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 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES.
 
 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 BY 
 
 MES. ALEXANDER ERASER, 
 
 AUTHOE OF "faithless," ETC. 
 
 ' Omnia vincit Amor, 
 Et nos cedamus amori." 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 TIKSLEY BEOTHEES. 18, CATHEEINE STEEET, STEAKD. 
 1870. 
 
 [All Rights reservedJ]
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SATILL, IDWABDS AND CO., PEINTEHS, CHANDOS STREET, 
 
 COVENT GAEDEN.
 
 t£2 
 
 Y. I 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 5 
 
 OP 
 
 3 THE FIRST VOLU 
 
 ME. 
 
 |r0l0gut 
 
 ^ PAGE 
 
 PART I. '' THOSE WHOM GOD HATH JOINED 
 
 C TOGETHER^ LET NO MAN PUT 
 
 'I ASUNDER^^ 1 
 
 „ II. " TILL DEATH US DO PART^^ . . 24 
 
 „ III. FOILED ! FATHER 58 
 
 CHAPTER I, TWO HEARTS 84 
 
 jj II. OMNIA VINCIT AMOR . . . .111 

 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER III. ^^ IMPARADISED IN ONE AN- 
 OTHER'S arms'' . . . . 144 
 
 J, IV. '^ UNCERTAIN^ COY^ AND HARD 
 
 TO please" 165 
 
 ,j V. married ! 1 88 
 
 VI. parted ! 224
 
 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 u 
 
 ^ < THOSE WHOM GOD HATH JOIKED TOGETHER 
 
 LET KO MAN PUT ASUNDER." 
 
 HE morning of an autumnal 
 day. 
 Not in the bright and sunny 
 South, with a turquoise sky above, with 
 perpetual bloom to feast the eye, and 
 " odours from Paradise" in the soft lam- 
 bent air. 
 
 VOL. 1. J
 
 2 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 Nor amidst spreading ancestral trees, 
 standing in friendly clumps, wreathing 
 their giant forms and arms closely to- 
 gether ; nor amongst lovely flower-bounded 
 lanes and grassy dells, with the November 
 sunshine slanting athwart the branches 
 overhead, tinging all around with a deep 
 and golden gleam, turning the variegated 
 foliage of red and green and brown into 
 rich mellow burnished shades, that seem 
 all aglow and a-fire; falling upon sheaves 
 of yellow ripe-eared corn; kissing the 
 ruddy, luscious cheeks of the orchard fruit; 
 shedding its genial beams on the distant 
 undulating landscape, and deluding us into 
 the belief that the glorious summer is still 
 lingering with us, loth to leave the earth, 
 whom its presence makes so fair. 
 
 But an autumnal morning in London. 
 
 Bitter as the blasts of adversity : cold as
 
 the hard world's sympathy. No matter 
 where the eye looked, not a speck of blue 
 was discernible in the heavens; nothing 
 but big sullen banks of heavy opaque clouds, 
 with but a few sickly glimmers of sunlight 
 struggling through the misty haze, adding, 
 by their very unsuccessful efforts at eman- 
 cipation, a duller and greyer tint, if pos- 
 sible, to everything. Moisture was the 
 prevailing characteristic of the temperature. 
 Not honest rain-drops, pattering down 
 defiantly and boldly, but a sneaky, pitiful 
 sort of Scotch mist, more felt than seen, 
 exuding upon the irregular roof-tops, im- 
 parting a greasy appearance to the leads 
 and slates, turning the mire of the roadway 
 into a slushy liquid, resembling shoe- 
 blacking, trickling sluggishly down area 
 railings, and rendering the pavement phy- 
 sically dangerous. 
 
 1—2
 
 4 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 Very few pedestrians w^ere to be seen,, 
 however, voluntarily exposing themselves 
 to the cold and damp that were part and 
 parcel of the inclement weather; and 
 the few that icere visible consisted chiefly of 
 that class stigmatized very justly as the 
 " great unwashed :" coal-heavers, sweeps 
 with ebon physiognomies, navvies, and such 
 like, were loafing about, all more or less 
 with grimy, ill-looking visages, and re- 
 markably unpleasant exteriors. 
 
 The dwellings on either side of the street 
 bore upon them a corresponding stamp; 
 consisting of poverty-stricken houses, with 
 a patch of black clay in front, enclosed by 
 dilapidated railings, and of which " chick- 
 weed" was the sole produce and adorn- 
 ment. 
 
 The locality in question was, in fact, one 
 of the lowest and most disreputable suburbs.
 
 WHOM GOD HATH JOINED. 
 
 of the metropolis. A dangerous quarter, 
 especially at dusk, within which poverty 
 and crime herded familiarly together, and 
 huddled closely and lovingly wdth squalor 
 and rags, rearing their Hydra heads an- 
 tagonistically against all that savoured of 
 affluence or respectability; a quarter in- 
 fested wdth noisome human vermin, in the 
 shape of night-birds, pickpockets, and out- 
 casts ; and owning, as its chief aristocracy, 
 unshorn, unkempt Hebrews, itinerant 
 vendors of periwinkles and cowheel; cats'- 
 meat men, and elderly females with for- 
 midable biceps and weather-battered faces, 
 ilili gently guarding their apple- stalls 
 against the impudent depredations of 
 myriads of street arabs, the incorrigible 
 " gamins" that sloped in dozens about the 
 place, in a perpetual state of revolutionism, 
 crying, una voce, ^^ Liberie] Egalite, Frater-
 
 6 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 7iite!'' or collected in noisy belligerent 
 masses on the adjacent door-steps. 
 
 Now and then, even at that early hour 
 of the day, for it was barely 9 a.m., out 
 of the half-ajar door of a gin palace reeled 
 the form of some woman, with dishevelled 
 hair and torn garments, and strong pugi- 
 listic tendencies visibly swelling in her 
 breast, judging from the pugnacious glances 
 she gave each passing individual, with a 
 defiant imbecility in her look. Within the 
 precincts of the " publics" glimpses of red 
 could be caught, adorning the backs of the 
 gallant defenders of our country, zealously 
 performing their matutinal devotions to 
 the Bacchanalian Deity. But, notwith- 
 standing all the uninviting sights and 
 sounds, and salient objections to the spot, 
 the suburb yet boasted, in company with 
 higher and sweller quarters^ refuges for
 
 " WHOM GOD HATH JOINED." 
 
 the sick, the vicious, the homeless, and the 
 devotee. 
 
 It possessed its exact and proper 
 quantum of hospitals, penitentiaries, re- 
 formatories, workhouses, police stations,, 
 and, above all other boons, a great big 
 church — a church presenting no claim 
 to any sort of architectural beauty, but 
 standing out square and solid, and having 
 as its sole ornament a painted window, 
 whose subject was the parable of the 
 " Good Samaritan," about the most appro- 
 priate device it could have had, considering 
 the evil locality on which it looked. 
 Through the richly-stained panes, the day- 
 light shone in dimly, leaving in almost 
 undistinguishable gloom, the lengthy aisles 
 and the surrounding pews. A few w^axen 
 tapers faintly lit up the altar, the silver 
 hair and white surplice of its officiat-
 
 8 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 ing minister, and the rusty garments of 
 the assisting clerk, and showed, sharply- 
 defined against the pervading darkness of 
 the body of the large building, a group of 
 four persons standing before the altar rails. 
 
 The responses were firmly uttered by 
 the two principal actors in the scene, and 
 the clergyman's solemn voice fell im- 
 pressively and distinctly on the silent 
 church : 
 
 " Those whom God hath joined together 
 let no man put asunder." 
 
 Then came, in due course, the final 
 blessing concluding the rites that bound 
 indissolubly together two human beings, 
 until death, ruthless, omnipotent, should 
 come to divide them. The names of the 
 wedded couple were duly registered, the 
 customary fees bestowed, and ''Mark 
 Leslie," as he had just subscribed himself,
 
 " WHOM GOD HATH JOINED." 9 
 
 clasped his bride passionately in his arms, 
 and whispered loving words into her ear ; 
 then saying, audibly, "At ten to-night, 
 Lucy," he hurriedly traversed the aisle, 
 and gaining the door was speedily lost to 
 view. Meanwhile the trio that he had left 
 behind him pursued their way more 
 slowly, in an opposite direction to the one 
 he had taken. 
 
 A strange looking bridal party it was ! 
 not only curious from the peculiarity of 
 its proceedings, but from its incongruous 
 appearance; there was an amount of in- 
 congruity about it, in fact, that could not 
 have failed to attract observation from the 
 most indifferent and casual witness; but 
 the principal " looker on" had been the 
 minister, an aged man, wearily overworked 
 in this densely crowded parish, that was 
 rife with every species of vice, and requir-
 
 10 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 ing for its amelioration infinite supervision^ 
 spiritual ministration and the utmost 
 zealous attention. 
 
 A good old plodding man, labouring 
 always indefatigably in the service of the 
 Great Master, and unselfishly and unmur- 
 muringly sacrificing every material comfort 
 to the one desire and hope of his true 
 Christianly life, that of furthering, to the 
 utmost of his humble but honest ability, 
 the welfare of immortal souls. He had 
 long ago " renounced the devil and all his 
 w^orks, the pomps and vanities of a wicked 
 world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh,'* 
 for a pure life of devotion to Heaven and 
 his sufi'ering fellow creatures : he was a holy 
 man and no Pharisee ; thoroughly simple ; 
 somewhat obtuse, perhaps ; and no scruti- 
 nizer or meddler into things that concerned 
 him not.
 
 "whom god hath joined." 11 
 
 The bridegroom was a mere stripling, 
 over whose head not more than nineteen 
 summers at most could have rolled their 
 course, judging from the slight boyishness 
 of his tall, lithe figure, and the clear fresh- 
 ness of colouring that belongs especially 
 to extreme youth. He bore upon him an 
 unmistakeable impress of patrician breeding 
 in the wonderful delicacy of his chiselled 
 features, and the refinement that distin- 
 guished his tout ensemble. 
 
 The bride was his complete anti- 
 thesis. 
 
 In spite of the halo of romance and 
 interest that might have naturally been 
 inspired in a beholder by the pure white 
 dress, and symbolical orange-blossoms that 
 shone above her braids, and that enhanced 
 her attractions, and "elevated" her ap- 
 pearance as much as art could do, "pie-
 
 12 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 beianism" stamped her undeniably for its 
 own. And yet she could boast of a cer- 
 tain gorgeousness of beauty that many a 
 fair aristocrat w^ould have envied, and been 
 willing to barter some of her sang azul 
 for. A beauty that was almost too bright 
 and blooming and bewildering, in fact, in 
 its tints and sensuousness; resplendent in 
 a warm " morbidezza" of colour and ruddy 
 wealths of hair, gleaming bronze in the 
 sunlight ; almond - shaped " love-darting " 
 eyes, like those of an Eastern houri, but 
 of a deep dark grey, thickly fringed on 
 upper and lower lid by black curling 
 lashes, and with green peculiar corusca- 
 tions glancing rapidly every now and then 
 across the large pupils; full "vermeil- 
 tinctured" lips, beautifully curved and 
 slightly drooping at the corners; a com- 
 plexion that presented an exquisite mix-
 
 "whom god hath joined." 13 
 
 ture of snow wdtli Provence roses, save 
 where a few freckles tanned the fair face, 
 and marked a little strongly the formation 
 of the cheek-bones, that were too promi- 
 nent for preserving the exact lines of the 
 oval countenance, and w^hich denoted her 
 north-country origin. 
 
 She had a well-developed form, too, in- 
 clining to massiveness about the white 
 throat and shoulders. Her hands, though 
 tightly compressed in gloves, showed mas- 
 culine dimensions; and her feet, in their 
 new bronze chaussure, displayed far greater 
 utility for exercise than Cendrillon pro- 
 portions. . 
 
 Her voice, and her constantly recurring 
 lau£fh, as she conversed with her com- 
 panions, sounded loud and rather discor- 
 dant; and her accents Avould have grated 
 on, and irritated any delicately-sensitive
 
 14 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 ear, whilst there was a something inde- 
 finable — a little " uncanny " perhaps, as 
 the Scotch have it — in the broad smiles 
 that parted her full lips, giving to view 
 a set of large, strong, but very white 
 teeth. 
 
 Her male attendant was habited in 
 rather a peculiar and original fashion 
 for a ceremonial of matrimony. A shabby 
 claret- coloured coat, profusely adorned by 
 big brass buttons, which had evidently 
 been intended primarily for an individual 
 double his size, and wdiich must have been 
 an investment from a slop-shop, where it 
 had probably been left in pledge by an 
 indigent flunkey, hung in loose unseemly 
 folds upon his slim, figure, wiry as a ter- 
 rier's. An almost napless hat, Avith a 
 broad brim that was funnily erratic here 
 and there, was drawn closely down over
 
 "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED." 15 
 
 his deeply-wrinkled forehead, and a dingy 
 woollen comforter, or cache nez^ enveloped 
 three or four times his lean and sallow 
 neck, and concealed almost the whole of 
 the lower portion of his physiognomy. 
 What could be seen of his visage was 
 unprepossessing to the highest degree, 
 leaving no desire for further investigation 
 of his features. Slyness and cunning 
 twinkled in the eyes that age, or a per- 
 petual state of intoxication, had divested 
 of any pristine colour, leaving an ugly 
 opaqueness about the ball, and a bleary 
 and neutral tint about the pupils, in which, 
 however, a close observer might have de- 
 tected the same greenish lights now and 
 then, as were discernible in the wondrous 
 orbs of his daughter. 
 
 But with this one strange resemblance 
 about the eyes, all imaginable likeness
 
 16 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 ceased entirely between them. He was 
 as repulsive and ill-looking a specimen of 
 the human race as she was the reverse. 
 
 The woman who formed the trio, and 
 whom the bride sometimes designated as 
 " Granny," appeared to be a sort of 
 dummy or nonentity. She wore an ap- 
 pearance of dotage, but a dotage that was 
 repellant to look upon, instead of present- 
 ing an aspect of childishness or helpless- 
 ness. As she hobbled along with difficulty, 
 endeavouring to keep pace with the others, 
 her head and hands seemed affected with 
 a slight tremulous movement, suggestive 
 of palsy, or an overdue affection for strong 
 waters, like her son. Her eyes had a 
 vacant wandering turn ; and her thin lips, 
 tightly compressed together from paucity 
 of teeth, showed a curious rapprochement of 
 the olfactory organ with her pointed chin.
 
 ''whom god hath joined." 17 
 
 Walking leisurely along, the bride care- 
 fully guarding her wedding garments from 
 speck or soil, the trio at length turned 
 into a low public-house, over Avhich huno; 
 a flauntino; sio^nboard, inscribed in husre 
 yellow letters, 
 
 " The Lion and the Mouse." 
 
 Above these w^ords there appeared in 
 •coarse vivid tints an illustrative desio:n of 
 the same, representing a small and meek- 
 looking animal of a purely imaginative 
 species, writhing wdthin the paw of a 
 larger one, equally puzzling in definition, 
 and in the portrayal of which conflict 
 some amateur limner had evidently essayed 
 to give to the w^orld at large, a mild and 
 remarkably original specimen of his un- 
 •cultured talents. 
 
 The party on entering seated them- 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 18 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 selves, and the claret-clad man vociferated 
 loudly for refreshment. 
 
 "A pint of bitter," he called out, im- 
 patiently, to the '' buxom party," who wa& 
 busy as a bee amongst the shoals of 
 drones who buzzed round the bar, over 
 the foaming tankards of creamy porter and 
 ale. ' 
 
 ''Look sharp, girl!" he reiterated. "I 
 am as dry as a bone after my morning's 
 work; and a fine morning's work it ha& 
 been too!" he chuckled, rubbing his 
 meagre hands together, and winking slyly 
 at his daughter as he emptied the draught 
 at one pull. 
 
 " This is poor stuff to wet one's throat 
 with on such an occasion. Ain't you 
 going to stand nothing, Lucy? I saw 
 the fine gent slip some yellow shiners into 
 your hand on leaving you. Fork 'em out,
 
 "whom god hath joiked." 19 
 
 lass, and don't be close-fisted! Why, 
 damme, you must be liberal, like a real 
 lady, now that you are one !" 
 
 " Of course you saw the gold, Father ! 
 Sure their glitter wasn't likely to escape 
 your eyes! But my money is my own, 
 and if I have married a ' fine gent ' to 
 become a fine lady, it concerns only myself. 
 It wont go far towards making you re- 
 spectable — or honest even, I am afraid ! I 
 am not a going to be bullied, I'll swear !" 
 she added, in a dogged, sulky tone, while 
 the grey eyes flashed up greenly, and the 
 large white teeth were determinedly set 
 together. 
 
 " However, I don't wish a row to-day. 
 Father, so call for what you want and I'll 
 pay. Let us have gin, ' neat — what 
 Granny likes, you know — and well drink 
 Mr. Mark Leslie's health in it. Such a 
 
 2—3
 
 20 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 nice, sweet spoken gentleman as lie is, and 
 so good at book learning; but for all that 
 I am the cleverer of the two, I'll warrant !'* 
 and she laughed loudly. 
 
 "And when is he coming for you? I 
 am not near, as I knows of, in my ways; 
 but I am a very poor man, working hard to 
 get my daily bread, and hardly managing 
 to keep myself in victuals at all," the old 
 hypocrite whimpered out querulously, 
 trying to force up a tear into his eyes, and 
 entirely forgetting that his two companions 
 were up to his tricks and shams. 
 
 " It is a shame if I am to keep you any 
 longer; but you'll give me somethink a 
 week, wont you, dear ?" he coaxed in a 
 wheedling voice, with avarice shining out 
 of every feature of his face. 
 
 He was a man that could hardly have 
 resisted selling his soul for the sum of
 
 "whom god hath joined.'' 21 
 
 half-a-crown, if the would-be purchaser 
 had held out the coin glitteringly and 
 temptingly before him. Avariciousness 
 and cunning were the component parts of 
 his character. The avariciousness of a 
 Jew^, the " cunning which is the usual sub- 
 stitute that the really low and uneducated 
 classes have for wisdom." 
 
 "A small matter of ten bob a week, 
 Lu ; a trifle, considering that you are that 
 particular in your eating, turning up your 
 nose at good meat, and fancying shrimps 
 and cresses, and such like. No; I don't 
 think I am asking too much — I don't 
 indeed!" 
 
 "Well, well. Father, I'll see about it; 
 make your mind easy, and don't go a 
 w^himpering and a fretting like an old 
 woman. Why, even Granny isn't so stupid. 
 Be a man and you'll earn something; but
 
 22 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 you will always be a begging of others if 
 you go on sbilly-slially, doing nothing but 
 drink, drink ! And now listen to me : 
 Mind YOU have somethino; decent for 
 supper to-night, for Robert is coming." 
 
 "Robert — Robert Minton! Are you 
 gone crazy, girl? Do you forget already 
 that this is your marriage-day? For 
 shame, to see your old sweetheart when 
 you should have thoughts for your husband 
 only!" 
 
 " Just hold your tongue, will you !" she 
 snapped out so sharply and angrily that 
 the man settled into silence at once. 
 "Husbands be hanged, I say! Nothing 
 nor nobody will ever come between Robert 
 and me! Do you think, you foolish old 
 man, that I care a rush for the whey-faced 
 boy that has married me for my pretty 
 looks? Come along, do, and don't stop
 
 " WHOM GOD HATH JOINED." 23 
 
 chattering liere about things that you un- 
 derstand nothing about; and if you do, 
 they don't concern you. Why, Father!'* 
 and she burst into a hoarse merriment as 
 she looked him impudently and jeeringly 
 in the face, " I am sure the world must be 
 coming to an end, when you^ above all 
 people, try and come the respectable and 
 virtuous dodo^e!"
 
 PART II. . 
 
 "till death us do paet." 
 
 " For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honey- 
 comb, and her mouth is smoother than oil, but her 
 end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged 
 sword." — Froverhs of Solomon. 
 
 HE autumnal afternoon fully 
 realized the dark promise of 
 tlie morning, and afforded but 
 a dreary look out to the occupants of a row 
 of small-sized houses that presented a 
 I'a^ade that was all vulgar stucco and 
 bright green railings. 
 
 They lay in an out-of-the-way and un-
 
 "till death us do part." 25 
 
 fashionable locality, somewhere in the 
 vicinity of the New Road, and rejoiced m 
 the mellifluous sounding appellation of 
 " Mandeville Terrace," to which address 
 the more aspiring of their proprietors 
 affixed the imposing addition of '^ York 
 Gate." 
 
 At No. 8, with his face closely pressed 
 up against the small square window-pane, 
 stood an old gentleman of some three score 
 years and ten; and whilst he stood there 
 as immovable as though he were a statue, 
 or in a photographic pose^ it could be seen 
 at a glance that he was both aristocratic 
 and pleasant looking in his green old. age, 
 owning a pair of mild blue eyes, full of 
 serenity, and a face replete with goodness ; 
 with a fine expanse of brow that Lavater 
 would have rejoiced in, and a mouth rife 
 with an expression of amiability. He was
 
 2d NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 apparently the sole and undisputed oc- 
 cupant of the diminutive and somewhat 
 dingy parlour to which the w^lndow apper- 
 tained. His wife had been laid in the 
 churchyard that was many a hundred mile 
 distant from the metropolis, some dozen 
 years and more, but he had remained in 
 solitary blessedness, mostly for the sake of 
 the all-absorbing affection he had for an 
 only son, and partly from the fact that no 
 " damsel withering on the stalk" had been 
 thrown in his path possessing sufficient 
 attraction, either personally or mentally, to 
 induce him to launch the barque of life a 
 second time on the ordinarily stormy waves 
 of the matrimonial ocean. 
 
 It was, however, no evil or unfortunate 
 experience of marriage that had deterred 
 him from reassuming the Benedict's yoke, 
 for the dead partner of his bosom had been
 
 "till death us do part." 27 
 
 a pattern woman, a model to the femi- 
 nine sex; a sensible, thrifty housewife, full 
 of domestic virtues, rigid principles, and a 
 fund of inexhaustible good temper, al- 
 though she was perhaps somewhat humdrum 
 in her ways, and sometimes provokingly 
 wearisome in her clockwork punctuality 
 and unflagging attention to the petty 
 diurnal duties of homely life. 
 
 She was, however, a woman who could 
 scarcely have failed in her endeavours to 
 render any man happy, or what would be 
 a more appropriate term, " comfortable," 
 provided always that she had been allowed 
 to insure comfort to him in her own 
 commonplace, matter-of-fact fashion, and 
 provided also that he was of the genus 
 homo who are not too exigeant in dispo- 
 sition, inclined to cavil querulously at 
 fidgety trivialities, and requiring some-
 
 28 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 thing a little sparkling and spirituelle in 
 the daily companion of their days. 
 
 The poor deceased lady had had the 
 tincommon luck in this world, where mar- 
 riage is often the antipodes of Heaven, to 
 pitch upon just the right man to suit her^ 
 out of a host of aspirants to her favour, or 
 to the beaux yeux de sa cassette^ for she had 
 been a spinster of independent means, with 
 sufficient in the funds to make her an 
 heiress in a small way. 
 
 She had sensibly selected the worthiest 
 of her suitors, having, with the judgment 
 of an experienced lapidary, discovered the 
 real '' Jew's eye" amidst the meretricious 
 mass of paste offered to her acceptance^ 
 and she never regretted her choice, for her 
 chosen spouse proved to be lenient to her 
 shortcomings on the score of accomplish- 
 ments, requiring only the qualities essential
 
 29 
 
 to forming a true gentlewoman; and the 
 pair glided on smoothly and glibly enough 
 in connubial harness, never " kicking over 
 the traces/' until it pleased Providence to 
 sever them. 
 
 After she had left his side for ever, 
 instead of rushing with avidity into the 
 pleasures of new-found freedom, and 
 bachelor licence, he would stay at home, 
 and catch himself recalling with emotion 
 the plurality of virtues the lamented defunct 
 liad possessed, and would find himself, from 
 force of habit, occasionally listening for the 
 well-known clicking of her knitting-needles 
 — knitting having been an occupation in 
 which she had delighted during her life- 
 time. He missed the queries, reiterated 
 each evening with little or no variance in 
 their mode of fashioning, as to the welfare 
 of his cattle, the sanitary condition and
 
 30 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 growth of his potato and turnip crops, the 
 flourishing state of his mangel-wurzel, the 
 foaling of his mares, and the success of 
 any new-fangled patents, in the shape of 
 churns and other domestic utilities. 
 
 For the lodger at No. 8, Mandeville 
 Terrace, had, in the halcyon times gone 
 by, been what is termed a gentleman- 
 farmer, not exactly opulent, but decidedly 
 well-to-do in the world. He had ventured 
 upon the stream of speculation, not rashly 
 and thoughtlessly, but quietly, with pru- 
 dence presiding at the helm ; and specula- 
 tion had turned out favourably, allowing 
 him to indulge to a moderate extent in 
 a long-standing hobby he had had for 
 agricultural pursuits. 
 
 Beechwood Grange was the name of the 
 old place, half house, half cottage ornee, in 
 which he had first seen the light, and
 
 "till death tjs do part." 31 
 
 to which he had taken his bride, and it 
 was a spot to be justly proud of — a gem 
 of prettiness, though its beauties were of 
 a microscopical nature; but although the 
 whole thing was tiny and slightly dollish, 
 it was wonderfully well kept outwardly, 
 and the interior arrangements corre- 
 sponded in comfort. 
 
 The house rejoiced in a small model 
 farm, replete with all the modern inven- 
 tions of the Eastern and Western hemi- 
 spheres. Some that were as mysterious 
 in principle as they were useless in trial; 
 and others that worked admirably, saving 
 an immensity of time, expense, and manual 
 labour. 
 
 The grounds were more shrubbed than 
 wooded; but from them could be easily 
 discerned, on a fine day, by the naked eye, 
 the outline of the lovely Malvern Hills
 
 32 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 rearing themselves against the clear bright 
 sky. 
 
 A shallow streamlet ran purling through 
 the extremity of the grounds, and across it 
 oaks, elms, and other forest trees, but all 
 more or less saplings, waved their arms 
 and nodded their heads familiarly to each 
 other, in acknowledgment of each revivify- 
 ing breeze. Down in the depths of the 
 water any disciple of Izaac Walton would 
 have found himself amply rewarded for 
 his trouble, by heavy hauls of the smaller 
 species of the finny tribe. 
 
 A rough and rustic boat-house was 
 erected at one end of the fairy bank, 
 and a miniature craft, fit for the " Lady 
 of the Lake," was moored close by. 
 
 In winter time, Avhen the young trees 
 that nodded and waved, grew leafless and 
 gaunt-armed, casting queer shadows upon
 
 33 
 
 the water — when depths and depths of 
 white snow laid far out of sight all the 
 exquisite floral ornaments of Mother Earth 
 — when the hoar frost hung on each shrub 
 like diamonds, and gave with a sharp 
 crackle under the human footfall — when 
 the temperature set in due north from the 
 Arctic regions, as it were — then great fires 
 blazed cheerily away, and Beechwood 
 Grange '' within " became lively ^vith 
 guests and Christmas festivities, and each 
 comfortable nook and corner were reso- 
 nant with ringing voices and merry 
 laughter. 
 
 But all this was now long gone by. 
 
 The light of other days had faded; the 
 tide of fortune had flowed in once plen- 
 teously, but had ebbed away again. 
 
 The gigantic " Steadfast " Bank sud- 
 denly stopped payment, and whilst some 
 
 VOL. T. 3
 
 34 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 few were heavy losers by the crash, hun- 
 dreds were irretrievably ruined. 
 
 Amongst the former category, however, 
 the Squire of Beechwood fortunately 
 ranked. 
 
 Almost in the twinkling of an eye, how- 
 ever, he had turned from downright pros- 
 perity, if not into absolute poverty, at 
 any rate into a state bearing, in com- 
 parison with his former life, a close 
 resemblance to it. Still he had escaped 
 with a small sum, sufficient to keep his 
 head out of the water that had com- 
 pletely engulphed scores of his fellow 
 sufferers. 
 
 Just twelve months after his wife's 
 death, the house in which she had drawn 
 her last breath was, with all its costly 
 adjuncts, sold to the highest bidder ; and 
 the widower, with a strangely wistful
 
 " TILL DEATH US DO PART." 35 
 
 look in his poor eyes, and a quiver upon 
 his lip, bade a mournful farewell to the 
 pleasant scenes that had known him in 
 more prosperous hours, and, accompanied 
 by his son, located himself in the dwelling 
 where we find him. 
 
 To a discontented and rebellious spirit, 
 painful and irritating to excess would 
 have been the wonderful contrast between 
 the old life and the new one — between 
 the well-remembered sunny aspect of the 
 Grange, with all its elegances and super- 
 fluities, and the miserable poky domicile 
 that had everything so essentially vulgar 
 and cockneyfied about it, with an aggra- 
 vating apology for a garden in a few feet 
 of London mud, stuck over primly and 
 formally in staring semi -circles and 
 straight lines, with half a dozen sickly, 
 insipid Sweet- Williams, some atrociously 
 
 8—3
 
 36 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 odoriferous Marigolds, and one or two 
 flaunting Hollyhocks defiantly parading 
 their garish hues on high. 
 
 But the poor old gentleman possessed 
 the attributes of the "noble army of 
 martyrs" — patience and resignation to God's 
 will were his chief characteristics. He had 
 never been of a grumbling or mutinous 
 turn, but rather of a religious disposition, 
 and now he bowed himself meekly and 
 uncomplainingly to the state of life to 
 w^hich Heaven had called him. 
 
 In the midst of his terribly statu-quo 
 existence, he found, faute de niieux^ a mild 
 sort of excitement and gratification in tend- 
 ing and doctoring with infinite care the 
 few unhealthy specimens of floriculture 
 that struggled on for life within his circum- 
 scribed parterre, and he felt an enlivenment 
 during the solitary hours which his son's
 
 "till death us do part." 37 
 
 absence in the City entailed upon hiin, in 
 the puny and rather spasmodical chirp of a 
 pale, fluffy canary that perpetually molted 
 in a bright brass cage near the window. 
 
 On the particular afternoon in question,, 
 his son's absence had evidently been pro- 
 longed beyond the customary hour, judging 
 by the quick searching glances that the 
 mild blue eyes shot out into the dark 
 prospect, as they peered just above the 
 Avire blind, as though in quest of some one. 
 
 At length hurried footsteps resounded 
 on the narrow pavement, and nodding 
 pleasantly to his father, the absentee 
 entered the house. 
 
 " You are late, my boy ! I have been 
 watching for you, fearing something un- 
 usual must have occurred to detain you 
 so much beyond your time. What delayed 
 you.'^
 
 38 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 A third party, had one been present, 
 could scarcely have failed in noticing a 
 vivid accession of colour that flamed up 
 into the truant's cheek, as the question was 
 put, although it was easy to perceive that 
 there had been no ulterior motive in its 
 asking, and that it scarcely even enforced a 
 reply, for now that his son had returned 
 safe and sound in limb, the old gentleman 
 was experiencing no feeling in his mind 
 but one of perfect contentment, and whilst 
 he spoke he was occupied in leisurely draw- 
 ing a WTapper over the brass birdcage, to 
 insure comfort and cosiness to his feathered 
 companion during his night's siesta. 
 
 '• Very sorry to be so late. Father, but I 
 had a little surplus work to get through 
 to-day. Have you been alone all the time ?" 
 
 " No, your uncle Gresham called and 
 sat with me over an hour. By-the-bye,
 
 you know that girl whom you picked up 
 insensible after her fall out of the cart ?" 
 
 " Yes ! Father; ivhat of her?" was asked, 
 breathlessly. 
 
 " I fancied from your description of her, 
 that she was too superior a person to be 
 left to such worthless surroundings as you 
 represented her people to be. Now, 
 though I have not much, yet, God be 
 thanked ! I have still enough money left, to 
 do good in a small way. And thinking 
 your uncle a shrewd sensible fellow, I 
 commissioned him to make inquiries, deter- 
 mining to find some lady friend who would 
 take the girl into service, or get her em- 
 ployed some way, to keep her out of harm; 
 provided, of course, that the report was satis- 
 factory ; to-day he brought me the result 
 of his investigations, and from the very 
 reliable sources from whence he derived his
 
 40 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 information, I am inclined to think his- 
 account a correct one." 
 
 " Well, Father !" And the young fellow's 
 eye lit up with the prospect of hearing 
 that the being he so passionately loved was 
 simply perfection — a modern Griselda, in 
 fact — brimming over with every imaginable 
 virtue, and, for the very first time in his 
 life, an undutiful impatience rose up in his 
 breast at " the dear old governor's habitua 
 prosiness.'^ 
 
 ^' Gresham says, she is lovely, but worth- 
 less ! It appears that she earns a trifling 
 stipend as a serio-comic vocalist at one of 
 the minor and most disreputable music 
 halls in Islington, * The Aspasian Pa- 
 vilion;' and all her gains are spent on a 
 great lazy rascal, who ought to have 
 married her long ago to have made an 
 honest woman of her. Your uncle saw
 
 " TILL DEATH US DO PART." 41 
 
 him by chance, and describes him as a 
 showy, bold style of fellow, with a heavy 
 beard. The other inmates of the house 
 where the Wellands lodge, assert that the 
 man and the girl have been together, off 
 and on, for a couple of years. Have you 
 ever seen him?" 
 
 "Yes, Father; I really don't know," 
 stammered the boy, incoherently. 
 
 " A showy man, with a heavy beard — the 
 same, my God! in whose arms I caught 
 her but two days ago, and she swore to me 
 that he was her brother!" he murmured 
 to himself, with cold beads of perspiration 
 starting on his brow, and his cheek of an 
 ashen hue. 
 
 A blow from a feather would have 
 knocked him down as he tried to stand 
 up and walk a few steps, but was forced to 
 relinquish the attempt from sheer inability
 
 42 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 to steady his trembling limbs; neither 
 could he venture to articulate when the 
 words seemed to be gurgling and dying 
 away in his throat. 
 
 By this time the old gentleman having 
 arranged the covering of the cage satisfac- 
 torily to himself, had hung it up, then re- 
 adjusting his spectacles, he prepared to seat 
 himself for his evening repast. Turning, 
 he noted at a glance the strange drawn 
 look of utter misery that was visible on 
 every feature of the face he loved. 
 
 At once paternal anxiety roused up visions 
 of illness ! danger of all kinds threatening 
 the object so dear to him, the only object 
 for whose sake he prayed Heaven daily 
 and nightly to spin out a little longer the 
 span of his own existence — loomed before 
 his alarmed imagination, and made him ex- 
 claim, in nervous accent —
 
 "till death us do part." 43 
 
 '^Wliat is the matter! Are you 
 ill?" 
 
 "Nothing, sir; nothing!" But the words 
 fell slowly and with some difficulty, and 
 the languid tone gave a direct denial to his 
 assertion. 
 
 " Over tired ; or the weather, perhaps ! 
 Do not alarm yourself so, Father. I'll go 
 upstairs and lie down quietly a bit, and 
 shall soon be myself again !" he added, 
 calling up a ghost of a smile to his lip, and 
 then dragging himself wearily up the stairs, 
 he reached his room, and, locking the door, 
 flung himself down to think. 
 
 "To think!" a sad and dreary task at 
 best, when "thoughts" in this world of woe 
 so much oftener wear for ns a painful and 
 ofttimes even an unbearable aspect, than a 
 pleasant one. 
 
 The bov tried to call his bewildered
 
 44 KOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 thoughts together, that he might reflect on 
 the course of action he should pursue ; 
 but in that moment of rough and rude 
 awakening from his most delicious dream, 
 revenge the fiercest upon her, hatred the 
 most implacable towards his rival, were 
 the two turbulent passions that tilled his 
 breast, and yet "he that studieth revenge 
 keepeth his own wounds green," and he 
 felt that w^hat he wanted most of all in 
 his first hour of desolation, was balm to 
 heal his stricken soul, not caustic to irritate 
 his wounds. 
 
 He knew full well that all his hopes were 
 bhghted almost ere they had blossomed ; 
 that the flowers of his life were scattered 
 away ruthlessly, before his hand had 
 thoroughly grasped them ; that all faith in, 
 and respect for human nature were blasted 
 in his eyes " for ever."
 
 "■ TILL DEATH US DO PART." 45 
 
 It was not likely in that bitter moment 
 that he should believe that his sufFerino- 
 
 o 
 
 was but transitory after all; that "for 
 ever" is a phrase often used, but rarely 
 meant, seldom finding a genuine echo in 
 the heart unless for a transient period; that 
 it is ordinarily but an expression on the 
 lips, or a chimera of a sick brain ; that, in 
 fact, everything in this life, be it joy or 
 sorrow, love, faith, revenge, or hatred, 
 are but fleeting and passing, as the 
 winged wind ; that nothing endures but for 
 a season. 
 
 All that he could realize was that his 
 whole future was wrecked — stranded ir- 
 remediably ; that nothing but immeasurable 
 misery awaited him — misery either way — 
 whether he was with her, knowing her to 
 be utterly false ; misery without her, for 
 he adored her madly still !
 
 46 ?^0T WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 In spite of all — in the face of confidence 
 and affection both betrayed and basely- 
 outraged, and his honour arraigned — the 
 very pangs of jealousy that seemed to be 
 rending his soul in twain, were in them- 
 selves sure and irrefragable proofs that his 
 love for her still lived vigorously as ever ; 
 he was convinced that as long as existence 
 lasted, her loss would leave a horrible va- 
 cuum in his heart that it would be im- 
 possible for anyone on earth to fill up, for he 
 worshipped her with the fierce unreasoning 
 passion of youth ; and it would have seemed 
 to him a desecration of his own feelings 
 to imagine that that love w^as not love 
 after all, but only the ephemera of an 
 hour. 
 
 That in fact what he doated on, was not 
 " A^r," but a being of his own creation, 
 clothed in the bright beauty that had
 
 47 
 
 dazzled Mm, and made liim sacrifice all 
 to make it his own. 
 
 Oh ! how like cruel fiends those words 
 "his o^vn," in conjunction with her, seemed 
 to mock at him with their meanino^; to 
 laugh him to scorn for his absurd 
 credulity ! 
 
 It was galling indeed to his pride to 
 have been fooled so entirely — to have 
 swallowed with avidity all her specious 
 assurances, as though they had been an 
 "honeycomb," but to find them "worm- 
 wood" at the last — to have craved, yearned 
 for tenderness from her, only to have met 
 a more cruel thrust than that of a "two- 
 edged sword." 
 
 To have been rivalled by a low, unedu- 
 cated ruffian, to whom she had assuredly 
 all along belonged, whilst she was per- 
 suading her " husband," her poor deluded
 
 48 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 victim, by the power of her beauty and 
 blandishments, to believe her true as steel, 
 and pure as the undriven snow ! 
 
 In one of Juvenal's Satires are found 
 the words, " None become at once com- 
 pletely vile;" but just as "men may rise 
 on stepping-stones of their dead selves to 
 higher things," so they often slip and slip, 
 surely but slowly, down to the lowest 
 depths. 
 
 " She must be innately bad and base," 
 he reflected; for, young as he was in 
 worldly wisdom, he yet possessed sufficient 
 ^ense to know that deliberate vice — vice 
 perpetrated in cold blood — is neither a 
 gourd nor a mushroom, springing up 
 rapidly in the course of a few hours, to be 
 •eradicated by a simple effort and destroyed 
 entirely by a blow. 
 
 It is rather a poisonous fungus, im-
 
 planted early in tlie heart, fostered in its 
 growth and strength by that heart's own 
 human tendency to evil, and requiring 
 strenuous exertion and unlimited patience 
 to pluck it out root by root; but a patience 
 outlasting Penelope's — a patience rare and 
 scarcely attainable, and that can best be 
 exemplified by the old Arabian aphorism, 
 " Be patient, and the mulberry-leaf will 
 turn into satin !" 
 
 " Can such falsity really exist ? or is 
 it but a hideous nightmare after all?" he 
 questioned himself. His uncle was a 
 cynical man of the world, sceptical of 
 goodness and worth. Could his judgment 
 have been swayed by the fabrications of 
 those, to whom a shilling was sufficient in- 
 ducement to "speak," and whose natural 
 bent was falsehood more than truth ? But 
 no shadow of a loophole by which his 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 query might meet with contradiction pre- 
 sented itself, and with his young heart 
 swelling high under the sense of his bitter 
 wrong, all that he longed for was to lie 
 down and die ! 
 
 After all, he was but nineteen years 
 of age, and the fortitude and strength 
 of manhood were terribly incomplete in 
 his nature. He was trying to grapple 
 with a grief, the magnitude of which 
 would have overwhelmed many a man 
 of riper age. 
 
 Poor fellow ! he had let himself, with the 
 folly and recklessness of an inexperienced 
 swimmer, float carelessly down the river 
 of life, and he had not even tried to 
 evade, in his headlong career, any shoals 
 that might endanger the passage. All of 
 a sudden he had reached the tempestuous 
 ocean, with breakers ahead of him, with
 
 "till death us do part." 51 
 
 the tide of fate running strongly against 
 him, with huge waves of sorrow rising 
 around him, and it was "too late" even 
 to try and find a haven of safety. Ah! 
 what had he done to be drifted into such 
 a doom? There was nothing left for him 
 now — no chance of rescue from the wreck 
 of everything that could yield happiness 
 to him upon this earth. 
 
 " The miserable have no other medicine 
 But only Hope." 
 
 And even that Avas denied him at present. 
 Hope, the "salve of life," which in most 
 cases comes to lighten the gloom of a 
 desponding heart ; for it is a merciful 
 dispensation of Providence that in this 
 world, " whose brightest visions of felicity 
 prove to be but a shadow of a shade; 
 whose past pleasures, whilst they feast 
 memory, yet leave the heart aching with 
 
 4—2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ■ ■Kiiiir-noi-rvf r\r ff I tkimC
 
 52 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 a sense of their desertion ; and whose pre- 
 sent enjoyments vanish and wither almost 
 before they bloom;'' that the more en- 
 during sentiment of " Hope" is given to 
 keep up a sinking spirit. 
 
 Do we not read that when Sin entered 
 the bowers of Paradise, and the primal 
 curse drove Adam and Eve from the 
 garden of glowing delights, that it was 
 " Hope," called by the ancients the off- 
 spring of untarnished joys, who took 
 up his abode with the wretched exiles 
 of Eden, and preserved them from de- 
 spair? 
 
 But Hope only comes when the first 
 fresh poignancy of grief has passed away, 
 although the glimmer of its advent has 
 unconsciously been the sole light that has 
 saved many a human being from the 
 crime of self-destruction.
 
 " TILL DEATH US DO PAllT." 53 
 
 A thought struck the suffering boy, and 
 he started. 
 
 He had married her under a feigned 
 name ! Not from any premeditated de- 
 ceit, or desire to play her false, but simply 
 from a concatenation of circumstances. 
 He had given her a noni de guerre on first 
 acquaintance, just on the spur of the mo- 
 ment, but with no shadow of an arriere 
 pensee in doing so, and later he had lacked 
 the courage to reveal the fraud; but his 
 conscience had scarcely blamed the decep- 
 tion, for his purpose towards her had ever 
 been true and honest. 
 
 Legally, then, he Avondered, would his 
 secret marriage be invalid? and he free — 
 free as the Avanton wind — released from 
 the now loathsome bonds in which the 
 words of a priest had a few hours before 
 fettered him? But as he pondered
 
 54 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 anxiously upon this, there came ringing 
 through his brain, just like a dirge for 
 the death of his momentary hope, the 
 good old man's slow and solemn injunc- 
 tion — '"' Those whom God hath joined to- 
 gether let no man put asunder." Perhaps 
 if he had been older, or harder, more a 
 denizen of the world, those few words 
 would have failed in producing the same 
 effect upon him as they did noAV. 
 
 But he was young, enthusiastic, reli- 
 gious; no impulse to mock at them entered 
 his mind ; but rather there came over him 
 a sort of impetuous desire for self-sacrifice, 
 sooner than that they should be treated 
 as if unspoken, and their meaning hurled 
 to the four winds, just for the sake of mere 
 earthly feelings and wishes. 
 
 ^'No!" he cried, fervently, throwing 
 himself down on his knees; "she is my
 
 55 
 
 wife in the sight of God, if not in the 
 sight of men. Great Heaven ! that looked 
 down on my vows, hear me whilst I swear 
 that not while she lives shall word or act 
 of mine sever the tie that binds us to- 
 gether, ' for better, for worse' ! ' to love and 
 to cherish' ! ' till death us do pari ! Oh, why^ 
 why have you deceived me so, my darling ! 
 my darling! — I, who would have loved 
 and cherished you all my life !" The big 
 tears rushed to his eyes again and again, 
 in spite of his efforts to dash them away ; 
 and just as if to add the last drop to his 
 already overflowing cup of misery, cruel 
 memory recalled with tenacious vividness 
 the face of the woman he had so longed 
 to clasp — the glorious tints of hair that 
 had floated in ruddy luxuriance over 
 his arms, and been pressed frantically 
 in boyish fervour to his beating heart
 
 56 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 and quivering lips — the strangely beautiful 
 eyes — the ruby, enticing mouth, that had 
 uttered that very day, oaths that he had 
 deemed in all faith to be so loyal and 
 so true ! 
 
 " I will try and nerve myself to my 
 fate, but I dare not look upon her again," 
 he said at last resolutely ; and rising from 
 his dejected attitude, he drew pen and ink 
 to his side. " I will write and say I know 
 all — that she and I can never, never meet 
 again upon earth! And then good-bye 
 to my miserable past — away into oblivion 
 with everything ! Oblivion, indeed ! What 
 a word. Can a convict ever find oblivion 
 with the manacles tightly clasped on his 
 limbs — with the loathsome chain clano^inof 
 and dragging at his heels? Can the 
 human breast rest in forgetfulness when 
 everything around reminds it continually
 
 "till death us do part." 57 
 
 of what it has lost? And she was all to 
 me! — brightness and sunshine, love and 
 joy, all! — and the whole world will be a 
 desert without her ! Poets may prate idly 
 of a Lethean stream, but prose owns no 
 such mythical remedy. Alas ! prose itself 
 — real, downright prose — will, however, be 
 the only cure for me. Thank God ! she 
 knows me as 'Mark Leslie' only, and I 
 shall be snared her tracino; me: to look 
 
 i CD ' 
 
 upon her again and then to part would be 
 a thousand times worse than death. My 
 poor old father! if you only knew all, I 
 believe you would break your heart — how 
 your son has disgraced himself, dishonoured 
 the old name, and bound himself, hand and 
 foot, to a common 'music-hall' singer! 
 That were nothing if she was but honest, 
 but oh, my God! a mere light o' love— - 
 the worthless leman of a low-lived ruffian!"
 
 PART III. 
 
 foiled! father. 
 
 My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; 
 It rains, and the wind is never weary. 
 
 My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past, 
 But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, 
 And the days are dark and dreary !" 
 
 Longjellow. 
 
 HE autumnal evening had 
 closed in earlier than the 
 season of the year almost 
 warranted. Night had "unfurled her 
 sable wings," and closely enveloped the 
 earth. London lay dark and dull, and 
 dimly lighted, save in the lower quarters of
 
 59 
 
 the town, where petty traders plied inces- 
 santly and indefatigably on, far into the 
 hours in which the richer portions of the 
 working classes in the more fashionable 
 localities sought either rest or amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 At the door of a small and shabby- 
 looking house, situated in one of the back 
 streets of Islington, stood David Welland. 
 His well-worn coat, that had served him 
 as a marriage garment in the morning, now 
 shielded him, as effectually as its threadbare 
 texture would permit of, from the keen 
 blasts of wind that came howling and 
 moaning up the dirty pavement. The 
 same dingy comforter encircled his throat; 
 but the napless hat, that had probably been 
 carefully put by for another state cere- 
 monial, was replaced by a woollen cap that 
 was faded, and had long ago seen its palmy
 
 60 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 days, but which, though guarding his head 
 from cold, yet revealed far more conspicu- 
 ously than its predecessor had done the 
 workings of his countenance and the ex- 
 pression of his eyes, as he scanned anxiously 
 ■eacl) approaching figure in the street, and 
 peered curiously into the face of each 
 passer-by. 
 
 In a room situated at the back of the 
 house, at w^hose entrance Welland had evi- 
 dently " mounted guard," a gas-jet sent 
 down its yellow glare upon some fragments 
 of food, not over recherche in quality, that 
 remained in the blue earthenware dishes 
 that still adorned the festive board. An 
 empty pewter pot or two and a coarsely- 
 painted tobacco-jar stood also on the deal 
 table, on one end of which rested the 
 slovenly-shod feet of a man who lounged 
 negligently back in his chair. Through
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 61 
 
 the atmosphere^ redolent of smoke, it could 
 be distinguished that he was a man over 
 whom some five and thirty years of a hard 
 life had rolled. His almost herculean pro- 
 portions, even in the half-reclining position 
 he held, Avere such as to excite the utmost 
 admiration and enthusiasm in the prize- 
 ring, though in more refined circles, less 
 bulkiness and more elegance would have 
 been deemed very desirable. An immense 
 breadth of chest showed up beneath the 
 seedy brown velveteen coat, that was 
 thrown open, displaying beneath it a coarse 
 calico shirt, not over daintily white in hue, 
 and with a pattern of large red horseshoes 
 all over its surface; a sky-blue cravat, 
 knotted loosely round his bull-neck, was 
 passed through another horseshoe of red 
 coral that glittered from under the hair of 
 his beard. Trousers of a very large black
 
 62 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 aiid white check, extravagantly pegtop, 
 and a thick gilt watch-chain, with a bunch 
 of showy pendants attached to it, completed 
 his attire. 
 
 He was a Vaurien A 1 — a gaol-bird — a 
 "jack of all trades, and master of none ;" 
 gaining his livelihood in any way that he 
 could, and without being over scrupulous 
 as to how, provided that the way re- 
 quired for him no particular amount of 
 mental or bodily exertion. Sometimes a 
 bookmaker at Epsom or Ascot, or a promp- 
 ter at some suburban theatre; a horse- 
 dealer in a petty way ; a secretary to some 
 Cold-Meat Association; an occasional specu- 
 lator in rat-fights; and now and then 
 even a temporary clerk at some church. 
 He had a decent modicum of brain, which, 
 if it had been properly cultivated, would 
 have made him even a useful member of
 
 TOILED ! FATHER. 63 
 
 low life, instead of being what he was, a 
 disgrace to the human species. 
 
 But a foundling and a mudlark, in in- 
 fancy and boyhood, uncared for, and left 
 to go his own gait without let or hin- 
 drance, riper years found him, as a matter 
 of consequence, nothing but a thorough 
 vagabond and a scamp. 
 
 A showy-looking scamp he was too, with 
 big curly rings of coal-black hair, evidently 
 - iled and tended with care ; bold features, 
 but regular enough in outline, with a sort 
 of reckless dare-devil expression in the dark 
 defiant eyes, that yet shone with a con- 
 siderable sharpness and intelligence. There 
 was an unpleasant look hovering over the 
 lips, between which a long, coarse clay pipe 
 rested, out of which, as he leant back in his 
 seat, he amused himself by carelessly blow- 
 ing upwards to the low ceiling, voluminous
 
 64 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 wreaths of tobacco smoke. His hands 
 were large and bony about the knuckles, 
 and not over clean, wuth one or two flashy 
 rings, with imitation rubies, ornamenting 
 his fingers. There was a very good show 
 of muscle in the arm, that was thrown in- 
 dolently over the shoulder of a woman, 
 who crouched on her knees close by his 
 side, and looked lovingly up into his 
 face. 
 
 As she knelt there, the w^hole character 
 of her beauty was changed from the aspect 
 it had worn in the morning. The coun- 
 tenance seemed "spiritualized," as it were; 
 true, the gas lit up each luxuriant tress 
 until its red tint grew almost too ruddy, 
 and seemed to be all aglow and afire ; but 
 the green coruscations in her pupils were 
 invisible, leaving the large grey eyes 
 under their long curling lashes perfect
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 65 
 
 wells of tenderness and truth. The vivid 
 colour that usually tinged her cheek had 
 paled to a more delicate rose blush, and 
 the full sensuous lips smiled with a plea- 
 sant and happy expression, as they kissed 
 repeatedly the hand that caressed her. 
 
 It was perfectly marvellous, the trans- 
 formation that this man's presence made 
 in her appearance. 
 
 With all her faults, follies, and even 
 crimes — and their name was "Legion" — to 
 this one human being whom she adored 
 she was an angel, unselfish, self-sacrificing, 
 unswerving in her fealty. Ruffian and 
 blackguard though he was, and none of the 
 dark shades of his character were hidden 
 from her watchful jealous eye, she was 
 faithful to the death to her idol. So faith- 
 ful, that if it had fallen into worthless 
 shivers at her feet, she would have stooped 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 06 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 and carefully gathered up tlie broken frag- 
 ments, preserving them in her heart of 
 hearts as a million times more priceless to 
 her than images entire, unblemished, and 
 untarnished. She would have garnered up 
 each speck of dust, and treasured each tiny 
 atom of it as unbounded wealth. " In the 
 wildest anarchy of human nature's insur- 
 gent appetites and sins, there is usually 
 some reclaiming virtue." 
 
 Very few creatures in this world, be they 
 ever so innately coarse and low, and even 
 vicious, are so utterly brutal as not to 
 possess some one aspiration or sentiment, 
 better and purer than the rest, lurking 
 beneath a mass of evil, and lying dormant 
 end insensible, perhaps only from the fact 
 that no object has appeared upon the scene 
 possessing sufficient power to awaken the 
 better feeling into being.
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 67 
 
 All that this woman had of refinement 
 — if such a term can be used — in her, was 
 called forth by the tones and touch of the 
 only creature she really cared for in the 
 wide wide world, although his tones were 
 generally of the roughest, and his touch 
 full many a black action had defiled. She 
 had but little wealth to spare ; nothing, 
 indeed, but the scanty earnings she ma- 
 naged to scrape together at the poorly re- 
 munerative profession of singer at a music 
 hall; and the ^'Aspasian Pavilion" being 
 the resort of the scum of the earth, the 
 proprietor's generosity was in keeping with 
 the profits he was enabled to make out of a 
 rough lot of navvies, far richer in bad lan- 
 guage than in pocket. 
 
 But, nevertheless, though the sum was 
 small, she gave it at once, freely and un- 
 grudgingly, into her lover's hand, never 
 
 5 — 2
 
 68 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 dreaming of words of gratitude from him, 
 and only too happy in the knowledge that 
 she was conducing by her mite to his 
 welfare and comfort. 
 
 In spite of her uneducated mind — in spite 
 of all the gross and vulgar elements by 
 which she was surrounded, and amidst 
 which she had been both born and nur- 
 tured — she shrank, with a refinement of 
 delicacy that would have done honour to 
 the grandest duchess in the land from any 
 allusion, ever so covert, to the obligation 
 he owed her for repeated pecuniary help 
 during the period that they had known 
 each other. 
 
 She would never have hesitated to starve 
 herself to death unrepiningly, if by such 
 means she could have insured com- 
 petency to him for the remainder of his 
 natural existence. And yet she knew full
 
 TOILED ! FATHER. 69 
 
 well that his ways were uot what even 
 she, in her somewhat lax notions of morality 
 and probity, approved of; but amidst all 
 his shortcomings and delinquencies, doubts 
 of his constancy to her had never arisen to 
 torture her soul. She felt sure of him, 
 and for the sake of that one virtue, 
 fidelity^ his million vices were fully and 
 freely forgiven and forgotten. 
 
 " So, Lucy" — and he looked down affec- 
 tionately into the tender grey eyes that had 
 barely left his face since he entered the 
 room — " this is our very last evening to- 
 gether. To-night I must give you up to 
 your husband, and you and I shall never 
 be all in all to one another again ! Do you 
 hear me, Lu? You and I must part, so to 
 speak, in another short hour for ever! 
 AVhy, you laugh, girl! Has this parting, 
 then, no sorrow for you? Are you such a
 
 70 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 wanton that it's only a change of lovers, 
 and a thing to smile at?" he asked, angrily, 
 pushing her hand impatiently away from 
 him, while his eyes darkened, and a heavy 
 •cloud swept over his brow, making him 
 look like a fiend. He loved the woman as 
 much as it was in his nature to love any- 
 thing, although he w^ould have sacrificed 
 her on the spot to better himself in the 
 smallest degree. 
 
 ^' Eobert," she replied — and the joyous 
 laugh on her lips was hushed in a moment, 
 and replaced by a nervous and painful 
 quiver, as she felt his rude and repelling 
 gesture, and cowered beneath the anger in 
 his voice — '' you must be mad ! You and I 
 can never part in this world ; for if any- 
 thing robbed me of you, I swear I would 
 put an end to myself I have married a 
 gentleman; but why? to please you — to do
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 
 
 your bidding ; for you know you wished it, 
 that I might be able to help you. But, oh ! 
 I hate him! — I liate himf she repeated, 
 vehemently, hissing the words out from 
 between her set teeth, " for he will have a 
 right to the hours I might spend with you 
 — to the love, that should only be yours, 
 Eobert, dear ! But he can't part us entirely, 
 any way. I shall still see you often, but 
 not so often as now, perhaps," she sobbed, 
 pressing his hand again and again to her 
 lips, and leaning her ruddy head on his 
 knee, whilst her tears coursed rapidly 
 down her cheeks, and fell in big drops 
 to the ground. And he, his rough heart 
 melting at the sight of her genuine 
 grief, stooped over her, and, raising her 
 up, soothed her as gently as lay in his 
 power. 
 
 '' Kobert," she resumed after a little,
 
 72 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 when he had wiped her tears away, and 
 peace was restored between them, " pro- 
 mise me, when I go away from this, that 
 nothing shall make you forget me ! Swear 
 it, or my heart will break. Swear that no 
 other woman will ever take my place with 
 you!" 
 
 ''I do swear it, Lucy," he said, as 
 emphatically as though he would not have 
 sworn his very -soul away, without even a 
 scruple of conscience rebuking him for his 
 falsehood. " You know, with all my 
 faults, I am fond of you. I wish now this 
 marriage had never taken place, for what 
 will be the good of money or anything, 
 without you ! But it can't be helped now, 
 and we must make the best on it. Come,. 
 don't fret so, my girl," he whispered, kiss- 
 ing her, as she glanced up in his coun- 
 tenance with a mute gratitude for his kind
 
 FOILED ! TATHER. TS- 
 
 words, and Avitli an implicit faith in his 
 sincerity. 
 
 " Past nine already," she exclaimed, at 
 length, ''and he will be here soon. Only a 
 few moments together now ! Look, my 
 dear!" And she put half a dozen bright 
 sovereigns into his hand. " This will help 
 to keep you comfortable, in case we don't 
 meet for a few days." 
 
 And the shinino: sovereio^ns, that were the 
 carefully hoarded-up store of the poor boy 
 in ]\Iandeville Terrace, who had denied 
 himself every superfluity in life, barely 
 allowing himself enough to keep body and 
 soul together, in order to accumulate a 
 small bridal oiFering for his wife, slipped 
 quickly from her hand into Eobert 
 Minton's avaricious grasp, and from 
 thence into his capacious pocket, to be 
 squandered quickly away in the space of
 
 74 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 a, few minutes in the intellectual games 
 of " Aunt Sally" or skittles, in a neigh- 
 bouring alley. 
 
 Suddenly there came a brisk pull at the 
 door-bell, and David Welland, who had 
 some few seconds before been decoyed away 
 from his post of sentinel by the tempting 
 fumes of the unusually attractive evening 
 repast, rushed into the room, breathless 
 and with his mouth full, articulating 
 with considerable difficulty : 
 
 " Here he is, Lucy ! Get along with you, 
 quick," he added, hurriedly, to Minton, 
 pushing that individual unceremoniously 
 through the door on to the passage upon 
 the kitchen-stairs. Then he hastened to 
 answer the hasty summons, donning the 
 most amiable expression he could muster 
 up into his ugly physiognomy, to greet his 
 well-born son-in-law.
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 75 
 
 The back slums of Islington had not yet 
 a,r rived at the luxury — if luxury it can 
 be called to have the tympanum of the 
 human ear endangered some dozen times 
 in a dozen hours — of " knockers." 
 
 Bells were the prevailing fashion in 
 the locality, and the sole method of com- 
 munication with the inmates of the 
 dwellings open to the visitor, no matter 
 whether he were a " nob" or the dust- 
 man. 
 
 This time it was the " harbinger of woe," 
 the postman, who had given the impetuous 
 twang at the wire, probably in sheer irri- 
 tation at being deprived of his especial 
 prerogative, the peremptory "rat-tat;" and 
 David Welland, on reclosing the door, 
 carried the missive that had been delivered 
 to the light, and wonderingly scrutinized 
 its exterior.
 
 76 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 A large square envelope, sealed with a 
 monogram, "M.L.," and addressed to 
 
 '' Miss WellancI, 
 
 6, Bridge Street, 
 
 Islington," 
 
 in a man's liand that had evidently 
 trembled, judging from the zigzag forma- 
 tion of the letters. The outside did not 
 disclose much, and curiosity, worse than 
 any woman's, strongly impelled him to peep 
 into the interior, but a wholesome awe of 
 his imperious daughter got the mastery 
 over him, and restrained his fingers from 
 tampering more freely with what did not 
 belong to him, so he took it into the parlour 
 and gave it to its rightful owner. 
 
 Meanwhile, Lucy had been briskly em- 
 ployed in putting the unsavoury debris of 
 the evening repast carefully out of sight^
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 77 
 
 and having arranged the room, and 
 smoothed the braids of hair that had been 
 somewhat ruffled by the contact of Robert 
 Minton's coat- sleeve, she sat awaiting the 
 advent of the new-comer in the most lady- 
 like pose she could assume, with a piece of 
 flimsy needlework lying in her lap. 
 
 In spite of all her vehement asseverations 
 of " hatred," she was, womanlike, averse to 
 appearing aught but enchanting in the 
 eyes of the man whom she knew admired 
 her. 
 
 Jumping off her seat, she snatched the 
 letter, tore it open, and hastily conned the 
 contents. 
 
 " Lucy, I know all ! 
 
 " How I have been deceived, betrayed, 
 outraged! drawn into an act of folly, or 
 rather madness, which has ruined me for
 
 78 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 ever! Oh! had you no pity, no spark of 
 compunction for him who both loved and 
 trusted you ? pretending to render back 
 his aiFection sevenfold, whilst you belonged, 
 body and soul, to another! And such 
 another ! Great Heavens 1 when I think of 
 my rival, my blood boils, and there is no 
 vengeance, that I could not willingly take 
 upon him. But you^ Lucy, I do not hate ; 
 nay, I even love you still ! But reason is 
 stronger than passion within me now, and 
 I never wish to look upon your fair, false 
 face again. 
 
 "You and I shall never meet upon 
 earth — do you understand? But still we 
 are man and wife, and the miserable chain 
 that binds us — though extended to its 
 fullest length, though chafing and galling 
 to both — will yet only be severed by 
 death.
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 79^ 
 
 " You liave entailed uj^on me a lonely 
 future — a loveless, solitary existence; and 
 blasted every hope of happiness I had in 
 the world ; and yet whilst you live, I have 
 sworn before the God, who looked down 
 upon our marriage vows, that no other 
 woman shall fill the place by my side that 
 should have been yours for ever and ever. 
 You have rendered my life ' cold, and 
 dark, and dreary/ and still I have no 
 curse in my heart to give you. 
 
 " Only an earnest prayer, that time may 
 bring you repentance for your deadly sin 
 towards me, and gain you as full a pardon 
 from the Heaven,, your falsity mocked^ 
 as you now have from your husband. — 
 M. L." 
 
 " Foiled ! father," she cried, passion ately,^ 
 with her cheeks all on flame with anger,.
 
 50 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 and her eyes flashing wildly. " It's all up : 
 he has found out everything, somehow, and 
 we shall never see him again !" 
 
 ''But you are his wife: he can't help 
 seeing you," the old man whimpered out, 
 peevishly. Was this the end of all their 
 plotting and scheming, he thought, to be 
 foiled at last by a mere stripling, a beardless 
 boy ? Were all his grand visions of a com- 
 fortable old age going to melt into thin air 
 like this — the tower of hope that he had 
 built upon the foundation of his daughter's 
 elevation into a higher sphere? Was he 
 doomed still to labour on and on for the 
 remainder of his days, by the sweat of his 
 brow, for a livelihood, after all his antici- 
 pations of what the play calls the '' Nigger's 
 Paradise," the luxury of keeping his hat on 
 his head, and his hands in his pockets, 
 ■alias idleness? His amount of book learn-
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 81 
 
 ing had not told him that idleness 
 is the Dead Sea, swallowing up all 
 virtue — the self-made sepulchre of a living 
 man ! 
 
 " We must find him, Lucy, and we'll 
 have the law against him — the law of our 
 noble land, that is always so just and good; 
 and if we can't have him., we'll have 
 damages for desertion. Heavy damages, 
 eh, Lucy ?" 
 
 And his eyes twinkled greedily at 
 the very notion of the Z. S. D, the 
 court Avould adjudge to the poor deserted 
 wife. 
 
 " Yes, that's all very well," she replied; 
 "but where can you find him? London 
 is a very large place, father, and we have 
 no clue to him, excepting his name, and that 
 may be a false one. But, no: it's on his 
 seal. We will advertise for him, and it we 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 are foiled after all this bother, it will be a 
 nuisance, for there's my dress and all the 
 rest of the wedding things unpaid for! 
 Robert !" she called out, and notwithstand- 
 ing the failure of her scheme for worldly 
 aggrandizement and wealth — in spite of a 
 natural feminine feeling of anger and mor- 
 tification at being " left," there was a sort 
 of ringing gladness in her loud accents. 
 
 '^ Robert, come in ! Don't be afraid - 
 No husband, after all! only a trumpery 
 letter. Read it 1'^ and she looked over 
 his shoulder while he perused the 
 document. 
 
 When he had finished reading it, 
 she never glanced at the expression of 
 his face, but throwing herself into his 
 arms, said, "And now I am yours, dear; 
 jours only, for ever !'* 
 
 " So this game's up, and no more bleed-
 
 FOILED ! FATHER. 83 
 
 ing likely of that white-faced stripling. 
 Curse him!" was what passed through 
 Robert Minton's mind, as he bit his lip 
 hard, and affectionately returned Lucy's 
 embrace. 
 
 6—z
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TWO HEARTS. 
 
 "By Castor! Love 
 Hath both its gall and honey in abundance, 
 Sweet to the taste; but in it Ave swallow bitter, 
 Even till we loathe !" 
 
 " No sooner met, than they looked; no sooner looked,, 
 than they loved! no sooner loved, than they sighed!" 
 
 Shalcespeare. 
 
 HE lights shone down upon 
 the ball at its zenith, upon 
 the lovely flushed faces, the 
 sweet flashing eyes, and the bare ivory 
 shoulders of fair dames of the nineteenth 
 century, who, peerless in beauty and half-
 
 TWO HEARTS. 85 
 
 draped in form, floated gracefully in aerial 
 garments through the quadrille, or Avere 
 whirled round in voluptuous evolutions, as 
 Byron aptly has it — 
 
 " Witli hands promiscuously applied 
 Itound the slight waist or doA\Ti the glowing side." 
 
 Through the heated temperature of the 
 crowded room stole the fragrance of per- 
 fumed ambrosial curls and ebon braids, 
 mingling with the scent of exquisite exotics, 
 whose shining leaves and gorgeous colour- 
 ing contrasted beautifully with the alabaster 
 tints of the bosoms against which they 
 •closely nestled. 
 
 A scene of revelry, roses, and loveliness ; 
 upon which two or tln-ee men looked, as 
 they lounged together indolently near the 
 entrance of the ball-room. 
 
 The man with the Norman type of 
 physiognomy and drooping ta^my mous-
 
 8& NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 taclie was Arthur Gordon, a young Scotch 
 Baronet, owning a lengthy pedigree that 
 dated from the time that ''Wallace bled.'* 
 He w^as rich in an amplitude of the choicest 
 things that can be bestowed on the sons of 
 earth — youth, health, and w^ealth, good 
 looks, inexhaustible spirits, and a bijou of 
 an estate, romantically situated in the heart 
 of the bonnie Highlands — a mansion 
 perched on a lovely hill that, bathed in 
 sunshine or lying in depths of cool shadow, 
 towered high towards the blue sky — with 
 its sides lined by luxuriant wilds of gorse 
 and yellow^ broom, whilst around rose a 
 fulness of green, and miles upon miles of 
 purple feathery heather, intersected by 
 crystal streams, running like so many sil- 
 very threads through the flowery pastures. 
 Very different in pecuniary position to 
 the owner of " Silvernest" was Maurice
 
 TWO HEARTS. 87 
 
 Lynn, an homme de lettres, and far from 
 affliient, although possessing a sufficiency 
 for moderate wants. 
 
 His character also was a direct oppo- 
 sition to that of his companion, for he was 
 staid, serious, and slightly cynical — traits 
 that were antipodean au dernier degre to 
 Gordon's laughter-loving versatile tempera- 
 ment, and yet curiously enough, as though 
 in exemplification of the proverb, les 
 extremes se touchent^ the two were the 
 firmest of allies, and, if possible, inseparable. 
 
 '^Maurice!" said Gordon, suddenly, after 
 a prolonged silence, during which he had 
 been watching covertly, with an amused 
 expression on his features, the stolid indif- 
 ference, amounting to apathy, with which 
 Lynn surveyed each bright creature who 
 flitted to and fro before them, his gaze 
 never lingering two consecutive moments
 
 88 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 on any one particular belle, but following 
 the movements of eacli in succession, with 
 a strange sort of dreamy nonchalance in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Do you know, I often wonder, old 
 fellow, if there exists upon earth any 
 woman possessing sufficient attractions to 
 enchain your fancy even for a short while ! 
 The Man in the Iron Mask could scarcely 
 have presented a more imperturbable ex- 
 terior than your face has worn during the 
 last half hour, whilst your eyes have been 
 regaled on a perfect garden of rich and 
 glowing delights — flowers of all sorts, full- 
 blown and budding !" 
 
 " Ton my soul ! I do believe Helen her- 
 self would have failed in arresting your 
 regard, and that a search for a woman to 
 your fastidious liking would be as long and 
 as futile as Diogenes' hunt after honesty.
 
 TWO HEARTS. 89 
 
 And yet beauty is a grand thing ! Isn't it 
 Keats who says, ' A thing of beauty is a 
 joy for ever ?' " 
 
 '' Was it Keats ? I can't recollect just 
 now. Madame Kachel, I should fancy, 
 probably," Lynn replied, indifferently; but 
 a shade stole over his countenance as he 
 added — 
 
 " But the fact is that I seem to care 
 for nothing ! If this ball-room were trans- 
 formed into a seraglio^ and my humble self 
 into Abdul Aziz, and 1 had con^e delire 
 any one of the smiling houris before me, I 
 swear I should be nonplussed. Either 
 beauty has lost its influence over me com- 
 pletely, or else the only type of it 
 that could, perhaps, ' fetch ' me ever so 
 slightly, never appears. The long and the 
 short of the matter is, that I am ' used 
 up,' literally biased to extinction. I have
 
 90 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 either made a very bad use of life, or else life 
 has ill used me shamefully. I only know 
 that I arrived long ago at the conclusion 
 that I am not capable of ' falling in love/ 
 as it is called. The naked boy spreads his 
 meshes for me in vain, and yet I am not 
 such an idiot as to fancy myself a miso- 
 gynist. But, somehow, pretty faces and I 
 seem to have nothing in common with one 
 another. Every charm that enthrals other 
 men passes me by, scarcely touching me so 
 much as the stroke of a feather, and leav- 
 ing behind no deeper impress than the 
 breath of the soft summer wind. There 
 is always a wretched hiatus in either my 
 heart or imagination that nothing can fill 
 up!" 
 
 " Humbug ! mon clier : no hiatus, only a 
 bad digestion, or else the grumblings of a 
 mind unhealthily morbid. You think that
 
 TWO HEARTS. 91 
 
 love has lost all potency for you, just be- 
 cause you may have been victimized by 
 Cupid once in your life, and deceived. It 
 would, indeed, be very hard lines if, just 
 because you mistook in boyish folly, the 
 paltry glimmer of a ^ farthing dip ' for a 
 ' real ray of light from Allah,' as Byron 
 calls it." 
 
 '^ Yes, but not in earnest, only in 
 poetry," interrupted Lynn. "Those little 
 animals that existed on the river Hypanis 
 were typical of his loves, living only twelve 
 hours, dying in youth and loveliness at 
 eio:ht o'clock in the mornino^, but reachino; 
 a miserable state of decrepitude, if their ex- 
 istence was prolonged any longer. You 
 have quoted unhappily, Arthur !" 
 
 "• A little learning is a dangerous thing," 
 by Jove, and only makes your brain sick. 
 To be of a philosophical nature is good
 
 92 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 sometimes, for philosophy enables one to 
 bear things serenely; but I would rather 
 -eschew it and accept the usual compound 
 of sweet and acidity. Perpetual sunshine 
 would irritate the eye, and even the nectar 
 of the Gods would soon become horribly cloy- 
 ing. Life and love to me should be sym- 
 bolized by a repast of pcites^ piquante with 
 Cayenne and spic}'- condiments, washed down 
 by a draught of sparkling Clicquot, and 
 wound up by a sweet and luscious peach. 
 There are lots of felloAvs who go in for star- 
 vation of feeling and mortification of the 
 flesh, on principle, but the result is often 
 contrary to what they expect, for eventually 
 they become worse than caged beasts, 
 doubly rapacious, from restriction in food 
 and isolation from their kind. Ergo, those 
 hypocritical monks. I wager that a re- 
 gular man about town hasn't half the un-
 
 TWO HEARTS. 93^ 
 
 bridled flights of passion that seize them^ in 
 spite of all their abstinence from pleasure 
 and dinners of lentils." 
 
 " In fact, ' Life's Goblet ' you would 
 freely press, and wish it ' hot, sweet, and 
 strong,' like the peg of an ancient crone 
 after a hard day's charing ; but remember 
 what the old Dominie used to say at 
 school, when a warm joint one day por- 
 tended cold scraps the next : — 
 
 ' Festo die si quid prodigeris, 
 Profecto egere liceat nisi peperceris' — 
 
 and be prepared for the trying con- 
 trast !" 
 
 "But Lynn," said Reggy Peel, a smart, 
 sharp-witted young fellow in the Foreign 
 Office, " why on earth should you take 
 as jaundiced a view of existence, as if you 
 were as elderly as Methuselah, or as acid as 
 a lemon, or eschew Avoraan and society like
 
 94 :n'ot while she lives. 
 
 a misantlirope ? Tliose men are only made 
 to be unsociable ' who like nobody, are like 
 nobody, and are liked by nobody.' All 
 women are not tlie Scylla and Charybdis 
 of human life. Wait a bit till the right 
 one turns up to houleverser all your 
 notions. Why even a single glance might 
 melt the pillar of ice into Yesuvian lava, 
 — and transmogrify the stoic into a 
 spoon !" 
 
 "Not if I know it! Omnia vanitas ! 
 There's a picture illustrative of that fact 
 for which I have a weakness. Have you 
 seen it ? ' A nude female figure, gleaming 
 up through sunlight from a snowy couch, 
 testifying pleasure,' with all sorts of 
 emblems of the nothingness of everything 
 surrounding it." 
 
 " I am as insensible to profiles cut like 
 cameos as I am to the laughing face of
 
 TWO HEARTS. 95 
 
 a Hebe. The blue-black tresses of an 
 Eastern sultana, or the locks of gold 
 adorning the purest blonde — the -vvillowy 
 limbs of a Juno, or the voluptuous form 
 of a Venus — are alike impotent to touch 
 me ; and as to the ' beaux yeux ' of the 
 sex, their looks fall as harmlessly as 
 though I were a second Bartimeus. No 
 feminine proximity makes my heart give 
 one throb the quicker; no rustle of a petti- 
 coat accelerates the blood in my veins. 
 But the worst of it all is, that I don't 
 know whether such a state of statu-quo 
 existence is a matter, of congratulation or 
 not." 
 
 ^' Of course not," exclaimed Gordon. 
 ^' One might as well be a pulse plant, half 
 human, half vegetable. Life isn't worth 
 having at any price, if every feeling, lov^e 
 included, appears tame and uninteresting.
 
 96 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 Even to have cared for some one once, is 
 sometliing to look back upon with pleasure." 
 
 " Rather a lugubrious one when the 
 verb amove is conjugated in the past tense^ 
 surely." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. It's a sort of oasis in 
 the desert. The recollection of the pleasant 
 little episode lingers, and gives a halo of 
 romance to the prosaic worldly feelings 
 that come later in life. Besides, a man 
 must be all the better for having at any 
 one period loved, and been loved by a really 
 good and pure woman, and like — 
 
 ' The stained web that whitens in the sun, 
 Grows pure by being purely shone upon.' " 
 
 ^' Bravissimo^ Arthur ! you speak like a 
 book !" laughed Reggy. 
 
 ''No— 
 
 * My only books 
 Were women's looks.' "
 
 TWO HEARTS. 97 
 
 •'^ And a prodigious quantity of deceit 
 you must have learnt, then," asserted 
 Maurice. 
 
 ''But surel}^ you have never felt the 
 fierce, passionate love, or the patient, all- 
 enduring aiFection, that leaves indelible 
 traces behind? You, the papillon, full of 
 fun and persijlage, but never showing on 
 your wings a sign of having been 
 singed !" 
 
 ''I wish I was a butterfly, &c., for it 
 
 must be the j oiliest thing in the world — 
 
 roving from flower to flower, gathering 
 
 honey wherever you can; never lingering 
 
 long enough on one blossom to reach 
 
 satiety, but finding zest and enjoyment in 
 
 charming variety. ' Love endures no tie,' 
 
 and perjuna ridet amantium Jupiter, A 
 
 quid pro quo^ Lynn, for your school 
 
 Latin. Who will gainsay the fact that 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 9=8 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 Phiz and flirtation are nice enough 
 things?" 
 
 " One must be easily satisfied if they 
 suffice for niceness. One might as well 
 go in for an Oriental heaven: all black 
 eyes and sherbet." 
 
 '^ Vive la bagatelle! say I; and as for 
 you, ^a grand passion' is probably in petto j 
 if it were only a vengeance from the 
 rosy urchin for scouting at him. By 
 Jove!" 
 
 And Gordon stopped short, seizing 
 Lynn's arm, and whispered, sotto voce^ in 
 an agitated tone, that was strangely dis- 
 similar to the bantering voice he had been 
 speaking in — 
 
 " Who would have dreamt of seeing her 
 here !" 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Lettice Grey, the only girl I ever
 
 TWO HEARTS. 9^ 
 
 loved, or ever shall love, and who has it 
 ill her power to make me happy or mi- 
 serable all my life !" 
 
 " Arthur, old boy, you are contradiction 
 itself! A minute ago you were advocating 
 inconstancy, and now, like a moonstruck 
 lover, here you are in tragic rhapsody 
 worse than Komeo's, apostrophizing some 
 Nemesis who has suddenly risen up 
 to rebuke you for your Lotharian 
 discourse. Where is the avenging 
 goddess?" 
 
 "There! Could any one divine that 
 within such a form, there beat a heart 
 full of falsity ! I am not particularly vin- 
 dictive by nature ; but, hang it ! I swear I 
 could find a wish to see her pride crushed, 
 as I stand here and see all the smiles she 
 is bestowing on those cursed puppets ob- 
 sequiously dancing attendance upon her^
 
 100 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 while she seems to delight in the adulation 
 she receives. She sees m^, too, and re- 
 doubles her gaiety. Oh, woman! they 
 may call you a ' ministering angel,' but 
 you are a far greater source of torment 
 than of joy." 
 
 " Calm yourself," said Lynn, soothingly. 
 He saw that Gordon was really in earnest, 
 and he had the good taste to abstain from 
 any misplaced " chaffing" or expression of 
 the surprise he felt, in seeing the lively 
 Baronet turned all at once into a lovesick 
 and despairing swain. 
 
 "Arthur, you are probably doing her 
 injustice, and later you may blame yourself 
 for allowing doubts of her to enter your 
 mind. If she does see you, and laughs, and 
 appears engrossed by others, why, what 
 then? It is only a fact, from which a 
 flattering or unflattering deduction can be
 
 TWO HEARTS. 101 
 
 drawn, according to your own will. Don't 
 let the green-eyed monster run away with 
 you, and warp your judgment. No one 
 can guess from an exterior that is extorted 
 by the convenances the real feelings 
 that exist beneath a surface of sparkling 
 smiles. God knows ! how often I have car- 
 ried a very heavy heart into a festive 
 scene, where perhaps my laugh may have 
 sounded the loudest, and even the most 
 genuine in the room. We do not require 
 to live very long to find out that les 
 ajoparences soni trornpeuses ; and many a 
 time a poor woman may be suffering 
 torture in her soul, and yet she may 
 possess sufficient commendable pride not 
 to 'wear her heart upon her sleeve, for 
 daws to peck at.' But which of the 
 three Graces, you pointed towards, is 
 the one ? That magnificent girl with the
 
 102 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 imperial brow and eyes like twin stars, 
 or the pretty plump little woman by ber 
 side?" 
 
 " Neither. The tall girl is Miss Ches- 
 terton ; the lady next to her is a stranger 
 to me." 
 
 "Don't you know who she is? 
 Then / will tell you," Reggy Peel re- 
 joined. " She is Mrs. Marmaduke Smith, 
 nee Janet Morton, the Irish beauty that all 
 London went mad about when she made 
 her debut. Two years ago / was her 
 accepted suitor, but the diplomatic horizon 
 looking shady, and no likelihood of an 
 appointment turning up, Miss Janet bowled 
 me over, sans ceremonie, for the rich stock- 
 broker. I never felt so small and so 
 ashamed of my ancestry as when I got cir- 
 cumvented by a ' Smith.' Faugh ! a con- 
 venient enough cognomen, however, for
 
 TWO HEARTS. 103 
 
 who would be insane enough to plunge 
 into the intricacies of a ^ Smith's' genealogy 
 so long as he was nicely rolled up in crisp 
 bank-notes. Money! Leviathan power — 
 Juggernauth monster, that crushes beneath 
 its wheels every other recommendation a 
 man may possess. Hang titles, and talents 
 too, unless it be the talent of turning all 
 you touch into good hard cash! Even a 
 hideous old buffer of seventy, coming in 
 for half a million, can afford to give himself 
 airs. He is no longer old — he is no longer 
 ugly ; he has only got to show himself to 
 be courted and admired. Only to hold out 
 his withered hands, and the prettiest, love- 
 liest lips will gladly kiss them. Only to 
 display his bank-book, and the most youth- 
 ful belle of Belgravia will be his. He has 
 only to command, and all women will be 
 his slaves. It is for such as him, a super-
 
 104 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 annuated Monte Cristo, that the purest 
 and the vilest of the sex were evidently 
 made ; and he has only to drop his snufF- 
 stained handkerchief amongst them, and 
 it will be disputed for and as eagerly 
 claimed, as the golden apple of Paris ! Mrs- 
 Smith's ambition now is to be considered 
 a literary character, and she cannot exist 
 out of an atmosphere of savants ! Those 
 two men hanging over her are fashionable 
 scribblers ; and one of them, Terence, goes 
 in for homme galant as well. The other is 
 in the gum-and-stamp office ; and both 
 are ' lions' who find plenty of ' Unas^ 
 in London society to pet and spoil 
 them." 
 
 "Then the fair girl is your especial 
 weakness, Arthur?" 
 
 " Yes ; and I have looked into those 
 great innocent blue eyes of hers until
 
 TWO HEARTS. 105 
 
 they seemed to hold out to me the pro- 
 of a heaven whose azure they rival. 
 I told her frankly that she had become 
 everything in the world to me; and she 
 put her hand into mine, and hid her 
 face on my shoulder, and swore to 
 be my wife! But what's the wisdom of 
 retrospection ! it only makes a fellow feel 
 doubly down." 
 
 '- Yes, but, you know, ' confession is 
 good,' etcetera; and I am interested in 
 this little romance of your life, which you 
 have contrived to keep so dark." 
 
 •' Well, to cut a long story short, there 
 were no obstacles to surmount : everything 
 went smoothly as a marriage-bell. We 
 were as happy as a couple of children. 
 Suddenly a cloud arose — a paltry speck, 
 rather — jealousy, misunderstanding, and 
 so on, increased it into a thunder-bolt
 
 106 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 at last; then that burst, and left me 
 wretched." 
 
 " And took you off to Venice for six 
 months, to try the cure of Venetian tresses. 
 I remember you left England with an 
 unusually crestfallen countenance.'^ 
 
 " Yes ; but she did not suffer, and is as 
 smiling and serene as ever, as though 
 nought had occurred to ruffle the even 
 tenor of her life. I have never set eyes 
 upon her till to-night." 
 
 " Here's some balm for you. I am a bit 
 of a physiognomist, and I see no coldness 
 or falsity in the glances that she turns 
 covertly, but very frequently, this way. 
 Make it up with her if you really love 
 her, Arthur, and you will find it was only 
 a ' cloud with a silver lining,' after all, that 
 came between you." 
 
 " No offence to your taste, old fellow,
 
 TWO HEARTS. 107 
 
 car il Vby a pas de regie sans exception; 
 but I, as a rule, hate fair women. They 
 are generally as treacherous as pan- 
 thers, and often as vicious. The other 
 girl is more my type of beauty, but 
 ten chances to one she is either stupid or 
 wicked." 
 
 "Maurice, your eternal cynicism grates 
 upon me, in spite of my irritated feelings. 
 You expect a rara avis instead of a wo- 
 man. However, you had better be intro- 
 duced to her, and I almost hope she will 
 revenge her whole sex by breaking your 
 heart — that is, if there is such an absurdity 
 as a broken heart, or suivant your hypo- 
 thesis, hearts of any kind." 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 " Daughter of Sir John Chesterton, a 
 pompous, fussy old Baronet, emulated in 
 stiff-neckedness by the haughty dame, his
 
 108 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 wife. The family dates from near the 
 Deluge, ou un ]jeu pres, and have extensive 
 estates in Lincolnshire, besides a palatial 
 mansion in Eaton Square. Violet Ches- 
 terton is an only child, and an heiress^ 
 and, ^^ar consequence^ a natural target 
 for matrimonial shafts of all sorts. On 
 cUt, that she, too, has a leaven of the 
 family pride, and that she is ridicu- 
 lously quixotic in her defence of an 
 immaculateness that nineteenth - century 
 men don't often come up to. No one 
 has hitherto appeared to reach up to 
 her impossible standard, and she never 
 condescends to flirting like other girls. 
 Now you^ Maurice, cannot be classed 
 as a fortune-hunter, and you may suc- 
 ceed in pleasing her as a pleasant ac- 
 quaintance. Friendship with a pretty 
 woman is agreeable enough, although I
 
 TWO HEARTS. 109 
 
 confess I have not much faith myself 
 in its existence between the sexes." 
 
 " La Fontaine said that love is but 
 a shadow of the morning, that de- 
 creases as day advances • but that 
 friendship is the shadow of the even- 
 ing, that lengthens with the setting 
 sun." 
 
 " La Fontaine must have been a 
 block of ice, like yourself," laughed 
 Eeggy Peel. 
 
 " Platonics are awfully jolly things, 
 I dare say, provided you have moral 
 courage to stick to them. They don't 
 entail on you a tenter - hook sort of 
 existence, with a continual sword of 
 Damocles suspended by a hair over 
 your head; they don't feed you on a 
 diet of 'honey and bitter aloes,' with 
 the bitter predominating considerably;
 
 110 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 and they don't give you half the bother 
 and pain of being a miserable shuttle- 
 cock, wafted hither and thither, north, 
 south, east, and west — by Cupid's capri- 
 cious battledore !" 
 
 " May I introduce my friend Mr. 
 Lynn?" Gordon said, later in the even- 
 ing; and by the time the lady had 
 bowed her acknowledgment of the in- 
 troduction, Arthur had quietly lounged 
 away, and Violet Chesterton, lifting up 
 her eyes, looked straight into a face 
 that exactly realized her ideal.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 
 
 " Love is a sweet idolatry, enslaving all the soul, 
 A mighty spiritual force, warring with the dullness 
 
 of matter — 
 An angel mind breathed into a mortal ! 
 
 ****** 
 Love ! what a volume in a word, an ocean in a tear, 
 A seventh heaven in a glance, a whirlwind in a sigh, 
 The lightning in a touch, a Millennium in a moment !" 
 F?'Overhial Philosoph?/. 
 
 " To love, and at the same time to be wise, is 
 scarcely granted even to a god." 
 
 N undoubted homme du monde^ 
 Maurice Lynn's character was 
 yet somewliat inconsistent, if 
 looked upon in the hackneyed acceptance
 
 112 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 of that term. He was excessively shrewd 
 and far-seeing, but the power of penetra- 
 tion which unveiled to him in all their 
 meanness and deformity, the vices of the 
 human mind, had failed to render him 
 either particularly cautious or calculating 
 in the acquaintance he formed. He was 
 true in judgment, although as impulsive in 
 his real temperament as an infant, but he 
 contrived to disguise his naturally strong 
 feelings under a mountain of seeming 
 ice. 
 
 Sceptical of genuine goodness in both 
 sexes, he was yet w^onderfully ardent in his 
 implicit and unwavering faith in the few 
 he really liked and respected. An accom- 
 plished scholar, a profound thinker, and an 
 occasional dreamer, he was a man who 
 lived to some purpose. 
 
 Unlike the majority of men with whom
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 113 
 
 he was in daily association, his life had 
 been far from a frivolous one, and un- 
 toward circumstances had shown him a 
 good deal more of the shady side of exis- 
 tence with its innumerable knocks and 
 brunts, than of the summer portion of it, 
 that is filled with poetry and spread with 
 roses. Many a ''crumpled leaf" had, how- 
 ever, strew^ed his path. 
 
 Nine years ago he had been a clerk, and 
 almost a drudge, in a great banking firm 
 in the City — a berth procured for him with 
 infinite difficulty by an old and influential 
 friend of his family; but, nevertheless, a 
 berth that yielded in return for ten weari- 
 some hours of diurnal labour the magnifi- 
 cent remuneration of an annual stipend of 
 some sixty pounds. 
 
 Still, during the lifetime of the only 
 parent that was left to him, he had plodded 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 and worked on, patiently and uncomplain- 
 ingly, at tlie uninteresting study of ledgers ; 
 and had allowed himself neither time, nor 
 licence of imagination for soaring into 
 higher branches of literature, or dwelling 
 on a less prosaic aspect of life than that 
 which was open to him within the circum- 
 scribed space contained between the four 
 walls of the banker's office. When at 
 length he found himself alone in the world, 
 with no relative dependent on his daily 
 exertions, he gladly threw up the irksome 
 stuffy berth, and with the Very few 
 hundreds that formed the whole of his 
 patrimony he commenced a new career in 
 the Great Babylon — the most uncertain 
 career he could possibly have chalked out 
 for himself, viz., an author's. 
 
 It was in sad, sober, and earnest truth, 
 a very tempestuous ocean on which he had
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 115 
 
 been courageous enough to risk his " little 
 all," with no finish, apparently, to the rocks 
 and shoals that were to be encountered in 
 the passage, and Avith no end of violent 
 buiFetings with the overwhelming and 
 nearly submerging waves of criticism that 
 was occasionally not only ill-naturedj but 
 positively unjust, until the critics and re- 
 viewers of the nineteenth century became 
 the very bugbears of his life, and over and 
 over again he inwardly endorsed the senti- 
 ment that had emanated from the breast 
 of a " forlorn and shipwrecked brother.'' 
 The fangs of a bear, the tusks of a wild 
 boar, do not bite worse and make deeper 
 gashes than a goosequill sometimes! No, 
 even the badger himself, who is said to 
 be so tenacious of his bite that he will 
 not give over his hold until his teeth 
 meet!
 
 116 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 Aristotle, when asked by what criterion 
 we should judge of the merits of a book, 
 replied, "When an author has said every- 
 thmg that he ought, nothing but what 
 he ought, and says that as he ought." 
 
 The critics of the day were as exacting 
 and severe as the Grecian philosopher. 
 
 "Let there be ^ gall enough' in thy 
 ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, 
 no matter !" was an exordium to their 
 heart's content; so instead of occasionally 
 handling with gentleness, or even now 
 and then amiably overlooking some of 
 the blemishes that met their view, thereby 
 bestowing a little encouragement on him 
 who wrote with the earnest desire, if 
 failing in the power, to merit approval, 
 they seemed to revel with a malicious 
 joy in gushes of censoriousness, ^iXX- 
 lessly mutilating each carefully-penned
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 117 
 
 sentence, until it came disgracefully limp- 
 ing out into the world, and crushing 
 each flight of imagination until it lay a 
 hideous commonplace, bereft of all that 
 "Could make it sound even readable to 
 the public. 
 
 Poor Maurice would often catcli himself 
 poring sadly and hopelessly over the pages 
 of a review that mercilessly and ruthlessly 
 slashed away at some particularly pet 
 passage over which he bad spent hours of 
 thought, and would feel inclined to ejacu- 
 late, bitterly enough — 
 
 "Satire or sense, alas I can Sporus feel, 
 "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel !" 
 
 From early youth he had been imbued 
 with melancholy and somewhat morbid 
 vicAvs of life — that "the world had nothing 
 solid, nothing desirable in it; that it was 
 only a fashion, and a fashion that passeth
 
 118 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 away; that the tenderest affections end; 
 that honours are but specious titles that 
 time effaces ; that pleasures are only amuse- 
 ments that have a lasting and painful 
 repentance; that riches escape by their 
 own instability; that grandeur is but moul- 
 dering, and that glory and reputation lose 
 themselves in the abyss of eternal oblivion ; 
 — that, in fact, thus rolls the torrent of the 
 world whatever pains are taken to stop it, 
 and that everything is carried away by a 
 rapid train of passing events," were dis- 
 heartening truths for a stripling to study ; 
 but, nevertheless, he preferred them to the 
 light sensational romances that have gene- 
 rally so great a charm for youth. 
 
 He struggled on manfully, however, in 
 spite of the discouraging barriers that rose 
 up continually in his path; and although 
 he did not exactly " wake up one morning
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 119 
 
 to find himself famous," yet success came 
 to him at length by soupgons^ to reward 
 him for his sturdy and unceasing 
 efforts. 
 
 And when he had succeeded m securing 
 a competency that precluded a necessity 
 for turning his brains to account, he yet 
 scribbled on from sheer love and taste for 
 literature, whom he had constituted his 
 sole mistress, and at whose shrine he was 
 not only a willing slave but even an enthu- 
 siastic devotee. 
 
 He was twenty-eight years old now, and 
 nine years of that period he had led a 
 studious and sedentary life, rarely going in 
 for more than bare glimpses of the world, 
 and eschewing as much as lay in his power 
 the myth, alluring but dangerous, that that 
 world calls " pleasure." 
 
 He believed firmly that a determined
 
 120 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 votary of pleasure was one " who desires 
 to be happier than any man can be, 
 and is less happy than most men are — 
 one, in fact, who seeks happiness every- 
 where but where it is to be found, 
 and who out-toils the labourer not only 
 without his wages, but even paying 
 dearly for it." 
 
 The slave of pleasure, it is said, 
 sinks into a kind of voluptuous dotage; 
 intoxicated with present delights, and care- 
 less of everything else, his days and 
 nights glide away in luxury and vice, 
 and he has no care but one, and that 
 is to keep thought away. But how 
 like an opium-eater's dream such an 
 existence must be, with occasional fits 
 of wakefulness, in the short space of 
 which as much pain must be endured 
 as would more than counterbalance
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 121 
 
 the pleasure of whole ages of blissful 
 trances ! 
 
 Long, long ago, a few hours of his 
 life, had done Maurice right good service, 
 although they had made him suffer bitterly 
 at the time. They had induced him to 
 *'sow his wild oats" at a far earlier 
 period of manhood than is usually the case. 
 
 Women and pleasure had become to 
 him dark shadows of the past, to be 
 dreaded and shunned in the future, in- 
 stead of appearing to be sources of 
 enjoyment in the present; but with un- 
 belief in the feminine sex came a certain 
 quantum of cynicism that in the eyes 
 of many marred his character. His 
 studious ways had imparted a peculiar 
 gravity to his manner, which is rare in 
 an age in which men, counting their 
 years by threescore and ten, affect the
 
 1-25 
 
 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 buoyant spirits and frisky juvenility of 
 boyhood; but there was a species of 
 " attrait" in the very fits of abstraction 
 that crept over him at times, asserting 
 their ascendancy even amidst society, and 
 drawing him away, as it seemed, from 
 the outer world into a world of his 
 own — a world that was evidently peopled 
 ■with melancholy fancies, judging by the 
 tinge of sadness that those reveries always 
 left upon his visage. 
 
 His personal advantages were great. 
 
 Hanging up, in an out-of- the- w^ay 
 corner of a picture gallery at Dresden, 
 is a small cabinet painting, resembling 
 an old Velasquez, and labelled "Saint 
 Augustin." A rich but very dark back- 
 ground, showing up a face in startling 
 relief, as though it were chiselled in 
 marble.
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 123 
 
 The eyes deep-set and large, with a 
 sort of "far-off" look in them, under a 
 pair of well-defined brows. 
 
 The whole countenance superb like a 
 Greek god's, but lacking warmth and 
 mobility in the rigidness of the lines 
 round the mouth, and the severe regu- 
 larity of each delicate feature. 
 
 Maurice might have sat as the original 
 of the saint's portrait, except that when 
 he smiled, which was but rarely, all the 
 coldness faded right out of his face, and an 
 expression of unutterable softness stole 
 over his lips. 
 
 He was a tall man with a lithe figure, 
 possessing far more of elegance in it, than 
 muscular strength, and his intellectual 
 countenance was pale with nightly 
 vigils. 
 
 '' A slave of the lamp," he paid the
 
 124 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 penalty of his badge, by a loss of tlie fresh 
 colouring, that never goes hand in hand 
 with a consumption of " midnight oil," but 
 which constitutes with many people manly 
 beauty and vigour. With others, though 
 they might have been in the minority, his 
 principal charm was the very refinement of 
 the spirituelle face. 
 
 He had a free independence about him, 
 and a thorough indifference to general 
 popularity. To those whom he desired to 
 please, his voice and manner were fascina- 
 ting in the extreme. And in a woman who 
 possessed sufficient capability and taste to 
 appreciate properly the " nobility" of his 
 type of physiognomy, he was just the 
 being to excite profound admiration and 
 devotion, and to be placed upon a pedestal 
 of perfection for her to fall down and 
 worship. When he conversed with one of
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 125 
 
 the opposite sex, which was not very fre- 
 quently, there was, in spite of his avowed 
 scepticism in feminine worth, a deference 
 in his tone which insensibly flattered and 
 pleased the fair creature he addressed, and 
 his eyes, ordinarily wearing a cold reflec- 
 tive expression, acquired potent attraction 
 for any woman who fancied herself gifted 
 with the power of drawing a warmer 
 look into them when they turned upon 
 her. 
 
 Only a few weeks had elapsed since the 
 memorable ball at which Violet Chesterton 
 had met her " Fate," as she inwardly called 
 him, and she had learnt the great lesson 
 of life by heart. The verb amo^ with 
 regard to Maurice, had been conjugated by 
 her already fifty times a day in every tense 
 and mood — " practice makes perfect" — and 
 she was as proficient in her task as though
 
 126 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 she had been studying it for years instead 
 of days. She would watch for a flood of 
 " love-light " to well up into those serious 
 hazel eyes, and when it came a strange 
 rapture would fill her bosom. She had 
 turned over a new leaf in existence, and 
 the perusal of it imparted a zest and 
 colouring to life that was blissful beyond 
 expression. She utterly forgot her real 
 age, and dated the first hour of her 
 being from that moment when she had 
 first looked upon him. 
 
 And where in all the world could have 
 been found a more invincible proof of 
 omnia vincit amor than in Maurice ? 
 Maurice, the unbeliever, the sceptic, the 
 cynical ridiculer of all earthly afi*ec- 
 tion! 
 
 It was love, passion, madness, or all 
 three combined, that had hurled away
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 127 
 
 to the four winds of heaven, in a brief 
 moment, all his cherished sentiments, 
 all his beloved philosophy of many a 
 long year! But how could he have 
 looked at her and doubted that goodness 
 and truth really existed in this world? 
 How could he have spoken to her, and 
 believed that such lips as hers could 
 frame aught savouring of falsity or 
 deceit ? How could he have touched 
 her and not acknov/ledged within him- 
 self that, in spite of all he had so lately 
 avowed, he was still capable of loving, 
 that his heart was not only not '' dead,'^ 
 but possessed ih.Q human attributes of 
 worshipping, rejoicing, and suffering! 
 
 She was the " ray of light " of which 
 Gordon had spoken; but why had cruel 
 fate cast her into his path, when her 
 presence for a little while could but
 
 128 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 make the darkness in which destiny 
 had placed him, still more terribly 
 visible? 
 
 Since the two had met, circumstances 
 had throw^n them, nolens volens, continu- 
 ally together. Maurice had, day by day, 
 emerged more and more out of his shell, 
 and had become an altered man. He 
 seemed to have thrown off all his or- 
 dinary reserve and apathy, and went 
 into society with a light buoyancy of 
 spirit, which, if not reaching quite to the 
 noisy hilarity of some men, yet presented 
 a remarkable contrast to his former de- 
 meanour. 
 
 Arthur Gordon looked on amazed at 
 the sudden transformation; but Gordon 
 was entirely without "guile," and was 
 one of those open, unsuspecting creatures 
 that never think of divi??^ for motives,
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR.- 129 
 
 accepting willingly the surface so long as 
 it be a pleasant one. What on earth 
 mattered it to him, to trouble himself by 
 questioning as to cause^ when the effect 
 was agreeable? Maurice had grown infi- 
 nitely jollier, and consequently was a better 
 <jompanion than ever. 
 
 Moreover, he had enough work on his 
 hands on his own account, and all his 
 time was employed in reflecting as 
 seriously as any Commander-in-Chief, over 
 the wisest manoeuvres for the siege of a 
 <iitadel that appeared impervious to any 
 method of attack. 
 
 A wilful capricious fairy, with the 
 loveliest mignonne figure in the world, 
 and an innocent Hebe face. Miss Let- 
 tice Grey, once more having turned up on 
 the tapis, had resumed her despotic reign 
 in the Baronet's honest heart ; but he 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130- NOT WHILE SHE LIVES* 
 
 had not as yet ventured to hold up before 
 those laughing turquoise eyes the iiag 
 of truce, for she was so cruel to him,, 
 playing fast and loose with his feelings^ 
 just as her variable mood dictated. 
 Now and then a kinder look, a furtive 
 smile, would almost bring him, a humble 
 suppliant at her side; then a flirty move- 
 ment, a coquettish arch glance shot else- 
 where, would arrest his flying steps, and 
 leave him bitterly riled, and angrily 
 venting his annoyance on the unoffend- 
 ing hirsute glory that adorned his upper 
 lip, and of which many men were envious. 
 Arrived at years of discretion, and pos- 
 sessing a moderate amount of brains, 
 he yet lacked the wisdom to know 
 
 *^ Where is the man who has the power and skill 
 To stem the torrent of a woman's will ? 
 For if she will, she will, you may depend on't, 
 And if she wont, she ivont, and there's an end on't !"
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 181 
 
 The provincial town in which both 
 Maurice Lynn and the Chestertons were 
 temporary visitors, presented but a limited 
 society, the members of which naturally 
 frequented the same places of resort and 
 amusement, the same balls, fetes, and 
 pic-nics, each of which afforded easy 
 facilities for furthering a desirable ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 Thus a morning scarcely dawned upon 
 the lovers — for lovers they had speedily 
 become — Avithout the blessed assurance 
 of a meeting, somewhere or somehow,. 
 before the breaking of another day. 
 
 But though these looked-for meetings 
 were of daily occurrence, Maurice, though 
 he had perhaps implied love, had never 
 by word avowed it. 
 
 His looks and his manner testified 
 openly enough to the feelings which the 
 
 9—2
 
 132 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 girl had awakened in liim ; but never had 
 he embodied his sentiments in a single 
 sentence; never, in spite of many a fa- 
 vourable opportunity, in spite of the very 
 encouragement that he could scarcely fail 
 to read in Violet's sweet eyes, those speak- 
 ing eyes, that he had likened to twin stars, 
 and which had become in truth the only 
 beacons he knew, had he dared to breathe 
 his passion, or to seek for an acknow- 
 ledgment of reciprocity from the lips 
 that sometimes seemed almost to woo him 
 to come nearer them. 
 
 But though wearing a gay and lively 
 exterior abroad, alone, and at home, the 
 old fits of gloom began to reassume their 
 sway over him, and none but himself 
 knew the extent of the fearful struggle 
 within him, or guessed how terribly hard 
 it had already become for him, to resist
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 133 
 
 the mute, but eloquent pleading of those 
 dear lips and eyes, and to stifle back the 
 passionate words that burnt in his breast 
 for utterance. 
 
 Conscience — and with him conscience 
 had hitherto been powerful enough — now 
 continually persuaded him to be strong, 
 and to flee from temptation; but for the 
 first time in his life he tried to chase 
 away the " still small voice," feeling that 
 it was impossible for him to break 
 through the spell that bound him to 
 Violet's side, even though love threatened 
 to conquer, when both honour and prin- 
 ciple bade him be dumb. 
 
 It was brought home to him now how 
 utterly moral cowardice and a guilty 
 heart go hand in hand. 
 
 If he could but be brave, and obey 
 the impulse to do rightly, saying
 
 134 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 ''No" decidedly to himself, and ad- 
 hering to his sapient resolution — hut he 
 €Ould not. 
 
 '^But," it is said, is a more detestable 
 combination of letters than any other. 
 ^'No" is a surly, but honest fellow, 
 speaks his mind rough and round at 
 once; hut^ is only a sneaking, evasive, 
 half-bred, exceptional sort of conjunc- 
 tion, and the man who uses it is lost. 
 
 Maurice soon persuaded himself that 
 it would be just as futile a task to try 
 and " enchain a wild buffalo with a 
 garland of flowers," as to wrestle with the 
 mightiness of the love that had become a 
 portion of his being. 
 
 Violet, with eighteen years of ex- 
 perience, was not very au fait at the 
 difficult reading of human nature, but 
 she was old enough and intelligent enough
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 135 
 
 to discover the existence of the tempest 
 evidently warring mthin her lover's 
 heart. 
 
 There were occasional moments when, 
 torn by the conflicting emotions of anxiety 
 and incertitude, absolute unhappiness pre- 
 vailed over her, and she tormented her- 
 self by perplexing doubts and fears, and 
 all the other unpleasant concomitants 
 of "being in love," asking herself 
 whether Maurice really cared for her or 
 otherwise ? 
 
 But such moments were very rare, 
 and she felt at most times a happy and 
 certain conviction, that though some- 
 thing deterred him from speaking, a 
 true affection did exist and was her very 
 own ; but what that fatal " something'' 
 was, remained to her an enigma long un- 
 solved, and unexplained.
 
 V66 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 She could have staked her life on 
 his truth, and have vouched before all 
 the world, that he was no gay trifler, 
 like the many butterflies that fluttered 
 around her with honeyed speeches, and 
 specious flattery, meeting no kinder re- 
 sponse from her than their own in- 
 sincerity deserved. He was assuredly 
 no fortune-hunter, dazzled into admira- 
 tion and adulation, by the glitter of 
 her reputed wealth; no wanton wounder 
 of women's feelings, no male flirt, that 
 most despicable creature of the mascu- 
 line species, searching for victims ta 
 gratify his paltry vanity. And there 
 was no apparent sensualism in his com- 
 position, prompting him to pursue for 
 awhile one who pleased his eye, but 
 who lacked the power to enchain hi& 
 footsteps, or to satisfy his erratic taste.
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 137 
 
 Violet, after the fashion of her sex, 
 who, when Cupid has them under his 
 thumb, are obstinately blind and deaf 
 to any possible defects in the object of 
 their aiFections, was convinced that 
 Maurice was all that " her fancy 
 painted him," and she would have an- 
 swered as steadfastly for . him as for 
 herself: so, weary of conjecturing, she 
 resolved to bide her time patiently, 
 and to leave the future to take care 
 of itself. To her, her lover's daily pre- 
 sence was actual meat and drink and 
 oxygen, leaving no desire ungratified, 
 no wish unfulfilled. He was become 
 the alpha and omega of everything — 
 her all in all. She lived in a beatific 
 dream from morn till night, and from 
 night to morn ; and so long as no 
 prospect of parting from him came to
 
 138 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 shadow her happy life, she was as blithe- 
 some as a bird. 
 
 But as day after day slipped by, 
 lengthening into weeks, and even months, 
 Sir John Chesterton and his lady-wife ' 
 grew less tolerant of the delay in the 
 open declaration of Maurice's senti- 
 ments, than the party most concerned 
 in the matter, was herself. 
 
 They could not naturally compre- 
 hend why a man, who was undoubtedly 
 Violet's very shadow, should be so 
 tardy in coming forward honourably, as 
 a, claimant for her hand. 
 
 The Chestertons were proud old 
 people, and with the acute sensitive- 
 ness that always accompanies extreme 
 pride, they shrank painfully from having 
 their family matters made the theme 
 of babbling vulgar tongues at every
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 139 
 
 *' cat -lap" that took place in the 
 town. 
 
 Already meddling old maids and 
 envious matrons of their own clique 
 had made them perfectly au courant of 
 the gossip, for there was no lack of 
 cancan about, and the society, espe- 
 cially when demolition of reputation 
 ^was the subject, might have been com- 
 pared to a " heap of embers, which, 
 when brought together in contact, 
 burst into a flame, and devoured up 
 everything." 
 
 The art of spreading scandal has 
 been wisely likened to pin - making. 
 There is usually some truth as founda- 
 tion, according to the old French pro- 
 verb — " II rHy a pas de fumee sans feu^^ 
 and that may represent the wire; this 
 passes from hand to hand, whilst one
 
 140 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 gives it a polish, another a head, another a 
 point, and so on. 
 
 Maurice Lynn was apparently in an 
 eligible position to marry. Burke's 
 "Landed Gentry" gave his family, and 
 the social status they had held in Wor- 
 cestershire, in full. He seemed to be 
 his own master, and under these cir- 
 cumstances his behaviour rendered him 
 a likely mark for virulent discussion. 
 That there must be something sub rosd 
 to make him act as he was doing, was 
 voted an undisputed fact ; and with 
 this suggestion administered to them 
 homoeopathically, in small but frequent 
 doses, it was no w^onder Sir John and 
 his spouse grew distrustful of the man 
 w^ho seemed to be only a sort of "de- 
 trimental" after all — a mere stumblino- 
 block in their daughter's path to form-
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 141 
 
 ing a more brilliant alliance, and, in 
 fact, accepting what to worldly folks is 
 the ne plus ultra of terrestrial bliss, the 
 coronet of a peeress, — for Violet had no 
 paucity of offers, both from titled men 
 and commoners. 
 
 Her fortune in itself, was a sufficient 
 bait for needy noblemen seeking to re- 
 suscitate their finances, had she been 
 hideous as a Gorgon ; but wealth, 
 united to a beauty, that in its radiance 
 completely paled the loveliness of other 
 women, made her a beautiful and golden 
 prize, naturally desired by most who looked 
 upon her. 
 
 Poor Maurice, in the midst of all his short- 
 comings, was assuredly no " detrimental ;" 
 he loved the girl too truly to be selfish, 
 and he never attempted to monopolize 
 her by word or deed, if a rival appeared
 
 142 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES, 
 
 in the field ; but would yield her up, without 
 a murmur, to any aspirant to her society, 
 although his cheek would grow pale as 
 death, as he watched her from his distant 
 corner, on another man's arm; and up in 
 his breast would rise an involuntary sigh, 
 smothered back by a valiant effort — a 
 sigh which though voiceless, never failed 
 in finding an echo in the heart of her 
 whom he had relinquished, accompanied 
 by a mutinous feeling at his unselfishness 
 in giving her up. 
 
 The diurnal meetings were brought to a 
 summary termination, by a sudden decision 
 of Sir John's to eschew parties for a while. 
 Invitations were steadily refused, and eyes 
 as curious as Argus's were kept on un- 
 happy Violet's movements, so that the 
 lovers were as totally separated by the 
 insurmountable barriers that conventional-
 
 OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. 143 
 
 ism often raises, as though miles of land 
 and sea had divided them from one 
 another; but Eloisa and Abelard were 
 not the only fortunate pair that rejoiced 
 when 
 
 " Heaven first taught letters for the wretch's aid, 
 Some banished lover, or some captive maid."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IMPARADISED IN ONE ANOTHER S ARMS. 
 
 " Not Jove himself can now make void 
 The joy that winged the flying hour; 
 The certain blessing once enjoyed 
 
 Is safe beyond the Godhead's power. 
 Nought can recall the acted scene; 
 What hath been, spite of Jove, hath been !" 
 
 '■'■ Oh, love ! oh, fire ! once he drew 
 With one long kiss my whole soul through 
 My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew !" 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 NFINITELY more dangerous 
 to peace became the inter- 
 views, perhaps doubly sweet 
 because they were stolen ; for what fruit
 
 << IHTT^AT^ AT^TC-r,T^ " 
 
 IMPARADISED. 145 
 
 is so delicious on earth as the fruit that 
 is forbidden ? The meetings that were 
 unsanctioned by the presence of parents, 
 unwitnessed by the prying eyes of the 
 world, could not be silent ones, and the 
 burning words that Maurice had bravely 
 restrained himself from uttering in the 
 solitude of crowds and ball-rooms, burst 
 involuntarily and vehemently from his 
 lips, surrounded by sylvan shades, and 
 wdth no one near him but the woman 
 that he madly loved. He could have ex- 
 claimed with the poet — 
 
 "No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us, 
 All earth forgot, and all heaven around us," 
 
 as he stood with her clasped closely in 
 his arms. 
 
 The two had not met for what, count- 
 ing by Cupid's Almanac, was an eternity, 
 though calculating the time by the com- 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 monplace method of seconds, minutes, 
 hours, and days, a fortnight might have 
 summed the period of probation. Any 
 way, the souls of both were literally 
 thirsting for a sight of one another, 
 just for one long look, one fervent hand- 
 clasp. 
 
 Chance favoured them at last, and 
 seizing the golden opportunity, Maurice 
 slipped into Yi's little palm a note, pre- 
 pared ages before — a tiny billet, measur- 
 ing not more than a couple of inches in 
 circumference, but containing more en- 
 trancing food for the imagination than 
 the most romantic, closely written, 
 three-volumed novel, author ever pro- 
 duced. 
 
 The midnight hour, the hour in which 
 the outcast and the homeless prowl out, 
 too-ether with the hardened felon that
 
 " THirr^.T^ A-r^TCT.,. " 
 
 IMPARADISED. 147 
 
 shuns the light, and the wretched being 
 to whom that hght is a hateful mockery. 
 Yet there was one who kept a tryst 
 in this hour, whose days had seen 
 far more of sunshine than of shade, 
 one whose ways were good and 
 pure, and whose breast harboured no 
 guile. 
 
 It was one of those sultry summer 
 nights when the vaulted sky is shadowed 
 by hazy clouds, with just here and there 
 a twinkling star shining down through 
 them. But even if, instead of this, the 
 heavens had been one mighty expanse 
 of '^ silver sheen," it would have been 
 almost impossible to distinguish the contour 
 of the form that glided, closely cloaked, 
 under the trees. All that could be seen 
 of the delicate apparition, was a pair 
 of bright dark eyes, restless as they 
 
 10— i
 
 148 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 hurriedly glanced from side to side. A 
 pair of eyes that loohed a rendezvous. 
 
 Yiolet crept noiselessly along, with a 
 step so wondrously light, that her tiny 
 feet w^ould hardly have dashed away the 
 dew from a daisy, or bent the swaying 
 stalk of the tenderest fern ; and she 
 started perceptibly like a guilty things 
 at each low whisper of the west wind, 
 at each trembling of a feathery spray in 
 the breeze, and at each rustle of a fallen 
 leaf, stirred by the trail of her training 
 skirt. 
 
 The eiFort that it had cost her to go 
 thus far alone, and at such an hour, 
 was so great, that she sank half-faint- 
 ing down upon the trunk of an old 
 elm. 
 
 For an instant or so, she scarcely 
 seemed to breathe, her cheek flushings
 
 " IMPARADISED." 149 
 
 and lier heart beating to suffocation. 
 The impropriety of a meeting at the 
 dead of night appeared to represent to 
 her pure and fresh young mind the 
 terrible aspect of a crime. She had but 
 a short time before, in the sanctuary of 
 her own bed-room, absolutely trembled 
 with impatience to be where she was, 
 ^nd now she would have given the Avorld 
 never to have come ! 
 
 She feared one instant that Maurice 
 might fail in keeping the appointment; 
 the next moment she dreaded his comins; 
 to find her waiting for him. What 
 should she do ? retrace her steps at 
 once ? Alas ! she might never look upon 
 him again if her resolution to return 
 home was carried out, so — she stayed. 
 
 She looked very lovely on the lowly 
 seat she had chosen; the moon was
 
 150 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 rising slowly higher and higher, and 
 she sat bathed in a sheet of light. 
 Oppressed with the sultriness of the 
 night, she had unfastened her cloak, and 
 it had partially fallen off her, revealing 
 the white swan-like throat, and display- 
 ing the symmetry of her figure. Her 
 hat lay neglected by her, and in the 
 restlessness of watching, she had pushed 
 her hair aside, and escaping from the 
 confining comb, the lustrous masses hung 
 in undulating waves below her waist. 
 With her white garments gleaming in 
 the moonlight, and her hand like a snow- 
 flake, pressed upon her breast, she looked 
 like a " spirit from above that had 
 wandered down to earth." 
 
 A step resounded on the turf, and for 
 the very first time in her life, Yiolet 
 was caught in her lover^s embrace, with
 
 151 
 
 his lips against her cheek. " Imparadised 
 in one another's arms," the rapid beating 
 of their hearts was all the sound they 
 heard, except that to amorous ears the 
 gentle flutter of Cupid's wings might 
 have been audible, as he flew through 
 the air close by ! 
 
 Maurice felt that the fairest creature 
 the earth held, was his ! upon hi& 
 breast ; her long hair swept over him, 
 she loved him, he alone occupied her 
 heart ! What more of happiness could 
 life ever brino; to him ao^ain? He was 
 alone with her for the very first time, — 
 he could gaze upon her beauty, with no 
 stranger intermeddling with his joy, with 
 no other eye feasting on the charms that 
 his jealous soul had longed so many 
 a time to hide away from all but him- 
 self, — and yet he restrained himself from
 
 152 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 many a word and look that miglit have 
 too fully revealed the ardent feelings 
 withm him. 
 
 He had for this girl, unprotected and 
 alone as she w^as, at an hour when all 
 the tenderest feelmgs of his nature were 
 aroused, and when all the surroundings 
 were provocative of human passions, a 
 sentiment that was of the purest and 
 noblest kind. 
 
 He was close to her; the fragrance of 
 her tresses,*; of her breath, swept over 
 him, her luminous eyes gazed up into 
 his so lovingly out of their frank depths, 
 and he felt the sweet contact of her form ; 
 and yet an invisible distance divided 
 them that he would not have dared, or 
 even desired to encroach on, one step. 
 Her youth, her innocence, her evident 
 faith and love, were all-powerful pleaders
 
 " IMPARADISED." 153 
 
 in her cause, and for their sake he kept 
 the strictest guard over his words and 
 actions lest they should lead him out of 
 himself. 
 
 It was wrong of him to have tempted 
 her there, but '' sin itself lost half its evil, 
 by. losing all its grossness," 
 
 "My dear one, my ownP^ he whis- 
 pered, drawing her close to him, " but 
 a short time back, and I believed that 
 no love could stir my pulses, and now 
 I know that my heart lives and beats 
 as ardently as man's can do ! Until I 
 saw you I was an infidel in affection. 
 It appears to me as if my past life 
 has been one long miserable prose — that 
 the poetry of existence is only opening 
 before me now !" 
 
 "Did you love me at first sight?" she 
 asked him, shyly.
 
 154 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 " At once ! It seemed as if my eyes 
 and my heart went to meet yours in 
 tlie very first glance! And should not 
 love always come thus, instantaneously, 
 spontaneously, my darling? But then it 
 should also be overpowering and lasting 
 as eternity itself! Oh, Violet! will 
 eternal love be ours? It is now that 
 I feel I really care to live. Until I 
 
 knew you but why should I speak 
 
 of that wretched time — let the " dead 
 past bury its dead." The future, with 
 your presence to make sunshine for 
 me, will atone for all I have suf- 
 fered — for the bright illusions of boy- 
 hood rudely dispelled — for the lone 
 and loveless life of many a weary 
 year !" 
 
 And as his thoughts travelled back 
 quickly in sad retrospection, his voice
 
 " IMPARADISED." 155 
 
 sounded almost painfully mournful to her 
 ear. 
 
 " My dearest ! if you only knew how 
 sad a life mine has been, your womanly 
 heart would plead for forgiveness for one 
 who has, alas ! no right to hold you 
 thus! But it seems hard, terribly hard 
 always to resist, when the thing you 
 most long for on earth is within your 
 reach ! I have resisted to the utmost ; 
 I can do no more! I want your love, 
 Yiolet — will you give it to me, in spite 
 of anything that may happen — in spite 
 of any barriers that may rise up between 
 us?" 
 
 "In spite of anything, Maurice!" and 
 she blushed rosy red as that name passed 
 her lips for the first time. 
 
 "Do not look so sad, for I love you 
 with all my heart, dear Maurice !" she
 
 156 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 said beseechingly, flinging her pretty arms 
 round his neck, and forgetting her 
 maidenly reserve in the natural desire 
 of an honest true woman to see the man 
 she loved happy. 
 
 " Maurice, why did you never tell me 
 that you cared for me? It would have 
 been far kinder, far better to have done 
 so! It w^ould have saved me so much 
 pain, and then they might have known 
 it at home, and we should not have 
 been parted all this time! Why have 
 you not spoken before? Tell me," she 
 coaxed. 
 
 " My own, donH ask me ! I cannot 
 even now — I dare not tell you the 
 exact truth. God knows it has been 
 hard to keep my lips closed, when 
 words of love for you were ever hover- 
 ing upon them. But, Yi, we love one
 
 " IMPARADISED." 157 
 
 another; can we live without each other? 
 Will you sacrifice a little for my sake, 
 will you consent to meet me here some- 
 times, and to keep our meetings con- 
 cealed? Miserable circumstances, over 
 which I have no control at present^ make 
 me ask this — beg this on my knees," 
 and he threw himself before her and 
 grasped her two hands. 
 
 " Will you grant this, Violet? For 
 you must know that if it were otherwise, 
 not a day, not an hour should pass 
 before I claimed you openly before the 
 whole world !" 
 
 Poor Violet ! She was a good and 
 well-principled girl, naturally averse to 
 everything that was underhand and 
 savouring of deceit, but she was like 
 wax in the grasp of the man she wor- 
 shipped and believed in so implicitly,
 
 158 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 and he could have moulded her to his 
 slightest will. Upon his upturned face 
 the "twin stars" shone down a perfect 
 firmament of tenderness, and away from 
 her memory flew the golden precepts 
 of rectitude and truth that she had been 
 taught so carefully, and trained in so 
 strictly. 
 
 Love ruled — mighty, omnipotent — but 
 with a sway so unutterably sweet that 
 she never dreamed of resisting, and she 
 murmured out in the low and cooing 
 tones of a dove to its mate — 
 
 " It is wrong and very deceitful — 
 but I will do wdiatever you ask, for I 
 could not bear the misery now of never 
 seeing you !" 
 
 The misery of absence would indeed 
 be aggravated sevenfold, she thought, 
 now that she had tasted of the ''know-
 
 " IMPARADISED." 159 
 
 ledge of good and evil," and had learnt 
 that to lay her head on his breast, and to 
 listen to the words that fell from his 
 lips, was a fore-glimpse of a terrestrial 
 paradise she had pictured, but never 
 imagined really existed. Then came 
 a recollection of her parents — their anger 
 if her duplicity was discovered, and she 
 asked anxiously — 
 
 "But it will not be for long, this con- 
 cealment, Maurice ?" 
 
 " Xo, dearest, not for long, God 
 willing ! The day may come sooner 
 than we think when no silence will be 
 necessary. Until then you will be true 
 to me? — true to the very core?" he said, 
 passionately, and she pressed closer to him 
 in mute but earnest assent. 
 
 The moon grew larger and larger, 
 and sailed in majesty above like a
 
 160 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 gigantic Koh-i-noor upon the shifting 
 fleecy clouds, and the lovers looked up 
 at it, and felt their love increase each 
 moment, like the glorious planet. And 
 whilst it flooded all around wdth silver, 
 they traced its flickering light upon each 
 leaf, and indulged in the fond fancies 
 that naturally spring from such an hour. 
 Before they parted the summer dawn was 
 breaking, with a faint pink tinge just 
 here and there ; and the birds, that had 
 been eavesdroppers to the murmured love 
 ^vhispers were twittering amongst the 
 branches and flinging off" the dew from 
 their glistening plumage. 
 
 "Maurice, have you ever loved any 
 other woman?" she asked. 
 
 Poor child, she did so thirst in that 
 most blissful hour of her life, for the 
 precious assurance that every really
 
 161 
 
 loving woman craves for — namely, that 
 the man she adores has never expe- 
 rienced in the past, the feelings that are 
 his and hers, in the present. 
 
 Rechauffes never satisfy like fresh 
 originals, no matter how much an ex- 
 pert hand may endeavour to flavour them, 
 and render them palatable. 
 
 Maurice hesitated ere he replied; his 
 conscience smote him sorely enough for 
 having yielded to the temptation of 
 meeting her, of avowing his love, and 
 of receiving her sweet confession in re- 
 turn. He felt that he could not add 
 deceit to the fault he had already com- 
 mitted, even though the deceit might 
 be denominated mildly, a "white lie," 
 an ignoring or diplomatic evasion of her 
 question. 
 
 The simple, but heartfelt pathos of her 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 tone touched Mm to the heart. He 
 knew that all deception in the course of 
 life is '^nothing but a falsehood reduced 
 to practice — a lie, passing from words 
 into things;" and he loved her far too 
 sincerely to allow her deliberately to 
 rest under any false impression. 
 
 Yet in spite of the occurrences of the 
 past, he knew his feelings for this girl 
 were no rechauffes^ and that what he had 
 exaggerated and dignified as true '4ove'^ 
 before, had been nothing but a phantasm 
 of youth. 
 
 Taking her hands into his own, and look- 
 ing steadfastly into the brown eyes, ^vith an 
 expression that made their owner believe 
 implicitly every Avord he uttered, he said — 
 
 " You are my first love, and my last 1 
 If you ever cast me off, never shall 
 woman on this earth, hear words of
 
 " IMPARADISED." 163 
 
 affection from my lips. But you never 
 will desert me, darling! You will cling 
 to me? — have faith in me — and when 
 the blessed time comes, belong to me, 
 my dearest one! Promise me this, just 
 once more before you go." 
 
 " I will always love you, and will 
 be your wife whenever you ask me, 
 Maurice — I swear it !'' 
 
 " Then seal your oath thus, and thus," 
 he said, kissing her lips for the first 
 time during their interview, and feeling 
 dreadfully guilty at his deed the while. 
 What business had he to succumb to 
 the weakness? Only, he could not 
 deny himself just for once ; when those 
 lips were so near him, invitingly luscious 
 as twin cherries ripened beneath southern 
 skies, ready to be plucked, and yielding 
 to his touch ! 
 
 11—3
 
 164 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 It was very wrong of him, but few 
 men in his place would have resisted, 
 even as he had done. 
 
 "May Heaven keep you for me, my 
 own!" were the last words that kept 
 ringing in Violet's little pink ears, as she 
 fell asleep with a happy smile parting 
 her lips, and a fervent prayer for her 
 lover in her heart.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 •'uncertain, coy, and hakd to please." 
 
 *' By those sweet eyes where light is ever playing, 
 Where Love in depths of shadow holds his throne, 
 And by those lips which give whate'er thou'rt saying, 
 
 Or grave or gay, a music of their own ! 
 A music far beyond all minstrel's playing : 
 I love but thee ! I love but thee ! 
 
 *' By that fair brow where innocence reposes 
 As pure as moonlight sleeping upon snow. 
 And by that cheek whose fleeting blush discloses 
 
 A hue too bright to bless this world below, 
 And only fit to dwell on Eden's roses : 
 
 I love but thee ! I love but thee!" — Moore. 
 
 LEVEN A.M., in the most per- 
 fect little baclielor's apart- 
 ment in the world, commenc- 
 ing from the grey and gold-starred walls,
 
 166 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 and rich oriental hangings, down to the 
 thick yielding Turkey carpet under foot. 
 The furniture of carved hois de chene, 
 was an importation from Paris; some ex- 
 quisite proofs of Landseer and Herring, 
 a statuette of Mercury by Thorwaldsen, 
 and another of Bacchus and Silenus, 
 besides one or two rare vases of old Buon 
 Retiro porcelain, adorned the room. A 
 huge tiger skin was spread before the 
 fireplace, and on it, extended at full 
 length, lay a magnificent deerhound. In 
 a luxurious arm-chair, with his feet rest- 
 ing upon the sleeping dog, lounged Arthur 
 Gordon. 
 
 " By Jove, I know she'll end by driving 
 me mad, stark, staring mad ! It would 
 be easier to follow the caprices of a feu 
 foiled than hers! Talk of the delusion of 
 a mirage! Why it's nothing compared
 
 "uncertain, coy." 167 
 
 to lier ! and as to the tortuous windings 
 of her will, the evolutions of a serpent 
 would be a joke to them! Oh, Letty, I 
 owe you several! and if I ever have it 
 in my power to pay you out for *-the 
 dance you are leading me, I swear I'll 
 do it. She's such a dear, soft little 
 thing though, I think I would try what 
 effect love w^ould have first! How nice 
 she looked last night !" 
 
 And as an appropriate accompaniment 
 to this last little "spoony" reflection, he 
 w^histled a bar or two of— 
 
 " She danced like a fairy, 
 She sang like a bird," 
 
 "But how devilish ill she behaved 
 to me! Why cant I screw up enough 
 courage to ' put it to the touch and 
 win or lose it all,' instead of incessantly 
 dangling about ajiche-ing my feelings
 
 163 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 everywhere like a fool?" and in his 
 impatience he struck the dog with his 
 boot. 
 
 "Beg your pardon, Hector, old fellow! 
 Yoa are about the only thing that really 
 loves me, I believe!" he sighed, stooping 
 to pat the animal, who by way of showing 
 his acceptance of the apology, licked his 
 master's hand affectionately, and wagged 
 his heavy tail slowly backwards and for- 
 wards, in a serious regal fashion that was 
 peculiar to himself. 
 
 The grievance of the night before, on 
 which Arthur was so bitterly ruminating, 
 had consisted of a rebuff from Miss Lettice 
 Grey, in one of her ordinary capricious fits. 
 
 He had hovered near her and her party 
 for some length of time, anxiously await- 
 ing a chance of a word, and longing yet 
 fearing to approach the girl, wdien Mrs.
 
 "uncertain, coy." 160 
 
 Smith, a kind-hearted though worldly 
 woman, divining the state of his mind, 
 suddenly remarked, — 
 
 " Letty, you have not been dancing 
 much this evening, there's a set just form- 
 ing, and Sir Arthur Gordon looks inclined 
 to join it." 
 
 " Thanks, Janet dear, but I am very 
 tired, and Mr. Terence has just offered to 
 give me an ice," and the wilful fairy, 
 casting a sly, triumphant glance at 
 Arthur's crestfallen countenance, moved 
 quietly away. 
 
 " It's no good — she is determined to 
 avoid me, she positively hates me," mur- 
 mured poor Gordon to himself, as he lit 
 his cigar and sadly wended his Avay home- 
 wards. 
 
 The depression of the night ^vas heavy 
 upon him still, as he lay back with his
 
 170 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 eyes half closed, " chewing the cud of sweet 
 and bitter fancy." 
 
 '^Open Sesame!" exclaimed a clear 
 ringing voice, and light-hearted, and 
 fresh as a lark, Reggy Peel entered the 
 room, 
 
 " Hallo ! Arthur ; what's up ? Your face 
 looks as blank as my account at my 
 banker's! Hipped, eh?" 
 
 " No, not particularly. Have some 
 breakfast?" 
 
 "Yes, I don't mind; why you haven't 
 touched a thing ! Try a glass of this Yolnay, 
 and some of these cotelettes aux tomates. 
 They are first rate. They'll give you 
 more stamina than that Soda and B, 
 you seem to be imbibing. How did you 
 amuse yourself last night?" 
 
 "Not much; there was no one worth 
 speaking to scarcely."
 
 "uncertain, coy/' 171 
 
 "Did you see Miss Grey's new man? 
 She took up with that fellow Terence, 
 and seemed to have eyes for no one 
 else. What can she see in him?" 
 
 " Yes, what can she see in him, or in 
 all the other puppies that she takes up 
 and puts down again, as if they were 
 senseless dummies, and had no feelings 
 whatever ? she has no more heart than that 
 chair there !" and he kicked the offending 
 sample of Miss Lettice Grey's nature, 
 and angrily and viciously champed away 
 at the drooping ends of his moustache. 
 
 " She is a desperate flirt, and no mis- 
 take," asserted Reggy, adding in a com- 
 miserating tone, '^ I pity her husband if 
 she ever has one !" 
 
 Arthur's blood boiled up to fever heat 
 in a second. 
 
 " Talk of women's spite, why you fellows
 
 172 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 beat them hollow! What on earth has 
 Miss Grey done to rile you, that you 
 should depreciate her like that?" 
 
 "Why, Arthur!"— and Reggy Peel, 
 with his mouth full of pate de foie gras, 
 and his eyes wide open, stared at Gordon 
 in astonishment. 
 
 "Oh! I see which way the land lies I 
 forgive and forget, old chap, and accept 
 the sincere wishes of your humble servant 
 for success. Bless me, I have been blind 
 as a mole, not to find out that the spell 
 of other days was over you !" 
 
 The two men smoked away in silence 
 for several minutes after this. 
 
 " What's become of Lynn, Arthur?" 
 
 " He was ailing, more in mind than 
 body, I fancy, and has gone away for a 
 few days' change." 
 
 " That accounts for the milk in the
 
 " UNCERTAIN, COY." 173 
 
 -cocoanut," as a vulgar old Puerto Rico 
 Consul used to say in the F. 0." 
 
 ^' I wondered why Miss Chesterton 
 danced four times consecutively with Lord 
 Harcourt. Is that to be a match? She 
 does not look as if she cared one straw 
 about him, and he has a little affair on 
 hand elsewhere. A villa at Brompton, and 
 a dark green brougham, with a tiny face 
 with big blue eyes peeping out of it; 
 but of course that needn't clash with a 
 matrimonial alliance in high life. Cecile's 
 steps tend towards Cremorne and the 
 Argyle, and the future Lady Harcourt's 
 dainty tread will be confined to more 
 exclusive soil." 
 
 " It is lucky for the ambitious old 
 Chestertons, that Lynn has taken himself 
 out of the way at present." 
 
 " Rubbish, mon cher^'^ ejaculated Gordon.
 
 174 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 " Harcourt isn't a bad sort of fellow, 
 although his morals may not be A 1, 
 but he is much too lied with cocottes to 
 contemplate marriage. As for Maurice, 
 he never went in for flirtation in his life 
 — men of his calibre never do — they are 
 in the habit of taking everything too 
 much au serieux. I would not mind 
 wagering a good round sum that he 
 never looked upon Yi Chesterton but as 
 a beautiful clever girl, whose conversa- 
 tion is more edifying than half the 
 ' Misses' one meets." 
 
 " If there is nothing beyond a common- 
 place sentiment between Lynn and Miss 
 Chesterton, I am egregiously mistaken! 
 Any one can see that she loves him, even 
 by her eyes. But I must be off, and 
 having reversed the adage of ^ business 
 first and pleasure afterwards,' I will tell
 
 " TT>T^T^T,m.X^- rM/^^ »' 
 
 UNCERTAIN, COY. 175 
 
 you my principal reason for dropping in 
 upon you this morning. Mrs. Smith — 
 Marmaduke Smith I should say, for la 
 belle Jeannette confided to me the other 
 day, that without that euphonious prenom^ 
 her cognomen was perfectly odious to her, 
 has sent you a little message. She gives 
 a fete champetre to-day at some tumble- 
 down place that she calls " classic 
 ruins ;" t}iQ party are to meet at her 
 house at three precisely, and she par- 
 ticularly desires your company. Will you 
 go? 
 
 " Perhaps, if I feel up to it by and 
 
 by-" 
 
 " Ta-ta, then, and au revoir I hope !" 
 
 Punctually at three o'clock, Gordon 
 reached the appointed rendezvous. He
 
 176 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 had fortified the inner man by a strong 
 cup of coffee, and one or two petits 
 veri^es, by the aid of which he had 
 managed to pull his spirits up to the 
 requisite pitch. 
 
 The fete champeire was nothing more 
 or less in itself, than the stereotyped pic- 
 nic of all classes. A ramble over un- 
 comfortable ground, detached couples 
 whispering soft nothings behind a hedge, 
 or within the shadow of a dilapidated 
 archway, and groups of people, growing 
 rapidly hilarious over frothy Moet and 
 baskets of broken victuals. But if an 
 insight into the hearts of the revellers 
 had been feasible, the fete would have 
 acquired far greater interest for the 
 looker-on. 
 
 The hostess herself was a study, as 
 she sat there comparing furtively and
 
 "uncertain, coy." 177 
 
 regretfully ^^ggy Peel's thoroughbred 
 look and features, with the plebeian 
 physiognomy of her vulgar but good- 
 natured stockbroker, who, desirous of 
 doing honour to the party, had donned 
 the most flashy tie and waistcoat his 
 w^ardrobe could supply, and who, suf- 
 fering from the united efi*ects of the 
 summer sun and champagne, persisted 
 in energetically passing over his rubi- 
 cund visage a large yellow bandana, 
 that was his wife's pet aversion. Let- 
 tice Grey, too, was in an unsociable mood. 
 Her ordinary vivaciousness seemed to 
 have entirely deserted her, and she 
 appeared both bored 'dud preoccupee. 
 
 It might have been chance, or a 
 chance aided strongly by purpose, that 
 made her creep stealthily away from 
 the scene of festivity towards the wood- 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 land sequestered paths, where she 
 amused herself by crowning her pretty 
 brow with wild - flowers, until she im- 
 personated the loveliest Ophelia in the 
 world. She was not however doomed 
 to waste her sweetness on the desert 
 air. 
 
 Arthur had followed on her track, 
 and was an admiring spectator of the 
 picture she made. 
 
 In the sudden surprise of actually 
 finding herself in close juxtaposition 
 with her ex -fiance^ she forgot for an 
 instant that they had quarrelled, and 
 starting forward, she held out her hands 
 towards him ; but the next moment 
 recollecting the past, she dropped them 
 again, and half averting her face, stood 
 like a statue of Undine, waiting until 
 her lover should with his voice and
 
 "uncertain, coy." 179 
 
 touch awaken the soul within her into 
 life. 
 
 He was not tardy in obeying what 
 both instinct and inclination bade him, 
 and in a trice the girl's slight figure 
 was in his arms, the flower - decked 
 tresses lay on his bosom, and two 
 pairs of lips ratified the contract of 
 mutual forgiveness and an everlasting 
 truce. 
 
 " Oh, Letty! it seems such a century 
 of grief and pain since we parted," he 
 whispered. " For Heaven's sake become 
 my wife ere aught can separate us 
 again !" 
 
 Lettice nestled up lovingly into his 
 embrace, but pouted like a spoilt 
 child. 
 
 "Not so fast, Arthur. You were 
 very unkind, very cruel to me, and I 
 
 12—2
 
 180 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 have not forgiven you yet. I don't be- 
 lieve I ever shall." 
 
 '' Not forgive me, my pet? Why it 
 is / who ought to pardon you! But 
 now, try not to be wilful for once in 
 your life. In the first flush of my re- 
 newed happiness, do let me enjoy 
 myself without any specks overhead. 
 I am so happy, little woman! — happy 
 as a king — holding you like this, and 
 being allowed to " 
 
 The rest of the sentence was in- 
 distinct, being " acted instead of 
 spoken," and Letty had to submit, 
 and was forced to cry de grace! before 
 she was released. • 
 
 '' Arthur, promise never to be jealous 
 or doubtful of me again." 
 
 '' Never ! I swear it, unless you make 
 inc so ; but never mind the past, dar-
 
 "uncertain, coy. 181 
 
 ling, we have the present and the glo- 
 rious future, and the sooner that future 
 begins the better for both of us, I 
 say ? or who knows but something 
 may occur to dash away the cup of 
 happiness from our lips a second time." 
 
 She was seated on the grass by this 
 time, with Gordon half lying beside 
 her. He held her hands firmly in his 
 own, and Lettice, rosy and pale alter- 
 nately, gazed down on the dear chest- 
 nut head, and longed to imprint a kiss 
 on his clustering curls. 
 
 " Could you bear to part from me 
 again?" he asked her. 
 
 '' No, I could not ;" and Xh^ light- 
 ness was gone from her tone. " You 
 cannot have suffered more than I have, 
 <lear. I never forgot you for a mo- 
 
 ment."
 
 182 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 " Then all your avoidance of me was 
 mere acting — your apparent dislike a 
 sham. Oh, Letty!" And he shook his 
 head gravely at her, but his eyes 
 laughed as they met her deprecating 
 glance. 
 
 " I am quite content nou\ any way, 
 that I know you are mine again, that 
 my eyes seem to see you and you only 
 in the world, that I am at your 
 feet, and that my existence is all 
 sunshine." 
 
 " Arthur, what syren has been teach- 
 ing you the art of making pretty 
 speeches ?" 
 
 " No one but my own heart. Look 
 here, Letty, I have never loved any 
 other but you. I vowed, when you 
 discarded me, that no other woman 
 should ever have an influence over me;
 
 "tjncertain, coy." 18B 
 
 besides what chance could any one have 
 of '^ainino; the heart that was filled with 
 you, only you ?" 
 
 "And there is no one else you care 
 for, Arthur, anywhere, in some little 
 corner? Tell me," questioned the girl 
 with a moue mutine, and with her breast 
 heaving with the jealousy of a southern 
 maiden. 
 
 " No one, dearest." 
 " Ton honour?" 
 "On my life!" 
 
 " I should die if there were," she said, 
 passionately, with great flashing eyes. 
 "I believe I should kill her, and you 
 too! or neither, perhaps, but only my- 
 self," she added, in a sad little voice. 
 All the flippant repartee that characte- 
 rized her had died entirely out of her 
 manner, and she only remembered
 
 184 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 the truth, the depth of her love for 
 this man, whom she had so nearly lost 
 for ever. 
 
 "My darling child!" — and after the 
 custom of lovers, for awhile their dis- 
 course w^as completely made up of sweet 
 phrases, of which tautology was the 
 principal feature, and which a third 
 party would inevitably have stigmatized as 
 hosh, 
 
 " Arthur, they say that excess of hap- 
 piness makes people very selfish; but I 
 do not think that. Being so happy my- 
 self, I wish Violet was happy too! Poor 
 girl, she was looking awfully ill yesterday; 
 and sometimes, when I pop in suddenly, 
 1 find her eyes all full of tears; and 
 there are tears in her voice as well when 
 she answ^ers sadly, ^Nothing,' in reply 
 to my anxious questions. I cannot
 
 "uncertain, coy." 185 
 
 imagine why Mr. Lynn acts so very 
 strangely." 
 
 " Maurice Lynn ? Why, what on earth 
 has he to do with Miss Chesterton's illness 
 or happiness ?" 
 
 "I am certain he cares for her; and 
 yet he has never really proposed. He 
 must see how she loves him, if only by 
 her eyes !" 
 
 Gordon started. Letty had uttered 
 almost the very same words as had 
 fallen from Keggy Peel's mouth that 
 very morning. Could there really be 
 any foundation for an idea that he 
 had scouted as ridiculous and improbable. 
 
 "Maurice care for Miss Chesterton, 
 and propose to her ! Why, you are 
 dreaming ! Lynn is a married man !'' 
 
 " Married !" she cried. "Oh, how cruel, 
 dishonourable of him, to have behaved
 
 1S6 T^OT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 as he has done! Poor Yi, it will break 
 her heart to hear this ! But who will 
 dare to tell her ? And you, Arthur, you 
 must have surely seen what was passing, 
 and yet you never stretched out a saving 
 hand to her. ^Vhy did you not mention 
 a fact long ago, that every one here is in 
 ignorance of?" 
 
 " I was far too much occupied with 
 you, Letty, too perplexed and miserable 
 about my own troubles. I never thought 
 of Maurice as a lover; he is usually so 
 cold, so wrapt up in his books, and I 
 fancied he rather disliked women. Be- 
 sides, he knew he w^as bound long ago, 
 and that some reason existed which pre- 
 vented him from having a divorce. You 
 must be making a mistake, my dear one; 
 I sincerely hope you are, or I shall never 
 forgive myself for having been the un-
 
 ''uncertain, coy. 187 
 
 fortunate medium of introduction between 
 them." 
 
 " No mistake, but sad, sober, stern 
 reality ! I shall go home at once, Arthur. 
 I could not stand the dancing and laugh- 
 ing at this fete, when I know what a 
 fearful trial is in store for Violet. We 
 were schoolfellows together, and have 
 always been such close friends. She is 
 so good, Arthur, and I am so sorry for 
 her,'^ she sobbed. 
 
 "Don't cry so, for mercy's sake, my 
 pet, my little one ; I cannot bear the 
 sight of your tears. Nerve yourself to 
 the task of telling her the truth; you 
 will do it better than any one else. Let 
 her be undeceived as soon as possible; and 
 we must trust that pride or anger will 
 give her strength to bear the blow 
 bravely."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARRIED ! 
 
 When hope is chidden that fain of bhss would tell, 
 And love forbidden in the breast to dwell ; 
 When fettered by a viewless chain, 
 We turn and gaze, and turn again ; 
 Oh, death were mercy to the pain 
 Of those who bid ' Farewell !' " 
 
 Heher. 
 
 Eyes look your last, arms take your last embrace !" 
 
 Sliakspeare. 
 
 HOT day, savouring almost 
 of the Tropics, with the 
 brilliancy of the blue sky 
 unflecked and untempered by speck or
 
 MARRIED ! 189 
 
 cloud, and only enough air stirring to 
 waft the scent of the summer flowers 
 into a pleasant room, whose green jalousies 
 were partially closed to exclude the 
 garish noon. A charming demi-jour light 
 fell on richly gilded jardiniers heaped 
 over with various freshly cut blossoms ; 
 on costly tables loaded with expensive 
 hric-a-brac ; on soft downy cushions 
 fashioned in Eastern looms ; and numerous 
 objects of virtu, denoting considerable 
 wealth, with the ofttimes unusual accom- 
 paniment of a pure and refined taste. 
 The v/alls were of a delicate cream colour, 
 panelled in dead gold; a few choice oils 
 embellished them here and there. One 
 or two rare bronzes and some priceless 
 specimens of old china adorned the white 
 marble mantelpiece, and a couple of huge 
 mirrors in elaborately carved frames, placed
 
 190 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 within opposite niclies, reflected the whole 
 of the interior of the apartment, as 
 well as the form of its sole occupant. 
 
 At one end of a luxurious lounge 
 half- reclined Vi Chesterton. A book lay 
 carelessly in her lap, open; but had a 
 curious observer peeped over her shoulder 
 at its contents, they would have been 
 puzzled to decipher letters that were 
 upside down — even the pages were uncut, 
 although the girl's dainty fingers played 
 restlessly with an ivory paper-knife, with 
 the blade of which she unconsciously 
 turned over leaf after leaf of the 
 volume. 
 
 Her head was bent slightly downwards 
 and her eyes were completely veiled under 
 their thick lashes, as though she did 
 not care to reveal their tell-tale glances 
 even to the mirror opposite. Every now
 
 MARRIED ! 191 
 
 and then she sent a rapid furtive look 
 towards the casement, at each sound of 
 a twig fluttering against the sill, or a 
 human footfall on the gravel paths of the 
 garden. 
 
 Since the ball at which Maurice had 
 first seen her, she was strangely altered. 
 She had sufi*ered from the million hopes, 
 fears, and uncertainties attendant on Love, 
 so erroneously apostrophized as the divine 
 passion, when to most mortals it presents 
 oftener the torments of Inferno. 
 
 Violet's countenance, that was wont 
 to be characterized by a calm and regal 
 type of loveliness — lacking perhaps, in 
 the estimation of many, a sufficient mo- 
 bility of feature in its rigidly classical 
 contour — had lost its erewhile serenity, 
 and in lieu of a want of animation 
 showed various expressions flitting quickly
 
 192 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 across the pretty red lips and shining 
 out of the great dark eyes. 
 
 She looked a little pale and wan too^ 
 even a shade older, and her figure was 
 not so full as of yore, though none the less 
 symmetrical and graceful. 
 
 The warm summer afternoon had 
 lagged wonderfully on its course to her, 
 in spite of its beauty and brightness, 
 as she sat there alone intently listening 
 Avith a strained ear, and impatience in 
 her breast, for a tread which to her 
 bore upon it the "music of the spheres." 
 Her people were absent, and she had, after 
 much hesitation and w^avering, yielded to 
 her lover's earnest solicitations, to give 
 him a rendezvous at her own house. 
 
 The fact was that their meetings had 
 somehow^ become far more difficult to 
 compass than they used to be in earlier
 
 married! 193 
 
 days. Fate seemed to have set its face 
 dead against them, and no sooner was 
 an interview arranged than some circum- 
 stance cropped up, as it were on purpose 
 to prevent its taking place. 
 
 The house was built in villa fashion, 
 with long French windows opening down 
 to the lawn, and it was through one of 
 these that Maurice would come. She sat 
 still as a marble statue of patience, out- 
 wardly. Inwardly, her heart was beating 
 fast, and exaggerating the length of each 
 w^inged moment into hours, as she looked 
 hurriedly at the tiny jewelled watch at 
 her side, and marvelled at the snail-like 
 progress of time on this particular 
 day. 
 
 Over the stone ledge of the window 
 stepped at length a foot, but not Ins ; 
 and she started up, annoyed at the un- 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 timely intrusion, to feel Letty's cold hands 
 clasping hers, and Letty's unusually pallid 
 face, with a sad and almost scared ex- 
 pression in her blue eyes, looking piteously 
 into her own. 
 
 "What is it?" she exclaimed, whilst a 
 firm conviction came over her that, if 
 ill news was at hand, it must of necessity 
 relate to the one beloved object on 
 whom every feeling and thought she had, 
 turned. 
 
 " Nothing, dear ; nothing! Now, please 
 sit down, and let me talk to you." 
 
 " Cannot you come a little later ? " 
 Vi stammered, blushing rosy red, and 
 feeling terribly unmaidenly and guilty as 
 she asked the question. 
 
 "I am anxious to be alone just now," 
 she pleaded, coaxingly; then seeing her 
 companion disinclined to move, she sum-
 
 married! 195 
 
 moned up courage to speak more de- 
 cidedly, fancying that each moment might 
 bring him. 
 
 "Do not be angry, Letty, but indeed I 
 must be alone now." 
 
 "Alone, Vi? What for? If it is to 
 see Mr. Lynn, yoa cannot ever see him 
 again !" 
 
 " Never see him again ! "What is the 
 matter? What has happened? Speak, 
 Letty. He is not ill or hurt ?" 
 
 "Far worse!" 
 
 " Not dead'^ she shrieked out, throwing 
 herself down on her knees, and catching 
 nervously at her friend's arm. 
 
 " No, no, not dead, Yi ; but you 
 must look upon him as dead to you. 
 You must see him as he really is — 
 worthless, dishonourable, deceitful ; a 
 man to be shunned by you — despised !" 
 
 13—2
 
 196 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 "I think your senses must have left 
 you, or you would never speak to me 
 like this," Violet said, coldly and delibe- 
 rately, rising slowly from her kneeling 
 position, and drawing up her figure to 
 its full queenly height, whilst her eyes 
 flashed down scornfully and even a 
 little contemptuously at Maurice's de- 
 famer. 
 
 ^^ Do you know how I love him ? — re- 
 verence him, worship him ? — and yet you 
 dare, — yes, Letty, 'dare' is the proper 
 word for me to use, although you may 
 resent it, — to breathe such bitter words 
 as worthless, dishonourable, in conjunc- 
 tion with his name! Are you leagued 
 with all the rest to vilify him in my 
 eyes? It is useless! for these eyes will 
 be fast closed within the grave before 
 I credit one foul slander of the man
 
 MARRIED ! 197 
 
 who lias deigned to let me love hiirj, 
 and to love me in return !" 
 
 " Do you know what this man has 
 done? He has deceived you by his 
 looks, by his tones, even if he has failed 
 in courage to utter lies ! He has 
 made you believe in his truth and 
 honesty, when his life is one long 
 falsehood ! Violet, you must give him 
 up!" 
 
 " Never ! so help me Heaven !" the 
 girl said, determinedly, whilst her lip 
 curled at the very suggestion of infi- 
 delity to any woman who had once 
 loved Maurice, or been cared for by 
 him. '' So long as he is true to me, 
 I will be true to him. Nothing on 
 '€arth but his own will can ever sever 
 -us." 
 
 " Yi, you know my only desire is for
 
 198 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 your happiness. I should be the last 
 to hurt you by maligning the man you 
 care for. Believe me, he does not deserve 
 your affection, dear ;" then, seeing an 
 incredulous smile on Violet's face, she 
 added, hastily, " Oh, Yi, forgive me, but 
 I must tell you, — Maurice Lynn is a mar- 
 ried man !" 
 
 "Married! My God!" and poor Violet 
 fell like a crushed flower to the ground, 
 insensible. 
 
 The next moment the footfall for 
 which she had listened so eagerly, and 
 longed for so earnestly, but to w^hich 
 her ear was deaf now, echoed on the 
 garden-path and crossed the room with 
 hurried steps, and Maurice Lynn, with 
 astonished wonderment depicted on every 
 feature of his face, blanched as a spectre's, 
 lifted up his love, and held her on his
 
 MARRIED ! 191> 
 
 breast, whilst Lettice with trembling 
 fingers sought restoratives for her 
 aid. 
 
 " What ails her, Miss Grey ? Tell me, 
 I beseech of you," interrogated poor 
 Lynn, aghast, as he noted Letty's averted 
 countenance, and watched breathlessly, 
 but vainly, for the colour to revisit Violet's 
 cheek, and the light to come back to her 
 eyes. 
 
 " You had better leave at once before 
 she revives," she answered him, curtly 
 and angrily, as she glanced compassion- 
 ately at her friend. " Poor girl, how 
 she suffers ! You have almost killed 
 her by your cruelty !" 
 
 " My cruelty ! Great Heavens ! what 
 do you mean. Miss Grey ? Be explicit, 
 I pray you ! Cruelty ! /, who would 
 willingly sacrifice every hope on earth
 
 200 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 to give lier the smallest happiness ! 
 what have I done ? but love her — 
 adore her, as all must do," he said, 
 passionately. 
 
 " Oh, speak to me just one word, Vi, 
 my darling — my own !" he implored, 
 W'hilst he chafed her icy hands, and 
 pressed her inanimate form vehemently 
 against him, and even imprinted a long 
 and fervent kiss on the pale brow lying 
 upon his shoulder, callous to, if not 
 forgetful of, Letty's very presence in the 
 room. 
 
 After a little time she revived, but 
 it had been infinitely better for her to 
 have died in that trance, than to have 
 awakened to find her life a misery — 
 her love a crime. 
 
 And she spoke to him at last the 
 words he had begged for; but she spoke
 
 MARRIED ! 201 
 
 them in a voice tliat he could scarcely 
 realize as the one that had so often 
 and so tenderly breathed sweetest love- 
 words to him — a voice harsh, almost 
 stern, uncompromising in its accents, 
 hard as adamant in its ring. Drawing 
 herself slowly and shiveringly away from 
 his retaining embrace, she essayed to re- 
 ofain her calmness, and strove to stand 
 erect and firm, but her figure swayed 
 in spite of her efforts, and she was forced 
 to lean upon Letty, who clasped her 
 affectionately, and in whose eyes great 
 shining drops gathered as she marked 
 the real suffering of the two before 
 her. 
 
 " Maurice, is it true that you are 
 married ?" And poor wretched Violet 
 bent upon him a long, steady, and 
 harrowing gaze that seemed to look
 
 202 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 hi in through and through, and to ques- 
 tion and to crave for a denial to her 
 question, with a mute but intense 
 pathos and pleading in the once ra- 
 diant, proud eyes, like the dying glance 
 of a dumb animal stricken down by 
 the very hand that had hitherto 
 caressed it. 
 
 No answer came. Maurice was si- 
 lent perforce, for the only words that 
 he could utter, and which would be 
 corroborative of the miserable truth, 
 seemed to cleave to his mouth, and he 
 vainly essayed to articulate them ; and 
 yet what could have been more pain- 
 fully convincing to the girl than this 
 very failure of speech ? 
 
 He who asserted that small griefs 
 can speak, but that great ones render 
 us dumb, knew the human heart well.
 
 MARRIED I 203 
 
 Just for one second Maurice bowed 
 his head down on tlie sofa near liim, 
 and almost appeared to cower as if in 
 shame at the discovery of his long- 
 deception ; but the next moment he 
 looked up with a valiant effort to ex- 
 plain, and found that Letty had noise- 
 lessly vanished from the scene, leaving 
 Violet standing alone. A rapid move- 
 ment, and he was before her, clasping 
 her hands, pleading eagerly for pardon 
 as for dear life — gazing passionately, 
 pitifully upon the white cheek, the lips 
 quivering with an intensity of emotion 
 that she bravely strove to conceal, the 
 eyes so touchingly mournful, with pu- 
 pils dilated by unshed tears, and yet 
 filled with a sort of resolute light as 
 they sadly confronted his own. But 
 he had only to look at her to know
 
 204 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 that the death-blow to her happiness 
 had failed to annihilate her love; that 
 she was still unchanged; that the reso- 
 lute spirit was but transitory; that his 
 delinquencies had not dispossessed him 
 of his power to turn at will the 
 marble image of beauty before him 
 into a creature of flesh and blood, rife 
 with warmth and feeling ; and that by 
 the mere contact of his touch he could 
 tint its pale features with a deep 
 crimson tide. 
 
 He recalled to himself a thousand 
 deliciously-whispered assurances that she 
 had breathed, pledging herself to him 
 in spite of anything that could occur; 
 and he could not persuade himself that 
 her pride and determination would 
 prove dominant over the love that she 
 had so often fully and freely vowed,
 
 MARIIIED ! 205 
 
 and he had so implicitly believed in. 
 He would trust to the mightiness of 
 that love now ; he must trust to it, 
 for it was the only thing left to him 
 to cling to, in the maelstrom of misery 
 in which he was shipwrecked. He 
 knew, and the knowledge was sweet 
 balm to him too, that though he must 
 seem in her eyes to have acted vilely^ 
 yet she Avould never fail to hold out 
 to him a saving hand, and if she 
 could do so, would land him in a 
 haven of safety and peace. 
 
 They loved one another, and it would 
 be death to part. Should he ask her, 
 now that she knew everything, to go 
 away with him, to forego the sanction 
 of her parents, to defy the world, to 
 leave her home with all its associations 
 of innocence and happiness, to share
 
 206 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 his fortunes in another land? His own, 
 and his only ; worshipped and waited 
 on by him as never empress was be- 
 fore ; adored more than woman had 
 ever been ; but still with her proud 
 brow, that a diadem would have suited, 
 branded with the fatal brand of in- 
 famy, her purity blasted, her life a 
 daily lie, her name unblessed by the 
 holy title of ^' wife!" 
 
 Should his be the cruel hand to 
 hold to her lips the '^ cup of doubtful 
 bliss " that must be drunk by those 
 who believe in " all for love, and the 
 world well lost?" When such terrible 
 trials might await her at each turn, 
 could he let his dear one, his innocent 
 darling, run the gauntlet with the 
 world's fierce scorn, and stand meekly 
 by to see her spirit first wounded,
 
 MARRIED ! 207 
 
 then crushed, by perpetual slights, re- 
 pulsed by all, rebuked by many a scof- 
 fing word or covert sneer? Could he 
 make up his mind to submit tamely 
 to the bitterness of her humiliation, of 
 knowing that, with all her peerless 
 beauty and angelic nature, she would 
 fall immeasurably lower in the social 
 scale than the Messalinas of society who 
 never hesitated to break the holiest 
 ties for the gratification of passion or 
 vanity, but who erred secretly, manag- 
 ing to cast a mantle of outward re- 
 spectability over their sins ? Could he 
 survive the horrible torture of feeUng 
 that, though his breast would pillow her 
 head, his love would be powerless to 
 insure peace to her heart? 
 
 It was true that he had learnt to 
 idolize her ; that he had garnered up
 
 208 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 his soul in her ; that she had become 
 part and parcel of his existence ; 
 that her smile made him forget that 
 Heaven existed not upon this earth ! 
 
 He cursed bitterly, for her dear sake, 
 the weakness that had taken hold of him, 
 now that he was fully and most pain- 
 fully awakened to a sense of what would 
 have been right and honourable. He 
 knew that he ought to have left her 
 whilst her affection was yet young ; 
 trusting that in the trials of absence the 
 love that had only blossomed for him, 
 might expand into flower for some 
 happier man than himself; but it was 
 not too late to make the sole amends 
 that lay in his power, to leave her at 
 once, and prevent all further sacrifice 
 on her part for him. He never re- 
 membered though that his self-abnegation
 
 MARRIED ! 209 
 
 -came but tardily, that lie had seared 
 her heart with a wrong no other 
 hand would be capable of erasing from 
 it. He determined on going away at 
 once, broken-hearted, but alone, trying to 
 believe that "all was not utter darkness, 
 because a black cloud overcast the sky 
 — that when the gloom is most dense 
 the brightness of the morn is nearest 
 at hand;" but before he went he would 
 have her pardon, nay even a reiteration 
 of the love that in this hour seemed 
 more precious than ever to him. 
 
 " I have acted vilely — wickedly !" he 
 began, in deprecating accents, ''but don't 
 condemn me unheard! Listen to me for 
 one moment, my darling! Have I in- 
 deed been so much to blame that my 
 heart would cling, in spite of me, to you ? 
 That I yielded myself up at length to 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 a passion that I had in fact from the very 
 first lost all real power to stem or control ? 
 A passion a thousand times stronger 
 than myself! That I gave the reins after 
 many struggles, the magnitude of which 
 none can tell, to a feeling that I ought 
 to have curbed and tamed. Ought! How 
 easily said, how seldom done ! A feeling 
 that swept away by its depth and violence 
 all recollection of honour and rectitude. 
 I only remembered you! Oh, my own, 
 I should have been more than mortal if 
 I had possessed sufficient moral strength 
 to sever with my own hands, by my own 
 will, the link that has lately bound my 
 life to all that could give it hope and 
 joy. But although I have treated you 
 horribly, I don't ask for mercy, or for 
 pardon ; I want your heart to pay back 
 the deep and undying love that fills
 
 married! 211 
 
 mine! And you do not hate me even 
 now, Yi ! Though I deserve all your 
 hatred and scorn to the uttermost, you 
 even care for me still ! I feel it ; I see 
 it in your dear face, your eyes, in the 
 cold clamminess of these poor little hands 
 that feel my kisses on them for the last 
 time ! Think, Vi ! for the very last time /" 
 
 " Xo more of this, I beg of you," she 
 whispered, in broken tones, trying to with- 
 draw her hand from him, but her voice 
 had quite lost its hard adamantine tone, 
 and her accents wxre breathed in a low 
 soft, cadence, full of saddest music, that 
 sounded like a dirge for lost happiness ! 
 " I have been tried enough : I can bear 
 no more," and the hands grew more icy 
 still, that he held in his strong clasp, 
 whilst big tears welled up fast, dimming 
 her vision, and she endeavoured to avert 
 
 14—2
 
 2lZ NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 her face, to hide its agitation from him. 
 " Oh, Maurice, let me go, I beseech of 
 you! for we must part now and for 
 ever!" 
 
 " Not yet, not yet, for God's sake, Vi !" 
 he exclaimed ; and as the thought came 
 to him, of the ' arid waste his existence 
 would become when she was gone out of 
 it, his voice grew hoarse and troubled. 
 *' Darling, just think how many long 
 and weary years we may both have to 
 pasSj and do not try to shorten the 
 space of this one little hour! Tell me 
 that you wall strive, at any rate, not to 
 think too harshly of me; that the very 
 extent and madness of my love for you 
 will in some measure plead its excuse, 
 for I do love you, Violet, more, I think, 
 than man ever loved Avoman before! I 
 know it is very wrong of me to ask it,
 
 MARRIED ! 213 
 
 but Heaven will surely pardon me for the 
 sake of the long suffering, the terrible 
 expiation I have before me ! But I want 
 you to lay your head just once more 
 down upon my breast, and to put your 
 lips upon mine, and say ' Good-bye' to 
 me there! God knows my future lowers 
 dark and gloomy enough. Do not grudge 
 me the memory of a last caress. Let a 
 happy vision of these moments rise up 
 to cheer my lonely life sometimes ! I 
 way 'belong,' as it is called, to another 
 woman, but you know that I am yours 
 to all eternity ; that I shall never know 
 another love! Child, dont turn away 
 from me: it cuts me to the very heart! 
 You cannot surely be grown hard and 
 cruel in so short a time?" 
 
 "I do forgive you; I am not hard or 
 cruel," she tried to articulate.
 
 214 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 " Then give irie one kiss — one fond word 
 — that T may carry their memory as my 
 only comfort into the world where, 
 perhaps, we two shall never meet again ! 
 Think what a world that will be to me, 
 and that death were a million times pre- 
 ferable to the life of a living corpse ; a life 
 that can own not one single moment of 
 happiness, bereft of the only thing that 
 could bring it warmth and light, the sun- 
 shine of our love. I have erred deeply ; 
 I know it ; but my punishment is adequate 
 to my fault. You will not, you cannot, 
 ^dd one grain to the already overflowing 
 measure of my misery. Once more, only 
 once more, Yi, tell me that I am dear 
 to you in spite of all !" 
 
 She had listened to him, silently, in- 
 tently, trying to take in his words as they 
 4 fell from his lips; but her brain was in
 
 MARRIED ! 215 
 
 a whirl, and her heart was beating to 
 suffocation. She could only realize to 
 herself that they must part ; that a 
 dreadful barrier had suddenly arisen be- 
 tween her and him; that their love must 
 be stifled ere it became a greater sin. It 
 seemed to her as though life had come 
 to an end, and a grave, but a grave 
 with a consciousness of its attendant 
 horrors, was yawning at her feet. 
 
 '' Maurice was another woman's hus- 
 band !" she kept repeating to herself. 
 These few but terrible words were her 
 death-warrant, condemning her to leave 
 all that life owns of happiness, for a 
 desolate, loveless existence for the re- 
 mainder of her days. 
 
 He was another woman's husband, and 
 yet he dared to kneel before her, to 
 insult her by breathing such words as
 
 216 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 he was doing! In the world's censorious^ 
 eyes, what a contemptible position she 
 must hold ! Ah, what had she done to- 
 merit falling so low, to have been marked- 
 out, in the fulness of her pride, as an 
 object for an unlawful passion — a married 
 man's plaything, to be toyed with for 
 awhile only — to be cast aside later; — to- 
 have been led into revealing openly, un- 
 reservedly as she had done, how entirely 
 a forbidden love filled her every pulse ! 
 
 No, she would never utter one 
 phrase of tenderness to him again — this 
 man, who was worthless, base; who had 
 sacrificed every proper feeling to his own 
 inordinate selfishness, to his insane and 
 insolent fancy for herself; who had held 
 her up as a target for malicious shots from 
 all around ! He should not dare ever 
 again to contaminate her by his presence,.
 
 MARRIED ! 217 
 
 or pollute lier by his touch, but teanng 
 his image ruthlessly away from her, she 
 would be brave and strong, and learn 
 to look upon him at length mth the 
 indiiFerence that duty rigidly extorted 
 from her. "Kiss him just once again !'^ 
 Why, he must indeed be stark, staring 
 mad to ask it, she thought, when the 
 very kisses that were past and gone, 
 seemed even now to be burning upon 
 her brow, and scorching her lips like 
 coals of living fire, recalling vividly to 
 her mind the shame those kisses had 
 been to her — the dishonour of him who 
 had given them! She would nerve her- 
 self up at once to be properly calm and 
 cold; to say her final words quietly and 
 firmly; that all her puny miserable efi*orts 
 to hate him, for which she disdained her- 
 self, might be efi'ectually hidden from
 
 ^IS NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 him; that her pride might not suffer 
 more by his pity; that he might not 
 scorn the soft womanliness that her deep 
 wrong had failed to destroy; that he 
 might be compelled to respect the Spartan 
 fortitude that could smile, whilst life 
 itself appeared to her, to be ebbing in 
 agony aAvay ! 
 
 And then she turned and looked upon him. 
 
 ^'The quicksands are not more easily 
 changed by the wind, nor are the leaves 
 more readily whirled by the winter's 
 blast, than woman veers in her wrath." 
 
 Vi looked at him steadfastly for a 
 moment, and her breath came quick, 
 and her cheek crimsoned all over as she 
 saw him there, crouching at her feet, 
 more like a slave or a criminal, than a 
 libertine exulting over his victim, or a 
 conqueror regarding his captive.
 
 MARRIED ! r2 1 9 
 
 His eager eyes, lifted up with such a 
 wan, haggard, hungered expression in 
 them, craving with a silent prayer for 
 a loving glance from her. His face, 
 whose every feature was indelibly en- 
 graved on her heart, so set, so drawn, 
 with the concentrated misery of the last 
 short hour — the brow, usually haughty, 
 unruffled, contracted in pain — was it 
 strange that her whole soul suddenly melted 
 in divine pity and love ? 
 
 What could be the world's verdict to 
 her, an evil spirit whispered, weighed in 
 the balance with his smallest good or 
 happiness? What could anything be to 
 her in comparison with the everything 
 that he had become ? What right had 
 she, weak, erring creature as she was, 
 to set herself up as his judge, to blame 
 him for having succumbed to a love
 
 220 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 whose power at this very moment was 
 omnipotent over herself! Her eyes re- 
 turned him loving glance for glance ; 
 w^arm, tender kisses, but pure as un- 
 driven snow in their source, rained down 
 upon his brow; and with her world 
 within the circle of her arms, he became 
 again her all in all. She realized the 
 perfect impossibility of tearing herself 
 away from him; she felt that she could 
 not doom herself deliberately to the tor- 
 ture of separation; she dared not face 
 an existence in which he would form 
 no part. What could life be worth if 
 its best element were wanting ? How 
 could she get through the weary, lagging 
 days of absence, when that absence must 
 endure for ever ? To fly with him, whom 
 she loved so utterly, without any home 
 blessings ; pursued, perhaps, by a parental
 
 MARRIED ! 221 
 
 curse, Avas a terrible prospect ; but the 
 thought that to go with him, to belong 
 to him for ever whilst she lived; to see 
 him daily, hourly; to devote to him the 
 best energies of her heart and brain, and 
 to know that he lived for her, and her 
 love alone; conjured up such a vision of 
 bewildering bliss, that she lost herself in 
 its ecstasy, believing that she was his, to 
 do with as he deemed best; that her 
 future depended on his will ! But such 
 a delirium of feeling Avas but ephemeral, 
 and utterly foreign to her right-thinking 
 nature. Her better angel resumed its 
 sway, and she became her ow^n true self 
 again. 
 
 But though conscience was awakened, 
 and she was brave to do her duty, love 
 for him was not lessened one iota in 
 her heart, and compassion filled the place
 
 222 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 from which a temporary ebullition of 
 anger had a few moments before, banished 
 it. 
 
 " Maurice — dear Maurice !" she whis- 
 pered, agitatedly, " have pity upon me. 
 Save me from myself! Strengthen me 
 in what is right, and leave me while 
 yet I have the sense, the power, to bid 
 you go ! It is a sin to say so, but 
 you are more to me than all the world. 
 My very soul is yours ! Not an hour 
 of the day but you are in my thoughts ; 
 not a night but I see you in my dreams. 
 The present is a wretched blank — the 
 future will be a long, lingering torture; 
 the past only is precious to me, for it is 
 filled by you! Oh, my darling one! I 
 do forgive you and love you still ! Never 
 shall I cease loving you! but I am 
 looking upon you now as though death
 
 MARRIED ! 223 
 
 were dividing us for ever. God guard 
 you always, my own dear Maurice, and 
 bring you the happiness that / shall 
 never feel again !" 
 
 She wound her arms passionately round 
 his neck, holding him to her as though 
 nought should separate them more. Then 
 she gave him one long long pressure 
 from her lips on brow and eyes and 
 mouth, and was gone — leaving him alone, 
 not only where he stood, but in the wide 
 mde world! 
 
 "^ 
 
 L<f. 
 
 ,>'
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 PARTED, 
 
 I found her not ! The chamber seemed 
 
 Like some divinely haunted place 
 Where fairy forms had lately been, 
 
 And left behind their odorous trace !" 
 
 # * * # * 
 It felt as if her lips had shed 
 A sigh around her as she fled !" 
 
 * * * # * 
 Oh, my sweet mistress, where art thou ? 
 
 In pity fly not thus from me ; 
 Thou art my life, my essence now, 
 And my soul dies of wanting thee !" 
 
 Moore. 
 
 iAURICE stood where she had 
 left him, stunned ; then 
 all at once his mind seemed 
 to take in, with wonderful avidity, the
 
 PARTED ! 225 
 
 Avhole of the terrible reality. The blow 
 had indeed fallen, dashing away in one 
 rapid swoop the cup of delicious nectar 
 from his lips, demolishing in a tiny 
 second the whole fabric of happiness 
 that he had so carefully built up around 
 him during the last few months of his life. 
 And yet, could he wonder at the 
 sudden demolition of a fabric, slight and 
 intangible, shadowy in its nature, with 
 nothing but dishonour and falsehood as 
 the basis on which it had been 
 erected ? 
 
 The veil, which he had so carefull}^ 
 striven to draw over the hideousness of 
 his past, had not been gently lifted 
 aside, so as to reveal gradually — piece 
 by piece, as it were — to his dear love's 
 gaze, all that he had wished so strenu- 
 ously to conceal from her knowledge. 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 No time had been given him to explain 
 to her assuredly sympathizing ear and 
 pitying heart the extenuating circum- 
 stances of his case — the undeserved misery 
 his antecedents had entailed, and the 
 immense magnitude of the temptation 
 which she in herself had presented, to 
 prompt him to a course of apparent 
 deceit, sooner than to lose for ever the 
 sunshine of his existence — her presence; 
 but the veil had been wrenched asunder 
 rudely, as it seemed ; allowing him neither 
 hope nor opportunity of clearing himself 
 to a certain extent in the eyes and 
 estimation of the only being upon earth, 
 whose continued affection and good 
 opinion were infinitely more precious to 
 him than food and raiment ! 
 
 She was gone from him, never to 
 return ! and she had taken with her
 
 PARTED ! 227 
 
 everything that made life valuable to 
 him. All in that room where he stood 
 seemed to speak of her — the impress 
 of her form against the cushioned sofa; 
 the open book flung on a chair close 
 by; the scattered petals of the flowers, 
 in the arrangement of which she had 
 essayed to pass away the lagging hours 
 until he came; the very breath of the 
 wind stealing in at the open lattice, that 
 had so lately kissed her cheek! Her 
 voice came to him again in the fragrance 
 of violets that rose from a little laced 
 handkerchief, lying neglected on the floor 
 at his feet. Stooping, he seized it, and 
 covered it with mad kisses, as though 
 it had been a living, breathing thing. 
 It was all that was left to him of her! 
 Then, hastily thrusting it into his breast, 
 he left the house, and with rapid steps 
 
 15—2
 
 228 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 pursued tlie first quiet road that led out 
 of tlie town. He walked on and on, 
 unmindful of time or of physical fatigue; 
 he knew not w^hither — he cared not 
 where. 
 
 What W'as, in fact, anything, every- 
 thing to him, now^ that Violet had given 
 him up? For was 
 
 " She not his life, 
 The ocean to the river of his thoughts, that terminated 
 all?" 
 
 It did appear so fearfully hard to him 
 that his whole happiness should be a 
 holocaust to that one miserable act of 
 his life — that he should suffer so ter- 
 ribly for the sin of another — for he knew 
 that he had been more sinned against 
 than sinning in that wretched fatal epi- 
 sode of his youth. In all the many years 
 that had gone by since that autumnal
 
 parted! 229 
 
 day, when lie had gone down on liis knees 
 and sworn to God, in the enthusiastic 
 fervour of boyhood, never to break by 
 his own will the vows he had breathed 
 at the altar; when he had implored the 
 help of Heaven to aid him m keeping 
 the oath that, whilst she lived, no other 
 woman should fill her place, he had 
 religiously endeavoured to avoid all 
 temptations that might lead him into 
 infringing that oath even in spirit. Since 
 that autumnal day he had been haunted 
 continually by the face and form of her 
 who had so utterly ruined his life; amidst 
 the gayest scenes, at every feast, like 
 the Egyptian skeleton, veiled and chap- 
 letted with funereal flowers, she had 
 seemed to sit for ever at his side, scaring 
 away by her dark presence everything 
 that savoured of joy or light.
 
 230 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 Just for the space of a few short 
 montlis, when he had drunk deeply of 
 love at one glance — when love's glamour 
 had completely blinded his vision and 
 bewildered him with its ecstasy — when 
 love's elixir had steeped his senses in 
 temporary oblivion, and lulled him into 
 an Elysian dream — the miserable spectre 
 of the past had faded out of mind, and 
 left him free for a little while to revel 
 in all that life holds of hope and hap- 
 piness. But now it was back again at 
 his side once more, clinging to him tena- 
 ciously, binding his hands more closely 
 than ever with cankering, loathsome chains, 
 mocking at him with its well-remembered 
 taunting smile, flashing its strange eyes 
 into his face, and reminding him, in 
 the harsh discordant accents of old^ 
 that he was still a fettered man !
 
 PARTED ! 231 
 
 And a poor consolation it was that 
 all this misery had come to him for 
 the sake of a transient passion. Alas! 
 alas ! Why had he not remembered in 
 time that '^ passions are the gales of 
 a man's life, and that it should be his 
 care not to let them rise into 
 tempests." 
 
 Just as one loves to look upon the 
 pretty wavelets and the white surf of 
 the sea dancing gently towards the 
 shore, until suddenly, the wind rising, 
 the tiny waves become lashed into fu- 
 rious billows, that dash over and sub- 
 merge one, so he had gazed too long 
 and too curiously, and toyed with the 
 attractive emotions of a new and in- 
 viting pleasure, until it had first fasci- 
 nated him, then imprisoned his feet 
 and swept him into destruction.
 
 232 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 It was summer time, and the country 
 into which Maurice had wandered was 
 enlivened by the season of haymaking. 
 Brightly in the sunshine gleamed the 
 brown, ruddy countenances of the 
 reapers, whilst their merry peals of 
 laughter kept ringing through the air- 
 the subtle scent of the new-mown hay, 
 united to the scent of an adjacent 
 clover-bed, came wafted on the wings 
 of the wind. The luxuriant verdure in 
 which the fields had lately been clothed 
 had yielded to the ruthless scythe, but 
 around la}' big bunches of flowers, all 
 bruised under feet, but still emittino; 
 dying odours as a sweet and lingering 
 farewell to the bright earth they were 
 leaving for ever. 
 
 But Maurice was in no mood to 
 admire the beauties of nature. The
 
 PARTED ! 233 
 
 clover-bed, showing up a silvery aspect 
 of green, interspersed with the rich hue 
 of its manifold blossoms, on which the 
 busy bees feasted to satiety, possessed 
 no possible attraction for him; and his 
 glance never wandered towards the tall 
 hedgerows, through which purple buds, 
 intermixed with snowy petals, peeped 
 gaily out. The corn shone yellow in 
 the sunlight, the dark shades of the 
 sycamores mingled with the tender 
 emerald foliage of the stalwart oaks 
 and elms, " and from tlie soft vernal 
 sky overhead, down to the grassy turf 
 at his feet, there Avas beauty around 
 him," but touching him as little as 
 though he were instead in the Great 
 Desert of Sahara, surrounded by arid 
 wastes and sandy plains. 
 
 For his " soul Avas sick even unto
 
 324 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 death," and his brain thoroughly upset; 
 doubts and fears had created a havoc 
 within it that he deemed himself power- 
 less to bring again into reasonable 
 order; his heart was one chaotic space; 
 he felt that — 
 
 " 'Tis not the whole of life, to live, 
 Nor all of death, to die !" 
 
 There was only one question he kept 
 reiterating again and again to himself: 
 " Had happiness eluded his grasp for 
 ever?" And in this, the first hour of 
 Violet's loss, no power on earth could 
 have called up a shadow of a belief 
 that he would ever experience an emo- 
 tion of joy again while he lived. 
 
 As he soliloquized mournfully, lean- 
 ing against a stile that separated the 
 meadow in which he stood from a 
 small stream that swept along, with
 
 PARTED ! 235 
 
 tiny force and a gentle murmur, over 
 the big shining pebbles that lay in its 
 course, his eyes rested dreamily on the 
 clear water, vaguely pursuing the career 
 of the little objects that floated on the 
 surface. Suddenly the idea struck him 
 that, following the example of some one 
 he had read of, he would constitute 
 one of those floating trifles his fate, 
 and, paltry as it was, allow its 
 evolutions to govern the current of his 
 thoughts. He was far too miserable to 
 be wise; he wanted something, no 
 matter how trivial, to decide for him, 
 whether he should succumb to the 
 Fates, that seemed to have set their 
 faces dead against him, or whether he 
 should encourage " Hope," that might give 
 him sufiicient strength to grapple man- 
 fully with the positive despair and des-
 
 236 NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 peration that appeared likely to over- 
 whelm him, deadeinng his faculties, and 
 reducing him to a misery which was 
 almost stupifying. 
 
 In the midst of his grief, the utter 
 absurdity of letting his reason be swayed 
 by such trivialities struck him with a 
 keen sense of ludicrousness, and brought 
 a bitter smile to his lip ; but still he 
 determined to pursue the idea, and not 
 to swerve from the rules laid down for 
 the somewhat original trial of destiny. So 
 he tracked one particular straw in its 
 progress; there was an angle in the 
 bank close by, and he made a vow that 
 that straw should be the umpire to 
 decide between hope and despondency 
 — that according to its safe passage, or 
 otherwise, round the diminutive promon- 
 tory, he would have weal or woe !
 
 PARTED ! 237 
 
 Gordon liad said, " Vive la Bagatelle/'' and 
 he liad ironically, and even a little coin- 
 miseratingly received the sentiment, be- 
 lieving that it did discredit to his friend's 
 heart and brain ; and now in this mo- 
 ment, a mere bagatelle seemed every- 
 thing in the world to him, so absurdly 
 superstitious he felt in his anxiety to 
 hnd an omen of good. He stood and 
 watched the " pilot-boat" with eager eyes 
 and throbbing breast, ashamed of him- 
 self, and yet he could not have turned 
 away his gaze for a second to save his 
 life. It enchained his frlance as thouo^h 
 it had been a basilisk, as it came gently 
 down the stream, and he ejaculated, after 
 the manner of the model he had chosen, 
 " Bonum veliis /" 
 
 It passed quickly on, now and then it 
 met with a slight obstruction, but the
 
 23S NOT WHILE SHE LIVES. 
 
 stoppage was but momentary. " It 
 doubled the cape — the Cape of Good 
 Hope/' as it was to him; and foolish 
 Maurice, heaving a sigh of positive 
 relief, ''for love will subsist on wonder- 
 fully little hope," retraced his steps home- 
 wards, with a lighter heart, and sat 
 down to write Violet a letter. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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