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:9741-2
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
BY,
M. E. BRADDON. Ninetales
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
IN TWO VOLUM E S.
VOL. I.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1862.
The Right of Translation is reserved.





DEDICATED
TO THE
RIGHT HON. SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART
M.P., D.C.L., ETC., ETC.,
IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF
LITERARY ADVICE MOST GENEROUSLY GIVEN
TO THE
AUTHOR.
166864





CONTENTS
OF VOLUME I.
l'ago
CHAPTER I. Lucy 1
II. On Board the Argus . 18
— III. Hidden Relics 34
— IV. In the First Page of the "Times" .... 45
— V. The Headstone at Ventnor 53
— VI. Anywhere, Anywhere out of the World . 62
— VII. After a Year 70
— VIII. Before the Storm .... 87
— IX. After tho Storm 104
X. Missing 115
— XI. The Mark upon my Lady's Wrist .... 121
— XII. Still Missing .130
— XIII. Troubled Dreams 138
XIV. Phoebe's Suitor 148
— XV. On the Watch 1G0
XVI. Robert Audley gets his Congo" .... 170
— XVII. At the Castle Inn 189
— XVIII. Robert receives a Visitor whom he had scarcely
expected 198
— XIX. The Blacksmith's Mistake 207
— XX. The Writing in tho Book 219
— XXI. Mrs. Plowson 226
-- XXII. Little Georgey leaves his old Home ... 246
— XXIII. Coming to a Standstill 257
— XXIV. Clara 277
— XXV. Georgo's Letters 289
— XXVI. Retrograde Investigation 800





LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
CHAPTER L
Lacy.
It lay low down in a hollow, rich with fine old
timber and luxuriant pastures; and you came upon it
through an avenue of limes, bordered on either side
by meadows, over the high hedges of which the cattle
looked inquisitively at you as you passed, wondering,
perhaps, what you wanted; for there was no thorough-
fare, and unless you were going to the Court you had
no business there at all.
At the end of this avenue there was an old arch
and a clock-tower, with a stupid, bewildering clock,
which had only one hand; and which jumped straight
from one hour to the next, and was therefore always
in extremes. Through this arch you walked straight
into the gardens of Audley Court.
A smooth lawn lay before you, dotted with groups
of rhododendrons, which grew in more perfection here
than anywhere else in the county. To the right there
were the kitchen gardens, the fish-pond, and an orchard
bordered by a dry moat, and a broken ruin of a wall,
in some places thicker than it was high, and every-
where over-grown with trailing ivy, yellow stonecrop,
Lady Audley't Secret, i. 1


2
LADY AUDLEY'S SECaBT.
and dark moss. To the left there was a broad gravelled
walk, down which, years ago, when the place had been
a convent, the qniet nuns had walked hand in hand;
a wall bordered with espaliers, and shadowed on one
side by goodly oaks, which shut out the flat landscape,
and circled in the house and gardens with a darken-
ing shelter.
The house faced the arch, and occupied three sides
of a quadrangle. It was very old, and very irregular
and rambling. The windows were uneven; some small,
some large, some with heavy stone mullions and rich
stained glass; others with frail lattices that rattled in
every breeze; others so modern that they might have
been added only yesterday. Great piles of chimneys
rose up here and there behind the pointed gables, and
seemed as if they were so broken down by age and
long service, that they must have fallen but for the
straggling ivy which, crawling up the walls and trailing
even over the roof, wound itself about them and sup-
ported them. The principal door was squeezed into a
corner of a turret at one angle of the building, as if it
was in hiding from dangerous visitors, and wished to
keep itself a secret — a noble door for all that — old
oak, and studded with great square-headed iron nails,
and so thick that the sharp iron knocker struck upon
it with a muffled sound; and the visitor rang a clang-
ing boll that dangled in a corner amongst the ivy, lest
the noise of the knocking should never penetrate the
stronghold.
A glorious old place — a place that visitors fell


LUCY.
8
into raptures with; feeling a yearning wish to have
done with life, and to stay there for ever, staring into
the cool fish-ponds, and counting the babbles as the
roach and carp rose to the surface of the water — a
spot in which Peace seemed to have taken up her
abode, setting her soothing hand on every tree and
flower; on the still ponds and quiet alleys; the shady
corners of the old-fashioned rooms; the deep window-
seats behind the painted glass; the low meadows and
the stately avenues—ay, even upon the stagnant well,
which, cool and sheltered as all else in the old place,
hid itself away in a shrubbery behind the gardens,
with an idle handle that was never turned, and a lazy
rope so rotten that the pail had broken away from it,
and bad fallen into the water.
A noble place; inside as well as out, a noble place
— a house in which you incontinently lost yourself if
ever you were so rash as to go about it alone; a house
in which no one room had any sympathy with another,
every chamber running off at a tangent into an inner
chamber, and through that down some narrow staircase
leading to a door which, in its torn, led back into that
very part of the house from which you thought your-
self the farthest; a house that could never have been
planned by any mortal architect, but must have been
the handiwork of that good old builder — Time, who,
adding a room one year, and knocking down a room
another year, toppling over now a chimney coeval with
the Plantagenets, and setting up one in the style of
the Tudors; shaking down a bit of Saxon wall there,
1*


4
IiADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
and allowing a Norman arch to stand here; throwing
in a row of high narrow windows in the reign of
Qneen Anne, and joining on a dining-room after the
fashion of the time of Hanoverian George I. to a re-
fectory that had been standing since the Conquest, had
contrived, in some eleven centuries, to run up such a
mansion as was not elsewhere to be met with through-
out the county of Essex. Of course, in such a house,
there were secret chambers: the little daughter of the
present owner, Sir Michael Audley, had fallen by
accident upon the discovery of one. A board had
rattled under her feet in the great nursery where she
played, and on attention being drawn to it, it was
found to be loose, and so removed, revealing a ladder
leading to a hiding-place between the floor of the
nursery and the ceiling of the room below — a hiding-
place so small that he who hid there must have
crouched on his hands and knees or lain at full length,
and yet large enough to contain a quaint old carved
oak chest half filled with priests' vestments which had
been hidden away, no doubt, in those cruel days when
the life of a man was in danger if he was discovered
to have harboured a Roman Catholic priest, or to have
had mass said in his house.
The broad outer moat was dry and grass-grown,
and the laden trees of the orchard hung over it with
gnarled straggling branches that drew fantastical
patterns upon the green slope. Within this moat there
was, as I have said, the fish-pond — a sheet of water
that extended the whole length of the garden, and


LUCY.
5
bordering which there was an avenue called the lime-
tree walk; an avenue so shaded from the sun and sky,
so screened from observation by the thick shelter of
the over-arching trees, that it seemed a chosen place
for secret meetings or for stolen interviews; a place in
which a conspiracy might have been planned or a
lover's vow registered with equal safety; and yet it
was scarcely twenty paces from the house.
At the end of this dark arcade there was the
shrubbery, where, half buried amongst the tangled
branches and the neglected weeds, stood the rusty
wheel of that old well of which I have spoken. It
had been of good service in its time, no doubt; and
busy nuns have perhaps drawn the cool water with their
own fair hands; but it had fallen with disuse now, and
scarcely any one at Audley Court knew whether the
spring had dried up or not . But sheltered as was the
solitude of this lime-tree walk, I doubt very much if
it was ever put to any romantic uses. Often in the
cool of the evening Sir Michael Audley would stroll
up and down smoking his cigar, with his dog at his
heels, and his pretty young wife dawdling by his side;
but in about ten minutes the baronet and his com-
panion would grow tired of the rustling limes and the
still water, hidden under the spreading leaves of the
water-lilies, and the long green vista with the broken
well at the end, and would stroll back to the white
drawing-room, where my lady played dreamy melodies
by Beethoven and Mendelssohn till her husband fell
asleep in his easy chair.


0
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
Sir Michael Audley was fifty-six years of age, and
he had married a second wife three months after his
fifty-fifth birthday. He was a big man, tall and stout,
with a deep sonorous voice, handsome black eyes, and
a white beard — a white beard which made him look
venerable against his will, for he was as active as a
boy, and one of the hardest riders in the county. For
seventeen years he had been a widower with an only
child, a daughter, Alicia Audley, now eighteen, and
by no means too well pleased at having a step-mother
brought home to the Court; for Miss Alicia had reigned
supreme in her father's house since her earliest child-
hood, and had carried the keys, and jingled them in
the pockets of her silk aprons, and lost them in the
shrubbery and dropped them into the pond, and given
all manner of trouble about them from the hour in
which she entered her teens, and had on that account
deluded herself into the sincere belief that for the
whole of that period she had been keeping house.
But Miss Alicia's day was over; and now, when
she asked anything of the housekeeper, the house-
keeper would tell her that she would speak to my
lady, or she would consult my lady, and if my lady
pleased it should be done. So the baronet's daughter,
who was an excellent horsewoman and a very clever
artist, spent most of her time out of doors, riding about
the green lanes, and sketching the cottage children,
and the ploughboys, and the cattle, and all manner of
animal life that came in her way. She set her face
with a sulky determination against any intimacy be-


LUCY.
7
tween herself and the haronet's young wife; and amiable
as that lady was, she found it quite impossible to
overcome Miss Alicia's prejudices and dislike; or to
convince the spoilt girl that she had not done her a
cruel injury in marrying Sir Michael Audley.
The truth was that Lady Audley had, in be-
coming the wife of Sir Michael, made one of those
apparently advantageous matches which are apt to
draw upon a woman the envy and hatred of her sex.
She had come into the neighbourhood as a governess
in the family of a surgeon in the village near Audley
Court. No one knew anything of her except that she
came in answer to an advertisement which Mr. Dawson,
the surgeon, had inserted in the Times. She came
from London; and the only reference she gave was to
a lady at a school at Brompton, where she had once
been a teacher. But this reference was so satisfactory
that none other was needed, and Miss Lucy Graham
was received by the surgeon as the instructress of his
daughters. Her accomplishments were so brilliant and
numerous, that it seemed strange that she should have
answered an advertisement offering such very moderate
terms of remuneration as those named by Mr. Dawson:
but Miss Graham seemed perfectly well satisfied with
her situation, and she taught the girls to play sonatas
by Beethoven, and to paint from Nature after Creswick,
and walked through the dull, out-of-the-way village to
the humble little church three times on Sunday, as
contentedly as if she had no higher aspiration in the
world than to do so all the rest of her life.


8
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
People who observed this accounted for it by
saying that it was part of her amiable and gentle
nature always to be light-hearted, happy, and con-
tented under any circumstances.
Wherever she went she seemed to take joy and
brightness with her. In the cottages of the poor her
fair face shone like a sunbeam. She would sit for a
quarter of an hour talking to some old woman, and
apparently as pleased with the admiration of a tooth-
less crone as if she had been listening to the compli-
ments of a marquis; and when she tripped away,
leaving nothing behind her (for her poor salary gave
no scope to her benevolence), the old woman would
burst out into senile raptures with her grace, her
beauty, and her kindliness, such as she never bestowed
upon the vicar's wife, who half fed and clothed her.
For you see Miss Lucy Graham was blessed with that
magic power of fascination by which a woman can
charm with a word or intoxicate with a smile. Every
one loved, admired, and praised her. The boy who
opened the five-barred gate that stood in her pathway
ran home to his mother to tell of her pretty looks,
and the sweet voice in which she thanked him for the
little service. The verger at the church who ushered
her into the surgeon's pew; the vicar who saw the soft
blue eyes uplifted to his face as he preached his
simple sermon; the porter from the railway-station who
brought her sometimes a letter or a parcel, and who
never looked for reward from her; her employer; his
visitors; her pupils; the servants; everybody, high and


10
LADY ADDLEY's SECRET.
white beard; this frenzied wish to be young again,
with glistening raven hair, and a slim waist, such as
he had had twenty years before; these wakeful nights
and melancholy days, so gloriously brightened if he
chanced to catch a glimpse of her sweet face behind
the window curtains as he drove past the surgeon's
house; all these signs gave token of the truth; and
told only too plainly that, at the sober age of fifty-
five, Sir Michael Audley had fallen ill of the terrible
fever called love.
I do not think that throughout his courtship the
baronet once calculated upon his wealth or his position
as a strong reason for his success. If he ever remem-
bered these things, he dismissed the thought of them
with a shudder. It pained him too much to believe
for a moment that any one so lovely and innocent
could value herself against a splendid house or a good
old title. No; his hope was that as her life had been
most likely one of toil and dependence, and as she
was very young (nobody exactly knew her age, but
she looked little more than twenty), she might never
have formed any attachment, and that he, being the
first to woo her, might by tender attentions, by generous
watchfulness, by a love which should recall to her the
father she had lost, and by a protecting care that
should make him necessary to her, win her young
heart, and obtain from her fresh and earliest love
alone the promise of her hand. It was a very romantic
day dream, no doubt; but, for all that, it seemed in a
very fair way to be realised. Lucy Graham appeared


LUCY.
11
by no means to dislike the baronet's attentions. There
was nothing whatever in her manner of the shallow
artifice employed by a woman who wishes to captivate
a rich man. She was so nsed to admiration from
every one, high and low, that Sir Michael's conduct
made very little impression upon her. Again, he had
been so many years a widower that people had given
up the idea of his ever marrying again. At last,
however, Mrs. Dawson spoke to the governess on the
subject. The surgeon's wife was sitting in the school-
room busy at work, while Lucy was putting the finish-
ing touches to some water-coloured sketches done by
her pupils.
"Do you know, my dear Miss Graham," said Mrs.
Dawson, "I think you ought to consider yourself a
remarkably lucky girl."
The governess lifted her head from its stooping
attitude, and stared wonderingly at her employer,
shaking back a shower of curls. They were the most
wonderful curls in the world — soft and feathery,
always floating away from her face, and making a
pale halo round her head wheD the sunlight shone
through them.
"What do you mean, my dear Mrs. Dawson?" she
asked, dipping her camel's-hair brush into the wet
aquamarine upon the palette, and poising it carefully
before putting in the delicate streak of purple which
was to brighten the horizon in her pupil's sketch.
"Why, I mean, my dear that it only rests with


12
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
yourself to become Lady Audley, and the mistress of
Audley Court."
Lucy Graham dropped the brush upon the picture,
and flushed scarlet to the roots of her fair hair; and
then grew pale again, far paler than Mrs. Dawson had
ever seen her before.
"My dear, don't agitate yourself," said the surgeon's
wife, soothingly; "you know that nobody asks you to
marry Sir Michael unless you wish. Of course it
would be a magnificent match; he has a splendid in-
come, and is one of the most generous of men. Your
position would be very high, and you would be enabled
to do a great deal of good; but, as I said before, you
must be entirely guided by your own feelings. Only-
one thing I must say, and that is that if Sir Michael's
attentions are not agreeable to you, it is really scarcely
honourable to encourage him."
"His attentions — encourage him!" muttered Lucy,
as if the words bewildered her. "Pray, pray don't
talk to me, Mrs. Dawson. I had no idea of this. It
is the last thing that would have occurred to me."
She leaned her elbows on the drawing-board before
her, and clasping her hands over her face, seemed for
some minutes to be thinking deeply. She wore a
narrow black ribbon round her neck, with a locket or
a cross, or a miniature, perhaps, attached to it; but
whatever the trinket was, she always kept it hidden
under her dress. Once or twice, while she sat silently
thinking, she removed one of her hands from before
her face, and fidgeted nervously with the ribbon,


LUOY.
13
clutching at it with a half-angry gesture, and twisting
it backwards and forwards between ber fingers.
"I think some people are born to be unlucky, Mrs.
Dawson," she said, hy-and-by; "it would be a great
deal too much good fortune for me to become Lady
Audley."
She said this with so much bitterness in her tone,
that the surgeon's wife looked up at her with surprise.
"You unlucky, my dear!" she exclaimed. "I
think you're the last person who ought to talk like
that — you, such a bright, happy creature, that it
does every one good to see you. I'm sure I don't
know what we shall do if Sir Michael robs us of
you."
After this conversation they often spoke upon the
subject, and Lucy never again showed any emotion
whatever when the baronet's admiration for her was
canvassed. It was a tacitly understood thing in the
surgeon's family that whenever Sir Michael proposed,
the governess would quietly accept him; and, indeed,
the simple Dawsons would have thought it something
more than madness in a penniless girl to reject such
an offer.
So one 'misty June evening Sir Michael, sitting
opposite to Lucy Graham at a window in the surgeon's
little drawing-room, took an opportunity, while the
family happened by some accident to be absent from
the room, of speaking upon the subject nearest to his
heart. He made the governess in few but solemn words
an offer of his hand. There was something almost


14
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
touching Jn the manner and tone in which he spoke
to her — half in deprecation, knowing that he could
hardly expect to be the choice of a beautiful young
girl, and praying rather that she would reject him,
even though she broke his heart by doing so, than
that she should accept his offer if she did not love
him.
"I scarcely think there is a greater sin, Lucy," he
said solemnly, "than that of the woman who marries
a man she does not love. Tou are so precious to me,
my beloved, that deeply as my heart is set on this,
and bitter as the mere thought of disappointment is to
me, I would not have you commit such a sin for any
happiness of mine. If my happiness could be achieved
by such an act, which it could not — which it never
could," he repeated earnestly, "nothing but misery can
result from a marriage dictated by any motive but
truth and love."
Lucy Graham was not looking at Sir Michael, but
straight out into the misty twilight and the dim land-
scape far away beyond the little garden. The baronet
tried to see her face, but her profile was turned to him,
and he could not discover the expression of her eyes.
If he could have done so, he would have seen a
yearning gaze which seemed as if it would have pierced
the far obscurity and looked away — away into another
world.
"Lucy, you heard me?"
"Yes," she said gravely; not coldly, or in any way
as if she were offended at his words.


16
"And. your answer?"
She did not remove her gaze from the darkening;
country side, but for some moments was quite silent;
then turning to him with a sudden passion in her
manner, that lighted up her face with a new and
wonderful beauty which the baronet perceived even
in the growing twilight, she fell on her knees at his
feet.
"No, Lucy; no, no!" he cried vehemently, "not
here, not here!"
"Yes, here, here," she said, the strange passion
which agitated her making her voice sound shrill and
piercing — not loud, but preternaturally distinct;
"here, and nowhere else. How good you are — how
noble and how generous! Love you! Why there are
women a hundred times my superiors in beauty and in
goodness who might love you dearly; but you ask too
much of me. You ask too much of me! Remember
what my life has been; only remember that. From my
very babyhood I have never seen anything but poverty.
My father was a gentleman; clever, accomplished,
generous, handsome — but poor. My mother — But
do not let me speak of her. Poverty, poverty, trials,
vexations, humiliations, deprivations! You cannot tell;
you, who are amongst those for whom life is so smooth
and easy; you can never guess what is endured by
such as we. Do. not ask too much of me, then. I can-
not be disinterested; I cannot be blind to the advan-
tages of such an alliance. I cannot, I cannot!"
Beyond her agitation and her passionate vehemence,


If,
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
there was an undefined something in her manner which
filled the baronet with a vague alarm. She was still
on the ground at his feet, crouching rather than kneel-
ing, her thin white dress clinging about her, her pale
hair streaming over her shoulders, her great blue eyes
glittering in the dusk, and her hands clutching at the
black ribbon about her throat, as if it had been strang-
ling her.
"Don't ask too much of me," she kept repeating;
"I have been selfish from my babyhood."
"Lucy, Lucy, speak plainly. Do you dislike
me?"
"Dislike you! No, no!"
"But is there any one else whom you love?"
She laughed aloud at his question. "I do not love
any one in the world," she answered.
He was glad of her reply; and yet that and the
strange laugh jarred upon his feelings. He was silent
for some moments, and then said with a kind of
effort, —
"Well, Lucy, I will not ask too much of you. I
dare say I am a romantic old fool; but if you do not
dislike me, and if you do not love any one else, I see
no reason why we should not make a very happy
couple. Is it a bargain, Lucy?"
"Yes."
The baronet lifted her in his arms, and kissed her
once upon the forehead; then, after quietly bidding her
good night, ho walked straight out of the house.
He walked straight out of the house, this foolish


LUCT.
17
old man, because there was some strong emotion at
"work in his heart — neither joy, nor triumph, but
something almost akin to disappointment; some stifled
and unsatisfied longing which lay heavy and dull at
bis heart, as if he had carried a corpse in his bosom.
He carried the corpse of that hope which had died at
the sound of Lucy's words. All the doubts and fears
and timid aspirations were ended now. Ho must be
contented, like other men of his age, to be married for
bis fortune and his position.
Lucy Graham went slowly up the stairs to her little
room at the top of the house. She placed her dim
candle on the chest of drawers, and seated herself on
the edge of the white bed; still and white as the
draperies hanging round her.
"No more dependence, no more drudgery, no more
humiliations," she said; "every trace of the old life
melted away — every clue to identity buried and for-
gotten — except these, except these."
She bad never taken her left hand from the blaok
ribbon at her throat. She drew it from her bosom as
she spoke, and looked at the object attached to it.
It was neither a locket, a miniature, nor a cross:
it was a ring wrapped in an oblong piece of paper —
the paper partly printed, partly written, yellow with
age, and crumpled with much folding.
Lady iudley'1 Setrtl. I.
2


18
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
CHAPTER IL
On Bunrd tho Argus.
He threw the end of his cigar into the water, and
leaning his elbows upon the bulwarks, stared medita-
tively at the waves.
"How wearisome they are," he said; "blue, and
green, and opal; opal, and blue, and green; all very
well in their way, of course, but three months of them
are rather too much, especially —"
He did not attempt to finish his sentence; his
thoughts seemed to wander in the very midst of it,
and carry him a thousand miles or so away.
"Poor little girl, how pleased she'll be!" ho
muttered, opening his cigar case, and lazily surveying
its contents; "how pleased and how surprised! Poor
little girl! Aftor three years and a half, too; she will
be surprised."
He was a young man of about five-and-twenty,
with a dark face, bronzed by exposure to the sun; he
had handsome brown eyes, with a feminine smile in
them, that sparkled through his black lashes, and a
bushy beard and moustache that covered the whole of
the lower part of his face. He was tall, and power-
fully built; he wore a loose grey suit and a felt hat,
thrown carelessly upon his black hair. His name was
George Talboys, and ho was alt-cabin passenger on


ON BOARD THE ARGUS.
19
board the good ship Argus, laden with Australian wool,
and Bailing from Sydney to Liverpool.
There were very few passengers in the aft-cabin of
the Argus. An elderly wool-stapler, returning to his
native country with his wife and daughters, after
having made a fortune in the colonies; a governess of
five-and-thirty years of age, going home to marry a
man to whom she had been engaged fifteen years; the
sentimental daughter of a wealthy Australian wine
merchant, invoiced to England to finish her education,
and George Talboys, were the only first-class pas-
sengers on board.
This George Talboys was the life and soul of the
vessel; nobody knew who or what he was, or where
he came from, but everybody liked him. He sat at
the bottom of the dinner table, and assisted the captain
in doing the honours of the friendly meal. He opened
the champagne bottles, and took wine with every one
present; he told funny stories, and led the laugh him-
self with such a joyous peal, that the man must have
been a churl who could not have laughed for pure
sympathy. He was a capital hand at speculation and
vingt-et-un, and all the merry round games, which
kept the little circle round the cabin lamp so deep in
innocent amusement, that a hurricane might have
howled overhead without their hearing it; but he freely
owned that he had no talent for whist, and that he
didn't know a knight from a castle upon the chess-
board.
2*


20
LAD? ATOLET'S SECRET.
Indeed, Mr. Talboys was by no means too learned
a gentleman. The pale governess had tried to talk to
him about fashionable literature, but George had only
pulled his beard, and stared very hard at her, saying
occasionally, "Ah, yes!" and, "To be sure, ha!"
The sentimental young lady, going home to finish
her education, had tried him with Shelley and Byron,
and he had fairly laughed in her face, as if poetry
were a joke. The wool-stapler sounded him upon po-
litics, but he did not seem very deeply versed in them;
so they let him go his own way, smoke his cigars and
talk to the sailors, lounge over the bulwarks and stare
at the water, and make himself agreeable to every-
body in his own fashion. But when the Argus came
to be within about a fortnight's sail of England every-
body noticed a change in George Talboys. He grew
restless and fidgety; sometimes so merry that the cabin
rang with his laughter; sometimes moody and thought-
ful. Favourite as he was amongst the sailors, they
grew tired at last of answering his perpetual questions
about the probable time of touching land. Would it
be in ten days, in eleven, in twelve, in thirteen? Was
the wind favourable? How many knots an hour was
the vessel doing? Then a sudden passion would seize
him, and he would stamp upon the deck, crying out
that she was a rickety old craft, and that her owners
were swindlers to advertise her as the fast-sailing Argus.
She was not fit for passenger traffic; she was not fit to
carry impatient living creatures, with hearts and souls;


ON BOAED THE ARGUS.
21
she was fit for nothing but to be laden with bales of
stupid wool, that might rot on the sea and be none the
worse for it
.
The sun was dropping down behind the waves as
George Talboys lighted his cigar upon this August
evening. Only ten days more, the sailors had told
him that afternoon, and they would see the English
coast . "I will go ashore in the first boat that hails
us," he cried; "I will go ashore in a cockle-shell. By
Jove, if it comes to that, I will swim to land."
His friends in the aft-cabin, with the exception of
the pale governess, laughed at his impatience; she
sighed as she watched the young man, chafing at the
slow hours, pushing away his untasted wine, flinging
himself restlessly about upon the cabin sofa, rushing
up and down the companion ladder, and staring at the
waves.
As the red rim of the sun dropped into the water,
the governess ascended the cabin-stairs for a stroll on
deck, while the passengers sat over their wine below.
She stopped when she came up to George, and stand-
ing by his side, watched the fading crimson in the
western sky.
The lady was very quiet and reserved, seldom
sharing in the after-cabin amusements, never laughing,
and speaking very little; but she and George Talboys
had been excellent friends throughout the passage.
"Does my cigar annoy you, MissMorley?" he said,
taking it out of his mouth.
"Not at all; pray do not leave off smoking. I


22
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
only came up to look at the sunset. What a lovely
evening!"
"Yes, yes, I dare say," he answered, impatiently;
"yet so long, so long! Ten more interminable days
and ten more weary nights before we land."
"Yes," said Miss Morley, sighing. "Do you wish
the time shorter?"
"Do I?" cried George; "indeed I do. Don't
you?"
"Scarcely."
"But is there no one you love in England? Is
there no one you love looking out for your arrival?"
"I hope so," she said, gravely. They were silent
for some time, he smoking his cigar with a furious
impatience, as if he could hasten the course of the
vessel by his own restlessness; she looking out at the
waning light with melancholy blue eyes: eyes that
seemed to have faded with poring over closely-printed
books and difficult needlework; eyes that had faded a
little, perhaps, by reason of tears secretly shed in the
dead hours of the lonely night.
"See!" said George, suddenly pointing in another
direction from that towards which Miss Morley was
looking, "there's the new moon."
She looked up at the pale crescent, her own face
almost as pale and wan.
"This is the first time we have seen it . We must
wish!" said George, "/know what / wish."
"What?"
"That we may get home quickly."


ON BOARD THE ARGUS.
23
"My wish is that we may find no disappointment
when we get there," said the governess, sadly.
"Disappointment I"
He started as if he had been struck, and asked
what she meant by talking of disappointment
.
"I mean this," she said, speaking rapidly, and with
a restless motion of her thin hands; "I mean that as
the end of this long voyage draws near, hope sinks in
my heart: and a sick fear comes over me that at the
last all may not be well. The person I go to meet
may be changed in his feelings towards me; or he may
retain all the old feeling nntil the moment of seeing
me, and then lose it in a breath at sight of my poor
wan face, for I was called a pretty girl, Mr. Talboys,
when I sailed for Sydney, fifteen years ago; or he may
be so changed by the world as to have grown selfish
and mercenary, and he may welcome me for the sake
of my fifteen years' savings. Again, he may be dead.
He may have been well, perhaps, up to within a week
of our landing, and in that last week may have taken
a fever, and died an hour before our vessel anchors
in the Mersey. I think of all these things, Mr. Talboys,
and act the scenes over in my mind, and feel the an-
guish of them twenty times a day. Twenty times a
day!" she repeated; "why, I do it a thousand times
a day."
George Talboys had stood motionless, with his
cigar in his hand, listening to her so intently that as
she said the last words, his hold relaxed, and the cigar
dropped into the water.


'2<l
LADY ACDLEY's 8BCRBT.
"I wonder," she continued, more to herself than
to him — "I wonder, looking back, to think how
hopeful I was when the vessel sailed; I never thought
then of disappointment, but I pictured the joy of
meeting, imagining the very words that would be said,
the very tones, the very looks; but for this last month
of the voyage, day by day, and hour by hour, my heart
sinks, and my hopeful fancies fade away, and I dread
the end as much as if I knew that I was going to Eng- .
land to attend a funeral."
The young man suddenly changed his attitude, and
turned his face full upon his companion, with a look
of alarm. She saw in the pale light that the colour
had faded from his cheek.
"What a fool!" he cried, striking his clenched fist
upon the side of the vessel, "what a fool I am to be
frightened at this! Why do you come and say these
things to me? Why do you come and terrify me out
of my senses, when I am going straight home to the
woman I love; to a girl whose heart is as true as the
light of heaven; and in whom I no more expect to find
any change than I do to see another sun rise in to-
morrow's sky? Why do you come and try to put such
fancies into my head, when I am going home to my
darling wife?"
"Tour wife," she said; "that is different. There
is no reason that my terrors should terrify you. I am
going to England to rejoin a man to whom I was
engaged to be married fifteen years ago. He was too
poor to marry then, and when I was offered a situa-


ON BOARD THE ARGUS.
25
lion as governess in a rich Australian family, I per-
suaded him to let me accept it, so that I might leave
him free and unfettered to win his way in the world,
while I saved a little money to help us when we began
life together. I never meant to stay away so long, but
things have gone badly with him in England. That is
my story, and you can understand my fears. They
need not influence you. Mine is an exceptional case."
"So is mine," said George, impatiently. "I tell
you that mine is an exceptional case, although I swear
to you that, until this moment, I have never known a
fear as to the result of my voyage home. But you are
right; your terrors have nothing to do with me. You
have been away fifteen years; all kinds of things may
happen in fifteen years. Now, it is only three years
and a-half this very month since I left England. "What
can have happened in such a short time as that?"
Miss Morley looked at him with a mournful smile,
but did not speak. His feverish ardour, the freshness
and impatience of his nature were so strange and new
to her, that she looked at him half in admiration, half
in pity.
"My pretty little wife! My gentle, innocent, loving,
little wife! Do you know, Miss Morley," he said, with
all his old hopefulness of manner, "that I left my little
girl asleep, with her baby in her arms, and with nothing
but a few blotted lines to tell her why her faithful hus-
band had deserted her?"
"Deserted herl" exclaimed the governess.
"Yes. I was a cornet in a cavalry regiment when


20
LADY ATOLEv's SECRET.
I first met my littlo darling. We were quartered at a
stupid sea-port town, where my pet lived with her
shabby old father, a half-pay naval officer; a regular
old humbug, as poor as Job, and with an eye for
nothing but the main chance. I saw through all his
shallow tricks to catch one of us for his pretty daughter.
I saw all the pitiful, contemptible, palpable traps he
set for big dragoons to walk into. I saw through his
shabby-genteel dinners and public-house port; his fine
talk of the grandeur of his family; his sham pride and
independence, and the sham tears in his bleared old
eyes when he talked of his only child. He was a
drunken old hypocrite, and he was ready to sell my
poor little girl to the highest bidder. Luckily for me,
I happened just then to be the highest bidder; for my
father is a rich man, Miss Morley, and as it was love
at first sight on both sides, my darling and I made a
match of it. No sooner, however, did my father hear
that I had married a penniless little girl, the daughter
of a tipsy old half-pay lieutenant, than he wrote me a
furious letter, telling me he would never again hold
any communication with me, and that my yearly
allowance would stop from my wedding-day. As there
was no remaining in such a regiment as mine, with
nothing but my pay to live on, and a pretty little wife
to keep, I sold out, thinking that before the money
that I got for my commission was exhausted, I should
be sure to drop into something. I took my darling to
Italy, and we lived there in splendid style as long as
my two thousand pounds lasted; but when that began



ON BOARD THE ARGUS.
27
to dwindle down to a couple of hundred or so, we
came back to England, and as my darling had a
fancy for being near that tiresome old father of hers,
we settled at the watering-place where he lived. Well,
as soon as the old man heard that I had a couple of
hundred pounds left, he expressed a wonderful degree
of affection for us, and insisted on our boarding in his
house. "We consented, still to please my darling, who
had just then a peculiar right to have every whim and
fancy of her innocent heart indulged. We did board
with him, and finely he fleeced us; but when I
spoke of it to my little wife, she only shrugged her
shoulders, and said she did not like to be unkind to
'poor papa.' So poor papa made away with our little
stock of money in no time; and as I felt that it was
now becoming necessary to look about for something,
I ran up to London, and tried to get a situation as a
clerk in a merchant's office, or as accountant, or book-
keeper, or something of that kind. But I suppose
there was the stamp of a heavy dragoon upon me, for
do what I would I couldn't get anybody to believe
in my capacity; and tired out, and down-hearted, I
returned to my darling, to find her nursing a son and
heir to his father's poverty. Poor little girl, she was
very low-spirited; and when I told her that my London
expedition had failed, she fairly broke down, and burst
into a storm of sobs and lamentations, telling me that
I ought not to have married her if I could give her
nothing but poverty and misery; and that I had done
her a cruel wrong in making her my wife. By


28
LADT ATOLBX'S SECRET.
Heaven! Miss Morley, her tears and reproaches drove
me almost mad; and I flew into a rage with her,
myself, her father, the world, and everybody in it,
and then ran out of the house, declaring that I would
never enter it again. I walked about the streets all
that day half out of my mind, and with a strong
inclination to throw myself into the sea, so as to leave
my poor girl free to make a better match. 'If I
drown myself, her father must support her,' I thought;
'the old hypocrite could never refuse her a shelter,
but while I live she has no claim on him.' I went
down to a rickety old wooden pier meaning to wait
there till it was dark, and then drop quietly over the
end of it into the water; but while I sat there smoking
my pipe, and staring vacantly at the sea-gulls, two
men came down, and one of them began to talk of
the Australian gold-diggings, and the great things that
were to be done there. It appeared that he was going
to sail in a day or two, and ho was trying to persuade
his companion to join him in the expedition.
"I listened to these men for upwards of an hour,
following them up and down the pier with my pipe in
my mouth, and hearing all their talk. After this I
fell into conversation with them myself, and ascertained
that there was a vessel going to leave Liverpool in
three days, by which vessel one of the men was going
out . This man gave mo all the information I re-
quired, and told me, moreover, that a stalwart young
fellow such as I was could hardly fail to do well in
the^ diggings. The thought flashed upon me so sud-



ON BOAED THE ARGUS.
39
denly, that I grew hot and red in the face, and
trembled in every limb with excitement. This was
better than the water at any rate. Suppose I stole
away from my darling, leaving her safe under her
father's roof, and went and made a fortune in the new
world, and came back in a twelvemonth to throw it
into her lap; for I was so sanguine in those days that
I counted on making my fortune in a year or so. I
thanked the man for his information, and late at night
strolled homewards. It was bitter winter weather, but
I had been too full of passion to feel cold, and I walked
through the quiet streets, with the snow drifting in my
face, and a desperate hopefulness in my heart. The
old man was sitting drinking brandy-and-water in his
little dining-room; and my wife was upstairs, sleeping
peacefully, with the baby on her breast . I sat down
and wrote a few brief lines, which told her that I
never had loved her better than now when I seemed
to desert her; that I was going to try my fortune in a
new world; and that if I succeeded I should come
back to bring her plenty and happiness, but that if
I failed I should never look upon her face again.
I divided the remainder of our money — something
over forty pounds — into two equal portions, leaving
one for her, and putting the other in my pocket.
I knelt down and prayed for my wife and child, with
my head upon the white counterpane that covered
them. I wasn't much of a praying man at ordinary
times, but God knows that was a heartfelt prayer.


30
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
I kissed her once and the baby once, and then crept
out of the room. The dining-room door was open,
and the old man was nodding over his paper. He
looked up as he heard my step in the passage, and
asked me where I was going. 'To have a smoke
in the street,' I answered; and as this was a common
habit of mine, he believed me. Three nights after this
I was out at sea, bound for Melbourne — a steerage
passenger, with a digger's tools for my baggage, and
about seven shillings in my pocket."
"And you succeeded?" asked Miss Morley.
"Not till I had long despaired of success; not until
poverty and I had become such old companions and
bedfellows, that, looking back at my past life, I won-
dered whether that dashing, reckless, extravagant,
luxurious, champagne-drinking dragoon could have
really been the same man who sat on the damp ground
gnawing a mouldy crust in the wilds of the new world.
I clung to the memory of my darling, and the trust
that I had in her love and truth, as the one keystone
that kept the fabric of my past life together — the
one star that lit the thick black darkness of the future.
I was hail fellow well met with bad men; I was in the
centre of riot, drunkenness, and debauchery; but the
purifying influence of my love kept me safe from all.
Thin and gaunt, the half-starved shadow of what I
once had been, I saw myself one day in a broken bit
of looking-glass, and was frightened of my own face.
But I toiled on through all; through disappointment


ON BOARD THE AUG US.
31
and despair, rheumatism, fever, starvation, at the very
gates of death, I toiled on steadily to the end; and in
the end I conquered."
He was so brave in his energy and determination,
in his proud triumph of success, and in the knowledge
of the difficulties he had vanquished, that the pale
governess could only look at him in wondering ad-
miration.'
"How brave you were!" she said.
"Brave!" he cried, with a joyous peal of laughter;
"wasn't I working for my darling? Through all the
dreary time of that probation, her pretty white hand
beckoning me onwards to a happy future? Why, I
have seen her under my wretched canvas tent, sitting
by my side, with her boy in her arms, as plainly as I
had ever seen her in the one happy year of our
wedded life. At last, one dreary foggy morning, just
three months ago; with a drizzling rain wetting me to
the skin; up to my neck in clay and mire; half-
starved; enfeebled by fever; stiff with rheumatism; a
monster nugget turned up under my spade, and I came
upon a gold deposit of some magnitude. A fortnight
afterwards I was the richest man in all the little colony
about me. I travelled post-haste to Sydney, realised
my gold findings which were worth upwards of £ 20,000,
and a fortnight afterwards took my passage for Eng-
land in this vessel; and in ten days — in ten days I
shall see my darling."
"But in all that time did you never write to your
wife?"


32
LADY AUDLBy's SECRET.
"Never till a week before this vessel set sail. I
could not write when everything looked so black. I
could not write and tell her that I was fighting hard
with despair and death. I waited for better fortune;
and when that came, I wrote, telling her that I should
be in England almost as soon as my letter, and giving
her an address at a coffee-house in London, where she
could write to me, telling me where to find her; though
she is hardly likely to'have left her father's house."
He fell into a reverie after this, and puffed medi-
tatively at his cigar. His companion did not disturb
him. The last ray of the summer daylight had died
out, and the pale light of the crescent moon only
remained.
Presently George Talboys flung away his cigar,
and, turning to the governess, cried abruptly, "Miss
Morley, if, when I get to England, I hear that anything
has happened to my wife, I shall fall down dead."
"My dear Mr. Talboys, why do you think of these
things? God is very good to us; He will not afflict
us beyond our power of endurance. I see all things,
perhaps, in a melancholy light; for the long monotony
of my life has given mo too much time to think over
my troubles."
"And my life has been all action, privation, toil,
alternate hope and despair; I have had no time to
think Upon the chances of anything happening to my
darling. What a blind, reckless fool I have been!
Three years and a half, and not one line, one word


ON BOARD THE ARGUS.
33
from her, or from any mortal creature who knows her.
Heaven above! what may not have happened?"
In the agitation of his mind he began to walk
rapidly up and down the lonely deck, the governess
following, and trying to soothe him.
"I swear to you, Miss Morley," he said, "that, till
you spoke to me to-night, I never felt one shadow of
fear; and now I have that sick, sinking dread at my
heart, which you talked of an hour ago. Let me
alone, please, to get over it my own way."
She drew silently away from him, and seated her-
self by the side of the vessel, looking over into the
water.
Lady AwUei'f Secret. 1.
4


34
LAD? AUDLBY'S SECRET.
CHAPTER III.
Hidden Relics.
The same August sun which had gone down be-
hind the wasto of waters glimmered redly upon the
broad face of the old clock over that ivy-covered
archway which leads into the gardens of Audley
Court.
A fierce and crimson sunset. The mnllioned windows
and the twinkling lattices are all ablaze with the red
glory; the fading light flickers upon the leaves of the
limes in the long avenue, and changes the still fish-
pond into a sheet of burnished copper; even into
those dim recesses of briar and brushwood, amidst
which the old well is hidden, the crimson brightness
penetrates in fitful flashes, till the dank weeds and the
rusty iron wheel and broken woodwork seem as if they
were flecked with blood.
The lowing of a cow in the quiet meadows, the
splash of a trout in the fish-pond, the last notes of a
tired bird, the creaking of waggon-wheels upon the
distant road, every now and then breaking the evening
silence, only made the stillness of the place seem more
intense. It was almost oppressive, this twilight still-
ness. The very repose of the place grew painful from
its intensity, and you felt as if a corpse must be lying
somewhere within that grey and ivy-covered pile of


HIDDEN RELICS.
35
building — so deathlike was the tranquillity of all
around.
As the clock over the archway struck eight, a
door at the back of the house was softly opened, and
a girl came out into the gardens.
But even the presence of a human being scarcely
broke the silence; for the girl crept slowly over the
thick grass, and gliding into the avenue by the side
of the fish-pond, disappeared under the rich shelter of
the limes.
She was not, perhaps, positively a pretty girl; but
her appearance was of that order which is commonly
called interesting. Interesting, it may be, because in
the pale face and the light grey eyes, the small features
and compressed lips, there was something which hinted
at a power of repression and self-control not common
in a woman of nineteen or twenty. She might have
been pretty, I think, but for the one fault in her small
oval face. This fault was an absence of colour. Not
one tinge of crimson flushed the waxen whiteness of
her cheeks; not one shadow of brown redeemed the
pale insipidity of her eyebrows and eyelashes; not one
glimmer of gold or auburn relieved the dull flaxen of
her hair. Even her dress was spoiled by this same
deficiency; the pale lavender muslin faded into a sickly
grey, and the ribbon knotted round her throat melted
into the same neutral hue.
Her figure was slim and fragile, and in spite of
her humble dress, she had something of the grace and
carriage of a gentlewoman; but she was only a simple
a*


36
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
country girl, called Phoebe Marks, who had been
nursemaid in Mr. Dawson's family, and whom Lady
Audley had chosen for ber maid after her marriage
with Sir Michael.
Of course this was a wonderful piece of good for-
tune for Phoebe, who found her wages trebled and her
work light in the well-ordered household at the Court;
and who was therefore quite as much the object of
envy amongst her particular friends as my lady her-
self in higher circles.
A man who was sitting on the broken wood-work
of the well started as the lady's-maid came out of the
dim shade of the limes and stood before him amongst
the weeds and brushwood.
I have said before that this was a neglected spot:
it lay in the midst of a low shrubbery, hidden away
from the rest of the gardens, and only visible from the
garret windows at the back of the west wing. "Why,
Phoebe," said the man, shutting a clasp-knife with
which he had been stripping the bark from a black-
thorn stake, "you came upon me so still and sudden,
that I thought you was an evil spirit. I've come
across through the fields, and come in here at the gate
agen the moat, and I was taking a rest before I came
up to the house to ask if you was come back."
"I can see the well from my bed-room window,
Luke," Phoebe answered, pointing to an open lattice
in one of the gables. "I saw you sitting here, and
came down to have a chat; it's better talking out


HTDDEN RELICS.
37
here than in the house were there's always somebody
listening."
The man was a big, broad-shouldered, stupid-
looking clodhopper of about twenty-three years of age.
His dark-red hair grew low upon his forehead, and his
bushy brows met over a pair of greenish grey eyes;
his nose was large and well shaped, but the mouth
was coarse in form and animal in expression. Rosy-
cheeked, red-haired, and bull-necked, he was not un-
like one of the stout oxen grazing in the meadows
round about the Court
.
The girl seated herself lightly upon the wood-
work at his side, and put one of her hands, which
had grown white in her new and easy service, about
his thick neck.
"Are you glad to see me, Luke?" she asked.
"Of course I'm glad, lass," he answered, boor-
ishly, opening his knife again, and scraping away at
the hedge-stake.
They were first cousins, and had been playfellows
in childhood, and sweethearts in early youth.
"You don't seem much as if you were glad," said
the girl; "you might look at me, Luke, and tell me if
you think my journey has improved me."
"It ain't put any colour into your cheeks, my
girl," he said, glancing up at her from under his
lowering eyebrows; "you're every bit as white as you
was when you went away."
"But they say travelling makes people genteel,
Luke. I've been on the Continent with my lady,


38
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
through all manner of curious places; and you know
when I was a child, Squire Horton's daughters taught
me to speak a little French, and I found it so nice to
be able to talk to the people abroad."
"Genteel!" cried Luke Marks, with a horse laugh;
"who wants you to be genteel, I wonder? Not me
for one; when you're my wife you won't have over-
much time for gentility, my girl. French, too! Dang
me, Phoebe, I suppose when we've saved money
enough between us to buy a bit of a farm, you'll be
parlyvooing to the cows?"
She bit her lip as her lover spoke, and looked
away. He went on cutting and chopping at a rude
handle he was fashioning to the stake, whistling softly
to himself all the while, and not once looking at his
cousin.
For some time they were silent, but by and by
she said, with her face still turned away from her
companion, —
"What a fine thing it is for Miss Graham, that
was, to travel with her maid and her courier, and her
chariot and four, and a husband that thinks there isn't
one spot upon all the earth that's good enough for her
to set her foot upon!"
"Ay, it is a fine thing, Phoebe, to have lots of
money," answered Luke, "and I hope you'll be warned
by that, my lass, to save up your wages agen we get
married."
"Why, what was she in Mr. Dawson's house only
three months ago?" continued the girl, as if she had


HIDDEN' RELICS.
39
not heard her cousin's speech. "What was she but
a servant like me? Taking wages and working for
them as hard, or harder than I did. You should have
seen her shabby clothes, Luke — worn and patched,
and darned, and turned and twisted, yet always looking
nice upon her, somehow. She gives mo more as lady's-
maid here than ever she got from Mr. Dawson then.
Why, I've seen her come out of the parlour with a
few sovereigns and a little silver in her hand, that
master had just given her for her quarter's salary; and
now look at her!"
"Never you mind her," said Luke; "take care of
yourself, Phoebe; that's all you've got to do. What
should you say to a public-house for you and me, by
and by, my girl? There's a deal of money to be
made out of a public-house."
The girl still sat with her face averted from her
lover, her hands hanging listlessly in her lap, and her
pale grey eyes fixed upon the last low streak of crim-
son dying out behind the trunks of the trees.
"You should see the inside of the house, Luke,"
she said; "it's a tumble-down looking place enough
outside; but you should see my lady's rooms, — all
pictures and gilding, and great looking-glasses that
stretch from the ceiling to the floor. Painted ceilings,
too, that cost hundreds of pounds, the housekeeper told
me, and all done for her."
"She's a lucky one," muttered Luke, with lazy
indifference.
"You should have seen her while we were abroad,


40
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
with a crowd of gentlemen always hanging about her;
Sir Michael not jealous of them, only proud to see her
so much admired. You should have heard her laugh
and talk with them; throwing all their compliments
and fine speeches back at them, as it were, as if they
had been pelting her with roses. She set every body
mad about her wherever she went. Her singing, her
playing, her painting, her dancing, her beautiful smile,
and sunshiny ringlets! She was always the talk of a
place, as long as we stayed in it."
"Is she at home to-night?"
"No, she has gone out with Sir Michael to a dinner
party, at the Beeches. They've seven or eight miles
to drive, and they won't be back till after eleven."
"Then I'll tell you what, Phoebe, if the inside of
the house is so mighty fine, I should like to have a
look at it."
"You shall, then. Mrs. Barton, the housekeeper,
knows you by sight, and she can't object to my show-
ing you some of the best rooms."
It was almost dark when the cousins left the shrub-
bery and walked slowly to the house. The door by
which they entered led into the servants' hall, on one
side of which was the housekeeper's room. Phoebe
Marks stopped for a moment to ask the housekeeper
if she might take her cousin through some of the
rooms, and having received permission to do so, lighted
a candle at the lamp in the hall, and beckoned to
Luke to follow her into the other part of the house.
The long, black oak corridors were dim in the


HIDDEN RELICS.
41
ghostly twilight — the light carried by Phoebe looking
only a poor speck of flame in the broad passages
through which the girl led her cousin. Luke looked
suspiciously over his shoulder now and then, half
frightened of the creaking of his own hob-nailed boots.
"It's a mortal dull place, Phoebe," he said, as
they emerged from a passage into the principal hall,
which was not yet lighted; "I've heard tell of a
murder that was done here in old times."
"There are murders enough in these times, as to
that, Luke," answered the girl, ascending the staircase,
followed by the young man.
She led the way through a great drawing-room,
rich in satin and ormolu, buhl and inlaid cabinets,
bronzes, cameos, statuettes, and trinkets, that glistened
in the dusky light; then through a morning-room hung
with proof engravings of valuable pictures; through
this into an ante-chamber, where she stopped, holding
the light above her head.
The young man stared about him, open-mouthed
and open-eyed.
"It's a rare fine place," he said, "and must havo
cost a power of money."
"Look at the pictures on the walls," said Phoebe,
glancing at the panels of the octagonal chamber, which
were hung with Claudes and Poussins, Wouvermans
and Cuyps, "I've heard that those alone are worth a
fortune. This is the entrance to my lady's apartments,
Miss Graham that was." She lifted a heavy green
cloth curtain which hung across a doorway, and led


42
lady Audley's secret.
the astonished countryman into a fairy-like boudoir,
and thence to a dressing-room, [in which the open
doors of a wardrobe and a heap of dresses flung about
a sofa showed that it still remained exactly as its
occupant had left it.
'Tve all these things to put away before my lady
comes home, Luke; you might sit down here while I
do it, I shan't be long."
Her cousin looked round in gawky embarrassment,
bewildered by the splendour of the room; and after
some deliberation selected the most substantial of the
chairs, on the extreme edge of which he carefully
seated himself.
"I wish I could show you the jewels, Luke," said
the girl; "but I can't, for she always keeps the keys
herself; that's the case on the dressing-table there."
"What, that?" cried Luke, staring at the massive
walnut-wood and brass inlaid casket. "Why, that's
big enough to hold every bit of clothes I've got!"
"And it's as full as it can be of diamonds, rubies,
pearls, and emeralds," answered Phoebe, busy as she
spoke in folding the rustling silk dresses, and laying
them one by one upon the shelves of the wardrobe.
As she was shaking out the flounces of the last, a
jingling sound caught her ear, and she put her hand
into the pocket.
"I declarel" she exclaimed, "my lady has left her
keys in her pocket for once in a way. I can show
you the jewellery if you like, Luke."
"Well, I may as well have a look at it, my girl,"


HIDDEN RELICS.
43
he said, rising from his chair, and holding the light
while his cousin unlocked the casket. He uttered a
cry of wonder when he saw the ornaments glittering
on white satin cushions. He wanted to handle the
delicate jewels; to pull them about, and find out their
mercantile value. Perhaps a pang of longing and
envy shot through his heart as he thought how he
would have liked to have taken one of them.
"Why, one of those diamond things would set us
up in life, Phoebe," he said, turning a bracelet over
and over in his big red hands.
"Put it down, Luke I Put it down directly!"
cried the girl, with a look of terror; "how can you
speak about such things?"
He laid the bracelet in its place with a reluctant
sigh, and then continued his examination of the
casket.
"What's this?" he asked presently, pointing to a
brass knob in the framework of the box.
He pushed it as he spoke, and a secret drawer,
lined with purple velvet, flew out of the casket.
"Look ye, here!" cried Luke, pleased at his dis-
covery.
Phoebe Marks threw down the dress she had been
folding, and went over to the toilette table.
"Why, I never saw this before," she said, "I
wonder what there is in it?"
There was not much in it; neither gold nor gems;
only a baby's little worsted shoe rolled up in a piece
of paper, and a tiny lock of pale and silky yellow


41
LADY ATOLBy's SECRET.
hair, evidently taken from a baby's bead. Pbrabe's
grey eyes dilated as she examined the little packet
.
"So this is what my lady hides in the secret
drawer," she muttered.
"It's queer rubbish to keep in such a place," said
Luke, carelessly.
The girl's thin lips curved into a curious smile.
"You will bear me witness where I found this,"
she said, putting the little parcel into her pocket.
"Why, Phoebe, you're never going to be such a
fool as to take that," cried the young man.
"I'd rather have this than the diamond bracelet
you would have liked to take," she answered; "you
shall have the public-house, Luke."


IN THE FTRST PAGE OP THE "TIMES."
45
CHAPTER IV.
In the First Page of the "Times."
Robert Audley was supposed to be a barrister.
As a barrister was his name inscribed in the Law List;
as a barrister, he had chambers in Fig-tree Court,
Temple; as a barrister he had eaten the allotted num-
ber of dinners, which form the sublime ordeal through
which the forensic aspirant wades on to fame and for-
tune. If these things can make a man a barrister,
Robert Audley decidedly was one. But he had never
either had a brief, or tried to get a brief, or even
wished to have a brief in all those five years, during
which his name had been painted upon one of the
doors in Fig-tree Court. He was a handsome, lazy,
care-for-nothing fellow, of about seven-and-twenty; the
only son of a younger brother of Sir Michael Audley.
His father had left him £400 a year, which his friends
had advised him to increase by being called to the bar;
and as he found it, after due consideration, more
trouble to oppose the wishes of these friends, than to
eat so many dinners, and to take a set of chambers in
the Temple; he adopted the latter course, and un-
blushingly called himself a barrister.
Sometimes, when the weather was very hot, and
he had exhausted himself with the exertion of smoking
his German pipe, and reading French novels, he would


46
LADY AI'DLEy's SECRET.
stroll into the Temple Gardens, and lying in some shady
spot, pale and cool, with his shirt collar turned down
and a blue silk handkerchief tied loosely about his
neck, would tell grave benchers that he had knocked
himself up with over work.
The sly old benchers laughed at the pleasing fiction;
but they all agreed that Robert Audley was a good
follow; a generous-hearted fellow; rather a curious
fellow too, with a fund of sly wit and quiet humour,
under his listless, dawdling, indifferent, irresolute
manner. A man who would never get on in the world;
but who would not hurt a worm. Indeed, his chambers
were converted into a perfect dog-kennel, by his habit
of bringing home stray and benighted curs, who were
attracted by his looks in the street, and followed him
with abject fondness.
Robert always spent the hunting season at Audley
Court; not that he was distinguished as a Nimrod, for
he would quietly trot to covert upon a mild-tempered,
stout-limbed, bay hack, and keep at a very respectful
distance from the hard riders; his horse knowing quite
as well as he did, that nothing was further from his
thoughts than any desire to be in at the death.
The young man was a great favourite with his
uncle, and by no means despised by his pretty, gipsy-
faced, light-hearted, hoydenish cousin, Miss Alicia
Audley. It might have seemed to other men that the
partiality of a young lady, who was sole heiress to a
very fine estate, was rather well worth cultivating, but
it did not so occur to Robert Audley. Alicia was a


IN THE TIEST PAGE OP THE "TIMES."
47
very nice girl, he said, a jolly girl, with no nonsense
about her — a girl of a thousand; but this was the
highest point to which enthusiasm could carry him.
The idea of turning his cousin's girlish liking for him
to some good account never entered his idle brain. I
doubt if he even had any correct notion of the amount
of his uncle's fortune, and I am certain that he never
for one moment calculated upon the chances of any
part of that fortune ultimately coming to himself. So
that when one fine spring morning, about three months
before the time of which I am writing, the postman
brought him the wedding cards of Sir Michael and Lady
Audley, together with a very indignant letter from his
cousin, setting forth how her father had just married a
wax-dollish young person, no older than Alicia herself,
with flaxen ringlets and a perpetual giggle; for, I am
sorry to say that Miss Audley's animus caused her so
to describe that pretty musical laugh which had been
so much admired in the late Miss Lucy Graham —
when, I say, these documents reached Robert Audley
— they elicited neither vexation nor astonishment in
the lymphatic nature of that gentleman. He read Alicia's
angry crossed and recrossed letter without so much as
removing the amber mouthpiece of his German pipe
from his moustachioed lips. When he had finished the
perusal of the epistle, which he read with his dark
eyebrows elevated to the centre of his forehead (his
only manneT of expressing surprise, by the way), he
deliberately threw that and the wedding cards into the
waste-paper basket, and putting down his pipe, pre-


48
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
pared himself for the exertion of thinking out the
subject
.
"I always said the old buffer would marry," he
muttered, after about half an hour's reverie. "Alicia
and my lady, the step-mother, will go at it hammer
and tongs. I hope they won't quarrel in the hunting
season, or say unpleasant things to each other at the
dinner-table: rows always upset a man's digestion."
At about twelve o'clock on the morning following
that night upon which the events recorded in my last
chapter had taken place, the Baronet's nephew strolled
out of the Temple, Blackfriarsward, on his way to the
City. He had in an evil hour obliged some necessitous
friend by putting the ancient name of Audley across a
bill of accommodation, which bill not having been met
by the drawer, Robert was called upon to pay. For
this purpose he sauntered up Ludgate Hill, with his
blue necktie fluttering in the hot August air, and thence
to a refreshingly cool banking-house in a shady court
out of St. Paul's Churchyard, where he made arrange-
ments for selling out a couple of hundred pounds worth
of consols.
He had transacted this business, and was loitering
at the corner of the court, waiting for a chance Hansom,
to convey him back to the Temple, when he was almost
knocked down by a man of about his own age, who
dashed headlong into the narrow opening.
"Be so good as to look where you're going, my
friend I" Robert remonstrated, mildly, to the impetuous


IN THE FIRST PAGE OP THE "TIMES."
49
passengers; "you might give a man warning before you
throw him down and trample upon him."
The stranger stopped suddenly, looked very hard
at the speaker, and then gasped for breath.
"Bob!" he cried, in a tone expressive of the most
intense astonishment; "I only touched British ground
after dark last night, and to think that I should meet
you this morningl"
'Tve seen you somewhere before, my bearded
friend," said Mr. Audley, calmly scrutinising the ani-
mated face of the other, "but I'll be hanged if I can
remember when or where."
"What!" exclaimed the stranger, reproachfully,
"you don't mean to say that you've forgotten George
Talboys?"
"No, I have not!" said Robert, with an emphasis
by no means usual to him; and then hooking his arm
into that of his friend, he led him into the shady court,
saying with his old indifference, "and now, George, tell
us all about it."
George Talboys did tell him all about it. He told
that very story which he had related ten days beforo
to the pale governess on board the Argus; and then,
hot and breathless, he said that he had a bundle of
Australian notes in his pocket, and that he wanted to
bank them at Messrs. —, who had been his bankers
many years before.
"If you'll believe me, I've only just left their count-
ing-house," said Robert. "I'll go back with you, and
we'll settle that matter in five minutes."
tudy Auilty't Secret. I. 4


50
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
They did contrive to settle it in about a quarter of
an hour; and then Robert Audley was for starting off
immediately for the Crown and Sceptre, or the Castle,
Richmond, where they could have a bit of dinner, and
talk over those good old times when they were together
at Eton. But George told his friend that before he
went anywhere, before he shaved, or broke his fast, or
in any way refreshed himself after a night journey
from Liverpool by express train, he must call at a cer-
tain coffee-house in Bridge Street, Westminster, where
he expected to find a letter from his wife.
"Then I'll go there with you," said Robert. "Tho
idea of your having a wife, George; what a preposterous
joke."
As they dashed through Ludgate Hill, Fleet Street
and the Strand in a fast Hansom, George Talboys
poured into his friend's ear all those wild hopes and
dreams which had usurped such a dominion over his
sanguine nature.
"I shall take a villa on the banks of the Thames,
Bob," he said, "for the little wife and myself; and
we'll have a yacht, Bob, old boy, and you shall lie on
the deck and smoke, while my pretty one plays her
guitar and sings songs to us. She's for all the world
like one of those what's-its-names, who got poor old
Ulysses into trouble," added the young man, whose
classic lore was not very great.
The waiters at the Westminster coffee-house stared
at the hollow-eyed, unshaven stranger, with his clothes
of colonial cut, and his boisterous, excited manner; but


IN THE F1EST PAOE OF THE "TIMES."
51
he had been an old frequenter of the place in his
military days, and when they heard who he was they
flew to do his bidding.
He did not want much —- only a bottle of soda
water, and to know if there was a letter at the bar
directed to George Talboys.
The waiter brought the soda water before the
young men had seated themselves in a shady box near
the disused fireplace. No; there was no letter for that
name.
The waiter said it with consummate indifference,
while he mechanically dusted the little mahogany
table.
George's face blanched to a deadly whiteness.
"Talboys," he said; "perhaps you didn't hear the
name distinctly — T, A, L, B, 0, Y, S. Go and look
again; there must be a letter."
The waiter shrugged his shoulders as he left the
room, and returned in three minutes to say that there
was no name at all resembling Talboys in the letter
rack. There was Brown, and Sanderson, and Pinch-
beck; only three letters altogether.
The young man drank his soda water in silence,
and then leaning his elbows upon the table, covered
his face with his hands. There was something in his
manner which told Robert Audley that this disappoint-
ment, trifling as it might appear, was in reality a very
bitter one. He seated himself opposite to his friend,
but did not attempt to address him.
By-and-by George looked up, and mechanically
4*


52
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
taking a greasy Times newspaper of tho day before
from a heap of journals on the table, stared vacautly
at tho first page.
I cannot tell how long he sat blankly staring at
one paragraph amongst the list of deaths, before his
dazed brain took in its full meaning; but after a con-
siderable pause he pushed the newspaper over to Robert
Audley, and with a face that had changed from its
dark bronze to a sickly, chalky, greyish white, and
with an awful calmness in his manner, he pointed with
his finger to a line which ran thus: —
"On the 24th inst., at Ventnor, Isle of Wight,
Helen Talboys, aged twenty-two."


THE HEADSTONE AT VENTNOR.
53
CHAPTER V.
The Headstone at Ventnor.
Yes: there it was, in black and white —. "Helen
Talboys, aged 22."
When George told the governess on board the
Argus that if he heard any evil tidings of his wife ho
should drop down dead, he spoke in perfect good faith;
and yet here were the worst tidings that could come to
him, and he sat rigid, white, and helpless, staring
stupidly at the shocked face of his friend.
The suddenness of the blow had stunned him. In
his strange and bewildered state of mind he began to
wonder what had happened, and why it was that one
line in the Times newspaper could have so horrible an
effect upon him.
Then by degrees even this vague consciousness of
his misfortune faded slowly out of his mind, succeeded
by a painful consciousness of external things.
The hot August sunshine; the dusty window panes
and shabby painted blinds; a file of flyblown play-
bills fastened to the wall; the blank and empty fire-
place; a bald-headed old man nodding over the Mor-
ning Advertiser; the slipshod waiter folding a tumbled
table-cloth, and Robert Audley's handsome face looking
at him full of compassionate alarm. He knew that all
these things took gigantic proportions, and then, one


54
LADY AUDLBy'8 SECRET.
by one, melted into dark blots that swam before his
eyes. He knew that there was a great noise as of
half-a-dozen furious steam-engines tearing and grinding
in his ears, and he knew nothing more, except that
somebody or something fell heavily to the ground.
He opened his eyes upon the dusky evening in a
cool and shaded room, the silence only broken by the
rumbling of wheels at a distance.
He looked about him wonderingly, but half in-
differently. His old friend, Robert Audley, was seated
by his side smoking. George was lying on a low iron
bedstead opposite to an open window, in which there
was a stand of flowers and two or three birds in
cages.
"You don't mind the pipe, do you George?" his
friend asked, quietly.
"No"
He lay for some time looking at the flowers and
the birds: one canary was singing a shrill hymn to the
setting sun.
"Do the birds annoy you, George? Shall I take
them out of the room?"
"No.: I like to hear them sing."
Robert Audley knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
laid the precious meerschaum tenderly upon the mantel-
piece, and going into the next room, returned presently
with a cup of strong tea.
"Take this, George," he said, as he placed the cup
on a little table close to George's pillow; "it will do
your head good."


THE HEADSTONE AT VENTNOR.
r.r.
The young man did not answer, but looked slowly
round the room, and then at his friend's grave face.
"Bob," he said, "where are we?"
"In my chambers, my dear boy, in the Temple.
You have uo lodgings of your own, so you may as
well stay with me while you're in town."
George passed his hand once or twice across his
forehead, and then, in a hesitating manner, said
quietly —
"That newspaper this morning, Bob: what was it?'
"Never mind just now, old boy; drink some tea."
"Yes, yes," cried George, impatiently, raising him-
self upon the bed, and staring about him with hollow
eyes, "I remember all about it . Helen, my Helen!
my wife, my darling, my only love! Dead! dead!"
"George," said Robert Audley, laying his hand
gently upon the young man's arm, "you must re-
member that the person whose name you saw in the
paper may not be your wife. There may have been
some other Helen Talboys."
"No, no," he cried, "the age corresponds with
hers, and Talboys is such an uncommon name."
"It may be a misprint for Talbot."
"No, no, no; my wife is dead!"
He shook off Robert's restraining hand, and rising
from the bed, walked straight to the door.
"Where are you going?" exclaimed his friend.
"To Ventnor, to see her grave."
"Not to-night, George, not to-night. I will go
with you myself by the first train to-morrow."


5fi
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
Robert led him back to the bed, and gently forced
him to lie down again. He then gave him an opiate
which had been left for him by the medical man whom
they had called in at the coffee-house in Bridge Street,
when George fainted.
So George Talboys fell into a heavy slumber, and
dreamed that he went to Ventnor, to find his wife
alive and happy, but wrinkled, old, and grey, and to
find his son grown into a young man.
Early the next morning he was seated opposite to
Robert Audley in the first-class carriage of an express,
whirling through the pretty open country towards
Portsmouth.
They rode from Ryde to Ventnor under the burning
heat of the mid-day sun. As the two young men
alighted from the coach, the people standing about
stared at George's white face and untrimmed beard.
"What are we to do, George?" Robert Audley
asked. "We have no clue to finding the people you
want to see."
The young man looked at him with a pitiful, be-
wildered expression. The big dragoon was as helpless
as a baby; and Robert Audley, the most vacillating
and unenergetic of men, found himself called upon to
act for another. He rose superior to himself and equal
to the occasion.
"Had we better ask at one of the hotels about a
Mrs. Talboys, George?" he said.
"Her father's name was Maldon," George muttered;
"he could never have sent her here to die alone."


THE HEADSTONE AT VENTNOE.
57
They said nothing more, but Robert walked straight
to an hotel, where he inquired for a Mr. Maldon.
"Yes," they told him, "there was a gentleman of
that name stopping at Ventnor, a Captain Maldon; his
daughter was lately dead. The waiter would go and
inquire for the address."
The hotel was a busy place at this season; people
hurrying in and out, and a great bustle of grooms and
waiters about the hall.
George Talboys leaned against the door-post with
much the same look in his face as that which had
frightened his friend in the Westminster coffee-house.
The worst was confirmed now. His wife, Captain
Maldon's daughter, was dead.
The waiter returned in about five minutes to say
that Captain Maldon was lodging at Landsdowne
Cottages, No. 4.
They easily found the house, a shabby bow-
windowed cottage, looking towards the water.
Was Captain Maldon at home? No, the landlady
said; he had gone out to the beach with his little
grandson. Would the gentlemen walk in and sit down
a bit?
George mechanically followed his friend into the
little front parlour — dusty, shabbily furnished, and
disorderly, with a child's broken toys scattered on the
floor, and the scent of stale tobacco hanging about the
muslin window curtains.
"Look!" said George, pointing to a picture over
the mantel-piece.


58
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
It was his own portrait, painted in the old
dragooning days. A pretty good likeness, repre-
senting him in uniform, with his charger in the back-
ground.
Perhaps the most animated of men would have
been scarcely so wise a comforter as Robert Audley.
He did not utter a word to the stricken widower, but
quietly seated himself with his back to George, looking
out of the open window.
For some time the young man wandered restlessly
about the room, looking at and sometimes touching
the knicknacks lying here and there.
Her work-box, with an unfinished piece of work;
her album, full of extracts from Byron and Moore,
written in his own scrawling hand; some books which
he had given her, and a bunch of withered flowers in
a vase they had bought in Italy.
"Her portrait used to hang by the side of mine,"
he muttered; "I wonder what they have done with it?"
By-and-by he said, after about half-an-hour's
silence —
"I should like to see the woman of the house; I
should like to ask her about"
He broke down, and buried his face in his hands.
Robert summoned the landlady. She was a good-
natured, garrulous creature, used to sickness and death,
for many of her lodgers came to her to die. She told
all the particulars of Mrs. Talboys' last hours; how
she had come to Ventnor only a week before her
death in the last stage of decline; and how day by


TIIE HEADSTONE AT VENTNOK.
59
day she had gradually but surely sunk under the
fatal malady. "Was the gentleman any relative?"
she asked of Robert Audley, as George sobbed aloud.
"Yes, he is the lady's husband."
"What!" the woman cried; "him as deserted her
so cruel, and left her with her pretty boy upon her
poor old father's hands, which Captain Maldon has
told me often, with the tears in his poor eyes?"
"I did not desert her," George cried out; and then
he told the history of his three years' struggle.
"Did she speak of me?" he asked; "did she speak
of me at — at — the last?"
"No, she went off as quiet as a lamb. She said
very little from the first; but the last day she knew
nobody, not even her little boy nor her poor old
father, who took on awful. Once she went off wild
like, talking about her mother, and about the cruel
shame it was to have to die in a strange place, till it
was quite pitiful to hear her."
"Her mother died when she was quite a child,"
said George. "To think that she should remember
her and speak of her, but never once of me."
The woman took him into the little bed-room in
which his wife had died. He knelt down by the bed
and kissed the pillow tenderly, the landlady crying as
he did so.
While he was kneeling, praying perhaps, with his
face buried in this humble snow-white pillow, the


60
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
woman took something from a drawer. She gave it
to him when he rose from his knees; it was a long
tress of hair wrapped in silver paper.
"I cut this off when she lay in her coffin," she
said, "poor dear!"
He pressed the soft lock to his lips. "Yes," he
murmured; "this is the dear hair that I have kissed
so often when her head lay upon my shoulder. But it
always had a rippling wave in it then, and now it
seems smooth and straight."
"It changes in illness," said the landlady. "If
you'd like to see where they have laid her, Mr. Tal-
boys, my little boy shall show you the way to the
churchyard."
So George Talboys and bis faithful friend walked
to the quiet spot, where beneath a mound of earth, to
which the patches of fresh turf hardly adhered, lay
that wife of whose welcoming smile George had
dreamed so often in the far antipodes.
Robert left the young man by the side of this new-
made grave, and returning in about a quarter of an
hour, found that ho had not once stirred.
He looked up presently, and said that if there was
a stonemason's anywhere near he should like to give
an order.
They very easily found the stonemason, and sitting
down amidst the fragmentary litter of the man's yard,
George Talboys wrote in pencil this brief inscription
for the headstone of his dead wife's grave: —


THE HEADSTONE AT VENTNOR.
Sacred to the Memory of
HELEN,
THE BELOVED WIFE OP GEORGE TALBOYS,
Who departed this life
August 24th, 1857, aged 22,
Deeply regretted by her sorrowing Husband.


02
LADY AUDLEy'b SECRET.
CHAPTER VL
Anywhere, Anywhere out of the World.
When they returned to Landsdowne Cottage they
found the old man had not yet come in, so they
walked down to the beach to look for him. After a
brief search they found him, sitting upon a heap of
pebbles, reading a newspaper and eating filberts. The
little boy was at some distance from his grandfather,
digging in the sand with a wooden spade. The crape
round the old man's shabby hat, and the child's poor
little black frock, went to George's heart. Go where
he would he met confirmation of this great grief of his
life. His wife was dead.
"Mr. Maldon," he said, as he approached his father-
in-law.
The old man looked up, and, dropping his news-
paper, rose from the pebbles with a ceremonious bow.
His faded, light hair was tinged with grey; he had a
pinched hook nose, watery blue eyes, and an irresolute-
looking mouth; he wore his shabby dress with an
affectation of foppish gentility; an eye-glass dangled
over his closely-buttoned-up waistcoat, and he carried
a cane in his ungloved hand.
"Good heavens!" cried George, "don't you know
me?"
Mr. Maldon started and coloured violently, with
something of a frightened look, as he recognised his
Bon-in-Iaw.


ANYWHERE, ANYWHERE OUT OP THE WORLD. 63
"My dear boy," he said, "I did not; for the first
moment I did not; that beard makes such a difference.
You find the beard makes a great difference, do you
not, sir?" he said, appealing to Robert.
"Great Heaven!" exclaimed George Talboys, "is
this the way you welcome me? I come to England
to find my wife dead within a week of my touching
land, and you begin to chatter to me about my beard,
— you, her father!"
"True! true!" muttered the old man, wiping his
blood-shot eyes; "a sad shock, a sad shock, my dear
George. If you'd only been here a week earlier?"
"If I had," cried George, in an outhurst of grief
and passion, "I scarcely think that I would have let
her die. I would have disputed for her with death.
I would! I would! 0 God! why did not the Argus
go down with every soul on board her before I came
to see this day?"
He began to walk up and down the beach, his
father-in-law looking helplessly at him, rubbing his
feeble eyes with a handkerchief.
"I've a strong notion that that old man didn't
treat his daughter too well," thought Robert, as he
watched the half-pay lieutenant. "He seems, for some
reason or other, to be half afraid of George."
While the agitated young man walked up and
down in a fever of regret and despair, the child ran
to his grandfather and clung about the tails of his coat.
"Come home, grandpa', come home," he said,
"I'm tired."


64
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
George Talboys turned at the sound of the
babyish voice, and long and earnestly looked at the
boy.
He had his father's brown eyes and dark hair.
"My darling! my darling!" said George, taking
the child in his arms, "I am your father, come across
the sea to find you. Will you love me?"
The little fellow pushed him away. "I don't know
you," he said. "I love grandpa' and Mrs. Monks, at
Southampton."
"Georgey has a temper of his own, sir," said the
old man. "He has been spoiled."
They walked slowly back to the cottage, and once
more George Talboys told the history of that desertion
which had seemed so cruel. He told, too, of the
twenty thousand pounds banked by him the day be-
fore. He had not the heart to ask any questions
about the past, and his father-in-law only told him
that a few months after his departure they had gone
from the place where George left them to live at
Southampton, where Helen got a few pupils for the
piano, and where they managed pretty well till her
health failed, and she fell into the decline of which
she died. Like most sad stories, it was a very brief
one.
"The boy seems fond of you, Mr. Maldon," said
George, after a pause.
"Yes, yes," answered the old man, smoothing the
child's curling hair, "yes, Georgey is very fond of his
grandfather."


ANYWHERE, ANYWHERE OUT OP THE WORLD.
G5
"Then he had better stop with you. The interest
of my money will be about six hundred a year. You
can draw a hundred of that for Georgey's education,
leaving the rest to accumulate till he is of age. My
friend here will be trustee, and if he will undertake
the charge, I will appoint him guardian to the boy,
allowing him for the present to remain under your
care."
"But why not take care of him yourself, George?"
asked Robert Audley.
"Because I shall sail iu the very next vessel that
leaves Liverpool for Australia. I shall be better in
the diggings or the backwoods than ever I could
be here. I'm broken for a civilised life from this
hour, Bob."
The old man's weak eyes sparkled as George
declared this determination.
"My poor boy, I think you're right," he said, "I
really think you're right. The change, the wild life,
the — the —" He hesitated and broke down, as
Robert looked earnestly at him.
"You're in a great hurry to get rid of your son-in-
law, I think, Mr. Maldon," he said gravely.
"Get rid of him, dear boyl Oh, no, no! But
for his own sake, my dear sir, for his own sake, you
know."
"I think for his own sake he'd much better stay in
England and look after his son," said Robert.
"But I tell you I can't," cried George; "every
inch of this accursed ground is hateful to me — I
Lady Avdla/'1 Secret. I. 6


R6
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
want to run out of it as I would out of a graveyard.
I'll go back to town to-night, get that business about
the money settled early to-morrow morning, and start
for Liverpool without a moment's delay. I shall be
better when I've put half the world between me and
her grave."
Before he left the house he stole out to the land-
lady, and asked some more questions about his dead
wife.
"Were they poor?" he asked; "were they pinched
for money while she was ill?"
"Oh, no!" the woman answered; "though the cap-
tain dresses shabby, he has always plenty of sovereigns
in his purse. The poor lady wanted for nothing."
George was relieved at this, though it puzzled him
to know where the drunken half-pay lieutenant could
have contrived to find money for all the expenses of
his daughter's illness.
But he was too thoroughly broken down by the
calamity which had befallen him to be able to think
much of anything, so he asked no further questions,
but walked with his father-in-law and Robert Audley
down to the boat by which they were to cross to
Portsmouth.
The old man bade Robert a very ceremonious adieu.
"You did not introduce me to your friend, by-the-
bye, my dear boy," he said. George stared at him,
muttered something indistinct, and ran down the ladder
to the boat before Mr. Maldon could repeat his request.
The steamer sped away through the sunset, and the


ANYWHERE, ANYWHERE OUT Or THE WORLD. 67
outlines of the island melted in the horizon as they
neared the opposite shore.
"To think," said George, "that two nights ago at
this time I was steaming into Liverpool, full of the
hope of clasping her to my heart, and to-night I am
going away from her gravel"
The document which appointed Robert Audley as
guardian to little George Talboys was drawn up in a
solicitor's office the next morning.
"It's a great responsibility," exclaimed Robert;
"I, guardian to anybody or anything! I, who never
in my life could take care of myself I"
"I trust in your noble heart, Bob," said George,
"I know you will take care of my poor orphan boy,
and see that he is well used by his grandfather. I
shall only draw enough from George's fortune to take
me back to Sydney, and then begin my old work
again."
But it seemed as if George was destined to be
himself the guardian of his son; for when he reached
Liverpool, he found that a vessel had just sailed, and
that there would not be another for a month; so he
returned to London, and once more threw himself upon
Robert Audley's hospitality.
The barrister received him with open arms; he
gave him the room with the birds and flowers, and had
a bed put up in his dressing-room for himself. Grief
is so selfish that George did not know the sacrifices
his friend made for his comfort. He only knew that
for him the sun was darkened, and the business of life
5*


08
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
done. He sat all day long smoking cigars, and staring
at the flowers and canaries, chafing for the time to
pass that he might be far out at sea.
But, just as the hour was drawing near for the
sailing of the vessel, Robert Audley came in one day
full of a great scheme. A friend of his, another of
those barristers whose last thought is of a brief, was
going to St. Petersburg to spend the winter, and wanted
^Robert to accompany him. Robert would only go on
condition that George went too.
For a long time the young man resisted, but when
he found that Robert was, in a quiet way, thoroughly
determined upon not going without him, he gave in,
and consented to join the party. "What did it matter?"
he said. "One place was the same to him as another,
anywhere out of England; what did he care where?"
This was not a very cheerful way of looking at
things, but Robert Audley was quite satisfied with
having won his consent.
The three young men started under very favour-
able circumstances, carrying letters of introduction to
the most influential inhabitants of the Russian capital.
Before leaving England Robert wrote to his cousin
Alicia, telling her of his intended departure with his
old friend George Talboys, whom he had lately met
for the first time after a lapse of years, and who had
just lost his wife.
Alicia's reply came by return of post, and ran
thus: —
"My dear Robert, — How cruel of you to run


ANYWHERE, ANYWHERE OUT OF THE WORLD. 69
away to that horrid St. Petersburg before the hunting
season! I have heard that people lose their noses in
that disagreeable climate, and as yours is rather a long
one, I should advise you to return before the very
severe weather sets in. What sort of person is this
young Mr. Talboys? If he is very agreeable you may
bring him to the Court as soon as you return from
your travels. Lady Audley tells me to request you to
secure her a set of sables. You are not to consider
the price, but to be sure that they are the handsomest
that can be obtained. Papa is perfectly absurd about
his new wife, and she and I cannot get on together at
all; not that she is disagreeable to me, for, as far as
that goes, she makes herself agreeable to every one;
but she is so irretrievably childish and silly.
"Believe me to be, my dear Robert,
"Your affectionate Cousin,
"Alicia Audley."


70
LAD? ATJDLEY's SECRET.
CHAPTER VII.
After a Year.
The first year of George Talboys' widowhood
passed away; the deep band of crape about his hat
grew brown and rusty, and as the last burning day of
another August faded out, he sat smoking cigars in
the quiet chambers in Fig Tree Court, much as he had
done the year before, when the horror of his grief was
new to him, and every object in life, however trifling
or however important, seemed saturated with his one
great sorrow.
But the big ex-dragoon had survived his affliction
by a twelvemonth, and hard as it may be to have to
tell it, he did not look much the worse for it. Heaven
knows what inner change may have been worked by
that bitter disappointment! Heaven knows what wasted
agonies of remorse and self-reproach may not have
racked George's honest heart as he lay awake at nights
thinking of the wife he had abandoned in the pursuit
of a fortune which she never lived to share.
Once, while they were abroad, Robert Audley
ventured to congratulate him upon his recovered spirits.
He burst into a bitter laugh.
"Do you know, Bob," he said, "that when some
of our fellows were wounded in India, they came home
bringing bullets inside them. They did not talk of


AFTER A YEAR.
71
them, and they were stout and hearty, and looked as
well, perhaps, as you or I; but every change in the
weather, however slight, every variation of the atmo-
sphere, however trifling, brought back the old agony
of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on.
the battle-field. I've had my wound, Bob; I carry the
bullet still, and I shall carry it into my coffin."
The travellers returned from St . Petersburg in the
spring, and George again took up his quarters in his
old friend's chambers, only leaving "them now and then
to run down to Southampton and take a look at his
little boy. He always went loaded with toys and
sweetmeats to give to the child; but, for all this,
Georgey would not become very familiar with his papa,
and the young man's heart sickened as he began to
fancy that even his child was lost to him.
"What can I do?" he thought . "If I take him
away from his grandfather I shall break his heart; if
I let him remain he will grow up a stranger to me,
and care more for that drunken old hypocrite than for
his own father. But then what could an ignorant
heavy dragoon like me do with such a child? What
could I teach him except to smoke cigars, and idle
about all day with his hands in his pockets?"
So the anniversary of that 30th of August, upon
which George had seen the advertisement of his wife's
death in the Times newspaper, came round for the first
time, and the young man put off his black clothes and
the shabby crape from his hat, and laid his mourning
garments in a trunk in which he kept a packet of his


72
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
wife's letters, and that lock of hair which had been cut
from her head after death. Robert Audley had never
seen either the letters or the long tress of silky hair;
nor, indeed, had George ever mentioned the name of
Jjjs^dead wife after that one day at Ventnor on which
he leSsned the full particulars of her decease.
"I sljall write to my cousin Alicia to-day, George,"
the youn£. barrister said, upon this very 30th of
August. "£> you know that the day after to-morrow
is the 1st of September? I shall write and tell her
that we will both run down to the Court for a week's
shooting."
"No, no, Bob: go by yourself; they don't want me,
and I'd rather —"
"Bury yourself in Fig Tree Court, with no com-
pany but my dogs and canaries! No, George, you shall
do nothing of the kind."
"But I don't care for shooting."
"And do you suppose / care for it?" cried Robert,
with charming naivete. "Why, man, I don't know a
partridge from a pigeon, and it might be the 1st of
April instead of the 1st of September for aught I care.
I never hit a bird in my life, but I have hurt my own
shoulder with the weight of my gun. I only go down to
Essex for the change of air, the good dinners, and the sight
of my uncle's honest, handsome face. Besides, this time
I've another inducement, as I want to see this fair-haired
paragon, my new aunt. You'll go with me, George?"
"Yes, if you really wish it."
The quiet form which his grief had taken after its


AFTER A YEAR.
73
first brief violence left him as submissive as a child to
the will of his friend; ready to go anywhere or do any-
thing; never enjoying himself, or originating any
enjoyment, but joining in the pleasures of others with
a hopeless, quiet, uncomplaining, unobtrusive resigna-
tion peculiar to his simple nature. But the return of
post brought a letter from Alicia Audley, to say that
the two young men could not be received at the
Court.
"There are seventeen spare bed-rooms," wrote the
young lady, in an indignant running hand, "but for
all that, my dear Robert, you can't come; for my lady
has taken it into her silly head that she is too ill to
entertain visitors (there is no more the matter with her
than there is with me), and she cannot have gentlemen
(great rough men, she says) in the house. Please
apologise to your friend Mr. Talboys, and tell him
that papa hopes to see you both in the hunting
season."
"My lady's airs and graces shan't keep us out of
Essex for all that," said Robert, as he twisted the letter
into a pipe-light for his big meerschaum. "I'll tell
you what we'll do, George; there's a glorious inn at
Audley, and plenty of fishing in the neighbourhood:
we'll go there and have a week's sport. Fishing is
much better than shooting: you've only to lie on a
bank and stare at your line; I don't find that you
often catch anything, but it's very pleasant."
He held the twisted letter to the feeble spark of
fire glimmering in the grate as he spoke, and then


74
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
changing his mind, deliberately unfolded it and
smoothed the crumpled paper with his hand.
"Poor little Alicia!" he said thoughtfully; "it's
rather hard to treat her letters so cavalierly — I'll
keep it;" upon which Mr. Robert Audley put the note
back into its envelope, and afterwards thrust it into a
pigeon-hole in his office desk marked important. Heaven
knows what wonderful documents there were in this
particular pigeon-hole, but I do not think it likely to
have contained anything of great judicial value. If
any one could at that moment have told the young
barrister that so simple a thing as his cousin's brief
letter would one day come to be a link in that terrible
cbain of evidence afterwards to be slowly forged in the
one only criminal case in which he was ever to be
concerned, perhaps Mr. Kobert Audley would have
lifted his eyebrows a little higher than usual.
So the two young men left London the next day
with one portmanteau and a rod and tackle between
them, and reached the straggling, old-fashioned, fast
decaying village of Audley in time to order a good
dinner at the Sun Inn.
Audley Court was about three-quarters of a mile
from the village, lying, as I have said, deep down in
a hollow, shut in by luxuriant timber. You could only
reach it by a cross road, bordered by trees, and as
trimly kept as the avenues in a gentleman's park. It
was a dreary place enough, even in all its rustic
beauty, for so bright a creature as the late Miss Lucy
Graham, but the generous baronet had transformed the


AFTER A YEAR.
75
interior of the grey old mansion into a little palace for
his young wife, and Lady Audley seemed as happy as
a child surrounded by new and costly toys.
In her better fortunes, as in her old days of de-
pendence, wherever she went she seemed to take sun-
shine and gladness with her. In spite of Miss Alicia's
undisguised contempt for her stepmother's childishness
and frivolity, Lucy was better loved and more admired
than the baronet's daughter. That very childishness
had a charm which few could resist. The innocence
and candour of an infant beamed in Lady Audley's
fair face, and shone out of her large and liquid blue
eyes. The rosy lips, the delicate nose, the profusion
of fair ringlets, all contributed to preserve to her
beauty the character of extreme youth and freshness.
She owned to twenty years of age, but it was hard to
believe her more than seventeen. Her fragile figure,
which she loved to dress in heavy velvets and stiff
rustling silks, till she looked like a child tricked out
for a masquerade, was as girlish as if she had but just
left the nursery. All her amusements were childish.
She hated reading, or study of any kind, and loved
society; rather than be alone she would admit Phoebe
Marks into her confidence, and loll on one of the sofas
in her luxurious dressing-room, discussing a new
costume for some coming dinner party, or sit chattering
to the girl, with her jewel box beside her, upon the
satin cushions, and Sir Michael's presents spread out
in her lap, while she counted and admired her trea-
sures.


7G
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
She had appeared at several public balls at Chelms-
ford and Colchester, and was immediately established
as the belle of the county. Pleased with her high
position and her handsome house; with every caprice
gratified, every whim indulged; admired and caressed
wherever she went; fond of her generous husband;
rich in a noble allowance of pin-money; with no poor
relations to worry her with claims upon her purse or
patronage, it would have been hard to find in the
county of Essex a more fortunate creature than Lucy,
Lady Audley.
The two young men loitered over the dinner-table
in the private sitting-room at the Sun Inn. The
windows were thrown wide open, and the fresh country
air blew in upon them as they dined. The weather
was lovely; the foliage of the woods touched here and
there with faint gleams of the earliest tints of autumn;
the yellow corn still standing in some of the fields, in
others just falling under the shining sickle; while in
the narrow lanes you met great waggons drawn by
broad-chested cart horses, carrying home the rich
golden store. To any one who has been, during the
hot summer months, pent up in London, there is in
the first taste of rustic life a kind of sensuous rapture
scarcely to be described. George Talboys felt this,
and in this he experienced the nearest approach to
enjoyment that he had ever known since his wife's
death.
The clock struck five as they finished dinner.
"Put on your hat, George," said Robert Audley;


AFTER A YEAR.
77
"they don't dine at the Court till seven; we shall
have time to stroll down and see the old place and its
inhabitants."
The landlord, who had come into the room with a
bottle of wine, looked up as the young man spoke.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Audley," he said, "but if
you want to see your uncle, you'll lose your time by
going to the Court just now. Sir Michael and my
lady and Miss Alicia have all gone to the races up at
Chorley, and they won't be back till nigh upon eight
o'clock most likely. They must pass by here to go
home."
Under these circumstances of course it was no use
going to the Court, so the two young men strolled
through the village and looked at the old church, and
then went and reconnoitred the streams in which they
were to fish the next day, and by such means beguiled
the time till after seven o'clock. At about a quarter-
past that hour they returned to the inn, and seating
themselves in the open window, lit their cigars and
looked out at the peaceful prospect
.
We hear every day of murders committed in the
country. Brutal and treacherous murders; slow, pro-
tracted agonies from poisons administered by some
kindred hand; sudden and violent deaths by cruel
blows, inflicted with a stake cut from some spreading
oak, whose very shadow promised — peace. In the
county of which I write, I have been shown a meadow
in which, on a quiet summer Sunday evening, a young
farmer murdered the girl who had loved and trusted


78
J^ADY AUDLBY'S SECRET.
him; and yet, even now, with the stain of that foul
deed upon it, the aspect of the spot is — peace. No
crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries
about Seven Dials that has not been also done in the
face of that sweet rustic calm which still, in spite of
all, we look on with a tender, half-mournful yearning,
and associate with — peace.
It was dusk when gigs and chaises, dogcarts and
clumsy farmers' phaetons, began to rattle through the
village street, and under the windows of the Sun Inn;
deeper dusk still when an open carriage and four drew
suddenly up beneath the rocking sign-post.
It was Sir Michael Audley's barouche which came
to so sudden a stop before the little inn. The harness
of one of the leaders had become out of order, and the
foremost postilion dismounted to set it right.
"Why, it's my uncle," cried Robert Audley, as the
carriage stopped. "I'll run down and speak to him."
George lit another cigar, and sheltered by the
window curtains, looked out at the little party. Alicia
sat with her back to the horses, and be could perceive,
even in the dusk, that she was a handsome brunette;
but Lady Audley was seated on the side of the carriage
furthest from the inn, and he could see nothing of the
fair-haired paragon of whom he had heard so much.
"Why, Robert," exclaimed Sir Michael, as his
nephew emerged from the inn, "this is a surprise!"
. "I have not come to intrude upon you at the Court,
my dear uncle," said the young man, as the baronet
shook him by the hand in his own hearty fashion.


AFTER A YEAR.
79
"Essex is my native county, you know, and about
this time of year I generally have a touch of home
sickness; so George and I have come down to the inn
for two or three days' fishing."
"George — George who?"
"George Talboys."
"What, has he come?" cried Alicia. "I'm so glad;
for I'm dying to see this handsome young widower."
"Are you, Alicia?" said her cousin. "Then egad,
I'll run and fetch him, and introduce you to him at
once."
Now, so complete was the dominion which Lady
Audley had, in her own childish, unthinking way,
obtained over her devoted husband, that it was very
rarely that the baronet's eyes were long removed from
his wife's pretty face. When Robert, therefore, was
about to re-enter the inn, it needed but the faintest
elevation of Lucy's eyebrows, with a charming expres-
sion of weariness and terror, to make her husband
aware that she did not want to be bored by an intro-
duction to Mr. George Talboys.
"Never mind to-night, Bob," he said. "My wife
is a'little tired after our long day's pleasure. Bring
your friend to dinner to-morrow, and then he and
Alicia can make each other's acquaintance. Come
round and speak to Lady Audley, and then we'll drive
home."
My lady was so terribly fatigued that she could
only smile sweetly, and hold out a tiny gloved hand
to her nephew by marriage.


80
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
"You will come and dine with us to-morrow, and
bring your interesting friend?" she said, in a low and
tired voice. She had been the chief attraction of the
race-course, and was wearied out by the exertion of
fascinating half the county.
"It's a wonder she didn't treat you to her never-
ending laugh," whispered Alicia, as she leant over the
carriage door to bid Robert good night; "but I dare
say she reserves that for your delectation to-morrow. I
suppose you are fascinated as well as everybody else?"
added the young lady, rather snappishly.
"She is a lovely creature, certainly," murmured
Robert, with placid admiration.
"Oh, of course! Now, she is the first woman of
whom I ever heard you say a civil word, Robert
Audley. I'm sorry to find you can only admire wax
dolls."
Poor Alicia had had many skirmishes with her
cousin upon that peculiar temperament of his, which,
while it enabled him to go through life with perfect
content and tacit enjoyment, entirely precluded his
feeling one spark of enthusiasm upon any subject
whatever.
"As to his ever falling in love," thought the young
lady sometimes, "the idea is too preposterous. If all
the divinities upon earth were ranged before him, wait-
ing for his sultanship to throw the handkerchief, he
would only lift his eyebrows to the middle of his fore-
head, and tell them to scramble for it."


AFTER A YEAR.
81
But, for once in his life, Robert was almost enthu-
siastic
"She's the prettiest little creature you ever saw in
your life, George," he cried, when the carriage had
driven off and he returned to his friend. "Such blue
eyes, such ringlets, such a ravishing smile, such a
fairy-like bonnet — all of a tremble with heartsease
and dewy spangles, shining out of a cloud of gauze.
George Talboys, I feel like the hero of a French
novel; I am falling in love with my aunt."
The widower only sighed and puffed his cigar
fiercely out of the open window. Perhaps he was
thinking of that far-away time — little better than five
years ago, in fact; but such an age gone by to him —
when he first met the woman for whom he had worn
crape round his hat three days before. They returned,
all those old unforgotten feelings; they came back,
with the scene of their birthplace. Again he lounged
with his brother officers upon the shabby pier at the
shabby watering-place, listening to a dreary band with
a cornet that was a note and a half flat. Again he
heard the old operatic airs, and again she came trip-
ping towards him leaning on her old father's arm, and
pretending (with such a charming, delicious, serio-
comic pretence) to be listening to the music, and quite
unaware of the admiration of half a dozen open-mouthed
cavalry officers. Again the old fancy came back that
she was something too beautiful for earth, or earthly
uses, and that to approach her was to walk in a higher
atmosphere and to breathe a purer air. And sinca
Lady Audley's Secret, 1. 6


82
LADY AUDLBY'S SECRET.
this she had been his wife, and the mother of his child.
She lay in the little churchyard at Ventnor, and only
a year ago he had given the order for her tombstone.
A few slow, silent tears dropped upon his waistcoat as
he thought of these things in the quiet and darkening
room.
Lady Audley was so exhausted when she reached
home, that she excused herself from the dinner-table,
and retired at once to her dressing-room, attended by
her maid, Phoebe Marks.
She was a little capricious in her conduct to this
maid; sometimes very confidential, sometimes rather
reserved; but she was a liberal mistress, and the girl
had every reason to be satisfied with her situation.
This evening, in spite of her fatigue, she was in
extremely high spirits, and gave an animated account
of the races, and the company present at them.
"I am tired to death, though, Phoebe," she said by
and by. "I'm afraid I must look a perfect fright, after
a day in the hot sun."
There were lighted candles on each side of the glass
before which Lady Audley was standing unfastening
her dress. She looked full at her maid as she spoke,
her blue eyes clear and bright, and the rosy, childish
lips puckered into an arch smile.
"You aro a little pale, my lady," answered the girl,
"but you look as pretty as ever."
"That's right, Phoebe," she said, flinging herself
into a chair and throwing back her curls at the maid,
who stood, brush in hand, ready to arrange the


AFTER A YEAR.
83
luxuriant hair for the night. "Do you know, Phoehe,
I have heard some people say you and I are alike?"
"I have heard them say so too, my lady," said the
girl quietly, "but they must be very stupid to say it,
for your ladyship is a beauty, and I'm a poor plain
creature."
"Not at all, Phoebe," said the little lady superbly;
"you are like me, and your features are very nice; it
is only colour that you want . My hair is pale yellow
shot with gold, and yours is drab; my eyebrows and
eyelashes are dark brown, and yours are almost — I
scarcely like to say it, but they're almost white, my
dear Phoebe; your complexion is sallow, and mine is
pink and rosy. Why, with a bottle of hair dye, such
as we see advertised in the papers, and a pot of rouge,
you'd be as good-looking as I any day, Phoebe."
She prattled on in this way for a long time, talk-
ing of a hundred frivolous subjects, and ridiculing the
people she had met at the races for her maid's amuse-
ment. Her step-daughter came into the dressing-room
to bid her good night, and found the maid and mis-
tress laughing aloud over one of the day's adventures.
Alicia, who was never familiar with her servants, with-
drew in disgust at my lady's frivolity.
"Go on brushing my hair, Phoebe," Lady Audley
said, every time the girl was about to complete her
task; "I quite enjoy a chat with you."
At last, just as she had dismissed her maid, she
suddenly called her back. "Phoebe Marks," she said,
"I want you to do me a favour."
G*


HI
LADY AUDLEY's 8ECEET.
"Yes, my lady."
"I want you to go to London by the first train to-
morrow morning to execute a little commission for me.
You may take a day's holiday afterwards, as I know
you have friends in town, and I shall give you a five-
pound note if you do what I want, and keep your own
counsel about it."
"Yes, my lady."
"See that that door is securely shut, and come and
sit on this stool at my feet."
Tho girl obeyed. Lady Audley smoothed her maid's
neutral-tinted hair with her plump, white, and be-
jewelled hand as she reflected for a few moments.
"And now listen, PhoBbe. What I want you to do
is very simple."
It was so simple that it was told in five minutes,
and then Lady Audley retired into her bed room, and
curled herself up cosily under tho eider-down quilt.
She was a chilly little creature, and loved to bury her-
self in soft wrappings of satin and fur.
"Kiss me, Phoebe," she said, as the girl arranged
tho curtains. "I hear Sir Michael's step in the ante-
room; you will meet him as you go out, and you may
as well toll him that you are going up by the first
train to-morrow morning to get my dress from Madame
Frederick for the dinner at Morton Abbey."
It was late the next morning when Lady Audley
went down to breakfast — past ten o'clock. While
sho was sipping her coffee a servant brought her a
sdiled packet, aud a book for her to sign.


AFTER A YEAR.
85
"A telegraphic message!" she cried; for the con-
venient word telegram had not yet been invented.
"What can be the matter?"
She looked up at her husband with wide-open,
terrified eyes, and seemed half afraid to break the
seal. The envelope was addressed to Miss Lucy Gra-
ham, at Mr. Dawson's, and had been sent on from the
village.
"Read it, my darling," he said, "and do not be
alarmed; it may be nothing of any importance."
It came from a Mrs. Vincent, the schoolmistress
to whom she had referred on entering Mr. Dawson's
family. The lady was dangerously ill, and implored
her old pupil to go and see her.
"Poor soul! she always meant to leave me her
money," said Lucy, with a mournful smile. "She has
never heard of the change in my fortunes. Dear Sir
Michael, I must go to her."
"To be sure you must, dearest. If she was kind
to my poor girl in her adversity, she has a claim upon
her prosperity that shall never be forgotten. Put on
your bonnet, Lucy; we shall be in time to catch the
express."
"Yon will go with me?"
"Of course, my darling. Do you suppose I would
let you go alone?"
"I was sure you would go with me," she said
thoughtfully.
"Does your friend send any address?"


LADY AUDLEy's 8ECRET.
"No; but she always lived at Crescent Villa, West
Brompton; and no doubt she lives there still."
There was only time for Lady Audley to hurry on
her bonnet and shawl before she heard the carriage
drive round to the door, and Sir Michael calling to her
at the foot of the staircase.
Her suite of rooms, as I have said, opened one out
of another, and terminated in an octagon antechamber
hung with oil paintings. Even in her haste she paused
deliberately at the door of this room, double locked it,
and dropped the key into her pocket. This door, onco
locked, cut off all access to my lady's apartments.


88
lady Audrey's secret.
doubt if he would ever have discovered the state of
her feelings.
Again, had he been in love with her himself, I
fancy that the tender passion would, with him, have
been so vague and feeble a sentiment that he might
have gone down to his grave with a dim sense of
some uneasy sensation which might be love or indiges-
tion, and with, beyond this, no knowledge whatever of
his state.
So it was not the least use, my poor Alicia, to ride
about the lanes round Audley during those three days
which the two young men spent in Essex; it was
wasted trouble to wear that pretty cavalier hat and
plume, and to be always, by the most singular of
chances, meeting Robert and his friend. The black
curls (nothing like Lady Audley's feathery ringlets,
but heavy clustering locks, that clung about your
slender brown throat), the red and pouting lijjs, the
nose inclined to be retrousse; the dark complexion,
with its bright crimson flush, always ready to glauce
up like a signal light in a dusky sky, when you came
suddenly upon your apathetic cousin — all this co-
quettish, espiegle, brunette beauty was thrown away
upon the dull eyes of Robert Audley, and you might
as well have taken your rest in the cool drawing-room
at the Court, instead of working your pretty mare to
death under the hot September sun.
Now fishing, except to the devoted disciple of
Izaac Walton, is not the most lively of occupations;
therefore it is scarcely, perhaps, to be wondered that


BEFORE THE STORM.
89
on the day after Lady Audley's departure, the two
young men (one of whom was disabled, by that heart
wound which he bore so quietly, from really taking
pleasure in anything, and the other of whom looked
upon almost all pleasure as a negative kind of trouble)
began to grow weary of the shade of the willows over-
hanging the winding streams about Audley.
"Fig-tree Court is not gay in the long vacation,"
said Robert reflectively: "but I think upon the whole
it's better than this; at any rate it's near a tobac-
conist's," he added, puffing resignedly at an execrable
cigar procured from the landlord of the Sun Inn.
George Talboys, who had only consented to the
Essex expedition in passive submission to his friend,
was by no means inclined to object to their immediate
return to London. "I shall be glad to get back, Bob,"
he said, "for I want to take a run down to Southamp-
ton; I haven't seen the little one for upwards of a
month."
He always spoke of his son as "the little one;1'
always spoke of him mournfully rather than hopefully.
It seemed as if he could take no comfort from the
thought of his boy. He accounted for this by saying
that be had a fancy that the child would never learn
to love him; and worse even than this fancy, a dim
presentiment that he would not live to see his little
Georgey reach manhood.
"I'm not a romantic man, Bob," he would say
sometimes, "and I never read a line of poetry in my
life that was any more to me than so many words and


90
LADV AUDLEY's SECRET.
so much jingle; but a feeling has come over me since
my wife's death, that I am like a man standing upon
a long low shore, with hideous cliffs frowning down
upon him from behind, and the rising tide crawling
slowly but surely about his feet. It seems to grow
nearer and nearer every day, that black, pitiless tide;
not rushing upon me with a great noise and a mighty
impetus, but crawling, creeping, stealing, gliding to-
wards me, ready to close in above my head when I
am least prepared for the end."
Robert Audley stared at his friend in silent amaze-
ment; and, after a pause of profound deliberation, said
solemnly, "George Talboys, I could understand this if
you had been eating heavy suppers. Cold pork, now,
especially if underdone, might produce this sort of
thing. You want change of air, dear boy; you want
the refreshing breezes of Fig-tree Court, and the
soothing atmosphere of Fleet Street. Or, stay," he
added suddenly; "I have it! You've been smoking
our friend the landlord's cigars; that accounts for
everything."
They met Alicia Audley on her mare about half
an hour after they had come to the determination of
leaving Essex early the next moming. The young
lady was very much surprised and disappointed at
hearing her cousin's determination, and for that very
reason pretended to take the matter with supreme in-
difference.
"You are very soon tired of Audley, Robert," she
said carelessly; "but of course you have no friends


BEFORE THE STORM.
91
here, except your relations at the Court; while in
London, no doubt, you have the most delightful
society, and —"
"I get good tobacco," murmured Robert, interrupt-
ing his cousin. "Audley is the dearest old place, but
when a man has to smoke dried cabbage leaves, you
know, Alicia —"
"Then you really are going to-morrow morning?"
"Positively — by the express that leaves at 10'50."
"Then Lady Audley will lose an introduction to
Mr. Talboys, and Mr. Talboys will lose the chance of
seeing the prettiest woman in Essex."
"Really —" stammered George.
"The prettiest woman in Essex would have a poor
chance of getting much admiration out of my friend,
George Talboys," said Robert. "His heart is at
Southampton, where he has a curly-headed little urchin,
about as high as his knee, who calls him 'the big
gentleman,' and asks him for sugar-plums."
"I am going to write to my step-mother by to-
night's post," said Alicia. "She asked me particularly,
in her letter, how long you were going to stop, and
whether there was any chance of her being back in
time to receive you."
Miss Audley took a letter from the pocket of her
riding-jacket as she spoke — a pretty, fairy-like note,
written on shining paper of a peculiar creamy hue.
"She says in her postscript, 'Be sure you answer
my question about Mr. Audley and his friend, you
volatile, forgetful Alicia!'"


92
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
"What a pretty hand she writes!" said Robert as
his cousin folded the note.
"Yes, it is pretty, is it not? Look at it,
Robert."
She put the letter into his hand, and he con-
templated it lazily for a few minutes, while Alicia
patted the graceful neck of her chestnut mare, which
was anxious to be off once more.
"Presently, Atalanta, presently. Give me back
my note, Bob."
"It is the prettiest, most coquettish little hand I
ever saw. Do you know, Alicia, I never believed in
those fellows who ask you for thirteen postage stamps,
and offer to tell you what you have never been able
to find out yourself; but upon my word I think that
if I had never seen your aunt, I should know what
she was like by this slip of paper. Yes, here it all is
— the feathery, gold-shot, flaxen curls, the pencilled
eyebrows, the tiny straight nose, the winning childish
smile, all to be guessed in these few graceful up-strokes
and down-strokes. George, look here!"
But absent-minded and gloomy George Talboys
had strolled away along the margin of a ditch, and
stood striking the bulrushes with his cane, half-a-dozen
paces away from Robert and Alicia.
"Never mind," said the young lady impatiently;
for she by no means relished the long disquisition
upon my lady's little note. "Give me the letter, and
let me go; it's past eight, and I must answer it by


BEFORE THE STORM.
93
to-night's post. Come, Atalanta! Good-by, Robert —
good-by, Mr. Talboys. A pleasant journey to town."
The chestnut mare cantered briskly through the
lane, and Miss Audley was out of sight before those
two big bright tears that stood in her eyes for one
moment, before her pride sent them back again, rose
from her angry heart.
"To have only one cousin in the world," she cried
passionately, "my nearest relation after papa, and for
him to care about as much for me as he would for a
dog!"
By the merest of accidents, however, Robert and
his friend did not go by the 10'50 express on the
following morning, for the young barrister awoke with
such a splitting headache, that he asked George to
send him a cup of the strongest green tea that had ever
been made at the Sun, and to be furthermore so good
as to defer their journey until the next day. Of course
George assented, and Robert Audley spent the forenoon
lying in a darkened room, with a five-days'-old Chelms-
ford paper to entertain himself withal.
"It's nothing but the cigars, George," he said re-
peatedly. "Get me out of the place without my seeing
the landlord; for if that man and I meet there will be
bloodshed."
Fortunately for the peace of Audley, it happened
to be market-day at Chelmsford; and the worthy land-
lord had ridden off in his chaise-cart to purchase sup-
plies for his house — amongst other things, perhaps,


91
LADY AUDLEir's SECRET.
a fresh stock of those very cigars which had been so
fatal in their effect upon Robert.
The young men spent a dull, dawdling, stupid,
unprofitable day; and towards dusk Mr. Audley pro-
posed that they should stroll down to the Court, and
ask Alicia to take them over the house.
"It will kill a couple of hours you know, George;
and it seems a great pity to drag you away from Aud-
ley without having shown you the old place, which I
give you my honour is very well worth seeing."
The sun was low in the skies as they took a short
cut through the meadows, and crossed a stile into the
avenue leading to the archway — a lurid, heavy-
looking, ominous sun-set, and a deathly stillness in
the air, which frightened the birds that had a mind to
sing, and left the field open to a few captious frogs
croaking in the ditches. Still as the atmosphere was, the
leaves rustled with that sinister, shivering motion which
proceeds from no outer cause, but is rather an instinctive
shudder of the frail branches, prescient of a coming storm.
That stupid clock, which knew no middle course, and
always skipped from one hour to the other, pointed to
seven as the young men passed under the archway;
but, for all that, it was nearer eight.
They found Alicia in the lime-walk, wandering
listlessly up and down under the black shadow of the
trees, from which every now and then a withered leaf
flapped slowly to the ground.
Strange to say, George Talboys, who very seldom
observed anything, took particular notice of this place.


BEFORE THE STORM.
"It ought to be an avenue in a churchyard," he
said. "How peacefully the dead might sleep under
this sombre shade! I wish the churchyard at Veutuor
was like this."
They walked on to the ruined well; and Alicia
told them some old legend connected with the spot —
some gloomy story, such as those always attached to
an old house, as if the past were one dark page of
sorrow and crime.
"We want to see the house before it is dark, Alicia,"
said Robert.
"Then we must be quick," she answered. "Come."
She led the way through an open French window,
modernised a few years before, into the library, and
thence to the hall.
In the hall they passed my lady's pale-faced maid,
who looked furtively under her white eye-lashes at the
two young men.
They were going up-stairs, when Alicia turned and
spoke to the girl.
"After we have been in the drawing-room I should
like to show these gentlemen Lady Audley's rooms.
Are they in good order, Phoebe?"
"Yes, Miss; but the door of the ante-room is locked,
and I fancy that my lady has taken the key to London."
"Taken the key! Impossible!" cried Alicia.
"Indeed, Miss, I think she has. I cannot find it,
and it always used to be in the door."
"I declare," said Alicia impatiently, "that it is not
at all unlike my lady to have taken this silly freak


or,
I.ADY AITDLEv's SECRET.
into her head. I dare say she was afraid we should
go into her rooms, and pry about amongst her pretty
dresses, and meddle with her jewellery. It is very
provoking, for the best pictures in the house are iu
that antechamber. There is her own portrait, too, un-
finished, but wonderfully like."
"Her portrait!" exclaimed Robert Audley. "I would
give anything to see it, for I have only an imperfect
notion of her face. Is there no other way of getting
into the room, Alicia?"
"Another way?"
"Yes; is there any door, leading through some of
the other rooms, by which we can contrive to get into
hers?"
His cousin shook her head, and conducted them
into a corridor where there were some family portraits.
She showed them a tapestried chamber, the large f1gures
upon the faded canvas looking threatening in the dusky
light.
"That fellow with the battle-axe looks as if he wanted
to split George's head open," said Mr. Audley, pointing
to a fierce warrior, whose uplifted arm appeared above
George Talboys' dark hair.
"Come out of this room, Alicia. I believe it's
damp, or else haunted. Indeed I believe all ghosts to
be the result of damp. You sleep in a damp bed —
you awake suddenly in the dead of the night with a
cold shiver, and see an old lady in the court costume
of George the First's time, sitting at the foot of the


BEFORE TUB STORM.
97
bed. The old lady is indigestion, and the cold shiver
is a damp sheet."
There were lighted candles in the drawing-room.
No new-fangled lamps had ever made their appearance
at Audley Court. Sir Michael's rooms were lighted by
honest, thick, yellow-looking wax candles, in massive
silver candlesticks, and in sconces against the walls.
There was very little to see in the drawing-room;
and George Talboys soon grew tired of staring at the
handsome modern furniture, and at a few pictures by
some of the Academicians.
"Isn't there a secret passage, or an old oak chest,
or something of that kind, somewhere about the place,
Alicia?" asked Robert
.
"To be sure!" cried Miss Audley, with a vehemence
that startled her cousin; "of course. Why didn't I
think of it before? How stupid of me, to be sure?"
"Why stupid?"
"Because, if you don't mind crawling upon your
hands and knees, you can see my lady's apartments,
for that very passage communicates with her dressing-
room. She doesn't know of it herself, I believe. How
astonished she'd be if some black-visored burglar, with
a dark-lantern, were to rise through the floor some
night as she sat before her looking-glass, having her
hair dressed for a party!"
"Shall we try the secret passage, George?" asked
Mr. Audley.
"Yes, if you wish it."
Alicia led them into the room which had once been
Uuiy Audlry'1 Secret. 1. 7


98
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
her nursery. It was now disused, except on very rare
occasions when the house was full of company.
Robert Audley lifted a corner of the carpet, ac-
cording to his cousin's directions, and disclosed a rudely-
cut trap-door in the oak flooring.
"Now listen to me," said Alicia. "You must let
yourself down by your hands into the passage, which
is about four feet high; stoop your head, and walk
straight along it till you come to a sharp turn which
will take you to the left, and at the extreme end of it
you will find a short ladder below a trap-door like this,
which you will have to unbolt; that door opens into
the flooring of my lady's dressing-room, which is only
covered with a square Persian carpet that you can
easily manage to raise. You understand me?"
"Perfectly."
"Then take the light; Mr. Talboys will follow you.
I give you twenty minutes for your inspection of the
paintings — that is about a minute apiece — and at
the end of that time I shall expect to see you return."
Robert obeyed her implicitly, and George, sub-
missively following his friend, found himself, in five
minutes, standing amidst the elegant disorder of Lady
Audley's dressing-room.
She had left the house in a hurry on her unlooked-
for journey to London, and the whole of her glittering
toilette apparatus lay about on the marble dressing-
table. The atmosphere of the room was almost op-
pressive from the rich odours of perfumes in bottles
whose gold stoppers had not been replaced. A bunch
> r


BEFORK THE STORM. 99
of hothouse flowers was withering upon a tiny writing-
table. Two or three handsome dresses lay in a heap
upon the ground, and the open doors of a wardrobe re-
vealed the treasures within. Jewellery, ivory-backed
hair-brushes, and exquisite china were scattered here
and there about the apartment . George Talboys saw
his bearded face and tall gaunt figure reflected in the
cheval-glass, and wondered to see how out of place he
seemed among all these womanly luxuries.
They went from the dressing-room to the boudoir,
and through the boudoir into the antechamber, in which
there were, as Alicia had said, about twenty valuable
paintings besides my lady's portrait.
My lady's portrait stood on an easel covered with
a green baize in the centre of the octagonal chamber.
It had been a fancy of the artist to paint her standing
in this very room, and to make his background a faith-
ful reproduction of the pictured walls. I am afraid the
young man belonged to the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood,
for he had spent a most unconscionable time upon the
accessories of this picture — upon my lady's crispy
ringlets and the heavy folds of her crimson velvet
dress.
The two young men looked at the paintings on
the walls first, leaving this unfinished portrait for a
bonne bouche.
By this time it was dark, the one candle carried
by Robert only making one bright nucleus of light as
he moved about holding it before the pictures one by
one. The broad bare window looked out upon the
"'7* v


100
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
pale sky, tinged with the last cold flicker of the dead
twilight. The ivy rustled against the glass with the
same ominous shiver as that which agitated every leaf
in the garden, prophetic of the storm that was to
come.
"There are our friend's eternal white horses," said
Robert, stopping before a Wouvermans. "Nicholas
Poussin — Salvator — ha hum! Now for the portrait!"
He paused with his hand on the baize, and
solemnly addressed his friend.
"George Talboys," he said, "we have between us
only one wax candle, a very inadequate light with
which to look at a painting. Let me, therefore, re-
quest that you will suffer us to look at it one at a
time: if there is one thing more disagreeable than
another, it is to have a person dodging behind your
back and peering over your shoulder, when you're
trying to see what a picture's made of."
George fell back immediately. He took no more
interest in my lady's picture than in all the other
weariness of this troublesome world. He fell back,
and leaning his forehead against the window-panes,
looked out at the night
.
When he turned round he saw that Robert had
arranged the easel very conveniently, and that he had
seated himself on a chair before it for the purpose of
contemplating the painting at his leisure.
He rose as George turned round.
"Now, then, for your turn, Talboys," he said. "It's
an extraordinary picture."


BEFORE THE 8T0RSI.
101
He took George's place at the window, and George
seated himself in the chair before the easel.
Yes; the painter must have been a pre-Raphaelite.
No one but a pre-Raphaelite would havo painted, hair
by hair, those feathery masses of ringlets with every
glimmer of gold, and every shadow of pale brown.
No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have so ex-
aggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to
give a lurid lightness to the blonde complexion, and a
strange, sinister light to the deep blue eyes. No one
but a pre-Raphaelite could have given to that pretty
pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it
had in the portrait.
It was so like and yet so unlike; it was as if you
had burned strange-coloured fires before my lady's
face, and by their influence brought out new lines and
new expressions never seen in it before. The perfec-
tion of feature, the brilliancy of colouring, were there;
but I suppose the painter had copied quaint mediasval
monstrosities until his brain had grown bewildered, for
my lady, in his portrait of her, had something of the
aspect of a beautiful fiend.
- Her crimson dress, exaggerated like all the rest
in this strange picture, hung about her in folds that
looked like flames, her fair head peeping out of the
lurid mass of colour as if out of a raging furnace.
Indeed, the crimson dress, the sunshine on the face,
the red gold gleaming in the yellow hair, the ripe
scarlet of the pouting lips, the glowing colours of eacli
accessory of the minutely-painted background, all


102
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
combined to render the first effect of the painting by
no means an agreeable one.
But strange as the picture was, it could not have
made any great impression on George Talboys, for he
sat before it for about a quarter of an hour without
uttering a word — only staring blankly at the painted
canvas, with the candlestick grasped in his strong
right hand, and his left arm hanging loosely by his
side. He sat so long in this attitude, that Robert
turned round at last.
"Why, George, I thought you had gone to sleep!"
"I had almost."
"You've caught a cold from standing in that damp
tapestried room. Mark my words, George Talboys,
you've caught a cold; you're as hoarse as a raven.
But come along."
Robert Audley took the candle from his friend's hand,
and crept back through the secret passage, followed by
George, very quiet, but scarcely more quiet than usual.
They found Alicia in the nursery waiting for them.
"Well?" she said interrogatively.
"We managed it capitally. But I don't like the
portrait; there's something odd about it."
"There is," said Alicia; "I've a strange fancy on
that point. I think that sometimes a painter is in
a manner inspired, and is able to see, through the
normal expression of the face, another expression that
is equally a part of it, though not to be perceived by
common eyes. We have never seen my lady look as she
does in that picture; but I think that she could look so."


BEFORE THE STORM.
103
"Alicia," said Robert Audley imploringly, "don't
be German!"
"But, Robert"
"Don't be German, Alicia, if you love me. The
picture is — the picture; and my lady is — my lady.
That's my way of taking things, and I'm not meta-
physical: don't unsettle me."
He repeated this several times with an air of
terror perfectly sincere; and then, having borrowed an
umbrella in case of being overtaken by the coming
storm, left the Court, leading passive George Talboys
away with him. The one hand of the stupid old
clock had skipped to nine by the time they reached
the archway; but before they could pass under its
shadow they had to step aside to allow a carriage to
dash by them. It was a fly from the village, but
Lady Audley's fair face peeped out at the window.
Dark as it was, she could see the two figures of the
young men black against the dusk.
"Who is that?" she asked, putting out her head.
"Is it the gardener?"
"No, my dear aunt," said Robert, laughing; "it is
your most dutiful nephew."
He and George stopped by the archway while the
fly drew up at the door, and the surprised servants
came out to welcome their master and mistress.
"I think the storm will hold off to-night," said the
baronet, looking up at the sky; "but we shall cer-
tainly have it to-morrow."


104
LADY AIJDLEY'6 SECRET.
CHAPTER IX.
After the Storm.
S1r Michael was mistaken in his prophecy upon
the weather. The storm did not hold off until next
day, but burst with terrible fury over the village of
Audley about half an hour before midnight.
Robert Audley took the thunder and lightning
with the same composure with which he accepted all
the other ills of life. Ho lay on a sofa in the sitting-
room, ostensibly reading the five-days'-old Chelmsford
paper, and regaling himself occasionally with a few
sips from a large tumbler of cold punch. But the
storm had quite a different effect upon George Talboys.
His friend was startled when he looked at the young
man's white face as he sat opposite the open window
listening to the thunder, and staring at the black sky,
rent every now and then by forked streaks of steel-
blue lightning.
"George," said Robert, after watching him for some
time, "are you frightened at the lightning?"
"No," he answered curtly.
"But, my dear fellow, some of the most courageous
men have been frightened at it. It is scarcely to be
called a fear; it is constitutional. I am sure you are
frightened at it."
"No, I am not."


AFTER THE 8T0EM.
105
"But, George, if you could see yourself, white and
haggard, with your great hollow eyes staring out at
the sky as if they were fixed upon a ghost. I tell
you I know that you are frightened."
"And I tell you that I am not."
"George Talboys, you are not only afraid of the
lightning, but you are savage with yourself for being
afraid, and with me for telling you of your fear."
"Robert Audley, if you say another word to me
I shall knock you down;" having said which, Mr.
Talboys strode out of the room, banging the door after
him with a violence that shook the house. Those
inky clouds which had shut in the sultry earth as if
with a roof of hot iron, poured out their blackness in
a sudden deluge as George left the room; but if the
young man was afraid of the lightning, he certainly
was not afraid of the rain; for he walked straight
down stairs to the inn door, and went out into the wet
high road. He walked up and down, up and clown,
in the soaking shower for about twenty minutes, and
then, re-entering the inn, strode up to his bed-room.
Robert Audley met him on the landing, with his
hair beaten about his white face, and his garments
dripping wet.
"Are you going to bed, George?"
"Yes."
"But you have no candle."
"I don't want one."
"But look at your clothes, man! Do you see the


IOC
LADY AUDI.EY'S SECRET.
wet streaming down your coat-sleeves? What on earth
made you go out upon such a night?"
"I am tired, and want to go to bed — don't
bother me."
"You'll take some hot brandy-and-water, George?"
Robert Audlcy stood in bis friend's way as he
spoke, anxious to prevent his going to bed in the
state he was in; but George pushed him fiercely aside,
and striding past him, said, in the same hoarse voice
Robert bad noticed at the Court —
"Let me alone, Robert Audley, and keep clear of
me if you can."
Robert followed George to his bed-room, but the
young man banged the door in his face; so there was
nothing for it but to leave Mr. Talboys to himself, to
recover his temper as best he might.
"He was irritated at my noticing his terror at the
lightning," thought Robert, as he calmly retired to
rest, serenely indifferent to the thunder, which seemed
to shake him in his bed, and the lightning playing
fitfully round the razors in his open dressing-case.
The storm rolled away from the quiet village of
Audley, and when Robert awoke the next morning it
was to see bright sunshine, and a peep of cloud-
less sky between the white curtains of his bed-room
window.
It was one of those serene and lovely mornings
that sometimes succeed a storm. The birds sung loud
and cheerily, the yellow corn uplifted itself in the
broad fields, and waved proudly after its sharp tussle


AFTER THE STORM.
107
with the storm, which had done its best to beat down
the heavy ears with cruel wind and driving rain half
the night through. The vine-leaves clustering round
Robert's window fluttered with a joyous rustling,
shaking the rain-drops in diamond showers from every
spray and tendril.
Robert Audley found his friend waiting for him at
the breakfast-table.
George was very pale, but perfectly tranquil —
if anything, indeed, more cheerful than usual.
He shook Robert by the hand with something of
that old hearty manner for which he had been dis-
tinguished before the one affliction of his life overtook
and shipwrecked him.
"Forgive me, Bob," he said frankly, "for my surly
temper of last night. You were quite correct in your
assertion; the thunder-storm did upset me. It always
had the same effect upon me in my youth."
"Poor old boy! Shall we go up by the express,
or shall we stop here and dine with my uncle to-
night?" asked Robert
.
"To tell the truth, Bob, I would rather do neither.
It's a glorious morning. Suppose we stroll about all
day, take another turn with the rod and line, and go
up to town by the train that leaves here at 6-15 in
the evening?"
Robert Audley would have assented to a far more
disagreeable proposition than this, rather than have taken
the trouble to oppose his friend, so the matter was im-
mediately agreed upon; and after they had finished their


108
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
breakfast, and ordered a four-o'clock dinner, George Tal-
boys took the fishing-rod across his broad shoulders, and
strode o-it of the house with his friend and companion.
But if the equable temperament of Mr. Robert
Audley had been undisturbed by the crackling peals
of thunder that shook the very foundations of the Sun
Inn, it had not been so with the more delicate sensibi-
lities of his uncle's young wife. Lady Audley con-
fessed herself terribly frightened of the lightning. She
had her bedstead wheeled into a corner of the room,
and with the heavy curtains drawn tightly round her,
she lay with her face buried in the pillows, shuddering
convulsively at every sound of the tempest without.
Sir Michael, whose stout heart had never known a
fear, almost trembled for this fragile creature, whom it
was his happy privilege to protect and defend. My
lady would not consent to undress till nearly three
o'clock in the morning, when the last lingering peal of
thunder had died away amongst the distant hills.
Until that hour she lay in the handsome silk dress in
which she had travelled, huddled together amongst the
bed-clothes, only looking up now and then with a
scared face to ask if the storm was over.
Towards four o'clock, her husband, who spent the
night in watching by her bed-side, saw her drop off
into a deep sleep, from which she did not awake for
nearly five hours.
But she came into the breakfast-room, at half-past
nine o'clock, singing a little Scotch melody, her cheeks
tinged with as delicate a pink as the pale hue of her


AFTER THE STORM.
109
muslin morning dress. Like the birds and the flowers,
she seemed to recover her beauty and joyousness in
the morning sunshine. She tripped lightly out on to
the lawn, gathering a last lingering rosebud here and
there, and a sprig or two of geranium, and returning
through the dewy grass, warbling long cadences for
very happiness of heart, and looking as fresh and
radiant as the flowers in her hands. The baronet
caught her in his strong arms as she came in through
the open window.
"My pretty one," he said, "my darling, what hap-
piness to see you your own merry self again! Do you
know, Lucy, that once last night, when you looked
out through the dark green bed-curtains, with your
poor white face, and the purple rims round your
hollow eyes, I had almost a difficulty to recognise my
little wife in that ghastly, terrified, agonised-looking
creature, crying out about the storm. Thank God for
the morning sun, which has brought back the rosy
cheeks and the bright smile! I hope to Heaven, Lucy,
I shall never again see you look as you did last
night."
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and was then
only tall enough to reach his white beard. She told
him, laughing, that she had always been a silly,
frightened creature, — frightened of dogs, frightened
of cattle, frightened of a thunder-storm, frightened of
a rough sea. "Frightened of everything and every-
body, but my dear, noble, handsome husband," she
•aid.


110
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
She had found the carpet in her dressing-room
disarranged, and had inquired into the mystery of the
secret passage. She chid Miss Alicia in a playful,
laugbing way, for her boldness in introducing two
great men into my lady's rooms.
"And they had the audacity to look at my picture,
Alicia," she said, with mock indignation. "I found the
baize thrown on the ground, and a great man's glove
on the carpet. Look!"
She held up a thick driving glove as she spoke.
It was George's which he had dropped while looking
at the picture.
"I shall go up to the Sun, and ask those boys to
dinner," Sir Michael said, as he left the Court upon
his morning walk round his farm.
Lady Audlcy flitted from room to room in the
bright September sunshine — now sitting down to the
piano to trill out a ballad, or the first page of an Ita-
lian bravura, or running with rapid fingers through a
brilliant waltz — now hovering about a stand of hot-
house flowers, doing amateur gardening with a pair of
fairy-like silver-mounted embroidery scissors — now
strolling into her dressing-room to talk to Phoebe Marks,
and have her curls re-arranged for the third or fourth
time; for the ringlets were always getting into disorder,
and gave no little trouble to Lady Audley's maid.
My lady seemed, on this particular September day,
restless from very joyousness of spirit, and unable to
stay long in one place, or occupy herself with one
thing.


AFTER THE STORM.
Ill
While Lady Audley amused herself in her own
frivolous fashion, the two young men strolled slowly
along the margin of a stream until they reached a
shady corner where the water was deep and still, and
the long branches of the willows trailed into the
brook.
George Talboys took the fishing-rod, while Robert
stretched himself at full length on a railway rug, and
balancing his hat upon his nose as a screen from the
sunshine, fell fast asleep.
Those were happy fish in the stream on the banks
of which Mr. Talboys was seated. They might have
amused themselves to their heart's content with timid
nibbles at this gentleman's bait, without in any manner
endangering their safety; for George only stared va-
cantly at the water, holding his rod in a looso, listless
hand, and with a strange far-away look in his eyes
As the church clock struck two he threw down his rod,
and striding away along the bank, left Robert Audley
to enjoy a nap, which, according to that gentleman's
habits, was by no means unlikely to last for two or
three hours. About a quarter of a mile further on
George crossed a rustic bridge, and struck into tho
meadows which led to Audley Court.
The birds had sung so much all the morning that
they had, perhaps, by this time grown tired; the lazy
cattle were asleep in the meadows; Sir Michael was
still away on his morning's ramble; Miss Alicia had
scampered off an hour before upon her chestnut mare;
the servants were all at dinner in the back part of the


112
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
house; and my lady bad strolled, book in band, into
the shadowy lime-walk; so the grey old building had
never worn a more peaceful aspect than on that bright
afternoon when George Talboys walked across the
lawn to ring a sonorous peal at the sturdy, iron-bound
oak door.
The servant who answered his summons told him
that Sir Michael was out, and my lady walking in the
lime-tree avenue.
He looked a little disappointed at this intelligence,
and muttering something about wishing to see my lady,
or going to look for my lady (the servant did not
clearly distinguish his words), strode away from the
door without leaving either card or message for the
family.
It was full an hour and a half after this when
Lady Audley returned to the house, not coming from
the lime-walk, but from exactly the opposite direction,
carrying her open book in her hand, and singing as
she came. Alicia had just dismounted from her mare,
and stood in the low-arched doorway, with her great
Newfoundland dog by her side.
The dog, which had never liked my lady, showed
his teeth with a suppressed growl.
"Send that horrid animal away, Alicia," Lady
Audley said impatiently. "The brute knows that I
am frightened of him, and takes advantage of my
terror. And yet they call the creatures generous and
noble-natured! Bah, Caesar! I hate you, and you hate
me; and if you met me in the dark in some narrow


AFTER THE STORM.
113
passage you would fly at my throat and strangle me,
wouldn't you?"
My lady, safely sheltered behind her step-daughter,
shook her yellow curls at the angry animal, and defied
him maliciously.
"Do you know, Lady Audley, that Mr. Talboys,
the young widower, has been here asking for Sir
Michael and for you?"
Lucy Audley lifted her pencilled eyebrows. "I
thought he was coming to dinner," she said. "Surely
we shall have enough of him then."
She had a heap of wild autumn flowers in the skirt
of her muslin dress. She had come through the fields
at the back of the Court, gathering the hedge-row
blossoms in her way. She ran lightly up the broad
staircase to her own rooms. George's glove lay on her
boudoir table. Lady Audley rang the bell violently,
and it was answered by Phoebe Marks. "Take that
litter away," she said sharply. The girl collected the
glove and a few withered flowers and torn papers lying
on the table into her apron.
"What have you been doing all this morning?"
asked my lady. "Not wasting your time, I hope?"
"No, my lady, I have been altering the blue dress.
It is rather dark on this side of the house, so I took
it np to my own room, and worked at the window."
The girl wa3 leaving the room as she spoke, but
she turned round and looked at Lady Audley as if
waiting for further orders.
La1ii Audley"t Stent. I. 8


114 LADY AHDLET's SECRET.
Lucy looked up at the same moment, and the eyes
of the two women met.
"Phoebe Marks," said my lady, throwing herself
into an easy chair, and trifling with the wild flowers
in her lap, "you are a good industrious girl, and while
I live and am prosperous you shall never want a firm
friend or a twenty-pound note."


MISSING.
115
CHAPTER X.
Missing.
WHEN Robert Audley awoke he was surprised to
see the fishing-rod lying on the bank, the line trailing
idly in the water, and the float bobbing harmlessly up
and down in the afternoon sunshine. The young bar-
rister was a long time stretching his arms and legs in
various directions to convince himself, by means of
such exercise, that he still retained the proper use of
those members; then, with a mighty effort, he con-
trived to rise from the grass, and having deliberately
folded his railway rug into a convenient shape for car-
rying over his shoulder, he strolled away to look for
George Talboys.
Once or twice he gave a sleepy shout, scarcely
loud enough to scare the birds in the branches above
his head, or the trout in the stream at his feet; but re-
ceiving no answer, grew tired of the exertion, and
dawdled on, yawning as he went, and still looking for
George Talboys.
By-and-by he took out his watch, and was surprised
to find that it was a quarter past four.
“Why, the selfish beggar must have gone home to
his dinner!" I muttered reflectively; "and yet that
isn't much like him, for he seldom remembers even his
meals unless I og his memory."
quarter Pmust have and get this
8*


116
LADY AUDLBY's SECRET.
Even a good appetite, and the knowledge that his
dinner would very likely suffer by this delay, could
not quicken Mr. Robert Audley's constitutional dawdle,
,md by the time he strolled in at the front door of the
Sun the clocks were striking five. He so fully ex-
pected to find George Talboys waiting for him in the
little sitting-room, that the absence of that gentleman
seemed to give the apartment a dreary look, and Ro-
bert groaned aloud.
"This is lively!" he said. "A cold dinner, and
nobody to eat it with!"
The landlord of the Sun came himself to apologise
for his ruined dishes.
"As fine a pair of ducks, Mr. Audley, as ever you
clapped eyes on, but burnt up to a cinder, along of
being kep' hot."
"Never mind the ducks," Robert said, impatiently;
"where's Mr. Talboys?"
"He ain't been in, sir, since you went out together
this morning."
"What!" cried Robert. "Why, in Heaven's name,
what has the man done with himself?"
He walked to the window and looked out upon the
broad white high road. There was a waggon laden
with trusses of hay crawling slowly past, the lazy
horses and the lazy waggoner dropping their heads
with a weary stoop under the afternoon sunshine.
There was a flock of sheep straggling about the road,
with a dog running himself into a fever in the en-
deavour to keep them decently together. There were


MISSING.
117
some bricklayers just released from work — a tinker
mending some kettles by the road-side; there was a
dogoart dashing down the road, carrying the master
of the Audley hounds to his seven-o'clock dinner: there
were a dozen common village sights and sounds that
mixed themselves up into a cheerful bustle and con-
fusion; but there was no George Talboys.
"Of all the extraordinary things that ever happened
to me in the whole course of my life," said Mr. Robert
Audley, "this is the most miraculous!"
The landlord, still in attendance, opened his eyes
as Robert made this remark. What could there be so
extraordinary in the simple fact of a gentleman being
late for his dinner?
"I shall go and look for him," said Robert snatch-
ing up his hat and walking straight out of the house.
But the question was where to look for him. He
certainly was not by the trout stream, so it was no
good going back there in search of him. Robert was
standing before the inn, deliberating on what was
best to be done, when the landlord came out after
him.
"I forget to tell you, Mr. Audley, as how your
uncle called here five minutes after you was gone, and
left a message asking of you and the other gentleman
to go down to dinner at the Court."
"Then I shouldn't wonder," said Robert, "if George
Talboys has gone down to the Court to call upon my
uncle. It isn't like him, but it's just possible that he
has done it."


118
LADY AUDLEY'S 8ECRET.
It was six o'clock when Robert knocked at the door
of his uncle's house. He did not ask to see any of the
family, but inquired at once for his friend.
Yes, the servant told him; Mr. Talboys had been
there at two o'clock, or a little after.
"And not since?"
"No, not since."
Was the man sure that it was at two Mr. Talboys
called? Robert asked.
Yes, perfectly sure. He remembered the hour be-
cause it was the servants' dinner hour, and ho had left
the table to open the door to Mr. Talboys.
"Why, what can have become of the man?"
thought Robert, as he turned his back upon the Court.
"From two till six — four good hours — and no signs
of him!"
If any one had ventured to tell Mr. Robert Audley
that he could possibly feel a strong attachment to any
creature breathing, that cynical gentleman would have
elevated his eyebrows in supreme contempt at the pre-
posterous notion. Yet here he was, flurried and anxious,
bewildering his brain by all manner of conjectures about
his missing friend, and, false to every attribute of his
nature, walking fast.
"I haven't walked fast since I was at Eton," he
murmured, as he hurried across one of Sir Michael's
meadows in the direction of the village; "and the worst
of it is that I haven't the most remote idea where I am
going."
He crossed another meadow, and then seating him-


MISSING.
119
self upon a stile, rested his elbows upon his knees,
buried his face in his hands, and set himself seriously
to think the matter out.
"I have it I" he said, after a few minutes' thought;
"the railway station!" He sprang over the stile, and
started off in the direction of the little red brick
building.
There was no train expected for another half hour,
and the clerk was taking his tea in an apartment on
one side of the office, on the door of which was in-
scribed, in large white letters, "Private."
But Mr. Audley was too much occupied with the
one idea of looking for his friend to pay any attention
to this warning. He strode at once to the door, and
rattling his cane against it, brought the clerk out of
his sanctum in a perspiration from hot tea, and with
his mouth full of bread and butter.
"Do you remember the gentleman that came down
to Audley with me, Smithers?" asked Hubert.
"Well, to tell you the real truth, Mr. Audley,
I can't say I do. You came by the four o'clock, if
you remember, and there's always a many by that
train."
"You don't remember him, then?"
"Not to my knowledge, sir."
"That's provoking! I want to know, Smithers,
whether he has taken a ticket for London since two
o'clock to-day. He's a tall, broad chested young fellow,
with a big brown beard. You couldn't well mistake
him."


120
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
"There was four or five gentlemen as took tickets
for the 3"30 up," said the clerk rather vaguely, casting
an anxious glance over his shoulder at his wife, who
looked by no means pleased at this interruption to the
harmony of the tea-table.
"Four or five gentlemen! But did either of them
answer to the description of my friend?"
"Well, I think one of them had a beard, sir."
"A dark brown beard?"
"Well, I don't know but what it was brownish
like."
"Was he dressed in grey?"
"I believe it was grey: a many gents wears grey.
He asked for the ticket sharp and short like, and when
he'd got it walked straight out on to the platform
whistling."
"That's George!" said Robert. "Thank you,
Smithers: I needn't trouble you any more. It's as
clear as daylight," he muttered, as he left the station,
"he's got one of his gloomy fits on him, and he's gone
back to London without saying a word about it. I'll
leave Audley myself to-morrow morning; and for to-
night — why, I may as well go down to the Court,
and make the acquaintance of my uncle's young wife.
They don't dine till seven: if I get back across the
fields I shall be in time. Bob — otherwise Robert
Audley, this sort of thing will never do: you are falling
over head and ears in love with your aunt."


THE MARK UPON MY LADY'S WRIST.
121
CHAPTER XI.
The Mark upon my Lady's Wrist.
ROBERT found Sir Michael and Lady Audley in
the drawing-room. My lady was sitting on a music-
stool before the grand piano, turning over the leaves
of some new music. She twirled round upon this re-
volving seat, making a rustling with her silk flounces,
as Mr. Robert Audley's name was announced; then,
leaving the piano, she made her nephew a pretty mock
ceremonious curtsey. "Thank you so much for the
sables,” she said, holding out her little fingers, all
glittering and twinkling with the diamonds she wore
upon them; "thank you for those beautiful sables.
How good it was of you to get them for me!"
Robert had almost forgotten the commission ho
had executed for Lady Audley during his Russian
expedition. His mind was so full of George Talboys
that he only acknowledged my lady's gratitude by
a bow.
“Would you believe it, Sir Michael?” he said.
"That foolish chum of mine has gone back to London,
leaving me in the lurch.”
"Mr. George Talboys returned to town!” exclaimed
my lady, lifting her eyebrows.
"What a dreadful catastrophe!” said Alicia ma-
liciously, “since Pythias, in the person of Mr. Robert


122
LADY AUDLEYr's SECRET.
Audley, cannot exist for half an hour without Damon,
commonly known as George Talboys."
"He's a very good fellow," Robert said stoutly;
"and to tell the honest truth, I'm rather uneasy about
him."
Uneasy about him! My lady was quite anxious to
know why Robert was uneasy about his friend.
"I'll tell you why, Lady Audley," answered the
young barrister. "George had a bitter blow a year
ago in the death of his wife. He has never got over
that trouble. Ho takes life pretty quietly — almost as
quietly as I do — but he often talks very strangely,
and I sometimes think that one day this grief will get
the better of him, and he'll do something rash."
Mr. Robert Audley spoke vaguely; but all three of
his listeners knew that the something rash to which
he alluded was that one deed for which there is no
repentance.
There was a brief pause, during which Lady Aud-
ley arranged her yellow ringlets by the aid of the glass
over the console table opposite to her.
"Dear me!" she said, "this is very strange. I did
not think men were capable of these deep and lasting
affections. I thought that one pretty face was as good
as another pretty face to them, and that when number
one with blue eyes and fair hair died, they had only
to look out for number two with black eyes and hair,
by way of variety."
"George Talboys is not one of those men. I firmly
believe that his wife's death broke his heart."


THE MAEK UPON MY LADt's WRIST. 123
"How sad!" murmured Lady Audley. "It seems
almost cruel of Mrs. Talboys to die, and grieve her
poor husband so much."
"Alicia was right; she is childish," thought Robert,
as he looked at his aunt's pretty face.
My lady was very charming at the dinner-table;
she professed the most bewitching incapacity for carving
the pheasant set before her, and called Robert to her
assistance.
"I could carve a leg of mutton at Mr. Dawson's,"
she said, laughing; "but a leg of mutton is so easy;
and then I used to stand up."
Sir Michael watched the impression my lady made
upon his nephew with a proud delight in her beauty
and fascination.
"I am so glad to see my poor little woman in her
usual good spirits once more," he said. "She was very
down-hearted yesterday at a disappointment she met
with in London."
"A disappointment!"
"Yes, Mr. Audley, a very cruel one," answered my
lady. "I received the other morning a telegraphic
message from my dear old friend and schoolmistress,
telling me that she was dying, and that if I wanted
to see her again I must hasten to her immediately.
The telegraphic despatch contained no address, and of
course, from that very circumstance, I imagined that
she must be living in the house in which I left her
three years ago. Sir Michael and I hurried up to town
immediately, and drove straight to the old address.


124
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
The house was occupied by strange people, who could
give me no tidings of my friend. It is in a retired
place, where there are a very few tradespeople about
.
Sir Michael made inquiries at the few shops there are,
but, after taking an immense deal of trouble, could
discover nothing whatever likely to lead to the infor-
mation we wanted. I have no friends in London, and
had therefore no one to assist me except my dear,
generous husband, who did all in his power, but in
vain, to find my friend's new residence."
"It was very foolish not to send the address in the
telegraphic message," said Robert.
"When people are dying it is not so easy to think
of all these things," murmured my lady, looking re-
proachfully at Mr. Audley with her soft blue eyes.
In spite of Lady Audley's fascination, and in spite
of Robert's very unqualified admiration of her, the
barrister could not overcome a vague feeling of uneasi-
ness on this quiet September evening.
As ho sat in the deep embrasure of a mullioned
window, talking to my lady, his mind wandered away
to shady Fig-tree Court, and he thought of poor George
Talboys smoking his solitary cigar in the room with
the dogs and the canaries. "I wish I'd never felt any
friendliness for the fellow," he thought. "I feel like
a man who has an only son whose life has gone wrong
with him. I wish to Heaven I could give him back
his wife, and send him down to Ventnor to finish his
days in peace."
Still my lady's pretty musical prattle ran on as


THE MARK UPON MY LADT's WRIST. 125
merrily and continuously as the babble of some brook;
and still Robert's thoughts wandered, in spite of him-
self, to George Talboys.
He thought of him hurrying down to Southampton
by the mail train to see his boy. He thought of him
as he had often seen him spelling over the shipping
advertisements in the Times, looking for a vessel to
take him back to Australia. Once he thought of him
with a shudder, lying cold and stiff at the bottom of
some shallow stream, with his dead face turned towards
the darkening sky.
Lady Audley noticed his abstraction, and asked
him what he was thinking of.
"George Talboys," he answered abruptly.
She gave a little nervous shudder.
"Upon my word," she said, "you make me quite
uncomfortable by the way in which you talk of Mr.
Talboys. One would think that something extraordi-
nary had happened to him."
"God forbid! But I cannot help feeling uneasy
about him."
Later in the evening Sir Michael asked for some
music, and my lady went to the piano. Robert Audley
strolled after her to the instrument to turn over the
leaves of her music; but she played from memory, and
he was spared the trouble his gallantry would have
imposed upon him.
He carried a pair of lighted candles to the piano,
and arranged them conveniently for the pretty mu-
sician. She struck a few chords, and then wandered


126
-LADY AUDLBY'S SECEET.
into a pensive sonata of Beethoven's. It was one of
the many paradoxes in her character, that love of
sombre and melancholy melodies, so opposite to her
gay, frivolous nature.
Robert Audley lingered by her side, and as he had
no occupation in turning over the leaves of her music,
he amused himself by watching her jewelled white
hands gliding softly over the keys, with the lace
sleeves dropping away from her graceful arched wrists.
He looked at her pretty fingers one by one; this one
glittering with a ruby heart; that encoiled by an
emerald serpent; and about them all a starry glitter of
diamonds. From the fingers his eyes wandered to the
rounded wrists: the broad, flat, gold bracelet upon her
right wrist dropped over her hand, as she executed a
rapid passage. She stopped abruptly to rearrange it;
but before she could do so, Robert Audley noticed a
bruise upon her delicate skin.
"You have hurt your arm, Lady Audley," he ex-
claimed.
She hastily replaced the bracelet.
"It is nothing," she said. "I am unfortunate in
having a skin which the slightest touch bruises."
She went on playing, but Sir Michael came across
the room to look into the matter of the bruise upon
his wife's pretty wrist.
"What is it, Lucy?" he asked; "and how did it
happen?"
"How foolish you all are to trouble yourselves
about anything so absurd I" said Lady Audley, laugh-


THE MARK UPON MY LADy's WRIST. 127
log. "I am rather absent in mind, and amused my-
self a few days ago by tying a piece of ribbon round
my arm so tightly, that it left a bruise when I re-
moved it."
"Hum!" thought Robert. "My lady tells little
childish white lies; the bruise is of a more recent date
than a few days ago; the skin has only just begun to
change colour."
Sir Michael took the slender wrist in his strong
hand.
"Hold the candles, Robert," he said, "and let us
look at this poor little arm."
It was not one bruise, but four slender, purple
marks, such as might have been made by the four
fingers of a powerful hand that had grasped the delicate
wrist a shade too roughly. A narrow ribbon, bound
tightly, might have left some such marks, it is true,
and my lady protested once more that, to the best of
her recollection, that must have been how they were
made.
Across one of the faint purple marks there was a
darker tinge, as if a ring worn on one of these strong
and cruel fingers had been ground into the tender
flesh.
"I am sure my lady must tell white lies," thought
Robert, "for I can't believe the story of the ribbon."
He wished his relations good night and good-by at
about half past ten o'clock; he said that he should run


128
LADY AUDREY'S SECRET.
up to London by the first train to look for George, in
Fig-tree Court
.
"If I don't find him there, I shall go to South-
ampton," he said "and if I don't find him there —"
"What then?" asked my lady.
"I shall think that something strange has hap-
pened."
Robert Audley felt very low-spirited as he walked
slowly home between the shadowy meadows; more
low-spirited still when he re-entered the sitting-room at
the Sun Inn, where he and George had lounged to-
gether, staring out of the window, and smoking their
cigars.
"To think," he said meditatively, "that it is pos-
sible to care so much for a fellow! But come what
may, Til go up to town after him the first thing to-
morrow morning, and sooner than be balked in finding
him, I'll go to the very end of the world."
With Mr. Robert Audley's lymphatic nature, deter-
mination was so much the exception, rather than the
rule, that when he did for once in his life resolve upon
any course of action, he had a certain dogged, iron-
like obstinacy that pushed him on to the fulfilment of
his purpose.
The lazy bent of his mind, which prevented him
from thinking of half a dozen things at a time, and
not thinking thoroughly of any one of them, as is the
manner of your more energetic people, made him


THE MARK UPON MY LADY'S WRIST. 129
remarkably clear-sighted upon any point to which he
ever gave his serious attention.
Indeed, after all, though solemn benchers laughed
at him, and rising barristers shrugged their shoulders
under rustling silk gowns when people spoke of Robert
Audley, I doubt if, had he ever taken the trouble to
get a brief, he might not have rather surprised the
magnates who underrated his abilities.
Uuly Auitey't Secret. U
9


130
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
CHAPTER XII.
Still Missing.
The September sun-light sparkled upon the foun-
tain in the Temple Gardens, when Robert Audley re-
turned to Fig-tree Court early the following morning.
He found the canaries singing in the pretty little
room in which George had slept, but the apartment
was in the same prim order in which the laundress had
arranged it after the departure of the two young men
— not a chair displaced, or so much as the lid of a
cigar-box lifted, to bespeak the presence of George
Talboys. With a last lingering hope he searched upon
the mantel-pieces and tables of his rooms, on the chance
of finding some letter left by George.
"He may have slept here last night, and started for
Southampton early this morning," he thought. "Mrs.
Maloney has been here very likely, to make everything
tidy after him."
But as he sat looking lazily round the room, now
and then whistling to his delighted canaries, a slip-
shod foot upon the staircase without bespoke the advent
of that very Mrs. Maloney who waited upon the two
young men.
No, Mr. Talboys had not come home; she had
looked in as early as six o'clock that morning, and
found the chambers empty.


STILL MISSING.
131
Had anything happened to the poor dear gentle-
man? she asked, seeing Robert Audley's pale face.
He turned round upon her quite savagely at this
question.
Happened to him! What should happen to him?
They had only parted at two o'clock the day before.
Mrs. Maloney would have related to him the
history of a poor dear young engine-driver, who had
once lodged with her, and who went out, after eating
a hearty dinner, in the best of spirits, to meet with
his death from the concussion of an express and a
luggage train-, but Robert put on his hat again, and
walked straight out of the house, before the honest
Irishwoman could begin her pitiful story.
It was growing dusk when he reached Southampton.
He knew his way to the poor little terrace of houses,
in a dull street leading down to the water, where
George's father-in-law lived. Little Georgey was
playing at the open parlour window as the young man
walked down the street
.
Perhaps it was this fact, and the dull and silent
aspect of the house, which filled Robert Audley's mind
with a vague conviction that the man ho came to look
for was not there. The old man himself opened the
door, and the child peeped out of the parlour to look
at the strange gentleman.
He was a handsome boy, with his father's brown
eyes and dark waving hair, and yet with some latent
expression which was not his father's, and which per-
vaded his whole face, so that although each feature of
£>*


132
LADY AUDLET's SECRET.
the child resembled the same feature in George Tal-
boys, the boy was not actually like him.
The old man was delighted to see Robert Audley;
he remembered having had the pleasure of meeting
him at Ventnor, on the melancholy occasion of — He
wiped his watery old eyes by way of conclusion to the
sentence. Would Mr. Audley walk in? Robert strode
into the little parlour. The furniture was shabby and
dingy, and the place reeked with the smell of stale
tobacco and brandy-and-water. The boy's broken
playthings and the old man's broken clay pipes, and
torn, brandy-and-water stained newspapers, were scat-
tered upon the dirty carpet. Little Georgey crept to-
wards the visitor, watching him furtively out of his
big brown eyes. Robert took the boy on his knee,
and gave him his watch-chain to play with while he
talked to the old man.
"I need scarcely ask the question that I came to
ask," he said. "I was in hopes I should have found
your son-in-law here."
"What! you knew that he was coming to South-
ampton?"
"Knew that he was coming!" cried Robert,
brightening up. "He is here, then?"
"No, he is not here now, but he has been here."
"When?"
"Late last night; he came by the mail."
"And left again immediately?"
"He stayed little better than an hour."
"Good heavens!" said Robert, "what useless anxiety


STILL MISSING.
133
that man has given me! What can he the meaning of
all this?"
"Yon knew nothing of his intention, then?"
"Of what intention?"
"I mean of his determination to go to Australia."
"I knew that it was always in his mind more of
less, but not more just now than usual."
"He sails to-night from Liverpool. He came here
at one o'clock this morning to have a look at the boy,
he said, before he left England, perhaps never to
return. He told me he was sick of the world, and
that the rough life out there was the only thing to
suit him. He stayed an hour, kissed the boy, without
awaking him, and left Southampton by the mail that
starts at a quarter past two."
"What can be the meaning of all this?" said Robert.
"What could be his motive for leaving England in
this manner, without a word to me, his most intimate
friend — without even a change of clothes; for he has
left everything at my chambers? It is the most extra-
ordinary proceeding!"
The old man looked very grave. "Do you know,
Mr. Audley," he said, tapping his forehead significantly,
"I sometimes fancy that Helen's death had a strange
effect upon poor George."
"Pshaw!" cried Robert contemptuously; "he felt
the blow most cruelly, but his brain was as sound as
yours or mine."
"Perhaps he will write to you from Liverpool," said
George's father-in-law. He seemed anxious to smooth


134
LADY AOTLEv's SECRET.
over any indignation that Robert might feel at his
friend's conduct.
"He ought," said Robert gravely, "for we've been
good friends from the days when we were together at
Eton. It isn't kind of George Talboys to treat me
like this."
But even at the moment that he uttered the
reproach a strange thrill of remorse shot through his
heart
.
"It isn't like him," he said, "it isn't like George
Talboys."
Little Georgey caught at the sound. "That's my
name," he said, "and my papa's name — the big
gentleman's name."
"Yes, little Georgey, and your papa came last
night and kissed you in your sleep. Do you re-
member?"
"No," said the boy, shaking his curly little head.
"You must have been very fast asleep, little Georgey,
not to see poor papa."
The child did not answer, but presently, fixing his
eyes upon Robert's face, he said abruptly, —
"Where's the pretty lady?"
"What pretty lady?"
"The pretty lady that used to come a long while
ago."
"He means his poor mamma," said the old man.
"No," cried the boy resolutely, "not mamma.
Mamma was always crying. I didn't like mamma —"
"Hush, little Georgey!"


BTIT,L VTSSTNO.
135
"But I didn't, and she didn't like me. She was
always crying. I mean the pretty lady; the lady
that was dressed so fine, and that gave me my gold
watch."
"He means the wife of my old captain — an ex-
cellent creature, who took a great fancy to Georgey,
and gave him some handsome presents."
"Where's my gold watch? Let me show the
gentleman my gold watch," cried Georgey.
"It's gone to be cleaned, Georgey," answered his
grandfather.
"It's always going to be cleaned," said the boy.
"The watch is perfectly safe I assure you, Mr.
Audley," murmured the old man, apologetically; and
taking out a pawnbroker's duplicate, he handed it to
Robert.
It was made out in the name of Captain Mortimer:
"Watch, set with diamonds, £ 11."
"I'm often hard pressed for a few shillings, Mr.
Audley," said the old man. "My son-in-law has been
very liberal to me; but there are others, there are
others, Mr. Audley — and — and — I've not been
treated well." He wiped away some genuine tears as
he said this in a pitiful, crying voice. "Come, Georgey,
it's time the brave little man was in bed. Come along
with grandpapa. Excuse me for a quarter of an hour,
Mr. Audley."
The boy went very willingly. At the door of the
room the old man looked back at his visitor, and said,
in the same peevish voice, "This is a poor place for


136
lady audley's secret.
me to pass my declining years in, Mr. Audley. I've
made many sacrifices, and I make them still, but I've
not been treated well."
Left alone in the dusky little sitting-room, Robert
Audley folded his arms, and sat absently staring at
the floor.
George was gone, then; he might receive some
letter of explanation, perhaps, when he returned to
London; but the chances were that he would never see
his old friend again.
"And to think that I should care so much for the
fellow!" ho said, lifting his eyebrows to the centre of
his forehead.
"The place smells of stale tobacco like a tap-room,"
he muttered presently; "there can be no harm in my
smoking a cigar here."
He took one from the case in his pocket; there was
a spark of fire in the little grate, and he looked about
for something to light his cigar with.
A twisted piece of paper lay half burned upon the
hearthrug; he picked it up, and unfolded it, in order
to get a better pipe-light by folding it the other way
of the paper. As he did so, absently glancing at the
pencilled writing upon the fragment of thin paper, a
portion of a name caught his eye — a portion of the
name that was most in his thoughts. He took the
scrap of paper to the window, and examined it by the
declining light.
It was part of a telegraphic despatch. The upper
portion had been burnt away, but the more important


STILL MISSING.
137
part, the greater part of the message itself, remained.
alboys came to last night,
and left by the mail for London, on his way for Liver-
pool, whence he was to sail for Sydney.
The date and the name and address of the sender
of the message had been burnt with the heading.
Robert Audley's face blanched to a deathly whiteness.
He carefully folded the scrap of paper, and placed it
between the leaves of his pocket-book.
"My God!" he said, "what is the meaning of
this? I shall go to Liverpool to-night, and make in-
quiries there."


138
LADY ATOLEY's SECRET.
CHAPTER XIII.
Troubled Dreams.
Robert Audley left Southampton by the mail, and
let himself into his chambers just as the dawn was
creeping cold and grey into the solitary rooms, and
the canaries were beginning to rustle their feathers
feebly in the early morning.
There were several letters in the box behind the
door, but there was none from George Talboys.
The young barrister was worn out by a long day
spent in hurrying from place to place. The usual lazy
monotony of his life had been broken as it had never
been broken before in eight-and-twenty tranquil, easy-
going years. His mind was beginning to grow con-
fused upon the point of time. It seemed to him
months since he had lost sight of George Talboys. It
was so difficult to believe that it was less than forty-
eight hours ago that the young man had left him
asleep under the willows by the trout-stream.
His eyes were painfully weary for want of sleep.
He searched about the rooms for some time, looking
in all sorts of impossible places for a letter from
George Talboys, and then threw himself dressed upon
his friend's bed, in the room with the canaries and
geraniums.
"I shall wait for to-morrow morning's post," he


TROUBLED DREAMS.
139
said, "and if that brings no letter from George I shall
start for Liverpool without a moment's delay."
Ho was thoroughly exhausted, and fell into a heavy
sleep — a sleep which was profound without being
altogether refreshing, for he was tormented all the
time by disagreeable dreams — dreams which were
painful, not from any horror in themselves, but from
a vague and wearying sense of their confusion and
absurdity.
At one time he was pursuing strange people and
entering strange houses in the endeavour to unravel
the mystery of the telegraphic despatch; at another
time he was in the churchyard at Ventnor, gazing at
the headstone George had ordered for the grave of his
dead wife. Once in the long rambling mystery of
these dreams he went to the grave, and found this
headstone gone and on remonstrating with the stone-
mason, was told that the man had a reason for re-
moving the inscription, a reason that Robert would
some day learn.
He started from his dreams to find there was some
one knocking at the outer door of his chambers.
It was a dreary wet morning, the rain beating
against the windows, and the canaries twittering dis-
mally to each other — complaining, perhaps, of the
bad weather. Robert could not tell how long the per-
son had been knocking. He had heard the sound with
his dreams, and when he woke he was only half con-
scious of Outer things.
"It is that stupid Mrs. Maloney, I dare say," he


140
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
muttered. "She may knock again for all I care. Why
can't she use her duplicate key, instead of dragging a
man out of bed when he's half dead with fatigue?"
The person, whoever it was, did knock again, and
then desisted, apparently tired out; but about a minute
afterwards a key turned in the door.
"She had her key with her all the time, then," said
Robert. "I'm very glad I didn't get up."
The door between the sitting-room and bed-room
was half open, and he could see the laundress bustling
about, dusting the furniture, and rearranging things
that had never been disarranged.
"Is that you, Mrs. Maloney?" he asked.
"Yes, Sir."
"Then why, in goodness' name, did you make that
row at the door, when you had a key with you all the
time?"
"A row at the door, Sir!"
"Yes; that infernal knocking."
"Sure I never knocked, Misther Audley, but walked
straight in with the key"
"Then who did knock? There's been some one
kicking up a row at that door for a quarter of an hour
I should think; you must have met him going down-
stairs."
"But I'm rather late this morning, Sir, for I've
been in Mr. Martin's rooms first, and I've come straight
from the floor above."
"Then you didn't see any one at the door, or on
the stairs?"


TROUBLED DREAMS.
141
"Not a mortal soul, Sir."
"Was ever anything so provoking?" said Robert.
"To think that I should have let this person go away
without ascertaining who he was, or what he wanted!
How do I know that it was not some one with a mes-
sage or a letter from George Talboys?"
"Sure if it was, Sir, he'll come again," said Mrs.
Maloney soothingly.
"Yes, of course, if it was anything of consequence
he'll come again," muttered Robert. The fact was,
that from the moment of finding the telegraphic mes-
sage at Southampton all hope of hearing of George had
faded out of his mind. He felt that there was some
mystery involved in the disappearance of his friend —
some treachery towards himself, or towards George.
What if the young man's greedy old father-in-law had
tried to separate them on account of the monetary trust
lodged in Robert Audley's hands? Or what if, since
even in these civilised days all kinds of unsuspected
horrors are constantly committed — what if the old
man had decoyed George down to Southampton, and
made away with him in order to get possession of that
£ 20,000, left in Robert's custody for little Georgey's
use?
But neither of these suppositions explained the
telegraphic message, and it was the telegraphic mes-
sage which had filled Robert's mind with a vague sense
of alarm. The postman brought no letter from George
Talboys, and the person who had knocked at the door
of the chambers did not return between seven and nine


142
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
o'clock, so Robert Audley left Tig-tree Court once more
in search of his friend. This time he told the cabman
to drive to the Euston Station, and in twenty minutes
he was on the platform, making inquiries about the
trains.
The Liverpool express had started half an hour
before he reached the station, and he had to wait an
hour and a quarter for a slow train to take him to his
destination.
Robert Audley chafed cruelly at this delay. Half
a dozen vessels might sail for Australia while he roamed
up and down the long platform, tumbling over trucks
and porters, and swearing at his ill-luck.
He bought the Times newpaper, and looked in-
stinctively at the second column, with a morbid interest
in the advertisements of people missing — sons, bro-
thers, and husbands who had left their homes, never
to return or to be heard of more.
There was one advertisement of a young man who
was found drowned somewhere on the Lambeth shore.
What if that should have been George's fate? No;
the telegraphic message involved his father-in-law in
the fact of his disappearance, and every speculation
about him must start from that one point.
It was eight o'clock in the evening when Robert
got into Liverpool, too late for anything except to
make inquiries as to what vessels had sailed within
the last two days for the antipodes.
An emigrant ship had sailed at four o'clock that
afternoon — the Victoria Regia, bound for Melbourne.


TROUBLKK DEEAMS.
143
The result of his inquiries amounted to this — if
he wanted to find out who had sailed in the Victoria
Regia, he must wait till the next morning, and apply
for information of that vessel.
Robert Audley was at the office at nine o'clock the
next morning, and was the first person after the clerks
who entered it.
He met with every civility from the clerk to whom
he applied. The young man referred to his books,
and running his pen down the list of passengers who
had sailed in the Victoria Regia, told Robert that there
was no one amongst them of the name of Talboys. He
pushed his inquiries further. Had any of the passengers
entered their names within a short time of the vessel's
sailing?
One of the other clerks looked up from his desk as
Robert asked this question. Yes, he said, he remem-
bered a young man's coming into the office at half-past
three o'clock in the afternoon, and paying his passage-
money. His name was the last on the list — Thomas
Brown.
Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders. There
could have been no possible reason for George's taking
a feigned name. He asked the clerk who had last
spoken if he could remember the appearance of this
Mr. Thomas Brown.
No, the office was crowded at the time; people
were running in and out, and he had not taken any
particular notice of this last passenger.
Robert thanked them for their civility, and wished


144
LADY AUDLBY's SECRET.
them good morning. As he was leaving the office one
of the young men called after him.
"Oh, by the bye, Sir," he said, "I remember one
thing about this Mr. Thomas Brown — his arm was
in a sling."
There was nothing more for Robert Audley to do
but to return to town. He re-entered his chambers at
six o'clock that evening, thoroughly worn out once
more with his useless search.
Mrs. Maloney brought him his dinner and a pint
of wine from a tavern in the Strand. The evening
was raw and chilly, and the laundress had lighted a
good fire in the sitting-room grate.
After eating about half a mutton chop, Robert
sat with his wine untasted upon the table before him,
smoking cigars and staring into the blaze.
"George Talboys never sailed for Australia," he
said, after long and painful reflection. "If he is alive
he is still in England, and if he is dead his body is
hidden in some corner of England."
He sat for hours smoking and thinking — troubled
and gloomy thoughts, leaving a dark shadow upon his
moody face, which neither the brilliant light of the
gas nor the red blaze of the fire could dispel.
Very late in the evening he rose from his chair,
pushed away the table, wheeled his desk over to the
fire-place, took out a sheet of foolscap, and dipped a
pen in the ink.
But after doing this he paused, leaned his fore*
head upon his hand, and once more relapsed into thought.


TROUBLED DREAMS.
145
"I shall draw up a record of all that has occurred
between our going down to Essex and to-night, be-
ginning at the very beginning."
He drew up this record in short detached sen-
tences, which he numbered as he wrote.
It ran thus: —
"JOCENAL OF FACTS OONNECTED WITH THE DISAPPEARANCE OF
OEOEQE TAiBOVS, INCLUSIVE OF FACTS WHICH HAVE NO
APPAEENT EELATION TO THAT CIECCXSTANCE."
In spite of the troubled state of his mind he was
rather inclined to be proud of the official appearance
of this heading. He sat for some time looking at it
with affection, and with the feather of his pen in his
mouth. "Upon my word," he said, "I begin to think
that I ought to have pursued my profession, instead of
dawdling my life away as I have done."
He smoked half a cigar before he had got his
thoughts in proper train, and then began to write: —
"1. I write to Alicia, proposing to take George
down to the Court.
"2. Alicia writes, objecting to the visit on the part
of Lady Audley.
"3. We go to Essex in spito of this objection.
I see my lady. My lady refuses to be introduced
to Georgo that particular evening on the score of
fatigue.
"4. Sir Michael invites George and me to dinner
for the following evening.
"5. My lady receives a telegraphic despatch the
next morning which summons her to London.
Lady Auiley't Secret. I. 10


146
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
"6. Alicia shows me a letter from my lady, in
which she requests to be told when I and my friend,
Mr. Talboys, mean to leave Essex. To this letter is
subjoined a postscript reiterating the above request.
"7. We call at the Court, and ask to see the
house. My lady's apartments are locked.
"8. We get at the aforesaid apartments by means
of a secret passage, the existence of which is un-
known to my lady. In one of the rooms we find her
portrait.
"9. George is frightened at the storm. His con-
duct is exceedingly strange for the rest of the evening.
"10. George quite himself again the following
morning. I propose leaving Audley Court immediately;
he prefers remaining till the evening.
"11. We go out fishing. George leaves me to go
to the Court.
"12. The last positive information I can obtain of
him in Essex is at the Court, where the servant says
he thinks Mr. Talboys told him he would go and look
for my lady in the grounds.
"13. I receive information about him at the station
which may, or may not, be correct.
"14. I hear of him positively once more at South-
ampton, where, according to his father-in-law, he had
been for an hour on the previous night.
"15. The telegraphic message."
When Robert Audley had completed this brief
record, which he drew up with great deliberation, and
with frequent pauses for reflection, alterations, and


TROUBLED DREAMS.
147
erasures, he sat for a long time contemplating the
written page.
At last he read it carefully over, stopping at some
of the numbered paragraphs, and marking several of
them with a pencilled cross; then he folded the sheet
of foolscap, went over to a cabinet on the opposite
side of the room, unlocked it, and placed the paper in
that very pigeon-hole into which he had thrust Alicia's
letter — the pigeon-hole marked Important.
Having done this, he returned to his easy chair by
the fire, pushed away his desk, and lighted a cigar.
"It's as dark as midnight from first to last," he said;
"and the clue to the mystery must be found either at
Southampton or in Essex. Be it how it may, my
mind is made up. I shall first go to Audley Court,
and look for George Talboys in a narrow radius."
10*


148
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
CHAPTER XIV.
Phoebe'l Suitor.
"Me. Georqe Talboys. — Any person who has
met this gentleman since the 7th inst., or who possesses
any information respecting him subsequent to that date,
will be liberally rewarded on communicating with
A. Z., 14, Chancery Lane."
Sir Michael Audley read the above advertisement
in the second column of the Times, as he sat at break-
fast with my lady and Alicia two or three days after
Robert's return to town.
"Robert's friend has not yet been heard of, then,"
said the baronet, after reading the advertisement to
his wife and daughter.
"As for that," replied my lady, "I cannot help
wondering who can be silly enough to advertise for
him. The young man was evidently of a restless,
roving disposition — a sort of Bamfylde Moore Carew
of modem life, whom no attraction could ever keep in
one spot."
Though the advertisement appeared three succes-
sive times, the party at the Court attached very little
importance to Mr. Talboys' disappearance; and after
this one occasion his name was never again mentioned
by either Sir Michael, my lady, or Alicia.
Alicia Audley and her pretty stepmother were by


phcebe's suitor.
149
no means any better friends after that quiet evening
on which the young barrister had dined at the Court.
"She is a vain, frivolous, heartless little coquette,"
said Alicia, addressing herself to her Newfoundland
dog, Caesar, who was the sole recipient of the young
lady's confidences; "she is a practised and consummate
flirt, Caesar; and not contented with setting her yellow
ringlets and her silly giggle at half the men in Essex,
she must needs make that stupid cousin of mine dance
attendance upon her. I haven't common patience with
her."
In proof of which last assertion Miss Alicia Audley
treated her stepmother with such very palpable im-
pertinence that Sir Michael felt himself called upon to
remonstrate with his only daughter.
"The poor little woman is very sensitive, you know,
Alicia," the baronet said gravely, "and she feels your
conduct most acutely."
"I don't believe it a bit, papa," answered Alicia
stoutly. "You think her sensitive because she has soft
little white hands, and big blue eyes with long lashes,
and all manner of affected, fantastical ways, which you
stupid men call fascinating. Sensitive! Why, I've seen
her do cruel things with those slender white fingers,
and laugh at the pain she inflicted. I'm very sorry,
papa," she added, softened a little by her father's look
of distress; "though she has come between us, and
robbed poor Alicia of the love of that dear, generous
heart, I wish I could like her for your sake; but I
can't, I can't, and no more can Caesar. She came up


150
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
to him onco -with her red lips apart, and her little
white teeth glistening between them, and stroked his
great head with her soft hand; but if I had not had
hold of his collar, he would have flown at her throat
and strangled her. She may bewitch every man in
Essex, but she'd never make friends with my dog."
"Your dog shall be shot," answered Sir Michael
angrily, "if his vicious temper ever endangers Lucy."
The Newfoundland rolled his eyes slowly round in
the direction of the speaker, as if he understood every
word that had been said. Lady Audley happened to
enter the room at this very moment, and the animal
cowered down by the side of his mistress with a sup-
pressed growl. There was something in the manner of
the dog which was, if anything, more indicative of
terror than of fury, incredible as it appears that Caesar
should be frightened of so fragile a creature as Lucy
Audley.
Amiable as was my lady's nature, she could not
live long at the Court without discovering Alicia's
dislike to her. She never alluded to it but once; then
shrugging her graceful white shoulders, she said with
a sigh:
"It seems very hard that you cannot love me, Alicia,
for I have never been used to make enemies; but since
it seems that it must be so, I cannot help it. If we
cannot be friends, let us at least be neutral. You won't
try to injure me?"
"Injure you!" exclaimed Alicia; "how should I in-
jure you?"


phcebe's suitor.
151
"You'll not try to deprive me of your father's
affection?"
"I may not be as amiable as you are, my lady,
and I may not have the same sweet smiles and pretty
words for every stranger I meet, but I am not capable
of a contemptible meanness; and even if I were,
I think you are so secure of my father's love, that
nothing but your own act will ever deprive you
of it."
"What a severe creature you are, Alicia!" said
my lady, making a little grimace. "I suppose you
mean to infer by all that, that I'm deceitful. Why,
I can't help smiling at people, and speaking prettily
to them. I know I'm no better than the rest of the
world, but I can't help 1t 1f I'm pfectsantev. It's con*
stitutional."
Alicia having thus entirely shut the door upon all
intimacy between Lady Audley and herself, and Sir
Michael being chiefly occupied in agricultural pursuits
and manly sports, which kept him away from home,
it was, perhaps, only natural that my lady, being of
an eminently social disposition, should find herself
thrown a good deal upon her white-eyelashed maid for
society.
Phoebe Marks was exactly the sort of girl who is
generally promoted from the post of lady's-maid to
that of companion. She had just sufficient education
to enable her to understand her mistress when Lucy
chose to allow herself to run riot in a species of in-
tellectual tarantella, in which her tongue went mad to


152
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
the sound of its own rattle as the Spanish dancer at
the noise of his castanets. Phoehe knew enough of
the French language to be able to dip into the yellow-
paper-covered novels which my lady ordered from the
Burlington Arcade, and to discourse with her mistress
upon the questionable subjects of those romances. The
likeness which the lady's-maid bore to Lucy Audley
was, perhaps, a point of sympathy between the two
women. It was not to be called a striking likeness;
a stranger might have seen them both together, and
yet have failed to remark it. But there were certain
dim and shadowy lights in which, meeting Phoebe
Marks gliding softly through the dark oak passages
of the Court, or under the shrouded avenues in the
garden, you might have easily mistaken her for my
lady.
Sharp October winds were sweeping the leaves
from the limes in the long avenue, and driving them
in withered heaps with a ghostly rustling noise along
the dry gravel walks. The old well must have been
half choked up with the leaves that drifted about it,
and whirled in eddying circles into its black, broken
mouth. On the still bosom of the fish-pond the same
withered leaves slowly rotted away, mixing themselves
with the tangled weeds that discoloured the surface of
the water. All the gardeners Sir Michael could employ
could not keep the impress of autumn's destroying hand
from the grounds about the Court.
"How I hate this desolate month!" my lady said,
as she walked about the garden, shivering beneath her


phcebe's su1tor.
153
gable mantle. "Everything dropping to ruin and de-
cay, and the cold flicker of the sun lighting up ,the
ugliness of the earth, as the glare of gas-lamps lights
the wrinkles of an old woman. Shall I ever grow old,
Phoebe? Will my hair ever drop off as the leaves are
falling from those trees, and leave mo wan and bare
like them? What is to become of me when I grow
old?"
She shivered at the thought of this more than she
had done at the cold wintry breeze, and muffling her-
self closely in her fur, walked so fast, that her maid
had some difficulty iu keeping up with her.
"Do you remember, Phoebe," she said presently,
relaxing her pace, "do you remember that French
story we read — the story of a beautiful woman who
committed some crime — I forget what — in the zenith
of her power and loveliness, when all Paris drank to
her every night, and when the people ran away from
the carriage of the king to flock about hers, and get a
peep at her face? Do you remember how she kept
the secret of what she had done for nearly half a cen-
tury, spending her old age in her family chateau, be-
loved and honoured by all the province, as an un-
canonised saint and benefactress to the poor; and how,
when her hair was white, and her eyes almost blind
with age, the secret was revealed through one of those
strange accidents by which such secrets always are re-
vealed in romances, and she was tried, found guilty,
and condemned to be burned alive? The kipg who
had worn her colours was dead and gone; the court of


154
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
which she had been the star had passed away; power-
ful functionaries and great magistrates, who might
perhaps have helped her, were mouldering in their
graves; brave young cavaliers, who would have died
for her, had fallen upon distant battle-fields; she had
lived to see the age to which she had belonged fade
like a dream; and she went to the stake, followed
only by a few ignorant country people, who forgot
all her bounties, and hooted at her for a wicked
sorceress."
"I don't care for such dismal stories, my lady,"
said Phoebe Marks with a shudder. "One has no
need to read books to give one the horrors in this dull
place."
Lady Audley shrugged her shoulders and laughed
at her maid's candour.
"It is a dull place, Phoebe," she said, "though it
doesn't do to say so to my dear old husband. Though
I am the wife of one of the most influential men in the
county, I don't know that I wasn't nearly as well off
at Mr. Dawson's; and yet it's something to wear sables
that cost sixty guineas, and have a thousand pounds
spent on the decorations of one's apartments."
Treated as a companion by her mistress, in the
receipt of the most liberal wages, and with perquisites
such as perhaps no lady's-maid ever had before, it was
strange that Phoebe Marks should wish to leave her
situation; but it was not the less a fact that she was
anxious to exchange all the advantages of Audley


phcebe's suitor.
155
Court for the very unpromising prospect which awaited
her as the wife of her cousin Luke.
The young man had contrived in some manner to
associate himself with the improved fortunes of his
sweetheart . He had never allowed Phoebe any peace
till she obtained for him, by the aid of my lady's in-
terference, a situation as under-groom at the Court.
He never rode out with either Alicia or Sir
Michael; but on one of the few occasions upon which
my lady mounted the pretty little grey thoroughbred
reserved for her use, he contrived to attend her in her
ride. He saw enough, in the very first half hour they
were out, to discover that, graceful as Lucy Audley
might look in her long blue cloth habit, she was a
timid horsewoman, and utterly unable to manage the
animal she rode.
Lady Audley remonstrated with her maid upon her
folly in wishing to marry the uncouth groom.
The two women were seated together over the fire
in my lady's dressing-room, the grey sky closing in
upon the October afternoon, and the black tracery of
ivy darkening the casement windows.
"You surely are not in love with the awkward,
ugly creature, are you, Phoebe?" asked my lady
sharply.
The girl was sitting on a low stool at her mis-
tress's feet . She did not answer my lady's question
immediately, but sat for some time looking vacantly
into the red abyss in the hollow fire.


156
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
Presently she said, rather as if she had been think-
ing aloud than answering Lucy's question —
"I don't think I can love him. Wo have been
together from children, and I promised, when I was
little better than fifteen, that I'd be his wife. I daren't
break that promise now. There have been times when
I've made up the very sentence I meant to say to him,
telling him that I couldn't keep my faith with him;
but the words have died upon my lips, and I've sat
looking at him, with a choking sensation in my throat
that wouldn't let me speak. I daren't refuse to marry
him. I've often watched and watched him, as he has
sat slicing away at a hedge-stake with his great clasp-
knife, till I have thought that it is just such men as
he who have decoyed their sweethearts into lonely
places, and murdered them for being false to their
word. When he was a boy he was always violent and
revengeful. I saw him once take up that very knife
in a quarrel with his mother. I tell you, my lady, I
must marry him."
"You silly girl, you shall do nothing of the kind!"
answered Lucy. "You think he'll murder you, do
you? Do you think, then, if murder is in him, you
would be any safer as his wife? If you thwarted him,
or made him jealous; if he wanted to marry another
woman, or to get hold of some poor, pitiful bit of
money of yours, couldn't he murder you then? I tell
you you shan't marry him, Phoebe. In the first place,
I hate the man; and, in the next place, I can't afford


phcebe's suitor.
157
to part with you. We'll givo him a few pounds and
send him about his business."
Phoebe Marks caught my lady's hands in hers, and
clasped them convulsively.
"My lady — my good, kind mistress!" she cried
vehemently, "don't try to thwart me in this — don't
ask me to thwart him. I tell you I must marry him.
You don't know what he is. It will be my ruin, and
the ruin of others, if I break my word. I must marry
him!"
"Very well, then, Phoebe," answered her mistress,
"I can't oppose you. There must be some secret at
the bottom of all this."
"There is, my lady," said the girl, with her face
turned away from Lucy.
"I shall be very sorry to lose you; but I have pro-
mised to stand your friend in all things. What does
your cousin mean to do for a living when you are
married?"
"He would like to take a public-house."
"Then he shall take a public-house, and the sooner
he drinks himself to death the better. Sir Michael
dines at a bachelor's party at Major Margrave's this
evening, and my step-daughter is away with her friends
at the Grange. You can bring your cousin into the
drawing-room after dinner, and I'll tell him what I
mean to do for him."
"You are very good, my lady," Phoebe answered
with a sigh.
Lady Audley sat in the glow of firelight and wax


158
LADY AUDLBY'S SECItET.
caudles in the luxurious drawing-room; the amber
damask cushions of the sofa contrasting with her dark
violet velvet dress, and her rippling hair falling about
her neck in a golden haze. Everywhere around her
were the evidences of wealth and splendour; while in
strange contrast to all this, and to her own beauty,
the awkward groom stood rubbing his bullet head as
my lady explained to him what she meant to do for
her confidential maid. Lucy's promises were very
liberal, and she had expected that, uncouth as the man
was, he would in his own rough manner have expressed
his gratitude.
To her surprise he stood staring at the floor with-
out uttering a word in answer to her offer. Phoebe
was standing close to his elbow, and seemed distressed
at the man's rudeness.
"Tell my lady how thankful you are, Luke," she
said.
"But I'm not so over and above thankful," an-
swered her lover savagely. "Fifty pound ain't much
to start a public. You'll make it a hundred, my
lady."
"I shall do nothing of the kind," said Lady Aud-
ley, her clear blue eyes flashing with indignation, "and
I wonder at your impertinence in asking it."
"Oh yes, you will though," answered Luke, with
quiet insolence, that had a hidden meaning. "You'll
make it a hundred, my lady."
Lady Audley rose from her seat, looked the man
steadfastly in the face till his determined gaze sank


phoibe's su1tor.
159
under hers, then walking straight up to her maid, she
said in a high, piercing voice, peculiar to her in mo-
ments of intense agitation, "Phoebe Marks, you have
told this man!"
The girl fell on her knees at my lady's feet.
"Oh, forgive me, forgive me!" she cried. "He
forced it from me, or I would never, never have
told I"


160
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
CHAPTER XV.
On tho Watch.
Upon a lowering morning late in November, with
the yellow fog low upon the flat meadows, and the
blinded cattle groping their way through the dim
obscurity, and blundering stupidly against black and
leafless hedges, or stumbling into ditches, undistinguish-
able in the hazy atmosphere; with the village church
looming brown and dingy through the uncertain light;
with every winding path and cottage door, every gable-
end and grey old chimney, every village child and
straggling cur, seeming strange and weird of aspect in
the semi-darkness, Phoebe Marks and her cousin Luke
made their way through the churchyard of Audley,
and presented themselves before a shivering curate,
whose surplice hung in damp folds, soddened by the
morning mist, and whose temper was not improved by
his having waited five minutes for the bride and bride-
groom.
Luke Marks, dressed in his ill-fitting Sunday
clothes, looked by no means handsomer than in his
every-day apparel; but Phoebe, arrayed in a rustling
silk of delicate grey, that had been worn about half a
dozen times by her mistress, looked, as the few spec-
tators of the ceremony remarked, quite the lady.
A very dim and shadowy lady; vague of outline,


ON THE WATCH.
161
and faint of colouring; with eyes, hair, complexion,
and dress all melting into such pale and uncertain
shades that, in the obscure light of the foggy November
morning, a superstitious stranger might have mistaken
the bride for the ghost of some other bride, dead and
buried in the vaults below the church.
Mr. Luke Marks, the hero of the occasion, thought
very little of all this. He had secured the wife of his
choice, and the object of his life-long ambition — a
public-house. My lady had provided the seventy-five
pounds necessary for the purchase of the good-will and
fixtures, with the stock of ales and spirits, of a small
inn in the centre of a lonely little village, perched on
the summit of'a hill, and called Mount S tanning. It
was not a very pretty house to look at; it had some-
thing of a tumble-down, weather-beaten appearance,
standing as it did upon high ground, sheltered only
by four or five bare and overgrown poplars, that had
shot up too rapidly for their strength, and had a
blighted, forlorn look in consequence. The wind had
had its own way with the Castle Inn, and had some-
times made cruel use of its power. It was the wind
that battered and bent the low, thatched roofs of out-
houses and stables, till they hung over and lurched
forward, as a slouched hat hangs over the low forehead
of some village ruffian; it was tho wind that shook
and rattled the wooden shutters before the narrow
casements, till they hung broken and dilapidated upon
their rusty hinges; it was the wind that overthrew the
pigeon-house, and broke, the vane that had been im-
inrfy Audtc1j's Secret. I. H


162
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
pudently set up to tell the movements of its mighti-
ness; it was the wind that made light of any little bit
of wooden trellis-work, or creeping plant, or tiny bal-
cony, or any modest decoration whatsoever, and tore
and scattered it in its scornful fury; it was the wind
that left mossy secretions on the discoloured surface of
the plaster walls; it was the wind, in short, that
shattered, and ruined, and rent, and trampled upon the
tottering pile of buildings, and then flew shrieking off,
to riot and glory in its destroying strength. The
dispirited proprietor grew tired of his long struggle
with this mighty enemy; so the wind was left to work
its own will, and the Castle Inn fell slowly to decay.
But for all that it suffered without, it was not the less
prosperous within doors. Sturdy drovers stopped to
drink at the little bar; well-to-do farmers spent their
evenings and talked politics in the low, wainscoted
parlour, while their horses munched some suspicious
mixture of mouldy hay and tolerable beans in the
tumble-down stables. Sometimes even the members of
the Audley hunt stopped "to drink and bait their horses
at the Castle Inn; while, on one grand and never-to-
be-forgotten occasion, a dinner had been ordered by
the master of the hounds for some thirty gentlemen,
and the proprietor driven nearly mad by the import-
ance of the demand.
So Luke Marks, who was by no means troubled
with an eye for the beautiful, thought himself very
fortunate in becoming landlord of the Castle Inn,
Mount Stanning.


ON THE WATCH. 163
A chaise-cart was waiting in the fog tc convey the
hride and bridegroom to their new home, and a few
of the simple villagers, who had known Phoebe from a
child, were lingering round the churchyard gate to bid
her good-by. Her pale eyes were still paler from the
tears she had shed, and the red rims which surrounded
them. The bridegroom was annoyed at this exhibition
of emotion.
"What are you blubbering for, lass?" he said
fiercely. "If you didn't want to marry me, you
should have told me so. I ain't going to murder you,
am I?"
The lady's-maid shivered as he spoke to her, and
dragged her little silk mantle closely round her.
"You're cold in all this here finery," said Luke,
staring at her costly dress with no expression of good-
will. "Why can't women dress according to their
station? You won't have no silk gowns out of my
pocket, I can tell you."
He lifted the shivering girl into the chaise, wrapped
a rough great-coat about her, and drove off through the
yellow fog, followed by a feeble cheer from two or
three urchins clustered round the gate.
A new maid was brought from London to replace
Phoebe Marks about the person of my lady — a very
showy damsel, who wore a black satin gown, and rose-
coloured ribbons in her cap, and complained bitterly
of the dulness of Audley Court.
But Christmas brought visitors to the rambling old
mansion. A country squire and his fat wife occupied
11*


.
164 LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
the tapestried chamber; merry girls scampered up and
down the long passages, and young men stared out of
the latticed windows watching for southerly winds and
cloudy skies; there was not an empty stall in the
roomy old stables; an extempore forge had been set
up in the yard for the shoeing of hunters; yelping
dogs made the place noisy with their perpetual clamour;
strange servants horded together on the garret storey;
and every little casement hidden away under some
pointed gable, and every dormer window in the quaint
old roof, glimmered upon the winter's night with its
separate taper, till, coming suddenly upon Audley Court,
the benighted stranger, misled by the light, and noise,
and bustle of the place, might have easily fallen into
young Marlowe's error, and have mistaken the hospitable
mansion for a good, old-fashioned inn, such as have
faded from this earth since the last mail coach and
prancing tits took their last melancholy journey to the
knacker's yard.
Amongst other visitors Mr. Robert Audley came
down to Essex for the hunting season, with half-a-
dozen French novels, a case of cigars, and three pounds
of Turkish tobacco in his portmanteau.
The honest young country squires, who talked all
breakfast time of Flying Dutchman fillies and Voltigenr
colts; of glorious runs of seven hours' hard riding over
threo counties, and a midnight homeward ride of thirty
miles upon their covert hacks; and who ran away from
the well-spread table with their mouths full of cold
sirloin to look at that off pastern, or that sprained fore-


OS THE WATCH.
165
arm, or the colt that had just come back from the
veterinary surgeon's, set down Mr. Robert Audley,
dawdling over a slice of bread and marmalade, as a
person utterly unworthy of any remark whatsoever.
The young barrister had brought a couple of dogs
with him; and the country gentleman who gave fifty
pounds for a pointer, and travelled a couple of hundred
miles to look at a leash of setters before he struck a
bargain, laughed aloud at the two miserable curs; one
of which had followed Robert Audley through Chancery
Lane and half the length of Holbom; while his com-
panion had been taken by the barrister vi et armis from
a costermonger who was ill-using him. And as Robert
furthermore insisted on having these two deplorable
animals under his easy-chair in the drawing-room,
much to the annoyance of my lady, who, as wo know,
hated all dogs, the visitors at Audley Court looked
upon the baronet's nephew as an inoffensive species of
maniac.
During other visits to the Court, Robert Audley
had made a feeble show of joining in the sports of the
merry assembly. He had jogged across half a dozeu
ploughed fields on a quiet grey pony of Sir Michael's,
and drawing up breathless and panting at the door of
some farm-house, had expressed his intention of follow-
ing the hounds no further that morning. He had even
gone so far as to put on, with great labour, a pair of
skates, with a view to taking a turn on the frozen
surface of the fish-pond, and had fallen ignominiously
at the first attempt, lying placidly extended on the Hat


1C6
LADY ATOLEY's SECRET.
of his back until such time as the bystanders should
think fit to pick him up. He had occupied the back
seat in a dog-cart during a pleasant morning drive,
vehemently protesting against being taken up-hill, and
requiring the vehicle to be stopped every ten minutes
for the re-adjustment of the cushions. But this year
he showed no inclination for any of these outdoor
amusements. He spent his time entirely in lounging
in the drawing-room, and making himself agreeable,
after his own lazy fashion, to my lady and Alicia.
Lady Audley received her nephew's attentions in
that graceful, half-childish fashion which her admirers
found so charming; but Alicia was indignant at the
change in her cousin's conduct.
"You were always a poor, spiritless fellow, Bob,"
said the young lady, contemptuously, as she bounced
into the drawing-room, in her riding habit, after a
hunting breakfast, from which Robert had absented
himself, preferring a cup of tea in my lady's boudoir;
"but this year I don't know what has come to you.
You are good for nothing but to hold a skein of silk
or read Tennyson to Lady Audley."
"My dear, hasty, impetuous Alicia, don't be violent,"
said the young man imploringly. "A conclusion isn't
a five-barred gate; and you needn't give your judgment
its head, as you give your mare, Atalanta, hers, when
you're flying across country at the heels of an unfor-
tunate fox. Lady Audley interests me, and my uncle's
county friends do not . la that a sufficient answer,
Alicia?"
•


ON THE WATCn.
1G7
Miss Audley gave her head a little scornful toss.
"It's as good an answer as I shall ever get from
you, Bob," she said impatiently; "but pray amuse
yourself in your own way; loll in an easychair all day,
with those two absurd dogs asleep on your knees;
spoil my lady's window-curtains with your cigars; and
annoy everybody in the house with your stupid, in-
animate countenance."
Mr. Robert Audley opened his handsome grey eyes
to their widest extent at this tirade, and looked help-
lessly at Miss Alicia.
The young lady was walking up and down the
room, slashing the skirt of her habit with her riding-
whip. Her eyes sparkled with an angry flash, and a
crimson glow burned under her clear brown skin. Tho
young barrister knew very well by these diagnostics,
that his cousin was in a passion.
"Yes," she repeated, "your stupid, inanimate coun-
tenance. Do you know, Robert Audley, that with all
your mock amiability, you are brimful of conceit and
superciliousness. You look down upon our amusements;
you lift up your eyebrows, and shrug your shoulders,
and throw yourself back in your chair, and wash your
hands of us and our pleasures. You are a selfish, cold-
hearted Sybarite —""
"Alicia! Good — gracious — me!"
The morning paper dropped out of his hands, and
he sat feebly staring at his assailant,
"Yes, sel/ish, Robert Audley! You take homo half-
starved dogs, because you like half-starved dogs. You


1G8
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
stoop down and pat the head of every good-for-nothing
cur in the village street, because you like good-for-
nothing curs. You notice little children, and give them
halfpence, because it pleases you to do so. But you
lift your eyebrows a quarter of a yard when poor Sir
Harry Towers tells a stupid story, and stare the poor
fellow out of countenance with your lazy insolence.
As to your amiability, you would let a man hit you,
and say 'Thank you' for the blow, rather than take
the trouble to hit him again; but you wouldn't go half
a mile out of your way to serve your dearest friend.
Sir Harry is worth twenty of you, though he did write
to ask if my ma-a-i-r, Atalanta, had recovered from
the sprain. He can't spell, or lift his eyebrows to the
roots of his hair; but he would go through fire and
water for the girl he loves; while you —"
At this very point, when Robert was most prepared
to encounter his cousin's violence, and when Miss
Alicia seemed about to make her strongest attack, tho
young lady broke down altogether and burst into
tears.
Robert sprang from bis easy-chair, upsetting his
dogs on the carpet.
"Alicia, my darling, what is it?"
"It's — it's — it's the feather of my hat that got
into my eyes," sobbed his cousin; and before Robert
could investigate the truth of this assertion Alicia had
darted out of the room.
Mr. Audley was preparing to follow her, when he
heard her voice in the courtyard below, amidst the


ON THE WATCH.
169
trampling of horses and the clamour of visitors, dogs,
and grooms. Sir Harry Towers, the most aristocratic
young sportsman in the neighbourhood, had just taken
her little foot in his hand as she sprang into her
saddle.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Robert, as he watched
the merry party of equestrians until they disappeared
under the archway. "What does all this mean? How
charmingly she sits her horse! What a pretty figure,
too, and a fine, candid, brown, rosy face; but to fly at
a fellow like that, without the least provocation! That's
the consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds.
She learns to look at everything in life as she does at
six feet of timber or a sunk fence; she goes through
the world as she goes across country — straight ahead,
and over everything. Such a nice girl as she might
have been, too, if she'd been brought up in Fig-tree
Court! If ever I marry, and have daughters (which
remote contingency may Heaven forefend!), they shall
be educated in Paper Buildings, take their sole exercise
in the Temple Gardens, and they shall never go beyond
the gates till they are marriageable, when I will take
them straight across Fleet Street to St. Dunstan's
Church, and deliver them into the hands of their hus-
bands."
With such reflections as these did Mr. Robert
Audley beguile the time until my lady re-entered the
drawing-room, fresh and radiant in her elegant morning
costume, her yellow curls glistening with the perfumed
waters in which she had bathed, and her velvet-covered


170
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
sketch-book in ber arms. She planted a little easel
upon a table by the window, seated herself before it,
and began to mix the colours upon her palette, Robert
watching her out of his half-closed eyes.
"You are sure my cigar does not annoy you, Lady
Audley?"
"Oh no, indeed; I am quite used to the smell of
tobacco. Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, smoked all the
evening when I lived in his house."
"Dawson is a good fellow, isn't he?" Robert asked
carelessly.
My lady burst into her pretty gushing laugh.
"The dearest of good creatures," she said. "He
paid me five-and-twenty pounds a year — only fancy
— that made six pounds five a quarter. How well I
remember receiving the money — six dingy old sover-
eigns, and a little heap of untidy, dirty silver, that
came straight from the till in the surgery! And then
how glad I was to get it; while now — I can't help
laughing while I think of it — these colours I am
using cost a guinea each at Windsor and Newton's —
the carmine and ultramarine thirty shillings. I gave
Mrs. Dawson one of my silk dresses the other day,
and the poor thing kissed me, and the surgeon carried
the bundle home under his cloak."
My lady laughed long and joyously at the thought.
Her colours were mixed; she was copying a water-
coloured sketch of an impossibly beautiful Italian
peasant, in an impossibly Turneresque atmosphere.
The sketch was nearly finished, and she had only to


ON THE WATCH. i^"
put in some critical little touches with the most deli-
cate of her sable pencils. She prepared herself
daintily for the work, looking sideways at the
painting.
All this time Mr. Robert Audley's eyes were fixed
intently on her pretty face.
"It is a change," he said, after so long a pause
that my lady might have forgotten what she had been
talking of; "it is a change! Some women would do a
great deal to accomplish such a change as that."
Lucy Audley's clear blue eyes dilated as she fixed
them suddenly on the young barrister. The winter
sunlight, gleaming full upon her face from a side win-
dow, lit up the azure of those beautiful eyes, till their
colour seemed to flicker and tremble betwixt blue and
green, as the opal tints of the sea change upon a sum-
mer's day. The small brush fell from her hand, and
blotted out the peasant's face under a widening circle
of crimson lake.
Robert Audley was tenderly coaxing the crumpled
leaf of his cigar with cautious fingers.
"My friend at the corner of Chancery Lane has
not given me such good Manillas as usual," he mur-
mured. "If ever you smoke, my dear aunt (and I am
told that many women take a quiet weed under the
rose), be very careful how you choose your cigars."
My lady drew a long breath, picked up her brush,
and laughed aloud at Robert's advice.
"What an eccentric creature you are, Mr. Audley!
Do you know that you sometimes puzzle me"


LADY AUDLEY'S SECEET.
"Not more than you puzzle me, my dear aunt."
My lady put away her colours and sketch-book,
and seating herself in the deep recess of another win-
dow at a considerable distance from Robert Audley
settled herself to a large piece of Berlin-wool work —
a piece of embroidery which the Penelopes of ten or
twelve years ago were very fond of exercising their
ingenuity upon — the Olden Time at Bolton Abbey.
Seated in the embrasure of this window, my lady
was separated from Robert Audley by the whole length
of the room, and the young man could only catch an
occasional glimpse of her fair face, surrounded by its
bright aureole of hazy golden hair.
Robert Audley had been a week at the Court, but
as yet neither he nor my lady had mentioned the
name of George Talboys.
This morning, however, after exhausting the usual
topics of conversation, Lady Audley made an inquiry
about her nephew's friend — "that Mr. George —
George "she said, hesitating.
"Talboys," suggested Robert.
"Yes, to be sure — Mr. George Talboys. Rather
a singular name by-the-by, and certainly, by all
accounts, a very singular person. Have you seen him
lately?"
"I have not seen him since the 7th of September
— tho day upon which he left me asleep in the mea-
dows on the other side of the village."
"Dear me!" exclaimed my lady, "what a strange


ON THE WATCH.
173
young man this Mr. George Talboys must be! Pray
tell me all about it."
Robert told, in a few words, of his visit to South-
ampton, and his journey to Liverpool, with their
different results, my lady listening very attentively.
In order to tell this story to better advantage, the
young man left his chair, and crossing the room, took
up his place opposite to Lady Audley in the embrasure
of the window.
"And what do you infer from all this?" asked my
lady after a pause.
"It is so great a mystery to me," he answered,
"that I scarcely dare to draw any conclusion what-
ever; but in the obscurity I think I can grope my
way to two suppositions, which to me seem almost
certainties."
"And they are"
"First, that George Talboys never went beyond
Southampton. Secondly, that he never went to South-
ampton at all."
"But you traced him there. His father-in-law had
seen him."
"I have reason to doubt his father-in-law's in-
tegrity."
"Good gracious me!" cried my lady, piteously.
"What do you mean by all this?"
"Lady Audley," answered the young man gravely,
"I have never practised as a barrister. I have enrolled
myself in the ranks of a profession, the members of
which hold solemn responsibilities, and have sacred


174
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
duties to perform; and I have shrunk from those re-
sponsibilities and duties, as I have from all the fatigues
of this troublesome life: but we are sometimes forced
iuto the very position we have most avoided, and I
have found myself lately compelled to think of these
things. Lady Audley, did you ever study the theory
of circumstantial evidence?"
"How can you ask a poor little woman about such
horrid things?" exclaimed my lady.
"Circumstantial evidence," continued the young
man, as if he scarcely heard Lady Audley's interrup-
tion, "that wonderful fabric which is built out of
straws collected at every point of the compass, and
which is yet strong enongh to hang a man. Upon
what infinitesimal trifles may sometimes hang the whole
secret of some wicked mystery, inexplicable heretofore
to the wisest upon the earth! A scrap of paper; a
shred of some torn garment; the button off a coat; a
word dropped incautiously from the over-cautious lips
of guilt; the fragment of a letter; the shutting or
opening of a door; a shadow on a window-blind; the
accuracy of a moment; a thousand circumstances ho
slight as to be forgotten by the criminal, but links of
steel in the wonderful chain forged by the science of
the detective officer; and lo! the gallows is built up;
the solemn bell tolls through the dismal grey of the
early morning; the drop creaks under the guilty feet;
and the penalty of crime is paid."
Faint shadows of green and crimson fell upon
my lady's face from the painted escutcheons in the


ON TOE WATCH.
175
mullioned window by which she sat; but every trace of
the natural colour of that face had faded out, leaving
it a ghastly ashen grey.
Sitting quietly in her chair, her head fallen back
upon the amber damask cushions, and her little hands
lying powerless in her lap, Lady Audley had fainted
away.
"The radius grows narrower day by day," said
Robert Audley. "George Talboys never reached South-
ampton."


17G
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
CHAPTER XVI.
Robort Audloy gets bis Conga1.
The Christmas week was over, and one by one
the country visitors dropped away from Audley Court.
The fat squire and his wife abandoned the grey,
tapestried chamber, and left the black-browed warriors
looming from the wall to scowl upon and threaten new
guests, or to glare vengefully upon vacancy. The
merry girls on the second storey packed, or caused to
be packed, their trunks and imperials, and tumbled
gauze ball-dresses were taken home that had been
brought fresh to Audley. Blundering old family
chariots, with horses whose untrimmed fetlocks told of
rougher work than even country roads, were brought
round to the broad space before the grim oak door,
and laden with chaotic heaps of womanly luggage.
Pretty rosy faces peeped out of the carriage windows
to smile the last farewell upon the group at the hall
door, as the vehicle rattled and rumbled under the
ivied archway. Sir Michael was in request every-
where. Shaking hands with the young sportsmen;
kissing the rosy-cheeked girls; sometimes even em-
bracing portly matrons who came to thank him for
their Ipleasant visit; everywhere genial, hospitable,
generous, happy, and beloved, the baronet hurried
from room to room, from the hall to the stables, from


ROBERT AUDLEY GETS HIS CONGÉ.
177
the stables to the courtyard, from the courtyard to the
arched gateway, to speed the parting guest.
My lady's yellow curls flashed hither and thither
like wandering gleams of sunshine on these busy days
of farewell. Her great blue eyes had a pretty, mourn-
ful look, in charming unison with the soft pressure of
her little hand, and that friendly, though perhaps
rather stereotyped speech, in which she told her visi-
tors how she was so sorry to lose them, and how she
didn't know what she should do till they came once
more to enliven the Court by their charming society.
But however sorry my lady might be to lose her
visitors, there was at least one guest whose society she
was not deprived of. Robert Audley showed no inten-
tion whatever of leaving his uncle's house. He had no
professional duties, he said; Fig-tree Court was delight-
fully shady in hot weather, but there was a sharp corner
round which the wind came in the winter months, armed
with avenging rheumatisms and influenzas. Everybody
was so good to him at the Court, that really he had
no inclination to hurry away.
Sir Michael had but one angwer to this: "Stay, my
dear boy; stay, my dear Bob, as long as ever you like.
I have no son, and you stand to me in the place of
one. Make yourself agreeable to Lucy, and make the
Court your home as long as you live.”
To which Robert would merely reply by grasping
his uncle's hand vehemently, and muttering something
about "a jolly old prince.”
It was to be observed that there was sometimes a
Lady Audley's Secret. l.
12


178
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
certain vague sadness in the young man's tone when
he called Sir Michael "a jolly old prince;" some shadow
of affectionate regret that brought a mist into Robert's
eyes, as he sat in a corner of the room looking thought-
fully at the white-bearded baronet.
Before the last of the young sportsmen departed,
Sir Harry Towers demanded and obtained an interview
with Miss Alicia Andley in the oak library — an inter-
view in which considerable emotion was displayed by
the stalwart young foxhunter; so much emotion, indeed,
and of such a genuine and honest character, that Alicia
fairly broke down as she told him that she should for
ever esteem and respect him for his true and noble
heart, but that he must never, never, never, unless he
wished to cause her the most cruel distress, ask more
from her than this esteem and respect.
Sir Harry left the library by the French window
opening into the pond-garden. He strolled into that
very lime-walk which George Talboys had compared
to an avenue in a churchyard, and under the leafless
trees fought the battle of his brave young heart.
"What a fool I am to feel it like this!" he cried,
stamping his foot upon the frosty ground. "I always
knew it would be so; I always knew that she was a
hundred times too good for me. God bless her! How
nobly and tenderly she spoke; how beautiful she looked
with the crimson blushes under her brown skin, and
the tears in her big grey eyes — almost as handsome as
the day she took the sunk fence, and let me put the
brush in her hat as we rode home! God bless her! I


UOBERT AUDLEY OET8 HIS CONtti. 179
can get over anything as long as she doesn't care for
that sneaking lawyer. But I couldn't stand that."
That sneaking lawyer, by which appellation Sir
Harry alluded to Mr. Robert Audley, was standing in
the hall, looking at a map of the midland counties,
when Alicia came out of the library, with red eyes,
after her interview with the fox-hunting baronet.
Robert, who was short-sighted, had his eyes within
half an inch of the surface of the map as the young
lady approached him.
"Yes," he said, "Norwich is in Norfolk, and that
fool, young Vincent, said it was in Herefordshire. Ha,
Alicia, is that you?"
He turned round so as to intercept Miss Audley
on her way to the staircase.
"Yes," replied his cousin curtly, trying to pass
him.
"Alicia, you've been crying?"
The young lady did not condescend to reply.
"You've been crying, Alicia. Sir Harry Towers,
of Towers Park, in the county of Herts, has been
making you an offer of his hand, eh?"
"Have you been listening at the door, Mr. Audley?"
"I have not, Miss Audley. On principle I object
to listen, and in practice I believe it to be a very
troublesome proceeding; but I am a barrister, Miss
Alicia, and able to draw a conclusion by induction.
Do you know what inductive evidence is, Miss
Audley?"
"No," replied Alicia, looking at her cousin as a
12*


180
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
handsome young panther might look at its daring tor-
mentor.
"I thought not. I dare say Sir Harry would ask
if it was a new kind of horse-ball. I knew by induc-
tion that the baronet was going to mako you an offer;
first, because he came down stairs with his hair parted
on the wrong side, and his face as pale as the table-
cloth; secondly, because he couldn't eat any breakfast,
and let his coffee go the wrong way; and, thirdly, be-
cause he asked for an interview with you before he left
the Court. Well, how's it to be, Alicia? Do wo marry
the baronet, and is poor Cousin Bob to be best man at
the wedding?"
"Sir Harry Towers is a noble-hearted young man,"
said Alicia, still trying to pass her cousin.
"But do we accept him — yes or no? Are we to
be Lady Towers, with a superb estate in Hertfordshire,
summer quarters for our hunters, and a drag with out-
riders to drive us across to papa's place in Essex? Is
it to be so, Alicia, or not?"
"What is that to you, Mr. Robert Audley?" cried
Alicia passionately. "What do you care what becomes
of me, and whom I marry? If I married a chimney-
sweep, you'd only lift up your eyebrows and say, 'Bless
my soul, sbe was always eccentric' I have refused Sir
Harry Towers; but when I think of his generous and
unselfish affection, and compare it with the heartless,
lazy, selfish, supercilious indifference of other men, I've
a good mind to run after him, and tell him—"
"That you'll retract, and bo my Lady Towers?"


EOBBET AUDLEY GETS HIS CONGE.
181
"Yes."
"Then don't, Alicia, don't," said Robert Audley,
grasping his cousin's slender little wrist, and leading
her upstairs. "Come into the drawing-room with me,
Alicia, my poor little cousin; my charming, impetuous,
alarming little cousin. Sit down here in this mullioned
window, and let us talk seriously, and leave off quar-
relling, if we can."
The cousins had the drawing-room all to them-
selves. Sir Michael was out, my lady in her own
apartments, and poor Sir.Harry Towers walking up
and down upon the gravel walk, darkened with the
flickering shadows of the leafless branches in the cold
winter sunshine.
"My poor little Alicia," said Robert, as tenderly
as if he had been addressing some spoiled child, "do
you suppose that because people don't wear vinegar
tops, or part their hair on the wrong side, or conduct
themselves altogether after the manner of well-meaning
maniacs, by way of proving the vehemence of their
passion — do you suppose because of this, Alicia
Audley, that they may not be just as sensible of the
merits of a dear little, warm-hearted, and affectionate
girl as ever their neighbours can be? Life is such a
very troublesome matter, when all is said and done,
that it's as well even to take its blessings quietly. I
don't make a groat howling because I can get good
cigars one door from the corner of Chancery Lane, and
have a dear, good girl for my cousin; but I am not
tho less grateful to Providence that it is so."


182
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
Alicia opened her grey eyes to their widest extent,
looking her cousin full in the face with a bewildered
stare. Robert had picked up the ugliest and leanest
of his attendant curs, and was placidly stroking the
animal's ears.
"Is this all you have to say to me, Robert?" Miss
Audley asked, meekly.
"Well, yes, I think so," replied her cousin, after
considerable deliberation. "I fancy that what I wanted
to say was this — don't marry the fox-hunting baronet,
if you like anybody else better; for if you'll only be
patient, and take life easily, and try and reform your-
self of banging doors, bouncing in and out of rooms,
talking of the stables, and riding across country, I've
no doubt the person you prefer will make you a very
excellent husband."
"Thank you, cousin," said Miss Audley, crimsoning
with bright indignant blushes up to the roots of her
waving brown hair; "but as you may not know the
person I prefer, I think you had better not take upon
yourself to answer for him."
Robert pulled the dog's ears thoughtfully for some
moments.
"No, to be sure," he said, after a pause. "Of
course, if I don't know him — but I thought I did."
"Did you!" exclaimed Alicia; and opening the door
with a violence that made her cousin shiver, she bounced
out of the drawing-room.
"I only said I thought I knew him," Robert called
aftor her; and then, as he sank into an easy-chair, ho


ROBERT AUDLEY GETS HIS CONOfi.
183
murmured thoughtfully, "Such a nice girl, too, if she
didn't bounce!"
So poor Sir Harry Towers rode away from Audley
Court, looking very crestfallen and dismal.
He had very little pleasure now in returning to
the stately mansion hidden among sheltering oaks and
venerable beeches. The square, red-brick house gleam-
ing at the end of a long arcade of leafless trees was to
be for ever desolate, he thought, since Alicia would
not come to be its mistress.
A hundred improvements planned and thought of
were dismissed from his mind as useless now. The
hunter that Jim the trainer was breaking in for a
lady; the two pointer pups that were being reared for
the next shooting season; the big black retriever that
would have carried Alicia's parasol; the pavilion in
the garden, disused since his mother's death, but which
he had meant to have restored for Miss Audley — all
these things were now so much vanity and vexation of
spirit.
"What's the good of being rich, if one has no one
to help spend one's money?" said the young baronet
.
"One only grows a selfish beggar, and takes to drink-
ing too much port. It's a hard thing that a girl can
refuse a true heart and such stables as we've got at
the park. It unsettles a man somehow."
Indeed, this unlooked-for rejection had very much
unsettled the few ideas which made up the small sum
of the young baronet's mind.
He had been desperately in love with Alicia ever


184
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
since the last hunting season, when he had met her at
a county ball. His passion, cherished through the
slow monotony of a summer, had broken out afresh in
the merry winter months, and the young man's mau-
vaise honte alone had delayed the offer of his hand.
But he had never for a moment supposed that he
would be refused; he was so used to the adulation of
mothers who had daughters to marry, and of even the
daughters themselves; he had been so accustomed to
feel himself the leading personage in an assembly,
although half the wits of the age had been there, and
he could only say, "Haw, to be sure!" and "By
Jove!" he had been so spoiled by the flatteries of
bright eyes that had looked, or seemed to look, the
brighter when he drew near, that without being pos-
sessed of one shadow of personal vanity, ho had yet
come to think that he had only to make an offer to
the prettiest girl in Essex, to behold himself imme-
diately accepted.
"Yes," he would say complacently to some admi-
ring satellite, "I know I'm a good match, and I know
what makes the gals so civil. They're very pretty,
and they're very friendly to a fellow; but I don't care
about 'em. They're all alike — they can only drop
their eyes and say, 'Lor, Sir Harry, and why do you
call that curly black dog a retriever?' or, 'Oh, Sir
Harry, and did the poor mare really sprain her pastern
shoulder-blade?' I haven't got much brains myself, I
know," the baronet would add deprecatingly; "and I
don't want a strong-minded woman, who writes books


EOBERT AUDLBY GETS HIS CONGE. 185
and wears green spectacles-, but, hang it! I like a
girl who knows what she's talking about."
So when Alicia said "No," or rather, made that
pretty speech about esteem and respect, which well-
bred young ladies substitute for the obnoxious mono-
syllable, Sir Harry Towers felt that the whole fabric
of the future he had built up so complacently was
shivered into a heap of dingy ruins.
Sir Michael grasped him warmly by the hand just
before the young man mounted his horse in the court-
yard.
"I'm very sorry, Towers," he said. ''You're as
good a fellow as ever breathed, and would have made
my girl an excellent husband; but you know there's a
cousin, and I think that —"
"Don't say that, Sir Michael," interposed the fox-
hunter energetically. "I can get over anything but
that . A fellow whoso hand upon the curb weighs half
a ton (why, he pulled the Cavalier's mouth to pieces,
Sir, the day you let him ride the horse); a fellow who
turns his collars down, and eats bread and marmalade!
No, no, Sir Michael; it's a queer world, but I can't
think that of Miss Audley. There must be somo ono
in the background, Sir: it can't be the cousin."
Sir Michael shook his head as the rejected suitor
rode away.
"I don't know about that," he muttered. "Bob's
a good lad, and the girl might do worse; but he hangs
back, as if ho didn't care for her. There's some mys-
tery — there's some mystery!"


166
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
The old baronet said this in that semi-thoughtful
tone with which we speak of other people's affairs.
The shadows of the early winter twilight, gathering
thickest nnder the low oak ceiling of the hall, and the
quaint curve of the arched doorway, fell darkly round
his handsome head; but the light of his declining life,
his beautiful and beloved young wife, was near him,
and he could see no shadows when she was by.
She came skipping through the hall to meet him,
and shaking her golden ringlets, buried her bright head
on her husband's breast
.
"So the last of our visitors is gone, dear, and we're
all alone," she said. "Isn't that nice?"
"Yes, darling," he answered fondly, stroking her
bright hair.
"Except Mr. Robert Audley. How long is that
nephew of yours going to stay here?"
"As long as he likes, my pet; he's always wel-
come," said the baronet; and then, as if remembering
himself, he added tenderly, "but not unless his visit is
agreeable to you, darling; not if his lazy habits, or
his smoking, or his dogs, or anything about him, is
displeasing to you."
Lady Audley pursed up her rosy lips, and looked
thoughtfully at the ground.
"It isn't that," she said hesitatingly. "Mr. Audley
is a very agreeable young man, and a very honourable
young man; but you know, Sir Michael, I'm rather a
young aunt for such a nephew, and —"
"And what, Lucy?" asked the baronet, fiercely.


ROBERT ATOLBY GETS HIS CONOE. 187
"Poor Alicia is rather jealous of any attention Mr.
Audley pays me, and — and — I think it would be
better for her happiness if your nephew were to bring-
his visit to a close."
"He shall go to-night, Lucy!" exclaimed Sir
Michael 'Tve been a blind, neglectful fool not to
have thought of this before. My lovely little darling,
it was scarcely just to Bob to expose the poor lad to
your fascinations. I know him to be as good and true-
hearted a fellow as ever breathed, but — but — he
shall go to-night."
"But you won't be too abrupt, dearl You won't
be rude?"
"Rude! No, Lucy. I left him smoking in the
lime-walk. I'll go and tell him that he must get out
of the house in an hour."
So in that leafless avenue, under whose gloomy
shade George Talboys had stood on that thunderous
evening before the day of his disappearance, Sir Michael
Audley told his nephew that the Court was no home
for him, and that my lady was too young and pretty
to accept the attentions of a handsome nephew of
eight-and-twenty.
Robert only shrugged his shoulders and elevated
his thick black eyebrows, as Sir Michael delicately
hinted all this.
"I have been attentive to my lady," he said. "She
interests me — strongly, strangely interests me;" and
then, with a change in his voice, and an emotion not
common to him, he turned to the baronet, and grasping


188
LADS' AUDU31TS SECRET.
Lis hand, exclaimed — "God forbid, my dear uncle,
that I should ever bring trouble upon such a noble
heart aa yours! God forbid that the lightest shadow of
dishonour should ever fall upon your honoured head
—. least of all through any agency of mine!"
The young man uttered these few words in a
broken and disjointed fashion in which Sir Michael
had uever heard him speak before, and then, turning
away his head, fairly broke down.
He left the Court that night, but he did not go far.
Instead of taking the evening train for London, he
went straight up to the little village of Mount Stanuing,
and walking into the neatly-kept inn, asked Phoebe
Marks if he could be accommodated with apartments.


IN THE CASTLE INN.
191
Her
CHAPTER XVII.
At the Castle Inn.
The little sitting-room into which Phoebe Marks
ushered the baronet's nephew was situated on the
ground floor, and only separated by a lath-and-plaster
partition from the little bar-parlour occupied by the
innkeeper and his wife.
It seemed as though the wise architect who had
superintended the building of the Castle Inn had taken
especial care that nothing but the frailest and most
flimsy material should be employed in its construction,
and that the wind, having a special fancy for this un-
protected spot, should have full play for the indulgence
of its caprices.
To this end pitiful woodwork had been used instead
of solid masonry; rickety ceilings had been propped
up by fragile rafters, and beams that threatened on
every stormy night to fall upon the heads of those
beneath them; doors whoso speciality was never to be
shut, yet always to be banging; windows constructed
with a peculiar view to letting in the draught when
they were closed, and keeping out the air when they
were open. The hand of genius had devised this lonely
country inn; and there was not an inch of wood-work,
or a trowelful of plaster employed in all the rickety


188
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
1"S -iWuction, that did not offer its own peculiar weak
t^ioint to every assault of its indefatigable foe.
Robert looked about him with a feeble smile of
resignation.
It was a change, decidedly, from the luxurious com-
forts of Audley Court, and it was rather a strange
fancy of the young barrister to prefer loitering at this
dreary village hostelry, to returning to his snug cham-
bers in Fig-tree Court.
But he had brought his Lares and Penates with
him, in the shape of his German pipe, his tobacco
canister, half a dozen French novels, and his two ill-
conditioned canine favourites, who sat shivering before
the smoky little fire, barking shortly and sharply
now and then, by way of hinting for some slight re-
freshment.
While Mr. Robert Audley contemplated his new
quarters, Phoebe Marks summoned a little village lad
who was in the habit of running errands for her, and
taking him into the kitchen, gave him a tiny note,
carefully folded and sealed.
"You know Audley Court?"
"Yes, Mum."
"If you'll run there with this letter to-night, and
see that it's put safely into Lady Audley's hands, I'll
give you a shilling."
"Yes, Mum."
"You understand? Ask to see my lady; you can
say you've a message — not a note, mind — but a


IN THE CASTLE INK.
191
message from Phoebe Marks; and when you see her
give this into her own hand."
"Yes, Mum."
"You won't forget?"
"No, Mum."
"Then be off with you."
The boy waited for no second bidding, but in
another moment was scudding along the hilly high
road, down the sharp descent that led to Audley.
Phoebe Marks went to the window, and looked out
at the black figure of the lad hurrying through the
dusky winter evening.
"If there's any bad meaning in his coming here,"
she thought, "my lady will know of it in time, at any
rate."
Phoebe herself brought the neatly-arranged tea-tray;
and the little covered dish of ham and eggs which had
been prepared for this unlooked-for visitor. Her pale
hair was as smoothly braided, and her light grey dress
fitted as precisely, as of old. The same neutral tints
pervaded her person and her dress; no showy rose-
coloured ribbons or rustling silk gown proclaimed the
well-to-do innkeeper's wife. Phoebe Marks was a per-
son who never lost her individuality. Silent and self-
contained, she seemed to hold herself within herself,
and take no colour from the outer world.
Robert looked at her thoughtfully as she spread
the cloth, and drew the table nearer to the fire-place.
"That," he thought, "is a woman who could keep
a secret."


192
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
The dogs looked rather suspiciously at the quiet
figure of Mrs. Marks gliding softly about the room,
from the teapot to the caddy, and from the caddy to
the kettle singing on the hob.
"Will you pour out my tea for me, Mrs. Marks?"
said Robert, seating himself in a horse-hair-covered
arm-chair, which fitted him as tightly in every direction
as if he had been measured for it.
"You have come straight from the Court, Sir?"
said Phoebe, as she handed Robert the sugar-basin.
"Yes; I only left my uncle's an hour ago."
"And my lady, Sir, was she quite well?"
"Yes, quite well."
"As gay and light-hearted as ever, Sir?"
"As gay and light-hearted as ever."
Phoebe retired respectfully after having given Mr.
Audley his tea, but as sho stood with her hand upon
the lock of the door he spoke again.
"You knew Lady Audley when she was Miss Lucy
Graham, did you not?" he asked.
"Yes, Sir. I lived at Mrs. Dawson's when my lady
was governess there."
"Indeed! Was she long in tho surgeon's family?"
"A year and a half, Sir."
"And sho came from London?"
"Yes, Sir."
"And she was an orphan, I believe?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Always as cheerful as she is now?"
"Always, Sir."


A.T THE CASTLE INS.
193
Robert emptied his teacup and handed it to Sirs.
Marks. Their eyes met — a lazy look in his, and an
active, searching glance in hers.
"This woman would be good in a witness-box," he
thought; "it would take a clever lawyer to bother her
in a cross-examination."
He finished his second cup of tea, pushed away his
plate, fed his dogs, and lighted his pipe, while Phoebo
carried off the tea-tray.
The wind came whistling up across the frosty open
country, and through the leafless woods, and rattled
fiercely at the window-frames.
"There's a triangular draught from those two
windows and the door that scarcely adds to the com-
fort of this apartment," murmured Robert; "and there
certainly are pleasanter sensations than that of standing
up to one's knees in cold water."
He poked the fire, patted his dogs, put on his
great-coat, rolled a rickety old sofa close to the
hearth, wrapped his legs in his railway rug, and
stretching himself at full length upon the narrow
horsehair cushion, smoked his pipe, and watched the
bluish-grey wreaths curling slowly upwards to the dingy
ceiling.
"No," he murmured again; "that is a woman who
can keep a secret. A counsel for the prosecution would
get very little out of her."
I have said that the bar-parlour was only separated
from the sitting-room occupied by Robert by a lath-
and-plaster partition. The young barrister could hear
lad], Audi /» Secret. I. 13


191
lady audley's skcuet.
the two or three village tradesmen auu a couple of
farmers laughing and talking round the har, while Luke
Marks served them from his stock of liquors.
Very often he could even hear their words, espe-
cially (he landlord's, for he spoke in a coarse, loud
voice, and had a more hoastful manner than any of
his customers.
"The man is a fool," said Robert, as he laid down
his pipe. "I'll go and talk to him by-and-by."
He waited till the few visitors to the Castle had
dropped away one by one, and, when Luko Marks had
bolted the front door uj>on the last of his customers,
he strolled quietly into the bar-parlour where the land-
lord was seated with his wife.
Phoebe was busy at a little table, upon which
stood a prim workbox, with every reel of cotton and
glistening steel bodkin in its appointed place. She
was darning the coarse grey stockings that adorned
her husband's awkward feet, but she did her work as
daintily as if they had been my lady's delicate silken
hose.
I say that she took no colour from external things,
and that the vague air of refinement that pervaded her
nature, clung to her as closely in the society of her
boorish husband at the Castle Inn, as in Lady Aud-
ley's fairy boudoir at the Court.
She looked up suddenly as Robert entered the bar-
parlour. Thero was some, shade of vexation in her
jjale grey eyes, which changed to an expression of


AT TOE CASTLE INN.
195
anxiety — nay, rather of almost terror — as she glanced
from Mr. Audley to Luke Marks.
"I have come in for a few minutes' chat before
I go to bed," said Robert, settling himself very com-
fortably before the cheerful fire. "Would you object
to a cigar, Mrs. Marks? I mean, of course, to my
smoking one," he added, explanatorily.
"Not at all, Sir."
"It would be a good 'un her objectin' to a bit o'
bacca," growled Mr. Marks, "when me and the customers
smokes all day."
Robert lighted his cigar with a gilt-paper match of
Phoebe's making that adorned the chimney piece, and
took half a dozen reflective puffs before he spoke.
"I want you to tell me all about Mount Stanuing,
Mr. Marks," he said presently.
"Then that's pretty soon told," replied Luke, with
a harsh, grating laugh. "Of all the dull holes as ever
a man set foot in, this is about the dullest. Not that
the business don't pay pretty tidy; I don't complain.of
that; but I should ha' liked a public at Chelmsford, or
Brentwood, or Romford, or some place where there's a
bit of life in the streets; and I might have had it," he
added, discontentedly, "if folks hadn't been so precious
stingy."
As her husband muttered this complaint in a
grumbling under-tone Phoebe looked up from her work
and spoke to him.
"We forgot the brewhouse door, Luke," she said.
13*


19C
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
"Will you come with me and help me put up the
bar?"
"The brewhouse door can bide for to-night," said
Mr. Marks; "I ain't agoin' to move now I've seated
myself for a comfortable smoke."
He took a long clay pipe from a corner of tho
fender as ho spoke, and began to fill it deliberately.
"I don't feel easy about that brewhouse door,
Luke," remonstrated his wife; "there are always
tramps about, and they can get in easily when the
bar isn't up."
"Go and put the bar up yourself, then, can't you?"
answered Mr. Marks.
"It's too heavy for me to lift."
"Then let it bide, if you're too fine a lady to see
to it yourself. You're very anxious all of a sudden
about this here brewhouse door. I suppose you don't
want me to open my month to this gent, that's about
it. Oh, you needn't frown at mo to stop my speaking!
You're always putting in your tongue and clipping off
my words before I've half said 'em; but I won't stand
it. Do you hear? I won't stand it!"
Phosbe Marks shrugged her shoulders, folded her
work, shut her workbox, and crossing her hands in her
lap, sat with her grey eyes fixed upon her husband's
bull-like face.
"Then you don't particularly care to live at Mount
Stanning?" said Robert, politely, as if anxious to
change the conversation.


AT THE CASTLE INN.
197
"No, I don't," answered Luke; "and I don't care
who knows it; and, as I said before, if folks hadn't
been so precious stingy, I might have had a public in
a thrivin' market town, instead of this tumble-down
old place, where a man has his hair blowed off hia
head on a windy day. What's fifty pound, or what's
a hundred pound —?"
"Luke! Luke!"
"No, you're not agoin' to stop my mouth with
all your 'Luke, Lukes!'" answered Mr. Marks to his
wife's remonstrance. "I say again, what's a hundred
pound?"
"No," answered Robert Audley, speaking with
wonderful distinctness, and addressing his words to
Luke Marks, but fixing his eyes upon Phoebe's
anxious face. "What, indeed, is a hundred pounds
to a man possessed of the power which you hold, or
rather which your wife holds, over the person in
question?"
Phoebe's face, at aH times almost colourless, seemed
scarcely capable of growing paler; but as her eyelids
drooped under Robert Audley's searching glance, a
visible change came over the pallid hues of her com-
plexion.
"A quarter to twelve," said Robert, looking at his
watch. "Late hours for such a quiet villago as Mount
Stanning. Good night, my worthy host. Good night,
Mrs. Marks. You needn't send me my shaving water
till nine o'clock to-morrow morning —"


ins
LADY AUDLBy's SECRET.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Robert receive! a Vl1ltor whom he had scarcely expected.
Eleven o'clock Htruck the next morning, and found
Mr. Kobert Audlcy still lounging over the well-ordered
little breakfast table, with one of bis dogs at each side
of his arm-chair, regarding him with watchful eyes and
opened mouth, awaiting the expected morsel of ham
or toast. Robert had a county paper on his knees, and
made a feeble effort now and then to read the first
page, which was filled with advertisements of farming
stock, quack medicines, and other interesting matter.
The weather had changed, and the snow, which
had for the last few days been looming blackly in the
frosty sky, fell in great feathery flakes against the
windows, and lay piled in the little bit of garden
ground without.
The long, lonely road leading towards Audley
seemed untrodden by a footstep, as Robert looked out
at the wintry landscape.
"Lively," he said, "for a man used to the fascina-
tions of Temple Bar!"
As he watched the snow-flakes falling every mo-
ment thicker and faster upon the lonely road, he was
surprised by seeing a brougham driving slowly up
the hill.
"I wonder what unhappy wretch has too restless a


ROBERT RECEIVES A VISITOR.
199
spirit to stop at home on such a morning as this,” he
muttered, as he returned to the arm-chair by the fire.
He had only reseated himself a few minutes when
Phæbe Marks entered the room to announce Lady
Audley.
"Lady Audley! Pray beg her to come in," said
Robert; and then, as Phæbe left the room to usher
in this unexpected visitor, he muttered, between his
teeth -
“A false move, my lady, and one I never looked
for from you."
Lucy Audley was radiant on this cold and snowy
January morning. Other people's noses are rudely
assailed by the sharp fingers of the grim ice-king, but
not my lady's; other people's lips turn pale and blue
with the chilling influence of the bitter weather, but
my lady's pretty little rosebud of a mouth retained its
brightest colouring and cheeriest freshness.
She was wrapped in the very sables which Robert
Audley had brought from Russia, and carried a muff
that the young man thought seemed almost as big as
herself.
She looked a childish, helpless, babyfied little
creature; and Robert watched her with some touch of
pity in his eyes, as she came up to the hearth by
which he was standing, and warmed her tiny gloved
hands at the blaze.
“What a morning, Mr. Audley," she said, "what
a morning!"


200
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
"Yes, indeed! Why did you come out in such
weather, Lady Audley?"
"Because I wished to see you — particularly."
"Indeed!"
"Yes," said my lady, with an air of considerable
embarrassment, playing with the button of her glove,
and almost wrenching it off in her restlessness— "yes,
Mr. Audley, I felt that you had not been well treated;
that — that you had, in short, reason to complain;
and that an apology was duo to you."
"I do not wish for any apology, Lady Audley."
"But you are entitled to one," answered my lady,
quietly. "Why, my dear Robert, should we be so
very ceremonious towards each other? You were very
comfortable at Audley; we wore very glad to have you
there; but my dear, silly husband must needs take it
into his foolish head that it is dangerous for his poor
little wife's peace of mind to have a nephew of eight
or nino and twenty smoking his cigars in her boudoir,
and, behold! our pleasant little family circle is
broken up."
Lucy Audley spoke with that peculiar childish
vivacity which seemed so natural to her. Robert
looked down almost sadly at her bright, animated
face.
"Lady Audley," he said. "Heaven forbid that
either you or I should ever bring grief or dishonour
upon my uncle's generous heart! Better perhaps, that
I should be out of the house — better, perhaps, that
I had never entered it!"


ROBERT RECEIVES A VISITOR.
201
My lady had been looking at the fire while her
nephew spoko, but at his last words she lifted her
head suddenly, and looked him full in the face with a
wondering expression — an earnest, questioning gaze,
whose full meaning the young barrister understood.
"Oh, pray do not bo alarmed, Lady Audley," he
said gravely. "You have no sentimental nonsense, no
silly infatuation, borrowed from Balzac or Dumas fils,
to fear from me. The benchers of the Inner Temple
will tell you that Robert Audley is troubled with none
of the epidemics whose outward signs are turn-down
collars and Byronic neckties. I say that I wish 1 had
never entered my uncle's houso during the last year;
but I say it with a far more solemn meaning than any
sentimental one."
My lady shrugged her shoulders.
"1£ you insist on talking in enigmas, Mr. Audley,"
she said, "you must forgive a poor little woman if she
declines to answer them."
Robert made no reply to this speech.
"But tell me," said my lady, with an entire change
of tone, "what could have induced you to come up to
this dismal place?"
"Curiosity."
"Curiosity!"
"Yes; I felt an interest in that bull-necked man,
with the dark Ted hair and wicked grey eyes. A dan-
gerous man, my lady — a man in whoso power 1 should
not like to be."
A sudden change came over Lady Audloy's face;


202
LADY AUDLEY'B SECRET.
the pretty roseate flush faded out from her cheeks, and
left them waxen white, and angry flashes lightened in
her blue eyes.
"What have I done to you, Robert Audloy," she
cried passionately — "what have I done to you that
you should hate mo so?"
Ho answered her very gravely, —
"I had a friend, Lady Audley, whom I loved very
dearly, and since I have lost him I fear that my feel-
ings towards other people are strangely embittered."
"You mean the Mr. Talboys who went to Austra-
lia?"
"Yes, I mean the Mr. Talboys who I was told
set out for Liverpool with the idea of going to
Australia."
"And you do not believe in his having sailed for
Australia?"
"I do not."
"But why not?"
"Forgive me, Lady Audloy, if I decline to answer
that question."
"As you please," she said carelessly.
"A week after my friond disappeared," continued
Robert, "I posted an advertisement to the Sydney and
Melbourne papers, calling upon him, if ho was in either
city when the advertisement appeared, to write and tell
me of his whereabouts, and also calling on any one
who had met him, either in the colonies or on the
voyage out, to give me any information respecting
him. George Talboys left Essex, or disappeared from


ROBERT RECEIVES A VISITOR.
203
Essex, on the 6th of September last. I ought to re-
ceive some answer to this advertisement by the end of
this month. To-day is the 27th: the time draws very
near."
"And if you receive no answer?" asked Lady
Audley.
"If I receive no answer I shall think that my fears
have been not unfounded, and I shall do my best to
act."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Ah, Lady Audley, you remind me how very
powerless I am in this matter. My friend might have
been made away with in this very inn, stabbed to
death upon this hearth-stone on which I now stand,
and I might stay here for a twelve-month, and go
away at the last as ignorant of his fate as if I had
never crossed the threshold. What do we know of the
mysteries that may hang about the houses we enter?
If I were to go to-morrow into that common-place,
plebeian, eight-roomed house in which Maria Manning
and her husband murdered their guest, I should have
no awful prescience of that bygone horror. Foul deeds
have been done under the most hospitable roofs, terrible
crimes have been committed amid the fairest scenes,
and have left no trace upon the spot where they were
done. I do not believe in mandrake, or in blood-stains
that no time can efface. I believe rather that we may
walk unconsciously in an atmosphere of crime, and
breathe none the less freely. I believe that we may


204
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
look iuto the smiling face of a murderer, and admire
its tranquil beauty."
My lady laughed at Robert's earnestness.
"You seem to have quite a taste for discussing
these horrible subjects," she said, rather scornfully;
"you ought to have been a detective police officer."
"I sometimes think I should have been a good
one."
"Why?"
"Because I am patient."
"But to return to Mr. George Talboys, whom we
lost sight of in your eloquent discussion. What if you
receive no answer to your advertisements?"
"I shall then consider myself justified in concluding
that my friend is dead."
"Yes, and then —?"
"I shall examine the effects he left at my
chambers."
"Indeed! and what are they? Coats, waist-coats,
varnished boots, and meerschaum pipes, I suppose,"
said Lady Audley, laughing.
"No; letters — letters from his friends, his old
school-fellows, his father, his brother officers."
"Yes?"
"Letters, too, from his wife."
My lady was silent for some few moments, looking
thoughtfully at the fire.
"Have you ever seen any of the letters written by
tho late Mrs. Talboys?" she asked presently.


ROBERT RECEIVES A VISITOR.
205
"Never. Poor soul! her letters are not likely to
throw much light upon my friend's fate. I dare say
she wrote the usual womanly scrawl. There are very
few who write so charming and uncommon a hand as
yours, Lady Audley."
"Ah, you know my hand, of course."
"Yes, I know it very well, indeed."
My lady warmed her hands once more, and then
taking up the big muff which she had laid aside upon
a chair, prepared to take her departure.
"You have refused to accept my apology, Mr.
Audley," she said; "but I trust you are not the less
assured of my feelings towards you."
"Perfectly assured, Lady Audley."
"Then good-by, and let mo recommend you not to
stay long in this miserable draughty place, if you do
not wish to take rheumatism back to Fig-tree Court."
"I shall return to town to-morrow morning to see
after my letters."
"Then once more, good-by."
She held out her hand; he took it loosely in his
own. It seemed such a feeble little hand that he might
have crushed it in his strong grasp, had he chosen to
be so pitiless.
He attended her to her carriage, and watched it
as it drove off, not towards Audley, but in tho direc-
tion of Brentwood, which was about six miles from
Mount Stanning.
About an hour and a half after this, as Robert
stood at tho door of tho inn, smoking a cigar and


20C
LADY A LTD LEY'S SECRET.
watching the snow falling in the whitened fields op-
posite, he saw the brougham drive back, empty this
time, to the door of the inn.
"Have yon taken Lady Audley back to the Court?"
he said to the coachman, who had stopped to call for
a mug of hot spiced ale.
"No, Sir; I've just come from the Brentwood sta-
tion. My lady started for London by the 12 40 train."
"For town?"
"Yes, Sir."
"My lady gone to London!" said Robert, as he
returned to the little sitting-room. "Then Til follow
her by the next train; and if I'm not very much mis-
taken, I know where to find her."
He packed his portmanteau, paid his bill, which
was carefully receipted by Phoebe Marks, fastened his
dogs together with a couple of leathern collars and a
chain, and stepped into the rumbling fly kept at the
Castle Inn for the convenience of Mount Stanning.
He caught an express that left Brentwood at three
o'clock, and settled himself comfortably in a corner of
an empty first-class carriage, coiled up in a couple of
huge railway rugs, and smoking a cigar in mild defi-
ance of the authorities. "The Company may make as
many bye-laws as they please," he murmured, "but I
shall take the liberty of enjoying my cheroot as long
as I've half-a-crown left to give the guard."


THE BLACKSMITH'S MISTAKE.
207
CHAPTER XIX.
Tho Blacksmith's Mistake.
It was exactly five minutes past four as Mr. Robert
Audley stepped out upon the platform at Shoreditch,
and waited placidly until such time as his dogs and
his portmanteau should be delivered up to the attend-
ant porter who had called his cab, and undertaken
the general conduct of tho affairs, with that disinterested
courtesy which does such infinite credit to a class of
servitors who are forbidden to accept the tribute of a
grateful public. Robert Audley waited with consum-
mate patience for a considerable time; but as the ex-
press was generally a long train, and as there were a
great many passengers from Norfolk carrying guns and
pointers, and other paraphernalia of a critical descrip-
tion, it took a long while to mako matters agreeable
to all claimants, and even the barrister's seraphic in-
difference to mundane affairs nearly gave way.
"Perhaps, when that gentleman who is making
such a noise about a pointer with liver-coloured spots,
has discovered the particular pointer and spots that he
wants — which happy combination of events scarcely
seems likely to arrive — they'll give me my luggage
and let me go. The designing wretches knew at a
glance that I was born to bo imposed upon; and that
if they were to trample the life out of me upon this


208
LADY ADDLEy's SECRET.
very platform, I should never have the spirit to bring
an action against the company." Suddenly an idea
seemed to strike him, and he left the porter to struggle
for the custody of his goods, and walked round to the
other side of the station.
He had heard a hell ring, and, looking at the
clock, had remembered that the down train for Col-
chester started at this time. He had learned what it
was to have an earnest purpose since the disappearance
of George Talboys; and he reached the opposite plat-
form in time to see the passengers tako their seats.
There was one lady who had evidently only just
arrived at the station; for she hurried on to the plat-
form at the very moment that Robert approached the
train, and almost ran against that gentleman in her
haste and excitement.
"I beg your pardon —" sho began, ceremoniously;
then raising her eyes from Mr. Audley's waistcoat,
which was about on a level with her pretty face, she
exclaimed, "Robert! You in London already?"
"Yes, Lady Audley; you were quito right; the
Castle Inn is a dismal place, and —"
"You got tired of it — I knew you would. Please
open the carriage door for me: the train will start in
two minutes."
Robert Audley was looking at his uncle's wife
with rather a puzzled expression of countenance.
"What does it mean?" he thought . "She is
altogether a different being to the wretched, helpless
creature who dropped her mask for a moment, and


THE BLACKSMITH'S MISTAKE.
209
looked at me with her own pitiful face, in the little
room at Mount Stanning, four hours ago. What has
happened to cause the change?"
He opened the door for her while he thought this,
and helped her to settle herself in her seat, spreading
her furs over her knees, and arranging the huge
velvet mantle in which her slender little figure was
almost hidden.
"Thank you very much; how good you are to
me!" she said, as he did this. "You will think me
very foolish to travel upon such a day, without my
dear darling's knowledge too; but I went up to town
to settle a very terrific milliner's bill, which I did not
wish my best of husbands to see; for indulgent as he
is, he might think me extravagant; and I cannot bear
to suffer even in his thoughts."
"Heaven forbid that you ever should, Lady Audley,"
Robert said, gravely.
She looked at him for a moment with a smile,
which had something defiant in its brightness.
"Heaven forbid it, indeed," she murmured. "I
don't think I ever shall."
The second bell rang, and the train moved as she
spoke. The last Robert Audley saw of her was that
bright defiant smile.
"Whatever object brought her to London has been
successfully accomplished," he thought. "Has she
baffled me by some piece of womanly jugglery? Am
I never to get any nearer to the truth; but am I to be
tormented all my life by vague doubts, and wretched
Ladf iudley's Secret. I. 14


210
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
suspicions, which may grow upon me till 1 become a
monomaniac? Why did she come to London?"
He was still mentally asking himself this question
as he ascended the stairs in Fig-tree Court, with one
of his dogs wider each arm, and his railway rugs over
his shoulder.
He found his chambers in their accustomed order.
The geraniums had been carefully tended, and the
canaries had retired for the night under cover of a
square of green baize, testifying to the care of honest
Mrs. Maloney. Robert cast a hurried glance round
the sitting-room; then setting down the dogs upon the
hearth-rug, he walked straight into the little inner
chamber which served as his dressing-room.
It was in this room that he kept disused port-
manteaus, battered japanned cases, and other lumber;
and it was in this room that George Talboys had left
his luggage. Robert lifted a portmanteau from the
top of a large trunk, and kneeling down before it
with a lighted candle in his hand, carefully examined
the lock.
To all appearance it was exactly in the same con-
dition in which George had left it when he laid his
mourning garments aside and placed them in this
shabby repository, with all other memorials of his dead
wife. Robert brushed his coat sleeve across the worn
leather-covered lid, upon which the initials G. T. were
inscribed with big brass-headed nails; but Mrs. Maloney,
the laundress, must have been the most precise of


THE BLACKSMITH'S MISTAKE.
211
housewives, foi neither the portmanteau nor the trunk
were dusty.
Mr. Audley despatched a boy to fetch his Irish
attendant, and paced up and down his sitting-room,
waiting anxiously for her arrival.
She came in about ten minutes, and, after express-
ing her delight in the return of "the masther," humbly
awaited his orders.
"I only sent for you to ask if anybody has been
here; that is to say, if anybody has applied to you for
the key of my rooms to-day — any lady?"
"Lady? No, indeed, yer honour; there's been no
lady for the kay; barrin' it's the blacksmith yer honour
manes."
"The blacksmith!"
"Yes; the blacksmith your honour ordered to come
to-day."
"I order a blacksmith!" exclaimed Robert. "I
left a bottle of French brandy in the cupboard," he
thought, ")>iid Mrs. M. has been evidently enjoying
herself."
"Sure, and the blacksmith your honour tould to
see to the locks," replied Mrs. Maloney. "It's him
that lives down in one of the little streets by the
bridge," she added, giving a very lucid description of
the man's whereabouts.
Robert lifted his eyebrows in mute despair.
"If you'll sit down and compose yourself, Mrs.
M.," he said — he abbreviated her name thus on
principle, for the avoidance of unnecessary labour —
14*


212
LADY ATOMY'S SECRET.
"perhaps we shall be able by and by to understand
each other. You say a blacksmith has been here?"
"Sure and I did, sir."
"To-day?"
"Quite correct, sir."
Step by step Mr. Audley elicited the following
information. A locksmith had called upon Mrs. Ma-
loney that afternoon at three o'clock, and had asked
for the key of Mr. Audley's chambers; in order that
he might look to the locks of the doors, which he
stated were all out of repair. He declared that he
was acting upon Mr. Audley's own orders, conveyed
to him by a letter from the country, where the gentle-
man was spending his Christmas. Mrs. Moloney, be-
lieving in the truth of this statement, had admitted the
man to the chambers, where he stayed about half an
hour.
"But you were with him while he examined the
locks, I suppose?" Mr. Audley asked.
"Sure I was, sir, in and out, as you may say, all
the time; for I've been cleaning the stairs this after-
noon, and I took the opportunity to begin my scouring
while tho man was at work."
"Oh, you were in and out all the time. If you
could conveniently give me a plain answer, Mrs. M.,
I should be glad to know what was the longest time
that you were out while the locksmith was in my
chambers?"
But Mrs. Maloney could not give a plain answer.
It might have been ten minutes; though she didn't


THE BLACKSMITH'S MISTAKE.
213
think it was as much. It might have beeu a quarter
of'an hour; but she was sure it wasn't more. It didn't
seem to her more than five minutes; but "thim stairrs,
your honour —" and here she rambled off into a dis-
quisition upon the scouring of stairs in general, and
the stairs outside Robert's chambers in particular.
Mr. Audley sighed the weary sigh of mournful
resignation.
"Never mind, Mrs. M.," he said; "the locksmith
had plenty of time to do anything ho wanted to do,
I daresay, without your being any the wiser."
Mrs. Maloney stared at her employer with mingled
surprise and alarm.
"Sure, there wasn't anythin' for him to stale, your
honour, barrin' the birrds and the geranums, and —"
"No, no, I understand. There, that'll do, Mrs. M.
Tell me where the man lives, and I'll go and see
him."
"But you'll have a bit of dinner first, sir?"
"I'll go and see the locksmith before I have my
dinner."
He took up his hat as he announced his determina-
tion, and walked towards the door.
"The man's address, Mrs. M.?"
The Irishwoman directed him to a small street at
the back of St. Bride's Church, and thither Mr. Robert
Audley quietly strolled, through the miry slush which
simple Londoners call snow.
He found the locksmith, and, at the sacrifice of
the crown of his hat, contrived to enter the low narrow


214
LADV AUDLBY'S SECRET.
doorway of a little open shop. A jet of gas was
flaring in the unglazed window, and there was a very
merry party in the little room behind the shop; but
no one responded to Robert's "Hullca!" The reason
of this was sufficiently obvious. The merry party was
so much absorbed in its own merriment as to be deaf
to all common-place summonses from the outer world;
and it was only when Robert, advancing further into
the cavernous little shop, made so bold as to open the
half-glass door which separated him from the merry-
makers, that he succeeded in obtaining their atten-
tion.
A very jovial picture of the Teniers school was
presented to Mr. Robert Audley upon the opening of
this door.
The locksmith, with his wife and family, and two
or three droppers-in of the female sex, were clustered
about a table, which was adorned by two bottles: not
vulgar bottles of that colourless extract of the juniper
berry, much affected by the masses; but of bSna fide
port and sherry — fiercely strong sherry, which left a
fiery taste in the mouth; nut-brown sherry — rather
unnaturally brown, if anything — and fine old port;
no sickly vintage, faded and thin from excessive age;
but a rich, full-bodied wine, sweet and substantial and
high coloured.
The locksmith was speaking as Robert Audley
opened the door.
"And with that," he said, "she walked off, as
graceful as you please."


THE BLACKSMITH'S MISTAKE.
215
The whole party was thrown into confusion by the
appearance of Mr. Audley; but it was to be observed
that the locksmith was more embarrassed than his com-
panions. He set down his glass so hurriedly, that he
spilt his wine, and wiped his mouth nervously with the
back of his dirty hand.
'Ton called at my chambers to-day," Robert said,
quietly. "Don't let me disturb you, ladies." This to
the droppers-in. "You called at my chambers to-day,
Mr. White, and"
The man interrupted him.
"I hope, sir, you'll be so good as to look over the
mistake," he stammered. "I'm sure, sir, I'm very sorry
it should have occurred. I was sent for to another
gentleman's chambers, Mr. Aulwin, in Garden-court;
and the name slipped my memory; and havin' done
odd jobs before for you, I thought it must be you as
wanted me to-day; and I called at Mrs. Maloney's for
the key accordin'; but directly I see the locks in your
chambers, I says to myself, 'the gentleman's locks ain't
out of order; the gentleman don't want all his locks
repaired.'"
"But you stayed half an hour."
"Yes, sir; for there was one lock out of order —
the door nighest the staircase — and I took it off and
cleaned it, and put it on again I won't charge you
nothin' for the job, and I hope as you'll be so good as
to look over the mistake as has occurred, which I've
been in business thirteen year come July, and"
"Nothing of this kind ever happened before, I sup*


216
LADY AUDLEv'.S SECUET.
pose," said Robert, gravely. "No, it's altogether a
singular kind of business, not likely to come about
every day. You've been enjoying yourself this evening
I see, Mr. White. You've done a good stroke of work
to-day, I'll wager — made a lucky hit, and you're what
you call 'standing treat,' eh?"
Robert Audley looked straight into the man's dingy
face as he spoke. The locksmith was not a bad-looking
fellow, and there was nothing that he need have been
ashamed of in his face, except the dirt, and that, as
Hamlet's mother says, "is common;" but in spite of
this, Mr. White's eyelids dropped under the young
barrister's calm scrutiny, and he stammered out some
apologetic sort of speech about his "missus," and his
missus's neighbours, 'and port wine and sherry wine,
with as much confusion as if he, an honest mechanic in
a free country, were called upon to excuse himself to
Mr. Robert Audley for being caught in the act of en-
joying himself in Ms own parlour.
Robert cut him short with a careless nod.
"Pray don't apologise," he said; "I like to see
people enjoy themselves. Gjebd night, Mr. White —
good night, ladies."
He lifted his hat to "the missus," and the missus's
neighbours, who were much fascinated by his easy
manner and his handsome face, and left the shop.
"And so," he muttered to himself as he went back
to his chambers, "'with that she walked off as graceful
as you please.' Who was it that walked off? and
what was the story which the locksmith was telling


THK BLACKSMITH'S MISTAKE.
"217
when I interrupted him at that sentence? Oh, George
Talboys, George Talboys, am I ever to come any
nearer to the secret of your fate? Am I coming nearer
to it now, slowly but surely? Is the radius to grow
narrower day by day, until it draws a dark circle
round the home of those I love? How is it all to
end?"
He sighed wearily as he walked slowly back across
the flagged quadrangles in the Temple to his own
solitary chambers.
Mrs. Maloney had prepared for him that bachelor's
dinner which, however excellent and nutritious in itself,
has no claim to the special charm of novelty. She had
cooked for him a mutton chop, which was soddening
itself between two plates upon the little table near the
fire.
Robert Audley sighed as he sat down to the fami-
liar meal; remembering his uncle's cook with a fond,
regretful sorrow.
"Her cutlets a la Maintenon made mutton seem
more than mutton; a sublimated meat that could
scarcely have grown upon any mundane sheep," he
murmured, sentimentally, "and Mrs. Maloney's chops
are apt to be tough; but such is life — what does it
matter?"
He pushed away his plate impatiently after eating
a few mouthfuls.
"I have never eaten a good dinner at this table
since I lost George Talboys," he said. "The place
seems as gloomy as if the poor fellow had died in the


218
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
next room, and had never been taken away to be
buried. How long ago that September afternoon ap-
pears as I look back at it — that September afternoon
upon which I parted with him alive and well; and lost
him as suddenly and unaccountably as if a trap-door
had opened in the solid earth, and let him through to
the Antipodes!"


THE WEITING IN THE BOOK.
219
CHAPTER XX.
The Writing In the Book.
Mr. Audley rose from the dinner-table and walked
over to the cabinet in which he kept the document he
had drawn up relating to George Talboys. He un-
locked the doors of this cabinet, took the paper from
the pigeon-hole marked Important, and seated himself
at his desk to write. He added several paragraphs to
those in the document, numbering the fresh paragraphs
as carefully as he had numbered the old ones.
"Heaven help us all," he muttered once; "is this
paper, with which no attorney has had any hand, to
be my first brief?"
He wrote for about half an hour, then replaced the
document in the pigeon-hole, and locked the cabinet
.
When he had done this, he took a candle in his hand,
and went into the room in which were his own port-
manteaus and the trunk belonging to George Talboys.
He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and
tried them one by one. The lock of the shabby old
trunk was a common one, and at the fifth trial the key
turned easily.
"There'd be no need for anyone to break open
such a lock as this," muttered Robert, as he lifted the
lid of the trunk.
He slowly emptied it of its contents, taking out


220
LADY AUDREY'S SECRET.
each article separately, and laying it carefully upon a
chair by his side. He handled the things with a re-
spectful tenderness, as if he had been lifting the dead
body of his lost friend. One by one he laid the neatly
folded mourning garments on the chair. He found old
meerschaum pipes, and soiled, crumpled gloves that
had once been fresh from the Parisian maker; old play
bills, whose biggest letters spelled the names of actors
who were dead and gone; old perfume bottles, fragrant
with essences, whoso fashion had passed away; neat
littlo parcels of letters, each carefully labelled with the
namo of tho writer, fragments of old newspapers; and
a littlo heap of shabby, dilapidated books, each of
which tumbled into as many pieces as a pack of cards
in Robert's incautious hand. But amongst all the mass
of worthless litter, each scrap of which had once had
its separate purpose, Robert Audley looked in vain for
that which he sought — tho packet of letters written
to tho missing man by his dead wife Helen Talboys.
Ho had heard George allude more than once to the
existence of theso letters. He had seen him once
sorting tho faded papers with a reverent hand; and he
had seen him roplaeo them, carefully tied together with
a faded ribbon which had once been Helen's,' amongst
tho mourning garments in tho trunk. Whether he had
afterwards removed them, or whether they had been
removed sinoo his disappearance by some other hand,
it was not easy to say; but they were gone.
Robert Audley sighod wearily as he replaced the
things in the empty box, one by one, as he had taken


THE WRITING IN THE BOOK.
221
them out. He stopped with the little heap of tattered
books in his hand, and hesitated for a moment
.
"I will keep these out," he muttered: "there may
be something to help me in one of them."
George's library was no very brilliant collection of
literature. There was an old Greek Testament and
the Eton Latin Grammar: a French pamphlet on the
cavalry sword exercise; an odd volume of Tom Jones,
with one half of its stiff leather cover hanging to it by
a thread; Byron's Don Juan, printed in a murderous
type, which must have been invented for the special
advantage of oculists and opticians; and a fat book in
a faded gilt and crimson cover.
Robert Audley locked the trunk and took the books
under his arm. Mrs. Maloney was clearing away the
remains of his repast when he returned to his sitting-
room. He put the books aside on a little table in a
corner of the fire-place, and waited patiently while the
laundress finished her work. He was in no humour
even for his meerschaum consoler; the yellow papered
fictions on the shelves above his head seemed stale
and profitless — he opened a volume of Balzac, but
his uncle's wife's golden curls danced and trembled in
a glittering haze, alike upon the metaphysical diablerie
of the Peau de Chagrin, and the hideous social horrors
of Cousine Bette. The volume dropped from his hand,
and he sat wearily watching Mrs. Maloney as she swept
up the ashes on the hearth, replenished the fire, drew
the dark damask curtains, supplied the simple wants
of the canaries, and put on her bonnet in the disused


222
LADY AUDREY'S SECRET.
clerk's office, prior to bidding her employer good
night . As the door closed upon the Irishwoman, he
rose impatiently from his chair, and paced up and
down the room.
"Why do I go on with this," he said, "when I
know that it is leading me, step by step, day by day,
hour by hour, nearer to that conclusion which of all
others I should avoid? Am I tied to a wheel, and
must I go with its every revolution, let it take me
where it will? Or can I sit down here to-night and
say, I have done my duty to my missing friend; I
have searched for him patiently, but I have searched
in vain? Should I be justified in doing this? Should
I be justified in letting the chain which I have slowly
put together, link by link, drop at this point, or must
I go on adding fresh links to that fatal chain until the
last rivet drops into its place and the circle is com-
plete? I think and believe that I shall never see my
friend's face again; and that no exertion of mine can
ever be of any benefit to him. In plainer, crueller
words, I believe him to be dead. Am I bound to dis-
cover how and where he died? or being, as I think,
on the road to that discovery, shall I do a wrong to
the memory of George Talboys by turning back or
stopping still? What am I to do? What am I to do?"
He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his
face in his hands. The one purpose which had slowly
grown up in his careless nature until it had become
powerful enough to work a change in that very nature,
made him what he had never been before — a Christian;


THE W&ITINO IH THE BOOK.
223
conscious of his own weakness; anxious to keep to the
strict line of duty; fearful to swerve from the con-
scientious discharge of the strange task that had been
forced upon him; and reliant on a stronger hand than
his own to point the way which he was to go. Per-
haps he uttered his first thoroughly earnest prayer that
night, seated by his lonely fireside, thinking of George
Talboys. When he raised his head from that long and
silent reverie, his eyes had a bright, determined glance,
and every feature in his face seemed to wear a new
expression.
"Justice to the dead first," he said, "mercy to the
living afterwards."
He wheeled his easy chair to the table, trimmed
the lamp, and settled himself to the examination of the
books.
He took them up one by one, and looked carefully
through them, first looking at the page on which the
name of the owner is ordinarily written; and then
searching for any scrap of paper which might have
been left within the leaves. On the first page of the
Eton Latin Grammar the name of Master Talboys was
written in a prim scholastic hand; the French pamphlet
had a careless G. T. scrawled on the cover in pencil,
in George's big, slovenly caligraphy; the Tom Jones
had evidently been bought at a book-stall, and bore
an inscription, dated March 14th, 1788, setting forth
that the work was a tribute of respect to Mr. Thomas
Scrowton, from his obedient servant, James Anderley;
the Don Juan and the Testament were blank. Robert


224
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
Audley breathed more freely: he had arrived at the
last but one of the books without any result whatever,
and there only remained the fat gilt-and-crimson-bound
volume to be examined before his task was finished.
It was an annual of the year 1845. The copper-
plate engravings of lovely ladies who had flourished in
that day were yellow and spotted with mildew; the
costumes grotesque and outlandish; the simpering
beauties faded and common-place. Even the little
clusters of verses (in which the poet's feeble candle
shed its sickly light upon the obscurities of the artist's
meaning) had an old-fashioned twang; like music on a
lyre whose strings are slackened by the damps of time.
Robert Audley did not stop to read any of these mild
productions. He ran rapidly through the leaves,
looking for any scrap of writing or fragment of a letter
which might have been used to mark a place. He
found nothing but a bright ring of golden hair, of that
glittering hue which is so rarely seen except upon the
head of a child, — a sunny lock which curled as natu-
rally as the tendril of a vine; and was very opposite in
texture, if not different in hue, to the soft, smooth
tress which the landlady at Ventnor had given to
George Talboys after his wife's death. Robert Audley
suspended his examination of the book, and folded this
yellow lock in a sheet of letter-paper, which he sealed
with his signet-ring, and laid aside, with the memoran-
dum about George Talboys and Alicia's letter, in the
pigeon-hole marked important . He was going to replace
the fat annual amongst the other books, when he die-


THE WRITING IN THE BOOK.
225
covered that the two blank leaves at the beginning
were stuck together. He was so determined to pro-
secute his search to the very uttermost, that he took
the trouble to part these leaves with the sharp end of
his paper-knife; and he was rewarded for his perseve-
rance by finding an inscription upon one of them. This
inscription was in three parts and in three different
hands. The first paragraph was dated as far back as
the year in which the annual had been published, and
set forth that the book was the property of a certain
Miss Elizabeth Ann Bince who had obtained the pre-
cious volume as a reward for habits of order, and for
obedience to the authorities of Camford-house Seminary,
Torquay. The second paragraph was dated five years
later, and was in the handwriting of Miss Bince her-
self, who presented the book as a mark of undying
affection and unfading esteem (Miss Bince was evidently
of a romantic temperament) to her beloved friend
Helen Maldon. The third paragraph was dated
September, 1853, and was in the hand of Helen
Maldon, who gave the annual to George Talboys; and
it was at the sight of this third paragraph that Mr.
Robert Audley's face changed from its natural hue to
a sickly, leaden pallor.
"I thought it would be so," said the young man,
shutting the book with a weary sigh. "God knows I
was prepared for the worst, and the worst has come.
I can understand all now. My next visit must be to
Southampton. I must place the boy in better hands."
Lady Awil1'y,$ Secret. 1. 15


220
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
CHAPTER XXI.
Mrs. Plowaon.
Amongst the packet of letters which Robert Audley
had found in George's trunk, there was one labelled
with the name of the missing man's father — the father,
who had never been too indulgent a friend to his only
son, and who had gladly availed himself of the excuse
afforded by George's imprudent marriage to abandon
the young man to his own resources. Robert Audley
had never seen Mr. Harcourt Talboys; but George's
careless talk of his father had given his friend some
notion of that gentleman's character. He had written
to Mr. Talboys immediately after the disappearance of
George, carefully wording his letter, which vaguely
hinted at the writer's fear of some foul play in the
mysterious business; and after the lapse of several
weeks, he had received a formal epistle, in which Mr.
Harcourt Talboys expressly declared that he had washed
his hands of all responsibility in his son George's affairs
upon the young man's wedding-day; and that his ab-
surd disappearance was only in character with his pre-
posterous marriage. The writer of this fatherly letter
added in a postscript that if Mr. George Talboys had
any low design of alarming his friends by this pre-
tended disappearance, and thereby playing on their
feelings with a view to pecuniary advantage, he was


MRS. FLOWSON.
227
most egregiously deceived in the character of those
persons with whom he had to deal.
Robert Audley had answered this letter by a few
indignant lines, informing Mr. Talboys that his son
was scarcely likely to hide himself for the furtherance
of any deep-laid design on the pockets of his relatives,
as he had left twenty thousand pounds in his bankers'
hands at the time of his disappearance. After des-
patching this letter, Robert had abandoned all thought
of assistance from the man who, in the natural course
of things, should have been most interested in George's
fate; but now that he found himself advancing every
day some step nearer to the end that lay so darkly
before him, his mind reverted to this heartlessly-indif-
ferent Mr. Harcourt Talboys.
"I will run into Dorsetshire after I leave South-
ampton," he said, "and see this man. If he is content
to let his son's fate rest a dark and cruel mystery to
all who knew him — if he is content to go down to
his grave uncertain to the last of this poor fellow's
end — why should I try to unravel the tangled skein,
to fit the pieces of the terrible puzzle, and gather to-
gether the stray fragments which when collected may
make such a hideous whole? I will go to him and
lay my darkest doubts freely before him. It will bo
for him to say what I am to do."
Robert Audley started by an early express for
Southampton. The snow lay thick and white upon
the pleasant country through which he went; and the
young barrister had wrapped himself in so many com-
15*


228
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
forters and railway rugs as to appear a perambulating
mass of woollen goods rather than a living member of
a learned profession. He looked gloomily out of the
misty window, opaque with the breath of himself and
an elderly Indian officer, who was his only companion,
and watched the fleeting landscape, which had a cer-
tain phantom-like appearance in its shroud of snow.
He wrapped himself in the vast folds of his railway
rug with a peevish shiver, and felt inclined to quarrel
with the destiny which compelled him to travel by an
early train upon a pitiless winter's day.
"Who would have thought that I could have grown
so fond of the fellow," he muttered, "or feel so lonely
without him? I've a comfortable little fortune in the
three per cents.; I'm heir-presumptive to my uncle's
title; and I know of a certain dear little girl, who, as
I think, would do her best to make me happy; but I
declare that I would freely give up all and stand
penniless in the world to-morrow, if this mystery could
be satisfactorily cleared away, and George Talboys
could stand by my side."
He reached Southampton between eleven and twelve
o'clock, and walked across the platform, with the snow
drifting in his face, towards the pier and the lower end
of the town. The clock of St . Michael's Church was
striking twelve as he crossed the quaint old square in
which that edifice stands, and groped his way through
the narrow streets leading down to the water.
Mr. Maldon had established his slovenly household


MRS. PJLOWSON.
229
gods in one of those dreary thoroughfares which spe-
culative builders love to raise upon some miserable
fragment of waste ground hanging to the skirts of a
prosperous town. Brigsome's Terrace was perhaps one
of the most dismal blocks of building that was ever
composed of brick and mortar since the first mason
plied his trowel and the first architect drew his plan.
The builder who had speculated in the ten dreary
eight-roomed prison-houses had hung himself behind
the parlour door of an adjacent tavern while the car-
cases were yet unfinished. The man who had bought
the brick and mortar skeletons had gone through the
Bankruptcy Court while the paperhangers were still
busy in Brigsome's Terrace, and had whitewashed his
ceilings and himself simultaneously. Ill-luck and in-
solvency clung to the wretched habitations. The bailiff
and the broker's man were as well known as the
butcher and the baker to the noisy children who played
upon the waste ground in front of the parlour windows.
Solvent tenants were disturbed at unhallowed hours
by the noise of ghostly furniture vans creeping stealthily
away in the moonless night. Insolvent tenants openly
defied the collector of the water-rate from their ten-
roomed strongholds, and existed for weeks without any
visible means of procuring that necessary fluid.
Robert Audley looked about him with a shudder
as he turned from the water-side into this poverty-
stricken locality. A child's funeral was leaving one
of the houses as he approached, and he thought with
a thrill of horror that if the little coffin had held


230
lady Audley's secret.
George's son, he would have been in some measure
responsible for the boy's death.
"The poor child shall not sleep another night in
this wretched hovel," he thought, as he knocked at the
door of Mr. Maldon's house. "He is the legacy of my
lost friend, and it shall be my business to secure his
safety."
A slipshod servant girl opened the door and looked
at Mr. Audley rather suspiciously as she asked him,
very much through her nose, what he pleased to want.
The door of the little sitting-room was ajar, and Ro-
bert could hear the clattering of knives and forks and
the childish voice of little George prattling gaily. He
told the servant that he had come from London, that
he wanted to see Master Talboys, and that he would
announce himself; and walking past her, without fur-
ther ceremony, he opened the door of the parlour.
The girl stared at him aghast as he did this; and, as
if struck by some sudden conviction, threw her apron
over her head and ran out into the snow. She darted
across the waste ground, plunged into a narrow alley,
and never drew breath till she found herself upon the
threshold of a certain tavern called the Coach and
Horses, and much affected by Mr. Maldon. The lieute-
nant's faithful retainer had taken Robert Audley for
some new and determined collector of poor's rates —
rejecting that gentleman's account of himself as an
artful fiction devised for the destruction of parochial
defaulters — and had hurried off to give her master
timely warning of the enemy's approach.


MRS. PLOWSON.
231
When Robert entered the sitting-room he was sur-
prised to find little George seated opposite to a woman
who was doing the honours of a shabby repast, spread
upon a dirty tablecloth, and flanked by a pewter beer
measure. The woman rose as Robert entered, and
curtsied very humbly to the young barrister. She
looked about fifty years of age, and was dressed in
rusty widow's weeds. Her complexion was insipidly
fair, and the two smooth bands of hair beneath her
cap were of that sunless flaxen hue which generally
accompanies pink cheeks and white eyelashes. She
had been a rustic beauty perhaps in her time, but her
features, although tolerably regular in their shape, had
a mean pinched look, as if they had been made too
small for her face. This defect was peculiarly notice-
able in her mouth, which was an obvious misfit for the
set of teeth it contained. She smiled as she curtsied
to Mr. Robert Audley, and her smile, which laid bare
the greater part of this set of square, hungry-looking
teeth, by no means added to the beauty of her personal
appearance.
"Mr. Maldon is not at home, sir," she said, with
insinuating civility; "but if it's for the water-rate, ho
requested me to say that —"
She was interrupted by little George Talboys, who
scrambled down from the high chair upon which he
had been perched, and ran to Robert Audley.
"I know you," he said; "you came to Ventnor with
the big gentleman, and you came here once, and you


232
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
gave me some money, and I gave it to granpa to take
care of, and granpa kept it, and he always does."
Robert Audley took the boy in his arms, and car-
ried him to a little table in the window.
"Stand there, Georgey," he said, "I want to have
a good look at you."
He turned the boy's face to the light, and pushed
the brown curls off his forehead with both hands.
"You're growing more like your father every day,
Georgey; and you're growing quite a man, too," he
said; "would you like to go to school?"
"Oh, yes, please, I should like it very much," the
boy answered, eagerly. "I went to school at Miss
Pevins's once — day-school, you know — round the
corner in the next street; but I caught the measles,
and granpa wouldn't let me go any more, for fear I
should catch the measles again; and granpa won't let
me play with the little boys in the street, because
they're rude boys; he said blackguard boys; but he
said I musn't say blackguard boys, because it's naughty.
He says damn and devil, but he says he may because
he's old. I shall say damn and devil when I'm old;
and I should like to go to school, please, and I can go
to-day, if you like; Mrs. Plowson will get my frocks
ready, won't you, Mrs. Plowson?"
"Certainly, Master Georgey, if your grandpapa
wishes it," the woman answered, looking rather un-
easily at Mr. Robert Audley.
"What on earth is the matter with this woman?"
thought Robert, as he turned from the boy to the fair-


MRS. PLOWSON.
233
haired widow, who was edging herself slowly towards
the table upon which little George Talboys stood talking
to his guardian. "Does she still take me for a tax-
collector with inimical intentions towards these wretched
goods and chattels; or can the cause of her fidgetty
manner lie deeper still? That's scarcely likely though;
for whatever secrets Lieutenant Maldon may have, it's
not very probable that this woman has any knowledge
of them."
Mrs. Plowson had edged herself close to the little
table by this time, and was making a stealthy descent
upon the boy, when Robert turned sharply round.
"What are you going to do with the child?" ho
said.
"I was only going to take him away to wash his
pretty face, sir, and smooth his hair," answered the
woman, in the same insinuating tone in which she had
spoken of the water-rate. "You don't see him to any
advantage, sir, while his precious face is dirty. I won't
be five minutes making him as neat as a new pin."
She had her long thin arms about the boy as she
spoke, and she was evidently going to carry him off
bodily, when Robert stopped her.
"I'd rather see him as he is, thank you," he said.
"My time in Southampton, isn't very long, and I want
to hear all that the little man can tell me."
The little man crept closer to Robert, and looked
confidingly into the barrister's grey eyes.
"I like you very much," he said. "I was frightened


234
LADY AtTDLEY's SECRET.
of you when you came before, because I was shy. I
am not shy now — I am nearly six years old."
Robert patted the boy's head encouragingly, but he
was not looking at little George; he was watching the
fair-haired widow, who had moved to the window, and
was looking out at the patch of waste ground.
"You're rather fidgetty about some one, ma'am,
I'm afraid," said Robert.
She coloured violently as the barrister made this
remark, and answered him in a confused manner.
"I was looking for Mr. Maldon, sir," she said;
"he'll be so disappointed if he doesn't see you."
"You know who I am, then?"
"No, sir, but"
The boy interrupted her by dragging a little
jewelled watch from his bosom and showing it to
Robert.
"This is the watch the pretty lady gave me," he
said. "I've got it now — but I haven't had it long,
because the jeweller who cleans it is an idlo man,
granpa says, and always keeps it such a long time;
and granpa says it will have to be cleaned again, be-
cause of the taxes. He always takes it to be cleaned
when there's taxes — but he says, if he were to lose it,
the pretty lady would give me another. Do you know
the pretty lady?"
"No, Georgey; but tell me all about her."
Mrs. Plowson made another descent upon the boy.
She was armed with a pocket-handkerchief this time,
and displayed great anxiety about the state of little


MRS. TLOWSOif.
235
Georgey's nose, but Robert warded off the dreaded
weapon, and drew the child away from his tormentor.
"The boy will do very well, ma'am," he said, "if
you'll be good enough to let him alone for five minutes.
Now, Georgey, suppose you sit on my knee, and tell
me all about the pretty lady."
The child clambered from the table on to Mr.
Audley's knees, assisting his descent by a very un-
ceremonious manipulation of his guardian's coat collar.
"I'll tell you all about the pretty lady," he said,
"because I like you very much. Grandpa told me not
to tell anybody, but I'll tell you, you know, because
I like you, and because you're going to take me to
school. The pretty lady came here one night — long
ago — oh, so long ago," said the boy, shaking his
head, with a face whose solemnity was expressive of
some prodigious lapse of time. "She came when I was
not nearly so big as I am now — and she came at
night — after I'd gone to bed, and she came up into
my room, and sat upon the bed, and cried — and she
left the watch under my pillow, and she Why do
you make faces at me, Mrs. Plowson? I may tell this
gentleman," Georgey added, suddenly addressing the
widow, who was standing behind Robert's shoulder.
Mrs. Plowson mumbled some confused apology to
the effect that she was afraid Master George was
troublesome.
"Suppose you wait till I say so, ma'am, before you
stop the little fellow's mouth," said Robert Audley,
sharply. "A suspicious person might think, from your


236
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
manner, that Mr. Maldon and you had some conspiracy
between you, and that you were afraid of what the
boy's talk may let slip."
He rose from his chair, and looked full at Mrs.
Plowson as he said this. The fair-haired widow's face
was as white as her cap when she tried to answer him,
and her pale lips were so dry that she was obliged to
wet them with her tongue before the words would
come.
The little boy relieved her embarrassment.
"Don't be cross, Mrs. Plowson," he said. "Mrs.
Plowson is very kind to me. Mrs. Plowson is Matilda's
mother. Tou didn't know Matilda. Poor Matilda was
always crying; she was ill, she"
The boy was stopped by the sudden appearance of
Mr. Maldon, who stood on the threshold of the parlour-
door, staring at Robert Audley with a half-drunken,
half-terrified aspect, scarcely consistent with the dignity
of a retired naval officer. The servant girl, breathless
and panting, stood close behind her master. Early in
the day though it was, the old man's speech was thick
and confused, as he addressed himself fiercely to Mrs.
Plowson.
"You're a prett' creature to call yoursel' 'sensible
woman!" he said. "Why don't you take th' chile
'way, er wash's face? D'yer want to ruin me? D'yer
want to 'stroy me? Take th' chile 'way! Mr. Audley,
sir, I'm ver' glad to see yer; ver 'appy to 'ceive yer in
m' humbl' 'bode," the old man added, with tipsy polite-


MRS. PLOWSON.
237
ness, dropping into a chair as ho spoke, and trying to
look steadily at his unexpected visitor.
"Whatever this man's secrets are," thought Robert,
as Mrs. Plowson hustled little George Talboys out of
the room, "that woman has no unimportant share of
them. Whatever the mystery may be, it grows darker
and thicker at every step; but I try in vain to draw
back or to stop short upon the road, for a stronger
hand than my own is pointing the way to my lost
friend's unknown grave."


238
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
CHAPTER XXII.
Little Georgey leaves his Old Homo.
"I am going to take your grandson away with me,
Mr. Maldon,” Robert said, gravely, as Mrs. Plowson
retired with her young charge.
The old man's drunken imbecility was slowly clear-
ing away, like the heavy mists of a London fog, through
which the feeble sunshine struggles dimly to appear.
The very uncertain radiance of Lieutenant Maldon's
intellect took a considerable time in piercing the hazy
vapours of rum-and-water; but the flickering light at
last faintly glimmered athwart the clouds, and the old
man screwed his poor wits to the sticking-point.
“Yes, yes," he said, feebly; "take the boy away
from his poor old grandfather. I always thought so."
“You always thought that I should take him away?”
asked Robert, scrutinising the half-drunken countenance
with a searching glance. “Why did you think so, Mr.
Maldon?"
The fogs of intoxication got the better of the light
of sobriety for a moment, and the lieutenant answered
vaguely:
"Thought so ? — 'cause I thought so."
Meeting the young barrister's impatient frown, he
made another effort, and the light glimmered again.
“Because I thought you or his father would fetch
'm away.”


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 239
"When I was last in this bouse, Mr. Maldon, you
told me that George Talboys had sailed for Australia."
"Yes, yes — I know, I know," the old man an-
swered, confusedly, shuffling his scanty limp grey hairs
with his two wandering hands — "I know; but he
might have come back — mightn't he? He was rest-
less, and — and — queer in his mind, perhaps, some-
times. He might have come back."
He repeated this two or three times, in feeble,
muttering tones; groping about on the littered mantel-
piece for a dirty-looking clay-pipe, and filling and
lighting it with hands that trembled violently.
Robert Audley watched those poor withered, tre-
mulous fingers dropping shreds of tobacco upon the
hearth-rug, and scarcely able to kindle a lucifer for
their unsteadiness. Then walking once or twice up
and down the little room, he left the old man to take
a few puffs from the great consoler.
Presently he turned suddenly upon the half-pay
lieutenant with a dark solemnity in his handsome face.
"Mr. Maldon," he said, slowly, watching the effect
of every syllable as he spoke, "George Talboys never
sailed for Australia — that I know. More than this,
ho never came to Southampton; and the lie you told
me on the 8th of last September was dictated to you
by the telegraphic message which you received on that
day."
The dirty clay-pipe dropped from the tremulous
hand, and shivered against the iron fender, but the old
man made no effort to find a fresh one; he sat trembling


240
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
in every limb, and looking, Heaven knows how pite-
ously, at Robert Audley.
"The lie was dictated to you, and you repeated
your lesson. But you no more saw George Talboys
here on the 7th of September than I see him in this
room now. You thought you had burnt the telegraphic
message, but you had only burnt a part of it — the
remainder is in my possession."
Lieutenant Maldon was quite sober now.
"What have I done?" he murmured, helplessly.
"0, my God! what have I done?"
"At two o'clock on the 7th of September last,"
continued the pitiless, accusing voice, "George Talboys
was seen, alive and well, at a house in Essex."
Robert paused to see the effect of these words.
They had produced no change in the old man. He
still sat trembling from head to foot, and staring with
the fixed and stolid gaze of some helpless wretch,
whose every sense is gradually becoming numbed by
terror.
"At two o'clock on that day," repeated Robert
Audley, "my poor friend was seen, alive and well,
at , at the house of which I speak. From that
hour to this I have never been able to hear that he
has been seen by any living creature. I have taken
such steps as must have resulted in procuring the in-
formation of his whereabout, were he alive. I have
done this patiently and carefully — at first, even hope-
fully. Now I know that he is dead."
Robert Audley had been prepared to witness some


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 241
considerable agitation in the old man's manner, but he
was not prepared for the terrible anguish, the ghastly
terror, which convulsed Mr. Maldon's haggard face as
he uttered the last word.
"No, no, no, no," reiterated the lieutenant, in a
shrill, half-screaming voice; "no, no! For God's sake,
don't say that! Don't think it — don't let me think
it — don't let me dream of it! Not dead — anything
but dead! Hiding away, perhaps — bribed to keep
out of the way, perhaps; but not dead — not dead —
not dead!"
He cried these words aloud, like one beside him-
self; beating his hands upon his grey head, and rock-
ing backwards and forwards in his chair. His feeble
hands trembled no longer — they were strengthened
by some convulsive force that gave them a new power.
"I believe," said Robert, in the same solemn, re-
lentless voice, "that my friend never left Essex; and
I believe that he died on the 7th of September last."
The wretched old man, still beating his hands
amongst his thin grey hair, slid from his chair to the
ground, and grovelled at Robert's feet
.
"Oh! no, no — for God's sake, no!" he shrieked
hoarsely. "No! you don't know what you say — you
don't know what you ask me to think — you don't
know what your words mean!"
"I know their weight and value only too well —
as well as I see you do, Mr. Maldon. God help us!"
"Oh, what am I doing? what am I doing?" mut-
tered the old man, feebly; then raising himself from
Lady iwlley's Secret. /. 16


242
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
the ground with an effort, he drew himself to his full
height, and said, in a manner which was new to him,
and which was not without a certain dignity of its own
— that dignity which must always be attached to un-
utterable misery, in whatever form it may appear — he
said, gravely: —
"You have no right to como here and terrify a
man who has been drinking; and who is not quite
himself. You have no right to do it, Mr. Audley.
Even the — the officer, sir, who — who —" He did
not stammer, but his lips trembled so violently that
his words seemed to be shaken into pieces by their
motion. "The officer, I repeat, sir, who arrests a —
a thief, or a —" He stopped to wipe his lips, and to
still them if he could by doing so, which he could not.
"A thief — or a murderer —" His voice died sud-
denly away upon the last word, and it was only by
the motion of those trembling lips that Robert knew
what he meant. "Gives him warning, sir, fair warn-
ing, that he may say nothing which shall commit him-
self — or — or — other people. The — the — law,
sir, has that amount of mercy for a — a — suspected
criminal. But you, sir, you — you come to my house,
and you come at a time when — when — contrary to
my usual habits — which, as people will tell you,
are sober — you come, and perceiving that I am not
quite myself — you take — the — opportunity to —
terrify me — and it is not right, sir — it is —"
Whatever he would have said died away into in-
articulate gasps which seemed to choke him, and sink-


LITTLE GEOEQEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 243
ing into a chair, he dropped his face upon the tahle
and wept aloud. Perhaps in all the dismal scenes of
domestic misery which had been acted in those spare
and dreary houses — in all the petty miseries, the
burning shames, the cruel sorrows, the bitter disgraces
which own poverty for their common father — there
had never been such a scene as this. An old man
hiding his face from the light of day, and sobbing
aloud in his wretchedness. Robert Audley contem-
plated the painful picture with a hopeless and pitying
face.
"If I had known this," he thought, "I might have
spared him. It would have been better, perhaps, to
have spared him."
The shabby room, the dirt, the confusion, the figure
of the old man, with his grey head upon the soiled
table-cloth, amid the muddled debris of a wretched
dinner, grew blurred before the sight of Robert Audley
as he thought of another man, as old as this one, but,
ah, how widely different in every other quality! who
might come by-and-by to feel the same, or even a
"worse anguish, and to shed, perhaps, yet bitterer teare.
The moment in which the tears rose to his eyes and
dimmed the piteous scene before him, was long enough
to take him back to Essex and to show him the image
of his uncle, stricken by agony and shame.
"Why do I go on with this?" he thought; "how
pitiless I am, and how relentlessly I am carried on.
It is not myself; it is the hand which is beckoning me
16»


244
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
further and further upon the dark road whose end I
dare not dream of."
He thought this, and a hundred times more than
this, while the old man sat with his face still hidden,
wrestling with his anguish, but without power to keep
it down.
"Mr. Maldon," Robert Audley said, after a pause,
"I do not ask you to forgive me for what I have
brought upon you, for the feeling is strong within me
that it must have come to you sooner or later — if
not through me, through some one else. There are —"
He stopped for a moment, hesitating. The sobbing
did not cease; it was sometimes low, sometimes loud,
bursting out with fresh violence, or dying away for an
instant, but never ceasing. "There are some things
which, as people say, cannot be hidden. I think there
is truth in that common saying which had its origin
in that old worldly wisdom which people gathered
from experience and not from books. If — if I were
content to let my friend rest in his hidden grave, it is
but likely that some stranger, who had never heard
the name of George Talboys, might fall by the re-
motest accident upon the secret of his death. To-
morrow, perhaps; or ten years hence; or in another
generation, when the — the hand that wronged him
is as cold as his own. If I could let the matter rest;
if — if I could leave England for ever, and purposely
fly from the possibility of ever coming across another
clue to the secret, I would do it — I would gladly,
thankfully do it — but I cannot! A hand which iq


LITTLE QEOEQBY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 245
stronger than my own beckons me on. I wish to take
no base advantage of you, less than of all other people;
but I must go on; I must go on. If there is any warn-
ing you would give to any one, give it. If the secret
towards which I am travelling day by day, hour by
hour, involves any one in whom you have an interest;
let that person fly before I come to the end. Let
them leave this country; let them leave all who know
them — all whose peace their wickedness has en-
dangered; let them go away — they shall not be pur-
sued. But if they slight your warning — if they try
to hold their present position in defiance of what it
will be in your power to tell them — let them beware
of me, for when the hour comes, I swear that I will
not spare them."
The old man looked up for the first time, and
wiped his wrinkled face upon a ragged silk handker-
chief.
"I declare to you that I do not understand you,"
he said. "I solemnly declare to you that I cannot
understand; and I do not believe that George Talboys
is dead."
"I would give ten years of my own life if I could
see him alive," answered Robert, sadly. "I am sorry
for you, Mr. Maldon — I am sorry for all of us."
"I do not believe that my son-in-law is dead," said
the lieutenant; "I do not believe that the poor lad is
dead."
He endeavoured in a feeble manner tb show to
Robert Audley that his wild outhurst of anguish had


246
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
been caused by his grief for the loss of George Tal-
boys; but the pretence was miserably shallow.
Mrs. Plowson re-entered the room, leading little
Georgey, whose face shone with that brilliant polish
which yellow soap and friction can produce upon the
human countenanca
"Dear heart alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Plowson, "what
has the poor old gentleman been taking on about? We
could hear him in the passage, sobbin' awful."
Little George crept up to his grandfather and
smoothed the wet and wrinkled face with his pudgy
hand.
"Don't cry, gran'pa," he said, "don't cry. You
shall have my watch to be cleaned, and the kind
jeweller shall lend you the money to pay the taxman
while he cleans the watch — I don't mind, gran'pa.
Let's go to the jeweller — the jeweller in High-street,
you know, with golden balls painted upon his door,
to show that he comes from Lombar — Lombarshire,"
said the boy, making a dash at the name. "Come,
gran'pa."
The little fellow took the jewelled toy from his
bosom and made for the door, proud of being possessed
of a talisman which he had seen so often made useful.
"There are wolves at Southampton," he said, with
rather a triumphant nod to Robert Audley. "My
gran'pa says when he takes my watch that he does it
to keep the wolf from the door. Are there wolves
where you live?"
The young barrister did not answer the child's


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 247
question, but stopped him as he was dragging his
grandfather towards the door.
"Your grandpapa does not want the watch to-day,
Georgey," he said, gravely.
"Why is he sorry, then?" asked Georgey, naively;
"when he wants the watch he is always sorry, and
beats his poor forehead so" — the boy stopped to pan-
tomime with his small fists — "and says that she —
the pretty lady, I think, he means — uses him very
hard, and that he can't keep the wolf from the door;
and then I say, 'Gran'pa, have the watch;' and then
he takes me in his arms and says, 'Oh, my blessed
angel! how can I rob my blessed angel?' and then he
cries, but not like to-day — not loud, you know; only
tears running down his poor cheeks; not so that you
could hear him in the passage."
Painful as the child's prattle was to Robert Audley,
it seemed a relief to the old man. He did not hear
the boy's talk, but walked two or three times up and
down the little room and smoothed his rumpled hair
and suffered his cravat to be arranged by Mrs. Plowson,
who seemed very anxious to find out the cause of his
agitation.
"Poor dear old gentleman," she said, looking at
Robert. "What has happened to upset him so?"
"His son-in-law is dead," answered Mr. Audley,
fixing his eyes upon Mrs. Plowson's sympathetic face.
"He died within a year and a half after the death
of Helen Talboys, who lies buried in Ventnor church-
yard."


218
lad? aodley's secret.
The face into which he was looking changed very
slightly; but the eyes that had been looking at his
shifted away as he spoke, and once more Mrs. Plowson
was obliged to moisten her white lips with her tongue
before she answered him.'
"Poor Mr. Talboys deadl" she said; "that is bad
news indeed, sir."
Little George looked wistfully up at his guardian's
face as this was said.
"Who's dead?" he said. "George Talboys is my
name. Who's dead?"
"Another person whose name is Talboys, Georgey."
"Poor person! Will he go to the pit-hole?"
The boy had that common notion of death which
is generally imparted to children by their wise elders,
and which always leads the infant mind to the open
grave, but rarely carries it any higher.
"I should like to see him put in the pit-hole,"
Georgey remarked, after a pause. He had attended
several infant funerals in the neighbourhood, and was
considered valuable as a mourner on account of his
interesting appearance. He had come, therefore, to
look upon the ceremony of interment as a solemn
festivity; in which cake and wine and a carriage drive
were the leading features.
"You have no objection to my taking Georgey
away with me, Mr. Maldon?" asked Robert Audley.
The old man's agitation had very much subsided
by this time. He had found another pipe stuck behind


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES BIS OLD HOME. 249
the tawdry frame of the looking-glass, and was trying
to light it with a bit of twisted newspaper.
"You do not object, Mr. Maldon?"
"No, sir — no, sir; you are his guardian, and
you have a right to take him where you please. He
has been a very great comfort to me in my lonely old
age; but I have been prepared to lose him. I — I —
may not have always done my duty to him, sir, in —
in the way of schooling and — and boots. The number
of boots which boys of his age wear out, sir, is not
easily realised by the mind of a young man like your-
self; he has been kept away from school, perhaps,
sometimes, and has occasionally worn shabby boots
when our funds have got low; but he has not been
unkindly treated. No, sir; if you were to question him
for a week, I don't think you'd hear that his poor old
grandfather ever said a harsh word to him."
Upon this, Georgey, perceiving the distress of his
old protector, set up a terrible howl, and declared that
he would never leave him.
"Mr. Maldon," said Robert Audley, with a tone
which was half-mournful, half-compassionate, "when I
looked at my position last night, I did not believe that
I could ever come to think it more painful than I
thought it then. I can only say — God have mercy
upon us all. I feel it my duty to take the child away;
but I shall take him straight from your house to the
best school in Southampton; and I give you my honour
that I will extort nothing from his innocent simplicity
which can in any manner — I mean," he said, break-


250
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
ing off abruptly, "I mean this — I will not seek to
come one step nearer the secret through him. I — I
am not a detective officer, and I do not think that the
most accomplished detective would like to get his in-
formation from a child."
The old man did not answer; he sat with his face
shaded by his hand, and with his extinguished pipe
between the listless fingers of the other.
"Take the boy away, Mrs. Plowson," he said, after
a pause; "take him away and put his things on. He
is going with Mr. Audley."
"Which I do say that it's not kind of the gentle-
man to take his poor grandpa's pet away," Mrs. Plow-
son exclaimed, suddenly, with respectful indignation.
"Hush, Mrs. Plowson," the old man answered,
piteously; "Mr. Audley is the best judge. I — I —
haven't many years to live; I shan't trouble anybody
long."
The tears oozed slowly through the dirty fingers
with which he shaded his bloodshot eyes as he said
this.
"God knows, I never injured your friend, sir," he
said by-and-by, when Mrs. Plowson and Georgey had
returned, "nor ever wished him any ill. He was a
good son-in-law to me — better than many a son. I
never did him any wilful wrong, sir. I — I spent his
money, perhaps, but I am sorry for it, — I am very
sorry for it now. But I don't believe he is dead —
no, sir, no, I don't believe it!" exclaimed the old man,
dropping his hand from his eyes, and looking with new


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES BIS OLD HOME. 251
energy at Robert Audley. "I — I don't believe it,
sir! How — how should he be dead?"
Robert did not answer this eager questioning. He
shook his head mournfully, and walking to the little
window looked out across a row of straggling gerani-
ums at tbe dreary patch of waste ground on which the
children were at play.
Mrs. Plowson returned with little Georgey muffled
in a coat and comforter, and Robert took the boy's
hand.
"Say good-by to your grandpapa, Georgey."
The little fellow sprang towards the old man, and
clinging about him, kissed the dirty tears from his
faded cheeks.
"Don't be sorry for me, grandpa," he said; "I am
going to school to learn to be a clever man, and I shall
come home to see you and Mr. Plowson, shan't I?" he
added, turning to Robert.
"Yes, my dear, by-and-by."
"Take him away, sir — take him away," cried Mr.
Maldon; "you are breaking my heart."
The little fellow trotted away contentedly at Robert's
side. He was very well pleased at the idea of going
to school, though he had been happy enough with his
drunken old grandfather, who had always displayed a
maudlin affection for the pretty child, and had done
his best to spoil Georgey, by letting him have his own
way in everything; in consequence of which indulgence
Master Talboys had acquired a taste for late hours,


252
LADY ADDLEY's SECRET.
hot sappers of the most indigestible nature, and sips of
rum-and-water from his grandfather's glass.
He communicated his sentiments upon many sub-
jects to Robert Audley, as they walked to the Dolphin
Hotel; but the barrister did not encourage him to
talk.
It was no very difficult matter to find a good
school in sueh a place as Southampton. Robert Audley
was directed to a pretty house between the Bar and
the Avenue, and leaving Georgey to the care of a
good-natured waiter, who seemed to have nothing to
do but to look out of the window, and whisk invisible
dust off the brightly polished tables, the barrister
walked up the High-street, towards Mr. Marchmont's
academy for young gentlemen.
He found Mr. Marchmont a very sensible man, and
he met a file of orderly-looking young gentlemen walk-
ing townwards nnder the escort of a couple of ushers as
he entered the house.
He told the schoolmaster that little George Talboys
had been left in his charge by a dear friend, who had
sailed for Australia some months before, and whom he
believed to be dead. He confided him to Mr. March-
mont's especial care, and he further requested that no
visitors should be admitted to see the boy, unless ac-
credited by a letter from himself. Having arranged
the matter in a very few business-like words, he re-
turned to the hotel to fetch Georgey.
He found the little man on intimate terms with the
idle waiter, who had been directing Master Georgey's


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD ROME. 253
attention to the different objects of interest in the
High-street.
Poor Bobert had about as much notion of the re-
quirements of a child as he had of those of a white
elephant . He had catered for silkworms, guinea-pigs,
dormice, canary birds, and dogs, without number,
during his boyhood, but he had never been called
upon to provide for a young person of five years old.
He looked back five-and-twenty years, and tried to
remember his own diet at the age of five.
"I've a vague recollection of getting a good deal
of bread and milk and boiled mutton," he thought;
"and I've another vague recollection of not liking them.
I wonder if this boy likes bread and milk and boiled
mutton."
He stood pulling his thick moustache and staring
thoughtfully at the child for some minutes before he
could get any further.
"I dare say you're hungry, Georgey," he said, at
last.
The boy nodded, and the waiter whisked some
more invisible dust from the table, as a preparatory
step towards laying a cloth.
"Perhaps you'd like some lunch?" Mr. Audley
suggested, still pulling his moustache.
The boy burst out laughing.
"Lunch!" he cried. "Why, it's afternoon, and I've
had my dinner."
Bobert Audley felt himself brought to a stand-still


254
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
What refreshment could he possibly provide for a boy
who called it afternoon at three o'clock?
"You shall have some bread and milk, Georgey,"
he said, presently. "Waiter, bread-and-milk, and a
pint of hock."
Master Talboys made a wry face.
"I never have bread-and-milk," he said; "I don't
like it. I like what grandpa calls something savoury.
I should like a veal cutlet. Grandpa told me he dined
here once, and the veal cutlets were lovely, grandpa
said. Please may I have a veal cutlet, with egg and
bread-crumb, you know, and some lemon-juice, you
know?" he added to the waiter. "Grandpa knows the
cook here. The cook's such a nice gentleman, and
once gave me a shilling, when grandpa brought me
here. The cook wears better clothes than grandpa —
better than yours even," said Master Georgey, pointing
to Robert's rough great-coat with a depreciatory nod.
Robert Audley stared aghast. How was he to deal
with this epicure of five years old, who rejected bread-
and-milk and asked for veal cutlets?
"I'll tell you what I'll do with you, little Georgey,"
he exclaimed, after a pause — "I'll give you a dinner."
The waiter nodded briskly.
"Upon my word, sir," he said, approvingly, "I
think the little gentleman will know how to eat it."
"I'll give you a dinner, Georgey," repeated Robert
— "a little Julienne, some stewed eels, a dish of cut-
lots, a bird, and a pudding. What do you say to that,
Georgey?"


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME.
255
"I don't think the young gentleman will object to
it when he sees it, sir," said the waiter. "Eels, Ju-
lienne, cutlets, bird, pudding — I'll go and tell the
cook, sir. What time, sir?"
"Well, we'll say six, and Master Georgey will get
to his new school by bedtime. You can contrive to
amuse the child for this afternoon, I dare say. I have
some business to settle, and shan't be able to take him
out . I shall sleep here to-night. Good-by, Georgey;
take care of yourself, and try and get your appetite in
order against six o'clock."
Eobert Audley left the boy in charge of the idle
waiter, and strolled down to the water-side, choosing
that lonely bank which leads away under the moulder-
ing walls of the town towards the little villages beside
the narrowing river.
He had purposely avoided the society of the child
and he walked through the light drifting snow till the
early darkness closed upon him.
He went back to the town, and made inquiries at
the station about the trains for Dorsetshire.
"I shall start early to-morrow morning," he thought
"and see George's father before nightfall. I will tell
him all — all but the interest which I take in — in
the suspected person, and he shall decide what is next
to be done."
Master Georgey did very good justice to the dinner
which Robert had ordered. He drank Bass's pale ale
to an extent which considerably alarmed his enter-
tainer, and enjoyed himself amazingly, showing an ap-


256
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
preciation of roast pheasant and bread-sauce which was
beyond his years. At eight o'clock a fly was brought
out for his accommodation, and he departed in the
highest spirits, with a sovereign in his pocket, and a
letter from Robert to Mr. Marchmont, enclosing a
cheque for the young gentleman's outfit.
"I'm glad Tm going to have new clothes," he said,
as he bade Robert good-by; "for Mrs. Plowson has
mended the old ones ever so many times. She can
have them now for Billy."
"Who's Billy?" Robert asked, laughing at the
boy's chatter.
"Billy is poor Matilda's little brother. He's a
common boy, you know. Matilda was common, but
she —"
But the flyman smacking his whip at this moment,
the old horse jogged off, and Robert Audley heard no
more of Matilda.


COMING TO A STANDSTILL.
257
CHAPTER XXIII.
Coming to a Standstill.
Mb. Harcoubt Talboys lived in a prim, square,
red-brick mansion, within a mile of a little village
called Grange Heath, in Dorsetshire. The prim, square,
red-brick mansion stood in the centre of prim, square
grounds, scarcely large enough to be called a park, too
large to be called anything else — so neither the house
nor the grounds had any name, and the estate was
simply designated Squire Talboys'.
Perhaps Mr. Harcourt Talboys was the very last
person in this world with whom it was possible to as-
sociate the homely, hearty, rural, old English title of
squire. He neither hunted nor farmed. He had never
worn crimson-pink, or top-boots in his life. A south-
erly wind and a cloudy sky were matters of supreme
indifference to him, so long as they did not in any
way interfere with Ms own prim comforts; and he only
cared for the state of the crops insomuch as involved
the hazard of certain rents which he received for the
farms upon his estate. He was a man of about fifty
years of age, tall, straight, bony, and angular, with a
square, pale face, light grey eyes, and scanty dark
hair, brushed from either ear across a bald crown, and
thus imparting to his physiognomy some faint resem-
blance to that of a terrier — a sharp, uncompromising,
Lady Audley'1 Secret. 1. 17


242
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
the ground with an effort, he drew himself to his full
height, and said, in a manner which was new to him,
and which was not without a certain dignity of its own
— that dignity which must always he attached to un-
utterable misery, in whatever form it may appear — he
said, gravely: —
"You have no right to come here and terrify a
man who has been drinking; and who is not quite
himself. You have no right to do it, Mr. Audley.
Even the — the officer, sir, who — who —" He did
not stammer, but his lips trembled so violently that
his words seemed to be shaken into pieces by their
motion. "The officer, I repeat, sir, who arrests a —
a thief, or a —" He stopped to wipe his lips, and to
still them if he could by doing so, which he could not.
"A thief — or a murderer —" His voice died sud-
denly away upon the last word, and it was only by
the motion of those trembling lips that Robert knew
what he meant. "Gives him warning, sir, fair warn-
ing, that he may say nothing which shall commit him-
self — or — or — other people. The — the — law,
sir, has that amount of mercy for a — a — suspected
criminal. But you, sir, you — you come to my house,
and you come at a time when — when — contrary to
my usual habits — which, as people will tell you,
are sober — you come, and perceiving that I am not
quite myself — you take — the — opportunity to —
terrify me — and it is not right, sir — it is —"
Whatever he would have said died away into in-
articulate gasps which Beemed to choke him, and sink-


LITTLE QEOEGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 243
ing into a chair, he dropped his face upon the table
and wept aloud. Perhaps in all the dismal scenes of
domestic misery which had been acted in those spare
and dreary houses — in all the petty miseries, the
burning shames, the cruel sorrows, the bitter disgraces
which own poverty for their common father — there
had never been such a scene as this. An old man
hiding his face from the light of day, and sobbing
aloud in his wretchedness. Robert Audley contem-
plated the painful picture with a hopeless and pitying
face.
"If I had known this," he thought, "I might have
spared him. It would have been better, perhaps, to
have spared him."
The shabby room, the dirt, the confusion, the figure
of the old man, with his grey head upon the soiled
table-cloth, amid the muddled debris of a wretched
dinner, grew blurred before the sight of Kobert Audley
as he thought of another man, as old as this one, but,
ah, how widely different in every other quality! who
might come by-and-by to feel the same, or even a
worse anguish, and to shed, perhaps, yet bitterer tears.
The moment in which the tears rose to his eyes and
dimmed the piteous scene before him, was long enough
to take him back to Essex and to show him the image
of his uncle, stricken by agony and shame.
"Why do I go on with this?" he thought; "how
pitiless I am, and how relentlessly I am carried on.
It is not myself; it is the hand which is beckoning me
16*


260
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
be ready to hear you. If you speak of him as you
would speak of the living, I must decline to listen."
I believe that Harcourt Talboys hugged himself
upon the gloomy Roman grandeur of this speech, and
that he would have liked to have worn a toga, and
wrapped himself sternly in its folds, as he turned bis
back upon poor George's intercessor. George never in
his own person made any effort to soften his father's
verdict . He knew his father well enough to know that
the case was hopeless.
"If I write to him, he will fold my letter with the
envelope inside, and indorse it with my name and the
date of its arrival," the young man would say, "and
call everybody in the house to witness that it has not
moved him to one softening recollection or one pitiful
thought. He will stick to his resolution to his dying
day. I dare say, if the truth were known, he is glad
that his only son has offended him and given him the
opportunity of parading his Roman virtues."
George had answered his wife thus when she and
her father had urged him to ask assistance from Har-
court Talboys.
"No, my darling," he would say conclusively. "It
is very hard, perhaps, to be poor, but we will bear it.
We won't go with pitiful faces to the stern father, and
ask him to give us food and shelter, only to be refused
in long Johnsonian sentences, and made a classical
example of for the benefit of the neighbourhood. No,
my pretty one; it is easy to starve, but it is difficult
to stoop."


COMING TO A STANDSTILL.
261
Perhaps poor Mrs. George did not agree very
heartily to the first of these two propositions. She
had no great fancy for starving, and she whimpered
pitifully when the pretty pint bottles of champagne,
with Cliquot's and Moet's brands upon their corks,
were exchanged for sixpenny ale, procured by a slipshod
attendant from the nearest beershop. George had been
obliged to carry his own burden and lend a helping
hand with that of his wife, who had no idea of keeping
her regrets or disappointments a secret.
"I thought dragoons were always rich," she used
to say, peevishly. "Girls always want to marry dra-
goons; and tradespeople always want to serve dragoons;
and hotel-keepers to entertain dragoons; and theatrical
managers to be patronised by dragoons. Who could
have ever expected that a dragoon would drink six-
penny ale, smoke horrid bird's-eye tobacco, and let his
wife wear a shabby bonnet?"
If thero were any selfish feeling displayed in such
speeches as these, George Talboys had never discovered
it. He had loved and believed in his wife from the
first to the last hour of his brief married life. The
love that is not blind is perhaps only a spurious divinity
after all; for when Cnpid takes the fillet from his eyes
it is a fatally certain indication that he is preparing to
spread his wings for a flight. George never forgot the
hour in which he had first been bewitched by Lieutenant
Maldon's pretty daughter, and however she might have
changed, the image which had charmed him then,


246
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
been caused by his grief for the loss of George Tal-
boys; but the pretence was miserably shallow.
Mrs. Plowson re-entered the room, leading little
Georgey, whose face shone with that brilliant polish
which yellow soap and friction can produce upon the
human countenance.
"Dear heart alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Plowson, "what
has the poor old gentleman been taking on about? We
could hear him in the passage, sobbin' awful."
Little George crept up to bis grandfather and
smoothed the wet and wrinkled face with his pudgy
hand.
"Don't cry, gran'pa," he said, "don't cry. Yon
shall have my watch to be cleaned, and the kind
jeweller shall lend you the money to pay the taxman
while he cleans the watch — I don't mind, gran'pa.
Let's go to the jeweller — the jeweller in High-street,
you know, with golden balls painted upon his door,
to show that he comes from Lombar — Lombarshire,"
said the boy, making a dash at the name. "Come,
gran'pa."
The little fellow took the jewelled toy from his
bosom and made for the door, proud of being possessed
of a talisman which he had seen so often made useful.
"There are wolves at Southampton," he said, with
rather a triumphant nod to Robert Audley. "My
gran'pa says when he takes my watch that he does it
to keep the wolf from the door. Are there wolves
where you live?"
The young barrister did not answer the child's


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 217
question, but stopped him as he was dragging his
grandfather towards the door.
"Your grandpapa does not want the watch to-day,
Georgey," he said, gravely.
"Why is he sorry, then?" asked Georgey, na1vely;
"when he wants the watch he is always sorry, and
beats his poor forehead so" — the boy stopped to pan-
tomime with his small fists — "and says that she —
the pretty lady, I think, he means —. uses him very
hard, and that he can't keep the wolf from the door;
and then I say, 'Gran'pa, have the watch;' and then
he takes me in his arms and says, 'Oh, my blessed
angel 1 how can I rob my blessed angel?' and then he
cries, but not like to-day — not loud, you know; only
tears running down his poor cheeks; not so that you
could hear him in the passage."
Painful as the child's prattle was to Robert Audley,
it seemed a relief to the old man. He did not hear
the boy's talk, but walked two or three times up and
down the little room and smoothed his rumpled hair
and suffered his cravat to be arranged by Mrs. Plowson,
who seemed very anxious to find out the cause of his
agitation.
"Poor dear old gentleman," she said, looking at
Robert. "What has happened to upset him so?"
"His son-in-law is dead," answered Mr. Audley,
fixing his eyes upon Mrs. Plowson's sympathetic face.
"He died within a year and a half after the death
of Helen Talboys, who lies buried in Ventnor church-
yard."


264
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
dismounted at the steps, ascended them, and rang a
brass-handled bell, which flew back to its socket with
an angry metallic snap, as if it had been insulted by
the plebeian tonch of the man's hand.
A man in black trousers and a striped linen
jacket, which was evidently fresh from the hands of
the laundress, opened the door. Mr. Talboys was at
home. "Would the gentleman send in his card?
Robert waited in the hall while his card was taken
to the master of the house.
The hall was large, lofty, and paved with stone.
The panels of the oaken wainscot shone with the
same uncompromising polish which was on every ob-
ject within and without the red-bricked mansion.
Some people are so weak-minded as to affect pic-
tures and statues. Mr. Harcourt Talboys was far too
practical to indulge in any such foolish fancies. A
barometer and an umbrella-stand were the only adorn-
ments of his entrance-hall.
Robert Audley looked at these while his name
was being submitted to George's father.
The linen-jacketed servant returned presently. He
was a spare, pale-faced man of almost forty, and had
the appearance of having outlived every emotion to
which humanity is subject.
"If you will step this way, sir," he said, "Mr.
Talboys will see you, although he is at breakfast.
He begged me to state that he had imagined that
everybody in Dorsetshire was acquainted with his
breakfast-hour."


COMING TO A STANDSTILL.
265
This was intended as a stately reproof to Mr.
Robert Audley. It had, however, very small effect
upon the young, barrister. He merely lifted his eye-
brows in placid deprecation of himself and every-
body else.
"I don't belong to Dorsetshire," he said. "Mr.
Talboys might have known that, if he'd done me the
honour to exercise his powers of ratiocination. Drive
on, my friend."
The emotionless man looked at Robert Audley
with the vacant stare of unmitigated horror, and
opening one of the heavy oak doors, led the way into
a large dining-room furnished with the severe simplicity
of an apartment which is meant to be ate in, but never
lived in; and at the top of a table which would have
accommodated eighteen persons, Robert beheld Mr.
Harcourt Talboys.
Mr. Talboys was robed in a dressing-gown of grey
cloth, fastened about his waist with a girdle. It was
a severe-looking garment, and was perhaps the nearest
approach to a toga to be obtained within the range of
modern costume. He wore a buff waistcoat, a stiffly
starched cambric cravat, and a faultless shirt collar.
The cold grey of his dressing-gown was almost the
same as the cold grey of his eyes, and the pale buff
of his waistcoat was the pale buff of his complexion.
Robert Audley had not expected to find Harcourt
Talboys at all like George in manners or disposition,
but he had expected to see some family likeness be-
tween the father and the son. There was none. It


250
LADY ATTDLEy's SECRET.
ing off abruptly, "I mean this — I will not seek to
come one step nearer the secret through him. I — I
am not a detective officer, and I do not think that the
most accomplished detective would like to get his in-
formation from a child."
The old man did not answer; he sat with his face
shaded by his hand, and with his extinguished pipe
between the listless fingers of the other.
"Take the boy away, Mrs. Plowson," he said, after
a pause; "take him away and put his things on. He
is going with Mr. Audley."
"Which I do say that it's not kind of the gentle-
man to take his poor grandpa's pet away," Mrs. Plow-
son exclaimed, suddenly, with respectful indignation.
"Hush, Mrs. Plowson," the old man answered,
piteously; "Mr. Audley is the best judge. I — I —
haven't many years to live; I shan't trouble anybody
long."
The tears oozed slowly through the dirty fingers
with which he shaded his bloodshot eyes as he said
this.
"God knows, I never injured your friend, sir," he
said by-and-by, when Mrs. Plowson and Georgey had
returned, "nor ever wished him any ill. He was a
good son-in-law to me — better than many a son. 1
never did him any wilful wrong, sir. I — I spent his
money, perhaps, but I am sorry for it, — I am very
sorry for it now. But I don't believe he is dead —
no, sir, no, I don't believe it!" exclaimed the old man,
dropping his hand from his eyes, and looking with new


LITTLE QEOROEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 251
energy at Robert Audley. "I — I don't believe it,
sir! How — how should he he dead?"
Robert did not answer this eager questioning. He
shook his head mournfully, and walking to the little
window looked out across a row of straggling gerani-
ums at the dreary patch of waste ground on which the
children were at play.
Mrs. Plowson returned with little Georgey muffled
in a coat and comforter, and Robert took the boy's
hand.
"Say good-by to your grandpapa, Georgey."
The little fellow sprang towards the old man, and
clinging about him, kissed the dirty tears from his
faded cheeks.
"Don't be sorry for me, grandpa," he said; "I am
going to school to learn to be a clever man, and I shall
come home to see you and Mr. Plowson, shan't I?" he
added, turning to Robert
.
"Yes, my dear, by-and-by."
"Take him away, sir — take him away," cried Mr.
Mai don; "you are breaking my heart."
The little fellow trotted away contentedly at Robert's
side. He was very well pleased at the idea of going
to school, though he had been happy enough with his
drunken old grandfather, who had always displayed a
maudlin affection for the pretty child, and had done
his best to spoil Georgey, by letting him have his own
way in everything; in consequence of which indulgence
Master Talboys had acquired a taste for late hours,


268
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
Robert bad eaten nothing that morning, but be
glanced at the long expanse of dreary table-cloth, the
silver tea and coffee equipage, the stiff splendour and
the very little appearance of any substantial entertain-
ment, and he declined Mr. Talboys' invitation.
"Mr. Audley will not take coffee, Wilson," said
the master of the house. "You may go."
The man bowed and retired, opening and shutting
the door as cautiously as if he were taking a liberty in
doing it at all, or as if the respect due to Mr. Talboys
demanded his walking straight through the oaken
panel like a ghost in a German story.
Mr. Harcourt Talboys sat with his grey eyes fixed
severely on his visitor, his elbows on the red morocco
arms of his chair, and his finger-tips joined. It was
the attitude in which, had he been Junius Brutus, he
would have sat at the trial of his sons. Had Robert
Audley been easily to be embarrassed, Mr. Talboys
might have succeeded in making him feel so: as ho
would have sat with perfect tranquillity upon an
open gun-powder barrel lighting his cigar, he was not
at all disturbed upon this occasion. The father's
dignity seemed a very small thing to him when ho
thought of the possible causes of the son's dis-
appearance.
"I wrote to you some time since, Mr. Talboys,"
he said quietly, when he saw that he was expected to
open the conversation.
Harcourt Talboys bowed. Ho know that it was
of his lost son that Robert came to speak. Heaven


COMING TO A STANDSTILL.
2G9
grant that his icy stoicism was the paltry affectation
of a vain man, rather than the utter heartlessness
which Robert thought it . He bowed across his finger-
tips at his visitor. The trial had begun, and Junius
Brutus was enjoying himself.
"I received your communication, Mr. Audley," he
said. "It is indorsed amongst other business letters:
it was duly answered."
"That letter concerned your son."
There was a little rustling noise at the window
where the lady sat, as Robert said this: he looked at
her almost instantaneously, but sbe did not seem to
have stirred. She was not working, but she was per-
fectly quiet.
"She's as heartless as her father, I expect, though
she is like George," thought Mr. Audley.
"Your letter concerned the person who was once
my son, perhaps, sir," said Harcourt Talboys; "I must
ask you to remember that I have no longer a son."
"You have no reason to remind me of that, Mr.
Talboys," answered Robert, gravely; "I remember it
only too well. I have fatal reason to believe that you
have no longer a son. I have bitter cause to think
that he is dead."
It may be that Mr. Talboys' complexion faded to
a paler shade of buff as Robert said this; but he only
elevated his bristling grey eyebrows and shook his
head gently.
"No," he said, "no, I assure you, no."


254
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
What refreshment could he possibly provide for a boy
who called it afternoon at three o'clock?
"You shall have some bread and milk, Georgey,"
he said, presently. "Waiter, bread-and-milk, and a
pint of hock."
Master Talboys made a wry face.
"I never have bread-and-milk," he said; "I don't
like it. I like what grandpa calls something savoury.
I should like a veal cutlet. Grandpa told me he dined
here once, and the veal cutlets were lovely, grandpa
said. Please may I have a veal cutlet, with egg and
bread-crumb, you know, and some lemon-juice, you
know?" he added to the waiter. "Grandpa knows the
cook here. The cook's such a nice gentleman, and
once gave me a shilling, when grandpa brought me
here. The cook wears better clothes than grandpa —
better than yours even," said Master Georgey, pointing
to Robert's rough great-coat with a depreciatory nod.
Robert Audley stared aghast. How was he to deal
with this epicure of five years old, who rejected bread-
and-milk and asked for veal cutlets?
"I'll tell you what I'll do with you, little Georgey,"
he exclaimed, after a pause — "77/ give you a dinner."
The waiter nodded briskly.
"Upon my word, sir," he said, approvingly, "I
think the little gentleman will know how to eat it."
"I'll give you a dinner, Georgey," repeated Robert
— "a little Julienne, some stewed eels, a dish of cut-
lets, a bird, and a pudding. What do you say to that,
Georgey?"


LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME. 255
"I don't think the young gentleman will object to
it when he sees it, sir," said the waiter. "Eels, Ju-
lienne, cutlets, bird, pudding — I'll go and tell the
cook, sir. What time, sir?"
"Well, we'll say six, and Master Georgey will get
to his new school by bedtime. You can contrive to
.amuse the child for this afternoon, I dare say. I have
some business to settle, and shan't be able to take him
out . I shall sleep here to-night. Good-by, Georgey;
take care of yourself, and try and get your appetite in
order against six o'clock."
Robert Audley left the boy in charge of the idle
waiter, and strolled down to the water-side, choosing
that lonely bank which leads away under the moulder-
ing walls of the town towards the little villages beside
the narrowing river.
He had purposely avoided the society of the child
and he walked through the light drifting snow till the
early darkness closed upon him.
He went back to the town, and made inquiries at
the station about the trains for Dorsetshire.
"I shall start early to-morrow morning," he thought
"and see George's father before nightfall. I will tell
him all — all but the interest which I take in — in
the suspected person, and he shall decide what is next
to be done."
Master Georgey did very good justice to the dinner
which Robert had ordered. He drank Bass's pale ale
to an extent which considerably alarmed his enter-
tainer, and enjoyed himself amazingly, showing an ap-


272
LADY AUDLHy's SECRET.
this earth. I have a great deal to say to you upon
this — this sad subject, Mr. Talboys; but I would
rather say it to you alone," he added, glancing at the
lady in the window.
"My daughter knows my ideas upon this subject,
Mr. Audley," said Harcourt Talboys; "there is no
reason why she should not hear all you have to say.
Miss Clara Talboys, Mr. Robert Audley," he added,
waving his hand majestically.
The young lady bent her head in recognition of
Robert's bow.
"Let her hear it," he thought. "If she has so little
feeling as to show no emotion upon such a subject, let
her hear the worst I have to tell."
There was a few minutes' pause, during which
Robert took some papers from his pocket; amongst
them the document which he had written immediately
after George's disappearance.
"I shall require all your attention, Mr. Talboys,"
he said, "for that which I have to disclose to you is
of a very painful nature. Your son was my very dear
friend — dear to me for many reasons. Perhaps most
of all dear, because I had known him and been with
him through the great trouble of his life; and because
he stood comparatively alone in the world — cast off
by you, who should have been his best friend, bereft
of the only woman he had ever loved."
"The daughter of a drunken pauper," Mr. Talboys
remarked, parenthetically.
"Had he died in his bed, as I sometimes thought


COMING TO A STANDSTILL.
273
he would," continued Robert Audley, "of a broken
heart, I should have mourned for him very sincerely,
even though I had closed his eyes with my own hands,
and had seen him laid in his quiet resting-place. I
should have grieved for my old school-fellow, and for
the companion who had been dear to me. But the
grief would have been a very small one compared to
that which I feel now, believing, as I do only too
firmly, that my poor friend has been murdered."
"Murdered!"
The father and daughter simultaneously repeated
the horrible word. The father's face changed to a
ghastly duskiness of hue; the daughter's face dropped
upon her clasped hands, and was never lifted again
throughout the interview.
"Mr. Audley, you are mad!" exclaimed Harcourt
Talboys; "you are mad, or else you are commissioned
by your friend to play upon my feelings. I protest
against this proceeding as a conspiracy, and I — I
revoke my intended forgiveness of the person who was
once my son."
He was himself again as he said this. The blow
had been a sharp one, but its effect had been mo-
mentary.
"It is far from my wish to alarm you unnecessarily,
sir," answered Robert. "Heaven grant that you may
be right and I wrong. I pray for it, but I cannot
think it — I cannot even hope it. I come to you for
advice. I will state to you plainly and dispassionately
the circumstances which have aroused my suspicions,
Lady Audley't Stcrtt. I. 18


274
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
If 7011 say those suspicions are foolish and unfounded,
I am ready to submit to your better judgment. I will
leave England; and I abandon my search for the
evidence wanting to — to confirm my fears. If you
say go on, I will go on."
Nothing could be more gratifying to the vanity of
Mr. Harcourt Talboys than this appeal. He declared
himself ready to listen to all that Robert might have
to say, and ready to assist him to the uttermost of his
power.
He laid some stress upon this last assurance, depre-
cating the value of his advice with an affectation that
was as transparent as his vanity itself.
Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of Mr.
Talboys, and commenced a minutely-detailed account
of all that had happened to George from the time of
his arrival in England to the hour of his disappearance,
as well as all that had occurred since his disappearance
in any way touching upon that particular subject.
Harcourt Talboys listened with demonstrative attention,
now and then interrupting the speaker to ask some
magisterial kind of question. Clara Talboys never
once lifted her face from her clasped hands.
The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past
eleven when Robert began his story. The clock struck
twelve as he finished.
He had carefully suppressed the names of his uncle
and his uncle's wife in relating the circumstances in
which they had been concerned.
"Now, sir," he said, when the story had been told,


COMING TO A STANDSTILL.
275
"I await your decision. You have heard my reasons
for coming to this terrible conclusion. In what manner
do those reasons influence you?"
"They do not in any way turn me from my previous
opinion," answered Mr. Harcourt Talboys, with the
unreasoning pride of an obstinate man. "I still think,
as I thought before, that my son is alive, and that his
disappearance is a conspiracy against myself. I decline
to become the victim of that conspiracy."
"And you tell me to stop?" asked Robert, solemnly.
"I tell you only this: — If you go on, you go on
for your own satisfaction, not for mine. I see nothing
in what you have told me to alarm me for the safety
of — your friend."
"So be it, then!" exclaimed Robert, suddenly,
"from this moment I wash my hands of this business.
From this moment the purpose of my life shall be to
forget it."
He rose as he spoke, and took his hat from the
table on which he had placed it. He looked at Clara
Talboys. Her attitude had never changed since she
had dropped her face upon her hands. "Good morning,
Mr. Talboys," he said gravely. "God grant that you
are right. God grant that I am wrong. But I fear a
day will come when you will have reason to regret
your apathy respecting the untimely fate of your only
son."
He bowed gravely to Mr. Harcourt Talboys and to
the lady, whose face was hidden by her hands.
He lingered for a moment looking at Miss Talboys,
18*


276
LADY AHDMt's SECEET.
thinking that she would look up, that she would make
some sign, or show some desire to detain him.
Mr. Talboys rang for the emotionless servant, who
led Robert off to the hall door with the solemnity of
manner which would have been in perfect keeping had
he been leading him to execution.
"She is like her father," thought Mr. Audley, as he
glanced for the last time at the drooping head. "Poor
George, you had need of one friend in this world, for
you have had very few to love yon."


CLARA.
277
CHAPTER XXIV.
Clan.
Robert Audley found the driver asleep upon the
box of his lumbering vehicle. He had been entertained
with beer of so hard a nature, as to induce temporary
strangulation in the daring imbiber thereof, and he
was very glad to welcome the return of his fare. The
old white horse, who looked as if he had been foaled
in the year in which the carriage had been built, and
seemed, like the carriage, to have outlived the fashion,
was as fast asleep as his master, and woke up with a
jerk as Robert came down the stony flight of steps,
attended by his executioner, who waited respectfully
till Mr. Audley had entered the vehicle and been
turned off.
The horse, roused by a smack of his driver's whip,
and a shako of the shabby reins, crawled off in a semi-
somnambulant state, and Robert, with his hat very
much over his eyes, thought of his missing friend.
He had played in these stiff gardens, and under
these dreary firs, years ago, perhaps — if it were
possible for the most frolicsome youth to be playful
within the range of Mr. Harcourt Talboys' hard grey
eyes. He had played beneath these dark trees, perhaps,
with the sister who had heard of his fate to-day without
a tear. Robert Audley looked at the rigid primness of


278
LADY audley's secret.
the orderly grounds, wondering how George could have
grown up in such a place to be the frank, generous,
careless friend whom he had known. How was it that
with his father perpetually before his eyes, he had not
grown up after the father's disagreeable model, to be
a nuisance to his fellowmen? How was it? Because
we have Borne One higher than our parents to thank
for the souls which make us great or small; and be-
cause, while family noses and family chins may descend
in orderly sequence from father to son, from grandsire
to grandchild, as the fashion of the fading flowers of
one year are reproduced in the budding blossoms of
the next, the spirit, more subtle than the wind which
blows among those flowers, independent of all earthly
rule, owns no order but the harmonious Law of God.
"Thank God!" thought Robert Audley — "thank
God! it is over. My poor friend must rest in his un-
known grave; and I shall not be the means of bringing
disgrace upon those I love. It will come, perhaps,
sooner or later, but it will not come through me. The
crisis is past, and I am free."
He felt an unutterable relief in this thought. His
generous nature revolted at the office into which he
had found himself drawn — the office of spy, the
collector of damning facts that led on to horrible de-
ductions.
He drew a long breath — a sigh of relief at his
release. It was all over now.
The fly was crawling out of the gate of the planta-
tion as he thought this, and he stood up in the vehicle


CLARA.
279
to look back at the dreary fir-trees, the gravel paths,
the smooth grass, and the great desolate-looking, red-
brick mansion.
He was startled by the appearance of a woman
running, almost flying, along the carriage-drive by
which he had come, and waving a handkerchief in her
uplifted hand.
He stared at this singular apparition for some mo-
ments in silent wonder, before he was able to reduce
his stupefaction into words.
"Is it me the flying female wants?" he exclaimed
at last. "You'd better stop, perhaps," he added to the
flyman. "It is an age of eccentricity, an abnormal
era of the world's history. She may want me. Very
likely I left my pocket-handkerchief behind me, and
Mr. Talboys has sent this person with it. Perhaps I'd
better get out and go and meet her. It's civil to send
my handkerchief."
Mr. Robert Audley deliberately descended from the
fly, and walked slowly towards the hurrying female
figure, which gained upon him rapidly.
He was rather short-sighted, and is was not until
she came very near to him that he saw who she was.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "it's Miss Tal-
boys."
It was Miss Talboys, flushed and breathless, with
a woollen shawl over her head.
Robert Audley now saw her face clearly for the
first time, and he saw that she was very handsome.
She had brown eyes, like George's, a pale complexion


280
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
(she had been flushed when she approached him, but
the colour faded away as she recovered her breath),
regular features, and a mobility of expression which
bore record of every change of feeling. He saw all
this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more
at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with
Mr. Talboys. There were no tears in her eyes, but
they were bright with a feverish lustre — terribly bright
and dry — aud he could see that her lips trembled as
she spoke to him.
"Miss Talboys," he said, "what can I? —
why —"
She interrupted him suddenly, catching at his
wrist with her disengaged hand — she was holding
her shawl in the other.
"Oh, let me speak to you," she cried — "let me
speak to you, or I shall go mad. I heard it all. I
believe what you believe; and I shall go mad unless I
can do something — something towards avenging bis
death."
For a few moments Robert Audley was too much
bewildered to answer her. Of all things possible upon
earth he had least expected to behold her thus.
"Take my arm, Miss Talboys," he said. "Pray
calm yourself. Let us walk a little way back towards
the house, and talk quietly. I would not have spoken
as I did before you, had I known —"
"Had you known that I loved my brother," sho
said quickly. "How should you know that I loved
him? How should any one think that I loved him,


CLARA.
281
when I have never had power to win him a welcome
beneath that roof, or a kindly word from his father.
How should I dare to betray my love for him in that
house, when I knew that even a sister's affection would
be turned to his disadvantage? You do not know my
father, Mr. Audley. I do. I knew that to intercede
for George would have been to ruin his cause. I knew
that to leave matters in my father's hands, and to
trust to time, was my only chance of ever seeing that
dear brother again. And I waited — waited patiently,
always hoping for the best; for I knew that my father
loved his only son. I see your contemptuous smile,
Mr. Audley, and I dare say it is difficult for a stranger
to believe that underneath his affected stoicism, my
father conceals some degree of affection for his children
— no very warm attachment perhaps, for he has always
ruled his life by the strict law of duty. "Stop," she
said, suddenly, laying her hand upon his arm, and
looking back through the straight avenue of pines;
"I ran out of the house by the backway. Papa must
not see me talking to you, Mr. Audley, and he must
not see the fly standing at the gate. Will you go into
the high road and tell the man to drive on a little
way? I will come out of the plantation by a little
gate further on, and meet you in the road."
"But you will catch cold, Miss Talboys," remon-
strated Robert, looking at her anxiously, for he saw
that she was trembling. "You are shivering now."
"Not with cold," she answered. "I am thinking
of my brother George. If you have any pity for the


282
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
only sister of your lost friend, do what I ask yon, Me
Audley. I must speak to you — I must speak to you
— calmly, if I can."
Sbe put her hand to her head as if trying to collect
her thoughts, and then pointed to the gate. Robert
bowed and left her. He told the man to drive slowly
towards the station, and walked on by the side of the
tarred fence surrounding Mr. Talboy's grounds. About
a hundred yards beyond the principal entrance he came
to a little wooden gate in the fence, and waited at it
for Miss Talboys.
She joined him presently, with her shawl still over
her head, and her eyes still bright and tearless.
"Will you walk with me inside the plantation?"
she said. "We might be observed on the high road."
He bowed, passed through the gate, and shut it
behind him.
When she took his offered arm he found that she
was still trembling — trembling very violently.
"Pray, pray calm yourself, Miss Talboys," he said:
"I may have been deceived in the opinion which I
have formed; I may"
"No, no, no," she exclaimed, "you are not de-
ceived. My brother has been murdered. Tell me the
name of that woman — the woman whom you suspect
of being concerned in his disappearance — in his
murder."
"That I cannot do until"
"Until when?"
"Until I know that she is guilty."


CLARA.
283
"You told my father that you would abandon all
idea of discovering the truth — that you would rest
satisfied to leave my brother's fate a horrible mystery
never to be solved upon this earth; but you will not
do so, Mr. Audley — you will not be false to the me-
mory of your friend. You will see vengeance done
upon those who have destroyed him. You will do this,
will you not?"
A gloomy shadow spread itself like a dark veil
over Robert Audley's handsome face.
He remembered what he had said the day before
at Southampton —
"A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning
me onward upon the dark road."
A quarter of an hour before, he had believed that
all was over, and that he was released from the dread-
ful duty of discovering the secret of George's death.
Now this girl, this apparently passionless girl, had
found a voice, and was urging him on towards his
fate.
"If you knew what misery to me may be involved
in discovering the truth, Miss Talboys," he said, "you
would scarcely ask me to pursue this business any
further."
"But I do ask you," she answered, with suppressed
passion — "I do ask you. I ask you to avenge my
brother's untimely death. Will you do so? Yea
or no?"
"What if I answer no?"
"Then I will do it myself!" she exclaimed, looking


284
LAD* audley's secret.
at him with her bright brown eyes. "I myself will
follow up the clue to this mystery; I will find this
woman — yes, though you refuse to tell me in what
part of England my brother disappeared. I will travel
from one end of the world to the other to find the se-
cret of his fate, if you refuse to find it for me. I am
of age; my own mistress; rich, for I have money left
me by one of my aunts; I shall be able to employ
those who will help me in my search, and I will make
it to their interest to serve me well. Choose between
the two alternatives, Mr. Audley. Shall you or I find
my brother's murderer?"
He looked in her face, and saw that her resolution
was the fruit of no transient womanish enthusiasm,
which would give way under the iron hand of difficulty.
Her beautiful features, naturally statuesque in their
noble outlines, seemed transformed into marble by the
rigidity of her expression. The face in which he looked
was the face of a woman whom death only could turn
from her purpose.
"I have grown up in an atmosphere of suppression,"
she said, quietly; "I have stifled and dwarfed the na-
tural feelings of my heart, until they have become un-
natural in their intensity; I have been allowed neither
friends nor lovers. My mother died when I was very
young. My father has always been to me what you
saw him to-day. I have had no one but my brother.
All the love that my heart can hold has been centred
upon him. Do you wonder, then, that when I hear
that his young life has been ended by the hand of


CLARA.
285
treachery, that I wish to see vengeance done upon the
traitor? Oh, my God," she cried, suddenly clasping her
hands, and looking up at the cold winter sky, "lead
me to the murderer of my brother, and let mine be the
hand to avenge his untimely death!"
Robert Audley stood looking at her with awe-
stricken admiration. Her beauty was elevated into
sublimity by the intensity of her suppressed passion.
She was different to all other women that he had ever
seen. His cousin was pretty, his uncle's wife was lovely,
but Clara Talboys was beautiful. Niobe's face, sublimated
by sorrow, could scarcely have been more purely clas-
sical than hers. Even her dress, puritan in its grey
simplicity, became her beauty better than a more
beautiful dress would have become a less beautiful
woman.
"Miss Talboys," said Robert, after a pause, "your
brother shall not be unavenged. He shall not be for-
gotten. I do not think that any professional aid which
you could procure would lead you as surely to the se-
cret of this mystery as I can lead you, if you are pa-
tient and trust me."
"I will trust you," she answered, "for I see that
you will help me."
"I believe that it is my destiny to do so," he said,
solemnly.
In the whole course of his conversation with
Harcourt Talboys, Robert Audley had carefully avoided
making any deductions from the circumstances which
he had submitted to George's father. He had simply


286
LADY AUDLEY 8 SECRET.
told the story of the missing man's life, from the hour
of his arriving in London to that of his disappearance:
but he saw that Clara Talboys had arrived at the same
conclusion as himself, and that it was tacitly understood
between them.
"Have you any letters of your brother's, Miss Tal-
boys?" he asked.
"Two. One written soon after his marriage; the
other written at Liverpool, the night before he sailed
for Australia."
"Will you let me see them?"
"Yes, I will send them to you, if you will give me
your address. You will write to me from time to time,
will you not? to tell me whether you are approaching
the truth. I shall be obliged to act secretly here, but
I am going to leave home in two or three months, and
I shall be perfectly free then to act as I please."
"You are not going to leave England?" Robert
asked.
"Oh no! I am only going to pay a long-promised
visit to some friends in Essex."
Robert started so violently, as Clara Talboys said
this, that she looked suddenly at his face. The agita-
tion visible there betrayed a part of his secret.
"My brother George disappeared in Essex," she
said.
He could not contradict her.
"I am sorry you have discovered so much," he re-
plied. "My position becomes every day more com-
plicated, every day more painful. Good-bye."


CI-AHA.
287
She gave him her hand mechanically when he held
out his, but it was colder than marble, and it lav
listlessly in his own, and fell like a log at her side
when he released it.
"Pray lose no time in returning to the house," he
said, earnestly. "I fear you will suffer from this
morning's work."
"Suffer!" she exclaimed, scornfully. "You talk to
me of suffering, when the only creature in this world
who ever loved me has been taken from it in the bloom
of youth. What can there be for me henceforth but
suffering? What is the cold to me?" she said, flinging
back her shawl and baring her beautiful head to the
bitter wind. "I would walk from here to London bare-
foot through the snow, and never stop by the way, if
I could bring him back to life. What would I not do
to bring him back? What would I not do?"
The words broke from her in a wail of passionate
sorrow, and clasping her hands before her face, she
wept for the first time that day. The violence of her
sobs shook her slender frame, and she was obliged to
lean against the trunk of a tree for support.
Robert looked at her with a tender compassion in
his face; she was so like the friend whom he had loved
and lost, that it was impossible for him to think of her
as a stranger; impossible to remember that they had
met that morning for the first time.
"Pray, pray be calm," he said; "hope even against
hope. We may both be deceived, your brother may
still live."


288
tAnr addlet's secret.
"Oh! if it were so," she murmured, passionately;
"if it could be so."
"Let us try and hope that it may be so."
"No," she answered, looking at him through her
tears, "let us hope for nothing but revenge. Good-bye,
Mr. Audley. Stop; your address."
He gave her a card, which she put into the pocket
of her dress.
"I will send you George's letters," she said; "they
may help you. Good-bye."
She left him half-bewildered by the passionate
energy of her manner, and the noble beauty of her
face. He watched her as she disappeared amongst the
straight trunks of the fir-trees, and then walked slowly
out of the plantation.
"Heaven help those who stand between me and the
secret," he thought, "for they will be sacrificed to the
memory of George Talboys."


oeoroe's letters.
289
CHAPTER XXV.
George's Letters.
Robert Audlet did not return to Southampton,
but took a ticket for the first up-train that left Ware-
ham, and reached Waterloo-bridge an hour or two after
dark. The snow, which had been hard and crisp in
Dorsetshire, was a black and greasy slush in the
Waterloo-road, thawed by the lamps of the gin-palaces
and the flaring gas in the butchers' shops.
Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders as he looked
at the dingy streets through which the Hansom carried
him, the cabman choosing — with that delicious in-
stinct which seems innate in the drivers of hackney
vehicles — all those dark and hideous thoroughfares
utterly unknown to the ordinary pedestrian.
"What a pleasant thing life is," thought the barrister.
"What an unspeakable boon — what an overpowering
blessing! Let any man make a calculation of his
existence, subtracting the hours in which he has been
thoroughly happy — really and entirely at his ease,
without one arriere penxe'e to mar his enjoyment —
without the most infinitesimal cloud to overshadow the
brightness of his horizon. Let him do this, and surely
he will laugh in utter bitterness of soul when he sets
down the sum of his felicity, and discovers the pitiful
smallness of the amount. He will have enjoyed him-
self for a week or ten days in thirty years, perhaps.
Lady AHttfl Secret. I. 19


290
LADY AUDLBY'S SECRET.
In thirty years of dull December, and blustering
March, and showery April, and dark November weather,
there may have been seven or eight glorious August
days through which the sun has blazed in cloudless
radiance, and the summer breezes have breathed per-
petual balm. How fondly we recollect these solitary
days of pleastire, and hope for their recurrence, and
try to plan the circumstances that made them bright;
and arrange, and predestinate, and diplomatise with
fate for a renewal of the remembered joy. As if any
joy could ever be built up out of such and such con-
stituent parts! As if happiness were not essentially
accidental — a bright and wandering bird, utterly
irregular in its migrations; with us one summer's day,
and for ever gone from us on the next! Look at mar-
riages, for instance," mused Robert, who was as medi-
tative in the jolting vehicle for whose occupation he
was to pay sixpence a mile, as if he had been riding
a mustang on the wide loneliness of the prairies.
"Look at marriages! Who is to say which shall be the
one judicious selection out of the nine hundred and
ninety-nine mistakes? Who shall decide from the first
aspect of the slimy creature, which is to be the one
eel out of the colossal bag of snakes? That girl on
the kerbstone yonder, waiting to cross the street when
my chariot shall have passed, may be the one woman
out of every female creature in this vast universe who
could make me a happy man. Yet I pass her by —
bespatter her with the mud from my wheels, in my
helpless ignorance, in my blind submission to the awful


George's letters.
291
hand of fatality. If that girl, Clara Talboys, had been
five minutes later, I should have left Dorsetshire,
thinking her cold, hard, and unwomanly, and should
have gone to my grave with that mistake part and
parcel of my mind. I took her for a stately and heart-
less automaton; I know her now to be a noble and
beautiful woman. What an incalculable difference this
may make in my life. When I left that house, I went
out into the winter day with the determination of
abandoning all further thought of the secret of George's
death. I see her, and she forces me onward upon the
loathsome path — the crooked byway of watchfulness
and suspicion. How can I say to this sister of my
dead friend, 'I believe that your brother has been
murdered! I believe that I know by whom, but I will
take no step to set my doubts at rest, or to confirm
my fears?' I cannot say this. This woman knows half
my secret; she will soon possess herself of the rest, and
then — and then —"
The cab stopped in the midst of Robert Audley's
meditation, and he had to pay the cabman, and sub-
mit to all the dreary mechanism of life, which is the
same whether we are glad or sorry — whether we are
to be married or hung, elevated to the woolsack or
disbarred by our brother benchers on some mysterious
technical tangle of wrong-doing, which is a social
enigma to those outside the Middle Temple.
We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness
in our life — this unflinching regularity in the smaller
wheels and meaner mechanism of the human machine,
19*


202
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
"which knows no stoppage or cessation, though the
mainspring be for ever broken, and the hands pointing
to purposeless figures upon a shattered dial.
Who has not felt, in the first madness of sorrow,
an unreasoning rage against the mute propriety of
chairs and tables, the stiff squareness of Turkey carpets,
the unbending obstinacy of the outward apparatus of
existence? We, want to root up gigantic trees in a
primeval forest, and to tear their huge branches asunder
in our convulsive grasp; and the utmost that we can
do for the relief of our passion is to knock over an
easy chair, or smash a few shillings'-worth of Mr.
Copeland's manufacture.
Madhouses are large and only too numerous; yet
surely it is strange they are not larger, when we think
of how many helpless wretches must beat their brains
against this hopeless persistency of the orderly outward
world, as compared with the storm and tempest, the
riot and confusion within: — when we remember how
many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary
between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane
to-morrow, mad yesterday and sane to-day.
Robert had directed the cabman to drop him at
the comer of Chancery-lane, and he ascended the bril-
liantly-lighted staircase leading to the dining saloon of
The London, and seated himself at one of the snug
tables with a confused sense of emptiness and weari-
ness, rather than any agreeable sensation of healthy
hunger. He had come to the luxurious eating-house
to dine, because it was absolutely necessary to eat


ggoroe's letters.
293
something somewhere, and a great deal easier to get a
very good dinner from Mr. Sawyer, than a very bad
one from Mrs. Maloney, whose mind ran in one narrow
channel of chops and steaks, only variable by small
creeks and outlets in the way of "briled sole" or
"biled mack'n'tf." The solicitous waiter tried in vain
to rouse poor Robert to a proper sense of the solemnity
of the dinner question. He muttered something to the
effect that the man might bring him anything l1e
liked, and the friendly waiter, who knew Robert as a
frequent guest at the little tables, went back to his
master with a doleful face to say that Mr. Audley
from Pig-tree court was evidently out of spirits.
Robert ate his dinner, and drank a pint of Moselle;
but he had poor appreciation for the excellence of the
viands or the delicate fragrance of the wine. The
mental monologue still went on, and the young philo-
sopher of the modern school was arguing the favourite
modern question of the nothingness of everything, and
the folly of taking too much trouble to walk upon a
road that led nowhere, or to compass a work that
meant nothing.
"I accept the dominion of that pale girl, with the
statuesque features and the calm brown eyes," he
thought. "I recognise the power of a mind superior
to my own, and I yield to it, and bow down to it.
I've been acting for myself, and thinking for myself,
for the last few months, and I'm tired of the unnatural
business. I've been false to the leading principle of
my life, and I've suffered for my folly. I found two


291
LAST AUDLEy's SECRET.
grey hairs in my head the week before last, and an
impertinent crow has planted a delicate impression of
his foot under my right eye. Yes, I'm getting old
upon the right side; and why — why should it
be so?"
He pushed away his plate, and lifted his eye-
brows, staring at the crumbs upon the glistening
damask, as he pondered the question —
"What the devil am I doing in this galere?" he
asked. "But I am in it, and I can't get out of it; so
I'd better submit myself to the brown-eyed girl, and
do what she tells me, patiently and faithfully. What
a wonderful solution to life's enigma there is in petti-
coat government! Man might lie in the sunshine and
eat lotuses, and fancy it 'always afternoon,' if his wife
would let him! But she won't, bless her impulsive
heart and active mind! She knows better than that
.
Whoever heard of a woman taking life as it ought to
be taken? Instead of supporting it as an unavoidable
nuisance, only redeemable by its brevity, she goes
through it as if it were a pageant or a procession. She
dresses for it, and simpers, and grins, and gesticulates
for it. She pushes her neighbours, and struggles for
a good place in the dismal march; she elbows, and
writhes, and tramples, and prances, to the one end of
making the most of the misery. She gets up early
and sits up late, and is loud, and restless, and noisy,
and unpitying. She drags her husband on to the
woolsack, or pushes him into Parliament. She drives
him full butt at the dear, lazy machinery of govern-


George's letters.
295
ment; and knocks and buffets him about the wheels
and cranks, and screws, and pulleys; until somebody,
for quiet's sake, makes him something that she wanted
him to be made. That's why incompetent men some-
times sit in high places, and interpose their poor
muddled intellects between the things to be done and
the people that can do them, making universal con-
fusion in the helpless innocence of well-placed incapa-
city. The square men in the round holes are pushed
into them by their wives. The Eastern potentate who
declared that women were at the bottom of all mis-
chief, should have gone a little further and seen why
it is so. It is because women are never lazy. They
don't know what it is to be quiet . They are Semira-
mides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Eliza-
beths, and Catharine the Seconds, and they riot in
battle, and murder, and clamour, and desperation. If
they can't agitate the universe and play at ball with
hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and
vexation out of domestic molehills; and social storms
in household teacups. Forbid them to hold forth upon
the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind,
and they'll quarrel with Mrs. Jones about the shape
of a mantle or the character of a small maid-servant
.
To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hide-
ous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the noisier,
the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. They
want freedom of opinion, variety of occupation, do
they? Let them have it . Let them be lawyers,
doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators —


296
LADY AUDLEY 8 SECRET.
anything they like — but let them be quiet — if they
can."
Mr. Audley pushed his hands through the thick
luxuriance of his straight brown hair, and uplifted the
dark mass in his despair.
"I hate women," he thought, savagely. "They're
bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the
annoyance and destruction of their superiors. Look
at this busiuess of poor George's! It's all woman's
work from one end to the other. He marries a woman,
and his father casts him off, penniless and profession-
less. He hears of the woman's death and he breaks
his heart — his good, honest, manly heart, worth a
million of the treacherous lumps of self-interest and
mercenary calculation which beat in women's breasts.
He goes to a woman's house and he is never seen
alive again. And now I find myself driven into a
comer by another woman, of whose existence I had
never thought until this day. And — and then,"
mused Mr. Audley, rather irrelevantly, "there's Alicia,
too; she's another nuisance. She'd like me to marry
her, I know; and she'll make me do it, I dare say,
before she's done with me. But I'd much rather not;
though she is a dear, bouncing, generous thing, bless
her poor little heart."
Kobert paid his bill and rewarded the waiter liber-
ally. The young barrister was very willing to dis-
tribute his comfortable little income amongst the people
who served him, for he carried his indifference to all
things in the universe, even to the matter of pounds,


george's letters.
297
shillings, and pence. Perhaps he was rather excep-
tional in this, as you may frequently find that the
philosopher who calls life an empty delusion is pretty
sharp in the investment of his moneys; and recognises
the tangible uature of India Bonds, Spanish Certifi-
cates, and Egyptian Scrip .— as contrasted with the
painful uncertainty of an Ego or a non-Ego in meta-
physics.
The snug rooms in Fig-tree Court seemed dr
in their orderly quiet to Robert Audley upon this
ticular evening. He had no inclination for his French
novels, though there was a packet of uncut romances,
comic and sentimental, ordered a month before, waiting
his pleasure upon ono of the tables. He took his
favourite meerschaum and dropped into his favourite
chair with a sigh.
"It's comfortable, but it seems so d—d lonely to-
night. If poor George were sitting opposite to me, or
— or even George's sister — she's very like him —
existence might be a little more endurable. But when
a fellow has lived by himself for eight or ten years he
begins to be bad company."
He burst out laughing presently, as he finished his
first pipe.
"The idea of my thinking of George's sister," he
thought; "what a preposterous idiot I am."
The next day's post brought him a letter in a firm
but feminine hand, which was strange to him. He
found the little packet lying on his breakfast-table,
beside the warm French roll wrapped in a napkin by


298
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
Mrs. Maloney's careful but rather dirty bauds. Ho
contemplated the envelope for some minutes before
opening it — not in any wonder as to his correspond-
ent, for the letter bore the postmark of Grange Heath,
and he knew that there was only one person who was
likely to write to him from that obscure village; but
in that lazy dreaminess which was a part of his
character.
"From Clara Talboys," he murmured slowly, as
he looked critically at the clearly-shaped letters of his
name and address. "Yes, from Clara Talboys, most
docidedly; I recognise a feminine resemblance to poor
George's hand; neater than his and more decided
than his, but very bike, very like."
He turned the letter over and examined the seal,
which bore his friend's familiar crest.
"I wonder what she says to me!" he thought.
"It's a long letter, I dare say; she's the kind of wo-
man who would write a long letter — a letter that
will urge me on, drive me forward, wrench me out of
myself, I've no doubt. But that can't be helped — so
here goes!"
He tore open the envelope with a sigh of resigna-
tion. It contained nothing but George's two letters,
and a few words written on the flap: — "I send
the letters; please preserve and return them. —
C. T."
The letter, written from Liverpool, told nothing of
the writer's life, except his sudden determination of
starting for a new world, to redeem the fortunes that


qkokue'b letters.
L'99
fiad been ruined in the old. The letter, written almost
immediately after George's marriage, contained a full
description of his wife — such a description as a man
could only write within three weeks of a love-match —
a description in which every feature was minutely
catalogued, every grace of form or beauty of expres-
sion fondly dwelt upon, every charm of manner lovingly
depicted.
Robert Audley read the letter three times before he
laid it down.
"If George could have known for what purpose
this description would serve when he wrote it," thought
the young barrister, "surely his hand would have
fallen paralysed by horror, and powerless to shape one
syllable of these tender words."


300
LADY AUDJjBY's SECRET.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Retrograde Investigation.
The dreary London January dragged its dull
length slowly out. The last slender records of Christ-
mas time were swept away, and Robert Audley still
lingered in town — still spent his lonely evenings in
his quiet sitting-room in Fig-tree Court — still wan-
dered listlessly in the Temple Gardens on sunny
mornings, absently listening to the children's babble,
idly watching their play. He had many friends among
the inhabitants of the quaint old buildings round him;
he had other friends far away in pleasant country
places, whose spare bedrooms were always at Bob's
service, whose cheerful firesides had snugly luxurious
chairs specially allotted to him. But he seemed to
have lost all taste for companionship, all sympathy
with the pleasures and occupations of his class, since
the disappearance of George Talboys. Elderly benchers
indulged in facetious observations upon the young
man's pale face and moody manner. They suggested
the probability of some unhappy attachment, some
feminine ill-usage as the secret cause of the change.
They told him to be of good cheer, and invited him to
supper-parties, at which "lovely woman, with all her
faults, God bless her," was drunk by gentlemen who
shed tears as they proposed the toast, and were maudlin


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.
301
and unhappy in their cups towards the close of the
entertainment. Robert had no inclination for the wine-
bibbing and the punchmaking. The one idea of his
life had become his master. He was the bonden slave
of one gloomy thought — one horrible presentiment.
A dark cloud was brooding over his uncle's house, and
it was his hand which was to give the signal for the thun-
derclap and the tempest that was to ruin that noble
life.
"If she would only take warning and run away,"
he said to himself sometimes. "Heaven knows, I have
given her a fair chance. Why doesn't she take it,
and run away?"
He heard sometimes from Sir Michael, sometimes
from Alicia. The young lady's letter rarely contained
more than a few curt lines, informing him that her
papa was well; and that Lady Audley was in very
high spirits, amusing herself in her usual frivolous
manner, and with her usual disregard for other people.
A letter from Mr. Marchmont, the Southampton
schoolmaster, informed Robert that little Oeorgey was
going on very well, but that he was behindhand in his
education, and had not yet passed the intellectual
Rubicon of words of two syllables. Captain Maldon
had called to see his grandson, but that privilege had
been withheld from him, in accordance with Mr. Audley's
instructions. The old man had furthermore sent1 a
parcel of pastry and sweetmeats to the little boy,
which had also been rejected on the ground of in-
digestible and bilious tendencies in the edibles.


302
Uldy audt.by's secret.
Towards the close of February, Robert received a
letter from his cousin Alicia; which hurried him one
step further forward towards his destiny, by causing
him to return to the house from which ho had been
in a manner exiled at the instigation of his uncle's
wife.
"Papa is very ill," Alicia wrote; "not dangerously
ill, thank God; but confined to his room by an attack
of low fever which has succeeded a violent cold.
Come and see him, Robert, if you have any regard for
your nearest relations. He has spoken about you
several times; and I know he will be glad to have you
with him. Come at once, but say nothing about this
letter.
"From your affectionate cousin,
"Alicia."
A sick and deadly terror chilled Robert Audley's
heart, as he read this letter — a vague yet hideous
fear, wich he dared not shape into any definite form.
"Have I done right?" he thought, in the first agony
of this new horror — "have I done right to tamper
with justice; and to keep the secret of my doubts, in
the hope that I was shielding those I love from sorrow
and disgrace? What shall I do if I find him ill; very
ill; dying perhaps: dying upon her breast? What shall
I do?"
One course was clear before him; and the first
step of that course, a rapid journey to Audley Court
.
He packed his portmanteau; jumped into a cab; and


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.
303
reached the railway station within an hour of his
receipt of Alicia's letter, which had come by the
afternoon post.
The dim village lights flickered faintly through the
growing dusk when Robert reached Audley. He left
his portmanteau with the station-master, and walked
at a leisurely pace through the quiet lanes that led
away to the still loneliness of the Court. The over-
arching trees stretched their leafless branches above his
head, bare and weird in the dusky light. A low
moaning wind swept across the flat meadow land, and
tossed those rugged branches hither and thither against
the dark grey sky. They looked like the ghostly
arms of shrunken and withered giants beckoning
Robert to his uncle's house. They looked like
threatening phantoms in the chill winter twilight,
gesticulating to him to hasten upon his journey. The
long avenue, so bright and pleasant when the perfumed
limes scattered their light bloom upon the pathway,
and the dog-rose leaves floated on the summer air, was
terribly bleak and desolate in the cheerless interregnum
that divides the homely joys of Christmas from the
pale blush of coming spring — a dead pause in the
year, in which Nature seems to lie in a tranced sleep,
awaiting the wondrous signal for the budding of the
tree, and the bursting of the flower.
A mournful presentiment crept into Robert Andley's
heart as he drew nearer to his uncle's house. Every
changing outline in the landscape was familiar to hira-,
every bend of the trees; every caprice of the un-


304
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
trammelled branches; every undulation in the bare
hawthorn hedge, broken by dwarf horse-chestnuts,
stunted willows, blackberry and hazel bushes.
Sir Michael had been a second father to the young
man, a generous and noble friend, a grave and earnest
adviser; and perhaps the strongest sentiment of Robert's
heart was his love for the grey-bearded baronet. But
the grateful affection was so much a part of himself,
that it seldom found an outlet in words; and a stranger
would never have fathomed the strength of feeling which
lay, a deep and powerful current, beneath the stagnant
surface of the barrister's character.
"What would become of this place if my uncle
were to die?" he thought, as he drew nearer to the
ivied archway, and the still waterpools, coldly grey in
the twilight. "Would other people l1ve in the old
house, and sit under the low oak ceilings in the homely
familiar rooms?"
That wonderful faculty of association, so inter-
woven with the inmost fibres of even the hardest nature,
filled the young man's breast with a prophetic pain as
he remembered that, however long or late, the day
must come on which the oaken shutters would be closed
for awhile, and the sunshine shut out of the house he
loved. It was painful to him even to remember this;
as it must always be painful to think of the narrow
lease which the greatest upon this earth can ever hold
of its grandeurs. Is it so wonderful that some wayfarers
drop asleep under the hedges; scarcely caring to toil
onward on a journey that leads to no abiding habi-


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.
305
tat ion? Is it wonderful that there have been quietists
in the world ever since Christ's religion was first
preached upon earth? Is it strange that there is
patient endurance and tranquil resignation, calm ex-
pectation of that which is to come on the further shore
of the dark-flowing river? Is it not rather to be
wondered that anybody should ever care to be great
for greatness' sake; for any other reason than pure
conscientiousness; the simple fidelity of the servant
who fears to lay his talent by in a napkin, knowing
that indifference is near akin to dishonesty? If Robert
Audley had lived in the time of Thomas a Kempis,
he would very likely have built himself a narrow
hermitage amid some forest loneliness, and spent his
life in tranquil imitation of the reputed author of The
Imitation. As it was, Fig-tree Court was a pleasant
hermitage in its way, and for breviaries and Books of
Hours, I am ashamed to say the young barrister sub-
stituted Paul de Kock and Dumas fils. But his sins
were of so simply negative an order, that it would have
been very easy for him to have abandoned them for
negative virtues.
Only one solitary light was visible in the long ir-
regular range of windows facing the archway as Ro-
bert passed under the gloomy shade of the rustling ivy,
restless in the chill moaning of the wind. He recog-
nised that lighted window as the large oriel in his
uncle's room. When last he had looked at the old
house it had been gay with visitors, every window
glittering like a low star in the dusk; now, dark and
Lady AudUy't Stent. L 20


306
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
silent, it faced the winter's night like some dismal
baronial habitation, deep in a woodland solitude.
Tho man who opened the door to the unlooked-for
visitor, brightened as he recognised his master's nephew.
"Sir Michael will be cheered up a bit, sir, by the
sight of you," he said, as he ushered Robert Audley
into the fire-lit library, which seemed desolate by reason
of the baronet's easy chair standing empty on the.
broad hearthrug. "Shall I bring you some dinner here,
sir, before you go upstairs?" the servant asked. "My
lady and Miss Audley have dined early during my
master's illness, but I can bring you anything you
would please to take, sir."
"I'll take nothing until I have seen my uncle,"
Robert answered, hurriedly; "that is to say, if I can
see him at once. He is not too ill to receive me, I
suppose?" he added, anxiously.
"Oh, no, sir — not too ill; only a little low, sir.
This way, if you please."
He conducted Robert up the short flight of shallow
oaken stairs to the octagon chamber in which George
Talboys had sat so long five months before, staring ab-
sently at my lady's portrait. The picture was finished
now, and hung in the post of honour opposite the
window, amidst Claudes, Poussins, and Wouvermans,
whose less brilliant hues were killed by the vivid co-
louring of the modern artist. The bright face looked
out of that tangled glitter of golden hair, in which tho
Pre-Raphaelites delight, with a mocking smile, as Ro-
bert paused for a moment to glance at the well-remem-


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.
307
bered picture. Two or three moments afterwards he
had passed through my lady's boudoir and dressing-
room, and stood upon the threshold of Sir Michael's
room. The baronet lay in a quiet sleep, his arm lying
outside the bed, and his strong hand clasped in his
young wife's delicate fingers. Alicia sat in a low chair
beside the broad open hearth, on which the huge logs
burned fiercely in the frosty atmosphere. The interior
of this luxurious bed-chamber might have made a strik-
ing picture for an artist's pencil. The massive furni-
ture, dark and sombre, yet broken up and relieved here
and there by scraps of gilding, and masses of glowing
colour; the elegance of every detail, in which wealth
was subservient to purity of taste; and last, but great-
est in importance, the graceful figures of the two wo-
men and the noble form of the old man would have
formed a worthy study for any painter.
Lucy Audley, with her disordered hair in a pale
haze of yellow gold about her thoughtful face, the flow-
ing lines of her soft muslin dressing-gown falling in
straight folds to her feet, and clasped at the waist by
a narrow circlet of agate links, might have served as a
model for a mediaeval saint, in one of the tiny chapels
hidden away in the nooks and corners of a grey old
cathedral, unchanged by Reformation or Cromwell; and
what saintly martyr of the Middle Ages could have
borne a holier aspect than the man whose grey beard
lay upon the dark silken coverlet of the stately bed?
Robert paused upon the threshold, fearful of awak-
ing his uncle. The two ladies had heard his step,
20*


308
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
cautious though he had been, and lifted their heads to
look at him. My lady's face quietly watching the sick
man, had worn an anxious earnestness which made it
only more beautiful; but the same face, recognising
Robert Audley, faded from its delicate brightness, aud
looked scared and wan in the lamplight.
"Mr. Audley I" she cried, in a faint, tremulous
voice.
"Hush!" whispered Alicia, with a warning gesture;
"you will wake papa. How good of you to come, Ro-
bert," she added, in the same whispered tones, beckon-
ing to her cousin to take an empty chair near the bed.
The young man seated himself in the indicated
seat at the bottom of the bed, and opposite to my lady,
who sat close beside the pillows. He looked long and
earnestly at the face of the sleeper; still longer, still
more earnestly at the face of Lady Audley, which was
slowly recovering its natural hues.
"He has not been very ill, has he?" Robert asked
in the same key as that in which Alicia had spoken
My lady answered the question.
"Oh, no, not dangerously ill," she said, without
taking her eyes from her husband's face; "but still we
have been anxious, very, very anxious."
Robert never relaxed his scrutiny of that pale face.
"She shall look at me," he thought; "I will make
her meet my eyes, and I will read her as I have read
her before. She shall know how useless her artifices
are with me."
He paused for a few minutes before he spoke again.


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.
309
The regular breathing of the sleeper, the ticking of a
gold hunting-watch suspended at the head of the bed,
and the crackling of the burning logs, were the only
sounds that broke the stillness.
"I have no doubt you have been anxious, Lady
Audley," Robert said, after a pause, fixing my lady's
eyes as they wandered furtively to his face. "There
is no one to whom my uncle's life can be of more va-
lue than to you. Your happiness, your prosperity, your
safety depend alike upon his existence."
The whisper in which he uttered these words was
too low to reach the other side of the room where
Alicia sat
.
Lucy Audley's eyes met those of the speaker with
some gleam of triumph in their light.
"I know that," she said. "Those who strike me
must strike through him."
She pointed to the sleeper as she spoke, still look-
ing at Robert Audley. She defied him with her blue
eyes, their brightness intensified by the triumph in their
glance. She defied him with her quiet smile — a
smile of fatal beauty, full of lurking significance and
mysterious meaning — the smile which the artist had
exaggerated in his portrait of Sir Michael's wife.
Robert turned away from the lovely face, and
shaded his eyes with his hand; putting a barrier be-
tween my lady and himself; a screen which baffled her
penetration and provoked her curiosity. Was he still
watching her or was he thinking? and of what was he
thinking?


310
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
Robert Audley bad been seated at the bedside for
upwards of an hour before bis uncle woke. The baronet
was delighted at his nephew's coming.
"It was very good of you to come to me, Bob,"
be said. "I have been thinking of you a good deal
since I've been ill. You and Lucy must be good friends,
you know, Bob; and you must learn to think of her as
your aunt, sir; though she is young and beautiful; and
— and — and — you understand, eh?"
Robert grasped his uncle's hand, but he looked
down gravely as he answered —
"I do understand you, sir," he said quietly; "and
I give you my word of honour that I am steeled
against my lady's fascinations. She knows that as well
as I do."
Lucy Audley made a little grimace with her pretty
lips.
"Bah, you silly Robert," she exclaimed; "you take
everything an sericiur. If I thought you were rather
too young for a nephew, it was only in my fear of
other people's foolish gossip; not from any —"
She hesitated for a moment, and escaped any con-
clusion to her sentence by the timely intervention of
Mr. Dawson, her late employer, who entered the room
upon his evening visit while she was speaking.
He felt the patient's pulse; asked two or three
questions; pronounced the baronet to be steadily im-
proving; exchanged a few commonplace remarks with
Alicia and Lady Audley; and prepared to leave the
room. Robert rose and accompanied him to the door.


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION. 311
I
"I will light you to the staircase," he said, taking
a candle from one of the tables, and lighting it at the
lamp.
"No, no, Mr. Audley, pray do not trouble your-
self," expostulated the surgeon; "I know my way very
well indeed."
Robert insisted; and the two men left the room to-
gether. As they entered the octagon antechamber, the
barrister paused and shut the door behind him.
"Will you see that the other door is closed, Mr.
Dawson?" he said, pointing to that which opened upon
the staircase. "I wish to have a few moments' private
conversation with you."
"With much pleasure," replied the surgeon, com-
plying with Robert's request; "but if you are at all
alarmed about your uncle, Mr. Audley, I can set your
mind at rest. There is no occasion for the least un-
easiness. Had his illness been at all serious, I should
have telegraphed immediately for the family physi-
cian."
"I am sure that you would have done your duty,
sir," answered Robert, gravely. "But I am not going
to speak of my uncle. I wish to ask you two or three
questions about another person."
"Indeed."
"The person who once lived in your family as
Miss Lucy Graham; the person who is now Lady
Audley."
Mr. Dawson looked up with an expression of sur-
prise upon his quiet face.


312
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
"Pardon me, Mr. Audley," he answered; "you can
scarcely expect me to answer any questions about your
uncle's wife, without Sir Michael's express permission.
I can understand no motive which can prompt you to
ask such questions — no worthy motive, at least." He
looked severely at the young man, as much as to say,
"You have been falling in love with your uncle's pretty
wife, sir, and you want to make me a go-between in
some treacherous flirtation; but it won't do, sir; it
won't do."
"I always respected the lady as Miss Graham, sir,"
he said, "and I esteem her doubly as Lady Audley —
not on account of her altered position, but because she
is the wife of one of the noblest men in Christendom."
"You cannot respect my uncle or my uncle's honour
more sincerely than I do," answered Robert. "I have
no unworthy motive for the questions I am about to
ask; and you must answer them."
"Must!" echoed Mr. Dawson, indignantly.
"Yes; you are my uncle's friend. It was at your
house he met the woman who is now his wife. She
called herself an orphan, I believe, and enlisted his
pity as well as his admiration in her behalf. She told
him that she stood alone in the world, did she not? —
without friend or relatives. This was all I could ever
learn of her antecedents."
"What reason have you to wish to know more?"
asked the surgeon.
"A very terrible reason," answered Robert Audley.
"For some months past I have struggled with doubts


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.
313
And suspicions which have embittered my life. They
have grown stronger every day; and they will not be
set at rest by the common-place sophistries and the
shallow arguments with which men try to deceive them-
selves, rather than believe that which of all things
upon earth they most fear to believe. I do not think
that the woman who bears my uncle's name is worthy
to be his wife. I may wrong her. Heaven grant that
it is so. But if I do, the fatal chain of circumstantial
evidence never yet linked itself so closely about an
innocent person. I wish to set my doubts at rest, or
— or to confirm my fears. There is but one manner
in which I can do this. I must trace the life of my
uncle's wife backwards, minutely and carefully, from
this night to a period of six years ago. This is the
twenty-fourth of February, fifty-nine. I want to know
every record of her life between to-night and the Fe-
bruary of the year fifty-three."
"And your motive is a worthy one?"
"Yes, I wish to clear her from a very dreadful
suspicion."
"Which exists only in your mind?"
"And in the mind of one other person."
"May I ask who that person is?"
"No, Mr. Dawson," answered Robert, decisively;
"I cannot reveal anything more than what I have
already told you. I am a very irresolute, vacillating
man in most things. In this matter I am compelled
to be decided. I repeat once more that I must know
the history of Lucy Graham's life. If you refuse to


314
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
help me to the small extent in your power, I will find
others who will help me. Painful as it would be to
me, I will ask my uncle for the information which you
would withhold, rather than be baffled in the first step
of my investigation."
Mr. Dawson was silent for some minutes.
"I cannot express how much you have astonished
and alarmed me, Mr. Audley," he said. "I can tell
you so little about Lady Audley's antecedents, that it
would be mere obstinacy to withhold the small amount
of information I possess. I have always considered
your uncle's wife one of the most amiable of women.
I cannot bring myself to think her otherwise. It would
be an uprooting of one of the strongest convictions of
my life, were I compelled to think her otherwise. You
wish to follow her life backwards from the present
hour to the year fifty-three?"
"I do."
"She was married to your uncle last June twelve-
month, in the midsummer of fifty-seven. She had
lived in my house a little more than thirteen months.
She became a member of my household upon the four-
teenth of May, in the year fifty-six."
"And she came to you —?"
"From a school at Brompton; a school kept by a
lady of the name of Vincent. It was Mrs. Vincent's
strong recommendation that induced me to receive Miss
Graham into my family without any more especial
knowledge of her antecedents."


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.
315
"Did yon see this Mrs. Vincent?"
"I did not. I advertised for a governess, and Miss
Graham answered my advertisement. In her letter she
referred me to Mrs. Vincent, the proprietress of a school
in which she was then residing as junior teacher. My
time is always so fully occupied, that I was glad to
escape the necessity of a day's loss in going from
Audley to London to inquire about the young lady's
qualifications. I looked for Mrs. Vincent's name in
the Directory, found it, concluded that she was a re-
sponsible person, and wrote to her. Her reply was
perfectly satisfactory: — Miss Lucy Graham was as-
siduous and conscientious; as well as fully qualified
for the situation I offered. I accepted this reference,
and I had no cause to regret what may have been an
indiscretion. And now, Mr. Audley, I have told you
all that I have the power to tell."
"Will you be so kind as to give me the address
of this Mrs. Vincent?" asked Robert, taking out his
pocket-book.
"Certainly. She was then living at No. 9, Crescent
Villas, Brompton."
"Ah, to be sure," muttered Mr. Audley, a recollec-
tion of last September flashing suddenly back upon him
as the surgeon spoke. "Crescent Villas — yes, I have
heard the address before, from Lady Audley herself.
This Mrs. Vincent telegraphed to my uncle's wife early
in last September. She was ill — dying, I believe —
and sent for my lady; but had removed from her old
house and was not to be found."


316
LADT AUDLEY's SECRET.
"Indeed! I never heard Lady Audley mention the
circumstance."
"Perhaps not. It occurred while I was down here.
Thank you, Mr. Dawson, for the -information which
you have so kindly and honestly given me. It takes
me back two and a half years in the history of my
lady's life; but I have still a blank of three years to
fill up, before I can exonerate her from my terrible
suspicion. Good evening."
Robert snook hands with the surgeon and returned
to his uncle's room. He had been away about a
quarter of an hour. Sir Michael had fallen asleep once
more, and my lady's loving hands had lowered the heavy
curtains and shaded the lamp by the bedside. Alicia
and her father's wife were taking tea in Lady Audley's
boudoir, the room next to the ante-chamber in which
Robert and Mr. Dawson had been seated.
Lucy Audley looked up from her occupation
amongst the fragile china cups, and watched Robert
rather anxiously, as he walked softly to his uncle's
room, and back again to the boudoir. She looked very
pretty and innocent, seated behind the graceful group
of delicate opal china and glittering silver. Surely a
pretty woman never looks prettier than when making
tea. The most feminine and most domestic of all oc-
cupations imparts a magic harmony to her every move-
ment, a witchery to her every glance. The floating
mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the
soothing herbs, whose secrets are known to her alone,


RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION.
317
envelop her in a cloud of scented vapour, through
which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells
with Gunpowder and Bohea. At the tea-table she
reigns omnipotent, unapproachable. What do men
know of the mysterious beverage? Read how poor
Uazlitt made his tea, and shudder at the dreadful bar-
barism. How clumsily the wretched creatures attempt
to assist the witch president of the tea-tray; bow hope-
lessly they hold the kettle, how continually they imperil
the frail cups and saucers, or the taper hands of the
priestess. To do away with the tea-table is to rob
woman of her legitimate empire. To send a couple of
hulking men about amongst your visitors, distributing
a mixture made in the housekeeper's room, is to reduce
the most social and friendly of ceremonies to a formal
giving out of rations. Better the pretty influence of
the teacups and saucers gracefully wielded in a woman's
hand, than all the inappropriate power snatched at the
point of the pen from the unwilling sterner sex.
Imagine all the women of England elevated to the
high level of masculine intellectuality; superior to
crinoline; above pearl powder and Mrs. Rachael Levi-
son; above taking the pains to be pretty; above making
themselves agreeable; above tea-tables, and that cruelly
scandalous and rather satirical gossip -which even strong
men delight in; and what a dreary, utilitarian, ugly
life the sterner sex must lead.
My lady was by no means strong-minded. The
starry diamond upon her white fingers flashed hither
and thither amongst the tea-things, and she bent her


318
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
pretty head over the marvellous Indian tea-caddy of
sandal-wood and silver, with as much earnestness as
if life held no higher purpose than the infusion of
Bohea.
"You'll take a cup of tea with us, Mr. Audley?"
she asked, pausing with the teapot in her hand to look
up at Robert, who was standing near the door.
"If you please."
"But you have not dined, perhaps? Shall I ring
and tell them to bring you something a little more
substantial than biscuits and transparent bread-and-
butter?"
"No, thank you, Lady Audley. I took some lunch
before I left town, I'll trouble you for nothing but a
cup of tea."
He seated himself at the little table and looked
across it at his cousin Alicia, who sat with a book in
her lap, and had the air of being very much absorbed
by its pages. The bright brunette complexion had lost
its glowing crimson, and the animation of the young
lady's manner was suppressed — on account of her
father's illness, no doubt, Robert thought.
"Alicia, my dear," the barrister said, after a very
leisurely contemplation of his cousin, "you're not look-
ing well."
Miss Audley shrugged her shoulders, but did not
condescend to lift her eyes from her book.
"Perhaps not," she answered, contemptuously.
"What does it matter? I'm growing a philosopher of


RBTR0C1RADE INVESTIGATION.
319
your school, Robert Audley. What does it matter?
Who cares whether I am well or ill?"
"What a spitfire she is," thought the barrister. He
always knew his cousin was angry with him when she
addressed him as "Robert Audley."
"You needn't pitch into a fellow because he asks
you a civil question, Aliciahe said, reproachfully.
"As to nobody caring about your health, that's non-
sense. / care." Miss Audley looked up with a bright
smile. "Sir Harry Towers cares." Miss Audley re-
turned to her book with a frown.
"What are you reading there, Alicia?" Robert
asked, after a pause, during which he had sat thought-
fully stirring his tea.
"Changes and Chances."
"A novel?"
"Yes."
"Who is it by?"
"The author of Follies and Faults" answered Alicia,
still pursuing her study of the romance upon her lap.
"Is it interesting?"
Miss Audley pursed up her mouth, and shrugged
her shoulders.
"Not particularly," she said.
"Then I think you might have better manners
than to read it while your first cousin is sitting opposite
you," observed Mr. Audley, with some gravity,
"especially as he has only come to pay you a flying
visit, and will be off to-morrow morning."


320
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
"To-morrowmorning!" exclaimed my lady, looking
up suddenly.
Though the look of joy upon Lady Audley's face
was as brief as a flash of lightning on a summer sky,
it was not unperceived by Robert.
"Yes," he said, "I shall be obliged to run up to
London to-morrow on business, but I shall return the
next day, if you will allow me, Lady Audley, and stay
here till my uncle recovers."
"But you are not seriously alarmed about him, are
you?" asked my lady, anxiously. "You do not think
him very ill?"
"No," answered Robert. "Thank Heaven, I think
there is not the slightest cause for apprehension."
My lady sat silent for a few moments, looking at
the empty teacups with a prettily thoughtful face — a
face grave with the innocent seriousness of a musing
child.
"But you were closeted such a long time with Mr.
Dawson just now," she said, after this brief pause. —
"I was quite alarmed at the length of your conversa-
tion. Were you talking of Sir Michael all the time?"
"No; not all the time."
My lady looked down at the teacups once more.
"Why, what could you find to say to Mr. Dawsou,
or he to say to you?" she asked, after another pause.
"You are almost strangers to each other."
"Suppose Mr. Dawson wished to consult me about
some law business."


322
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
never departed. He was on the spot at which all re-
cord of his friend's life ended as suddenly as a story
ends when the reader shuts the book. And could he
withdraw now from the investigation in which he found
himself involved? Could he stop now? For any con-
sideration? No; a thousand times no! Not with the
image of that grief-stricken face imprinted on his mind.
Not with the accents of that earnest appeal ringing on
his ear.
END of vol. i


PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.





COLLECTION
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS.
VOL. 636.
LADY ADDLEY'S SECRET BY M. E. BRADDON.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.


i
-


LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
BY
M. E. BRADDON. llarmen
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
IN TWO VOLUME S.
VOL. II.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1862
The Right of Translation is reserved.


i


CONTENTS
OF VOLUME II.
Page
.
.
.
.
.
.
·
37
·
·
51
·
·
76
·
CHAPTER I. So Far and no Farther . . .
11. Beginning at the Other End . .
III. Hidden in the Grave
IV. In the Lime-Walk . . . ...
V. Preparing the Ground . . .
VI. Phæbe's Petition
VII. The Red Light in the Sky
VIII. The Bearer of the Tidings
My Lady tells the Truth
x. The Hush that succeeds the Tempest
·
93
·
115
·
·
ix.
142
164
187
XI.
Dr. Moggrave's Advice
205
·
920
.
XII. Buried Alive ,
XIII. Ghost-Haunted . . . . .
XIV. That which the Dying Man had to tell .
XV. Restored . . . . . .
XVI. At Peace . . . . . . .
·
.
.
.
.
-
230
271
294
311
.
.
166865


I


LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
CHAPTER I
So Far and no Farther.
Robert left Audley the next morning by an early
train, and reached Shoreditch a little after nine o'clock.
He did not return to his chambers, but called a cab
and drove straight to Crescent Villas, West Brompton.
He knew that he should fail in finding the lady ho
went to seek at this address, as his uncle had failed a
few months before, but he thought it possible to obtain
some clue to the schoolmistress's new residence, in spite
of Sir Michael's ill-success.
"Mrs. Vincent was in a dying state, according to
the telegraphic message," Robert thought. "If I do
find her, I shall at least succeed in discovering whether
that message was genuine."
He found Crescent Villas after some difficulty.
The houses were large, but they lay half embedded
amongst the chaos of brick and mortar rising around
them. New terraces, new streets, new squares led away
into hopeless masses of stone and plaster on every side.
The roads were sticky with damp clay, which clogged
the wheels of the cab and buried the fetlocks of the
horse. The desolation of desolations — that awful
Lady Audley'e Secret. IU 1


2
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
aspect of incompleteness and discomfort which pervades
a new and unfinished neighbourhood — had set its
dismal seal upon the surrounding streets which had
arisen about and entrenched Crescent Villas; and Ro-
bert wasted forty minutes by his own watch, and an
hour and a quarter according to the cabman's reckoning,
in driving up and down uninhabited streets and terraces,
trying to find the Villas; whose chimney-pots were
frowning down upon him, black and venerable, amid
groves of virgin plaster, undimmed by time or smoke.
But having at last succeeded in reaching his
destination, Mr. Audley alighted from the cab, directed
the driver to wait for him at a certain corner, and set
out upon his voyage of discovery.
"If'I were a distinguished Q. C, I could not do
this sort of thing," he thought; "my time would be
worth a guinea or so a minute, and I should be re-
tained in the great case of Hoggs v. Boggs, going for-
ward this very day before a special jury at West-
minster Hall. As it is, I can afford to be patient."
He inquired for Mrs. Vincent at the number which
Mr. Dawson had given him. The maid who opened
the door had never heard that lady's name: but after
going to inquire of her mistress, she returned to tell
Robert that Mrs. Vincent had lived there, but that she
had left two months before the present occupants had
entered the house, "and missus has been here fifteen
months," the girl added, explanatorily.
"But you cannot tell me where she went on leaving
here?" Robert asked, despondingly.


80 FAR AND NO FARTHER.
3
"Nb, sir; missus says she believes the lady failed,
and that she left sudden like, and didn't want her ad-
dress to be known in the neighbourhood."
Mr. Audley felt himself at a standstill once more.
If Mrs. Vincent had left the place in debt, she had no
doubt scrupulously concealed her whereabouts. There
was little hope, then, of learning her address from any
of the tradespeople; and yet, on the other hand, it was
just possible that some of her sharpest creditors might
have made it their business to discover the defaulter's
retreat.
He looked about him for the nearest shops, and
found a baker's, a stationer's, and a fruiterer's, a few
paces from the crescent. Three empty-looking, pre-
tentious shops, with plate-glass windows, and a hope-
less air of gentility.
He stopped at the baker's, who called himself a
pastrycook and confectioner, and exhibited some spe-
cimens of petrified sponge-cake in glass bottles, and
some highly-glazed tarts, covered with green gauze.
"She must have bought bread," Robert thought, as
he deliberated before the baker's shop; "and she is
likely to have bought it at the handiest place. I'll try
the baker."
The baker was standing behind his counter, dis-
puting the items of a bill with a shabby-genteel young
woman. He did not trouble himself to attend to Ro-
bert Audley till he had settled the dispute, but he
looked up as he was receipting the bill, and asked the
barrister what he pleased to want.
1*


80 FAR AND NO FARTHER.
5
arrested by hearing a woman's step close at his side,
and a woman's voice asking him to stop. He turned
and found himself face to face with the shabbily-
dressed woman whom he had left settling her account
with the baker.
"Eh, what?" he asked, vaguely. "Can I do any-
thing for you, ma'am? Does Mrs. Vincent owe you
money, too?"
"Yes, sir," the woman answered, with a semi-
genteel manner which corresponded with the shabby
gentility of her dress; "Mrs. Vincent is in my debt:
but it isn't that, sir. I — I want to know, please,
what your business may be with her — because —
because —"
"You can give me her address if you choose,
ma'am? That's what you mean to say, isn't it?"
The woman hesitated a little, looking rather sus-
piciously at Robert.
"You're not connected with — with the tally busi-
ness, are you, sir?" she asked, after considering Mr.
Audley's personal appearance for a few moments.
"The tvhat, ma'am?" cried the young barrister,
staring aghast at his questioner.
"I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir," exclaimed the
little woman, seeing that she had made some very
awful mistake. "I thought you might have been, you
know. Some of the gentlemen who collect for the
tally-shops do dress so very handsome; and I know
Mrs. Vincent owes a good deal of money."


C
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
Robert Audley laid his hand upon the speaker's
arm.
"My dear madam," he said, "I want to know
nothing of Mrs. Vincent's affairs. So far from being
concerned in what you call the tally business, I have
not the remotest idea of what you mean by that ex-
preesion. You may mean a political conspiracy; you
may mean some new species of taxes. Mrs. Vincent
does not owe me any money, however badly she may
stand with that awful-looking baker. I never saw her
in my life; but I wish to see her to-day for the simple
purpose of asking her a few very plain questions
about a young lady who once resided in her house.
If you know where Mrs. Vincent lives, and will give
me her address, you will be doing me a great favour."
Ho took out his card-case and handed a card to
the woman, who examined the slip of pasteboard
anxiously before she spoke again.
"I'm sure you look and speak like a gentleman,
sir," she said, after a brief pause, "and I hope you
will excuse me if I've seemed mistrustful like; but
poor Mrs. Vincent has had dreadful difficulties, and
I'm the only person hereabouts that she's trusted with
her addresses. I'm a dressmaker, sir, and I've worked
for her for upwards of six years, and though she
doesn't pay me regular, you know, sir, she gives me a
little money on account now and then, and I get on as
well as I can. I may tell you where she lives, then,
sir? You haven't deceived me, have you?"
"On my honour, no."



SO FAR AND NO FARTHER.
7
"Well, then, sir," said the dressmaker, dropping
her voice as if she thought the pavement beneath her
feet, or the iron railings before the houses by her side,
might have ears to hear her, "it's Acacia Cottage,
Peckham Grove. I took a dress there yesterday for
Mrs. Vincent."
"Thank you," said Robert, writing the address in
his pocket-book. "I am very much obliged to you,
and you may rely upon it, Mrs. Vincent shall not
suffer any inconvenience through me."
He lifted his hat, bowed to the little dressmaker,
and turned back to the cab.
"I have beaten the baker at any rate," he thought
"Now for the second stage, travelling backwards, in
my lady's life."
The drive from Brompton to the Peckham-road
was a very long one, and between Crescent Villas and
Acacia Cottage Robert Audley had ample leisure for
reflection. He thought of his uncle, lying weak and
ill in the oak-room at Audley Court. He thought of
the beautiful blue eyes watching Sir Michael's slumbers;
the soft white hands tending on his waking wants; the
low, musical voice soothing his loneliness; cheering and
consoling his declining years. What a pleasant picture
it might have been, had he been able to look upon it
ignorantly, seeing no more than others saw, looking
no farther than a stranger could look. But with the
black cloud which he saw, or fancied he saw, brooding
over it, what an arch mockery, what a diabolical de-
lusion it seemed.


LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
Peckham Grove — pleasant enough in the summer-
time — has rather a dismal aspect upon a dull
February day, when the trees are bare and leafless, and
the little gardens desolate. Acacia Cottage bore small
token of the fitness of its nomenclature, and faced the
road with its stuccoed walls, sheltered only by a couple
of tall attenuated poplars. But it announced that it
was Acacia Cottage by means of a small brass-plate
upon one of the gate-posts, which was sufficient indi-
cation for the sharp-sighted cabman, who dropped Mr.
Audley upon the pavement before the little gate.
Acacia Cottage was much lower in the social scale
than Crescent Villas, and the small maid-servant who
came to the low wooden gate and parleyed with Mr.
Audley, was evidently well used to the encounter of
relentless creditors across the same feeble barricade.
She murmured the familiar domestic fiction of un-
certainty regarding her mistress's whereabouts; and
told Robert that if he would please to state his name
and business, she would go and see if Mrs. Vincent
was at home.
Mr. Audley produced a card, and wrote in pencil
under his own name — 1<A connection of the late
Miss Graham."
He directed the small servant to carry this card to
her mistress, and quietly awaited the result.
The servant returned in about five minutes with
the key of the gate. Her mistress was at home, she
told Robert as she admitted him, and would be happy
to see the gentleman.


SO FAR AND NO FARTHER.
9
The square parlour into which Robert was ushered
bore in every scrap of ornament, in every article of
furniture, the unmistakeable stamp of that species of
poverty which is most comfortless, because it is never
stationary. The mechanic who furnishes his tiny
sitting-room with half-a-dozen cane chairs, a Pembroke
table, a Dutch clock, a tiny looking-glass, a crockery
shepherd and shepherdess, and a set of gaudily-
japanned iron tea trays, makes the most of his limited
possessions, and generally contrives to get some degree
of comfort out of them; but the lady who loses the
handsome furniture of the house she is compelled to
abandon and encamps in some smaller habitation with
the shabby remainder — bought in by some merciful
friend at the sale of her effects — carries with her an
aspect of genteel desolation and tawdry misery not
easily to be paralleled in wretchedness by any other
phase which poverty can assume.
The room which Robert Audley surveyed was fur-
nished with the shabbier scraps snatched from the ruin
which had overtaken the imprudent schoolmistress in
Crescent Villas. A cottage piano, a cheffonier, six
sizes too large for the room, and dismally gorgeous in
gilded mouldings that were chipped and broken; a
slim-legged card-table, placed in the post of honour,
formed the principal pieces of furniture. A threadbare
patch of Brussels carpet covered the centre of the room,
and formed an oasis of roses and lilies upon a desert
of faded green drugget. Knitted curtains shaded the
windows, in which hung wire baskets of horrible-


10
LADY ATOLEY'S SECRET.
looking plants of the cactus species, that grew down-
wards like some demented class of vegetation, whose
prickly and spider-like members had a fancy for stand-
ing on their heads.
The green-baize covered card-table was adorned
with gaudily-bound annuals or books of beauty, placed
at right angles; but Robert Audley did not avail him-
self of these literary distractions. He seated himself
upon one of the rickety chairs, and waited patiently
for the advent of the schoolmistress. He could hear
the hum of half-a-dozen voices in a room near him,
and the jingling harmonies of a set of variations to
Deh Conte, upon a piano, whose every wire was evi-
dently in the last stage of attenuation.
He had waited for about a quarter of an hour,
when the door was opened, and a lady, very much
dressed, and with the setting sunlight of faded beauty
upon her face, entered the room.
"Mr. Audley, I presume," she said, motioning to
Robert to reseat himself, and placing herself in an
easy-chair opposite to him. "You will pardon me, I
hope, for detaining you so long; my duties —"
"It is I who should apologise for intruding upon
you," Robert answered, politely; "but my motive for
calling upon you is a very serious one, and must plead
my excuse. You remember the lady whose name I
wrote upon my card?"
"Perfectly."
"May I ask how much you know of that lady's
history since her departure from your house?"


60 FAR AND NO FARTHER.
11
"Very little. In point of fact, scarcely anything at
all. Miss Graham, I believe, obtained a situation in
the family of a surgeon resident in Essex. Indeed, it
was I who recommended her to that gentleman. I have
never heard from her since she left me."
"But you have communicated with her?" Robert
asked, eagerly.
"No, indeed."
Mr. Audley was silent for a few moments, the
shadow of gloomy thoughts gathering darkly on his
face.
"May I ask if you sent a telegraphic despatch to
Miss Graham early in last September, stating that
you were dangerously ill, and that you wished to see
her?"
Mrs. Vincent smiled at her visitor's question.
"I had no occasion to send such a message," she
said, "I have never been seriously ill in my life."
Robert Audley paused before he asked any further
questions, and scrawled a few pencilled words in his
note-book.
"If I ask you a few straightforward questions about
Miss Lucy Graham, madam," he said, "will you do me
the favour to anrwer them without asking my motive
for making such inquiries?"
"Most certainly," replied Mrs. Vincent. "I know
nothing to Miss Graham's disadvantage, and have
no justification for making a mystery of the little I do
know."


12
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
"Then will you tell me at what date the young
lady first came to you?"
Mrs. Vincent smiled and shook her head. She had
a pretty smile — the frank smile of a woman who has
been admired, and who has too long felt the certainty
of being able to please, to be utterly subjugated by
any worldly misfortune.
"It's not the least use to ask me, Mr. Audley,"
she said. "I'm the most careless creature in the world;
I never did, and never could remember dates, though
I do all in my power to impress upon my girls how
important it is for their future welfare that they should
know when William the Conqueror began to reign, and
all that kind of thing. But I haven't the remotest
idea when Miss Graham came to me, although I know
it was ages ago, for it was the very summer I had my
peach-coloured silk. But we must consult Tonks —
Tonks is sure to be right."
Robert Audley wondered who or what Tonks could
be; a diary, perhaps, or a memorandum-book — some
obscure rival of Letsome.
Mrs. Vincent rang the bell, which was answered
by the maid-servant who had admitted Robert.
"Ask Miss Tonks to come to me," she said, "I
want to see her particularly."
In less than five minutes Miss Tonks made her
appearance. She was wintry and rather frosthitten in
aspect, and seemed to bring cold air in the scanty
folds of her sombrejnerino dress. She was no age in
particular, an? looked as if she had never been younger,


SO FAE AND NO FARTHER.
13
and would never grow older, but would remain for
ever working backwards and forwards in her narrow
groove, like some self feeding machine for the instruction
of young ladies.
"Tonks, my dear," said Mrs. Vincent, without
ceremony, "this gentleman is a relative of Miss Gra-
ham's. Do you remember how long it is since she
came to us at Crescent Villas?"
"She came in August, 1854," answered Miss
Tonks; "I think it was the eighteenth of August, but
I'm not quite sure that it wasn't the seventeenth. I
know it was on a Tuesday."
"Thank you, Tonks; you are a most invaluable
darling," exclaimed Mrs. Vincent, with her sweetest
smile. It was, perhaps, because of the invaluable
nature of Miss Tonks's services that she had received
no remuneration whatever from her employer for the
last three or four years. Mrs. Vincent might have
hesitated to pay her from very contempt for the pitiful
nature of the stipend as compared with the merits of
the teacher.
"Is there anything else that Tonks or I can tell
you, Mr. Audley?" asked the schoolmistress. "Tonks
has a far better memory than I have."
"Can you tell me where Miss Graham came from
when she entered your household?" Robert inquired.
"Not very precisely," answered Mrs. Vincent. "I
have a vague notion that Miss Graham said something
about coming from the sea-side, but she didn't say


14 LADY ACDLEY'S SECRET.
where, or if she did I have forgotten it. Tonks, did
Miss Graham tell you whore she came from?"
"Oh, nol" replied Miss Tonks, shaking her grim
little head significantly. "Miss Graham told me
nothing; she was too clever for that. She knew how
to keep her own secrets, in spite of her innocent ways
and her curly hair," Miss Tonks added, spitefully.
"You think she had secrets, then?" Robert asked,
rather eagerly.
"I know she had," replied Miss Tonks with frosty
decision; "all manner of secrets. I wouldn't have
engaged such a person as junior teacher in a respect-
able school, without so much as one word of recom-
mendation from any living creature."
"You had no reference, then, from Miss Graham?"
asked Robert, addressing Mrs. Vincent.
"No," the lady answered, with some little embar-
rassment; "I waived that. Miss Graham waived the
question of salary; I could not do less than waive the
question of reference. She had quarrelled with her
papa, she told me, and she wanted to find a home
away from all the people she had ever known She
wished to keep herself quite separate from these
people. She had endured so much, she said, young as
she was, and she wanted to escape from her troubles.
How could I press her for a reference under these cir-
cumstances? especially when I saw that she was a
perfect lady? You know that Lucy Graham was a per-
fect lady, Tonks, and it is very unkind of you to say


NO FAE AMD NO FARTHER.
15
such cruel things about my taking her without a refer-
ence."
"When people make favourites, they are apt to be
deceived by them," Miss Tonks answered, with icy
sententiousness, and with no very perceptible relevance
to the point in discussion.
"I never made her a favourite, you jealous Tonks,"
Mrs. Vincent answered, reproachfully. "I never said
she was as useful as you, dear. You know I never
did."
"Oh, no!" replied Miss Tonks, with a chilling
accent, "you never said she was useful. She was only
ornamental; a person to be shown off to visitors, and
to play fantasias on the drawing-room piano."
"Then you can give me no clue to Miss Graham's
previous history?" Robert asked, looking from the
schoolmistress to her teacher. He saw very clearly
that Miss Tonks bore an envious grudge against Lucy
Graham — a grudge which even the lapse of time had
not healed.
"If this woman knows anything to my lady's
detriment, she will tell it," he thought. "She will tell
it only too willingly."
But Miss Tonks appeared to know nothing what-
ever; except that Miss Graham had sometimes declared
herself an ill-used creature, deceived by the baseness
of mankind, and the victim of unmerited sufferings, in
the way of poverty and deprivation. Beyond this,
Miss Tonks could tell nothing; and although she made


10
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
the most of what she did know, Robert very soon
sonnded the depth of her small stock of information.
"I have only one more question to ask," he said
at last . "It is this. Did Miss Graham leave any
books or knick-knacks, or any kind of property what-
ever, behind her, when she left your establishment?"
"Not to my knowledge," Mrs. Vincent replied.
"Yes," cried Miss Tonks, sharply. "She did leave
something. She left a box. It's up-stairs in my room.
I've got an old bonnet in it. Would you like to see
the box?" she asked, addressing Robert.
"If you will be so good as to allow me," he an-
swered, "I should very much like to see it."
'TU fetch it down," said Miss Tonks. "It's not
very big."
She ran out of the room before Mr. Audley had
time to utter any polite remonstrance.
"How pitiless these women are to each other," he
thought, while the teacher was absent. "This one
knows intuitively that there is some danger to the
other lurking beneath my questions. She sniffs the
coming trouble to her fellow female creature, and
rejoices in it, and would take any pains to help me.
What a world it is, and how these women take life
out of our hands. Helen Maldon, Lady Audley, Clara
Talboys, and now Miss Tonks — all womankind from
beginning to end."
Miss Tonks re-entered while the young barrister
was meditating upon the infamy of her sex. She


BO FAR AND NO FARTHER.
17
carried a dilapidated paper-covered bonnet-box, which
she submitted to Robert's inspection.
Mr. Audley knelt down to examine the scraps of
railway labels and addresses which were pasted here
and there upon the box. It had been battered upon a
great many different lines of railway, and had evidently
travelled considerably. Many of the labels had been
torn off, but fragments of some of them remained, and
upon one yellow scrap of paper Robert read the letters
TURI.
"The box has been to Italy," he thought. "Those
are the first four letters of the word Turin, and the
label is a foreign one."
The only direction which had not been either
defaced or torn away was the last, which bore the
name of Miss Graham, passenger to London. Looking
very closely at this label, Mr. Audley discovered that
it had been pasted over another.
"Will you be so good as to let me have a little
water and a piece of sponge?" he said. "I want to
get off this upper label. Believe me that I am justified
in what I am doing."
Miss Tonks ran out of the room, and returned im-
mediately with a basin of water and a sponge.
"Shall I take off the label?" she asked.
"No, thank you," Robert answered, coldly. "I can
do it very well myself."
He damped the upper label several times before
he could loosen the edges of the paper; but after two
Lady Audley'$ Secret. II. 2


18
LADY AUDREY'S SECRET.
or three careful attempts, the moistened surface peeled
off without injury to the underneath address.
Miss Tonks could not contrive to read this address
across Robert's shoulder, though she exhibited con-
siderable dexterity in her endeavours to accomplish
that object.
Mr. Audley repeated his operations upon the lower
label, which he removed from the box, and placed
very carefully between two blank leaves of his pocket-
book.
"I need intrude upon you no longer, ladies," he
said, when he had done this. "I am extremely obliged
to you for having afforded me all the information in
your power. I wish you good morning."
Mrs. Vincent smiled and bowed, murmuring some
complacent conventionality about the delight she had
felt in Mr. Audley's visit. Miss Tonks, more observant,
stared at the white change which had come over the
young man's face since he had removed the upper
label from the box.
Robert walked slowly away from Acacia Cottage.
"If that which I have found to-day is no evidence for
a jury," he thought, "it is surely enough to convince
my uncle that he has married a designing and in-
famous woman."


BEGINNING AT THE OTHER END.
J'.I
CHAPTER II.
Beginning at the Other End.
Robert Audley walked slowly through the leafless
grove, under the bare and shadowless trees in the grey
February atmosphere, thinking as he went of the dis-
covery he had just made.
"I have that in my pocket-book," he pondered,
"which forms the connecting link between the woman
whose death George Talboys read of in the Times
newspaper and the woman who rules in my uncle's
house. The history of Lucy Graham ends abruptly on
the threshold of Mrs. Vincent's school. She entered
that establishment in August, 1854. The schoolmistress
and her assistant can tell me this, but they cannot tell
me whence she came. They cannot give me one clue
to the socrets of her life from the day of her birth
until the day she entered that house. I can go no
further in this backward investigation of my lady's
antecedents. What am I to do, then, if I mean to keep
my promise to Clara Talboys?"
He walked on for a few paces revolving this
question in his mind, with a darker shadow than the
shadows of the gathering winter twilight on his face,
and a heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread
weighing down his heart.
"My duty is clear enough,'* he thought — "not the
2*


20
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
less clear because it is painful — not the less clear
because it leads me step by step, carrying ruin and
desolation with me, to the home I love. I must begin
at the other end — I must begin at the other end, and
discover the history of Helen Talboys from the hour
of George's departure until the day of the funeral in the
churchyard at Ventnor."
Mr. Audley hailed a passing Hansom, and drove
back to his chambers.
He reached Fig-tree Court in time to write a few
lines to Miss Talboys, and to post his letter at St.
Martin's-le-Grand before six o'clock.
"It will save mo a day," he thought, as he drove
to the General Post Office with this brief epistle.
He had written to Clara Talboys to inquire the
name of the little seaport town in which George had
met Captain Maldon and his daughter; for in spite of
the intimacy between the two young men, Robert
Audley knew very few particulars of his friend's brief
married life.
From the hour in which George Talboys had read
the announcement of his wife's death in the columns
of the Times, he had avoided all mention of the tender
history which had been so cruelly broken, the familiar
record which had been so darkly blotted out.
There was so much that was painful in that brief
story! There was such bitter self-reproach involved in
the recollection of that desertion which must have
seemed so cruel to her who waited and watched at
home I Robert Audley comprehended this, and he did


BEGINNING AT THE OTHER END.
21
not wonder at his friend's silence. The sorrowful story
had been tacitly avoided by both, and Robert was as
ignorant of the unhappy history of this one year in his
schoolfellow's life as if they had never lived together in
friendly companionship in those snug Temple chambers.
The letter, written to Miss Talboys by her brother
George within a month of his marriage, was dated
Harrowgate. It was at Harrowgate, therefore, Robert
concluded, the young couple spent their honeymoon.
Robert Audley had requested Clara Talboys to
telegraph an answer to his question, in order to avoid
the loss of a day in the accomplishment of the in-
vestigation he had promised to perform.
The telegraphic answer reached Fig-tree Court be-
fore twelve o'clock the next day.
The name of the seaport town was Wildernsea,
Yorkshire.
Within an hour of the receipt of this message Mr.
Audley arrived at the King's-cross station, and took
his ticket for Wildernsea by an express train that
started at a quarter before two.
The shrieking engine bore him on the dreary
northward journey, whirling him over desert wastes of
flat meadow-land and bare corn-fields, faintly tinted
with fresh sprouting green. This northern road was
strange and unfamiliar to the young barrister, and the
wide expanse of the wintry landscape chilled him by
its aspect of bare loneliness. The knowledge of the
purpose of his journey blighted every object upon
which his absent glances fixed themselves for a mo-


22
LADY AUULEY'S SECRET.
ment; only to wander wearily away; only to turn in-
wards upon that far darker picture always presenting
itself to his anxious mind.
It was dark when the train reached the Hull ter
minus; but Mr. Audley's journey was not ended.
Amidst a crowd of porters and scattered heaps of that
incongruous and heterogeneous luggage with which
travellers encumber themselves, he was led, bewildered
and half asleep, to another train, which was to convey
him along the branch line that swept past Wildernsea,
and skirted the border of the German Ocean.
Half an hour after leaving Hull, Robert felt the
briny freshness of the sea upon the breeze that blew in
at the open window of the carriage, and an hour
afterwards the train stopped at a melancholy station,
built amid a sandy desert, and inhabited by two or
three gloomy officials, one of whom rang a terrific peal
upon a harshly clanging bell as the train approached.
Mr. Audley was the only passenger who alighted
at the dismal station. The train swept on to gayer
scenes before the barrister had time to collect his scat-
tered senses, or to pick up the portmanteau which had
been discovered with some difficulty amid a black
cavern of luggage only illuminated by one lantern.
"I wonder whether settlers in the back-woods of
America feel as solitary and strange as I feel to-night?"
he thought, as he stared hopelessly about him in the
darkness.
He called to one of the officials, and pointed to his
portmanteau.


BEGINNING AT TI1E OTHER END.
2i;
"Will you carry that to the nearest hotel for me?"
he asked — "that is to say, if I can get a good bed
there."
The man laughed as he shouldered the port-
manteau.
"You could get thirty beds, I daresay, sir, if you
wanted 'em," he said. "We ain't over busy at
Wildernsea at this time o' year. This way, sir."
The porter opened a wooden door in the station
wall, and Robert Audley found himself upon a wide
bowling-green of smooth grass, which surrounded a huge
square building that loomed darkly on him through the
winter's night, its black solidity only relieved by two
lighted windows, far apart from each other, and glim-
mering redly like beacons on the darkness.
"This is the Victoria Hotel, sir," said the porter.
"You wouldn't believe the crowds of company we have
down here in the summer."
In the face of the bare grass-plat, the tenantless
wooden alcoves, and the dark windows of the hotel, it
was indeed rather difficult to imagine that the place
was ever gay with merry people taking pleasure in tho
bright summer weather; but Robert Audley declared
himself willing to believe anything the porter pleased
to tell him, and followed his guide meekly to a little
door at the side of the big hotel, which led into a
comfortable bar, where the humbler classes of summer
visitors were accommodated with such refreshments as
they pleased to pay for, without running the gauntlet


24
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
of the prim, white-waistcoated waiters on guard at the
principal entrance.
But there were very few attendants retained at tho
hotel in this bleak February season, and it was the
landlord himself who ushered Robert into a dreary
wilderness of polished mahogany tables and horsehair-
cushioned chairs, which he called the coffee room.
Mr. Audley seated himself close to the wide steel
fender, and stretched his cramped legs upon the
hearthrug, while the landlord drove the poker into the
vast pile of coal, and sent a ruddy blaze roaring up-
ward through the chimney.
"If you would prefer a private room, sir —" the
man began.
"No, thank you," said Robert, indifferently; "this
room seems quite private enough just now. If you
will order me a mutton chop and a pint of sherry, I
shall be obliged."
"Certainly sir."
"And I shall be still more obliged if you will
favour me with a few minutes' conversation before you
do so."
"With very great pleasure, sir," the landlord
answered, good-naturedly. "We see so very little
company at this season of the year, that we are only
too glad to oblige those gentlemen who do visit us.
Any information which I can afford you respecting the
neighbourhood of Wildernsea and its attractions," added
the landlord, unconsciously quoting a small hand-book


BEGINNING! AT THE OTHER END.
25
of the watering place which he sold in the bar, "I shall
be most happy to —."
"But I don't want to know anything about the
neighbourhood of Wildernsea," interrupted Robert, with
a feeble protest against the landlord's volubility. "I
want to ask you a few questions about some people
who once lived here."
The landlord bowed and smiled, with an air which
implied his readiness to recite the biographies of all
the inhabitants of the little seaport, if required by Mr.
Audley to do so.
"How many years have you lived here?" Robert
asked, taking his memorandum-book from his pocket
.
"Will it annoy you if I make notes of your replies to
my questions?"
"Not at all, sir," replied the landlord, with a
pompous enjoyment of the air of solemnity and im-
portance which pervaded this business. "Any informa-
tion which I can afford that is likely to be of ultimate
value —"
"Yes, thank you," Robert murmured, interrupting
the flow of words. "You have lived here —"
"Six years, sir."
"Since the year fifty-three."
"Since November in the year fifty-two, sir. I was
in business in Hull prior to that time. This house was
only completed in the October before I entered it."
"Do you remember a lieutenant in the navy, on
half-pay I believe at that time, called Maldon?"
"Captain Maldon, sir?"


2G
LADY AUDLET'S SECRET.
"Yes, commonly called Captain Maldon. I see you
do remember him."
"Yes, sir. Captain Maldon was one of our best
customers. He used to spend his evenings in this very
room, though the walls were damp at that time, and
we weren't able to paper the place for nearly a twelve-
month afterwards. His daughter married a young
officer that came here with his regiment at Christmas
time in fifty-two. They were married here, sir, and
they travelled on the Continent for six months, and
came back here again. But the gentleman ran away
to Australia, and left the lady, a week or two after
her baby was born. The business made quite a sensa-
tion in Wildernsea, sir, and Mrs. — Mrs. — I forget
the name —"
"Mrs. Talboys," suggested Robert. .
"To be sure, sir, Mrs. Talboys. Mrs. Talboys
was very much pitied by the Wildernsea folks, sir, I
was going to say, for she was very pretty, and had
such nice winning ways, that she was a favourite with
everybody who knew her."
"Can you tell me how long Mr. Maldon and his
daughter remained at Wildernsea after Mr. Talboys
left them?" Robert asked.
"Well — no, sir," answered the landlord, after a
few moments' deliberation. "I can't say exactly how
long it was. I know Mr. Maldon used to sit here in
this very parlour, and tell people how badly his
daughter had been treated, and how he'd been deceived
by a young man he'd put so much confidence in; but


BEGINNINQ AT THE OTIIEU END.
'J 7
I can't say how long it was before he left Wildernsea.
But Mrs. Barkamb could tell you. sir," added the land-
lord, briskly.
"Mrs. Barkamb?"
"Yes, Mrs. Barkamb is the person who owns No. 17,
North Cottages, the house in which Mr. Maldon and
his daughter lived. She's a nice, civil-spoken, motherly
woman, sir, and I'm sure she'll tell you anything you
may want to know."
"Thank you, I will call upon Mrs. Barkamb to-
morrow. Stay — one more question. Should you re-
cognise Mrs. Talboys if you were to see her?"
"Certainly, sir. As sure as I should recognise one
of my own daughters."
Robert Audley wrote Mrs. Barkamb's address in
his pocket-book, ate his solitary dinner, drank a couple
of glasses of sherry, smoked a cigar, and then retired
to the apartment in which a fire had been lighted for
his comfort.
He soon fell asleep, worn out with the fatigue of
hurrying from place to place during the last two days;
but his slumber was not a heavy one, and he heard
the disconsolate moaning of the wind upon the sandy
wastes, and the long waves rolling in monotonously
upon the flat shore. Mingling with these dismal sounds,
the melancholy thoughts engendered by his joyless
journey repeated themselves in ever-varying succession
in the chaos of his slumbering brain, and made them-
selves into visions of things that never had been and
never could be upon this earth; but which had some


28
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
vague relation to real events, remembered by the
sleeper.
In those troublesome dreams he saw Audley Court,
rooted up from amidst the green pastures and the
shady hedgerows of Essex, standing bare and unpro-
tected upon that desolate northern shore, threatened
by the rapid rising of a boisterous sea, whose waxes
seemed gathering upward to descend and crush the
house he loved. As the hurrying waves rolled nearer
and nearer to the stately mansion, the sleeper saw a
palo, starry face looking out of the silvery foam, and
knew that it was my lady, transformed into a mer-
maid, beckoning his uncle to destruction. Beyond that
rising sea great masses of cloud, blacker than the
blackest ink, more dense than the darkest night,
lowered upon the dreamer's eye; but as he looked at
the dismal horizon the storm clouds slowly parted,
and from a narrow rent in the darkness a ray of light
streamed out upon tho hideous waves, which slowly,
very slowly, receded, leaving the old mansion safe and
firmly rooted on the shore.
Robert awoke with the memory of this dream iu
his mind, and a sensation of physical relief, as if
some heavy weight, which had oppressed him all the
night, had been lifted from his breast.
He fell asleep again, and did not awake until the
broad winter sunlight shone upon the window-blind,
and the shrill voice of tho chamber-maid at his door
announced that it was half-past eight o'clock. At a
quarter before ten he had left the Viotoria Hotel, and


BEGINNING AT THE OTHER END.
29
was making his way along the lonely platform in
front of a row of shadowless houses that faced the sea.
This row of hard, uncompromising, square-built
habitations stretched away to the little harbour, in
which two or three merchant vessels and a couple of
colliers were anchored. Beyond the harbour there
loomed, grey and cold upon the wintry horizon, a
dismal barrack, parted from the Wildernsea houses by
a narrow creek, spanned by an iron draw-bridge. The
scarlet coat of the sentinel who walked backwards and
forwards between two cannons, placed at remote angles
before the barrack wall, was the only scrap of colour
that relieved the neutral-tinted picture of the grey
stone houses and the leaden sea.
On one side of the harbour a long stone pier
stretched out far away into the cruel loneliness of the
sea, as if built for the especial accommodation of some
modern Timon, too misanthropical to be satisfied even
by the solitude of Wildernsea, and anxious to get still
further away from his fellow-creatures.
It was on that pier George Talboys had first met
his wife, under the yellow glory of a sunny sky, and
to the music of a braying band. It was there that the
young cornet had first yielded to that sweet delusion,
that fatal infatuation which had exercised so dark an
influence upon his after-life.
Robert looked savagely at the solitary watering-
place — the shabby seaport
.
"It is such a place as this," he thought, "that


30
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
works a strong man's ruin. He comes here, heart
whole and happy, with no better experience of woman
than is to be learnt at a flower-show or in a ball-
room; with no more familiar knowledge of the creature
than he has of the far-away satellites of the remoter
planets; with a vague notion that she is a whirling
teetotum in pink or blue gauze, or a graceful automaton
for the display of milliners' manufacture. He comes
to some place of this kind, and the universe is sud-
donly narrowed into about half a dozen acres; the
mighty scheme of creation is crushed into a bandbox.
The far-away creatures whom he had seen floating
about him, beautiful and indistinct, are brought under
his very noso; and before he has time to recover his
bewilderment, hey, presto! the witchcraft has begun:
the inagic circle is drawn around him, the spells are
at work, the whole formula of sorcery is in full play,
and the victim is as powerless to escape as the marble-
legged prince in the Eastern story."
Ruminating in this wise, Robert Audley reached
the house to which he had been directed as the re-
sidence of Mrs. Barkamb. He was admitted imme-
diately by a prim, elderly servant, who ushered him
into a sitting room as prim and elderly-looking as her-
self. Mrs. Barkamb, a comfortable matron of about
sixty years of age, was sitting in an arm-chair before
a bright handful of fire in the shining grate. An
elderly terrier, whose black-and-tan coat was thickly
sprinkled with grey, reposed in Mrs. Barkamb's lap.
Every object in the quiet sitting-room had an elderly


BEGINNING AT THE OTHEK END.
31
aspect; an aspect of simple comfort and precision,
which is the evidence of outward repose.
"I should like to live here," Robert thought, "and
watch the grey sea slowly rolling over the grey sand
under the still grey sky. I should like to live here,
and tell the beads upon my rosary, and repent and
rest."
He seated himself in the arm-chair opposite Mrs.
Barkamb, at that lady's invitation, and placed his hat
upon the ground. The elderly terrier descended from
his mistress's lap to bark at and otherwise take objec-
tion to this hat.
"You were wishing, I suppose, sir, to take one
— be quiet, Dash — one of the cottages," suggested
Mrs. Barkamb, whose mind ran in one narrow groove,
and whose life during the last twenty years had been
an unvarying round of house-letting.
Robert Audley explained the purpose of his visit.
"I come to ask one simple question," he said, in
conclusion. "I wish to discover the exact date of
Mrs. Talboys' departure from Wildernsea. The pro-
prietor of the Victoria Hotel informed me that you
were the most likely person to afford me that in-
formation."
Mrs. Barkamb deliberated for some moments.
"I can give you the date of Captain Maldon's de-
parture," she said, "for he left No. 17 considerably in
my debt, and I have the whole business in black and
white; but with regard to Mrs. Talboys"


32
LADY AUDLEY's SECRKT.
Mrs. Barkamb paused for a few moments before
resuming.
"You are aware that Mrs. Talboys left rather ab-
ruptly?" she asked.
"I was not aware of that fact."
"Indeed! Yes, she left abruptly, poor little woman!
She tried to support herself after her husband's deser-
tion by giving music lessons; she was a very brilliant
pianist, and succeeded pretty well, I believe. But I
suppose her father took her money from her, and spent
it in public-houses. However that might be, they had
a very serious misunderstanding one night; and the
next morning Mrs. Talboys left Wildernsea, leaving
her little boy, who was out at nurse in the neighbour-
hood."
"But you cannot tell me the ^date of her de-
parture?"
"I'm afraid not," answered Mrs. Barkamb; "and
yet, stay. Captain Maldon wrote to me upon the day
his daughter left. He was in very great distress, poor
old gentleman, and he always came to me in his
troubles. If I could find that letter, it might bo dated,
you know — mightn't it, now?"
Mr. Audley said that it was only probable the
letter was dated.
Mrs. Barkamb retired to a table in the window on
which stood an old-fashioned mahogany desk lined
with green baize, and suffering from a plethora of
documents, which oozed out of it in every direction.
Letters, receipts, bills, inventories, and tax-papers were


BEGINNING AT THE OTHER END.
3 .'5
mingled in hopeless confusion; and amongst these Mrs.
Barkamb set to work to search for Captain Maldon's
letter.
Mr. Audley waited very patiently, watching the
grey clouds sailing across the grey sky, the grey vessels
gliding past upon the grey sea.
After about ten minutes' search, and a great deal
of rustling, crackling, folding and unfolding of the
papers, Mrs. Barkamb uttered an exclamation of
triumph.
"I've got the letter," she said; "and there's a note
inside it from Mrs. Talboys."
Robert Audley's pale face flushed a vivid crimson
as he stretched out his hand to receive the papers.
"The person who stole Helen Maldon's love-letters
from George's trunk in my chambers might have spared
themselves the trouble," he thought.
The letter from the old lieutenant was not long,
but almost every other word was underscored.
"My generous friend," the writer began
[Mr. Maldon had tried the lady's generosity pretty
severely during his residence in her house, rarely pay-
ing his rent until threatened with the intruding pre-
sence of the broker's man.]
"I am in the depths of despair. My daughter has
left me! You may imagine my feelings! We had a few
words last night upon the subject of money matters,
which subject has always been a disagreeable one be-
tween us, and on rising this morning I found that I
Lad:/ Audley't Secret. II. 3


LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
was deserted! The enclosed from Helen was waiting
for me on the parlour table.
"Yours in distraction and despair,
"Henry Maldon.
"North Cottages,
August 16th, 1854."
The note from Mrs. Talboya was still more brief.
It began abruptly thus: —
"I am weary of my life here, and wish, if I can,
to find a new one. I go out into the world, dissevered
from every link which binds me to the hateful past, to
seek another home and another fortune. Forgive me
if I have been fretful, capricious, changeable. You
should forgive me, for you know why I have been so.
You know the secret which is the key to my life.
"Helen Talboys."
These lines were written in a hand that Robert
Audley knew only too well.
He sat for a long time pondering silently over the
letter written by Helen Talboys.
What was the meaning of those two last sentences
— "You should forgive me, for you know why I have
been so. You know the secret which is the key to my
life?"
He wearied his brain in endeavouring to find a
clue to the signification of those two sentences. He
could remember nothing, nor could he imagine any-
thing that would throw a light upon their meaning.


BEGINNING AT THE OTHER END.
:i.r.
The date of Helen's departure, according to Mr. Mal-
don'a letter, was the 16th of August, 1854. Miss
Tonks had declared that Lucy Graham entered the
school at Crescent Villas upon the 17th or 18th of
August in the same year. Between the departure of
Helen Talboys from the Yorkshire watering-place, and
the arrival of Lucy Graham at the Brompton school,
not more than eight-and-forty hours could have elapsed.
This made a very small link in the chain of circum-
stantial evidence, perhaps; but it was a link, never-
theless, and it fitted neatly into its place.
"Did Mr. Maldon hear from his daughter after she
had left Wildernsea?" Robert asked.
"Well, I believe ho did hear from her," Mrs. Bar-
kamb answered; "but I didn't see much of the old
gentleman after that August. I was obliged to sell
him up in November, poor fellow, for he owed me
fifteen months' rent; and it was only by selling his
poor little bits of furniture that I could get him out of
my place. We parted very good friends, in spite of
my sending in the brokers; and the old gentleman
went to London with the child, who was scarcely a
twelvemonth old."
Mrs. Barkamb had nothing more to tell, and Robert
had no further questions to ask. He requested per-
mission to retain the two letters written by the lieute-
nant and his daughter, and left the house with them
in his pocket-book.
Ho walked straight back to the hotel, whero he
called for a time-table. An express for London left
3»


36 lady audley's secret.
Wildernsea at a quarter-past one. Robert sent his
portmanteau to the station, paid bis bill, and walked
up and down the stone terrace fronting the sea, waiting
for the starting of the train.
"I have traced the histories of Lucy Graham and
Helen Talboys to a vanishing point," he thought; "my
next business is to discover the history of the woman
who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard."


HIDDEN IN THE GRAVH.
37
CHAPTER III.
Hidden in the Grave.
Upon his return from Wildernsea, Robert Audley
found a letter from his cousin, Alicia, awaiting him at
his chambers.
"Papa is much better," the young lady wrote, "and
is very anxious to have you at the Court. For some
inexplicable reason, my step-mother has taken it into
her head that your presence is extremely desirable,
and worries me with her frivolous questions about your
movements. So pray come without delay, and set these
people at rest. Your affectionate cousin,
A. A."
"So my lady is anxious to know my movements,"
thought Robert Audley, as he sat brooding and smoking
by his lonely fireside. "She is anxious; and she ques-
tions her step-daughter in that pretty, childlike manner
which has such a bewitching air of innocent frivolity.
Poor little creature; poor unhappy little golden-haired
sinner; the battle between us seems terribly unfair.
Why doesn't she run away while there is still time?
I have given her fair warning, I have shown her my
cards, and worked openly enough in this business,
Heaven knows. Why doesn't she run away?"
He repeated this question again and again as he
filled and emptied his meerschaum, surrounding himself


38
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
with the blue vapour from his pipe until he looked
like some modern magician, seated in his laboratory.
"Why doesn't she run away? I would bring no
needless shame upon that house, of all other houses
upon this wide earth. I would only do my duty to
my missing friend, and to that brave and generous
man who has pledged his faith to a worthless woman.
Heaven knows I have no wish to punish. Heaven
knows I was never born to be the avenger of guilt or
the persecutor of the guilty. I only wish to do my
duty. I will give her one more warning, a full and
fair one, and then"
His thoughts wandered away to that gloomy pro-
spect in which he saw no gleam of brightness to relieve
the dull, black obscurity that encompassed the future,
shutting in his pathway on every side, and spreading
a dense curtain around and about him, which Hope
was powerless to penetrate. He was for ever haunted
by the vision of his uncle's anguish, for ever tortured
by the thought of that ruin and desolation, which,
being brought about by his instrumentality, would
seem in a manner his handiwork. But amid all, and
through all, Clara Talboys, with an imperious gesture,
beckoned him onwards to her brother's unknown grave.
"Shall I go down to Southampton," he thought,
"and endeavour to discover the history of the woman
who died at Ventnor? Shall I work underground,
bribing the paltry assistants in that foul conspiracy,
until I find my way to the thrice guilty principal?
No! not till I have tried other means of discovering


HIDDEN IN THE GRAVE.
39
tho truth. Shall I go to that miserable old man, and
charge him with his share in the shameful trick which
I believe to have been played upon my poor friend?
No; I will not torture that terror-stricken wretch as I
tortured him a few weeks ago. I will go straight to
the arch conspirator, and will tear away the beautiful
veil under which she hides her wickedness, and will
wring from her the secret of my friend's fate and
banish her for ever from the house which her presence
has polluted."
He started early the next morning for Essex, and
reached Audley before eleven o'clock.
Early as it was, my lady was out. She had gone
to Chelmsford upon a shopping expedition with her
step-daughter. She had several calls to make the
neighbourhood of the town, and was not likely to
return until dinner-time. Sir Michael's health was
very much improved, and he would come down-stairs
in the afternoon. Would Mr. Audley go to his uncle's
room?
No; Robert had no wish to meet that generous
kinsman. What could he say to him? How could he
smooth the way to the trouble that was to come? —
'how soften the cruel blow of the great grief that was
preparing for that noble and trusting heart?
"If I could forgive her the wrong done to my
friend," Robert thought, "I should still abhor her for
the misery her guilt must bring upon the man who has
believed in her."
He told his uncle's servant that he would stroll


40
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
into the village, and return before dinner. He walked
slowly away from the Court, wandering across the
meadows between his uncle's house and the village,
purposeless and indifferent, with the great trouble and
perplexity of his life stamped upon his face and reflected
in his manner.
"I will go into the churchyard," he thought, "and
stare at the tombstones. There is nothing I can do
that will make me more gloomy than I am."
He was in those very meadows through which he
had hurried from Audley Court to the station upon
the September day in which George Talboys had dis-
appeared. He looked at the pathway by which he
had gone upon that day, and remembered his un-
accustomed hurry, and the vague feeling of terror which
had taken possession of him immediately upon losing
sight of his friend.
"Why did that unaccountable terror seize upon
me?" ho thought. "Why was it that I saw some
strange mystery in my friend's disappearance? Was
it a monition or a monomania? What if I am wrong
after all? What if this chain of evidence which I have
constructed link by link, is woven out of my own folly?
What if this edifice of horror and suspicion is a mere
collection of crotchets — the nervous fancies of a hypo-
chondriacal bachelor? Mr. Harcourt Talboys sees no
meaning in the events out of which I have created a
horrible mystery. I lay the separate links of the chain
before him, and he cannot recognise their fitness. He
is unable to put them together. Oh, my God, if it


42
LADY AUDLEY's 3ECRET.
music of an organ, audible through a half-open window
in the steeple.
He stopped and listened to the slow harmonies of
a dreamy melody that sounded like an extempore com-
position of an accomplished player.
"Who would have believed that Audley church
could boast such an organ?" thought Robert. "When
last I was here, the national schoolmaster used to ac-
company his children by a primitive performance of
common chords. I didn't think the old organ had such
music in it."
He lingered at the gate, not caring to break the
lazy spell woven about him by the monotonous melan-
choly of the organist's performance. The tones of the
instrument, now swelling to their fullest power, now
sinking to a low, whispering softness, floated towards
him upon the misty winter atmosphere, and had a
soothing influence, that seemed to comfort him in his
trouble.
He closed the gate softly, and crossed the little
patch of gravel before the door of the church. This
door had been left ajar — by the organist, perhaps.
Robert Audley pushed it open, and walked into the
square porch, from which a flight of narrow stone steps
wound upwards to the organ-loft and the belfry. Mr.
Audley took off his hat, and opened the door between
the porch and the body of the church. He stepped
softly into the holy edifice, which had a damp,
mouldy smell upon week-days. He walked down
the narrow aisle to the altar-rails, and from that point


HIDDEN IN THE GRAVE.
43
of observation took a survey of the church. The
little gallery was exactly opposite to him, but the
scanty green curtains before the organ were closely
drawn, and he could not get a glimpse of the player.
The music still rolled on. The organist had wandered
into a melody of Mendelssohn's, a strain whose dreamy
sadness went straight to Robert's heart. He loitered in
tho nooks and corners of the church, examining the
dilapidated memorials of the well-nigh forgotten dead,
and listening to this music.
"If my poor friend, George Talboys, had died in
my arms, and I had buried him in this quiet church,
in one of the vaults over which I tread to-day, how
much anguish of mind, vacillation, and torment I might
have escaped," thought Robert Audley, as he read the
faded inscriptions upon tablets of discoloured marble:
"I should have known his fate — I should have known
his fate! Ah, how much there would have been in that.
It is this miserable uncertainty, this horrible suspicion,
which has poisoned my very life."
He looked at his watch.
"Half-past one," he muttered. "I shall have to
wait four or five dreary hours before my lady comes
home from her morning calls. Her morning calls —
her pretty visits of ceremony or friendliness. Good
heavens! what an actress this woman is. What an arch
trickster — what an all-accomplished deceiver. But she
shall play her pretty comedy no longer under my uncle's
roof. I have diplomatised long enough. She has re-


LADY AUDLBY'S SECRET.
fused to accept an indirect warning. To-night I will
speak plainly."
The music of the organ ceased, and Robert heard
the closing of the instrument.
"I'll have a look at this new organist," he thought,
"who can afford to bury his talents at Audley, and play
Mendelssohn's finest fugues for a stipend of sixteen
pounds a-year." He lingered in the porch, waiting for
the organist to descend the awkward little staircase.
In the weary trouble of his mind, and with the pro-
spect of getting through the five hours in the best way
he could, Mr. Audley was glad to cultivate any diver-
sion of thought, however idle. He therefore freely in-
dulged his curiosity about the new organist
.
The first person who appeared upon the steep stone
steps was a boy in corduroy trousers and a dark linen
smock-frock, who shambled down the stairs with a
good deal of unnecessary clatter of his hobnailed shoes,
and who was red in the face from the exertion of
blowing the bellows of the old organ. Close behind
this boy came a young lady, very plainly dressed in
a black silk gown and a large grey shawl, who started
and turned paie at the sight of Mr. Audley.
This young lady was Clara Talboys.
Of all people in the world she was the last whom
Kobert either expected or wished to see. She had told
him that she was going to pay a visit to some friends
who lived in Essex; but the county is a wide one, and
the village of Audley one of the most obscure and least
frequented spots in the whole of its extent. That the


HIDDEN IN THE GRAVE.
45
sister of his lost friend should be here — here where
she could watch his every action, and from those actions
deduce the secret workings of his mind, tracing his
doubts home to their object — made a complication of
his difficulties that he could never have anticipated. It
brought him baok to that consciousness of his own
helplessness, in which he had exclaimed —
"A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning
mo onward on the dark road that leads to my lost
friend's unknown grave."
Clara Talboys was the first to speak.
"You are surprised to see me here, Mr. Audley,"
she said.
"Very much surprised."
"I told you that I was coming to Essex. I left
home the day before yesterday. I was leaving bome
when I received your telegraphic message. The friend
with whom I am staying is Mrs. Martyn, the wife of
the new rector of Mount Stanning. I came down this
morning to see the village and church, and as Mrs.
Martyn had to pay a visit to the schools with the curate
and his wife, I stopped here and amused myself by
trying the old organ. I was not aware till I came here
that thero was a village called Audley. The place
takes its name from your family, I suppose?"
"I believe so," Robert answered, wondering at the
lady's calmness, in contradistinction to his own em-
barrassment. "I have a vague recollection of hearing
the story of some ancestor who was called Audley of
Audley in the reign of Edward the Fourth. The tomb


If,
LADY AUDREY'S SECRET.
inside the rails near the altar belongs to one of the
knights of Audley, but I have never taken the trouble
to remember his achievements. Are you going to wait
here for your friends, Miss Talboys?"
"Yes; they are to return here for me after they
have finished their rounds."
"And you go back to Mount Stanning with them
this afternoon?"
"Yes."
Robert stood with his hat in his hand looking ab-
sently out at the tombstones and the low wall of the
churchyard. Clara Talboys watched his pale face,
haggard under the deepening shadow that had rested
upon it so long.
"You have been ill since I saw you last, Mr.
Audley," she said, in a low voice, that had the same
melodious sadness as the notes of the old organ under
her touch.
"No, I have not been ill; I have been only harassed,
wearied by a hundred doubts and perplexities."
He was thinking as he spoke to her — "How
much does she guess? how much does she suspect?"
He had told the story of George's disappearance
and of his own suspicions, suppressing only the names
of those concerned in the mystery; but what if this girl
should fathom the slender disguise, and discover for
herself that which he had chosen to withhold?
Her grave eyes were fixed upon his face, and he
knew that she was trying to read the innermost secrets
of his mind.



HIDDEN IN THE GRAVE.
17
"What am I in her hands?" he thought. "What
am I in the hands of this woman, who has my lost
friend's face and the manner of Pallas Athene? She
reads my pitiful, vacillating soul, and plucks the
thoughts out of my heart with the magic of her solemn
brown eyes. How unequal the fight must be between
us, and how can I ever hope to conquer against the
strength of her beauty and her wisdom?"
Mr. Audley was clearing his throat preparatory to
bidding his beautiful companion good morning, and
making his escape from the thraldom of her presence
into the lonely meadow outside the churchyard, when
Clara Talboys arrested him by speaking upon that very
subject which he was most anxious to avoid.
"You promised to write to me, Mr. Audley," she
said, "if you made any discovery which carried you
nearer to the mystery of my brother's disappearance.
You have not written to me, and I imagine, therefore,
that you have discovered nothing."
Robert Audley was silent for some moments. How
could he answer this direct question?
"The chain of circumstantial evidence which unites
the mystery of your brother's fate with the person
whom I suspect," he said, after a pause, "is formed of
very slight links. I think that I have added an-
other link to that chain since I saw you in Dorset-
shire."
"And you refuse to tell me what it is that you
have discovered."
"Only until I have discovered more."


48
LADT AUDLEY's SECRET.
"I thought from your message that you were going
to Wildernsea."
"I have been there."
"Indeed! It was there that you made some dis-
covery, then?"
"It was," answered Robert. "You must remember,
Miss Talboys, that the sole ground upon which my
suspicions rest is the identity of two individuals who
have no apparent connection — the identity of a per-
son who is supposed to be dead with one who is living.
The conspiracy of which I believe your brother to have
been the victim hinges upon this. If his wife, Helen
Talboys, died when the papers recorded her death —
if the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard
was indeed the woman whose name is inscribed on the
headstone of the grave — I have no case, I have no
clue to the mystery of your brother's fate. I am about
to put this to the test. I believe that I am now in a
position to play a bold game, and I believe that I shall
soon arrive at the truth."
He spoke in a low voice, and with a solemn em-
phasis that betrayed the intensity of his feeling. Miss
Talboys stretched out her ungloved hand, and laid it
in his own. The cold touch of that slender hand sent
a shivering thrill through his frame.
"You will not suffer my brother's fate to remain a
mystery, Mr. Audley," she said quietly. "I know that
you will do your duty to your friend."
The rector's wife and her two companions entered
the churchyard as Clara Talboys said this. Robert


HIDDEN IN THE GRAVE.
4'J
Audley pressed the hand that rested in his own, and
raised it to his lips.
"I am a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, Miss Tal-
boys," he said; "but if I could restore your brother
George to life and happiness, I should care very little
for any sacrifice of my own feeling. I fear that the
most I can do is to fathom the secret of his fate; and
in doing that I must sacrifice those who are dearer to
me than myself."
He put on his hat and hurried away through the
gateway leading into the field as Mrs. Martyn came up
to the porch.
"Who is that handsome young man I caught tete-
a-tete with you, Clara?" she asked, laughing.
"He is a Mr. Audley, a friend of my poor bro-
ther's."
"Indeed! He is some relation of Sir Michael Aud-
ley, I suppose?"
"Sir Michael Audley!"
"Yes, my dear; the most important personage in
the parish of Audley. But well call at the Court in
a day or two, and you shall see the baronet and his
pretty young wife."
'iHis young wife!" repeated Clara Talboys, looking
earnestly at her friend. "Has Sir Michael Audley
lately married?"
"Yes. He was a widower for sixteen years, and
married a penniless young governess about a year and
a half ago. The story is quite romantic, and Lady
Audley is considered the belle of the county. But
Lady XudUy'1 Secret. 11. 4


50
LADY ADDLEY's SECRET.
come, my dear Clara, the pony is tired of waiting for
us, and we've a long drive before dinner."
Clara Talboys took her seat in the little basket-
carriage which was waiting at the principal gate of the
churchyard in the care of the boy who had blown the
organ-bellows. Mrs. Martyn shook the reins, and the
sturdy chestnut cob trotted off in the direction of Mount
Stanning.
"Will you tell me more about this Lady Audley,
Fanny?" Miss Talboys said, after a long pause. "I
want to know all about her. Have you heard her
maiden name?"
"Yes; she was a Miss Graham."
"And she is very pretty?"
"Yes, very, very pretty. Rather a childish beauty
though, with large clear blue eyes, and pale golden
ringlets, that fall in a feathery shower over her throat
and shoulders."
Clara Talboys was silent . She did not ask any
further questions about my lady.
She was thinking of a passage in that letter which
George had written to her during his honeymoon — a
passage in which he said: — "My childish little wife
is watching me as I write this. Ah! how I wish you
could see her, Clara! Her eyes are as blue and as
clear as the skies on a bright summer's day, and her
hair falls about her face like the pale golden halo you
see round the head of a Madonna in an Italian pic-
ture."


IN THE LIME-WALK.
CHAPTER IV.
In the Lime-Walk.
Robert Audley was loitering upon the broad
grass-plat in front of the Court as the carriage con-
taining my lady and Alicia drove under the archway,
and drew up at the low turret-door. Mr. Audley pre-
sented himself in time to hand the ladies out of the
vehicle.
My lady looked very pretty in a delicate blue
bonnet and the sables which her nephew had bought
for her at St . Petersburg. She seemed very well
pleased to see Robert, and smiled most bewitchingly
as she gave him her exquisitely gloved little hand.
"So you have come back to us, truant?" she said,
laughing. "And now that you have returned, we shall
keep you prisoner. We won't let him run away again,
will we, Alicia?"
Miss Audley gave her head a scornfull toss, that
shook the heavy curls under her cavalier hat.
"I have nothing to do with the movements of so
erratic an individual," she said. "Since Robert Audley
has taken it into his head to conduct himself like some
ghost-haunted hero in a German story, I have given
up attempting to understand him."
Mr. Audley looked at his cousin with an expression
of serio-comic perplexity. "She's a nice girl," he
4*


52
LADY ADDLHy's SECRET.
thought, "but she's a nuisance. I don't know how it
is, but she seems more a nuisance than she used
to be."
He pulled his mustachios reflectively as he con-
sidered this question. His mind wandered away for a
few moments from the great trouble of his life to dwell
upon this minor perplexity.
"She's a dear girl," he thought; "a generous-
hearted, bouncing, noble English lassie, and yet —"
He lost himself in a quagmire of doubt and difficulty.
There was some hitch in his mind which he could not
understand; some change in himself, beyond the change
made in him by his anxiety about George Talboys,
which mystified and bewildered him.
"And pray where have you been wandering during
the last day or two, Mr. Audley?" asked my lady, as
she lingered with her step-daughter upon the threshold
of the turret door, waiting until Robert should be
pleased to stand aside and allow them to pass. The
young man started as she asked this question and
looked up at her suddenly. Something in the aspect
of her bright young beauty, something in the childish
innocence of her expression, seemed to smite him
to the heart, and his face grew pale as he looked
at her.
"I have been — in Yorkshire," he said; "at the
little watering place where my poor friend George Tal-
boys lived at the time of his marriage."
The white change in my lady's face was the only
sign of her having heard these words. She smiled, a


IN THE LIME-WALK.
53
faint, sickly smile, and tried to pass her husband's
nephew.
"I must dress for dinner," she said. "I am going
to a dinner-party, Mr. Audley; please let me go in."
"I must ask you to spare me half-an-hour, Lady
Audley," Robert answered, in a low voice. "I came
down to Essex on purpose to speak to you."
"What about?" asked my lady.
She had recovered herself from any shock which
she might have sustained a few moments before, and
it was in her usual manner that she asked this question.
Her face expressed the mingled bewilderment and
curiosity of a puzzled child, rather than the serious
surprise of a woman.
"What can you want to talk to me about, Mr.
Audley?" she repeated.
"I will tell you when we are alone," Robert said,
glancing at his cousin, who stood a little way behind
my lady, watching this confidential little dialogue.
"He is in love with my step-mother's wax-doll
beauty," thought Alicia, "and it is for her sake he has
become such a disconsolate object. He's just the sort
of person to fall in love with his aunt."
Miss Audley walked away to the grass-plat, turn-
ing her back upon Robert and my lady.
"The absurd creature turned as white as a sheet
when he saw her," she thought, "So he can be in
love, after all That slow lump of torpidity he calls
his heart can beat, I suppose, once in a quarter of a
century: but it seems that nothing but a blue-eyed


54
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
wax-doll can set it going. I should have given him
up long ago if Td known that his ideal of beauty was
to be found in a toyshop."
Poor Alicia crossed the grass-plat and disappeared
upon the opposite side of the quadrangle, where there
was a Gothic gate that communicated with the stables.
I am sorry to say that Sir Michael Audley's daughter
went to seek consolation from her dog Caesar and her
chestnut mare Atalanta, whose loose box the young
lady was in the habit of visiting every day.
"Will you come into the lime-walk, Lady Aud-
ley?" said Robert, as his cousin left the garden. "I
wish to talk to you without fear of interruption or ob-
servation. I think we could choose no safer place than
that . Will you come there with me?"
"If you please," answered my lady. Mr. Audley
could see that she was trembling, and that she glanced
from side to side, as if looking for some outlet by
which she might escape him.
"You are shivering, Lady Audley," he said.
"Yes, I am very cold. I would rather speak to
you some other day, please. Let it be to-morrow, if
you will. I have to dress for dinner, and I want to
see Sir Michael; I have not seen him since ten o'clock
this morning. Please let it be to-morrow."
There was a painful piteousness in her tone. Heaven
knows how painful to Robert's heart. Heaven knows
what horrible images arose in his mind as he looked
down at that fair young face and thought of the task
that lay before him.


IN THE LIME-WALK.
55
"I must speak to you, Lady Audley," he said. "If
I am cruel, it is you who have made me cruel. You
might have escaped this ordeal. You might have
avoided me. I gave you fair warning. But you have
chosen to defy me, and it is your own folly which is
to blame if I no longer spare you. Come with me. I
tell you again I must speak to you."
There was a cold determination in his tone which
silenced my lady's objections. She followed him sub-
missively to the little iron gate which communicated
with the long garden behind the house — the garden
in which a little rustic wooden bridge led across the
quiet fish-pond into the lime-walk.
The early winter twilight was closing in, and the
intricate tracery of the leafless branches that over-
arched the lonely pathway looked black against the
cold grey of the evening sky. The lime-walk seemed
like some cloister in this uncertain light.
"Why do you bring me to this horrible place to
frighten me out of my poor wits?" cried my lady,
peevishly. "You ought to know how nervous I am."
"You are nervous, my lady?"
"Yes, dreadfully nervous. I am worth a fortune to
poor Mr. Dawson. He is always sending me camphor,
and sal volatile, and red lavender, and all kinds of
abominable mixtures, but he can't cure me."
"Do you remember what Macbeth tells his physi-
cian, my lady?" asked Robert, gravely. "Mr. Dawson
may be very much more clever than the Scottish leech;


IN THE LIME-WALK.
.07
is George Talboys to me that you should worry me
about him?"
"He was a stranger to you, my lady, was he not?"
"Of course!" answered Lady Audley. "What should
he be but a stranger?"
"Shall I tell you the story of my friend's dis-
appearance as I read that story, my lady?" asked
Robert.
"No," cried Lady Audley; "I wish to know no-
thing of your friend. If he is dead I am sorry for
him. If he lives, I have no wish either to see him or
to hear of him. Let me go in to see my husband, if
you please, Mr. Audley; unless you wish to detain me
in this gloomy place until I catch my death of cold."
"I wish to detain you until you have heard what
I have to say, Lady Audley," answered Robert, reso-
lutely. "I will detain you no longer than is necessary;
and when you have heard me, you shall choose your
own course of action."
"Very well, then; pray lose no time in saying what
you have to say," replied my lady, carelessly. "I
promise to attend very patiently."
"When my friend George Talboys returned to
England," Robert began gravely, "the thought which
was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife."
"Whom he had deserted," said my lady quickly.
"At least," she added, more deliberately, "I remember
your telling us something to that effect when you first
told us your friend's story."
Robert Audley did not notice this interruption.


58
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
"The thought that was uppermost in his mind
was the thought of his wife," he repeated. "His
fairest hope in the future was the hope of making her
happy, and lavishing upon her the fortune which he
had won by the force of his own strong arm in the
gold-fields of Australia. I saw him within a few hours
of his reaching England, and I was a witness of the
joyful pride with which he looked forward to his re-
union with his wife. I was also a witness of the blow
which struck him to the very heart — which changed
him from the man he had been, to a creature as unlike
that former self as one human being can be unlike
another. The blow which made that cruel change was
the announcement of his wife's death in the Times news-
paper. I now believe that that announcement was a
black and bitter lie."
"Indeed!" said my lady; "and what reason could
any one have for announcing the death of Mrs. Tal-
boys, if Mrs. Talboys had been alive?"
"The lady herself might have had a reason," Ro-
bert answered, quietly.
"What reason?"
"How if she had taken advantage of George's ab-
sence to win a richer husband? How if she had mar-
ried again, and wished to throw my poor friend off the
scent by this false announcement?"
Lady Audley shrugged her shoulders.
"Your suppositions are rather ridiculous, Mr. Aud-
ley," she said; "it is to be hoped that you have some
reasonable grounds for them."


IN THE LIME-WALK.
69
"I have examined a file of each of the newspapers
published in Chelmsford and Colchester," continued
Robert, without replying to my lady's last observation,
"and I find in one of the Colchester papers, dated July
the 2nd, 1857, a brief paragraph amongst numerous
miscellaneous scraps of information copied from other
newspapers, to the effect that a Mr. George Talboys,
an English gentleman, had arrived at Sydney from the
gold-fields, carrying with him nuggets and gold-dust
to the amount of twenty thousand pounds, and that he
had realised his property and sailed for Liverpool in
the fast-sailing clipper Argus. This is a very small
fact of course, Lady Audley, but it is enough to prove
that any person residing in Essex in the July of the
year fifty-seven, was likely to become aware of George
Talboys' return from Australia. Do you follow me?"'
"Not very clearly," said my lady. "What have
the Essex papers to do with the death of Mrs. Tal-
boys?"
"We will come to that by-and-by, Lady Audley.
I say that I believe the announcement in the Times to
have been a false announcement, and a part of the
conspiracy which was carried out by Helen Talboys
and Lieutenant Maldon against my poor friend."
"A conspiracy!"
"Yes, a conspiracy concocted by an artful woman,
who had speculated upon the chances of her husband's
death, and had secured a splendid position at the risk
of committing a crime; a bold woman, my lady, who
thought to play her comedy out to the end without


IN THE LIME-WALK.
Gl
bo baffled? Do you think I shall fail to discover those
missing links? No, Lady Audley, I shall not fail, for
I know where to look for them! There is a fair-haired
woman at Southampton — a woman called Plowson,
who has some share in the secrets of the father of my
friend's wife. I have an idea that she can help me to
discover the history of the woman who lies buried in
Ventnor churchyard, and I will spare no trouble in
making that discovery; unless —"
"Unless what?" asked my lady, eagerly.
"Unless the woman I wish to save from degradation
and punishment accepts the mercy I offer her, and
takes warning while there is still time."
My lady shrugged her graceful shoulders, and
flashed bright defiance out of her blue eyes.
"She would be a very foolish woman if she suffered
herself to be influenced by any such absurdity," she
said. "You are hypochondriacal, Mr. Audley, and you
must take camphor, or red lavender, or sal volatile.
What can be more ridiculous than this idea which you
have taken into your head? Tou lose your friend
George Talboys in rather a mysterious manner — that
is to say, that gentleman chooses to leave England
without giving you due notice. What of that? Tou
confess that he became an altered man after his wife's
death. He grew eccentric and misanthropical; he
affected an utter indifference as to what became of
him. What more likely, then, that he grew tired of
the monotony of civilised life, and ran away to those
savage gold-fields to find a distraction for his grief?


62 lady audley's secret.
It is rather a romantic story, but by no means an un-
common one. But you are not satisfied with this simple
interpretation of your friend's disappearance, and you
build up some absurd theory of a conspiracy which
has no existence except in your own overheated brain.
Helen Talboys is dead. The Times newspaper declares
she is dead. Her own father tells you that she is
dead. The headstone of the grave in Ventnor church-
yard bears record of her death. By what right," cried
my lady, her voice rising to that shrill and piercing
tone peculiar to her when affected by any intense
agitation — "by what right, Mr. Audley, do you
come to me and torment me about George Talboys —
by what right do you dare to say that his wife is
still alive?"
"By the right of circumstantial evidence, Lady
Audley," answered Robert — "by the right of that
circumstantial evidence which will sometimes fix the
guilt of a man's murder upon that person who, on the
first hearing of the case, seems of all other men the
most unlikely to be guilty."
"What circumstantial evidence?"
"The evidence of time and place. The evidence
of handwriting. When Helen Talboys left her father's
house at Wildernsea, she left a letter behind her — a
letter in which she declared that she was weary of her
old life, and that she wished to seek a new home and
a new fortune. That letter is in my possession."
"Indeed."
"Shall I tell you whose handwriting resembles that


IN THE LIME-WALK.
68
of Helen Talboys so closely, that the most dexterous
expert could perceive no distinction between the two?"
"A resemblance between the handwriting of two
women is no very uncommon circumstance now-a-days,"
replied my lady, carelessly. "I could show you the
caligraphies of half-a-dozen of my female correspond-
ents, and defy you to discover any great differences
in them."
"But what if the handwriting is a very uncommon
one, presenting marked peculiarities by which it may
be recognised among a hundred?"
"Why, in that case the coincidence is rather
curious," answered my lady; "but it is nothing more
than a coincidence. You cannot deny the fact of Helen
Talboy's death on the ground that her handwriting
resembles that of some surviving person."
"But if a series of such coincidences lead up to
the same point," said Robert. "Helen Talboys left
her father's house, according to the declaration in her
own handwriting, because she was weary of her old
life, and wished to begin a new one. Do you know
what I infer from this?"
My lady shrugged her shoulders.
"I have not the least idea," she said; "and as you
have detained me in this gloomy place nearly half-an-
hour, I must beg that you will release me, and let me
go and dress for dinner."
"No, Lady Audley," answered Robert, with a cold
sternness that was so strange to him as to transform
him into another creature — a pitiless embodiment of


CI
LADY AUDLET'S SECRET.
justice, a cruel instrument of retribution — "no, Lady
Audley," he repeated, "I have told you that womanly
prevarication will not help you; I tell you now that
defiance will not serve you. I have dealt fairly with
you, and have given you fair warning. I gave you in-
direct notice of your danger two months ago."
"What do you mean?" asked my lady, suddenly.
"You did not choose to take that warning, Lady
Audley," pursued Robert, "and the time has come in
which I must speak very plainly to you. Do you
think the gifts which you have played against fortune
are to hold you exempt from retribution? No, my
lady, your youth and beauty, your grace and refine-
ment, only make the horrible secret of your life more
horrible. I tell you that the evidence against you
wants only one link to be strong enough for your con-
demnation, and that link shall be added. Helen Tal-
boys never returned to her father's house. When she
deserted that poor old father, she went away from his
humble shelter with the declared intention of washing
her hands of that old life. What do people generally
do when they wish to begin a new existence — to start
for a second time in the race of life, free from the
encumbrances that had fettered their first journey?
They change their names, Lady Audley. Helen Talboys
deserted her infant son — she went away from Wil-
dernsea with the predetermination of sinking her
identity. She disappeared as Helen Talboys upon the
16th of August, 1854, and upon the 17th of that
month she reappeared as Luoy Graham, the friendless


IN THE LIME-WALK.
G5
girl who undertook a profitless duty in consideration of
a home in which she was asked no questions."
"You are mad, Mr. Audley!" cried my lady. "You
are mad, and my husband shall protect me from your
insolence. What if this Helen Talboys ran away from
her home upon one day, and I entered my employer's
house upon the next, what does that prove?"
"By itself, very little," replied Robert Audley;
"but with the help of other evidence —"
"What evidence?"
"The evidence of two labels, pasted one over the
other, upon a box left by you in the possession of Mrs.
Vincent, the upper label bearing the name of Miss
Graham, the lower that of Mrs. George Talboys."
My lady was silent. Robert Audley could not see
her face in the dusk, but he could see that her two
small hands were clasped convulsively over her heart,
and he knew that the shot had gone home to its mark.
"God help her, poor, wretched creature," bethought.
"She knows now that she is lost. I wonder if the
judges of the land feel as I do now, when they put on
the black cap, and pass sentence of death upon some
poor, shivering wretch who has never done them any
wrong. Do they feel a heroic fervour of virtuous in-
dignation, or do they suffer this dull anguish which
gnaws my vitals as I talk to this helpless woman?"
He walked by my lady's side, silently, for some
minutes. They had been pacing up and down the dim
avenue, and they were now drawing near the leafless
shrubbery at one end of the lime-walk — the shrubbery
Lady Audley t Secret. II. 6


66
LADY ATOLET's SECRET.
in which the ruined well sheltered its unheeded decay
among the tangled masses of briery underwood.
A winding pathway, neglected and half-choked with
weeds, led towards this welL Robert left the lime-
walk, and struck into this pathway. There was more
light in the shrubbery than in the avenue, and Mr.
Audley wished to see my lady's face.
He did not speak until they reached the patch of
rank grass beside the well. The massive brickwork
had fallen away here and there, and loose fragments of
masonry lay buried amidst weeds and briers. The
heavy posts which had supported the wooden roller
still remained, but the iron spindle had been dragged
from its socket, and lay a few paces from the well,
rusty, discoloured, and forgotten.
Robert Audley leant against one of the moss-grown
posts and looked down at my lady's face, very pale in
the chill winter twilight. The moon had newly risen,
a feebly luminous crescent in the grey heavens, and a
faint, ghostly light mingled with the misty shadows of
the declining day. My lady's face seemed like that
face which Robert Audley had seen in his dreams
looking out of the white foam flakes on the green sea
waves and luring his uncle to destruction.
"Those two labels are in my possession, Lady
Audley," he resumed. "I took them from the box left
by you at Crescent Villas. I took them in the presence
of Mrs. Vincent and Miss Tonks. Have you any proof
to offer against this evidence? You say to me, 'I am
Lucy Graham, and I have nothing whatever to do with


IN THE LIME-WALK.
67
Helen Talboys.' In that case, you can produce wit-
nesses who will declare your antecedents. Where had
you been living prior to your appearance at Crescent
Villas? You must have friends, relations, connections,
who can come forward to prove as much as this for
you. If you were the most desolate creature upon this
earth, you would be able to point to some one who
could identify you with the past."
"Yes," cried my lady, "if I were placed in a cri-
minal dock, I could, no doubt, bring forward witnesses
to refute your absurd accusation. But I am not in a
criminal dock, Mr. Audley, and I do not choose to do
anything but laugh at your ridiculous folly. I tell you
that you are mad! If you please to say that Helen
Talboys is not dead, and that I am Helen Talboys,
you may do so. If you choose to go wandering abont
to the places in which I have lived, and to the places
in which this Mrs. Talboys has lived, yon must follow
the bent of your own inclination; but I would warn
you that such fancies have sometimes conducted people,
as apparently sane as yourself, to the life-long im-
prisonment of a private lunatic asylum."
Robert Audley started, and recoiled a few paces
among the weeds and brushwood as my lady said this.
"She would be capable of any new crime to shield
her from the consequences of the old one," he thought.
"She would be capable of using her influence with my
uncle to place me in a mad-house."
I do not say that Robert Audley was a coward,
but I will admit that a shiver of horror, something akin
5*


68
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
to fear, chilled him to the heart, as he rememhered the
horrible things that have been done by women, since
that day upon which Eye was created to be Adam's
companion and help-meet in the garden of Eden. What
if this woman's hellish power of dissimulation should
be stronger than the truth, and crush him? She had
not spared George Talboys when he had stood in her
way, and menaced her with a certain peril; would she
spare him who threatened her with a far greater
danger? Are women merciful, or loving, or kind in
proportion to their beauty and their grace? Was there
not a certain Monsieur Mazers de Latude, who had the
bad fortune to offend the all-accomplished Madame de
Pompadour, who expiated his youthful indiscretion by
a life-long imprisonment; who twice escaped from
prison, to be twice cast back into captivity; who,
trusting in the tardy generosity of his beautiful foe,
betrayed himself to an implacable fiend? Robert Audley
looked at the pale face of the woman standing by his
side: that fair and beautiful face, illumined by starry
blue eyes, that had a strange and surely a dangerous
light in them; and remembering a hundred stories of
womanly perfidy, shuddered as he thought how unequal
the struggle might be between himself and his uncle's
wife.
"I have shown her my cards," he thought, "but she
has kept hers hidden from me. The mask that she
wears is not to be plucked away. My uncle would
rather think me mad than believe her guilty."
The pale face of Clara Talboys — that grave and


IN THE UME-WAIjK.
69
earnest face, so different in its character to my lady's
fragile beauty — arose before him.
"What a coward I am to think of myself or my
own danger," he thought. "The more I see of this
woman, the more reason I have to dread her influence
upon others; the more reason to wish her far away
from this house."
He looked about him in the dusky obscurity. The
lonely garden was as quiet as some solitary graveyard,
walled in and hidden away from the world of the
living.
"It was somewhere in this garden that she met
George Talboys upon the day of his disappearance,"
he thought. "I wonder where it was they met; I
wonder where it was that he looked into her cruel
face, and taxed her with her falsehood."
My lady, with her little hand resting lightly upon
the opposite post to that against which Robert leant,
toyed with her pretty foot amongst the long weeds,
but kept a furtive watch upon her enemy's face.
"It is to be a duel to the death, then, my lady,"
said Robert Audley, solemnly. "You refuse to accept
my warning. You refuse to run away and repent of
your wickedness in some foreign place, far from the
generous gentleman you have deceived and fooled by
your false witcheries. You choose to remain here and
defy me."
"I do," answered Lady Audley, lifting her head,
and looking full at the young barrister. "It is no


70
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
fault of mine if my husband's nephew goes mad, and
chooses me for the victim of his monomania."
"So be it, then, my lady," answered Robert. "My
friend George Talboys was last seen entering these
gardens by the little iron gate at which we came in
to-night . He was last heard inquiring for you. He
was seen to enter these gardens, but he was never
seen to leave them. I do not believe that he ever did
leave them. I believe that he met with his death
within the boundary of these grounds; and that his
body lies hidden below some quiet water, or in some
forgotten corner of this place. I will have such a
search made as shall level that house to the earth,
and root up every trw in these gardens, rather than
I will fail in finding the grave of my murdered
friend."
Lucy Audley uttered a long, low, wailing cry, and
threw up her arms above her head with a wild gesture
of despair, but she made no answer to the ghastly
charge of her accuser. Her arms slowly dropped, and
she stood staring at Robert Audley, her white face
gleaming through the dusk, her blue eyes glittering
and dilated.
"You shall never live to do this," she said. "I1vill
kill you first. Why have you tormented me so? Why
could you not let me alone? What harm had I ever
done you that you should make yourself my persecutor,
and dog my steps, and watch my looks, and play the
spy upon me? Do you want to drive me mad? Do
you know what it is to wrestle with a madwoman?


IN THE LIME-WALK.
71
"No," cried my lady, with a laugh, "you do not, or
you would never"
She stopped abruptly, and drew herself suddenly
to her fullest height . It was the same action which
Robert had seen in the old half-drunken lieutenant;
and it had that same dignity — the sublimity of ex-
treme misery.
"Go away, Mr. Audley," she said. "You are mad,
I tell you; you are mad."
"I am going, my lady," answered Robert, quietly.
"I would have condoned your crimes out of pity to
your wretchedness. You have refused to accept my
mercy. I wished to have pity upon the living. I shall
henceforth only remember my duty to the dead."
He walked away from the lonely well under the
shadow of the limes. My lady followed him slowly
down that long, gloomy avenue, and across the rustic
bridge to the iron gate. As he passed through the
gate, Alicia came out of a little half-glass door that
opened from an oak-panelled breakfast-room at one
angle of the house, and met her cousin upon the
threshold of the gateway.
"I have been looking for you everywhere, Robert,"
she said. "Papa has come down to the library, and
I'm sure he will be glad to see you."
The young man started at the sound of his cousin's
fresh young voice. "Good heavens!" he thought, "can
these two women be of the same clay? Can this frank,
generous-hearted girl, who cannot conceal any impulse
of^her innocent nature, be of the same flesh and blood


72
LADY AUDLEY's 8ECEET.
as that wretched creature whose shadow falls upon the
path beside me?"
He looked from his cousin to Lady Audley, who
stood near the gateway, waiting for him to stand aside
and let her pass him.
"I don't know what has come to your cousin, my
dear Alicia," said my lady. "He is so absent-minded
and eccentric, as to be quite beyond my comprehen-
sion."
"Indeed," exclaimed Miss Audley; "and yet I
should imagine, from the length of your tete-a-tete,
that you had made some effort to understand him."
"Oh, yes," said Robert, quietly, "my lady and I
understand each other very well; but as it is growing
late I will wish you good evening, ladies. I shall
sleep to-night at Mount Stanning, as I have some
business to attend to up there, and I will come down
and see my uncle to-morrow."
"What, Robert!" cried Alicia, "you surely won't
go away without seeing papa?"
"Yes, my dear," answered the young man. "I am
a little disturbed by some disagreeable business in
which I am very much concerned, and I would rather
not see my uncle. Good night, Alicia. I will come or
write to-morrow."
He pressed his cousin's hand, bowed to Lady
Audley, and walked away under the black shadows of
the archway, and out into the quiet avenue beyond
the Court.


IN THE LIME-WALK.
73
My lady and Alicia stood watching him until he
was out of sight.
"What in goodness' name is the matter with my
cousin Robert?" exclaimed Miss Audley, impatiently,
as the barrister disappeared. "What does he mean by
these absurd goings-on? Some disagreeable business
that disturbs him, indeed! I suppose the unhappy
creature has had a brief forced upon him by some
evil-starred attorney, and is sinking into a state of
imbecility from a dim consciousness of his own in-
competence."
"Have you ever studied your cousin's character,
Alicia?" asked my lady, very seriously, after a
pause.
"Studied his character! No, Lady Audley. Why
should I study his character?" said Alicia. "There is
very little study required to. convince anybody that he
is a lazy, selfish Sybarite, who cares for nothing in the
world except his own ease and comfort."
"But have you never thought him eccentric?"
"Eccentric!" repeated Alicia, pursing up her red
lips and shrugging her shoulders. "Well, yes — I
believe that is the excuse generally made for such
people. I suppose Bob is eccentric."
"I have never heard you speak of his father and
mother," said my lady, thoughtfully. "Do you re-
member them?"
"I never saw his mother. She was a Miss Dal-
rymple, a very dashing girl, who ran away with my
uncle, and lost a very handsome fortune in consequence.


74
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
She died at Nice when poor Bob was five years
old."
"Did you ever hear anything particular about
her?"
"How do you mean, 'particular'?" asked Alicia.
"Did you ever hear that she was eccentric — what
people caU 'odd'?"
"Oh, no," said Alicia, laughing. "My aunt was a
very reasonable woman, I believe, though she did
marry for love. But you must remember that she died
before I was born, and I have not, therefore, felt very
much curiosity about her."
"But you recollect your uncle, I suppose?"
"My uncle Robert?" said Alicia. "Oh, yes, I re-
member him very well indeed."
"Was he eccentric — I mean to say, peculiar in
his habits, like your cousin?"
"Yes, I believe Robert inherits all his absurdities
from his father. My uncle expressed the same in-
difference for his fellow-creatures as my cousin; but as .
he was a good husband, an affectionate father, and a
kind master, nobody ever challenged his opinions."
"But he was eccentric?"
"Yes; I suppose he was generally thought a little
eccentric."
"Ah," said my lady gravely, "I thought as much.
Do you know, Alicia, that madness is more often
transmitted from father to son than from father to
daughter, and from mother to daughter than from
mother to son? Your cousin Robert Audley is a very


IN THE LIME-WALK.
75
handsome young man, and I believe a very good-
hearted young man; but he must be watched, Alicia,
for he is mad!”
"Mad!” cried Miss Audley, indignantly; "you are
dreaming, my lady, or — or — you are trying to
frighten me,” added the young lady, with considerable
alarm.
“I only wish to put you on your guard, Alicia,"
answered my lady. “Mr. Audley may be as you say,
merely eccentric; but he has talked to me this evening
in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror,
and I believe that he is going mad. I shall speak
very seriously to Sir Michael this very night.”
"Speak to papa!” exclaimed Alicia; "you surely
won't distress papa by suggesting such a possibility!"
“I shall only put him on his guard, my dear
Alicia.”
“But he'll never believe you,” said Miss Audley;
"he will laugh at such an idea."
"No, Alicia; he will believe anything that I tell
him," answered my lady, with a quiet smile.


76
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
CHAPTER V.
Preparing the Ground.
Lady Audley went from the garden to the library,
a pleasant oak-panelled homely apartment in which
Sir Michael liked to sit reading or writing, or arran-
ging the business of his estate with his steward, a
stalwart countryman, half agriculturist, half lawyer, who
rented a small farm a few miles from the Court.
The baronet was seated in a capacious easychair
near the hearth. The bright blaze of the fire rose and
fell, flashing now upon the polished prominences of the
black-oak bookcase, now upon the gold and scarlet
bindings of the books; sometimes glimmering upon the
Athenian helmet of a marble Pallas, sometimes lighting
up the forehead of Sir Robert Peel.
The lamp upon the reading-table had not yet been
lighted, and Sir Michael sat in the firelight waiting for
the coming of his young wife.
It is impossible for me ever to tell the purity of
his generous love — it is impossible to describe that
affection which was as tender as the love of a young
mother for her first-born, as brave and chivalrous aa
the heroic passion of a Bayard for his liege mistress.
The door opened while he was thinking of this
fondly-loved wife, and looking up, the baronet saw
the slender form standing in the doorway.


PREPARING THE GROUND.
77
"Why, my darling!" he exclaimed, as my lady
closed the door behind her, and came towards his
chair, "I have been thinking of you, and waiting for
you for an hour. Where have you been, and what
have you been doing?"
My lady, standing in the shadow rather than in
the light, paused a few moments before replying to
this question.
"I have been to Chelmsford," she said, "shopping;
and —"
She hesitated — twisting her bonnet-strings in her
thin white fingers with an air of pretty embarrass-
ment.
"And what, my dear," asked the baronet—"what
have you been doing since you came from Chelmsford V
I heard a carriage stop at the door an hour ago. It
was yours, was it not?"
"Yes, I came home an hour ago," answered my
lady, with the same air of embarrassment.
"And what have you been doing since you came
home?"
Sir Michael Audley asked this question with a
slightly reproachful accent. His young wife's presence
made the sunshine of his life, and though he could not
bear to chain her to his side, it grieved him to think
that she could willingly remain unnecessarily absent
from him frittering away her time in some childish
talk or frivolous occupation.
"What have you been doing since you came home,


78
LADY AUDLEy's SECHET.
my dear?" he repeated. "What has kept you so long
away from me?"
"I have been talking — to — Mr. Robert Audley."
She still twisted her bonnet-string round and round
her fingers. She still spoke with the same air of em-
barrassment.
"Robert!" exclaimed the baronet; "is Robert
here?"
"He was here a little while ago."
"And is here still, I suppose?"
"No, he has gone away."
"Gone awayl" cried Sir Michael. "Wh.it do you
mean, my darling."
"I mean that your nephew came to the Court this
afternoon. Alicia and I found him idling about the
gardens. He stayed here till about a quarter of an
hour ago talking to me, and then he hurried off, with-
out a word of explanation, except, indeed, some ridi-
culous excuse about business at Mount Stanning."
"Business at Mount Stanning! Why, what busi-
ness can he possibly have in that out-of-the-way .place?
He has gone to sleep at Mount Stanning, then, I
suppose?"
"Yes, I think he said something to that effect."
"Upon my word," exclaimed the baronet, "I think
that boy is half mad."
My lady's face was so much in shadow, that Sir
Michael Audley was unaware of the bright change
that came over its sickly pallor as he made this very
common-place observation. A triumphant smile illu-


PREPARING THE GROUND.
79
mined Lucy Audley's countenance, a smile that plainly
said, "It is coming — it is coming; I can twist him
which way I like. I can put black before him, and if
I say it is white, he will believe me."
But Sir Michael Audley, in declaring that his
nephew's wits were disordered, merely uttered that
common-place ejaculation which is well known to have
very little meaning. The baronet had, it is true, no
very great estimate of Robert's faculty for the business
of this every-day life. He was in the habit of looking
upon his nephew as a good-natured nonentity — a man
whose heart had been amply stocked by liberal nature
with all the best things the generous goddess had to
bestow, but whose brain had been somewhat overlooked
in the distribution of intellectual gifts. Sir Michael
Audley made that mistake which is very commonly
made by easy-going, well-to-do observers, who have no
occasion to look below the surface. He mistook laziness
for incapacity. He thought because his nephew was
idle, he must necessarily be stupid. He concluded
that if Robert did not distinguish himself it was because
he could not.
He forgot the mute inglorious Miltons who die
voiceless and inarticulate for want of that dogged per-
severance, that blind courage, which the poet must pos-
sess before he can find a publisher; he forgot theCrom-
wells, who see the noble vessel — political economy —
floundering upon a sea of confusion, and going down
in a tempest of noisy bewilderment, and who yet are
powerless to get at the helm, forbidden even to send


80
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
out a life-boat to the sinking ship. Surely it is a
mistake to judge of what a man can do by that which
he has done.
The world's Valhalla is a close borough, and per-
haps the greatest men may be those who perish silently
far away from the sacred portal. Perhaps the purest
and brightest spirits are those who shrink from the
turmoil of the race-course — the tumult and confusiop
of the struggle. The game of life is something like
the game of ecarte, and it may be that the best cards
are sometimes left in the pack.
My lady threw off her bonnet, and seated herself
upon a velvet-covered footstool at Sir Michael's feet.
There was nothing studied or affected in this girlish
action. It was so natural to Lucy Audley to be
childish, that no one would have wished to see her
otherwise. It would have seemed as foolish to expect
dignified reserve or womanly gravity from this amber-
haired syren, as to wish for rich basses in the clear
treble of a skylark's song.
She sat with her pale face turned away from the
firelight, and with her hands locked together upon the
arm of her husband's easy-chair. They were very rest-
less, these slender white hands. My lady twisted the
jewelled fingers in and out of each other, as she talked
to her husband.
"I wanted to come to you, you know, dear," she
said — "I wanted to come to you directly I got home,
but Mr. Audley insisted upon my stopping to talk to
him."


PREPARING THE GROUND.
81
“But what about, my love?” asked the baronet.
“What could Robert have to say to you?”
My lady did not answer this question. Her fair
head drooped upon her husband's knee, her rippling
yellow curls fell over her face.
Sir Michael lifted that beautiful head with his
strong hands, and raised my lady's face. The firelight
shining on that pale face lit up the large, soft blue
eyes which were drowned in tears.
"Lucy, Lucy!” cried the baronet, "what is the
meaning of this? My love, my love, what has hap-
pened to distress you in this manner?”
Lady Audley tried to speak, but the words died
away inarticulately upon her trembling lips. Acho-
king sensation in her throat seemed to strangle those
false and plausible words, her only armour against her
enemies. She could not speak. The agony she had
endured silently in the dismal lime-walk had grown too
strong for her, and she broke into a tempest of hys-
terical sobbing. It was no simulated grief that shook
her blender frame, and tore at her like some ravenous
beast that would have rent her piece-meal with its hor-
rible strength. It was a storm of real anguish and
terror, of remorse and misery. It was the one wild
outcry, in which the womun's feebler nature got the
better of the syren's art.
It was not thus that she had meant to fight her
terrible duel with Robert Audley. These were not the
weapons which she had intended to use; but perhaps
no artifice which she could have devised would have
Lady Audley's Secret. II.


8-2
LAD5T audley's secret.
served her so well as this one outhurst of natural
grief. It shook her husband to the very soul. It be-
wildered and terrified him. It reduced the strong in-
tellect of the man to helpless confusion and perplexity.
It struck at the one weak point in a good man's na-
ture. It appealed straight to Sir Michael Audley's
affection for his wife.
Ah, Heaven help a strong man's tender weakness
for the woman he loves. Heaven pity him when the
guilty creature has deceived him and comes with her
tears and lamentations to throw herself at his feet in
self-abandonment and remorse, torturing him with the
sight of her agony, rending his heart with her sobs,
lacerating his breast with her groans. Multiplying her
own sufferings into a great anguish for him to bear,
multiplying them by twenty-fold, multiplying them in
the ratio of a bravo man's capacity for endurance.
Heaven forgive him if, maddened by that cruel agony,
the balance wavers for a moment, and he is ready to
forgive anything, ready to take this wretched one to the
shelter of his breast, and to pardon that which the
stern voice of manly honour urges must not be par-
doned. Pity him, pity him. Tho wife's worst remorse
when she stands without the threshold of the home she
may never enter more is not equal to the agony of tho
husband who closes the portal on that familiar and en-
treating face. The anguish of the mother who may
never look again npon her children is less than the
torment of the father who has to say to those children,
"My little ones, you are hcaceforth motherless."


PREPARING THE GROUND.
83
with the cor," he sailhas distressed ang
Sir Michael Audley rose from his chair, trembling
with indignation, and ready to do immediate battle
with the person who had caused his wife's grief.
“Lucy,” he said, “Lucy, I insist upon your telling
me what and who has distressed you. I insist upon it.
Whoever has annoyed you shall answer to me for your
grief. Come, my love, tell me directly what it is?”
He reseated himself and bent over the drooping
figure at his feet, calming his own agitation in his de-
sire to soothe his wife's distress.
“Tell me what it is, my dear?” he whispered, ten-
derly.
The sharp paroxysm had passed away, and my
lady looked up: a glittering light shone through the
tears in her eyes, and the lines about her pretty rosy
mouth, those hard and cruel lines which Robert Aud-
ley had observed in the pre-Raphaelite portrait, were
plainly visible in the firelight.
"I am very silly,” she said; “but really he has
made me quite hysterical.”
“Who — who has made you hysterical?”
“Your nephew – Mr. Robert Audley."
“Robert!” cried the baronet. “Lucy, what do you
mean?”
“I told you that Mr. Audley insisted upon my
going into the lime-walk, dear,” said my lady. “He
wanted to talk to me, he said, and I went, and he said
such horrible things that "
“What horrible things, Lucy?"
Lady Audley shuddered and clung with convulsive
6*


81
LADY AUDLET'S SECRET.
fingers to the strong hand that had rested caressingly
upon her shoulder.
"What did he say, Lucy?"
"Oh, my dear love, how can I tell you?" cried my
lady. "I know that I shall distress you — or you will
laugh at me, and then —"
"Laugh at you? no, Lucy."
Lady Audley was silent for a moment. She sat
looking straight before her into the fire, with her fingers
still locked about her husband's hand.
"My dear," she said, slowly, hesitating now and
then between her words, as if she almost shrank from
uttering them, "have you ever — I am so afraid of
vexing you — or — have you ever thought Mr. Audley
a little — a little —"
"A little what, my darling?"
"A little out of his mind," faltered Lady Audley.
"Out of his mind!" cried Sir Michael. "My dear
girl, what are you thinking of?"
"You said just now, dear, that you thought he was
half mad."
"Did I, my love?" said the baronet, laughing. "I
don't remember saying it, and it was a mere faqon de
parler, that meant nothing whatever. Robert may be a
little eccentric — a little stupid, perhaps — he mayn't
be overburdened with wits, but I don't think he has
brains enough for madness. I believe it's generally
your great intellects that get out of order."
"But madness is sometimes hereditary," said my
lady. "Mr. Audley may have inherited —"


PREPARING THE GROUND.
85
"He has inherited no madness from his father's
family," interrupted Sir Michael. "The Audleys have
never peopled private lunatic asylums or fee'd mad
doctors."
"Nor from his mother's family?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"People generally keep these things a secret," said
my lady, gravely. "There may have been madness in
your sister-in-law's family."
"I don't think so, my dear," replied Sir Michael.
"But, Lucy, tell me what, in Heaven's name, has put
this idea into your head?"
"I have been trying to account for your nephew's
conduct. I can account for it in no other manner. If
you had heard the things he said to me to-night, Sir
Michael, you too might have thought him mad."
"But what did he say, Lucy?"
"I can scarcely tell you. You can see how much
he has stupefied and bewildered me. I believe he has
lived too long alone in those solitary Temple chambers.
Perhaps he reads too much, or smokes too much. You
know that some physicians declare madness to be a
mere illness of the brain — an illness to which any
one is subject, and which may be produced by given
causes, and cured by given means."
Lady Audley's eyes were still fixed upon the
burning coals in the wide grate. She spoke as if she
had been discussing a subject that she had often heard
discussed before. She spoke as if her mind had almost
wandered away from the thought of her busband's


8G
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
nephew to the wider question of madness in the
abstract.
"Why should he not be mad?" resumed my lady.
"People are insane for years and years before their
insanity is found out. They know that they are mad,
but they know how to keep their secret; and, perhaps
they may sometimes keep it till they die. Sometimes
a paroxysm seizes them, and in an evil hour they
betray themselves. They commit a crime, perhaps.
The horrible temptation of opportunity assails them,
the knife is in their hand, and the unconscious victim
by their side. They may conquer the restless demon
and go away, and die innocent of any violent deed;
but they may yield to the horrible temptation — the
frightful, passionate, hungry craving for violence and
horror. They sometimes yield, and are lost."
Lady Audley's voice rose as she argued this dread-
ful question. The hysterical excitement from which
she had only just recovered had left its effects upon
her, but she controlled herself, and her tone grew
calmer as she resumed: —
"Robert Audley is mad," she said, decisively.
"What is one of the strongest diagnostics of madness
— what is the first appalling sign of mental aber-
ration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain
stagnates; the even current of the mind is interrupted;
the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a
monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by
reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid
and corrupt through lack of action; and perpetual


PREPARING THE GROUND. 87
reflection upon one subject resolves itself into mono-
mania. Robert Audley is a monomaniac. The disap-
pearance of his friend, George Talboys, grieved and
bewildered him. He dwelt upon this one idea until he
lost the power of thinking of anything else. The one
idea looked at perpetually became distorted to his
mental vision. Repeat the commonest word in the
English language twenty times, and before the
twentieth repetition you will have begun to wonder
whether the word which you repeat is really the word
you mean to utter. Robert Audley has thought of his
friend's disappearance until the one idea has done its
fatal and unhealthy work. Ho looks at a common
event with a vision that is diseased, and he distorts it
into a gloomy horror engendered of his own mono-
mania. If you do not want to make me as mad as he
is, you must never let me see him again. He declared to-
night that George Talboys was murdered in this place,
and that he will root up every tree in the gardens,
and pull down every brick in the house, in his search
for —"
My lady paused. The words died away upon her
lips. She had exhausted herself by the strange energy
with which she had spoken. She had been transformed
from a frivolous childish beauty into a woman, strong
to argue her own cause and plead her own defence.
"Pull down this house!" cried the baronet. "George
Talboys murdered at Audley Court! Did Robert say
this, Lucy?"


88
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
"He said something of that kind — something that
frightened me very much."
"Then he must be mad," said Sir Michael, gravely.
"I'm bewildered by what you tell me. Did he really
say this, Lucy, or did you misunderstand him?"
"I — I — don't think I did," faltered my lady.
"You saw how frightened I was when I first came in.
I should not have been so much agitated if he hadn't
said something horrible."
Lady Audley had availed herself of the very
strongest argument by which she could help her
cause.
"To be sure, my darling, to be sure," answered the
baronet. "What could have put such a horrible fancy
into the unhappy boy's head? This Mr. Talboys —
a perfect stranger to all of us — murdered, at Audley
Court! I'll go to Mount Stanning to-night, and see
Robert. I have known him ever since he was a baby,
and I cannot be deceived in him. If there is really
anything wrong, he will not be able to conceal it
from me."
My lady shrugged her shoulders.
"That is rather an open question," she said. "It
is generally a stranger who is the first to observe any
psychological peculiarity."
The big words sounded strange from my lady's
rosy lips; but her newly-adopted wisdom had a certain
quaint prettiness about it, which bewildered her hus-
band.


PREPARING THE OROUND.
89
"But you must not go to Mount Stanning, my dear
darling," she said, tenderly. "Eemember that you are
under strict orders to stay in-doors until the weather
is milder, and the sun shines upon this cruel ice-bound
country."
Sir Michael Audley sank back in his capacious
chair with a sigh of resignation.
"That's true, Lucy," he said; "we must obey Mr.
Dawson. I suppose Robert will come to see me to-
morrow."
"Yes, dear. I think he said he would."
"Then we must wait till to-morrow, my darling.
I can't believe that there really is anything wrong
with the poor boy — I can't believe it, Lucy."
"Then how do you account for his extraordinary
delusion about this Mr. Talboys?" asked my lady.
Sir Michael shook his head.
"I don't know, Lucy — I don't know," he an-
swered. "It is always so difficult to believe that any
one of the calamities that continually befal our fellow-
men will ever happen to us. I can't believe that my
nephew's mind is impaired — I can't believe it. I —
I'll get him to stop here, Lucy, and I'll watch him
closely. I tell you, my love, if there is anything
wrong I am sure to find it out . I can't be mistaken
in a young man who has always been the same to me
as my own son. But, my darling, why were you so
frightened by Robert's wild talk? It could not affect
you."
My lady sighed piteously.


90
LADY AUDLET's SECRET.
"You must think me very strong-minded, Sir
Michael," she said, with rather an injured air, "if you
imagine I can hear of these sort of things indifferently.
I know I shall never be able to see Mr. Audley
again."
"And you shall not, my dear — you shall not."
"You said just now you would have him here,"
murmured Lady Audley.
"But I will not, my darling girl, if his presence
annoys you. Good heavens, Lucy, can you imagine
for a moment that I have any higher wish than to
promote your happiness? I will consult some London
physician about Robert, and let him discover if there
is really anything the matter with my poor brother's
only son. You shall not be annoyed, Lucy."
"You must think me very unkind, dear," said my
lady, "and I know I ought not to bo annoyed by the
poor fellow; but he really seems to have taken somo
absurd notion into his head about me."
"About you, Lucy!" cried Sir Michael.
"Yes, dear. He seems to connect me in some
vague manner — which I cannot quite understand —
with the disappearance of this Mr. Talboys."
"Impossible, Lucy. You must have misunderstood
him."
"I don't think so."
"Then he must be mad," said the baronet — "he
must be mad. I will wait till he goes back to town,
and then send some one to his chambers to talk to


PREPARING THE GROUND.
91
him. Good heavens, what a mysterious business
this is!"
"I fear I have distressed you, darling," murmured
Lady Audley.
"Yes, my dear, I am very much distressed by what
you have told me; but you were quite right to talk to
me frankly about this dreadful business. I must think
it over, dearest, and try and decide what is best to be
done."
My lady rose from the low ottoman on which she
had been seated. The fire had burned down, and
there was only a faint glow of red light in the room.
Lucy Audley bent over her husband's chair, and put
her lips to his broad forehead.
"How good you have always been to me, dear,"
she whispered softly. "You would never let any one
influence you against me, would you, my darling?"
"Influence me against you?" repeated the baronet
.
"No, my love."
"Because you know, dear," pursued my lady,
"there are wicked people as well as mad people in
the world, and there may be some persons to whose
interest it would be to injure me."
"They had better not try it then, my dear," an-
swered Sir Michael; "they would find themselves in
rather a dangerous position if they did."
Lady Audley laughed aloud, with a gay, trium-
phant, silvery peal of laughter that vibrated through
the quiet room.
"My own dear darling," she said, "I know you


92
LADV AUDLEY S SECRET.
love me. And now I must run away, dear, for it's
past seven o'clock. I was engaged to dine at JMxs.
Montford's, but I must send a groom with a message
of apology, for Mr. Audley has made me quite unfit
for company. I shall stay at home, and nurse you,
dear. You'll go to bed very early, won't you, and
take great care of yourself?"
"Yes, dear."
My lady tripped out of the room to give her orders
about the message which was to be carried to the
house at which she was to have dined. She paused
for a moment as she closed the library door — she
paused, and laid her hand upon her breast to check
the rapid throbbing of her heart.
"I have been afraid of you, Mr. Robert Audley,"
she thought, "but perhaps the time may come in which
you .will have cause to be afraid of me."


phcebe's petition.
93
CHAPTER VI.
Phoebe'a Petition.
The division between Lady Audley and her step-
daughter had not become any narrower in the two
months which had elapsed since the pleasant Christmas
holiday time had been kept at Audley Court . There
was no open warfare between the two women; there
was only an armed neutrality, broken every now and
then by brief feminine skirmishes and transient wordy
tempests. I am sorry to say that Alicia would very
much have preferred a hearty pitched battle to this
silent and undemonstrative disunion; but it was not
very easy to quarrel with my lady. She had soft
answers for the turning away of wrath. She could
smile bewitchingly at her step-daughter's open petu-
lance, and laugh merrily at the young lady's ill-temper.
Perhaps had she been less amiable, had sho been in-
deed more like Alicia in disposition, the two ladies
might have expended their enmity in one tremendous
quarrel, and might ever afterwards have been affec-
tionate and friendly. But Lucy Audley would not
make war. She carried forward the sum of her dislike,
and put it out at a steady rate of interest, until the
breach between her step-daughter and herself widening
a little every day, became a great gulf utterly im-
passable by olive-branch-bearing doves, from either


94
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
side of the abyss. There can be no reconciliation
where there is no open warfare. There must be a
battle, a brave boisterous battle, with pennants waving
and cannon roaring, before there can be peaceful
treaties and enthusiastic shaking of hands. Perhaps
the union between France and England owes its great-
est force to the recollection of bygone conquest and
defeat. We have hated each other and licked each
other and had it out, as the common phrase goes, and
we can afford now to fall into each other's arms and
vow eternal friendship and everlasting brotherhood.
Lot us hope that when Northern Yankeydom has deci-
mated and been decimated, blustering Jonathan may
fling himself upon his southern brother's breast, for-
giving and forgiven.
Alicia Audley and her father's pretty wife had
plenty of room for the comfortable indulgence of their
dislike in the spacious old mansion. My Lady had her
own apartments, as we know — luxurious chambers,
in which all conceivable elegancies had been gathered
for the comfort of their occupant. Alicia had her own
rooms in another part of the large house. She had her
favourite mare, her Newfoundland dog, and her draw-
ing materials, and she made herself tolerably happy.
She was not very happy, this frank, generous-hearted
girl, for it was scarcely possible that she could be al-
together at ease in the constrained atmosphere of the
Court. Her father was changed — that dear father,
over whom she had once reigned supreme with the
boundless authority of a spoiled child, had accepted


phcebe's pet1t1on.
95
another ruler and submitted to a new dynasty. Little
by little my lady's pretty power made itself felt in that
narrow household, and Alicia saw her father gradually
lured across the gulf that divided Lady Audley from
her step-daughter, until he stood at last quite upon the
other side of the abyss, and looked coldly upon his
only child across that widening chasm.
Alicia felt that he was lost to her. My lady's
beaming smiles, my lady's winning words, my lady's
radiant glances and bewitching graces had done their
work of enchantment, and Sir Michael had grown to
look upon his daughter as a somewhat wilful and
capricious young person who had behaved with deter-
mined unkindness to the wife he loved.
Poor Alicia saw all this, and bore her burden as
well as she could. It seemed very hard to be a hand-
some grey-eyed heiress, with dogs and horses and ser-
vants at her command, and yet to be so much alone in
the world as to know of not one friendly ear into which
she might pour her sorrows.
"If Bob was good for anything, I could have told
him how unhappy I am," thought Miss Audley; "but
I may just as well tell Caesar my troubles, for any
consolation I should get from my cousin Robert."
Sir Michael Audley obeyed his pretty nurse, and
went to bed at a little after nine o'clock upon this
bleak March evening. Perhaps the baronet's bedroom
was about the pleasantest retreat that an invalid could
have chosen in such cold and cheerless weather. The
dark-green velvet curtains were drawn before the


90
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
windows and about the ponderous bed. The wood fire
burned redly upon the broad hearth. The reading-
lamp was lighted upon a delicious little table close to
Sir Michael's pillow, and a heap of magazines and
newspapers had been arranged by my lady's 1own fair
hands for the pleasure of the invalid.
Lady Audley sat by the bedside for about ten
minutes talking to her husband, talking very seriously,
about this strange and awful question — Robert Aud-
ley's lunacy; but at the end of that time she rose and
bade him good-night . She lowered the green silk
shade before the reading-lamp, adjusting it carefully
for the repose of the baronet's eyes.
"I shall leave you, dear," she said. "If you can
sleep, so much the better. If you wish to read, the
books and papers are close to you. I will leave the
doors between the rooms open, and I shall hear your
voice if you call me."
Lady Audley went through her dressing-room into
the boudoir, where she had sat with her husband since
dinner.
Every evidence of womanly refinement was visible
in the elegant chamber. My lady's piano was open,
covered with scattered sheets of music and exquisitely-
bound collections of scenas and fantasias which no
master need have disdained to study. My lady's easel
stood near the window, bearing witness to my lady's
artistic talent, in the shape of a water-coloured sketch
of the Court and gardens. My lady's fairy-like em-
broideries of lace and muslin, rainbow-hued silks, and


PHffiBE's PETITION.
97
delicately-tinted wools littered the luxurious apartment;
while the looking-glasses, cunningly placed at angles
and opposite corners by an artistic upholsterer, multi-
plied my lady's image, and in that image reflected
the most beautiful object in the enchanted chamber.
Amid all this lamplight, gilding, colour, wealth,
and beauty, Lucy Audley sat down on a low seat by
the fire to think.
If Mr. Holman Hunt could have peeped into the
pretty boudoir, I think the picture would have been
photographed upon his brain to be reproduced by and
bye upon a bishop's half-length for the glorification of
the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. My lady in that half-
recumbent attitude, with her elbow ifisting. on one
knee, and her perfect chin supported by her hand, the
rich folds of drapery falling away in long undulating
lines from the exquisite outline of her figure, and tho
luminous_ rose-coloured fire-light enveloping her in a
soft haze, only broken by the golden glitter of her
yellow hair. Beautiful in herself, but made bewilder-
ingly beautiful by the gorgeous surroundings which
adorn the shrine of her loveliness. Drinking-cups of
gold and ivory, chiselled by Benvenuto Cellini; cab-
inets of buhl and porcelain, bearing the cipher of
Austrian Marie Antoinette, amid devices of rose-buds
and true-lover's knots, birds and butterflies, cupidons
and shepherdesses, goddesses, courtiers, cottagers and
milkmaids; statuettes of Parian marble and biscuit
china; gilded baskets of hot-house flowers; fantastical
caskets of Indian filagree work; fragile tea-cups of
I/1dy Audtef's Secret. II. 7


98
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
turquoise china, adorned by medallion miniatures of
Louis the Great and Louis the Well-beloved, Louise de
la Yalliere, and Jeanne Marie du Barry; cabinet
pictures and gilded mirrors, shimmering satin and
diaphonous lace; all that gold can buy or art devise
had been gathered together for the beautification of
this quiet chamber in which my lady sat listening to
the moaning of the shrill March wind and the flapping
of the ivy leaves against the casements, and looking
into the red chasms in the burning coals.
I should be preaching a very stale sermon, and
harping upon a very familiar moral, if I were to seizt
this opportunity of declaiming against art and beauty,
because my lady was more wretched in this elegant
apartment than many a half-starved sempstress in her
dreary garret. She was wretched by reason of a wound
which lay too deep for the possibility of any solace
from such plasters as wealth and luxury; but her
wretchedness was of an abnormal nature, and I can see
no occasion for seizing upon the fact of her misery as
an argument in favour of poverty and discomfort as
opposed to opulence. The Benvenuto Cellini carvings
and the Sevres porcelain could not give her happiness
because she had passed out of their region. She was
no longer innocent, and the pleasure we take in art
and loveliness being an innocent pleasure had passed
beyond her reach. Sir or seven years before, she
would have been happy in the possession of this little
Aladdin's palace; but she had wandered out of the
circle of careless pleasure-seeking creatures, she had


PHCBE'S PETITION.
99
strayed far away into a desolate labyrinth of guilt and
treachery, terror and crime, and all the treasures that
had been collected for her could have given her no
pleasure but one, the pleasure of Alinging them into a
heap beneath her feet, and trampling upon them and
destroying them in her cruel despair.
There were some things that would have inspired
her with an awful joy, a horrible rejoicing. If Robert
Audley, her pitiless enemy, her unrelenting pursuer,
had lain dead in the adjoining chamber, she would
have exulted over his bier.
What pleasures could have remained for Lucretia
Borgia and Catherine de' Medici, when the dreadful
boundary line between innocence and guilt was passed,
and the lost creatures stood upon the lonely outer side?
Only horrible vengeful joys, and treacherous delights
were left for these miserable women. With what dis-
dainful bitterness they must have watched the frivolous
vanities, the petty deceptions, the paltry sins of
ordinary offenders. Perhaps they took a horrible pride
in the enormity of their wickedness; in this “divinity
of Hell,” which made them greatest amongst sinful
creatures.
My lady, brooding by the fire in her lonely chamber,
with her large, clear blue eyes fixed upon the yawning
gulfs of lurid crimson in the burning coals, may have
thought of many things very far away from the terribly
silent struggle in which she was engaged. She may
have thought of long-ago years of childish innocence,
childish follies and selfishnesses, or frivolous feminine


100
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
sins that had weighed very lightly upon her con-
science. Perhaps in that retrospective reverio she re-
called the early time in which she had first looked in
the glass and discovered that she was beautiful: that
fatal early time in which she had first begun to look
upon her loveliness as a right divine, a boundless pos-
session which was to bo a set-off against all girlish
short-comings, a counter-balance of every youthful sin.
Did sho remember the day in which that fairy dower
of beauty had first taught her to be selfish and cruel,
indifferent to the joys and sorrows of others, cold-
hearted and capricious, greedy of admiration, exacting
and tyrannical, with that petty woman's tyranny which
is the worst of despotisms? Did she trace every sin of
her life back to its true source? and did she discover
that poisoned fountain in her own exaggerated estimate
of the value of a pretty face? Surely, if her thoughts
wandered so far along the backward current of her life,
she must have repented in bitterness and despair of
that first day in which the master-passions of her life
had become her rulers, and the three demons of Vanity,
Selfishness and Ambition had joined hands and said,
"This woman is our slave; let us see what she will
become under our guidance."
How small these first youthful errors seemed as my
lady looked back upon them in that long reverie by
the lonely hearth! What small vanities, what petty
cruelties! A triumph over a schoolfellow, a flirtation
with the lover of a friend, an assertion of the right
divine invested in blue eyes and shimmering golden-


phcebe's petition.
101
tinted hair. But how terribly that narrow path-way
had widened out into the broad high-road of sin, and
how swift the footsteps had become upon the now
familiar way!
My lady twined her fingers in her loose amber
curls, and made as if she would have torn them from
her head. But even in that moment of mute despair
the unyielding dominion of beauty asserted itself, and
she released the poor tangled glitter of ringlets, leaving
them to make a halo round her head in the dim fire-
light.
"I was not wicked when I was young," she thought,
as she stared gloomily at the fire, "I was only thought-
less. I never did any harm — at least, never wilfully.
Have I ever been really wicked, I wonder?" she mused.
"My worst wickedness have been the result of wild
impulses, and not of deeply laid plots. I am not like
the women I have read of, who have lain night after
night in the horrible dark and stillness, planning out
treacherous deeds, and arranging every circumstance of
an appointed crime. I wonder whether they suffered
— those women — whether they ever suffered as —"
Her thoughts wandered away into a weary maze
of confusion. Suddenly she drew herself up with a
proud defiant gesture, and her eyes glittered with a
light that was not entirely reflected from the fire.
"You are mad, Mr. Robert Audley," she said, "you
are mad, and your fancies are a madman's fancies. I
know what madness is. I know its signs and tokens,
and I say that you are mad."


102
IiADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
She put her hand to her head, as if thinking of
something which confused and bewildered her, and
which she found it difficult to contemplate with
calmness.
"Dare I defy him?" she muttered, "Dare I?
dare I? Will he stop now that he has once gone so
far? "Will he stop for fear of me? Will he stop for
fear of me when the thought of what his uncle must
suffer has not stopped him? Will anything stop him
— but death?"
She pronounced the last two words in an awful
whisper, and with her head bent forward, her eyes
dilated, and her lips still parted as they had been
parted in her utterance of that final word "death," she
sat blankly staring at the fire.
"I can't plot horrible things," she muttered pres-
ently; "my brain isn't strong enough, or I'm not
wicked enough, or brave enough. If I met Robert
Audley in those lonely gardens, as I —"
The current of her thoughts was interrupted by a
cautious knocking at her door. She rose suddenly,
startled by any sound in the stillness of her room.
She rose, and threw herself into a low chair near the
fire. She flung her beautiful head back upon the soft
cushions, and took a book from the table near her.
Insignificant as this action was it spoke very
plainly. It spoke very plainly of ever-recurring fears
— of fatal necessities for concealment — of a mind
that in its silent agonies was ever alive to the im-
portance of outward effect . It told more plainly than


thcebe's petition.
103
anything else could have told, how complete an actress
my lady had been made by the awful necessity of
her life.
The modest rap at the boudoir-door was repeated.
"Come in," cried Lady Audley, in her liveliest
tone.
The door was opened with that respectful noise-
lessness peculiar to a well-bred servant, and a young
woman plainly dressed, and carrying some of the cold
March winds in the folds of her garments, crossed the
threshold of the apartment and lingered near the door,
waiting permission to approach the inner regions of
my lady's retreat.
It was Phoebe Marks, the pale-faced wife of the
Mount Stanning innkeeper.
"I beg pardon, my lady, for intruding without
leave," she said; "but I thought I might venture to
come straight up without waiting for permission."
"Yes, yes, Phoebe, to be sure. Take off your
bonnet, you wretched cold-looking creature, and come
and sit down here."
Lady Audley pointed to the low ottoman upon
which she had herself been soated a few minutes be-
fore. The lady's-maid had often sat upon it listening
to her mistress's prattle in the old days, when she had
been my lady's chief companion and confidante.
"Sit down here, Phoebe," Lady Audley repeated;
"sit down here and talk to me. I'm very glad you
came here to-night. I was horribly lonely in this
dreary place."


104
LADY AUDLEtf's SECRET.
My lady shivered, and looked round the luxurious
chamber very much as if the Sevres and bronze, the
buhl and ormolu, had been the mouldering adornments
of some ruined castle. The dreary wretchedness of
her thoughts had communicated itself to every object
about her, and all outer things took their colour from
that weary inner life which held its slow course of
secret anguish in her breast. She had spoken the
entire truth in saying that she was glad of her lady's-
maid's visit . Her frivolous nature clung to this weak
shelter in the hour of her fear and suffering. There
were sympathies between her and this girl, who was
like herself inwardly as well as outwardly — like her-
self, selfish, and cold, and cruel, eager for her own
advancement, and greedy of opulence and elegance,
angry with the lot that had been cast her, and weary
of dull dependence. My lady hated Alicia for her
frank, passionate, generous, daring nature; she hated
her step-daughter, and clung to this pale-faced, pale-
haired girl, whom she thought neither better nor worse
than herself.
Phoebe Marks obeyed her late mistress's com-
mands, and took off her bonnet before seating herself
on the ottoman at Lady Audley's feet. Her smooth
bands of light hair were unruffled by the March winds;
her trimly-made drab dress and linen collar were as
neatly arranged as they could have been had she only
that moment completed her toilet.
"SirMichael is better, I hope, my lady?" she said.
"Yes, Phoebe, much better. He is asleep. You


phgsbe's petition.
105
may close that door," added Lady Audley with a
motion of her head towards the door of communication
between the rooms, which had been left open.
Mrs. Marks obeyed submissively, and then returned
to her seat.
"I am very, very unhappy, Phoebe," my lady said,
fretfully; "wretchedly miserable."
"About the secret?" asked Mrs. Marks, in a half
whisper.
My lady did not notice that question. She re-
sumed in the same complaining tone. She was glad
to be able to complain even to this lady's-maid. She
had brooded over her fears, and had suffered so long
in secret, that it was an inexpressible relief to her to
bemoan her fate aloud.
"I am cruelly persecuted and harassed, Phoebe
Marks," she said. "I am pursued and tormented by
a man whom I never injured, whom I have never
wished to injure. I am never suffered to rest by this
relentless tormentor, and I —"
She paused, staring at the fire again, as she had
done in her loneliness. Lost again in the dark in-
tricacies of thoughts which wandered hither and thither
in a dreadful chaos of terrified bewilderment, she could
not come to any fixed conclusion.
Phoebe Marks watched my lady's face, looking up-
ward at her late mistress with pale, anxious eyes, that
only relaxed their watchfulness when Lady Audley's
glance met that of her companion.
"I think I know whom you mean, my lady," said


106
LADY AUDLTiv's SECRET.
the innkeeper's wife after a pause; "I think I know
who it is who is so cruel to you."
"Oh, of course," answered my lady, bitterly; "my
secrets are everybody's secrets. You know all about
it, no doubt."
"The person is a gentleman, is he not, my lady?"
"Yes."
"A gentleman who came to the Castle Inn two
months ago, when I warned you —"
"Yes, yes," answered my lady impatiently.
"I thought so. The same gentleman is at our
place to-night, my lady."
Lady Audloy started up from her chair — started
up as if she would have done something desperate in
her despairing fury; but she sank back again with a
weary, querulous sigh. What warfare could such a
feeble creature wage against her fate? What could
she do but wind like a hunted hare till she found her
way back to the starting-point of the cruel chace, to
be there trampled down by her pursuers?
"At the Castle Inn?" she cried. "I might have
known as much. He has gone there to wring my
secrets from your husband. Fooll" she exclaimed,
suddenly turning upon Phoebe Marks in a transport of
anger, "do you want to destroy me that you have left
those two men together?"
Mrs. Marks clasped her hands piteously.
"I didn't como away of my own free will, my
lady," she said; "no one could have been more un-


phosbe's petition.
107
willing to leave the house than I was this night. I
was sent here."
"Who sent you here?"
"Luke, my lady. You can't tell how hard he can
be upon me if I go against him."
"Why did he send you?"
The innkeeper's wife dropped her eyelids under
Lady Audley's angry glances, and hesitated confusedly
before she answered this question.
"Indeed, my lady," she stammered, "I didn't want
to come. I told Luke that it was too bad for us to
worry you, first asking this favour, and then asking
that, and never leaving you alone for a month to-
gether; but — but — he drove me down with his loud
blustering talk, and he made me come."
"Yes, yes," cried Lady Audley, impatiently. "I
know that. I want to know why you have come."
"Why, you know, my lady," answered Phoebe,
half reluctantly, "Luke is very extravagant; and all I
can say to him, I can't get him to be careful or steady.
He's not sober; and when he's drinking with a lot of
rough countrymen, and drinking, perhaps, even more
than they do, it isn't likely that his head can be very
clear for accounts. If it hadn't been for me we should
have been ruined before this; and hard as I've tried,
I haven't been able to keep the ruin off. You re-
member giving me the money for the brewer's bill,
my lady?"
"Yes, I remember very well," answered Lady Aud-


108 LADY AUD LEY'S SECRET.
ley, with a bitter laugh, "for I wanted that money to
pay my own bills."
"I know you did, my lady, and it was very, very hard
for me to have to come and ask you for it, after all
that we'd received from you before. But that isn't tho
worst; when Luke sent me down here to beg the favour
of that help, he never told me that the Christmas rent
was still owing: but it was, my lady, and it's owing
now, and— and there's a bailiff in the house to-night,
and we're to be sold up to-morrow unless —"
"Unless I pay your rent, I suppose," cried Lucy
Audley. "I might have guessed what was coming."
"Indeed, indeed, my lady, I wouldn't have asked
it," sobbed Phoebe Marks, "but ho made me come."
"Yes," answered my lady bitterly, "he made you
come; and he will make you come whenever he pleases,
and whenever he wants money for the gratification of
his low vices; and you and he are my pensioners as
long as I live, or as long as I have any money to
give; for I suppose when my purse is empty and my
credit ruined, you and your husband will turn upon
me and sell mo to the highest bidder. Do you know,
Phoebe Marks, that my jewel-case has been half emptied
to meet your claims? Do you know that my pin
money, which I thought such a princely allowance
when my marriage settlement was made, and whon I
was a poor governess at Mr. Dawson's, Heaven help
me — my pin money has been overdrawn half a year
to satisfy your demands? What can I do to appease
you? Shall I sell my Mario Antoinette cabinet, or


phcebe's petition.
109
my Pompadour china, Leroy's and Benson's ormolu
clocks, or my Gobelin tapestried chairs and ottomans?
How shall I satisfy you next?"
"Oh, my lady, my lady," cried Phoebe, piteously,
"don't be so cruel to me; you know, you know that it
isn't I who want to impose upon you."
"I know nothing," exclaimed Lady Audley, "ex-
cept that I am the most miserable of women. Let me
think," she cried, silencing Phoebe's consolatory mur-
mnrs with an imperious gesture. "Hold your tongue,
girl, and let me think of this business, if I can."
She put her hands to her forehead, clasping her
slender fingers across her brow, as if she would have
controlled the action of her brain by their convulsive
pressure.
"Robert Audley is with your husband," she said,
slowly, speaking to herself rather than to her com-
panion. "Those two men are together, and there are
bailiffs in the house, and your brutal husband is no
doubt brutally drunk by this time, and brutally ob-
stinate and ferocious in his drunkenness. If I refuse
to pay this money his ferocity will be multiplied by a
hundredfold. There's little use in discussing that
matter. The money must be paid."
"But if you do pay it, my lady," said Phoebe,
very earnestly, "I hope you will impress upon Luke
that it is the last money you will ever give him while
he stops in that house."
"Why?" asked Lady Audley, letting her hand*


110
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
fall on her lap, and looking inquiringly at Mrs.
Marks.
"Because I want Luke to leave the Castle."
"But why do you want him to leave?"
"Oh, for ever so many reasons, my lady," an-
swered Phoebe. "He's not fit to be the landlord of a
public-house. I didn't know that when I married him,
or I would have gone against the business, and tried
to persuade him to take to the farming line. Not that
I suppose he'd have given up his own fancy, though,
either; for he's obstinate enough, as you know, my
lady. He's not fit for his present business, though.
He's scarcely ever sober after dark, and when 'he's
drunk he gets almost wild, and doesn't seem to know
what he does. We've had two or three narrow escapes
with him already."
"Narrow escapes!" repeated Lady Audley. "What
do you mean!"
"Why, we've run the risk of being burnt in our
beds through his carelessness."
"Burnt in your beds through his carelessness!
Why, how was that?" asked my lady, rather list-
lessly. She was too selfish, and too deeply absorbed
in her own troubles, to take much interest in any
danger which had befallen her sometime lady's-maid.
"You know what a queer old place the Castle is,
my lady; all tumble-down wood-work, and rotten
rafters, and such like. The Chelmsford Insurance
Company won't insure it, for they say if the place did
happen to catch fire upon a windy night it would


fhojbe's petition.
Ill
blaze away like so much tinder, and nothing in the
world could save it. Well, Luke knows this, and the
landlord has warned him of it times and often, for he
lives close against us, and he keeps a pretty sharp eye
upon all my husband's goings on, but when Luke's tipsy
ho doesn't know what he's about, and only a week
ago ho left a candle burning in ono of the outhouses,
and the flame caught one of the rafters of the sloping
roof, and if it hadn't been for me finding it out when
I went round the house the last thing, wo should have
all been burnt to death perhaps. And that's the third
time the same kind of thing has happened in the six
months we've had the place, and you can't wonder
that I'm frightened; can you, my lady?"
My lady had not wondered, sho had not thought
about the business at all. She had scarcely listened
to these common-place details; why should she care
for this low-born waiting woman's perils and troubles?
Had she not her own terrors, her own soul-absorbing
perplexities to usurp every thought of which her brain
was capable.
She did not make any remark upon that which
poor Phoebe had just told her; she scarcely compre-
hended what had been said, until some moments after
the girl had finished speaking, when the words assumed
their full meaning, as some words do two or three
minutes after they have been heard without being
heeded.
"Burnt in your beds," said my lady, at last. "It
would have been a good thing for me if that precious


112
LADY AUDLBY's SECRET.
creature, your husband, had been burnt in bis bed be-
fore to-night."
A vivid picture flashed upon her as she spoke.
The picture of that frail wooden tenement, the Castle
Inn, reduced to a roofless chaos of lath and plaster,
vomiting flames from its black mouth and spitting
sparks of fire upward towards the cold night sky.
She gave a weary sigh as she dismissed this image
from her restless brain. She would be no better off
even if this enemy should be for ever silenced. She
had another and far more dangerous foe — a foe who
was not to be bribed or bought off, though she had
been as rich as an empress.
"I'll give you the money to send this bailiff away,"
my lady, said, after a pause. "I must give you the
last sovereign in my puree, but what of that? You
know as well as I do that I dare not refuse you."
Lady Audley rose and took the lighted lamp from
her writing-table. "The money is in my dressing-
room," she said; "I will go and fetch it."
"Oh, my lady," exclaimed Phoebe, suddenly. "I
forget something; I was in such a way about this
business that I quite forgot it."
"Quito forgot what?"
"A letter that was given me to bring to you, my
lady, just before I left home."
"What letter?"
"A letter from Mr. Audley. He heard my husband
mention that I was coming down here, and he asked
me to carry this letter."


PHCBE'S PETITION.
113
Lady Audley set the lamp down upon the table
nearest to her, and held out her hand to receive the
letter. Phoebe Marks could scarcely fail to observe
that the little jewelled hand shook like a leaf.
"Give it me - give it me,” cried my lady; "let
me see what more he has to say."
She almost snatched the letter from Phoebe's hand
in her wild impatience. She tore. open the envelope
and flung it from her; she could scarcely unfold the
sheet of note-paper in her eager excitemente
The letter was very brief. It contained only these
words: —
“Should Mrs. George Talboys really have survived
the date of her supposed death, as recorded in the
public prints, and upon the tomb-stone in Ventnor
churchyard, and should she exist in the person of the
lady suspected and accused by the writer of this, there
can be no great difficulty in finding some one able and
willing to identify her. Mrs. Barkamb, the owner of
North Cottages, Wildernsea, would no doubt consent to
throw some light upon this matter, either to dispel a
delusion or to confirm a suspicion."
“ROBERT AUDLEY.
“March 3rd, 1859.
"The Castle Inn, Mount Stanning."
My lady crushed the letter fiercely in her hand,
and Aung it from her into the flames.
Lady Audley's Secret. II.


THE RED LIQHT IN THE SKY.
115
CHAPTER VII.
The Red Light In the Sky.
The door between my lady's dressing-room and the
bedchamber in which Sir Michael lay, had been left
open. The baronet slept peacefully, his noble face
plainly visible in the subdued lamplight. His breathing
was low and regular, his lips curved in a half smile —
;i smile of tender happiness which he often wore when
he looked at his beautiful wife, the smile of an all-
indulgent father, who looked admiringly at his favourite
child.
Some touch of womanly feeling, some sentiment of
compassion softened Lady Audley's glance as it fell
upon that noble reposing figure. For a moment the
horrible egotism of her own misery yielded to her
pitying tenderness for another. It was perhaps only a
semi-selfish tenderness after all, in which pity for her-
self was as powerful as pity for her husband; but for
once in a way, her thoughts ran out of the narrow
groove of her own terrors and her own troubles to
dwell with prophetic grief upon the coming sorrows of
another.
"If they make him believe, how wretched he will
be," she thought.
But intermingled with that thought there was an-
other — there was the thought of her lovely face, her
8*


116
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
bewitching manner, her arch smile, her low musical
laugh, which was like a peal of silvery bells ringing
across a broad expanse of flat pasture, and a rippling
river in the misty summer evening. She thought of all
these things with a transient thrill of triumph, which
was stronger even than her terror.
If Sir Michael Audley lived to be a hundred years
old, whatever he might learn to believe of her, however
he might grow to despise her, would he ever be able
to disassociate her from these attributes? No; a
thousand times, no. To the last hour of his life his
memory would present her to him invested with the
loveliness that had first won his enthusiastic admiration,
his devoted affection. Her worst enemies could not rob
her of that fairy dower which had been so fatal in its
influence upon her frivolous mind.
She paced up and down the dressing-room in the
silvery lamplight, pondering upon the strange letter
which she had received from Robert Audley. She
walked backwards and forwards in that monotonous
wandering for some time before she was able to steady
her thoughts — before she was able to bring the
scattered forces of her narrow intellect to bear upon the
one all-important subject of the threat contained in the
barrister's letter.
"He will do it," she said, between her set teeth;
"he will do it, unless I get him into a lunatic asylum
first; or unless —"
She did not finish the thought in words. She did
not even think out the sentence; but some new and un-


THE RED LIGHT IN THE SET.
117
natural pulse in her heart seemed to beat out each se-
parate syllable against her breast
.
The thought was this: "He will do it, unless some
strange calamity befalls him and silences him for ever."
The red blood flashed up into my lady's face with as
sudden and transient a blaze as the flickering flame of
a fire, and died as suddenly away, leaving her more
pale than winter snow. Her hands, which had before
been locked convulsively together, fell apart and
dropped heavily at her sides. She stopped in her rapid
pacing to and fro — stopped as Lot's wife may have
stopped, after that fatal backward glance at the
perishing city, with every pulse slackening, with every
drop of blood congealing in her veins, in the terrible
process that was to transform her from a woman into
a statue.
Lady Audley stood still for about five minutes in
that strangely statuesque attitude, her head erect, her
eyes staring straight before her — staring far beyond
the narrow boundary of her chamber wall, into dark
distances of peril and horror.
But, by-and-by, she started from that rigid attitude
almost as abruptly as she had fallen into it. She roused
herself from that semi-lethargy, and walked rapidly to
her dressing-table, and seating herself before it, pushed
away the litter of golden-stoppered bottles, and delicate
china-essence-boxes, and looked at her reflection in the
large oval glass. She was very pale; but there was no
other trace of agitation visible in her girlish face. The
lines of her exquisitely-moulded lips were so beautiful,


118
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
that it was only a very close observer who could have
perceived a certain rigidity that was unusual to them.
She saw this herself, and tried to smile away that
statue-like immobility; but to-night the rosy lips re-
fused to obey her, they were firmly locked, and were
no longer the slaves of her will and pleasure. All the
latent forces of her character concentrated themselves
in this one feature. She might command her eyes; but
she could not control the muscles of her mouth. She
rose from before her dressing-table and took a dark
velvet cloak and bonnet from the recesses of her ward-
robe, and dressed herself for walking. The little ormolu
clock on the chimney-piece struck the quarter after
eleven while Lady Audley was employed in this man-
ner; five minutes afterwards, she re-entered the room
in which she had left Phoebe Marks.
The innkeeper's wife was sitting before the low
hearth very much in the same attitude as that in which
her late mistress had brooded over that lonely hearth
earlier in the evening. Phoebe had replenished the fire,
and had reassumed her bonnet and shawl. She was
anxious to get home to that brutal husband, who was
only too apt to fall into some mischief in her absence.
She looked up as Lady Audley entered the room, and
uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing her mistress
in a walking costume.
"My lady," she cried, "you are not going out to-
night?"
"Yes, I am, Phoebe," Lady Audley answered, very


THE RED LIGHT IN THE SKY.
11!)
quietly; "I am going to Mount Stanning with you, to
see this bailiff, and to pay and dismiss him myself."
"But, my lady, you forget what the time in; you
can't go out at such an hour."
Lady Audley did not answer. She stood, with her
fingers resting lightly upon the handle of the bell,
meditating quietly.
"The stables are always locked, and the men in
bed by ten o'clock," she murmured, "when we are at
home. It will make a terrible hubbub to get a carriage
ready; but yet I dare say one of the servants could
manage the matter quietly for me."
"But why should you go to-night, my lady?" cried
Phoebe Marks. "To-morrow will do quite as well. A
week hence will do as welL Our landlord would take
the man away if he had your promise to settle the
debt."
Lady Audley took no notice of this interruption.
She went hastily into the dressing-room, and flung off
her bonnet and cloak, and then returned to the bou-
doir, in her simple dinner costume, with her curls
brushed carelessly away from her face. "Now, Phoebe
Marks, listen to me," she said, grasping her confidante's
wrist, and speaking in a low, earnest voice, but with
a certain imperious air that challenged contradiction,
and commanded obedience.
"Listen to me, Phoebe," she said, "I am going to
the Castle Inn, to-night; whether it is early or late is
of very little consequence to me; I have set my mind
upon going, and I shall go. You have asked me why,


120
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
and I have told you. I am going in order that I may
pay this debt myself, and that I may see for myself
that the money I give is applied to the purpose for
which I give it. There is nothing out of the common
course of life in my doing this. I am going to do
what other women in my position very often do. I am
going to assist a favourite servant."
"But it's getting on for twelve o'clock, my lady,"
pleaded Phoebe.
Lady Audley frowned impatiently at this inter-
ruption.
"If my going to your house to pay this man should
be known," she continued, still retaining her hold of
Phoebe's wrist, "I am ready to answer for my conduct:
but I would rather that the business should be kept
quiet. I think that I can leave this house and return
to it without being seen by any living creature, if you
will do as I tell you."
"I will do anything that you wish, my lady,"
answered Phoebe, submissively.
"Then you will wish me good-night presently,
when my maid comes into the room, and you will
suffer her to show you out of the house. You will
cross the courtyard and wait for me in the avenue
upon the other side of the archway. It may be half
an hour before I am able to join you, for I must not
leave my room till the servants have all gone to bed;
but you may wait for me patiently, for come what may,
I will join you."
Lady Audley's face was no longer pale. An ua-


THE RED LIGHT IN THE SKY.
121
natural crimson spot burned in the centre of each
rounded cheek, and an unnatural lustre gleamed in
her great blue eyes. She spoke with an unnatural
clearness, and an unnatural rapidity. She had alto-
gether the appearance and manner of a person who
has yielded to the dominant influence of some over-
powering excitement. Phoebe Marks stared at her late
mistress in mute bewilderment. She began to fear that
my lady was going mad.
The bell which Lady Audley rang was answered
by the smart lady's maid, who wore rose-coloured
ribbons and black silk gowns, and other adornments
which were unknown to the humble people who sat
below the salt in the good old days when servants
wore linsey-woolsey.
"I did not know that it was so late, Martin," said
my lady, in that gentle tone which always won for her
the willing service of her inferiors. "I have been
talking with Mrs. Marks, and have let the time slip
by me. I shan't want anything to-night, so you may
go to bed when you please."
"Thank you, my lady," answered the girl, who
looked very sleepy, and had some difficulty in repress-
ing a yawn even in her mistress's presence, for the
Audley household usually kept very early hours. "I'd
better show Mrs. Marks out, my lady, hadn't I," asked
the maid, "before I go to bed?"
"Oh, yes, to be sure, you can let Phoebe out . All
the other servants have gone to bed, then, I suppose?"
"Yes, my ladv."


THE RED LIGHT IN THE SKY.
123
stood by the low fender in her boudoir, watching the
minute hand of the clock, and waiting till it should be
time for her to leave the house in safety.
"I will wait ten minutes," she said, "not a moment
beyond, before I enter upon my new peril."
She listened to the wild roaring of the March wind,
which seemed to have risen with the stillness and dark-
ness of the night
.
The hand slowly made its inevitable way to the
figures which told that the ten minutes were past. It
was exactly a quarter to twelve when my lady took
her lamp in her hand, and stole softly from the room.
Her footfall was as light as that of some graceful wild
animal, and there was no fear of that airy step awaken-
ing any echo upon the carpeted stone corridors and
staircase. She did not pause until she reached the
vestibule upon the ground floor. Several doors opened
out of this vestibule, which was octagon, like my lady's
ante-chamber. One of these doors led into the library,
and it was this door which Lady Audley opened softly
and cautiously.
To have attempted to leave the house secretly by
any of the principal outlets would have been simple
madness, for the housekeeper herself superintended the
barricading of the great doors, back and front. The
secrets of the bolts, and bars, and chains, and bells
which secured these doors, and provided for the safety
of Sir Michael Audley's plate-room, the door of which
was lined with sheet-iron, were known only to the ser-
vants who had to deal with them. But although all


124
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
these precautions were taken with the principal en-
trances to the citadel, a wooden shutter and a slender
iron bar, light enough to be lifted by a child, were
considered sufficient safeguard for the half-glass door
which opened out of the breakfast-room into the gravelled
pathway and smooth turf in the courtyard.
It was by this outlet that Lady Audley meant to
make her escape. She could easily remove the bar and
unfasten the shutter, and she might safely venture to
leave the window ajar while she was absent. There
was little fear of Sir Michael's awaking for some time,
as he was a heavy sleeper in the earlier part of the
night, and had slept more heavily than usual since his
illness.
Lady Audley crossed the library, and opened the
door of the breakfast-room which communicated with
it. This latter apartment was one of the modern ad-
ditions to the Court . It was a simple, cheerful cham-
ber, with brightly-papered walls and pretty maple fur-
niture, and was more occupied by Alicia than any one
else. The paraphernalia of that young lady's favourite
pursuits were scattered about the room — drawing ma-
terials, unfinished scraps of work, tangled skeins of
silk, and all the other tokens of a careless damsel's
presence; while Miss Audley's picture—a pretty crayon
sketch of a rosy-faced hoyden in a riding-habit and
hat — hung over the quaint Wedgwood ornaments on
the chimney-piece. My lady looked upon these familiar
objects with scornful hatred flaming in her blue eyes.
"How glad she will be if any disgrace befalls mel"


126
LADY AUDLEYS SECRET.
warning, and escape out of his power for ever. If I
were to run away and disappear — as George Talboys
disappeared. But where could I go? What would be-
come of me? I have no money: my jewels are not
worth a couple of hundred pounds, now that I have
got rid of the best part of them. What could I do? I
must go back to the old life, the old, hard, cruel,
wretched life — the life of poverty, and humiliation,
and vexation, and discontent. I should have to go
back and wear myself out in that long struggle, and
die — as my mother died, perhaps."
My lady stood still for a moment on the smooth
lawn between the quadrangle and the archway, with
her head drooping upon her breast and her hands
locked together, debating this question in the un-
natural activity of her mind. Her attitude reflected
the state of that mind — it expressed irresolution and
perplexity. But presently a sudden change came over
her; she lifted her head — lifted it with an action
of defiance and determination.
"No, Mr. Robert Audley," she said aloud, in a
low, clear voice; "I will not go back — I will not go
back. If the struggle between us is to be a duel to
the death, you shall not find me drop my weapon."
She walked with a firm and rapid step under the
archway. As she passed under that massive arch, it
seemed as if she disappeared into some black gulf that
had waited open to receive her. The stupid clock
struck twelve, and the solid masonry seemed to vibrate
under its heavy strokes, as Lady Audley emerged upon


THE RED LIGHT IN THE SKY.
127
the other side, and joined Phoebe Marks, who had waited
for her late mistress very near the gateway of the
Court.
"Now, Phosbe," she said, "it is three miles from
here to Mount Stanning, isn't it?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Then we can walk it in an hour."
Lady Audley had not stopped to say this: she was
walking quickly along the avenue with her humble
companion by her side. Fragile and delicate as she
was in appearance, she was a very good walker. She
had been in the habit of taking long country rambles
with Mr. Dawson's children in her old days of depend-
ence, and she thought very little of a distance of
three miles.
"Your beautiful husband will sit up for you, I
suppose, Phoebe?" she said, as they struck across an
open field that was used as a short cut from Audley
Court to the high road.
"Oh, yes, my lady; he's sure to sit up. He'll be
drinking with the man, I dare say."
"The man! What man?"
"The man that's in possession, my lady."
"Ah, to be sure," said Lady Audley, indifforently.
It was strange that Phoebe's domestic troubles
should seem so very far away from her thoughts at
the time she was taking such an extraordinary step
towards setting things right at the Castle Inn.
The two women crossed the field and turned into
the high road. The way to Mount Stanning was very


128
LADY AUDLEY'S 8ECEET.
hilly, and the long road looked black and dreary in
the dark night; but my lady walked on with a
desperate courage, which was no common constituent
in her selfish, sensuous nature; but a strange faculty
bom out of her great despair. She did not speak
again to her companion until they were close upon the
glimmering lights at the top of the hill, one of which
village lights, gleaming redly through a crimson curtain,
marked out the particular window behind which it was
likely that Luke Marks sat nodding drowsily over his
liquor, and waiting for the coming of his wife.
"He has not gone to bed, Phoebe," said my lady,
eagerly. "But there is no other light burning at the
inn. I suppose Mr. Audley is in bed and asleep."
"Yes, my lady, I suppose so."
"You are sure he was going to stay at the Castle
to-night?"
"Oh, yes, my lady. I helped the girl to get his
room ready before I came away."
The wind, boisterous everywhere, was shriller and
more pitiless in the neighbourhood of that bleak hill-
top upon which the Castle Inn reared its rickety walls.
The cruel blasts danced wildly round that frail erection.
They disported themselves with the shattered pigeon-
house, the broken weathercock, the loose tiles, and
unshapely chimneys; they rattled at the window-panes,
and whistled in the crevices; they mocked the feeble
building from foundation to roof, and battered and
banged and tormented it in their fierce gambols,


THE RED LIGHT IN THE SKY.
129
until it trembled and rocked with the force of their
rough play.
Mr. Luke Marks had not troubled himself to secure
the door of his dwelling-house before sitting down to
drink with the man who held provisional possession of
his goods and chattels. The landlord of the Castle
Inn was a lazy, sensual brute, who had no thought
higher than a selfish concern for his own enjoyments,
and a virulent hatred of anybody who stood in the way
of his gratification.
Phoebe pushed open the door with her hand, and
went into the house, followed by my lady. The gas
was flaring in the bar, and smoking the low, plastered
ceiling. The door of the bar-parlour was half open,
and Lady Audley heard the brutal laughter of Mr.
Marks as she crossed the threshold of the inn.
"Ill tell him you're here, my lady," whispered
Phoebe to her late mistress. "I know he'll be tipsy.
You — you won't be offended, my lady, if he should
say anything rude. You know it wasn't my wish that
you should come."
"Yes, yes," answered Lady Audley, impatiently,
"I know that. What should I care for his rudeness
Let him say what he likes."
Phoebe Marks pushed open the parlour door, leaving
my lady in the bar close behind her.
Luke sat with his clumsy legs stretched out upon
the hearth; with a glass of gin-and-water in one hand
and the poker in the other. He had just thrust the
poker into a great heap of black coals, and was
Lady Audley's Secret. 11. 9


130
LADY AUDLEY's 8ECEET.
shattering them to make a blaze, when his wife ap-
peared upon the threshold of the room.
Ho snatched the poker from between the bars, and
made a half-drunken, half-threatening motion with it
as he saw her.
"So you've condescended to come home at last,
ma'am," he said; "I thought you was never coming no
more."
He spoke in a thick and drunken voice, and was
by no means too intelligible. He was steeped to the
very lips in alcohol. His eyes were dim and watery;
his hands were unsteady; his voice was choked and
muffled with drink. A brute, even when most sober;
a brute, even when on his best behaviour; he was ten
times more brutal in his drunkenness, when the few
restraints which held his ignorant, every-day brutality
in check were flung aside in the insolent recklessness
of intoxication.
"I — I've been longer than I intended to be,
Luke," Phoebe answered, in her most conciliatory
manner; "but I've seen my lady, and she's been very
kind, and — and she'll settle this business for us."
"She's been very kind, has she?" muttered Mr.
Marks, with a drunken laugh; "thank her for nothing.
I know the vally of her kindness. She'd be oncommon
kind, I dessay, if she warn't obligated to bo it."
The man in possession, who had fallen into a
maudlin and semi-unconscious state of intoxication
upon about a third of the liquor that Mr. Marks had
consumed, only stared in feeble wonderment at his


THK RED LIGHT IN THK SKY.
131
Lost and hostess. He sat near the table. Indeed, he
had hooked himself on to it with his elbows, as a safe-
guard against sliding under it, and he was making inane
attempts to light his pipe at the flame of a guttering
tallow candle near him.
"My lady has promised to settle the business for
us," Pkoebe repeated, without noticing Luke's remarks;
she knew her husband's dogged nature well enough by
this time to know that it was worse than useless to try
to stop him from doing or saying anything which his
own stubborn will led him to do or say; "and she's
come down here to see about it to-night, Luke," she
added.
The poker dropped from the landlord's hand, and
fell clattering amongst the cinders on the hearth.
"My lady Audley come here to-night," he said.
"Yes, Luke."
My lady appeared upon the threshold of the door
as Phoebe spoke.
"Yes, Luke Marks," she said, "I have come to pay
this man, and to send him about his business."
Lady Audley said these words in a strange semi-
mechanical manner, very much as if she had learned
the sentence by rote, and were repeating it without
knowing what she said.
Mr. Marks gave a discontented growl, and set his
empty glass down upon the table, with an impatient
gesture.
"You might have given the money to Phoebe," he
said, "as well as have brought it yourself. We don't
9*


132
LADY AUDLHy's SECRET.
want no fine ladies up here, pryin' and pokin' their
precious noses into everythink."
"Luke, Luke," remonstrated Phoebe, "when my
lady has been so kind!"
"Oh, damn her kindness!" cried Mr. Marks; "it
ain't her kindness as we want, gal, it's her money.
She won't get no snivellin' gratitood from me. What-
ever she does for us she does because she is obliged,
and if she warn't obliged she wouldn't do it —"
Heaven knows how much more Luke Marks might
have said, had not my lady turned upon him suddenly,
and awed him into silence by the unearthly glitter of
her beauty. Her hair had been blown away from her
face, and, being of a light, feathery quality, had
spread itself into a tangled mass that sourrounded
her forehead like a yellow flame. There was another
flame in her eyes — a greenish light, such as might
flash from the changing hued orbs of an angry
mermaid.
"Stop," she cried. "I didn't come up here in the
dead of the night to listen to your insolence. How
much is this debt?"
"Nine pound."
Lady Audloy produced her purse — a toy of
ivory, silver, and turquoise — and took from it a
bank-note and four sovereigns. She laid these upon
the table.
"Let that man give me a receipt for the money,''
she said, "before I go."
It was some time before the man could bo roused


THE EED LIGHT IN THE SKY.
133
into sufficient consciousness for the performance of this
simple duty, and it was only by dipping a pen into
the ink and pushing it between his clumsy fingers,
that he was at last made to comprehend that his
autograph was wanted at the bottom of the receipt
which had been made out by Phoebe Marks. Lady
Audley took the document as soon as the ink was
dry, and turned to leave the parlour. Phoebe followed
her.
"You musn't go home alone, my lady," sho said.
"You'll let me go with you?"
"Yes, yes, you shall go home with me."
The two women were standing near the door of the
inn as my lady said this. Phoebe stared wonderingly
at her patroness. She had expected that Lady Audley
would be in a hurry to return home after settling this
business which she had capriciously taken upon her-
self; but it was not so; my lady stood leaning against
the inn door and staring into vacancy, and again Mrs.
Marks began to fear that trouble had driven her late
mistress mad.
A little Dutch clock in the bar struck one
while Lady Audley lingered in this irresolute, absent
manner.
She started at the sound and began to tremble
violently.
"I think I am going to faint, Phoebe," she said;
"where can I get some cold water?"
"The pump is in the washhouse, my lady, I'll run
and get you a glass of water."


136
LADT AUDLEY's SECRET.
shutting out the light of day, and affording a pleasant
harbour for tribes of flies and predatory bands of spiders.
Even the looking-glass, a miserably cheap construction
which distorted every face whose owner had the hardi-
hood to look into it, stood upon a draperied altar of
starched muslin and pink glazed calico, and was adorned
with frills of lace and knitted work.
My lady smiled as she looked at the festoons and
furbelows which met her eye upon every side. She
had reason, perhaps, to smile, remembering the costly
elegance of her own apartments; but there was some-
thing in that sardonic smile that seemed to have a
deeper meaning than any natural contempt for Phoebe's
poor attempts at decoration. She went to the dressing-
table and smoothed her wet hair before the looking-
glass, and then put on her bonnet . She was obliged
to place the flaming tallow candle very close to the
lace furbelows about the glass, so close that the starched
muslin seemed to draw the flame towards it by some
power of attraction in its fragile tissue.
Phoebe waited anxiously by the inn-door for my
lady's coming. She watched the minute hand of the
little Dutch clock, wondering at the slowness of its
progress. It was only ten minutes past one when Lady
Audley came downstairs, with her bonnet on and her
hair still wet, but without the candle.
Phoebe was immediately anxious about this missing
candle.


THE RED LIGHT IN THE SET.
137
"The light, my lady," she said; "you have left it
Dp-stairs!"
"The wind hlew it out as I was leaving your
room," Lady Audley answered, quietly. "I left it
there."
"In my room, my lady?"
"Yes."
"And it was quite out?"
"Yes, I tell you; why do you worry me about your
candle? It is past one o'clock. Come."
She took the girl's arm, and half-led, half-dragged
her from the house. The convulsive pressure of her
slight hand held her companion as firmly as an iron
vice could have held her. The fierce March wind
banged-to the door of the house, and left the two
women standing outside it. The long black road lay
bleak and desolate before them, dimly visible between
the leafless hedges.
A walk of three miles' length upon a lonely coun-
try road, between the hours of one and two on a cold
winter's morning, is scarcely a pleasant task for a deli-
cate woman — a woman whose inclinations lean to-
wards ease and luxury. But my lady hurried along
the hard dry highway, dragging her companion with
her as if she had been impelled by some horrible
demoniac force which knew no abatement . With the
black night above them — with the fierce wind howling
round them, sweeping across a broad expanse of hid-
den country, blowing as if it had arisen simultaneously
from every point of the compass, and making those


138
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
wretched wanderers the focus of its ferocity — the two
women walked through the darkness down the hill
upon which Mount Stanning stood, along a mile and a
half of flat road, and then up another hill, on the
western side of which Audley Court lay in that shel-
tered valley, which seemed to shut in the old house
from all the clamour and hubbub of the every-day
world.
My lady stopped upon the summit of this hill to
draw breath and to clasp her hands upon her heart, in
the vain hope that she might still its cruel beating.
They were now within three quarters of a mile of the
Court, and they had been walking for nearly an hour
since they had left the Castle Inn.
Lady Audley stopped to rest with her face still
turned towards the place of her destination. Phoebe
Marks, stopping also, and very glad of a moment's
pause in that hurried journey, looked back into the far
darkness beneath which lay that dreary shelter which
had given her so much uneasiness. As she did so, she
uttered a shrill cry of horror, and clutched wildly at
Lady Audley's cloak.
The night sky was no longer all dark. The thick
blackness was broken by one patch of lurid light.
"My lady, my lady," cried Phoebe, pointing to this
lurid patch, "do you see?"
"Yes, child, I see," answered Lady Audley trying
to shake tho clinging hands from her garments. "What
is the matter?"
"It is a fire! — a fire, my lady."


THE RED LIGHT IN THE SKIT.
139
"Yes, I'm afraid it is a fire. At Brentwood most
likely. Let me go, PhoBbe, it is nothing to us."
"Yes, yes, my lady, it's nearer than Brentwood —
much nearer; it's at Mount Stanning."
Lady Audley did not answer. She was trembling
again, with the cold, perhaps, for the wind had torn
her heavy cloak away from her shoulders, and had left
her slender figure exposed to the blast.
"It's at Mount Stanning, my lady," cried Phoebe
Marks. "It's the Castle that's on fire — I know it is,
I know it is. I thought of fire to-night, and I was
fidgety and uneasy, for I knew this would happen
some day. I wouldn't mind if it was only the wretched
place, but there'll be life lost; there'll be life lost,"
sobbed the girl, distractedly. "There's Luke, too tipsy
to help himself, unless others help him; there's Mr.
Audley asleep —"
Phoebe Marks stopped suddenly at the mention of
Robert's name, and fell upon her knees, clasping her
uplifted hands, and appealing wildly to Lady Audley.
"Oh, my God!" she cried, "Say it's not true, my
lady; say it isn't true. It's too horrible, it's too horrible,
it's too horrible!"
"What's too horrible?"
"The thought that's in my mind; the dreadful
thought that's in my mind."
"What do you mean, girl?" cried my lady, fiercely.
"Oh, God forgive me if I'm wrong!" the kneeling
woman gasped, in detached sentences, "and God grant
I may be! Why did you go up to the Castle to-night,


140
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
my lady? Why were you so set on going, against all
I could say — you who are so hitter against Mr.Aud-
ley and against Luke, and who knew they were both
under that roof? Oh, tell me that I do you a cruel
wrong, my lady; tell me so — tell me; for as there is
a heaven above me, I think that you went to that
placo to-night on purpose to set fire to it. Tell me
that I'm wrong, my lady; tell me that I'm doing you a
wicked wrong."
"I will tell you nothing except that you are a mad
woman," answered Lady Audley, in a cold, hard
voice. "Get up, fool, idiot, coward! Is your hus-
band such a precious bargain that you should be gro-
velling there, lamenting and groaning for him? What
is Robert Audley to you, that you behave like a maniac,
because you think he is in danger? How do you know
that the fire is at Mount Stanning? You see a red
patch in the sky, and you cry out directly that your
own paltry hovel is in flames; as if there were no place
in the world that could burn except that. The fire
may be at Brentwood, or further away — at Romford,
or still further away; on the eastern side of London,
perhaps. Get up, mad woman, and go back and look
after your goods and chattels, and your husband and
your lodger. Get up and go; I don't want you."
"Oh, my lady, my lady, forgive me," sobbed Phoebe;
"there's nothing you can say to me that's hard enough
for having done you such a wrong, even in my thoughts.
I don't mind your cruel words — I don't mind any-
thing if I'm wrong."


TIIE RED LIGHT IN THE SKT.
141
"Go back and see for yourself," answered Lady
Audley, sternly. "I tell you again I don't want yon."
She walked away in the darkness, leaving Phoebe
Marks still kneeling upon the hard road, where she
had cast herself in that agony of supplication. Sir
Michael's wife walked towards the house in which her
husband slept, with the red blaze lighting up the skies
behind her, and with nothing but the blackness of the
night before.


142
LADY AUDLET's SECRET.
CHAPTER VIII.
Th6 Bearer of the Tidings.
It was very late the next morning when Lady
Audley emerged from her dressing-room, exquisitely
dressed in a morning costume of delicate muslin, ela-
borate laces, and embroideries; but with a very pale
face, and with half-circles of purple shadow under her
eyes. She accounted for this pale face and these hol-
low eyes by declaring that she had sat up reading
until a very late hour on the previous night.
Sir Michael and his young wife breakfasted in the
library at a comfortable round table, wheeled close to
the blazing fire; and Alicia was compelled to share
this meal with her step-mother, however she might
avoid that lady in the long interval between breakfast
and dinner.
The March morning was bleak and dull, and a
drizzling rain fell incessantly, obscuring the landscape,
and blotting out the distance. There were very few
letters by the morning's post; the daily newspapers did
not arrive until noon; and such aids to conversation
being missing, there was very little talk at the break-
fast-table.
Alicia looked out at the drizzling rain drifting
against the broad window-panes.
"No riding to-day," she said; "and no chance of


TI1B BEARER 01' THE TIDINGS.
143
any callers to enliven us; unless that ridiculous Bob
conies crawling through the wet from Mount Stanning."
Have you ever heard anybody, whom you knew
to be dead, alluded to in a light, easy-going manner
by another person who did not know of his death —
alluded to as doing that or this — as performing some
trivial every-day operation — when you know that he
has vanished away from the face of this earth, and
separated himself for ever from all living creatures and
their common-place pursuits, in the awful solemnity of
death? Such a chance allusion, insignificant though
it may be, is apt to send a strange thrill of pain through
the mind. The ignorant remark jars discordantly upon
the hyper-sensitive brain; the King of Terrors is dese-
crated by that unwitting disrespect. Heaven knows
what hidden reason my lady may have had for ex-
periencing some such revulsion of feeling on the sudden
mention of Mr. Audley's name; but her pale face
blanched to a sickly white as Alicia Audley spoke of
her cousin.
"Yes, he will come down here in the wet, per-
haps," the young lady continued, "with his hat sleek
and shining as if it had been brushed with a pat of
fresh butter; and with white vapours steaming out of
his clothes, and making him look like an awkward
genie just let out of his bottle. He will come down
here and print impressions of his muddy boots all over
the carpet, and he'll sit on your Gobelin tapestry, my
lady, in his wet overcoat; and he'll abuse you if you
remonstrate, and will ask why people have chairs that


144
LADY ATOLEy's SECRET.
are not to bo sat upon, and why you don't live in
Fig-tree-court, and —"
Sir Michael Audley watched his daughter with a
thoughtful countenance as she talked of her cousin.
She very often talked of him, ridiculing him and in-
veighing against him in no very measured terms. But,
perhaps, the baronet thought of a certain Signora
Beatrice who very cruelly entreated a gentleman called
Benedick, but who was, it may be, heartily in love
with him at the same time.
"What do you think Major Melville told me when
he called here yesterday, Alicia?" Sir Michael asked,
presently.
"I haven't the remotest idea," replied Alicia, rather
disdainfully. "Perhaps he told you that we should
have another war before long, by Ged, sir; or, per-
haps, he told you that we should have a new ministry,
by Ged, sir, for that those fellows are getting them-
selves into a mess, sir; or that those other fellows
were reforming this, and cutting down that, and alter-
ing the other in the army, until, by Ged, sir, we shall
have no army at all, by-and-by —nothing but a pack
of boys, sir, crammed up to the eyes with a lot of
senseless schoolmasters' rubbish, and dressed in shell-
jackets and calico helmets. Yes, sir, they're fighting
in Oudh in calico helmets at this very day, sir."
"You're an impertinent minx, miss," answered the
baronet . "Major Melville told me nothing of the kind;
but he told me that a very devoted admirer of yours,
a certain Sir Harry Towers, has forsaken his place in
s


116
LADY AUDLEir's 8ECRET.
where he's going, and what he's doing; but he'll never
go mad."
Sir Michael did not reply to this. He had been
very much disturbed by his conversation with my lady
on the previous evening, and had silently debated the
painful question in his mind ever since.
His wife — the woman he best loved and most
believed in — had told him with all appearance of
regret and agitation, her conviction of his nephew's
insanity. He tried in vain to arrive at the conclusion
he wished most ardently to attain; he tried in vain to
think that my lady was misled by her own fancies,
and had no foundation for what she said. But then,
again, it suddenly flashed upon him, to think this was
to arrive at a worse conclusion; it was to transfer the
horrible suspicion from his nephew to his wife. She
appeared to be possessed with an actual conviction of
Robert's insanity. To imagine her wrong was to
imagine some weakness in her own mind. The longer
he thought of the subject the more it harassed and
perplexed him. It was most certain that the young
man had always been eccentric. He was sensible, he
was tolerably clever, he was honourable and gentle-
manlike in feeling, though perhaps, a little careless in
the performance of certain minor social duties; but
there were some slight differences, not easily to be
defined, that separated him from other men of his age
and position. Then, again, it was equally true that
he had very much changed within the period that had
succeeded the disappearance of George Talboys. He had


THE BEAREE OF THE TIDINGS. "147
grown moody and thoughtful, melancholy and absent-
minded. He had held himself aloof from society; had
sat for hours without speaking; had talked at other
times by fits and starts; and had excited himself un-
usually in the discussion of subjects which apparently
lay far out of the region of his own life and interests.
Then there was even another point which seemed to
strengthen my lady's case against this unhappy young
man. He had been brought up in the frequent society
of his cousin, Alicia — his pretty, genial cousin — to
whom interest, and one would have thought affection,
naturally pointed as his most fitting bride. More than
this, the girl had shown him, in the innocent guileless-
ness of a transparent nature, that on her side at least,
affection was not wanting; and yet, in spite of all this,
he had held himself aloof, and had allowed other men
to propose for her hand, and to be rejected by her,
and had still made no sign.
Now love is so very subtle an essence, such an
indefinable metaphysical marvel, that its due force,
though very cruelly felt by the sufferer himself, is never
clearly understood by those who look on at his torments
and wonder why he takes the common fever so badly.
Sir Michael argued that because Alicia was a pretty
girl and an amiable girl it was therefore extraordinary
and unnatural in Robert Audley not to have duly
fallen in love with her. This baronet — who, close
upon his sixtieth birthday, had for the first time en-
countered that one woman who out of all the women
in the world had power to quicken the pulses of his
10*


148
LADY ATTDLEy's SECRET.
heart — wondered why Robert failed to take the fever
from the first breath of contagion that blev towards
him. He forgot that there are men who go their ways
unscathed amidst legions of lovely and generous women,
to succumb at last before some harsh-featured virago,
who knows the secret of that only philter which can
intoxicate and bewitch him. He forgot that there are
certain Jacks who go through life without meeting the
Jill appointed for them by Nemesis, and die old
bachelors perhaps, with poor Jill pining an old maid
upon the other side of the party-wall. He forgot that
love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever,
and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and
very imperfectly understood by every one except the
individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures.
Jones, who is wildly enamoured of Miss Brown, and
who lies awake at night until he loathes his comfort-
able pillow and tumbles his sheets into two twisted
rags of linen in his agonies, as if he were a prisoner
and wanted to wind them into impromptu ropes; this
same Jones, who thinks Russcll-square a magic place
because his divinity inhabits it; who thinks the trees
in that enclosure and the sky above it greener and
bluer than any other trees or sky; and who feels a
pang, yes, an actual pang, of mingled hope, and joy,
and expectation, and terror when he emerges from
Guilford-street, descending from the heights of Islington,
into those sacred precincts; this very Jones is hard and
callous towards the torments of Smith, who adores Miss
Bobinson, and cannot imagine what the infatuated


THE BEARER OF THE TIDINGS.
149
fellow can see in the girl. So it was with Sir Michael
Audley. He looked at his nephew as a sample of a
very large class of young men, and his daughter as a
sample of an equally extensive class of feminine goods;
and could not see why the two samples should not
make a very respectable match. He ignored all those
infinitesimal differences in nature which make the whole-
some food of one man the deadly poison of another.
How difficult it is to believe sometimes that a man
doesn't like such and such a favourite dish. If, at a
dinner-party, a meek-looking guest refuses early salmon
and cucumber, or green peas in February, we set him
down as a poor relation whose instincts warn him off
those expensive plates. If an alderman were to declare
that he didn't like green fat, he would be looked upon
as a social martyr, a Marcus Curtius of the dinner-
table, who immolated himself for the benefit of his
kind. His fellow aldermen would believe in anything
rather than an heretical distaste for the city ambrosia
of the soup tureen. But there are people who dislike
salmon, and whitebait, and spring ducklings, and all
manner of old-established delicacies, and there are other
people who affect eccentric and despicable dishes
generally stigmatised as nasty.
Alas, my pretty Alicia, your cousiu did not love
youl He admired your rosy English face, and had a
tender affection for you which might perhaps have
expanded by and by into something warm enough for
matrimony; that every-day jog-trot species of union
which demands no very passionate devotion; but for a


150
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
sudden check which it had received in Dorsetshire.
Yes, Robert Audley's growing affection for his cousin,
a plant of very slow growth, I am fain to confess, had
been suddenly dwarfed and stunted upon that bitter
February day on which he had stood beneath the pine-
trees talking to Clara Talboys. Since that day the
young man had experienced an unpleasant sensation
in thinking of poor Alicia. He looked at her as being
in some vague manner an incumbrance upon the free-
dom of his thoughts; he had a haunting fear that he
was in some tacit way pledged to her; that she had a
species of claim upon him, which forbade to him the
right of even thinking of another woman. I believe
it was the image of Miss Audley presented to him in
this light that goaded the young barrister into those
outhursts of splenetic rage against the female sex
which he was liable to at certain time. He was
strictly honourable, so honourable that he would rather
have immolated himself upon the altar of truth and
Alicia than have done her the remotest wrong, though
by so doing he might have secured his own happiness.
"If the poor little girl loves me," he thought, "and
if she thinks that I love her, and has been led to
think so by any word or act of mine, I am in duty
bound to let her think so to the end of time, and to
fulfil any tacit promise which I may have unconsciously
made. I thought once — I meant once to — to make
her an offer by and by, when this horrible mystery
about George Talboys should have been cleared up
and everything peacefully settled — but now —"


THE BEARER OP THE TIDINGS.
151
His thoughts would ordinarily wander away at this
point of his reflections, carrying him where he never
had intended to go; carrying him back under the pine-
trees in Dorsetshire, and setting him once more face
to face with the sister of his missing friend, and it was
generally a very laborious journey by which he tra-
velled back to the point from which he had strayed.
It was so difficult for him to tear himself away from
the stunted turf and the pine-trees.
"Poor little girl!" he would think on coming back
to Alicia. "How good it is of her to love me; and
how grateful I ought to be for her tenderness. How
many fellows would think such a generous, loving
heart the highest boon that earth could give them.
There's Sir Harry Towers stricken with despair at his
rejection. He would give me half his estate, all his
estate, twice his estate, if he had it, to be in the shoes
which I am so anxious to shake off my ungrateful
feet. Why don't I love her? Why is it that although
I know her to be pretty, and pure, and good, and
truthful, I don't love her? Her image never haunts
me, except reproachfully. I never see her in my
dreams. I never wake up suddenly in the dead of the
night with her eyes shining upon me and her warm
breath upon my cheek, or with the fingers of her soft
hand clinging to mine. No, I'm not in love with her;
I can't fall in love with her."
He ragu~ and rebelled against his ingratitude. He
tried to argue himself into a passionate attachment for
his cousin, but he failed ignominiously; and the more


152
LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET.
he tried to think of Alicia the more he thought of
Clara Talboys. I am speaking now of his feelings in
the period that elapsed between his return from Dor-
setshire and his visit to Grange Heath.
Sir Michael sat by the library fire after breakfast
upon this wretched rainy morning, writing letters and
reading the newspapers. Alicia shut herself in her
own apartment to read the third volume of a novel.
Lady Audley locked the door of the octagon ante-
chamber, and roamed up and down the suite of rooms
from the bed-room to the boudoir all through that
weary morning.
She had locked the door to guard against the
chance of any one coming in suddenly and observing
her before she was aware — hefore she had had suf-
ficient warning to enable her to face their scrutiny.
Her pale face seemed to grow paler as the morning
advanced. A tiny medicine chest was open upon the
dressing-table, and little stoppered bottles of red laven-
der, sal-volatile, chloroform, chlorodyne, and ether were
scattered about . Once my lady paused before this
medicine-chest, and took out the remaining bottles,
half absently perhaps, until she came to one which
was filled with a thick dark liquid, and labelled,
"Opium — Poison."
She trifled a long time with this last bottle; hold-
ing it up to the light, and even removing the stopper
and smelling the sickly liquid. But she put it from
her suddenly with a shudder.


THE BEARER OF THE TIDINGS.
153
"If 1 could!" she muttered, "if I could only do it!
And yet why should I; now?"
She clenched her small hands as she uttered the
last words, and walked to the window of the dressing-
room, which looked straight towards that ivied archway
under which any one must come who came from Mount
Stanning to the Court.
There were smaller gates in the gardens which led
into the meadows behind the Court; but there was no
other way of coming from Mount Stanning or Brent-
wood than by the principal entrance.
The solitary hand of the clock over the archway
was midway between one and two when my lady
looked at it.
"How slow the time is," she said, wearily; "how
glow, how alow! Shall I grow old like this, I wonder,
.with every minute of my life seeming like an hour?"
She stood for a few minutes watching the arch-
way; but no one passed under it while she looked;
and she turned impatiently away from the window to
resume her weary wandering about the rooms.
Whatever fire that had been, which had reflected
itself vividly in the black sky, no tidings of it had as
yet come to Audley Court. The day was miserably
wet and windy; altogether the very last day upon
which even the most confirmed idler and gossip would
care to venture out. It was not a market-day, and
there were therefore very few passengers upon the road
between Brentwood and Chelmsford; so that as yet no
news of the fire, which had occurred in the dead of


154
LADY AUDLEv's SECEET.
the wintry night, had reached the village of Audley,
or travelled from the village to the Court.
The girl with the rose-coloured ribbons came to
the door of the ante-room to summon her mistress to
luncheon; but Lady Audley only opened the door a
little way, and intimated her intention of taking no
luncheon.
"My head aches terribly, Martin," she said; "I
shall go and lie down till dinner time. You may come
at five to dress me."
Lady Audley said this with the predetermination
of dressing at four, and thus dispensing with the ser-
vices of her attendant. Amongst all privileged spies,
a lady's-maid has the highest privileges. It is she
who bathes Lady Theresa's eyes with eau-de-cologne
after her ladyship's quarrel with the colonel; it is she
who administers sal-volatile to Miss Fanny when Count
Beaudesert, of the Blues, has jilted her. She has a
hundred methods for the finding out of her mistress's
secrets. She knows by the manner in which her
victim jerks her head from under the hair-brush, or
chafes at the gentlest administration of the comb, what
hidden tortures are racking her breast — what secret
perplexities are bewildering her brain. That well-bred
attendant knows how to interpret the most obscure
diagnoses of all mental diseases that can afflict her
mistress; she knows when the ivory complexion is
bought and paid for — when the pearly teeth are
foreign substances fashioned by the dentist — when
the glossy plaits are the relics of the dead, rather than


THE BEARER OF THE TIDINGS.
155
the property of the living; and she knows other and
more sacred secrets than these. She knows when the
sweet smile is more false than Madame Levison's
enamel, and far less enduring — when the words that
issue from between gates of borrowed pearl are more
disguised and painted than the lips which help to
shape them. When the lovely fairy of the ball-room
re-enters her dressing-room after the night's long
revelry, and throws aside her voluminous Burnous and
her faded bouquet, and drops her mask; and like
another Cinderella loses the glass-slipper, by whose
glitter she has been distinguished, and falls back into
her rags and dirt; the lady's-maid is by to see the
transformation. The valet who took wages from the
prophet of Korazin, must have seen his master some-
times unveiled; and must have laughed in his sleeve
at the folly of the monster's worshippers.
Lady Audley had made no confidante of her new
maid, and on this day of all others she wished to be
alone.
She did lie down, she cast herself wearily upon the
luxurious sofa in the dressing-room, and buried her face
in the down pillows and tried to sleep. Sleep! — she
had almost forgotten what it was, that tender restorer
of tired nature, it seemed so long now since she had
slept. It was only about eight-and-forty hours, per-
haps, but it appeared an intolerable time. Her fatigue
of the night before, and her unnatural excitement, had
worn her out at last. She did fall asleep; she fell into
a heavy slumber that was almost like stupor. She had


156
LADY AUDLBY'tj SECRET.
taken a few drops out of the opium bottle in a glass
of water before lying down.
The clock over the mantelpiece chimed the quarter
before four as she woke suddenly and started up, with
the cold perspiration breaking out in icy drops upon
her forehead. She had dreamt that every member of
the household was clamouring at the door, eager to
tell her of a dreadful fire that had happened in the
night.
There was no sound but the flapping of the ivy
leaves against the glass, the occasional falling of a
cinder, and the steady ticking of the clock.
"Perhaps I shall be always dreaming these sort of
dreams," my lady thought, "until the terror of them
kills me!"
The rain had ceased, and the cold spring sunshine
was glittering upon the windows. Lady Audley dressed
herself rapidly but carefully. I do not say that even
in her supremest hour of misery she still retained her
pride in her beauty. It was not so; she looked upon
that beauty as a weapon, and she felt that she had now
double need to be well armed. She dressed herself in
her most gorgeous silk; a voluminous robe of silvery,
shimmering blue, that made her look as if she had
been arrayed in moonbeams. She shook out her hair
into feathery showers of glittering gold; and with a
cloak of white cashmere about her shoulders, went
down-stairs into the vestibule.
She opened the door of the library and looked in.
Sir Michael Audley was asleep in his easy chair. As


THE BEABEE OF THE TIDINGS.
157
my lady softly closed this door Alicia descended the
stairs from her own room. The turret door was open,
and the sun was shining upon the wet grass-plat in the
quadrangle. The firm gravel-walks were already very
nearly dry, for the rain had ceased for upwards of two
hours.
"Will you take a walk with mo in the quadrangle?"
Lady Audley asked, as her step-daughter approached.
The armed neutrality between the two women admitted
of any chance civility such as this.
"Yes, if you please, my lady," Alicia answered,
rather listlessly. "I have been yawning over a stupid
novel all the morning, and shall be very glad of a little
fresh air."
Heaven help the novelist whose fiction Miss Audley
had beeu perusing, if he had no better critics than that
young lady. She had read page after page without
knowing what she had been reading; and had flung
aside the volumes half-a-dozen times to go to the
window and watch for that visitor whom she had so
confidently expected.
Lady Audley led the way through the low door-
way and on to the smooth gravel drive, by which car-
riages approached the house. She was still very pale,
but the brightness of her dress and of her feathery
golden ringlets distracted an observer's eyes from her
pallid face. All mental distress is, with some show of
reason, associated in our minds with loose, disordered
garments, and dishevelled hair, and an appearance in
every way the reverse of my lady's. Why had she


158
LADY AUDLEy's SECEET.
come out into the chill sunshine of the March after-
noon to wander up and down that monotonous pathway
with the step-daughter she hated? She came becauso
she was under the dominion of a horrible restlessness,
which would not suffer her to remain within the house
waiting for certain tidings which she knew must too
surely come. At first she had wished to ward them off
— at first she had wished that strange convulsions of
nature might arise to hinder their coming — that ab-
normal winter lightnings might wither and destroy the
messenger who carried them — that the ground might
tremble and yawn beneath his hastening feet, and that
impassable gulfs might separate the spot from which
the tidings were to come, and the place to which they
were to be carried. She wished that the earth might
stand still, and the paralysed elements cease from their
natural functions; that the progress of time might
stop; that the Day of Judgment might come, and that
she might thus be brought before an unearthly tribunal,
and so escape the intervening shame and misery of any
earthly judgment. In the wild chaos of her brain,
every one of these thoughts had held its place, and in
her short slumber on the sofa in her dressing-room, she
had dreamed all these things and a hundred other
things, all bearing upon the same subject. She had
dreamed that a brook, a tiny streamlet when she first
saw it, flowed across the road between Mount Stanning
and Audley, and gradually swelled into a river, and
from a river became an ocean, till the village on the
hill receded far away out of sight and only a great


TUB BEARER OK THE TIDINGS.
159
waste of waters rolled where it once had been. She
dreamt that she saw the messenger; now one person,
now another, but never any probable person; hindered
by a hundred hindrances; now startling and terrible;
now ridiculous and trivial; but never either natural or
probable; and going down into the quiet house with
the memory of these dreams strong upon her, she had
been bewildered by the stillness which had betokened
that the tidings had not yet come.
And now her mind underwent a complete change.
She no longer wished to delay that dreaded intelligence.
She wished the agony, whatever it was to be, over and
done with, the pain suffered, and the release attained.
It seemed to her as if the intolerable day would never
come to an end, as if her mad wishes had been granted,
and the progress of time had actually stopped.
"What a long day it has been!" exclaimed Alicia,
as if taking up the burden of my lady's thoughts;
"nothing but drizzle and mist and wind! And now
that it's too late for anybody to go out, it roust needs
be fine," the young lady added, with an evident sense
of injury.
Lady Andley did not answer. She was looking at
the stupid one-handed clock; and waiting for the news
which must come sooner or later; which could not
surely fail to come very speedily.
"They have been afraid to come and tell him," she
thought; "they have been afraid to break the news to
Sir Michael. Who will come to tell it, at last, I won-


1G0
LADY AITDLEY's SECRET.
der? The rector of Mount Stanning, perhaps; or the
doctor; some important person, at least."
If she could havo gone out into the leafless avenues,
or on to the high road beyond them; if she could have
gone so far as that hill upon which she had so lately
parted with Phoebe, she would have gladly done so.
She would rather have suffered anything than that slow
suspense, that corroding anxiety, that metaphysical dry-
rot in which heart and mind seemed to decay under
an insufferable torture. She tried to talk; and by a
painful effort contrived now and then to utter some
common-place remark. Under any ordinary circum-
stances her companion would have noticed her embar-
rassment; but Miss Audley, happening to be very much
absorbed by her own vexations, was quite as well in-
clined to be silent as my lady herself. The mono-
tonous walk up and down the gravelled pathway suited
Alicia's humour. I think that she even took a mali-
cious pleasure in the idea that she was very likely
catching cold, and that her cousin Robert was answer-
able for her danger. If she could have brought upon
herself inflammation of the lungs, or ruptured blood-
vessels, by that exposure to the chill March atmosphere,
I think she would have felt a gloomy satisfaction in
her sufferings.
"Perhaps Robert might care for me, if I had in-
flammation of the lungs," she thought. "He couldn't
insult me by calling me a Bouncer then. Bouncers
don't have inflammation of the lungs."


THE BEARER OF THE TIDINGS.
161
e she drew oropped dow in the
and verhan was in benedictioned a whole
I believe she drew a picture of herself in the last
stage of consumption, propped up by pillows in a great
easy-chair, looking out of a window in the afternoon
sunshine, with medicine bottles, a bunch of grapes and
a Bible upon a table by her side; and with Robert, all
contrition and tenderness, summoned to receive her
farewell blessing. She preached a whole chapter to
him in that parting benediction, talking a great deal
longer than was in keeping with her prostrate state,
and very much enjoying her dismal castle in the air.
Employed in this sentimental manner, Miss Audley
took very little notice of her step-mother, and the one
hand of the blundering clock had slipped to six by the
time Robert had been blessed and dismissed.
"Good gracious me," she cried, suddenly — "six
o'clock, and I'm not dressed.”
The half-hour bell rang in a cupola upon the roof
while Alicia was speaking.
“I must go in, my lady,” she said, “Won't you
come?”
"Presently,” answered Lady Audley. "I'm dressed
you see.”
Alicia ran off, but Sir Michael's wife still lingered
in the quadrangle; still waited for those tidings which
were so long coming.
It was nearly dark. The blue mists of evening
had slowly risen from the ground. The flat meadows
were filled with a grey vapour, and a stranger might
have fancied Audley Court a castle on the margin of
a sea. Under the archway the shadows of fast-coming
larly indley's Secret, II.
11


162
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
night lurked darkly; like traitors waiting for an op-
portunity to glide stealthily into the quadrangle.
Through the archway a patch of cold blue sky glim-
mered faintly, streaked by one line of lurid crimson,
and lighted by the dim glitter of one wintry-looking
star. Not a creature was stirring in the quadrangle
but the restless woman, who paced up and down the
straight pathways, listening for a footstep, whose com-
ing was to strike terror to her soul. She heard it at
last! — a footstep in the avenue upon the other side
of the archway. But was it the footstep? Her sense
of hearing, made unnaturally acute by excitement, told
her that it was a man's footstep — told even more,
that it was the tread of a gentleman; no slouching,
lumbering pedestrian in hobnailed boots; but a gentle-
man who walked firmly and well.
Every sound fell like a lump of ice upon my lady's
heart. She could not wait, she could not contain her-
self; she lost all self-control, all power of endurance,
all capability of self-restraint; and she rushed towards
the archway.
She paused beneath its shadow, for the stranger
was close upon her. She saw him: 0 God! she saw
him, in that dim evening light. Her brain reeled; her
heart stopped beating. She uttered no cry of surprise,
no exclamation of terror, but staggered backwards and
clung for support to the ivied buttress of the archway.
With her slender figure crouched into the angle formed
by this buttress and the wall which it supported, she
stood staring at the new-comer.


THE BEAEER OF THE TIDINGS.
163
As he approached her more closely her knees sank
under her, and sho dropped to the ground; not fainting,
or in any manner unconscious; but sinking into a
crouching attitude, and still crushed into the angle of
the wall; as if she would have made a tomb for herself
in the shadow of that sheltering brickwork.
"My lady!"
The speaker was Robert Audley. He whose bed-
room door she had double-locked seventeen hours
before at the Castle Inn.
"What is the matter with you?" he said, in a
strange, constrained manner. "Get up, and let me
take you in-doors."
He assisted her to rise; and she obeyed him, veiy
submissively. He took her arm in his strong hand and
led her across the quadrangle and into the lamp-lit
hall. She shivered more violently than he had ever
seen any woman shiver before; but she made no attempt
at resistance to his will.
11*


164
LAD7 AUDLEY's SECRET.
CHAPTER IX.
My Lady tells the Truth.
"Is there any room in which I can talk to you
alone?" Robert Audley asked, as he looked dubiously
round the hall.
My lady only bowed her head in answer. She
pushed open the door of the library, which had been
left ajar. Sir Michael had gone to his dressing-room
to prepare for dinner after a day of lazy enjoyment;
perfectly legitimate for an invalid. The apartment was
quite empty, and only lighted by the blaze of the fire,
as it had been upon the previous evening.
Lady Audley entered this room, followed by Robert,
who closed the door behind him. The wretched shiver-
ing woman went to the fire-place and knelt down before
tho blaze, as if any natural warmth could have power
to check that unnatural chill. The young man followed
her, and stood beside her upon the hearth, with his
arm resting upon the chimney-piece.
"Lady Audley," he said, in a voice whose icy
sternness held out no hope of any tenderness or com-
passion, "I spoke to you last night very plainly; but
you refused to listen to me. To-night I must speak
to you still more plainly; and you must no longer
refuse to listen to me."
My lady, crouching before the fire with her face


MY LADY TELLS THE TRUTH.
165
bidden in her hands, uttered a low sobbing sound which
was almost a moan, but made no other answer.
"There was a fire last night at Mount Stanning,
Lady Audley," the pitiless voice proceeded; "the
Castle Inn, the house in which I slept, was burned to
the ground. Do you know how I escaped perishing
in that destruction?"
"No."
"I escaped by a most providential circumstance,
which seems a very simple one. I did not sleep in the
room which had been prepared for me. The placo
seemed wretchedly damp and chilly; the chimney
smoked abominably when an attempt was made at
lighting a fire; and I persuaded the servant to make
me up a bed upon the sofa in the small ground-
floor sitting-room which I had occupied during the
evening."
He paused for a moment, watching the crouching
figure. The only change in my lady's attitude was
that her head had fallen a little lower.
"Shall I tell you by whose agency the destruction
of the Castle Inn was brought about, my lady?"
There was no answer.
"Shall I tell you?"
Still the same obstinate silence.
"My Lady Audley," cried Robert, suddenly, "you
were the incendiary. It was you whose murderous
hand kindled those flames. It was you who thought
by that thrice-horrible deed to rid yourself of me, your
enemy and denouncer. What was it to you that other


1GG
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
lives might be sacrificed? If by a second massacre of
Saint Bartholomew you could have ridded yourself of
me, you would have freely sacrificed an army of
victims. The day is past for tenderness and mercy.
For you I can no longer know pity or compunction.
So far as by sparing your shame I can spare others
who must suffer by your shame, I will be merciful;
but no further. If there were any secret tribunal before
which you might be made to answer for your crimes,
I would have little scruple in being your accuser: but
I would spare that generous and high-born gentleman
upon whose noble name your infamy would be re-
flected."
His voice softened as he made this allusion, and
for a moment he broke down, but he recovered himself
by an effort and continued —
"No life was lost in the fire of last night. I slept
lightly, my lady, for my mind was troubled, as it has
been for a long time, by the misery which I knew was
lowering upon this house. It was I who discovered
the breaking out of the fire in time to give the alarm
and to save the servant girl and the poor drunken
wretch, who was very much burnt in spite of my
efforts, and who now lies in a precarious state at his
mother's cottage. It was from him and from his wife
that I learned who had visited the Castle Inn in the
dead of the night. The woman was almost distracted
when she saw me, and from her I discovered the parti-
culars of last night. Heaven knows what other secrets
of yours she may hold, my lady, or how easily they


MY LADY TELLS THE TRUTH.
167
might be extorted from her if I wanted her aid, which
I do not. My path lies very straight before me. I
have sworn to bring the murderer of George Talboys
to justice: and I will keep my oath. I say that it
was by your agency my friend met with his death. If
I have wondered sometimes, as it was only natural I
should, whether I was not the victim of some horrible
hallucination; whether such an alternative was not
more probable than that a young and lovely woman
should be capable of so foul and treacherous a murder,
all wonder is past. After last night's deed of horror,
there is no crime you could commit, however vast and
unnatural, which could make me wonder. Henceforth
you must seem to me no longer a woman; a guilty
woman with a heart which in its worst wickedness has
yet some latent power to suffer and feel; I look upon
you henceforth as the demoniac incarnation of some
evil principle. But you shall no longer pollute this
place by your presence. Unless you will confess what
you are, and who you are, in the presence of the man
you have deceived so long; and accept from him and
from mo such mercy as we may be inclined to extend
to you; I will gather together the witnesses who shall
swear to your identity, and at peril of any shame to
myself and those I love, I will bring upon you the
punishment of your crime."
The woman rose suddenly and stood before him
erect and resolute; with her hair dashed away from her
face and her eyes glittering.
"Bring Sir Michael!" she cried; "bring him here,


MY LADY TELLS THE TRUTH.
109
"the secret of my life." He remembered those lines in
the letter written by Helen Talboys upon the eve of
her flight from Wildernsea, which had so puzzled him.
He remembered those appealing sentences — "You
should forgive me, for you know why I have been se.
You know the secret of my life."
He met Sir Michael in the hall. He made no at-
tempt to prepare the way for the terrible revelation
whioh the baronet was to hear. He only drew him
into the fire-lit library, and there for the first time ad-
dressed him quietly thus: —
"Lady Audley has a confession to make to you,
sir — a confession which I know will be a most cruel
surprise, a most bitter grief. But it is necessary for
your present honour, and for your future peace, that
you should hear it. She has deceived you, I regret to
say, most basely; but it is only right you should hear
from her own lips any excuses which she may have to
offer for her wickedness. May God soften this blow
for you," sobbed the young man, suddenly breaking
down; "I cannot!"
Sir Michael lifted his hand as if he would have
commanded his nephew to be silent; but that imperious
hand dropped feeble and impotent at his side. He
stood in the centre of the fire-lit room, rigid and im-
movable.
"Lucy!" he cried, in a voice whose anguish struck
like a blow upon the jarred nerves of those who heard
it, as the cry of a wounded animal pains the listener


170
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
— "Lucy! tell me that this man is a madman! tell me
so, my love, or I shall kill him!"
There was a sudden fury in his voice as he turned
upon Robert, as if he could indeed have felled his
wife's accuser to the earth with the strength of his up-
lifted arm.
But my lady fell upon her knees at his feet; inter-
posing herself between the baronet and his nephew,
who stood leaning upon the back of an easy chair,
with his face hidden by his hand.
"He has told you the truth," said my lady, "and
he is not mad! I have sent for you that I may confess
everything to you. I should be sorry for you if I
could; for you have been very, very good to me; much
better to me than I ever deserved; but I can't, I can't
— I can feel nothing but my own misery. I told you
long ago that I was selfish; I am selfish still — more
selfish than ever in my misery. Happy, prosperous
people may feel for others. I laugh at other people's
sufferings; they seem so small compared to my own."
When first my lady had fallen on her knees, Sir
Michael had attempted to raise her, and had remon-
strated with her; but as she spoke he dropped into a
chair close to the spot upon which she knelt, and with
his hands clasped together, and with his head bent to
catch every syllable of those horrible words, he listened
as if his whole being had been resolved into that one
sense of hearing.
"I must tell you the story of my life; in order to
tell you why I have become the miserable wretch whu


172
LADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
my mother was dead, and I was told — 'No, she was
not dead; she was ill, and she was away.' I asked
how long she had been ill, and I was told that she had
been so some years; ever since I was a baby.
"At last the secret came out. I worried my foster-
mother with the old question one day when the re-
mittances had fallen very much in arrear, and her
temper had been unusually tried. She flew into a
passion; and told me that my mother was a mad-
woman; and that she was in a madhouse forty miles
away. She had scarcely said this when she repented,
and told me that it was not the truth, and that I was
not to believe it, or to say that she had told me such
a thing. I discovered afterwards that my father had
made her promise most solemnly never to tell me the
secret of my mother's fate.
"I brooded horribly upon the thought of my
mother's madness. It haunted me by day and night.
I was always picturing to myself this madwoman
pacing up and down some prison cell, in a hideous
garment that bound her tortured limbs. I had ex-
aggerated ideas of the horror of her situation. I had
no knowledge of the different degrees of madness; and
the image that haunted me was that of a distraught
and violent creature, who would fall upon me and kill
me if I came within her reach. This idea grew upon
me until I used to awake in the dead of the night,
screaming aloud in an agony of terror, from a dream
in which I had felt my mother's icy grasp upon my
throat, and heard her ravings in my ear.


174
LADY AUDLEYS SECRET.
My mother, who might have been tended by a devoted
husband, was given over to the care of hired nurses.
"Before my father sent mo to school at Torquay,
he took me to see my mother. This visit served at
least to dispel the idea which had so often terrified me.
I saw no raving, strait-waistcoated maniac, guarded by
zealous gaolers; but a golden-haired, blue-eyed, girlish
creature, who seemed as frivolous as a butterfly, and
who skipped towards us with her yellow curls decorated
with natural flowers, and saluted us with radiant smiles,
and gay, ceaseless chatter.
"But she didn't know us. She would have spoken
in the same manner to any stranger who had entered
the gates of the garden about her prison-house. Her
madness was an hereditary disease transmitted to her
from her mother, who had died mad. She, my mother,
had been, or had appeared sane up to the hour of my
birth; but from that hour her intellect had decayed,
until she had become what I saw her.
"I went away with the knowledge of this, and
with the knowledge that the only inheritance I had to
expect from my mother was — insanity!
"I went away with this knowledge in my mind,
and with something more — a secret to keep. I was
only a child of ten years old; but I felt all the weight
of that burden. I was to keep the secret of my mother's
madness; for it was a secret that might affect me in-
juriously in after-life. I was to remember this.
"I did remember this; and it was, perhaps, this
that made me selfish and heartless; for I suppose I am


178
LADY AUDLEY8 SECRET.
twelve-month's gaiety and extravagance after all. I
begged George to appeal to his father; but he refused.
I persuaded him to try and get employment; and he
failed. My baby was born, and the crisis which had
been fatal to my mother arose for me. I escaped; but
I was more irritable perhaps after my recovery; less
inclined to fight the hard battle of the world; more
disposed to complain of poverty and neglect . I did
complain one day, loudly and bitterly. I upbraided
George Talboys for his cruelty in having allied a help-
less girl to poverty and misery; and he flew into a
passion with me and ran out of the house. When I
awoke the next morning I found a letter lying on the
table by my bed, telling me that he was going to the
Antipodes to seek his fortune, and that he would never
see me again until he was a rich man.
"I looked upon this as a desertion, and I resented
it bitterly — I resented it by hating tho man who had
left me with no protector but a weak, tipsy father, and
with a child to support. I had to work hard for my
living, and in every hour of labour — and what labour
is more wearisome than the dull slavery of a governess?
— I recognised a separate wrong done me by George
Talboys. His father was rich; his sister was living in
luxury and respectability; and I, his wife, and the
mother of his son, was a slave allied for ever to
beggary and obscurity. People pitied me; and I hated
them for their pity. I did not love the child; for he
had been left a burden upon my hands. The hereditary
taint that was in my blood had never until this time


180
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
"I said, 'I have a right to think that he is dead,
or that he wishes me to believe him dead, and his
shadow shall not stand between me and prosperity.' I
said this, and I became your wife, Sir Michael, with
every resolution to be as good a wife as it was in my
nature to be. The common temptations that assail and
shipwreck some women had no terror for me. I would
have been your true and pure wife to the end of time,
though I had been surrounded by a legion of tempters.
The mad folly that the world calls love had never had
any part in my madness; and here at least extremes
met, and the vice of heartlessness became the virtue of
constancy.
"I was very happy in the first triumph and grandeur
of my new position, very grateful to the hand that had
lifted me to it. In the sunshine of my own happiness
I felt, for the first time in my life, for the miseries of
others. I had been poor myself, and I was now rich,
and could afford to pity and relieve the poverty of my
neighbours. I took pleasure in acts of kindness and
benevolence. I found out my father's address aud sent
him large sums of money, anonymously, for I did not
wish him to discover what had become of me. I availed
myself to the full of the privilege your generosity
afforded me. I dispensed happiness on every side. I
saw myself loved as well as admired; and I think I
might have been a good woman for the rest of my life,
if fate would have allowed me to be so.
"I believe that at this time my mind regained its
just balance. I had watched myself very closely since
.


MY LADY TELLS THE TRUTH.
181
leaving "Wildernsea; I had held a check upon myself.
I had often wondered, while sitting in the surgeon's
quiet family circle, whether any suspicion of that
invisible hereditary taint had ever occurred to Mr.
Dawson.
"Fate would not suffer me to be good. My destiny
compelled me to be a wretch. Within a month of my
marriage, I read in one of the Essex papers of the
return of a certain Mr. Talboys, a fortunate gold-
seeker, from Australia. The ship had sailed at the
time I read the paragraph. What was to be done?
"I said just now that I knew the energy of George's
character. I knew that the man who had gone to the
antipodes, and won a fortune for his wife, would leave
no stone unturned in his efforts to find her. It was
hopeless to think of hiding myself from him.
"Unless he could be induced to believe that I was
dead, he would never cease in his search for me.
"My brain was dazed as I thought of my peril.
Again the balance trembled; again the invisible boun-
dary was passed; again I was mad.
"I went down to Southampton and found my father,
who was living there with my child. You remember
how Mrs. Vincent's name was used as an excuse for
this hurried journey, and how it was contrived that I
should go with no other escort than Phoebe Marks,
whom I left at the hotel while I went to my father's
house.
"I confided to my father the whole secret of my
peril. He was not very much shocked at what I had


182
LADT AUDLEY's SECRET.
done, for poverty had perhaps blunted his sense of
honour and principle. He was not very much shocked;
but he was frightened; and he promised to do all in
his power to assist me in my horrible emergency.
"He had received a letter addressed to me at
Wildernsca, by George, and forwarded from there to
my father. This letter had been written within a few
days of the sailing of the Argus, and it announced
the probable date of the ship's arrival at Liverpool.
This letter gave us, therefore, data upon which to act.
"We decided at once upon the first step. This was
that on the date of the probable arrival of the Argus,
or a few days later, an advertisement of my death
should be inserted in the Ti?nes.
"But almost immediately after deciding upon this,
we saw that there were fearful difficulties in the
carrying out of such a simple plan. The date of the
death, and the place in which I died, must be an-
nounced, as well as the death itself. George would
immediately hurry to that place, however distant it
might be, however comparatively inaccessible, and the
shallow falsehood would be discovered.
"I knew enough of his sanguine temperament, his
courage and determination, his readiness to hope
against hope, to know that unless he saw the grave in
which I was buried, and the register of my death, he
would never believe that I was lost to him.
"My father was utterly dumfounded and helpless.
He could only shed childish tears of despair and terror*
He was of no use to mo in this crisis.


MY LADY TELLS THE TRUTH.
183
"I was hopeless of any issue out of my difficulty.
I began to think that I must trust to the chapter of
accidents; and hope that amongst other obscure corners
of the earth, Audley Court might remain undreamt-of
by my hushaud.
"I sat with my father, drinking tea with him in
his miserable hovel, and playing with the child, who
was pleased with my dress and jewels, but quite un-
conscious that I was anything but a stranger to him.
I had the boy in my arms, when a woman who at-
tended him came to fetch him that she might make
him more fit to be seen by the lady, as she said.
"I was anxious to know how the boy was treated,
and I detained this woman in conversation with me,
while my father dozed over the tea-table.
"She was a pale-faced, sandy-haired woman, of
about five-and-forty; and she seemed very glad to get
the chance of talking to me as long as I pleased to allow
her. She soon left off talking of the boy, however, to
tell me her own troubles. She was in very great
trouble, she told me. Her eldest daughter had been
obliged to leave her situation from ill-health; in fact,
the doctor said the girl was in a decline; and it was a
hard thing for a poor widow who had seen better days
to have a sick daughter to support, as well as a family
of young children.
"I let the woman run on for a long time in this
manner, telling me the girl's ailments, and the girl's
age, and the girl's doctor's stuff, and piety, and
sufferings, and a great deal more. But I neither listened


184
LADY AUDLEY's 8ECEET.
to her nor heeded her. I heard her, but only in a
far-away manner, as I heard the traffic in the street,
or the ripple of the stream at the bottom of it. What
were this woman's troubles to me? I had miseries of
my own; and worse miseries than her coarse nature
could ever have to endure. These sort of people always
had sick husbands or sick children, and expected to be
helped in their illnesses by the rich. It was nothing
out of the common. I was thinking this; and I was
just going to dismiss the woman with a sovereign for
her sick daughter; when an idea flashed upon me with
such painful suddenness that it sent the blood surging
up to my brain, and set my heart beating, as it only
beats when I am mad.
"I asked the woman her name. She was a Mrs.
Plowson, and she kept a small general shop, she said,
and only ran in now and then to look after Georgey,
and to see that the little maid-of-all-work took care of
him. Her daughter's name was Matilda. I asked her
several questions about this girl Matilda, and I ascer-
tained that she was four-and-twenty, that she had al-
ways been consumptive, and that she was now, as the
doctor said, going off in a rapid decline. He had de-
clared that she could not last much more than a fort-
night.
"It was in three weeks that the ship that carried
George Talboys was expected to anchor in the
Mersey.
"I need not dwell much upon this business. I
visited the sick girl. She was fair and slender. Her


186
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
to remember in all you do, that I have loved her very
dearly and truly. I cannot say farewell to her. I will
not say it until I can think of her without bitterness
— until I can pity her; as I now pray that God may
pity her this night."
Sir Michael walked slowly from the room. He
did not trust himself to look at that crouching figure.
He did not wish to see the creature whom he had
cherished. He went straight to his dressing-room, rang
for his valet, and ordered him to pack a portmanteau,
and make all necessary arrangements for accompanying
his master by the last up-train.


THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST.
187
CHAPTER X.
The Hush that succeeds the Tompest.
ROBERT AUDLEY followed his uncle into the vesti-
bule after Sir Michael had spoken those few quiet
words which sounded the death-knell of his hope and
love. Heaven knows how much the young man had
feared the coming of this day. It had come; and
though there had been no great outburst of despair,
no whirlwind of stormy grief, no loud tempest of
anguish and tears, Robert took no comforting thought
from the unnatural stillness. He knew enough to
know that Sir Michael Audley went away with the
barbed arrow, which his nephew's hand had sent home
to its aim, rankling in his tortured heart; he knew
that this strange and icy calm was the first numbness
of a heart stricken by a grief so unexpected as for a
time to be rendered almost incomprehensible by a
blank stupor of astonishment. He knew that when
this dull quiet had passed away, when little by little,
and one by one, each horrible feature of the sufferer's
Borrow became first dimly apparent and then terribly
familiar to him, the storm would burst in fatal fury,
and tempests of tears and cruel thunder-claps of agony
would rend that generous heart.
Robert had heard of cases in which men of his
uncle's age had borne some great grief, as Sir Michael


188
LADY AUDLET'S 8BCHET.
had borne this, with a strange quiet; and had gone
away from those who would have comforted them, and
whose anxieties have been relieved by this patient
stillness, to fall down upon the ground and die under
the blow which at first had only stunned them. He
remembered cases in which paralysis and apoplexy
had stricken men as strong as his uncle in the first
hour of the horrible affliction; and he lingered in the
lamp-lit vestibule, wondering whether it was not his
duty to be with Sir Michael — to be near him, in
case of any emergency, and to accompany him where-
ever he went.
Yet, would it be wise to force himself upon that
grey-headed sufferer in this cruel hour, in which he
had been awakened from the one delusion of a blame-
less life to discover that he had been the dupe of a
false face, and the fool of a nature which was too
coldly mercenary, too cruelly heartless, to be sensible
of its own infamy?
"No," thought Robert Audley, "I will not intrude
upon the anguish of this wounded heart. There is
humiliation mingled with this bitter grief. It is better
he should fight the battle alone. I have done what I
believe to have been my solemn duty, yet I should
scarcely wonder if I had rendered myself for ever
hateful to him. It is better he should fight the battle
alone. I can do nothing to make the strife less terrible.
Better that it should be fought alone."
While the young man stood with his hand upon
the library door, still half doubtful whether he should


THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST. 189
follow his uncle or re-enter the room in which he had
loft that more wretched creature, whom it had been his
business to unmask, Alicia Audley opened the dining-
room door, and revealed to him the old-fashioned oak-
paneled apartment, the long table covered with snowy
damask, and bright with a cheerful glitter of glass and
silver.
"Is papa coming to dinner?" asked Miss Audley.
"I'm no hungry; and poor Tomlins has sent up three
times to say the fish will be spoiled. It must be re-
duced to a species of isinglass soup by this time, I
should think," added the young lady, as she came out
into the vestibule with the Times newspaper in her
hand.
She had been sitting by the fire reading the paper,
and waiting for her seniors to join her at the dinner-
table.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Robert Audley," she remarked,
indifferently. "You dine with us, of course. Pray go
and find papa. It must be nearly eight o'clock, and
we are supposed to dine at six."
Mr. Audley answered his cousin rather sternly. Her
frivolous manner jarred upon him, and he forgot in his
irrational displeasure that Miss Audley had known no-
thing of the terrible drama which had been so long
enacting under her very nose.
"Your papa has just endured a very great grief,
Alicia," the young man said, gravely.
The girl's arch, laughing face changed in a mo-


190
LADY AUDLEY's &ECEET.
ment to a tenderly earnest look of sorrow and anxiety.
Alicia Audley loved her father very dearly.
"A grief!" she exclaimed; "papa grieved? Oh!
Robert, what has happened?"
"I can tell you nothing yet, Alicia," Robert an-
swered, in a low voice.
He took his cousin by the wrist, and drew her into
the dining-room as he spoke. He closed the door care-
fully behind him before-he continued; —
"Alicia, can I trust you?" he asked, earnestly.
"Trust me to do what?"
"To be a comfort and a friend to your poor father
under a very heavy affliction."
"Yes!" cried Alicia, passionately. "How can you
ask me such a question? Do you think there is anything
I would not do to lighten any sorrow of my father's?
Do you think there is anything I would not suffer if
my suffering could lighten his?"
The rushing tears rose to Miss Audley's bright
grey eyes as she spoke.
"Oh, Robert! Robert! could you think so badly of
me as to think that I would not try to be a comfort to
my father in his grief?" she said, reproachfully.
"No, no, my dear," answered the young man,
quietly; "I never doubted your affection, I only doubted
your discretion. May I rely upon that?"
"You may, Robert," said Alicia, resolutely.
"Very well, then, my dear girl, I will trust you.
Your father is going to leave the Court, for a time at
least. The grief which he has just endured — a sud-


THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST. 191
den and an unlooked-for sorrow, remember — has no
donbt made this plaoe hateful to him. He is going
away; but he must not go alone, must he, Alicia?"
"Alone? nol no! But I suppose my lady —"
"Lady Audley will not go with him," said Robert,
gravely; "he is about to separate himself from her."
"For a time?"
"No; for ever."
"Separate himself from her for ever!" exclaimed
Alicia. "Then this grief —"
"Is connected with Lady Audley. Lady Audley is
the cause of your father's sorrow."
Alicia's face, which had been pale before, flushed
crimson. Sorrow, of which my lady was the cause —
a sorrow which was to separate Sir Michael for ever
from his young wife! There had been no quarrel be-
tween them — there had never been anything but
harmony and sunshine between Lucy Audley and her
generous husband. This sorrow must surely then have
arisen from some sudden discovery; it was, no doubt,
a sorrow associated with disgrace. Robert Audley un-
derstood the meaning of that vivid blush.
"You will offer to accompany your father wherever
he may choose to go, Alicia," he said. "You are his
natural comforter at such a time as this, but you will
best befriend him in this hour of trial by avoiding all
intrusion upon his grief. Your very ignorance of the
particulars of that grief will be a security for your
discretion. Say nothing to your father that you might
not have said to him two years ago, before he married


192
I,ADT AUDLEY'S SECRET.
a second wife. Try and be to him what you were be-
fore the woman in yonder room came between you and
your father's love."
"I will," murmured Alicia, "I will."
"You will naturally avoid all mention of Lady
Audley's name. If your father is often silent, be pa-
tient; if it sometimes seem to you that the shadow
of this great sorrow will never pass away from his life,
be patient still; and remember that there can be no
better hope of a cure for his grief than the hope that
his daughter's devotion may lead him to remember
there is one woman upon this earth who will love him
truly and purely until the last."
"Yes, yes, Robert, dear cousin, I will remember."
Mr. Audley, for the first time since he had been a
schoolboy, took his cousin in his arms and kissed her
broad forehead.
"My dear Alicia," he said, "do this, and you will
make me happy. £ have been in some measure the
means of bringing this sorrow upon your father. Let
me hope that it is not an enduring one. Try and
restore my uncle to happiness, Alicia, and I will love
you more dearly than brother ever loved a noble-
hearted sister and a brotherly affection may be worth
having, perhaps, after all, my dear, though it is very
different to poor Sir Harry's enthusiastic worship."
Alicia's head was bent and her face hidden from
her cousin while he spoke; but she lifted her head
when he had finished, and looked him full in the face


THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST. 193
with a smile that was only the brighter for h6r eyes
being filled with tears.
"You are a good fellow, Bob," she said: "and I've
been very foolish and wicked to feel angry with you,
because —"
The young lady stopped suddenly.
"Because what, my dear?" asked Mr. Audley.
"Because I'm silly, cousin Robert," Alicia said
quickly; "never mind that, Bob; I'll do all you wish,
and it shall not be my fault if my dearest father
doesn't forget his troubles before long. I'd go to the
end of the world with him, poor darling, if I thought
there was any comfort to be found for him in the jour-
ney. Til go and get ready directly. Do you think
papa will go to-night?"
"Yes, my dear; I don't think Sir Michael will rest
another night under this roof, yet awhile."
"The mail goes at twenty minutes past nine," said
Alicia; "we must leave the house in an hour if we
are to travel by it. I shall see you again before we
go, Robert."
"Yes, dear."
Miss Audley ran off to her room to summon her
maid, and make all necessary preparations for the
sudden journey, of whose ultimate destination she was
as yet quite ignorant.
She went heart and soul into the carrying out of
the duty which Robert had dictated to her. She
assisted in the packing of her portmanteaus, and hope-
lessly bewildered her maid by stuffing silk dresses into
Lady AndUft Secret. II. 13


194
LADV AUDLEY'S SECkET.
her bonnet boxes, and satin shoes into her dressing-
case. She roamed about her rooms gathering together
drawing materials, music-books, needlework, hair-
brushes, jewellery, and perfume-bottles, very much as
she might have done had she been about to sail for
some savage country devoid of all civilised resources.
She was thinking all the time of her father's unknown
grief; and perhaps a little of the serious face and
earnest voice which had that night revealed her cousin
Robert to her in a new character.
Mr. Audley went up-stairs after his cousin, and
found his way to Sir Michael's dressing-room. He
knocked at the door and listened, heaven knows how
anxiously, for the expected answer. There was a mo-
ment's pause, during which the young man's heart
beat loud and fast, and then the door was opened by
the baronet himself. Robert saw that his uncle's valet
was already hard at work preparing for his master's
hurried journey.
Sir Michael came out into the corridor.
"Have you anything more to say to me, Robert?"
he asked, quietly.
"I only came to ascertain if I could assist in any
of your arrangements. You go to London by the
mail?"
"Yes."
"Have you any idea of where you will stay?"
"Yes, I shall stop at the Clarendon; I am known
there. Is that all you have to say?"
"Yes; except that Alicia will accompany you."


THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST. 195
"Alicia!"
"She could not very well stay here, you know,
just now. It would he best for her to leave the Court
until —"
"Yes, yes, I understand," interrupted the baronet;
"but is there nowhere else that she could go, — must
she be with me?"
"She could go nowhere else so immediately; and
she would not be happy anywhere else."
"Let her come, then," said Sir Michael, "let her
come."
He spoke in a strange subdued voice, and with an
apparent effort; as if it were painful to him to have to
speak at all. As if all this ordinary business of life
were a cruel torture to him; and jarred so much upon
his grief as to be almost worse to bear than that grief
itself.
"Very well, my dear uncle, then all is arranged;
Alicia will be ready to start at nine o'clock."
"Very good, very good," muttered the baronet;
"let her come if she pleases; poor child, let her come."
He sighed heavily as he spoke in that half-pitying
tone of his daughter. He was thinking how compara-
tively indifferent he had been towards that only child
for the sake of the woman now shut in the fire-lit room
below.
"I shall see you again before you go, sir," said
Robert; "I will leave you till then."
"Stay!" said Sir Michael, suddenly; "have you
told Alicia?"
18*


19C
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
"I have told her nothing; except that you are
about to leave the Court for some time."
"You are very good, my boy, you are very good,"
the baronet murmured in a broken voice.
He stretched out his hand. His nephew took it in
both his own, and pressed it to his lips.
"Oh, sir! how can I ever forgive myself?" he said;
"how can I ever cease to hate myself for having
brought this grief upon you?"
"No, no, Robert, you did right — you did right;
I wish that God had been so merciful to me as to take
my miserable life before this night; but you did
right."
"Sir Michael re-entered his dressing-room, and
Robert slowly returned to the vestibule. He paused
upon the threshold of that chamber in which he had
left Lucy, Lady Audley; otherwise Helen Talboys, the
wife of his lost friend.
She was lying upon the floor; upon the very spot
on which she had crouched at her husband's feet telling
her guilty story. Whether she was in a swoon; or ,
whether she lay there in the utter helplessness of her
misery; Robert scarcely cared to know. He went out
into the vestibule, and sent one of the servants to look
for her maid, the smart be-ribboned damsel, who was
loud in wonder and consternation at the sight of her
mistress.
"Lady Audley is very ill," he said; "take her to
her room and see that she does not leave it to-night.
You will be good enough to remain near her; but do


THE HUSI THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST,
197
not either talk to her, or suffer her to excite herself
by talking."
My lady had not fainted; she allowed the girl to
assist her, and rose from the ground upon which she
had grovelled. Her golden hair fell in loose, dishev-
elled masses about her ivory throat and shoulders;
her face and lips were colourless; her eyes terrible in
their unnatural light.
“Take me away,” she said, "and let me sleep!
Let me sleep, for my brain is on fire!"
As she was leaving the room with her maid, she
turned and looked at Robert. "Is Sir Michael gone?"
she asked.
“He will leave in half an hour."
"There were no lives lost in the fire at Mount
Stanning?”
“None.”
“I am glad of that.”
“The landlord of the house, Marks, was very ter-
ribly burned, and lies in a precarious state at his
mother's cottage; but he may recover.”
"I am glad of that — I am glad no life was lost.
Good-night, Mr. Audley."
"I shall ask to see you for half an hour's conver-
sation in the course of to-morrow, my lady?”
“Whenever you please. Good-night.”
“Good-night.”
She went away, quietly leaning upon her maid's
shoulder, and leaving Robert with a sense of strange
bewilderment that was very painful to him.


198
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
He sat down by the broad hearth upon which the
red embers were fading, and wondered at the change
in that old house which, until the day of his friend's
disappearance, had been so pleasant a home for all
who sheltered beneath its hospitable roof. He sat
brooding over that desolate hearth, and trying to
decide upon what must be done in this sudden crisis.
He sat, helpless and pewerless to determine upon any
course of action, lost in a dull reverie, from which he
was aroused by the sound of carriage wheels driving
up to the little turret entrance.
The clock in the vestibule struck nine as Robert
opened the library-door. Alicia had just descended the
stairs with her maid, a rosy-faced country girl.
"Good-by, Robert," said Miss Audley, holding out
her hand to her cousin; "good-by, and God bless you I
You may trust me to take care of papa."
"I am sure I may. God bless you, my dear."
For the second time that night Robert Audley
pressed his lips to his cousin's candid forehead; and
for the second time the embrace was of a brotherly or
paternal character; rather than the rapturous proceed-
ing which it would have been had Sir Harry Towers
been the privileged performer.
It was five minutes past nine when Sir Michael
came down-stairs, followed by his valet, grave and
grey-haired like himself. The baronet was pale, but
calm and self-possessed. The hand which he gave to
his nephew was as cold as ice; but it was with a steady
voice that he bade the young man good-by.


THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST. 199
"I leave all in jour hands, Robert," he said, as he
turned to leave the house in which he had lived so
long. "I may not have heard the end; but I have
heard enough. Heaven knows I have no need to hear
more. I leave all to you, but you will not be cruel —
you will remember how much I loved —"
His voice broke huskily before he could finish the
sentence.
"I will remember you in everything, sir," the
young man answered. "I will do everything for the
best."
A treacherous mist of tears blinded him and shut
out his uncle's face, and in another minute the carriage
bad driven away, and Robert Audley sat alone in the
dark library, where only one red spark glowed amongst
the pale-grey ashes. He sat alone, trying to think
what he ought to do, and with the awful responsibility
of a wicked woman's fate upon his shoulders.
"Good heavens," he thought; "surely this must be
God's judgment upon the purposeless, vacillating life
I led up to the seventh day of last September. Surely
this awful responsibility has been forced upon me in
order that I may humble myself to an offended Pro-
vidence, and confess that a man cannot choose his own
life. He cannot say, 'I will take existence lightly, and
keep out of the way of the wretched, mistaken, ener-
getic creatures, who fight so heartily in the great battle.'
He cannot say, 'I will stop in the tents while the strife
is fought, and laugh at the fools who are trampled
down in the useless struggle.' He cannot do this. He


200
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
can only do, humbly and fearfully, that which the
Maker who created him has appointed for him to do.
If he has a battle to fight, let him fight it faithfully;
but woe betide him if he skulks when his name is
called in the mighty muster-roll; woe betide him if he
hides in the tents when the tocsin summons him to the
scene of war!"
One of the servants brought candles into the library,
and relighted the fire; but Robert Audley did not stir
from his seat by the hearth. He sat as he had often
sat in his chambers in Fig-tree Court, with his elbows
resting upon the arms of his chair, and his chin upon
his hand.
But he lifted his head as the servant was about to
leave the room.
"Can I send a telegram from hero to London?" he
asked.
"It can be sent from Brentwood, sir, — not from
here."
Mr. Audley looked at his watch, thoughtfully.
"One of the men can ride over to Brentwood, sir,
if you wish any message to be sent."
"I do wish to send a message; will you manage it
for me, Richards?"
"Certainly, sir."
"You can wait, then, while I write the message?'"
"Yes, sir."
The man brought writing materials from one of the
side-tables, and placed them before Mr. Audley.
Robert dipped a pen in the ink, and stared thought-


THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST. 201
fully at one of the candles for a few moments before
he began to write.
The message ran thus: —
"From Robert Audley, of Andley Court, Essex, to
Francis Wilmington, of Paper Buildings, Temple.
"Dear Wilmington, if you know any physician,
experienced in cases of mania, and to be trusted with
a secret, be so good as to send me his address by tele-
graph."
Mr. Audley sealed this document in a stout enve-
lope, and handed it to the man, with a sovereign.
"You will see that this is given to a trustworthy
person, Richards," he said, "and let the man wait at
the station for the return message. He ought to get it
in an hour and a half."
Mr. Richards, who had known Robert Audley in
jackets and turn-down collars, departed to execute his
commission. Heaven forbid that we should follow him
into the comfortable servants' hall at the Court, where
the household sat round the blazing fire, discussing in
utter bewilderment the events of the day.
Nothing could be wider from the truth than the
speculations of these worthy people. What clue had
they to the mystery of that fire-lit room in which a
guilty woman had knelt at their master's feet to tell
the story of her sinful life? They only knew that
which Sir Michael's valet had told them of this sudden
journey. How his master was as pale as a sheet, and
spoke in a strange voice that didn't sound like his
own, somehow, and how you might have knocked him


202
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
— Mr. Parsons, the valet — down with a feather, if
you had been minded to prostrate him by the aid of
so feeble a weapon.
The wiseheads of the servants' hall decided that
Sir Michael had received sudden intelligence through
Mr. Robert — they were wise enough to connect the
young man with the catastrophe, — either of the death
of some near and dear relation — the elder servants
decimated the Andley family in their endeavours to
find a likely relation — or of some alarming fall in
the funds; or of the failure of some speculation or bank
in which the greater part of the baronet's money was
invested. The general leaning was towards the failure
of a bank; and every member of the assembly seemed
to take a dismal and raven-like delight in the fancy;
though such a supposition involved their own ruin in
the general destruction of that liberal household.
Robert sat by the dreary hearth, which seemed
dreary even now when the blaze of a great wood-fire
roared in the wide chimney, and listened to the low
wail of the March wind, moaning round the house and
lifting the shivering ivy from the walls it sheltered.
He was tired and worn out, for remember that he had
been awakened from his sleep at two o'clock that
morning by the hot breath of blazing timber and the
sharp crackling of burning wood-work. But for his
presence of mind and cool decision, Mr. Luke Marks
would have died a dreadful death. He still bore the
traces of the night's peril, for the dark hair had been
singed upon one side of his forehead, and his left hand


DR. MOSGRAVE's ADVICB.
205
CHAPTER XI.
Dr. Moftprave's Advice.
My lady slept. Through that long winter night
she slept soundly. Criminals have often so slept their
last sleep upon earth; and have been found in the grey
morning slumbering peacefully by the gaoler who came
to wake them.
The game had been played and lost . I do not
think that my lady had thrown away a card, or missed
the making of a trick which she might by any pos-
sibility have made: but her opponent's hand had been
too powerful for her, and he had won.
She was more at peace now than she had ever been
since that day — so soon after her second marriage —
on which she had seen the announcement of the return
of George Talboys from the gold-fields of Australia.
She might rest now, for they now knew the worst of
her. There were no new discoveries to be made. She
had flung the horrible burden of an almost unendurable
secret off her shoulders, and her selfish sensuous uature
resumed its mastery of her. She slept, peacefully nes-
tled in her downy bed, under the soft mountain of
silken coverlet, and in the sombre shade of the green
velvet curtains. She had ordered her maid to sleep on
a low couch in the same room„ and she had also
ordered that a lamp should be kept burning all night.


206
LADY ACDLEy's SECRET.
Not that I think she had any fear of shadowy
visitations in the still hours of the night. She was too
thoroughly selfish to care very much for anything that
could not hurt her; and she had never heard of a ghost
doing any actual and palpable harm. She had feared
Robert Audley, but she feared him no longer. He had
done his worst; she knew that he could do no more
without bringing everlasting disgrace upon the name
he venerated.
"They'll put me away somewhere, I suppose,"
my lady thought, "that is the worst they can do
for me."
She looked upon herself as a species of state pri-
soner, who would have to be taken good care of. A
second Iron Mask who must be provided for in some
comfortable place of confinement. She abandoned her-
self to a dull indifference. She had lived a hundred
lives within the space of the last few days of her ex-
istence, and she had worn out her capacity for suffer
ing; for a time at least.
She took a cup of strong green tea, and a few
delicate fragments of toast the next morning with the
same air of quiet relish common to condemned crea-
tures who eat their last meal, while the gaolers look
on to see that they do not bite fragments off the
crockery, or swallow the tea-spoon, or do any other
violent act tending to the evasion of Mr. Jack Ketch.
She ate her breakfast, and took her morning bath, and
emerged, with perfumed hair, and in the most ex-
quisitely careless of morning toilets, from her luxurious


dr. mosgrave's adv1ce.
207
dressing-room. She looked round at all the costly ap-
pointments of the room with a yearning lingering gaze
before she turned to leave it; but there was not one
tender recollection in her mind of the man who had
caused the furnishing of the chamber, and who in every
precious toy that was scattered about in the reckless
profusion of magnificence, had laid before her a mute
evidence of his love. My lady was thinking how much
the things had cost, and how painfully probable it was
that the luxurious apartment would soon pass out of
her possession.
She looked at herself in the cheval-glass before she
left the room. A long night's rest had brought back
the delicate rose-tints of her complexion, and the
natural lustre of her blue eyes. That unnatural light
which had burned so fearfully the day before had gone,
and my lady smiled triumphantly as she contemplated
the reflection of her beauty. The days were gone in
which her enemies could have branded her with white-
hot irons, and burned away the loveliness which had
done such mischief. Whatever they did to her, they
must leave her her beauty, she thought. At the worst
they were powerless to rob her of that.
The March day was bright and sunny, with a
cheerless sunshine certainly. My lady wrapped her-
self in an Indian shawl; a shawl that had cost Sir
Michael a hundred guineas. I think she had an idea
that it would be well to wear this costly garment; so
that if hustled suddenly away, she might carry at least
one of her possessions with her. Remember how much


Dn mosgravb's advice.
209
other people, and who had parted with his own indi-
viduality, and his own passions at the very outset of
his career.
He bowed to Robert Audley, took the opposite
seat indicated by him, and addressed his attentive face
to the young barrister. Rober saw that the physician's
glance for a moment lost its quiet look of attention,
and became earnest and searching.
"He is wondering whether I am the patient,"
thought Mr. Audley, "and is looking for the diagnoses
of madness in my face."
Dr. Mosgrave spoke as if in answer to this
thought.
"It is not about your own — health — that you
wish to consult me?" he said interrogatively.
"Oh, no!"
Dr. Mosgrave looked at his watch, a fifty guinea
Benson-made chronometer, which he carried loose in
his waistcoat pocket as carelessly as if it had been a
potato.
"I need not remind you that ray time is precious,"
he said, "your telegram informed me that my services
were required in a case of — danger — as I apprehend,
or I should not be here this morning."
Robert Audley had sat looking gloomily at the
fire, wondering how he should begin the conversation,
and had needed this reminder of the physician's pre-
sence.
"You are very good, Dr. Mosgrave," he said,
rousing himself by an effort, "and I thank you very
Uul<l Autlley't Secret. II. 14


210
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
much for having responded to my summons. I am
about to appeal to you upon a subject which is more
painful to me than words can describe. I am about
to implore your advice in a most difficult case, and I
trust, almost blindly, to your experience to rescue me,
and others who are very dear to me, from a cruel and
complicated position."
The business-like attention in Dr. Mosgrave's face
grew into a look of interest as he listened to Robert
Audley.
"The revelation made by the patient to the phy-
sician is I believe as sacred as the confession of a
penitent to his priest?" Robert asked gravely.
"Quite as sacred."
"A solemn confidence, to be violated under no cir-
cumstances?"
"Most certainly."
Robert Audley looked at the fire again. How much
should he tell, or how little, of the dark history of his
uncle's second wife.
"I have been given to understand, Dr. Mosgrave,
that you have devoted much of your attention to the
treatment of insanity."
"Yes, my practice is almost confined to the treat-
ment of mental diseases."
"Such being the case, I think I may venture to
conclude that you sometimes receive strange, and even
terrible revelations."
Dr. Mosgrave bowed.
He looked like a man who could have carried,


212
LADY AOTLEy's SECRET.
"No I do not think there is anything more that
need be told," Robert answered, rather evasively.
"You would wish to prove that this lady is mad,
and therefore irresponsible for her actions, Mr. Audley?"
said the physician.
Robert Audley stared wondering at the mad doctor.
By what process had he so rapidly arrived at the young
man's secret desire.
"Yes, I would rather, if possible, think her mad.
I should be glad to find that excuse for her."
"And to save the esclandre of a Chancery suit, I
suppose, Mr. Audley," said Dr. Mosgrave.
Robert shuddered, as he bowed an assent to this
remark. It was something worse than a Chancery suit
that he dreaded, with a horrible fear. It was a trial
for murder that so long had haunted his dreams. How
often he had awoke in an agony of shame from a
vision of a crowded court-house, and his uncle's wife,
in a criminal dock, hemmed in on every side by a sea
of eager faces.
"I fear that I shall not be of any use to you," the
physician said quietly, "I will see the lady if you
please, but I do not believe that she is mad."
"Why not?"
"Because there is no evidence of madness in
anything that she has done. She ran away from her
home, because her home was not a pleasant one, and
she left it in the hope of finding a better. There is
no madness in that. She committed the crime of
bigamy, because by that crime she obtained fortune


DR. MOSGRAVUS ADVICE.
213
and position. There is no madness there. When she
found herself in a desperate position, she did not grow
desperate. She employed intelligent means, and she
carried out a conspiracy which required coolness and
deliberation in its execution. There is no madness in
that."
"But the taints of hereditary insanity—"
"May descend to the third generation and appear
in the lady's children, if she have any. Madness is
not necessarily transmitted from mother to daughter.
I should be glad to help you, if I could, Mr. Audley,
but I do not think there is any proof of insanity in
the story you have told me. I do not think any jury
in England would accept the plea of insanity in such
a case as this. The best thing that you can do with
this lady is to send her back to her first husband; if
he will have her."
Robert started at this sudden mention of his friend.
"Her first husband is dead —" he answered, "at least
ho has been missing for some time — and I have
reason to believe that he is dead."
Dr. Mosgrave saw the startled movement, and heard
the embarrassment in Robert Audley's voice as he
spoke of George Talboys.
"The lady's first husband is missing," he said,
with a strange emphasis on the word — "you think
that he is dead."
He paused for a few moments and looked at the
fire, as Robert had looked before.
"Mr. Audley," he said presently, "there must be


214
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
no half-confidences between us. You have not told
me all."
Robert, looking up suddenly, plainly expressed in
his face the surprise he felt at these words.
"I should be very poorly able to meet the con-
tingencies of my professional experience," said Dr.
Mosgrave, "if I could not perceive where confidence
ends and reservation begins. Yon have only told me
half this lady's story, Mr. Audley. You must tell me
more before I can offer you any advice. What has
become of the first husband?"
He asked this question in a decisive tone. As if
he knew it to be the key-stone of an arch.
"I have already told you, Dr. Mosgrave, that I
do not know."
"Yes," answered the physician, "but your face has
told me what you would have withheld from me; it
has told me that you suspect!"
Robert Audley was silent.
"If I am to be of use to you, yon must trust me,
Mr. Audley," said the physician. "The first husband
disappeared — how and when? I want to know the
history of his disappearance."
Robert paused for some time before he replied to
this speech; but by and by, he lifted his head, which
had been bent in an attitude of earnest thought, and
addressed the physician.
"I will trust you, Dr. Mosgrave," he said, "I will
confide entirely in your honour and goodness. I do
not ask you to do any wrong to society; but I ask


DR. MOSORAVE'S ADVICE.
215
you to save our stainless name from degradation and
shame, if you can do so conscientiously."
He told the story of George's disappearance, and
of his own doubts and fears, heaven knows how
reluctantly.
Dr. Mosgrave listened as quietly as he had listened
before. Robert concluded with an earnest appeal to
the physician's best feelings. He implored him to
spare the generous old man, whose fatal confidence in
a wicked woman had brought such misery upon his
declining years.
It was impossible to draw any conclusion either
favourable or otherwise from Dr. Mosgrave's attentive
face. He rose when Robert had finished speaking, and
looked at his watch once more.
"I can only spare you twenty minutes," he said,
"I will see the lady if you please. You say her mother
died in a mad-house."
"She did. Will you see Lady Audley alone?"
"Yes, alone if you please."
Robert rang for my lady's maid, and under convoy
of that smart young damsel the physician found his
way to the octagon ante-chamber, and the fairy boudoir
with which it communicated.
Ten minutes afterwards he returned to the library
in which Robert sat waiting for him.
"I have talked to the lady," he said quietly, "and
we understand each other very well. There is latent
insanity! Insanity which might never appear; or which
might appear only once or twice in a life-time. It


dr. mosgrave's adv1ce.
217
might be saved by my doing so. But I do not see
adequate reason for your suspicions; and I will do my
best to help you."
Robert Audley grasped the physician's hands in
both his own.
"I will thank you when I am better able to do so,"
he said, with emotion, "I will thank you in my uncle's
name as well as in my own."
"I have only fivo minutes more, and I have a letter
to write," said Dr. Mosgrave, smiling at the young
man's energy.
He seated himself at a writing table in the window,
dipped his pen in the ink and wrote rapidly for about
seven minutes. He had filled three sides of a sheet of
note paper when he threw down his pen and folded
his letter.
He put this letter into an envelope and delivered it,
unsealed, to Robert Audley.
The address which it bore was —
Monsieur Val,
Villebrumeuse,
Belgium.
Mr. Audley looked rather doubtfully from this
address to the doctor, who was putting on his gloves
as deliberately as if his life had never known a more
solemn purpose than the proper adjustment of them.
"That letter," he said, in answer to Robert Audley's
inquiring look, "is written to my friend Monsieur Val,


218
LADY ALDLEY'S SECRET.
the proprietor and medical superintendent of a very
excellent inaiion de sante in the town of Villebrumeuse.
We have known each other for many years, and he
will no doubt willingly receive Lady Audley into his
establishment, and charge himself with the full re-
sponsibility of her future life; it will not be a very
eventful one!"
Robert Audley would have spoken, he would have
once more expressed his gratitude for the help which
had been given to him, but Dr. Mosgrave checked him
with an authoritative gesture.
"From the moment in which Lady Audley enters
that house," he said, "her life, so far as life is made
up of action and variety, will be finished. Whatever
secrets she may have will be secrets of ever! Whatever
crimes she may have committed she will be able to
commit no more. If you were to dig a grave for her
in the nearest churchyard and bury her alive in it,
you could not more safely shut her from the world
aud all worldly associations. But as a physiologist
and as an honest man I believe you could do no
better service to society than by doing this; for physi-
ology is a lie if the woman I saw ten minutes ago is
a woman to be trusted at large. If she could have
sprung at my throat and strangled me with her little
hands, as I sat talking to her just now, she would have
done it."
"She suspected your purpose, then!"
"She knew it. 'You think I am mad like my
.


DR. MOSORAVE's ADVICE.
219
mother, and you have come to question me,' she said.
'You are watching for some sign of the dreadful taint
in my blood.' Good day to you, Mr. Audley," the
physician added hurriedly, "my time was up ten
minutes ago, it is as much as I shall do to catch the
train."


222
ladv Dudley's secret.
She bad secreted jewelled and golden drinking cupa
amongst her delicate linen. She would have taken the
pictures from the walls, and the Gobelin tapestry from
the chairs, had it been possible for her to do so. She
had taken all she could, and she accompanied Mr.
Audley with a sulky submission, that was the des-
pondent obedience of despair.
Robert Audley paced the deck of the steamer as
the Dover clocks were striking twelve, and the town
glimmered like a luminous crescent across the widening
darkness of the sea. The vessel flew swiftly through
the rolling waters towards the friendly Gallic shore,
and Mr. Audley sighed a long sigh of relief as he re-
membered how soon his work would be done. He
thought of the wretched creature lying forlorn and
friendless in the cabin below. But when he pitied her
most, and he could not but sometimes pity her for her
womanhood and her helplessness, his friend's face came
back upon him, bright and hopeful as he had seen it
only on that first day of George's return from the
Antipodes, and with that memory there returned his
horror of the shameful lie that had broken the hus-
band's heart.
"Can I ever forget it?" he thought; "can I ever
forget his blank white face as he sat opposite to me at
the coffee-house, with the Times newspaper in his hand?
There are some crimes that can never be atoned for,
and this is one of them. If I could bring George
Talboys to life to-morrow, I could never heal that hor-


BURIED ALIVE.
223
riblc heart-wound; I could never make him the man
he was before he read that printed lie."
It was late in the afternoon of the next day when
the diligence bumped and rattled over the uneven
paving of the principal street in Villebrumeuse. The
old ecclesiastical town, always dull and dreary, seemed
more than ordinarily dreary under the grey evening
sky. The twinkling lamps, lighted early, and glim-
mering feebly, long distances apart, made the place
seem darker rather than lighter, as glow-worms intensify
the blackness of a hedge by their shining presence.
The remote Belgian city was a forgotten, old world
place, and bore the dreary evidence of decay upon
every facade in the narrow streets, on every dilapidated
roof, and feeble pile of chimneys. It was difficult to
imagine for what reason the opposite rows of houses
had been built so close together as to cause the
lumbering diligence to brush the foot passengers off the
wretched trottoir, unless they took good care to scrape
the shop windows with their garments, for there was
building room enough and to spare upon the broad ex-
panse of flat country that lay behind the old city.
Hypercritical travellers might have wondered why the
narrowest and most uncomfortable streets were the
busiest and most prosperous, while the nobler and
broader thoroughfares were empty and deserted. But
Robert Audley thought of none of these things. He
sat in a corner of the mouldy carriage, watching my
lady in the opposite corner, and wondering what the


224
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
face was like that was so carefully hidden beneath her
veil.
They had had the coupe of the diligence to them-
selves for the whole of the journey, for there were not
many travellers between Brussels and Villebrumeuse,
and the public conveyance was supported by the force
of tradition rather than by any great profit attaching
to it as a speculation.
My lady had not spoken during the journey, except
to decline some refreshments which Robert had offered
her at a halting-place upon the road. Her heart sank
when they left Brussels behind, for she had hoped that
city might have been the end of her journey, and she
had turned with a feeling of sickness and despair from
the dull Belgian landscape.
She looked up at last as the vehicle jolted into a
great stony quadrangle, which had been the approach
to a monastery once, but which was now the courtyard
of a dismal hotel, in whose cellars legions of rats
.skirmished and squeaked even while the broad sunshine
was bright in the chambers above.
Lady Audley shuddered as she alighted from the
diligence, and found herself in that dreary courtyard.
Robert was surrounded by chattering porters, who
clamoured for his "baggages," and disputed amongst
themselves as to the hotel at which he was to rest.
Ono of these men ran away to fetch a hackney-coach
at Mr. Audley's behest, and reappeared presently,
urging on a pair of horses which were so small as
to suggest the idea that they had been made out of one


BURIED ALIVE.
225
ordinary-sized animal — with wild shrieks and whoops
that had a demoniac sound in the darkness.
Mr. Audley left my lady in a dreary coffee-room in
the care of a drowsy attendant while he drove away to
some distant part of the quiet city. There was official
business to be gone through before Sir Michael's wife
could be quietly put away in the place suggested by
Dr. Mosgrave. Robert had to see all manner of im-
portant personages; and to take numerous oaths; and
to exhibit the English physician's letter; and to go
through much ceremony of signing and countersigning,
before he could take his lost friend's cruel wife to the
home which was to be her last upon earth. Upwards
of two hours elapsed before all this was arranged and
the young man was free to return to the hotel, where
he found his charge staring absently at a pair of wax
candles, with a cup of untested coffee standing cold
and stagnant before her.
Robert hauded my lady into the hired vehicle, and
took his seat opposite to her once more.
"Where are you going to take me?" she asked, at
last. "I am tired of being treated like some naughty
child, who is put into a dark cellar as a punishment
for its offences. Where are you taking me?"
"To a place in which you will have ample leisure
to repent the past, Mrs. Talboys," Robert answered,
gravely.
They had left the paved streets behind them, and
had emerged out of a great gaunt square, in which
there appeared to be about half a dozen cathedrals,
Lai) AuMey't Secret. H. 15


BURIED ALIVE.
227
the wintry sky, looked up at these casements with an
earnest and scrutinising gaze. One of the windows
was shrouded by a scanty curtain of faded red; and
upon this curtain there went and came a dark shadow,
the shadow of a woman with a fantastic head-dress,
the shadow of a restless creature, who paced perpetu-
ally backwards and forwards before the window.
Sir Michael Audley's wicked wife laid her hand
suddenly upon Robert's arm, and pointed with the other
hand to this curtained window.
"I know where you have brought me," she said.
"This is a Mad-House."
Mr. Audley did not answer her. He had been
standing at the door of the coach when she addressed
him, and he quietly assisted her to alight, and led her
up a couple of shallow stone-steps, and into the en-
trance-hall of the mansion. He handed Doctor Mos-
grave's letter to a neatly-dressed, cheerful-looking,
middle-aged woman, who came tripping out of a little
chamber which opened out of the hall, and was very
much like the bureau of an hotel. This person smil-
ingly welcomed Robert and his charge; and after dis-
patching a servant with the letter, invited them into
her pleasant little apartment, which was gaily furnished
with bright amber curtains and heated by a tiny stove.
"Madame finds herself very much fatigued," the
Frenchwoman said, interrogatively, with a look of in-
tense sympathy, as she placed an arm-chair for my
lady.
"Madame" shrugged her shoulders wearily, and
15*


228
LADY ABDLEy's SECRET.
looked round the little chamber with a sharp glance of
scrutiny that betokened no very great favour.
"What is this place, Robert Audley?" she cried
fiercely. "Do you think I am a baby, that you may
juggle with and deceive me — what is it? It is
what I said just now, is it not?"
"It is a maison de sante, my lady," the young man
answered gravely. "I have no wish to juggle with or
to deceive you."
My lady paused for a few moments, looking reflect-
ively at Eobert
.
"A maison de sante" she repeated. "Yes, they
manage these things better in France. In England
we should call it a mad-house. This is a house for
mad people, this, is it not, Madame?" she said, in
French, turning upon the woman, and tapping the
polished floor with her foot.
"Ah, but no, Madame," the woman answered, with
a shrill scream of protest. "It is an establishment of
the most agreeable, where one amuses oneself—"
She was interrupted by the entrance of the princi-
pal of this agreeable establishment, who came beaming
into the room with a radiant smile illuminating his
countenance, and with Dr. Mosgrave's letter open in
his hand.
It was impossible for him to say how enchanted he
was to make the acquaintance of M'sieu. There was
nothing upon earth which he was not ready to do for
M'sieu in his own person, and nothing under heaven
which he would not strive to accomplish for him, as


BURIED ALIVE.
229
the friend of his acquaintance, so very much distin-
guished, the English doctor. Dr. Mosgrave's letter had
given him a brief synopsis of the case, he informed
Robert, in an undertone, and he was quite prepared to
undertake the care of the charming and very interest-
ing Madame — Madame —
He rubbed his hands politely, and looked at Ro-
bert. Mr. Audley remembered, for the first time, that
he had been recommended to introduce his wretched
charge under a feigned name.
He affected not to hear the proprietor's question.
It might seem a very easy matter to have hit upon a
heap of names, any one of which would have answered
his purpose; but Mr. Audley appeared suddenly to
have forgotten that he had ever heard any mortal ap-
pellation except that of himself and his lost friend.
Perhaps the proprietor perceived and understood
his embarrassment. He at any rate relieved it by
turning to the woman who had received them, and
muttering something about No. 14, Bis. The woman
took a key from a long range of others that hung over
the mantelpiece, and a wax candle from a bracket in
a corner of the room, and having lighted the candle,
led the way across the stone-paved hall, and up a
broad slippery staircase of polished wood.
The English physician had informed his Belgian
colleague that money would be of minor consequence
iu any arrangements made for the comfort of the Eng-
lish lady who was to be committed to his care. Acting
upon this hint, Monsieur Val opened the outer door of


230
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
a stately suite of apartments, which included a lobby,
paved with alternate diamonds of black and white
marble, but of a dismal and cellarlike darkness; a
saloon furnished with gloomy velvet draperies, and
with a certain funeral splendour which is not peculiarly
conducive to the elevation of the spirits; and a bed-
chamber, containing a bed so wondrously made, as to
appear to have no opening whatever in its coverings,
unless the counterpane had been split asunder with a
penknife.
My lady stared dismally round at the range of
rooms, which looked dreary enough in the wan light
of a single wax candle. This solitary flame, pale and
ghostlike in itself, was multiplied by paler phantoms
of its ghostliness, which glimmered everywhere about
the rooms; in the shadowy depths of the polished
floors and wainscot, or the window panes, in the
looking-glasses, or in those great expanses of glimmer-
ing something which adorned the rooms, and which
my lady mistook for costly mirrors, but which were iu
reality wretched mockeries of burnished tin.
Amid all the faded splendour of shabby velvet,
and tarnished gilding, and polished wood, the woman
dropped into an arm-chair, and covered her face with
her hands. The whiteness of them, and the starry
light of diamonds trembling about them glittered in
the dimly-lighted chamber. She sat silent, motionless,
despairing, sullen, and angry, while Robert and the
French doctor retired into an outer chamber, and
talked together in undertoues. Mr. Audley had very


BUTUED ALIVE.
231
little to say that had not been already said for Mm,
with a far better grace than he himself could have
oxpressed it, by the English physician. He had, after
great trouble of mind, hit upon the name of Taylor,
as a safe and simple substitute for that other name to
which alone my lady had a right. He told the French-
man that this Mrs. Taylor was distantly related to
him — that she had inherited the seeds of madness
from her mother, as indeed Dr. Mosgrave had informed
Monsieur Val, and that she had shown some fearful
tokens of the lurking taint that was latent in her
mind; but that she was not to be called "mad." He
begged that she might be treated with all tenderness
and compassion; that she might receive all reasonable
indulgences; but he impressed upon Monsieur Val, that
under no circumstances was she to be permitted to
leave the house and grounds without the protection of
some reliable person, who should be answerable for her
safe keeping. He had only one other point to urge,
and that was that Monsieur Val, who, as he had
understood, was himself a Protestant — the doctor
bowed — would make arrangements with some kind
and benevolent Protestant clergyman, through whom
spiritual advice and consolation might be secured for
the invalid lady; who had especial need, Robert added,
gravely, of such advantages.
This — with all necessary arrangements as to
pecuniary matters, which were to be settled from time
to time between Mr. Audley and the doctor, unassisted
by any agents whatever — was the extent of the con-


232
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
vcrsation between the two men, and occupied about a
quarter of an hour. My lady sat in the same attitude
when they re-entered the bedchamber in which they
had left her, with her ringed hands still clasped over
her face.
Robert bent over her to whisper in her ear.
"Your name is Madame Taylor here," he said.
"I do not think you would wish to be known by your
real name."
She only shook her head in answer to him, and
did not even remove her hands from over h«r face.
"Madame will have an attendant entirely devoted
to her service," said Monsieur Val. "Madame will
have all her wishes obeyed; her reasonable wishes, but
that goes without saying," Monsieur adds, with a
quaint shrug. "Every effort will be made to render
Madame's sojourn at Villebrumeuse agreeable, and as
much profitable as agreeable. The inmates dine to-
gether when it is wished. I dine with the inmates,
sometimes; my subordinate, a clever and a worthy
man, always. I reside with my wife and children in
a little pavilion in the grounds; my subordinate resides
in the establishment. Madame may rely upon our
utmost efforts being exerted to ensure her comfort."
Monsieur is saying a great deal more to the same
effect, rubbing his hands and beaming radiantly upon
Robert and his charge, when Madame rises suddenly,
erect and furious, and dropping her jewelled fingers
from before her face, tells him to hold his tongue.


BURIED ALIVB.
233
"Leave me alone with the man who has brought me
here," she cried between her set teeth. "Leave me!"
She points to the door with a sharp imperious
gesture; so rapid that the silken drapery about her
arm makes a swooping sound as she lifts her hand.
The sibillant French syllables hiss through her teeth
as she utters them, and seem better fitted to her mood
and to herself than the familiar English she has spoken
hitherto.
The French doctor shrugs his shoulders as he goes
out into the dark lobby, and mutters something about
a "beautiful devil," and a gesture worthy of "the
Mars." My lady walked with a rapid footstep to the
door between the bedchamber and the saloon; closed
it, and with the handle of the door still in her hand,
turned and looked at Robert Audley.
"You have brought me to my grave, Mr. Audley,"
she cried; "you have used your power basely and
cruelly, and have brought me to a living grave."
"I have done that which I thought just to others
and merciful to you," Robert answered, quietly; "I
should have been a traitor to society had I suffered
you to remain at liberty after — after the disappear-
ance of George Talboys and the fire at the Castle Inn.
I have brought you to a place in which you will be
kindly treated by people who have no knowledge of
your story — no power to taunt or to reproach you.
You will lead a quiet and peaceful life, my lady, such
a life as many a good and holy woman in this catholic
country freely takes upon herself, and happily endures


234
LADY AITDLEy's SECRET.
unto the end. The solitude of your existence in this
place will be no greater than that of a king's daughter,
who, flying from the evil of the time, was glad to take
shelter in a house as tranquil as this. Surely it is a
small atonement which I ask you to render for your
sins, a light penance which I call upon you to per-
form. Live here and repent; nobody will assail you,
nobody will torment you. I only say to you, repent!"
"I cannot!" cried my lady, pushing her hair
fiercely from her white forehead, and fixing her dilated
eyes upon Robert Audley, "I cannot! Has my beauty
brought me to this? Have I plotted and schemed to
shield myself, and laid awake in the long deadly
nights trembling to think of my dangers, for this?
I had better have given up at once, since this was to
be the end. I had better have yielded to the curse
that was upon me, and given up when George Talboys
first came back to England."
She plucked at the feathery golden curls as if she
would have torn them from her head. It had served
her so little after all, that gloriously glittering hair;
that beautiful nimbus of yellow light that had con-
trasted so exquisitely with the melting azure of her
eyes. She hated herself and her beauty.
"I would laugh at you and defy you if I dared,"
she cried; "I would kill myself and defy you if I
dared. But I am a poor, pitiful coward, and have
been so from the first. Afraid of my mother's horrible
inheritance; afraid of poverty; afraid of George Tal-
boys; afraid of you."


236
LADY AUDLKY's SECRET.
sooner than abandon the wealth and the position I had
won, and go back to my old life. He came, and he
reproached me for the conspiracy at Ventnor. He de-
clared that so long as he lived he would never forgive
me for the lie that had broken his heart. He told me
that I had plucked his heart out of his breast and
trampled upon it; and that he had now no heart in
which to feel one sentiment of mercy for me. That
he would have forgiven me any wrong upon earth,
but that one deliberate and passionless wrong that I
had done him. He said this and a great deal more,
and he told me that no power on earth should turn
him from his purpose, which was to take me to the
man I had deceived, and make me tell my wicked
story. He did not know the hidden taint that I had
sucked in with my mother's milk. He did not know
that it was possible to drive me mad. He goaded me
as you have goaded me; he was as merciless as you
havo been merciless. We were in the shrubbery at
the end of the lime-walk. I was seated npon the
broken masonry at the mouth of the well. Georgo
Talboys was leaning upon the disused windlass, in
which the rusty iron splindle rattled loosely whenever
he shifted his position. I rose at last, and turned
upon him to defy him, as I had determined to defy
him at the worst. I told him that if he denounced me
to Sir Michael, I would declare him to be a madman
or a liar, and I defied him to convince the man who
loved me — blindly as I told him — that he had any
claim to me. I was going to leave him after having


BURIED ALIVE.
237
told him this, when he canght me by the wrist and
detained me by force. Tou saw the bruises that his
fingers made upon my wrist and noticed them, and
did not believe the account I gave of them. I could
see that, Mr. Robert Audley, and I saw that you were
a person I should have to fear."
She paused, as if she had expected Robert to
speak; but he stood silent and motionless waiting for
the end.
"George Talboys treated me as you treated me,"
she said presently. "He swore that if there was but
one witness of my identity, and that witness was re-
moved from Audley Court by the width of the whole
earth, he would bring him there to swear to my iden-
tity, and to denounce me. It was then that I was
mad. It was then that I drew the loose iron spindle
from the shrunken wood, and saw my first husband
sink with one horrible cry into the black mouth of the
well. There is a legend of its enormous depth. I do
not know how deep it is. It is dry, I suppose; for I
heard no splash; only a dull thud. I looked down
and I saw nothing but black emptiness. I knelt down
and listened, but the cry was not repeated, though I
waited for nearly a quarter of an hour — God knows
how long it seemed to me — by the mouth of the
well."
Robert Audley uttered no word of horror when
the story was finished. He moved a little nearer
towards the door against which Helen Talboys stood.
Had there been any other means of exit from the


208
Uli>y aodley's secret.
room, be would gladly have availed himself of it. He
shrank from even a momentary contact with this crea-
ture.
"Let me pass you, if you please," he said, in an
icy voice.
"You see I do not fear to make my confession to
you," said Helen Talboys, "for two reasons. The first
is that you dare not use it against me, because you
know it would kill your uncle to see me in a criminal
dock; the second is, that the law could pronounce no
worse senteuce than this, a life-long imprisonment in a
mad-house. You see I do not thank you for your
mercy, Mr. Robert Audley, for I know exactly what it
is worth."
She moved away from the door, and Robert passed
her, without a word, without a look.
Half an hour afterwards he was in one of the
principal hotels at Villebrumeuse, sitting at a neatly-
ordered supper-table, with no power to eat; with no
power to distract his mind, even for a moment, from
the image of that lost friend who had been treacher-
ously murdered in the thicket at Audley Court.


GnOST-TIAHNTED
239
CHAPTER XIII.
Ghost-Haunted.
No feverish sleeper travelling iu a strange dream
ever looked out more wonderingly upon a world that
seemed unreal than Robert Audley, as he stared ab-
sently at the flat swamps and dismal poplars between
Villebrumeuse and Brussels. Could it be that he was
returning to his uncle's house without the woman who
had reigned in it for nearly two years as queen and
mistress? He felt as if he had carried off my lady,
and had made away with her secretly and darkly, and
must now render up an account to Sir Michael of
the fate of that woman, whom the baronet had so
dearly loved.
"What shall I tell him," he thought; "shall I tell
the truth — the horrible ghastly truth? No; that would
be too cruel. His generous spirit would sink under
the hideous revelation. Yet, in his ignorance of the
extent of this wretched woman's wickedness, he may
think perhaps that I have been hard with her."
Brooding thus, Mr. Robert Audley absently watched
the cheerless landscape from his seat in the shabby
coupe of the diligence, and thought how great a leaf
had been torn out of his life, now that the dark story
of George Talboys was finished.
What bad he to do next? A crowd of horrible


240
I.ADY AUDLEv's SECRET.
thoughts rushed into his mind as he remembered the
story that he had heard from the white lips of Helen
Talboys. His friend — his murdered friend — lay
hidden amongst the mouldering ruins of the old well at
Audley Court. He had lain there for six long months,
unburied, unknown; hidden in the darkness of the old
convent well. What was to be done?
To institute a search for the remains of the murdered
man was to inevitably bring about a coroner's inquest
.
Should such an inquest be held, it was next to im-
possible that the history of my lady's crime could fail
to be brought to light. To prove that George Talboys
met with his death at Audley Court was to prove al-
most as surely that my lady had been the instrument
of that mysterious deatl , for the young man had been
known to follow her into the lime-walk upon the day
of his disappearance.
"My God!" Robert exclaimed, as the full horror of
this position became evident to him, "is my friend to
rest in his unhallowed burial-place because I have
condoned the offences of the woman who murdered
him?"
He felt that there was no way out of this difficulty.
Sometimes he thought that it little mattered to his
dead friend whether he lay entombed beneath a marble
monument, whose workmanship should be the wonder
of the universe, or iu that obscure hiding-place in the
thicket at Audley Court . At another time he would
be seized with a sudden horror at the wrong that had
been done to the murdered man, and would fain have


GHOST-HAUNTED.
243
had become at last far more alarmed by his patient
calmness than by any stormy manifestation of despair.
In this difficulty she had secretly called upon the phy-
sician who attended the Audley household in any cases
of serious illness, and had requested this gentleman to
pay Sir Michael an apparently accidental visit. He
had done so, and after stopping half an hour with the
baronet, had told Alicia that there was no present
danger of any serious consequence from this quiet
grief, but that it was necessary that every effort should
be made to arouse Sir Michael, and to force him, how-
ever unwillingly, into action.
Alicia had immediately acted upon this advice, had
resumed her old empire as a spoiled child, and reminded
her father of a promise he had made of taking her
through Germany. With considerable difficulty she
had induced him to consent to fulfilling this old prom-
ise, and having once gained her point, she had con-
trived that they should leave England as soon as it
was possible to do so, and she told Robert, in conclu-
sion, that she would not bring her father back to his
old house until she had taught him to forget the
sorrows associated with it.
The Baronet's letter was very brief. It contained
half a dozen blank cheques on Sir Michael Audley's
London bankers.
"You will require money, my dear Robert," he
wrote, "for such arrangements as you may think fit to
make for the future comfort of the person I committed
to your care. I need scarcely tell you that those
16*


244
LADY AUDLEY 8 SECRET.
arrangements cannot be too liberal. But perhaps it is
as well that I should tell you now, for the first and
only time, that it is my earnest wish never again to
hear that person's name. I have no wish to be told
the nature of the arrangements you may make for her.
I am sure that you will act conscientiously and merci-
fully. I seek to know no more. Whenever you want
money, you will draw upon me for any sums that you
may require; but you will have no occasion to tell me
for whose use you want that money."
Robert Audley breathed a long sigh of relief as he
folded this letter. It released him from a duty which
it would have been most painful for him to perform,
and it for ever decided his course of action with regard
to the murdered man.
George Talboys must lie at peace in his unknown
grave, and Sir Michael Audley must never learn that
the woman he had loved bore the red brand of murder
on her soul.
Robert had only the third letter to open — the
letter which he had placed in his bosom while he read
the others; he tore open the envelope, handling it care-
fully and tenderly as he had done before.
The letter was as brief as Sir Michael's. It con-
tained only these few lines: —
"Dear Mr. Audley, —
"The rector of this place has been twice to see
Marks, the man you saved in the fire at the Castle Inn.
He lies in a very precarious state at his mother's


GHOST-HAUNTED.
215
cottage, near Audley Court, and is not expected to live
many days. His wife is attending him, and both he
and she have expressed a most earnest desire that you
should see him before he dies. Pray come without
delay.
"Yours very sincerely,
"Claka Talboys.
"Mount Stanning Rectory, March 6."
Robert Audley folded this letter very reverently,
and replaced it underneath that part of his waistcoat
which might be supposed to cover the region of his
heart. Having done this, he seated himself in his
favourite arm-chair, filled and lighted a pipe, and
smoked it out, staring reflectively at the fire as long as
his tobacco lasted. The lazy light that glimmered in
his handsome grey eyes told of a dreamy reverie that
could have scarcely been either gloomy or unpleasant.
His thoughts wandered away upon the blue clouds of
hazy tobacco smoke, and carried him into a bright
region of unrealities, in which there was neither death
nor trouble, grief nor shame; only himself and Clara
Talboys in a world that was made all their own by
the great omnipotence of their loves.
It was not till the last shred of pale Turkish
tobacco had been consumed, and the grey ashes
knocked out upon the topmost bar of the grate, that
this pleasant dream floated off into the great storehouse
in which the visions of things that never have been
and never are to be, are kept locked and guarded by


216
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
some stern enchanter, who only turns the keys now
and then and opens the door of his treasure-house a
little way for the brief delight of mankind. But the
dream fled, and the heavy burden of dismal realities
fell again upon Robert's shoulders, more tenacious than
any old man of the sea. "What can that man Marks
want with me?" thought the barrister. "He is afraid
to die until he has made a confession, perhaps. He
wishes to tell me that which I know already, — the
story of my lady's crime. I knew that he was in the
secret. I was sure of it even upon the night on which
I first saw him. He knew the secret, and he traded
on it."
Robert Audley shrank strangely from returning to
Essex. How should he meet Clara Talboys now that
he knew the secret of her brother's fate. How many
lies he should have to tell, or how much equivocation
he must use in order to keep the truth from her. Yet
would there be any mercy in telling her that horrible
story, the knowledge of which must cast a blight upon
her youth, and blot out every hope she had ever
secretly cherished. He knew by his own experience
how possible it was to hope against hope, and to hope
unconsciously; and he could not bear that her heart
should be crushed as his had been by the knowledge
of the truth. "Better that she should hope vainly to
the last," he thought; "better that she should go
through life seeking the clue to her lost brother's fate,
than that I should give that clue into her hands and
say, 'Our worst fears are realised. The brother you


GHOST-HAUNTED.
217
loved has been foully murdered in the early promise
of his youth.'"
But Clara Talboys had written to him imploring
him to return to Essex without delay. Could he refuse
to do her bidding, however painful its accomplishment
might be. And again, the man was dying, perhaps,
and had implored to see him. Would it not be cruel
to refuse to go, to delay an hour unnecessarily? He
looked at his watch. It wanted only five minutes to
nine. There was no train to Audley after the Ipswich
mail, which left London at half-past eight; but there
was a train that left Shoreditch at eleven, and stopped
at Brentwood between twelve and one. Robert decided
upon going by this train, and walking the distance
between Brentwood and Audley, which was upwards
of six miles.
He had a long time to wait before it would be
necessary to leave the Temple on his way to Shoreditch,
and he sat brooding darkly over the fire and wondering
at the strange events which had filled his life within
the last year and a half, coming like angry shadowy
between his lazy inclinations and himself, and investing
him with purposes that were not his own.
"Good heavens!" he thought, as ho smoked his
second pipe, "how can I believe that it was I who
used to lounge all day in this easy chair reading Paul
de Kock, and smoking mild Turkish, who used to drop
in at half-price to stand amongst the press men at the
back of the boxes, and see a new burlesque, and finish
the evening with the "Chough and Crow," and chops


248
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
and pale ale at Evans's. Was it I to whom life was
such an easy merry-go-round? Was it I who was
one of the boys who sit at ease upon the wooden horses,
while other boys run barefoot in the mud, and work
their hardest in the hope of a ride when their work is
done? Heaven knows I have learnt the business of
life since then; and now I must needs fall in love and
swell the tragic chorus which is always being sung by
the poor addition of my pitiful sighs and groans.
Clara Talboys! Clara Talboys! Is there any merciful
smile latent beneath the earnest light of your brown
eyes. What would you say to me if I told you that I
love you as earnestly and truly as I have mourned for
your brother's fate — that the new strength and pur-
pose of my life which has grown out of my friendship
for the murdered man grows even stronger as it turns
to you, and changes me until I wonder at myself.
What would she say to me? Ah I Heaven knows. If
she happened to like the colour of my hair, or the tone
of my voice, she might listen to me, perhaps. But
would she hear me any more because I love her truly
and purely; because I would be constant, and honest,
and faithful to her? Not she! These things might
move her, perhaps, to be a little pitiful to me; but they
would move her no more! If a girl with freckles and
white eyelashes adored me, I should only think her a
nuisance; but if Clara Talboys had a fancy to trample
upon my uncouth person I should think she did me a
favour. I hope poor little Alicia may pick up with
some fair-haired Saxon in the course of her travels. I


GHOST-HAUNTED.
251
officer, stained with vile associations, and unfit company
for honest gentlemen. He had drawn himself away
from all familiar haunts, and had shut himself in his
lonely rooms with the perpetual trouble of his mind for
his sole companion, until he had grown as nervous as
habitual solitude will eventually make the strongest
and the wisest man, however he may vaunt himself of
his strength and wisdom.
The clock of the Temple Church and the clocks
of St. Dunstan's, St. Clement's Danes, and a crowd of
other churches, whose steeples uprear themselves above
the house-tops by the river, struck ten at last, and Mr.
Audley, who had put on his hat and overcoat nearly
half an hour before, let himself out of the little lobby,
and locked his door behind him. He mentally re-
iterated his determination to engage "Parthrick," as
Mrs. Malony's eldest son was called by his devoted
mother. The youth should enter upon his functions
the very next night after, and if the ghost of hapless
George Talboys should invade these gloomy apart-
ments, the phantom must make its way across Patrick's
body before it could reach the inner chamber in which
the proprietor of the premises slept.
Do not laugh at poor Eobert because he grew hypo-
chondriacal, after hearing the horrible story of his
friend's death. There is nothing so delicate, so fragile,
as that invisiblo balance upon which the mind is always
trembling. Mad to-day and sane to-morrow.
Who can forget that almost terrible picture of Dr.
Samuel Johnson? The awful disputant of the club-


252
LADY AUDREY'S SECRET.
room, solemn, ponderous, severe, and merciless, the
admiration and the terror of humble Bozzy, the stern
monitor of gentle Oliver, the friend of Garrick and
Reynolds to-night: and before sunset to-morrow a weak
miserable old man, discovered by good Mr. and Mrs.
Thrale, kneeling upon the floor of his lonely chamber,
in an agony of childish terror and confusion, and
praying to a merciful God for the preservation of his
wits. I think the memory of that dreadful afternoon,
and of the tender care he then received, should have
taught the doctor to keep his band steady at Streatham,
when he took his bed-room candlestick, from which it
was his habit to shower rivulets of molten wax upon
the costly carpet of his beautiful protectress; and might
have even had a more enduring effect, and taught him
to be merciful, when the brewer's widow went mad in
her turn, and married that dreadful creature, the Italian
singer. Who has not been, or is not to be, mad in
some lonely hour of life? Who is quite safe from the
trembling of the balance?
Fleet Street was quiet and lonely at this late hour,
and Robert Audley being in a ghost-seeing mood would
have been scarcely astonished had he seen Johnson's
set come roystering westward in the lamp-light, or
blind John Milton groping his way down the steps be-
fore Saint Bride's church.
Mr. Audley hailed a Hansom at the corner of
Farringdon Street, and was rattled rapidly away across
tenantlcss Smithfield market, and into a labyrinth of


256
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
to go away, after having had no better satisfaction
than such cold comfort as was to be obtained from a
long lingering contemplation of the house that sheltered
the one woman before whose invincible power the im-
pregnable fortress of his heart had surrendered. Only
a heap of blackened ruins stood upon the spot on which
the Castle Inn had once done battle with the winds of
Heaven. The cold night breezes had their way with
the few fragments that the fire had left, and whirled
them hither and thither as they would, scattering a
shower of dust and cinders and crumbling morsels of
charred wood upon Robert Audley as he passed.
It was half-past one o'clock when ithe night wan-
derer entered the village of Audley, and it was only
there that he remembered that Clara Talboys had
omitted to give him any direction by which he mijht
find the cottage in which Luke Marks lay.
"It was Dawson who recommended that the poor
creature should be taken to his mother's cottage,"
Robert thought, by-and-by, "and I dare say, Dawson
has attended him ever since the fire. He'll be able to
tell me the way to the cottage."
Acting upon this idea, Mr. Audley stopped at the
house in which Helen Talboys had lived before her
second marriage. The door of-the little surgery was
ajar, and there was a light burning within. Robert
pushed the door open and peeped in. The surgeon
was standing at the mahogany counter, mixing a
draught in a glass measure, with his hat close beside


25b
LAOY AUDLElf's SJSCBET.
rough and boorish as the poor fellow is, he thinks a
good deal of that."
They had left the surgery, the door of which Mr.
Dawson had locked behind him. There was money in
the till, perhaps, for surely the village apothecary could
not have feared that the most daring housebreaker
would imperil his liberty in the pursuit of blue pill
and colocynth, or salts and senna.
The surgeon led the way along the silent street,
and presently turned into a lane at the end of which
Robert Audley saw the wan glimmer of a light . A
light which told of the watch that is kept by the sick
and dying; a pale, melancholy light, which always has
a dismal aspect when looked upon in this silent hour
betwixt night and morning. It shone from the window
of the cottage in which Luke Marks lay, watched by
his wife and mother.
Mr. Dawson lifted the latch, and walked into the
common room of the little tenement, followed by Robert
Audley. It was empty, but a feeble tallow candle,
with a broken back and a long, cauliflower-headed
wick sputtered upon the table. The sick man lay Ln
the room above.
"Shall I tell him you are here?" asked Mr.
Dawson.
"Yes, yes, if you please. But be cautious how
you tell him, if you think the news likely to agitate
him. I am in no hurry. I can wait. You can call
me when you think I can safely come up-stairs."
The surgeon nodded, and softly ascended the narrow


260
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
staircase to tell him that Luke Marks was awake and
would be glad to see him.
Robert immediately obeyed this summons. He crept
softly up the stairs and took off his hat before he bent
his head to enter at the low doorway of the humble
rustic chamber. He took off his hat in the presence of
this common peasantman because he knew that there
was another and a more awful presenco hovering about
the room, and eager to be admitted.
Phoebe Marks was sitting at the foot of the bed,
with her eyes fixed upon her husband's face. Not with
any very tender expression in their pale light, but with
a sharp, terrified anxiety, which showed that it was
the coming of death itself that she dreaded, rather than
the loss of her husband. The old woman was busy at
the fire-place, airing linen, and preparing some mess
of broth which it was not likely the patient would ever
eat. The sick man lay with his head propped up by
pillows, his coarse face deadly pale, and his great
hands wandering uneasily about the coverlet. Phoebe
had been reading to him, for an open Testament lay
amongst the medicine and lotion bottles upon the table
near the bed. Every object in the room was neat and
orderly, and bore witness of that delicate precision
which had always been a distinguishing characteristic
of Phoebe.
The young woman rose as Robert Audley crossed
the threshold, and hurried towards him.
"Let me speak to you for a moment, sir, before


GI10ST-HAUOTED.
261
you talk to Luke," she said, in an eager whisper.
"Pray let me speak to you first."
"What's the gal a sayin', there?" asked the invalid
in a subdued roar, which died away hoarsely on his
lips, lie was feebly savage, even in his weakness.
The dull glaze of death was gathering over his eyes,
but they still watched Phoebe with a sharp glance of
dissatisfaction. "What's she up to there?" he said.
"I won't have no plottin' and no hatchin' agen me. I
want to speak to Mr. Audlcy my own self; and whatever
I done I'm a goin' to answer for. If I done any
mischief, I'm a goin' to try and undo it. What's she a
sayin'?"
"She ain't a sayin' nothin', lovey," answered the
old woman, going to tho bed-side of her son, who,
even when made more interesting than usual by illness,
did not seem a very fit subject for this tender appel-
lation.
"She's only a tellin' the gentleman how bad you've
been, my pretty."
"What I'm a goin' to tell I'm only a goin' to tell
to him, remember," growled Mr. Marks; "and ketch
me a tellin' of it to him if it warn't for what he done
for me the other night."
"To bo sure not, lovey," answered the old woman,
soothingly.
Her intellect was rather limited in its scope, and
she attached no more importance to her son's eager
words now, than she had attached to the wild ravings
of delirium. That horrible delirium in which Luko had


202
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
described himself as being dragged through miles ol
blazing brick and mortar: and flung down wells; and
dragged out of deep pits by the hair of the head; and
suspended in the air by giant hands that came out of
the clouds to pluck him from off the solid earth and
hurl him into chaos; with many other wild terrors and
delusions which ran riot in his distempered brain.
Phoebe Marks had drawn Mr. Audley out of the
room and on to the narrow landing at the top of the
little staircase. This landing was a platform of about
three feet square, and it was as much as the two could
manage to stand upon it without pushing each other
against the whitewashed wall, or backwards down
the stairs.
"Oh, sir, I wanted to speak to you so badly,"
Phoobe whispered eagerly; "you know what I told you
when I found you safe and well upon the night of
the fire?"
"Yes, yes."
"I told you what I suspected; what I think still."
"Yes, I remember."
"But I never breathed a word of it to anybody but
yon, sir; and I think that Luke has forgotten all about
that night; I think that what went before the fire has
gone clean ont of his head altogether. Ho was tipsy
you know when my la — when she came to the Castle;
and I think he was so dazed and scared like by the
fire that it all went ont of his memory. He doesn't
suspect what I suspect at any rate, or he'd have spoken
of it to anybody and everybody; but he's dreadful spite-


GnOST-nAUNTED.
20?,
ful against my lady, for he says if she'd have let him
have a place at Brentwood or Chelmsford, this wouldn't
have happened. So what I wanted to beg of you, sir,
is not to let a word drop before Luke."
"Yes, yes, I understand; I will be careful."
"My lady has left tho Court, I hear, sir?"
"Yes."
"Never to come back, sir?"
"Never to come back."
"But she has not gone where she'll bo cruelly
treated: where she'll be ill-used?"
"No, she will be very kindly treated."
"I'm glad of that, sir; I beg your pardon for troub-
ling you with the question, sir, but my lady was a
kind mistress to me."
Luke's voice, husky and feeble, was heard within
the little chamber at this period of the conversation,
demanding angrily when "that gal would have done
jawing," upon which Phoebe put her finger to her lips,
and led Mr. Audley back into the sick room.
"I don't want you," said Mr. Marks, decisively, as
his wife re-entered the chamber, "I don't want you,
you've no call to hear what I've got to say; I only
want Mr. Audley, and I wants to speak to him all
alone, with none o' your sneakin' listenin' at doors,
d'ye hear, so you may go down stairs and keep there
till you'ro wanted; and you may take mother — no
mother may stay, I shall want her presently."
Tho sick man's feeble hand pointed to the door,
through which his wife departed very submissively.


264 lady audley's secret.
"I've no wish to hear anything, Luke," she said,
"hut I hope you won't say anything against those that
have been good and generous to you,"
"I shall say what I like," answered Mr. Marks,
fiercely, "and I'm not agoin' to be ordered by you.
You ain't the parson, as I've ever heerd of; nor the
lawyer neither."
The landlord of the Castle inn had undergone no
moral transformation by his death-bed sufferings, fierce
and rapid as they had been. Perhaps some faint
glimmer of a light that had been far off from his life,
now struggled feebly through the black obscurities of
ignorance that darkened his soul. Perhaps a half
angry, half sullen penitence urged him to make some
rugged effort to atone for a life that had been selfish
and drunken and wicked. Be it how it might, he
wiped his white lips, and turning his haggard eyes
earnestly upon Robert Audley, pointed to a chair by
the bedside.
"You've made game of me in a general way, Mr.
Audley," he said, presently, "and you've drawee! me
out, and you've tumbled and tossed mo about like in
a gentlemanly way, till I was nothink or anythink in
your hands; and you've looked mo through and through,
and turned mo inside out till you thought you knowed
as much as I knowed. I'd no particular call to be
grateful to you, not before the f1re at the Castle t'other
night. But I am grateful to you for that. I'm not
grateful to folks in a general way, p'raps, becauso the
things as gentlefolks have give me have a'most alius


266
LADY ATOLEY's SECRET.
took on when you couldn't find him. I've heerd the
landlord of the Sun Inn say how cut up you was when
you first missed him. 'If the two gents had been
brothers,' the landlord said, 'our gent,' meanin' you,
sir, 'couldn't have been more cut up when he missed
the other.'"
"Yes, yes, I know, I know," said Robert; "pray
do not speak any more of this subject; I cannot tell
you how much it distresses me."
Was he to be haunted for ever by the ghost of his
unburied friend? He came here to comfort this sick
man, and even here he was pursued by that relentless
shadow; even here he was reminded of the secret crime
which had darkened his life.
"Listen to me, Marks," he said, earnestly; "be-
lieve me, that I appreciate your grateful words, and
that I am very glad to have been of service to you.
But before you say anything more, let me make one
most solemn request. If you have sent for me that
you may tell me anything of the fate of my lost friend,
I entreat you to spare yourself and to spare me that
horrible story. You can tell me nothing which I do
not already know. The worst you can tell mo of the
woman who was once in your power, has already been
revealed to me by her own lips. Pray then be silent
upon this subject; I say again, you can tell me nothing
which I do not know."
Luke Marks looked musingly at the earnest face of
his visitor, and some shadowy expression which was


QnOST-HAUNTED.
267
almost like a smile flitted feebly across the sick man's
haggard features.
"I can't tell you nothin' you don't know?" he
asked.
"Nothing."
"Then it ain't no good for me to try," said the in-
valid, thoughtfully. "Did she tell you?" he asked
after a pause.
"I must beg, Marks, that you will drop the sub-
ject," Robert answered, almost sternly, "I have already
told you that I do not wish to hear it spoken of.
Whatever discoveries you made, you made your market
out of them. Whatever guilty secrets you got pos-
session of, you were paid for keeping silence. You
had better keep silence to the end."
"Had I?" cried Luke Marks in an eager whisper.
"Had I really now hotter hold my tongue to the
last?"
"I think so, most decidedly. You traded on your
secret, and you were paid to keep it. It would be
more honest to hold to your bargain, and keep it
still."
"Would it now?" said Mr. Marks with a ghastly
grin; "but suppose my lady had one secret and I
another. How then?"
"What do you mean?"
"Suppose I could have told something all along;
and would have told it, perhaps, if I'd been a littlo
better treated; if what was give to mo had been give


GHOST-HAUNTED.
269
separate voice, loud with a gloomy portent in the
solemn stillness of the house.
Robert sat with his face shaded by his hands,
thinking what was to become of him now that the
secret of his friend's fate had been told, and the dark
story of George Talboys and his wicked wife had been
finished in the Belgian mad-house. What was to be-
come of him?
He had no claim upon Clara Talboys; for he had
resolved to keep the horrible secret that had been told
to him. How then could he dare to meet her with that
secret held back from her? How could he ever look
into her earnest eyes, and yet withhold the truth? He
felt that all power of reservation would fail before the
searching glance of those calm brown eyes. If he was
indeed to keep this secret he must never see her again.
To reveal it would be to embitter her life. Could he,
for any selfish motive of his own, tell her this terrible
story? — or could he think that if he told her she
would suffer her murdered brother to lie unavenged and
forgotten in his unhallowed grave?
Hemmed in on every side by difficulties which
seemed utterly insurmountable; with the easy tempera-
ment which was natural to him embittered by the
gloomy burden he had borne so long, Robert Audley
looked hopelessly forward to the life which lay before
him, and thought that it would have been better for
him bad he perished among the burning ruins of the
Castle Inn.


270
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
"Who would have been sorry for me? No one but
my poor little Alicia," he thought, "and hers would
have only been an April sorrow. Would Clara Talboys
have been sorry? No! She would have only regretted
me as a lost link in the mystery of her brother's death.
She would only —"


THAT WHICH THE DYING MAN HAD TO TELL. 271
CHAPTER XIV.
That which the Dying Man had to tell.
Heaven knows whither Mr. Audley's thoughts might
have wandered had he not been startled by a sudden
movement of the sick man, who raised himself up in
his bed, and called to his mother.
The old woman woke up with a jerk, and turned
sleepily enough to look at her son.
"What is it, Luke, deary?" she asked soothingly.
"It ain't time for the doctor's stunt yet. Mr. Dawson
said as you weren't to have it till two hours after he
went away, and he ain't been gone an hour yet."
"Who said it was the doctor's stuff I wanted?"
cried Mr. Marks, impatiently. "I want to ask you
something, mother. Do you remember the seventh of
last September?"
Robert started, and looked eagerly at the sick man.
Why did he harp upon this forbidden subject? Why
did he insist upon recalling the date of George's mur-
der? The old woman shook her head in feeble con-
fusion of mind.
"Lord, Luke," she said, "how can'ee ask me such
questions? My memory's been a failiu' me this eight
or nine year; and I never was one to remember the
days of the month, or aught o' that sort. How should
a poor workin' woman remember such things."


THAT WHICH THE DYING MAN HAD TO TELL. 275
eat by the kitchen fire, starin' at the coals as if he'd
gone mad or stupid-like, and didn't know where he
was, or who he was: and as had to be cared for like
a baby, and dressed and dried, and washed, and fed
with spoonfuls of brandy that had to be forced between
his locked teeth, before any life could be got into him.
Do you remember that, mother?"
The old woman nodded, and muttered something,
to the effect that she remembered all these circum-
stances most vividly, now that Luke happened to men-
tion them.
Robert Audley uttered a wild cry, and fell down
upon his knees by the side of the sick man's bed.
"My God!" he ejaculated, "I thank Thee for Thy
wondrous mercies. George Talboys is alive!"
"Wait a bit," said Mr. Marks, "don't you be too
fast. Mother, give us down that tinbox on the shelf
over against the chest of drawers, will you?"
The old woman obeyed, and after fumbling amongst
broken tea-cups and milk-jugs, lidless wooden cotton-
boxes, and a miscellaneous litter of rags and crockery,
produced a tin snuff-box with a sliding lid; a shabby,
dirty looking box enough.
Robert Audley still knelt by the bed-side with his
face hidden by his clasped hands. Luke Marks opened
the tin box.
"There ain't no money in it, more's the pity," he
said, "or if there had been it wouldn't have been let
stop very long. But there's summat in it that perhaps
you'll think quite as vallible as money, and that's
18*


THAT WHICH THE DYING MAN HAD TO TELL. 279
agen the lime-walk, so I went round to the other
side o' the gardens and jumped across the dry ditch;
for I wanted partic'ler to see her that night, as I
was goin' away to work upon a farm beyond Chelms-
ford the next day. Audley church clock struck nine
as I was crossin' the meadows between Atkinson's and
the Court, and it must have been about a quarter past
nine when I got into the kitchen garden.
"I crossed the garden, and went into the limewalk;
the nighest way to the servants' hall took me through
the shrubbery and past the dry well. It was a dark
night, but I knew my way well enough about the old
place, and the light in the window of the servants1 hall
looked red and comfortable through the darkness. I
was close against the mouth of the dry well when I
heard a sound that made my blood creep. It was a
groan; a groan of a man in pain, as was lyin' some-
where hid among the bushes. I warn't afraid of ghosts,
and I warn't afraid of anythink in a general way, but
there was somethin' in hearin' this groan as chilled
me to the very heart, and for a minute I was struck
all of a heap and didn't know what to do. But I
heard the groan again, and then I began to search
amongst the bushes. I found a man lyin' hidden un-
der a lot o' laurels, and I thought at first he was up
to no good, and I was a goin' to collar him and take
him to the house, when he caught mo by the wrist
without gettin' up from the ground, but lookin' at me
very earnest, as I could see by the way his face was
turned towards me in the darkness, and asked me who


282
LADY A0DLEY8 secret.
and so I got him into the room down-stairs, where
mother was a sittin' over the fire gettin' my bit o1 sup-
per ready for me.
"I put the strange chap in a chair agen the fire,
and then for the first time I had a good look at him.
I never see anybody in such a state before. He was
all over green damp and muck, and his hands was
scratched and cut to pieces. I got his clothes off him
how I could, for he was like a child in my hands, and
sat starin' at the fire as helpless as any baby; only
givin' a long heavy sigh now and then, as if his heart
was a goin' to bust. He didn't seem to know where
he was; he didn't seem to hear us nor to see us; he
only sat starin' straight before him, with his poor
broken arm hanging loose by his side.
"Thinkin' he was in a very bad way, I wanted to
go and fetch Mr. Dawson to him, and I said somethin'
about it to mother. But queer as he seemed in his
mind, he looked up quickly, as sharp as possible, and
said No, No; nobody was to know of his bein' there
except us two.
"I asked if I should run and fetch a drop of
brandy; and ho said, yes, I might do that. It was
close upon eleven o'clock when I went into the public-
house, and it was strikin' eleven as I got back home.
"It was a good thing I'd fetched the brandy, for
he was shiverin' awful, and the edge of the mug rattled
against his teeth. I had to force the spirit between
'em, they were so tight locked, before he could drink
it. At last he dropped into a kind of a dose, a stupid


284
LADY AUDLEy's SECRET.
to Brentwood, and take me to some surgeon as '11 set
my arm, I'll give you a five pound note for that and
all your other trouble.'
"I told him that I was ready and willin' to do any-
thing as he wanted done; and asked him if I shouldn't
go and see if I could borrow a cart from some of the
neighbours to drive him over in, for I told him it was
a good six miles' walk.
"He shook his head, No, no, no, he said, he didn't
want anybody to know anything about him; he'd rather
walk it.
"He did walk it; and he walked it like a good un
too; though I know as every step he took o' them six
mile he took in pain; but he held out as he'd held out
before; I never see such a chap to hold out in all my
blessed life. He had to stop sometimes and lean agen
a gateway to get his breath; but he held out still, till
at last we got into Brentwood, and then he says 'Take
mo to the nighest surgeon's', and I took him, and I
waited while he had his arm set in splints, which took
a precious long time. The surgeon wanted him to
stay in Brentwood till he was better, but he said it
wam't to be heard on, he must get up to London
without a minute's loss of time; so the surgeon made
him as comfortable as he could, considerin', and tied
up his arm in a sling."
Bobert Audley started. A circumstance connected
with his visit to Liverpool flashed suddenly back upon
his memory. He remembered the clerk who had called
him back to say that there was a passenger who took


286
lady audley's secret.
to me, 'Come along o' me to the railway-station and
I'll give you what I've promised.'
"So I went to the station with him. We was in
time to catch the train as stops at Brentwood at half-
after eight, and we had five minutes to spare. So he
takes me into a corner of the platform, and he says:
'I wants you to deliver these here letters for me,' which
I told him I was willin'. 'Very well then,' he says,
'look here, you know Audley Court?' 'Yes,' I says,
'I ought to, for my sweetheart lives lady's-maid there.'
'Whose lady's-maid?' he says. So I tells him 'My
lady's, the new lady what was governess at Mr. Daw-
son's.' 'Very well, then,' he says, 'this here letter with
the cross upon the envelope is for Lady Audley, but
you're to be sure to give it into her own hands; and
remember to take care as nobody sees you give it.
I promises to do this, and he hands me the first letter.
And then he says, "Do you know Mr. Audley, as is
nevy to Sir Michael?' and I said, 'Yes, I've heerd tell
on him, and I'd heerd as he was a reg'lar swell, but
affable and free spoken' (for I had heerd tell on you, you
know)," Luke added parenthetically. "'Now look
here," the young chap says, 'You're to give this other
letter to Mr. Robert Audley, whose a stayin' at the
Sun Inn, in the village;' and I tells him it's all right,
as I've know'd the Sun ever since I was a baby. So
then he gives me the second letter, what's got nothink
wrote upon the envelope, and he gives me a five-pound
note, accordin' to promise; and then he says 'Good
day, and thank you for all your trouble,' and he gets


THAT WHICH THE DYING MAN HAD TO TELL. 289
days before, as she'd told me her missus was selfish
and extravagant, and we might wait a long time before
we could get what we wanted from her.
"So I says to her, 'Why, this is rather sudden like,
Pheebe,' and she says, 'Yes, it is sudden;' and she
smiles again, just the same sort of smile as before.
Upon that I turns round upon her sharp, and says,
"Til tell you what it is, my gal, you're a keepin'
somethink from me; somethink you've been told, or
somethink you've found out; and if you think you're a
goin' to try that game on with me, you'll find you're
very much mistaken; and so I give you warnin.'
"But she laughed it off like, and says, 'Lor, Luke,
what could have put such fancies into your head?'
"I says, 'If I've got fancies in my head it's you
that have put 'em there; and I tell you once more I
won't stand no nonsense, and if you want to keep se-
crets from the man as you're a goin' to marry, you'd
better marry somebody else and keep secrets from him,
for you won't do it from me, and so I tell you.'
"Upon which she begins to whimper a bit, but I
takes no notice o' that, but begins to question her
about my lady. I had the letter marked with the
pencil cross in my pocket, and I -wanted to find out
how I was to deliver it.
"'Perhaps other people can keep secrets as well as
you,' I said, 'and perhaps other people can make
friends as well as you. There were a gentleman came
here to see your missus yesterday, warn't there; a tall
young gentleman with a brown beard?'
Lady Audley't Secret. II.
19


290
LADY AUDLEV'S SECRET.
"Instead of answering of me like a Christian, my
cousin Phoebe bursts out a cryin', and wrings her hands
and goes on awful, until I'm dashed if I can make out
what she's up to.
"But little by little I got it out of her, for I
wouldn't stand no nonsense; and she told me how she'd
been sittin' at work at the window of her little room,
which was at the top of the house, right up in one of
the gables, and overlooked the lime-walk and the
shrubbery and the well, when she see my lady walkin'
with a strange gentleman, and they walked together
for a long time, until by-and-by they —"
"Stop," cried Robert Audley, "I know the rest."
"Well Phoebe told me all about what she sec, and
she told me as she'd met her lady almost directly
afterwards, and somethin' had passed between 'em, not
much, but enough to let her missus know that the
servant what she looked down upon had found out that
as would put her in that servant's power to the last
day of her life.
"'And she is in my power, Luke,' says Phoebe,
'and she'll do anythin' in the world for us if we keep
her secret.'
"So you see both my Lady Audley and her maid
thought as the gentleman as I'd seen safe off by the
London train was lyin' dead at the bottom of the well.
If I was to give the letter they'd find out the contrairy
of this, and if I was to give the letter, Phoebe and me
would lose the chance of gcttin' started iu life by her
missus.


THAT WHICH THE DYING MAN HAD TO TELL. 291
"So I kep' the letter and kep' my secret, and my
lady kep' hern. But I thought if she acted liberal by
me, and gave me the money I wanted, free like, I'd
tell her everythink and make her mind easy.
"But she didn't. Whatever she give me she throwed
me as it' I'd been a dog. Whenever she spoke to me,
she spoke as she might have spoken to a dog; and a
dog she couldn't abide the sight on. There was no
word in her mouth that was too bad for me. There
was no toss as she could give her head that was too
proud and scornful for me; and my blood biled agen
her, and I kep' my secret, and let her keep hern. I
opened the two letters and I read 'em, but I couldn't
make much sense out of 'em, and I hid 'em away; and
not a creature but me has see 'em until this night."
Luke Marks had finished his story, and lay quietly
enough, exhausted by having talked so long. He
watched Eobert Audley's face, fully expecting some
reproof, some grave lecture; for he had a vague con-
sciousness that he had done wrong.
But Robert did not lecture him; he had no fancy
for an office which he did not think himself fitted to
perform.
"The clergyman will talk to him and comfort him
when he comes to-morrow morning," Mr. Audlcy
thought; "and if the poor creature needs a sermon it
will come better from his lips than from mine. What
should I say to him? His sin has recoiled upon his
own head; for had my lady's mind been set at ease,
the Castle Inn would not have been burned down.
19*


THAT WHICH THE DYING MAN HAD TO TELL. 293
he and George had sat together a few months
before.
The landlord waited upon him at dinner, and told
him that Luke Marks had died at five o'clock that
afternoon. "He went off rather sudden like," the
man said, "but very quiet."
Kobert Audley wrote a long letter that evening,
addressed to Madame Taylor, care of Monsieur Va],
Villebrumeuse; a long letter in which he told the
wretched woman who had borne so many names and
was to bear a false one for the rest of her life, the
story that the dying man had told him.
"It may be some comfort to her to hear that her
husband did not perish in his youth by her wicked
hand," he thought, "if her selfish soul can hold any
sentiment of pity or sorrow for others."


RESTORED.
295
likely his friend would be indifferent to his uneasiness?
But then, again, it was just possible that George Tal-
boys had not happened to see this advertisement; and,
as he had travelled under a feigned name, neither his
fellow-passengers nor the captain of the vessel would
have been able to identify him with the person ad-
vertised for. What was to be done? Must they wait
patiently till George grew weary of his exile, and
returned to the friends who loved him; or were there
any means to be taken by which his return might be
hastened? Robert Audley was at fault! Perhaps in
the unspeakable relief of mind which he had experienced
upon the discovery of his friend's escape, he was un-
able to look beyond the one fact of that providential
preservation.
In this state of mind he went down to Dorsetshire
to pay a visit to Mr. Talboys, who had given way to
a perfect torrent of generous impulses, and had gone
so far as to invite his son's friend to share the prim
hospitality of the square, red-brick mansion.
Mr. Talboys had only two sentiments upon the
subject of George's story; one was a natural relief and
happiness in the thought that his son had been saved;
the other was an earnest wish that my lady had been
his wife, and that he might thus have had the pleasure
of making a signal example of her.
"It is not for me to blame you, Mr. Audley," he
said, "for having smuggled this guilty woman out of
the reach of justice, and thus, as I may say, paltered
with the laws of your country; I can only remark


RE8T0RED.
297
for the sons of gentlemen preparing for the church and
tho army," in the Talboys establishment
.
But if the square-built, red-brick mansion had been
the palace of Armida, and the prim, linen-jacketed
man represented by a legion of houris, Robert Audley
could have scarcely seemed better satisfied with his
entertainment
.
He awoke to the sound of the clanging bell, and
made his toilet in the cruel early morning sunshine,
which is bright without being cheerful, and makes you
wink without making you warm. He emulated Mr.
Harcourt Talboys in the matter of shower-baths and
cold water, and emerged prim and blue as that gentle-
man himself, as the clock in the hall struck seven, to
join the master of tho house in his ante-breakfast con-
stitutional under the fir-trees in the stiff plantation.
But there was generally a third person who assisted
in these constitutional promenades, and that third per-
son was Clara Talboys, who used to walk by her
father's side, more beautiful than the morning, — for
that was sometimes dull and cloudy, while she was
always fresh and bright, — in a broad-leaved straw
hat and flapping blue ribbons, one quarter of an inch
of which Mr. Audley would have esteemed a prouder
decoration than ever adorned a favoured creature's
button-hole.
Absent George was often talked of in these morn-
ing walks, and Robert Audley seldom took his place
at the long breakfast table without remembering the
morning upon which he had first sat in that room,


298
LADY AtJDLEY's SECRET.
telling his friend's story, and hating Clara Talboys for
her cold self-possession. He knew her better now, and
knew that she was one of the most noble and beauti-
ful of women. But had she yet discovered how dear
she was to her brother's friend? Robert used to won-
der sometimes if it were possible that he had not yet
betrayed himself; if it could be possible that the love
which made her very presence a magical influence to
him, had failed to make itself known by some inad-
vertent glance, by some unconscious tremble in the
voice, that seemed to take another tone when he ad
dressed her.
The dull life in the square-built house was only
relieved now and then by a stiff dinner party, at which
a few country people assembled to bore each other by
mutual consent; and by occasional inroads of morning
callers, who took the drawing-room by storm, and held
it for about an hour, to the utter discomfiture of Mr.
Audley. That gentleman nourished sentiments of
peculiar malevolence upon the subject of the fresh-
coloured young country squires, who generally appeared
with their mammas and sisters upon these occasions.
It was impossible, of course, that these young men
could come within the radius of Clara's brown eyes
without falling wildly in love with her; and it was
impossible, therefore, that Robert Audley could do
otherwise than furiously hate them as impertinent
rivals and interlopers. He was jealous of anybody and
everybody who came into the region inhabited by
those calm brown eyes; jealous of a fat widower of


RESTORED.
299
eight-and-forty; of an elderly baronet with purple
whiskers; of the old women about the neighbourhood
whom Clara Talboys visited and ministered to; of the
flowers in the conservatory, which occupied so much
of her time and distracted her attention from him.
At first they were very ceremonious towards each
other, and were only familiar and friendly upon the
one subject of George's adventures; but, little by little,
a pleasant intimacy arose between them, and before
the first three weeks of Robert's visit had elapsed,
Miss Talboys made him happy, by taking him seriously
in hand and lecturing him on the purposeless life he
had led so long, and the little use he 'had made of
the talents and opportunities that had been given
to bim.
How pleasant it was to be lectured by the woman
he loved! How pleasant it was to humiliate himself
and depreciate himself before her! How delightful it
was to get such splendid opportunities of hinting that
if his life had been sanctified by an object, he might
indeed have striven to be something better than an
idle flaneur upon the smooth pathways that have no
particular goal; that, blessed by the ties which would
have given a solemn purpose to every hour of his
existence, he might indeed have fought the battle
earnestly and unflinchingly. He generally wound up
with a gloomy insinuation to the effect that it was
only likely he would drop quietly over the edge of
the Temple Gardens some afternoon, when the river


RESTORED.
301
Audley almost made a wry face at the thought of such
a barren prospect.
"I'd do all that," he thought, "and do it earnestly,
if I could be sure of a reward for my labour. If she
would accept my reputation when it was won, and
support me in the struggle by her beloved companion-
ship. But what if she sends me away to fight the
battle, and marries some hulking country squire while
my back is turned?"
Being naturally of a vacillating and dilatory dis-
position, there is no saying how long Mr. Audley
might have kept his secret, fearful to speak and brqak
the charm of that uncertainty which, though not always
hopeful, was very seldom quite despairing, had not he
been hurried by the impulse of an unguarded moment
into a full confession of the truth.
He had stayed five weeks at Grange Heath, and
felt that he could not, in common decency, stay any
longer; so he had packed his portmanteau one pleasant
May morning, and had announced his departure.
Mr. Talboys was not the sort of man to utter any
passionate lamentations at the prospect of losing his
guest, but he expressed himself with a cool cordiality
which served with him as the strongest demonstration
of friendship.
"We have got on very well together, Mr. Audley,"
he said, "and you have been pleased to appear
sufficiently happy in the quiet routine of our orderly
household; nay, more, you have conformed to our
little domestic regulations in a manner which I cannot


314
LADY AUDLEY's SECRET.
very long, it has at least been manifold; and I can
safely subscribe to that which a mighty king and a
great philosopher declared, when he said that neither
the experience of his youth nor of his age had ever
shown him "the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
begging their bread."
THE END.
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L. B. Watford: Mr. Smith 2 v. Pauline
2v. Cousins 2 v. Troublesome Daughters 2 v.
D. Mackenzie Wallace: Russia 3 v.
Lew. Wallace: Ben-Hur 2 v.
Eliot Warburton: The Crescent and
the Cross 2 v. Darien a v.
Mrs. Humphry Ward: Robert Els-
mere 3 v. The History of David Grieve 3 v.
Miss Bretherton x v. Marcella 3 v. The
Story of Bessie Costrell 1 v.
S. Warren: Passages from the Diary
of a late Physician 2 v. Ten Thousand a-
Year 3 v. Now and Then 1 v. The Lily
and the Bee 1 v.
*' The Waterdale Neighbours," Author
of—vide Justin McCarthy.
Hugh Westhury: A etc a **,
MissWetherell: The wide, wide World
xv. Queechy2v. TheHillsoftheShatemuc
2v. Say and Seal 2 v. The Old Helmet 2 v.
Stanley J. Weyman: The House of the
Wolf 1 v. The Story of Francis Cludde 2 v.
A Gentleman of France 2 v. The Man in
Black 1v. Under the Red Robe xv. My
Lady Rotha 2 v.
A Whim and its Consequences x v.
Walter White: Holidays in Tyrol 1 v.
Whithy: The Awakening of Mary Fen-
wick 2 v. In the Suntime of her Youth 2 v.
Richard Whlteing: The Island; or,
An Adventure of a Person of Quality x v.
S. Whitman: Imperial Germany 1 v.
The Realm of the Habsburgs 1 v.
"Who Breaks—PaysAuthor of—
vide Mrs. Jenkin.
K. D. Wiggin: Timothy's Quest 1 v.
A Cathedral Courtship, etc. x v.
Mary E. Wilkins: Pembroke 1v,
C.J. Wills: vide F. C. Philips.
J.S. Winter: Regimental Legends 1 v.
H. F. Wood: The Passenger from
Scotland Yard 1 v.
Mrs. Henry Wood: East Lynne 3 v.
The Channings 2 v. Mrs. Halliburton's
Troubles 2 v. Verner's Pride 3 v. The
Shadow of Ashlydyat 3 v. Trevlyn Hold
2 v. Lord Oakburn s Daughters 2 v.
Oswald Cray a v. Mildred Arkell 2 v. St.
Martin's Eve a v. Elster's Folly 2 v. Lady
Adelaide's Oath 2 v. Orville College 1 v.
A Life's Secret x v. The Red Court Farm
2 v. Anne Hereford 2 v. Roland Yorke
2 v. George Canterbury's Will a v. Bessy
Rane 2 v. Dene Hollow 2 v. The foggy
NightatOfford, etc. xv. Within theMaxe
2v. The Master of Greylands2v. Johnny
Ludlow (First Series) 2 v. Told in the
Twilight 2 v. Adam Grainger x v. Edina
2 v. Fomcroy Abbey 2 v. Lost in the
Post, etc. By J. Ludlow x v. A Tale of
Sin , etc. By J. Ludlow 1 v. Anne, etc.
By J. Ludlow xv. Court Netherleigh 2 v.
The Mystery of Jessy Page, etc. By J.
Ludlow 1 v. Helen Whitney's Wedding,
etc. By J. Ludlow 1 v. The Story of
Dorothy Grape, etc. By J. Ludlow 1 v.
M. L. Woods: A Village Tragedy 1 v.
Wordsworth: The Poetical Works 2 v.
Lascelles Wraxall: Wild Oats 1 v.
Ed m. Yates: Land at Last 2 v. Broken
to Harness 2 v. The Forlorn Hope 2 v.
Black Sheep a v. The Rock Ahead 2 v.
Wrecked in Port 2 v. Dr. Wainwright'1
Patient a v. Nobody's Fortune 2 v.
Castaway 2 v. A Waiting Race a v. The
yellow Flag 2 v. The impending Sword
2v. Two, by Tricks 1 v. A silent Witness
a v. Recollections and Experiences 2 v.
S. L.Yeats: The Honour of Savelli x v.
Miss Yonge: The Heir of Redclyffe
2 v. Heartsease 2 v. The Daisy Chain
2 v. Dynevor Terrace 2 v. Hopes and
Fears 2 v. The young Step-Mother 2 v.
The Trial 2 v. The clever Woman 2 v.
The Dove in the Eagle's Nest 2 v. The
Dan vers Papers, etc. 1 v. TheChapletof
Pearls 2 v. The two Guardians 1 v. The
caged Lion 2 v. The Pillars of the House
5 v. Lady Hester x v. My young A lei da
2v. The three Brides 2 v. Womankind 2 v.
Magnum Bonum 2 v. Love and Life x v.
Unknown to History 2 v. Stray Pearls
(w. Port.) 2 v. The Armourer's Prentices
3v. The two Sides of the Shield 2 v. Nut-
tie's Father 2 v. Beechcroft at Rockstone
2 v. A reputed Changeling 2 v. Two
penniless Princesses x v. That Stick x ».
Grisly Grisell r v.
'Young Mistley," Author of—vids
Henry Seton Merriman.
The price of each volume is 1 Mark 60 Pfennig.