> > >> > >> > ) > > > > ( > > ' > > ->r. >^ . . . ; >3> ^^ » T > > > >-^ .(' r^ ^^1 UBRART UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORMIA RIVERSIDE. - Ifriili. /7i/tS< Slli JASPER'S TENANT J. Miss Braddon's latest Novel. Author's Autograph Edition, 2s. 6d, ; Picture Covers, 2». ONE LIFE, ONE LOVE: A. Novel. Dy the Author of " Lady Audley's Secret," &c. "It is the story of a father's sin visit'-d upun an innocent, child, a terrible story, true to life, as natural as injustice, and worked olU with unrelenting logic." — The Atkerixum. " Once begun, will make other books unreadable until it is finished."— Scotsman. LONDON : SIMPKIN & CO., Limited, Stationers' Hall Coukt. And at all Railway Bookstalls, Booksellers', and Libraries. Sm JASPEK'S TENANT BT THE AUTHOR OF ^LA1>Y AUDLEY'S SECRET," "ISHMAfit* £TC. EXOt Stereot]2pcd Edition LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LmiTKD. BTATIONEES' HALL COUiiT. 1891. \AM rights rc$ervtd.] 'pK.'ri<>i mi MISS BRADDON'S NOVELS. Now Ready at all Booksellers' and BooKBTAiiLS, Price 28. 6d. each, Cloth gilt. THE AUTHOE'S AUTOGRAPH EDITION OF MISS BRADDON'S NOVELS. " No one can be dull who has a novel by Miss Braddon In band. The |nost tireBome journey is beguiled, and the most wearisome Ulne^s is brightened, by any one of her books." "JMiss liraddon Is the Queen of the circulating libraries." The World. LONDON: SIMPKIN & CO., Limited, Stationers' Hall Ccdbt. And at all Railway Bookstalls, Booksellers', and LSbraritt. CONTENTS. I. — How He came to SflARSDAia . • II. — Up at tub Great uou.sk , . III.— Was He Wise? .... 17. — Dorothy's Impressions . v.— "At First IIkr Image was a Drkamt VI.~" \i.i Within is Dark as Niout " VII.-'i'oROTiiY's Conquest . . . VIII. — An Unwelcome Lkttz» . . , IX. — A Florid Widow .... X. — Mrs. Hardino Sees a Familiar Faoh XL— Wnt Did She Do It ! . XII. — Driven Away .... XIII. — Awkward kor Sir Jasper XIV.— The Widow makes Herself at Homh XV. — DyROTHY S EnJaGKMENT . KVI — The Widow Tkaks Herself Awat. IVIL— Did Hk Love Her? XVIII. — Miss Desisok's Humiliation . , XIX.=— Farewell ..... XX. — TuE Story of a YonNo Man's Folly XXI. — A Broken Lif« .... XXII. — "And yet m Dim oo on. oo cn" TUINO' PA SI X 9 24 35 46 56 61 71 78 88 91 99 107 115 122 131 143 162 162 165 176 219 IV Contents. CH.1PTEK XXIII. — Twopenny Postman .... XXIV. — The Gathering op the Djbbitbs . XXV.— Marcia's Festival .... XXVI. — Gentlemanly Chantage . . , XXVII. — "And I — What I srem to my Friend, You XXVIII, — Diabolical Suggestion . , XXIX.— "J'ai Do T' Aimer, Je Dois Te FoirI" XXX. — Sunshine for Mr. Dobb . . . XXXI.— Number 69669 XXXII. — A Dismal Sabbath .... XXXIII. —A Very Narrow Escape . XXXIV. — "Ring Out Your Bells; Let MouRNina BE Spread " XXXV. — "I AM A Sinner Viler tha« Too Aia" XXXVI. — Two Letters ..... XXXYIL— "AMKa iLuiT Da?o" , , See!" Shows PAoa 226 235 250 260 278 288 300 311 318 326 832 339 348 354 S£8 8II{ JASPEE'S TENANT CHAPTER I. HOW HE CAME TO SCARSDALB. Seven o'clock on a fine dry October evening, and a red B'insot behind the gaunt walls and bare windows of Rox- t/orough Castle ; red splashes of light upon the broad waters oi the Merdrid river ; lurid patches upon all the windows facing westward in the quaint old town of Roxborough ; and in Sir Jasper Denison's park, and all the woods surrounding that grand old domain ; long trails of crimson glory slanting be- tween the brown boles of the trees, and creeping to darkness far away amongst the fern. Seven o'clock, and the London express, due in Roxborough at twenty minutes after seven, was to bring with it Sir Jasper's tenant, the unknown personage who had hired a certain mo- dest tenement, or shooting-box, hidden deep in the heart of Scarsdale wood, and let furnished by the Baronet to any re- spectable occupant who cared to give a decent price for a se- cluded habitation in a picturesque locality. The secluded habitation was known as the Hermitage, Avhich romantic title had been given to it by some sentimental occu- pant in days gone by. There was a story connected with it, a tragical story, such as generally belongs to a place of this kind : the story of a faithless wife, a midnight meeting, a ser- vant's treachery, and a surprise — a shrieking woman locked ia an inner chaijiber, and watching through a keyhole — a duel to the death, and then a flight on horseback through the black woods away to the open country, and the miry roads leading London -wards — an inquest at the Hermitage — a suicide found si ark and stiff in a London lodging-house — and, last of all, & mad woman, living her dreary life for fivc-and-twcntymiecrablo i Sir Jasper''s Tenant. yearp in ^he great mansion yonder in the paric, and never uUer ing om coherent sentence in all those years, but in the par oxysms of her madness always doing the same things and eaying the same words ; always watching through a keyhole, and beating with frantic hands against a door, and screaming out that there was murder being done within. There were many versions of this story, which may have been somewhat legendary in its character. It related to a noble race which was extinct, and to a time in which men wore fantastically frizzed periwigs upon their heads, and carried filim rapiers at their sides, always conveniently ready for any little impromptu in the way of an assassination in the badly lighted streets, or a duel to the death in some lonely chamber with locked doors. If you had been an amateur artist on the look-out for a Bubject for a water-colour drawing, scarcely anything could have been better for you than the Hermitage, lying low in a deep hollow of Scarsdale wood, with trackless depths of fern Btretching away to the left of its grim walls, and a still black pool lying to the right of the old ivy-grown gate surmounted by a etone escutcheon, and marking the boundary of a garden that was no more. In a water-colour drawing nothing could have been more delightful than the queer gable-ends and h«avy stack of chim- neys, the small diamond-paned windows, the narrow doeply- bet door, studded with knobs of rusty iron, the mossj' stains and creeping parasites upon the wall, the rotting wood-work of the porch, and the general aspect of decay and desolation which pervaded the house and all that environed it. The black {)Ool with a solitary heron drinking — and how thirsty the lerons are in water-colours ! — would have been the very thing for Suffolk Street, Pall Mall. A member of the pre-Raphaelitti brotherhood might have made a good deal of those trackless depths of fern, and would mostly likely have been tempted to devote his chief strength to the broad fan-like leaves, the delicious gradations from tawny yellow to deep russet brown, from tender emerald tints to sombre depths of darkest green and pui-ple. Artistically regarded, the Hermitage was perfection ; but when considered as a residence for a gentleman and his ser- vant, there might be some difference of opinion as to its merits Of course Sir Jasper Denison's agent, a West-end auctioneer, who had never seen the place, described it in his advertise- ments as a small paradise, eminently suited to the requirements of the most fastidious bachelor living. The Hermitage had been for a long time vacant, and the auctioneer's advertise- ment ha;l liaiired in tlic Tinus Supplement at intervals during How He came to Scarsdale. 3 the last twelve montlis, agreeably varied by some little artietic touch of colour in the description, so that its staleness should escape the detection of house-hunters. Bachelors with a taste for field-sports and retirement came t-o look at the Hermitage, and generally went away despondent. Half-pay officers in search of a cheap habitation, and prepared to endure a good deal in the way of damp and dulness, came to Roxborough puffed up with hope, and returned to London stricken down by despair. The damp and loneliness were something too much ; the stone escutcheon on the gate was too suggestive of sweet Thomas Hood's Haunted House ; the black pool and the splashing water-rats hinted too plainly at murders that had been done in the olden time ; and the despondent house-hunter, stopping to refresh himself with a bottle of pale ale at the Scarsdale Arms, just outside the park gates, was apt to hear one of the goriest versions of the story about the shrieking maniac and the duel to the death. Thus it was that the Hermitage had been untenanted for nearly a year ; except, indeed, by a deaf old woman, who lived on friendly terms with the rats and mice, and was supposed to keep the house in order. The last tenants had been some riotous young sportsmen, who had laughed damp and dulness, ghastly associations and shadowy suggestions, to scorn, and who had committed terrible havoc among Sir Jasper Denisnn's preserves ; who had consumed half a dozen bottles of French Drandy in the space of a week, and had been more than onc6 upon the very point of setting fire to the dosirable shooting- box pleasantly situated in a gentleman's grounds. The riotous young sportsmen had clubbed together for the hire of a moor in Scotland this year, and for a long time it had seemed as if the Hermitage would stand empty all the winter. But one morn- ing in October Sir Jasper's housekeeper had received a letter froin the Baronet, then travelling in Italy with his only daugh.ter and heiress, Marcia Dcnison, to the effect that a tenant had been found for the Hermitage ; a tenant who was to be expected by the afternoon express from London on the 15th of October ; a very methodical kind of tenant, it would seem, since he luid answered the auctioneer's advertisement from Marseilles, and had replied to the auctioneer's letter of particulars by definitely hiring the house, and announcing hia arrival at Roxborougli by a certain train upon a certain day. He had lately returned from Central Africa ; his name was George Pauncefort ; and the reference he gave was to a highly respectable solicitor in Austin Friars. Now tlio expected arrival of any tenant whatever at tl* Hermitage would have made subject-matter for discourst' amongst Sir Jasper Denison's household, who found the km»-* 4 Sir Jasper's Tenant. Bummer days and the long winter evenings hang very hearily on their hands during that weary period of board-wages aud individual half-pounds of butter and isolated half-shoulders of mutton, and that general scragginess which distinguishes the arrangements of a gentleman's sei-vants when they are cast upon their own resources, as compared with the noble liberality with which they dispense the goods provided by their master. Sir Jasper's servants finding their lives very flat, stale, and unprofitable during the lengthened absence of the Baronet and his daughter, were glad to pounce upon any little conversational bone, and were not likely to drop it until the last shred of intellectual sustenance had been picked therefrom. Any tenant at the Hermitage would have been a god-send ; but a tenant who came direct from the centre of Africa was an inestimable blessing in a conversational point of view. The questions that opened up out of such a circumstance could Bcarcely ever grow stale, for they were never likely to be an- swered. It was like the proverbial Peter Piper over again. A tenant come from Central Africa to take Sir Jasper's shooting- box ! But did the tenant really come from Central Africa? and if the tenant did actually come from Central Africa, what was the all-powerful motive which had brought him from one side of the globe to the other to take Sir Jasper's shoot- ing-box ? There were warm discussions every evening in the house- keeper's room as to the tenant, and the tenant's possible habits and probable motives. What he was likely to do, what he was sure not to do ; what he was likely to be like, and what he was certain not to be like ; were so many phases of the grand question freely debated in that little coterie : and by the time the week had worn its slow length along, and the day indicated by Sir Jasper had arrived, every man and woman in the household at Scarsdale had created a separate ideal of the tenant who was to come to Roxborough by the 7.20 express. Only one privileged creature was to enjoy the happiness of an early view of the voyager from Central Africa. This for- tunate being was a groom, who, in accordance with Sir Jasper's wish that his new tenant should be treated with all possible courtesy, had been directed by the housekeeper to drive a certain four-wheel pony-carriage to the Roxborough station for the accommodation of the expected traveller. Unluckily, by that peculiar destiny which is perpetually plant- ing the square men in the round holes, and vice versa, the groom in question happened to be a person of a stolid tempera- ment, quite unable to appreciate the privilege affoided him. How He came to ScarsdaU. 5 He drovo into Roxborough to meet the new tenant as coolly as he would have ridden to Roxborough to meet a draught-horse for the farm. How was he to recognise the tenant? This question had been duly discussed. The town of Roxborough and the mili- tary depot of Castleford adjoining, were busy places, and thero were likely to be many travellers by the 7.20 express. In this case it was decided that the groom must trust to his instincts, and be governed by circumstances. Besides, he would most probably be guided by the brownness of aspect which murt inevitably distinguish a traveller newly arrived from Central Africa. The housekeeper's last instructions to the j^oung manenjoinedhimtolookoutforabrown gentleman, attended by his servant, and provided with an unusual amount of luggage. The young man chocked off his instructions upon the stumpy ends of his fingers, and then drove stolidly away through that delicious forest-land which to the chance tra- veller seems one deep mystery of fern and underwood. He drove through the dark avenues of oak and elm towards the winding road by the Merdrid, across whose broad waters tko walls of Roxborough Castle loomed grand and dusky in the sunset. At twenty minutes past seven the shrill shriek of the engine cut the still evening air about the station. Of course the station .at Roxborough stood inconveniently away from the town, and seemed cast down haphazard amid a dreary stretch of waste and swamp. If it had l)een otherwise situated, it would scarcely have seemed a station. The privileged groom, standing at his horse's head outside the door from which the passengers by the down-train must emerge, waited very patiently for his private view. He was rot such a very stupid young man, after all ; and it may be he was rather wanting in the higher attributes of ideality and the reflective powers than in the perceptive faculty ; for he made no mistake in the business intrusted to him. He waited for the brown gentleman, and the brown gentleman came — a tall muscular-looking man, with a railway- rug over his shoulder, and a small portmanteau in his hand but entirely nnattended. The brown gentleman was walking off at a brisk pace, when the groom plimged a little way forward, touching his hat spasmodically in the endeavour to attract the stranger's attention. "Sir Jasper Penison, Sir," he said; "trap. Sir — horse and Bhay ; drive you to the Hermitage if you please, Sir ; master's orders was every attention ; and Mrs. Browning, she thought aa how- — " 6 Sir Jaqyer's Tenant. " Oh, you've come to meet me," answered the stranger ; "that's very kind and civil of your people. It's a long way then, I suppose, from here to the Hennitage ? " " A good four mile and a half. Sir. Shall I take your port- manteau, Sir ? " The small portmanteau was stowed into the phaeton, and the stranger took his place beside the groom. The groom being constitutionally stolid — the stranger being habitually silent, very little was said during that four mile and a half drive. The traveller asked three questions : "Was Sir Jasper Denison at home ? " " Would he be likly to come home yet awhile ? " " Were there many country houses in the neighbourhood of Scarsdale ? " When he spoke the tenant spoke very pleasantly, but very briefly. Having spoken, he relapsed into silence; and the groom observing him, as in duty bound, saw tliat he was very brown, that he wore a thick moustache, a closely cropped square beard, and that he mada good use of a pair of dark eyes, which looked here, there, and every where through the dusk, observant of every changing feature in the rustic landscape. The Hermitage looked absolutely cheerful to-night, for the deaf old woman had received orders from the great house, and had kindled big wood fires in the two most habitable rooms. The light of these fires gleamed redly through the diamoned- paned casements, in pleasant contrast with the black October night. " You'll want some one to wait upon you perhaps. Sir, as your own man hasn't come yet," the groom said, as h« alighted at the gate. " Shall I come back when I have put up the horse ? " Tiie African traveller laughed pleasantly at this offer. "My good fellow, you are very kind ; but I have roughed it too long out yonder to be dependent on the aervices of a valet. My man conies down to-morrow with my luggage ; till then I want notliing but a fire and a light, a loaf of bread, and a cup of tea. There seems to be some one in the house by the look of it." "Yes, Sir; there's an old woman, Jim Tursgood the farm -bailiff's mother ; very respectable. Sir, but uncommon deaf." " She'll be able to get me all I'm likely to ask for. Tell Sir Jasper D-enison's housekeeper that I thank her for her civility in sending the phaeton. Good-night." " Good-night, Sir, and thank you. Sir " Tlie stolid groom touched his hat and drove away ; the richer for a halfcrown piece which the tenant had dropped into Ills hand, and very well content with the result of nia How He came to ScarsdaU. 7 errand. The tenant went into the Hermitage, upon whose fire-lit threshold the deaf old housekeeper bobbed perpetual curteicB. The African traveller seated himso^f in a big old-fashioned ann-chair by the fire, and took off his hat, revealing a hand- some, or perhaps rather a noble-looking head, crowned by a forest of short dark hair. lie glanced round the low oak- panelled room with a grave contemplative gaze, in which there was little of either curiosity or interest : and yet the place looked cheery and pleasant enough to-night, as such places will when seen in the luminous glow of blazing logs burning redly on a Avide open hearth. The dark open wainscot, the queer old bureaus, with brazen locks and handles twinkling in the uncertain light ; the eight-day clock ticking hoarsely in a shadowy corner ; the old japan china jars, cracked so much and mended so often as to be reduced to a perfect patchwork of porcelain ; the peacock's plumes and tiny Indian tea-cups on the high mantelshelf; the grim arm-chairs and fadedTurkey carpet ; all these had a certain element of the picturesque even in their ugliness ; and a traveller who had slept under canvas, upon the stony plateau of the Hammada, might con- sider himself very well oif in the common sitting-room of the Hermitage. After that long contemplative stare Mr. Pauncefort took a bunch of keys from his waistcoat-pocket, and opened the small portmanteau, which he had flung on the table near him. It was a shabby little portmanteau ; scratched, and grazed, and torn, and battered, and was adorned more or less with the labels of almost every railway company in Europe. From this port- manteau Mr. Pauncefort produced a tin canister, a meerschaum- pipe, and a packet of tea. The old woman asked if there was xnytbing she could get for the gentleman. Nothing but a tea- pot, some boiling water, and a cup and saucer, Mr. Pauncefort told her briefly. She departed to remote regions at the back of the Ilermit- ago, and returned presently with the stereotyped tea-tray, a big loaf, a pound or so of butter and a tea-kettle, which she set upon the red logs, — a sputtering, Iiipsing, blust'^ring kettle, the voice whereof sounded pleasant in the flro-lit cl; .mber. Then the old dame demanded with many curtsies if there was any- thing more she could do ? Slio was very anxious to be retained by tlie strange gcutlemi.n. Her services genorally went along with the cottag-j , ^nd slie haa aii agreeable recollection of the wild young bachelors of the last year, who had left their brandy-bottles in cupboards imdcfcnded by lovks, and had never been quite certain whether their housekeeper was in a Biate of chronic intoxication during the entire perii.;d of thcii 8 Sir Jasper's Tenant. residence, or whether it was the old woman's normal con- dition to be very hazy in her intellect and rather unsteady on xier legs. Sir Jasper's tenant being left to himself, made his tea, after a manner that smacked rather of foreign travel than of domestic habits. He took a great handful of the raw material and dropped it into the tea-pot, which he filled with boiling water, and then set down among the feathery ashes on the broad stone hearth. Then he filled and lighted his black- muzzled friend the meerschaum, and sat for a long time blowing big clouds of smoke, and staring dreamily at the red logs, which changed to a deeper glow, and then grew dim, only spitting out little jets of blue-and-yellow flame now and then as they broke and smouldered into a mass of frail grey ash. What is he like, the tenant ? now seen vividly, now very dimly by that fitful light. What is he like ? and is there any special charm about him whereby we can be expected to be in- terested in him as he sits moodily smoking the big black meer- schaum, and staring at the fading fire ? He is Bot handsome, not in the common acceptation of the word, which I suppose involves something like perfection of form and colour. He has strong features, boldly cut ; deep thoughtful eyes, darkly brown or darkly grey ; it is not easy to discover their precise hue in this uncertain light. There is Bome touch of melancholy in the exceeding gravity of the face, a sombre settled shadow, which makes the man seem older than he is. You guess his age to be something between thirty- five and forty ; but you know instinctively that he looks older than he should look, and that any lines lurking here and there about his face have been sharply and suddenly cut by the cruel hand of care, and not gently pencilled by the gradual touch of time. He laid aside his pipe by-and-by, and poured out his tea ; Btrong black stuff, such as Hazlitt the critical was wont to brew for himself. Mr. Pauncefort poured the black fluid into a basin, and drank it without any alien accompaniment of milk or sugar. It was late by the time he had finished the black decoction, and the old woman came in to ask if he wanted anything more. No, nothing more. " My bed-room is overhead, I suppose ? " Mr. Pauncefort in- quired. " Yes, Sir." " Then you can go to bed when you please." Mrs. TurBgood curtsied and retired to the unknown regiona appropriated to her. The tenant filled and lighted his meer Vp at the Great Home. 9 Bchaum for the second time, stirred the pallid logs into a faint blaze with the toe of his boot, and threw a heap of fresh wood on the hearth. The hands o£ the hoarse clock in the corner pointed to half-past ten ; but Mr. Pauncefort had evidently no intention of going to bed yet awhile. You cannot expect an African explorer to be tired by a journey from London to Rox- borough. He opened the casement-window and looked out into the quiet woods. The moon had risen, a young pale moon as yet, but old enough to give a faint silvery light, beneath which the silent woods, the still black pool, the glorious depths of tangled fern, appeared mysteriously beautiful. Sir Jasper's tenant dropped into a chair that was set against the window, rested his folded arms upon the sill, and sat thus for a long time mo- tionless, absorbed, looking straight before him, with a solemn melancholy in his face. "An English wood," he murmured at last, " English ferna and English foliage. How beautiful, how unutterably beauti- ful it all seems to me after the rank luxuriance of the tropics, the burning barrenness of the desert, the gigantic horror of African mountains under an African sky ! Fifteen years — fif- teen wearisome useless years since I last set my foot upon this English land, and I have the courage to come back at last. I sometimes think it was a presentiment that must have prompted my coming. Mourir au gite, says the old proverb. I have seen the bones of travellers bleaching amongst the yellow sand, and I should scarcely have cared to die in Africa, I should like best to lie under a wooden cross in a rustic churchyard, with the shadow of a solemn old yew for ever on my breast, and the sonorous peal of village-bells for my Sabbath lullaby." CHAPTER II. UP AT TUE QBEAT HOOSB. The tenant's servant arrived at the Hermitage early the next day in a Roxborough fly, that was heavily laden with luggage. Other luggage was to come in the course of the day ; cases of books, and a bath, and trunks, and portmanteaus of all kinds. Mr. Pauncefort evidy of the E. M. Ward school, bending over the chessboard iu the rainbow-tinted splendour of summer sunshine streaming through the old window. It was a channing spot, the very scene of all others for a quiet flirtation on a summer's mor'n"".'" " tor u ore earnest converse in the mysteriow 14 3tr Jasper^ s Tenant. fjlimmer of moonlight, shining with fantastic glory on the polished oaken floors and wainscots. It was a spot in which a lover's voice would sink instinctively to a whisper ; a spot in which a sublime unconsciousness of all the past and a perfect recklessness as to all tlie future were apt to creep into a man's mind, leaving only a delicious sense of present enjoyment ; a delightful resting-place upon the weary highway of life ; a sunny oasis where it seemed " always afternoon," and summer afternoon, perfumed with the mingled odour of ripe apricots and clematis floating through an open casement. The Tudor window overlooked a walled flower-garden. Miss Denison's garden it was called ; an old-fashioned unpre- tending pleasaunce, with prim parterres bounded by overgrown box borders ; a garden that was rich in roses and honeysuckle, and all simple flowers ; in rare old fruit trees that stretched their gnarled limbs wide and far upon such a wall as builders rarely fashion nowadays; a wall propped up by solid bastions of brickwork, but which seemed notwithstanding to have been slipping down into the earth for the last century ; a lop-sided top-heavy old wall, about which grey mosses and creeping things clung tenderly, while foxgloves and stonecrop crowned it with flaunting crests of red and yellow. Looking through a small opening in the Tudor window, Mr. Pauncefort seemed more attracted by the quaint old flower-garden, where the yellow butterflies were wheeling above the roses, and where a big lazy bee made a monotonous boom- ing in the ^""p of a tall white lily, than he had been by any of tlie catalogued grandeurs on the otlier side of the Abbey. " It's a queer old-fashioned place," Mrs. Browning said, almost contemptuously, " but Miss Marcia won't allow any alteration ; not so much as the transplanting of a rose-bush ; it was her ma's favourite garden, and Miss Marcia seems to cling to everything tha+ was in any way connected with her ma." " You spoke of Miss Dcnison just now," observed Mr. Pauncefort, still looking out into the sunlit garden ; " and now you speak of Miss Marcia. Are there twc Miss Deoisons ? " " Not now. Sir. There was another Miss Denison, but she died. She was a very beautiful young person ; not so clever perluips as Miss Marcia, but much handsomer, and more aristocratic like, quite a queen she looked ; but you'll see her picture in Sir Jasper's study, so I needn't say anything about that. She was engaged to be married to Mr. Percival Mannering, of Stoke Mannering, pne of the wealthiest gentle- men in the county ; but her horse took fright one day on the Roxborough Road and ran away with her. She wasn't as Up at the Great House, 15 good a horsewoman as Miss Marcia, but she had a fancy for spirited horses, and I've heard the grooms say this one was a regular brute. He threw her on a heap of stones that were lying on tlie side of the road. She was brought liome to the Abbey, and before midnight there were five doctors standing round her bed. But she never spoke again, nor knew any one, apd she died the next evening just as it was growing dark." " A terrible calamity for her father." " It was indeed a calamity, Sir. He was just like a mad- man. I was standing in the room when Miss Dcnison died. Sir Jasper was kneeling by the bed holding both her hands, as if he was trying to hold her back from death, somehow, by the force of his own will. I never, in all my life before, heard anything like the shriek he gave when the poor giil, who had been wrestling and struggling like in her agony, fell back upon the pillows dead. It was one of those sort of things you can never get out of your head. Sir Jasper is rather a stem, proud gentleman, not given to express his feelings much about anything ; but he was wrapt up in his eldest daughter." " And how long has Miss Denison been dead ? " " Nearly five years. Sir Jasper left the Abbey directly after the funeral, and he has never been back since. I some- times think he never will come back again, I never saw any one so changed as he was in that one week after his daughter's death. She was just coming of age, and her birthday would have fallen about a month after the accident. Tliere were going to be all manner of fine doings at the Abbey ; for it had been settled that slic should be married on her birthdaj', and both events were to be celebrated at once. There was nothing too grand or too good for Miss Denison ; and Sir Jasper spent as much money and took as much trouble about all the arrangements as if he'd been going to receive a visit from tho Queen of England. If anything could make the poor dear's death seem more sad, it was the fact of its happening amidst all the bustle of these grand preparations. Sir Jasper sent for me into his study the night ]\Iiss Denison died, and gavo me his orders about her rooms. They were to be kept just aa she had left them. Nothing was to be moved — not a book, nor a scrap of needlework, nor anything that her hand had ever touched ; the flowers in the vases on the tables and man- telpieces were to be left to wither away : the music was to remain as she had left it, scattered about the piano. He took me with him and went into her sitting-room and dressing- room. I never shall forget his face as he looked rouiia too rooms. I'm sure I don't know win/ it should be si ; but I know that the sight of an open book with a cambric handker- chief lying across it, just as it had been drooped there care* 16 84r Jasper'n Tenant lessly before she went out, did make it seem harder to believe tiiat she was dead and gone from us for ever. Sir Jasper shut and barred all the shutters with his own hands, and then he locked the doors of both the rooms, and gave me the keys. The doors were never to be opened unless there was a necessity for the opening of them. There was to be no dusting, or cleaning, or meddling with them in any way ; and there never has been. JNo one has ever been into those rooms but me ; and I'm sure when I do go there I always feel as if I was in a grave, and expect to see Miss Denison's white face looking at me out of the dusk at every turn." " But the other young lady, — Miss Marcia, I think you called her, — she must have been a great comfort to her father in his affliction," observed Mr. Pauncefort. He was in an idle humour this hot summer afternoon, and inclined to be inter- ested in the history of Sir Jasper's family. That listener must have a very hard nature who does not feel some touch of sadly tender interest in a story of youth and beauty suddenly flighted by the relentless hand of death. The housekeeper raised her eyebrows with a dubious expression. Whatever Mrs. Browning might have been in the days when the Abbey waa fully tenanted, and her own time fully occupied by domestic duties, she was now an incorrigible gossip, and would have been content to stand for an hour together in the sunlit corridor, discoursing about the absent family. " As for Miss Marcia being a comfort to our master," she said, sinking her voice to a confidential tone, " I don't know about that. I can't take upon myself to say whether she would, or whether she wouldn't. You see the truth of the matter is, Sir Jasper did not seem to take to Miss Marcia. He married twice, as I dare say you may have heard ; and those that know him best do say that he married the first time for love, and the second time for money. The second Lady Denison was a Miss Jones, a very rich young lady ; but her father was some- thing in the City, and the county families wondered at Sir Jasper's making such a match. The first Lady Denison was one of the Hetheringtons of Castle Hetherington, a very high family. She was a beautiful young creature, but she was the youngest of nine, and she hadn't a sixpence to bless herself with. She died a fortnight after her first baby was born ; and from tlie hour of the child's birth — or I should say from the hour of the mother's death — Sir Jasper seemed to act as if his daughter Evelyn was the only creature he cared for on this earth. He married Miss Jones two years after his first wife's death. She was a gentle, pleasant-spoken lady, not one of your regular beauties, but very sweet-looking, with mild timid ways, just as if she felt herself out of place in this great hojise. Up at ihs Great House. 17 I don't say that Sir Jasper was unkind to her ; for my master is quite *.lie gentleman, and I don't tliink he'd be unkind to any one. It seemed more as if he overlooked her like, almost as if he couldn't bring himself to think of her, or pay much attention to her, he was so wrapped up in his little daughter. Anyhow the poor lady wasn't happy. She didn't cry, or fret, or complain, or anything of that kind ; and I've heard the men-servants say that she always smiled and seemed to light up like w'.en Sir Jasper talked to her; but she faded away very, very slowly ; so slowly that no one was frightened about the change in her looks, or the feebleness that grew upon her as the time went by. Her baby was bom a year and a half after her marriage ; and oh, dear, how she did cling to that baby ! But I think her greatest grief came upon her at the birth of that child, for she couldn't help seeing tliat Sir Jasper didn't care for it. It was nearly three years afterwards when she was lying on her death-bed, very ill and very feeble, but mild and patient and gentle to the last. It was just a few days before she died that I heard her say to my master as h<> eat by her side, ' I should like to see you kiss my little giA, Sir Jasper, if it was only once in all your life ; let me see my darling in her father's arms this once befor-e I die.' Sir Jasper gave a little start like, and took his youngest daughter on his knee. I do believe it was the first time he had ever held her in his arms from the hour of her birth." " But I suppose Sir Jasper was sorry when this poor neg- lected wife died ? " Mrs. Browning shook her head thoughtfully. " He seemed more stunned and dazed like, than sorry," she said. Lady Denison's death came upon him very sudden^ for he never seemed to have seen that she was seriously ailing. It was only common for the family-doctor to be hanging about the house, first to see one of the children, and then to see the other ; and though he'd been attending Lady Denison for the three years after her baby's birth off and on, she was so quiet and made so little complaint, that scarcely any one knew that there was anything amiss with her. / knew ; for my lady was very friendly with me, and would ask me to sit down sometimes when I went to her room to consult her about any- thing, and would keep me talking for an hour at a stretch. ' Dr. Daniel tells me there is nothing really the matter,' she Would say to me ; ' he says there is only want of tone.' I couldn't help thinking that Sir Jasper would take more to Miss Marcia after her poor mother's death ; but he didn't ; he •nly seemed to get more and more wrapped up in ^liss Evelyn, I'd been many years in his service, and I'd served his father before him, so he used to sfieak very freely to me, ' I'm a 18 Sir Jasper^ s Tenant. most unfortunate wretch, Browning,' be said to mc one day after the second Lady Denison's death ; ' and everything that I love seems to come to an evil end.' His daughter Evelyn was standing by his side as he spoke, and he put his band tipon her head and lifted up her face. I never shall forget the look he gave her. He didn't speak another word ; but I know as well as if I'd been able to read his thoughts, that from that time there was always a fear in his mind that his eldest daughter would die. He kept her with him for one-and-twenty years, and he seemed to grow fonder of her every year ; and just when she was dearest to him he lost her. There are some of our folks wicked enough to say that her death was a judg- ment upon him for his treatment of Miss Marcia." " Did he treat his younger daughter badly, then ? " " Oh, dear no. Sir. He only seemed to overlook her eomc- how, just as he'd overlooked her poor mother. He never spoke unkindly to her ; but she might be in the room with him for an hour together without his speak'.ng to her at all. I had a good deal to do with the management of the two children, and their nurses and governesses and masters, and such like, and in all the time I can't remember any one act of Sir Jasper's that you could call unkind. If he was ordering anything parti- cular for Miss Evelyn, he seemed to forget her sister ; but if I said to him, ' And Miss Marcia, Sir 9 ' he would answer directly, ' Yes, of course ; let Marcia have everything that is proper : that is understood.' " " And did the little girl feel her father's want of affection ? " " I think she did. Sir. She was very quiet, but not timid, like her mother ; rather proud and independent like in her ways ; fond of waiting upon herself, and not caring to take a favour from anybody. She was very fond of her sister, and would always give way to her in everything, and had a kind of protecting manner with her, as if she'd been the elder sister instead of Miss Evelyn. Poor Miss Evelyn was a regular spoilt child to the very last, and it seemed sometimes as if she couldn't move hand or foot without her sister's help. Marcia was not more than seventeen when Miss Denison died, but she was more a woman than her sister for all that ; and when the accident came, and Sir Jasper was like a madman, and there was scarcely any one in the house fit to do anything, the doctors said that if Miss Marcia had been a hospital-nurse of fifty years old, she could hardly have done better than she did. But goodness gracious me. Sir, I might keep you here all day talking like tliis, and I'm sure I beg your pardon for running on bo ; only when an old woman begins to talk of a family that she's lived with for nearly forty years of her life, you can't wonder if she finds plenty to say." Up at the Great ITotcfe. IS The grave dark face of Sir Jasper's tenant betrayed no weariness. He was intcreeted in tiiis every-day story of a elii^lili'd chiklhood, and a noble v'omanly nature poorly apprc- cialid by those who should h'/.'e held it the dearest of all earthly treasures. It seemed as if in every corner of the world, for ever and for ever, quiet sofferers were bearing their burdens meekly and silently. "Ah, what a sorrowful universe it is! " thought Sir Jasper's tenant ; " forgotten wretches starving silently in loath- some garrets and cellars ; beautiful women stricken by sudden death in splendid mansions ; and all the power of wealth and science too weak to save them ; passionate love unable to shelter the object of its devotion ; and even a child, an innocent unoffending child, born with the stamp of a sorrowful destiny upon her, and called upon from the cradle to bear her smali part in the universal drama of suffering ! " " I should like very much to see Miss Marcia Denison's picture," Mr. Pauncefort said presently. The housekeeper looked at him doubtfully. " It was IMiss Evelyn's picture I spoke of. Sir," she replied ; "Miss Evelyn was the beauty, nnd her portrait hangs in Sii Jasper's study. It was painted by a very celebrated artist, I believe, though the name has slipped my memory." "But there is a portrait of Miss Marcia somewhere, I sup- pose? " " Well, I don't know. Sir ! and yet, when I come to think of it, there is a portrait painted by j\Iiss Marcia herself. It hangs in the room that used to be the young- ladies' school- room, and that was afterwards Miss Marcia'sown sitting-room. She was always very clever with her pencil, and used to spend the best part of her time iB drawing, and writing, and reading. Her 8'ster used I o call her a blue-stocking ; for, you see, the two young ladies were so different, Miss Denison being all for gaiety and pleasure, and Miss Marcia all for study and loneliness." " I should like to see Miss Marcia's picture." " Yes, Sir, but you'll see Miss Denison's portrait first, won't you ? It's considered a very fine painting, let alone being such a good likeness." Mr. Pauncefort assented ; and the housekeeper conducted him to Sir Jasper's study,— a noble room, lined with books from floor to ceiling, and fragrant with the odour of Russia leather ; rather a severe looking apartment altogether, with two white-marble busts on massive black-marble pedestals keeping guard over the door, and a bronze Neptune sitting grim and stern above a group of fierce sea-horses on the top of the solemn faced clock, which formed the sole ornament on the broad marble chimney-piece. 20 Sir Jasper's Tenant. Above this bronzed Neptune hung the only picture in the room — a portrait, in kit-cat size, of a very beautiful young woman, with a perfect profile and large dark eyes, but with Bomething of the gorgeous colouring and classic regularity of feature which have become vulgarised by a hundred diflEerent examples of the same young woman ; now caressing a dove, and labelled Amanda ; now smirking above a sleeping baby, and entitled Maternal Affection ; anon simpering under the shadow of oriental head-gear, and dubbed Zuleika ; but always equally adorned with all the splendour of dark eyes, glowing cheeks, pouting lips, and a straight nose. Evelyn Denison's portrait was the picture of a beautiful woman, but not an exceptional woman. Beatrice Cenci looks at us out of a square of painted canvas across half a dozen cen- turies, and we believe in her and pity her, and her rare beauty makes an image in our minds that never melts or mingles with any other image ; but there are pictures of lovelier women than Beatrice, which fade away from our memories five minutes after we turn from the wall on which they hang. " Miss Denison must have been a very beautiful girl," said George Pauncef ort ; " but I fancy she was one of those people who are born to have love wasted on them by higher natures than their own. I should like to see Miss Marcia's portrait." This was the third time Mr. Pauncefort had expressed tho same desire. He was interested in the story of the daughter who had not been loved. Perhaps the dull monotony of his own life rendered him peculiarly liable to feel such an interest. Those who try to reverse the natural order of things must be content to pay some penalty for their presumption. If Canute had been in earnest when he asked the tides of ocean to retire from that Southampton shore, and the waves had obeyed him, they would mo?*, likely have recoiled only to return with a mightier rush 'i id drown him. The hermit who withdraws his Bympathy frc his fellow-men very frequently ends by de- voting himselt to the study of spiders and caterpillars. Mr. Pauncefort, who had for eight months studiously avoided all communication with his neighbours, found himself all at once wasting a midsummer day in listening to the rambling talk of an old woman. He was not to see Marcia Denison's portrait yet awhile. Mrs. Browning insisted upon taking him through the blue drawing-room, and the amber drawing-room, the billiard-room and my lady's boudoir, still called by my lady's name, though the Baronet had been nearly twenty years a widower ; and it was some time before she brought him to a room on the upper story, a large sunny room opening out of a wide gallery, and / Dp at the Great Houso. 21 simply furnished with maple-wood chairs and t^ables, and chintz hanfjiiip^s. This was Miss Marcia's room. It looked like the dpartiiiont of a woman of thirty, rather than a girl of seventeen. Two capacious hook-cases were filled with books of no common or frivolous character. There were an easel and a pile of folio volumes in one corner of the room, and a little old-fashioned rosewood piano in another. The walls on three sides of the room were hung with maps, which had formed a part of the school-room furniture ; but the wall above the mantelpiece was adorned by a great many water-coloured sketches, all evidcntljr the work of the same hand. The hand was not perhaps that of a genius ; but it was that ■)f a person gifted with a strong natural talent, which had been very fairly cultivated. There were vigour and grace in the drawing of the sketches ; and, if the colouring was a little tame and cold, a shade conventional, it was at least free from the glaring hideousness which pervades the work of some ama- teur artists who aspire to follow in the footsteps of Etty. The sketches were chiefly portraits. There was the picture of a man of about five-and-forty, with an aquiline nose and dark hair, just a little sprinkled with grey, whom Mr. Paunce- Eort set down as Sir Jasper Denison. There were several sketches of the Baronet's elder daughter : now a three-quarter face, radiant and smiling, crowned with a wreath of flowers ; now a profile with the large dark e3'e glancing coquettishly upwards from under the shadow of an elegant bonnet ; now a full face beaming under a broad Spanish riding-hat and a plume of cock's-feathers. No one looking at these girlish pictures could well fail 10 understand that Marcia Denison had been very fond of her sister. It seemed as if she had never lost any opportunity of glorifying the dead girl's beauty ; and every one of the sketches bore in its careful manipulation and finished colouring the evidence that the work had been a labour of love. There was one profile very differently handled : the merest sketch, with only a little colour to light it up here and there ; but, like most careless sketches, instinct with a life and vigour which had been lost in the more finished pictures. This little sketch was Marcia Denison's portrait, drawn by her own hand. George Pauncefort looked at the simple little picture with a pensive interest. It was not the portrait of a beautiful girl ; but Sir Jasper Denison's younger daughter possessed that which was wanting in the face of her handsome sister — a special character, by which it might be distinguished from the faces of all other women. It was a pale face^ with a delicate little aquiline nose ; a small but rather prominent chin ; a broad forehead, with the hair arowiug rather low upon it ; and 22 Sir Jasjjer'B Tenant. dark grey eyes. The hair was a warm brown, rippling at tha temple, and pushed away from the small car. The outline of the cheek was very perfect, but its colouring cold and pale. One of the greatest charms of the sketch was the bend of tha long slender throat, like the drooping curve of a wild hyacinth. In the attitude of the small head, and the expression of tho thin lower lip, there lurked a quiet melancholy, which would have revealed itself to Mr. Pauncefort even if he had not known so much of Marcia Denison's history. " I like her face better than her sister's," he said, as he turned away from the chimney-piece. "Dear me, Sii," cried Mrs. Browning; "you're the first person I ever heard say such a thing. We none of us ever thought Miss Marcia a beauty." Mr. Pauncefort smiled " I didn't say I thought her a beauty," he said ; " I only said I like her face. One doesn't always like the beautiful faces best. Miss Denison is the sort of woman a man marries on the same principle as that on which he buys a pair of carriage- horses, or the lease of a big house in Tyburnia — simply be- cause the wife, or the horseflesh, or the house, may be the very best and most splendid of its kind. Miss Marcia Denison is a woman who may go down to her grave unwooed and unwedded, or she may meet the one man on all the earth destined to love her to distraction. You may take my word for it, Mrs. Brown- ing, if any man ever does fall in love with that girl, her infiu ence will hold him to the last hour of his life." Mr. Pauncefort laughed at his own earnestness as he finished this speech. " I did not think it was in me to be so much interested in anything as I have been in your family history," he said ; " I really have to thank you for a very pleasant morning." The housekeeper curtsied and simpered : " I'm sure I'm very glad you've been amused. Sir ; and I hope we shall see you often at the Abbey when tlie family comes home," she said, glancing rather doubtfully at Mr. Pauncefort's shabby sliooting-jacket, and wondering whether he possessed a dress-coat in which to appear before the mag- nates of the land. " Oh ! the family is coming home, then ? " said George Pauncefort, evidently surprised. "Well, Sir, Sir Jasper did say in his last letter that he should be back at the Abbey before Christmas ; but he said the same thing the year before last, and he didn't come. He spent last winter and the spring in Rome ; and now he's in Germany drink- ing the waters some where ; but there, I always forget tho name? of these foreign places." Up at the Great House. " And he is likely to return before Christmas?" "Well, you see, he says so, Sir, in his last letter." Sir Jasper's tenant was very thoughtful as he walked slowly homeward across the sunlit greensward of the park, and through the dusky gloom of the thick woods. He had loitered for nearly three hours in the rooms and corridors of the Abbey, looking at the pictures and listening to the housekeeper's rambling talk. "Humph!" he muttered; "if these people come back, I must find another hiding-place. I don't want to be patronised by Sir Jasper Denison, or stared at by Miss Marcia's young- lady visitors. She would neither stare at me, nor pry into my business. She is a self-contained young lady, who asks sympathy from no one, and will sjTupathise with very few. Between the story of her life and the little sketch of her profile I fancy I can make out a pi-etty clear idea of that young lady's character." The daily papers were lying on a table when he entered his sitting-room at the Hermitage. He had been fifteen years a wanderer in the wildest and loneliest regions of this earth ; but in all those years he had never lost the Englishman's imperish- able love of his daily newspaper. Even to-day, when his mind was occupied by forebodings of possible annoyance from the return of his landlord's family, he took up one of the papers with a greater show of eagerness than he was wont to exhibit. The first paper which his hand fell upon was the Supple- ment of the Times. His eyes ran along the list of births, marriages, and deaths, as if, hermit though he was, some slight interest in the affairs of his fellow-men still lingered in his breast. At the sight of a name among the record of deaths, a dark change came over his face, and a sudden shivering shook him from head to heel. " On the 4th inst., at Naples, Leonora Fane, relict of the late Major Weldon Paget Fane, H. E. I. C. S., aged 41." George Pauncefort crushed the newspaper in his strong hand, as if in that iron grasp he would fain have crushed out the record on the printed sheet. "It it had been the other, he cned — " ?/ it had been the other! Oh, my God, will ilia kicked wiah uevcr be granted? " 24 Sir Jasper's Tenant, CHAPTER III. WAS HE WISE? i^a summer waned slowly, very slowly for that quia dweller in Scarsdale Hermitage, whose monotonous days were unbroken by any event, almost unvaried by so much as a com- munication from the outer world. Those who took care to keep themselves well acquainttd with George Pauncefort's habits were aware that he received scarcely any letters. The man who carried letters and papers to the big house rarely went out of his way to penetrate the thickets amongst which Mr. Pauncefort's retreat lay hidden. The newspapers were duly sent from Roxborough station every afternoon, and by their means alone was Sir Jasper's tenant made acquainted with the great political tempests and the small social ripples on the tide of human life. He was not a talking man. His serrant had travelled with him for fifteen years, sleeping in the same tent with him in the desert, rest- ing with him by lonely wells under the shadow of African mountains, sharing dangers from man and beast ; and yet there was little confidence or familiarity between the master and man. The servant kept his place as well as if he and hisem- ployer had never quitted Bclgravia. He was a model retainer, a Protean domestic, entirely free from the pretentious clever- ness, the bustling activity, common to your Jack of all trades. He could cook a dinner, or groom a horse, or lay-out the paraphernalia of his master's toilet, with equal despatch and completeness : but his service at the Hermitage was a very easy one, for Mr. Pauncefort's habits were almost as simple as those of an anchorite, and he had an absolute aversion to anything in the way of obsequious attention. Indeed, to sit late into the solemn quiet of the chill hours that follow midnight, read-- ing in heavy brown-backed folios or quaint black letter vol- umes ; to smoke bowl after bowl of Turkish tobacco in the black-muzzled meerschaum, — seemed Mr. Pauncefort's only idea of domestic enjoyment. His days he spent in rambling far and wide about \he fair pastoral country, utterly reckless of, and indifferent to, the changes in the weather, seeking out hidden-nooks and world-forgotten villages, dotted on broad maaoes of common land, or lying deep under a cluster of tower- ing hills. Sometimes, after wandering very far afield, he would take a night's shelter in some remote village inn, little better khan a beershop as to its capacity for accommodatine: travellers. Jf^as iTe JTlseT 25 Unlike most reserved men, George Paunoefort Avas able t^ make himselt' at home anywhere, and would smoke his black- muzzled companion in a chimney-corner, amidst a little cluster of village bumpkins, with as much apparent satisfaction as in the solitude of his own chamber. Perhaps he was rather self- contained than reserved in disposition. He was entirely inde- pendent of liis fellow-men — or as entirely so as any human creature can be : but he in no way resembled the conventional misanthrope ; and if circumstances called upon him to do so, he could let himself down to the level of the commonest and most ignorant of his kind without any awkward creaking of his intellectual machinery by which the letting-down process might be betrayed. He never attempted to patroniet- ; he never made the faintest effort to assert his superiority ; he wore a thread- bare shooting-coat, and riding-boots that were rusty with long wear ; but he never yet had found the rustic boor so slow of perception as to fail to recognise his position as a gentleman. I have said that George Pauncefort carried upon him, so deeply branded as to be visible even to the most ignorant eyes, the stamp of some great sorrow ; a sorrow of the remote past, it seemed to be ; a sorrow that had been conquered and lived down, leaving the conqueror enfeebled by the anguish of the struggle, scarred by the bitter blows dealt against him in the loq£ tight, but not utterly shattered. Time had passed, and he had buried his great trouble, and had trampled on its grave ; but the ghosts of such bitter agonies will haunt us long after the woe itself is past and dead ; and the man calling himself George Pauncefort had his phantom. In dreams, in the dread wakeful hours of the quiet night, the spectre arose before him, the old pangs rent liim, the cicatrised wounds opened again to pour forth new torrents of blood — that impalpable heart's blood which we shed in such an agony. Do you remember that story — a madman's story, as I think — of a man who murdered his enemy, and ever after, so long as he lived, on the anniversary of that hideous day, found the corpse of his victim, and had to get rid of it ? Once he found the loathsome thing lying in his berth at sea, and waa fain to summon up unnatural strength, and hurl it into the ocean ; on another anniversary he came upon it in the desert, and buried it deep beneath the burning sands. But, let him bury it or hide it wheresoever or howsoever he would, when the dreaded day came round, the thing was there, and hia work had to be done again. Does not this story seem some- thing like an allegory ? Surely there are some amongst ua who have slain a sorrow and buried it, — not onoe, but many times, — only to find the dreadful thing lying in wait for us in the quiet of our chambers ? 28 Sir Jasper^s Tenant. But it 18 possible to smile and talk pleasantly enough with our fellow-men despite some lurking dread of that possible corpse lying up stairs, and not polite enough to confine its horrible intrusions to any given day in the year. The broken hearted people manage somehow to hold their own in the world. All through tbo bright autumn weather Mr. Paunce- fort found life as agreeable as life can well be to a man who has neither wife nor child, father nor mother, nor even the " bosom friend, dearer than all." Whatever pleasure can be derived from the solitary contemplation of English landscape, amidst the copses and valleys, the hills and streamlets, of one of the fairest of English shires, was his. Whatever delight a man can derive f;om his favourite authors and his favourite toba»co was also his. The days were rather monotonous, per- haps ; very slow in their progress, very brief to look back upon, for they melted imperceptibly one into another, like the hours that pass in a dreamless slumber, leaving no mark be- hind them. It was only when he saw the fern redden under the sombre shadow of the spreading oaks that he could well oring himself to believe he had been for twelve months a dweller in the Hermitage. Yes, October had come again, and the first year of George Pauncefort's tenancy had expired ; a very quiet and peaceful year, leaving oo more interesting record behind it than the bill of the West-end tobacconiat, who supplied Sir Jasper's tenaat with mild Turkish. October had come again ; and early in tho month George Pauncefort found himself once more on the long terrace in front of Scarsdale Abbey. An insignificant accident had led him thither in the bright midsummer sunshine ; an insignificant accident brought him there now in the still October afternoon. One of the clumsy old chinineyfl at the Hermitage had given signs of imminent decay, and Mr. Pauncefort came to make some common in- quiry of Sir Jasper's housekeeper respecting the proper people to set about the necessary repairs. He had been away on one of his rustic expeditions for the last two days and nights, and had returned to find the thatched roof of the Hermitage in jeopardy, and the deaf old wniiuin tormented by vague fears as to the chances of being buried alive at any moment under the ruins of a falling habitation. It was only in search of a bricklayer that Sir Jasper'a tenant came to the Abbey in the low yellow light of an autumn sunset ; only in search of a bricklayer, and he found • — what? The opening chapter of life's romance is generally very commonplace. Even on the stage, where the beautiful and the ideal are supposed to be paramount over stern reality, the graudcbt tragedies arc apt to begin wiUi the conventional Wias m Wtse f a/ greetings of two gentlemen meeting in a street, or the vulgar talk of a first and second citizen. George Panncefort was in rather a dreamy mood this after- noon, lie had exhausted a good deal of physical energy during his rambles of the last eight-and-forty hours, and a pleasant languour had succeeded the active frame of mind tliat is gene- rally engendered by mountain-air and pedestrianism. It was fdeasant to him in this dreamy state of feeling to linger a ittle on the terrace, watching the red sunlight fade behind the western woods ; and he lingered. The best pleasures of his life were only such pleasures as these — a dreamy sense of rapture in the still beauty of a twilit landscape, a gentle hap- piness in the contemplation of a glorious sunset. He lounged with his arms folded on the broad stone balustrade, watching the fading liglit, and quite unaware that there was anything but a long row of blank windows behind him, when the creak- ing of a hinge roused him from that most delicious state of mind popularly known as "thinking of nothing." He turned quickly, and found himself face-to-face with a lady who was standing on the threshold of an open French wiiulow. One glance at the pale face upon which the low light was shining was quite enough to reveal the lady's identity. The little aquiline nose, the broad forehead, the rippling brown hair pushed away behind a delicate rosy-tinted ear, were very fami- liar to him, though lie liad only seen them once in a schoolgirl's careless sketch of her own profile. Marcia Denison had one of the faces that are always remembered by those who look upon them — not for their beauty, but because of their individu- ality. Amongst all the faces in a crowded ball-room. Sir Jasper's tenant would have been able to select the face of the girl whose sorrowful story had beguiled him in the idle hours of a summer's day. She was a woman now, with a well-bred woman's perfect self-possession ; and her look and attitude, as she stood with her hand on the fastening of the open window, were sufii- cient to tell I\Ir. Panncefort that she had opened it on purposu to speak to him. He took off his hat as he approached her. " Miss Denison, I believe," he said ; and then, as the graceful head was slightly bowed in assent, he added, " I really have to apologise for giving myself up to the contemplation of nature from a stand-point exactly in front of your window ; *ut I had no idea that the family had returned. I came to «iake some inquiries of Sir Jasper's housekeeper." "Papa has heard of the fallen chimney, and will be very glad to talk to you about it, if you will be good enough to tome into his room. He is an invalid, and cauuot venture Ofit ia this autumn weather " 28 Sir Jasper's Temlnt. Mr. Pauncefort passed through the window at which Miss Denison had been standing, and found himself in Sir Jasper's Btudy. The bronze Neptune was looming darkly upon a grey- haired weary-looking man, who reclined in a low easy-chair, with his head lying back upon the cushions, and his worn but handsome features lighted up by the glow of a great coal-fire, upon the top of which burned a huge log of wood. The room was oppressively warm ; but Sir Jasper gave a peevish little ehiver as he turned his head towards the open window by which his tenant had entered the room. " My dear Marcia, how much longer are you going to keep that window open ? — I beg your pardon, Mr. Pauncefort. Very happy to see you, and make your acquaintance ; but eorry to do so under the disadvantage of an east-wind. Pray sit down. You don't care to come nearer the fire ? Ah, I thought as much. You are a hardy pedestrian, I hear ; a traveller, with all manner of terrific advantages to boast of. You please yourselves, you others ! For my own part, I never outstep the limits of civilisation. Civilisation has been three or four thousand years coming to me ; and I really don't see the justification for running away from it. — Marcia, more coals." Miss Denison laid her hand upon the bell. She was stand- ing at the corner of the mantelpiece, with her elbow resting on the broad slab of marble ; and in the dim glimmer of the firelight the tall slim figure, so statuesque in its perfect repose, looked almost like the image of a mediaeval saint keeping guard over a tomb. Sitting on the further side of the room, and at some distance from her, George Pauncefort had ample time to contemplate Marcia Denison ; while the chilly Baronet discussed the condition of his tenant's retreat, and debated the advisability of calling in an architect to survey the premises. " The place has been lapsing into decay for the last fifty years," said Sir Jasper. "There has been piecing and patching going on, more or less, ever since I can remember. The country people rejoice in the falling of a chimney or the crumbling of a wall ; and put down all dilapidations to the account of a certain gentleman, in a silken jerkin and golden lovelocks, slaughtered in a duel under that ivy-mantled roof Do you ever see any ghosts at the Hermitage, Mr, Paunce fort ? " "A good many ; but not the ghost of the fair-haired cavalier." " Ah, you brought your phantoms with you, I suppose. Well, my dear Sir, we must do our best to make the place comfortable with a little more patching and piecing ; in the mcaulime, if there is the slightest apprehension of danger, Was m Wise * 1 beg that yon will take up your quarters in this house until the bricklayers have set things right. I shouldn't mind Bpending a little money upon the decent restoration of the old place ; its traditions are worth something ; and there are dark stains on the flooring of the lower room, which stand very well for blood. I shouldn't mind spending money, if I thought you would care to retain your present abode for any length of time. A respectable tenant — a single gentleman of quiet habits — is always the highest desire of a landlord's heart. Seriously, then, Mr. Paunccfort, how long do you purpose inhabiting the Hermitage ? " " To tell the truth. Sir Jasper, the question is rather per- plexing to me. I have been thinking of " He stopped abruptly, with liis dark eyes bent on the ground. For fifteen years before this autumn evening, he had not once been a guest in a decent English home. The atmosphere o/ Sir Jasper's study was new to him ; the quiet presence of a well-bred woman stirred him with a faint thrill of pleasure, engendered out of the very novelty of the sensation. For fif- teen years he had been a wanderer in the wildest and loneliest regions of the earth ; and the glimmer of firelight in a hand- some chamber, the rustle of a woman's silken gown, the fitful shimmer of diamonds on a slim white hand, were almost as strange to him as they might have been to the rudest peasant-lad weedingturnip-fieldsfor sixpence a dayuponSir Jasper'sestate. "You were thinking of leaving us," said the Baronet, taking up George Pauncefort's unfinished sentence. " I'm not surprised to hear it. The Hermitage is an unlucky place ; and I don't suppose any respectable tenant will endure a long lease of its gloom and ruin. I'm sorry to think we are likely to lose you ; for I had looked forward to some social winter evenings, in which you might have indulged us now and then with a graphic sketch of African adventure. I should really have enjoyed a little vicarious peril and privation. What can be more delicious than to exist for three days and nights with- out food or water ? — to feel the ponderous paw of a lion on your chest, and his hot breath on your face, while a dull numbness stagnates your blood, and holds you as powerless as Bome heavy sleeper under the thrall of a nightmare ? — to spend half-a-dozen hours, holding on for dear life, at the top of a E aim-tree, with a tropical sun blazing above your uncovered ead, and a hungry tiger prowling below your dangling heels? —in short, to have all the sensations of danger whose actual risk and anguish have been endured by other people ? To b* frank with you, Mr. Paunccfort, I have a fancy that there ought to be some sympathy between you and me. I have turned uoy back upeu the world for the last few years cf n-y c Sir Jasper's Tenant. Kfe, and have lived as much apart from my race as a man can ive who is too much a Sybarite to dispense with the comforta jf civilisation, and too much an invalid to exist without medical icience. I think there must be a little of the misanthrope in J-our nature, or you would scarcely have held out for a twelvo ■ month against the dreariness of Scarsdale v/ood. However, you can hold out no longer, and you are about to leave us. I ought to have anticipated as much." Miss Denison had seated herself in a low chair opposite her father. A little table stood near her, with a heap of new bookb and magazines ; and she was cutting open the leaves of a periodical with a paper-knife, whose jewelled handle glimmered fitfully in the firelight. Sir Jasper's tenant found himself absently following the motions of the white hand and the glit- tering knife. It was so very long since he had seen an elegant woman sitting at a comfortable fireside, while the autumn wind was moaning dismally in the outer gloom beyond the curtained windows, like some banished wretch exiled for ever from the sacred shelter of home. He looked at the quiet figure, whose harmonious lines melted one into another and blended imper- ceptibly with the warm shadows of the background, almost aa he might liave looked at a picture. He looked at the quiet figure, and remembered the story of Marcia Dcnisou's child- hood. The neglected girl had grown into an elegant woman, with a certain calm beauty of her own, — a beauty of form rather than colour or expression. There are plants which will flourish without sunshine ; but they are generally pale fragile blossoms at the best. Marcia Denison had grown to woman- hood without the warm light of love ; and George Pauncefort was beguiled by the fancy that a stranger might have read something of her story from her face and manner. The perfect self-possession, the graceful repose, seemed to be the natural attributes of a woman from whose life all passionate emotiona had been banished. No fierce throbs of jealousy had ever rent her bosom ; the hopes and fears, the painful uncertainties, the agonising doubts, which wait upon the happiest of earth's aSections, had never shaken her nature from its placid repose. An elegant woman, a lady in the highest sense of the word, Marcia Denison looked calmly out upon a world which liad given her little joy, and could scarcely bring her any very terrible sorrow. Mr. Pauncefort hesitated a little before ho answered Sir Jasper's very friendly speech. The paper-knife traveller! steadily on : the white hand appeared and disappeared as tha light of the burning log leapt up into sudden life, or died awa'^r into darkness ; fitful and shadowy as those spirit-hands Cc! which wo hear so much nowadays. Was m Wise ? 81 "I certainly have been tlnnkin;:;^ of leaving tliis part of the country," George Pauncefort said at last ; " but I really have neither decided upon when 1 sliould go, nor where I should go. I have been so long a traveller, that English life is apt to seem a little tame and flat. As for the dreariness of my preseni quarters, tliat has never been disagreeable to me. I am fondci of a book and a pipe, or an early ramble on a great waste of common-land, than of all the gaieties of the universe. There are very few reasons why I should leave the Hermitage — per- haps scarcely one substantial reason — and there are many in- ducements for me to remain. Sir Jasper, will you permit me to ask you a question, and will you believe me when I assure you that it is not an impertinent one ? " " With all my heart." " You said just now that you had turned your back upon the world. Am I to attribute any real significance to that ex- pression ; or, in other words, am I to understand that you are not likely to fill the Abbey with visitors ? I know that I have no possible right to ask such a question ; but one of the chief delights of the Hermitage has been that it really is a hermitage. I am so much a misanthrope as to dread the invasion of jovial young sportsmen among the fern and underwood that surround my den." "Then you may banish all fear of any such infliction," answered the Baronet decisively. " You may have heard, per- haps, that a great afliiction fell upon me some years since. From that time to this I have lived a solitary life, now in one place, now in another. My daughter Marcia has been good enough to endure all my fancies, and to resign the associations and amusements which are supposed to be necessary to a young lady's happiness. She has relations who would be very ghu/ to find a brighter and more fitting home for her ; but she is 60 kind as to prefer remaining with me. You need fear no sporting youtli amongst the fern, Mr. Pauncefort. I have no intention of filling my house with people I don't care about, or ruining my health in a futile attempt to sustain the populai notion of a good old English squire. I came back to Scarsdale because — because I was utterly weary of all the rest of the world, I think ; and I mean to live my own lifi in defiance of the frowns of all the county. I don't believi in the common talk about a rich man's duty to society ; am I don't feel myself called upon to turn my house out of win- dows in order that there may be waste and riot in the ser- vauts'-hall, and extortionate profits for the Roxborough trades men. I fancy that a man has a right to his own life and t( bear his burden after his own fashion. It is only your hired jester who is bound to swallow Lid tears, and bo merry at thi 82 St'r Jasper's Tenant. pleasure of his audience. No, Mr. Pauncefort, there will bi no high-jinks at the Abbey because Marcia and 1 havo returned. It will be only a big empty house, with two very quiet occupants, who will always be glad to see you when the natural sociability of the gregarious animal is strong upon you, and who will not be offended with you for stopping away at other times. And now I suppose it's a settled thing? You will stop ; and I may send the bricklayers to patch up the Her- mitage to-morrow." " You are very good. Yes, I shall consider myself settled for some time to come. If yor would wish me to take the place for a term of years " " Not at all. A willing tenant and an agreeable acquaint- ance I shall be delighted to retain ; but an unwilling tenant may shake the dust of Scarsdale from his shoes whenever he pleases to do so. You will dine with us to-day? The second bell will ring in five minutes. Bah ! " exclaimed Sir Jasper, amswering a doubtful look with which George Pauncefort re- garded the rusty sleeve of his shooting-coat, " never mind your dress. Do you think we cannot take any pleasure in your society because you don't happen to wear the regulation Bwalluw-tail and cambric cravat? For my own part, I dine in my dressing-gown, and am limited to wretched slops, pre- scribed by my medical man. There will be fish and a chicken, I dare say, for my daughter ; and if you appreciate the lighter Rhine wines, you will have no cause to find fault with my cellar." A great bell, clanging high in a windy cupola, pealed out upon the night ; and an elderly and stately-looking butler announced dinner almost at the same moment. " Come, Mr. Pauncefort, we are of the Diogenes family Pray let there be no ceremony between us. Give your arm to my daughter, and forget all about your shooting-coat." The Baronet lifted himself out of his easy-chair, and stood erect upon the hearth, — a tall weird-looking figure, in a .'ong ruby-velvot dressing-gown, which rather resembled the .obe of some alchemist or astrologer of the darker ages than the costume of one of Burke's landed gentry. Mr. Pauncefort offered his arm to Marcia Denison almost involuntarily, for he was more inclined to refuse than to accept his landlord's invitation ; and the next minute he found himself following Sir Jasper to the dining-room with Sir Jasper's daughter on his arm. " I assure you that it is a real act of benevolence to stay with papa," she said, during the short progress from the study to the dining-room ; " he is always so much better when he hai pleasant society." Was lie Wise f 33 They dined in a snug little oaken wainscoted chamber at one end of the corridor ; and before the fish was removed George Pauncefort found himself entirely at his ease in the Bociety so unexpectedly thrust upon him. Sir Jasper expanded under the influence of a boiled sole and a glass of hock. He was a man who liked to hear himself talk, and who could talk pretty well, in rather a superficial manner, about anytiiingand everything. He had your true talker's instinctive faculty of discovering a good listener ; and he had found one in George Pauncefort. Not your stupid listener, who gazes at you with the fixed stare of rapt admiration, and flounders dismally it the endeavour to reply to you, thereby too clearly revealing what he has not understood a word you have been saying ; nor yet your self-absorbed listener, who abandons himself to his own reflections while you talk to him, and strikes in with a vacant grin and a " God bless my soul ! " whenever you come to a full stop. Mr. Pauncefort was of the sterling metal,— the thoughtful listener, who weighs every word you say to him, and comes smashing against your pet theories with all the force of a vigorous intellect and the spirit of a born debater. Sir Jasper's face lighted up as the simple little dinner pro- ceeded, for he fancied he had found the creature he had been long looking for : a companion — a man whose solitary habits resembled his own, and who could afford to fall into the ways of his host without going out of his own way to do it. " We suit each other — or I venture to believe that we shall suit each other, Mr. Paimcefort," said Sir Jasper when the stately butler and his subordinate had departed, leaving a very unpretending dessert of big round pears and ruddy-cheeked peaches. "Marcia, I verily believe that I have discovered an acquaintance who will understand me, and whom I shall be able to understand. You may smile ; but I assure you, my dear Sir, the experience of a very dreary exile has taught me how rare a creature is a congenial acq\iaintance. I won't say & friend, ior the word has a tainted flavour to my taste. It seems such a thorouglily understood thing that your bosom friend is a man who falls in love with the woman you want to marry, wins all your money at ecarte, and shoots you through the lungs some chilly morning before sunrise in a swampy field on the Essex coast. Yes, a congenial acquaintance is tlie real raraavis, the impossible bird seldom found in any earthly nest So long as I lived in the world, I was content to take my fellow-men for what they were worth. At tlie iiead of a lon.o, dinner-table it matters little to a man what his guests are worth en detail. He only wants them to be decent fellow g en gros ; and if they are but suflieiently noisy, if one toa tella a little hunting story against the mastet of a rival pa«B and if 34 Sir Jasper^s Tenant. another man recites the last canart^ current in Bclgravia, an there are none of those dismal pauses in which a kind of mental paral5'-sis seems to mark every creature for its own,— he lias no right to complain. But when a man washes his hands of the world and its follies, when he retires to his kennel, and yearns for an occasional visit from some kindred cynic, then comes the diffioulty. He finds only dismal crea- tures, absorbed in the one delight of their lives — intellectual Paganinis, for ever performing on one string — artists who will talk of nothing but art — literary men who can talk of nothing but literature — political economists who are perambu- lating editions of Mill and M'Culloch — agriculturists who talk you to death about steam-farming and the utilisation of sewage ; as if a man who has done with the world could pos- sibly care what the world does with its sewage! There was only Diogenes ; and until to-night I have never been able to meet an acquaintance whose tastes even in seeming bore sny resemblance to my own." It was a long time since Marcia Denison had seen her father so entirely expansive in his manner as he was to-night, ller dark-grey eyes brightened as she looked at him ; and George Pauncefort, sitting opposite to her, and looking at her thoughtfully from time to time, saw that she was pleased with her father's pleasure. They went back to the study aftei dinner ; and by-and-by Miss Denison made tea for her father and his guest. Sitting in a low luxurious chair by the great wood-fire, within a few paces of that feminine figure, the pale thoughtful face, the busy hands employed in the occupation which makes a woman seem more womanly and charming, it Beemed to Sir Jasper's tenant as if the last twenty years of his life melted away, and he was a young man once more, with all a young man's freshness of spirit and happy confidence in the wortli of lovely things. Yes, all manner of fresh and gentle feelings came bacn upon this bruised and battered wanderer in African wilder- nesses. They came back, — the long-absent, the well-nigh forgotten spirits of peace and love, — and chased the dark and evil dwellers from the mansion they had so long usurped. The man's face seemed to soften ; indeed it was a face which always softened when he smiled or spoke to women and children. His voice, at all times sonorous and musical, Bank to a lower and sweeter music as he sat in Sir Jasper's etudy, talking grave speculative talk about the sites of perished empires, whose fantastic splendours have left no better record than a ruined temple or a few quaint hieroglyphics on a broken Btone. The great clock io the Scarsdale stables struck eleven as Dorothy^s Impressions. 35 George Paimcofort left the Abbey. He walked slowly homo in the inoonliglit, thinking of his quiet evening witli a sensa- tion in which wonder was strangely intermingled with a vague fear. " I had so firmly set my face to the darkness," he thought presently, " and I had learnt to endure its worst horrors, — is it wise to let in so much as an accidental ray of light ? " CHAPTER IV. Dorothy's impressions. KvEN your self-contained women cannot exist entirely with- out some natural outlet for all that is brightest rmd most womanly in her nature. Marcia Denison's accomplishment? stood hor in good stead, and went a great way towards a placid kind of happiness, a tranquil pleasure, undisturbed by any fear that it is too lovely a thing to endure. But however accomplished a woman may be, there are times when the mind grows weary, when the tired intellect recoils reluctantly from its accustomed labour, when the empty heart yearns for some pleasant thing to nestle in its dreary void. The human mind, however skilled in the scientific combination of sweet sounds, cannot be altogether patisfied with harmonious se- quences, quaint fugues, contrary motions, and plaintive diminished sevenths. The human eye, however artistic, must have something more to look upon than the cool shadows and bright gleams of colour in a water-colour sketch. And a woman's soul, ever sympathetic, must have some nearer object for its warm sympathies than the dead-and-gone creatures whose stately phantoms stalk through the pages of history. Maroia Denison, though she has some little right to rank herself among the dreaded lists of strong-minded women, was not entirely without a woman's fancies. She had her favourites amongst the people she had known from her earliest childhood, and the chief of them all was Dorothy. Dorothy was the daughter of James Tursgood the bailiff and by consequence the granddaughter of that elderly female who acted as Mr. Pauncefort's housekeeper. Dorothy had been a toddling baby of three when Maroia Denison waa seven years old, and had been taken under the special direc- tion of Sir Jasper's younger daughter at a very early ate. 36 Sir Jasper*8 Tenant. The child of seven had taken it into her wise head to patronise the rosy-cheeked toddler ; and from that time until Evelj^n Denison's death and the Baronet's departure for the Continent, Dorothy Tursgood had been Marcia's pet and pupil. Of course, under these circumstances, Dorothy re- ceived an education which made her infinitely charming, and entirely unfit for the rough-and-ready style of existence in her father's household. She had felt this during Marcia'a long absence from Scarsdale ; but it was all over now, for Dorothy was to be Miss Denison's own maid, and was to live entirely at the Abbey. It was a pretty sight to see the two women grouped to- gether in the autumn sunlight, in one of the vlecp window- Beats of that chamber which had once been the school-room of Sir Jasper's two daughters, but which was now Marcia's own sitting-room, sacred from the footsteps of strangers. Miss Denison sat on the cushioned window-seat, with the sunlight behind her head, while Dorothy crouched on a low stool at her feet, and looked lovingly and reverently upward to the thoughtful face of her mistress. That pale face, with its sharply-defined and delicate fea- tures, was pleasantly contrasted by the rosy cheeks and sunny auburn hair that would break away into curls, confine it with whatever fetters you could choose, the arch hazel eyes, the ripe red lips, always ready to curve themselves into bewitch- ing smiles, the saucy double-chin, the Induing dimple at each comer of the mouth, which formed the tnanifold charms of the bailiff's daughter. She was a round dumpling of pretti- ness and sweet temper, created to be the queen of a rustic May-day, the idol of bumpkin worshippers ; and the best of it was that she was quite unconscious of her own pretti- ness. And yet she was by no means a high-minded woman. She was very fond of fine dress, and would lie awake all night thinking of a new bonnet, or a coloured print that she had Been in one of the grand emporiums of Roxborough, She was vain and frivolous, and would have rery muoh liked to have been pretty ; but she had no idea that there could be any prettiness in a dumpling figure, round red cheeks, and an impertinent little nose, which was always pointing sky- wards, without any pretension to sublimity. Contemplating her own reflection in a looking-glass, poor Dorothy sighed as ehe thought how nice it would have been to be tall and elender, like Mies Denison, with a proud pale face, and dark arched brows above deeply-clear grey eyes. Dorothy wor- shipped her patroness and mistress, and founded all her ideas of perfection upon this one model of womanhood. To wear Dorothy's Impressions. 87 corded black silk, thick and lustreless as the rector's gown, a narrow linen collar clasped ticjhtly round a slim awan-lika throat ; to have long thin wliite hands, all aglitter with diamond rings, and to sit all day in beautiful rooms, seemed to Dorothy Tursgood the very perfection of human happi- ness, whose even course could only bo disturbed by sudden death. Dorothy, with these ideas deeply rooted in her mind, con- templated her mistress with some feeling of wonder ; for Marcia Donsion accepted tlie delights of her life with a man- ner that was a great deal more like calm resignation than complete happiness. Could it be possible that such posses- sions as diamond-rings and unlimited silk-dresses might be- come flat and indifferent by long familiarity ? Oh, if it was so, Avhat a barren universe this world must be ! and out of what material could the youthful mind shape its ideal of per- fect bliss ? Dorothy's heart had been unmoved by so much as one flutter engendered of love's restless fever, and as yet her tranquil slumbers were only disturbed by the vision of a new bonnet-ribbon, or a coral necklace purchased at Rox- borough fair. It was the third day after Jliss Dcnison's return, — the day succeeding that quiet little dinner at which George Paunce- fort had found himself an almost involuntary guest, — and Dorothy Tursgood was enjoying what she called a " lovely long talk" with her mistress. It happened somehow that ^Ir Pauncefort formed the principal subject of discussion in this lovely long talk ; and as the talk was almost absorbed by the vivacious Dorotliy, this fact was by no means singular. Marcia, returned from Continental wanderings, might have a great deal to tell her enthusiastic little attendant ; but Dorothy, who had spent all her life at Scarsdale, must necessarily be rather restricted in her choice of topics. " And, oh. Miss Marcia, I am sure that he is very poor," she said presently, at the end of a long disquisition upon the habits and manners of Sir Jasper's tenant. " But why, my pet? " asked Miss Denison, with a smile. She was in a lazy humour this morning, and had thrown aside a musical composition in which conscoiitive fifths would crop up in the bass in spite of hei. She had thrown aside her sheet of music-paper and shut the piano, and now she felt 9 drowsy pleasure in the balmj' air, the mellow sunlight, an. the gentle hum of pretty Dorothy's voice. " Why do you think he is poor, my darling ? " Dorothy gave a little gasp. She had the feminine habit of 1'umping at conclusions, and the equally feminine habit of not leing very clear aa to why she bad so jumped. 88 Sir Jasper's Tenant. "Well," she murmured thoughtfully, "first and foremost because he wears, oh, such a shabby coat ! " " He may wear that from choice, my Dorothy. An old garment is sometimes so comfortable to a lazy man, — and yet I should hardly think Mr. Pauncefort was lazy. Or his shabby costume may be an affectation of eccentricity, — and yet, from what I saw of him last night, I should scarcely imagine he would be guilty of affectation. However, my dear little Dorothy, there may be a dozen reasons why he should wear a worn-out shooting-coat, and not one of them need be the want of money." " Oh, but then I think he is poor because of so many things. It isn't only the coat. There is one reason why I think he is very, very, very poor ! " said Dorothy, shaking her head, and Bcrewing up her lips with extraordinary solemnity. " And what is that reason, dear ? " "■He never gives anything to poor people. Never, never 1 And yet I am sure he is charitable, for he will go and see poor people, and sit with them, and listen to all their troubles, and ask, oh, such lots of questions, until they begm to think he's going to do ever so much for them, and then he goes away and does nothing. Now, of course that would bo very unkind if he were rich. I haven't forgotten my grammar, Miss Marcia,— subjunctive mood, if he were. So I feel sure he must be dreadfully poor. I mean dreadful, because it it dreadful for rich people to be poor." " Dorothy ! " " I mean it's dreadful for people that ought to be rich to bo poor. Do you know, Miss Marcia, I think sometimes the gentleman at the Hermitage is what's that where we always put the th in the wrong place ? " " Misanthropic." "Yes, that's it— mis-an-thropic," cried Dorothy, with & triumphant snap at the last two syllables ; " and oh, what a pity they can't invent some shorter word to mean grumpy, without being vulgar ! I think he is misanthropic. Miss, be- cause he'll shut himself up with his books for days together, grandmother says ; and in all the time he's been at the Her- mitage he hasn't made a single acquaintance in Roxborough ; and somehow, do you know. Miss Marcia, I think he must have turned gnunp— misan-thingany— from not being happy in his mind ; for oh, he does give such a sigh sometimes as ha Bits over his books ! " " Why, Dorothy, you are a Fouche in petticoats." " I remember all about him, Miss Marica. Joseph Fouch^, minister of police under Napoleon Bonaparte, born at La Martiniere, near Nantes, 1763 ; created Duke of Otranto 1800 \ jDorothy^s Impressions. 89 died 1820," said Dorothy, folding her hands meekly, with a lively recollection of her lessons, " Do you know, Mies Marcia, when I'm in chapel on a Sunday, I sometimes wonder whether I look different from the other girls, — whether I look as if I knew history and grammar and gcograpliy, and such like? but lor', INliss, I do think a bonnct-rilibon makes more diifercnce than all the education that ever was," Dorothy murmured with a thoughtful sigh. Miss Denison caressed the pretty auburn curls with her slim white lingers, and considered whether she had been very wise in cramming that simple head with a second edition ot all the hard facts that had been filtered through her own brain. " I'm afraid your education may not be much use to you in what people call a practical way, my darling," she said pre- sently ; " but education must always have a retining influence, and refinement is a kind of goodness. Besides, who knows what my Dorothy's fate may be in after life ? There may come a day when it will be very useful to you to speak tolerably good English, and write a nice legible hand. And as for Pin- nock's Goldsmith and Hangnail's Questions, this world must always have some pleasanter associations for those who know all about the dead-and-gone people who have inhabited it. In the mean while you and I can be companions now and then, Doro- thy ; which we could scarcely be, if you were exactly like the other girls you sit with at chapel." " Oh no, indeed. Miss Marcia, they are so dreadful, and drop their A's always ; and their hands are so red, and their boots are so clumpy ; and they do breathe so hard, that it's quite unpleasant to sit next them. But oh. Miss, I'm not good enough to be your companion ever ; only you're so kind to me." "Am I, Dorothy? I'm afraid my kindness is not without some alloy of selfishness, and may be, after all, rather ill- advised kindness." "Selfish, dear Miss Marcia! You, who are so good to every one, and so kind to me ; for, oh, it is so kind of you not to want me to wear caps ! " cried Dorothy, sliaking her bright auburn hair into all manner of crispy undulations and stray tendrils that were infinitely bewitching. " But •"• hat was I saying just now, Miss Marcia?" resumed the bailiff's daughter; "Oh, about his being so gloomy." "About whom, darling? " asked Miss Denison in a dreamy voice. She had been thinking of her dead sister. It was only natural that this return to the Abbey should bring the lost girl's image very vividly before her. The place was so dull 40 Sir Jasper's Tenant. BO utterly empty and dreary without that dashing and impul- sive Evelyn, who had been wont to burst into Marcia's sitting- room half-a-dozen times in the course of a morning — a beauti- ful, spontaneous, vivacious creature, whose presence filled the dullest room with life and brightness. " And I'm sure she loved me a little," Marcia thought very sadly ; " and now there is no one — no one." There was little Dorothy looking up at her mistress's pen- sive face all the time ; but though Dorothy's affection was a very pleasant thing, it was not exactly the thing to fill tho great void in such a heart as Marcia Denison's ; it was a little too much like the grateful chirping of a bird who flutters his wings and perches lovingly on a finger of the hand that tends him ; or the frisking of a petted lap-dog, nestling at the feet of his mistress. This return to Scarsdale seemed to Marcia Denison like the reopening of a wound that time had almost healed ; and her thoughts wandered far away from the subject of Dorothy Tursgood's simple prattle, which was all about that one solitary event of the last twelvemonth — the advent of George Pauncefort to the Hermitage. " And, as I said before. Miss Marcia," Dorothy rattled on, in a breathless way peculiar to the genus vulgarly known as chatterbox, " I'm sure he's very poor, dreadfully poor, and I sometimes think it's that which makes him unhappy. Because, you see, he's so clever; he must be very, very clever, you know ; always reading, reading, reading, as he is all day, and all night too sometimes ; and it does seem hard for such a clever person to be cut oflE from the rest of the world, and to live in the middle of a wood and see nobody, on account of his poverty." " But you said just now that he was misanthropic, Dorothy," said Miss Denison, arousing herself by an effort from that long reverie about the dead ; " misanthropic people think it no misfortune to be cut oflE from the rest of the world." "Don't they. Miss? I fancied people were misanthropists only when they couldn't aflEord to be anything else. It must be so much cheaper to despise the human race than to wear nice clothes and give dinner-parties." " But there is such a thing as an honest love of solitude, Dorothy, and a natu( ^1 distaste for the clamour and contention of the world. Do you remember that French proverb I taught you, Lejeu ne vaut pas la chandelle ? People generally say that when tliey have burnt out the candle and lost the game ; but I suppose there are a few exceptionally wise people who keep their candle, and turn their backs upon the gaming-table. Mr Pauncefort may be one of those people." " I don't think that, Miiis," answered Dorothy, with a wJ89 Dorothy's Inqyressions. 41 sliakc of tier curly head ; " / think he is a person who has had a great fortune and spent it ; and, though he carries his head very high, and seems to take his troubles in an oflhand kind of way, he can't help sighing sometimes when he remembers how rich he once was. That's what /think, Miss, and that'fl what grandmother thinks. She has tried to get the truth out of Mr. Pauncefort's servant ; but she says you migbt as well question a tombstone as him, or better, for that would tell you something, even if it wasn't true." And here George Pauncefort's name drifted out of Dorothy's chatter, and the girl's talk rambled on into other channels ; Miss Denison's hand lying tenderly on the pretty head which rested on her knee, while Miss Denison's mind wandered far away into the vanished regions of the past. Every now and then she brought herself back for a moment from that shadowy world to say something kind to her enthusiastic little maid ; and even when her thoughts were furthest away, that ruder second sense— that superticial intellect which will serve us for common use, while the soul soars upward into cloudland — took cognisance of all that Dorothy was saying. Thus it was that Marcia Denison receji^ed her first impres- sions about George Pauncefort. Dorouiy's estimate of that gentleman's worldly circumstances was accepted by her mis- tress — chiefly perhaps because the subject was too indifferent to be worth any serious discussion — and, once carelessly ac- cepted, became a rooted conviction. When Mr. Pauncefort paid his second visit to the Abbey, he had exchanged his velveteen shooting-jacket for a frock- coat ; but the cloth was tolerably well worn, and the cut of the coat fixed the date of its confection at some years before the stranger's advent at Scarsdale. The coat might have looked outre and old-fashioned upon a meaner-looking man , but Sir Jasper's tenant had that indefinable something, that utterly indescribable air of distinction, which makes a man independent of his tailor. What an unspeakable distance between gentleman Brummel, created by the happy inspira- tion of sartorial genius, and the quiet English gentleman of the blue blood, whose hearty grace is a heritage bequeathed to him by Crusaders who fought at Acre, and Knights who saw the earth black with the slaughtered chivalry of France on Crecy's fatal field ! Sir Jasper Denison, not easily pleased upon ordinary occa- Bions, had been pleased to take very kindly to the solitary occupant of the Hermitage, and was inclined to go into rap- tures about his new acquaintance. The Baronet was very impulsive, and not a little frivolous. The bitter stroke which JPate had dealt at him bad fallen on a nature too weak and 42 Sir Jasper 8 Tenant. selfish to be elevated or stiblimated by affliction. He waa a man who took the decrees of Heaven in p'-etty much the same epirit as that iu which lie might have taken the undeserved cruelty of an earthly assailant. When his daughter died, ho could not bow his head and resign himseH: to the belief that she had only floated away from him into a fairer region, whither he might some day follow her, if he so pleased. He was a student of those brilliant pliilosophers whose genius illumined with flashes of lurid grandeur the eve of the French revolution. He could not make a temple of worship out of the tomb of his dead child. The sepulchre of the beloved was a horrible thing from wliich he fled away to beguile his grief by a cynical contemplation of frivolous humanity amus- ing itself at German watering-places, or hurrying through Italian picture-galleries. It may be that Sir Jasper's sudden predilection for the society of George Pauncefort arose chiefly from the fact that the stranger was the only person at Sears- dale whose presence did not remind him of the dead. With the tenant of the Hermitage the bereaved father felt himself safe ; no chance allusion to the lost, no half-retracted mention of her name, was likely to drop from the lips of the man who had never seen her. It is difficult for any human creature linked to an eternal future by the feeblest shred of Christian faith, to understand the unutterable horror which Death wears when he crosses the threshold of tlie Atheist. To Sir Jasper Denison consolation was an impossibility. The only anodyne by which his grief might at intervals be lulled to rest was occupation. He had amused himself somehow or other by those restless and fitful Continental wanderings, until he had used up all those regions where the Sybarite may, travel with- out finding too many crumpled leaves among the roses, and he came back now with the vague intention of occupying himself by some desultory dabbling in building, philanthropy, and steam-farming. In this humour the Baronet was rather pleased to hear of the fallen chimney at the Hermitage. He sent a messenger post-haste to summon the Roxborough architect on the morn- ing after Mr. Pauncefort's visit to the Abbey ; and after a very long consultation with that gentleman — to which solemn con- ference Sir Jasper's tenant was specially invited — certain im- provements were arranged which would in no way destroy the picturesque mediaavalism of the Hermitage, but which were sufficiently important to render that tenement unfit for occu- pation during the space of some weeks. " In which period you will do me the honour by taking up your quarters here," said Sir Jasper ; " I intend making myself OS familiar with the Niger as I am with the Thames ; aod I Dorothy'' s Impressions. 4. A Bhall look to you, Mr. Pauncefort, to give mc the delightful Bensution of playing hide-and-seek with a family party of lions every evening." " You are very good, Sir Jasper ; I was thinking of making a little pedestrian tour " " And depriving me of my African explorations ! But a pedestrian tour in October ! Wet days and foggy evenings, rheumatism and sciatica ! Have you looked at your glass this morning ? No, I'm sure you have not. I am an idle man, Mr. Pauncefort, and, like all idle men, learned in the signs of the times. We are going to have abominable weather for a month to come. Look at that low grey sky ; and then decline the shelter of my blue bed-room in favour of the slip- pery moors and damp woodlands, if yon dure." Sir Jasper's tenant hesitated, looked out of the window and then looked back into the room. It was past five in the afternoon, and the day was darkening already. Tlie dull grey sky and shadowy landscape without co. (rasted dismally with the warm glow of the firelight within. Tliere is such a won- drous magic in the red light of a fire. Surely it must be the magic of association— dating from the far-away day when month old babies lie upon their mothers' knees and laugh for the first time to see the ruddy flames dancing up the chimney. George Pauncefort looked back into the room, and in that ono moment of hesitation his resolutions spread its wings and lloatcd away into chaos. The conference had been held in the library, tlie chamber in whicli George Pauncefort had watched Marcia Uenison's white hands hovering over the teacups the night before. The firelight glimmering on the morocco bind- ings of books that lined the wainscot from the ceiling to the floor made the room radiant with the tender glory of home, and even the grim bronze sea-god seemed to melt under that pleasant influence and modulate his monotonous voice to a gentler tone. Some invisible spirit, permeating the very atmosphere with its subtle presence, seemed to whisper, " This is home — home — the mystic region which you have not inhabited for fifteen years. Welcome, poor wanderer from the desert ; welcome lost bird from a ruined nest ; welcome, from your lonely tent under the cold unpitying sky, poor friendless creature ; welcome — home — home ! " And then another spirit of an argumentative and rebellioua order arose in the man's breast, and cried, •' What have you done that you should tmn away from tliis pleasant shelter to tramp the country side, with houselesa vagabDiids for your fellow-travellers? Are you a pariaii, that yox mubt shrink away from friendly hand;?, and «nj i4 8ir Jasper's Tenant, and hide yourself among village boors and wandering out casts ? " There was a brief pause, during which Sir Jasper amused himself by stirring the logs piled on the coal-fire, and then George Pauncefort replied : " I will accept your invitation. Sir Jasper, as frankly as it ig given. There is no reason why I should decline your hos- pitality, or recoil from your kindliness." He said this with some touch of pride in his manner, and a faint glow upon his dark face. " Good ! " exclaimed the Baronet, laying his hand upon the bell. " Then I may tell Mrs. Browning to air the blue room. You will come to us to-morrow, and the builders may begiti their work as soon afterwards as they please. You will bring your servant, by-the-bye. Imagine Diogenes with a body-ser- vant ! Remember that you are exchanging one Hermitage for another. No dinner-parties ; no pretty girls ; no empty-headed young men to play billiards in the rainy mornings. Only a big rambling house, t-.rlerably well filled with objects of art, and a fretful old man and his daughter. Do you think you can make yourself happy with us ?" " I am only afraid of being too happy." " How do you mean ? " A deep flush kindled in George Pauncefort's face as the Baronet asked this question. For a moment he seemed just a little confused, and scarcely able to answer that simple inquiry , but in the next minute he replied very quietly : " Do you remember what Dante and Tennyson have said about ' a sorrow's crown of sorrow ? ' There are circumstances in the history of my life which make it impossible that I Bhould ever have a home. Do you suppose Diogenes was free to choose anything better when he took to his tub ? I cannot imagine the cynical mood innate in man. To my mind it eeenis only the reactionary phase of sorrow I have been very comfortable yonder with the ghost of the fair-haired cavalier, who has not yet been pleased to reveal himself in any palpable shape. "Will it be wise to exchange my loneliness for genial companionsliip, and the atmosphere of a home, since there must be the going back afterwards ? " Sir Jasper shrugged his shoulders. "You'll be tired of us before the builders have finished their work, and will be very glad to return to your solitude. Men were created to bore one another, if you are not tired, you will be free to come back to us whenever you please. You will not be disturbed here by the sight of any unapproachable domestic happiness ; you will be the guest of a lonely old man, who has been robbed of all that made life bright for him, aud Dorothy^s Impressions. 45 who does his best to take existence in the frivolous spirit of a persijfcnr^ because be lias for ever lost all cliance of any deeper delight than the temporary enjoyment to be derived from the aroma of a choice wine, or the pleasant talk of an intellectual acquaintance. Do you remember what Voltaire says, Mr. Pauncefort : ' Life is a child, which must be rocked in a cradle till it falls asleep.' You and I have both had our troubles ; why shouldn't we help each other to rock the cradle ? " Of course this discussion ended in George Pauncefort's acceptance of his landlord's invitation. lie went back to the Hermitage pondering the matter in much the same moody spirit that he had pondered the night before, as he walked homeward under the stars. Was it wise ? " Bah ! What harm can come of it ? " thought Mr. Paunce- fort, impatiently ; " have I grown a dotard, that I weigh so small a business as solemnly as if it were the turning point of my destiny ? What can it matter whether I go or stay ? And yet after fifteen years'voluntaryexilefrom civilised companion- ship, it seems almost like the violation of a vow. Shall I pack up my goods and go back j-onder ? Shall I start for Tripoli to-morrow, instead of taking up my quarters at the Abbey? No ; I have come home to make my grave in England ; and so long as this man preserves his solitary habits, I could have no safer shelter than Scarsdale wood." So having let his mind slip away from a certain settled resolution which had regulated his actions for fifteen years, Mr. Pauncefort became all at once the most undecided of mankind, Throughout the evening after this interview with Sir Jasper, he seemed the prey to a perpetual restlessness of spirit, not even to be lulled into peace by man's great consoler — the pipe. He paced up and down his room, took half-a-dozen volumes from their shelves, only to stare at their pages in abstracted mood and then to fling them impatiently aside : he put down his meerschaum, with its contents only half consumed : and it was not until after eleven o'clock that he rang for his servant, and told him to prepare for the visit to Scarsdale. The necessary preparations could involve very little trouble, as Mr, Pauncefort's wardrobe — except in the manner of linen — was of the most limited order. Sir Jasper's tenant seemed a great deal more at ease after he had given these decisive orders to his servant. He seated himself in the ponderous old- fashioned arm-chair by the lowwoodfire — the murderedcavalier may have sat in that chair, perhaps — and refilled his meer- tfchauui. Then as he watched the blue clouds of smoke float- ing upward and melting slowly away, he let his mind w?ide/ 46 Sir Jasper^s Tenant. freely whitLersoevcr it would. He thought of Sir Jiisper, wllh all the better attributes of his nature buried in the grave of the dead • and of Sir Jasper's pensive daughter, doomed never to know a father's love, bearing her burden of sorrow with a quiet resignation which was more beautiful than the gaiety of happier women. "The housekeeper was quite right," thought George Pauncefort ; " Sir Jasper is not unkind to his daughter : ho only overlooks her." CHAPTER V. "at first her image was a dreamy thino." Marcia DEKisoNwas pleased to find that her father had at last lighted on an acquaintance whose companionship seemed to afford him unalloyed satisfaction. During the Baronet's ab- sence from Scarsdale his daughter had not found her position by any means a sinecure. Ambitious Madame de Maintenon found it a hard thing to amuse the unamxxsable. The burden of her father's ennui had fallen more heavily on Marcia than on the sufferer himself. When an invalid is of the discontented and fretful temperament, that invalid's nurse has a bad time of it. For five years Marcia Denison had borne the weary load of her father's sorrows, and kad received only courteous little speeches and polite smiles fn payment of her devotion. If he could have taken her to his heart, what a tender and loving creature would have nestled there ! But he could not do this. His daughter Evelyn had been the beautiful embodiment of his first love. For his daughter Marcia he could only feel the same cold toleration which lie had felt for his second wife. The girl knew this. She knew that her mother's heart had withered for lack of the warm sunshine of love. She knew this, and it was only the wise tolerance which generally belongs to a noble intellect that enabled her to forgive the man who had crushed her mother's gentle spirit. Happily she could forgive, for she could understand and pity. " It was all a mistake," she thought, — " an unhappy mis- take. My father gave a grand old name in exchange for a trader's fortune, and fancied that polite speeches and set smflea would make a very tolerable substitute for love." Marcia possessed, among her few treasures, a small packet ** Her Image was a Dreamy Thing. ^* 47 of letters, addreeeed by lior fatlmrto hor inctlicr before their marriage. These should have been love-letters, for they had been written during the period in which Alicia Jones had been betrothed to Sir Jasper Deiiison ; but the cold and stately tone of the e])istlcs was unrelieved by one gush of real feeling. They were very gentlemanly letters, such as a Sir Charles Grandison might have composed ; but they were the letters of a man whose heart had never beat with one throb of affection for the woman to whom they were addressed. In these coldly-worded letters Marcia Dcnison saw her father's justification. At the least, he had not deceived that di'ad mother, whose pale face looked out at her from an old- fashioned miniature. Marcia forgave her father, but she could not forget her mother's sorrow, and she resigned herself to the idea that she was to descend unloved and but little lamented to the grave. The first germ of this idea had been planted in her mind long ago in her earliest childhood, when she had seen so many evidences of a love that was given to her sister, and withheld from her. But now the vague fancy had grown into a deeply-rooted conviction, not easily to be plucked out of her breast. She fancied that no one would ever love her. She had no special ground for this belief, for she had beer' considerably admired whenever she had appeared in society, and she had received more than one eligible offer of marriage. But she was an heiress, — the actual possessor of a very large fortune, inherited from her plebeian mother, and having the prospect of a second fortune from her father. She therefore took it for granted that hor wooers were actuated by purely mercenary considerations, and dismissed them with freezing coldness. They only insulted her by a pretence of love which they could not feel, and she was wound«d and made angry by their affected preference. Remember that her claim to be considered a strong-minded woman was based only on her studious habits, her superior education. In actual experience of the world she was no better skilled than a school-girl. Before her sister's death she had been too young to appear very often in society ; and since that melancholy event she had seen only the few peopio whom from time to time her father had " taken up," generally to let them drop again with ill-concealed disgust and dis- appointment. And now he had been pleased to take up the tenant at the Hermitage ; and but for a dread of some sJidden and scarcely polite revulsion of feeling, poor Marcia would have been entirely pleased that her father should have a new acquaint- ance likely to beguile hina in those long dreary winter even- ings rapidly approaching. iMiss Dcnison felt more hopeful of 48 Sir Jasper s Tenant. this new friendship than of many which her father had chosen to make during his Continental travels, for she saw that Mr. Pauncefort was a gentleman, and many of her father's ac- quaintance had not been quite gentlemen, — only that excellent electro-plated imitation of the real article which looks so brilliant, until the edges begin to be worn away by familiar use. No one could possibly have mistaken Mr. Pauncefort for anything but a genHeinan. No certificate of character was needed before you admitted him into your house ; poor and out-at-elbows perhaps ; ruined by extravagant habits, it might be ; for those things may happen to a gentleman of the blood-royal ; but branded by no dishonour, degraded by no low vices, debased by no meanness of thought or deed. Marcia accepted her father's guest as frankly as if she had known him from her childhood. His grave demeanour, his pro- bable poverty, recommended him to her. Her pensive spirit would have shrunk from a brilliant favourite of fortune, but it advanced to greet this toil-worn wayfarer with kindness and pity. Ah, then indeed George Pauncefort felt what it was to breathe the atmosphere of home after long years of banish- ment ; home, created by the presence of a good and pure- minded woman. Shall I describe how a quiet sympathy, a tacit friendship, first arose between this man and Marcia Denison ? It is so difficult to describe the beginning of friend- ship. No doubt it dated from the first happy coincidence of tliought or fancy, in which tvvo minds unite in sudden harmony, like notes struck at random on an instrument, that yet com- pose a perfect cliord. Amongst all the chance acquaintance whom it had plea«ed Sir Jasper to patronise, this bronzed African traveller was tho only creature in whose society Marcia had been able to take any pleasure. And then she pitied him because he was poor, and friendless, and lonely ; she trusted him implicitly, inspired by an instinctive confidence in the nobility of his nature. He was very much her senior, highly educated, refined, poetical ; and all the chivalrous sentiments of this daughter of Joneses and traders were aroused by the contemplation of his loneli- ness and ruin. She had quite accepted Dorothy Tursgood's theory about this solitary stranger. He had been rich, and had squandered or lost a great fortune. His friends, — bah ! they were gone with the friends of Tinion ; vanished like all followers of the general who is beaten in the great battle of life. He was very poor, and had come to Scarsdale wood to hide himself and his fallen fortunes from the world which had smiled on his prosperity. It was a very plausible theory ; and any chance word that Geurye ruiincefort did let drop *^ Her Image vas a Dreamy Things 49 npon ln6 own affairs tended to its confirmation. If ho talked or pictures, he talked like a man who had possessed such things and had lost them. He brought Marcia some books one day from the Hermitage, and the volumes looked some- how like jetsam and flotsam from the wreck of a splendid library. The coat he wore was almost threa Ibare, but even Marcia's inexperienced eye could recognise the genius of a crack West-end tailor in the harmonious outlines of the shabby garment. The old-fashioned watch which he carried at the end of a plain black ribbon was an exquisite toy of gold and enamel, which had belonged to Louis the Sixteenth, And looked like the last cherished remnant of a collector's treasures. He was standing in the mullioned window at the end of tha corridor one morning with Marcia Dcnison, looking into the old-fashioned garden which she called her own. He was standing where he had stood to hear the history of Sir Jasper's two daughters from the lips of the garrulous old housekeeper. For some minutes he had been standing in the same attitude, looking at the old garden with a fixed dreamy gaze. He had been a guest at the Abbey for nearly three weeks, and a pleasant friendliness had arisen already between him and Marcia. Sho was sitting at the little table, moving the ivory chessmen stealthily to and fro upon the board, and looking up with a half-smile at his dreamy face. " You know some other garden like this, Mr. Pauncefort ? " she said presently. He started, and looked at her fixedly with something like alarm in his glance. " How do you know that, Miss Denison ? " " I could see it in your face. Do you tiiink I could live so long almost alone with papa, and not learn to read people's faces ? I can read his thouglits — I sometimes wish I couldn't — even when they lie deepest ; and yours were very easy to read just now. You would never have looked so tenderly at my garden if there had not been the memory of some other garden in your mind." " Yes, you are right. I fancied myself thirty years younger than I am ; and I was a little boy feeding ducks in a pond something like that one yonder under the shadow of the old wall. I almost felt my mother's liand in mine — I almost heard the rustling of her dress as tlie autumn wind swept by us just now, and stirred those fallen leaves. Yes, I was thinking of another garden far away in the heart of York- shire. I dare say the weeds are growing thickly enough thero BOW." 60 Sir Jasjjer^s Tenant. He sighed like a man who remembers and regrets a lost heritage : then turning away from the window suddenly, he said, ': * [■■-■■-!'', "Miss Denison, I never 'told a lie in my life, and yet I liave not the courage to show myself in the place where I waa born." " Ah,"' tliought Marcia, " Dorothy was right. lie must be very poor, for poverty is the only sin which a man can beai nobly, knowing all the while that he can never be forgiven by the world." And then the grey eyes, marvellously soft when pity glanced from their clear depths, were gently raised to the traveller's bronzed face. Poor ruined wanderer ! Miss Denison began to think of some plan for his future comfort. Her father had influence : might not that influence be exerted in favour of this friendless stranger ? Some small appointment ; some foreign mission ; some civilian's position in India, — so many men with blighted fortunes had been known to flourish anew under the shadow of the Himalayas. The woman whose pity is unmixed with any practical spirit is no true woman. To pity a person was, with Maicia, to help them. Mr. Pauncefort seated himself before the chess-table. He was by no means apt to make a parade of any gloomy secrets that might lie hidden in his breast ; but when a man carries a fox under his waistcoat a stray paw of the animal will now and then peep out from its hiding-place. " Shall we play, Miss Denison ? " asked Sir Jasper's tenant, laying his hand upon the ivory pieces. " If you please." They were both good players : but to-day Marcia's tactics were of the most erratic order. Her knights dropped un- resistingly into the hungry jaws of her opponent's bishops : her poor little pawns were swept off tlie board by swooping castles : and even her queen fell a victim to the stealthy side- long advances of a knight. " Check-mate ; and a doubtful victory, Miss Denison," cried George Pauncefort. " Your thoughts have been far away from tlie pieces under your hand. I am afraid the game has bored you." Miss Denison blushed. Her father's guest was offended • and yet she had been weaving little schemes for his advance ment all the time. That Indian appointment : if it could only be procured, this man might achieve a new opening in life, new prospects, new hopes, almost a renewal of youth. And while Marcia was scheming for his benefit, the ungrateful creature was angry with her for being inattentive to a game at r.hess. Some women would have been indiijnant at Mt, " Her Image was a Dreamy Thing.** 51 Paunccfort's ofTcDded tone ; but not Marcia Denieon. She was quite a woman, in the highest and purest sense of the word ; no frivolous girl, greedy of admiration, eager for conquest : but a wuman, long-suffering, tender, unselfish, with the simple candour of a child, the patient heroism of a martyr. Mr. Pauncefort had been nearly three weeks an inmate of Scarsdale Abbey, and in that time he and Marcia had been V(>ry much together ; in spite of those feminine employments v/hich kept the young lady in her own apartment for several hours during the day. That quiet house was the very place of Jill others for the growth of friendliner,8 and intimacy between two people who were inclined to like each other. And these two people were peculiarly disposed to be friendly, for the gentle spirit of compassion had taken up her abode in the breast of each. George Pauncefort cherished the memory of that simple family history related to him by the old house- keeper — that story of a sorrowful childhood, a poor little motherless girl forgotten and neglected. He remembered this, and it was by the light of this knowledge that he regarded Marcia Denison when first he became acquainted with her. He did not recognise the heiress of Scarsdale in that stately young lady with the pale still face : ho only saw the luckless little girl who had never been so happy as to win a father's love,— the neglected daughter whose lonely childhood had developed into a lonelier womanhood. From a happy, frivolous-minded girl, radiant with the con- sciousness of her own fascinations, eager to assert and establish the royalty of her beauty. Sir Jasper's tenant would have shrunk away terror-stricken ; but in pale Marcia's quiet presence he felt a sense of poace and security that wrapped him round like the balmy breath of southern breezes on a sunless auttnnn day". They pitied each other, and in- voluntarily their voices took a softer music when they talked together. She was so sorry for his poverty and friendless- ness : he was so sorry for her loveless childhood, and joyless, wasted youth. And in the mean while capricious Sir Jasper seemed to have become suddenly constant. Mr. Pauncefort had been three weeks iit the Abbey, and as yet there were no chilling tokens of discueliantment. Every morning at nine there was the same cosy little breakfast in the oak-panelled dining- room ; every evening ai seven the same comfortable little dinner and delicate Rhenish wines. And then between break- fast and dinner there were chance meetings in the corridor or on the terrace ; and then after dinner there wao the long quiet evening — the delicious home-like eve-tting, with endless 62 Sir Jasper's Tenant. talk and strong tea, brewed in a chef-d'oeuvre in the way of tea-pots, and poured into Dresden tea-cups by a woman's graceful hands. Is it wise, George Pauncefort, — is it wise to linger and be happy, when there must be, sooner or later, the going back ? He had excuses for lingering. Surely never, in a commercial and business-like point of view, were workmen so slow aa those masons and carpenters and bricklayers who were in- trusted with the restoration of the Hermitage. And on the other hand, looking at the edifice with the eyes of Sir Jasper's visitor, surely no fairy palace ever hurried more swiftly to- wards completion than the quaint old building in the wood. " Already ! " That mystic word which the pensive voyager who journeys with Sir Edward Lytton's boatman has need to repeat so often, sounded like a death-knell in the ears of George Pauncefort. He had stayed five weeks at the Abbey, and the workmen had been busy a week beyond the time ap- pointed for their task ; and now he had nothing to do but to render polite thanks for the Baronet's hospitality, and then go back to his old quarters. His old quarters ! Would they ever seem as they had seemed to him ? Would there ever be the dull quiet, the same grey, joyless calm, which was at least peace? The perfect comfort to be had out of a book and a pipe ; the contentment which arises in the mind that has fully resigned itself to abjure all hope of happiness, — should he ever know these again ? Ah, vool ! he could scarcely close his eyes now without seeing a woman's figure, a delicate face bending over a tea-table, the drooping curve of a slender throat, the fitful shimmer of a silken dress in a firelit chamber. And it was late in November now, and the nights would be so long. Ah, weary wayfarer, if the angels who guard the gates of Paradise should lower their flaming swords, and ask you to step in and rest, beware of their kindness, reject their ofiiered bounty ; for after the joy of the garden comes the anguish of going back ; and the dusty highway will seem a thousand-fold more barren by contrast with that glimpse of the lost Eden. Some sfich thoughts as these may have been in George Pauncefort's mind upon the last evening of his stay at the Abbey, for he was very silent. He had been wont to talk a great deal, and to talk well during these peaceful evenings, so untrammell&ii by ceremonious restraints, so secure from the intrusion of any incongruous element from the outer world. Travellers snow-bound within the hospitable walls of an Alpine monastery could scarcely have been more entirely alone thaa these three people were in the big library at Scarsdale. Even Sir Jasper, who prided himself on a serene indifEcreuce to th« ** Ker Image was a Dreamy Thing." 53 coming and going of those acquaintance whom ho took it into his head to admire and patronise — even Sir Jasper's sallow faco wore an expression of genuine regret as he spoke of his guest'a departure. " To-morrow morning ! and you say you must go ? You want to fall back into your old habits — study, and so on. Well, Mr. Pauncefort, I have no right to put in any selfish pleas against what seems a very settled determination. If you must go, you must ; and I must resign myself to turn my back upon Africa, and forego my after-dinner hand at ecarte. Marcia has been good enough to learn the game ; but no woman ever played ecarte ; their only notion of the game is, that the king must be somewhere in the pack, and that if they only go on proposing long enough, they're sure to get him. I shall miss you very much, Mr Pauncefort; we disagreed so delight- fully about Bolingbroke and Voltaire. There is nothing so agreeable as the society of a man whose opinions are totally opposed to one's own. I shall miss you most — confoundedly!" exclaimed Sir Jasper, almost testily. "I wish I were some despotic Oriental potentate, with the power of submitting to you the option of remaining my guest, or going out into the courtyard to be bowstrung ; but our western civilisation is against that sort of thing, and I can only ask you to come and dine with us as often as you can." " I shall be very glad to come back again. You cannot suppose that I am churl enough to undervalue the delight of congenial society ; but I have already told you, Sir Jasper, there are circumstances in my life which preclude my ever having a home of my own ; and I am afraid of growing too dependent on pleasant companionship. I have spent twelve months very comfortably with no comrades but my pipe and my book, and I want to go back to my Hermitage before Sybarite habits have been engendered by your hospitality." Sir Jasper's tenant had laid some little stress upon the words, "There are circumstances in my life which preclude my ever having a home of my own ; " and he had stolen one little look at Marcia as he spoke them. Miss Deuison's face was turned towards him with an un- disguised expression of infinite compassion. lie thought the clear grey eyes, so wondrously serene, so calm in their tender thoughtfulness, might have shone out of the face of a pitying »ngel pensively contemplative of earthly sorrow. And then Sir Jasper's tenant socmed to put aside whatever fad thoughts had kept him silent that evening, and talked aa it was his habit to talk, with a quiet earnestness that some- times almost warmed into enthusiasm. He was nearly forty years of age, aud was therefore uualiiictcd with that terribl* 54 Sir Jasper's Tenant. incapacity for any emotion which seems common to the youth of this gcnoration. To him life seemed a battle-field in which it was a noble thing to be victor : and if he had retired to hide himself in his tent, it was that he had fought the fight and had been beaten, and not because he considered the battle a pitiful fray, scarcely worth the winning. To-night he talked more eloquently than was his wont ; and Sir Jasper, who was nothing if not a persiflexw^ was fain to let the conversation lapse almost into a duologue between his daughter and hia guest, for it soared into regions which he could only enter when carried aloft by stronger pinions than his own. Ah, how short the hours seemed to George Pauncefort that night ; and what a grim tyrant that bronze sea-king, scowling grimly ubove the dial on which the minute-hand revolved so swiftly ! It was after midnight, when a politely smothered yawn from Sir Jasper gave the first hint at anything like weariness in that narrow circle, and recalled Mr. Pauncefort from those far-away realms of thought in which it had been so pleasant to roam with gentle, womanly Marcia Denison. Perhaps that was her highest charm. She was a woman !— not a deliciously gush- ing creature, whose lovely eyes would fix themselves upon you in tender compassion for your sad cough one minute, and who in the next would bounce out of the room and expose you to the horrors of an east wind by leaving a door open. She was a woman — a ministering angel in the hour of affliction, and not " uncertain " or " hard to please " at any time ; nor yet con- scious of any divine right to be pleased at the cost of other people's pleasure. George Pauncefort gave one regretful look round the room, as he said good-night. " I think I will say good-night and good-bye too," he said. " I have planned one of my pedestrian excursions for the next few days, and shall take my departure at daybreak to- morrow." " But we shall see you soon again ? " " I hope so. I— if you are good enough to wish it, I shall be very glad to come back — now and then." " Good enough to wish it ! " cried Sir Jasper testily. " When I have found the rara avis I have been hunting for the last five years— a congenial companion ! We suit each other, Mr. Pauncefort, all the better, maybe, because there is a great deal in me that you don't approve, and a great deal in you that I can't understand. We are as far as the poles asunder, perhaps, in character ; but we are just the sort of people who can get on admirably together. What can you do with a man whose ideas are the same as your own ? Black is white, say you ; of course it is, answers he ; and you're at a deadlock for the rest of the evening. Give me the man who " Her Image was a Dreamy Thing.** 5?> Bays, ' No, it isn't.' I can get on delightfully with him. By- the-bye, youwill spend Christmas with us, I trust, Mr. Paunce- fort ? No county families, no would-be mediajvalisra, — boars' heads with lemons in tiieir mouths, rejoicing retainers, fiddlers in the music-gallery, and so on ; none of your Christmas-in- the-oldcn-time absurdities ; master and mistress leading off Sir Roger de Covcrley, with a ruck of servants and farm- labourers streaming behind, and the odour of tlie stables per- meating the atmosphere ; no roasted oxen, scorched outside and raw inside ; no bales of blanketing, distributed amongst grateful peasantry, who will turn up their noses at the quality of your beef, and slander you because of the coarseness of your flannel. I suppose we do something benevolent in deference to the prejudices of our age. My daughter Marcia has carte blanche, and women seem to find that sort of thing ratlier amusing. For the rest, we shall be quite alone. I suppose the cook will insist on sending up that conventional cannon- ball, in the way of confectionery, which she calls a plum- pudding ; but I promise you there shall be no further indica- tion of what grocers and illustrated-newspaper proprietors entitle the ' festive season.'" Mr. Pauncefort smiled : his smile was very beautiful, — all the more beautiful, perhaps, because it savoured rather of thought and sadness than of mirth. " i have no wish to forget the festive season," he said, " though it has found mc very lonely for the last fifteen years. But I am weak enough to entertain a lingering affection for the traditionary Christmas ; and I shall be very sorry when its last vestiges have melted into the darkness of a forgotten and unregretted past. I like to hear ' the clear church-bells ring- in the Christmas morn,' and to remember a Wanderer whff was more homeless than I am, and who was the first great Teacher of the dignity of sorrow." " Ah ! " exclaimed Sir Jasper, shrugging his shoulders ; '■'■ paa connu, mon ami. You remember what Voltaire says ; or you don't, perhaps, and you'll be angry with mc if I quote him. Let us part good friends, and meet to quarrel again at Christmas." Mr. Pauncefort hesitated. " You are very kind, but I " " You are heartily tired of our society, and doc't want a second infliction of it." " My dear Sir Jasper, I " " Oh, of course you will deny tlie fact. Diogenes is an impossibility in an age in which every man sends his boys to Eton. If you are not heartily sick of us, and have no better engagement, come to us at Christmas You promise ? " 56 Sir Jasper^ 8 Tenant " Yes, Sir Jasper ; if my coming can please you." He spoke to the Baronet, but he looked at the Baronet '• daughter. The pale still face betrayed neither interest nor emotion this time. It was the face of a woman who listened, from mere politeness, to a discussion whose result was entirely indifferent to h.er. " Good-night and good-bye, Sir Jasper. Good-night, Miss Denison." He gave his hand to each, and was gone. He stopped for a moment outside the door, — the ponderous uncom- promising door which closed upon him with such a sonorous reverberation. " I wonder if Adam felt as I do, when the angel shut the gates of Paradise ? " he thought ; '' but then Adam was ban- ished for his own sin, and I " Half an hour afterwards, in his own room, — the pretty blue draperied chamber, where every thing smelt of a delicately perfumed pot-pourri which seemed peculiar to the Abbey ; the home-like room, with a snug little writing-table and a capacious easy-chair wheeled close to a noble fire burn- ing in a quaint old-fashioned grate, — alone in this room, George Pauncefort flung himself on his knees by the bed, and with his face hidden in his clasped hands, prayed long and fervently. Sir Jasper Denison would have laughed aloud in amused amazement at the sight of that big broad-shouldered man kneeling in the reverent attitude of a little child. Sir Jasper would have been even more surprised if any one had told him the burden of the man's prayer : " Oh, keep me from loving her ! Paralyse all tenderness of feeling in this withered heart ! Give me strength to accept my destiny, and to be patient unto the end 1 " CHAPTER VI, **ALL WITHIN 18 DARK AS NIGHT.** Mb. Pauncefort adhered to the resolution he had declared Bt night, and left Scarsdale Abbey when there was only the faintest glimmer of light in a chill grey sky. He let himself quietly out of the little side-door by which he liad first entered the Abbey, and went away under the fading stars, while the great clock in the etablcs w-as striking ** All TFithin is Dark as Night.** 57 six. About a hundred yards from the houeo lie stopped short, and looked back at the long range of windows, tiie closed shutters, the lowered blinds, — all blank, all dark. No eye to watch his departure ; no pale regretful face shining out upon hiir., like one of those fading stars up yonder ! Nothing ! He looked from the dark house up to the wide heaven. Ah, there the light was dawning, pale as yet, but brightening just a little with every passing moment. " Shall I accept it as an omen ? " he thought ; " here only darkness, but the light there. Is my fate so hard that I should revolt against the hand that laid my burden upon me ? There have been men who, of their own free will, for love of God and of their fellow-men, have cheerfully resigned as much as I have .ost. Let mo remember iliat, when the rebellious spirit rises in my breast and asks, ' Why should I suffer? '" For three days and nights Mr. Pauncefort vanished from the neighbourhood of Scarsdale. He was awrv tramping on solitary country roads, under a dull November -ky ; tramping steadily, with his face to the chilly autumn wind, with his face to the rain, the sleet, the darkness ; now talking to some tired outcast, lagging wearily on his beat ; now exchanging a few cheery words with a passing rustic ; sometimes quite alone for hours together ; but always tramping steadily on, like a man who has backed himself heavily to walk a hundred milas in a hundred consecutive half-hours. It was very late upon the fourth day after his departure from the Abbey, when Sir Jasper's tenant returned to the Hermitage. He walked back to his simple domain travel- stained and tired. All was prepared for him : pine-logs burn- ing redly on a cheerful fire ; a reading-lamp on a little table, trimmed and ready ; an old worm-eaten arm-chair wheeled close to the wide hearth. The moonlight streamed in at the low lattice-window, and fell in a slanting line across that polished oaken floor, which might or might not be stained with the life-blood of the traditionary cavalier. The room looked very comfortable, half in the solemn light of the moon, half in tlie ruddy glow of the fire. It was as good a welcome as a lonely wanderer had any right to expect : and yet, ah me ! how sad and cold it seemed to Sir Jasper's tenant! The titled backs of his favourite books, winking and blinking in the fire- light, seemed to smile at him : as who should say, " In ua behold the harmless friends who know not weariness, the silent comforters in whose companionship there lurks no hidden danger." Mr. Pauncefort's quiet servant came into the room, at the sound of the opening and shutting of the door. He found Lis master standing by the hearth, his elbow resting on an 58 Sir Jasper's Tenant. angle of the chimncj^-piece, his eyes bent moodily on the fire. " You are tired, Sir," the man said respectfully, as he lighted the lamp. It was a reading-lamp, with a deep green shade, and it only lighted the room with a subdued glimmer, but even in that doubtful light Andrew Milward, the valet, saw that Ijis master's face was paler than usual, and that there was a worn look about the eyes and mouth that had not been there since the first month or so after the traveller's return to England. " Yes, I am very tired ; I have walked greater distances and longer hours this time." " Shall I get you anything, Sir ? " " Yes, you may get me a cup of tea, the never-failing con- solation of old women and — old bachelors. You have no oc- casion to look so anxiously at me, my dear Milward ; you must expect a man to seem a little knocked up after doing ninety miles of a hilly ^ountry in four days of very uncertain weather. Get me that tea as quickly as you can. How do you find this place after the builders' work ? They have not done away with its medijEvalism, I am very glad to see. There are no radical changes? " " Not at all. Sir. New flooring, new banisters on the stair- case, new woodwork about the windows, a new stack of chim- neys, and a few beams here and there, where the house seemed shaky ; but everything quite in the old style. Sir." Mr. George Pauncefort retired to his room on the upper story and made his toilet, wliich involved a great deal of cold water, a change of linen, and the substitution of a loose morning-coat for the velveteen shooting-jacket, which he was wont to wear in his pedestrian rambles. It was only nine o'clock, and Sir Jasper's tenant had a long lonely evening before him — the first lonely evening after many pleasant houra of bright and genial companionship. He went back to his sitting-room. The queer old tea-pot was in its wonted place among the ashes ; a faded red cloth curtain was drawn across the moonlit window, and the oaken panelling only reflected the cheery glow of the fire. Mr. Pauncefort filled and lighted his pipe, took a book at random from the shelf nearest to him, and began to road. How many lines did he read ? About twenty perhaps ; then the hand holding the book slowly dropped by his side, the proud head sank forward on the broad breast, the dark eyes fixed themselves dreamily on the burning logs. "And I have known such peace in this place!" mused Sir Jasper's tenant. " What have I lost, what have I lost, since I last sat alone beside this hearth ? " He could find no answer to that question. He had rbosen <• All Within is Darl as NighV 59 to break a resolution that had been almost a vow, and ho was paying tlie penalty of his folly. " Oh, fool, fool, fool ! " he muttered presently ; " fool not to have better estimated the peril of such associations — the horror of such a contrast ! " lie went back to his book with a weary sigh. It was a deli- cate little masterpiece of the typopjraphical art, a tiny volume of classic literature, published by Firmin Didot, — an expensive fancy for so poor a man as Sir Jasper's tenant — a volume to set a book-hunter's mouth watering with epicurean longing; but Mr. Pauucefort's hand dropped by his side a second time — liis moody glances went back to the fire, not to be beguiled by delicate line-engravings, or pearly type, or quaint initial letters in scarlet printing-ink. He restored the book to its place on the shelf presently, and began to walk slowly up and down the room with his arms folded and his head bent. The dark brows contracted over those thoughtful eyes, full of gloomy thoughts to-night, as it seemed. The hard lines about the mouth grew harder as the lonely tenant paced backwards and forwards in the dimly- lighted chamber. "I have seen the room in which Martin Luther tlirew his ink-bottle at Satan," muttered ]\Ir. Pauncefort by-and-by ; " but nobody tells us whether the diabolical intruder took the hint and departed. There are devils that are not to be driven away by ink-bottles, or walked doWn by a ninety-miles' ramble in a hilly country." He paced the room for nearly an hour witli the same slow steady step, his head still bent, his brows still fixed in the same darli frown. Then with a suddenly impatient gesture he moved the lamp to a side-table, on whieli there stood an old-fashioned mahogany desk, brass-bound at the corners, and provided with a formidable lock. He unlocked this desk, took a quire of paper from the lowest partition, dipped his pen into the ink, and began to write : " The Hermilar/e, Scaradale, near Roxhoroiigh. November 30tli, 1855. " Dear Williams, — Will you take immediate steps to ascer- tain tlie exact whereabouts of ' that person,' present mode of life, surroundings, and so on. I have a reason for " And here Sir Jasper's tenant came abruptly to a standstill, and began to bite the feathered end of his pen with that ab- stracted manner peculiar to a writer who finds some difficulty in the composition of his epistle. Mr. Pauncefort's difficulty CO Sir Jasper'* 8 lenant. appeared of an unsurmountable nature, or was at any rate be- yond his patienci?, for he tore the half -written page in frag- ments and flung them into the fire. Then leaning over hia desk with the same moody expression of countenance that had distinguished him throughout that evening, he opened first one partition, then the other, with the idle abstracted manner of a man who has no motive for what he is doing. There were the usual contents of an old-fashioned writing- desk lurking in those two dry wells of epistolary rubbish. There were the usual packets of faded letters, which it is so diffi- cult to look at without a vague sense of pain — it is so much more than likely that some of the writers are dead ; so terribly probable that most of them are changed, and would blush to Bee the pale protestations and promises of the past, remem- bering how bitterly they have been belied. And hidden under those packets of letters there was something from which the wandering hand of Sir Jasper's tenant recoiled with a terrified Btart, as it might have done if, groping idly among withered leaves, it had lighted unawares upon a snake. The hand re- coiled, and the dark face grew livid : but after just one mo- ment's indecision, the hand brouglit the reptile to light. It was a very innocent-looking serpent. Only a crimson morocco case, flat and square, and a little old-fashioned. Evi- dently a miniature case belonging to a period prior to the days in which scientific photographers arose to annihilate the simple artists who painted pretty simpering faces, very pink in the lights, and very blue in the shadows, smirking out of a back- ground of burnt-sienna dots. Mr. Pauncefort opened the case, and looked at the minia- ture. The snake was a very beautiful reptile. Keats's Lamia could scarcely have been lovelier of aspect than were the_ two faces which smiled the same smile on that piece of painted ivory. Yes, two faces, and yet only one face. The duplicate re- Bcmblanccs of twin sisters smiled on the moody tenant of the Hermitage. The miniature was very exquisitely painted ; and never had two more beautiful faces beamed upon cold and life- less ivory. The sisters were in the earliest bloom of youth, the freshest splendour of beauty. Eyes darkly lustrous, dangerously lovely, as those with which Judith may have watched the slumbers of llolofernes — from which Cleopatra might have looked destruc- tion on Marc Antony ; noses of an aquiline type, whose bold character gave a queen-like grandeur to those youthful faces ; lips whose crimson fulness remmded you of beautiful velvety fruits ripened under a southern sun, but in whose expression there lurked something which the physiognomist would have Dorothy^ 8 Conquest. 61 shrunk from, distrustful and abhorrent ; dark waving hair falling loose on snowy shoulders ; rounded arms intertwined in sisterly embraces. Sisters are always sisterly — in a picture. These were the things that George Pauncefort contemplated with that fixed frown upon his face, that ominous light in his eyes. Suddenly he set his teeth together fiercely, and with his eyes still fixed upon the two faces, cried aloud : " Twin vipers, hatched in your foul nests for the destruction of honest men : created to sting and torture the breasts that shelter you. Wherever you may be — you, the living — you, the dead — may God have that mercy upon your sins which I cannot feel ! No, I have wrestled with the devil : but he is too strong for me, and I cannot forgive. Oh Thou who didst plead upon the Cross for Thy enemies, thou couldst not divorce Thy- self from Thy Godhead. I am only man, and I can love, ad- mire, worship ; but I cannot imitate Thee." He rose, took the miniature out of the case, and dropped it on the bare stone hearth. The faces on the painted ivory smiled up at him as he looked at them just for one momenk before he set his heel upon the picture and ground it int3 atoms. CHAPTER VII. Dorothy's conqdest. Dorothy Tursgood was a Roman Catholic. If she had bees a fire-worshipper or a Mohammedan, a Thug or an adorer of Ashtoreth, and an implicit believer in the necessity of human sacrifices, she could have scarcely been regarded, in a spiritua' point of vie\\ , with greater horror than she now was by the Protestant members of Sir Jasper's household. Temporarily regarded, Dorothy was a very nice girl, with simple winning manners, and a face that Avas almost as bright as a sunbeam ; but in a theological sense she was an obstinate heretic, reso- lutely bent upon marching strais^ht to destruction ; getting up early in the morning to attend idolatrous ceremonials, and treasuring pagan idols in the shape of little gilt-edged and lace- paper-bordered engravings of unknown saints and mar- tyrs. I don't suppose poor little Dorothy could have ex- plained very distinctly the diflercnccs between her own fiiith and tliat of her fellow-servants. The Tursgoods were of Hi 62 8fr Jaipef* Tenant. b«rnian extraction, and Dorothy believed in the Pope, as her parents and ancestry had believed before her, as some splen- did abstraction who, in supreme humility, condescended now' and then to receive tribute in the way of halfpence even from 80 small a personage as Dorothy herself. Dorothy had the organ of veneration very fully developed under the ruddy brown hair that would not come straight, and was ready to believe pretty implicitly in everything that seemed good and beautiful and very high above her. If anything could have shaken the faith that had been taught her in her childhood, it would have been the influence of her young mistress ; but Marcia Denison had no desire to make a proselyte of her sim- ple-minded little maid. "I had rather you should be a good Catholic than a bad Protestant, my darling," she said ; " and I think you and I can read St. Thomas a Kempis together without entering into any abstract arguments about our difEerent creeds. If. we can only be Christians, Dorothy, I fancy we may hope to be forgiven any error in our choice between Paul and Apollos." Dorothy had to go a very long way to perform her Sabbath devotions. The nearest Catholic chapel was an unpretending edifice, in a back district of the naval and military depot be- yond Roxborough ; and to this chapel Mr. Tursgood and his family had been wont to repair in a tax-cart every Sunday morning, ever since Dorothy could remember. Miss Denison was no exacting mistress, and Dorothy was still free to accom- pany her family to chapel on a Sunday morning, while Marcia walked alone to a little village church close to the gates of Scarsdale Park. It is the morning after George Pauncefort's return to the Hermitage — a bright morning for November — and Dorothy has run across the park to the home-farm, in time to take her accustomed place in the bailiff's tax-cart. She is welcomed clamorously by younger sisters and brothers, who look upon her as a prodigy of learning and elegance ; but she only re- ceives a nod from her father, who is by no means a demon- strative man, and who condemns the teaching his daughter has received from Miss Denison as " a pack of Frenchified non- sense, like to turn the wench's head and make her too fine for service." To-day Dorothy was not to return to Scarsdale in hel father's cart. Iler mistress had given her a holiday, in order that she might spend the day with a cousin, who was rather a Btylish person, having served her time at a milliner's in Rox- borough, and having lately united her fortunes to those of a dashing young clerk in the service of a brewer. With these Lorothfs Conquest. 63 distinguished relations Dorothy was to dine, and they had iiTulortaken to see her safely home before dusk, or, at any rate, aF far as the pntes of Scarsdale Park. To Dorothy's mind this going out to dinner was a very great event ; more especially as she had a new bonnet — a real black-velvet bonnet, silk velvet, with sky-blue bows inside— wherewith to dazzle the experienced eyes of Selina Dobb. The clerk's name was Dobb ; but he was a very stylish per- son in spite of that plebeian and monosyllabic appellation. A man cannot help his name ; and Mr. Henry Adolphus Dol)b'8 appearance on Sundays would have been dashing even if dis- played by a scion of the house of iMontmorency. I am afraid Dorothy's mind was prone to wander that day in chapel, and that the new bonnet had a sadly distracting cftcct upon the pretty little head inside it. She tried very hard' to keep her eyes fixed upon her book as she knelt meekly by hei father's side ; but the frivolous fancies would go vagabojidising away from tho Aves and Paters which the rosy lips mechani- cally whispered. Castleford is a military depot ; and the congregation at that little Roman-Catholic chapel was generally pretty liberally sprinkled with the martial element. On this particular Sunday there were a good many red-coats dotted about the place, anil there were two near the altar to which Dorothy's eyes wanderc d now and then in spite of herself. These two special red-eoata were worn by a couple of officers, one of whom seemed eoin- pletely absorbed by the service in which he was assisting ; while the otlier, on the contrary, sat in a lounging attitude and stared about him, except when, in some especially solemn portion of the ceremonial, he dropped on his knees and mechanically as. Bumed a reverential air. It happened somehow that this inattentive officer's glances, wandering here, there, and everywhere, seemed to wander oft- cnest of all towards Dorothy's new bonnet. It was not the first time that Dorothy had seen this officer in chapel ; and last Sunday, and the Sunday before that, when she had only worn a very old shabby bonnet, she had observed the same pheno- menon. The officer's eyes, roving here and there, fixed theiu- eclves very often upnu herself. They were dark restless eyrs, with a very vivid liglit in tiicm ; an unhealthy-looking briglit- ness, which we are apt to associate with the idea of incipimt consumption ; and they shone out of a face that must once have been very handsome, but which now had a worn-out tired look upon it that considerably impaired its beauty. It was a face which a slirewd observer would have called" scampish ;" an in8f)lent, defiant face, which might belong to a man accustomed to be at war with the world. No physiognomist could have pro- •4 Sir Jasper's Tenant. nounoed it a pleasant countenance ; but to Dorothy Tursgood it seemed the very ideal of heroic splendour. Away from the realms of agriculture Sir Jasper's bailiff was by no means a keen or minute observer. The eyes of all the officers in Castleford barracks might have been roving towards Dorothy's pretty face, and Mr. James Tursgood none the wiser He packed his two younger daughters and an ungainly boy into the cart, which had been standing during the service in an adjacent yard, and nodded a good-bye to Dorothy as he clambered into the vehicle. " No gadding after dark, Doll," he said in a warning voice ; " Selina Dobb's got a house of her own, and a husband to keep her ; but you've got to earn your living in service. Don't let me hear no complaints of you when I goes to the Abbey." Dorothy pouted, and then murmured something dutiful. The farm-baili£E was her father, and she was bound to obey him, though his manners were rather rough ; but the society of Alderney cows and squealing young pigs, however lively, can scarcely be expected to have a refining influence. The cart drove away, and Dorothy was left alone in all the grandeur of her velvet bonnet to find her way to that damp little terrace of newly-built houses in which Selina and her husband had taken up their abode. Dorothy had heard high mass in that little chapel every Sunday morning from her childhood upwards, and there was a good deal of hand-shaking to be gone through with young women of her own age, to say nothing of hobbledehoy brothers and sheepish swains " keeping company " with the young wo- men. There was considerable discussion about the new bonnet ; and when at last Dorothy disengaged herself from her friends, it was ever so much past one. One o'clock was Mr. and Mrs, Dobb's dinner-hour, not of their own free choice, but to suii the habits of an arbitrary baker, who cleared out his oven at that hour, and flung back the joints intrusted to him upon tho hands of their owners with a stony indifference as to whether the cloth might be laid, or the beer fetched from the newly- opened tavern. Dorothy hurried breathlessly across a patch of waste ground, and past the unfinished streets which straggled here and there upon the dusty outskirts of Castleford. The red coats had filed away from the ciiapel while her father delivered his brief lecture, the two officers walking by the side of the men ; and Dorothy liad almost forgotten the roving ej'es that had seemed 80 often attracted by lier new bonnet. Slie was close to tho new terrace, — it was called Amanda Terrace, — when she be- came conscious of a footstep behind her ; a footstep that loitered when she loitered, and hurried when she hurried. Her breath I)orothy*s Conquest. 65 eame quicker, and her heart began to bump njl %\A down as fast as if she had been running a race. Could anybody be following her ? The heart that as yet had only panted for new bonnet-ribbons and coral necklaces began all at once to beat with a strange emotion, which seemed a pleasure so intense that it almost merged into pain. Perhaps a poet might believe in this as the earliest thrill of a maiden's first love ; but, alas, maidenly vanity had a good deal more to do with it. Dorothy caught a glimpse of her pursuer as she turned a sharp corner; and brief though that glimpse, it was quite long enougii to show her a red coat and a pair of brilliant black eyes. Then it was that the bailiff's daughter felt her heart swell with a delicious triumph. She began to think that she had made a CONQUEST. A conquest ! and she was going to Selina Dobb, who had inflicted upon her the minutest details of so many conquests of a military character, and who had ended by marrying a brewer's clerk. Oh, how delicious it would be to retire to Selina's bed-room after dinner, on some pretence of examining the new bonnet, and then and there communicate to her the history of this wonderful triumph ! She was going through a little mental rehearsal of the delightful disclosure, when she came to Amanda Villas, and perceived the lounging figure of Henry Adoli)lius Dobb, in an intensely cut-away coat, lolling against the little iron gate, and provided with a short clay-pipe, the bowl of which presented the head of a ferociously-disposed bull dog displaying two rows of enamelled teeth, whose whiteness agreeably contrasted with the blackened clay. " Holloa ! " exclaimed INIr. Dobb, taking his pipe out of hie mouth, and addressing himself to Dorotliy's pursuer. (Good gracious ! thought the bailiff's daughter, could it be possible that he cousin's husband was on familiar terms with a mag- nificent creature in a scarlet coat?) "How do, Dorothy?" said Mr. Dobb ; " sorry to see you looking so sharp set ; for the butcher forgot to send the mutton last night. We might have dined upon the turnips, but unluckily the greengrocer's boy has got the measles, so they did'nt come ; but if the kindly welcome of two honest hearts, and the smell of the dinners from the bakehouse at the corner, content ye, they are yours." Dorothy was not alarmed by this exordium. She was very well acquainted with the habits of her cousin's husband, who was that social nuisance, a facetious young man ; a young man who would have made a bad pun at a funeral, or struck a serio-comic attitude beside the bed of an expiring friend. He was a constant frequenter of music-halls and theatres ; believed in himself implicitly as au accomplished mimic and 68 Sir Jasper's Tenant > an amateur ChadeB Mathews. He was a man who considered agreeable conversation utterly incompatible with the smallest admixture of common-sense. He was a perambulatory edition of Mr. Hotten's Slang Dictionarij and Mr. Maddison Morton's farces ; and there was no discussion, however solemn, no question, however serious, for which he could find any language but slang. " Pass on, fair damsel, to our modest mansion," he said to Dorothy ; " I did but jeet with thee : the banquet waits within. Ho, my lieutenant, Michael Cassio ! what news ? Has the royal daughter of the second James departed this life ? or have the phlegmatic citizens of Amsterdam possessed themselves of Holland ? " These playful inquiries were addressed to the officer who nad followed Dorothy : but that gentleman only replied by a suppressed yawn, and a careless "How d'ye do, Dobb?" He had a lazy indifference, that was far from complimentary to the society in which he happened to find himself ; and he had a lounging, loitering gait, which was the very opposite of the attitude-striking and cellar-flap-break-down dancing of the vivacious Dobb, who considered his reputation as a " delight- ful rattle " in imminent danger whenever adverse circum- stances obliged him to hold his tongue and restrain the comic activity of his muscles for five consecutive minutes. The lounging officer was a certain Gervoise Catlieron, sub-lieutenant of marines, an acquaintance of the playful Dobb, and an inve- terate billiard-player. The neutral ground of a billiard-room over a tobacconist's shop in Castleford market place had brought the brewer's clerk and the lieutenant together ; and some little indulgence displayed by Mr. Dobb with regard to a small debt of honour had brought about a kind of intimacy between the two men. Poor little Dorothy felt quite crest-fallen as she enter^i her Cousin Selina's prim best parlour. She had not made a con- quest, after all. The dark-eyed officer had not been tracking her footsteps from the chapel to Amanda Villas, but had come that way to see/ his friend Mr. Dobb. Under the depressing influence of thi^ disappointment, Dorothy was quite indifferent to her cousin's critical remarks upon her new bonnet. " My goodness ! " exclaimed Selina, looking out of the window, "there's Henry Adolphus talking to one of his mili- tary friends. He is such a favourite with the officers ! but they don't often come down this way ; Amanda Villas are so very retired." Dorothy's heart, dull and sluggish of beat for the last five minutes, began to flutter with revived hope. " Have you evei seen that genfleraan before ? " she asked shyly. Dorothy*s Conquest. 67 " Wei!, I can't call to miud that I have. But Henry Adol- fhus is 80 intimate with the officers. He is so very lively, you now, and his society is so much sought after." The two women stood at the window, screened by a little stand of geraniums and the voluminous festoons of a pair of stiffly-starched white curtains, knitted by Selina's industrious hands. They watched Mr. Dobb and his companion with ad- miring interest ; Selina impressed by her husband's distin- guished talents, and rejoicing in the idea of those envious feel- ings that were likely to be aroused in the breasts of her neighbours by this exhibition of Mr. Dobb's intimate relations with a sub-lieutenant of marines. The officer lounged away presently ; but his departing speech must have been as a dagger in the breast of any listen^ ing neighbour : "Good-day to you, Dobb. I'll look round again in the afternoon for a smoke." He nodded, and departed very slowly, with a listless step and many a furtive glance towards the leafy screen behind which Dorothy was watching. She saw the glances, and sat down to her cousin's dinner-table with cheeks that bloomed like peonies, to be rallied upon her blushes by the brewer's clerk. " ' My love is like the red, red rose,' which is frequently sung out of tune. I know all about it, Dorothy ; and the gentleman might be considered eminently handsome if it wasn't for his red hair and the popular prejudice against a decided goggle. I consider a hump rather an advantage than otherwise, as a man's coat-collar sits all the better for it," ex- claimed Mr. Dobb as he nourished his carving-knife and fork above a baked shoulder of mutton. " You know your own degrees : sit down ; ' the funeral baked meats,' &c. &c. How's the governor, Dorothy ? all serene ? And our estimable friend, the Baronet? I hope he didn't take my refusal of his last invitation to dinner too much to heart. I appreciate his friendly intentions, but the society of the aged bloke is apt to pall upon the youthful intellect ; and at his last feed I had occasion to complain of the viands. The tripe and onions were overdone ; the fricasseed beef -sausages were not up to the mark ; the iced pudding was sloppy ; and the champagne the ham was stewed in was not Cliquot. I forgive him. ' Cassio, I love thee ; but never more be officer of mine ! ' " Dorothy ate her dinner almost in eilence, and ate very little. The agreeable Dobb only required an occasional admiring gig- gle to keep him going for a whole afternoon ; so the bailiff's daughter was not called upon to talk much. After dinner she sat on the hard little horsehair sofa by her Cousin Selina, and 68 Sir Jaspers Tenant. discussed a heavenly sleeve and an enchanting trimming on tho cross, which, according to Mrs. Dobb, had only just " come up ; " while the facetious Henry Adolphus brewed a small jug full of a certain rum and gin punch, known among his inti- mates as "Dobb's mixture," being a cunning admixture of liquors originally devised by that gentleman, and the com- pounding of which was such a soul-absorbing occupation as to keep him comparatively quiet. It was half-past three o'clock when Gervoise Catheron lounged past the window, in mufti this time. Dorothy's cheeks grew red as she recognised him. The sofa was opposite the window, and Dorothy had been stealing little furtive glances athwart Selina's geraniums ever since dinner. Perhaps he would not come, after all ; or he might come very late, and Dorothy was to go back to the Abbey before dusk, and it would be dark so very, very soon this November afternoon. " ' Open, locks, whoever knocks ! ' " bawled Mr. Dobb, as tho lieutenant went by the railings ; " the footman has been abruptly dismissed on account of intemperant proclivities, and the family plate is at our banker's, so the door is only on the latch. 'Turn, gentle hermit,' turn the handle, and shove the lower panels of our portal ; for the paint, ' Infected bj' the dampness of the air, Is sticky, and doth cling, like women's lips That meet the false lips of deceitful man, And drink the poison of a traitor s kiss.' Lines from an unfinished epic by H. A. Dobb, Esq., poet-laure- ate to her Majesty the Queen of the Cannibal Islands." While Mr. Dobb had been thus giving free indulgence to a humorous fancy, his sensible better-half had opened the door and admitted the distinguished guest, who looked as much out of his element in the prim little parlour as he had looked in the chapel. He dropped listlessly into the chair offered him by Mrs. Dobb, and languidly accepted the glass of punch pre- sented to him by Henry Adolphus, who had contrived to make the room fragrant with the odours of lemon-peel and rum. Mr. Dobb introduced his and his wife's cousin to his friend Gervoise Catheron with divers facetious flourishes of the music-hall order. Poor little Dorothy could only sit with her eyelids cast down under the glances of the ofiicer. He made a languid attempt to talk to her, but she only answered him by monosyllables ; and as the lively Dobb very rarely held his tongue for two minutes together, the conversation was a very brief one. Gervoise Catheron asked her a few questions. Did Bhe object to the smell of cigar-smoke ? did she live near Boxborough? was she going home that evening? Dorothifs Conquest. 69 MrB. Dobb's maid-of-all-work brought in a toa-tfay while the two men were smoking and drinking, and Selina explained that they were going to drink tea much earlier than usual, in order to escort their cousin as far as Scarsdale Park before night. " Dorothy is living as — as companion with Miss Denison," said Mrs. Dobb, who could not bring herself to pronounce that humiliating word "lady's maid" before her aristocratic guest ; " and it's a long walk from here to Scarsdale — three miles to the park, and quite a mile from the park-gates to the Abbey ; but Henry Adolphus likes a nice long walk, so we promised to see Dorothy as far as the gates." Mr. Catheron replied that he resembled Mr. Dobb in that respect, inasmuch as there was nothing he liked better than a long walk on a fine winter evening ; and he volunteered to accompany the Dobbs and their cousin as far as Scarsdale. Dorothy's heart set up an actual tumult after this. Ah, it certainly was a conquest ; and surely her triumph must bo perceived by Selina, who had been so very quick to discern any of her own victories over the susceptible military lounging in the High Street, in which the fair young milliner served hei apprenticeship. The two women talked of Mr. Catheron as they put on their bonnets in an upper chamber ; but Selina evidently con- sidered the charms of her husband's society quite sufficient at- traction to lure all the oflicers in the Arm)/ List to Amanda Villas ; so Dorothy's gratified vanity swelled her breast to bursting, and had no chance of an outlet in friendly sympathy. She went down stairs, blooming radiantly in her new bonnet, and found that Mr. Dobb and his friend had finished the punch and were smoking their cigars on the doorstep. The two men made vay for Mrs. Dobb and her cousin, and they all left the house in rather straggling order ; but Mr. Catheron somehow happened to be next Dorothy, and he was not slow to seize upon his advantage. " Give your wife your arm, Dobb," he said ; " I'll take care of Miss I beg your pardon, I didn't quite hear your name just now." " Tursgood," murmured Dorothy. "Tursgood — that's not such a pretty name as Dorothy. Do you know you are the first Dorothy I ever met with, except one, and she's a historical personage ? " " I know history ; Miss Marcia taught me. Was it Sophia Dorothea, who was married to George the First, and very un- happy ? — poor thing ! and, oh, how I hate that wicked Coun- tess of Platen who trampled on Count Konigsmark's faoe ! Wat it Sophia Dorothea you meant ? " 70 Sir jasper s Tenant. "No, I mean Dorothy Varden, the blacksmith's daughtei Do you know I think you're something like her, Miss Turn- good ? " " You are f oad of novels, Sir ? " cried Dorothy. " No, I am not ; I find 'em confoundedly slow nowadays : used to read 'em when I was a boy ; read nothing now but Holt's betting-lists and the Sunday Times.'''' It was a long way from Castleford to Scarsdale Park, but it seemed very short to Dorothy ; and yet Mr. Catheron was far from the most amiable or intellectual companion a young woman could have. He had very little to say for himself ; and what he did say was chiefly expressive of hatred and contempt for everybody and everything in the world, and a profound sense of the ill-usage he had suffered at the hands of people who had injured and insulted him by getting on better than himself. He was not an agreeable companion ; he was only a good-looking scamp, with a handsome face, worn and faded by late hours and hard drinking ; but he was just the sort of man who can generally find any number of women ready to lend him money and adore him. Poor little Dorothy had never walked arm-in-arm with an officer before, and the happiness engendered out of gratified vanity imparted a factitious charm to the society of her companion. She was very happy — as happy as a child who wears a woman's dress for the first time, with all a child's ignorance of the heritage of care and sorrow which may go along with that apparel of woman- hood. The great bare trees in Scarsdale Park looked black against a moonlight sky when Dorothy bade good-bye to her friends at the gates. A son of the lodge-keeper was to escort her thence to the Abbey, so the Dobbs had no need of any further anxiety about her. " Good-night, Selina ; good-night, Mr. Dobbs ; I am so much obliged to you for coming this long way." " A long way ! " cried Mr. Catheron ; " by Jove ! it's been the shortest walk I ever took in my life." He could see Dorothy's blushes in the moonlight as she dropped him a little curtsey and murmured good-night before she tripped away upon the silver-shining sward with the lodge- keeper's boy by her side. She was scarcely out of sight of the gates when she broke into a skipping step that was almost a dance, and then a little thrilling song came gushing from her lips like the joyotis warbling of some happy bird. And it was all because she had made a conquest. Conceited little Dorothy, foolish little Dorothy, to think so much of a few stereotyped compliments from a good-looking scanjp. An Um Letter. 71 Mr. Dobb was not bo well pleased with the employment©! his Sabbath evening. " It may be very jolly to have swell acquaintances," he re- marked to his wife, as he ate his supper ; " but my friend in the spurs has consumed my last cabana, and imbibed by far the larger modicum of the ambrosian beverage brewed for the general joy of the whole table ; to say nothing of his borrow- ing half-a-sovereign from me when we parted company in the High Street just now." CHAPTER VIII. AN UNWELCOME LETTER. Marcia Denison sat in a comfortable little nook by the fire- place in an amber drawing-room, whose shrouded grandeurs had something of a ghastly look in the chill wintry light. Christmas was close at hand, and Marcia was employed in carrying out certain arrangements for the comfort of her poor, in conjunction with the curate of Scarsdale, a very simple- minded young man, and a devoted admirer of Miss Denison, whose serene presence was apt to affect him with a temporary paralysis of his intellectual faculties. Yes, he was a very meek young man ; with smooth flaxen luir, which no amount of manipulation from the hot tongs or tlie village barber could have tortured into curl ; and mild blue eyes, whose gentleness of expression almost melted into d watery weakness, suggestive of cold in the head. He was not a happy young man, for he despised himself, and he adored Miss Denison ; but he would have died any manner of death — from being hurled headlong from the topmost pinnacle of Roxborough Cathedral, to being torn piecemeal by half-a-dozen of the big draught-horses on Sir Jasper's home-farm — rather than have rendered up the secret of his idolatry ; for Miss Denison was an heiress, and it was possible tliat his devoted love might have been confounded with the mercenary yearning of the fortune hunter. So Mr. Winstanley Silbrook allowed concealment to feed upon his damask cheek, and only regretted that the agonies of his hidden passion did not consume the peachy and unromantic bloom of his beardless visage. He would like to have carried his sufferings on his brow, inscribed in unmistakable characters, wliich Marci^niust have read every time she saw him, and which might in the end have inspired 72 Sir !Fbisper*s Tenant. the pljcid love that grows out of pity — a sentiment which is at Jhe weakest skim-milk when compared with the fire-water of a genuine unreasoning affection. There is no social law which forbids a man to carry what characters he pleases upon his brow; and the delicacy which prevented Mr. Silbrook revealing hia passion in any form of words could not have hindered him from avowing it in every feature of his face. But unluckily he was not gifted with what is generally called a speaking face. He might have carried the secrets of an empire under that mild and meaningless mask, more inscrutable than the marble brow of a Napoleon, looming massively above un- fathomable eyes. His heart had been slowly breaking for the last three months, and there were no outward tokens of the ruin within ; unless, indeed, occasional pimples — with an obstinate tendency to gather on a forehead, which, but for pimples, might have been Shakespearian, and apt to muster stealthily in the dead of the night, like a rising of Chartists on Kennington Common — might be taken as evidence of the inward struggle for ever going on behind that brow. Mr. Silbrook was the most modest of men ; but if he had a strong point, he felt that strong point was his brow. To-day he had brushed his smooth flaxen hair away from the bony pro- minences which phrenologists had mapped out for him in the most flattering manner, and he presented a shiny expanse of forehead to Miss Denison's contemplative eyes. He was pain- fully nervous in the presence of his divinity, and it was a con- siderable relief to him this morning to find that Marcia was not alone. Dorothy Tursgood was seated before a little table at some distance from her mistress, ready to act as secretary, and swelling with the importance of her duty. The business was rather a long one ; but the curate was unutterably happy, deliciously ill at ease, in a tumult of love and sheepishness, as he sat opposite to Miss Denison, with a list of names in his hand, and suggested the people who were to receive help, and the kind of help most required by them. If the list could have gone on and on, like the endless web in a paper mill, — if he could have sat upon the hearth-rug for ever, with his shining forehead reflecting the glow of the fire, and incipient pimples basking in the ruddy blaze, — how happy he might have been I But the clocks never stop, except in fairy tales, where the prin- cesses go to sleep for a century at a stretch, to wake, beautiful and smiling, when Prince Charming comes to claim them. The grey old boatman never lays down his oars : the " plish- plash " goes on for ever, even when our ears are beguiled by Bweeter sounds into a fatal unconsciousness of that solemn measure. Winstanley Silbrook, sitting in the amber draM^ing- room at Scarsdale, forgot that he had any other duty than tliat An Unwelcome Letter. 73 of assiBting Miss Donison iu her benevolent arrangements ; and even when the business was finished, he loitered still, very loth to dissolve the spell which bound him to that com- fortable hearth. " I have ordered luncheon for you in the dining-room, Mr, Silbrook," Marcia said, during the pause that succeeded the completion of the morning's business. " You know papa'i habits ; he takes nothing but a biscuit and a little wine-and- water between breakfast and dinner ; so you will excuse his joining you. I am quite an old maid myself, and take a cup of tea at this time." The curate blushed violently, and underwent a sharp attack of that mental paralysis to whicli he was subject in jMiss Deni- Bon's society. He was thinking how some bold adventurer, some penniless Irishman in the military line, might have struck in here with a florid protestation against the epithet ' old maid,' as applied to the loveliest and most bewitching of womankind. The very thought of what the audacious adventurer might have said was too much for Mr. Silbrook, who felt his bashfulness blazing in his cheeks, and burning in every incipient pimple on his brow. " No, thank you. Miss Denison," he said, shifting his hat nervously from one hand to the other ; " I very rarely take luncheon, or, indeed, anything at this time, unless perhaps dinner ; three o'clock being, in point of fact, my usual dinner- hour — or would-be usual — except that my duties render me so very uncertain. No, thank you ; really, I would rather not ; and, in fact, I " dropping his hat and looking at his watch ; and then picking up his hai before returning his watch to his waistcoat-pocket—" thank you, no ; must really be going, for my duti.s at this time are so " — decides in favour of the watch — "niulti — numer — mult — " strikes upon a verbal rock, and goes to pieces — " numer-farious." But in spite of the solemn call of duty, the curate seemed inclined to linger, standing on the hearth-rug with his hat in his hand, and some demoniac impulse within his breast prompt- ing him every moment to put his elbow on the broad marble chimney-piece, and sweep away a small fortune in the shape of old Dresden and Chelsea ware. He looked with a despairing gaze at a little tea-tray which was brought in presently for Miss Denison, as an unhappy wretch who had just swallowed poison might look towards the vessel containing its only anti- dote. " If you will not take any luncheon, you will perhaps take a cup of tea and a biscuit," Marcia said kindly. " Fetch another cup and saucer, Dorothy," The curate atammered something unintelligibly cxpressiv* 74 l^tr Jasper's Tenant. of rapture, and seated himself placidly, after putting his hat in the coal-scuttle. Those large watery blue eyes were of very little use to him unassisted by spectacles ; and the admiring gaze which dwelt so fondly upon Marcia Denison only saw an indistinct wliite shadow, with features that flickered in and out like gas burning in a high wind. Dorothy waited on Miss Denison and her guest, and handed Mr. Silbrook his cup of tea and the sugar-basin, at which he made little pecks with the tongs like a short-sighted bird. He sat with his cup sliding backwards and forwards in his saucer, conversing in nervous jcks ; and he stirred his tea more persistently than is compatible with easy man- ners. "Yes, Miss Denison," he began. The "yes" bore no relation to anything that preceded it, but was only a kind of con- versational header, by which the curate plunged desperately into the trackless ooean of small-talk. " Yes, Miss Denison, I was about to observe that — thank you ; not any more." This to Dorothy, who hovered over the afflicted young man with the sugar-basin and a plate of biscuits, to his torment and distrac- tion ; for he had already found that a biscuit was the incarna- tion of a hard dry cough ; and he had been for the last five minutes struggling under a perfect shower-bath of crumbs. "Yes, Miss — Cracknells — I was about to say that the poor have every reason to congratulate themselves upon their good fortune this winter — last year — the biscuits — er — cold — being peculiarly severe." Here Mr. Silbrook weakly yielded to the tempter, and took another instrument of torture, obtrusively branded with the names of its makers, which glared at him as he conversed. " The weather, as I have observed, was really very severe ; and the Abbey being untenanted — though your housekeeper, I am sure, was a great assistance to us in the way of soup and coals ; but this year we are much better off, as beyond your most valuable co-operation, we have an anony- mous benefactor." " An anonymous benefactor ? " " Yes, Miss Denison," responded the curate, who had been imprudent enough to bite his b'scuit, in the expectation of a much longer pause in the conversation, and found himsell sputtering in a floury manner that redoubled his confusion. "Yes, Miss Denison; we have an anonymous benefactor Upon the first Sunday of every month, for the last six or.sevol months, a sum of money, — gold wrapped in a bank-not^ eometimes to the amount of ten pounds, sometimes more — ha| been dropped into our poor box — no one has been able to dis- cover by whom. There has been no direction as to how tin money was to be appropriated — no scrap of writing, not ev«n An Unwelcome Letter. 75 the ift-itials of the donor ; only the money. I need not tell you that we have done our best to dispose of it wisely." " And you have never made any guess as to tiie identity of the person who gives this money ? " " Never. Our congregation is small, and, with the excep- tion of two or three families, by no means rich. I have heard," said the curate, forgetting his bashfulness in the gusto with which he discussed what was evidently a favourite subject, — ■ " I have heard. Miss Denison, of people committing dreadful CRIMES, and giving large sums of money to the poor ever after- wards ; though it is ditficult to imagine by what mode of reason- ing these unhappy heathens can arrive at the conclusion, that giving money which you don't want to people you haven't in- jured, can atone for the wrong done to the people you have injured. But the human mind is — the cr — human mind," repeated Mr. Silbrook hopelessly ; finding himself suddenly involved in a philosophical argument, from whose appalling entanglements he saw no chance of extrication; "the human mind is — no thank j'ou." This to Dorothy, who assails him with a second cup of tea. " Really, Miss Denison, I have in- truded upon you so long, that — er — groorf-morning." Marcia shook hands with him, and dismissed him with a cordial smile. She had no idea that the hopeless gaze of those mild blue eyes meant idolatry ; she ascribed their pensively imploring expression to constitutional weakness. At. twenty-two Marcia was quite a woman, and felt old enough to look serenely down upon bashful curates with al- most a motherly kindness. Slie sat for some time looking idly at the fire after Mr. Silbrook had left her, while Dorothy sewed meekly in her retired corner, and mused wonderingly upon the mysterious patron of the Scarsdale poor. But by- and-by Miss Denison aroused herself suddenly from her reverie, and took an open letter from a table near her, — a letter written on foreign paper, in a feminine hand ; a hand which was bold and dashing, and masculine in character, but still very obviously a woman's hand ; for surely the man never yet lived who unrlerlined every other word and adorned every y and g with a loop an inch long. Marcia read the letter, which was a very long one, with a thoughtful expression on her face and then rose from her low chair and left the room, witli the tlinisy sheets of paper still in her hand. Dorothy lookei^ after her mistress with a wondering expression. Marcia Deni- son, so calm and placid, had been obviously disturbed and moodily thoiiglitful to-day since the arrival of the morning post and that llimsy foreign letter. Miss Denison went straight to the library, where her father w.'^s sitting before an enormous fire, with a pile cf reviews 76 Sir Jasper*s Tenant. and newspapers on a table by his side. He tossed/ a papei away from him impatiently as Marcia entered the room. " If people would only find something to write about befora they take up their pens ! " he muttered ; " but then I suppose there are times in which the literature of the world would come to a dead stop, universal bankruptcy. And to think that we should read any trash just because it happens to have been written yesterday, while the dust gathers upon volumes that hold the garnered wisdom of departed Titans ! A man poisons his wife in Seven Dials to-day and we are ready to wade through half-a-dozen pages of evidence in small type to- morrow, while perhaps not one among ten of us would care to lift the mouldering folios that contain the trials of a Strafford and a Stuart, a Russell and a Sydney, from their forgotten places on our bookshelves. Heigho ! " exclaimed the Baronet, breaking down into a long dreary yawn ; "what do you want, Marcia ? The curate has gone, I suppose, and the benevolent business is over ? What letter is that in your hand, Marcia ?" " A letter from Mrs. Harding, the handsome widow whom we saw so much of at Homburg. Do you remember giving her a kind of general invitation to visit us here? " Sir Jasper yawned and reflected. "Did I invite her? Yes, it's very likely I did ; a charming woman, vivacious, spirituelle, plays ecarte as well as any gandin who has served his apprenticeship at a crack club in the Rue Royale ; sings a little, doesn't she, Spanish and German ballads, with an accompaniment on the guitar? Ah, yes, I remember her perfectly, and remember being very much pleased with her — a florid style of woman, but amazingly agreeable. Let her come by all means. When does she talk of coming? " " Almost immediately ; that is to say, between this and Christmas. I'll read you the passage in her letter." Marcia turned over the flimsy leaves, and selected a para- graph in one of them. "'And now, dearest Miss Denison, I am going to ask your permission to avail myself of your accomplished papa's more than cordial invitation ' " "More than cordial," muttered the Baronet; "what a pity that cordiality is a kind of intellectual effervescence, which expires as it effervesces ! I had forgotten the existence of tha woman. Go on, Marcia." "'Your papa's more than cordial invitation, so often repeated during that delightful stay at Homburg, in which I 80 enjoyed your congenial society. May I come, dear Misa Denison ? I am such a frank spontaneous creature myself, that I accept your dear papa's kind speeches at their fullest ValuB — as I am sure I may — may I not, dear Miss Denison ? ' " Ah Vnwetcomc tetter. 77 *' You may as ivell omit the dear Miss Deniaons and the dear papas," exclaiir.ed Sir Jasper testily. " How I execrate a wo- man's letter I Is she coming or is she not ? " "'So,'" continued Marcia, "'if your house is not already full of visitors, I shall be very glad to spend Christmas with you. I have been staying in Paris since I left Homburg, and my friends here are kindly anxious to keep me still longer ; but my heart yearns for an English Christmas, and for long pleasant talks with you and your dear papa. Therefore, dear Miss Denison, I shall wait one word from you to say yes or no ; and if the answer be 'yes,' I shall cross immediately, spend a day or two in London, and then make my way to Scarsdale Abbey.' What is the answer to be, papa ? " " Yes, by all means. The woman has been invited, and the woman must come. She was very agreeable at Homburg ; but I'm afraid she will be rather too florid for England. How- ever, at the worst, she'll amuse us." " But papa," said Marcia, thoughtfully, " have you ever coneidered how little we know of her ? Our acquaintance was sudi an accidental one ; and — she was not in the best set at Homburg." Sir Jasper ehrugged his shoulders impatiently. " What Ao I know about best or worst sets ? " he exclaimed. "The woman amused me. She seemed to know plenty of people ; and she is a lady — of the florid order, certainly. She curtsies gracefully, knows how to get in and out of a carriage without plunging, has hands which have never done any work, and can eat asparagus or artichokes without making herself disagreeable ; nnd then she is remarkably handsome, and dresses divinely. I should give five or six hundred pounds for a good example of Etty, without the dress. i\Irs. Hard- ing's flesh-tints are finer than Etty's, and her draperies are as good as Stothard's ; so why should we not have her to light up our rooms in this dreary winter weather ? " "I thought you had set your face against society, papa." "Yes, against county society, — the ordinary jog-trot sort of thing which goes on for ever ; but I have no objection to an occasional visitor. A passing pilgrim newly arrived from Vanity Fair will be welcome ; and he shall rest himself at our hearth, and bring us tidings of the dancing-booths and the circuses and the merry-go-rounds, the newest delusions of the popular political prestigiator, the mountebanks who are in luck, and the mountebanks who are out of luck ; the births and deaths and marriages, the bankruptcies and divorces, the feunily quarrels and fashionable scandals, and all the fun of the fair. Don't look at me so despondently, Marcia ; but write a civil letter to Mrs. Harding, telling her to come." F ^8 Bir Jasper*8 Tenant. "I don't think she will care to stay very long in ati ethpty house, papa. She seemed to me a person who could scarcely exist without gaiety and excitement." " In that case let her go away and exist somewhere else Besides, we shall not be quite alone ; Mr. Pauncefort will spend Christmas with us, and he can help to amuse her." " Oh, papa, Mr. Pauncefort is the very last person in all the world to suit Mrs. Harding." " Good gracious me, Marcia," cried Sir Jasper, peevishly, "how many more objections are you going to make ? I tell you again the woman has been asked to come, and the woman must be allowed to come. If she doesn't like us, she can leave us ; if we don't like her we needn't ask her a second time. Go and write your letter, and don't be persistent, Marcia." " Very well, papa ; it must be as you please." "V The letter was written. It was not a very cordial letter ; for Miss Denison did not like Mrs. Harding, and was quite unable to feign a liking which she did not feci. But the epistle was courteous and conciliatory, and the ansAver came by return of post. Mrs. Harding acknowledged her dearest Miss Denison's affectionate letter, and announced her in- tended arrival at the Abbey on the twenty-second of De- cember. CHAPTER IX. A FLORID WIDOW. The shrill winter winds shrieked among the rocking branches in Scarsd.ile wood, and howled dismally all through the long moonlight nights in which Sir Jasper's tenant lay awake in the darkness, thinking of all the eight-and-thirty years that lay behind him, and of the near horizon that bounded his present life. Little as we know of him we may take it for granted that there has been failure and disappointment of some kind within the compass of those eight-and-thirty years. A man does not voluntarily spend the prime of his manhood in desultory wanderings amid the wildest regions of the earth, and return to his native country only to bury himself in the dusky recesses of a wood, without some very strong reason for his conduct. If George Pauncefort was a poor man, the world was all A Florid Widow. 79 before him ; and he was no listless idler likely to hold himself aloof from the battle-field of life because the contest was hot and fierce, and the crown of victory uncertain. The smoulder- ing fires of an energetic and passionate nature were hidden under the quiet of his breast, now so seldom stirred by any violent emotion ; a look, a word, a sudden outburst of the man's actual self predominating for a moment over the calm present- ment of himself which he offered to the world betrayed the slumbering force, the hidden fire. A lion reconciled to his narrow cage, and feeding meekly from the hands of his keeper, will show himself king of the forest now and then, despite the excellence of his taming ; and there were moments in which Sir Jasper's tenant rebelled against the chains he had imposed upon himself. These were the times in which he was wont to turn his back on the calm quiet of his hermitage and the grave companionship of his beloved books, to tramp over grey moor- lands and climb bleak hill-tops under a sunless winter sky. These were the times in which he was wont to start upon that walking-match with Satan, at whose weary close he was some- times fain to confess himself beaten, and to bring the fiend home with him to his quiet retreat, to occupy the empty chair at his hearth, and to glare hideously at him athwart the fumes of his faithful meerschaum. Sometimes he was victorious, and out-walked the demon, parting company with him amongst tho shrill winds upon a heathy ridge of moorland, to tramp home- ward cheerily, with his face towards the sky, and all the angry fires vanished out of his eyes. Mr. Pauncefort had spent a great deal of his time under the bleak winter sky since his visit to the Abbey ; but he had returned to the Hermitage a few days before Christmas to find a note from Sir Jasper lying amongst the newspapers on his table ; a note which reminded him in very cordial terms of his promise to spend Christmas at the Abbey, and claim the fulfilment of tliat promise. George Pauncefort twisted the little missive round and round his strong fingers, as he stood by the window looking out at the withered fern and the leafless underwood swaying and creaking drearily in the wind. "Shall I go?" he thought. "Why not? Is there any danger to her in my presence? Not a jot! Have I not seen her clear grey eyes fixed upon me witli such a tender calnmess as may sliine in them when she looks at her father ? What if I am a passionate fool, who has learnt no lesson from a blighted youth and a wasted manhood ? what if I am a fool in my dotage, and long to lay my heart and soul at the feet of an angel, as I laid them once before the hidden foot of a fiend? Will she be the worse for my folly? What can I 80 St'r Jasper's Tenant. seem to her but an elderly misanthrope, whom she tolerate? out of the pitiful tenderness of her nature, as she tolerates tiresome old women in Scarsdale village, and noisy children at the Sunday school ? It is one of the Christian duties of ner life to be kind to such a man as I ; and if there is danger in her kindness, it is a danger that threatens me, and me alone. Yes, I will go." It was on the twenty-second of December that Mr. Paunce- fort arrived at this decision. He ordered his servant to pre- pare for the visit to the Abbey, and to be ready to accompany him there on the twenty-fourth ; and in the mean while he buried himself amongst his books, and lay awake in the moon- less nights thinking of his past life. It is strange how perpetually the dreaded ghosts of that remote past had haunted him of late, and how often in his dreams the voices of the dead sounded in his ears, while youthful faces, whose bloom and freshness had long vanished from this earth, smiled upon him, and mocked him with their vivid semblance of reality. Mrs. Harding, the handsome widow whose acquaintance Sir Jasper and his daughter had made in the Kursaal at Homburg, arrived at Scarsdale on the day mentioned in her letter, with a paraphernalia that augured a long visit. One of the Abbey carriages attended the lady's coming, and conveyed her from the station. Sir Jasper met her at the great entrance, and conducted her to the amber drawing-room, where Marcia was sitting before the piano playing softly to herself in the dusk. " My dear Miss Denison, — dear Sir Jasper, — this is so kind of you ! " exclaimed the lady, though the kindness of her host and hostess had been somewhat of a negative order, and had consisted chiefly in their allowing her to take advantage of a half-forgotten invitation ; " and what an exquisite place 3'ou have here ! I am charmed with everything. Those dear stately oaks, even in winter, how grand and noble they look ! I had imagined Scarsdale Abbey almost a royal residence, but not such a palace as it really is. Your pictures, even in this firelight, I see are delicious. That's an Etty in the corner, there, — yes, I'm sure it is; and there's my old friend Mulready above that ebony cabinet. But, dear Sir Jasper, dear Miss Denison, how well you are both looking ! I can see that even in this uncertain light," exclaimed the widow, suddenly re- membering that her friends who were both standing with their backs to the low fire, might have been galvanised corpses, and the none the wiser. *• You must be tired, after travelling in this abomiuabls A Florid Widow. 81 weather," said Sir Jasper, suppressing a yawn. " Shall Marcia ehow you your rooms ? I suppose they have told your uiaid where she is to carry all those fragile bonnet-boxes and pre- cious morocco bags, which a well-trained Abigail never intrusts to the rough grasp of the ruder sex." " Dear Sir Jasper," exclaimed Mrs. Harding, revealing a Bet of teeth that glittered in the dim firelight, " I have no maid. I am quite a woman of the world, and have dispensed with that perpetual encumbrance, a confidential maid, ever since I have been old enough to travel without the protection of a female companion. I am one of the most self-reliant creatures that ever lived ; and my habits could be scarcely more simple if I were compelled to exist upon the pension of a captain's widow, instead of enjoying the very comfortable fortune left me by my dear husband. But you will not be Burprised at this, Miss Densiou ; for I know how independent you are in your habits." " My daughter has a little maid who has been her ^jroir^ee ever since she was old enough to patronise anything, and whom she treats very much as other young ladies treat their lap-dogs. However, I am sure you are tired," exclaimed Sir Jasper, struggling politely with another yawn, " and Marcia shall show you your rooms." The widow protested against her dear Miss Denison's taking so much trouble ; but Marcia was politely decided, and led the way to a handsome suite of rooms at the head of the grand staircase ; spacious chambers, with dark crimson draperies, and massive furniture that loomed duskily in the warm glow of noble fires. The wax-candles burning on a dressing;table made only a spot of brightness in the largo bed-chamber. " What delicious rooms ! " cried the widow, peering £fbout her in the firelight ; " and how happy I mean to be in them ! Dear Miss Denison, I can scarcely express to you how pleased I am to see you once more. We were so happy together at Homburg, were we not, dear ? And to sp»nd a real old English Christmas with you in this noble old Abbey, which seems positively brimful of romance and mystery ! Oh, how delightful it will be ! And you really have chosen these rooms for me, — these bright glowing rooms, which look like perfect temples of comfort and luxury. I must kiss you once more, you dear, kind, thoughtful darling." Mrs. Harding pounced upon Marcia, and embraced her with effusion. Miss Denison received the embrace with a quiet gentleness. She did not like Mrs. Harding, but she felt that she had no justification for disliking her, and she wae very anxious to conquer that unjustifiable sentiment. That 82 Sir Jasper's Tenant. poet waB only a benighted heathen from whose verses w< derive our familiar rhyme about Dr. Fell ; and our Christian creed cannot tolerate any such thing as an unreasoning antipathy to a fellow-creature. " And your rooms are near here, I hope ? No ? I am sa sorry for that ; I wanted to feel myself always close to you. We must play and sing all our old duets again, dear Miss Denison — and, oh ! will you allow me to call you Marcia ? " cried the widow, with one of those sudden gushes of emotion which were so frequent in her discourse. How could Miss Denison reply except in the affirmative ? " Call me whatever you please, I shall be very happy," she murmured, looking down. The thoughts which the flattering request called up in Marcia Denison's mind were not very pleasant ones. She was thinking how few people had ever called her by her Christian name ; and how, since her sister's death, no lips had ever spoken it with any tenderness of expression. Mrs. Harding's gushing friendliness chilled her to the very heart, for it re- minded her that there was such a thing as affection, though it never came to her. She felt like a child who, far away from home, responds faintly to the mechanical caresses of her noisy schoolfellows, remembering the mother's soft bosom, the mother's tender voice murmuring low words of love. " And you will call me Blanche, won't you, Marcia ? Marcia! what a beautiful name it is ! to me there always seems some- thing regal in the sound of it. And Blanche is a pretty name, ipas vrai, ma hien cherie?" demanded Mrs. Harding, who, amongst her gushing ways, had the habit of gushing every now and then into a foreign language. " Yes, it is a very pretty name," replied Miss Denison, won- dering how she should ever bring herself to address this gor- geous widow by so girlish and sentimental an appellation ; and then, as Mrs. Harding threw up the lid of a gigantic leather trunk, in which bright-coloured silk dresses and festal deco- rations of an alarming character were visible, Marcia added, " I fear you will find our house a very dull one. You know that papa has quite secluded himself from general society since my poor sister's death. It is an understood thing in the county that we neither visit nor receive visits ; and with the exception of one neighbour and friend who comes to ua in the most unceremonious manner, I doubt if you will see any one but ourselves. " Then, my darling Marcia, how delightful to me to feel that / am received where others, doubtless infinitely more de- serving, are excluded I At Homburg, whero you and your dear papa lived so very quietly, I was inexpressibly flattered A Florid Widow. 83 by the manner in which he admitted me to hie confidence. I Bhall alwAye love Galignani ; for, if you remember, dear Marcla, our acquaintance arose out of the absurdly trivial accident of your papa offering me that journal in the read- ing-room ; and tlien he made some little remark about the place and the people, and then in the next few minutes wo aeemed quite old friends. And on the following day he in- troduced me to you, darling ; and I felt at once that I had found a congenial spirit. Oh, in this weary waste of life," cried Mrs. Harding with another gush, " what is there so precious as a congenial spirit ? " This was one of those questions which the heroine in a melodrwna generally addresses to the chandelier, and which are not supposed to require any special answer. " Can my little Dorothy be of any use to you ? " inquired Marcia. " She is by no means an accomplislied maid, but she is verj' neat and quick in all she does, and I think you would find her intelligent. Shall I send her ? " " No, darling — thanks. I am so extremely independent, and I really have been so long accustomed to do everything for myself, that I should be a little bored by the ;'.ssistance of a maid," This was quite true. In these days, in which Israelitish practitioners undertake to render beauty eternal, — while ci- dcvant Abigails advertise their readiness to impart the last method of " making-up the face and eyes " for the small consideration of a few postage-stamps, — there are secrets in some toilettes which will not bear the searching eye of an attendant. Mrs. Harding was a veiy handsome woman of the florid order ; but she was of an age which the tongue of detraction alluded to vaguely as the wrong side of forty ; while even friendship unwillingly confessed that her eight-and-thirtieth birthday was a stage upon the highway of life which lay be- hind this gorgeous widow. How much of that massive coil of raven tresses which adorned the back of her well-shaped head was an integral part of the head it decorated, — how much of that delicate bloom upon her plump oval cheek owed its rosy freshness to the pencil of Nature, — how far the fruity crimson of the pouting lips took its colour from the warm life-blood beneath the dewy surface, were so many mysteries which Mrs. Harding, in her most gushing moments, had contrived to keep safely locked in her own breast, " What do I care how the woman obtains her beauty, pro- vided she is beautiful ? " said Sir Jasper, discussing this eubject, after an evening spent in the widow's society. " Shall I bother myself, when I look at one of Etty's nymphs, about 84 Sir Jasper's Tenant. the colours the artist has employed in creating her ? What do I care how much vermilion or what artful glaze of jaune de Mars has been necessary to warm those glowing limbs into life and loveliness? — or whether the loose rain of rippling hair that veils my goddess owes its golden glory to yellow ochre or to Naples yellow ? What do I want to know, except that slie is there, and it is my business to admire her ? My daughter, who kisses me when she bids me good-night, must have no paint upon her lips, for she is a part of my- self, and I should hold myself dishonoured by any false- hood of hers. But let my lovely visitor resort to what arts she pleases in the manufacture of her loveliness. I applaud her ingenuity, and I thank her for taking so much trouble in order to present a beautiful object for my contemplation." When the second dinner-bell rang, Mrs. Harding presented herself in the drawing-room, gorgeous in dark-green moire- antique, old point-lace, and ornaments of cabochon emeralds set in filigree gold. Very handsome white shoulders glim- mered under the pelerine of old point ; a throat that a sculptor would have been glad to model was encircled by the necklet of filigree gold. No one could have denied the widow's claim to be considered a very magnificent woman, even though a few subtle artifices might have been employed to enhance her splen- dour. She was like one of those fatal lies which are so difficult of disproof — a falsehood with some foundation of truth. An ugly woman, who patches up her ugliness with simulated roses and lilies, and luxuriant tresses imported from Germany, draws down upon herself shame and confusion. But a beautiful wo- man, whose artistic fingers do sturdy battle with the hand of Time, is generally forgiven by that nobler half of the creation for whose pleasure she clings so desperately to her waning charms. The rigid simplicity of Marcia Denison's brown-silk dress and smootlily-banded hair served as a kind of foil for the widow's gorgeous demi-toilette and elaborate chevelure. But Mrs. Harding seemed to have no idea that she had taken un- necessary trouble to make herself beautiful ; and yet she was not a woman likely to willingly waste any effort. To-night she seemed only bent upon making herself agreeable ; and yet she was not a woman to make herself agreeable without a motive. Sir Jasper Denison, looking at this splendid creature lazily through half-closed eyelids, while she gave him a vivacious ac- count of her journey from Paris to Roxborough, with delightful touches of local colouring, and an almost epigrammatic piquancy of expression, — Sir Jasper, looking at her as he might have contemplated one of his Ettys, or a pretty actress at the Bouffes fansiennes, vyondered whether she had any motive for coming A Florid Widow. 85 to Scaredale. " I hope she hasn't," he thought ; " anything of that kind would be such a terrible waste of trouble. These florid widows are generally supposed to be so many Macchia- vellis in moir^-antique; but I think this one has a perceptive ridge which will save her from any absurd mistake about me. From what I see in the newspapers, I imagine that the honour- able method by which the women of the present day endeavour to lay up a provision for their old age is by beguiling some infatuated bachelor into the utterance of sentiments which are as false as the charms that inspire them, and then bringing an action for breach of promise against the recusant admirer. But I think a man must say something, or write something, or commit some small overt act of idiotcy before the action can lie, however ready the lady's witnesses may be to do so ; and in that case I am quite safe, and may admire our charming widow at my ease. She is certainly very handsome ; one of Giorgione's Madonnas who has seen the world, and is just a trifle passee." Sir Jasper had put on a dress-coat in honour of his visitor, and the holland draperies had disappeared from the amber drawing-room. The dinner was simple, but in perfect taste ; and Mrs. Harding, who was essentially epicurean, enjoyed liersclf prodigiously, and brightened more and more under the influence of white Hermitage, sparkling Burgundy, and Cura9oa. The dark eyes flashed with bewitching vivacity as the widow entertained her quiet companions with anecdotes about the people she had met in Paris, and deliciously-spitcful epigrams which had obtained reputation for the wits of the Faubourg St. llonore. Sir Jasper was delighted ; and Marcia was amused by a style of conversation which was so entirely foreign to her own idea of what conversation should be, and which was yet so skilfully managed as never to offend even the refined taste of a well-bred English woman. Mrs. Harding's first evening at Scarsdale passed very pleasantly. She played ecarte with the Baronet, and sang half-a-dozen duets with Marcia, whose rich contralto harmonised delightfully with the widow's mezzo-soprano ; and it was nearly midnight when she wished the Baronet good-night, and went up the broad stair, •ase with her arm affectionately encircling Marcia's waist. She stopped on the threshold of her door to indulge in a final gush. " In the whole course of my life, dear, which has been a very varied one, I never enjoyed an evening as I have enjoyed to-night. How is it, and why is it, Marcia darling ? Need I ask such a question ? What delight in all this world is as pure as that which we derive from the society of friends — friends whose sincerity we instinctively trust in ; whose friend- ghip is not a name, and doesTW^ follow wealth or fame, or leav# 86 Sir Jasper's Tenant the w retch to My sweet Marcia, what a lovely cameo ! 1 think I never saw a more exquisite head — the gift of your papa, I know ; I recognise his artistic taste, his warm apprecia- tion of the beautiful ! Oh, what a papa he is ! " exclaimed Mrs. Harding, enthusiastically squeezing Marcia's hand, and eteering that young lady's candle a little f urtlier from her own eyebrows, which were very artistic, but not produced with a view to the immediate proximity of a strong light. " What a papa! so versatile, so deeply read, so fascinating! Oh, what a happy girl j'ou ought to be, dear love, with such a papa ! " Marcia's eyelids drooped under her smiling friend's gaze. These charming women of the feline tribe are so apt to forget that the gentlest touch of a velvet paw may be unpleasant when it lights upon a gaping wound. " My father has not even yet recovered the shock of my sister's death," Marcia said gravely ; " and I can never be to him what she was. I love him very dearly, but " The words died away upon her lips. No ; not to this smiling widow, with the rosy mouth, which it was so difficult to believe in, morally or, physically — not to Blanche Harding could Marcia Denison reveal the one great sorrow of her life. But she received her guest's final embrace and a little shower of pouncing kisses very submissively, and found herself invo- luntarily rubbing her forehead, as she went along the corridor leading to her own room, with a vague notion that the rosy lips had stained it. CHAPTER X. MES, HABDINQ SEES A FAMILIAR FACE. The next day was bright and pleasant — a real winter's day, with a cold frosty wind blowing amongst the blackening fern, rfnd crisping the waters of all the ponds in Scarsdale wood, whereby hope was kindled in the bosoms of enthusinstic skaters ; while a sullen despair came down upon hard-riding gentlemen and their retainers ; and in half-a-dozen stable- yards in the county might have been seen the living represen- tation of Sir Edwin Laiidseer's delicious picture. " There will be a thaw to-morrow," said Sir Jasper, as he cut open the last number of the Revus des Deux Months by the Mrs. Ifarding Sees a Familiar Face. 87 great fire in his library. "There inevitably is muddy sloppi- ness and drizzling rain on Christmas-day ; as if the rational laws of a rational universe set themselves against the illiis- trated-newspaper proprietors and popular humorists' scorbutic ideal of jolly King Christmas, with a crown of holly, and an impossibly-gigantic punch-bowl emitting incredible blue-and- yellow blazes. Where are the people who keep the ideal Christmas ? Has any one ever seen them, or dined with them, or sat in their family circle after dinner, listening to their ghost-stories, or skirmished with their pretty girls under their mistletoe, or worshipped in their highly-varnished village- church, or shivered in their incredibly snowy streets ? Has any one ever met the lawyer who can relate three pages and a half about a singular client, who once came to him on a foggy night, when the boys were playing hide-and-seek in the dusky corners of the inns-of-court ; or the elderly maiden lady who, at five minutes' notice, will give you a concise but senti- mental account of her dead sister, whose plighted lover was lost on a moor one Christmas-day just seven-and-thirty years ago, and who never smiled again, poor darling, till the very smile she wore, as she stood in the old oriel-window waiting for him that Christmas-day, came back to her face as she lay in her coffin, never to leave it more ; or the young medical student, who can't tell you any story of his own but fortunately happens to carrj' about him the manuscript of a diary kept by a fellow-student, who died of delirium tremens? I suppose there are such people ; and very agreeable they must be ; but one doesn't meet them. I should think now, if there ever was any one sufficiently eloquent to give a synopsis of a three- volume novel in three pages and a half of very good English at a minute's warning, you, Mrs. Harding, might be that accom- plished improvisatore. I dare say that you will be able to tell us some mysterious and romantic story about a dead sister to-morrow evening, as we sit by the fire, or as we should sit by the fire, if Christmas-day were not inevitably warm and muggy." Have you ever seen the deadly pallor of the natural com- plexion revealing itself under an artificial bloom? It is not a pleasant sight ; and Sir Jasper almost shuddered as he saw the Budden change upon Mrs. Harding's face. " Pray forgive me ! " he said gently. " I see that I have touched upon a sensitivt chord. You have lost a sister very dear to you." "Yes," Mrs. Harding replied, quite calmly. "My sister died only last year. I was in mourning for her when I first met you." The natural warmth had come back to her face. Wbatevei f8 Sir Jasper's Tenant. fthock Sir Jasper's random words had inflicted upon her had passed, and left her as self-possessed as usual. Marcia took her guest for a drive after an early luncheon. It was dusk when the carriage drove into Castleford, after a long round in the country lanes and by-roads. The lamps were lighted in the shops, but there was still a cold yellow glimmer in the west, and a grey light in the wintry sky. By this light Mrs. Harding saw the faces of a couple of young men who were lounging in the doorway of a tobacconist's shop, over which the illuminated windows of a billiard-room looked pale in the expiring daylight. One of the men was Gei-voise Catheron, and the other was an ensign in an infantry regiment quartered in Castleford barracks. The widow turned her head to look at these men, and turned a"-ain, and lifted her veil on the second occasion, as if anxious to see them more distinctly, as Miss Denison's barouche drove slowly along the High Street. Marcia had some shopping to do in Castleford ; and the coachman drew up his horses presently before a haberdasher's shop some two or three hundred yards from the billiard-room. " I will be as quick as possible in making my purchases," Miss Denison said, as she prepared to alight. " Will you come into the shop, or sit in the carriage V Godwin can drive up and down the street, if you find it cold standing still." "Thanks, dear; no," answered Mrs. Harding, rather hur- riedly. " I will get out and go back to a stationer's I saw a few doors from here. I forgot all about stationery when I was making my purchases in town. You'll wait for me, won't you, love, if I should be a little longer than you ? " She alighted immediately after Marcia, and hurried away in the dusk. But the splendid widow did not enter the shop of the chief stationer of Castleford. She passed his door, and went straight to the tobacconist's, on whose threshold the young en- sign and the sub-lieutenant of marines were still lounging in listless attitudes, smoking the tobacconist's finest Cabanas, and drawling drowsy abuse of some "fellow" who had appointed to meet them there, and who was behind his time. As Mrs. Harding approached this door, she slackened her footsteps all at once, and walked slowly by, with her veil thrown back and her face turned towards the gas-lighted win- dow. She was scarcely half a dozen yards from the shop, when Gervoise Catheron muttered some hurried excuse to his com- panion, and darted after her. "Good God!" murmured the ensign, lifting his pale eye- brows and yawning dismally, " I really think everybody hai gone mad this afternoon." He prepared himself a fresh cigar, in a dreadfully boa-constrictor-like manner, and then Mrs. Harding Sees « Familiar Faa. 89 disappeared in the passage over whose threshold shone the mystic word " Billiards." Gervoise Catheron overtook the widow just as she turned into a dingy little lane of gloomy houses, leading towards the swampy shores of the Merclrid. " Beauty ! " he exclaimed, in a tone that was very subdued, and yet very energetic, " what on earth is the meaning of your turning up in this unexpected manner in High Street, Castle- ford ? I should as soon have thought of meeting the pontiff Pio Nono parading past Hodgson's shop as you. I thought it was an understood thing you did not come to England, Beauty ? " Mrs. Harding had lowered her veil by this time. She turned upon the sub-lieutenant with a frown whose darkness he did not see. " Why do you call me by that absurd name ? " she asked angrily. " Do you want to remind me that I was a child once, and had a foolish mother and father, whose affection proved it- self by giving their children sentimental pet-names, and letting them grow up as they pleased, or as they could ? for it would have been very difficult to grow into anything good in our house. Call me Blanche. I have used my second name lately, for I hate every other by which I was ever called." Gervoise Catheron did not answer for some moments ; and ub-lieutenant said, in an altered tone, "But, for goodness" sake. Beau — well, Blanche, if you like, — God knows there's not so much childish- ness about us now, that we must needs call ourselves by childish names ! — how is it that you drop out of the skies into High Street, Castleford? I thought you had premised to live out of England." " What does that matter to you ? " " Very little, certainly. Only when you promise a fellow to do such and such a thing, and a fellow, on that consideration, acts very liberally, — and there's no denying that he has acted very liberally, Beau — oh, hang it all ! Blanche, if you like it better, — though I can't suy tliat / have benefited much by his liberality, — I think the least you can do is to keep your pro- mise. However, as you remark, or as you were about to re- mark, I can see, by that jerk of your bonnet, that's no aft'air of mine. I was sorry to hear of your sister's death, Blanche ; 90 Bir Jasper's Tenant. though I can't aay she was ever particularly good to me — ah, I see by that other jerk of your bonnet, you think that's un- feeling ; but a fellow's mind is likely to be degraded when the best thing a fellow's friends can do for him is to put him into a service in which a man calls himself a soldier, but takes his orders from the Admiralty, and lives amongst sailors without claiming fellowship with them. You've left off your mourn- ing, I perceive. I haven't. I gave a shilling for a hatband the day I heard of her death ; and I've worn it ever since ! and deuced shabby both the band and the hat are by thia time." "Are you in 'difficulties, Gervoise ? " asked the widow, when they had walked to the end of the lane, and had turned to go back again. " Of course I am in difficulties. Was I ever out of them ? " cried the sub-lieutenant with easy frankness ; " difficulty is my normal state, and has been ever since I had threepence a week for pocket-money at a preparatory school, and spent sixpence. I did my first bill — on the cover of my copybook — before my eleventh birthday, and have been doing bills, and occasionally the bill discounters, ever since. And I really think. Beauty, — now don't jerk your bonnet, though I acknowledge that it does sound rather as if you were a King Charles spaniel with apo- plectic eyeballs and a crumpled nose, — I really think, Blanche, that after a separation of ten years — and, upon my honour you don't look as if it had been more than five — the least you could do would be to offer me a modest tener, or, putting it more clearly, a ten-pound note." " Gervoise ! " exclaimed the widow reproachfully, " who would believe that you belong to one of the oldest families in Buckinghamshire ? " " Ah, who indeed ? And in the marines ! But I really shall be very grateful for that tener. Suppose you give me your purBC off hand, as they do on the stage," said Mr. Cathe- ron, as tlie widow produced her portemonnaie. But Mrs. Harding was not a benefactress of the order so common in melodrama ; she opened the portemonnaie, arid deliberately counted four sovereigns, which she handed to the lieutenant. "That's all I can do for you to-night, Gervoise," she said ; " and now I must wish you good-night, and hurry back to a f I lend whom I left waiting for me in the High Street." She was walking very fast as she spoke. " But tell me where you are staying." " I can't stop to do that now. Give me your address, and I will write to you. But be quick ; I must get back to my friend," Why Did She Do It? 91 •* But who »■« your friend ? " asked Mr. Catheron, fumbling in his waistcoat-pocket, and producing a crumpled envelope. The widow snatched it from him impatiently. They were at the corner of the lane by this time. " Don't follow me a step farther ; and don't on any account recognise me if you meet me with any one. I'll write to you in a day or two." She turned into the High Street, and hurried away ere her companion could attempt to detain her. The lieutenant stood for a few minutes staring absently after her, and then strolled slowly towards the tobacconist's, with his hands in his pockets, and the sovereigns jingling as he walked. It was to be ob- served that in the whole course of this conversation the widow had not indulged in any of those little outbursts of emotion so common in her conversation. There were evidently occasions upon which the enthusiastic Mrs. Harding did not gush. CHAPTER XL WHY DID SHE DO IT? Mr. Paunceport's servant made his appearance at the Abbey early in the afternoon of the 24th, and joined a social tea- drinking party in the housekeeper's room, after arranging his master's things in the pretty blue bed-chamber. But George Pauncefort himself strolk'd across the park in the early dusk, and was ushered into Sir Jasper's den just as that gentleman had composed himself for his before-dinner nap. The Baronet roused himself with an exclamation of plea- sure, and shook hands vory heartily with his visitor. " I am flattered by this fulfilment of your promise, my dear Pauncefort," he said ; " as I began to think you were reveng- ing yourself upon us for the dulness of our house, and had cut us dead. You will be rewarded by finding some improve- ment in the state of affairs, in the shape of a handsome widow, who has come all the way from Uomburg — no, her last location was a villa at Passy, by the way — to enliven us with her vivacity. Such inexhaustible animation ! — the sort of woman one re- members in half a dozen comedies of the hoop-and-powder school. The woman who taps you playfully with her fan, and vows you're vastly agreeable, A charming creature to flirt with, if you know how to keep yourself on the safe side ; but a creature who would have an offer of marriage and a 92 Sir Jasper's Tenant. princely settlement out of a weak-minded man before lie knew where he was. However, after enjoying the society of the liona on the banks of the Niger, and stalking crocodiles on the rushy shores of the Nile, I should think you must be a match for a widow." " I am not afraid of any peril from the lady's fascinations, however charming she may be," answered Mr. Pauncef ort, with a grave smile. " But I have such a misanthropical aversion to the faces of strangers, that I am really inclined to throw myself upon your mercy, Sir Jasper, and entreat your permission to defer my visit until after your fascinating guest has departed. I was so happy here in the autumn ; happier than I can pos* sibly be when the quiet spell that hangs about this heart is broken by the presence of a stranger." He spoke almost sadly, and he looked round the dusky room with a pensive tenderness in his dark eyes. " I was so very happy here," he repeated in an undertone, " so entirely happy " Sir Jasper turned upon his tenant with an impatient gesture. " Histoire de betise ! my dear Mr. Pauncefort," he cried, " do you mean to tell me that you intend to run away from my house because I happen to be encumbered by a futile widow, picked up at Homburg ? If tliere is such a thing in this world as friendship, I really think the sentiment which I entertain for you must be that thing. Don't fling me back ypon the frivolous society of an over-dressed widow. Your companionship has done more towards exorcising the dismal phantoms of the past than I thought was within the power of mortal man to do. Spend to-morrow with us ; and if, when to-morrow night comes, you find you have been bored intolerably, turn your back upon us the following morning." "You are very good. Sir Jasper. Your friendship flatters as much as it pleases me. I should like to stop. The very atmosphere of this room has almost a magical effect upon me, for in this room I beheld the first glimpse of a home after fifteen years of homelessness ; it has been to me what the first dim blue line of an English shore must be to the wanderer who has spent half a life-time at the antipodes. Yes, I should 80 much like to stop. But, to be frank with you, I have not only a dislike to meeting strangers, I ha^e something moi» than that : — I have something that amounts to an actual terror of meeting any one in the remotest degree associated with my past life. Fifteen years ago I lived in London, and knew a great many people ; and one of my reasons for avoiding all society is my horror of meeting any of those old acquaintances." TThy Dice She Do It f 93 Such a speech as this, from a man whose past was entiiely nnknown to his host, might have awakened vague fears in the breast of a suspicious person. But Sir Jasper was neither suspicious nor inquisitive ; he had none of those low vices which inflict infinite trouble upon their victims ; his vices and his virtues were alike of a negative order. Dr. Jolmson declared the belief in a future existence to be the only thing which hinders a man from cutting his neighbour's throat, for the sake of filling liis own pocket. But there are many reasons wliich would have hindered Sir Jasper Denison from improving his own fortunes by the assassination of his fellow-men, over and above acid Beauclcrk's sensible argument, that the man who has no faith in the immortality of the soul may have a very implicit belief in the existence of the hangman. Murder, however neatly it may be executed, is a crime attended with unutterable inconvenience. A combination of circumstances might have arisen under which it would have been possible for Sir Jasper to look on and see a murder committed ; but under no possible phase of events could the Baronet have done the deed. He had been a disciple of Voltaire ever since his boy- hood ; he had looked up at the stars, and admired them with the sensuous admh-ation of a Sardanapalus, and had rarely lost an opportunity of insulting their miglity Creator by some covert sneer ; but he had never in all his life done anything parti- cularly wicked, chiefly because he knew very well that every kind of sin is so apt to entail trouble and vexation upon the sinner. " I can understand your desire to turn your back upon the past," he said ; " but unless you know this Mrs. Harding, I don't see how her presence here can afliect you." " Harding ? " repeated George Pauncefort. " No. It's a common name enough ; but I don't think I ever knew any on© of the name of Harding." " Very well, then ; of course in that case you will stop." " Do you really wish me to do so ? " "With all my heart." " And I too, Mr. Pauncefort," wiid a low gentle voice ; and, looking up with a start. Sir Jasper's tenant saw Marcia Denison standing on the threshold of the door. He hurried across the room to meet her as she advanced towards him. She gave him her hand, and, looking at her in the firelight, he thought that her pale beauty was something akin to the white loveliness of the lilies he had seen in that wondrous region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, which travellers fondly believe in as the original Eden. " I hope you are not going to run away from us. Mi. Pauncefort," said Marcia. " I ain sure you would not wish to o 94 Sir Jaspers Tenant. do 8o if you knew how much papa and I have looked forward to 3'our promised visit." " Ah," thought Sir Jasper's tenant, " she would scarcely say that if she did not think me old enough to be her grand- father." " You will find Mrs. Harding a very agreeable person," continued Miss Dcnison ; " and if you are fond of music, as I have no doubt you are, we shall be able to entertain you " " Oh," said Mr. Pauncefort, " Mrs. Harding is musical then?" " Yes ; she is an accomplished musician, and has a very fine voice. Why you look almost as if that were an objection I Did Diogenes object to music ? " " Perhaps Diogenes had no unpleasant associations con- nected with it. Miss Denison. For myself, I am very fond of music ; but there is a certain kind of pianoforte music whose sound brings back to me the dreariest part of my life. I once knew a lady who wore a blue dress on the night her husband was brought home to her killed by a fall from his horse. She could never endure the sight of that colour afterwards, though she married again, and was the happy mother of beautiful rJiildren. However, I am not quite so sensitive as that lady, and I shall be very glad to hear as much music as ever you and your guest will give me." " Will you come and be introduced to her ? I have just left her and I must return immediately. We have both of us been busy in our rooms all day, and I really have scarcely seen her since breakfast." " I shall be very happy to come with you." " And you will take a nap, I suppose, papa, before you dress ? " "Dress for dinner !" cried Sir Jasper. " How inscrutable are the formulas of civilisation ! My velvet dressing-gown is really a handsome and not altogether unpicturesque garment, with easy flowing lines, and an agreeable variety of light and sliadow ; while my swallow-tail coat, on the other hand, is shabby, old-fashioned, and ungraceful : and yet, if I were to dine in my dressing-gown, the widow would consider herself an injured woman. Au revoir, my dear Pauncefort! Go and ■JO fascinated, while I take my restorative nap, and refit my exhausted intellect for an argumentative evening." Tlie lamps had not yet been carried into the amber draw- ing-room when Marcia and Mr. Pauncefort entered the apart- ment. No one but a barbarian is ever in any hurry to put an end to a winter twilight and the flickering glow or a tire iu a Why Did She Do It ? H Ifritjlilly-furniehed room. Rfrs. ITardincr was standinj^ in on« fif the windows, with her elbow resting on the elaborate scroll. work of a high-backed chair, and her face towards the dusky landscape. She turned her head as Marcia ond her companion entered, but still stood in the deep embrasure of the window, half- hidden by the shadow of voluminous curtains. Sir Jasper's tenant saw only the outline of a very perfect figure, and the warm reddish hue of a violet-silk dress, touched here and there by tiie lirelight. " Blanche," said Marcia, " I have brought you Air. Pauncefort, the owner of that romantic little Hermitage which you so much admired yesterday, as we drove through the wood." " Then I am sure I shall be delighted to see him ! " cried the widow : " for no one but a man with the eye of a painter and the soul of a poet would be likely to select such a sweet spot. I must claim a kindred spirit, and shake hands with your friend on the strength of our sympathy, Marcia." That had been a dark brooding face whieh had looked out at the blackening winter sky ; but Blanche Harding spoke in lier sprightliest manner, as she came smiling out of the shadows, and advanced with outstretched hand towards Miss Denison's companioa. There was a faint flavour of patronage in the sweetness of her tone. The widow was a woman of the world, and had concluded that a man who would consent to bury himself in the sombre recesses of Scarsdale wood must have not only the soul of a poet and the eye of tli^ painter, but the limited income of a man wlio linds himself unable to live any where else. Slie came smiling out of the darkness, her silken draperies trailing after her, oeeply purple in the shadow, brightly red in the light, like the convolutions of some beautiful serpent ; but as she stood a little way from Sir Jasper's tenant, with her hand outstretched, waiting for him to take it, and her hand- some head uplifted with a kind of regal graciousness, the capricious flrelight — which played all manner uf practical jokes with the pictures on the walls, making Etty's drawing absurd, and Turner's colouring ridiculous — leapt into sudden bright- ness, aiid flickered on George Pauncefort's face. Blanche Harding's extended hand dropped heavily upon a little table, a iiny gilded table, loaded with fragile toys, which fell crashing down beneath the weight of that falling hand. Sir Jasper's tenant stood unmoved as a statue, looking the widrw full in the face. Marcia Denison glanced amazediy from one to the other. Was this a recognition — a siirpriso — i>r what? 96 Sir Jasper's Tenant. " There never was anything so preposterous as the delusion created by the light of a wood-fire," cried Mrs. Harding turning to Marcia. " Mr. Pauncefort's face just this moment looked like the face of a man who died ten years ago ; and yec I dare say, when the lamps are brought in, I shall find no re- semblance between your papa's friend and the person of whom he so terribly reminded me." The widow shuddered — a coquettish little shudder, which brought her sloping shoulders into play — and then breathed a faint languishing sigh, expressive of intense relief. " Oh, here are the lamps ; and I see that I was quite right — Mr. Pauncefort is not an atom like the poor dead person. Oh, my dear jMarcia, I really fear I have broken some of your pretty Dresden — that darling little cup with the cover — is the cover all right ? — yes, it really has escaped, love ! I am so glad, it's such a sweet colour — Augustus Rex, I know, and not the trumpery crossed-dagger-marked modern stuff that one can buy wholesale any where. I am such a silly, sensitive creature," exclaimed the widow, who was kneeling on the ground, examining one of the fallen cups and saucers. " And there are memories which — no, I will not be sentimental ; and I will go and dress for dinner." She rose from her knees, placed the little cup and saucer gently amongst its kindred cups and saucers, made a graceful little curtsey, half to Miss Denison, half to Mr. Pauncefort, and left the room with a noiseless gliding step, and the violet silken drapery winding after her, always more or less serpentine in its trailing splendour. " Are you very intimate with Mrs. Harding ? " George Pauncefort asked presently, as Marcia seated herself by a table on which the servant had placed a shaded reading-lamp. " Oh, no ; I can scarcely say I am intimate with her. I never saw her until last year, at Homburg. Papa likes her very much." " And do you like her, Miss Denison ? " " I think her very clever — and very agreeable." " Exactly. And that reply means that you do not like her?" " Really, Mr. Pauncefort, I don't think you have any righ* to ask me such a question, or to jump at any conclusion upon such a point ! I am not a person to make sudden friendships, and I have known Mrs. Harding a very short time ; but she is my guest, and I should think that fact in itself should preclude the possibility of any question as to my liking for her." " Forgive me, if I have violated the sanctity of the bread and salt." There was a long pause, during which Mr. Pauncefort JThij Did She Do It f 97 WRiked up and down the room, while Marcia strung soma bftiids upon a piece of silk ; and then he made some common^ place remark, from which they drifted into conversation : but there was a tone of restraint in their conversation ; it was not quite the old easy talk with which they had beguiled so many hours in the autumn that was past. Marcia wondered why this was ; and found herself wonder- ing whether Mrs. Harding's explanation of her sudden emotion was quite a truthful one ; or whether these two pt-ople might not have known and quarrelled with each other in some remoto period of their existences, and parted in anger years ago, to meet accidentally to-night, with conventional smiles on theii faces, and a str'*"ger looking on at the meeting. Sir Jasper appeared presently, looking unutterably patrician, in very shabby evening-dress ; and shortly afterwards Mrs. Harding came rustling into the room in the green moird' anlfque and the cabochon emeralds. Her shoulders were shrouded by the point-lace pelerine; but her plump arms were bare from the elbows downwards, and midway between the elbow and the wrist of the left arm she wore a broad band of black velvet, clasped so tightly as almost to cut the soft white flesh. Sir Jasper's tenant only looked at her once as she stood before him in the full light of the lamps, and then his glance went straight to the velvet bracelet on her left arm. It was not a pleasant evening. The dinner and the wines were perfection ; but there is a heaviness of spirit which all the vintages of the Cute-d'Or are powerless to dispel. To-night a leaden dulness oppressed somebody in that small circle, and communicated itself by some subtle magnetism to everybody else. Mrs. Harding played ecarU'i with tlie Baronet, and twice forgot to mark the king. She sang with Marcia ; but she made a piteous fiasco of the time in the quick movement of a duet from }h)rma. There was something wrong. Sir Jasper yawneiil in his tenant's face, and then apologised profusely for his ow:ti dulness. " Wo are four very intellectual people, but we are not proof against the influence of the festive season," said the Baronet. " The twenty-fourth of December is too much for us. The people, the representative merry-makers, are hard at it by this time, — slapping one another upon the back, and boisterously patching up old quarrels and forgetting old grievances, and putting themselves into unpleasant perspirations with hot spiced drinks, and letting bygones be bygones in the most vulgar and ungrammatical manner. Peace on earth and good- will to men, says the hymn which the charity-children will iiix^ — lamentably flat, by-the bye — to morro'v : well, it's • 18 Sir Jasper's Tenant. pretty icfpa, and w!iy should we quarrel with it ? Peace upon earih and goodwill amongst men, say I. Marcia, we seem all of us a cup too low to-night. Ring the bell, my dear, and order Old Oliver's tankard to be filled with mulled claret,— the Lafitte with the black seal. It's close upon twelve o'clock ; and, by all that is jovial, we'll keep Christmas like the people in the illustrated newspapers, and our toast shall be, Peace and goodwill." " Dear Sir Jasper, what a charming idea ! and how delighted I should be to help you in carrying it out ! " exclaimed Mrs. Harding, rising from before the piano with an air of fatigue ; " but I have such a terrible headache that I must really say good-night immediately, or I shall be quite unable to go to church to-morrow morning." For the second time that night, and only the second time, Mr. Pauncefort looked straight at the widow. His bearded lip stirred a little, as if he would have spoken ; but he turned suddenly away, and looked down at the fire, into whose hollow depth he had been staring absently for some time before. Somehow or other the black-sealed claret was not uncorked that evening ; and Sir Jasper lost the opportunity of patronis- ing Christianity. While the great stable clock was striking twelve, with a ponderous chime that mingled with the voices of some village lads singing a Christmas-carol on the Abbey-terrace, Blanche Harding stood before the fire in her room, loosely wrapped in a dressing-gown, one sleeve of which was rolled up to her shoulder, and securely pinned there. It was the left arm which was thus bared — a plump white arm, without spot or blemish. The widow's face wore a strange expression, almost an expression of pain ; and yet she was only staring at the fire, into the very heart of which she had thrust the point of the poker. Presently, shuddering from head to foot, she knelt upon the hearth-rug, and drew the poker from the burning coals. Her face was horribly distorted as she grasped the centre of this poker, and laid the red-hot point of it across her arm, mid- way between the wrist and the elbow, exactly where she had clasped the velvet bracelet when she dressed for dinner that fljyeuiug. Jhiven Away. 99 CHAPTER XII. DRIVEN AWAY. 8lB Jasper's tenant did not appear in the breakfart-room on Christmas morning. His man brought a message of apology to the Baronet — a vague message, alleging no particular reason for his master's absence ; but the languid chieftain of Scarsdale allowed perfect liberty to his guests, and was not given to be curious as to their motives for doing this or that. The sparkling widow was not quite so brilliant as usual this morning. A delicate pallor, just a little chalky in a strong east light, had superseded the rich bloom which was wont to glow upon her plump cheeks. The brightness of her eyes was a trifle feverish, and the red lips had a dry look, and quivered nervously every now and then. Sir Jasper, looking at her as he might have looked at one of his pictures whose colour showed symptoms of decay, could not refrain from a languid speculation regarding his guest's altered looks. " Those abominable carol-singers kept you awake half the night, I dare say," he murmured compassionately. " Imagine the utter idiotcy of half-a-dozen clodhoppers, who howl, ' God bless you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,' when their own hideous minstrelsy is horrible enough to break the rest of the Seven Sleepers, and dismaj' the uncultivated ears of an Ojibbcway Indian. You look as if you had been haunted all night by the memory of their howling." Mrs. Harding smiled a very wan smile. " You are quite right. Sir Jasper," she said, " as to my Bleeplessness, but wrong as regards the cause of it. I would have forgiven the carol-singers ; indeed I love to hear those dear old verses sung under the windows of such a house as this ; I am carried back to the days of the cavaliers, by the sound of that quaint invocation, and almost expect to awake in one of Mr. Horsley's interiors. No, I would have forgiven the villagers on the terrace for being a little undecided as t^what key they should sing in, and should have gone to Bleep to dream about some phantom lady in a brocaded sacque, I dare say, if it had not been for a very severe attack of my old enemy tic, which kept me tossing about in agony all the night ; and I really feel so miserably languid and drowsy this morn- ing, that I must**scuse myself from attending your darling 100 Sir Jasper^ 8 Tenant. little village church, whose steeple I saw from my window peeping out Of a break in the leafless woodland, just like Bome delicious little 'bit' by Mr. Creswick. So, with your permission, dear Marcia, I shall read the Christmas service in »ny own room, or in one of your easy-chairs by the drawing- *'oom fire." The Baronet and his daughter were politely concerned about their guest's neuralgic affection. " I hope the woman is not going to inflict her illnesses upon Q8," thought Sir Jasper, after murmuring something that was indistinctly compassionate and befitting the occasion ; " a lively widow is one thing, but a neuralgic widow is another. There's a want of tone about her left cheek this morning, and the right eyebrow is decidedly out of drawing. Her toilet has been by no means conscientious, and I hold myself aggrieved by her careless manipulation. If she wants to make as long a visit as her trunks and bandboxes predicate, she must suppress her neuralgic symptoms, and improve her flesh-tints. I haven't anything on my walls so crude or cold as my visitor's face this morning." "If you were to take a little chlorodyne," murmured Marcia. "With a warm glaze over the left cheek," muttered Sir Jasper, absently. " I will try anything you recommend me, dearest Marcia," answered the widow ; " for really I suffered very terribly last night. However, I feel a little better this morning; and I dare say after a few hours' complete repose, I shall be quite myself, and thoroughly able to enjoy a social even- ing." Marcia retired to dress for church, and Mrs. Harding left Sir Jasper to his papers by the fire in the breakfast-room. She went to her own room ; but instead of lying down, as she had talked of doing, she paced the spacious chamber slowly from end to end, stopping now and then to look at her face in the glass. It was an anxious brooding face that looked back at her ; very haggard in spite of the artificial aid which had been brought to bear to make it beautiful ; and the widow looked at it angrily, with a scowl that darkened it, and made it even more haggard. " What a wretch I look ! " she muttered, " and when so much depends on my looking well. What have 1 ^ in the world but my beauty ; and if that fades, what hope is there that I shall ever regain a footing in the only world that is worth living in ? Oli, how I hate that other world, that hot- bed of lies and baseness, in which all the women are vulgar Driven Atcay. lOfi parodies of myself, in which all the men are Belfish ami falsa and cruel and cowardly ! It all seemed so bright once, and I thought it something to be a queen in it ; but now I know it, and i know what its highest prizes are worth." There was a gentle little tap at the door while the widow Stood brooding tlius before the glass ; and when she opened it, pretty Dorothy stood before her, radiant in the velvet bonnet and blue ribbons, and holding a tiny bottle in hoT hand. "Please, Ma'am, Miss Marcia told me to bring you this. The chloride-of-lime, Ma'am, she said. I mean the chori — oh, dear, I am so stupid ! — and would you be so kind as to try it. Miss Marcia said." Dorothy was quite breathless with hurry, for she was speeding off to the lodge, where Mr. Tursgood the bailiff was to pick her up in the chaise-cart which conveyed that gentleman and his young family to the little Roman-Catholic chapel at Castlcford. As Dorothy handed the chlorodyne to Sir Jasper's guest, something in the dark eyes of the widow moved her with a strange tremor. Why it was so, she was far too hurried to consider just now. But the image of one person which had haunted her very much of late, and had floated hazily in her mind all that morning, assumed in that one moment a more vivid life, and shone before her distinct and palpable as reality. " If this stuff can do anything for my shattered nerves, I shall thank the man who invented it," muttered the widow, as she poured a few drops from Marcia's bottle. She went to one of the windows presently, and stood there Bntil she saw Miss Denison walk briskly along one of the winding paths leading towards the church. Then she went back to the glass, and looked at herself again, scruti- nising the reflected face with a long and thoughtful gaze. After that leisurely scrutiny, Mrs. Ilarding took a handsomely- bound Church-service from amongst the numberless elegant possessions she had scattered about her apartment, and de- scended the grand staircase. She met no one on her way to the hall, though she lingered here and there upon the staircase to look out of a window, or to examine a picture, and she walked down the long corridor leading to the drawing-room with a slow languid "step. The pretty amber-curtained room was quite empty when she entered it ; but a superb lire, a real Christmas fire, burned in the lovr grate, and reflected itself in the many-coloured Gothic tiles and the fantastic Bpikiness of the steel fender. Mrs. Harding sank into a low chair, a perfect nest of downy pufliness aod amber-satin damask ; a chair in which 102 Bir tHisper'i Tenant. to lounge away a lifetime, reading dreamy idyls in th« intervals of a long chain of naps ; a chair whose enervating influence stifled the voice of ambition, and deadened the reproving murmurs of conscience; a chair which might have transformed a Napoleon into an idle dreamer, and reduced a John Howard into a selfish Sybarite. Perhaps there never was a richer little study of colour, a more exquisite cabinet- picture, than the splendid widow seated in this chair and loosely robed in a dressing-gown of quilted purple silk, from whose voluminous folds peeped two slim feet, with arched insteps, that might have belonged to one of Alfred de Musset's Andalusian countesses ; feet that Avere set off by grey-silk stockings and high-heeled slippers of glimmering bronze, adorned with coquettishly careless scarlet bows, from one of which a painter might have built up the image of a lovely debardeuse tripping away from a carnival ball ; just as easily as a naturalist constructs his antediluvian mammoth out of a stray bone dug by hazard from the bowels of the earth. But beautiful as the accessories of the picture might be, there was something wanting to its completeness, and that was the very soul of the subject. The attitude was perfect, the background faultless ; but the expression of repose was not there. Mrs. Harding's head lay back upon the puffy amber cushion, in the abandonment of feminine laziness ; but Mrs. Harding's eyes wandered restlessly from the door to the fire, and from the fire back to the door. It was only when thei-e was the sound of a footstep in the corridor, that the sweeping lashes drooped drowsily over the dark splendour of the widow's eyes, and the red lips parted like the lips of a sleeping child. Nothing could be better in the way of histrionic art than the little movement of bewilderment and surprise with which Mrs. Harding started from that mock sleep on the entrance of the person whose footstep she had just heard on the cor- ridor. The person was George Pauncefort. He shut the door behind him, bent his head to the widow with a stately gravity of gesture, and walked straight to the angle of the fire-place opposite that by which she was sitting. His manner could not have been more ceremonious had he been approaching a stranger, or I should rather say, his manner could not have been «o ceremonious towards a stranger. There is a certain ceremony which a gentleman only assumes when he encoun- ters an enemy. A French nobleman of the vieille rocJie, meeting his antagonist some dewy summer morning in the wood beyond the barriers de VEtoile, might carry himself as Bir Jasper's tenant did to-day. "Good-morning, Mrs. Harding," he said, always preserving Driven Away. 103 tlic same frigid manner ; " I believe it is by that name you desire to be known." " If you please. It is a very unpretendfDg name." The widow retained her attitude of eoinplete repose, and there was an exquisitely-simulated languor in the expression of her countenance, which might have deceived any one who had not seen her five minutes before. " I thought it best that I should see you before leaving this house ; and I am glad to find tiiis opportunity of speaking to you," said Mr. Pauncefort, very gravely. " You are going to leave the Abbey, then ? " " You cannot imagine that I should remain. I wish to leave without esclandre, if possible. I need scarcely say how entirely surprised I was by the meeting of last night." " Unpleasantly surprised, I suppose ? " asked the widow. There was a tightness about her handsome lips, a lurid glitter in her handsome eyes during this interview with Sir Jasper's tenant, that imparted rather a diabolical character to hec dark beauty. There was a flimsy little sketch of a Judith, painted by Etty, in a corner of the drawing-room ; and the dark intensity of the face in the picture was less terrible than the expression that revealed itself under Blanche Harding's pearl-powder. "Very unpleasantly," answered George Pauncefort. "The threshold of this house is the first I have crossed for fifteen years in the character of friend and guest. I had weighed well the probabilities for and against my meeting any one who knows me or my miserable story ; and under the peculiar tircumsUinces of this household I believed m3self safe. Of all creafures that ever lived upon this earth, you are the person whom I could least have expected to meet under this roof." "Indeed! And why ? " No words can do justice to the amount of quiet aggra- vation which Mrs. Harding contrived to infuse into the enun- ciation of these four commonplace syllables. Only a wo man, and a woman who had been accustomed to the feminim luxury of having some creature of the genus husband to tor- ment could have obtained such a mastery over the elocution of malice. " For many reasons. First, because you were boond by a promise never to return to this country." " I have kept that promise faithfully for fifteen years. When I heard of you, it was always as- a tra\-ellcr in the wilds of Central Africa. My sister's death left me very lonely." " Your sister's death ! " cried Sir Jasper's tenant with iomething that was almost a groan. •' God help you, Caro- 101 Sir Jasper's Tenant. lino ! you might have been a different woman if that sistci had died in her cradle." Mrs. Harding lifted her head suddenly from its attitude oi assumed languor, and looked at George Pauncefort with a fiercer light in her eyes than had shone in them yet. "My sister had nothing to do witli my sins," she said. "I can bear the weight of them myself." ** But for your sister's influence I do believe you might never have sinned. I think yours and your brother's nature were of that plastic kind, too weak to walk unaided in the path of virtue, not strong enough to stand alone in vice. You went the way that j'ou were led, and there were two people who plotted together to lead you to perdition. Your sister, Leonora Fane, was one of them." " You had better leave my sister's name out of the question I have no wish to hear it." " God knows how little wish I have to utter it. The past is past. I have wasted fifteen j^ears in trying to bury the corpse of my perished youth, and I have not yet found the grave deep enough to hold the loathsome thing. Its ghost rises and follows me wherever I go. And now, Mrs. Harding, I have some right to know when you mean to leave this house." " ^Vily should I leave it ? " " Simply because you should never have entered it. You have no right to sleep under the same roof with Marcia Den- ison ; you have no right to sit at the same table. Oh, God of heaven ! " cried the tenant of the Hermitage with a sudden burst of passion, which was all the more terrible for the fri- gidity of his previous manner, " I saw you kiss her last night; and my mind went back to a summer's evening fifteen years ago when I watched you kiss your child as you gave him into his mirse's arms. I do not think you can have forgotten that evening, Caroline. I prayed once that the memory of it might haunt yon on your deathbed." The widow watched Sir Jasper's tenant with keenly scru- tinising eyes as he spoke, and there was something like a BCintillation of triumph in those big black orbs. " You seem very anxious that no tainted thing should ap- proach Miss Denison's purity," she said, with a sneer ; " and yet I do not see how you come to be so deeply interested in the young lady's welfare." " I am interested in the cause of truth against falsehood," Btemly answered George Pauncefort. " Tell these people who and what you are. Let them know your antecedents ; throw yourself upon their mercy ; and then if they please to receive you, I will stand aloof and saj' uotliiiig. If in all this world Driven Away. 105 you can find a creature generous enough to take you by tho hand, knowing what j'ou are, Heaven forbid that I should Btand between you and that outstretched liand ! But I will not help you in a lie ; I will not look placidly on while you creep into a gentleman's hospitable household with a mask upon your face." " In that case you had better tell Sir Jasper Denison my story. Of course he will repeat the substance of your revela- tion to his daughter, and I shall receive a polite notice to quit. Ah, Mr. Pauncefort, I don't think you will care to tell Miss Marcia Denison who and what I am." " Why should I not ? " " I cannot give you a reason. Do you remember how Maitre Jacques replies to Harpagon ? Je le crois parceque je le crois. I can only offer you the same kind of answer — you will not because you will not." The widow was beginning to recover a little of her habitual liveliness. She took Marcia's paper-knife from a table by her side, and began to cut open an illustrated news- paper — a Christmas number with the bright Christmas pictures, which it pleased the Voltairean Baronet to ridicule. Looking at her as she sat opposite to him, George Paunce- fort's mind travelled back to the autumn evening upon which he had first entered that house ; the evening on which he had watched Marcia Denison sitting in the dim glow of the fire, with that very paper-knife in her hand. " It is only three months since that night," mused Sir Jasper's tenant, " and yet the larger half of my lifetime seems the period in which I have known her." He was silent for some few minutes, and then he said gravely : " I had a right to expect that you would keep your promise. I have wished you to be rich, in order that you might be at least beyond the reach of any sordid temptation. I do not threaten you now with a reduction or withdrawal of your income. But I tell you frankly that I will not suffer you to remain a visitor in this house, and the companion of Miss Denison." "Then you will tell them — everything ? " A faint flush dyed Mr. Pauncefort's face and passed away before he answered this question. "I shall take my own time to think of that," he said ; " I only tell you that unless you leave this house with your own free will, and very speedily, I will do all I can to render your departure inevitable." "When the inevitable moment arrives, I will go. In the mean time I am an icvitcd guest ; and I mean to remain." 106 Sir Jasper^ a Tenant. "Caroline," exclaimed Sir Jasper's tenant, looking at th* widow with an expression which was half stern, half pitiful, " I did not think it was in you to become so bold in wicked- ness." " Fifteen years is a long time," answered Mrs. Harding. " You shut a woman out of the world in which good people live, and then you wonder at her if she becomes worse than she was at the hour of her exclusion." " Fifteen years might have done much towards the re- demption of the past, if you had spent them as you might have done. But I tell you, again, Caroline, it was your mis- fortune to be guided by the worst counsellor who ever whis- pered evil suggestions into a woman's ear. She is dead, and I have tried to think less bitterly of her, or not to think of her at all. May a merciful God have that compassion for her sins which I cannot feel ! I have heard of you and Mrs. Fane during my dreary exile, and I have heard something of the kind of life you led, and the people whom you chose for your associates. But I will say no more. I have no wish to interfere with your life, except in the defence of friends wliom I respect. I claim the riglit to call tlie people who inhabit this house my friends ; and all that a gentle- man may do in the service of his friends, I will do for them." A shadow came between George Pauncefort and the light, as he said this, and looking up he saw Marcia Denison passing the window opposite to him. He bent his head gravely to Mrs. Harding, exactly as he had done before, and left the room. He walked very rapidly along the corridor, but at the end of it he met Marcia Dension, bright and girlish-looking in her simple winter-bonnet, and with the frosty freshness of the out-of-door atmosphere hanging about her garments. Sir Jasper's tenant passed her with a smile and a bow, and went straight to his own apartment, where he spent some time in the coBCoction of a letter addressed to his liost. When he had folded and sealed the letter, he rang for hia servant. " I leave the Abbey this morning, Milward," he said ; " I find myself quite unequal to the excitement of society. You will pack my portuiauteau and follow me. But before you do io, you will give this letter to Sir Jasper Deuibon." " Yes, Sir." The well-bred servant expressed no astonishment what- ever at tins sudden change in his master's plans. He had eerved the man who called himself George Pauncefort for fcome six or seven years, and he had almost parted with the Awkward for Sir Jasper. 107 faculty of aBtonishment in fliat long experience of a moovly traveller's caprices. This abrupt departure from Scarsdale Abbey was only one evidence the more of that irritable natur* which vainly sought for relief in change and action. The valet assisted Mr. Pauncefort to put on his great-coat, followed him to the hall, and opened the door for him, and then went quietly back to the blue bed-room to pack the things which he had arranged in lavender-perfumed drawers the day before. And thus, on the day which in happy households is so bright a festival. Sir Jasper's tenant left Scarsdale Abbey to return to a cold hearth and an empty shelter, and to make his Chriotmas dinner off an ill-cooked mutton-chop eatc, beside a smouldering fire of sputtering green logs. " Driven out by her ! " thought the hermit as he filled his meerschaum ; " I think to-day's work is the moral of my own life. Driven away by her 1 " CHAPTER XIII. AWKWARD FOB SIR JASPER. While George PaK" >efort was walking homeward beneath the frosty December sky, Sir Jasper Denison sat in his favourite chair under the shadow of tlie grim bronze sea-god, and slept the Sybarite's peaceful slumber, soothed by the monotonous ticking of the clock and the soughing of the wintry wind among the oaks, faintly heard through double windows of plate-glass. The Baronet stirred himself slightly in his chair with a peevish movement when a servant entered the room and laid a letter on the table ; but he did not open his eyes uutil the same man brought a reading-lamp anil placed it in the centre of the chaos of papers and periodicals within reach of Sir Jasper's hand. "What letter is that on the table yonder? Be so good as to give it to me, Jarvis ; though I've no doubt it's something unpleasant," muttered the Baronet. What a portentous seal ! Why, in the name of all that is absurd, do people try t« make their letters look like death-warrants? Who bruugU this ? " asked Sir Jasper, languidly stretching out hlB hand \» receive the missive 108 &tt Jasper^s Tenant. " It was not brought, Sir ; Mr. Pauncefort's servant gave ft to me when he left the Abbey." " When he left the Abbey ! What do you mean ? " " The letter will explain, Sir, I believe, from what Mr, Pauncefbrt's man said. He left at three o'clock, Sir, and Mil- ward went a little before four." " Oh, very well," murmured Sir Jasper with a dreary yawn, as the man left the room. " Mr. Pauncefort was free to go when he pleased : Diogenes has found oursociety unendurable, and gone back to his tub. The misfortune is that this Diogenes is really a very pleasant fellow, and I shall miss him. How- ever, there is the lively widow. I wash my hands of Diogenes, and fall back upon the widow. Let us see what the fellow has to say for himself." He tore open the envelope and read the following epistle : "My dear Sjr Jasper, — It seems peculiarly ungracious to turn my back upon your hospitality on such a day as this, when the sanctity which always perv'ades a peaceful home is multiplied a hundred-fold by the memories which this day brings along with it. I leave your house very reluctantly, and I leave it only because there is a visitor beneath your roof whose presence renders it impossible that I should remain. " When you mentioned Mrs. Harding's name before my introduction to her, I was not aware that I had ever met her in my life ; but when I saw her, I recognised in her a woman whose career was very intimately known to me many years ago — a woman who is no fitting companion for your daughter, Miss Denison, since she is a wife who ran away from her husband, a mother who abandoned her child. " It is on Miss Denison's account that I write this letter. Did you stand alone in the world, I might hold my peace, and suffer this woman to await the hour in which you would your- self discover the secret of her antecedents ; but you would have the right to call me to a strict account of my conduct, were I to allow Mrs. Harding to remain under the roof that shelters your daughter. I do not stab your guest in the dark. You are at liberty to show this letter to Mrs. Harding, and to call upon either her to admit or disprove my accusations. If she should wish to see me in your presence, I shall be closa at hand to support what I have said ; but I have no more to say, and shall refuse to give any closer particulars of the broad facts which I have stated. I may add also, that 1 have no proofs to offer in confirmation of my charges against this lady. I can only ask you to believe in me as a gentle- man ; and I think you know me well enough to believe that Aiclward for Sir Jasper. 109 I should not write this letter if I did not consider myself compelled to do so. " I leave your house, my dear Sir Jasper, with deep regret. The circumstances of my life have shut me out of a home of my own ; and the only hearth at which I have accepted a place has been darkened by the shadow of a woman about whom I cannot teach myself to think charitably, even oi this day. I thank you most heartily for the friendship you have so generously given to a stranger ; and I trust that my abrupt departure will in no way deprive me of your confidence and regard. " I shall ask permission to complete my broken visit on some future occasion ; and I shall be obliged if you will give whatever explanation of my conduct you may think best to Miss Denisou. •• I remain, my dear Sir Jasper, " Always truly yours, " George PAU^■CEFORT." " Humph ! " muttered the Baronet ; " tliis is pleasant. A lively widow billeted upon one, with bandboxes that predicate a six-weeks' visit at the least ; and lo and behold, an unex- pected denirnciation of her as an improper person. And on the traditionary festive occasion too! What am I to do? Give her a polite quietus ? There is no possibility of getting rid of her without esclandre. A runaway wife ? Is it true, I wonder? Surely yes; my tenant is a gentleman, and would not be so base as to slander a woman. This comes of picking up agreeable widows at such a place as Homburg. However, I must temporise matters, and get rid of her quietly as soon as I can ; the woman's antecedents are not inftclious, and the woman is a lady, though very florid. Marcia is far too strong-minded to be influenced in the smallest degree by any companionship ; so there need be no feverish hurry about the matter." While Sir Jasper mused thus with Mr. Pauncefort's letter in his hand, the door was opened very softly, and a silken rustling betrayed the sex of the person who opened it. Then a head peeped into the room, and then the door was thrown quite open, and Mrs. Harding appeared, splendid in ruby velvet, with white shoulders glimmering under a black-lace shawl, and diamond stars in her hair. " I peeped in to see if you were taking your afternoon nap," she said ; " but I am so glad to find you awake. Oh, dear Sir Jasper, I have something so vei-y serious, so extremely un- pleasant to say to you." " Indeed," thought tho Baronet ; " and I have sometliiag B 110 Sir Jasperh Tenant, very unpleasant to say to you whenever I can bring my courage to the sticking-place ; " but he only bowed, with a littla unintelligible murmur expressive of every thing that was un- meaningly polite. He looked at her even more critically than usual. He had never seen her beauty more brilliant than it was to-night. Her cheeks seemed to be flushed with a natural crimson, her eyes sparkled with the effect of excitement, and not the ghastly brightness induced by belladonna ; and beyond this the Baronet looked at her with a new interest, inspired by the contents of his tenant's letter, just as he would have looked all the more eagerly at a handsome Frenchwoman in the Bois de Boulogne, had he been told that she was Marie Laffarge. " Dear Sir Jasper," said the widow, sinking gracefully into the chair opposite to the Baronet, " I am going to ask you all sorts of abrupt questions — impertinent questions you may perhaps think ; but I trust you will believe that I am justified in asking them." Tke Baronet bowed, with another polite little murmur, " What, in mercy's name, is the woman going to say ? " he thought. He had not observed Mrs. Harding*B eyes fixing themselves for a moment on the letter in his hand, or the tightening of the lips that accompanied the glance. " How long have you known Mr. Pauncefort ? " Sir Jasper was not very often surprised ; but this question, tsked by the widow with a cex'tain business-like earnestness of tone, startled him out of his languid equanimity. " I have not known him very long. But why do you ask the question ? " " I will tell you presently, when you have answered an- other. Was Mr. Pauncefort presented to you by any of yonr friends ? " " No." " I tliought not ! " exclaimed the widow. " Mr. Pauncefort is my tenant, and he is a gentleman. His manners please me. I respect his intellect, and I like his society. Am I to wait till some Smith or Brown of my acquaintance comes to me and says, ' My dear Sir Jasper, my friend Pauncefort is dying to know you. Will you allow me to present him to you 'i Sir Jasper Denison, Mr. Pauncefort, — Mr. Pauncefort, Sir Jasper Denison ; eminently adapted for each other, I'm shawl' and so on? No, Mrs. Harding, I choose my friends for myself, and on my own responsibility. And I very rarely make a mistake." i'lic Baronet's eyes fixed themselves very earut^tly upon Awhward for Sir Jasper. Ill the widow as he said tliis. Mrs. Harding's face darkened just a little under the scrutiny, and her glance, which had been very steady until now, wandered restlessly to the letter in,Sir Jasper's hand. " I am very sorry that you have chosen Mr. Pauncefort for your friend," Mrs. Harding said very gravely. " Wliy so ? " " Because he is unworthy of your friendship, unfit to be the associate of your daughter." " Indeed ! how unworthy ? why unfit ? " " Because those who know him know him to be a bad man. A gentleman does not exile himself from his fellow-men with- out a sufficient reason. I knew George Pauncefort before he left England ; and I have been given to understand, by those who know the mysteries of such matters, that when he turned his back upon his country he left a tainted name behind him." " But what, in Heaven's name, had he done ? " cried the Baj-onet, sitting erect in his chair, in the extremity of his be- wilderment. " How can I tell you ? A woman never hears the real particulars of these stories. My husband was a man of the world. lie knew the truth, I have no doubt ; but I heard only hints and insinuations. I can tell you no more. I dare say the story was a common story enough ; but it had the eilect of driving the chief actor in it out of England ; and even now, when he has returned to this country, he seems to have returned only to seek a safer hiding-place." Sir Jasper drew a long breath, and stared hopelessly, first at the lady opposite to him, and then at the letter in bis'liand. Here were separate denunciations, almost equally vague in their character, brought against each other by two people who were both unable or unwilling to substantiate their accusa- tions by any means whatever. Which of the two was to be believed? that was the question. "Egad! I'm afraid Pauncefort must be the sinner," thought Sir Jasper, despondently, "since he has been the man to leave the field, and fire his big gun from a masked battery. I am sorry for it. I would rather have let this frivolous widow down the wind, to prey at fortune, than lose my argnnicnta- tive evenings with the man who doesn't believe in the Ency- clopedists. What a misfortune it is to be the father of an unmarried daughter ! If I were alone in the world, the man's antecedents would not be of the smallest importance. He would scarcely break into my plate-room to steal my Cellini cup, or my Cromwellian tankards ; andjif he forged my accept- uucl', the man who discounted the bill would be the 'principal 112 Sir Jasper' % Tenant. victim. But society reminds me that I have a daughter, and that it is for her, and not for myself, that I must choose my acquaintance." Mrs. Harding watched her host with sharp scrutinising eyes during the brief pause in which he abandoned himself to these reflections. There had been many critical momenta in the life of the woman who called kerself Blanche Harding, but not one more critical than this. At last that brief delay, which seemed so long, came to an end. " I should be very glad if you would be a little morp explicit, my dear Madam," exclaimed Sir Jasper rather testily. " Of all things I dislike these vague accusations, which can neither be proved nor disproved. However, you need give yourself no further uneasiness upon the subject of Mr. Paunce- fort, for that gentleman left my house two hours ago, and is not likely to re-enter it while you do me the honour to remain under my roof." "Now if slie, is the culprit," thonght the Baronet, "that will hit her rather hard." " I thought as much ! " answered the widow triumphantly, "I could see that Mr. Pauncefort recognised me yesterday evening, though his affectation of unconsciousness was very cleverly managed. You may have observed that he was not quite himself, either at the dinner-table or in the drawing- room." " You are right, Madam. My friend was gloomy," returned Sir Jasper, thoughtfully. " Oh, there's no doubt about it," he continued mentally ; " Pauncefort is the guilty party. This woman could never carry the position so boldly unless indeed she were a pastmis- ti'css in the art of cool impudence." " And now, dear Sir Jasper, I must ask a thousand pardons for having bored you with this most unpleasant topic ; but my respect, my affection for your sweet Marcia " " You are very good ! " exclaimed the Baronet, cutting in suddenly upon Mrs. Harding's gushing apology. "Yes, I begin to feel the embarrassment which a man labours under who tries to choose his friends for himself, forgetting that he is encumbered with an unmarried daughter. Let us say no more about it, my dear Mrs. Harding. I see you are dressed for dinner, and as my own toilet is still unmade. " "My dear Sir Jasper, I am going to leave you thif moment. Pray tell me tliat you do not think my intrusion impertinent " "Not at all," murmured the Baronet, looking thoughtfully at his tenant's letttr Atvkwara jor vrr Ja&i)er. Mr^. HArding rose, and with r)nc of those gliding curt- iies wiiich her admirers considered infinitely bewitching, swept her ruby-velvet splendour out of Sir Jasper's den. She went Btraight to the drawing-rooui, where she found Marcia sitting in a very thoughtful attitude, with an open book lying on thu leopard-skin rug at her feet, just where it had slipped from lier knee. She looked up as her visitor entered the room ; and there was just a shade of disappointment in her expres- sion as she recognised the lady in ruby velvet. "My dear Mrs. Harding, how superbly you are dressed ! " she exclaimed ; " and we shall have no one here to admire your elaborate toilet, except ourselves — and Mr. Pauncefort." " Not even Mr. Pauncefort," answered the widow gaily. "Mr. Pauncefort has left the Abbey." " Left us 1 Impossible ! Papa told me he was to spend sofiie weeks with us." Mrs. Harding shrugged her shoulders. "That is quite possible, dearest Marcia. But, for some sufficient reasons of his own, Mr. Pauncefort has left the Abbey this afternoon." "For good?" " I believe so. Yes, I may venture to say that I am sure he ^'\\\ not return — while I am here." Marcia Denison turned in her chair to look more intently at her visitor, who was standing near a table at a little distance from her, trilling listlessly with the Laureate's last volume, gorgeous in white morocco and gold. "Mrs. Harding," said Marcia earnestly, "do you hnow Mr. Pauncefort ? " "I do know something of him. My husband was ac- quainted with him fifteen years ago. I used to hear a great deal about him." "Nothing to his disadvantage, I suppose." "I regret to say that I heard a great deal to his dis- advantage." "Have you any objection to speak more definitely, Mrs. Harding? I am really interested in Mr. Pauncefort, and it will be very difficult for me to think hardly of him. ^Yhai is it that you know to his discredit ? " "Nothing that I can tell you, dearest Marcia. I have just seen your papa, and I have spoken very frankly to him. I was very young fifteen years ago, and my husband was not one of those sort of men who think they are privileged to sully a wife's ears with a scandal they would not dare to repeat in the presence of any other woman. I have heard Mr. Pauncefort condemned ; but his delinquencies were only hintei at. I thought it my duty to put your papa in posses- 114 Sir Jasper's Tenant. eion of what I know ; and I can say no more. Pray let Ul change the subject, dear. It is such a very unpleasant one." "Too unpleasant to be dismissed so lightly, I think," Marcia answered gravely. " I should be sorry to think ill of Mr. Pauncefort. I have pitied him so much for his loneliness — for his poverty, which seems like the poverty of a man who has once been rich ; and you remember what a modern French playwright has said, 'on s'habitue quelque fois a ne pas avoir d' argent, jamais a non plus avoir.^ The poverty of a ruined gentleman must be very bitter ; and I have thought that Mr. Pauncefort supports his position so nobly." The volume in Mrs. Harding's hand was open as Marcia said this, and she was looking down at its pages, with her head slis^htly averted from Miss Denison. There was something very much like a smile upon her face during this little disquisition on Mr. Pauncefort's circumstances. " It would be so difficult for me to think badly of him," said Marcia very thoughtfully. " Surely, Mrs. Harding, you would scarcely consider it just to condemn him upon the strength of some scandal of the past, of whose details you are absolutely ignorant." "My dear Marcia," exclaimed the widow with delightful insouciance, "for my own part, I am positively lax in my opinions. I have lived so long on the Continent, you know, and have associated so much with charming artistic Bohemians. But on your account I considered it incumbent upon me to tell your papa all I had ever heard against Mr. Pauncefort. And I must say that his abrupt departure is rather calculated to confirm my bad opinion of him." Miss Denison did not make any reply to this speech. That undefined dislike, that vague antipathy to the magnificent woman whom her father had chosen to patronise, was very much in the ascendant just now over the Christian-like feeling with which she had tried to combat it. There must be some reason for our unconquerable aversion to Doctor Fell, however guilty we may feel with regard to a prejudice that is apparently so groundless ; but when the unpleasant Doctor attacks the friend we like, our hatred of him is multiplied a hundred-fold all at once. Marcia tried to be very polite to Mrs. Harding when the conversation drifted into general topics ; but there was something palpably constrained in her civility, which the widow was quite clever enough to understand. Nor did Marcia recover her accustomed cheerfulness throughout that Christmas evening. She sat in her low ehair by the fire, with her face half hidden by a screen of many-coloured Indian plumage, and abandoned herself to thoud another species of moated grange, you may bo resigned to the idea of coming back to us ; in the early autumn, perhaps, when every break in the wood is a Creswicl^ and every cornfield a Linnell. Come to us in the autumn if you can. You won't be able to stand your invalid friend very long, depend upon it. Tlio brightest spirit will droop ''n a perpetual atmosphere of beef-tea ; and there will b« 138 Sir Jaajjei's Tenant, time for a round of visits between this and the autumn. You can pay off all your debts, or at any rate make a composition with your creditors, at the rate of a week in the month, say ; and you can return to us when the reapers are reaping early in among the bearded barley, which doesn't rhyme with early, by-the-bye, any more than Oliver Goldsmith's ' kay ' rhymed with ' be.' Yes, let us hope you will come back to us ; let us hope it, even if you don't come. If Adam and Eve had been allowed to anticipate a possible return to Eden, half the bitterness of that first great ejectment would have been taken away." When the Baronet retired to his favourite retreat under the shadow of Neptune, Mrs. Harding went to her rooms, and began the grand process of packing those glittering moires and lustrous velvets which had gratified her host's feeling for colour during the winter evenings, as well as the pretty cash- meres and foulards in which she had burst brightly upon him every morning, in a carefully-studied dishabille. The widow's brow was very moody while she folded all these trappings of feminine warfare, and put away a perfect arsenal of delicate implements by which she was wont to effect the decorative por- tion of her toilet. More than once in the process of her pack- ing Mrs. Harding happened to find herself in need of mascu- line assistance. She wanted Times Supplements to lay at the top of her boxes ; and with Sir Jasper's entire household at her disposal, she preferred to appeal to Sir Jasper himself. She invaded the Baronet's retreat with many apologies, and a great deal of ceremony ; and while Sir Jasper abandoned the perusal of Mr. Newman's Phases of Faith to hunt obscure shelves for old newspapers, she wandered into gushing lamentations about the necessity of departure. But the Baronet's prudence did not desert him even in this trying moment, and he handed her the Supplements as coolly as if he were selling waste-paper to a Roxborough butterman. " How kind you are, and how I shall miss you. Sir Jasper ! " murmured the widow sadly ; " and what a lost creature I shall seem when I have no longer your powerful intellect to help me whenever I am at a loss!" Mrs. Harding's manner might have implied that the Times Supplements just handed her by the Baronet involved a service which nobody else upon earth could have performed for her. " And yet," she added, looking at the Baronet contemplatively, in her pet attitude, and breath- tig a profound sigh, "perhaps it's a very good thing I am joing away, for I have felt my opinions growing terribly un- ►ittled lately ; and Heaven only knows what would have )ecome of me, morally speaking, if I had stayed much longer. Do you remember what Coventry Patmore says ? ' Take heed The Widow Tears Her self Axoay. 189 what his religion is, for yours ere long will be the same.' That was said to a woman about the man whom she was going to marry ; but what can be stronger than the influence of a friend whom we respect and admire?" The widow dropped her voice at the last words, and executed a little manoeuvre with her eyelashes, which was the next best thing to blushing. " Yes, Sir Jasper," she continued, in her most pensive lone, " I am glad I am going ; you have been a dangerous com- panion for me." The Baronet simpered. The weakest side of his charactei was undergoing a sharp attack. ^Irs. Harding was something like the warrior king who thought that Paris was worth a mass, and would have written herself down a V^oltairean with- out a moment's hesitation, if by that small sacrifice she might have attained any tangible advantage. The bon-bon waa peculiarly seductive ; but even in swallowing it, the Baronet was strong. " You undervalue your own force of intellect, my dear Mrs. Harding," he said ; " your mind is too powerful to be in- fluenced by mine. It is I who have occasion to fear you. At present I believe nothing and am resigned. If I listened to you, I should believe a little and — be miserable." Throughout that day Sir Jasper was fluttered in his retire- ment by the incursions of the brilliant widow. She wanted adhesive labels for her trunks, and she imagined the Baronet's study the place of all places where to find them. She wanted to know all about the trains ; and Sir Jasper was the only person vhose intellect could cope with the Rhadamanthine Bradshaw. And on every visit to the library there was a little conversa- ion — now pensive, now playful. But when Mrs. Harding had toncluded her packing and dressed for dinner, her face waa still c'ouded, and there was a hard dissatisfied expression aoout her mouth which argued ill for the result of her long ~isit. She dressed herself in the dark silk in which she intended to travel next day. It was only four o'clock when her toilet was completed, and she stood looking out of her window in a listless attitude, witli a countenance which was very different from the briglit face that had so lately beamed upon Sir Jasper Dcnison. "Would it be so very high a prize, after all, to be mistress of so many trees and so much grass," she thought, " and to hold a certain rank among a few stuck-up country families? The Catherons were greater people, once upon a time, than any family within twenty miles of Roxborough ; but I dare not own to the name of Catlicron." It was a fine bright afternoon, and the rooks were rejoicing 140 Sir Jastper\ Tenant. noisily in the cliill sunshine. After standing some lime in gloomy contemplation of the landscape, Mrs. Harding turned impatiently away from the window. " I'll go out," she muttered ; " perhaps a little rapid walk« ing in the fresh air will put me in a better temper." She wrapped herself in a large velvet mantle with loose sleeves that enveloped her bare arms to the wrist, and she put on a Spanish hat and feather which were infinitely becoming to her bold beauty. She had seen nothing of Marcia all that day ; and even now she did not seek Miss Denison, but went straight to a little door leading out upon the terrace, and walked across the broad lawn and the great deer-park, and far away into the woods. Something — scarcely a definite purpose, but rather an irresistible fascination — led the widow towards the romantic spot in which Mr. Pauncefort's habitation was hidden. She walked briskly along the narrow winding path, with the wind blowing round her, and her velvet mantle wrapped closely about her ; but within a hundred yards of the Hermitage, at a point where two pathways diverged into the depth of the woodland, she stopped suddenly, arrested by the sight of a little group in the distance. It was a group of three figures — Marcia, Mr. Pauncefort, and Dorothy Tursgood, whose bright scarlet cloak and basket made her look like a bouncing Red Ridinghood. Mrs. Hard- ing drew aside into the shadow of the trees and watched the distant figures. Sir Jasper's tenant and Sir Jasper's daughter were in the act of shaking hands, while Dorothy stood meekly by- " Very cordial indeed, Miss Denison," muttered the widow spitefully. " I understand now why you and I cannot get on together. I am disliked because I am no friend of Mr. Pauncefort." Then after a pause the watcher thought, " Has he told her anything? No; he is too proud to speak. He would perish with his secret untold. I have reason to know how much he will suffer for the gratification of his pride." George Pauncefort and Marcia lingered for a few minutes after they had shaken hands. The tenant of the Hermitage had accompanied Miss Denison in one of her cliaritable mia- sions to the village. They loitered talking, and the two voices rang out upon the evening air, the man's deep and Bonorous, the woman's very clear and sweet ; and then George pauncefort lifted his hat, little Dorothy dropped a curtsey, and Marcia and her attendant walked away briskly by a path- way that branched off in the direction of the Abbey. By keeping straight on, Mrs. Harding must come face to face with Sir Jasper's tenant- She kept straight on, watch- The Widow Tears Herself Away. 141 llig the countenance of the man wlio was walking towards her without seeing her. The tenant's face had been very briglit as ho parted from Marcia, but it darkened little by little as he came nearer to the widow ; and when he looked up suddenly, startled by the rustling of her silken garments, it was the face of a man who has very little to Impe for nu this earth. It darkened still more as he recognised Mrs. Harding. " You ! " he muttered, and then bowing stillly, would have walked on. The widow stopped him. There was a reckless uudacity in her manner of looking at him, in the tone of her voice when she spoke to him, that was almost like the insolence of some demoniac creature defying the superior being who has trampled upon it. "A meeting with me is very unwelcome just now, 1 dare say, Mr. Pauncefort," she said sneeringly. The little pause she made before addressing him by the name he bore at Scarsdale told as plainly as the plainest words that Paunce- fort was not his real name, and that his real name was known to her. "A meeting with you any where, under any circum- stances, must always be unwelcome to me," answered Sir Jasper's tenant, still trying to pass the widow, and with his passage still barred by her portly figure and spreading dra- peries. " But peculiarly unv/elcome this afternoon, I know," shu said. " Peculiarly unwelcome this afternoon. Too strong a con- trast is always unpleasant." " And the contrast between Marcia Denison and me is ver}- strong, I suppose." "Thank God, yes!" " What reason have you to be thankful about her?" cried the widow ; " she is nothing to you, and never can be any thing to you." " She is a great deal to me. She is the woman who, when aiy respect for womanhood had perished altogether, as I thought, taught me that womanhood can still be beautiful. She has taught me that a woman can be charming, and yet not a hypocrite ; handsome, and not a shallow coquette. She has taught me the possibility of happy husbands, secure in Jhe lovy of faithful wives ; of mothers who do not desert their sick children ; of sisters in whose girlish contrdences the devil has no reason to rejoice. Caroline ! " cried George Pauncefort suddenly, " why do you force yourself upon me ? I have spent the best years of my lifetime among the wildest and dreariest regions that civilised man ever penetrated, in the vain hope ii^ Sir Jasper' 8 Tenant. that I might forget your face, and the time when it waa familiar to me. I come back, worn in health, broken in spirit, to find some little spot where I might rest forgotten under the shadow of English foliage, within the reach of English faces to watch me when I am dying, — and even here in this one corner of the earth, where I am resigned to live and die, alike forgotten by all who know me or my kindred, — even here you pursue me ; even here the bitterest memories of my life are revived more vividly than ever by the sight of your face. Have I ever done you any unkindness, or denied you any privilege ? " " Oh, no," answered Mrs. Harding, in the same sneering tone which she had used before ; " you have been very gene- rous — with the money which you do not want. If you have spared those who injured you, you have spared them for the gratification of your own pride, not out of mercy for them. I do not think there is any cause for gratitude on my part." "Perhaps not," answered the tenant sadly ; " I have spared my pride : and I have spared my name. That has not been dragged in the dust. Now let me pass. I shall leave this place to-morrow ; I will not run the risk of meeting you again." "There will be no danger of your doing so; I am going away myself early to-morrovv. You need not leave your favourite retreat ; you need not desert your new friends ; you may still fetch and carry groceries and distribute tracts for the Dorcas Society — and Miss Denison." " How dare you mention her name with a sneer ! " " How can I help sneering at the sentimental parting I witnessed just now? " " Caroline," cried George Pauncefort, " I did not think that 3ven fifteen years' liberty to do wrong could transform you into such a demon ! " The widow's right arm was hanging loosely by her side ; and, before she had time to resist him, Sir Jasper's tenant seized her wrist and flung the wide velvet sleeve back froui the bare white arm, across which the scar was visible, uncoc- cealed by band or bracelet. He held her arm for a moment, looking at it, and then let it drop. " Forgive me," he said ; " I began to think I was the victim of some hellish conspiracy. And now, if you have anything to say to me, speak quickly, and let me go." " I have nothing to say, except that I am going to London, and shall call on Mr. Williams, or write to him." " He will be as well prepared to see you or hear from you ai he has always been. Good-afternoon." " Good-afternoon " hid Ke Love Iter f 143 Once more Sir Jasper's tenant raised his hat, more frigidly respectful in his gesture than when he had saluted Miss Dcnison. The widow watched him as he walked away. Then she looked at her watch, and, finding it long past six, hurried back to the Abbey. CHAPTER XVII. DID HE LOVE HER? When the widow had departed, a pleasant calm descended upon Marcia Denison's life. Once more she was her father's chief companion in the lonely evenings. The Baronet was, in a general way, resigned to everything that could possibly happen to him, except phj'sical pain or personal inconvenience, and he did not give utterance to any lamentations upon the loss of his brilliant visitor. " I shall enjoy my Ett^'s more now that she is gone," the Baronet murmured complacently, as he settled himself in the yellow drawing-room after dining fe^e-d-ie/e with his daughter. " Those gaudy dresses of hers were the death of my pictures, and her flesh latterly has not been up to the mark. There has been a woolliness about her cheeks, and a want of feeling in her chin, which considerably deteriorated my enjoyment of her society. There is more truth in your mezzotints, my dear Marcia ; and that ivory whiteness of yours, if produced by art, would be a miracle. Your eyes are not quite up to the Greuzo standard, but they are very fine, and the modelling of the eyelids is really charming." The widow's back once fairly turned, the treacherous Baronet lost no time in writing to his tenant. " Dear Pauncefort," wrote the traitor, — " she is gone. I found it impossible to hasten her departure without esclandre, so allowed her to take her own time about it. I'm sorry you don't approve of her antecedents, for she is really a very agreeable woman. Marcia and she have not hit it very well together, and there has been a kind of tacit avoidance of each other on the part of both women, though I did not communi- cate the contents of your letter to my daughter. " Come and see me. I languish for a little vigorous con- versation upon subjects that are worth talking about, if thcra 144 ^ir JaHpefs Tenant. is anything in the world really worth talking about. 1 am enervated by the perpetual society of women, and am weary to fickness of my own thoughts. Come, dear Pauncefort ; you will find your old place waiting for you, and two stupid people Orightened by your coming. Always yours, *' Jasper Denison." " I don't believ'S he is a scoundrel, whatever the widow may say," thought the Baronet, as he folded and sealed hia letter. *" She is prejudiced, I dare say. Met him in early life, perhaps, when he was better off, and laid siege to him with a view to matrimonial arrangements, and found him cautious A widow never forgives a man for being cautious ; and although I don't know when the estimable Harding departed this life, I should think from the perfection to which the brilliant Blanche has brought her art, that she has been a widow for a long time, — indeed, if such a thing were prac- ticable, I should be inclined to believe she had been born a widow. However, I'll talk to Pauncefort about her." Sir Jasper's tenant answered the friendly letter in as friendly a tone ; but he was by no means prompt in his acceptance of his landlord's invitation. For a long time — all through the month of April and far into the month of May — Marcia saw nothing of the African traveller in her afternoon walks. He was away, Dorothy told her, — away on a pedestrian excursion, with a knapsack on his shoulder, and the mongrel cur for his sole companion. And Miss Denison, passing by the break in the wood where she had 80 often met hiin, was fain to confess to herself that she missed him very much, and that her woodland rambles seemed very dreary without him. " My life has been so friendless and empty, that it is scarcely strange that I should cling to this one friend," she thought, »adly. And then, having once made for herself a valid excuse for giving George Pauncefort such an important place in her thoughts, Marcia found herself thinking of him very fre- quently. In all her life he had borne part. She had uo favourite books whose choicer passages had not been freely discussed in the long autumnal evenings, or the winter walks between the park and the village : she had no music that was not more or less associated with him, and his keen appreciation of all that was grandest and highest in it. To her father, the trickling arpeggios and treble tremulos of a modern nocturne were all-sufficient : but George Pauncefort had a higher taste, and a keener sense of all that is grandest in music : and for his gratification she had searched for dusty volumes of th« Lid He Love Rer ? 145 classic composers, and had been content to practise sedulously in the morning, in order tliat she might delight }.er father's guest in the evening. In art, as in music, she had found hia taste of a liighcr order than Sir Jasper's, and they had sided together against the Baronet in many a pleasant argument about Vandervelde and Bakhuysen, Reynolds and Romney, Cuyp and Potter, Watteau and Laucret, and all the great aainters of the past and present. In so narrow a circle as [arcia Denison's, a figure once admitted must needs become a very prominent one : and it was only when George Paunce- fort had departed on his vagabond wanderings that she dis- covered how very much he had been to her. " Why is he so capricious and fitful in his intercourse with us ? " she thought. " He likes us ; there can be no doubt of that ; for I am sure he is the last man in the world to afEect a friendship which he does not feel. And we have been so intimate : a friend of twenty years' standing could scarcely seem more thoroughly at home by our fireside than he has done. And yet all at once he goes away, and we neither hear nor see anything of him for months together." It was not quite two months yet since Miss Denison had met George Pauncefort on her way to the village, but it seemed so long. Thinking over his conduct very often, - thinking of many things which cannot be shaped into common words, or yet transcribed upon this common page, — thinking of chance accents in his voice, of glances so brief that it was almost difficult to decide whether they had really been, or had only been imagined by herself, — thinking of him more constantly than she was aware, Marcia could only come to one conclusion about him : he liked her — very much — he—! Sitting by herself in the May sunshine, looking pensively out at the park, a crimson flush flew over Marcia's face, like the reflection of a glowing sunset, as she shaped this unfinished thought. Was it not something more than friendly liking which she had seen in George Paunccfort's face sometimes when they parted in the wood ? How the still evening hour came back to her ; with the faint pressure of his hand ; the low glinting light between the trunks of the trees ; the distant cawing uf the rooks ! How it all came back to her, and what a tender sweetness there was in the recollection, — a rapture deeper than any joy she had ever known before, — a tumultuous delight that carried her away from the common earth ! She clasped her hands before her face to hide those crimson blushes. " And this is what happiness is like ! " she thought. ' I 146 Sir Jasper^s Tenant. do not wonder that it comes only once in a lifetime, — in som* sad lives not at all." And then, seized with a eiulden terror, she asked herself, " Is it true, — is it really true ? Can it be true that some one loves me at last ? " The doubt lasted only a moment. We may mistake paste for a diamond, or a copy for a Rembrandt : but we can never mistake a diamond for paste, or a Rembrandt for a copy. So with love : the worthless tinsel may sometimes seem like gold : the pure gold can never seem like tinsel. Inexperi- enced as Marcia was, she knew that George Pauncefort lored her, and that some powerful motive kept him silent. " He is poor, and I am rich," she thought ; " that is the secret of his capricious conduct. He will sacrifice his hap- piness to liis pride, and he will never speak. I know now how proud he is ; for I can remember his face that day when he spoke of his native county, — the neglected garden of his old home. Ah, what happiness if my worthless money could restore the place he loves, and build up the name that has fallen ! " Like most people who have never known what it is to want money, Marcia Denison was very apt to undervalue that useful commodity : but when she thought of what her fortune might do for George Pauncefort, she began to fancy that it was a grand thing to be rich, after all. But would he ever accept her money ? would he ever give her the opportunity of helping him to regain his lost position? He had been away nearly two montlis : and Dorothy, who was always well informed about affairs at the Hermitage, told her mistress that Mr. Pauncefort's man did not know where hia master was, or when he might be expected home. "And oh. Miss Marcia," exclaimed Dorothy, in conclusion, ■' when I went to see my grandmother the other night, Mr. Milward was in the kitchen, and talking about his master's being away so long. He said it gave him the horrors some- times to think of Mr. Pauncefort tramping, and tramping, and tramping quite alone among the wildest and most solitary places, very often long after dark, and in all kinds of dreadful weather ; and sometimes, Mr. Milward said, ho felt almost afi'aid to take up the newspaper, for fear ho should read the account of a body found somewhere, washed away by a rising tide, or killed by a fall from a crag, or smothered in the mud of some horrible marsh. But oh, Miss Marcia, how pale yon look ! " cried Dorothy ; " and how silly of me to talk about these dreadful things ! " Marcia blushed, ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion, even before the eyes of guileless Dorothy ; but though Bid Ee Love Her ? 147 the little maid was so deeply in love herself, she did not rccoj!^- nise the tokens of the tender passion in her dignified young mistress. To Dorothy's mind Mr. Paunccfoi-t was a very elderly person, for whom it was impossihle to entertain any 'A-anner feeling than a respectful coiiipipsion. But upuu Marcia this speech of Dorothy's had a profound effect. Her imagination — a hundred times more vivid than the imagina- tion of the valut — seized upon the faint sketch suggested by him, and filled in all the details of a horrible picture, which haunted her sleeping or waking. From that hour there was no change in the sky which Marcia Denison did not think of with reference to the lonely wanderer far away among careless strangers, with no better friend than a ragauiuflin dog. There was no dark night under whose starless canopy she did not fancy him, alono upon a dangerous track, careless of tlie perils that hemmed him in, — reckless of the life that gave him so little happiness. Sometimes, standing at an open window, long after the quiet household had been hushed in sleep, she was carried away by the vividness of her fancies, and saw him baltliiig against tlio driving wind upon some craggy mountain-sloiie, as distinctly as if the woodland landscape had been reft asunder, and that other scene revealed beyond. Sometimes, subdued completely beneath the dominion of this thought, she would stretch her arms towards the distant figure, with a gesture full of imploring love, and cry aloud, — " Oh, come back to me, come back to me ! Why is your pride so cruel ? Why do we both suffer so much useless misery ? " From the moment in which she had first confessed to her- self that she was beloved, tliere had been no shadow of doubt in her mind. She knew that he loved her, and that it was love for her which had driven him away from his peaceful shelter. Humble though her estimate of her own merits, her own charms, she never paused to ask herself whether she was worthy of this man's love. It was no question for reason- ing. It had como to her as the rain comes to the flowers. Revealed to her by a thousand evidences in themselves too small to be remembered, she scarcely could have told how she had discovered the delicious secret. She knev/ that he loved her ; but she did not know why she knew it, and was content to believe that of which she had no better proof than her own conviction. May melted into June, and Marcia thought " he will como back in June." But the last flowers upon the hawthorn bushes withered ; the dog-roses unfolded their opal leaves ; it was midsummer, and still he had not returned. Sir Jaspei 148 Sir Jasper's Tenant. grumbled sorely at having no one but hie daughter to talk to and yet steadily set his face against any communication with the outraged country gentry, who did not recognise^ the Baronet's right to nurse his grief or indulge his eccentricity when the duties of society demanded that he should give dinner-parties. Dorothy told her mistress that Mr. Paunce- fort's valet was getting really alarmed ; and Marcia's heart sank with the tidings. These unsentimental people rarely are frightened unless there is serious cause for fear ; and the thought of the man-servant's uneasiness had a terrible in- fluence upon Marcia. When she went out alone now, her footsteps led her almost involuntarily towards that entrance to the wood which was nearest the Hermitage, and by which it was likely Mr. Pauncefort would return, if he ever returned. Yes, it had come to that now. It was an open question whether he would ever come back — whether the dark face would ever look down at her again ; with unspeakable affec- tion instinct in its every look ; with bo many transitions of expression, but with not one that was not tempered by love for her. " Oh, come back to me, come back to me ! " cried her heart, as she wandered alone in the shadowy pathways, where the wild-roses bloomed unheeded. " Come back to me ! " cried her heart every day and every hour, as her lips cried sometimes in the dead night when there was none to hear her. Iler love strengthened with every hour of his absence ; for there is no love so profound as that which is developed in an atmo- sphere of terror. She thought of him so often now as of something that was lost to her— the only friend of her life, who by a dismal fatality had been taken away from her in the hour when first she knew how much she was beloved. " It is my fate," she thought, sometimes ; " I have never known what it is to be precious to any living creature ; and now the one friend who would have cherished me is taken away. Her silent sorrow was very bitter ; but she was accustomed to suffer and make no sign. Her fingers never touched the keys of her piano without the memory of his delight in certain passages of her music coming back to her like a sharp pain ; she never sang one of her simple ballads without recalling how he had been moved by their plaintive tenderness. And yet she sang and played to her father every evening ; and the Baronet never divined that it was a mental anguish, and not a physical languour, under the influence of which his daughter drooped and grew paler day by day. The family medical man was sent for, and administered tonics •, but no tonics could shut from her mind the picture of th»t lonely wanderer with whom her heart went forth into the Lid Ee Love Rer f 149 dreary nipht ; and Sir Jasper began to be concerned, in a gen- tleinanly way, for his only daughter's health. June warmed into July, and storm-laden clouds hung heavily over the woody glades and hollows of Searsdale. For a week Dorothj had paid no dutiful visit to the deaf old housekeeper at the Hermitage, and for a week Marcia had received no tidings of her father's tenant. She shrank with a proud reserve from making any inquiry about him, and en- dured the new anguish of suspense as bravely and as quietly as she had borne all the sorrows of her loveless girlhood. She wandered from the park to the wood in the still, oppressive afternoon. She had left the house with no settled purpose, but only because the quiet of her room had become intolerable to her. She was quite free to wander where she pleased ; for Sir Jasper beguiled a considerable portion of his time in placid slumber during this threatening weather. " I know that a storm is coming, and shall do my best to dodge it," said the Baronet. " If I can doze in my arm-chair, serenely unconscious of the avenging elements, the avenging elements may have their fling. I dare say they will take it out of my oaks or my haymakers. The sleeper is an un- assailable being who may defy creation. An earthquake can scarcely afl'cct him ; he will only awake somewhere else." The storm-clouds had brooded so long above the woods that people had grown careless of the expected tempest, and Marcia wandered deep into the wood without any thought of danger. Slie had penetrated beyond the neighbourhood of th« Hermitage into a shadowy glade, where the fern grew wild and high, and where the spreading branches made a dense roof of foliage that shut out the leaden sky. It was a spot in which she had spent many lonely summer afternoons long ago in her childhood, with a book for her companion, and a big shaggy dog for her protector. It was a spot into whose solemn depths she had not penetrated since her return from the Continent ; and the memory of her solitary childhood came sharply back to her as she entered the familiar glade. " In all the world there is no face but his which I have ever seen look brighter for the love of me," she thought, re- membering her father's profound indifference, her sister's ca- ressing patronage, and even little Dorothy's grateful affection, which was at best too much like the frisky fidelity of a frivo- lous lap-dog to supply the void in a lonely woman's heart. " In all the world there is no voice but his that ever trembled as it spoke to me. Shall I ever see his face or hear hie voice again ? " She stopped suddenly ; for close beside her path — almost at her feet — there lay the figure of a man half-buried among the 150 8ir Jasper's Tenant. broken fern, lying face downward, with hia head resting on his folded arms. Dorothy would have recognised the shabby shooting-coat, the dark tumbled hair. Marcia knew by some instinct which took no aid from sight that it was George Pauncefort who was lying at her feet. Her heart grew cold as she looked at the quiet figure. Alive — or dead, he was found. But in a moment he had sprung to his feet, erect, and with his hands outstretched to meet hers. Her faint cry of surprise had startled him like a discharge of artillery close at his elbow. She gave him her hands freely, and suffered them to rest in his strong grasp. In her deep delight at seeing him once more, she forgot that no word had passed between them to make them any more than common friends. She almost forgot that they were any thing except affianced lovers, she had thought of him 80 much, and she knew so well that he loved her. If her belief in his affection had needed any confirmation, the light in his pale thin face as he looked at her might have confirmed it. She saw the supernal radiance, and had time to think about it while George Pauncefort held her hands in his, too deeply moved for speech. " And papa can doubt in the divinity of a God," she thought, " when human aflEection has only to be tolerably free from the leaven of human selfishness in order to become almost divine." Marcia was the first to speak. " I began to think you were never coming back to us." (Ah, how sweet those two common words " to us " sounded from her lips : almost like the promise of a home !) " I am so glad to see you ! " " And I am so glad you are glad." He released her hands, and they strolled onwards side hj side, with the fern rustling round them as they walked along the narrow trackway that had been trodden through it. Marcia made no attempt to conceal her pleasure in this meeting ; there were so many reasons for her frankness ; and not the least among them was the shabby coat, which, with something of Dorothy's simplicity. Miss Denison accepted as the outward and visible sign of George Paunce- fort's poverty. He was poor, and his youth was gone. He was not a man to be inflated into foppish pomposity by the evidence of a woman's friendship : and then she believed in him so implicitly. While they were walking slowly side by side — silent for the moment, for there are joys too deep for eloquence — a distant peal of thunder startled them from their thoughtful silence. Did He Love Her? 151 "It ie coming," cried Sir Jasper's tenant; "I have beam expecting this storm for the last four days. You must liurry home, ]\Iiss Denison ; or else — but I dare say there will ba time for you to get home. Will you take my arm ? we shall get along better so. Can you walk fast? " " As fast as you please." They hurried to the opening in the wood by which Marcia had diverged from the beaten path. Vivid flashes of lightning shot in upon tb.em from between the foliage overhead: and the rattling thunder-peals seemed to shake the gi-ound beneath their hastening feet. As they emerged from the glade into the pathway, there was a sudden pattering upon the leaves, and the rain came down as it does come some- times in a tlmnderstorm, to the terror of farmers whose hay is not carried, or whose stacks are unthatched. They were v\'ithin a quarter of a mile of the Hermitage, and the Abbey was two miles off : so there could be little question as to the refuge which Marcia must seek from the torrents that were beating down the leaves and flooding the underwood. " You can take shelter in my cottage," said Mr. Pauncefort, " and I will send my servant to the Abbey for the carriage. It is quite impossible for you to go home on foot in this weather." Marcia assented without hesitation ; and in ten minutes more she was safely sheltered in the old-fashioned parlour where Sir Jasper's tenant spent so much of his cheerless life Dame Tursgood, summoned from the back premises with some dilliculty, removed the young lady's dripping mantle, and made a hasty fire on the broad hearth. When he had seen this done, and Miss Denison seated comfortably in the big easy-chair by the fire, with her hat off, and her loosened hair hanging about her shoulders as wet as a naiad's, Mj Pauncefort went away to despatch a messenger to the Abbey He paused for a moment in the little stone passage before calling his servant. "Shall I go myself?" he thought. "It would be better, perhaps ; and a wet walk would not hurt me." But Sir Jasper's tenant did not go himself. He despatched his servant, and tlien wont slowly back to the parlour. What wonderful influence upon a man's destiny these small questions have sometimes ! He went back to the woman who loved him : he wont back ki his fate. 15'J Sir Jaspe/s Tenant. CHAPTER XVIII. MISS denison's humiliatiok, Srn Jasper's tencont went slowly back to the dusky chainbos were Marcia was fitting, with the yellow light from tha newly-kindled logs shining upon her. The light shone upon a pale thoughtful face ; a very sad face, as it turned towards George Pauncefort. The low old-fashioned parlour, usually as perfect as a Dutch picture in the order of its quaint arrangement, to-day wore a strange aspect. Open packing-cases yawned wide at one end of the room, and the centre table was piled high with books that had been taken from the worm-eaten oaken shelves ; a few wonderful, but rather dingy-looking en- gravings by AUiert Durer had been removed from the walls, and were piled on one of the smaller tables. Only thus could look the room of a man who was about to remove his treasures. " Is he going to sell his books and pictures ? " wondered Marcia ; and then her face grew paler, as she thought, "Per- haps he is going away," The idea set her heart beating tumultuously ; it had been such an irregularly-disposed heart lately. Going away ! There was blank despair in the very thought. And yet an hour or two before, when she had fancied him dead and buried in some obscure resting-place, amongst people who had never known his name, she would have considered it happiness to be told that he was alive and well in the re- motest valley that ever was sheltered by the shadow of the Himalayas. She, who was so reserved towards every one else, had littlo reserve where he was concerned. She trusted him as she had never trusted any one upon earth ; she believed in him as a man whose truth and goodness were only less infallible than the truth and goodness of Heaven. "You are going to leave Scarsdale, Mr. Pauncefort?" she said, as he closed the door behind him. " Yes, Miss Denison," he answered sadly. He did not go towards the hearth where she was seated, though the yellow light of the logs made that one spot bright and cheery. A greyish darkness brooded ominously outside the latticed casement ; rich brown shadows filled Miss Dcnisoti's Humiliation. 153 tLe panelled room, making a picture for a modem Rembrandt, if there existed such a person ; with heaven's own cloud and eunshine melted into liquid colour, and always ready for his brush. George Pauncefort did not approach his guest, though the home-like aspect of that little bit of the room might have in- vited him. He dropped wearily into a chair near the door by which he had entered, and sat with his face half-hidden in the ehadow of the pile of books. " I am sorry you are going away," Marcia said, after a pause ; " but it is only for a short time, I hope ; and yet you Vould scarcely disarrange your books unless you were leaving us for good." " You are right, Miss Denison. I am going for good — or ill, perhaps. What a meaningless phrase that is, by-the-bye, — going away for good ! Does any body ever go any where for good ? I sometimes fancy that every step a man takes in life only carries him farther away from the chance of happi- ness ; and that the Moslem alone is wise, who sits placidly upon his carpet and waits for his destiny." "You are talking like papa," answered Marcia very gravely. " I should be very sorry if you were to learn to think like him." " There are times when a thick darkness closes fQund a man's fiathway, Miss Denison, and shuts out all the stars that have ighted liis life. I am groping bewildered in such a darkness. I try still to hold by some guiding principle ; but I am hoiTibly shaken — I am horribly tempted. I have been reading the Book of Job lately. How easily I can believe in him ! how well I can understand him ! I fancy him sometimes in the dead of the night, as I sit alone in the chief room of some wayside inn, with a pistol-case within a few yards of me • so much alone that, if I were to be found dead the next morning I should be found by strangers, who would only wonder at me as some melancholy lunatic wlio had strayed away from his keepers : so much alone that, if the news of my death were cried aloud all over the universe, there would not be a creature any the more sorrowful for the bearing of it." " Mr. Pauncefort I " There was a world of reproach in the tone. " Oh, Miss Denison, I beg your pardon ; but that is under- stood, of course," cried George Pauncefort, bitterly. "You would be sorry that one more self-murderer had gone red- handed to his doom. It is your metier to be sorry for sinners and poor people ; but that is only Christian-like compassion, and not real human sorrow. There is scarcely a ruflBan who 154 Sir Jasperh Tenant. ever went out of the debtor's- door who has not been regretted more truly by some one or other than ever I shall be regretted. Knowing this, can you wonder that I have learnt to recognise the sublimity of Job's patience ? It is so easy to curso God, and die!" " Mr. Pauncef ort, you are breaking my heart ! " The words sounded almost like a cry. The tenant's moody face flushed and changed for a moment as he turned towarda Marcia. He had been looking at the ground before, as with a kind of dogged determination not to look at her. The change was only momentary, and he bent his eyes down again with the same gloomy expression. " I am a brute," he said, " to pain you with my troubles ; but I have seen you listen so patiently to whining stories of unpaid rent and rheumatism. No unhappy wretch who ever lived in hourly fear of the bailiff's coming was ever more homeless than I am : and the pain that keeps me awake at night is a sharper torture than rheumatism." " I am very sorry for you," said Marcia softly. There was a tenderness in the tone not to be mistaken for any coii- ventional expression of compassion. George Pauncefort's heart thrilled at the sound of that tender music ; but he kept his face still in shadow ; and Marcia, looking towards that part of the room where he sat, saw only a motionless figure, dark and gloomy as was the brooding sky without and the dusky oJiamber within. " You are kind to be sorry for me," answered Mr. Paunce • fort. " You said just now that you were glad — glad that I had returned ; / " He struck himself on the breast with a passionate gesture as he uttered the emphatic syllable. " To think that there should be any one upon earth glad for the coming of a desolate wretch like me, and to think that onp should be you ! Oh, if you could know how, for the moment, those simple words lifted me into a new life, and transformed me into a new creature ! Miss Denison, it is not well for you and I to meet to-day. I lose all command of myself. There are moments in the life of the sanest man that ever lived itt which he is as mad as the most dangerous lunat-ic in Bedlam. I am mad to-day. Let me wish you good-bye Let me leave you with the knowledge that you have been sorry for a sorrow whose anguish you will never know. My books wUl be better company than myself. Let me leave you with them till your carriage comes." He had risen, and had been walking up and down the room ; but as he said this he advanced towards Marcia, holding out his hand. She gave him hers, and suffered it to lie passive in his grasp while she spoke to him Miss Denison's Humiliation. 155 "Mr. Paimcefort, why are you ffoing to leave us?" "Why!" he cried passionately. "Because I love you, Marcia Denison, more dearly than woman was ever loved before." He let her hand fall from his, and fell on his knees before an empty chair. His head dropped on his arms, and with his face hidden thus, he knelt motionless, while Marcia stood a few paces from him staring aghast at that quiet figure so ter- ribly expressive of despair. Even as she looked at him, thus, full of that tender pity which was the most sublime element of her love, her womanly sense of trifles made her aware that the shabby coat which Dorothy had talked about was shabbier than of old ; and she accepted it as the evidence of poverty which grow sharper day by day. He loved her ! His passionate confession brought her pro- found joy, but it gave her no surprise — she had so long been sure of his love ; and looking back to the earliest period of their acquaintance, she knew that she had been loved from the very first. But George Pauncefort's profound emotion alike mystified and alarmed her. The revelation of his love had been wrung from him like a cry of pain. Marcia, proud herself, could un- derstand the pride of a penniless man who shrank from the avowal of a love whose disinterested purity miglit possibly be questioned ; but she could not understand a pride so desperate as to deepen into such despair as that wliicli George Paunce- fort's manner had expressed to-day. She watched him won- deringly. Was he praying, or had he slirouded his face in order to conceal the tears a man sheds with such bitter shame? While Marcia was wondering about him, he rose, and walked towards the window. One glance at his face told her that there were no traces of tears upon it : but its gloomy black- ness was more terrible than the expression of a man who has been weeping. " I told you I was mad to-day, IMiss Denison," he said ; " you had better let me leave you to the companionship of my books." Though he said this, he made no attempt to leave the room ; but stood with his face to the window, watching the leaves bending under the beating storm. There was a pause of some minutes, in which every soui^ of the crackling fire, the dreary dripping rain, the rustling of the wet branches, was distinctly audible ; and then Marcia went to the spot where her father's tenant was standing, and laid her hand lightly on his slioulder: " You say that you are mad to-day," she said half play- fully, but with so much earnestness under the lightness of her manner; "that is a bad compliment to me after what you l&e ISir Jasper's 'Jenant* Baid just now. Was there any truth in what you said, or in it only a part of your madness ? " "It is too fatally true, and it is the greater part of m^ madness." He kept his face averted from her, and looked obstinately out at the rain as it came splashing heavily down on the low landscape, and shut out the dark distance, above which the thunder-cloLids hung black and dense. Marcia paueed a little before she addressed him again. Had he been any thing but what he was, had he been a prosperous man, her equal in years and in fortune, si^e would have perished rather than have invited him, by so much as one word or look, to speak to her when he was pleased to be silent, or remain with her when he wished to go. But then he was so much older than herself : he was so poor, so desolate. In his nine and thirty years, in his ruined fortunes, he might recognise two barriers which shut him from her — insuperable barriers which he could only cross by aid of her friendly hand held out towards him. There is a pretty story of a rosebud given to her partner at a ball by the young Queen of England, in all the fresh- ness of her girlish beauty — a partner who was afterwards the noblest model of what a gentleman and a husband should be. The story may be only a graceful invention, like that pretty speech about France and Frenchmen which a judicious reporter put into the mouth of Louis the Eighteenth ; but the moral of the story is that royalty must stoop a little when it sees itself worshipped by a heart that is too noble not to be proud, A woman with a large fortune has a kind of royalty of her own, and may stoop a little now and then without loss of dignity. Marcia Denison felt this. Perhaps it is in the nature of women to patronipe ; for her heart throbbed with a delicious sense of joy as she thought how much her wealth would do for the man she loved, if only ihe could summon courage to stoop low enough to lay her tribute at his feet. If only she could summon courage ! — there was the diffi- culty. Had she been a queen, the business would have been easy. But the quasi-royalty of an heiress is not strong snough to bear such womanly humiliation without loee of dignity. " I wonder at his pride, and yet I am so proud myself," }he thought, with a half-smile upon her lips. And then ifter a pause, she asked, as shyly as a child who blushei oeneath the scrutinising glances of some stern godmother: * Are you going to leave England again, Mr. Pauucefort ? " " Yes, Mies Denison ; I am going on one of my old explor- Miss DenisoHi Ilamiliation. 1-57 Jnp expeditions on the shores of the Niger. I am going in the foutsttps of Barth and of the men who are gone. I scarcely wonder sometimes that Berkeley was sceptical as to the existence of any thing real or solid in all this universe. A man goes from one pole to another only to carry with him one idea, which is himself. Standing on the sands of the Dead Sea, groping blindly amidst a polar wilderness, in face of the awful grandeur of creation, the one mad passion of his life absorbs him still — the only reality amidst a world of shadows. All the verdure of the tropics, all the ice-bound solitudes of the arctic zone, serve only for a background to one figure — the inexorable Ego which reigns in the wanderer's breast. I talk nonsense, I dare say. Miss Denison ; but some- times when my life seems hardest to me, I begin to wonder whether, after all, I am only a shadow surrounded by shadows, and with nothing real around or about me, except the pain which I feel. I am in the mood to please your father just now. I would talk to him about Locke and Condillac to his heart's content." " I am sorry for it," answered Marcia gently, " I havo no taste for metaphysics, and to me it seems that the wisest of the metaphysicians, from St. Anselm to Bishop Berkeley, have been only splitters of shadowy straws, and triflers with the simplicity of truth. I thought the problem of life was solved eighteen hundred years ago, and I fancied that you were content to accept that solution." " Yes, Miss Denison ; but there are perilous moments even in the believer's life. Do you remember who it was that prayed 'Help Thou mine unbelief?' Have you never felt one moment — I will not say of doubt, for that is too strong a word, — but one moment in which the faint shadow of a hideous hypothesis arose between you and the light, and you have thought, if it should not be true — if ilia story of Galilee should be only a beautiful idyl, a saga, a mythic image of grandeur, no more real than the legend of a William Tell ? Satan seems to be an unfashionable personage in our modern theology ; but depend upon it, he still holds his place among us, and whispers poisonous hints in our ears." " I am sorry that your experience has revealed his existence to you." " I have lived alone lately, and Satan has a partiality for the lonely. In the lives of the saints who were hermits you will find many records of his presence ; but I don't think he often visited John Howard or Elizabeth Fry. I have been a solitary wanderer, and the fiend has made himself the com- panion of my walks. I come fresh from his company into yours; so you must not wonder if I seem a boor and a brute. L 158 Sir Jasper's Tenant. You had better let me wish you good-bye, Miss Denisott, Say farewell and ' God speed you ! ' to a wretch who goea out from the light of your presence into the dreariest darkness that ever lay between a ruined manhood and the grave." He turned to leave the room, but before going held out hia hand. " You will shake hands with me," he said. " I know how churlish a return I seem to h?ve made for your father's hos- pitable friendliness and your compassionate regard ; but I have my secret. If you knew it, I do not think you would wonder that I am what I am." He took Marcia's hand in his and pressed it gently. After that he would have released it ; but tlie soft loving fingers clung to his, not to be repulsed, and a second detaining hand was laid gently on his wrist. Held thus, and rooted to the spot by the sudden wonder that filled his mind, he gazed at the earnest face turned towards him, — the pale pensive face that to him seemed to be bright with a supernal glory, " Why do you force me to speak to you ? " said Marcia. " Why do you make me say that which should have come from your lips, and from yours alone ? Do you think so meanly of me that you fear I should misunderstand you ; or are you so proud that you cannot stoop to accept any advan- tage from a woman's hands ? You tell me that you love me — ah, and I know you tell me only the truth — yet at the same moment you say you are going to leave me — for ever, perhaps ; to die some horrible death in a foreign country, nameless and uncared for ! I have read so much about Africa since I have known you, and my heart freezes with horror when I think of you, wandering alone in that dreadful coun- try. Oh, George Pauncefort! if your love is worthy of the name of love, it must be more precious to you than your pride ; and yet you would sacrifice your love to your pride. I have fancied myself proud : but see how low I stoop for your sake — for your sake ! " " Stop, Marcia I " cried Sir Jasper's tenant, drawing his hand from her gentle grasp and at the same time recoiling from her, — " stop, for pity's sake ! " He fell on his knees at her feet, with his head bent to the very dust and his clasped hands lifted above it. " I will not stop ! Your obstinate pride would have separated us for uver ; and you would go out in the world doubting even in Heaven rather than you would bend the haughty spirit that rebels against the merest shadow of an obligation. If I had loved you, and been loved by you. Mins ttenhor^s iTumitiation. 159 feafs Ago, in my girlhood, I should have let you go in silence — to break my iicart wlu-n ynii were gone. But we are no children, Mr. Pauucefort, to trifle with the chance of happiness that Heaven has given us. I am a woman, and my lonely, loveless life has taught me what a precious gift Heaven bestows when it gives a woman the aft'cction of one honest heart. I will not lose your love ; I will not sacrilice the chance of helping you to regain all that you have lost, for lack of courage to speak a few plain words, whatever sacrifice I make in speaking them. You love me, — if you had never said that I could never have spoken, — but you have said that you love me, and the rest is easy. I know your secret ; to me your life seems so transparent ; your ruined hopes — your broken fortunes — your poverty, so proudly endured. I know all, George ; and I ask you to let my money — my poor paltry money — gained in the honest pathways of com- merce — restore your name, retrieve your broken life. Oh, George, tell me you are not too proud to accept the happiness which my fortune may bring back to you — the fortune that I never valued until I knew you were poor." She covered lier face with her outspread hands to hide the hot blushes that dyed it with so deep a crimson. With her face covered thus, she waited for him to answer her. For some moments he was silent ; then, rising slowly from his knees, he said in a low broken voice, so low as to be almost a whisper : "You are quite mistaken as to my story. There is no landed squire in this county richer in the world's wealth than I am. Oh, Miss Dcnison, how will you ever forgive me, when j-ou know what I thought might be hidden from you for ever, but which must be told you now ! " Marcia dropped her hands from before her face, and looked at her lover. He was standing a few paces from her, with his face turned towards the light. In all her life she had never seen such a mortal pallor as that which she saw now in the dark face she loved. But in the depth of her humiliation, this only struck her in a confused way. The justification of her conduct was suddenly snatthed away from her; all the theory of her life was shattmed. Her father's tenant was not poor I She had not stooped from the dignity of her woman- hood to elevate a lowly suitor, whose proud humility was the only barrier that divided him from her. It was all so much wasted degradation. Impelled by an unconsidered impulse, she had flung her maidenly pride into the dust at this man's feet. She had asked him — yes, asked him to accept her hand and her fortune I Only a few minutes iiad elapsed since she had spokcu, and yet she thought of her own words with 160 Sir Jasper's Tenant. shame and wonder. She had besought him to accept a hand which he did not care to demand for himself ; a fortune which he did not want. Tears rose to her eyes — the passionate tears of wounded pride. She drew herself up with an involuntary movement of offended dignity, and went back to the hearth, where her bonnet and shawl had been hung to dry. " I think the storm is nearly over now, Mr. Pauncofort," she said quietly. " Will you be good enough to see if the carriage has come ? " " Yes, Marcia ; but not yet. You have spoken to me ; and I must speak to yoa. Oh, my darling, my love ! — let me call you thus once, and once only : when you pass the threshold of this house a few minutes hence, you will have bid good-bye to me for ever ! — have you never thought of any other reasoa than poverty for u.y lonely life, my dull despair? Oh, Marcia. how little you ha^e known me, after all ! — you, who hava dropped such balm into my wounds, who have given me such tender comfort for my sorrows, — how little you have known me, when you can think that povei-ty was the evil that made my life a burden to me ! Poverty ! pshaw ! a rough honest friend and not an enemy ; a companion Diogenes, who strips the mask off earth's conventionalities, and points out the few true men among the knaves. To a weak sensuous nature poverty may be terrible ; for it takes another name, and calls itself deprivation — unsatiated thirst for impossible pleasures, the torture of Tantalus. But for me poverty has no terrors. Ah, if you knew how often in my lonely walks I have listened to the blacksmith beating at his glowing furnace, and have envied him his labour, his light heart, and his empty pockets J Do you think so meanly of me as to suppose that, if poverty were my only trouble, I would sit in this room, when I might go out into the world and fight for one of the thousand prizes that Fortune holds for the head that thinks, and the hand that works ? No, Miss Denison, I am a rich man ; and the gulf which yawns between you and me is a wider gulf than any division created by difference of fortune." Marcia looked at him with something like terror in her face. She had trusted him so entirely ; she had heard him accused, and her faith had been unshaken. Serene in her instinctive confidence, she had smiled at Blanche Harding's ominous hints ; and now all at once her heart sank, for it seemed as if those dark insinuations were about to receive confirmation from his own lips. Yes, it must be so. The gulf between them was this man's dishonour — his dishonour 1 And amidst the tempestuous ocean of passion on which her soul had been tossed to and fro, her only anchor had been hei faith in him. She put up her hand with a piteously-imploring Miss Demson's HiimiliatioH. 161 gesture, as if she would have arrested any confcseion that wai about to escape his lips. "Oh, do not tell me that you are anything less than 1 have thought you ! " she cried ; " I have believed so entirely in your goodness, your truth, your honour. If I have been deceived until now, let the deception go on for ever. I can- not bear to think that it is any shame or disgrace which has banished you from the world ! " " Marcia Denison," answered Sir Jasper's tenant, "there are people who have to bear the burden of dishonours in which they have had no part. There are social laws which revenge on the innocent the wicked deeds of the guilty. The name I have a right to bear was disgraced fifteen years ago : but by no act of mine. I went to sleep one night a proud nmbitious man, with all the world before me, and with sus- taining faith and energy that help a man to win the noblest p--izes earth can give. I woke the next morning to find mcself what you see me now — a thing without a hope, with- out a name, — too glad to hide my ruin from the world in which I had once held myself so proudly." He covered his face with his hands. While his eyes were darkened thus, he felt Marcia's loving fingers trying to loosen those strong hands from the face they shrouded. " The disgrace came by no act of yours," she murmured softly , " ah, I knew, I knew that you were true and noble ! George, if you love me, dislionour may sully your name, but it shall never aifect me. Women have borne dishonoured names before to-day. Give me yours, George : it shall be a more precious gift to me than the loftiest title that ever wae worn upon this earth. George, why do you force me to say what you have a right to despise me for saying? "_ " Despise you, Marcia ! Oh, I am the guiltiest, basest wretch that ever lived. It is so hard, so hard for me to speak the truth ! God, who only knows the weight and measure of the tortures He inflicts, knows how I love you, and how fiercely I have struggled against the growth of my love. The con- fession of my love is an insult to you, Marcia. My passion Itself is a crime. My life for the last fifteen years has been a lie, and the name I have borne is a false one. My name is Godfrey Pierrepoint, and I am the dishonoured husband of a guilty wife ! " Never had Sir Jasper's tenant seen in any countenance such a depth of sorrowful reproach as that which looked at him now out of the tender grey eyes he loved so well. "And you have let me love you," said Marcia; "and you have let me speak to you of my love ! Oh. what shame, whit ehame, what shame I " 163 Sir Jasper's Tenant. She ht^rricd towards the door with her arms stretched before her like a half-demented creature who flies from some unspeakable horror ; but on the very threshold, before George Pauncefort could save her, Sir Jasper's daughter fell prono upon the very spot whereon the country people were wont to point triumphantly to the blood-bespattered traces of the murdered cavalier. CHAPTER XIX. FAREWELL. When Marcia lifted her heavy eyelids and awoke from that sudden swoon, she found herself seated in the worn-eaten oak chair, with the open doorway before her, and the air blowing in upon her with a damp freshness that was better than all the eau-de-Cologne that ever an indefatigable abigail bespattered over a fainting mistress. At first the fresh cool air brought Miss Denison nothing but a delicious sense of relief from something very like suffocation. Then came a consciousness of external things ; she heard the rustling of the leaves and the pawing and champing of a horse at the garden-gate, and knew that the carriage had arrived. Last of all there returned to her, with unspeakable bitterness, the knowledge of why she had fainted, and what had happened before her fainting-fit. " Oh, my God ! " she thought in her despair ; " there has been so little joy in my life, but I have never suffered like tliis until to-day." For the moment she did not attempt to move, but sat with her eyelids drooping and her eyes fixed upon the floor with an almost stupid look. She felt a strange disinclination to stir, to take any step in the progress of her broken life. If it could have ended there, at that moment! "I am so little use in the world ; nobody loves me, nobody has any need of me," she thought piteously ; " my life is only a penance. What sin did I commit when I was a child, that I should suffer so much in my womanhood? And it is wicked even to wish to die." She was aroused from her sense of utter prostration by tlie voice of the man she loved. It struck upon her as sharply as the lash of a whip ; and sh* looked up at George Pauncefoitj ituns: into suddec life. Farewell 1(33 " I want you to say that you forgive me," he began, in a low sad voice, " and then I shall be brave enough to bid you fare- well forever." She did not answer him immediately ; but after a pause she said, " Do you know how deeply you have humiliated me?" "I have not humiliated you. There can be no humiliation for such a nature as yours. You have spoken the noblest words tiiat ever a woman uttered. Unhappily, you have spoken them to a man who has no right to hear them. The crime and the shame were his. I know now that it was the basest cowardice which prompted me to keep my secret. But oh, Marcia, how could I think that you would stoop to love me ! How could I believe that your tender compassion for a ruined life could ever grow into anything grander and holier than compassion ! And even now, though your own lips have said so much, can I be quite sure that the impulse which stirred them was not the generous pity of a noble heart — the self-abnegation of a woman who oifers her richest treasure to a beggar ? That you can love me — me! Oh, God, it cannot be real ! It is too like my dreams. Marcia uttered no word in response to that passionate out- burst ; but after a pause, she said quietly : " Will you take me to the carriage, Mr. Pauncefort ? — I must call you by that name. Papa will be uneasy about me, perhaps, and I am quite ready to go back." She rose, but Sir Jasper's tenant laid his hand upon her arm.. " For pity's sake, forgive me," he said. " I shall leave this place at daybreak to-morrow, to go to the other end of the world, perhaps. I cannot go without your forgiveness ; I cannot — I cannot. Think me a good Christian if I do not kill myself to-niglit. I have suffered too much lately. Yes, Marcia, some burdens are too heavy. Say that you forgivo me, and let me go back to the solitudes out yonder, where no one who is interested in my death can track me, and where, if I go mad, there will be no one to put me into a mad- house. Marcia, forgive me ! " He fell on his knees. His passionate violence, the despair that was so nearly akin to madness, awoke all that was most womanly in Marcia Denison's nature. She bent over the dark face that was lifted towards her, distorted and convulsed by the agony of a passion that had burst all the bonds of reason. She laid her hand softly on the burniug forehead, and parted the tumbled hair as gently as ever motherly hands tended a lick child. " Forgive you 1 " she murmured. " I have nothing to for 164 Sir Jasper s Tenant give. It was a false prirle that made me so angry. There cas be no question of humiliation between you and me. We are both too unhappy. Give me your hand, and let us say good- bye." " Good-bye, Marcia — my bright ideal of womanhood — good- bye." He rose and offered her his hand. The storm had gone by without ; the storm was lulled within ; George Pauncefort was himself again, grave and sombre, with only a quiet look of eorrnw in his face. "Yon will bear your burden bravely?" said Marcia qufs- tionmgiy. " Yes, I know you will. You are too good a Chris- tian to feel often as you have felt to-day. Oh, believe me, there is no burden too heavy ; divine endurance has measured the weight of all ; and we have only to be patient. _ Promise me you will try to support your sorrows like a Christian." " For your sake, Marcia ! Ask me to do anything for your sake, and the doing of it shall be the business of my life. There is no difference between love and fanaticism." " You will try to be a Christian for my sake ? " " Yes, Marcia, as I hope to be saved — for your sake. There is no such thing as myself in the world henceforward ; there is nothing but yon, and my love for you. But I am going to be a Christian to please you ; and my first sacrifice shall be to bid you good-bye." " Good-bye. I shall pray for you every night and morning, as I should pray for my brother if I had one." " Only one word more, Marcia. You have asked me nothing of my past life. And if you had questioned me, I scarcely think that I could have brought myself to speak of that shame- ful story in your presence. Yet I should like you to know it. I have made it the business of my existence to escape from what people call sympathy ; but I should like to have your pity. I will write the story, Marcia. Will you read it? " " Yes. Once more, good-bye." They were on the threshold as Marcia spoke ; and as she stepped from the narrow threshold a sudden gleam of yellow sunlight shot forth upon the edge of a cloud, and shone re- flected on her face as she turned towards her father's tenant. George Pauncefort uttered a cry of triumph. " See, Marcia," he exclaimed ; " the sun shines upon us ! I was never superstitious until to-day ; but to-day I will believe anything that hints at a hope. I accept the omen, Marcia This parting is not for ever." _ She did not answer him. Her calm sorrow had no affinity with his feverish exultation of spirit, and was not subject to Biiy abrupt transition from despair to hope. To her it seemed The Story of a Young llanos Folly. 165 as if tlui dull horizon of her life had only opened for a moment, to reveal a glimpse of an impossible heaven, and to close again for ever. Already she was resigned to the thought that Georgo Paunccfort could never be any more to her than he had been during the last few montlis. And it seemed as if he had been BO much to her ; for he had been and must for ever be, the one creature to whom she had been precious ; the only being who had' ever been profoundly affected with either joy or sor- row for her sake ; the solitary friend ; the only lover : an image never to be disturbed from his place in her heart. George Paunccfort handed his guest into her carriage. The sunlight had burst forth in fuller glory, beautiful on the deep- green of the wet leaves and the tender emerald of the fern ; su- pernally beautiful on the latticed casements of the Hermitage, and on the shining surface of the pool. In this sunlight, and in the wondrous tranquillity of earth and sky that succeeds a summer tempest, Sir Jasper's tenant and Sir Jasper's daughter parted. It was not until the next evening that Marcia received a packet, which had been left in Mrs. Tursgood's charge when fJreorge Paunccfort and his servant quitted the Hermitage. It was a large parcel, containing some rare old books that Miss Denison had once expressed a wish to possess, and its arrival excited no particular attention ; but hidden amongst the quaintly-bound voIuhks there was a packet in a large envelope, addressed to Marcia, and signed with George Paunccfort or Godfrey Pierrepoint's initials. Miss Denison opened the parcel late at night, in her own room, and the first cliill glimmer of day found her still reading Mr. Pauucefort's letter. CHAPTER XX. THE BTORY OF A YODNQ MAN'S FOLLT. " Shall I tell you what I felt, Marcia, when first you beckoned me into your father's room, and I sat in the dusk looking at you, with the warm glow of the fire about your figure, and'tho fitful light shining every now and then upoii your face ? Thero is no such thing as love at first sight ; for I did not love you then. The feelings that stirred my heart as it was stirred that night belonged only to the strange atmosphere I had entered. You can never understand hovo strange that room apd its be- 166 Sir Jasper's Tenant. longings were to me. No terror o£ the desert, no peril fron: savage beasts or treacherous men would have moved me hall 60 keenly as I was moved by this one glimpse of an English home. And for yourself. Marcia, what were you to me then — you who have since become the universe ? How I wonder as I remember that night, when I only thought of you with a calm, artistic pleasure, as a connoisseur thinks of a beautiful picture ! " Let no man ever neglect the warning of his instinct. From the first my instinct told me that the delicious happiness I found in your presence, in your father's society, — ah, how persistently I cheated myself as to the real source of my plea- sure ! — from the very first I was conscious of peril ; but the temptation was too great. I could not resign the happiness. It was so easy to cheat myself. When your image shone brightest before my eyes, I thought, ' If I had been a happier man, I might have had such a creature for my daughter : there are men who have had such women for their wives.' Again and again I reminded myself that I was almost old enough to be your father : again and again I deluded myself by the old shallow lies with which a weak man palters with his con- science. A weak man ; and I had thought myself so strong till I knew you. " It was only when I had been an inmate of your father's house, and found how horrible a pang it was to me to go back to the darkness of my old life — it was only then that I knew I loved you. It was only when I sat alone in my desolate room, recalling every look of your face, every tone of your voice, maddened with the memory of them, and the knowledge that I had no right to see your face or hear your voice again — it was then only that I knew the intensity of my love, and how little hope there was that my wretched heart would ever know its old dull quiet again. God knows how I struggled against my temptation : you know how I succumbed to it. I should have gone back to the desert — back to the lonely marches and the weary baitings under a torrid sky ; but the tempter was teo strong for me. The cup which he oflEered to my lips was so sweet. From first to last I knew that it was poison — from first to last I drank the insidious draught, knowing that there was death at the bottom of it. " Had I no thought for you in all this ? Yes, I thought oi you with cruel anguish as I fancied how compassionately yoa would smile at my folly if the knowledge of it could reach you. I watched you too closely not to fancy myself master of every thought and feeling of yours. Your reverential kindness, your courteous attention, the sympathy which you evinced for my favourite Btudies,the pleasure you appeared to take in my con* Th« Story of a Toiing Man*s Folly. 16'*' rorBfition, — to me these seemed only the natural graces of a perfect creature, whose divine compassion extended itself even to a gloomy middle-aged man whose broken life rendered him au object of pity. " In all the regions of the impossible could there be anything 80 wild as the thought that you could love me — m«f Can I imagine or understand the possibility even now? No, my soul and life! only in my dreams — only in my dreams can I believe in 80 deep a joy. But I have no right to speak to you of this. I have no right to approach you in any character but that of an unhappy wretch who has need of your pity. " If I c^uld have known you in my early manhood — when life was bright before me — when in all the world there was no height so lofty that it seemed impossible to my ambitious fancies ! I think ambition is only another name for youth, and that a m.an who has never been ambitious has never been young. I was the only son of a younger son. My father and mother were both what the world calls 'highly-connected,' but they were both poor. You will think perhaps that I am going to burst forth into some grand tirade upon the horrors of poverty ; but you need have no such apprehension. The poverty of my boyhood had no horrors, for it was endured by souls too lofty to droop under the influence of shabby clothes or indifferent dinners. I have seen my mother diae in a cotton gown, but I have never seen her quail before the presence of a creditor. I have seen my father in a threadbare dresscoat hobnobbing with a marquis, and looking as much a marquis as his companion. There is something noble in the old races after all. Set a Pierrepoint to sweep a crossing, and he will sweep it like a Pierrepoint ; so that passers-by shall glance back at him and mutter, ' A iKibleman in disguise.' Do not .augh at me, Marcia, because I have clung to those foolish fancies of my youth amidst the ruin of my manhood. My mother's race was noble, but her love for my father changed into reverence when she thought of his name ; and it was on her knee that I learned how grand a thing it was to be a Pierrepoint. " My father was a philosopher, a linguist, a collector ot rare old editions and curious pampldets ; everything that a man can be who believes that all tiie happiness of life is comprised in the verb ' to know.' In all my memory of him, I can never recall his being interested i* any event of our every-day life, or the lives of our neighbours. We lived in an old tumble- down house, which had once been a vicarage. The old churchyard sloped westward below our drawing-room windows, and my first memory is of the crimson sunlight behind dark masses of wreathing ivy, which I knew afterward* were IG8 Sir Jasper's Tenant. hidden graves ; hut the church had not heen standing for the last hundred years. Our garipn adjoined this grassy enclosure, and I played sometimes among the rose and currant-bushes, sometimes among the ivy-hidden tombs that had once been stately monuments. The house belonged to my Uncle Weldon, the head of our family, and we lived in it rent-free. All around us, wherever our eyes could reach, the land we saw was Weldon Pierrepoint's, and had been in the possession of Pierrepoints from the days of Stephen. The village nearest to us was called Pierrepoint, and I was seven years old before I passed the boundary of my uncle's estate. " If we had lived anywhere else, we might, perhaps, have been made to feel that there is some sting in poverty. At Pierrepoint, the man who hesitated to doff his hat as my father passed him would have been scouted as a kind of infidel. Our own name and my uncle's wealth, covered us with a kind of halo ; and when my mother went through the village-street in her straw bonnet and cotton dress, her promenade was like a royal progress. Thus from my very childhood I learned to believe that it was a grand thing to be what I was ; and when I was old enough to know what poverty meant, I laughed to scorn the suggestion that it could be any hindrance to my success in life. " My first misfortune was perhaps the fact that I lived toft long at Pierrepoint — too exclusively among people who re- spected me for the associations of my name — too far away from the open field of life, in which Jones the baker's son has as good a chance of victory and loot as the direct descendant of the Plantagencts. My mother and father were equally ignorant of the world beyond Pierrepoint Castle and Pierre- point Grange. My parents were too poor to give me a ani- versity career ; and as my father's learning would have been enough to divide among all the professors of a college, it was naturally supposed that I could need no better teacher ; bo I was educated at home. I know now that I could not have had a worse tutor, and that the key to my broken life is to he found in the narrow school of my boyhood. Under my f ather\ tuition, I became a sage in book-lore, and remained a baby i) all worldly knowledge. Heaven enly knows what dreams hav( visited me in that old walled garden, where the grass gre\» deeper and softer than any verdure I have ever trodden on since. What visions of worldly greatness to be won far away in the unknown region, where so many crowns hung within the reach of daring hands. What vivid pictures of a successful career — of prizes to be won while all the bloom of youth was yet upon the winner — of a sharp brief struggle with for- tune, and a garland of fame to be brought home to that very The Story of a Young J/an's. Folly. 1G9 garden and laid at my mother's feet. Every boy brought up very quietly with gentle people, amidst a pastoral landscape, ia apt to fancy himself an embryo Wellington or Nelson. My childish yearnings were for a soldier's life, and I pictured my- self coming back, after the conquest of India, to Pierrepoint Grange, to marry th(4 curate's blue-eyed daughter, who was so desperate a coquette in haymaking time. God help me now, in my desolation and hopelessness ! I can bring back the very picture I mad'^ of myself, riding up to the low white gate on a cavalry charger and dressed in a general's uniform ! " All these dreams melted away when I grew a little older, and my father iiad imbued me with something of his own love of learning. There were many consultations with my rich uncle as to my future career, and I found that the question was regarded less with a view to my interests than with re- ference to what a Pierrepoint might or might not do without damage to the other Pierrepoints. After a great deal of di-li- b ration it was settled that a Pierrepoint need undergo no de- gradation in being created Lord Chancellor, and it was there- upon decided that I should be called to the bar. Weldon Pierrepoint, my uncle, had sons of his own, and his property seemed as far away from me as if I had been a stranger to his blood ; but I was his nephew, and his only nephew, so he volunteered to allow me a small income while I studied, and endeavoured to work my way in the legal profession. His offer was accepted ; and I went up to London by a mail-coach with letters of introduction to some of the highest people in the metropolis in my desk, and with five-and-twenty pounds, the first quarterly payment of my income, in my pocket. " You would smile, Marcia, if you could know how in- toxicating to me was the consciousness that I was stepping out into the battle-field, how implicit my faith in my power to win fame and fortune. The introductions I carried with me would have obtained me a footing in half the best drawing- rooms of the West-end ; but the only one of my credentials of which I made any use was a letter addressed to an octogenarian legal celebrity, who lived by himself in the Temple, and who had the finest law-library and the best collection of Hobbimas in England. This gentleman received me with civility ; told me that I looked like a Pierrepoint ; warned me against the dissipations of London, which were all very well for common people, but not fit for Pierrepoints ; and put me in the way of beginning my hew life. Under his advice I selected a couple of garrets, which were dignified by the name of chambers, and I looked on with profound satisfaction while the name of Pierrepoint was inscribed in white paint on a black door, immediately below the leaking ceiling that had been disco- 170 Sir Jasper^ s Tenant. loured by the rain-drip of about half a century. Ah, what S boy I was ! I plunged into the severest course of legal study that I could devise for myself ; and the sparrows twittered every day in the morning sunshine before I closed my books and went to bed. I hired a lad, who cleaned my boots and brushed my clothes, and who was to open my dooiwin case, by some ex- traordinary combination of circumstances, any one should ever come to knock at it ; and I employed a laundress, who cleaned my rooms and bought my provisions. I have dined for a fort- night at a stretch on no better dinner than a mutton-chop, and no stronger beverage than tea ; and I have lived for a month Bometiines without interchanging a word with any creature except the laundress or the boy. " Ah, what a foolish dreamer I was, Marcia ! I fancied that my life was in my own hands, and that in my own untiring energy, my own love of learned labours, there lay the powers that could mould me into a Bacon without a Bacon's vices ; a second Brougham, with more than a Brougham's greatness. In my garret, with sickly candles fading in a sickly dawn, I fancied myself at the summit of Fame's mighty mountain, with all tlie world below me. The vision of the future was infinitely more real to me than any penalties of the present. I began to suffer from chronic headache ! but I wrapped a wet towel round my forehead, and laughed my malady to scorn. If Homer had knocked under to a headache, the Iliad might never have been finished. If Bacon had not been superior to physical pains, the world might have lost the Novum Organon. What mighty shadows visited me in my attic chambers ! 1 have never seen them since. The Rosicrucians believe that the grandest mysteries of their faith reveal themselves only to the pure gaze of the celibate. An earthly face was soon to come between me and the faces of my dreams. " I had lived a year in London — a long, lonely year, broken by no home-visit ; for though I pined for the sight of my mother's face, I could not go back to Pierrepoiat until I had advanced by some small step upon the great high-road I wan BO pleased to tread, — I had been in London a year, and my spirit was as fresh as when I left home ; but the dull common- place machine — the body — which will do no more work for a Bacon than for a baker, broke down. I had an attack of low fever, which was not entirely free from danger ; and the doctor who attended me told me that if I wished to live and to go on working, I must give myself a summer holiday in the country, and close my books for some weeks. My first impulse was to ^0 to Pierrepoint ! but when I looked at myself in the glass, -aid saw the ghastly-looking face reflected there, I felt that it irould be a cruelty to alarm my mother by presenting myself The Story of a Young Ma7i*s Folly. 171 before her until I had recovered a little of the strength I had wasted so recklessly in my daily and nightly labours. My going back to Pierrepoint niiglit have imperilled my future career ; for one of the tenderest mothers that ever lived would perhaps have taken fright at my altered looks, and dissuaded me from pursuing rtiy legal studies. " I loved my mother very dearly ; but I could not endure the idea of sacrificing my ambition even for her sake. So I did not go to Pierrepoint ; and the bright dream of my future was wrested from me by a wicked woman instead of being voluntarily surrendered to a good one. " Instead of going to my dear old home in the remotest depths of Yorkshire, I went to a little village on the very edge of London. I have done battle all my life against the in- sidious doctrine of fatalism ; but I find myself wondering sometimes why it was I chose that one village from amongst 80 many places of the same character, and how it was that such a multiplicity of small circumstances conspired to bring about my going there. The place was not a popular resort. It lay quite away from the beaten track ; and I had nev&v seen the name of it until I dropped down upon the rusti,- green one summer's day, and read the inscription on a sign- post. I had wandered listlessly from the Temple to the City early that morning, and had taken a place in the first coach that left the neighbourhood of the Bank, too indifferent to inquire where it would take me. How well I remember the hot summer's day ; the light upon the village green, where there were ducks splashing in a pond, and pigeons strutting before a low-roofed inn, the sheltered beauty of a glade thai led away to the church ; the richly wooded landscape sloping westward in the distance ; and above all, the delicious sense of repose that hung about the place like a palpable atmosphere, and soothed my shattered nerves into drowsy quiet ! The place was so near London, in fact, that I wondered not to hear the roaring thunder of wheels booming across that wood- land slope ; yet in all semblance so remote from bustle and clamour, that I might have fancied myself in tlie most pastoral district of my native county. I decided at once that this was the spot in wliich I might recruit my strength, without going far away from the scene of my labour ; and the only question was whether I could get a lodging. I inquired at the little inn, before which the pigeons were strutting, and was told that I could be accommodated there with rooms that, despite their rustic simplicity, were infinitely more luxurious than my chambers in the Temple. The village was only a cluster of four or five handsome old houses, with a halting-place for man and beast on the green, a pond for the ducks, a sign-poEk 172 Sir Jasper* s Tenant. for the enlightenment of strayed wanderers, and t tiny churct half hidden by the yew trees that overshadowed it. There was a blacksmith's forge next door to the little inn, and there were two or three old-fashioned cottages with little gardens before them, in which mignonette and geraniums grew luxu- riantly. In all the place there was only one lodging to be had, and that was the one I took. If that had been occupied, I must have gone to seek a resting-place elsewhere ; and then the whole of my life since that hour would have been dif- ferent from what it has been. I try not to remember upon what a gossamer-thread the balance of my fate swung to and fro that day when I dawdled on the village green and lounged in the village public-house. " I did not go back to London. I had no friends of whom to take leave, no social engagements from which to excuse myself, no debts to pay ; all the money I possessed in the world was in u>y pocket. I wrote a line to my laundress, telling her where to send my portmanteau, and despatched it ty the return coach ; and having done this, all my arrange- ments were made, and I was free to saunter out on the green, with my hands in my pockets, and breathe some of the fresh air that was to refit me for my work in Loudon. " I went out, weak still, but not listless ; for it would have been strange indeed if the aspect of a summer landscape had not been very pleasant to me after the chimney-pots I had looked at so long. The sun was dropping down behind the lower edge of the western slope, and a faint crimson glory touched the water at my feet, and flickered among the leaves of the great dark beeches in the glade. For the moment I forgot that I was an embryo Lord Chancellor. Bacon and Montesquieu might never have existed, for any place they had in my mind. The De Angmentis, the Readings on the Statutes of Uses, the Esprit des Lois, might never have been written, for any influence they had upon my thoughts. I was a boyish dreamer, intoxicated with the beauty of the scene around me, and ready to burst forth into rapturous quotations from Keata or Shelley, as every new glimpse of the lovely landscape burst upon me. For twelve months I had been a recluse in a London garret ; for twelve months I had seen nothing brighter than the chrysanthemums in the Temple gardens, " I walked slowly along with my hands in my pockets, whispering quotations from the Revolt of Islam, between the two grand lines of beech and elm, growing so close together that the path between them was a densely-shadowed green passage rather than a common avenue ; a long arcade, odorouB with a faint aromatic perfume, and narrowing in the distance to one little spot where the yellow light shone like a star. 2 The Story of a Young Man's Folly. 173 emerged from the avenue into this warm eveninp^ sunshine, and found myself close to the low white gate of the churchyard. " The sound of the organ came floating out through the open windows of the little church, and I stopped at the gate to listen. Of all sounds upon earth, that of an organ is to my ear the holiest music. If I were an infidel all the rest of my life, I should be a true believer while I listened to the music of a church-organ. A Protestant among Roman Catholics — kneeling amidst the shadowy splendour of Cologne, or Antwerp, or Rouen, I have been as true a Romanist as the most bigoted of my companions while the g'orious harmonies of Mozart rapt my soul in a trance of delight.] I stood with my arms folded on the gate, and listened to the organ of Weldridge Church as I have listened since to grander music in so many splendid temples. The organ was not a good one ; but it was well played. The musician possessed taste and feeling ; the music was from Beethoven's Mdunt of Olives. I listened till tlie last sound of the organ died away, and I was still lingering with the dreamy spell of the music full upon me, when it was exorcised by quite a different sound — the silvery laughter of a woman ringing out upon the air. " And then I heard a clear voice cry, ' Thank you, Mr. Scott ; but it reallj' is the vilest old organ. Why doesn't the rector get up a tubscription, and preach sermons, and plan a concert or fancy-fair, or something of that kind, and get a new instrument? It really is horrible. However, it was very kind of you to let me play ; and I had such an absurd mania for trying that organ. But I always want to try every piano I see; and I do think if I were visiting at Buckingliam Palace, and there were a piano in the room, I should whisk up to it, and run a double chromatic scale from the bottom to the top. Imagine the Queen's feelings ! A chromatic scale is more hideous than any thing in the world, except the howling of melancholy cats." "There was a low masculine growl after this; and then the clear voice broke out again : ' Do you really think so ? Well, I'm sure it's very kind of you to say so. I was educated at a convent, you know — not that I'm a Catholic — oh, dear, no ! Papa always sent particular orders about my opinions not being biaesid every time he paid the half-yearly bills ; and I used to play the organ in our convent-chapel ; but I never played to a real congregation in a real church. It would be such — I suppose I mustn't say fun ; but it really would be nice. However, papa will be waiting for dinner if I don't take care, and then I shall be scolded. Good- afternoon.' at 174 Sir Jasper* 8 Tenant. " Then came a light pattering of feet, the flutter of a muslin dress, the resonant bang of a heavy door ; and the prettiest woman I had ever seen in my life came tripping along the churchyard path towards the very gate on which i was leaning. "The prettiest woman I had ever seen in my life. Yes^; it w^8 in the form of Beauty's brightest ideal tliat Caroline Catheron appeared to my foolish eyes. I had seen so few women, I had so vague an idea of what lovely and lovable womanhood should be. This bright creature, who chatted and laughed with the grey-headed old organist, and shook out her airy muslin scarf as she tripped towards ne, — this beam- ing young beauty, whose dark eye's flaslied witli a happy con- sciousness of their own brilliancy, — this queen of roses and lilies, — this splendid belle, whose image might have shone upon a dreaming sultan amidst a throng of sliadowy houris, this holiday idol, to be set up for the worship of fools and profligates — seemed to me the incarnation of feminine loveliness. My heart did not thrill tlien as it has thrilled since at the lowest murmur of one loved voice ; my soul's purest depths lay far below this woman's power to stir them ; but my eyes were dazzled by this living, breathing splendour of form and colour, and my rapt gaze followed Caroline Catheron as if the little parasol she held so lightly in her hand liad been the wand of an enchantress. I opened the gate for her, and stood aside to let her pass. She thanked me with the prettiest inclination of her head, and tripped away under the trees with the old organist by her side. I made a paltry pretence of going into the churchyard and looking at the tombstones ; and after keeping up this pretence for at)Out five minutes, I followed the organist and liis companion. " They were talking. The girl's voice rang clearly out in the stillness— silvery as the singing of the birds in the wood- land around about us. Her talk was commonplace and frivo- lous enough ; but for the last twelve months I had rarely heard any sweeter feminine tones than the hoarse snuffle of my laundress : and I followed and listened, enthralled by this clear music of a pretty woman's voice, wliich was so very new to me. Slie was talking about her papa, — what he likod and what he did not like ; how he was an epicure, and it was so difficult to get any thing tolerable for dinner in Weldridge; how he could scarcely exi.st without his newspapers, and how the newspapers often arrived so very late at Weldridge ; how he was beginning to grow tired of tlie place already, in spite nf its rustic beauty, and was thirtking of leaving it wery soon. My heart sank as I heard this. All the glory of The Story of a Young MarHs Folly. 175 my holiday would vanisli with this beautiful creature, whom I had only seen witliin the last quarter of an hour. From the organist's replies to the young lady's speeches, I understood that her father's name was Catlieron. Catheron ! It sounded like a good name, I thought, and it was something at least to know her name ; but oh, how I wondered by what blessed combination of small chances I should ever come to know this wondrous being, who was as gracious to the old organist in his shabby week-day clothes as if he had been a duke ! I wondered which of the stately mansions at Weldridge sheltered this divinity. I wondered in what umbrageous gardens she dawdled away her days, fairer than the fairest Hower that ever blossomed upon this earth. There were several grand old houses at Weldridge — secluded habitations embowered in foliage, and only revealing themselves by a clock-tower, a quaint old stone cupola, or a stack of Gothic chimneys peeping through a break in the wood. " My divinity and her companion went by the stately gates and under the shadow of the lofty walls ; they went to tlit very end of the leafy passage, and then emerged and walked briskly across the green, where an unkempt pony and a drowsy-looking donkey were cropping the short grass in list- less contentment. They crossed the green ; the young lady parted from her companion before one of the row of cottages near the inn at which I was to spend my holiday. She dropped the organist a pretty little curtsey, opened the wooden gate, and went into the rustic garden. I watclieJ her till the cottage-door had opened and ingulfed her. She was my neighbour. My heart gave a great leap at the very thought ; and I went back to my lodging filled with a happiness that was new to me — a strange, intoxicating kind of happiness ; like the drunkenness of a boy who has tasted champagne for the first time. "Why do I tell you these things, Marcia? Is tliis the vivisection of my own heart at which I am assisting so coolly? No! I, who exist to-day, have no share in the nature of this young law-student who fell in love with Caroline Catheron seventeen years ago. I am only telling you of the foolish infatuation of a foolish boy, who mistook the capricious impulses of his fancy for the true instincts of his heart. " I went back to my lodging, and made a ridiculous pre- tence of eating the meal — half-dinner, half-supper — that had been prepared for me. I was still weak from the elfects of my fever; and after this attempt I sat in an easy-(iiair by the open window, looking out at the dusky landscape, above •*hich the stars wore shining faintly. A grey mist hud crept 176 Str Jmiur't Tenant. ever the neii^libouring woodland and the distant hills, and lights were gleaming here and there in the windows of one »f the Weldridge mansions. At another time I should have been eager for a candle and a book, and impatient of this hseless twilight ; but upon this particular night I think I forgot that I had ever been r, student. All the mighty shadows of my life had vanished, and across the dim grey mist I saw a woman's face looking at me with a bright coquettish jmile. I abandoned myself to a delicious reverie, in which I fancied my beautiful neighbour tending an invalid father — hovering about an idolised mother ; a creature of life and light :' 1 that simple household ; a being from whose presence joy eirianated as naturally as the perfume emanates from tlie flower. If the impossible Asmodeus had taken me out amongst the chimneys of the little inn, and had bidden me look down through the roof of the cottage — if a friendly demon had done this, what should I have seen? An idle discontented woman lolling on a sofa, trying to read a novel, but too much occupied by her own vexations and her own vanity to be even interested in what she read — a peevish daughter, a neglectful sister : no ministering angel, no domestic treasure — nothing in the world but a conscious beauty, absorbed in the consideration of her own charms, and indignant at a social system which had provided no young nobleman ready to place his coronet upon her brow. CHAPTER XXI. A BBC KEN LIFE. " I WENT out upon the little rustic balcony, and stood there with the warm evening air breathing softly round me. I could see the row of cottages, the neat little gardens that ivere so full of the simple flowers familiar to me in my youth. I could see the dim light shining here and there in ft window ; but I could not distinguish the particular habitation that sheltered my divinity ; and I was half in- clined to be angry with myself because no special instinct told me which it was. I was startled from my foolish meditations by the sound of a voice mingling with the olher voices that floated up to me from the open windows of the A Broken Life. 177 parlour below ; a voice that set my heart beating faster than it had beat siuco Caroline Catheron had vanished from my enchanted gaze ; and yet it was not Miss Catheron's voice ; it was only the baas growl of the organist. He was not tho rose, but he was, at any rate, the companion of that wondroua flower. I went down stairs, and made a paltry pretence of putting my watch right by tlio clock in the bar-parlour ; and then as I loitered talking to the landlord, he remarked that I might find myself dull in my solitary chamber up stairs, and suggested that I should step into the parlour, where a little knot of the most respectable inhabitants of Weldridge was wont to assemble nightly. " ' There's Mr. Marias the clerk, and there's Mr. Scott tho organist, quite a deep-read gentleman in his way, I've heard ; and you'll rarely meet him without a book in liis hand. And there's Mr. Stethcopp the baker, and Mr. Brinkenson, an independent gentleman, who occupies the first of that row of cottages as you come to directly you leave this door. Weldridge would be a dull place, you see, if there wasn't a little friendliness and sociability between the inhabitants. We've had some out-and-out gentlemen in our little parlour, I can tell you. There's Mr. Catheron, now, at one of the cottages ; you might go a long day's walk and not find any one more the gentleman than him." " I could feel myself blushing when the innkeeper said this. It was so nice to know that the father of my divinity was a gentleman. '"Mr. Catheron is a native of Weldridge, I suppose?' I said, interrogatively. I did not suppose any thing of the kind, but I was too £ar ingulfed in the abyss of folly to be straightforward in the smallest matter relating to Caroline Catheron. '"Oh dear no!' exclaimed the innkeeper; 'Mr. Catheron does not belong to one of our Weldridge families.' He said this very much as if the inhabitants of Weldridge were a select and peculiarly-privileged people, infinitely superior to the most gentlemanly Catheron who ever lived. 'No, he is only a visitor in Weldridge, having come here for the benefit of his health, as you may have done, and having come upon the village promiscuous-like, just as you may have come upon it,' added the landlord, bringing the subject down to my com. prehension as if t had been a child. " I tell you all this frivolous stuff, Marcia, because even in my sorrow it is sweet to linger over these pages. I think of your hand resting on them by-and-by ; I think of your breath ruffling the leaves. And then I want so much to con- fide in yoiu There is nothing in luy life that I would hide 178 Sir Janper't Tenant. from you, now you know what a broken life it is. I tell you this story of a boy's infatuation, in order that you may under- stand the folly which ruined my manhood. "'Has Mr. Catheron — a — large family?' I asked; but I could boldly have anticipated the answer. Was it likely the father of a divinity would have many children ? Goddesses do not grow in broods. My landlord answered my question as coolly as if he had been talking of Mr. Stethcopp the baker, or Mr, Brinkenson the independent gentleman. " ' There's a daughter,' he said ; ' a very fine-grown young woman. And I've heard say there's another daughter — a married lady — away in the Indies, or somewhere, with her husband. And there's a lad home for the holidays ; a regular impudent young shaver.' " I winced under the landlord's epithets of ' fine-grown young woman ' and ' impudent young shaver,' as applied to my divinity and my divinity's brother ; but it was a privilege to ob- tain any shred of information upon the subject of my infatu- ation, and I was very gracious to my informant. I cast about for a little further enlightenment on this one all-important question ; but the landlord shifted his discourse to the current topics of Weldridge ; so I told him I would avail myself of his suggestion ; and I went shyly into the parlour, to make acquaintance with the notabilities of the village. " I was received very civilly, very cordially ; but I discov- ered the difference between the respect shown to a Pierrepoint at Pierrepoint and the familiar greeting offered to an unknown young traveller in a strange place. Mr. Stethcopp the baker patronised me, and Mr. Brinkenson the independent gentleman was almost regal in the superb condescension with which he offered me a chair near him. The little assembly was occupied in the discussion of public events. For a few minutes I listened respectfully to sentiments that were as strange to me as the discourses of the Mountain and the Gironde would have been to any young provincial aristocrat newly arrived from his iiereditary lands. At Pierrepoint we were stanch Tories, from my uncle the squire to the peasant who gathered wood in tha Chase. But the notabilities of Weldridge were Liberal to the backbone ; and if my mind had been disengaged, I believe I eliould have entered into the lists against them in defence of my family principles, and might thereby have rendered myself very obnoxious. My mind had never been more completely ab- sorbed, however ; and I sat quietly under Mr. Brinkenson'a wing with all the outward semblance of a respectful listener, while my thoughts hovered fondly about the splendid image of Caroline Catheron ; and I thus secured the future favour of my cympuuions 8£ a verj' well-behaved young man. A Broken Life. 179 •' While they were deep in an argument as to the merits of Sir Robert Peel's last speech, I heard a strange voice — a voice; that sounded foreign to Weldridge — in tlie l)ar without ; and in the next moment I witnessed a social phenomenon. All at ouce the loud talk of tlie Weldridge notabilities dropped into a lower key ; all at once Mr. Brinkeuson the independent broke down in a Johnsonian period. " ' Mr. Catheron ! ' said Stethcopp the baker, in a solemn hushed voice, and then the door was opened rather boisterously and a gentleman entered the room. "Her father! Yes, and he was like her. Again I was dazzled by the splendour of dark eyes, the glitter of white teeth, the warmth and richness of colour, the easy grace of manner which had fascinated me in the young lady I had followed from the clnuchyard. It was from her father that my divinity had inherited her full red lips, her aquiline nose, the dark arches above her flashing eyes ; even the moustache that shaded Harold Catheron's lip was only an exaggeration of the ebon down that darkened his daughter's. Infatuated and bewitched though I was, one faint thrill of revulsion stirred my heart as I saw how much the man was like the woman. Surely in that moment I must have begun to understand vaguely that the attribute of womanliness was the one charm wanting in Miss Catheron's beauty. " While I was wondering by what studied and subtle process I might approach the father of my idol, he took his place in the little assembly, and asserted the sway of town-bred ease over rustic stilfness as completely as if he had been in some acknowledged manner the sovereign lord and master of every creature in the room. While I was hoping that somebody would call his attention to me, and bring about an interchange of civilities, he turned to me with a graceful familiarity which was the very opposite of Mr. Brinkenson's, and yet infinitely more expressive of the differ- ence between hiui, the gentleman of position, and mo, the nameless stranger. "'Your face iB new to me,' he said; 'and yet not ex- actly new either, for I saw you from my window this after- noon, as my daughter came in from her walk. You are something of an invalid, I conclude, from your appearance ; and if I am right, I can only tell you that you couldn't have a nicer place than Weldridge to get well i'^, or kinder people than Weldridge people to nurse you back to health and strength. I came here an invalid myself, and, egad, I think I shall go back to my own place a HerculeB.' " Heaven knows what I ought to have said in reply to this civil address. I know that I stammered and blushed 180 Sir Jasper* s Tenant. and then shyly asked Mr. Catheron whether he was goin^ to 1 ,'ave Weldridge jnst yet. " He told me no ; his Weldridge friends treated him so well that he was in no hurry to leave them ; and if his friend the butcher had only more liberal notions as to the number of calves required for the carrying on a business with justioe to his customers in the matter of sweetbreads, and the num- ber of sheep necessary to protect his customers from daily disappointment in relation to kidneys, he (Mr. Catheron) would have nothing left to wish for in the rustic paradise which an accident had revealed to his enraptured eyes. " And then I told him how I too had fallen upon this pleasant resting-place by the merest chance that ever led an ignorant wanderer to his fate. And after that I grew bolder, and told him who and what I was, with some vague foolish notion lurking in my mind that when he found I was a Pierrepoint, he would open his arms and take me to his heart, and straightway invite me to his house and introduce me to his beautiful daughter. But he only nodded his head approv- ingly, and muttered, " ' Pierrepoint ! A good old Yorkshire name, Pierrepoint ! There was a Pierrepoint in my regiment, but he spelt his name with one r ; and, between you and me, he was rather looked down upon as a snob.' " ' My uncle is Weldon Pierrepoint of Pierrepoint,' I said simply ; ' and our name has been spelt with two r's ever since the Conquest, when Hildred Pierrepoint ' " ' Exactly,' suisvvered Mr. Catheron eagerly, — ' came over with the Duke of Normandy, no doubt. Our people dis- tinguished themselves at that period ; but it was on the other side of the business. We were allied to Edward the Confessor, through Ethelfreda, the second wife of — but I won't trouble you with this sort of nonsense. My children have all these old stories by heart, and love to talk of them. For myself I am a man of the world, and I know how little use your blue blood is to a man if he can't contrive to keep a decent balance at his banker's. And so your uncle is Weldon Pierrepoint, the wealthy squire of Pien-epoint in Yorkshire. I remember him at the clubs when I was a young man ; rather eccentric, and a bachelor, if I remember right. Did he ever marry ? ' " ' Ybb,' I answered ; ' he married rather late in life.' " ' And had a family, I suppose ? ' " ' Yes.' I told him there were three sons — lads at Eton. "'Three of them ! That's a bad job for you, — that's to say if you are next heir to the estate.' "I told Mr. Catheron that I was the next heir ; but that I had no more expectation of inheriting the Pierrepoint property A Broken Life. 181 than 1 had of succeeding to a heritage in the moon. I told him how it had been decided that I was to be called talhe bar ; how my family had sent me to London, in order that I might see Bomcthing of the world ; and how I had been devoting myself to a course of preliminary reading in my Temple chambers. " ' But that's not exactly the way to see much of the world, I should think,' said Mr. Catheron smiling. " I blushed as I answered him. I found myself blushing every minute in my intercourse with Mr. Catheron. I could not resist the impression that he was the father of my divinity, and that talking to him was only an indirect manner of talking to her. He looked at me more attentively after this little talk about my uncle, and when he got up to go away, he shook hands with me, and expressed a polite desire to see me again ; but he did not invite me to his house. I would have bartered all the letters of introduction fading in my desk for one line addressed to him. I went back to my own rooms immediately after his departure. I went to bed tired and languid, but not to sleep ; only to lie awake thinking of Caroline Catheron. " The next day was Sunday, and I went to the little village-church, where I saw her sitting meekly by her father's side. Shy though I was, I was bold enough to time my coming out so as to encounter them in the porch, and the beating of my heart almost stifled me, as we came out of the solemn shadow into the warm summer sunlight. "It was not /, Marcia, who loved this woman for her beauty. My life and soul ! I tell you again and again it was not I. It was only a foolish boy, who had no attribute in common witli myself as I am to-day, but who had one quality, purer and higher than any I possess, — unlimited faith in the truth and honour of his fellow-men, boundless belief in the in- nocence and goodness of woman. "Mr. Catheron turned to mo in the friendliest manner as we came out into the churchyard, and offered me his hand, and then in the next moment I was introduced with all due cere- mony to my divinity. She smiled graciously, and gave me courteous replies to my lumbering remarks about the fine summer weather, and the han'cst, and the rustic loveliness of WeldJidge. The condescending kindness of her manner in- spired me with the fear that she looked upon me as the merest hobbledehoy ; and I would have sacrified half-a-dozen years of my life if I could have looked as many years older. She made only the faintest struggle with a yawn as we walked home- wards under the trees by the very path along which I had followed her the evening before, and I saw her gaze wandcrinc abstractedly to the ducks in the pond while her father lingered 182 Sir Jasper's Tenant, talking to me at his gate. Heaven only knows how keenly 1 felt her indifference. I think I should have gone away almost despairing if Mr. Catheron had not asked me to look in upon him in the evening, if I had nothing better to do. ' If I had nothing better to do ! ' as if in all the world there could be any more entrancing happiness than was to be found in her presence. '"We are dull quiet people, my girl and I,' said Harold Catheron ; ' but as you are a stranger and an invalid, you may find it plcasanter to spend a dull evening with us than a dull evening by yourself.' " I thanked him as enthusiastically as if he had offered me a dukedom, and then went home on air. How I got rid of the rest of the day, I scarcely know. I could neither eat my dinner, nor read the newspaper which the landlord brought me. My books had not yet arrived. I walked up and doxVn my little room until I was too weak to walk any longer, and then sat looking at my watch until seven o'clock. My land- lord had informed me Mr. Catheron generally dined at five j and I had decided that I might decently pay my evening visit any time after seven. "There was an unusual stillness upon the summer land- scape when I went out of the little inn-door, and walked very slowly towards the house in which Harold Catheron lived. The Weldridge people were diligent church and chapel-goers, and the majority of the small population was absorbed by the evening services. In that serene stillness I lingered for a few minutes, looking absently at the horses browsing on the green, possessed all at once by the hobbledehoy's shy dread of ap- proaching the woman he admires ; and then I summoned courage, and walked to the little gate. A boy of twelve or four- teen years of age, with a handsome defiant face, was lounging on the gate, and looked boldly up at me as I approached. There was sufficient resemblance to the features of my divinity in the boy's dark bold face to reveal him to me as the brothei I had heard of. Anxious to conciliate any creature who bwe her name, I saluted the boy very respectfully as I passed him, and received an insolent stare in return. A maid-servant admitted me, and ushered me immediately into a little parlour where Mr. Catheron was sleeping profoundly in an easy-chair, with his head thrown back upon the cushions and the edge of his newspaper resting upon the tip of his nose. No words can describe my disappointment as I looked round the room and saw how empty it was without my divinity. There was no 6ign of feminine occupation, no open book, no handkerchief or gathered flower thrown lightly aside by a woman's hand. There was nothing to betoken that Caroline Catheron had only A Brohn Lif». 1»3 lately left the apartment, and might speedily return. IMr. CJatheron's newspapers scattered the table and the floor i^Ir Catheron's half-consumed cigar lay on the mantelpiece. Though the little garden outside the open window was rich in all sweet-scented cottage flowers, the shabby chamber was not brightened by one gathered blossom. " Cruelly disappointed, cruelly embarrassed. I seated myself opposite Mr. Catheron and awaited that gentleman's awak(*n- ing. The newspaper dropped upon his breast, and I had ample leisure for the contemplation of his countenance. It was a very handsome face certainly, — how could it be other- wise than handsome when it was so like uers? — but its beauty veas not quite pleasing even to my inexperienced eyes. It was a little too much like the face of a handsome vulture, who had cultivated a formidable pair of moustaches, and assumed a military style of undress. The curve of the aqui- line nose, the bird-like modelling of the eyelids, the upward arch of the thin lips were not the characteristics of a noble countenance. I think I knew as much as this even then ; I think I knew as much as this even that afteraoon, when the spell of Caroline Catheron's beauty possessed me so completely that I had little consciousness of anything except my eager desire to look upon her again. " If I had presented my letters of introduction, if I had been enli.c^litened as to the world I lived in by a yeai's inter- course witli society, I should not have been so weak a wretch in the hands of Harold Catheron and his daughter. But the boy swinging on the garden-gate was my master in all know- ledge to be acquired by the experience of life, and he knew it. " My host started out of his sleep presently, and apolog;i9ed to me for his inattention. " ' My daughter has gone to church,' he said ; ' help your- self to a glass of that sherry ; Caroline shall give us some tea when she comes in, and in the mean time you shall tell me all about your people in the North. You have no idea how the name of Pierrcpoint brings back my young. days, and the time when I knew Weldon Pierrepoint as one of the celebrities of the West-end. And so he turned country gentleman, and mar- ried, and had a family I Strange, strange.' "Mr. Catharon's eyelids dropped languidly over his eyes, and he threw his head back upon the cushions of his chair, as if he had let his mind slip back to the past. ■Musing thus, and nodding his head every now and then with a little sigh of assent, he let me talk of my life at home, and of all who be- longed to me. He let me talk — or it seemed to me at tha time that he only let me talk ; but even then I had some con- flc'ousness that it was he who kept my Uncle "Weldon'e uama 184 Sir Jasper's Tenant. perpetually uppermost in the conversation, bringing me back to that point when I was inclined to wander to some more cherished subject, — my mother's sweet companionship, my fa- ther's learning, my own ambitious dreams. However it came about, I told Harold Catheron all there was to tell about my uncle, and told him how the wealthy master of Pierrepoint Castle was a feeble invalid, with the poisonous taint of here- ditary consumption in his blood, and with three sickly sons, whose uncertain health was a perpetual source of anxiety. * And your father ? ' said Mr. Catheron, opening his eyes ; ' ia he consumptive too ? ' " It seemed cruel to ask me such a question, — a question that must havs struck home to my heart like a daggei, "f I bad been conipelled to answer in the affirmative. E?^ppily it was not so "'No,' 1 (old him; 'my Uncle Weldon and my lather are only half-brothers. My grandfather married twice. His first wife died very young in a decline, leaving one son ; and it is fi-om her my uncle inherits his weak health.' " ' A sorry inheritance,' muttered my host ; ' however, it is to be hoped that one or other of the three sons will escape the hereditary taint, and live to be master of Pierrepoint Castle. If you were a marcenary young man, it might seem almost uncivil to express such a hope in your presence ; but I am sure that frank, open countenance of yours is not the face of a man who has any hankering for dead men's shoes.' " I eagerly assured him how unwelcome that heritage would be to me which I could only reach across the graves of my three cousins ; but he waved off the subject, as if its mere discussion were unworthy of us ; and tlien I heard a light footstep in the garden, and the flutter of a dress, and the opening of a door, and my divinity came in. " I am fain to confess that she looked cross and peevish, and that if any warning could have saved me from the con- sequences of my own folly, I might have taken warning by her manner on that day, and on many other days. But I think it is the peculiar property of a hobbledelioy's love to thrive upon ill-treatment ; and perhaps Miss Catheron's dis- dainful airs and graces constituted only a part of the charm that bound me to her. " It had been insufferably warm in church, she told us ; and insufferably dusty on the way home from church ; the serBion had been stupid ; the singing execrable ; and not a single stranger had been present to enliven the dowdy con- gregation. She made tea for us at her father's request ; and Bhe went through the processes of making it and pouring it out very much as if the task imposed upon her were the I A BroJcen Life. 185 l&st straw laid upon the burden tliat rendered her life i:n- endtuahle. But wiiile we were taking our tea, and when I had ventured to talk to her, and had betrayed the coinplete- nees of uiy subjugation by every word I uttered, she bright- ened considerably, and by-and-by condescended to be su- prenicly agreeable "Would you like to know what my wife was, Marcia, in that first day of our acquaintance, when I sat by her side in the little lodging-house parlour, while her father abandoned himself to his newspaper, and left us free to talk as foolishly as we pleased ? What was she then, in all the bloom of her splendid beauty ? A wicked woman ? No ; only a weak-minded woman half-educated ; influenced by no good example ; ele- vated by no lofty teaching ; left to go her own way, and taught t t believe that in her beauty she possessed the 'Open, sesame ! to high fortune. " She treated me with ineffable condescension that evening ; but I could see that she was not displeased by my admiration, which was not expressed by any outspoken compliment, but evidenced no doubt in my every look and tone. There was a iano in the room, and her father asked her to play. She obeyed lim with a very listless air : but she played some of I\Iozart's grandest masses magnificentlj', and her listlessness fell away trom her like a cloud as she played. " I sat by the piano, entranced by the sublimity of the music, bewitched by the beauty of the musician. I disco- vered afterwards that Caroline Catheron's mother had been a professional pianiste, and that the girl's love of music had been cultivated from infancy. Mr. Catheron talked of his absent daughter in the course of the evening, and I heard that my divinity's sister was a twin sister, and her living image. " ' My daughter Leonora married absurdly young,' Mr. Ca- theron said ; ' and chose for her husband a grave middle-aged officer in the Company's service — a good match in a pecuniary sense, I admit ; but by no means the kind of match I should have wished. However, my girl cnteilained quite a romantic devotion for Captain Fane, so I submitted to the force of cir- cumstances ; and my submission costs me my child, who has been scampering about with her husband's regiment in the iunglci: cl Bengal for the last three years.' "Caroline shrugged her shoulders a little contemptuously as her father made this lamentation. ' Pray don't be senti- mental, papa,' she said ; ' what is the use of talking about love-matches, when you know very well you don't approve of them ? ' " ' I don't approve of a handsome ivoman throwing herself 1 S6 Sir Jasper « Tenant. away apon a penniless scapegrace,' answered n:y host ; 'but 1 disapprove of him because he is a scapegrace and notbeoanse he 18 penniless. If a daughter of mii.e cht^s'5 an honourable and talented young man for her husba'"-i, she should iriarry him with my consent, and my blessing into the bargain ; pro- vided always that the man was a gentleman, and the son of a gentleman.' " I felt my face dyed a vivid crimson for some little time after this ; and stealing a look at Caroline presently, I saw that the colour in her cheeks was heightened ; and by the brightness of her eyes and the pouting of her lower lip, I knew that she was angry. Something in her father's speech had displeased her. She had been sitting at the piano until now, only turn- ing to talk to us in the pauses of her playing ; but she closed the instrument abruptly, and seated herself in an obscure corner behind her father's chair, where she obstinately re- mained for the rest of the evening, not to be lured from her retreat by any of the coaxing speeches with which Mr. Catheron tried to conciliate her. " ' Beauty is sulky,' he exclaimed at last, — he called his daughter Beauty, and he spoke to her very much in the tone which people are wont to use when caressing a favourite lap- dog, — ' and when Beauty is sulky, c'est un fait achcve. The sun goes down at a given hour, and nothing less than a Joshua can induce him to postpone his setting. Plioebus himself is not more arbitrary than Beauty ; and Beauty is more capricious than the sunshine. She has her bright days and her cloudy days ; and to-day it is cloudy. If you will dine with us to-morrow, Mr. Pierrepoint, I will guarantee you a little sunshine, and we will have some secular music. Beauty and her brother Gervoise shall go to Barsctt to fetch straw- berries in the morning, and she shall sing Moore's melodies to us in the evening while we eat the strawberries she has fetched for us. If you are going Barsett way — and the old church is well worth seeing — you might help Beauty to carry her parcels. She would perish before she asked you any favour to-night, because she is sulky ; but look in upon U8 after breakfast to-morrow, and I'll wager she'll be glad of our escort ; for that tiresome boy of mine is always quarrel- ing with her ' "The tiresome boy, whom I had first seen lounging at the gate, had been in and out a good deal in the course of the even- ing, and had been at last ignomifiiously ordered to bed by his father. If I say little of him, it is because I thouglit so little of him. I know now that Gervoise Catheron was shamefully neglected by his father and his sister ; but at the time of which I write, my miserable infatuation l/ad such full possession of I A BroTcen Lift. 187 me that I was cons