r^^»***r*^v rPvf* *^*'- 
 
 ■n
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 ELEANOR'S VICTORY 
 
 /// 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 •«LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "AUEORA FLOYD* 
 
 KTO. BTO. 
 
 ^ttrfotgpfb (gbitiira 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN AND EGBERT MAXWELL 
 
 4, SHOE LAJTE, FLEET SIKEEI 
 1878 
 
 [JU njht* resercea.]
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 OBAT. 
 
 I. Going houb ...«•• 
 
 II. The entresol in the Rue db l'Archevequb 
 
 III. Tub story op the past .... 
 
 IV. Upon the threshold ov a great sorrow 
 V. Waiting 
 
 VI. The black building by thb rivbr 
 
 VII. Suspense ....... 
 
 VIII. Good Samaritans 
 
 IX. Looking to the future . . . 
 
 X. Hortensia Bannister holds out a hblpino hand 
 
 XI. Richard Thornton's promise 
 
 XII. Gilbert SIonckton 
 
 XIII. Hazlewood .... 
 
 XIV. The prodigal's return 
 XV. Launcelot .... 
 
 XVI. The lawyer's suspicioh . 
 
 XVII. The shadow on Gilbert Monckton' 
 XVIII. Unforgottkn 
 XIX. Like the memory op a dream . 
 XX. Recognition .... 
 XXI. On the track .... 
 XXII. In the shipbroker's ofpiob . 
 XXIII. Resolved . . . • • 
 XXIY. The one chancb , 
 XXV. Accepted . . . . > 
 XXVI. An insidious demon . , 
 XXVII. Slow fires . . . , 
 
 XXVIII. By thb sundial ... 
 
 LIFB
 
 tf CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. TAlOh 
 
 XXIX. KEEPiNa wATcn . . » « ^ - » 212 
 
 XXX. An old man's fancy 217 
 
 XXXI. A POWERFUL ALLY ....... 222 
 
 XXXII. TUE TESTIMONY OF THE SKETOH-BOOK . . . . 228 
 
 XXXIII. Maurice de Crespiqny's will 234 
 
 XXXJV. Richard's discovery 240 
 
 XXXV. What happened at Windsor 243 
 
 XXXVI. Another recognition 248 
 
 XXXVII. Launcelot's troubles 254 
 
 XXXVIII. Mr. MoNCKTON brings GLOOMY TIDINGS FEOM Woodlands 261 
 
 XXXIX. Launcelot's counsellor 265 
 
 XL. Resolved 270 
 
 XLI, A terrible surprise 277 
 
 XLII. In the presence op the dkad 284 
 
 XLIII. A BRIEF triumph 289 
 
 XLIV. Lost 296 
 
 XLY. At sea «... 301 
 
 XLVI. Laura's troublm 308 
 
 XLVII. Getting over it 314 
 
 XL VIII. The reading op thk will 320 
 
 XLIX. Deserted 326 
 
 L. Gilbert's letter 331 
 
 LI. Mrs. Major Lennard 339 
 
 LII. Going back to Paris 34i 
 
 LIII. Margaret Lennard's delinquencies . . . 351 
 
 LIV. Very lonely 363 
 
 LV. Victor Bourdon goes over to the eneut . . 367 
 
 LVI. The horrors of delirium tremens . . . . 375 
 
 LYII. Maurice de Crespigny's bequest . , , . 385 
 
 LVIII. The day of liECKONiNO 389 
 
 LIX. The last r . . 393
 
 ELEANOR'S VICTORS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 GOING HOME. 
 
 The craggy cliffs -upon the Norman coast looked something like 
 the terraced walls and turreted roofs of a ruined city in the hot 
 afternoon sunshine, as the Empress steamer sped swiftly onward 
 toward Dieppe. At least they looked thus in the eyes of a very 
 young lady, who stood alone on the deck of the steam-packet, 
 with yearning eyes fixed upon that foreign shore. 
 
 It was four o'clock upon a burning August afternoon in the 
 year 1853. The steamer was fast approaching the harbour. 
 Several moustachioed gentlemen, of various ages, costumes, and 
 manners, were busy getting together carpet-bags, railway-rugs, 
 camp-stools, newspapers, and umbrellas ; preparatory to that 
 eager rush towards the shore by which marme voyagers are apt 
 to testify their contempt for Neptune, when they have no longer 
 need of his service or fear of his vengeance. Two or three 
 English families were collected in groups, holding guard over 
 Bmall mounds or barrows of luggage, having made all prepara- 
 tion for landing at first sight of the Norman shore, dim in the 
 distance ; and of course about two hours too soon. 
 
 Several blooming young English damsels, gathered under 
 maternal wings, were looking forward to sea-bathing in a foreign 
 watering-place. The EtabUssement des Bains had not yet been 
 built, and Dieppe was not so popular, perhaps, among Enghsh 
 
 f)leasure-seekers as it now is. There were several comfortable- 
 ooking British families on board the steamer, but of all the 
 friendly matrons and pretty daughters assembled on the deck, 
 there seemed no one in any way connected with that lonely young 
 lady who leant against the bulwark with a cloak across her arm 
 and a rather shabby carpet-bag at her feet. 
 
 She was very young — indeed of that age which in the other 
 »ex is generally called the period of hobbledehoyhood. There 
 was more ankle to be seen below the hem of her neat mushn 
 froek than is quite consistent with elegance of attire in a young
 
 6 Eleanor's Tietory. 
 
 lady of fifteen ; but as tlie ankle so revealed was rounded and 
 slender, it would have been bypercritical to have objected to the 
 shortness of the skirt, "which had evidently been outgrovm by its 
 wearer. 
 
 Then, again, this lonely traveller was not only young but 
 pretty. In spite of the shortness of her frock and the shabbiness 
 of her straw bonnet, it was impossible for the most spiteful ot 
 the British misses to affirm the contrary. She was very pretty ; 
 so pretty that it was a pleasure to look at her, in her unconscioua 
 innocence, and to think how beautiful she would be by-and-by, 
 when that bright, budding girhsh loveliness bloomed out in its 
 womanly splendour. 
 
 Her skin was fair, but pale — not a sentimental or sickly paUor, 
 but a beautiful alabaster clearness of tint. Her eyes were grey, 
 large and dark, or rendered dark by the shadow of long black 
 lashes. I would rather not catalogue her other features too 
 minutely; for though they were regular, and even beautiful, 
 there is something low and material in all the other features as 
 compared to the eyes. Her hair was of a soft golden brown, 
 bright and rippling Kke a sunlit river. The brightness of that 
 luxuriant hair, the Ught in her grey eyes, and the vivacity of a 
 very beautiful smile, made her face seem almost luminous as she 
 looked at you. It was difficult to imagine that she could ever 
 look nnbappy. She seemed an animated, radiant, and exuberant 
 creature, who made an atmosphere of brightness and haiDpines3 
 about her. Other girls of her age would have crept to a comer 
 of the deck, perhaps to hide their loneliness, or would have clung 
 to the outer fringe of one of the family groups, making behave 
 not to be alone ; but this young lady had taken her stand boldly 
 against the bulwark, choosing the position from which she might 
 soonest hope to see Dieppe harbour, and apparently quite indif- 
 ferent to observation, though many a furtive glance was cast 
 towards the tail but girlish figure and the handsome profile so' 
 sharjDly defined against a blue background of summer sky. 
 
 But there was nothing uufeminine in all this; nothing bold 
 or defiant ; it was only the innocent unconsciousness of a light- 
 hearted girl, ignorant of any perils which could assail her loneli- 
 ness, and fearless in her ignorance. Throughout the brief sea< 
 voyage she had displayed no symptoms of shyness or perplexity. 
 She had suffered none of the tortures common to many travellers 
 in their marine experiences. She had not been sea-sick; and 
 indeed she did not look Kke a person who could be subject to any 
 of the common ills this weak flesh inherits. You could almost 
 as easily have pictured to yourself the Goddess Hygeia s^afFei-ing 
 from a bilious headache, or Hebe laid up with the influenza, as 
 this auburn-haired, grey-eyed young lady under any phase of 
 mortal sufiering. Eyes dim in the paroxysms of sea -sickness
 
 Ooing Home. 1 
 
 had looked almost spitefully towards this happy, radiant crea- 
 ture, as she tlittcd hither and thither about the deck, courting 
 the balmy ocean breezes that made themselves merry with her 
 "ippling hair. Lips, blue with suffering, had writhed as their 
 owners beheld the sandwiches which this young school-girl 
 devoured, the stale buns, the oval raspberry tarts, the hideous, 
 bilious, revolting three-cornered puffs which she i^roduced at 
 different stages of the voyage from her shabby carpet-bag. 
 
 She had an odd voliime of a novel, and a long, dreary desert 
 of crochet-work, whose white-cotton monotony was only broken 
 by occasional dingy oases bearing witness of the worker's dirty 
 hands ; they were such pretty hands, too, that it was a shame 
 they should ever be dirty ; and she had a bunch of flabby, faded 
 flowers, sheltered by a great fan-like shield of newspaper ; and 
 she had a smelling-bottle, which she sniffed at perpetually, though 
 she had no need of any such restorative, being as fresh and bright 
 from first to last as the sea breezes themselves, and as little sub- 
 ject to any marine malady as the Lurleis whose waving locks 
 could scarcely have been yellower than her own. 
 
 I think, if the feminine voyagers on board the Empress were 
 cruel to this soKtary young traveller in not making themselves 
 friendly with her in her loneliness, the unkindncss must be put 
 down very much to that unchristian frame of mind in which 
 people who are sea-sick are apt to regard those who are not. 
 This bouncing, bright-faced girl seemed to have httle need of 
 kindness from the miserable sufferers around her. So she was 
 left to wander about the deck ; now reading three pages of her 
 novel ; now doing half-a-dozen stit"\ies of her work ; now talking 
 to the man at the wheel, in rt-'\^ i all injunctions to the con- 
 trary; now making herself ucquainted -svith stray pet dogs; 
 always contented, always happy ; and no one troubled himself 
 about her. 
 
 It was only now, when they were nearing Dieppe, that one of 
 the passengers, an elderly, gi-ey-headed Englishman, spoke to her. 
 
 " Ton are very anxious to arrive," he said, smiling at her 
 eager face. 
 
 " Oh, yes, very anxious, sir. We are nearly there, are we not P " 
 
 " Yes, we shall enter the harbour presently. You will have 
 ■ome one to meet you there, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," the young lady answered, Ufting her arched brown 
 eyebrows, " not at Dieppe. Papa will meet me at Paris ; but he 
 could never come all the way to Dieppe, just to take me back to 
 Paris. He could never afford such an expense as that." 
 
 " No, to be sure ; and you know no one at Dieppe ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; I don't know any one in all France, except papa." 
 ' Her face, bright as it was even in repose, was Ut up with a new 
 brightness as she spoke of her father.
 
 8 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " You are very fond of your papa, I think," the Englishman 
 Baid. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I love him very, very much. I have not seen hira 
 for more than a year. The journey costs so much between Eng- 
 land and France, and I have been at school near London, at 
 Brixton ; I dare say you know Brixton ; but I am goiug to 
 France now, for good." 
 
 " Indeed ! You seem very young to leave school." 
 
 " But I'm not going to leave school," the young lady answered, 
 lagerly, " I am going to a very expensive school in Paris, to 
 fimsh my education ; and then " 
 
 She paused here, hesitating and blushing a little. 
 
 " And then what P " 
 
 " I am going to be a governess. Papa is not rich. He has no 
 fortune now." 
 
 '• He has had a fortune, then P " 
 
 " He has had three." 
 
 The young lady's grey eyes were lit up with a certain look of 
 laiumph as she said this. 
 
 " He has been very extravagant, poor dear," she continued, 
 apologetically ; " and he has spent three fortunes, altogether. 
 But he has always been so courted and admired, you know, that 
 it is not to be wondered at. He knew the Prince Regent, and 
 Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Brummel, and the Duke of York, and — 
 oh, all sorts of people, ever so intimately ; and he was a member 
 of the Beefsteak Club, and wore a silver gridiron in his button- 
 hole, and he is the most deUghtfiil man in society, even now, 
 though he is very old." 
 
 " Very old ! And you are so young." 
 
 The Englishman looked almost incredulously at his animated 
 fompanion. 
 
 "Yes, I am papa's youngest child. He has been married 
 twice. I have no real brothers and sisters. I have only half* 
 brothers and sisters, who don't reaUy and truly care for me, you 
 know. How should they ? They were grown up when I was 
 bom, and I have scarcely ever seen them. I have only papa in 
 ftll the world." 
 
 " You have no mother, then ? " 
 
 " No ; mamma died when I was three years old." 
 
 The Empress packet was entering the harbour by this time. 
 The grey-headed Englishman went away to look after his port- 
 manteaus and hat-boxes, but he returned presently to the fair- 
 haired school-girl. 
 
 " Will you let me help vou with your luggage ? " he said. ** I 
 win go and look after it, if you will tell me for what to inquire." 
 
 " You are very kind. I have only one box. It is directed to 
 Visa Yane, Paris."
 
 Going Home. % 
 
 "Teiy well. Miss Yane, I will go and find yonr box. Stay," 
 he said, taking out his card-case, " this is my name, and if you 
 will permit me, I will see you safely tcv Paris." 
 
 "Thank you, sir. You are very kind." 
 
 The young lady accepted her new friend's service as frankly as 
 it was ofiered. He had grey hair, and in that one particular at, 
 least resembled her father. That was almost enough to make 
 her hke him. 
 
 There was the usual confusion and delay at the Custom-house 
 — a httle squabbling and a good deal of bribery ; but everything 
 was managed, upon the whole, pretty comfortably. Most of the 
 passengers dropped in at the Hotel de 1' Europe, or some of the 
 other hotels upon the stony quay; a few hurried off to the 
 market-place, to stare at the cathedral church of Saint Jacques, 
 or the great statue of Abraham Duquesne, the rugged sea-king, 
 with broad-brimmed hat and waving plumes, high boots and 
 flowing hair, and to buy peaches and apricots of the noisy 
 market-women. Others wandered in the shmy and shppery fish- 
 market, fearfully and wonderingly contemplative of those hideous 
 conger-eels, dog-fish, and other piscatorial monstrosities which 
 eeem pecuhar to Dieppe. Miss Vane and her companion strolled 
 into the dusky church of Saint Jacques by a little wooden door 
 in a shady nook of the edifice. A few solitary women were 
 kneehng here and there, half- hidden behind their high-backed 
 lush chairs. A fisherman was praying upon the steps of a 
 little chapel, in the solemn obscurity. 
 
 " I have never been here before," Miss Yane whispered. " I 
 came by Dover and Calais, the last time ; but this way is so 
 much cheaper, and I almost think it nicer, for the journey's so 
 short from London to Newhaven, and I don't mind the long sea 
 voyage a bit. Thank you for bringing me to see this cathedral." 
 
 Half-an-hour after this the two travellers were seated in a 
 first-class carriage, with other railway passengers, French and 
 English, hurrying through the fair Norman landscape. 
 
 Miss Yane looked out at the bright hills and woods, the fruit- 
 ful orchards, and white-roofed cottages, so \Tlla-Uke, fantastical,, 
 and beautiful ; and her face brightened with the brightening of 
 the landscape under the hot radiance of the sun. The grey- 
 headed gentleman felt a quiet pleasure in watching that earnest, 
 hopeful, candid face ; the grey eyes, illumined with gladness ; 
 the parted lips, almost tremulous with dehght, as the sunny 
 panorama glided by tlie open window. 
 
 The quiet old bachelor's heart had been won by his com- 
 panion's frank acceptance of his simple service. 
 
 " Another girl of her age would have been as frightened of a 
 masculine stranger as of a wild beast," he thought, " and would 
 have given herself aP manner of missish airs ; but this young
 
 10 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 damsel smiles in my face, and trusts me with almost infantile 
 simplicity. I lupe lier father is a good man. I don't much Kke 
 that talk of Sheridan and Beau Brummel and the Beefsteak 
 Club. No very good school for fathers that, I should fancy. 1 
 wish her mother had been aUve, poor child. I hope she is going 
 to a happy home, and a haj^py future." 
 
 The train stopped at Rouen, and Miss Yane accepted a cup of 
 coffee and some brioches from her companion. The red August 
 sunset was melting into grey mistiness by this time, and the lirst 
 shimmer of the moonUght was silvery on the water as they 
 crossed the Seine and left the lighted city behind them. The 
 grey-headed Englishman fell asleep soon after this, and before 
 long there was a low chonis of snoring, mascuhne and feminine, 
 audible in the comfortable carriage ; only broken now and then, 
 when the train stopped with a jerk at some fantastic village that 
 looked like a collection of Swiss toy cottages in the dim summer 
 night. 
 
 But, let these matter-of-fact people snore and slumber as they 
 might, there was no such thing as sleep for Eleanor ^^ane. It 
 would have been utter sacrilege to have slept in the face of all 
 that moonlighted beauty, to have been carried sleei^ing tlu-ough 
 that fairy landscape. The eager school-girl's watchful eyes 
 drank in the loveliness of every liiU and valley ; the low scat- 
 tered woodland; the watering streams; and that perplexing 
 Seine, which the rumbhng carriage crossed so often with a dis- 
 mal hollow sound in the stillness of the night. 
 
 No ; INIiss Vane's bright grey eyes were not closed once in that 
 evening journey; and at last, when the train entered the great 
 Parisian station, when aU the trouble and confusion of arrival 
 began — that wearisome encounter of difficulty which makes 
 cowardly travellers wish the longest joi;rney longer than it is — 
 the young lady's head was thrust out of the %vindow, and her 
 eager eyes wandered hither and thither amongst the faces of 
 the crowd. 
 
 Yes, he was there — her father. That white-haired old man. 
 Math the gold-headed cane, and the aristocratic appearance. She 
 pointed him out eagerly to her fellow-passenger. 
 
 "That is papa — you see, — the handsome man. He is coming 
 this way, but he doesn't see us. Oh, let me out, please; let me 
 go to him ! " 
 
 She trembled in her eagerness, and her fair face flushed crimson 
 with excitement. She forgot her carpet-bag, her novel, her 
 crochet, her smelling-bottle, her cloak, her parasol — all her para- 
 phernaha : and left her companion to collect them as best he 
 might. She was ou" ,of the carriage and in her father's arms 
 she scarcely knew b jw. The platform seemed deserted aU in a 
 moment, for the p9 isengers had rushed away to a great dreary
 
 Ooing Home, IX- 
 
 talle (Tattenfe, fhcre to await the inspection of their luggage. 
 Miss Vane, her fellow-traveller, and her father, were almost alone, 
 and she was looking up at the old man's face in the lamplight. 
 
 " Papa, dear papa, darling, how well you are looking ; ae well 
 as ever ; better than ever, I think ! " 
 
 Her father drew himself up proudly. He was past seventy 
 years of age, but he was a very handsome man. His beauty was 
 of that patrician type which loses Uttlc by age. He was tall and 
 broad-chested, erect as a Grenadier, but not fat. The Prince 
 Regent might become corpulent, and lay himself open to the 
 insolent sneers of liis sometime boon compamon and friend ; but 
 Mr. George Mowbray Vandeleur Vane held himself on his guard 
 against that insidious foe which steals away the graces of so many 
 elderly gentlemen. Mr. Vane's aristocratic bearing imparted 
 such a stamp to his clothes, that it was not easy to see the shab- 
 biness of his garments; but those gai-ments were shabby. Care- 
 fully as they had been brashed, they bore the traces of that 
 slow decay wliich is not to be entii-ely concealed, whatever the 
 art of the wearer. 
 
 Miss Vane's travelling companion saw all this. He had been 
 BO much interested by the young lady's frank and fearless man- 
 ner, that he would fain have Ungered in the hope of learning 
 something of her father's character ; but he felt that he had no 
 excuse for delaying his departure. 
 
 " I will wish you good night, now. Miss Vane," he said, kindly, 
 " since you are safeljr restored to your i^apa." 
 
 Mr. Vane lifted his grey eyebrows, looked at his daughter in- 
 terrogatively ; rather suspiciously, the traveller thought. 
 
 " Oh, pajm, dear," the young lady answered, in reply to that 
 questioning look, " this gentleman was on board the boat with 
 me, and he has been so very kind." 
 
 She searched in her pocket for the card which her acquaintance 
 had given her, and produced that document, rather limp and 
 crumpled. Her father looked at it, murmured the name in- 
 scribed upon it twice or thrice, as if trpng to attach some aris- 
 tocratic association thereto, but evidently failed in doing so. 
 
 " I have not the honour of — a — haw — knowing this name, 
 sir," he said, lifting his hat stiffly about half a yard from his 
 silvered head ; " but for your courtesy and kindness to my 
 child, I hope you will accept my best thanks. I was prevented 
 by important business of — a — haw — not altogether uuclii^lomatio 
 character — from crossing the Channel to fetch my daughter; 
 and — aw — also — prevented from sencliu^ my servant — by — aw 
 — I thank you for your politeness, sir. You are a stranger, by 
 the way. Can I do anything for you in Paris .'^ Lord Cowley 
 is my very old friend ; an}" service that I can render you in that 
 qu arter — I ' '
 
 12 Eleanor's Victorjf, 
 
 The traveller bowed and smiled. 
 
 " Thank you very much," he said, " I am no stranger in 
 Paris. I will wish you good night ; good night, Miss Vane." 
 
 But Mr. Vane was not going to let his daughter's friend off 
 80 easily. He produced his card-case, murmured more pompous 
 assurances of his gratitude, and tendered further offers of pa- 
 tronage to the quiet traveller, who found something rather 
 oppressive in Mr. Vane's civility. But it was aU over at last, 
 and the old man led his daughter off to look for the trunk which 
 contained all her worldly j^ossessions. 
 
 The stranger looked wistfully after the father and child. 
 
 " I hope she may have a happy future," he thought, rather 
 despondingly ; " the old man is poor and pompous. He tells 
 lies which bring hot blushes iato his daughter's beautiful face. 
 I am very sorry for her." 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE ENTRESOL IN THE KUE DE l'aHCHEVEQTTE. 
 
 Mr. Vane took his daughter awajr from the station in one of 
 those secondary and cheaper vehicles which are distinguished 
 by the discrimiuating Parisian by some mysterious difference of 
 badge. The close, stifling carriage rattled over the uneven 
 stones of long streets which were unfamdiar to Eleanor Vane, 
 until it emerged into the full glory of the lighted Boulevard. 
 The Hght-hearted school-girl could not suppress a cry of rapture 
 as she looked once more at the broad thoroughfare, the dazzling 
 lamps, the crowd, the theatres, the cafes, the beauty and splen- 
 dour, although she had spent her summer hohday in Paris only 
 a year before. 
 
 " It seems so beautiful again, papa," she said, "just as if I'd 
 never seen it before ; and I'm to stop here now, and never, never 
 to leave you again, to go away for such a cruel distance. You 
 don't know how unhappy I've been, sometimes, papa dear. I 
 wouldn't tell you then, for fear of making you uneasy; but I 
 can tell you now, now that it's all over." 
 
 " Unhappy ! " gasped the old man, clenching his fist ; " they've 
 not been unkind to you — they've not dared " 
 
 " Oh, no, dearest father. They've been very, very good. I 
 was quite a favourite, papa. Yes, though there were so many 
 rich girls in the school, and I was only a half-boarder, I was 
 
 fuite a favourite with Miss Bennett and Miss Sophia ; though 
 know I was careless and lazy sometimes — not on purpose, you 
 know, papa, for I tried hard to get on with my education, for 
 your sake, darling. No, everybody was very kind to me, papa; 
 but 1 used to think sometimes how far I was from you ; wha%
 
 The Entresol in the Rue de VArcheveque. 18 
 
 miles and miles and miles of sea and land there were between 
 as, and that if you should be ill — I " 
 
 Eleanor Vane broke down, and her father clasped her in hia 
 arms, and cried over her silently. The tears came \vith very 
 little provocation to the old man's handsome blue eyes. He was 
 of that sanguine temperament which to the last preserves the 
 fondest delusions of youth. At seventy-five years of age he 
 hoped and dreamed and deluded himself as foohshly as he had 
 done at seventeen. His sanguine temperament had been for 
 ever leading him astray for more than sixty years. Severe 
 judges called George Vane a bar; but perhaps his shallow 
 romances, his pitiful boasts, were more often highly-coloured an(? 
 poetical versions of the truth, than actual falsehood. 
 
 It was past twelve o'clock when the carriage drove away from 
 the lights and splendour into the darkness of a labyrinth of 
 quiet streets behind the Madeleine. The Rue de TArcheveque 
 was one of these dingy and quiet streets, very narrow, very 
 close and stifling in the hot August midnight. The vehicle 
 stopped abruptly at a comer, before a httle shop, the shutters 
 of which were closed, of course, at this hour. 
 
 " It is a butcher's shop, I am sorry to say, my love," Mr. 
 Vane said, apologetically, as he handed liis daughter on to the 
 pavement ; " but I find myself very comfortable here, and it is 
 conveniently adjacent to the Boulevards." 
 
 The old man paid the driver, who had deposited mademoiselle's 
 box upon the threshold of the little door beside the butcher's 
 shop. The j)oiLrhoire was not a veiy large one, but Iklr. Vane 
 bestowed it with the air of a prince. He pushed open the low 
 door, and took liis daughter into a narrow passage. There was 
 no porter or portress, for the butcher's shop and the apartments 
 belonging to it were abnormal altogether; but there was a caudle 
 and box of matches on a shelf m a comer of the steep cork- 
 screw staircase. The driver carried Eleanor's box as far as the 
 entresol in consideration of his pourhoire, but departed while Mr. 
 Vane was opening the door of an apartment facmg the staircase. 
 
 The entresol consisted of three little rooms, opening one out 
 of another, and so small and low that Miss A'ane almost fancied 
 herself in a doll's house. Every article of furniture in the 
 etifling Uttle apartment bore the impress of its nationalit}'. 
 Tawdry curtains of figured damask, resplendent with dirty 
 tubps and monster roses, tarnished ormolu mouldings, a gilded 
 clock with a cracked dial and a broken shade, a pair of rickety 
 bronze candlesticks, a couple of uncompromising chairs covered 
 with dusty green velvet and relieved by brass-headed nails, and 
 a square table with a long trailing cover of the same material 
 as the curtains, completed the adornments of the sitting-room. 
 The bed-chambers were smaller, closer, and hotter. VoluniinoiM
 
 14 JEleanor's Victory. 
 
 worstea curtains falling before the narrow windows, and smo 
 tlieriiig the little beds, made the stifling atmosphere yet more 
 stifling. The low ceilings seemed to rest on the top of poo? 
 Eleanor's head. She had been accustomed to large airy rooms, 
 and broad uncurtained open windows. 
 
 " How hot it is here, papa," she said, drawing a long breath. 
 
 " It always is hot in Paris at this time of year, my dear," 
 Mr. Vane answered ; " the rooms are small, you see, but conve- 
 nient. That is to be your bedroom, my love," he added, indi- 
 cating one of the little chambers. 
 
 He was evidently habituated to Parisian lodging-houses, and 
 saw no discomfort m the tawdry grandeur,' the shabby splendour, 
 the pititul attempt to substitute scraps of gildiug and patches 
 of velvet for the common necessaries and decencies of Hfe. 
 
 " And now let me look at you, my dear ; let me look at you, 
 SJleanor.** 
 
 George Mowbray Vane set the candlestick upon tne rusty 
 velvet cover of the low mantel-piece, and drew his daughter 
 towards him. She had thrown off her bonnet and loose grey 
 cloak, and stood before her father in her scanty muslin frock, with 
 all her auburn hair hanging about her face and shoulders, and 
 ghttering in the dim light of that one scrap of wax candle. 
 
 " My pet, how beautiful you have grown, how beautiful !" the 
 old man said, with an accent of fond tenderness. "We'll teach 
 Mrs. Bannister a lesson some of these days, Eleanor. Yes, owr 
 turn will come, my love ; I know that I shall die a rich man." 
 
 Miss Vane was accustomed to hear this remark from her 
 father. She inherited sometliing of his sanguine nature, and she 
 loved him very dearly, so she may be forgiven if she believed in 
 his vague visions of future grandeur. She had never seen any- 
 thing in her hfe but chaotic wrecks of departed splendour, con- 
 fasion, debt, and difiiculty. She had not been called upon to 
 face poverty in the fair hand-to-hand struggle which ennobles 
 and elevates the sturdy wrestler in the battle of hfe. No, she 
 ad rather been compelled to play at hide-and-seek with the grim 
 nemy. She had never gone out into the open, and looked her 
 06 full in the eyes, hardy, resolute, patient, and steadfast. She 
 
 as familiar with all those debasing tricks and pitiful subter- 
 
 ges whereby the weak and faint-hearted seek to circumvent 
 
 e enemy ; but she had never been taught the use of those 
 
 easures by which he may be honestly beaten. 
 
 The Mrs. Bannister of whom George Vane had spoken, was 
 
 ne of hia elder daughters, who had been very, very ungrateful 
 
 .;0 him, he declared ; and who now in his old age doled him out 
 
 he meagre allowance which enabled him to occupy an entresol 
 
 Over a butcher's shop, and diae daily at one of the cheap restau- 
 
 rante in the Palais BojaL
 
 Tlie Entresol in the Rue de VArcheveque. IS 
 
 Mr. Vane was wont to lament his daufrhter's cruel lack of 
 affection in very bitter language, freely interspersed with quota- 
 tions from " King Lear;" indeed I believe he considered his case 
 entirely parallel vni\\ that of the injured British monarch and 
 father ; ignoring the one rather important fact that, whereas 
 Lear's folly had been the too generous division of his own fortune 
 between his recreant daughters, his weakness had been the reck- 
 less waste and expenditure of the portions which his children 
 had inherited from their mother. 
 
 Mrs. Bannister, instigated thereto by her husband, had pro- 
 tested some years before against the several acta of folly and 
 extravagance by which the fortune which ought to have been 
 hers had been fooled away. She declmed to allow her father 
 more than the pittance alluded to above ; although, as she was 
 now a rich widow, and of course entirely her own mistress, she 
 might have done much more. 
 
 " Yes, my darUng," Mr. Vane said, as he proudly contemplai d 
 his youngest child's beauty, " we will turn the tables upon Mrs. 
 Bannister and the rest of them, yet, please God. My Benjamin ; 
 my youngest, brightest darling; we'll teach them a lesson. 
 They may poke their old father away in a foreign lodging, and 
 stint him of money for any httle innocent pleasure ; but the day 
 will come, my love, the day Avill come ! " 
 
 The old man nodded his head two or three times with solemn 
 aignificance. The sanguine, impulsive nature, dwarfed and 
 fettered by the cruel bonds of povertj^, was too elastic to be 
 entirely repressed even bj those galhng chains ; and having 
 hoped all his Ufe, and having enjoyed such successes and good 
 fortune as fall to the lot of very few men, he went on hoping 
 in his old a^e, blindly confident that some sudden revolution in 
 the wheel of life would Uft him out of his obscurity and set him 
 again on the pinnacle he had once occupied so proudly. 
 
 He had had a host of friends and many children, and he had 
 aqnandered more than one fortune, not being any more careful 
 of other people's money than of his own ; and now, in his 
 poverty and desolation, the child of his old age was the only one 
 who clung to him, and loved liim, and believed in him ; the only 
 one whom he loved, perhaps, truly and unreserredlj', thougli 
 he wept frequently over the ingratitude of the others. It 
 may be that Eleanor was the only one whom he could lovo 
 witn any comfort to himself, because the only one he had never 
 injured. 
 
 " But, papa, dear," this youngest and best loved of the old 
 man's cliildren jileaded gently, "Mrs. Bannister, Hortensia, has 
 been very good — has she notP — in sending the money for my 
 education at Madame Marly's, where she was finished her 
 That was very generous of her, wasn't it, papa ? "
 
 16 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Mr. Vane shook hi? head, and lifted Ids grey eyebrows with • 
 deprecating expression. 
 
 "Hortensia Bannister cannot perform a generous act in a 
 generous manner, my dear. You recognize the viper by the 
 reptile's sting : you may recognize Hortensia in pretty much the 
 eame manner. She gives, but she insults the recipients of he' 
 — ahem — bounty. Shall I read you her letter, Eleanor ? " 
 
 " If you please, dear papa." 
 
 The young lady had seated herself, in a somewhat hoydenish 
 manner, upon the elbow of her father's chair, and had wound 
 her soft round arm about his neck. She loved him and beUeved 
 in him. The world which had courted and admired him while 
 he had money and could boast such acquaintance as the Prince 
 and Sheridan, Sir Francis Burdett, Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Pitt, 
 and the Duke of York, had fallen away from him of late ; and 
 the few old associates who yet remained of that dead-and-gona 
 cycle were apt to avoid him, influenced perhaps by the recol- 
 lection of small loans of an occasional five-pound note, and a 
 " Uttle silver," wliich had not been repaid. Yes, the world had 
 fallen away from George Mowbray Vandeleur Vane, once of 
 Vandeleur Park, Cheshire, and Mowbray Castle, near York. 
 The tradesmen who had helped him to squander his money had 
 let him get very deep in their books before they closed those cruel 
 ledgers, and stoj^ped all supplies. He had existed for a long 
 time — he had Hved as a gentleman, he said himself — upon the 
 traditions of the past, the airy memories of the fortunes he had 
 wasted. But this was all over now, and he had emigrated to the 
 city in which he had played the Grand Seigneur in those glorious 
 early days of the Kestoration, and where he was compelled to 
 lead a low and vulgar hfe, disgracing liimself by pettifogging 
 ready-money dealings, utterly degrading to a gentleman. 
 
 He could not bring himself to own that he was better and 
 happier in this new life, and that it was pleasant to be able to 
 walk erect and defiant upon the Boulevards, rather than to be 
 compelled to jjlunge down dark alleys, and dive into sinuous 
 byways, for the avoidance of importunate creditors, as he had 
 been in free England. 
 
 He took his wealthy daughter's letter from the breast-pocket 
 of his coat ; a fashionable coat, though shabby now, for it had 
 been made for him by a sentimental German tailor, who had 
 wept over his late patron's altered fortimes, and given him credit 
 for a suit of clothes. That compassionate German tailor never 
 expected to be paid, and the clothes were a benefaction, a gift as 
 purely and generously given as any Christian dole offered in the 
 holy name of charity ; but Mr. Vane was pleased with the fiction 
 of an expected payment, and would have revolted against the 
 idea of receiving a present from the good-natured tradesman.
 
 The Entresol in the Hue de FArchevique. 17 
 
 The letter from Hortonsia Bannister was not a long one. It 
 was written in sharp and decisive paragraphs, and in a neat firm 
 hand. Kathcr a cruel-looking hand, Eleanor Vane thought. 
 
 The old man put a double gold eyeglass over his nose, and 
 began to read. 
 
 "Hyde Park Gardens, August, 1853. 
 
 " Mt dkar. Father, — In compliance with your repeated soli- 
 citations I have determined upon taking measures by which I 
 hope the future welfare of your youngest daughter may l« 
 secured. 
 
 " I must, however, remind you that Eleanor Yane and I are 
 the cliildren of difierent mothers ; that she has, therefore, les3 
 claim upon me than a sister usually has ; and I freely conless I 
 never heard of one sister being called upon to provide for another. 
 
 " You must also remember that I never entertained any degree 
 of friendshij) or affection for Eleanor's mother, who was much 
 below you in station, and whom you married in direct opposition 
 to myself and my sisters " 
 
 Eleanor started ; she was too impetuous to listen quite pas- 
 sively to this letter. Her father felt the sudden movement ol 
 the arm about his neck. 
 
 " Your mother was an angel, my dear," he said ; " and this 
 woman is — never mind what. My daughters chose to give them- 
 selves airs to your poor mother because she had been their gover- 
 ness, and because her father had failed as a sugar-broker." 
 
 He went back to the letter, groj^ing nervously for the place 
 at which he had left olf, with the point of his well-shaped 
 finger — 
 
 " But you tell me that you have no power to make any pro- 
 vision whatsoever for your daughter ; and that, unless I assist 
 you, tliis unhai:)py girl may, in the event of your death, be Hung 
 penniless upon the world, imperfectly educated, and totally 
 mcomj^etent to get her living." 
 
 '■ She speaks of my death very freely," the old man mur- 
 mured, "but she's right enough. I shan't trouble anybody 
 long, my dear ; I shan't trouble anybody long." 
 
 The tender arms wound themselves more closely about George 
 Vane's neck. 
 
 "Papa, darling," the soft voice whispered, "you have never 
 troubled me. Don't go on with that horrid letter, papa. We 
 won'tijaccept any favours from such a woman." 
 
 " Yes, yes, my love, for your sake ; if I stoop, it is for your 
 sake, Eleanor." 
 
 The old man went on reading. 
 
 " Under these circum>jtances," the writer continued, " I have 
 oome to the following determination. I will give you a hundred 
 pounds, to be paid to Madame Jlarly, who knows you, and has
 
 18 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 received a great deal of money from you for my ed-ucation and 
 that of my sisters, and who will, therefore, be inclined to receive 
 Eleanor upon advantageous terms. For this sum of money 
 Madame Marly will, I feel assured, consent to prepare my half- 
 eister for the situation of governess in a gentleman's family; 
 that is, of course, premising that Eleanor has availed herself 
 conscientiously of the advantages afforded her by her residence 
 with the Misses Bennett. 
 
 " I shall write to Madame Marly by this post, using my best 
 influence with her for Eleanor's benetit ; and should I receive a 
 favourable reply to this letter, I ■wdl immediately send jom an 
 order for a hundred pounds, to be paid by you to Madame 
 Marly. 
 
 " I do this in order that you may not appear to my old in« 
 Btructress — who remembers you as a rich man — in the position 
 of a pauper ; but in thus attempting to spare your feelings, 
 and perhaps my own, I fear that I run some risk. 
 
 " Let me therefore warn you that this money is the last I will 
 ever pay for my half-sister's benefit. Squander or misuse it if 
 you please. You have robbed me often, and would not perhaj)8 
 hesitate to do so again. But bear in mind, that this time it is 
 Eleanor you will rob and not me. 
 
 " The only chance she will have of completing her education 
 is the chance I now give her. Rob her of this and you rob her 
 of an honourable future. Deprive her of this and you make 
 yourself answerable for any misfortunes which may befall her 
 when you are dead and gone. 
 
 " Forgive me if I have spoken harshly, or even undutifully ; 
 my excuse lies in your past follies. I have spoken strongly 
 because I wished to make a strong impression, and I believe 
 that I have acted for the best. 
 
 " Once for all, remember that I will attend to no future soli- 
 citations on Eleanor's behalf. If she makes good use of the 
 help I now afford her, I may perhaps be tempted to render her 
 further services — unsolicited — in the future. If she or you 
 make a bad use of this one chance, I wash my hands of all 
 concern in your future miseries. 
 
 "The money will be made payable at Messrs. Blount's, Rue 
 de la Paix. 
 
 " I trust you attend the Protestant Church in the Rue Rivoli. 
 
 " With best wishes for your welfare, temporal and eternal, I 
 remain, my deai- father, 
 
 "Tour affectionate daughter, 
 
 "HOKTENSIA BaNNISTEK.*' 
 
 George Yane burst into tears as he finished the letter. How 
 erueUy she had stabbed him, this honourable, conscientious
 
 The Entresol in the Sue de VArcheveqne. 19 
 
 daughter, whom he had robbed certainly, but in a generous, 
 magnanimous, reckless fashion, that made robbery rather a 
 princely virtue than a sordid vice. How cruelly the old heart 
 was lacerated by that bitter letter ! 
 
 " As if I would touch the money," cried Mr. Vane, elevating 
 his trembling hands to the low ceiling with a passionate and 
 tragic gestui-e. " Have I been such a wretch to you, Eleanor, 
 that this woman should accuse me of wishing to snatch the 
 bread from your innocent Ups ? " 
 
 " Papa, papa ! " 
 
 " Have I been such an unnatural father, such a traitor, liar, 
 Bwindler, and cheat, that my own daughter should say these 
 things to me ? " 
 
 His voice rose higher with each sentence, and the tears 
 streamed down his wrinkled cheeks. 
 
 Eleanor tried to kiss away those tears ; but he pushed her 
 from him with passionate vehemence. 
 
 " Go away from me, my cliild, I am a wretch, a robber, a 
 scoundrel, a " 
 
 " No, no, no, papa," cried Eleanor ; " you are all that is good{ 
 you have always been good to me, dear, dear papa." 
 
 " By what right, then, does this woman insult me with such 
 a letter as that?" asked the old man, drying his eyes, and 
 pointing to the crumpled letter which he had flung upon the 
 ground. 
 
 " She has no right, papa," answered Eleanor. " She is a 
 wicked, cruel woman. But we'll send back her money. I'd 
 rather go out into the world at once, papa, and work for you : 
 I'd rather be a dressmaker. I could learn soon if I tried very 
 hard. I do know a little about dressmaking. I made tliis 
 dress, and it fits very well, only I cut out both the backs for one 
 side, and both sleeves for one arm, and that wasted the stuff, 
 you know, and made the skirt a httle scanty. I'd rather do 
 Anything, papa, than accept this money, — I would indeed. I 
 don't wan.j to go to this grand Parisian school, except to be near 
 you, papa, darling. That was the only thing I ever cared for. 
 The Miss Bennetts would take me as a pupil teacher, and give 
 me fifteen pounds a-year, and I'd send every sliilling of it to 
 you, papa, and then you needn't live over a wretched shop where 
 the meat smells nasty in the warm weather. We won't take 
 the money, ^vill we, papa ? " 
 
 The old man shook liis head, and made a motion with his lips 
 and throat, as if he had been gulping down some bitter draught. 
 
 " Yes, my dear," he said, in a tone of ineffable resignation, 
 ** for your sake I would sufier many humiliations ; for your sake 
 I will endure this. We will take no notice of this woman's 
 letter ; though I could write her a reply that — but no matter.
 
 20 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 "We will let her insolence pass, and elie shall never know how 
 keenly it has stung me here ! " 
 
 He tapped his breast as he spoke, and the tears rose again to 
 his eyes. 
 
 " We will accept this money, Eleanor," he continued, " we 
 will accept her bounty ; and the day may come when you wiU 
 have ample power to retahate — ample power, my dear. She 
 has called me a thief, Eleanor," exclaimed the old man, sud- 
 denly returning to his own wrongs, "a thief! My own daughter 
 has called me a thief, and accused me of the baseness of robbing 
 you." 
 
 " Papa, papa, darling." 
 
 "As if your father could rob you of this money, Eleanor; aa 
 if I could touch a penny of it. No, so help me, Heaven ! not a 
 penny of it to save me from starving." 
 
 His head sank forward upon his breast, and he sat for some 
 minutes muttering to himself in broken sentences, as if almost 
 unconscious of his daughter's presence. In that time he looked 
 older than he had looked at any moment since his daughter had 
 met him at the station. Watching him now, wistfully and sor- 
 rowfully, Eleanor Vane saw that her father was indeed an old 
 man, vacillating and weak of purpose, and with am^^le need of 
 all the compassionate tenderness, the fond affection, which over- 
 flowed her girlish heart as she looked at him. She knelt down 
 on the slippery oaken floor at his feet, and took his tremulous 
 hand in both of hers. 
 
 He started as she touched him, and looked at her. 
 
 "My darhng," he cried, "you've had nothing to eat; you've 
 been nearly an hour in the house, and you've had nothing to 
 eat. But I've not forgotten you, NeU ; you'll find I've not for- 
 gotten you." 
 
 He rose from his chair, and went over to a little cupboard in 
 the wall, from which he took a couple of plates and tumblers, 
 aome knives and forks, and two or three parcels wrapped in 
 white paper, and neatly tied with narrow red tape. He put 
 these on the table, and going a second time to the cupboard 
 produced a pint bottle of Burgundy, in a basket ; very dusty 
 and cobwebby ; and therefore, no doubt, very choice. 
 
 The white paper parcels contained very recherche comestibles. 
 A slender wedge of trufiled turkey, some semi-transparent slices 
 of German sausage, and an open plum tart, with a great deal 
 of rich ruby-coloured syrup, and an utterly uneatable crust. 
 
 Miss Yane partook very freely of this little collation, praismg 
 her father for his goodness and indulgence as she ate the simple 
 feast he had prepared for her. But she did not Hke the Bur- 
 gundy in the dusty basket, and preferred to diink some water 
 out of one 'tT ifc j toilette-bottles.
 
 The Story of tie Past. H 
 
 Her father, however, enjoyed the pint of good wine, and re- 
 covered his equanimity under its generous influence. He had 
 neyer been a drunkard ; he had indeed one of those excitable 
 natures which cannot endure the influence of strong drinks, and 
 a very little wine had considerable eflFect upon him. 
 
 He talked a good deal, therefore, to his daughter, told her 
 some of his delusive hopes in the future, tried to explain some 
 of the plans which he had formed for his and her advancement, 
 and was altogether very happy and social. The look of age, 
 which had been so strong upon him half an hour before, faded 
 out like a grey morning shadow under the broadening sunUght. 
 He was a young man again ; proud, hopeful, reckless, hand- 
 'jome ; ready to run through three more fortunee, if they should 
 fall to his lot. 
 
 It was past two o'clock when Eleanor Vane lay down, 
 thoroughly exhausted, but not weary — she had one of those 
 natures which seem never to grow weary — to fall asleep for the 
 first time in four-and-twenty hours. 
 
 Her father did not quite so quickly fall into a peaceful slumber. 
 He lay awake for upwards of an hour, tumbling and tossing to 
 and fro upon the narrow spring mattress, and muttering to 
 himself 
 
 And even in his sleep, though the early summer dawn was 
 grey in the room when he fell into a fitful and broken slumber, 
 the trouble of his eldest daughter's letter was heavy upon him, 
 for every now and then he muttered, disjointly, — 
 
 " Thief — swindler ! As if — as if — I would — rob — my own 
 daughter." 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE STORT OF TUE PAST. 
 
 Thb history of George Mowbray Vandeleur Yane was the 
 history of many men whose lot it was to shine in that brilliant 
 orbit of which George, Prince Regent, was the ruhng star. 
 Around that dazzling royal planet how many smaller lights re- 
 volved, twinkling in humble emulation of their prince's glory. 
 "What were fortune, friends, children, wives, or creditors, when 
 weighed in the balance, if the royal favour, the princely smile, 
 hung on the other side of the scale P If George the Fourth was 
 
 E leased to bring ruin upon himself and his creditors, how should 
 is friends and associates do less ? Looking backward at the 
 Bpurious glitter, the mock splendour, the hollow dehght of that 
 wonderful age which is so near us in point of time, so far away 
 from us by reason of the wide diflferences which di\'ide to-day from 
 that foohsh yesterday, we can of course afford to be very wise, 
 and can clearly see what a very witches' sabbath was that long
 
 22 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 revelry i n whicli the Fonrtli George of England led the dance. 
 But wb ) shall doubt that the dancers themselves saw the fan- 
 tastic caperings of their leader in a very different Hght, and looked 
 upon their model as worthy of all mortal praise and imitation. 
 
 The men of that frivolous era seem to have abandoned them- 
 selves to unmanly weakness, and followed the fashions set them 
 (by the fat and pale-faced Royal Adonis, as blindly as the women 
 ©f to-day e.Tiulate the Imperial caprices of the Tuileries, sacri- 
 icing themselves as burnt ofierings to the Moloch of Fashion, 
 in obedience to the laws made by a lady who Hves in a palace ; 
 and who, when she wears her silken robe three yards in length 
 and six in circumference, can scarcely be expected to foresee the 
 nervous torttu-es by-and-by to be endured by Mr. John Smith, of 
 Peckham Rye, whose wife will insist on having a hoop and train 
 a, V Oojenee, and sweeping her superabundant skirts into the 
 fender and across the back of the grate every time she steers her 
 difficult way about the worthy Smith's fourteen feet by twelve 
 front parlour. 
 
 Yes, if Cleopatra melts pearls in her wine, and sails in a galley 
 of gold, we must have sham jewels to dissolve in our inferior 
 vintages, and sham gold to adorn our galleys. If Pericles, or 
 Charles, or George, affects splendour and ruin, the prince's 
 devoted subjects must ruin themselves also, never letting their 
 master see anything but smiling faces amid the general wreck, 
 and utterly heedless of such minor considerations as wives and 
 children, creditors and friends. 
 
 George Mowbray Vandeleur Vane ruined himself vdth a grace 
 that was only second to that of his royal model. He began life 
 with a fair estate left him by his father, and having contrived 
 to squander the best part of his patrimony within a few years of 
 his coming of age, was so lucky as to marry the only daughter 
 and heiress of a rich banker, thereby acquiring a second fortune 
 just at that critical moment when the first was on the verge of 
 exhaustion. He was not a bad husband to the simple girl who 
 loved and worshipped him with a foolishly confiding worship. 
 It was not in his nature to be wilfully bad to anybody ; for he 
 was of a genial, generous spirit, with warm affections for those 
 ■who pleased him and ministered to his happiness. He intro- 
 duced his young wife to very brilliant people, and led her into 
 sacred and inner circles, whither her father the banker could 
 never have taken her ; but he squandered her money foolishly 
 and recldessly. He broke down the bulwarks of parchment 
 with which the lawyers had hoped to protect her fortune. He 
 made light of the settlements which were to provide for the future 
 of his children. They were only blooming and beautiful young 
 creatures in cambric frocks and blue sashes ; and surely, Mr. 
 Vane urged, they had nothing to complain of, for hadn't they
 
 The Story of the Past. 23 
 
 Bplendid apartments and costly dresses, nurses, governesses, 
 masters, carriages, ponies, and indulgences of every kind? 
 What did tliey want, then, or in what manner did he fail in his 
 duty towards those innocent darUngs? Had not his Royal 
 Highness the Duke of Kent himself come to Vandeleur to 
 stand sponsor for Edward George ? Had not Hortensia Geor- 
 
 S'na received her second name after the beautiful Duchess of 
 evonshire, in whose lovely arms she had been dandled when 
 only a fortnight old ? 
 
 Were there any earthly honours or splendours, within the 
 limit of reasonable desire, which George Vane had failed to pro- 
 cure for his wife and children ? 
 
 The gentle lady was fain to answer this question in the negative, 
 and to accept it for what it was not ; namely, an answer to the 
 questions slie had ventured to ask touching the future of those 
 unconscious children. Mr. Vane could always persuade his 
 simple wife to si^ away any of those parchment defences the 
 lawyers had devised for her protection ; and when, after an 
 elegant little tete-a-tete dinner, m the arrangement of which the 
 chef had displayed his most consummate skill, the affectionate 
 husband produced a diamond bracelet or an emerald heart from 
 its morocco casket, and clasped the jewel upon his wife's slender 
 arm, or hung it round her dehcate throat, with the tears gUsten- 
 ing in his handsome blue eyes, gentle Margaret Vane forgot the 
 sacrifices of the morning, and all those shadowy doubts which 
 were wont to torment her when she contemplated the future. 
 
 Then, again, Mr. Vane had an unfailing excuse for present 
 imprudence in the expectation of a third fortune, which was to 
 come to him from his bachelor uncle and godfather, Sir Milwood 
 Mowbray, of Mowbray Castle, York ; so that there were no vul- 
 
 fir retrenchments either' at Vandeleur Park or in Berkeley 
 quare, and when Sir MUwood's fortune did come, in the due 
 course of life and death, to his nephew's hands, it only came just 
 in time to stave off the ruin that threatened George Vane's 
 household. 
 
 If Mr. Vane had then taken his wife's advice, all might have 
 been well ; but the ^Mowbray fortune seemed Uke the two other 
 fortunes, quite inexhaustible; the sanguine gentleman forgetting 
 that he was in debt to fidl half its amount. The French chef 
 still prepared dinners which might have made Oude himseff 
 tremble for his laurels ; the German governess and the Parisian 
 lady's-maids still attended upon Mr. Vane's daughters ; the old 
 career of extravagance went on. George Vane carried his family 
 to the Continent, and plunged them into new gaieties at the court 
 of the restored Louis. He sent liis daughters to the most expen- 
 aive finishing-school in Paris, that very Madame Marly's of wlioni 
 naention has been made in the last chapter. He took them to
 
 24 Eleanor*/ Yictorjf. 
 
 Italy and Switzerland. He hired a villa by the Lake of Como; 
 a chateau on the borders of Liicei*ne. He followed the footsteps 
 of Byron and D'Orsay, Madame de Stael and Lady Blessing- 
 ton ; he affected art, literature, and music. He indulged hia 
 children's every caprice, he gratified their wildest fancies. It 
 was only when the sons saw themselves penniless and profes- 
 sionless, with the great battle of life all before them, and with 
 no weapons wherewith to fight ; and the daughters found them- 
 selves left portionless, to win the best husbands they might in the 
 matrimonial lottery,: it was only at this crisis that these ungrate- 
 ful children turned round upon poor, indulgent Lear, and re- 
 proached him for the extravagances they had helped him to 
 perpetrate. 
 
 This was a cruelty which George Vane could never bring him- 
 self to comprehend. Had he denied them anything, these heart- 
 less children, that they should turn upon him now in his old age 
 — it would have been rather a dangerous thing for any one else 
 to have alluded to his age, though he spoke freely enough of his 
 grey hairs when bewailing his wrongs — and be angry with him 
 because he could not give them fortunes ? This thanklessness 
 was worse than a serpent's tooth. It was now that Mr. Vane 
 began to quote " King Lear," piteously likening himself to that 
 too confiding monarch. 
 
 But he was sixty years old now, and had lived his life. His 
 gentle and trusting wife had died ten years before his money was 
 gone, and of all his four children there was not one who would 
 say a word in his defence. The most aflfectionate and dutiful of 
 them were only silent, and thought they did much in withhold- 
 ing their reproaches. So he let them go their ways, the two 
 sons to fight the battle of fife how they might — the two daugh- 
 ters to marry. They were both handsome and accompUshed, 
 and they married well. And being left quite alone in the world, 
 with nothing but the traditions of a brilliant past, Mr. Vane 
 united his misfortunes to those of a very beautiful girl, who had 
 been his daughters' governess, and who had fallen in love with 
 his splendid graces in the very simpUcity of her heart, thinking 
 his grey hairs more beautiful than the raven locks of meaner men. 
 
 Yes: George Vane possessed this gift of fascination in a 
 dangerous degree, and his second wife loved and believed in him 
 in the day of his decline, as entirely as his first wife had done ia 
 the brighter hours of his prosperity. She loved and trusted him. 
 She bore with a life of perpetual debt and daily difficulty. She 
 sacrificed herself to the mean shifts and petty stratagems of a 
 dishonest existence. She, whose nature was truth itself, humi- 
 liated herself for her husband's sake, and helped to play that 
 Eitiful, skulking game of hide-and-seek in which George Vane 
 oped to escape the honest struggles of poverty.
 
 The Story of the Tost. 2S 
 
 But she died young, worn out, perhaps, by these incessant 
 miseries, and not able to draw consolation from the sham splen- 
 dour and tinselly grandeur with which George Vane tried to 
 invest his fallen state. She died within five years of her mar- 
 riage, leaving a distracted and despairing old man as the sole 
 guardian and protector of her only child. 
 
 This calamity was the bitterest blow that George Vane had 
 ever been called upon to endure. He had loved his second wife, 
 the wife of his poverty and humiliation, far more dearly than he 
 had loved the obedient partner of his splendour and prosperity. 
 She had been more to hira a thousand tunes, this gentle girl who 
 had so uncomplainingly accepted the hardships of her lot, because 
 there had been no idle vanities, no hollow glories, no Princes and 
 Beefsteak Clubs, to stand between him and his love of her. 
 
 She was lost, and he remembered how little he had done to 
 prove his affection for her. She had never reproached him ; no 
 word of upbraiding had ever crossed those tender lips. But how 
 did he know that he had not wronged her as cruelly as he had 
 wronged those noisy cliildren who had betrayed and deserted him? 
 
 He remembered how often he had sUghted her advice, her 
 loving counsel, so pure and true, so modestly offered, so gently 
 spoken. He remembered how many humihations he had forced 
 upon her, how many falsehoods he had compelled her to tell ; 
 how often he had imposed upon her affection, suffering her to 
 slave for him in his blind selfishness. 
 
 He could remember all these things now that she was gone, an<J 
 that it was too late ; too late to fall at her feet and tell her that 
 he was all unworthy of her love and goodness ; too late to offer 
 her even such poor atonement for the past as penitence and tears. 
 A hundred tokens of her in his poor lodgings recalled her a hun- 
 dred times a day, bringing the tears into this poor broken-down 
 mourner's eyes. 
 
 He did not need the presence of his little daughter, whose dark 
 grey eyes looked at him like hers, whose auburn hair had the 
 same golden glory that he had so often seen ghstening in the sun- 
 shine as he sat lazily watching the low evening Ught upon his 
 wife's drooping head. It seemed only yesterday that she had 
 stood in the window working for him — for him. 
 
 His affliction left him for a long time a broken old man. He 
 did not care in tliis dull interval of despair to keep up those out- 
 ward shams of prosperity which he had so persistently preserved. 
 His fashionable coats and boots, treasured so carefully of late, 
 were no longer objects of tender care and delight to him. He 
 ceased to go out into that ignorant and careless world in which 
 he could still play the fine gentleman. He shut himself up and 
 abandoned himself to his grief, and it was a long time before his 
 firivolous nature recovered the shock he had suffered. It ia not
 
 ^ !Eleanor't Victory, 
 
 to be wondered at that, in the agony of his bereaTement, hia 
 youngest cliild became unspeakably dear to liim. He had severed 
 all the links wliich had bound him to the past, and to his elder 
 children. His second marriage had made a new era in his life. 
 If he thought of these elder children at all, it was only to re» 
 member that some of them were Uving in luxury, and that they 
 ought to support him in his penniless old ago. If he wrote to 
 them, he wrote begging-letters, appeahng to them in exactly the 
 same spirit as he might have appealed to the Duke of WeUington 
 or Miss Burdett Coutts. 
 
 Yes ; his youngest daughter usurped the place of an only- 
 child in the old man's heart. He indulged her as he had ia- 
 diilged the ungrateful elder children. He could not give her 
 carriages and horses, liveried servants and splendid houses, but 
 he could now and then prevail upon some weak-minded creditor 
 to trust him, and would come home triumphant to his shabby 
 lodging, bearing spoUs for his beloved Eleanor. He would hire 
 a brougham from a confiding livery-stable keeper, and would 
 take his little girl for a drive in the country. He would get her 
 fine dresses from the silk-mercers who had supplied his elder 
 daughters, and he would compensate her for the shabby miseries 
 of her every-day existence by chance flashes of radiance and glory. 
 
 Then, again, he would very often obtain small sums of money, 
 loans from private friends, it may be, or fleeting treasures from a 
 mysterious source, of which his innocent Httle daughter had no 
 knowledge. So, for the first ten or eleven years of her life, Misa 
 Vane's existence was chequered by sudden ghmpses of abnormal 
 wealth — wonderful feast days of luxury and extravagance — • 
 which contrasted sharply with the dreary poverty of her ordinary 
 experiences. 
 
 Thus it was no uncommon thing for this young lady to dine 
 to-day in a tawdry and rather dirty parlour at Chelsea upon tea 
 and red-herrings, and to-morrow to sit opposite her father in one 
 of the sunny windows at the Crown and Sceptre, eating white- 
 bait with the calm enjoyment of a connoisseur, and looking 
 placidly on while Mr. Vane gave himself ducal airs to the waiters, 
 and found fault with the ichig of his sparkling hock. There was 
 scarcely any extravagance which this little girl had not seen her 
 father perpetrate. She had received from liim a birthday present 
 of a two-guinea wax doll, at the very time at which her schoohng 
 account, at a certain humble Httle seminary near Cheyne Walk, 
 remained unpaid, and her education was brought to a dead-lock 
 by reason of tliis default. She had sighed for that golden-haired 
 waxen plaything, and her father gave it to her because he loved 
 her as he had always loved, weakly and fooUshly. 
 
 She loved him in return : repaying him a hundredfold for his 
 aflection by her innocent love and trust. To her he was all that
 
 The Story of the Past. 27 
 
 was perfect, all that was noble and generous. The big talk, the 
 glowing and sentimental discourse by wliich he was wont to im- 
 pose upon himself, imposed upon her. She beUeved in that fancy 
 portrait which he pamted of himself, and which he himseli 
 believed in as a most faithful and untiattered Ukeness. She be- 
 lieved in that liighly-coloured picture, and thought that George 
 Mowbray Vandeleur Vane was indeed what he represented him- 
 self, and thought himself to be, — an ijijured old man, a sainted 
 martyr to the forgetfulness of the world, and the ingratitude 
 of his children. 
 
 Poor Eleanor was never weary of Ustening to her father's stories 
 about the Prince Regent, and all the lesser planets of the dark- 
 ened sky in which Mr. Vane's light had once shone. She used 
 to walk in the park with the old man in the sunny summer even- 
 ings, proud to see him bow to great people, who returned his 
 recognition with friendly courtesy. She hked to fancy him in the 
 days that were gone, riding side by side with those mighty ones 
 of the earth, whom he was now content to watch wistfully across 
 the iron railings. She was pleased to stroll about the West End 
 in the dusky gloaming of the sott May night, and to look up at 
 the hghts in that princely mansion in Berkeley Square which 
 George Vane had once occupied. lie showed her the windows 
 which had belonged to this and that apartment ; the drawing- 
 room ; the first Mrs. Vane's boudoir; the httle girls' nursery and 
 morning-room. She fancied all those fairy chambers radiant with 
 light and splendour ; and then remembering the shabby rooms 
 at Chelsea, clung closer to her father's arm, in her tender sorrow 
 for his fallen state. 
 
 But she had inheiited much of George Vane's sanguine tem- 
 
 Eerament, and almost as firm as her belief in the past, which 
 ad been a rcahty, was her confidence in the splendid future 
 which her father hoped in. Nothing could have been more sha^ 
 dowy than the foundations upon wliich Mr. Vane had buUt for 
 himself an airy castle. In liis youth and middle age his most 
 intimate friend and companion had been a certain Maurice de 
 Crespigny, the owner of a noble estate in Berksliiie, and not a 
 friend of the Prince Regent's. So, while George Vane's two 
 estates had melted away, and his three fortunes had been ex- 
 
 g ended, Mr. de Crespigny, who was an invahd and a bachelor, 
 ad contrived to keep his land and his money. 
 There was only the difference of two or three years between 
 the ages of the two friends. I believe that Maurice de Crespigny 
 was the younger of the two. And it was during theiv early coUege 
 life that the young men had entered into a, roiiia)itic alliance, 
 very chivalrous and honourable in its nature, but S( arcely likely 
 to stand the wear and tear of worldly experience. 
 
 They were to be friends through lite and until deatli. Thej
 
 28 Mecmor's Victory. 
 
 were to liave no secrets from eacli other. If by any chance th^ 
 ehould happen to fall in love with the same person — and I really 
 think these sentimental collegians rather wished that such a 
 rontingency might arise — one of them, the most noble, the most 
 heroic, was quietly to fall back and suffer in silence, while the 
 weaker won the prize. If either died a bachelor, he was to leave 
 his fortune to the other, whatever less romantic and more common- 
 place claimants, in the way of heirs presumptive, might preas 
 upon him. 
 
 These vows had been made at leant five-ar.d-forty years ago, 
 but out of tliis folly of the past George Vane built liis hope in 
 the future. Maurice de Crespigny was now a soured and hypo- 
 chondriacal old bachelor, shut in and defended on every side by 
 greedy and sycophantic relations, and utterly unapproachable to 
 his shabby old bosom friend ; who could as easily have made his 
 way out of one of the lowest dungeons of the Bastille as he could 
 force an entrance into that closely-guarded citadel within which 
 his college comjjanion sat, lonely and dismal, a desolate old man, 
 watched over by sharjD eyes, greedily noteful of every token of hia 
 decay, ministered to by hands that would have worked eagerly 
 at his winding-sheet, if by so doing they could have hastened 
 the hour of his death. 
 
 If George Vane — remembering his old friend, perhaps, with 
 eomo latent feeling of tenderness intermingled with his merce- 
 nary hopes — made an effort to penetrate the cruel barriers about 
 him, he was repulsed with ignominy by the two maiden nieces 
 who kept watch and ward at Woodlands. If he wrote to Mr. de 
 Crespigny, his missive was returned unopened, with a satirical 
 intimation that the dear invaUd's health was not in a state to 
 endure the annoyance of begging letters. He had made a hun- 
 dred attempts to cross the Hues of the enemy, and had beeo 
 mortified by a hundred failures ; but his sanguine nature was not 
 to be subdued by any humiliation, and he still beheved, firmly 
 and entirely, that whenever Maurice de Crespigny's wiU came to 
 be opened, his name, and his alone, would appear as sole heir to 
 his old friend's wealth. He forgot that Maurice de Crespigny 
 was his junior by some two or three years ; for he had always 
 heard of him of late as a feeble invahd, tottering upon the verge 
 of the grave ; while he himself was erect and stalwart, broad- 
 chested and soldierly -looking ; so ver) soldierly in appearance 
 that the sentinels on guard in the park were wont to salute him 
 as he passed them, mistaking him for some military magnate. 
 
 Yes, he beheved the day would come when poor De Crespigny 
 — he always spoke of his friend with a certain pitiful tenderness — 
 would drop quietly into his grave, and when he would reign at 
 Woedlands with his darling Eleanor, avenging himself upon his 
 ungrateful elder children, reopening accounts with his old cr**
 
 TJie Slory of the Past. 29 
 
 drtors — in all his visions of grandeur and patronage he never 
 thought of paying his debts — and arising from the dull aslie« of 
 uis poverty, a splendid ])ha3nix, golden-plumed and exultant. 
 
 He taught his daughter this belief as religiously as he taught 
 her the simple prayers which she said nightly at his knee. With 
 all his faults he was no unbeUever, though the time which ho 
 devoted to rehgious observances made a very small portion of his 
 existence. He taught Eleanor to believe in the day that was to 
 come, and the Uttle girl saw the light of future splendour gleam- 
 ing athwart the dreary swamp of dilficulty through which she 
 waded jxitiently by her father's side. • 
 
 But the day came when George Vane and his child were to be 
 separated, for a time at least. Eleanor's twelfth birthday way 
 very near at hand, and she had as yet received no better educa- 
 tion than the rather limited course of instruction which was to be 
 obtained for a guinea and a half a quarter at the day-school near 
 Cheyne Walk. For nearly six years, inclusive of many intervals 
 of non-attendance consequent upon non-payment. Miss Vane 
 had frequented this humble seminary, in company with the 
 daughters of the butchers and bakers and the other plebeian 
 inhabitants of the district. But by the time she was twelve 
 years old the various sources from which her fa,ther's very desul- 
 tory income had been dra^vn had o;»c by one run dry and failed 
 him. The weakest and most long-si"^fering of his creditors had 
 crossed his name out of their ledgers , Ms friends had ceased to 
 beheve in the fiction of delayed remittav -".es, urgent temporary 
 need, and early repayment ; and he could no longer count upon 
 an occasional five-pound note when the Chelsea landlady became 
 clamorous, and the Chelsea general dealer refused to send home 
 another ounce of tea, except on payment of ready money. 
 
 A desperate crisis had come, and in his despair the old man 
 forgot his pride. For Eleanor's sake, if not for his o-svn, he must 
 endure humiliation. He must appeal to his eldest daughter, the 
 hard-hearted but wealthy Hortensia Bannister, who had lost her 
 stockbroker husband a twelvemonth before, and was now a rich 
 aoid childless widow. Yes — he wiped the tears of humiliation 
 away from his faded cheeks as he arrived at this resolution — he 
 would try and forget the past, and would take Eleanor with him 
 to Hyde Park Gardens, and appeal to her cruel sister in her 
 behalf. His determination was speedily carried out, for he went 
 CO work with something of that desperate courage which a con- 
 demned criminal may feel when he goes to execution ; and one 
 «unny morning early in the June of 1850, he and his daughter 
 sat in Mrs. Bannister's handsome drawing-room, fearfully await- 
 ing the advent of that lady. She came to them after a very 
 brief delay, for she was business-like and uncompromising in her 
 habits, and she had been prepared for this vnsit by a Icmg, pitiful,
 
 30 Eleanor^s Yictory, 
 
 explanatory letter from her father, in reply to which she had writ* 
 ten very coldly and concisely, aj^pointing an early interview. 
 
 She was a severe-looking woman of about five-and-thirty, witk 
 a hard face, and heavy black eyebrows, which met over her 
 handsome aquiHne nose when she frowned, which she did a greaj 
 deal too often, poor Eleanor thought. Her features were likft 
 those of her father, but her grim and stony expression was en- 
 tirely her own, and was perhaps the result of that early and 
 bitter disappointment of tinding herself a portionless girl, de- 
 serted by the man she loved, who fell away from her when he 
 disco-^red the state of her father's fortunes, and compelled to 
 marry for money, or to accept the wretched alternative of a life 
 of poverty and drudgery. 
 
 This harsh di sappointed woman affected no pretence of tender 
 feehng for her half-sister. Perhaps the sight of Eleanor's 
 childish beauty was scarcely pleasant to her. She herself had 
 drawn a dreary blank in the great lottery of Hfe, in spite of her 
 wealth ; and she may have envied this child her unknown future, 
 which could not well be so dismal as the childless widow's 
 empty existence. 
 
 But Mrs. Bannister was a rehgious woman, and tried to do her 
 duty in a hard, uncompromising way, in which good works were 
 not beautified by any such flimsy adornments as love and ten- 
 derness. So when she heard that her father lived from day to 
 day a wretched hand-to-mouth existence, haunted by the grim 
 phantom of starvation, she was seized with a sudden sense that 
 she had been very wicked to this weak old man, and she agreed 
 to allow him a decent pittance, which would enable him to live 
 about as comfortably as a half-pay officer or a small annuitant. 
 She made this concession sternly enough, and lectured her father 
 so severely that he may be perhaps forgiven if he was not very 
 grateful for liis daughter's bounty, so far as he himself went ; but 
 he did make a feeble protestation of his thankfulness when 
 Mrs. Bannister further declared her willingness to pay a certain 
 premium, in consideration of which Eleanor Vane might be 
 received in a respectable boarding-school as an apprentice or 
 pupil-teacher. 
 
 It was thus that the little girl became acquainted with the 
 Misses Bennett, of Wilmington House, Brixton ; and it was in 
 the household of these ladies that three years of her hfe had been 
 passed. Three quiet and monotonous years of boarding-school 
 drudgery, which had only been broken by two brief visits to her 
 father, who had taken up his abode in Paris ; where he lived 
 secure from the persecution of a few of his latter-day creditors — ■ 
 not the west-end tradesmen who had known him in his prime, 
 hey were resigned and patient enough under their losses — 
 but a few small dealers who had t-nisted him in hia decline.
 
 Tlie Story of the Past. 31 
 
 and who were not rendered lenient by the memory of former 
 profits. 
 
 In Paris, Mr. Vane had very Httle chance of obtaining any 
 information about hia friend Maurice de Crcspigny, but he still 
 looked forward confidently to that \'i8ionary tuture in which ho 
 was to be master of the Woodlands estate. He had take", care 
 to write a letter, soon after Eleanor's birth, which had been art- 
 fully conveyed to his friend, announcing the advent of this 
 youngest child, and dwelling much on his love for her. He 
 cherished some vague notion that, in the event of his death 
 occumng before that of Maurice de Crespigny, the old man 
 might leave his wealth to Eleanor. The contumely with which 
 he had been treated by the maiden harpies who kept watch over 
 his old friend had been pleasant to him rather than other- 
 wise, for in the anger of these elderly damsels he saw an evi- 
 dence of their fear. 
 
 " If they knew that poor Crespigny's money was left to them, 
 they wouldn't be so savage," he thought. " It's evident they're 
 by no means too confident about the future." 
 
 But there were other relatives of the old man's, less fortunate 
 than the maiden sisters, who had found their way into the 
 citadel, and planted themselves en permanence at Woodlands. 
 There was a married niece, who had once been a beauty. This 
 lady had been so fooUsh as to marry against her rich uncle's 
 wishes, and was now a widow, living in the neighbourhood of 
 Woodlands upon an income of two himdred a year. This lady's 
 only son, Launcelot Darrell, had in his bojrhood been a favourite 
 with the old man, and was known to chensh expectations about 
 Maurice de Crespi^y's fortune. But the maiden sisters were 
 patient and indefatigable women. No sacred fire was ever 
 watched more carefully by classic vestal than was the ireful 
 flame which burned in Maurice de Crespigny's heart when he 
 remembered his married niece's ingratitude and disobedience. 
 The unwearying old maids kept his indignation aUve by every 
 feminine subtlety, hj every diplomatic device. Heaven knows 
 what they wanted with their imcle's money, for they were prim 
 damsels, who wore stuff shoes and scanty dresses made in the 
 fashion of their youth. They had outlived the very faculty of 
 enjoyment, and their wants were almost as simple as those of 
 the robins that perched upon their window-siUs ; but for all this 
 they were as eager to become possessors of the old man's wealth 
 as the most heartless and spendthrift heir, tormented by Israel- 
 itiah creditors, and subsisting entirely upon post obits.
 
 38 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 CHAPTEE TV. 
 
 UPON THE TiniESIIOLD OF A GREAT SORRO-W. 
 
 It was nearly noon when Eleanor Vane awoke upon the morn- 
 ing after her journey; for this young lady was a good sleeper, 
 and was taking her revenge for four-and-twenty hours of wake- 
 fidness. I doubt, indeed, if she would have opened her eyea 
 when she did, had not her father tapped at the door of her tiny 
 chamber and told her the hour. 
 
 She woke smiling, hke a beautiful infant who has always seen 
 loving eyes watching above its cradle. 
 
 " Papa, darhng," she cried, " is it you ? I've just been dream- 
 ing that I was at Brixton. How dehghtful to wake and hear 
 your voice ! I won't be long, papa dear. But you haven't 
 waited breakfast all this time, have you ? " 
 
 " No, my dear. I have a cup of coffee and a roU brought me 
 every morning at nine from a traiteur^s over the way. I've or- 
 dered some breakfast for you, but I wouldn't wake you till 
 twelve. Dress quickly, Nell. It's a lovely morning, and I'll 
 take you for a walk." 
 
 It was indeed a lovely morning. Eleanor Yane flung baok 
 the tawdry damask curtains, and let the full glory of the August 
 noontide sun into her Httle room. Her window had been open 
 all the night through, and the entresol was so close to the street 
 that she coiild hear the conversation of the people upon the 
 pavement below. The foreign jargon sounded pleasant to her 
 in its novelty. It was altogether different to the French lan- 
 guage as she had been accustomed to hear it at Brixton ; where 
 a young lady forfeited a halfpenny every time she forgot herself 
 so far as to give utterance to her thoughts or desires in the 
 commonplace medium of her mother tongue. The merry voices, 
 the barking of dogs, the rattling of wheels, and linging of bells 
 in the distance, mingled in a cheerful clamour. 
 
 As Eleanor Vane let in that glorious noontide sunhght, it 
 eeemed to her that she had let in the morning of a new life ; a 
 new and haj^pier existence, brighter and pleasanter than the dull 
 boarding-school monotony she had had so much of. 
 
 Her pnre young soul rejoiced in the sunshine, the strange city, 
 the change, the shadowy hopes that beckoned to her in the 
 future, the atmosphere of love wliich her father's presence 
 always made in the shabbiest home. She had not been 
 unhappy at Brixton, because it was her nature to be happy 
 under difficulties, because she was a bright, spontaneous crea- 
 ture, to whom it was almost impossible to be sorrowful : but she 
 had looked forward yearningly to this day, in whixsh she waa to
 
 Opon the Thresliold of a Oreat Sorrow. 83 
 
 jom her father in Paris, never perhaps to go far away from him 
 again. And it had come at last, this long-hoped-for day, the 
 sunny opening of a new existence. It had come ; and even the 
 heavens had sympathy with her gladness, and wore their fairest 
 ospect in honour of this natal day of her new life. 
 
 She did not linger long over her toilet, though she lost a good 
 deal of time in unpacking her box — wliich had not been very 
 neatly packed, by the way — and had considerable trouble in 
 finding hair-brushes and combs, cuffs, collars, and ribbons, and 
 all the rest of the small paraphemaha with which she wished to 
 decorate herself. 
 
 But when she emerged at last, radiant and smiling, with her 
 \ong golden hair falling in loose curls over her shoulders, and 
 her pale muslin dress adorned with fluttering blue ribbons, her 
 father was fain to cry out aloud at the sight of his darUng's 
 beaut)'. She kissed him a dozen times, but took very Uttle 
 notice of his admiration — she seemed, in fact, scarcely conscious 
 that he did admire her — and then ran into the adjoining room 
 to caress a dog, an eccentric French poodle, which had been 
 George Vane's faithful companion during the three years he had 
 spent in Paris. 
 
 "Oh, papa !" Eleanor cried joyously, returning to the sitting- 
 room with the dingy white animal in her arms, "I am so 
 pleased to find Fido. You didn't speak of him in your letters, 
 and I was afraid you had lost him, perhaps, or that he was 
 dead. But here he is, just as great a darling, and just as dirty 
 as ever." 
 
 The poodle, who was divided in half, upon that unpleasant 
 principle common to his species, and who was white and curly 
 m front, and smooth andpinky behind, reciprocated Miss Vane's 
 caresses very liberally. He leaped about her knees when she set 
 him down upon the slippery floor, and yelped wild outcries of 
 delight. He was not permitted to pass the night in Mr. Vane's 
 apartments, but slei:)t ui a dismal outhouse behind the butcher's 
 shop, and it was thus that Eleanor had not seen him upon her 
 arrival in the Rue de I'Archeveque. 
 
 The young lady was so anxious to go out with her father, so 
 eager to be away on the broad boulevards with the happy idle 
 people of that wonderful city in which nobody ever seems to be 
 either busy or sorrowful, that she made very short work of her 
 roll and coffee, and then ran back to her little bed-chamber to 
 array herself for a promenade. She came out five minutes after- 
 wards dressed in a black silk mantle and a white transparent 
 bonnet, which looked fleecy and cloud-like against her bright 
 auburn hair. That glorious hair was suffered to fall from under 
 the bonnet and stream about her shoulders Uke golden rain, for 
 she had never yet attained the maturer dignity of wearing her
 
 34 Eleanor'g Victory. 
 
 luxuriant tresses plaited and twisted in a hard knot at the back 
 of her head. 
 
 " Now papa, please, where are we to go ? " 
 
 " Wherever yovi like, my darling," the old man answered ; " I 
 mean to give yor. a treat to-day. You shall spend the morning 
 how yon Uke, and we'U dine on tjie Boulevai d Poissonnier. I've 
 received a letter from Mrs. Bannister. It came before you were 
 np. I am to call in the Rue de la Paix for a hiuidred and sis 
 pounds. A hundred to be paid to Madame Marly, and six for 
 me ; my monthly allowance, my dear, at the rate of thirty shil- 
 lings a week." 
 
 Mr. Vane sighed as he named the sum. It would have been 
 laetter for this broken-down old spendthrift if he could have 
 received his pittance weekly, or even daily ; for it was his habit 
 to dine at the Trois Freres, and wear pale straw-coloured gloves, 
 and a flower in his button-hole, at the beginning of the month, 
 and to subsist on rolls and coffee towards its close. 
 
 He unfolded the narrow shp of paper upon which his eldest 
 "daughter had written the banker's address and the amount 
 which Mr. Vane was to demand, and looked at the magical 
 document fondly, almost proudly. Any one nnfamihar with 
 his frivolous and sanguine nature, might have wondered at 
 the change which had taken place in his manner since the 
 previous night, when he had tearfully bewailed his daughter's 
 cruelty. 
 
 He had been an old man then, degraded, humDiated, broken 
 down by sorrow and shame : to-day he was young, handsome, 
 
 fay, defiant, pompous, prepared to go out into the world and 
 old his place amongst the butterflies once more. He rejoiced in 
 the deUcious sensation of having money to spend. Every fresh 
 five-pound not« was a new lease of youth and happiness to 
 fieorge Vane. 
 
 The father and daughter went out together, and the butcher 
 neglected his business in order to stare after Miss Vane ; and the 
 butcher's youngest child, a tiny damsel in a cambric mob-cap, 
 cried out, " Oh, la belle demoiselle ! " as Eleanor turned the 
 comer of the narrow street into the sunny thoroughfare beyond. 
 Fido came frisking after his master's daughter, and Mr. Vane 
 had some difliculty in driving the animal back. Eleanor 
 would have liked the dog to go with them in their noontide 
 ramble through the Parisian streets, but her father pointed out 
 the utter absurdity of such a proceeding. 
 
 Mr. "\^ane conducted his daughter through a maze of streets 
 behind the Madeleine. There was no Boulevard Malesherbes in 
 those days, to throw this part of the city open to the sweep of 
 a park of artillery. Eleanor's eyes Ut up with gladness as they 
 emerged from the narrower streets behind the church into the
 
 Upon the Threshold of a Cheat iSorrow. 35 
 
 wide boulevard, not as handsome then as it is to-day, but very 
 broad and airy, gay and lightsome withal. 
 
 An involuntary cry of delight broke from Eleanor's lips. 
 
 " Oh, papa," she said, " it is so different from Brixton. But 
 where are we going first, papa, dear ? " 
 
 " Over the way, my dear, to Blount and Co.'s, in the Rue de la 
 Paix. We'll get this money at once, Nelly, and we'll carry it 
 straight to Madame Marly. They had no occasion to insult us, 
 my dear. We have not sunk so low, yet. No, no, not quite ao 
 low as to rob our own children." 
 
 " Papa, darhng, don't think of that cruel letter. I don't like 
 to take the money when I remember that. Don't think of it, 
 papa." 
 
 Mr. Vane shook liis head. 
 
 " I will think of it, my dear," he answered, in a tone of sorrow- 
 ful indignation — the indignation of an honourable man, who 
 rebels against a cruel stigma of dishonour. " I will think of it, 
 Eleanor. I have been called a tliief — a thief, Eleanor. I am 
 not very likely to forget that, I think." 
 
 They were in the Rue de la Paix by this time. George Vane 
 was very familiar with the banker's office, for he had been in the 
 habit of receiving his monthly pension through an order on 
 Messrs. Blount and Co. He left Eleanor at the foot of the stairs, 
 while he ascended to the office on the first floor ; and he returned 
 five minutes afterwards, carrying a bundle of notes in one 
 hand, and a delicious little roll of napoleons in the other. The 
 notes fluttered pleasantly in the summer air, as he showed them 
 to his daughter. 
 
 " AYe will go at once to Madame Marly, my darling," he said, 
 gaily, " and give her these, without a moment's unnecessary 
 delay. They shall have no justification in calling me a thief, 
 Eleanor. You will ^vrite to your sister by this afternoon's post, 
 perhaps, my dear, and tell her that I did not try to rob you. I 
 think you owe so much as that to your poor old father." 
 
 George Vane's daughter clung lovingly to his arm, looking 
 up tenderly and entreatingly in his face. 
 
 " Papa, darling, how can you say such things .' " she cried. 
 " I ^vill ^v^ite and tell Mrs. Bannister that she has been very 
 cruel, and that her insulting letter has made me hate to take 
 her paltry money. But, papa, dearest, how can you talk ot 
 robbmg me ? If tliis money is really mine, take it ; take every 
 penny of it, if — if — you owe it to anybody who worries you ; ot 
 if you want it for anything in the world. I can go back to 
 Brixton and earn my Hving to-morrow, papa. Miss Bennett 
 and Miss Sophia told me so before I came away. You don't 
 know how useful they began to find me with the little onea. 
 Take the vao\j:f^ papa, dear, if you want it."
 
 86 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Mr. Yane turned upon his daughter witli almost tragic indig* 
 nation. 
 
 " Eleanor," he said, " do yon know me so little that yon dare 
 to insult me by such a proposition as this ? No ; if I were 
 starving I would not take this money. Am I so lost and de- 
 graded that even the child I love turns upon me in my old age ?" 
 
 Tne hand which held the bank notes trembled with passionate 
 emotion as the old man spoke. 
 
 " Papa, darling," Eleanor pleaded, "indeed, indeed, I did not 
 mean to wound you." 
 
 " Let me hear no more of this, then, Eleanor ; let me hear no 
 more of it," answered Mr. Vane, drawing himself up with a 
 dignity that would have become a classic toga, rather than the 
 old man's fashionable over-coat. " I am not angry with you, 
 my darUng; I was only hurt, I was only hurt. My children 
 have never known me, Eleanor; they have never known me. 
 Come, my dear." 
 
 Mr. Vane put aside his tragic air, and plunged into the Euo 
 St Honore, where he called for a packet of gloves that had been 
 cleaned for him. He put the gloves in his pocket, and then 
 strolled back into the Rue Castiglione, looking at the vehicles in 
 the roadway as he went. He was waitmg to select the most 
 elegantly appointed of the hackney equipages crawhng slowly 
 
 " it's a pity the government insist on putting a painted badge 
 upon them," he said, thoughtfully. "When I last called on 
 Madame Marly, Charles the Tenth was at the Tuileries, and i 
 had my travelling chariot and pair at Meurice's, besides a 
 
 britska for Mrs. Vane." , ,. . ■,- ^ -xi. 
 
 He had pitched upon a very new and shining vehicle, with a 
 smart coachman, by this time, and he made that halt hissing, 
 half whistling noise pecuUar to Parisians when they caU a 
 
 hackney carriage. , . , . ^ •. n • 
 
 Eleanor sprang lightly into the vehicle, and spread her flowing 
 
 muslin skirts upon the cushions as she seated herselt. ihe 
 
 passers-by looked admiringly at the smilmg young Anglaise 
 
 with her white bonnet and nimbus of glittering hair._ 
 
 " An Bois, cocher," Mr. Vane cried, as he took his place by 
 
 his daughter. ,.-,,, n i ii,^ 
 
 He had bought a tiny bouquet for his button-hole near the 
 Madeleine, and he selected a pair of white doeskin gloves, and 
 drew them carefully on his well-shaped hands. He was as 
 much a dandy to day as he had been in those early days when 
 the Prince and Brummel were his exalted models. 
 
 The drive across the Place de la Concorde, and along the 
 Champs Elysees, was an exquisite pleasure t<) Eleanor Vane; 
 but it was even yet more exquisite when the light carnage roiled
 
 upon the Threshold of m Great Sorrow. 37 
 
 away along one of the avenues in the Bois de Boulogne, where 
 the shadows of the green leaves trembled on the grass, and all 
 nature rejoiced beneath the cloudless August sky. The day was 
 a shade too hot, perhaps, and had been certainly growing hotter 
 since noon, but Eleanor was too happy to remember that. 
 
 " How nice it is to be with you, papa darhng," she said, "and 
 how I wish I wasn't going to this school. I should be so happy 
 in that dear Httle lodging over the butcher's, and I could go out 
 as morning governess to some French children, couldn't 1? I 
 shouldn't cost you much, I know, papa." 
 
 Mr. Vane shook his head. 
 
 " No, no, my love. Your education must be completed. Why 
 should you be less accompUshed than your sisters ? You shall 
 occupy as brilliant a position as ever they occupied, my love, or 
 a better one, perhaps. You have seen me under a cloud, 
 Eleanor; but you shall see the sunshine yet. You'll scarcely 
 know your old father, my poor girl, when you see him in the 
 position he has been used to occupy ; yes, used to occupy, my 
 dear. This lady we are going to see, Madame Marly, she remem- 
 bers, my love. She could tell you what sort of a man George 
 Vane was five-and-twenty years ago." 
 
 The house in which the fashionable schoolmistress who had 
 *' finished " the elder daughters of George Vane still received her 
 pupils, was a white-walled villa, half-hidden in one of the ave- 
 nues of the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 The httle hired carriage drew up before a door in the garden 
 wall, and a portress came out to reply to the coachman's summons. 
 
 Unhappily, the portress said, Madame was not at home- 
 Madame's assistants were at home, and would be happy to re- 
 ceive Monsieur and Mademoiselle. That might be perhaps 
 altogether the same thing, the portress suggested. 
 
 No, Monsidur replied, he must see Madame herself. Ah, but 
 then nothing could be so unfortunate. Madame, who so seldom 
 quitted the Pension, had to-day driven into Paris to arrange her 
 affairs, and would not return until sunset. 
 
 Mr. Vane left his card \vith a few words written upon it in 
 pencil, to the effect that he would call at two o'clock the next 
 day, in the charge of the portress : and the carriage drove back 
 towards Paris. 
 
 " Bear witness, Eleanor," said the old man, " bear witness that 
 T tried to pay this money away immediately after recei%'ing it. 
 You will be good enough to mention that fact in your letter to 
 my eldest daughter." 
 
 He had carried the notes in his hand all this time, as if eager 
 to deUver them over to the schoolmistress, but he now put them 
 into his breast-pocket. I tliink uj^on the whole he was rather 
 pleased at the idea of retaining custody of the money for the
 
 88 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 next twenty-four honrs. It was not his own, but the mere pos- 
 Bession of it gave him a pleasant sense of importance; and, 
 again, he might very probably have an opportunity of displaying 
 the bank notes, incidentally, to some of his associates. Unliap' 
 pily for tliis lonely old man, his few Parisian acquaintances were 
 of a rather shabby and not too reputable a cahbre, and were 
 therefore likely to be somewhat impressed by the sight of a hun- 
 dred and twenty-five napoleons, in crisp, new notes upon the 
 Bank of France. 
 
 It was past three when Mr. Yane and his daughter alighted 
 in front of the Palais Royal, and the coachman claimed payment 
 for two houj-s and a-half. The old man had changed the first of 
 his six napoleons at the glove-cleaner's, and he had a handful 
 of loose silver in his waistcoat pocket, so the driver was quickly 
 paid and dismissed, and Eleanor entered the Palais Eoyal, that 
 paradise of cheap jewellery and dinners, hanging on her father's 
 mrm. 
 
 Mr. Yane bore patiently with his daughter's enthusiastic ad- 
 miration of the diamonds and the paste, the glittering reahtiea 
 and almost as ghttering shams in the jewellers' windows. Eleanor 
 wanted to look at everything, the trinkets, and opera-glasses, and 
 portmanteaus, and china, — everything was new and beautiful. 
 The fountain was playing ; noisy children were running about, 
 amongst equally noisy nurses and idle loungers. A band was 
 playing close to the fountain. The chinking of tea-spoons, and 
 cups and saucers, sounded in the Cafe de la Eotonde : people 
 had not begun to dine yet, but the windows and glazed nooks in 
 the doorways of the restaurants were splendid with their displays 
 of gigantic melons, and dewy purple grapes, cucumbers, pears, 
 tomatoes, and peaches. George Yane allowed his daughter to 
 linger a long time before all the shops. He was rather ashamed 
 of her exuberant deKght, and unrestrained enthusiasm ; for so 
 much pleasure in these simple things was scarcely consistent 
 with that liaut ton which the old man still affected, even in his 
 downfall. But he had not the heart to interfere with his 
 daughter's happiness — was it not strange happiness to Mm, 
 to have this beautiful creature with him, clinging to his arm, 
 and looking up at him with a face that was glorified by hei 
 innocent joy ? 
 
 They left the Palais Royal at last, before half its delights were 
 exhausted, as Eleanor thought, and went through the Rue 
 Richelieu to the Place de la Bourse, where Mr. Yane's eager 
 companion looked wistfully at the doors of the theatre opposite 
 the great Temple of Commerce. 
 
 " Oh, papa," she said, " how I should Hke to go to a theatre 
 to-night !" 
 
 Miss Yane had seen a good deal of the English drama during
 
 Upon the Threshold of a Great Sorrow. 39 
 
 her Chelsea life, for the old man knew some of the London 
 managers, men who remembered him in his prosperity, and were 
 glad to give him admission to their boxes now and tiien, out of 
 pure benevolence. But the Parisian theatres seemed myste- 
 riously deUghtful to Eleanor, inasmuch as they were strange. 
 
 " Can you get tickets for the theatres here, papa," she asked, 
 " as you used in London ? " 
 
 Mr. Vane shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "No, my love," he said, "it's not quite such an easy matter. 
 I know a man who writes farces now and then for the Fimam- 
 bules — a very clever fellow — but he doesn't get many orders \a 
 give away, and that's not exactly the theatre I should like to 
 take you to. I'll tell you what, though, Eleanor, I'll take you 
 to the Porte St. Martin to-night — why should I deny my child 
 an innocent pleasure ? I'U take you to the Porte St. Martin, 
 
 unless " 
 
 George Yane paused, and a gloomy shadow crept over his face 
 — a shade that made him look an old man. His youthfuhiess of 
 appearance entirely depended upon the buoyancy of a nature 
 which contended \vith age. The moment his spirits sank he 
 looked what he was — an old man. 
 
 " Unless what, papa, dearest ? " Eleanor asked. 
 
 " I — I had an appointment to-night, my love, with — with a 
 
 couple of gentlemen who But I won't keep it, Eleanor, — no, 
 
 no, I'll not keep it. I'll take you to the theatre. I can aflFord 
 you that pleasure." 
 
 " Dear, dear papa, yon never refuse me any pleasure ; but it 
 would be so seliish of me to ask you to break your appoiutment 
 with these two gentlemen. You had better keep it." 
 
 " No, no, my dear — I'd — it would be better — perhaps. Yes, 
 I'll take you to the Porte St. Martin." 
 
 Mr. Vane spoke hesitatingly. The shadow had not yet left 
 his face. Ilad liis daughter been less occupied by the delights 
 of the Parisian shops, the novelty and gaiety of the crowd, she 
 must surely have observed the change in that idolized father. 
 
 But she observed nothing, she could remember nothing but her 
 happiness. This glorious day of reunion and delight seemed, 
 indeed, the beginning of a new life. She looked back wonder- 
 ingly at the duU routine of her boarding-school existence. Could 
 it be possible that it was only a day or two since she was in the 
 Brixton school-room hearing the little ones — the obstinate, in- 
 corrigible Httle ones — their hateful lessons : their odious monoto- 
 nous repetition of dry facts about William the Conqueror and 
 Buenos Ayres, the manufacture of tallow candles, and the nina 
 parts of speech P 
 
 They strolled on the boulevard tUl six o'clock, and then as- 
 cended the shining staircase of a restaurant on the Boulevard
 
 40 Eleanor's Ttctory. 
 
 Poissonnier, where Eleanor saw herself reflected in so many 
 mirrors that she was almost bewildered by the repetition of her 
 own auburn hair and wliite bonnet. 
 
 The long saloons were filled with eager diners, who looked up 
 from their knives and forks as the English girl went by. 
 
 " We dine a la carte here," her father whispered : " this is a 
 fete day, and I mean to give you a first-class dinner." 
 
 Mr. Vane found a vacant table in an open window. The house 
 was at a corner of the boulevard, and this window looked down 
 the crowded thoroughfare towards the Madeleine. Eleanor ex- 
 claimed once more as the prospect burst upon her, and she saw 
 all the boulevard with its gay splendour, spread out, as it were, 
 at her feet ; but her father was too busy with the waiter and the 
 carte to observe her manifestation of dehght. 
 
 Mr. Vane was an epicure, and prided himself upon his taleiA 
 for ordering a dinner. There was a good deal of finesse displayed 
 by him now-a-days in the arrangement of a repast ; for poverty 
 had taught him all kinds of Httle diplomatic contrivances 
 whereby he might, as it were, mingle economy and extravagance. 
 He ordered such and such dishes for "one," intending to divide 
 them with his child. A few Ostend oysters, some soup — ^luree 
 crecy — a httle dish of beef and oHves, a sole normande, a quarter 
 of a roast chicken, and a Charlotte Plombieres. 
 
 It was a long time since Eleanor had eaten one of her father's 
 epicurean feasts, and she did ample justice to the dinner, even 
 in spite of the ever recurrent distractions upon the boulevard 
 below. 
 
 The dishes followed each other slowly, for the unresting 
 waiters had many claimants on their attention, and the sun 
 was low in the cloudless western sky when Mr. Vane and his 
 daughter left the restaurant. It was nearly night ; the lights 
 began to shine out through a hot white mist, for the heat had 
 grown more and more oppressive as the day had dechned. The 
 Parisians sitting at httle marble tables on the pavement outside 
 the cafes fanned themselves with their newspapers, and drank 
 effervescing drinks pertinaciously. It was a mght upon which 
 one should have had nothing more laborious to do than to sit 
 outside Tortoni's and eat ices. 
 
 The noise and clamour, the oppressive heat, the bustle and 
 confusion of the people rushing to the theatres, made Eleanor's 
 head ache. One cannot go on being unutterably happy for ever, 
 And perhaps the day's excitement had been almost too much for 
 this young school-girl. She had walked long distances aheady 
 upon the burning asphalte of the wonderful city, and she was 
 beginning to be tired. Mr. Vane never thought of this : he had 
 been accustomed to walk about day after day, and sometimes all 
 day — ^for what should a lonely EngUshman do in Paris but walk
 
 Upon the Threshold of m Cheat Sorrow. 41 
 
 about P — and he forgot that the fatigue might be too much for 
 his daughter. He walked on, therefore, with Eleanor still cUng- 
 ing to his arm; past the Ambigu, beyond the Barriere St. 
 Antoine ; and stiU the long lamplit boulevard stretched before 
 them, away into immeasurable distance, as it appeared to Miss 
 Vane. 
 
 The hot, white mist seemed to grow denser as the evening 
 advanced; the red sun blazed and flashed on every available 
 scrap of crystal ; the gas-lamps, newly illumined, strove against 
 that setting sun. It was all light, and heat, and noise, and con- 
 fusion, Eleanor thought, upon the boulevard. Very splendid, 
 of course, but rather bewildering. She would have been glad 
 to sit down to rest upon one of the benches on the edge of the 
 pavement ; but, as her father did not seem tired, she still walked 
 on, patiently and uncomplainingly. 
 
 " We'U go into one of the theatres presently, Nelly," Mr, 
 Vane said. 
 
 He had recovered his spirits under the invigorating influence 
 of a bottle of CUquot's champagne, and the gloomy shadow had 
 quite passed away from his face. 
 
 It was nearly nine o'clock, and quite dark, when they turned 
 towards the Madeleine again, on the way back to the Porte 
 St. Martin. They had not gone far when Mr. Vane stopped, 
 suddenly confronted by two young men who were walking ann- 
 in-arm. 
 
 " Hulloa ! " one of them cried, in French, " you have served 
 us a handsome trick, my friend." 
 
 George Vane stammered out an apology. His daughter had 
 returned from school, he said, and he wished to show her Paris. 
 
 "Yes, yes," the Frenchman answered; " but we were aware 
 of T.Iademoiselle's intended return, and it was arranged in spite 
 of that that we should meet this evening : was it not so, my 
 friend?" 
 
 He asked this question of his companion, who nodded rather 
 sidkily, and turned away with a half weary, half dissatisfied 
 air. 
 
 Eleanor looked at the two young men, wondering what new 
 friends her father had made in Paris. The Frenchman was 
 short and stout, and had a fair florid complexion. Eleanor was 
 able to see this, for his face was turned to the lamp-light, as he 
 talked to her father. He was rather showily dressed, in fashion- 
 ably cut clothes, that looked glossy and new, and he twirled a 
 short silver-headed cane in his gloved hands. 
 
 The other miui was tall and slender, shabbily and untidily 
 dressed iij. giurments of a rakish cut, that hung loosely about 
 him. Hi? nu.'ids were thrust deep in the pockets of hia loose 
 orercoat, and his hat was sloached over his forehead.
 
 4i2 Eleanor's Victory, 
 
 Eleanor Yane only canght one passing glimpse of thia man's 
 face as he turned sulkil}^ away ; but she could see the glimmer 
 of a pair of bright, restless, black eyes under the shadow of liia 
 hat, and the fierce curve of a very thick black moustache, which 
 completely concealed his mouth. He had turned, not towards 
 the lighted shop windows, but to the roadway ; and he was 
 amusing himself by kicking a wisp of straw to and fro upon the 
 sharp edge of the curb-stone, with the toe of his shabby patent 
 leather boot. 
 
 The Frenchman drew George Yane aside, and talked to him 
 for a few minutes in an undertone, gesticulating after the man- 
 ner of his nation, and evidently persuading the old man to do 
 something or other which he shrank from doing. But ]Mr. Yane's 
 resistance seemed of a very feeble nature, and the Frenchman 
 conquered, for his last shrug was one of triumph. Eleanor, 
 standing by herself, midway between the sulky young man upon 
 the curb-stone and her father and the Frenchman, perceived 
 this. She looked up anxiously as Mr. Yane returned to her. 
 
 " My love," the old man said, hesitatingly, nervously trifling 
 with ms glove as he spoke, " do you think you could find your 
 way back to the Rue de I'Archeveque? " 
 
 " Find my way back ? Why, papa ? " 
 
 " I — I mean, could you find your way back a — alone P " 
 
 " Alone ! " 
 
 She echoed the word with a look of mingled disappointment 
 and alarm. 
 
 " Alone, papa ? " 
 
 But here the Frenchman interposed eagerly. 
 
 Nothing was more simple, he said : Mademoiselle had only to 
 walk straight on to the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs; she 
 would then, and then 
 
 He ran off' into a striag of rapid directions, not one c^ which 
 Eleanor heard. She was looking at her father, Heave:i knows 
 how earnestly, for she saw in his face, in his nervous hesitating 
 manner, something that told her there was some sinister in- 
 fluence to be dreaded from this garrulous, eager Frenchman and 
 his silent companion. 
 
 " Papa, dear," she said, in a low, almost imploring voice, "do 
 you really wish me to go back alone P " 
 
 " Why — why, you see, my dear, I — I don't exactly wish — but 
 there are appointments which, as Monsieur remarks, not — not 
 unreasonably, should not be broken, and " 
 
 " You will stay out late, papa, perhaps, with these gentle* 
 men " 
 
 " Nq> no, my love, no, no ; for an hour or so ; not longer.*' 
 
 Eleanor looked up sorrowfully in the face she loved so dearly. 
 Yague memories of grief and trouble in the past, mingled wiui
 
 Upon the Threshold of m 0-reat Sorrow. 43 
 
 as va^e a presentiment of trouble in the future, filled her mind : 
 she clasped her hands imploringly upon her father's arm, 
 
 " Come home with me to-night, papa," she said. " It is my 
 first night at home. Come back, and we'll play ecarte as we 
 used at Chelsea. You remember teaching me." 
 
 Mr. Vane started, as if the tender grasp upon his arm had 
 Btung into his flesh. 
 
 " I— I can't come home to-night, Eleanor. At least, not for 
 an hour. There — there are social laws, my dear, which must be 
 observed ; and when — when a gentleman is asked to give another 
 his revenge, he — can't refuse. I'll put you into a carriage, my 
 darHng, if you tliink you can't find your way." 
 
 " oil, no, papa, dear, it's not that. I can find my way." 
 
 Th« Frenchman here interposed for the second time with some 
 complimentary speech, addressed to Eleanor, who very imper- 
 fectly understood its purport. He had slipped his arm through 
 that of George Yane, taking possession of him in a manner by 
 that friendly gesture. In all this time the other man had never 
 stirred from his sulky attitude upon the edge of the pavement. 
 
 Mr. Vane took his daughter's hand. 
 
 "I am sorry I can't take you to the theatre, my love," 
 he said, in the same hesitating manner. " I — I regret that yoii 
 should be disappointed, but — good night, my dear, good night. 
 I sliall be home by eleven ; but don't sit np for me ; don't on 
 any account sit up." 
 
 He pressed her hand, held it for a few moments, as if scarcely 
 knowing what to do with it, and then suddenly dropped it witli 
 something of a guilty manner. 
 
 The Frenchman, with his arm still linked in the old man's, 
 wheeled sharply round, and walked away towards the Barricre 
 Saint Antoine, leaving Eleanor standing alone amongst the 
 
 {)a8sers-by, looking wistfully after her father. The other man 
 ooked up as the Frenchman led Mr. Vane away, and slowly 
 followed them, with his head bent and his hands in his pockets. 
 Eleanor stood quite still, watching her father's erect figure, the 
 short Frenchman, and the tall, sulky stranger following the 
 other two, until all three were out of sight. Then turning 
 homewards with a half-repressed sigh, she looked sadly dowjx 
 the long lamp-lit vista. It was very beautiful, very gay, briUianl, 
 and splendid ; but all that splendour and gaiety made her feel 
 only the more lonely, now that her father had left her. The 
 first day, the natal day of her new life, seemed to end very 
 drearily, after alL
 
 44 Eleanor's Tictorjf. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ■WAITING. 
 
 Miss YAira walked very slowly homeward tliroiigli the hot, 
 breathless summer night. She was too sorrowful, too much 
 depressed by the sudden disappointment which had fallen like a 
 dark shadow upon the close of the day that had begun so 
 brightly, to be embarrassed by any uncomfortable sense of her 
 loneliness in the crowded thoroughfare. 
 
 No one moleeted or assailed her — she walked serene in her 
 youth and innocence ; though the full radiance of the lamphght 
 rarely fell upon her face without some j^assing glance of admira- 
 tion resting there also. She never once thought that her father 
 had done wrong in leaving her to walk alone through that crowded 
 
 Parisian street. In the unselfishness of her loving nature she 
 scarcely remembered her disappointment about the theatre : not 
 even when she passed the brilliantly lighted edifice, and looked, 
 a httle wistfully perhaps, at the crowd upon the threshold. 
 
 She was uneasy and unhappy about her father, because in all 
 her Chelsea erperiences she remembered evil to have resulted 
 from his going out late at night ; vague and mysterious trouble, 
 the nature of which he had never revealed to her, but whose 
 effect.^ had haunted him and depressed him for many dreary 
 days. He had been sometimes — indeed, very often — poorer after 
 a late absence from his shabby Chelsea lodging ; he had been 
 now and then richer ; but he had always been ahke remorseful 
 au'i miserable after those occasional nights of dissipation. 
 
 His daughter was son'owful therefore at parting with him. 
 She knew that, in spite of his declaration that he would be home 
 at eleven, it would be between one and two in the morning when 
 he returned ; not tipsy — no, thank Heaven, he was no drunkard 
 • — but with a nervous, wretched, half-demented manner, which 
 was perhaps more sad to see than any ordinary intoxication. 
 
 " I was in hopes papa would always stay at home with me 
 now that I am grown up," the young lady thought, very sadly. 
 " When I was little, of course it was diflferent; I coiddn't amuse 
 him. Though we were very happy sometimes then ; and I could 
 play ecarte, or cribbage, or whist with two dummies. If I can 
 get on very well mth my education at Madame Marly's, and 
 then get a situation as morning governess for a large salary — 
 morning governesses do get high salaries sometimes — how hapj^ 
 papa and I might be ! " 
 
 Her spirits revived under the influence of cheering thoughts 
 Buch as these. I have said before that it was scarcely possible for 
 her to be long unhappy. Her step grew lighter and faster as sh©
 
 Waiting. 4S 
 
 walked homeward. The glory of the gaslights brightened with 
 the brightening of her hopes. She began to Unger now and then 
 before some of the most attractive of the shops, with almost the 
 Bame intense rapture and delight that she had felt in the morning. 
 
 She was standing before a book-stall, or rather an open shop, 
 reading the titles of the paper-covered romances, with the full 
 glare of the shadeless gaslights on her face, when she was 
 startled by a loud, hearty English voice, which exclaimed without 
 one murmur of warning or preparation, — 
 
 " Don't tell me that this tall young woman with the golden 
 curls is Miss Eleanor Vandeleur Vane, of Regent's Gardens, 
 Ki n g's Eoad, Chelsea, London, Middlesex. Please don't tell me 
 anything of the kind, for I can't possibly beUeve anybody but 
 Jack-and-the-beanstalk could have grown at such a rate." 
 
 Eleanor Vane turned round to greet this noisy gentleman. 
 
 " Oh, Dick," she cried, putting both her hands mto the broad 
 palm held out before her, "is it really you? Who would have 
 thought of seeing you in Paris ? " 
 
 " Or you, Miss Vane P We heard you were at school at 
 Brixton." 
 
 " Yes, Dick," the young lady answered, " but I have come 
 home now. Papa lives here, you know, and I am going to a 
 finishing school in the Bois de Boulogne, and then I am going 
 to be a morning governess, and live with papa always." 
 
 " You are a great deal too pretty for a governess," said tha 
 young man, looking admiringly at the bright face lifted up to him; 
 " your mistress would snub you. Miss Vane, you'd better "^ 
 
 "AVhat, Dick?" 
 
 " Try our shop." 
 
 " What, be a scene-painter, Dick P " cried Eleanor, laughing , 
 " It would be funny for a woman to be a scene-painter." 
 
 " Of course. Miss Vane. But nobody talked of scene-painting. 
 You don't suppose I'd ask you to stand on the top of a ladder S> 
 put in skies and backgrounds, do you P There are other occu- 
 pations at the Royal Waterloo Phconix besides scene-painting. 
 B lit I don't want to talk to you about that : I know how savage 
 your poor old dad used to be when we talked of the Phoenix. 
 \\niat do you tliink I am over here for P " 
 
 "What, Richard?;' 
 
 " Why, they're doing a great drama in eight acts and thirty- 
 two tableaux at the Porte St. Martin ; Raoul I'Empoisonnenr 
 R's called, Ralph the Poisoner; and I'm over here to pick up the 
 music, sketch the scenery and effects, and translate the play. 
 Smuething like versatility there, I think, for five-and-tnirty 
 Blullings a week." 
 
 " Dear Richard, you were always so clever.' 
 
 " To be sure ; it run* in the family."
 
 46 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " And the Signora, she is well, I Hope ? " 
 
 " Pretty well ; the teachincf goes on tant ton que mauvaia, as 
 onr friends over here say. The dementi is a little thinner vs 
 tone than when you heard it last, and a httle farther off concert 
 pitch ; but as most of my aunt's pupils sing flat, that's rather an 
 advantage than otherwise. But where are you going, Miss 
 Yane ? because wherever it is, I'd better see you there. If we 
 stand before this book-stall any longer, the proprietor may think 
 we're going to buy something, and as the Parisians don't seem a 
 buying people, the delusion might be too much for his nerves. 
 Where shaU I take you. Miss Vane ? " 
 
 "To the Rue de I'Archeveque, if you please, behind the 
 Madeleine. Do you know it ? " 
 
 " Better than I know myself, Miss Y. The Signora. lived in 
 that direction when I was a boy. But how is it that you are all 
 alone in the streets at this time of night ? " 
 
 " Papa had an appointment with two gentlemen, and he " 
 
 " And he left you to walk home alone. Then he still " 
 
 " Still what, Eichard?" 
 
 The young man had stopped hesitatingly, and looked far- 
 tively at Eleanor. 
 
 " He stUl stays out late at night sometimes : a bad habit, 
 !Miss Yane. I was in hopes he would have been cured of it by 
 this time ; especially as there are no dens in the Palais Royal 
 now-a-days ; to the honour and glory of Napoleon the Third be 
 it spoken." 
 
 " No dens in the Palais Royal," cried Eleanor. " What do 
 you mean?" 
 
 " Nothing, my dear IVIiss Nelly, except that Paris used to be 
 a very wild and wicked place." 
 
 "But it isn't now?" 
 
 " Oh dear, no. Our modem Lutetia is a very paradise of in- 
 nocent dehghts, whose citizens enjoy themselves ^'irtuously 
 under the sheltering dictatoriaUsm of a paternal government. 
 You don't understand me — well, never mind, you are still the 
 bright-faced child you were in the King's Road, Chelsea, only 
 taller and prettier — that's aU." 
 
 Miss Yane had taken her companion's arm, and they were 
 walking away towards the Madeleine by this time ; the young 
 lady clinging to her new friend almost as confidingly as she had 
 done to her father. 
 
 I don't think the confidence was mispiaced. Thia young man, 
 with the loud voice and the somewhat reckless manner, was 
 only assistant scene-painter and second violin-player at a trans- 
 pontine theatre. He was bound by no tie of relationship to 
 the beautiful girl hanging upon his arm. Indeed, his acguaint- 
 ance with Mr. Yane and ms dau;jhter had been of that accidental
 
 Waiting. 47 
 
 and desnltory kind out of which the friendships of poor people 
 generally arise. 
 
 The yount? man had lodged with his aunt in the same house 
 that for nearly six years had sheltered the proud old spendtlirift 
 and his motherless cliild, and some of Eleanor's earHest memo- 
 ries were of Signora Picirillo and her nephew Richard Thornton. 
 She had received her first lessons upon the pianoforte from the 
 kind Signora, whose Neapohtan husband liad died years and 
 
 f fears before, leaving her nothing but an Italian name, which 
 ooked very imposing at the top of the circulars which the 
 music-mistress was wont to distribute amongst her pupils. 
 
 Richard Thornton, at eight-and-twenty, seemed a very elderly 
 person in the eyes of the school-girl of fifteen. She could re- 
 member him years, and years, and years ago, as it seemed to her, 
 iitting in his shirt sleeves through the long summer afternoons, 
 ander the shadow of the scarlet-runners in the Uttle garden at 
 3helsea, smoking dirty clay pipes and practising popular melo- 
 dies upon his fiddle. Her father had thought him a nuisance, 
 and had been lofty and reserved in his patronage of the young 
 man ; but to Eleanor, Dick had been the most delightful of play- 
 fellows, the %visest of counsellors, the most learned of instruc- 
 tors. "Whatever Richard did. Miss Vane insisted upon also 
 doing, humbly following the genius she admired, with Uttle 
 toddling steps, along the brilliant pathway his talents adorned. 
 
 I am afraid she had learned to play " God save the Queen," 
 and " Rory O'More," upon Richard's viohn before she had 
 mastered Haydn's " Surprise," or " Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman ?" 
 upon the Signora's shabby old grand piano. She smeared her 
 pinafores mth poor Dick's water-colours, and insisted upon pro- 
 ducing rephcas of the young scene-painter's sketches, with all 
 the houses lop-sided, and the trunks of all the trees gouty. If 
 Dick kept rabbits or silkworms, there was no greater happiness 
 for Miss Yane than to accompany him to Covent Garden Market 
 in quest of cabbage or mulberry leaves. I do not mean that she 
 ever deserted her father for the society of her friend ; but there 
 were times when Mr. Vane absented liimself from his Uttle ^1 ; 
 long days, in which the old man stroUed about the streets ot the 
 West-End, on the look-out for the men he had known in his 
 prosperity, with the hope of borrowing a pound or two, or a 
 handful of loose silver, for the love of Auld Lang Syne ; and 
 longer nights, in which he disappeared from the Chelsea lodging 
 for many dreary hours. 
 
 Then it was that Eleanor Vane was thrown into the com- 
 panionship of the Signora and her nephew. Then it was that 
 she read Richard's books and periodicals, that she revelled in 
 " Jack Sheppard," and gloated over " Wagner, the Wehr AVolf." 
 Then it was that she played upon the young man's violin, and
 
 48 Eleanor'a Victory. 
 
 copied his pictures, and destroyed iia water-colours, and gorged 
 his rabbits and silkworms, and loved, and tormented, and ad- 
 mired him, after the manner of some beautiful younger sister, 
 who had dropped from the clouds to be his companion. 
 
 This is how these two stood towards each other. They had 
 not met for three years until to-night ; and in the interim Miss 
 Eleanor "Vane had grown from a hoyden of twelve into a tall, 
 slender damsel of fifteen. 
 
 " You are so altered. Miss Vane," Eichard said, as they walked 
 ttiong the boulevard, " that I can't help wondering how it was I 
 knew you." 
 
 " And you're not altered a bit, Dick," answered the young 
 lady ; " but don't call me Miss Vane — it sounds as if you were 
 laughing at me. Call me Nell, as you used to do, at Chelsea. 
 Do you know, Dick, I contrived to go to Chelsea once last sum- 
 mer. It was against papa's wish, you know, that I should let 
 them find out where I came from at Brixton ; because, you see, 
 Chelsea, or at least the King's Koad, sounds vtdgar, papa 
 thought. Indeed, I beheve he said he lived in Cadogan Place, 
 when the Miss Benjietts asked him the question. He explained 
 it to me afterwards, you know, poor dear ; and it wasn't exactly 
 a story, for he had lodged there for a fortnight once, just after 
 his marriage with mamma, and when he was beginning to get 
 poor. So I was obhged to manage so cleverly to get toKegent'a 
 Gardens, Dick ; and when I did get there you were gone, and 
 the Signora's rooms were to let, and there was a nasty cross old 
 woman in our lodgings, and the scarlet-runners in the garden 
 were so neglected, and I saw your rabbit-hutches, all broken 
 and forgotten in the comer by the dust-hole, but the rabbits 
 were gone. The dear old place seemed so changed, Dick, though 
 Mr. and Mrs. Migson were very kind, and very pleased to see 
 me, but they couldn't teU me where you and the Signora were 
 Hving,** 
 
 "No, we moved two or three times after leaving Eegent's 
 Gardens. You see we're obhged to study the pupils, NeU, rather 
 than our own convenience. Chelsea was a long way from the 
 "Waterloo Phoenix, in spite of the short cuts ; but wherever thy 
 Signora's pupils are thickest, we're obhged to pitch our tents. 
 They're thickest about Tottenham- court Road and Euston Square 
 way now ; so we're Uving in the Pilasters, Dudley Street." 
 
 " The Pilasters ! That sounds quite grand, Dick." 
 
 " Yes, doesn't it ? Magnifique et pas cher. "We've a chimney- 
 Bweep next door but one, and no end of mangles. The Pilasters 
 would be very nice, if we'd two sides of the way, but unfortu- 
 nately we haven't; the other side's stables. It isn't my preju- 
 dices make me object to that ; but the grooms make such an 
 abominable noise cleaning down their horses, and I wake every
 
 Waiting. 49 
 
 morning ont of a dream in which it's Boxing-night, and my 
 transformation scene is getting the goose." 
 
 The young man laughed cheerily, and guided his companion 
 across the road to the other side of the boulevard. It was past 
 ten o'clock when they reached the comer of the Rue de I'Arche- 
 vfique, and the butcher's shop was closed. 
 
 Eleanor knew that she had only to push open the little side 
 door, and that she would find the key of her father's rooms in 
 the custody of the butcher's wife. She was very tired, almost 
 ready to drop, poor girl, for she had walked a long way since 
 ahghting at the Palais Royal with her father; but she was 
 almost sorry that she had reached her destination. The sense of 
 her loneliness returned, now that she was to part with her old 
 friend. 
 
 " Thank yon very much for seeing me home, Dick," she said, 
 shaking hands with the young scene-painter. " It was very 
 BcLfish of me to bring you so far out of your way." 
 
 " Selfish of you ! \Vliy, you don't suppose I'd let yon prowl 
 about the streets by yourself, Nell ?" 
 
 Eleanor's face flushed as her friend said this : there was a 
 reproach to her father implied in the speech. 
 
 " It was my own fault that I was so late," she said. " It was 
 only just nine when papa left me ; but I loitered a httle, looking 
 at the shops. I shall see you again, Dick, I hope. But of course 
 I shall, for you'U come and see papa, won't yon ? Hew long do 
 you stay in Paris ? " 
 
 " About a week, I suppose. I've a week's leave of absence, 
 and double salary, besides my expenses. They know the value 
 of a clever man at the Phoenix, Miss Vane," 
 
 " And where are you staying, Dick ?" 
 
 " At the Hotel des Deux Mondes, near the markets. I've an 
 apartment in convenient proximity to the sky, if I want to study 
 atmospheric efiects. And so you live here, Nell P " 
 
 " Yes, those are our windows." 
 
 Eleanor pointed to the open sashes of the entresol : the flufiy 
 worsted curtains were drawn, but the windows were wide open. 
 
 " And you expect your papa home " 
 
 " At eleven o'clock at the latest," she said. 
 
 Richard Thoniton sighed. He remembered Mr. Vane's habits, 
 and he remembered that the httle girl in pinafores had been 
 wont to keep abnormal hours in her long watches for her father's 
 coming. He had often foimd her, on his return from the trans 
 pontine theatre at one or two o'clock, with the door of the httla 
 sitting-room ajar, waiting patiently for the old man's coming. 
 
 " You won't sit up for your papa, Nell," he said, as he shook 
 hands with her. 
 
 " Oh, no, papa told me not to sit up." 
 
 D
 
 60 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " Good night, then. Yon look tired, Nell. I'll call to-morrow, 
 and I'll take you to tlie theatre, if your papa -will let you go, 
 and you shall see ' Raoul I'Empoisonneur.' Such a scene, NeU. 
 in the seventh act. The stage divided into eight comj-iartment^ 
 ■with eight different actions going on simultaneously, and fivi 
 murders before the fall of the curtain. It's a great piece, and 
 #ught to make Spavin and Cromshaw's fortune." 
 
 " And yours, Dick." 
 
 " Oh, yes. Cromshavf will shake me by the hand in that 
 dehghtful, gentlemanly manner of his : and Spavin — -why Spavin 
 will give me a five-pound no+e for my adaptation of ' Raoul,' 
 and tell every member of the company, in confidence, that all 
 the great scenes have been written in by him, and that the piece 
 was utter rubbish till he reconstructed it." 
 
 "Poor Richard!" 
 
 " Yes, Nell, poorer than the gentleman who wrote the alma- 
 nack, I dare say. But never mind, Nell. I don't think the 
 game of hfe pays for much expenditure in the way of illumina- 
 tion. I think the vrisest people are those who take existence 
 easily. Spavin's wealth can't give him anytliing better than 
 diamond studs and a phaeton. The virtuous peasant, Nell, who 
 can slap his chest, and defy his enemies to pick a hole in his 
 green-baize jerkin, gets the best of it in the long run, I dare 
 
 " But I wish you were rich, Dick, for the Signora's sake," 
 Eleanor said, gently. 
 
 " So do I, Nelly. I wish I was the lessee of the Phoenix, and 
 I'd bring you out as JuHet, with new palace arches for the ball- 
 room, and a Hme-light in the balcony scene. But, good night, 
 my dear; I mustn't keep you standmg here Hke this, though 
 
 Earting is such sweet sorrow, that I really shouldn't have the 
 eart to go away to-night if I didn't mean to call to-morrow. 
 That line's rather longer than the original, Nell, isn't it ? " 
 
 Eleanor Vane laughed heartily at her old friend's random talk, 
 as she wished him good night. AU the hght-heartedness of her 
 careless childhood seemed to return to her ia Richard Thornton's 
 Bociety. Her childhood had not been an unhappy one, remem- 
 ber ; for iQ aU her father's troubles he had contrived to keep his 
 head above water, somehow or other, and the influence of his 
 over-sanguine spirit had kept Eleanor bright and hopeful xmder 
 ivery temporary cloud in the domestic sky. 
 
 But she felt very desolate and lonely as she pushed open the 
 door and entered the dark passage at the side of the shop. The 
 butcher's wife came out at the sotmd of her footstep, and gave 
 her the key, with some kindly word of greeting, which Eleanof 
 scarcely understood. 
 
 She could only say, " Bon Boir, madatoe," in her school-girl
 
 Waiting. 61 
 
 French, as she dragged herself slowly up the little winding stair, 
 Ihoroughly worn out, physically and mentally, by this time. 
 
 The little entresol seemed very close and stiflmg. She drew 
 back the curtains, and looked out through the open window; 
 but even the street itself seemed oppressively hot in the moon- 
 less, airless August night, 
 
 Eleanor found half a wax-candle in a flat china candlestick, 
 and a box of matches set ready for her. She lighted this candle, 
 and then flung off her bonnet and mantle, before she sat down 
 near the window. 
 
 " I shall have a very short time to wait, if papa comes home 
 at eleven o'clock," she thought. 
 
 Alas ! she remembered in her old childish experiences, that he 
 had never come home at the promised hour. How often, ah, 
 how often, she had waited, counting the weary hours upon the 
 church clocks, — there was one which chimed the quarters ; and 
 trembling sometimes at those strange sounds which break the 
 night silence of every house. How often she had "hoped 
 against hope," that he might, for this once, return at the time 
 he had promised. 
 
 She took the candle in her hand and looked about for a book. 
 She wanted to while away the dreary interval which she knew 
 must elapse before her father's return. She found a novel of 
 Paul Feval's in a dirty and tattered cover, on the Httle marble- 
 topped writing-table. The leaves were crumpled, and smeared 
 with stains and splotches of grease, for it was Mr. Yane's habit 
 to amuse himself Avith a work of fiction while he took his matu- 
 tinal roll and coffee. He had taken to novel reading in his 
 frivolous old age, and was as fond of a sentimental story as any 
 Bchool-girl, — as his daughter herself. 
 
 ISIiss Vane drew the lumbering little table to the open win- 
 dow, and sat down before it, with her candle close to her elbow, 
 and the tattered book spread out before her. No breath of air 
 flickered the flame of her candle, or ruffled the golden hair swept 
 back from her brow. 
 
 The passers-by upon the opposite side of the street — ^they were 
 few and far between by this time — looked up at the lighted win- 
 dow, and saw a pretty picture by the dim gHmmer of that 
 sohtary candle. The picture of a girl, serene in her youth and 
 innocence, bending over her book : her pale muslin dress and 
 auburn hair faintly visible in the subdued hght. 
 
 Tlie rattle of wheels and the cries of coachmen sounded far 
 off upon the boulevard, and in the Rue de Rivoli, and only made 
 the sdence more palpable in the Rue de I'ATcheveque. Now 
 ajid then a carriage came into that quiet comer, and Eleanor 
 Vane looked up from her book, breathless, eager, expectant, 
 fondly hoping that her father might have come back to her in
 
 62 mieanor's Victory. 
 
 some hired vehicle : but the solitary carriage always rolled away, 
 until the sound of its wheels mixed with the rattle of the dis- 
 tant wheels upon the boulevards. 
 
 There were clocks in the distance that struck the quarters. 
 How long those quarters seemed ! Paul Feval was very inte- 
 resting, no doubt. There was an awful mystery in those greasy 
 tattered pages : a ghastly mystery about two drowned young 
 women, treacherously made away with, as it seemed, upon the 
 shore of a dreary river overshadowed by wiUows. There were 
 villains and rascals paramount throughout this delightful ro- 
 mance ; and there was mystery and murder enough for half a 
 dozen novels. But Eleanor's thoughts wandered away from the 
 page. The dreary river bank and the ghostly poUard-willows, 
 the drowned young women, and the ubiquitous villains, aU 
 mingled themselves with her anxious thoughts about her father ; 
 and the trouble in the book seemed to become a part of the trou- 
 ble in her own mind, adding its dismal weight to her anxieties. 
 
 There were splotchy engravings scattered here and there 
 through the pages of Monsieur Feval's romance, and Eleanor 
 fancied by-and-by that the villain in these pictures was like the 
 stdky stranger who had followed her father and the Frenchman 
 away towards the Barriere Saint Antoine. 
 
 She fancied this, although she had scarcely seen that silent 
 stranger's face. He had kept it, as it seemed, purposely averted, 
 and she had only caught one glimpse of the restless black eyes 
 tmder the shadow of his hat, and the thick moustache that 
 shrouded his mouth. There is always something mysterious and 
 unpleasant in the idea of anything that has been hidden from 
 Tis, however trivial and insignificant that thing may be. Eleanor 
 Yane, growing more and more nei-vous as the slow hours crept 
 away, began to worry herself with the vivid recollection of that 
 one brief glimpse in which she had seen the silent stranger's face. 
 " He cannot have a good countenance," she thought, " or the 
 recollection of it would not make me so uncomfortable. How 
 rude he was, too ! I did not much hke the Frenchman, but at 
 least he was pohte. The other man was veiy disagreeable. I 
 hope he is not a friend of papa's." And then she returned to 
 the drowned young women, and the water-side, and the willows ; 
 trying in vain to bury herself in the romance, and not to Hsten 
 60 eagerly for the striking of the quarters. Sometimes she 
 thought, " Before I turn over to the next page, papa will be 
 home," or, " Before I can finish this chapter I shall hear hia 
 etep upon the stairs." 
 
 Breathless though the night was, there were many sounds that 
 disturbed and mocked this anxious watcher. Sometimes the 
 door below shook — as if by some mysterious agency, there being 
 no wind — and Eleanor fancied that her father's hand was on the
 
 The Black BuiXavntj hy the Eiver. 63 
 
 latcb. Sometimea the stairs creaked, and she started from her 
 chair, eager to run and receive him, and firmly beheving that ho 
 ■was steaUng stealthily up to his apartments, anxious not to 
 disturb the sleeping inmates of the house. She had known his 
 cautious footfall sound exactly thus in her old midnight watches. 
 
 But all these sounds were only miserable delusions. Quarter 
 after quarter, each quarter longer than the last, hour after hour 
 Btruck from the clocks distant and near. The ratthng of the 
 wheels upon the boulevards had died gradually away, and at last 
 had ceased altogether. 
 
 It was long past four, and Eleanor had pushed aside her book. 
 It was dayhght, — grey, cold, morning, chill and dismal after the 
 oppressive August mght, and she stood now in the window 
 watching the empty street. 
 
 But still the quarters chimed from the distant clocks : those 
 distant chimes had become terribly distinct now in the early 
 morning stillness. But the silence was not of long duration. 
 The rumble of waggon wheels sounded far away in the Rue St. 
 Honor6. The rush and clatter of a detachment of cavalry clashed 
 upon the asphalte of the Place de la Concorde. The early sound 
 01 a horn called out some wretched recruits to perform their 
 morning exercise in the court-yards of the Louvre. The cheer- 
 ful voices of workpeople echoed in the streets ; dogs were 
 barking, birds singing, the yellow sun mounting in a cloudless 
 heaven. 
 
 But there were no signs of the coming of George Vane with 
 the morning sunhght ; and as the day grew older and brighter, 
 the anxious face of the pale watcher at the open window only 
 grew paler and more anxious. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 THE BLACK BUILDING BT THE EIVEIL 
 
 RiCHABD Thornton was by no means an early riser. He was 
 generally one of the last of those gentlemen who shuffled into 
 the orchestra at the ten o'clock rehearsal of a new melodrama, 
 in which all the effect of a murder or an abduction depended 
 upon the pizzicato tmttering of violins, and the introduction of 
 explosive chords at particular crises in the action of the piece. 
 Mr. Thornton was a sluggard, who complained most bittorly of 
 the heartlessness of stage managers and prompter's minions, 
 who seemed to take a malicious delight in nailing cruel shps of 
 paper to the door-post of the Phoenix; terrible mandates, 
 wherein the Full Band was called at ten ; " no ten minutes ; " 
 the meaning of this last mysterious clause being that the ten 
 minutes' grace which is usually accorded to the tardy performer 
 shall on this occasion be cut off and done away with.
 
 54f JEleanor*s Victory. 
 
 But Ricliard was out for a holiday now. The eyes of MessrsL 
 Spavin and Cromshaw would fain have followed him in hii 
 Parisian wanderings, to see that he did double work for his 
 double wage ; but the proprietors of the Royal Waterloo Phoenix 
 not being blessed with the gift of clairvoyance, Mr. Thornton 
 defied and snapped his fingers at them, secure in the conscious- 
 ness of his own value. 
 
 " If J. T. Jumballs, the author of all the original dramas 
 they have done at the Phoenix; for the last ten years, understood 
 French, he'd do ' Raoul ' for two pound ten," thought Richard, , 
 as he stood before his looking-glass in the blazing August sun- 
 shine, rubbing his chin contemplatively, and wondering whether 
 the bristles would be too strong if he let them stop till another 
 morning. 
 
 If the honest truth is to be recorded, it must be acknowledged 
 that Mr. Thornton was by no means too scrupulous in the per- 
 formance of his toilet. He had a habit of forgetting to shave 
 until his chin was covered by an appearance of red stubble, 
 dappled here and there by patches of blue and brown, for his 
 beard was wont to crop up in unexj^ected hues, which surprised 
 even himself. He sympathized with the great lexicographer in 
 not having any overstrained partiahty for clean linen, and, 
 indeed, usually wore a coloured shirt, the bosom of which was 
 arabesqued with stray splashes of whitewash and distemper, to 
 say nothing of occasional meandering evidences of the numerous 
 
 })ints of porter imbibed by the young artist during his day's 
 abour. When Mr. Thornton bought a new suit of clothes he 
 put them on, and wore them continuously ; and ate and drank 
 and painted in them until they were so worn and frayed, and 
 enfeebled by ill treatment, that they began to drop away from 
 him in rusty fragments Like the withered leaves which fall from 
 a sturdy young oak. There were people who declared that Mr. 
 TTiomton slept in his ordinary costume ; but of course this was 
 a cruel slander. 
 
 To walk eight or nine miles a day to and fro between the place 
 of your abode and the scene of your occupation ; to paint the 
 best part of the scenery for a large theatre in which new pieces 
 are brought out pretty frequently ; to play second fiddle, and 
 attend early rehearsals upon cold mornings ; to jot down the 
 music cues in a melodrama, or accompany Mr. Grigsby in his 
 new comic song, or Madame Rosalbini in her latest cachuca; 
 %nd to adapt a French drama, now and then, by way of adding 
 a few extra pounds to your income, is not exactly to lead an idle 
 life ; so perhaps poor Richard Thornton may be forgiven if his 
 friends had occasion to laugh at his indifi'erence upon the sub- 
 ject of soap and water. They even went so far as to call him 
 "Dirty Dick," in their more facetious moments; but I don't
 
 I7z« Black Building hy the River. 55 
 
 think the obnoxious sobriquet wounded Richard's feelings. 
 Everybody liked him and respected him as a generous-hearted, 
 genial-tempered, honourable-minded fellow, who would scarcely 
 have told a he to save his Ufe, and who scorned to drink a pint 
 of beer that he couldn't pay for, or to accept a favour which he 
 didn't mean to return. 
 
 People at the Phoenix knew that Richard Thornton's father 
 had been a gentleman, and that the young man had a certaia 
 pride of his own. He was the only man in the theatre who 
 neither abused nor flattered his employers. The carpenters and 
 gasmen touched their caps when they talked to him, though ha 
 was shabbier than any of those employes ; the Uttle ballet girli 
 were fond of him, and came to tell him their troubles when the 
 cruel stage-manager had put their names down for shilling fines 
 in a honible book which was to be seen on the treasury table 
 every Saturday morning. The old cleaners of the theatre told 
 Mr. Thornton about their rheumatic knee-joints, and came to 
 hiTTi for sympathy after dreary hours of scouring. He had 
 patience with and compassion for every one. People knew that 
 he was kind and tender-hearted ; for his pencil initials always 
 appeared in some obscure comer of every subscription list, 
 against a sum which was bulky when taken in relation to the 
 amount of his salary. People knew that he was brave, for he 
 had once threatened to fling Mr. Spavin into the pit when that 
 
 gentleman had made some insinuation impeaching Richard's 
 onour as to the unfair use of gold-leaf in the Enchanted Caves 
 of Azure Deep. They knew that he was dutiful, and kind, and 
 true to the old music-mistress with whom he Hved, and whom he 
 helped to supiDort. They knew that when other men made hght 
 of sacred things, and were witty and philosophical upon very 
 solamn subjects, Richard Thornton would leave the assembly 
 gravely and quietly, how eloquent or Hvely soever he might have 
 been before. People knew all this, and were respectful to the 
 young scene-painter, in spite of the rainbow smears of paint 
 upon his shabby coat, and the occasional fringe of mud upon 
 the frayed edges of his trousers. 
 
 Upon this August morning Mr. Thornton made very short 
 work of his toilet. 
 
 " I won't go out to breakfast," he thought, " though I can get 
 two courses and a dessert in the Palais Royal, to say nothing of 
 half a bottle of sour claret, for fifteen pence. I'll get some coffee 
 and rolls, and go to work at some of the scenes for ' Raoul.' " 
 
 He rang a bell near his bed, pushed a table to the window, 
 which looked out into the quadrangle of the hotel, and sat down 
 with a battered tin box of water-colours and a few squares of 
 Bristol board before him. He had to ring several times before 
 one of the waiters condeacended to answer his summons, but he
 
 56 MUanor'a Victory, 
 
 worked away cheerily, smoking as lie worked, at a careful water- 
 coloured copy of a rough pencil sketch which he had made a 
 couple of nights before in the pit of the theatre. 
 
 He didn't leave off to eat his breakfast when it came, by-and- 
 by; but ate his rolls and drank his coffee in the pauses of his 
 work, only laying down his brush for a minute or so at a time. 
 The scene was a street in old Paris, the houses very dark and 
 brown, with over-hanging latticed windows, exterior staircases, 
 practicable bridges, and all sorts of devices which called for the 
 employment of a great deal of glue and pasteboard in Richard's 
 model. This scene was only one out of eight, and the young 
 scene-painter wanted to take perfect models of all the eight scenes 
 back to the Phoenix. He had M. Michel Levy's sixty centimes 
 edition of the new play spread open before him, and referred to 
 it now and again as he painted. 
 
 " Humph ! Enter Baoul down staircase in flat. Baoul's a 
 doctor, and the house with the staircase is his. The house at tho 
 vomer belongs to Gohemouche, the comic barber, and the prac- 
 ^cable lattice is Madeline's. She'll come to her window by-and- 
 by to talk to the doctor, whom she thinks a very excellent man ; 
 though he's been giving her mild doses of aqua tofana for the last 
 three weeks. Catherine de Medicis comes over the practicable 
 bridge, presently, disguised as a nun. I wonder how many melo- 
 dramas poor Catherine has appeared in since she left this mortal 
 Btage ? Did she ever do anythmg except poison people, I wonder, 
 while she was ahve ? She never does anything else at the Porte 
 Saint Martin, or on the Surrey side of the Thames. I must 
 sketch the costumes, by-and-by. Eaoul in black velvet and scarlet 
 hose, a pointed beard, straight eyebrows, short black hair, — 
 austere and dignified. Cromshaw will do Baoul, of course ; and 
 Spavin will play the light- comedy soldier who gets drunk, and 
 tears off Catherine's velvet mask in the last scene. Yes, that'U be 
 ft great scene on our side of the water. Charles the Ninth — he's 
 a muff, so anybody can play him — has just finished reading the 
 arsenicated edition of a treatise on hawking, closes the last page 
 )of the book, feels the first spasm. Catherine, disguised as a nun. 
 Las been followed by Spavin — by the comedy-soldier, I mean — to 
 the Louvre, after a conversation having been overheard between 
 her and Baoul. The King, in the agonies of spasmodic affection, 
 asks who has murdered him. ' That woman — that sorceress — 
 that fiend in human form ! ' cries the soldier, snatching the mask 
 from Catherine's face. — 'Merciful Heaven, it is my mother!' 
 Bhrieks the King, falling dead with a final spasm. That 'It ia 
 my mother!' ought to be good for three rounds of applause at 
 least. I dare say Spavin mil have the speech transferred from 
 the King's part to his own. ' Merciful He,iven, it is Ms mother l* 
 would do just as welL"
 
 The Black Building hy the Biver. 67 
 
 Poor Richard Thornton, not having risen very early, worked on 
 till past five o'clock in the afternoon before his model was finished. 
 He got up with a sigh of rehef when the pasteboard presentment 
 of the old Parisian street stood out upon the Uttle table, square 
 and perfect. 
 
 He filled his pipe and walked up and down before the table, 
 smokmg and admiring his work in an innocent rapture. 
 
 " Poor Nelly," he thought presently. " I promised I would 
 call in the Rue de 1' Archeveque to-day, to pay my respects to th* 
 old chap. Not that he'd particularly care to see me, I dare say, 
 but Nell is such a darUng. If she asked me to stand on my head, 
 and do poor old Gofiie's ^ome-fiy business, I tliink I should try 
 and do it. However, it is too late to call upon Mr Vandeleur 
 Vane to-day, so I must put that ofi" till to-morrow. I must drop 
 in again at half-price at the Porte Saint Martin, to have another 
 look at the scene in eight compartments. That'll be rather a 
 poser for the machinist at the Phoenix, I flatter myself. Yes, I 
 must have one more look at it, and — Ah! by the bye, there's the 
 Morgue!" 
 
 Mr. Thornton finished his pipe and rubbed his chin with a 
 reflective air. 
 
 "Yes, I must have a look at the Morgue before I go," he 
 thought ; " I promised that old nuisance, J. T. Jumballs, that I'd 
 refresh my memory about the Morgue. He's doing a great 
 drama in which one-half of the drcmiatis personce recognize the 
 other half dead on the marble slabs. He's never been across the 
 Channel, and I think his notions of the Morgue are somewhat 
 foggy. He fancies it's about as big as Westminster Abbey, I 
 know, and he wants the governors to give him the whole depth 
 of the stage for his great scene, and set it obhquely, like the 
 Assyrian hall in ' Sardanapalus,' so as to give the idea of illimit- 
 able extent. I'm to paint the scene for nim. ' The interior of 
 the Morgue hy lamplight. The meeting of the living and the 
 dead.' That'll be rather a strong line for the bill, at any rate. 
 I'll go and have some dinner in the Palais Royal, and then go 
 down and have a look at the gloomy place. An exterior wouldn't 
 be bad, with Notre Dame in the distance, but an interior — Bah ! 
 J. T. J. is a clever fellow, but I wish his genius didn't he so much 
 in the charnel-house." 
 
 He put on his hat, left his room, locked the door, and ran down 
 the pohshed staircase, whisthng merrily as he went. He was 
 glad to be released from his work, pleased at the prospect of a 
 lew hours' idleness in the foreign city. Many people, inhabitanta 
 and visitors, thought Paris dull, dreary, and deserted in this hot 
 August weather, but it was a delightful change from the Pilasters 
 and the primajval solitudes of Northumberland Square, that 
 quaiat, grim quadrangu: of big houses, whose prim middle-clasa
 
 68 El4anor'$ Victory. 
 
 mhabitants looked coldly over their smart wire ■window-blinds at 
 poor Richard's shabby coat. 
 
 Mr. Thornton got an excellent dinner at a great bnstling 
 restaurateur's in the Palais Eoyal, where for two francs one 
 might dine upon all the dehcacies of the season, iu a splendid 
 saloon, enlivened by the martial braying of a brass band in the 
 garden below. 
 
 The carte de jour almost bewildered Richard by its extent and 
 grandeur, and he chose haphazard from the catalogue of soups 
 which the obhging waiter gabbled over for his instruction. He 
 read aU the pleasing by-laws touching the non-division of dinners, 
 and the admissibihty of exchanges in the way of a dish for a 
 dessert, or a dessert for a dish, by payment of a few extra 
 centimes. He saw that almost all the diners hid themselves 
 behind great wedges of orange-coloured melon at an early stage 
 of the banquet, and generally wound up with a small white 
 washing-basin of lobster salad, the preparation of which was a 
 matter of slow and solemn care and thought. He ordered hia 
 dinner in humble imitation of these accompKshed hahituSs, and 
 got very good value for his two francs. Then he paid his money; 
 bowed to the graceful lady who sat in splendid attire in a very 
 bower of salads and desserts, and went down a broad staircase 
 that led into a street behind the Palais Royal, and thence to the 
 Rue RicheUeu. 
 
 He treated himself to a cup of coffee and a cigar at a cafe in 
 the Place de la Bourse, and then strolled slowly away towards 
 the Seine, smoking, and dawdKng to look at this and that as he 
 walked along. It was nearly eight o'clock, therefore, when he 
 emerged, from some narrow street, upon the quay, and made his 
 way towards that bridge beneath whose shadow the Morgue 
 hides, hke some foul and unhallowed thing. He did not much 
 like the task which Mr. JumbaUs had imposed upon him, but he 
 was too good-natured to refuse comphance with the transpontine 
 dramatist's desire, and far too conscientious to break a promise 
 once made, however disagreeable the performance of that promise 
 might prove. 
 
 He walked on resolutely, therefore, towards the black shed-like 
 building. 
 
 "I hope there are no bodies there to-night." he thought. 
 " One glance roimd the place wUl show me aU I want to see. I 
 hope there are no poor dead creatures there to-night." 
 
 He stopped before going in, and looked at a couple of women 
 who were standing near, chattering together with no little 
 gesticulation. 
 
 He asked one of these women the question. Were there any 
 6odies in the Morgue ? 
 
 Yes, — the women both answered with one voice. There had
 
 Suspense. 59 
 
 not long been 'bro-nglit the body oT a gentleman, an officer it waa 
 tbougbt, poisoned in a gaming-house. A murder, perhaps, or a 
 suicide ; no one knew which. 
 
 Eichard Thornton shrugged his shoulders as he turned away 
 from the idle gossips. 
 
 " Some people would call me a coward if they knew how I 
 dislike going into this place," he thought. 
 
 He threw away his cigar, took off his hat, and slowly crossed 
 the dark threshold of the Parisian dead-house. 
 
 When he came out again, whic^h was not until after the lapse 
 of at least a quarter of an hour, his face was almost as white as 
 the face of the corpse he had left \vithin. He vent upon the 
 bridge, scarcely knowing where he went, and walking Uke a man 
 who walks in liis sleep. 
 
 Not more than half a dozen yards from the Morgue he cam© 
 suddenly upcm the lonely figure of a girl, whose arm rested on 
 the parapet of the bridge, and whose pale face was turned towards 
 the towers of Notre Dame. 
 
 She looked up as he approached, and called him by his name. 
 
 "You here, Eleanor?" he cried. "Come away, child; come 
 away, for pity's sake I " 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 SUSPENSE. 
 
 Bleanoe Vaxe and the scene-painter stood upon the bridge 
 looking at each other for a few moments after Richai-d's cry 
 pf mingled terror and astonishment. 
 
 Had not Eleanor's mind been entirely absorbed by one cruel 
 anxiety, she would have wondered at her old friend's strange 
 greeting. As it was she took no heed of his manner. The 
 shadows of the summer night were gathering over the city and 
 upon the quiet river ; the towers of Notre Dame loomed dimly 
 through the twihght. 
 
 "Oh, Richard!" Eleanor cried, "I have been so unhappy. 
 Papa didn't come home all last night, nor yet to-day. I waited 
 for bim hour after hour until late in the afternoon ; and then the 
 house seemed unbearable ; I couldn't stay in any longer, and I 
 came out to look for him. I have been far up on the Boulevard 
 where I parted with him last night, and all the way along the 
 crowded streets about there : and then through other streets, till 
 I found myself down here by the water, and I'm so tired ! Oh, 
 Dick, Dick, how unkind of papa not to come home ! How unkind 
 of my darling father to give me this misery." 
 
 She clasped her hands convulsively upon her companion's 
 arm, and bending her head, burst into tears. Those tears were
 
 I 
 
 60 Eleanor's Vietoty. 
 
 the first whicli she had shed in all her trouble ; the first relief 
 after long hours of agonizing suspense, of weary watching. 
 
 " Oh, how can papa treat me so?" she cried, amid her sob- 
 bing. " How can he treat me so P" 
 
 Then, suddenly raising her head, she looked at Richard Thorn- 
 ton, her clear grey eyes dUated with a wild terror, which gave 
 her face a strange and awful beauty. 
 
 " Richard !" she cried, "Richard! you don't think that there 
 — that there is — anything wrong — ^that anything has happened 
 to my father?" 
 
 She did not wait for him to answer, but cried out directly, as ix 
 shrinking in terror from the awful suggestion in her own words : 
 " ^Vhat should happen to him ? he is so well and strong, poor 
 darling. If he is old, he is not lihe an old man, you know. The 
 eople of the house in the Rue de I'Archeveque have been very 
 iind to me; they say I'm quite fooKsh to be frightened, and 
 they told me that papa stopped out all night once last summer. 
 He went to Versailles to see some friends, and stayed away all 
 night without giving any notice that he was going to do so. I 
 know it is very silly of me to be so frightened, Richard. But I 
 always was frightened at Chelsea if he stayed out. I used to 
 fancy all sorts of things. I thought of all kinds of dreadful 
 things last night, Dick, and to-day; until my fancies almost 
 drove me mad." 
 
 During aU this time the scene-painter had not spoken. He 
 seemed unable to offer any word of comfort to the poor girl who 
 clung to him in her distress, looldng to him for consolation and 
 hope. 
 
 She looked wonderingly into his face, puzzled by his silence, 
 which seemed unfeehng; and it was not like Richard to be 
 unfeeling. 
 
 " Richard !" she cried, almost impatiently. " Richard, speak 
 to me ! You see how much misery I have sufiered, and you 
 don't say a word ! You'U help me to find papa, won't you ? " 
 
 The young man looked down at her. Heaven knows she would 
 have seen no lack of tenderness or compassion ia his face, if it 
 had not been hidden by the gathering gloom of the August 
 evening. He drew her hand through his arm, and led her away 
 towards the other side of the water, leaving the black roof o! 
 the dead-house behind him. 
 
 " There is nothing I would not do to help you, Eleanor," he 
 said, gently, " God knows my heart, my dear ; and He knowe 
 how faithfully I will try to help you." 
 
 " And you will look for papa, Richard, if he should not come 
 home to-night, — he may be at home now, you know, and he may 
 be angry with me for coming out alone, instead of waiting 
 quietly till he returned ; but if he should not come to-night^
 
 Suspense, 61 
 
 youTl look for him, won't you, Richard ? You'll search all Paris 
 till you find liimp" 
 
 " I'll do everything that I could do for you if I were your 
 brother, Eleanor," the young man answered, gravely; "there 
 are times in our lives when nobody but God can help us, my 
 dear, and when we must turn to Him. It's in the day of trouble 
 that we want His help, Nelly." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know. I prayed, last night, again, and again, 
 and again, that papa might come back soon. I have been say- 
 ing the same prayer all to-day, Eichard ; even just now, when 
 you found me standing by the jmrapet of the bridge, I was 
 praying for my dear father. I saw the church towers looking 
 so grand and solemn in the twilight, and the sight of them 
 made me remember how powerful God is, and tnat He ean 
 always grant our prayers." 
 
 " If it seems best and wisest in His sight, Nell." 
 
 " Yes, of course ; sometimes we pray for fooUsh things, but 
 there could be nothing foolish in wishing my darling father to 
 come back to me. Where are you taking me, Dick ?" 
 
 Eleanor stopped suddenly, and looked at her companion. She 
 liad need to ask the question, for Richard Thornton was leading 
 her into a labyrinth of streets in the direction of the Luxem- 
 bourg, and he seemed to have very little notion whither he was 
 going. 
 
 " This is not the way home, Richard," Eleanor said ; " I don't 
 know where we are, but we seem to be going farther and far- 
 ther away from home. Will you take me back to the Rue de 
 I'Archeveque, Dick? We must cross the river again, you 
 know, to get there. I want to go home at once. Papa may 
 have come home, and he'll be angry, perhaps, if he finds me 
 absent. Take me home, Dick." 
 
 " I win, my dear. We'll cross the water farther on, by tha 
 Louvre ; and now tell me, Eleanor — I — I can't very well make 
 inquiries about your father, unless I fully understand the cir- 
 cumstances under which you parted from him last night. How 
 was it, my dear? What happened when Mr. Vane left you 
 upon the Boulevard?" 
 
 They were walking in a broad, quiet street in which there wem 
 very few passers-by. The houses stood back behind ponderou* 
 p,tes, and were hidden by sheltering walls. The stately mansions 
 between court and garden had rather a decayed aspect, which 
 gave a certain dreariness to their grandeur. The fashionablft 
 World seemed to have deserted this quiet quarter for the leafy- 
 avenues leading away from the Champs Elys^es. 
 
 Richard and Eleanor walked ^owly along the broad footway. 
 The stillness of the soft summer night had some effect upon the 
 ichool-girl's fever of impatience. The grave, compassionate
 
 02 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 tones of her friend's voice soothed her. The hnrst of passionate 
 weeping which had ahnost convulsed her sHght frame half an 
 hour before, had been an unspeakable rehef to her. _ She clung 
 to her companion's arm confidingly, and walked patiently by his 
 side ; without questioning him as to w^here he was leading her, 
 though she had a vague idea that he was not taking her home- 
 wards. . 
 
 " I will not be foolish about papa," she said ; " I will do as 
 you tell me, Richard; I will trust in God. I am sure my dear 
 father will return to me. We are so fond of each other ; you 
 know, Eichard, we are all the world to each other ; and my poor 
 darling looks so hopefully forward to the day in wliich he will 
 have Mr. de Crespigny's fortune. I don't hope for that quite so 
 much as papa does, Dick ; for Mr. de Crespigny may Hve to be 
 a very, very old man, and it seems so wicked to wish for any 
 cue's death. The day I look forward to is the day when I shall 
 have finished my education, and be able to work for papa. That 
 must be almost better than being rich, I should think, Dick. I 
 can't imagine any happier fate than to work for those we love." 
 
 Her face brightened as she talked, and she turned to her com- 
 panion, looking to him for sympathy ; but Eichard's head was 
 averted, and he seemed to be staring absently at the houses upon 
 the opposite side of the way. 
 
 He was silent for some moments after Eleanor had left off 
 Bpeaking ; and then he said, rather abruptly : 
 
 " Tell me, my dear, how did you part with your father last 
 night?" 
 
 "Why, we had been dining on the Boulevard; and after 
 dinner papa took me for a long walk, ever so far, past all the 
 theatres, and he had promised to take me to the Ambigue or 
 the Poi-te Saint Martin ; but as we were coming back we met 
 two gentlemen, friends of papa's, who stopped him, and said 
 they had an appointment with him, and persuaded him to go 
 liack with them." 
 
 " Back with them ! Back where ? " 
 
 " I mean back towards a big stone gateway we had pas'^ed a 
 little time before. I only know they turned tb.vt way, but I don't 
 know where they went. I stood and watched them till they were 
 out of sight." 
 
 " And the two men, what were they like ? " 
 
 " One of them was a Httle Frenchman, stout and rosy-faced, 
 with a Hght moustache and beard hke the Emperor's. He waa 
 nnartly dressed, and had a cane, which he kept twirling when 
 he talked to papa." 
 
 " Did you hear what he saidP " 
 
 " No, ne spoke in a low voice, and he talked Frencli." 
 
 " But yon speak French, Eleanor ? "
 
 Suspenie. 63 
 
 ** Yea, but not as thejr speak it here. The people seem to talk 
 BO fast here, it's quite difficult to understand them." 
 
 " But the other man, Nell ; what was he Uke ? " 
 
 " Oh, he was a disagreeable-looking man, and seemed to have 
 a sulky manner, as if he was offended with papa for breaking 
 his appointment, and didn't care how the matter ended. I 
 ecarcely saw his face — at least only for a moment — just long 
 enough to see that he had black eyes, and a thick black mous- 
 tache. Ho was tall, and shabbily dreesed, and I fancied he was 
 an Enghshman, though he never once spoke." 
 
 " He never spoke ! It was the Frenchman, then, who per- 
 suaded your father to go away with him ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And he seemed very anxious P " 
 
 " Oh, yes, very anxious." 
 
 Kichard Thornton muttered something between his set teeth, 
 something which sounded like a curse. 
 
 " Tell me one thing, Eleanor," he said. " Your poor father 
 never was too well off, I know. He could not be likelj^ to 
 have much money about him last night. Do you know if he 
 had any ? " 
 
 " Yes, he had a great deal of money." 
 
 " What do you mean by a great deal P A few pounds, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Oh, much more than that," Eleanor answered. " He 
 had a hundred pounds — a hundred pounds in new bank notes — 
 French notes. It was the money my half-sister, Mrs. Ban- 
 nister, had sent him, to pay for my education at Madame 
 Marly's." 
 
 " Mi-s. Bannister," said Eichard, catching at the name. " Ah, 
 to be sure, I remember now. Mrs. Bannister is your sister. 
 She is very well off, is she not, and has been kind to you? 
 If you were in any trouble, you would go to her, I suppose, 
 Eleanor ? " 
 
 " Go to her if I were in trouble ! Oh, no, no, Dick, not for 
 the world ! " 
 
 " But why not ? She has been kind to you, hasn't she, NeU ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, very kind in paying money for my education, and 
 aU that ; but you know, Kichard, there are some people who 
 Beem to do kind things in an unkind manner. If you knew 
 the cruel letter that Mrs. Bannister wrote to papa — the cruel, 
 humiliating things she said only a few days ago, you couldn't 
 wonder that I don't Kke her." 
 
 " But she is your sister, Nell ; your nearest relation." 
 
 " Except papa." 
 
 " And she ought to love you, and be kind to you. She live* 
 at Bayewater, I think I've heard you say ? "
 
 64 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " Yes, in Hyde Park Gardens." 
 
 " To be sure. Mrs. Bannister, Hyde Park Gardens, Bayswater." 
 
 He repeated the name and address, as if lie wished to impress 
 tliem upon liis memory. 
 
 " I will take you home now, Nell," lie said. " My poor 
 child, you must be tired to death." 
 
 " How can I tliink about being tired, Richard," exclaimed 
 Eleanor, " when I am so anxious about papa ? Oh, if I only 
 find him at home, what happiness it will be !" 
 
 But she hung heavily upon her friend's arm, and Richard 
 knew that she was very tired. She had been wandering about 
 Paris for several hours, poor child, hither and thither, in the 
 long, unfamiliar streets, following all sorts of unlikely people 
 who looked in the distance something like her father ; hoping 
 again and again, only again and again to be disappointed. 
 
 They turned into a wider thoroughfare presently, and the 
 scene-painter called the first hackney vehicle which passed him, 
 and lifted Eleanor into it. She was almost fainting with fatigue 
 and exhaustion. 
 
 " What have you had to eat to-day, Nell ? " he asked. 
 
 She hesitated a little, as if she had forgotten what she had 
 eaten, or indeed whether she had eaten at all. 
 
 ' There was some cofiee and a couple of rolls sent for papa 
 fcfais morning. He has his breakfast sent him from a traiteur's, 
 you know. I had one of the rolls." 
 
 " And you've had nothing since ? " 
 
 " No. How could I eat when I was so wretched about papaP" 
 
 Richard shook his head reproachfully. 
 
 •' My darling Nell ! " he said, " you promised me just now 
 that you'd be a good girl, and trust in Providence. I shall 
 take you somewhere and give you some supper, and then you 
 must promise me to go home and get a good night's rest." 
 
 " I will do whatever you tell me, Richard," Eleanor answered, 
 submissively, " but let me go home first, please, and see if papa 
 has come back." 
 
 The scene-painter did not for a few moments reply to this 
 request, but he answered presently in an abstracted tone : 
 
 " You shall do what you hke, Nell." 
 
 He told the coachman to drive to the Rue de I'Archeveque, 
 but he would not let Eleanor alight from the vehicle when they 
 reached the comer of the street and the Httle butcher's shop, 
 eager as she was to spiing out and run into the house. 
 
 " Stay where you are, Nell," he said authoritatively. "I will 
 make all inquiries." 
 
 Eleanor obeyed him. She was exhausted by a weary night of 
 watching, a long day of agitation and anxiety, and she was too 
 weak to oppose her old friend. She looked hopelessly tip at the
 
 Suspend. 6S 
 
 open windows on tte entresol. They were exactly as she had 
 left them four or five hours ago. No glimmer of light gave 
 friendly token that the rooms were occupied. 
 
 Richard Thornton talked to the butcher's wife for a long time, 
 as it seemed to Eleanor ; but he had very little to tell her when 
 he came back to the carriage. Mr. Vane had not returned : that 
 was aU he said. 
 
 He took his companion to a cafe near the Madeleine, where he 
 insisted u]X)n her taking a large cup of cofiee and a roll. It was 
 all he could jiorsuade her to take, and she begged to be allowed 
 to sit at one of the tables outside the cafe. 
 
 " She might see her father go by," she said, " on his way to 
 the Rue de I'Archeveque." 
 
 The two friends sat at a Uttle iron table rather apart from the 
 groups of animated loungers sitting at other tables drinking 
 coffee and lemonade. But George Mowbray Yandeleur Vane 
 did not pass that way throughout the half hour during which 
 Eleanor lingered over her cup of coffee. 
 
 It was past ten o'clock when Richard Thornton bade her good, 
 night at the thi-eshold of the httle door beside the butcher's shop. 
 
 " You must promise me not to sit up to-night, NeUy," he 
 said, as he shook hands with her. 
 
 " Yes, Richard." 
 
 " And mind you keep your promise this time. I will come 
 and see you early to-morrow. God bless you, my dear, and good 
 night ! " 
 
 He pressed her hand tenderly. "When she had closed the 
 door behind her, he crossed the narrow street, and waited upon 
 the other side of the way until he saw a Hght in one of the 
 entresol windows. He watched while Eleanor came to this 
 window and drew a dark curtain across it, and then he walked 
 slowly away. 
 
 " God bless her, poor child," he murmured, in a low, compas- 
 sionale voice, " poor lonely child ! " 
 
 The grave thoughtfulness of his expression never changed as 
 he walked homewards to the Hotel des Deux Mondes. Late as 
 it was when he reached his chamber on the fifth story, he seated 
 himself at the table, and pushing aside his clay pipe and tobacco- 
 pouch, his water-colours and brushes, his broken palettes and 
 scraps of Bristol board, and all the Utter of his day's work, he 
 took a few sheets of foreign letter jjaper and a bottle of ink fi*om 
 a shabby leather desk, and began to write. 
 
 He wrote two letters, both rather long, and folded, sealed, and 
 directed them. 
 
 One was addressed to Mrs. Bannister, Hyde Park Gardens, 
 Baycwater ; the other to Signora Picirillo, the Pilasters, Duiley 
 Street, Northumberland Square. 
 
 E
 
 W Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Eicliard Thornton put both tBese letters in his pocket and 
 went out to post them. 
 
 " I think I have acted for the best," he muttered, as he went 
 back to the hotel near the market-place; "I can do nothing 
 more until to-morrow." 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 GOOD SAMARITANS. 
 
 Geokge Yane did not come home. Eleanor kept the promise 
 made to her faithful friend, and tried to sleep. She flung her- 
 self, dressed as she was, upon the Uttle bed near the curtained 
 alcove. She woiild thus be ready to run to her father, whenever 
 he came in, she thought, to welcome and minister to him. She 
 was thoroughly worn out, and she slept ; a wretched slumber, 
 broken by nightmares and horrible dreams, in which she saw her 
 father assailed by all kinds of dangers, a prey to every manner 
 of misfortune and vicissitude. Once she saw him standing on a 
 horrible rock, menaced by a swiftly advancing tide, while she was 
 in a boat only a few paces from him, as it seemed, doing battle 
 with the black waves, and striving with all her might to reach 
 and rescue him, but never able to do so. 
 
 In another dream he was wandering iipon the crumbling 
 verge of a precipice — he seemed a white-haired, feeble, tottering 
 old man in this vision — and again she was near him, but unable 
 to give liim warning of his danger, though a word would have 
 done so. The agony of her endeavour to utter the one ciy which 
 would have called that idoHzed father from his death, awoke her. 
 
 But she had other dreams, dreams of quite a different cha- 
 racter, in which her father was restored to her, rich and pros- 
 perous, and he and she were laughing merrily at all the fooUsh 
 tortures she had inflicted upon herself; and other dreams again 
 which seemed so real that she fancied she must be awake : 
 dreams in which she heard the welcome footstejDS upon the stair, 
 the opening of the door, and her father's voice in the next room 
 calHng to her. 
 
 These dreams were the worst of all. It was terrible to awake 
 after many such delusions and find she had been again deluded. 
 It was cruel to awake to the full sense of her loneliness, while 
 the sound of the voice she had heard in her dream still lingered 
 in her ears. 
 
 The dark hours of the short summer night seemed intermi- 
 nable to her in this wretched, bewildered, half- sleeping, half- 
 waking state ; even longer than they had appeared when she sat 
 tip watching for her father's return. Every fresh dream was a 
 Blow agony of terror and perplexity. 
 
 At last the grey daylight stole in through the half-cloaed
 
 Oood Samaritans. 67 
 
 Bhutters, the vague outlines of the furniture gre\t out of tlie 
 darkness; duskily impalpable and f,diastly at first, then sharp 
 and distinct in the cold morning hght. She could not rest any 
 longer; she got up and went to the window; she pushed the 
 sash open, and sanK down on her knees mth her forehead rest- 
 ing on the ■RTiidow sill. 
 
 "I ^vill wait for him here," she thought; "I shall hear his 
 step in the street. Poor dear, poor dear, I can guess why he 
 stays away. He has spent that odious money, and does"not like 
 to return and tell me so. My darling father, do you know me 
 Bo Uttle as to think that I would grudge you the last farthing 
 I had in the world, if you wanted it ? " 
 
 Her thoughts rambled on in strange confusion until they grew 
 bewildering ; her brain became dizzy with perpetual repetitions 
 of the same idea ; when she lifted her head — her poor, weary, 
 burning, heavy head, which seemed a leaden weight that it was 
 almost impossible to raise — and looked from the window, the 
 street below reeled beneath her eyes, the floor upon which she 
 knelt seemed sinking with her into some deep gulf of blackness 
 and horror. A thousand conflicting soimds — not the morning 
 noises of the waking city — hissed and buzzed, and roared and 
 thundered in her ears, growing louder and louder and louder, 
 until they aU melted away in the fast-gathering darkness. 
 
 The sun was shining brightly into the room when the com- 
 
 gassionate mistress of the house found Mr. Yane's daughter 
 alf kneehng, half lying on the ground, with her head upon the 
 cold sill of the open -svindow, and her auburn hair streaming in 
 draggled curls about her shoulders. Her thin muslin frock was 
 wet with the early dew. She had fainted away, and had lain 
 thus, helpless and insensible, for several hours. 
 
 The butcher's wife undressed her and put her to bed. Eichard 
 Thornton came to the Eue de I'Archeveque half an hour after- 
 wards, and went away again directly to look for an Enghsh 
 doctor. He found one, an elderly man with grave and gentle 
 manners, who declared that Miss Vane was suffering from fever 
 brought on by intense mental excitement; she was of a highly 
 nen-ous temperament, he said, and that she required httle to be 
 done for her ; she only wanted repose and quiet. Her constitu- 
 tion was superb, and would triumph over a far more serioua 
 attack than tliis. 
 
 Eichard Thornton took the doctor into the adjoining room, 
 the Httle sitting-room which bore the traces of Mr. Vane's occu- 
 pation, and talked to him in a low voice for some minutes. The 
 medical man shook his head gravely. 
 
 " It is very sad," he said ; " it ^vill be better to tell her the 
 truth, if possible, as soon as she recovers from the delirium. The
 
 68 ^Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 anxiety and suspense have overtaken her brain. Anything 
 "vould be better than that this overstrained state of the mind 
 should continue. Her constitution will rally after a shock ; but 
 with her higlily nervous and imaginative nature, eveiything is 
 to be dreaded from prolonged mental irritation. She is related 
 to you, I suppose P" 
 
 " No, poor child, I wish she were." 
 
 " But she is not without near relatives, I hope?" 
 
 " No, she has sisters — or at least half sisters — and brothers." 
 
 " They should be written to, then, immediately," the doctor 
 said, as he took up his hat. 
 
 " I have written to one of her sisters, and I have written to 
 another lady, a friend, who will be of more use, I fancy, in this 
 crisis." 
 
 The doctor went away, promising to send some saline draughts 
 to keep the fever under, and to call again in the evening. 
 
 Eichard Thornton went into the Uttle bed-chamber, where the 
 butcher's wife sat beside the curtained alcove, making up some 
 accounts in a leather-covered book. She was a hearty, pleasant- 
 mannered youjig woman, and had taken up her post by the 
 invaUd's bed very willingly, although her presence was always 
 much needed in the shop below. 
 
 "Chut," she whispered, with her finger on her lip, "she sleeps, 
 pcmvrette !" 
 
 Richard sat down quietly by the open window. He took out 
 Michel Levy's edition of " Raoul," a stump of lead pencil, and 
 tlie back of an old letter, and set to work resolutely at his adap- 
 ;ation. He could not afford to lose time, even though his 
 adopted sister lay ill under the shadow of the worsted curtains 
 that shrouded the alcove on the other side of the Httle room. 
 
 He sat long and patiently, turning the Poison drama into 
 EngHsh with wonderful ease and rapidity ; and meekly bearing 
 a deprivation that was no small one to him, in the loss of his 
 clay pipe, which he was in the habit of smoking at all hoxirs of 
 the day. 
 
 Eleanor awoke at last, and began talking in a rambling, inco- 
 herent way about her father, and the money sent by Mrs. 
 Bannister, and the parting upon the Boulevard. 
 
 The butcher's wife drew back the curtain, and Richard Thorn- 
 ton went to the bedside and linked down tenderly at his c h ildish 
 friend. 
 
 Her golden-tinted hair was scattered on the pillow, tangled and 
 roughened by the constant movement of her restless head. Her 
 grey eyes were feverishly bright, and burning spots blazed upon 
 the cheeks which had been so deadly pale on the previous night. 
 She knew Richard, and spoke to liim ; but the delirium was not 
 over, for she mixed the events of the present with the Chelsea
 
 Good Samaritan*. 60 
 
 experiences of long ago, and talked to her old friend of the 
 Signora, the violin, and the rabbits. She fell off into a heavy 
 sleep again, after taking the effervescent medicine sent her by 
 the English surgeon, and slept until nearly twilight. In these 
 long slumbers her fresh and powerful constitution asserted 
 itself, and took compensation for the strain that had been made 
 upon it in the past day or two. 
 
 Richard went away in the afternoon, and did not retnm till 
 late at night, when the butcher's wife told him that her charge 
 had been very restless, rfnd had asked repeatedly for her fathei. 
 
 " What are we to do ?" the good woman said, shrugging her 
 shoulders with a despairing gestiu-e. " Are we to tell her ? " 
 
 "Not yet," Richard answered. " Keep her quiet ; keep her 
 as quiet as you can. And if it is positively necessary to teU her 
 anything, say that her father has been taken ill, away from home, 
 and cannot be brought back yet. Poor child ! it seems so cruel 
 to keep her in suspense, and still more cruel to deceive her." 
 
 The butcher's wife promised to do all in her power to keep her 
 patient quiet. The doctor had sent an opiate. Miss Vane could 
 not sleep too much, he said. 
 
 So another night j^assed, this time very peaceftilly for Eleanor, 
 who lay in a heavy slumber broken by no cruel dreams. She 
 was very, very weak the next day, for she had scarcely eaten 
 anything since the roll and coffee which Richard had made her 
 take ; and though she was not exactly delirious, her mind seemed 
 almost incapable of receiving any very vivid impression. She 
 listened quietly when they told her that her father could not 
 come home because he was ill. 
 
 Richard Thornton came to the Rue de I'Archeveque several 
 times during this second day of Eleanor's illness, but he ordy 
 stayed a few minutes upon each occasion. He had a great deal 
 to do, he told the butcher's wife, who still kept faithfully to her 
 post in the sick room, only steahug away now and then, while 
 Eleanor was asleep, to attend to her business. 
 
 It was past eleven o'clock that night when the scene-painter 
 came for tne last time. Eleanor had grown worse as the evening 
 advanced, and was by this time terribly feverish and restless. 
 She wanted to get up and dress herself, and go to her father. If 
 he was ill, how could they keep her from him, how conld the?* 
 be so cruel as to keep her from his side ? 
 
 Then, starting up suddenly from her pillow, she would cry out 
 wildly that they were deceiving her, and that her father was dead. 
 
 But help and comfort were near at hand. Wlien Richard 
 came, he did not come alone. He brought a lady ^^'ith him ; an 
 elderly grey-headed woman, dressed in shabby black. 
 
 When this lady appeared upon the threshold of the dimly- 
 lighted little bedchamber, Eleau'w Vane suddenly sprang up in
 
 70 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 her Viod, and tlirew out her arms witli a wild cry of snrprise and 
 deliglit. 
 
 "The Signora!" slie exclaimed, "the dear, kind Signora!" 
 
 The lady took off her bonnet, and then went close up to the 
 bed, and seating herself on the edge of the mattress, di-ew 
 Eleanor's fair head upon her bosom, smoothing the tangled hair 
 vrith xmspeakable tenderness. 
 
 " My poor child ! " she murmtired again and again. " My 
 poor, poor child !" 
 
 " But, dear Signora," Eleanor cried, wonderingly, " how is it 
 that you are here ? Why didn't Eichard tell me that you were 
 in Paris?" 
 
 " Because I have only just arrived, my darling." 
 
 " Only just arrived ! Only just arrived in Paris ! But why 
 did you come ? " 
 
 " I came to see you, Eleanor," the Signora answered, very 
 gently. " I heard that you were in trouble, my dear, and I have 
 come to you ; to help and comfort you if I can." 
 
 The butcher's wife had withdrawn into the little sitting-room 
 where Kichard sat in the darkness. Eleanor Yane and the 
 Signora were therefore quite alone. 
 
 Hitherto the invahd's head had rested very quietly upon her 
 friend's bosom, but now she hfted it suddenly and looked full in 
 the Signora's face. 
 
 " You came to me because I was in trouble," she said. " How 
 ghould I be in trouble so long as my father Uves ? What sorrow 
 can come to me while he is safe ? He is iU, they say, but he will 
 get better ; he wiU get better, won't he ? He will be better 
 soon, dear Signora ; he will be better soon ? " 
 
 She waited for an answer to her breathless questioning, 
 looking intently in the pale quiet face of her friend ; then sud- 
 denly, with a low, wailing cry, she flung up her hands and 
 clasped them wildly above her head, 
 
 " You have all deceived me," she cried, " you have all deceived 
 me : my father is dead !" 
 
 The Signora drew her arm caressingly round Eleanor Vane, 
 and tried to shelter the poor burning head once more upon her 
 shoulder; but Eleanor shrank from her with an impatieni 
 gesture, and, with her hands stiU clasped above her head, stared 
 blankly at the dead wall before her. 
 
 " My dear, my dear," the Signora said, trying to unclasp the 
 rigid hands which were so convulsively clasi^ed together. 
 "Eleanor, my dear, listen to me: for pity's sake try and listen 
 to me, my own dear love. You must know, you must have long 
 known, my dear, that heavy sorrows come to us all, sooner or 
 later. It is the common lot, my love, and we must all bow 
 before the Divine hand that alBicts us. If there were no sorrow
 
 Oood Samaritans. ^ 
 
 in this world, Eleanor, we should grow too much in love with our 
 own happiness; we should be frightened at the approach of 
 grey hairs and old age ; we should tremble at the thought of 
 death. If there were no better and higher Hfe than this, Eleanor, 
 Borrow and death would indeed be teirible. You know how very 
 much affliction has fallen to my share, dear. You have heard 
 me speak of the children I loved ; all taken from me, Nelly, all 
 taken away. If it were not for my dear nephew, Richard, I 
 should stand quite alone in the world, a desolate old woman, 
 with no hope on this side of the grave. But when my sons were 
 taken from me, God raised me up another son in him. Do you 
 think that God ever abandons us, Eleanor, even when He afflicts 
 US most heavily ? I have lived a long life, my dear, and I tell 
 you xo!" 
 
 The Signora waited in vain for some change in the rigid 
 attitude, the stony face. Eleanor Yane still stared blankly at 
 the dead wall before her. 
 
 " You have all deceived me," she repeated ; " my father ia 
 dead!" 
 
 It was useless talking to her ; the tenderest words were duU 
 and meaningless jar,^on to her ears. That night the fever grew 
 worse, and the delirium was at its height. The butcher's wife 
 was relieved by a very patient and accustomed watcher, for the 
 Signora had sat by many sick-beds, hoping against hope, until 
 despair crept into her heart, as the grey shadows of approaching 
 death came over a beloved face, never again to pass away. 
 
 The fever lasted for several days and nights, but throughout 
 every change the English doctor declared that Eleanor Vane's 
 constitution would carry her through a worse attack than this, 
 
 " I am glad you told her," he said one morning to the Signora ; 
 "there vn\\ be less to tell her by-and-by, when she begins to get 
 stroncj again." 
 
 There was, therefore, something more to be told. 
 
 Little by_ little the fever passed awav ; the crimson spots faded 
 out of the invaUd's hollow cheeks ; the unnatiu-al lustre of the 
 grey eyes grew less and less vivid ; little by little the mind grew 
 clearer, the delirious wanderings less frequent. 
 
 But with the return of perfect consciousness there came 
 terrible bursts of grief— grief that was loud and passionate in 
 proportion to the impulsive vehemence of Eleanor Vane's 
 .character. This was her first sorrow, and she could not bear it 
 quietly. Floods of tears drowned her pillow night after night ; 
 she refused to be comforted ; she repulsed the patient Signora ; 
 she woukl not listen to poor Eichard, who came sometimes to sit 
 by her side, and tried nis best to beguile her from her grief. 
 She rebelled against their attempted consolation.
 
 72 Realtor's Victory. 
 
 " What was my father to you P " she cried, passiouately. 
 " You can aflford to forget him. He was all the world to me 1 " 
 
 But it was not in Eleanor's nature to be long ungi-ateful for 
 the tenderness and compassion of those who were so patient 
 with her in this dark hour of her young Ufe. 
 
 " How good you are to me," she cried sometimes, " and what 
 a wretch I am to think so Uttle of your goodness. But you 
 don't know how I loved my father. You don't know — you 
 don't know. I was to have worked for him ; I was to have 
 worked for him by-and-by, and we were to have led such a 
 happy life together." 
 
 She was growing strong again, in spite of her grief. Her 
 elastic temperament asserted itself in spite of her sorrow, which 
 she never ceased to think of night and day, and she arose after 
 her illness Uke a beautiful flower which had been beaten and 
 crushed by the storm. 
 
 Richard Thornton's leave of absence had expired for some 
 days, but the Royal Phoenix Theatre closed its doors in the hot 
 summer months, and he was therefore comparatively free. He 
 stayed in Paris with his aunt, for they were both bent upon one 
 purpose, to be accomplished at any sacrifice to themselves. 
 Thank Heaven ! there are always good Samaritans in the world, 
 who do not mind turning backward upon their life's journey 
 when there is a desolate wounded traveller in need of their help 
 and tenderness. 
 
 The Parisian atmosphere was coohng down in the early days 
 of September — faint biit refreshing breezes were beginning to 
 blow away the white mists of summer heat upon the Boulevards, 
 when Eleanor Vane was well enough to sit m the httle saloon 
 above the butcher's shop, and drink tea in. the EngHsh fashion 
 with her two friends. 
 
 She was well enough to do this, and Richard and the Signora 
 were beginning to think of turning homewards ; but before they 
 could well leave Paris there was something that ought to be told 
 to Eleanor — something that she must know sooner or later- 
 something that it would be perhaps better for her to know at once. 
 
 But they had waited from time to time, thinking that she 
 might ask some question which would lead to the revelation 
 that must ultimately be made to her. 
 
 Upon this September afternoon she sat near the open window, 
 looking very beautiful and virginal in a loose white mushn 
 dressing-gown, and with her long auburn carls falling upon her 
 shoulders. She had been silent for a long time : her two com- 
 panions watching her furtively, observant of every change in hei 
 countenance. Her cup of tea stood untasted on a Httle table at 
 her side, and she was sitting with her hands loosely locked 
 together in her lap.
 
 Good Samaritant. 73 
 
 She epote at last, and asked that very qnestion which must 
 inevitably lead to the revelation her friends had to make to her. 
 
 •' You have never told me how papa died," she said ; " hia 
 death must have been sudden, I know." 
 
 Eleanor Vane spoke very quietly. She had never before men- 
 tioned her dead father with so httle outward evidence of emo- 
 tion. The hands loosely locked together upon her lap stirred 
 with a slightly tremulous motion ; the face, turned towards 
 the Signora and Eichard Thornton, had a look of fixed inten- 
 sity ; and that was all. 
 
 " Papa died suddenly, did he notP " she repeated. 
 
 "Tes, my dear, very suddenly." 
 
 " I thought so. But why was he not brought home P Why 
 couldn't I see " 
 
 She stopped abruptly, and turned her face away towards the 
 open window. She was trembling violently now from head to 
 foot. 
 
 Her two companions were silent. That terrible something 
 which was at yet unrevealed must be told sooner or later ; but 
 who was to tell it to this girl, with her excitable nature, her 
 highly-wrought nervous temperament ? 
 
 The Signora shrugged her shoulders despondingly as she 
 looked at her nephew. Mr. Thornton had been painting aU the 
 afternoon in the little sitting-room. He had tried to interest 
 Eleanor Vane in the great set scenes he was preparing for 
 Raotd. He had explaiaed to her the nature of a vampire trap 
 in the wainscot of the poisoner's chamber, and had made his 
 pasteboard model limp in his repeated exhibition of its machi- 
 nery. The vampire trap was a subtle contrivance which might 
 have beguiled any one irom their grief, Dick thought; but the 
 wan smile with which Eleanor watched his work only made the 
 scene-painter's heart ache. Kichard sighed as he retimied his 
 aunt's look. It seemed quite a hopeless case as yet. This poor 
 lonely child of fifteen might go melancholy mad, perhaps, in 
 her grief for a spendthrilt father. 
 
 Eleanor Vane turned upon them suddenly while they sat silent 
 and embarrassed, wondering what they should say to her next. 
 
 " My father committed suicide 1 " she said, in a strangely 
 quiet voice. 
 
 The Signora started and rose suddenly, as if she would have 
 gone to Eleanor. Eichard grew very pale, but sat looking down 
 at the litter upon the table, with one hand trifling nervously 
 amongst the scraps of cardboard and wet paint-brushes. 
 
 "Yes," cried Eleanor Vane, "you have deceived me from first 
 to last. You told me first tl.at he was not dead ; but when you 
 could no longer keep my misery a secret from me, you only told 
 me half the truth — you only told me half the cruel truth. And
 
 74 Eleanor's Victory, 
 
 even now, wten I have suffered so mucli that it seems as if no 
 fiu-ther suflering could touch me, you still deceive me, you still 
 try to keep the tnith from me. My father parted from me in 
 health and spirits. Don't tiifle with me, Signora; I am not a 
 child any longer ; I am not a fooHsh school-girl, whom you can 
 deceive as you hke. I am a woman, and will know the worst. 
 My father kiUedhimself ! ;' 
 
 She had risen in her excitement, but clung with one hand to the 
 back of her chair, as if too weak to stand without that support. 
 
 The Signora went to her, and wound her arms about the 
 shght tremljhng figure ; but Eleanor seemed almost unconscious 
 of that motherly caress. 
 
 " Tell me the truth," she cried, vehemently ; " did my father 
 kill himself? " 
 
 " It is feared that he did, Eleanor." 
 
 The pale face grew a shade whiter, and the trembling frame 
 became suddenly rigid. 
 
 " It is feared that he did ! " Eleanor Yane repeated. " It is 
 not certain, then? " 
 
 The Signora was silent. 
 
 " Wliy don't you tell me the truth ? " cried the girl, passion- 
 ately. " Do you think you can make my misery less to me by 
 dropping out your words one by one ? Tell me the worst. "What 
 can there be worse than my father's death ; his unhappy death ; 
 killed by his own hand, his poor desperate hand ? Tell me the 
 tnith. If you don't wish me to go mad, tell me the truth at 
 once." 
 
 " I will, Eleanor, I will," the Signora answered, gently. " I 
 wish to teU you all. I wish that you should know the truth, 
 sad as it may be to hear. This is the great sorrow of your life, 
 my dear, and it has fallen upon you very early. I hope you will 
 try and bear it like a Christian." 
 
 Eleanor Vane shook her head with an impatient gesture. 
 
 " Don't talk to me of my sorrow," she cried ; " what does it 
 matter what I suffer ? My father, my poor father, what must 
 he have suffered before he did this dreadful act ? Don't talk 
 about me ; teU me of him, and tell me the worst." 
 
 " I will, my darling, I will ; but sit down, sit down, and try to 
 compose yourself." 
 
 •' No, I'll stand here tiU you have told me the truth. I'll not 
 stir from this spot till I know all." 
 
 She disengaged herself from the Signora's supporting arm, 
 and with her hand still resting on the chair, stood resolute 
 before the old music-mistress and her nephew. I think the 
 Signora and the scene-painter were botk afraid of her, she 
 looked so grand in her beauty and despair. 
 
 She seemed indeed, as she had said, no longer a child or a
 
 Good SamaHtans. 75 
 
 Bchool-girl ; but a woman, desperate and almost terrible in the 
 intensity of her despair. 
 
 " Let me teU Eleanor the truth of this sail story," Richard 
 Baid ; " it may be told very briefly. ^Vhen your father parted 
 with you, Nelly, on the night of the 11th of August, he and 
 the two men who were with him went at once to an obscure cafo 
 in one of the streets near the Barriere Saint Antoine. They 
 were in the habit of going there, it seems, sometimes plaj-ing 
 billiards in the large open room on the ground floor, sometimes 
 playing cards in a cabinet farticulier on the entresol. Upon 
 this night they went straight to the private room. It was 
 about half-past nine when they went in. The waiter who 
 attended upon them took them three bottles of Chambertin 
 and a good deal of seltzer-water. Your father seemed in high 
 spirits at first. He and the dark Englishman were playing 
 ecarte, their usual game ; and the Frenchman was looking over 
 your father's hand, now and then advising his play, now and 
 then api^lauding and encouraging liim. All this came out upon 
 inquiry. The Frenchman quitted the cafe at a little betore 
 twelve : your father and the young Englishman stayed till long 
 after midnight, and towards one o'clock they ^^'ere heard at high 
 words, and almost immediately afterwards the Englishman went 
 away, lea\'ing your father, who sent the waiter for some brandy 
 and Avriting materials. He wanted to write a letter before he 
 left, he said." 
 
 Tlie scene-painter paused, looking anxiously at the face of his 
 listener. The rigid intensity of that pale young face had under- 
 gone no change ; the grey eyes, fixed and dilated, were turned 
 steadily towards him. 
 
 *' When the waiter took your father the things he had asked 
 for, he found him sitting at the table with his face hid'len in his 
 hands. The man placed the brandy and writing materials upon 
 the table, and then wont away, but not before he had noticed a 
 strange faint smeU — the smell of some drug, he thought ; but he 
 had no idea then what drug. The waiter went down stairs ; fill 
 the ordinary frequenters ot the place were gone, and the lights 
 were out. The man waited up to let your father out, expecting 
 liim to come down stairs every moment. Three o'clock struck, 
 and the waiter went up-stairs upon the pretence of asking if 
 anything was wanted. He found your father sitting very miich 
 as he had left him, except that this time his head was resting 
 ui)on the table, which was scattered with torn scraps of paper. 
 He was dead, Eleanor. The man gave the alarm directly, and a 
 doctor came to give assistance, if any could have been given ; 
 but the drug which the waitt: had smelt was opium, atnl your 
 father had taken a quantity which would have kiEed the .strong- 
 est man in Paris."
 
 76 Meanor*8 Victory, 
 
 " Why did he do this P " 
 
 " I can scarcely tell you, my dear ; but your poor father left* 
 among the scraps of paper upon the table, one fragment much 
 larger and more intelhgible than the rest. It is evidently part of 
 a letter addressed to you ; but it is very mldly and iucoherently 
 worded ; and you must remember that it was written under cir- 
 cumstances of great mental excitement." 
 
 "Give it me!" 
 
 Eleanor stretched out her hand with an authoritative gestttre. 
 Richard hesitated. 
 
 " I wish you to fuUy understand the nature of this letter 
 before you read it, Eleanor ; I wish " 
 
 " You kept the story of my father's death from me out of mis- 
 taken kindness," the girl said, in an unfaltering voice ; " I wiU 
 try and remember how good you have been to me, so that I 
 may forgive you that ; but you cannot keep from me the letter 
 my father wrote to me before he died. That is mine ; and I 
 claim it." 
 
 " Let her see it, poor chUd," said the Signora. 
 
 Eichard Thornton took a leather memorandimi-book from one 
 of the pockets of his loose coat. There were several papers in 
 this book. He selected one, and handed it silently to Eleanor 
 Vane. It was a sheet of letter-paper, written upon in her 
 father's hand, but a part of it had been torn away. 
 
 Even had the whole of the letter been left, the writer's style 
 was so wild and incoherent that it would have been no easy task 
 to understand his meaning. In its torn and fragmentary state, 
 this scrap of writing left by George Yane was only a scribble of 
 confused and broken sentences. The sheet of paper had been 
 torn from the top to the bottom, so that the end of each line was 
 missing. The following broken lines were therefore all that 
 Eleanor could decipher, and in these the words were blotted and 
 indistinct. 
 
 My poor Eleanor, — ^My poor injured 
 worst your cruel sister, Hortensia Bannia 
 could not be bad enough. I am a thief 
 robbed and cheated my own 
 been decoyed to this hell upon eart 
 wretches who are base enough to 
 a helpless old man who had trust 
 to be gentlemen. I cannot return 
 V)ok in my child's face after 
 money which was tci have 
 education. Better td die and rid 
 But my blood be uf>'jn the head of 
 •who has cheated me this night out of
 
 Good Samaritan** Ti 
 
 May ho suffer as he has 
 
 forget, Eleanor, never forget Robert Lan 
 
 murderer of your helpless old 
 
 a cheat and a villain who 
 
 some day Uve to revenge the fate 
 
 Eoor old father, who i>rays that God will 
 elpless old man whose iblly 
 madness have 
 
 There was no more. These lines were spread over the first 
 leaf of a sheet of letter-paper ; the second leaf, as well as a long 
 atrip of the first, had been torn away. 
 
 Tnis was the only clue to the secret of his death which George 
 Vane had left behind him. 
 
 Eleanor Vane folded the crumpled scrap of paper, and put it 
 tenderly in her bosom. Then, falling on her knees, she clasped 
 her hands, and lifted them towards the low ceiling of the Uttle 
 chamber. 
 
 "Oh, my God!" she cried; "hear the vow of a desolate 
 creature, who has only one purpose left in life." 
 
 Signora PiciriUo knelt down beside her, and tried to clasp her 
 in her arms. 
 
 " My dear, my dear ! " she pleaded ; " remember how this let- 
 ter was -written — remember the state of your father's mind " 
 
 " I remember nothing," answered Eleanor Vane, "except that 
 my father tells me to revenge his murder. For he was murdered," 
 she cried, passionately, " if this money — this wretched money, 
 which he would have died sooner than lose — was taken from hirn 
 unfairly. He was murdered. "What did the wretch who robbed 
 him care what became of the poor, broken-hearted, helpless old 
 man whom he had wronged and cheated? What did he care? 
 He left my father ; left him in his desolation and misery ; left 
 him after having stripped and beggared him ; left liim to die ii\ 
 his despair. Listen to me, both of you, and remember what I 
 say. I am very young, I know, but I have learnt to think and 
 act for myself before to-day. I don't know this man's name ; I 
 never even saw his face ; I don't know who he is, or where he 
 comes from ; but sooner or later I swear to be revenged upon 
 aim for my father's cruel death." 
 
 " Eleanor, Eleanor ! " cried the Signora : " is this womanly ? 
 la this Christian-like ? " 
 
 _ The girl turned upon her. There was almost a supematura) 
 light, now, in the dilated grey eyes. Eleanor Vane had risen 
 from her knees, and stood with her slender figure drawn to its 
 fullest height, her long auburn hair streaming over her shoulders, 
 with the low light of the setting sun shining upon the waving 
 tresaea until they glittered hke molten gold. She looked, in her
 
 78" Uleanor^s Victorjf. 
 
 desperate resolution and virginal beanty, like some yotmg martyr 
 of the middle ages waiting to be led to the rack. 
 
 " I don't know whether it is womanly or Christian-Kke," she 
 said, " but I know that it is henceforward the purpose of my 
 life, and that it is stronger than myself." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 iookiing to the ftjtijee. 
 
 The story which Eichard Thornton had told Eleanor Yane was 
 the simple record of an unhappy truth. The gay and thought- 
 less spendthrift, the man about town, who had outlived Ids age 
 and sj)ent three fortunes, had ended his life, by his own despe* 
 fate hand, in an obscure cafe near the Barriere Saint Antoine. 
 
 Amongst other habits of the age in which George Vane had 
 lived, gambhng was pretty prevalent. Mr. Vane's sanguine 
 nature was the very nature which leads a man to the gaming- 
 table, and holds him there under the demoniac fascination of the 
 fatal green cloth, hoj^ing against hope, uaitil his pockets are 
 empty, and he must needs crawl dispirited away, having no more 
 money to lose. 
 
 This was the one vice of George Vane's life. He had tried to 
 redeem his every-day extravagances by the gamester's frenzied 
 speculations, the gamester's subtle combinations ; wliich are so 
 infallible in theory, so ruinous in practice. Eleanor had never 
 known this. If her father stayed out late at night, and she 
 had to wait and watch for liim through long weary hours of 
 suspense and anxiety, she never knew why he stayed, or why he 
 was often so broken down and wretched when he came home. 
 Other people could guess the reason of the old man's midnight 
 absences from his shabby lodging, but they were too merciful to 
 tell his Uttle girl the truth. In Paris, in a strange city, where 
 his acquaintance were few, the old vice grew stronger, and 
 George Vane spent his nights in gambHng for j^itifxil stakes ia 
 any low haunts to which his disreputable associates deluded 
 him. He picked up strange acquaintance in. these days of hig 
 •decadence, as poor people very often do : young men who were 
 n^andering about the world, j^enniless adventurers, professionlcss 
 young reprobates, getting a very doubtful living by the exercise 
 of their wits ; men who were content to flatter and pay court to 
 the old beau so long as they could win a few francs from liim to 
 pay for the evening's diversion. 
 
 With such men George Vane had associated for a long time. 
 They won pitiful sums of him, and cheated him without scruple ; 
 but his Ufe was a very dull one, remember ; he had hved for the 
 world, and Bociety of some kind or other was absolutely neces*
 
 Loolcing to the Future. 79 
 
 iary to him. He clung, therefore, to these men, and wag fain 
 to accept their homage in the hour of his decUne ; and it was 
 with such men as these he had spent the night before his death. 
 It was such men as these who had robbed liim of the money 
 which, but for an unhappy accident, would have been safely 
 handed over to the schoolmistress in the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 The old man's death caused very httle excitement in Paris. 
 PubUc gambling-houses had been abolished by the order of the 
 Government long before ; and it was no longer a common thing 
 for desperate men to scatter their brains upon the table on which 
 they had just squandered their money ; but still people knew 
 very well that there was plenty of card-playing, and dice throw- 
 ing, and billiard-playing, always going on here and there in the 
 brilliant city, and the suicide of a gambler more or less was not 
 a thing to make any disturbance. 
 
 ]\Irs. Bannister wrote a stiffly-worded letter in reply to that in 
 which Richard Thornton told her of her father's death, enclosing 
 an order on Messrs. Blount for the sum she considered sufficient 
 to pay for the old man's funeral, and to support Eleanor for a 
 few weeks. 
 
 " I should advise her early return to England," the stock- 
 broker's widow wrote, " and I will endeavour to find her some 
 decent situation — as nursery governess or milliner's apprentice, 
 perhaps — but she must remember that I expect her to support 
 herseli', and that she must not look to me for any further assist- 
 ance. I have performed my duty to my father at a considerable 
 loss to myself, but with his death all claim upon me ceases." 
 
 George Vane had been buried during the early days of his 
 youngest daughter's illness. They placed him amongst a cluster 
 of neglected graves, in a patch ot gi-ound upon the outskirts of 
 P5re la Chaise, a burial place for heretics and suicides, and 
 Eichard Thornton ordered a roughly-hewn cross from one of tho 
 stonemasons near the cemetery. So, far away from the lofty 
 monuments of the Russian princes and the marshals of the 
 "First Empire ; far away from Abelard and Heloise, and all the 
 marble chapels in which devoted survivors pray for the souls of 
 tho beloved dead ; in a desolate and unhallowed patch of weedy 
 turf, where the bones of the departed were only suffered to rest; 
 peaceably for a given number of years, and were stirred up out 
 t)f their coffins periodically to make room for new-comers, George 
 Vane slept the last sleep. He might have been buried as a 
 nameless suicide, biit for the chance which had taken Ricliard 
 Thornton to the Morgue, where he recognized Eleanor's father 
 in the unknown man w^o had been last brought to that gloomv 
 shelter ; for he had had no papers whiob could give any clue to 
 his identity about him at the time of liis death. 
 
 Upon the momiag after that quiet September afternoon on
 
 80 Eleanor'e Victory. 
 
 Which. Eleanor Yane had learned tlie true story of her father's 
 death, Signer Picirillo for the first time sjjoke seriously of the 
 future. In the intensity of her first great grief, Eleanor Yane 
 had never once thought of the desolation of her position, nor 
 yet of the sacrifices which the Signora and Richard were making 
 for her sake. She never remembered that they were both 
 lingering in Paris solely on her account : she only knew that 
 they were there, and that she saw them daily, and that the sight 
 of them, good and kind as they were, was pain and weariness to 
 her, like the sight of everything else in the world. She had 
 been singularly quiet since the revelation made to her. After 
 the first burst of passionate vehemence which had succeeded her 
 perusal of her dead father's letter, her manner had grown almost 
 unnaturally calm. She had sat all the evening apart near the 
 window, and Eichard had tried in vain to beguile her attention 
 even for a moment. She kept silence, brooding upon the scrap 
 of paper which lay in her bosom. 
 
 This morning she sat in a hstless attitude, with her head 
 resting on her hand. She took no heed of the Signora's busy 
 movements from room to room. She made no efibrt to give her 
 old friend any assistance in all the httle household arrangements 
 which took so long to complete, and when at last the music- 
 mistress brought her needlework to the window, and sat down 
 opposite the invahd, Eleanor looked up at her with a dull gaze 
 that struck despair to the good creature's heart. 
 
 " Nelly, my dear," the Signora said, briskly, " I want to have 
 a htUe serious conversation with you." 
 
 "About what, dear Signora? " 
 
 " About the future, my love." 
 
 " The future ! " Eleanor Yane uttered the word almost as if 
 it had been meaningless to her. 
 
 " Yes, my dear. You see even I can talk hopefully of the 
 future, though I am an old woman; but you, who are only 
 fifteen, have a long life before you, and it is time you began to 
 look forward to it." 
 
 " I do look forward," Eleanor said, with a gloomy expression 
 upon her face. " I do look forward to the future ; and to meet- 
 ing that man, the man who caused my father's death. How am 
 I to find him, Signora ? Help me in. that. You have been kind 
 to me in everythmg else. Only help me to do that, and I will 
 love you better than ever I have loved you yet." 
 
 The Signora shook her head. She was a Ught-henrted, ener- 
 getic creature, who had borne very heavy burdens through a 
 long hfe ; but the burdens had not been able to crush her. 
 Perhaps her unselfishness had uj^held her throughout all her 
 trials. She had thought and cared so much for other people, 
 that she had had little time left for thinking of herself.
 
 LooJcing to the Future. 81 
 
 *' My dear Eleanor," ste said, gravely ; " tliis -TnH uever do. 
 You must not be influenced by that fatal letter. Your poor 
 father had no right to lay the responsibility of his own act upon 
 another man. If he chose to stake this unfortunate money 
 upon the hazard of a pack of cards, and lost it, he had no right 
 to charge this man with the consequences of his own folly." 
 
 " But the man cheated him ! " 
 
 " As your father thought. People are very apt to fancy them« 
 selves cheated when they lose money." 
 
 " Papa would never have written so positively, if he had not 
 known that the man cheated him. Besides, Richard says they 
 were heard at high words ; that was no doubt when my poor 
 dear father accused this wretch of being a cheat. He and his 
 companion were wicked, scheming men, who had good reason to 
 hide their names. They were pitiless wretches, who had no 
 compassion upon the poor old man who trusted them and 
 believed in their honour. Are you going to defend them, Signora 
 Picirillo?" 
 
 " Defend them, Eleanor ? no : they were bad men, I have no 
 doubt. But, my darling child, you must not begin life with 
 hatred and vengeance in your heart." 
 
 " Not hate the man who caused my father's death ? " cried 
 Eleanor Vane. " Do you tliink I shall ever cease to hate him, 
 Signora ? Do you think that I shall ever forget to pray that 
 the day may come when he and I will stand face to face, and 
 that he may be as helpless and as dependent upon my mercy a3 
 my father was on his r Heaven help him on that day ! But I 
 don't want to talk of this, Signora : what is the use of talking? 
 I may be an old woman, perhaps, before I meet this man ; but 
 surely, surely I shall meet him, sooner or later. If I only knew 
 his name — if I only knew his name, I think I could trace him 
 from one end of the earth to the other. Robert Lan — Lan — 
 what?" 
 
 Her head sank forward on her breast, and her eyes fixed 
 themselves dreamily on the sunlit street below the open window. 
 The French poodle, Fido, lay at her feet, and Ufted up his head 
 every now and then to lick her hand. The animal had missed 
 his master, and had wandered about the little rooms, sniffing on 
 the thresholds of closed doors, and moaning dismally for several 
 days after Mr. Vane's disappearance. 
 
 The Signora sighed as sno watched Eleanor. What was she 
 to do with this girl, who had taken a horrible vendetta upon 
 herself at fifteen years of age, and who seemed as glooinily 
 absorbed in her scheme of vengeance as any Corsican cmeftain ? 
 
 " My dear," the music-mistress said presently, with rather a 
 Bharp accent, " do you know that Richard and I will be compelled 
 to leave Paris to-morrow P "
 
 83 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " Leave Paris to-morrow, Sigoora ! " 
 
 " Yes. The Phoenix oj^ens eaiiy in October, and our Dick 
 will have all the scenes to paint for the new piece. Besides, 
 there are my pupils ; you know, my love, they cannot be kept 
 together for ever imless I go back to them." 
 
 Eleanor Vane looked up with almost a bewildered expression, 
 as if she had been trying to comprehend all that Signora Picirillo 
 had said ; then suddenly a light seemed to dawn upon her, and 
 she rose from her chair and flung herself upon a hassock at the 
 feet of her friend. 
 
 " Dear Signora," she said, clasping the music-mistress's hand 
 in. both her own, " how wicked and ungrateful I have been all 
 this time ! I forget everything but myself and my ovm trouble. 
 You came over to Paris on my account. You told me so when 
 I was ni, but I had forgotten, I had forgotten. And Richard 
 has stopped in Paris because of me. Oh ! what can I do to 
 repay you both — what can I do ? " 
 
 Eleanor hid her face upon the Signora's lap, and wept silently. 
 Those tears did her good ; they beguiled her for a Uttle while, at 
 least, from the one absorbing thought of her father's melancholy 
 fate. 
 
 Signora Picirillo tenderly smoothed the soft ripples of auburn 
 haJT lying on her lap. 
 
 " My dear Eleanor, shall I tell you what you can do to make 
 us both very happy, and to pay us tenfold for any little sacrifice 
 we may have made on your account ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; teU me." 
 
 " You have to choose your pathway in Ufe, Nelly, and to choose 
 it quickly. In all the world you have only your half-sisters and 
 brothers to whom you can apj^eal for assistance. You have some 
 claim upon them, you know, dear ; but I sometimes think you 
 are too proud to avail yourself of that claim." 
 
 Eleanor Vane lifted her head with a gesture of superb defiance. 
 
 " I would starve rather than accept a penny from Mrs. Ban- 
 nister, or from her sister or brothers. If they had been different, 
 my father would never have died as he did. He was deserted 
 •nd abandoned by aU the world, except his helpless child, who 
 could do nothing to save him." 
 
 " But if you don't mean to apply to Mrs. Bannister, what will 
 you do, Nelly ? " 
 
 Eleanor Vane shook her head hopelessly. The whole fabric 
 of the future had been shattered by her father's desperate act. 
 The simple dream of a Hfe in which she was to have worked for 
 that beloved father was over, and it seemed to Eleanor as if the 
 future existed no longer ; there was only the sad, desolate pre- 
 sent, — a dreary spot in the great desert of life, bounded by a 
 yawning grave.
 
 * ZooJcing to tTie Future. 8S 
 
 " "WTiy do yon ask me what I mean to do, Si^i^ora?" she 
 Baid, piteously. " How does it matter what I do ? Nothing 
 I can do will bring my father back. I will stay in Paris, and 
 get ray living how I can, and look for the man who murdered 
 my father." 
 
 " Eleanor," cried the Signora, " are yon mad ? How could 
 yon stay in Paris, when you don't know a single creature in the 
 whole city ? How, in mercy's name, could you get your Living 
 in this strange place ? " 
 
 " I could be a nursery-governess ; or a nursery-maid ; any- 
 thing ! What do I care how low I sink, if I can only stay here, 
 where I am likely to meet that man ? " 
 
 " Eleanor, my dear ! For pity's sake do not delude yourself 
 in this manner. The man you want to find is an adventurer, 
 no doubt. In Paris one day, in London another, or away in 
 America perhaps, or at the farthest extremity of the globe. 
 Do you hope to find this man by walking about the streets of 
 Pans V " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " How do you expect to meet himP " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " But, Eleanor, be reasonable. It is utterly impossible that yon 
 can remain in Paris. If Mrs. Bannister does not claim the right 
 of exercising some authority over you, I claim it as your oldest 
 friend. My dear, you will not refuse to hsten to me, will you ? " 
 
 " No, no, dear Signora. If you think I mustn't stay in Paris, 
 I'll go back to England, to the Miss Bennetts. They'll give me 
 fifteen pounds a year as junior teacher. I may as well Hve with 
 them, if I mustn't stay here. I must earn some money, I sup- 
 pose, Ijefore I can even try to find the man who caused my 
 father's death. How long it will be before I can earn anything 
 worth speaking of! " 
 
 She sighed wearily, and fell again into a gloomy silence, from 
 which the poodle vainly tried to arouse her by many afiectionate 
 devices. 
 
 " Then we may consider it settled, Nelly, my dear," the 
 Signora said, cheerfully. " You %viLl leave Pans to-morrow 
 morning, ^vith Eichard and me. You can stay ^vith us, my 
 dear, till you've made up your mind what to do. We've a Uttle 
 spare room, which is only used now as a receptacle for empty 
 boxes and Richard's painting litter. We'll fit it up for you, my 
 darhng, and make you as comfortable as we can." 
 
 " Dear, dear Signora ! " said Eleanor, kneeling by her friend's 
 chair. " How good you are to me ! But while I have been iU 
 there must have been a great deal of money spent: for the 
 doctor, and the jelly, and fruit, and lemonade you have given me 
 — who found the money, Signora P "
 
 84 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " Your sister, Mrs. Bannister, my dear ; slie sent some money 
 in answer to a letter from Richard." 
 
 Eleanor's face crimsoned suddenly, and the music-mistresa 
 understood the meaning of that angry flush. 
 
 " Eichard didn't ask for any money, my love. He only -wrote 
 to tell your sister what had happened. She sent money for all 
 necessary expenses. It is not aU gone yet, Nelly ; there will be 
 enough to pay your journey back to England ; and even then 
 something left. I have kept an account of all that has bsen 
 spent, and will give it to you when you like." 
 
 Eleanor looked down at her white morning-gown. 
 
 " Is there enough left to buy a black frock ? " she asked, in a 
 low voice. 
 
 " Yes, my darling. I have thought of that. I have had 
 mourning made for you. The dressmaker took one of your 
 muslin frocks for a pattern, so there was no occasion to trouble 
 you about the business." 
 
 " How good you are to me, how very, very good ! " 
 
 Eleanor Vane could only say this. As yet she only dimly felt 
 how much she owed to these people, who were bound to her by 
 no tie of relationship, and who yet stepped aside from their own 
 difficult pathway to do her service in her sorrow. She could not 
 learn to cHng to them, and depend upon them yet. She had 
 loved them long ago, in her father's lifetime ; but now that ha 
 was dead, every Hnk that had bound her to Hfe, and love, and 
 happiness, seemed suddenly severed, and she stood alone, groping 
 bliiidly in the thick darkness of a new and dreary woi'ld, with 
 only one Hght shining far away at the end of a wearisome and 
 obscure pathway; and that a lurid and fatal star, which 
 beckoned her onward to some imknown deed of hate and 
 vengeance. 
 
 Heaven knows what vague scheme of retribution she cherished 
 in her childish ignorance of the world. Perhaps she formed her 
 ideas of Ufe from the numerous novels she had read, in which the 
 villain was always confounded in the last chapter, however 
 triumphant he might be through two voliunes and three-quarters 
 of successful iniquity. 
 
 George Vane's sanguine and romantic visions of wealth and 
 grandeur, of retaHation upon those who had neglected and for- 
 gotten him, had not been without effect upon the mind of his 
 youngest daughter. That plastic mind had been entirely in the 
 old man's hands, to mould in what form he pleased. Himself 
 the slave of impulse, it was not to be supposed that he could 
 teach his daughter those sound principles without which man, 
 Hke a rudderless vessel, floats hither and thither before every 
 current on the sea of life. He sufiered Eleanor's impulsive nature 
 to have full sway ; he put no curb ujMin the sanguine tempeia-
 
 Mrs. Bannister holds out a Helping Hand. 85 
 
 ment wluch took everything in the extreme. As blindly as the 
 eirl loved her father, so blindly she was ready to hate those whom 
 ne called his enemies. To investigate the nature of the wron^ 
 they had done liim would have been to take their side in 
 the quarrel. Reason and Love could not go hand-in-hand in 
 Eleanor's creed; for the questions which Reason might ask 
 would be so many treacheries against Love. 
 
 It is not to be wondered, then, that she held the few broken 
 sentences written by her father on the threshold of a shameful 
 death, as a solemn and sacred trust, not to be violated or lost 
 eight of, though her future life should be sacrificed to the fulfil- 
 ment of one purpose. 
 
 Such thoughts as these — indistinct, ignorant, and childish, 
 perhaps, but not the less absorbing — filled her mind. It may be 
 that this new purpose of revenge enabled her the better to endure 
 her loss. She had something to Uve for, at least. There was a 
 light far away athwart the long gloomy pathway through an 
 ttnkncwn world ; and, however lurid that guiding star might be, 
 it was better than total darkness. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HORTEKSIA. BANNISTER HOLDS OUT A HELPING HAND. 
 
 SiGXOR.v PicmiLLO was very well contented with her morning's 
 work. She had obtained Eleanor's consent to a speedy departure 
 from Paris; that was the grand point. Once away from the 
 scene of George Vane's death, the young gii-l's sunshiny nature 
 would reassert itself, and httle by httle the great grief would b<» 
 forgotten. 
 
 In all this dreary period of sickness and misery the good 
 music-mistress bad grown to love Mr. Vane's daughter even more 
 than she had loved her long ago, when Eleanor's childish fingers 
 had first stumbled slowly over the keys of the pianoforte, m a 
 feeble endeavour to master the grand difficulties of Haydn's 
 " Surprise." 
 
 The widow's hfe had been a very sorrowful one. Perhaps its 
 most tranquil period had come witliin the last ten years. It was 
 ten years since, her ItaUan husband and her children having one 
 by one died, she had found herself alone in the world, with a 
 gaunt, long-legged hobbledehoy of eighteen, her dead sister's 
 orphan son, for her sole protector. 
 
 Tliis long-legged hobbledehoy was Richard Thornton, the only 
 child of the Signora's pretty younger sister and a dashing cavalry 
 ofiicer, who had married a penniless and obscure girl for the love 
 of her pretty face, and had died within a couple of years of hia 
 marriage, leaving his widow to drag out the remnant of a fretful.
 
 8fi Eleanor's Yictory. 
 
 helpless life in dependence upon lier sister. Tlie Signora had 
 been used to cai-rying other people's burthens from a very early 
 age. She was the eldest child of a clever violinist, for twenty 
 years leader of the orchestra in one of the principal London 
 theatres ; and from babyhood she had been a brave-hearted self- 
 rehant creature. When her sister died, therefore, and, with the 
 last words upon her pale, tremulous Hps, prayed the Signora to 
 protect the helpless boy, Richard Thornton, Eliza Picirillo freely 
 accepted the charge, and promised to perform it faithfully. The 
 poor faded beauty died with a smile upon her face, and when 
 Signor Picirillo — who was a teacher of languages at a few sub- 
 urban schools, and a lazy good-tempered nonentity — came home 
 that evening, he found that there was to be another member 
 of his domestic circle, and another mouth to be fed henceforth. 
 
 The Signora' 3 cruse of oil held out bravely, in spite of the 
 demands upon it; and by-and-by, when the honest-hearted music- 
 mistress would otherwise have been terribly desolate, there was 
 Richard, a tall lad, ready to stand by her sturdUy in the battle of 
 hfe, and as devoted to her as the most affectionate of sons. The 
 boy had shown considerable talent at a very early age, but it 
 was a versatile kind of talent, which did not promise ever to burst 
 forth into the grander gift of genius. His aunt taught him 
 music, and he taught himself painting, intending to be sometliing 
 in the way of MacHse or Turner, by-and-by, and scraping together 
 some of the shillings he earned with his vioUn in order to attend 
 a dingy academy somewhere in Bloomsbury. 
 
 But the great historical subjects after Machse — "The Death 
 01 the Bloody Boar at Bosworth," a grand battle scene, with a 
 Itirid sunset in the background, and Richmond's face and armour 
 all ablaze with crimson, lake and gamboge, from the flaming 
 reflection of the skies, was the magnutn opus which poor Dick 
 fondly hoped to see in the Royal Academy — were not very sale- 
 able; and the Turneresque landscapes, nymphs and ruins, dryads 
 and satyrs, dimly visible through yellow mist and rose-coloured 
 fog, cost a great deal of time and money to produce, and Avere 
 not easily convertible into ready cash. So when Richard had 
 gone the usual weary round amongst the picture-dealers, and had 
 endured the usual heart-burnings and agonies which wait upon 
 ambitious youth, he was glad to accept the brush flung aside by 
 a scene-painter at the Phoenix, where Dick received a scanty 
 salary as second violinist; a salary which was doubled when the 
 young man practised the double duty of second violin and 
 assistant scene-painter. 
 
 These simple people were the only friends of Eleanor Vane's 
 childhood. They were ready to accept the responsibility of her 
 future welfare now, when her rich sister would have sent her into 
 the world, lonely and helpless, to sink to the abject drudgery
 
 Mrs. Bannister holds out a Helping Sand. 87 
 
 which well-to-do people speak bo complacently of, when they 
 recomraend their poor relations to get an honest Uving and 
 trouble them no longer. 
 
 Kichard Thornton was enraptured at ihe idea of taking this 
 beautiful younger sister home with liim, although that idea 
 involved the necessity of working lor her till she was able to do 
 something for herseli. 
 
 " Nothing could be better for us than all this sad business, 
 aunty," the scene-painter said, when he called in the Rue de 
 I'Archevuque, and found liis aunt alone in the httle sitting-rooni. 
 Eleanor was lying down after the morning's excitement, while 
 her friend packed her slender wardrobe and made all preparations 
 for departure. "Nothing could be better for us," the young 
 man said. " Why, Nell's golden hair wiU lieht up the Pilasters 
 with perpetual sunshine, and I shall always have a model for my 
 subject-pictures. Then what a companion she'U be foryou in 
 the long dreary nights, when I am away at the Phoenix, and 
 how capitally she'll be able to help you with your pupils; for, of 
 course, she plays and sings like anything by this time." 
 
 " But she wants to go back to the people at the Brixton school, 
 Dick." 
 
 "But, Lord bless you, aunty, we won't let her go," cried 
 Mr. Thornton ; " we'll make a prima donna or a leading tragedy- 
 actress, or something of that kind, of her. We'll teach her to 
 make a hundred pounds a week out of her white arms, and her 
 flashing grey eyes. How beautiful she looked last night when 
 she was on her knees, vowing vengeance against that scoundrel 
 who won her father's money. How splendid she looked, with her 
 yellow hair aU streaming over her shoulders, and her eyes flashing 
 sparks of fire! Wouldn't she bring the house down, if she did 
 that at the Phoenix ? She's a wonderful girl, aunty ; the sort of 
 girl to set all London in a blaze some day, somehow or other. 
 Miss Bennett's and Brixton, indeed ! " cried Eichard, snapping 
 his fingers contemptuously ; " you could no more chain that girl 
 down to a governess's drudgery, than you could make a flash of 
 forked lightning do duty for a farthing candle." 
 
 So Eleanor Vane w&ni back to England with her friends. 
 They chose the Dieppe and Newhaven route for its economy; 
 and over the same sunlit landscape upon which she had gazed so 
 rapturously less than a month ago, Eleanor's eyes wandered now 
 wearily and sadly, seeing nothing but desolation wherever they 
 looked. She recognized swelling hills and broad patches of low 
 verdm-e, winding glimpses of the river, far-away villages glimmer- 
 ing whitely in the distance, and she wondered at the change in 
 herself which made all these things so different to her. What 
 a child she had been a month ago ; what a reckless, happy child, 
 looking forwar(J in foolish certainty to a long life with her father }
 
 88 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 ignorant of all son-ows except the petty troubles slie liad shared 
 with him ; ready to hope for anything in the boundless future ; 
 %vith a whole fairy-land of pleasure and delight spreading out 
 before her eager feet ! 
 
 Now she was a woman, alone in a horrible desert, over whose 
 dreary sands she must toil slowly to the end she hoped to reach. 
 
 She sat back in a comer of the second-class carriage, with her 
 face hidden in a veil, and with the dog Fido curled up in her lap. 
 Her father had been fond of the faithful creature, she remem- 
 bered. 
 
 It was early in the grey bleakness of a September morning 
 when the cab, carrying Eleanor and her friends, rattled under 
 an archway leading out of Dudley Street, Bloomsbury, into tho 
 queer httle retreat called the Pilasters. The grooms were already 
 at work in the mews, and the neighbourhood was enlivened by 
 that hissing noise with which horses are generally beguiled 
 during the trials of the equine toilet. The chimney-sweep had 
 left his abode and was whooping dismally in Northiunberland 
 Square. Life began early in the Pilasters, and already the 
 inmates of many houses were astir, and the sharp voices of 
 mothers clamoured denunciations on the elder daughters who 
 acted as unsalaried nursemaids to the younger branches of the 
 family. 
 
 The place popularly known as the Pilasters is one of the 
 queerest nooks in London. It consists of a row of tumble-down 
 houses, fronted by a dilapidated colonnade, and filled with busy 
 hfe from_ cellar to attic. But I do not beheve that the inhabitants 
 of the Pilasters are guilty of nefarious practices, or that vice and 
 crime find a hiding-place in the cellars below the colonnade. The 
 retreat stands by itself, hidden between two highly respectable 
 middle-ckiss streets, whose inhabitants would scarcely tolerate 
 Alsatian habits or Field Lane proclivities in their near neigh- 
 botirs. Small tradesmen find a home in the Pilasters, and 
 emerge thence to work for the best families in Dudley Street and 
 " the Squares." 
 
 Here, amongst small tailors and mantua-makers, cheap eating- 
 houses, shabby beer-shops, chimney-sweeps and mangles, Signora 
 PiciriUo had taken up her abode, bringing her faded goods and 
 chattels, the remnants of brighter times, to furnish the first-floor 
 over a shoemaker's shop. I am afraid the shoemaker was oftener 
 employed in mending old shoes than in making new ones, but 
 the Signora was fain to ignore that fact, and to be contented 
 with her good fortune in having found a very cheap lodging in a 
 central neighbourhood. 
 
 This was a shabbier place than any that Eleanor Vane had 
 ever Hved in, but she showed no distaste for its simple arrange- 
 ments. The Signora's hopes were realized by-and-by. At first
 
 Mrs. Bannister holds out a Helping Hand. 89 
 
 the girl sat all day in a despondent attitude, with the French 
 poodle in her lap, her head drooping on her breast, her eyes fixed 
 on %'acaiicy, her whole manner giving evidence of an all-absorbing 
 grief which was nearly akin to despair. She went to Brixton 
 very soon after her return to England ; but here a cruel dis- 
 appointment awaited her. The Misses Beimett heard her 
 sorrowful story with pitiful murmurs of regret and compassion ; 
 but they had engaged a young person as junior teacher, and 
 could do nothing to help her. She returned to the Pilasters, 
 looking the image of pale despair ; but the Signora and Richard 
 both declared to her tnat nothing could be happier for them than 
 her consenting to remain with them. 
 
 So it seemed very much as if the PUasters was to be Eleanor 
 Yane's permanent abode. The neighbours had stared at her a 
 great deal at first, admiring her pale face and flowing hair, and 
 pitying her because of her black frock ; but they were familiar 
 with her now, and gave her good day in a friendly manner as 
 she passed under the shadow of the colonnade on her way out 
 or in. 
 
 Little by little the air of duU despondency gave way before this 
 young woman's earnest desire to be of use to the people who 
 were so kind to her. She played remarkably well, for she had 
 had plenty of the drudgery of pianoforte-inlaying at the Brixton 
 school, and she was able to take some of the Signora's pupils off 
 lier hands. She sang, too, in a rich contralto, which promised 
 to be powerful and beautiful by-and-by ; and she practised the 
 ballads in the old operas which the Signora kept, neatly bound, 
 but yellow \vith age, in her feeble music-stand. 
 
 As her friends had hoped, her sunshiny nature reasserted itself. 
 The outer evidences of her great sorrow gradually passed away, 
 though the memory of her loss still filled her mmd ; the image 
 of her father, and the thought of that father's unhappy death, 
 were stiU for ever present with her. It was not in her nature to 
 be long reserved or unsocial ; and by-and-by, when she had been 
 nearly six months in her new home, and the London sparrows 
 were cliirping in the bright spring sunshine about the mews and 
 under the colonnade. Miss Vane began to sing at her work as 
 she flitted to and fro in the low rooms, dusting the grand piano- 
 forte and the old china — touching up the irame of Richard's 
 unsaleable picture, the flaring battle of Bosworth, which 
 illuminated one side of the room. Wherever she went the 
 faithful French poodle ran frisking by her side ; whatever sun- 
 shine could find its way into the dusky London chamber seemed 
 to concentrate itself about her golden head. Gaiety, Ufe, and 
 brightness went with her up and down the dark staircase — in 
 and out of the dingy rooms. Her youth and beauty turned the 
 ahabby lodgings into a fairy palace, as it seemed to Richard and
 
 90 Eleanor^s Victory. 
 
 his acnt. "WTien she sat down and ran her agile fingers over the 
 piano, dashing into fantasias and scenas, sparkling and rippling 
 with joyous treble meauderings among the upper notes, tho 
 old Clementi grew young again beneath her touch, the worn-out 
 stiings were revivified by the wondrous magnetism of her 
 youth and vitaUty. The flute-like treble trills and triplets 
 seemed like the joyous chirpings of a hundred birds. The 
 music-mistress and the scene-painter used to sit and watch her 
 as she played ; their admiring eyes followed her as she flitted to 
 and fro, and they wondered at her grace and beauty. 
 
 She had her father's aristocratic elegance, her father's power 
 of fascination. All the dangerous gifts which had been so fatal 
 to George Vane, were inherited by his youngest daughter. Like 
 him, a creature of impulse, spontaneous, sanguine, volatile, she 
 influenced other people by the force of her own superabundant 
 vitality. In her bright hopefulness she made an atmosphere of 
 hope in which other people grew hopeful. The dullest rejoiced 
 in her joyous vivacity, her unconscious loveliness. Yes, perhaps 
 Eleanor Vane's greatest charm lay in her utter ignorance of the 
 fact that she was charming. In the three years' drudgery of a 
 boarding-school she had never learned the power of her own 
 fascination. She knew that people loved her, and she was 
 grateful to them for their affection ; but she had never discovered 
 that it was by some wondrous magnetic attraction inherent in 
 herself that she obtained so much love and devotion. 
 
 Nobody had ever taken the trouble to tell her that she was 
 beautiful. She had generally worn shabby frocks, and the rip- 
 pling golden hair had not very often been smooth ; so perhaps 
 the school-girls at Brixton scarcely knew how lovely their com- 
 panion was. The dehcate aquiline profile, the flashing grey eyes, 
 pale face, red hps, and amber hair, were counterbalanced by the 
 silk dresses and lace furbelows of young ladies, whose wealthy 
 fathers paid full price for their education. Poverty learns its 
 place in the Httle world of a young ladies' boarding-school quite 
 as surely as in the larger world beyond the garden wall which 
 bounds that establishment. But Eleanor od held her own at 
 the Misses Bennett's seminary, by sok^ mysterious power 
 against which her richer companions had ra -vain rebelled. Her 
 frank acknowledgment of her poverty, coupled with the fact of 
 her father's former wealth and grandeur, perhaps enabled her tc* 
 do this. If she wore shabby frocks, she looked more aristocratic 
 in her shabbiness than the other young ladies in their stifi" silks 
 and prim finery. They recognized this fact, they acknowledged 
 something in their playfellow which lifted her above themselves, 
 and the half-boarder dealt out patronage and regal condescensions 
 to the most remunerative pupils in the school. She reigned by 
 reason of her unacknowledged beauty, and that divine some-
 
 Mrs. Bannister holds out a Helping Hand. 91 
 
 tiling, dimly recopcnized by all about her, but as yet wholly 
 undeveloped. The school-girl was clever, brilliant, fascinating, 
 but it was yet to be discovered what the woman would be. It 
 was yet to be discovered whether these budding qualities would 
 develope into the many flowers of a bright and versatile mind, 
 or burst forth suddenly and mysteriously into that rare trojiical 
 blossom, that mental once-in-a-century-flourishing aloe, which 
 . men call Genius. The good music-mistress watched her young 
 protegee with love and wonder, not unalloyed hj fear. What 
 was she to do with this strange and beautiful bird which she 
 had brought home to her nest ? Would it be right to fetter this 
 bright spirit forever? Was it fair to immure aU this joyous 
 loveUness in that shabby lodging ; to stifle such superabundant 
 vitahty in the close atmosphere of a duU and monotonous ex- 
 istence ? 
 
 The faithful creature had been accustomed to consider others, 
 and she thought of this seriously and constantly. Eleanor was 
 contented and happy. She was earning money now by giving 
 lessons here and there, and she contributed to the family purse. 
 The days shpped by very rapidly, as it seemed, in that peaceful 
 monotony. Miss Vane's frocks appeared to grow shorter and 
 shorter as the young lady sprang up into bright womanhood. 
 She was nearly seventeen now, and had been more than a year 
 and a half hving under the shadow of the Bloomsbury Pilasters. 
 Richard and his aunt consulted together as to what her future 
 life ought to be ; but they never came nearer to any conclusion. 
 
 "It's all very well to talk of her going away from us, you 
 know, aunty," the scene-painter said ; " but what are we to do 
 without her ? All the sunshine and poetry of our lives will go 
 away with her when she leaves us ! Besides ! what is she to be ? 
 A governess ? Bah ! who would doom her to that lady-like 
 irudger}'^ ? An actress ? No, aunty carissima, I should never 
 like to see that bright young beauty behind the glare of the 
 foot-lights. I think I'd rather she should hve here for ever and 
 ever, than that her nature should ever be vulgarized by contact 
 with the world. Let us keep her, aunty ; she doesn't want to 
 leave us. Those who have any actual claim upon her have 
 abandoned her. She came across my pathway hke some wan- 
 dering homeless angel. I shall never forget her face when I 
 first saw it on the lamplit boulevard, and recognized the Httle 
 ffirl I had known three years before in the fair-haired young 
 beauty of fifteen. She doesn't want to go away. Why should 
 you talk of her leaving us, aunty dear?" 
 
 Signora Picirillo shnigged her shoulders with a sigh. 
 
 " Heaven knows I have no wish to part with her, Dick." she 
 said ; " but we ought to do what's right for her sake. This ie 
 tie place for George Vane's daughter."
 
 92 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 But wlille the music-mistress and lier nephew were speculating 
 and theorizing upon the future of their protegee, practical Mrs. 
 Bannister was contemplating the infliction of a death-blow which 
 was to shatter the happiness of the humble Bloomsbury circle with. 
 one merciless stroke. Early in the bleak March of 1855, Eleanoi 
 received a coldly- worded epistle from her half-sister, to the eflfect 
 that an opportunity had now arisen for her advancement in hfe-, 
 and that i-f she wished ever to attain a respectable position — the 
 adjective was mercilessly njiderlined — she would do well to avaU 
 herself of it. For further information and advice she was to call 
 early the next morning in Hyde Park Gardens. IVIiss Vane 
 would fain have left this letter xmanswered, and at first stoutly 
 refused to obey Mrs. Bannister's summons. 
 
 "What do I want with her condescension and patronage?" 
 she said, indignantly. " Does she think that I forget the cruel 
 letter she wrote to my father; or that I forgive her for its 
 heartless insolence ? Let her keep her favours for those who 
 sohcit them. I want nothing from her. I only want to be left 
 in peace with the friends I love. Do you wish to get rid of me, 
 Signora, that you persuade me to dance attendance npon Mrs. 
 Bannister ? " 
 
 It was very hard for poor Signora Picirillo to be compelled to 
 urge the child's acceptance of the hand so coldly extended to 
 her, but the good creature felt that it was her duty to do so, and 
 Miss Vane loved her protectress far too dearly to persist in op- 
 
 Eosing her. She went, therefore, early the next morning to her 
 alf-sister's house at Bayswater, where the spacious rooms 
 seemed doubly spacious when compared with the Uttle sitting- 
 room over the colonnade, the sitting-room which was more than 
 half filled by Clementi's old-fashioned piano. Here the gorgeous 
 Erard's grand, in a case of carved walnut wood and ebony, and 
 with aU manner of newfangled improvements, was only an oasia 
 upon the great desert of velvet piles. 
 
 Hortensia Bannister was pleased to be very gracious to her 
 half-sister. Perhaps she was all the more so because Eleanor 
 made no pretence of afi"ection for her. This cold, hard-natured 
 woman would have been suspicious of mercenary motives lurk- 
 ing beneath any demonstration of sisterly love. 
 
 " I am glad to hear you have been learning to get your own 
 living, Eleanor," she said, " and above all, that you have been 
 cultivating your talent for the piano. I have not forgotten you, 
 you will find. The people with whom you have been Hving sent 
 me their address when they brought you from Paris, and I knew 
 where to find you when any opportunity should present itself for 
 your advancement. This opportunity has now presented itself. 
 My old acquaintance, Mrs. DarreU, the niece of your father's 
 friend, Maurice de Ciespigny, who is etUl living, though very
 
 Mrs.. Bannister holds out a Helping Hand. 93 
 
 old and infirm, has written to me saying that she requires a 
 young persun who would act as companion and musical governess 
 to a lady who lives with her. This young lady is no relation of 
 Mrs. DarreU's, but is a kind of ward or pupil, I believe. Your 
 youth, in tliis instance, Eleanor, happens to be an advantage, as 
 the young lady requires a companion of her o^vn age. You will 
 receive a moderate salary, and will be treated as a member of 
 the family. Let me hear you play, by the bye, in order that I 
 may be able to speak positively as to your qualifications." 
 
 Eleanor Vane sat down to the piano. The strings of the 
 Erard vibrated under her touch. She was almost frightened at 
 the gTand tones that came out of the instrument as she dashed 
 oyer the keys. She played very brilliantly, however, and her 
 sister condescended to say so. 
 
 " I think I may conscientiously give a good account of your 
 playing," she said. " You sing, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes." 
 
 " Very well, then ; I tliink you may consider the engagement 
 a settled thing. There is only one question to arrange. Of 
 course you must be aware that the position which your father 
 occupied was once a very elevated one. Mrs. Darrell and her 
 sisters knew your father in his most prosperous days, and lost 
 sight of him before he became poor. They know nothing of his 
 second marriage, or of your birth. His most intimate friend was 
 Mr. de Cresplgny, the uncle of the lady whose house I wish you 
 to enter. Under these circumstances you cannot wonder when I 
 tell you that I should strongly object to Mrs. DarreU's knowing 
 who you really are." 
 
 " How do you mean, Hortensia ? " 
 
 " I mean that I shall recommend you as a young person in 
 whose career I feel interested. If you go to Hazlewood at all, 
 you must go under an assumed name." 
 
 "Hortensia!" 
 
 "Well!" cried Mrs. Bannister, lifting her handsome black 
 eyebrows. 
 
 " I don't want tliis situation, and I should hate to take a false 
 name. I would rather stay with my friends, please. I love tiem 
 very dearly, and am very happy with them." 
 
 " Good Heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Bannister, "what is the 
 use of trying to do some people a service? Here have I been 
 scheming as to how I could manage to avail myself of this 
 chance, and now this ungrateful girl turns round and tells me 
 she doesn't want the situation. Do you know what you are re- 
 fusing, Eleanor Vane ? Have you learnt your father's habit of 
 pauperism, that you prefer to be a burden upon this pennilesa 
 music-teacher and her son, or nephew, or whatever he 13, rather 
 tiian make an honest efiort to get your own living?"
 
 94 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Eleanor started up from the piano : she had been sitting 
 before it until now, softly fingering the keys, and admiring the 
 beauty of the tones. She started up, looking at her sister, and 
 blushing indignantly to the very roots of her auburn hair. 
 
 Could this be true ? Could she be indeed a burden to the 
 friends she loved so dearly ? 
 
 " If you think that, Hortensia," she said, " if you tliink I am 
 any burden to the dear Signora, or Kichard, I will take any 
 situation you like, however hard. I'll toil night and day, and 
 work my fingers to the bone, rather than lie a trouble or a 
 burden to them any longer." 
 
 She remembered how little she earned by her few pupils. Yes, 
 Hortensia was no doubt right. She was a burden to those good 
 peojile who had taken her to their home in her hour of desola- 
 tion and misery. 
 
 " I'll take the situation, Hortensia," she cried. " I'll take a 
 false name. I'U do anything in the world rather than impose 
 upon the goodness of my friends." 
 
 " Very well," answered Mrs. Bannister, coldly. " Pray do not 
 let us have any heroics about it. The situation is a very good 
 one, I can assure you ; and there are many girls who would be 
 glad to snap at such a chance. I will %vrite to my friend, Mrs. 
 Dan-ell, and recommend you to her notice. I can do no more. 
 I cannot, of course, ensure you success ; but Ellen DaiTell and I 
 wers great friends some years since, and I know that I have 
 considerable influence with her. I'U write and tell you the 
 result of my recommendation." 
 _ Eleanor left Hyde Park Gardens after taking two ov three 
 sips of some pale sherry wliich her half-sister gave her. The 
 •wine seemed of a sorry vintage, and tasted very much as if the 
 grapes of which it was made had never seen the sun. Misg 
 Vane was glad to set down her wine-glass and escajDC from the 
 cold splendour of her half-sister's drawing-room. 
 
 She walked slowly and sorrowfully back to Bloomsbury. She 
 was to leave her dear friends there — leave the shabby rooms in 
 which she had been so happy, and to go out into the bleak world 
 a dependant upon grand people, so low and humiliated that even 
 her own name must be abandoned by her before she could enter 
 upon the state of dependence. The Bohemian sociality of the 
 Pilasters was to be exchanged for the dreary splendoiu* of a 
 household in which she was to be something a httle above the 
 servants. 
 
 But it would be cowardly and selfish to refuse this situation, 
 for no douljt cruel Mrs. Bannister had spoken the truth. Eleanor 
 began to tliink that she had been a burden upon her poor friends. 
 
 She was very gloomy and despondent, brooding ujDon these 
 tilings; but through every gloomy thought of the present a
 
 BicTiard Thornton's Fromiae. 95 
 
 darker image loomed, far a way in the black future. TKia was the 
 image of her vengeance, the vagiie and uncertain shadow that 
 had filled her girhsh dreams ever since the great sorrow of her 
 father's death had fallen upon her. 
 
 " If I go to Hazlewood," she thought, " if I spend my life at 
 Mrs. DarreU's, how can I ever hope to find the murderer of mt 
 father?" 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 EicnAKD tuorxton's promise. 
 Eleanor Yane looked very sadly at all the common everyday 
 sights connected with the domestic economy of the Pilasters, 
 when she went back to Bloomsbury after her mterview with Mrs. 
 Bannister. She had only Uved a year and a half in that humble 
 locaUty, but it was in her nature to become quickly attached to 
 pkces as well as persons, and she had grown very fond of the 
 Pilasters. Everybody about the place knew her and loved her. 
 The horses looked out of their open stable-doors as she passed ; 
 the dogs came tumbling from their kennels, (bagging half-a-dozen 
 yards of rusty iron chain and a heap of straw at their heels, to 
 greet her as she went by ; the chimney-sweeps' children courted 
 her notice ; and at all the little shops where she had been wont to 
 give orders and pay bills for the Signora, the simple tradespeople 
 tendered her their admiration and homage. Her beauty was a 
 pride to the worthy citizens of the Pilasters. Could all Blooms- 
 bury, from Dudley Street to the Squares, produce sunnier golden 
 hair, or brighter grey eyes than were to be seen under the shadow 
 of the dilapidated colonnade when Eleanor Vane went by ? 
 
 In this atmosphere of love and admiration, the girl had been 
 very happy. She had one of those natures in which there lies a 
 wondrous power of assimilation with the manners and habits of 
 others. She wasnever out of place ; she was never in the way. 
 Slie was not ambitious. Her sunny temperament was the centre 
 of perpetual peace and happiness, only to be disturbed by very 
 terrible thunderclaps of sorrow. She had been very happy with 
 the Signora ; and to-day she looked sadly round the little sitting- 
 room, her eyes resting now on the old piano, now on a shelf of 
 tattered books — romances dear to Richard and herself, and not 
 too well treated by either — now on the young man's flaming 
 magnum opus, the_ picture she had loved to criticise and abuse 
 in mischievous enjoyment of the painter's anguish. As she 
 looked at these things, and remembered how soon she must go 
 away from them, the slow tears trickled down her cheeks, and 
 she stood despondent on the gloomy threshold of her new life. 
 
 She had foimd the fami l iar rooms empty upon her return from 
 Bayswater, for the Signora was away teaching beyond the
 
 96 Uleanor't Victory. 
 
 regions of tlie ITew Road, and Richard was hard at work at the 
 Phoenix, where there were always new pieces to be produced and 
 new scenes to be painted. Eleanor had the Uttle sitting-room 
 all to herself ; she took off her bonnet and sat down upon th« 
 old-fashioned chintz-covered sofa. She buried her head in the 
 cushions and tried to think. 
 
 The prospect of a new existence, which would have been de- 
 lightful to most girls of her age, was utterly distasteful to her. 
 Her nature was adhesive ; she would have gone to the farthest 
 end of the world with her father, if he had hved, or with Richard 
 and the Signora, whom she loved only less than she had loved 
 him. But to sever every tie, and go out alone into the world, 
 svith nothing between her and desolation, was unspeakably 
 terrible to this affectionate, impulsive girl. 
 
 If it had been simply a question of her own advantage, if hy 
 the sacrifice of her own advancement, her every prospect in life, 
 she might have stayed with the friends she loved, she would not 
 have hesitated for a moment. But it was not so. Mrs. Bannister 
 had clearly told her that she was a burden upon these generous 
 people, who had sheltered and succoured her in her hour of 
 misery. The cruel word pauperism had been flung in her teeth, 
 and with a racking brain this poor girl set herself to calculate 
 how much her maintenance cost her friends, and how much she 
 was able to contribute out of her own pitiful earnings. 
 
 Alas ! the balance told against her when the sum was done. 
 Her earnings were very, very small as yet, not because her talent 
 was tmappreciated, but because her pupils were poor ; and a 
 music-mistress whose address was Bloomsbury Pilasters could 
 scarcely demand high payment for her services, or hope to obtaio 
 a very aristocratic connection. 
 
 No ; Mrs. Bannister — stem, uncompromising, and disagreeable 
 a^ the truth itself — had no doubt been right. Her duty lay be- 
 fore her, plainly indicated by that unpleasant monitor. She was 
 bound to leave these dear friends, and to go out into the world 
 to fight a lonely battle for herself. 
 
 " I may be able to do something for them," she thought ; and 
 this thought was the only gleam of light which Ulumined the 
 darkness of her sorrow. " I may be able to save money enough 
 to buy the Signora a black silk dress, and Richard a meerschaum. 
 I should 80 like to buy Dick a meerschaum ; I know the one 
 he'd like — a bull-dog's head, with a silver collar round the neck. 
 We looked at it one night at a shop in Holbom." 
 
 She rose fi-om the sofa at last with an aching heart and troubled 
 brain, when the early shadows of the spring twilight were gather- 
 ing in the room. She made up the fire and swept the hearth, and 
 arranged the tea-things on the comfortable round table, and then 
 *»at down on a low stool by the fender to toast great rounds of
 
 Bichard ThorntorCs Fromise, 97 
 
 bread, wliicli would be as nothing in comparison to Eichard's all- 
 devouring capacity after a hard day's work in the scene-room at 
 the Phoenix. How pleasant it was to perform all these little 
 famiUar offices of love and duty ! How sorrowfully she looked 
 back to her simple, free-and-easy life, now that she was to go 
 amongst strangers who would exact all manner of ceremonious 
 observances from her ! The Bohemianism of her existence had 
 been its greatest charm ; and this poor benighted girl trembled 
 at the i^rospect of a hfe in which she would have to go through 
 all those terrible performances which she had read of, fearfully 
 and wonderingly, in certain erudite essays ujoon Etiquetle, but 
 which had never yei come within the range ot her experiences. 
 
 " It is my duty to go away from them," she kept saying to 
 herself; "it is my duty to go away." 
 
 She had schooled herself in this difficult duty by the time her 
 friends came home, and she told them very quietly that she had 
 seen ]\Irs. Bannister, and had agreed to accept her patronage and 
 services. 
 
 " I am going to be a sort of companion or musical governess — 
 I scarcely know which — to a young lady at a country house called 
 Hazlewood," she said. " Don't think I am not sorry to leave you, 
 dear Signora, but Hortensia says itis better that I should do so." 
 
 " And don't think that I am not sorry to lose yon, Nelly, 
 when I tell you that I think your sister is right," the Signora 
 answered gently, as she kissed her protegee. 
 
 Perhaps Eleanor was a little disappointed at this reply. She 
 little dreamed how often EUza Picirillo had struggled against 
 the selfishness of her affection before she had grown thus resigned 
 to this parting. 
 
 Mr. Eichard Thornton groaned aloud. 
 
 " I shall go out and pull down a couple of the PUasters, and 
 bury myself under them, a la Samson," he said, piteously. 
 *' "NVTiat is to become of us without you, Eleanor ? Who will 
 come over to the Phoenix, and applaud my great scenes with the 
 ferule of an umbrella ? Who'll cut up half-quartern loaves into 
 toast when I am hungry, or have Welsh rarebits in readiness on 
 the hob when I come home late at night ? Who'll play Men- 
 delssohn's ' Songs without Words ' to me, and dam my stock- 
 ings, and sew buttons — absurd institutions, invented by ignorant 
 people, who have never known the blessing of pins — upon my 
 shirts ? Who'll abuse me when I go unshaven, or recommend 
 clacking as an embelUshment for my boots ? Who'll career in 
 and out of the room with a dirty white French poodle at her 
 heels, looking like a fair-haired Esmeralda with a curly-coated 
 goat ? What are we to do without you, Eleanor ? " 
 
 There was a sharp pain at poor Dick's heart as he apostrophized 
 his adopted sister. Were his feelings quite brotherly r Was there
 
 98 Eleanor's Victory, 
 
 no twinge of tlie fatal torture so common to mankind mingled 
 with tliis 3''onng man's feelings as lie looked at the beautiful face 
 opposite to liim, and remembered how soon it would have vanished 
 from that shabby chamber, leaving only dismal emptiness behind? 
 
 The Signora looked at her nephew and sighed. Yes, it was 
 far better that Eleanor should go away. She could never have 
 grown to love this honest-hearted, candid, slovenly scene-painter, 
 •whose coat was a perfect landscaj^e in distemper by reason of the 
 many-coloured splashes which adorned it. 
 
 " My jioor Dick would have fallen in love with her, and would 
 have broken his good honest heart," Ehza Picu-illo said. " I'm 
 very glad she's going away." 
 
 So from the road which Destiny had appointed for her to tread, 
 there was not one voice to call Eleanor Vane aside. The affec- 
 tionate and the indifferent ahke conspired to urge her onward. 
 It was only her own inchnation that would have held her back. 
 
 " If I could have stayed in London," she thought, " there 
 might have been some chance of my meeting that man. AH 
 scamps and villains come to hide themselves in London. But 
 in a quiet country village I shall be buried alive. When I pass 
 the threshold of Mrs. Darrell's house, I bid good-bye to the hope 
 of crossing that man's pathway." 
 
 The letter came very quickly from Mrs. Bannister. Mrs. Dan-ell 
 had accepted her dear friend's recommendation, and was ready to 
 receive Miss Vincent. It was under this name the stockbroker's 
 widow had introduced her half-sister to the notice of her friend. 
 
 " You will receive a salary of thirty pounds a year," Hortensia 
 Bannister wrote, " and your duties will be very hght. Do not 
 forget that your name at Hazlewood is to be Vincent, and that 
 YOU are carefully to avoid all reference to your father. You will 
 \'iz amongst people who knew him well, and must therefore be 
 on your guard. I have described you as the orphan daughter of 
 a gentleman who died in reduced circumstances, and have thus 
 strictly adhered to the tnith. No questions will be asked of you, 
 as Mrs. DarreU is satisfied with my recommendation, and is too 
 well bred to feel any vulgar curiosity as to your past history. I 
 send you, per parcel delivery, a box of dresses and other wearing 
 apparel, which will be of use to you. I also send you five pounds 
 for such Httlc extra expenditure as may be necessary. Hazlewood 
 is thirty miles from London, and about seven from Windsor. You 
 wiU go down by the Great Western, and stop at Slough, where a 
 conveyance will meet you ; but I wiU write further u^ion tliis 
 matter before you go. Mrs. Darrell has kindly accorded you a 
 fortnight's delay for such preparations as you may require to 
 make. You will be exjoected at Hazlewood on the 6th of April. 
 
 " I have only one other remark to make. I know that your 
 father cherished a foohsh notion rpon the subject of the Wood-
 
 Bicliard Thorntons Promise. 09 
 
 lands property. Pray bear in mind that no such idea has ever 
 been entertained by me. I know the Darrell family quite well 
 Rnongh to feel assured that thoy will take care of their own 
 rights, which I am content to acknowledge. Eemember, there- 
 fore, that I have no wish or expectation wth regard to Maurice 
 de Crespigny's will ; but it is, on the other hand, perfectly true, 
 that in his youth he did make a solemn promise that, in the 
 event of liis dying a bachelor, he would leave that money to my 
 father or his heirs." 
 
 Eleanor Vane took very httle notice of this final paragraph in 
 her sister's letter. "Who cared for Maurice de Crespigny's for- 
 tune ? What was the good of it now ? It could not bring her 
 father back to Hfe ; it could not blot out that quiet, unwitnessed 
 death-scene in the Parisian cafe ; it could not rehabilitate thfe 
 broken name, or restore the shattered life. "What could it matter 
 who inherited the useless dross ? 
 
 The fortnight passed in a feverish unsatisfactory manner. 
 Richard and the Signora took care to conceal the poignancy of 
 their regretat parting with the girl who had brought such new 
 brightness into their narrow Uves. Eleanor wept by stealth; 
 dropping niany bitter tears over her work, as she remodelled 
 Mrs. Bannister's silk dresses, reducing those garments to the 
 dimensions of her own girhsh figure. The last night came 
 by-and-by, the night of the 5th of April, the eve of a sorrowful 
 parting, and the beginning of a new existence. 
 
 It happened to be a Sunday evening, and Eleanor and Richard 
 walked out_ to.t^ether in the quiet Bloomsbury streets while the 
 bells were rmging for evening service, and the lamps ghmmering 
 dimly from the church windows. They chose the lonehest 
 streets in the old-fashioned middle-class quarter. Eleanor was 
 very pale, very silent. This evening walk had been her express 
 desu-e, and Richard watched her wondei-ingly. Her face had an 
 expression wliich he remembered in the Rue de I'Archeveque, 
 when he had told her the story of her father's death — an un- 
 naturally rigid look, strangely opposed to the changeful bright- 
 ness common to that youthful countenance. 
 
 They had strolled slowly hither and thither in the deserted 
 streets for some time. The bells had ceased ringing, and the 
 church-goers had all disappeared. The gi-ey twihght was steal- 
 ing into the streets and squares, and the hghts began to shine 
 out from the lower windows. 
 
 "How quiet you are, Nelly," Richard said at last; "why 
 were vou so anxious that we should come out together alone, my 
 dear ? I fancied yoti had something particular to say to me." 
 
 " I have something particular to say." 
 
 ""What about? " asked Mr. Thornton. 
 
 He looked thoughtfully at bis companion. He could only see
 
 100 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 her profile — ttat clearly-defined, almost classical ontline — for she 
 had not turned towai'ds him when she spoke. Her grey eyes 
 looked straight before her into empty space, and her hps were 
 tightly compressed. 
 
 " Ton love me, don't yon, Richard ? " she asked presently, 
 with a suddenness that startled the scene-painter. 
 
 Poor Dick blushed crimson at that alarming inquiry. How 
 could she be so cruel as to ask him such a question ? For the 
 last fortnight he had been fighting with himself — sturdily and 
 honestly — in the heroic desire to put away this one fatal thought 
 from his mind ; and now the girl for whose sake he had been 
 doing battle with his own selfishness, struck the tenderest of all 
 chords with her ignorant hand, and wounded her victim to the 
 very quick. 
 
 But Miss Vane had no consciousness of the mischief she had 
 done. Coquetry was an unknown science to this girl of seventeen. 
 In aU matters connected with that womanly accomphshment she 
 was as much a child, now that her seventeenth birthday was 
 past, as she had been in the old days at Chelsea when she had 
 upset Richard's colour-boxes and made grotesque copies of his 
 paintings. 
 
 "I know yon love me, Dick," she continued, "quite as 
 much as if I were your real sister, instead of a poor desolate 
 girl who flung herself upon you and yours in the day of her 
 afiliction. I know you love me, Dick, and would do almost any- 
 thing for my sake, and I wanted to speak to you to-night alone, 
 because I am going to say something that would distress the 
 dear Signora, if she were to hear it." 
 
 " What is it, my dear? " 
 
 " You remember the story of my father's death ? " 
 
 " Only too well, Eleanor." 
 
 " And you remember the vow I made when you told me that 
 story, Richard ? " 
 
 The young man hesitated. 
 
 " Yes, I do remember, Nelly," he said, after a pause ; '* but I 
 had hoped that you had forgotten that foohsh vow. For it was 
 foohsh, you know, my dear, as weU as unwomanly," the young 
 man added, gravely. 
 
 Eleanor's eyes flashed defiance upon her friend, as she tttmed 
 to him for the first time that evening. 
 
 " Yes," she cried, " you thought that I had forgotten, because I 
 was not always talking of that man who caused my father's 
 death ! You thought my sorrow for my father was only childish 
 grief, that was to be forgotten when I turned my back upon 
 the country where he Hes in his abandoned grave — his uncon- 
 secrated grave ! You thought that nobody would ever try to 
 avenge the poor, lonely old man's murder — for it was a murder,
 
 Bichard ThorntorCs Promise. 101 
 
 Richard Tliomton 1 What did the wretch who robbed him care 
 for the anguish of the heart he broke ? What did he care what 
 became of his victim ? It was as base and cruel a murder as 
 was ever done upon this earth, Richard, though the world would 
 not call it by that name." 
 
 "Eleanor, my dear Eleanor! why do you talk of these things?" 
 
 The girl's voice had risen with the vehemence of her passion, 
 aoid Richard Thornton dreaded the effect which this kind of con- 
 versation might have upon her excitable nature. 
 
 " Nelly, my dear," he said, " it would be better to_ forget all 
 this. What good can you do by cherishing these painful recol- 
 lections ? You are never likely to meet this man ; you do not 
 even know his name. He was a scamp and an adventurer, no 
 doubt ; he may be dead by this time. He may have done some- 
 thing to bring himself within the power of the law, and he may 
 be in prison, or transported." 
 
 " He may have done something to bring himself within the 
 power of the law," repeated Eleanor. " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that he may have committed some cnme for which 
 he could be punished." 
 
 " Could he be punished by the law for having cheated my 
 father at cards ? " 
 
 " That sort of charge is always difficult to be proved, Nell ; 
 impossible to be proved after the fact. No, I'm afraid the la-w 
 could never touch him for that." 
 
 " But if he were to commit some other crime, he might be 
 punished?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 "If I met him, Richard," cried Eleanor Vane, with a dangerous 
 light kindling in her eyes, " I would try and lure him on to com- 
 mit some crime, and then turn round upon him and say, ' The 
 law of the land could not avenge my father's death, but it can 
 punish you for a lesser crime. I have t^visted the law to my 
 own pui-pose, and made it redress my father's -wrongs.' " 
 
 Richard Thornton started aghast at his companion. 
 
 " Why, Eleanor," he exclaimed, " you talk Uke a Red Indian ! 
 This is quite shocking! You frighten me, reaUy; you do, indeed." 
 
 " I am sorry for that, Richard," Miss Vane answered, meekly. 
 She was a child in all things which concerned her affections 
 alone. "I wouldn't grieve you or the dear Signora for the world. 
 But there are some things that are stronger than ourselves, 
 Richard ; and the oath that I took a year and a half ago, in the 
 Rue de I'Archeveque, is one of those things. I have never for- 
 
 gotten, Dick. Night after night — thouwli I've been happy and 
 ght-hearted enough in the day, for i could not be otherwise 
 than happy with you and the Signora — night after night I have 
 laia awake thinkmg of my father's death. If that death had
 
 102 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 been a common one ; if he had died in my arms at the will of 
 God, instead of by the cniclty of a wretch, my grief might 
 have worn itself out by this time. But as it is, I cannot forget 
 — I cannot forgive. If all the Christian people in the world 
 were to talk to me, I could never have one merciful feeling 
 towai'ds this man. If he were going to be hung to-morrow, I 
 should be glad, and coidd walk barefoot to the place of his exe- 
 cution to see him suffer. There is no treachery that I should 
 think base if employed against him. There is no slow torture 
 I could inflict upon him that would seem cruel enough to satisfy 
 my hatred of him. Think what a helpless old man my father 
 was ; a broken-down gentleman ; the sort of man whom every- 
 1»ody pities, whom everybody respects. Remember this; and 
 Hien remember the cold-blooded deliberation of the wretch who 
 cheated him out of the money which wa^i more than money to 
 aim — which represented honour — ^honesty — his child's future — 
 all he valued. Remember the remorseless cruelty of the wretch 
 who looked on while this helpless old man suffered a slow agony 
 of six or seven hours' duration, and then left him alone in his 
 despair. Think of this, Richard Thornton, and don't wonder any 
 longer if my feelings towards this man are not Christian-like." 
 
 " My dear Eleanor, if I regret the vehemence of your feeling 
 upon this subject, I do not defend the man whose treachery 
 hurried your father to his unhappy death ; I only wish to convince 
 you of the folly you commit in cherishing these ideas of vengeance 
 and retribution. Life is not a three-volume novel or a five-act 
 play, you know, Nelly. The sudden meetings and strange coin- 
 cidences common in novels are not very general in our everyday 
 existence. It ia not at all hkely that in the whole course of your 
 life you will ever again encounter tliis man. From the moment 
 of your father's death all clue to him was lost ; for it was only 
 your father who could have told us who and what he was, or, at 
 least, who and what he represented himself to be. He is lost in 
 the vast chaos of humanity now, my dear, and you have not the 
 frailest clue by which you might hope to find liim. For Heaven's 
 sake, then, abandon all thought of an impossible revenge ! Have 
 you forgotten the words we heard in the Epistle a few weeks ago 
 — 'Vengeance is mine, I will repajr, saith the Lord ' ? If the 
 melodramatic revenge of the stage is not practicable in real Hfe, 
 we know at least, my dear — for you see we have it from very high 
 authority — that wicked deeds do not go unpunished. Far away 
 at the remotest hmits of the earth, this man, whom your pimy 
 efforts would be powerless to injure, may suffer for his ciime. 
 Try and think of this, Eleanor." 
 
 "I ccmmot," answered the girl. " The letter which my father 
 wrote me laefore he died was a direct charge which I will never 
 disobey. The only inheritance I received from him was that
 
 'Richard TTiorntori's Promise. 103 
 
 letter— that letter in -which he told me to avenge his death. I 
 dare say yoti think me mad as well as wicked, Kichard ; but, in 
 spite of aU you have said, I believe that I shall meet that man .'" 
 
 The scene-painter sighed and relapsed into despondent silence. 
 How could he argue with this girl ? What could he do but love 
 and admire her, and entrust himself to her direction if she had 
 need of a slave ? While he was thinking this, Eleanor clasped 
 both her hands apon his arm and looked up earnestly in his 
 face. 
 
 " Richard," she said, in a low voice, " I think yon would serve 
 me if you had the power." 
 
 " I would go through fire and water to do so, Nelly." 
 
 " I want you to help me in this matter. You know as little of 
 this man as I do, but you are much cleverer than me. You mix 
 with other people and see something of the world ; not much, I 
 know, but still a great deal more than I do. I am going away 
 into a quiet country place, where there is no possible chance of 
 meeting this man ; you will stay in London" 
 
 " Wiiere I may brush against him in the streets any day, Nell, 
 without being a shade the wiser as to his identity. My dear 
 child, for any practical purpose you will lie as near the man in 
 Berkshire as I shall be in Bloomsbury. Don't let's talk of him 
 any longer, Nelly. I can't teU you how this subject distresses 
 me. 
 
 " I won't leave off talking of him," said the young lady, reso- 
 lutely, " until you have made me a promise." 
 
 'M\Tiat promise?" 
 
 *' That it ever you do come across any clue which may lead to 
 the identification of the man I want to find, you will follow it up, 
 patiently and faithfully, sparing neither trouble nor cost. For 
 my sake, Eichard, for my sake, will you promise ? " 
 
 " I will, my dear," ]\Ir. Thornton answered. " I do promise, 
 and I will keep my promise honestly if ever the chance of doing 
 so should come to me. But I must tell you frankly, Nell, I don't 
 beheve it ever will." 
 
 " Bless you for the promise, notwithstanding, Kichard," 
 Eleanor said, warmly. " It has made me much happier. There 
 will be two people henceforth, instead of one, set against thia 
 man." 
 
 A dark frown overshadowed her face. It seemed as if she had 
 uttered those last few words in the form of a threat and a defi- 
 ance, which the man, whoever he was, and wherever he was, 
 might hear. 
 
 " You know all the strange things they say now about second- 
 eight, clairvoyance, odic force, magnetic attraction — all sorts of 
 long words whose meaning I don't understand, Eichard. I 
 wonder sometimes if this man knows that I hate him, and that
 
 104i Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 I am watching for him, thinking of him, praying to meet him 
 day and night. Perhaps he does know this, and will hold 
 himself on his guard against me, and try and avoid me." 
 
 Richard shrank from entering upon this subject; the conver- 
 sation had been altogether disagi-eeable to him. There was a 
 horrible discrepancy between this girl's innocent youthful beauty 
 and all this deternrined talk of fierce and eager vengeance, which 
 would have been more natural to a Highland or Corsican chief 
 tain than to a young lady of seventeen. 
 
 It was dark now, and they went back to the Pilasters, where 
 EHza Picirillo was spending that last night very moumfolly. 
 The shabby room was only illumined by the glimmer of a low 
 fire, for the Signora had not cared to Ught the candles until her 
 two cliildren came home. She had been sitting by the dingy 
 window watching for their return, and had fallen asleep in the 
 darkness. 
 
 There is no need to dwell upon that last night. It was Uke 
 the eves of all partings, very sad, very uncomfortable. Every- 
 thing was disorganized by that approaching sorrow. Conver- 
 sation was desultory and forced, and Richard was glad to be 
 employed in cording Eleanor's boxes. She had two trunks now, 
 and had a wardrobe that seemed to her magnificent, so hberally 
 had Mrs. Bannister bestowed her cast-ofi" dresses upon her half- 
 sister. 
 
 So the last night passed away, the April morning came, and 
 Eleanor's new life began. 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 GILBERT MONCKTON. 
 
 Eleakor Vake was not to go down to Berkshire alone. The 
 beginning of her new hfe, that terrible beginning which she so 
 much dreaded, was to make her acquainted with new people. 
 She had received the following commtmication from Mra» 
 
 " Hazlewood, April 3rd, 1855. 
 "Madam, — As it would of course be very improper for a 
 young lady of your age to travel alone, I have provided against 
 that contingency. 
 
 " My friend Mr. Monckton has kindly promised to meet you 
 in the first-class waiting-room at the Great Western Station, at 
 three o'clock on Monday afternoon. He will drive you here on 
 Ids way home. 
 
 ** I am, Madam, 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 "Ellen Daerell."
 
 Gilbert Monckton, 105 
 
 Eliza Picirillo worked harder upon a Monday than on any 
 other day in the -week. She left the Pilasters immediately after 
 an early breakfast, to ^o upon a wearisome round amongst her 
 pupils. Richarel was in the thick of the preparations for a new 
 piece, so poor Eleanor was obUged to go alone to the station, to 
 meet the stranger who had been appointed as her escort to 
 Eazlewood. 
 
 She quite broke down when the time came for bidding fare- 
 well to her old friend. She clung about the Signora, weeping 
 tmrestrainedly for the first time. 
 
 " I can't bear to go away from you," she sobbed piteously ; 
 " I can't bear to say good-bye." 
 
 " But, my love," the music-mistress answered, tenderly, " if 
 you don't really wish to go " 
 
 " No, no, it isn't that. I feel that I must go — that " 
 
 "And I, too, my dear girl. I believe you would do very 
 wrong in refusing this situation. But, Nelly, my darling, re- 
 member that this is only an experiment. You may not be 
 happy at Hazlewood. In that case you will not fail to remem- 
 ber that your home is always here ; that, come to it when you 
 may, you will never fail to find a loving welcome ; and that 
 the friends you leave behind you here are friends whom 
 nothing upon earth can ever estrange from you. Eemember 
 this, Eleanor." 
 
 " Yes, yes, dear, dear Signora." 
 
 " If I could have gone with her to the station, I shouldn't 
 have cared so much," Richard murmured, despondingly ; " but 
 the laws of Spavin and Cromshaw are as the laws of Draco. 
 If I don't get on with the Swiss chalet and moonht Alpine 
 peaks, the new piece can't come out on Monday." 
 
 So poor Eleanor went to the station alone, and was over- 
 charged by the cabman who carried the two trunks which 
 Richard had neatly addressed to Miss Yincent, Hazlewood, 
 Berks. 
 
 She was received by a civil porter, who took charge of her 
 luggage while she wont to the waiting-room to look for the 
 stranger who was to be her escort. 
 
 She was no more a coquette than she had been nearly two 
 years before when she travelled alone between London and Paris, 
 and she was prepared to accept the services of this stranger quito 
 as frankly as she had accepted the care and protection of the 
 elderly gentleman who had taken charge of her upon that occa- 
 sion. 
 
 But how was she to recognize the stranger ? She could not 
 walk up to every gentleman in the waiting-room, to ask him if 
 he were Mr. Monckton. 
 
 She had in almost all her wanderings travelled in second-clasa
 
 106 Eleanors Victory. 
 
 carriages, and waited in second-class waiting-rooms. She shrank 
 back, therefore, rather timidly upon the threshold of the capa- 
 cious carpeted saloon, and looked a little nervously at the occu- 
 pants of that gorgeous chamDer. There was a group of ladies 
 near the fireplace, and there were three gentlemen in difi'erent 
 parts of the room. One of these gentlemen was a Httle man 
 vnth. grey hair and a red face ; the other was very young and 
 very sandy ; the third was a tall man of about forty, with close- 
 cut black hair, and a square massive face and head — not exactly 
 a handsome face, perhaps, but a countenance not easily to be 
 overlooked. 
 
 This tall man was standing near one of the windows, reading 
 a newspaper. He looked up as Eleanor pushed open the swing- 
 ing door. 
 
 " I wonder which of them is Mr. Monckton," she thought. 
 " Not that fidgety young man with the red hau-, I hope."_ 
 
 While she still stood doubtfully upon the thi-eshold, hesitating 
 what to do — she Httle knew what a pretty picture she made in 
 that timid, fluttering attitude — the tail man threw down his 
 newspajDcr upon the sofa beside him, and walked across the 
 room to where she stood. 
 
 " Miss Vincent, I beheve P " he said. 
 
 Eleanor blushed at the sound of that false name, and then 
 bent her head in reply to the question. She could not say yes. 
 She could not fall into this disagreeable falsehood all at once. 
 
 " I am Mrs. Darrell's friend and legal adviser, Mr. Monckton," 
 the gentleman said, " and I shall be very happy to perform the 
 duty she has entrusted to me. We are in very good time. Miss 
 Yincent. I know that young ladies are generally ultra--gvJiciusl 
 upon these occasions ; and I came very early in order to anti- 
 cipate you, if possible." 
 
 Eleanor did not speak. She was looking furtively at the face 
 of Mrs. Dan-eU's friend and legal adviser. A good and wise 
 adviser. Miss Vane thought : for the face, not strictly handsome, 
 seemed to bear in its every feature the stamp of three quaUtiea 
 — goodness, wisdom, and strength. 
 
 " I am sure he is very good," she thought; "but I would not 
 like to offend him for the -world, for though he looks so kind 
 now, I know he must be temble when he's angiy." 
 
 She looked almost fearfully at the strongly-marked black eye« 
 brows, tlmiking what a stormy darkness must overshadow the 
 massive face when they contracted over the grave, brown eyes — 
 serious and earnest eyes, but with a latent fixe lurking some- 
 where in their calm depths, Eleanor thought. 
 
 The girl's mind rambled on thus while she stood by the 
 stranger's side in the sunlit window. Already the blackness of 
 her new life was broken by this prominent figure standing boldly
 
 Gilbert Iloncldon. 107 
 
 ont M^iGn its very threshold. Already she was learning to be 
 interested in new peoj)le. 
 
 "He isn't a bit like a lawyer," she thought; "I fancied 
 lawyers were always shabby old men, with blue bags. The 
 men who used to come to Chelsea after papa were always 
 nasty disagreeable men, with papers about the Queen and 
 Richard Roe." 
 
 Mr. Monckton looked thoughtfully down at the girl by his 
 side. There was a vein of silent poetry, and there were dim 
 ghmpses of artistic feeUng liidden somewhere in the nature_ of 
 this man, very far below the hard, bHsiness-hke exterior which 
 he presented to the world. He felt a quiet pleasure in looking 
 at Eleanor's young beauty. It was her youthfulness, perhaps, 
 her almost childUke innocence, which made her gi-eatest charm. 
 Her face was not that of a common beauty : her _ aquiline nose, 
 
 frey eyes, and finnly-moulded mouth had a certain air of queen- 
 ness very rarely to be seen ; but the youth of the soul shining 
 out of the clear eyes was visible in eveiy glance, in every change 
 of expression. 
 
 " Do you know much of Berkshire, Miss Vincent P " the 
 lawyer asked, presently. 
 
 " Oh, no, I have never been there." 
 
 " You are very young, and I dare say have never left home 
 before? " Mr. Monckton said. He was wondering that no rela- 
 tive or friend had accompanied the girl to the station. 
 
 " I have been at school," Eleanor answered ; " but I have 
 never been away from home before — to — to get my own living." 
 
 " I thought not. Your papa and mamma must be very sorry 
 to lose you." 
 
 " I have neither father nor mother." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Mr. Monckton ; " that's strange.'' 
 
 Then after a pause he said, in a low voice : 
 
 " I think the young lady you are going to will like you all the 
 better for that." 
 
 " \Vhy ? " Eleanor asked involuntarily. 
 
 " Because she has never known either father or mother." 
 
 "Poor girl!" murmured Eleanor; "they are both dead, 
 then ? " 
 
 The lawyer did not answer this question. He was so far pro- 
 fessional, even in his conversation wth Miss Vane, that he 
 asked a great many more questions than he answered. 
 
 "Do you like going to Hazlewood, IMiss Vincent?" he said, 
 by-and-by, rather abruptly, 
 
 " Not very much." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I am leaving very dear friends to go to " 
 
 . " Strangers, who may ill-treat you, eh ? " muttered Mr.
 
 108 Eleanors Victory. 
 
 Monckton. " Yon need have no apprehension of that sort of 
 tiling, I assnre you. Miss Vincent. Mrs. Darrell is rather rigid 
 in her ideas of life ; she has had her disappointments, poor 
 3onl, and yon must be patient with her : but Laura Mason, the 
 young lady who is to be your companion, is the gentlest and 
 most affectionate girl in Christendom, I should think. She is a 
 sort of ward of mine, and her future life is in my hands ; a very 
 heavy responsibility, JMiss Vincent; she will have plenty of 
 money by-and-by — houses, and horses, and carriages, and ser- 
 vants, and all the outer paraphemaha of happiness : but 
 Heaven knows if she will be happy, poor girl ! She has never 
 known either mother or father. She has hved with all manna 
 Df respectable matrons, who have promised to do a mother's 
 duty to her, and have tried to do it, I dare say ; but she has 
 never had a mother, Miss Vincent. I am always sorry for har 
 when I think of that." 
 
 The lawyer sighed heavily, and his thoughts seemed to 
 wander away from the young lady in his charge. He still stood 
 it the window, looking out at the bustle on the platform, but 
 Qot seeing it, I think, and took no further notice of Eleanor 
 until the bell rang for the starting of the train. 
 
 " Come, IMiss Vincent," he said, rousing himself suddenly 
 [rom his reverie ; " I have forgotten all about your ticket. I'll 
 put you into a carriage, and then send a porter for it." 
 
 Mr. Monckton scarcely spoke to his companion half-a-dozen 
 times during the brief journey to Slough. He sat with a news- 
 paper before him, but Eleanor noticed that he never turned its 
 leaves, and once, when she caught a glimpse of the lawyer's 
 face, she saw that it wore the same gloomy and abstracted ex- 
 pression that she had observed upon it as Mr. Monckton stood 
 m the window of the waiting-room. 
 
 " He must be very fond of his ward," she thought, " or he 
 ccnld never be so eorry because she has no mother. I thought 
 lawyers were hard, cruel men, who cared for nothing in the 
 world. I always used to fancy my sister Hortensia ought to 
 have been a lawyer." 
 
 By-and-by, as they drew very near to the station, Mr. Monck« 
 ton dropped his newspaper with another sigh, and turning ta 
 Eleanor, said, in a low, confidential voice : 
 
 " I hope you will be very good to Laura Mason, Miss Vin- 
 cent. Remember that she stands quite alone in the world : and 
 that however friendless, however desolate you may be — I say 
 this because you tell me you are an orphan — you can never be 
 10 friendless or bo desolate as she is."
 
 Eazlewood. 109 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HAZLEWOOD. 
 
 A PHAETON and pair was in waiting for Mr. Monckton outside 
 the Slough station. The vehicle was very plain, but had a cer- 
 tain quiet elegance of its own, and the horses had been sold at 
 TattersaH's for something over five hundred pounds. 
 
 Eleanor Vane's spirits rose in spite of herself as she sat by 
 the la'NA'yer's side, driving at a rapid rate through the pretty pas- 
 toral country. They crossed the river almost immediately after 
 leaving Slough, and dashed into Berkshire. They skirted 
 Windsor Park and Forest, leaving the black outline of the 
 castle keep behind them ; and then turned into a quiet country 
 road, where the green banks were dotted by clumps of early 
 primroses, and the white-thorns were bursting into flower. 
 
 Eleanor looked rapturously at all this rural beauty. She was 
 a Cockney, poor child, and her experience of the country was 
 confined to rambles in Greenwich Park, or on Richmond Ter- 
 race ; happy rambles with her father, prior to expensive dinners 
 at the Crown and Sceptre, or the Star and Garter, as the case 
 might be. 
 
 But the country, the genuine country, the long roads and 
 patches of common, the gUmpses of wood and water, the great 
 deserts of arable land, the scattered farm-houses, and noisy 
 farm-yards ; all these were strange and new to her, and her soul 
 expanded in the unfamiliar atmosphere. 
 
 If that drive could have lasted for ever, it would have been 
 very dehghtful ; but she knew that those splendid chestnut 
 horses were carrying her at a terrible rate to her new home. 
 Her new home ! What right had she to call Hazlewood by that 
 name ? She was not going home. She was going to her first 
 situation. 
 
 All the pride of birth, the foohsh and mistaken pride in ship- 
 wrecked fortune and squandered wealth which this girl's weak- 
 minded father had instilled into her, arose and rebelled against 
 this bitter thought. "What humiliation Mrs. Bannister's cruelty 
 had inflicted upon her ! 
 
 She was thinking this when Mr. Monckton suddenly turned 
 his horses' heads away from the main road, and the phaeton 
 entered a lane above which the branches of the still leafless 
 trees made an overarching roof of deUcate tracery. 
 
 At the end of this lane, in which the primroses seemed to 
 grow thicker than in any other part of the country, there were 
 some low wooden gates, and an old-fashioned iron lamp-post. 
 On the other side of the gates there was a wide lawn shut in
 
 110 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 by a sknibbery and a grove of trees, and beyond the lawn 
 glimmered tlie sunlit windows of a low wliite house ; a rambling 
 cottage, whose walls were half hidden by trelhs-work and ivy, 
 and not one of whose windows or chimneys owned a fellowslup 
 with the others. 
 
 Pigeons were cooing and hens clucking somewhere behind the 
 house, a horse began to neigh as the carriage stopped, and three 
 dogs, one very big, and two very ] ittle ones, ran out upon the 
 lawn, and barked furiously at the jihaeton. 
 
 Eleanor Vane could not help thinking the low-roofed, white- 
 walled, ivy-covered irregular cottage very pretty, even though 
 it teas Hazlewood. 
 
 "WTiile the dogs were barking their loudest, a delicate little 
 figure, in fluttering draperies of white and blue, came floating 
 out of a window under the shadow of a verandah, and ran 
 towards the gates. 
 
 It was the figure of a young lady, very fragile-looking and 
 graceful. A young lady whose complexion was fairer than a 
 snow-drop, and whose loose floating hair was of the palest shade 
 of flaxen. -, 
 
 " Be quiet, Julius Ceesar ; be quiet, Mark Antony," she cried 
 to the dogs, who ran up to her and leaped and whirled about 
 her, jumping almost higher than her head in an excess of canine 
 spu-its. " Be quiet, you big, wicked Julius Caesar, or you shall 
 go back to the stables, su*. Is this the way you behave yourself 
 when I've had ever so much trouble to get you a half-hohday ? 
 Please, don't mind them, Miss Yincent," the young lady added, 
 opening the gate, and looking up pleadingly at Eleanor; 
 *' they're only noisy. They wouldn't hurt you for the world; 
 and they'll love you very much by-and-by, when they come to 
 know you. I've been watching for you such a time, Mr. 
 Monckton. The train must have been slow this afternoon ! " 
 
 " The train travelled at its usual speed, neither slower nor 
 faster," the lawyer said, with a quiet smile, as he handed 
 Eleanor out of the phaeton. He left the horses in the care of 
 the groom, and -walked on to the lawn with the two girls. The 
 dogs left off barking at a word from him, though they had made 
 very light of Miss Mason's entreaties. They seemed to know 
 him, and to be accustomed to obey him. 
 
 " I know the afternoon seemed dreadfully long," the young 
 lady said. " I thought the train must be behind its time." 
 
 *' And, of course, you never thought of looking at your watch. 
 Miss Mason," the lawyer said, pointing to a quantity of jewelled 
 toys which hung at *he young lady's blue sash. 
 
 " What's the good of looking at one's watch, if one's watch 
 won't go ? " said Miss Mason ; " the sun has been going down 
 ever so long, but the sun's so changeable, there's no relying on
 
 Uazlewood. Ill 
 
 it. Mrs. Darrell has gone out in the pony-carriage to call upon 
 Bome people near Woodlands." 
 
 Eleanor Vane started at the sudden mention of a name which 
 had been so familiar to her from her dead father's lips. 
 
 " So I am all alone," continued Miss Mason, " and I'm very 
 glad of that ; because we shall get to know each other so mucn 
 better by ourselves, shan't we, Miss Vincent ? " 
 
 George Monckton had been walking between the two girls, 
 but Laura Mason came round to Eleanor, and put her hand in 
 that of Miss Vane. It was a fat Uttle childish hand, but ther? 
 were rings glittering upon it, small as it was. 
 
 " I think I shall hke you very much," Miss Mason whispered. 
 " Do yoa think you shall like me ? " 
 
 She looked up tato Eleanor's face, with an entreating expres- 
 sion in her blue eyes ; they were really blue eyes, a bright forget- 
 me-not, or turquoise blue, as different as possible from Eleanor's 
 clear grey ones, which were for ever changing, sometimes purple, 
 sometimes bro^^^l, sometimes black. 
 
 How could Miss Vane reply to this childisn question, except in 
 the affirmative ? She had every inchnation to love the babyish 
 young lady, who was so ready to cHng to her and confide in her. 
 She had expected to find a haughty heiress who would have 
 flaunted her wealth before her penniless companion. But she 
 had another reason for inclining tenderly towards this girl. She 
 remembered what Mr. Monckton had said to her in the railway 
 carriage. 
 
 " However friendless or desolate you may be, you can never 
 be so friendless and desolate as she is." 
 
 Eleanor pressed the hand that clung to hers, and said, gravely, 
 " I'm sure I shall love you. Miss Mason, if you'U let me." 
 
 " And you'll not be dreadful about triplets, and arpeggios, 
 and cinquepated passages ? " the young lady said, piteously. 
 " I don't mind music a bit, in a general way, you know ; but I 
 never could play triplets in time." 
 
 She led the way into a sitting-room under the verandah, as she 
 talked. Eleanor went with her, hand-iu-hand, and Mr. Monckton 
 followed, keeping an attentive watch upon the two girls. 
 
 The sitting-room was, like the exterior of the cottage, very 
 irregular and very pretty. It stood at one end of the house, 
 and there were -svindows upon three sides of the room, — an orie\ 
 at the end opposite the door, a bay opening on to the verandah, 
 and three latticed windows with deep oaken scats upon the other 
 side. 
 
 The furniture was pretty, but very simple and inexpensive. 
 The chintz curtains and cnair-covers were sprinkled with rose« 
 buds and butterflies; the chairs and tables were of shining 
 maple-wood ; and there was a good supply of old china arranged
 
 112 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 here and there upon brackets and cabinets of obsolete form. 
 The pale cream-coloured walls were hung with a few prints and 
 water- coloured sketches ; but beyond this the chamber had no 
 adornments. 
 
 Laura Mason led Eleanor to one of the window-seats, where 
 a htter of fancy-work, and two or three open books tumblec' 
 carelessly here and there amongst floss-silks and Berlin wools 
 and scraps of embroidery, gave token of the young lady's 
 habits. 
 
 " Will you take off your things here," she said, " or shall I 
 show you your own room at once ? It's the blue room, next t<» 
 mine. There's a door between the two rooms, so we shall be 
 able to talk to each other whenever we Hke. How dreadfully 
 you must want something to eat after jour journey ! Shall I 
 ring for cake and wine, or shall we wait for tea ? We always 
 drink tea at seven, and we dine very early ; not like Mr. Monck- 
 ton, who has a grand late dinner every evening." 
 
 The lawyer sighed, 
 
 " Eather a desolate dinner, sometimes. Miss Mason," he said, 
 gravely ; " but you remind me that I shall be hardly in time for 
 it, and my poor housekeeper makes herself wretched when the 
 fish is sjDOLled." 
 
 He looked at his watch. 
 
 " Six o'clock, I declare ; good-bye, Laura ; good-bye, Miss 
 Vincent. I hope you will be happy at Hazlewood." 
 
 " I am sure I shall be happy with Miss Mason," Eleanor 
 answered. 
 
 " Indeed ! " exclaimed Mr. Monckton, elevating his straight 
 black eyebrows, " is she so very fascinating, then ? I'm sorry 
 for it," he muttered under his breath, as he walked off after 
 fihaHng hands -with the two girls. 
 
 They heard the phaeton driving away three minutes after- 
 wards. 
 
 Laura Mason shrugged her shoulders with an air of reUef. 
 
 " I'm glad he's gone," she said. 
 
 " But you hke him very much. He's very good, isn't he ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, very, very good, and I do Hke him. But I'm afraid 
 of him, I think, because he's so good. He always seems to be 
 watching one and finding out one's faults. And he seems so 
 sorry because I'm frivolous, and I can't help being frivolous 
 when I'm happy." 
 
 " And are you always happy ? " Eleanor asked. She thoaght 
 it very possible that this young heiress, who had never known 
 any of those bitter troubles wmch IMiss Vane had found asso- 
 ciated with " money matters," might indeed be always happy. 
 But Laura Mason shook her head. 
 
 "Always, except when I think," she said; " but when I think
 
 Sazlewood. 113 
 
 about papa and mamma, and wonder who they were, and why 
 I never knew them, I can't help feeling very unhappy." 
 
 " They died when you were very young, then ? " Eleanor said. 
 
 Laura Mason shook her head with a sorrowful gesture. 
 
 " I scarcely know when they died," she answered ; " I know 
 that I can remember nothing about them; the first thing 1 
 recollect is being with a lady, far down in Devonshire — a lady 
 who took the charge of several little girls. I stayed with her 
 till I was ten years old, and then I was sent to a fashionable 
 school at Bayswater, and I stayed there till I was fifteen, and 
 then I came here, and I've been here two years and a half. Mr. 
 Monckton is my guardian, you know, and he says I am a very- 
 lucky girl, and will have plenty of money by-and-by ; but what's 
 the use of money if one has no relations in all the wide world ? 
 and he tells me to attend to my education, and not to be frivo- 
 lous, or care for di-ess and jewellery, but to try and become a 
 ^ood woman. He talks to me very seriously, and almost 
 irightens me sometimes with his grave manner; but for all 
 that, he's very kind, and lets me have almost everything I ask 
 him for. He's tremendously rich himself, you know, though he's 
 only a professional man, and he lives at a beautiful place four 
 miles from here, called Tolldale Priory. I used to ask him 
 questions about papa and mamma, but he would never tell m« 
 anything. So now I never speak to him about them." 
 
 She_ sighed as she finished speaking, and was silent for some 
 few minutes ; but she very quickly recovered her spirits, and 
 conducted Eleanor to a pretty rustic chamber with a lattice 
 window looking on to the lawn. 
 
 " Mrs. Darrell's man is gone to fetch your luggage," Miss 
 Mason said, " so you must have my brushes and combs, please, 
 for your hair, and then we'll go down to tea." 
 
 She led Eleanor into the adjoining apartment, where the 
 dressing-table was littered with all manner of womanly frivoli- 
 ties, and here Miss Vane re-arranged her luxuriant golden-brown 
 hair, which no longer was allowed to fall about her shoulders in 
 rippling curls, but was drawn simply away from her forehead, 
 and rolled in a knot at the back of her head. She was a woman 
 now, and had begun the battle of hfe. 
 
 A pony-carriage drove up to the gate while Eleanor was 
 standing at the glass by the open window, and Mrs. Darrell got 
 out and walked across the lawn towards the house. 
 
 She was a tall woman, uniisnally tall for a woman, and she 
 was dressed in black silk, which hung about her angular limbs 
 in heavy, lustreless folds. Eleanor could see that her face waa 
 pale and her eyes black and flashing. 
 
 The two girls went down stairs hand-in-hand. Tea was pre- 
 pared in the dining-room, a long wainscoted apartment, older 
 
 H
 
 114 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 than the rest of the house, and rather gloomy-looking. Three 
 naiTow ■windows upon one side of this room looked towards the 
 shrubbery and grove at the back of the house, and the trunks of 
 the trees looked gaunt and black in the spring twilight. A fire 
 was burning upon the low hearth, and a maid- servant was 
 lighting a lamp in the centre of the table as the two girls went in. 
 
 Mrs. DarreU welcomed her dejaendant very politely ; but there 
 was a harshness and a stiffness in her politeness which reminded 
 Eleanor of her half-sister, Mrs. Bannister. The two women 
 seemed to belong to the same school. Miss Yane thought. 
 
 The lamphght shone full upon Mrs. Darrell's face, and Eleanor 
 could see now that the face was a handsome one, though faded 
 and careworn. The widow's hair was grey, but her eyes retained 
 the flashing brightness of youth. They were very dark and 
 lustrous, but their expression was scarcely pleasant. There was 
 too much of the hawk or eagle in their penetrating glance. 
 
 But Laura Mason did not seem at all afraid of her protectress. 
 
 " Miss Vincent and I are good friends already, Mrs. DarreU," 
 she said, gaily, " and we shall be as happy together as the day 
 is long, I hope." 
 
 " And I hope Miss Vincent will teach you industrious habits, 
 Laiu-a," Miss DarreU answered, gravely. 
 
 Miss Mason made a grimace with her pretty red under-lip. 
 
 Eleanor took the seat indicated to her, a seat at the end of 
 the dining-table, and exactly opposite to Mrs. DarreU, who sat 
 with her back to the fireplace. 
 
 Sitting here, Eleanor could scarcely fail to observe an oil 
 painting — the only picture in the room — which hung over the 
 mantel-piece. It was the portrait of a young man, with dark 
 hair clustering about a handsome forehead, regular features, 
 a jDale complexion, and black eyes. The face was very hand- 
 some, very aristocratic, but there was a want of youtlifulness, 
 an absence of the fresh, eager spirit of boyhood in its expression. 
 A look of Ustless hauteur hung hke a cloud over the almost 
 faultless features. 
 
 Mrs. DarreU watched Eleanor's eyes as the girl looked at this 
 picture. 
 
 " You are looking at my son, IVIiss Vincent," she said ; " but 
 perhaps it is scarcely necessary to teU you so. People say there 
 IS a strong likeness between us." 
 
 There was indeed a very striking resemblance between the 
 faded face below and the pictiired face above. But it seemed to 
 Eleanor Vane as if the mother's face, faded and careworn though 
 it was, was almost the younger of the two. The listless in- 
 difference, the utter lack of energy iu the lad's countenance, 
 was so much the more striking when contrasted with the youth- 
 fulness of the features.
 
 Sazlewood. 115 
 
 "Yes," exclaimed Laura Mason, "that is Mrs. Darrell's only 
 Bon, Laiincelot Darrell. Isn't that a romantic name, Miss 
 Vincent?" 
 
 Eleanor started. This Launcelot Darrell was the young man 
 she had heard her father speak of; the man who expected to 
 inherit the De Crespigny estate. How often she had heard his 
 name ! It was he, then, who would have stood between her 
 father and fortune, had that dear father lived ; or whose claim 
 of kindred would, perhaps, have had to make way for the more 
 sacred right of friendship. 
 
 And this young man's portrait was hanging in the room 
 where she sat. He lived in tlie house, perhaps. AVhere should 
 he hve exce2it in his mother's house ? 
 
 But Eleanor's mind was soon relieved upon this point, for 
 Laura Mason, in the pauses of the business of the tea-table, 
 talked a good deal about the original of the portrait. 
 
 " Don't you think him handsome, Miss Vincent ? " she asked, 
 without waiting for an answer. " But of course you do ; every- 
 body thinks him handsome ; and then Mrs. Darrell says he's so 
 elegant, so tall, so aristocratic. He is almost sure to have 
 Woodlands by-and-by, and all Mr. de Crespigny's money. But 
 of course you don't know Woodlands or Mr. de Crespigny. How 
 should you, when you've never been in Berkshire before ? And 
 he — not Mr. de Crespigny, he's a nasty, fidgety, hypochon — 
 what's its name ? — old man — but Launcelot Darrell is so accom- 
 plished. He's an artist, you know, and all the water-coloured 
 sketches in the drawing-room and the breakfast-parlour are his ; 
 and he plays and sings, and he dances exquisitely, and he rides and 
 plays cricket, and he's a — what you may call it — a crack shot; 
 and, in short, he's an Admirable Crichton. You mustn't fancy 
 I'm in love ^vith him, j^ou know, IMiss Vincent," the young lady 
 added, blushing and laughing, *' because I never saw him in my 
 life, and I only know all this by hearsay." 
 
 " You never saw him ! " repeated Eleanor. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell did not Hve at Hazlewood, then. 
 
 "No," the widow interposed; "my son has enemies, I am 
 sorry to say, amongst his own kindred. Instead of occupying 
 the position his talents, to say nothing of his birth, entitle' him 
 to, he has been compelled to go out to India in a mercantile 
 capacity. I do not wonder that his spirit rebels against such 
 an injustice. I do not wonder that he cannot forgive." 
 
 Mrs. Darrell's face darkened as she spoke, and she sighed 
 heavily. By-and-by, when the two girls were alone together in 
 the breakfast room, Laura Mason alluded to the conversation at 
 the tea-table. 
 
 "I don't think I ought to have talked about Launcelo' 
 Darrell," she said ; " I know his mother is unhappy about him^
 
 116 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 though I don't exactly know why. You see his two aunts, who 
 live at Woodlands, are nasty, scheming old maids, and they con- 
 trived to keep liim away from liis great uncle, Mr. de Crespigny, 
 who is expected to leave liim all his money. Indeed, I don't see 
 who else he can leave it to now. There was an old man — a 
 college friend of Mr. de Crespigny's — who expected to get the 
 Woodlands estate ; but of course that was an absurd idea ; and 
 the old man — tbe father of that very Mrs. Bannister who re- 
 commended you to Mrs. Darrell, by the bye — is dead. So all 
 chance of tbat sort of thing is over. 
 
 " And Mr. Launcelot Darrell is sure to have tlie fortune P ' 
 Eleanor said, interrogatively, after a very long pause. 
 
 " Well, I don't know about that : but I've beard Mrs. DarreU 
 say that Launcelot was a great favourite of Mr. de Crespigny's 
 when he was a boy. But those two cantankerous old maids, 
 Mrs. DarreU's sisters, are nagging at the old man night and day, 
 and they may persuade him at last, or they may have succeeded 
 in persuading him, perhaps, ever so long ago, to make a will io 
 their favour. Of course all this makes Mrs. Darrell very un- 
 happy. She idohzes her son, who is an only cliild, and was 
 terribly spoiled when he was a boy, they say ; and she does not 
 know whether he will be a rich man or a pauper." 
 
 " And in the meantime, Mr. DaiTcU is in India ?" 
 
 " Yes. He went to India three years ago. He's overseer to 
 an indigo-planter up the country, at some jJace with an un- 
 pronounceable name, hundreds and hundreds of miles from 
 Calcutta. He's not at all happy, I beheve, and he very seldom 
 writes — not above once in a twelvemonth." 
 
 " He is not a good son, then," Eleanor said. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know about that ! Mrs. DarreU never com- 
 plains, and she's very proud of him. She always speaks of him 
 as 'my son.' But, of course, what with one tiling and another, 
 she is often very unhappy. So, if she is a httle severe, now 
 and then, we'll try and bear with her, won't we, Eleanor? I 
 may call you Eleanor, mayn't I ? " 
 
 The pretty flaxen head dropped upon Miss Yane's shoulder, 
 as the heiress asked this question, and the blue eyes were lifted 
 pleadingly. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I would much rather be caUed Eleanor than Miss 
 Vincent." 
 
 "And you'll call me Laura. Nobody ever calls me Misa 
 Mason except Mr. Monckton when he lectures me. We shall 
 be very, very happy together, I hope, Eleanor." 
 
 " I hope so, dear." 
 
 There was a sudden pang of mingled fear and remorse at 
 Eleanor Yane's heart as she said this. Was she to be happy, 
 and to forget the purpose of her life ^ Was she to be happy,
 
 Sazleicood. lit 
 
 >jid false to the memory of her murdered father ? In this quiet 
 eountry life ; in this pleasant girlish companionshiii which was 
 80 new to her ; was she to abandon that one dark dream, that 
 one deeply-rooted desire which had been in her mind ever since 
 her father's untimely death ? 
 
 She recoiled mth a shudder of dread from the simple happi- 
 ness which threatened to lull her to a Sybarite rest ; in which 
 that deadly design might lose its force, and, Httle by little, fade 
 out of her mind. 
 
 She disengaged herself from the shght arms which had en- 
 circled her in a half-childish caress, and rose suddenly to her feet. 
 
 " Laura," she cried, "Laura, you mustn't talk to me like this. 
 My Ufe is not like yours. I have something to do, — I have a 
 purpose to achieve ; a purpose before which every thought of 
 my mind, every impulse of my heart, must give way." 
 
 "What purpose, Eleanor?" asked Laura Mason, almost 
 alarmed by the energy of her companion's manner. 
 
 " I cannot tell you. It is a secret," Miss Vane replied. 
 
 Then sitting down once more in the deep window-seat by 
 Laura's side, JEleanor Vane drew her arm tenderly round the 
 frightened girl's waist. 
 
 "I'll try and do my duty to you, Laura, dear," she eaid, 
 " and I know I shall be happy with you. But if ever you see 
 me dull and silent, you'U understand, dear, that there is a secret 
 in my Ufe, and that there is a hidden purpose in my mind that 
 sooner or later must be achieved. Sooner or later," she repeated, 
 with a sigh, "but Heaven only knows when." 
 
 She was silent and absent-minded during the rest of the 
 evening, though she played one of her most elaborate fantasias 
 at Mrs. DarreU's request, and perfectly satisfied that lady's 
 expectations by the brilliancy of her touch. She was very 
 glad when, at ten o'clock, the two women servants of the 
 simple household and a hobbledehopsh young man, who looked 
 after the pony and pigs and poultry-yard, and smelt very 
 strongly of the stable, came in to hear prayers read by Mrs. 
 Darrell. 
 
 " I know you're tired, dear," Laura Mason said, as she bade 
 Eleanor g5od night at the door of her bedroom, " so I won't ask 
 you to tjuk to me to-night. Get to bed, and go to sleep at once, 
 dear." 
 
 But Eleanor did not go to bed immediately ; nor did she fall 
 asleep until very late that night. 
 
 She unfastened one of her trunks, and took from it a Httle 
 locked morocco casket, which held a few valueless and old- 
 fashioned trinkets that had been her mother's, and the crumpled 
 fragment of her father's last letter. 
 
 She sat at the little dressing-table, reading the disjointed
 
 118 "EReanors Victory. 
 
 sentences in that melancTioly letter, before she undressed, and 
 then replaced the scrap of paper in the casket. 
 
 She looked at the lawn and shrubbery. The shining leaves 
 of the evergreens trembled in the soft April breeze, and shim- 
 mered in the moonlight. All was silent in that simple rustic 
 retreat. The bare branches of the tall trees near the low white 
 gates were sharply defined against the sky. High np in the 
 tranquil heavens the full moon shone out from a pale back- 
 ground of fleecy cloud. 
 
 The beauty of the scene made a very powerful impression 
 upon Eleanor Yane. The window from wliich she had been 
 accustomed to look in Bloomsbury abutted on a yard, a naiTOw 
 gorge of dirt and disorder, between the dismal back walls o/ 
 nigh London houses. 
 
 " I ought never to have come here," Eleanor thought, bitterly, 
 as she let fall her dimity window curtain and shut oiit the 
 splendour of the night. "I ought to have stayed in London; 
 there was some hope of my meeting that man in London, where 
 strange things are always nappening. But here " 
 
 She fell into a gloomy revene. Secluded in that quiet rustic 
 retreat, what hope could she have of advancing, by so much as 
 one footstep, upon the dark road she had api^ointed for herself 
 to tread ? 
 
 It was very long before she fell asleep. She lay for hours, 
 tumbling and tossing feverishly upon her comfortable bed. 
 
 The memories of her old life mingled themselves with thoughts 
 of her new existence. She was haunted now by the recollection 
 of her father and her father's death ; now by her fresh expe- 
 riences of Hazlewood, by the widow's grey hair and penetrating 
 gaze, and by the pictured face of Launcelot DarreU 
 
 CHAPTEE XrV. 
 
 IHE prodigal's KETUBN. 
 
 The course of Eleanor's life at Hazlewood was peaceful and 
 monotonous. She had been engaged simply as a *' comi^anion " 
 for Laura Mason. That common epithet, which is so often 
 twisted into the signification of a household drudge — an upper- 
 servant, who works harder than any of her fellows — in this case 
 meant purely and simply what it was originally intended to 
 mean. Eleanor's only duties were to teach Laura Mason music, 
 and to be the companion and associate of all her girUsh pleasurea 
 and industries. 
 
 Not that Miss Mason was very industrious. She had a habit 
 of beginning great undertakings in the way of fancy work, and 
 the more gigantic the design the more ardent was her desire to
 
 The ProdigaTs Betum. 119 
 
 attempt it — but she rarely got beyond the initiative part of her 
 iabour. There was always some "Dweller on the Threshold" in 
 the shape of a stitch that couldn't be learnt, or a skein of silk 
 that couldn't be matched, or a pattern that wouldnH come ncrht; 
 and one after another of the gigantic undertakings was living 
 aside to decay in dusty oblivion, or to be finished by Eleanor or 
 Mrs. Darrell. 
 
 Laura ]\Iason was not made for the active service of life. She 
 was one of the hoUday soldiers in the great army, fit for nothing 
 but to wear gilded epaulettes and gorgeous uniforms, and to 
 turn out upon gala days to the sound of trumpet and drum. 
 
 She was a loving, generous-hearted, confidmg creature; but, 
 like some rudderless boat drifting hither and thither before a 
 stormy ocean, this frivolous, purposeless girl flung herself, help- 
 less and dependent, upon the mercy of other people. 
 
 The rich City sohcitor, Mr. Monckton, the head of a celebrated 
 _egal firm familiar in the Bankruptcy Court, took the trouble to 
 Bay very little about his pretty, flaxen-haired, and blue-eyed 
 ■ward. 
 
 He spoke of her, indeed, with an almost pointed indifference. 
 She was the daughter of some people he had kno\vn in his early 
 youth, he said, and her fortune had been entrusted to Ids care. 
 She would be rich, but he was none the less anxious about her 
 future. A woman was not generally any the safer in this world 
 for being an heiress. This was all Gilbert Monckton had ever 
 said to Mrs. Darrell upon the subject of his ward's past history. 
 Laura herself had talked freely enough of her first two homes. 
 There was Httle to tell, but, upon the other hand, there seemed 
 notliing to conceal. 
 
 Upon one subject Mr. Monckton was very strict, and tliat waa 
 the seclusion of the home he had chosen for his ward. 
 
 " When Miss Mason is of age she will of course choose for 
 herself," he said ; " but until that time comes, I must beg, Mrs. 
 Darrell, that you will keep her out of all society." 
 
 Under these circumstances it was especially necessarv that 
 Laura Mason should have a companion of her own age. llazle- 
 wood was a hermitage, never approached by any visitors except 
 Bome half-dozen elderly ladies, who were intimate with Mrs. 
 Darrell, and Mr. Monckton, who came about once a fortnight to 
 dine and spend the evening. 
 
 He used to devote himself very much to Laura and her com- 
 panion during these visits. Eleanor could see how earnestly he 
 watched the flaxen-haired girl, whose childish sunplicit_y no 
 doubt made her very bewitching to the grave man ot busmess. 
 He watched her and listened to her ; sometimes •with a pleased 
 smile, sometimes with an anxious exj^ression on his face ; but his 
 attention vary rarely wandered from her.
 
 120 Eleanor^s Victory. 
 
 " He must love her very dearly," Eleanor thonglit, remember* 
 ing how earnestly he had spoken in the railway carriage. 
 
 She wondered what was the nature of the affection which the 
 Bohcitor felt for liis ward. He was old enough to be her father, 
 it was true, but he was still in the prime of Ufe ; he had not that 
 beauty of feature and complexion which a school-girl calls hand- 
 some, but he had a face which leaves its impress upon the minds 
 of those who look at it. 
 
 He was very clever, or at least he seemed so to Eleanor ; for 
 there was no subject ever mentioned, no topic ever discussed, 
 with which he did not appear thoroughly familiar, and upon 
 which his opinions were not original and forcible. Eleanor's 
 intellect expanded under the influence of this superior masculine 
 intelligence. Her plastic mind, so ready to take any impression, 
 was newly moulded by its contact with this stronger brain. 
 Her education, very imperfect before, seemed to com^Dlete itself 
 now by this occasional association with a clever man. 
 
 Of course all tliis came about by slow degrees. She did not 
 very rapidly become famihar with Gilbert Monckton, for his 
 grave manner was rather calculated to inspire diffidence in a 
 very young woman ; but httle by Uttle, as she grew accustomed 
 to his society, accustomed to sit quietly in the shade, only 
 speaking now and then, while Laura Mason talked familiarly to 
 her guardian, she began to discover how much she had gained 
 from her association with the lawyer. It was not without some 
 bitterness of spirit that Eleanor Yane thought of this. She felt 
 as if she had been an interloper in that quiet Hazlewood house- 
 hold. What right had she to come between Laura and her 
 guardian, and steal the advantages Mr. Monckton intended for 
 his ward? It was for Laura's sake he had been earnest or 
 eloquent ; it was for Laura's benefit he had described this, or 
 explained that. What right, then, had she, Eleanor, to remember 
 what Laura had forgotten, or to avail herself of the advantages 
 Laura was too frivolous to value ? 
 
 There was a gulf between the two girls that could not be 
 passed, even by affection. Eleanor Yane's mental superiority 
 placed her so high above Laura Mason that perfect confidence 
 could not exist between them. Eleanor's love for the hght- 
 hearted, heedless girl, had something almost motherly in its 
 nature. 
 
 " I know we shall never quite understand each other, Laura," 
 she said ; " but I think I could give up my Hfe for your sake, 
 my dear." 
 
 " Or I for you, Nelly." 
 
 " No, no, Laura. I know you are unselfish as an angel, and 
 you'd wish to do so ; but yours is not the giving-up nature, my 
 darling. You'd die under a great sorrow."
 
 The FrodifjaVs Beturn. 121 
 
 ** I ttink I should, Nelly," the girl answered, drawing* closer 
 to her friend, and trembling at the very thought of calamity ; 
 " but how you speak, dear. Had you ever a great sorrow ? " 
 
 " Yes, a very great one." 
 
 " And yet you are happy with us, .and can sing and play, and 
 K.nible about in the woods with me, Nell, as if you had nothing 
 on your mind." 
 
 "Yes, Laura, but I can remember my sorrow all the time. It 
 is liidden bo deep in my heart that the sunflhine never reaches it, 
 however happy I may seem." 
 
 Laura Mason sighed. The spoiled child of fortune could - *t 
 help wondering how she would act under the influence of a gi-eat 
 misery. She would sit down upon the ground in some darkened 
 room, she thought, and cry until her heart broke and she died. 
 
 The summer faded into autumn, and autumn into winter, and 
 the early spring flowers bloomed again in the shrubberies and on 
 the lawn at Hazlewood. The primroses were pale upon the 
 tender grass of the sloping banis in the broad lane near the 
 gates, and still no event had happened to break the tranquil 
 monotony of that secluded household. Eleanor had grown fami- 
 liar with every nook in the rambling old cottage; even with 
 Launcelot Darrell's apartments, a suite of rooms on the bedroom 
 floor, looking out into the grove at the back of the house. Those 
 rooms had been shut up for years, ever since Launcelot had sailed 
 for India, and they had a desolate look, though fires had been 
 lighted in them periodically, and every scrap of furniture was 
 kejjt carefully dusted. 
 
 " The rooms must always be ready," Mrs. Darrell said. " Mr. 
 de Cresiiigny may die, and my son may be called home suddenly." 
 
 So the three rooms, a bedroom, dressingroom, and sitting- 
 room, were kept in perfect order, and Laura and Eleanor wan- 
 dered into them sometimes, in the idleness of a wet afternoon, 
 and looked at the pictures upon the walls, the unfinished 
 sketches piled one upon the top of another on the easel, or tried 
 the little cottage piano, upon which Mr. Darrell had been wont to 
 accompany himself when he sang. His mother always insisted 
 upon this piano being tuned when the tuner came from Windsor 
 to attend to Laura Mason's modem grand. The two girls used 
 to talk a good deal of the widow's handsome son. They had 
 heard liim spoken of by his mother, by the servants, and by the 
 few humble neighbours in scattered cottages near Hazlewood. 
 They talked of his uncertain fortunes, his accomphshments, hia 
 handsome, haughty face, which Laura declared was faultless. 
 
 Miss Vane had by this time been a twelvemonth at Hazle- 
 wood. Her eighteenth birthday was past, and the girlishness of 
 her appearance had matured into the serene beauty of ear'y 
 womanhood. The golden tints of her hair had deepened into
 
 122 Eleanor'g Victory. 
 
 ricli auburn, her grey eyes looked darker under the shadow of 
 her dark brows. When she went to spend a brief Christmas 
 hohday with her old friends, the Signora and Richard Thornton 
 declared that she had altered veiy much since she had left them, 
 and were surprised at her matured beauty. She bought the silk 
 gown for Ehza Picirillo, and the meerschaum pipe for poor Dick, 
 who needed no memorial of his adopted sister ; for her image 
 haunted liim only too jierpetually, to the destruction of aU other 
 images which might else have found a place in the scene- 
 painter's heart. 
 
 Eleanor Yane felt a pang of remorse as she remembered how 
 very easdy she had borne her separation from these faithful 
 friends. It was not that she loved them less, or forgot their 
 goodness to her. She had no such ingratitude as that wherewith 
 to reproach herself; but she felt as if she had committed a sin 
 against them in being happy in the calm serenity of Hazlewood. 
 
 She said this to Richard Thornton during the brief Christmas 
 visit. They had walked out once more in the quiet streets and 
 squares in the early winter twilight. 
 
 " I feel as if I had grown selfish and indifferent," she said. 
 " The months pass one after another. It is two years and a half 
 since my father died, and I am not one step nearer to the dis- 
 covery of the man who caused his death. Not one step. I am 
 buried ahve at Hazlewood. I am bound hand and foot. What 
 can I do, Richard ; what can I do ? I could go mad, almost, 
 when I remember that I am a poor helpless girl, and that I may 
 never be able to keep the oath I swore when I first read my 
 dead father's letter. And you, Richard, in aU this time you 
 have done nothing to help me." 
 
 The scene-painter shook his head sadly enough. 
 
 " What can I do, my dear Eleanor P What I told you nearly 
 a year ago, I tell you again now. This man will never be 
 found. What hope have we P what chance of finding him ? We 
 might hear his name to-morrow, and we should not know it. If 
 either of us met him in the street, we should pass him by. We 
 might hve in the same house with him, and be ignorant of his 
 presence." 
 
 "No, Richard," cried Eleanor Yane. "I think if I met that 
 man some instinct of hate and horror would reveal his identity 
 to me." 
 
 " My poor romantic Nelly, you talk as if life was a melodrama. 
 No, my dear, I say again, this man wiU never be found; the 
 story of your father's death is unhappily a common one. Let 
 that sad story rest, Nell, with all the other moiimful records oi 
 the past. Beheve me that you cannot do better than be happy 
 at Hazlewood ; happy in your innocent hfe, and utterly forgetful 
 of the fooliah vow you made when you were little better than a
 
 The JProdigaVs Ridurn. 123 
 
 child. If all the improbabilities that you have ever dreamt of 
 were to come to j^ass, and vengeance were in yoiir grasp, 1 hopo 
 and beUeve, Nell, that a better spiiit would arise vdtliin you, and 
 prompt you to let it go." 
 
 Kicnard Thornton spoke very seriously. He had never beea 
 able to speak of Eleanor's scheme of retribution without grief 
 and regi-et. He recognized the taint of her father's influence in 
 this \nsion of vengeance and destruction. All George Vane's 
 notions of justice and honour had been rather the meretricious 
 and llirasy ideas of a stage play, than the common-sense views 
 of real Ufe. He had talked mcessantly to his daughter about 
 days of retribution; gigantic vengeances which were looming 
 lomewhere in the far-away distance, for the ultimate annihilation 
 of the old man's enemies. This foolish ruined spendthrift, who 
 cried out against the world because his money was spent, and 
 his place in that world usurped by wiser men, had been Eleanor's 
 teacher during her most impressionable years. It was scarcely 
 to be wondered at, then, that there were some flaws in the 
 character of this motherless girl, and that she was ready to 
 mistake a pagan scheme of retribution for the Christian duty of 
 filial love. 
 
 Midsummer had come and gone, when an event occurred to 
 break the tranquiUity of that simple household. 
 
 The two ^irls had lingered late in the garden one evening early 
 in July. Mrs. Darrell sat writing in the breakfast-parlour. The 
 lamphght glimmered under the shadow of the verandah, and the 
 widow's tall flgure seated at her desk was visible through the 
 open bay vrindow. 
 
 Laura and her companion had been talking for a long time, 
 but Eleanor had lapsed into silence at last, and stood against thf 
 low white gate ^vith her elbow resting upon the upper bar, looking 
 thoughtfully out into the lane. Miss Mason was never the first 
 to be tired of talking. A sUvery torrent of innocent babble was 
 for ever gushing from her red babyish Hps ; so, when at_ last 
 Eleanor grew silent and absent-minded, the heiress was fain to 
 talk to her dogs ; her darUng silky Skye, whose great brown eyes 
 looked out from a ball of floss silk that represented the a n imal's 
 head ; and her Itiihan greyhound, a slim shivering brute, who 
 wore a coloured flannel paletot, and exhibited a fretful and 
 whimpering disposition, far from agreeable to any one but his 
 mistress. 
 
 There was no moon upon this balmy July night, and the hulk- 
 ing hobbledehoy-of-all-work came out to light the lamp while the 
 two girls were standing at the gate. This lamp gave a pleasant 
 aspect to the cottage upon dark nights, and threw a bright line 
 of fight into the obscurity of the lane. 
 
 T^e boy lu/d scarcely retired with his short ladder and flaming
 
 124 Eleanor*9 Victory. 
 
 lantern, wlien fhe two pet dogs began to bark violently, and a 
 man came out of tbe darkness into the line of lamplight. 
 
 Laura Mason gave a startled scream ; but Eleanor caught her 
 by the arm, to check her foolish outcry. 
 
 There was nothing very alarming in the aspect of the man. He 
 was only a tramp : not a common beggar, but a shabby-genteel- 
 looking tramp, whose threadbare coat was of a fashionable make, 
 and who, in spite of his ragged slovenliness, had something the 
 look of a gentleman. 
 
 " Mrs. Darrell still lives here, does she not? " he asked, rather 
 eagerly, 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 It was Eleanor who answered. The dogs were still barking, 
 and Laura was still looking very suspiciously at the stranger. 
 
 " Will you tell her, please, that she is wanted out here by some 
 one who has something important to communicate to her," the 
 man said. 
 
 Eleanor was going towards the house to deliver this message, 
 when she saw Mrs. Darrell coming across the lawn. She had 
 been disturbed at her writing by the barking of the dogs. 
 
 " What is the matter. Miss Vincent ? " she asked, sharply. 
 "Who are you and Laura talking to, out here?" 
 
 She walked from the two girls to the man, who stood back a 
 little way outside the gate, with the lamphght shining full upon 
 his face. 
 
 The widow looked sternly at this man who had dared to come 
 to the gate at nightfall, and to address the two girls under her 
 charge. 
 
 But her face changed as she looked at him, and a wild cry 
 broke from her lijjs. , 
 
 " Launcelot, Launcelot, my son ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LAUNCELOT. 
 
 Mbs. Dareell stood for some time clasped in her son's embrace, 
 and sobbing violently. The two girls withdrew a few paces, too 
 bewildered to know what to do, in the first shock of the surprise 
 that had come so suddenly upon them. 
 
 This was Launcelot Darrell, then, the long absent son, whose 
 portrait hung above the mantel-piece in the dining-room, whose 
 memory was so tenderly cherished, every token of whose former 
 presence was so carefully preserved. 
 
 " My boy, my boy," murmured the widow, in a voice which 
 eeemed strange to the two girls, from its new accent of tender-
 
 Launcelot. 125 
 
 ness ; " my own and only son, how is it that yon come back to 
 me thus ? I thou<jht yoii were in India. I thought " 
 
 "I was in India, mother, when my last letter to you was 
 written," the young man answered ; " but you know how sick 
 and tired I was of the odious cUmate, and the odious hfe I was 
 compelled to lead. It grew unbearable at last, and I determined 
 to throw everytliing up, and come home ; so I sailed in the first 
 vessel that left Calcutta after I had formed this determination. 
 You're not sorry to see me back, are you, mother?" 
 
 " Sorry to see you, Launcelot!" 
 
 Mrs. Darrell led her son across the lawn and into the house, 
 through an open window. She seemed utterly unconscious of 
 the presence of her two charges. She seemed to have forgotten 
 their very existence in the wonderful surj^rise of her son's return. 
 So Laura and Eleanor went up to Miss Mason's room and shut 
 themselves in to talk over the strange adventures of the evening, 
 while the mother and son were closeted together in the breakfast- 
 room below. 
 
 " Isn't it all romantic, Nelly, dear P " Miss Mason said, with 
 enthusiasm. " I wonder whether he came all the way from India 
 in that dreadful coat and that horrid shabby hat ? He looks just 
 hke the hero of a novel, doesn't he, Nell ? dark and pale, and taU 
 and slender. Has he come back for good, do you think ? I'm 
 sure he ought to have Mr. de Crespigny's fortune." 
 
 Miss Vane shrugged her shoulders. She was not particularly 
 interested in the handsome prodigal son who had made his 
 appearance so unexj^ectedly : and she had enough to do to listen 
 to all Laura's exclamations, and sympathize with her curiosity. 
 
 " I shan't sleep a bit to-night, Nelly," Miss Mason said as she 
 parted from her friend. "I shall be dreaming of Launcelot 
 Darrell, -with his dark eyes and pale face. What a fierce, half- 
 ojigry look he has, Nell, as if he were savage with the world for 
 having treated him badly. For he must have been badly treated, 
 you know. We know how clever he is. He ought to have been 
 made a governor-general, or an ambassador, or something of that 
 kind, in India. He has no right to be shabby." 
 
 " I should think his shabbiness was his own fault, Laura," 
 Miss Vane answered, quietly. " If he is clever, you know, he 
 ought to be able to earn money." 
 
 She thought of Richard Thornton as she spoke, working at the 
 Phoenix Theatre for the poor salary that helped to support the 
 Bohemian comforts of that primitive shelter in the Pilasters ; 
 and Dick's paint and whitewash bespattered coat seemed glorified 
 by contrast with that of the young prodigal in the room below. 
 
 The two girls went down to the breakfast-room early the next 
 morning, Laura Mason arrayed in her prettiest and brightest 
 muslin morning dresa, which was scarcely so bright a« her
 
 126 Eleanor^s Vict&ry. 
 
 beaming face. The young lady's gossamer wliite robes flutterei 
 ^\•itll the floating ribbons and delicate laces that adorned them. 
 She was a coquette by nature, and was eager to take her revenge 
 for all the monotonous days of enforced seclusion which she 
 \iad endured. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell was sitting at the breakfast-table when the two 
 girls entered the room. Her Bible lay open amongst the cups 
 and saucers near her. Her face was pale. She looked even more 
 careworn than usual ; and her eyes were dimmed by the tears 
 that she had shed. The heroism of the woman who had borne 
 her son's absence silently and uncomplainingly, had given way 
 under the unlooked-for joy of his return. 
 
 She gave her hand to each of the girls as they wished her good 
 morning. Eleanor almost shuddered as she felt the deadly cold- 
 ness of that wasted hand. 
 
 " We will begin breakfast at once, my dears," Mrs. Darrell 
 said, quietly ; " my son is fatigued by a lonsc journey, and ex- 
 hausted by the excitement of his return. He will not get up, 
 therefore, until late in the day." 
 
 The widow poured out the tea, and for some Httle time there 
 was sUence at the breakfast-table. Neither Eleanor nor Laura 
 liked to speak. They both waited — one patiently, the other very 
 impatiently, until Mrs. DaiTcll should please to tell them some- 
 thing about her son's extraordinary return. 
 
 It seemed as if the mistress of Hazlewood, usually so coldly 
 dignified and self-possessed, felt some little embarrassment in 
 speaking of the strange scene of the previous night. 
 
 " I need scarcely tell you, Laura," she said, rather abruptly, 
 after a very long pause, " that if anything could lessen my happi- 
 ness in my son's return, it would be the manner of his coming 
 back to liis old home. He comes back to me poorer than when 
 he went away. He came on foot from Southampton here ; he 
 came looking like a tramp and a beggar to his mother's house. 
 But it would be hard if I blamed my poor boy for this. The sin 
 lies at his uncle's door. Maurice de Crespigny should have 
 known that Colonel Darrell's only son would never stoop to a 
 life of commercial di-udgery. Launcelot's letters might have pre- 
 pared me for what has happened. Their brevity, their bitter, de- 
 spondent tone, might have told the utter hopelessness of a com- 
 mercial career for my son. He tells me that he left India because 
 his position there — a position which held out no promise of im- 
 provement — had become unbearable. He comes back to me 
 penniless, with the battle of life before him. You can 
 scarcely wonder, then, that my happiness in his return is not 
 unalloyed." 
 
 • No, indeed, dear Mrs. Darrell," Laura answered, eagerly ; 
 " but stiU you must be very glad to have him back : and if he
 
 LaunceloU 127 
 
 didn't make a fortune in India, he can make one in England, I 
 dare say. He is so handsome, and so clever, and " 
 
 The younc,' lady stopped suddenly, blushing under the cold 
 Bcrutiny of Ellen Darrell's eyes. Perhaps in that moment a 
 thought Hashed across the mind of the widow — the thought of a 
 wealthy marriage for her handsome son. She knew that Laura 
 Mason was rich, for Mr. Monckton had told her that his ward 
 would have all the advantages in after life which wealth can 
 bestow ; but she had no idea of the amount of the girl's fortune. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell slept late after his pedestrian journey. Miss 
 Mason's piano was kept shut, out of consideration for the tra- 
 veller ; and Laura and Eleanor found the bright summer's morn- 
 ing unusually long. They had so few pursmts, or amusements, 
 that to be deprived of one seemed veiy cruel. They were 
 in a shady nook in the shrubbery, after their early dinner, Laura 
 lying on the ground, reading a novel, and Eleanor engaged in 
 Bome needlework achievement, which was by-and-by to be pre- 
 sented to the Signora ; when the rustling leaves of the laurel 
 screen that enclosed and sheltered their retreat were parted, and 
 the handsome face, the face which had looked worn and haggard 
 last night, but which now had only an aristocratic air of languor, 
 presented itself before them in a frame of dark fohage. 
 
 " Good morning, or good afternoon, young ladies," said Mr. 
 DaiTcll, " for I hear that your habits at Hazlewood are very 
 primitive, and that you dine at three o'clock. I have been look- 
 ing for you during the last half-hour, in my anxiety to apologize 
 for any alai-m I may have given you last night. When the 
 landless heir returns to his home, he scarcely expects to find 
 two angels waiting for him on the threshold. I might have been 
 a Uttle more careful of my toilet, had I been able to foresee my 
 reception. "What luggage I had I left at Southampton." 
 
 " Oh ! never mind your dress, ^Ir. Darrell," Laura answered, 
 aily, " we are both so glad you have come home. Ain't we, 
 "leanorP for our Uves are so dreadfully dull here, though your 
 mamma is veiy kind to us. But do tell us all about your voyage 
 home, and your journey here on foot, and all the troubles you 
 have gone through ? Do tell us your adventures, Mr. Darrell ?" 
 
 The young lady Ufted her bright blue eyes with a languishing 
 glance of pity ; but suddenly dropped them under the young 
 man's gaze. He looked from one to the other of the two girls, 
 and then, strolling into the grassy Uttle amphitheatre where 
 they were sitting, llung himself into a rustic arm-chair, near the 
 table at which Eleanor Vane sat at work. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell was a handsome Ukeness of his mother. 
 The features, which in her face were stem and hard, had in his 
 an almost feminine softness. The dark eyes had a lazy light 
 in them, and were half hidden by the Ustless droop of the black 
 
 i
 
 128 Eleanor's Victortf. 
 
 lashes that fringed fheir full white lids. The straight nose, low 
 ■forehead, and delicately moulded mouth, -were almost classical in 
 iheir physical perfection ; but there was a something wanting in 
 the lower part of the face ; the chin receded a little where it 
 should have projected, the handsome mouth was weak and un- 
 decided in expression. 
 
 Mr. Darrell might have eat as a painter's model for all the 
 lovers in prose or poetry ; but he would never have been mis- 
 taken for a hero or a statesman. He had all the attributes of 
 grace and beauty, but not one of the outward signs of greatness. 
 Eleanor Vane felt this want of power in the young man as she 
 looked at him. Her rapid perception seized upon the one defect 
 which marred so much perfection. 
 
 " If I had need of help against the murderer of my father,** 
 the girl thought, " I would not ask this man to aid me." 
 
 "And now, Mr. Darrell," said Laura, throwing down her book^ 
 and settling herself for a fhrtation with the prodigal son, " tell 
 us all your adventures. We are dying to hear them." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "What adventures, my dear Miss Mason ?" 
 
 " Why, your Indian experiences, of course, and your journey 
 home. All your romantic escapes, and thrilling perils, tiger- 
 hunting, pig-sticking — that doesn't sound romantic, but I sup- 
 pose_ it is — lonely nights in which you lost yourself in the jungle, 
 horrible encounters with rattlesnakes, brilliant balls at the 
 Government House —you see I know all about Indian life — rides 
 on the race-course, flirtations with Calcutta belles." 
 
 The young man laughed at Miss Mason's enthusiasm. 
 
 " You know more about the deUghts of an Indian existence 
 than I do," he said, rather bitterly ; " a poor devil who goes out 
 to Calcutta with only one letter of introduction, and an empty 
 purse, and is sent up the country, within a few days of his 
 arrival, to a lonely station, where lus own face is about the only 
 white one in the neighbourhood, hasn't very much chance of 
 becoming familiar with Government House festivities or Calcutta 
 belles, who reserve their smiles for the favoured children of for- 
 tune, I can assure you. As to tiger-hunts and pig-sticking, my 
 dear !Miss Mason, I can give you very Httle information upon 
 those points, for an indigo planter's overseer, whose nose is kept 
 pretty close to the grindstone, has enough to do for his pitiful 
 Btipend, and very Uttle chance of becoming a Gordon Gumming 
 or a Jules Gerard." 
 
 Laura Mason looked very much disappointed. 
 
 " You didn't like India, then, Mr. Darrell ? " she said. 
 
 "I hated it," the young man answered, between his set 
 teeth. 
 
 There was so much suppressed force in Launcelot Darrell's
 
 Launceht. 120 
 
 ntterance of tlhese tliree words, tliat Eleanor looked np from her 
 work, startled by the young man's sudden vehemence. 
 
 He was looking straight before him, his dark eyes fixed, hii 
 strongly marked eyebrows contracted, and a red spot burning in 
 the centre of each pale and rather hollow cheek. 
 
 " But why did you hate India? " Laura asked, with tmflinch- 
 ing pertinacity. 
 
 " >Vliy does a man hate poverty and humiliation, Miss Mason? 
 You might as well ask me that. Suppose we droj) the subject. 
 It isn't a very agreeable one to me, I assure you." 
 
 " But your voyage home," pursued Laura, quite unabashed 
 by this rebufi"; "you can tell us your adventures during the 
 voyage home ? " 
 
 "I had no adventures. Men who travel by the overland 
 route may have something to tell, perhaps : I came the cheapest 
 and the slowest way." 
 
 " By a sailing vessel P " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 *' And what was the name of the vessel P " 
 
 " The Indus." 
 
 " The Indus, that's an easy name to remember. But of course 
 yen had all sorts of amusements on board : you played whist in 
 the cuddy — what is the cuddy, by the bye ? — and you got up 
 private theatricals, and you started an amateur newspaper, or a 
 magazine, and you crossed the Hne, and " 
 
 " Oh, yes, we went through the usual routine. It was dreary 
 enough. Pray tell me something about Hazlewood, Miss 
 Mason ; I am a great deal more interested in Berkshire than 
 you can possibly be in my Indian erperiences." 
 
 The young lady was fain to submit. She told !Mr. Darrell 
 Buch scraps and shreds of gossip as form the " news" in a place 
 like Hazlewood. He Ustened very attentively to anything Islisa 
 Mason had to tell about his uncle, Maurice de Crespigny. 
 
 " So those tiger cats, my maiden aunts, are as watchful as 
 "iver," he said, when Laura had finished. " Heaven grant the 
 naxpies may be disappointed ! Do any of the Yane fainily ever 
 try to get at the old man ? " 
 
 Eleanor looked up from her work, but very quietly ; she had 
 grown accustomed to hear her name spoken by those who had 
 no suspicion of her identity. 
 
 " Oh, no, I beUeve not," Miss Mason answered : " old Mr. 
 Vane died two or three years ago, you know." 
 
 " Yes, my mother wrote me word of his death." 
 
 " You were in India when it happened, then ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Eleanor's face blanched, and her heart beat with a fierce 
 heavy throbbing against her breast. How dared they talk of 
 
 I
 
 130 JEleanor's Victory. 
 
 her dead father in that tone of almost insolent indifference? 
 The one passion of her young Hfe had as strong a power over 
 her now as when she had knelt in the httle chamber in the Rue 
 de I'Archeveque, with her clasped hands upUfted to the low 
 ceiling, and a terrible oath upon her girhsh Ups. 
 
 She dropped her work suddenly, and rising from her rustic 
 seat, walked away from the shade of the laurels. 
 
 •• ^Heanor," cried Laura Mason, " where are you going ? " 
 
 Launcelot Darrell sat in a lounging attitude, trifling with the 
 reels of silk, and balls of wool, and all the paraphernalia of 
 fancy work scattered upon the table before him, but he lifted his 
 head as Laura uttered her friend's name, and perhaps for the 
 first time looked steadily at ]Miss Vane. 
 
 He sat looking at her for some minutes while she and Laura 
 stood talking together a few paces from him. It was perhaps 
 only a painter's habit of looking earnestly at a pretty face that 
 gave intensity to his gaze. He dropped his eyehds presently, 
 and drew a long breath, that sounded almost like a sigh of reUef. 
 
 " An accidental hkeness," he muttered ; " there are a hundred 
 such hkenesses in the world." 
 
 He got up and walked back to the house, leaving the two girls 
 together. Laura had a great deal to say about his handsome 
 face, and the easy grace of his manner ; but Eleanor Yane was 
 absent and thoughtful. The mention of her father's name had 
 brought back the past. Her peaceful hfe, and all its quiet con- 
 tentment, melted away like a curtain of morning mist that rises 
 to disclose the ghastly horror of a battle-field ; and the dreadful 
 picture of the past arose before her ; painfully vivid, horribly 
 real. The parting on the boulevard ; the long night of agony 
 and suspense ; the meeting with Richard on the bridge by the 
 Morgue ; her father's torn, disjointed letter ; and her own venge- 
 ful wrath ; all returned to her. Every voice of her heart seemed 
 to call her away from the commonplace tranquiUity of her hfe to 
 some desperate act of justice and retribution. 
 
 " What have I to do with this frivolous girl P " she thought ; 
 " what is it to me whether Launcelot DarreU's nose is Grecian 
 or aquiline, whether his eyes are black or brown? What a 
 wretched, useless hfe I am leading in this place, when I should 
 be hunting through the world for the murderer of my father." 
 
 She sighed wearily as she remembered how powerless she was. 
 What could she do to get one step nearer to the accomphshment 
 of that single purpose, which she called the purpose of her hfe ? 
 Nothing ! She remembered with a chiU feeling of despair that 
 iowever, in her moments of exaltation, she might look, forward 
 to some shadowy day of triumph and revenge, her better sense 
 always told her that Richard Thornton had spoken the truth. 
 The man whose treachery had destroyed George Vane had
 
 The Lawyer's Suspicion. 131 
 
 dropped into the chaos of an over-crowded oniverse, leaving no 
 clue beliind him by wliich he might be traced- 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 THE LA"WTER's suspicion. 
 
 Mr. !Mo\ckton came to Hazlewood upon the day after Latmceloi 
 Darrell's arrival. The grave solicitor had known the young man 
 before his departure for India, but there seemed no very great 
 intimacy between them, and Mr. Darrell appeared rather to avoid 
 any famiUarity with his mother's rich friend. 
 
 He answered Gilbert Monckton's questions about India and 
 indigo-plantLng with an air of unwillingness that was almost 
 insolent. 
 
 " The last few years of my Ufe have not been so very pleasant 
 as to make me care to look back at them," he said, bitterly. 
 " Some men keep a diary of the experiences of each day — I 
 found the experiences tiresome enough in themselves, and had 
 no wish to incur the extra fatigue of writing about them. I 
 told my uncle, when he forced a commercial career upon me, 
 that he was making a mistake ; and the result has proved that 
 I was right." 
 
 Mr. DaiTcU spoke with as much gentlemanly indifference as ii 
 he had been discussing the affairs of a stranger. He evidently 
 thought that the mistakes of his life rested upon other peojile'g 
 shoulders ; and that it was no shame to him, but rather to hi? 
 credit as a fine gentleman, that he had come home penniless and 
 shabby to sponge upon his mother's slender income. 
 
 " And now you have come back, what do you mean to do P " 
 Mr. Monckton asked, rather abruptly. 
 
 " I shall go in for 2:iainting. I'll work hard, down in this 
 quiet place, and get a picture ready for the Eoyal Academy next 
 year. WiU you sit for me, !Miss Mason P and you, Miss Vin- 
 cent? you would make a splendid Rosalind and CeUa. Yes, 
 Mr. Monckton, I shall try the sublime art whose professors have 
 been the friends of princes." 
 
 " And if you fail " 
 
 " If I fail, I'U change my name, and turn itinerant portrait* 
 painter. But I don't suppose my uncle Maurice means to live 
 For ever. He must leave ms money to somebody. If Providence 
 favours me my respected aunts may happen to offend him a few 
 JUTS before his death, and he may make a will in my favour, in 
 order to revenge himself upon them. I tliink that's generally 
 the way of it, eh, Mr. Monckton ? The testator doesn't consider 
 the delight of the person who is to get Ins money, but gloate 
 over the aggravation of the poor wretch who isn't."
 
 132 Eleanor** Victory. 
 
 The yoimg man spoke as carelessly as if the Woodlands for* 
 tune were scarcely ■worth a discussion. It was his habit to 
 speak indifferently of all things, and it was rather difficult to 
 penetrate his real sentiments, so skilfully were they hidden by 
 this surface manner. 
 
 " You had a formidable rival once in your uncle's affections," 
 Mr. Monckton said, presently. 
 
 "^Vhich rival?" 
 
 " The Damon of Maurice de Crespigny's youth, George Van- 
 deleur Yane." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell's face darkened at the mention of the dead 
 man's name. It had always been the habit of the De Crespigny 
 family to look upon Eleanor's father as a subtle and designing 
 foe, against whom no warfare could be too desperate. 
 
 " My uncle could never have been such a fool as to leave hia 
 money to that spendthrift," Mr. Darrell said. 
 
 Eleanor had been sitting at an open window busy with her 
 work during this conversation ; but she rose hastily as Launcelot 
 spoke of her father. She was ready to do battle for him then and 
 there, if need were. She was ready to fling off the disguise of 
 her false name, and to avow herself as George Vane's daughter, 
 if they dared to slander him. Whatever shame or Iiumihation 
 was cast upon him should be shared by her. 
 
 But before she could give way to this sudden impulse, Gil- 
 bert Monckton spoke, and the angry girl waited to hear what 
 he might say. 
 
 " I have every reason to believe that Maurice de Crespigny 
 would have left his money to his old friend had Mr. Vane 
 Hved," the lawyer said. " I never shall forget your uncle's grief 
 when he read the account of the old man's death in a ' Gahg« 
 nani' which was put purposely in his way by one of your 
 aunts." 
 
 " Ah," said Mr. DarreU, bitterly, " George Vane's death cleared 
 the way for those harpies." 
 
 " Or for you, perhaps." 
 
 " Perhaps. I have not come home to wait for a dead man's 
 shoes, ]VIr. Monckton." 
 
 Mrs. Darrell had been listening to this conversation, with her 
 watchful eyes fixed upon Gilbert Monckton's face. She spoko 
 now for the first time. 
 
 " My son is the proper person to inherit my uncle's fortune," 
 she said; "he is young, and has a bright future before him. 
 Money would be of some use to hvm ; but it would be almost 
 useless to my sisters." 
 
 She glanced at the young man as she spoke ; and in that one 
 kindling glance of maternal pride the widow revealed how much 
 she loved her son.
 
 The Lawyer's Suspicion. 133 
 
 The yoting man was leaning in a lounging attitude over the 
 piano, turning the leaves of Laura's open music-book, and now 
 and then striking his fingers on the notes. 
 
 Mr. Monckton took up his hat, shook hands with his ward and 
 with Mrs. Darrell, and then went over to the window at which 
 Eleanor sat. 
 
 " How silent you have been this morning, Miss Vincent," he 
 said. 
 
 The girl blushed as she looked up at the lawyer's grave face. 
 She always felt ashamed of her false name when Mr. Monckton 
 addressed her by it. 
 
 " When are you and Laura coming to see my new picture?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " Whenever Mrs. Darrell likes to bring us," Eleanor answered, 
 frankly. 
 
 " You hear, Mrs. Darrell ? " said the lawyer ; " these two 
 young ladies are coming over to Tolldale to see a genuine 
 Raphael that I bought at Christie's a month ago. You will be 
 takmg your son to see his uncle, I have no doubt — suppose you 
 come and lunch at the Priory on the day you go to Woodlands." 
 
 " That -wall be to-morrow," answered Mrs. Darrell. " My 
 uncle cannot deny himself to Launcelot after an absence of 
 nearly five years, and even my sisters can scarcely have the 
 impertinence to shut the door in my son's face." 
 
 " Very well ; Woodlands and the Priory he close together. 
 You can cross the park and get into Mr. de Crespigny's grounds 
 by the wicket-gate, and so surprise the enemy. That witl be the 
 best plan." 
 
 " If you please, my dear Mr. Monckton," said the widow. 
 
 She was gratified at the idea of stealing a march upon her 
 maiden sisters, for she knew how difficult it was to effect an 
 entrance to the citadel so jealously guarded by them. 
 
 " Come, young ladies," exclaimed Mr. Monckton, as he crossed 
 the threshold of the bay window, " will you honour me with 
 your company to the gates ? " 
 
 The two girls rose and went out on to the lawn with the 
 lawyer. Laura Mason was accustomed to obey her guardian, 
 and Eleanor was veiy well ]»leased to pay all possible respect to 
 Gilbert Monckton. She looked up to him as something removed 
 from the commonplace sphere in which she felt so fettered and 
 helpless. She fancied sometimes that if she could have told him 
 the story of her father's death, he might have helped her to find 
 the old man's destroyer. She had that implicit confidence in 
 his power which a young and inexperienced woman almost always 
 feels for a man of superior intellect who is twenty years her 
 ■enior. 
 Mr. Monckton and the two girls walked slowly across the
 
 134 Eleanor's Yictortf. 
 
 grass ; but Lanra Mason was distracted by ber dogs before sbe 
 reached the gate, and ran away into one of tbe sbrubberied path- 
 ways after the refractory Italian greyhound. 
 
 The lawyer stopped at the gate. He was silent for some mo- 
 ments, looking thoughtfully at Eleanor, as if he had something 
 pai-ticidar to say to her. 
 
 " Well, Miss Vincent, how do you like Mr. Launcelot Darrell P" 
 he asked at last. 
 
 The question seemed rather insignificant after the pause that 
 had preceded it. 
 
 Eleanor hesitated. 
 
 " I scarcely know whether I like or dislike him," she said ; " he 
 only came the night before last, and " 
 
 "And my question is what we call a leading one. Never 
 mind, you shall tell me what you think by-and-by, when you 
 have had more time to form an opinion. You think the young 
 man handsome, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! very handsome." 
 
 " But you are not the girl to be fascinated by a handsome face. 
 I can see that you mean that by the contemptuous curl of your 
 lip. Quite true, no doubt. Miss Vincent; but there are some 
 young ladies less strong-minded than yourself, who may be easily 
 bewitched by the outline of a classical profile, or the Hght of a 
 pair of handsome dark eyes. Eleanor Vincent, do you remember 
 what I said to you when I brought you down to Hazlewood? " 
 
 Mr. Monckton was in the habit of addressing both the girls 
 by their Christian names when he spoke seriously. 
 
 " Yes, I remember perfectly." 
 
 " T^Tiat I said to you then implied an amount of trust which 
 I don't often put in an acquaintance of a couple of hours. That 
 little girl yonder," added the lawyer, glancing towards the path- 
 way in which Laura Mason flitted about, alternately coaxing and 
 remonstrating with her dogs, " is tender-hearted and weak- 
 headed. I think you would wiUingly do anything to serve her 
 and nie. You can do her no better service than by shielding her 
 from the influence of Launcelot Darrell. Don't let my ward fall 
 in love with the young man's handsome face. Miss Vincent ! " 
 
 Eleanor was silent, scarcely knowing how to reply to this 
 strange appeal. 
 
 " You think I am taking alarm too soon, I dare say," the 
 lawyer said, " but in our profession we learn to look a long way 
 ahead. 1 don't like the young man, Miss Vincent. He is 
 selfish, and shallow, and frivolous, — false, I think, as welL 
 And, more than this, there is a secret in his life." 
 
 "A secret?" 
 
 "Yes; and that secret is connected with hia Indian expe« 
 riencea."
 
 The Shadow on Gilbert MoncTcton's Life. 135 
 CHAPTER XYn, 
 
 THE SHADOW ON GILBERT MONCKTON's LIFB. 
 
 ToLLDALE Priory was a red brick mansion, lying deep in a 
 valley, almost hidden amidst the tliick woodland that sur- 
 rounded it; a stately dwoUing-place, shrouded and well-nigh 
 entombed by the old trees that shut it in on every side, and 
 made a screen through which only a glimpse of crimson brick 
 could be seen from the bye-Mad or lane that approached the 
 great iron gates. 
 
 From the hill-tops, high above the wooded valley, looking 
 down into the sombre depths of verdure, one could see the 
 gabled roof of the mansion, glimmering amid the woodland, 
 uke some rich jewel in its casket ; and, at a little distance, the 
 massive square tower of an ivy-grown old church, at wluch a 
 few tenant-farmers about Tolldale, and the lords of the Priory 
 and their retainers, were wont to worship. 
 
 The house was large and handsome ; there was a long ban- 
 queting hall with a roof of black oak, rich in quaint carvings, 
 and a gloomy corridor, wlix-n were said to belong to the reign of 
 Henry the Second ; but the rest of the mansion had been built 
 in the time of Queen Anne, and was of that prim and square 
 order of architecture which Six John Vanbrugh and his followers 
 afl'ected. 
 
 Tlie garden was prim and square, like the honse, and shut in 
 from the road by high red brick walls, over some part of which 
 the stone-moss had crept, and the ivy trailed for centuries ; but 
 the garden hoxi grown out of the stiffness of Queen Anne's day, 
 for every tree and shrub, every flower and weed, patch of grass, 
 or cluster of ivy, grew so luxuriantly in tliis fertile valley, that 
 it would have needed three times the number of gardeners that 
 had been kept at Tolldale for the last twenty years, to pieserve 
 the neat order of the flower-beds and pathways, the holly hedges, 
 the huge bushes of boxwood that had once been fasliioned into 
 the gidm semblances of hons, swans, dragons, and elephants, 
 and all the other stifi" beauties of the pleasure-grounds. 
 
 Behind the house a couple of peacocks stalked moodily about 
 a stony courtyard, and a great watch-dog showed his sulky head 
 at the mouth of his kennel, and barked incessantly at the advent 
 of any visitor, as if the Priory had been some weird and en- 
 chanted dweUing to wliich no stranger had right of approach. 
 The entrance to the house most commonly used, opened into 
 this stony court3'ard ; and in the dusky, flagged hall, hung the 
 ponderous and roomy riding-boots and the heavy saddle of some 
 Tolldale who had distinguished himself in the civil wars. 
 
 The rainbow colours that glimmered on the stone pavement o^
 
 136 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 tliis dusky entrance-hall were reflected from the crests and coat8 
 of arms, the interlaced ciphers, the coronets and bloody hands, 
 emblazoned on the muUioned windows, whose splendour chas- 
 tened and subdued the daylight ; tempering the garish glory of 
 heaven for the benefit of aristocratic eyes. But of all these 
 crests and ciphers, of all these honourable insignia, not one 
 belonged to the present owner of the house — Mr. Gilbert 
 Monckton, the lawyer. 
 
 Tolldale Priory had changed hands several times since the 
 monkish days, in which the older part of the house had been 
 built. Gilbert Monckton had bought the estate twenty year3 
 before of a Mr. Ravenshaw, a reckless and extravagant gentle- 
 man, with an only daughter, whose beauty had been very much 
 talked about in the neighbourhood. Indeed, report had gone so 
 far as to declare that Gilbert Monckton had been desperately in 
 love with this Margaret Kavenshaw, and that it was for her 
 sake he had invested a great part of the splendid fortune left 
 him by his father in the purchase of the Tolldale estate ; thereby 
 freeing the young lady's father from very terrible embarrass- 
 ments, and enabling him to retii'e to the Continent with his only 
 child. 
 
 There had been, certainly, considerable grounds for this report, 
 as, immediately after the transfer of the property, Gilbert Monck- 
 ton quitted England, leaving his business in the hands of the 
 two junior partners of the house — both much older men than 
 himself, by the bye. He remained abroad for nearly two years ; 
 during which time everybody beheved him to be travelhng with 
 Mr. Ravenshaw»and his daughter, and at the end of that time 
 returned — an altered man. 
 
 Yes ; every one who had been intimate with Gilbert Monckton 
 declared that a blight had fallen upon his Hfe ; and it was only 
 natural that they should go a httle farther than this, and con- 
 clude that this change had been brought about by an unhappy 
 attachment; or, in plainer words, that Margaret Eavenshawhad 
 jUted him. 
 
 However this might be, the lawyer kept his secret. There was 
 no unmanly sentimentahsm in his nature. Whatever his sorrow 
 was, he bore it very quietly, keeping it entirely to himself, and 
 asking sympathy from no Uving creature. But from the hour 
 of his return to England, he devoted himself to his profession 
 with a determination and an assiduity that he had never before 
 displayed. 
 
 This was the great change that his disappointment — whatever 
 that disappointment may have been — had made in him. He did 
 not become either a misanthrope or a bore. He became purely 
 and simply a man of busmess. The frank, generous-hearted 
 young squire, who had shunned his father's office as if every
 
 The Shadow on Oilhert MoncTcton's Life. 137 
 
 gheet of parchment or scrap of red tape had been infected by 
 the pestilent vapours of a plague-stricken city, was transformed 
 into a patient and plodding lawyer, whose gigantic ^rasp of 
 thought and unfailing foresight were almost akin to genius. 
 
 For ten years Tolldale Priory was uninhabited by its new 
 master, and left in the care of a snufF-taking old housekeeper, 
 and a deaf gardener, who effectually kept all visitors at bay by 
 a systematic habit of failing to hear the great bell at the iron 
 gates ; which might clang never so loudly under the shadow of 
 its wooden pent-house without apparently producing the faintest, 
 impression upon the aural nerves of these two superannuated re- 
 tadners. But at last the day came upon which Mr. Monckton 
 grew tired of his London dwelling-place in a dingy square in 
 Bloomsbury, and determined to take possession of his Berkshire 
 estate. He sent a couple of upholsterers to Tolldale Priory, with 
 strict injunctions to set the old farniture in order, but to do 
 nothing more ; not so much as to alter the adjustment of a cur- 
 tain, or the accustomed position of a chair or table. 
 
 Perhaps he wished to see the familiar rooms looking exactly 
 as they had looked when he had sat by Margaret Eavenshaw'g 
 side, a bright and hopeful lad of twenty. He kept the snuff- 
 taking old housekeeper and the deaf gardener, and brought his 
 own small staff of well-trained servants from London. The 
 town-bred servants would have willingly rebelled against their 
 new dwelling-place, and the verdant shades that seemed to shut 
 them in from the outer world ; but their wages were too hberal 
 to be resigned for any but a very powerful reason, and they sub- 
 mitted as best they could to the solitude of their new abode. 
 
 Mr. Monckton travelled backwards and forwards between Toll- 
 dale and London almost every day, driving to the station in his 
 phaeton in the morning, and being met by his groom on his 
 return in the evening. The lawyer's professional duties had 
 taxed his strength to tha utmost, and grave physicians had pre- 
 scribed country air and occasional repose as absolutely necessary 
 to him. For nearly ten years, therefore, he had hved at the 
 Priory, forming few acquaintances, and positively no friends. 
 His most intimate associates had been the De Crespignys. This 
 had no doubt arisen from the circumstance of the AYoodlands 
 estate adjoining Tolldale. Mr. Monckton accepted the acquain- 
 tances whom accident forced upon him, but he sought none. 
 Those who knew him best said that the shadow which had so 
 early fallen upon his life had never passed away. 
 
 Of course Eleanor Vane had heard these things during her 
 residence at Hazlewood. The knowledge of them invested the 
 grave lawyer with a halo of romance in her girlish ey€s. He, 
 uko herself, had his secret, and kept it faithfuUy.
 
 138 Eleanor^s Victory, 
 
 CHAPTEE XViU 
 
 trNFORGOTTEN. 
 
 Mrs. Dakeell drove her son and the two girls to Tolldala 
 Priory in accordance with Mr. Monckton's wish. The widow 
 had no particular desire to bring either Laura or Eleanor into 
 contact with her uncle, Maurice de Crespigny ; for she nourished 
 that intense jealousy of all visitors who crossed the threshold of 
 the old man's house, which is only known to expectant heira 
 whose chances of a fortune tremble in the wavering balance of 
 an invalid's caprice. But Mrs. Darrell could not afford to 
 offend Mr. Monckton. He paid a high price for her protection 
 of his ward, and was by no means the sort of man to be thwarted 
 with impunity. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell lolled by his mother's side, smoking a cigar 
 and taking very little notice of the blossoming hedgerows and 
 ghmpses of luxuriant pastoral landscape. The two young ladies 
 sat upon a low seat, -sArith their backs to the ponies, and had 
 therefore ample opportunity of observing the prodigal son's face. 
 
 For the first time since Mr. Dan-ell's return Eleanor Vane 
 did watch that handsc me face, seeking in it for some evidence 
 of those words which Gilbert Monckton had spoken to her the 
 day before. 
 
 " He is selfish, and shallow, and frivolous ; false, I think, as 
 well ; more than this, he has a secret — a secret connected with 
 his Indian experiences." 
 
 This is what Mr. Monckton had said. Eleanor asked herself 
 what right he had to say so much ? 
 
 It was scarcely hkely that a girl of Eleanor's age, so unaccus- 
 tomed to all society, so shut in from the outer world by her 
 narrow and secluded hfe, could fail to be a little interested in 
 the handsome stranger, whose advent had not been without a 
 tinge of romance. She was interested in him, and all the more 
 so because of that which Gilbert Monckton had said to her. 
 There was a secret in Launcelot DarreU's hfe. How strange 
 this was ! Had every creature a secret, part of themselves, 
 hidden deep in their breasts, like that dark purpose which had 
 grown out of the misery of her father's untimely death — some 
 buried memory, whose influence was to overshadow aU their Hves? 
 
 She looked at the young man's face. It had an expression o! 
 half-defiant recklessness which seemed almost habitual to it; 
 but it was not the face of a happy man. 
 
 Laura Mason was the only person who talked much during 
 that drive to Tolldale. That young lady's tongue ran on in a 
 pretty, incessant babble, about nothing in particular. The wild
 
 JJnforgotten. 139 
 
 flowers in the hedgerows, the distant glimpses of country, the 
 light clouds floating in the summer aky, the flaming poppies 
 among the ripening com, the noisy fowl upon the margin of a 
 pond, the shaggy horses looking over farm-yard gates, — every 
 object, animate and inanimate, between Hazlewood and Tolldale, 
 was the subject of Miss Mason's remark. Launcelot Darrell 
 looked at her now and then wth an expression of half-admiring 
 amusement, and sometimes aroused himself to talk to her ; but 
 only to relapse very quickly into a half-contemptuous, half- 
 sulky silence. 
 
 Mr. Monckton received his guests in a long low Ubrary, 
 looking out into the neglected garden; a dusky chamber, 
 darkened by the shadows of trailing parasites that hung oyer 
 the narrow windows. But this room was an especial favourite 
 with the grave master of the house. It was here he sat during 
 the lonely evenings that he spent at home. The drawing-rooms 
 on the first floor were only used upon those rare occasions when 
 the lawyer opened his house to his friends of long standing, 
 dashing chents, who were very well pleased to get a week's 
 shooting in the woody coverts about the Priory. 
 
 Neither Laura nor Eleanor felt very enthusiastic about the 
 Raphael, wliich seemed to the two girls to represent an angular 
 and rather insipid type of female beauty ; but Launcelot Darrell 
 and his host entered mto an artistic discussion that lasted until 
 luncheon was announced by the lawyer's grey-haired butler ; a 
 ponderous and dignified individual who had lived with Gilbert 
 Monckton's father, and who was said to know more about his 
 master's history than Gilbert's most intimate friends. 
 
 It was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon when luncheon 
 was finished, and the party set out to attempt an invasion upon 
 "Woodlands. Launcelot Darrell gave his arm to his mother, 
 who in a manner took possession of her son, and the two girls 
 walked behind with the lawyer. 
 
 "You have never seen Mr. de Crespigny, I suppose, Miss 
 Vincent?" Gilbert Monckton said, as they went out of the iron 
 gates and struck into a narrow pathway leading through the wood. 
 
 " Never ! But I am very anxious to see him." 
 
 "^\Tiy80?" 
 
 Eleanor hesitated. She was for ever being reminded of her 
 assumed name, and the falsehood to which she had submitted 
 out of deference to her half-sister's pride. 
 
 Fortunately the lawyer did not wait for an answer to his 
 question. 
 
 " Maurice de Crespigny is a strange old man," he said; "a 
 very strange old man. I sometimes tliink there is a disappoint- 
 ment in store for Launcelot Darrell ; and for his maiden aunt^ 
 as well."
 
 140 Eleanor't Victory. 
 
 " A disappointment !" 
 
 " Yes, I doubt very mucli if eitber the maiden ladies or tlieir 
 nephews will get Maurice de Crespigny's fortune." 
 
 " But to whom will he leave it, then?" 
 
 The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " It is not for me to answer that question. Miss Yincent," he 
 said. "I merely speculate upon the chances, in perfect ignorance 
 as to facts. "Were I Mr. de Crespigny's legal adviser, I should 
 have no right to say as much as this ; but as I am not, I am 
 free to discuss the business." 
 
 Mr. Monchton and Eleanor were alone by this time, for Laura 
 Mason had flitted on to the party in advance, and was talking 
 to Launcelot Darrell. The lawyer's face clouded as he watched 
 his ward and the yotmg man. 
 
 " You remember what I said to you yesterday, Miss Yincent P" 
 he said, after a pause. 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " I am very much afraid of the influence that young man's 
 handsome face may have upon my poor frivolous ward. I would 
 move her out of the way of that influence if I could, but where 
 could I remove her ? Poor child ! she has been shifted about 
 enough already. She seems happy at Hazlewood ; very happy, 
 with you." 
 
 " Yes," Eleanor answered, frankly; "we love each other very 
 dearly." 
 
 "And you would do anything to serve herP" 
 
 " Anything in the world." 
 
 Mr. Monckton sighed. 
 
 " There is one way in which you might serve her," he said, in 
 a low voice, as if speaking to himself rather than to Eleanor, 
 "and yet " 
 
 He did not finish the sentence, but walked on in silence, with 
 his eyes bent upon the ground. He only looked up now and 
 then to Hsten, with an uneasy expression, to the animated con- 
 versation of Launcelot and Laura. They walked thus through 
 the shadowy woodland, where the rusthng sound of a pheasant's 
 flight amongst the brushwood, and the gay tones of Laura's 
 voice, only broke the silence. 
 
 Beyond the wood they came to a grassy slope dotted by 
 groups of trees, and bounded by an invisible wire fence. 
 
 Here, on the summit of a gentle elevation, stood a low white 
 villa — a large and important house — but built in the modem 
 style, and very inferior to Tolldale Priory in dignity and grandeur. 
 
 This was Woodlands, the house which Maurice de Crespigny 
 had built for himself some tliirty years before ; the house whose 
 threshold had so long been jealously guarded by the invalid's 
 maiden nieces.
 
 Unforgotten. 141 
 
 Mr. Monckton looked at his watch as he and Eleanor joined 
 Mrs. Darrell. 
 
 " Half-past three o'clock," he said ; " Mr. de Crespigny gene- 
 rally takes an airing in his Bath-chair at about tliis time in the 
 afternoon. You see, I know the habits of the Citadel, and know 
 therefore how to effect a surprise. If we strike across the park 
 we are almost sure to meet him." 
 
 He led the way to a Uttle gate in the fence. It was only 
 fastened by a latch, and the party entered the grassy enclosure. 
 Eleanor Vane's heart beat violently. She was about to see 
 her father's old and early friend; that friend whom George 
 Vane had never been suffered to approach, to whom he had been 
 forbidden to appeal in the hour of his distress. 
 
 " If my poor father could have written to Mr, de Crespigny 
 for help when he lost that wretched hundred pounds, he might 
 have been saved from a cruel death," Eleanor thought. 
 
 Fortune seemed to favour the invaders. In a shady avenue 
 that skirted one side of the slope, they came upon the old man 
 and the two sisters. The maiden ladies walked on either side of 
 their uncle's Bath-chair, erect and formidable-looking as a couple 
 of grenadiers. 
 
 Maurice de Crespigny looked twenty years older than his 
 spendthrift friend had looked up to the hour of his death. His 
 bent head nodded helplessly forward. His faded eyes seemed 
 dim and sightless. The withered hand l;ying idle upon the 
 leathern apron of the Bath-chair, trembled hke a leaf shaken by 
 the autumn wind. The shadow of approaching death seemed to 
 hover about this feeble creature, separating him from his feUow- 
 mortals. 
 
 The two maiden ladies greeted their sister with no very 
 demonstrative cordiahty. 
 
 " Ellen ! " exclaimed Miss Lavinia, the elder of the two, " this 
 is an unexpected pleasure. I am sure that both Sarah and 
 myself are charmed to see you ; but as tliis is one of our poor 
 dear invalid's worst days, your visit is rather iinfortunately 
 timed. If yon had \vritten, and given us notice of your 
 
 coming " 
 
 " You would have shut the door in my face," Mrs. Darrell 
 said, resolutely. " Pray do not put yourself to the trouble of 
 inventing any pohte fictions on my account, Lavinia. We 
 understand each other perfectly. I came here by the back way, 
 because I knew I should be refused admittance at the front 
 door. You keep watch well, Lavinia, and I beg to compliment 
 you upon your patience." 
 
 The widow had approached her uncle's chair, leaving the rest 
 of the party in the background. Pale and defiant, she did battle 
 wili her two sisters, fighting sturdily in the cause of her idolized
 
 l42 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Bon, who seemed a great deal too listless and indifferent to loot 
 after his own interests. 
 
 The ladies in possession glared at their sister's pale face with 
 spiteful eyes ; they were a Httle daunted by the widow's air of 
 resolution. 
 
 " Who are these people, Ellen Darrell?" asked the younger of 
 the two old maids. " Do you want to kill my uncle, that you 
 bring a crowd of strangers to intrude upon him at a time when 
 his nerves are at their worst P" 
 
 " I have not brought a crowd of strangers. One of those 
 people IS my son, who has come to pay his respects to his uncle 
 after his return from India." 
 
 _ " Launcelot Darrell returned ! " exclaimed the two ladies, 
 edmultaneou sly. 
 
 " Yes, returned to look after his own interests ; returned with 
 very grateful feehngs towards those who prompted his being sent 
 away from his native country to waste his youth ia an un- 
 healthy cUmate." 
 
 " Some people get on in India," Miss Lavinia de Crespigny 
 said, spitefully ; " but I never thought Launcelot DarreU would 
 do any good there." 
 
 " How kind it was in you to advise his going, then," Mrs 
 Darrell answered, promptly. Then, passing by the astonished 
 Miss Lavinia, she went up to her uncle, and bent over him. 
 
 Theoldman looked up at his niece, but with no glance of re- 
 cognition in his blue eyes, which had grown pale with age. 
 
 •' Uncle Maurice," said Mrs. Darrell, " don't you know me ?" 
 
 The iavaHd nodded his head. 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ! _" he said ; but there was a vacant smile 
 Tipon his face, and it seemed as if the words were uttered me- 
 chanically. 
 
 " And are you glad to see me, dear uncle ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes !" the old man answered ia exactly the same 
 tone. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell looked up hopelessly. 
 
 " Is he always Hke this P " she asked. 
 
 " ISTo," answered Miss Sarah, briskly, " he is only so when he 
 is intruded upon and annoyed. We told you it was one of your 
 tmcle's bad days, EUen ; and yet you are heartless enough to 
 insist on persecuting him." 
 
 Mrs. Darrell turned upon her sister vsdth suppressed rage. 
 
 " When will the day come in which I shall be welcome to thia 
 place, Sarah de Crespigny ? " she said. " I choose my own time, 
 Bnd seize any chance I can of speaking to my imcle." 
 
 She looked back at the group she had left behind her, and 
 beckoned to her son. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell came straight to his uncle's chair.
 
 Vnf or gotten. 143 
 
 "You remember Launcelot, Uncle Maurice," Mrs. Darr 1' 
 said, entreatingly ; " I'm sure you remember Launcelot." 
 
 The two maiden sisters watched their uncle's face with eager 
 and jealous glances. It seemed as if the thick clouds were clear- 
 ing away from the old man's memory, for a faint light kindled 
 in his faded eyes. 
 
 "Launcelot!" he said; "yes, I remember Launcelot. In 
 India, poor lad, in India." 
 
 " He went to India, dear uncle, and he has been away some 
 years. You remember how unfortunate he was: the indigo 
 planter to whom he was to have gone failed before he got to 
 Calcutta, so that my poor boy couJd not even deliver the one 
 letter of introduction which he took with him to a strange 
 country. He was thrown upon his own resources, tiierefore, and 
 had to get a living as he could. The climate never agreed with 
 him. Uncle Maurice, and he was altogether very unhappy. He 
 stayed in India as long as he could endure a life that was utterly 
 unsuited to him ; and then flung everything up for the sake of 
 returning to England. You must not be angry with my poor 
 boy, dear Uncle Maurice." 
 
 The old man seemed to have brightened up a good deal by this 
 time. He nodded perpetually as his niece talked to him, but 
 there was a look of intelligence in his face now. 
 
 " I am not angry with him," he said ; " he was free to go ; or 
 free to return. I did the best I could for him ; but of course he 
 was free to choose his own career, and is so still. I don't expect 
 him to defer to me." 
 
 Mrs. DarreU turned pale. This speech appeared to express a 
 renunciation of all interest in her son. She would almost rathei 
 that her uncle had been angry and indignant at the young man's 
 return. 
 
 " But Launcelot wishes to please you in all he does, dear 
 uncle," pleaded the widow. " He will be very, very sorry if he 
 has offended you." 
 
 " He is very good," the old man answered ; " he has not 
 offended me. He is auite free, auite free to act for himself. I 
 did the oest I coma for mm — I did the best ; but he is perfectly 
 free. ' 
 
 The two maiden sisters exchanged a look of triumph. In this 
 hand-to-hand contest for the rich man's favour, it did not seem 
 as if either Ellen DarreU or her son were gaining any great 
 advantage. 
 
 Launcelot bent over his great-uncle's chair. 
 
 " I am very happy to tind you alive and well, air, on my 
 return," he said, respectfully. 
 
 The old man lifted liis eyes, and looked earnestly at the hand* 
 Bome face bent over him.
 
 144 Eleanor's Victory, 
 
 "You are very good, nephew," he said; "I sometimes think 
 that, because I have a httle money to leave behind me, everybody 
 wishes for my death. It's hard to fancy that every breath one 
 draws is gnidged by those who live with us. That's veiy hard ! " 
 
 " Uncle ! " cried the maiden nieces, simultaneously, with a 
 little shriek of lady- like horror. " When have you ever fancied 
 that?" 
 
 The old man shook his head, with a feeble smile upon hia 
 tremulous lips. 
 
 " You are very good to me, my dears," he said, " very good-, 
 but sick men have strange fancies. I sometimes think I've hved 
 too long for myself and others. But never mind that ; never 
 mind that. Who are those people there ? " he asked, in f; 
 different tone. 
 
 " Friends of mine, uncle," Mrs. DarreU answered ; " and one 
 of them is a friend of yours. You know Mr. Monckton P " 
 
 "Monckton! Oh, yes — ^yes! Monckton, the lawyer," mut- 
 tered the old man ; " and who is that girl yonder ? " he cried 
 suddenly, with quite an altered voice and manner, almost as if 
 the shock of some great surprise had galvanized bim into new 
 Ufe. " Who is that girl yonder, with fair hair and her face 
 turned this way ? Tell me who she is, Ellen Darrell." 
 
 He pointed to Eleanor Yane as he spoke. She was standing 
 a Httle way apart from Gilbert Monckton and Laura ; she had 
 taken off her broad straw hat and slung it across her arm, and 
 the warm summer breeze had swept the bright auburn hair from 
 her forehead. Forgetful of every necessity for caution, ia the 
 intensity of her desire to see her dead father's dearest friend, she 
 had advanced a few paces from her companions, and stood 
 watching the group about the old man's chair. 
 
 " Who is she, Ellen Darrell P " repeated Mr. de Crespigny. 
 
 Mrs. DarreU looked almost frightened by her uncle's eager- 
 ness. 
 
 " That young lady is only the musical instructress of another 
 young lady I have in my care. Uncle Maurice," she answered. 
 " What is there in her that attracts your attention ? " 
 
 _ The old man's eyes filled with tears that rolled slowly down 
 his withered cheeks. 
 
 " When George Vane ana 1 were students togeftier at Maud- 
 lin," answered Maurice de Crespigny, " my friend was the Uving 
 image of that girl." 
 
 Mrs. Darrell turned sharply round ; and looked at Eleanor aA 
 if she would have almost anidhilated the girl for daring to re- 
 eemble George Vane. 
 
 " I think your eyes must deceive you, my dear uncle," said 
 the widow ; " I knew Mr. Vane well enough, and I never saw 
 any likeness to him in this Miss Vincent."
 
 Unforgotten. 145 
 
 Maurice de Crespigny shook liis head, 
 
 " My eyes do not deceive me," he said. " It's my memory 
 that's weak, sometimes ; my eyesight is good enough. When 
 
 ?rou knew George Vane his hair was grey, and his handsome 
 ooks faded ; when I first knew him he was as young as that girl 
 yonder, and he was like her. Poor George ! poor George ! " 
 
 The three sisters looked at each other. "Whatever enmity 
 might exist between Mrs. Dairell and the two maiden ladies, tha 
 three were perfectly agreed upon one point — namely, that the 
 recollection of George Vane and his family must, at any price* 
 be kept out of Maurice de Crespigny's mind. 
 
 The old man had not spoken of his friend for years, and the 
 maiden sisters had triumphed in the thought that all memories 
 of their uncle's youth had become obscured and obUterated by 
 the gathering shadows of age. But now, at the sight of a fair- 
 haired girl of eighteen, the old memories came back in all their 
 force. The sudden outburst of feeling came upon the sisters 
 like a thunderbolt, and they lost that common instinct of self- 
 preservation, that ordinary presence of mind, which would have 
 prompted them to hustle the old man oflP, and carry him at once 
 out of the way of this tiresome, intrusive, fair-haired young 
 woman, who had the impertinence to resemble George Vane. 
 
 The sisters had never heard of the birth of Mr. Vane's young- 
 est daughter. Many years had elapsed since the intercourse 
 between Mrs. Darrell and Hortensia Bannister had extended to 
 more than an occasional epistolary communication, and the 
 stockbroker's widow had not thought it necessary to make any 
 formal announcement of her half-sister's birth. 
 
 '' Tell that girl to come here," cried Maurice de Crespigny, 
 
 Eointing with a trembling hand to Eleanor. "Let her come 
 ere ; I want to look at her." 
 
 Mrs. DarreU thought it would be scarcely wise to oppose her 
 uncle. 
 
 " Miss Vincent ! " she called, sharply, to the girl ; " come here, 
 if you please ; my uncle wishes to speak to you." 
 
 Eleanor Vane was startled by the \vidow's summons, but she 
 came eagerly to the old man's chair. She was very anxious to 
 see the friend of her dead father. She went close up to the 
 Bath-chair, and stood beside the old man. 
 
 Maurice de Crespigny laid his hand upon here. 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " yes, yes. It's almost the same face — almost 
 the same. God bless you, my dear ! It makes me fifty yearg 
 younger to look at you. You are like a friend who was once 
 Teiy dear to me — very dear to me. God bless you ! " 
 
 The girl's face grew pale with the intensity of her feehng. 
 Oh ! that her father had been ahve ; that she might have pleaded 
 for him with this cM mnn, and have reunited the broken links of 
 
 K
 
 146 Eleanor'9 Victory. 
 
 the past. But of wtat avail now were Maurice de Crespigny's 
 compassionate words ? They could not recall the dead. The^ 
 could not blot out the misery of that horrible night upon which 
 the loss of a pitiful sum of money had driven George Vane to 
 the commission of the fatal act which had ended his life. No ! 
 His old friend could do nothing for him ; his loving daughter 
 could do nothing for him — except to avenge his death. 
 
 Carried away by her feelings ; forgetful of her assumed cha- 
 racter ; forgetful of everything except that the hand now clasped 
 in hers was the same that had been Hnked in that of her father, 
 years and years ago, in the warm grasp of friendship ; Eleanor 
 Vane knelt down beside the old man's chair, and pressed his 
 thin fingers to her lips. 
 
 CHAPTEE XrX. 
 
 LIKE THE MEMORY OF A DREAM. 
 
 I>Irs. Darrell drove away from ToUdale Priory late in the af- 
 ternoon, and in a very despondent state of mind. She had done 
 no good by her visit to Woodlands, and it seemed painfully pro- 
 bable that she had done a great deal of harm ; for the unfortunate 
 accident of a resemblance between Laura Mason's companion and 
 the late George Vane had stirred up the memories of the past in 
 that turbid stream, the old man's mind. The widow scarcely 
 oiDcned her hps during the homeward drive. She would fain have 
 punished Eleanor for that unlucky chance by which she hap- 
 pened to resemble the dead man, and she did not fail to remark 
 unpleasantly upon Miss Vane's conduct at Woodlands. 
 
 " One would really think you wished to trade upon your like- 
 ness to Mr. Vane, and to insinuate yourself into my uncle's good 
 graces, Miss Vincent," the widow said, rather sharply. 
 
 Eleanor blushed crimson, Irat did not attempt to reply to her 
 employer's bitter speech. The falsehood of an assumed name 
 was perpetually placing her in positions against which her 
 truthful nature revolted. 
 
 If Mrs. Darrell had been free to dismiss Eleanor Vane, she 
 would doubtless have done so, for the girl's presence had now 
 become a source of alarm to her. There were two reasons for 
 this sentiment of alarm. First, the likeness which Maurice de 
 Crespigny had discovered between Eleanor and his dead friend, 
 and which might prompt him at any moment to some capricious 
 fancy for the girl ; and, secondly, the fact that Eleanor's beauty 
 aud fascination might not be without their effect upon Launcelot 
 Darrell. 
 
 Ihe widow knew by cruel experience that her son was not a 
 man to surrender his lightest caprice at the entreaty of another.
 
 lAke the Memory of a Dream. 147 
 
 At seven-and-twenty years of age he was as much a spoilftd child 
 as he had been at seven. Ellen Darrell looked back at the bitter 
 trials of the past ; and remembered how hard it had been to keep 
 her son true even to his own interests. Seltish and self-willed, he 
 had taken his own way ; always relying upon his handsome face, 
 his shallow versatility, his showy accomphshments, to carry him 
 through every difficult^', and get him out of every dilemma ; 
 always eager for the enjoyment of the present hour, and reckless 
 as to any penalties to be paid in the future. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell had concentrated every feeling of her heart into 
 one passion : her love for this joung man. Frigid and reserved 
 to all the rest of the world, with him she was impulsive, vehe- 
 ment, spontaneous ; ready to pour out her heart's blood at his 
 feet, if he had needed such an evidence of her devotion. For 
 hiTn she was jealous and exacting; harsh to others ; desperate 
 and xmforgiving to those whom she thought his enemies. 
 
 For Launcelot she was anxious and ambitious. The hope that 
 her Uncle Maurice would leave his fortune to the young man, 
 whose boyish good looks and precocious talents had made somo 
 impression upon him, many years before, never entirely deserted 
 her. But, even if that hope should fail, her sisters were elderly 
 women like herself. If they succeeded in cajoling Maurice de 
 Crespigny out of his fortune, they must surely eventually leave 
 it to tneu" only nephew, Launcelot. This was how the widow 
 reasoned. But there was another chance which she fancied she 
 saw for her son's advancement. Laura Mason, the heiress, 
 evidently admired the young man's hands'^me face and dashing 
 manners. What more hkely than that Laiu- ;elot might succeed 
 in winning the hand and fortune of that capricious young lady ? 
 
 Under these circumstances Mrs. Darrell would have been very 
 glad to have removed Eleanor Vane out of her son's way ; but 
 this was not easily to be done. When the widow sounded Laura 
 Mason upon the subject, and vag^^ely hinted at the necessity of 
 parting with Eleanor, the heiress burst into a flood of tears, and 
 declared passii:>nately that she would not live without her darling 
 Nelly. And when Mrs. Darrell went even further than tliis, and 
 touched upon the subject in a conversation -svith Mr. Monckton, 
 the lawyer replied very decidedly that he considered Miss Vin- 
 cent's companionship of great benefit to his ward, and that he 
 could not hear of any arrangement by which the two girls would 
 be separated. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell, therefore, could do nothing but submit ; in the 
 hope that for once her son might consent to be governed by his 
 interests, rather than by those erratic impulses which had led 
 him in the reckless and riotous days of his early youth. 
 
 She pleaded with him ; entreating him to be prudent and 
 thoughtful for the future.
 
 148 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " You have suffered so mucli from poverty, Launcelot," she 
 urged, "that surely you will lose no opiiortunity of improving 
 your position. Look back, my boy ; remember that bitter time 
 in which you were lost to me, led away by low and vicious com- 
 panions, and only appeahng to me when you found yourself in 
 debt and diificulty. Think of your Indian life, and the years you 
 have wasted, — you who are so clever and accomphshed, and who 
 ought to have been so fortunate. Oh, Launcelot, if you knew 
 what a bitter thing it is to a mother to see her idolized child 
 waste every opportunity of winning the advancement which 
 should be his by right, — yes, by right, Launcelot, by the right 
 of your talents. I never reproached you, my boy, for coming 
 home to me penrdless. Were you to return to me twenty times, 
 as you came back that night, you would always find the same 
 welcome, the same affection. My love for you will never change,, 
 my darling, till I go to my grave. But I suffer very bitterly 
 when I think of your wasted youth. You must be rich, 
 Launcelot ; you cannot afford to be poor. There are some men. 
 to whom poverty seems a spur that drives them on to greatness ; 
 hut it has clogged your footsteps, and held you back from the 
 fame you might have won." 
 
 " Egad, so it has, mother," the young man answered, bitterly; 
 " a shabby coat paralyzes a man's arm, to my miud, and it's not 
 very easy for a fellow to hold his head very high when the nap's 
 all worn off his hat. But I don't mean to sit down to a life of 
 idleness, I can tell you, mother. I shall turn painter. You 
 know I've got on with my painting pretty weU during the last 
 few years." 
 
 " I'm glad of that, my dear boy. You had plenty of time to 
 devote to your painting, then ? " 
 
 " Plenty Oi time ; oh, yes, I was pretty well off for that matter." 
 
 " Then you were not so hard worked in India ? " 
 
 ** Not always. Tliat depended upon circumstances," the young 
 man answered, indifferently. " Yes, mother, I shall turn painter, 
 and try and make a fortune out of my brush." 
 
 Mrs. Darrell sighed. She wished to see her son made rich by 
 s. quicker road than the slow and toilsome pathway by which an 
 artist reaches fortune. 
 
 " If you could make a wealthy marriage, Launcelot," she 
 said, "you might afford to devote yourself to art, without 
 having to endure the torturing anxieties which must be suffered 
 by a man who has only his profession to depend upon. I 
 wouldn't for the world wish you to sell yourself .for money, for 
 I know the wretchedness of a really mercenary marriage; 
 but if " 
 
 The young man flung back the dark hair from his forehead, 
 and auuled at his mother as he Laterrupted her.
 
 Like the Memory of a Dream. 149 
 
 <i ' 
 
 If I should fall in love with this Miss Laura MasDn, who, 
 according to your account, is to have a power of money one of 
 these days, I should prove myself a wise man. That's what 
 you mean, isn't it, madre mia ? "Well, I'll do my best. The 
 young lady is pretty, but her childishness is positively impay- 
 able. "What's the amount of the fortune that is to counter- 
 balance so much empty-headed frivoHty ? Eh, mother P " 
 
 " I can't quite answer that question, Lauucelot. I only know 
 that Mr. Monckton told me Laura will be very rich." 
 
 " And Gilbert Monckton, although a lawyer, is one of those 
 •Qncompromising personages who never tell a lie. "Well, mother, 
 we'll see about it ; I can't say anything more than that." 
 
 The young man had been standing before his easel with hia 
 palette and brushes in his hand during this conversation, now 
 and then adding a touch here and there to a picture that he had 
 been working at since his return. He had taken up his abode 
 in his old apartments. His mother spent a good deal of her 
 time with liim ; sitting at needlework by the open window, while 
 he painted ; listening while, in his idler moments, he sat at the 
 piano, composing a few bars of a waltz, or trying to recall the 
 words of some song that he had written long ago ; always fol- 
 lowing him %\'ith watchful and admiring eyes, shadowed only by 
 the mother's anxiety for her son's future. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell did not seem to be altogether a bad young 
 man. He accepted his mother's love with something of that 
 indolent selfisliness common to those spoiled children of fortune 
 upon whom an extra share of maternal devotion has been 
 lavished. He absorbed the widow's aflfection ; and gave her in 
 return an easy-going, graceful attention, which satisfied the un- 
 selfish woman, and demanded neither trouble nor sacrifice from 
 the young man himself. 
 
 " Now, if the wealthy heiress were the poor companion, 
 mother," Mr. Darrell said, presently, working away with his 
 brush as he spoke, " j'our scheme would be charming. Eleanor 
 Vincent is a glorious girl ; a Httle bit of a spitfire, I should 
 think, quiet and gentle as she is with us ; but a splendid girl ; 
 ■just the sort of ^vife for ot-. indolent man ; a wife who would 
 rouse him out of his lethargy and drive him on to distinction.'" 
 
 Yes, Launcelot Darrell, who had never in his Ufe resisted any 
 temptation, or accepted any guidance except that of his own 
 wishes, was led by tliein now ; and, instead of devoting himself 
 to the young heiress, chose to fall desperately in love with her 
 fair-haired companion. He fell in love with Eleanor Vane ; 
 desperately, after liis own fashion. I doubt if there was any 
 great intensity in the young man's desperation ; for I do not 
 beUeve that he was capable of any real depth of feehng. There 
 ■waa a kind of hollow, tinselly fervour in hia nature which took
 
 150 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 tte place of true passion. It may be that ■with him all emo- 
 tions — love and remorse, penitence, pity, regret, hate, anger, and 
 revenge — were true and real so long as they lasted. But all 
 these sentiments were so short-lived, by reason of the fickleness 
 of his mind, that it was almost difficidt to beHeve even in their 
 temporary tnith. 
 
 But Eleanor Yane, being very yotmg and inerperienced, had 
 no power of analyzing the character of her lover. She only 
 knew that he was handsome, accomjDlished, and clever; that he 
 loved her, and that it was very agreeable to be loved by liim. 
 
 I do not beUeve that she returned the young man's affection. 
 She was Like a child upon the threshold of a new world : bewil- 
 dered and dazzled by the glorious aspect of the unknown region 
 before her ; beguiled and delighted by its beauty and novelty. 
 All the darker aspects of the great passion were unknown to 
 her, and undreamed of by her. She only knew that on the 
 cheerless horizon that had so long bounded her hfe, a new star 
 had arisen — a bright and wonderful planet, which for a while 
 displaced the lurid hght that had so long shone steadfastly 
 ;icross the darkness. 
 
 Eleanor Vane yielded herself up to the brief holiday-time 
 which generally comes once in almost every woman's Hfe, how- 
 ever desolate and joyless the rest of that Hfe may be. The 
 hoHday comes, — a fleeting summer of gladness and rejoicing. 
 The earth Hghts up under a new sun and moon ; the flowers 
 bloom into new colours and scatter new perfumes on the subH- 
 mated atmosphere ; the waters of the commonest rivers change 
 to melted sappliires, and blaze with the splendour of a milHon 
 
 i'ewels in the simshine. The duU universe changes to fairyland; 
 )ut, alas ! the hoUday-time is very short : the children grow 
 tired of paradise, or are summoned back to school ; the sun and 
 moon collapse into commonplace luminaries ; the flowers fade 
 into every-day blossoms ; the river flows a grey stream under a 
 November sky ; and the dream is over. 
 
 Launcelot Darroll had been Httle more than a fortnight in hit 
 mother's house when he declared his love for Miss Mason's com" 
 panion. The young people had been a great deal together in 
 that fortnight ; wandering in the grassy lanes about Hazlewood, 
 and in the shadowy woods round ToUdale Priory, or on breezy 
 hills high up above the lawyer's sheltered mansion. In hope of 
 an aUiance between Launcelot and Gilbert Monckton's ward, 
 Mrs. DarreU was obliged to submit to the necessity which threw 
 her son very much into the society of the companion as well as 
 of the heiress. 
 
 " He win surely never be so foolish as to thwart my plan foi 
 his future," thought the anxious mother. " Surely, surely, he 
 will consent to be guided by his own interests. Gilbert Moucktoia
 
 Like the Memory of a Bream. 161 
 
 mnst know that it is only likely an attachment may arise bet ween 
 Laiincelot and Laura. He would not leave the girl witli m© 
 tuiless he were resigned to such an event, and ready to giv«) his 
 consent to their marriage. My son is poor, certainly ; but the 
 lawyer knows that he has some hope of inheriting a great 
 fortune." 
 
 "While the mother pondered thus over her son's chances of 
 advancement, the young man took hfe very easily ; spending his 
 mornings at his easel, but by no means over-exerting himself ; 
 and dawdUng away his afternoons in rustic rambles with the 
 two girls. 
 
 Laura Mason was very happy in the society of this new and 
 brilliant companion. She was bewitched and fascinated by Mr. 
 Darrell's careless talk ; which sounded very witty, very pro- 
 found, sarcastic, and eloquent in the ears of an ignorant girl. 
 She admired him and fell in love with him, and wearied poor 
 Eleanor with her very unreserved rhapsodies about the object of 
 her affection. 
 
 " I know it's very bold and wicked and horrid to fall in love 
 with anybody before they fall in love with one, you know, 
 Eleanor," the young lady said, in not very elegant Enghsh ; " but 
 he is so handsome and so clever. I don't think any one in the 
 world could help loving him. 
 
 " ' I have no hope in loving thee, 
 I only ask to love ; 
 I 6cr-rood upon my silent heart, 
 As on its nest a dove ; ' " 
 
 added Miss Mason, quoting that favourite poet of all desponding 
 lovers, poor L. E. L. 
 
 I think Mr. Monckton's ward rather enjoyed the hopelessness 
 of her attachment. The brooding upon her silent heart wa? 
 scarcely an accurate ex;position of her conduct, as she talked 
 reams of sentiment to Eleanor upon the subject of her unrequited 
 affection. Miss Vane was patient and tender with her, listening 
 to her fooUsh talk, and dreading the coming of that hour in 
 which the childish young beauty must be rudely awakened from 
 her rose-coloured dream. 
 
 " I don't want to marry him, you know, Eleanor," the young 
 lady said ; " I only want to be allowed to love him. You re- 
 member the German story in which the knight watches the vrm.' 
 dow of his lost love's convent cell. I could live for ever and 
 ever near him ; and be content to see him sometimes ; or to hear 
 his voice, even if I did not see him. I should Uke to wear boy's 
 clothes, and be his page, like Viola, and tell him my own story, 
 you know, seme day." 
 
 Eleanor remembered her promise to Gilbert Monckton, and 
 tried sometimes to check the torrent of sentimental talk.
 
 152 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " I know your love is very poetical, and I dare say it's very 
 true, my pet," slie said ; " but do you think Mr. Dan-ell is quite 
 worth all this waste of affection r I sometimes tliink, Laura 
 dear, that we commit a sin when we waste our best feelings. 
 Suppose by-and-by you should meet some one quite as worthy of 
 your love as Launcelot Darrell ; some one who would love you very 
 devotedly; don't you think you would look back and regret having 
 lavished your best and freshest feelings upon a person who " 
 
 ""Who doesn't care a straw for me," cried the heiress, half 
 crying. " That's what you mean, Eleanor Vincent. You mean 
 to insinuate that Launcelot doesn't care for me. You are a 
 cruel, heartless girl, and you don't love me a bit." 
 
 And the young lady bemoaned her disappointment, and wept 
 over the hardships of her lot ; very much as she might have 
 cried for any new plaything a few years before. 
 
 It was upon a burning August morning that Launcelot Darrell 
 declared himself to Eleanor Vane. The two girls had been 
 sitting to him for a picture, — Eleanor as Rosalind, and Laura as 
 Ceha, — a pretty feminine group. Rosalind in her womanly 
 robes, and not her forester's dress of grey and green ; for the 
 painter had chosen the scene in which CeHa promises to share 
 her cousin's exile. 
 
 This picture was to be exMbited at the Academy, and was to 
 make Mr. Darrell's fortune. Laura had been called from the 
 room to attend to some important business with a dressmaker 
 from Windsor, and Eleanor and Launcelot were alone. 
 
 The young man went on painting for some time, and then, 
 throwing down his brush with a gesture of impatience, went 
 over to the window near which Eleanor sat, on a raised platform 
 covered with a shabby drapery of red baize. 
 
 " Do you think the picture will be a success, Miss Vincent?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Oh yes, I think so, and hope so; but I am no judge, you 
 know." 
 
 " Your judgment must be as good as the pul^lic judgment, I 
 should think," Launcelot Darrell answered, rather impatiently. 
 " The critics will try to write me down, I dare say, but I don't 
 look to the critics to buy my picture. They'll call me crude and 
 meretricious, and hard and cold, and thin and grey, I've no doubt; 
 but the best picture, to my mind, is the pictm-e that sells best, 
 eh, Miss Vincent?" 
 
 Eleanor lifted her arched eyebrows with a look of surprise; 
 this very low view of the question rather jarred upon her sense 
 »f the dignity of art. 
 
 " I suppose you think my sentiments very mercenary and con- 
 temptible. Miss Vincent," said the painter, interjDreting the ex- 
 »*i«e8sion of her face ; " but I have Uved out the romance of my
 
 Like the Memory of a Dream. 158 
 
 life ; or one part of that romance, at any rate ; and have no very 
 ardent aspiration after greatness in the aljstract. I want to 
 eani money. The need of money drives men into almost every 
 folly ; further, sometimes : into folUes that touch upon the verge 
 of crime." 
 
 The young man's face darkened suddenly as he spoke. He 
 was silent for a few moments, not looking at his companion, but 
 away out of the open window into vacancy, as it seemed. 
 
 The memory of Gilbert Monckton's words flashed back upon 
 Eleanor's mind. " There is a secret in Launcelot Darrell's life," 
 the lawyer had said ; " a secret connected with his Indian expe- 
 rience." Was he thinking of that secret now, Eleanor wondered. 
 But the painter's face brightened almost as suddenly as it had 
 been overshadowed. He Hung back his head \vith an impetuous 
 gesture. It seemed almost as if he had cast some imaginary 
 burden from off his shoulders by that sudden movement. 
 
 " I want to earn money, Miss Vincent," he said. " Art, in the 
 abstract is very grand, no doubt. I quite believe in the man who 
 etabljed liis model in order to get the death-agony for his picture 
 of the Crucifixion ; but I must make art subservient to my own 
 necessities. I must earn money for myself and my wife, Eleanor. 
 I might marry a rich woman, perhaps, but I want to marry a 
 poor one. Do you think the girl I love wiU hsten to me, 
 Eleanor ? Do you think she will accept the doubtful future I 
 ■can offer her ? Do you think she will be brave enough to share 
 the fortunes of a strugghng man?" 
 
 Nothing could be more heroic tian the tone in which Launcelot 
 Darrell sjioke. He had the air of a man who means to strive, 
 with the sturdy devotion of a martjT, to ^A^in the end of his 
 ambition, rather than that of a sanguine but vacillating young 
 gentleman who would be ready to fling himself down under the 
 influence of the first moment of despondency, and live upon the 
 proceeds of the pawning of hia watch, while his unfinished 
 picture rotted upon the canvas. 
 
 He had something of George Vane's nature, perhaps ; that 
 fatally hopeful temperament common to men who are for ever 
 going to do great things, and for ever failing to achieve even the 
 emallest. He was one of those men who are perpetually deluding 
 other people by the force of their power of self-delusion. 
 
 Self-deluded and mistaken now, it was scarcely strange if he 
 deceived Eleanor Vane, who was carried away by the impetuous 
 torrent of words in which he told her that he' loved her, and that 
 the future happiness of his life depended upon the fiat which 
 must issue from her Hps. 
 
 Only very faltering accents came from those tremulous Hps. 
 Miss Vane was not in love; she was only be^vildered. and 
 perhaps a Httle bewitched, by the painter's vehemence. He waa
 
 154 Eleanor'g Victory. 
 
 the first young, elegant, handsome, and accomplished man witli 
 whom she had ever been throAvn much in contact. It is scarcely 
 wonderful, then, if this inexperienced girl of eighteen was a 
 little influenced by the ardour of his admiration — by the elo- 
 quence of his wild talk. 
 
 She had risen from her seat in her agitation, and stood with 
 her back to the sunht window, trembling and blushing before 
 her lover. 
 
 Launcelot DarreU was not slow to draw a flattering inference 
 from these signs of womanly confusion. 
 
 " You love me, Eleanor," he said ; " yes, you love me. Yon 
 think, perhaps, my mother would oppose our marriage. You 
 don't know me, dearest, if you can believe I would suffer any 
 opposition to come between me and my love. I am ready to 
 make any sacrifice for your sake, Eleanor. Only tell me that 
 you love me, and I shall have a new purpose in life j a new 
 motive for exertion." 
 
 Mr. DarreU held the girl's two hands clasped in both his own, 
 as he pleaded thus, using hackneyed phrases with a vehement 
 earnestness that gave new hie to the old words. His face was 
 close to Eleanor's, with the broad hght of the sunny summer sky 
 full upon it. Some sudden fancy — some vague idea, dim and 
 indistinct as the faint memory of a dream whose details we strive 
 vainly to recall — flashed into the mind of George Vane's orphan 
 daughter as she looked into her lover's black eyes. She recoiled 
 from him a Uttle ; her eyebrows contracted into a shght frown : 
 her blushes faded out with the efibrt which she made to seize 
 upon and analyze that sudden fancy. But her efibrt was vain : 
 transient as a gleam of summer hghtning the thought had 
 flashed across her brain, only to melt utterly away. 
 
 "While she was still trying to recall that lost idea, while 
 Launcelot DarreU was still pleading for an answer to his suit, 
 the door of the painting-room was pushed open — it had beea 
 left ajar by volatUe Miss Mason, most likely — and the widow 
 entered, pale, stem, and sorrowful-looking. 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 RECOGNITION. 
 
 " I THOUGHT Laura was with you," Mrs. DarreU said, rather 
 sharply, as she scrutinized Eleanor's face with no very friendly 
 eyes. 
 
 " She was with us until a few minutes ago," Launcelot an- 
 Bwered, carelessly ; " but she was caUed away to see a milliner of 
 a dressmaker, or some such important personage in the feminine 
 decorative art Hne. I don't beheve that young lady's soul ever
 
 JRecognition. 155 
 
 soars above laces and ribbons, and all those miscellaneotis 
 fripperies wbich women dignity by the generic title of theit 
 ♦ things ! '" 
 
 Mrs. Darrell frowned at her son's contemptuous allusion to 
 the heiress. 
 
 "Laura Mason is a very anaiable and accomphshed girl," she 
 said. 
 
 The young man shrugged his shoulders, and took up his 
 palette and brushes, 
 
 " Will you settle yourself once more in the Rosalind attitude. 
 Miss Vincent? " he said. "I suppose our volatile CeUa will be 
 back presently." 
 
 " Will you go and look for her, Launcelot P " interposed Mrs. 
 Darrell; "I want to speak to Miss Vincent." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell flung down his brushes, and turned suddenly 
 towards his mother with a look of angry defiance in his face. 
 
 " What have you to say to Miss Vincent that jow can't say 
 before me ? " he asked. " What do you mean, mother, by break- 
 ing in upon us like this, and scowling at us as if we were a 
 couple of conspirators ? " 
 
 Mrs. Darrell drew herself to her fullest height, and looked 
 half sternly, half contemptuously at her son. His nature, in 
 every quahty weaker and meaner than her own, promp-ted him 
 to shrink from any open contest with her. Dearly as she 
 loved this selfish, handsome scapegrace, there were times in 
 which her better sense revolted against the weakness of her 
 affection ; and at such times Launcelot Darrell was afraid ot 
 his mother. 
 
 " I have a great deal to say to Miss Vincent," the widow 
 answered, gravely. " If you refuse to leave us together, I have 
 no doubt Miss Vincent will have the good taste to come else- 
 where with me." 
 
 Eleanor looked up, startled by the suppressed passion in the 
 Vfidow's tone. 
 
 "I will come with you anywhere, Mrs. Darrell," she said, "if 
 yoii wish to speak to me." 
 
 " Come this way, then." 
 
 Mrs. Darrell swept out of the room, and Eleanor followed. 
 Ler, before the young man had any opportunity for remon- 
 strance. The widow led the way to the pretty chamber in 
 which Miss Vane slept, and the two women went in together, 
 Mrs. Darrell shutting the door behind her. 
 
 " Miss Vincent," she said, taking Eleanor's hand in her own, 
 " I am going to appeal to you more frankly than one woman 
 often appeals to another. I might diplomatize and plot against 
 you, but I am not base enough for that ; though, I dare say, I 
 eould stoop to a good deal that is despicable for the sake of vay
 
 156 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 jon. And, again, I have so good an opinion of you tliat I think 
 candour will be the wiser policy. My son has asked you to be 
 his wife." 
 
 "Madam," stammered Eleanor, looking aghast at the pale 
 face, wliich had an almost tragic aspect in its earnestness. 
 
 " Yes, I told you just now that I could do despicable things 
 for my son's sake. I was passing the door while Launcelot was 
 talking to you. The door was ajar, you know. I heard a few 
 words, enough to tell me the subject upon which he was speak- 
 ing ; and I stopped to hear more. I hstened, Miss Vincent. It 
 was very contemptible, was it not ? " 
 
 Eleanor was silent. She stood before the widow, looking down 
 npon the ground. The colour came and went in her face ; she 
 was agitated and confused by what had happened ; but in all 
 her agitation and confusion the memory of that sudden fancy 
 that had flashed across her brain while Launcelot Darrell talked 
 to her was uppermost in her mind. 
 
 " You despise me for my conduct. Miss Yincent," said Mrs. 
 Darrell, reading the meaning of the girl's silence ; " but the day 
 may come in which you may experience a mother's anguish; the 
 brooding care, the unceasing watchfulness, the feverish, all- 
 devouring anxiety which only a mother can feel._ If that day 
 ever comes, you will be able to forgive me ; to think mercifully 
 of me, I do not complain of my son ; I never have complained 
 of him. But I suffer ; I sufier. I see him holding no place in 
 the world, despised by prosperous and successful men, with a 
 wasted youth behind him and a blank future before. I love 
 him ; but I am not deceived in him. The day for all deception 
 is past. He will never be rich or prosperous by any act of his 
 own. There are but two chances for him : the chance of inherit- 
 ing my uncle's fortune, or the chance of marrying a rich woman. 
 I speak very frankly, you see. Miss Yincent, and I expect equal 
 candour from you. Do you love my son ? " 
 
 "Madam— Mrs. Darrell— I ;-" 
 
 " You would not answer him just now ; I ask yon to answer 
 me. The prosperity of his future life hangs upon your reply. 
 I know that he miglit marry a girl who does love him ; and who 
 can bring him a fortune which will place him in the position he 
 ought to occupy. Be generous, Mss Vincent. I ask you to 
 tell me the truth. That is the least you can do. _ Do you love 
 my son, Launcelot Darrell ? Do you love him with your whole 
 heart and soul, as I love him ? " 
 
 Eleanor lifted her head suddenly, and looked full in the widow's 
 face. 
 
 " No, madam," she answered, proudly, " I do not. 
 
 " Thank God for that ! Even if you had loved him, I would 
 oot have shruiik from asking you to sacrifice yourself for hia
 
 Becofjnition. 157 
 
 happiness. As it is, I appeal to you without hesitation. "Will 
 you leave this place ; wUl you leave me mj so», vnth. the chance 
 of planning his future after my o\vn fashion ? " 
 
 " I will, Mrs. Darrell," Eleanor said, earnestly. " I thought, 
 perhaps, tiU to-day — I may have fancied that I — I mean that I 
 was flattered by your son's attention, and perhaps beheved I 
 loved him a Uttle," the girl murmured, shyly ; " but I know now 
 that I have been mistaken. Perhaps it is the truth and intensity 
 of your love that shows me the shallowness and falsehood of 
 mj own. I remember how I loved my father," — her eyes filled 
 with tears as she spoke, — " and, looking back at my feelings for 
 him, I know that I do not love Mr. DarreU. It ■will be much 
 better for me to go away. I shall be sorry to leave Laura — 
 sorry to leave Hazlewood ; for I have been very happy here — too 
 happy perhaps. I will write to your son, and tell liim that I 
 leave this place of my own free will." 
 
 "Thank you, my dear," the widow said, warmly; " m/ son 
 would be very hard with me if he thought that my influence 
 had been the means of thwarting any whim of his. I know him 
 well enough to know that this sentiment, like every other senti- 
 ment of his, will not endure for ever. He will be angry, and 
 offended, and wounded by your departure ; but he will not break 
 his heart, Miss Vincent." 
 
 "Let me go away at once, Mrs. Darrell," said Eleanor; "it 
 will be better for me to go at once. I can return to my friends 
 in London. I have saved some money while I have been with 
 you, and I shaU not go back to them penniless." 
 
 " You are a generous and noble-hearted girl ! It shall be my 
 care to provide you with at least as good a home as you have had 
 here. I am not selfish enough to forget how much I have asked 
 of you." 
 
 " And you will let me go at once. I would rather not see 
 Laura, or say good-bye to her ; we have grown so fond of each 
 other. I never had a sister — at least never an aff'ectionate sister 
 — and Laura has been hke one to me. Let me go away quietly 
 ■without seeing her, Mrs. Dan-ell ; I can ■write to her from London 
 to say good-bye." 
 
 " You shall do just as you Hke, my dear," the ■widow answerea. 
 " I will drive you over ■to Windsor in time for the four o'clock 
 train, and you \vl11 get into to'wn before dark. I must go now 
 and see what my son is doing. If he should suspect " 
 
 " He shall suspect nothing till I am gone," said Eleanor. 
 " It is past one o'clock now, Mrs. DarreU, and I must pack all 
 my things. Will you keep Laura out of my room, please, for 
 if she came here, she'd guess ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I'll go and see — I'll make all arrangements." 
 
 Mrs DarreU hurried out of the room, leaving Eleanor to oon*
 
 158 JSleanor*g Vtciory. 
 
 template the sudden change in her position. The girl dragged 
 one of her trunks OTit of a recess in the simply-famished bed- 
 chamber, and, sitting down upon it in a half-despondent attitude, 
 reflected on the unlooked-for break in her existence. Once more 
 ■^he was called upon to disunite herself from the past, and begin, 
 life anew. 
 
 " Am I never to know any rest ? " she thought. " I had grown 
 so accustomed to this place. I shall be glad to see the Signora 
 and Bichard once more ; but Laura, Mr. Monckton, — I wonder 
 whether they will be sorry to lose me P " 
 
 By three o'clock in the afternoon all Eleanor's preparations 
 were completed — her trunks packed, and handed over to the 
 factotum of the Hazlewood establishment, who was to see them 
 safely despatched by luggage-train after the young lady's de- 
 parture. At three o'clock precisely Miss Vincent took her seat 
 beside Mrs. Darrell in the low basket-carriage. 
 
 Circumstances had conspired to favour the girl's unnoticed 
 departure from Hazlewood. Laura Mason had been prostratecj 
 by the intense strain upon her faculties caused by an hour's in- 
 terview with her dressmaker, and had flung herself upon the 
 sofa in the drawing-room, after sopping up half a pint of eau-de- 
 cologne on her flimsy handkerchief. Worn out by her exertions, 
 and lulled by the summer heat, the young lady had fallen into a 
 heavy slumber of two or three hours' duration. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell had left the house almost immediately after 
 the scene in the painting-room, striding out of the hall without 
 leaving any intimation as to the direction in which he was going 
 or the probable hour of his return. 
 
 Thus it was that the httle pony-carriage drove quietly away 
 from the gates of Hazlewood; and Eleanor left the house in 
 which she had Kved for upwards of a year without any one 
 caring to question her as to the cause of her departure. 
 
 Very few words were said by either Mrs. DaiTell or her com- 
 panion during the drive to Wmdsor. Eleanor was absorbed in 
 gloomy thought. She did not feel any intense grief at leaving 
 Hazlewood ; but some sense of desolation, some desjaondency, at 
 the thought that she was a wanderer on the face of the earth, 
 with no real claim upon any one, no actual right to rest anywhere. 
 They drove into Windsor while she was thinking thus. They 
 had come through the park, and they entered the town by the 
 gateway at the bottom of the hill. They had di-Iven up the lull, 
 and were in the principal street below the castle wall, when Mrs. 
 Darrell uttered an exclamation of surprise. 
 
 " Launcelot ! " she said ; " and we must pass him to get to the 
 Btation. There's no help for it." 
 
 Eleanor looked up. Yes, before the door of one of the princi-
 
 On the Track. 159 
 
 pal hotels stood Mr. Launcelot Darrell, with two other young 
 men. One of these men was talking to him, but he was paying 
 very Uttle attention. He stood upon the ed^e of the kerbstone, 
 with his back half turned to his companion, kicking the pebbles on 
 the road with the toe of his boot, and staring moodily before him. 
 
 In that one moment, — in the moment in which the ponv- 
 carriage, going at full speed, passed the young man, — the thought 
 which had flashed, so vague and indistinct, so transient and in- 
 tangible, through the mind of Eleanor Vane that morning, took 
 a new shape, and arose palpable and vivid in her brain. 
 
 This man, Launcelot Darrell, was the sulky stranger who had 
 stood on the Parisian boulevard, kicking the straws upon the 
 kerbstone, and waiting to entrap her father to his ruin. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ON THE TRACK. 
 
 The little pony-carriage drove on to the station ; and Eleanor, 
 like some traveller in a dream, saw the castle walls and turrets, 
 the busy street and hurrying people, spin past her eyes and melt 
 into confusion. She did not know how she entered the railway 
 station, or how she came to be walking quietly up and down the 
 platform with Mrs. Darrell. There was a choking sensation in 
 her dry throat, a bUnding mist before her eyes, and a confusion 
 that was almost terrible to bear in her brain. She wanted to get 
 away — anywhere, so long as it was away from all the world. In 
 the meantime she walked up and down the platform, with Laun- 
 celot Darrell's mother by her side. 
 
 " I am mad," she thought, " I am mad ! It cannot he so !"_ 
 Again and again, in the course of Eleanor Vane's brief associ- 
 ation with the widow's son, something, — some fancy, some 
 shadowy recollection, vagiie and impalpable as the faintest clouds 
 in the summer sky above Hazlewood — had flitted across her 
 mind, only to be blotted away before she could even try to define 
 or understand it. But now these passing fancies all culminated 
 in one conviction. Launcelot Darrell was the man whom she 
 had seen lounging on the kerbstone of the boulevard on the 
 night of her last parting with her father. 
 
 In vain she reasoned with herself that she had no justifiable 
 grounds for this conviction — the conviction remained, neverthe- 
 less. The only foundation for her behef that Laimcelot Darrell, 
 from amongst all other men, was the one man whom she sought 
 to pursue, was a resemblance in his attitude, as he stood loung- 
 ing in the Windsor street, to the attitude of the young man on the 
 boulevard. Surely this was the slightest, the weakest founda- 
 tion on which behef ever rested ! Eleanor Vane could acknow- 
 ledge this ; but she could not lessen the force of that beUef.
 
 160 Eleanor's Victory, 
 
 At the very moment when the memory of her father and hei 
 father's death had been farthest from her thoughts, this sudden 
 conviction, rapid and forcible as inspiration, had flashed upon her. 
 The matter was beyond reason, beyond argument. 
 The young man loitering hstlessly upon the kerbstone of the 
 Windsor street was the man who had loitered on the boulevard, 
 waiting, sulkily enough, while his companion tempted George 
 Yane to his destruction. 
 
 It seemed as if the girl's memory, suddenly endowed with a 
 new and subtle power, took her back to that August night in 
 the year '53, and placed her once more face to face with her 
 father's enemy. Once more the dark restless eyes, the pale 
 cowering face and moustachioed lip, overshadowed by the 
 slouched hat, flashed upon her for a moment, before the sulky 
 stranger turned away to keep moody silence throughout hia 
 companion's babble. And with that memory of the past was 
 interlinked the face and figure of Launcelot Darrell— so closely 
 that, do what she would, Eleanor Yane could not dissociate the 
 two images. 
 
 And she had suffered this man, of all other men, to tell her 
 that he loved her; she had taken a romantic pleasure in hia 
 devotion. Day after day, and hour after hour, she had been hip 
 companion, sharing his enjoyments, sympathizing with liis pur- 
 suits, admiring and beheving him. This day — this very day — 
 he had held her hand, he had looked in her face ; and the words 
 she had spoken to Richard Thornton had proved only a vain 
 boast after all. No instinct in her own breast had revealed to 
 her the presence of her father's murderer. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell looked furtively every now and then at the girl's 
 face. The iron rigidity of that white face almost startled the 
 widow. Was it the expression of terrible grief restrained by a 
 superhuman eff'ort of will ? 
 
 *' Does this girl love my son, I wonder ? " the widow thought ; 
 and then the answer, prompted by a mother's pride, came 
 quickly after the question : " Yes, how coidd she do otherwise 
 than love him ? How could any woman on earth be indiffere^* 
 to my boy ? " 
 
 Something almost akin to pity stirred faintly in the heart 
 which was so cold to every creature upon earth except this 
 spoiled and prodigal son ; and Mrs. Darrell did her best to coio- 
 fort the banished girl. 
 
 " I am afraid you are ill, my dear Miss Yincent," the widow 
 said. " The excitement of this sudden departure has been toe 
 much for you. Pray, my dear, do not think that I submit to 
 this necessity without very great regret. You have given me 
 perfect satisfaction in everything you have done ever since you 
 entered my house. No praises I can bestow upon you in
 
 On tie TracJc. 161 
 
 recommending you to a new home will go beyond the truth. 
 Forgive me ! Forgive me, my poor child ; I know I must seem 
 very cruel ; but I love my son so dearly — I love him so dearly !" 
 
 There was real feeling in the tone in which these words were 
 Jipoken; but the widow's voice sounded far away to Eleanor 
 V ane, and the words had no meaning. The girl turned her 
 etony face towards the speaker, and made a feeble effort to 
 luiderstand what was said to her ; but all power of comprehen- 
 fiion seemed lost in the confusion of her brain. 
 
 " I want to get back to London," she said, " I want to get 
 away from this place. WiU it be long before the train starts, 
 Mrs. DarreU?" 
 
 " Not five minutes. I have put up your money in this 
 envelope, my dear — a quarter's salary; the quarter began in 
 June, you know, and I have paid you up to September. I have 
 paid tor your ticket also, in order that your money might not 
 oe broken into by that expense. Your luggage -will be sent to 
 you to-morrow. You will get a cab at the station, my dear, 
 xour friends will be very much surprised to see you, no doubt." 
 
 " My friends ! " repeated Eleanor, in an absent tone. 
 
 "Yes, the good music-mistress and her son. I have your 
 address, Miss Vincent, and you may rely on hearing from me in 
 a few days. I shall take care that you suffer no inconvenience 
 from this sudden change in all our plans. Good-bye ; and God 
 bless you, my dear ! " 
 
 Eleanor had taken her seat in the carriage by this time, and 
 the train was about to move. Mrs. Darrell held out her hand ; 
 but the girl drew away from her with a sudden movement of 
 terror. " Oh, please do not shake hands with me ! " she cried. 
 " I am very, very unhappy ! " 
 
 The train moved away before the widow could reply to this 
 strange speech ; and the last thing that Eleanor saw was the 
 pale face of Launcelot Darrell's mother turned towards her with 
 a look of surprise. 
 
 " Poor child ! " thought Mrs. Darrell, as she walked slowly 
 back to the station door, before which her pony-carriage waited. 
 ■" She feels this very much, but she has acted nobly." 
 
 The widow sighed as she remembered that the worst part of 
 the struggle was yet to come. She would have her son's indig- 
 nation to encounter and to endure — not the stormy passion of 
 a strong man unfairly separated from the woman he loves, but 
 the fretful irritation of a spoiled child who has been robbed of a 
 favourite toy. 
 
 It was nearly dark when Eleanor Yane reached the Pilasters. 
 She paid and dismissed the cab in Dudley Street, and made her 
 way on foot under the familiar archway and into the Coloimade, 
 
 L
 
 162 Meanor's Victory. 
 
 where the same children seemed to be playing the same games 
 in the dusky Ught, the same horses peering from the stable- 
 doors, the same cabmen drinking at the old-fashioned public- 
 house at the comer. 
 
 The Signora was giving a singing-lesson to a stohd young 
 person, with a fat face and freckles, who was being prepared for 
 the lyric drama, and wished to appear at one of the opera- 
 houses as Norma, after a dozen lessons or so. Eliza Picirillo was 
 trying her hardest to simplify a difficult passage for this embryo 
 Grisi's comprehension, when Eleanor Vane opened the door of 
 the Httle sitting-room and appeared upon the tlireshold. 
 
 It would have been natural to the girl to have rushed to the 
 piano and flung herself into the arms of the Signora at the risk 
 of upsetting the stohd pupU ; and there was something so very 
 ttwnatural in her manner as she paused in the open doorway, — 
 something so wan and ghosthke in her appearance, that Ehza 
 Picirillo rose from her music-stool in alarm, and stared aghast at 
 this unexpected visitor. 
 
 " Eleanor ! " she exclaimed, " Eleanor ! " 
 
 " Yes, dear Signora, it is I ! I— I know I have come back 
 very unexpectedly ; I have a great deal to tell you by-and-by. 
 But I am tired to death. May I sit down, please, while yon 
 finish your lesson ? " 
 
 " May you sit down ! My darling Nelly ! is that the way you 
 talk in your old home ? My dear, dear child ! do you think you 
 can ever come so unexpectedly as to fad to find a welcome from 
 Eliza Picirillo ? Here, my dear, sit down and make yom-self as 
 comfortable as you can until I'm able to attend to you. Excuse 
 me. Miss Dodson ; we'U go on with tho duet directly." 
 
 The music-mistress wheeled forward an old easy-chair, her own 
 favourite seat, and Eleanor dropped wearily into it. Signora 
 Picirillo removed the girl's bonnet, and tenderly smoothed her 
 tumbled hair ; murmuring expressions of welcome and aflection, 
 and whispering a promise that the lesson should be very soon 
 finished. 
 
 She went back to Norma after seeing Eleanor comfortably 
 ensconced in the arm-chair, and hammered away sturdily and 
 conscientiously at the " Deh, Gonte " duet, in which Miss Dodson 
 gave a very mild interpretation of the Italian composer's mean- 
 xng, and sang about PoUio, her children, and her wrongs, as 
 placidly as if she had been declaiming her wish to be a but- 
 terfly, or a daisy, or any other sentiment common to English 
 Iballad-singers. 
 
 But when Miss Dodson had finished singing, and had put on 
 her bonnet and shawl (which operation occupied a good deal of 
 unnecessary time), and had rolled up her music, and foimd her 
 gloves — which had fallen off the piano and hidden themselves in
 
 On the Track. 1G3 
 
 an obscure and dusty corner of the room, — and had further en- 
 tered uito a detailed and intricate explanation of her engagements 
 and domestic circumstances before making an appointment for 
 the next lesson, and had been finally hustled out of the room 
 and hghted down the stairs, and fully instructed as to the nearest 
 way from the Pilasters to Camden Town, Ehza Picirillo was able 
 to give her full attention to the pale-faced girl who had returned 
 BO suddenly to her old shelter. The music-mistress was almost 
 frightened at the expression of Eleanor Vane's face. She re- 
 membered only too well having seen that look before, upon the 
 September night in Paris, when the girl of fifteen had sworn to 
 be revenged upon her father's enemies. 
 
 " Kelly, my darhng," she said, seating herself beside Eleanor's 
 chair, "how is it that you come home so suddenly ? Nothing 
 could be greater happiness than to have you back, _my dear. But 
 I know that something has happened ; I can see it in your face, 
 Nelly. Tell me, my love, what is it ? " 
 
 "It is nothing to be sorry about, dear Signora ; I have come 
 away because — ^because Mrs. Darrell wished it. Her son— her 
 only son — has come home from India, and she wants him to 
 marry a rich woman, and — and " 
 
 "And he has fallen in love with you, eh, Nelly?" asked the 
 Signora. "Well, I'm not surprised to hear that, my dear; and 
 you are honourable enough to beat a retreat, and leave the young 
 man free to make a mercenary marriage at his mother's bidding. 
 Dear, dear, what strange things people are ready to do formoney 
 now-a-days ! I'm sure you've acted veiy wisely, my darling ; so 
 cheer up, and let me see the bright smile that we've been accus- 
 tomed to. There's nothing in all this to make you look so pale, 
 NeUy." 
 
 "Do I look pale?" 
 
 " Yes, as pale as a ghost weary with a long night's wandering. 
 Nelly, dear," said the Signora, very gently, "you weren't in love 
 with this young man ; you didn't return his affection, did you ?" 
 
 "In love with him!" cried Eleanor Yaue, with a shudder, 
 ** oh ! no, no." 
 
 "And yet you seem sorry at having left Hazlewood?" 
 
 " I am sorry ; I — I had many reasons for wishing to stay there.** 
 
 " You were attached to your companion, Miss Mason ?" 
 
 " Yes, I was very much attached to her," answered Eleanor. 
 " Don't ask me any more questions to-night, dear Signora. I'm 
 tired out with my journey and the excitement of — all — that has 
 happened to-day ; I wiU explain thuigs more fuUy to-morrow. I 
 am glad to come ba<;k to you — very, very glad to see you once 
 more, dearest friend; but I had a strong reason for wishing to 
 stay at Hazlewood, — I have a powerful motive for wanting to go 
 back there, if I could go back, which 7 fear I never can.' The
 
 164 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 girl stopped abruptly, as if absorbed in her own thouglits, and 
 almost unconscious of ber friend's presence. 
 
 " "Well, well, Nelly, I won't question you any further," Eliza 
 Picirillo said, soothingly. "Goodness knows, my dear, I am glad 
 enough to have you with me, without worrying you about the 
 why and the wherefore. But I must go and try and get your 
 little room ready again for you, or perhaps, as it's late, you'd 
 better sleep with me to-night." 
 
 " If you please, dear Signora." 
 
 The music-mistress hurried away to make some preparations 
 in the bedchamber adjoining the httle sitting-room ; and Eleanor 
 Vane sat staring at the guttering tallow-candles on the table 
 before her — lost in the tumult and confusion of her thoughts, 
 which as yet took no distinct form in her brain. 
 
 At the very moment in which she had set a barrier between 
 herself and Hazlewood that might prevent her ever crossing the 
 threshold of its gates, she had made a discovery which rendered 
 that retired country dwelling-house the one spot upon earth to 
 which she had need to have free access. 
 
 " I fancied that I was going away from my revenge when I left 
 London to go into Berkshire," she thought ; " now I le-ave my 
 revenge behxud me at Hazlewood. And yet, how can it be aa I 
 think ? How can it be so ? Launcelot Darrell went to India a 
 year before my father died. Can it be only a bkeness after 
 all — ^an accidental likeness — between that man and Mrs. DarreU's 
 son?" 
 
 She sat thinking of these things — reasoning with herself upon 
 tlie utter improbabihty of the identity of the two men, yet yield- 
 ing again and again to that conviction which had forced itself 
 upon her, sudden and irresistible, in the Windsor street, — ^while 
 the Signora bustled about between the two rooms, stopping to cast 
 a stolen glance now and then at Eleanor Vane's thoughtful face. 
 
 Mr. Richard Thornton came in by-and-by. The Phoenix wag 
 closed as to dramatic performances, but the scene-painter's work 
 never stopped. The young man gave utterance to a cry of 
 deUght as he saw the figure sitting in his aunt's easy-chair. 
 
 " NeU ! " he exclaimed, " has the world come to an end, and 
 have you dropped into your proper position in the general smash! 
 Eleanor, how glad I am to see you !" 
 
 He held out both his hands. Miss Vane rose and, mechanically, 
 put her white fingers in the weatherbeaten-looking palms held 
 out to receive them. 
 
 In that moment the scene-painter saw that something had 
 happened. 
 
 " What's the matter, NeU P " he cried, eagerly. 
 
 •'Hush, Dick," said the girl in a whisper; " I don't want tli« 
 Signora to know."
 
 In the STiiplrolcer' 8 OJfice. 165 
 
 "You don't want the Signora to know wliatP" 
 
 " I have found that man." 
 
 "Whatman?" 
 
 " The man who caused my father's death." 
 
 CHAPTER XXn. 
 
 TS THE SIIIPBKOKEU's OFFICE. 
 
 Eleanor Vane employed the morning after her arrival at the 
 Pilasters in writing to Laura Mason. She would have written a 
 long letter if she could, for she knew what grief her sudden 
 departure must have caused her childish and confiding companion; 
 but she could not write of anything except the one thougnt that 
 absorbed her whole brain, leaving her for the common business 
 of Hfe a purposeless and powerless creature. The explanation 
 which she gave of her sudden departure was lame and laboured ; 
 her expressions of regard were trite and meaningless. It was 
 only when she came to that subject which was the real purpose 
 of her letter ; it was only when she came to ■write of Launcelot 
 Darrell that there was any vigour or reality in her words. 
 
 "I have a favour to ask you, dear Laura," she wrote; "and I 
 must beg you to use your best discretion in granting it. I want 
 you to find out for me the date of Mr. Darrell's departure for 
 Calcutta, and the name of the vessel in which he sailed. Do this, 
 Laura, and you will be serving me — perhaps senmig him also." 
 
 " If I find that he really was in India at the date of my father's 
 death," Eleanor thought, " I must cease to suspect him." 
 
 Later in the day, Miss Vane went out with Richard into the 
 streets and squares in which all their secret conferences had 
 taken place. She told the scene-painter very simply and briefly 
 of what had happened, and poor Dick listened to her story witn 
 a tender respect, as he would have Listened to anything from her. 
 But he shook his head with a sad smile when she had finished. 
 
 " "Wliat do you think now, Richard ? " she asked. 
 
 " I think that you are the dupe of a foolish fancy, Nelly," the 
 young man answered. "You are deceived by some chance 
 resemblance between this Mr. Darrell and the man you saw upon 
 the boulevard. Any dark pale-faced man lounging moodily on a 
 kerbstone would have reminded you of the figure which is so 
 interwoven with the memories of that mournful time in Paris. 
 Forget it, Nelly, my dear — forget that dark chapter in the history 
 of your girlhood. Your father's rest will be none the sweeter 
 because the brightness of your youth is blighted by these bitter 
 memories. Do your duty, Eleanor, in the state to which you 
 are called. You are not called upon to sacrifice the fairest years 
 of your life to a Quixotic scheme of vengeance."
 
 166 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 "Quixotic!" cried Eleanor, reproaclifully ; "yon wotild not 
 speak like this, Richard, if your father had suffered as my 
 father suffered through the villany of a gambler and cheat. It 
 is no use talking to me, Dick," she added, resolutely. " If this 
 conviction, which I cannot get out of my mind, is a false one, 
 its falsehood must be proved. If it is true — why, then, it will 
 seem to me as if Providence had flung this man across my path- 
 way, and that I am appointed to bring punishment upon him 
 for his wickedness." 
 
 " Perhaps, Eleanor, but this Mr. Darrell is not the man." 
 
 " How do you know he is not ? " 
 
 " Because, according to your own account, Launcelot was in 
 India in the year '53." 
 
 " Yes, they say that he was there." 
 
 " Have you any reason to doubt the fact P " asked Eichard. 
 
 "Yes," answered Eleanor. "When Mr. Darrell first returned 
 to Hazlewood, Laura Mason was very anxious to hear all about 
 what she called his ' adventures ' in India. She asked him a 
 great many questions, and I remember — I cannot tell you, 
 Dick, how carelessly I Hstened at the time, though every word 
 comes back to me now as vividly as if I had been a prisoner, on 
 trial for my life, hstening breathlessly to the evidence of the 
 witnesses against me — I remember now how obstinately Laun- 
 celot Darrell avoided all Laura's questions, telling her at last, 
 almost rudely, to change the subject. The next day Mr. Monck- 
 ton came to us, and he talked about India ; and Mr. DaiTcU 
 again avoided the question in the same sullen, disagreeable 
 manner. You may think me weak and foohsh, Richard, and I 
 dare say I am so ; but Mr. Monckton is a very clever man. He 
 could not be easily deceived." 
 
 "But what of him?" 
 
 " He said, ' Launcelot Darrell has a secret ; and that secret is 
 connected with his Indian experiences.' I thonght very little of 
 this at the time, Dick : but I tliink I understand it now." 
 
 " Indeed ! And the young man's secret ? " 
 
 " Is that he never went to India." 
 
 "Eleanor!" 
 
 " Yes, Richard, I think and believe this ; and yon must help 
 me to find out whether I am right or wrong." 
 
 The scene-painter sighed. He had hoped that his beautiful 
 adopted sister had long since abandoned or forgotten her utojiian 
 scheme of vengeance in the congenial society of a gay-hearted 
 girl of her own age. And behold, here she was, vindictive, re- 
 solute, as upon that Sunday evening, a year and a half ago, on 
 which they had walked together in those dingy London streets. 
 
 Eleanor Vane interpreted her companion's sigh. 
 
 " Bemember your promise, Richard," she said. "You pro-
 
 In the Shiphroker's Office. 167 
 
 mieed to serve me, and you must do so — you will do bo, won't 
 
 you, Dick?" 
 
 The avenging fury had transfonned herself into a siren as she 
 
 spoke, and looked archly up at her companion's face, with her 
 
 head on one side, and a soft light in her grey eyes. 
 " You won't refuse to serve me, will you, Richard?" 
 " Eefuse !" cried the young man. " Oh ! NeUy, Nelly, you 
 
 know very well there is nothing in the world I could refuse 
 
 Miss Yane accepted this assurance with great composure. 
 She had never been able to dissociate Richard Thornton with 
 those early days in wliich she had accompanied him to Covent 
 Garden to buy mulberry leaves for his silkworms, and had 
 learned to play " God save the Queen" upon the young musi- 
 cian's violin. Nothing was farther from her thoughts than the 
 idea that poor Dick's feelings could have undergone any change 
 since those cliiklish days in the King's Road, Chelsea. 
 
 The letter which Eleanor so feverishly awaited from Laura 
 Mason came by return of post. The young lady's epistle was 
 very long, and rather rambling in its nature. Three sheets of 
 note-paper were covered with Miss Mason's lamentations for her 
 Eleanor's absence, reproachful complainings against her cruelty, 
 and repeated entreaties that she would come back to Hazle- 
 wood. 
 
 George Yane's daughter did not linger over this feminine mis- 
 sive. A few days ago she would have been touched by Laura's 
 innocent expressions of regard ; now her eyes hun-ied along the 
 lines, taking httle note of aU those simple words of affection and 
 regret, and looking greedily forward to that one only passage in 
 the letter which was likely to have any interest for her. 
 
 This passage did not occur until Eleanor had reached the very 
 last of the twelve pages which Miss Mason had covered with 
 flowing Itahan characters, whose symmetry was here and there 
 disfigured by sundry blots and erasures. But as her eyes rested 
 upon the last page, Eleanor Vane's hand tightened upon the 
 paper in her grasp, and the hot blood rushed redly to her earnest 
 taoe. 
 
 " And I have found out all you want to know, dear Nell,** 
 wrote Miss Mason ; " though I am puzzled out of my wits to 
 know why you should want to know it — when I did exercises 
 in composition at Bayswater, they wouldn't let me put two 
 * knows ' so near together ; but you won't mind it, will you, 
 dear ? Well, darling, I'm not very clever at beating about the 
 bush or finding out anything in a diplomatic way ; so this after- 
 noon at tea — I am writijig to catch the evening post, and Bob 
 is going to take my letters to the village for sixpence — I asked 
 Launcelot Darrell, who was not drinking his tea, b'ke a Chri»
 
 168 jEleanor's Victory. 
 
 tian, but lolling in the window, smoking a cigar : he has been a® 
 Bulky as a bear ever since you left — oh, Nelly, Nelly, he isn't in love 
 with you, is he ? — I should break my heart if I thought he was 
 — I asked him, point-blank, what year and what day he sailed 
 for India. I suppose the question sounded rather impertinent, 
 for he coloured up scarlet all in a minute, and shrugged Ids 
 ehoulders in that dear disdainful way of his that always reminds 
 me of Lara or the Corsair — L. and the C. were the same person, 
 though, weren't they ? — and said, ' I don't keep a diary, Misa 
 Mason, or I should be happy to afford you any information you 
 may require as to my antecedents.' I thought I should have 
 dropped through the floor, Nelly, — the floor won't let one drop 
 through it, or else I am sure I should, — and I couldn't have 
 asked another question, even for your sake, dear; when, strange 
 to say, Mrs. DaiTell got me quite out of the difficulty. ' I am 
 sorry you should answer Laura so very unkindly, Launcelot, 
 she said ; ' there is nothing strange in her question. I remembef 
 the date of your departure from your native country only too 
 vividly. You left tins house upon the 3rd of October, '52, and 
 you were to sail from Gravesend on the 4th, in the Princess: 
 Alice. I have reason to remember the date, for it seemed as if 
 my uncle chose the very worst season of the year for sending 
 you upon a long sea- voyage. But he was prompted, no doubt» 
 Dy my sisters. I ought to feel no anger against him, poor old 
 man!'" 
 
 Eleanor Vane glanced hurriedly at the concluding words of 
 the letter. Then, with the last sheet crumpled in her hand, she 
 sat motionless and absorbed, thinking over its contents. 
 
 " If Launcelot Darrell sailed for India upon the 4th of Oc- 
 tober, '52, he is not Hkely to have been in Paris in '53. If I 
 can only prove to myself that he did sail upon that date, I wiU 
 try and believe that I have been deluded by some foohsh fancy 
 of my own. But why did his face flush scarlet when Laura 
 questioned him about his voyage ? — why did he pretend to have 
 forgotten the date ? " 
 
 Eleanor waited impatiently for the arrival of her friend and 
 counsellor, Richard Thornton. He came in at about three o'clock 
 in the afternoon, while his aunt was still absent amongst her out- 
 of-door pupils, and flung himself, jaded and worn out, on the 
 chintz-covered sofa. But, tired as he was, he aroused himself 
 by an effort to listen to that portion of Laura Mason's letter 
 which related to Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 " What do you think now, Dick ? " Miss Vane asked, when 
 ehe had finished reading. 
 
 " Pretty much what I thought before, Nell," answered Mr. 
 Thornton. " This young fellow's objection to talk of his Indian 
 voyage is no proof that he never went upon that voyage. He
 
 In the SMpbroher's Office. 169 
 
 may have half-a-dozen unpleasant recollections connected vrith 
 that part of his life. I don't particularly care about talking of 
 the Phoenix ; but I never committed a murder in the obscurity 
 of the flies, or buried the body of my victim between the stage 
 and the mezzanine floor. People have their secrets, Nell ; and w» 
 have no right to pry into the small mysteries which may lurk 
 under a change of countenance or an impatient word." 
 
 Eleanor Vane took very little notice of the young man's argu- 
 ment. 
 
 " Can you find out if Launcelot Darrell sailed in the Princea$ 
 Alice, Dick?" she added. 
 
 The scene-painter nabbed his chin reflectively. 
 
 " I can try and find out, my dear," he said, after a pause , 
 "that's open to anybody. The Princess Alice ! She's one of 
 Ward's sliips, I tliink. If the shipbrokers are incUned to be 
 civil, they'll perhaps help me; but I have no justification for 
 bothering them upon the subject, and they may tell me to go 
 about my business. If I could give them a good reason for my 
 making such an inquiry, I might very likely find them willing 
 to help me. But what can I tell them — except that a very 
 beautiful young person with grey eyes and auburn hair has 
 taken an absurd crotchet into her obstinate head, and that I, 
 her faithful slave, am compelled to do her bidding ? " 
 
 *' Never mind what they say to you, Richard," Miss Vane 
 replied, authoritatively ; " they must answer your question if 
 you only go on asking them long enough." 
 
 Mr. Thornton smiled. 
 
 " That's the true feminine method of obtaining information ; 
 isn't it, Nell ? " he said. " However, I'll do my best : and if tha 
 shipbrokers are to be ' got at,' as sporting gentlemen say, it 
 shall go hard if I don't get a hst of the passengers who sailed 
 in the Princess Alice." 
 
 " Dear, dear Dick !" cried Eleanor, holding out both her handg 
 to her champion. Tlie young man sighed. Alas ! he knew 
 only too well that all this prettv friendliness was as far away 
 from any latent tenderness or hidurn emotion as the blusterous 
 frozen North is from the splendid sunny South. 
 
 " I wonder whether she knows what love is," thought the 
 scene-painter ; " I wonder whether her heart has been touched 
 ever so shghtly by the fatal emotion. No; she is a bright 
 virginal creature, all confidence and candour, and she has yet to 
 learn the mysteries of hfe. I -wish I could think less of hej 
 and fall in love with Miss Montalembert — her name is plai' 
 Lambert, and she has added the Monta for the sake of euphony. 
 I wish I could fall in love with Lizzie Lambert, popularly known 
 as Ehse Montalembert, the soubrette at the Phoenix. She is a 
 good Uttle gii-1, and earns a salary of four pounds a week. She's-
 
 170 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 fond of tlie Signqra, too, and we could leave tlie Pilasters and 
 go into housekee^Mng upon our joint salaries." 
 
 Mr. Thornton's fancies might have rambled on in this wise for 
 some time, but he was abruptly aroused from his reverie by 
 Eleanor Vane, who had been watching him rather impatiently. 
 
 ""When are you going to the shipbroker's, Dick p" she asked. 
 
 •' Wlien am I going ? " 
 
 " Yes ; you'll go at once, won't you ? " 
 
 " Eh ! Well, my dear Nell, ComhiU's a good step from here." 
 
 "But you can take a cab," cried the young lady. "I've 
 plenty of money, Dick, and do you think I shall grudge it for 
 such a purpose ? Go at once, Eichard, dear, and take a cab." 
 
 She pulled a purse from her pocket, and tried to force it into 
 the young man's hand ; but he shook his head. 
 
 " I'm afraid the shipbroker's office would be closed, Nelly," 
 he said. " We'd better wait till to-morrow morning." 
 
 But_ the young lady would not hear of this. She was sure 
 the shijibroker's office wouldn't close so early, she said, with as 
 much authority as if she had been intimately acquainted with 
 the habits of shipbrokers; and she bustled Dick down stairs 
 and out of the house before he well knew where he was. 
 
 He returned in about an hour and a half, very tired and 
 dusty ; having preferred his independence and an omnibus to 
 the cab offered by Eleanor. 
 
 " It's no use, Nelly," he said despondently, as he threw off hia 
 hat, and ran his dirty fingers through the rumpled shock of dusty 
 brown hair that had been blown about his face by the hot August 
 wind, "the office was just closing, and I couldn't get anything 
 out of the clerks. I was never so cruelly snubbed in my Ufe." 
 
 Miss Vane looked very much disappointed, and was silent for 
 a minute or so. Then her face suddenly brightened, and she 
 patted Eichard's shoulder with a gesture expressive of patronage 
 and encouragement. 
 
 " Never mind, Dick," she said, smilingly, " you shall go again 
 to-morrow morning early ; and I'll go with you. We'll see if 
 these shipbroker's clerks will snub me.'" 
 ^ " Snub you ! " cried Eichard Thornton, in a rapture of admira- 
 tion. " I thmk that, of all the members of the human family, 
 paid officials are the most unpleasant and repulsive ; but I don't 
 think there's a clerk in Christendom who could snub you, Misa 
 Vane." ^ 
 
 Eleanor smiled. Perhaps for the first time in her life the 
 young lady was guilty of a spice of that feminme sin called 
 coquetry. Her boxes had arrived from Hazlewood upon the 
 previous evening. _ She was armed, therefore, with all those 
 munitions of war without which a woman can scarcely commence 
 a siege upon the fortress of man's indifference.
 
 In the ShipbroTcer' s Office. 171 
 
 She rose early the next morning — for she was too much 
 absorbed in the one great jiurpose of her life to be able to sleep 
 very long or very soundly — and arrayed herself for a visit to the 
 shipbroker. 
 
 She put on a bonnet of pale blue crape, which was to be the 
 «hief instrument in the siege — a feminine battering-ram or Arm- 
 strong gun before which the stoutest wall must have crumbled 
 — and smoothed her silken locks, her soft amber-dropping 
 *resses, under this framework of diaphanous azure. Then she 
 ficnt into the UttJe sitting-room whore Mr. Richard Thornton 
 was loitering over his breakfast, to try the effect of this piece of 
 milUner's artillery upon the unhappy young man. 
 
 "Will the clerks snub me, Dick?" she asked, archly. 
 
 The scene-painter rephed with his mouth full of eg^ and 
 bread-and-butter, and was more enthusiastic than intelligible. 
 
 A four-wheel cab jolted Miss Vane and her companion to 
 Comhill, and the yoimg lady contrived to make her way into 
 the sanctum-sanctorum of the shipbroker himself, in a manner 
 which took Richard Thornton's breath away from him, in the 
 fervour of his admiration. Every barrier gave way before the 
 blue bonnet and glistening auburn hair, the bright grey eyes 
 and friendly smile. Poor Dick had ajij^roached the officials with 
 that air of suppressed enmity and lurking hate with which the 
 Enghshman generally addresses his brother Englishman; but 
 Eleanor's friendliness and famiharity disarmed the stoniest of 
 the clerks, and she was conducted to the shipbroker's private 
 room by an usher who bowed before her as if she had been a 
 queen. 
 
 The young lady told her story very simply, She wished to 
 ascertain if a gentleman called Launcelot Darrell had sailed in 
 the Princess Alice on the 4th of October, '52. 
 
 This was all she said. Richard Thornton stood by, fingering 
 difficult passages in his last overture on the brim of his hat, out 
 of sheer perturbation of spirit, while he wondered at and admired 
 Miss Vane's placid assurance. 
 
 "I shall be extremely obliged if you can give me this informa- 
 tion," she said in conclusion, "for a great deal depends upon my 
 being able to ascertain the truth in this matter." 
 
 The shipbroker looked through his spectacles at the earnest 
 face turned so trustingly towards his own . He was an old man, 
 with granddaiighters as tall as Eleanor, but was nevertheless 
 not utterly dead to the influence of a beautiful face. The 
 auburn hair and diaphanous bonnet made a bright spot of colour 
 in the dinginess of his dusty office. 
 
 " I should be very ungallant were I to refuse to serve a young 
 lady," the old man said, pohtely. — " Jarvis," he added, turning 
 to the clerk who had conducted Eleanor to his apartment, " do
 
 172 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 you think you could contrive to look up tlie list of passengers 
 m the Princess Alice, October 4, '62?" 
 
 Mr. Jarvis, who had told Richard to go about his business 
 upon the day before, said he had no doubt he could, and went 
 away to perform this errand. 
 
 Eleanor's breath grew short and quick, and her colour rose as 
 she waited for the clerk's return. Richard executed impossible 
 passages on the brim of his hat. The shipbroker watched the 
 girl's face, and drew his own deductions from the flutter of 
 agitation Adsible in that bright countenance. 
 
 "Aha!" he thought, "a love affair, no doubt. This pretty 
 girl in the blue bonnet has come here to look after a runaway 
 sweetheart." 
 
 The clerk returned, carrying a ledger, with his thumb between 
 two of the leaves. He opened the uninteresting-looking volume, 
 and laid it on the table before his employer, pointing with his 
 Bpare forefinger to one particular entry. 
 
 *' A berth was taken for a Mr. Launcelot Darrell, who was to 
 share his cabin with a Mr. Thomas Halliday," the shipbroker 
 said, looking at the passage to which the clerk pointed. 
 
 Eleanor's face crimsoned. She had wronged the widow's son, 
 then, after all. 
 
 " But the name was crossed out afterwards," continued the 
 old man, " and there's another entry farther down, dated 
 October 5th, The ship sailed without Mr. Darrell." 
 
 The crimson flush faded out of Eleanor's face and left it deadly 
 pale. She tottered a few paces towards the table, with her hand 
 stretched out, as if she would have taken the book from the ship- 
 broker and examined the entry for herself. But midway between 
 the chair she had left and the table, her strength failed her, and 
 she would have fallen if Richard Thornton had not dashed hii 
 hat upon the ground, and caught her sinking figure in his out* 
 stretched arms. 
 
 "Dear me!" exclaimed the shipbroker, "bless my soul: a 
 glass of water, Jarvis ; this is very sad, very sad, indeed. A run- 
 away lover, I suppose, or a brother, perhaps. These sort of 
 things are always happening. I assure you, if I had the gift 
 that some of you young peoj^le have, I could write half-a-dozea 
 romances out of the history of this office." 
 
 The clerk came back with the glass of water ; it was rather a 
 murky-looking fluid, but a few drops between Eleanor's pale Hps 
 served to bring the fife back to her. 
 
 She hfted her head with the proud resolution of a queen, and 
 looked at the compassionate shipbroker with a strange smile. 
 She had heard the old man's suppositions about lovers and 
 brothers. How far away his simple fancy led him from tha 
 bitter truth !
 
 Resolved. 17S 
 
 She held out her hand to him as she rose from her chair, erect 
 and dauntless as a fair-haired Joan of Arc, ready to gird on the 
 Bword in defence of her king and country. 
 
 " I thank you very much, sir," she said, " for what you have 
 done for me to-day. My father was an old man — as old or older 
 perhaps than yourself; and he died a very cruel death. I 
 oeheve that your kindness of this day will help me to avenge 
 him." 
 
 CHAPTER XXni 
 
 KESOLVED. 
 
 Latjncelot Darrell had not sailed for Calcutta in the 
 Princess Alice. This point once estabUshed, it was utterly vain 
 for Richard Thornton to argue against that indomitable beUef 
 which had taken possession of Eleanor Yane's mind, respecting 
 the identity between the man who had won her father's money 
 at ecarte, and Mrs. Darrell's only son. 
 
 " I tell you, Richard," she said, when the scene-painter 
 argued ^vith her, " that nothing but proof positive of Launcelot 
 Darrell's absence in India at the date of my father's death would 
 have dispossessed me of the idea that flashed upon me on the 
 day I left Berkshire. He was not in India at that time. He 
 deceived his mother and his friends. He remained in Europe ; 
 and led, no doubt, an idle, dissipated hfe. He must have Uved 
 by his wits, for he had no money from his mother — no one to 
 help him — no profession to supjDort him. "What is more Hkely 
 than that he went to Paris, — the paradise of scoundrels, I have 
 heard you say, Richard, — under an assumed name ? What more 
 likely ? Why, he was there ! The man I saw on the boulevard, 
 and the man I saw in the Windsor street, are one and the same. 
 You cannot argue me out of that conviction, Richard Thornton, 
 for it is the truth. It is the truth, and it shall be the business 
 of my life to prove that it is so." 
 
 " And what then, Eleanor ? " Mr. Thornton asked, gravely. 
 * Supposing you can prove this ; by such evidences as will be 
 very difficult to get at — by such an investigation as wiLl waste 
 your hfe, bhght your girlhood, warp your nature, unsex your 
 mind, and transform you from a candid and confiding woman 
 into an amateur detective. Suppose you do all this, — and you 
 little guess, my dear, the humiliating falsehoods, the pitiful 
 deceptions, the studied basenesses, you must practise if you are 
 to tread that sinuous pathway, — what then? What good is 
 effected; what end is gained? Are you any nearer to the 
 accomplishment of the vow you uttered in the Rue de I'Arche- 
 veque ? '* 
 
 " What do you mean, Richard ? "
 
 174 'Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " I mean tliat to prove tliis man's guilt is not to avenge joxa 
 father's death. Neither you nor the law has any power to punish 
 hiin. He may or may not have cheated your poor father. At 
 this distance of time you can prove nothing ; except that he 
 played ecarte in the private room of a cafe, and that he won all 
 your father's money. He would only laugh in your face, my 
 poor Nelly, if you were to bring such a charge as this against 
 
 " If I can once prove that, which I now believe as firmly as if 
 every mortal proof had demonstrated its truth, I know how to 
 Tjunish Launcelot DaiTell," replied the girl. 
 
 " You know how to punish him ? " 
 
 ' Yes. His imcle — that is to say, his great-uncle — Maurice 
 arf Crespigny, was my father's firmest friend. I need not tell 
 you that story, Dick, for you have heard it often enough from 
 my poor father's own hps. Launcelot Darrell hopes to inherit 
 the old man's money, and is, I beUeve, likely enough to do so. 
 But if I could prove to the old man that my father died a 
 melancholy and untimely death through his nephew's treachery, 
 Launcelot Darrell would never receive a sixpence of that money. 
 I know how eagerly he looks forward to it, though he afiects in- 
 difference." 
 
 " And you would do this, Eleanor P " asked Richard,- staring 
 aghast at his companion. " You would betray the secrets of 
 this young man's youth to his uncle, and compass his ruin by 
 that revelation P " 
 
 " I would do what I swore to do in the Rue de I'Archeveque 
 — I would avenge my father's death. The last words my poor 
 father ever wrote appealed to me to do that. I have never for- 
 gotten those words. There may have been a deeper treachery 
 in that night's work than you or I knew of, Richard. Launcelot 
 Darrell knew who my father was ; he knew of the friendship 
 between him and Mr. de Crespigny. How do we know that he 
 did not try to goad the poor old man to that last act of his 
 despair P — how do we know that he did not plan those losses at 
 cards, in order to remove his uncle's friend from his pathway? 
 O God ! Richard, if I thought that ! " 
 
 The girl rose from her chair in a sudden tumult of passion, 
 with her hands clenched and her eyes flashing. 
 
 " If I could think that liis treachery went beyond the base- 
 ness of cheating my father of his money for the money's sake, I 
 would take his life for that dear life as freely and as unhesi* 
 tatingly as I lift my hand up now." 
 
 She raised her clenched hand towards the ceiling as she spoke, 
 as if to register some unuttered vow. Then, tuiTiing abruptly to 
 the scene-painter, she said, almost imploringly, — 
 
 " It can't be, Richard ; he cannot have been so base as that !
 
 liesolved. 175 
 
 He held mj hand in his only a few days aj»o. I would cut off 
 that hand if 1 cmild think that Launcelot Darrell had planned 
 my father's death." 
 
 " But you cannot think it, my dear Eleanor," Richard an- 
 swered, earnestly. " How should the youn^ man know that 
 your father would take his loss so deeply to heart ? We none 
 of us calculate the consequences of our sins, my dear. If this 
 man cheated, he cheated because he wanted money. For Heaven's 
 sake, Nelly, leave him and his sin in the hands of Providence ! 
 The future is not a blank sheet of paper, lor us to write any 
 story we please upon, but a wonderful chart, mapped out 
 by a Divine and unerring Hand. Launcelot Darrell -will not 
 go impimished, my dear. ' My faith is strong in Time,' as 
 the poet says. Leave the young man to time — and to Provi- 
 dence." 
 
 Eleanor Vane shook her head, smiling bitterly at her friend's 
 philosophy. Poor mad Constance's reply always rose, in some 
 shape or other, to the girl's Ujis in answer to Richard's argu- 
 ments. The Cardinal reasons vnth wonderful discretion, but the 
 bereaved mother utters one sentence that is more powerful than 
 all the worthy man's moraUties : " He talks to me that never 
 had a son ! " 
 
 " It is no use preacliing to me," Miss Yane said. " If your 
 father had died by this man's treachery, you would not feel so 
 charitably disposed towards him. I will keep the promise 
 made three years ago. I ivill prove Launcelot Darrell's guilt; 
 and that guilt shall stand' between him and Maurice de Cres- 
 pigny's fortune." 
 
 " You forget one point in this business, Eleanor." 
 
 "WTiat point?" 
 
 " It may take you a very long time to obtain the proof you 
 want. Mr. de Crespigny is an old man and an invalid. He may 
 make a will in jNlr. Darrell's favour and die before you are in 
 a position to tell him of his nephew's treachery to your poor 
 father." 
 
 Eleanor was silent for a few moments. Her arched brows 
 contracted, and her mouth grew compressed and rigid. 
 
 " I must go back to Hazlewood, Dick," she said, slowly. "Yes, 
 you are right ; there is no time to be lost. I must go back to 
 Hazlewood." 
 
 " That is not very practicable, is it, Nell?" 
 
 " I must go back, if I go in some disguise — if I go and hide 
 myself in the village, and watch Launcelot Darrell when he 
 least thinks he is observed. I don't care how I go, Richard, but 
 I must be there. It can only be from the discoveries I make in 
 the present that I shall be able to trace my way back to the 
 history of the past. I must go there !"
 
 176 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 "Ajid begin at once upon the business of a detective? 
 Eleanor, you shall not do this, if I can prevent you." 
 
 Eichard Thornton's unavowed love gave him a certain degree 
 of authority over the impulsive girl. There is always a dignity 
 and power ia every feeUng that is really true. Throughout the 
 etory of Notre Dame de Paris, the hunchback's love for Esme- 
 ralda is never once contemptible. It is only Phoebus, handsome, 
 ghttering, and false, who provokes our scorn. 
 
 Eleanor Yane did not rebel against the young man's tone of 
 authority. 
 
 "Oh, Dick, Dick!" she cried, piteously, "I know how 
 wicked I am. I have been nothing but a trouble to you and 
 the dear Signora. But I cannot forget my father's death— I 
 cannot forget the letter he %vrote to me. I must be true to 
 the vow I made then, Eichard, if I sacrifice my life in keeping 
 my word." 
 
 Eliza Picirillo came in before the scene-painter could reply to 
 this speech. It had been agreed between the two young people 
 that the Signora should know nothing of Miss Vane's dis- 
 coveries ; so Eleanor and Eichard saluted the music-mistress in 
 that strain of factitious- gaiety generally adopted under such 
 circumstances. 
 
 Signora Picirillo's perceptions were perhaps a Httle blimted 
 by the wear-and-tear of half-a-dozen hours' labour amongst her 
 out-door pupils ; and as Eleanor bustled about the room pre- 
 paring the tea-table and making the tea, the good music-mistress 
 fully believed in her protegee's simulated liveliness. When the 
 table had been cleared, and Eichard had gone to smoke his short 
 meerschaum amongst the damp straw and invahd cabs in tha 
 promenade before the Pilasters, Eleanor seated herself at the 
 piano, in order to escape the necessity of conversation. Her 
 fingers flew over the keys in a thousand complexities of harmony, 
 but her mind, for ever true to one idea, brooded upon the dark 
 scheme of vengeance which she had planned for herself. 
 
 "Come what may," she thought again and again, "at any 
 price I must go back to Hazlpwood." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 THE ONE CHANCE. 
 
 Eleanoe Vane lay awake through the greater part of the night 
 which succeeded her interview with the shipbroker. She lay 
 awake, trying to fashion for herself some scheme by which she 
 might go back to Hazlewood. The discovery which she had 
 to make, the proof positive tha* she wanted to obtain of Launce- 
 bt Darrell's giiilt, could only be prociu-ed by loHg and patient
 
 The One Chance. 177 
 
 iratcliing of the young man himself; the evidence that was to 
 condemn him must come from his o\\ni li])3. Some chance ad- 
 mission, some accidental word, might afford a clue that would 
 guide her back to the secret of the past. But to obtain this 
 clue she must be in intimate association with the man whom she 
 suspected. In the careless confidence of daily hfe, in the free- 
 dom of social intercourse, a hundred chances might occur which 
 could never be brought about while the gates of Hazlewood 
 were closed upon her. 
 
 There was one oiher chance, it was true. Launcelot Darrell 
 had asked her to become his wife. His love, however feeble to 
 withstand the wear and tear of time, must, for the moment at 
 least, be real. A line from her would no doubt bring him to her 
 side. She could lure him on by affecting to return his affection, 
 and in the entire confidence of such an association she might 
 discover the truth. 
 
 No ! not for the wide world — not even to be true to her 
 dead father — could she be so false to every sentiment of womanly 
 honour ! 
 
 "Eichard was right," she thought, as she dismissed this idea 
 with a humiliating sense of her own baseness in having even for 
 one brief moment entertained it. " He was right. What shame 
 and degradation I must wade through before I can keep my 
 promise !" 
 
 And to keep her promise she must go back to Hazlewood. 
 This was the point to which she always returned. But was it 
 possible for her to regain her old position in Mrs. Darrell's 
 house ? Would not Mrs. Darrell take care to keep her away, 
 having once succeeded in banishing her from Launcelot's society ? 
 
 Miss Vane was not a good schemer. Transparent, ingenuous, 
 and impulsive, she had the will and the courage which would have 
 prompted her to denounce Launcelot Darrell as a traitor and a 
 cheat; but she did not possess one of the attributes which 
 are necessary for the watcher who hopes to trace a shameful 
 secret through all the dark intricacies of the hidden pathway 
 that leads to it. 
 
 It was long after dayhght when the young lady fell asleep, 
 worn out, harassed, and bafiied. The night had brought no 
 counsel. Eleanor Vane dropped off into a fitful slumber, with 
 a passionate prayer upon her lips, — a prayer that Providence 
 would set her in the way of bringing vengeance upon her 
 father's destroyer. 
 
 She flung herself upon Providence — after the manner of a 
 great many persons — when she found her o^vn intellect power- 
 less to conduct her to the end she wanted to gain. 
 
 Throughout the next day Miss Vane sat alone on the chintz- 
 oovered sofa by the window, looking down at the children playing
 
 178 Uleanor^s Victory. 
 
 hop-scotcli, and gambKng for marbles upon the rugged flags 
 below ; " weary of the rolling hours," and unable to bring herself 
 to the frame of mind necessary for the ordinary purposes of Hfe. 
 Upon any other occasion she would have tried to do something 
 whereby she might Ughten the Signora's burden, being quite 
 competent to take the pupils off her friend's hands ; but to-day 
 ehe had suffered Eliza Picirillo to trudge out under the broihng 
 August sky, through the stifling London streets, and had made 
 no attempt to lessen her labours. She seemed even incapable of 
 performing the little domestic offices which she had been in the 
 habit of doing. She let the London dust accumulate upon the 
 piano ; she left the breakfast-table scattered with the debris of 
 the morning's meal; she made no effoi-t to collect the stray 
 sheets of music, the open books, the scraps of needlework that 
 littered the room ; but with her elbow on the smoky sill of the 
 window, and her head resting on her hand, she sat, looking 
 wearily out, with eyes that saw notlxing biit vacancy. 
 
 Eichard had gone out early, and neither he nor his aunt was 
 expected to return till dusk. 
 
 " I can have eveiything ready for them when they come back," 
 she thought, looking listlessly at the unwashed tea-things, which 
 seemed to stare at her in mute reproachfulness ; and then her 
 eyes wandered back to the sunny window, and her mind returned 
 with a cruel constancy to the one idea that occupied it. 
 
 Had she been really looking at the objects on which her eyes 
 seemed to be fixed, she must have been sui-prised by the advent 
 of a tall and rather distinguished-looking stranger, who made 
 his way along the straw-httered promenade, between the 
 Colonnade and the stables, erasing the chalk diagrams of the 
 hop-scotch players with the soles of his boots, and rendering 
 himself otherwise objectionable to the juvenile population. 
 
 This stranger came straight to the shop of the shoemaker 
 •with whom Signora Picirillo lodged, and inquired for Miss 
 Vincent. 
 
 The shoemaker had only heard Eleanor's assumed name a day 
 or two before, when Laura's letter had arrived at the Pilasters. 
 He had a vague idea that the beautiful golden-haired young 
 woman, who had first entered his dwelling in the early freshness 
 of budding girlhood, was going to distinguish herself as a great 
 musical genius, and intended to astonish the professional world 
 xmder a false name. 
 
 " It's Miss Eleanor you want, I suppose, sirP" the man said, 
 in answer to the stranger's question. 
 
 " Miss Eleanor ? — yes." 
 
 " Then, if you'll please to step up-starrs, sir. The young lady's 
 all alone to-day, for Mr. E,ichn,rd he's over the water a scene- 
 paintin' away for dear hfe, and the S'nora she's out givin' lessons ;
 
 The One Cliance. 179 
 
 BO poor young miss is alone, and dismal enough she must be, 
 cooped in-doors this tine weather. It's bad enough when one's 
 obhgod to it, you know, sir," the man added, rather obscurely. 
 •' AVill you please to walk up, sir ? It's the door facing you at 
 the top of the stairs." 
 
 The shoemaker opened a half-glass door communicating with 
 a dingy back parlour and a steep staircase that twisted cork- 
 Bcrew-wise up to the first floor. The visitor waited for no further 
 invitation, but ascended the stairs in a few strides, and paused 
 for a moment before the door of Signora Picirillo's sitting- 
 room. 
 
 " He's one of these here London managers, I dessay," thought 
 the simple cordwainer, as he went back to his work. " ilr. 
 Cromshaw come here one day after Mr. Richard in a pheeaton 
 and {Dair, and no end of diamond rings and breastpins." 
 
 Eleanor Vane had not noticed the stranger's footsteps on the 
 uncarpeted stair, but she started when the door opened, and 
 looked round. Her unexpected visitor was Mr. Monckton. 
 
 She rose in confusion, and stood with her back to the window, 
 looking at the lawyer. She was too much absorbed by her one 
 idea to be troubled by the untidiness of the shabby chamber, by 
 the disorder of her own hair or dress, or by any of those external 
 circumstances which are generally so embarrassing to a woman. 
 She only thought of Gilbert Monckton as a link between herself 
 and Hazlewood. She did not even wonder why he had come to 
 see her. 
 
 "I may find out something; I may learn something from 
 him," she thought. 
 
 Against the great purpose of her Hfe, even this man, who of all 
 others she most respected and esteemed, sank into utter insig- 
 nificance. She never cared to consider what he might think. 
 She only regarded him as an instrument which might happen 
 to be of use to her. 
 
 " You are very much surprised to see me, Miss Vincent," the 
 lawyer said, holding out his hand. 
 
 The girl put her hand loosely in his, and Gilbert Monckton 
 started as he felt the feverish heat of the slim fingers that 
 touched his so hghtly. He looked into Eleanor's face. The 
 excitement of the last three days had left its traces on her 
 oouutenancfe. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell had made a confidant of the lawyer. It had been 
 absolutely necessary to explain Eleanor's absence. Mrs. Darrell 
 had given her own version of the business, telling the truth, 
 with sundry reservations. Miss Vincent was a handsome and 
 agreeable girl, she said ; it was of vital consequence to Launcelot 
 that he should not form any attachment or entertain any passing 
 fanc}', that might mUitate against his future prospects. An
 
 180 Eleanor' 8 Victory. 
 
 imprudent marriage had alienated her, Mrs. Darrell, from her 
 uncle, Maurice de Crespii:rny- An imprudent marriage might 
 ruin the young man's chance of inheriting the Woodlands estate. 
 Under these circumstances it was advisable that ]\Iiss Vincent 
 should leave Hazlewood : and the young lady had very gene- 
 rously resigned her situation upon the matter being put before 
 her in a proper light. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell took very good care not to make any allusion to 
 that declaration of love which she had overheard through the 
 half-open door of her son's painting-room. 
 
 Mr. Moncktou had expressed no httle vexation at the sudden 
 departure of his ward's companion ; but his annoyance was of 
 course felt solely on account of Miss Mason, who told him, with 
 her eyes streaming, and her voice half-choked with sobs, that she 
 could never be happy without her darling Eleanor. 
 
 The lawyer said very Httle in reply to these lamentations, but 
 took care to get Miss A'incent's address from his ward, and on 
 the day after his visit to Hazlewood went straight from his office 
 to the Pilasters. 
 
 Looking at the change in Eleanor Vane's face, Mr. Monckton 
 began to wonder very seriously if the departure from Hazlewood 
 had been a matter of imliiierence to her ; and whether it might 
 not be that Mrs. DaiTcU's alarms about her son's possible admi- 
 ration for the penniless companion were founded on stronger 
 grounds than the widow had cared to reveal to him. 
 
 " I was afraid that Laura's frivolous fancy might be caught by 
 this young fellow," he thought, " but I could never have believed 
 that this girl, who has ten times Laura's intellect, would fall in 
 love with Launcelot Darrell." 
 
 He thought tliis, while Eleanor's feverish hand lay, loose and 
 passive, in his own. 
 
 " It was not quite kind of you to leave Hazlewood without 
 seeing me, or consulting me. Miss Vincent," he said : " you must 
 remember that I confided to you a trust." 
 
 "A trust!" 
 
 " Yes. You promised that you would look after my foohsh 
 young ward, and take care that she did not fall in love with 
 Mr. Darrell." 
 
 Mr. Monckton watched the girl's face very closely while he 
 pronounced Launcelot Darrell's name, but there was no revela- 
 tion in that pale and wearied countenance. The grey eyes re- 
 turned his gaze frankly and luihesitatingly. Their brightness 
 was faded, but their innocent candour remained, in all its virginal 
 beautj. 
 
 " I tried to do what you wished," Miss Vane answered. " I 
 am afraid that Laura does admire Mr. Darrell. But I can't 
 (^uito understand whether she is serious or not, and in any case
 
 The One Chance. 181 
 
 ii-otlung I could say would influence her much, though I know 
 6he loves me." 
 
 " No, I suppose not," said !Mr. Monckton, rather bitterly ; 
 "women are not easily to be influenced in these matters, A 
 woman's love is the sublimation of sellishness, j\Iis3 Vincent. It 
 is deliarhtful to a woman to throw herself away ; and she is per- 
 fectly mdifferent as to how many unoftVnding ^actims she drags 
 to destruction in her downfall. An Indian woman sacrifices her- 
 self out of respect to her dead husband. An English woman 
 offers up her husband and children on the altar of a hving lover. 
 Pardon me if I speak too plainly. We lawyers become acquainted 
 with strange stories. I should not at all wonder if my ward 
 were to insist upon making herself miserable for life because 
 Launcelot Darrell has a Grecian nose."' 
 
 Mr. Monckton seated himself, uninvited, by the table on which 
 the unwashed tea-things bore testimonies to Eleanor's neglect. 
 He looked round the room, but not rudely ; for in one brief ob- 
 servant glance he was able to see everything, and to understand 
 evervthing. 
 
 " Have you ever lived here, Miss Vincent ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes ; I hved here a year and a half before I went to Hazle- 
 wood. I was very happy," Eleanor added, hastily, as if in depre- 
 cation of the lawyer's look, which betrayed a half-compassionate 
 interest. " My friends are very good to me, and I never wish 
 for a better home." 
 
 " But you have been accustomed to a better home, in your 
 childhood?" 
 
 *' No, not very much better. I always lived in lodgings, with 
 my poor father." 
 
 " Your father was not rich, then ? " 
 
 " No, not at all rich." 
 
 " He was a professional man, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No, he had no profession. He had been rich — very rich — 
 once.** 
 
 Tlie colour rose to Eleanor's face as she spoke, for she suddenl;v 
 recollected that she had a secret to keep. The lawyer might 
 recognize George Vane by this description, she thought. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton fancied that sudden blush arose from 
 •rounded pride. 
 
 " Forgive me for asking you so many questions. Miss Vic- 
 cent," he said, gently. " I am very much mterested in you. I 
 have been very much interested in you for a long time." 
 
 He was silent for some minutes. Eleanor had resumed her 
 eeat near the window, and sat in a thoughtful attitude, ^vithhe^ 
 eye? cast upon the ground. She was wondering how she was to 
 make good use of this interview, and discover as much as pes- 
 •ible of Launcelot DarreU's antecedents.
 
 182 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 (( 
 
 ' Will you forgive me if I ask you a few more questioner 
 Miss Yiucent ? " the lawyer asked, after this brief silence. 
 
 Eleanor raised her eyes, and looked him. fuU in the face. That 
 bright, . straight, unfaltering gaze was perhaps the greatest 
 charm which Miss Vane possessed. She had no reason to com- 
 plain that Nature had gifted her with a niggardly hand ; she 
 had beauty of feature, of outline, of colour; but this ex- 
 quisitely candid expression was a rarer beauty, and a liigher 
 gift. 
 
 " Beheve me," said Mr. Monckton, " that I am actuated by 
 no unworthy motive when I ask you to deal frankly with me. 
 You will understand, by-and-by, why and by what right I pre- 
 sume to question you. In the meantime I ask you to confule in 
 me. You left Hazlewood at Mrs. Darrell's wish, did you not ? " 
 
 " Yes : it was at her wish that I left." 
 
 " Her son had made you an offer of his hand ? " 
 
 The question would have brought a blush to the face of an 
 ordinary girl. But Eleanor Vane was removed from ordinary 
 women by the exceptional story of her life. From the moment 
 of her discovery of Launcelot Darrell's identity, all thought of 
 him as a lover, or an admirer, had been blotted out of her mind. 
 He was removed from other men by the circumstances of liis 
 guilt; as she was set apart from other women by the revengeful 
 purpose in her breast. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " Mr. Darrell asked me to be his wife." 
 
 " And did you — did you refuse him ? " 
 
 " No ; I gave him no answer." 
 
 " You did not love him, then ? " 
 
 " Love him ! Oh, no, no ! " 
 
 Her eyes dilated with a look of surprise as she spoke, as if it 
 was most astounding to her that Gilbert Monckton should ask 
 Buch a question. 
 
 " Perhaps you do not think Launcelot Darrell worthy of a 
 good woman's love ? " 
 
 " I do not," answered Eleanor. " Don't talk of him, please. 
 At least, I mean, don't talk of him, and of love," she added, 
 hastily, remembering that the very thing she wished was that 
 the lawyer should talk of Launcelot Darrell. " You — you must 
 know a great deal of his youth. He was idle and dissiisated, 
 was he not ; and — and — a card-player ? " 
 
 " A card-player ? " 
 
 "Yes — a gambler; a man who plays cards for the sake of 
 winning money ? " 
 
 " I never heard any one say so. He was idle, no doubt, and 
 loitered away his time in London under the pretence of study- 
 ing art ; but I never remember hearing that gambling was one 
 i»f hia vices. However, I don't come here to speak of him, but
 
 Tlie One Chance. 1S3 
 
 of you. What are you going to do, now that you have left 
 Hazlewood P " 
 
 Eleanor was cruelly embarrassed by this question. Her most 
 earnest wish was to return to Iluzlcwood, or at least to the 
 neighbourhood of Launcelot Darrell's hom^. A.bsorbed by this 
 wish, she had formed no scheme for the future. She hail not 
 even remembered that she stood alone in the world, with only a 
 few pounds saved out of her slender salary, unprovidod ■with 
 that which is the most necessary of all weapons in any warfare. 
 Money ! 
 
 " I — I scarcely know what I shall do," she said. " Mrs. Dar- 
 lell promised to procure me a situation." 
 
 But as she spoke she remembered that to accept a situation 
 of Mrs. Dan-ell's getting would be in some manner to eat bread 
 provided by the kinswoman of her father's foe, and she made 
 a mental vow to starve rather than to receive the widow's 
 patronage. 
 
 " I do not put much confidence in Mrs. Darrell's friendship 
 when her own end is gained," Gilbert Monckton said, thought- 
 fully. " Ellen Darrell is only capable of loving one person, and 
 that person is, according to the fashion of the world, the one who 
 has used her worst. She loves her son, Launcelot, and would 
 sacrifice a hecatomb of her fellow- creatures for his advantage. 
 If she can get you a new home, I dare say she will do so. If 
 she cannot, she has succeeded in removing you from her son's 
 pathway, and will trouble herself very Uttle about your 
 future." 
 
 Eleanor Vane lifted her head with a sudden gesture of pride. 
 
 " I do not want Mrs. Darrell's help," she said. 
 
 " But you would not refuse the counsel, or even the help of 
 any one you liked, would you, Eleanor ? " returned the lawyer. 
 " You are very young, very inexperienced, — the life at Hazle- 
 wood suited you, and it might have gone on for years without 
 danger of unhappiness or disquiet, but for the coming of Laun- 
 celot Darrell. I have known you for a year and a half, Mis3 
 Vincent, and I have watched you very closely. I think I Icnow 
 you very well. Yes, if a lawyer's j^owers of penetration and 
 habit of observation are to go for anything, I must know you by 
 this time. I may have been an egregious fool twenty years ago ; 
 but I must be wise enough now to understand a girl of 
 eighteen." 
 
 He said tliis rather as if reasoning with himself than talking 
 to Eleanor. Miss Vane looked at him, wondering what all this 
 talk would lead to, and what motive, under heaven, could have 
 induced a lawyer of liigh standing to leave his chambers in the 
 middle of the business day, for the purpose of sitting in a 
 •habby lodging-house chamber, vrith his elbow resting upon i»
 
 184 JEleanor's Vic fori/. 
 
 dirty tableclotli amid tlie confusion of unwashed breakfast cupi 
 and saucers. 
 
 " Eleanor Yincent," Mr. Monckton said by-and-by, after a 
 very long pause, " countiy people are most intolerable gossips. 
 You cannot have lived at Hazlewood for a year and a half with- 
 out having heard something of my history." 
 
 " Your history ? " 
 
 " Yes, you heard that there was some secret trouble in the 
 early part of my Ufe— that there were some unpleasant circum- 
 stances connected with my purchase of ToUdale." 
 
 Eleanor Vane was unskilled in the art of prevarication. She 
 could not give an evasive answer to a straight question. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I have heard people say that." 
 
 " And you have no doubt heard them say that my trouble — 
 like every other trouble upon this earth, as it seems to me — waa 
 caused by a woman." 
 
 " Yes, I heard that." 
 
 " I was very young when that sorrow came to me, Eleanor 
 Yincent, and very ready to believe in a beautiful face. I waa 
 deceived. My story is all told in those three words, and it is a 
 very old story after all. Great tragedies and epic poems have 
 been written upon the same theme, until it has become so hack- 
 neyed that I have no need to enlarge upon it. I was deceived. 
 Miss Yincent, and for twenty years I have profited by that 
 bitter lesson. Heaven help me if I feel inclined to forget it now. 
 I am forty years of age, but I do not think that the brightnesa 
 of my hfe has quite gone yet. Twenty years ago I was in love, 
 and in the ardour and freshness of my youth, I dare say I talked 
 a great deal of nonsense. I am in love once more, Eleanor. 
 WlU you forgive me if all my faculty for sentimental talk ia 
 lost ? Wni you let me tell you, in very few and simple words, 
 that I love you ; that I have loved you for a long time ; and 
 that you will make me unspeakably happy if you can think my 
 earnest devotion worthy of some return? " 
 
 Every vestige of colour faded slowly from Eleanor's face. 
 There had been a time — before the return of Launcelot Darrell — 
 when a word of praise, an expression of friendliness or regard 
 from Gilbert Monckton, had been very precious to her. She had 
 never taken the trouble to analyze her feeHngs. That time, 
 before the coming of the young man, had been the sunniest and 
 most careless period of her youth. She had during that interval 
 been false to the memory of her father — she had suffered herself 
 to be happy. But now a gulf yawned between her and that 
 lapse of forgetfulness. She could not look back clearly ; she 
 could not remember or recall her former feeUngs. Gilbert 
 Monckton 's offer might then have awakened some answering 
 BCntiment in her own breast. Now his hand struck upon the
 
 The One Chance. 185 
 
 alackened chords of a shattered instrument ; and there was no 
 music to respond harmoniously to the player's touch. 
 
 " Can you love me, Eleanor ? Can you love me ? " the law- 
 yer asked, imploringly, taking the girl's two hands in his own. 
 " Your heart is free : yes, I know that ; and that at least is 
 something. Heaven forgive me if I tiy to bribe you. But my 
 youth is passed, and I can scarcely expect to be loved for myself 
 alone. Think how dreary and undefended your life must be, if 
 you refuse my love and protection. Think of that, Eleanor. 
 Ah ! if you knew what a woman is when thrown upon the 
 world without the shelter of a husband's love, you would think 
 seriously. I want you to be more than my wife, Eleanor. I 
 want you to be the guardian and protectress of that poor frivo- 
 lous girl whose future has been trusted to my care. I want you 
 to come and live at ToUdale, my darling, so as to be near that 
 poor child at Hazlewood." 
 
 Near Hazlewood ! The hot blood rushed into Eleanor's face 
 tithe sound of those two words, then faded suddenly away and 
 left her deadly white, trembling and chnging to the back of her 
 chair for support. To all else that Gilbert Monckton had said 
 she had hstened in a dull stupor. But now her intellect arose 
 and grasped the full importance of the lawyer's supplication. 
 In a moment she understood that the one chance which of all 
 other things upon this earth she had most desired, and which of 
 all other tilings had seemed farthest removed from her, was now 
 within her reach. 
 
 She might go back to Hazlewood. She might retiim as Gil- 
 bert Monckton's wife. She did not stop to consider how much 
 was involved in this. It was her nature to be ruled by impulse, 
 and impulse only ; and she had yet to learn submission to a 
 better guidance. She could go back to Hazlewood. She would 
 have returned there as a kitchen-maid, had the opportunity of 
 80 doing offered itself to her ; and she was ready to return as 
 Gilbert Monckton's ^vife. 
 
 " My pravers have been heard," she thought. " My prayers 
 have been heard : Providence will give me power to keep my 
 promise. Providence will set me face to face with that man." 
 
 Eleanor Vane stood vdth her hands clasped upon the back of 
 her chair, thinking of this, and looking straight before her, in 
 utter unconsciousness of the earnest eyes that were fixed upon 
 her face, while the lawyer waited breathlessly to hear her 
 decision. 
 
 "Eleanor," he cried, entreatingly, "Eleanor, I have been 
 deceived once ; do not let me be a woman's dupe, now that there 
 are streaks of ^ey amongst my hair. I love you, my dear. I 
 can make you independent and secure; but I do not oifer you a 
 fortune or a position of sufficient magnitude or grandeur to tempt
 
 186 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 an ambitious woman. For God's sake do not trifle witli me. If 
 you love me now, or can hope to love me in the future, be my 
 wife. But if any other image holds the smallest place in your 
 heart — if there is one memory, or one regret, that can come 
 between us, Eleanor, dismiss me from you tmhesitatingly. It 
 will be merciful to me — to you also, perhaps, to do so. I have 
 seen many a union in wliich there has been love on one side, and 
 indifference — or something worse than indifference — upon the 
 other. Eleanor, think of all this, and then teU me, frankly, if 
 you can be my wife." 
 
 Eleanor Vane dimly comprehended that there was a depth of 
 passionate feeling beneath the quiet earnestness of the lawyer's 
 manner. She tried to listen, she tried to understand ; but she 
 could not. The one idea which held possession of her mind, 
 kept that mind locked against every other impression. It was 
 not his love, it was not liis name, or his fortime, that Gilbert 
 Monckton offered her — he offered her the chance of returning to 
 Hazlewood. 
 
 " You are very good to me," she said. " I will be your wife. 
 I will go back to Hazlewood." 
 
 She held out her hand to him. No trace of womanly con- 
 fusion, or natural coquetry, betrayed itself in her manner. Pale 
 and absorbed, she held out her hand, and offered up her Future 
 as a small and unconsidered matter, when set against the one 
 idea of her life — the promise to her dead father. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ACCEPTED. 
 
 When a man sets his happiness in the balance, he is apt to be 
 contented with a very slight turning of the scale. He is not 
 likely to be critical as to the wording of the verdict which gives 
 him the prize he has asked for. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert Monckton had no contemptible opinion of his own 
 judgment and dehberation, his perceptive faculties and powers 
 of reasoning ; but as bUndly as Macbeth accepted the promises 
 of the oracular voices in the witches' cave, so did this grave and 
 eminent lawyer receive those few cold words in which Eleanor 
 "Vane consented to be his wife. 
 
 It was not that he refrained from reflecting upon the girl's 
 manner of accepting his offer. He did reflect upon it; and 
 proved to himself, by unerring logic, that she could scarcely have 
 spoken in any other way. There were a thousand reasons why 
 she should have employed those very words, and pronoimced 
 them in that very tone. Maidenly modesty, innocent surprise, 
 inexperience, girlish timidity : — he ran over a whole catalogue
 
 Accepted. 187 
 
 of causes, naming every possible cause, save one, and that one 
 was the tiling he had most dreaded — indifference, or even 
 repugnance to himself. He looked into her face. His pro- 
 fessional cai-eer had given him the faculty of putting together 
 the evidences of smiles and frowns, involuntary contractions of 
 the eyebrows, scarcely perceptible compressions of the lips, every 
 tone and semi-tone in the facial diapason. He looked at Eleanor 
 Vane's face, and said to himself: 
 
 " This girl cannot be mercenary. She is as pure as an angel ; 
 as unselfish as Jephtha's daughter; as brave as Judith, or Joan 
 of Arc. She cannot be anytliing but a good wife. The man 
 who wins her has reason to thank God for his bounty." 
 
 It was with such thoughts as these that the lawyer received 
 the feminine decision which was to influence his future life. He 
 bent over the girl's fair head — tall as she was, her face was only 
 on a level with Gilbert Monckton's shoulder — and pressed his hps 
 to her forehead, solemnly, almost as if setting a seal upon his own. 
 
 " My darling," he said, in a low voice, " my darhng, you have 
 made me very happy ; I dare not tell you how much I love you. 
 I struggled against my love, Eleanor. I once meant to have 
 kept the secret till I went do^vn to my grave. I tliiiik I could 
 have kept silence so long as you remained within my reach, 
 protected and sheltered by people whom I could trust, happy in 
 the bright years of your miiocent girlhood. But when you left 
 Hazlewood, when you went out into the world, my courage 
 failed. I wanted to give you my love as a sliield and a defence. 
 Better that I should be deceived, I thought ; better that I should 
 be miserable, than that she should be undefended." 
 
 Eleanor Vane listened to the lawyer's happy talk. He could 
 have talked to her for ever, now that the ice was broken, and the 
 important step — so long considered, so long avoided — actually 
 taken. It seemed as if his youth came back to him, bestowed 
 by some miraculous power; mvisible, but most palpably present 
 in that shaljby Bloomsbury dwelling. His youth came back ; 
 the intellectual cobwebs of twenty years were swept away by 
 one stroke of some benevolent witch's broomstick. Cherished 
 prejudices, fondly nursed doubts and suspicions, were blotted 
 out of his mind, leaving the tablet fair and bright as it had been 
 before the coming of that shadow which had darkened so much 
 of this man's life. Sudden almost as the conversion of Saul, 
 was this transformation of the UMsanthropical soUcitor under the 
 master influence of a true and pure affection. 
 
 For twenty years he had sneered at women, and at men's 
 behef in them ; and now, at the end of twenty years, he 
 believed; and, cscapin^^ out of the prison which he had made 
 for liimself, he spread his recovered wings and was free. 
 
 A sigh escaped from Ele;incr's hps as shehstened to her lover.
 
 188 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 The time in whicli she could have hoped to pay him back all 
 this great debt which he was heaping upon her, was past and 
 gone. She felt a sense of oppression beneath the load of this 
 obligation. She began to perceive — as yet only dimly, so intense 
 was the egotism engendered out of the single purpose of her 
 life — that she was binding herself to something that she might 
 not be able to perform ; she was taking upon herself a debt that 
 she coiild scarcely hope to pay. For a moment she thought this, 
 and was ready, under this new impulse, to draw back and say, 
 '• I cannot become your wife ; I am too much tied and bound by 
 the obligations of the past, to be able to fulfil the duties of the 
 present. I am set apart from other women, and must stand 
 alone until the task I have set myself is accompUshed, or the 
 hope of its fulfilment abandoned." 
 
 She thought this, and the words trembled on her hpa ; but in 
 the next moment the image of her father arose angry and re- 
 proachful, as if to say to her, " Have you so httle memory of 
 my wrongs and my sorrows that you can shrink from any means 
 of avenging me ? " 
 
 This idea banished every other consideration. 
 
 " I wiU keep my promise first, and do my duty to Gilbert 
 Monckton afterwards," thought Eleanor. "It will be easy to be 
 a good wife to him. I used to like him very much." 
 
 She recalled the old days in which she had sat a httle way 
 apart from the lawyer and his ward, envying Laura Mason her 
 apparent influence over Mr. Monckton; and for a moment a 
 faint thrill of pleasure and triumph vibrated through her veins 
 as she remembered that henceforth her claim upon him would 
 be higher than that of any other hving creature. He would be 
 her own — her lover, her husband — adviser, friend, instructor; 
 everything in the wide world to her. 
 
 " Oh, let me avenge my father's cruel death," she thought, 
 "and then I may be a good and happy wife." 
 
 Mr. Monckton could have stood for ever by the side of hia 
 betrothed wife in the sunny window looking out upon the mews. 
 The prospect of the half-open stable doors ; the lounging grooms 
 smoking and drinking in the intervals of their labour; the 
 scantily draperied women hanging out newly-washed Hnen, and 
 making as it were triumphal arches of wet garments across the 
 narrow thoroughfare ; the children playing hoji-scotch, or called 
 away from that absorbing diversion to fetch damp steaming 
 quartern loaves and jugs of beer for their elders, — all these 
 things were beautiful m the eyes of the owner of ToUdale Priory. 
 An overplus of that sunshine which filled his own breast glorified 
 these common objects, and Mr. Monckton gazed upon the angu- 
 lar proportions of the bony Koman-nosed horses, the classic 
 outlines cf decrepit Hansom cabs, and all the other objecta
 
 Accepted. 189 
 
 pecTiHar to the ncigKbonrhood of the Pilasters, with such a 
 radiance of contentment and delight upon his countenance as 
 might have induced the observer, looking at the lawyer's face, 
 and not at the prospect, to believe that the bay of Naples was 
 spread out in purple splendour under the oj^en window of Miaa 
 Vane's sitting-room. 
 
 Signora Picirillo returned from her day's labours, and found 
 Eleanor's visitor thus absorbed ; but he imderstood directly 
 who she was, and greeted her with a cordiahty that very much 
 astonished the music-mistress. Eleanor Vane shpped out of the 
 room while Mr. Monckton was explaining himself to the Signora. 
 She was only too glad to get away from the man to whom she 
 had so rashly bound herself. She went to the glass to brush 
 her hair away from her hot forehead, and then threw herself on 
 the bed, prostrated by all the excitement she had undergone, 
 powerless even to think. 
 
 " I almost wish I could He here for ever," she thought : " it 
 seems so like peace to lie still and leave off thinking." Her 
 youth had held out bravely against the );urden3 she had put 
 upon her strength and spirits, but the young energies had given 
 way at last, and she fell into a heavy dreamless slumber: a 
 blessed and renovating sleep, from which nature takes compen- 
 eation for the wrongs that have been done her. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton told liis story very briotly and simply. He 
 had no occasion to say much himself, for Eleanor had written a 
 great deal aboiit him m her letters to the Signora, and had often 
 talked of him during her one holiday at the Pilasters. 
 
 Eliza Picirillo was too entirely unselfish to feel otherwise than 
 pleased at the idea that Eleanor Vane had won the love of a 
 good man, whose position in hfe would remove her from every 
 danger and from every trial. But, mingled with this unselfish 
 delight, there was a painful recollection. The music-mistress 
 had fiithomed her nephew's secret ; and she felt that Eleanor's 
 marriage would be a sad blow to Richard Thornton. 
 
 " I don't beheve poor Dick ever hoped to win her love," Signora 
 picirillo thought; " but if he could have gone on loving her and 
 admiring her, and associating with her, in a frank brotherly 
 way, he might have been happy. Perhaps it's better as it is, 
 thougli ; perhaps that very uncertainty might have bUghted his 
 life, and shut him out from some possible happiness." 
 
 *' As my dear girl is an orphan," Gilbert Monckton said, " I 
 feel that you, IMadame Picirillo, are the only person I need con- 
 sult. I have heard from Eleanor how much she owes you ; and 
 believe me that when I ask her to become my wife, I do not 
 wish her to be less your adopted daughter. She has told me 
 that in the greatest miseries of her life, you were as true a friend 
 to her as her own mother could have been. She has never told
 
 190 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 me what those miseries were, but I trust her so fully that I do 
 not care to torment her with questions about a past which she 
 tells me was sorrowful." 
 
 Eliza Picirillo's eyelids fell under the earnest gaze of the law- 
 yer: she remembered the deception that had lieen practised 
 npon Mrs. Darrell in deference to the pride of Eleanor's half- 
 sister. 
 
 "This Mr. Monckton must know Nelly's story before he 
 marries her," thought the straightforward Signora. She ex- 
 plained this to Eleanor the next morning, when the girl rose, 
 invigorated by a long sleep, and inspired by a desperate hopeful- 
 ness — the hope of speedily avenging her father's wrongs. 
 
 For some time Mss Vane passionately combated theSignora's 
 arguments. Why should she tell Gilljert Monckton her real 
 name ? she demanded. She wished to keep it a secret from Mr. 
 de Crespigny : from the people at Hazlewood. She must keep 
 it a secret, she said. 
 
 But little by little Ehza Picirillo overcame this determination. 
 She explained to the ^'assionate girl that if her marriage was to 
 be legally imassailable, she must be married in her true name. 
 She explained this : and she said a great deal about the moral 
 wrong which would be done if Eleanor persisted in deceiving her 
 future husband. 
 
 The marriage was pushed on with ten-ible haste, as it seemed 
 to Eichard Thornton and the Signora ; but even the brief delay 
 that occurred between Gilbert Monckton's declaration of his love 
 and the day fixed for the wedding was almost intolerable to 
 Eleanor. The all-important step which was to make her the 
 lawyer's wife seemed nothing to her. She ignored this great 
 crisis of her hfe altogether, in her desire to return to Hazlewood, 
 to discover and denounce Launcelot Darrell's treachery before 
 Maurice de Crespigny's death. 
 
 There were preparations to be made, and a trousseau to be 
 provided. It was a very simple trousseau, fitter for the bride of 
 6ome young curate \vith seventy pounds a year, than for a lady 
 who was to be mistress of Tolldale Priory. Eleanor took no 
 interest in the j^retty girHsh dresses, pale and delicate in colour, 
 simple and inexpensive in texture and fashion, which the Signora 
 chose for her protegee. There was a settlement to be drawn up 
 also ; for Gilbert Monckton insisted upon treating his betrothed 
 as generously as if she had been a woman of distinction, with 
 an aristocratic father to bargain and diplomatize for her welfare ; 
 but Eleanor was as indifferent to the settlement as about the 
 trousseau, and could scarcely be made to understand that, on 
 and after her wedding-day, she would be the exclusive possessor 
 of a small landed estate worth three hundred a year. 
 Once, and once only, she thanked Gilbert Monckton for his
 
 Accepted, 191 
 
 Pfeneroeity ; and this was when, for the first time, the tnouj^ht 
 flashed into her mind, that tliis three hundred a year, to which 
 she was so indifferent, would enable her to place Eliza Picii'illo 
 in a position of independence. 
 
 " Dear Signora," she cried, " you shall never work after I am 
 married. How good it is of you to give me this money, ]\Ir, 
 Monckton," she added, her eyes fiUing with sudden tears ; " I 
 will try to deserve your goodness, I -svill indeed." 
 
 It was upon the evenmg on which Eleanor spoker these few 
 grateful and earnest words to her betrothed husband, that the 
 revelation of her secret was made. 
 
 " I am going to Doctors' Commons to-morrow morning, Sig- 
 nora," the lawyer said, as he rose to leave the Uttle sitting-room 
 — be had spent his evenings in the Pilasters during his brief 
 courtship, perfectly at home and unspeakably happy in that 
 shabby and Bohemian colony. "Eleanor and I have determined 
 that our marriage is to take place at St. George's, Bloomsbiuy. 
 It is to be a very quiet wedding. My two partners, yoiu-self, 
 and Mr. Thornton, are to be the only witnesses. The Berkshire 
 people will be surprised when I take my young >vife back to 
 Tolldale." 
 
 He was going away, when the Signora laid her hands on 
 Eleanor's shoulder. 
 
 " You must tell him to-night, Nelly," she whispered ; " he 
 must not be allowed to take out the hcense in a false name." 
 
 The girl bent her head. 
 
 " I will do as you wsh, Signora," she said. 
 
 Five minutes afterwards, when Gilbert Monckton gave Eleanor 
 his hand, she said, quietly : 
 
 " Do not say good night yet. I will come down stairs with 
 you ; I have something to say to you." 
 
 She went down the narrow staircase, and out into the colon- 
 nade with Mr. Monckton. It was ten o'clock; the shops were 
 closed, and the public-house was quiet. Under the August 
 moonlight the shabby tenements looked less commonplace, the 
 dilapidated wooden colonnade was almost picturesque. Miss 
 Vane stood with her face turned frankly towards her lover, her 
 figure resting slightly against one of the slender pillars befor© 
 the shoemaker's emporium. 
 
 " 'Wliat is it that you want to tell me, Eleanor dearest ? " Mr. 
 Monckton asked, as she paused, looking half-doubtfuUy in hia 
 face, uncertiiin what she should say to him. 
 
 " I want to tell you that I have done very wrong — I hav« 
 deceived you." 
 
 " Deceived me ! Eleanor ! Eleanor ! " 
 
 She saw the lawyer's facr turn pale under the moonlight. 
 That word decepti'^" ^'»4 euch a terrible meaning to him.
 
 192 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " Yes, I have deceived you. I have kept a secret from yoti, 
 and I can only tell it to you upon one condition." 
 
 " Upon what condition ? " 
 
 "That you do not tell it to Mr. de Crespigny, or to Mrs. 
 Darrell, until you have my permission to do so." 
 
 GUbert Llonckton smiled. His sudden fears fled away before 
 the truthfulness of the girl's voice, the earnestness of her 
 manner. 
 
 "Not tall Mr. de Crespigny, or Mrs. Darrell p " he said; " of 
 course not, my dear. Why should I tell them anything which 
 Joncems you, and that you wish me to keep from them ? " 
 
 "You promise, then? " 
 
 " Most certainly." 
 
 " You give me your solemn promise that yon will not tell Mr, 
 de Crespigny, or any member of his family, the secret which I 
 am going to confide to you ; under no circumstances whatever 
 wiE you be tempted to break that promise ? " 
 
 •• Why, Nelly," cried Mr. Monckton, "you are as serious as 
 if you were the chief of a pohtical society, about to administer 
 some terrible oath to a neophyte. I shall not break my pro- 
 mise, my dear, beUeve me. My profession has accustomed me 
 to keeping secrets. What is it, Eleanor; what is this tremen- 
 dous mystery ? " 
 
 Miss Vane lifted her eyes, and looked full in her lover's face, 
 npon the watch for any change of expression that might indicate 
 displeasure or contempt. She was very fearful of losing the 
 lawyer's confidence and esteem. 
 
 " When I went to Hazlewood," she said, " I went in a false 
 name, not at my own wish, but to please my sister, who did 
 not want_Mrs. Darrell to know that any member of her family 
 could be in a dependent position. My name is not Yincent. I 
 am Eleanor Vane, the daughter of Mr. de Crespigny's old 
 friend." 
 
 Gilbert Monckton's astonishment was unbounded. He had 
 heard George Vane's history from Mrs. Darrell, but he had 
 never heard of the birth of the old man's yotmgest daughter. 
 
 "Eleanor Vane?" he said; "then Mrs. Bannister is your 
 sister." 
 
 " She is my half-sister, and it was at her wish that I went to 
 Hazlewood under a false name. You are not angry with me for 
 having done so, are you ? " 
 
 " Angry with you ? No, my dear, the deception was harm- 
 less enough ; though it was a piece of foohsh pride upon youi 
 sister's part. My Eleanor was in no way degraded by having 
 to turn her accomplishments to use and profit. My poor, self- 
 rehant girl," he added, tenderly, " going out into the world with 
 a secret to keep. But why do you wish this secret to be stilJ
 
 An Insidious Demon. 198 
 
 iweserved, Eleanor; yon are not asiiamed of your father's 
 name? 
 
 " Ashamed of his name ? Oh, no, no ! " 
 
 " Why keep your real name e secret, then ? ** 
 
 "I car't tell you why. But you'll keep your promise. You 
 are too honourable to break your promise." 
 
 Mr. Monckton looked wonderingly at the girl's earnest face. 
 
 " No, my dear, I won't break my promise," he said. " But I 
 can't understand your anxiety for this concealment. However, 
 we wiU say nothing more about it, Nelly," he added, as if in 
 reply to an appealing look from Miss Vane ; " your name will 
 be Monckton when you go back to Berkshire ; and nobody will 
 dare to question your right to that name." 
 
 The lawyer put his lips to the girl's forehead, and bade her 
 good night upon the threshold of the shoemaker's door. 
 
 '' God bless you, my own darling ! " he said, in a very low 
 voice, " and preserve our faith in each other. There must be 
 no secrets between you and me, Nelly." 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 AN INSIDIOUS DEMON. 
 
 On a bright September morning a hired carriage took Miss 
 Vane and her friends to the quiet old church in Hart Street, 
 Bloomsbury. There was a little crowd assembled about the 
 door of the shoemaker's dwelling, and sympathetic spectators 
 were scattered here and there in the mews, for a marriage -is one 
 of those things which the cleverest people can never contrive to 
 keep a secret. 
 
 Miss Eleanor Vane's pale fawn-coloured silk dress, black 
 mantle, and simple white bonnet did not form the established 
 costume of a bride, but the young lady looked so very beautiful 
 in her girlish dress and virgmal innocence, that more than one 
 of the lounging grooms who came out of the stables to see her 
 go by to her hired carriage, confidentially remarked to an 
 acquaintance that he only wshed he could get such a young 
 woman for his missus. Richard Thornton was not in attendance 
 upon the fair young bride. There was a scene to be painted for 
 Spavin and Cromshaw upon that particular day_ which was 
 more important than any scene Dick had ever painted before. 
 So the young mnu set out early upon that September bridal 
 morning, after saluting Eleanor Vane in the most tender and 
 brotherly fasliion / but I am sorry to say that instead of goin^ 
 straight to the B^yal Phoenix Theatre, Mr. Thornton walked 
 with a slow and listless gait across "Westminster Bridge, then
 
 194 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 plunged with a sudden and almost ferocious impetus into the 
 remotest intricacies of Lambeth, scowling darkly at the street 
 hoys who came in his way, skirting the Archbishop's palace, 
 glowering at the desolation of Vauxhall, and hurrying far away 
 into the soUtudes of Battersea Fields, where he spent the better 
 part of the afternoon in the dreary parlour of an obscure pubUc- 
 nouse, drinking adulterated beer, and smoking bad tobacco. 
 
 The Signora wore a rustling black silk dress — Eleanor's pre- 
 sent of the previous Christmas — in honour of her protegee's 
 wedding ; but EUza Picirillo's heart was sadly divided upon thiy 
 quiet bridal day ; half rejoicing in Miss Vane's fortune and ad- 
 vancement ; half sorrowful for poor desolate Dick wandering 
 away amongst the swamps by the water-side. 
 
 Mr. Monckton and his two partners were waiting for the bride 
 in the portico of the church. The senior of the two, an old man 
 with white hair, was to give Eleanor away, and paid her many 
 appropriate though rather obsolete compliments upon the occa- 
 sion. Perhaps it was now for the first time that Miss Yane' 
 ^gan to regard the step she was about to take as one of a some- 
 what serious and indeed awful nature ; perhaps it was now for 
 the first time that she began to think she had committed a sin 
 in accepting Gilbert Monckton 's love so Ughtly. 
 
 " If he knew that I did not promise to marry him because I 
 loved him, but because I wanted to get back to Hazlewood," she 
 thought. 
 
 But presently the grave shadows passed away from her face 
 and a faint blush rose to her cheek and brow. 
 
 " I will love him by-and-by, when I have avenged my father's 
 death," she said to herself. 
 
 Some such thought as this was in her mind when she took her 
 place beside Gilbert Monckton at the altar. 
 
 The autumn sunsliine streamed in upon them through the 
 great windows of the church, and wrapped them in yellow light, 
 like the figures of Joseph and Mary in an old picture. The 
 bride and bridegroom looked very handsome standing side by 
 Bide in this yellow sunshine. Gilbert Monckton's twenty years' 
 seniority only dignified and exalted him; investing the holy 
 maniage promise of love and protection with a greater solemnity 
 than it could have had when spoken by a stripling of one or two 
 and twenty. 
 
 Everything seemed auspicious upon this wedding morning. 
 The lawyer's partners were in the highest spirits, the beadle and 
 pew-opener were elevated by the idea of prospective donations. 
 The Signora wept quietly while the marriage service was being 
 read, thinking of her nephew Richard smoking and drinking 
 desperately, perhaps, in his desolate painting-room ; but when 
 the ceremcny was over the good music-mistress dried her tears.
 
 An Insidious Demon. 195 
 
 banisKing all traces of sorrow before she kissed and complimented 
 the bride. 
 
 " You are to come and see ns at the Priory, dear Signora," 
 Eleanor said, as she clung about her friend before leaving the 
 vestry ; " Gilbert says so, you know." 
 
 Her voice faltered a little, and she glanced shyly at her hus- 
 band as she spoke of him by his christian name. It seemed as 
 if she had no right to allude so familiarly to Mr. Monckton, of 
 Tolldale Priory. And presently Eliza Picirillo stood alone— or 
 attended only by the beadle, obsequiously attentive in proportion 
 to the hberality of the donation he had just received — under the 
 portico of the Bloomsbury church, watching the lawyer's car- 
 riage drive away towards the Great Northern railway station. 
 Mr. Monckton, in the absence of any preference upon Eleanor's 
 part, had chosen a quiet Yorkshire watering-place as the scene 
 of his honeymoon. 
 
 Signora Picirillo sighed as she went down the steps before the 
 church, and took her seat in the hired vehicle that was to take 
 her back to the Pilasters. 
 
 " So Bloomsbury has seen the last of Eleanor," she thought, 
 sadly ; " we may go down to see her, perhaps, in her grand new 
 house, but she will never come back to us. She will never wash 
 the tea-things and make tea and toast again for a tired-out old 
 musio-mistress." 
 
 The dying glory of red and orange in the last sunset of Sep- 
 tember sank behind the grey line oi' the German Ocean, after the 
 closing day of Gilbert Monckton's honeymoon. TJpon the first 
 of October the lawyer was to take liis young wife to Tolldale 
 Priory. Mr. and Mrs. Monckton walked upon the broad sands 
 as that low orange hght faded out of the western sky. The 
 lawyer was grave and sUent, and every now and then cast a fur- 
 tive glance at liis companion's face. Sometimes that glajice was 
 succeeded by a sigh. 
 
 Eleanor was paler and more careworn than she had looked 
 since the day after her visit to the shipbroker's office. The 
 quiet and seclusion of the place to which Gilbert Monckton had 
 brought his bride had given her ample opportunity of brooding 
 on the one idea of her Hfe. Had he plunged her into a vortex 
 of gaiety, it is possible that she might have been true to that 
 deep-rooted purjaose which she had so long nursed in her breast ; 
 but, on the other hand, there would have been some hope that 
 the delights of change and novelty, delights to which youth 
 cannot be indifFerent— might have beguiled the bride from that 
 for-ever-recurring train of thought wluch separated her from her 
 husband as eflectually as if an ocean had rolled between them. 
 
 Yes, Gilbert Monckton had discovered the fatal truth that
 
 196 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 marriage is not always union, and that the holiest words that 
 were ever spoken cannot weave the mystic web wliich makes two 
 souls indissolubly one, if there be one inharmonious thread in the 
 magical fabric. Gilbert Monckton felt this, and knev/ that there 
 was some dissonant note in the chord which should have been 
 Buch a melodious combination. 
 
 Again and again, Avhile talking to his wife — carried away, 
 perhaps, by the theme of which he was speaking, and counting 
 on her sympathy as a matter of course — he had looked into 
 Eleanor's face, and seen that her thoughts had wandered far 
 away from him and his conversation, into some unknown region. 
 He had no clue by which he could follow those wanderings ; no 
 chance word ever fell from his wife's lips which might serve as 
 the traitor silk that guided ruthless Eleanor to Rosamond's 
 hiding-place. So thus, before the honeymoon was over, Gilbert 
 Mouckton began to be jealous of his bnde, thereby fostering for 
 himself a nest of scorpions, or a very flock of young vultures, 
 which were henceforth to make their meals off ms entrails. 
 
 But it was not the ferocious or Othello-like jealousy. The 
 green-eyed monster did not appear under his more rugged 
 and uncivilized form, finding a vent for his passions ia piUows, 
 poisons, and poniards. The monster disguised himself as a 
 smooth and philosophical demon. He hid his diabohcal attri- 
 butes under the gravity and wisdom of a friendly sage. In 
 other words, Gilbert Monckton, feeling disappointed at the result 
 of his marriage, set himself to reason upon the fact ; and was 
 for ever torturing himself with silent arguments and mute con- 
 jectures as to the cause of that indescribable something in his 
 young wife's manner, which told him there was no perfect union 
 between them. The lawyer reproached himself for his weak 
 folly in having built a fairy palace of hope upon the barren fact 
 of JEleanor's acceptance of his hand. Did not girls, situated as 
 George Vane's daughter had been situated, marry for money, 
 again and again, in these mercenery days ? Who should know 
 this better than Gilbert Monckton the soUcitor, who had drawn 
 up so many marriage settlements, been concerned in so many 
 divorces, and assisted at so many matrimonial bargains, whose 
 sordid motives were as undisguised as in any sale of cattle 
 transacted in the purlieus of Smithfield? AVho should know 
 better than he, that beautiful and innocent girls every day 
 bartered their beauty and innocence for certain considerations set 
 down by grave lawyers, and engrossed upon sheets of parchment 
 at so much per sheet? 
 
 He did know tliis, and in his mad arrogance he had said to 
 himself, " I — amongst all other men — will be an exception to the 
 common nile. The girl I marry is poor ; but she will give her- 
 self to me for no meaner considerations than my love, and my
 
 An Insidious Demon. 197 
 
 truth, and my devotion ; and those shall be hers until my dying 
 day." 
 
 Gilbert Monckton had said this; and already a mocking 
 demon had made a permanent perch for himself upon this 
 wretched man's shoulders, for ever whispering insidious doubts 
 into his ear, for ever instilling shadowy fears into his mind. 
 
 Eleanor had not seemed happy durmg those few honeymoon 
 weeks. She had gro^vn weary of the broad sands stretching far 
 away, flat and desolate under the September sky, and weary ot 
 the everlasting and unbroken line that bounded that wide grey 
 sea. This weariness she had displayed frankly enough ; but she 
 had not revealed its liidden source, which lay in her feverish 
 impatience to go back to the neighbourhood of" Hazlewood, and 
 to make the discovery she wished to make, before Maurice do 
 Crespigny's death. 
 
 She had sounded her husband upon the subject of the old 
 man's health. 
 
 " Do you think Mr. de Crespigny will live long P " she asked, 
 one day. 
 
 " Heaven knows, my dear," the lawyer answered, carelessly. 
 " He has been an invalid for nearly twenty years now, and he 
 may go on being an invalid for twenty years more, perhaps. 
 I fancy that his death will be very sudden whenever it does 
 happen." 
 
 " And do you think that he will leave his money to Launcelot 
 DarreU ? " 
 
 Eleanor's face grew a little paler as she mentioned the 
 young man's name. The invisible famiUar perched upon Mr. 
 Monckton's shoulder directed the lawyer's attention to that fact. 
 
 " I don't know. Why should you be interested in Mr. 
 Darrell's welfare ? " 
 
 " I am not interested in his welfare ; I only asked you a ques- 
 tion, Gilbert." 
 
 Even the malice of the familiar could take no objection to the 
 tone in which I]leanor said this : and Mr. Monckton was ashamed 
 of the passing twinge which Launcelot DarreU's name had 
 caused him. 
 
 " I dare say De Crespigny will leave his money to young 
 DarreU, my dear," he said, in a more cordial voice ; " and though 
 I have no very high opinion of the young man's character, I 
 think he ought to have the fortune. The maiden ladies should 
 have annuities, of course. Heaven knows they have fought 
 hard enough for the prize." 
 
 *' How can people act so contemptibly for the sake of money ! " 
 cried Eleanor, with sudden indignation. 
 
 The lawyer looked admiringly at her glowing face, which had 
 erimsoned with the intensity of her feeling. She was thinking
 
 198 Uleanor's Victory. 
 
 of her fatlier's death, and of tliat hundred pounds which had 
 been won from him on the night of his suicide. 
 
 " ITo," thought Mr. Monckton, " she cannot be mercenary. 
 That bright impulsive creature could never be guilty of any 
 deliberate meanness — and what could be a worse meanness than 
 that of the woman who could marry a man out of sordid and 
 mercenary motives, beguiling him by a simulated affection, in 
 order to compass her own advancement ? " 
 
 " If I have won her heart, in its untainted freshness," thought 
 GUbert Monckton, " I must be content, though that girUsh heart 
 may seem cold. She will love me better by-and-by. She wiU 
 learn to confide in me; she will learn to sympathize with me." 
 
 By such arguments as these Mr. Monckton endeavoured to 
 satisfy himself — and sometimes, indeed, succeeded in doing so— 
 that his young wife's absent and thoughtful manner was a matter 
 of course ; the thoughtfulness of a girl unused to her new posi- 
 tion, and perhaps a httle bewildered by its strangeness. But on 
 the morning of the first of October, Gilbert Monckton perceived 
 a change in Eleanor's manner, and on that morning the demon 
 famihar took up a permanent station upon the lawyer's shoulder. 
 
 Mrs. Monckton was no longer grave and Ustless. A feverish 
 impatience, a sudden flow of high spirits, seemed to have tak^^n 
 possession of her. 
 
 " You observe," whispered the demon famihar, as Mr. 
 Monckton sat opposite his wife in a compartment of the express 
 train that was to take them to London, en route for Berksliire, 
 " you observe the glow in her cheeks, the brightness of her eyes. 
 Ton saw her turn pale the other day when she mentioned 
 Launcelot DarreU's name. You know what the young man's 
 mother told you. You can do the commonest sum in logical 
 arithmetic, I suppose. You can put two and two together. 
 Your wife has been wearied to death of the north, and the sea, 
 and the sands — and of you. She is in high spirits to-day, and 
 it is very easy to account for the change in her manner. She is 
 glad to go back to Berkshire — she is glad to go back there, 
 because she will see Launcelot Darrell." 
 
 Mr. Monckton, with a cambric handkerchief thrown over his 
 face, kept a covert watch upon his wife from between its artfully- 
 adjusted folds, and enjoyed such converse as this with the spirit 
 he had chosen for his companion. 
 
 OHAPTEE XXVn. 
 
 SLOW rrREs. 
 
 Tire new life which began for Eleanor Monckton at ToUdale 
 Priory seemed very strange to her. The prim respectabihty of
 
 Slow Fires. 199 
 
 fclie old mansion weighed heavily upon her spirits. The best 
 part of her existence had been spent in a very tree-and-easy and 
 Bohemian manner : and her improved position was at first more 
 BtranLfe than jjleasant to her. The well-trained servants who 
 waited upon her in respectful silence, acknowledging her as their 
 mistress, and obsequiously eager to give her pleasure, were very 
 different people to the famihar landladies ot those lodgings in 
 which she had lived with her father, or the good-natured shoe- 
 maker-landlord at the Pilasters. 
 
 At Hazlewood she had been only a dependent; and those 
 who served her had given her their service out of love for her 
 brightness and beauty ; rendering her little benefits with frank 
 smiles and familiar greetings. But the mistress of ToUdale had 
 a certain dignity to support ; and new duties to learn in her new 
 position. 
 
 At first those duties seemed very hard to the impulsive girl, 
 who had a sort of instinctive contempt for all ceremonial usages 
 and stereotyped observances. They seemed more especially hard, 
 perhaps, because Gilbert Monckton expected his young Avife to 
 assume her new position as a thing of course, and was inclined 
 to be very jealous of any omission that derogated from her 
 
 He was inclined to be jealous of her girlish inconstancy of 
 thought and action, seeing in all this an evidence that she re- 
 gretted the freedom of her girlhood. He was inclined to be 
 jealous. That one sentence reveals the secret of a great deal of 
 misery which this gentleman made for himself. He was incUned 
 to be jealous of anything and every tiling, where his young wife 
 was concern L'd. 
 
 It was thus that Gilbert Monckton began his married Ufe. 
 It was thus that, of his own doing, he set a breach between 
 himself and the woman he idolized. And when the breach was 
 made, and the dreary gulf of distrust and misapprehension 
 stretched black and mipassable between this weak man and 
 that which he loved dearest in all the world, he could only cast 
 himself down beside the ya^vning ravine and bemoan his deso- 
 lation. 
 
 I have called Gilbert Monckton a weak man advisedly. In 
 all the ordinary business of life, and in all the extraordinary 
 businesses that fell in his proiessional pathway, the lawyer's 
 clearness of perception and power of intellect were Tinsurpassed 
 by any of liis compeers. Strong ; stem ; decided and unyielding, 
 where his judgment was once formed ; he was trusted as an oracle 
 by those who had dealings with him. But in his love for his wife 
 he was weaker and more irresolute than any desponding swain 
 of five-and-twenty. 
 
 He had been deceived once by a woman whom he had loved m
 
 200 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 he now loved Eleanor ; and he could not forget that early decep- 
 tion. The shadow that had fallen upon his Hfe was not to be 
 lifted off by any sunshine of trust and love. He had been 
 deceived once, and he might be deceived again. 
 
 The wrong which a woman's falsehood does to the man whom 
 she betrays is a lasting and sometimes irrecoverable wrong. 
 The wound festers, deep down below the outer scar ; and while 
 sympathetic friends are rejoicing in the slow obUteration of that 
 surface evidence of the past, the hidden canker still endures, 
 gaining force by time. 
 
 The secret sorrow of Gilbert Monckton's youth had made him 
 suspicious of all womanly truth and purity. He watched his 
 wife, as it had been his habit to watch his ward, doubtfully and 
 fearfully; even when he most admired her, regarding her in 
 some wise as a capricious and irresponsible being who might at 
 any moment turn upon him and betray him. 
 
 He had fought against his love for his ward's beautiful com- 
 panion. He had tried to shut his mind against all consciousness 
 of her fascinations ; he had endeavoured not to believe in her. If 
 she had stayed at Hazlewood, that silent struggle might have 
 gone on in the lawyer's breast for years ; but her sudden depar- 
 ture had taken the grave man of forty off his guard. Hurried 
 away by an impulse, he had revealed the secret that had been 
 so skilfully repressed, and, for the second time in his hfe, perilled 
 his happiness upon the hazard of a woman's truth. 
 
 "What do I know of her more than I knew of Margaret 
 Eavenshaw? " he thought sometimes ; " can I trust her because 
 she looks full in my face, with eyes that are as clear as the sky 
 above my head ? There is generally some landmark by which a 
 man's character can be understood, however practic^ed he may be 
 
 in hypocrisy ; but a woman Bah ! a woman's beauty defies a 
 
 physiognomist. We trust and beUeve because we admire. ' She 
 can't be wicked with such a Grecian nose,' we say. ' Those red, 
 smiling Hps cannot speak anything but the truth ! ' " 
 
 If Gilbert Monckton's young wife had seemed happy in her 
 new home, he would have accepted the fair omen, and would have 
 sunned himself in the brightness of her gaiety. But she was 
 not happy; he could clearly see that; and day and night he 
 tormented himself with vain endeavours to find out the cause of 
 her uncertain spirits, her fits of abstraction, her long pauses of 
 thoughtful silence. 
 
 And while Mrs. Monckton's husband was nursing all these 
 tortures, and eveiy day widening the gulf of his own making, his 
 wife, absorbed by her own secret purpose, was almost unconscious 
 of all else in the world. If she saw the lawyer's face thoughtful 
 or gloomy, she concluded that his moodiness arose from business 
 anxieties with which she had no concern. If he sighed, she set
 
 Sloto Firet. 201 
 
 down liis melancholy to the same professional canaes. A tiresome 
 will case, a troublesome chancery suit — something in those dusty 
 nfficeB had annoyed him ; and that professional something had 
 *f course no concern for her. 
 
 Eleanor Monckton had taken upon herself an unnatural office; 
 Bhe had assumed an abnormal duty ; and her whole hfe fashioned 
 itself to fit that unwomanly pur^wse. She abnegated the privi- 
 leges, and left unperformed the duties, of a wife — true to nothing 
 except to that fatal promise made in the first madness of hei 
 grief for George Vane's death. 
 
 She had been more than a week at ToUdale Priory, and she 
 had not advanced one step upon the road which she had so 
 desperately determined to pursue. She had not yet seen Laun- 
 celot Darrell. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton had spent the day after his return to Berk- 
 shire in riding about the neighbourhood, calling upon those few 
 people with whom he kept up any acquaintance, and informing 
 them of his marriage with the young lady who, a few weeks 
 before, had been the companion of his ward. Of course he received 
 friendly congratulations and good wishes from every one to whom 
 he imparted this intelligence ; and of course when his back was 
 turned, the same people who had tendered those good wishes set 
 to work to wonder at his folly, and to prognosticate all manner 
 of evil from his absurd and imprudent marriage. 
 
 His longest visit was paid to Hazlewood, and here his tidings 
 aflforded real and unmixed satisfaction. Launcclot Darrell was 
 at work in his painting-room, and was therefore out of the way 
 of hearing the news. The widow was pleased to think that 
 Eleanor's marriage would secure her son against the immediate 
 danger of taking a penniless wife; and Laura was sincerely 
 rejoiced at the idea of seeing her friend again. 
 
 " I may come to Tolldale soon, mayn't I, Mr. Monckton ? " she 
 asked. " Dear Nelly, I do so long to see her! But to tliink of 
 her being married to you ! I never was so surprised in my life. 
 Why, you must be old enough to be her father. It does seem so 
 funny!" 
 
 Gilbert Monckton did not feel particularly grateful to his ward 
 for the extreme candour of these remarks, but he invited the 
 young lady to spend the following dry with Eleanor. 
 
 " I shall be in toNvn to-morrow," he said, " and I dare say Mrs. 
 Monckton will find the Priory dull." 
 
 " Mrs. Monckton ! " cried Laura ; " oh, to be sure ; why, that's 
 Nelly, of course ! Find the Priory dull ? Yes, I should think 
 she would indeed ! Poor Eleanor, in those damp, overgrown 
 gardens, ^vith the high walls all round, and the tops of the trees 
 above the walls. How lonely she'll be." 
 
 " Lonely ! I shall come home to dinner every day."
 
 202 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 "Yes, at seven o'clock; and from breakfast time till seveu 
 poor Nell must amuse herself in the best way she can. But I'm 
 tot going to grumble ; I'm only too happy to think she will be 
 near me." 
 
 Mr. Monckton stood by the garden gate — that gate near which 
 he had so often loitered with Eleanor— listening with no very 
 great satisfaction to his ward's frivolous prattle. His young 
 wife would feel unhappy in the dulness of her new hfe, perhaps. 
 If that were to be so, it would be proof positive that she did 
 not love him. He could never have felt dull or lonely in her 
 society, though ToUdale had been some grim and isolated habi- 
 tation in the middle of an African desert. 
 
 "So you think she wUl be dull, Laura?" he said, rather 
 despondently. 
 
 "Wliy, of course she will," answered the young lady; "but 
 now don't tliink me inquisitive, please," she added, in a very 
 insinuating tone, " but I do so much want you to tell me some- 
 tliing." 
 
 " You want me to teU you what P " asked the lawyer, rather 
 sharply. 
 
 Laura linked her hand through his arm, and raising herself on 
 tip-toe, so as to bring her rosy Ups within easier reach of his ear, 
 whispered archly, 
 
 " Does she really love you ? "Was it really a love match ? " 
 
 Gilbert Monckton started as violently as if that infantine 
 whisper had been the envenomed hiss of a snake. 
 
 " 'VVliat do you mean, child ? " he said, turning sharply upon 
 his ward ; " of course Eleanor and I married because we loved 
 each other ? Why else should we have married ? " 
 
 " No, to be sure. Girls maiTy for money sometimes. I heard 
 Mrs. Darrell say that one of the Penwoods, of Windsor, married 
 a horrid, old, rich city man for the sake of his money. But I 
 don't tluuk Eleanor would do that sort of tiling. Only it seems 
 so funny that she should have been in love with you all the 
 time." 
 
 "AU what time?" 
 
 " Why, all the time she and I were together. How could she 
 help talking of you, I wonder ? " 
 
 The lawyer bit his hp. 
 
 " She never talked of me, then?" he said, with a feeble attempt 
 to make his tone careless. 
 
 " Oh, yes, she spoke of you sometimes, of course ; but not in 
 that way." 
 
 " Not in what way ? When will you learn to express yourself 
 clearly, ]\Iiss Mason ? Are you going to be a child all your life ? " 
 
 Gilbert Monckton's ward looked up at him with a half comic 
 look of terror. He was not accustomed to speak so sharply to her.
 
 Slow Fires. 203 
 
 "Don't be angry, please," she said, "I know I don't always 
 express myself clearly. I dare say it's because I used to get 
 other girls to do my themes — they call exercises in composition 
 themes, you know — when I was at school. I mean that Eleanor 
 didn't talk of you as if she was in love with you — not as I talk — 
 not as I should talk of any one if I were in love wth them," 
 added the young lady, blushing very much as she corrected herself. 
 
 Miss Mason had only one idea of the outer evidences of the 
 master-passion. A secret or unrequited affection, which did not 
 make itself known by copious quoUitions of Percy Shelley and 
 Letitia Landon, was in her mind a very commonplace affair. 
 
 Mr. Monckton shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Who set you up as a judge of how a woman should speak of 
 the man she loves ? " he said, sharply. " My wife has too much 
 modesty to advertise her affection for any man. By the bye, Miss 
 Mason, would you Hke to come and live at Tolldale? " 
 
 Laura looked at her guardian with unmitigated surprise. 
 
 " Come and live at Tolldale ! " she said ; " I thought you didn't 
 like me; I thought you despised me because I'm so frivolous 
 and childish." 
 
 " Despise you, Laura," cried Gilbert Monckton, " not like you ! 
 My poor dear child, what a brute I must have been if I ever havo 
 given you such an impression as that. I am very fond of you, 
 my dear," he added, gravely, laying his hand upon the girl's 
 head as he spoke, and looking down at her with soiTowful tender- 
 ness. " I am very much attached to you, my poor dear child. 
 If I ever seem vexed with your girlish frivolity, it is only because 
 I am anxious about your future. I am very, very anxious about 
 your future." 
 
 " But why are yon so anxious ? " 
 
 " Because your mother was childish and light-hearted like 
 you, Laura, and she was led to do a very cruel tiling for want of 
 thought." 
 
 " My poor mother. Ah, how I wish yon would teU me about 
 her." 
 
 Laura Mason looked very serious as she said this. Her hands 
 were folded round the lawyer's arm ; her bright blue eyes seemed 
 to grow of a more sombre colour as she looked earnestly upward 
 to his grave face. 
 
 " Not now, my dear ; some day ; some day, perhaps, we'll 
 talk about all that. But not now. You haven't answered my 
 question, Laura. "Would you like to live at Tolldale ? " 
 
 The young lady blushed crimson and dropj^ed her eyelids. 
 
 " I should dearly like to live \n\h. Eleanor," she said. 
 " But " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " I don't think it would be quite right to leave Mrs. Darrell,
 
 204 Eleanors Ticfory. 
 
 would it ? The money you pay her is of great use to her, yon 
 know ; I have heard her say she could scarcely get on without 
 it, especially now that Launcelot — now that Mr. DarreU has 
 come home." 
 
 The blushes deepened as Laura Mason said this. 
 
 The lawyer watched those deepening blushes with consider- 
 able uneasiness. " She is in love with this dark-eyed young 
 Ai3ollo," he thought. 
 
 " You are very scrupulous about Mrs. DarreU and her conve- 
 nience, Laura," he said. " I should have fancied you would 
 have been deUghted to live with your old friend and companion. 
 You'll come to-morrow to spend the day with Eleanor, I sup- 
 pose ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; if you please." 
 
 "I'll send the carriage for you, after it haa taken me to 
 Slough. Good-bye." 
 
 Mr. Monckton rode slowly homewards. His interview with 
 Laura had not been altogether agreeable to him. The girl's 
 surprise at his marriage with Eleanor had irritated and dis- 
 turbed him. It seemed Hke a protest against the twenty years 
 that divided his age from that of his young wife. There was 
 something abnormal and exceptionable in the marriage, it seemed, 
 then ; and the people who had congratulated him and wished 
 hi m well, were so many bland and conventional hypocrites, who 
 no doubt laughed in their sleeves at his foUy. 
 
 The lawyer rode back to ToUdale Priory with a moody and 
 overclouded brow. 
 
 " That girl is in love with Launcelot DarreU," he thought. 
 " She betrayed her secret in her childish transparence. The 
 young man must be wonderfully attractive, since people faU in 
 love with him in this manner. I don't hke him ; I don't beheve 
 in him ; I should not hke Laura to be his wife." 
 
 Yet in the next moment Mr. Monckton reflected that, afber 
 aU, a marriage between his ward and Launcelot might not be 
 altogether unadvisable. The young man was clever and gentle- 
 manly. He came of a good stock, and had at least brilhant ex- 
 pectations. He might marry Laura and go to Italy, where he 
 could devote a few years to the cultivation of his art. 
 
 "If the poor child is in love with him, and he returns her 
 affection, it would be cruel to come between them with any 
 prudential tyranny," thought Mr. Monckton. " The young man 
 seems really anxious to achieve success as an artist, and if he ia 
 to do so he ought certainly to study abroad." 
 
 The lawyer's mind dwelt upon this latter point throughout 
 the remainder of his ride, and when he crossed the stone-paved 
 hall where the cavaUers' boots and saddles hung in the glowing 
 hght that stole through the emblasoned windows, he had almost
 
 Slow Firet. 205 
 
 como to the determination that I^aura Mason and Launcolot 
 Darrell ought to be married forthwith. He fonnd his wife sitting 
 in one of the windows of the hbrary, with her hands lying idle 
 in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the garden before her. She 
 started as he entered the room, and looked up at him with a 
 bright eagerness in her face. 
 
 " You have been to Hazlewood ? " she said. 
 
 " Yes, I have just come from there." 
 
 " And you have seen ? " 
 
 She stopped suddenly. Launcelot Darrell's name had risen 
 to her lips, but she checked herself before uttering it, lest she 
 should betray her eager interest in him. She had no fear of 
 that interest being misconstrued ; no idea of such a possibUity 
 had ever entered her head. She only feared that some chance 
 look or word might betray her vengeful hatred of the young 
 man. 
 
 "You saw Laura — and — and Mrs. Darrell, I suppose?" she 
 eaid. 
 
 " Yes, I saw Laura and Mrs. Darrell," answered Gilbert 
 Monckton, watching his ^vife's face. He had perceived the hesi- 
 tation >vith which she had asked this question. He saw now 
 that she was disappointed in his reply. 
 
 Eleanor was incapable of dissimulation, and her disappoint- 
 ment betrayed itself in her face. She had expected to hear 
 something of Launcelot Darrell, something which would have 
 at least given her an excuse for questioning her husband about 
 him. 
 
 " You did not see Mr. Darrell, then?" she said, after a pause, 
 during which Mr. Monckton had placed himself opposite to her 
 in the open window. The afternoon sunshine fell full upon 
 Eleanor's face ; lighting up every change of expression ; reveal- 
 ing every varying shade of thought that betrayed itself un- 
 consciously in a countenance whose mobility was one of its 
 greatest charms. 
 
 " No, Mr. Darrell was in his painting-room ; I did not see him." 
 
 There was a pause. Eleanor was silent, scarcely knomng 
 how to fashion any question that might lead to her gaining 
 Borae information about the man whose secrets she had set her- 
 self to unravel. 
 
 " Do you know, Eleanor," said the lawyer after tliis pause, 
 during which he had kept close watch upon his wife's face, 
 " I think I have discovered a secret that concerns Launcelot 
 Darrell." 
 
 "A secret?" 
 
 Sudden blushes lit up Eleanor Monckton's cheeks Uke a 
 flaniing fire. 
 
 " A secret 1" she repeated. " You have found out a secrf* ' "
 
 206 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " Yes, I believe that my ward, Laura Mason, has fallen in 
 love with the yonng man." 
 
 Eleanor's face changed. Her feverish eagerness gave place 
 to a look of indifference. 
 
 "Is that all?" she said. 
 
 She had no very great belief in the intensity of Miss MasonV 
 feelings. The girl's sentimental talk and demonstrative admira- 
 tion had to her mind something spurious in their nature ; Mrs. 
 Monckton was ready to love Laura very dearly when the business 
 of her life should be done, and she coiild have time to love any- 
 body; but in the meantime she gave herself no uneasiiiess about 
 Miss Mason's romantic passion for the young painter. 
 
 " Laura ia as inconstant as the wind," she thought. " She 
 will hate Launcelot DarreU when I tell her how base he is." 
 
 But what was Eleanor's surprise when Mr. Monckton said, 
 very quietly : 
 
 " If the girl is really attached to this young man, and he 
 returns her affection — she is so pretty and fasciaating, that I 
 should think he could scarcely help being in love with her — I 
 don't see why the match should not take place." 
 
 Eleanor looked up suddenly. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, no," she cried ; " you would never let Laura 
 marry Launcelot Dan-ell." 
 
 " And why not, Mrs. Monckton P" 
 
 The insidious imp which the lawyer had made his bosom 
 companion of late, at this moment transformed himself into 
 a raging demon, and gnawed ravenously at the vitals of its 
 master. 
 
 " Why shouldn't Laura marry Launcelot Darrell?" 
 
 " Because you have a bad opinion of him. What did you say 
 to me by the garden-gate at Hazlewood, when Mr. DarreU first 
 came home ? You said he was selfish, shallow, frivolous ; false, 
 perhaps. You said there was a secret in his life." 
 
 " I thought so then." 
 
 "And have you ceased to think so now?" 
 
 "I don't know. I may have been prejudiced against the 
 young man," answered Mr. Monckton, doubtfully. 
 
 " I don't think you were," Eleanor said; " I don't think he is 
 a good man. Pray, pray don't let Lam-a marry him." 
 
 She clasped her hands in her eagerness, as she looked up in 
 her husband's face. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton' s brow darkened. 
 
 " What does it matter to you ? " he asked. 
 
 Eleanor looked surprised at the almost angry abraptnesB oi 
 her husband's manner. 
 
 " It ma,tters a great deal to me," she said. " I should be very 
 aorrj if Laura were to make an unhappy maxriage."
 
 Slow Firet. 209 
 
 " But must her marriage with Launcelot Darrell be necessarily 
 unhappy?" 
 
 " Yes ; because he is a bad man." 
 
 " "What right have you to say that, ainless you have some 
 special reason for thinking it ? " 
 
 " I have a special reason." 
 
 "AVhat reason?" 
 
 " I cannot toll you — now." 
 
 The ravenous demon's tooth grew sharper than usual when 
 Eleanor said this. 
 
 " Mrs. Monckton," the lawyer said, sternly, " I am afraid that 
 there can be very httle happiness in store for you and me if \ov 
 begin your married life by keeping secrets from your husband." 
 
 GUhert Monckton was too proud to say more than this. A 
 dull despair was creeping into lus breast, a sick loathing of him- 
 self and of his foUy. Every one of those twenty years which 
 made him his young wife's senior rose up agamst him, and 
 gibed and t-witted him. 
 
 What right had he to marry a young wife, and believe that 
 she could love him ? '\^^lat justification could he find for his 
 own foUy in taking this girl from poverty and obscurity, and 
 then expecting that she should feel any warmer sentiment than 
 some feeble gratitude to him for havmg given her an advan- 
 tageous bargain ? He had given her a handsome house and 
 attentive servants, carriages and horses, prosperity and inde- 
 pendence, in exchange for her bright youth and beauty, and he 
 •was angry with her because she did not love him. 
 
 Looking back at that interview in the Pilasters — every circum- 
 stance of which was very clear to him now, by the aid of a pair 
 of spectacles lent him by the jealous demon, his familiar — Mr. 
 Monckton remembered that no confession of love had dropped 
 from Eleanor's hps. She had consented to become his -wife, 
 nothing more. She had, no doubt — in those momenta of 
 maidenly hesitation, during which he had waited so breathlessly 
 — deUberately weighed and carefully balanced the advantages 
 that were to be won from the sacrifice demanded of her. 
 
 Of course the perpetual brooding upon such fancies as these 
 very much tended to make Gilbert Monckton an agreeable and 
 lively companion for an impulsive girl. There is something re- 
 markable in the persistency wth which the sufi"erer from that 
 ten-ible disease caUcd jealousy strives to aggravate the causes of 
 his torture.
 
 208 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 BY THE SUNDLAX. 
 
 Laura Mason came to live at Tolldale. Gilbert Monckton 
 ar<nied with himself that his most reasonable motive for marry- 
 ing Eleanor Vane had lain in his desire to provide a_ secure 
 home and suitable companionship for his vs^ard. The girl wag 
 very glad to be with Eleanor ; but a httle sorry to leave Hazle- 
 wood, now that Mr. Launcelot Darrell's presence gave a new 
 charm to the place. 
 
 " Not that he is very lively, you know, Nelly," Miss Mason 
 remarked to her guardian's wife in the course of a long discus- 
 sion of Mr. Darrell's merits. " He never seems happy. He's 
 always roaming alwut the place, looking as if he had something 
 upon his mind. It makes him look veiy handsome, though, you 
 know ; I don't think he'd look half so handsome if he hadn't 
 anything on his mind. He was awfully dull and gloomy after 
 you went away, Nell ; I'm sure he must have been in love with 
 you. Mrs. Darrell says he wasn't; and that he admires another 
 person : quite a different person. Do you think I'm the person, 
 Eleanor dear?" asked the young lady, blushing and s milin g, as 
 she looked shyly up at her companion's gi-ave face. 
 
 " I don't know, Laura ; but I almost hope not, for I should 
 be very sorry if you were to marry Launcelot DarreU," Eleanor 
 said. 
 
 "But why should you be sorry, Nelly?" 
 " Because I don't think he's a good man." 
 Miss Mason pouted her under hp and shrugged her shoulders, 
 with the prettiest air of impatience. 
 
 "It's very unkind of you to say so, Nell," she exclaimed. 
 "I'm sure he's good ! Or if he isn't good, I like him aU the 
 better toi it," she added, with charming inconsistency. " I don't 
 want to maiTy a good man, hke my guardian, or Mr. Neate, the 
 curate of Hazlewood parish. The Corsair wasn't good ; but see 
 how fond Gulnare and Medora were of him. I don't suppose it 
 was good of the Giaour to kill Hassan ; but who could have had 
 the heart to refuse to marry the Giaour?" 
 
 Mrs. Monckton did not attempt to argue with a youiig lady 
 wio expressed such opinions as these. Laura's romantic infatua- 
 tion only made Eleanor more impatient for the coming of that 
 hour in which she should be able to denounce Launcelot Darrell 
 as a cheat and a traitor. 
 
 " He shall be disappointed in his hope of a fortune, and 
 through me," she thought. " He shall be cast off by the woman 
 who has loved him, and through me. And when he sufiers most
 
 By the Sundial. 209 
 
 I will be as pitiless to his suffering, as he was pitiless to the old 
 man ■whom he cheated and abandoned to despair." 
 
 A fortnight passed after Eleanor's arrival at the Priory before 
 she had any opportunity of seeing Launcelot Darrell. She had 
 proposed going to Hazlewood several times, but upon each occa- 
 sion Mr. Monckton had contrived to interpose some oVyoction to 
 ner visit. She began to despair of entering upon the sileot 
 struggle with her father's destroyer. It seemed as if she had 
 come to Tolldale for no purpose. In her impatience she dreaded 
 that Maurice de Crespigny would die, leaving his fortune to his 
 nephew. She knew that the old man's hfe hung by a slender 
 tliread, which at any moment might be severed. 
 
 But at last the opportunity she had so anjdously awaited 
 arrived iinexpectedly, not brought about by any scheming or 
 foresight upon her part. Laura had been a few days at the 
 Prior}', and the two girls were walking in one of the sheltered 
 pathways of the old-fasliioned garden, waiting for Gilbert Monck- 
 ton's arrival, and the clanging summons of the great dinner-bell. 
 
 The October sunsliine was bright and pleasant ; the autumn 
 flowers enUvened the dark luxuriance of the garden vnih. their 
 gaudy splendour. The tall hollyhocks waved in the breeze. 
 
 The two girls had walked up and down the smooth gravel 
 path for some time in silence. Eleanor was absorbed in her 
 own thoughts, and even Laura could not talk for ever without 
 encouragement. 
 
 But presently this latter young lady stopped with a blush and 
 a start, clasping her hand tightly about her companion's wrist. 
 At the other end of the sheltered walk, amongst the flickering 
 patches of sunshine that trembled on the filbert-trees, she had 
 perceived Laujicelot Darrell advancing towards them. 
 
 Eleanor looked up. 
 
 " What is the matt«r, Laura ?" she asked. 
 
 In the next moment she recognized Mr. Darrell. The chance 
 had come at last. 
 
 The young man advanced to meet Mrs. Monckton and her 
 companion. He was pale, and had a certain gravity in his face 
 expressive of some hidden son-ow. He had been in love with 
 Eleanor Vane, after his own fashion, and was very much disposed 
 to resent her desertion of him. His mother had told him the 
 reason of that desertion very frankly, after Eleanor's mar- 
 riage. 
 
 "I come to offer you my congratulations, Mrs. Monckton," 
 he said, in a tone which was intended to wound the young wife 
 to the quick, but which, like everything else about this young 
 man, had a certain spuriousness, an air of melodrama that robbed 
 it of aU force. " I should have accompanied my mother when 
 ehe called on you the other day — but — — " 
 

 
 210 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 He paused abnii^tly, looking at Lam-a with an air of ill- 
 concealed vexation. 
 
 "Can I speak to you alone, Mrs. Monckton?" lie asked; "I 
 have sometliing particular to say to you." 
 
 "But you can say it before Laura, I suppose?" 
 
 "No, not before Laura, or before any one. I must speak to 
 you alone." 
 
 ]\iiss Mason looked at the object of her admiration with a 
 piteous expression in her childish face. 
 
 " How cruel he is to me," she thought ; " I do beheve he is 
 in love with Eleanor. How wicked of him to be in love with my 
 guardian's wife." 
 
 Mrs. Monckton did not attempt to refuse the privilege which 
 the young man demanded of her. 
 
 " I am quite wUhng to hear anything you may have to say to 
 me," she said. 
 
 " Oh, very well !" cried Laura. " I'm sure I'U go away if you 
 want to talk about secrets that I mustn't hear. Only I don't 
 see how you can have any secrets. You haven't known Mr. 
 Darrell a day longer than I have, Eleanor ; and I can't imagine 
 what he can have to say to you." 
 
 After this protest Miss Mason turned her back upon her com- 
 panions, and ran away towards the house. She shed a few 
 silent tears behind the shelter of a great clump of crysan- 
 themums. 
 
 " He doesn't care for me a bit," she muttered, as she dried her 
 eyes : " Mrs. Darrell is a wicked old story-teller. I ^feel just 'as 
 poor Gulnare must have felt when the Corsair was so rude to her, 
 after she'd committed a murder for his sake." 
 
 Eleanor and Launcelot left the sheltered pathway, and walked 
 slowly across the broad lawn towards an old sundial, quaint in. 
 shape, and covered with the moss that had slowly crept over the 
 grey stonework. Here the young man stopped, lounging against 
 the moss-grown pedestal, and resting his elbow upon the broken 
 dial. 
 
 " I have come here to-day to tell you that you have treated me 
 very ill, Eleanor Monckton," he said. 
 
 The young wife drew herself up proudly 
 
 " "What do you mean ? " she asked. 
 
 " I mean that you jilted me." 
 
 "Jilted you!" 
 
 " Yes. You played fast and loose with me. You listened to 
 my declaration of love. You sufiered me to beheve that you 
 loved me." 
 " Mr. DarreU !" 
 
 "You did more, Eleanor," cried the young man, passionately; 
 " you did love me. This marriage with Gilbert Monckton, a
 
 By the Sundial. 211 
 
 man twenty years your senior, is a marriaG;e prompted by base 
 and mercenary motives. You loved me, Eleanor ; your silence 
 admitted it that day, if your words did not. You had no rigbt 
 to be cajoled by my mother; you had no rij:jht to leave Hazle- 
 wood without a word of explanation to me. You are false-hearted 
 and mercenary, Mrs. Monckton ; and you have married this man 
 here because ne is the owner of a fine house, and can give you 
 money to spend upon your womanly caprices — your selfish 
 vanities." 
 
 He pointed scornfully to her silk dress as he spoke, and to the 
 golden trinkets that gbttered at her waist. 
 
 She looked at him with a strange expression in her face. 
 
 " Thiidf of me as you please," she said ; " think that I was in 
 love with you, if you bke." 
 
 It was as if she had said to him, " Fall into a trap of your 
 own setting, if you please. I am not base enough to lay such 
 a snare for you." 
 
 " Yes, Eleanor, you were false and mercenary. You were 
 fooUsh, perhaps, as well : for I may be a rich man before very 
 long. 1 may be master of the "Woodlands property." 
 
 " I don't think you ever will inherit that fortune," Eleanor 
 said, slowly. " You talk of my being base and mercenary ; you 
 are at Liberty to tliink so if you please. But have yov, never 
 done base things for the sake of money, Launcelot DarreU ? " 
 
 The man's face darkened. 
 
 " Kobody is immaculate, I dare say," he answered. " I have 
 been very poor, and have been obhged to do what the rest of the 
 world does when its purse is empty." 
 
 As Eleanor watched his moody face she suddenly remembered 
 that this was not the way her cards must be played. The task 
 •which she had set herself to perform was not to be accomphshed 
 by candour and openness. This man had betrayed her father, 
 and she must betray him. 
 
 She held out her hand to Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 " Let us be friends," she said ; " I wish to be friends with 
 you." 
 
 There were two witnesses looking on at this gesture. Laura 
 Mason was standing by her guardian, watching the group beside 
 the sundial. Gdbert Monckton had returned from town, and 
 had come into the garden in search of his wile. 
 
 " They sent me away from them," Laura said, as her guardian 
 looked at Launcelot and Eleanor. " He had something parti- 
 cular to say to her : so I wasn't to hear it, and they sent me 
 away. You'll ask him to dinner, I suppose?" 
 
 " No," answered the lawyer, sharply. 
 
 Launcelot Dan-ell held Eleanor's hand some moments before 
 he released it.
 
 212 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " I wish to "be friends with you, Mr. Darrell," she said ; " I'D 
 come to Hazlewood to-morrow to see yoiir pictures, if you please. 
 I want to see how the RosaUnd and Celia goes on." 
 
 She hated herself for her hypocrisy. Every generous impulse 
 of her soul revolted against her falsehood. But these things 
 were only a natural part of the unnatural task which she had 
 Bet herself to perform. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 KEEPING "WATCH. 
 
 T"WO pair of jealous eyes kept constant watch upon Eleanor 
 Monckton for some time after that October afternoon on 
 which the lawyer and Miss Mason stood side by side, looking at 
 the two figures by the sundial. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton was too proud to complain. He laid down 
 the fair hopes of his manhood in the grave that aheady held the 
 broken dreams of his youth. He bowed his head and resigned 
 himself to his fate. 
 
 " I was mistaken," he thought ; " it was too preposterous to 
 suppose that at forty I could win the love of a girl of eighteen. 
 My wife is good and true, but " 
 
 But what ? Could this girl be good and true ? Had she not 
 deceived her lover most cruelly, most deUberately, in her decla- 
 ration of utter indiiFerence towards Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 Mr. Monckton remembered her very words, her sudden look of 
 astonishment, her almost shuddering gesture of surprise, as he 
 asked the important question, 
 
 "And you do not love Launcelot Darrell P" 
 
 " Love him ! oh, no, no, no !" 
 
 And in spite of this emphatic denial, Mrs. Monckton had, ever 
 since her arrival at Tolidale Priory, betrayed an intense, an 
 almost feverish interest in the young scapegrace artist. 
 
 "If she is capable of falsehood," thought the lawyer, "there 
 must surely be no truth upon this earth. Shall I trast her and 
 ■wait patiently for the solution of the mystery ? No ; between 
 man and wife there should be no mystery ! She has no right 
 to keep any secret from me." 
 
 So Mr. Monckton hardened his heart against his beautiful 
 young wife, and set himself sternly and indefatigably to watch 
 ner every look, to hsten to every intonation of her voice, to 
 ^eep a rigorous guard over his own honour and dignity. 
 
 Poor Eleanor was too innocent to read all these signs aright ; 
 the only thought that her husband was changed; that this stern 
 and gloomy companion was not the same Gilbert Monckton
 
 Keeping Watch. 213 
 
 whom she had known at Hazlewood ; not the patient " guide, 
 philosopher, and friend," whose subdued bass voice, eloquent in 
 the dusky evenings long ago — a year is very long to a girl of 
 eighteen — in Mrs. Darrell's simple drawing-room, had seemed a 
 kind of intellectual music to her. 
 
 Had she not been absorbed always by that one thought, whose 
 mtensity had reduced the compass of her mind to a monotone, 
 the young wife would very bitterly have felt this change in her 
 husband. As it was she looked upon her disappointment as 
 something very far away from her ; something to be considered 
 and regretted by-and-by ; by-and-by, when the grand business 
 of her life was done. 
 
 But while the gulf between the young wife and her husband 
 every day grew wider, this grand business made no progress. 
 Day after day, week after week passed by, and Eleanor Monck- 
 ton found herself no nearer the end. 
 
 She had paid several visits to Hazlewood ; she had acted her 
 part to the best of her abilities, which were very mediocre in all 
 matters where deception is necessary; she had watched and 
 questioned Launcelot Darrell ; but she had obtained no vestige 
 of proof to set before Maurice de Crespigny when she denounced 
 his niece's son. 
 
 No ; whatever secrets were hidden in the young man's breast, 
 he was so guarded as to baffle Eleanor Monckton at every 
 point. He was so thoroughly self-possessed as to avoid betray- 
 ing himself by so much as a look or a tone. 
 
 He was, however, thrown a good deal in Eleanor's society, 
 for Mr. Monckton, %vith a strange persistence, encouraged the 
 penniless artist's attentions to Laura Mason ; while Launcelot 
 Darrell, too shallow to hold long to any infatuation, influenced 
 upon one side by his mother, and flattered upon the other by 
 Laura's imconcealed admiration, was content, by-and-by, to lay 
 down his allegiance at this new shrine, and to forgive Mrs. 
 Monckton for her desertion. 
 
 " Eleanor and my mother were both right, I dare say," the 
 young man reflected, contemplating his fate with a feeling of 
 desjxjndent languor. " They were -sviser than I was, I dare 
 say. I ought to marry a rich woman. I could never drag out 
 an existence of poverty. Bachelor poverty is bad enough, 
 but, at least, there's something artistic and Bohemian about 
 that. Chambertin one day, and vin ordinaire the next ; Veuve 
 CKquot at the Trois Freres or the Cafe de Paris to-night, and 
 email beer in a garret to-morrow morning. But married poverty! 
 Squalid desolation instead of reckless gaiety ; a sick wife and 
 lean hungry children, and the husband carrying wet canvases 
 to the pawnbroker ! Bah ! Eleanor was right ; she has done a 
 good thing for herself; and I'd better go in and win theheires^
 
 214 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 and maK6 myself secure against any caprice of my worthy 
 great-uncle." 
 
 It was thus tliat Launcelot Darrell became a frequent visitor 
 at Tolldale Priory, and as, at about tliis time, Mr. Monckton'a 
 business became so unimportant as to be easily flung entirely 
 into the hands of the two junior partners, the lawyer was almost 
 always at home to receive his guest. 
 
 Nothing could have been more antagonistic than the charac- 
 ters of the two men. There was no possibility of sympathy or 
 assimilation between them. The weakness of one was rendered 
 more evident by the strength of the other. The decided character 
 of the lawyer seemed harsh and rigid when contrasted with the* 
 easy-going languid good-nature of the artist. 
 
 Eleanor Monckton, perceiving this wide difiereuce between the 
 two men, admired her husband as much as she despised Laun- 
 celot Darrell. 
 
 If the lawyer could have known this, — if he could have known 
 that when his wife's earnest eyes followed every change of ex- 
 pression in the young man's face, when she listened most 
 intently to his careless and rambling, yet sometimes almost 
 brilhant talk, she read his shallow nature and its worthlessness 
 better than that nature had ever yet been read by the closest 
 observer,— if Gilbert Monckton could have understood these 
 things, what wasted agonies, what futile tortures, might have 
 been spared him ! 
 
 " What would have become of me if I had loved this man ? " 
 Eleanor thought, as day by day, with an intellect rendered pre- 
 tematurally clear by the intensity of her one desire, she grew 
 more famihar with Launcelot Darrell's character. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Laura Mason walked along a pathway of 
 roses, whose only thorns were those jealous twinges which the 
 young lady experienced on account of Eleanor Monckton. 
 
 " He loved her first," the heiress thought, despondently, " I 
 know he did, and he made her an offer upon the day the dress- 
 maker brought home my blue silk, and it was so short-waisted I 
 was obhged to make her take it back for alteration. And that 
 was why she — I mean Eleanor, not the dressmaker — leftHazle- 
 wood. And it's not pleasant to think that the man one idolizes 
 has idolized somebody else not three months before he proposes 
 to one ; and I don't think it was right of Eleanor to lead him 
 on." 
 
 It was by this latter very vague phrase that Miss Mason was 
 in the habit of excusing her lover's delinquency. Eleanor had 
 led him on ; and he was thereby in a manner justified for that 
 brief infatuation which had beguiled him from poor Laura. In 
 what this " leading on " had consisted the young lady did not 
 ■eek to understand. *^e wanted to forgive her lover, and she
 
 Keeping Watch. 215 
 
 wanted reasons for her forgiveness ; as weak women do wten 
 they deliver themselves up to the bondage of a sentimental 
 affection for a handsome face. But although Launcelot Darrcll 
 had made his peace with Mr. Monckton's ward, wooing her ■with 
 a great many tender words and pretty stereotyped phrases under 
 the gloomy shadow of the yew-trees in the old-fashioned priory 
 garden, and although he had formally demanded her hand, and 
 had been accepted by her guardian and herself, Laura was not 
 yet quite satisfied. Some lingering sentiment of distrust still 
 held its place in her breast, and the jealous twinges, which, as I 
 have said, constituted the thorns upon her rose-bestrewn path- 
 way, were very sharp and numerous. 
 
 Nor was Mx. Monckton wholly free from anxiety on his ward'>» 
 account. He had consented to her engagement with Launcelot 
 X)arrell. He had done even more ; he had encouraged the 
 young man's suit ; and now that it was too late to undo his 
 work, he began to argue with himself as to the wisdom of his 
 conduct. 
 
 He tried to palter with his conscience ; but he could not dis- 
 guise from himself that the leading motive which had induced 
 him to consent to his ward's engagement was liis desire to 
 remove Launcelot DarreU out of the society of his wife. He could 
 not be so bhnd to his own weakness as to be unaware of the 
 secret pleasure he felt in being able to demonstrate to Eleanor 
 •Ihe worthlessness of an affection which could be so easily trans- 
 ferred from one object to another. 
 
 Apart from this, Gilbert Monckton tried tobeheve that he had 
 taken the best course within his power of choice, for the frivolous 
 girl whom it was his duty to protect. To have opposed Laura's 
 attachment would have been to cause her great unhappiness. 
 The young man was clever and agreeable. He was the descendant 
 of a race which was almost noble by right of its origin. His 
 character would grow stronger mth time, and it woiild be th© 
 guardian's duty to foster all that was good ia the nature of his 
 ward's husband ; and to put him in a lair way of occupying an 
 honourable position. 
 
 " I mil try and develope his talent — his genius, perhaps,'* 
 Gilbert Monckton thought ; " he shall go to Italy, and study 
 the old masters." 
 
 So it waa settled that the marriage should take place early in 
 the spring, and that Launcelot and his wife should start imme- 
 diately afterwards upon a tour through the great art cities 6k 
 the continent. It was arranged that they should remain away 
 for at least a twelvemonth, and that they should spend the 
 ^finter in ]tome. 
 
 Eleanor Monckton grew deathly pale when her husband an- 
 nounced tit her the probable date of the marriage.
 
 216 Eleanor's Victory, 
 
 " So soon ! " slie said, in a low, half-stifled voice. " So soon! 
 why, December has already begun — the spring will be here 
 directly." 
 
 Gilbert Monckton watched her face with a thoughtful frown. 
 
 " What is there to wait for P " he said. 
 
 Eleanor was silent for a few moments. What could she say? 
 Could she sufier this engagement to continue ? Could she allow 
 Launcelot Darrell to hold his place amongst these people who 
 so ignorantly trusted in him ? She would have spoken, perhaps, 
 and confided at least some part of her secret to her husband, 
 but she refrained from doing so : for might not he too laugh at 
 her, as Richard Thornton had done P Slight not he, who had 
 grown lately cold and reserved in his manner towards her, some- 
 times even sarcastic and severe — might not he sternly reprobate 
 her mad desire for vengeance, and in some manner or other 
 frustrate the great purpose of her Life ? 
 
 She had trusted Eichard Thornton, and had implored his help. 
 No good had ever come of that confidence: nothing but re- 
 monstrances, reproaches, entreaties ; even ridicule. Why, then, 
 should she trust any one else ? No, she was resolved hencefor- 
 ward to hold her secret in her own keeping, and to look to herself 
 alone for victory. 
 
 " Why should the marriage be delayed ? " Mr. Monckton 
 demanded, rather sharply, for the second time ; "is there any 
 reason for delay ? " 
 
 " No," Eleanor faltered, " not if you think Mr. Darrell worthy 
 of Laura's confidence ; not if you think him a good man." 
 
 " Have you any reason to tliink otherwise of him ? " 
 
 Mrs. Monckton evaded a direct answer to this question. 
 
 " It was you who first taught me to doubt him," she said. 
 
 " Indeed ! " answered her husband ; " I had quite forgotten 
 "liat. I wonder, Eleanor, that you should appear so much in- 
 terested in this young man, since you have so bad an opinion of 
 him." 
 
 Mr. ]\Ionckton left the room after launching this dart at the 
 breast which he beheved was griilty of hiding from him a secret 
 regard for another. 
 
 " God help her, poor child ! " thought the lawyer, " she 
 married me for my position; and perhaps thought that it 
 would be an easy thing to conquer some slight sentimental 
 predilection for Launcelot Darrell. She tries to do her duty, I 
 beUeve; and when this young man is safely out of the way she 
 may learn to love me perhaps." 
 
 Such reflections as these were generally followed by a change 
 in the lawyer's manner, and Eleanor's failing sj^irits revived m 
 the new sunshine of his affection. She had respected and 
 admired Gilbert Moaakton from the hour of her meeting with
 
 An Old Man's Fancy. 217 
 
 him at the Great "Western terminti s ; and she was ready to love 
 him truly and cordially whenever she could succeed in her great 
 purpose, and disengage her mind from its one absorbing idea. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 AN OLD man's FANCT. 
 
 AlTHPUGH Eleanor Monckton's utmost watchfulness revealed to 
 her notlung that could be twisted into a proof of Launcelot 
 Darrell's identity with the man who had been the indirect cause 
 of her father's death, she made some progress in another quarter, 
 very much to the annoyance of several people, amongst whom 
 must be included the young painter. 
 
 Maurice do Crespigny, who for some years past had not been 
 known to take an interest in anything, exhibited a very great 
 interest in Gilbert Monckton's young wife. 
 
 The old man had never forgotten the day upon which he had 
 been suddenly carried back to the past, by the apparition of a 
 fair-haired girl who seemed to him the living image of his lost 
 friend. He had never forgotten this : and when, a few days 
 after Eleanor's arrival at Tolldale, he happened to encounter her 
 in one of his airings, he had insisted on stopping to talk to her, 
 much to the aggravation of his two maiden warders. 
 
 Eleanor caught eagerly at any chance of becoming familiar 
 with her father's friend. It was to him she looked for her pro- 
 mised vengeance. The law could give her no redress ; but 
 Maurice de Crespigny held in his hand the disposition of that 
 wealth for which his young kinsman hoped, and thus possessed 
 power to punish the cheat and traitor who had robbed a helpless 
 old man. 
 
 Even if this motive had not existed, Eleanor's love for her 
 dead father would have been sufficient to inspire her with every 
 tender feeling towards the owner of Woodlands. Her manner, 
 moditied by this tenderness, acted almost like a speU upon 
 Maurice de Crespigny. He insisted upon coming, in the course 
 of liis daily airing, to that part of the grounds where the two 
 estates were only divided by a slender wire fence, and where he 
 might hope to meet Eleanor. By-and-by he extorted from her 
 the promise to meet him on every fine day at a particular hour, 
 and it was in vain that the maiden sisters endeavoured by every 
 stratagem they could devise, to detain him in-doors at this 
 appointed time. They were fain to pray for perpetual wet 
 weather, for storms and fogs, whirlwinds, and other caprices of 
 nature, which might keep the invahd a prisoner to the house. 
 
 But at last even rain and tempest ceased to be of any avail 
 to these distressed and expectant spinsters, for Maurice de
 
 218 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Crespigny insisted upon inviting Mr. and Mrs. MoncHon to 
 Woodlands. They were to come whenever they could, every 
 day if they could, the old man wrote, with a tremulous hand 
 that was apt to go a httle astray over the paper ; but wliich 
 was yet strong enough and firm enough to iascribe a decent 
 signature at the foot of a will. 
 
 The two sisters never saw him write without thinking of thia 
 document. Was it made, and made in their favour ? Was it 
 yet to make ? Or was it made in accordance with the expecta- 
 tions of Ellen Darrell and her son ? 
 
 Lavinia and Sarah de Crespigny were agonized by the mere 
 thought of this latter possibility. It was not the money alone 
 thatthey thought of, the lands and tenements alone that they 
 considered. There was the family house in which they had 
 lived so long, the household treasures which their own careful 
 hands had dusted, as things too sacred to be approached by 
 meaner fingers. 
 
 There were the old silver salvers, the antique tea and cofiee 
 services, the great dragon-china jars on the staircase, the inlaid 
 card-tables in the green parlour, — would the ruthless young man 
 come into possession, and seize even upon those particular house- 
 hold gods which were most sacred to the maiden sisters ? 
 
 They knew that they had no claim to any great mercy from 
 Launcelot Darrell. Had they not urged his Indian voyage, and 
 for ever ofi"ended him by so doing ? It would have been better 
 perhaps to have been friendly towards him, and to have suffered 
 him to remain in England, and to be as much at Woodlands as 
 he pleased, thereby affording him ample opportunity for giving 
 offence to his great-uncle. 
 
 " Wlio can count upon an old man's caprices ? " thought tho 
 maiden sisters ; "perhaps because our uncle has seen very little 
 of Launcelot, he may be aU the more kindly disposed towards 
 him." 
 
 On the other hand, there was now the more imminent danger 
 of this sudden fancy with which Eleanor Monckton had inspired 
 the invahd ; and the sisters grew paler and more lugubrious 
 every day as they watched the progress of this eccentric friend- 
 ship. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton placed no obstacle in the way of his wife's 
 visits to Woodlands. He knew how sternly the doors of Mr. de 
 Crespigny's house were guarded against his widowed niece antj 
 her son ; and he knew that there at least Eleanor was not likely 
 to meet Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 Mrs. Monckton was therefore free to visit her dead father's 
 friend when she pleased ; and she was not slow to avail herself 
 of this privilege. It was of vital importance to her to be on 
 familiar terms with Maurice de Crespigny, to be able to enter
 
 An Old Man's Fancy. 219 
 
 his honse when and how she would. She saw enon^h in tho 
 old man's face, in the fearful uncertainty of his health — which 
 one day suffered him to be bright and cheerful, and on the next 
 laid him prostrate and helpless upon a sick bed — to convince 
 her that liis state was terrilily precarious. _ He might Unger for 
 years. He might die suddenly. He might die, leaving his 
 fortune to Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 The sisters watched, with ever-increasing alarm, the progress 
 that Mrs. Monckton was making in their uncle's favour. The 
 old man seemed to brighten under the influence of Eleanor's 
 society. He had no glimmering idea of the truth; he fully 
 beheved that the likeness which the lawyer's young wife bore to 
 George Vane was one of those accidental resemblances so com-- 
 mon to the experience of every one. He beheved this ; and yet 
 in spite of this he felt as if Eleanor's presence brought back 
 something of his lost youth. Even his memory was revivified 
 by the companionship of his dead friend's daughter ; and he 
 would sit for hours together, talking, as his nieces had not heard 
 him talk in many monotonous years, telling familiar stories of 
 that past in which George Vane had figured so prominently. 
 
 To Eleanor these old memories were never wearisome ; and 
 Maurice de Crespigny felt the dehght of talking to a hstener 
 who was really interested. He was accustomed to the poHte 
 attention of his nieces, whose suppressed yawns sometimes 
 broke in unpleasantly at the very cUmax of a story, and whose 
 wooden-faced stohdity had at best something unpleasantly sug- 
 gestive of being hstened to and stared at by two Dutch clocks. 
 But he was not accustomed to see a beautiful and earnest face 
 turned towards him as he spoke ; a pair of bright grey eyes 
 lighting up with new radiance at every crisis in the narrative ; 
 and lovely hps half parted through intensity of interest. 
 
 These things the old man was not accustomed to, and he be- 
 came entirely Eleanor's slave and adorer. Indeed, the elderly 
 damsels congratulated themselves upon Miss Vincent's marriage 
 with Gilbert Monckton ; otherwise Maurice de Crespigny, being 
 besotted and infatuated, and the young woman mercenary, there 
 might have been a new mistress brought home to Woodlands 
 instead of to ToUdale Priory. 
 
 Happily for Eleanor, the anxious minds of the maiden sisters 
 were ultimately set in some degree at rest by a few words which 
 Maurice de Crespigny let drop in a conversation with ^Ire. 
 Monckton. Amongst the treasures possessed by the old man — 
 the relics of a past life, whose chief value lay in association — 
 there was one object that was pecuharly precious to Eleanor. 
 This was a miniature portrait of George Vane, in the cap and 
 gown which he had worn sixty years before, at Magdalen 
 College, Oxford.
 
 220 Uleanor^s Victory. 
 
 Tliis picture was very dear to Eleanor Monckton. It was no 
 very wonderful work of art, perhaps, but a laborious and patient 
 performance, whose production had cost more time and money 
 than the photographic representations of half the members of 
 the Lower House would cost to-day. It showed Eleanor a fair- 
 haired stripling, with bright hopeful blue eyes. It was th« 
 shadow of her dead father's youth. 
 
 Her eyes fiiled with tears as she looked at the little ivory 
 portrait in its oval case of sUppery red morocco. 
 
 " Crocodile ! " thought one of the maiden sisters. 
 
 " Sycophant ! " muttered the other. 
 
 But this very miniature gave rise to that speech which had so 
 much effect in calmin^ the terrors of the two ladies. 
 
 " Yes, my dear," Maurice de Crespigny said ; " that portrait 
 was painted sixty years ago. George Yane would have been 
 close upon eighty if he had lived. Yes, close upon eighty, my 
 love. You don't see your own likeness to that picture, perhaps ; 
 people seldom do see resemblances of that kind. But the lad's 
 face is Hke yours, my dear, and you bring back the memory of 
 my youth, just as the scent of some old-fashioned flower, that 
 our advanced horticulture has banished to a cottager's garden, 
 brings back the grass-plot ujoon which I played at my mother's 
 knees. Do you know what I mean to do, Mrs. Monckton ? " 
 
 Eleanor lifted her eyebrows with an arch smile, as who 
 should say, "Your caprices are quite beyond my power of 
 divination." 
 
 " I mean to leave that miniature to you in my will, my dear." 
 
 The maiden sisters started simultaneously, agitated by the 
 same emotion, and their eyes met. 
 
 " Yes, my dear," Mauripe de Crespigny repeated, " I shall 
 leave that miniature to you when I die. It's not worth any- 
 thing intrinsically ; but I don't want you to be reminded of me 
 when I am dead and gone, except through your o^vn tender 
 feelings. You have been interested in my stories of George 
 Vane — who, with all his faults, and I'm not slow to acknowledge 
 them, was a brighter and better man than I was — and it may 
 please you sometimes to look at that picture. You've brought 
 a ray of sunlight across a very dismal pathway, my love," 
 added the invalid, quite indifferent to the fact that this remark 
 was by no means complimentary to his devoted nurses and 
 guardians, " and I am grateful to you. If you were poor, I 
 should leave you money. But you are the wife of a rich man ; 
 and, beyond that, my fortune is already disposed of. I am not 
 free to leave it as I might wsh ; I have a duty to perform, my 
 dear ; a duty which I consider sacred and imperative ; and I 
 ehaU fulfil that duty." 
 
 The old man had never before spoken so freely of his iaten*
 
 An Old Man's Fancy. 821 
 
 tionfl with regard to his money. The sisters sat staring blankly 
 at each other, with quickened breatlis and pale faces. 
 
 What could this speech mean ? ^Vhy, clearly that the money 
 must be left to them. What other duty could Maurice de Cres- 
 pigny owe to any one ? Had they not kept guard over him for 
 years, shutting him in, and separating liim from every living 
 creature ? W hat right had he to be grateful to any one but 
 them, inasmuch as they had taken good care that no one else 
 should ever do him a service ? 
 
 But to the ears of Eleanor Monckton, the old man's speech 
 had another signification ; the blood mounted to her face, and her 
 heart beat violently. *' He is thinking of Launcelot Darrell," 
 she thought ; " he Avill leave his fortune to Launcelot Darrell. 
 He will die before he learns the secret of my father's wrongs. 
 His will is already made, no doubt, and he will die before I can 
 dare to say to him, ' Your niece's son is a trickster and a 
 villain ! '" 
 
 Tliis was the only occasion upon which Maurice de Crespigny 
 ever spoke of his intentions with regard to the fortune that he 
 must leave behind him. He said, plainly enough, that Eleanor 
 was to have none of his money ; and the sisters, who had until 
 now kept a jealous watch upon the old man and his favourite, 
 were henceforward content to let Mrs. Monckton come and go 
 as she pleased. But for all this Eleanor was no nearer the 
 accomphshment of her great purpose. 
 
 Launcelot DarreU came to Tolldale, and in a certain easy and 
 somewhat indifferent manner paid his homage to his affianced 
 wife. Laura was happy by tits and starts; and by fits and 
 starts utterly miserable, when the horrible pangs of jealousy — 
 jealousy of Eleanor, and jealous doubts of her lover's truth — 
 tortiured her breast. Gilbert Monckton sat day after day in the 
 hbrary or the drawing-room, or Eleanor's moming-room, as the 
 case might be, keeping watch over his wife and the lovers. 
 
 But though the days and weeks went by with an imnatural 
 rapidity, as it seemed to Mrs. Monckton — with a wearisome 
 slowness in the opinion of her husband — the progress of time 
 brought George Vane's daughter no further onward, by so much 
 as one step, upon the pathway which she had chosen for herself. 
 
 Christmas came ; and the girl whose youth had been spent in 
 the shabby lodgings in which her father had hidden the poverty 
 of his decline, the patient young housekeeper who had been 
 used to eke out ounces of tea, and to entreat for brief respite 
 and grace from aggrieved chandlers, was called upon to play my 
 Lady Bountiful at Tolldale Priory, and to dole out beet and 
 bread, blankets and brandy, coals and flannels, to a host of 
 hungry and shivering claimants. 
 
 Christmas passed, and the new year struggled into life under
 
 222 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 every disadvantage of bad weather; wliile the spring, the 
 dreaded early spring, wliicli was to witness Laura's marriage, 
 approached with a stealthy footfall, creeping day by day nearer 
 and nearer. 
 
 Eleanor, in very despair, appealed to Richard Thornton. 
 
 She appealed to hini from the force of habit, perhaps : as a 
 fretful child complains to its mother : rather than from any 
 hope that he could aid her in her great scheme. 
 
 " Oh, Eichard," she wrote, despairingly, "help me, help me, 
 help me ! I thought aU would be so easy if I could once come 
 to this place. But I am here, and I see Launcelot Darrell every- 
 day, and yet I am no nearer the end. What am I to do H 
 January is nearly over ; and in March, Laura Mason is to marry 
 that man. Mr. de Crespigny is very ill, and may die at any 
 moment, leaving his money to his niece's son. Is this man, 
 who caused my father's death, to have all the brightest and 
 best things this world can give P Is he to have a noble fortune 
 and an amiable wife ? and am I to stand by and permit him to 
 be happy ; remembering what happened upon that dreadful 
 night in Paris — remembeiing that my father lies in his uncon- 
 secrated grave, and that his blood is upon this man's head ? 
 Help me, Hichard. Come to me ; help me to find proof positive 
 of Launcelot DarreU's guilt. You can help me, if you please. 
 Your brain is clearer, your perception quicker, than mine. I 
 am carried away by my own passion — blinded by my indigna- 
 tion. You were right when you said I should never succeed in 
 this work. I look to you to avenge my father's death." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 A POWEBFUL AXLT. 
 
 KiCHARB Thoknton was not slow to respond to Eleanor's stiia< 
 mons. The same post which carried Mr. Monckton's letter to 
 the young man conveyed another letter, addressed to the 
 Signora, urging her to abandon her pupUs, for a time at least, 
 and to come at once to Tolldale. 
 
 Eleanor had not forgotten the faithful friends who had suc- 
 coured her in the day of her desolation, but the Signora's habits 
 of independence were not to be conquered, and Mrs. Llonckton 
 found there was very httle that Eliza Picirillo would consent 
 to accept from her. 
 
 She had insisted upon removing the music-mistress from the 
 eccentric regions of the Pilasters to a comfortable first-floor in 
 Dudley Street. She had furnished this new shelter with easy 
 chairs, and Brussels carpets, an Erard's piano, and proof im- 
 pressions of the Signora's favourite pictures ; ««»A in dQjjiuj this
 
 A Powerful Ally. 223 
 
 she had very nearly exhausted her first year's income, much to 
 the satisfaction of Gilbert Monckton, who implored her to call 
 upon him freely tor any money she might want for her friends. 
 
 It pleased him to see her do these things. It was a dehj^ht 
 Jb him to see her thus tenderly grateful to the friends of her 
 adversity. 
 
 " A mercenary woman would have cast off these humble 
 associations," he thought: "this girl must be the noble crea- 
 ture I believed her to be, when I flung down my happiness for 
 the second time at a woman's feet." 
 
 But although Eleanor would have gladly lavished every shil- 
 ling she possessed upon Eliza Picirillo and her nephew, she 
 could not persuade either the music-mistress or tne scene- 
 painter to work less hard than it had been their wont to do for 
 many wearisome years. The Signora still went from house to 
 house in attendance upon her out-of-door pupils, and still re- 
 ceived young ladies bent upon wearing the laurel crown of the 
 lyric drama. Richard stUl painted snow-clad moujitain-tops, 
 and impossible Alpine passes, impracticably prosperous villages, 
 and wide-spreading farm-lands of yeUow com, bounded by 
 fragile white pailings, and occupied by husbandmen in Hnen 
 gaiters and chintz waistcoats. It was in vain, therefore, that 
 Mrs. Monckton had hitherto imi^lored her friends to come to 
 Tolldale, and it was only in consequence of a very serious mis- 
 understanding with Messrs. Spavin and Cromshaw, which for a 
 time threw the scene-painter out of employment, that Richard 
 Thornton was able to respond to Eleanor's earnest appeal. 
 
 A January that had been bleaker and colder than even January 
 IB expected to be was dra^idng to a close, when Signora Picirillo 
 and her nephew arrived at the Priory. The woods round Toll- 
 dale were shrouded with snow, the broad lawns before Woodlands 
 ■*»ere as white as Richard's Alpine passes, and Maurice de Cres- 
 figny had been for many weeks a prisoner to the house. Laura's 
 wedding-day was appointed for the fifteenth of March, and that 
 young lady, when imoccupied by her lover's society, was entirely 
 absorbed in the milUnery and mantua-makiug necessary for the 
 preparation of her bridal outfit. 
 
 Richard Thornton had considerably modified the eccentric 
 fashion of his bearc', and had bought a new suit of clothes in 
 honour of his fair young hostess. The scene-painter had not seen 
 Eleanor since the morning on which he had fied away from the 
 Pilasters to hide liis sorrows amongst the swamps of Battersea. 
 The meeting, therefore, was a painful one to him ; all the more 
 painful, perhaps, because Mi-s. ]\Ionckton received him with the 
 irankly afi"ectionate welcome which she would have bestowed 
 upon a Irother. 
 
 *' You must help me, Dick," she said, " fas the sake of otliera,
 
 224 tlleanor's Victory. 
 
 if not for my sate; yoii cannot now refuse to fathom this 
 mystery. If Lanncelot Dan-ell is the man I believe him to be, 
 lie is no fit husband for an affectionate and trusting girl.** He 
 has no right to inlierit Maurice de Crespigny's fortune ! The 
 marriagebetween Laura and this man is to take place upon the 
 fifteenth of March. Maurice de Crespigny may die to-morrow. 
 We have very little time before us, Richard." 
 
 So Mr. Thornton was fain to obey the imperious young lady, 
 who had been in the habit of ordering him about ever since the 
 days in which he had kept rabbits and silkworms for her gratifi- 
 cation. He set himself to his task very faithfully ; and did his 
 best to become acquainted -with Launcelot Darrell's character. 
 
 The well-bom young artist, who meant to do something veiy 
 gi-eat in the Academy at his earhest convenience, treated the 
 scene-painter with a superciKous good-nature that was by no 
 means agreeable to Mr. Thornton. 
 
 Dick had resolved not to be prejudiced against Eleanor's 
 fancied enemy, lest that young lady's vehement impulses should 
 have led her into rather an awkward mistake ; but there was 
 something in the insolent assurance of Launcelot Darrell that 
 aroused Richard's indignation, and it was not without an effort 
 that he contrived to be commonly civil to poor Laura's affianced 
 husband. 
 
 Launcelot dined at ToUdale upon the evening of the arrival of 
 Eleanor's guests, and it was at the dinner-table that Richard 
 first had an opportunity of observing the man he had been 
 entreated to watch. Mr. Monckton, sitting at the bottom of the 
 table, and looking at his wife athwart a ghttering array of glass 
 and silver, became aware of a change in Eleanor's manner, — a 
 change that mystified and bewildered him, but which was not 
 altogether unpleasant to him. 
 
 The lawyer's jealousy had been chiefly aroused by the per- 
 petual uneasiness of Eleanor's manner when Launcelot DarreU 
 was present ; by the furtive yet unregarded watch which she 
 kept upon the young man's movements. To-night, for the first 
 time, her manner had changed. It was no longer Launcelot 
 DarreU, but Richard Thornton whom she watched. 
 
 Following every varying expression of her face, Gilbert 
 Monckton saw that she looked at the scene-painter with an 
 earnest, questioning, appealing glance, that seemed to demand 
 something of him, or urge him on to the performance of some- 
 thing that she wanted done. Looking from his wife to Richard, 
 the lawyer saw that Launcelot DarreU was stUl watched ; but 
 this time the eyes that observed him were those of the Signora's 
 nephew. 
 
 Mr. Monckton felt very much like a spectator who looks on 
 at a drama which is being acted in a language that is unknown
 
 A. Powerful Ally. 225 
 
 to tim. The dramatis persona come in and go out ; they are 
 earnest or vehement, joyous or sorrowful, as the case may be ; 
 bull not having any clue to the plot, the wretched looker-on can 
 scarcely feel intense delight in the performance. 
 
 Eleanor contrived to question her ally in the course of the 
 erening. 
 
 " Well, Richard," she said, " is Launcelot Darrell the man 
 who cheated my father ? " 
 
 " I don't know about that, Mrs. Monckton, but——'* 
 
 " But you think ? " 
 
 " I think he is by no means the most delightful, or the best of 
 men. lie snubs me because I paint scenery for the Phceuix; 
 and he accepts that silly little girl's homage with the air of a 
 sultan." 
 
 " Then you don't Uke him, Dick ! " 
 
 Mr. Tliomton drew a long breath, as if by some powerful 
 eflFort of his will he repressed a vehement and unseemly expres- 
 sion of feeling. 
 
 " I think he's — you know what a great tragedian used to call 
 
 Eeople when they rang down the act-drop three minutes before 
 lear had finished using bad language to his eldest daughter, or 
 came up in the witches' cauldron with their backs to the audience 
 — and nervous people have been kno\vn to do that, Eleanor : — 
 it isn't pleasant to stand on a rickety ladder and talk to a quick- 
 tempered tragedian out of a canvas saucepan, with a smell of 
 burning rosin in your nostrils, and another nervous apparition 
 wanting to get you off the ladder before you've finished your 
 speech. I think Launcelot Darrell is — a beast, Mrs. Monckton ; 
 and I have no doubt he would cheat at cards, if he had the chance 
 of doing it with perfect safety and convenience." 
 
 " You think that ? " cried Eleanor, seizing upon this latter 
 part of Eichard's speech; "you think that he would cheat a 
 nelpless old man P Prove that, Richard ; prove it, and I will 
 be as merciless to Launcelot Darrell as he was to my father — 
 Vis uncle's friend, too ; he knew that." 
 
 " Eleiinor Monckton," Richard said, earnestly, " I have never 
 been serious before upon this matter ; I have hoped that you 
 would outUve your girhsh resolution ; I hoped above all that 
 when you married ' — his voice trembled a Uttle here, but he 
 went bravely on — " new duties would make you forget that old 
 promise ; and I did my best, Heaven knows, to wean you from 
 the infatuation. But now that I have seen this man, Launcelot 
 Darrell, it seems to me as if there may have been something of 
 inspiration in your sudden recognition of him. I have already 
 seen enough of liim to know at least that he is no fit husband 
 for that poor little romantic girl with the primrose-coloureif 
 kinglets ; and I will do my best to find out where he was, and 
 
 P
 
 2ZG Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 M-liat he was doing, dui-ing those yeaxa in which he is supposecl 
 to have been in India." 
 
 " You will do this, Richard ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Monckton." The young man addz-essed his old 
 companion by this name, using the nnfamiliar appellation as a 
 species of rod by which he kept in order and subdued certain 
 Tebellijus emotions that would arise as he remembered how 
 utterly the beautiful girl, whose presence had made sunshine in 
 the shabbiest, if not the shadiest of places, was now lost to him. 
 " Yes, Mrs. Monckton, I will try and fathom the mystery. This 
 Launcelot Darrell must be very clever if he caji have contrived 
 to do away with every vestige of the years in which he was or 
 was not in India. However softly Time may tread, he leaves 
 his footmarks behind, liim ; and it will be strange if we can't 
 find some tell-tale impression whereby Mr. Darrell's secret ma 
 be discovered. By the bye, Mrs. Monckton, you have had a good 
 deal of time for observation. What have you done towards in- 
 vestigating the young man's antecedents ? "' 
 
 Eleanor blushed, and hesitated a httle before she answered 
 this very direct question. 
 
 " I have watched him very closely," she said, " and I've 
 listened to every word he has ever said " 
 
 " To be sure. In the expectation, no doubt, that he would 
 betray himself by frowns and scowls, and other facial contortions, 
 after the manner of a stage villain ; or that he would say, ' At 
 such a time I was in Paris ; ' or ' At such a time I cheated at 
 ecarte.' You go cleverly to work, Mrs. Monckton, for an amateur 
 detective ! " 
 
 " What ought I to have done, then? " Eleanor asked, despon- 
 dently. 
 
 " You should have endeavoured to trace up the history of the 
 past by those evidences which the progress of life can scarcely 
 fail to leave behind it. Watch the man's habits and associations, 
 rather than the man himself. Have you had access to the rooms 
 in which he lives ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I have been with Laura to Hazlewood often since I 
 came here. I have been in Launcelot Darrell's rooms." 
 
 " And have you seen nothing there ? no book, no letter ; no 
 scrap of evidence that might make one hnk in the story of this 
 man's life ?" 
 
 " Notliing — nothing particular. He has some French novels 
 on a shelf in one comer of his sitting-room." 
 
 " Yes ; but the possession of a few French novels scarcely 
 proves that he was in Paris in the year '53. Did you look at the 
 titles of the books ? " 
 
 " No ; what could I have gained by seeing them P" 
 
 " Something, pernaps. The French are a volatile peoplett
 
 A Powerful Ally. 227 
 
 The fashion of one year is not the fashion of another. If you 
 nad found some work tliat made a, furore in that jiarticular year, 
 you mi((ht have argued that Launcelot Darrell was ?l flaneur in 
 the Galerie d'Orleans, or on the Boulevard, where the book was 
 newly exhibited in the shop-windows. If the novels were new 
 onca, and not Michel Levy's eternal reprints of Sand and Soulie, 
 Balzac and Bernard, you might have learnt something from 
 them. The science of detection, Mrs. Monckton, lies in the ob- 
 servation of insignificant thuigs. It is a species of mentai 
 geology. A geologist looks into the gravel pit, and teUs you 
 the history of the creation ; a clever detective ransacks a man's 
 cari^et-bag, and con\ncts that man of a murder or a forgery." 
 
 " I know I have been very stuiDid," Eleanor murmured, almost 
 piteously. 
 
 " Heaven forbid that yon should ever be very clever in such a 
 line as this. There must be detective ofiicers ; they are the 
 poUshcd bloodhounds of our civihzed age, and very noble and 
 estimable animals when they do their duty conscientiously : but 
 fair-haired young ladies should be kept out of tliis gaVere. Think 
 no more of tliis business, then, Eleanor. If Launcelot Darrell 
 was the man who played ecarte with your father on the 11th of 
 August, '53, I'll find a proof of his guilt. Trust me to do that." 
 
 " I will trust you, Richard." 
 
 Mrs. Monckton held out her hand with a certain queenlinesa 
 of gesture, as if she would thereby have ratified a bond between 
 herself and her old friend ; and as the flower of bygone chivalry 
 were wont to vow the accomplishment of great deeds on the 
 ieweUed hilt of a cross-handled sword, so Richard Thornton, 
 bending his honest head, swore allegiance upon the hand of 
 Gilbert Monckton's young wife. 
 
 " One word more, Mrs. Monckton," said the scene-painter, 
 " and then we had better leave off talking, or people will begin 
 to wonder why we are so confidential and mysterious. This 
 Mr. DarreU is an artist, I understand. Does he paint much ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, a great deal ; that is to say, he begins a great many 
 things." 
 
 " Precisely ; he does a good many rough sketches, scraps of 
 pencil and crayon, eh p " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And he tills portfolios with such scraps, and htters huj 
 studio with them?" 
 
 •* Yes." 
 
 " Then I must have a look at his studio, Mrs. Monckton. An 
 artist — yes, even the poorest artist, the furthest away from the 
 BubHmity of genius — is sure to be fond of his art. He makea 
 a confidant of it ; he betrays a hundred secrets, that he 
 keeps locked fro«n every hving creature, in the freedom of his
 
 228 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 studio. His pencil is tlie outer expression of his mind ; and 
 whatever falsehoods he may impose upon his fellow-men, hia 
 sketch-book will tell the truth. It will betray him when he is 
 false, and reveal him when he is true. I must have a look at 
 Launcelot Dan-ell's studio, Mrs. Monckton. Let me see the 
 man'? pictures ; and I may be able to tell you more about the 
 man himself." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXn. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE SKETCH-BOOK. 
 
 It is only natural that one painter should take an interest in 
 the work of another. Mr. Darrell testified no surprise, there- 
 fore, when Richard Thornton appeared at Hazlewood the morn- 
 ing after his arrival at ToUdale, under convoy of Mrs. Monckton 
 and Laura. 
 
 " I've come to say how sorry I was at your not coming to 
 dinner last night, dear Mrs. DarreU," Laura said, to the lady 
 Avho was so soon to be her mother-in-law ; " and I want to ask you 
 whether I ought to have the sprigged mushn morning dresses 
 trimmed with pink or blue, or whether I ought to have three of 
 them pink and three blue, for Launcelot might get tired of seeing 
 me in the same colours, you know, and I might have two of 
 them trimmed with peach, if it came to that ; and Eleanor has 
 come with me; and Mr. Thornton — Mr. Thornton, Mrs. DarreU; 
 Mrs. Darrell, Mr. Thornton — has come too, because he is an 
 artist and wants to see Launcelot's pictures — especially the 
 beautiful picture that's going into the Academy, and that the 
 committee is sure to hang on the line ; and I'm sure Launcelot 
 win let Mr. Thornton see his studio — won't you, dear Launcelot.'^" 
 
 Miss Mason pursed up her rosy hps, and put her head on one 
 side hke an insinuating canary, as she addressed her affianced 
 husband. She looked veiy pretty in her winter costume, with 
 a good deal of rich brown fur about her, and a dash of scarlet 
 here and there. She looked hke a fashionably-dressed Red 
 Ridinghood, simple enough to be deluded by the weakest-minded 
 of wolves. She was so pretty that her lover glanced down at 
 her -with, a gratified smile, deriving considerable pleasure from 
 the idea that she belonged to him, and that she was, on the 
 whole, something to be rather proud of ; something that added 
 to the young sultan's dignity, and bore testimony to his 
 supreme merits. 
 
 Eleanor looked at the lovers with a contemptuous curve lift- 
 ing her firm upper hp. She despised Launcelot Darrell bo 
 utterly, that she was almost cruel enough to despise Lauja for 
 loving him.
 
 The Testimony of the Sketch-Booh. 229 
 
 "Yes," she thought, "Mr. Monckton is riglit. Shallow, 
 selfish, and frivolous ! He is all these, and he is false as welL 
 Heaven help you, Laura, if I cannot save you from a marriage 
 with this man." 
 
 Mr. Darrell was very well pleased to do the honours of hia 
 Btndio to Richard Thornton. It would be quite a new sort of 
 thing to this scene-painting fellow, the embryo Academician 
 thought : the poor ae\al wovdd pick up fresh ideas, and get a 
 glimpse at the higher regions of art, for the first time in his life 
 perhaps. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell led the way to that pleasant, prettily-fur- 
 nished room which he called his studio. The " RosaUnd and 
 delia" still occupied the post of honour on the easel. Mr. 
 Darrell worked very hard ; but in that spasmodic fashion which 
 is antagonistic to anything like progress. The enthusiasm 
 which upon one occasion kept him at his picture long after the 
 fading Hght had given him notice to leave it, entirely desertea 
 him upon another ; and was perhaps followed by a fit of disgust 
 with himself and with his art, which kept him idle for weeks 
 together. 
 
 He nmde a merit of this fitfulness, depreciating a power of 
 steady and persistent labour as the faculty of a tradesman, 
 rather than an artist. He took credit to himself for the long 
 pauses of idleness in which he waited for what he called inspi- 
 ration ; and imposed upon his mother by his grand talk about 
 earnestness, conscientiousness, reverence for the sublimity of 
 art, and a great many more fine phrases by which he contrived 
 to excuse the simple fact of his laziness. So Eleanor Vane, as 
 sorrowful Rosalbid, still smiled sadly upon aeimpering Celia: — 
 it had been quite impossible to prevent Miss Mason's assuming 
 the conventional simper of the weak-minded sitter who can't 
 forget that his portrait is being taken, and that he is in the 
 very act of handing down his smile to posterity, or to the fur- 
 niture brokers — out of an unfinished background, and clad in 
 robes of unfinished satin and velvet. Mr. Thornton wondered 
 as he looked at the young man's work, and remembered how 
 many miles of canvas it had been his own fate to cover since 
 first he had handled his brushes and splashed in sky borders 
 and cloud pieces for the chief scene-painter at the Phoenix. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell, with his malilstick in his hand, smiled with 
 snbUme patronage upon Eleanor's humble friend. 
 
 " This sort of thing is rather different to what you've been 
 used to, I suppose P " he said ; " rather another kmd of work 
 than your pantomime scenes, your grots of everlasting bliss, 
 and caves of constant content, where the waterfalls are sfiingles 
 sewn upon wliite tape, and ie cloudless skies are blue gauze 
 aAd silver foil P"
 
 230 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " But we're not always painting transformations, you know," 
 Mr. Thornton answered, in nowise offended by tlie artist's grace« 
 ful insolence ; " scene-painting isn't all done with Dutch meti 
 and the glue-pot : we're obhged to know a httle about persi^eo 
 tive, and to have a slight knowledge of colotir. Some of my 
 brotherhood have turned out tolerable landscape-painters, Mr. 
 Darrell. By the bye, you. don't do anything in the way of land- 
 scape, do you ? " 
 
 "Yes," Launcelot Darrell answered, indifferently, "I used to 
 try my hand at landscape ; but human interest, human interest, 
 Mr. Thornton, is the strong point of a picture. To my mind a 
 picture should be a story, a drama, a tragedy, a poem — some- 
 thing that explains itself without any help from a catalogue." 
 
 " Precisely. An epic upon a Bishop's half-length," Richard 
 Thornton answered, rather absently. He saw Eleanor's watch- 
 ful eyes fixed upon him, and knew that with eveiy moment she 
 was losing faith in him. Looking round the room he saw, too, 
 that there were a couple of bloated portfoHos leaning against 
 the wall, and running over with sheets of dirty Bristol board 
 and crumpled drawing paper. 
 
 " Yes," Launcelot Darrell repeated, " I have tried my hand 
 at landscape. There are a few in one of those portfolios — the 
 upjaer one, I think — not the purple one ; I keep private memo- 
 randa and scraps in that. The green portfolio, Mr. Thornton ; 
 you may find some things there that will interest you — that 
 might be useful to you, perhaps." 
 
 The artist threw down his mahlstick, and strolled across the 
 room to talk to Laura Mason and liis mother, who were sitting 
 near the fire. In doing this he left Eleai.or and Eichard side by 
 side, near the easel and the comer in which the portfohos leaned 
 against the wall. 
 
 There was a large old-fashioned window in this corner of the 
 room, the casement against which Eleanor had stood when 
 Launcelot Darrell asked her to be his wife. The window waa 
 in a deep recess, shaded by thick crimson curtains, and in the 
 recess there was a table. Any one sitting at this table was 
 almost concealed from the other inmates of the room. 
 
 Richard Thornton Hfted both the portfolios, and placed them on 
 this table. Eleanor stood beside him, breathless and expectant. 
 
 " The purple portfolio contains private memoranda," whispered 
 the young man ; " it is in that portfolio we must look, Mrs. 
 Monckton. There is no such thing as honour on the road we 
 have chosen for ourselves." 
 
 The scene-painter untied the strings of the loaded scrap-book, 
 and flung it open. A chaotic mass of drawings lay before him. 
 Crayon sketches ; pencil scraps ; unfinished and finished water- 
 coloured dra\vings; rough caricatures in pen-and-ink, and in
 
 Tlie Testimony of the Sketcli-BooTc. 231 
 
 water-colours; faint indications of half-obliterated subjects; 
 heads, profiles, cliins, and noses; lithographed costumes ; prints; 
 etchings; illustrations torn out of books and newspapers; all 
 flung together in bewildering confusion. 
 
 Mr. Thornton, seated at the table with his head bent over the 
 papers before him, and with Eleanor standing at his shoulder, 
 began steadily and deUberately to examine the contents of this 
 purple porttblio. 
 
 He carefully scrutinized each drawing, however shght, how- 
 iver roughly done, however unpretentious. He looked also at 
 the back of each drawing, sometimes finding a blank, sometimes 
 a faint jiencil indication of a rubbed-out sketch, or a rough out- 
 line in pen-and-ink. 
 
 For a long time he found nothing in which the iitmost inge- 
 nuity could discover any relation to that period of Launcelot 
 Darrell's existence which Eleanor believed to have been spent in 
 Paris. 
 
 "Behsarius. Girl with basket of strawberries. Marie An- 
 toinette. Headsman. Flower-girl. Oliver Cromwell refusing 
 the crown. OUver Cromwell denouncing Sir Harry Vane. 
 Ohver Cromwell and bis daughters. Fairfax," — muttered 
 Eichard, as he looked over the sketches. " Didn't I tell you, 
 Eleanor, that a man's sketch-book contains the record of his life P 
 These Cromwell drawings are all dated in the same year. Nearly 
 ten years ago ; that is to say, when Mr. Darrell had very little 
 knowledge of anatomy, and a tremendous passion for repub- 
 licanism. Further on we come to a pastoral strata, you see. 
 The Watennill : Kosa. There is a perpetual recurrence of Kosa 
 and the Wat«rmill; Rosa in a bridal dress; the mill by moon- 
 light ; Rosa in a russet cloak ; the mill in a thunderstorm : Rosa 
 sad; the mill at sunset; and the series bears date two yeari 
 later, when the artist was desperately in love with a rustia 
 beauty in this neighbourhood. Now we lose sight of Rosa, and 
 come upon a Roman period ; the artist goes in for the grand 
 and classic. The Roman period lasts a very short time. Now 
 we are in London ; yes, we are up to our eyes in student life in 
 the metropolis. Here are sketches of artist existence in Chp- 
 stone Street and the purlieus of Fitzroy Square. Here is the 
 Haymarket by night. An opera-box. Lady Clara Yere de Vera. 
 Lady Clara at the flower-show — in Hyde Park — at a concert 
 Aha ! the artist is in love again ; and this time the beauty is 
 highborn and unapproachable. Here are pen-and-ink hints at 
 contemi>lated suicide ; a voung man lying on a pallet bed, an 
 empty bottle on the floor labelled Prussic Acid ; the same young 
 man leaning over the parapet of Waterloo Bridge on a moonht 
 night, with St. Paul's in the background. Yes, there have been 
 wasted love and despair, and a wild yearning for death, and that
 
 232 IFleanorU Victory. 
 
 generally morbid and unpleasant state of mind which is the 
 common result of idleness and strong liquors. Stay!" cried 
 Richard Thornton, suddenly, " we're all wrong here." 
 
 " "What do you mean ?" asked Eleanor. She had watched the 
 young man's examination of the drawings with eager interest, 
 with ever-increasing impatience, in her desire to come to some- 
 thing that should be evidence against Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 "What do you mean?" she said, and then she added, im- 
 patiently, " How slow you are, Dick ! What do I want to know 
 of this man except the one proof that will identify him with that 
 man upon the Boulevard?" 
 
 "I'm afraid we've been making a mistake all this time," 
 Richard said, in rather a despondent tone. "These sketches 
 must have been done by some companion of Mr. Darrell's. I'm 
 afraid they're none of them his." 
 
 " Not his ? But why— why not P " 
 _ " Because the first lot, the Cromwells and the Rosas, are alt 
 signed with a flourishing autograph — ' Launcelot Darrell, pinxt.,' 
 in full, as if the young man was rather proud of his name." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; but what then ? " 
 
 '' The London-life sketches, the Lady Claras, and the suicides, 
 which are much better than the first lot, though I should have 
 thought they had been by the same man, are all signed with a 
 monogram." 
 
 " A monogram P " 
 
 " Yes, of two initials. I've been trying to make them out for 
 ever so long, and I've only iust succeeded. The two letters are 
 R. L." 
 
 Richard Thornton felt Eleanor's hand, which had been resting 
 lightly upon the back of his chair, tighten suddenly upon the 
 rosewood scroll-work ; he heard her breath grow quicker ; and 
 when he turned his head he saw that she was deadly pale. 
 
 " It is coming home to him, Richard," she said. " The man 
 •who cheated my father called himself ' Robert Lan — ' Part of 
 the name was torn away in my father's letter, but the initials of 
 that false name are R. L. Go on, Dick ; go on quickly, for 
 pity's sake ; we shall find something more presently." 
 
 Eleanor Monckton had spoken in a wliisper, but at this 
 moment the scene-painter laid his hand upon her wrist and re- 
 minded her by a gesture of the need of caution. But Mr. 
 Darrell, and the two ladies at the other end of the roomy studio, 
 were in no manner observant of anything that might be going 
 on in the curtained recess of the window. Laura was talking, 
 and her lover was 'aughing at her ; half pleased, half amused, 
 by her childish frivoUty. 
 
 Richard Thornton turned over a heap of sketches without 
 tpeaking.
 
 The Testimony of the Sketch-Booh. 238 
 
 Bnt presently he came -apon a water-colour drawing of a long 
 lamplit street, crowded ^v^th figiirea in grotesque costumes, and 
 with masks upon their faces. 
 
 " We have crossed the Channel, Eleanor," he said. " Here is 
 Paris in Carnival time, and here is the assumed name, too, in 
 full,—' Robert Lance, March 2nd, '53.' Be quiet, Eleanor, bo 
 calm, for Heaven's sake. The man is guilty ; I believe that, 
 now, as fully as you do ; but we have to bring his guilt home to 
 him." 
 
 "Keep that sketch, Eichard," whispered the girl, "keep it. 
 It is the proof of his false name. It is the proof that he was in 
 Paris when he was beheved to be in India. It is the proof that 
 he was in Paris a few months before my father's death." 
 
 The scene-painter folded the tumbled sheet of dra-nang-paper 
 and thrust it into the breast-pocket of his loose overcoat. 
 
 " Go on, Richard ; go on," said Eleanor ; " there may be some- 
 thing more than this." 
 
 The young man obeyed his eager companion ; one by one he 
 looked at the pen-and-ink sketches, the crayon drawings, the un- 
 finished scraps in Indian ink or water-colour. 
 
 They all bore e\adence of a Hfe in Paris and its neighbourhood. 
 Now a dehardeur hanging on the arm of a student ; now a grisette 
 drinking lemonade with an artisan beyond the barrier ; a funeral 
 train entering the gates of Pere la Chaise ; some children, with 
 garlands in their hands, kneeling by a grave ; a showman on the 
 Boulevard ; a group of Zouaves ; a bit of landscape in the forest 
 of Saint Germain, with equestrian figures beneath an arch of 
 foHage ; a scene in the Champs Elysees. 
 
 And at last, a rough pencil sketch of a group in a small 
 chamber at a cafe ; an old man seated at a lamplit table playing 
 ecarte with a man whose face was hidden ; an aristocratic-look- 
 ing, shabby-genteel old man, whose nervous fingers seemed^ to 
 clutch restlessly at a Httle pile of napoleons on the table before 
 him. 
 
 There was a third figure ; the figure of a smartly-dressed 
 Frenchman standing behind the old man's chair ; and in this 
 watcher of the game Eleanor recognized the man who had per- 
 suaded her father to leave her on the Boulevard, — the companion 
 of the sulky Englishman. 
 
 The sketch was dated August 12, 1853 ; the very day on which 
 Richard Thornton had recognized the dead man in the ghastly 
 chamber of the Morgue. On the back of the drawing were 
 written these words, " Sketch for finished picture, to be called 
 ' The last of the Napoleons' — Robert Lance." 
 
 The Ukeness of the principal figure to George Vane was un- 
 mistakable. The man who had been heartless enough to cheat 
 his kinsman's frieni had made this record of the scene of his
 
 234 Uleanor^s Victory. 
 
 cnieltv; but had not been so callous as to carry out his design 
 after tlie suicide of bis victim. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXin. 
 
 MAUKICE DE CRESPIGNY's "WILL. 
 
 BiCHAKD Thoknton folded the pencil sketcb and put it in his 
 
 pocket witb the water-coloured drawing. 
 
 " I told you that Launcelot Darrell would make a confidant of 
 his pencil," he said, in a low voice. " We may as well tie up the 
 portfolio, Mrs. Monckton ; there will be notliing more in it that 
 can help us. The memory of your father would scarcely be 
 pleasant to this young man after the 12th of August. AVhen 
 he made this sketch he had yet to learn the consequences of 
 what he had done." 
 
 Eleanor stood behind the scene-painter's chair, silent and 
 motionless. Her face was pale, and her mouth compressed and 
 rigid with the eiFort by which she controlled her agitation. But 
 a flame of fire burned in her eyes, and her nostrils quivered with 
 a convulsive movement. Mr. Thornton carefully replaced the 
 sketches in the purple portfoho, tied the strings, and laid the 
 book in its old place against the wall. Then, unfastening the 
 green portfoho, he went rapidly through the landscape scraps 
 which it contained. 
 
 "The hand is weak here," Eichard said: "Mr. Launcelot 
 Darrell has no sympathy with nature. He might be a clever 
 figure painter if he had as much perseverance as he has talent. 
 His pictures are hke himself; shallow, artificial, and meretricious; 
 but they are clever." 
 
 The scene-painter said this with a purpose. He knew that 
 Eleanor stood behind him, erect and statuesque, with her hand 
 grasping the back of his chair, a pale Nemesis bent on revenge 
 and destruction. He wanted, if possible, to let her down to 
 commonplace feeling, by his commonplace talk, before Launcelot 
 Darrell saw her face. But, looking round at that pale young 
 face, Eichard saw how terrible was the struggle in the girl's 
 breast, and how hkely she was at any moment to betray 
 herself. 
 
 " Eleanor," he whispered, " if you want to carry this business 
 to the end, you must keep your secret. Launcelot Darrell is 
 coming this way. Eemember that an artist is quick to ob- 
 serve. There is the plot of a tragedy in your face at this 
 moment." 
 
 Mrs. Monckton tried to smile; but the attempt was very 
 feeljle ; the smile wan and sickly. Launcelot Darrell came to the 
 eurtained recess, but he was not alone : Laura Mason came with
 
 Maurice de Crespigny^s Will. 235 
 
 him, talking very fast, and asking innumerable questions, now 
 turning to her lover, now appealing to Eleanor or Richard 
 Thornton. 
 
 " What a time you've been looking over the sketches," she 
 eaid, " and how do you Uke them, and which do you like best P 
 Do you like the sea-side bits, or the forest sketches ? There's a 
 picture of Tolldale with the cupola and the dinner-bell, Eleanor; 
 I like the sketches in the other portfolio best ; Launcelot lets tm 
 look at them, though he won't allow any one else to see them. 
 But I don't like Rosa. I'm terribly jealous of Rosa — yes, I am, 
 Launcelot; and it's not a bit of use telling me you were never in 
 lovo with her, and you only admired her because she was a pretty 
 rustic model. Nobody in the world could beheve that, coul(i 
 they, Mr. Thornton ? Could they, Eleanor ? When an artist 
 paints the same face again and again, and again and again, he 
 must be in love with the original ; mustn't he now P" 
 
 Nobody answered the young lady's eager questions. Launcelot 
 Dan-ell smiled and twisted his dark moustache between his 
 slender womanish fingers. Laura's unrestrained admiration of 
 him was very agreeable ; and he was beginning to be in love 
 with her, after his own fashion, which was a very easy one. 
 
 Eleanor looked at her husband's ward with a strange expres- 
 sion in her face — a stem unpitying gaze, that promised little 
 good to the young heiress. 
 
 " "What is this fooUsh girl's fancy to me, that it should weigh 
 against my father's death ? " she thought. " ^Vliat is it to me 
 that she may have to sufier ? Let me remember the bitt«5mcs3 
 of his sufferings ; let me remember that long night upon which 
 I watched for him, — that miserable night in wliich he despaired 
 and died. Surely the remembrance of this will shut every 
 thought of pity from my heart." 
 
 Perhaps Eleanor IMonckton had need to reason with herself 
 thus. It might be difficult to be true to her scheme of vengeance, 
 when, in the path she had to tread, this girl's heart must \yQ 
 trampled upon ; this innocent, childish, confiding Httle creature 
 who had clung to her, and trusted in her, and loved her, from 
 the hour of their first meeting. 
 
 " Should I be pitiful, or merciful, or just to her, if I suffered 
 for to marry a bad man ? " Mrs. Monckton asked herself. " No ; 
 hr her sake, as much as for the memory of my father, it is my 
 duty to denounce Launcelot Dan-ell." 
 
 Throughout the drive back to Tolldale, Mrs. Monckton silently 
 brooded upon the morning's work. Richard Thornton had indeed 
 t)roved a powerful ally. How often she had been in that studio, 
 jnd not once hcJ the idea occurred to her of looking amongst the 
 artist's sketches for the evidence of his Ufe. 
 
 " I told you that you could help me, Richard," she said, when
 
 236 ^Eleanor's Tictory. 
 
 the found herself alone witli the scene-painter. "Ton haye 
 given nie the proof which I have waited for so long. I will go 
 to Woodlands to-night." 
 
 "^Vhatfor?" 
 
 " To show those two sketches to Mr. de Crespigny." 
 
 "But will that proof be strong enough to convince a man 
 whose powers of perception must be weakened by age ? What 
 if ]^. de Crespigny should fail to ujaderstand the evidence of 
 those sketches ? What if he should refuse to believe your 
 accusation of his nephew? " 
 
 " I \vl11 show him my father's letter." 
 
 " You forget that your father's letter accuses Robert Lance, 
 and not Launcelot Darrell." . 
 
 " But the sketches are signed ' Robert Lance.* " 
 
 " And Mr. Darrell may deny his identity with the man who 
 signed himself by that name. You cannot ask Maurice de 
 Crespigny to believe in his nephew's guilt on the testimony of a 
 pencil drawing wliich that nejohew may boldly repudiate. No, 
 Eleanor, the work of to-day is only one step upon the road we 
 have to tread. We must be patient, and wait for more conclu- 
 sive proof than that which we hold in these two sketches." 
 
 Eleanor sighed wearily. 
 
 " And in the meantime the 15th of March may come, or Mr. 
 de Crespigny may die," she said. " Oh, let me go to him at 
 once ; let me tell him who I am, and show him my father's let- 
 ter ; let me tell him the cruel story of his old friend's death ! 
 He knows nothing but that which he learned from a brief notice 
 in a newspaper. He cannot refuse to beUeve me." 
 
 Richard Thornton shook liis head. 
 
 " You have asked me to help you, Eleanor," he said, gravely ; 
 " if I am to do so, you must have some faith in my counsel. 
 Wait until we have fuller power to prove our case, before you 
 reveal yourself to Mr. de Crespigny." 
 
 Mrs. Monckton could not very well refuse to submit herself 
 to the scene-painter's guidance. He had already most decisively 
 demonstrated the superiority of his deliberate pohcy, as com- 
 pared with the impulsive and unconsidered course of action 
 recklessly followed by a headstrong girl. 
 
 " I must obey you, Dick," Eleanor said, "because you are si 
 good to me, and have done so much to prove that you are a great 
 deal wiser than I am. But if Mr. de Crespigny should die 
 while we are waiting for further proof, I " 
 
 " You'll blame me for liis death, I suppose, Mrs. Monckton," 
 interrupted Richard, with a quiet smile, " after the manner of 
 your sex?" 
 
 Eleanor had no little difficulty in obeying her counsellor, for 
 when Gilbert Monckton met his wife at dinner, he told her thai
 
 Maurice de Crespigny's Will. 237 
 
 he had been at Woodlands that morning, and that her friend 
 Maurice de Crespigny was daily growing weaker, and was not 
 expected to live through the early spring months. 
 
 " The old man is fading slowly away," the lawyer said. " His 
 qtiiet and temperate habits have enabled him to hold out much 
 longer than the doctors expected. It is like the gradual going 
 out of a candle, they say. The flame sinks little by little in the 
 socket. You must go and see the poor old man, Eleanor, before 
 he dies." 
 
 " Before he dies !" repeated Mrs. Monckton, "before he dies ! 
 Do you think he will die very soon, then, or suddenly ?" 
 
 " Yes, I think he may go off suddenly at last. The medical 
 men say as much, I understand." 
 
 Eleanor looked at Richard Thornton. 
 
 " I must see him, and must see him before he dies," she said. 
 " Is his mind unimpaired, Gilbert ? Is his intellect still as clear 
 as it was a week ago ?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Mr. Monckton, "I have every reason to 
 believe so ; for while I was talking to the two ladies in the 
 breakfast-parlour, the chief clerk to Henry Lawford, the Windsor 
 attorney, came in, and asked me to go up to Mr. de Crespigny's 
 room. What do you think I was wanted for, Eleanor ? " 
 
 " I have no idea." 
 
 " I was wanted to act as witness to the old man's will, in con- 
 junction with La^vford's clerk. It seems the old man had sent 
 to Windsor in a great hurry for Lawford ; but Lawford hap- 
 pened to be out, 80 his clerk went instead, and De Crespigny 
 had dictated the will to him. I need scarcely tell you I was 
 not a Uttle astonished to find that Llaurice de Crespigny had 
 only now made up his mind as to the disposal of his money. I 
 suppose he has made half-a-dozen wills, and destroyed one after 
 another according to his humour. I only hope the maiden 
 eisters may get a decent reward for their long years of patience 
 and expectation." 
 
 Eleanor's trembling fingers trifled nervously with the orna- 
 ments at her watch-chain. It was with difiiculty that she could 
 control her agitation. 
 
 " But to whom is the fortune leftP" she asked, breathlessly. 
 " Did you hear that. GUbert ? " 
 
 " No, my dear, it isn't usual to make the witness to a will 
 acquainted \nih. the body of the deed. I saw poor Maurice de 
 Crespigny execute his feeble autograph, and I put my own 
 muscular-looking signature in the place indicated to me, and I 
 asked no questions. It was enough for me to know that I had 
 no interest in the document." 
 
 " But did Mr. de Crespigny say nothing — nothing that could 
 iead you to guess who "
 
 238 Meanor's Victory. 
 
 " ]\Ir. de Crespigny said notlimg whatever calculated to tliro-iT 
 any liglit u2^on liis intentions. He seemed relieved by the idea 
 that his will was made and the business settled. The clerk 
 wanted to carry off the document, but the old man insisted on. 
 keeping it in his possession. He wished to look over it, he said. 
 He wanted to see if his intentions had been fully carried out, in 
 the spirit as well as in the letter. He put the parchment under 
 his pillow, and then laid down with an air of satisfaction. I 
 dare say he has gone through the same Httle comedy again and 
 again before to-day." 
 
 " Perhaps he will destroy this willP" Eleanor said, thought- 
 
 " Yes," Mr. Monckton answered, indifferently, " the old mai 
 may change his mind again, if he lives long enough to repent oi 
 this new will. But I doubt his surviving so long as to do that." 
 
 "And have you no idea, Gilbert, — have you no idea as to 
 whom the fortune is left?" 
 
 Mr. Monckton smiled. 
 
 " This is a question that concerns you, Laura," he said, " a 
 great deal more nearly than it does us." 
 
 " Wliat question ? " asked Miss Mason, looking up from an 
 elaborate piece of embroidery which she had been showing to 
 Signora Picirillo. 
 
 " We are talking of Mr. de Crespigny's fortune, my dear; you 
 are interested in the disj^osal of that, are you not ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course," answered the young lady, " I ought to 
 be interested for Launcelot's sake, I know ; and I know that he 
 ought to have the fortune, and that nobody has any right to 
 deprive him of it, especially those nasty old maids who had him 
 sent to India against his will, and I dare say he will have horrid 
 pains in his Hver from the cUmate when he's older. Of course 
 he ought to have the fortune, and yet sometimes I think it 
 would be nicer for him to be poor. He may never be a great 
 artist if he's rich, perhaps ; and I'd rather go to Eome with 
 Tiim and sit by his easel while he works, and pay the hotel bills, 
 and the travelUng expenses, and all that sort of thing, out of 
 my own money, than have him a country gentleman. I 
 shoiddn't Uke him to be a country gentleman ; he'd have to 
 hunt, and wear top-boots and nasty leather gaiters, hke a com- 
 mon ploughman, when he went out shooting. I hate coiintry 
 gentlemen. Byron hasn't one country gentleman in all his 
 poems, and that horrid husband vx Locksley HaU will show yoa 
 what an opinion Tennyson has of them." 
 
 Miss Mason went back to the Signora and the embroidery, 
 Batisfied with having settled the busmess in her own manner. 
 
 " He couldn't look like the Corsair if he had Woodlands," she 
 murmured, despondingly ; " he'd have to shave off his moustache
 
 Utaurice de Cre%pigny's Will. 239 
 
 if they made him a magistrate. What would be the good of hii 
 talking seriously to poachers if he wore turned-down collars ank 
 loose handkerchiefs round his neck ? People would never respect 
 him unless ho was a Guy, with creaky boots, and big seala 
 hanging to his watch-chain." 
 
 Eleanor pushed the question still further. 
 
 " You think that Mr. de Crespigny has left his fortune to 
 Launcelot Darrell, don't you, Gilbert ? " she asked. 
 
 Her husband, promjfted by the evil spirit that was his occa- 
 sional companion, looked at her, rather suspiciously ; but her 
 eyes met his own with an unfaltering gaze, 
 
 " Why are you so interested in this fortune, and in Launcelot 
 Darrell?" he said. 
 
 " I will tell you by-and-by. But tell me now, if you think the 
 estate is left to Mr. Darrell ?" 
 
 " I think it scarcely unlikely that it is so. The fact of 
 Maurice de Crespigny making a fresh ^vill within six months of 
 the young man's return looks rather as if he had been led to 
 relent of some previous determination by the presence of his 
 niece's son." 
 
 "But Mr. de Crespigny has seen very little of Launcelot 
 Darrell." 
 
 *• Perhaps not," answered Mr. Monckton, coldly. " I may be 
 quite wrong in my conjecture. You ask for my opinion, and I 
 give it you freely. Pray let us change the subject. I hate the 
 idea of all this speculation as to who shall stand in a dead man's 
 shoes. As far as Launcelot Darrell's interests are concerned, I 
 really think there is an undercurrent of common sense in Laura's 
 romantic talk. He may be all the better for being a poor man. 
 He may be all the better for having to go to Italy and work at 
 his art for a few years." 
 
 Mr. Monckton looked sharply at his young wife as he said 
 this. I rather think that tne demon familiar had prompted 
 this speech, and that the lawyer watched Eleanor's face in the 
 desire to discover whether there was anything unpleasant to her 
 in the idea of Launcelot Darrell's long absence from his native 
 country. 
 
 But, clever as Gilbert Monckton was, the mystery of his 
 wife's face was as yet beyond his power to read. He watched 
 her in vain. T^» '/ale and thoughtful countenance told nothing 
 to the man who wanted the mast«r key by wtjfch alone its 
 expression could be read.
 
 240 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXrV. 
 
 Richard's discoveei. 
 
 An almost ungovernable impulse prompted Eleanor Monckton 
 to make her way at once into Maurice de Crespigny's sick- 
 chamber, and say to liim, " Launcelot DarreU is the wretch who 
 caused your old friend's cruel death. I call upon you, by the 
 memory of the past, to avenge that dead friend's wrongs ! " 
 
 The struggle was a terrible one, but discretion in the end 
 triumphed, and Eleanor submitted herself to the guidance of 
 her devoted slave and ally. She knew now that Launcelot 
 DarreU was guilty ; but she had known that from the moment 
 in which she had seen him lounging ia the Windsor street. 
 The task that lay before her was to procure such proof as must 
 be convincing to the old man. In spite of her impetuous desire 
 for immediate action, Eleanor was compelled to acknowledge 
 that the testimony of the sketch-book was not strong enough 
 in itself to condemn Launcelot DarreU. 
 
 The young man's answer to any accusation brought against 
 him on such evidence would be simple enough. 
 
 Nothing could be easier than for him to say, " My name is not 
 Robert Lance. The drawing abstracted by unfair means from 
 my portfoho is not mine. I am not responsible for the actions 
 of the man who made that sketch." 
 
 And against this simple declaration there would be nothing 
 but Eleanor's unsupported assertion of the identity between the 
 two men. 
 
 There was nothing to be done, then, except to foUow Richard 
 Thornton's advice, and wait. 
 
 This waiting was very weary work. Estranged from her hus- 
 "band by the secret of her Hfe ; unhappy in the society of Laura 
 Mason, against whose happiness she felt that she was, in a 
 manner, plotting ; restrained and iU at ease even in the familiar 
 companionship of EUza Picirillo, — Eleanor Monckton wandered 
 about the great rambling mansion which had become her home, 
 restless and unhappy, yearning with a terrible impatience for 
 the coming of the end, however dark that end might be. Every 
 day, and often more than once in the course of the day, she 
 locked herself in her room, and opened the desk in which she 
 kept Launcelot Darrell's sketches and her dead father's last 
 letter. She looked at these things almost as if she feared that 
 by some diabolical influence they might be taken from her before 
 they had served as the instruments of her revenge. So the 
 weary days wore themselves out. The first week of Richard's 
 visit ; the second week of Richard's visit passed by ; the middle 
 Jf February came, and nothing more had been dona.
 
 BicTiard's Discovery. 241 
 
 Eleanor's health began to suffer from the perpetual mental 
 fever of anxiety and impatience. Her husband saw her day by- 
 day grooving thinner and paler ; a hectic flush crimsoned her 
 cheek now at every trifling agitation, with every surprise, how- 
 ever insignificant; but, excej)t for these transient flashes, her 
 face was as colourless as marble. 
 
 Her husband saw this, and made himself miserable because of 
 the change in his young wife. He made himself still more 
 wretched by reason of those unworthy doubts and suspicions 
 that were for ever torturing him. " Why was Eleanor ill? Why 
 was she unhappy ? " He asked himself this latter question a 
 thousand times a day, and always answered it more or less after 
 the same fashion. 
 
 ^ She was unhappy because of the swiftly approaching mar- 
 riage between Laura Mason and Launcelot Darrell. She had 
 opposed that marriage with all the power she poisessed. She 
 had over-estimated her own fortitude when she sacrificed her 
 love for the young artist to her desire to win a brilliant position. 
 
 "Why should she be different from other women .»" the 
 lawyer thought. " She has married me for my money, and she 
 is sorry for what she has done, and perhaps upon the eve of 
 poor Laura's wedding day, there will be a repetition of the 
 scene that took place at Lausanne nearly twenty years ago." 
 This was the manner of meditation to which Mr. Monckt(m 
 abandoned himself when the black mood was upon him. 
 
 All tliis time Launcelot Darrell came backwards and forwards 
 between Hazlewood and Tolldale, after the free-and-easy manner 
 of an accepted lover, who feels that, whatever advantages he 
 may obtain by the matrimonial treaty which he is about to 
 form, his own transcendant merits are so far above every meaner 
 consideration as to render the lady the gainer by the bargain. 
 
 He came, therefore, whenever it pleased him to come. Now 
 dawdUng away a morning over the piano with Laura Mason ; 
 now claying billiards with Kichard Thornton, who associated 
 with him as it were under protest, hating him most cordially all 
 the time. 
 
 "The detectives must have a hard time of it," reflected 
 Mr. Thornton, after one of these mornings. " Imagine having 
 to hob-and-nob with a William Palmer, on the chance of his 
 dropping out a word or two that might help to bring him to the 
 
 falloNvs. The profession is extremely honourable, no doubt, but 
 don't think it can be a very pleasant one. I fancy, upon the 
 whole, a muddy crossing and a good broom must be more agree- 
 able to a man's feelings." 
 
 The 15th of February came, dark, cold, and dreary, and 
 Eleanor reminded the scene-painter that only one month now 
 remained before the day appointed for Laura's marriage. That
 
 242 Eleanor's Victory, 
 
 yoTing lady, absorbed amongst a chaos of ribbons and laces, 
 silks and velvets, had ceased to feel any jealousy of her guar- 
 dian's wife. Her lover's easy acceptance of her devotion was 
 sufficient for her happiness. What should the Corsair do but 
 twist his black moustaches and permit Medora to worship him ? 
 
 It was on this very 15th of February that, for the first time 
 since the visit to Launcelot DarreU's studio, Mr. Richard 
 Thornton made a discovery. 
 
 It was not a very important one, perhaps, nor did it bear 
 directly upon the secret of the artist's Hfe, but it was something. 
 
 The scene-painter left ToUdale soon after breakfast upon this 
 bleak February day, in a Light dog-cart which Mr. Monckton 
 placed at the disposal of any guest who might wish to explore 
 the neighbouring country. Richard did not return until dusk, 
 and he broke in upon Eleanor's sohtude as the shadows were 
 gathering outside the window of the room in which she sat. 
 He found his old companion alone in a little morning-room 
 next her husband's study. She was sitting on a low stool by 
 the hearth, her head resting on her hands, and the red fire- 
 light on her face ; her attitude altogether expressive of care and 
 despondency. 
 
 The door of communication between Gilbert Monckton's study 
 and the room in which Eleanor sat was closed. 
 
 The girl started and looked up as Richard Thornton opened 
 the door. The day had been wet as well as cold ; drops of rain 
 and sleet hung about the young man's rough great-coat, and he 
 brought a damp and chilly atmosphere into the room. 
 
 " Is it you, Richard ? " Eleanor said, absently. 
 
 " Tes, Mrs. Monckton, I have been out all day ; I have been 
 to Windsor." 
 
 " Indeed ! " 
 
 " Yes. I met Launcelot Darrell there." 
 
 " You met Launcelot Darrell ! " repeated Eleanor. " Richard," 
 she cried, suddenly, rising as she spoke, and going to where the 
 young man stood, " you have found something more." 
 
 " I have not found what we want, Eleanor. I have not found 
 the proof that you must lay before Mr. de Crespigny, when you 
 ask him to leave his estate away from his nephew. But I think 
 I have made a discovery." 
 
 "What discovery?" asked Mrs. Monckton, with suppressed 
 eagerness. " Do not sj^ieak loudly, Dick," she added, in a whisper, 
 " my husband is in the next room. I sit with him sometimes 
 when he is at work there with his law papers, but I can't help 
 fancying that my presence annoys him. He is not the same to 
 me that he used to be. Oh, Richard, Richard, I feel as if I was 
 divided from every creature in the world, except you: I can 
 trust you, for you know vaj secret. When will this end ? "
 
 What Happened at Windsor, 248 
 
 " Very soon, my dear, I hope," Mr. Thornton answered, 
 gravely. " There was a time when I urged you to abandon your 
 purpose, Eleanor, but I do so no longer. Launcelot Darrell is a 
 bad man, and the poor little girl \vitli the blue eyes and flaxen 
 ringlets must not be suffered to fall into liis power." 
 
 " No, no, not for the world. But you have made some dis- 
 covery to-day, Richard ? " 
 
 " I think so. You remember what Mr. Monckton told us thj 
 other day. You remember his telling us that Mr. de Crespigny 
 had only tliat day made his will ? " 
 
 *' Yes, I remember it perfectly." 
 
 " Laura Mason was present when her guardian told us this. 
 It is only natural she should teU Launcelot Darrell what had 
 happened." 
 
 " She tells him everything ; she would be sure to tell him that." 
 
 " Precisely, and Mj*. Darrell has not been slow to act upon 
 the hint." 
 
 " ^Vhat do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that Launcelot Darrell has been guilty of the base- 
 ness of bribing Mr. Lawford's clerk, in order to find out the 
 secret of the contents of that will." 
 
 " How do you know this ? " 
 
 " I discovered it by the merest chance. You owe me no praises, 
 Eleanor. I begin to think that the science of detection is, after 
 all, very weak and imperfect ; and that the detective officer owes 
 many of his greatest triumphs to patience, and a series of happy 
 accidents. Yes, Eleanor, Mr. Launcelot Darrell's eagerness, or 
 avarice, whichever you will, would not suffer him to wait until 
 his great-uncle's death. He was determined to know the contents 
 of that will ; and, whatever the knowledge may have cost him, 
 I fancy that he is scarcely satisfied ^vith his bargain." 
 
 ""Why?" 
 
 " Because I believe that the "Woodlands property is not left 
 to him." 
 
 There was a noise as of the movement of a heavy chair in the 
 next room. 
 
 " Hush ! " Eleanor whispered ; " my husband is going to dress 
 for dinner." 
 
 A bell rang while she was speaking, and Richard heard the 
 door of the next room opened and shut. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED AT WINDSOR. 
 
 •* Yes," repeated Richard Thornton, " I have reason to believe 
 that the will witnessed by your husband is a very unpleasant
 
 244 Eleanor's Ticiory. 
 
 ])iece of literature in tte estimation of Launcelot Darrell, for 1 
 lancy that it gives a death-blow to all his expectations, and 
 leaves him without even the meagre consolation of that solitary 
 shiUing which is usually inherited by unhappy elder sons." 
 
 " But tell me why you think this, Richard." 
 
 " I -ndll, my dear Mrs. Monckton. The story is rather a long 
 one, but I tliink I can tell it in a quarter of an hour. Can yow 
 dress for dinner in the other quarter ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes_! " 
 
 " What a nuisance civilization is, Nelly. We never dressed 
 for dinner in the Pilasters ; indeed, the fashion amongst the 
 leading families in that locaUty leans rather the other way. The 
 gentlemen in the cab and chimney line generally take off their 
 coats when the mid-day meal is announced, in order to dine 
 coolly and comfortably m their shirt-sleeves." 
 
 '' Eichard, Eichard ! " cried Eleanor, impatiently. 
 
 '' Well, well, Mrs. Monckton, seriously, you snail have my 
 Windsor adventures. I hate this man, Launcelot Darrell, for I 
 beheve he is a shallow, selfish, cold-hearted coxcomb ; or else I 
 don't think I could have brought myself to do what I've done 
 to-day. I've been playing the spy, Eleanor, for a couple of hours 
 at least. The Duke of Otranto used to find plenty of people for 
 this kind of work — artists, actors, actresses, priests, women, every 
 creature whom you would least suspect of baseness. But they 
 manage these things better in France. We don't take to the 
 business so readily upon this side of the water." 
 
 " Eichard ! " 
 
 The girl's impatience was almost uncontrollable. She watched 
 the hands of a little clock upon the chimney-piece : the firelight 
 flashed every now and then upon the dial, and then faded out, 
 leaving it dark. 
 
 " I'm coming to the story, Nell, if you'U only be patient," 
 remonstrated Mr. Thornton. He was getting over that secret 
 sorrow which he had nursed for such a long time in the lowest 
 depths of a most true and faithful breast. He was growing 
 reconciled to the Inevitable, as we all must, sooner or later ; and 
 lie had resumed that comfortable brotherly famiUarity which had 
 been so long habitual to liim in his intercourse wdth Eleanor. 
 " Only be patient, my dear, and let me teU my story my own 
 way," he pleaded. " I left here early this morning in your 
 husband's dog-cart, intending to drive over to Windsor and 
 amuse myself by exploring the town, and the castle, if possible, 
 to see if there was anything in my way to be picked up — donjon 
 keeps, turret staircases, secret conddors, and so on, you know. 
 You remember what sort of a morning it was, bleak and dismal 
 enough, but until twelve o'clock no rain. It was within a quarter 
 of an hour of twelve when I got into Windsor, and the rain was
 
 What Happened at Windsor. 245 
 
 just beginniii£r, spiteful drops of rain and particles of sleet, that 
 came down obliquely and cut into your face like so many needle- 
 points. I stopped at an inn m a perpenLlicular street below the 
 castle, which looks as if it means to topple down and annihilate 
 that part of the town some of these days. I put up the dog-cart, 
 and asked a few questions about the possibility of getting ad- 
 mission to the ro^al dwelling-place. Of course I was informed 
 that such admission was to-day utterly impracticable. I could 
 have seen the state apartments yesterday. I could see them, 
 most likely, by the end of next week ; but I couldn't see them 
 when I wanted to see them. I hinted that my chief desire was 
 to see secret passages, donjon keeps, moats, and sliding panels ; 
 but neither the landlord nor the waiter seemed to understand me, 
 and I sat down rather despondently by the window of the tavern 
 parlour to wait till the ram was over, and I could go out and 
 prowl upon the castle terrace to study wintry effects in the park." 
 
 "But Launcelot Darrell, Eichard — where did you meet 
 Launcelot Dan-ell ? " 
 
 " I am coming to him presently. Tlie perpendicular street 
 wasn't particularly lively upon this wretched February day ; so, 
 a.s there weren't any passers-by to look at, I amused myself by 
 looking at the houses facing the inn. Immediately opposite to 
 me there was a house very superior to the others in style — a red 
 brick house of the Georgian era, modernized by plate-glass win- 
 dows and green blinds — not a large house, but eminently respect- 
 able. A dazzling brass plate adorned the door, and upon this 
 brass plate, which winked and twinkled in the very face of the 
 rain, I read the name of Mr. Henry Lawford, solicitor." 
 
 " The lawyer whose clerk made Mr. de Crespigny's will ? " 
 
 " Precisely. Upon one side of the door there was a bell-handle 
 inscribed 'Visitors,' on the other a duplicate handle inscribed 
 ' Office.' I hadn't been looking at the house above five minutes, 
 when a young man, with a slender sUk umbrella, struggling 
 against tne wind, rang the office-bell." 
 
 "The young man was Launcelot Darrell?" Eleanor cried, 
 quickly. 
 
 " He was. The door was opened by a boy, of whom Mr. 
 Danell asked several questions. "Wliatever the answers were, 
 he walked away, and the door was shut. But from liis manner 
 of strolling slowly along the street, I was convinced that he was 
 not going far, and that he meant to come back. People don't 
 usually stroll in a sharji rain that comes down obliquely and 
 seems to drift in your face from every point of the compass. 
 He'U come back presently, I thought ; so I ordered a bottle of 
 pale ale, and I waited." 
 
 *' And he came back ? " 
 
 " Yes, he came back in about half an hour ; but, ten minutes
 
 246 'Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 or so before he returned, I saw a shabby-genteel, elderly man let 
 himself in with a latch-key at a small green side door -svith 
 ' Clerks' Office ' painted in white letters on the panel. I knew 
 by the look of tliis man that he must be a clerk. There's a look 
 about an attorney's clerk that you can't mistake, even when he 
 doesn't carry a blue bag; and tliis man did carry one. Ten 
 minutes afterwards Launcelot Darrell returned. This time he 
 knocked with the handle of his umbrella at the green door, which 
 was opened by the boy, who went to fetch the elderly clerk. 
 This elderly clerk and Mr. Darrell stood on the door-step talking 
 confidentially for about five minutes, and then our friend the 
 artist went away : but this time again stroUed slowly through 
 the rain; as if he had a certain interval to dispose of, and 
 scarcely knew what to do with himself. 
 
 " I suppose the amateur detective business fills a man's mind 
 with all manner of suspicious fancies, Eleanor. However that 
 may be, I could not help thinking that there was something 
 queer in these two visits of Launcelot Darrell to the red brick 
 house opposite me. What did he want with a lawyer in the 
 first place? and if he did want a lawyer, why didn't he go 
 straight to Mr. Lawford, who was at home — for I could see ms 
 head across the top of the wire blind in one of the plate-glass 
 windows as he bent over his desk — instead of tampering -with 
 small boys and clerks? There was sometliing mystei'ious in 
 the manner of his hanging about the place ; and as I had been 
 watching him wearily for a long time without being able to find 
 out anything mysterious in his conduct, I determined to make 
 the most of my chances and watch him to some purpose to-day. 
 
 " ' He'll come back,' I thought, ' unless I'm very much mis- 
 taken.' 
 
 " I was very much mistaken, for Launcelot Darrell did not 
 come back; but a few minutes after the clock struck one, the 
 green door opened, and the elderly clerk came out, without the 
 blue bag this time, and walked nimbly up the street in the 
 direction that Launcelot Darrell had taken. 
 
 " * He's going to his dinner," I thought, 'or he's going to meet 
 Launcelot Darrell.' 
 
 " I put on my hat, and went out of the house. The clerk was 
 toiling up the perpendicular street a good way a-head of me, but 
 I managed to keep him in sight and to be close upon his heels 
 when he turned the comer into the street below the towers of 
 the castle. He walked a Httle way along this street, and then 
 went into one of the principal hotels. 
 
 "'Ah, my friend!' I said to myself, 'you don't ordinarily 
 take your dinner at that house, I imagine. It's a cut above your 
 requirements, I should tliink.' 
 
 " I went into the hotel, and made my way to the cofiee-room*
 
 Tfliat Happened at Windsor. 24i7 
 
 Mr. Lanncelot Darrell and the shabby-genteel clerk were sitting 
 at a table, drinking sherry and soda-water. The artist was 
 talking to his companion in a low voice, and very earnestly. It 
 was not difficult to see that he was trying to persuade the seedy 
 clerk to something wiuch the clerk's sense of caution revolted 
 from. Both men looked up as I went into the room, which they 
 had had all to themselves until that moment; and Launcelot 
 Darrell flushed scarlet as he recognized me. It was evident, 
 therefore, that he did not care to be seen in the company of 
 Mr. Lawford's clerk. 
 
 " ' Good morning, Mr. Darrell,' I said ; ' I've come over to 
 have a look at the castle, but I find strangers are not admitted 
 to-day, so I'm obUged to content myself with walking about ra 
 the wet for an hour or two.' 
 
 " Launcelot Darrell answered me in that patronizing manner 
 which renders him so deHghtful to the people he considers inferior 
 to himself. He had quite recovered from the confusion my 
 sudden appearance had caused, and muttered something about 
 Mr. Lawford, the attorney, and 'business.' Then he sat biting 
 his nails in an uncomfortable and restless manner, while I drank 
 another bottle of pale ale. That's another objection to the de- 
 tective business ; it involves such a lot of drinking. 
 
 " I left the hotel, and left ^Ir. Darrell and the clerk together; 
 but I didn't go very far. I contrived somehow or other to be 
 especially interested in that part of the exterior of the castle 
 visible from the street in which the hotel is situated, and, in a 
 manner, kept one eye upon the stately towers of the royal resi- 
 dence, and the other upon the doorway out of which Launcelot 
 Darrell and Mr. Lawford's clerk must by-and-by emerge. In 
 about half-an-hour I had the satisfaction of seeing them appear, 
 and contrived, most innocently, of course, to throw myself exactly 
 in their way at the comer of the perpendicular street. 
 
 " I was amply rewarded for any trouble I had taken ; for I 
 iever saw a face that so plainly expressed rage, mortification, 
 disappointment, almost despair, as did the face of Launcelot 
 Darrell, when I came against him at the street comer. He was 
 as wliite as a sheet, and he scowled at me savagely as he passed 
 me by. Not as if he recognized me ; the fixed look in his face 
 showed that his mind was too much absorbed by one thought for 
 any consciousness of exterior things ; but as if in his suppressed 
 fury he was ready to go bUndly against anybody or anything 
 that came in his way." 
 
 " But why, Richard, why was he so angry ? " cried Eleanor, 
 with her hands clenched and her nostrils quivering -with the 
 passage of her rapid breath. " "Wliat does it all mean ? " 
 
 " Unless I'm very much mistaken, Mrs. Monckton, it means 
 that Launcelot Darrell has been tampeiing with the clerk of the
 
 248 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 lawyer who drew np Mr. de Crespigny's last will, and that he 
 now knows the worst " 
 
 "And that is " 
 
 " The plara fact, that unless that wiU is altered the brilliant 
 Mr. Darrell will not inherit a penny of his kinsman's fortune." 
 
 The second dinner-beU rang wliile Richard was speaking, and 
 Eleanor ran away to make some hurried change in her toilette, 
 and to appear in the drawing-room, agitated and ill at ease, ten 
 minutes after Mr. Monckton's punctilious butler had mq^do his 
 formal announcement of the principal meal of the day. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXYI. 
 
 ANOTHER KECOGNITION. 
 
 Launcelot Daeeell came to ToUdale Priory upon the day after 
 Richard's visit to Windsor, and it was easy for Eleanor, assisted 
 by her knowledge of what had transpired, to see the change in 
 his manner. She spent an hour in the drawing-room that 
 morning for the purpose of seeing this change, and thereby 
 finding confirmation of that which Richard Thornton had told 
 her. But the alteration in the young man's manner must have 
 been very obvious, for even Laura, who was not particularly 
 observant of any shades of feeling that did not make them- 
 selves manifest by the outward expression of word or gesture, 
 perceived that there was something amiss with her lover, and 
 drove Launcelot Darrell weU-nigh mad with her childish ques- 
 tionings and lamentations. 
 
 Why was he so quiet ? Why was he so much paler than 
 usual ? Why did he sigh sometimes ? Why did he laugh in 
 that strange way ? Oh, no, not in his usual way. It was no use 
 saying that it was so. Had he a headache ? Had he been 
 sitting up late at night ? Had he been drinking horrid wine 
 that had disagreed with him ? Had he been a naughty, naughty, 
 cruel, false, treacherous boy, and had he been to seme party 
 that he hadn't told his poor Laura about, drinking champagne 
 and flirting with girls, and dancing, and all that P Or had he 
 been working too much at his new picture P 
 
 With such questions as these did the young lady harass and 
 torment her lover throughout that uncomfortable February 
 morning ; until at last Mr. Darrell turned upon her in a rage, 
 declaring that his head was nearly spht asunder, and plainly 
 telling her to hold her tongue. 
 
 Indeed, Mr. Launcelot Darrell made very little effort to dis- 
 guise his feelings, but sat over the fire in a low easy chair, with 
 his elbows resting on his knees, and his handsome dark eyes 
 bent moodily upon the blaze. He roused himself now and then
 
 Another Recognition. 249 
 
 from a fit of gloomy thouglit to snatch up the polished -steel 
 poker, and plunge it savagely amongst the coals, as if it was 
 Bome relief to him to jiunish even them. Another man might 
 have feared the inferences which spectators might draw from 
 his conduct, but the principle upon which Launcelot Darrell'a 
 life had been based involved an utter contempt for almost every 
 living creature except himself, and he apprehended no danger 
 from the watchfulness of the inferior beings about him. 
 
 Laura Mason, sitting on a low ottoman at his feet, and em- 
 ployed in working a pair of embroidered slipi^ers — the third pair 
 she had begun for the use of her future lord and master — 
 thought him more like the Corsair to-day than ever; but 
 thought at the same time that some periods of ^Medora's ex- 
 istence must have been rather dreary. No doubt it was Con- 
 rad's habit to sit and stare at the coals, and to poke the fire 
 savagely when things went amiss with him ; when his favourite 
 barque was scuttled by a mutinous crew, or his cargo confiscated 
 by tne minions of the law. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell was engaged to dine at the Priory upon 
 this 16th of February. Mr. Monckton had invited him, in 
 order that some matters coimected with Laura's fortune might 
 be discussed. 
 
 " It is fully time we should understand each other, Darrell," 
 the lawyer said ; " so I shall expect you to give me a couple of 
 hours in my study this evening after dinner, if you've no objec- 
 tion.'* 
 
 Of course Mr. Darrell had no objection, but he had an almost 
 Bpiteful manner that day in his intercourse with poor Laura, 
 who was bewildered by the change in him. 
 
 " You think it's strange that I should dislike all this oxire- 
 mony about settlements and allowance. Yes, Laura, that's a 
 pleasant word, isn't it ? Your guardian honoured me by telling 
 me he should make us a handsome allowance for the first few 
 years of our married Ufe. You think I ought to take kindly to 
 this sort of thing, I dare say, and drop quietly into my position 
 of genteel pauperism, depandent upon my pencil, or my \vife, for 
 the diimer I eat, and the coat I wear. No, Laura," cried thf 
 young man, passionately, " I don't take kindly to it ; I can't 
 etand it. The thought of my position enrages me against my- 
 eelf, against you, against everybody and everything in the world.' 
 
 Laurtcelot Darrell talked thus to his betrothed while Richai J 
 and Eleanor were both in the room ; the scene-painter sitting 2a 
 a window making furtive sketches with a fat little stump of 
 lead pencil upon the backs of divers letters; Mrs. Monckton 
 Btanding at another window looking out at the leafless trees, the 
 black flowerless garden beds, the rain-drops hanging: on the 
 dingy firs and evergreens.
 
 250 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Mr. Darrell knew that lie was overheard ; but lie had no wish 
 that it should be otherwise. He did not care to keep his griev- 
 ances a secret. The egotism of liis nature exhibited itself in 
 this. He gave himself the airs of a victim, and made a show of 
 despising the benefits he was about to accept from his confiding 
 betrotlied. He in a manner proclaimed himself injured by the 
 existence of his future wife's fortune ; and he forced her to 
 apologize to him for the prosperity which she was about to 
 bestow upon him, 
 
 " As if it was being a pauper to take my money," cried Miss 
 Mason, with great tenderness, albeit in rather obscure English ; 
 " as if I gradged you the horrid money, Launcelot. Why, I 
 don't even know how much I'm to have. It may be fifty pounds 
 a-year — that's what I've had to buy my dresses and things 
 since I was fifteen — or it may be fifty thousand. I don't want 
 to know how much it is. If it is fifty thousand a-year, you're 
 welcome to it, Launcelot, darling." 
 
 " Launcelot darling " shrugged his shoulders with a peevish 
 gesture, which exhibited liim rather as a discontented darling. 
 
 " You talk like a baby, Laura," he said, contemptuously; " I 
 suppose the ' handsome aUow^'ace ' Mr. Monckton promises will 
 be about two or three hundred a year, or so ; something that 
 I'm to eke out by my industry. Heaven knows he has preached 
 to me enough about the necessity of being industrious. One 
 would think that an artist was a bricklayer or a stonemason, to 
 hear him talk." 
 
 Eleanor turned away from the window as Launcelot Darrell 
 Baid this ; she could not suffer her husband to be undefended 
 while she was by. 
 
 " I have no doubt whatever Mr. Monckton said was right, 
 Mr. Darrell," she exclaimed, Hfting her head proudly, as if in 
 defiance of any voice that should gainsay her husband's merits. 
 
 " No doubt, Mrs. Monckton ; but there's a certain sledge- 
 hammer-like way of propounding that which is right that isn't 
 always pleasant. I don't want to be reminded that an artist's 
 calUng is a trade, and that when the Graces bless me with a 
 happy thought I must work like a slave until I've hammered it 
 out upon canvas and sent it into the market for sale." 
 
 " Some people think the Graces are propitiated bj hard 
 labour," Richard Thornton said, quietly, without raising his 
 eyes from his rapid pencil, " and that the happiest thoughts are 
 apt to come when a man has his brash in his hand, rather than 
 when he is lying on a sofa reading French novels ; though I 
 have known artists who prefeiTcd that method of waiting for 
 inspiration. For my own pai-t, I beUeve in the inspiration that 
 grows out of patient labour." 
 
 "Yes," Mr. Darrell answered, with an air of lazy indifference,
 
 Another Recognition. 251 
 
 — an air •whicli plainly expressed that he disdained to discnsa 
 art-topics wth a scene-painter, " I dare say you find it answer 
 — in your line. You must splash -^ver a good deal of canvas 
 before you can produce a transformatiou-s-^en'r. I ^^;;.•^^!•"^e i^ '- 
 
 " Peter Paul Rubens got over a good deal of canvas/' said 
 Bichard, "and Kaffiielle Sanzio d'Urbino did something in 
 that way, if we may judge by the cartoons and a few other 
 trifles." 
 
 " Oh, of course, there were giants in those days. I don't 
 aspire to rival any such Patagonians. I don't see why people 
 should be compelled to walk through a picture-gallery a mile 
 long before they can pronounce an opinion upon a painter's 
 merits. I should be very well contented if my chance with 
 posterity rested upon half-a-dozen pictures no bigger than 
 Millais's ' Huguenots; ' and as good." 
 
 " And I'm sure you could do dozens and dozens as good as 
 that," cried Laura. " Why, it's only a lady tying a scarf round 
 her lover's ann, and a lot of green leaves. Of course it's very 
 pretty, you know, and one feels very much for her, poor thing, 
 and one s afraid that he'll let those cruel CathoUcs kill him, and 
 that she'll die broken-hearted. But you coidd paint lots of 
 pictures like that, Launcelot, if you chose." 
 
 The young man did not condescend to notice his affianced 
 wife's art-criticism. He relapsed into gloomy silence, and once 
 more betook liimself to that savage kind of consolation aflforded 
 by a sturdy exercise of the poker. 
 
 " But, Launcelot," pleaded Miss Mason, presently, " I'm sure 
 you needn't be unhappy about my having money, and your being 
 poor. There's jMr. de Crespigny's fortune, you know ; he can't 
 be shameful and wicked enough to leave it to any one but you. 
 My guardian said, only the other day, that he thought it woidd 
 be left to you." 
 
 " Oh, ah, to be sure," muttered Mr. Darrell, moodily ; " there's 
 that chance, of course." 
 
 " He couldn't leave Woodlands to those two old maids, yon 
 know, Launcelot, could he ? " 
 
 To the surprise of the two hsteners, Richard Tliomton and 
 Eleanor, the young man burst into a harsh disdainful laugh. 
 
 " My respected maiden aunts 1 " he exclaimed ; " poor devils^ 
 they've had a nice time of it." 
 
 Until this moment Richard and Eleanor had most firmly 
 believed that the wll which disinherited Launcelot Darrell 
 bequeathed the Woodlands fortune to the two maiden sisters, 
 La\nnia and Sarah de Crespigny; but the young man's disdain- 
 ful laugh, and the contemptuous, yet half-pitying tone in which 
 he spoke of the two sisters, plainly revealed that if he knew tho 
 secret of the disposal of Maurice de Crespigny's fortune, and
 
 252 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 knew that it was not left to himself, he knew also that equ^ 
 disappointment and mortification awaited his aunts. 
 
 He had been in the habit of speaking of them with a savage 
 though suppressed animosity. To-day his tone was utterly 
 changed. He had a malicious pleasure, no doubt, in thinking 
 of the disappointment in store for them ; and he could afford 
 now to feel a kind of disdainful compassion for aU their wasted 
 labours, their useless patience. 
 
 But to whom, then, could the fortune be left ? 
 
 Eleanor and Richard looked at each other in amazement. It 
 might have been supposed that the old man had left his wealtli 
 to Eleanor herself, influenced by the caprice that had induced 
 him to attach himself to her, because of her likeness to his dead 
 friend. But this could not be, for the invahd had distinctly 
 declared that he should leave nothing but George Vane's minia- 
 ture to his new favourite ; and Maurice de Crespigny was not a 
 man to say one thing and mean another. He had spoken of a 
 duty to be fulfilled, a duty which he was determined to perform. 
 
 Yet, to whom could he possibly owe any duty, except to his 
 kindred ? Had he any other relations except his three nieces and 
 Launcelot DarreU? He might have other claims upon him. 
 He might have some poor and modest kindred who had kept 
 aloof from him, and refrained from paying court to hi m , and 
 whose forbearance he might choose to reward in an unlooked-for, 
 unthought-of manner. 
 
 And again, he might have bequeathed his money to some 
 charitable institution, or ia trust for some new scheme of philan- 
 thropy. Such a course would scarcely be strange in a lonely old 
 man, who in his nearest relations might only recognize eager, 
 expectant harpies keeping anxious watch for the welcome hour 
 of his death. 
 
 Eleanor Monckton did not trouble herself much about this 
 question. She beheved, from Launcelot Darrell's manner, that 
 Richard Thornton had drawn the right inference from the meet- 
 ing of the young man and the lawyer's clerk. 
 
 She beUeved imphcitly fhat Launcelot DarreU'a name waa 
 omitted from his great-uncle's last will, and that he knew it. 
 
 This belief inspired her with a new feeling. She could aflford 
 to be patient now. If Maurice de Crespigny should die suddenly, 
 he would not die leaving his wealth to enrich the traitor who had 
 cheated a helpless old man. Her only thought now must be to 
 prevent Laura's marriage ; and for this she must look to her 
 husband, Gilbert Monckton. 
 
 " He will never let the girl whose destiny has been confided to 
 him marry a bad man," she thought; " I have only to tell him 
 the story of my father's death, and to prove to him Launcelot 
 DarreU's guilt."
 
 Another Hecognition. 253 
 
 ITie dinner went off very quietly. Mr. Monckton was reservei 
 and silent, as it liiul lately become his habit to be. Launcelofe 
 Darrell had still the gloomy, discontented air that had made him 
 a very unpleasant companion throughout that day. The young 
 man was not a hypocrite, and had no power ot concealing his 
 feelings. He could tell any number of bes that might be neces- 
 sary for his own convenience or safety ; but he was not a hypo- 
 crite. Hyj)ocrisy involves a great deal of trouble on the part of 
 those who practise it : and is, moreover, the vice of a man who 
 sets no httle value upon the opinion of his fellow-creatures. Mr. 
 Darrell was of a listless and lazy temperament, and nourished 
 an utter abhorrence of all work, either physical or mental. On 
 the other hand, he had so good an opinion of himself as to be 
 tolerably indifferent to the ojiinions of others. 
 
 If he had been accused of a crime he would have denied 
 having committed it, for liis own sake. But he never troubled 
 himself to consider what other people might think of him, so 
 long as their opinion had no power to affect his personal comfort 
 or safety. 
 
 The cloth had been removed ; for old fashions held their ground 
 at ToUdale Priory, where a dinner a la Riisse would have been 
 looked upon as an absurd institution, more like a child's feast of 
 fruit and flowers, cakes and sugar-plums, than a substantial 
 meal intended for sensible people. The cloth had been removed, 
 an<.l that dreary ceremonial, a good old Enghsh dessert, was in 
 pro_rress, when a servant brought Launcelot Darrell a card upon 
 a salver, and presented it to him solemnly, amid the silence of 
 the company. 
 
 The young man was sitting next Eleanor Monckton, and she 
 saw that the card was of a nighly glazed and slippery nature 
 and of an abnormal size, between the ordinary sizes of a gentle- 
 man's and a lady's card. 
 
 The blood rushed to Launcelot Darrell's forehead as he read 
 the name upon the card, and Eleanor saw his under lip contract 
 with a sudden movement, expressive of intense vexation. 
 
 " How did tliis — this gentleman come here? " he asked, turn- 
 ing to the servant. 
 
 " The gentleman has driven over from Hazlewood, sir. Hear- 
 ing you were dining here, he came on to see you, he says ; is he 
 to be shown into the drawing-room P " 
 
 " Yes — no : I'll come out and see him. Will you excuse me, 
 Mr. ]\Ionckton : this is an old acquaintance of mine ? Rather a 
 pertinacious acquaintance, as you may perceive by his manner 
 of following me up to-night." 
 
 Mr. Darrell rose, jiushod aside his chair, and went out of the 
 dijiing-room, followed Ijy the servant. 
 
 The hall was brilhantly Ughted, and in the few moments
 
 254 Meanor's Victory. 
 
 during whicli the servant slowly followed Lanncelot Darrell, 
 Eleanor had an opportunity of seeing the stranger who had 
 come to the Priory. 
 
 He was standing under the light of the large gas-lamp, shaking 
 the rain-drops from his hat, and with his face turned towards the 
 dining-room door. 
 
 He was short and stout, smartly dressed, and foppish-looMng 
 even in his travelling costume ; and he was no other than the 
 talkative Frenchman who had persuaded George Vane to leave 
 his daue^hter alone upon the Boulevard on the night of August 
 11th, 1853. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYn. 
 
 latjncelot's tkoubles. 
 
 Bleanob Monckton sat looking at the door which had closed 
 upon the scene in the lampht hall, almost as if the intensity of 
 her gaze could have pierced the sohd oaken panel and revealed 
 to her that which was taking place outside the dining-room. 
 
 Richard Thornton and her husband, both watching her face, 
 marvelled at the sudden change in its expression, — the look of 
 rapt wonder and amazement that had come over it from the 
 moment in which Lanncelot Darrell had gone out into the hall. 
 Richard guessed that something strange and unexpected had 
 occurred, but Gilbert Monckton, who was quite in the dark as 
 to his wife's feehngs, could only stare blankly at her face, and 
 mutely wonder at the mystery which tortured him. Laura 
 Mason, who had been throughout the day alarmed by her lover's 
 manner, was too anxious about Lanncelot Darrell to observe the 
 face of her friend. 
 
 "I'm sure there's something wrong," she said; "I'm sure 
 there is, Mr. Monckton. You don't know how Launcelot's been 
 going on all day, frightening me out of my wits. Hasn't he, 
 now, Eleanor ? Hasn't he, Mr. Thornton P Saying he won't be 
 a pauper, dependent upon his wife, and that you've wounded his 
 feehngs by talking about art as if you were a bricklayer ; or as 
 if he was a bricklayer, I forget which. I had a presentiment all 
 day that something was going to happen; and Lanncelot did 
 go on BO, staring at the fire, and hammering the coals, and sigh- 
 ing as if he had something awful on his mind — as if he'd com- 
 mitted a crime, you know, and was brooding over it," added the 
 young lady, with an evident rehsh of the last idea. 
 
 Mr. Monckton looked contemptuously at his ward. The girl's 
 frivolous babble was in horrible discord with his own anxiety — 
 a kind of parody of his own alarm. 
 
 " What do YOU mean by committing crimes, Laura ? " he said.
 
 Launcelot's Troulles. 255 
 
 •' I'm afraid you'll never learn to talk like a reasonable being. 
 Is there anytliing so very miraculous in the fact that some old 
 acquaintance of Mr. Darrell's has come down to Berkshire to 
 see him ? " 
 
 Laura Mason breathed a sigh of relief. 
 
 " You don't think, then, that Launcelot has done something 
 dreadful, and that this man has come to arrest him ? " she asked. 
 *' It seems so odd his coming here on a dark winter's night ; and 
 Launcelot looked angry when he saw the card the servant gave 
 him. I'm sure it's something dreadful. Let's go into the draw- 
 ing-room, Eleanor. We shall have to pass through the hall, 
 and if there's anything wrong we can find out aU about it." 
 
 Eleanor started as Laura addressed her, and rose suddenly, 
 aroused by the necessity of having to attend to something 
 that had been said to her, but scarcely knowing what that 
 Bomething was. 
 
 " Eleanor!" exclaimed her husband, "how pale you are, and 
 how strangely you look at that door. One would think that you 
 were intiuenced by Laura's absurd fears." 
 
 " Oh, no ! I am not frightened of anything ; only I " 
 
 She paused, hesitating, and looking down in painful embar- 
 rassment. 
 
 "Only what?" 
 
 " I happened to see the person who has come to speak to 
 Mr. DaiTcll, and — and — his face reminded me of a man I saw a 
 long time ago." 
 
 Kichard looked up quickly. 
 
 " But was there anytliing so very startling in the mere coin- 
 cidence of a likeness ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, nothing startling." 
 
 " Upon my word, Eleanor," exclaimed Gilbert Monckton, im- 
 patiently, " we seem to live in an atmosphere of mystery, which, 
 to say the least of it, is far from agreeable to those who only 
 occupy the position of lookers-on. There, there, go to the draw- 
 ing-room with Laura. Mr. Thornton and I will follow you 
 almost immediately. We shall have very Uttle pleasure in sitting 
 over our wine \vith a consciousness that a kind of Guni^owder 
 Plot is going on in the hall outside." 
 
 The lawyer filled his glass with claret, and pushed the crystal 
 jug towards Richard ; but he left the wine untasted before him, 
 and he sat silently brooding over his suspicions, with a bent brow 
 and rigidly-compressed hps. 
 
 It was no use to struggle against his destiny, he thought. 
 Life was to be always a dreary French novel, in which he was 
 to play the victim husband. He had loved and trusted this girl. 
 He had seen innocence and candour beaming in her face, and 
 he had dared to beUeve in her ; and from the very hour of her
 
 256 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 marriage a horrible transformation had taken place in this frank 
 and fearless creature. A hundred changes of expression, ali 
 equally mysterious to him, had converted the face he loved inta 
 a wearisome and incomprehensible enigma, which it was the 
 torment of his life to endeavour vainly and hopelessly to guess. 
 Eichard Thornton opened the door, and Eleanor gladly made her 
 escape from the dining-room, holding Laura's hand in hers, and 
 with the Signora following close behind her. The three women 
 entered the hall in a group, and paused for a moment looking at 
 Launcelot DarreU and the stranger. 
 
 Mr. DarreU stood near the open hall-door with his hands in 
 his pockets, and his head bent in that sulky attitude which 
 Eleanor had good reason to remember. The stranger, smoothing 
 the wet najo of his hat with a careful hand, seemed to be talking 
 in a tone of remonstrance, and, as it were, urging something 
 upon his companion. This was only to be guessed by the ex- 
 pression of his face, as the voice in which he spoke was scarcely 
 above a whisper. 
 
 The three ladies crossed the hall and went into the drawing- 
 room. Eleanor had no need to confirm her sudden recognition of 
 the Frenchman by any second scrutiny of his face. She sat 
 down near the broad hearth, and began to think how this man's 
 unlooked-for coming might affect the fulfilment of her purpose. 
 Would he be hkely to thwart her ? or could he not, perhaps, be 
 induced to help her P 
 
 " I must talk to Richard," she thought. " He knows th© 
 world better than I do. I am almost as much a child as 
 Laura." 
 
 While Mrs. Monckton sat looking absently at the fire, and 
 trying to imagine how the advent of the Frenchman might be 
 made subservient to the scheme of her hfe. Miss Mason burst 
 into a torrent of panegyric upon the stranger's appearance. 
 
 "He's such a good-natured-looking dear," she exclaimed, 
 " with curly hair and a moustache just hke the Emperor's ; and 
 the idea of my frightening myself so about him, and thinking he 
 was a dreadful creature in a slouched hat, and with his coat- 
 ' ollar turned up to hide his face, come to arrest Launcelot for 
 some awful crime. I'm not a bit frightened now, and I hope 
 Launcelot will bring him in to tea. The idea of his being a 
 foreigner, too ! I think foreigners are so interesting. Don't 
 you, Nelly?" 
 
 Eleanor Monckton looked up at the sound of her name. She 
 had not heard a word that Laura had said. 
 
 " What, dear ? " she asked, listlessly. 
 
 "Don't you think foreigners interesting, Nelly P " repeated th© 
 young lady. 
 
 "Interesting? No."
 
 Zauncelot** Troullea. 257 
 
 "Wliat! notFrenclimen?" 
 
 Mrs. Mdnckton gave a faint shiver. 
 
 "Frenchmen!" she said. "No, I don't like them, I- 
 
 How do I know, Laura ? Baseness and treachery belong to no 
 pecuUar people, I suppose?" 
 
 Mr. Monckton and the scene-painter came into the drawing- 
 room at this moment, followed pretty closely by Launcelot 
 Darrell. 
 
 " What have you done with your friend, Darrell ? " Gilbert 
 Monckton asked, -with a look of surprise. 
 
 " Oh, he's gone," the young man answered, indifferently. 
 
 " You've let him go without asking liim to rest, or take some 
 refreshment ? " 
 
 " Yes, I contrived to get rid of him." 
 
 " We don't usually ' contrive to get rid ' of people when they 
 come here on a wet winter night," said Mr. Monckton. " You'll 
 give Tolldale Priory a reputation for inhospitahty, I fear. Why 
 did you not ask your friend to stop ?" 
 
 " Because I didn't care to introduce him to you," Launcelot 
 Darrell answered, coolly. " I never said he was a friend of mine. 
 He's only an acquaintance, and a very intrusive acquaintance. 
 He had no right to ferret out my whereabouts, and to come 
 down here after me. A man doesn't want past associations 
 forced upon him, however agreeable they may have been." 
 
 " And still loss when those associations are disagreeable. I 
 understand. But who is this man ? " 
 
 " He's a Frenchman, a covimis voyarjeiir, or something of 
 that kind ; by no means a distinguisned acquaintance. He's 
 a good fellow, in his own particular fashion, and would go out 
 of his way to do me a service, I dare say ; but he's rather too 
 fond of absinthe, or brandy, or any other spirit he can get 
 hold of." 
 
 " You mean that he is a drunkard," said Mr. Monckton. 
 
 " I don't say that. But I know that the poor devil has had 
 more than one attack of deUrium tremens in the course of his 
 life. He's over here in the interests of a patent mustard, I 
 believe, lately invented by some great Parisian gastronomer." 
 
 " Indeed ; and where did you make his acquaintance ? " 
 
 The same crimson hue that had mounted to Mr. Darrell'a 
 forehead when the Frenchman's card was handed to him dyed 
 his face now, and he hesitated for a few moments before replyiag 
 to Gilbert Monckton's straight question. But he recovered him- 
 self pretty quickly, and answered with his accustomed careless- 
 ness of manner : 
 
 " Where did I know him P Oh, in London, of course. He 
 was an inhabitant of that refuge for the destitute of all nations, 
 some years ago, while I was sowing my wild oats there."
 
 258 Eleanor's Vietory. 
 
 " Before you •went to India ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course, before I went to India." 
 
 Mr. Monckton looked sharply at the young man's face. 
 There were moments when the lawyer's pradence, when tha 
 conscientious scruples of an honest man got the better cf the 
 husband's selfish fears ; and in those moments Gilbert Monckton 
 doubted whether he was doing his duty towards his ward in 
 Buffering her to marry Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 Was the young man worthy of the trust that was to be con- 
 fided to him ? Was he a fitting husband for an inexperienced 
 and frivolous girl ? 
 
 Mr. Monckton could only answer this question in one way. 
 He could only satisfy his conscience by taking a cynical view of 
 the matter. 
 
 " Launcelot Darrell is as good as other young men, I dar© 
 say," he argued. " He's good-looking, and conceited, and shallow, 
 and idle ; but the poor httle girl has chosen to fall in love with 
 iim, and if I come between them, and forbid this marii'age, and 
 make the silly child unhappy by forcing my choice upon her, 
 I may be quite as much mistaken as she, and after all marry 
 her to a bad man. I may just as well let her draw her own 
 number in the great lottery, and trust to Providence for its 
 being a lucky one." 
 
 But to-night there was something in Launcelot Darrell's 
 manner which aroused a vague suspicion in the breast of the 
 lawyer. 
 
 " Then your friend the commis voyageur has gone back to 
 Windsor, I suppose ? " he said. 
 
 "No; I couldn't very well avoid giving him shelter, as he 
 chose to come, though he came uninvited. I sent liim back to 
 Hazlewood with a few lines addressed to my mother, who will 
 do her best to make him comfortable, I dare say. Poor soul, 
 she would scarcely refuse to shelter a stray dog, if the wander- 
 ing cur were in any way attached to me." 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Darrell, you have reason to value your mother's 
 affection," answered the lawyer, gravely. " But we must not 
 forget that we've a good deal of business to transact to-night. 
 Will you come with me into my study, as soon as you've finished 
 that cup of tea ? " 
 
 Launcelot Darrell bowed, and set down his teacup on the 
 nearest table. Eleanor and Eichard had both watched him 
 closely since his coming into the drawing-room. It was easy to 
 Bee that he had by no means recovered from the impleasant sur- 
 prise caused him by the Frenchman's visit. His careless manner 
 was only assumed, and it was with evident difficulty that he 
 responded to each new demand made upon his attention. 
 
 He followed Gilbert Monckton slowly and silently from the
 
 Zauncehfg Troubles, 259 
 
 room, without having lingered to speak so much as a word to 
 Laura, without having even made her happy by so much as a look. 
 
 " He mij^ht have spoken to me," the young lady murmured, 
 disconsolately, as she watched her lover's retreating figure. 
 
 Two hours elapsed before the gentlemen returned to the draw- 
 ing-room ; two dreary hours for Laura, who sat yawning over a 
 book, or playing with her two dogs, which, by virtue of their 
 high breeding and good conduct, were constant occupants of 
 the drawLiig-room at Tolldale. Kichard Thornton and Mrs. 
 Monckton played a game of chess, the strangest game, perhaps, 
 that ever was played, for the moving backwards and forwards 
 of the ivory pieces was a mere pretence, by means of which 
 Eleanor contrived to take counsel with her faithful ally. 
 
 " Do you think this man's coming will help us, Dick? " eho 
 asked, when she had told the story of her recognition of the 
 Frenchman. 
 
 Richard shook his head, not negatively, but reflectively. 
 
 " How can I tell ? " he said; "the man may or may not be 
 inclined to betray his friend. In any case it will be very diflB.cult 
 for us to get at him." 
 
 " Not for you, Richard," murmured Eleanor, persuasively. 
 
 " Not for me" echoed the young man. " Syren, mermaiden, 
 witch of the sea, avaunt! It was you and the blue bonnet that 
 settled for the shipbroker and his clerks. Have you the blue 
 bonnet still, Nell ; or have you any other influence in the 
 miUinery line that you can bring to bear upon this traveller in 
 mustard ? " 
 
 " But if he should remember meP " 
 
 " That's scarcely likely. His face was impressed upon your 
 mind by the awful circumstance that followed your meeting 
 with him. You have changed very much since you were fifteen 
 years of age, Mrs. Monckton. You were a feminine hobble- 
 dehoy then. Now you are — never mind what. A sui^erb 
 Nemesis in crinoline, bent on deeds of darkness and horror. 
 No, I do not see any reason to fear this man's recognition of 
 
 The expression of Launcelot Darrell's face had subsided into 
 a settled gloom when he reappeared in the drawing-room with 
 Mr. Monckton. 
 
 The lawyer seated himself at a reading-table, and began to 
 open the evening papers, which were sent from "Windsor to 
 Tolldale. Launcelot strolled over to Laura Mason, and, sitting 
 down beside her, amused himself by pulling the silky ears of the 
 Skye terrier. 
 
 " Do tell me everything, Launcelot," said Miss Mason. " You 
 don't know how much I've suiFered all tliis evening. I hope the 
 interview was a pleasant oneP "
 
 260 lEleanor's Victory. 
 
 " Oh, yes, remarkably pleasant," answered the yonng man, 
 with a sneer. " I shall not be exposed to the reproach of having 
 made a mercenary marriage, Laura, at any rate." 
 
 " What do you mean, Launcelot ? " cried the young lady, 
 staring aghast at her lover. " You don't mean that my guar- 
 dian's been deceiving me all this time, and that I'm a poor 
 penniless creature after all, and that I ought to have been a 
 companion, or a nursery governess, or something of that kind, 
 as Eleanor was before her marriage. You don't mean that, 
 Launcelot ! " 
 
 " Not precisely," answered Mr. Darrell ; " but I mean that 
 the noble allowance of which your guardian has talked so much 
 is to be two hundred a year : which, as we are so unfortunate as 
 to possess the habits of a gentleman and a lady, will not go very 
 far." 
 
 " But ain't I rich, — ain't I an heiress ? " cried Miss Mason. 
 " Haven't I what-you-may-call-'ems — expectations ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. I beheve there is some vague promise of future 
 wealth held out as a compensation for all present deprivations. 
 But really, although yoiir guardian took great pains to explain 
 the dry business details to me, I was almost too thed to listen 
 to him ; and certainly too stupid to understand very clearly 
 what he meant. I believe there is some money which you are 
 to have by-and-by, upon the death of somebody. But as it 
 seems that the somebody is a person in the prime of Ufe, who 
 has the power of altering his will at any moment that he may 
 take it into his head to do so, I look upon that exj^ectation as 
 rather a remote contingency. No, Laura, we must look our 
 position straight in the face. A life of hard work Has before 
 me ; a Hfe of poverty before you." 
 
 Miss Mason made a wry face. Her mind had little power to 
 realize anything but extremes. Her idea of poverty was some- 
 thing very horrible. An existence of beggary, with the chance 
 of being called upon to do plain needlework for her daily bread, 
 and with a workhouse at the end of the prospect. 
 
 " But I shall love you all the same, Laimcelot," she whispered, 
 " however poor we may be, and I'll wear dresses without any 
 trimming, and imitation lace. I suppose you wouldn't know 
 imitation lace from real Valenciennes, Launcelot, and it's so 
 cheap. And I'll try and make pies and puddings, and I'll learn 
 to be economical, and I've lots of jewellery that my guardian 
 has given me, and we can sell that, if you like. I'll work as 
 hard as that poor woman in the poem, Launcelot, for your sake. 
 ' Stitch, stitch, stitch, band and gusset and seam.' I don't mind 
 the seams, dear ; they'd be easy if one didn't prick one's fingers 
 and make knots in one's thread ; but I'm afraid I shall never be 
 able to manage the gussets. Only promise me that you'll love
 
 Gloomy Tidings from Woodlands. 261 
 
 me still, Launcelot. Tell me that you don't hate me because 
 I'm poor." 
 
 The young man took the soft Uttle hand that was laid with aq 
 implonng gesture on his wrist, and pressed it tenderly. 
 
 *' I should be a brute if I wasn't grateful for your love, Laura," 
 he said. " I didn't wish you to be rich. I'm not the sort of 
 fellow who could contentedly accept a degraded position, and 
 sponge upon a wife's fortune. I only wanted — I only wanted what 
 I had been taught to expect," he muttered, with a savage accent; 
 " I'm set upon and hemmed in on every side, and I've a hundred 
 mortifications and miseries to bear for want of money. But I'll 
 try and make you a good husband, my dear." 
 
 " You will, Laimcelot," cried the girl, melted by some touch 
 of real earnestness in her lover's tone that was new and welcome 
 to her. " How good it is of you to say that. But how should 
 you be otherwise than good ; and you will be a great painter, 
 and all the world will admire you and talk about you, and we 
 shall be so happy, — shan't we, Laimcelot ? — wandering through 
 Italy together." 
 
 The young man answered her with a bitter langh. 
 
 '* Yes, Laura," he said, " the sooner we get to Italy the better. 
 Heaven knows, I've no particular interest that need keep me in 
 England, now." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 KK. MONCKTON BRINGS GLOOMY TIDINGS FROM W00DIAND3. 
 
 For some few days after the Frenchman's arrival, Launcelot 
 Darrell stopped away from the Priory, much to the regret of his 
 betrothed, whose delight in her trousseau was not sufficient to 
 fill the blank made by her lover's absence. Miss Mason roamed 
 disconsolately about the house, looking out at the bare trees, 
 and the desolate garden walks, and quoted Termyson until she 
 became obnoxious to her fellow- creatures by reason of her 
 regret that he did not come, and her anxiety that the day 
 should be done, and other lamentations to the same effect. 
 
 She ran out of doors sometimes under the bleak February 
 sky, with a cambric handkerchief over her head as a sensible pro- 
 tection from the bitter atmosphere, and her Hght ringlets flying 
 in the wind, to stand at a httle doorway in the high garden 
 wall, and watch for her lover's coming by a narrow pathway 
 through the wood, by which it was his wont to make a short 
 cut for himself in dry weather. 
 
 She was standing in tliis narrow doorway upon the afternoon 
 of the 2'2nd of February — only twenty-one days before that 
 eventful morning which was to make her Launcelot Darrell'a
 
 262 ^Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 •wife — with Eleanor Monckton by her side. The short winter's 
 day was closing in, and the shadows were thickening in the low 
 woodland, whatever light might linger on the hill-tops above 
 Tolldale. The two women were silent : Eleanor was in very 
 low spirits, for on this day she had lost her friend and coun- 
 sellor, Richard Thornton, who had had no alternative but to 
 leave Tolldale, or to forfeit a very remunerative and advan- 
 tageous engagement at one of the Edinburgh Theatres, whither 
 he had been summoned to paint the scenery for a grand Easter 
 burlesque, about to be produced with unusual splendoui*, by a 
 speculative Scottish manager; and who had, therefore, de- 
 parted, taking his aunt with him. George Vane's daughter felt 
 tei-ribly helpless in the absence of this faithful ally. Richard 
 had promised to attend to her summons, and to return to Toll- 
 dale at any hour, if she should have need of his services ; but 
 he was separated from her by a long distance, and how could 
 she teU when the moment of that need might come ? She was 
 alone, amongst people who had no sympathy with the pur- 
 IDOse of her Hfe, and she bitterly felt the desolation of her 
 position. 
 
 It was no very great wonder, then, if she was thoughtful and 
 silent, and by no means the joyous, light-hearted companion 
 whom Laura Mason had loved and clung to at Hazlewood, before 
 the coming of Launcelot DarreU. This young lady watched her 
 now, furtively, almost fearfully, wondering at the change in her, 
 and speculating as to the cause of it. 
 
 " She mws^ have been in love with Launcelot," Laura thought ; 
 " how could she help being in love with him ? And she married 
 my guardian because he's rich, and now she's sorry for having 
 done so. And she's unhappy because I'm going to be married 
 to Launcelot. And, oh ! suppose Launcelot should still be in. 
 love with her; like the hero of a dreadful French novel !" 
 
 The dusk was deepening in the wood, when two figures 
 emerged from the narrow pathway. A tall, slenderly -built 
 young man, who switched the low brushwood and the fern with 
 his light cane as he walked along, and a puffy little individual 
 with a curly -brimmed hat, who trotted briskly by his side. 
 
 Laura was not slow to recognize her lover even in that doubt- 
 fol light, and Eleanor knew that the young man's companion 
 was the French commercial traveller. 
 
 Mr. Darrell introduced his friend to the two ladies 
 
 " Monsieur Victor Bourdon, Mrs. Monckton, Miss Mason," he 
 muttered, hastily. " I dare say you have thought me very 
 neglectful, Laura," he added ; " but I have been driving Mon- 
 sieur Bourdon about the neighbourhood for the last day or two. 
 He's a stranger in this part of the country, though he's almost 
 M much an EngUshman as I am."
 
 Gloomy Tidings from Woodlands. 263 
 
 Monsieur Bourdon laughed as ho acknowledged the _ ^oiapli- 
 ment, -with an air that was evidently intended to be fascinating. 
 " Y-a-a-se," he said, " we have been to Vindsor. It is very 
 naice." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell frowned, and looked angrily at his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Yes, Bourdon wanted to have a look at the state apart- 
 ments," he said; "he wanted to compare them with those in- 
 terminable galleries at Versailles, I suppose, to the disparage- 
 ment of our national glory." 
 
 "But the apartments are closed," said Eleanor. 
 " Oh ! of course," answered Mr. Darrell, looking at her rather 
 suspiciously, " they always are closed when you happen to want 
 to see them. Just like everything else in this world of anomahes 
 and paradoxes." 
 
 "He has taken his friend to Windsor," Eleanor thought; 
 " had this visit any relation to his last visit ? Did he go there 
 to see Mr. Lawford's clerk ? " 
 
 She was helpless without Richard, and could not answer this 
 question. 
 
 " I'll \vrite to him to-night," she thought, " and ask him to 
 come back to me directly." 
 
 But in the next moment she was ashamed of herself for her 
 selfishness. She might sacrifice her own life to her scheme of 
 vengeance. The voice of her father crying to her from his un- 
 sanctitied grave, seemed for ever urging her to do that; but 
 she had no right to call upon others to make the same sacrifice. 
 "No," she thought, "wherever the road I have chosen may 
 lead me, however difficult the path may l>e to follow, I will hence- 
 forward tread it alone. Poor Dick ! I have tormented him long 
 enough with my sorrows and my helplessness." 
 
 " You've come to dine, of course, Launcelot," Miss Mason 
 said, while Eleanor stood motionless and silent in the doorway, 
 absorbed in these thoughts, and looking like some pale statue 
 in the lusk ; " and you've brought your friend, Monsieur — Mon- 
 sieur B)urdon, to dine " 
 
 " Ah, but no, mademoiselle," exclaimed the Frenchman, in a 
 transport of humility. "I am not one of yours. Monsieu/ 
 
 Darrell is so good as to call me his friend, but " 
 
 The Frenchman murmured something of a deprecatory 
 nature, t-) the effect that he was only a humble commercial 
 traveller in the interests of a patent article that was very much 
 appreciate^l by all the crowned heads of Europe, and which 
 would doubtless, by the aid of his exertions and those of liia 
 comi")atriot3, become, before long, a cosmopohtan necessity, and 
 the soui'ce of a colossal fortiine. 
 
 Eleanor shuddered and shrank away from the man with a
 
 264 Meanor's Victory. 
 
 gesture almost erpressive of disgust, as lie turned to her in his 
 voluble depreciation of himself and glorification of the mer- 
 chandise which it was his duty to praise. 
 
 She remembered that it was this man, this loquacious vul- 
 garian, who had been Launcelot Darrell's tool on the night of her 
 father's death. This was the wretch who had stood behind George 
 Vane's chair, and watched the old man's play, and telegraphed 
 to his accomplice. 
 
 If she could have forgotten Launcelot Darrell's treachery, this 
 presence would have been enough to remind her of that pitiless 
 baseness, to inspire her with a tenfold disgust for that hideous 
 cruelty. It seemed as if the Frenchman's coming had been 
 designed by Providence to urge her to new energy, new determi- 
 nation. 
 
 " The man who could make this creature his accompHce in a 
 plot against my father shall never inherit Maurice de Crespigny's 
 fortune," she thought; "he shall never marry my husband's 
 ward *' 
 
 She linked her arm in Laura's as she thought this ; as if by 
 that simple and involuntary action she would have shielded her 
 from Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 In the next moment a footstep — the firm tread of a man — 
 sounded on the crisp gravel of the garden walk behind the two 
 girls, and presently Gilbert Monckton laid his hand lightly upon 
 his wife's shoulder. 
 
 She was startled by his unexpected coming, and turning 
 suddenly roimd, looked at him with a scared face ; which was a 
 new evidence against her in his troubled mind, a new testimony 
 that she was keeping some secret from him. 
 
 He had left Tolldale Priory early that morning to give a day's 
 attention to that business of which he had been lately so neglect- 
 fal, and had returned a couple of hours before his usual time for 
 coming home. 
 
 " What brings you out into the garden this bitter afternoon, 
 Eleanor ? " he said, sternly ; " you'll catch cold in that thin 
 shawl ; and you, too, Laura ; I should have thought a seat by 
 ihe drawing-room fire far more comfortable than this dreary 
 garden. Good evening, gentlemen ; you had better bring your 
 friend into the house, Mr. Darrell." 
 
 The young man muttered something of an apologetic nature, 
 and Monsieur Victor Bourdon acknowledged the lawyer's cold 
 salutation with an infinite number of bows and smirks. 
 
 " You have come home by an earher train than usua?, Gilbert," 
 Mrs. Monckton said, by way of saying something 'that might 
 Creak the silence which had followed her husband's coining ; " we 
 ■^d not expect you until seven." 
 
 " I came to Windsor by the three o'clock express" answered
 
 Zauncelofs Counsellor 265 
 
 Mr. Monckton. " I have not come etraight home. I stopped 
 at Woodlands to inquire after the invalid." 
 
 Eleanor looked up with anew and eager expression in her face. 
 
 " And Mr. de Crespigny — he is better, I hope." 
 
 " No, Eleanor, I fear that you will never see liim again. The 
 doctors scarcely hope that he will last out the week." 
 
 The girl set her hps firmly, and raised her head with a resolute 
 gesture — a mute exjiression of determination and defiance. 
 
 " I will see him again," she thought ; " I will not trust my 
 hope of vengeance to a chance. He may have altered his will, 
 perhaps. Come what may, I will stand beside his sick bed. I 
 will tell him who I am, and call upon him, in my dead father's 
 name, to do an act of justice." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell stood with his head bent and his eyes fixed 
 upon the ground. 
 
 As it was the habit of Eleanor to lift her forehead with some- 
 thing of the air of a young war-horse who scents the breath of 
 the battle-field afar, so it was this young man's manner to look 
 moodily earthward under the influence of any violent agitation. 
 
 " So," he said, slowly, " the old man is dying ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Mr. Monckton ; " your great-imcle is dying. 
 You may be master of Woodlands, Launcelot, before many days 
 are past." 
 
 The young man drew a long breath. 
 
 " Yes," he muttered ; " I may : I may." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 latjncelot's counsellor. 
 
 Mr. Darkell, and his friend the commercial traveller, did not 
 linger long at the garden gate. There was nothing very cordial 
 or conciliatory in Gilbert Monckton's manner, and he had evi- 
 dently no wish to cultivate any intimate relations with Monsieur 
 Victor Bourdon. 
 
 Nor was Launcelot Darrell by any means anxious that his 
 companion should be invited to stop at Tolldale. He had brought 
 the Frenchman to the Priory, but he had only done so because 
 Monsieur Bourdon was one of those pertinacious gentlemen not 
 easily to be shaken off by the victims who are so unfortunate aa 
 to have fallen into their power. 
 
 " Well," said the artist, as the two men walked away from the 
 Prioiy in the murky dusk, " what do you think of her ? " 
 
 " Of which her ? La hdle future, or the otha-i-r ? " 
 
 " '\Yhat do you think of Mrs. Monckton ? I don't want yon» 
 opinion of my future wile, thank you."
 
 266 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Monsieiir Bourdon looked at liis companion with a smile that 
 was half a sneer. 
 
 " He is so ijroud, this dear Monsieur Lan — Darrell," he said. 
 *' You ask of me what I think of Mrs. Monck-a-tonne," he 
 continued, ui English ; " shall I teU you what I think without 
 reserve ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 " I tliink, then, that she is a woman of a thousand — in all that 
 there is of resolute — in all that there is of impulsive — in all 
 that there is of darmg — a woman unapproachable, unsurj^assable; 
 beautiful to damn the angels ! If in the Httle business that we 
 came to talk about lately this woman is to be in the way, I say 
 to you, my friend, beware ! If there is to be any contest between 
 you and her, beware ! " 
 
 " Pray don't go into heroics. Bourdon," answered Launcelot 
 Darrell, with evident displeasure. Vanity was one of the artist's 
 strongest vices ; and he writhed at the notion of being con- 
 sidered inferior to any one, above all to a woman. " I knew 
 Mrs. Monckton, and I knew that she was a clever, high-spirited 
 girl before to-day. I don't want you to tell me that. As to any 
 contest between her and me, there's no chance of that arising. 
 She doesn't stand in my way." 
 
 " And you refuse to tell to your devoted friend the name of 
 the person who does stand in your way ? " murmured Monsieur 
 Bourdon, in his most insinuating tones. 
 
 " Because that information cannot be of the least consequence 
 to my devoted friend," answered Launcelot Darrell, coolly. " If 
 my devoted friend has helped me, he wiU expect to be paid for 
 ftis help, I dare say." 
 
 " But, certainly ! " cried the Frenchman, with an air of can- 
 dour ; " you will recompense me for my services if we are suc- 
 cessful; and above all for the suggestion which first put into 
 your head the idea " 
 
 " The suggestion which prompted me to the commission of 
 a " 
 
 " Hush, my friend, even the trees in this wood may have ears." 
 
 " Yes, Bourdon," continued Launcelot, bitterly, " I have good 
 reason to thank you, and to reward you. From the hour in 
 which we first met until now, you have contrived to do me some 
 noble services." 
 
 Monsieur Bourdon laughed a dry, mocking laugh, which had 
 something of the diabolically grotesque in its sound. 
 
 " Ah, what a noble creation of the poet's mind is Faust ! " he 
 exclaimed ; " that excellent, that amiable hero ; who would never, 
 of his own will, do any harm ; but who is always led into the 
 commission of all manner of wickedness by Mephistopheles. 
 And then, when this noble but uxdiappy man is steeped to tke
 
 Launeelofs Counsellor. 267 
 
 rery lips in sin, he can turn upon that wicked counsellor and 
 say, * Demon, it is for your pleasure these crimes have been com- 
 mitted ! ' Of course he forgets, tliis impulsive Faust, that it 
 •was he, and not Mephistopheles, who was in love with poor 
 Gretchen!" 
 
 " Don't be a fool, Bourdon," muttered the artist, impatiently, 
 " You know what I mean. "When I started in life I was too 
 proud to commit a dishonourable action. It is you, and such as 
 you, who have made me what I am." 
 
 " Bah!" exclaimed the Frenchman, snapping his fingers with 
 a gesture of unutterable contempt. " You ask me just now to 
 spare you my heroics ; I say the same thing now to you. Do 
 not let us talk to each other like the personages of a drama at 
 the Ambigu. It is your necessities that have made of you 
 what you are, and that will keep you what you are, so long as 
 they exist, and are strong enough to push you to disagreeable 
 courses. Who says it is pleasant to go out of the straight hue ? 
 Not I, faith of a gentleman, Monsieur Lance ! Beheve me, it is 
 more pleasant, as well as more proper, to be virtuous than to be 
 wicked. Give me an annuity of a few thousand francs, and I 
 win be the most honourable of men. You are afraid of the 
 work that Ues before you, because it is difficult, because it is 
 dangerous ; but not because it is dishonourable. Let us speak 
 frankly, and call things by their right names. You want to 
 inherit this old man's fortune?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Launcelot Dan-ell. *' I have been taught 
 from my babyhood to expect it. I have a right to expect it." 
 
 "Precisely; and you don't want this other person, whose 
 name you won't tell me, to get it." 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Very well, then. Do not let us have any further dispute 
 about the matter. Do not abuse poor Mephistopheles because 
 he has shown the desire to help you to gain your own ends, and 
 has already, by decision and promptitude of action, achieved 
 that which you would never have effected by yourself alone. 
 TeU Mephistopheles to go about his business, and he will go. 
 But he will not stay to be made a — what you call — an animal 
 ■which is turn out into the wilderness with other people's sins 
 upon his shoulders ? — a scapegoat ; or a paws-cat, which pull 
 hot chestnuts from the fire, and bum her fingers in the interests 
 of her friend. The chestnuts, in this case, this, are venj hot, 
 my friend ; but I risk to bum my fingers with the shells in the 
 hope to partake the inside of the nut." 
 
 "I never meant to make a scapegoat of you, nor a cat's-paw," 
 said Launcelot Darrell, with some alarm in his tone. " I didn't 
 mean to offend you. Bourdon. You're a very good fellow in your 
 way, I know ; and if your notions are a little loose upon soms
 
 268 Meanors Victory. 
 
 subjects, why, as you say, a man's necessities are apt to get the 
 upper hand of his principles. If Maurice de Crespigny haa 
 chosen to make an iniquitous will, for the mere gratification of 
 an old madman's whim, the consequences of his injustice must 
 rest on his head, not on mine." 
 
 " Most assuredly," cried tho Frenchman, " that argument i? 
 not to be answered. Be happy, my friend ; we will bring abou' 
 a posthumous adjustment of the old man's errors. The -wrong 
 done by this deluded testator shall be repaired before his ashes 
 are carried to their resting-place. Have no fear, my friend ; all 
 is prepared, as you know, and, let the time come when it may, 
 we are ready to act." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell gave a long sigh, a fretful, discontented in- 
 spiration, that was expressive of utter weariness. Tliis young 
 man had in the course of his life committed many questionable 
 and dishonourable actions ; but he had always done such wrong 
 as it were under protest, and with the air of a victim, who is 
 innocently disposed but too easily persuaded, and who reluc- 
 tantly suffers himself to be led away by the counsels of evil- 
 minded wi'etches. 
 
 So now he had the air of yielding to the subtle arguments of 
 his friend, the agent for patent mustard. 
 
 The two men walked on in silence for some little time. They 
 had left the wood long ago, and were in a broad lane that led 
 towards Hazlewood. Launcelot Darrell strolled silently along, 
 with his head bent and his black eyebrows contracted. His com- 
 panion's manner had its usual dapper airiness ; but every now 
 and then the Frenchman's sharp greenish-blue eyes glanced from 
 the pathway before him to the gloomy face of the artist. 
 
 " There is one thing that I forgot in speaking of Mrs. Monck- 
 ton," Monsieur Bourdon said, presently; "and that is, that I 
 fancy I have seen her somewhere before." 
 
 "'Oh, I can account for that," Launcelot Darrell answered, 
 carelessly. "I was inclined to think the same thing myself 
 irhen I first saw her. She is like George Vane's daughter." 
 " George Vane's daughter ? " 
 
 " Yes, the girl we saw on the Boulevard upon the night '* 
 
 The young man stopped abruptly, and gave another of those 
 fretful sighs by which he made a kind of sulky atonement for 
 the errors of his Ufe. 
 
 " I do not remember the daughter of George Vane," mur- 
 mured the Frenchman, reflectively. " I know that there was a 
 young girl with that wearisome old Englishman — a handsome 
 young person, with bright yellow hair and big eyes ; an over- 
 grown child, who was not easily to be shaken off; but I remem- 
 ber no more. Nevertheless, I think I have seen this Mrs. 
 Monckton before to-day."
 
 Launcelof s Counsellor. 2Gd 
 
 " Becaiise, I tell you, Eleanor Monckton is like that girl. I 
 saw the likeness wnen I first came home, thouf^h I only caught 
 one glimpse of the face of George Vane's daughter on the Boule- 
 vard that night. And, if I had not had reason for thinking 
 otherwise, I should have been almost inclined to beUeve that the 
 old schemer's daughter had come to Hazlewood to plot against 
 my interests." 
 
 " I do not understand." 
 
 " You remember George Vane's talk about his friend's pro- 
 mise, and the fortune that he was to inherit?" 
 
 " Yes, perfectly. We used to laugh at the poor hopeful old man." 
 
 " You used to wonder why I took such an interest in the poor 
 old fellow's talk. Heaven knows I never wished him ill, much 
 less meant him any harm " 
 
 " Except so far as getting hold of his money," murmured 
 Monsieur Bourdon, in an undertone. 
 
 The young man turned impatiently upon his companion 
 
 "Why do you delight in raking up unpleasant memories?" 
 he said, in a half-savage, half-peevish tone. " George Vane was 
 only one amongst many others." 
 
 " Most certainly ! Amongst a great many others." 
 
 " And if I happened to play ecarte better than most of the 
 men we knew " 
 
 "To say nothing of that pretty little trick with an extra king 
 in the lining of your coat sleeve, which I taught you, my friend. 
 — But about George Vane, about the friend of George Vane, 
 about the promise " 
 
 " George Vane's friend is my great-uncle, Maurice de Cres- 
 pigny ; and the promise was made when the two were young 
 men at Oxford." 
 
 " And the promise was " 
 
 " A romantic, boyish business, worthy of the Minerva Press. 
 If either of the two friends died unmarried, he was to leave all 
 his possessions to the other." 
 
 " Supposing the other to survive him. But Monsieur de 
 Crespigny cannot leave liis money to the dead. George Vane is 
 dead. You need no longer fear him." 
 
 " No, I have no reason to fear him .'" 
 
 ''But of whom, then, have you fearP" 
 
 Launcelot Darrell shook his head. 
 
 " Never you mind that. Bourdon," he said. " You're a very 
 clever fellow, and a very good-natured fellow, when you please. 
 But it's sometimes safest to keep one's own secrets. You know 
 what we talked about yesterday. Unless I take your advice 
 I'm a ruinetl man." 
 
 "But you will take it? Having gone so far, and taken so 
 much trouble, and confided so much in strangers, you >vill surely
 
 270 Uleanor's Yictory. 
 
 not recede?" said Monsieur Bourdon, in his most insinuating 
 tones. 
 
 " If my great-uncle is dying, the crisis has come, and I must 
 decide one way or the other," answered Launcelot Darrell, 
 slowly, in a thick voice that was strange to him. " I — I — can't 
 face ruin. Bourdon. I think I Tnust take your advice." 
 
 "I Icnew that you would take it, my friend," the commercial 
 traveller returned, quietly. 
 
 The two men turned out of the lane and chmbed a rough 
 stile leading into a meadow that lay between them and Hazle- 
 wood. The hghts burned brightly in the lower windows of Mrs. 
 Darrell's house, and the clock of the village church slowly struck 
 six as Launcelot and his companion crossed the meadow. 
 
 A dark figure was dimly visible, standing at a low wicket-gate 
 that opened from the meadow into the Hazlewood shrabbery. 
 
 " There's my mother," muttered Launcelot, " watching for 
 me at the gate. She's heard the news, perhaps. Poor soul, if 
 I didn't care about the fortune for my own sake, I should for 
 hers. I think a disappointment would almost kill her." 
 
 Again a coward's argument, — a new loophole by means of 
 which Launcelot Darrell tried to creep out of the responsibility 
 of his own act, and to make another, in a manner, accountable 
 for his sin. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 KESOLVED. 
 
 Eleanor Monckton walked slowly back to the house by the 
 side of her husband, whose eyes never left his wife's face dui-ing 
 that short walk between the garden-gate and the long French 
 window by which the two girls had left the drawing-room. 
 Even in the dusk, Gilbert Monckton could see that his wife's 
 face was unusually pale. 
 
 She spoke to hun as they entered the drawing-room, laying 
 her hand upon his arm as she addressed him, and looking 
 earnestly at him in the red firelight. 
 
 "Is Mr. de Crespigny really dymg, Gilbert P ". she asked. 
 
 " I fear that, from what the medical men say, there is very 
 little doubt about it. The old man is going fast." 
 
 Eleanor paused for a few moments, with her head bent, and 
 her face hidden from her husband. 
 
 Then, suddenly looking up, she spoke to him again ; this time 
 with intense earnestness. 
 
 " Gilbert, I want to see Mr. de Crespigny before he dies ; I 
 want to see him alone — I must see him ! " 
 
 The lawyer stared at his wife in utter bewilderment. What,
 
 Resolved. 271 
 
 in Heaven's name, was the meaning of this sudden energy, thia 
 intense eagerness, which blanched the colour in. her cheeks, and 
 held her breathless ? Her friendly feeling for the invalid, her 
 womanly pity for an old man's intirmities, could never have been 
 powerful enough to cause such emotion. 
 
 "You want to see Maurice de Crespigny, Eleanor?" repeated 
 Mr. Monckton, in a tone of undisguised wonder. " But why do 
 you want to see him ? " 
 
 " I have something to tell him — something that he must kno* 
 before he dies." 
 
 The lawyer started. A sudden Hght broke in upon his be- 
 wildered mind, — a light that showed him the woman he loved ia 
 very odious colours. 
 
 " You want to tell him who you are ? " 
 
 "To tell him who I am? yes!" Eleanor answered, absently. 
 
 " But for what reason ?" 
 
 Mrs. Monckton was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully 
 at her husband. 
 
 "My reason is a secret, Gilbert," she said; "I cannot even 
 tell it to you — yet. But I hope to do so very, very soon. Per- 
 haps to-night." 
 
 The lawyer bit his under Hp and walked away from his wife 
 with a fro^vn upon his face. He left Eleanor standing before 
 the fireplace, and took two or three turns up and down the room, 
 pacing backwards and forwards in moody silence. 
 
 Then, suddenly returning to her, he said, -with an air of angry- 
 resolution that chilled her timid confidence in him, and cast her 
 back upon herself, " Eleanor, there is something in all this that 
 wounds me to the very quick. There is a mystery between us ; 
 a mystery that has lasted too long. Why did you stipulate that 
 your maiden name should be kept a secret from Maurice de 
 Crespigny? "Why have you paid him coiirt ever siuce your 
 coming to this place ? And why, now that you hear of his 
 approaching death, do you want to force yourself into his pre- 
 sence ? Eleanor, Eleanor, there can be but one reason for all 
 this, and that the most sordid, the most miserable and mercenary 
 of reasons." 
 
 George Vane's daughter looked at her husband with a stare 
 of blank dismay, as if she was trying, but trying in vain, to 
 attach some meaning to his words. 
 
 " A sordid reason — a mercenary reason," she repeated, slowly, 
 in a half whisper. 
 
 "Yes, Eleanor," answered Gilbert Monckton, paasionately. 
 ** Wliy should you be different from the rest of the world ? It 
 has been my error, my mad delusion, to think you so ; as I once 
 thought another woman who crushed my hopes of happiness as 
 recklessly as a child shatters a plaything it has got tired of. It
 
 272 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 has been my folly to trust and believe in you, forgetful of tha 
 past, false to tlie teaching of most bitter exj^erience. I have 
 been mistaken — once more — all the more egregiously, perhaps, 
 because this time I thought I was so dehberate, so cautious. 
 You are not different to the rest of the world. If other women 
 are mercenary, you too are mercenary. You are not content 
 with having sacrificed your inclination for the sake of making 
 what the world calls an advantageous mamage. You are not 
 satisfied with having won a wealthy husband, and you seek to 
 inherit Maurice de Crespigny's fortune." 
 
 Eleanor Monckton passed both her hands across her forehead, 
 pushing back the loose masses of her hair, as if she would by 
 that movement have cleared away some of the clouds that over- 
 shadowed her brain. 
 
 " I seek to inherit Mr. de Crespigny's fortune ! " she murmured. 
 
 " Yes ! Your father no doubt educated you in. that idea. I 
 have heard how obstinately he built upon the inheritance of his 
 friend's wealth. He taught you to share his hoj^es : he be- 
 queathed them to you as the only legacy he had to give " 
 
 "No!" cried Eleanor, suddenly ; "the inheritance I received 
 at my father's death was no inheritance of hope. Do not say 
 any more to me, Mr. Monckton. It seems as if my brain had 
 no power to bear all this to-night. If you can think these base 
 things of me, I must be content to endure your bad opinion. I 
 know that I have been very forgetful of you, very neglectful of 
 you, since I have been your wife, and you have reason to think 
 badly of me. But my mind has been so full of other things : so 
 full, that it has seemed to me as if aU else in life — excej^t those 
 thoughts, that one hope — slipped by me like the events of a 
 dream." 
 
 Gilbert Monckton looked half-fearfiilly at his wife as she 
 spoke. There was something in her manner that he had never 
 seen before. He had seen her only when her feelings had been 
 held in check by her utmost power of repression. That power 
 was beginning to wear out now. The strain upon Eleanor's 
 intellect had been too great, and her nerves were losing their 
 power of tension. 
 
 "Do not say anything more to me," she cried, imploringly; 
 " do not say anything more. It wiU soon be over now," 
 
 "What ^vill soon be over, Eleanor ?" 
 
 "But Eleanor did not answer. She clasped her hands before 
 iier face ; a half-stifled sob broke from her hj^s, and she hurried 
 Irom the room before her husband could repeat his question. 
 
 Mr. Monckton looked after her with an expression of un- 
 mrngled anguish on liis face. 
 
 " How can I doubt the truth?" he thought ; " her indignant 
 repudiation of any design on Maurice de Crespigny's fortune
 
 Eesolved. 273 
 
 exonerates her at least from that charge. But her agitation, 
 her tears, her confusion, all betray the truth. Her heart has 
 never been mine. She married me with the determination to do 
 her duty to me, and to be true to me. I beUeve that. Yes, in 
 Bpite of all, I will beheve that. But her love is Launcelot 
 Darrell's. Ilcr love, the one blessing I sought to win, — the 
 blessing wliich in my mad folly I was weak enough to hope for, 
 — ^is given to Laura's betrothed husband. What could be 
 plainer tlian the meaning of those last broken words she spoke 
 just now : ' It ■will soon be over ; it will soon be over ? ' What 
 should she niean except that Launcelot Darrell's marriage and 
 departure will put an end to the struggle of her life?" 
 
 Mingled Avith the bitterness of his grief, some feeUng akin to 
 pity had a place in Gilbert Monckton's heart. 
 
 He pitied her — yes, he pitied this girl, whose life it had been 
 his fate to overshadow. He had come between this bright young 
 creature and the affection of her innocent girlhood, and, pre- 
 Benting himself before her in the hour of her desolation, had 
 betrayed her into one of those mistakes which a lifetime of 
 honest devotion is not always able to repair. 
 
 *' She consented to man-y me on the impulse of the moment, 
 clinging to me in her lonelmess and helplessness, and blinded to 
 the future by the sorrow of the present. It was an instinct of 
 confidence, and not love, that drew her towards me ; and now, 
 now that there is no retreat — no drawing back — nothing but a 
 long vista of dreary years to be spent with a man she does not 
 love, tliis poor unhappy girl sufi'ers an agony which can no 
 longer be concealed, even from me." 
 
 Mr. Monckton paced up and down his spacious drawing-room, 
 thinking of these things. Once he looked with a sad, bitter 
 smile at the evidences of wealth that were so lavishly scattered 
 about the handsome chamber. On every side those evidences 
 met his eves. The Guido, upon which the firelight gleamed, 
 kindling the face of a martyr into supernatural glory, was worth 
 a sum that would have been a fortune to a poor man. Every 
 here and there, half hidden amongst the larger modem pictures, 
 lurked some tiny gem of Itahan art, a few square inches of 
 painted canvas, worth full a hundred times its weight of un- 
 alloyed gold. 
 
 " If my wife were as frivolous as Laura," thought Mi . 
 Monckton, " I could make her happy, perhaps. Fine dresses, 
 and jewels, and pictiu-es, and furniture, would be enough to make 
 happiness for an empty-haaded woman. If Eleanor had been 
 infiuenced by mercenary feeUngs when she married me, she 
 would have surely made more use of my wealth ; she would have 
 paraded the jewellery I have given her, and made herself a lay 
 tigure for the display of milliiier'a workj ^*", least while tli
 
 274 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 novelty of her position lasted. But slie has dressed as plainly 
 as a village tradesman's wife, and the only money she has spent 
 is that which she has given to her friend the music-mistress." 
 
 The second dinner-bell rang wliile GUbert Monckton was 
 pacing the empty drawing-room, and he went straight to the 
 dining-room in his frock-coat, and with no very great appetite 
 for the dishes that were to be set before him. 
 
 Eleanor took her place at the top of the table. She wore a 
 brown silk dress, a few shades darker than her auburn hair, and 
 her white shoulders gleamed liked ivory against bronze. She 
 had bathed her head and face with cold water, and her rippHng 
 hair was still wet. She was very pale, very grave ; but all traces 
 of violent emotion had passed away, and there was a look of 
 quiet determination about her mouth. 
 
 Laura Mason came rustUng and fluttering into the room, as 
 Mr. and Mrs. Monckton took their places at the dinner-table. 
 
 " It's my Pink," said the young lady, alluding to a very 
 elaborate toUette of blush-rose coloured silk, bedizened with in- 
 numerable yards of lace and ribbon. 
 
 " I thought you would like to see my pink, and I want to 
 know how it looks. It's the new colour. Launcelot says the 
 new colour is like strawberry ices, but I like it. It's one of the 
 dinner dresses in my trousseau, you know," she murmured, 
 apologetically, to Mr. Monckton ; " and I wanted to try the 
 effect of it, though of course it's only to be^ worn at a party. 
 The trimmings on the cross set beautifully; don't they, 
 Eleanor?" 
 
 It was fortunate, perhaps, on this occasion at least, that Miss 
 Mason possessed the faculty of keeping up a kind of conversa- 
 tional monologue, for otherwise there must have been a very- 
 dreary silence at the dinner-table upon this particular evening. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton only spoke when the business of the meal 
 compelled him to do so. But there was a certain tenderness of 
 tone in the very few words he had occasion to address to liis wife 
 which was utterly different to his manner before dinner. It was 
 never Mr. Monckton's habit to sit long over the dismal expanse 
 of a dessert-table ; but to-night, when the cloth had been re- 
 moved and the two women left the roor", he followed them 
 without any delay whatever. 
 
 Eleanor seated herself in a low chair by the firei^lace. She 
 had looked at her watch twice during dinner, and now her eyes 
 wandered almost involuntarily to the dial of the clock upon the 
 chimney-piece. 
 
 Her husband crossed the room and leant for a few moments 
 over her chair. 
 
 " I am sorry for what I said this afternoon, Eleanor," lie 
 mui-mured, in a low voice ; " can you forgive me ? "
 
 Mesolved. 275 
 
 His wife lifted her eyes to his face. Tlioso luminous grey 
 eyes had a look of mournful sweetness in them. 
 
 " Forgive you ! " exclaimed Eleanor, " it is you who have 
 BO much to forgive. But I will atone — I ^\•ill atone — after to- 
 night." 
 
 She said these last words almost in a whisper, rather as if she 
 had been speaking to herself than to her husband ; but Gilbert 
 Monckton heard those whispered syllables, and drew his o\vn 
 conclusions from them. Unhappily, every word that Mrs. 
 Monckton uttered tended to conhrm her husband's doubts and 
 to increase lus wretchedness. 
 
 He seated liimself in a reading-chair upon the opposite side 
 of the hearth, and, drawing a lamp close to his elbow, buried 
 iiimself, or appeared to bury himself, in his newspapers. 
 
 But every now and then the upper margin of the " Times," 
 or the " Post," or the " Athenajum," or the " Saturday," or 
 whatever journal the lawyer happened to be perusing — and he 
 took up one after the other with a fretful restlessness that be- 
 tokened a mind ill at ease — dropped a Uttle lower than the level 
 of the reader's eyes, and Mr. Monckton looked across the edge 
 of the paper at his wife. 
 
 Almost every time he did so he found that Eleanor's eyea 
 were fixed upon the clock. 
 
 The discovery of this fact speedily became a torture to him. 
 He followed his wife's eyes to the slowly moving hands upon 
 the enamelled dial. He watched the minute hand as it ghded 
 from one figure to another, marking intervals of five minutes 
 that seemed Uke five hours. Even when he tried to read, the 
 ioud ticking of the wretched timejaiece came between him and 
 the sense of the page upon which his eyes were fixed, and the 
 monotonous sound seemed to deafen him. 
 
 Eleanor sat quite still in her low easy chair. Scraps of fancy- 
 work and open books lay upon the table beside her, but she 
 made no eftbrt to beguile the evenmg by any feminine occupa- 
 tion. Laura Mason, restless for want of employment and com- 
 Eanionship, fluttered about the room hke some discontented 
 utterfiy, stopping every now and then before a looking-glass to 
 contemplate some newly-discovered eti'ect in the elegant costume 
 which she called her " i)ink ; " but Eleanor took no notico 
 whatever of her murmured exclamations and appeals for sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 " I don't know what's come to you, Nelly, since yoiir mar- 
 riage," the young lady cried at last ; after vamly trying to draw 
 Mrs. Monckton's attention to the manifold beauties of gtiuze 
 puffings and floating streamers of ribbon ; " you don't seem to 
 take any interest in life. You're quite a difi'erent girl to what 
 you were at Hazlewood — before Launcelot came home."
 
 276 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Mr. Monckton threw do-mi the " Athenasuin," and took up 
 " Punch," at this juncture. He stared with a stony face at one 
 of Mr. Leech's most genial cartoons, and glanced almost venge- 
 fully at the famihar double columns of jokes. Eleanor looked 
 away from the clock to answer her companion's peevish com- 
 plaint. 
 
 " I am thinking of Mr. de Crespigny," she said; " he may 
 be dying while we are sitting here." 
 
 Mr. Monckton dropped " Punch," and looked, openly this 
 lime, at his wife's face. 
 
 Could it be, after all, that her abstraction of manner really 
 arose from no deeper cause than her regret for the loss of this 
 old man, who was her dead father's friend, and who had dis- 
 played an especial affection for her ? 
 
 Could it be so ? No ! Her words that night had revealed 
 more than a common sorrow such as tliis. They had betrayed 
 the secret of a hidden struggle — a woman's grief — not easily to 
 be repressed or overcome. There is no knowing how long the 
 lawyer might have sat brooding over his troubles under cover of 
 the newspapers, but presently he remembered some papers which 
 lie had brought from London that afternoon, and which it was 
 his imperative duty — in the interests of a very important chent 
 — to read that night. 
 
 He pushed away the lamp, rose from his low chair, and went 
 to the door of the drawing-room. 
 
 " I am going to my study, Eleanor ; " he said ; " I shaD 
 most hkely spend the rest of the evening there, and I may be 
 obhged to be very late. You won't sit up for me ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; not unless you wish it." 
 
 " On no account. Good night. Good night, Laura." 
 
 Even while his wife wished him good night, her eyes wandered 
 nneasUy back to the clock. A quarter to ten. 
 
 " And he hasn't once looked at my pink ! " murmured Miss 
 Mason, as her guardian left the drawing-room. 
 
 Scarcely had the door closed when Eleanor Monckton rose 
 from her chair. 
 
 Her flushed cheeks flamed mth crimson brightness ; her eyes 
 were lighted up as if a fire had burned in her dilated pupils. 
 
 " I am going to bed, Laura," she said, abruptly ; " I am very 
 tired. Good night ! " 
 
 She took a candle from a table near the door, ht it, andhumed 
 from the room before Laura could question her or remonstrate 
 with her. 
 
 " She doesn't looTi tired," thought Miss Mason ; " she looks 
 as if she were going to a ball ; or going to have the scarletma. 
 I think I looked hke that when I was going to have the scarla<- 
 tinai and when Launcelot proposed to me."
 
 A Terrible Surprise. 27? 
 
 Five minutes after the stable-clock had struck ten, the great 
 door of Tolklale Priory was opened by a cautious hand, and Mrs. 
 Monckton stole out of her house with a woollen cloak wrapped 
 about her, and her head almost buried in the hood belonging to 
 the thick winter garment. She closed the door softly; and 
 then, Avithout stopping to look beliind her, hurried down the 
 broad stone steps, across the courtyard, along the gravelled 
 garden pathway, out at the narrow wooden door in the wall, and 
 away into the dreary darkness of the wood that lay between the 
 Priory grounds and the dwelling-place of Maurice de Crespigny. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 ▲ TERKIBLE SUEPKI8E. 
 
 With the chill winds of February blowing in her face, Eleanor 
 Monckton entered the wood between Tolldale and Mr. de Crea- 
 pigny's estate. 
 
 There were no stars in the blank grey sky above that lonely 
 place ; black masses of pine and fir shut in the narrow path upon 
 either side ; mysterious noises, caused by the capricious moaning 
 of the winter wind, sounded far away ia the dark recesses of the 
 wood, awfully distinct amid the stillness of the night. 
 
 It was very long since Eleanor had been out alone after dark, 
 and she had never before been alone in the darkness of such a 
 
 Elace as this. She had the courage of a young lioness, but she 
 ad also a highly nervous and sensitive nature, an imaginative 
 temperament ; and the solemn loneliness of this wood, resonant 
 every now and then with the dismal cries of the night-wind, was 
 very terrible to her. But above and beyond every natural 
 womanly feeling was tliis girl's devotion to her dead father ; and 
 she walked on with her thick shawl gathered closely round her, 
 and with both her hands pressed against her beating heart. 
 
 She walked on through the soUtude and the darkness, not in- 
 differently, but devotedly ; in sublime self-abnegation ; in the 
 heroic grandeur of a soul that is elevated by love ; as she would 
 have walked through fire and water, if by the endurance of such 
 an ordeal she could have given fresh proof of her affection for 
 that hapless suicide of the Faubourg Saint Antoine. 
 
 " My dear father," she murmured once, in a low voice, " I 
 have been slow to act, but I have never forgotten. I have never 
 forgotten you, lying far away from me in that cruel foreign grave. 
 I have waited, but I vnU wait no longer. I will speak to-night." 
 
 I think she believed that George Vane, divided from her by 
 the awful chasm wliich yawns, mysterious and unfathomable, 
 betwixt Ufe and death, was yet near enough akin to her, in hia
 
 278 Eleanor*8 Victory. 
 
 changed state of being, to witness her actions and hear her 
 words. She spoke to him as she would have written to him had 
 he been very far away from her, in the beUef that her words 
 would reach him, sooner or later. 
 
 The walk, which in the daytime seemed only a i^leasant ramble, 
 was a weary pilgrimage under the starless ■svinter sky. Eleanor 
 stopped once or twice to look back at the hghted windows of 
 Tolldale, lying low in the hollow behind her ; and then hurried 
 on with a quicker step. 
 
 " If Gilbert should miss me," she thought, " what will he do ? 
 what will he think ? " 
 
 She quickened her pace even more as she thought of her 
 husband. What unlooked-for difficulties might she not have 
 to combat if Mr. Monckton should discover her absence, and 
 send or go himself in search of her. 
 
 She had reached the outskirts of the wood T>y this time, and 
 the low gate in the iron fence — the gateway through which she 
 had passed upon the day when, for the first time, she saw her 
 father's old friend, Maurice de Crespigny. 
 
 This gate was very rarely locked or bolted, but to-night, to her 
 surprise, she found it wide open. 
 
 She did not stop to wonder at this circumstance, but hurried 
 on. She had grown very famihar with every pathway in the 
 groimds during her walks beside Mr. de Crespigny's invaHd 
 chair, and she knew the nearest way to the house. 
 
 This nearest way was across a broad expanse of turf, and 
 through a shrubbery into the garden at the back of the rooms 
 occupied by the old man, who had f©r many years been unable 
 to go up and down stairs, and who had, for that length of time, 
 inhabited a suite of rooms on the ground-floor, opening with 
 French windows on to a tiny lawn, shut in and sheltered by a 
 thick belt of pine and evergi-eens. It was in this shrubbery that 
 Eleanor paused for a few moments to recover her breath after 
 hurrying up the hill, and to reassure herself as to the safety of 
 the papers which she carried in the bosom of her dress — Launce- 
 \ot Darrell's water-colour sketch, and her father's letter. The 
 picture and the letter were safe. She reassured herself of this, 
 and was about to huny on, when she was arrested by a sound 
 near her. The laurel branches close beside her had rustled, aA 
 if parted by a man's strong hand. 
 
 Many times in her jouraey through the wood, Eleanor had 
 been terrified by a rustling amongst the long grass about the 
 tnmks of the trees ; but each time the sight of a pheasant flying 
 across her pathway, or a frightened hare scudding away into 
 the darkness, had reassured her. But this time there could be 
 no mistake as to what she had heard. There was no game in 
 Mr. de Crespigny's garden. She was not alone, therefore.
 
 A Terrible Surprise. 279 
 
 There was a man lurking somewliere under the shadow of the 
 evergreens. 
 
 She sto]-)po J ; clutched the documents that she can-ied in her 
 breast, and th ^n emerged from the shrubbery on to the lawn, 
 ashamed of her fears. 
 
 The man whose presence had alarmed her was, no doubt, one 
 of the servants — the gardener, most hkely — and he would admit 
 her to the house and save her any encounter with the maiden 
 sisters. 
 
 She looked about the garden, but could see no one. Then, in 
 a low voice, she called to the man by name : but there was no 
 answer. 
 
 Lights were burning in Mr. de Crespigny's bedroom, but the 
 windows of the room which the old man called his study, and 
 the windows of his dressing-room, a little apartment between 
 the bed-chamber and the study, were dark. 
 
 Eleanor waited a few minutes in the garden, expecting to hear 
 or see one of the servants emerge from the shrubbery ; but all 
 was quiet, and she had no alternative except to go round to the 
 principal door of the house, and take her chance of being admitted. 
 " I am certain that there was some one close to me," she 
 thought. " It must have been Brooks, the gardener ; but how 
 odd that he didn't hear me when I called to him." 
 
 The principal entrance to Mr. de Crespigny's house was by a 
 pair of half-glass doors, approached by a double fhght of stone 
 steps, either from the right or the left, as might suit the visitor's 
 convenience. It was a handsome entrance ; and the plate glass 
 which formed the upper halves of the doors appeared a very 
 shght barrier between the visitor waiting on the broad stone 
 platform without and the interior of the house. But, for all 
 this, no portculUs of the Middle Ages, no sturdy postern-gate of 
 massive oak studded by ponderous iron nails, was ever more im- 
 pregnable to the besieger than these transparent doors had been 
 under the despotic sway of the rich bachelor's maiden nieces. 
 Despairing poor relations, standing hopeless and desperate with- 
 Oat those fatal doors, had been well-nigh tempted to smash the 
 late-glass, and thus make their way into the citadel. But, aa 
 lis would have scarcely been a hkely method by which to in- 
 ratiate themselves into the favour of a testy old man, the glass 
 emained undamaged ; and the hapless kinsfolk of Maurice da 
 Crespigny were fain to keep at a distance and hope — almost 
 against hope — that he would get tired of his maiden watchers, 
 and revenge himself upon their officiousness by leaving his 
 money away from them. 
 
 It was outside these glass doors that Eleanor Monckton stood 
 to-night, with very different feelings in her breast to those which 
 were wont to animate the visitors who came to "Woodlands.
 
 280 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 She pnlled the brass handle of the bell, Avhich was stiff from 
 little usage, and which, after resisting her efforts for a long time, 
 gave way at last with an angry spring that shook the distant 
 clapper with a noisy peal which seemed as if it would have never 
 ceased ringing sharply through the stillness. 
 
 But, loud as this peal had been, it was not answered immedi- 
 ately, and Eleanor had time to contemplate the prim furniture of 
 the dimly-Hghted hall, the umbrella-stand and barometer, and 
 some marine views of a warlike nature on the walls ; pictures in 
 which a De Crespigny of Nelson's time distinguished himself 
 unpleasantly by the blowing up of some very ugly ships, which 
 exploded in blazes of yello?r ochre and vermilion, and the 
 bombardment of some equally ugly fortresses in burnt sienna. 
 
 A butler or fattotum, — for there was only one male servant in 
 the house, and he was old and unpleasant, and had been cherished 
 by the Misses de Crespigny because of those very qualifications, 
 which were Ukely to stand in the way of his getting any impor- 
 tant legacy, — emerged at last from one of the passages at the 
 back of the hall, and advanced, with indignation and astonish- 
 ment depicted on his grim features, to the doors before which 
 Eleanor waited. Heaven only knows how impatiently. 
 
 " Launcelot Darrell may have come here before me," she 
 thought ; " he may be with his uncle now, and may induce him 
 to alter his wiU. He must be desperate enough to do anj-thing, 
 if he really knows that he is disinherited." 
 
 The butler opened one of the hall doors a very httle way, and 
 suspiciously. He took care to plant himself in the aperture, in 
 such a manner as would have compelled Eleanor to walk through 
 his body before she could enter the hall ; and as the butler was 
 the very reverse of Mr. Pepper's ghost in consistency, Mrs. 
 Monckton could only parley with him in the faint hope of taking 
 the citadel by capitulation. She did not know that the citadel 
 was already taken, and that an awful guest, to whom neither 
 closely guarded doors nor oaken posterns lined with stoutest iron 
 formed obstacle or hindrance, had entered that quiet mansion 
 before her ; she did not know this, nor that the butler only kept 
 her at bay out of the sheer force of habit, and perhaps with a 
 spiteful sense of pleasure in doing battle with would-be legatees. 
 
 " I want to see Mr. de Crespigny," Eleanor cried, eagerly; "I 
 want to see him very particularly, if you please. I know that 
 he will see me if you will be so good as to tell him that I am here." 
 
 The butler opened his mouth to speak, but before he could do 
 so a door opened, and Miss Lavinia de Crespigny appeared. She 
 was very pale, and carried a handkerchief in her hand, which she 
 put to her eyes every now and then; but the eyes were quite dry, 
 and she had not been weeping. 
 
 " Who is that ? " she exclaimed, sharply. "What is the matter,
 
 A Terrible Surprise. 281 
 
 Parker ? Why can't you tell the person that wo can see nobody 
 to-night?'; 
 
 " 1 was just a-goin' to tell her so," the butler answered ; "but 
 it's Mrs. Monckton, and she says she wants to see poor master." 
 
 He moved away from the door, as if bis responsibility had 
 ceased on the appearance of his mistress, and Eleanor entered 
 the hall. 
 
 " Oh, dear Miss Lavinia," she cried, almost breathless in her 
 eagerness, " do let me see your uncle. I know he will not refuse 
 to see me. I ano a favourite with Lin^ you know. Please let 
 me see him." 
 
 Miss Lavinia de Crespigny apj^lied her handkerchief to her dry- 
 eyes before she answered Eleanor's eager entreaty. Then she said 
 very slowly, — 
 
 "My beloved tmcle departed this life an hour ago. He 
 breathed his last in my arms." 
 
 " And in mine," murmured Miss Sarah, who had followed her 
 sister into the hall. 
 
 " And I was a-standing by the bedside," observed the butler, 
 with respectful firmness; "and the last words as my blessed 
 master said before you come into the room, Miss Lavinia, was 
 these : ' You've been a good servant, Parker, and you'll find 
 you're not forgotten.' Yes, miss, ' You'll find you're not for- 
 gotten, Parker,' were his last words." 
 
 The two ladies looked very sharply and rather suspiciously at 
 Mr. Parker, as if they were meditating the possibility of that 
 gentleman having fabricated a will constituting himself sole 
 legatee. 
 
 ^ "J did not hear my dear uncle mention you, Parker," Miss 
 Sarah said, stiffly ; " but we shall not forget any one he mshed to 
 have remembered ; you may be sure of that." 
 
 Eleanor Monckt-ju stood, silent and aghast, staring straight 
 V'Otore her, paralyzed, dumbfounded, by the tidings she had just 
 heard. 
 
 " Dead ! " she murmured at last. " Dead ] dead ! — before I 
 could see him, before I could tell him •' 
 
 She paused, looking round her with a bewildered expression in 
 her face. 
 
 " I do not know winj you should be so eager to see my uncle," 
 said Miss Lavinia, forgetting her assumption of grief, and be- 
 coming very genuine in her spiteful feeUng towards Eleanor, as 
 a possible rival, " nor do I know what you can have had to say 
 to hini. But I do know that you have not exhibited very good 
 taste in intruding upon us at such an hour as this, and, above 
 all, in remaining, now that you hear the sad affliction "— tha 
 liandkercbief went to the eyes again here — "which has befallen 
 U8. If you come here," added Miss Lavinia, suddenly becoming
 
 282 Meanor*8 Victors/. 
 
 spiteful again, "in the hope of ascertaining how my uncle's 
 money has been left — and it would be only Hke some people to 
 do so — I can give you no information upon the subject. The 
 gardener has been sent to Windsor to summon Mr. Lawford's 
 clerk. Mr. Lawford himself started some days ago for New 
 York on business. It's very unlucky that he should be away at 
 such a time, for we put every confidence in him. However, I 
 sup230se the clerk will do as well. He will put seals on my 
 uncle's effects, I beUeve, and nothing will be known about the 
 will tmtil the day of the funeral. But I do not think you need 
 trouble yourself upon the subject, my dear Mrs. Monckton, as I 
 perfectly remember my beloved relative telling you very dis- 
 tinctly that he had no idea of leaving you anything except a 
 picture, or something of that kind. We shall be very happy to 
 see that you get the picture," concluded the lady, with frigid 
 poUteness. 
 
 _ Eleanor Monckton stood with one hand pushing the glossy 
 ripples of auburn hair away from her forehead, and with a look 
 upon her face which the Misses de Crespigny — whose minds had 
 run in one very narrow groove for the last twenty years — could 
 only construe into some disappointment upon the subject of the 
 will. Eleanor recovered her self-command with an effort, as 
 Miss Lavinia finished speaking, and said, very quietly : 
 
 " Believe me, I do not want to inherit any of Mr. de Cres- 
 pigny's property. I am very, very sorry that he is dead, for 
 there was something that I wanted to tell him before he died ; 
 something that I ought to have told him long ago. I have been 
 foohsh — cowardly — to wait so long." 
 
 She said the last words not to the two ladies, but to herself; 
 and then, after a pause, she added, slowly : 
 
 " I hope your uncle has left liis fortune to you and your sister, 
 Miss Lavinia. Heaven grant that he may have left it so ! " 
 
 Unfortunately the Misses de Crespigny were in the humour to 
 take offence at anything. The terrible torture of suspense which 
 was gnawing at the heart of each of the dead man's nieces dis- 
 
 ?osed them to be snappish to any one who came in their way. 
 'o them, to-night, it seemed as if the earth was peopled by 
 expectant legatees, all eager to dispute for the heritage which by 
 right was theirs. 
 
 " We are extremely obliged to you for your good wishes, Mrs. 
 Monckton," Miss Sarah said, with vinegary pohteness, " and we 
 can i^erfectly appreciate their sincerity. Good evening." 
 
 On this hint, the butler opened the door with a solemn flourish, 
 and the two ladies bowed Eleanor out of the house. The door 
 closed behind her, and she went slowly down the steps, lingering 
 without purpose, entirely bewildered by the turn that events had 
 taken.
 
 A Terrible Surprise. 283 
 
 " Dead ! " she exclaimed, in a half- whisper, " dead ! I never 
 thought that he would die so soon. I waited, and waited, think- 
 ing that, whenever the time came for me to speak, he would be 
 alive to hear me ; and now he is dead, and I have lost my chance; 
 I have lost my one chance of avenging my father's death. The 
 law cannot touch Launcelot Darrell ; but this old man had the 
 
 Eower to punis'h him, and would have used that power, if he 
 ad known the story of his friend's death. I cannot doubt 
 that. I cannot doubt that Maurice de Crespigny dearly loved 
 my father." 
 
 Eleanor Monckton stopped for a few minutes at the bottom of 
 the steps, trying to collect her senses — trying to think if there 
 was anytliing more for her to do. 
 
 No, there was nothing. The one chance which fortune, by a 
 series of events, not one of which had been of her own con- 
 triving, had thi'own into her way, was lost. She could do nothing 
 but go quietly home, and wait for the reading of the will, which 
 might, or might not, make Launcelot Darrell the owner of a 
 noble estate. 
 
 But then she remembered Richard Thornton's visit to "Wind- 
 sor, and the inferences he had drawn from the meeting between 
 Launcelot and the lawyer's clerk. Richard had most firmly 
 believed that the property was left away from the yoimg man ; 
 and Launcelot Dan-ell's conduct since that day had gone far 
 towards contu-ming the scene-painter's assertion. There was 
 very little doubt, then, that the will which had been drawn up 
 by Mr. Lawford and witnessed by Gilbert Monckton, was a will 
 that left Maurice de Crespigny's fortune away from Launcelot 
 Darrell. The old man had spoken of a duty which he meant to 
 perform. Surely he must have alluded to his two nieces' devo- 
 tion, and the recompense which they had earned by their patient 
 attendance upon him. Such untiring watchers generally succeed 
 in reaping the reward of their labours ; and why should it be 
 otherwise in this case ? 
 
 But then, on the other hand, the old man was fretful and 
 capricious. His nerves had been shattered by a long illness. 
 How often, in the watches of the night, he might have lain 
 awake, pondeiing upon the disposal of his wealth, and doubtful 
 what to do with it in his desire to act for the best ! It was 
 known that he had made other wills, and had burned them when 
 tlie hximour seized him. He had had ample opportunity fcT 
 changing his mind. He had very likely destroyed the will wit- 
 nessed by Gilbert Monckton, in order to make a new one in 
 Launcelot's favour. 
 
 Eleanor stood at the bottom of the broad flight of steps, with 
 her hand upon the iron railing, thinking of all this. Then, with 
 a regretful sigh, she wiJked away from the front of the house.
 
 281 Eleanor's Fictorif. 
 
 CHAPTER XLH. 
 
 IN THE PKESENCE OF THE DEAD. 
 
 The rooms that tad been occupied by Maurice de Crespigny 
 were at the back of the house, and Eleanor, returning by the 
 way that she had come, had occasion to pass once more through 
 the garden and shrubbery upon which the windows of these 
 rooms looked. 
 
 Mrs. Monckton paused amongst the evergreens that grew near 
 the house, sheltering and darkening the windows with their thick 
 luxuriance. The Venetian shutters outside the windows of the 
 room in which the dead man lay were closed, and the hght within 
 shone brightly between the slanting laths. 
 
 " Poor old man," Eleanor murmured, as she looked mournfully 
 towards this death-chamber, " he was very good to me ; I ought 
 to be sorry for his death." 
 
 The evergreens which grew in groups on either side of the 
 windows made a thick screen, behind which half-a-dozen people 
 might have safely hidden themselves upon this moonless and 
 starless February night. Eleanor lingered for a few moments 
 amongst these clustering laurels before she emerged upon the 
 patch of smooth turf, which was scarcely large enough to be 
 dignified with the title of a lawn. 
 
 As she Hngered, partly because of a regretful tenderness 
 towards the dead man, partly because of that irresolution and 
 uncertainty that had taken possession of her mind from the 
 moment in which she had heard of his death, she was startled 
 once more by the rustHng of the branches near her. This time 
 she was not left long in doubt : the rustling of the branches was 
 followed by a hissing whisper, very cautious and subdued, but at 
 the same time very distinct in the stillness ; and Eleanor Monck- 
 ton was not slow to recognize the accent of the French commer- 
 cial traveller, Monsieur Victor Bourdon. 
 
 " The shutters are not fastened," this man whispered; "there 
 is a chance yet, mon ami." 
 
 The speaker was within two paces of Eleanor, but she was 
 hidden from him t)y the shrubs. The companion to whom he 
 had spoken was of course Launcelot DarreU ; there could be no 
 doubt of that. But why were these men here ? Had the artist 
 come in ignorance of his kinsman's death, and in the hope of 
 introducing himself secretly into the old man's apartments, and 
 thus outmanoeuvring the maiden nieces ? 
 
 As the two men moved nearer one of the windows of the bed- 
 chamber, moving very cautiously, but still disturbing the branches 
 as they went, Eleanor drew back, and stood, motionless, almost
 
 In the Presence of the Dead. 285 
 
 breathless, close against the blank wall between the long French 
 windows. 
 
 In another moment Launcelot Darrell and his companion were 
 standing .so close to her that she could hear their hurried breath- 
 ing as distinctly as she heard her own. The Frenchman softly 
 drew back one of the Venetian shutters a few inches, and peeped 
 very cautiously through the narrow aperture into the room. 
 
 " There is only an old woman there," he whispered, " an old 
 woman, very grey, very respectable ; she is asleep, I think; look 
 and see who she is." 
 
 Monsieur Bourdon drew back as he spoke, making way for 
 Launcelot Darrell. Tlie young man obeyed his companion, but 
 in a half-sulky, half-unwilling fashion, which was very much like 
 his manner on the Parisian Boulevard. 
 
 •' "\Mio is it ? " whispered the Frenchman, as Launcelot leant 
 forward and peered into the lighted room. 
 
 " Mrs. Jepcott, my uncle's housekeeper." 
 
 " Is she a friend of yours, or an enemy ? " 
 
 " A friend, I think. I know that she hates my aunts. Shp 
 would rather serve me than serve them." 
 
 " Good. We are not going to trust Mrs. Jepcott ; but it's as 
 well to know that she is friendly towards us. Now listen to me. 
 my friend ; we must have the key." 
 
 " I suppose we must," muttered Laxincelot Darrell, veiT' 
 BuUdly. 
 
 " You suppose we must ! Bah ! " whispered the Frenchmar 
 with intense scomfulness of manner. " It is likely we should 
 draw back, after having gone so far as we have gone, and made 
 such promises as we have made. It is like you Englishmen tl 
 turn cowards at the very last, in any difficult business like this. 
 You are very brave and very great so long as you can make a 
 great noise about your honour, and your courage, and your 
 loyalty ; so long as the drums are beating and the flags flying, 
 and all the world looking on to admire you. But the moment 
 there is anytliing of difficult — anything of a little hazardous, or 
 anything of criminal, perhaps — you draw back, you have fear. 
 Bah ! I have no patience with you. You are a great nation, 
 but you have never produced a great impostor. Your Perkin 
 Warbeoks, your Stuart Pretenders, thej" are all the same. They 
 ride up hills ■with forty thousand men, and," — here Monsieur 
 Bourdon hissed out a very big French oath, to give strength to 
 his assertion, — " when they get to the top they can do nothing 
 better than ride down agam." 
 
 It i.' not to be supposed that, in so critical a situation as that 
 in which the two men had placed themselves, the Frenchman 
 would have said all this without a purpose. He knew Laimcelot 
 Darrell, and he knew that ridicule was the best spur with which
 
 286 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 to urge tim on when lie was inclined to come to a stand- still. 
 The young man's pride took fire at his companion's scornful 
 banter. 
 
 "• AVhat do you want me to do ?" he asked. 
 
 " I want you to go into that room and look for your uncle's 
 keys. I would do it, and perhaps do it better than you, but if 
 that woman woke and found me there, she would rouse the 
 house ; if she wakes up and sees you, any sentimental story of 
 your desire to look for the last time upon your kinsman and 
 benefactor will satisfy her and stop her mouth. You must 
 • search for the keys, Monsieur Robert Lance, pardon ! — Monsieur 
 Launcelot DarreU." 
 
 The young man made no immediate answer to this speech. 
 He stood close to the window, with the half-open shutter in his 
 hand, and Eleanor could see, by the motion of this shutter, that 
 he was trembling. 
 
 " I can't do it. Bourdon," he gasped, after a long pause ; " I 
 can't do it. To go up to that dead man's bedside and steal his 
 keys. It seems Uke an act of sacrilege — I — I — canH do it." 
 
 The commercial traveller shrugged liis shoulders so high that 
 it almost seemed he never meant to bring them down again. 
 
 "Good!" he said, "Cest finil Live and die a pauper, 
 Monsieur Darrell, but never again ask me to help you in a great 
 scheme. Good night." 
 
 The Frenchman made a show of walking off, but went slowly, 
 and gave Launcelot plenty of time to stop him. 
 
 " Stay, Bourdon," the young man muttered ; " don't be a fool. 
 If you mean to stand by me in this business, you must have a 
 little patience. I'U do what must be done, of course, however 
 Tinpleasant it may be. I've no reason to feel any great com- 
 punction about the old man. He hasn't shown so much love 
 for me that I need have any very sentimental affection for him. 
 I'U go in and look for the keys." 
 
 He had opened the shutter to its widest extent, and he puthia 
 hand upon the window as he spoke, but the Frenchman checked 
 him. 
 
 " What are you going to do ?" asked Monsieur Bourdon. 
 
 " I'm going to look for the keys." 
 
 " Not that way. If you open that window the cold air will 
 blow into the room and awaken the old woman — what you call 
 her— Madame Jepcott. No, you must take off your boots, and 
 go in through one of the windows of the other rooms. We saw 
 just now that those rooms are empty. Come with me." 
 
 The two men moved away towards the windows of the sitting- 
 room. Eleanor crept to the Venetian shutters which LaAincelot 
 had closed, and, drawing one of them a Uttle way open, looked 
 into the room in which the dead man lay. The housekeeper.
 
 In the Presence of the Dead. 287 
 
 Mrs. Jcpcott, sat in a roomy easy-chair, close to the fire, wliich 
 bumecl brightly, and had evidently been very lately replenished. 
 The old woman's head had faUen back upon thij cushion of her 
 chair, and the monotonous regularity of her snores gave suffi- 
 cient evidence of the soundness of her slumbers. Voluminous 
 curtains of dark green damask were dra^vn closely round the 
 massive four-post bed; a thick wax candle, in an old-fashioned 
 silver candlestick, burned upon the table by the bedside, and a 
 pair of commoner candles, in brass candlesticks, brought, no 
 doubt, from the housekeeper's room, stood upon a larger table 
 near the fireplace. 
 
 Notliing had been disturbed since the old man's death. The 
 maiden ladies had made a merit of this. 
 
 " "We shall disturb nothing," ^Miss Lavinia, who was the 
 more loquacious of the two, had said ; " we shall not pry about 
 or tamper with any of our beloved relative's effects. You will 
 take care of everything in your master's room, Jepcott ; we place 
 everything under your charge, and you will see that nothing is 
 touched ; you vn\\ take care that not so much as a pocket- 
 handkerchief shall be disturbed imtil Mr. Lawford's clerk comes 
 from Windsor." 
 
 In accordance with these directions, everything had remained 
 exactly as it had been left at the moment of Maurice de Cres- 
 pigny's death. The practised sick-nurse had retired, after doing 
 her dismal duty ; the stiffening limbs had been composed in the 
 last calm sleep ; the old man's eyeUds had been closed upon 
 the sightless eyeballs ; the curtains had been drawn ; and that 
 was all. 
 
 The medicine bottles, the open Bible, the crumnled handker- 
 chiefs, the purse, and paper-knife, and spectacles, and keys, lying 
 in disorder upon the table by the bed, had not been touched. 
 Eager as the dead man's nieces were to know the contents of his 
 wall, the thought of obtaining that knowledge by any surrep- 
 titious means had never for one moment entered into the head of 
 either. They were conscientious ladies, who attended church 
 three times upon a Sunday, and who would have recoiled aghast 
 from before the mere thought of any infraction of the law. 
 
 Eleanor, with the Venetian shutter a very little way open, and 
 with her face close against the window, stood looking into the 
 lighted room, and waiting for Launcelot Darrell to appear. 
 
 The great four-post bedstead stuod opposite the Avindows ; the 
 door was on Eleanor's right hand. About five minutes elapsed 
 before there was any sign of the intruder's coming. Then the 
 door was opened, very slowly, and Launcelot DarreU crept into 
 the room. 
 
 His face was almost li^'id, and he trembled violently. At first 
 he looked helplessly about him, as if paralyzed by fear. Then he
 
 288 Uleanor's Tidory. 
 
 took a handlcerchief from Ids pocket, and wiped the cold perspi- 
 ration from his forehead, still looking helplessly right and left. 
 
 But presently the Frenchman's head appeared round the edge 
 of the door, which Launcelot Darrell had left a little way open, 
 a fat httle hand pointed to the table by the bed, and Monsieur 
 Bourdon's hissing whisper vibrated in the room. 
 
 " Via, — the table — the table — straight before you." 
 
 Following this indication, the young man began with trembling 
 hands to search amongst the disorder of the littered table. He 
 had not occasion to seek very long for what he wanted. The 
 dead man's keys lay under one of the handkerchiefs. They 
 jingled a Uttle as Launcelot took them up, and Mrs. Jepcott 
 stirred in her sleep, but she did not open her eyes. 
 
 " Come away, come ! " whispered the Frenchman, as Launcelot 
 stood with the keys in his hand, as if too much bewildered even 
 to know that his purpose was accompUshed. He obeyed Monsieur 
 Bourdon, and hurried from the room. He had taken off his 
 boots at his companion's instigation, and his stockinged feet 
 made no sound upon the thick carpet. 
 
 " What is he going to do with those keys ?" Eleanor thought. 
 " If he knows the contents of the will, as Richard believed, whslt 
 good can the keys be to him ? " 
 
 She still looked into the lighted bed-chamber, wondering what 
 could happen next. Where had Launcelot Darrell gone, and 
 what was he going to do with the keys ? She crept along by 
 the side of the house, past the window of the dressing-room, 
 which was still dark, and stopped when she came to the window 
 of the old man's study. All the windows upon this floor were 
 in the same style — long French windows, opening to the ground, 
 and they were all sheltered by Venetian shutters. The shutters 
 of the study were closed, but the window was open, and through 
 the bars of the shutters Eleanor saw a faint gUmmer of Ught. 
 
 She drew the shutter nearest her a Httle way open, and looked 
 into the room. The hght that she had seen came from a veiy 
 email bull's-eye lantern, which the Frenchman held in his hand. 
 He was standing over Launcelot Darrell, who was on his knees 
 before the lower half of an old-fashioned secretaire, at which 
 Mr. de Crespigny had been in the habit of writing, and in which 
 he had kept papers. 
 
 The lower half of this secretaire contained a great many Httle 
 drawers, which were closed in by a pair of inlaid ebony doors. 
 The doors were open now, and Launcelot Darrell was bus;y 
 examining the contents of the drawers one by one. His hands 
 still trembled, and he went to work slowly and awkwardly. The 
 Frenchman, whose nerves appeared in no way shaken, contrived 
 to throw the light of the bull's-eye always upon the papers in 
 the young man's hand.
 
 A Brief Triumph. 289 
 
 "Have you found what you want?" he asked. 
 
 "No, there's nothing yet; notliing but old leases, receipts, 
 letters, bills." 
 
 " Be quick ! Remember we have to put the keys back, and to 
 get away. Have you the other ready r " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 They spoke in whispers, but their whispers were perhaps more 
 distinct than their ordinary tones would have been. Eleanor 
 could hear every word they said. 
 
 There was a long pause, during which Launcelot Darrell 
 opened and shut several drawers, takintf a hurried survey ci 
 their contents. Presently he uttered a halt-smothered cry. 
 
 " You've got it?" exclaimed the Frenchman. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Put in the substitute, then, and lock the cabinet." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell threw the document wliich he had taken 
 from the drawer upon a chair near him, and took another paper 
 from his i>ocket. He put this second paper in the place from 
 which he had taken the first, and then shut the drawer, and 
 closed and locked the doors of the cabinet. He did all this in 
 nervous haste, and neither he nor his companion perceived that 
 a third paper, very much like the first in shape and size, had 
 fallen out of one of the drawers and lay upon the carpet before 
 the cabinet. 
 
 Now, for the first time, Eleanor Monckton began to compre- 
 hend the nature of the conspiracy which she had witnessed. 
 Launcelot Darrell and his accomplice had substituted a fictitious 
 paper for the real will signed by Maurice de Crespigny and 
 witnessed by Gilbert Monckton and the lawyer's clerk. The 
 genuine document was that which Launcelot Darrell had flung 
 upon the chair by the side of the secretaire. 
 
 CHAPTER XLin. 
 
 A BRIEF TRIUMPH. 
 
 Eleanor Moncktox's first impulse was to rush into the room 
 and denounce Launcelot Darrell in the presence of those who 
 would be sure to come in answer to her call. He would be 
 flcarcel}' likely to find much mercy at the hands of his aunts : 
 he would stand before them a detected wretch, capable of any 
 crime, of any treacliery, for the furtherance of his own interest. 
 
 But a second impulse, as rapid as the first, restrained the 
 impetuous girl. She wanted to know the end, she wanted to 
 Bee what these two plotters would do next. Lender the influence 
 of her desiro to rusn into the room, she had moved forward a 
 
 T
 
 290 "Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 few paces, rustling the leaves about her as she stirred. Tke 
 Frenchman's acute hearing had detected that rustling s.ound. 
 
 " Quick, quick," he whispered; "take the keys back; there is 
 some one in the garden." 
 
 Launcelot Daj-rell had risen from his knees. The door be- 
 tween the study and the dressing-room had been left ajar ; the 
 young man pushed it open, and hurried away with the keys in 
 his hand. Victor Bourdon closed his lantern, and came to the 
 •window. He thrust aside the Venetian shutters, and stepped 
 ©nt into the garden. Eleanor crouched down with her back flat 
 fcgainst the wall, completely sheltered by the laurels. The 
 iVenchman commenced his search amongst the bushes on the 
 right of the window. Eleanor's hiding-jjlace was on the left. 
 This gave her a moment's breathing time. 
 
 " The will ! " she thought in that one moment ; " they have left 
 the genuine will upon the chair by the cabinet. If I could get 
 that!" 
 
 The thought had flashed Kke Hghtning through her brain. 
 Reckless in hei excitement, she rose from her crouching position, 
 and slid rapidly and noiselessly across the threshold of the open 
 window into the study, before Victor Bourdon had finished hia 
 examination of the shrubs on the right. 
 
 Her excitement seemed to intensify every sense. The only 
 Kght in the room was a faint ray which came across the small 
 intermediate chamber from the open door of Maurice de Cres- 
 pigny's bedroom. This hght was very little, but the open door 
 ■was opposite the cabinet, and what hght there was fell upon the 
 very spot towards which Eleanor's dilated eyes looked. She 
 could see the outhne of the paper on the chair; she could see 
 the other paper on the floor, faint and grey in the dim glimmer 
 from the distant candles. 
 
 She snatched the wiU from the chair, and thrust it into the 
 pocket of her dress ; she picked up the other paper from the 
 floor, and placed it on the chair. Then, with her face and figure 
 obscured in the loose cloak that shrouded her, she went back 
 into the garden. 
 
 As she drew back into the shelter of the laurels she felt a 
 man's garments brushing against her own, and a man's hot 
 breath upon her cheek. The Frenchman had passed her so 
 closely that it was almost impossible he could have failed to per- 
 ceive her presence ; and yet he had seemed utterly unconscious 
 of it. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell came back to the study almost the moment 
 after Eleanor had left it. He was bi-eathing quickly, and stopped 
 to wipe his forehead once more with his handkerchief. 
 
 "Bourdon!" he exclaimed, in a loud whisper. "Bourdon, 
 where are youP"
 
 A Brief Triumph. 291 
 
 The Frenchman crossed the threshold of the window as the 
 young man called to him. 
 
 " I have been on the look-out for spies," he said. 
 
 "Have you seen any one?" 
 
 *' No ; 1 fancy it was a false alarm." 
 
 " Come, then," said Launcelot Darrell, " we have been luckier 
 than I thought we should be." 
 
 " Hadn't you better unlock that door before we leave ? " asked 
 Monsieur Bourdon, pointing to the door which communicated 
 with the other part of the house. Launcelot had locked it on 
 first entering the study, and had thus secured himself from any 
 surprise in that direction. The two men were going away when 
 Monsieur Bourdon stopped suddenly. 
 
 " Yoxi've forgotten something, my friend," he whispered, laying 
 his hand on Launcelot's shoulder. 
 
 "^Tiat?" 
 
 "The will, the genuine will," answered the Frenchman, point- 
 ing to the chair. " It would be a clever thing to leave that 
 behind, eh!" 
 
 Launcelot started, and put his hand to his forehead. 
 
 " I must be mad," he muttered ; " this business is too much 
 for my brain. Why did you lead me into it, Bourdon ? Are you 
 the De^•il, that you must always prompt me to some new mis- 
 chief?" 
 
 " You shall ask me that next week, my friend, when you are 
 the master of this house. Get that jjaper there, and come away : 
 unless you want to stop till yo\ir maiden aunts make their ap- 
 pearance." 
 
 Launcelot DarreU snatched up the paper which Eleanor had 
 put ui)on the chair by the cabinet. He was going to thnist it 
 into his breast-pocket, when the Frenchman took it away from 
 him. 
 
 " You don't particularly want to keep that document ; or to 
 drop it anywhere about the garden ; do you ? We'll bum it, if 
 it's all the same to you, and save them all trouble at — what you 
 call your law court— Common doctors, Proctor's Commons, en ? " 
 
 ]\Ionsieur Bourdon had put liis bull's-eye lantern in his coat- 
 pocket, after looking for spies amongst the evergreens. He now 
 produced a box of fusees, and setting one of them ahght, watched 
 it fizz and sparkle for a moment, and then held it beneath the 
 comer of the document in his left hand. 
 
 The jjaper was slow to catch fire, and Monsieur Bourdon had 
 occasion to hght another fusee before he succeeded in doing 
 more than scorching it. But it blazed up by-and-by, and by 
 the light of the blaze Eleanor Monckton saw the eager faces of 
 the two men. Launcelot Darrell's livid counteu;uice was almoat 
 like that of a man who looks on at an assassination. The com-
 
 292 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 mercial traveller watched, the slow burning of the document 
 with a smile upon his face — a smile of triumph, as it seemed to 
 Eleanor Monckton. 
 
 " Via ! " he exclaimed, as the paper dropped, a frail sheet of 
 tinder, from his hand, and fluttered slowly to the ground. 
 "Y'la!" he cried, stamping upon the feathery grey ashes; "so 
 much for that ; and now our little scheme of to-night is safe, I 
 %jicy, my friend." 
 
 Launcelot DarreU drew a long breath. 
 
 " Thank God, it's over," he muttered. " I wouldn't go through 
 this business again for twenty fortunes." 
 
 Eleanor, still crouching upon the damp grass close against 
 the wall, waited for the two men to go away. She waited, 
 Avith her hands clasped upon her heart; thinking of her 
 triumph. 
 
 The vengeance had come at last. That which she had said to 
 Richard Thornton was about to be fulfilled. The law of the land 
 had no power to punish Launcelot DarreU for the cowardly and 
 treacherous act that had led to an old man's most miserable 
 death : but the traitor had by a new crime placed himself at the 
 mercy of the law, 
 
 " The will he has placed in the cabinet is a forgery," she 
 thought ; " and I have the real will in my pocket. He cannot 
 escape me now, — he cannot escape me now ! His fate is ia my 
 hands." 
 
 The two men had walked past the laurels out on to the grass- 
 plat. Eleanor rose from her crouching position, rustling the 
 branches as she did so. At the same moment she heard voices 
 in the distance, and saw a Hght gleaming through the leaves. 
 
 One of the voices that she had heard was her husband's. 
 
 " So much the better," she thought. " I will tell him what 
 Launcelot DarreU is. I wiU teU him to-night." 
 
 The voices and the Hghts came nearer, and she heard GUbert 
 Monckton say : 
 
 " Impossible, Miss Sarah. Why should my wife stop here f 
 She must have gone back to ToUdale ; and I have been unlucky 
 enough to miss her on the way." 
 
 The lawyer had scarcely spoken when, by the Ught of tho 
 lantern which he held, he saw Launcelot DarreU making off into 
 the shrubbery that surrounded the grass-plat. The young man 
 had not succeeded in escaping from the open space into this 
 friendly shelter before Gilbert Monckton perceived him. Mon- 
 sieur Bourdon, perhaps better accustomed to take to his heels, 
 had been more fortunate, and had plunged in amongst the 
 evergreens at the first sound of the lawyer's voice. 
 
 " DarreU ! " cried Mr. Monckton, " what in Heaven's name 
 brings you here ? "
 
 A Brief Triumph. 293 
 
 The yoTiTig man Btood for a few moments, irresolute, and 
 Bullen-looking. 
 
 " I've as good a right to be here as any one else, I suppose," 
 he said. " I heard of my uncle's death — and — and — I came to 
 ascertain if there was any truth in the report." 
 
 " You heard of my beloved uncle's death !" cried Miss Sarah 
 de Crespigny, peering sharply at her nephew from under the 
 shadow of a pent-house-like garden-hood, in which she had in- 
 vested herself before venturing into the night air. " How could 
 you have heard of the sad event ? My sister and I gave special 
 orders that no report should go abroad until to-morrow mom- 
 ing. 
 
 Mr. Darrell did not care to say that one of the "Woodlands 
 servants was in his pay ; and that the same servant, being no 
 other than Brooks, the gardener, had galloped over to Hazle- 
 wood, to communicate the tidings of his master's death, before 
 starting for Windsor. 
 
 " I did hear of it," Launcelot soid, " and that's enough. I 
 came to ascertain if it was true." 
 
 " But you were going away from the house when I saw you ! " 
 said Mr. Monckton, rather suspiciously. 
 
 " I was not going away from the house, for I had not been to 
 the house," Launcelot answered, in the same tone as before. 
 
 He spoke in a sulky, grudging manner, because he knew that 
 he was telling a dehberate lie. He was a man who always did 
 wrong acts under protest, as being forced to do them by the 
 injustice of the world ; and held society responsible for all his 
 errors. 
 
 " Have you seen my wife ? " Gilbert asked, still suspiciously. 
 
 " No. I have only this moment come. I have not seen any- 
 body." 
 
 " I must have missed her," muttered the lawyer, with an 
 anxious air. " I must have missed her between this and Toll- 
 iale. Nobody saw her leave the house. She went out without 
 leaving any message, and I guessed at once that she had come 
 np here. It's very odd." 
 
 " It is very odd ! " Miss Sarah repeated, with spiteful emphasis. 
 " I must confess that for my own part I do not see what motive 
 Mrs. Monckton could have had for rushing up here in the dead 
 of the night." 
 
 The tune which Miss Sarah de Crespigny spoke of as the dead 
 of the night had been something between ten and eleven o'clock. 
 It was now past eleven. 
 
 The lawyer and Miss de Crespigny walked slowly along the 
 gravelled pathway that led from the grass-plat and shrubbery to 
 the other side of the house. Launcelot Darrell went with them, 
 lounging by his aunt's side, with his head down, and his hands
 
 294 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 in liis poctets, stopping now and then to kick the pebbles from 
 
 his i^athway. 
 
 It was impossible to imairine anything more despicable than 
 this young man's aspect. Hating himself for what he had done ; 
 hating the man who had prompted him to do it ; angry against 
 the very workings of Providence — since by his reasoning it was 
 Providence, or his Destiny, or some power or other against which 
 he had ample ground for rebellion, that had caused aU the mis- 
 chief and dishonour of his hfe — he went unwillingly to act out 
 the part which he had taken upon himself, and to do his best to 
 throw Gilbert Monckton off the scent. 
 
 His mind was too much distui-bed for him to be able clearly to 
 reaUze the danger of his position. To have been seen there waa 
 ruin — perhaps ! If by-and-l^y any doubts should arise as to the 
 vahdity of the will that would be found in Maurice de Crespigny's 
 secretaire, would it not be remembered that he, Launcelot Dan-eU, 
 had been seen lurking about the house on the night of the old 
 man's death, and had been only able to give a very lame expla- 
 nation of his motives for being there. He thought of this as he 
 walked by his aunt's side. He thought of tliis, and began to 
 wonder if it might not be possible to undo what had been done ? 
 No, it was impossible. The crime had been committed. A step 
 had been taken which could never be retraced, for Victor Bourdon 
 had burned the real wiU. 
 
 " Curse his oflBciousness," thought the young man. " I could 
 have undone it all but for that." 
 
 As the lawyer and his two companions reached the angle of the 
 house on their way to the front entrance, whence Mr. Monckton 
 and Miss de Crespigny had come into the garden, a dark figure, 
 shrouded in a loose cloak, emerged from amidst the shrubs by 
 the windows of the dead man's apartments, and approached 
 them. 
 
 " Who is that ? " cried the lawyer, suddenly. His heart began 
 to beat violently as he asked the question. It was quite a su- 
 pererogatory question ; for he knew well enough that it was his 
 wife who stood before him. 
 
 " It is I, Gilbert," Eleanor said, quietly. 
 
 " You here, Mrs. Monckton ! " exclaimed her husband, in a 
 harsh voice, that seemed to ring through the air like the vibra- 
 tion of metal that has been struck — " you here, hiding in this 
 shrubbery ! " 
 
 " Yes, I came here — ^how long ago, Miss Sarah ? It seems 
 half a century to me." 
 
 " You came here exactly twenty minutes ago, Mrs. Monckton," 
 Miss de Crespigny answered, icily. 
 
 "And by a really remarkable coincidence," cried Gilbert 
 Monckton, in the same uimatural voice in which he had spoken
 
 A Brief Triumph. 295 
 
 before, " Mr. Dan-ell happens to be here too: only I must do you 
 the justice to say, Mrs. Monckton, that you appear less discom- 
 posed than the gentleman. Ladies always have the advantage 
 of us ; they can carry otf these things so easily ; deception seems 
 to come natural to them." 
 
 " Deception ! " repeated Eleanor. 
 
 What did he mean ? "VVTiy was he angry with her ? She won- 
 dered at his manner as she walked with him to the house. No 
 sus])icion of the real nature of her husband's feelings entered her 
 mind. The absorbing idea of her Ufe was the desire to punish 
 her fiither's destroyer ; and how could she imao^ine that her hus- 
 band was tortured by jealous suspicions of this man : of this 
 man, who of all the living creatures upon the earth was most 
 hateful to her ? How could she — knowing her own feelings, 
 and taking it for granted that these feehngs were more or less 
 obvious to other people — how could she imagine the state of 
 Gill'crt Monckton's mind ? 
 
 She went into the hall with her husband, followed by Miss 
 Sarah de Crespigny and Launcelot Darrell, and from the hall into 
 the sitting-room usually occupied by the two ladies. A lamp 
 burned bi-ightly upon the centre table, and Miss Lavinia de 
 Crespigny sat near it, with some devotional book in her hand. 
 I think she tried her best to be devout, and to employ herself 
 with serious reflections upon the dread event that had so lately 
 hapi^eued; but the fatal power of the old man's wealth was 
 stronger than any hoher influence, and I fear that Miss Lavinia's 
 thoughts very often wandered away from the page on which her 
 eyes were fixed, into sundry intricate calculations of the cumu- 
 lative interest upon Exchequer bills, India five per cents., and 
 Great Western Kailway shares. 
 
 " I must have an explanation of this business," Mr. Monckton 
 said : " it is time that we should all understand each other. 
 There has been too much mystification, and I am most heartily 
 tired of it." 
 
 He walked to the fireplace and leaned his elbow upon the 
 marble chimney-piece. From this position he commanded a view 
 of every one in the room. Launcelot Darrell flung himself into 
 a chair by the table, nearly opposite his aunt Lavinia. He did 
 not trouole himself to notice this lady, nor did he bow to 
 Eleanor; he sat \vith his elbow resting upon the arm of liis 
 chair, his chin in the palm of his hand, and he employed himself 
 by biting his nails and beating his heel upon the carpet. He 
 was still thinking, as he had thought in the garden, " If I could 
 only undo what I have done. If I could only undo the work of 
 the last quarter of an hour, and stand right with the world 
 again." 
 
 But in tliis intense desire that had taken possession of Laua«
 
 296 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 celot Darrell's mind there was mingled no regretful horror of 
 the wickedness of what he had done ; no remorseful sense of 
 the great injustice which he had plotted ; no wish to atone or to 
 restore. It was selfishness alone that influenced his every 
 thought. He wanted to put himself right. He hated this new 
 position, which for the last few minutes he had occupied for the 
 first time in his hfe; the position of a dehberate criminal, 
 amenable to the laws by which the commonest felons are tried, 
 likely to sufier as the commonest felons suffer. 
 
 It seemed to him as if his brain had been paralyzed until 
 now; it seemed to him as if he had acted in a stupor or a 
 dream ; and that he now for the first time comprehended the 
 nature of the deed which he had done, and was able to foresee 
 the possible consequences of his own act. 
 
 " I have committed forgery," he thought. " If my crime is 
 discovered I shall be sent to Bermuda to work amongst gangs of 
 murderous ruffians till I drop down dead. If my crime is dis- 
 covered ! How shall I ever be safe from discovery, when I am 
 at the mercy of the wretches who helped me ? " 
 
 Eleanor threw off her cloak, but she refused to sit down in 
 the chair which Miss Sarah offered her. She stood divided by 
 the width of half the room from her husband, with her face 
 fronting his, in the full glare of the lamplight. Her large grey 
 eyes were bright with excitement, her cheeks were flushed, her 
 hair fell loosely about her face, brown in the shadow, and glit- 
 tering like ruddy gold in the light. 
 
 In aH the beauty of her girlhood, from the hour in which 
 Onbert Monckton had first seen her until to-night, she had 
 never looked so beautiful as she looked now. The sense that she 
 had triumphed, the thought that she held the power to avenge 
 her father's death, lent an unnatural brilliancy to her loveliness. 
 She was no longer an ordinary woman, only gifted with the 
 earthly charms of lovely womanhood: she was a splendid 
 Nemesis, radiant with a supernatural beauty. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 LOST. 
 
 *ToTJ asked me why I came here to-night," she said, looting 
 at her husband. " I will tell you, Gilbert : but I must tell you 
 a long story first, almost all the story of my hfe." 
 
 Her voice, resonant and musical, roused Launcelot DarreU 
 from his gloomy abstraction. He looked up at Eleanor, and for 
 the first time began to wonder how and why she had come there. 
 They had met her in the garden. Why had she been there ? 
 What had she been doing there P Could it be possible that she
 
 ZoH. 297 
 
 had played the spy upon him ? No ! Surely there could be no 
 fear of that ? What reason should she have for suspecting or 
 watcliing him ? That t«rror was too cowardly, too absurd, he 
 thought; but such foolish and unnecessary fears would be the 
 perpetual torment of his life henceforward. 
 
 " Yon remember, Gilbert," Eleanor continued, "that when I 
 promised to be your wife, I told you my real name, and asked 
 you to keep that name a secret from the people in this house ; 
 and from Laimcelot Darrell." 
 
 " Yes," answered Mr. Monckton, " I remember." 
 
 Even in the midst of the tortures which arose out of his 
 jealousy and suspicion, and which to-night had reached their 
 cUmax, and had taken entire possession of the lawyer's mind, 
 there was some half-doubtful feeling of wonder at Eleanor's 
 calm and self-assured manner. 
 
 And yet she was deceiving him. He knew that. He had 
 long ago detemiined that this second hazard of his life was to 
 result in ignominious failure, hke the first. He had been de- 
 ceived before ; gulled, hoodwinked, fooled, jilted: and the traitress 
 had smiled in his face, with the innocent smile of a guileless 
 child. Eleanor was perhaps even more skilled in treachery than 
 that first traitress ; but that was all. 
 
 " I will not be deluded by her again," he thought, as he looked 
 gloomily at the beautifiil face opposite to him : " nothing she 
 can say shall make me her dupe again." 
 
 " Shall I tell you why I asked you to keep that secret for me, 
 Gilbert ? " continued Eleanor. " I did so because I had a motive 
 for coming back to the neighbourhood of this place. A motive 
 that was stronger than my love for you — though I did love you, 
 Gilbert, better than I thought; if 1 thought at all of anything 
 except that other motive which was the one purpose of my 
 Hfe." 
 
 Mr. Monckton's upper lip curled scomfiilly. Love him! 
 That was too poor a fancy. What had he ever been but a dupe 
 and a cat's-paw for a false woman ; fooled and cheated many 
 years ago in his early manhood ; fooled and cheated to-day in 
 his prime of Ufe. He smiled contemptuously at the thought of 
 his own folly. 
 
 " Launcelot Darrell," cried Eleanor, suddenly, in an altered 
 Toice, " shall I tell you why I was so eager to come back to this 
 neighbourhood? Shall I tell you why I wanted the secret of 
 my name kept from you and from your kindred ? " 
 
 The young man Ufted his head and looked at Eleanor. Wonder 
 and terror were both expressed in his countenance. He won- 
 dered why Gilbert Monckton's wife addressed him with such 
 earnestness. He was afraid, without knowing what he feared. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Monckton," he faltered.
 
 298 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " What could I have to do with your false name, or yonr coming 
 
 back to this place ? " 
 
 " EvERYTiuxG ! " cried Eleanor: " it was to be near you that 
 I came back here." 
 
 "I thought as much," muttered the lawyer, under hia 
 breath. 
 
 " It was to be near you that I came back," Eleanor repeated ; 
 "it was to be near you, Launcelot Darrell, that I was so eager 
 to come back: so eager, that I would have stooped to any 
 stratagem, encountered any risk, if by so doing I could have 
 hastened my return. It was for this that I took the most 
 solemn step a woman can take, without stopping to think of its 
 solemnity. It was to deceive you that I kept my name a secret. 
 It was to denounce you as the wretch who cheated a helpless 
 old man out of the money that was not his own, and thus 
 drove him to a shameful and a sinful death, that I came here. I 
 aave watched and waited long for this moment. It has come at 
 last. Thank Heaven, it has come at last ! " 
 
 Launcelot Darrell rose suddenly from his chair. His white 
 face was still turned towards Eleanor ; his eyes were fixed in a 
 stare of horror. At first, perhaps, he contemplated rushing out 
 of the room, and getting away from this woman, who had 
 recalled the sin of the past, at a moment when his brain was 
 maddened by the crime of the present. But he stopped, fasci- 
 nated by some irresistible power in the beautiful face before him. 
 Eleanor stood between the coward and the door. He could not 
 pass her. 
 
 " You know who I am now, Launcelot DarreU, and you know 
 how much mercy you can expect from me," this girl continued, 
 in the clear, ringing voice in which she had first addressed her 
 enemy. " You remember the eleventh of August. You remem- 
 ber the night upon wliich you met my father upon the Boule- 
 vard. I stood by his side upon that night. I was hanging upoa 
 his arm, when you and your vile associate tempted him away 
 from me. Heaven knows how dearly I loved him ; Heaven 
 knows how happily I looked forward to a fife in which I might 
 be with him and work for him. Heaven only knows how happily 
 that bright dream might have been realized — but for you — but 
 for you. May an old man's sin rest upon your head. May a 
 daughter's bUghted hopa rest upon your head. You can guesa 
 now why I am here to-night, and what I have been doing ; and 
 you can guess, perhaps, what mercy you have to expect from 
 George Vane's daughter." 
 
 " George Vane's daughter ! " 
 
 Sarah and Lavinia de Crespigny lifted up their hands and 
 eyes in mute dismay. Was tliis woman, this viper, who had 
 gained access to the very heart of the citadel which they had
 
 Lost. 299 
 
 guarded so jealously, the very creature who of all others they 
 would have kept remote from the dead man ? 
 
 No ! it was impossible. Neither of Maurice de Crespigny's 
 nieces had ever heard of the bii-th of George Vane's youiii^est 
 child. The old man had received tidings of the little girl's 
 advent in a letter sent by gtealth, and had kej^t the intelligence 
 a secret. 
 
 " It is too absurd ! " Miss Lavinia exclaimed ; " George Vane's 
 youngest daughter is Hortensia Bannister, and she must be at 
 least tive-and-thirty years of age." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell knew better than this. He could recall a 
 dismal scene that had occurred in the pale grey Hght of an 
 August morning. He could remember a white-haired old man, 
 sitting amidst the sordid splendour of a second-rate coffee-house, 
 crying about his youngest daughter, and bewailing the loss of 
 the money that was to have paid for his darling's education ; a 
 wretched, broken-hearted old man, who had held his trembling 
 hands aloft, and cursed the wretch who had cheated him. 
 
 He could see the figure now, with the shaking hands lifted 
 high. He could see the wrinkled face, very old and worn, in 
 that grey morning light, and tears streaming from the faded 
 blue eyes. He had Uved under the shadow of that curse ever 
 since, and it seemed as if it was coming home to him to-night. 
 
 "I am Eleanor Vane," Gilbert Monokton's wife said, in 
 answer to !Miss Lavinia. "I am Hortensia Bannister's half- 
 sister. It was because of her foolish pride that I came to 
 Hazlewood under a false name. It was in order to be revenged 
 upon Launcelot DarreU that I have since kept my real name a 
 secret." 
 
 Eleanor Vane ! Eleanor Vane ! Could it be true ? Of all 
 whom Launcelot DarreU had reason to fear, this Eleanor Vane 
 was the most to be dreaded. If he had never wronged her 
 father, even if he had not been indirectly the cause of the old 
 man's death, he would still have had reason to fear Eleanor 
 Vane. He knew what that reason was, and he dropped back 
 into his chair, li\ad and trembling, as he had trembled when he 
 stole the keys from his dead uncle's bedside. 
 
 " Maurice de Crespi^ny and my father were bosom friends," 
 continued Eleanor. Her voice changed as she spoke of her 
 father, and the light in her face faded as a tender shadow stole 
 over her coimtenance. She could not mention her father's name 
 without tenderness, speak of him when or where she might. 
 " They were bosom friends ; everybody here knows that ; and 
 my poor dear father had a foolish fancy that if Mr. de Crespigny 
 died before him, he would inherit this house and estate, and 
 that he would be rich once more, and that we should be very 
 happy together. I never thought that."
 
 300 JEleanor's Victory. 
 
 Latincelot Darrell looked up witli a strange, eager glance, but 
 said nothing. The sisters, however, could not suflFer Eleanor's 
 words to pass without remark. 
 
 " You never thought that ; oh dear no, I dare say not," Misa 
 Lavinia observed. 
 
 "Of course you never entered this house with any mercenarv 
 ideas upon the subject of my dear uncle's will," Miss Sarai 
 exclaimed, with biting irony. 
 
 " I never built any hope upon my dear father's fancy," re- 
 sumed Eleanor, so indifferent to the remarks of the two ladies 
 that it seemed as if they had been unheard by her; "but I 
 humoured it as I would have humoured any fancy of his, how- 
 ever fooHsh. But after his death I remembered that Mr. de 
 Crespigny had been his friend, and I only waited to convince 
 myself of that man's guilt " — she pointed to Launcelot Darrell 
 as she spoke — " before I denounced him to his great-uncle. I 
 thought that my father's old friend would listen to me, and 
 knowing what had been done, would never let a traitor inherit 
 his wealth. I thought that by this means I should be revenged 
 upon the man who caused my father's death. I heard to-day 
 that Mr. de Crespigny had not long to live ; and when I came 
 here to-night I came with the intention of telling him the real 
 character of the man who was perhaps to inherit his fortune." 
 
 The maiden ladies looked at each other. It would not have 
 been a bad thing, perhaps, after all, if Eleanor had arrived in time 
 to see the dying man. It was a pity that Maurice de Crespigny 
 should have died in ignorance of his nephew's character, when 
 there was just a chance that he might have left a will in that 
 nephew's favour. But on the other hand, George Vane's 
 daughter was even a more formidable person than Launcelot. 
 Who could tell how she might have contrived to tamper with 
 the old man ? 
 
 " I have no doubt you wished to denounce Mr. Darrell ; and 
 to denounce us, too, for the matter of that, I dare say," observed 
 Miss Sarah, " in order that you yourself might profit by my 
 •ancle's will. 
 
 " I profit ! " cried Eleanor ; " what should I want with the 
 poor old man's money P " 
 
 _ " My wife is rich enough to be above any suspicion of that 
 kind, Miss de Crespigny," Gilbert Monckton said, proudly. 
 
 " I came too late," Eleanor said ; " I came too late to see my 
 father's friend, but not too late for what I have so long prayed 
 for — revenge upon my father's destroyer. Look at your sister's 
 son. Miss de Crespigny. Look at him, Miss Lavinia; you have 
 good reason to be proud of him. He has been a har and a 
 traitor from first to last; and to-nipht he has advanced from 
 treachery to crime. The law could not punish him for the
 
 At Sea. 301 
 
 cruelty that killed a helpless old man ; the law can punish him 
 for that which he has done to-night, for he has committed a 
 erime." 
 
 " A crime ! " 
 
 "Yes. He has crept like a thief into the house in which his 
 uncle hes dead, and lias introduced some document — a will of 
 tis own fabrication, no doubt — in the place of the genuine will 
 left in Mr. de Crespigny's private secretaire." 
 
 "How do you know this, Eleanor? " cried Gilbert Monckton. 
 
 " I know it because I was outside the window of the study 
 when he changed the papers in the cabinet, and because I have 
 the real will in my possession." 
 
 " It is a lie ! " shouted Launcelot Darrell, starting to his feet, 
 "a damnable he, the real ^vill " 
 
 " Was burnt, as you think, Mr. Darrell ; but yon are mistaken. 
 The document which your friend, Monsieur Victor Bourdon, burnt 
 was a paper which you dropped out of the secretaire while you 
 were searching for the will." 
 
 "And where is the genuine document, Eleanor?" Gilbert 
 asked. 
 
 " Here," answered his wife, triumphantly. 
 
 She put her hand into her pocket. It was empty. The will 
 was gone. 
 
 CHAPTER XLY. 
 
 AT SEA. 
 
 The will was gone. Eleanor tried to think how or where she 
 could have lost it. It might have dropped from her pocket, per- 
 ha2>s. That was the only solution of the mystery that presented 
 itself to her mind. The open pocket of her dress might have been 
 caught by one of the laurel boughs as she crouched upon the 
 ground, and when she rose the paper had dropped out. There 
 was no other way in which she could have lost it. She had been 
 80 absorlxjd in the watch she had kept on Launcelot Darrell, as 
 to forget the value of the document wliich she had thrust 
 carelessly into her pocket. Her father's letter and Launcelot 
 Darrell's sketch were still safe in the bosom of her dress ; but 
 the \d\\, the genuine will, in place of which the young man had 
 introduced some fabrication of his own, was gone. 
 
 " Let me see tins vill, Eleanor," Gilbert Monckton said, ad- 
 vancing to liis vrife. Although she had been the most skilful 
 actress, the most accomplished deceiver amonfjst all womankind, 
 her conduct to-night could not be all acting, it could not be all 
 deception. She did not love liim : she had confessed that, very 
 plainly. She did not love him ; and she had only manned liim 
 va order to serve a purpose of her own. But then, on the other
 
 302 Meanor's Victory. 
 
 hand, if her passionate words were to be believed in, she did not 
 love Laimcelot Darrell. There was some comfort in that. " Let 
 me see the will, Eleanor," he repeated, as his wife stared at him 
 tlankly, in the first shock of her discovery. 
 
 " I can't find it," she said, hopelessly. " It's gone ; it's lost. 
 Oh, for pity's sake, go out into the garden and look for it. I 
 must have dropped it amongst the evergreens outside Mr. de 
 Crespigny's room. Pray go and look for it." 
 
 "I will," the lawyer said, taking up his hat and walking 
 towards the door of the room. 
 
 But Miss Lavinia de Crespigny stopped him. 
 
 "No, Mr. Monckton," she said; "pray don't go out into the 
 night air. Parker is the proper person to look for this document." 
 
 She rang the bell, wliich was answered by the old butler. 
 
 "Has Brooks come back from Windsor?" she asked. 
 
 *' No, miss, not yet." 
 
 " A paper has been dropped in the garden, Parker, somewhere 
 amongst the evergi-eens, outside my ujQcle's rooms. Will you 
 take a lantern, and go and look for it ? " 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " exclaimed ]\Iiss Sarah, " Brooks has been a 
 very long time going from here to Windsor and back again. I 
 wish ]Mr. Lawford's clerk vrere come. The place would be taken 
 care of then, and we should have no farther anxiety." 
 
 The lady looked suspiciously from her nephew to Eleanor, and 
 from Eleanor to Gilbert Monckton. She did not know whom to 
 trust, or whom most to fear. Launcelot Darrell sat before her, 
 biting savagely at his nails, and with his head bent upon his 
 breast. Eleanor had simk into the chair nearest her, utterly 
 dumbfounded by the loss of the will. 
 
 " You need not fear that we shall long intrade upon you. 
 Miss de Crespigny," Gilbert Monckton said. "My wife has 
 made an accusation against a person in this room. It is only 
 light, in your interest, and for the justification of her truth an* 
 honour, that this business should be investigated — and imme- 
 diately." 
 
 " The will must be found," Eleanor cried ; " it must have fallen 
 from my pocket in the shrubbery." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell said nothing. He waited the issue of the 
 search that was being made. If the will was found he was pre- 
 pared to repudiate it ; for there was no other course left to him. 
 He hated this woman, who had suddenly arisen before him as an 
 enemy and denouncer, who had recalled to him the bitter memory 
 of his first great dishonour, and who had detected him in tho 
 commission of his first crime. He hated Eleanor, and was ready 
 to sacrifice her to his own safety. 
 
 He lifted his head presently, and looked about him with a 
 scornful laugh.
 
 At Sea. 30a 
 
 "Is this a farce, or a conspiracy, Mrs. Moiickton? " he asked. 
 " Do you expoot to invalidate my great-uncle's genuine will — 
 ■wherever that w-ill may happen to be found — by the production 
 of some document dropped by you in the garden, and which, has, 
 very likely, never been inside this house, much less in my uncle's 
 possession ? You surely don't expect any one to believe your 
 pretty, romantic story, of a suicide in Paris, and a midnight 
 Bcene at Woodlands ? It would be an excellent paragraph for a 
 
 hard-up penny-a-liner, but, really, for any other purpose " 
 
 " Take care, Mr. Darrell," Gilbert Monckton said, quietly, 
 "you will gain nothing by insolence. If I do not resent your 
 impertinence to my wiie, it is because I begin to beHeve that you 
 are so despicable a scoundrel as to be unworthy of an honest 
 man's anger. You had much better hold your tongue." 
 
 There was no particular eloquence in these last few words, but 
 there was something in the lawyer's tone that effectually silenced 
 Launcelot Darrell. Mr. Monckton's cane lay upon a chair by the 
 fireplace, and while speaking he had set down his hat, and taken 
 up the cane; unconsciously, j^erhaps; but the movement had not 
 escaped the guilty man's furtive glance. He kept silence ; and 
 with his face darkened by a gloomy scowl, still sat biting his 
 nails. The vnW would be found. The genuine document would 
 be compared with the fabrication he had placed amongst his 
 great-uncle's papers, and perpetual shame, punishment, and 
 misery would be his lot. "\^Tiat he suffered to-night, sitting 
 amongst these people, not one of whom he could count as a 
 friend, was only a foretaste of what he would have to suffer by- 
 and-by in a criminal dock. 
 
 For some time there was silence in the room. The two sis- 
 ters, anxious and perplexed, looked almost despairingly at each 
 other, fearful that at the end of all this business they would be 
 the sufferers; cheated, in their helplessness, either by George 
 Vane's daughter or b}' Launcelot Darrell. Eleanor, ei'uausted 
 
 by her own excitement, sat with her eyes fixed upon the door, 
 
 waitiiig for the coming of the old butler. 
 
 More than a quarter of an hour passed in this way. Then 
 
 the door opened, and Mr. Parker made his appearance. 
 " You have found it!" cried Eleanor, stai-tmg to her lett. 
 " No, ma'am. No, Miss Lavinia," added the butler. " I have 
 
 searched every inch of the garding, and there is nothink in the 
 
 shaj^e of a paper to be found. The 'ousemaid was with me, and 
 
 she searched like\vise." 
 
 "It must be in the garden," exclaimed Eleanor, "it must be 
 
 there — unless it has been blown away." 
 " There's not wind enough for that, ma'am. The s'rubberiea 
 
 are 'igh, and it would take a deal of wind to blow a paper across 
 
 the tops of the trees."
 
 304 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 "And you've searched the ground under the trees P" asked 
 Mr. Moncktoii. 
 
 "Yes, sii-. We've searched everywhere; me and the 'ouae- 
 maid." 
 
 Launcelot Darrell burst into a loud laugh, an insolent, strident 
 laugh. 
 
 " 'Why, I thought as much," he cried ; " the whole story is a 
 farce. I beg your pardon, Mr. Monckton, for calhng it a con- 
 spiracy. It is merely a shght hallucination of your wife's ; and 
 I dare say she is as much George Vane's daughter as I am the 
 fabricator of a forged will." 
 
 Mr. Darrell's triumph had made him foolhardy. In the next 
 moment Gilbert Monckton's hand was on the collar of his coat, 
 and the cane iipUfted above his shoulders. 
 
 _ " Oh my goodness me 1 " shrieked Sarah de Crespigny, with a 
 dismal wail, " there'll be murder done presently. Oh, this is too 
 dreadful ; in the dead of the night, too." 
 
 But before any harm could happen to Launcelot Darrell, 
 Eleanor clung about her husband's upraised arm. 
 
 " What you said just now was the truth, Gilbert," she cried; 
 " he is not worthy of it ; he is not indeed. He is beneath an 
 honest man's anger. Let him alone; for my sake let him alone. 
 Ketribution must come upon him, sooner or later. I thought 
 it had come to-night, but there has been witchcraft in aU this 
 business. I can't understand it." 
 
 " Stay, Eleanor," said Gilbert Monckton, putting down his 
 cane, and turning away from Launcelot Darrell as he might have 
 turned from a mongrel cur that he had been dissuaded from 
 punishing : " This last will — what was the wording of it — ^to 
 whom did it L^ave the fortune ? " 
 
 Launcelot Darrell looked up eagerly, breathlessly waiting for 
 Eleanor's answer. 
 
 " I don't know," she said. 
 
 " What, have you forgotten ? " 
 
 " No, I never knew anything about the contents of the will. 
 I had no opportunity of looking at it. I took it from the chair 
 on which Laimcelot Darrell threw it, and put it in my pocket. 
 From that moment to this I have never seen it." 
 
 " How do you know, then, that it was a wiU ? " asked Gilbert 
 Monckton. 
 
 " Because I heard Launcelot Darrell and his companion speak 
 of it as the genuine will." 
 
 The young man seemed infinitely relieved by the knowledge of 
 Eleanor's ignorance. 
 
 " Come, ]\Ir. Monckton," he said, with an air of injured inno- 
 cence, " you have been very anxious to investigate the groundj 
 jf your wife's accusation, and have been very ready to believe in
 
 At Sea. 305 
 
 a most absurd story. You have even gone so far as to wisli to 
 execute summary vengeance upon me -svith a walking-stick. I 
 think it's my turn now to ask a few questions." 
 
 " You can ask as many as you please," answered the lawyer. 
 
 His mind was bewildered by what had happened. Eleanor's 
 earnestness, which had seemed so real, had all ended in nothing. 
 How if it was all acting ; how if some darker mystery lurked 
 beneath all this tumult of accusation and denial ? The canker 
 of suspicion, engendered by one woman's treachery, had taken 
 deep root in Gilbert !Monckton's breast. He had lost one of the 
 purest and highest gifts of a noble nature — the power to trust. 
 
 " Very well, then," said Laimcelot Darrell, turning to Eleanor : 
 " perhaps you will tell me how I contrived to open this cabinet, 
 out of which you say I stole one document, and into which you 
 declare I introduced another ? " 
 
 " You took the keys from Mr. de Crespigny's room." 
 
 " Indeed ! But is there no one keeping watch in that room ?" 
 
 " Yes," cried Miss Sarah, " Jepcott is there. Jepcott has been 
 there ever since my beloved uncle expired. Nothing has been 
 disturbed, and Jepcott has had the care of the room. We could 
 trust Jepcott with untold gold." 
 
 " Yes," said iMiss Lavinia, "with untold gold." 
 
 " But she was asleep ! " cried Eleanor, " the woman was asleep 
 when that man went into the room." 
 
 " Asleep ! " exclaimed Miss Sarah ; " oh, surely not. Surely 
 Jepcott would not deceive us ; I can't think that of her. The 
 very last words I said to her were, ' Jepcott, do you feel at all 
 sleepy ? If you feel in the least degree sleepy, have the house- 
 maid to sit with you — make assurance doubly sure, and have 
 the housemaid ! ' ' No, Miss,' Jepcott said, ' I never felt more 
 wakeful in my life, and as to the girl, she's a poor, frightened 
 silly, and I don't think you could induce her to go into master's 
 room, though you were to offer her a five-pound note for doing 
 it.' And it Jepcott went to sleep after this, knowing that every- 
 thing was left about just as it was when my uncle died, it was 
 really too bad of her." 
 
 " Send for Mrs. Jepcott," said Launcelot Darrell ; " let us 
 hear what she has to say about this very probable story of my 
 stealing my great-uncle's keys." 
 
 Miss Lavinia de Crespigny rang the bell, which was answered 
 by Mr. Parker, who, though usually slow to respond to any sum- 
 mons, was wonderfully prompt in his attendance this evening. 
 
 " Tell Mrs. Jepcott to come here," said Miss Lavinia ; " I want 
 to speak to her." 
 
 The butler departed upon this errand, and again there was a 
 silent pause, which scorned a very long one, but which orilj- 
 •wtended over five minutes. At the end of that time Mit
 
 306 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Jepcott appeared. She was a respectable-looking woman, prim, 
 and rather grim in appearance. She had been in the dead man's 
 ser^■ice for five-and- thirty years, and was about fifteen years older 
 than the IVIisses de Crespigny, whom she always spoke of as " the 
 young ladies." 
 
 " Jepcott," said Miss Sarah, " I want to know whether any- 
 body whatever, except yourself, has entered Mr. de Crespigny 'b 
 room sine*" you have been placed in charge of it ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear no, miss," answered the housekeeper, promptly, 
 " certainly not." 
 
 " Are you sure of that, Jepcott P " 
 
 " Quite sure, miss ; as sure as I am that I am standing liere 
 this moment." 
 
 " You sjjeak very confidently, Jepcott, but this is really a most 
 serious business. I am told that you have been asleep." 
 
 " Asleep, Miss de Crespigny ! Oh, dear, who could say anything 
 of the kind ? Who could be so wicked as to tell such a story ? " 
 
 " You are certain that you have not been asleeiJ ? " 
 
 " Yes, miss, quite certain. I closed my eyes sometimes, for 
 my sight is weak, as you know, miss, and the light dazzled me, 
 and made my eyes ache. I close my eyes generally when I sit 
 down of an evening, for my sight doesn't allow me to do needle- 
 work by candleUght, neither to read a newspaper ; and I may 
 have closed my eyes to-night, but I didn't go to sleejp, miss, oh 
 dear no ; I was too nervous and anxious for that, a great deal ; 
 besides, I am not a good sleeper at any time, and so I should 
 have heard if a mouse had stirred in the room." 
 
 " You didn't hear me come into the room, did you, Mrs. Jep- 
 cott? " asked Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 " Yow, Mr. Darrell ? Oh, dear, no ; neither you nor anybody 
 else, sir." 
 
 " And you don't think that I could have come into the room 
 without your knowing it ? You don't think I could have come 
 in while you were asleep ? " 
 
 " But I wasn't asleep, Mr. Darrell; and as for you or anybody 
 X)min' in without my hearin' 'em — why I heard every leaf that 
 ctirred outside the windows." 
 
 " I fear that at least this part of your charge must drop to the 
 ground, Mrs. Monckton," Launcelot Darrell said, scornfully. 
 
 " Jepcott," said Miss Lavuiia de Crespigny, " go back and see 
 if my ujicle's keys are safe." 
 
 " Yes, do, Mrs. Jepcott," exclaimed Launcelot Darrell ; " and 
 be sure you take notice whether they have been disturbed since 
 your master died." 
 
 The housekeeper left the room, and returned after about 
 Bu'ee minutes' absence. 
 
 " The keys are quite safe, !Mis3 Lavinia," she said.
 
 At Sea. 307 
 
 *' And they have not heen disturbed ? " asked Lanncelot. 
 
 " No, Mr. Darrell, they haven't been moved a quarter of an 
 inch. They're lyin' just where they lay when my poor master 
 died, half liid under a pocket-handkerchief." 
 
 Lanncelot Darrell drew a long breath. How wonderfully these 
 fooUsh women had played into his hands, and helped him to 
 escaj^e. 
 
 " That will do, Jepcott," said Miss Sarah ; " you may go now. 
 Remember that you are responsible for everytlung in my uncle's 
 room until the arrival of Mr. Lawford's clerk. It would have 
 been a very bad business for you if Mr. de Crespigny's keys had 
 been tampered \vith." 
 
 Mrs. Jepcott looked rather alarmed at this remark, and retired 
 without delay. Suppose she had been asleep, after all, for five 
 minutes or so, and some mischief had arisen out of it, what 
 might not her punishment be. She had a very vague idea of 
 the i>ower of the law, and did not know what penalties she might 
 have incurred by five minutes' unconscious doze. This honest 
 woman had been in the habit of spending the evening in a series 
 of intennittent naps for the last ten years, and had no idea that 
 while closing her eyes to shade them from the glare of the light, 
 she often slumbered soundly for an hour at a stretch. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Monckton," Lanncelot DarreU said, when the 
 housekeeper had left the room, " I suppose now you are convinced 
 that all this midwinter night's dream is a mere hallucination of 
 your own? " 
 
 Eleanor looked at him with a contemptuous smile, whose open 
 scorn was not the least painful torture he had been obliged to 
 bear that night. 
 
 " Do not speak to me," she said ; " remember who I am ; and 
 let that memory keep you sUent." 
 
 The door-bell rang loudly as Eleanor finished speaking. 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " exclaimed Miss de Crespigny, " Mr. Law- 
 ford's clerk has come at last. He will take charge of everything, 
 and if anybody has tampered with my uncle's papers," she added, 
 looking first at Lanncelot and then at Eleanor, " I have no doubt 
 that he will find out aU about it. We are poor unprotected 
 women, but I dare say we shall find those who will be able to 
 defend our rights." 
 
 " I don't tliink we have any occasion to stop here," said Mr. 
 Monckton ; " are you ready to come home, Eleanor? " 
 
 " Quite ready," his wife answered. 
 
 " You have nothing more to say ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Put on your cloak, then, and come. Good night, Miss de 
 Crespigny. Good night, Miss Lavinia." 
 
 ^Ir. Lawford's clerk came in while Gilbert Monckton and hia
 
 308 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 wife were leaving the room. He was the same old man whom 
 Eichard Thornton had seen at Windsor. Eleanor perceived that 
 this man was surprised to see Launcelot Darrell. He started, 
 and looked at the artist with a half- frightened, half-inquiring 
 glance ; but the young man did not return the look. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYL 
 
 iauea's troubles. 
 
 GxjMJ^"^ MoNCKTON offered Eleanor his arm as they went out of 
 the hall and down the steps before the front entrance. 
 
 " I would have got a conveyance for you if it had been possible, 
 Eleanor," he said ; " but of course at this time of night that is 
 utterly out of the question. Do you think that you can manage 
 the walk home ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; very well indeed." 
 
 She sighed as she spoke. She felt completely baffled by what 
 had occurred ; terribly prostrated by the defeat which had befallen 
 her. There was no hope, then. This base and treacherous man 
 was always to triumph, however wicked, however criminal. 
 
 " Is it very late? " she asked, presently. 
 
 " Yes, very late— past one o'clock." 
 
 The husband and wife walked homewards in silence. The roaa 
 seemed even drearier than before to Eleanor, though this time 
 she had a companion in her dismal journey. But this time 
 despair was gnawing at her breast; she had been supported 
 before by excitement, buoyed up by hope. 
 
 They reached ToUdale at last. The butler admitted them. 
 He had sent all the other servants to bed, and had sat up alon« 
 to receive his master. Even upon tlus night of bewUdermen* 
 Gilbert Monckton endeavoured to keep up appearances. 
 
 *' We have been to Woodlands," he said to the old servant. 
 " Mr. de Crespigny is dead." 
 
 He had no doubt that his own and his wife's absence had given 
 rise to wonderment in the quiet household ; and he thought by 
 this means to set all curiosity at rest. But the drawing-room 
 door opened while he was speaking, and Laura rushed into the 
 hall. 
 
 " Oh, my goodness gracious," she exclaimed, "here you are at 
 last. What I have suffered this evening ! Oh 1 what agonies I 
 have suffered this evening, wondering what had hajDpened, and 
 thinking of all sorts of horrid things." 
 
 •' But, my dear Laura, why didn't you go to bed ? " asked Mr. 
 Monckton. 
 
 " Go to bed ! " screamed the young lady. " Go to bed, with my 
 poor brain bursting with suspense. I'm sure if people's braine
 
 Laura's Trouhlet. 309 
 
 io burst, it's a wonder mine hasn't to-night, and I thought ever 
 go many times it was going to do it. First Eleanor goes out 
 without leaving word where she's gone; and then you go out 
 without leaving word where you're gone ; and then you both 
 stay away for hours, and hours, and hours. And there I sit all 
 the time watching the clock, with nobody but the Skye to keep 
 me company : until I get so nervous that I daren't look behind 
 me, and I almost begin to feel as if the Skye was ft demon dog ! 
 And, oh, do tell me what in goodness' name has happened." 
 
 " Come into the drawing-room, Laura ; and pray don't talk so 
 fast. I'll tell you presently." 
 
 Mr. Monckton wajked into the drawing-room, followed by Laura 
 and liis wife. He closed the door, and then sat down by the fire. 
 
 "I've had coais put on five times," exclaimed Miss Mason; 
 "but all the coals in the world wouldn't keep me from shivering 
 and feeling as if somebody was coming in through the door and 
 looking over my shoulder. If it hadn't been for the Skye I 
 should have gone mad. What has happened? " 
 
 " Something has happened at Woodlands — " Mr. Monckton 
 began, gravely ; but Laura interrupted him \vith a httle shriek. 
 
 *' Oh, don't," she cried, " don't, please ; I'd rather you didn't. 
 I know what you're going to say. You must come and sleep 
 with me to-night, Eleanor, if you don't want to find me raving 
 mad in the morning. No wonder I felt as if the room was peopled 
 with ghosts." 
 
 " Don't be foolish, Laura," Mr. Monckton said, impatiently. 
 " You asked me what has happened, and I tell you. To speak 
 plain, Mr. de Crespigny is dead." 
 
 " Yes, I guessed that, of course, directly you began to speak 
 in that solemn way. It's very dreadful — not that he should be 
 dead, you know ; because I scarcely ever saw him, and when I 
 did see \\m\ he always seemed to be deaf, or grumpy — but it 
 seems dreadful that people should die at all ; and I always fancy 
 they'll come walking into the room at night when I'm taking 
 my hair down before the glass, and look over my shoulder, as 
 they do in German stories." 
 
 " Laura ! " 
 
 " Oh, please don't look contemptuously at me," cried Misa 
 Mason, piteously ; " of course, if you haven't got nerves it's very 
 easy to despise these things; and I wish I'd been bom a man 
 or a la\vyer, or something of that sort, so that I might never be 
 nervous. Not that I believe in ghosts, you know ; I'm not so 
 childish as that. I don't believe in them, and I'm not afraid of 
 them; hut I don't like them!" 
 
 Gilbert Monckton's contemptuous expression changed to a look 
 of pity. This was the fooUsh girl whom he had been about to 
 entrust to the man he now knew to be a villain. He now knew;
 
 310 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 — bah, he had paltered with his own conscience. He had Imowm 
 it from the first. And this poor child loved Lanncelot Darrell. 
 Her hopes, Hke his own, were sliipwrecked ; even in the ecjotism 
 of his misery the strong man felt some compassion for this help- 
 less girl. 
 
 " So, Mr. de Crespigny is dead," Lanra said, after a pause; 
 " does Launcelot know it yet P " 
 
 " He does." 
 
 " Was he there to-night — up at Woodlands, in spite of hit 
 nasty old aunts ? " 
 
 " Yes, he was there." 
 
 Eleanor looked anxiously, almost piteously, at Laura. The 
 great disappointment, the death-blow of eveiy hope, was coming 
 down upon her ; and Eleanor, who could see the hand uphfted 
 to strike, and the cruel knife bared ready to inflict the fatal stab, 
 shivered as she thought of the misery the thoughtless girl must 
 have to suffer. 
 
 "But what can her misery be against my father's," she thought, 
 " and how am I accountable for her sorrow P It is all Launcelot 
 Darrell's work ; it is his wicked work from first to last." 
 
 " And do you think he will have the fortune ? " Laura asked. 
 
 "I don't know, my dear," her guardian answered, gravely, 
 " but I think it matters very little either to you or me whether 
 he may get the fortune or not." 
 
 "What do you mean?" cried the girl, "how strangely you 
 speak ; how cruelly and coldly you speak of Launcelot, just as 
 if you didn't care whether he was rich or poor. Oh, good 
 heavens," she shrieked, suddenly growing wild vsdth terror, " why 
 do you both look at me like that ? Why do you both look so 
 anxious P I know that something dreadful has happened. 
 Something has happened to Launcelot ! It's not Mr. de Cres- 
 pigny, it's Launcelot that's dead !" 
 
 "No, no, Laura, he is not dead. It would be better perhaps 
 if he were. He is not a good man, Laura, and he can never be 
 your husband." 
 
 " Oh, I don't care a bit about his not being good, as long as 
 he isn't dead," exclaimed Laura. " I never said he was good, 
 and never wanted him to be good. J'm not good ; for I don't 
 like going to church three times every Sunday. The idea of 
 your saying my poor dear Launcelot mustn't many me because 
 lie isn't good ! I like him to be a Uttle wicked ; like the Giaour, 
 or Manfred — though goodness gracious only knows what he'd 
 done that he should go on as he did — I never asked him to be 
 good. Goodness wouldn't go well with his style of looks. It's 
 fair people, with wishy-washy blue eyes and straight hair, and 
 no eyebrows or eyelashes in particular, that are generally good. 
 I hate good people, and if you don't let me marry Launcelot
 
 Laura^s !Dr outlet . 811 
 
 Darrell now, I shall marry him when I'm of age, and that'll be 
 in three years' time." 
 
 Miss Mason said all this with great vehemence and indigna- 
 tion, and then walked towards the door of the room ; but Eleanor 
 stopped her, and caught the slender little figure in her arms. 
 
 " Ah ! Laura, Laura," she cried, " you must listen to us, yon 
 must hear us, my poor darling. I know it seems very cruel to 
 speak against the man you love, but it would be fifty times more 
 cruel to let you marry him, and leave you to discover afterwards, 
 ■when your Ufe was linked to his, and never, never could be a 
 happy life again if parted from him, that he was unworthy of 
 your love. If it is terrible to be told this now, Laura, it would 
 be a thousand times more terrible to hear it then. Come -^nth 
 me to your room, dear ; I will stay with you all to-night. I \vill 
 tell you all I know about Launcelot Darrell. I ought to have 
 told you before, perhaps ; but I waited ; I waited for what I 
 begin to tliink will never come." 
 
 " I won't beheve anything against him," cried Laura, passion- 
 ately, disengaging herself from Eleanor's embrace ; " I won't 
 listen to you. I won't hear a word. I know why you don't 
 want me to marry him. You were in love with him yourself, 
 you know you were, and you're jealous of me, and you want to 
 prevent my being happy with him." 
 
 Of all the unlucky speeches that could have been made in the 
 
 })resence of Gilbert !Monckton, this was perhaps the most un- 
 ucky. He started as if he had been stung, and rising from his 
 seat near the fire, took a lighted candle from a side table, and 
 walked to the door. 
 
 " I really can't endure all this," he said. " Eleanor, I'll leave 
 you with Laura. Say what you have to say about Launcelot 
 Darrell, and for pity's sake let me never hear his name again. 
 Good night." 
 
 The two girls were left alone together. Laura had throwr 
 herself upon a sofa, and was sobbing violently. Eleanor stood a 
 few paces from her, looking at her with the same tender and 
 compassionate expression with which she had regarded her from 
 the tirst. 
 
 " When I see your troubles, Laura," she said, " I almost for- 
 get my own. My poor dear child, God knows how truly I pity 
 yon." 
 
 " But I don't want your pity," cried Laura. " I shall hate 
 you if you say anything agamst Launcelot. ^Vhy should any- 
 body pity me ? I am engaged to the man I love, the only man 
 I ever loved — you know that, Eleanor ; you know how I fell in 
 love with him directly he came to Hazlewood, — and I will marry 
 him ir spite of all the world. I shall be of age in three yoars, 
 and then no horrid guardians can prevent my doing what I like I"
 
 312 Eleanor^s Victory. 
 
 " But yon would not marry him, Laura, if you knew Tiim to 
 be a bad man?" 
 
 " I would never believe tliat he is a bad man !" 
 
 " But, my darling, you will listen to me. I must tell you the 
 truth. I have kept it from you too long. I have been very 
 guilty in keeping it from you. I ought to have told you when 
 I first came back to ToUdale." 
 
 " What ought you to have told me?" 
 
 " The story of my hfe, Laura. But I thought you would 
 come between me and the victory I wanted to achieve." 
 
 "What victory?" 
 
 " A victory over the man who caused my father's death." 
 
 Then, httle by httle, interrupted by a hundred exclamations 
 and protestations from the sobbing girl whose head lay on her 
 shoulder, and whose waist was encircled by her arm, Eleanor 
 Monckton told the story of her return to Paris, the meeting on 
 the Boulevard, and George Vane's suicide. Little by little sho 
 contrived to explain to the wretched girl who clung about her, 
 and who declared again and again that she tvould not beheve 
 anything against Launcelot, that she could not think him cruel 
 or treacherous, — how the artist and his vile associate, Victor 
 Bourdon, had cheated the old man out of the money which re- 
 presented his own honour and the future welfare of his cliild. 
 
 " You think me hard and merciless, Laura," she cried, " and 
 I sometimes wonder at my own feelings ; but remember, only 
 remember what my father suffered. He was cheated out of 
 the money that had been entrusted to him. He was afraid to 
 face his own child. Oh, my poor dear, how could you wrong me 
 BO cruelly," she murmured, in a low voice, as if addressing her 
 dead father, " how could you think that I should have spoken, 
 one word of reproach, or loved you any the less, if you had lost a 
 dozen fortunes of mine ? No, Laura, I cannot forget what my 
 father suffered; I cannot be merciful to this man." 
 
 Eleanor's task was a very hard one. Laura would not be- 
 heve ; that is to say, she would not acknowledge that she 
 believed ; but she had none of the calm assurance which a jjer- 
 fect and entire faith in her lover should have given her. It was 
 useless to reason with her. All Eleanor's logic was powerless 
 against the passionate force of this girl's perpetual cry, the gist 
 of which was, " I will beheve no harm of him ! I love him, and 
 I will not cease to love him !" 
 
 She would not argue, or listen to Eleanor's calm reasoning ; 
 for Mrs. Monck^ on was very calm in the knowledge of her o^vn 
 defeat, almost despairingly resigned, in the idea that all struggle 
 against Launcelot Darrell was hopeless. Laura would not 
 Usten, would not be convinced. The man whom Eleanor had 
 seen in Paris was not Launcelot. He was in Lidia at that very
 
 Laura's Troubles. 313 
 
 time. He had written letters from India, and posted them 
 thence, with foreign postage stamps. The shipbroker's booka 
 were all ^v^ong ; what was more likely than that stupid ship- 
 brokers' clerks should make wrong entries in their horrid books? 
 In short, according to poor Laura's reasoning, Launcelot Dar- 
 rell was the victim of a series of coincidences. There had hap- 
 jicned to be a person who resembled him in Paris at the time of 
 George Vane is death. There happened to be a mistake in 
 the shipbroker's books. The figure in the water-coloured sketch 
 that Eleanor had stolen happened to be hke the old man. 
 Miss Mason rejected circumstantial evidence in toto. As for the 
 story of the forgery, she declared that it was all a fabrication of 
 Eleanor's, invented in order that the marriage should be post- 
 poned. 
 
 " You're very cruel, Eleanor," she cried, " and you've acted 
 very treacherously, and I shouldn't have thought it of you. Fu-st 
 you fall in love with Launcelot Darrell ; and then you go and 
 marry my guardian ; and then, when you find that you don't 
 like my guardian, you begrudge me my happiness ; and you m)W 
 want to set me against Laimcelot ; but I will not be set against 
 him. There 1" 
 
 This last decisive monosyllable was uttered amidst a torrent 
 of sobs, and then, for a long time, the two girls sat in silence 
 upon the sofa before the expiring fire. By-and-by, Laura 
 nestled her head a httle closer upon Eleanor's shoulder : then a 
 little hand, very cold, by reason of its owner's agitation, stole 
 into the open palm lying idle upon Mrs. Monckton's lap ; and 
 at last, in a low voice, almost stified by tears, she murmured : 
 
 "Do you tliink that he is wicked? Oh! Eleanor, do you 
 really think that it was he who cheated your poor old father ? " 
 
 " I know that it was he, Laura." 
 
 " And do you believe that he has made a false will, for the 
 sake of that dreadful money ? Oh, how could he care for the 
 money, when we might have been so happy together poor ! Do 
 you realhj beUeve that he has committed — forgery ?" 
 
 She dropped her voice to a whisi>er as she spoke the word 
 that was so awful to her when uttered in relation to Launcelot 
 Darrell. 
 
 " I beheve it, and I know it, Laura," Eleanor answered, gravely. 
 
 " But what will they do to him ? "What will become of him ? 
 They won't hang him — will they, Eleanor ? They don't hang 
 people for forgery now. Oh, Eleanor, what will become of himr 
 I love him so dearly, I don't care what he is, or what he has 
 done. I love him still, and would die to save him." 
 
 '• 1 ou need not be afraid, Laura," Mrs. Monckton answered, 
 bitterly. " Launcelot Darrell will escape all evil consequences 
 of what he haa done. You may be sure of that. He vr^\ hold
 
 314 Sleonor^s Victory. 
 
 his head higher than he ever held it yet, Laura. He will be 
 master of Woodlands before next week is over." 
 
 " But his conscience, Eleanor, his conscience ! He will be ao 
 unhappy — he will be so miserable." 
 
 Laura disengaged herself from the loving arm that had sup- 
 ported her, and started to her feet. 
 
 " Eleanor ! " she cried, " where is he ? Let me go to him ! It 
 is not too late to undo all this, perhaps. He can put back the 
 real will, can't he?" 
 
 " No, the real will is lost." 
 
 " He can destroy the false one, then." 
 
 " I don't think he will have the chance of doing that, Laura. 
 If his heart is not hardened against remorse, he will have plenty 
 of time for repentance between this and the time when the will 
 is read. If he wishes to undo what he has done, he may make 
 a confession to his aunts, and throw himself upon their mercy. 
 They are the only persons Hkely to be injured by what he has 
 done. The money was left to them in the original will, no doubt." 
 
 "He shall confess, Eleanor!" cried Laura. "I will throw 
 myself upon my knees at his feet, and I won't leave him tUl he 
 promises me to undo what he has done. His aunts will keep 
 the secret, for their own sakes. They wouldn't Hke the world 
 to know that their nephew could do such a wicked thing. He 
 shall confess to them, and let them have the fortune, and then 
 we can be married, and then we shall be as happy together as if 
 he had never done wrong. Let me go to him." 
 
 " Not to-night, Laura. Look at the clock." 
 
 Eleanor pointed to the dial of the timepiece opposite them. 
 It was half-past two o'clock. 
 
 " I will see him to-morrow morning, then, Eleanor. I will see 
 him." 
 
 " Ton shall, my dear ; if you think it wise or right to do so." 
 
 But Laura Mason did not see her lover the next morning ; for 
 when the morning came she was in a burning fever, brought on 
 by the agitation and excitement of the previous night. A 
 medical man was summoned from Windsor to attend upon her ; 
 and Eleanor sat by her bed-side, watching her as tenderly as a 
 mother watches her sick child. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton, too, was very anxious about his ward, and 
 came to the door of Laura's room to make inquiries many times 
 in the course of that day. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYH. 
 
 GETTING OVER IT. 
 
 liATJRA ^BIason was not dangerously ill. Her malady was by no 
 means of a serious nature. The pmk-blossom tint of her cheeks
 
 Oetting Over It. 315 
 
 was intensified into vivid carnation; the turqnoise-blue eyes 
 shone with a feverish hght ; the httle hands were very hot and 
 dry. It was in vain that the physician from Windsor prescribed 
 eomposing draughts. His patient would not be quiet or com- 
 posed. In vain Eleanor tried to soothe the wounded spirit. It 
 would not be at rest. 
 
 " It's no use, Nelly," the invahd cried, impatiently. " I must 
 talk of him ; I must talk of my sorrows, unless you want me to 
 go mad. Oh, my poor Launcelot! my own dear Launcelot! 
 now cruel it is to keep me from you ! " 
 
 This was the worst part of the business. Poor Laura was 
 perpetually entreating to be allowed to see Launcelot. Would 
 they let her go to him ; or would they send and ask him to come 
 to her ? They were the most cniel and heartless creatures, if 
 they could refuse to let her see him. 
 
 But Eleanor did refuse. 
 
 " It is impossible, my darling," she said ; " I cannot send for 
 him. It is quite impossible that he and I should ever meet 
 again, except as enemies. The will must be read in a few 
 days. Let us wait till then. If Launcelot Darrell is sorry for 
 what he has done, he will try to undo it. If he is not sorry, 
 and takes possession of the estate upon the strength of a 
 forged will, he must be a villain, unworthy even of your pity, 
 Laura." 
 
 " But I do pity him ; and I love him." 
 
 It was strange to see what a hold this unhappy affection had 
 taken upon Laura's shallow nature. This frivolous girl was as 
 impressionable as she was volatile. The blow was more terrible 
 to her than it would have been to a woman of higher and 
 grander nature ; but to such a woman the consequences of the 
 blow would be, perhaps, life-long, while it was scarcely likely 
 that Laura would suffer for ever. She did not try to endure the 
 grief that had fallen upon her. She was entirely without pride ; 
 and had no more shame in bemoaning her loss of Launcelot 
 Darrell than she would have had fifteen vears before in crying 
 over a broken doll. She did not care who knew her sorrows, 
 and would have made a confidante of the servant who waited 
 npon her if Eleanor had not interfered to prevent her. 
 
 " I'm very miserable and wretched, Jane," she said, while the 
 girl was smoothing her pillows and arranging the tumbled bed- 
 clothes, which had been tmsted into mere wisps of Unen by the 
 perpetual tossings to and fro of the invahd. " I'm the most 
 miserable creature that ever was bom, Jane, and I wish that I 
 was dead. I know it's wicked, but I do. What's the good of 
 Dr. Featherstone prescribing for me, when I don't want to be 
 prescribed for? What's the good of my taking lime-draughts, 
 when I'd much rather die? What's the use of those horrid
 
 316 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 opiates, that taste like stale London porter ? Opiates won't give 
 me back Launce " 
 
 She stopped abruptly at this point, checked by a -waming 
 look from Eleanor. 
 
 " You must not speak of Launcelot DarreU to these people, 
 Laura," Mrs. Monckton said, when the servant had left the 
 room, "unless you want them to suspect that something stranjje 
 has happened." 
 
 " But they'll know it, if my wedding is put off." 
 
 " Your guardiai will explain all that, Laura." 
 
 Miss Mason bemoaned her fate even more piteously than befora 
 
 "It's hard enouuh to be miserable," she cried, "but it's still 
 ■worse to be miseralile, and not to be allowed to say so." 
 
 " Many people have sorrows to endure that cannot be spoken 
 of," Eleanor answered, quietly. " I had to bear the sorrow of 
 my father's death when I dared not speak of it." 
 
 Mrs. Monckton saw very Uttle of her husband during the few 
 "days of Laura's illness. She only saw him, indeed, when he 
 came to the door to make inquiries about his ward ; but even in 
 the few brief sentences exchanged by them, she could perceive 
 that his manner was altered towards her. He had been cold 
 and distant for a long time since their marriage ; but now his 
 manner had the icy reserve of a man who feels that he has been 
 wronged. Eleanor comprehended this, and was sorry for it; 
 but she had a dull, hopeless feehng that nothing she could do 
 •would alter it. The great purpose of her hfe had failed ; and 
 she began to think that nothing but failure could come to any 
 hope of hers. 
 
 This feehng separated her completely from her husband. In 
 her ignorance of the suspicions which tortured him, she could 
 of course make no effort to set him right. The girl's innocence 
 and the man's pride made a gulf that no power of affection could 
 pass. If Eleanor could have guessed, ever so vaguely, at the 
 cause of her husband's reserve, a few words from her might have 
 melted the ice : but she had not the faintest notion of the hidden 
 source from which came those bitter waters that had swept away 
 all outward tokens of her husband's love; and those words re- 
 mained unspoken. Gilbert Monckton thought that if his wife 
 •was not false, she was at least indifferent ; and he bowed hia 
 head before the gloomy face of his Destiny. 
 
 " I am not to be loved," he said. " Good-bye once more to 
 that dream. And let me try to do my duty, and be in some way 
 useful to my fellow-creatures. Half my life has been swallowed 
 up by egotistical regrets. May God give me grace to use the 
 remnant of it more wisely." 
 
 He had told Eleanor that as soon as Laura was a little better 
 be should take her to the seaside.
 
 Getting Over It. 817 
 
 " The poor child cannot remain here," he said ; " every gossip 
 in the neighbourhood will be eager to know why the wedding is 
 postponed; and unless we assign some simple reason for the 
 change in our arrangements, there will be no limit to people's 
 Bpecnlations and conjectures. Laura's illness will be the best 
 possible excuse; and I will take her to the south of France. 
 She may forget Launcelot Darrell by-and-by, when she finde 
 herself in a strange place, surrounded by new associations." 
 
 Eleanor eagerly assented to tliis. 
 
 "Nothing could be wiser than such an arrangement," she 
 'answered. " I almost think the poor gii-1 would die if she re- 
 mained here. Everytliing reminds her of her disappointment." 
 
 " Very well, then, I shall take her to Nice as soon as she is 
 well enough to go. Will you tell her that I mean to do so, and 
 try and make her feel some interest in the idea of the change ?" 
 
 Eleanor Monckton had a very hard time of it in the sick room. 
 Those frivolous people who feel their misfortunes very acutely 
 for the time being, are apt to throw a heavy share of their bur- 
 den upon the shoulders of their friends. Laura's lamentations 
 were very painful and not a little monotonous to hear; and 
 there was a great deal of hard work to be done in the way of 
 going over the same ground again and again, for that young 
 lady's consolation. She had no idea of turning her face to the 
 wall and suffering in silence. Her manner had none of that 
 artificial calm which often causes uneasiness to those who watch 
 a beloved sufferer through some terrible crisis. Everything re- 
 minded her of her grief; and she would not be courageous enough 
 to put away the things that recalled her sorrows. She could 
 not draw a curtain over the bright picture of the past, and turn 
 her lace resolutely to the blank future. She was for ever looking 
 hack, and bewailuig the beaiity of that vanished hope, and in- 
 sisting that the dream palace was not utterly ruined ; that it 
 might be patched up again somehow or another ; not to be what 
 it was before ; that was impossible, of course ; but to be soiiie- 
 thing. The broken vase could surely be pieced together, and the 
 «cent of the faded roses would hang round it still. 
 
 " If he repents, I will marry him, Eleanor," she said, at the 
 end of almost every argument, " and we will go to Italy and bo 
 happy together, and he will be a great painter. Nobody would 
 dare to say he had committed a forgery if he was a great painter 
 like Holman Hunt, or ]\Ir. iMillais. We'll go to Rome together, 
 Nelly, and he shall study the old masters, and sketch peasants 
 from the life ; and I won't mind even if they're pretty ; though 
 it isn't pleasant to have one's husband always sketching pretty 
 peasants ; and that will divert his mind, you know." 
 
 For four days Laura was ordered to keep to her bed, and 
 during that time Eleanor rarely quitted the invaUd's apartment*
 
 318 ^Eleanors Victory. 
 
 only taking brief snatches of rest in an easy-chair by the fire in 
 Laura's dressing-room. On the fifth day Miss Mason was allowed 
 to get up, and then there were ten-ible scenes to be gone through ; 
 for the young lady insisted upon having her trousseau spread 
 out u^Don the bed, and the chair, and the sofas, and hung upon 
 every available peg in the two rooms ; until both those apart- 
 ments became a very forest of finery, about wliich the invalid 
 prowled perpetually, indulging in a separate fit of weeping over 
 each garment. 
 
 " Look at this darling parasol, Nelly," she cried, gazing at the 
 tiny canopy of silk and whalebone with streaming eyes ; " isn't 
 the real point lace over the pale pink silk lovely ? And then it's 
 so becoming to the complexion, too ! Oh, how happy I thought 
 I shoidd be when I had this parasol. I thought I should drive 
 
 on the Corso with Launcelot, and now ! And the violet 
 
 satin boots with high heels, Nelly, made on purpose to wear with 
 my violet sUk dress ; I thought nobody could be unhappy with 
 such tilings as those, and now ! " 
 
 Every speech ended in fresh tears, which sometimes trickled 
 over a shining silken garment, and flecked the lustrous fabric with 
 spots of water that took the brightness out of the splendid hues. 
 
 " To tliink that I should be so miserable as to cry over silk at 
 nine and sixpence a yard, and not to care ! " exclaimed Laura 
 Mason ; as if, in these words, she described the highest angxiish- 
 point that human misery can reach. 
 
 She had a few presents given her by Launcelot ; they were 
 very few, and by no means valuable ; for Mr. Darrell, as we know 
 was essentially selfish, and did not care to spend his small stock 
 of money upon other people ; and she sat -with these trifles in 
 her lap for hours together, lamenting over them, and talking 
 about them. 
 
 " There's my silver thimble — my dear, darling Uttle silver 
 thimble," she said, perching the scrap of gUstening metal upon 
 her little finger, and kissing it with that degree of rapture which 
 the French vaudeviUeists call "explosion!" — "that nasty, 
 spiteful Ameha Shalders said a silver tliinible was a vulgar pre- 
 sent, just what a carpenter, or any other common man, would 
 have given to his sweetheart, and that Launcelot ought to have 
 given me a ring or a bracelet ; as if he could go buying rings and 
 Bracelets without any money. And I don't care whether my 
 thimble's vulgar or not, and I love it dearly, because he gave it 
 me. And I'd do lots of needlework for the sake of using it, 
 only I never could learn to use a tliimble — quite. It always seems 
 so much easier to work without one, though it does make a hole in 
 the top of one's finger. Then there's my tablets ! Nobody can 
 say that ivory tablets are vulgar. My darling httle tablets, with the 
 tiny, tiny gold pencil-case," — the gold pencil-case was very tiay
 
 Getting Over It. 319 
 
 — " and the wee mite of a turquoise for a seal. I've tried to 
 write ' Launcelot' upon every leaf, but I don't tliink ivory tablets 
 are the very ricest things to write upon. One's writing' seems 
 to sHde about somehow, as if the pencil was tipsy, and the hues 
 won't come straight. It's hke trying to walk up and down the 
 deck of a steamer ; one goes where one doesn't want to go." 
 
 The bewaiUngs over the trousseau and the presents had a 
 beneficial effect upon the heart-broken invalid. On the evening 
 of the fifth day her sj^irits began to revive a Uttle ; she drank 
 tea with Eleanor at a table by the fire in the dressing-room, and 
 after tea tried on her wedding bonnet and mantle before the 
 cheval glass. 
 
 This performance seemed to have a pecuharl^ consoling effect ; 
 and after sm-veying herself for a long time m the glass, and 
 lamenting the redness of her eyelids, which prevented full justice 
 being done to the beauty of the bonnet, Miss Mason declared 
 that she felt a great deal better, and that she had a presentiment 
 that something would happen, and that eveiything would come 
 right somehow or other. 
 
 As it would have been very cruel to deprive her of this rather 
 vague species of comfort, Eleanor said notliing, and the evening 
 ended almost cheerfully. But the next day was that appointed 
 for Mr. de Crospigny's funeral and the reading of the will ; and 
 Laura's anxiety was now really greater than it had ever been. 
 She could not help beUeving Eleanor's story of the forgery, 
 though she had struggled long against the conviction that had 
 been forced upon her ; and her only hope was that her lover 
 would repent, and suffer his aunts to inherit the wealth which 
 had been no doubt bequeathed to them. Frivolous and shallow 
 as this girl was, she could not for a moment contemplate 
 marrym^ Laimcelot under any other circumstances. She could 
 not tliirik of sharing with him a fortxine that had been gained 
 by fraud. 
 
 " I know he will confess the truth," she said to Eleanor, upon 
 the morning of the funeral ; '' he was led into doing ^vrong by hi3 
 friend that wicked Freuclunan. It was only the impulse of the 
 moment. He has been aorry ever since, I dare say. He will 
 undo what he has done." 
 
 " But if the real will has been destroyed? " 
 
 " Then his two aunts and his mother would share the estate 
 between them. My guardian told me so the other day when I 
 asked him some question about the fortune. And he told 
 Launcelot the same thing that night in the Ubrary, when they 
 had the conversation about my fortune." 
 
 If Laura was anxious upon this eventful day, Eleanor waa 
 ajixious too. It was a new crisis in her Ufe. Would Launcelot 
 Darrell attempt to restore lumself to the position he had occu-
 
 320 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 pied before the night of his uncle's death, or would he hold to 
 that which he might acquire hy his deUberate fraud, and remain 
 a hardened and impenitent criminal, defiant of the law he had 
 outraged ? 
 
 CHAPTER XLVHL 
 
 THE READING OF THE WILL. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton went up to Woodlands immediately after 
 the funeral, in order to be present at the reading of the will. He 
 felt that he had a right to see the end of this business, in which 
 his wife had played so extraordinary a part. The will was to 
 be read by Henry Law ford's clerk, in the sitting-room, or study, 
 which Maurice de Crt'^pigny had occiapied for many years before 
 his death. 
 
 There were a great many people who, Hke Gilbert Monckton, 
 thought they had a nght to be present upon tliis occasion; 
 people who had been kept out of the old man's house by the rigid 
 watchfulness and the inflexible will of the two maiden ladies for 
 the last twenty years or so, but who were freely admitted now, 
 as no longer capable of doing mischief. All manner of distant 
 relationships, so remote as to be almost untraceable, came to 
 light upon this occasion : cousins by marriage ; sisters-in-law of 
 dead first cousins, once removed ; widowers who attached them- 
 selves to the house of Crespigny by right of departed wives; 
 widows who declared themselves near relations on the strength 
 of claims held by defunct husbands ; poor connections who came 
 on foot, and who were so poor that it was really an impertinence 
 in them to expect the smallest legacy; rich coimections who 
 came in splendid carriages, and who seemed even more eager for 
 any stray twenty pounds for a mourning ring that might be 
 set against their names, than the poorest of the brotherhood. 
 And indeed these owners of splendid carriages might have been 
 needier than the dusty and weather-beaten pedestrians; for when 
 people try to make fifteen hundred a-year do the work of three 
 thousand, every accidental twenty pounds is a God-send to them. 
 
 However it might be, everybody in the Woodlands drawing- 
 room upon that particular morning was influenced by the same 
 feeling, a compound sensation of hope and distrust, expectancy 
 and despair. Surely there could never before have been so 
 many eager faces assembled together in the same small space. 
 Every face, young or old, handsome or ugly, aristocratic or ple- 
 beian, wore the same expression; and had thus a common like- 
 ness, which bore out the idea of some tie of relationship binding 
 the whole assembly. 
 
 Every one regarded his or her neighbour as the possible in- 
 heritor of something worth having, and therefore a personal
 
 The Beading of tie Will. 821 
 
 enemy. Smiling relations were suspected of being acquainted 
 with the contents of the will, and secretly rejoicing in the cer- 
 tainty of their own names being pleasantly mentioned therein. 
 Frowning relations were looked at darkly as pnjbable arch- 
 plotters who had worked upon the mind of the dead man. Dif- 
 fident relations were feared as toadies and sycophants, who had 
 no doubt plied Mr. de Crespigny with artful flatteries. Con- 
 fident relations were dreaded as people who perhaps had some 
 aecret chiim upon the estate, and were silently gloating" over 
 the excellence of their chances. Every one of these outsiders 
 hated each other vnth. vengeful and murderous hate ; but they 
 all sympathized in a far deeper hatred of the four fa^urites for 
 these great legacy stakes, the two maiden ladies, Mrs. Darrell, 
 and her son. It was almost certain that one or other of these 
 four people would inherit the Woodlands property, and the bulk 
 of the dead man's fortune ; unless, indeed, by one of those 
 caprices common to eccentric valetudinarians, he should have 
 left his wealth to some distant connexion, who had been too 
 proud to toady him — and had, moreover, never had the chance of 
 doing so. Yes, the three nieces and Launcelot were the 
 first favourites in this eager race ; and the outsiders speculated 
 freely amongst themselves as to the chances and the " condition " 
 >f these four fortunate creatures. And if the outsiders hated 
 each other desperately for the sake of very small chances, how 
 much more des^^erate must have been the feelings of these four 
 who were to enter for the great stake. 
 
 Launcelot Darreli met Mr. Monckton this morning for the 
 first time since that strange scene upon the night of Maurice de 
 Crespigny's death. The young man had called at Tc^lldale 
 Priory during the interval, but both the lawyer and his ward 
 had been denied to him. 
 
 Perhaps amongst all those assembled in the chamber which 
 had so lately been tenanted by the dead man, there was not one 
 more painfully anxious than Gilbert Monckton, into whose mind 
 no mercenary thought had ever entered. 
 
 It was in the hope of seeing his wife justified that Mr. 
 Monckt*-)n had come to "Woodlands upon this day. He had 
 brooded over Eleanor's denunciation of Launcelot Darrell per- 
 petually during the week that had elapsed since the old man's 
 death ; but the more he pondered upon that passionate accusation 
 the more bewildered and perplexed he became. 
 
 Let it be remembered that he was a man whose nature had 
 been rendered jealous and suspicious by one cruel deception 
 which had embittered his youth and soured a generous disposi- 
 tion. His mind was penetrated with the idea that Eleanor had 
 never loved him, and that she had loved Launcelot Darrell. 
 This belief was the tonnentiag spirit, the insidious demon
 
 822 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 which had hold possession of his breast ever since his briel 
 honeymoon on the northern coast. He could not dismiss it all 
 in a moment. The fiend was in possession, and was not very 
 easily to be exorcised. That vehement demmciation, that pas- 
 sionate accusation which had rushed, impetuous and angry, 
 from Eleanor Monckton's lijis, might be the outburst of a jealous 
 woman's fury, and might have its root in love. Eleanor had 
 loved this young man, and was indignant against him for his 
 intended marriage with Laura. If the desire to avenge her 
 father's death had alone actuated her, surely this passionate 
 girl would have spohen before now. It was thus that Gilbert 
 Moncktorf argued. He did not know how eager Eleanor had 
 been to speak, and how she had only been held back by the 
 worldly wisdom of Richard Thornton. How should he know 
 the long trial of patience, the bitter struggle between the prompt- 
 ings of passion and the cold arguments of policy which his wife 
 had endured P He knew nothing excej^t that something — -some 
 secret — some master passion — had absorbed her soul, and sepa- 
 rated her from him. 
 
 He stood aloof in the dead man's study while Mr. Lamb, the 
 clerk, a grey-haired old man, with a nervous manner and down- 
 cast eyes, arranged his papers ujjon a Httle table near the fire, 
 and cleared his throat preparatoiy to commencing the reading 
 of the wiU. 
 
 There was an awful silence in the room, as if everybody's 
 natural respiration had been suspended all in a moment, and 
 then the clerk's low voice began very slowly and hesitatingly 
 with the usual formula. 
 
 " I, Maurice de Crespigny, being at this time," &c., &c. The 
 will was of some length, and as it began with a great many in- 
 significant ]egacies — mourning rings, snuff-boxes, books, antique 
 plate, scraps of valuable china, and small donations of all kinds 
 to distant relations and friends who had been lost sight of on 
 the lonely pathway along which the old man had crawled to his 
 tomb under the grim guardianship of his two warders — the 
 patience of the chief expectants was very sorely tried. But at last, 
 after modest httle annuities to the servants had been mentioned, 
 the important clauses were arrived at. 
 
 To every one of the three sisters, Sarah and Lavinia de Cres- 
 pigny and Ellen Darrell, the testator bequeathed money in the 
 funds to the amount of two hundi-ed a year. All the " rest and 
 residue " of his estate, real and personal, was left to Launcelot 
 Darrell absolutely, without condition or reserve. 
 
 The blood rushed up to the widow's face, and then as suddenly 
 receded, leaving it ghastly white. She held out her hand to her 
 ion, who stood beside her chair, and clasped his clammy fingerg 
 in her own.
 
 The Beading of the Will. 323 
 
 " ITiank God," she said, in a low voice, " yon ka^e g:t your 
 chance at last, Launcelot. I should be content to die to-morrow." 
 The two sisters, pale and venomous, glared at their nephew. 
 But they could only look at him. They could do nothing against 
 liim. He had won and they had lost ; that was all. They felt 
 etrange buzzing noises in their ears, and the carpeted floor of the 
 room seemed reeling up and down Uke the deck of a storm-tossed 
 vessel. This was all that they felt just at present. The shock 
 was so great that its first effect was only to produce a kind of 
 physical numbness which extended even to the brain. 
 
 I don't suppose that either of these elderly ladies, each of 
 whom wore stuff shoes and crisp little curls of unnaturally 
 brown hair upon her forehead, could, by any possibilit}-, have 
 spent upon her own wants more than a hundred j^ounds a year, 
 nor had either of them been accustomed to indulge in the sweet 
 luxury of charity ; they were neither generous nor ambitious. 
 They were entirely without the capacity of spending money 
 either upon themselves or on other people, and yet they had 
 striven as eagerly for the possession of this fortune as ever any 
 proud, ambitious spirit strove lor the golden means by which he 
 hoped to work his way upon the road that leads to glory. 
 
 They were fond of money ; they were fond of money '^er se ; 
 without reference to its uses, either noble or ignoble. They would 
 have been very happy in the possession of their dead kinsman's 
 fortune, though they might have gone down to their graves with- 
 out ha\nng spent so much as the two hundred a year which they 
 received by this cruel will. They would have hoarded the govern- 
 ment securities in an iron safe ; they would have added interest 
 to principal ; they would have nursed tlje lands, and raised the 
 rents, and been hard and griping -w-ith the tenants, and would 
 have counted their gains and calculated together the increase of 
 their wealth ; but they would have employed the same cobbler 
 who had worked for them before their uncle's death ; they would 
 still have given out their stuff shoes to be mended ; and they 
 would have been as sharp as ever as to an odd sixpence in their 
 dealings with the barber who dressed their crisp brown curls. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell kept his place beside his mother's chair, 
 though the reading of the will was finished, and the clerk was 
 folding the sheets upon which it was written. Never had any 
 living creature shown less elation than this young man did upon 
 his accession to such a very large fortune. 
 
 Mr. Monckton went up to the Httle table at which the lawyer's 
 ilerk sat, folding up the papers. 
 
 " AVUl you let me look at that will for a moment, Mr. Lamb ?" 
 he asked. 
 
 The clerk looked up at him with an expression of surprise, 
 
 " You wish to look at it?——" be said, hesitating a httle.
 
 324 Eleanor** Victory. 
 
 " Tes. Thei'e is no objection to my doing so, is there ? It 
 will be sent to Doctors' Commons, I suppose, where anybody 
 will be able to look at it for a shilling." 
 
 The clerk handed Gilbert Monckton the document with a feeble 
 Httle laugh. 
 
 " There it is, Mr. Monckton," he said. " You remember your 
 own signature, I dare say; you'll find it there along with mine." 
 
 Yes, there was the signature. It is not a very easy thing for 
 the cleverest man, who is not a professional expert, to decide 
 upon the authenticity of his own autograph. There it was. 
 Gilbert Monckton looked at the familiar signature, and tried in 
 vain to find some flaw in it. If it was a forgery, it was a very 
 skilful one. The lawyer remembered the date of the wiU which 
 he had witnessed, and the kind of paper upon which it had been 
 written. The date and the paper of this corresponded with that 
 recollection. 
 
 The body of the will was in the handwriting of the clerk him- 
 self. It was written upon three sheets of foolscap paper, and the 
 signatures of the testator and the two witnesses were repeated 
 at the bottom of every page. Every one of the three autographs 
 differed from the others in some trifling poiat, and this circum- 
 stance, small in itself, had considerable influence upon GUbert 
 Monckton. 
 
 " If this will had been a forgery, prepared by Launcelot Dar- 
 rell, the signatures would have been fac-similes of each other," 
 thought the lawyer ; " that is a mistake which forgers almost 
 always fall into. They forget that a man very rarely signs his 
 name twice alike. They get hold of one autograph and stereo- 
 type it." 
 
 What was he to think, then? If this will was genuine, 
 Eleanor's accusation must be a falsehood. Could he beheve 
 this ? Could he believe that his wife was a jealous and vindic- 
 tive woman, capable of inventing a He in order to avenge herself 
 upon the infidelity of the man she had loved ? To believe this 
 would be most everlasting misery. Yet how could Gilbert 
 Monckton think otherwise, if the \vill was genuine ? Everything 
 hinged upon that, and every proof was wanting against Launcelot 
 DarreU. The housekeeper, Mrs. Jepcott, declared most distinctly 
 that nobody had entered the dead man's room or touched the 
 keys upon the table by the bed. This alone, if the woman's word 
 was to be depended upon, gave the He to Eleanor's story. 
 
 But this was not all. The wiU was in every particular th* 
 very opposite of such a will as would be Hkely to be the work of 
 a forger. 
 
 It contained legacies to old friends of the dead man whom he 
 had not himself seen for twenty years, and whose very names 
 must have been unkBOwn to Launcelot DarreU. It was the will
 
 The Beading of the Will. 325 
 
 of a man whose mind lived almost entirely in the past. There 
 was a gold snuff-box bequeathed " to my friend Peter Sedgewick, 
 who was stroke in the Magdalen boat at Henley-on-the-Thames, 
 fifty-seven years ago, when I was six in the same boat; " there 
 was an onyx shirt-pin left " to my old boon companion Henry 
 Laurence, who dined with me at the Beefsteak Club with George 
 Vane and Richard Briosley Sheridan on my birthday." The 
 will was fuU of personal recollections dated fifty years back ; 
 and how was it possible that Launcelot Darrell could have fabri- 
 cated such a will ; when by Eleanor's own admission he had no 
 access to the genuine document until he came to substitute the 
 forgery after his uncle's death? The forgery must therefore, 
 Gilbert Monckton argued, have been prepared while the young 
 man was in utter ignorance as to the tenor of the actual will, 
 according to Eleanor's story ; and this, the lawyer reasoned, was 
 proof conclusive against his wife. 
 
 Launcelot could not have fabricated such a will as this. This 
 will, therefore, was genuine, and Eleanor's accusation had been 
 only prompted by a sudden burst of jealous rage, which had made 
 her almost indifferent to consequences. Mr. Monckton examined 
 the signatures agfiin and again, and then, looking very sharply at 
 the clerk, said, in a low voice — 
 
 *' The body of this will is in your handwriting, I beheve, Mr. 
 LambP" 
 
 " It is, sir." 
 
 " Can you swear that this is the genxune document ; the same 
 will which you wrote and witnessed ? " 
 
 " Most decidedly," the clerk answered, with a look of astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Yon have no suspicion whatever as to its authenticity P " 
 
 " No, sir, none ! Have you any suspicion, Mr. Monckton P " 
 he added, after a moment's pause. 
 
 The lawyer sighed heavily. 
 
 " No," he said, giving the paper back to the clerk ; " I beUeve 
 the will is genuine." 
 
 Just at this moment there was a stir in the assembly, 
 and Gilbert Monckton turned round to see what was taking 
 place. 
 
 It was Mrs. Jepcott, the housekeeper, who was saying some- 
 thing to which everybody Ustened intently. 
 
 The reason of this attention which the housekeeper's smallest 
 word received from every member of that assembly, was the fact 
 that she held a paper in her hand. Every eye was fixed upon 
 this paper. It might be a codicil revoking the will, and making 
 an entirely new disposition of the property. 
 
 Faint streaks of red began to hght up the wan cheeks of the 
 two old maida, and Launcelot Darrell grew more Uvid than death.
 
 326 JEleanor's Victory. 
 
 But it was not a codicil ; it was only a letter written by Maurice 
 de Cresi^igny, and addressed to his three nieces. 
 
 " The night before my poor dear master died," the housekeeper 
 said, " I was sitting up with him all alone, and he called me to 
 him, and he told me to fetch him his dressing-gown, which he'd 
 been wearing all through his illness, whenever he sat up ; and I 
 fetched it ; and he took a sealed letter out of the breast-pocket, 
 >and he said to me, ' Jepcott, when my will is read, I expect my 
 three nieces will be very much disappointed and will think I have 
 not treated them fairly ; so I've written them a letter, begging 
 them not to be angry with me after I'm dead and gone : and I 
 want you to keep it, and take care of it, until the will has been 
 read, and then give it to my eldest niece, Sarah, to read aloud to 
 her two sisters in the presence of everybody.' And this is the 
 letter, miss," added Mrs. Jepcott, handing the sealed letter to 
 Sarah de Crespigny. 
 
 " Thank God ! " thought Gilbert Monckton, " I shall Icnow 
 now whether the will is genuine. If it is a fabrication, this letter 
 must bring detection upon the forger." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 DESERTED. 
 
 The letter written by the old man to his three nieces was read 
 aloud by Miss Sarah in the presence of the eager assembly. 
 Amongst aU those anxious hsteners there was no one who Hb- 
 tened more intently than Gilbert Monckton. 
 
 Maurice de Crespigny's letter was not a long one. 
 
 " My deak Nieces — Sarah, Lavinia, and Ellen, — 
 
 " You wiU all three be perhaps much surprised at the 
 manner in which I have disposed of my estate, both real and 
 personal ; but believe me that in acting as I have done I have 
 been prompted by no unkind feehng against you ; nor am I 
 otherwise than duly grateful for the attention which I have 
 received from you during my declining years. 
 
 " I think that I have done my duty ; but be that as it may, I 
 nave done that which it has been my fixed intention to do for the 
 last ten years. I have made several wills, and destroyed one 
 after another, but they have all been in the main point to the 
 same effect; and it has only been an old man's whimsical fancy 
 that has prompted me to make sundry alterations in minor 
 details. The income of two hundred a year which I have left to 
 c-ach of you will, I know, be more than enough for your simple 
 wants. The three incomes, by the wording of my will, will 
 descend to my nephew, Launcelot DarreU, after your deaths.
 
 Deserted. 827 
 
 " I have tried to remember many old friends who have perhaps 
 lonpf ere this forgotten me, or who may laugh at an old man'a 
 foolish bequests. 
 
 " I do not believe that I have wronged any one ; and I trust 
 that 3'ou Nvill think kindly of me when I am in my grave, and 
 never speak bitterly of " Your affectionate uncle, 
 
 " MAUlUCIi DE CkESPIGNT. 
 
 " Woodlands, February 20th." 
 
 This was the old man's letter. There was not one syllable of 
 its contents which in any way disagreed with the wording of the 
 will. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell drew a long breath ; and his mother, sitting 
 close to him, with her hand in his, could feel the clammy coldness 
 of his fingers, and heai- the loud thumping of his heart against 
 his breast. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton took up his hat and walked out of the room. 
 He did not want to have any explanation with the man whom he 
 fully beUeved — in spite of all Eleanor had said — to be the fortu- 
 nate rival who had robbed him of every chance of ever winning 
 his wife's heart. 
 
 He had only one feehng now; and that was the same feeling 
 which had taken possession of him twenty years before — an 
 eager desire to run away, to escape from his troubles and per- 
 plexities, to get free ot this horrible atmosphere of deceit and 
 De\\iklerment ; to cast every hope, every dream behind ; and to 
 go out into the world once more, joyless, unloved, hopeless ; but, 
 at any rate, not the dupe of a false woman's specious pretences. 
 
 He went strai'jfht back to Tolldale while the crowd at Wood- 
 lands slowly dispersed, more or less discontented with the day's 
 Eroceedings. He went back to the grand old mansion in which 
 e had never known happiness. He asked whether his wife was 
 with Miss Mason. No, the man told him ; Mrs. Monckton was 
 in her own room, lying down. 
 
 Tliis was the very thing he wished. He didn't want to see 
 Eleanor's beautiful face, framed in shining bands of hazel-brown 
 hair ; that irresistible face whose influence he dared not trust. 
 He wanted to see his ward alone. 
 
 Laura ran out of her dressing-room at the sound of her 
 guardian's footstep. 
 
 " Well ! " she cried, " is it a forgery P " 
 
 " Hush, Laura ; go back into your room." 
 
 Miss Mason obeyed, and IMr. Monckton followed her into the 
 pretty little apartment, which was a modern bower of shining 
 maplewood and flowery chintz, and flimsy lace and muslin, 
 firivolous and airy as the young lady herself. 
 
 " fciit dowu in a comfortable seat, guardian
 
 328 . Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 ing the lawyer a slippery cMntz-covered lounging-chair, so low as 
 to bring Mr. Monckton's knees inconveniently near his cliin aa 
 he sat m it. " Sit down and tell me all about it, for goodness 
 gracious sake. Is it forged? " 
 
 " I don't know, my dear, whether the will is genuine or not. 
 It would be a very difficult question to decide." 
 
 " But oh ! good gracious me," exclaimed Miss Mason, " how- 
 can you be so unkind as to talk about it like that, as if it didn't 
 matter a bit whether the will is forged or not. If it isn't forged, 
 Launcelot isn't bad; and if he isn't bad, of course I maj 
 marry him, and the wedding things won't be all wasted. J 
 knew that something would happen to make everything come 
 right." 
 
 " Laura," cried Mr. Monckton, " you must not talk Uke this. 
 Do you know that you are no longer a child, and that you are 
 dealing with the most solemn business in a woman's life P I do 
 not know whether the will by which Launcelot Darrell inherits 
 the Woodlands property is genuine or not ; I certainly have 
 reason to thinh that it is genuine, but I will not take upon 
 myself to speak positively. But however that may be, I know 
 that he is not a good man, and you shall never marry bim with 
 my consent." 
 
 The young lady began to cry, and murmured sometliing to the 
 effect that it was cruel to use her so when she was ill, and 
 had been taking oceans of lime-draughts; but Mr. Monckton 
 was inflexible. 
 
 " If you were to have a dozen illnesses such as this," he said, 
 " they would not turn me from my purpose or alter my determi- 
 nation. When I voluntarily took upon myself the custody of 
 your life, Laura, I undertook that charge with the intention 
 of accomplishing it as a sacred duty. I have faltered in that 
 duty; for I suffered you to betroth yourself to a man whom 
 I have never been able to trust. But it is not yet too late to 
 repair that error. You shall nev<^r marry Launcelot DarreU." 
 
 " Why not ? If he didn't commit a forgery, as Eleanor saya 
 he did, why shouldn't I marry him ? " 
 
 " Because he has never truly loved you, Laura. You admit 
 that he was Eleanor's suitor before be was yours P You admit 
 that, do you not?" 
 
 Miss Mason pouted, and sobbed, and choked once or tvdce 
 before she answered. Gilbert Monckton waited impatiently for 
 her reply. He was about as fit to play the Mentor as the young 
 lady whom he had taken upon himself to lecture. He was 
 blinded and maddened by passionate regret, cruel disappoint- 
 ment, wounded pride, every feeUng which is most calculated to 
 paralyze a man's reasoning power, and transform a Salomon into 
 afooL
 
 Deserted. 329 
 
 "Yes," Laura gasped at last; "he did propose to Eleanor 
 first, certainly. But then she led him on." 
 
 " She led liim on ! " cried Mr. Monckton. " How ? " 
 
 Laura looked at him with a perj)lexed expression of counte- 
 nance, before she replied to tliis eager question. 
 
 " Oh, 1/oit know ! " she said, after a pause; " I can't exactly 
 describe how she led him on, but she did lead him on. She 
 walked with him, and she talked to him ; they were always 
 talking together and leaving me out of the conversation, which 
 was very rude of them, to say the least, for if I wasn't intellectual 
 enough for them, and couldn't quite understand what they were 
 
 talking about — for Launcelot would talk meta what's its 
 
 namer' you know; and who could understand such conversation 
 as th.at ? — they might have talked about tilings I do understand, 
 Buch as Byron and Tennyson. And then she took an interest 
 in his pictures, and talked about chiaro — thingembob, and fore- 
 shortening, and middle distances, and things just like an artist- 
 And then she used to let him smoke in the breakfast-parlour 
 when she was giving me my music lessons ; and I should hke to 
 know who could play cinquapated passages in time, ^\'ith the 
 smell of tobacco in their nose, and a fidgety young man reading 
 a crackling newspaper, and killing flies -svith his pocket-handker- 
 chief against the window. And then she sat lor Rosalind in his 
 picture. But, good gracious me, it's no good going all over it ; 
 she led him on." 
 
 Mr. Monckton sighed. There wasn't much in what his ward 
 had said, but there was quite enough. Eleanor and Launcelot 
 had been happy and confidential together. They had talked of 
 metaphysics, and Hterature, and poetry, and painting. The 
 young artist had lounged away the summer mornings, smoking 
 and idling in Miss Vane's society. 
 
 There was very little in all this, certainly, but quite as much 
 as there generally is in the history of a modem love affair. The 
 age of romance is gone, with tournaments, and troubadours, and 
 knight errantry , and if a young gentleman now-a-days spends 
 money in the purchase of a private box at Covent Garden, and 
 an extra guinea for a bouquet, or procures tickets for a fashion- 
 able flower-show, and is content to pass the better part of his 
 mornings amidst the expensive Utter of a drawing-room, watching 
 the white fingers of his beloved in the messy mysteries of Decal- 
 comanie, he may be supposed to be quite as sincerely devoted as 
 if he were to plant his lady's point-lace parasol cover in his 
 helmet, and gallop away with a view to having his head spUt 
 open in her service. 
 
 Mr. Monckton hid his face m his hands and pondered ovel 
 what he had heard. Yes, his ward's foolish talk revealed to him 
 all the secrets of his wife's l»fiart. He could see the prettjj
 
 330 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 sunny morning-room, the young man lounging in the open 
 window, with fluttering rose-leaves all about his handsome head. 
 He could sec Eleanor seated at the piano, making believe to listen 
 to her pupil, and glancing back at her lover. He made the 
 prettiest cabinet picture out of these materials for his owa 
 torment. 
 
 " Do you think Eleanor ever loved Launcelot Darrell P " he 
 asked, by-and-by. 
 
 "Do I think so ? " cried Miss Mason. "Why, of course I do; 
 and that's why she tries to persuade me not to many him. I 
 love her, and she's very good to me," Laura added, hastily, half 
 ashamed of having spoken unkindly of the friend who had been 
 so patient with her during the last few days. " I love her very 
 dearly ; but if she hadn't cared for Launcelot Darrell, why did 
 ehe go against my marrying him ? " 
 
 Gilbert Monckton groaned aloud. Tes, it must be so. Eleanor 
 had loved Launcelot, and her sudden anger, her violent emotion, 
 had arisen out of her jealousy. She was not a devoted daughter, 
 nursing a dream of vengeance against her dead father'sfoe; but 
 a jealous and vindictive woman, bent upon avenging an infidelity 
 against herself. 
 
 " Laura," said Mr. Monckton, " call your maid, ajad tell her to 
 pack your things without a moment's delay." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 *' I am going to take you abroad, — immediately." 
 
 " Oh, good gracious ! And Eleanor " 
 
 " Eleanor will stay here. You and I will go to Nice,_ Laura, 
 and cure ourselves of our follies — if we can. Don't bring any 
 unnecessary load of luggage. Have your most useful dresses 
 and your linen packed in a couple of portmanteaus, and let all 
 be ready in an hour's time. We must leave Windsor by the 
 four o'clock train." 
 
 " And my wedding things — what am I to do with them ? " 
 
 " Pack them up. Bum them, if you Hke," answered GUbert 
 Monckton, leaving his ward to get over her astonishment as she 
 best might. 
 
 He encountered her maid in the passage. 
 
 " Miss Mason's portmanteau must be packed in an hour, Jane," 
 said. " I am going to take her away at once for change of air." 
 
 Mr. Monckton went down stairs to his study, and shutting 
 himself in, wrote a very long letter, the composition of which 
 seemed to give him a great deal of trouble. 
 
 He looked at his watch when this letter was finished, folded, 
 and addressed. It was a quarter past two. He went up stairs 
 once more to Laura's dressintj-room, and found that younglady 
 in the wildest state of confusion, doinfj all in her power to hinder 
 her maid, under the pretence of assisting her.
 
 Oilhert's Letter. 831 
 
 " Put on your bonnet and shawl and go down stairs, Laura/' 
 Mr. Monckton said, decisively. "Jane will never succeed in 
 packing those portmanteaus while you are fids^'cting her. Go 
 down into the drawing-room, and wait there till the boxes are 
 packed and we're ready to start." 
 
 " But mustn't I go and say good-bye to Eleanor? " 
 
 " Is she still in her own room ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," the maid answered, looking up from the portman- 
 teau before which she was kneehng. "I peeped into Lire. 
 Monckton's room just now, and she was fast asleep. She has 
 had a great deal of fatigue in nursing ]\Iiss ]\Iason." 
 
 " Very well, then, she had better not be disturbed." 
 
 " But if I'm going to Nice," remonstrated Laura, " I can't go 
 BO far away -without saying good-bye to Eleanor. She has been 
 very kind to me, you know." 
 
 " I have changed my mind," Mr. Monckton said ; " I've been 
 tliinking over the matter, and I've decided on not taking yon to 
 Nice. Torquay will do just as well." 
 
 Miss Mason made a wry face. 
 
 " I thought I was to have change of scene," she said ; " Tor- 
 quay isn't change of scene, for I went there once when I was a 
 child. I might have forgotten Launcelot in quite a strange 
 place, where pecj-ve tnlk bad French and wear wooden shoes, and 
 everything is difl'aren^ ; '^ut I shall never forget him at Torquay." 
 
 Gilbert Monckton did not notice his ward's lamentation. 
 
 " Miss Mason will want you ^vith her, Jane," he said to the 
 girl. "You will get yourself ready, please, as soon as you've 
 packed those portmanteaMH." 
 
 He went down stairs again, gave his orders about a carriage to 
 take him to the station, and then walked up and down the 
 drawing-room waiting for his ward. 
 
 In half-an-hour both she utid her maid were ready. The port- 
 manteaus were put into the carriage — the mail phaeton which 
 had brought Eleanor to Hay.iewood two years before — and ]\Ir. 
 Monckton drove away from ToUdale Priory without having 
 uttered a word of adieu to his wife. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 gilbekt's lettee. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when Eleanor awoke, aroused by 
 the clanging of the dinner-bell in the cupola above her head. 
 She had been worn out by lier patient attendance upon Laura 
 during the last week, and had slept very heavily, in sjiite of her 
 anxiety to hear what had happened at the reading of the wilL 
 She had seen very httle of her husband since the night of Mr.
 
 332 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 de Crespigny's death, and, thougli the coldness and restraint of 
 his manner had much distressed her, she had no idea that he 
 was actually ahenated from her, or that he had suffered hia 
 mind to become fiUed with suspicions agaiast her. 
 
 She opened the door of her room, went out into the corridor, 
 and listened. But all was very still. She could only hear the 
 faint jingling of glass and silver in the hall below, as the old 
 butler went to and fro putting the finishing touches to the 
 dinner-table. 
 
 " Mr. Monckton might have come to me to tell me about the 
 win," she thought : " he must surely know how anxious I am to 
 hear what has been done." 
 
 She bathed her flushed face, and dressed for dinner as usual. 
 She put on a black silk dress out of respect for her father's 
 friend, whose funeral had been solemnized during her sleep, and 
 with a black lace shawl upon her shoulders she went down stairs 
 to look for her husband. 
 
 She found all very quiet — unnaturally quiet. It is strange 
 how soon the absence of an accustomed inhabitant makes itself 
 felt in a house, however quiet the habits of that missing person. 
 Eleanor looked into the drawing-room and the study, and found 
 them both empty. 
 
 "Where is Mr. Monckton P" she asked of the old butler. 
 
 " Gone, ma'am." 
 
 "Gone!" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am; two hours ago, a'most. You knew he was 
 going, didn't you, ma'am?" 
 
 The old man's curiosity was excited by Eleanor's look of sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Didn't you know as master was a-going to take Miss Mason 
 away to the seaside for change of air, ma'am ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I knew that he was going to do so, but not imme- 
 diately. Did Mr. Monckton leave no message for me?" 
 
 "He left a letter, ma'am. It's on the mantelpiece in the 
 study." 
 
 Eleanor went to her husband's room with her heart beating 
 high, and her cheeks flushed with indignation against him for 
 the shght he had put upon her. Yes ; there was the letter, 
 sealed with his signet-ring. He was not generally in the habit 
 of sealing his letters, so he must have looked upon this as one of 
 some importance. Mrs. Monckton tore open the envelope. She 
 turned pale as she read the first few lines of the letter. It was 
 written over two sheets of note paper, and began thus : — 
 
 " Eleanok, — 
 
 " When I asked you to be my wife I told you that in my 
 early youth I had been deceived by a woman whom I loved veiy
 
 GHlhert'8 Letter. 833 
 
 dearly, thonj^h not aa dearly as I have since loved you. I told 
 you this, and I implored you to remember my blighted youth, 
 and to have pity upon me. I entreated you to spare me the 
 anguish of a second betrayal, a second awakening from my 
 dream of happiness. 
 
 " Surely, it you had not been the most cruel of women, you 
 would have been touched by the knowledge that I ha(? oJready 
 suffered so bitterly from a woman's treachery, and yOt. „-uld 
 have had mercy upon me. But you had no mercy. It suited 
 
 Jrou to come back to this neighbourhood, to be near your former 
 over, Launcelot Darrell." 
 
 The letter dropped from Eleanor's hands as ehe read these 
 words. 
 
 " My former lover !" she cried ; " mv lover, Launcelot Darrell ! 
 Can my husband think that ? Can he think that I ever loved 
 Launcelot Darrell ? " 
 
 She picked up the letter and seated herself at her husband's 
 writing-table. Then she deUberately reperused the first page of 
 the la\vyer's epistle. 
 
 "How could he write such a letter?" she exclaimed, indig- 
 nantly. " How could he think such cruel things of me after I 
 had told him the truth — after I had revealed the secret of my 
 life?" 
 
 She went on with the letter : — 
 
 "From the hour of our return to Tolldale, Eleanor," wrote 
 Gilbert Monckton, " I knew the truth — the hard and cruel truth 
 — very difficult for a man to believe, when he has built up his 
 life and mapped out a happy future under the influence of a 
 delusion which leaves him desolate when it melts away. I knew 
 the worst. I watched you as a man only watches the woman 
 upon whose truth his every hope depends, and I saw that you 
 etill loved Launcelot DarreU. By a hundred evidences, small in 
 themselves, but damning when massed together, you betrayed 
 your secret. You had made a mercenary marriage, looking to 
 worldly advantages to counterbalance your sacrifice of feeling ; 
 and you found too late that the sacrifice was too hard for you 
 to bear. 
 
 " I watched you day by day, and hour by hour ; and I saw 
 that as the time for Laura's marriage approached, you grew 
 hourly more unhappy, more restless, more impatient and capri- 
 tious in your maimer towards Launcelot. 
 
 " On the night of Maurice de Crespigny's death the storm 
 iarst. You met Launcelot Darrell in the Woodlands garden- 
 perhaps by chance, perhaps by appointment. You tried to dis- 
 tuade him against the marriage with Laura, as you had tried to
 
 334 Eleanor's Victory 
 
 dissuade Lanra from marrying him; and, failing in this, you 
 gave way to a frenzy of jealousy, and accused your false lover of 
 an impossible crime. 
 
 " Kemember, Eleanor, I accuse you of no deadly sin, no deli- 
 ierate treachery to rae. The wrong you have done me Kes in 
 the fact that you married me while your heart was still given 
 to another. I give you credit for having tried to conquer thai 
 fatal attachment, and I attribute your false accusations against 
 Launcelot Darrell to a mad impulse of jealousy, rather than the 
 studied design of a base woman. I try to think well of you, 
 Eleanor, for I have loved you most dearly ; and the new life that 
 I had made for myself owed all its brightness to my hope of 
 winning your regard. But it is not to be so. I bow my head 
 to the decree, and I release you from a bond that has no doubt 
 grown odious to you. 
 
 " I beg you, therefore, to write me a final letter, demanding 
 such terms of separation as you may think fit. Let the ground 
 of our parting be incompatibility of temper. Everything shall 
 be done to render your position honourable ; and I trust to you 
 to preserve the name of Gilbert Monckton's wife without taint 
 or blemish. Signora Picirillo will no doubt act for you in this 
 business, and consent to assume the position of your guardian 
 and friend. I leave you in full possession of ToUdale Priory, 
 and I go to Torquay with my ward, whence I shall depart for 
 the Continent as soon as our separation has been adjusted, and 
 my business arrangements made. 
 
 "My address for the next fortnight will be the Post-office, 
 Torquay. " Gilbert Monckton." 
 
 This was the letter which the lawyer had written to his young 
 wife. Its contents were hke a thunderbolt in the shock which 
 they caused to Eleanor's senses. She sat for a long time, reading 
 it over and over again. For the first time since her marriage 
 she put aside the thought of her revenge, and began to think 
 seriously of something else. 
 
 It was too cruel. Unmixed indignation was the feeling which 
 took possession of her mind. She had no comprehension of the 
 despair which had filled Gilbert Monckton's breast as he wrote 
 that farewell letter. She did not know how the strong man had 
 done battle with his suspicions, struggling with every new doubt, 
 and conquering it as it arose, only to be conquered himself at 
 last, by the irresistible force of circumstances, every one of which 
 seemed a new evidence against his wife. Eleanor could not know 
 this. She ordy knew that her husband had most bitterly wronged 
 her, and she could feel nothing but indignation — yet. 
 
 She tore the letter into a hundred fragments. She wanted to 
 annihilate its insulting accusations. How dared he think 30
 
 Gilbert's Letter. 835 
 
 vilely of her P Then a feeling of despair sank int<; her breast, 
 like some actual burden, chill and heavy, that bowed her down 
 to the earth, and for the tin.e paralyzed her energies. 
 
 Nothing biit failure had met her upon every side. She had 
 been too late iu her attempt to see Maurice de Crespigny before 
 his death. She had failed to prove Launcelot Darrell's guilt; 
 though the evidence of his crime had been in her hands, though 
 she had been herself the witness of his wrong-doing. Everything 
 had been against her. The chance which had thrown her across 
 the i^athway of the very man she wished to meet had only given 
 rise to delusive hopes, and had resulted in utter defeat. 
 
 And now she found herself suspected and deserted by her 
 husband — the man whom she had loved and respected with every 
 better feeling of a generous nature that had become warped and 
 stunted by the all-absorbing motive of her Ufe. In her indigna- 
 tion against Gilbert Monckton her hatred of Launcelot Barrel! 
 became even more bitter than before, for it was he who had 
 caused all this — it was he whose treachery had been the bUght 
 of her existence, from the hour of her father's death until now. 
 
 While Eleanor sat thinking over her husband's letter, the old 
 butler came to announce dinner, which had been waiting some 
 time for her coming. I fancy the worthy retainer had been 
 prowhng about the hall meanwhile with the hope of surprising 
 the clue to some domestic mystery in his mistress's face as she 
 emerged from the study. 
 
 Mrs. Monckton went into the dining-room and made a show of 
 eating her dinner. She had a motive for doing this, beyond the 
 desire to keep up appearances which seems natural even to the 
 most impulsive people. She wanted to hear all about Mr. de 
 Crespigny's will, and she knew that Jeffreys, the butler, was 
 sure to be pretty well informed upon the subject. 
 
 She took her accustomed seat at the dinner-table, and Mr. 
 Jeffreys placed lumself behind her. She took a spoonful of clear 
 soup, and t^jen began to trifle with her spoon. 
 
 " Have you heard about Mr. de Crespigny's will, Jeffreys P ** 
 she asked. 
 
 " Well, ma'am, to tell the truth, we had Mr. Banks/the baker, 
 from Hazlewood village, in the servants' hall not a quarter of an 
 hour ago, and he do say that Mr. Darrell has got all his great- 
 nncle's estate, real and personil — leastways, with the exception 
 of hannuities to the two old mai — the Miss de Crespignys, ma'am, 
 and bein' uncommon stingy in their dealin's, no one will regret 
 as they don't come into the fortune. Sherry, ma'am, or 'ock?" 
 
 Eleanor touched one of the glasses before her almost mechani- 
 cally, and waited while the old man — who was not so skilful and 
 rapid as he had been in the time of Gilljert Monckton's father — 
 poured out some ^vine and removed her soup-plate.
 
 S36 Eleanor's Victory, 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," he continued, " Banks of Hazlewood do say 
 that Mr. Darrell have got the Ibrtune. He heard it from Mrs. 
 Dan-ell's 'ousemaid, which Mrs. Darrell told all the servants 
 directly as she come back from Woodlands, and were all of a 
 tremble like with joy, the 'ousemaid said; but Mr. Launcelot, 
 he were as white as a sheet, and hadn't a word to say to any one, 
 except the foreign gentleman that he is so friendly with." 
 
 Eleanor paid very httle attention to all these details. She only 
 thought of the main fact. The desperate game which Launcelot 
 had played had been successful. The victory was his. 
 
 Mrs. Monckton went from the dinner-table to her own room, 
 and with her own hands dragged a portmanteau out of a roomy 
 old-fashioned lumber-closet, and began to pack her plainest 
 dresses and the necessaries of her simple toilet. 
 
 " I will leave Tolldale to-morrow morning," she said. " I will 
 at least prove to Mr. Monckton that I do not wish to enjoy the 
 benefits of a mercenary marriage. I will leave this place and 
 begin the world again. Richard was right ; my dream of ven- 
 geance was a foolish dream. I suppose it is right, after all, that 
 wicked peoj^le should succeed in this world, and we must be 
 content to stand by and see them triumph." 
 
 Eleanor could not think without some bitterness of Laura's 
 abrupt departure. She could not have been actuated by the same 
 motives that had influenced GUbert Monckton. Why, then, had 
 she left without a word of farewell ? Why, Launcelot Darrell 
 was the cause of this sorrow as well as of every other, for it was 
 jealousy about him that had prejudiced Laura against her friend. 
 
 Early the next morning Eleanor Monckton left Tolldale 
 Priory. She went to the station at Windsor in a pony carriage 
 which had been reserved for the use of herself and Laura Mason. 
 She took with her only one portmanteau, her desk, and dressing- 
 case. 
 
 " I am going alone, Martin," she said to the maid whom 
 Mr. Monckton had engaged to attend upon her. " You know 
 that I am accustomed to wait upon myself, and I*do not think 
 you could be accommodated where I am going." 
 
 "But you will not be away long, ma'am, shall youP" the 
 young woman asked. 
 
 " I don't know. I cannot tell you. I have written to Mr. 
 Monckton," Eleanor answered, hurriedly. 
 
 In the bleak early spring morning she left the home in which 
 she had known very Httle happiness. She looked back at the 
 stately old-fashioned mansion with a regretful sigh. _ 
 
 How happy she might have been within those ivied walls! 
 How happy she might have been with her husband and Laura ; 
 but for the one hindering cause, the one fatal obstacle — Laimcelot 
 Darrell. She thought of what her hfe might have been, but for
 
 Gilbert's Letter. 837 
 
 the remembrance of that solemn vow whicli was perpetnally 
 nrginf^ her on to its fulfilment. The love of a good man, th^ 
 caressmg affection of a gentle girl, the respect of every living 
 creature round about her, might have been hers; but foi 
 Launcelot Darrell. 
 
 She looked back at the old house, gleaming redly behind th« 
 leafless branches of the bare oaks that sheltered it. She could 
 see the oriel window of the morning-room that Gilbert Moncktou 
 had furnished on purpose for her, the dark crimson of the volu- 
 minous curtains, and a Parian statuette, of his own choosing, 
 glittering whitely against the red light of the fire within. She 
 saw all this, and regretted it ; but her pride was soothed by the 
 thought that she was running away from this luxurious home, 
 and all its elegance, to go out alone into a bleak, uncomfortable 
 ■world. 
 
 " He shall know, at least, that I did not marry him for the 
 sake of a fine house and horses and carriages," she thought, as 
 she watched the terrace chimneys disappear behind the trees. 
 " However meanly he thinks of me, he snail have no cause to 
 think that." 
 
 It was still very early in the day when Eleanor arrived in 
 London. She was determined not to go to the Signora, since 
 she must relate all that had happened, and would no doubt have 
 considerable difficulty in convincing her old friend that she had 
 chosen the right course. 
 
 " The Signora would want me to go back to Tolldale, and to try 
 and justify myself in the opinion of Gilbert Monckton," Eleanor 
 thought. " But I will never humiHate myself to him. He has 
 wronged me; and the consequences of that wrong must rest 
 ■upon his own head." 
 
 You see, this young lady's nature was as undisciplined as it 
 Vad been in her girlhood, when she flung herself on her knees in 
 the little Parisian chamber to take an oath of vengeance against 
 her father's destroyer. She had not yet learnt to submit. She 
 had not yet learnt the most sublime lesson that the Gospel 
 teaches, to sufier unmerited wrong, and " take it patiently." 
 
 The letter she had written to Gilbert Monckton was very brief. 
 
 " Gilbert," she wrote, " you have most cruelly wronged me, and 
 I cannot doubt that the day will come in which you will know 
 how baseless your su-sipicions have been. Every word that I 
 uttered in Mr. de Crcspigny's house upon the night of his death 
 was true. I am quite powerless to prove my truth, and I cannot 
 be content to see Launcelot Darrell triumph. The mystery of 
 the lost win is more than I can comprehend, but I declare that it 
 was in my possession five minutes before I met you in the garden. 
 If ever that ^vill should be found, my justification wiU be found 
 
 T
 
 338 Eleanor^s Victory. 
 
 m\h. it. I loci: to yon to wat en my interests in tliis matter, but 
 t am quite incapable Oi' rfeiiiainiiiir jJi inmate of your bouse wMle 
 f ou tbink me the base creature I should be if my accusations 
 jigainst Launcelot Darrell were in the sbghtest degree false. I 
 will never return to Tolldale until my tnith has been proved. 
 You need not fear that I -svill do anything to bring discredit 
 upon your name. I go out into the world to get my own Hving, 
 as I have done before. " Eleanor Monckton," 
 
 This letter expressed very little of the indignation which filled 
 Eleanor's breast. Her pride revolted against the outrage which 
 her husband had inflicted upon her ; and she suftered all the 
 more acutely because beneath her apparent indiiference there 
 lurked, in the innermost recesses of her heart, a true and pure 
 affection for this cruel Gilbert Monckton, whose causeless sus- 
 picious had so deeply wounded her. 
 
 In proportion to the strength of her love was the force of her 
 indignation, and she went away from Tolldale with angry 
 thoughts raging in her breast, and buoying her up with a 
 factitious courage. 
 
 This influence was still at work when she reached London. 
 She had only a few pounds in her purse, and it was necessary 
 therefore that she should begin to get her own Hving immediately. 
 She had thought of this during her journey between Windsor 
 and London, and had determined what to do. She took a cab, 
 and drove to a quiet httle hotel in the neighbourhood of the 
 Strand, left her portmanteau and other packages there, and then 
 walked to a certain institution for governesses in the neighboixr« 
 hood of Cavendish Square. She had been there before, dunng 
 her residence with the Signora, to make an inquiry about pupils 
 for the pianoforte, but had never given her name to the principal. 
 
 " I must call myself by a new name," she thought, " if I wan+ 
 to hide myself from Gilbert Monckton and from the Signora. 1 
 must vmte to her directly, by the bye, poor dear, and tell her that 
 I am safe and well ; or else she will be making herself unhappy 
 about me, directly she hears I have left Tolldale." 
 
 The principal of the Governesses' Institution was a stately 
 maiden lady, wth a rustling silk dress and glossy braids of grey 
 hair under a cap of point lace. She received Eleanor with 
 solemn graciousness, demanded her requirements arid her quali- 
 fications, and then, with a gold pencU-case poised Hghtly between 
 the tips of her taper fingers, deliberated for a few minutes. 
 
 Eleanor sat opposite to her, watching her face very anxiously. 
 She wanted some home, some asylum, some hiding-place from a 
 world that seemed altogether against her. She scarcely cared 
 where or what the place of refuge might be. She wanted to get 
 away from Gilbert Monckton, who had wronged and insulted
 
 Mrs. Major Lennard. 339 
 
 her, and from Launcelot Darrcll, whose treachery was always 
 strong' enough to triumph over the trutii. 
 
 But of course she didn't say this. She only said that sho 
 wanted a situation as musical governess, nursery governess, or 
 companion, and that the amount of salary was of very httle 
 importance to her. 
 
 "I understand," the lady principal repUed, slowly, " I perfectly 
 understand your feeling, Miss Miss " 
 
 " My name is Villars," Eleanor answered, quickly, looking down 
 at her muff as she spoke. 
 
 The lady principal's eyes followed hers, and looked at the muff 
 too. It was a very handsome sable muff, which had cost five- 
 and-twenty pounds, and had been given by Mr. Monckton to his 
 wife at the beginning of the winter. It was not at all in accord 
 with Eleanor's plain merino dress and woollen shawl, or with 
 her desire to go out as a governess without consideration of 
 ualaiy. Miss Barkham, the lady principal, began to look rather 
 suspiciously at her visitor's handsome tace, and forgot to finish 
 the sentence she had commenced. 
 
 " You can command excellent references, Miss Yillars, I sup- 
 pose?" she said, coldly. 
 
 Eleanor flushed crimson. Here was an insurmountable diffi- 
 culty at the veiy outset. 
 
 " Keferences," she stammered, " will references be necessary ? " 
 
 " Most decidedly. We could not think of sending out any 
 young lady from this estabhshment who could not command 
 first-class references or testimonials. Some people are satisfied 
 with written testimonials ; for myself, I consider a personal 
 reference indispensable, and I would not upon my own authority 
 engage any lady without one." 
 
 Eleanor looked very much distressed. She had no idea of 
 diplomatizing or prevaricating. She blurted out the truth all at 
 once, unappallod by the stem glances of Miss Barkham. 
 
 " I can't possibly give you a reference," she said; " my friends 
 do not know that I am in search of a situation, and they must 
 not know it. I assure you that I belong to a very respectable 
 family, and am quite competent to do what I profess to do." 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 MRS. MAJOR UENNABD. 
 
 Miss Barktiam; stared at her visitor with a look of mingled 
 horror and astonishment. 
 
 " You do not surely imagine. Miss Yillars," she said, " that 
 anybody will engage you in the responsible jjosition of governess
 
 340 "Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 to their cliildreii upon no better recommendation than yottr owi^ 
 I must confess, rather confident assertion of your merits ? " 
 
 " I never told a falsehood in my hfe, Miss Barkham," Eleanor 
 answered, indignantly. " If I am without a friend whom I can 
 ask to testify to my respectabihty, it is on account of circum- 
 stances which " 
 
 " To be sure," exclaimed Miss Barkham ; " that is the very 
 thing we have to contend against. This estabhshment is com- 
 pletely overrun by young ladies who think there is nothing easier 
 than to turn their backs upon their friends and their homes, and 
 go out into the world to become the instructresses of the rising 
 generation. You think me very punctilious and strait-laced, I 
 dare say, Miss Villars; but I don't know what would become of 
 the rising generation if somebody didn't keep watch and ward 
 over the doors of the schoolroom. Young ladies who choose to 
 feel unhappy in the society of their parents ; young ladies who 
 are disappointed in some sentimental affection; young ladies who 
 fejicy themselves ill-used by their elder sisters ; young ladies 
 who, from the very shallowness of their own minds, cannot be 
 contented anywhere, all come to us, and want to go out as 
 governesses, — just for a change, they say, in the hope of finding 
 a Httle employment that will divert their minds ; as if they had 
 any minds to be diverted ! These are the amateur hangers-on of 
 a very grave and resi^ectable profession, to which hundreds of 
 estimable and accompHshed women have devoted the best and 
 brightest years of their hves. These are the ignorant and 
 superficial pretenders who bring their cheap and worthless wares 
 into the market, in order to undersell the painstaking and patient 
 teachers who have themselves learned the lessons they profess to 
 teach. And these amateurs will continue to flourish. Miss 
 Villars, so long as ladies, who would shudder at the idea of 
 entrusting an expensive silk dress to an incompetent dressmaker, 
 are willing to confide the care of their children to an instructress 
 whose highest merit lies in the fact that she is — cheap. I do 
 not wish to wound your feelings. Miss Villars : but I assure you 
 I often feel sick at heart, when I see a lady who ofiers thirty 
 years' experience, and all the treasures of a mind carefully and 
 sedulously cultivated, rejected in favour of some chit of nineteen 
 who can play one showy fantasia, and disfigure glass vases with 
 scraps of painted paper, and who wiU accept twenty pounds a 
 year in payment of services that are not worth five." 
 
 Eleanor smiled at Miss Barkham's energetic protest. 
 
 " I dare say you are often very much worried by incompetent 
 people," she said ; " but I assure you I have made no attempt to 
 deceive you. I don't profess to do much, you know. I believe 
 I can play pretty well. May I play you something ? " she asked, 
 X>ointing to an open pianoforte at one end of the room, a handsome
 
 Mrs. Major LennarS. 841 
 
 grand, witli all Erard's patent improvements, on which governesses 
 upon their promotion were in the habit of showing off. 
 
 " I have no objection to hear you play," Miss Barkham an- 
 swered ; " but remember, I cannot possibly procure you a situa- 
 tion ^vithout either references or testimonials." 
 
 Eleanor went to the piano, took off her gloves, and ran her 
 fingers over the keys. She had played very little during the 
 last few months, for in the feverish preoccupation of her mind 
 she had been unequal to any feminine employment ; too restless 
 and unsettled to do anything but roam about the house, or sit 
 brooding silently with her hands lying idle in her lap. 
 
 The familiar touch of the keys filled her with a strange plea- 
 sure : she was surprised at the brilliancy of her execution, as 
 good players often are after an interval of idleness. She playet 
 one of Beethoven's most sparkhng sonatas ; and even Misa 
 Barkham, who was perpetually listening to such performances, 
 murmured a few words of praise. 
 
 But before Eleanor had been seated at the piano more than 
 five minutes, a servant came into the room and presented a card 
 to Miss Barkham, who rose from her seat with some appearance 
 of vexation. 
 
 " Really, I scarcely know what to do about it," she muttered 
 to herself. " It's almost impossible to arrange anything at such 
 very short notice. Excuse me. Miss Yillars," she added, aloud, 
 to Eleanor ; " I am obUged to see a lady in the next room. Don't 
 go until I return." 
 
 Eleanor bowed, and went on playing. She finished the sonata; 
 and then, suddenly catching sight of her wedding-ring and the 
 thick band of gold studded with diamonds that her husband had 
 given her on her wedding-day, she stopped to draw the two rings 
 cfi" her finger, and put them into her purse amongst the few 
 sovereigns that formed her whole stock of worldly wealth. 
 
 She sighed as she did this, for it seemed like putting off her 
 old hfe altogether. 
 
 "It's better so," she said to herself; " I know now that Gil- 
 bert must have thought me false to him from the very first. I 
 can understand his cold reserve now, though it used to puzzle me 
 BO much. He changed almost immediately after our maniage." 
 
 Eleanor Monckton grew very pensive as she remembered that 
 she had been perhaps herself to blame for the altered manner 
 and no doubt equally altered feehngs of her husband. She had 
 neglected her duty as a wife, absorbed in her affection as a 
 daxighter ; she had sacrificed the hving to the dead ; and shs 
 began to think that Richard Thornton's advice had been wiser 
 than she had believed when she refused to listen to it. She had 
 been wrong altogether. Classic vows of vengeance were all very 
 well in the days when a Medea rode upon tiying dragons and
 
 u42 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 slanglitered her children upon principle ; but a certain inspired 
 teacher, wi-iting a very long time after that much-to-be-regretted 
 classic age, has declared that vengeance is the right of divinity 
 alone, and far too ten-ible an attribute to be tamjiered with by 
 fallible mortals, blindly huriing the bolts of heaven against each 
 other's earthly heads. 
 
 She thought this, and grew very melancholy and uncomfort- 
 able, and began to fancy that her impulses had been about the 
 worst guides that she could have chosen. She began to think 
 that she had not acted so very wisely in running away from 
 Tolldale Priory in the first heat of her indignation, and that she 
 might ha,ve done better perhaps by writing a temperate letter of 
 
 J' ustifi cation to Gilbert Monckton, and quietly abiding the issue. 
 3ut she had chosen her path now, and must stand by her choice, 
 on pain of appearing the weakest and most cowardly of women. 
 
 " My letter is posted," she said to herself. " Gilbert will 
 receive it to-morrow morning. I should be a coward to go back ; 
 for, however much I may have been to blame in the matter, he 
 has treated me very badly." 
 
 She wiped away some tears that had come into her eyes as she 
 took the rings from her wedding finger, and then began to play 
 again. 
 
 This time she dashed into one of the Hvehest and most brillianl 
 fantasias she could remember, a very jpot pourri of airs ; a scien- 
 tific hodge-podge of Scotch melodies ; now joyous, now warHke 
 and savage, now plaintive and tender, always capricious in the 
 extreine, and running away every now and then into the strangest 
 variations, the most eccentric cadences. The piece was one of 
 Thalberg's chcf-d'ceuvres, and Eleanor played it magnificently. 
 As she struck the final chords, sharp and rapid as a rattHng 
 peal of musketry, Miss Barkham re-entered the room. 
 
 She had the air of being rather annoyed, and she hesitated a 
 little before speaking to Eleanor, who rose from the j)iano and 
 began to put on her gloves. 
 
 " Really, Miss Villars," she said, " it is most incomprehensible 
 to me, but since Mrs. Lennard herself wishes it, I " 
 
 She stopped and fidgeted a httle with the gold pencil-caae 
 hanging to her watch-chain. 
 
 " I can't at all understand this sort of thing," she resumed ; 
 "however, of course I wash my hands of all responsibility. Have 
 you any objection to travel. Miss YillarsP" she asked, sud- 
 denly. 
 
 Eleanor opened her eyes with a look of astonisliment at this 
 abrupt question. 
 
 " Objection to travel?" she repeated; " I " 
 
 " Have you any objection to go abroad — to Paris, for instance, 
 •—if I could obtain you a situation ? "
 
 Hfrs. Major Lennard. 343 
 
 " Oh, no," Eleanor answered, with a sigh, " not at all ; I would 
 just as soon go to Paris as anywhere else." 
 
 " Very well, then, if that is the case, I think I can get you a 
 gituation immediately. There is a lady in the next room who 
 was here yesterday, and who really gave me a most severe head- 
 ache with her fidgety, childish waj's. However, she wants to 
 laeet with a young lady as a companion hnmediatcly — that is the 
 grand diiliculty. She leaves London for Paris by tliis evening's 
 mail, and she put off engaging the person she required until 
 yesterday afternoon, when she came to me in a fever of anxiety, 
 and wanted me to introduce her to a lady instanter. She stopped 
 all the afternoon in the next room, and I took ever so many 
 young ladies in to her, all of whom seemed well quaUfied for the 
 Bituation, which really demands very Uttle. But not one of them 
 would suit Mrs. Lennard. She was very polite to them, and 
 made all kinds of affable speeches to them, and dismissed them 
 in the most ladyhke manner ; and then she told me afterwards 
 that she didn't take a fancy to them, and she was determined 
 not to engage any one she didn't take a fancy to, as she wanted 
 to be very fond of her companion, and make quite a sister of her. 
 That was what she said, and good gracious me," cried Miss 
 Barkham, " how am I to find her somebody she can take a fancy 
 to, and make a sister of, at a quarter-of-an-hour's notice ? I 
 assure you. Miss Villars, my head felt quite in a whirl after she 
 wen1> awajr yesterday afternoon ; and it's beg innin g to be in a 
 whirl again now." 
 
 Eleanor waited very patiently while Miss Barkham endeavoured 
 to collect her scattered senses. 
 
 " I can scarcely hope this very capricious lady will take a 
 fancy to me," she said, smiUng. 
 
 " Why, my dear," exclaimed Miss Barkham, " that's the very 
 thing I came to tell you. She has taken a fancy to you." 
 
 " Taken a fancy to me 1" repeated Eleanor; " but she has not 
 ■een me." 
 
 *' Of course not, my dear. But she really is the most confus- 
 ing, I may almost saw bewildering, person, I ever remember 
 meeting with. I was in the next room talking to this Mrs. 
 Lennard, who is very pretty and fashionable-looking, only a little 
 •untidy in her dress, wncn you began to play that Scotch fan- 
 tasia. Mrs. Lennard stopped to listen, and after she had listened 
 a few moments she cried out suddenly, 'Now I dare say that's 
 an old frump !' I said, ' ^Vliat, ma'am ?' for upon my word, my 
 dear, I didn't know whether she meant the piece, or the piano, 
 or what. ' I dare say the lady who is playing is an old frump, 
 Bhe said. ' Old frumps almost always play well ; in point ol 
 fact old frumps are generally very clever. But I'm determined 
 not to have any one T can't make a sister of; and I must have
 
 S44 Meanor's Victory. 
 
 i 
 
 one by three o'clock this afternoon, or Major Lennard will be 
 cross, and I shall go mad.' Well, Miss Villars, I told Mrs. 
 Lennard your age, and described your appearance and manners, 
 that is to say, as well as I was able to do so after onr very brief 
 acquaintance, and I had no sooner finished than she exclaimed, 
 ' That will do ; if she can play Scotch melodies hke that, and ia 
 nice, I'll engage her.' I then explained to Mrs. Lennard that 
 you could give no references; 'and that, of course,' I added, 
 'would be an insuperable objection;' but she interrupted me in 
 a manner that would have appeared very impertinent in any one 
 but her, and cried out, ' Insuperable fiddlesticks ! If she's nice 
 I'll engage her. She can play to me all the morning, while I 
 paint upon velvet ; ' and you're to come with me, please. Miss 
 Villars, and be introduced to her." 
 
 Eleanor took up her muff and followed Miss Barkham on to 
 the landing, but at this moment three ladies appeared upon the 
 top stair, and the principal of the estabUshment was called upou 
 to receive them. 
 
 "If you'U go in by yourself, my dear," she whispered to 
 Eleanor, pointing to the door of the back di-awing-room, " I 
 shall be much obSged. You'U find Mrs. Lennard a most afiable 
 person." 
 
 Eleanor readily assented. She opened the door and went into 
 the primly-furnished back drawing-room. Mrs. Major Lennard 
 was a httle woman, and she was standing on tiptoe upon the 
 hearth-rug, in order to survey herself in the chimney-glass while 
 she re-arranged the pale blue strings of her black velvet bonnet. 
 Eleanor paused near the door, waiting for her to turn round, and 
 wondering what she was hke, as the face in the glass was not 
 visible from where Mrs. Monckton stood. 
 
 The lady employed a considerable time in the important ope- 
 ration of tying her bonnet-strings, then suddenly hearing the 
 rustling of Eleanor's dress as she advanced a few paces, Mrs. 
 Lennard uttered an exclamation, and turned round. _ 
 
 " You naughty girl, you quite startled me," she cried. 
 
 Not so much as she had startled Eleanor, who could not 
 repress a cry of surprise at the sight of her face. It was a very 
 pretty face, very young-looking, though Mrs. Major Lennard 
 was nearly forty years of age. A fair childish face, with pink 
 cheeks, tiirquoise-blue eyes, and the palest, softest bands of 
 flaxen hair ; rather an insipid, German kind of beauty, perhaps, 
 but very perfect of its kind. 
 
 But that which had startled Eleanor was not the babyish, 
 delicate prettiness of the face, but the strong resemblance which 
 it bore to Laura Mason. It was the same face after twenty 
 years, not of wear and tear, but of very careful preservation. 
 This lady, in appearance and maimer, was exactly what Laura
 
 Going Bach to Pari*. 845 
 
 irniBt most surely become if she lived to be ■even-and-thirty 
 years of age. 
 
 CHAPTER LIL 
 
 GOING BACK TO PAHIS. 
 
 Eleanor was so completely bewildered by this extraordinair 
 likeness that she remained for some moments staring at Mrs^ 
 Major Ijennard in silent surprise. 
 
 *' Goodness me, my dear ! " exclaimed the lady, "how astonished 
 you look ! I hope I'm not a guy. Frederick — that's ISIajor 
 Lennard, you know — never hked this lx)nnet, and really I'm 
 beginning quite to dislike it myself. I do think it's pokey. But 
 never mind that, my dear Miss — Yillars, I think Miss Barkham 
 said, — a very nice person, Miss Barkham, isn't she ? but rather 
 prim. I've got all sorts of business to settle between this and 
 eight o'clock, for Fred will travel by the night mail, because he 
 sleeps all the way, and of course that makes the journey shorter 
 — in consequence of which I've never seen Dover, excejit in the 
 dark, and I always think of it ^vith the lamps hghted and the 
 pier slippery, and everybody hurrying and pushing, like a place 
 in a dream. But the first question, my dear, that we've got to 
 settle, is whether you Hke me, and think you could make a sister 
 of me ? " 
 
 This question, asked very eagerly, was really too much for 
 poor Eleanor. 
 
 " Oh, please don't look so surprised," Mrs. Lennard exclaimed, 
 entreatingly ; "you make me fancy I'm a guy, and you see 
 there's really no time to be lost, and we must decide immediately 
 if you please. I was here all yesterday afternoon, and I saw 
 legions of ladies, but there wasn't one that I could take a fancy 
 to, and my only motive for engaging a companion is to have 
 somebody that I shall like very much, and always feel at home 
 with; and I want some one who can play the piano and be agree- 
 able and lively, and I'm sure you're the very person, dear, and if 
 you only think you can hke me as well as I'm sure I shall like 
 you, we can settle the business at once." 
 
 " But you know that I can give you no references," Eleanor 
 said, hesitatingly. 
 
 " Of course I do," answered Mrs. Lennard. " Miss Barkham 
 told me all about it. As if I thought you'd committed a mur- 
 der, or done something horrid, just because you can't pounce 
 npon half-a-dozen people ready to declare you're an uncanonized 
 saint all in a moment. I like your looks, my dear, and when I 
 like people's looks at first sight, I generally like them afterwards. 
 And vou play majfnificently ; I only wish I could ; and I used to
 
 346 Eleanor^s Victory. 
 
 play tHe overture to ' Semiramide ' before I was married, but as 
 Frederick doesn't like overtures, and as we've been scampering 
 about the world ever since, in the calkins of ships, and in tents, 
 and all sorts of places where you couldn't have pianos anless you 
 had them made on purpose, without legs, I've gone backwards 
 m my music till I can't play so much as a polka, without 
 ikipping the difBcult parts." 
 
 Mrs. Lennard went on to say that the matter of salary was a 
 question to be settled between Aliss Viliars and the Major. 
 
 " I always leave money matters to Frederick," she said, " for 
 khough he can't add up the bills, he looks as if he could, and 
 that's sovie check upon people. But you'll have to wait for 
 youi quarter's money now and then, I dare say, dear, because 
 we're often a Httle behind-hand, you know, and if you don't 
 mind that, it'll be all the better for you, as Fred's almost sure 
 to give you a silk dress when your quarter comes due and he 
 can't pay you ; that's what he calls a sop to Cerberus, and I'm 
 sure the money he spends in keeping people ' sweet,' as he calls 
 it, would keep us altogether if we paid ready money. Now, is 
 it a settled thing, Miss Yillars ? Will you accept the situa- 
 tion?" 
 
 Eleanor assented without hesitation. She heard very httle 
 of JMrs. Lennard's good-natured babble. Her whole mind was 
 absorbed by the sense of her defeat, and by the feeling that sho 
 had no further chance of victory over Launcelot Darrell. Sha 
 despaired, but she did not submit. She was only desperate and 
 reckless, ready to go anywhere, and finish the useless remainder 
 of her existence anyhow. She was not prepared to begin a 
 new life ujDon a new plan, casting the old scheme of her hfe 
 behind her, as a mistake and a delusion. She was not able to 
 do this yet. 
 
 Wliile Mrs. Lennard was gathering together a lot of frivolous- 
 looking httle whity-brown paper parcels that seemed to bear a 
 strong family resemblance to herself. Miss Bark ham came into 
 the room to ascertain the result of the interview between the two 
 ladies. Mrs. Lennard expressed herself in the most rapturous 
 manner about Eleanor, paid some small i^c ^or the benefit of the 
 institution, and departed, carrying her parcels and taking Eleanor 
 with her. 
 
 She allowed her companion to assist rter wilh the parcels, after 
 a httle good-natured contention, and at the I'earest oomer sum- 
 moned a cab which was dawdling lazily along. 
 
 " Of course the man vdW ovorcharg<^ us," Mrs. Lennard said, 
 "but we must be prepared for that, and really I'd rather be 
 overcharged than have a row, as we generally have when I'm 
 with the major, and summonses and counter-summonses, and all 
 sorts of disagreeables ; not that I mind that half so much as
 
 Croing Back to Paris 347 
 
 foreign cabmon, who pet excited, and dance npon the pavement 
 and make wild noises if you don't satisfy them ; and I'm sure I 
 ijon't know what tvould satisfy foreign cabmen." 
 
 Mrs. Lennard took out her watch, which was a pretty little 
 Geneva toy wtli an enamelled back, ornamented with the holes 
 that had once held diamonds. An anxious and intensely studious 
 expression came over Mrs. Lennard's face as she looked at this 
 watch, which was overweighted by a heap of incomprehensible 
 charms, amongst which chaotic mass of golden frivohty, a 
 skeleton, a watering-pot, a coffin, and a Dutch oven were dis- 
 tinguishable. 
 
 " It's half-past five by me," Mrs. Lennard said, after a pro- 
 found contemi)lation of the Geneva, " so I should tliink it must 
 be about a quarter to tliree." 
 
 Eleanor took out her ovra watch and settled the question. It 
 was only half-past two. 
 
 "Then I've gained another quarter of an hour," exclaimed 
 Mrs. Lennard : " that's the worst of pretty watches ; they always 
 win go too much, or else stop altogether. Freddy bought me my 
 watch, and he gave me my choice as to whether he should spend 
 the money in purple enamel and diamonds, or works, and I 
 chose the purjile enamel. But then, of course I didn't know the 
 diamonds would drop out directly," Mrs. Lennard added, thought- 
 fully. 
 
 She drove about to half-a-dozen shops, and collected more 
 whity-brown paper parcels, a band-box, a bird-cage, a new 
 carpet-bag, a dog's collar, a packet of tea, and other incongruous 
 merchandise, and then ordered the man to diive to the Great 
 Northern Hotel. 
 
 " We're staying at the Great Northern, my dear," she said, 
 after giving this order. " We very often stay at hotels, for 
 Frederick tliinks it's cheaper to pay fifteen shillings a day for 
 your rooms than to have a house, and servants' wages, and 
 coals and candles, and lard, and blacklead, and hearthstone, and 
 all those httle things that run away ^vith so much money. 
 And I should like the Great Northern very much if the cor- 
 ridors weren't so long and the waiters so stem. I always think 
 waiters at grand hotels are stem. They seem to look at one as 
 if they knew one was thinking of the bill, and trying to cal- 
 culate whether it would be under ten pounds. But, oh, good 
 gracious ! " exclaimed Mrs. Lennard, suddenly, " what a sellish 
 creature I am ; I've quite forgotten all this time that of course 
 you'll want to go home to your mamma and papa, and tell them 
 where you're going, and get your boxes packed, and all that." 
 
 Eleanor shook her head with a sad smile. 
 
 " I have no mother or father to consult," she said; " I am an 
 «rphau."
 
 348 Eleanor s Victory, 
 
 "Are you?" cried Mrs. Lennard; "then it mnst have been 
 our destiny to meet, for I am an orphan, too. Ma died wliile I 
 was a baby, and poor pa died soon after my mamage. He was 
 disappointed in my marriage, poor dear old thing, though I'm 
 glad to think it wasn't that, but gout in the stomach, that 
 killed him. But you'll want to see your friends, Miss Yillara, 
 won't you, before you leave London ? " 
 
 "No," Eleanor answered: "I shall write to the only friends 
 I have. I don't want to see any one ; I don't want any one to 
 know where I am going. I left my portmanteau at an hotel 
 in Norfolk Street, and I shall be glad if you will let me call 
 for it." 
 
 Mrs. Lennard gave the necessary order ; the cabman drove ta 
 the hotel where Eleanor had left her portmanteau, and thence \A 
 the Great Northern, where Mrs. Lennard conducted her new 
 companion to a very handsome apartment on the ground-floor, 
 opening into a palatial bed-chamber, whose splendour was a 
 good deal impaired by the circumstances that the stately 
 Arabian bed, the massive easy-chairs, the sofa, the dressing- 
 table, and even the washhand- stand were loaded with divers 
 articles of male and female attire, which seemed to have been 
 flung here and there by some harmless maniac disporting him- 
 self about the room. 
 
 In the very centre of all this disorder, upon a great black 
 leather mUitary travelling-case, sat a big broad-chested man of 
 about forty, with a good-natured, sunburnt face, a very fierce 
 auburn moustache, and a thick stubble of crisp, wavy, auburh. 
 hair, cut close to his head, in the development of which a dis- 
 ciple of Mr. George Coombe would have scarcely discovered 
 the organs that make a man either a general or a philo- 
 sopher. This sunburnt, good-humoured looking gentleman 
 had taken ofi" his coat for the better accompHshment of his 
 herculean labours ; and, with his arms folded and his legs 
 crossed, with an embroidered slipper balanced upon the ex- 
 tremity of his toes, and a meerschaum pipe in his mouth, he sat 
 resting himself, after taking the initiatory step of dragging 
 everything out of the drawers and wardrobe. 
 
 " Oh, you Zazy Freddy!" cried Mrs. Lennard, looking in at 
 her lord and master with a reproachful countenance, " is that all 
 you've done?" 
 
 " Where's the blue barfege with the flounces to go ? " roared 
 the major, in the voice of an amiable Stentor. " I couldn't do 
 anything till I knew that, and I've been waiting for you to 
 come home. Have you got a companion ? " 
 
 " Hush ! yes ! she's in the next room ; such a dear, and 
 awfully pretty. If you stare at her much I shall be jealous, 
 Freddy, for you know you are a starer, though you never ■wilf
 
 Ooing Back to Paris. 349 
 
 ♦mfess it. Fve seen you, in Regent Street, when you've thought 
 I've been looking at the bonnets," added the lady, reproachfully. 
 
 Upon this the major got up, and, lifting his wife m his arms, 
 gave her such a hug as a well-disposed bear might have bestowed 
 upon the partner of his den. Major Lennard was about sis 
 feet one and a half in the embroidered sUppers, and was as 
 strong as a gladiator in good training. 
 
 " Come and be introduced to her," exclaimed Mrs. Lennard; 
 and she led her husband, in his shirt-sleeves, nothing abashed, 
 into the adjoining sitting-room. 
 
 The major's conversational powers were not very startling. 
 He made a few remarks about the weather, which were more 
 courteous than original. He asked Eleanor if she was hungry, 
 if she would have luncheon, or wait for a six o'clock dinner, and 
 if she was a good sailor. Then, suddenly coming to a stand- 
 jtUl, he demanded soda water and brandy. 
 
 It was the habit of this amiable man to require this beverage 
 on every possible occasion. He was by no means a drunkard, 
 though he was one of those good-natured noisy creatures who 
 can never be convivial without getting tipsy ; but his existence 
 •was one perpetual absorption of soda water and brandy. Why 
 he drank this mixture, which the uninitiated are apt to consider 
 insipid, was a mystery only to be explained by himself. He 
 could not have been perpetually thirsty ; and I am inclined to 
 ^ink that this soda water and brandy was the desperate re- 
 source of a feeble intellect craving some employment, rather 
 than a physical want. 
 
 The major and his wife retired to the bedroom and began their 
 packing. When matters grew very desperate Eleanor was sum- 
 moned as a forlorn hope, and did ner best to reduce the chaos 
 into something Like order. This process occupied the time until 
 aix o'clock, when the major put on his coat and sat down to 
 dinner. 
 
 But even during dinner the packing business was not alto- 
 
 g ether suspended, for every now and then, when there was a 
 ttle pause in the banquet, Mrs. Lennard jumped up from the 
 table, and ran into the next room with her workbox, or her desk, 
 or something from the mantelpiece or one of the sofa-tables — 
 sometimes a book, sometimes a paper-knife, a thimble, a pair of 
 scissors, a pen-wiper, or a packet of envelopes, — and then scam- 
 pered back to her place before the waiter re-entered the room, and 
 tried to look as if she hadn't left her seat. The maior meanwhile 
 worked steadily on with his knife and fork, only looking up 
 from his plate to attend to the wants of Eleanor and his wife. 
 
 At last everything was ready. The addresses were fastened 
 to the boxes and portmanteaus. A bewildering canary-bird — 
 which rejoiced in every kind of noise and confusion, and had
 
 350 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 been excruciatingly loud and shrill all the afternoon — was in- 
 ducted into the new brass cage which Mrs. Lennard had bought 
 for it. A sharp little black-and-tan terrier, the j^roperty of the 
 major, was invested in the new collar, and securely padlocked; 
 Eleanor and Mrs. Lennard put on their shawls and bonnets ; 
 the major made himself gigantic by the addition of a rough 
 great-coat, a Scotch plaid, and half-a-dozen yards of woollen 
 comforter to his normal bulk ; the bill was paid at the very last 
 moment, while the luggage was being piled up on the top of an 
 extra cab ; and Major Lennard and his companions departed at 
 a ratthng pace for the London Bridge terminus. There was 
 just time enough for the major to get the tickets and choose a 
 comfortable carriage, before the train started. Away they flew 
 through the darkness of the bleak March night, and Eleanof 
 felt that every throb of the shrieking engine made the step that 
 she had taken more irrevocable. 
 
 " There was not a word in Gilbert's letter that expressed sor- 
 row at parting from me," she thought. " I had worn out his 
 love, I suppose." 
 
 It was eleven o'clock when they got to Dover. Ma;jor Len 
 nard slept all the way, with the lappets of hi"? travelling cap 
 which was a sort of woollen caricature of a Knight Templar' 
 helmet, drawn closely over his ears. Mrs. Lennard, who was 
 very wide awake all the time, sat opposite to her husband, with 
 the canary bird on her lap. He had grown quiet at last, and 
 had retn;ed from the world under a tent of green baize. The 
 bird's mistress made up for his silence by talking incessantly 
 throughout the journey ; but it only seemed to Eleanor as if 
 she had a second Laura for her companion, and the succession 
 of her owTi sad thoughts was scarcely broken by ilrs. Lennard's 
 conversation. 
 
 They arrived in Paris the next morning in time for breakfast 
 at the great Hotel du Palais, a monstrous building, newly 
 erected, and rich in the ghtter of gilding and the glow of colour. 
 Here the major took up his abode, after deliberately expovmding 
 to his wife and Eleanor the theory that the best and most ex- 
 ;^ensive hotels are always the cheapest— in the cud. This moral 
 had been the rule of the major's Hfe, and had very often 
 brought him alarmingly near the awful abysses of insolvency. 
 
 The gorgeous apartments in which Eleanor found herself 
 were very unlike the low-cedinged httle sitting-room in the Kuo 
 de I'Archeveque ; but her mind went back to that sad time, 
 nevertheless. She spent the morning in the agreeable employ- 
 ment of unpacking Mrs. Lennard's wardrobe, while the major 
 and his wife sailed out of the great hotel to sun themselves in 
 the Rue EivoU and on the Boulevards, and to Avind up with a 
 drive in the Bois, and a httle dinner at Yefour's. When she
 
 Margaret Lennard's Delinquencies. 351 
 
 had completed this most ■wearisome task, and had arranged all 
 the scraps of lace and ribbons, the glovep and collars, and 
 /eminine furbelows, in a buhl chest of drawei j and a gorgeous 
 ebony and gold wardrobe, Mrs. Monckton put on her bonnet 
 and shawl, and went out into the busy street. 
 
 The tears rushed up to her eyes as she looked at the bright 
 vista before her, and heard the roll of the drum, and the tramp 
 of soldiers' feet in the courts of the Louvre. Yes, there was the 
 street along which she had walked by her father's side on the 
 last day of his bhghted hfe. Her hands clenched themselves 
 involuntarily as she remembered that day ; and that other bitter 
 day of anguish in which she had knelt upon the ground and 
 sworn to be revenged upon George Vane's enemy. 
 
 How had she kept ner oath? She smiled bitterly as she 
 thought of the four years that had passed since then, and the 
 strange chance that nad flung Launcelot Darrell in her way. 
 
 " I went away from tliis place while he was here," she thought. 
 " I come back to it now that he is in England. Is it my destiny, 
 I wonder, always to fail in everything I attempt?" 
 
 She went to the Rue de 1' Archeveque. Nothing was changed. 
 The same butcher was busy in the shop; the same faded cur- 
 tains of flowered damask hung boliind the windows. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 MARGARET LENNARd's DELINQUENCIES. 
 
 Mrs. Major Lenkabd was very kind to Eleanor, and if kind- 
 ness and friendhness on the part of her emploj^ers could have 
 made Mrs. Monckton comfortable, she might have been entirely 
 80 in her new position. 
 
 But comfort was a noun substantive whose very meaning 
 must, I think, have been utterly incomprehensible to Major and 
 Mrs. Lennard. They had married very young, had started in 
 dfe all wi-ong, and had remained in a perpetual state of muddle, 
 both mentr..' and physical, ever since. They were Uke two 
 children wht^ had played at being grown-up people for twenty 
 years or so ; and v, ho were as entirely childish in their play now 
 as they had been at the very beginning. To hve with them was 
 to exist in an atmosphere of bewilderment and confusion ; to 
 have any deahngs whatever with them was to plunge at once 
 into a chaos of disorder, out of which the clearest intellect could 
 scarcely emerge without having suffered complete disorganiza- 
 tion. The greatest misfortune of these two people was the likeness 
 they bore to each other. H=»d ]\Iajor Lennard been a man of 
 vigorous intellect and strong "^11, or had he been merely pos- 
 sessed of the average allowana . common sense, he might have
 
 352 Eleanor's Ttcfory. 
 
 ruled his wife, and introduced some element of order into hit 
 existence. On the other hand, if Mrs. Lennard had been a 
 sensible woman, she would no doubt have henpecked her hus- 
 band, and would have rescued the good-natured soldier from a 
 hundred follies, by a well-timed frown, or a sharp matronlj 
 audge, as the occasion might demand. 
 
 But they were both ahke. They were two overgrown childre 
 of forty years of age ; and they looked upon the world as 
 great play-room, whose inhabitants had no better occupatif 
 than to find amusement, and shirk the schoolmaster. They we 
 generous and kind-hearted to a degree that, in the opinion c 
 their wiser acquaintance, bordered upon fooUshness. They were 
 imposed upon on every side, and had been imposed upon during- 
 twenty years, without acquiring any moral wealth in the way of 
 wisdom, from their very costly experience. The major had within 
 the last twelve months left the army on half-pay, on the death 
 of a maiden aunt, who had left him eight hundred a year. Up 
 to_ the date of receiving this welcome legacy, the soldier and his 
 wife had been compelled to exist upon Major Lennard's pay, eked 
 out by the help of stray benefactions which he received from 
 time to time from his rich relatives. The family to which the 
 ponderous officer belonged was very numerous and aristocratic, 
 owning as its chief a marquis, who was uncle to the major. 
 
 So the two big children had decided upon enjoying themselvea 
 very much for the rest of their days, and as a commencement of 
 this new _Ufe_ of idleness and enjoyment, Major Lennard had 
 brought his wife to Paris, whence they were to go to Baden-Baden, 
 to meet some of the major's aristocratic cousins. 
 
 "He might come in for the title himself, my dear," Mrs, 
 Lennard told Eleanor, " if seventeen of his first cousins, and first 
 cousins once removed, would die. But, as I told poor papa, when 
 he grumbled at my marrying so badly, you can't expect seventeen 
 cousins to go ofi" all in a minute, just to oblige us by making 
 Freddy a marquis." 
 
 Perhaps nothing could have been happier for Eleanor than 
 
 is life of confusion, this scrambKng and unsettled existence, in 
 *rhich the mind was kept in a tumult by trifling cares and 
 >gitations ; for in this perpetual disorganization of her intellect, 
 khe lonely girl had no time to think of her own troubles, or of 
 the isolated position which she had chosen for herself. It was 
 only at night, when she went to bed, in a small apartment very- 
 high up in the Hotel du Palais, and about a quarter of an hour's 
 walk from the chamber of the major and his wife, that she had 
 time to think_ of Launcelot Darrell's triumph and her husband'a 
 unjust suspicions ; and even then she could rarely brood very 
 long upon ner troubles, for she was generally exhausted aUke in 
 mind and body by the confusion and excitement of the day, and
 
 Margaret LennariTs Delinquenciet. 853 
 
 more likely to fall asleep and dream of her sorrows than to lie 
 awake and tliink of them. 
 
 Those dreams were more troublesome to her than all the 
 bewilderment of the day, for in them she was perpetually renew- 
 ing the old struggle with Launcelot Darrell, perpetually upon 
 the eve of victory, but never quite victorious. 
 
 The major Hngered in Paris much longer than he had intended, 
 for the big children found the city of boulevards a most delight- 
 ful playground, and frittered away a great deal of money upon 
 expensive dinners at renowned restaurants, ices, opera tickets, 
 new bonnets. Fiver's gloves, Lubin's perfumes, and coach hire. 
 
 They stopped at the Hotel du Palais, still acting on the major's 
 theory, that the most expensive hotels are the cheapest — in th* 
 end. They dined occasionally at the table-d'hote, with two or 
 three hundred companions, and wasted a good deal of time in tho 
 great saloons, playing at bagatelle, peering into stereosco[je8, 
 turning over the daily papers, reading stray paragraphs here 
 and there, or pouring over a chapter of a romance in the 
 feuilleton, until brought to a standstill by a disheartening 
 abundance of difficult words. 
 
 After breakfast, the major left his wife and her companion, 
 either to loll in the reading-room, to stroll about the great stone 
 quadrangle, smoking cigars, and drinking occasional brandy 
 and soda, or to read the Enghsh papers at Galignani's, or to wait 
 for the post, or to meet a British acquaintance at Hill's cafe, or 
 to stare at the raw young soldiers exercising in the courtyards 
 of the Louvre, or the copper-faced Zouaves who had done such 
 wonderful work in the Crimea ; or perhaps to stumble across 
 some hoary-headed veteran who had fought under Napoleon the 
 First, to make friendly speechee to him in bad French, witli 
 every verb in a bewilderingly impossible tense, and to treat him 
 to little glasses of pale cognac. 
 
 Then Mrs. Lennard brought out her frame and her colour- 
 box, and her velvets and brushes, and all the rest of her imple- 
 ments, and plunged at onoe into the delightful pursuit of paint- 
 ing upon velvet — an accompHshment which tliis lady had only 
 newly acquired in six lessons for a guinea, during her last brief 
 sojourn in London. 
 
 " The young person who taught me called herself Madame 
 Ascanio de Brindisi — but, oh ! I\iiss VUlars, if ever there was a 
 Jockney in this world, I think she was one — and she said in her 
 advertisement, that anybody could earn five pounds a week 
 easily at this elegant and delightful occupation ; but I am sure I 
 don't know how I should ever earn five pounds a week, Misa 
 Villars, for I've been nearly a month at tliis one sofa cushion, 
 and it has cost five-and-thirtv shillings already, and isn't finished 
 yet, and the major doesn't Uke to see me work, and I'm obUged 
 
 z
 
 354 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 to do it while lie's out; just as if it was a 6rime to paint upoa 
 velvet. If you would mend those gloves, dear, that are split 
 across the thumb — and really Fiver's gloves at four francs, hve- 
 and-twenty what's its names? oughtn't to do so, though the 
 major says it's my own fault, becaiise I will buy six-and-a« 
 quarters — I should be so much obliged," Mrs. Lennard added, 
 entreatingly, as she seated herself at her work in one of the 
 long windows. '* I shall get on splendidly," she exclaimed, " if 
 the Emperor doesn't go for a drive ; but if he does, I must leave 
 off my work and look at him — he's such a dear !" 
 
 Eleanor was very willing to make herself what the advertise- 
 ments call " generally useful," to the lady who had engaged 
 her. She was a very high-spirited girl, we know, quick to resent 
 aay insult, sensitive and proud ; but she had no false pride. 
 Sh.£ felt no shame in doing what she had undertaken to do ; and 
 if, for her own convenience, she had taken the situation of a 
 kitchen-maid, she would have performed the duties of that situa- 
 tion to the best of her abiKty. So she mended Mrs. Lennard's 
 gloves, and darned that lady's delicate lace collars, and tried to 
 infuse sometliing like order into her toilette, and removed the 
 damp ends of cigars, which it was the major's habit to leave 
 about upon every available piece of furniture, and made herself 
 altogether so useful that Mrs. Lennard declared that she would 
 henceforward be unable to live without her. 
 
 " But I know how it will be, you nasty provoking thing ! " 
 the major's wife exclaimed ; " you'll go on in this way, and you'll 
 make us fond of you, and just as we begin to doat upon you, 
 you'll go and get married and leave us, and then I shall have 
 to get another old fnimp like Miss PalHster, who lived with me 
 before you, and who never woidd do anything for me scarcely, 
 but was always talking about belonging to a good family, and 
 not being used to a Hfe of dependence. I'm sure I used to wish 
 she had belonged to a bad family. But I know it'll be so ; just 
 as we're most comfortable with you, you'U go and marry some 
 horrid creature." 
 
 Eleanor blushed crimson as she shook her head. 
 
 " I don't think that's very likely," she said. 
 
 " Ah ! you say that," Mrs. Lennard answered, doubtfally, 
 "but you can't convince me quite so easily. I know you'll go 
 and marry ; but you don't know the troubles you may bring 
 upon yourself if you marry young — as I did," added the lady, 
 dropping her brush upon her work, and breathing a profouxid 
 High. 
 
 " Troubles, my dear Mrs. Lennard!" cried Eleanor. "Why, 
 it seems to me as if you never could have had any sorrow in 
 your hfe." 
 
 " - Seems, Hamlet!' " exclaimed Mrs. Lennard, castingnpher
 
 Margaret Lemxard's Delinquencies. 866 
 
 eyes trajiically ; " 'nay, it is; I know not seems,' as the Queen 
 says to Hamlet — or perhaps it's Hamlet says so to the Queen, 
 but that doesn't matter. Oh, Miss Villars ! my life might have 
 been very happy, perhaps, but for the bUghting influence of my 
 own crime ; a crime that I can never atone for — nev-arr ! " 
 
 Eleanor would have been quite alarmed by this speech, but 
 for the tone of enjoyment with which Mrs. Lennard gave 
 ■utterance to it. She had pushed aside her frame and huddled 
 her brushes together upon the buhl table — there was nothing 
 but buhl and ormolu, and velvet- pile and ebony, at the Hotel du 
 Palais, and an honest mahogany chair, a scrap of Kidderminster 
 carpet, or a dimity curtain, would have been a relief to the 
 overstrained intellect — and she sat with her hands clasped upon 
 the edge of the table, and her light blue eyes fixed in a tragic 
 rapture. 
 
 " Crime, Mrs. Lennard ! " Eleanor repeated, in that tone of 
 horrified surprise which was less prompted by actual terror, 
 than by the feeling that some exclamation of the kind was de- 
 manded of her. 
 
 " Yes, my dear, ker-rime ! ker-rime ! is not too harsh a word 
 for the conduct of a woman who jilts the man that loves her on 
 the very eve of the day appointed for the wedding, after a most 
 elaborate trousseau has been prepared at his expense, to say no- 
 thing of heaps of gorgeous presents, and diamonds as plentiful 
 as dirt — and elopes with another man. Nothing could be more 
 dreadful than that, could it, Miss Villars ? " 
 
 Eleanor felt that she was called upon to say that nothing 
 could be more dreadful, and said so accordingly. 
 
 " Oh, don't despise me, then, or hate me, please. Miss 
 Villars," cried Mrs. Lennard ; " I know you'll feelmclined to do 
 so ; but don't. I did it ! — I did it, Miss Villars. But I'm not 
 altogether such a wretch as I may seem to you. It was chiefly 
 for my poor pa's sake ; it was, indeed." 
 
 Eleanor was quite at a loss to know how Mrs. Lennard's bad 
 conduct to her affianced husband could have benefited that lady's 
 father, and she said something to that effect. 
 
 " Why, you see, my dear, in order to explain that, I must go 
 back to the very beginning, which was when I was at school." 
 
 As Mrs. Lennard evidently derived yery great enjoyment from 
 this kind of conversation, Eleanor was much too good-natured 
 to discouri^e it ; so the painting upon velvet was abandoned, for 
 that morning at least, and the major's wife gave a brief synopsis 
 of her history for the benefit of Mrs. Monckton. 
 
 " You must know, my dear," Mrs. Lennard began, " my poor 
 pa was a country gentleman ; and he had once been very rich; or 
 at least liis family — and he belonged to a very old family, though 
 not as aristocratic aa the major's — had once been very rich ; but
 
 356 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 someliow or other, througli the extravagance of one and another, 
 poor pa was dreadfully poor, and his estate, which was in Berk- 
 shire, was heavily — what's its name? — mortgaged." 
 
 Eleanor gave a shght start at the word " Berkshire," which 
 did not escape Mrs. Lennard. 
 
 " YoTi know Berkshire ? " she said. 
 
 "Yes, some part of it." 
 
 " Well, my dear, as I said before, poor papa's estate was very 
 heavily mortgaged, and he'd scarcely anything that he could call 
 his own, except the rambliug old country-house in which I was 
 born ; and beyond that he was awfully in debt, and in constant 
 dread of his creditors sending him to prison, where he might have 
 finished his days, for there wasn't the least possibility of his ever 
 paying his debts by anything short of a miracle. Now, of course* 
 all this was very sad. However, I was too young to know much, 
 about it, and papa sent me to a fashionable school at Bath, where 
 his sisters had gone when they were young, and where he knew 
 he could get credit for my education to be finished." 
 
 Eleanor, hard at work at the spht gloves, listened rather in- 
 difierently to this story at first ; but httle by Uttle she began to 
 be iaterested in it, untd at last she let her hands drop into her 
 lap, and left off working, in order the better to attend to Mrs. 
 Lennard's discourse. 
 
 " Well, Miss Villars, it was at that school that I met the ruling 
 star of my fate — that is to say, the major, who was then dreadfully 
 young, without even the least pretence of whiskers, and always 
 sitting in a pastrycook's shop in the fashionable street, eating 
 strawberry ices. He had only just got his commission, and he 
 was quartered at Bath with his regiment, and his sister Louisa 
 was my schoolfellow at Miss Florathome's, and he called one 
 morning to see her, and I hajDpened that very morning to be prac- 
 tising in the drawing-room, the consequence of which was that 
 we met, and from that hour our destinies were sealed. 
 
 " I won't dwell upon our meetings, which Louisa managed for 
 us, and which were generally dreadfully inconvenient, for Fred 
 used to clamber up the garden wall by the toes of his boots — and 
 he has told me since that the brickwork used to scratch ofi" all the 
 varnish, which of course made it dreadfully expensive — but what 
 will not love endure P — and hook himself on as it were ; and it was 
 in that position, with nothing of him visible below his chin, that 
 he made me a most solemn offer of his hand and heart. I was 
 young and fooHsh, Miss Villars, and I accepted him, without one 
 thought of my poor papa, who was the most indulgent of parents, 
 and who had always let me do everything I Hked, and indeed 
 owed upwards of fifty pounds, at a toyshop in Windsor, for 
 dolls and things that he bought me before I was grown up. 
 
 " Well, from that hour Frederick and I were engaged, and I19
 
 Margaret Lennard's Delinquencies. 357 
 
 dropped a tnrquoise ring in among the bushes at the bottom of 
 the garden the next morning, and Louisa and I had upwards of 
 an hour's work to find it. We were engaged ! But we were not 
 Wg allowed to bask in the sunshine of requited aftection, for a 
 fortnight after this Frederick's regiment was ordered out to Malta, 
 and I was wretched. I will pass over my wretchedness, which 
 might not be interesting to you, Miss Villars, and I will only 
 say that, night after night, my pillow was wet with tears, and 
 that, but for Louisa's sympathy, I should have broken my heart. 
 Frederick and I corresponded regularly under cover of Louisa, 
 and that was my only comfort. 
 
 " By-and-by, "however, the time for my leavijig school came — 
 partly because I was seventeen years of age, and partly because 
 papa couldn't settle Miss Florathome's bUls — and I went home 
 to the old rambhng house in Berkshire. Here I found every- 
 thing at sixes and sevens, and poor papa in dreadfully low spirits. 
 His creditors were all getting horribly impatient, he had all 
 sorts of writs, and attachments, and judgments, and contempt 
 of courts, and horrors of that kind, out against him ; and if 
 they could have put him into two prisons at once, I think they 
 would have done it, for some of them wanted him in "Whitecross 
 Street, and others wanted him in the Queen's Bench, and it 
 was altogether dreadful. 
 
 " Well, papa's only friend of late years had been a very learned 
 gentleman, belonging to a grand legal firm in the city, who had 
 managed all his business matters for him. Now this gentleman 
 had lately died, and his only son, who had succeeded to a very 
 large fortune upon his father's death, was staying with my poor 
 papa when I came home from school. 
 
 " I hope you won't think me conceited. Miss Yillars, but in 
 order to make my story intelligible, I'm obliged to say that at 
 that time I was considered a very pretty girl. I had been the 
 belle of the school at Miss Florathome's, and when I went back 
 to Berkshire and mixed in society, people made a tremendous 
 fass about me. Of course, you know, my dear, troubles about 
 money matters, and a wandering life, and PVench dinners, which 
 are too much for a weak digestion, have made a very great 
 difference in me, and I'm not a bit like what I was then. Well, 
 the young lawyer who was staying with papa — I shall not tell 
 you his name, because I consider it very dishonourable to tell 
 the name of a person you've jilted, even to a stranger — was very 
 attentive. However, I took no notice of that — though he was 
 very handsome and elegant-looking, and awfully clever — for my 
 heart was true to Frederick, from whom I received the most 
 heart-rending letters under cover to Louisa, declaring that, what 
 with the mosquitoes and what with the separation from me, and 
 owing debta of honour to his brother officers, and not clearly
 
 358 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 seeing liis way to pay them, lie was often on the verge of com* 
 
 mitting suicide. 
 
 " I had not told papa of my engagement, yon must know, my 
 dear, because I felt sure he'd gnimble about my engaging myself 
 to a pemiiless ensign ; though Fred might have been a marquis, 
 for at that time there were only eleven cousins between him 
 and the title. So one day papa took me out for a drive with 
 
 him, while Mr. while the young lawyer was out shooting; 
 
 and he told me that he was sure, from several things the young 
 lawyer had let drop, that he was desperately in love with me, and 
 that it would be his salvation — pa's — ^if I would marry him, for 
 he was sure that in that case the young man, who was very 
 generous and noble-minded, would pay his debts — pa's — and 
 then he could go on the continent and end his days in peace. 
 
 "Well, my dear Miss Villars, the scene between us wat 
 actually heart-rending. I told papa that I loved another— 1 
 dared not say that I was actually engaged to poor dear Frederick 
 — and pa entreated me to sacrifice what he called a foohsh school- 
 girl's fancy, and to give some encouragement to a noble-hearted 
 yon rig man, who would no doubt get him out of the most abom- 
 inable trouble, and would make me an excellent husband." 
 
 " And you consented ? " 
 
 "Yes, my dear, after a great deal of persuasion, and after 
 shedding actual oceans of tears, and in compliance with papa's 
 entreaties, I began to give the young lawyer — I'm obliged to 
 call him the young lawyer, because one is so apt to associate 
 lawyers with grey hair, and grimipiness, and blue bags — a Httle 
 encouragement, and in about a week's time he made me an offer, 
 and I accepted it, though my heart was still true to Frederick, 
 and I was still corresponding with him under cover of Louisa." 
 
 Eleanor looked very grave at this part of the story, and J^Irs. 
 Lennard interpreted her companion's serious face as a mnte 
 reproach. 
 
 "Yes, I know it was very wrong," she exclaimed; "but then, 
 what in goodness' name was I to do, driven to distraction upon 
 one side by pa, driven to distraction upon the other side by Fred, 
 who vowed that he would blow out his brains if I didn't write 
 to him by every mail ? 
 
 " Well, my dear, the young lawyer, whom I shall call in future 
 my affianced husband, for short, behaved most nobly. In the 
 first place he bought pa's estate — not that he wanted it, but 
 because pa wanted the money — and then he lent pa enough 
 money, over and above the price of the estate, to settle with all 
 his creditors, and to buy an annuity, upon which he could five 
 very comfortably abroad. Of course this was very generous of 
 him, and he made quite light of it, declaring that my love would 
 have repaid him for much greater sacrifices. You know h©
 
 Margaret Lennard's Delinquenciet. 359 
 
 thought I loved him, and I really did try to love liim, and to 
 throw over poor Frederick, for papa's sake : but the more I tried 
 to throw Frederick over, and the more distant and cold I made 
 my letters, the more heart-rending he became, reminding me of 
 the vows I had uttered in the garden at Bath, and declaring 
 that if I jilted him, his blood should be upon my head. So, 
 what with one thing and another, my life was a burden. 
 
 " It took papa some time to settle all his debts, even with the 
 assistance of my afGianced husband, but at last everything was 
 arranged, and we started for a continental tour. My affianced 
 husband accompanied us, and the marriage was arranged to take 
 place at Lausanne. I need not say that I was very unhappy all 
 this time ; and I felt that I was a very wicked creature, i'ar I 
 was deceiving one of the best of men. Perhaps the worst of aU 
 was, that my affianced husband had such perfect confidence ix 
 me, that I scarcely think anything I could nave said or done — 
 short of what I did at the very last — could have shaken his faith. 
 He talked sometimes of my youth, and my childishness, and my 
 simplicity, until I used to feel a perfect Lucretia Borgia. Ah ! 
 ]>[iss VUlars, it was dreadful, and I often felt inclined to throw 
 myself at liis feet and tell him aU about poor Frederick ; but the 
 thought of my poor papa, and the recollection of the money for 
 the estate, whicn could not be paid back again, sealed my lips, 
 and I went on day after day deceiving the best of men. You see, 
 I'd gone too far to recede, and oh, my dear, that is the awful 
 penalty one always pays for one's wickedness — if you begin by 
 decei^^ng any one, you're obhged to go on, and on, and on, from 
 one deception to another, untU you feel the basest creature in the 
 world. 
 
 " At least that's how I felt when all the lovely dresses, and 
 jewels, and things that my affianced husband had ordered arrived 
 from Paris. If I could have walked upon gold, !Miss Villars, I 
 do think that foohsh man — for he was quite foolish about me, 
 though in a general way he was so very clever — would have 
 thought the purest bullion only fit for pavin" stones under my 
 feet. The silks and satins — satin wasn't outre then, you know — 
 would have stood alone if one had wanted them to do so ; tha 
 lace — well, I won't dwell upon that, because I dare say you think 
 already that I shall never have done talking, and are getting 
 dreadfully tired of this long story." 
 
 "No. Mrs. Lennard," Eleanor answered, gravely, "I am very 
 much interested in your story. You cannot tell how deeply it 
 interests me." 
 
 Tlie major's wife was only too glad to receive permission to 
 mn on. She was one of those people who are never happier 
 than when reciting their own memoirs, or relating remarkable 
 passages in the history of their lives.
 
 360 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " The very eve of the wedding-day had arrived," resumed Mrs. 
 Lennard, ia a very solemn, and, indeed, almost awful voice, 
 " when the unlooked-for crisis of my destiny came upon me like 
 » thunderbolt. Pa and my affianced husband had gone out 
 *Dgether, and I was alone in one of the apartments which we 
 occupied at Lausanne. It was about an hour before dinner, and 
 I was dressed in one of the silka that had come from Paris, and 
 I was tolerably resigned to my fate, and detemuned to do my 
 best to make my affianced husband happy, and to prove my 
 gratitude for his goodness to my father. Imagine my horror, 
 then, when I was told that a lady wished to see me — an Enghsh 
 lady — and before I could decide whether I was at home or not, 
 in rushed Louisa Lennard, very dusty and tumbled, for she had 
 only just arrived, and of course there was no railway to Lausamie 
 from anywhere, at that time. 
 
 '' Well, my dear Miss VHlars, it seems that Frederick's silence, 
 which I had taken for resignation, was quite the reverse. Louisa 
 had heard of my intended marriage, and had written about it to 
 her brother, and her brother had gone nearly mad, and, being 
 on the eve of obtaining leave of absence on account of his bad 
 health — the climate had knocked him up — contrived to get away 
 from Malta immediately. He and his sister had managed to 
 persuade their rich maiden aunt, who was very fond of Frederick, 
 and who left him aU her money the other day, to take them both 
 to Switzerland, and there they were, with the rich maiden aunt, 
 who was very much knocked up by the journey, and who had not 
 the least shadow of a suspicion that she had been made a catspaw. 
 
 "Well, Miss Villars, anybody — even the hardest-hearted of 
 creatures — would have been touched by such devotion as this, 
 and for the moment I forgot aU about my affianced husband's 
 generosity, and I gave that enthusiastic Louisa, who really was 
 the moving spirit of everything, a solemn promise that I would 
 flee Frederick that night, if only for ten minutes. Of course \ 
 didn't tell her that the next day was appointed for my wedding, 
 because I was too much afraid of her anger, as she was devotedly 
 attached to her brother, and had heard my solemn vows in the 
 garden at Bath ; but the people at the hotel told her all about 
 it, in their nasty gossiping way ; the consequence of which was, 
 that when I met Fred in the porch of the cathedral, while papa 
 and mj affianced husband were taking their wine after dinner, 
 his gomgs-on were really awful. 
 
 " I can never describe that scene. When I look back at it, it 
 geems like a dream — all hurry, and noise, and confusion. Frede- 
 rick declared that he had come all the way from Malta to claim 
 me as his bride, and called my affianced husband a baron all 
 covered with jewels and gold, from the ballad of ' Alonzo the 
 Brave,* which he had been in the habit of reciting at school.
 
 Margaret Lennard*8 Delinquencie*. 861 
 
 And, poor dear fellow, now that I saw him again, my heart, 
 which had always been true to him, seemed more true to him 
 than ever ; and what with Louisa, who was very strong-minded, 
 ^oing on at me, and calling me mercenary and faithless and 
 deceitful, and what with Frederick going down upon his kneea 
 in that chilly porch, and getting up suddenly every time the 
 person who showed the cathedral to strangers happened to look 
 our way, I scarcely knew what I said or did, and Frederick ex- 
 torted from me the promise that I would run away with him 
 and Louisa that very night, and be married to him as soon ae 
 ever we could tind anybody that would marry us. 
 
 "I can never describe that dreadful night. Miss Yillars; 
 suffice it to say, that I ran away without a bit of luggage, and 
 that Frederick, Louisa, and I, performed the most awful journey 
 — almost all by dihgence — and were nearly jolted to death be- 
 tween Lausanne and Paris, where Fred, by the help of some 
 Enghsh friends, contrived to get the ceremony performed by a 
 Protestant clergyman, at the house of the British Consul, but 
 not without a great deal of difficulty and delay, during which I 
 expected every day that my affianced husband would come 
 tearing after me. 
 
 " He did nothing of the kind, however. I heard afterwards 
 from papa that he didn't show the least disposition to pursue 
 me, and he particularly requested that no attempt should be 
 made to prevent my doing exactly as I pleased with regard to 
 Fred. If he had pursued me. Miss Villars, I have no doubt I 
 ihould have gone back and married him ; for I am very weak, 
 and it is my nature to do whatever people wish me to do. But 
 all he did was to walk about very quietly, looking as pale as a 
 ghost for a day or two, and braving out all the ridicule that 
 attached to him because of his bride's running away from him 
 upon the eve of the wedding-day, and then he parted company 
 with papa, and went away to Egypt, and went up the Nile, and 
 did all sorts of outlandish things." 
 
 "And have you never seen him since P" Eleanor asked, 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Yes, once," answered Mrs. Lennard, " and that's the most 
 singular part of the story. About three years after my marriage 
 I was in London, and Fred and I were very, very poor, for his 
 aunt hadn't then forgiven him for making a catspaw of her at 
 Lausanne, and he had no remittances from her, and nothing 
 but his pay and an occasional present from Louisa, who married 
 a rich city man soon after our elopement. I had had one baby, 
 a httle girl, who was then a year and a half old, and who was 
 christened after Fred's rich aunt; and Fred's regiment was 
 ordered out to India, and I was getting ready to join him at 
 Southampton, and I was very unhappy at having to take vaj
 
 362 Eleanor*s Victory. 
 
 darling out there, for people said the climate •would kill Tier. I 
 was in lodgings in the neighbourhood of Euston Square, and I 
 was altogether very wretched, when one evening, at dusk, as I 
 was sitting by the fire, wd\h my little girl in my lap, who should 
 walk into the room but the very man I had jilted. 
 
 " I gave a scream when I saw him, but he begged me not to 
 be frightened of him ; and then I asked him if he had forgiven 
 me. He said he had tried to forgive me. He was very grave 
 and quiet ; but though I think he tried to be gentle, there was 
 a sort of suppressed sternness in his manner which made me feel 
 afraid of him. He had not very long returned from the East, 
 he said, and he was very lonely and wretched. He had heard 
 from my father that I was going to India, and that I had a 
 little girl, whom I was obliged to take abroad with me for want 
 of the means of providing her with a comfortable home in Eng- 
 land. He proposed to me to adopt this little girl, and to bring 
 her up as his own daughter, with my husband's consent. 
 
 " He promised to leave her very well ofi" at his death, and to 
 give her a fortune if he lived to see ter married. He would be 
 most likely, he said, to leave her all his money ; but he made it 
 a condition that neither I nor her father should have any further 
 claim upon her. We were to give her up altogether, and were 
 to bo satisfied with hearing of her from time to time, through 
 him. 
 
 " ' I am a lonely man, Mrs. Lennard,' he said ; ' even my 
 wealth is a burden to me. My Hfe is purposeless and empty. 
 I have no incentive to labour — nothing to love or to protect. 
 Let me have your little girl ; I shall be a better father to her 
 than your husband can be.' 
 
 " At first I thought that I could never, never consent to such 
 a thing ; but little by Uttle he won me over, in a grave, persua- 
 sive way, that convinced me in spite of myself, and I couldn't 
 afford to engage a nurse to go out to Calcutta with me, and I'd 
 advertised for an ayah who wanted to return, and who would go 
 with me for the consideration of her passage-money, but there 
 had been no answers to my advertisements : so at last I con- 
 Bented to write to Fred to ask him if he would agree to our 
 parting with the pet. Fred wrote me the shortest of letters by 
 return of post ; ' Yes,' he said, * the child would be an awfm 
 nuisance on shipboard, and it will be much better for her to stop 
 in England.' I sent his letter to the lawyer, and the next day 
 he brought a nurse, a respectable elderly person, and fetched 
 away my precious darling. 
 
 " You see. Miss Villars, neither Fred nor I had realized the 
 idea that we were parting with her for ever ; we only thought of 
 the convenience of getting her a happy home in England for 
 nothing, while we went to be broiled to death's door out in India.
 
 Very Lonely. 868 
 
 But! ah I when years and years passed by, and the two babies 
 who were bom in India died, I began to gi-ieve dreadfully about 
 my lost pet ; and if I hadn't been what some people call frivo- 
 lous, and if Fred and I hadn't suited each other so exactly, and 
 been somehow or other always happy together in all our troiibles, 
 I think I should have broken my heart. But I tried to be re- 
 signed," concluded Mrs. Lennard, with a profound sigh, " and I 
 hear of my pet once in six months or so, though I never hear 
 from her, and indeed I doubt if she knows she's got such a thing 
 as a mamma in the universe — and I have her portrait, poor dar- 
 ling, and she's very like what I was twenty years ago." 
 
 " I know she is," Eleanor answered, gravely. 
 
 " You know she is ! You know her, then ?" 
 
 *Yes, dear Mrs. Lennard. Very strange things happen in 
 this world, and not the least strange is the circumstance whick 
 has brought you and me together. I know your daughter inti- 
 mately. Her name is Laura, is it not?" 
 
 " Yes, Laura Mason Lennard, after Fred's rich aunt, Laura 
 Mason." 
 
 " And your maiden name was Margaret Ravenshaw.' 
 
 "Good gracious me, yes!" cried Mrs. Lennard. ""WTiy, you 
 Beem to know everj^tliing about me." 
 
 "I know this much, — the man you jilted was Gilbert Monck- 
 ton, of ToUdale Priory." 
 
 " Of course ! Tolldale was poor papa's place till he sold it to 
 Mr. Monckton. Oh, Miss Villars, if you know him, how yon 
 must despise me ! " 
 
 " I only wonder that you could " 
 
 Eleanor stopped abruptly; the termination of her speech 
 would not have been very comi^limentary to the good-tempered 
 major. Mrs. Lennard understood that sudden pause. 
 
 " I know what you were going to say. Miss Villars. You 
 were going to say you wondered how I could prefer Fred to 
 Gilbert Monckton ; and I'm not a bit offended. I know as well 
 as you do that Mr. Monckton is very, very, very superior to 
 Frederick in intellect, and dignity, and elegance, and all manner 
 of things. But then, you see," added Mrs. Lennard, with a 
 pleading smUe, " Fred suited me." 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 VERY LONELT. 
 
 BliEANOR had considerable difficulty in parrying Mrs. Lennard'a 
 questions as to how she had come to know Gilbert Monckton 
 and his ward ; and she was obhged to confess that she had been 
 musical governess to Laura at Hazlewood.
 
 864 Eleanor's Vtciory. 
 
 " But I must beg you not to tell Mr. Monctton that I am with 
 you, if you should happen to write to him," Eleanor said. " I 
 have a very particular reason for wishing him to remain in perfect 
 ignorance of my present home." 
 
 " To be sure, my dear," answered Mrs. Lennard, " of course 
 I won't tell him if you don't wish me to do so. And as to writing 
 to him, I should no more think of doing so than of flying in the 
 air, except just a civil note of a few lines, to thank hirn for send- 
 ing me news of Laura. He only writes to me once in six months 
 or so, to tell me how my lost darUng is, and though I've im- 
 plored him again and again, he won't let me see her. ' She is 
 still httle more than a child,' he wrote in his last letter, ' and I 
 dread the eflfect of your influence upon her. It is out of no 
 revengeful feeling that I keep your daughter apart from you. 
 WTien her character is formed and her principles fixed, you 
 5hall know her.' As if I was a wretch ! " cried Mrs. Lennard, 
 in conclusion, " and should contaminate my own daughter." 
 
 Eleanor smiled as she shook her head. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Lennard," she said, " your daughter is perhaps 
 6etter off in the care of such a man as Gilbert Monckton. She 
 is as kind-hearted and good-tempered as yourself, but she is 
 rather weak, and " 
 
 " And I'm weak, too. Yes, I quite understand you. Miss 
 Yillars. It is my misfortune to be weak-minded. I can't say 
 ' no ' to people. The arguments of the person who talks to me 
 last always seem so much stronger than those of the person 
 who talked to me first. I take impressions quickly, and don't 
 take them deeply. I was touched to the heart by Gilbert 
 Monckton's kindness to my father, and I meant to marry him 
 as I promised, and to be his tnie and obedient wife ; and then 
 when that poor silly Fred came aU the way to Lausanne, and went 
 on so about being iU-used and deserted, and wanted to commit 
 suicide, I thought it was my duty to run away with Fred. I 
 haven't any opinions of my own, you see, and I'm always ready 
 to be influenced by the opinions of other people." 
 
 Eleanor thought long and deeply over the story she had heard 
 from Mrs. Lennard. This was the root of all Gilbert Monckton's 
 suspicions. He had been deceived, most cruelly, most unex- 
 pectedly, by a beautiful, childish creature, in whose innocence 
 he had imphcitly believed. He had been fooled and hoodwinke(J 
 by a fair-haired angel whose candid azure eyes had seemed 
 to beam upon him with all the brightness of truth. He had 
 been deceived most egregiously, but he had not been dehbe- 
 rately betrayed : for up to the time of her treacherous desertion 
 of her affianced lover, Margaret Eavenshaw had meant to 
 be true to him. Unhappily Gilbert Monckton did not know 
 this. It is difficult for the man who finds himself as cruelly
 
 Very Lonely. ?J6S 
 
 jilted aa he had been, not to believe that the falae one has in- 
 tended all along to turn traitor at the last. There had been no 
 explanation between Margaret and the lawyer; and he was 
 entirely ignorant of the manner of her flight. He only knew 
 that she had left him without a word to prepare him for the 
 death-blow, without a line of regretful farewell to make hia 
 sorrow lighter to him. The frivolous shallow woman had been 
 nnable to fathom the depth of the strong man's love. Mar- 
 
 faret Ravenshaw knew there was a very little of the divine in 
 er own nature, and she had never expected to inspire the 
 mighty aiiection of a grand and noble soul. She was able to 
 understand the love of Frederick Lennard : which was demon- 
 •trated by noisy protestations, and disclosed itself in long schoof 
 ooy letters in which the young man's doubtful orthography was 
 blistered by his tears. But she could not understand the in- 
 tensity of feehngs that did not make themselves visible in any 
 stereotyped fasliion. 
 
 Unluckily for the harmony of creation, wise men do not 
 always fall in love msely. The wisest and the best are apt to 
 be bound captive by some external charm, which they think 
 must be the outward evidence of an inward grace ; and Gilbert 
 Monckton had loved tliis frivolous, capricious girl as truly as if 
 she had been the noblest and greatest of womankind. So the 
 blow that had fallen upon him was a very heavy one ; and its 
 most fatal eifect was to transform a confiding nature into a sus- 
 picious one. 
 
 He argued as many men argue under the same circumstances. 
 He had been deceived by one woman, ergo, all women were 
 capable of deception. I don't suppose the " Stranger " placed 
 very much confidence in the Countess, or had by any means too 
 higb an opinion of Charlotte ; and the best of men are apt to 
 feel very much after the manner of Mrs. Haller's husband. 
 
 It seemed very strange to Eleanor to be living with Gilbert 
 Monckton's first love. It was almost as if some one had risen 
 out of the grave ; for she had looked upon that old story which 
 she had heard hinted at by the Hazlewood gossips, as something 
 ■o entirely belonging to the past, that the heroine of the romance 
 must of necessity be dead. 
 
 And here she was, alive and merry, knowing no greater un- 
 easiness than a vague dread of increasing plumpness, induced 
 by French dinners. Here she was the very reverse of the imag* 
 that Eleanor had conjured up in her mind in association witK 
 Gilbert's false love; a good-tempered, commonplace, pretty, 
 middle-aged woman. Mrs. Monckton felt a httle pang of jea- 
 lousy at the thought that her husband had once loved tliit 
 -woman so dearly. Her husband ! Had she still the right to 
 «aU him by that uame? Had he not severed the link between
 
 366 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 them of his own free will ? Had he not outraged her hononr, 
 insulted her truth by his base and unfounded suspicions P Yes ! 
 lie had done all this, and yet Eleanor loved him ! She knew 
 the strength of her love now that she was away from him, and 
 might i^erhaps never see his face looking at her in kindness 
 again. She knew it now that her scheme of vengeance agains'^ 
 Launcelot Darrell had failed, and left a great blank in her mind. 
 She thought of her husband seriously now for the first time, 
 and she knew that she loved him. 
 
 "Eichard was right," she thought again and again; "the 
 purpose of my Ufe was cruel and unwomanly. I had no right 
 to marry Gilbert Monckton while my mind was full of angry 
 thoughts. Eichard was right. My poor father's rest would be 
 no more peaceful if I had made Launcelot Darrell pay the 
 penalty of his wickedness." 
 
 She did not abandon her idea of vengeance all at once ; but 
 little by little, by very slow degrees, her mind became reconciled 
 to the idea that she had failed in her scheme of retribution, and 
 that there was nothing left her but to try and justify herself in 
 the sight of the husband she loved. 
 
 She loved him ; and the angry feelings which had prompted 
 her to rim away from Tolldale Priory, willingly abandoning all 
 claim to his name and his protection, were beginning to give way 
 now. Mrs. Lennard's story had thrown new hght upon the 
 past, and Eleanor made all kinds of excuses for her husband's 
 conduct. It was his habit to bear all sorrows quietly. Who could 
 tell what anguish he might have felt in the thought of his young 
 wife's falsehood? 
 
 "He would not pursue Margaret Eavenshaw," Eleanor 
 thought, " and he makes no attempt to find me. And yet he 
 may love me as truly as he loved her. Surely if God refused 
 ^0 hear my prayers for revenge, he will grant me the power 
 A) justify myself." 
 
 She could only bHndly hope for some unknown chance that 
 might bring about her justification; and that chance would 
 perhaps never come. She was very unhappy when she thought 
 of this ; and it was only the perpetual confusion in which Major 
 Lennard and his wife contrived to keep everybody belonging to 
 them, that saved her from suffering very cnielly. 
 
 AU this time she was quite ignorant of the appearance of an 
 advertisement which had been repeated at the top of the second 
 column of the Times supplement every day for nearly a month, 
 and about which idle people hazarded aU many of conjectures — 
 
 ELEAINOE, come back. I was rash and cruel. I will trust 
 you. G. M. 
 
 Major Lennard was in the habit of seeing the Timee eyerj
 
 Victor Bourdon goes over to the Enemy. 367 
 
 day at Galifniani's ; but, as he was not a very acute observer of 
 original thinker, he took no notice of the repetition of this adver- 
 tisement beyond an occasional, " By Jove ! Haw ! that poor 
 dayv'l's still advertising for El'nor! " nor did he ever make any 
 allusion to the cii'cumstance in his domestic circle. 
 
 So Eleanor hugged her sorrows secretly in the gayest city of 
 the world, while Gilbert Monckton was hurrying hither and 
 thither, and breaking his heart about his lost \vife. 
 
 I think that pitying angels must sometimes weep over the 
 useless torments, the unnecessary anguish, which foolish mortaJa 
 inflict upon themselves. 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 VICTOR BOURDON GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY. 
 
 Major and Mrs. Lennard and Eleanor Monckton had stayed 
 for nearly two months at the H6tel du Palais. April was fast 
 melting into May, and the atmosphere in the city of Boulevards 
 was very different to the air of an EngHsh spring. Miniature 
 strawberries were exposed in the windows of the cheap restaurants 
 in the Palais Royal, side by side with monstrous asparagus, and 
 green peas from Algeria; until the mind of the insular-bred 
 stranger grew confused as to the succession of the months, and 
 was beguiled into thinking that May must be omitted in the 
 French almanack, and that capricious April skipped away in a 
 farewell shr>wer to give place at once to glowing June. 
 
 It was dilHcult for a thorough-bred Briton to believe that the 
 Fete of the First Napoleon had not yet come to set the fountains 
 playing at Versailles : for the asphalte on the Boulevards was 
 unpleasantly warm under one's boots ; airily-attired ladies were 
 lounging upon the chairs in the gardens of the Tuileries ; only 
 the most fragile and vaporous bonnets were to be seen in the 
 Bois de Boulogne ; vanille and strawberry ices were in constant 
 demand at Tortoni's; idle Parisians spent the dusky spring 
 evenings seated outside the Hghted cafes, drinking iced lemonade ; 
 and aliundred other signs and tokens bore witness that the 
 summer had come. 
 
 Upon one of these very warm April days, Major Lennard 
 nsisted upon taking his wife and her companion to dine at a 
 ^staurant not very far from the Bourse ; where the pastorally- 
 aiclined epicure could take liis dinner in a garden, a pleasant 
 Quadrangle, festooned with gay blossoms, and musical with the 
 ripple ot a fountain. Eleanor did not often accompany the 
 major and his wife in their pleasure excursions, the culminating 
 attraction of which was generally a dinner ; but this time !Major 
 Lennard insisted upon her joining them
 
 3©8 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 " It's the last dinner I shall give, Meg, in Paris," he said; 
 " for we must start for Brussels on Saturday, and I mean it tc 
 be a good one." 
 
 Eleanor submitted, for her new friends had been very kind to 
 ner, and she had no motive for op^iosing their wishes. It was 
 much better for her to be with them in any scene of gaiety, 
 however hollow and false that gaiety might be, than alone in the 
 splendid saloon at the Hotel du Palais, brooding over her troubles 
 in the dusky twihght, and thinking of the horrible night on 
 which she had watched for her father's coming in the Rue de 
 FArcheveque. 
 
 The restaurant near the Place de la Bourse was very much 
 crowded upon tliis sunny April afternoon, and there was only one 
 table vacant when the major and his party entered the flowerj 
 little quadrangle, where the rippling of the fountain was unheard 
 amidst the clattering of plates and the chinking of silver forks. 
 It was seven o'clock, and the dinners were in high progress ; the 
 diners eating very fast, and talking a great deal faster. 
 
 The httle arbour-hke box to which Major Lennard conducted 
 the two ladies was next to a similar arbour, in which there was a 
 group of Frenchmen. Eleanor sat with her back to these men, 
 who had very nearly finished dining, and who, from the style of 
 their conversation, appeared to have taken plenty of wine. The 
 man who was evidently the entertainer sat with his legs amongst 
 a forest of empty bottles ; and the jingling of glasses and the 
 " cloop " of newly-drawn corks drowned a good deal of the con- 
 versation. 
 
 It was not very likely that Eleanor would listen to these men's 
 talk ; or, indeed, distinguish one voice from another, or one word 
 from another, amid the noise of the crowded garden. She had 
 quite enough to do to attend to Mrs. Lennard, who chattered 
 all din-^r time, keeping up an uninterrupted babble, in which 
 remarks upon the business of the dinner-table were blended with 
 criticisms upon the dress of ladies sitting in the other boxes. 
 
 " You should eat those little red things — baby lobsters — 
 ecrivisses, I think they call them, dear ; I always do. How do 
 you like that bormet ; no, not that one — a little more St. Jaques, 
 major — the black one, with the peach-coloured strings? I 
 wonder why they caU all the Clarets saints, and not the Bur- 
 gundies. Do you think she's pretty in the box opposite P No, 
 you don't think much of her, do you ? — I don't — I Uke the one 
 in the blue silk, pretty well, if her eyebrows weren't so heavy." 
 
 The dinner was di-awing to a close, the major was up to his 
 eyes in roast fowl and water-cress, and Mrs. Lennard was 
 scraping the preserved fruit out of a shellwork of heavy pastry 
 with the point of her spoon, trifling idly now that the grand 
 business was done, when Eleanor rose suddenly from her seat,
 
 Victor Bourdon goes over to the Enemy. 869 
 
 breathless and eafjer, as much startled by the sound of a voice 
 in the next arljour as if a shell had just exploded amidst the 
 ddbris of the dinner. 
 
 " After ? " some one had said, interrogatively. 
 
 " After," answered a man whose voice had grown hoarser and 
 thicker, as the empty bottles about the legs of the president had 
 become more numerous, " my stripling has refused me a little 
 bank-note of a thousand francs. Thou art too dear, my friend, 
 he has said to me ; that has been paid already, and enough 
 largely. Besides, that was not great things. Ah ! ha ! I said, 
 thou art there, my drole ; you begin to fatigue yourself of your 
 confederate. He is too much. Very well ; he has his pride, he 
 also. Thon art the last of men, and I say to you, adieu, Monsieur 
 Launcelot Darrell." 
 
 This was the name that struck upon Eleanor's ear, and aroused 
 the old feehng in all its strength. The snake had only been 
 scotched after all. It reared its head at the sound of that name, 
 like a war-horse at the blast of a trumpet. Eleanor, starting to 
 her feet, turned round and faced the party in the next box. The 
 man who had spoken had risen also, and was leaning across the 
 table to reach a bottle on the other side. Thus it was that the 
 faces of the two were opposite to each other; and Victor 
 Bourdon, the commercial traveller, recognized Gilbert Monck- 
 ton's missing wife. 
 
 He dropped the glass that he was fiUing, and poured some wine 
 into the cuff of his coat, while he stared at Eleanor in drunken 
 surprise. 
 
 " You are here, madame ? " he cried, with a look in which 
 astonishment was blended with intense delight, a sort of tipsy 
 radiance that illuminated the Frenchman's fat face. Even in the 
 midst of her surprise at seeing him, Eleanor perceived that 
 blending of expression and wondered at it. 
 
 Before she could speak, Monsieur Bourdon had left his party 
 and had deliberately seated himself in the empty chair next her. 
 He seized her hand in both his own, and bent over her as she 
 shrank away from him. 
 
 " Do not recoil from me, madame," he said, always speaking 
 in French that was considerably disguised by wine. " Ah, yoq 
 do not know. I can be of the last service to you ; and you can 
 be of the last service to me also. I have embroiled myself with 
 this Monsieur Long — cell — lotte, for always ; after that which I 
 have done for him, he is an ingi-ate, he is less than that," 
 Monsieur Bourdon struck the nail of his thumb upon his front 
 tooth with a gesture of ineffable contempt. " But why do I 
 tell you this, madame ? You were in the garden when this pooi 
 old, — this Monsieur de Crespiguy, was lying dead. You remem- 
 ber; »'0u know. Never mind, I lose my soli' the head; I have 
 
 A A
 
 370 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 dined a little generously. Will you find yourself to-morrow, 
 madame, in the gardens of the Palais Royal, at five hours? 
 There is music all the Tuesdays. I have something of the last 
 importance to tell you. Remember you that I know everything. 
 I know that you hate this Long — cellotte. I will give you your 
 revenge. You will come ; is it not ? " 
 
 "Yes," Eleanor answered, quickly. 
 
 " Upon the five hours ? I shall wait for you near to the 
 fountain." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Monsieur Bourdon rose, put on his hat with a drunken flourish, 
 and went back to liis friends. The major and Mrs. Lennardhad 
 been all this time staring aghast at the drunken Frenchman. He 
 had spoken in a loud whisper to Eleanor, but neither Frederick 
 Lennard nor his ^vife retained very much of that French which 
 had been sedulously drilled into them during their school-days, 
 and beyond ordering a dinner, or disputing with a landlord as to 
 the unconscionable number of wax-candles in a month's hotel bill, 
 their knowledge of the language was very limited ; so Eleanor 
 had only to explain to her friends that Monsieur Bourdon was a 
 person whom she had known in England, and that he had 
 brought her some news of importance which she was to hear the 
 following day in the gardens of the Palais Royal. 
 
 Mrs. Lennard, who was the soul of good-nature, readily 
 assented to accompany Eleanor to this rendezvous. 
 
 " Of course I'll go, my dear, with pleasure ; and really I think 
 it's quite funny, and indeed actually romantic, to go and meet a 
 tipsy Frenchman — at least, of course, he won't be tipsy to-day — 
 near a fountain ; and it reminds me of a French novel I read 
 once in English, which shows how true it must have been to 
 foreign manners ; but as the major knows we're going, there's no 
 hami, you know," Mrs. Lennard remarked, as they walked from 
 the Hotel du Palais to the gardens. The diners were hai'd at 
 work already at the cheap restaurants, and the brass band was 
 braying Hvely melodies amidst the dusty trees and flowers, 
 the lukewarm fountain, the children, the nursemaids, and the 
 rather seedy-looking Parisian loungers. It was a quarter past 
 five, for Mrs. Lennard had mislaid her parasol at the last moment, 
 and there had been ten minutes employed in skirmish and search. 
 Monsieur Victor Bourdon was sitting upon a bench near the 
 fountain, but he rose and darted forward with hia hat in his hand 
 68 the two ladies approached. 
 
 " I'll go and look in the jewellers' shops. Miss Villars," Mrs. 
 Lennard said, " while you're talking to your friend; and please 
 come and look for me when you want me. The major is to join 
 ns here, you know, at half-past six, and we're to dine at Vefours'. 
 Good morning."
 
 Victor Bourdon goes over to tJie JSnemt/. 371 
 
 Mrs. Lennard bestowed these final words upon the Frenchman, 
 accompanied by a graceful curtsey, and departed. Victor Bour- 
 don pointed to the bench wliich he had just left, and Eleanor 
 sat do%vTi. The Frenchman seated himself next her, but at a 
 respectful distance. Every trace of the tipsy excitement of the 
 previous night had vanished. He was quite cool to-day ; and 
 there was a certain look of determination about his mouth, and 
 a cold gUtter in his Hght, greenish-grey eyes that did not promise 
 weU for any one against whom he might bear a grudge. 
 
 He spoke English to-day. He spoke it remarkably well, with 
 only an occasional French locution. 
 
 " Madame," he began, " I shall not waste time, but come at 
 •nee to the point. You hate Launcelot Darrell ? " 
 
 Eleanor hesitated. There is something terrible in that word 
 "hate." People entertain the deadly sentiment ; but they shrink 
 from its plain expression. The naked word is too appaUing. It 
 is the half-sister of murder. 
 
 " I have good reason to dishke him " she began. 
 
 The Fi-enchman shrugged his shoulders as he interrupted her. 
 
 " Yes, you hate him ! " he said ; " 3'^ou do not like to say so, 
 because the word is not nice. You are — what is it you call it ? — 
 you are slioclced by the word. But it is so, nevertheless ; you 
 hate him, and you have cause to hate him. Yes, I know now 
 who you are. I did not know when I first saw you in Berkshire, 
 but I know now. Launcelot DarreU is one who cannot keep a 
 secret, and he has told me. You are the daughter of that poor 
 old man who killed himself in the Faubourg Saint Antoine — that 
 is enough! You are a great heart; you would to avenge the 
 death of your father. You saw ns that night— the night the 
 wills were change? " 
 
 " I did," Eleanor answered, looking at the man with sovereign 
 contempt. He had spoken of the transaction as^ coolly as if it 
 had been the most honourable and commonplace business 
 
 " You are there in the darkness, and you see us," exclaime/ 
 Monsieur Bourdon, bending over Eleanor and spenking in a con* 
 fidential whisper, " you watch, you look, you Usten, and after, 
 when you go into the bouse, you denounce Launcelot. You 
 declare the ^vill is forge. The wiU is change. You were witness 
 you say ; you tell all that yon saw ! But they do not beheve 
 you. But why ? Because when you say you have the true will 
 in your pocket, you cannot find it; it is gone." 
 
 The Frenchman said this in a tone of triumph, and then 
 paused suddenly, looking earnestly at Eleanor. 
 
 As she returned that look a new hght flashed upon her mind. 
 She began to understand the mystery of the lost will. 
 
 " It is gone," cried Monsieur Bourdon, " no trace, no vestij^ 
 of it remains. You say, search the garden; the garden a
 
 372 Eleanor^s Victory. 
 
 search; but no result. Then the despair seizes itself of yon, 
 Launcelot mocks himself of you ; he laughs at your nose. You 
 find yourself unhappy ; they do not believe you ; they look coldly 
 at you ; they are harsh to you, and you fly from them. It la 
 like that; is it not?" 
 
 " Yes," Eleanor answered. 
 
 Her breath came and went quickly ; she never removed her 
 eyes from the man's face. She began to think that her justifica- 
 tion was perhaps only to be obtained by the agency of this 
 disreputable Frenchman, 
 
 " What, then, of the lost will ? It was not swallowed up by 
 the earth. It could not fly itself away into the space ! What 
 became of it ? " 
 
 " You TOOK IT FROM ME ! " cried Eleanor, " Yes, I remember 
 how closely you brushed against me. The paper was too big to 
 go altogether into the pocket of my dress. The ends were 
 sticking out, and you- 
 
 « 
 
 ' I did all my possible to teach you a lesson ! Ah, when 
 young and beautiful ladies mix themselves with such matters, it 
 18 no wonder they make mistakes. I was watching you all the 
 time, dear madame. I saw you change the papers, and I drew 
 the will out of your pocket, as easily as I could rob you of that 
 handkerchief." 
 
 The comer of a lace-bordered handkerchief was visible amid 
 the folds of Eleanor's dress. The Frenchman took the scrap of 
 lace between his fingers, and snatched the handkerchief away 
 ■with an airy Hghtness of touch that might have done credit to a 
 professional adept in the art of picking pockets. He laughed as 
 ne returned the handkerchief to Eleanor. She scarcely noticed 
 the action, so deeply was she absorbed in the thought of the 
 missing will. 
 
 "You have the wiH, then?" 
 
 " Si, madame." 
 
 " Why did you take it from me P " 
 
 " But why, madame ? For many reasons. First, because it 
 is always good to seize upon anything that other people do not 
 know how to keep. Again, because it is always well to have a 
 strong hand, and a card that one's adversary does not know of. 
 An extra king in one's coat-cuS" is a good thing to have when 
 one plays ecarte, madame. That will is my extra king." 
 
 The Frenchman was sUent for some Uttle time after having 
 made what he evidently considered rather a startling coup. He 
 sat watching Eleanor with a sidelong glance, and with a cunning 
 twinkle in his small eyes. 
 
 *' Is it that we are to be friends and alUes, madame ? " he asked, 
 presently. 
 
 " Friends 1 " cried Eleanor. " Do you forget who I am P Do
 
 Victor Bourdon goes over to the Enemy. 373 
 
 you forget whose daughter I am ? If Launcelot Darrell's waa 
 the only name written in my father's last letter, you were 
 not the less an accomplice in the villany that led to his death. 
 The pupil was no doubt worthy of the master." 
 
 "You reject my friendship, then, madame? Tou wish to 
 know nothing of tne document that is in my posseasion ? You 
 treat me from high to low ? You refuse to ally yourself with 
 me? Hein?" 
 
 " I will use you as an instrument against Launcelot Darrell, 
 if you please," Eleanor answered, "since it seems that you have 
 quarrelled with your fast friend." 
 
 " But yes, madame. When pussy has pulled the chestnuts out 
 of the fire, she is thenceforward the most unuseful of animals, 
 and they chase her. Do you understand, madame ?" cried the 
 Frenchman, with a sudden transformation from the monkey to 
 the tiger phase of his character, that was scarcely agreeable. 
 "Do you understand?" he liissed. "Monsieur Launcelot haa 
 ennuied himself of me. I am chased! Me!" 
 
 He struck his gloved fingers upon his breast to give emphasis 
 to this last word. 
 
 " It is of the last canaille, this young man," he continued, with 
 a shrug of disgust. " Ingrate, poltroon, scoundrel ! "VVlien the 
 forge will, forge at my suggestion by the clerk of the avou^ de 
 Vindsor, has been read, and all is finish, and no one dispute his 
 possession, and he enter his new domain as master, the real 
 nature of the man reveal itself. The genuine will is bum, he 
 think. He defies himself of his dear friend, this poor Bourdon, 
 and he ■^vill not even tell him who would have benefit by that 
 genuine will. It is burn ! Did he not see it scorch and blaze 
 with his o^vn eyes ? There is nothing to fear ; and for this poor 
 comrade, who nas helped my gentleman to a great fortune he is 
 less than that !" 
 
 Monsieur Bourdon snapped his fingers derisively, and stared 
 fiercely at Eleanor. Then he relapsed into a sardonic smile, and 
 went on. 
 
 " At first things go on charmingly. Monsieur Launcelot is 
 more sweet than the honey. It is new to him to be rich, and 
 for the first month he scatters his money with full hands. Then 
 suddenly he stops. He cries out that he is on the road to ruin ; 
 that his friend's claims are monstrous. Faith of a gentleman, 
 I was, perhaps, extravagant ; for I am a httle gamester, and I 
 like to see life en grand seigneur. A has la moutarde, I said. 
 My friend is millionnaire. I am no more commercial traveller. 
 Imagine, then, when mon gar^on shuts up his — what is it you 
 call it, then — cheque-book, and refuse me a paltry sura of a 
 thousand francs. I smile in liis face," said Monsieur Bourdon, 
 nodding his head slowly, with half- closed eyes, " and I say.
 
 374 lEleanor's Victory. 
 
 ' Bon jour, Monsieur Darrell ; I shall make yon hear some newt 
 of me before I am much older.' " 
 
 " You did not tell him that the will was in your possession ?" 
 
 " A thousand thunders ! No ! " exclaimed the Frenchman. 
 " I was not so much foolish as to show liim the beneath the 
 cards. I come over here to consult a friend, an avoue." 
 
 " And he tells you ? " 
 
 " No matter. You are better than the avoue, madame. You 
 hate Launcelot Darrell ; this will is all you want to prove him a 
 cheat and a blacksmith — pardon, a forger." 
 
 " But to whom does Mr. de Crespigny leave his estate in 
 this genuine will.''" asked Mrs. Monckton. 
 
 The Frenchman smiled, and looked at Eleanor thoughtfully 
 for a few moments before he answered her. 
 
 "Wait a little, madame," he said; "that is my little secret. 
 Nothing for nothing is the rule here below. I have told you too 
 much already. If you want to know more you must pay me." 
 
 " Prove that I spoke the truth upon that night," exclaimed 
 Eleanor, " and I promise you that my husband, Gilbert Monck- 
 ton, shall reward you handsomely." 
 
 " But if monsieur should repudiate your promise, madame, 
 Buice he has not authorized you to give it ? I am not very wise 
 in your EngUsh law, and I would rather not mix myself in this 
 affair. I do not want to be produced as ■witness or accom- 
 plice. I want, all simply, to get a price for this dociunent. I 
 nave something to sell. You wish to buy it. Name your price." 
 
 " I cannot," answered Eleanor ; "I have no money. But I 
 might get some, perhaps. Tell me, how much do you want?" 
 
 " A thousand pounds." 
 
 Eleanor shook her head despondently. 
 
 " Impossible ! " she said ; " there is no one, except my hus- 
 band, from whom I could get such an amount, and I could not 
 ask him for money until after I had proved Launcelot Darrell's 
 infamy." 
 
 The Frenchman watched her closely. He saw that she had 
 epoken the truth. 
 
 " You do not know how much this will is worth to you, 
 madame," he said. " Remember, I could make terms with 
 , Laimcelot Darrell, and sell it to him for perhaps ten times the 
 sum I ask of you. But Monsieur Darrell was insolent to me ; 
 he struck me once with the butt end of his hunting-whip ; I do 
 not forget. I could get more money from him ; but I can get 
 my revenge through you." 
 
 He hissed out these words between his teeth and glared vin- 
 dictively at the fountain, as if the phantom of Launcelot Darrell 
 had. been looking at him out of the sparkhng water-drops. Re- 
 venge was not a beautiful thhig, as represented by Victor
 
 Tlie Horrors of Delirium Tremens. 375 
 
 Bourdon. Perhaps Eleanor may have thought of this as she 
 looked at him. 
 
 " I want my revenge," he repeated; "after all, gold is a vil- 
 lain thing. Revenge is more dear — to gentlemen. Besides, I 
 do not think you would pay me ungenerously if I helped you to 
 crush this scoundrel, and helped you to something else by the 
 market, Hein?" 
 
 " I tell you again that you shall be well rewarded," Mrs. 
 Monckton said, gravely. 
 
 " Very well, then, listen to me. It is to-day Tuesday. In a 
 week I shall have time to think. In a week you will have leisure 
 to gather together a httle money — all you can get. At the end 
 of that time come to me at my apartment — bring with you any 
 friend you Uke. I do not think that you are traitor — or ingrate 
 — and you see I trust you. I will have my friend, the — what you 
 call him — attorney, with me — and we may come to an arrange- 
 ment. You shall sign a contract — well ruled — for to pay me in 
 the future, and then the will is to you. You return to Eng- 
 land ; you say, ' Aha, Monsieur Launcelot, walk out of that. It 
 is your turn to be chased.' " 
 
 V^ictor Bourdon grinned ferociously, then took a memoran- 
 dum-book from his pocket, wrote a few words in pencil, tore out 
 the leaf upon which they were written, and handed it to Mrs, 
 Monckton. 
 
 " That is my address," he said. " On Tuesday, at seven 
 o'clock hi the evening, I shall expect to see you there, and your 
 friend. But if you think to betray me, remember I am not the 
 man to forgive an injury. I have the honour to salute you, 
 madame. Bon jour." 
 
 He took off his hat with a flourish, and walked away. Eleanor 
 sat for some minutes where he had left her, thinking over what 
 had happened, before she went into the arcades to look for Mrs. 
 Lennard. 
 
 That night she told the Lennards who she was, and all her 
 story. She felt that it was better to do so. She must have 
 freedom now to act, and to act promptly. She could not do this, 
 and yet preserve her secret. Her old ally, Eichard Thornton, 
 would bo indispensable to her in this crisis, and she wrote to him 
 early on the morning after her interview with Monsieur Bour- 
 don, imploring him to come to her immediately. 
 
 CHAPTER LYI. 
 
 THE nORRORS OF DELIRIUM TREMENS. 
 
 ITo letter came from Richard Thornton. Eleanor was seized 
 with a kind of panic as the days went by, and there was no
 
 376 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 answer from the young man, the faithful friend, without whose 
 help she felt herself so powerless. 
 
 Eleanor had addressed her letter to the Pilasters, enclosed in 
 an envelope directed to Signora Picirillo, with a few hurried 
 lines requesting that it might be immediately forwarded to the 
 scene-painter. He was in Scotland stUl, very hkely, and some 
 days must elapse before he could respond to Eleanor's summons. 
 She felt assured that he would come to her. There are some 
 friends whose goodness we no more doubt than we doubt the 
 power of God ; and Richard Thornton was one of these. 
 
 But the week passed, and no reply came to Eleanor's appeal 
 for help ; so she began to feel that she stood alone, and must act 
 for herself. She must act for herself, since to think of getting 
 any assistance from either the major or his wife in this business, 
 wliich demanded foresight, coolness, and diplomacy, would have 
 been about as reasonable as to apply to one of the children play- 
 ing under the trees in the gardens of the Tuileries. 
 
 As far as sympathy went. Major and Mrs. Lennard were all 
 that the most exacting individual could require. The major 
 offered to do anything in a muscular way on behalf of his wife's 
 friend. Should he pxinch the head of that scoundrelly French- 
 man ? Should he go over to England and horsewhip Launcelot 
 Darrell, and bring Gilbert Monckton to reason, and play up old 
 gooseberry altogether ? This good-natured Hercules was ready 
 to hit out right and left in the defence of poor Eleanor. 
 
 But the one friend whom Mrs. Monckton wanted in this crisis 
 was Richard Thornton. Richard, the clear-sighted, even-tem- 
 pered, unprejudiced young man, who was ready to go through 
 fire and water for the sake of his beautiful adopted sister, with- 
 out noise or bluster ; and when the Tuesday, the day appointed 
 by the Frenchman for Eleanor's visit to his apartments, came, 
 and Richard Thornton did not come with it, the lonely girl 
 almost gave way to despair. 
 
 She i'elt that she had to encounter a wretch who was utterly 
 without honour or honesty, and who, seeing the value which she 
 set upon the possession of Maurice de Crespigny's wdl, would be 
 all the more exacting in his demands. And she had nothing to 
 bribe him with ; nothing. 
 
 She had been too proud to appeal to her husband. For ever 
 impulsive, for ever mconsiderate, she had not stopped to think 
 that he of all others was the most fitting person to stand by 
 her in this crisis. At first the thought of writing to Gilbert 
 Monckton had indeed flashed across her mind, but in the next 
 moment she had remembered the bitter humiliation of her last 
 failure. 
 
 She could not endure another such degradation ; and she had 
 •een treachery and dishoaour so long triumph over the simple
 
 The Horrors of Delirium Trement. 377 
 
 force of truth, that she had begun to think that wrong waa 
 etrongcr than right, and always must be victorious. 
 
 " It I were to write and ask Gilbert to come to me, this 
 Frenchman would perhaps disappear before m;y husband could 
 arrive ; or he would be afraid of Gilbert, very hkely, and would 
 deny any knowledge of the wiU, and I should appear a convicted 
 trickster, who had heaped up one falsehood upon another, in the 
 weak attempt to justify herself. No, Gilbert Monckton shaK 
 hear nothing of me until I can go to him with Maurice de 
 Crespigny's will in my hands." 
 
 But in the meantime this helpless girl's anxiety grew every 
 hour more intense. What rehance could she place upon the 
 words of the Frenchman ? She had encountered him while he 
 was still smarting under the sense of his wrongs, and in that 
 stage of his feelings, revenge had seemed even sweeter to him 
 than gain. But this state of things might not endure very long. 
 The commercial traveller might listen to the dictates of reason 
 rather than to the fiery promptings of passion, and might begin 
 to think that a substantial recomj^ense in the shape of money 
 was better than any sugar-plum in the way of revenge. He had 
 said that Launcelot Darrell would be willing to give Ihtti ten 
 times a thousand pounds for the genuine will. "VVliat more 
 likely than that Monsieur Victor Bourdon should have thought 
 better of his original design, and opened negotiations -with the 
 new master of Woodlands ? 
 
 Llonsieur Bourdon would in all probabihty have done precisely 
 this, had he not been hindered by one of those unlooked-for and 
 purely prondential circumstances which so often help single and 
 simple-minded Truth in her encounters with versatile and shifty 
 Falsehood. 
 
 At half-past sir o'clock upon the appointed evening, Eleanor 
 Monckton left the Hotel du Palais, escorted by Major Lennard, 
 on her way to the Frenchman's lodging. She had waited untU 
 the last moment in the hope of Richard Tliornton's arrival, but 
 he had not come ; and she had been fain to accept the aid of this 
 good-natured over-grown schoolboy, who still persisted that the 
 immediate punching of Victor Bourdon's head would be the best 
 and surest means of getting possession of the will. 
 
 " Let me punch the feller's head. Miss Vil — beg pardon, Mrs. 
 Monckton. The idea of your being married to old Monckton ! 
 He ain't any older than me, you know ; but I always call him 
 old Monckton. Let me punch this dam Frenchman's head ; 
 that'll bring the feller to book in next to no time, and then we 
 can do what we like with him." 
 
 But Eleanor impressed upon her stalwart protector that there 
 must be no muscular demonstration, and that the conduct of 
 the interview was to be left entirely to her.
 
 378 Eleanor's Victorjf. 
 
 " I don't in the least hope that he'll give up the will without a 
 bribe," Eleanor said ; " he is the last man upon earth to do that." 
 
 "I'U tell you what, then, Mrs. Monckton," exclaimed the 
 major ; " I haven't any readij money ; I never had, since I bor- 
 rowed sixpences of a sucking bill-discounter at the first school 1 
 ever went to ; but I'll give you my acceptance. Let this fellow 
 draw upon me for a thousand at three months, and give up the 
 document for that consideration. Monckton wiU enable me to 
 meet the bUl, no doubt, when he finds I was of service to you in 
 this business." 
 
 Eleanor looked at the major with a gleam of hope in her face. 
 But that transient gleam very quickly faded. She had only a 
 tague idea of the nature and properties of accommodation bills ; 
 but she had a very positive notion of Victor Bourdon's character, 
 and, though this plan sounded feasible enough, she did not 
 think it would succeed. 
 
 " You are very good to me, Major Lennard," she said, " and 
 believe me, I appreciate your kindness ; but I do not think that 
 this Frenchman will consent to take anytliing but ready money. 
 He could get that from Launcelot Darrell, remember, at any 
 time." 
 
 Eleanor's only hope was the one chance that she might induce 
 Victor Bourdon to accept her promise of a reward from Gilbert 
 Monckton after the production of the will. 
 
 The neighbourhood in which the commercial traveller lived, 
 whenever he made Paris his head-quarters, was one of the dingiest 
 locahties in the city. Major Lennard and Eleanor, after making 
 numerous inqmries, and twice losing their way, found themselves 
 at last in a long narrow street, one side of which was chiefly 
 dead-waU, broken here and there by a dilapidated gateway or a 
 dingy window. At one comer there was a shop for the sale of 
 unredeemed pledges ; a queer old shop, in whose one murky 
 window obsolete scraps of jewellery, old watch-keys, impossible 
 watches with cracked enamel dials and crippled hands that 
 pointed to hours whose last moments had passed away for 
 half a century ; mysterious, incomprehensible garments, whose 
 fashion was forgotten, and whose first owners were dead and 
 
 gone ; poor broken-down clocks, in tawdry ormolu cases, that 
 ad stood upon lodging-house mantelpieces, indifferently telling 
 the wrong time to generations of lodgers; an old guitar; a 
 stringless violin ; poor, frail, cracked cups and saucers, that had 
 been precious once, by reason of the Ups that had drunk out of 
 them ; a child's embroidered frock ; a battered christening cup ; 
 a tattered missal; an odd Tolume of "The Wandering Jew;" 
 amid a hundred other pitiful rehcs which poverty barters for a 
 crust of bread, faded in the evening sunlight, and waited for 
 some eccentric Durchaser to take a fancy to them. Next door to
 
 The Horrors of Delirium Trement. 379 
 
 this sarcophagus of the past, there was an eatinp-honse, neat 
 and almost dieerfiil, where one could have a soup, three courses, 
 and half a bottle of vnne for fivepence. The whole neighbour- 
 hood seemed to be, somehow or other, overshadowed by churches, 
 and pervaded by the perpetual tramp of funerals ; and, lying low 
 and out of the way of all cheerful traffic, was apt to have a 
 depressing effect upon the spirits of frivolous people. 
 
 Eleanor, leading the major — who was of about as much use \a 
 her as a blind man is to his dog — succeeded at last in finding the 
 house which boasted Monsieur Victor Bourdon amongst its 
 inhabitants. I say " amongst" advisedly; for as there was the 
 office of a popular bi-weekly periodical upon the first floor, a 
 greengrocer in the rez-de-chmissee, a hairdresser, who professed 
 to cut and friz the hair, on the second story, and a mysterious 
 lady, whose calling was represented by a faded pictorial board, 
 resident somewhere under the roof, the commercial traveller was 
 a very unimportant inhabitant, an insignificant nomad, replaced 
 to-day by a student en droit, to-morrow by a second-rate actor 
 at a fifth-rate theatre. 
 
 Eleanor found this when she came to make inquiries of the 
 
 {)ortress as to the possibility of seeing Monsieur Bourdon. This 
 ady, who was knitting, and whose very matronly contour made 
 it impossible for her to see her knitting-needles, told Eleanor 
 that Monsieur Bourdon was very unlikely to be at home at that 
 time. He was apt to return late at night, upon the two hours, 
 in efi'ect, between two wines, and at those times he was enough 
 abrupt, and was evidently by no means a favourite with madame 
 the portress. But on looking into a dusky corner where some 
 keys were hanging upon a row of rusty nails, madame in- 
 formed Eleanor that Monsieur Bourdon ivas at home, as his key 
 •was not amongst the rest, and it was his habit to leave it in her 
 care when he went out. The portress seemed very much struck 
 by this discovery, for she remarked that the last time she had 
 seen [Monsieur Bourdon ^o out had been early in the morning of 
 Sunday, and that she did not remember having seen him re- 
 enter. 
 
 But upon this a brisk young person of twelve or thirteen, 
 who was busy getting up fine linen in the recesses of the lodge, 
 cried out in a very shrill voice that I^Ionsieur Bourdon had re- 
 turned before mid-da^ on Sunday, looking a UtUe ill, and drag- 
 ging himself with a fatigued air. 
 
 He was at home, then, the portress exclaimed ; at least she 
 did not utter any equivalent to our English word home, and in 
 that evinced considerable \visdom, since a French lodging is a 
 
 J lace so utterly unhomelike, that the meanest second-floor at 
 sHngton or Chelsea, presided over by the most unconscionable 
 of British landladies, becomes better than all the pleasures and
 
 380 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 palaces we can roam amidst — and it is not everybody who has 
 the chance of roaming amidst pleasures and palaces — by the 
 very force of comparison. Monsieur was cliez lui, the portress 
 said, and would madame ascend ? Monsieur's apartment was 
 on the entresol, with windows giving upon the street. Madame 
 would see a black door facing her upon the first landing, 
 
 Eleanor went up a short flight of steps, followed by the 
 major. She knocked upon the panel of the black door — once, 
 twice, three times ; but there was no answer. 
 
 " I'd lay a fiver the feller's gone out again," the major ex- 
 claimed ; " that jabbering Frenchwoman didn't seem to know 
 what she was talking about." 
 
 But Eleanor knocked a fourth time, and very much louder 
 than she had knocked before. There was no answer even this 
 time ; but a voice was heard within, blaspheming aloud with 
 horrible French execrations that seemed to freeze Eleanor's 
 blood as she listened to them. 
 
 She did listen to them involuntarily, as people often listen in 
 a crowded thoroughfare to the obnoxious clamour of a drunken 
 man, paralyzed for the moment by the horror of his hideous 
 oaths. 
 
 Eleanor turned very pale, and looked despairingly at the 
 major. 
 
 "Hark!" she whispered'; "he is quarrelling with some one," 
 
 The big soldier deliberately turned himself into a convenient 
 position for Hstening, and flattened his ear against the keyhole. 
 
 "No, he ain't quarreUin' with any one," the major said, pre- 
 sently, " I can't make much out of his lingo, but there's only 
 one voice. He's all alone, and goin' on like a madman." 
 
 The major opened the door softly as he spoke. Monsieur 
 Bourdon's apartment was divided into two low-roofed chambers, 
 a little larger than comfortable pigeon-holes ; and in the inner 
 and smaller chamber Eleanor and her companion saw the com- 
 mercial traveller wandering backwards and forwards in his 
 obscure den, only dressed in his trousers and shirt, and gesti- 
 culating like a madman. 
 
 Mrs, Monckton clung to the soldier's arm. She had some 
 rause for fear, for in the next moment the Frenchman descried 
 his visitors, and, with a howl of rage, rushed at the major's 
 throat. 
 
 The most intellectual and diplomatic individual in Christen- 
 dom would have been of very little service to Eleanor at that 
 moment, if he had been also a coward. Major Lennard lifted 
 the commercial traveller in his arms, as easily as if that gentle- 
 man had been a six months' old baby, carried bim into the next 
 room, where there was a narrow httle bedstead, flung him on to 
 ihe mattress, and held him there.
 
 The Horrors of Delirium Trement. 381 
 
 " You'll find a silk handkerchief in my pocket, my dear," he 
 said to Eleanor, " if you'll be so kind as to pull it out. Voulez- 
 vous gardez-vous trangkeel, dong, vous — scoundrel!" he ex- 
 claimed, addressing himself to the struggling Frenchman. 
 
 Mrs. Monckton obeyed. She fell into her place quite naturally, 
 giving way before the major. He was the hero of the moment. 
 Frederic Soulie has said that the meanest actor who ever trod 
 the boards of a theatre, has some inspired moment in which he 
 ifl great. I fancy it must be pretty much the same in the drama 
 of life. This was the major's moment ; and he arose out of his 
 normal inanity, resplendent with unconscious grandeur. 
 
 The silk handkerchief was a large one, and Major Lennard 
 used it very dexterously about Monsieur Bourdon's wrists ; then 
 he found another handkerchief in another pocket, and used it aa 
 a bandage for the Frenchman's ankles ; and having done this 
 he sat down by the bedside and contemplated his handi- 
 work complacently, puffing and blowing a Uttle while he 
 did 80. 
 
 Victor Bourdon lay very still, glaring at the ponderous soldier 
 with eyes that were like those of a wild beast. 
 
 " I know thee," he exclaimed ; "thou hast been with me all the 
 night, thou hast sat upon my chest; ah, Gredin! thou art the 
 biggest of all the demons that torment me. Thou breathest the 
 fire and the suljjhur, and thy breath bums me, and now thou 
 hast attached my hands with bands of iron, white hot, and thou 
 hast tied my ankles with living scorpions ! " 
 
 Eleanor stood at a few paces from the bed, listening with 
 horror to the man's delirious ravings. 
 
 " What is it ? " she asked, in a subdued voice. " Is it a fever 
 that makes him Uke this. Or has he gone mad ?" 
 
 The major shook his head. 
 
 " I think I can guess pretty well what's the matter with th© 
 poor devil," he said : " he's been going it a httle too fast. He's 
 got a touch of del. trem." 
 
 "Del. trem.!" 
 
 "Delirium tremens, my dear," answered the major. "Yes, 
 you can hear his teeth chattering now this minute. I had it 
 once when I was up the country, and our fellers took to Uving 
 npon brandy pawnee. I had rather a sharp time of it, while it 
 lasted ; used to fancy the tent was on fire ; wanted to go out 
 tiger-hunting in the middle of the night ; tried to set the bed- 
 clothes alight to cure myself of the hiccough : and ran after Meg 
 with a razor early one morning. This man has got a touch of 
 it, Mrs. Monckton, and I don't think we shall get much reason 
 out of him to-night." 
 
 The conduct of Monsieur Victor Bourdon, who was at that 
 moment holding a very animated discourse with a dozen or bo of
 
 382 lEleanor^s Victory. 
 
 juvenile demons supposed to be located in tlie bed-curtains, went 
 very far towards confirming the major's assertion. 
 
 Eleanor sat down at the little table, upon whicli tlie dirty 
 litter of the Frenchman's last meal was huddled into a heap and 
 intermixed with writing materials ; an ink-bottle, and a mustard- 
 pot, a quill pen, and a teaspoon lying side by side. The girl's 
 fortitude had given way before this new and most cruel disap- 
 pointment. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud. 
 
 Major Lennard was very much distressed at this unexpected 
 collapse upon the part of his chief. He was very big, and rather 
 stupid ; but he had one of those tender childish natures which 
 never learn to be hard and unmerciful. He was for ever patting 
 the shock heads of dii-ty pauper children, for ever fumbling in 
 his pockets for copper coin, always open to the influence of "any 
 story of womanly distress, and quite unable to withstand the 
 dingiest female, if she could only produce the merest phantom ot 
 a tear to be wiped away furtively from one eye, wlule the other 
 looked round the comer to see it the shot went home. 
 
 He looked piteously at Eleanor, as she sat sobbing passionately, 
 half unconscious of his presence, forgetful of everything except 
 that this last hope had failed her. 
 
 " I thought that he might leave Paris, and go back to Launce- 
 lot Darrell," she said, in a broken voice, " but I never thought 
 of anything hke this." 
 
 " Sh-sh-sh-sh ! " cried Monsieur Bourdon from the bed. 
 " rtz ! Cats, cats ! Sh-sh-sh-sh ! Chase those cats, some- 
 body ! There's the girl Faust saw upon the Bracken with the 
 little rat ranning out of her mouth ! There, sitting at the table ! 
 Go then, Voleuse, Gueuse, Infame ! " screamed the Frenchman, 
 glaring at Eleanor. 
 
 The girl took no notice of him. Her sobs grew every moment 
 louder and more hysterical. The major looked at her helplessly. 
 
 " Don't," he said, "my good creature, don't now. This is 
 really dreadful, 'pon my soul, now. Come, come, now ; cheer 
 •op, my dear, cheer up. You won't do anytliing by giving way, 
 you know. I always tell Margaret that, when she thinks she 
 can catch the train by sitting on the ground and crying because 
 her portmanteaus won't shut. ISTobody ever did, you know, and 
 if you don't put your shoulder to the wheel " 
 
 The major might have rambled on in this wise for some time ; 
 but the sobbing grew louder ; and he felt that it was imperatively 
 necessary that something energetic should be done in this crisis. 
 A bright thought flashed upon him as he looked hopelessly 
 round the room, and in another moment he had seized a small 
 white crockery-ware jug from the Frenchman's toilet table, and 
 launched its contents at Eleanor's head. 
 
 This was a second master-stroke. The girl looked up with her
 
 The Horrors of Delirium Tremens. 383 
 
 head dripping, but with her courage revived by the shock her 
 senses had received. 
 
 She took off her wet bonnet, and pushed the drenched hair 
 from her forehead. 
 
 " Oh, major," she said, " I know I have been very silly. But 
 I was so taken by surprise. It seems so cruel that this should 
 happen. I shall never get the will now." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense, my dear," exclaimed Major Lennard. 
 *' Wliat's to prevent your getting itP " 
 
 " What do you mean P " 
 
 " What's to prevent your talcing it ? We're not going to stand 
 upon ceremony with such a. feller as this, are we, Mrs. Monck- 
 ton? He stole the will from you, and if you can get the chance, 
 you'll return the compliment by stealing it from him. Fair 
 play's a jewel, my dear Mrs. M., and nothing could be fairer than 
 that. So we'll set to work at once ; and I hope you'll excuse 
 the cold water, which was meant in kindness, I assure you." 
 
 Eleanor smiled, and gave the major her hand. 
 
 " I'm sure it was," she said. " I scarcely liked the idea of 
 your coming with me, major, for fear you should do some mis- 
 chief by being a little too impetuous. But I don't know what I 
 should have done without you." 
 
 Major Lennard shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating 
 gesture. 
 
 " I might have been useful to you, my dear," he said, " if 
 the feller had been all right and I could have punched his head ; 
 but one can't get any credit out of a chap when he's in that 
 state," added the major, pointing to the commercial traveller, 
 who was taking journeys on his own account into the horrible 
 regions of an intemperate man's fancy. 
 
 " Now, the first thing we shall want, Mrs. Monckton," said 
 the major, " is a candle and a box of lucifers. We must have a 
 light before we can do anything." 
 
 It was not dark yet ; but the twilight was growing greyer and 
 greyer, and the shadows were gathering in the corners of the 
 room. 
 
 Victor Bourdon lay glaring at his two visitors through the 
 dusk, while the major groped about the mantelpiece for a box of 
 lucifers. He was not long in finding what he wanted. He 
 struck a little waxen match against the greasy paper of the wall, 
 and then hghted an end of candle in a tawdry cheap china can- 
 dlestick. 
 
 " Ease her, ease her ! " cried the Frenchman ; " I see the 
 lights ahead off Normandy, on this side of the -svind. She'U 
 strike upon a rock before we know where we are. What are 
 they about, these Enghsh sailors? are they blind, that they 
 don't see the light ? "
 
 384i Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Major Lennard, with the candle in his hand, set to work tc 
 look for the missing document. He did not look very systema* 
 tically, but as he pulled out every drawer and opened every cup- 
 board, and shook out the contents of every receptacle, flinging 
 them remorselessly upon the floor, he certainly looked pretty 
 efiectually. Eleanor, kneeling on the ground amongst the 
 chaotic heap of clothes and papers, tattered novels, broken meer- 
 schaum pipes and stale cigar ends, examined every pocket, every 
 book, and every paper separately, but with no result. The 
 drawers had been ransacked, the cupboards disembowelled, a 
 couple of portmanteaus completely emptied. Every nook and 
 comer of the two small rooms had been most thoroughly 
 searched, first by the major in a slap-dash and miUtary manner ; 
 afterwards by Eleanor, who did her work with calmness and 
 deUberation, though her heart was beating, and the hot blood 
 surging iu her over-excited brain. Every possible hiding-place 
 in the two rooms had been examined, but the will had not been 
 found. 
 
 Every possible hiding-place had been examined; except the 
 pockets of Victor Bourdon's trousers, and the bed upon which 
 he lay. 
 
 The major stopped to scratch his head in despair, and stood 
 staring hopelessly at the unhappy victim of his own vices, who 
 was stni raving, still remonstrating with invisible demons. But 
 Eleanor aroused her friend from this state of stupefaction. 
 
 " He may have the will about him, major," she said. 
 
 " Aha ! " cried the soldier, " if he has, I'll have it out of him. 
 Give it me, you unconscionable blackguard," he exclaimed, 
 pouncing upon the delirious Frenchman. " I'll have it out of 
 you, you scoundrel. Tell me where it is directly. Dites-moi oic 
 il est, dong ! "What have you done with it, sir ? What have 
 you done with Maurice de Crespigny's will ? " 
 
 The familiar name aroused a transitory gleam of consciousness 
 in Victor Bourdon. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " he cried, with a mahcious chuckle. " Maurice de 
 Crespigny, the old, the parent of that Long— cellotte ; but I 
 will have my revenge; but he shall not enjoy his riches. The 
 will, the will ; that is mine ; it will give me all." 
 
 He raised himself by a great efi"ort into a sitting posture, and 
 made frantic endeavours to disengage his hands. 
 
 " He is thinking of the will," cried Eleanor ; " loosen his 
 wn»t8, major! Pray, pray, do, before the thought leaves 
 him."_ 
 
 Major Lennard obeyed. He loosened the knot of the silk 
 handkerchief, but before he could remove it, Victor Bourdon had 
 pulled his hands through the slackened noose, and clutched at 
 Bomethiag in hia breast. It was a folded paper which
 
 Maurice de Crespigny^ s Bequest 385 
 
 snatched ont of the bosom of his shirt, and waved triumphantly 
 above his hoad. 
 
 " Aha, Monsieur Long— cellotte ! " he screamed. " I will pay 
 thee for thy insolence, my friend." 
 
 But before the Frenchman's uplifted arm had described a 
 second circle in the air above his head, the major swooped down 
 upf^n him, snatched away the paper, handed it to Eleanor, and 
 resccured Monsieur Bourdon's wrists with the silk handkerchief. 
 
 So brief had been the interval of semi-consciousness, that the 
 commercial traveller had already forgotten all about Launcelot 
 Darrell and his own wrongs, and had rambled off again into im- 
 potent execrations against the imaginary demons amongst the 
 bed-curtains. 
 
 Eleanor unfolded the paper, but she only read the first few 
 words, " I, Maurice de Crespigny, being at this time, &c.," for 
 before she could read more, the door of the outer room was sud- 
 denly opened, and Richard Thornton hurried through into tha 
 bed-chamber. 
 
 But not Richard only; behind him came Gilbert Monckton, 
 and it was he into whose outstretched arms Eleanor flung herself. 
 
 " You will beheve me now, Gilbert," she cried. " I have found 
 the proof of Launcelot Darrell's guilt at last." 
 
 CHAPTER LVn. 
 
 MAURICE DE CRESPIGNY's BEQUEST. 
 
 RicnARD TnoRNTON had received Eleanor's letter in Edinburgh, 
 and had been travelling perpetually since his receipt of the girl's 
 eager epistle. He had calculated that by travelling day and 
 night he should be able to accomplish a great achievement in 
 the four days that were to elapse between the hour in which he 
 received Eleanor's letter and the hour appointed for the inter- 
 view with the Frenchman. This achievement was the reconcili- 
 ation of Gilbert Monckton and his wife. 
 
 For this purpose the devoted young man had travelled from. 
 Edinburgh to London, and from London to Torquay, back to 
 London again, with ^Mr. Monckton for his companion, and from 
 London to Paris, still in that gentleman's companionship. 
 Gilbert Monckton would have thought it a small thin^ to have 
 given half his fortune in payment of the tidings which the scene- 
 painter carried to him. 
 
 He should see his wife again ; his bright and beautiful young 
 wife, whom he had so cruelly wronged, and so stupidly mis- 
 understood. 
 
 Human nature is made up of contradictions. From the hour 
 in which Gilbert Monckton nad turned his back upon Tolldala 
 
 B B
 
 386 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 Priory, deserting tis young wife in a paroxysm of jealous anger 
 until now, lie had done notliing but repent of liis own work. 
 Wliy liad he disbelieved in her ? How had he been vile enough 
 to doubt her ? Had she not stood before him, with the glorious 
 light of truth shining out of her beautiful face ? Even had he 
 not already repented, Eleanor's letter would have opened the 
 jealous husband's eyes to his own foUy ; that brief offended letter 
 in wliich the brave girl had repudiated her husband's offer of 
 wealth and ir^dependence ; and had declared her proud determi- 
 nation to go out into the world once more, and to get her 
 own living, and to accept nothing from the man who doubted 
 her truth. 
 
 The lawyer had made every effort to lure the lost bird back to 
 its deserted nest. But if you render your wife's existence ta- 
 tolerable, and she runs away from you in despair, it is not always 
 possible to bring her back to your halls ; though you may be 
 never so penitent for your offences against her. Gilbert Monck- 
 ton had employed every possible means to discover his wife's 
 whereabouts ; but had failed most completely to do so. His 
 search was futile; his advertisements were unanswered; and, 
 very lonely and miserable, he had dragged out the last six weeks, 
 in constant oscillation between London and Torquay ; always 
 making some new effort to obtain tidings of the missing girl ; 
 perijetuaUy beguiled a httle way onward with false hopes, only 
 to be disappointed. He had gone again and again to Signora 
 Picirillo ; but had received no comfort from her, inasmuch as the 
 music mistress knew no more about Eleanor than he did. 
 
 It is not to be wondered, then, that when Eichard Thornton 
 ajjpeared at Torquay, carrying with him Eleanor's letter, he was 
 received with open arms by the joenitent husband. ISTot an hour 
 was wasted by the eager travellers, but use what haste they 
 might, they could not hasten the Dover express, or the Calais 
 packets, or the comfortable jog-trot pace of the train between 
 Calais and Paris ; so they had only been able to arrive at eight 
 o'clock in the dusky April evening, just in time to behold Major 
 Lennard in Ids moment of triumph. 
 
 Gilbert Monckton extended his hand to the stalwart soldier, 
 after the events of the evening had been hurriedly related by 
 Eleanor and her companion. 
 
 " You robbed me of a wife twenty years ago. Major Lennard,'* 
 he Raid, " but you have restored another wife to me to-night." 
 
 " Then I suppose we're quits," the major exclaimed, cheerfully, 
 " and we can go back to the Palais and have a devilled lobster. 
 Hay P I suppose we must do something for this poor devil, 
 though, first. Hay ? " 
 
 Mr. Monckton heartily concurred in this suggestion; and 
 Eichard Thornton, who was better acquainted with Paris than
 
 Maurice de Crespigny's Hequest. 387 
 
 any of his companions, ran down stairs, told the portress of the 
 malady which had stricken do%vn the lodger in the entresol, 
 despatched the sharp young damsel with the shuill voice in search 
 of a sick nurse, and went himself to look for a doctor. In a 
 little more than half an hour both these officials had arrived, and 
 Mr. Monckton and his wife, Major Lennard, and Richard de- 
 parted, leaving the Frenchman in the care of liis two compatriots 
 But before Gilbert Monckton left the apartment, he gave the 
 nurse special orders respecting the sick man. She was not to 
 let him leave his rooms upon any pretence whatever ; not even if 
 he should appear to become reasonable. 
 
 Mr. Monckton went to the Hotel du Palais, with his young 
 wife, and for the first time since he had been wronged forgave 
 the frivolous woman who had jilted him. She had been very 
 kind to Eleanor, and he was in a humour to be pleased with any 
 one who had been good to his wife. So the lawyer shook hands 
 veiy heartily wth Mrs. Lennard, and promised that she should 
 see her daughter before long. 
 
 " The poor little girl has had a hard trial lately, Mrs. Lennard, 
 through my folly, and I owe her some atonement. I separated 
 her from her natural protectors, because I was presumptuous 
 enough to imagine that I was better fitted to i>lau her destiny ; 
 and after all I have wrecked her girhsh hopes, poor child ! But 
 I don't think the damage is irreparable ; I think she'll scarcely 
 break her heart about Launcelot Darrell." 
 
 In all this time nobody had cared to ask any questions about 
 the \vill. Eleanor had handed it to her husband ; and Gilbert 
 Monckton had put it, still folded, into his pocket. But when the 
 devilled lobster and the sjjarkling Moselle, which the major 
 insisted iipon ordering, had been discussed, and the table cleared, 
 Mr. Monckton took the important document from his pocket. 
 
 " We may as well look at poor De Crespigny's last testament," 
 he said, " and see who has been most injured by the success cf 
 Launcelot DarreU's fabrication." 
 
 He read the first two sheets of the wiU to himself, slowly ajid 
 thoughtfully. He remembered every word of those two first 
 sheets. So far the real wiU was verbatim the same as the forged 
 document: Gilbert Monckton could therefore now understand 
 why that fabricated will had seemed so genuine. The fabrication 
 had been copied from the original paper. It was thus that the 
 forgery had borne the stamp of the testator's mind. The only 
 difi'erence between the two documents lay in the last and most 
 important clause. 
 
 The lawyer read aloud this last sheet of Maurice de Crespigny'a 
 will. 
 
 " I devise and bequeath all the residue and remainder of my
 
 S88 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 real and personal i^roperty unto Hortensia Bannister, the daughter 
 of my old and deceased college friend, George "V'ane, and my 
 valued friend Peter Sedgewick, of Cheltenham, their heirs, 
 executors, administrators and assigns, upon trust, for the sole 
 and separate use of Eleanor, the daughter of my said dear 
 deceased friend, George Vane, by his last wife, Eleanor Thompson, 
 during her life, free from the control, debts, or engagements of 
 any husband she may at any time have, and so that she shall 
 not have power to anticipate the rents, interest, and annual 
 proceeds thereof, and upon and after her decease, for such 
 persons, estates, and in such manner as she shall, whether 
 covert or uncovert, by will appoint; and in default of ajid 
 subject to any such appointment, for the said Eleanor, th© 
 daughter of the said George Vane, her heirs, executors, adminis- 
 trators, and assigns, according to the nature of the said property. 
 An d in case the said Eleanor shall have departed tliis life during^ 
 my hfetime, or in case the said last-named trustees cannot dis- 
 cover the said Eleanor Vane within four years after my decease, 
 then they shall consider the said Eleanor Vane dead, and there- 
 from I give and devise the said residuary estates to be equally 
 divided between my said three nieces, Sarah, Lavinia, and Ellen, 
 absolutely. 
 
 " It is fortunate that the money is left to trustees for your 
 separate use, Eleanor," Mr. Monckton said. " If it had been 
 otherwise, the gift would have been invalid, since I, your hu8« 
 band, was one of the witnesses to the will." 
 
 A torrent of congratulations from Major and Mrs. Lennard, 
 and Richard Thornton, almost overwhelmed Eleanor; but she 
 was still more overwhelmed by her astonishment at the wording 
 of the will. 
 
 " The money left to me ! " she exclaimed. " I didn't want 
 it. I am sorry it should be so. It will seem now as if I had 
 been plotting to get this fortune. I don't want it ; I only want 
 my revenge." 
 
 Gill^ert Monckton naiTowly watched his wife's astonished face. 
 He saw no look of triumph, no smile of gratification. At least 
 she was free from any mercenary baseness. He took her a little 
 way from the rest of the party, and looked earnestly into her 
 fearless eyes. 
 
 " My own dear love," he said, " I have learned a hard lesson, 
 and I believe that I shall profit by it. I wiU never doubt you 
 again. But tell me, Eleanor, tell me once and for ever ! have 
 vou ever loved Launcelot DarreU ? Have any of your actions 
 been prompted by jealousy ? " 
 
 " Not one," cried Mrs. Monckton. " I have never loved him, 
 and I have never been jealous of him. From first to last I have
 
 The Day of Reckoning. 389 
 
 been actuated by one motive, and one alone — the duty I owe to 
 my dead father." 
 
 She had not abandoned her purpose, then. No ; the birid star 
 that had beckoned her forward still shone before her. It was so 
 near now, that its red splendour filled the universe. The young 
 wife was pleased to be reconciled to her husband ; but with the 
 sense that he was restored to her once more, the memory of the 
 dreary interval in which she had lost him melted away from her 
 mind, and Launcelot DarrcU — Launcelot Darrell, the destroyer 
 of her dead father, became once more paramount in her thoughts. 
 
 " Oh, Gilbert ! " she said, clasping her hands about her hus- 
 band's arm and looking up in his face, " you'll take me back to 
 England at once, won't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, my dear," Mr. Monckton answered, with a sigh. " 111 
 do whatever you wish." 
 
 There was a jealous pain at his heart as he spoke. His wife 
 was pure, and true, and beautiful ; but this strange purpose of 
 her life divided her from him, and left his own existence very- 
 blank. 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 THE DAT OF RECKONING. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell and his mother had inhabited Woodlands 
 for a httle more than a fortnight. The painters, and paper- 
 hangers, and upholsterers had done a great deal to alter the 
 handsome country-house; for Mr. DarreU had no wish to be 
 reminded of his dead uncle ; and famihar chairs and tables have 
 an unpleasant faculty of suggesting tiresome thoughts, and re- 
 calUng faded faces that had better be forgotten. Almost all the 
 old furniture had been swept away, therefore, and the young man 
 had behaved very generously to his maiden aunts, who had fur- 
 nished a small house in Windsor with the things that Launcelot 
 had banished from Woodlands. These poor disappointed ladies 
 had located themselves in a quiet Httle cul-de-sac, squeezed in 
 between the hilly street and the castle, with the idea that the 
 wild dissipations of a town Hfe would enable them to forget their 
 wrongs. 
 
 So Launcelot Darrell and his mother reigned at Woodlands 
 instead of the maiden sisters ; and Parker, the butler, and Mrs. 
 Jepcott, the housekeeper, waited upon a new master and mistress. 
 
 The young man had chafed bitterly at his poverty, and had 
 hated himself and all the world, because of those huniiliations to 
 which a man who is too idle to work, and too poor to hve without
 
 390 Eleanors Victory. 
 
 work, is always more or less subject. But, alas ! now that by tho 
 commission of a crime be had attained the great end of his ambi- 
 tion, he found that the game was not worth the candle ; and 
 that in his most fretful moments before Maurice de Crespigny's 
 death, he had never suffered as much as he now suffered, daily 
 and hourly. 
 
 The murderers of the unfortunate Mr. Ware ate a hearty 
 supper of pork chops while their victim lay, scarcely cold, in a 
 pond beside the liigh road; but it is not everybody who is 
 blessed with the strength of mind possessed by those gentlemen. 
 Launcelot Darrell could not shake off the recollection of what he 
 had done. From morning tiU night, from night till morning, the 
 same thoughts, the same fears, were perpetually pressing upon 
 him. In the eyes of every servant who looked at him;°in the 
 voice of every creature who spoke to him ; in the sound of every 
 bell that rang in the roomy country-house, there lurked a some- 
 thing that inspired the miserable terror of detection. It haunted 
 him m every place ; it met him at eveiy turn. The knowledge 
 that he was in the power of two bad, unscrupulous men, the 
 lawyer's clerk and Victor Bourdon, made him the most helpless 
 of slaves. Already he had found what it was to be in the power 
 of a vicious and greedy wretch. The clerk had been easily satis- 
 fied by the gift of a round sum of money, and had levanted 
 before his employer returned from America. But Victor Bourdon 
 became insatiable. He was a gamester and a drunkard ; and he 
 expected to find in Launcelot DaiTell's purse a gold mine that 
 was never to be exhausted. 
 
 He had abandoned himself to the wildest dissipation in the 
 worst haunts of London after Maurice de Crespigny's death ; and 
 had appeared at Woodlands at all times and seasons, demanding 
 enormous sums of his miserable victim. At first terror sealed 
 Launcelot Darrell's hps, and he acceded to the most extravagant 
 demands of his accomphce ; but at last his temper gave way, 
 and he refused that " paltry note for a thousand francs," to which 
 the Frenchman alluded in his interview with Eleanor. After 
 this refusal there was a desperate quaiTel between the two men, 
 at the end of which the commercial traveller received a thrashing, 
 and was turned out of doors by_ the master of Woodlands. 
 
 The young man had been quite reckless of consec[uences in his 
 passion ; but when he grew a little cahner he began to reflect 
 upon the issue of this quarrel. 
 
 " I cannot see what harm the man can do me ?" he thought : 
 " to accuse me is to accuse himself also. And then who would 
 believe his unsupported testimony? I could laugh at him as a 
 madman." 
 
 Launcelot DarreU had no knowledge of the existence of the
 
 The Day of RecJconing. 391 
 
 real will. He implicitly believed that it had been burned before 
 his own eyes, and that Eleanor's assertion to the contrary had 
 been only a woman's falsehood invented to terrify him. 
 
 " If the girl had once had the will in her possession she would 
 never have been such a fool as to lose it," he argued. 
 
 But notwithstanding all this he felt a vague lear, all the more 
 terrible because of its mdefinite character. He had placed him- 
 self in a false position. The poet is bom, and not made ; and 
 perhaps the same tiling may be said of the criminal. The genius 
 of crime, Uke the genius of song, may be a capricious Ijlossom, 
 indigenous to such and such a soil, but not to be produced by 
 cultivation. However this may be, Launcelot DarreU was not 
 a great criminal. He had none of the reckless daring, the 
 marvellous power of dissimulation, the blind indifference to the 
 future, which make a Palmer, a Cartouche, a Fauntleroy, or a 
 Roupell. He was wretched because of what he had done ; and 
 he allowed everybody to perceive his wretchedness. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell saw that her son was miserable in spite of his 
 newly-acquired wealth ; and a horrible terror seized upon her. 
 Her sisters had taken good care to describe to her the scene 
 that had occurred at Woodlands upon the night of the old man's 
 death. She had watched her son, as only mothers can watch 
 the children they love ; and she had seen that his dead kins- 
 man's fortune had brought him no happiness. She had c^ues- 
 tioned him. but had received only sulky, ungracious answers ; 
 and she had not the heart to press him too closely. 
 
 The mother and son were alone in the dining-room at Wood- 
 lands about a week after the scene in Monsieur Victor Bourdon's 
 apartment. They had dined tete-a-tete. The dessert had not been 
 removed, and the young man was sitting at the bottom of the 
 long table, lounging lazily in his comfortable chair , and very 
 often rehUing his glass from the claret jug on his right hand. 
 The three long windows were open, and the soft May twilight 
 crept into the room. A tall shaded lamp stood in the centre 
 of the table, making a great spot of yellow Hght in the dusk. 
 Below the lamp there was a confused shimmer of cut glass, upon 
 which the hght trembled hke moonbeams upon running water. 
 There were some purple grapes, and a Utter of vine leaves in a 
 dessert dish of Sevres china ; the spikey crown of a pine-apple ; 
 and scarlet strawberries that made splashes of vivid colour amid 
 the sombre green. The pictured face of the dead man hanging 
 upon the wall behind Launcelot DarreU's chair seemed to look 
 reproachfully out of the shadows. The ruby draperies shading 
 the open windows grew darker with the fading of the light. 
 The faint odour of lilacs and hawthorn blossoms blew in from 
 the garden, and the evening stillness was only broken by th»
 
 392 Eleanors Victory. 
 
 Bound of leaves stirred faintly by a slow night wind that crept 
 amongst the trees. 
 
 Mrs. Darrell was sitting in the recess of one of the open 
 windows, with some needlework in her lap. She had brought 
 her work into the dining-room after dinner, because she wished 
 to be with her son ; and she knew that Launcelot would sit for 
 the best part of the evening brooding over his half-filled glass. 
 The young man was most completely miserable. The great 
 ^vl•ong he had done had brought upon him a torture which he 
 was scarcely strong enough to endure. If he cotdd have undone 
 that \vrong — if ! No ! That way lay such shame and de- 
 gradation as he could never stoop to endure. 
 
 " It was all my great-uncle's fault," he repeated to himself, 
 doggedly. "What business had he to make the wiU of a 
 madman? Whom have I robbed, after all? Only a spe- 
 cious adventuress, the intriguing daughter of a selfish spend- 
 thrift." 
 
 Such thoughts as these were for ever rising in the young 
 man's mind. He was thinking them to-night, while his mother 
 eat in the window, watching her son's face furtively. He was 
 only roused from his reverie by the sound of wheels upon the 
 gravel drive, the opening of a can-iage-door, and a loud ringing 
 of the beU. 
 
 The arrival of any unexpected visitor always frightenedhim ; 
 so it was nothing unusual for him to get up from his chair and 
 go to the door of the room to hsten for the sound of voices in 
 the hall. 
 
 To-night he turned deadly pale, as he recognized a familiar 
 voice; the voice of Gilbert Monckton, whom he had not seen 
 since the reading of the will. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell drew back as the servant approached the 
 door, and in another moment the man opened it, and announced 
 Mr. Monckton, Mrs. Monckton, Mr. Thornton, Monsieur Bour- 
 don. He would have announced Mr. John Ketch, I dare say, 
 just as coolly. 
 
 Launcelot Darrell planted his back against the low marble 
 chimney-piece, and prepared to meet his fate. It had come; 
 the realization of that horrible nightmare which had tormented 
 him ever since the night of Maurice de Crespigny's death. It 
 had come : detection, disgrace, humiUation, despair ; no matter 
 by what name it was called ; the thing was Kving death. His 
 heart seemed to melt into water, and then freeze in his breast. 
 He had seen the face of Victor Bourdon lurking behind Gilbert 
 and Eleanoy, and he knew that he had been betrayed. 
 
 The young man knew this, and determined to make a gallant 
 finish. He was not a coward by nature, though his own wrong-
 
 The Bay of Beckoning. 393 
 
 loing had made him cowardly ; he was only an irresolute, vacil- 
 lating, selfish Sybarite, who had quarrelled with the great 
 Bchoolmaster Fate, because his life had not been made one long 
 summer's hoUday. Even cowards sometimes grow courageous 
 at the last. Launcelot Darrell was not a coward : he drew him- 
 self up to his fullest height, and prepared to confront hia 
 accusers. 
 
 Eleanor Monckton advanced towards him. Her husband tried 
 to restrain her, but his effort was wasted ; she waived him back 
 with her hand, and went on to where the young maji stood, with 
 her head lifted and her nostrils quivering. 
 
 "At last, Launcelot Darrell," she cried, " after watching that 
 has wearied me, and failures that have tempted me to despair, 
 at last, I can keep my promise ; at last I can be true to the lost 
 father whose death was your cruel work. "VVlien last I was in 
 this house, you laughed at me and defied me. I was robbed of 
 the evidence that would have condemned you : all the world 
 seemed leagued together against me. Now, the proof of your 
 crime is in my hands, and the voice of your accomplice haa 
 borne witness against you. Cheat, trickster, and forger ; there 
 is no escape for you now." 
 
 "No," exclaimed Monsieur Bourdon, with an tmctuons 
 chuckle, " it is now your turn to be chased, my stripling ; it is 
 now your turn to be kick out of the door." 
 
 " From first to last, from first to last," said Eleanor, " you 
 have been false and cruel. You vrronged and deceived the 
 friends who sent you to India " 
 
 " Yaase ! " interrupted the commercial traveller, who was very 
 pale, and by no means too steady in his nerves, after the attack 
 of delirium tremens. He had dropped into a chair, and sat 
 trembling and grinning at his late patron, with a ghastly 
 jocosity that was far from agreeable to behold. " Yaase, you 
 cheat your mo-thair, you cheat your friends. You make belief 
 to go to the Indias, but you do not go. You what you call — 
 shally shilly, and upon the last moment, when the machine is 
 on the point of depart, you change the mind, you are well in 
 England ; there is a handsome career for you, as artist, you say. 
 Then you will not go. But you have fear of your uncle, who 
 /las given the money for your — fit-out — and for your passage, 
 and you make beUeve to do what they wish from you. You 
 have a friend, a confrere, a Mr., who is to partake your cabin. 
 You write to heem, you get heem to post your letters ; you write 
 to your mo-thair, in CUp-a-stone Street, and you say to her, 
 ' Dear mo-thair, I cannot bear this broil climate ; I am broil, I 
 work the night and the day ; I am indigo planter ; ' and you 
 •end your letter to the Indias to be posted; and your poor
 
 394 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 mo-thair belief you ; anil you are in Paris to enjoy yourself, to 
 lead tlie life of a student, a little Bohemian, but veiy gay. Yo 
 read Balzac, you make the little sketches for the cheap Parisian 
 journals. You are gamester, and vm\ money from a poor old 
 Enghshman, the father of that lady there ; and you make a 
 catspaw of your friend, Yictor Bourdon. You are a villain 
 man. Monsieiu- Darrell, but it is finished with you." 
 
 •' Listen to me, Launcelot Darrell," Gilbert Monckton said, 
 quietly. " Every falsehood and trick of which you have been 
 guilty, from first to last, is known. There is no help for you. 
 The will which my wife holds in her hand is the gentdne wiU 
 signed by Maurice de Crespigny. This man is prepared to tes- 
 tify that the will by wliich you took possession of this estate is 
 a forgery, fabricated by you and Heniy Lawford's clerk, who 
 had in his possession a rough draft of the real will which he had 
 written at Mr. de Crespigny's dictation, and who copied the 
 three different signatures from three letters written by the old 
 man to Henry Lawford. You are prepared to bear witness to 
 this," added the lawyer, turning to Victor Bourdon. 
 
 "But certainly," exclaimed the Frenchman, "it being well 
 understood that I am not to suffer by this candour. It is under- 
 stood that I am innocent in this afiair." 
 
 "Innocent!" cried Launcelot Darrell, bitterly. " T\Tiy, you 
 ■were the prime mover in this business. It was your suggestion 
 that first induced " 
 
 "It is possible, my friend," murmured Monsieur Bourdon, 
 complacently ; " but is it, then, a crime to make a little sug- 
 gestion — to try to make oneself useful to a friend ? I do not 
 beUeve it ! No matter- I have studied your English law : I do 
 not think it can touch me, since I am only prepared to swear to 
 hsmng found this real will, and having before that overheard a 
 conversation between you and the clerk of the avoue de 
 Yindsor." 
 
 "You use noble tools, Mrs. Monckton," said Launcelot Dar- 
 rell ; " but I do not know by what right you come into my house, 
 uninvited, and bringing in your train a very respectable trans- 
 pontine scene-painter with whom I have not the honour to be 
 intimate, and a French commercial traveller, who has chosen to 
 make himself peculiarly obnoxious to me. It is for the Court 
 of Chancery to decide whether I am the rightful owner of this 
 house and all aj^pcrtaining to it. I shall await the fiat of that 
 eourt ; and in the meantime have the honour to wish you good 
 evening." 
 
 He laid his hand upon the handle of the beU as he spoke, but 
 he did not pull it. 
 
 " You defy me, then, Launcelot Darrell P " said Eleanor.
 
 The Day of BecJconing. 393 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " I am glad that it is so ! " exclaimed the girl. **I am glad 
 that you have not prayed to m« for mercy. I am glad that 
 Providence has snflered me to avenge my father's death." 
 
 Eleanor Monckton was moving towards the door. 
 
 In all this time Ellen Darrell had not once spoken. She had 
 stood apart in the recess of the window, a dark and melancholy 
 shadow, mourning over the ruin of her life. 
 
 I think that she was scarcely surprised at what had happened. 
 We sometimes know the people we love, and know them to be 
 base ; but we go on loving them desperately, nevertheless ; and 
 love them best when the world is against them, and they have 
 most need of our love. I speak here of maternal love, which 
 is so sublime an affection as to be next in order to the love 
 of God. 
 
 The widow came suddenly into the- centre of the room, and 
 cast herself on her knees before Eleanor, and wound her arms 
 about the girl's slender waist, pinning her to the spot upon 
 which she stood, and holding her there. The mother's arms 
 were stronger than bands of iron, for they were linked about 
 the enemy of her son. It has been demonstrated by practical 
 zoologists that the king of beasts, his majesty the lion, is after 
 all a cowardly creature. It is only the lioness, the mother, whose 
 courage is desperate and indomitable. 
 
 "You shall not do this," Ellen Darrell cried; "you shall not 
 bring disgrace upon my son. Take your due. whatever it is ; 
 take your paltry wealth. You have plotted for it, I dare say. 
 Take it, and let us go out of this place penniless. But no dis- 
 grace, no humiUation, no punishment, for him ! " 
 
 " Mother," cried Launcelot, " get up off your knees. Let her 
 do her worst. I ask no mercy of her." 
 
 "Don't hear him," gasped the widow, " don't listen to him. 
 Oh, Eleanor, save him from shame and disgrace ! Save him ! 
 save him ! I was always good to you, was I not ? I meant 
 to be so, believe me. If ever I was unkind, it was because I 
 was distracted by regrets and anxieties about him. Oh, Eleanor, 
 foro^ive him, and be merciful to me ! Forfjive him. It is my 
 fault that he is what he is. It was my foolish indulgence that 
 ruined his childhood. It was my false pride that taught him 
 to think he had a right to my uncle's money. From first to 
 last, Eleanor, it is I that am to blame. Remember this, and 
 forgive him, forgive " 
 
 Her throat grew dry, and her voice broke, but her lips still 
 moved, though no sound came from them, and she was still im» 
 ploring mercy for her son. 
 
 " Forgive ! " cried Eleanor, bitterly. " Forgive the man who
 
 396 ^Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 caused my father's deatli ! Do you tliink I have waited and 
 watched for nothing ? It seems to me as if all my life had been 
 given up to this one hope. Do you know how that man has 
 defied me ? " she exclaimed, pointing to Launcelot Darrell. " Do 
 you know that through him I have been divided from my 
 husband ? Bah ! why do I speak of my own wrongs ? Do you 
 know that my father, a poor, heli^less old man, a lonely, friend- 
 less old man, a decayed gentleman, killed himself because of 
 your son ? Do you expect that I am to forget that ? Do you 
 think that I can forgive that man? Do you want me to 
 abandon the settled purpose of my Hfe — the purpose to which I 
 have sacrificed every girlish happiness, every womanly joy — now 
 that the victory is mine, and that I can keep my vow ? " 
 
 She tried to disengage herself from Ellen DarreU's arms, but 
 the widow still clung about her, with her head flung back, and 
 her white face convulsed with anguish. 
 
 " Forgive him for my sake," she cried ; " give him to me — give 
 him to me ! He wiU suffer enough from the ruin of his hopes. 
 He wiU suffer enough from the consciousness of having done 
 wrong. He has suffered. Yes. I have watched him, and I 
 know. Take everything from him. Leave him a penniless 
 dependant upon the pittance my uncle left to me, but save him 
 from disgrace. Give him to me. God has given him to me. 
 "Woman, what right have you to take him from me ? " 
 
 " He killed my father," Eleanor answered, in a sombre voice ; 
 " my dead father's letter told me to be revenged upon him." 
 
 " Your father wrote in a moment of desperation. I knew him. 
 I knew George Vane. He would have forgiven his worst 
 enemy. He was the last person to be vindictive or revengeful 
 when his fijst anger was passed. What good end will be gained 
 by my son's disgrace ? You shall not refuse to hear me. You 
 are a wife, Eleanor Monckton : you may one day be a mother. 
 If you are pitiless to me now, God will be pitiless to you then. 
 You will think of me then. In every throb of pain your child 
 may suffer ; in every childish ailment that makes your heart 
 grow sick with unutterable fear, you will recognize God's vea« 
 geance upon you for this night's work. Think of this, Eleanor ; 
 think of this, and be merciful to me — to me — not to him. What 
 he would have to endure would be only a tithe of my suffering. 
 I am his mother — his mother ! " 
 
 " Oh, my God ! " cried Eleanor, lifting her clasped hand* 
 above her head. " What am I to do ? " 
 
 The hour of her triumph had come ; and in this supreme 
 moment doubt and fear took possession of her breast. If this 
 was her victory, it was only half a victory. She had never 
 thought that any innocent creature would suffer more cruelly by
 
 TJie Day of Beckoning. 397 
 
 her vengeance upon Launcelot Darrell than the man himself 
 would suffer. AnH now, here was this woman, whose only sin 
 had been an idolatrous love of her son, and to whom his disgrace 
 would be worse than the anguish of death. 
 
 The -svidow's agony had been too powerful for the girl's en- 
 durance. Eleanor burst into a passion of tears, and turning to 
 her husband, let her head fall upon his breast. 
 
 " What am I to do, Gilbert ? " she said. " What am I to do ? " 
 
 "I will not advise you, my dear," the lawyer answered, in a 
 low voice. " To-night's business is of your own accomphshing. 
 Your o^vn heart must be your only guide." 
 
 There was silence in the room for a few moments, only broken. 
 by Eleanor's sobbing. Launcelot Darrell had covered his face 
 with his hands. His courage had given way before the power 
 of his mother's grief. The widow still knelt, still clung about 
 the girl, with her white face fixed now, in an awful stillness. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, dead father ! " Eleanor sobbed, " you — you did 
 wrong yourself sometimes ; and you were always kind and mer- 
 ciful to people. Heaven knows, I have tried to keep my oath ; 
 but I cannot — I cannot. It seemed so easy to imagine my 
 revenge when it was far away : but now — it is too hard — it is 
 too hard. Take your son, Mrs. Darrell. I am a poor helpless 
 coward. I cannot cany out the purpose of my hfe." 
 
 The white uplifted face scarcely changed, and the widow fell 
 back in a heap upon the floor. Her son and Gilbert Monckton 
 lii'ted her up and carried her to a chair in one of the open 
 windows. Richard Thornton dropped on his knees before 
 Eleanor, and began to kiss her hands with effusion. 
 
 " Don't be frightened, Nelly," he exclaimed. " I was very fond 
 of you once, and very unhappy about you, as my poor aunt can. 
 boar witness ; but I am going to marry Eliza Montalembert, and 
 we've got the carpets down at the snuggest httle box in all 
 Brixton, and I've made it up with Spavin and Cromshaw in con- 
 sideration of my salary being doubled. Don't be frightened if 
 I make a fool of myself, Eleanor ; but I think I could worship 
 you to-night. This is your victory, my dear. This is the only 
 revenge Providence ever intended for beautiful young women 
 with hazel-brown hair. God bless you ! " 
 
 Launcelot Darrell, with a greyish pallor spread over his face, 
 like a napkin upon the face of a corpse, came slowly up to 
 Eleanor, 
 
 " You have been very generous to me, Mrs. Monckton, though 
 it is a hard thing for me to say as much," he said ; " I have done 
 wicked things, but I have suffered — I have suffered and repented 
 perpetually. I had no thought of the awful consequences which 
 woiild follow the wrong I did your father. I have hated myself
 
 398 Eleanor's Victory. 
 
 for that wieked act ever since ; I should never have forged the 
 will if that man had not come to me, and fooled me, and played 
 upon my weaknesses. I will thank you for the mercy you have 
 shown me by-and-by, Mrs. Mouckton, when I am better worthy 
 of your generosity." 
 
 CHAPTER LIX 
 
 THE LAST. 
 
 GrLBERT MoNCKTON seconded his wife in all she wished to do. 
 There was no scandal. All legal formalities were gone through 
 very quietly. Those troublesome j^eople who require to be 
 infoi-med as to the business of their neighbours, were told that a 
 codicil had been found, which revoked the chief clause of Mr. 
 de Crespigny's will. Mr. Peter Sedgewick and Mrs. Bannister 
 were ready to perform all acts required of them ; though the 
 lady expressed considerable surprise at her half-sister's unex- 
 pected accession of wealth. Eleanor Monckton entered into 
 possession of the estates. The impiilsive girl, having once for- 
 given her father's enemy, would fain have surrendered the for- 
 tune to him into the bargain — b-ut practical, matter-of-fact 
 people were at hand to prevent her being too generous. Mrs. 
 Darrell and her son went to Italy, and Mrs. Monckton, with her 
 husband's concurrence, made the young man a very handsome 
 allowance, which enabled him to pursue his career as an artist. 
 He worked very hard and with enthusiasm. The shame of the 
 past gave an impetus to his pencU. His outraged self-esteem 
 stood him his friend, and he toiled vaUantly to redeem himself 
 from the disgrace that had fallen upon him. 
 
 "If I am a great painter, they will remember nothing against 
 me," he said to himself; and though it was not in him to become 
 a great painter, he became a popular painter ; a great man for 
 the Royal Academy, and the West-End engravers, if only a 
 small man for future generations, who will choose the real gems 
 out of the prodigal wealth of the present. Mr. Darrell's first 
 success was a picture which he called " The Earl's Death," from 
 a poem of Tennyson's, with the motto, " Oh, the Earl was fair 
 to see," — a preternaturally ugly man lying at the feet of a pre- 
 tematurally hideous woman, in a turret chamber lighted by 
 lucifer matches — the blue and green hght of the lucifers on the 
 face of the ugly woman, and a pre-RaphaeUte cypress seen, 
 through the window ; and I am fain to say that although the 
 picture was ugly, there was a strange weird attraction in it, and
 
 The Last. 399 
 
 people went to see it again and again, and liked it, and hankered 
 after it, and talked of it perpetually all that season ; one faction 
 declaring that the luciter-match effect was the most dehciona 
 moonlight, and the murderess of the Earl the most lovely of 
 womankind, till the faction who thought the very reverse of thia 
 became afraid to declare their opinions, and thus everybody waa 
 satisfied. 
 
 So Launcelot Darrell received a fabulous price for his picture, 
 and, ha\nng lived without reproach during three years of pro- 
 bation, came home to many Laura Mason Lennard, who nad 
 been true to him all this time, and who would have rather liked 
 to unite her fortunes with those of a modern Cartouche or Jack 
 Sheppard for the romance of the thing. And although the 
 aartist did not become a good man all in a moment, hke the 
 repentant villain of a stage play, he did take to heart the lesson 
 of his youth. He was tenderly affectionate to the mother who 
 had suffered so much by reason of his errors ; and he made a 
 very tolerable husband to a most devoted little wife. 
 
 Monsieur "Victor Bourdon was remunerated, and very liberally 
 — for his services, and was told to hold his tongue. He departed 
 for Canada soon afterwards, in the interests of the patent 
 mustard, and never reappeared in the neighbourhood of Tolldale 
 Priory. 
 
 Eleanor insisted on giving np Woodlands for the use of Mr. 
 Darrell, his wife, and mother. Signora Picirillo lived with her 
 nephew and his merry little wife in the pretty house at Brixton ; 
 but she paid very frequent visits to Tolldale Priory, sometimes 
 accompanied by Eichard and Mrs. Richard, sometimes alone. 
 Matrimony had a very good effect upon the outward seeming of 
 the scene-painter : for his young wife initiated him in the luxury 
 of shirt-buttons as contrasted with pins; to say nothing of the 
 dehghts of a shower-bath, and a pair of ivory-backed hair- 
 brushes, presented by Eleanor as a birth -day present to her old 
 friend. Richard at first suggested that the ivory-backed brushes 
 should be used as chimney ornaments in the Brixton drawing- 
 room : but afterwards submitted to the popiilar view of the 
 subject, and brushed liis hair. Major and Mrs. Lennard were 
 also visitors at Tolldale, and Laura knew the happiness of 
 paternal and maternal love — the paternal affection evincing 
 itself in the presentation of a great deal of frivolous jewellery, 
 purchased upon credit; the maternal devotion displaying itself 
 m a wild admiration of Launcelot Darroll's son and heir, a pink- 
 faced baby, who made his appearance in the year ISGl, and who 
 was in much better drawing than the " Dying Gladiator," exhi- 
 bited by Mr. DarreU in the same year. Little cliildren's voices 
 sounded by-and-by in the shady pathways of the old-fashioned
 
 400 Eleanors Victory. 
 
 Priory garden, and in all Berksliire there was not a happier 
 woman than Gilbert Monckton's beautiful young wife. 
 
 And, after all, Eleanor's Victory was a proper womanly con- 
 quest, and not a stem, classical vengeance. The tender wonvan's 
 heart triumphed over the girl's rash vow ; and poor George 
 Tane's enemy was left to the only Judge whose judgments are 
 always righteous. 
 
 THE E?fD. 
 
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