprlety to seek in the groove of tuition 
 alone the wherewitlial to eat, drink, and be 
 clothed. 
 
 She had but lately become an inmate of 
 Mrs. Higgins's house, as conijDanion to that 
 lady and her daughter. For such consider- 
 ation as she received she tried to be 
 thankful ; but the Higginses did not belong 
 to a class who readily divine the wants or 
 sorrows of dependents, or who had any 
 sympathy with the instincts of a refined 
 gentlewoman. 
 
 There had not been much time, however, 
 in which either the Higgins family or Miss 
 Bonchurch could weigh each other in the 
 balance before they migrated to the Wells, 
 in Yorkshire. Mrs. Higgins was anxious 
 above all things to be considered on inti- 
 mate terms with the Brassinghams ; and if 
 her purpose could be effected through the 
 friendship subsisting between her companion 
 and Theodora she ^as as willing to accept
 
 AGATHA BONCHURCH. 113 
 
 this road to favour as anv other. Her own 
 daughter, moreover, was daily advancing in 
 the good graces of Miss Anne Brassingham 
 by lending herself to assist Mr. Yere Yere- 
 ker in his attentions to the heiress ; while 
 3Irs. Higgins herself improved every oppor- 
 timity of making herself useful to the whim- 
 sical and grim old aunt Lavinia. 
 
 Frank Freeman held Theodora's opinions 
 to be in general impulsive, and too strongly 
 biassed by her enthusiasm for the beautiful. 
 He was, therefore, somewhat taken by sur- 
 prise when he discovered what manner of 
 woman Theodora's new friend appeared to 
 be. She was very tall and very slight, with 
 a lithe, willovry figure, elegant and graceful, 
 but with none of that vigour that both 
 Frank and Theodora were wont to consider 
 indispensable to good looks. Her com- 
 plexion was very pale, and of an olive 
 tinge ; her type of face almost Oriental in 
 contour and colouring, — a face in which one 
 naturally looked for a large dark eye of 
 black cr brown. 
 
 But Miss Bonchurch possessed eyes that 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 LOVE LOST, IJUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 were neither black nor Lrown, but a light 
 blue-grey — eyes full of sympathy and good- 
 ness and intellect — eyes that dwelt on 
 everything with an expression of mingled 
 love and sadness — eyes that were beautiful 
 because they were such transparent windows 
 of the mind within, which was itself harmo- 
 nious, good, and true. But the eyes were 
 not beautiful in themselves. No curling 
 lashes fringed them, no electric flash light- 
 ened them, no violet or turquoise hues 
 invited a lover's gaze. No, those eyes were 
 a calm, light blue-grey. Nevertheless, they 
 were the chief feature in Miss Bonchurch's 
 face. Perhaps it was because such eyes 
 appeared as harmonious discord in a face of 
 so Eastern a tyjDC. 
 
 An Italian cast of countenance might 
 have been expected by those who knew 
 Miss Bonchurch's parentage, but not in 
 Italy even would one expect to sec the 
 statuesque repose, the dark pale tint of 
 skin, the lofty, intellectual brows, that 
 characterized Agatha Bonchurch. 
 
 ^^I have been sharing Miss Brassingham's
 
 AGATHA BONCHURCH. 115 
 
 curiosity as to the cause of 3'our abstrac- 
 tion," said Miss Bonchurch to Frank, as 
 Theodora moved away, leaving them alone 
 together. 
 
 '^I was but pursuing the normal avoca- 
 tion of all the visitors here," answered 
 Frank, "busying myself about my neigh- 
 boirrs' affairs more than my own. One 
 speedily takes a gambler's interest in the 
 game of life in a society where every one 
 seems anxious to stake whatever he or she 
 may have to part with." 
 
 '^A hydropathic establishment is quite a 
 little world in itself, is it not, Mr. Freeman ? 
 I have seldom been more amused by looking 
 on than I have been in our short stay here." 
 
 ^ ' The whole place ought to be provided 
 with niches specially constructed for two 
 persons," said Freeman, laughing. 
 
 " With a gallery for s^DCctators," added 
 Miss Bonchurch. "It is only in the house 
 that we should want either the niches or the 
 gallery, however." 
 
 Freeman looked up at her, waiting for 
 some expkmation.
 
 116 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 •^ I was alluding to our truly English 
 sociability this morning when we were in 
 the Avoods/' said Agatha, smiling. '' The 
 girls walked on ahead by two and two, and 
 the men lagged behind by two and two, 
 as if all courtesy depended on a separation 
 of the sexes." 
 
 ^ ^ You are severe. Miss Bonchurch," answered 
 Frank, flushing, for he remembered that such 
 had really been the order of march until the 
 whole party had settled down to their sketch- 
 books, ^'but I presume you would hardly 
 have a man claim a partner for a morning- 
 walk as he would for a waltz.'' 
 
 ^'Is it imjDossiblc for a man to interest 
 himself in a general conversation, Mr. Free- 
 man?'' 
 
 ^' In heavy marching order, over rugged 
 boulders, quite impossible, Miss Bonchurch." 
 
 ^^ What do you mean by heavy marching 
 order, Mr. Freeman ? '' 
 
 '^ Being burdened with useless impediments 
 in the shape of camp-stools, railway rugs, 
 waterproofs, and huge x)ortfolios ; which most 
 w^omen insist on taking whenever they stir
 
 AGATHA BOXCHURCH. 1 17 
 
 beyond the j)reciiicts of the Wells ; and which 
 they would leave behind unless they found 
 men willing to be beasts of burden ! " 
 
 ^^ Ah ! I see you are not a ladies' man, Mr. 
 Freeman." 
 
 '' If beino' a ladies' man consists in makins: 
 oneself into a sort of furniture camel for the 
 improbable requirements of the fair sex in a 
 morning saunter in the woods, most assuredly 
 I am not a ladies' man, Miss Bonchurch." 
 
 '^But ladies may want to sit down, or to 
 be kept warm, or it may rain, Mr. Freeman," 
 persisted Agatha. 
 
 ^^ Women are always more concerned with 
 contingencies than facts," said Frank, 
 bluntly; ^^I do not see why the rules of 
 gallantry should turn a healthy young woman 
 into a maudlin invalid, or a young man into 
 something between a retriever and a beast of 
 burden I For my own part I have no jDatience 
 with the artificial requirements of young 
 ladies who are perfectly able to take care of 
 themselves." 
 
 '' Some day I shall find you actually 
 creating the requirements, in order that you
 
 118 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 may minister to tlicm," answered Agatha, 
 laughing. ^^Your time will come. In the 
 mean while there is no lack of retrievers or 
 beasts of burden, as you call them, in this 
 little Yorkshire colony. Mr. Vereker, for 
 instance, is a good dog : he was sent back 
 three times this morning to hunt for Miss 
 Brassingham's lost property, and never once 
 failed to lay it at her feet." 
 
 ^^He will require a nice sense of smell to 
 discover all that Anne Brassingham mislays or 
 loses," re^Dlied Freeman. ^' Perhaps he may 
 be the compensation given her by the gods 
 for her missing faculties." 
 
 ^^ What do you mean, Mr. Freeman?" 
 ^^ Anne Brassingham was born without the 
 sense of touch," replied Frank. ^' In an 
 attempt to shake hands she grasps your 
 sleeve ; in shutting a door she either slams it 
 or leaves it ajar, or pinches her fingers in 
 the action. She will always upset her tea- 
 cup, and land her knife and fork in her 
 neighbour's lap. Her hand and her head 
 refuse to act in concert in every action of her 
 life. If Mr. Vereker, with all his prim
 
 AGATHA BOXCHURCH. 119 
 
 pedantry and love of method and order, be 
 ordained by the heavenly marriage-makers 
 to counteract Miss Anne's slip-shod peculiari- 
 ties it will be a mercy to the house of 
 Brassingham." 
 
 Agatha looked pained. ^^ One must be 
 forbearing to the defects of one's friends, Mr. 
 Freeman," she said. I thought you were on 
 very intimate terms with the Brassingham 
 family." 
 
 '^ So I am," answered Frank, sliarply. 
 ^^ All the more reason for my objection to 
 systematic disregard of a proper sense of 
 touch." 
 
 ^^ But if Miss Brassingham's awkwardness 
 is the result of a defective sense, surely she 
 should receive pity rather than blame," 
 urged Agatha. 
 
 '^You are quite right, Miss Bonchurch," 
 suddenly looking up with a smile. '^For- 
 give my fretful ill-temper, I have been 
 worried to-day more than usual. Anne 
 Brassingham always jars upon me when I 
 am at my best, and when I feel ill her 
 combination of untidiness and preciseness
 
 120 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 is almost intolerable. Listen! they have 
 struck up the ^Amoretten' dance; will you 
 not dance with me ? " 
 
 When a man or woman is really fond of 
 waltzing for its own sake tliere are few 
 exercises so soothing to both body and mind, 
 especially when a good partner, a good 
 floor, and good music are secured conditions. 
 Frank Freeman looked upon waltzing as an 
 art; but even his fastidious taste was satisfied 
 with Agatha's step, and time, and motion. 
 Frank was a perfect waltzer, a somewhat 
 rare accomplishment among Englishmen. 
 It is astounding to most people who have 
 lived much on the Continent how we Britons 
 can continue to tolerate the mitigated bear- 
 fight of an ordinary English ball-room. 
 When Frank and Agatha at length paused 
 from what to each was an id3'll of motion, 
 the comical and the grotesque met their 
 eyes from all parts of the room ; couples 
 with their arms flung out at full length, 
 like upraised pump-handles, men who placed 
 their partners' hand in the ^' small" of their 
 own backs, women who flattened their noses
 
 AGATHA COXCHURCH. 121 
 
 against men's shirt-fronts ; every species of 
 inartistic romp and lincouth posturing was 
 there. Here Vere Vereker's angular figure 
 skipj^ed, like a goat on its hind-legs, round 
 the ponderous form of Anne Brassingham, 
 who carried out her essential characteristics 
 by making the minutest steps, while at the 
 same time she tore her dress to ribbons, 
 trod on her partner's toes, and showed a 
 greater amount of creased stocking in each 
 whirl than is considered legitmiate out 
 of Cremorne or the Mabille. There Miss 
 Higgins glued her lips to her partner's chest, 
 keeping her eyes fixed on the ceiling with a 
 ghastly stare. Some men, conscious of the 
 incompatibility of grace and motion in their 
 own persons, wisely abstained from imitating 
 the gyrations of a shambling bear, or the 
 gambols of a kid ; but how few women, be 
 their age or figure what it may, will consent 
 to believe that repose is their sole attitude 
 of attraction ! Julian Ferrand did not 
 dance, nor, we may presume, did Hercules 
 or Samson in ancient times. He had the 
 sense to know that a towering massive figure
 
 122 LOVE LOST, 15UT HONOUR WON. 
 
 such as liis can too seldom find a partner up 
 to liis hciglitj and that, however grand his 
 €olossal proportions miglit be in the gymna- 
 sium, liis physical advantages were unsuitable 
 to the limited scope of a drawing-room. 
 
 Gerald Tresilian did not dance. He found 
 no pleasure in it. It damaged the precision 
 of his toilet, ruffled his temper, made him 
 hot and giddy. Mr. Brassingham did not 
 dance. He considered it u.nbecoraing in a 
 man of his age, weight, and dignity ; but 
 what woman ever pauses to reflect on her 
 age, weight, or dignity ? None. Women 
 like the scare-crows in a field of springing 
 €orn, lean and yellow and bony; women 
 like tlie fat ladies at a village wake, lumpy, 
 mottled, and obese, will still insist on 
 parading their ungainly contortions before 
 a mixed company of men and women who 
 regard them as they would burlesque actresses 
 in a provincial theatre, with mingled pity 
 and dismay. Mrs. Higgins, padded and 
 rouged, still danced, or rather jumped like 
 a pea on a drum, in rliythmical spasms to 
 the music. Lady Amory, lier shoulder-
 
 AGATHA BOXCHURCH. 123 
 
 blades and poor tliiii arms all bare, her 
 dyed hair falling on her almost naked back, 
 still rattled her skeleton to a jerky deux temps 
 step, which had been the fashionable dance 
 of her girlhood. Sm-ely, if there is a time 
 for all things, there must be a time to dance 
 and a time to sit still ; but the latter never 
 seems to come to a woman till she has 
 fulfilled her share in the comedy of life, 
 and made the world wax merry at her own, 
 expense. 
 
 The hour was n earing midnight. Frank 
 and Philip Selfe had danced unceasingly 
 with Miss Tempest and Miss Bonchurch; 
 Eric Amory had devoted himself to May 
 and Theodora by turns. Violet had found 
 no lack of partners. The music had just 
 ceased, Frank and Agatha were standing in 
 tlie portico star-gazing and getting cool, 
 when a fio:ure staf>'o:ered into the entrance 
 with rolling gait and bloodshot eyes, — the 
 figure of Loftus Tempest !
 
 124 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LOFT us TExMPEST. 
 
 When a man begins to take an unaccustomed 
 interest in a girl he is certain to watcli with 
 anxiety how she will conduct herself under 
 unexpected circumstances. This second 
 evening of Frank Freeman's sojourn at 
 the Wells was an eventful one to him. Not 
 that he had fallen in love with Miss Bon- 
 church, but because she had in their very 
 first interview revealed to him glimpses of a 
 nature hitherto unknown to him among the 
 women of his set ; a nature which, from 
 its inherent harmoniousness, seemed capable 
 of attracting all those who sought peace, but 
 found it not, to which class Frank and 
 Theodora more particularly belonged. So 
 difEerent was Agatha Bonchurch to the usual
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 125 
 
 rim of Frank's goddesses that lie almost 
 resented the 2^ower she Avielded, failing as he 
 did to recognize it for what it was, — the 
 power of a mind at perfect peace with itself. 
 Hers was a soul disciplined by early suffer- 
 ing, not only that sort of suffering which is 
 engendered by the conduct of a worthless 
 and selfish parent, by poverty, and by 
 humiliation, but the sorrow of a noble soul, 
 by nature full of joy and blitheness and 
 sympathy for others, doomed to travel a 
 narrow, joyless groove, capable from its 
 nature of little or no expansion. It miglit 
 be that the pool was so still because un- 
 stirred by the winds of passion ; it might be 
 that so wild a storm had once raged within 
 its clear dejDths that all after-loves were but 
 as summer breezes fanning her sweet bosom ; 
 these could be but guesses to Frank Free- 
 man. What he saw, or thought he saw, was 
 a woman who, in some mysterious way, 
 seemed raised above the turmoil of every- 
 day life ; from whose clear grey eyes there 
 shone out a steadfast faith and a serene 
 peace.
 
 126 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 It was therefore with a feeling of ahnost 
 eager curiosity that Freeman Avatched tlie 
 effect produced on Miss Bonchurch by Lof tus 
 Tempest's appearance at the present moment. 
 That Tempest had been introduced to her 
 he was aware, from certain casual remarks 
 which had escaj^ed licr during the evening, 
 Ijut he Avas uncertain whether she was 
 acquainted witli the nature of the wretched 
 curse which was blighting the happiness and 
 the life of the young man before he had 
 even reached his prime. 
 
 Tempest lurched forward, endeavouring 
 to pass the pair, and gain the inner hall, 
 where the visitors were pacing to and fro in 
 the interval between the dances. Catchino; 
 sight of Miss Bonchurch, he smiled feebly, 
 and made an effort to steady himself before 
 proceeding into the liouse. His face was 
 ghastly pale ; he had fallen in the road and 
 his coat was covered with dust ; his fair hair 
 hung damp and matted over his forehead, 
 his hat, crushed and dirty, was jammed on 
 to the back of his head. It was impossible 
 he should be allowed to enter the house
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 127 
 
 thus ; some one must stop liim. Freeman 
 had never spoken to him before, and any 
 interference by one of his own sex would , 
 of course, only exasperate him in his present 
 condition. All this Agatha Bonchurch took 
 in at a glance. Leaving Freeman, she said 
 gently to Tempest, as if it were a matter of 
 no i^articular importance, '^Good evening, 
 Mr. Tempest. You forgot your promise to 
 me to let me teach you the tivi^ temps this 
 evening ; now you must pay for your broken 
 vows by giving me your arm for a turn in 
 the shrubbery. My partner is engaged for 
 the next dance, and I am not fond of star- 
 gazing alone." 
 
 In a moment she had linked her arm in 
 his, and had drawn him out into the open 
 air. Freeman stood mute. He felt he 
 could not leave her alone wath a man in 
 Tempest's condition ; yet her gestures rather 
 than any word made him understand she 
 knew what she was about, and was under 
 no misapprehension that the man was 
 sober. 
 
 '' May I not bring you a shawl. Miss
 
 128 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 Bonchurcli?" lie asked, hesitatingly; ^^tlie 
 niglit is very chilly now." 
 
 ^' Thank you, yes; bring me my shawl, 
 please ; I left it in Mrs. Tempest's charge," 
 she added meaningly ; ^^ and, Mr. Freeman, 
 I am SO desperately thirsty, would you think 
 it very odd if I asked for a soda-and-brandy ? 
 You might bring me that at the same time, 
 and no one would be the wiser. I shall be 
 on the seat under the big cedar." 
 
 Well did Agatha Bonchurch know that as 
 long as there was a chance of liquor to be 
 had in the garden Loftus Tempest would 
 show no disposition to enter the house. Also 
 that Tempest was well aware he might im- 
 portune the waiters and bath-men in vain, so 
 strict were the orders against supplying hiui 
 with drink ; thus his only chance of quench- 
 ing his rising thirst in his favourite beverage, 
 was by staying at her side, and she would 
 take care to make the liquor outlast the 
 already dej^arting guests. 
 
 Freeman felt that he too was expected to 
 act with intelligence and discretion ; that 
 Agatha had, as it were, invited him into
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 129 
 
 partnership in a work of charity. Her 
 allusion to Mrs. Tempest must mean that 
 he was to bring the man's mother along T\4th 
 the shawl. He found Mrs. Tempest, with 
 the shawl in her lap, very tired, very sleepy, 
 and rather cross. 
 
 ^' Are these people never going to cease 
 whirling?" she said, as Freeman approached 
 her. '' I am quite giddy with looking on. But 
 I was young once myself," she added, more 
 brightly; '^ and I ought not to comj^lain." 
 
 '^ Take my aiin for a turn in the garden, 
 Mrs. Tempest," he replied. '' Miss Bonchurch 
 sent me for her shawl ; I can take it to her 
 at the same time." 
 
 '^ Two are company, three are none," said 
 the old lady, mischievously. ^' Xo, no, I 
 never spoil sport ; I should have liked a tm-n 
 in the cool air verv much, but under the 
 circumstances the shawl will be more 
 welcome than I." 
 
 '^ I assm-e you you will not be de troj?, 
 Mrs. Tempest ; Miss Bonchurch is sitting out 
 a dance with your son. They are under the 
 big cedar yonder. Do come I " 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 Mrs. Tempest looked up at him, steadily, 
 gravely, wearily. Then she rose with diffi- 
 culty, for the infirmities of age were 
 beginning to tell upon her. She understood ; 
 there was no need of explanation. If there 
 were tears in her voice she did not let them 
 reach her eyes. She clung perhaj^s a trifle 
 more heavily than was her wont to Freeman's 
 arm, but she hid her serpent in her bosom 
 as only a mother can. She must not let even 
 Freeman see how the poison was coursing 
 through her veins, and sapping the very life- 
 blood at her heart. 
 
 '^ I promised Miss Bonchurch to take her 
 something to drink," said Frank, as they 
 passed the dining-room where refreshments 
 were laid out; ^^If you will wait here for 
 me I will not be a moment in procuring it." 
 
 He quickly returned. They passed out 
 into the garden, and found Agatha and 
 Loftus Tempest seated beneath the cedar. 
 She was talking lightly to him of the 
 pleasures of waltzing, of riding, of skating, 
 of every kind of quick, healthful motion; 
 answering her own questions, covering the
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 131 
 
 advance of each rising hiccough by a flank 
 movement of light laughter at her own jokes. 
 She knew she must not let the man see she 
 was aware of his condition ; if she did, the 
 influence she hoped to gain might be 
 quenched in the shame to-morrow's dawn 
 would bring. As Mrs. Tempest came close 
 their eyes met : the mother knew the girl 
 for a brave ally ; the girl understood the 
 wordless woe of the mother's heart. Taking 
 Mrs. Tempest's hand, she pressed her down 
 by her side away from Loftus, and, taking 
 the glass from Freeman's hand, said laugh- 
 
 '^ You must be thirsty, too, after your 
 walk, Mr. Tempest. You do not deserve 
 anything at my hands after your desertion 
 this evening, but I will be generous. Shall 
 we split the soda ?" 
 
 Mrs. Tempest pulled at Agatha's sleeve. 
 The girl must be ignorant of Loftus's rea 
 state, she thought, to offer him more drink 
 at such a time. But Agatha, laying her 
 hand on Mrs. Tempest's, by a quick pres- 
 sure intimated that she knew what she was
 
 132 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 about, and must Lc left to take her own 
 course. 
 
 ^^But I am not in the mood for a ^long 
 pull,' " continued Agatha, as she sipped the 
 drink, ^^so you must content yourself with 
 an occasional ' nip/ like me. Now turn and 
 turn about," she added, as she offered him 
 the glass. '^ But one good turn deserves 
 another, Mr. Tempest. You must promise 
 me to come with us to Bolton Abbey to- 
 morrow. Perhaps you don't object to wait- 
 ing on heljDless women, as our friend, Mr. 
 Freeman, does." 
 
 Tempest muttered a husky assent, while 
 Freeman disclaimed this interpretation of 
 his words earlier in the evening. 
 
 ^' Mr. Freeman objects to being a retriever, 
 a beast of burden, or a furniture camel," 
 continued Agatha, in a bantering tone ; 
 ^' especially in the service of my sex. Now, 
 Mr. Tempest, you are a soldier's son. I 
 expect you to vindicate our claims to be 
 waited on by giving Mr. Freeman a lead in 
 the matter of gallantry. Your labours shall 
 be light. Say, will you carry my furniture
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 133 
 
 to-moiTOw, and retrieve for me^ instead of 
 Mr. Freeman?" 
 
 In the now drowsy depths of Loftus Tem- 
 pest's brain a silent voice remarked that he 
 would see himself further first , but he 
 replied with such emphasis as his tongue 
 could still command that he was her slave 
 for to-morrow's excursion. 
 
 The last carriage had rolled away down 
 the drive, the lights in the house were 
 dwindling one by one, the glass stood 
 empty on the seat by Agatha's side. Loftus 
 Tempest had fallen fast asleej). 
 
 Agatha rose, and took Mrs. Tempest's 
 arm within her own. 
 
 ^' Stay by him till we send out Captain 
 Selfe," she said, in a whisper, to Frank. 
 ^* We will see that the road is clear to his 
 room." 
 
 ^^You are a noble woman," said Mrs. 
 Tempest to Agatha, as they moved away. 
 '' How shall I thank you ?" 
 
 ^^ By letting me help you in your great 
 sorrow," answered Agatha, very softly. 
 ^' Mrs. Tempest, it would be useless to enter
 
 134 
 
 ujDon the early sorrows of my own life ; let 
 it suffice that, not without cause, I put them 
 all down to unlimited indulgence in drink. 
 I can, then, sympathize with you most 
 thoroughly, and I do. Will you, at any rate 
 while we are here under the same roof, let 
 me help you to the best of my power ? " 
 
 Mrs. Tempest pressed Agatha's hand in 
 recognition of her desire to serve. 
 
 ^^But," she said, wearily, ^^what can you 
 do, dear Miss Bonchurch, that I and my 
 daughter and Captain Selfe have not already 
 done ? No mother could have devoted her- 
 self more thoroughly than I to saving my 
 boy from this fearful vice; no brother 
 would have had the patience and forbear- 
 ance towards him that Selfe has unceasingly 
 shown. If the love of a mother for her only 
 son, if a sister's persistent devotion, and the 
 staunch friendship of one of his own sex 
 cannot save him, what on earth can ? Yet, 
 when once the drinking fit is over, my boy 
 is one of the most affectionate of men." 
 
 ^^ While there is life there is hope, dear 
 Mrs. Tempest. The disease is a strong
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 135 
 
 di-sease, and from what I have myself seen 
 doctors and advisers are fond of using strong 
 remedies. There is but one remedy worth 
 the trial, and that remedy is impossible to a 
 man in ^Ir. Tempest's present condition." 
 
 '' And it is — ?" asked Mrs. Tempest. 
 
 " Total abstinence ! " answered Agatha, 
 gravely. "It seems to me that all com- 
 promise with alcohol is but waste of time 
 and energy, at least for a man constituted 
 like your son. I do not mean to say that 
 abstinence must be life-long, but it must be 
 for such a period of time as will obliterate 
 from his body and brain both the cause and 
 the effects of his disease. '^Ij acquaintance 
 with your son has been very short, Mrs. 
 Tempest, but in many ways he seems a man 
 of strong will and keen intellect. With such 
 there is always good ground for hope." 
 
 " I have heard it said," sighed ]^Irs. Tem- 
 pest, " that out of one hundred men who 
 become habitual drunkards the average saved 
 is one, and that out of one hundred women 
 the average is none." 
 
 " Then Mr. Loftus Tempest must be that
 
 136 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 one," answered Agatha. ^^ Even if those 
 statistics are true — and I do not believe they 
 are — the assertion is a cruel one, lacking botli 
 hope and courage, as the assertions of cruel 
 peoi^le usually do ; but even if we admit that 
 so hopeless a remark is true, it is only so 
 because up to the present time investigation 
 into the causes of the craving for stimulants 
 has been either neglected or suppressed. It 
 is not so very many years since the mad 
 were confined as persons possessed by devils^ 
 while their very confinement precluded all 
 hopes of recovery. When we cease to regard 
 drunkenness solely as a vice, and minister to 
 its alleviation as we would to any other form 
 of disease, we shall see it die down like all 
 evil things under the influence of advancing 
 truth." 
 
 ^^ Oh, if I could but take heart from your 
 words. Miss Bonchurch ! Loftus is my only 
 son, and once I had such hopes of a brilliant 
 future for him. He has a constitution as 3^et 
 but little broken by his excesses; he has 
 brains, and wlien he is temperate he can use 
 them to various purposes as well as or better
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 137 
 
 than his fellows. Beyond this he is at heart 
 a man of strong feelings, capable of great 
 attachment, and, what to me expresses much 
 — a gentleman." 
 
 '^Xo son of yours would be likely to fail 
 in that direction, dear Mrs. Tempest," said 
 Agatha, smilingly. ' ^ If you can manage to 
 prevent Mr. Tempest leaving the house to- 
 morrow without me I think I will undertake 
 to brino' him with me to Bolton Abbe v. If 
 we can once rouse his social instincts, and 
 prevent our excursions being dull to him, 
 perhaps woman will have more charms for 
 him and the bottle less. But here is Captain 
 Selfe ; I will leave you to talk to him while 
 I >see that the road is clear." 
 
 Mrs. Tempest hastily explained to Captain 
 Selfe how matters stood. 
 
 '^ Is he too ^ tight ' to walk ? " asked Selfe, 
 languidly caressing his huge moustache. 
 
 '^ No, a little persuasion and ^^our strong 
 arm will be all the help he needs," answered 
 Mrs. Tempest. ^^ Oh, Selfe, when is all this 
 misery to end ! " 
 
 ^'We will take counsel about that to-
 
 138 LOVE LOST, EUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 morrow/' lie replied ; ^^ one o'clock in the 
 morning is no time for a consultation on 
 the liquor laws. I will see him safely to 
 bed; I am j^retty well used to that busi- 
 ness. Do not let Loftus see you or any- 
 one else. The shame of it only aggravates 
 his desire to drown memory in drink, as 
 soon as he wakes to full consciousness on 
 the morrow." 
 
 ^^ You may rely on Miss Bonchurch," said 
 Mrs. Tempest. ^' Her courage and tact 
 saved Loftus from reeling in among the 
 dancers 'to-night ; and there is now nothing 
 to conceal from her." 
 
 Loftus Tempest was not in so helpless 
 a condition but that on being awakened he 
 could lurch across the grass to the entrance- 
 hall, and in half an hour's time the joint 
 efforts of Freeman and Selfe had seen hini 
 comfortably into bed. Frank had felt well- 
 inclined towards Selfe from the first, and 
 perhaps among the minor incidents of 
 bachelor life, the 'bucking up" of a tipsy 
 acquaintance goes as far towards sealing 
 an intimacy as any other. There is a
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 139 
 
 mixture of the comic and the trao-ic in the 
 friendly act which goes far to break down 
 
 the barriers of convention alit v. The ele- 
 
 •J 
 
 ment of the ludicrous in tugging at a fellow- 
 creatm-e's boots, or bungling at his shirt- 
 collar, cannot in any way be brought into 
 harmony with the feelings of sorrow for his 
 degradation and contempt for his bestiality. 
 The mental ingredients refuse to mix, and 
 the only result obtained is a mutual recog- 
 nition of joint services rendered between 
 the attendant nurses, after which it is next 
 to impossible to meet the next day* with 
 only a formal bow. Freeman and Selfe 
 were not men who could have been drawn 
 together by any of the more usual con- 
 tingencies of every-day life. Selfe was 
 popular and easy-going, profligate, and more 
 or less of a scamp ; while Freeman, though 
 capable of arousing enthusiastic attachments 
 among his friends, was far from being a 
 popular man with either sex. He was 
 altogether hewn in too massive and positive a 
 moral mould to be considered either a ladies' 
 man among women, or a ^^ good fellow"
 
 140 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 among men. He took his place rather 
 among idolaters than idols, partly from an 
 exaggerated dej)re.ciation of his own powers 
 and attractions, partly from a keen sense 
 of beauty in others, whether that beauty 
 was in face or figure or in brain. A man 
 who took such searching note of humanity's 
 attributes, a man who attached importance 
 to the lobe of an ear as giving evidence of 
 breeding, and who shuddered at the contact 
 of a clammy hand, was likely to be of far 
 too highly strung a temperament to join 
 itself in friendship with so coarse and 
 practical a nature as Sclfe's. Yet Freeman 
 felt there was much to admire even in that 
 very coarseness and workmanlike method 
 of dealing with the world's difficulties. He 
 saw in Selfc a man of many resources, 
 rather than an ingenious scamp ; and, like a 
 true hero-worshipper, he separated the good 
 from the evil of the man, and was happy 
 in bowing down to such attributes in the 
 man's nature as he felt he did not possess 
 in his own. 
 
 Thus out of the evil of Tempest's de-
 
 LOFTUS TEMPEST. 141 
 
 grading vice liad come the drawing together 
 of many souls that imder otlier circum- 
 stances would have experienced no mutual 
 attraction. Agatha, in attempting to soothe 
 and comfort the nearly broken - hearted 
 mother, had been led on to pour out the 
 story of her own life, a life made weary 
 and dependent by the excesses of her father; 
 a life the sympathies of which were most 
 strongly drawn towards those whose sorrow 
 had the same root as her own; and thus 
 these two also had found in each other a 
 true and hearty woman friend, whose dif- 
 ferences of age and character, and manner 
 of viewing life rather added fresh attrac- 
 tions to their intimacy than lessened its 
 degree.
 
 142 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 AN EPISODE IN WIIARFDALE LIFE. 
 
 On the following morning Agatha Bonchurch 
 waited and waited to catch Loftus Tempest 
 in his usual egress from the house. That as 
 soon as he was dressed he would make for 
 his accustomed haunt in the neighbouring 
 village Agatha was assured. She had made 
 up her mind to play a bold game for this 
 young man's salvation, at the risk of being 
 considered unmaidenly, partly because her 
 nature was to be strongly drawn towards all 
 wrecked human beings, especially those who 
 suffered from the fell disease by which 
 she herself had been made fatherless and 
 dependent, and partly for the sake of the 
 well-nigh broken-hearted mother, who still
 
 AN EPISODE IX WHAKFDALE LIFE. 143 
 
 presented such a courageous front to society 
 at large. Not tliat Agatlia feared that even 
 the worst scandal-monger at the Wells, 
 would be likely to misconstrue her endea- 
 vours to win Loftus Temj)est from his cups. 
 Soberness and earnestness of purpose were 
 too strongly stamped upon her every action 
 for the most ill-natured to speak lightly of 
 her efforts. She had set herself to win this 
 young man to social pleasures, to the countless 
 enjoyments life had to give him, if only she 
 could persuade him to relinquish the '^ devil 
 and all his works," which Agatha held were 
 all held in solution in concentrated essence 
 within the brandy-bottle. She had found 
 out, in her conversation with Mrs. Tempest 
 the night before, that that good lady herself, 
 though a clever shrewd woman of the world, 
 had but little tact in weaning Loftus from 
 his vice ] that she alternately sj^oiled and 
 upbraided her son, and offered him no 
 external excitements in life as substitutes 
 for his darling sin. The friendly banter of 
 Philip Selfe could have but little weight, 
 for Selfe could drink a bottle where Tempest
 
 144 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 was the worse for a glass. The advice of 
 the doctor, true in tlie main, no doubt, that 
 total abstinence was the only cure, Agatha 
 felt to be worse than useless at the present 
 time, for to a man in Tempest's condition 
 such a cure appeared worse than the disease ; 
 and the advice only added to his depression 
 and recklessness, because to his brain in its 
 present state it added the element of hope- 
 lessness. Doubtless total abstinence was 
 the only real cure, but it could not be 
 enforced, and drink had made Tempest's 
 will too weak for any promise on his part to 
 be worth the acceptance, even if he could be 
 persuaded to give it. 
 
 It was Avithin an hour of the time appointed 
 for the party to start for Bolton Abbey wlien 
 Mrs. Tempest, passing hastily through the 
 hall, heralded her son's advent, and left 
 Agatha to take her own course of action. 
 Loftus lounged wearily down the staircase. 
 He was very young, very slight and fair. 
 Had it not been for the dissipated look on 
 his face, and the watery appearance of his 
 blue eyeS; he would have been good-looking.
 
 AN EPISODE IX WHARFDALE LIFE. 14:5 
 
 He possessed, naturally a slim, graceful figure, 
 but now he slouched and walked with an 
 uneven, nerveless tread. His forehead was 
 high and intellectual, his features clear cut 
 and aristocratic ; and, though his gaze was 
 shifting and uncertain, there was none of 
 that indecision and weakness alDout the 
 mouth people are apt to consider a certain 
 sign of a character wanting in the powers 
 of self-control. On the contrary, the mouth 
 was both firm and sweet in its expression. 
 In its curves and in the clefts of his smooth 
 chin lay much mirth and appreciation of the 
 ludicrous. All this Agatha noted, as he 
 slowly came towards her. 
 
 '^ Good morning, Mr. Tempest," said she, 
 cheerily. ^ ' I hope you have not forgotten 
 your promise to fetch and carry for me to- 
 day on our excm'sion to Bolton Abbey. We 
 start in an hour's time." 
 
 ^^ Well, I think I shall follow later in the 
 day. Miss Bonchurch," said he, avoiding her 
 eyes. ^' I half promised to meet a friend 
 this morning in the village, a fellow from 
 one of the other water-cure shops, you know ; 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR ^YON. 
 
 and I don't like to disap2)oint liim of his 
 game of billiards." 
 
 ''^ A half promise only!" said Agatha, 
 laughing; ^^ Come now, yom^ j^^'^™^^ ^^ i^^^ 
 was a whole one. No, no; Mr. Tempest, 
 you are my bond-slave for to-day ; you sold 
 your services to me last night for a brandy- 
 and-soda, and I mean to be an exacting 
 creditor." 
 
 Loftus coloured, and shifted his position 
 uneasily. ^^ Well, I must go down to the 
 inn and leave a message for my friend," 
 said he, ^' and then I will be back in time to 
 go Avitli you all to Bolton Abbey." 
 
 "Now that is very good of you, Mr. 
 Tempest, I had set my heart on your coming 
 with us to-day ; and when I found you con- 
 sidered a half-promise to play a, game of 
 billiards a sufficient reason for cutting my 
 society I began to suspect you were as 
 ungallant as — well, as most young men. 
 But I am going into the village myself, and 
 will come with you if you will let me," 
 added she. " We shall have to walk fast to 
 be back in time."
 
 AN EPISODE IX WHAEFDALE LIFE. 1-17 
 
 '^ Deuce take tlie ^yonlan I " said Loftus to 
 himself J '^ a liquor I must iiayCj but how, if 
 slie insists on coming ? " However, there 
 was nothincT for it but to assent with such 
 grace as he could command, and the two 
 were soon trudging down the hill to the 
 village. They came to the library. Would 
 she go in to order books ? thought Loftus ; 
 then he could speed on to tlie inn and re- 
 fresh jaded nature with a long and a 
 strong pull before he came back to fetch her. 
 X o I ]\iiss Bonchurch wanted no books at the 
 circulating library. One hope of escape was 
 cut off. The post-office was in sight ; doubt- 
 less she wanted to send or ask for letters or 
 to buy stamps ; then he could get away and 
 indido-e in his mornino; dram. Alas ! no. 
 Miss Bonchurch wanted neither letters nor 
 stamps. The haberdasher's came in sight ; 
 perhaps a few yards of ribbon or a pair of 
 gloves might yet befriend him. Xo ! Miss 
 Bonchurch steadily kept pace with him up 
 to the very door of the inn ; nay, more, 
 witii a look of mischievous fun in her eyes 
 she entered the hall, and^ producing from the
 
 148 LOVE LOST, liUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 deptlis of lier pocket two small flasks, she 
 laughing'ly asked Loftus to get them filled 
 for her at the bar with the best pale 
 brandy ! 
 
 ^^You can have your ^ B.-and-S.' at the 
 same time, Mr. Tempest," she said ; ^^ and I 
 will look in at the shop-window opposite 
 while you are drinking it." 
 
 Loftus stood amazed. Was this girl a 
 companion dram-driidvor ? Was it possible 
 that this graceful, refnied gentlewoman was 
 addicted to — well, it was no use mincing 
 matters — to the bottle ! No ! this surely 
 was impossible. That he himself should be 
 fond of a ^^nip" now and then was only 
 what might be expected in a man, but the 
 vice assumed quite another aspect in a 
 woman ! However, there was no time to be 
 lost ; he had the flasks filled, not forgetting 
 one of his own in his breast-pocket, and, 
 fortified by a stronger potation than usual 
 for a first *^ wet," he crossed the road and 
 delivered the flasks to Agatha. 
 
 ^^ I will not trouble you to carry them," 
 said Agatha, as she deposited them in the
 
 AN EPISODE IX WIIAEFDALE LIFE. 149 
 
 pockets of her dress, ^' for you have but one 
 breast-pocket, and that is already fuU/' 
 
 Loftus stared in amazement and coloured 
 visibly. 
 
 ^^ You see, I know all about it," continued 
 Agatha, in a bantering tone. '' I saw the 
 neck of your flask peeping out of your 
 jDocket last night when we were sitting 
 under the cedar-tree; and you are not 
 likely to forget the claims of that dangerous 
 and false friend, whatever you may fail to 
 remember that has been done for you by 
 those who love you best. Oh, Mr. Tem- 
 pest I " she went on, her whole tone and 
 manner changed from lively badinage to one 
 of intensest earnestness; ^'I cannot trifle 
 any longer. You may think me fast or 
 bold or mad, yet if I told you all I have 
 mvself sufl'ered bv means of that demon 
 drink, I believe vou would not think such 
 was my character. Mr. Tempest, I do not 
 know you well, and you may think my 
 interference impertinent, but I have risked 
 your judgment in the love and pity I feel 
 for your poor mother. You are slowly kill-
 
 150 LOVE LOST, IJUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 ing licr, as you arc fast killing yourselfj and 
 by nothing but brandy, brandy, brandy 
 from morninG: till ni<2:lit." 
 
 Loftus walked on with his eyes on tlie 
 ground, flicking the dust from his boots with 
 his walking-cane, feeling irritated, bored, 
 and annoyed at what he considered a 
 most uncalled-for and unwarrantable inter- 
 ference. 
 
 Agatha saw that she had as ^^et produced 
 no result but a bad one ; she immediately 
 changed her tactics. ^' Many a man," 
 thought she to herself, ^' who is adamant 
 to reproaches can be won by a skilful appeal 
 to his vanitv. 
 
 ^^You must forgive my bluntness, Mr. 
 Tempest," she continued, eagerly scanning 
 his downcast face. ^^ It is not as if you were 
 made of the coarse clav those dull brutes are 
 who can soak themselves in liquor from day 
 to day. If you were, you mi^'ht drink with 
 comparative impunity, but you are of a 
 highly-strung nervous temperament, as m.ucli 
 higher in itself and in its capacities than 
 theirs, as it is less able to bear the excite-
 
 AN EPISODE IX WHAKFDALE LIFE. 151 
 
 ment of stimulants. I do not wish to flatter 
 jou, but you know well enough you have 
 both intellect and or-ood looks far above the 
 
 a 
 
 average." (Here the frown on Loftus's brow 
 smoothed itself.) ^^ You have good birth, 
 good manners, good position besides : surely 
 you will not throw them all away for any- 
 thing: so low as drink ! " 
 
 ^^I have thrown them all away already," 
 answered Loftus, half sulkily, though the 
 allusion to his intellect and good looks had 
 considerably moUilied him. ^^ I thank you 
 for taking an interest in my case. Miss Bon- 
 church," he added, with a touch of sarcasm; 
 ^^ and as you have thought it worth while to 
 speak plainly, so will I. Everybody here 
 knows I ^liquor up,' and everybody avoids 
 me. Men don't mind a fellow who gets 
 festiA'e in his cups, but who can put himself 
 to bed and be none the worse next day. On 
 the contrary, he is considered a very good 
 fellow, and is probably a popular man. But 
 I do not get festive. Drink makes me silent 
 and moody and dull, and as I am not a boon 
 companion under such circumstances men
 
 152 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 find niG poor comjoany, and avoid me ac- 
 cordingly. As for the women, I do not 
 think I have spoken to any lady Ijut yourself 
 since I have been here." 
 
 '^ Tliat surely is your own fault, Mr. Tem- 
 pest. There are jolenty of nice girls who 
 would enjoy your society and make you 
 enjoy theirs, if you would but give them the 
 chance." 
 
 ^^ I do not think so, Miss Bonchurch. They 
 have heard it said I am a drunkard. Pro- 
 priety demands that they should cut me, and 
 they obey the demands of projniety." 
 
 ''As I have done this morning," laughed 
 Agatha. '' Come, Mr. Tempest, take a more 
 hopeful view of life ! No one expects you to 
 turn teetotaller all at once. Come with us 
 to-day. Enjoy yourself in making others 
 happy by your presence. Your mother will 
 be overjoyed to have you with us all, and I 
 have done my share by seeing that you shall 
 not be entirely cut off from your old enemy," 
 she added, as she held u]) a flask. '' Do you 
 not think I deserve some reward at your 
 hands for my though tfulness, Mr. Tempest?"
 
 AN EPISODE IX WHARFDALE LIFE. 153 
 
 '^ It is, indeed, very good of you to in- 
 terest yourself in my welfare, i\Iiss Bon- 
 cliurcli," Loftus answered, feeling very hot 
 and uncomfortable ; ^' but do you really 
 mean to hold me to my promise to go to 
 Bolton Abbey ? .1 really am not fit for it. 
 My nervous system is upset ; I feel I cannot 
 face a lot of strangers. Do release me from 
 my promise and let me stay at home." 
 
 ^^ Mr. Tempest," said Agatha, as she stood 
 still at the gate leading to the grounds of the 
 Wells, '' no one can helj) a man Avho will not 
 lift a finger to help himself. You will not 
 have strangers with you ; at any rate, not 
 strangers alone. Are your mother and sister 
 strangers ? Is Captain Selfe ? Am I ? Come. 
 I have shown you that I am at least no 
 prude. I knew you would not come if you 
 knew you would be out of reach of your 
 usual stimulant. That is why I went to the 
 inn this morning. I will be your barmaid 
 for the day. I cannot release you from your 
 promise, but I will help you to fulfil it. See, 
 they are already getting into the drag. We 
 have no time to lose. Pull yourself together
 
 lo4 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 with some of wliat you liave in your own 
 flask ; here is a cup, and here is a running 
 brook. Let me be your friend as well as 
 your mother's, Mr. Tempest. I have set my 
 heart upon your iroing with us, and I cannot 
 be refused." 
 
 Tempest sober and in health was a man 
 of strong will, but Tempest shattered by 
 weeks of heavy drinking was no match 
 for the persistent force of character that 
 belonged to Agatha Bonchurch. There was 
 something in the steady gaze of her grey 
 eyes that forced him to comj^ly against his 
 will. There was something too of faith 
 and hope and encouragement in the words 
 with which she strengthened his fainting 
 heart. So she thought him good-looking ! 
 He began to wonder whether his nose was 
 yet red from drink, or his eyes lustreless ? 
 She had said he possessed intellect ! He 
 began to recollect certain prizes won at 
 school, certain essays accepted by reviews, 
 and to wonder whether the spark of genius 
 was really yet drowned out. Even as he 
 gulped down the draught he held in his
 
 AN EPISODE IX ^VHARFDALE LIFE. 155 
 
 liancl a new sense of mental nausea affected 
 him, a moment in which the hrain rose 
 superior to the palate, in which he recog- 
 nized liis own degradation by being brought 
 face to face with what he might have been 
 and what he was. Oh, how many a weak 
 tippler might be saved if men and women 
 would but show them the liidden riches of 
 their own obscured humanity ! if their fel- 
 lows, instead of fixino- the shadows caused 
 by their loss of self-respect, and thereby 
 increasing the desire for recklessness and 
 oblivion, would but play upon those chords 
 which are human still in the poor sufferer, 
 flatter his vanity, arouse his pride, assume 
 for him virtues even if he has them in 
 but small degree, give him credit to his 
 face for all and more than he possessed, 
 before his fall, of wits and honesty and 
 truth and love ! 
 
 It is true that rats leave a falling house, 
 and the human house never more nearly 
 totters to its fall tlian when gutted and 
 undermined by drink. But arc human 
 beinsfs, bound toorether in the intimate fel-
 
 156 LOVE LOST, 13UT HONOUR AVON. 
 
 lowsliip of ail advanced civilization and a 
 Christian creed, to follow the example of 
 the vermin that infest their walls ? Are 
 men and women who would move out of 
 the way to avoid treading on a worm, who 
 shudder at the wanton slaying of even a 
 wasp or a fly, whose emotions are wont 
 to attain to the highest pitch of exasperated 
 philanthropy at sight of an over-driven 
 horse, — are these men and women to pass 
 by on the other side at sight of a forlorn 
 and friendless drunkard and find no place 
 for pity in their human hearts V Alas ! it 
 would seem that in this matter humanity is 
 no higher and no better than the rats ! 
 
 It has been said, and said truly, that a 
 man may sin against society not only seven 
 times, but unto seventy times seven, and be 
 forgiven, so long as his sin is not that of 
 drunkenness. He may be a gambler, a liar, 
 a debauchee. He may fleece the sons and 
 ruin the daughters of the society in which he 
 moves, and society will tolerate him still. 
 He may be destitute of honour, of morals, 
 of religion ; he may even be caught card-
 
 AX EPISODE IN AVHARFDALE LIFE. 167 
 
 sharping' or appear as the vilest adulterer in 
 tlie reports of the Divorce Court, and society 
 will find reasons for condoning his villainy, 
 while countless houses will still receive him 
 with open arms, as a valued friend and an 
 honoured irnest ! But let the breath of 
 rumour once whisper ''drunkard'' through 
 society's ranks, a man is doomed I True 
 or false, a fact or a libel, the effect of the 
 report is as cruel, as resentless, as damning 
 as is the imputation against a woman's 
 chastity ; and as society hunts a sinning 
 sister out into the streets to live or die 
 as best she may, so does society, even in 
 this age of so-called philanthropy, resolutely 
 shut the doors of hope against the drunkard, 
 openly, vauntingly following the departing 
 footsteps of the Levite of the Scriptures, and 
 passing by, with a gesture of disgust and 
 contempt, on the other side ! 
 
 But here, by Loftus Tempest's side, was 
 a woman who could dare to be a law to her- 
 self, — a woman, too, with keen insight into 
 the feelings and failings of humanity, and a 
 still keener desire to stand in any or every
 
 158 LOVE LOST, IJUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 gap wherever defence was needed for those 
 wounded in the battle of life. That the sin 
 of a drunken father had broken her mother's 
 heart, and cut short her wasted and un- 
 happy life, that that same sin had brought 
 her herself to abject poverty, and conse- 
 (juent dependence on otliers for her daily 
 bread, did not awaken in Agatha Bonchurch 
 a hatred and a loathing for all who made 
 life a hell to themselves and others by their 
 self-inflicted curse. On the contrary, to a 
 mind like hers, the knowledge of the cause 
 of her own sufferings only made her the 
 more resolute to combat tliat cause wherever 
 she met it throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land ; to save, if it might be, 
 her father's fellow-sufferers; to make even 
 his vices and her mother's broken heart 
 means whereby their daughter might re- 
 deem some unhappy ones hero and there 
 from the bondage of their own trans - 
 gression. 
 
 Well slie knew that not by cold disdain, 
 nor by the shoulder-shrug of well-bred con- 
 tempt, nor by reproach, could such as Lof tus
 
 AN EPISODE IN WHAEFDALE LIFE. l-jD 
 
 Tempest be reclaimed. The more lie was 
 made to suffer, the more his loss of self- 
 respect was borne in upon him, the more 
 reckless and sullen and despairing would he 
 become. That his state was the result of 
 his own self-indulgence, what was that to 
 her ? What should, or could, it be to any 
 one who had one spark of belief in the teach- 
 ing of the Galilean, or in the love of an 
 Almighty Father ? Did Christ pause to ask 
 the worthiness of lepers before He healed ? 
 No ! Then why should she, or any human 
 beings who intended in their heart of hearts 
 to follow Christ? The young especially 
 must be tempted to the paths of virtue by 
 gildino' for tliem the sober tints of truth. 
 The foolish must be won to wisdom by illu- 
 minating the glories of the latter, not by 
 dwelling on the folly of the fool. 
 
 The first dawnings of a high resolve 
 beamed in Tempest's eyes as he placed his 
 hand in Agatha's, saying, — 
 
 ^^ I will go with you all to-day, and I will 
 do my utmost in the way you wisli. Bear 
 with me if I am dull and irritable; for,
 
 160 LOVE LOST, I5UT HONOUR AVON. 
 
 tliougli you have given me hope, I am too 
 fall of desj)air for a moment's smishine to 
 dispel my gloom." 
 
 ''Com^age, Mr. Tempest," she replied. 
 ^' Rome was not built in a day. You have 
 true and warm friends round you at your 
 beck and call ; but the will to overcome 
 must be your own, as will be the victory." 
 
 Then, smilingly and glad, she walked 
 beside him up to the house-door.
 
 BOLTOX ABBEY. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BOLTOX ABBEY. 
 
 Some of the party were already seated in the 
 drag when Agatha and Loftus Tempest 
 gamed the porch. Mrs. Tempest, ah^eady 
 comfortably packed in a corner, with her 
 back to the horses, gave Agatha a glance of 
 unutterable relief and gratitude as Loftus 
 sprang into the carriage. Lady Amory gave 
 a little sniff, as a faint odour of spirits 
 reached her too delicate olfactory organs, 
 and applied her salts-bottle with more than 
 her usual affectation. Mrs. Higgins looked 
 sour and bade her daughter change her j)lace, 
 for Loftus had hurriedly placed himself next 
 her. 
 
 Not one tittle of such by-play was lost 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 LOVE LOST, ]mT ]rONOUR WON. 
 
 on either Agatlia or Loftus. The latter 
 got very red and again very white, and 
 made as if he would descend from the drag, 
 but found himself laugliingl}' pushed back 
 again by his sister, who had just come out of 
 the liouse, and who, like a discreet young 
 woman, understood at a glance, and took up 
 her cue without prompting. 
 
 '^I must fetch my sketch-book and a 
 sliawl," said Agatha; ^^ I will not keep you 
 w^aiting a minute. Theodora, my paint-box 
 is in your room ; just come and show me 
 where it is. I want a word with you," slie 
 added hastily, as she pulled her friend into 
 the liouse. ^^ You see w^e have jDersuaded 
 Mr. Tempest to accompany us. His poor 
 motlier is so pleased ; but, Theodora, he will 
 not be persuaded again if he finds no 
 stronger attractions in society than in the 
 bar of the hotel. Help us yourself, and get 
 May to do the same — " 
 
 ^^ Flirt with him, 1 su2:)pose you mean," 
 said Theodora. ^^ My dear, flirting is not in 
 my line, esjDecially with a man who drinks 
 brandies and sodas all day."
 
 LOLTOX ABBEY. 163 
 
 ^^ Theodora, do be serious. It is not what 
 is pleasant either for you or May ov me. A 
 fellow-creature is perishing, body and soul, 
 from drink. He is young, he has talents, he 
 has many qualities that may develope into a 
 noble character, but he thinks himself an 
 outcast froDi society ; ho is sensitive, and he 
 sees peojDle, girls especially, shrink from him 
 with aversion — sometimes with disgust. This 
 makes him drink the more, to drown the 
 aifront he feels he has no right to resent. 
 Let him but see life in a difterent aspect, let 
 him get some share of attention from us 
 girls, and he will perhaps find other and 
 better pleasures than the bottle. AYe shall 
 not lose in dignity, Theodora, and surely we 
 shall o;ain in charitv." 
 
 ''AYell, Agatha, you certainly arc the 
 queerest woman in the Avorld. AYe sliall 
 have you joining tlie Good Teuiplars next, 
 and preaching from a tub by the roadside. 
 However, you may consider I have accepted 
 the shilling, and am duly enlisted in the 
 cause, and you know me well enough to be 
 sure I will never do anything by halves*
 
 164 LOVE LOST, imT HONOUR WON. 
 
 As to May," added Theodora, turning away 
 SO tliat Agatha coukl not see her face, ^^ I do 
 not think she will have any time to spare 
 to-day for reclaiming the lost ; at any rate, 
 I cannot be the one to suggest it ; you must 
 offer her the shilling yourself." 
 
 Tlie Avords were spoken bitterly, passion- 
 ately, as if the speaker were striving to keep 
 down a rising tide of emotion that threatened 
 to be too strong for her. Agatha glanced 
 keenly at her. The girl Avas evidently in 
 trouble on her own account, but this was no 
 time for inviting confidences. Hastily snatch- 
 ing up her sketch-book and j)aint-box, she 
 preceded Theodora to the drag. The rest of 
 tlie party had already settled themselves. 
 Agatha and Theodora found themselves the 
 last. All the set who were in the habit of 
 moving round the Brassingham family were 
 present. The Amorys and the Freemans, 
 Tempests and Higginses, Vere Vereker and 
 Gerald Tresilian, Captain Selfe and Julian 
 Ferrand, and the Rev. Silas Monckton. 
 Joyousness was not a prominent element ; 
 such conversation as there was was evidently
 
 BOLTON ABBEY. 165 
 
 forced, and was chiefly carried on among* 
 the elders of the party. Mr. Brassingham 
 himself was moody and silent ; Theodora 
 was excited and quite unlike herself, now 
 rattling on in bright but inconsequent rail- 
 lery against everything and everybody, now 
 sittinc: dumb and stiff and o:rim as her aunt 
 Lavinia. Violet Champneys seldom lifted 
 her eyes from her lap, while Ferrand never 
 took his oif her ; Anne and May both wore 
 that look of mysterious self-satisfaction that 
 claims a knowledge in which the vulgar 
 herd has no part. If one might judge from 
 the amused expression on the faces of the 
 vulgar herd, hou^ever, their little secrets 
 were not so well concealed as they had fondly 
 hoped. Nearly every one had some little 
 game of his or her own to play, for which 
 the crowded interior of a break was no 
 fitting: staore. A^^ain, the number of tlie 
 audience w^as quite disproportionate to the 
 actors ; nearly all were engaged in rehearsing 
 their own parts, or watching the stage by- 
 play of others, with a view to enhancing the 
 effect of their own hits. Those to whom no
 
 166 LOVE LOST, I'.UT HONOUR WOX. 
 
 lovers' parts liad been allotted by tlie fates 
 had other plans and hopes and fears that 
 occuj)ied their minds. No one was sorry 
 Avhen the drive came to an end, and the 
 party dispersed into the woods, by twos and 
 threes, not to meet again till they joined 
 forces for kmcheon at the inn, whicli lies 
 embowered in trees, and covered with roses, 
 just outside the 2:)ark. 
 
 Usually Frank Freeman Avas wont to rid 
 himself of more troublesome claimants for 
 his services as a retriever and beast of 
 burden by devoting himself to his friend 
 Theodora, whose wants at the liands of any 
 man in a country ramble were of the smallest. 
 For Freeman's feeling^s for womanhood in 
 general had but little of sentiment or 
 romance. If lie had any chivalry in his 
 nature, it was not called forth except on very 
 rare occasions, and even then it took the 
 form of compassion for the weak and 
 worship for the strong, rather than the sort 
 of passion that is kindled b}^ the wounds of 
 Cupid's arroAvs. In his attachments to his 
 men friends he was ardent and. enthusiastic.
 
 BOLTOX ABBEY. 167 
 
 To old people and children lie was full of 
 sympathy and care and kindliness. With all 
 these he Avas ever a prime favourite ; but the 
 very depth of his convictions on such 
 subjects as women's rights destroyed the 
 sense of protection towards the gentler sex 
 which is so largely felt by most men, 
 especially men of the atldetic and manly 
 type, to which Frank Freeman pre-eminently 
 belonged. As a rule the affected helplessness 
 of young women of his class made them, to 
 him, vapid, uninteresting specimens of 
 humanity. The very belief that girls were 
 physically and mentally fit to cope with men, 
 to be their equals and companions in the 
 race of life, bruised and deadened that 
 tender blossom of protective love which has 
 its root in ages when vromen's rights were 
 unknown. 
 
 Theodora was a woman of splendid phy- 
 sique, able in all ways to hold her own, and 
 requiring help from no one. She would give 
 any man a lead in the hunting-field, and pull 
 a strong stroke in an out-rigged j^air. She 
 was an expert fencer, having learnt of one
 
 168 LOVE LOST, ]JUT IIOXOUR WON. 
 
 of the first masters of the art in Paris, and 
 she could play a sufficiently good game at 
 whist or billiards to prevent any male 
 antagonist from going to sleep. For this 
 sort of woman Frank Freeman had as bound- 
 less an admiration as he would have had a 
 boundless compassion for some pale, back- 
 broken cripple, whose only glimpse of the 
 external world was obtained from a Bath- 
 chair. But all sentiment of love was as far 
 removed from the one as the other. Free- 
 man wondered to himself, sometimes, what 
 madness it could be which afflicted one after 
 another of his companions in such un- 
 accountable fashion, and whether the a^^pa- 
 rent folly was really as foolish as it looked ; 
 but on the whole he thanked his stars that 
 his brain was yet untouched and his blood 
 unstirred by anything that wore a petti- 
 coat. 
 
 To-day, however, some instinct told him 
 that Theodora had other fish to fry, so 
 he threw himself down on a bank until he 
 could see where his company would be most 
 desirable, not without a secret hope that the
 
 BOLTON ABBEY. 
 
 169 
 
 manoeuYre might eventuate in his finding- 
 himself alone. 
 
 Theodora Brassingham stood by him. She, 
 too, was evidently waiting to see how the 
 rest ■ would dispose of themselves. There 
 was a nervous unrest about the girl to-day 
 that Freeman was at a loss to account for. 
 
 The elder portion of the party, including 
 Lady Catherine and Lady Amory, Mrs. 
 Tempest and Mrs. Higgins, escorted by 
 Mr. Brassingham and the Rev. Silas, agreed 
 to remain at the little inn to make all requi- 
 site arrangements for luncheon. 
 
 If Yere Yevekev ^YSis gauche , he was neither 
 shy nor backward. He meant to be Anne 
 Brassingham's companion for the day, and 
 her husband in due course, if circumstances 
 jDermitted ; and once having come to this 
 conclusion, he stalked away at Anne's side 
 like a man in possession. 
 
 Ferrand, too, in a more lover-like and 
 impetuous fashion, appropriated the society 
 of Miss Violet Champneys. Frank thought 
 for a moment, as he watched Mr. Bras- 
 singham, that the latter would have aban-
 
 170 
 
 doned tlic old ladies, and would have '^ cut " 
 ill between the woman lie worshipped and the 
 ardent 3^oung lover who Avas threatening to 
 become a far more formidable rival than the 
 absent Charlie. But, no. Mr. Brassingham 
 only gave one swift glance out of his great 
 brown eyes at the pair, then he turned aside 
 with others towards the rose-embowered 
 inn. 
 
 Eric Amory was standing a little apart 
 under the shadow of the trees, weaving a 
 wreath of wild flowers he had just plucked 
 at May's desire ; while she stood watching 
 him, looking up with childish glee at the 
 flowery chaplet in liis hands. A pretty pic- 
 ture truly ; as a ray of sunshine, streaming 
 through the boughs, lit up the auburn tresses 
 of the maid, and the young man's golden 
 curls. Both were so fair, so young, so 
 untouched as yet by care or sorrow. 
 
 There was a bold frankness in Eric's great 
 blue eyes, as they merrily challenged the 
 deep violet orbs of his companion. In every 
 line and curve of their youthful figures there 
 were grace, and vigour, and shajDcliness.
 
 BOLTOX AI5BEY. 171 
 
 ^•' Cupid seems to have found liis Psvclio,'' 
 said Frank to Theodora. ^^ What a pretty 
 pair they look ! Xow vrould he the time 
 to paint them, while Eric is crowning ^lay 
 with flowers." 
 
 Theodora made no reply. Frank glanced 
 up at lier. Her face was white to the lips, 
 her great dark eyes were fixed, indeed, upon 
 the pair of whom he spoke ; but thev were 
 expressionless. She suddenly seemed to 
 feel slie Vv'as beina^ watched, for she started 
 •\dolently and turned away, as the blood 
 rushed over face and neck and brovr, at 
 imaoinins: her thouo-hts discovered. 
 
 Alas I too truly had Eric Amory's friends 
 nicknamed him '• Cupid." The shafts of 
 the merrv little i^'od had o-one home here as 
 elsewhere, deeply — ah I so deeply, that if 
 plucked out it seemed as though the life- 
 blood of the victim must ru>li throuo-h the 
 gaping wound. 
 
 A pang of pity shot through Frank 
 Freeman's heart, as he took in the truth 
 at a glance. That any other woman should 
 fall in love with ^' Cupid" Amory's bright
 
 172 
 
 beauty and winning ways would not in the 
 least liavc surjorised him ; but that Theodora 
 Brassinghani should have fallen a victim to 
 his arrows was indeed, to Freeman's mind, 
 astounding. Everybody was attracted by 
 Theodora. She had received offers of mar- 
 riage by scores, even though she had but 
 been out of the schoolroom during the 
 last three years. Many were fired to mad- 
 ness by her splendid beauty ; among hunting 
 men she was a sort of empress ; city mag- 
 nates had more than once laid a princely 
 fortune at her feet ; and now she had loved 
 at last a beardless golden-haired boy, a 
 merry blue-eyed youth, who not only was 
 wont to treat her as a sister, but who, if. any 
 trust could be put in appearances, was 
 already half engaged to her sister May ! 
 Poor Theodora! She had staked her all, 
 and she had lost. Another than Frank 
 Freeman, too, had surveyed and understood 
 the scene. Agatha Bonchurch was now no 
 longer at a loss to understand why Theodora 
 could not herself enlist May's services on 
 Loftus Tempest's behalf, or why her refusal
 
 BOLTOX ABBEY. 173 
 
 to do SO liaci been couchcclin a tone so bitter 
 and so sad. More than ever did the lieart 
 of this sympathetic ^airl <2;o out to the haughty 
 maiden who, slie plainly saw, was doomed 
 to suffer all the worst jDangs of wounded love 
 and jealousy of a sister's triumph. 
 
 ^'Let us sketch the ruins from the oppo- 
 site side of the water/' said Agatha to 
 Theodora. ^^ We can get across close by, by 
 the stepping-stones. Come, Mr. Tempest, 
 and }'ou, Mr. Freeman — you are not going to 
 lomio-e all dav on this bank, are you ? Who 
 else will join us ?" 
 
 The remnant appealed to comprised only 
 Gerald Tresilian and ]\Iiss His^ains. The 
 rest of the party had dispersed in various 
 directions. Even '•'- Cupid and Psyche '' 
 had disappeared through the trees- Poor 
 Miss Hio'crins was not a o-irl for whose 
 society young men were Vv'ont to pine. Her 
 manners were gushing, not to say silly ; she 
 was sandy-haired and freckled. To Agatha 
 Bonchurch, however, she had become 
 speedily attached, relying on the poor com- 
 panion for that sympathy which elsewhere
 
 174 LOVE LOST, JiUT HONOUR WOX. 
 
 she failed to find. When opportunity offered 
 she usually tacked herself on to Anne Bras- 
 singhani, who proved less of a foil to her own 
 unattractiveness than the other girls, but 
 Anne to-day was better engaged, and 
 Miss Hi^o'ins was thankful to find herself 
 included in the sketching party; Besides 
 this, she entertained a furtive admiration for 
 Mr. Trcsilian, to whom all women were pre- 
 cisely alike, to judge by his courtesy to, 
 and distrust of, the wdiole sex. If Tresilian 
 showed any preference for one sort of 
 woman more than another, it was for young 
 married women wdio were sufficiently fond 
 of their husbands not to look for attention 
 from other men. Girls and old women 
 equally bored him, and to be bored V\^as the 
 one thing in life Gerald Tresilian dreaded 
 and avoided. Young married women, how- 
 ever, being conspicuous by their absence on 
 the present occasion, he was perfectly care- 
 less as to who fell to his lot — as well gauche, 
 freckled Miss Higgins as any other. 
 
 Freejnan, anxious to learn from Theodora 
 her opinion about her brother's quarrel with
 
 BOLTOX ABBEY. 175 
 
 his father, walked on in advance with her. 
 As he was doubting how to approach the 
 subject without betraying Mr. Brassing- 
 ham's confidence, she suddenly plunged 
 into family affairs by abruptly saying, — 
 
 ^^What do you think, Frank, of all 
 this tomfoolery between Anne and Vere 
 Vereker?" 
 
 ^^ I did not know it was considered ^ tom- 
 foolery,' Theodora. I su|)pose he either has 
 proposed to Iier or is simply waiting his 
 o]3portunity. Why ? Don't you approve ? " 
 
 '^ I believe thev will be the most miserable 
 couj)le in existence if they marry," she 
 answ^ered. '^I have done my best to stop 
 it ; but Anne is not a woman to care one jot 
 for other people's opinions when she has 
 made up her mind to a thing ; and I quite 
 believe she will marry Vere Yereker if he 
 asks her. What possible happiness can 
 come of such a marriage ? He is in love 
 with Anne's money ; she is ready and will- 
 ino' to take anv man who will make lier 
 independent of a home she has learnt to 
 hate. Slie and papa quarrel from morning
 
 176 LOVE T.08T, lUJT HONOUR WON. 
 
 till niglit. When Charlie is at home, then 
 he and slie arc like cat and dog. I do not 
 wonder she should wish to be quit of home. 
 But to throw herself away on that galvanized 
 mummy of a man ! Bah ! it is too revolting 
 and idiotic ! " 
 
 ^^I liavc said before, Tlicodora, I think 
 you are hard on Vereker. Why should he 
 not be in love witli Anne for her own sake ? 
 I do believe the man is an honest sort of 
 fellow, while you would make him out a 
 mere fortune-hunter. He is truthful, con- 
 scientious, and hard-working. He is a man 
 of excellent morality, sound judgment, and 
 pure life ; surely these qualities should 
 count for sometliing in 3^our summing-up of 
 his character. Besides, he comes of a good 
 old family enough." 
 
 ^^ Family! Fiddlesticks! What do we care 
 whether his father w^cre a count or a coster- 
 monger ? The man is a narrows-minded 
 prig — exact, precise, pedantic. He is mean 
 in all things, stingy, and ungenerous. He 
 has meant marrying money all along, and 
 flew at higher game than Anne, to my
 
 BOLTON ABBEY. 177 
 
 certain knowledge before he paid court to 
 her ; and then, Frank, he is so hideous. 
 Fancy being kissed to an accompaniment of 
 jangling teeth, and being clawed by those 
 bird-like hands of his ! Bah ! if I were Anne, 
 I would rather marry the butcher's boy." 
 
 ^' Vereker is certainly very plain," Frank 
 answered. ^^ I suppose the mitigation of 
 human usrliness demands that he should 
 marry a fine woman like Anne. There is 
 plenty of her, even if she is not pretty in 
 face ; and her vigour will compensate for his 
 feebleness. What does your father say to 
 the probability of the match ?" 
 
 ^' He is too sick of Anne's temper to veto 
 anything which will take her out of the 
 family. She is a sort of ponderous obstruc- 
 tion to domestic peace. You can neither 
 persuade nor compel her. You might as 
 well argue with a statue, or rave against a 
 mountain. Vere Vereker has a will of his 
 own, too, — a sniggling, cat-like tenacity of 
 purpose that will fight Anne's dull obstinacy 
 to the death when once the marriage-knot is 
 tied. And then what is to be the end of it ? 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 A judicial separation, arising from incom- 
 l^atibility of temper, without even the mer- 
 ciful relief of a divorce. I am not very 
 fond of Anne, Frank, even though she is my 
 sister, and I positively loathe Vere Vere- 
 ker ; hut I do not wish either of them to 
 endure such a fate as will, I feel sure, be 
 theirs in the married state." 
 
 '^ The future you draw for them is not an 
 agreeable one, certainly, Theodora; still, if 
 they have both made up their minds, I do 
 not believe any one's interference will have 
 the smallest effect. The only tiling to be 
 done is to tie up Anne's fortune so that Vere 
 cannot touch it without her." 
 
 ^^ And so tie up their unliaj)py lives till 
 death parts them," added Theodora ; ^^for, 
 be assured, Vere will consent to no sejDara- 
 tion by which he loses her money. She will 
 drive him wild by her untidiness, her care- 
 lessness, her want of method and order; 
 while his little niggling ways, his petty 
 aims and subterfuges, will liave the same 
 effect on her. Heaven help them when 
 ^hey are once man and wife !
 
 BOLTON ABBEY. 179 
 
 ^'But I wanted to speak to you, Frank, 
 about quite a different matter," added Theo- 
 dora, after a pause. '^ It must be evident to 
 vou, as it is to every one else here, that Mr. 
 Ferrand has fallen head over ears in love 
 with Violet Champneys. My father is 
 usually active enough in such matters in 
 either forwarding or thwarting love-affairs ; 
 but in this, w^here he is so evidently the 
 only person who has a right to interfere, he 
 utterly refuses to say a word one way or 
 the other. I asked him yesterday point 
 blank whether he approved of what was 
 going on, but his only reply was that Violet 
 must be left to make her own choice. Who 
 is this Mr. Ferrand ? Even the Tempests, 
 who are more intimate with him than any 
 one else, have not the remotest notion 
 where he sprang from. He may be but the 
 merest adventurer. He is a splendid fellow 
 to look at, certainly, but I think Violet is 
 more afraid of him than in love with him 
 after all." 
 
 '^I think you would do well, Theodora, 
 to invite Miss Champneys's confidence more
 
 180 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 than you do. Anne dislikes her, and makes 
 no secret of her dislike. May is scarcely 
 more than a child, and so Miss Champneys 
 has no woman friend in whom to confide. 
 You can hardly expect her to wliisper her 
 kSouI's secrets to your aunt Lavinia. Now, 
 tell me frankly, do you think Charlie's ab- 
 sence from home has anything whatever to 
 do with Miss Violet Champneys ?" 
 
 '^ I know nothing for certain, Frank, but 
 I suspect a great deal. Beneath Violet's 
 calm manner there is much warmth of nature, 
 and, without being actually deceitful, she has 
 always discovered a great aptitude for the 
 mysterious which borders on intrigue. I do 
 not mean this in a bad sense, but I think she 
 has quite a genius for ferreting out things 
 that would lie hidden for ever from most 
 people's eyes. Mind you, I do not think 
 there is any real harm in her, but I do think 
 she has that secretive sort of mind wliicli 
 often breeds mischief unwittingly out of 
 mystery. And a mystery there is between 
 her and my brother which I cannot fathom. 
 Until lately I had believed she loved Charlie,
 
 BOLTON ABBEY. 181 
 
 though she is of too reserved a nature to 
 show it. 
 
 '' Just before we came away from Bras- 
 singham she declined every one's society in 
 her walks and rambles. It is my belief that 
 about that time, in some way that I cannot 
 guess, she found out, or fancied she had 
 found out, reasons vv^hy Charlie could never 
 be anything to her. She never mentions him 
 now, not even to me ; and whereas she used 
 to be more affectionate towards papa than 
 any of his own children, now she seems to 
 avoid him like the plague." 
 
 '^ If Charlie loves her, and there is 
 no real difficulty in the way, why does he 
 not come forward like a man ? " asked 
 Frank. 
 
 '' I cannot fathom the mystery,'' ansv>'ered 
 Theodora. '^ I only wish we were back again 
 at Brassingham, and then there miglit be 
 some chance of unravelling it. Here every- 
 thing seems to go wrong. Papa gets more 
 morose and depressed every day, and I 
 think his bursts of temper become more and 
 more violent. I am not given to being
 
 182 
 
 frightened, but sometimes he makes me shiver. 
 But, with regard to Violet, do you really 
 think it would be the slightest use for mc to 
 speak to her? I am so afraid of making 
 matters worse." 
 
 ^^I think the poor girl is waiting and 
 anxious for sympathy," said Frank. ^^ Her 
 face and manner alike show how much she 
 is suffering. As to Charlie, since he will 
 not write, I suppose I shall have to hunt 
 him down when we get back south, and get 
 from his own lips what all this worry is 
 about." 
 
 While they had been talking the rest of 
 their party had separated from tliem. Gerald 
 Tresilian, in hopes of meeting with others 
 who could dilute, as it Avere, the insipidity 
 and silliness of Miss Higgins, wlio was boring 
 him nearly to extinction, liad already reached 
 the stepping-stones, over which Miss Higgins, 
 with much affectation and timid titters, was 
 being duly conveyed. 
 
 Agatha was determined not to allow her 
 charge to get too low in his spirits, and had 
 purposely held back that Loft us Tempest
 
 BOLTON ABBEY. 183 
 
 might invigorate nature with a surrej^titioiis 
 ^^nip." Her object attained, they soon 
 caught up the rest. 
 
 Mr. Brassingham, meanwhile, having depo- 
 sited the elder ladies at the inn, strolled forth 
 alone into the woods, in a humour both grim 
 and sad. 
 
 That sort of love which embraces more 
 pain than j^leasure had come to John Bras- 
 singham for the first time in his life — for the 
 first time, and at an age which wanted but a 
 few years of liis half century. The love of 
 a hale man in ripest maturity, while both 
 vigour and intellect are as yet untouched by 
 the hand of Time, is perhaps the strongest, 
 most enduring love that can exist. For 
 passion's force is well-nigh spent ; a man at 
 fifty ceases to indulge in glomng dreams of 
 married happiness. 
 
 Once before John Brassingham had loved. 
 In the first hot days of passionate youth he 
 had met, by accident, a girl still younger 
 than himself. His passion had been as 
 ardently returned, and harm had come to 
 her by him. The sister of a prize-fighter,
 
 184 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 she had been apprenticed to a fasli^onable 
 milliner at the west-end of London, but 
 througli John Brassingham she had been 
 comjDelled to leave her situation, and had 
 gone upon the stage. When first she had 
 listened to Jolni Brassingham's love she had 
 not known his jDosition. Her heart was 
 stormed by his magnificent person and 
 insinuating address. Then, when she found 
 herself about to become a motlier, she had 
 pleaded with him to marry her, but he had 
 put her off; and when she found out who he 
 was her heart had died within her lest she 
 might never be his Avife. 
 
 Had John Brassingham been a penniless 
 outcast, had his calling been that of a dray- 
 man, she would have loved him, and loved 
 him honestly, all the same. Where languid 
 sprigs of aristocracy had failed to rouse her 
 love this plebeian Brassingham, this iron- 
 founder's son, had stirred her to her heart's 
 depths. The man's magnificent humanity, 
 failing where she failed, sinning where she 
 sinned, yet sharing all the vigour and in- 
 tensity of her nature, had swept all before
 
 BOLTON ABBEV. 185 
 
 it. Oh, that he would marry her I That 
 was the one aim and object of her life. She 
 had talent, she had beauty ; she would rise 
 to be foremost among actresses, she would 
 be worthy of the place of John Brassing- 
 ham's wife yet. But would he yield her 
 that coveted title ? 
 
 Perhaps, had their liaison been kept secret, 
 in the noontide heat of his passion he might 
 have married her ; but with his father there 
 was no appeal. The old iron-founder was 
 wrought like his own minerals, hard and 
 inflexible. His will was absolute. He was 
 not the man to receive an actress as his 
 daughter, even had she been spotless as 
 snow. He was willing that provision should 
 be made for her, and for the two sons she 
 had borne to John Brassingham, on the sole 
 condition that she should never set foot in 
 England again from the time of his son's 
 marriage for five- and-twenty years ; after 
 that she might do as she pleased ; but if by 
 her presence she should harass his son and 
 liis son's wife, his solicitors had orders to 
 stop the allowance, even if the cast-off
 
 186 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 woman and her sons were, by so doing, 
 reduced to beggary. 
 
 Then the unfortunate girl had given in. 
 For the sake of her two boys, his boys, the 
 sons of the man who had become to her all 
 the world and more, she left the country, 
 and, true to her agreement, had never since 
 touched its shores. But had she forgotten ? 
 No ! In Paris and Vienna, in Berlin and 
 St. Petersburg, the English actress had won 
 European fame. But wherever she went she 
 carried the love of her life, the image of 
 John Brassingham. She contrived to keep 
 herself well informed of all that John Bras- 
 singham said or did. 
 
 So the long years had sped. Brilliant 
 had been her triumphs, world-wide her fame, 
 but still she hugged her lost love to her 
 heart. She amassed money ; she acquired 
 influence ; her character during her long 
 career on the various stages of the Conti- 
 nental cities had been beyond reproach. 
 Her beauty had faded, it is true, but she 
 had gained in grace and refinement what 
 she had lost in youth and roundness of form j
 
 BOLTON ABBF.Y. 187 
 
 at forty-five she was a handsome woman 
 still, tall and dark, with lustrous flashing 
 eyes. In Vienna she had heard of the death 
 of John Brassingham's unloved wife, and a 
 wild, half -despairing hope had surged wp 
 into her heart that perhaps she might be 
 dear to him still. Should she return to 
 England, and see if indeed her old power 
 over him was dead ? Xo ; for lier children's 
 sake she would bide her time, till the 
 twenty-five years were fully past. Tlien, 
 oh, then she must see his face once more. 
 
 And she came. The instant the term of 
 her exile was at an end she came to the land 
 to which she had been a stranger for fiye- 
 and-twenty years ; to the city where, for her, 
 sin had cast out innocence, and love, in its 
 turn, had cast out sin — back once more to 
 London. 
 
 In various ways she had gleaned infor- 
 mation of all that was going on at Brassing- 
 ham Park, and of its inmates, and their 
 Jiopes and fears, and loves and hates. That 
 Charles Brassingham was ousted from his 
 father's house, she knew ; and where he was
 
 188 LOVE LOST, IJUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 she know, aiul of the exodus of the Bras- 
 singhani family from SmToy to the Yorkshire 
 hills. 
 
 Fivc-aiid-twenty years had she hungered 
 for tlic sight of one face, for the touch of one 
 hand, for the sound of one voice. While 
 the man's wife had lived, and the sea had 
 been between her and the idol of her youth, 
 she had borne up with laatience, even with 
 cheerfulness. But now a restless fever 
 preyed upon her. She could no longer wait, 
 would herself go down to Yorkshire, and, 
 herself unseen, contrive to see the man who 
 was the father of her sons. 
 
 And what were the feelings of John Bras- 
 sino^ham towards the woman whom he had 
 SO nearly married in his earliest youtli ? 
 Truth to tell, he hardly ever thought of her 
 at all. He had seen his father's Avisdom in 
 making her allowance dependent upon her 
 absence from the country. He was glad 
 that neither she nor her boys should have 
 had any opportunity of becoming thorns in 
 his side, or of making his domestic strife 
 more full of wTangle than was his daily
 
 BOLTON ABBEY. 189 
 
 j^ortion. They were amply provided for; 
 tliat he knew for certain. Beyond, he 
 thought little and eared less. Once married, 
 even to a woman whom he disliked, the 
 exigencies of his position demanded that all 
 connexion with a cast-off mistress should be 
 stopped. Then came children — legitimate 
 children — year after year; children who bore 
 his name and would inherit his vast wealth. 
 Some of these he loved, some he did not ; 
 but anyhow, not even curiosity as to the 
 paths in life followed by his bastard sons had 
 disturbed the mind of John Brassingham. 
 
 Gradually, too, even the memory of those 
 early days of illicit passion had faded some- 
 what from John Brassingham's mind, or, if 
 called up at all into shape and substance, 
 onh' through his fears lest Charles should 
 follow too thoroughly in his own footsteps, and 
 diso^race liis own veneration bv some low 
 marriage which he, John Brassingham, 
 might have no power to stop. 
 
 Assuredly a man's sins find him out. 
 Sooner or later, in youth or in age, the 
 hidden wrong creeps out into the light, and
 
 190 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 wreaks its vengeance on the evil-doer. Little 
 did Jolm Brassingham tliink, as he strode 
 forth into the woods of Bolton Abbey, what 
 a network of sorrow and misery was woven 
 about his feet by his own sin of long ago, or 
 how near was the hour of retribution for 
 passions indulged in iive-and-twenty years 
 
 ago. 
 
 Mr. Brassingham crashed on through the 
 tall brackens that clothed the forest glades, 
 on through the stately foxgloves that 
 reached his shoulder as he brushed them by. 
 His heart was heavy ; for with his great 
 desire to possess this girl, this fair-haired 
 Violet, for his wife, had grown a real 
 unselfish love, at least, so far as it was pos- 
 sible to a man like him to lose sight of self ; 
 and this new-born wash to make another 
 happy, even by his own unhappiness, 
 strengthened day by day and hour by hour, 
 as was natural it should, when passion was 
 made subordinate to a higher form of love. 
 
 From reports of Charles's conduct which 
 had reached him, Mr. Brassingham honestly 
 believed that his own son was no fit husband
 
 BOLTON ABBEY. 191 
 
 for Violet Champneys. This being the case, 
 why should he not marry her himself ? And 
 often as he put this question to himself, so 
 often was the answer borne in upon his 
 heart, ^^ Because she loves your son.'' But 
 if the man she loved had been another than 
 his own flesh and blood, would he for one 
 moment have been justified in allowing so 
 young and inexjDerienced a girl to throw 
 herself away upon her first young fancy ? 
 No. Then why should he sacrifice to his 
 own son, who by all accounts was not 
 worthy, a girl whom he himself loved heart 
 and soul, and of whom he believed he was 
 worthy.
 
 192 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MADATilE JULIA FERRAND. 
 
 To the dangerous fascination exercised over 
 Violet by Julian Ferrand, Mr. Brassingham 
 had been by no means blind ; but he was 
 willing — nay, anxious — to give this fascination 
 scope for action, so that if Violet still held 
 by her promise to become his wife, he might 
 feel that Ferrand, a young and handsome 
 man, had been allowed to do his best to win 
 her, and had failed. 
 
 Yes. John Brassingham felt himself to be 
 in evil case ; and the more deeply lie pon- 
 dered on it, the worse became his position 
 in his own eyes. He was too honest at heart 
 to try to blind himself by plausible subter- 
 fuges. If Violet loved Charlie, and nothing
 
 MADAME JULIA FERRAND. 193 
 
 were i^roved against Charlie sufficiently bad 
 to j^revent such love being consummated by 
 marriage, Avhy then, he would be a selfish 
 scoundrel to make his own desires and 
 Violet's promise stand in the way of the 
 young lovers. On the other hand, Violet 
 appeared to have given her consent to being 
 his wife upon very matured consideration ; 
 and yet John Brassingham's own heart 
 warned him that the girl did not love him. 
 Did she love Julian Ferrand ? and if so 
 was he bound to consult her feelings alone, 
 and wipe himself out of love's map once 
 for all ? Another day should not pass before 
 this last question was answered, at any rate. 
 Violet should be made to state in plainest 
 terms whether Ferrand occupied any place 
 in her affections or not. 
 
 Quick thought begets quick action ; Mr. 
 Brassino:ham's thouo;hts had been in a tumul- 
 tuous whirl, and his paces had kept up with 
 his emotions till even his stm'dy limbs were 
 tired. Close by he discerned a huge moss- 
 covered boulder overhanging the stream ; it 
 looked a tempting resting-place. He turned 
 
 VOL. T. o
 
 194 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 towards it, and found, to his surprise, that 
 the further side of it w^as abeady occupied 
 by a woman dressed in black, who, with her 
 chin resting on her hands, was looking out 
 dreamily over the river towards the ruins of 
 Bolton Abbey. 
 
 She glanced up at him as he approached. 
 He noticed that her eyes were very large 
 and dark, and that her thick black hair grew 
 low on her brow, and was here and there 
 tinged with grey. Then, unwilling to intrude 
 upon her privacy, he was passing on to find 
 a halting-place elsewhere, w^ien she suddenly 
 rose to her feet, and, holding out both her 
 hands, said, in accents of agonized expect- 
 ancy, and catching her breath between each 
 word, '' You have not — forgotten me — quite 
 —John ? " 
 
 He wheeled sharjjly round upon her, and 
 their eyes met. The expression of unbounded 
 astonishment on his face was replaced by a 
 lightning-flash of recognition, followed by 
 dark clouds of anger, shrinking, and annoy- 
 ance ; but no word passed his li2)s. 
 
 ^' You have not — forgotten me — quite —
 
 MADAME JULIA FERRAND. 195 
 
 Jolin ? " she repeated beseechingly, letting 
 her voice dwell with a caressing tenderness 
 on his Christian name. ^^ I — have so lono:ed 
 — to see you once again." She advanced a 
 step towards him ; her trembling hands were 
 extended with open palms, as though in 
 sujDplication ; the smile on her jDarted lips 
 was so full of tears and suppressed, unutter- 
 able woe that any heart in a man's breast, 
 save that of the stern old iron-master's son, 
 must have yielded to its power. 
 
 Not so the heart of John Brassinghani. 
 To him the intervening years since last they 
 met were void of love, for her as for all 
 other women. The passion he had felt for 
 her in early youth had been passion, nothing 
 more ; the strongest passion that a vigorous, 
 hot-blooded youth can feel, j^erha^^s, but con- 
 taining no higher elements which could 
 blossom into love. All sentiment, all emo- 
 tion of the mind, all tender subtleties of 
 painful joy and joyous joain, had formed no 
 part of John Brassingham's passion for Julia 
 Ferris, the faded woman who now, witli 
 outstretched hands, pleaded only for a recog-
 
 196 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR AVON. 
 
 nition of the i:>ast, and some kind word of 
 welcome from the father of her sons. 
 
 He stood frowning, with furrowed brow 
 and lips compressed, mute. 
 
 ^^It is I — I, Julia Ferris," she urged, in a 
 gasping, half-suffocated voice. ^' I, who have 
 worshipped you through these many weary 
 years ; I, who made way for another woman 
 to he your wife ; I, who have been in exile 
 for your sake ; I, who am still the mother of 
 our sons. John ! speak to me. I have 
 longed and hungered and thirsted for one 
 sight of your face, one kind word from your 
 lips ; I have prayed, day by day, and week 
 by week, through all these weary years, 
 that I might be once more clasj)ed in your 
 arms before I died." 
 
 But John Brassingham stood as one 
 turned to stone. He had known the woman 
 in her actress days ; he believed she was 
 acting still. Never at any time liad the 
 image of Julia Ferris filled his heart — it had 
 but caught his sensual fanc}' ; and now — 
 when a real, all-absorbing love had at last 
 taken possession of his soul for Violet — was
 
 MADAZ^IE JULIA FERRAND. 197 
 
 certainly the worst of all ill times for the 
 memory of a passion of years ago to be 
 forced upon his miresponsive mind. 
 
 The woman had remembered; the man 
 had forgotten. From the woman time had 
 purified the dross ; to the man time had but 
 tarnished the gilding of what had once l)een 
 lovely in his sight. 
 
 The man once more, as he stood towering 
 in colossal power and strength, the woman 
 tremblingly besought. 
 
 ^^ John, I want nothing from 3'ou — nothing. 
 Neither for myself nor for my sons. You 
 have already provided for us well. But I 
 have loved you, John — loved you with all 
 ni}" heart and soul and mind and strength — 
 and so I love you still. Oh, say some 
 word of kindness to me, John, even for old 
 times' sake, even if you but hate me now in 
 my old age ! Oh, remember how you loved 
 me once ! " 
 
 She tottered forward and sank at his feet, 
 clasping his knees with her arms. Then at 
 last he spoke. His words came thick and 
 harsh, more with anger than emotion.
 
 198 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 ^^I did not know you at first," he said. 
 ''I do now. I am at a complete loss to 
 imagine what object you can have in seeking- 
 me again. It is five-and-twenty years since 
 all between us was over. If you want a 
 larger allowance you can apply through the 
 lawyer. At the same time, I may as well 
 say at once that any attempt to interfere 
 witli me or mine, or to identify yoiu'self 
 with us, will only have the effect of de- 
 priving you and your sons of all support 
 from the Brassingham estates." 
 
 His tone was cold and measured. His 
 words stabbed her through and through. 
 He stooped, not to take her in his arms, not 
 to whisper some gracious words of hope and 
 peace, but only to disengage her clinging 
 arms from liis sturdy limbs, and free him- 
 self from her embrace. 
 
 She had staked all upon one venture, and 
 she had lost. She had heard he had not 
 loved his wife. She had thought, poor 
 woman, that now that wife was dead 
 some chord of memory might be touched on 
 finding that his youth's mistress still lived^
 
 MADAME JULIA FEKRAND. 199 
 
 still loved him better than all the world 
 beside. And, now that the longed-for 
 moment of reunion had come, no word 
 of recognition was her portion, no look of 
 kindness, not even a kiss upon her brow ; 
 and yet she had borne him children ! 
 
 She shrank from him and cowered on the 
 mossy sward, and moaned. 
 
 '^ Let us have an end of this," said Mr. 
 Brassino'ham, o'ettino; more and more anofrv 
 as the fall possibilities of discovery dawned 
 ujDon him. " All sentiment is out of place 
 between us two. We have been strangers 
 for nearly a quarter of a century; we have 
 only known of each other's existence through 
 the family solicitor, and yet you seem to 
 fancy you have but to return to England to 
 fill the place you occupied when you and I 
 were young. I gave you credit for more 
 sense, Julia. If you are merely j^laying a 
 part, with an intention I cannot at present 
 discover, believe me, the cloak of simulated 
 affection is not one that will blind John 
 Brassingham. If you have been feeding an 
 over sensitive fancy on hopes of finding an
 
 200 LOVE LOST, I3UT HONOUR WON. 
 
 undying passion still burning for you in me, 
 why, the sooner you get rid of such nonsense, 
 the better. We are no longer boy and girl ; 
 for aught I know, we may be grand-parents. 
 Come, be sensible. Tell me, what of the 
 boys ? " 
 
 He moved as though to lift her from the 
 ground, where she lay all of a heap, her face 
 buried in her hands. But at his touch she 
 slirank away. She had hungered for love, 
 she had found aversion. Beauty and youth 
 and fame had waned and diminished and 
 disappeared. Love alone had lived, and 
 now love was murdered. With a heart- 
 breaking moan she rose slowly from the 
 ground. Her great black eyes had a hunted 
 look in them now, a look as of some animal 
 in mortal pain. She swayed to and fro as 
 she strove to rise. He would have sup- 
 ported her, but she waved him off. 
 
 ^^ Touch me not,'' she said. ^^ All these 
 long years I have carried the knowledge of 
 my shame bravely, believing that a day 
 would come when you would acknowledge 
 my claim to your love, though not to the
 
 MADAME JULIA FEREAND. 201 
 
 position of your wife. Had I found any 
 spark of affection left in your breast for 
 the woman whose beauty pleased you well 
 enough in other days — had I found even 
 the kindliness that any man possessing a 
 heart at all must have felt towards the 
 mother of his own sons — I would have gladly 
 sunk into the oblivion required of your cast- 
 off mistress ; I would have watched your 
 career w^ith the eyes of love that cannot die ; 
 I would have helped build up the lives of 
 your children into fame and honour and 
 success, even thouo^h thev called another 
 woman mother, for whom you deserted me ; 
 but vou have shown me what vou are, and 
 what you can be, how hard, how pitiless, 
 how cruel. I have lived for my art, it is 
 true ; I am famous in all lands. Under my 
 assumed name of Giulia Ferretti, I have won 
 laurels on every stage. Why ? Because I was 
 borne up by hope and love. You have slain 
 my hope this. day, John Brassingham ; this 
 day you have slain my love." 
 
 She turned from him, and descended the 
 hill, lier whole bearing and appearance
 
 202 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 altered. Joliii Brassinghani was somewhat 
 staggered at tlie turn affairs had taken, 
 certainly. It is not an every-day occur- 
 rence in an elderly Englishman's life to go 
 out for a solitary walk and fall in with a 
 cast-off mistress of twenty-five years ago ; 
 neither usual nor pleasant — at least, so it 
 seemed to Mr. Brassingham. 
 
 Many a man would have been moved by 
 the dramatic element of the incident, even 
 apart from any more sentimental aspect it 
 might possess ; another might have been 
 roused to a tender interest by simply the 
 knowledge that he had been, and still was, 
 so passionately beloved. But it was different 
 with Mr. Brassingham. A man's enemies 
 are as likely to be right in their judgment of 
 a man's character as his friends, and it has 
 been said before that those who loved him 
 not were of opinion that he was coarse or 
 harsh, sensual or brutal, as their expression 
 corresponded to their degree of dislike. In 
 the present instance, Mr. Brassingham had 
 fully borne out his enemies' worst opinions of 
 him. He had shown himself harsh and brutal^
 
 MADAME JULIA FERRAND. 203 
 
 but, after all, bad be not been faMy true 
 to bis nature ? Tbe man was notbing more 
 or less tban a magnificent animal — vigorous, 
 muscular, bigb-s2:)iritecl — wbo, according to 
 bis kind, bad desired, bad possessed, and 
 bad tired of anotber animal as splendid in 
 pbysique as bimself, but witb tbe additional 
 misfortune of a beart tbat could learn to love 
 and to break. 
 
 Jobn Brassingbam bad not a spark of 
 sentiment in bis nature. He was a man wbo 
 relegated to tbe deptbs of oblivion all sucli 
 mental superfluities as conscience, repent- 
 ance, regrets, or remorse. He considered 
 tbem all as forms of '^nerves" more or less 
 sbattered and deranged. For bimself, be 
 was not troubled witb nerves, nor, conse 
 quently, witb conscience, or remorse, or any 
 of tbat ngly brood. Mr. Brassingbam was 
 wont to assert tbat bis immunity from 
 troubles of tbat nature was tbe natural 
 result of bis plebeian birtb, and be made 
 known bis opinion tbat people would be 
 mucb less at tbe mercy of fanciful diseases 
 of eitber mind or body bad tbey bad
 
 204 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 tlie benefit of a vigorous but plebeian 
 ancestry. 
 
 That a woman, whatever might have been 
 her connexion with him five-and-twenty 
 years ago, should ap})ear suddenly to him in 
 the wilds of a Yorkshire forest, and cling to 
 his knees in a melo-dramatic manner, with 
 tears and sighs and reproaches, simply had a 
 farcical effect upon a man of John Brassing- 
 ham's practical nature. He would, indeed, 
 have lauglied over the episode, had he not 
 been made so angry by the feeling of danger 
 to his peace in the possession of Violet, 
 should this old love of his take it into her head 
 to make jDublic confession of her wrongs. A 
 man may be as practical as he pleases, and as 
 rich as Croesus to boot, and yet find it awkward 
 to face an outraged woman, anxious to declaim 
 against him, and a couple of grown-up sons 
 somewhere in the background, of whose 
 appearance he is absolutely ignorant. 
 
 As Mr. Brassingham swung along home- 
 ward to the inn, his mind was more busied 
 in wondering what manner of men these 
 boys had turned out than in any regrets
 
 MADAME JULIA FEKRAXD. 205 
 
 for the woman's life he had ruined. Doubt- 
 less, he thought, he should not be quit of 
 her yet, and at the next opportunity he 
 would make inquiries for the two sons she 
 had borne to him so many years ago. But 
 first of all he would have Violet's final 
 answer, even this very day, before the sun 
 went down. Someliow his keen quest of 
 Violet seemed whetted by his adventure in 
 the forest. Mr. Brassingham was not accus- 
 tomed to ojDposition or reproaches; indeed 
 it needed but resistance to set his will like 
 iron. As he strode along, crashing through 
 the loftv bracken, he seemed to smell resist- 
 ance in the very air, and his mental muscle, 
 as it were, gathered itself up to battle, with 
 every sinew taut and eager for the fray. 
 It was in a very combative and aggressive 
 mood that Mr. Brassingham at length 
 reached the inn at the edge of the park, 
 and could he have been possessed of the 
 gift of second sight, and followed Madame 
 Julia in her homeward wandering, his mood 
 would probably have been more combative 
 and aggressive still.
 
 206 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 violet's lovers — THE ADVENTURER. 
 
 Though Madame Julia had come from 
 the Continent to London, and again from 
 London to Yorkshire, for the especial 
 pm^pose of seeing Mr. Brassingham again, 
 yet the meeting in the forest had been, 
 in itself, purely accidental. Knowing 
 that the Brassinghams were staying at 
 the Wells, Madame Julia liad purposely 
 taken up her abode some distance away, 
 at a wayside farm-house, about half- 
 way betw^een the Wells and Bolton Abbey. 
 She had reckoned that thus she could 
 combine the seclusion she desired with 
 opportunities for meeting Mr. Brassing- 
 ham without the knowledge of the rest
 
 -THE ADVEXTUKER. 207 
 
 of his family. As yet she had determined 
 on no plan of action ; indeed she had been 
 but a few days at the farm-house when 
 the chance meeting of this morning had 
 come about. The farm-house in whicli she 
 lodged overlooked the road from Ilkley to 
 Bolton Abbey, and she had seen a break 
 dash by with a party of people from the 
 Wells. Curiosity had promjDted her to 
 wend her way towards the Abbey, and in 
 passing through the forest by a short cut, 
 she had paused to rest on the mossy boulder 
 where so strano^e a chance had brouo^ht her 
 face to face with her lover of long ago. 
 The eyes of love are sharp. She knew him 
 at a glance ; few men walked with such 
 a swinging, guardsmanlike stride; few had 
 so firm a footste]), so erect a carriage, so 
 defiant an air ; and when he came closer 
 and she looked once more upon the bold 
 brown eyes she had loved so well, she knew 
 indeed that John Brassingham, and no other, 
 was the man who stood before her. Ah ! 
 how that very morning had she peered close 
 into the mirror, vainly hoping to find some
 
 208 7.0VE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 trace of the beauty tliat had once made 
 John Brassingliam her slave ! And lie had 
 not even taken her outstretched hand ! 
 Not one word of kindness, such as even 
 he might have accorded to a beggar, had he 
 vouchsafed to her who had borne him 
 two sons ! 
 
 Sorrow and anger tore at her heart- 
 strings as she hastened down the wooded 
 slope of the hill, and sought the pathway 
 by the stream that would lead her back 
 to the farm-house. But she had not gone 
 far, before the sound of voices made her 
 pause and start. Surely one voice was the 
 voice of one she knew — yet how should 
 he be here ? Yes, surely she knew those 
 tones — tones so deep and full and manly, 
 pitched now in a key of earnest entreaty 
 and appeal. 
 
 She moved nearer to the spot whence the 
 sounds proceeded. A thick belt of rowan 
 trees and copper-beeches completely hid her 
 from sight, Init she could see close down 
 by the stejDping-stones across the stream 
 two figures seated, a tall, dark, stalwart man
 
 violet's lovers THE ADVENTURER. 209 
 
 and a fair beautiful -woman Avitli auburn 
 hair. 
 
 She knew the man for Julian Ferrand ; 
 her eldest, her darling son. How came he 
 here, and in such company ? Certainly 
 many weeks had passed since she luid had 
 tidings of him, and when last he had written 
 to her abroad he had expressed himself un- 
 certain of his autumn movements. Strange 
 indeed if, ignorant of Iiis real relationship 
 to the Brassinghams, he should have fallen 
 in with them on his travels I But the girl 
 with the auburn hair — who was she ? 
 Was it possible she should be one of John 
 Brassino^ham's dauo^hters, and Julian not 
 know the relationship between them ? 
 Heaven forefend! 
 
 The faces of the j^air were turned towards 
 her. She could distinctly hear their words. 
 
 ^'Listen," her son was saying, '^I can no 
 lonc^er wait unanswered. Dav bv dav, hour 
 by hour, my love for you has increased, till 
 I am no longer master of myself. But I am 
 not a man wdio can be fooled ; nor am I one 
 who whines for a love that may be already 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 LOVE LOST, lUTT HONOUR WON. 
 
 bestowed elsewhere. I am rough, I know, 
 I liave but little fortune, and I am a 
 wanderer upon the face of tlie earth ; but 
 I love you with all a strong man's strength. 
 Do not torture me. If you love me, say so ; 
 my life shall then be at your feet, as my love 
 must ever be ; but if some other, more 
 fortunate than I, has been before me in 
 the field, then let me go, and hide my 
 broken manhood in some other land." 
 
 He paused ; his face was working with 
 passion and hopes and fears. The girl 
 twisted her fingers in and out, but sat silent, 
 spell-bound by his almost fierce avowal. 
 She seemed half frightened by his intensity, 
 by the electric light that blazed in his great 
 dark eyes, by the (|uick, passionate sentences 
 that could scarce find utterance from their 
 very earnestness. 
 
 ^^Mr. Ferrand," at last she said, looking 
 up straight into his fierce and hungry face, 
 ^^ I will be honest with you ; as honest as I 
 can be with myself. But you must have a 
 little patience with me, if my calmer nature 
 cannot keep pace with yours. It is not fair
 
 VIOLET'S LOVEES — THE ADVEXTUEEK. 211 
 
 for any man to expect that a question he 
 may have taken days or even weeks to make 
 up his mind to ask, must needs be answered 
 by a word or look on the instant of his 
 bidding. A woman's feelings cannot leap 
 to meet a man's with anv sudden burst, 
 until his love for her is known ; nor even 
 then, unless her o^ii heart has let her know 
 what sort of question she might expect. I 
 did not know — our acquaintance has been 
 too short, our meetings too infrequent, for 
 me to have guessed the nature of the ques- 
 tion you have asked me now." 
 
 '^ Sm-ely, surely you have seen, you must 
 have seen,'' he m-o^ed, ^^how mv eves have 
 doated on your sweet j^resence ; how never 
 wilHngly have I been a moment from your 
 side ; how, since I came here and first saw 
 you, a madness, a frenzy — call it what you 
 will — has possessed me, to feast myself ujDon 
 your face, your words, your looks ! Surely 
 no woman can be blind to love ! " 
 
 Violet l)urst into tears. The intensity of 
 this man's fierce passion was too much for 
 her. The way in which his words came hot
 
 212 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 and thick, like devouring flames, scorched 
 her with their fervid heat. The strange, 
 almost superliuman force of his marvellous 
 magnetic power, enveloped and well-nigh 
 overwhelmed her. 
 
 ^^ You will not understand me," she gasped 
 between her sobs. ^^I cannot give you any 
 answer now.' Then her maidenly pride 
 rebelled against his loving coercion, and she 
 added, with more spirit, ^^But you have no 
 right to insist upon my saying ' Yes ' or 
 ' No,' because it pleases you to have an 
 answer now. I am not used to be made 
 love to after this violent fashion. You must 
 give me time." 
 
 A frrim smile stole over Julian Ferrand's 
 swarthy face at Violet's arch acknowledg- 
 ment that others than he had entered the 
 lists of love ; but he only said, — 
 
 '' Perhaps to your other lovers your 
 answer has not been a matter of life and 
 death." 
 
 At these words a thrill of vivid recollection 
 rushed through Violet's brain, of how one 
 other, not so long ago, had wooed her as
 
 violet's lovers — THE ADVEXTUREK. 213 
 
 fiercely, as passionately, as devotedly, to all 
 seeming, as this one was wooing lier now. 
 She remembered how to that other she had 
 let her heart slip out of her safe keeping, 
 and how, after a brief space of hope and 
 love and joy she had seen sights and had 
 heard words which had closed her heart 
 against his wildest prayers. 
 
 But was she to resist all love's advances 
 because one lover had played her false ? 
 Was she, in her tender youth and budding 
 bloom, to listen to no other vows, because 
 one man's vows were broken ? Perhaps not. 
 Yet in the very first anguish of her poor, 
 crushed heart had she not voluntarih^ given 
 away her hand where she knew her heart 
 was not ? Had she not accorded to the 
 father, whom she believed unforsworn, the 
 boon she had refused the son, whom she 
 believed forsworn ? 
 
 As all this rushed through Violet's brain 
 the sense of her own misery overwhelmed 
 her. She perfectly understood the magnetic 
 influence of the man who was even at this 
 moment fascinating her by his electrical
 
 214 LOVE LOST, ]5UT HONOUR WON. 
 
 power. She liaci over and over ag-ain said 
 to herself durin<^ her brief acquaintance 
 witli him that she believed him caj)able of 
 obtaining' an influence over her sensitive 
 nature which might amount to a spell she 
 would not liaA^e the power to withstand. 
 She knew it was not love she felt for him ; 
 but if not love, vdiat was it ? She knew it 
 was not love J because it was far different to 
 the passion in her heart for that other one 
 with the dark blue eyes, whose words were 
 even now ringing in her ears, pleading, 
 reproaching, upbraiding, but all to no pur- 
 pose, because she believed that he had 
 played her false. 13ut for Ferrand she felt, 
 and to herself she owned it, a nameless 
 fascination. He intoxicated her senses, he 
 overwhelmed her reason, he paralyzed her 
 will. While close to him she was con- 
 scious of being enveloped in an atmosphere 
 pregnant with some compelling force her 
 will could not resist — some subtle elixir 
 which passed from his superabundant vigour 
 over her, and pervaded her whole being 
 with his power.
 
 violet's lovers — THE ADVENTURER. 215 
 
 And tills power of Ferrand's over lier 
 was, while it lasted, full of pleasure to her, 
 not of fear, as one w^ould have supposed. 
 For his power was accompanied by love, 
 and love casts out fear. But what did make 
 Violet fear Julian was, that at each successive 
 ?aieeting with him alone, her own natural 
 force of nerve and power of will sensibly 
 diminished, and the strange, nameless fasci- 
 nation he exercised over her as sensibly 
 increased. 
 
 Even as she sat now within the radius of 
 his passionate gaze, she was conscious of a 
 feeling of slight intoxication, of a sensuous 
 delight in liis j^resence such as flowers 
 feel in noonday sunshine, or animals in 
 the sun's bright rays. She could not draw 
 herself away from him; yet she had no 
 sense of fear, but rather of a protecting 
 power, external to herself, yet shielding her, 
 sun and shade combined in one, and that 
 one loving her, devouring her with loving- 
 eyes. 
 
 Minutes went by. It seemed indeed a 
 long time since Ferrand had spoken the
 
 216 LOVE LOST, IJUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 words which liaci recalled the memory of 
 young- Charles Brassingham so vividly to 
 her mind's eye ; but still she kept silence, 
 drinking in, indeed, from his overcharged 
 battery the magnetic fluid that was wrap- 
 2)ing her in an invisible robe. Her tears 
 ceased falling, but her head was heavy, and 
 she scarce heeded the ripples as they 
 gurgled monotonously over the smooth 
 pebbles in the stream. 
 
 When next he spoke his words seemed 
 hushed and low ; yet she was conscious that 
 his hand, warm and dry and strong, had 
 taken hers into the hollow of its palm, and 
 that she liked its being there. It felt so 
 safe, nestling in the brawny strength of 
 his. 
 
 '^Darling," he said, '^my heart's great 
 love, will you not trust yourself with me ? 
 Will you not be my wife? My strength 
 shall strengthen you ; my love shall be your 
 joy and your defence; my arm shall fight 
 life's battles for you and shield you from 
 every harm ; my whole life shall devote itself 
 to you, and guard my treasure from every
 
 violet's lovers — THE ADVEXTUEEE. 217 
 
 wind of ill. Darling — my darling — love 
 me — be my wife I" 
 
 His arm liad stolen round her slender 
 waist ; his handsome, swarthy face was bent 
 down close to hers; his breath was hot 
 nj)on her cheek. She struggled, and would 
 have risen, but the spell of his magnetism, 
 more than any exertion of muscular force, 
 kej^t her riveted to the spot. 
 
 A little low cry escaped her, a cry that 
 could not be mistaken for one of joy. x4n- 
 other moment, and his lips, unrepelled, might 
 have drunk their fill from hers, so completely 
 was she fascinated and spellbound by his 
 magnetic force, when suddenly the boughs 
 were tlirust aside, and Julian's mother stood 
 before the pair. 
 
 A horrible dread had come over Madame 
 Julia lest this girl, whom her son so wor- 
 shipped, should be one of Mr. Brassingham's 
 daughters. Julian had uttered no name by 
 which she might have obtained a clue to the 
 girl's identity, neither had Violet let fall in 
 her remarks anything which might preclude 
 such a possibility.
 
 218 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 Overwrought by her trying interview 
 v/itli Mr. Brassingham, Madame Julia's 
 nerves were furtlier shaken by so suddenly 
 discovering her son — whom she had no 
 reason to suppose was in her ncighljourhood 
 — actually among the very same party as 
 his own father and half-sisters, and yet not 
 knowing his relationship. Forced either to 
 remain hidden behind the rowan trees or 
 to risk an explanation of her presence she 
 Avished on all accounts at present to avoid, 
 she had chosen the former alternative, until 
 terror at her own surmise had broken 
 down her determination to remain unseen, 
 and she had abruptly made known her 
 presence. 
 
 The suddenness of his mother's appear- 
 ance, like a spirit straight from the clouds, 
 was to Julian Ferrand like a thunderbolt. 
 He did not even know she was in England ; 
 believed her, in fact, to be still in Vienna, 
 where last he had heard of her. He was a 
 man of iron nerve, yet in some ways not 
 untouched by superstitious fancies, and the 
 apparition of his mother, haggard, pale, and
 
 A^IOLET's lovers THE ADYEXTUREK. 219 
 
 dishevelled, — his mother, whom he liad 
 believed thousands of miles away, standing 
 there wan and worn and ofrim, within ten 
 yards of him, was to him as a disembodied 
 spirit from the tomb. 
 
 He bomided to his feet. Xo somid 
 escaped his lips. 
 
 His mother placed her finger on her lips, 
 then pointed at Violet. The girl, struck 
 with a nameless terror, already completely 
 overdone, had fainted dead away. 
 
 ^^ It is I, your mother, Julian," said 
 Madame Julia, ''I, in flesh and blood. You 
 need not look so scared ; I had business 
 near Ilkley, my dear son, of so pressing 
 a nature that I stayed but one day in 
 London on my way to Yorkshire, and my 
 surprise at seeing 3'ou is almost as great 
 as yours at meeting me. Julian, who is 
 tliis girl ? " 
 
 Madame Julia, as she spoke, bent down 
 to loosen the handkerchief that was round 
 Violet's throat, and chafed the small white 
 hands. 
 
 '^Her name is Champneys, mother, —
 
 220 luOXE LOST, BUT HONOUR WOX. 
 
 Violet Cliampneys," said her son. ^'She 
 is the ward of a Mr. Brassingliani, who is 
 staying at tlic llkley Wells, and she — is 
 the woman I would make my wife ! " 
 
 A look of unutterable relief passed over 
 Madame Julia's face as he uttered these 
 words. 
 
 ^' I had feared she was some one else,'' 
 she muttered ; but Julian did not catch the 
 words. ^^ Get some water quickly, in your 
 hat," she added aloud. ^^ Poor child, her 
 faint lasts long. My sudden appearance has 
 well-nigh frightened her to death. I had 
 best not be here, Julian, when she recovers 
 consciousness. Come to me, my son, to- 
 morrow morning at the Abbey Fields Farm- 
 house ; you pass it on the road to llkley 
 Wells. There I Avill explain. One word I 
 As long as we are hero in this neighbour- 
 hood together, treat me before others as a 
 perfect stranger; show no sign of recog- 
 nition whenever or wlierever we may meet. 
 I can trust you, Julian, to be discreet. You 
 have ever been obedient." She drew his 
 handsome head down and kissed him with
 
 violet's lovers THE ADVEXTURER. 221 
 
 all a mother's rapturous love, then vanished 
 as suddenly as she had come. 
 
 He stooped and bathed Violet's temples 
 with the water from the brook. Soon, with 
 a little fluttering sigh, consciousness came 
 back, the blue ej^es opened wide. She passed 
 her hand over her brow and found it wet. 
 ^' Where am I?" slie exclaimed. 
 
 ^' In safe hands, be sure," he answered. 
 ^^ You are better now. It was but a sudden 
 faintness. The sun is hot. and you have been 
 overdone." 
 
 ^' I seem to have been in a trance," she 
 said; ^' but it was all confused. Voices were 
 calling me to come and live in some per- 
 petual sunshine — in bliss and joy ; a sort of 
 heaven seemed opening to ni}^ spirit, but my 
 body was not there. I was winging my 
 flight through space, like some ethereal 
 essence, visiting spiritland. Then other 
 voices called — voices I heard long ago — 
 calling me back to earth, calling me false 
 and faithless, and fickle as the wind — and 
 these reproachful voices pressed so close they 
 passed between the sunshine and my form,
 
 222 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 then died away. And then there came a 
 shape — a form so weird and strange and sad 
 — all draped in black, that seemed to wither 
 me with its lurid gaze, and I shrank back 
 from it as it advanced, and fell through the 
 air to earth faster and faster, till strength 
 and memory failed me. Ah ! it was 
 horrible ! " And Violet covered her face 
 with her hands and seemed as though the 
 very memory would make her swoon again. 
 To Ferrand's intense relief, a burst of 
 merriment from well-known voices fell on 
 his ear. It came from close by, a little 
 higher up the stream, where some huge 
 stones had ])ecn somewhat loosely piled to 
 form a bridge across the brawling brook. 
 The stones had formed a dam, so that the 
 water on either side was deeper than else- 
 where. 
 
 The sketching-party, homeward bound 
 (for luncheon-time was drawing near), had 
 stumbled on Vere Vereker and Anne Brassing- 
 ham, ensconced in a leafy retreat, beneath 
 a gnarled old oak. The lovers — for such 
 they were undoubtedly considered — seemed
 
 violet's lovers — THE AD VENTURER. 223 
 
 rather relieved than otherwise at this inter- 
 ruption to their tete-d-tete, and, in no Avay 
 embarrassed at being discovered, had joined 
 forces with the rest on the homeward route. 
 To have gone round by the lower ford 
 would have been circuitous and wearisome, 
 so Theodora, ever foremost in advance, had 
 persuaded her companions to cross the river 
 by the stones. She, followed by Frank 
 Freeman, Agatha, and Tempest, had already 
 crossed, and stood waitino- for the others on 
 the further side. 
 
 Miss Higgins, with a sudden access of 
 affectation, had advanced and retii^ed, each 
 time with a greater assumption of nervousness, 
 until she had at last declared that it was quite 
 impossible for her to cross, that the water on 
 either side made her giddy, and that she 
 would o'o round bv the lower ford. Everv 
 one knew perfectly well that the excuse was 
 solely to entrap Mr. Tresilian into the 
 necessitv of takino^ her back to the inn alone, 
 SO that all might see how^ she had been pro- 
 vided with a distinguished escort, but as they 
 could not wait all day, tlicre was nothing for
 
 224 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 it but to abandon Mr. Tresilian to his 
 fate. 
 
 Miss Anno Brassingliam, however, had 
 not the smallest intention of walking a long 
 way home, nor were her nerves ever in such 
 a condition as to 2)revent Iier crossing 
 Niagara even, if that could liave saved her 
 bulky person trouble. Giving Vere Vereker 
 her hand, rather than taking his, she essayed 
 to transport lier ponderous person across the 
 slippery stones. Vere, who was but a 
 whipper-snapper of a man at liis best, and 
 given to as much method in crossing a 
 brook as though it involved mathematical 
 calculations of the nicest preciseness, found 
 himself considerably overweighted by the 
 ballast he was attempting to convoy in safety 
 to the opposite bank. 
 
 Anne, whose natural awkwardness never 
 for a moment deserted her, caught her foot 
 in the torn braid of her skirt, and after several 
 plunges, much after the fashion of a fine 
 young whale, succeeded in landing both 
 herself and Vereker in about three feet of 
 water in the middle of the stream.
 
 violet's LOVEIJS THE ADVENTURER. 225 
 
 Nothing amuses so finely as our friends' 
 misfortunes. Those who had safely crossed 
 and those who had stayed behind had lifted 
 up their voices in much simultaneous mirth, 
 which had attracted the attention of Julian 
 Ferrand and the hysterical girl, who seemed as 
 though she were just passing into another faint. 
 
 Theodora, beino; enorao^ed in wrinmio; out 
 Anne's dripping garments, had not noticed 
 Ferrand's signals of distress, but Agatha's 
 quick ear had craight his shout, and, divining 
 from his signals that there was something 
 wrong, she ran swiftly do^^ni the bank to where 
 Violet was lying. The girl was beating the 
 air with her hands, as though trying to keep 
 oft' some form invisible to any save herself. 
 Her eyes were closed, and now and then a 
 low moan of fear escaped her lips. 
 
 Agatha soothed her as only a woman born 
 a nurse is able. The gentle touch of her 
 caressing hands soon cleared away the 
 symjDtoms of hysteria. Then she bethought 
 herself of Tempest's flask. Pouring some 
 brandy into the silver cup she persuaded 
 Violet to drain it down, and in a nunuto 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 more Miss Champneys was herself again. 
 Fortunately tlie remainder of the 2oarty were 
 too occupied with the two half-drowned 
 creatures whom they had just fished out of 
 the j)ool to notice Violet's illness or to specu- 
 late upon its cause. By the time they came 
 up Violet's recovery was complete, and, as 
 Agatha affected to make light of her friend's 
 faintness, no one guessed that it had been 
 from other cause than overtiredness and 
 heat.
 
 ANNE BEASSINGHAM IN DIFFICULTIES. 227 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ANNE BEASSINGHAM GETS INTO DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 The relations whicli were supposed to exist 
 between Mr. Yereker and the eldest Miss 
 Brassingliam gave all the more a comic 
 colouring to their watery adventure. Mrs. 
 Higgins and Lady Amory especially^ who 
 had been on the tip-toe of expectation all 
 the morning for the announcement of the 
 engagement during the day, were pleased to 
 be extravagantly amused at the disconcerted 
 air with which the pair had put in their first 
 appearance in what was presumably an 
 affianced state. 
 
 Dry clothing having been procured from 
 the landlord and landlady of the inn, while 
 their own was being dried, Mr. Vereker and
 
 228 LOVE LOST, ]]UT HONOUR WON. 
 
 Miss Brassingliam joined the lunclieon party. 
 Nor (;oukl any one guess from their manner 
 to one another wlietlier the eng-ao^ement 
 might be considered a settled thing or not. 
 
 Vereker, in the best go-to-meeting frock- 
 coat of the worthy but burly Yorkshire inn- 
 keeper, showed to less advantage even than 
 usual, and was nearly lost in its capacious 
 folds. The inn-keeper was a man of enor- 
 mous girth, whose chest had long ago receded 
 above his increasing obesity and portentous 
 corpulence. The '' extenuations," moreover, 
 of stout fustian which he had placed at 
 Vereker's disposal could have included a 
 dozen Verekers within their yards of waist. 
 A satin waistcoat of the brightest hue, which 
 had to be tied round Vereker's middle with 
 a towel, lest the absence of linen should be 
 too discernible, completed Vere's motley 
 costume. But '^ needs must when the devil 
 drives." Other clothes to be borrowed there 
 were none, so with finger-tips peeping from 
 the coat's long arms, and fustians tucked up 
 above a pair of hobnailed boots, Vere 
 Vereker sat down beside his intended bride.
 
 ANNE BRASSINGHAM IN DIFFICCLTIES. 229 
 
 It liad been found impossible to imprison 
 Anne's amjDle form witliin the dimensions of 
 the clothes the landlady's wardrobe could 
 provide. The latter was a shrivelled little 
 body, who was wont to hop about the 
 premises much like a parched pea on a 
 drum, and who enjoyed the advantages of a 
 figure in which all curves were but con- 
 spicuous by their absence. To force Anne 
 Brassingham's ponderous person into this 
 little person's dress, was obviously out of the 
 question, but a ]vhe cle chamhre given to the 
 little old woman by a former mistress some 
 forty years previously, which from its 
 gorgeousness had been preserved as an heir- 
 loom in the family, was made to form at 
 least a decent covering. What matter that 
 the gown was of yellow satin with an amber 
 sacque and train ? In combination with a 
 scarlet petticoat reaching a little below 
 Anne's knees, the costume was as gorgeous 
 as it was incongruous. But Miss Brassing- 
 ham was of a practical turn of mind. No 
 sense of the ridiculous was likely to disturb 
 her peace of mind or interfere with her very
 
 230 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 healthy appetite. Still it did seem a little 
 odd that this should be the dress in which 
 slie was to make or mar tlie futm^e fortunes 
 of her life. For Vereker had said too much 
 before he w^as interrupted to draw back ; yet 
 not enough J perhaps, to warrant her giving 
 him the answer he required. She felt there 
 was more to come. 
 
 Clothes, however, to whomsoever they 
 may belong, after having been submerged 
 in a running stream, will take their own 
 time to dry. When luncheon was over the 
 landlady emphatically declared that it might 
 be a couple of hoars or more before it would 
 be possible for the lady and gentleman to 
 don their own attire. That the rest of 
 the party should lose the enjoyment of a 
 delicious autumn day in the w^oods and 
 glades about Bolton Abbey because two of 
 their party had taken an untimely bath 
 was quite preposterous. Engaged or not 
 engaged, both Vere Vereker and Miss Bras- 
 sin gh am were quite capable of taking care 
 of themselves ; indeed they both protested 
 with such vehemence against the necessity
 
 AXXE BRASSINGHAM IX DIFFICULTIES. 231 
 
 for any others staying behind on their 
 account that it would have been in bad 
 taste for any one to remain. 
 
 Violet, instinctively shrinking from any 
 chance of being again alone with Mr. 
 Ferrand, all the more easily fell in with 
 Mr. Brassingham's views that she should 
 accompany him to the ruins of the Abbey. 
 
 '^ Cupid and Psyche," to judge by their 
 mutual silence on their return from their 
 woodland wanderings, had either fallen out, 
 or were tired of each others blandish- 
 ments, for Eric Amory persistently attached 
 himself to Theodora during the rest of 
 the day, while May relieved Tresilian from 
 the embarrassing burden of Miss Higgins's 
 society. 
 
 Frank Freeman, at all times the most 
 devoted of sons, steadily declined to listen 
 to liis mother's assertions that she wanted 
 no one to look after her, and would prefer 
 his going off with the young people ; w^iile 
 Captain Selfe, true to his traditional loyalty, 
 now^ as ever placed Mrs. Tempest's happi- 
 ness and requirements before all other
 
 232 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 considerations. These four set out together 
 on their own little jaunt, for Mrs. Tempest's 
 infirmities prevented her going far, and only 
 that far with Selfe's strong arm for a support ; 
 and Lady Catherine's powers were no longer 
 of the most enduring. 
 
 The Reverend Silas Monckton, finding 
 his attentions ignored by Lady Amory and 
 Mrs. Higgins, had determined on laying 
 siege to the remains of Miss Lavinia's heart. 
 She was rather acid in temper, certainly, 
 as she was angular in person, but in Mr. 
 Monckton's eyes a snug fortune in the Three 
 per Cents had great powers to gild the pill, 
 which he at any rate was quite ready to 
 swallow. To-day his attentions had been 
 unmistakable, and to the infinite amuse- 
 ment of the wealthy widows, whom he had 
 previously sought to charm, the ^'little 
 pitcher with the long ears," as he was 
 now most frequently designated by the last- 
 named ladies, M^as seen ambling along by 
 the side of the lanky Miss Lavinia, with 
 difficulty adapting his short legs to her 
 enormous strides.
 
 ANNE I3RASSINGHAM IN DIFFICULTIES. 233 
 
 Agatha, true to her missioiij left no subject 
 un discussed that she thought would interest 
 and amuse her 'protege. She talked horses 
 and dogs, turf and cards, music and novels, 
 spiritualism and the origin of species ; she 
 found Tempest not only well informed and 
 well read, but possessed of much originality 
 of thought and power of expression, while 
 his morbid impression that he had incurred 
 the dislike and contempt of his fellows had 
 gone far to warp and spoil the whole man. 
 With graceful banter and apt repartee she 
 kept the young man amused and interested 
 throughout the livelong day ; drawing him 
 out on subjects in which he was at home, 
 covering his retreat where ignorance or 
 blunders endangered his relapse into self- 
 depreciation and shamefacedness. Nor was 
 Miss Higgins neglected by the poor com- 
 panion. Throughout the afternoon Agatha 
 contrived that Loftus should appear Miss 
 Higgins's preux chevalier , while she and 
 Matilda Tempest made believe to drop 
 behind. Under the healthful stimulant of 
 Agatha's invigorating talk, pleased, too, at
 
 234 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 tlie open satisfaction the rich Miss Higgins 
 showed in his society, the lad plucked up 
 heart and spirit to grapple with his vice, 
 and as ho walked along over the purple 
 heather and the yellow gorse, imbibing 
 health and vigour at each step he took, he 
 made a silent vow that, come what would, 
 his life should be disburdened of this curse, 
 which threatened both life and reason with 
 an early end. The very vow made to him- 
 self alone, the consciousness of having 
 started in the race, the earnest purpose 
 that dwelt upon liis heart, seemed to make 
 life, even now, a joyous and a hopeful 
 thing. 
 
 Thus Agatha sowed good seed ; not in this 
 ground alone : wherever this girl found 
 herself placed in life good angels seemed to 
 gather round, and dispel all evil from about 
 her presence. For her soul was single in its 
 aim ; on every brow to seal the impress of 
 her God.
 
 ANNE BRASSINGHAM SEALS HER FATE. 285 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ANXE BRASSINGHAM SEALS HER FATE. 
 
 Meanavhile ill the old-fashioned settle Idj 
 the fire of the best parlour in the inn sat 
 Vere Vereker and Anne Brassingham ; not 
 hand-in-hand, nor engaged in any of the 
 weak blandishments usually indulged in by 
 pairs of youthful lovers left alone together 
 for the first time since the}' liad come to a 
 mutual understanding. 
 
 No ! Both Vere and Anne prided them- 
 selves on being practical people — people who 
 understood the value of money, tlie advan- 
 tages of social position, and the real worth 
 of each and all the qualifications which are 
 necessary to success in life : but the value of
 
 28 G LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 love, in all or any of its bearings, they had 
 by mutual consent decided to leave out of 
 tlie question. 
 
 People too often imagine themselves suited 
 to the objects of their choice in marriage 
 because their opinions coincide in art or 
 literature, philosophy or religion ; whereas it 
 is the harmonious blending of diverse 
 natures, the dovetailing of opposite procli- 
 vities, which fashion and j)erfect the man 
 and woman made one. 
 
 So Vere and Anne, being both very 
 practical, very truth -loving, and very dis- 
 contented, had found material on which to 
 build an offensive and defensive alliance, 
 which might have flourished as a Platonic 
 affection without doing much good or harm 
 to either had not the i)etty miseries of an 
 ill-conducted home on the one side, and the 
 rigorous privations of a grinding poverty on 
 the other, proved at length insujjportable, 
 and suggested to the minds of both the idea 
 of a convenient marriage as a probable 
 alleviation to their many woes. 
 
 Although there was nothing heroic about
 
 AXXE BRA.SSINGHAM SEALS HER FATE. 237 
 
 Vere Vereker ; though his face bore a strong- 
 resemblance to that of a weasel, and his 
 figure was lean and unimportant ; though 
 his shoulders sloped, and he was knock- 
 kneed, and his biceps and calves were purely 
 muscles of the imagination, yet, leaving his 
 physical appearance out of the question, 
 Vere Yereker by no means deserved the 
 unqualified contempt expressed for him by 
 Theodora to Frank Freeman. If he was a 
 bit of a prig, somewhat over-methodical and 
 old-maidish in his ways, still he possessed 
 many sterling good qualities, which a 
 woman of Anne Brassingham's practical 
 natm-e was able to value at their true 
 worth. 
 
 Theodora, following in tlie footsteps of her 
 fatlier's family, ever demanded bodily 
 strength and beaut}' as a passport to her 
 notice, after which she miu'lit or mio'ht not 
 find other qualifications which recommended 
 a man to her favour ; but Anne, who from 
 her earliest years had educated herself in 
 direct opposition to these inherent Eras- 
 singham characteristics, and had, moreover, no
 
 288 LOVE LOST, ]5UT HONOUR WON. 
 
 eye for the beautiful in either art or nature, 
 always went direct to a man's deeiDer nature, 
 and left his external appearance, and even 
 his more superficial manner and eccentri- 
 cities, entirely out of the question. 
 
 Now Vereker Avas strictly a moral man — 
 his mere acquaintances would have called 
 him strait-laced — his more lax companions 
 dubbed him a prig and a bore — but Anne, 
 in her hatred of that sj)ecious immorality 
 which allows to gallantries a fame which 
 in all other forms of falsehood is considered 
 infamous, had set this one virtue on the 
 loftiest pedestal, and, finding it in Vereker, 
 let it do duty in her mind for many 
 more. 
 
 Then Anne loved truth — plain, unvar- 
 nished, uncompromising truth. This, too, 
 slie found in Vereker. If a thing had to be 
 said which could carry no gloss upon its 
 words, both Vere and Anne could be trusted 
 to say it with an unhesitating disregard of 
 people's feelings, and a clear, outspoken 
 roughness which admitted of no compromise. 
 How far this characteristic might prove an
 
 ANNE BKASSINGHAM SEALS HER FATE. 239 
 
 element in domestic bliss neither Vere nor 
 Anne had much considered, but in a mere 
 system of Platonics, to be enjoyed at will 
 for an idle hour, unbridled condenniation of 
 one's neighbour doubtless has a charm ; the 
 more so to some natures, when blurted in 
 that neighbour's face. 
 
 Neither were Anne and Vere amiable 
 j^eople, but they, in their single blessedness^ 
 took keen enjoyment in their unamiability, 
 and even delighted to remind each other of 
 such and such a smart remark which had 
 brought the blush of shame or the flush of 
 wrath to an adversary's brow. Vere Yereker 
 was smart, and Anne appreciated his smart- 
 ness. He was a man of high birth, well 
 connected, respectable, and respected. He 
 belonged to a family who were prolific in the 
 production of antiquaries, misers, and old 
 maids. No branch of tlie Verekers luid 
 been known to fail in developing all that 
 was sparing, humdrum, and barren in their 
 natures. Anne, who viewed her own family 
 as something external to lierself, in which 
 she had no part, and who heartily despised
 
 240 LOVE LOST, BUT HOXOUU WON. 
 
 the extravagance and sensuality which 
 formed so large a 2)art of the Brassingham 
 character, fancied she had found safe anchor- 
 asre for lierself and fortune in so thrifty and 
 well-regulated an admirer as Vere. 
 
 On the other hand, Vereker, though 
 untouched by the shafts of love, was not 
 only inclined to marry, but had cast about 
 among his various acquaintances for some 
 time past for a partner who, besides being- 
 congenial to his mind, should compensate 
 by her vigour of body and length of purse 
 for the singularly scanty and meagre pro- 
 portions of his own. Mr. Vereker was much 
 given to ventilating philosophical opinions 
 on the advantages that would accrue to the 
 human race generally if the State would 
 condescend to regulate the Court of Hymen ; 
 but, as he failed to see any indications that 
 such a course would be pursued by Her 
 Majesty's Government during his own 
 veneration, he was fain to content himself 
 by becoming a self-constituted minister of 
 marriage in his own case, and he believed 
 that he had found in Miss Brassingham the
 
 ANNE BRASSINGHAM SEALS HER FATE. 241 
 
 requirements and compensations that his 
 own deficiencies demanded. Without being 
 in any way beautiful, she possessed, in 
 common with all the Brassinghams, a match- 
 less vigour of physique and constitution, 
 such as delighted the possible father of 
 future generations of Verekers, and her 
 amjDle fortune would not only relieve him 
 from the grinding poverty which at present 
 hindered and well-nigh defeated all his 
 efforts towards success, but would ensure 
 their children every advantage in the race of 
 life that money and what money buys could 
 give. 
 
 ^' Then I may hope, Miss Brassingham, 
 that you consider my proposal favourably ? " 
 pij^ed the high voice of Yere A^ereker from 
 his corner of the settle, as he drummed the 
 borrowed hobnailed boots on the stone floor 
 of the best parlom\ 
 
 ^' I was not aware that you had made any 
 proposal, Mr. Vereker," she answered, not 
 from any coquettishness, but because she 
 had been rather uncertain whether his 
 remarks in the morning, which had been 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 SO unfortunately interrupted, amounted to a 
 proposal of marriage or not. 
 
 Vereker prided himself on always going 
 direct to the point without any nonsense or 
 ^'palaver"; so he stopped playing the devil's 
 tattoo witli his boots on the stone floor, and 
 looked Anne straight in the face : — 
 
 ^^ Will you marry me, Miss Bras- 
 singham ? " 
 
 '^I will marry you, Mr. Vereker." 
 
 Then there was a pause, undisturbed by 
 any pressure of hands, or meeting of lips, 
 or incoherent ravings of life-long constancy 
 and devotion. 
 
 Uncertainty as to their mutual intentions 
 having been thus summarily disposed of, 
 Vere Vereker proceeded to make himself 
 more clearly understood in detail. 
 
 ^' I believe you are aware. Miss Bras- 
 singliam, that I have no means of my own to 
 fall back upon, that is, neither private 
 property nor allowance from my family, nor, 
 in short, any tiling except what I can make 
 by my brains at the bar, or by literary 
 pursuits ? "
 
 ANNE BRASSINGHAM SEALS HER FATE. 248 
 
 '^ I am quite aware of that, Mr. Vereker." 
 
 *^ And you are content to marry me under 
 these circumstances, Miss Brassingham ? " 
 
 ^^ I am content, Mr. Yereker." 
 
 ^^ Because, if at any future time in our 
 career," continued Yere, rising, and holding 
 his capacious fustians in a bunch, to prevent 
 being left standing in his borrowed frock- 
 coat alone, ^'^we should hajDpen to have any 
 little difficid ties — matrimonial difficulties, you 
 know — I should wish it remembered that 
 I had been explicit as to my poverty at the 
 time I solicited your hand." 
 
 ^^ You are quite explicit, Mr. Yereker. I 
 will also tell you plainly the position of 
 my affairs. From my mother I inherit 
 50,000/., my mother's whole fortune; she 
 thought fit to leave me all she had ; perhaps 
 because I was her companion and her 
 favourite child, perhaps because I did not 
 possess my sisters' advantages of person. 
 She also left me her diamonds, valued at 
 10,000/. more. Now to those diamonds, 
 Mr. Yereker, my father disputes my claim ; 
 he has them at present in his possession,
 
 244 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 that is, at his banker's ; and those diamonds I 
 mean to have." 
 
 ^'You do not mean to say that you 
 contemplate a law-suit witli your father. 
 Miss Brassingham ? " 
 
 " T mean to have the diamonds," said 
 Anne, dog-gedly. "- The jewels are mine 
 by inheritance, and I do not see that my 
 father, because he is my father, has any 
 more riffht to rob me of them than anv 
 housebreaker or professional thief." 
 
 ^' Well, well, let us hope there will be 
 no difficulty in the matter," said Vere. 
 ^^ But, leaving the subject of the diamonds 
 for the present, do you suj)pose your father 
 is likely to oppose our marriage ? '' 
 
 '^ I think not. He will be quite as glad to 
 be quit of me, as I of him." 
 
 ^' Then I may presume you will have 
 no objection to our being united in the 
 bonds of matrimony without greater delay 
 than will be necessary for the arrangement 
 of settlements ? " 
 
 '^ Long engagements are a mistake," said 
 Anne, decisively. ^' As we seem to have
 
 ANNE BRASSINGHAM SEALS HER FATE. 245 
 
 definitely made up our minds, I have no 
 objection to an early date." 
 
 ^' The sooner the better, then," said Yere. 
 ^^ What say you to the end of September ? 
 We shall then get settled in some home of 
 our own before the winter sets in." 
 
 '' I have no wish to postpone the date," 
 answered Anne. ^' Perhaps, as you say, the 
 sooner all the fuss is over the better. I will 
 be prepared within a month of our return 
 to Brassingham." 
 
 ^' Your hand upon it, ^;i?ie," said Yere, 
 as he extended a damp bundle of digits, 
 ^' I suppose we may as well practise the 
 use of our Christian names under the 
 circumstances ? " 
 
 '' Certainly, Fe?'e," she returned, as she 
 rose to plight her troth. She gave him 
 her hand ; he raised it ceremoniously to 
 liis lips. 
 
 Thus this strange pair of loveless lovers 
 each to other plighted their troth ; Anne in 
 an amber peignoir and a red flannel petti- 
 coat, Yere in fustian '' extenuations " and a 
 blue, brass-buttoned frock-coat. But the
 
 246 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 ludicrous in life had neither charm nor the 
 reverse for them, and a promise to marry 
 was part of life's business with these two. 
 and was unrelieved by the slightest tinge of 
 poetic fancy or love-inspired romance.
 
 violet's lovers — THE MILLIONXAIRE. 247 
 
 CHAPTER XYIL 
 
 violet's LOVERS — THE MILLIONXAIRE. 
 
 Under other cii^cumstances than the present 
 Violet Champneys wouki have been vexed 
 rather than pleased at her enforced tete-a- 
 tete with her guardian ; but the girl was so 
 terrified at the power which Julian Ferrand 
 was gradually acquiring over her that she 
 was glad of any society in which she could 
 believe herself safe. 
 
 The enormous power wielded by animai 
 electricity in our mutual relations one with 
 another has never yet been sufficiently made 
 the theme of any popular philosophy. 
 Perhaps because so little comparatively is 
 known absolutely to science as to its nature 
 and results; perhaps because we are still
 
 248 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 living on that borderland between a super- 
 stitious demonology and tlio free realms of 
 natural religion. We are therefore aj)t to 
 confuse the effects of animal magnetism with 
 all sorts of so-called mental and sj^iritual 
 phenomena, simply because the compelling 
 force of animal magnetism is still held by 
 the ignorant, the uneducated, and even by 
 many whose imaginations are crowded with 
 the supernatural and the diabolic, to be, in 
 some weird and wicked way, the result of 
 the machinations of an evil sjDirit. 
 
 So long as moral cowardice, or a shrinking 
 from combating imbecilities which shelter 
 themselves under the sacred name of religion, 
 obtain, so long will impostors crowd the 
 platforms of truth, who are content, so long 
 as they themselves live on the fat of the 
 land, to prostitute theii' lives to a lying but 
 remunerative human witchcraft. That this 
 power of animal magnetism is true, is enor- 
 mous, and is only as ^^et partially known to 
 science, will not be denied by any thinking- 
 people, and yet the results of this mag- 
 netism in the incidents of every-day life
 
 violet's lovers — THE MILLIONNAIEE. 249 
 
 seem to form no part of the calculations of 
 rational beings. Of course there are 
 thousands of j)eople as absolutely deficient 
 in this sense as are people in other senses, 
 who are blind or deaf or paralyzed, and to 
 such it is certainly not worth while to 
 appeal ; but those to whom a bountiful 
 nature has imparted this — shall we call it 
 extra ? — sense are j^erf ectly and often pain- 
 fully aware of the sharjo shock of attraction 
 or repulsion, and sometimes both combined, 
 experienced merely by contact with another's 
 hand. Nor, with many whose organizations 
 are hypersensitive to electric currents, is it 
 even necessary that there should be so mucli 
 as the contact of finger-tips. It would seem 
 that some bodies are so heavily charged 
 with electricity as to throw off unseen 
 rays, to be taken up and absorbed by other 
 bodies whose conditions are in sympathy 
 with their own. 
 
 Such was the case with Violet Champneys 
 and Julian Ferrand. The man was a very 
 electric battery to those whose nervous con- 
 ditions admitted his influence ; and whereas
 
 250 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WO:S\ 
 
 in the case of Freeman that influence 
 produced a sense of attraction only, and in 
 the case of many others a sense of aversion 
 only, so in Violet Champneys the attraction 
 and aversion were combined. Hence the 
 girl's mingled emotions of rapture and 
 terror when subjected to his influence ; 
 hence the feeling of intoxication that was 
 wont to overpower her senses in his close 
 proximity, and her shrinking repugnance to 
 him as soon as the spell was broken. 
 
 Few men were by nature so dangerous to 
 a woman's peace as Julian Ferrand. His 
 fierce, corsair-like air, the deep mellow tones 
 of his voice, the subtle, indefinable charm of 
 a manner which could at once imply protec- 
 tion, devotion, and an unrealized caress ; all 
 these qualifications made deep impression on 
 m.ost women whom it was his fortune 
 to meet, and not a few had suffered, 
 even where he had had no intent to wound. 
 But to a ffirl of Violet's tender vears and 
 susceptible temperament Ferrand was doubly 
 dangerous. It was not his towering stature, 
 nor his fierce beauty, nor his gigantic strength,
 
 violet's lovers — THE :millioxxatre. 2.51 
 
 that had cast a web of fascination over the 
 young girl's mind. These doubtless played 
 their part ; but it was his subtle power, the 
 nameless magnetic fascination that was 
 poured out upon her, that stole about Violet's 
 senses and embalmed her in its intoxicating 
 breath. 
 
 Had not her heart's fortress been so 
 strongly garrisoned, doubtless it would 
 have before now been stormed. But 
 love, first love, in all the pride and glory 
 of a first love's strength, had occupied that 
 fortress months ago ; and so despotic was 
 that first love's rule that even in his bodily 
 absence from his post his memory still held 
 sway. 
 
 Violet, when relieved by nightfall from 
 the determined siege, would gather courage 
 from this memory, the courage, maybe, of a 
 passionate desjDair, yet courage still ; and 
 would hug to her poor sad lieart such shreds 
 of hope as still were left her from the 
 happier past. Then the next day she 
 would hoist her little fluttering flag again, 
 in weary hope for succour in the siege ;
 
 252 LOVE ].OST, r,UT IlOXOUIi WON. 
 
 believing, agtiinst eyes and ears and brain, 
 that love would prove himself at last her 
 own true knight. 
 
 By Ferrand she felt, as it were, 
 enthralled ; life in liis presence seemed a 
 delirious dream. And often as she sat and 
 thought on it she prayed for love to come 
 and break the spell. 
 
 It was therefore with a feeling of absolute 
 relief that Violet Champneys found herself 
 strolling among the ruins of Bolton Abbey 
 with Mr. Brassingham. 
 
 Though she was unable to A^ew Mr. 
 Brassingham with the eyes of a passionate 
 love, yet, on the other hand, his devotion to 
 her did not inspire her with any disgust or 
 even aversion. On the contrary she loved 
 him, as her guardian, right well, and as 
 Charlie's father could have loved him even 
 more. She felt for him gratitude, respect, 
 admiration. He had given her food, slielter, 
 and a home. He had shown her consider- 
 ation first, and then an ardent love. She 
 knew nothing of his past life, except that he 
 had been most unhappy with his wife, and^
 
 violet's LOVEUS — THE :MILLIONXAmE. 258 
 
 as she had been told that Anne Brassingham 
 was her mother's counterpart, she was quite 
 ready to believe that the fault had been on 
 the wife's side. Up to the present time, 
 moreover, until Ferrand's fierce love-making 
 had forced Violet to probe her own heart to 
 its inmost core, the constancy of the father 
 had been daily j^laced in direct contrast with 
 the faithlessness of the son, and Violet, in 
 her pique at believing herself set aside and 
 slighted for '' that other woman," whom she 
 saw in her mind's eye, had thought, with 
 mischievous amusement even, of the day 
 when Charlie might be her step-son ; but 
 Ferrand's rough and persistent wooing had 
 torn away this flimsy veil of self-deception, 
 and, by forcing her to question her own 
 heart, had discovered to her the latent 
 depths of love for Charlie in that heart 
 which, till now, she had believed shallow 
 enough to be bridged over by a grateful 
 admii'ation for his father. 
 
 Violet, when roused, was capable of 
 determined action. The influence of 
 Ferrand's presence once removed, she had
 
 254 
 
 regained her accustomed mental balance, 
 and in tlic short time that had elapsed since 
 Imicheon she had formed very definite con- 
 clusions as to her future course of action. 
 To tell Mr. Brassingham that she stood in 
 daily terror of Julian Ferrand's influence 
 would, she felt, only occasion unpleasant- 
 ness of so decided a nature that the result 
 would be the immediate breaking-up of the 
 party assembled at the Wells ; and, at the 
 same time, the disclosure would in no way 
 assist the accom2)lishment of her scheme of 
 delay, which was so necessary to her plans ; 
 quite the reverse, for Mr. Brassingham 
 would doubtless, in his efforts to guard her 
 from the pernicious fascinations of Ferrand's 
 society, inflict his own uj^on her at all times 
 and seasons. 
 
 But she felt that the time w^as come 
 when she must make a clean l)reast of her 
 love for Charlie to Charlie's father, what- 
 ever the consequences of such confession 
 might be. Above all other resolves in her 
 mind was the one that slie would marry 
 nobody until — well, until all liope of
 
 violet's lovers THE MILLIONNAIRE. 255 
 
 Charlie was more utterly extinguislied in lier 
 breast than it had been up to now. 
 
 Mr. Brassingham was not long in coming 
 straight to his point. 
 
 *^ Violet," he said, as they wandered 
 through the ruined arches of the venerable 
 abbey, ' ' I have as purposely sought this 
 interview to-day as hitherto I have held 
 aloof. It is not fair to myself that I should 
 let all my hopes of happiness slip out of my 
 reach simply because I thought it due to 
 you not to press my suit too instantly upon 
 all that has just gone by." 
 
 Violet kept her eyes on the ground and 
 waited for Mr. Brassingham to proceed. 
 
 '^ I believe that I could make you happy," 
 continued Mr. Brassingham, '' in spite of 
 the difference in our years ; besides wealth 
 and position, you would have the boundless 
 devotion of a life that would live for vou 
 alone. Still, Violet, I would have you 
 marry me heccfuse you love me, and for that 
 only ; if there is any other with whom you 
 believe your life would be made more 2:)er- 
 fect than with me, speak now and speak
 
 256 LOVE LOST, r.UT HONOUR WON. 
 
 boldly, and by doing so save both yourself 
 and me a future lifetime of misunderstanding 
 and self-reproach." 
 
 She glanced up at him, nerving herself 
 to speak the truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth. Oh, how tenderly 
 the bold brown eyes were gazing into her 
 very soul ! how manly and resolute and 
 strons: he looked in his towerino' stature 
 and massive build, like some giant forest 
 tree among the saplings of its species that 
 were sheltered by its might ! 
 
 ^' Mr. Brassingham," she said, striving- 
 hard to be firm in her resolve not to fear 
 giving present pain, lest a life-long pain 
 should be the penalty, — '-Mr. Brassingham, 
 I have promised to marry you, and if, in a 
 month's time from now, there be no sutticient 
 cause for my refusing to fulfil my promise, I 
 will be your wife. But," she added, as she 
 moved aside to avoid his eager embrace, for 
 he would have gathered her to his breast, 
 ^^Dut it is fair and just to you to say now, 
 at this very moment, that if, in any way, 
 however strange, I should find I have been
 
 VIOLET S LOVERS THE MILLIOXNAIliE. 257 
 
 deceived, and that tlie change in my resolve 
 not to be your wife was in any way the 
 result of treachery, then, Mr. Brassingham, 
 I will never he your wife." 
 
 ''The result of treachery, Violet!" said 
 Mr. Brassingham, in amazement. '' Explain 
 yourself. What can you mean ? " 
 
 '^ I will explain myself, Mr. Brassingham," 
 she answered; ^'I ought to have done so 
 long ago. Forgive me if I pain you. It is 
 best for us both to suffer once than for 
 always. 
 
 '' From the first time Charlie and I met at 
 Brassingham Park, I was drawn towards 
 him, as lie has over and over again assured 
 me he was to me ; that he loved me was so 
 evident, that I took little heed of the precise 
 manner of his words ; to love him was so 
 easy, so natm-al, so unavoidable; there 
 seemed no reason in earth or heaven why 
 we should not love on for ever. Tlien at 
 length a letter reached me, an anonymous 
 letter, saying that I had been deceived, that 
 Charlie was in love with some woman in 
 one of the suburbs of London, but whether 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 he was married to her or not the writer did 
 not profess to know. The letter went on to 
 say that if I had the eourage to walk alone to 
 a certain spot on the road between Brentford 
 and Isleworth, ocular proof should l^e given 
 me of what the writer asserted. Mr. Bras- 
 singham, I loved Charlie with all my heart 
 and mind and strength, and my love gave 
 me the courage to accept this mysterious 
 proposal. At the j)l9.ce named a woman, 
 closely veiled, drove up in a close carriage. 
 She alighted, and we had some conversation 
 in which she insisted, as one of her condi- 
 tions, that I should accompany her blind- 
 fold, if I accompanied her at all. I 
 hesitated. I was frightened; but my nerves 
 were so strung up, and my life seemed Avorth 
 so little if my love were mine no longer, that 
 I yielded to the woman's persuasion." 
 
 ''What sort of person was she?" inter- 
 rupted Mr. Brassingham, as a glimmer of a 
 jDOssible solution to the mystery dawned on 
 his mind. 
 
 '^ She was short and stout, with fair hair 
 tinged with grey. I did not see her face.
 
 violet's lovers — THE MILLIONNAIRE. 259 
 
 Her voice was liarsli and lier pronunciation 
 not that of a lady; on her left hand was a 
 wedding-ring ; in age she could not have 
 been under tifty. I submitted to be blind- 
 folded. We drove for about half an hour, the 
 last part of the journey being made over grass. 
 Then w^e alighted. She led me, still blind- 
 folded, into a liouse. The handkerchief w^as 
 then removed, and I found myself in a small 
 snug parlour, much as one might expect to 
 find in a country farm-house, or a suburban 
 inn. There was nothing offensive about the 
 woman's manner — indeed, she was very 
 kind ; she tried to remove all causes for fear, 
 offered me tea, or milk, or wine, S23oke of 
 children of her own who had died many 
 years before, and at last said, somewhat 
 abruptly, still keeping her veil closely over 
 her face, — 
 
 '' ^ Now, Miss Chamj^neys, you will hardly 
 suspect me of being your rival in the affec- 
 tions of Mr. Charles Brassingham ? You do 
 not know who I am, and jDrobably you never 
 will know ; but I do not choose you, for 
 reasons of my own, to be made a fool of by
 
 260 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WOX. 
 
 the young gentleman in question. He is at 
 this moment in tliis house with the woman 
 whom lie loves. Seeing is believing. Fol- 
 low me and judge for yourself; hut wliat- 
 ever you see, keep silence.' 
 
 '' So saying, she led the way down a dimly- 
 lighted passage, and motioning me to tread 
 on tip-toe, entered a sort of gallery, like a 
 tiny organ-loft, across one end of which a 
 curtain of green baize was stretched on thin 
 brass rods. The curtain was old and worn, 
 and there were holes in it large enough for 
 me to see what was going on in the hall 
 below. 
 
 ^* This hall had all the appearance of having 
 been the entrance-hall of some baronial 
 residence. Doors led from it in all direc- 
 tions. It was lighted from above. The 
 walls were panelled with oak, darkened by 
 time, and smoked to a funereal blackness. 
 Its length was immense, and only at the 
 further end, away from where we stood con- 
 cealed, had there been any attempt made to 
 furnish it as a habitable apartment. Imme- 
 diately below me the floor was uncarpeted ;
 
 violet's lovers THE MILLIONNAIRE. 261 
 
 tlie walls were liung with prints of prize- 
 fighterSj sporting scenes, horses, and a few 
 coarse coloured pictures of dancing- women. 
 I noticed also foils and boxing-gloves lying 
 about, clubs and single-sticks such as one 
 might see in a gymnasium. But I hardly 
 thought of all this then, though the details 
 have become impressed upon me since by 
 constantly dwelling on the scene in my 
 mind's eye, for at the further end of the vast 
 hall I savv^ in the dim shadows of a deep 
 recess the figures of a man and a young girl. 
 The oirl was verv fair, cast in a lar^re 
 mould, a strong, fine woman, very simply 
 dressed. Her face was towards me, but the 
 room was so large, and the light so dim, 
 that I conceived no exact impression of her 
 features. Standing before her, leaning 
 against the side of the recess, I saw — your 
 son I His head was thrown back against 
 the dark oak panels, while he watched the 
 woman in silence from beneath his brows. 
 The light was dim, I know, and his full face 
 was not turned my way, but I could not be 
 mistaken, Mr. Brassingham. There were .
 
 262 LOVE LOST, ]JUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 the clustering brown curls, and the lieavy 
 brown moustache, and tlie same impatient 
 way of tossing back his head. It was his 
 figure, too, and even the tricks of movement 
 were tliose of the man I had known and 
 loved so well ! " 
 
 And here the memory of that scene, inten- 
 sified in little Violet's mind by incessant 
 repetition in her dreams, bore, in its crushing 
 misery, upon her with so fierce a wave that 
 she leaned against a ruined pillar at her side 
 and wept as though her heart would break. 
 
 '^My child, be comforted," said Mr. 
 Brassingham. ^' You should have told me all 
 this before, but what you saw exj)lains but 
 little of importance even now. A man may 
 gaze at a pretty woman with any amount of 
 rapture in his glance, and yet be as far from 
 marrying her as the poles are far apart. If 
 this was all you saw, be comforted." 
 
 ^^ It was not all," gasped Violet, tlirough 
 her sobs. ^^ It was not nearly all. He stood 
 there silent for some moments watching her, 
 w^aiting for some answer, evidently, to what 
 he had said before. Her hands were inter-
 
 violet's lovers — THE MILLIONNAIRE. 263 
 
 laced upon her lap, as she moved them 
 nervously up and down, and I could see her 
 bosom rise and fall with some extreme of 
 joy or pain, 1 knew not which. 
 
 '' ^ Well I ' he said presently, in that low, 
 deep voice that Charlie always has when he 
 is much moved — ^ well, have I given you my 
 heart in vain ? Come, Alice I the time is 
 past for jest. I must have my answer, — Yes 
 or No?' 
 
 ^^Andl heard her answer 'Yes'; and I 
 saw two great blue eyes look up to his, and 
 down again upon her trembling hands, and 
 I saw those hands unlaced and twined about 
 his neck, as he knelt close beside her and 
 joillowed his curly head upon her lap. Then 
 the woman who was with me took my hand 
 and led me back along the narrow passages 
 into the room in which we had first sat. 
 
 '^ ' Are vou satisfied ? ' she said. 
 
 '' ' Yes, I am satisfied,' was my reply. 
 
 " ' And now that you have seen with your 
 own eyes how greatly he loves another, you 
 will hardly let yourself be blinded by any 
 protestations he may make to you.'
 
 264 LOVE LOST, ]'>UT HONOUR WON. 
 
 ^' I said nothing ; but I suppose the look on 
 my face was a sufficient answer. I rose to 
 go ; I allowed myself to be again blindfolded, 
 and my guide, who had never for a moment 
 removed the thick veil she wore, escorted 
 me back to the spot where she had met me. 
 The handkerchief was taken from my eyes ; 
 I walked home as one in a dream, but 
 through it all I held to one fixed resolve — 
 never to see Charlie more, or, at any rate^ 
 never to listen to his vows of love. Then 
 you met me as I entered the Park gates. 
 My heart and my strength were alike S23ent 
 and dying. Life was over, for love was 
 dead ; but I wanted shelter and rest, and 
 such peace as the broken in heart may find. 
 You know the rest. It remains now for you 
 to say if you would wish to wed a woman 
 who has thus loved your son." 
 
 The great brown eyes looked tenderl}' 
 down into hers. His strong arms took her 
 to liis close embrace. 
 
 ^^ My poor unhappy little love, how can I 
 comfort you ? " was all he found to say in 
 words. But in his heart, tlie strong pro-
 
 ^^OLEt's lovers — THE MILLIONXAJEE. 265 
 
 tective love of middle age, tliat at once 
 tempers and intensifies the fiercer flame of 
 more intemperate ^^outh, burnt all the 
 steadier now that ho knew the truth. The 
 luxury of combat was great to all the 
 Brassinghams, and to John Brassingham, 
 perhaps, even more than to his children. 
 There are some natures so leonine in their 
 characteristics and proclivities, that contest, 
 especially in the ^elds of love, is an absolute 
 necessity of their beino\ On such natures 
 the charm of reciprocity is thrown away. 
 A languid aversion only fires them the more, 
 indrfiterence stimulates tlie flame, v\'hile at a 
 rival's interference every passion of their 
 temperament leaps into vitality and rages to 
 its quenching, either in lust or blood. 
 
 So was it witli John Brassingham. The 
 man came of a lion-like stock, of a race 
 that a couple of generations further back 
 had wielded the hammer in the blacksmith's 
 forge, and whose brawny might had been a 
 byword among their fellow- workers, who 
 were no feeble folk themselves; a race 
 fierce, brave, and combative, in whom the
 
 26G LOVE LOST, ]JUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 animal instincts had so preponderated as to 
 leave but little room for the growth of those 
 tender blossoms of sentiment and romance 
 which form so fragrant a chaj^let for the 
 brows of the artist and the poet. The 
 fruits of imagination found no storage in 
 the Brassingham brain; the results of cul- 
 tured leisure had no charms for it. The 
 very morality of the Brassinghams was but 
 a covenant between man and man — not 
 between man and God. Their code of law 
 was interhuman. So far as duty was a 
 reciprocal question between one nation and 
 another or one person and another, so far 
 they understood it, and so far, to the best of 
 their ability, they strove to act up to it. To 
 them the second of the two great command- 
 ments was all the law and the prophets, 
 while they left the first as a battle-ground 
 no one would care to occupy, and which 
 was to be taken too much as a matter of 
 course to require even the compliment of 
 reflection upon its meaning. 
 
 When to an inherited character of such a 
 type we add a physical vigour undermined
 
 violet's lovers- -the millioxxaire. 267 
 
 by no intemperance, we can begin to under- 
 stand the temj)er in which John Brassing- 
 ham received the assurance that he was not 
 beloved by the woman on whom he doted, 
 and that the man who stood between him 
 and the gratification of the strongest passion 
 it had ever been his fate to sutler was his 
 own hitherto well-loved son. 
 
 As long as the combative qualities of liis 
 nature had not been called into jDlay, Mr. 
 Brassingham had really and honestly believed 
 that he sought Violet's happiness even more 
 than his own in the marriaire he contem- 
 23lated between them. During the time 
 they had spent at the Yorkshire Wells, a 
 growing jealousy of Julian Ferrand had 
 certainly been springing up in his mind, but 
 
 this was now too utterlv allaved bv Violet's 
 
 .J ^ ^ 
 
 explicit avowal of her love for Charlie for 
 him to feel any uneasiness upon that score. 
 Jealous of his son, most jealous, Mr. Bras- 
 singham undoubtedly Avas — for it is in the 
 nature of every leonine Imman being to be 
 jealous wherever the passions are concerned — 
 but what chafed Mr. Brassingham most was
 
 268 LOVE LOST, BUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 tliat his own son should possibly prove his 
 successful rival ; for Charlie was by many 
 degrees nearer the beau ideal of an English 
 gentleman than his father, as that father was 
 many degrees in advance of the ironmaster 
 who had " married the business " and laid 
 the foundations of the family fortunes with 
 his employer's money and his own vigour 
 and brains. 
 
 Few things arc harder to bear among self- 
 made men than the growing superiority of 
 their cliildren to themselves ; es2:)ecially in 
 those cases where tlie want of birth and 
 breeding has been an acknowledged defi- 
 ciency in the family annals. John Bras- 
 singham's wife had contributed nothing to 
 the Brassingham escutcheon. The Flints 
 had been moneyed people, Anne Flint had 
 been the heiress of their Avealth, but they 
 were neither more nor less than wholesale 
 tradespeople, and the generation before them 
 had been too obscure even for tradition to 
 have passed down their occupation. But in 
 proportion as Mr. Brassingham was less 
 cultivated than his children, so he was more
 
 violet's L0VER8 — THE MILLIOXXAIRE. 269 
 
 combative — in short he possessed more of 
 the savage than his son ; and now that lie 
 found that son directly opposed to him in 
 the affections of Violet Champnejs, the 
 whole animal obstinacy and contentiousness 
 of the man came out into full prominence, 
 and he swore to himself, between his clenched 
 teeth, that, come what might, this girl should 
 be his wife. 
 
 If Charlie proved contumacious, why, 
 Cliarlie must be starved into compliance I 
 made to go about his business! cut off 
 with the traditional shillino- 1 disinherited ! 
 Thank the stars I the Brassinghams had 
 all been too radical in their opinions to 
 fetter themselves with anv laws of entail. 
 
 Thus Mr. Brassino^ham meditated fiercelv 
 to himself, but of his wrath he showed no 
 outward sign. Even though he was no 
 longer in his first youth, the prize was worth 
 the waiting for, and he would win it yet. 
 
 ^^ You cannot lead a maiden life, my 
 child, because love's vows have once proved 
 false," he said, as he held her slender figure 
 close to his colossal frame. ^^ Your fresh
 
 270 LOVE L08T, KUT HONOUR WON. 
 
 young life must not be allowed to wither 
 before its summer because the winds of early 
 spring have proved so keen ! Cheer up, my 
 Violet ! For your confidence I love you all 
 the more. Let the fatlier make up to you 
 all he can what you have suffered at the 
 hands of the son. I accept your proposal. 
 If in a month's time nothing fresh should 
 have occurred to restore your confidence in 
 your youthful lover, you sliall crown my 
 life by giving me yourself." 
 
 Then he led her back through the ruined 
 arches and the shattered shrines, by the 
 rugged masonry where peep out from every 
 chink the wall-fern and the black maiden- 
 hair, through glades of bracken and fox- 
 glove bells, through copse of larch and pine; 
 but all the glory of the autumn woods was 
 nought to her in her present frame of mind. 
 The sunshine had faded from her life, what 
 was it to her that it flooded nature around 
 her? She loved her idol Charlie, and yet 
 she had promised to be his father's wife. 
 
 Mr. Brassingham was determined, how- 
 ever, that tlie chain sliould not snap for lack
 
 violet's lovers — THE MILLIOXNAIRE. 271 
 
 of riveting. He had avowed his inten- 
 tion of making their engagement imme- 
 diately public, and it was with almost a 
 sense of shame and guilt that Violet 
 jDresented herself at the inn-door on tlie arm 
 of her affianced lord. 
 
 The sun was alreadv settino: behind the 
 jDine Avoods when Mr. Brassingham and 
 Violet arrived at the inn. Every one had 
 got home before them. Tea was nearly over^ 
 and their non-appearance had occasioned not 
 a little comment, so that when at last they 
 came all eyes were turned towards them, as 
 it seemed to poor Violet, with inquisitorial 
 meaning. 
 
 She was glad when the break w^as ready 
 and it was time to start. Nor was slie alone 
 in her desire to reach the Wells, and seek 
 some peace away from prying eyes and 
 laughing lips whose joyousness was mockery 
 to others' woes. 
 
 Theodora w^as silent and gloomy, bursting 
 out now and then into fitful merriment in 
 w^hich the ring of a false mirtli was discover- 
 able in a discordant undertone.
 
 272 LOVE LOST, lUJT HONOUR WON. 
 
 May, too, was silent, though from a 
 different cause. She was busy sipping the 
 nectar of love's young dream, a nectar 
 whose sweetness never cloys, whose elixir 
 glides through blood and brain with soft, 
 delirious delight and ever-rising hope. 
 
 The toil of the clay had told on Loftus, as 
 Agatha knew it must. He drooped in sickly 
 languor like some thirsty plant. His weary 
 eyes looked dark and sunken under their 
 cavernous brows ; the lines had deepened on 
 liis youthful face, and the mouth looked 
 drawn and hard. But now and then, when 
 his glance met Agatha's, her happy look of 
 encouragement and sympathy was feebly 
 answered by a dreary smile. Nor had she 
 hoped for more. She had seen too much of 
 the struggles against drink to underrate the 
 young fellow's valiant efforts for even tliis 
 single day. She knew his yearning thirst, 
 his aching mental void ; she could ahnost 
 feel the dry, parched tliroat, and the 
 agonizing unstringing of the nerves, that 
 she knew full well must be his portion for 
 the first few days; for had she nofc that
 
 violet's lovers THE MILLIONNAIRE. 273 
 
 highest of all high gifts — an illimitable 
 sympathy ! How could she help him bear 
 his trial ? How could she aid him to his 
 self-restraint. How feeble and weak she 
 felt to save one erring soul. But Agatha 
 took her hopes and fears to the Throne where 
 she always laid her burdens, thinking, 
 knowing, believing that from that Throne 
 there is no dismissal, and leaving them in 
 the hands of God. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BI E. J. FRANCIS AND CO. 
 
 TOOK'S COUKT AND WINE OFFICE COURT, E.G.
 
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