¥^ 
 
 Lismy 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNM 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 IN HIGH PLACES
 
 lit 
 
 In High Places 
 
 By M. E. BRADDON, Author of 
 " London Pride," etc., etc. 
 
 IS 
 
 London: HUTCHINSON £s? CO. 
 
 Taternoster l^ow, E.C. 
 1898
 
 M4rvr 
 
 Printed by Hazeil, Watson, £r> Vincy, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. FELLOW TRAVELLERS 
 
 II. WAS THIS A ROMAN SPIRIT ? . 
 
 in. A FRIENDLY GENTLEMAN . 
 
 IV. FROM CHILDHOOD TO MANHOOD 
 
 V. FAIR FACES AND NOBLE HEARTS 
 
 VL "to win HER PRAISE " 
 
 VII. ' PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES 
 
 VIII. " SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY " 
 
 IX. "ah! BITTER sweet" 
 
 X. the woman s reign 
 
 XI. SPLENDID PATRONAGE 
 
 XII. DANGER FOR SOMEBODY 
 
 XIII. TO PREVENT MURDER 
 
 XIV, TAKEN BY STORM 
 
 XV. NOT TO BE BOUGHT 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 i6 
 
 23 
 34 
 50 
 68 
 80 
 
 93 
 no 
 
 130 
 
 152 
 
 172 
 191 
 217 
 
 233
 
 VI 
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XVI. EBBS AND FLOWS OF FORTUNE 
 
 XVII. FOR A woman's SAKE 
 
 XVIII. BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 XIX. "like a STAR FIXED " 
 
 XX. A RETROSPECT 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 PAGE 
 . 286
 
 IN HIGH PLACES 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FELLOW TRAVELLERS. 
 
 A SHORT, thick-set man, with a dark complexion and 
 a gloomy countenance, came slowly through the mists 
 of a summer dawn, on the Portsmouth Road, a few 
 miles west of Godalming. 
 
 The man walked wearily, like one who had walked 
 far ; and indeed the gait and manner of the wayfarer, 
 the weather-stains upon his cloth jerkin, the dust 
 and dew upon his boots, suggested that he had 
 been tramping all through the summer night. The 
 sun was creeping up behind Leith Hill as he left 
 Godalming and trudged along the great high-road 
 between wide wastes of marsh and common. A long 
 stretch of wild, uninhabited land lay between him and 
 the great hill of Hindhead ; but he hoped to pass the 
 Devil's Punch Bowl before noon. 
 
 Every door in Godalming had been inhospitably shut 
 against him — even the doors of the inn, where coach 
 and post-horses stopped. The High Street had not 
 yet opened door or window to the morning freshness ; 
 not a single smoke-wreath rose in the grey air ; and 
 even at the forge, wont to be early astir, there was no 
 glow of fire, or clinking of metal upon metal. 
 
 He was dead beat, and could not even wait till the 
 
 I
 
 2 Sn Ibiab places 
 
 dew was off the grass before he threw his weary limbs 
 down to rest ; but he looked about him for a hillock 
 where the ground was driest, and, having made his 
 choice, sank in a heap, with his back against a furze 
 bush, flinging his oaken staff aside as he sat. 
 
 The stout oak sapling struck something alive, some- 
 thing that gave a shrill cry of pain, at which John 
 Felton started to his feet, and looked into the bush 
 behind him. 
 
 A small boy — a mere child — lifted himself slowly 
 from the furze as Felton rose, and looked at him 
 piteously. 
 
 "Why did you hit me, sir?" he asked. "Indeed I 
 was doing no ill, and I have no other place to sleep in." 
 
 " I hit thee by mischance, child, not evil intention. 
 Are you so poor ? Have you neither father nor mother, 
 home nor shelter ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I have nobody. Daddy is dead of the fever, 
 and Mammy has gone away with the baby, and bade 
 me walk to the farmers' houses, and ask them to let me 
 mind their cattle. But there was none that would let 
 me ; and some called me a beggar, and gave me a clout 
 on the head ; and one kind woman gave me some bread 
 and meat ; but they all told me I was too little ; and 
 they all bade me begone." 
 
 " What is your name ? " 
 
 " Jarge." 
 
 " Jarge ! Do you mean George ? " cried Felton, with 
 a start, all his face hardening, and the light of an angry 
 resolve kindling in his tired eyes. 
 
 " Yes, sir. It's all as one. Mammy called me Jarge 
 — the gentleman that came to see me sometimes called 
 me George — like you do." 
 
 He was a pretty boy. His clothes hung about him 
 in rags. He had not started shoeless on his quest of 
 fortune, but his shoes were worn with walking over 
 rough ground, and his feet were cruelly scratched and 
 blistered. He could not tell his age when questioned. 
 For his size he might have been six or seven years old, 
 but for intelligence might pass for eight or nine. He
 
 Ifellow XTravellers 3 
 
 had fine features, strongly marked for so young a face, 
 yet delicate. His hair was dishevelled and dusty, but 
 he had washed his face in a running stream over-night, 
 and had waded for a mile to cool and cleanse his feet. 
 He was cleaner than most urchins of his age would 
 have been under such adverse conditions. 
 
 " Are you hungry ? " Felton asked abruptly. 
 
 "Yes, sir. It was the day before yesterday that the 
 woman gave me some bread and bacon." 
 
 " And thou hast fasted forty-eight hours, belike. 
 Well, I'll share a crust with you. Yes, I have that 
 much charity," he added slowly, as he opened the 
 wallet, and gave the lad a hunch of bread. His left 
 hand was crippled by an old wound, and he used it with 
 a feeble clumsiness. " I'll share a crust with you ! " he 
 repeated, in his sullen, muttering voice, "though your 
 name is George." 
 
 " Is it a wicked name, sir? " 
 
 " It belongs to the wickedest man in England ; but 
 it's a good augury, perhaps, that the only creature I've 
 spoken to since I left London should bear his name. 
 George ! Are you telling truth, boy ? Is that verily 
 your name ? " 
 
 " Verily and indeed, sir. But I have another name. 
 You may see the first letter of it on my breast, if you 
 can read letters." 
 
 The little lad pulled open his ragged shirt, and Felton 
 saw the letter V tattooed on his breast. 
 
 It was not the first time he had seen such marks ; for 
 he might have remembered a certain hairy-breasted 
 sailor on the voyage to Cadiz, tattooed with sun, moon, 
 and stars, crown and anchor, and the initials of more 
 than one sweetheart's name : but to-day, to Felton's 
 over-heated brain, the Viper-sign on the boy's tender 
 flesh seemed to smack of sorcery, the black magic which 
 that arrogant upstart the Countess of Buckingham, the 
 mother of the man he hated, was said to practise. By 
 what lesser art, in sooth, could she have brought her 
 son to rule the hearts of two kings to the perdition of 
 the kingdom ?
 
 4 5n fblQb places 
 
 " Why, this is Satan's work ! " he cried, gripping the 
 boy's skinny shoulder with his strong right hand, throw- 
 ing him upon his back among the furze, and glaring 
 down at him with eyes that threatened murder. " And 
 you are one of his imps ! This is devilry ! And the 
 voice that has been in my ears is Satan's lure, and 
 not God's bidding. Is it the devil? Do you come 
 from hell, you starving whelp? Are you but weak, 
 hungry, footsore human flesh ; or are you an imp of the 
 Prince of Darkness, that doth but simulate distress, 
 and could spread dragon's wings and fly away — or vanish 
 in a flash of fire, did thy master call thee, and leave but 
 the stench of brimstone in this furze-bush? Art thou 
 natural and mortal ; or aerial and Satanic ? " 
 
 The boy's tears and look of childish terror were 
 assuredly as true to nature as any human expression 
 could be. But the devil and his imps, when they act 
 a part, must needs act better than mortal players ; 
 and Felton, seeing that Viper-brand, the initial of a 
 name which an angry fire had burnt deep into his brain, 
 began to believe himself the dupe of Satan. 
 
 An inspiration had come to him, tossing on a sleep- 
 less bed, in his lonely lodging, but a few nights ago. 
 A resolve, desperate, deadly, fatal to himself and others, 
 had slowly shaped itself in his fevered brain. Sug- 
 gestions, which he had believed to come from on High, 
 had been breathed into his mind. A mission had been 
 given to him, as pure in its unselfish purpose as the 
 impulse which guided the sword of Judith, or nerved 
 the hand of Jael. 
 
 But now on a sudden he began to question the source 
 of that inspiration — whether from Heaven or hell ; since 
 here, in this appearance of an accursed initial upon the 
 boy's flesh, there seemed evidence of demoniac influences. 
 It was surely witchcraft, if not the handiwork of Satan. 
 
 Yes, there must at least be witchcraft in it ! This 
 whimpering wretch might be human, a shivering, scared 
 little mortal, weeping real tears ; but that initial which 
 seemed to grow under the skin, a dark, ineradicable stain, 
 had been written there by one of hell's agents, inscribed
 
 jfellow ^Travellers 5 
 
 there for a purpose, and that the ruin of his, John 
 Felton's, soul. 
 
 " Oh, sir, don't kill me ! Sure I have done no ill ! " 
 
 " Who put Villiers' initial on your breast, and when ? " 
 the man asked fiercely. 
 
 " It was the snowy winter when I dursn't go into the 
 fields, and the starlings came in at the window, and 
 pecked my supper out of my hand," prattled the boy, 
 " and Mammy's brother, the sailor, came from Ports- 
 mouth — and then the strange gentleman came, a-horse- 
 back, and he could scarce get through the snow, and he 
 saw the letters on Mammy's brother's breast, and bade 
 him mark mine with a V. — ' which stands for a viper or 
 a villain,' says he. Mammy's brother hurt me a-doing 
 it, but I was brave and did not cry — and the strange 
 gentleman gave me a crown-piece. Mammy used to 
 kiss the mark sometimes when she put me to bed, but 
 that was before the baby came — and when I had my 
 velvet coat — but afterwards she was not so kind. And 
 then Daddy died of the fever — and wicked men came 
 and drove us out of the house, and off the farm, and 
 Mammy told me I was a beggar, and she was a beggar, 
 and the baby too, and we must needs starve, unless folks 
 would give us food. But there was only one woman 
 who gave me some bacon and some bread, the day 
 before yesterday." 
 
 " Was there never a witch came to your mother's 
 house ? " Felton asked, looking up out of a deep 
 abstraction in which he had heard no syllable of the 
 child's discourse. 
 
 " No, sir. There was a witch lived in the lane on 
 the Guildford Road, but Mother would never have let 
 her cross our doorstep. Daddy and I used to call after 
 her when we saw her gathering sticks on the common ; 
 but we was all afeared of her at night, when it was dark. 
 Mammy said she would come in at the window if I was 
 an ill boy, and fly away with me. We saw her steal a 
 stake out of a hedge one evening, and carry it home 
 with her, and Daddy told me she wanted it to ride about 
 upon, after dark, in the sky. But belike she burnt the
 
 6 5n IbiGb places 
 
 stick, to boil her kettle, for I never saw her in the sky," 
 he added reflectively, " though I've often looked out of 
 the window to see. It was a very little window, and 
 there was an owl in the ivy that used to frighten me, 
 and I used to bump my head against the ceiling, for 
 the roof was so low I could touch it with my hand as I 
 lay abed." 
 
 The intelligent voice went prattling on, pouring its 
 little confidences into unheeding ears. Felton had 
 gnawed his crust with a ravenous impatience, forcing 
 his dry throat to swallow that untempting food ; and 
 now he was sitting with his elbows on his knees, and 
 his chin in his hands, brooding upon the tragic mission 
 that lay before him, and upon the wrongs which lay 
 behind. 
 
 Fortune had used him badly ; fortune and that man 
 who for the last ten years had ruled Fortune, who had 
 made fair weather and foul for the common herd, such 
 as this poverty-stricken foot-soldier with his maimed 
 hand, cheated of promotion, starving discontentedly 
 upon a lieutenant's scanty pay. 
 
 Bad luck had been his companion through life — bad 
 luck which perhaps may have been another name for 
 bad temper. He had not conciliated friends or wooed 
 fortune, being of a saturnian nature, given to much 
 brooding upon small injuries, at war with life. He 
 was a man of good birth — of the blood of the 
 Arundels — and good education, who felt that the world 
 owed him something — a man of truth and honour, the 
 " honest Jack " of the barrack-room ; but an unlucky 
 quarrel with Sir Henry Hungate on the Cadiz voyage 
 had blasted his fortunes ; for Hungate was the 
 Favourite's favourite, and to be ill with Hungate was to 
 be in the Duke's bad books. 
 
 Twice had he applied for the command of a company, 
 while last year's expedition for the relief of Rochelle 
 was on foot, and he had been twice refused, though well 
 recommended. A personal appeal to the Duke of 
 Buckingham, in which he pleaded that without pro- 
 motion he could not live, had been treated with
 
 ifellow tTravellers 7 
 
 contempt ; and he had to idle and starve in England, 
 while men he deemed his inferiors were favoured. 
 
 The fatal result of that ill-advised siege of St. Martin, 
 the ignominious flight from Rhe, tragical in its waste of 
 noble lives, had provoked a tempest of anger, scorn, 
 ridicule, the abuse of the envious, and the malignant 
 exultation of prophets who had prophesied the disasters 
 their envious hearts desired, George Villiers, Earl, 
 Marquis, Duke, Lord High Admiral and Commander- 
 in-Chief, Warden of the Cinque Ports, bosom friend, 
 chosen companion, and alleged murderer of the late 
 King James, trusted and idolised friend of King Charles 
 — George Villiers, that splendid failure, a fine gentleman 
 of thirty summers, entrusted with the Nation's honour 
 and the succour of England's Protestant allies, — stood 
 as the mark of every stone the meanest hands could 
 fling at an unsuccessful leader. All the literature in 
 London, or all that any Londoner cared to read, was to 
 be found in ballads and libels, broadsides and pamphlets, 
 reeking with foulest abuse of the man the King loved 
 and honoured. 
 
 A breast aching with private wrongs is the surest 
 hot-bed for indignation against a public enemy. Felton 
 thought that he had forgotten his own particular injuries 
 — that he had sunk his own petty sufferings in the 
 sum-total of England's shame. Where was ever deeper 
 shame than ours when we set out with a great show 
 and clamour, and cost and boasting, to succour and 
 support those heroes and martyrs of Rochelle — and so 
 miserably failed to help them — all our arrogant pledges 
 ending in futile endeavour, and the massacre of English 
 soldiers upon the sands of Rhe? 
 
 The figure of the Duke no longer haunted Felton in 
 daily reveries and nightly di'eams, as his personal foe. 
 That form had assumed a grander shape, and wore the 
 aspect of the public enemy, Moloch, Beelzebub, — a 
 destroying fiend, whose inordinate ambition, greed, 
 vanity, and incapacity, had brought the pride and 
 honour of England under the great Cardinal's velvet 
 shoe.
 
 Still those martyrs of Rochelle were crying to King 
 Charles for help. They apologised for their importu- 
 nity. Starving men, they pleaded, must be pardoned if 
 they were too pressing. This third expedition had hung 
 fire since the beginning of the year, but was at last on 
 the eve of departure ; and again the Arch-enemy of the 
 English people, the gilded idol of England's King, was 
 to challenge failure, and was again to prove himself 
 useless as a bubble painted by the sun, a beautiful, 
 empty shape floating in sunlit air, a splendid phantasm, 
 unsubstantial as the breath of flatterers. 
 
 Felton had heard of the farewell masque and supper, 
 given at York House a few nights ago, and of the 
 allegory in which the Duke had appeared, followed by 
 Envy, with her dogs yelping round her, to symbolise 
 the barkings of the people ; while after these came 
 Truth and Fame ; a costly pageant, on which Charles 
 Stuart had looked complacently, and which the mob 
 had heard of with disgust. Neither the mob nor John 
 Felton knew those proud words which the Duke had 
 spoken to his secretary : " Gerbier, if God please, I will 
 go, and be the first man who shall set his foot on the 
 dyke before Rochelle, to die or do the work." Nor had 
 Felton heard of those auguries which had threatened 
 the Favourite — how a woman had dreamed a prophetic 
 dream, and a picture had fallen, and the anxious spirit 
 of a long-dead father had appeared to a faithful follower 
 of the Duke's, and had spoken words of warning, and 
 how Villiers had defied Fate. 
 
 " There are no Roman spirits left," he exclaimed, when 
 his friends talked of assassination ; and so he who was 
 said to have a "terrible courage" under his silken 
 gentleness, went with proud front on the expedition 
 which was to win back that empty breath he loved so 
 dearly, the praise of his fellow-men. Was it of his own 
 loss and gain he thought most, the bitterness of being 
 the best-abused man in England, the target for every 
 hired scribbler's venomed shaft, the mark of every man's 
 hate ; he who but three years ago, when he came home 
 from Madrid, flushed with having flouted the Spaniards,
 
 jfellow Utavellers 5 
 
 had been the most popular man in England? Was it 
 of this so transient affection, the capricious favour of 
 the ignorant vulgar, he thought most, when he swore 
 to conquer or die? Or did he think of that city of 
 enduring souls, willing to perish by inches for their 
 religion and their liberties ? " There are no Roman 
 spirits left," he had said, while Felton was buying his 
 tenpenny knife at the cutler's on Tower Hill, or leaving 
 his name at the church by the Conduit in Fleet Street, 
 to be prayed for next Sunday, as a man disordered and 
 discontented in mind. "There are no Roman spirits 
 left ! " How should George Villiers apprehend a Roman 
 spirit in that dark-browed, thick-set, lieutenant of foot, 
 who had pestered him last year for place or pay — one 
 of the herd of supplicants, stiffer and less fawning than 
 the common type of beggar, but not otherwise to be 
 remembered. 
 
 A grim companion for a child of seven summers, this 
 dark-browed patriot, with the dagger-knife sewn in his 
 right-hand pocket, and all his thoughts fixed on that 
 knife, and the deed it was to do. But the child had 
 suffered the shapeless fears that haunt dark nights and 
 solitary places, the vague terrors of a newly awakened 
 mind that had been peopled with witches and demons, 
 and filled with the dim horrors of the unreal. The 
 scowling, melancholic stranger, who suffered him to run 
 at his side, seemed a friendly presence to little George, 
 as compared with that dark, bulky creature, with fiery 
 breath, and shining eyes, and strange, uncouth move- 
 ments, that had started up from behind the gorse-bushes 
 in the dead of night, and which was, doubtless, the foul 
 fiend, though it changed anon into a black horse, and 
 galloped away with a great noise, and vanished into 
 the summer fog. In the broad daylight little George 
 was of a bold spirit, and feared neither man nor beast ; 
 but at night, when fiends and witches were abroad, he 
 knew what it was to feel the coward's cold sweat and 
 fast-beating heart ; and as he thought that he would have 
 to wander about the country, and sleep on commons 
 and in woods, for the rest of his life, he was very glad
 
 lo 3n IFMgb iplaces 
 
 to find a friend in this short, dark gentleman, whose 
 eyes looked at him so strangely, now and then, while 
 he prattled — looked, and saw him not. Sometimes at 
 such a moment, gazing awe-stricken at those unseeing 
 eyes, a sickly fear came upon the boy, lest the foul fiend 
 who last night took the form of a horse, might not 
 to-day have changed to this dark man. 
 
 But the day passed, and the traveller revealed no 
 demoniac instincts. He suffered the child's company, 
 and gave him a share of his humble meal at a roadside 
 inn, and, when he got a lift in a tilted waggon between 
 Hazlemere and Petersfield, asked leave for the stray 
 child to ride with him. And so, for the first time in 
 his life, George knew the bliss of a moving landscape, 
 trees and hills, streams and fields, that passed and 
 changed to other trees and other fields before his 
 wondering eyes. 
 
 Childhood lives in the present and the immediate 
 future ; it knows no longer interval than from sunrise 
 to sundown, and can scarcely grasp the notion of to- 
 morrow ; whereby the disappointment of to-day means 
 despair. This boy had known only the simplest 
 pleasures ; but he had not known that his life was 
 hard while there was porridge or rye bread for break- 
 fast and a mess of pottage for supper, while Daddy sang 
 or whistled at his plough, and while Mammy had a 
 smile and a hug for him. 
 
 All that little world of his childhood had vanished 
 into space ; the pleasant homestead, the deep chimney, 
 where he sat on Daddy's knee in the red light of the 
 burning logs, his little bed in the corner under the 
 sloping thatch, out of which strange insect life dropped 
 upon him, while the grey swallows, with soft white 
 breasts, twittered and chattered under the eaves, and 
 flashed across the open casement, darkening the sun- 
 light with wide-spread wings ; — that narrow world upon 
 which his consciousness had awakened, the smiling 
 meadows of early June, with a depth of buttercups, in 
 which he lost himself as in a golden labyrinth, the white 
 fogs of his first remembered autumn, when he had clung
 
 iFeUow TTravellers n 
 
 to his Daddy in vague fear, shrinking from the mystery 
 of things hidden — the wonder of standing barley, taller 
 than himself, waving with a mighty sound in the summer 
 wind, and, stranger still, and how much dearer, the 
 wonder of newly born animals, the litter of black pigs, 
 the foal, the brown-and-white calf, so small and gentle 
 and approachable that he could hardly believe in its 
 relationship to the great horned cow which he ran from 
 in fear and trembling. The thirty-acre farm, which, 
 with a mile or two of high-road and a cluster of cottages, 
 had been his universe, the farmer and farmer's wife who 
 had peopled it, were gone ; and the child nestled at this 
 dark-browed soldier's knee, and watched the sunlit road, 
 and babbled with delight at the wonder of this wider 
 world. 
 
 " May I stay with you, and will you be my Daddy ? " 
 he asked his silent companion ; for this new kind of life 
 in the corner of a hay-scented waggon was so pleasant 
 that the little lad wished it might go on for ever. 
 
 " Stay with me ! " echoed Felton. " Thou poor little 
 devil ! To grant that would be to promise thee ruin 
 and a bloody grave ! " 
 
 " Will you not ride in a cart like this always ? " 
 
 " Nay : I may ride in a cart — fettered and bound — 
 when the iron shall enter into my flesh. I have nothing 
 to do with thee, thou innocent imp of Satan, that 
 bearest the Viper-sign on thy tender breast. Go or stay 
 as thou wilt, child : ride or walk with me for to-day, 
 and to-morrow, if thou canst ; but be on the look-out 
 for another friend. To-morrow night we must part 
 company." 
 
 The boy began to cry, with a vague sorrow, dimly 
 conscious of his helplessness. The landscape lost its 
 charm, blurred by the tears through which he saw it. 
 He nestled closer against Felton's knee, and sobbed 
 himself to sleep ; and when he woke it was night, and 
 the waggon had stopped. Felton was standing in the 
 road, and the waggoner dropped the sleepy child into 
 his arms, and the two sat down on a bench in front of 
 an ale-house, and had their supper of bread and ale in
 
 12 5n tiigb places 
 
 the summer darkness, and then tramped on into the 
 deep of night, till they found a barn with an open door, 
 a barn as big as a church, into which they crept, and 
 where they lay on a heap of straw, and fell asleep to 
 the sound of the rats rustling and nibbling among the 
 corn, happily too well supplied to attack the sleepers. 
 
 They slept till late into the day, Felton worn out by 
 a journey in which he had spent his strength with a 
 prodigal rashness, so that he had been half dead when 
 he made his offer of a shilling to the waggoner. The 
 long sleep made a new man of him, and he set out in 
 the coolness of sundown with the boy trudging bravely 
 at his side, but ever on the alert for the sound of 
 wheels behind them, and still hopeful of another friendly 
 waggoner, and a ride in the starlight. Beguiled by this 
 hope, he almost forgot the pain of his wounded feet, and 
 the childish hunger which their rare meals had left 
 unsatisfied. 
 
 Fifty miles of Felton's journey had been accomplished 
 before they laid themselves down in the barn ; and now 
 there was the cool night before them in which to 
 accomplish the remaining twenty miles between them 
 and Portsmouth. 
 
 So far as he was capable of thinking of anything 
 except the deadly purpose that gave strength to his 
 sinews, and dyed all the world of one blood-red hue, 
 Felton thought, and with kindness, of the little clinging 
 child ; and he thought that it might be for the child's 
 welfare to be taken on to the busy sea-port, rather than 
 to be left to the scant population of the rural road, where 
 his chances of kindness and shelter would be of the 
 smallest. In the town somebody would be found to 
 succour him. A little human being, beautiful as a 
 pictured seraph, and gentle of speech, would surely meet 
 with kindness in a town where even a cur dog would 
 scarce wander all day without finding a friend. 
 
 So, with this charitable impulse moving him, Felton 
 let the child tramp beside him, slackening his own pace 
 to suit that shorter step of the boy, who strode along 
 valiantly on the dewy road, his worn-out shoes white
 
 iFellow Xlravellers 13 
 
 with summer dust, his little hand in the automatic grasp 
 of that deep-thinking companion, who, for the greater 
 part of the time, was no more conscious of his presence 
 than a meditative man is of the dog that follows him. 
 
 Presently, however, feeling the childish feet begin to 
 lag, the childish hand hanging heavier, Felton awoke 
 from his dream of blood, and stopped to consider the 
 meaning of this companionship. 
 
 They had walked nearly three miles since they left 
 the barn, and the child was tired. How about the 
 seventeen miles to be travelled before morning ? For 
 the small wayfarer such a journey was obviously impos- 
 sible. What was to be done? Leave the child in 
 helpless distress upon this lonely road ? There was not a 
 cottage door within sight. They were in the midst of an 
 undulating country, heather-clad hills that rose and fell 
 in picturesque variety, patches of broken common-land, 
 valleys through which here and there ran a streamlet — 
 showing thin and fine as a silver rJbbon where the 
 moonlight touched it. The Hog's Back lay far behind 
 them. They had crossed Hindhead, and around them 
 stretched wild hills crowned with pine-woods, black 
 against the horizon. No ; he could not leave the child to 
 die of fright in this summer solitude ; nor could he suffer 
 the delay which it must cost him to let the boy drag 
 along at his side. He must find a shelter for the child 
 at the next village, hard as it would be to appeal to the 
 charity of some rough cottager, angry at being awakened 
 from well-earned slumbers. 
 
 Felton stopped on the moonlit road to deliberate, 
 greatly embarrassed by the burden of this small existence 
 — a child whose innocent face, framed in loose golden 
 hair, appealed to him with an irresistible pathos, and 
 who might be, notwithstanding, an imp of Satan, a 
 diabolical appearance, a vision of his own distempered 
 brain. The nearest village might be two or three miles 
 distant ; and in his burning impatience, with that 
 necessity of rapid movement which ever goes with 
 agitated thought, Felton chafed at the idea of crawling 
 along at a pace to suit those tired feet.
 
 14 5n fbiQb places 
 
 " I would thou hadst not fastened thyself to me, little 
 wretch," said Felton, " for we are sorry companions ; 
 and I doubt thou wilt be half dead before we can reach 
 a shelter." 
 
 " We could lie down there," said the boy, pointing to 
 the common beside the road, where there were hollows 
 among the gorse that looked like comfortable nests for 
 slumber. 
 
 " Nay, child ! there is no more rest for me till my 
 work is done. I must be in Portsmouth to-morrow 
 morning ; and I would like to take you there with me, 
 George, if I could ; for in a town you might chance 
 upon a friend, or, at the worst, there are places where 
 a pauper child would find shelter. Hark ! There are 
 wheels as well as horses' hoofs ! It may be a waggon 
 like the one that carried us yesterday ; and if it be bound 
 for Portsmouth, you shall ride there." 
 
 The boy answered with a rapturous little laugh. " I 
 love to ride in waggons," he said. 
 
 It was a waggon, and a heavier and more important 
 vehicle than the tilted waggon that had carried them 
 yesterday. A baggage-waggon, the last belated item 
 in the halting progress of preparation for the expedition 
 to Rochelle, came slowly along the road. Felton stood 
 aside, till the wheels were nearly on a level with him, 
 when he preferred his prayer to a soldier who walked 
 beside the horses. Here was a destitute waif, picked up 
 on the common near Godalming, for whom a lift to 
 Portsmouth would be a charity. 
 
 The request was curtly refused. 
 
 " Don't try to father your by-blow on us, fellow ! " 
 
 But on Felton describing himself as a lieutenant in 
 Sir Edward Cecil's regiment, the soldier's tone changed, 
 the driver drew up his horses, and a sergeant in authority 
 consented to give the child a corner among the crates 
 and boxes in the waggon. 
 
 " What are we to do with him when we get to Ports- 
 mouth ? " 
 
 " Your charity will tell you what to do. His father 
 is dead, and his mother has deserted him. His pretty
 
 looks may win him a friendly shelter, if you put him in 
 the right way — but he will be better off left upon a 
 tradesman's doorstep, than if I abandoned him on this 
 lonely road." 
 
 " Do you want a lift for yourself, Captain ? " 
 
 " No ; I would rather walk." 
 
 The boy, who had held back his tears hitherto, with 
 Heaven knows how big an effort, burst out crying at 
 being parted from his friend, and was lifted into the 
 waggon against his will, but soon cried himself to sleep 
 in his corner, between two huge ammunition-cases, 
 dazed and deafened by the reverberation of the great 
 wheels, and the rattle of iron and steel. And so George 
 the nameless, cast like a withered leaf upon the great, 
 busy world, fared towards the end of his first conscious 
 journey.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WAS THIS A ROMAN SPIRIT? 
 
 The boy was sound asleep when the waggon horses 
 were pulled up on a causeway by the sea. The sudden 
 stoppage awakened him, and looking eagerly out of the 
 waggon, hoping to see his dark-visaged friend, his 
 wondering eyes beheld, for the first time, the morning 
 sunbeams shining on the crisp morning tide, the plash 
 and dance of waves that made the pebbles leap and 
 glitter on the edge of the strand, many-hued and beauti- 
 ful. But he was somewhat scared at the strange faces 
 round him when the sergeant lifted him out of the 
 waggon and set him on his feet on the beach, while the 
 soldiers began their work of shifting the baggage to a 
 couple of open boats, with considerable energy, and no 
 little noise. 
 
 " Now, my mannikin, here is half my morning rations 
 of bread, and if that won't fill your little maw, here's a 
 penny to buy a cake in the town, presently," said the 
 sergeant, addressing the child as gravely as if they had 
 been on an equality of years and reason ; " and that's 
 all we can do for you. So you had best ask the first 
 charitable person you can find to take you into his 
 service in kitchen or stable. You are handy enough to 
 scrape trenchers, or clean harness, belike, baby as you 
 are." 
 
 George looked at the sergeant in pure bewilderment, 
 hearing words that had no meaning for him. These 
 rough, strong men, sailors and recruits, shoving and 
 shouting ; the blue expanse of water, alive with boats ; 
 
 i6
 
 Mas tbls a IRoman Spirit? 17 
 
 — all things were new to the child, reared in the loneli- 
 ness of a pasture farm. It was like some vivid dream, 
 and the little creature stood there alone, still staring 
 helplessly, when the oars were dipping and the boats 
 growing small in the distance, and the lumbering waggon 
 was standing a little way off, in charge of a man in 
 rough clothes. There was an inn near the beach, 
 and he could hear coarse, loud voices through the 
 open windows, and could see a woman sweeping the 
 doorstep. 
 
 Scared by the strange world around him, he turned 
 his back on the sea and wandered into the town ; and 
 the vague terrors that had made it so hard a struggle to 
 hold back his tears gradually gave way to that all- 
 absorbing wonder with which he looked at streets and 
 churches and shops and hucksters' stalls, for the first 
 time. It was not yet nine o'clock, but Portsmouth was 
 astir, and the active life of the town was in full swing ; 
 earlier than usual, doubtless, and with much more of 
 bustle and noise and movement than usual, for the 
 ships were lying ready to sail for Rochelle, and belated 
 preparations were still in progress under the personal 
 supervision of the Lord High Admiral the Duke of 
 Buckingham, who had spent his life during this month 
 of August in journeying between London and Ports- 
 mouth, trying to expedite those dilatory purveyors on 
 whom the munitions of war depended, and whose delays 
 and lying excuses had well-nigh driven him distracted. 
 
 The King was a guest in Sir Daniel Norton's mansion 
 of Southwick, in the neighbourhood of the port ; but 
 the Duke, with his wife and sister-in-law, was lodging 
 at Captain Mason's spacious house in the High Street. 
 The townsfolk were moved and fluttered by the residence 
 of such magnificent guests in the heart of their town, 
 with the frequent apparition of noble messengers from 
 Southwick, where the Venetian Ambassador was to 
 meet Buckingham in a conference with the King in the 
 afternoon of this twenty-third of August. The streets 
 were alive with unusual traffic. Women were looking 
 out of their windows, or standing on their doorsteps, 
 
 2
 
 i8 ^n Ibiob liMaces 
 
 cumbered with inquisitive children, that hung upon their 
 skirts. Men were grouped at street-corners, talking of 
 the coming expedition, and repeating the various and 
 contradictory rumours of which every man claimed a 
 particular knowledge, and whose source no man could 
 name. And, interwoven with every topic, the dark, 
 deep undercurrent in that rambling river of talk, was 
 the people's hatred of the King's bosom friend, that all- 
 accomplished gentleman in whom a " terrible courage " 
 had been useless, for lack of the experience or the genius 
 which makes a great soldier. His military career had 
 been one dismal story of mistake and failure, one un- 
 deviating record of bad luck ; and yet this unlucky 
 commander was to direct the new enterprise, this fatal 
 marsh fire was to be the guiding star of a new army, 
 and was to lead more men to ignominious death. A 
 sullen anger breathed in every man's speech when 
 Buckingham's name was the subject ; and of whom else 
 could they talk, now that he was housed in their midst, 
 in almost royal pomp, his kindred, his satellites, depen- 
 dents, and flatterers, around and about him, a little 
 Court moving at his heels ? Who cared to mark the 
 anxious brow? Who cared to remember how recklessly 
 the man who was careless of other lives had ever 
 hazarded his own ; or to consider how often his in- 
 experience had been abused by the ill-advice of 
 veterans ; or to know that this splendid parasite, whose 
 greed of gain was on every man's lip, had poured his 
 gold and jewels into the empty treasury, and would 
 have made himself a pauper could his last coin have 
 bought oblivion of Eliot's scathing indictment : 
 "Treasures exhausted, crown-lands sold, royal jewels 
 pawned, tax-payers oppressed, provisions wasted, ships 
 and men destroyed ; the country never so deep sunk 
 in ruin, never so hopeless of recovery!"? 
 
 To win again the esteem and adulation of that bril- 
 liant season when the man who had outraged Spain was 
 the idol of the populace ! That desire must have been 
 stronger even than his pity for the famishing Huguenots 
 hemmed round by Richelieu's troops, cut off from
 
 ilGlas tbis a IRoman Spirit? 19 
 
 succour by land and sea — a company of martyrs, dying 
 for their religion and their liberties — a little Republic in 
 the midst of an absolute monarchy, with creed, privilege, 
 and independence, at stake. 
 
 How galling, how intolerable, to a man of Bucking- 
 ham's ardent nature, must have been that revulsion of 
 feeling which had made him the best-hated man in 
 England, held answerable for every disaster and every 
 disgrace that had overshadowed his sovereign's brief 
 reign, the Sejanus of angry patriots, the man whose name 
 only hinted at in the House of Commons could change 
 the gravity of debate to storm and fury. Stung by 
 the injustice of public opinion, who could wonder at 
 this man's scorn of portents and omens, dreams and 
 ghosts that prophesied death ; a falling picture, sym- 
 bolical of his own fall ; his wife's tears ; his friends' 
 entreaties that he would wear a coat of mail under his 
 velvet and gold. Death ! The assassin's dagger — the 
 mine under the room where he sat — the fate of Rizzio 
 — or Darnky — of the Guises — of Henry the Great ! 
 Could death have any terrors for him whose brief life 
 had comprised all that life knows of triumph and 
 splendour, who had looked on his fellow-men from so 
 giddy a pinnacle that he might well forget that he, 
 too, was mortal ; and who now, still in the flower of 
 manhood, knew himself the mark for a kingdom's 
 detestation, knew himself more solitary in the depth 
 of his fall than he had been in his isolation as the 
 favourite whose only equal was his King ? Charles 
 loved him still. Charles was faithful to an affection 
 that had begun in boyhood. But how long might the 
 sovereign's fidelity hold out against bad luck and un- 
 relenting foes? Ballad and pamphlet, lampoon and 
 epigram, scurrility in every form that venal pens can 
 devise, had been but the scum on the top of the 
 cauldron. Under that foul surface there hissed the 
 hell-broth of private malignity. Every Court parasite 
 who had failed to better his fortunes since the page, 
 George Villiers, stood behind King James' chair, had 
 his stone to throw at the fallen idol. Beautiful as
 
 20 5n Ibiab ip>laces 
 
 Olympian gods are beautiful, gifted, generous, frank 
 and sweet of speech, brave as a lion — all these ; and yet 
 fatal to England and England's king. 
 
 He knew that for the man whom the people hate 
 there is ever the peril of assassination : and lightly as 
 he put aside omens and warnings, with a grave smile at 
 the credulity of loving women, the shadow fell darkly 
 over his last days in London ; and in parting with Laud 
 he put in a plea for his wife and children. " I look 
 to your lordship to keep the King in mind of those 
 dear creatures, if 1 come not back," he said. " Some 
 adventure may kill me as well as another man." 
 
 Only yesterday, the twenty-second of August, he had 
 seen a fresh proof of his unpopularity in the fury of a mob 
 of mutinous sailors, bent on the rescue of a comrade who 
 had insulted him, and had been tried by court-martial 
 and condemned to death. The Duchess had begged 
 for the offender's life, and her prayer would have saved 
 him, but for that bloody fight and attempted rescue, in 
 which Buckingham had risked his person, accompany- 
 ing the procession to the gibbet, in the vindication of 
 outraged authority, and from which painful scene he 
 had returned to his lodgings guarded by a circle of 
 officers who apprehended the worst from the angry 
 crowd. Those savage faces, those strident yells, had 
 haunted his restless slumbers through the sultry night ; 
 and now, at nine o'clock, he was breakfasting at the 
 house in the High Street, in company with the Due 
 de Soubise and the deputies from Rochelle, messengers 
 coming and going, in a fever of movement and talk, a 
 letter from the King open on the table at his side. 
 
 While they were still at table came the news that 
 Rochelle had been relieved ; news which, if true, would 
 bring a sudden turn of Fortune's wheel, a speedy 
 peace with France, and would set English ships and 
 English soldiers free to fight for the King of Denmark 
 and the Protestant cause. But the Frenchmen pro- 
 tested vehemently against any credence being given 
 to rumours that must inevitably prove false ; and the 
 meal ended in the midst of a loud and angry discussion.
 
 Mas tbiB a IRoman Spirtt? 21 
 
 Little George, following the human current at random, 
 had come to this focus of the town's excitement, the 
 heart of the High Street, to which all idlers gravitated. 
 He stood watching the finely dressed gentlemen going in 
 and out of the great house opposite ; the mounted soldiers, 
 the shining arms, the horses being led up and down the 
 street by grooms whose livery was more sumptuous 
 than George had imagined the attire of princes. Every 
 moving thing in that busy street astonished and interested 
 him. He forgot fear, hunger, fatigue, forgot to weep 
 for his abandoned condition, and had scarcely any more 
 care for the future than the sparrows have. He lived 
 only, in this brief hour, to see and admire. Gold ! jewels ! 
 His daddy had told him that there were such things in 
 London. Kings and princes wore them. But imagina- 
 tion had never conceived such figures as these gentlemen 
 in velvet coats and plumed hats, whose jewelled sword- 
 belts flashed in the morning sun, whose spurs made 
 music on the paving-stones. Every now and then the 
 sound of drum and trumpet sent a thrill through the 
 child's heart and nerves. How beautiful life seemed to 
 those young eyes ! how exquisite this splendour of sun- 
 light and jewels to that newly awakening reason ! 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of this pleasurable bewilder- 
 ment the child espied a familiar figure, the squat figure 
 of the man with the dark face. The man crossed the 
 street hurriedly, threading his way through loiterers and 
 passers-by, and entered the house where all the traffic of 
 the town tended. Little George followed, but could 
 not cross the road as quickly as his dark friend, being 
 hustled by a group of sailors, and nearly run over by a 
 man on horseback riding sharply up to the door through 
 which Felton had vanished. He lost a minute, or a 
 minute and a half, perhaps, by those hindrances, time 
 so brief as to be scarce noticeable on the dial of the town 
 clock yonder, yet long enough for a tragedy that might 
 change the fate of England and Rochelle. 
 
 A clamour of voices filled the house when the child came 
 to the door — deep voices of men ; and then, cleaving 
 that muffled thunder, there rang the agonised cry of a
 
 22 Sn IbiQb places 
 
 woman, loud and shrill, repeated and repeated again, as 
 the child peered in at the tumultuous crowd, a chorus of 
 intolerable woe. 
 
 While he stood gazing, scared by those tragic sounds, 
 a man forced his way through the crowd and caught 
 him by the hand. It was his old friend with the swarthy 
 face — lead-coloured now — and the face of one distraught, 
 but not brutal or cruel, illumined rather by the inspired 
 look that martyrs have, who give their lives for their 
 religion. 
 
 " Run, boy," he cried, with his strong right hand 
 grasping George's arm. " Away with you — to the other 
 end of the town — or they will tear you to pieces — as 
 they may do me. Go ! go ! " 
 
 He pushed the child down the broad stone steps, 
 thrusting him away with vehement action, and then 
 turned at the sound of voices from within. A cry had 
 been raised in the crowd : " 'Twas a Frenchman ! " — 
 meaning the murderer. Felton thought it was his name 
 that was called, and pushed his way back into the hall. 
 
 *' I am the man," he said. " I am here ! "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A FRIENDLY GENTLEMAN. 
 
 George stood among the crowd outside, scared and 
 trembling, watching the house to which every eye was 
 turned. He heard men talking of murder ; God's 
 righteous judgment ; some pitying the murdered man ; 
 some with a tear for the wife who loved him, the heart- 
 broken woman whose wild shrieks had pealed out above 
 all the tumult within. He heard much distracted talk, 
 understanding nothing ; and watched till those of the 
 crowd who had pushed their way into the house poured 
 out again in a solid mass, his dark-faced friend, bare- 
 headed, in the midst, all walking away at a quick pace, 
 scattered groups of idlers following them. They were 
 gone, and he found himself standing alone in an empty 
 street. The change from all that tumult and horror, 
 crowd and clamour, to a deathlike silence and blankness, 
 was almost as sudden as if all that the child had heard 
 and looked upon had been the transient shapes and 
 sounds of a dream. 
 
 More terrified at this desolation than at the tumult 
 that had gone before, the child stood staring at the 
 great house, with its open door, within which something 
 strange had happened, something which filled his half- 
 awakened mind with an awe-stricken curiosity. Slowly, 
 falteringly, he went up the steps, and crossed that fatal 
 threshold, awed by the silence, yet emboldened by the 
 solitude. 
 
 The hall was empty of all life and movement. On a 
 long table in the midst lay a figure over which a velvet 
 
 23
 
 24 3n ibfab places 
 
 cloak had been thrown, like a pall ; but flung so 
 carelessly in the confusion following on the catastrophe, 
 that the face of the dead had been left uncovered, and 
 George saw for the first time in his brief life the 
 countenance on which the King of Terrors has set his 
 seal. Never to be forgotten was the aspect of those 
 noble features, in all the awfulness of recent dissolution, 
 the horror of sudden death still visible in the wide-open 
 eyes and fallen jaw. 
 
 The boy stood like a figure of stone, afraid to move, 
 almost afraid to breathe, in that dread presence. 
 Heaven knows how the agonised wife and sister had 
 been withdrawn from that tragic scene, conscious or 
 insensible, consentient or reluctant ; but they were gone. 
 The Duke was lying alone and unattended, he whose 
 state had been royal, whose servants had been reckoned 
 by the score. Not on the desert sands of Arabia could 
 death have seemed more lonely. 
 
 Upon this act of the tragedy the curtain had fallen. 
 Friends, retainers, foes, the indifferent yet eager crowd, 
 had all hurried to the Court-house to see the next act 
 played out. 
 
 The child uttered a sudden sobbing cry, like one 
 awaking from a nightmare dream, and turned and fled 
 from the deserted hall, back to the empty street. He 
 remembered what Felton had told him, and rushed 
 along the street at his topmost speed, with the horror 
 of death's aspect still before his eyes, the measured drip 
 of blood on the polished floor still sounding in his ears. 
 He tried to find his way back to the water-side from 
 which he had come, with a faint, vague hope of finding 
 the waggon there, and a friendly soldier. The sense 
 of desolation — those old terrors of the lonely heath two 
 days ago, had come back upon him, and his only 
 thought was of finding the sergeant, his confidence 
 being unbounded in any creature who had shown him 
 kindness, were it ever so little. 
 
 He drifted away from the direction he aimed at, 
 being afraid to question any one of the few people he 
 met in his wanderings, and at last halted, weary and
 
 a 3fcieiit)ls Oentleman 25 
 
 miserable, on a grassy platform where there was a row 
 of guns that had turned their black muzzles seawards 
 as they did now when Elizabeth was Queen and the 
 Armada was a thing of yesterday. There was the sea, 
 the strangely beautiful expanse of blue and white, the 
 wavelets dancing under the fierce noonday sun. He 
 could not take his eyes from the wonder of it, though 
 he was afraid, and footsore, and hungry, his penny still 
 in his pocket, his crust of bread eaten long ago, and all 
 the unknown world and the long struggle called life 
 staring him in the face. 
 
 He knew not, in his childish helplessness, of any 
 possible shelter, save the chance of a waggon or a barn, 
 like the waggon and barn of last night and the night 
 before. All he could foresee in life was a repetition of 
 the life he knew. His tears fell fast as he sat in the 
 sun ; they fell upon his hands and his ragged sleeves ; 
 and then, for the first time, he saw that one hand and 
 one sleeve were dyed with a red stain which his tears 
 moistened, and which he knew for blood. Child as he 
 was, he shrank instinctively from those stains. They 
 had been left there by the dark-faced man. The gory 
 print of his hand showed red on the neutral grey of the 
 sleeve. How came that blood upon the man's hand — 
 the man whom he had seen quietly crossing the street 
 two minutes before they met ? He remembered how, 
 before he fell asleep in the barn, he had heard the man 
 muttering to himself about a knife in his right-hand 
 pocket ; how, being awake himself in the early dawn, 
 he had seen his companion lying on his back fast asleep, 
 with a convulsed countenance, groaning and murmur- 
 ing in a faint, far-away voice, "Blood — the blood of 
 Holofernes ! the blood of Sisera ! " 
 
 Was it Siscra's blood that stained the sleeve on which 
 the boy's tearful eyes looked with instinctive disgust? 
 That hateful stain intensified his unhappincss, his dis- 
 comfort, his fear. Even the bright water in front of 
 him, the busy harbour in the distance, all the freshness 
 of an unknown world, took the colour of his weary 
 body and frightened heart, and he flung himself face
 
 26 5n 1btab places 
 
 downward on the dusty grass, and sobbed aloud in such 
 blind, hopeless grief as only little children feel when 
 they think themselves abandoned by all human love 
 and care. 
 
 A brisk step and the jingle of sword and spur sounded 
 on the common behind him, as a well-built debo7inaire 
 figure came with buoyant pace over the hillocks ; but 
 George was too lost in grief to hear the debonnaire 
 gentleman's approach, and knew not that relief was 
 coming to his loneliness, till a powerful hand clutched 
 the top of his jacket and lifted him into the air, as easily 
 as if he had been a well-bred puppy dog with a loose 
 skin to his neck. 
 
 " What art howling for, thou baseborn whelp ? " asked 
 a strong baritone voice, with a jovial note in it which 
 must needs inspire confidence in child or dog. " Hast 
 thou nothing better to do when the devil is dead than 
 to lie in the dust and bewail thyself? " 
 
 The stranger set the boy on his feet as he spoke, 
 and stood looking down at him with a friendly grin. 
 A pleasant-looking stranger, this one — very unlike that 
 black man on the common by Godalming, who might 
 at any moment have developed horns end hoofs and 
 declared himself Old Nick in person. 
 
 In his friendlessness the boy had clung to the swart- 
 faced traveller ; but there had still been a lurking 
 distrust. His heart went out with a leap to this merry 
 gentleman, who had light brown hair and beard, and 
 laughing blue eyes under thick brown brows, and who 
 wore his wine-stained velvet and tarnished gold lace as 
 if they had been the purple and ermine of kings. 
 
 " Is the devil dead ? " George asked, awe-stricken ; 
 " and is this the devil's blood ? " 
 
 The stranger laughed aloud at the question, thinking 
 that the boy's nose had been bleeding perhaps, and the 
 little wretch was precocious enough to venture a jest. 
 
 " Nay, thou atomy, thou wert not standing by to see 
 the greatest man in the kingdom die by a stab from a 
 tenpenny knife — he who wanted to play the Roman, 
 to expire in a blaze of glory, in all the pomp of a dear-
 
 a jFtienM^ (Bentleman 27 
 
 bought victory, or to mount skyward amidst the ruins 
 of Rochelle, to soar to the gods he has mimicked with 
 his monkey sovereignty, and to be remembered for ever 
 as Villiers the glorious, who, when he could not save the 
 city and the souls that famished there, put torch to 
 touch-hole and went up to heaven with a republic of 
 martyrs. Did he not swear that he would conquer or 
 die upon the mole before Rochelle ? Vain braggart ! 
 The tenpenny knife was a-grinding for him while he 
 boasted. Omens have not lied ; ghosts have not walked 
 for nothing ; dreamers have dreamed true ; and George 
 Villiers is as dead as his sycophant and parasite Dr. 
 Lambe the astrologer." 
 
 Evidently a man who loved the sound of his own ripe, 
 round voice, and facile turn of a sentence ; since there 
 was small chance that the little boy, whose tearful eyes 
 gazed at him in blank wonder, could follow the sense of 
 this rhapsody ; a man who had spent many a summer 
 afternoon in the playhouses, a man who had drunk and 
 spouted at many taverns, and knew where the best 
 ales were sold and where the best company might 
 be met. 
 
 He flung himself down upon the coarse turf, and 
 seated George beside him, and dried the child's tears 
 with the cuff of his tawdry coat, and made him happy 
 and at his ease in the space of a few minutes. Indeed, 
 it were hard for a helpless brat, who ten minutes ago 
 had fancied himself abandoned of all mankind, not to 
 feel cheered by the kindness of a man whose face and 
 voice brimmed over with good-humour, and who was 
 usually in the condition of one who sees the world 
 through a rosy glow of strong wine — not drunk, but 
 warmed to the core by good liquor. 
 
 To this new friend George freely told his simple 
 story : the farm — Daddy and Mammy — and the strange 
 gentleman in a black suit who had appeared on rare 
 occasions, and who had caused those purple marks to be 
 made upon his breast. He told of his adventures on the 
 road : the lonely night on the common, when he had 
 been frighted by a great black beast with fiery breath,
 
 28 5n Ibiob places 
 
 which he took for the devil, till it started up out of a 
 bush and changed into a horse ; the black man who 
 had been kind to him ; the night in the barn, and those 
 mutterings of murder. 
 
 " I'll wager thy travelling comrade was the black-a- 
 visaged soldier who killed the Duke. Thou wert lucky 
 he did not stab thee to get his hand in. Well, they 
 have thy friend safe under lock and key — so now what 
 wilt thou do ? " 
 
 " The soldier bade me seek a gentleman who would 
 let me scrape his trenchers ; but I know not where to 
 find such." 
 
 " Thou art a pretty guileless creature, with a voice 
 like a silver bell. I have a mind to adopt thee as 
 my page and armourer, till I can find thee a richer 
 master ! " 
 
 " Oh, sir, I would like to stay with you. I am not 
 afeared of you, as I was of the black gentleman. Yet 
 he was kind. Will they kill him because he killed the 
 Duke ? " 
 
 " Faith, if John Eliot and some others at Westminster 
 could have their way they would reward him with a 
 handsome pension for having lightened England of the 
 heaviest incubus she ever carried. But law is law, 
 and I'm afraid his guerdon will be a hempen necklace. 
 So you would like to be my little page, and tramp the 
 highway with me when I have no money to pay for a 
 ride ; and lie in a corner of my garret, and wake me 
 when I see ugly shapes in my dreams ; and fetch me 
 my liquor from the nearest tavern, and brush my coat ; 
 till I can get you into some fine lady's household. I 
 have rich and powerful friends, child, though you might 
 not think it ! " 
 
 " I would rather live with you always, sir. I like you 
 better than anybody, except Daddy." 
 
 The friendly gentleman sat on the grass, looking 
 dreamily seaward, with the child nestling against him. 
 The boy's simplicity, his pretty face, and sweet little 
 piping voice, had appealed somehow to this jovial 
 citizen of the world, and he could not find it in his heart
 
 H fi'ieuMs (Bentleman 29 
 
 to leave the desolate imp to wander and starve on 
 Southsea Common. To a man who lived from hand to 
 mouth the taking of a penniless brat on his shoulders 
 mattered little. Responsibility there could be none 
 where there were no means. And this man had lived at 
 odds with Fortune for the last seven years, and defied 
 Fate to use him worse than she had done, unless he put 
 himself in her power by some foul crime of his own, 
 which he had no mind to do, having indeed no criminal 
 instincts. He drank hard, and loved all games of 
 chance and skill, but he had never stooped to the 
 sharper's tricks with marked cards or cogged dice, or 
 filled his purse by sharking a boon companion. 
 
 A rich man might have hardened his heart against 
 the child's pitiable case, lest he should take upon himself 
 an encumbrance that it would be difficult to shake off, 
 and incur lifelong liability ; but what would it matter 
 to this man that another depended on him ? He could 
 but give the child a share in the ups and downs of a life 
 of adventure, to feast to-day at somebody else's expense, 
 and to starve to-morrow if cast upon his own resources. 
 He was young himself, and pitied all young creatures — 
 colt, puppy, kitten, or callow bird. He had a heart that 
 the world had not hardened, roughly as it had used the 
 owner. 
 
 So when he had sat in the sun for half an hour, 
 watching the great war-ships at anchor in the offing — 
 where flags drooped mournfully half-mast high in the 
 summer calm — and listening to the child's prattle, he 
 took little George by the hand, and set out for the town 
 to buy a dinner with one of the few silver coins in his 
 pocket. George asked no questions about the future, 
 happy with a new and complete sense of being cared for 
 and protected. Here truly was a friend who replaced 
 his lost Daddy, the kindly peasant farmer whose loss he 
 had mourned with many tears, but of whom, having 
 been kept remote from the aspect of death, he had 
 thought as of one gone on a long journey, whose honest 
 countenance might beam upon him suddenly at any 
 turn of life's highway.
 
 3° ?n Ibiab places 
 
 And so these two adventurers began their wanderings 
 together. Francis Mountain — the surname was not his 
 own, but it served — in his twenty-fifth year, George 
 Nameless, age unknown, but from his stature he might 
 be reckoned between six and eight, while speech and 
 intelligence were in advance of his size. So they 
 started on a life-journey, the child charmed with his 
 protector, the man pleased to exercise so pleasant a 
 patronage — so cheaply to buy love and confidence, and 
 the trustful upward look of innocent eyes, and the warm 
 touch of a little clinging hand. Here was something 
 to exorcise those blue devils, those curious impertinent 
 imps and insects from the invisible world, which made 
 themselves so diabolically real to this man after one of 
 his glorious nights at the Dagger or the Windmill. He 
 was not so steeped and seasoned in liquor as the men he 
 drank with, being in most cases considerably their junior ; 
 and it might be that he had a more vivid imagination, 
 and nerves strung to a sharper pitch. 
 
 Francis Mountain and his child-comrade were in 
 London three days after that eventful twenty-third of 
 August. They found the city jubilant with a cruel 
 exultation at the tragical doom of one who had never 
 been cruel even to an enemy. The brilliant intelligence, 
 the warm impulsive heart, were cut short in the very 
 prime of their powers, by a fanatic's knife ; and that 
 London which, after the breaking of the Spanish match, 
 and the Duke's bold defiance of Spain, had run with 
 wine and blazed with bonfires in honour of George 
 Villiers, was now loud in its vilification of the untimely 
 dead. 
 
 From the pinnacle of public favour Villiers had sunk 
 to the lowest depth of public contempt. The Gazette 
 that told his death was but a bare record of fact. There 
 were no party journals to defame or to defend ; there 
 was no sifting of evidence for and against ; there were 
 no friendly casuists to excuse failure, to make a bad cause 
 good. The influence that governed opinion was subtle 
 as the poison in the veins of the snake-bitten. It ran 
 through the whole system of the State, swift as some
 
 H jfrienM^ ©entleman 31 
 
 powerful drug in a sick man's body. The word had 
 gone forth that Buckingham was the kingdom's bane ; 
 and thousands, who had never looked upon his face, 
 never sunned themselves in his smile, or heard the music 
 of his voice, had made up their minds that the Duke 
 of Buckingham was a monster — a modern copy of that 
 base Roman Minister to whom Eliot had likened him in 
 the licence of a fiery debate, the boon companion and 
 counsellor of the tyrant Tiberius, whose mutilated 
 carcase was dragged Tiber-wards through the city 
 gutters in a tempest of execration. 
 
 To liken Villiers to Sejanus was by implication to 
 liken Charles to Tiberius, as the King himself averred ; 
 but the patriot, in his passion, had not halted at dis- 
 courtesy to his Sovereign. 
 
 The Favourite's hated figure bulked large, and over- 
 shadowed the King, who had no will save that of his 
 bosom friend. Had he not, for love of this man, put 
 such an affront upon the representatives of the people as 
 no former sovereign had ever ventured ? Had he not 
 been obstinately blind and deaf to iniquitous proceedings 
 which should have made Villiers and that vile murderess, 
 Lady Buckingham, loathsome in his sight ? — for who 
 could doubt that the late King had been done to death 
 by the Favourite's mother, in the interest of her son. 
 The bookstalls and taverns were strewed with pamphlets 
 that charged the Countess of Buckingham with that foul 
 crime. Every doctor in London knew the story of the 
 poisoned plaster which had changed a chronic sickness 
 into a fatal disorder, and carried off King James just as 
 his eyes were opening to the worthlessness of his long- 
 cherished favourite. Disenchantment had meant death. 
 The mother, for her son's sake, or mother and son in 
 agreement together, had made a sudden end of the 
 wavering monarch, had allowed no time for change in 
 the King's feelings to bring about change in the 
 Duke's fortunes. Not one of those tavern orators 
 doubted that James had been murdered, or took the 
 trouble to consider upon what scanty evidence that 
 atrocious charge was made.
 
 32 5n MQh iplaces 
 
 For the mad monk Jacques Clement, who slew 
 Henry III. of France, there had been swift justice, hacked 
 to death, almost in the presence of his victim, by furious 
 courtiers ; for Ravaillac, murderer of Henry the Great 
 and Good, no torture had been deemed too terrible, no 
 infamy too lasting or too deep, his very name becoming 
 a word of reproach; but "honest Jack" met with a 
 curious indulgence, and found himself the idol of the 
 mob before the blood upon his garments was dry, 
 
 John Felton's journey to London was a triumph. A 
 cry of exultation rang loud in the towns through which 
 he and his gaolers passed. Old women praised him, 
 little children were held up to see him go by ; one old 
 dame, moved by a scriptural zeal, called out, " God bless 
 thee, little David ! " as the dark, squat figure, with bent 
 and gloomy brow, came in sight. The public enthusiasm 
 knew no restraint of policy or fear. Men were fined 
 and imprisoned for drinking the assassin's health. John 
 Milton's schoolmaster. Gill, junior, narrowly escaped 
 the loss of his ears, which had been sentenced to pay for 
 the licence of his tongue, and were only spared by the 
 intervention of a friendly Bishop. 
 
 Alas for the patriot whose knife had gratified the 
 people's rage ! He shared not in the public exultation, 
 thrilled with no pride at old women's blessings, or the 
 piping praise of innocent children. The murder done, 
 his eyes had been opened to the cruelty of that deed. 
 Perhaps in those brief moments when Buckingham 
 turned upon the assassin, and the eyes of murdered and 
 murderer met, the imperial beauty of that perfect face, 
 the splendour of that dauntless mien, struck the half- 
 crazed fanatic with a remorseful awe, and he felt as if he 
 had slain a god. Or it might be that the wild shriek of 
 the new-made widow never ceased to ring in his ears 
 till death dulled them. Certain is it that all his after 
 conduct evidenced the profoundcst sorrow for the thing 
 he had done. He met his ignominious doom as one 
 who felt that no sentence could be too severe, no detail 
 in the hangman's office too humiliating. What remorse, 
 what consciousness of crime could be deeper than his.
 
 H f rieuM^ Gentleman 33 
 
 who had pasted in his hat so bold an assertion of the 
 patriot's right to slay his country's foe, and who now 
 sued for pardon to his victim's scullion-boy, and stretched 
 out his guilty arm in the open court, offering it to the 
 executioner's knife ?
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM CHILDHOOD TO MANHOOD. 
 
 It was a strange fancy on the part of a strong man 
 perhaps, but Frank Mountain's notion that the child- 
 companion would save him from the spectral shapes 
 that haunt a drunkard's pillow exercised a stronger 
 influence upon his conduct than he himself was aware. 
 Had he not even contemplated wedlock with some 
 light companion of his orgies, as an escape from the 
 unspeakable horrors of those long burning •^nights when 
 millions of devils danced and rioted in his delirious 
 brain ? And behold, instead of an impudent hussy 
 who might soon become a worse horror to him than 
 even the frogs and flies of Egypt and the fiends of hell, 
 here was a little innocent imp who would sit beside his 
 pillow and prattle to him, and bathe his temples with 
 vinegar and water, and keep all the populace of dis- 
 tempered fancy at a distance. 
 
 As time went on, and these two soldiers of fortune 
 marched together, now in France, and now beyond the 
 Alps, anon in Germany, or in the sober, humdrum 
 Netherlands, finding rough and smooth, kindness and 
 unkindness, bad and good weather, and bad and good 
 luck, the cure that Mountain had anticipated worked 
 on somewhat different lines from those he had laid down. 
 He had fancied that he was to drink as deep as of old, 
 and that little George was to lighten the drink-delirium 
 by his loving company ; but as his liking for the child 
 ripened into a warm affection, almost like that of a 
 father for his first-born, Francis found himself spending 
 
 34
 
 ifrom (Ibil^F)oo^ to /llbanbooD 35 
 
 less, and leaving the 'Tavern earlier, till by-and-byc, upon 
 meeting those jovial roysterers with whom he had so 
 often sprinkled the night with wine, he felt half ashamed 
 of his sobriety. 
 
 The boy loved his master as children love indulgent 
 fathers, and loved to serve him. Never had grand 
 seigneur page more devoted ; never were threadbare 
 garments more sedulously brushed and cleaned, nor was 
 the gilt handle of a cheap rapier ever made to look 
 more like gold. Francis taught him to read and write, 
 and he picked up the useful current coin of foreign 
 tongues, the three or four hundred words which suffice 
 for a traveller's daily needs, as they fared from country 
 to country, the child being quick and eager, as all 
 healthy young creatures are, questioning his companion 
 about everything he saw or heard, until he was able 
 to read for his own enlightenment. 
 
 When once possessed of this incomparable art, he 
 fancied he had the key to universal knowledge, and was 
 more greedy for books than for food or rest after a long 
 day's tramp on a dusty road. 
 
 Alas that books should be so dear ! George read his 
 little library over and over again. It consisted but of a 
 handful of well-known books which Mountain had 
 bought for him from the colporteurs by whose side they 
 often walked for miles at a stretch. Sir Thomas 
 Malory's "History of King Arthur"; the "Praise of 
 Folly," by Erasmus, in the original easy Latin, which 
 his master taught George to construe as they sat under 
 a hedge in the noontide, resting after a meal ; Luther's 
 " Table Talk," in the same learned language ; and, most 
 precious of all, Spenser's "Faery Queen," and the 
 immortal story of Don Quixote. 
 
 Later there came Romantic literature, in French and 
 Italian. The lad had ever a well-thumbed volume in 
 his pocket, and had begun to long for the life he 
 read of; for the first germs of youthful ambition arc 
 mostly found between the leaves of a romance ; and 
 more boys have been made soldiers by the story of 
 " Palmerin of England," or " The Seven Champions of
 
 36 3n Ibigb iplaces 
 
 Christendom," than by the sight of a troop of cavalry, or 
 the blare of trumpets and beat of drums. 
 
 For the boy bred in a humble farmhouse, abandoned 
 in the helplessness of childhood, this wandering life, with 
 its varieties of fortune, seemed entirely happy ; but it 
 needed all Francis Mountain's philosophy to enable him 
 to dine contentedly on dry bread, and sleep on a truss 
 of hay, since the first eighteen years of his life had been 
 spent in an almost regal luxury. 
 
 It was not until many years after their meeting on 
 Southsea Common that George was admitted to the 
 secret of his protector's name and story ; for albeit this 
 kindly, light-hearted young man had but venial sins of 
 his own to blush for, he was sensitively alive to the stain 
 upon his name, and to the humiliating experiences of 
 his eighteenth year. 
 
 He was the son and heir of that richly favoured 
 monopolist, Sir Giles Mompesson, who enjoyed the 
 monoply of inn-licences, and of the trade in gold and 
 silver lace — two privileges which could hardly have been 
 held by the most honourable of men without the hazard 
 of unconscious favouritism and unwilling injustice, but 
 which Mompesson had used as a means to the vilest 
 traffic, selling his licences to inns that were nests of 
 robbers and dens of depravity, and permitting wholesale 
 adulteration in those costly manufactures which his own 
 respectability was supposed to guarantee. 
 
 Looking back upon his luxurious childhood and boy- 
 hood, Francis Mountain recalled a noble mansion on the 
 banks of the Thames ; a chaplain-tutor who pandered 
 to his boyish pleasures, and encouraged him to despise 
 the learning whose elements the tutor was paid to teach ; 
 idleness and extravagance at Oxford, where he might 
 have been Master of Arts at seventeen years of age, had 
 he afforded official servility only a reasonable excuse for 
 giving him his degree, but from which University his 
 follies had banished him under a cloud of disgrace, the 
 thinnest and silveriest of clouds as compared with the 
 Egyptian darkness which wrapped the exit of his boon 
 companions, lads of meaner birth and lighter purses.
 
 jfrom CbtlDboot) to /iDanbooD 37 
 
 Escaped from the easy jurisdiction of the University 
 while still in the flush of boyhood, and with all boyhood's 
 bent towards folly, he found himself the pet and play- 
 thing of a profligate Court, in palaces where life was a 
 continual masquerade, sitting at banquets that began 
 in solemn magnificence, with a dignity and beauty that 
 Veronese would have loved to paint, and which ended 
 in the wallowing of human swine in a trough ; revels 
 that recalled Circe's swinish courtiers, or the companions 
 of Comus, the gluttony and riot of men transformed 
 into beasts. The handsome boy, clad in white velvet 
 and gold, in rose damask and silver, inferior only to the 
 Villiers brood in the sumptuousness of his apparel, passed 
 not unscathed through that burning ordeal in which 
 mind and senses were alike tried and tempted. The 
 memory of that time v/as no spotless page which the 
 graver eyes of manhood might contemplate with satis- 
 faction. There were women whose favour then had 
 seemed a crown of glory, whose lightest caress Francis 
 Mountain now recalled with an abhorrent shudder. He 
 had lived and loved while the down upon his lip was 
 soft as the velvet on a peach ; the praised of wrinkled 
 she-libertines, the favoured of high-born wantons ; only 
 escaping utter pollution by a rugged strength of character, 
 and preference for decency, which made him scorn the 
 smiles of painted faces, the flattery of lascivious tongues. 
 
 A sudden exposure of nefarious dealings, an outcry 
 that rang through the country, a trial famous among 
 State trials — and Mompesson, the lord of inns and ale- 
 houses, the man of gold and silver, whose money-bags 
 had bought the favour of the Court and the subservience 
 of the City, was a fugitive beyond sea ; and the Palace, 
 rising stately above Bermondsey's fairest gardens, had 
 melted away like one of the fairy temples in those 
 magnificent masques of which Francis had seen so 
 mauy. 
 
 A hasty letter scrawled by Sir Giles in the hour of his 
 flight bade the young man make his way to Rotterdam, 
 where he, Sir Giles, would look for him at the Golden 
 Lion Inn on the Quay ; or, if he had too proud a stomach
 
 38 5n MQb {places 
 
 to join fortunes with a disgraced father, he might stop 
 to beg his bread in the streets of London. 
 
 Francis did neither, but offered himself, and was 
 accepted, for Sir Horace Vere's expedition to the Pala- 
 tinate, with a company of Volunteers, the only aid which 
 King James allowed Protestant England to send to 
 the Protestant Union. The lad volunteered for foreign 
 service, almost hoping that some flying bullet would 
 find its billet in his heart or brain. The revelations at 
 the trial of the two monopolists, Mompesson and Michel, 
 had sickened him. He loathed the memory of those 
 idle wanton years, of the gold he had squandered. He 
 hated himself for the boyish arrogance which had pro- 
 cured him a score of enemies, and had lost him the 
 worthiest among his friends. The youth, who was per- 
 sonally known to Vere, was permitted to enlist under 
 a feigned name ; and it was as Francis Mountain that 
 Sir Giles Mompesson's only son began his new and 
 harder life. 
 
 The little company arrived on the scene of war too 
 late to succour the Elector Palatine. Spinola and his 
 Spanish battalions were moving up the Rhine ; and the 
 Thirty Years' War had begun. 
 
 When he shook the dust of London off his boots, 
 Francis shook off the husk of his former self, and faced 
 life with a bold front. He had thews and sinews, a 
 sure aim with gun or pistol, a skill in fence surpassed 
 by few swordsmen of his years. He could speak 
 French and Italian, and could ride the great horse. He 
 had a handsome face, bold and candid, and strongly 
 featured as Henry of Navarre's aquiline visage. He 
 had a full baritone voice and a jovial laugh, and a 
 happy-go-lucky disposition that revelled in the sun- 
 shine, and took foul fortunes and foul weather lightly. 
 He joined the Palatine Prince's troops, and was a 
 favourite with the men, and a welcome guest under the 
 tents of their officers. He had the unmistakable air and 
 accent of a man who had lived in courts and eaten off 
 gold and silver. He had the gift of mimicry ; and
 
 from Cbilbboot) to /flbanbooD 39 
 
 his imitations of the two bishops, Wilh'ams and Laud, 
 of Bacon and Cecil ; of the Scottish parvenu, Somerset ; 
 of King James mouthing his drink, with the red wine 
 slobbering over his thick lips and spattering his ruff; 
 and even of the late Queen Anne, royally gracious, 
 but somewhat overcome with wine, were so true to the 
 life as to vouch for his having lived with the personages 
 he caricatured. He had, in brief, the gifts that make 
 a young man particularly acceptable in worthless com- 
 pany. He was at his best after supper, when the wine 
 had flowed freely ; or, if his friends were not men of 
 long purses, he could be merry upon a tankard of ale. 
 He was a general favourite, but most appreciated by 
 acquaintances whose favour could be of very little use 
 to him ; and so, serving under one banner or another, 
 Huguenot or Papist, he had drifted to the town of 
 Portsmouth, out at elbows, and with but a handful of 
 silver between him and starvation, meaning to volunteer 
 for the Rochelle expedition, when Buckingham's tragical 
 death, and the encounter with a nameless waif on 
 Southsea Common, brought a new and reforming in- 
 fluence to bear upon this featherhead's career. 
 
 The nameless waif influenced Francis Mountain's 
 fortunes in more ways than one. He grew less fond of 
 soldiering, and was less careless about random bullets, 
 now that this little life depended upon his. He fell 
 into a roving, gipsy-like existence, and began to turn 
 his talents to account as a civilian ; and, falling in 
 from time to time with old friends in positions of 
 authority and power, he by-and-bye got himself 
 employed upon irregular diplomatic missions, in that 
 secret service between high-born intriguers in England 
 and France, which off"ered a living in the present, and 
 the chance of promotion in the future. 
 
 Wherever Mountain went, or on howsoever grave or 
 secret a business, his boy went with him ; albeit at the 
 beginning of his diplomatic career the fact of so shabby 
 an adventurer being attended by his page had not 
 escaped ridicule. With the coming of more prosperous 
 days, and the growth of the child to a tall stripling, his
 
 4° 5u Ibigb places 
 
 attendance seemed a natural appendage to the unofficial 
 messenger between Court and Court, and Embassy and 
 Embassy, Once when they were in Paris on a secret 
 mission that old intriguer, Bassompierre, was taken 
 with the lad's handsome looks, and wanted to steal 
 him. 
 
 " The boy has a countenance that haunts me like a 
 half-remembered dream," he said ; " he recalls a face I 
 have known, 'Tis not Mazarin — though he has the 
 Italian's features without his crafty expression — 'tis 
 some other face I have known long ago. He is too 
 pretty a page for your rough work. In my service he 
 would have little to do but sprawl on a velvet cushion, 
 and play with my Italian greyhounds. His hardest 
 work would be to carry a billet-doux to a lady who 
 would cram him with sweetmeats and line his pockets 
 with gold, for love of the writer," 
 
 " I would as soon cut off my sword-arm. Monsieur le 
 Marechal, as part with my comrade. We have lived 
 together in sunshine and cloud ; and the black welkin 
 has no thunder that could sever us." 
 
 George was mostly silent in fine company, but he 
 lifted his face from the book over which it was ever 
 bent in his leisure hours, and smiled at his protector ; 
 and in the smile there was a promise of life-long fidelity. 
 
 Bassompierre was in the Bastille a few days after- 
 wards, so his patronage would not have led to high 
 fortune. 
 
 The boy's service had lasted a dozen years, and the 
 sunny-haired child picked up on Southsea Common now 
 stood shoulder to shoulder with his patron, and, judged 
 by the manly lines of his figure, might have been taken 
 for five-and-twenty as easily as for eighteen. But the 
 delicate red and white of his complexion, the lucid 
 azure of his eyes, the slenderness of his limbs, and the 
 supple grace of his movements, marked the adolescent 
 in the first freshness of life's morning ; and, with all the 
 desire to ruffle and hold his own among strong men, 
 George was still only a handsome boy. 
 
 Mountain and his page were in London in the late
 
 ifrom Cbilt)booD to ^anboot) 41 
 
 summer of the year 16.^0, — that fatal year in which the 
 air was full of the low mutterings of a muffled thunder, 
 forerunner of the storm that wrecked Strafford, and left 
 an indelible stain upon his master's name. 
 
 The three weeks' Parliament of the spring was almost 
 forgotten in the dead calm of an uneventful summer ; 
 but the forewarning thunder of which that thoughtful 
 and pious lady, Colonel Hutchinson's wife, took notice, 
 was felt by all who knew the mind of the English 
 people. Oppressive restrictions, forbidding the natural 
 expansion of London, enforced by heavy fines, had 
 exasperated the city, and had changed that stronghold 
 of loyalty into the focus of discontent. It was but a 
 few years since a little band of Nonconformists, all of 
 humble origin and fortunes, had sailed av/ay from the 
 world they loved, to make themselves a home and a 
 Church in the wilderness ; and now there were men of 
 mark, among the noblest of the land, who turned their 
 faces to the unknown West, to the new places with the 
 old familiar names, sick of Archbishop Laud's trivial 
 tyranny, and of the fines, imprisonments, banishments, 
 whippings, gags, pillories, and mutilations, by which the 
 Star Chamber dealt with cases of conscience ; sick, too, 
 of the petty oppressions of monopolists, licensed to 
 supply the vilest goods at the highest prices ; disgusted 
 at all those wrongs, which in the coming year were to be 
 massed in one stupendous indictment of the Commons 
 against their King. 
 
 The " taste of happiness " which Charles Stuart had 
 given his people during eleven years of personal rule 
 had left an exceedingly bitter flavour in the people's 
 mouth ; and Francis Mountain and his page heard 
 almost as much complaining against an arbitrary 
 government in the White Lion tavern at Westminster 
 as they had heard at the Pine Apple in the narrow 
 street near the Louvre, where deep damnation was 
 drunk to Richelieu and his lieutenant, Joseph the Priest, 
 in the rough red wine of the Gironde, which left stains 
 upon the tables like blood. 
 
 Talk ran riot in London taverns, while silence reigned
 
 42 Sn tiiQb iplaces 
 
 in the Parliament House yonder, and while patriots 
 were moving about the country, with John Pym for 
 their leader, rousing the spirit of the electors, in pre- 
 paration for that new Parliament, which the King was 
 so loth to summon. The late Parliament had owed its 
 existence to the sovereign's necessities, and on the 
 Lower House refusing an immediate grant of twelve 
 subsidies, had been dissolved in a huff, by His Majesty's 
 angry order. "Better so," said the forward-looking 
 spirits, " for this Parliament was of too yielding a temper. 
 We want iron men, and iron measures, if England is to 
 remain a country that free men can dwell in." 
 
 Neither Francis Mountain nor his companion was 
 concerned at the violence of party-feeling or the muffled 
 thunder in the air. They had lived under too many 
 governments to be keenly interested in any. King or 
 Kaiser, Stadtholder or Doge, mattered but little to these 
 cosmopolitans, so long as they had food and lodging, 
 clothes to keep them warm, and boots that kept out the 
 water. Mountain had prospered of late, and he and his 
 proteg^ wore doublet and cloak of the newest mode, and 
 were able to afford respectable lodgings in a small 
 retired house in Milbank Lane, hard by the great water- 
 way, which in this brilliant summer season George 
 thought almost as beautiful as the Grand Canal at 
 Venice. 
 
 " I have wandered over half the Continent of Europe 
 out at elbows and in broken boots," Mountain told the 
 boy, " but you may note that I waited for a full purse 
 and a sound suit of clothes before I showed myself in 
 this pettifogging island, save as a bird of passage. I 
 have a sturdy British pride that forbids me to live as a 
 pauper in the city where I was reared like a prince." 
 
 " Was your father some great nobleman, like the 
 Prince de Conde or the Due dc Bouillon?" George 
 asked simply. 
 
 " My father was a prince of the blood royal of Plutus, 
 George. He was rich enough to buy the favour of 
 princes, and the smiles of women who played as deep 
 as the men, and drank as deep, some of them, and had
 
 ifroin CI)UM)oob to /IDanboot) 43 
 
 such stringent need of money that they would sell their 
 souls to Satan for a loan of a thousand or so at a crisis. 
 My father was a rogue, but he was a magnificent rogue, 
 and scattered his ill-gotten wealth with a hand as lavish 
 as Francis Bacon's, who let his servants rob him before 
 his face — and had a head too high in the clouds to take 
 note of how his own fortune came." 
 
 " It's a pity one so rich in wit and wisdom should 
 be so careless of honour." 
 
 " Tush, lad. Bacon was of his age. 'Twas a glorious 
 age for men of spirit and brains ; for the pettifogging 
 distinctions and wire-drawn border-lines between honesty 
 and dishonesty, which make sneaks of us, had not come 
 into fashion. King James squeezed his subjects dry to 
 fatten his favourites, and was a well-spring of gold to 
 the men he loved ; but I doubt if man or woman at 
 Whitehall — save only painters and architects — has been 
 a hundred pounds the better for any of those exactions 
 that have cost King Charles the love of his people. 
 You heard last night that for every thousand that finds 
 its way to the Royal Treasury other two thousand are 
 swallowed by collectors and purveyers, prsefectors and 
 clerks of the market." 
 
 " 'Tis a dishonest world, sir, in which such things 
 can be." 
 
 " 'Tis a curious world, and changes its shapes and 
 colours almost as fast as the clouds change in the sun- 
 set sky ; but 'tis a pleasant world for a man like me, 
 whose pulses beat strong, and whose sinews are iron ; 
 and for a lad like you, who have all the chances of life 
 before you. God's truth ! but I believe your star is a 
 lucky one, George ; for I know my own life has 
 travelled in smoother grooves since I found you on 
 Southsea Common, snivelling in the sunshine." 
 
 " Is it lucky to have neither father nor mother, nor 
 even to know my father's name ? " George asked bitterly. 
 
 " Better such ignorance than to bear a name that you 
 would be ashamed to speak. You have never heard my 
 father's name, George ; and perhaps you never will, 
 from my lips."
 
 44 5n Ibfgb places 
 
 London was changed since Sir Giles Mompesson's 
 son had known it in the flower of his youth. Great 
 lights that were shining then had gone out. Ben 
 Jonson was dead, full of years and wine and gout, but 
 cherished and admired to the last, a power and a delight 
 to those who loved him, an eloquent voice sounding in 
 the deep of night in the great room at the Devil Tavern, 
 by Temple Bar, the Apollo room, where the old Eliza- 
 bethan held a kind of club, and where his loving disciples 
 were sealed " sons of Ben." 
 
 Jonson was dead ; the bricklayer's son, who had 
 upheld the dignity of letters, in his drunken, impecunious 
 way ; Jonson, whose friends had been kings, and chan- 
 cellors, and bishops, and privy counsellors, and who had 
 boasted that he " never esteemed of a man for the name 
 of a lord." 
 
 Mountain loved to talk of old Ben, and those nights 
 at the Devil Tavern ; those feasts of reason and of wit 
 at which he had assisted in his ignorant youth, fresh 
 from a neglected curriculum at Oxford, knowing more 
 about bear-baiting, and hawks and hounds, than of those 
 classic authors which Jonson quoted upon every subject, 
 with an air of supposing that other people loved and 
 remembered them as well as he did. 
 
 Master and page were sitting at ease in a roomy skiff, 
 while a couple of watermen bent their stout backs to 
 the oar, the boat going with a strong tide up stream 
 and carrying them towards their destination at Isleworth, 
 where Mountain had to deliver a packet of letters to 
 Lord Llanbister, a nobleman who had figured with 
 distinction at the Court of Elizabeth, and had taken a 
 leading part in international politics under James. He 
 had retired from public life, but he had still strong 
 alliances on the other side of the Channel, notably with 
 oncibrilliant, adventurous lady, who lived only to conspire, 
 and conspired only to fail. 
 
 " Of all my father's fair-weather friends, Llanbister is 
 the one man who has held out the hand of kindness 
 to me since my misfortunes. Many a meal you have 
 shared with me has been at his expense, George. But
 
 J'com Cbil^boo^ to /lDan?)oo5 45 
 
 do not suppose that I would ride a free horse to death — 
 I only appealed to him when our case was desperate. 
 He was in Florence that time you were dying of fever, 
 I ran against him on the Ponte Vecchio, coming from 
 the Pitti Palace, where he had been dining with princes ; 
 and it was as if I had met an angel. His purse was 
 open to me on the instant. Manna and quails in the 
 desert could scarce have been liker to a miracle. He 
 is a good man ; and his wife, who for her years might 
 be his daughter, is a good woman, though she has spent 
 a decade at Queen Henrietta's court, where virtue is 
 not the chief quality admired in women — as witness 
 that splendid sinner, Buckingham's niece, who had the 
 courage to save her seducer at the cost of her own 
 reputation, and the generosity to decline a husband 
 commanded to the altar by his king." 
 
 " There are some wrongs that cannot be righted," 
 said George, who took life more seriously than his 
 senior. " What happiness could that poor lady have 
 hoped for with such a man as Jermyn, married to her 
 against his will ? " 
 
 " Faith, I believe he would have secured her a place 
 in heaven by making her a martyr upon earth. Jermyn 
 aims high. He has a queen for his bosom friend ; and 
 if — well — if our royal master were to die of the plague, 
 I think I know where his widow would look for 
 consolation." 
 
 " Another of your tavern scandals, sir. I wonder you 
 can lend an ear to them." 
 
 " Nay, do not think I believe all I hear of the Queen, 
 or of her sister-in-law at the Louvre, or of her mother 
 at Brussels, or of any woman in this world, high or low. 
 Men had need be kind to women by their acts, for they 
 are devils to them with their tongues, and will puff 
 away a matron's character to spice a tankard of mulled 
 wine, or calumniate a virtuous widow for the chance 
 of cutting a verbal caper." 
 
 George had seen many rivers in the course of his 
 peripatetic boyhood ; and to eyes that had looked upon
 
 46 3n t>\Qh places 
 
 Danube and Rhine, Rhone and Seine, this gentle stream, 
 flowing between the daisied meads of Fulham and Barnes, 
 past village churches and cottage roofs, each little settle- 
 ment curiously repeating the last, in the same picturesque 
 grouping of flowery gable-ends, clustered chimneys, 
 square church-tower, and glistening vane — must needs 
 seem a world in miniature, small and fine and prim and 
 precise as landscape and buildings in the background of 
 a triptych by Memling or Van Eyck. Yet, perhaps by 
 some predisposition in English blood, this rural scenery 
 and placid river pleased the lad's fancy better than many 
 a grander scene had done. So small, so placid, so full 
 of variety and colour, was this gentle Thames, as it 
 flashed and sparkled in the July sunshine, so brightly 
 glowed the deep-toned red of Tudor barns and home- 
 steads, through their rich veil of greenery, — that as he 
 watched that moving picture he could but think he had 
 come to a happier country than he had ever seen in his 
 wanderings. 
 
 There were stately mansions along the river banks, 
 as well as farmhouses and thatched cottages, mansions 
 which lacked the massive towers, aerial turrets, conical 
 roofs, long ranges of lofty windows, flying balconies, and 
 florid decoration, which were familiar to him in the 
 chateaux that rise far apart along the monotonous plains 
 between Avignon and Paris, where George and his master 
 had journeyed so often on foot or on horseback, through 
 the summer dust and winter snow — hardy travellers, a 
 kind of civilised gipsies, content to fare as gipsies fare, 
 and to sleep under Jove's starry canopy when needs 
 must. 
 
 Beautiful as the scene was — shining river, bending 
 willows that dipped in the stream, meadows enamelled 
 with orchis and daisy — a shadow of melancholy lay over 
 all things to-day, like a dim grey veil spread between 
 the eyes of the adolescent and the scene they looked 
 upon. A new sense had awakened in this homeless 
 youth since he had trodden his native soil, a sense of 
 loneliness, desolation, shame even. It was not that he 
 loved his kind master less, or was ungrateful for the
 
 jfrom Cbilbboot) to /IDanboob 47 
 
 love that had sheltered him, sharing all the best that 
 Fortune could give as freely as the hard fare of earlier 
 days. It was perhaps the natural growth of an intellect 
 in advance of its years, the natural awakening of 
 ambitious longings in a lofty soul, the natural yearning 
 for a deeper and holier love than this rough-and-ready 
 soldier of fortune could give him. Even in that loose- 
 lived company which Francis Mountain liked best there 
 were men who were not ashamed to reveal their love for 
 mothers and sisters, their regretful memory of a vanished 
 home, or their pleasant anticipations of a day when they 
 would go back with mended fortunes to the fireside, 
 where there was always a place kept for them. George 
 had heard godless reprobates talk of parents and kindred 
 across wine cups and flagon ; boast of a sister's modest 
 loveliness ; brag of a father's honesty ; or speak with a 
 tearful eye and a faltering voice of the long-dead mother 
 whose face had been the light of the home. 
 
 No such memories lay in George's heart ; no mother's 
 face haunted his dreams. As he grew in knowledge of 
 life he made up his mind that the weather-beaten face 
 he recalled was not the face of his mother ; that the 
 rough cottage he remembered was not the home of his 
 father. Through the mists of bygone years he could 
 picture scenes and recall speeches that to his later 
 judgment were proof positive of some secret behind the 
 commonplace of the peasant's hearth and the peasant's 
 fare. The memory of a thoughtful child will retain 
 words which carried but little significance when they 
 were spoken. 
 
 To-day, in the sunlit idleness of that water-journey, 
 George looked back upon the picture of a March evening 
 in his first home ; the hearth-glow reflected on the great 
 oaken beam that spanned the ceiling, himself squatting 
 among the wood-ashes in the chimney-corner, which was 
 more than half as big as the room ; those whom he 
 called Daddy and Mammy sitting side by side upon the 
 settle opposite him ; and, standing straight and tall in 
 front of the sloping chimney, a man clad in black from 
 throat to foot, and wearing neither sword nor spurs — a
 
 48 3n IbiGb {places 
 
 pale, stern-featured gentleman, whose light grey eyes 
 had a searching look that frightened him, ■ 
 
 " Yes, he is to lead the life you lead, eat and drink 
 like you, sleep on as hard a bed, wear grogram or 
 Norwich drugget, God knows 'tis the happiest life for 
 him who has known no other, and brings with it less 
 of trouble and vexation. Treat him like your own ; 
 love him like your own — if you can." 
 
 " Us do that a'ready. It have a-come easy," grunted 
 Daddy from his seat in the chimney-corner, " Us don't 
 want to be paid for i/mt." 
 
 " So much the better for all of you. You will be paid 
 for his bite and sup ; fairly, but not generously — I am 
 too poor a man to be lavish — till he is old enough to 
 earn his own bread. When that day comes, if he be 
 grown strong and stalwart, honest, God-fearing, and a 
 member of the Church of England — I will have him no 
 Puritan, mind you, stuffed with the rank blasphemies of 
 a Calvinistic lecturer ;— if by his eighteenth birthday 
 you can show him to me an honest English peasant, 
 true to Church and King, I will give you that which will 
 help to make your old age easy." 
 
 The slow, deliberate speech had sunk deep in the 
 childish memory — for those were the last words he ever 
 heard from the tall gentleman in black. In the summer 
 that followed Daddy was laid in the rural grave-yard 
 in the shadow of the church, where George had so often 
 slept on Daddy's knee through a drowsy afternoon 
 sermon. Daddy was dead ; and Mammy — who perhaps 
 had never known the black gentleman, save as a stately 
 visitor, nameless and secret — was without a home ; and 
 he, George, was a wanderer on the face of the earth. 
 
 The vision of the sailor who made that Viper-sign 
 upon his breast lay further back in the dim long-ago, 
 and the pictured scene was less definite. Again he 
 recalled the changeful light and shadow ; the light so 
 ruddy and warm ; the shadow so black and deep, and 
 full of frightening things ; again the tall, dark figure 
 and stern countenance of the stranger, in such marked 
 contrast to the rubicund face of the sailor, grinning and
 
 from CbilDbooD to /IDanf3oo& 49 
 
 shining in the glare of the logs, with the twinkle of 
 laughing eyes and the flash of broad white teeth ; again 
 the slow, distinct speech which he seemed to hear across 
 the distance of years, and which gave him the same 
 cold thrill to-day that it had given him then, when he 
 stood between the sailor's broad knees, his head leaning 
 back against the sailor's breast as he looked up at the 
 stranger. He remembered the fire-glow flickering upon 
 black velvet doublet and trunks, and high black boots, 
 and he saw again the thoughtful eyes looking down at 
 the sailor's bare arm, stretched out to catch the fitful 
 light on those strange, purple signs upon the sunburnt 
 flesh. 
 
 Then had come a tedious operation upon his own 
 tender skin, watched by the stranger who had ordered 
 it to be done. 
 
 Was it for sheer caprice or even cruelty that he had 
 been subjected to this process ? Or was it because the 
 man in black desired to brand him as cattle are branded, 
 with a mark that he would carry all his life? Yet 
 what need so to distinguish one who was to be a 
 peasant, something only a little higher than the beasts 
 of the field, earning his bread in the sweat of his brow ? 
 What need so to mark one of that common herd — since 
 the days of serfdom were past in England, and he could 
 be no man's chattel, wear no master's iron collar? 
 Brooding thus in the light of his experience of life he 
 was disposed to think that the stranger had been 
 governed only by a capricious cruelty, wanting perhaps 
 to test the courage and endurance of a wretched little 
 mortal whose destiny was in his power, and to whom he 
 had allotted the labourer's dull round of drudgery.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FAIR FACES AND NOBLE HEARTS. 
 
 From that long reverie of slow, sad thoughts, in tune 
 with the lullaby of the river, George looked up at his 
 friend and protector with a sudden affectionate glance. 
 To him he owed the happy-go-lucky years which had 
 made his boyhood one long romance ; not without its 
 dark pages, its nights of fear, and days of hunger : but 
 so full of movement, that to look back upon it was like 
 turning the leaves of one of those chivalrous novels he 
 loved so well. To him he owed the knowledge of 
 foreign lands and foreign tongues, and that far-reaching, 
 many-sided intellect which is the natural growth of 
 constant friction among men of divers nations and divers 
 professions. There were few callings of which George 
 had not some experience. He had slept in the tents of 
 Bohemia, and heard strange songs in the Romany 
 tongue, and sat in the college halls of German and 
 Flemish cities, to listen to grave priests or fiery students 
 drguing upon the deepest mysteries of the Catholic 
 jFaith in their dry scholastic Latin. He had been 
 patronised by princes and ambassadors, and had carried 
 a friendly colporteur's bag along the dusty roads of 
 Flanders and of France. He had been nursed through 
 a fever in the Carthusian Monastery near Florence, and 
 had eluded the importunities of the monks, who would 
 have had him enter upon his novitiate when he rose 
 from his sick-bed. Francis Mountain professed himself 
 ever of the local religion, and was a staunch Papist 
 
 50
 
 faiv ffaccs and MoUc Ibearts si 
 
 between Calais and Naples, a sturdy Calvinist in the 
 low countries, and a virulent high-Churchman and 
 champion of the Book of Sports in London. 
 
 " If the Puritans get the upper hand I may begin to 
 see the cloven foot under Laud's cassock," he told 
 George, "and may come round to love sour faces and 
 Geneva gowns, and sermons that outlast the sand in the 
 hour-glass. But I confess to a liking for handsome 
 vestments, and an altar set altar-wise, with candles and 
 crucifix, as I remember them in my father's private 
 chapel. Yet the spectacle of respectable citizens ilogged, 
 and pilloried, and mutilated, and pining in prison, because 
 they refuse to bow to the altar and prefer a conventicle 
 to a church, shows like midsummer madness to a man 
 who loves life and liberty ; to bask in the sun at noon 
 under a hedge, like a beggar ; or to feast at midnight 
 with princes in a tapestried banquetting-hall ; and who 
 has never cudgelled his brains to discover the why or the 
 wherefore of things." 
 
 At eighteen years of age George's thoughts were 
 deeper than Mountain's thoughts at eight-and-thirty. 
 He was one of those who are born thinkers, and his 
 childish mind, under that cottage roof in Surrey, had 
 been full of far-reaching wonder. It was good for him 
 to live in Mountain's joyous company, and even to sit 
 on a tavern bench till midnight, and hear the talk of 
 men whose eloquence was warmed with strong drink, 
 and whose random cleverness missed as often as it hit 
 the mark. Amidst the foolishness of fiery argument 
 there were occasional flashes of wisdom, and wandering 
 gleams of truth, together with much wit and poetry, 
 struck off in the heat of talk that seemed ever to 
 brighten as the night wore on. The boy was too 
 diffident to join in such discourses, and was content to 
 sit silent, in the shadow of his master's bulkier form, 
 and to absorb the wisdom, while he smiled at the folly, 
 of his seniors. 
 
 "Is Lord Llanbister one of the Queen's friends?" 
 George asked, when they were nearing their destination, 
 having the ugly, straggling street of Brentford on their
 
 52 5ii Ibigb {places 
 
 right hand, the rushes and willows of a long narrow eyot 
 on their left. 
 
 "A staunch friend. But it is her ladyship who most 
 affects Queen Henrietta. She was one of Her Majesty's 
 maids-of-honour fifteen years ago, in the bloom of her 
 beauty ; and there was no lovelier face at Whitehall. 
 She married a man old enough to be her father : yet 
 they seem to live happily together ; and not the foulest 
 libeller in London has ever wasted printer's ink upon 
 Lady Llanbister. It would be like slandering the 
 evening star to assail virtue so stainless." 
 
 " I hope his lordship's age has not made him a harsh 
 husband." 
 
 " Harsh ! Why, he adores his wife, as Laud worships 
 the saints. If a beautiful young woman wants to secure 
 a willing slave, and to exercise imperial sway at home 
 and abroad, she had better marry, as Mrs. Redgrave 
 married, a lover whose beard has a sprinkling of grey, 
 and who has seen enough of Court wantons to know the 
 value of a virtuous wife. I would wager this head of 
 mine that there is no more affectionate couple in 
 England than Lord and Lady Llanbister." 
 
 They passed the broad lawns of Syon, and the rowers 
 pulled their boat alongside a low wooden landing-stage, 
 a little farther west. A terrace walk, bordered with 
 flowers, lay along the bank of the river, and across a 
 broad sweep of velvet turf George saw a grey stone 
 mansion of the Tudor period, with crow-step gables, 
 and diamond-paned casements, set in massive mullions. 
 A dry moat divided the lawn from an old-fashioned 
 garden in front of the house, where peacocks, cut in 
 yew, and close-clipped hedges of ilex and hornbeam 
 testified to the industry of his lordship's gardeners. 
 The water in a wide stone basin in the centre of this 
 prim parterre had the dark lustre of a bronze shield, 
 save where the gold fish, with which it was crowded, 
 glittered across the darkness. 
 
 Moving with sauntering step along a grass walk by 
 the moat George saw a man with white hair and beard, 
 and stalwart figure, broad-shouldered, and of com-
 
 jfair faces auD Boblc HDcatts S3 
 
 manding height, by whose side there moved the tall and 
 slender shape of a woman whose graceful bearing was 
 not without a touch of pride. The poise of the beauti- 
 fully shaped head suggested scorn of common things ; 
 the leisurely walk had an imperial air, as of one who 
 moved not with the press and hurry of the world's 
 commerce. Flitting over the grass on the nearer side of 
 the moat a young and supple figure, with wind-blown 
 hair, disported in a solitary game of battledore and 
 shuttlecock, the girlish form set off by a gown of 
 primrose brocade, upon which the gold of the flying 
 hair showed brighter than the silken fabric. 
 
 " His lordship's orphan granddaughter — a romp, a 
 beauty, and an heiress," explained Mountain. " Lord 
 Llanbister spoils the child. Her father was his only 
 son. He commanded a company of foot in Buckingham's 
 army, and was massacred on the bridge of Rhe. The 
 slightest word that recalls that shameful disaster will 
 blanch the old man's cheek, and kindle a savage fire in 
 his eye. If he were not a Christian gentleman his arm 
 might have been as ready as your fellow traveller's to fit 
 George Villiers for a bloody shroud." 
 
 " The young lady can scarce remember her father, 
 I doubt." 
 
 " She can remember neither parent ; for she was but 
 two years old when her father fell, and that poor lady, 
 her mother, sank to an apathy of sadness after the fatal 
 news from Rochelle, and died before the blacks on her 
 chamber walls had been taken down. She was Lord 
 Lindisfarne's daughter — a most accomplished young 
 lady. Llanbister loves to talk of his troubles, and of 
 those two precious lives lost to him through the malice 
 of events rather than by the will of Heaven." 
 
 " She is an orphan like me, and can remember neither 
 father nor mother," said George musingly ; " but there 
 ends the likeness. She knows they were honourable 
 and well-born. She can be proud of their names ; she 
 can love their shadows. She has their portraits perhaps, 
 and can conjure them back to life by gazing at their 
 pictured faces."
 
 54 5n Ibigb ip)laces 
 
 They crossed the moat by a stone bridge, and Lord 
 Llanbister left his wife's side and came to meet them. 
 
 He greeted Mountain with the frank cordiahty of a 
 man whose exalted station is a part of himself, and 
 needs no assertion. 
 
 " I have been waiting and longing for you all day, 
 friend Francis," he said. " Your news is of the tardiest. 
 Is the lady at Brussels too busy to answer our letters ? " 
 
 " No, my lord, there has been no neglect. A north- 
 west wind which blew the smack my friend travelled in 
 back to Flushing is answerable for the delay." 
 
 " And this is your /r^/^^/-page, the young waiter upon 
 Fortune of whom you have told me such fine things ? " 
 said the old man, surveying George from head to foot 
 with kindly eyes, a look that was at once friendly and 
 jocular. " Well, the nameless wight you picked up has 
 a countenance that commends him to my liking, and 
 which ought to win him favour in any company. Go 
 get you a battledore, youngster — there are some in 
 yonder summer-house — and play a match with Mrs. 
 Geraldine, my grandchild, while I talk with your 
 master." 
 
 George made a leg, and ran to the summer-house, an 
 octagonal building of dark red brick, open on four sides 
 to the sun and the river. He lost not a minute in 
 selecting his battledore, and sped fleet as an arrow across 
 the smooth grass till he brought himself to the young 
 lady's side. 
 
 " His lordship bids me play a match with you, sweet 
 mistress," he said, with his lowest obeisance. 
 
 She had her battledore in the air as he spoke, ready 
 to hit the flying cork, but started at his voice, and let 
 the shuttlecock drop at her feet. 
 
 " See what you have done. Sir Vehement ! That 
 was the ninety-third stroke, and in a minute or so I 
 should have made a hundred ; for which his lordship 
 was to give me a pair of Spanish gloves. Madame de 
 Chevreuse was to order them for me at Brussels." 
 
 " I doubt that accomplished lady is too busy to think 
 of gloves. Will you not play a match. Mistress Geraldine,
 
 ifair ifaces an& noUc UKatts ss 
 
 and take your revenge upon me for having spoilt your 
 hundred ?" 
 
 " Nay, I'll wager you play better than I. You come 
 from France, belike, where they are ever at theiryi?^ du 
 volant r 
 
 " I come from everywhere. I belong to the wandering 
 tribes." 
 
 " But what is the country of your birth ? " 
 
 " I would not say for sure, since I cannot remember 
 the day I was born." 
 
 " I dare swear not ; but you know the house in which 
 you first saw the light." 
 
 " Nay, sweet lady. The wandering tribes have no 
 roof but the sky, or a canvas tent for hard weather. I 
 know nothing save that I have one good friend, and that 
 the world is a pleasant place for the young and free. 
 And now will you give me a taste of your skill, madam, 
 and prove that a lady's arm may be as strong, and her 
 eye as true, as a man's ? " 
 
 " As a man's," she echoed, measuring him from top to 
 toe, with a most bewitching laugh, that sparkled in the 
 darkness of her eyes, and dazzled him. " Where are we 
 to find boys for our pages, if you take rank as a man ? 
 You can scarcely be three years older than I, who am 
 always being flouted as a child." 
 
 " I am forty years older than your ladyship in experi- 
 ence." 
 
 " I am no ladyship. His Majesty would have made 
 me a Baroness in my own right, after my mother's death 
 — to make amends for the slaughter of my father and 
 her broken heart. It was the Duke of Buckingham 
 urged King Charles to offer that honour, which my 
 grandfather refused for me with the scorn it merited." 
 
 " And you doubtless regret his lordship's refusal, now 
 that you are old enough to know the value of rank and 
 title." 
 
 " Regret ! Why, I could scarce have lived under the 
 burden of a favour from Buckingham, now that I know 
 it was by his blundering folly my father lost his life. A 
 man without military training trusted with the command
 
 56 3n Ibfab iplaces 
 
 of his betters ! I am angry whenever I think of that 
 fond preference which gave such power to an ignorant 
 youth. The King might as well choose a lad like you 
 to lead an army ! " 
 
 George was startled at the change in her as she broke 
 into this angry speech. From a child, joyous, insolent, 
 charming, she had become a woman, her face pale with 
 scorn, her eyes flashing, her lips trembling. But while 
 he gazed at her in mute wonder her mood changed, and 
 she was again the happy sylph he had accosted five 
 minutes before. She was taller than most women, 
 strongly built too, her head gracefully set upon a perfect 
 throat and shoulders, the figure of a wood nymph. Her 
 dress was of a sumptuous simplicity, a yellow brocade 
 gown and broad lawn collar, over which her golden hair 
 fell in large loose curls, below her waist. She had the 
 frankest outlook, eyes bright and daring as an eagle's, a 
 delicate aquiline nose, an air of one prepared to fight 
 for supremacy over the stronger sex. 
 
 " I did wrong to speak of Buckingham or the King," 
 she said ; " their names always anger me." 
 
 " Are you so disloyal a subject as to be angry with 
 your King for a tragedy in which he had no share ? " 
 
 " No share ! Had he no tried veteran to whom he 
 could have trusted the relief of Rochelle ? " 
 
 " He had tried his tried veterans, and they proved 
 not always fortunate. There are some who swear that 
 George Villiers was not to blame for the losses at Rhe." 
 
 " Now you are going to make me furious again," she 
 cried, shaking her finger at him. 
 
 " That will I not, fairest Miss, for what was Bucking- 
 ham to me that I should venerate his name ? Sure I 
 never saw him living, though I was within a few paces 
 of him when he fell, and looked upon his face in the 
 majesty of death." 
 
 She looked at him intently, thrilling with sudden 
 interest. 
 
 " You were at Portsmouth when he was murdered ? " 
 she exclaimed. " Tell me — tell me. Let us walk to the 
 river — I shall play no more to-day. Tell me about
 
 3Fali' faces aiiD WioUc IfDeauts 57 
 
 Buckingham's death ! Poor wretch ! I hate him ; but 
 I do not love murder. There are some who call Felton 
 a saint and a martyr ; but I have been taught better, 
 ' Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' " 
 
 They strolled side by side to the broad grass walk by 
 the landing stage, from which the ground dipped towards 
 the water, where sedges and lilies, and such wild flowers 
 as love a river, grew along the slope with the lavish 
 bloom of midsummer. All the air was filled with the 
 delicate scents of herbs and flowers that grow as God 
 made them. A company of swans and their grey 
 cygnets moved slowly down the stream, in a stillness 
 broken only by the light ripple of the tide, and the hum 
 of those invisible myriads that live in leaf and flower, 
 sedge and sward. 
 
 " Now," she said, " tell me how you came to be at 
 Portsmouth when Felton killed the Duke ? I was but 
 three years old, yet I can remember hearing my gouver- 
 nante and my nurse talk of the tragedy. How old were 
 you when it happened ? " 
 
 " Old enough to have a long memory," he answered 
 curtly ; and then he described the scene : the crowded 
 streets ; mounted messengers riding to and fro ; the 
 sparkle of gold and colour ; soldiers, sailors ; women at 
 the doors and windows ; trumpets blaring, drums beating ; 
 merry jests, broad faces smiling in the morning sun. 
 And then he painted the sudden change to tumult and 
 horror ; men groaning ; women screaming ; and Felton 
 walking in the midst of a mad crowd, with blood upon 
 his hands and clothes, an ashen-faced spectre. " He 
 gave himself up at once. I doubt he was distraught 
 from the first inception of the crime, and repented on 
 the instant. There is so wide an abyss between the 
 deed contemplated and the deed done." 
 
 They sauntered by the rushes for some minutes in a 
 grave silence ; and then George began to talk to her of 
 the river, and of other rivers he had seen — wider — 
 swifter — nobler — but not more beautiful. She had 
 never crossed the Channel, and could only tell him of 
 the castle near Shrewsbury where she had spent those
 
 58 3n 1biob places 
 
 portions of her life that had not been spent in London 
 or by the Thames. 
 
 " My grandfather has a house in Aldersgate Street, 
 but we love this place better," she told him ; " for there 
 are too many sea-coal fires in that part of London, 
 though I look over fields and woods from my chamber 
 window. London has grown such a monstrous city 
 since his lordship was a boy, and he has grown to hate 
 it, and thinks His Majesty wise for inflicting heavy 
 fines on the people who build new houses, and even 
 making them pull down their old ones, where the press 
 of buildings shuts out God's sky from the poor pale 
 children that live in them. My great-aunt has a mansion 
 and garden in Shoe Lane, but the street behind her 
 orchard is so narrow that those who occupy the upper 
 rooms can shake hands from window to window, I 
 wonder that any one can like to live in the heart of 
 a great city." 
 
 " Yet the great city is the heart of England, and all 
 the best blood of the country flows to it. Statesmen 
 and poets, churchmen and playwrights, painters, actors, 
 inventors, all love the great city. I have heard more 
 wisdom and more wit in London and Paris in a night 
 than one could hear in a year of country life." 
 
 " Who cares for wit or wisdom when one can watch 
 the sunshine on the river, and that sunlit haze behind 
 the rushes yonder that looks like molten gold ; and 
 when every morning brings new flowers, and the summer 
 nights are full of music ? Wisdom and wit are well 
 enough by the winter fire. In summer I am content to 
 live among dunces. Yet I have heard great men and 
 poets talk, Mr. Page. I have sat at table with Lord 
 Strafford ; and I can remember old Mr. Jonson, a 
 great, rolling man, with a coarse, lumpy face, and eyes 
 that burnt like red-hot coals. My grandfather loved 
 him, and he came to supper in Aldersgate Street, when 
 he could scarcely walk for the gout, and would sit 
 drinking and talking till long after I had been sent to 
 bed. I could hear his great deep voice as I lay abed 
 on a summer night, when all the windows were open,
 
 fair faces an& moble Ibearts 59 
 
 rising and falling like the sea, in everlasting talk. They 
 say it was the cleverest talk in the world, and had but 
 one fault, that he would too often brag of his own 
 genius. I am proud to remember that he has patted 
 my curls, and composed an epigram for my birthday." 
 
 " Did he compare you with the butterflies, or call you 
 living sunshine ? " 
 
 " No ; his lines were neither foolish nor fantastical, 
 or he would scarce have pleased my grandfather, and 
 won so heavy a purse of gold as I saw him toss laughing 
 in the air. He was a pleasant old gentleman ; but my 
 lady says he drank too deep to be good company for 
 women." 
 
 They sauntered by the river, heeding neither time, 
 which has no measure for the happy, nor distance, which 
 the feet of youth know not. The low western sky had 
 a splendour of light and colour that set Geraldine at 
 finding out fiery palaces and jewelled streets among 
 those vermilion and amber clouds moving slowly on 
 a vast opal sea. The river seemed a burnished floor 
 that almost tempted them to walk upon it ; and every 
 reed and every waterside flower had a slender, aerial 
 look against that brightness, as of things unreal, splen- 
 dour seen in a dream. And when, within sight of 
 Twickenham Church tower, they stopped to listen to 
 the curfew bell, above the lessening glory of the reflected 
 sunset over Richmond Hill there trembled the faint 
 silver of a crescent moon. 
 
 " 'Tis the first time I have seen her," George cried 
 exultantly ; " and I may win my wish, if Phoebe be 
 but kind." 
 
 " But if you tell your wish you will not win it." 
 
 " Were it not so, it is a wish I dare not tell," he 
 answered, smiling at her ; and then he dropped one 
 knee upon the sweet-scented herbage, doffed his hat, 
 and whispered his prayer to the moon. 
 
 " You greet Diana as if she were a mortal queen," 
 said the girl. " You have quite the Court air. I doubt 
 you have been at Whitehall, and seen our gracious 
 Henrietta ? "
 
 6o Sn 1biob UMaces 
 
 " Not yet. My master and I are but wayfarers in 
 a world that is too busy to heed us. And what should 
 a waif without rank or name do at Court ? " 
 
 " Oh, but it is a lad like you, with nothing to lose, 
 who wins fame and fortune," Geraldine answered gaily. 
 " I have seen the house near Exmouth where Raleigh 
 was born. 'Tis a poor place. His father was an obscure 
 country gentleman ; and what a name /le has left ! 
 And a greater than Raleigh — Columbus — was the son 
 of a weaver. No man need be ashamed of beginning 
 low. It is keeping low, or sinking low, that should 
 shame him." 
 
 Her sapphire eyes shone with young enthusiasm. 
 She had read Hakluyt's voyages, and thought there 
 were no heroes like those who discovered new worlds. 
 She had wept for Raleigh as if he had been of her own 
 kindred. A girl must have gods and heroes when she 
 casts off her dolls. Hero-worship follows close on 
 babyish plays. It is the first dim dawn of passion, 
 perhaps, this adoration of the heroic dead. 
 
 They talked of many things : of the world he had 
 seen, and of that narrower world of hers ; the castle in 
 Shropshire ; the house in Aldersgate Street, with its 
 large, walled garden, between the town mansions of 
 the Earls of Thanet and Kingston ; the plays she had 
 seen by the Queen's players at the Phoenix, in Drury 
 Lane. She questioned him about his Latin and Greek, 
 and the books he had read in both languages, and 
 whether he loved Virgil's ^neid, which was the only 
 romance she had been allowed to read. 
 
 " My grandfather will have me taught Latin and the 
 mathematics like a boy, or like Lady Jane Grey and 
 Queen Bess," she said. " I am forbid to learn Italian — 
 and I see my lady sighing over Tasso or Petrarch, and 
 hate myself because I cannot read poetry as she does. 
 Her father taught her, who was a Bishop, and one of 
 the first scholars of his day. But I am to be reared 
 like a man." 
 
 " And you like not that ? " questioned George, since 
 there was a touch of disgust in her tone.
 
 faiv faces anb MoUc fbcavts 6i 
 
 " Oh, I like and do not like ! I love to play boyish 
 games ; I hate to have so little pains taken with my 
 music,' and to be forbid to waste time on embroidery, 
 I want to do all the best things men and women do — 
 to run and ride like a man, and dance like a woman— 
 to make pillow-lace, and to row a boat — to construe 
 Virgil, and to paint flowers on velvet. But I have 
 to obey his lordship. In that matter he has made a 
 woman of me. Obedience is my portion." 
 
 They lingered on the bank till the last touch of vivid 
 colour had faded from sky and river, and sombre 
 shadows had crept over the willows and sedges along 
 the bank. These are the hours old men and women 
 look back at, across the waste of years ; moments that 
 came and went so lightly, that had no before or after, 
 but which are remembered with a sick longing half 
 a century later, when life is dull and grey, and 
 the diminishing sands can almost be counted as they 
 drop through the glass. George never forgot that 
 evening, and the proud, high-bred face, the sparkling 
 manner, the charms and graces of girlhood unacquainted 
 with care. 
 
 It was supper-time when George and his companion 
 went into the house ; and Lord and Lady Llanbister 
 and Mr, Mountain were already seated at table in a 
 low-ceiled dining parlour, panelled with oak, and beauti- 
 fied by a monumental mantelpiece of coloured marbles, 
 which Lord Llanbister had brought from Florence, 
 Her ladyship was somewhat reproachful at Geraldine s 
 tardy appearance. 
 
 " Nay, my lady, let her roam while the days are 
 long," pleaded his lordship. " She is no parlour-miss, 
 with a back that has grown round over a 'broidery 
 frame. She has been bred in fields and gardens, and 
 stifles under our low ceilings. You see, Mountain, she 
 is all the issue I have, male or female — all that Fate 
 and Villiers spared me of child and heir — and I have 
 reared her to be as worthy an heir as manly breeding 
 can make her. If she cannot fight for her King, she 
 can think for her King ; and that is more than our
 
 62 5n t)iab places 
 
 baby-faced Court beauties can do, who think of nothing 
 but lovers and fine clothes, the last masque or the next 
 ballet, and know not that while they are dressing and 
 dancing the world they live in is crumbling about their 
 ears. Sit down, Mr. Page, There is a stool reserved 
 for you next my lady. We are in the country here, 
 and have no degrees of rank — no below the salt. This 
 is friend Mountain's young comrade, Viola, for whom 
 I entreat your kindness." 
 
 Lady Llanbister gave the lad a smile and a gentle 
 inclination of the head ; a recognition which had in it 
 as much of hauteur as of kindness, George thought. 
 She was a beautiful woman, in all the splendour of 
 mature womanhood. Her features were classic in their 
 regularity, her profile delicate as the engraving of a 
 Greek gem. George looked at her with reverential 
 admiration, but with a sinking of his spirits, as when 
 a mortal gazes on a goddess. So might Diana have 
 appeared to Endymion, a creature afar off, isolated in 
 an awful beauty. 
 
 It was not a jovial supper-party. Mistress Geraldine's 
 audacity was dashed by the presence of her elders, and 
 she spoke only when spoken to; Lord Llanbister and 
 Mountain conversed in undertones ; while George sat 
 mute, and ate sparingly of the ample cheer which was 
 administered by four lackeys in sombre but sumptuous 
 liveries of brown velvet and gold. His lordship took 
 only the plainest food ; but Mountain contrived, even 
 while deep in most serious converse, to ply an active 
 knife and fork, and to do justice to a dish of spiced 
 carp, a capon pasty, and a tankard of choice Burgundy. 
 
 " One can get no such aroma of violets t'other side 
 the Channel," he said, passing a brimmer of the perfumed 
 wine under his nostrils. " They send all the choicest 
 growth of the Cote d'Or to the English market." 
 
 George bent his face over his trencher to hide a 
 smile, remembering in what wayside inns, along the 
 country roads, and in what dingy drinking-shops in Paris 
 he and his patron had enjoyed their chief experience of 
 French wines. True that once in a way Mountain and
 
 fair faces auD IRoble Ibearts 63 
 
 his boyish squire had been entertained at rich men's 
 tables ; but the palate across which so many a gallon 
 of rough new wine had been flung could scarcely be of 
 the texture to appreciate nice differences of flavour. 
 
 The moon was high when they rose from the supper- 
 table, and they all strolled into the garden, where the 
 sultry warmth of a still evening was perfumed with roses 
 and stocks, honeysuckle and jasmine. This time George 
 found himself walking at Lady Llanbister's side, while 
 Mistress Geraldine hung on her grandfather's arm, 
 skipping in her walk every now and then, for sheer 
 exuberance of spirits. 
 
 " You are new to England, I think," said her ladyship. 
 " You speak our language with a foreign accent. Are 
 you of French birth ? " 
 
 " Nay, madam, so far as I know myself I am English 
 born. My first memories are of English lanes and 
 hedgerows." 
 
 " indeed ! But is your history so mysterious that you 
 must needs speak with uncertainty ? Do you not know 
 the place of your birth ? " 
 
 " I have no certain knowledge — except of the place 
 where I began to see and hear and wonder." 
 " What was the name of the place ? " 
 " Indeed, I know not if it had a name." 
 " How do you know, then, that it was in England ? " 
 " Because I know it was within a child's three days' 
 wandering from the Portsmouth Road." 
 
 There was an interval of some minutes while they 
 strolled along the gravel walk, before the lady continued 
 her questioning ; and then she said carelessly, — 
 
 " The Portsmouth Road is seventy miles long, sir, and 
 begins a mile or so out of London. If you have no 
 nearer knowledge of the locality, it will never help you 
 to revisit your childhood's home." 
 
 " Indeed, I have no wish to see the spot, madam. I 
 
 have none belonging to me that live there. I look back 
 
 upon my childhood as a dream that I dreamt. It has 
 
 left me no more of substance than a dream leaves." 
 
 " Poor waif ! I heard your master tell his lordship
 
 64 Sn Ibiab ffMaces 
 
 something of your story, but I did not gather that it 
 was in England he found you. I am ever interested in 
 orphan children — perhaps because I have no child of 
 my own." 
 
 He could see her face clearly in the silvery light. She 
 was looking at him with a grave interest, and he thought 
 now that melancholy, not pride, was its most marked 
 characteristic. She gave him her hand presently, when 
 they parted, midway between the house and the moat, 
 and he dropped on one knee as he might have done to 
 the Queen. 
 
 " It will be morning before you see Westminster, 
 though you will have the tide with you all the way," 
 Lord Llanbister said, as they were going away, and 
 insisted on lending them a couple of boat-cloaks, lest 
 the night should be cold. 
 
 Their boatmen had been feasted on beef and beer, and 
 were primed for their work ; and under a sky crowded 
 with stars, river and landscape were lovelier than by day. 
 Mountain was in a genial mood, and trolled out one 
 of Ben's joyous songs, as the boat swept swiftly onward, 
 to the rhythm of dipping oars : — 
 
 •' The faery beam upon you, 
 The stars to glister on you ; 
 
 A moon of light, 
 
 In the noon of night, 
 Till the fire-drake hath o'ergone you ! 
 The wheel of fortune guide you, 
 The boy with the bow beside you ; 
 
 Run aye in the way, 
 
 Till the bird of day 
 And the luckier lot betide you ! " 
 
 " Would you not think that my Lord Llanbister, in 
 his prosperous ease, with estates in three counties, 
 land which he reckons by the thousand acres, would 
 be content to let Pope and Bishops go their own way," 
 Mountain said thoughtfully, after a silence that had 
 been longer than his wont, "and would be the last to 
 waste his fortune, and risk his head, by dabbling in
 
 jfatr ifaces an& IRoble ifjearts 65 
 
 Jesuit schemes, and trying to bring back the religion 
 which lit London and Oxford with martyrs, as Nero 
 lighted Rome ? " 
 
 Mountain had dropped into the French language, lest 
 the watermen should catch a compromising word, albeit 
 the two stolid faces bending over the oars had not a 
 look of dangerous intelligence. Who could tell behind 
 what dull countenance the spy's keen wits might hide ? 
 
 " I thought Lord Llanbister would be a staunch 
 Protestant, since his son lost his life in trying to rescue 
 the Rochellese," George said, also in French. 
 
 " You had good reason to think as much — but there 
 is a woman's influence here, as there is at Whitehall — 
 and women are ever on the side of the priests. My 
 lady was bred a Protestant — ostensibly at least — though 
 'tis said her father, the late Bishop of Southminster, 
 was at heart a more zealous Papist than Laud. She 
 turned Catholic some years after her marriage, drawn 
 that way by an elder brother — pervert and Jesuit — a 
 member of the Roman College of the Propaganda — 
 who has all the fierce fervour of a renegade, and who, 
 unluckily for his lordship, had unbounded influence over 
 her when he was last in England. I doubt the good 
 old man is no fanatic, and would fain leave his country- 
 men free to worship, each after his own fashion ; but he 
 has let himself be drawn into his brother-in-law's scheme, 
 which is nothing less than to have England and the 
 Pope reconciled as they were under Bloody Mary, with 
 a like result in fire and flame at Smithfield and at 
 Oxford, I'll warrant, though her gentle ladyship does 
 not foresee it." 
 
 " Is Madame de Chevreuse concerned in the in- 
 trigue ? " 
 
 " Why, next the Jesuit, that brave, beautiful devil 
 is the head and front of it ; fetches and carries between 
 Whitehall and the Escurial ; and is deep in all the 
 French Queen Dowager's undermining plans." 
 
 " I heard them talking the other night of a likely 
 union between the two Churches — each to concede some 
 points to the other ; so that, while all that is holiest in 
 
 5
 
 66 5n Ibigb ipiaces 
 
 the old Faith should be restored, none of the old abuses 
 should be revived." 
 
 *' A dream, George, and of a misguided dreamer ! 
 The Roman Church knows not how to yield ! She 
 is founded on the rock of stubbornness. She is rooted 
 in the stiff soil of ancient superstition — she has no more 
 yielding in her than Judah has — and thou knowest the 
 Jews cook their meat to-day in Muscovy as they cooked 
 it thousands of years ago under Syria's burning sun. 
 Rome moves not with time any more than Israel. If 
 the Papal power is to be restored it will bring back 
 every rite and impose every doctrine that England 
 suffered before the Reformation ; but I doubt the 
 stretched-out arm of the Vatican will never again reach 
 across the Straits of Dover. The Puritans are too 
 strong to be put down ; and, take my word for it, 
 George, it is they who will have the upper hand before 
 your head is grey. Every fresh act of persecution, 
 every pair of ears sawn off, every conventicle tyran- 
 nously closed, gives new vigour to the cause. If King 
 Charles wanted to keep the Nonconformists harmless he 
 ought to have let them alone ! " 
 
 George was not deeply concerned in theological ques- 
 tions. He had not been trained in pious paths ; and 
 he had thought little upon serious subjects. Of the two 
 creeds he preferred the Roman, with its glow of colour 
 and picturesque ceremonial. Such moments of religious 
 emotion as he had felt had been under the vaulted roofs 
 of Continental cathedrals, where he had wandered in 
 to look at a picture or a statue, and where some sublime 
 strain of organ-music, some sudden sense of a sanctuary 
 isolated from common life and common things, some 
 unexpected influence of the beauty of holiness, had 
 caught and held him for a brief space, and he had sunk 
 upon his knees in the dusk of a side-chapel, and had 
 poured out his young soul in prayer to his Saviour : 
 " Oh, Thou who wast so pure amidst the world's im- 
 purity, separate me and keep me from the wickedness 
 of this life ! " 
 
 Holy thoughts were in his mind to-night while
 
 jfair ifaces ant) IRoble Ibeai'ts 67 
 
 Mountain sat smoking his pipe in silence, and while 
 the river-banks and quiet villages glided by, mute and 
 peaceful as a moving picture. Some pure and elevating 
 influence seemed to have been breathed into him during 
 his brief converse with Lady Llanbister. Her face 
 haunted him in the summer stillness, and was more 
 vividly present to his mental sight than that so much 
 younger face which had flashed its vivacious loveliness 
 upon him amidst the splendour of sunset. Perhaps it 
 was the unknown history, the closed volume of sad 
 secrets, which he divined behind the austere beauty of 
 the matron, that so much impressed him. He admired 
 the girl with all a lad's admiration of peerless girlhood, 
 ready to kindle into passionate love ; but he mused 
 upon the woman's words and the woman's countenance 
 with a romantic wonder : and to-night, in his exalted 
 mood, he felt that life could have no happier close than 
 to fling itself away in her defence, in the furtherance 
 of her dearest desire — in any manner, for her sake. 
 
 To-morrow night, amid the wit and satire of that 
 riotous crew in the Apollo, he might see all things in 
 a different aspect, and would be ready, perhaps, to admit 
 that the beautiful Lady Llanbister, with a husband 
 thirty years her senior, might furnish no spotless page 
 of woman's history when the great book of secrets is 
 flung open. He was young enough to take the colour 
 of his thoughts from external influences, to be chameleon- 
 hued in mind and feelings.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "TO WIN HER PRAISE." 
 
 George was in attendance on his master at the Queen's 
 private chapel during Mass next morning. Henrietta 
 came in late, with a train of ladies, courtiers, and pages, 
 and sank to her knees on a crimson velvet prie-dieu in 
 front of the altar, amidst a burst of triumphant chords 
 on the organ, which had been discoursing softly in a 
 dreamy Agnus Dei during a prolonged period of waiting 
 for this august worshipper. The ceremonial, once started, 
 was conducted at a brisk pace ; and it was less than half 
 an hour from that opening Jubilate to the Ite, missa est. 
 
 When the congregation had dispersed, a groom of the 
 chambers conducted Mountain and his page to one 
 of the private apartments of Denmark House, where 
 George found himself in the presence of that Royal lady 
 whose mignon features and flashing black eyes he had 
 hitherto seen only from his place among the crowd in 
 the street, or in the pit of the theatre. He had ample 
 leisure to study the Queen's countenance this morning, 
 standing aloof in a distant window, where he had been 
 bidden to wait while she conversed with his master. He 
 saw her take a letter from Mountain and give him two, 
 which he placed in his breast pocket, with an ostentatious 
 solicitude that badly matched with his casual handling of 
 such documents in the retirement of his lodgings. 
 
 Watching the Royal lady from that distance, George 
 noted a curious mixture of pride and familiarity in her 
 manner to Mountain — now with her small head flung 
 back at a scornful angle, her eyelids drooping, and her 
 
 68
 
 *'Zo min ber praise" 69 
 
 speech short and disdainful ; now inclining her ear, with 
 the costly pearl solitaire, towards his bearded lips, her 
 eyes sparkling, her little white teeth exhibited in frank 
 laughter. He saw in that quarter of an hour all the 
 indications of the proud, impetuous, dauntless nature 
 which would have made a fine character under the 
 guidance of a wiser mate than Charles Stuart, but 
 which, in its fluctuating strength, was the worst possible 
 ally for his weakness ; strong enough to influence him, 
 but not wise enough to guide him ; turning all that 
 was best and noblest in his character as a man to his 
 disadvantage as a king. 
 
 The waiting-woman stood beside George in the deep 
 embrasure of the window, a window which commanded 
 the shining water-way, crowded with pleasure-boats and 
 barges, and looked south-eastward across the river to 
 Bankside, where some of the Court gallants had their 
 bachelor lodgings in a row of houses almost hidden by 
 the trees that grew in front of them. The lady fanned 
 herself in a haughty silence, scorning to make conversa- 
 tion with Mr. Mountain's page, yet not too proud to 
 admire the lad's handsome face, and to stare him out 
 of countenance in an arrogant inspection which could 
 not have been more deliberate had he been one of the 
 mechanical figures in the Italian puppet show. He 
 gave her back her look with interest presently, stung 
 by her discourtesy. 
 
 " Indeed, madam, I am alive, though you take me for 
 a piece of machinery," he said. " My wooden features 
 and dull complexion are to blame for your ladyship's 
 mistake." 
 
 "You are neither wooden-featured nor dull-com- 
 plexioned, wretch ; but you are as insolent as you are 
 high, and your master should know better than to bring 
 such a malapert monkey into her Majesty's presence," 
 the lady retorted, surprised but not displeased at his 
 assurance. " Come, I forgive your ill manners. I hate 
 a fool so much that I would sooner suffer audacity than 
 dulness. Where do you come from, and what are 
 you ? Some rural squire's son, who thinks a handsome
 
 70 ^n 1biob places 
 
 face should make his fortune at Court — not knowing 
 that we have got beyond the day of handsome faces, 
 and want only long heads and deep purses. If you are 
 poor, come not to the Court to mend your fortunes. 
 There is scarce a more necessitous lady in his Majesty's 
 dominions than she who should be the richest. These 
 ragged window-curtains, which go so ill with yonder 
 Flemish tapestry, may tell you as much." 
 
 " It is no purpose of my own that brings me here, 
 madam. I go where I am bidden, and follow my 
 master's fortunes." 
 
 " And who is your master ? " 
 
 " That question is for him to answer, madam, or your 
 mistress, who honours him with her confidence, and in 
 so doing stamps him worthy of your respect." 
 
 " Oh, you are very close and very artful, and presume 
 intolerably upon a Greek nose and a brilliant eye," cried 
 the waiting-woman, as she turned her back upon him, 
 and leant out of an open casement, affecting to be wholly 
 absorbed in watching the river traffic. 
 
 The conversation between the greatest lady in the 
 land and the soldier of fortune lasted much longer 
 than George had thought likely ; but from the Queen's 
 laughter, and Mountain's dSonnatre bearing, and the 
 rollicking sound of his voice when it rose above the 
 confidential pitch, the page could but think that the sub- 
 ject of their discourse had dropped from the lofty 
 region of ecclesiastical intrigue to the lower level of 
 amusing anecdote. He knew his master for an accom- 
 plished raconteur, with an almost unlimited repertory 
 of good stones, some among which, perhaps one in ten, 
 were not wholly unfit for a lady's car. 
 
 This was the first of many private conferences that 
 Henrietta Maria held with George's master ; at which 
 the young man was present, but out of hearing, if the 
 room were large enough, or in attendance outside the 
 door, if the chamber were smaller. 
 
 These meetings took place at considerable intervals, 
 at various hours, and in various places — at Whitehall,
 
 **Uo Min bet praise" 71 
 
 at Denmark House, at Greenwich, at Oatlands, at Hamp- 
 ton Court. George and his master rode many a dusty- 
 mile under a scorching sun to wait upon her Majesty, 
 when the river journey was too slow to serve her turn. 
 The Queen's life at this time was full of wild schemes 
 and far-reaching plots ; for her keen wit had divined the 
 darkening of the Royal sky, and she was painfully con- 
 scious of the storm clouds that gathered and blackened, 
 day by day. But while Henrietta Maria was shrewd 
 enough to see that her husband's fortunes were sinking, 
 the King remained stubbornly blind to the obvious 
 aspect of things ; stubbornly deaf to that tremendous 
 voice of the English people, which had been growing 
 louder and more menacing with every year of Thorough ; 
 stubbornly self-assured as to his own capacity to govern 
 England after his own fashion, however he might fail 
 in the attempt to rule that ruder kingdom of Scotland, 
 with which he was even now coming to a compromise. 
 
 " Root and branch " had been triumphant beyond the 
 Tweed. The second deliberate attempt to impose 
 Episcopacy on Scotland at the point of the sword — the 
 so-called Bishops' War — had just exploded in disaster 
 at Newburn, near Newcastle, where Leslie's guns and 
 Leslie's cavalry had routed Conway's royalists at the 
 first encounter — a skirmish which was to prove the 
 ignominious close of an ineffectual war. 
 
 The bad news from Scotland came to George's know- 
 ledge in the peaceful gardens between Syon Park and 
 Isleworth Church, where he was now a frequent visitor, 
 walking or sitting with Lady Llanbister and Geraldine 
 — or sometimes alone with the elder lady — while his 
 lordship and Mountain conferred apart, and while 
 Mistress Geraldine sat at her daily task with the chaplain, 
 construing Virgil, or composing execrable Latin verses. 
 Those quiet afternoons and evenings by the river seemed 
 to George the golden hours of his life, hours that brought 
 him for the first time within the influence of a pure and 
 high-bred woman. He had met good women before, 
 and had received kindness from them, and had been 
 grateful : but they had been of the hard-working.
 
 72 5n ibigb places 
 
 rough-handed races. He had seen ladies before to-day, 
 but they had been proud and unapproachable, or of a 
 brazen familiarity that sickened him. This lady was 
 a creature apart. Every tone of her low, calm voice — 
 so exquisitely modulated, yet so strong ;— every move- 
 ment of her gracious hands, or turn of the small head- 
 round which the plaited hair was coiled in a style that 
 suggested a portrait by Giorgione rather than the airy 
 modern fashion ;— seemed to him the perfection of 
 womanly grace and dignity. He admired Geraldine's 
 bright beauty, with all the warmth of adoring youth. 
 He loved to be teased and jibed at by her ; to quarrel 
 and make friends ; to fetch and carry for her ; to help 
 her with her Latin composition, or " the mathematics " ; 
 to spend hours in the City trying to match a skein of silk, 
 or at the Holy Lamb or the Three Bibles on London 
 Bridge, searching for a novel she wanted to read ; to be 
 praised, scorned, scolded by her. But he knew that 
 she was very human. There was nothing upward- 
 looking in the devotion which he gave her. If Lady 
 Llanbister had had a daughter, she would have been 
 a being of a vastly different mould, he thought ; and 
 he scarcely wondered that there seemed so little of 
 sympathy between my lady and her husband's heiress. 
 
 To him Lady Llanbister was especially kind. She 
 had had youthful worshippers by the score, and was 
 indeed sated with the adulation which had been given 
 to beauty, wealth, and high place ; but it may be that 
 she discovered in this nameless waif— whose story she 
 had heard from Mountain — more sincere affection, and a 
 stronger character, than she had ever met with before 
 in a lad of nineteen. She compassionated his lonely 
 situation, his dependence on a reckless adventurer like 
 Mountain — a man who courted danger, and loved the 
 game in which the stakes are heads, and who was never 
 happier than when buzzing hither and thither athwart 
 the web of a political intrigue. She went so far one 
 day, when George had gained the footing of a friend, as 
 to talk to him of the life he led in the present, and of 
 his aspirations for the future.
 
 **Uo Min ber praise'* 73 
 
 " You are wasting yourself, I fear, in Mr. Mountain's 
 service," she told him. " He is clever, and has powerful 
 friends ; but the work he does for them is dangerous 
 work, and I tremble to think what the end of it may be. 
 You have talents ; and though you have had no collegiate 
 training, Father Calhoun tells me you have a very 
 handsome knowledge of the classics and mathematics. 
 Have you no desire for a nobler career than Mr. 
 Mountain's service can open for you ? " 
 
 " No, madam. Francis Mountain is the maker of my 
 fortunes, such as they are ; and I must sink or swim 
 with him, live or die with him. Apart from him I am 
 nothing." 
 
 " Then you have no ambition ? " 
 
 " I have no -name to ennoble or to disgrace, madam, 
 no kindred to please by my prosperity. No one would 
 be the prouder for my fame — or the richer for my 
 fortune. For me the thirst of glory would be but self- 
 love. Ambition would ill become George Nameless." 
 
 She rose from the garden-bench in sudden agitation 
 that took away his breath, her countenance first flushing 
 crimson, and then fading to a marble whiteness. 
 
 " I will not hear you call yourself by that hateful title ! 
 Nameless ? You ! Young, handsome, brave, generous, 
 clever ! Genius and courage shine in your eyes. Great 
 names are made in a day, sir. Why, Archbishop Abbot 
 and Lawyer Selden were the sons of peasants. I could 
 reckon a dozen famous gentlemen at this hour who 
 were born in labourers' cottages." 
 
 " True, madam ; but they had parents for whom it was 
 sweet to toil. I have no one. I am not whining at my 
 ill-fortune. Fate has been not altogether unkind. I 
 love a roving life — I love my master — I have no quarrel 
 with Destiny or the world I live in ; but I will not 
 hazard my one friend's favour to court Fame — which 
 would bring me little joy — or fortune, which I can do 
 without." 
 
 He had risen as she rose, and walked at her side as 
 she sauntered along the terrace by the moat. Her 
 agitation had passed like a gust of the light autumn wind
 
 74 Bn Ibigb iplaces 
 
 that blew the fallen leaves about her feet, and her face 
 was now grave and thoughtful. 
 
 " Be sure that fame and fortune will come to you, and 
 that whatever name you choose for yourself; and you 
 must have a name " 
 
 " Let me be George Mountain, then. I have as good 
 a right to that name as my master, who confesses it is 
 none of his." 
 
 " Whatever name you take, it will be in your power to 
 make it honourable and esteemed." 
 
 " Be it so, dear lady. While you are kind to me I 
 have at least one spur to endeavour, the desire to be 
 worthier your kindness ; " and then he quoted four lines 
 written by a man whose youthful poetry was well-nigh 
 forgotten in the virulence of his polemical prose, a bitter 
 republican pamphleteer, one John Milton, who, in his 
 youth, among the level meads and shady Buckingham- 
 shire copses about the village of Horton, had sung so 
 sweetly of the city tournament, and its 
 
 '• Store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
 Rain influence, and judge the prize 
 To wit or arms, while both contend 
 To win her praise whom all commend." 
 
 He repeated the last line, dwelling fondly on the words. 
 
 " Oh, madam, you know not what harm you may do 
 me. At a word from you, ambition kindles its consum- 
 ing fire in my breast. What would not a nameless 
 youth attempt to win your praise — to be worthy of your 
 liking?" 
 
 " You have that without painful endeavour. You won 
 my esteem before I had any ground for thinking you 
 deserved it ; for a foolish reason perhaps. You remind 
 me of some one I knew when I was young." 
 
 " And who no longer lives, madam. The sad music 
 of your voice tells me that." 
 
 " One who has long been dead. Well, I must talk to 
 Mountain. He is an honest, warm-hearted being, and 
 will not, I think, wittingly bring you into danger or 
 disgrace."
 
 "Xro mux ber praise" 75 
 
 " Let me be your ladyship's knight-errant. Let me 
 wear your colours," he cried, emboldened by her kind- 
 ness, and lightly touching the knot of rose-coloured 
 ribbon which relieved the sombre grey of her velvet 
 sleeve. With your badge hidden in my breast disgrace 
 cannot come near me. I shall move in a rarer atmo- 
 sphere than common men breathe." 
 
 " Nay, I am past the age of ribbons and badges," she 
 answered, smiling at his boyish boldness, curious in him 
 who not very long ago had been dumb and awestruck 
 in her presence. " But you shall wear my colours," she 
 added gravely, looking long and fixedly at a single 
 sapphire plainly set in a band of gold — a ring which he 
 had noticed, for she wore it always on the forefinger of 
 her left hand, whatever change she made in her other 
 rings, which were chosen to match her mantua ; rubies 
 when she wore crimson ; emeralds with green ; diamonds 
 with the sable velvet or satin which she most affected. 
 
 " Look at this deep blue, like the vault of heaven in a 
 summer midnight. The ring was given to me under 
 such a sky. This is my colour, George, this unfathom- 
 able blue, in which I once thought I could read the 
 story of my future life. You may wear it, if you will, 
 and think of me sometimes when you look at it among 
 strange scenes, far away from this tranquil place. Let 
 it be your amulet, a charm to guard you from sinful 
 thoughts and sinful acts. Danger no man can escape, 
 who has a man's courage to dare and do ; but any man 
 can avoid sin if he will. Every lad begins life with the 
 power to leave his name as stainless as King Arthur's — 
 as noble as Bayard's. You say you would like to be 
 my knight-errant. Will you try to lead a good life, 
 George — for my sake ? That is better than to ride in the 
 lists, and to win golden spurs." 
 
 " There is nothing I would not try for your sake, 
 dear lady ; but indeed I cannot take your sapphire. 
 I have noted it so often on your finger, and I have 
 marked how the whiteness of the hand sets off the colour 
 of the gem." 
 
 He argued earnestly against the acceptance of so rich
 
 76 S\\ fDigb places 
 
 a gift ; but she would not be denied. She held his left 
 hand with a gentle force, while she put the ring on his 
 finger. 
 
 " You have a finely shaped hand, George— almost as 
 handsome as Wentworth's, about which her Majesty 
 raves." 
 
 " If by the magic of this jewel— symbolic of your dear 
 favour — I could ever climb as high as he has mounted ! " 
 
 " Oh, do not speak of it ! He is a great man, I grant 
 you, a great wicked man — with the finest brain and the 
 hardest heart in England. I have seen some of his 
 letters to the Archbishop— such cruel letters— always in 
 the same strain, always suggesting, not lenitives, but 
 corrosives for the cure of the nation's malady ; always 
 urging 'Thorough.' Do you know what 'thorough' 
 means, George ? " 
 
 " Indeed, madam, the word has been bandied about 
 stormily enough in my hearing. With the King's friends 
 it is a word of grace, and they hold him fortunate in 
 having so bold and able a minister as the Earl of 
 Strafford ; but for Nonconformists and Puritans it 
 stands for a tyranny as implacable as Nero's." 
 
 " ' Thorough,' as Wentvvorth intends the word, means 
 callous indifference to individual rights and individual 
 suffering, in the furtherance of an iron policy which 
 would make the King's rule absolute for good or evil, 
 and would dispense with parliaments for ever. The 
 grass would grow in Palace Yard, and the cobwebs hang 
 thick over the windows of both Houses, if Wentworth 
 had his way. He would rule England as he has ruled 
 Ireland." 
 
 " And the little finger of Prerogative would be heavier 
 than the loins of the Law. Is not that what Lord 
 Strafford said, madam ? " 
 
 " I have heard that he turned the sentence the other 
 way, and meant to indicate his Majesty's indulgence as 
 compared with the Law's cruelty. Indeed, the King was 
 ever a kind master— mistaken often, his will yielding too 
 easily to injudicious advisers — but a tyrant never !" 
 " Not when he kept Eliot in prison— to languish and
 
 *'JLo Win ber praise" 77 
 
 die in the prime of manhood — because his petition for 
 release was not humble enough ? Was that tyranny 
 the result of injudicious advice, madam ? or of a jealous 
 regard for his own importance — a sullen pride that 
 could not forget the orator's attack, or brook the 
 statesman's superiority ? " 
 
 " I cannot argue about my Sovereign, George. I 
 have known and loved him. He has qualities that 
 appeal to all hearts. He has faults that may wreck 
 England. And his best hope is in Wentvvorth, whom 
 the country hates, but who is perhaps the greatest man 
 England holds, and the one man who might yet make 
 England great — for this country has fallen very low, 
 George. Richelieu laughs at us ; Spain tricks us ; 
 Venice wonders at our folly. Strafford might make 
 us honoured and feared ; but, alas ! at what a cost ! — 
 the axe, the torture-chamber — means lawful or unlawful 
 to keep the Houses closed and dumb ; to bring the 
 people into subjection, and make the King of this free 
 country as absolute as Baber." 
 
 " Were Charles as wise as Baber, England might 
 thrive under an absolute government," argued George, 
 to whom Eastern history had been as delightful as the 
 " Arabian Nights" to lads of a later age. " Well, there 
 is an unquiet spirit abroad in London, and a growing 
 sullen anger against the great Earl, which I fear will 
 burst in thunder by-and-bye. I thought, when I was 
 in Paris, that the hatred of tavern politicians could not 
 be fiercer than that of Frenchmen for Richelieu ; but 
 there is a something deeper and more purposeful in 
 the tone of the City Puritans when Strafford is their 
 theme — nor is their talk much kinder of his ally and 
 counsellor. Laud." 
 
 " The poor Archbishop — so well meaning ; so in- 
 evitably wrong ! You must forget what I told you of 
 Wentworth's letters, George. I did ill to speak of 
 them, for they were shown to his lordship and me in 
 confidence." 
 
 " I will be dumb, madam. No words of yours shall 
 ever be repeated by these lips. But once more I would
 
 78 3n Ibiab places 
 
 entreat you to resume your ring. I know you value it 
 — above most others." 
 
 " Above every other ornament I possess ; and it is 
 for that reason I give it to you. And — I will trust you 
 with a secret known to none but my husband and one 
 other. It will but be a few years, I fear, before I shall 
 have done with all such ornaments." 
 
 He looked at her, speechless, for the moment, with a 
 sudden fear. 
 
 *' God help us, dear lady," he faltered, " do you appre- 
 hend some mortal malady preying upon so precious a 
 life ? " 
 
 " Not my life, George — that is not threatened. But 
 my dear lord is older than you may think him, since his 
 fine carriage and handsome countenance might become 
 a man twenty years younger. Lord Llanbister is in 
 his seventy-fifth year. May God lengthen his days, and 
 make them full of such quiet comfort as he and I have 
 enjoyed since we retired from the Court. But at the 
 happiest I cannot hope to enjoy his dear company many 
 years. And when that bond is loosened, I shall be free 
 from all earthly ties — a childless widow — quite alone in 
 a world of which I have long been weary. I think you 
 can guess to what calm retirement I shall take my 
 loneliness." 
 
 " You will enter a convent, madam ? " 
 
 " Yes. I have friends in the Benedictine Convent of 
 Val de Grace ; and there the remnant of my days might 
 be passed in a placid retirement, which would be happier 
 than to linger in a world that had lost its interest. You, 
 who are a Protestant, picture a dungeon when you hear 
 of a convent, and imagine the sacrifice of every hope 
 and every comfort. If you could see the faces I have 
 seen in the Benedictine parlour, the sweet serenity, the 
 loving pity for the sorrows of weak human nature, you 
 would not look aghast at the prospect of a childless 
 widow ending her days within the convent gate." 
 
 " Oh, madam, you are the best judge of what is wise 
 and right ; but the wickeder the world becomes the 
 more there is need of good women moving about among
 
 *' Zo Milt bet praise " 79 
 
 the sinners, free to come and go, to spea^< and to act, 
 owning no director save God and their own noble hearts. 
 And, sure, for one good work a nun can do within an 
 enclosed convent, a pious woman at liberty in the busy- 
 world could do twenty. Nay, madam, I will not presume 
 upon your indulgence by daring to question your wisdom. 
 I pray Heaven that his dear lordship may be the Nestor 
 of his age, and that the occasion of that sad sacrifice 
 you contemplate may be long postponed."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES 
 
 >i 
 
 When November came, Strafford was in the Tower. 
 The black storm-cloud had burst in a rain of fire. 
 Thomas Wentworth, the renegade, Strafford, the advo- 
 cate of despotic rule, was the point of attack for the 
 new patriotism, the one bold sinner who was to be held 
 responsible for every abuse of kingly power under which 
 the country had groaned while the voices of the people 
 were silent. 
 
 Strafford ! Prejudice, passion, fear, swelled the accusing 
 clamour. Men had neither speech nor thought for any 
 other offender against their rights or their liberties. To 
 impeach Strafford was Pym's master-stroke. From that 
 hour the plain country squire, " the man in Gray's Inn 
 Lane," became " King Pym." 
 
 While these grave issues were pending, George was 
 a daily guest in the great house in Aldersgate Street, 
 where the deep-set windows, low, heavily timbered 
 ceilings, ponderous furniture, and dark tapestries, all 
 conduced to shadow and gloom rather than to light 
 and gaiety. Yet, when curtains were drawn, and candles 
 lighted, the old low rooms were full of cheerfulness — or 
 in the friendly winter twilight, when the logs blazed, and 
 reflected flames danced upon the smooth darkness of 
 mirrors, and on the polished silver of tankards and the 
 parcel-gilt surface of rose-water dishes, hung like great 
 golden shields against the black oak panelling. The 
 house had been built under the first Tudor king, by the 
 
 80
 
 **put not sour XTcust i\x princes" si 
 
 first Lord Llanbister, a famous lawyer, in an age when 
 the legal profession was recruited chiefly from patrician 
 families, and when blue blood was common at the Bar. 
 Holbein's portrait of Lord Justice Llanbister, painted 
 towards the close of his life, filled the place of honour 
 in the picture-gallery, where a long row of family 
 portraits hung above a choice selection of Italian and 
 Flemish art. 
 
 To have made himself a welcome visitor in this 
 peaceful and dignified home — nay, to be admitted there 
 almost as a member of the family — seemed to George 
 the highest privilege youthful ambition could desire. 
 It was her ladyship's indulgent tenderness which had 
 given him this privilege. She had an inexhaustible 
 tenderness for the orphaned and the widowed ; for 
 helpless childhood ; for all who were in need of a friend. 
 Whatever there might be of imprudence in bringing 
 a handsome and gifted youth into daily association with 
 Lord Llanbister's young heiress, her ladyship dis- 
 regarded. To her mind Geraldine was little more 
 than a child, and light and shallow as a child. That 
 there could he future sorrow for her protegi, or for the 
 girl, in this friendly association of careless youth with 
 youth, had never entered into Lady Llanbister's thoughts ; 
 nor was Geraldine's grandfather any more on the alert 
 to discover peril in a boy-and-girl friendship. To him, 
 even more than to his wife, Geraldine appeared still 
 a child — a child who had outgrown her petticoats, but 
 who was not the less a child in heart and intellect 
 because of that rapid growth which had brought her 
 fair young face above the level of his shoulder, the face 
 which but a little while ago, as it seemed to him, had 
 scarce reached his sword-hilt. Child as he deemed her, 
 he had already begun to make plans for her establish- 
 ment, and had pondered over the merits of more than 
 one young nobleman among the most loyal of his 
 Majesty's servants. His matrimonial views for his 
 granddaughter were of the loftiest ; and the gulf between 
 his aspirations and an alliance with a nameless adven- 
 turer was too wide to allow of his suspecting danger 
 
 6
 
 82 sn ibiQb places 
 
 when he saw the boy and girl happy in each other's 
 company. George was teaching Geraldine French, a 
 language of which she had at present only a rudimen- 
 tary knowledge ; for Lord Llanbistcr had educated her 
 as if she had been that male heir whose non-existence 
 he deplored. She had been taught Latin and Greek, 
 and had advanced further in the exact sciences than 
 many a lad of her age at Christchurch or Trinity, soon 
 to write Master of Arts after his name. 
 
 " Yes, she has a pretty face, I grant you ; but it is for 
 finer qualities than an oval cheek and a melting eye 
 that I value her. Having neither son nor grandson, you 
 see, sir, I have done my best to make Mistress Geraldine 
 a man in learning and courage, and frank, manly temper," 
 the old man told his friends exultingly, when his heiress 
 had been praised for youthful grace and beauty. " She 
 can handle the foils as dexterously as her father did at 
 her age, and could pink her antagonist, were she called 
 upon to defend herself. She can ride the great-horse, 
 and knows more about falconry than many a grown man. 
 And she is better at Homer and Virgil than half the 
 undergraduates at Oxford." 
 
 French, Italian, and the lighter accomplishments, had 
 been neglected, and it was just these accomplishments 
 which the wanderer George possessed. French had long 
 been as his native language ; he knew Italian almost as 
 well, and was but little less familiar with Spanish : for 
 the people among whom he had mostly lived were 
 Cosmopolitan, an ever-mixed and ever-changing race — 
 soldiers, peasants, priests, gipsies, diplomats, the high and 
 low of many nations. 
 
 He and Geraldine read French and Italian together 
 in the winter afternoons, when her formal lessons were 
 over, and the weather was too foul for those long walks 
 or rides which she loved. They had her ladyship's 
 parlour for these recreative studies, a room looking into 
 a large garden, beyond which, across buttressed walls, 
 one caught glimpses of other gardens, those of Thanet 
 House and Peter House, the residences of the Earls of 
 Thanet and Kingston. The room had been beautified
 
 "Iput not ^owt Urust in iprinces" 83 
 
 with choice pictures, and Rouen china, when his lord- 
 ship's second wife was brought home as a bride to this 
 old-world mansion in the East end of the town, from 
 which fashion was passing away to the Earl of Bedford's 
 palatial houses at Covent Garden. Lady Llanbister 
 had never valued fashion, and the house in Aldersgate 
 Street was very dear to her, its only objection being 
 the long coach ride to Whitehall — or even to Denmark 
 House in the Strand, where she went daily while in 
 London, to wait upon her Queen. 
 
 She was more devoted to Henrietta Maria than ever 
 now, since that poor lady was in bitter trouble, assailed 
 by the malice of a populace that loved her not, the 
 butterfly existence having ended as summer ends, as it 
 were in a breath, when the first autumnal gusts sweep 
 the first dead leaves from the chestnuts, and the flowers 
 in the once gay borders shiver and droop, and all the 
 skies are grey. All was grey in the Queen's life now. 
 She was full of sickening apprehensions and of heroic 
 resolves ; was now an angry lioness, and now a lamenting 
 dove. She heard the angry voices under her palace 
 windows, and heard them again in her dreams, and saw 
 strange dream-pictures of the dull winter streets of 
 gloomy old London, mixed and jumbled with the bright 
 avenue beside the Seine, the gilded galleries of the 
 Louvre, Paris, the city of her girlhood, smiling like a 
 flower garden in the clear light and buoyant air. 
 Here, in this day of dread, the atmosphere seemed to 
 press upon her aching brow like a band of iron ; the 
 church bells seemed for ever tolling the knell of happier 
 days ; and when men and women were not talking of 
 Strafford and the Bishops, they were talking of the 
 small-pox and the Plague, both of which scourges were 
 on the increase. 
 
 Henrietta Maria remembered that evil year, 1625, 
 when the Plague had devastated London, and the Court 
 had taken refuge at Oxford. She looked back and 
 remembered what it was to be a Queen in those days 
 — how absolute the power of the young King at her 
 side ; how strong his hold upon his subjects' minds and
 
 84 3n 1biab places 
 
 hearts ; how firm his hold upon the sceptre. She re- 
 membered the love, the adulation, that had been 
 lavished upon the Mignonne Lady from over the narrow 
 sea, and how life, despite the pestilence that was filling 
 graves in London, had seemed a triumphal procession 
 along a lane of well-dressed people and kind faces. 
 And now she heard the angry clamour of the populace, 
 and sometimes the clash of steel, under her palace 
 windows ; and her husband's brow was clouded, and 
 his speech slower and more perplexed than of old ; and 
 a hundred resolutions were made in a day ; and the 
 wildest schemes were debated ; and she, the Queen, 
 knew not whether to go back to France, or fly to 
 Holland, or stay and face her enemies. 
 
 Mistress Geraldine never went unattended, either at her 
 studies at home, or in her walks abroad. She had an old 
 nurse whom she used exceeding ill and exceeding well, 
 atoning by much tenderness and generosity for the little 
 tyrannies and impertinences of a spoilt child. George 
 was often reminded of Juliet and her nurse — in the 
 tragedy he had seen at the Fortune Theatre — when he 
 watched the petulance of the elderly dame and the play- 
 fulness of the girl. Mrs. Hillyer had been nurse to her 
 young charge's mother, and was wont to praise that 
 deceased lady, to the disparagement of her wayward 
 mistress ; and it would have been hard to say whether 
 the old servant or the young lady took most liberties, or 
 had been most spoilt by indulgence. 
 
 Geraldine was too well accustomed to the company 
 of this nurse-g-ouvernante to object to her presence ; and 
 Mrs. Hillyer, at five-and-fifty, being as active and as 
 hardy as a girl, proved no hindrance to the young people 
 in their rambles in the fields and copses between Alders- 
 gate Street and Highgate, where Geraldine loved to 
 roam, attended by her nurse, and by a young woman 
 who dressed her and helped with her tapestry and other 
 fancy work, and who, being the daughter of a Shropshire 
 vicar, was treated as a companion rather than as a wait- 
 ing-maid. The young lady had also her own footman, 
 who walked before her and her duenna whenever they
 
 ''put not ^our Urust in princes" 85 
 
 ventured into the City streets, which happened rarely 
 without George being also in attendance upon them. 
 
 It will be seen therefore that although these young 
 people were allowed all the freedom of an old friendship, 
 and spent many hours of each day together, they were 
 seldom alone, and had but little scope for sentimental talk. 
 Only in the high-flown language of the novels of the new 
 French school, which they read together, had George any 
 opportunity of telling his lovely companion that she was 
 adored ; and in that stilted, heroical style of compliment. 
 Love wore his most harmless aspect, a Cupid of the 
 Court and the drawing-room, whose bow was filigree 
 silver and his arrow feathered with thistle-down. 
 
 George still lodged at Westminster, but, save to sleep 
 and dress there, spent little time at his lodgings, where 
 he would have been passing lonely, since his friend and 
 comrade Mountain was abroad, oscillating between 
 Brussels and Paris, and very reticent in his occasional 
 letters about the business that occupied him in either 
 city. Indeed, George began to doubt his present or 
 future usefulness to his master, and to feel despondent 
 about a position which savoured of dependence. He 
 would have fretted more, perhaps, at his dejected condi- 
 tion, without profession or fixed employment, had it not 
 been for Lady Llanbister's goodness, who assured him 
 that his services as teacher of modern languages to 
 Geraldine were invaluable, and a sufficient return for 
 any kindness or hospitality that was given to him 
 in Aldersgate Street. 
 
 " It is we who must for ever remain in your debt," she 
 told him, " since his lordship tells me you will accept 
 no more substantial recompense than our thanks for the 
 use of your talents." 
 
 During that long ordeal of the fallen minister (an 
 agony which began on March 23rd, with Pym's formal 
 capitulation of the charges connected with Strafford's 
 government in Ireland, and which was to end on 
 May 9th, with the King's despairing abandonment of 
 his minister, amidst the clamour of a savage mob), 
 George was a frequent witness of the proceedings,
 
 86 jn IbiGb places 
 
 standing in the throng of eager spectators who crowded 
 the narrow benches on those tiers of scaffolding which 
 lined the Great Hall at Westminster, eleven stages high ; 
 a most portentous spectacle, a scene never to be for- 
 gotten — the mere shadow of which thrills and awes us after 
 two hundred and fifty years. A throne had been erected 
 midway along the West Wall, and remained empty 
 throughout the trial — symbol of a vanished sovereignty ; 
 while the King and Queen occupied seats screened with 
 a lattice, like a box at a theatre, but from which the 
 King's impatient hand tore down the screen — possibly 
 in order to hear and see better himself, or possibly with 
 the hope that his presence might overawe the turbulent 
 brood which had usurped an authority greater than his 
 own, and against the thunder of whose voices, multi- 
 plied ten thousand-fold by those other voices of the 
 outside rabble, Crown and Sceptre were but impotent 
 baubles. 
 
 Who shall sound the depths of Charles Stuart's 
 despair during that protracted trial, while the Great 
 Hall was lined from floor to roof with a careless multi- 
 tude, intent on this fight for life as on a gladiatorial 
 show, the man with the net, the Christian among the 
 lions ? For that indifferent rabble the trial was a vast 
 picnic. Bottles passed from hand to hand ; men ate 
 and drank, and were merry ; and the hubbub of voices 
 rose loud in every interval of the proceedings ; nor was 
 silence to be obtained, even when the foredoomed orator 
 was pleading — not even for the pathos of that closing 
 speech in which he spoke of his children — " the pledges 
 that a saint in heaven left me"— and then, melted by 
 the memory of love and loss in a life still in its prime, 
 burst into tears. 
 
 Throughout that memorable scene, while the spring 
 days lengthened, and the spring sunshine brightened, 
 the King was in his place in the Great Hall, to watch 
 and listen, to hope where all was hopeless, perhaps, 
 being ever of a sanguine temper, and loth to grasp 
 hard facts : to sicken with despair sometimes, when 
 that inexorable accuser, John Pym, was pressing
 
 **Iput not ^oxw Uvxxst in iprtuces" 87 
 
 his charges home, seeking to establish a cumulative 
 treason where no separate act was treasonable. Day 
 after day that weary prisoner, broken in health, a martyr 
 to the searching tortures of an inward malady, was 
 brought along the smiling river, from his narrow cell in 
 the Tower to the vast, crowded Hall, to be carried back 
 to that fatal fortress at sunset, harassed, exhausted, and 
 knowing that the ordeal was to begin again to-morrow. 
 Once only, in a crisis of the trial, he pleaded for a brief 
 respite in order to prepare his defence, which was 
 grudgingly yielded. 
 
 George was deeply moved by this public tragedy, and 
 contrived to be present day after day, not among the 
 passers to and fro of bottles and venison pasties, but a 
 silent spectator, wedged in the best place he could find 
 for seeing and hearing, earnest and intent ; and to his 
 mind this long-drawn-out battle of one against many 
 was more tragical than any play he had ever seen at 
 Burbage's theatre, or the Red Bull at Clerkenwell. It 
 was the reality of it all that thrilled him. A host of 
 murders, the stage strewn with corpses, half a gallon of 
 the property-man's rose-pink blood, could not move him 
 like the pallid aspect of the King yonder — peering from 
 his place, the long, oval face half in shadow and half in 
 light, the taper fingers drumming on the front of the box, 
 the stammering lips moving in piteous speech to those 
 about him, the melancholy brow too early furrowed with 
 care ; and the Queen, ever restless and agitated, now 
 admiring Strafford's hand as it moved in haughty gesticu- 
 lation, now flinging herself back in angry despair while 
 the elder Vane was being examined as to that fatal advice 
 of Wentworth's at the Privy Council, that treasonable 
 suggestion of bringing an Irish army into England to 
 overawe an English Parliament. 
 
 George's feelings were all on the side of the prisoner, 
 first because he was a great, brave, gifted man caught 
 like a wild stag in the toils — the first illustrious victim to 
 the cause of progress, the first sacrifice to this new Spirit 
 of Liberty, which after all was but a narrow-minded and 
 one-sided spirit, and as ready to deal unjustly with its
 
 88 Sn ibiab ipilaces 
 
 opponents, being victorious, as it was to revolt against 
 injustice. He was on Strafiford's side of his own in- 
 stinct ; and also for the sake of those kind friends in 
 Aldersgate Street, Lord Llanbister being one of that 
 small minority of peers who voted in the fallen minister's 
 favour — most of all for that dear lady who spent many 
 a confidential hour with the Queen during this unhappy 
 season, and who ever returned from Whitehall or Den- 
 mark House full of sorrow for all she had seen and 
 heard there. 
 
 He knew afterwards that there had been a plot on 
 hand to rescue the prisoner — that a vessel had been 
 lying at anchor in the Pool of London, waiting to carry 
 him to exile and safety, could but his custodians be 
 bribed or propitiated. But the attempt to obtain posses- 
 sion of the Tower, by a certain Captain Billingsley, with 
 a hundred armed followers, on an order from the 
 King, had ignominiously failed ; and the failure had lost 
 Strafford his last chance of a lenient sentence. The 
 King's ill-considered efforts had produced as direful an 
 effect as if the headsman's axe had been flung into the 
 fatal scale while the balance yet trembled betwixt life 
 and death. 
 
 Never to be forgotten was that golden evening in the 
 second week of May, when the whole household, down 
 to the trencher-scrapers, were too much perturbed by 
 the public agitations to settle to their usual Sunday calm, 
 and when George and Geraldine, with the young lady's 
 little court of two, had rambled as far as Islington, and 
 had come back to Aldersgate by the light of the May 
 moon, laden with hawthorn-blossom and meadow-flowers, 
 to find his lordship waiting supper, by the dim light of 
 a pair of candles, in his library, a spacious apartment 
 adjoining the sallc-a-nianger. 
 
 " You arc late, children," he said, as Geraldine flung 
 down the May flowers on the table by which he sat, 
 and bent her fair young face over the grey head that 
 drooped upon his folded arms. " I doubt you must have 
 rambled far."
 
 "{put not sour Urust in princes" 89 
 
 " Far enough to make my old bones ache," grumbled 
 the nurse. 
 
 " Haply to reduce your unwieldiness by a superfluous 
 ounce or two," said the mistress. 
 
 " But every one is restless to-day," pursued Llanbister. 
 " The city streets are full of anxious faces. Hark ! 
 Sure that was my lady's step in the hall," he cried, 
 starting up to welcome her whose absence ever left him 
 melancholy. 
 
 Lady Llanbister entered while he was speaking, pale 
 and agitated, her eyelids swollen by much weeping. 
 They knew that she had come straight from Whitehall. 
 Her coach had taken her to Mass at the Queen's Chapel 
 in the morning ; and she had spent the day at the palace, 
 in close company with that distracted lady. She sank 
 down upon a chair which George brought for her, and 
 suffered Geraldine to remove her mantle and hood, while 
 he stood near them, with his anxious looks intent upon 
 the beautiful, sad face, and while Nurse Hillyer and 
 young Mistress Betty, the waiting-woman, stood agape, 
 full of a dismal curiosity, 
 
 •* Thy face foretells thou bringest no new hope ! " said 
 his lordship. 
 
 " Alas, no ! All is lost. He has yielded." 
 
 " Well, sweetheart, did not all the world know that he 
 would yield ? Charles Stuart was ever like the Muscovite 
 in his sledge — let the wolves press near enough, and 
 howl loud enough, and he will fling them his dearest." 
 
 " It was of her he thought — of the Queen ; not of his 
 own peril. He would have given them his life, could 
 it have bought Strafford's pardon. Indeed, Llanbister, 
 could you have seen that drawn countenance, those 
 tortured looks, as I did to-day, in that brief glimpse 
 I had of his Majesty when he passed through the Queen's 
 closet, you would pity him." 
 
 " Pity ! " cried the old man, in a voice that trembled 
 with indignation. " A king should need no man's pity 
 — or should accept none. Pity him ! Kings should be 
 superior to pity, save in their subjection to disease and 
 death. Their acts should give no scope for compassion.
 
 90 3n HDiob places 
 
 From the hour of Strafford's impeachment, every action 
 of the King in his minister's behalf has been ill-con- 
 sidered, feeble, disastrous, subversive of his own dignity, 
 ruinous to the cause he championed. And this is the 
 King who would stand or fall by Prerogative ; who 
 deemed Prerogative a word to conjure with ; who was 
 too strong to need the support of Parliaments ; who 
 would stand alone and show the people how happy he 
 could make them ! Prerogative ! The Prerogative of 
 an anointed King who surrenders to the clamour of a 
 handful of yeomen-squires, and the howling of a mob 
 that scarce knows what it howls for, and will catch any 
 cry — ' Down with Church and Bishops ! ' ' Down with 
 Strafford ! ' — to excuse a riot, and afford the chance of 
 plundered shops, and a taste of blood." 
 
 " My lady looks as if she would swoon," interposed 
 Geraldine. " I'll warrant she has eaten nothing all this 
 bitter day. Had we not best go in to supper, sir ? " 
 
 " Wisely urged, wench ! The world must go to 
 supper, though we have a poltroon for our King, and 
 though the wisest head in the kingdom must fall," 
 
 " Oh, sir, degrade him not by such a name. Let not 
 him who has never seen his wife and children in peril, 
 and has never been told that by one act alone he can 
 save them, despise his Majesty's weakness of this day. 
 We might all prove wanting, were we tried in the same 
 fire," Lady Llanbister urged sadly. 
 
 " He had given his word — a King's word— for 
 Strafford's life and honour ; he bade him come to 
 London when he was safe among friends in the North, 
 and knew there was peril in coming ; he swore that not 
 a hair of that noble head should be harmed," cried 
 Llanbister, on fire with indignation. " But Charles 
 Stuart was ever thus. He has neither heart nor 
 memory, save for the companions of the hour, who can 
 hang upon him and shed their tears upon his breast. 
 He is all tenderness to a wife ; but what has he ever 
 been to a friend ? I was in the chapel at Porchester 
 when the news was brought him of Buckingham's death. 
 His cheek whitened, but he bade the chaplain go on
 
 it 
 
 Iput not ^our XTrust in princes" 9^ 
 
 with his prayers. Was it a sublime fortitude, think you, 
 the calmness of a martyr, or coldness of heart, the 
 inability to love deeply and truly? I say the latter. 
 Why, from the first hour of trouble he has turned a cold 
 shoulder upon Strafford. The attack upon his minister 
 is no sooner made than this champion of Prerogative is 
 grovelling in the dust before Pym and his followers. ' I 
 grant Wentworth a criminal,' he cries, 'a tyrant — a traitor, 
 whatever my faithful Commons please to call him. Let 
 him never again be trusted with the meanest office in the 
 state ; let him never more approach my person ; let him 
 rot in the Tower, if it please your honourable House ; 
 but I pray you for my sake spare his miserable life.' 
 Do you think Thomas Wentworth set a high price upon 
 such advocacy ? Why, there is more magnanimity in 
 Strafford's late letter to the King than in any act of his 
 Majesty's life. I say again, Viola, and again, and again, 
 if need be, Charles Stuart has stamped himself a 
 poltroon." 
 
 " You know not the struggle between conscience and 
 policy." 
 
 " What avails the struggle if the upshot be surrender ? " 
 
 " He consulted the Bishops. He had them with him 
 yesterday — and again to-day." 
 
 " And were they for conscience or policy ? " 
 
 "Bishop Juxon bade him refuse his assent to the 
 Bill, had he but a shadow of a doubt that 'twas a 
 righteous sentence. Dr. Williams took another view." 
 
 " And turned the scale upon the side of policy, I'll 
 wager. He was always the most politic of clerics ; a 
 lawyer in lawn sleeves." 
 
 " He bade his Majesty remember that he has a public 
 and a private conscience — and that in this question 
 his affection for Strafford as a man must give way to 
 his duty as a King, which is to regard the welfare of his 
 people, and to stem that rebellious tide of anger and 
 terror which has risen flood-high throughout the kingdom 
 — caused by the misgovernment of him whose blood the 
 people clamour for." 
 
 " Did the King remember another people who
 
 92 5n ibfgb places 
 
 clamoured for innocent blood — or that Roman judge 
 who yielded to their importunity? Nay, I touch upon 
 blasphemy when I compare tliat victim with this. 
 Strafford is not guiltless. There are some of his dealings 
 in Ireland which justice must condemn ; but there was 
 also much of wisdom and generosity in his government 
 of that troublesome people. And to the King he was 
 of all servants the most devoted. Well, Charles obeyed 
 the worldly guide — rather than the heavenly one ? 
 Strafford's blood will appease the rebellious spirits, and 
 restore peace. Yet think you, wife, now that Parliament 
 and mob know what a flexible reed is the sceptre that 
 rules them they will not for evermore take the upper 
 hand ? " 
 
 It was a melancholy meal to which they sat down 
 presently in the adjacent dining parlour. 
 
 Lord and Lady Llanbister supped in a stately solitude 
 at the chief table, while George sat at Mrs. Hillyer's 
 table, with Mistress Betty, and Geraldine, who, being 
 still in a state of pupilage, was allowed to preside over 
 her little court, and to be as gay and as trivial as she 
 liked, at a respectful distance from her grandfather.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "so RUNS THE WORLD AWAY." 
 
 Never could George forget those three days of an 
 awful suspense, in which the household in Aldersgate 
 Street waited, sick at heart, for Strafford's doom. To 
 George, as to his patroness, it seemed impossible but 
 that kingly power should intervene to save the truest ser- 
 vant that ever spent brains, and estate, and health, and 
 life, in his Sovereign's service. Could those yelping curs 
 in the City scare the monarch who had bragged of 
 Prerogative, and hound a great man to death ? and could 
 the King, who had sworn that not a hair of his servant's 
 head should be harmed, with his own royal hand condemn 
 that head to the block? Not long would Strafford's 
 life have lasted had the capital sentence been annulled ; 
 for a mortal disease was upon him, and his name was 
 written in the register of untimely death. But the life- 
 history of Charles Stuart would have been saved from that 
 one ineffaceable stain for which even his admirers and 
 apologists can find no excuse. 
 
 The days hurried by ; at Whitehall hesitations, vague 
 schemes, wavering to and fro, the King and his friends 
 made irresolute by their fear of the rabble outside, a new 
 and unknown danger, which might presage a palace in 
 flames, a Queen and her children murdered ; in the City 
 blind fury, unreasoning malignity, the cry for Strafford's 
 head ; as if, with that wise brain lying in the dust, the 
 millennium would be at hand. 
 
 The days did not pass without one feeble intercession 
 
 93
 
 94 5n Ibiab places 
 
 on the part of Majesty. The King sent his son, the 
 youthful Prince of Wales, with a message to the Lords, 
 praying for a mitigation of Strafford's sentence — from 
 death to close imprisonment for life — clemency which 
 would afford an unspeakable contentment to him, their 
 King. Such unspeakable contentment was not granted 
 him ; and Thomas Wentworth was spared that mockery 
 of mercy which would have mewed his fiery spirit in a 
 prison-cell, crushed and killed him, as his once ally Sir 
 John Eliot was killed, by the heart-sickness of captivity. 
 The axe made an easier end of his troubles. 
 
 The summer followed quickly on that tragical May, 
 and George and his young pupil found the golden 
 afternoons all too short, as they roamed along the 
 flowery banks between Isleworth and Hampton, or 
 took longer journeys in the capacious wherry which, 
 with two sturdy watermen, was reserved for Mistress 
 Geraldine's use. This young lady was Queen Regnant 
 at Isleworth, and had grooms, horses, falcons, dogs, and 
 boats at her sovereign disposal. The watermen were 
 her own servants, and wore her livery of brown and 
 orange, with her paternal arms in gold embroidery upon 
 their collars, when in state attire, but wore lighter jackets 
 of thin kersey when they bent over their oars. She was 
 very imperious with them in her childish arrogance, 
 having grounded her manner to the lower classis on 
 the traditions of Queen Elizabeth ; but she was lavish 
 of gifts and of kindly services to their wives and children, 
 and their cottages and gardens were the prettiest in 
 the village of Isleworth, where her grandfather owned 
 all the property not owned by the Lord of Syon 
 House. 
 
 Before the family migrated from the City to their 
 summer retreat. Lady Llanbister insisted that George's 
 position should be put on a better footing. Mountain 
 had now been away from England for nearly half a 
 year, and the young man had been left to his own 
 devices, with a garret in the lodging-house at Westminster, 
 and an occasional remittance of money from his master,
 
 « 
 
 So IRuns tfje MorlD Hwas" 95 
 
 who wrote of himself as both busy and prospering. 
 Lady Llanbistcr saw the danger of bad company in 
 taverns, and dancing gardens, and bear-pits, and other 
 public resorts, for so young a man as George, who had 
 his evenings free, and nothing to do but amuse himself. 
 Nor was it right, she reminded her husband, that her 
 proteg^ should continue to do a tutor's work without a 
 tutor's pay. 
 
 " It is no longer friendly, casual instruction which he 
 gives Geraldine," she said. " He is teaching her three 
 languages, and expounding the best books in each. 
 You know what a troublesome pupil she is " 
 
 " I know she is a high-spirited wench, and loves to 
 ride her horse and fly her peregrine better than to sit 
 all a summer morning with her nose in a book," inter- 
 rupted his lordship, who was too fond of his grand- 
 daughter to allow the faintest hint that she fell short 
 of feminine perfection. " Well, she will make a better 
 wife for an ambassador if she can jabber in a babel of 
 tongues, and bandy lying compliments with an olla 
 podridaoi secretaries. As for this boy of yours, of course 
 he must be paid for his services, and so much the higher 
 wages if she boxes his ears, or throws an accidence-book 
 at him when his lesson plagues her." 
 
 " I should not forgive her for any such boorish 
 incivility. No, Llanbister, your granddaughter is a 
 lady " 
 
 " Albeit a fiery jade." 
 
 " And George Mountain is a gentleman, although you 
 speak of him so slightingly." 
 
 " Did I slight him, ma douce ? Nay, thou knowest 
 I would not slight any favourite of thine, on four legs, 
 or on two. I would no sooner belittle thy paragon page 
 than kick the spot dog that follows thy coach. But as 
 for gentleman quotha, that depends on the meaning 
 you give the word. Friend Mountain is no hidalgo ; 
 and the stray imp he adopted as a follower could 
 scarce brag of blue blood. But Master George is a 
 very pretty fellow, and I prythee give him handsome 
 wages."
 
 96 Sn Ibigb places 
 
 "And, if your lordship had no objection, I would 
 have him live with us altogether, rather than let him 
 be tempted by his loneliness to waste his evenings in a 
 tavern." 
 
 " Aye ; our taverns are no longer the resort of harm- 
 less wits and playwrights, the Sons of Apollo, as in 
 old Jonson's time. They are the hot-beds of sedition, 
 the nurseries of rebels." 
 
 Thus it came that George had his own chamber and 
 study at Isleworth, a little suite of rooms in the roof, 
 with deep-set dormers shadowed by heavily timbered 
 gables. His lattices commanded a fine reach of the 
 river, eastward to the village of Kew, westward to the 
 wooded hill of Richmond, where the king's new park 
 had given offence to many proprietors whose ground 
 had been taken from them in a high-handed fashion 
 to map out the line of wall according to his Majesty's 
 -taste. 
 
 The summer of 1641 passed like a golden dream 
 for the young pedagogue and his wayward but not 
 ungrateful pupil. Strange that such joyous days could 
 be gliding by, in such a peaceful and gracious scene ; 
 a river smoothly flowing between grassy banks tapestried 
 with flowers, and under dipping willows from whose shade 
 the dragon-fly's emerald wings flashed out like living light. 
 All through England, perhaps, by meadow and stream, 
 there were unconscious lovers as happy as George and 
 his pupil, young hearts beating as high, young eyes 
 looking forward to a radiant future. And yet it was 
 a year of unexampled terror and trouble ; the year 
 of the Irish Rebellion ; the year of that great indictment 
 against the Sovereign, in which every evil of Charles 
 Stuart's reign, every act of oppression, every encroach- 
 ment upon the liberty of the subject, wrongs redressed 
 as well as wrongs unredressed, were massed together 
 in one tremendous charge, and published through the 
 length and breadth of the land. 
 
 It was a year of bitter strife between Prelacy and 
 Nonconformity, Laud, the Primate, lying in the Tower 
 through all the bright summer-time, through the slow
 
 tt 
 
 So IRuns tbe Morlt) Hwas" 97 
 
 fading of the year, without much hope of release, a 
 weary captive in that cell from whose barred window 
 his feeble old hands had been stretched out to bless 
 and absolve the murdered Strafford. It was such a 
 year as the Church had not seen since the Reformation. 
 Never, perhaps, had an established Church encountered 
 such public enmity, since the first Christian church was 
 founded. A clergyman of the High Church party, or 
 suspected, by his appearance, to belong to that detested 
 body, could hardly walk the streets of London and 
 escape insult ; for it was ten to one he would have a 
 rabble mob at his heels before he reached his own door, 
 jeering at him as a Jesuit — a Baal's priest, an Abbey- 
 lubber, a Canterbury whelp. 
 
 But these troubles were only heard of at Isleworth 
 from an occasional visitor — and Lord Llanbister, having 
 given his adhesion to the older faith, took little heed 
 of these religious animosities among Protestants. Ad- 
 vancing age had in no wise blunted the keenness of his 
 mind, but it had brought with it those larger and more 
 tolerant views, that serenity of temper and generous 
 indulgence for the errors of other people, which in some 
 rare and noble natures make the decline of life resemble 
 the pensive close of a summer evening. 
 
 The growing virulence of the quarrel between Prelacy 
 and a Free Church, with all the vulgar brawling and bad 
 blood that went along with it, made her ladyship so 
 much the more intent upon those secret efforts, tending 
 towards the restoration of the old Faith, which the 
 Queen and her spiritual directors had at heart. It 
 would seem that in the disruption of the heretic Church 
 and the persecution of heretic Bishops, Rome's oppor- 
 tunity must be at hand ; and there were Papal agents in 
 London to help in the work, agents with whom Francis 
 Mountain had friendly or business relations, and for 
 whom, or for Queen Henrietta, he crossed the Channel 
 almost as often as a Queen's messenger of the present 
 day, making meteoric appearances in Aldersgate Street 
 or at Isleworth, and ever seeming warmly attached to his 
 squirc-page or adopted son. 
 
 7
 
 98 Sn 1biob BMaces 
 
 " Thou art better off in this snug nest than gipsying 
 with me, George," he said ; " but remember, if ever your 
 great friends cast you off, or you begin to pine for 
 adventure, whatever roof covers my head shall shelter 
 yours." 
 
 Lady Llanbister had talked often and earnestly with 
 George of that Church which held so vast a place in her 
 thoughts ; but she had not been over-zealous to convert 
 him from his lax notions of spiritual things to the most 
 exacting of all creeds, 
 
 " I love to talk with you of the one true faith," she 
 told him, as they walked alone by the moat one August 
 evening ; " but I will never urge you to act against your 
 convictions. I wait for the hour when your own heart 
 will speak, and you will come for strength and comfort 
 to that eternal and invincible Church of which I am a so 
 humble member." 
 
 There was one visitor at Isle worth — who appeared at 
 long intervals during the summer and autumn of 1641 
 and 1642 — whose presence was a subject of curiosity 
 and even distrust to George, who had never caught so 
 much as a glimpse of his face, though from the window 
 of the oak parlour where Geraldine worked at her lessons 
 he had once seen the gentleman leaving the house — a 
 tallish man, of a lean figure, and an almost Puritanical 
 plainness of attire. He was the same man, George 
 thought, that he had seen in the dusk of an April 
 evening, creeping up the great staircase in Aldersgate 
 Street ; and he remembered how on that particular 
 evening Lady Llanbister had been absent from the 
 family sitting-room till long after nine o'clock, when she 
 made her tardy appearance at the supper-table, looking 
 anxious and weary. There was a kind of jealousy, 
 perhaps, in George's dislike of this unknown gentle- 
 man, whom he took for a crypto Jesuit, one of those 
 missionary priests who had been rife in London of late 
 years, and probably an ally of her ladyship's brother 
 at Rome.
 
 *'So IRuns tbe morl& Hwa^" 99 
 
 The King was again in the north, where the situation 
 had been ameliorated by his concessions ; but it was 
 while the pacification of Scotland was tending to- 
 wards a sense of security that terror and amazement 
 ran through the nation at the news of that savage 
 slaughter of the Protestant population in Ireland, more 
 horrible in its relentless cruelty than the dark story 
 of the Sicilian Vespers, or the massacre of Saint 
 Bartholomew's Eve. 
 
 With the late autumn Lord Llanbister and his family 
 removed to Aldersgate Street, travelling by way of 
 Brentford and Kensington in two capacious coaches, 
 while their baggage and servants were conveyed down 
 the river to the Old Swan Stairs, west of London Bridge, 
 in his lordship's barge, which then returned to Isleworth, 
 to be laid up there for the winter. George went with 
 them, riding a well-bred hackney that had been assigned 
 to his use, and which he loved as if the beast had been 
 his brother. He was so fine a rider as to win his lord- 
 ship's approval, who thirty years before had been no 
 less accomplished a horseman than his friend, the 
 famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury. George had learnt 
 to handle a horse in schools so various that it would 
 have been strange had he ridden ill. From the half- 
 broken Arabs of Andalusia, through all the varieties 
 of hackneys bred in Provence and Dauphiny, to the 
 rough percherons of Brittany and Normandy, and the 
 blood horses of the Parisian riding-school, experience had 
 taught him what a horse could do and how he could 
 best be governed ; with what artifices to counter the 
 tricks of the beast — when to soothe, when to threaten, 
 and when to punish. His hap-hazard life with a man 
 of adventurous spirit and dauntless pluck had given him 
 advantages which no home-bred youth enjoys ; and the 
 old nobleman, prejudiced against a lad who could show 
 no claim to gentle ancestors, was fain to confess that 
 this youngster equalled the highest born among his 
 contemporaries in good looks, good manners, and manly 
 exercises.
 
 loo 5n 1[3iGb {places 
 
 " I begin to think your crow is something of a 
 swan after all, dear wife," he said, as he watched his 
 granddaughter's tutor riding beside her coach through 
 the pale November mists that hung over Knightsbridge 
 and Hyde Park. " 'Twas clever of you to discover 
 such accomplishments in scatterbrain Mountain's 
 dependent." 
 
 " 'Tis a sorry fate to be a dependent even upon us," 
 sighed her ladyship ; " but 'twas dreadful to think of him 
 as a hanger-on of Mountain's, who is a blind follower of 
 that perilous woman, Madame de Chevreuse." 
 
 " Nay, my heart, I will not hear thee belie poor Marie 
 de Rohan. I grant you she has been ever unfortunate 
 — harassed — in debt — separated from daughter and 
 husband " 
 
 " They all three support tJiat affliction with exemplary 
 patience," said Lady Llanbister, with ineffable scorn, 
 "but Madame de Chevreuse is ever ready to use it as 
 a tragical plea, when she teases the Cardinal to let her 
 go back to Paris." 
 
 " I doubt you are like other lovely women, dearest, and 
 can brook no rival ; and you hate poor Marie because 
 she is handsome." 
 
 " Nay, Llanbister, you know better than to think so 
 meanly of me. I despise her for having misused her 
 beauty." 
 
 " That depends on what we call misuse, child. I doubt 
 if Helen of Troy made more clatter in the world with 
 her god-born charms than Marie de Rohan has caused 
 with hers. Was it a waste of beauty to ride across the 
 Pyrenees in doublet and hose, the admiration of every- 
 body she met, since never had so handsome a cavalier, 
 or so fine a leg and foot been seen 'twixt Paris and 
 Madrid ? 'Twas an escapade to exalt her into a 
 heroine for ever. But I grant you she is reckless, 
 and will not stand on punctilio with Francis Mountain, 
 should it suit her to make him carry compromising 
 papers, or jeopardise his neck any other way in her 
 service. But you have to remember how good a Papist 
 she is, and how zealous for the true Church ; and you
 
 ''So IRuns tbe MorlD Hwa^" loi 
 
 may be sure there will be ready absolution for any 
 private peccadilloes she has to confess." 
 
 They were in London in time to witness the sumptu- 
 ous reception which the City offered to the King on 
 his return from Scotland. They saw the narrow streets 
 hung with tapestry, the conduits running "claret wine," 
 and Moorgate adorned with a splendid tent, in which 
 Lord Mayor Gournay waited his Sovereign's coming. 
 They saw the King step from his coach, smiling and 
 debonnaire, and mount his horse, and ride through the 
 decorated streets, attended by a cavalcade of loyal 
 citizens in gala dress, while joy-bells rang, and all the 
 populace shouted for joy, and trumpets sounded 
 the passing of the King from station to station, and the 
 choristers of St. Paul's stood on the steps of the Cathe- 
 dral singing an anthem of welcome. And as the early 
 November dust crept through the narrow ways, and 
 darkness dropped a veil on the City, though 'twas not 
 long after the festival dinner, torches flared along the 
 streets, and lights shone from every window, till the 
 winter night grew glorious as summer noon. And the 
 heart of the King beat high at this festal greeting, — 
 and he knew not how transient was this outburst of 
 cordial feeling, which seemed so rich in the promise of 
 peace, nor that Lord Mayor Gournay would expiate his 
 loyalty by-and-bye in the Tower, surrendering the civic 
 chain to a citizen of republican principles. 
 
 This ebullition of love from Lord Mayor and Alder- 
 men and Common Council was still in the air, and their 
 Majesties' hearts were still aglow with gratitude, while 
 that terrible indictment against Charles Stuart, that cold- 
 blooded recapitulation and solemn summing up of all 
 the evils and iniquities, injustices and cruelties, of his 
 reign, of which he, or his servants for him, had been 
 guilty, was being debated, article by article, at West- 
 minster, the most memorable assault upon kingly 
 authority ever imagined by a nation's representatives, 
 and destined to stand out from the level page of 
 Parliamentary history for evermore, as the Grand
 
 I02 5n IbiQb places 
 
 Remonstrance. For this were the Commons sitting 
 fourteen hours at a stretch ; for this men beheld the 
 hitherto unknown spectacle of candles brought into the 
 House at dusk, during a debate which continued through 
 the small hours of the winter morning, in light that was 
 but Milton's "darkness visible." For this hot blood 
 raged and swords were drawn, and men's hands were at 
 each other's throats. 
 
 And again, as in the crisis of Strafford's fate, the 
 King paltered with the situation — complained and com- 
 plied — protested and submitted — threatened and flattered 
 — saw the imminence of the danger, and saw it not — 
 would have Whitehall fortified — would fling himself 
 into the arms of his dear people — blew hot — blew 
 cold — and hastened the ruin of his rights and his 
 prestige. 
 
 Was it born with him, this helpless hesitancy of mind 
 as of speech, this instability of purpose that seemed 
 akin to the feeble limbs of his infancy, too weak to 
 carry their frail burden till the sickly prince was seven 
 years old ? Had some pre-natal curse hung heavy upon 
 him from his cradle ? 
 
 As over all the life of James there had fallen the dark 
 shadow of one dreadful night at Holyrood, might not 
 the conspiracy at Gowrie House, that darker and more 
 mysterious tragedy of the two slaughtered brothers, 
 have set its deadly mark upon the character of his son, 
 born immediately after the fatal date? There were 
 those who said that James's Queen was an unhappy 
 woman, if not a false wife, and that Alexander Gowrie, 
 slain in the flower of his youth, was dearer to her than 
 her husband. There was so much that was noble in the 
 man Charles Stuart — so much of Royal largeness of 
 mind and knightly instinct to mark the descendant of 
 eight centuries of kings, that it would seem as if some 
 latent strain of feminine apprehension and despondency, 
 born with him, could alone account for all that was 
 weak, false, and cowardly in his conduct as a king. 
 
 Troubles abroad had but little disturbing influence
 
 *'5o IRuns tbe Morl^ Hvva^" 103 
 
 upon the peaceful days and happy evenings in Alders- 
 gate House. In his studious home in the same street, 
 John Milton was on fire with lofty aspirations and eager 
 interest in the conflict between King and Commons, 
 Prelacy and Presbyterianism ; but those who sat by 
 the fireside in my lady's panelled parlour heard the 
 rising of the storm as something afar off, in which their 
 part was only to pity their Sovereign's misfortunes, and 
 to pray for the return of peace. Lord Llanbister was 
 too old to serve his King in the field, and had of late 
 been but little at Court, all that he had ever offered of 
 counsel being heard with a smiling politeness on his 
 Majesty's part, and making no more impression than 
 the light spray of the fountain made on the marble 
 margin it sprinkled, in that pleasant semi-circular garden 
 at Hampton Court, where Llanbister walked bare- 
 headed at Charles's side. He knew that there was but 
 one counsellor whose advice — accentuated by all the 
 notes in the gamut of womanly passion — was ever taken, 
 and that fatal counsellor was the Queen. 
 
 " I might govern England at this hour, old as I am, 
 and sitting in this arm-chair," he told George, " were I 
 of an aspiring temper, and my wife subservient to my 
 ambition ; for she, who has the stronger intellect, can 
 do what she likes with Henrietta ; and Henrietta rules 
 the King. Indeed, since a woman's will is to rule — 
 'twere better for the nation if that wayward will were 
 guided by an old man's experience. 'Tis ill for England, 
 perhaps, that I am not adapted for underhand policy. 
 But there is a young man lately come to Court, one 
 Edward Hyde, a Wiltshire squire's son, who is as deep 
 as Machiavel, and ought to be of use in his Majesty's 
 difficulties." 
 
 The beginning of the end had come in the attempted 
 arrest of the Five Members, an act so ill-judged that 
 they who knew the King guessed at once that it had 
 been urged upon him by his wife. A failure so igno- 
 minious was indeed inspired by one woman, and betrayed 
 by another, her confidante : for it was Lady Carlisle's
 
 I04 Sn IbiGb places 
 
 warning to Pym — whom the uncharitable called her 
 lover — which made the attempted arrest so futile an 
 assault upon the privileges of the House, and so piteous 
 a humiliation for him who had essayed the despot's part 
 without the despot's power. 
 
 That fatal aggression raised such a storm as neither 
 the King nor his feminine counsellor had imagined 
 possible. London was in arms ; and Charles and 
 Henrietta left Whitehall in the dark wintry weather, for 
 the desolate and bloomless gardens and groves of 
 Hampton Court — left as fugitives in all but the name ; 
 and from Hampton Court, where their enemies had them 
 within too easy reach, they speedily retired to Windsor, 
 leaving the Parliament master of the field, and the City, 
 which had so lately welcomed the Sovereign, now 
 boisterously acclaiming the triumph of the Five 
 Members, carried by water to Westminster, upon a 
 river covered with boats and barges, while guns 
 thundered, and streamers waved, and all along the 
 shore trumpets and drums swelled the triumph, and 
 trained bands and mob rolled westward in frantic jubi- 
 lation, yelling their party cries against Bishops and 
 Papist lords, and jeering at the absent King and his 
 cavaliers. 
 
 Lady Llanbister's chief anxiety during this time of 
 trouble was to keep her husband out of the fray. She 
 knew upon how thin a thread that waning life depended ; 
 for his lordship's physician had warned her that any 
 fever of mind, any paroxysm of anger, the sudden 
 flame of a fiery soul, might be fatal. Her constant care 
 was to avert distress from the devoted husband who had 
 given her so many years of unalterable affection, a love 
 that had deepened as the years went on. Love and 
 praise, such chivalrous homage as poets sing of in a 
 golden age — all had been hers from the husband who 
 in years might have been her father. She was paying 
 him in some wise for that romantic love by an affection- 
 ate watchfulness that gave her leisure for but little 
 thought of anybody else in the world.
 
 "So IRuns tbe Mocl^ Hwa^" 105 
 
 And thus it happened that George and Geraldme 
 were almost as free to follow their own devices as our 
 first parents in the Garden of Eden, before the snake 
 surprised them there. Here there was no serpent. 
 There was only a growing love, of which one was still 
 unconscious, and which the other hardly acknowledged 
 in his own secret thoughts. Geraldine, in spite of her 
 Elizabethan arrogance, her audacity in advancing her 
 own opinions and contradicting her elders, was so 
 childish and simple in all her feelings and inclinations, 
 that for a man to talk to her of love would have been 
 a kind of profanation. Here was no daughter of 
 romantic Italy, ready to tell the moon her passion for 
 the stranger who had held her hand and whispered in 
 her ear in the brief contact of a stately dance ; but a 
 high-bred English girl, who would have deemed the 
 worship of years, and the character of King Arthur, 
 only enough to deserve her favour — and whose pride 
 would have been quick to take alarm had she known 
 that the delight she took in her tutor's company, and in 
 teasing him, was the dawning of love. 
 
 George kept a watch upon himself, and grew more 
 stately as he grew more fond, trusting to his power of 
 self-control to retain the dear girl's friendship and enjoy 
 her society, and keep the secret of his passion till the 
 end of time. He was very sure that his love was hope- 
 less ; for he rather exaggerated than lessened the gulf 
 between his obscurity and the nobly born heiress. He 
 listened with an iron calm when Lord Llanbister enlarged 
 upon the virtues and dignities of that preux-chevalier. 
 Mistress Geraldine's future husband, as yet unnamed 
 and unknown ; though every word the old man said 
 seemed like the dropping of ice-cold water on an aching 
 wound. 
 
 " God knows when I shall find a mate for my pretty 
 bird, now that all the young noblemen who love their 
 King, and all who hate him, are cutting each other's 
 throats," he said, sauntering with George by the river in 
 the late October of 1642, after the battle of Edgehill ; 
 " but once this war ended — as it must end, haply, before
 
 io6 3n ibfgb BMaces 
 
 very long, by the triumph of his Majesty and the good 
 cause — I shall seek such an alliance for my granddaughter 
 as shall give me the security of her happiness in this life : 
 and then I can say 'Nunc Dimittisl and go to join my 
 murdered son in that Paradise of Rest where poor ill- 
 used Dr. Laud tells us the dead await their uprising at 
 the Last Judgment." 
 
 George listened, not once only, but on many occasions, 
 while his lordship enlarged upon his matrimonial views, 
 and criticised his granddaughter's character. He listened 
 assentingly, with an outward calm which indicated 
 heroic patience, since every day he lived in Geraldine's 
 company made the prospect of the inevitable parting, 
 and the thought of that thrice-blessed lover who was to 
 woo and win her, more intolerable. 
 
 " I am grateful to you, friend, for your capable teach- 
 ing," the old man told him, brimming over with benevo- 
 lence, and assured that his praise must make his depen- 
 dent happy. " The child read a chapter of * Don 
 Quixote ' to me last night, while you were helping my 
 lady with her house accounts. I was a fair Spanish 
 scholar in my youth, and I read that admirable book so 
 often as to imprint certain chapters on my memory, 
 whereby the language is still familiar, and comes back 
 to me as the child pronounces it. You have taught 
 her well." 
 
 " I am proud that you should think so, sir." 
 
 " Nay, the pedagogue's is an ungracious office ; and 
 I doubt she hates you for all the pains you have taken 
 with her. So 'twere hard if I stinted commendation 
 that is your due. Her manners are a trifle more sober, 
 too, which improvement I also credit to your account. 
 Not that I would see her otherwise than gay ; but she 
 was at times too boisterous a hoyden for a young woman 
 of high rank." 
 
 Through all the troublous year that saw the King's 
 repulse by Hotham at Hull ; the raising of the standard 
 at Nottingham, in the teeth of the tempest, a royal flag 
 set up only to be thrown down ; from the bloody open-
 
 << 
 
 So IRuns tbe MorlD Hwa^" 107 
 
 ing of the war at Edgehill, which lost the King his 
 faithful Earl of Lindsay, and many another gallant 
 soldier, but which proved at least that the Sovereign 
 who was so weak to govern was brave to recklessness 
 in the field ; through battles and rumours of battles, and 
 many false reports as to the conquering side — a fight 
 won by the King announced by some hard-riding pre- 
 mature messenger, bursting breathless into the startled 
 senate-house, as a triumph for the Parliament ; or a field 
 won by Essex and his orange scarfs heralded as another 
 victory for the King — through all the agitating events 
 of that tragical time, the domestic life at Isleworth and 
 at Aldersgate Street knew little change. The battle 
 and sacking of Brentford brought the sound of war 
 within a mile of his lordship's waterside house, but by 
 good fortune at a season when the family were in London ; 
 and in London the streets were barred with iron chains, 
 and the citizens were in a fever of apprehension during 
 that February of 1642-43, a period when there were still 
 many among the best and wisest of the nation who 
 longed for reconciliation and concord, and would have 
 done much to secure a quiet ending to the struggle, 
 together with the assurance of their privileges and 
 liberties. That assurance his Majesty was just as far 
 from yielding to his lieges as he had been before the 
 war began. 
 
 He had endured great hardships, and had seen his 
 subjects wasting their lives for him. Englishman against 
 Englishman, brother against brother ; sometimes. He 
 had tasted the bitter pain of severance from wife and 
 children. He had been dinnerless and roofless. He 
 had suffered discomforts and reverses that would have 
 broken the spirit of many a stronger man ; but he was 
 still the same Charles Stuart who went down to the 
 House of Commons with a casual rabble at his heels, 
 to arrest the five most powerful members of that House ; 
 and he would have taken as ill-judged a step to-morrow 
 had occasion offered. 
 
 While the royal fortunes waxed and waned, Geraldine 
 bloomed into early womanhood, with such gradual
 
 io8 5ii iiDigb BMaces 
 
 unfolding of new charms and graces that her elders 
 remained almost unconscious of the fact that the mad- 
 cap child was becoming a woman, with a woman's heart 
 to love and suffer, and to break, perhaps, if love proved 
 unhappy. 
 
 Lord Llanbister had not been indifferent to his 
 Sovereign's misfortunes, though it might be that long 
 experience of the King's tactics, in Scotland and in 
 England, had made him less enthusiastic than younger 
 members of the Cavalier party. But he was not the 
 less loyal ; and while apologising for length of years 
 and feeble limbs, which forbade his carrying sword and 
 petronel, and riding down the crop-eared Parliament- 
 arians, he provided more than his share of the sinews 
 of war, and had given the strongest testimony to his 
 fidelity by a journey to Beverley in the early summer, 
 at which loyal little town he found Majesty poorly 
 accommodated, and sadly out-at-elbows, though the 
 King's deprivations and inconveniences of that time were 
 small as compared with the hardships which he suffered 
 with such heroic fortitude during the progress of the 
 war. Indeed, it may be said that from this time 
 forward Charles Stuart knew no more of royal splendour, 
 till that too brief season on the threshold of doom when 
 he found himself once again at Windsor, once more 
 pacing those noble rooms which his taste had beautified 
 with all that is most perfect in the painter's art — 
 rejoicing in those art treasures, in that stately palace, 
 in the deference paid to royalty, but a lonely man, and 
 pining for the wife and children he loved. But those 
 halcyon days at Windsor were still far off in the un- 
 foreseen future, and the fortunes of war still favoured 
 the King rather than that curious mixed rabble of 
 'prentice lads, crop-eared Nonconformists, and German 
 mercenaries, who made up the greater part of Essex's 
 army. 
 
 And at this time there were some lookers-on, and 
 some in the thick of the fray, who asked whether Essex 
 really wanted to beat the King? Even the Parliament 
 was beginning to question its General's whole-hearted-
 
 "So IRuns tbe Morlb Hwag" 109 
 
 ness, and to ask whether he had seized his opportunities, 
 and made the most of his advantages — or whether he 
 was not at heart a behever in the divine right of an 
 anointed king, anxious to bring about a reconciliation 
 between the Sovereign and his people, rather than to 
 compass the liberty of the subject and the downfall of 
 absolute monarchy in one bloody field ?
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " AH ! BITTER SWEET." 
 
 George had seen three yule logs burning upon the 
 hearth in Aldersgate Street, the hearth of that spacious 
 panelled parlour with its four deep-set windows, each 
 provided with a cushioned seat, and its convenient 
 recesses and roomy ingle-nook, where, on cold winter 
 nights, Lord Llanbister sat on an oak bench and smoked 
 his after-supper pipe. This panelled parlour was the 
 family resort and meeting-place. Here my lady had 
 her chamber organ, which she touched so sweetly ; and 
 here Geraldine had her pair of virginals, her lute and 
 theorbo ; and here an Italian lady came thrice a week 
 to give her a music-lesson. They were as musical in 
 the tranquil hour after supper as Mr. John Milton and 
 his pupils lower down the street, that pedantic gentle- 
 man whose handsome features and smooth hair Geraldine 
 knew so well, and of whom she was inclined to make 
 mock — first because he was a schoolmaster, and walked 
 abroad with half a dozen raw-boned hobble-de-hoys at 
 his heels ; and next because his hair was straight. 
 
 Thrice had George kept Christmas with this kind 
 family, making a solemn and a happy festival of that 
 *' Youle " which sectaries denounced and fanaticism 
 banished ; and when the third Christmas came round, 
 it seemed to him as if he had lived with them and 
 belonged to them always, and as if all his adventurous 
 youth with Francis Mountain was the story of another 
 life, which he had read, and which he remembered and 
 looked back upon with a curious impersonal interest. 
 
 no
 
 ♦*Bb! Bitter Sweet" m 
 
 How strangely different the rough-and-tumble of those 
 roving years from the repose of this aristocratic house- 
 hold ! — so simple and unpretentious in its quiet stateli- 
 ness ; the little army of servants moving about their 
 work with a calm regularity, never demonstratively 
 busy, yet never idle ; her ladyship's mind directing 
 everything, harmonising everything, and contriving that 
 all who served her should be at ease and happy. There 
 were none but smiling faces in the household, save when 
 ill news of some near kinsman fighting for the King or 
 the Commons caused tears and anxious looks ; and 
 then the kind mistress was ready with comforting, 
 hopeful words, and contrived to get the earliest possible 
 news of the soldier, wherever, or on whichever side, he 
 might be engaged. 
 
 Three times the great Yule log had sent its flames up 
 the black gulf of chimney — flames that seemed to dance 
 and leap for pride and joyousness ; three times the huge 
 limb of oak had flamed and roared and crackled and 
 spluttered ; wasting itself in a fierce fever of impatience, 
 like the ardour of youthful hopes and loves, George 
 thought ; and burning its heart out for very wantonness, 
 only to slacken its fires, and fade slowly to a faint pale 
 grey, and crumble to ashes and nothingness, like age, 
 thought George. Two summers, and three winters, he 
 had lived under Lord Llanbister's roof, and had been to 
 her Ladyship almost as a son, helping her in her alms- 
 giving, her patronage of struggling poets and painters, 
 and her household accounts, which involved much labour, 
 as Lord Llanbister had of late delegated all financial 
 management to his clever and capable wife. The house 
 steward's office had become almost a sinecure ; but as 
 he was an old man, and adored his mistress, there were 
 no complainings. 
 
 With so much money going out to the King, it was 
 needful to keep a wary eye upon all other outgoings, 
 and in February 1643, the second year of the civil war, 
 Lady Llanbister resolved upon a step which distressed 
 her, but which she felt it incumbent upon her to take. 
 She reduced her establishment to little more than half
 
 112 Sn Ibiob iplaces 
 
 its customary number, dismissing most of the young 
 servants, who would be able to get fresh places ; or at 
 the worst the men could find employment with the army, 
 and would be doing well by fighting for their king. So 
 curtailed, there was still a sober dignity in the spacious, 
 rambling house at Isleworth, the old servants moving 
 about slowly and quietly, and doing everything well, but 
 taking an unconscionable time about it. Neither master 
 nor mistress was permitted to feel a lessened state. 
 
 When Lady Day came round, George resolutely re- 
 fused the little packet of gold which her ladyship handed 
 him for his quarterly wage. 
 
 " Let me help the King by at least so much as that, 
 dear lady. 1 have a well-stocked wardrobe, and a gala 
 suit just home from the tailor's. I want nothing, and 
 have no more need of money in this house than if it 
 were Eden before the Fall." 
 
 To him it was Eden ; but he feared that the hour of the 
 Angel with the flaming sword, the dismal hour of expul- 
 sion, must be near ; and he ended his little speech with 
 a sigh. 
 
 "It shall be as you wish, George," she answered, 
 smiling at him. " His Majesty has bitter need of all the 
 money we can spare." 
 
 She always addressed him by his Christian name, and 
 he fancied sometimes she had a pleasure in pronouncing 
 it. Her voice would linger on the sound, and she would 
 look at him with a strange sadness. Once she called 
 him Charles, and started as if she had been shot, then 
 burst into tears, rose suddenly, and left the room. Was 
 it the King's name that had come unawares to her lips ; 
 and were her tears for the Sovereign's sorrows? He 
 thought not ; and that the name must have a sadder 
 association. 
 
 And all this time Mistress Geraldine was growing 
 handsomer, and more womanly, more arrogant, more 
 wilful — yet with intervals of melting kindness — a beauti- 
 ful, fitful creature, to whom life was sometimes earnest 
 and sometimes sport. 
 
 In her sportive moods she loved to tease her tutor.
 
 '*Ub\ Bitter Sweet" 113 
 
 and would often upbraid him for not being with the 
 King. 
 
 " 1 have more important work to do here. When 
 your education is finished, I may join the royal army." 
 
 " My education will never be finished. I mean to 
 go on learning all my life. I wish to be a remarkable 
 woman." 
 
 " You are that already," he said, forgetting his usual 
 reticence. 
 
 " As how ? " 
 
 " The handsomest among a thousand. Is not that 
 enough fame for a woman ? " 
 
 " No, sir — beauty is not fame. I shall like to be 
 great as Elizabeth was, who was far from handsome, 
 though I fear she was somewhat vain." 
 
 "Somewhat is not the measure. Her vanity was 
 egregious. She would have bartered all her greatness — 
 and England's into the bargain — seen Spanish ships 
 ride exulting in the Downs — only to be as lovely as 
 her unhappy cousin, and to have had true lovers — not 
 lying flatterers — at her feet." 
 
 " You do ill to disparage her, sir. She was a marvel- 
 lous woman, and I revere her memory." 
 
 He had observed admiringly that personal vanity 
 had no place in Geraldine's character. She was haughty 
 and ambitious ; she wanted to be first among the first, 
 to excel in every accomplishment she attempted : but 
 if she knew she was beautiful, she took no pride in the 
 fact, but passed it by as of no account. She was careless 
 of her attire, which was always rich and in good taste, 
 for it was chosen by Lady Llanbister, who had an 
 exquisite appreciation of form and colour, and loved to 
 set off the girl's fresh young beauty. Geraldine paid 
 but little heed to her clothes ; and this unconsciousness 
 or calm disdain of her own charms gave something 
 of queenliness to her air, as of a person superior to 
 externals. 
 
 As, with each passing day, the pupil grew lovelier and 
 more irresistible, the tutor drew further aloof, until his 
 graver manner began to exercise a repressing influence, 
 
 8
 
 114 3n "ffJiob places 
 
 and Geraldine left off teasing him, and exercised all 
 her malice upon her waiting-woman, Mistress Betty, 
 who was tolerably pretty and exceedingly vain, spending 
 every shilling she could scrape together upon finery, 
 and cherishing the conviction that Mr. George Mountain 
 was deeply in love with her, though he had not yet 
 avowed his passion. She was, indeed, ever on the alert 
 for that avowal, saw a proposal faltering on his lips 
 when he asked her for a cup of chocolate, and took 
 his fondling of her favourite spaniel for the sign of 
 a tender passion for herself. His shyness kept him 
 at a distance, she thought, and he took a romantic 
 pleasure in caressing the creature she loved ; while, 
 could she have read him aright, she would have known 
 that it was because he had not the faintest interest 
 in the dog's mistress that he diverted himself with 
 the dog. 
 
 Geraldine discovered Mistress Betty's secret, which 
 indeed that young person took little pains to hide ; 
 but she was not able to divine George's feelings ; and 
 as he was now distant and cold towards herself, she 
 began to suspect that he had fallen in love with her 
 companion. 
 
 She said as much to her old nurse one evening, when 
 she had quarrelled with poor Betty all through the 
 business of the toilet. 
 
 "The simpleton is in love," she complained, "and 
 cannot even put my gold comb straight on my head. 
 Or perhaps she tries to make me hideous, lest her 
 sweetheart should chance to consider me handsome. As 
 if it could matter to anybody what he thinks of me ! " 
 
 "In verity, dearest, you are too far above him for his 
 opinion to count — any more than it would about Queen 
 Henrietta." 
 
 " You think he is her sweetheart then ? " snapped 
 Geraldine, twitching away the arm on which Mrs. 
 Hillyer was clasping a bracelet. 
 
 " Nay, madam, 'tis but likely. He is an honest youth, 
 and when two young creatures of the same rank and 
 station come together 'tis but natural they should make
 
 ^'Hb! Bittei: Sweet" i^s 
 
 a match — though indeed, I believe she is better born 
 than he." 
 
 " How so, pray ? " 
 
 " Because Mistress Betty is a parson's daughter, and 
 'tis bruited in the hall the poor youth cannot put a name 
 to his father." 
 
 " What then ? Does that prove him low-born ? His 
 father may be a prince. There are state secrets — there 
 are hidden children. 'Twas rumoured in Paris when 
 the Dauphin was born that there were twin princes — one 
 that saw the light three hours after his brother. No one 
 outside the Queen's chamber ever saw that one. But a 
 cry was heard — a newborn child's cry — after Madame 
 de Hauteville and the Royal nurse had carried the 
 Dauphin to another room, out of earshot. I heard 
 Francis Mountain tell his lordship the story. I was 
 playing my theorbo at the other end of the room, and 
 nobody knew I was listening." 
 
 " Mr. Francis Mountain is a fabulous person who 
 would decimate any vile inventions. But would you 
 have it that Mr. George is twin brother to the French 
 Dauphin ? " 
 
 " Nay, nurse, for that would make him less than five 
 years old. But I say again, there are state secrets in 
 every reign ; and for all you and I can tell, Mr. George 
 might be a prince of the blood royal." 
 
 " He may be the Pope's nephew for aught I care ; but 
 he'll have to prove his princedom — or his Popedom — 
 before he'll be allowed " 
 
 " To do what ? " asked Geraldine, as her nurse stopped 
 in the midst of a sentence. 
 
 " To marry anybody better than a Shropshire vicar's 
 daughter." 
 
 Mrs. Hillyer having centred all her affection upon her 
 young mistress, was naturally jealous and quick to 
 discover a rival ; and she had for some time past 
 suspected Geraldine of caring more for her young tutor 
 than it was well for a lady of rank to care for a nameless 
 youth. She had hinted as much to Lady Llanbister, 
 who had heard her in a grave silence, and with a brow so
 
 II 6 Sn ibiob iplaccs 
 
 clouded that Nurse Hillyer dared not press the question. 
 Neither had she presumed to arouse his lordship's 
 uneasiness by any hint or innuendo ; for though she met 
 him frequently in the house and gardens, and he would 
 often stop to talk to her, she had never lost that feeling 
 of awe with which she had regarded him when she entered 
 his service on the marriage of her mistress. 
 
 A crisis came at last in those two young lives which 
 had been passing in monotonous tranquillity within the 
 sheltered comfort of home, while the world outside had 
 been so full of trouble and perturbation, while the best 
 blood in England had been expending itself for the King, 
 and raw recruits from the plough-tail and the counter 
 had been flinging away their lives for the Parliament. 
 
 It was in that delicious season when spring melts into 
 summer, almost unawares — since our capricious climate 
 makes the date of the divine transformation a matter of 
 uncertainty, whereby that exquisite morning when the 
 sunshine and flowers blaze out in their fullest splendour, 
 and the evening when the nightingales are heard for the 
 first time in the perfumed dusk, have often the added 
 charm of unexpectedness. Such a sudden awakening 
 of summer came upon the groves and gardens at Isle- 
 worth in the middle of May, after a week of east wind 
 and grey sky which had made the cuckoo seem an 
 anachronism. 
 
 It was a morning on which only to live was bliss, 
 provided no present and immediate sorrow came between 
 poor humanity and the beauty of the world. Such a 
 sorrow lay like a leaden weight upon George's heart as 
 he walked up and down the broad gravel terrace before 
 the open windows of the parlour where Geraldine sat at 
 her desk, writing one of those exercises which he had 
 devised for her. They had been reading Dante 
 together ; and when she had translated a select episode 
 into English with fluency and correctness, he had 
 bidden her re-translate her English into Italian prose, 
 and the measure of her success was to be the fidelity of 
 this re-translation to the language and spirit of the poet.
 
 "Bb! Bitter Sweet" 117 
 
 She had been ever an aspiring pupil, and had flung 
 aside elementary books — the horn-books of each lan- 
 guage — in a huff, insisting on going straight to the poet 
 or the romance writer whose repute she knew. 
 
 " 'Tis as easy to learn Spanish from ' Don Quixote ' 
 or Italian from ' The Inferno,' as to drudge over such 
 senseless trash as these petty story-books and baby 
 sentences," she had told George ; and he had yielded to 
 her whim. And so the first Italian words she had ever 
 learnt were in the first line of the first canto of Dante's 
 "Inferno"; and her acquaintance with Spanish began 
 and ripened with her knowledge of the Wandering 
 Knight — her tutor being very careful to keep from her 
 every chapter in which the coarseness of an earlier 
 century had left its mark upon the page. 
 
 How proud he had been of her progress ! What pains 
 he had taken ! what studious hours he had given to the 
 mastery of those great books they were to read together, 
 so that he might never fail her when she questioned him ; 
 so that he might be critic and commentator as well as 
 teacher. How he had loved the bright upward look, 
 the eager question, the freakish impatience when the 
 poet soared to realms beyond her reach. 
 
 To-day his heart was full of sadness as he walked 
 slowly to and fro in the sunshine, passing very often in 
 front of those open windows through which he could 
 see the pretty head with its profusion of curls bent over 
 the desk, and sometimes a small white hand thrust into 
 the mass of bright hair, and clutching it, in an attitude 
 associated with problems difficult of solution. He and 
 his pupil had been growing farther apart for so long a 
 period that he looked back and wondered at the time 
 when they were close friends, when they played at bowls 
 on the green yonder, beside the tall hornbeam hedge, 
 when they played at battledore and shuttlecock in the 
 low, wide hall in Aldersgate Street ; where sometimes it 
 happened that their laughter, and the sharp sound of 
 the flying cork upon parchment, became a little too 
 boisterous for his lordship's patience, and a servant 
 came with an expostulatory message — courteous, but
 
 "8 311 Ibfab BMaces 
 
 crushing — perhaps desiring that they should withdraw 
 to the nursery for the conclusion of their game, or 
 suggesting that they should join King Edward's boys 
 in the fields by Newgate. They had romped together 
 like brother and sister, she chasing him at hide-and-seek 
 in the great overgrown City garden, where the fresh 
 north wind blew the scent of gorse and broom from 
 the hills of Hampstead and Highgate. How happy, 
 how innocent, it had been, that sweet companionship ! 
 He had been her master ; for she submitted herself 
 unquestionably to his teaching, and obviously esteemed 
 him a paragon of learning. He had been her slave ; 
 for, once away from her lessons, she ordered him about 
 as her lackey, hers to command in all things relating to 
 her pleasures and amusements — and she could scarce 
 choose a skein of silk without his help. He was her 
 chief footman, groom, and gardener ; fetched and 
 carried for her all day long ; washed and combed her 
 dogs ; trained and exercised her horses ; physicked 
 her falcons ; planted and tended the wild flowers she 
 ordered him to dig out of the meadow banks, or the 
 choicer roots which her friends gave her for the parterres 
 or the herb-garden. 
 
 For more than two years they had been such joyous 
 comrades ; and now, though the hours of study, the 
 readings and translations, went on as regularly as of old, 
 master and pupil were so much estranged as to seem 
 almost enemies. The estrangement had been gradual, 
 George putting a little more and a little more constraint 
 upon his manner as his feelings deepened from admiring 
 tenderness to passionate love. And now the gulf seemed 
 impassable. He was ever cold, and she was absolutely 
 uncivil, demonstrating her dislike in every way she could 
 imagine ; hardly ever joining in the conversation when 
 he took part in it ; passing him with her head in the air 
 and a contemptuous lip when he opened a door or a gate 
 for her ; accepting his attendance as a thing of course, 
 and with no more acknowledgment than she would have 
 given to a footman ; affecting to dislike everything he 
 liked, and holding herself aloof from every diversion
 
 **Hb! Bitter Sweet" 119 
 
 they had ever shared. " Bowls ? I detest bowls ! A 
 game only fit for tavern wretches that are tipsy before 
 noon ! " " The river ? Odious in the broiling sun ! " 
 " A ride in the dust on Hounslow road ? I would as 
 soon be hanged ! " 
 
 And at the old lessons that had been so familiar and 
 so dear, instead of the ingenuous hoyden, with her 
 elbows on the table, and the ample satin sleeves falling 
 away from the round white arms, like ivory flushed with 
 rose, and her loose hair flung back with a careless hand 
 in wandering curls that he longed to clasp and kiss, 
 he now found a stately lady who had always prepared 
 her lesson, and who sat upright as a dart, and looked at 
 him with a frozen face, and was scarcely as civil as she 
 would have been to a shoemaker's apprentice who came 
 to measure her foot. 
 
 To this had they come ; and he was content so to live 
 with her rather than to leave her. The cruellest look 
 she gave him was ever so much better than that outer 
 darkness where he would never thrill at the flash of 
 those scornful eyes, that barren wilderness of the world 
 where she was not. 
 
 Mistress Betty, whose light duties left her ample 
 leisure in which to watch and listen, espied her lovely 
 youth walking in the sunshine, and ran to join him, her 
 fat spaniel waddling before her. She ran to him with 
 the air of having a right to his company wherever he 
 might be, such right as only sweethearts have, thought 
 the young lady in the parlour, whose bright head was 
 drooping over a difficult passage. She heard them talk- 
 ing and laughing as they walked up and down, their steps 
 and voices now near, now far. How happy they seemed 
 out in the sunshine ! That glum face of his could break 
 into smiles in his sweetheart's company. Well, let them 
 marry, and set up a school in Aldcrsgate, and rival 
 Mr. Milton, whose dreaming face she had so often noticed, 
 as he walked in the rear of his noisy pupils, abstracted, 
 brooding upon deep things. George might become such 
 another pedant and pedagogue as that Mr. John Milton, 
 and go over to the Parliament and the Puritans. Let
 
 120 Sn 1btob places 
 
 him speak out manfully and ask for Mistress Betty ; 
 and she, Geraldine, would give the girl a handsome 
 dowry, and have done with them both. Was it not her 
 duty to provide for her servants ? 
 
 She gave a little laugh at that fancy of George in a 
 small City house, keeping a school with Mistress Betty 
 • — but the laugh was like a sob ; and she struck her 
 clenched fist upon the open pages of her folio Italian 
 dictionary, in a fury at not finding the word she wanted. 
 
 " Why are there moods and tenses ? " she muttered. 
 " What is this life worth, that one should take so much 
 trouble to talk or write about it ? " 
 
 The laughter out of doors had ceased five minutes ago. 
 She looked up and saw George standing at the window, 
 watching her, 
 
 " Is the passage harder than common ? " he asked, with 
 his dry-as-dust schoolmaster air. 
 
 She corrected her lounging attitude in an instant, and 
 sat up prim and straight in front of her desk. 
 
 "Perhaps I am more stupid than common," she 
 answered stiffly. " But you had best judge for yourself" 
 
 She scrubbed some faint trace of tears out of her 
 eyes with her handkerchief, while he was coming through 
 the hall, and felt herself safe in the iron mail of womanly 
 pride when he entered the parlour. She handed him 
 her exercise-books without a word — one containing her 
 English translation, the other her Italian rendering of 
 that English. The passage — her own choice — was the 
 heartrending story of Ugolino and his famished brood, 
 familiar to her in Chaucer's homely verse. 
 
 George read the page, standing by the open casement, 
 — read to the end, but was dumb. It was full of faults, 
 a worse Italian than her much earlier efforts had ever 
 produced. Verbs, pronouns, adverbs, genders, idiom, all 
 were confused and faulty. He knew not what to say 
 to her, and stood staring at the page in mute distress, 
 afraid of wounding her pride by the truth. 
 
 "Is it very ill done?" she asked sullenly, after an 
 embarrassing pause.
 
 ''Ubl JBitter Sweet" 121 
 
 " It is not near so well as other of your translations." 
 
 And then he took her pen and pointed out the errors, 
 putting a cross against each, till the page was scattered 
 with crosses. " This should be the subjunctive ; the 
 adjective here should be feminine : amiunziava is 
 wrongly spelt." 
 
 His voice hurt her like the water-dropping torture. 
 She did not suffer him to finish, but snatched the book 
 from his hand, tore out the leaf, crushed it into a ball, 
 and flung it through the window, where his lordship's 
 Spanish pointer came galloping across the lawn to 
 pounce upon it. 
 
 " There is an end for to-day, madam ! " said the tutor, 
 taking off his hat and making her a bow, as he moved 
 towards the door. 
 
 " I think it had best be an end for ever ! " she answered, 
 with a trembling lip, and whiter than he had ever seen 
 her. " I have no mind for more lessons — indeed, I am 
 too old for schooling. And you are too much taken up 
 with your courtship to be a good master. Well, 'tis only 
 right young people should marry, when they are fond 
 and true, as you and Betty are. I shall ask my grand- 
 father to give my gentlewoman a dowry, and charge it 
 to my future fortune. So you need not begin the world 
 penniless — and you can turn schoolmaster, sir, like " 
 
 She stood erect, a fever-spot high on each cheek, the 
 hectic of a brain on fire. Her lips quivered so that a 
 word broke here and there, and her voice shook like the 
 tremolo in music. 
 
 " Good God ! " he cried, before she could finish her 
 sentence, " what lunatic talk is this ? Mistress Betty — 
 your gentlewoman ! A dowry — courtship — fond and 
 true ! Are you mad, Mistress, that you dare pronounce 
 such words to me ? " 
 
 It was he who was furious now, and on his face the 
 angry blood spread its crimson from cheek to brow. 
 He looked as if he could kill her. 
 
 That she could suppose him in love with Betty ! That 
 she could think that simpering piece of vanity good 
 enough for him !
 
 122 Sn 'llDigb iplaces 
 
 " Dare ! " she echoed. " Dare is a grand word 1 I 
 pray you pardon me, sir. I thought you would perhaps 
 stoop to a schoolmaster's trade for the woman you love ! " 
 
 " I would stoop to the lowest — would turn trencher- 
 scraper — for the girl I love, or would be a wayside beggar 
 and beg for her. But I am cut to the heart that you 
 should link me — but in a moment's thought — with your 
 gentlewoman ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried, beginning to laugh, a light, airy 
 laugh at the first, " poor Betty is not good enough then, 
 though you are so sweet and fair-spoken to her. Yet 
 you must like her better than you like me, to whom you 
 are ever harsh and unkind, and distant, and proud, and 
 hateful, hateful, hateful ! " 
 
 She laughed, betwixt broken sentences, all through 
 her speech ; and now the laugh grew loud and hysterical, 
 and she sank in a heap on the stool on which she had 
 been sitting at her lessons, and flung her arms upon the 
 table, and hid her face in her clasped hands, sobbing 
 heart-brokenly. 
 
 This made an end of her lover's fortitude. He fell on 
 his knees by her side, and drew her hands away from 
 her tear-stained face with a gentle resoluteness. 
 
 " My own adorable girl," he murmured, covering the 
 struggling hands with kisses, drawing nearer and nearer 
 to her, till his head was leaning against her shoulder, 
 and their flowing curls were mingled, dark and fair, gold 
 and brown. " What ! You who are so shrewd and all- 
 seeing, could you not read the riddle right ? I was dis- 
 courteous, hateful, only because I loved you with an 
 over-mastering passion, because I could scarce trust my 
 voice to speak the commonest words, lest my love should 
 cry its cherished secret aloud, and I should be flung from 
 the threshold of this dear house, as now I must be ; or 
 must rather go of my own free will into banishment." 
 
 She had recovered something of her composure by 
 this time. She drew herself from his embracing arm, 
 and that intermingling of gold and brown tresses was 
 ended. She stood up before him like a queen, and bade 
 him rise from his knees.
 
 ♦*Hb! 3Bltter Sweet" 12 
 
 o 
 
 " After all, I am not Queen Bess," she said, " though 
 in the days we were friends you used to tell me I was 
 just such a termagant." 
 
 Her face was radiant. Joy never spoke more divinely 
 from shining eyes and lovely lips. 
 
 " And are you really fonder of me than of Betty ? " 
 she asked, with a sweetly childish coquetry. 
 
 " Than of Betty ? Don't talk to me of Betty ! " 
 
 " Oh, but I love to talk of her, now I know that you 
 are not her sweetheart. Poor Betty ! It is hard for 
 her ; but she is silly enough to forget easily. But oh, 
 how grave you look, George ! when I am so merry." 
 
 " Ah, dearest, should not a man be grave who has 
 broken the spell that held him in Paradise?" 
 
 "What spell?" 
 
 " So long as I was silent — so long as my secret was 
 faithfully kept — I could stay here. I could see you 
 every day — all day long." 
 
 " And be as uncivil as you chose ; and make me think 
 you hated me," she interjected, pouting. 
 
 " While you thought I hated you I could stay, and 
 not feel myself a traitor. But now you know that I 
 love you " 
 
 " You can stay all the same," she cried insistently, 
 " and we can be good friends instead of ill friends ; and 
 you may be as civil as you like to Betty, so long as you 
 are civil to me too, in a different way. We can be true 
 friends ; master and pupil ; and friends ; sober, civil 
 friends. Not brother and sister, as we used to be. I 
 am too old for that — and not sweethearts, till his lordship 
 gives his consent." 
 
 " He will never give his consent. My dearest girl, 
 there is no choice for me. I have broken the spell. 
 We have plucked a golden apple from the tree of know- 
 ledge. I will not wait for the angel with the flaming 
 sword — to wit, your grandfather's just indignation. I 
 will take my fate upon me like a man. Some day, 
 perhaps, when you are married to one of the greatest 
 gentlemen in England, and we are a quarter of a 
 century older, I may come back into your life, and
 
 124 5n HDiob BMaces 
 
 teach your daughter the modern languages — as I have 
 taught you." 
 
 There was a sound of tears in his voice at the last. 
 She stretched out imploring hands to him. 
 
 " George, George, George ! " she cried, " as I live, I 
 will never marry any man but you." 
 
 She doubted if he heard her protestation, so quickly 
 had he vanished out of her sight ; and, frank, impetuous 
 child though she was, pride forbade her to follow him. 
 She gathered up her dictionary, and grammar, and 
 Dante, and exercise-books, flung them in a heap on the 
 floor, and stamped upon them. 
 
 " How can he be so cruel ? " she cried. " He has a 
 heart of stone. I will try to forget every word he ever 
 taught me." 
 
 It was ever so long afterwards that she began to ap- 
 preciate the heroism in his cruelty, and to understand 
 that love which goes hand in hand with honour is the 
 one true and perfect love of all. 
 
 Not for an hour did George palter with fate. He 
 went straight to Lady Llanbister's parlour — the small, 
 panelled parlour with one broad, deep-set window that 
 filled the south side of the room, while all its diamond- 
 paned casements opened — a wonder in those days — to 
 let in the odours of roses and rosemary, thyme and 
 gillyflowers, violets and chamomile, sweet and bitter, 
 spicy and aromatic, from the beds and borders in her 
 ladyship's physic-garden. He had spent such happ)^ 
 hours in that room ; keeping Lady Llanbister's accounts ; 
 helping her in the preparation of those herbal remedies 
 which, in conjunction with a good deal of faith and 
 occasional money aid, had proved so efficacious among 
 the cottagers at Isleworth ; reading to her as she sat 
 at her spinning-wheel, ever choosing the poets they 
 both loved — Chaucer, Spenser, or those sunny comedies 
 of Shakespeare which chime in tune with summer 
 gardens and happy, innocent lives — Twelfth Night, 
 As You Like It, Midsummer's Niglifs Dream. He had 
 read them all to her, and she had taught him how to
 
 ''Ub\ Bitter Sweet" 125 
 
 read poetry as well as how to feci it, inspiring him 
 with her enthusiasm for all that was loftiest and best 
 in the pages he read. 
 
 Coming into that room to-day, braced for self-sacrifice, 
 his heart sickened at the sight of his beloved patroness 
 seated by the sunny window, her wheel idle beside her, 
 and the folio copy of the " Faery Queen " open on her 
 reading-desk. 
 
 " Is your lesson over so soon ? Have you come to 
 read to me, George ? " she asked ; and then she looked 
 up at him and saw the change in his face, so firmly set, 
 so deadly pale. 
 
 " I have come to bid you farewell," he answered, in 
 the deep, grave voice of despair. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I am going to leave this happy home, where I have 
 received such bounteous kindness from you and his 
 lordship." 
 
 " George, what has happened ? Have you offended 
 my husband — that good man, who has treated you so 
 generously ? No, I cannot think so ill of you." 
 
 She had started to her feet, almost as agitated as he 
 was, and taking no trouble to restrain her feelings. 
 
 " Do not think ill of me, dearest lady. No, I have 
 not yet offended ; but were I to linger here but another 
 day I should offend. My very presence in this house 
 would be an injury to my benefactor." 
 
 " What have you done ? " 
 
 " I have disclosed a secret that I ought to have kept 
 locked in my breast for ever. Geraldine knows that 
 I love her, fondly, despairingly, love her and renounce 
 her with the same breath. You see that I must not 
 stay here." 
 
 " Geraldine ! Why, she is a child — almost a child." 
 
 " Seventeen on Valentine's Day last year." 
 
 " Seventeen ! The years roll on so fast when one 
 has come to my age — the smooth, quiet years, that can 
 bring us nothing. We thank God when they take no 
 precious treasure away. Geraldine ! I have thought 
 that some day, some far-off day, you might perhaps^
 
 126 sn iFjigb iplaces 
 
 she might — but she was still a child, or I thought her 
 a child, only caring for foolish things, changing her 
 whims and fancies a hundred times in a year." 
 
 " She is a woman, and I love her." 
 
 " And she gives you love for love ? " 
 
 He made a little sign of assent, and turned his face 
 away from the sunlight, and from those anxious eyes 
 that were watching him. 
 
 "Come here, George," she said, resuming her seat, 
 and pointing to the window-bench beside her. " Sit 
 here by me, and tell me your troubles. We have talked 
 enough of the King's troubles, in these latter days. 
 Tell me yours — the sorrow of a young heart, which is 
 to itself a kingdom, and holds as much of joy or grief 
 as the big busy world outside. Ah, dear heart, if I 
 could set things right for you ! If any power or prayer 
 of mine could give you all you sigh for " 
 
 " I know — I know how much you would do for me. 
 I have loved you and looked up to you as a son might 
 look to his mother — if one who never knew a parent's 
 love dare conceive a son's feelings." 
 
 " Nay, George, it does not need experience to teach 
 what filial love is like. You have been to me — almost 
 — as the son I lost." 
 
 " The sweet flower that withered so early. His lord- 
 ship has talked to me of that so lamented heir." 
 
 " As the son I lost," she repeated, looking at him 
 fixedly, with dreamy eyes. 
 
 And then she won him to talk freely of his unhappy 
 passion, to pour out his heart to her. She told him that 
 he did wisely to leave them. It was not possible for her 
 to propose him to her husband as Geraldine's suitor. 
 The gulf between them now — while he was untried by 
 life, and had done nothing for fame — was too wide. 
 But later his chance might come. This dreadful war, 
 which was mowing down the flower of English youth, 
 might reduce his lordship's ambition. And in troublous 
 times distinction may be quickly won. His chance 
 might come. 
 
 He shook his head despondently. He would not
 
 **Bb! Bitter Sweet" 127 
 
 suffer himself to hope. For the first time, he was 
 almost angry with her. He had thought her wisdom 
 personified ; and now she was talking to him like a 
 silly woman who would rather live in a fool's paradise 
 than face bitter truth. He cut short all ambiguous con- 
 solations, and told her what he meant to do when he 
 had packed his trunks and left her house. Francis 
 Mountain was in London on one of his flying visits, a 
 secret Mercury between Henrietta and the French 
 Queen, and was going back to Paris immediately. 
 
 " He will take me with him if I asK nim. His 
 kindness is unbounded." 
 
 " But alas ! he is so ill a companion." 
 
 " Nay, dear madam, you wrong him. Except for an 
 extra bottle of wine now and then, he has not a vice." 
 
 " And for you to live with a sot ! " 
 
 " His excesses are only on occasion. He is generous, 
 open-hearted, fearless, a great, good, careless man that 
 has never left off being a boy. His worst taste is for 
 conspiracy, and I shall strive hard to keep him out of 
 that mischief. He has a yielding temper, and will suffer 
 me to hector him as if I was the elder. You do not 
 know how good he is." 
 
 " Not good enough to be your companion, George. 
 I hate to think of the dangers and temptations of your 
 life with such a man." 
 
 " You forget that I leave my heart at Isleworth, and 
 that I carry a talisman against danger and temptation." 
 
 He held out his hand with her sapphire ring upon 
 his finger. 
 
 " To look upon this ring will be to keep in that 
 straight path the Puritans talk of so often," he said. 
 
 The dinner-bell rang loud in a cupola above their 
 heads. It was half an hour after noon. Her ladyship's 
 two gentlewomen and a page came trooping in, ready 
 to attend her to the dining-room. 
 
 " You will sit at meat with us once more, George ? " 
 she asked, giving him her hand. 
 
 He bent down to kiss that exquisite hand, but 
 answered only by a negative motion of the head. He
 
 128 5n UMob places 
 
 could not speak to her. He had carried himself stoutly 
 while he discussed his banishment, but was near breaking 
 down all the time. His eyes were cloudy with unshed 
 tears, and he could scarcely see the kind face he looked 
 at. He left her without another word, went straight 
 to his room, packed his trunks, left them to be carried to 
 London by the waggon, and made his exit quietly by 
 a side door, while family and household were at dinner, 
 meaning to walk to Chiswick, and there take boat for 
 London. 
 
 There was a small park on this side of the house, 
 adjoining the larger domain of Syon, and opening into 
 a lane that led from the great Bath road to the river. 
 George followed a beaten track between the massive 
 trunks of old oaks, and walked slowly towards a turnstile 
 which afforded a short cut to the lane. 
 
 He was within a few yards of the turnstile when he 
 heard the rustle of a woman's silken gown upon the 
 long grass behind him, and turned, flushing crimson, 
 and his heart beating furiously. 
 
 No, 'twas not she of whom he had thought in that 
 moment of ecstasy. It was my lady, with her sweet, 
 sad smile, and sober grey satin gown. 
 
 " I heard you leave the house," she said, " though you 
 were so stealthy. George, I must say some words to 
 you before we part, — God knows for how long. I shall 
 pray for our speedy reunion ; but my most fervent 
 prayer will be that our Father in heaven may keep your 
 heart pure and true, and your life free from sin." 
 
 "The thought of your prayers will sustain me in 
 my darkest hour. Oh, dear lady, how shall I thank 
 you for your angelic kindness ? Your bounty has given 
 me all that Fate denied, all my boyhood lacked." 
 
 " There is no question of goodness or bounty. I have 
 loved you. That is all you need remember. I shall 
 go on loving you while our lives are parted. Remember 
 that in the hour of temptation ; and think of the heart 
 that would bleed — as mothers' hearts bleed for their 
 firstborn — for your sin, for your dishonour." 
 
 " Your image will be with mc wherever I go. And
 
 **Bb! 3Bitter Sweet" 129 
 
 for temptation — none can ever assail me so fierce as 
 that I have conquered to-day : the temptation to Hnger 
 under your roof, knowing I had lost the right to live 
 here." 
 
 "You have done well, George. And now go your 
 ways, my dear adopted son. Be careful to avoid ill 
 influences. Beware of bad company. Be thoughtful, 
 industrious, temperate, as you have been here ; civil 
 to all the world, but not quick to make new friends. 
 Write to me sometimes in your leisure hours — a long, 
 long letter, with the history of your life. And however 
 long our parting may be, do not abandon hope. I am 
 not without power to help you in the right season. Be 
 patient, be true to yourself, as you have been to-day, 
 and hope for all best things this life can give." 
 
 She had laid her hands lightly on his breast when 
 she began her sermon, looking at him fixedly all the 
 time with tearful eyes. When she had spoken her last 
 word she kissed him on each cheek in the pretty foreign 
 fashion, and turned and walked slowly back over the 
 thick, flowering grass.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE woman's reign. 
 
 Changes had come over the city of Paris since George 
 had trodden its streets ; and France and her people had 
 passed through one of those transitions which begin new 
 epochs. Richeheu was dead. In the December of 1642, 
 while the City of London was in a panic, lest the King's 
 troops should surprise and surround it, the people of 
 France were counting the last hours of the Minister 
 whose iron hand had ruled them. Those who were in 
 Paris at that time tell how men were almost afraid to 
 speak of the great Cardinal's death, lest that implacable 
 spirit should flame up again, Phcenix-like, from its 
 ashes — lest that marble form should rise from the bed 
 of Death, ghastly in its grave-clothes, to convict them 
 of a lie. They remembered the time when he who had 
 ruled France with a whip of scorpions lay sick at Lyons, 
 and the Queen Mother, far away, in foreign exile, was 
 glad, and the hearts of men beat bolder with the hope 
 that the iron bands were soon to be loosed, and the hand 
 of the despot Minister was soon to lie in clay-cold 
 stillness under the splendour of velvet and gold, clustered 
 plumes, and jewelled insignia. They remembered Cinq 
 Mars, and his brief span of glory — his daring attempt 
 to overthrow that autocracy of intellect, and how swift 
 had been the sick man's vengeance, how irresistible the 
 force of that unyielding will which the consciousness 
 of approaching death could not soften. 
 
 " I have had no enemies but those of France," the 
 
 Cardinal had replied to the priest whispering into his 
 
 130
 
 TTbe Moman's IReian 131 
 
 dying ears, and urging the Christian's duty of pardon ; 
 but for a Minister who had made himself, as it were, the 
 incarnate spirit of his country, the work of the headsman 
 and the slow death oi the dungeon must have had some- 
 thing of a personal flavour. Armand Richelieu's foes 
 were in very truth the foes of France ; but they were 
 also the foes of Armand Richelieu. That disdainful and 
 insolent noblesse, which had spurned the priest Minister's 
 pretentions and conspired against his authority, had been 
 sacrificed, one after another, in the interests of King and 
 people ; but they had earned the hatred of Richelieu 
 long before they were ripe for the executioner ; and the 
 velvet shoe with the golden cross trod on many a stubborn 
 neck that might have escaped the axe had it bent to the 
 imperious churchman's yoke. 
 
 Richelieu was dead, every wrong avenged, and 
 every foe vanquished ; and the parasites who had 
 trembled at his frown and espoused all his quarrels, 
 hating whom he hated, loving whom he loved, were 
 now the flatterers and sycophants of Anne of Austria, 
 the widowed Queen ; since before winter had changed 
 to summer, Louis, surnamed the Just, had followed his 
 Prime Minister to "the land where all things are 
 forgotten," after a lingering illness, the slow ebbing 
 of a life that had been always feeble, and which was 
 worn to the thinnest thread at forty-two years of age. 
 
 From the gloom of that death-chamber at Saint- 
 Germain, whence Louis' dying eyes had looked towards 
 the towers of Saint Denis, the sepulchre of kings, the 
 Royal widow had emerged a new creature. She had 
 risen from the obscurity of a down-trodden Queen 
 Consort, under the abiding shadow of suspicion, to 
 the almost autocratic power of Queen Regent, the proud 
 mother of an infant King ; and the iron hand of Riche- 
 lieu had given place to the affectionate subservience of 
 his pupil Mazarin. The sleek Italian, papal legate in 
 the dawn of youth — for some time a Cardinal, but not 
 yet, if ever, a priest — handsome, accomplished, still in 
 the prime of manhood, trained in Richelieu's service, 
 at once his prot^g^ and his tool, had already begun to
 
 132 5n Ibiab places 
 
 acquire an influence, more subtle, but not less powerful, 
 than that of the great Cardinal. Richelieu had ruled 
 Anne of Austria by fear. She had plotted against him, 
 and trembled before him. She, the Queen, had bent 
 before him, the subject. She had been a prisoner 
 without visible bonds, a slave with impalpable fetters. 
 
 After a few days at the old lodgings in Westminster, 
 where Mountain gave him a hearty welcome, George 
 accompanied his friend to Paris, and arrived there with 
 a very imperfect understanding of the business that 
 carried his master to the capital. That Mountain's 
 secret mission had some bearing upon that troublesome 
 question whether England was to remain heretic or 
 return to the fold of the faithful, was all he had ever 
 been told ; and he had to content himself with this 
 limited confidence. It seemed to him that a time when 
 England was rent by Civil War must be of all seasons 
 the least favourable to the growth of religious enthusiasm, 
 or the stirring up of the embers of the old fire — to have 
 stirred which had made Archbishop Laud a prisoner 
 in the Tower. But that Mountain had friends in 
 Paris — and they among the most powerful — was made 
 obvious to his page and servant by his happy insouciance 
 and his well-filled purse. 
 
 " If business has brought us to Paris, George, pleasure 
 shall keep us there as long as we have spending money," 
 he said gaily. " I am as glad to leave the gloom of 
 London, and the ever-darkening shadow that hangs over 
 Charles and his fortunes, as an escaped bird to fly up 
 into the blue." 
 
 George's only answer was a sigh. To him it was as 
 if they had left all that is best and fairest in life behind 
 them, in that unfortunate country. He thought of the 
 grave old garden in Aldersgatc Street, the flowery lawn 
 by the Thames at Isleworth, with a sick longing, and it 
 needed all the elasticity of youth to enable him to rally 
 his spirits, and put on an appearance of interest in that 
 splendid capital which his patron praised. 
 
 They had lodgings in the Court quarter, at the
 
 Ube Moman's IRetgn 133 
 
 Golden Crown in the Rue des Fosses Saint-Gcrmain- 
 I'Auxerrois, in the shadow of the church walls. It was 
 a street of taverns — the White Rose ; the Eagle ; the 
 famous Crab-tree, chosen resort of profligate wits, the 
 guzzlers, as they were called ; and the Black Horse, 
 where Madame Lagnet offered lodgings for persons 
 from the country at thirty sols a night, with another 
 thirty sols for meals. The stage coaches from Dreux 
 and from Nogent le Roi stopped at the Eagle, and 
 brought many travellers to the street, where there was 
 accommodation to suit all purses. It was here, in all that 
 remained of the Constable Charles de Bourbon's palace, 
 that the Venetian comedians had acted when Henry III. 
 was King ; and it was in the same building, later known 
 as the Petit Bourbon Theatre, that Louis the Great 
 was to dance, and Moliere and his company were to 
 act, in the golden age that was coming. Palaces and 
 taverns, coach office and theatre, stood side by side in 
 that narrow street, which has melted into the dark abyss 
 of time past. 
 
 Francis Mountain established himself and his secretary 
 in a large, double-bedded room at the back of the house, 
 with a capacious fireplace, and three narrow windows 
 looking on to a garden ; and after having supped in the 
 public eating-room on the ground floor, made haste to 
 open his saddle-bags and lay out his best suit, or indeed, 
 his only suit save the leather jerkin and drugget hose 
 in which he had crossed the Channel ; for it was this 
 gentleman's practice to provide himself with the richest 
 suit of clothes that his cash or his credit could command, 
 and to live in it till it was threadbare, by which means, 
 as he boasted, he wanted neither spacious coffer nor 
 cumbrous cupboard, and was ever at the top of the 
 fashion. 
 
 "To-morrow night we will to Court, George," he 
 said, as he somewhat ruefully contemplated the tarnished 
 lace on his velvet doublet. " I doubt my coat will look 
 as well as the rest by candle-light. I have a letter for 
 Queen Anne, from that harassed lady, her Royal sister- 
 in-law ; and so we are sure of a welcome. You shall
 
 134 3n Ibiab places 
 
 find yourself in a scene that excels Denmark House 
 or Whitehall as the mid-day sun outshines a church 
 candle." 
 
 The Queen Regent was still at the Louvre, whence 
 she shortly afterwards removed to the Palais Cardinal — 
 that newer and more elegant residence which Richelieu 
 had bequeathed to his master. It was at the Louvre 
 that George Mountain was admitted for the first time 
 to the Royal presence, and where he was allowed to 
 kneel and kiss the whitest hand in France, and to behold 
 the arms and shoulders that had dazzled Buckingham, 
 when Austria's fair daughter was the girl-wife of an 
 unloving husband, and still a stranger in the land. 
 
 That Royal bust was more opulent now than twenty 
 years ago, but the incomparable whiteness which courtly 
 poets had praised was as remarkable to-day as in her 
 Majesty's first youth, while the deep black of her gown 
 and veil, relieved only by a magnificent /(^/v/r^ of pearls, 
 accentuated the transparent purity of her complexion, 
 and gave dignity to her too ample figure. 
 
 Mr. Mountain and his page were presented to the 
 Regent by that distinguished exile. Secretary Windebank, 
 who, although a fugitive from England at the beginning 
 of the troubles, was a favourite at the French Court ; 
 and her Majesty's reception was of a marked graciousness. 
 
 It was indeed a distinguished privilege for these two 
 untitled Englishmen to be received in that inner 
 drawing-room where the Queen Regent was wont to 
 spend her evenings in a solemn tete-a-tete with her 
 chief Minister, who was present on this occasion, a 
 bland assistant at the interview. 
 
 The Queen asked many questions about her unhappy 
 sister-in-law, and expressed an affectionate regard for 
 that courageous and unfortunate lady. 
 
 " I wish my poor sister would leave your ungrateful 
 country, where she has suffered greater sorrows and 
 humiliations than ever a royal daughter of France 
 endured, and has seen her creed insulted and her priests 
 ill-used. Here she would have a cordial welcome and 
 a peaceful asylum — a safe shelter from the cruelty of
 
 XCbe MomaiVs IRdan 135 
 
 your barbarous people, who, by their late treatment 
 of that poor lady, can be scarcely escaped from the 
 savagery of the age when they painted their bodies and 
 ran wild in woods." 
 
 *' Your Majesty must not forget that there has been 
 some intermingling of Gaulish blood in the English 
 race since those aboriginal Britons cut the mistletoe 
 in their primeval forests," said Mazarin, with that in- 
 sinuating smile which lit his face with a sudden and 
 almost dazzling brightness, but which his detractors 
 declared he had learnt before his looking-glass, as a 
 comedian learns his craft, rehearsing the play of features 
 till he can assume an expression at will, however at 
 variance with the workings of the mind behind the 
 mask. 
 
 The Cardinal had his foot already on the steps of 
 the throne, his hand already on the sceptre which he 
 was so soon to wield with undisputed power ; yet no 
 one had ever seen him angry ; no one had ever received 
 a hard answer, even to the most audacious demand. 
 The velvet glove had been in evidence on all occasions ; 
 and if the hand of steel were underneath that silken 
 softness, no one had felt the grip of it yet awhile. 
 
 The Regency began as a golden age. All the prison 
 doors were opened : all the exiles were returning. 
 Queen Anne, who had been pitied and praised rather 
 because she had been slighted and persecuted than for 
 any distinguished virtues of her own, seemed incapable 
 of unkindness, even to an enemy. The Princes of the 
 Royal blood, the Princes of the half-blood, the gallant 
 Henry's titled grandsons and granddaughters, all alike 
 rejoiced in the reign of universal indulgence. Richelieu, 
 before whom guilty and guiltless alike had trembled— 
 Richelieu whose assassination had been the desire of 
 hearts that failed and hands that blundered, and against 
 whose charmed existence treason had plotted and 
 swords had been sharpened in vain, had succumbed 
 to the common enemy ; and the reign of the Infant 
 King was hailed as the beginning of the millennium. 
 
 Enthusiasm of this kind, an all-consenting approbation,
 
 136 Sn IbfGb places 
 
 can hardly be expected to last long. The golden age 
 was scarcely three months old when the plotters resumed 
 their plotting, and the assassins' daggers were on the 
 grindstone. 
 
 Cardinal Mazarin condescended to accompany 
 Mountain and his page when they left the Royal 
 presence, and conducted them through the more select 
 circle of ancient nobility and Royal blood to the outer 
 and largest saloon, in which a crowd of beauties and fops, 
 dowagers and veterans, were assembled, many of them 
 engaged at the card-tables, while others clustered in 
 little coteries, or walked about, full of talk and laughter, 
 and with that animated gesticulation which gave a 
 factitious brilliancy to their conversation, and made 
 the most insignificant speech seem full of point and 
 meaning. George was the more struck by this super- 
 abundant vivacity after his observation of English 
 people, whose lack of movement and expression sug- 
 gested a lack of wit, but whose discourse he had rarely 
 found wanting in sense or humour. Here it was not 
 speech alone that conveyed ideas. Eyebrows, shoulders, 
 elbows, hands, were full of subtle meaning. A reputation 
 died at the lifting of finely arched brows ; a sovereign 
 contempt was expressed by the turn of an elbow ; a 
 lover was reduced to despair by the airy motion of a 
 delicate hand ; and beauty's alabaster shoulders could 
 blast a rival's character with a shrug. 
 
 Into this noisy rabble, but only a little way across the 
 threshold, Mazarin accompanied the Englishman and 
 his attendant, George standing respectfully behind his 
 master while the Cardinal whispered in Mountain's 
 attentive ear. There was a large Venetian mirror on 
 the opposite wall, and George, glancing idly at the glass, 
 caught his own reflection, and the reflection of the 
 Cardinal's face looking at him with a startled expression, 
 lips parted in arrested speech, eyes full of a sudden 
 wonder. 
 
 George could but wonder too, for the faces had a 
 curious likeness, allowing for the disparity between 
 youth and middle age, and also for a considerable
 
 Ube Moman's IRefan 137 
 
 difference in colouring. Mazarin's countenance was 
 dark with the glowing olive of Southern Europe, 
 while George's complexion had the brilliant fairness 
 seldom seen save in an Englishman. 
 
 Perhaps every one is familiar with that involuntary 
 recollection of a long forgotten scene, which flashes with 
 a startling suddenness across the mirror of the mind — 
 a scene that has no relevance to the thought or the 
 action of the moment, and which rises like an unbidden 
 ghost before the mental vision. 
 
 Such a memory flashed across George Mountain's 
 brain as he looked at the Cardinal's face in the glass ; 
 the picture of that one most awful scene in his childish 
 experience ; the deserted hall at Portsmouth ; the dead 
 form under the voluminous mantle ; the dead face look- 
 ing up at the ceiling, terrible in its ashen pallor, yet 
 beautiful with all that humanity has of dignity and 
 grace. 
 
 In after days, when he heard people talk of the resem- 
 blance between Mazarin and George Villiers, and how 
 Cardinal Richelieu had speculated upon this likeness as 
 an influence over the romantic Queen, George under- 
 stood why that tragic spectacle had recurred to him 
 amidst the buzz and glitter of so different a scene. 
 
 That sudden pause in the Cardinal's whisper had not 
 escaped Francis Mountain, who had also noted the great 
 man's look at the mirrored face, and from the glass to 
 the man, and had interpreted his surprise. 
 
 " I am such a careless blockhead as never to have re- 
 marked your likeness to his Eminence till I saw him 
 stare at you," Mountain said, as they walked from the 
 Louvre to their lodgings ; " but such resemblances are 
 common enough where men are so lucky as to be living 
 copies of the antique. I hope the accident may bring 
 you into favour with one who, 'tis said, will soon be as 
 powerful in France as Richelieu was last year." 
 
 George had too independent a spirit to curry favour 
 with foreign greatness, or to desire the Cardinal's patron- 
 age. After three years' residence in England, and in a 
 city overshadowed by the gloom of growing rebellion
 
 138 Sn Iblab UMaces 
 
 and made distasteful to him by the judicial murder of 
 Strafford and the persecution of the Bishops, this gay 
 and light-hearted Paris seemed a new world, and he 
 could but note the happier atmosphere, albeit he had 
 left personal happiness behind him. True that here too 
 there had been tragedies as terrible as the doom of 
 Thomas Wentworth. Lives as noble had been snapped 
 short by the headsman, and Richelieu's rule had been 
 written in blood. But Frenchmen forget easily ; and 
 the new reign, the woman's reign, had begun in a burst 
 of sunshine. 
 
 George plunged into the Court vortex with a some- 
 what feverish alacrity. Having lost the tranquil gladness 
 of those gardens by the Thames, Geraldine's too dear 
 companionship, and the friendship of Lady Llanbister, 
 he would fain have drowned every fond retrospection, 
 every thought of his nameless birth, every anxiety about 
 his unprovided future, in the merry-go-round of Paris 
 dissipations. There were plenty of amusements offered 
 to a young man in that wonderful city — the fencing- 
 school, with its endless interest for a good swordsman, 
 the riding-school, founded by the famous Pluvinel near 
 the Place Royale, when Henry IV. was king, where the 
 Princes of the blood Royal were trained in the noble art 
 of riding the great horse, and where the education of 
 horse and rider was elaborated to a perfection unattained 
 in any other academy ; theatres ; puppet-shows ; the 
 evening ride along the Cours la Reine ; the modish 
 assemblies in Renard's Garden ; a/ /resco dances, al 
 fresco suppers ; festivals at which Majesty did not dis- 
 dain to appear ; and most of all, that liberty to mix in 
 the nightly crowd of princes, peers, and commoners, 
 which the indulgence of the Queen Regent allowed to 
 throng her saloons, to babble its scandals and im- 
 pertinences, and to whisper the ribald epigram composed 
 over the morning drink in some paid scribbler's garret, 
 printed by stealth in a cellar, and bandied from lip 
 to lip in the evening, almost within her Majesty's 
 hearing. 
 
 Under a rule so lax, it was easy for Francis Mountain
 
 Ube Moman's IRefgn 139 
 
 to obtain admission for himself and his secretary to the 
 Court circle. It was not the first time he had carried 
 a letter from Henrietta Maria to her sister-in-law, for 
 he had served as messenger between those two Royal 
 ladies for some years past, and had also been a prime 
 agent in the secret correspondence of that much- 
 persecuted heroine of romantic adventure, Madame de 
 Chevreuse, during Richelieu's long day of power, when 
 she had pleaded and plotted in vain for permission to 
 return to her family and her estates. 
 
 Madame de Chevreuse no longer needed anybody's 
 intervention. She had hurried back to France with 
 other distinguished exiles, Madame de Hautefort, the 
 Chevalier de Jars, immediately upon his Majesty's death. 
 Indeed, Louis XIII. — dead in the prime of manhood, 
 lying in a gloomy splendour of wax tapers and black 
 velvet draperies, in his deserted chamber at Saint- 
 Germain, with only the vulgar crowd to look upon his 
 funereal state — while the wife who had trembled at his 
 slightest frown ; the courtiers who had flattered him ; 
 the brothers and sisters, and nephews and nieces, of the 
 half blood, who owed all their magnificence to his 
 generosity ; the ministers, bishops, sycophants, wits — 
 had all hurried away to Paris to people those palaces 
 in which he had so lately reigned supreme — ^might have 
 furnished a theme for that austere sectary who said, 
 " I cannot but look upon all the glory and dignity of 
 this world, lands and lordships, crowns and kingdoms, 
 even as on some brain-sick, beggarly fellow, that 
 borroweth fine clothes and plays the part of a king 
 or a lord for an hour on a stage, and then comes 
 down, and the sport is ended, and they are beggars 
 again." 
 
 Louis the Just had been carried at a smart pace 
 along the road to Saint-Denis, as his son the great 
 King was to be carried seventy-two years after, with 
 as little reverence or lamenting love ; and the people 
 he had hated, the intriguers he had banished, were 
 dominant at the court of that wife whom he had never 
 loved, and who had never loved him. A new era had
 
 I40 3n Ibiob iplaces 
 
 begun ; the era of laisser aller on the part of the pious, 
 self-indulgent Spanish Queen, and of a subtle policy 
 in the person of Jules Mazarin, who, beginning with 
 the silken subservience of an accomplished Italian 
 diplomat, did not relax his efforts till he had made 
 himself the supreme master of his Royal mistress, and 
 almost as much the master of France. 
 
 Fortune had smiled upon the Italian minister in the 
 very beginning of his rule. Swiftly on the gloom of 
 that funeral train which carried the thirteenth Louis to 
 his last resting-place came the fanfare of trumpets, with 
 tidings of the battle of Rocroy, a victory that aroused 
 a transport of joy, only to be measured by the know- 
 ledge of the disastrous consequences which must have 
 followed defeat. From that golden afternoon of May 
 when La Moussaye arrived at the Hotel de Conde with 
 the news, and thence, without drawing rein, rode on to 
 the Louvre, all Paris was stirred with a wild rapture of 
 exultation ; and later, when Chevers arrived with the 
 trophies, and when fifty of the King's household troops 
 and a hundred picked guardsmen scarcely sufficed to 
 carry the glorious spoil of banners and standards, the 
 great heart of Paris beat as the heart of one man. At 
 the Louvre, upon the quays, at Notre Dame, Court, 
 noblesse, people, were on foot in a tumult of joy. 
 
 It was said that the dying King had seen this coming 
 victory in a dream. His son of four years old had 
 reigned but four days when the battle was won, by a 
 general still in the very morning of youth. For Mazarin 
 the value of such a success was inestimable. It came 
 at a critical moment, immediately upon that reconstitu- 
 tion of the state counsel which was the first stage in 
 his progress towards absolute power ; and it helped 
 him to hold his own against the daring ambition of the 
 Vendomes, and their party, henceforth to be known as 
 the " Importants." 
 
 The Importants were sulking in their tents now ; and 
 the Due d'Enghien's father, the Prince de Cond6, and 
 the fair-haired Duchcsse dc Longueville, his sister, were 
 paramount at Court, and in the city.
 
 Ubc Moman's iRefgn 141 
 
 While these royal argosies were sailing on the flood- 
 tide of success, Francis Mountain steered his own modest 
 barque along their wake, and took advantage of all 
 opportunities with the cool audacity of an experienced 
 adventurer. He speedily made his mark among the 
 smaller fry at the Louvre, as a long-headed English- 
 man, who had been entrusted with important missions, 
 and who was likely to be more and more useful to the 
 unfortunate English Queen, since that poor lady stood 
 in urgent need of trusty messengers and courageous 
 servants on both sides the Channel, to help her in 
 negotiations which might buttress her husband's tottering 
 throne. 
 
 The favour shown to Francis Mountain was shown 
 in a more liberal manner to the handsome youth who 
 was always in attendance upon him. To be in the 
 morning of life, and remarkable for personal beauty ; 
 to have a melodious voice, and a manner at once 
 modest and self-possessed, — constituted a strong claim 
 to feminine approval, and it was chiefly among the 
 fairer portion of the Court rabble that George found 
 favour. He had soon more friends than he had ever 
 had in his life before, and was embarrassed by having 
 to refuse invitations to supper, and still more so by the 
 disputes of rival coquettes who wanted his handsome 
 person to adorn the dusty splendour of their windowless 
 coaches on the Cours la Reine. 
 
 It was not to be supposed that the greatest ladies, 
 the blood Royal of France and Lorraine, were rivals 
 for so small a gentleman's favour, or condescended to 
 invite Mr. Mountain's secretary to their houses ; but 
 even among these, his fine person and elegant manners 
 had not been altogether unnoticed. Madame de 
 Montbazon had asked questions about him, and though 
 those magnificent shoulders of hers had brushed past 
 him with the disdainful movement of a goddess walking 
 through a crowd of mortals with whom she had nothing 
 in common, that noble lady had it in contemplation 
 to order somebody to present the young Englishman
 
 142 Sn IbiQh {places 
 
 to her at the first convenient opportunity. Nor had 
 the Montbazon's fair foe, the flaxen-haired Anne de 
 Bourbon, Duchesse de Longueville, been unobservant 
 of the young foreigner ; so that there now needed but 
 some lucky accident to raise George Nameless from the 
 nether circle of Counsellors' and Colonels' wives, the 
 little noblesse of sword and gown, to that purer ether 
 where the highly born move at ease in an atmosphere 
 too rarefied for commoners to breathe with composure. 
 
 In one detail George's reception in the Royal ante- 
 chambers, flattering as it had been in a general way, 
 had disappointed his friend and master. The Cardinal, 
 who had seemed so startled at the resemblance between 
 the young man's features and his own mature counten- 
 ance, had never exhibited the friendly interest which 
 Mountain had hoped for, as a consequence of that 
 likeness. It was a foolish expectation no doubt, as 
 Mountain told George one night, when they were 
 supping tete-a-tete at the Pine Apple, a favourite tavern 
 in the Rue de la Juiverie, in the shadow of Notre Dame, 
 where they met ribald wits and satirical poets against 
 whom the doors of the Louvre were shut. 
 
 " I am ever a sanguine ass ! " he said, " and I was 
 an incorrigible ass to suppose that a man compounded 
 of equal parts of pride and selfishness would like you 
 any the better for reminding him at forty what a pretty 
 fellow he was at twenty. I dare wager he resents your 
 insolence in having brow, nose, and chin modelled after 
 his pattern. Those classic features are common enough 
 in Italy, no doubt, where the future mothers of the 
 race live and move surrounded by the masterpieces of 
 antiquity : but the French type is ruggeder, and follows 
 the aquiline of birds of prey rather than the delicate 
 lines of the Apollo or the Antinous — Francis I., for 
 instance, Henry IV., D'Enghien, a succession of hook- 
 nosed heroes. Well, you can prosper without help from 
 his Eminence, having caught the favour of the women, 
 whose liking is a surer road to fortune." 
 
 " I should be sorry to owe promotion to a woman's 
 help, unless "
 
 Ubc Moman's IReign 143 
 
 " Why that pause, and tender smile ? Unless ? " 
 
 " Unless that woman were Lady Llanbister. No 
 kindness from her would ever degrade or oppress me. 
 I should be grateful, but not humiliated ; and no service 
 she could demand in return would seem too much or 
 too low. I would be her lackey, would wear her livery, 
 if she bade me." 
 
 " Well, she may ask something perilous of you before 
 you have done with her. God knows when we shall see 
 the end of the troubles that have begun in England ; 
 and in the meantime all schemes for the re-establishment 
 of the old faith there must lie under, and wait for 
 smoother times. Now that the Royal standard is afloat, 
 and the crop-headed troops are gathering all over the 
 country, I question if Englishmen remember whether 
 they are Papists or Protestants. Rossetti has gone back 
 to Rome ; and Henrietta Maria has to think of trans- 
 muting pearls and diamonds into muskets and cannon. 
 It is an ill time for Mother Church when her sons are 
 cutting each other's throats. And thus you will observe 
 that Cardinal Mazarin sets little value upon your humble 
 servant. The use I may be to his mistress's sister-in-law 
 counts for nothing now that I can be of no use to 
 himself." 
 
 " You make him a monster of selfishness." 
 " Such monsters as most men are who push to the 
 front rank, by elbowing aside all rivals, as he has done. 
 Well, so far, he has not shown Richelieu's thirst for 
 blood. Monsieur de Paris complains that his office 
 is losing all distinction, and that he has nothing to do 
 but hang vulgar cut-purses, and serving wenches who 
 steal their mistresses' finery to captivate the 'prentices 
 on the quays." 
 
 It was on the following night that George found 
 himself for the first time in the presence of a woman 
 who was to exercise a stronger influence upon his fate 
 than any of those ladies of the Court and about the 
 Court who had hitherto favoured him with their smiles 
 and hospitalities. This new face flashed suddenly upon
 
 144 5n Ibigb places 
 
 him in that larger and thicker throng of the outer 
 saloon, where he stood behind one of the card-players, 
 watching a game at Jwcca, and impressed him at once 
 by its foreign splendour. He had by this time grown 
 familiar with the charms of all the Court beauties — 
 with Madame de Longueville's blue eyes and ilaxen 
 hair, and Madame de Montbazon's more imperious 
 features, with Madame de Hautefort's severe and refined 
 countenance, coldly aloof from the frivolous society with 
 which she mingled, as it were, under protest. His eye 
 had learnt the trick of most of those faces which the 
 enamels of Petitot have preserved for an admiring 
 posterity ; but this dark and glowing countenance, this 
 rich carnation bloom on a surface like old ivory, these 
 eyes that flashed like sunshine on a river, were new 
 to him. The lady moved amidst a bevy of babbling 
 friends, who had flocked about her eagerly as she entered 
 the room, and who were offering loquacious welcome. 
 
 " Was not Rome insufferably hot ? " " And how 
 many days had she spent on the journey ? " " And had 
 she escaped all alarms or molestation from brigands?" 
 "And how had she left the Holy Father ? "—with 
 innumerable questions of the same kind, to all of which 
 attentions the lady responded with a haughty careless- 
 ness, when she condescended to make any reply 
 whatever. For the most part she received this noisy 
 homage with the air of being stone deaf. 
 
 She was looking about the room for some one — those 
 dazzling eyes hurriedly exploring the faces of the 
 crowd, as one who seeks a single face among a thousand. 
 Then all at once those roving glances changed to a 
 long and earnest gaze, and George flushed crimson at 
 the idea that it was upon him the lady's attention was 
 fixed, and that he must needs have been the person 
 for whom she had been looking. It was strange as an 
 incident in a dream, and the strangeness of it took his 
 breath away, and set his heart thumping against his 
 ribs in a mixture of wonder and fear, as if some witch 
 had pierced him with a fatal glance from eyes that 
 shot death.
 
 XTbe Moman's IReian 145 
 
 Before he could recover himself the lady had passed 
 into the next saloon, still followed by her obsequious 
 courtiers ; and he tried to concentrate his attention upon 
 the game he had been watching, and to forget that 
 too brilliant face. 
 
 " The Marquise is as handsome as ever, and not a day 
 older," said one of the players, in an indifferent voice. 
 
 " Oh, those Italian women have tricks of the toilet 
 that can baffle time — unguents to rub out wrinkles, 
 and essences to revive the fire of handsome eyes. I 
 should not like to see Madame de Lussac before she 
 has made her morning toilet," 
 
 " She is far too wise to be seen at a disadvantage. 
 Nobody gets admittance to her ruelle till near dinner- 
 time. But I have explored her countenance closely, 
 in the broad daylight at Renard's Garden, and I give 
 you my honour, she owes nothing more to art than a 
 wash of pearl-white. Her eyebrows and lashes are as 
 genuine as Juno's — and the splendour of her eyes has 
 a deeper source than the apothecary's shop." 
 
 George could not long doubt that he had been the 
 object of the lady's glances, for while these gentlemen 
 were discussing the new-comer, one of Mazarin's in- 
 numerable hangers-on came to his elbow, and whispered 
 a startling message in his ear. 
 
 His Eminence desired to see him in the adjoining 
 room. Such a summons conferred infinite honour on 
 so obscure a person as Mr. Mountain's secretary ; for 
 the next saloon, if not the holy of holies where the 
 Queen generally sat alone with her Minister, was next 
 to that august chamber, and within earshot of her 
 Majesty. Those evening conferences were supposed to 
 be devoted chiefly to affairs of state ; for the Italian was 
 now almost as supreme in power as Richelieu had been, 
 and the formal and elaborate " Declaration " of the late 
 King, made upon his death-bed, reducing the Regency 
 to a formula, had fared no better than the testamentary 
 depositions of later monarchs — Louis XIV., George I., 
 for instance — and had been cancelled by Act of 
 Parliament. 
 
 10
 
 146 Sn Ibigb places 
 
 Mazarin was of an age and of a type to gain the 
 heart as well as the confidence of the Royal widow ; 
 and there were sentimental reasons why he should be 
 preferred, which Richelieu had foreseen, in his likeness 
 to that splendid Englishman whose audacious passion 
 had made the one brief romance of Anne's life. Who 
 could doubt that the lonely lady cherished the memory 
 of a too daring love, and that Mazarin's likeness to 
 George Villiers was a passport to the Queen's immediate 
 favour, and a reason why that favour should ripen into 
 a warmer feeling than the common friendship of a 
 sovereign for her prime minister ? 
 
 Of the woman's feelings the world knew little. A 
 strict and solemn etiquette guarded the Royal daughter 
 of Spain, even in the midst of a frivolous and adventur- 
 ous Court, The Queen was never known to converse 
 with her Minister within closed doors ; but it was 
 certain that all her evenings were spent in his company, 
 and in a quasi tete-d-tcte ; certain also that, supple, 
 insidious, many-sided, past-master in the art of making 
 others serve him, Mazarin's progress towards the posi- 
 tion of a second Richelieu had been as rapid as it 
 was unobtrusive. 
 
 The change from that outer assemblage of small 
 nobility to the room where the princes and magnates of 
 the land were gathered, impressed George as if he had 
 come into a new world. Here were the same amuse- 
 ments — the card-tables ; the musical instruments lying 
 about on tabourets, to be taken up by some casual 
 performer, and flung down again after an air had been 
 played, or a snatch of song accompanied ; the groups of 
 whisperers and titterers ; the shoulder-shrugs and dis- 
 dainful elbows. All things were in form the same ; but 
 the spirit was different. Here there was a grandeur that 
 awed him in spite of himself ; here he saw a splendour 
 of gold and gems that was subdued and harmonised by 
 the exquisite adjustment of fabric and colour in the 
 costumes alike of men and women ; and here, most of all, 
 there was a beauty of face and form which subordinated
 
 Ube XKHoman's IReion 147 
 
 the richness of dress to the brilliancy of the wearers. 
 The voices, the laughter, the movements, were like, yet 
 different. Here were the supernal forms, the celestial 
 ideals, the archetypal charms and graces of which all 
 others seemed but tawdry imitations. 
 
 True that amidst this assemblage of handsome men 
 and lovely women there were some forms more re- 
 markable for ugliness or eccentricity than for ideal 
 grace ; Conde, the unheroic father of the popular hero, 
 a small, mean figure, ill clad, unclean, with greasy hair 
 tucked behind his ears, yet the mark for everybody's 
 adulation ; Angouleme, last of a vanished race, off- 
 spring of Charles IX. and Marie Touchet, elderly, 
 gouty, basking in Court favour during an interval of 
 release from the Bastille, where he had spent the better 
 part of his life. Even the unbeautiful figures had 
 a distinction in the young adventurer's eyes ; for 
 here every figure was momentous in the making of 
 history, and almost every head was carried in peril 
 of the axe. 
 
 The courteous gentleman who had summoned George 
 threaded his way discreetly through this elegant assem- 
 bly, and led him to an alcove formed by the deep 
 embrasure of a window, in which recess Madame de 
 Lussac and Cardinal Mazarin were sitting apart, the lady 
 in one of those ponderous, high-backed armchairs which 
 are more comfortable than they look, the gentleman 
 humbly accommodated on a tabouret — that modest, 
 armless and backless seat, the right to occupy which in 
 the presence of the sovereign was ever a burning question 
 among the greatest ladies of the French Court. Some 
 there were, indeed, among those magnificent personages 
 — those Junos of the Louvre — who aspired to and claimed 
 this honour for half a century, and went down to their 
 graves unsatisfied. The tabouret was not for them. 
 
 " You are Mr. Mountain's secretary, I think, sir," said 
 the Cardinal, looking up in the midst of an earnest con- 
 versation, as the young man drew near, and surveying 
 him with a careless friendliness. 
 
 " Yes, your Eminence."
 
 148 5n IbiQb KMaces 
 
 " This Mountain is one of the innumerable slaves and 
 partisans of Madame de Chevreuse, and is devoted to 
 the good cause," said the Cardinal. " I am pleased to 
 make his secretary known to you, Marchesa, and hope 
 that he too may be serviceable by-and-bye, when King 
 Charles has put down the rebels, and England is calm 
 enough to think of spiritual things. The English 
 Catholics have need of all the help we can give them ; 
 and you have been ever a devoted daughter of the 
 Church." 
 
 " I have but little else to live for," answered the lady, 
 with a disdainful melancholy that struck George as the 
 saddest note he had ever heard from the lips of a 
 handsome woman. 
 
 That profound sadness was out of harmony with 
 Madame de Lussac's beauty, which was calculated rather 
 to dazzle and intoxicate the senses than to melt the 
 soul. He stood before her in more embarrassment than 
 he had felt since he had known the Queen Regent's 
 Court, wondering why he had been presented to her, 
 and suspicious of the Cardinal's motive in making the 
 presentation. 
 
 Mazarin rose and left them, with a courteous inclina- 
 tion to the lady. He passed through the throng of 
 notabilities, pausing here and there, now to murmur a 
 sentence into the ear of the Duchesse de Longueville, 
 lately married to a husband twice her age, but a model 
 of all the virtues ; now to buttonhole Marsillac, after- 
 wards La Rochefoucauld, who was generally to be found 
 in Madame de Longueville's vicinity ; saluting princes 
 and princesses of the blood Royal with the calm 
 assurance of one who knew that any notice from him 
 meant honour. The great Cardinal, he who lay asleep 
 in his grave in the Church of the Sorbonne, had moved 
 among them as a shape of fear, surrounded in the 
 imagination of some men by the spectral forms of those 
 whose judicial murder had helped in the making of his 
 new France, Marillac, Montmorency, Chalais, Cinq 
 Mars, De Thou. The trivial courtiers of a frivolous 
 Court had quailed and shrunk within themselves before
 
 Ube Moman's IReign 149 
 
 that quiet presence — the thin, crafty face, the look of 
 mental power lighting the attenuated clay. Few in 
 that splendid throng but had known bitter cause to 
 hate the Red Cardinal, in the bloody death of kinsman 
 or bosom friend. But this new master was of a 
 milder temper. Sleek, handsome, courteous, accomplished 
 in diplomatic evasion, rich in promises that were never 
 to be kept, he glided past them to the bower of his 
 Queen ; and the worst the common herd thought of 
 him, at this early period of his power, was embodied 
 in a licentious epigram, or jingled in a vulgar ballad. 
 
 The Marquise fanned herself languidly in a listless 
 silence, while George stood by the empty tabouret, lost 
 in wondering admiration, and awaiting her speech. He 
 told himself that she was handsomer than Lady Llan- 
 bister ; but of a beauty as different as night from day. 
 The lovely calm of the English matron's countenance 
 was wanting here. Passion had set its fiery brand upon 
 the low, broad brow, and about the full, ripe lips. There 
 were lines which told of a passionate youth, an adven- 
 turous womanhood, of love, and hate, and fear, and the 
 deep craft that comes where woman's life is a series of 
 great risks and petty stratagems, the trivial, pitiful arts 
 that recall the plover's ruses when she tries to lure 
 the sportsman from her nest. 
 
 " And so you are one of Marie de Rohan's great army 
 of martyrs," she said. " She will be here presently, I 
 doubt, the centre of a bevy of antique admirers, but 
 with her eyes ever on the door of her Majesty's 
 salon — waiting to be summoned, and assuming all the 
 airs of an adopted sister, the Queen's alter ego. How 
 strange that so clever a woman should ignore the 
 influence of time, and should return from banishment 
 expecting to find Queen Anne as fond of her as she 
 was eighteen years ago, when they intrigued with 
 Buckingham, and fooled Richelieu with false hopes ! 
 She comes back to find her old friend devoted to pious 
 works and meditations, and only caring for one person's 
 society. And she is short-sighted enough to plot against 
 that very person, and to measure a worn-out friendship
 
 15° 5n IbiQh IMaces 
 
 against a dawning love. She is still handsome, is she 
 not ? Are you one of her ardent admirers ? " 
 
 " Nay, madame, I have never been in the Duchess's 
 company." 
 
 " But you have had a finger in her plots ? Your 
 master is one of her emissaries." 
 
 "Any plotting in which my master has been con- 
 cerned has been of an innocent kind, and for a good 
 cause." 
 
 " Every cause is good till it fails — and then 'tis rank 
 treason ; and the next step is to the scaffold. You have 
 a good face, sir, and I should not like to hear your head 
 had paid forfeit — as it surely will if you ally yourself with 
 ^/lat lady. She is a born conspirator, and never easy 
 save when she is the central spinner in a web of intrigue. 
 She will spin such fetters about you as only the axe can 
 loosen. The Cardinal never showed himself so much 
 Richelieu's inferior as when he cancelled the late King's 
 veto and suffered the return of that firebrand." 
 
 " You speak harshly of a lady who has at least been 
 faithful to her religion and to her Queen, madame, and 
 who has suffered cruel hardships and reverses." 
 
 " You are young, sir, and apt to believe that a 
 handsome woman must needs be a persecuted saint. 
 I know what value to set upon Marie de Rohan's 
 affection for that kind, weak lady whom she once ruled, 
 and whose maturer wisdom would fain keep her at a 
 distance. I cannot say more in this place," she added 
 hurriedly, as she rose to meet a lady who had newly 
 entered, and who v/as approaching her with the smile 
 of pleased greeting. " Come to my house to-morrow 
 morning before eleven. You may chance to find me 
 alone at that hour, though my chamber will be crowded 
 at noon. My own Marie, you are younger and lovelier 
 by a decade than when wc parted in Spain ! I have 
 been longing for your arrival, my soul," she exclaimed, 
 as she and the new-comer sank gracefully to about 
 half their height, in the perfection of Court curtsies, 
 then rose again and kissed each other airily on either 
 check.
 
 Ube Moman's IRclan 151 
 
 " Dearest H61oisc, it would need the poetry of Voiture 
 or the wit of Balzac to praise your charms. My scanty 
 feminine vocabulary lacks words. Yet I can at least 
 assure thee that 'tis a glimpse of Paradise to meet thee 
 after such long separation. Was it at Rome or Madrid 
 we last saw each other ? " 
 
 " Who is that lady with the conquering nose and 
 the rose-coloured velvet robe ? " George asked a gentle- 
 man who stood near him in the crowd in the doorway, 
 watching the meeting of these two splendid ladies. 
 
 " Do you not know her ? She is the most famous 
 woman in France — the heroine of a dozen romances : 
 the Duchesse de Chevreuse."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 SPLENDID PATRONAGE. 
 
 Being bidden to visit the lovely Italian lady before 
 eleven, George, in his desire to obey, was at the door 
 of the Hotel de Lussac ten minutes after ten. The 
 house was a palace on a small scale, and lay between 
 the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the Seine, 
 the gardens extending to the river bank. 
 
 A groom of the chambers led George up a broad 
 oak staircase, with richly carved panelling, and massive 
 newels surmounted by the escutcheon of the De Lussacs, 
 a bastion tower sable^ on a crusader's shield or — remi- 
 niscent of a De Lussac's prowess before the walls of 
 Acre — and past a long line of dead and gone De 
 Lussacs, whose pictured faces gloomed through the 
 dimness of a gallery lighted by casements set in such 
 deep embrasures and divided by such heavy mullions 
 that the small panes of glass seemed to admit gloom 
 rather than light. 
 
 One of Madame de Lussac's women was waiting for 
 the visitor, midway between the staircase and her 
 mistress's apartments. 
 
 " You are before your time, monsieur," she said, " but 
 Madame has taken her chocolate, and is willing to 
 receive you." 
 
 The woman spoke French with a strong Italian 
 accent, and her dark olive complexion, blue-black hair, 
 and deep-sunk eyes under heavy black brows, suggested 
 a Southern lineage. She was short and thick-set, richly 
 
 152
 
 Splenbtb patronage 153 
 
 dressed in black brocade, her lawn kerchief fastened 
 with a large single diamond, a gem that seemed alive 
 in the broken light of the gallery. She kept her sombre 
 eyes upon the young man, with a severe and, as he 
 thought, unfriendly, scrutiny, as she walked beside him 
 to her lady's door. 
 
 " Here is your visitor, Marchesa," she said, pushing 
 back the tapestry portiere and entering the room before 
 him — " impatient and in advance of time, as hot-headed 
 youth ever is." 
 
 " Come hither. Monsieur Georges," said a languid 
 voice, from the distance of an immense bed, mounted 
 on an estrade, and of an architectural solidity that would 
 have sufficed for a church, "and do not heed my 
 woman's surly speech, who takes the utmost licence 
 accorded to an old servant." 
 
 Madame de Lussac's bedchamber was even darker 
 than the gallery, for the casements here were shadowed 
 by voluminous velvet curtains, and the splendour of 
 a Florentine toilet table, crowded with gold and crystals, 
 glittered across a prevailing twilight. The bed was 
 curtained as heavily as the five narrow windows, and 
 George could only faintly divine the pale face of the 
 Marquise, and a pair of flashing eyes looking at him 
 earnestly, as she supported herself upon her elbow, 
 in a reclining attitude, the fashionable posture in which 
 to receive morning visitors. 
 
 Two young women were seated at a distant window, 
 both working upon the same satin robe, engaged in 
 scrutinising and repairing the embroidery, which had 
 cost years of labour, and had but just escaped spoiling 
 in the mob at the first performance of Corneille's new 
 tragedy, at the Hotel de Bourgogne. 
 
 " Take your work into the next room, Louison," said 
 the Marquise ; and the two girls rose, curtsied to the 
 ground, and disappeared through a door near the 
 window by which they had been sitting. " And you, 
 too, Signora." 
 
 The elder woman did not obey, but walked to the 
 bedside.
 
 154 5n fbiQb places 
 
 "Madame will be wanting her smelling-salts, or her 
 pillows shifted," she said. " I had better stay." 
 
 " Madame desires nothing but to be alone with this 
 young gentleman. Go ! " 
 
 The slender white hand pointed imperiously to the 
 door through which the two girls had vanished. The 
 Signora gave an angry sniff, and marched out of the 
 room, her shoulders drawn up to her ears in a sullen 
 shrug, her high heels pattering on the polished floor with 
 a rapidity which indicated mental irritation. 
 
 "Sit down, sir," said the Marquise, pointing to a 
 tabouret on the estrade between the wall and the bed. 
 " There is no worse tyrant than an old servant. I 
 recommend you to change yours once in three years." 
 
 " I serve my master, madame, and have no servants I 
 dare call my own." 
 
 "They will come in due time. You will have your 
 own establishment perhaps sooner than your modesty 
 anticipates. The Cardinal is interested in you." 
 
 "He has been slow to exhibit his interest, madame ; 
 and indeed, I know not why he should be interested." 
 
 " Do you not know that you are like him ? " 
 
 The lady's haughty indolence had changed to an 
 almost feverish intensity. She was indeed a woman in 
 whom the light and fire of life burnt fiercely, and her 
 speech was energetic, and her manner keenly earnest, 
 whenever she deigned to be herself, and to throw aside 
 that assumption of languid insolence which she main- 
 tained as a part of her splendour. This morning, in the 
 gloom of the airless ruelle, in an atmosphere heavy with 
 Oriental perfumes, leaning upon her elbow in a dhhabille 
 of lace and cambric, her form half buried in a large 
 down pillow, the Marquise was intensely herself. Seldom 
 had eyes so ardent and so searching fixed themselves 
 upon the young man's countenance ; and he felt his own 
 eyelids fall under that feverish scrutiny. 
 
 " Come," she cried impatiently, " you must have dis- 
 covered that you arc like him — as like as a son might 
 be — if he had a son." 
 
 " I caught our faces reflected in a mirror, Madame la
 
 SplenM& pati'onaae 155 
 
 Marquise, and I noted a resemblance — but such a like- 
 ness between strangers is a common circumstance, and 
 no ground for the Cardinal's liking." 
 
 " I said nothing of liking ; but I say that he is 
 interested in your career — and that he can push your 
 fortune. He can, he must ! He is not wholly adamant, 
 not compacted, head and heart, of impenetrable self-love. 
 And now tell me something of yourself. I know that 
 your master is an adventurer — and dangerous, like all 
 adventurers, a man of the Campion breed. But I want 
 to know what you are. Imprimis, how old are you ? " 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " Not know your own age ? That is strange." 
 
 " There are other things that I do not know : the 
 place where I was born ; the name of the mother 
 who bore me. In a word, Madame la Marquise, I 
 am one of those unhappy creatures who have no 
 history." 
 
 She drew a deep breath, and her face glowed as she 
 looked at him. 
 
 " I thought as much," she said. " You do not look 
 like common clay. If your past is a blank, so much 
 the better for your future. You have to be the beginner 
 of a great race. I hope you are ambitious." 
 
 He sighed, and was slow to answer, remembering his 
 conversation with Lady Llanbister, and how in that 
 discourse he had forsworn all vulgar ambition, desiring 
 only to be worthy of that revered lady's friendship. 
 But this woman had the power to kindle fiercer fires. 
 She breathed her own passion into him, as she bent 
 over him, with flashing eyes, and lips tremulous with 
 excitement. 
 
 " Surely you are ambitious ! Young, handsome, 
 intelligent — why, you would be but a dull clod of earth 
 if you did not hunger for fame and fortune ! " 
 
 " I am nothing, Madame la Marquise, and must needs 
 desire to be something." 
 
 " I will help you. I will be your lucky star. I 
 am a childless woman. My husband is a great soldier 
 — old enough to be my father, and loves the camp
 
 156 5n Ibiab iplaces 
 
 better than his fireside. I am always lonely — yes, 
 in the midst of the crowd where you saw me last 
 night — lonely, and an alien, and sometimes very 
 wretched. I will be your guiding star. But you 
 must tell me the story of your childhood. Were you 
 brought up in France ? You speak French like a 
 Frenchman." 
 
 " I came to France when I was a child — and have 
 lived but a short time in England. I have been a 
 wanderer, for the most part, with my friend and master, 
 Francis Mountain, with whom my fortunes are closely 
 bound. If you are to help me, madame, you will have 
 to help him." 
 
 " You begin to dictate to me already. Well, I will 
 do what I can for your friend. You came to France 
 while a child, you say. But where did you live before 
 you came to France ? " 
 
 "In England, madame, like an English peasant's 
 child." 
 
 She was silent, and seemed surprised at this state- 
 ment. 
 
 " In England, reared in England — as an English 
 peasant's child. But surely you were not born in 
 England — you have no British blood in your veins ? " 
 
 " I have told you, madame, that it is my misfortune 
 not to know my parentage. But my earliest memories 
 are of England ; and I have ever thought myself an 
 Englishman." 
 
 " That cannot be," she answered, in her quick, eager 
 way. " You have no quality of that phlegmatic race, 
 which produces genius and beauty only once in a 
 quarter of a century, and succeeds a Villiers, modelled 
 in the likeness of a Greek god, with a heavy-featured 
 provincial like Wentworth. Believe me, you are no 
 Englishman. A child's memory reaches not further 
 back than his third year ; and what vicissitudes may 
 you not have passed through before your infancy awoke 
 to consciousness ! You found yourself in England — in 
 a peasant's cottage. You had been carried there by 
 those who had custody of you. You understand, do
 
 SplcnbiD patronage 157 
 
 you not ? You were carried there, over land and sea. 
 You were not born in that dull island, under that 
 leaden sky ! " 
 
 She leant over him as she spoke, and laid a feverish 
 hand on his ; and the fire in those Italian eyes held 
 him like a witch's charm as she bent her eager face 
 nearer, till he felt her breath upon his cheek. Was 
 there not some touch of lunacy in this strange eager- 
 ness, some hallucination hanging to a troubled history 
 which he knew not, and thus lacked the key to her 
 strange conduct? 
 
 " Truly, madame, I know not how I may have been 
 buffeted about in those years of unconsciousness. I 
 may have been saved from the sea like Shakespeare's 
 Marina, or suckled by a wolf, like him who founded 
 Rome, and who, doubtless, remembered not his brute- 
 foster-mother ; but I know that I love the dull island 
 you despise, and have friends there who make it the 
 dearest country on earth for me, and so shall ever deem 
 myself of English birth, till I receive proof positive of 
 another origin. 
 
 The Marquise had sunk back among her pillows, 
 and answered him with the languid air of one whose 
 interest in his affairs had been but a caprice of the 
 moment. 
 
 " Oh, you have friends in England ? That makes a 
 difference. A sweetheart perhaps." 
 
 " No, madame ; the lady I most honour, and from 
 whom I have received most kindness, is a lady of 
 mature years, the wife of a noble gentleman, who 
 resembles the Marquis de Lussac in being his wife's 
 senior by over a quarter of a century." 
 
 " And the lady is as unhappy as I am, I'll warrant, 
 with her ancient tyrant and jail-keeper." 
 
 " Indeed, no, Madame la Marquise. My dear lady's 
 husband is no tyrant, and his wife honours and loves 
 him, and has ever been contented with her lot." 
 
 " Contented ? Ah, she is an Englishwoman, and 
 phlegmatic ! So long as she can eat three heavy 
 meals a day, and is not too asthmatic to waddle to
 
 is8 3n Ibigb DMaces 
 
 her coach, or too fat to squeeze herself into it, she is 
 content. Why do you laugh, sir ? " 
 
 " At your fancy portrait of an unknown lady." 
 
 " Have I hit her off so exactly ? " 
 
 " You have described her very opposite. Lady 
 Llanbister is tall and slim, and has a step as light 
 and as quick as if she had seen but twenty summers." 
 
 " Llanbister ! I have heard her name from the Queen. 
 Is she not a friend of Marie de Rohan's ? " 
 
 " She is a devoted servant of Queen Henrietta, and 
 interested in all that concerns her Majesty." 
 
 " That means that she is deep in the Catholic plot. 
 Let her take good heed lest she hazards that beautiful 
 head of hers. Holland tells me your Puritan rabble in 
 England are growing ever more dangerous." 
 
 " Alas, madame, religion has become but of secondary 
 import in England since the King and the Parliament 
 have been at war. It is no longer a creed that is in 
 danger, but a Crown, and the question is whether that 
 country is to remain faithful to the last of its long line 
 of kings, or is to be ruled by a little knot of dema- 
 gogues, the disciples and successors of that master 
 spirit, John Pym, whose fiery soul was suddenly called 
 away last December, following swiftly on his murdered 
 victim, Strafford." 
 
 " I have heard of your demagogue leaders. This 
 Pym was of the great Cardinal's temper, and trusted 
 to the headsman's axe to hew down abuses." 
 
 "The execution of Lord Strafford was a judicial 
 murder, madame, so remorseless and determined that 
 one would fear for the most sacred life in England 
 in the power of that ruthless faction, who pretend to 
 strive for a people's rights, yet would be worse despots 
 than the Indian Emperor, had they the upper hand." 
 
 " Your King should be able to deal with a single 
 parliament, assembled over against his own palace. 
 Our late King had to deal with many parliaments, and 
 with provincial governors, each of whom was a king in 
 little. Had Strafford been as great as Richelieu, Pym 
 and his confederate would have cumbered the scaffold."
 
 SplenMt) patronage 159 
 
 A clock on the chimney-piece chimed the half-hour. 
 
 "Au revoi'r, Mend" said the lady. "I shall have all 
 the world here presently. Come at supper-time to- 
 morrow — ten o'clock — and I will show you my fine 
 friends. They sup with me of a Thursday night, when 
 they leave the Louvre." 
 
 " I shall be pleased to come, madame, if I may bring 
 my friend and master, Mr. Mountain." 
 
 In spite of Madame de Lussac's gracious permission, 
 George went to her supper-party unaccompanied. 
 Mountain had business for that evening. 
 
 " And were I free to choose, I confess that I prefer a 
 night at the Pine Apple or the Crab-tree to the finest 
 company in a great lady's house. I like to hear the 
 sound of my own voice, which I should not do there. I 
 like to drink out of a deeper tankard than her lackeys 
 would fill for me. I like to stretch these long legs of 
 mine under a tavern table, and to laugh and argue 
 with some of the cleverest men in France — all of 
 which I can do without being beholden to Madame 
 de Lussac." 
 
 " I fear you bear some ill-will to the lady." 
 
 " Not I. But she is ill friends with some whose liking 
 I value, and I must not consort with her. For you she 
 may prove a good friend, and I recommend you to make 
 the most of your fortune in having won her countenance 
 She is Mazarin's country-woman, and they have ever 
 been close allies. So to know her should lead to pro- 
 motion. There are hundreds of offices and sinecures at 
 his disposal, any one of which would provide for the rest 
 of your life." 
 
 " I do not look so far, Frank. But I confess myself 
 curious about the lady. There was something in her 
 speech and manner this morning which would have 
 piqued any man's curiosity." 
 
 " Body o' me ! " cried Mountain, with a broad laugh, 
 " and was it the first time that a handsome woman of 
 forty set you wondering why she was so civil ? " 
 
 " Your speech and your grin are an insult to a lady
 
 i6o 5n Ibtgb places 
 
 whose behaviour was innocent of all improper freedom. 
 She talked to me of her childless condition, her solitary 
 home." 
 
 " She may be on the look-out for an adopted son, and 
 may think that you have a good figure for the situation. 
 I have heard the lady's character, and am prepared for 
 anything strange or romantic — a woman of vehement 
 passions and sudden caprices ; a restless, unsatisfied 
 spirit, married to a man she hates, and who reciprocates 
 her dislike ; a wanderer at home and abroad — now 
 buried alive at the Chateau de Lussac, in the desolate 
 country between Marseilles and Montpelier, now living 
 like a princess at Venice or at Rome, the friend of 
 cardinals and ambassadors. She has been ever a 
 dangerous woman, George ; yet she has the power to 
 be your very good friend ! " 
 
 "Since when have you been so familiar with her 
 character and history, Frank ? You would tell me 
 nothing about her when I questioned you last night." 
 
 " Would not because I could not, George. I have 
 talked to-day with one who knows H^loise de Lussac 
 well." 
 
 " And hates her, as I guess from your discourse." 
 
 " Nay, George, who loves her just as much as one 
 handsome, adventurous woman is wont to love another. 
 Kiss and claw, George, claw and kiss ! 'Tis the 
 women's way." 
 
 " 'Twas with Madame de Chevreuse thou wert con- 
 fabulating ; the woman against whom the Marquise 
 warned me. " 
 
 " Another of their ways, George. When a woman 
 knows that her friend knows too much about her, she 
 takes pains to spread the opinion that the said friend is 
 a dangerous liar, and so lays a foundation of doubt 
 beforehand." 
 
 " You are determined to make me think ill of this 
 lady ; but if your informant be Madame de Chevreuse, 
 as I guess " 
 
 " A man is no nearer the truth for guessing, George. 
 'Tis a cheap privilege, which I will not deny thee."
 
 SpIen^i^ patronaae i6i 
 
 In his morning visit to the Hotel de Lussac George 
 had seen only the gloomy staircase and gallery, where 
 the pictures and furniture had undergone but little 
 change since that never-to-be-forgotten eve of Saint 
 Bartholomew when the life-blood of a dying fugitive had 
 splashed the outer door, and the massive oak had re- 
 verberated with the blows of savage pursuers, yelling 
 threats of vengeance against the Papist household that 
 dared to shelter a heretic. His evening view of the 
 same house was a revelation, for he was now introduced 
 to salons and salle-d-manger furnished and decorated with 
 the elaborate splendour of the Italian Renaissance, and 
 with a luxury of gold and colour and mosaic and inlaid 
 work that surpassed the somewhat faded magnificence 
 of the Louvre. Here taste had gone hand in hand with 
 outlay, and the young man's eye, educated by the riches 
 of the King's cabinet at Whitehall, was quick to mark 
 the pencil of Raffaelle and Titian upon the walls, and 
 the c}iefs-d'(2uvye of the goldsmith's art which adorned 
 the supper-table. 
 
 Dazzled by the brilliancy of the scene, and flattered 
 by the infinite kindness of his hostess, George felt as 
 one who has passed from the dull grey of life into 
 the rainbow glory of a dream. 
 
 The party assembled at that exquisite table, in the 
 light of a hanging candelabrum that held a hundred 
 wax candles, was small and distinguished. Madame de 
 Longueville and her young sister-in-law, the Duchesse 
 d'Enghien, Richelieu's niece, still scarce more than a 
 child, were present ; and they alone would have sufficed 
 for distinction. Beaufort, young, handsome, popular, 
 and arrogant ; De Retz, the Coadjutor, newly elevated 
 to a dignity for which his habits and ideas were 
 curiously unfit ; the Due d'Angouleme ; Bassompierre, 
 radiant after release from the Bastille, leaning across 
 the table to compliment Madame de Longueville on 
 her brother's victory. 
 
 " 'Tis the first time in history that a battle has 
 been won for a king of four years old on the fourth 
 day of his reign, and by the youngest general in France 
 
 II
 
 i62 Sn mQb places 
 
 Ah, friends, 'tis youth now that throws the double sixes. 
 We of a bye-gone generation, we who have danced 
 and drunk with the Bearnais, and touched glasses with 
 the lovely Gabrielle, may draw down our night-caps 
 and blow out the candle." 
 
 Even among men of the oldest blood in France, the 
 most distinguished guest was the Italian Cardinal, who 
 came in late as the company were finishing supper, a 
 brilliant figure in his scarlet robe, veiled by a rochet of 
 Venetian lace, and exhaling an atmosphere of perfume 
 from his flowing garments as he moved along the room. 
 His moustache was curled as carefully as that of the 
 youngest fopling in Paris, but the handsome face had 
 a languid look. He came straight from his evening 
 tete-d-tcte with the Queen, and had the air of not having 
 greatly enjoyed that privilege, which, in spite of open 
 doors and Court ceremonial, was the subject of many 
 a slanderous insinuation and many a malignant epigram. 
 He would eat nothing, nor would he take wine. He 
 sank wearily into the gilded chair which the lackeys 
 brought for him from a dais under a canopy at the 
 end of the room, where Royal guests were wont to 
 sit, and he took a bunch of grapes and a glass of water 
 from the fair hands of his hostess, while the assembly 
 hung upon his words. He had a civil speech for each 
 of the more distinguished among the party — a com- 
 pliment for the fair-haired Duchess, a jest for old 
 Bassompierre, a friendly nod for De Retz, whom he 
 patronised, and for Beaufort, whom he hated and feared ; 
 but there was the languor of exhaustion and low spirits 
 in his voice and manner, and the hand that lifted the 
 heavy crystal goblet was faintly tremulous. George 
 watched him wondcringly from his place behind 
 Madame de Longueville's tabouret, that lovely lady 
 having condescended to take particular notice of the 
 untitled youth whom her hostess had presented to her. 
 
 " I love strange faces," she told him. " The world 
 we live in at Paris is so stale that a new face is almost 
 as welcome as a new volume by the inimitable Scud^ri." 
 
 Madame de Lussac's violins struck up in the adjoining
 
 SpIen^i^ ipatronaoe 163 
 
 saloji, and played the first movement of a favourite 
 coranto ; and the folding doors were flung open, reveal- 
 ing the perspective of brilliantly lighted rooms full of 
 company. The great world of the Louvre had followed 
 the Cardinal to Madame de Lussac's " night," as they 
 would have followed him to the wickedest or the 
 meanest house in Paris, self-interest pointing the way. 
 
 " Do not wait for me, gentlemen," said the Cardinal. 
 " Your partners are on tip-toe for the coranto. I'll 
 warrant my fair Duchesse d'Enghien has learnt by this 
 time how to dance upon a polished floor with safety 
 as well as with grace." 
 
 " Indeed, your Eminence, it was not the floor but 
 my petticoat that made me fall," cried the Duchess, 
 with a piteous little grimace, amidst the laughter of the 
 company. " And I wonder how long impertinent people 
 are going to remember an accident that happened when 
 I was a child ? " 
 
 " Your Grace is taller by half a head since your 
 marriage," said the Cardinal. "And I'll wager you 
 can walk a coranto as gracefully as your husband, who 
 was ever first in the ball-room, as he is first in the 
 field." 
 
 " If he were here, no one would venture to laugh at 
 me," pouted the Duchess. 
 
 " Let me be his deputy," laughed her sister-in-law, 
 looking round at the company with a serio-comic 
 defiance, her beautiful head, with its aureole of pale 
 gold hair, flung back in that proud attitude which so 
 well accorded with her Royal lineage. " I challenge 
 this company to show proper reverence to my brother's 
 wife, who was thirteen on her last birthday, and who 
 is vastly ofi"ended that anybody should be so ill-bred 
 as to remember that she tumbled down in the opening 
 dance at the Palais Cardinal on her wedding-night." 
 
 " You are as bad as the rest of them, sister," cried 
 the little Duchess, as old Bassompierre led her off, with 
 the stately air of one who had been trained in the art 
 of motion when Henry IV. was king. 
 
 Madame de Longueville followed with Marsillac, and
 
 i64 5n llDiGb places 
 
 Beaufort with Madame de Liancourt, whose company 
 poorly atoned for the absence of his latest divinity, the 
 magnificent Madame de Montbazon, the handsomest 
 and most audacious of the Court houris, whose quarrel 
 with the Duchesse de Longueville had agitated all the 
 great world of Paris, and whose exile from the Court 
 Beaufort deeply resented. 
 
 The dance began, and the Cardinal remained seated 
 at the head of the table in the salle-a-manger, from 
 whence he could watch the dancers, while he con- 
 versed with the Marquise, who sat on a tabouret at 
 his side. 
 
 "You look ill and weary," said Heloise, when they 
 were alone. 
 
 " How should I be otherwise ? Do I lie on a bed of 
 roses? Look at all those smiling faces. Note the 
 subservience of your friends. Observe Beaufort's frank, 
 manly air. I have reason to know that he has been 
 plotting my death for the last month, thinking that were 
 I underground he might recover his influence over the 
 Queen, and become to all intents and purposes Regent 
 of France. The stakes are high, you see ; and Gabrielle's 
 grandson has always been a bold player." 
 
 "You have the Queen on your side — your devoted, 
 your loving friend— whose affection must be your strong 
 rock," urged Heloise, with a smile that betrayed the 
 bitterness lurking behind her speech. 
 
 " Her affection," echoed Mazarin. " Her affection my 
 strong rock ! My shifting sand, rather, Heloise ! The 
 one thing in this world of which I am least certain is 
 the Queen's favour. I know that Beaufort hates me. 
 I know that Marie de Rohan is capable of planning 
 my death. Nay, that bold, adventurous witch who 
 rode a califourchoii to Spain— a beardless cavalier in 
 black velvet — ready to fling aside doublet and hose, 
 and exchange the handsome hidalgo for the beautiful 
 bacchante, at any stage of her journey— would as lief 
 hold the knife herself, as trust it to a hireling. I 
 know that she has the two Campions in her pay — one 
 her lover— both her slaves. All this 1 know. But
 
 SplenM& patronage 165 
 
 whether the Queen values or loves me ; whether, when 
 she seems to yield to my counsel, to defer to me as 
 a pupil to a master, to look up to me as a novice to 
 her Abbess, she is but using me as her tool — the living 
 rampart between her and her foes ; and whether, if 
 the hour of failure came, and she saw me weak and 
 beaten, she would fling me to the wolves ; — is a riddle 
 that I dare not answer. I dare not say I am sure of 
 that woman." 
 
 " Is she so vile a creature ? Do you so loathe the 
 being you are said to love — your mistress, your adoring 
 mistress ? " 
 
 " That is a lie, Heloifse, and you know it." 
 
 " Is it a He ? To-night, perhaps ! But will it be a 
 lie always ? " 
 
 Mazarin's brow darkened, and he sat silent. The 
 lively music of the twenty-nine violins, and the anima- 
 tion of the dance, were loud enough to prevent the 
 possibility of any speech of these two being overheard, 
 however energetic ; and Mazarin's denunciation of the 
 lady's slander had been intense rather than vehement. 
 
 " There was a time when you thought yourself 
 invincible," Heloise said, searching his brooding couten- 
 ance with her brilliant eyes, rapping his listless hand 
 sharply with her fan, as it lay languidly upon the arm 
 of the chair, to recall his attention. " But perhaps you 
 feel that the age of boudoir victories is past, and that, 
 with the Cardinal's robe, you have assumed a more 
 venerable character. If I count myself an old woman 
 you can scarce consider yourself a young man." 
 
 " Your adorable sex ages earlier than our ruggedness 
 — as delicate flowers wither in the frost which leaves 
 the oak unscathed." 
 
 " But you must feel that youth is past — youth which 
 alone is invincible. Forgive me for slandering the 
 Queen. I can believe that there is nothing but a stately 
 friendship in her regard for you. Beaufort is as hand- 
 some as Apollo ; a bold, reckless devil, too, as you 
 say, with all the gallantry and romance of his Royal 
 grandfather. If the Queen is human enough to
 
 1 66 Sn mQb places 
 
 entertain a tenderness for any man living, Beaufort 
 must needs be the man." 
 
 " Your lively wit ever hits the mark, c//ere d^ne," 
 answered Mazarin, in those dulcet tones the courtiers 
 knew so well. " If Buckingham has had — or is to have 
 — a successor in Anne's lukewarm affections, Beaufort 
 is the man. Yet she is so profound a dissimulator, so 
 apt a pupil of that arch-hypocrite, the late King, that 
 I should not wonder if, half a year hence, the world, 
 and even you, Heloi'se, may think that I am the 
 favourite ; should I live so long, dz'en entendu." 
 
 " Why do you move about Paris with only a couple 
 of lackeys behind your coach ? Why go from the 
 Louvre to your house on foot and alone, if you fear 
 assassination? " 
 
 " I do noty^^r, Heloise. I no more fear death to-day 
 than sixteen years ago at Casal, when I rode between 
 the cross fire of adverse armies, bareheaded, a messenger 
 of peace." 
 
 Her face flushed, and her eyes sparkled at the 
 recollection his words evoked. 
 
 " Ah, you were a soldier, then, Julio, not a diplomatist. 
 That was a glorious day ! Dieu, how the time comes 
 back to me ! And all you were then — and all I was ! 
 Sixteen years ! What has the interval made of us 
 both ? " 
 
 " It has made you a woman of the world, and me 
 the inheritor of Richelieu's policy, and Richelieu's 
 enemies. If I talked of the dangers that hem my path, 
 it was not because I fear the men and women whose 
 servility is only a mask for their hatred — any more 
 than the great Cardinal feared his inexorable foes. 
 But it is harassing to have to reckon with a company 
 of traitors ; to clasp hands that are itching to pull the 
 trigger or thrust the poignard home. It is harassing 
 to walk through streets where a dozen trained murderers 
 may be standing in the shadow of projecting gables, 
 pistols cocked, swords unsheathed." 
 
 " Why not ask the Queen for a guard ? " 
 
 " Never ! She shall offer one. Till she docs I will
 
 SplenMb ipatronaoe 167 
 
 take my chance. She would be sorry, perhaps, if she 
 heard that her faithful servant's mutilated corpse had 
 been found behind a buttress of Saint-Germain, within 
 a stone's throw of her palace. Enough, Heloi'sc ! I 
 talk to you as I dare talk to none other — except my 
 secret journal — and even there I never trust myself to 
 write in French, for fear of broken locks and prying 
 eyes." 
 
 " I am glad you honour me with your confidence," 
 said the Marquise, still with the same sub-acid tone 
 and ironical smile, " even though every other feeling is 
 dead." 
 
 " Time and death are synonymous, chere. Something 
 of us dies every day we live. You must not be angry 
 with me because I am mortal. Across that long per- 
 spective of past years, since we fought for the Valteline, 
 think how many brilliant figures have passed — how 
 many and how powerful reasons the lovely Heloise de 
 Lussac has had for being somewhat oblivious of an old 
 friend in a black robe ! " 
 
 " I have been what the world, and you, have made 
 me. 
 
 " You have not hidden your beauty in the wilderness, 
 with Mary Magdalene, or sought escape from life's 
 allurements behind a convent gate. My dear Heloi'se, 
 you have done well to enjoy life's too brief summer. 
 There is plenty of time for the woollen habit and the 
 scourge. I see you have brought that young English- 
 man into your house. Was it wise, do you think ? " 
 
 Her check flushed angrily as she retorted, " Where 
 was the unwisdom ? " 
 
 " On his account, I think, you have been ill-advised. 
 To bring him into a circle so far above him is to incul- 
 cate discontent. He has already a fearlessness that 
 would soon become insolence. He is not likely to make 
 friends among your visitors ; and he is more than likely 
 to make enemies." 
 
 " How can you talk of him as if he were some low- 
 born wretch who ought to be in the kitchen, scraping 
 trenchers ? "
 
 1 68 5n 1bigb places 
 
 " Better in the kitchen, than where he may give 
 umbrage to one of your noble friends, who would refuse 
 to fight with a roturier, and might order his lackeys to 
 wait at your door and horsewhip the offender. Do you 
 think that Marsillac, or Beaufort, or De Retz, would 
 show much forbearance to a youth without friends or 
 pedigree ? " 
 
 H^loise rose from her seat with a movement of 
 uncontrollable impatience. 
 
 " He has one friend who would go through fire and 
 water to serve him," she said, trembling with angry 
 feeling. " Oh, you have a heart of ice — you — to talk 
 of his pedigree — you, who ought to be proud, enraptured, 
 to have found " 
 
 " To have found what ? An English adventurer of 
 twenty-two years old, or so, who happens to be like 
 what I was at the same age. I regret my folly in 
 calling your attention to an accidental likeness." 
 
 " He is not of English birth — and the fact that he 
 has spent his infancy in England helps to identify him. 
 He speaks French as no Englishman ever spoke." 
 
 " Would that prove him of Italian lineage ? I have 
 made myself acquainted with his history. This youth 
 is a cosmopolitan, a hanger-on of that half-gipsy adven- 
 turer, Francis Mountain — who in turn is a hanger-on 
 of La Chevreuse. Had I thought you would take this 
 business so seriously, H^loise, I would have let that 
 young man perish sooner than challenge your interest 
 in him." 
 
 Her eyes flashed sudden fury. 
 
 " You would have let him perish — yes ! If he is 
 the man I hope — the man I believe him to be — it is 
 by no merit of yours that he is still upon this earth, 
 and not under it. You would have liked that better, 
 perhaps." 
 
 " You do ill to upbraid me because I held your good 
 repute higher than any other consideration. But you 
 were ever a creature of violent caprices, and no man 
 could prophesy from which quarter the wind of passion 
 would blow. If he is the man you think him, what
 
 SplenMt) patronage 169 
 
 then? Two-and-twenty years ago you had but one 
 prayer — that your son's existence might not disgrace 
 you. Do you want to invite disgrace now ? Remember 
 that though the world we Hve in may seldom reckon 
 the number of a great lady's adorers, it will be less 
 indulgent to the woman who dares to acknowledge a 
 nameless son, unless she can father him upon a king." 
 
 " Acknowledge him ! You know that I could not 
 acknowledge him. You know that De Lussac's heart 
 is hard as the nether millstone. He would have no 
 mercy. Two-and-twenty years ago ! True, I prayed 
 only that I might be saved from the world's contempt 
 — from a father's cruelty. The future was before me — 
 a great marriage — a brilliant career — to be the mother 
 of a noble line — brave sons — lovely daughters. Now 
 I have only the past. God's curse was upon my 
 marriage — and on my offspring. The daughter I 
 worshipped withered in my arms — faded on my bosom 
 — and no other child came to fill the vacant place. 
 My husband's heart hardened against me. I am a 
 desolate woman, loveless, friendless, solitary in the 
 midst of fine company. I have no hope for my old 
 age, except the hope of finding the child whose birth 
 was my despair." 
 
 The suppressed passion in her voice, the heaving of 
 her bosom, threatened hysteria, and the Cardinal dreaded 
 a tragical scene. He laid a restraining hand upon the 
 arm that was lifted in an impassioned gesture. 
 
 " Carissivia mia, is this a place or time for emotion ? 
 Since you have set your fancies upon this friendless — 
 and, as I believe, low-born youth, wc must do the best 
 we can for him. Cherish him as you please — have him 
 about your person — make him your page, or your 
 secretary. Be sure he can be bought from his present 
 master by an offer of better wages. Only, as you love 
 me, let there be no scandal about him. If you are 
 scornful of a world that wearies you, I am still a humble 
 dependent upon the world's favour ; and, since I have 
 always been mindful of your interests " 
 
 His glance seemed to take in all the surrounding
 
 17° 3n IbiGb BMaces 
 
 splendour in one swift sweeping survey, as he said 
 those last words ; and there was a significance in the 
 look which might be interpreted, " Since my purse has 
 furnished the means for your almost Royal state." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know," she answered fretfully, the tide 
 of passion ebbing, and a pale weariness creeping over 
 the face that had flamed with anger. " You have been 
 generous. Without the help of your purse I must have 
 buried myself in a convent ten years ago — driven there 
 by rapacious creditors. But I am sick of it all — the 
 splendour — the struggles — the triumphs. If Marie de 
 Rohan — who has had more adventures in a year than 
 I in a lifetime — if she was as tired of her existence as 
 I am of mine " 
 
 " She knows no weariness. She will never tire. 
 She is the incarnate spirit of intrigue — and while that 
 splendid frame endures — though wrinkles come, and 
 grey hairs — that unresting intellect will plot and 
 conspire, flatter and betray. She has the Queen's ear 
 still, though she has outworn the Queen's affection. 
 They talk of Buckingham together, perhaps ; and of 
 the garden where Anne walked with him in the dark ; 
 and of that audacious hour when he found his way to 
 her chamber and grovelled on his knees beside her 
 bed ; but I question if even those romantic memories 
 can rekindle the old affection. Two women of mature 
 age — one a born adventuress, the other the very pattern 
 of piety — dwelling on the memory of an early intrigue ! 
 Faugh ! It is not a pleasing picture." 
 
 " How you hate the Chevreuse ! " 
 
 " Hate her ! No more than I hate my antagonist 
 at chess. We are playing an intricate game — our 
 stake the Oueen — and I think I shall checkmate her ; 
 
 if — " 
 
 He left the sentence unfinished, as he rose from his 
 chair. 
 
 " If what ? " 
 
 "If she does not spoil my game with Campion's 
 dagger ! There is always that risk. Come, Heloise, 
 take me to this wonderful youth, and let me discover
 
 SpleuMt) ipatronaGC 171 
 
 if he has any higher recommendation to my favour than 
 a handsome face and figure." 
 
 The second dance ended as the Cardinal moved 
 slowly along the room, with the Marquise at his side, 
 through a lane of salutations ; lovely ladies sinking 
 almost to the ground in slow and solemn curtsies, 
 with a stately subservience ; lofty heads bending before 
 the minister who had power to give or to refuse ; abject 
 smiles upon lips that nature had made for scorn rather 
 than for humility ; necks, that hereditary pride should 
 have stiffened, bending gracefully to the yoke of a 
 foreign adventurer, an alien who could boast neither 
 Richelieu's noble lineage nor Richelieu's far-reaching 
 intellect. 
 
 George had been honoured with the hand of one 
 of his fair patronesses, a handsome young widow who 
 had caught sight of him standing modestly in the 
 background, and had claimed him as her partner, 
 pleased to find her untitled protege in such an aristo- 
 cratic company. 
 
 He had but just handed the lady to a seat when the 
 Cardinal approached and stood for at least five minutes 
 conversing with him, an act of condescension at which 
 the surrounding company wondered, not without a touch 
 of malice. 
 
 No matter how banal the great man's speech, how 
 trivial and automatic those civil inquiries as to the 
 stranger's business or pleasure in Paris, the intended 
 length of his residence, his liking for the things he saw 
 — the mere fact that Cardinal Mazarin stopped to talk 
 with this good-looking nobody was enough to set a 
 hundred tongues wagging. 
 
 Why had he been so favoured, and how came that 
 arrogant woman Madame de Lussac to notice the 
 hanger-on of a foreign adventurer like Mountain, a 
 man of whom nobody knew any good ?
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DANGER FOR SOMEBODY. 
 
 In acting over again the scene of that evening, as he lay 
 feverishly wakeful upon his pallet at the sign of the 
 Golden Crown, listening to the chimes that told the 
 hours, and half, and quarter hours, from that neighbour- 
 ing tower whence had sounded the tocsin of murder — 
 George hardly knew whether to be proud or humiliated 
 at his experiences in Madame de Lussac's assembly. 
 
 He had received much hospitality from those smaller 
 gentry of Queen Anne's outer circle ; but to-night he 
 had mingled with those of the inner circle, the privileged 
 by birth or elect by Royal favour ; and in the faces that 
 had looked at him he had seen more than once the 
 freezing smile, or the scornful wonder, which tells a man 
 he is an intruder, or at least an unexplained presence. 
 And yet, though the memory of such looks stung 
 him to the quick, he could hardly help being gratified 
 by the marked kindness of his hostess, and by the 
 Cardinal's signal favour. 
 
 Late as George returned to his lodgings, Mountain 
 was later, and as the elder man ever made up next 
 morning for the sleep he sacrificed over-night, his 
 comrade had little hope of conversing with him before 
 dinner — a meal they took at noon in the public room, in 
 company with other lodgers, and a good many dioppers- 
 in, and at which there would be small chance of 
 private talk. 
 
 George awoke earlier than usual after his sleepless 
 night, and, having no better use for his time, went off 
 
 17a
 
 Danoec toe Somebobs 173 
 
 to the riding-school near the Place Royale, the school 
 founded by Pluvinel, that great master of the manege, 
 whose traditions were still carried on, though Pluvinel 
 had been dead a quarter of a century. Here he tried 
 to calm his spirits by a morning's active exercise, 
 vaulting, leaping, passaging, caracoling, on horses that 
 gave their rider no leisure for consciousness of his own 
 existence. A young man mounted on a destrer of 
 full blood had to be all muscles and sinews, a mindless 
 being with an iron wrist, and a frame sensitive to the 
 slightest movement of the beast under him. There 
 was no pity in that arena for the bad rider ; and to 
 see a gallant cavalier sprawling on the sand with his 
 spurs in the air was the surest incentive to mirth 
 among the flock of fine gentlemen who spent their 
 mornings at the famous school. 
 
 George was master of all the manoeuvres of the ring, 
 the terre-d-ierre, or forward jump, the denii-volte, cour- 
 bette, cabriole, and had at once secured the approval 
 of Pluvinel's successor and his numerous assistants, 
 whose sole estimate of a man's moral and physical value 
 was grounded upon "hands" and "seat." A handsome 
 rider on a handsome horse was the riding-master's idea 
 of an archangel. 
 
 " You ride as well as your countryman, Lord 
 Herbert," he told George, " a gentleman I should have 
 admired more had he been less of a braggart. But 
 he rode next best to the old Due de Montmorency. 
 And you are near as good with the foils as he, though 
 he was always wanting to kill somebody, which you 
 are not." 
 
 George smiled a bitter smile at this praise. Would 
 any of those fine gentlemen, who aired their idleness 
 at the riding-school, have deigned to cross swords with 
 him, who could show neither patent of nobility nor 
 witness of gentle birth ? He had noted the contemptu- 
 ous good-nature with which these Frenchmen talked 
 of his friend Mountain ; and he knew how little 
 consideration he had to expect from them. He had 
 secured their forbearance, and even their respect, by
 
 r74 3n fbiQb BMaces 
 
 an unobtrusive manner and a somewhat stately reserve ; 
 but he carried himself carefully on his guard against 
 unmerited insult. 
 
 To-day he discovered an altered tone in some of the 
 men he had met at Madame de Lussac's assembly, and 
 who were inclined to compliment him on his hostess's 
 favour, and the Cardinal's notice ; but he opposed to 
 these compliments an icy reserve, which was set down 
 to his insular stolidity. 
 
 " I wonder that a man can talk such good French, 
 and yet remain so thoroughbred an English pig," said the 
 Comte de Nanglois, to his cousin the Baron de Mauprat, 
 when George had turned his heel upon a cluster of 
 petits inaitres, and had sprung on to the back of a fine 
 Normandy percheron, which was to be broken for a 
 charger, and of which the master had offered him the 
 first trial. 
 
 The percheron had his head on the ground and his 
 heels in the air before George's feet were in the stirrups, 
 and then, while his rider settled himself in his sad- 
 dle, tried the effect of walking round the ring on his 
 hind legs, like a demon cat ; and finally, finding this 
 manoeuvre fail in dislodging the unwelcome burden, 
 accomplished a rapid succession of buck-jumps, which 
 the old riding-master applauded as the prettiest thing 
 he had seen that morning. 
 
 " The fellow can ride," muttered the Baron to the 
 Comte. " I believe he must have been groom and 
 horse-breaker to the Marquis of Newcastle when 
 Mountain picked him up." 
 
 " No, mon ami, Mountain picked him up as a baby, 
 asleep on a gun-carriage at Pormous. 1 heard him 
 tell the story the other night over his cups at the 
 Pine Apple, after this sober young gentleman had gone 
 home to his lodgings." 
 
 Francis Mountain had a constitution that a pro- 
 fessional gladiator might have envied, and an appetite 
 that neither mental anxiety nor deep drinking could 
 impair. He ate as heartily as usual of the wine-soup
 
 H)anger tot Somcbo&s 175 
 
 and the stewed beef, and demolished a chicken after- 
 wards, leaving nothing but the bones, which he threw 
 under the table, for the dogs and cats to fight for. But 
 he was much less loquacious than usual at dinner 
 to-day. He asked George a few careless questions 
 about his evening's entertainment, at long intervals in 
 a thoughtful silence — and was obviously inattentive to 
 the young man's answers. 
 
 "Your own business kept you later than usual, 
 Frank," said George. " I hope it was a pleasant 
 business." 
 
 " No, it was not, George. It was d d un- 
 pleasant." 
 
 " And it was a secret business, I take it ; for you 
 are generally more ready to tell your adventures. 
 And I have seldom seen you with so gloomy a brow — 
 even when our luck was at the lowest." 
 
 " Oh, 'tis nothing out of the common, George. A 
 man must think sometimes, you see— even as scatter- 
 brained a scoundrel as I. There must be serious 
 moments, w^hen black Care jumps on to the back of the 
 saddle. I have taken to thinking of late." 
 
 " I am sorry for it, sir, since I, who have been ever a 
 slave to dark thoughts, have found my chief comfort in 
 a light-hearted master." 
 
 "You will be leaving me, belike, if I grow gloomy. 
 You will take service as gentleman usher to Madame de 
 Lussac." 
 
 " Never while you want me, Frank. I owe you too 
 much." 
 
 "Don't make it a question of debt," interjected 
 Mountain pettishly. 
 
 " And I love you too well." 
 
 " That's better. But you are no longer the lad that 
 tramped the world's highway with me, and had no other 
 friend or counsellor. You are Lady Llanbister's pupil ; 
 and she has stuffed your brains with high notions, and 
 taught you that this is honourable, and t'other thing is 
 shameful, and that a young man must never consult his 
 pocket or his inclinations, but must remember how King
 
 176 Sn IbiQb places 
 
 Arthur or the Chevalier Bayard would have proceeded 
 in the same circumstances. Oh, I know these preaching 
 women, and their fanciful morality, and their monstrous 
 ignorance of the world they live in." 
 
 " You know Lady Llanbister to be the most admirable, 
 the most honourable of ladies, as she is the kindest." 
 
 " Oh, I admit her honour and her kindness ; but I 
 bear her a grudge for stealing my boy. You have never 
 been quite the same to me since you knew her. You 
 have taken a questioning air ; and I'll warrant if I 
 were entangled in some business that your scrupulous- 
 ness could not stomach, you would turn traitor and 
 leave me." 
 
 " Never while you needed me, Frank. But, indeed, I 
 fear from your speech now, and your manner of late, 
 that you have been beguiled into some perilous com- 
 panionship. I am too young to lecture or to counsel ; 
 but oh, my dear master and benefactor, I entreat you to 
 keep aloof from all plots and plotters — even from that 
 great lady, Madame de Chevreuse, whom you call your 
 friend." 
 
 " She is my friend, and has been yours too, George, in 
 the days that are gone. She has filled your maw when 
 you were nigh upon starving. You did not know who 
 helped us in our worst vicissitudes." 
 
 " I remember that you had a mysterious friend — and 
 that when luck was lowest an unseen hand was stretched 
 out to succour us." 
 
 " Marie de Rohan's hand, George ; and there is no 
 more liberal hand in Christendom, as there is none more 
 beautiful. She is a woman who will always be poor, 
 because she can never be otherwise than generous." 
 
 " It is Madame de Chevreuse I fear. Her life is a 
 history of conspiracies." 
 
 " She has no further occasion to conspire, George. 
 She is restored to her home and her friends. She has 
 the Queen's favour. There is no greater power in 
 France than hers. She can make and unmake ministers." 
 
 " Is she a match for Cardinal Mazarin ? His power 
 is growing — hers waning. If she will but submit to take
 
 Banker for SomeboOy 177 
 
 the second place — and not struggle for ascendency over 
 the Queen — all may go well. But if she opposes her 
 puny power to the master of France " 
 
 "Nay, George, never addle thy brains with politics. 
 Nature has fitted thee for Courts, to twang a theorbo, or 
 to teach a young lady Latin. Make the best of life 
 while thou art young and handsome, and thank God 
 thou art privileged to live in this gay city, and not 
 among sour-visaged sectaries in London." 
 
 " I have but two troubles here, Frank — fears for your 
 safety " 
 
 " Dismiss them, and have done with trouble number 
 one. What is t'other?" 
 
 " The thought that my place is a sinecure. I am no 
 longer of any use to you ; and I am not earning 
 my bread, as I did when I was Mistress Geraldine's 
 tutor." 
 
 " Who says you are no use ? Did you not brush this 
 doublet, and polish this sword-hilt, and furbish a hat 
 and plumes that have seen better days, while I lay 
 snoring ? And will you not sit by my bed to-night 
 and put vinegar on my head, if I come home with my 
 brains on fire with their vile Burgundy wine? What 
 more can any gentleman want of his squire ? " 
 
 " Alas, that you should ever need that last service ! " 
 
 " Oh, thou Puritan ! What is it the old fat knight 
 says in the play ? * Because thou art virtuous, are 
 there to be no more cakes and ale ? ' I grant you I 
 drink more in Paris than I used to drink in London ; 
 though we had some famous nights at the Devil Tavern. 
 I have livelier friends here, and move in higher 
 company," he said, taking up the cloak which he had 
 flung upon his bed. " Prythee, adjust my cloak, George, 
 and see that the buckles of my sword-belt arc safe. I 
 have a visit to pay in the Marais. You can amuse 
 yourself as you will, 'twixt now and midnight ; but if 
 you are playing page to Madame de Lussac, remember 
 to keep a silent tongue about me and my business. 
 And never talk of sinecures — or of earning your bread. 
 My purse is not empty yet ! and when it is, I know 
 
 12
 
 178 5n Ibtob places 
 
 those who will fill it. You are as dear to me as the 
 son I never had — dearer, perhaps ; for his notion of 
 filial duty might be to lecture me — which you must 
 not do." 
 
 Tone and look gave significance to the last sentence ; 
 and George felt that his master meant it as a warning 
 against a too-officious solicitude. 
 
 Mountain went out immediately after, and his squire 
 had nothing to do but wander about the streets, or to 
 beguile the summer afternoon by a swimming-match in 
 the adjacent river, were he so minded. He was too wise 
 to begin this sport soon after the solid mid-day meal, 
 and so sauntered in the streets and gardens and open 
 places of the gayest city in Europe, meeting several 
 acquaintances of the Louvre and the riding-school in the 
 course of his wandering, but carrying with him a heavier 
 heart than his friends suspected. 
 
 He was disturbed by his late conversation with 
 Mountain, for he told himself that were his master not 
 involved in some perilous enterprise, some treasonous 
 plotting against authority, there would be no need for 
 such reserve. He had never pried into his master's 
 .secrets ; but never before had Mountain failed to give 
 him some inkling of the business that engaged him, 
 being, indeed, a sanguine and somewhat loquacious soul, 
 always seeing gold, fame, and happiness, in any incipient 
 enterprise. 
 
 It was the first of September, and there was that keen 
 freshness in the air which comes with the first breath of 
 autumn. After an hour's exercise in the river, George 
 found plenty of amusement for his idleness in the 
 gardens and along the quays, loitering with the crowd 
 on the Pont Neuf, watching a company of saltiinbariques 
 or listening to a ballad-singer, at the risk of having his 
 money stolen by a cut-purse, or his cloth mantle snatched 
 off his shoulders by a tire-laine, cloak-snatching being 
 then a common practice of the Parisian rogue. Then 
 there was Tabarin's theatre on the quay, hard by King 
 Henry's bridge, where there was always some laughable
 
 H)angcr for Soinebot)p 179 
 
 farce, or some quack-salver's facetious tirade to waste 
 an idle man's time, and extract a few sols from his 
 pocket. 
 
 For all refreshment, being still of a boyish sobriety, 
 George treated himself to a cup of chocolate at Madame 
 Servant's in the Place de I'Ecole ; and he loitered, 
 listening to the talk of a group of card-players at the 
 table near where he sat, who filled the pauses of their 
 game with a discussion of the Regent and the Cardinal 
 — the little Richelieu, as one of them called him scorn- 
 fully. They were among Beaufort's partisans, and were 
 eager for change, careless whether change meant Paris 
 in arms, churchmen preaching rebellion, and a repetition 
 of that terrible Day of Barricades, which old people 
 could remember. 
 
 He had been seeking distraction from those gloomy 
 forebodings, caused by Mountain's enigmatical be- 
 haviour ; he had courted noisy company and trivial 
 amusements, comedians and quack-salvers, all the after- 
 noon ; and it was sundown before he turned his back on 
 the busy quay, and strolled westward, past the steep 
 slate roof and conical turrets of the Louvre, past the 
 Porte Neuve, flanked by the Tour du Bois, whose twin 
 peaks over-topped the Palace roof — past the Tuileries 
 gardens, to the carriage road beside which benches had 
 been placed for the accommodation of the humbler 
 citizens of Paris, who came here of a summer evening to 
 see the fine company. 
 
 Across the river sparkled the lanterns on the quay, 
 and in the shadowy background solitary lights in con- 
 vent windows showed dim through the evening grey, 
 and the carillon of the Samaritaine, the great clock of 
 the Waterhouse, on the Pont Neuf, rang clear in the 
 still air. 
 
 Between the river and the bench where George seated 
 himself, carriages and horsemen were passing thicker 
 than he could count or distinguish them ; for this broad 
 highway was the famous Cours la Reine, the carriage 
 road from the Bois de Boulogne to the Tuileries, made 
 by Marie de Medicis in her day of power — a promenade
 
 i8o sn Ibfab {places 
 
 the most brilliant that history has on record, perhaps, 
 if it be remembered what manner of mortals passed 
 between Palace and wood in these golden days of 
 Cond6's conquests and Anne's indulgent rule. 
 
 George stood up to see those ponderous gilded 
 coaches, those spirited horses, splendid cavaliers, plumed 
 hats and flowing hair, smiling faces radiant in a cloud 
 of dust, jewels less brilliant than the beauty they 
 adorned, throats that outshone the pearls that circled 
 them, gold and silver, satin and velvet, all the glory of 
 this earth that patrician blood can inherit, or vulgar 
 money can buy. All these things were passing in swift 
 procession before his eager gaze ; faces he knew, faces 
 that were strange ; the women craning out of their 
 coaches to smile on favoured admirers ; the men reining 
 in their horses beside the carriage-doors, leaning half 
 out of their saddles to talk to the lovely occupants. 
 
 The grey light of evening was full upon the young 
 man's face as he stood up to watch the glittering train, 
 and he was startled presently by an imperious voice 
 calling to a postilion to stop, and the sudden halt of 
 a great white-and-gold coach with six horses, three 
 postilions, three footmen hanging on behind, a pair 
 of outriders, and a group of attendant cavaliers, which 
 unprepared arrest threw the triple line of carriages into 
 confusion. 
 
 It was the Marquise de Lussac's coach that blocked 
 the way. 
 
 " What are you doing there, Mountain ? " she asked. 
 " You had better ride with me than stand staring like 
 Jacques Bonhomme. Open the door for Monsieur," to 
 one of the lacqueys, who had alighted when the caval- 
 cade came to a standstill. 
 
 Madame de Lussac was alone in her coach ; and 
 when George would have seated himself with his back 
 to the horses she ordered him to the place beside her. 
 The gentlemen who had been riding in attendance 
 upon her looked at each other curiously, shrugged their 
 shoulders, and dropped into the background as her 
 coach turned towards the Bois and that large space of
 
 Banger tor Somebob^ i8i 
 
 market gardens through which Queen Marie's drive 
 had been made. 
 
 " I am glad of this meeting," said the lady. " I 
 wanted to talk with you last night ; but from the time 
 Mazarin appeared there was no chance. He was very 
 kind, was he not ? Did you not feel that your fortune 
 was made, when he stopped to converse with you? If 
 you did not, be sure others did, and you will have to 
 reckon with their envy as well as their surprise." 
 
 " I was honoured by his Eminence's notice, Marquise ; 
 but I know 'twas no spontaneous beneficence moved 
 him, and that I am more in debt to your kindness than 
 to his. And as to fortune, I would sooner owe it to 
 my friends in England, who have known me well for 
 these three years last past, than to the Cardinal." 
 
 " To Lady Llanbister, you mean ? You would rather 
 owe all to her than to me." 
 
 " I said rather to my old friends— Lord and Lady 
 Llanbister — whom I know and honour, than to Cardinal 
 Mazarin, whom I do not know " 
 
 " And do not honour. Why not finish the sentence?" 
 
 " Indeed, Marquise, I meant no disrespect to his 
 Eminence, who is a man of great gifts — and a most 
 noble presence. But to an Englishman's mind the 
 despotic power which Richelieu held so long, and to 
 which his successor is said to aspire, is ever intolerable. 
 The English people cannot brook a one-man govern- 
 ment ; not even when the man is as great as Strafford." 
 
 " I see you have learnt your lesson from Mazarin's 
 enemies. Their name is legion ; for they include every 
 greedy courtier to whom he has refused a place or a 
 pension." 
 
 " I swear I have learnt no lesson. Marquise. I am old 
 enough to have opinions of my own." 
 
 " And thinking so ill of the Cardinal I doubt you 
 would stand by and see him murdered, were his enemies 
 lucky enough to accomplish what they have been plotting 
 for the last six weeks." 
 
 " My sword would leap from its scabbard to defend 
 any man against an assassin."
 
 i82 3n Ibiob places 
 
 " Even if the assassin were a friend of your own ? " 
 " Yes, were that possible ; which it is not." 
 " You do not know ! Your master — your friend — 
 is in league with Madame de Chevreuse ; and where 
 she is there is treason. He has been seen at the 
 Angel in the Rue St. Honore with the two Campions. 
 He does not take you there perhaps? That tavern 
 is the rallying-point of traitors ; and I doubt he fears 
 your simplicity too much to let you into their schemes. 
 You can judge yourself how he is occupied, and whether 
 he has dangerous secrets." 
 
 George's brow clouded. He knew too well that his 
 master was working in the dark ; but he could not 
 believe him involved in any plot that might culminate 
 in murder. 
 
 " Why should any one seek the Cardinal's life ? " 
 " For the same reason that Richelieu lived all his 
 later life in peril of assassination. Under a king who 
 was but a shadow the Prime Minister was absolute 
 master, and was hated as kings are hated. Every 
 vainglorious schemer who thought himself a great 
 man was at war with that real greatness. And now, 
 merciful, generous, indulgent as Mazarin has been, 
 he is already almost as well hated as Richelieu was. 
 They see him climbing to the summit — see the King's 
 long minority before them, and France at the feet 
 of a ruler who will humble those haughty heads, as 
 Richelieu humbled them, or lay them as low as 
 Richelieu laid others. Beaufort, Chavigny, Gondy, 
 Marsillac, they all hate him because they all fear 
 him." 
 
 "You speak as if you had secret knowledge of a plot 
 against the Cardinal, madame ? " 
 
 " I know that there is such a plot — by indirect 
 evidence rather than actual proof. Beaufort's troops 
 have been drinking in the taverns about the Cardinal's 
 house, night after night, for the last fortnight. I believe 
 it is only since Madame de Montbazon's disgrace that 
 the plot has become imminent. Mazarin's movements 
 have been watched and followed, and Beaufort's men
 
 Banoei* tou Solne^)o^^ 183 
 
 have been lying in wait for him — ready to strike the 
 fatal blow. So far they have missed their opportunities ; 
 once, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, when he was 
 on his way to the Luxembourg, to visit Monsieur ; 
 again on his return from Maison. Had he been alone 
 in his coach on either occasion, he might have been 
 murdered. While ostensibly selling his horses, Beaufort 
 has been secretly buying double the number. No one 
 who knows these facts can question that these men 
 mean murder." 
 
 " If they do, my master is not of their party. I 
 would pledge my life that he would have no hand in 
 so vile a business. He is brave, generous, kind — and 
 he is a gentleman." 
 
 " Was not Cinq Mars a gentleman, and Chalais ? 
 Yet either of these would have slain Richelieu with 
 his own hand, or by a hireling's, and would have 
 thought he did a noble act. If you care for your friend 
 — if you would prevent murder, worm yourself into his 
 confidence, find out with whom he is in league, and 
 bring the intelligence to me without an instant's delay. 
 While we are riding here, in this peaceful scene, in 
 this soft evening hour, the assassins may be getting 
 ready for their work." 
 
 " Turn spy and betray the man who has been to 
 me as a father ? " 
 
 ■'He shall not suffer. His name shall not leak out 
 — I pledge myself to that. And remember, it is to 
 prevent a murder, and the worst kind of murder," 
 
 " I will not betray my benefactor." 
 
 " You are not bidden to betray him. You are 
 urged to save him from a crime for which he might 
 be broken on the wheel. If you have any influence 
 over him you may make him withdraw from the plot, 
 and help to save the Cardinal. And remember, George, 
 it is your duty to save Mazarin — if you have power to 
 save him— even at the hazard of your life. It is your 
 duty ! " she repeated, with all the intensity of which 
 her fiery nature was capable. 
 
 " It is every honest man's duty to prevent a crime,
 
 i84 3n Ibigb {places 
 
 at any cost to himself. You have no need to tell 
 me that, Marquise ! " 
 
 " It is j/our duty. There may come a time when 
 you will understand the full force of these words — 
 as you cannot now." 
 
 George hardly noted the significance of this speech 
 at the moment, though he pondered over it later. His 
 brain was on fire. His heart beat thick and fast. He 
 knew that there was a change in his friend — that Francis 
 Mountain's mind was bent upon some business more 
 serious, more agitating, than anything that had occupied 
 him in the past. To save that good friend from being 
 implicated in a murderous scheme — the tool of high- 
 bred villainy ? What would he not do, what would he 
 not venture, for such a purpose? But he felt himself 
 powerless as a child. He could only trust to the 
 urgency of a child's appeal to a father whom he saw 
 on the brink of a precipice. 
 
 " Will you stop your carriage, madame ? I must go 
 back to Paris," he said. 
 
 " My coach shall carry you there." 
 
 She gave the order, " To the Louvre as fast as you 
 can ; " and the ponderous coach turned, the postilions 
 cracked their whips, and the leaders cantered along the 
 now deserted road, while the four horses in the rear 
 kept up with them in a sharp trot. 
 
 " I will do all that Heaven will help me to do, 
 Marquise. But I know nothing of my master's move- 
 ments when he leaves our lodging. I know not where 
 to look for him." 
 
 " Try the traitors' rendezvous. Try the Angel." 
 
 The remaining distance was travelled in silence. 
 The street lanterns and the lights of the Louvre were 
 soon in sight. The horses were reined up on the quay 
 near the open space in front of the Palais Cardinal, 
 and George sprang lightly to the ground, lifted his 
 hat in brief salutation to the Marquise, and hurried 
 almost at a run to the Rue St. Honor6, where he 
 slackened his pace, composed his features, and as- 
 sumed the sauntcrer's air, while he debated within
 
 Danger tor Somet)oC)g 185 
 
 himself how best to surprise his master among the asso- 
 ciates whose company meant deadly peril for Francis 
 Mountain. 
 
 In spite of Madame de Lussac's vehement appeal, it 
 was not of the Cardinal he thought. It was of his 
 benefactor, the man who had picked him up on South- 
 sea Common, fatherless, nameless, friendless, homeless. 
 Not for worlds would he have this cherished friend 
 the accomplice of murderers — himself ignorant of their 
 ultimate aim ; for he could not believe that Mountain 
 would knowingly consort with assassins. It was of 
 the reckless, happy-go-lucky, dare-devil Mountain he 
 thought. To be broken on the wheel ! Yes, for the 
 untitled conspirator that would be the sentence of the 
 law. Not for him the dignity of headsman and block, 
 the fate of Chalais and Cinq Mars. For him the linger- 
 ing death of the common felon, merciless, disgraceful, 
 excruciating agony, for which a crushing blow from the 
 executioner's iron staff was a stroke of mercy. To step 
 in between his master and those fatal associates, to save 
 Francis Mountain from being implicated in murder, 
 or the attempt to murder, was the purpose that gave 
 resolution to his step and fire to his mind. 
 
 The Angel was an obscure-looking tavern, over- 
 shadowed by the pavilion at the corner of the court- 
 yard in front of the Hotel de Vendome. The entrance 
 door was in a vaulted passage at the side nearest the 
 Hotel ; and the single window on the ground floor was 
 thrown into shadow by the projection of the upper 
 storey, sustained upon ponderous oaken beams, and 
 of the deep gable above that. It was a house made 
 for secret meetings and the hatching of evil deeds, 
 George thought, as he looked at it from the opposite 
 side of the narrow street. 
 
 The casements were open, for the night was warm ; 
 but the wooden shutters had been drawn together, and 
 there was only a thin thread of light shining between 
 their edges. The shutters may have had the effect of 
 a sounding-board, since the voices within were audible
 
 i86 3n 1biob places 
 
 to George on the other side of the street in the summer 
 stillness. 
 
 He heard several voices, none of them loud, and 
 among them recognised his master's well-known accents, 
 subdued to a cautious undertone. 
 
 It was not possible to hear more than occasional 
 words at this distance ; but George could make out that 
 the conversation was no common tavern talk — no quick 
 interchange of repartee, no fiery discussion of public 
 affairs, such as he had listened to many a night in 
 London, at the Devil or the White Lion. There 
 was danger for somebody in that cautious speech. 
 
 He crossed the street and stationed himself in a deep 
 recessed gateway next the tavern, a little in the rear 
 of it, and from that concealment he could both watch 
 and listen, with little fear of being observed. Such 
 sentences as reached his ear were, however, of a nature 
 not to be easily understood by the uninitiated. There 
 was no mention of the Cardinal or any other name, 
 but there was frequent and excited reference to some 
 personage who was invariably spoken of as the Lady ; 
 and George did not question that this personage was 
 Madame de Chevreuse. 
 
 One man asked, " Will she pay us for all we hazard 
 in serving her?" 
 
 " Pay ? She will load you like a pack-horse with 
 gold, if you win the game." 
 
 " But if she is deep in debt as they say ? . . ." 
 
 " She ! Does your geography not reach to such a 
 place as Madrid ? Play the winning card, and the 
 money for your reward will not be wanting." 
 
 There was further talk, in which the names of Court 
 cards represented the people spoken of. 
 
 " Will the King of Hearts be here to-night, think 
 you ? " 
 
 " He will come to let us know when to begin the 
 suit. He is to be in his place in the pack till 'tis time 
 for the game to begin ; but we do not budge till we 
 see him." 
 
 Rapid footsteps sounded on the rough stone cJuiussie
 
 Banaer for Somebo^^ 187 
 
 as the man spoke, and George saw a cavalier come 
 swaggering along the street, his broad felt hat slouched 
 over his face, and a voluminous cloak wrapped round 
 his figure ; but the diamond buckles and chain that 
 flashed in his hat, as he passed across the lantern light, 
 and the high heels that clattered on the stones, indicated 
 a fine gentleman, for whom the Angel would not be 
 a likely resort. 
 
 It was to the Angel he came, however, for he 
 rapped with his knuckles on the shutter as he passed, 
 and then turned quickly into the entrance passage. 
 When he was gone George stole from his hiding-place, 
 and crept on his hands and knees along the wall under 
 the window, and, crouching there, could hear the 
 speakers inside as well as if he had been among them. 
 His head was so close to the narrow opening between 
 the shutters that his agitated breathing might have 
 been heard in the room, had not those within been too 
 much absorbed by their own business to be on the 
 alert for sounds outside. 
 
 Peering through that narrow opening in the shutters, 
 he could see the occupants of the room, who had risen 
 at the entrance of the cloaked cavalier, and were grouped 
 round him ; five in all, Francis Mountain and four 
 others, all wearing their swords, and with pistols in 
 their belts, arms which would be concealed by their 
 short round cloaks when they were out of doors. 
 
 The new-comer pushed back his hat and revealed 
 the handsome features of Gabrielle's grandson, Beau- 
 fort, already a popular favourite in the city of Paris, 
 and later to be known as the King of the Markets. 
 His cheeks were flushed and his eyes gleaming, and 
 he talked in short, spasmodic sentences that betrayed 
 a feverish excitement. 
 
 It was not easy for the listener below the window to 
 follow the meaning of that breathless speech. There 
 was no word of bloodshed, no hint of the deadly purpose 
 for which those pistols had been loaded. The Duke 
 was giving instructions to his followers — instructions 
 about the details of a journey which was to be begun
 
 i88 3n Ibfgb iplaces 
 
 within the next hour — whether some plan, not named, 
 succeeded or failed. In either case the men were to 
 leave Paris ; but the circumstances of departure were 
 to be different — the destination of each man different. 
 
 Beaufort cross-examined his men as to the streets 
 and stables where horses were stationed, saddled for a 
 journey ; reminded each man of the road he was to 
 take. Each was to leave Paris by a different gate — 
 there was choice enough among the sixteen gates of 
 the city — and even those who had to travel in the same 
 direction were not to join company till they were at 
 least ten leagues beyond the walls. In the event of 
 failure the destination of one was to be Jersey ; of 
 Mountain and Campion, Anet, the Duke de Vendome's 
 chateau ; of another, Avranches ; of the fifth, Dieppe, 
 on his way to London. All this George gathered from 
 Beaufort's breathless speech, some of his instructions 
 being repeated more than once, in his anxiety to be 
 understood. 
 
 And the nameless enterprise, the thing that was 
 to be done, was to be done possibly within the next 
 half-hour. 
 
 " I had a hint that she has the migraine, and that 
 he may bid good-night earlier than usual. Get to 
 your posts at once, friends. There is not a moment 
 to spare." 
 
 The Duke was moving towards the door as he spoke, 
 the others following him. Mountain in the rear. 
 
 He was going with them, going to take part in 
 that deed of blood, to be picketed in the shadow of 
 a projecting wall, pistol primed and cocked, ready 
 for his victim ! His might be the bullet which was 
 to rid France of a too-powerful minister. He, George's 
 friend and benefactor, was to stain his conscience with 
 the ineffaceable stain of deliberate murder. 
 
 Against this hideous possibility George flung every 
 other consideration to the winds, or, indeed, never paused 
 to weigh the chances of what he was doing. An irresist- 
 ible impulse moved him, and reckless, resolute, he flung 
 open the shutters, scrambled through the casement.
 
 Danger tor SomefeoDi? 189 
 
 which was but just wide enough to admit him, and 
 leapt into the room in time to clutch Mountain's cloak 
 as he was disappearing through the doorway. 
 
 " Not you, not you," he gasped thickly. " You shall 
 take no part in their bloody work. Mountain, Frank, 
 friend, father ! For God's sake, stop." 
 
 They were wrestling together like foes, one in his 
 eagerness to escape from a detaining grasp, the other 
 in his passionate desire to hinder the man he loved from 
 an unpardonable crime — equally matched, the breadth 
 and weight of the elder balancing the supple strength of 
 the younger man. 
 
 " What devil ! Hands off, George, or your life may 
 answer for it. Hands off, boy ! Let me go ! Are you 
 stark, staring mad ? " 
 
 " You must be, if you join hands with those 
 murderers." 
 
 The whole company crowded back into the room, 
 and in the next instant swords were drawn, George 
 was held in the grip of two strong hands, a man on 
 either side, and another standing in front of him with 
 a dagger pointed at his throat. 
 
 " A spy ! " shouted Beaufort. " Is this your English 
 treason. Mountain ? " 
 
 " No, Duke, 'tis but a foolish, impetuous lad, my page, 
 who, happening to pass the window, peeps in and sees 
 his master in what he takes for rough company, and so, 
 thinking I have fallen into a guet-apens, jumps into the 
 room to my rescue. There is no harm in him, your 
 highness." 
 
 " No more harm than a knife can settle," said Beaufort 
 fiercely. " Slit his throat, Campion, and he'll tell 
 no tales." 
 
 " Your Highness forgets that I am not a common 
 assassin," said the man who held the dagger. " We can 
 find some less troublesome means of silencing this 
 young gentleman. You are an interfering, officious 
 jackanapes, sir," he went on, addressing George. " Had 
 you used your eyes with better judgment you would 
 have known that your master was among gentlemen,
 
 I90 5n Ibiob iplaccs 
 
 and in no peril of life or limb. Folly such as yours 
 must be punished as troublesome children are punished. 
 Can anybody spare me a strap or a scarf? " 
 
 The Duke loosened the silk sash from his waist and 
 handed it to him. Aided by the men who had been 
 holding him, Campion wound this sash round George's 
 arms and tied them behind his back, taking pains to 
 make the knot fast. 
 
 " Satisfactory so far, Duke," he said. " Now the next 
 room has but one narrow window, and that guarded by 
 a solid iron grating. The Bastille contains no securer 
 chamber. Come, sir, you must be prisoner for the 
 rest of the night. Your master will send some one to 
 fetch you out of custody to-morrow morning. *Tis a 
 very lenient chastisement for your impertinent folly ; 
 and if his Highness and the rest of us had any unlawful 
 enterprise in hand you may be sure you would have 
 fared a good deal worse ! " 
 
 Held between two men and with his arms tied behind 
 his back, George was powerless, and made no futile 
 attempt at resistance. He was thrust somewhat roughly 
 into an adjoining room, and the door bolted behind him, 
 leaving him in unknown darkness. But even in that 
 brief transit he had found time to turn a beseeching 
 look upon his old friend, and to cry in piteous entreaty : 
 " Mountain, for God's sake, stain not your soul with 
 blood ! " 
 
 It was lucky perhaps for the speaker that he uttered 
 this impassioned appeal in English, a language which 
 none of them understood.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 TO PREVENT MURDER. 
 
 He was groping in an unknown darkness, fettered, 
 impotent. He walked the room across and across, 
 stumbling against a heavy table, knocking over a stool, 
 and he could at least discover that it was a room of 
 about twelve feet square. Gradually out of the dark- 
 ness there grew the shape of a window, a faint glimmer 
 of grey showing behind a grating of hammered iron. 
 At right angles with the window, as the grey glimmer 
 grew upon his sight, he could just distinguish the lines 
 of a deeply recessed hearth and hooded chimney. He 
 was there, a prisoner, while Madame de Lussac's worst 
 forebodings were being realised. He understood too 
 well who it was who had the migraine ; who it was 
 would leave her earlier than usual to-night. He heard 
 a clock strike the third quarter after ten. The Cardinal 
 had left the Louvre already perhaps, attended only by 
 a couple of footmen ; and in the brief distance between 
 the Palace and the Hotel de Cleves the assassins were 
 lying in wait, each ready to snatch the favourable 
 moment, each with finger on trigger, and eyes straining 
 through the dark. 
 
 Maddened by the thought of what might be done, 
 he kicked the heavy oak door furiously, making a noise 
 which might have been heard in the street as well as 
 in the house. But there was no answer, no sound of 
 footsteps in the next room. 
 
 What could he do ? Nothing, while his arms were 
 pinioned. He could not even examine the fastening 
 
 191
 
 192 3n fblQb {places 
 
 of the door. He could only ascertain, by rubbing his 
 shoulder along the wall from angle to angle, and feeling 
 the ground with his feet, that there was no other out- 
 let. With his shoulders, too, he tried the casement 
 bars, and found that the whole weight of his body, 
 flung violently against the grating, made not the slightest 
 impression upon its solidity. No yielding bar proclaimed 
 a loosened rivet, or a rotten spot in the oaken beam 
 that held the iron. The window was open, and he 
 could hear the sounds of the city, the cry of a watchman, 
 the muffled thunder of far off carriage-wheels. 
 
 To get his arms free, and then to escape out of that 
 den in time to warn the victim without betraying his 
 friend ! To youth and strength that have never known 
 sickness or failure, there is no such word as " impossible " ; 
 and now began the agonising struggle of arms and 
 hands that had been bound with no feeble bandage, 
 and which tasked his utmost endurance, strained every 
 muscle, and swelled every vein almost to bursting, 
 before the stout silken scarf yielded ever so little to his 
 efforts. 
 
 Energy less desperate — any minor consideration than 
 the thought that life or death was in that struggle — 
 might have resulted in failure : but George's feelings had 
 reached a point in which his own agony or his own 
 death seemed as nothing compared with the prevention 
 of a dastardly crime. 
 
 " He saved me from starving to death on the high 
 road. I owe him all I have ever known of happiness 
 and prosperity. He shall not — he shall not do the 
 assassin's deed — or die the assassin's death. He shall 
 not ! He shall not ! " 
 
 He repeated the words aloud in his agony, between 
 set teeth, and his voice was strange and shrill in his 
 ears, for the words were in truth more the scream of 
 unendurable pain than articulate speech, so intense 
 was the anguish of his backward-strained shoulders, 
 every nerve wrenched, every joint twisted almost to 
 dislocation. 
 
 But the thing was done! A petty ordeal, perhaps,
 
 Zo prevent /IDurDer 193 
 
 he thought with a shudder, compared with the agony of 
 the hapless wretch roue vif\ the unspeakable torture of 
 the wheel. Yet it seemed to him that his lacerated 
 muscles had experienced something of that agony, and 
 that he knew better now what breaking on the wheel 
 meant. He was free. The cold sweat rolled down his 
 face. His arms hung at his sides, trembling as with 
 Siberian cold. His swollen hands throbbed and burnt. 
 But he was free. 
 
 He felt for the fastening of the door. The clumsy 
 iron latch moved freely up and down in his bruised 
 fingers. But the door was fast bolted on the other 
 side. No chance there. None at the grated window. 
 
 There was one chance only — the chimney. It was 
 vast and roomy enough at the bottom, but God knows 
 how it might narrow near the top, or what unsurmount- 
 able barriers of oak or iron might bar his way. 
 
 He heard the clock of Saint Eustache strike eleven. 
 That agony in which he had wrestled with his bonds 
 had lasted less than fifteen minutes. And what of the 
 wretch upon the wheel, agonising for endless hours, 
 dying by infinitesimal stages of torture, dying a thousand 
 deaths before the stroke of mercy parts the fainting 
 spirit from the excruciated flesh ? 
 
 The thought of that hideous punishment flashed 
 across him, even in his feverish hurry to get himself out 
 of that silent darkness into the free air of night. He 
 lost no moment after he had made up his mind as to 
 the one chance. He was on his knees on the hearth, 
 looking up through the black throat of the chimney. 
 
 God be praised ! He could see the stars shining far 
 above the darkness. That meant hope. His bruised 
 hands explored the sides of the chimney. The bricks 
 were loose and uneven, there must be foothold for an 
 agile climber. Booted as he was, the ascent would be 
 difficult ; and he must carry his sword so that it should 
 not hinder his movements. He felt the unnatural calm- 
 ness of a brave soul in a deperate extremity. He had 
 done plenty of climbing in his day, among the ruined 
 fortresses of Burgundy, in the woods round Isleworth, in 
 
 13
 
 194 Sn IbiQb BMaces 
 
 the Aldersgate garden ; but it had been for sport. He 
 was climbing now to save men's lives. 
 
 From projection to projection — with the help of an 
 angle here, a jutting stone there, a beam, an iron brace 
 — inch by inch, as it seemed to his impatience — he neared 
 the top, and squeezed his head and shoulders out into 
 the open air, sending down a cataract of mortar and a 
 loosened brick or two, in that last struggle through an 
 orifice that would have been impossible had it been an 
 inch narrower. He had been obliged to dislodge a bit 
 of crumbling brickwork with his bare nails before he 
 emerged upon the steep slope of the tiled gable, from 
 which he let himself slide down to the gutter, and thence 
 by easy stages, on the projections of the half-timbered 
 upper storey, to the massive iron bar that carried the 
 sign of the inn, a winged angel in hammered iron. 
 
 He dropped lightly to the ground, forgot his wrenched 
 sinews, his bruised and bleeding hands, and ran as fast 
 as his feet would carry him to the gate of the Louvre. 
 That older front of the Palace, facing the church of 
 Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, had still the aspect of a 
 fortress, the wall flanked with towers, the gateway 
 guarded by a drawbridge ; but it was to a smaller gate 
 in the new buildings that George applied for entrance, 
 a gate opening on a vaulted passage, bridging over the 
 moat that surrounded the Palace on all sides, and leading 
 to a door through which Mr. Mountain and his page had 
 been admitted among the more privileged of the Regent's 
 visitors, on the strength of the English Queen's intro- 
 duction. He was well known to the man in charge of 
 this gate, and, after some scruples as to the lateness of 
 the hour, was allowed to pass through. All Court 
 ceremonial had grown laxer since the punctilious and 
 melancholy King had vanished from the scene over which 
 it had been his privilege to cast an abiding gloom. The 
 Regent was kind to everybody ; and although imperious 
 after her own fashion, was incapable of sustaining an 
 isolated grandeur. That proud spirit had been broken 
 by a quarter of a century of ill-usage, as child-bride, 
 hated wife, insulted Queen.
 
 XTo iprevent /iDur^er 195 
 
 " Has the Cardinal left the Palace ? " George asked 
 breathlessly. 
 
 " His Eminence is still in her Majesty's apartments." 
 
 " I carry a message from the Marquise de Lussac. I 
 must see his Eminence before he leaves the Louvre." 
 
 This was the statement which he repeated to one 
 functionary after another, progressing from the lacqueys 
 in the outer hall to the Captain of the Queen's Guard at 
 the head of the grand staircase, and to the gentlemen- 
 in-waiting in the first salon, very much in waiting, 
 and yawning in the dreariness of a deserted -room, 
 whence the brilliant crowd had melted half an hour 
 before. 
 
 In the light of a hundred wax candles the applicant 
 for an immediate interview with the greatest man in 
 France presented a sorry aspect. His face had been 
 cut and scratched in his ascent of the chimney, and 
 broad streaks of blood had trickled from brow to chin. 
 His clothes were grimed and torn ; his hands were 
 swollen out of all human shape ; lace and cambric of 
 collar and cravat hung about him in rags. Yet it was 
 this tatterdemalion appearance which won him the 
 attention he might have otherwise sought in vain. The 
 gentlemen-in-waiting knew him as Mountain's page, and 
 knew that it was no common adventure which had 
 brought him to his present condition. 
 
 ^^ Le diable me prend / You look as if you had been 
 hunted by assassins ! " exclaimed the first gentleman. 
 
 " Or by a jealous husband," laughed the second, 
 
 " There are assassins about, but not for me. For 
 the love of God let me see the Cardinal ! " 
 
 A bell rang silver clear through the lofty rooms, as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " Impossible ! Her Majesty's bell ! His Eminence 
 is about to retire." 
 
 " And he will leave the Louvre with a single servant, 
 perhaps ? " 
 
 " A lacquey with a lantern. He does not affect state 
 ceremony. Richelieu had a Royal Guard." 
 
 " I tell you, sir, I must see him. Her Majesty's
 
 196 5n 1biab HMaces 
 
 presence would not stop me. If he leaves the Palace 
 unprotected, he goes to his death ! " 
 
 He had spoken with increasing vehemence as he 
 went on pleading, and the full, ripe tones of the young 
 voice resounded in the lofty saloon. 
 
 " Is this a guard-room, gentlemen, or can you find 
 no other place to start a brawl in ? " said a voice 
 at the end of the room, a voice whose level tones 
 were in marked contrast with George's impetuous 
 speech. 
 
 The Cardinal was standing in the doorway, a 
 picturesque figure in his scarlet soutane and beretta, 
 his handsome features fixed in an almost unnatural 
 calm, while the hand that trembled ever so slightly as 
 he fingered his moustache betrayed the emotion under 
 that statue-like repose. 
 
 " I implore your Eminence to accord me one minute's 
 private speech." 
 
 " Not to-night, sir. I am on my way home." 
 
 " It must be to-night — now — or it will be too late. 
 For God's sake, give me a hearing, Monseigneur. Look 
 at me !" stretching out his swollen, blood-stained hands. 
 " Do you think I would come on a fool's errand thus ? 
 It is in your service these hands were bruised and torn 
 — there is not a bone in my body that has not suffered 
 for you. If I were an old servant you would not refuse 
 to hear me — and God knows that among your oldest 
 servants you will find none to serve you better than I 
 have done to-night." 
 
 Mazarin scrutinised him with a searching look. 
 
 " Is this a Turlupinade, a farce to set all Paris 
 laughing to-morrow at the way the Cardinal was 
 caught? Is that blood or red paint upon your face? 
 I think I know that comely countenance, stained and 
 scarred as it is. Are you not the youth I met last 
 night at Madame de Lussac's ? " 
 
 " The same, Monseigneur ! " 
 
 " For that lady's sake I will hear you," said Mazarin, 
 laying his hand on George's shoulder with something 
 more of kindness than he had shown him yet. " This
 
 Zo lOrerent /IDur^er 197 
 
 way, sir ! " motioning him to the inner room. " Say 
 your say, and make an end of it." 
 
 The room was empty. It was the Queen's cabinet, 
 that sacred apartment to which Mountain and his page 
 had been admitted once only, when they delivered 
 Henrietta Maria's letter. The Royal bedchamber opened 
 out of this room, and even amidst the excitement of 
 telling his story George heard the stealthy turning of 
 a key, and noted that the door of communication had 
 been opened for the space of an inch. 
 
 He was careful not to betray the friend he loved, 
 and, to shield him, avoided all mention of names. He 
 had heard some men talking in a tavern. He 
 knew that there was a plot to murder his Eminence 
 that night, between the Palace and the Hotel de Cleves, 
 the assassins counting on his being attended by a 
 single servant, or at most a couple of unarmed lacqueys. 
 
 Mazarin pressed him hard. Surely if he had seen 
 the men's faces he must have recognised them — some 
 of them, at least. 
 
 No. He affected a sheepish stupidity. He knew 
 of nothing but the plan of murder. His Eminence 
 must not pass unguarded through the narrow streets 
 that led to his house. The danger was imminent. 
 
 "There has been no hour of the last three months 
 in which my life has not been in danger, sir — and I 
 know not this moment if you, with your hypocritical 
 simplicity and pretence of an impossible ignorance, 
 may not be playing into the hands of my enemies." 
 
 " Your Eminence has but to take a sufficient 
 guard " 
 
 " Let me look at you, sir, eye to eye. I have had too 
 many dealings with scoundrels not to know one at 
 sight." 
 
 He held George by both arms, with delicate white 
 hands that gripped like steel pincers, and wrung a 
 scream of pain from him. 
 
 " Pardon me, Monseigneur. My body is one bruise." 
 
 " I am sorry I hurt you, friend. I believe you are 
 honest. I thank you for your warning. I knew the
 
 198 5n Ibiob places 
 
 crisis in this conspiracy was drawing near, and I am 
 glad it has come. If you have suffered in my service 
 you shall be lavishly rewarded— yes, lavishly ! " repeated 
 the Cardinal with conviction, after a moment's thought. 
 " And now get you to your lodging, and let no mortal 
 know of this interview from your lips. The names 
 you conceal are known to me: the head and front of 
 the conspiracy, Beaufort; the instruments, Henri and 
 Alexander Campion ; the witch that sits in the middle 
 of the web and guides the threads, Marie de Rohan. 
 Your reticence is of no moment. You could tell me 
 nothing that I do not know." 
 
 George bowed low and retired, relieved to find that 
 Mountain's name had no place in the Cardinal's black 
 list. He withdrew, as he was bidden, and left the 
 Louvre ; but only to wait and watch in the street 
 outside. 
 
 It was on the stroke of midnight when the gate 
 of the vaulted passage was opened and a glare of 
 yellow light streamed out upon the darkness of the 
 street, and the steady tramp of soldiers' feet sounded 
 on the stone floor that spanned the moat. 
 
 A company of the Queen's Guard, carrying torches, 
 three abreast, marched out of the gate; and in the 
 midst of them, vivid in the torch-light, gleamed the 
 scarlet of the Cardinal's robe and the diamond cross 
 on the Cardinal's breast. Thus surrounded, his Emin- 
 ence traversed with his most leisurely footsteps the 
 distance between the Louvre and the Hotel de Cleves, 
 the narrow street through which he went glowing like 
 a brasier in the flare of twenty torches. And murder, 
 lurking behind the angle of a stone bastion, or hidden 
 in the deep shadow of a corner turret, bit its fingers 
 and gnashed its teeth at the knowledge of ignominious 
 failure. 
 
 Still waiting and watching, and stealing from one 
 dark street into another, George saw four horsemen ride 
 off, creeping out of narrow alleys or from under low- 
 browed archways, their heads bent over their horses' 
 necks. Slowly, cautiously, he saw those armed horse-
 
 Zo iprevent /iDurDec 199 
 
 men ride away, no two of them taking the same route. 
 He heard the hoofs of slowly moving horses echoing 
 along those labyrinthine streets and dwindling to silence ; 
 but he did not see the one man in whose escape he 
 was interested, and he dreaded the re-appearance of 
 the Guard that had accompanied the Cardinal, appre- 
 hensive that Mazarin might send them to hunt down 
 the baffled assassins. 
 
 To his great relief, the soldiers did not re-appear, 
 nor did he meet any one that looked like a secret 
 agent of the Cardinal's. There was ample time for 
 the little band of conspirators to vanish into unknown 
 distance. Not thus would Richelieu have acted in such 
 circumstances, George thought, thanking Heaven for 
 a mild First Minister. Swift would have been the 
 search, implacable the pursuit, if the great Cardinal's 
 life had been in question ; and the warning meant to 
 save Francis Mountain from a foul crime and its deadly 
 consequences might have served only to hasten his 
 doom. 
 
 There was a long bar of pale light behind the towers 
 of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois before George relinquished 
 his watch. In his anxiety about that life which his 
 own act might have jeopardised, he had been scarcely 
 conscious of pain or weariness ; but now, making sure 
 that Mountain must have got himself safe beyond the 
 gates, on foot or on horseback, he began to feel the 
 aching of bruised limbs and strained sinews, and to 
 long for the repose of his pallet at the Golden Crown. 
 
 He passed the Hotel de Cleves on his way home, 
 and heard the steady tramp of a sentry in the court- 
 yard, and saw the gleaming of breast plate and helmet 
 beyond the porte-cocJiere, whereby he perceived that his 
 Eminence had retained the escort Queen Anne had 
 furnished for his protection when he left the Palace. 
 
 Among the lodgers at the Golden Crown there were 
 several night birds, for whose convenience the door 
 was left on the latch from midnight till morning. The 
 darkness in the narrow passage and on the corkscrew 
 staircase reeked with stale wine and coarse tobacco, and
 
 200 Sn Ibiab places 
 
 the rank after-fume of yesterday's dinner ; and George, 
 who was wont to leap up the stairs too quickly to note 
 foul odours, dragged his tired limbs so slowly as to be 
 painfully conscious of the loathsome atmosphere. It 
 brought back the memory of the wide staircase in 
 Aldersgate Street, the polished oak wainscot, the scent 
 of dried rose-leaves and lavender, woodruff and lemon 
 thyme, the freshness and purity that prevailed throughout 
 the house, where every detail was supervised by that 
 great lady for whom nothing that concerned the welfare 
 of others was too trivial. 
 
 He was surprised to see a light shining under the door 
 of his bedchamber, and still more surprised on opening 
 it to see his master standing in front of the old 
 Normandy press in which their garments were kept, 
 engaged in packing a pair of saddle-bags. 
 
 Mountain started and turned at the opening of the 
 door, and stared, round-eyed and open-mouthed, as if 
 he had seen a ghost. 
 
 " What devil ! How in Satan's name did you get 
 out ? " " 
 
 " By the use of my own wits and my own limbs ! " - 
 
 " You were ixble to force that door — fastened with a 
 bolt as thick as my wrist ? Pshaw ! What does it 
 matter now ? You got out — and 'twas you who betrayed 
 us to Mazarin, and made fools of us. It would serve 
 you right if I killed you." 
 
 He made a threatening movement, and drew his sword 
 half out of the scabbard, then dropped it back with a 
 laugh. 
 
 "I am not the killing sort," he muttered, "and you 
 are a bit of my heart. But I tell you, George, you have 
 cost me a long step on the highroad to fortune by your 
 interference this night. My friends will never trust me 
 again. I shall be known as a blundering spoil-sport. 
 You have lost me their favour for ever ! " 
 
 " And I have saved you from taking part in a murder 
 — cold-blooded, deliberate murder." 
 
 " Cold-blooded — deliberate ! Why, our blood was at 
 fever heat — our veins ran fire. Cold-blooded murder !
 
 Uo pcevent /IDurber 201 
 
 No, George, 'twere not murder, but patriotism, to rid 
 France of this tyrant. This man is grinding the faces of 
 the poor, and undermining the noble and the gifted. 
 This man is the public enemy — a crafty Italian schemer, 
 sleek and subtle, trading on a handsome face and a 
 plausible tongue — luxurious — avaricious as the miser in 
 Plautus, for all his pomp and splendour. This act !of 
 ours — which your cursed interference has hindered — was 
 a blow for France, and would have done her better 
 service than Conde's finest victory." 
 
 " You, Mountain, you ! The brave and honest friend 
 I have loved — you turn paid assassin ! " 
 
 " No, no — 'twas no question of gold that tempted me. 
 'Twas for no sordid motive I joined them. 'Twas for a 
 woman, George — a woman who could win the stars from 
 their spheres if she wanted them — the incomparable 
 jade ! The splendid, audacious, seraphic, diabolical 
 she ! " 
 
 " Ah ! I knew 'twas her influence. The witch in the 
 centre of the web ! Madame de Chevreuse ! 'Tis strange 
 that faded beauty can put so strong a spell upon you." 
 
 " Faded beauty ! You see her in her decay. I 
 worship her for what she was. Faded beauty ! Youth 
 has such insolent phrases. Yes, she has passed the 
 apogee of woman's ripest charms. She is on the down- 
 ward slope. There are crows' feet at the corners of the 
 finest eyes in France. But while she lives she will be 
 beautiful. Women who have only the beaicte du diable 
 when they are young are devilish ugly when they are 
 old ; but her face is cast in that perfect mould which 
 only death can spoil." 
 
 " Mountain, you must not linger. It is morning, and 
 the Cardinal may order a house-to-house search for his 
 enemies ; and you, if you are known " 
 
 " I am not known — unless jj/<?z^ have betrayed me." 
 
 " Can you wrong me by such a thought ? I warned 
 the Cardinal, entreated him not to leave the Palace 
 unguarded — but I was no traitor. He could extract 
 nothing from me except that there was danger for him 
 between the Louvre and his house."
 
 2oa 5n ibiab ©laces 
 
 " I am glad your superior virtue did not give me to 
 the hangman. If you have not peached, I doubt I am 
 safe enough for the next hour ; and I shall be forty miles 
 away from Paris before night, if my horse be as good as 
 they tell me." 
 
 " Where is your horse ? " 
 
 " In the Rue Saint-Antoine, five minutes' ride from 
 the gate." 
 
 " What if the Cardinal has ordered all horsemen 
 to be stopped at the gates ? There has been time 
 enough for him to do it. Your friends all made 
 off two hours ago. Why, in Heaven's name, did 
 you linger?" 
 
 " I had business in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. 
 There was one I had to see before I left Paris. I 
 could not be such a sneak as to think more of my 
 own skin than of her disappointment." 
 
 " A woman ! The witch in the web, sans doute ! " 
 
 " Ah, lad, when you know what it is to love a woman 
 — and she as far out of your reach as the stars are — you 
 will smile less scornfully at my folly. Yes, 'tis the en- 
 chantress in the web, and she has spun her gossamer 
 round my heart. This head of mine is a poor stake 
 in such a game " 
 
 " Your head ! Alas ! 'tis every limb and every sinew 
 you hazard for her — 'tis the risk of being broken on the 
 wheel. The axe is for our betters, Frank." 
 
 " I would risk the wheel to please her. 'Tis not 
 the first time I have set my life upon a die. Do 
 you remember in 'thirty-seven how I left you at 
 Carcassonne, in charge of the landlord of that 
 wretched hovel they called an inn — deserted you for 
 three days and nights? 'Twas to ride to the Spanish 
 frontier with her, George, her page and purveyor — to 
 ride at her saddle-bow, she riding a califourcJion in 
 her impudent doublet and hose, her narrow foot and 
 Arabian instep in a boot that a man might have 
 kissed. The boldest rider, for a woman, that man ever 
 saw ! I rode beside her through the mountain passes — 
 hand locked in hand sometimes, when the road was
 
 tTo prevent /I^^urDet 203 
 
 perilous — and be sure I made the most of the danger. 
 These arms received her when she sprang from her 
 saddle, and once — 'twas the end of our last stage, 
 mark you ! — I snatched a kiss. She fetched me a cut 
 of her whip across my cheek that showed red for a 
 month. But the kiss was worth the smart, George, 
 for her lips clung to mine before she remembered that 
 she ought to be angry, and it has been a memory to 
 dream of." 
 
 " You are foolish to care for an intriguing wanton ! " 
 
 " S'death ! you shall call her no names. She sent 
 me off with the fiery brand of her whip on my face, 
 though I carried letters that would have been my death- 
 warrant had Richelieu's spies caught me. But she 
 knew that I was her slave, and had no more choice 
 than the tides have when they obey the moon." 
 
 He was packing one of the saddle-bags while he 
 talked, folding, thrusting, squeezing bulky garments 
 into the narrowest possible space, his hands moving as 
 fast as his speech, which was wild and feverish, keeping 
 time with his throbbing pulses. 
 
 George helped him to strap the bags, and did all that 
 could be done to hasten his departure. 
 
 " Have you eaten anything since you left the Angel, 
 Frank ? " 
 
 " No, nor since dinner yesterday. Men don't eat 
 when they are concerned in a business that carries the 
 fate of a nation : but I drank enough last night to 
 furnish me against a week's sobriety. Alack ! boy, 
 were I a Frenchman, I could never forgive what you 
 have done. If you knew what hung upon our design ! 
 . . . We should have been the saviours of France had 
 we succeeded — we should have prevented civil war ; for, 
 believe it or not, George, if Mazarin remains at the 
 helm, there will be civil war. There is a volcano of 
 hate under the smooth surface of Court and City, that 
 must explode before we are much older. He has been 
 at the head of affairs less than a year, and he is worse 
 hated than Richelieu was in a quarter of a century. 
 He is so much the meaner villain — will use a willing
 
 204 Sn Ibiab Ip>lace5 
 
 tool and not reward him, while he lavishes gold on the 
 men he fears ; gold which he loves as good Catholics 
 love the Mother of God. He is worse hated than 
 Strafford was, and you know how London clamoured 
 for his blood ; and Paris is a crueller foe than London. 
 I tell you it must come — another day of barricades, 
 Paris in arms, Frenchmen cutting each other's throats. 
 The Princes hate him. The Parliament knows it has 
 been bubbled by him — tricked into quashing the late 
 King's will, and so making this Italian intriguer 
 omnipotent. Well, I am ready ! "—as he tugged at the 
 last strap — needlessly, since George had made all the 
 fastenings secure. " Good-bye, lad, and God bless you. 
 I know you meant me no harm." 
 
 " Nay, dear friend, I meant to save you from a crime." 
 
 " Crime ! Was that a crime which would have saved 
 these streets from running blood ? Was Brutus a 
 murderer, think you ? See, here is half my fortune " — 
 taking half a dozen gold pieces from the purse that hung 
 at his waist. " Before that is gone you will have found 
 powerful friends. Mean as the Cardinal is, he must 
 needs reward you." 
 
 This was said soUo voce on the stairs as they went 
 down together, George following close upon his master. 
 
 " I will take no reward from him ! " 
 
 " Nay, but punish him, George. If you love me, 
 punish him ! Take his money — the thing he loves 
 dearest. For my sake make him smart. Once more — 
 adieu ! " 
 
 Mountain had opened the door, and they were 
 standing on the threshold. The street lay before them 
 cold and grey, with the lights and shadows clearly 
 defined in the dawn, and above them swinging sign and 
 gabled roof were touched with the gold of sunrise. 
 
 " You will have a fine morning for your ride," said 
 George. "God grant you meet no hindrance on your 
 journey. Have you far to go ? " 
 
 " To Anet, Vcndome's chateau. I have a rendezvous 
 there with Campion ; and once there I doubt we shall 
 both be safe. Don't look so scared, George! I have
 
 XLo {prevent /iDarber 205 
 
 very little fear of being hunted down for last night's 
 business. This Roman knows 'tis wise to let sleeping 
 dogs lie. He knows that for such as he — the men who 
 scramble to the summit upon the necks of their fellows 
 — there is hatred that never sleeps ; knows that the foe 
 who waits and watches is a hydra the headman's axe 
 cannot kill ; and knows that his best policy is to con- 
 ciliate his enemies and make believe that the nation 
 loves him." 
 
 He stopped, wrung his/rc/^^/'j- hands, and would have 
 parted with him on the threshold. 
 
 " I will see you mounted and safe through the gate," 
 George said, following him with one of the saddle-bags, 
 which Mountain tried in vain to wrest from him. 
 
 " Nay, that you shall not. I will not put your head 
 in peril ! " 
 
 " Why, but this moment you swore there was no 
 danger ! " 
 
 " None that a hardy ruffian like me esteems worth 
 his concern. But for you 'tis different. You have your 
 fortune to make. Let Mazarin make it for you, if he 
 will, while he is in power. Go back, lad — I will not 
 have you wreck your chances to carry a bag and hold a 
 horse's bridle for me." 
 
 " And I won't leave you this side the gate ! " 
 
 The young man's resolution prevailed, and he went 
 with Mountain to the stable of a great house in the Rue 
 Saint-Antoine, where they found a strong hackney 
 saddled and bridled, waiting for him, in the care of a 
 groom who grumbled sorely at the ill-usage of himself 
 and the horse — both having waited for nearly three 
 hours. 
 
 Master and page only parted at the gate, where 
 Mountain's pass-word was received without comment, 
 making it clear that his Eminence had taken no pains to 
 keep his enemies within the walls. 
 
 " I shall come back to you when this has blown over," 
 were Mountain's last words. 
 
 The sun was high and Paris was astir when George
 
 2o6 5n IbiGb BMaces 
 
 walked slowly back to the Golden Crown. Perhaps it 
 was only when he saw Mountain's stalwart figure vanish 
 through the gate, whip hand on hip, legs straight and 
 stiff, broad shoulders yielding easily to the movement 
 of the horse — it was only then, perhaps, that he knew 
 how well he loved his comrade and master. What was 
 his life to be like without him ? Alone in Paris, 
 without trade or calling ; penniless when the few gold 
 pieces in his purse were spent ; friendless, since he 
 counted a fine lady's notice at not a groat's value ; 
 alone, and without a friend on this side of the narrow 
 sea, and severed by an impassable barrier from those 
 cherished friends in England, of whose kindness he had 
 never doubted, but whose dear company he must needs 
 shun. 
 
 He had washed his face and hands, and brushed the 
 worst of the soot and lime from his doublet while 
 Mountain and he were talking ; and he made use of 
 his morning leisure at the baths on the Quai d'Ecole, 
 which Marie de Medicis had provided for the citizens 
 of Paris, and, having wasted some hours thus, returned 
 reluctantly to the lodging whose solitude he dreaded. 
 True that there was no lack of company in the rooms 
 below, company whose cheerfulness ran into riot ; for 
 there fops and duellists, the rodomo?tts, fanfarrons, and 
 spadassins of the day, ate, and drank and gambled, and 
 laughed and sang, and quarrelled and fought, from 
 morning till night ; but it was such company as his 
 present humour loathed, and to which he preferred the 
 dulness of the upstairs room, where the yawning doors 
 of the great cherry-wood press revealed the empty shelf 
 on which Mountain had kept his scanty wardrobe, 
 and where the table was still littered with the latest 
 Mazarinades, printed in clumsy type on coarse paper, 
 and bought from the hawkers on the Pont Neuf 
 Mountain had been an eager purchaser of all such 
 defamatory literature, though not so careful a collector 
 as the Savoy Ambassador, who was known to buy 
 and treasure every licentious ballad and virulent 
 lampoon against the First Minister.
 
 Zo prevent /IDucDer 207 
 
 The warm bath had relaxed the stiffness of his 
 bruised limbs, and lessened the pain of wrenched 
 muscles, and he began to feel the effect of the night's 
 exertions in a longing for sleep. He flung himself 
 upon his bed, and soon sank into slumber so deep 
 that the brawling voices and strident laughter in the 
 rooms below had no more effect upon him than the 
 rustle of summer boughs in the gardens that lay 
 between his open casements and the Seine. 
 
 He had slept for nearly three hours when he was 
 roused by a loud rapping at the room door. 
 
 " Come in, and the devil take you ! " he cried, startled 
 into sudden consciousness, and savage with his disturber. 
 
 " I thought I had come to the cave of the Seven 
 Sleepers," said a woman's voice on the threshold ; and, 
 starting to his feet, George recognised Madame de 
 Lussac's waiting-woman, Signora Bianca, who stood 
 looking at him with dark unfriendly eyes. 
 
 " Pardon me, Signora mm. I was fast asleep." 
 
 " Too fast even to find a civil tongue on waking, sir. 
 But I deserved no better when I undertook an errand 
 which any lacquey in Madame's service would have 
 done as well." 
 
 " That your mistress has employed you upon an 
 unworthy mission is hardly a reason for being angry 
 with me, Signora." 
 
 " The Marchesa sends you this, sir " — handing him 
 a letter. " Read it, and give me your answer by word 
 of mouth." 
 
 " My hero ! You have made me proud and happy ; 
 and you have made your own fortune secure. Come to 
 me without an instant's delay. 
 
 " Thine till death, 
 
 " HfiLOiSE DE LUSSAC." 
 
 George's face crimsoned as he read the lines. The 
 tone of appropriation vexed him ; the lavish praise for 
 an act which he deemed simple duty almost disgusted 
 him. Not to win a great lady's approval had he done
 
 2o8 3n Ibigb places 
 
 this thing. Yet it was natural, perhaps, since the 
 warning had come from her, that the praise should 
 come from her also. 
 
 " Will you come ? " asked the Signora curtly. 
 
 " Yes. You know the contents of this letter ? " 
 
 " There is nothing which concerns my mistress that 
 I do not know." 
 
 " That is a servant's duty, I suppose ; in which case 
 I am glad I have to make shift without a servant." 
 
 " There are servants and servants. I am the Marchesa's 
 foster-sister. I was plucked from my mother's breast 
 in order that she should thrive and grow strong and 
 beautiful. I grew up rickety and stunted for her sake. 
 I have been her slave all my life. I suppose you think 
 that gives no rights — that all is done when I have 
 drawn my wages." 
 
 " Indeed, Signora, I am not so hard of heart or dull 
 of brain as to undervalue a lifelong fidelity. Yet I 
 may suggest that you could throw a shade more courtesy 
 into your treatment of a humble servant of your lady's, 
 without derogating from your dignity as her trusted 
 waiting- woman." 
 
 "You have a glib tongue, sir. Are you coming ?" 
 
 " I shall delay only to change doublet and hose, 
 Signora — an operation which requires privacy." 
 
 The woman turned on her heel, and departed without 
 word or salutation. 
 
 Half an hour later George was ushered into the salon 
 where Madame de Lussac awaited him. She was pacing 
 the room as he entered, and she turned suddenly at 
 the sound of his name, and advanced to meet him, with 
 outstretched hands, and a radiant smile that took a 
 decade from her age ; or it might be that the vivacity 
 of her movements, the spontaneous grace, the lofty 
 carriage of her head, made her look younger and hand- 
 somer than in her evening splendour. 
 
 It was no trick of subdued light, no cathedral dimness, 
 which enhanced her beauty ; for the room in which she 
 received him gave upon the garden, and the mullioned 
 windows extended from end to end of the wall, the light
 
 XTo prevent /IDurbet 209 
 
 chastened only by the armorial bearings of the De Lussac 
 family, and its allied nobility, blazoned in delicate 
 colouring in the topmost panels. No, it was assuredly 
 the soul within the woman which had put on this renewal 
 of youth. 
 
 " My hero ! " she exclaimed, clasping his hands, and 
 kissing him on either cheek. 
 
 The kisses startled, but did not disgust him. Inex- 
 perienced as he was in the ways of fine ladies of this 
 stamp, he knew instinctively that these were not the 
 tainted kisses of an aristocratic courtesan, but the warm 
 greeting of a woman who for some inexplicable reason 
 had come to regard him with affection. 
 
 Gallantry demanded an acknowledgment of such an 
 honour. He dropped on one knee and saluted the lady's 
 hand with his lips. 
 
 " Dear Marchesa," he said, as he rose from that 
 attitude of homage, " if 'tis for last night's work you 
 thus honour me, you over-estimate that poor service. 
 There was nothing heroic in it. I took some pains to 
 warn his Eminence of a peril that allowed of no shilly- 
 shally — but it was of another's safety I thought most, 
 and the Cardinal owes me nothing." 
 
 She put her hand upon his lips hastily, and he saw 
 her glance towards the tapestried wall, where the story 
 of Theseus and Ariadne glowed in colours mellowed by 
 time, a masterpiece from the looms of Tournay. 
 
 " Foolish boy, to make light of a service in which you 
 risked your life. You must have put yourself in the 
 power of a band of traitors in order to discover their 
 scheme of murder — you, so young, so inexperienced in 
 treachery and bloodshed, alone among a gang of 
 assassins ! And it was I who sent you there. If they 
 had killed you, your blood would have been on my head 
 — on mine. Yes, on mine ! " she repeated passionately, 
 and now her beauty assumed a tragic aspect, and he 
 looked at her wondcringly, recalling the actress he had 
 seen a few days before at the Hotel de Bourgogne, in 
 Corneille's Cid. 
 
 " For one untoward moment my life may have been 
 
 14
 
 2IO 5n fblQh places 
 
 at stake, madame," he replied lightly, " but I should be 
 a poor poltroon if I remembered so brief a hazard. If 
 you would do me a kindness, tell me whether the 
 Cardinal means to pursue last night's plotters with his 
 vengeance — whether their lives are in danger." 
 
 " If they had their deserts they would be in the 
 oubliettes under the Bastille by this time — and in the 
 hangman's hands at sunrise to-morrow. But Mazarin 
 is not like Richelieu. He does not love bloodshed — 
 and as those two who are the heart and brain of the 
 conspiracy are beyond the reach of justice I doubt his 
 clemency will suffer their hirelings and vulgar tools to 
 go unpunished." 
 
 " He will be wise if he refrain from discoveries which 
 would but prove how bitterly he is hated," George 
 began impetuously ; but the Marquise interrupted him 
 with an angry stamp of her foot, and a frown that 
 darkened her beauty like a thunder-cloud. 
 
 " Diantre ! I fear you are a most incorrigible block- 
 head ! " she muttered, under her breath. 
 
 The rustling of tapestry caught his ear while he stood 
 gazing at her, bewildered by this sudden displeasure ; 
 and, looking at the opposite wall, he saw that the arras 
 had been pushed aside, and that a man was standing 
 in the opening — a commanding figure, clad in that 
 picturesque costume which the princes and nobles of 
 the Louvre had adopted from the solemn hidalgos of 
 the Spanish Court, a grave and stately fashion which 
 lends nobility to the portraits of Velasquez and Philippe 
 de Champagne ; a costume for which the bad taste of 
 Louis the Great substituted the Dutch stiffness of 
 buckram-lincd coats and tall perukes. 
 
 The flowing mantle, broad-leaved hat, velvet doublet, 
 and high boots, well became the shapely figure and 
 classic features of the man who stood calmly contem- 
 plating Madame de Lussac and her visitor ; and it was 
 some moments before George perceived that the hand- 
 some cavalier, with his face somewhat shadowed by 
 the droop of his hat, was no other than the Minister 
 who ruled France. It was the Cardinal's habit on
 
 Uo prevent ^urber 211 
 
 occasion to assume the secular dress which set off his 
 fine person and reminded his enemies that he had once 
 been a soldier, that he was still in the prime of life, 
 and in all physical attributes the opposite of his great 
 predecessor, whose later years had been a prolonged 
 struggle with disease, the invincible mind warring 
 against the frail and fading body. 
 
 " ' From the lips of babes and sucklings ! ' " exclaimed 
 the Cardinal, his eyes brightening with malevolent light 
 as he looked at George. " My French contemporaries 
 have refrained from telling me that I am hated by the 
 people for whose welfare I have devoted the labour of 
 my days and nights ever since I came to their ungrate- 
 ful country. It remained for an Englishman, not three 
 months in Paris, to give me the advice my friends feared 
 to proffer." 
 
 He waited to see George sink to his knees, crushed by 
 the great man's displeasure, and stammering a prayer for 
 pardon. But the offender stood erect and unblenching, 
 returning scowl for scowl. 
 
 " I did but echo the popular cry," he said. " Those 
 who sit in taverns know more than the dwellers in 
 palaces of the vulgar herd and of their thoughts and 
 feelings. The taxes your Eminence has laid on Paris 
 scarce touch your noble friends and advisers, but they 
 fall heavily on the common people ; and it is the 
 common people who make rebellions." 
 
 " No, Mr. Jackanapes, it is the malignity of envious 
 princes which stirs up the spirit of rev'olt. The common 
 people will believe what they are told. They follow the 
 rebel's flag, but they seldom initiate rebellion. Come, 
 sir, I forgive you for saying I am hated ; and since you 
 saved me the risk of an awkward encounter at the cost 
 of a spoilt suit — for which my tailors shall compensate 
 you with the finest brocade and embroidery of gems 
 and gold that their skill can command — I will treat 
 your friend Mountain with a clemency for which my 
 late revered master would blame me. His insignifi- 
 cance can go scatheless, and I will not even lodge a 
 complaint of his perfidy with Sir Richard Browne, your
 
 212 5n Ibiab places 
 
 Ambassador, provided the .scoundrel has the civility to 
 put himself upon the other side of the Channel." 
 
 " Your Eminence may be assured that Francis 
 Mountain has good friends on both sides of the 
 Channel." 
 
 " And has good friends beyond the Pyrenees, no 
 doubt ; but he will find those powerful friends his 
 worst enemier if he lets them entangle him in any 
 more of their plots against my life. If I let them go 
 this time, sir, remember it is because I love peace, and 
 am not of a vindictive spirit ; but were the game to 
 begin again I might hold other cards, and play a 
 different sequence. And in that case, however subor- 
 dinate Mr. Mountain's part might be, he would find 
 it not too low for the hangman." 
 
 Madame de Lussac had betrayed her impatience 
 by various petulant shrugs and nervous movements, 
 during this conversation ; and she turned upon the 
 Cardinal now with an angry vehemence which would 
 have been a shock to any man with less self-control, 
 and less experience of the lady's temper, 
 
 " Do you forget that this young man saved your life — 
 and that it is of his courage and resolution you have to 
 think, and not of his friend's treachery? " 
 
 " Oh, I am grateful ; but since the gentleman has 
 confessed 'twas for his friend he feared rather than 
 for me, I may be excused if I settle the question 
 of that friend's existence before I talk of payment 
 
 for Monsieur " he stopped, looking to George to 
 
 prompt him. 
 
 " My name is Mountain, — George Mountain." 
 
 " The same surname as your friend's. He is your 
 kinsman then?" 
 
 " No, Monsignore. I have no kindred." 
 
 " An orphan ? " 
 
 " And a waif — nameless, did not the friend who gave 
 me food and shelter lend me his name. But your 
 Eminence spoke just now of payment — payment for 
 my service of last night. You will, I hope, withdraw 
 that word, and believe that I acted without thought
 
 XEo prevent /IDurC)er 213 
 
 of reward — and, as your Eminence overheard just now, 
 that I had it nearer my heart to save my friend from 
 a crime than to protect the most distinguished life 
 in France." 
 
 There was ineffable pride in the speech and bearing 
 of the nameless adventurer, as he stood face to face 
 with the man upon whose lips princes and dukes of the 
 blood Royal hung for favours, strong in the power of 
 youth that has never stooped to a mean action or been 
 influenced by a sordid motive. 
 
 " Hear him, and look at him, Julio ! " cried Madame 
 de Lussac, " and then doubt me if you can. But you 
 have a heart of adamant ! God help man or woman 
 who looks to you for human feeling, for love, or pity, 
 or gratitude, or pardon ! What is it to you that he 
 is what he is ? What is it to you that you owe him 
 your life?" 
 
 " Let us have no tragedy, I entreat you, cava Marchesa. 
 We get enough of that from Pierre Corneille. This 
 young gentleman, whose cause you have taken up with 
 needless vehemence, has been pleased to flout my offer 
 of recompense for his services. He is hot-headed and 
 proud, as you see. Years — perhaps months — on the 
 streets of Paris may bring him wisdom. When he 
 wants my assistance he can come to me. Addio, anhna 
 viia ! " 
 
 He lifted the tapestry and disappeared through the 
 door by which he had entered. It was no secret pas- 
 sage, only a communication between one of the statelier 
 reception-rooms and Madame de Lussac's private apart- 
 ments. Her bedchamber was on the floor above, and 
 from an adjoining turret an escalier a vis, with elabo- 
 rately carved balusters, a clief-d^ceuvre of the unfortunate 
 Jean Goujon's, afforded a private access to that upper 
 storey. 
 
 The Cardinal's departure did not restore the lady to 
 calmness. She paced the room again, as she had been 
 pacing it when George entered. Her hands were clasped 
 convulsively ; her rapid footsteps and heaving bosom 
 indicated an almost overpowering emotion. George
 
 214 5n Ibfab places 
 
 stood near the door, bareheaded, waiting to take his 
 leave, when his hostess should have recovered sufficient 
 calmness to acknowledge his parting salutation. For 
 the moment he thought her unconscious of his presence. 
 
 After several agitated journeys along the whole 
 length of the room she came to a sudden stop, and 
 sank on a tabouret by the open window, pushing the 
 casement wider, and turning her face to the summer 
 wind. 
 
 " He is adamant ! " she exclaimed. " Or he is some- 
 thing worse than a thing which has no feeling. His 
 feelings are all evil. I believe he hates you. He sees 
 you standing before him, generous, fearless, all that a 
 nobly-born youth should be, and his eye grows colder 
 as he looks at you, his lip more like iron." 
 
 " Dear lady, why are you thus distressed for my 
 sake ? I have told you once for all that what I did 
 last night — no more perilous an adventure than a lover 
 will risk to serenade his mistress — was done chiefly for 
 my friend's sake. His Eminence rates my service quite 
 high enough — but 'twas ill done to affront me by 
 offering me a suit of clothes, or by talking of payment." 
 
 "It was ?i parvenu's insolence — the petty pride of the 
 Sicilian peasant's son who has made himself the superior 
 of princes. He hates you because you are young and 
 handsome, and of a bold spirit, and have your life all before 
 you. He hates you because you are what he has been, 
 and can never be again. But I have done with him. 
 He can keep his piled-up gold — the treasures his miserly 
 soul dotes upon, his diamonds, which already outshine 
 the Crown jewels. He blazes before the Queen — he, the 
 creature her favour has made — more splendid than his 
 sovereign. We want nothing from him, George. We 
 are strong enough, you and I, to do without him ! " 
 
 " Indeed, madame, I ask favours from no one, being, 
 as you say, young, and with my life before me." 
 
 " Favours ! No, no, you need seek no one's favour. 
 But you are alone in Paris ; friendless, except for those 
 fine ladies who invite you to their houses, and carry you 
 about in their coaches, and who will blot you out of their
 
 Uo prevent /l^ur^er 215 
 
 memory if ever they see you in a threadbare juste-au- 
 corps, and a hat with draggled plumes. You carry 
 yourself proudly, George ; but pray what are you going 
 to do in Paris, now that your master is an exile ? " 
 
 " Paris is not the world. Marquise. If I cannot earn 
 my bread in Paris I can go elsewhere. I am not a 
 philosopher, like Mr. Hobbes, but I have some learning, 
 and I have spent near three years as tutor in an English 
 nobleman's family. I can seek a situation of the same 
 kind in this country." 
 
 " You ! In the bloom of your youth ! When your life 
 should march from triumph to triumph, from pleasure to 
 pleasure ! You, a pedagogue, a pedant, a drudge, to 
 teach unruly boys Greek and Latin, and physic their 
 mothers' lap-dogs ! " 
 
 " If I find the schoolmaster's post irksome — as I might 
 chance to do among strangers — I can carry a musket 
 in Planders. The field is wide enough for all." 
 
 " You distract me when you talk of it ! You, a 
 mere soldier, one of the herd who are sacrificed 
 by the hecatomb to swell D'Enghien's renown ! No, 
 George, you are to stay in Paris, and my house is to 
 be your home. You can revive my Latin, if you like, 
 to keep your hand in, I was once a fair scholar, 
 and could construe Ovid and Virgil as well as some 
 collegians. This house shall be your home." 
 
 " Dearest lady, you load me with favours ; you 
 overpower me with undeserved kindness. But indeed, 
 the benefit you offer is impossible for me to accept. 
 Had you sons I might be their tutor ; but you are 
 alone." 
 
 " Yes, George, I am alone, and very lonely. It were 
 Christian charity in you to share my solitude, to be 
 the consolation of my waning years." 
 
 " Alas, dear Marquise, the world has but little charity ; 
 and even the pious ladies who make their confession 
 once a month have not Christianity enough to refrain 
 from slandering a handsome rival. I have heard how 
 the women of Paris talk of each other, and I would 
 not for the wealth of the richest street in this city
 
 2i6 3n Iblab BMaces 
 
 suffer my presence under this roof to invite slander 
 upon its mistress." 
 
 " Let them slander me ! I have been slandered, and 
 have lived. Lies do not kill. I have no fear of what 
 my friends can say. They said their worst twenty 
 years ago, and I survived ; and you have seen those 
 same women fawn upon me as if I were an empress. 
 They think I have influence with Mazarin ; they 
 know he rules the Queen : and they would kiss the 
 rose upon my slipper as they kiss the cross on the 
 Papal shoe, if I bade them." 
 
 " Be sure, Marquise, that I am grateful for your 
 generous offer; but a sybarite's life in a lady's house 
 would be as distasteful to me as it would be unworthy 
 any man of my age and condition. I cannot relish bread 
 that^ I have not earned ; and I would rather live on the 
 soldier's scanty rations, and lie under canvas, than sink 
 to the state of a dependent on a woman's bounty." 
 
 "You should make no sacrifice of manly pride, or 
 manly ambition. I would have you aspire to the 
 highest place the world can give ; you would be no 
 dependent." 
 
 " If not a dependent, what am I to be ?" 
 
 " What God made you — my son."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TAKEN BY STORM. 
 
 Before George had recovered from the shock of these 
 never-to-be-forgotten words, Madame de Lussac was 
 on her knees at his feet. He felt her tears raining upon 
 his hands, which hers were clasping distractedly. He 
 raised her from the ground with some broken speech 
 that was meant to soothe her agitation, and she flung 
 herself upon his breast, sobbing, " My son — my ill-used 
 son ! " 
 
 He bent his lips over the rich masses of dark, silky 
 hair, the rippling curls and airy tendrils arranged by 
 the lady's waiting-woman with an artistic negligence 
 which cost infinite pains, but now veritably disordered. 
 He let his lips rest lightly, in the merest phantom of 
 a kiss, on the burning brow under those love-locks, and 
 it was bitterness to him to feel how little there was 
 of filial affection in that kiss. 
 
 Was it true? Had he wandered over the world to 
 find her here, that shadow and dream of his childish 
 years, of his graver manhood, to find the sad and lonely 
 phantom embodied in this great lady, beautiful exceed- 
 ingly, but with a beauty which had never touched and 
 charmed him as a less splendid face had done. Even 
 in the profound agitation of that moment, the image 
 of Lady Llanbister came between him and the woman 
 whose dishevelled head drooped upon his breast, whose 
 arms were about his neck ; and he thought of her whom 
 he had always loved to consider his adopted mother. 
 
 The real mother had come upon the scene, asserting 
 
 217
 
 2i8 5n ibtab UMaces 
 
 the irresistible claim of motherhood ; and if the claim 
 were true, he would have no choice but to obey. 
 
 " Dear lady, are you not the victim of some delusion ? 
 Women are more credulous than we are ; and your 
 kindness — or some fancied resemblance — may lead you 
 to see a long-lost son in one who has no drop of your 
 blood in his veins," 
 
 " The evidence is strong enough for me, George. 
 You will want chapter and verse, perhaps. You will 
 want to fit the chain of circumstance together without 
 one missing link. That may prove impossible. And 
 you may deny me a mother's rights because I cannot 
 give you legal proof of the tie between us." 
 
 She had unclasped her arms from his neck, and had 
 allowed him to lead her back to her seat by the window. 
 He knelt beside her there, looking up at her with 
 infinite tenderness ; but it was the kindness of a man 
 who pities woman's weaker nature rather than any touch 
 of awakening affection for the woman who had advanced 
 the most sacred claim upon his love. 
 
 " Dearest lady, it is not a question of legality." 
 
 " No, it is not a question of legality," she echoed, with 
 a defiant look, " for you were born outside the law. 
 The law gives me no claim upon your obedience or your 
 affection." 
 
 " Do you think I would withhold either because both 
 are free ? Ah, if you are not mistaken, if you have 
 indeed that sacred right, I should hold the claim three- 
 fold stronger because the law cannot enforce it. But 
 for your sake, dear Marquise, quite as much as for my 
 own, I would urge you not to accept some womanly 
 fancy for evidence of a stern fact. There is nothing — 
 not one incident — in my conscious experience which 
 can link my life with yours. I was reared in an English 
 homestead. The only man whom I remember as having 
 any power over my destiny was an Englishman." 
 
 " That is one of the strongest links in the chain ! " 
 returned the Marquise eagerly. " The son I — lost " — 
 there was a slight faltering in the earnest voice at this 
 point — " was given into the charge of an Englishman,
 
 TTaften bp Storm 219 
 
 to be reared in England. There were reasons why it 
 had to be so, George. I was not the mistress of my 
 own destiny. I might say that these eyes never saw 
 my child's face, for I was in a raging fever — my wits 
 wandering in a world of spectral shapes, hideous, 
 threatening shadows, when he was taken from me. If 1 
 ever looked upon his infant face I have no memory 
 of that look, the mother's first wondering contemplation 
 of her firstborn — the smile of half-awakened love. I 
 have seen mothers with their firstborn, and have envied 
 them, recalling my misery." 
 
 "But what after-tidings had you of that child? Is 
 his history a blank from the hour that he was entrusted 
 to this — nameless— Englishman ?" 
 
 " The Englishman was not nameless. He was a 
 certain Captain St. George, a soldier, an adventurer, well 
 born, but of ruined fortunes, who had fought in the 
 Valteline, under the Due de Lorraine. You were con- 
 fided to him, to be reared as a gentleman and a soldier, 
 his son by adoption, and you were to bear his name. 
 Thus in your Christian name I discovered another link 
 in the chain. You had but been privately baptised 
 when you were given into his custody, and your bap- 
 tismal name was not told him. You were to be brought 
 up as an English subject, of gentle birth, and the sum 
 of money which was given to your adopted father was 
 large enough to provide for gentle rearing." 
 
 " And if Captain St. George, mercenary soldier and 
 adventurer, chose to squander that fortune on his own 
 uses, to waste it in taverns and stews, what of your 
 child's rearing then ? " 
 
 " Mea culpa, inea culpa, mea maxima culpa ! " mur- 
 mured Madame de Lussac, the tears streaming from her 
 swollen eyelids. 
 
 She had not ceased to weep since she had dropped on 
 her knees before the man she claimed as her son, and 
 before whom this proud spirit suffered a humiliation rare 
 in the history of high-born womanhood. 
 
 " You have an erring woman for your mother, George," 
 she said, after a brief silence, " a sinner who can but ask
 
 220 5n fbigb {places 
 
 from your pity what your love might refuse — forgetfulness 
 of her guilt and of your wrongs. But you may — in your 
 charity — consider that I was but eighteen when you 
 were given into that stranger's keeping, that it was little 
 more than a year since I left the convent where I was 
 brought up in ignorance of all that there is of peril to 
 woman's peace in the world outside convent walls. In 
 knowledge and experience I was a child ; a woman only 
 in the power to love and suffer. Do not ask me to tell 
 you more of that tragedy which left me in the dawn of 
 womanhood lonely in the midst of flatterers, joyless, 
 loveless, and compelled to accept wealth, rank, and a 
 great place in the world, as the substitute for all that 
 woman holds dearest ! " 
 
 " Dear lady, I will ask no question that can distress 
 you. Not for worlds would 1 urge you to lift the veil 
 from an unhappy past. But I beseech you to arrive at 
 a mathematical certainty before you admit a stranger to 
 the place of a son. Consider how sorrowful a thing it 
 would be, were you to find that you had lavished a 
 mother's affection upon an alien?" 
 
 *' Dieii f I begin to think you have a heart as in- 
 capable of feeling as that man of iron who was here just 
 now. Is it nothing to you to be offered a mother's 
 affection, that you begin to chop logic like Descartes, 
 and to ask for mathematical proof of your lineage ? In 
 all the years of childhood, of youth, have you never 
 thought that somewhere an unhappy woman might be 
 weeping for you, longing for you, praying to the blessed 
 Mother of God — the pure and sinless — to have pity on a 
 penitent sinner, and to give her the one adorable reward 
 of her penitential tears — the son lost in early youth — 
 before she knew how divine a gift she had renounced ? " 
 
 George felt shame-stricken at this reproach. Alas ! 
 there was no sudden kindling of filial affection in his 
 own heart in response to that fervid emotion of hers. 
 A woman, peerless among women, had revealed herself 
 to him, had claimed him as her son, had wept upon 
 his breast, and clasped and kissed his hands, and knelt 
 at his feet in profound humiliation ; and he remained
 
 Tlaften b^ Storm 221 
 
 cold. He told himself that it was the suddenness of 
 the revelation which had shocked and startled rather 
 than gladdened him. His heart would have I'esponded 
 warmly had he known the lady better, had he learnt 
 to think of her as a valued friend before she revealed 
 this sacred tie between them. Thus only could he 
 excuse himself for his coldness. 
 
 " Dear lady, yes," he faltered, " the image of the 
 mother whose face I never knew has haunted my 
 thoughts and my dreams ever since I came to the dawn 
 of reason — ever since I saw, in the happier case of 
 other children, what maternal love meant. I have had 
 strange dreams — strange, strange dreams," he repeated 
 slowly, a faint, sad smile stealing over his face, and 
 a look as of one who saw a vision of the past rather 
 than the actual scene. 
 
 " And you never dreamt of one like me, I doubt. 
 You thought yourself lowly born. Your dream showed 
 you some peasant's homely countenance." 
 
 " No, no," he answered quickly, and his smile bright- 
 ened as he spoke. " 'Twas always the face of a lady — a 
 proud and a noble face." 
 
 " The face was prophetic, though it was not mine ! " 
 the Marquise said eagerly. " It told you that you 
 came of a patrician race. When you know me better, 
 and know the history of my house, you will know 
 that, on one side at least, you are descended from a 
 line of princes." 
 
 And on the other side, he wondered ? Was his father 
 for ever to remain nameless ; albeit, if this lady's belief 
 were well founded, he had now a mother ? It was not 
 for him to question her. But there had been words 
 spoken that suggested a parentage from which he shrank 
 with loathing. That smooth-tongued, silken tyrant, that 
 parvenu Minister, whose growing rapacity was making 
 his name execrated through the length and breadth of 
 France ! Rather would he have had to own himself 
 peasant-born, the son of the kind, homely "Daddy" 
 on whose knees he sat in the winter firelight, b>^ whose 
 side he trudged in the dewy mornings. The vulgarest
 
 222 5n ibiob BMaces 
 
 parentage would not have shocked him like the thought 
 that the man who ruled France was his father. 
 
 " I esteem patrician birth as but a trivial boon com- 
 pared with a mother's love," he said. " Be sure, dear 
 friend, if I seem cold and dull, it is but because the 
 secret you have told me is one that must needs benumb 
 a man's faculties — for the moment. And I did but 
 urge you to be very sure of what I am before you 
 suffered your heart to go out to mc." 
 
 " My heart has gone out to you. It went to you on the 
 first night we met. And when you told me that you 
 had neither name nor kindred, every word pierced this 
 desolate heart like the thrust of a stiletto. You are 
 my son, George. Nature does not lie. The mother's 
 instinct in my breast would be proof enough for me, 
 were there not other and more material proofs — your 
 age, your rearing in obscurity in England, your name 
 of George, from that of St. George who adopted you. 
 Scoundrel that he was to hand you over to peasants, 
 to cast you out upon the wilderness of the world while 
 he squandered your fortune ! There is proof enough, 
 indisputable proof, of your identity. Your lineage reveals 
 itself in every feature. But if your heart is shut against 
 me " — a sudden change came over her as she said these 
 words, and she became in a moment the imperious 
 woman he had seen at their first meeting in the Louvre 
 — " if you recoil from my affection, and would rather 
 go motherless to your grave than own me for your 
 mother, why then, sir, you know your way back to the 
 street ; and when you have left my house, we can be 
 strangers ever more." 
 
 The suppressed passion under her proud bearing, the 
 withering anger that froze upon her lips and flashed 
 from her eye, thrilled him with a vague terror. To 
 be offered a mother's love — and to refuse it ! To have 
 seen the mother's face in his dreams — to have stretched 
 out his arms to a phantom in the dim labyrinth of sleep ; 
 and now, face to face with a woman of noble birth, 
 of generous temper, beautiful, rich in all gifts that lift 
 a woman above the mass of womanhood, and to hesitate.
 
 XTaften b^ Storm 223 
 
 to hang back, to be frost where he should be fire ! He 
 felt how mean a figure he made, as he faltered his 
 protestations of gratitude, of esteem, repeat, submission 
 to her will. 
 
 " Oh, I am too exacting, I ask too much ! " she said, 
 her mood changing again, after a silence, and a long, 
 weary sigh. " But life is so short, and I have wasted 
 my good years. I long for the sunlight of one calm, 
 pure love to shine upon my declining path. Youth is 
 gone, George. Beauty is going. I have only grey hairs 
 and loneliness before me. If you can be content to 
 spend your life with me, I will not make your bonds too 
 narrow. My cherished falcon shall have neither hood 
 nor leash. If, as the years go on, and you live under 
 this roof, sacrificing an hour or two of your youth day 
 by day in my dull company — if a filial affection grow 
 in your heart, ever so slowly, I will be thankful to God 
 and you, and will deem that Heaven has used me better 
 than I deserve." 
 
 " You would have me live under this roof?" 
 
 " Not as my son, George, but as my steward and 
 secretary. It is more than a year since I lost the 
 valuable man who managed my husband's estate, and 
 wrote my letters, and kept my creditors at a distance. 
 He was a man of good birth and incorruptible integrity. 
 I treated him ever as an equal. A creature so precious 
 was not easily to be replaced, so his post has remained 
 empty ; and neither De Lussac nor the world will wonder 
 at my engaging another secretary, even though you are 
 twenty years younger than my good Clerimont. I shall 
 tell my friends that I discovered the wisdom of a sage 
 under those boyish curls ; and indeed, I believe you are 
 clever enough to manage a large estate, if you will but 
 give your mind to figures and account-books for an 
 occasional hour." 
 
 George told her that he was not unaccustomed to 
 accounts, and that he would work like a galley slave at 
 her bidding ; but after that assurance he ventured, as 
 delicately as he could, to remind her that she was still 
 handsome enough to provoke the slander of envious
 
 224 5n Iblab flMaces 
 
 women and profligate men, and that the choice of so 
 young a man as himself for a grave and responsible 
 office in her household might give ground for calumny. 
 
 " Let me keep to my own lodging, dear Marchesa ; 
 and summon me here as your guest when you will. 
 But to live under this roof " 
 
 " You have promised to obey me," she interrupted, 
 " and this is the first duty I ask from you — to sit by 
 my hearth, to be within call when my dark hour comes 
 upon me, when I am ill, and despairing, and sicken 
 for the face of a friend. I defy slander ! Am I to 
 cry to all Paris, from the house-top, that I am not such 
 a woman as the Chevreuse, or the Montbazon ? Let 
 my false friends say what they choose — so long as my 
 son loves and respects me, and lives under my roof, 
 and can judge for himself what my life is. I will not 
 be denied, George. You have no excuse for refusing 
 me. You are alone in Paris, without employment, 
 without means." 
 
 " I will do as you would have me, dear lady," he 
 answered, with a grave submission. 
 
 He knew he must never address her by the sacred 
 name of mother, even when they were alone, lest the 
 word should drop from his lips involuntarily on some 
 public occasion. If he were indeed the son she claimed, 
 he must enter her house as a masquerader, in the eye 
 of her husband a paid servant ; while every time she 
 looked at him, his presence would recall the tragedy 
 of her life, the secret of her erring girlhood. To his 
 mind it seemed as if there must be misery for both 
 of them in such relations ; but she had appealed to 
 him by arguments that were irresistible, and he had 
 no option but to obey. 
 
 Paris had plenty to talk about during the next few 
 days, for Cardinal Mazarin had been quick to avenge 
 the baffled scheme of September ist. It gave him 
 an excuse for crushing the rival he feared and hated. 
 The most popular man in the city, Henry IV. 's fair- 
 haired grandson, the Due de Beaufort, was arrested
 
 Uaften b^ Storm 225 
 
 late one evening, on leaving the Queen's apartments 
 at the Louvre, and conveyed to the state prison of 
 Vincennes, that feudal castle in which the princes of 
 the blood Royal and of the half-blood had too often 
 suffered captivity. 
 
 The thought of Mazarin's peril, the attempt at assas- 
 sination, had urged Anne to severest measures, and 
 Beaufort, the golden-haired prince, the Phoebus Apollo 
 of the Louvre, once her favoured ally, was the first to 
 suffer her displeasure. 
 
 She had greeted him with smiles, and friendly 
 inquiries, when he came to her private salon, after a 
 long day's hunting ; she had let him kiss her hand at 
 parting — that alabaster hand which everybody praised. 
 And lo ! in the ante-chamber stood Guitaut, the captain 
 of the guard, waiting to arrest him as he passed from 
 that Royal presence. 
 
 The whole scene was like a bad dream ; but in that 
 hour Mazarin attained a supremacy which he had not 
 reached before, and France began to feel the strength 
 of the hand under the glove. 
 
 Close on this startling arrest followed the banishment 
 of the offender's family — the Due and Duchesse de 
 Vendome, and Beaufort's elder brother, the Due de 
 Mercoeur — to one of their country houses. Other 
 arrests succeeded, and the beautiful firebrand, Madame 
 de Chevreuse, disappeared from the scene, taking flight 
 with her daughter to Guernsey, after a vain attempt 
 to return to England. Bishops and priests, faithful 
 servants, old friends of the Queen, were alike sacrificed 
 to swell the power of the Minister who had made himself 
 master of the heart or the mind of Anne of Austria. 
 
 Three days after that startling interview with the 
 Marquise George removed to the Hotel de Lussac, 
 carrying with him a well-furnished wardrobe, and a 
 choice stock of books which Lady Llanbister had given 
 him from time to time — the books she loved and desired 
 that he should love. These were all his possessions, 
 save one thing, which he valued above them all : a 
 
 15
 
 226 Sn MQb places 
 
 miniature of his dear patroness, for which, partly to 
 please him and partly in pure benevolence, she had sat 
 to a shabby old artist in the city, who had painted 
 Elizabeth's faded charms at Richmond in the last year 
 of her life, when he was young and prosperous, and a 
 Court painter. He had fallen very low in repute and 
 in means, and was a teacher of perspective and land- 
 scape painting, in which arts he had been employed to 
 instruct Geraldine ; and her ladyship, seeing his pinched 
 countenance, meagre legs, and threadbare suit, discovered 
 the poverty he would have died sooner than acknow- 
 ledge, and, in her bounteousness for all things that can 
 feel, gave him a handsome fee for her portrait on ivory, 
 which he executed con amove. 
 
 To George the gift was of infinite value ; and there 
 was scarce a day on which he did not open the little 
 shagreen case and gaze with melancholy fondness upon 
 the pictured countenance. It was a spell to bring back 
 the happy hours that were gone, to inspire hope of a 
 happier time to come. 
 
 The major-domo ushered him to his room in a 
 stately silence, but, having inducted him, condescended 
 so far as to say, " The tapestried closet, sir, is for your 
 study, and this inner room is your chamber. They 
 were Monsieur de Lussac's rooms during the lifetime of 
 his father, and have been ever allotted to the heir of the 
 House. Monsieur Clerimont, the late steward, occupied 
 a g7-enier in the roof I hope you will find the suite to 
 your liking." 
 
 " I have no choice in such matters, sir," George 
 answered haughtily, flinging open one of the casements 
 as he spoke, for the room lacked air. 
 
 He detected a sneer in the man's speech, and felt an 
 angry flush mounting to his brow, and was vexed with 
 himself for being angry. 
 
 That which the servant had called a closet was a 
 room of ample dimensions, with two windows opening 
 from floor to ceiling in the Italian fashion, and giving on 
 to a stone balcony. The walls were hung with tapestry 
 of a much older date than that in the reception-rooms
 
 XLa]\cn bs Storm 227 
 
 below, and the bluish verdure and heavy colouring of 
 forest scenes made a somewhat gloomy background to 
 carved oak furniture of an antique and ponderous char- 
 acter, a gloom only relieved by the Venetian glass in 
 a frame of chased silver that hung above a large ebony 
 writing-table. The bedchamber was furnished in less 
 sombre colours, and was more sumptuous than the 
 study. The tall bedstead was draped with a rich azure 
 satin, embroidered with garlands of roses, hanging from 
 a gilded canopy; the wardrobe was of Italian inlaying, 
 in many coloured woods ; but the chief glory of the 
 room was a huge Venetian coffer, a dower-chest of the 
 previous century, with panels painted by Veronese, and 
 having on one side the espousals of Joseph and Mar}', 
 and on the other the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee. 
 The toilet service was of silver, the ewer richly worked 
 in repousse, and the basin parcel gilt. 
 
 Here, as in the study, the windows opened upon a 
 small quadrangle, and the only prospect was of other 
 windows in the opposite wall, and of a massive tower 
 with a conical roof in one angle of the courtyard. Walls 
 and tower shut out the afternoon sun, and the quad- 
 rangle was for the most part in shadow. To George's 
 eye it was the dreariest outlook he had ever seen ; and, 
 in spite of the splendour within, the house seemed a 
 prison rather than a palace. 
 
 The Maitre d'Hotel showed him a bell which rang in 
 the corridor outside, and which would be answered by 
 a servant, who was to be always at Monsieur's orders. 
 Madame la Marquise would like to see Monsieur in the 
 tapestried salon, when he had rested and taken some 
 refreshment. 
 
 " I need neither rest nor refreshment," George told 
 him. 
 
 "In that case I will conduct Monsieur to the salonT 
 
 " No, there is no occasion. I belong to the house 
 now, and can find my way. You can go, sir." 
 
 He was glad to get rid of this stately personage, tall, 
 lean, grey-haired, with deep-set Italian eyes glowing 
 like live coals under bushy grey brows, a skin of dark
 
 228 5n Iblab ipiaces 
 
 olive without a glimmer of red upon the cadaverous 
 cheeks, and a lip that seemed made for scorn. He 
 opened all the windows in bedchamber and study ; but 
 even then the rooms seemed airless, for want of horizon 
 and open sky. The luxury of these rooms stifled him. 
 His soul sickened at all that pomp of satin and velvet, 
 gold and silver, ebony and ivory, tapestry and painting. 
 Things that had been provided for his delight only 
 served to disgust him. 
 
 And was he weak enough to be stung by a servant's 
 sneer ? He had always hated that man's face— a servant 
 with the stateliness and assumption of a Spanish hidalgo, 
 slow and soft of step, his head in the air, with all the 
 pompous self-consciousness of one who condescended 
 to minister to masters he despised. George gave an 
 impatient sigh as he remembered the honest faces in 
 Lord Llanbister's household, and his own fresh airy 
 rooms at Isleworth, with their outlook to Richmond 
 Hill, and the scent of roses and gilly-flowers blown 
 in from the garden; and those almost as pleasant 
 garrets in Aldersgate Street, looking towards Highgate 
 and Islington, across wide spaces of pasture and cornfield, 
 broken by patches of woodland— rooms plainly fur- 
 nished, but provided with all things needful for comfort 
 and cleanliness. How different, how unspeakably 
 different, life had been in those airy houses, open to 
 all the summer winds, steeped in sunshine, full of the 
 sound of swift footsteps and happy voices ! Here all 
 was airless, silent. The very breath of life seemed 
 smothered in this gloomy splendour. 
 
 Madame de Lussac greeted him with a little cry of 
 gladness as he entered the Ariadne room, so called 
 in honour of the tapestried hangings through which the 
 Cardinal had appeared so unexpectedly during George's 
 previous visit. 
 
 She kissed him on either cheek, as Lady Llanbister 
 had done in that unforgotten moment of parting. 
 
 " Now you are all my own," she said. " Hence- 
 forward you belong to me ; your present, your future, 
 your hopes, your ambition. You are mine ; and I am
 
 XTaften b's Storm 229 
 
 content to be forgotten by the world. From this day 
 my sole desire is to see you achieve greatness ; in arms, 
 in diplomacy. Your own aspirations must direct your 
 career. If you want to marry a princess, you shall win 
 her. All I have of talent, tact, fortune, influence, shall 
 be used for you, for you, George. You are all I 
 possess in this world. You are all that life has left 
 for me," 
 
 " Do not say that, dear Marchesa. Your husband has 
 a stronger claim on your affection than I — whom fate 
 has made so long a stranger — can ever have." 
 
 " My husband ! " she cried, with scathing scorn. " A 
 husband's claim ! Do you know what husbands and 
 wives are to each other at the French Court ? The 
 husband ? A name to sanction a wife's liberty. The 
 wife ? The bringer of fortune — despised, loathed 
 perhaps, from the hour of espousal — married as a child, 
 like Richelieu's little niece, Enghien's baby-bride. Or, if 
 dowerless, and chosen in some passionate freak, for her 
 beauty, neglected and abandoned for another woman 
 when that beauty begins to pall upon its master. My 
 husband can claim nothing, and demands nothing. He 
 married me for my beauty, and was proud of me, I 
 believe, while I was in my zenith. But at the first sign 
 of wrinkles and faded looks he transferred his affections 
 to one of the ugliest women in Paris, who talks like a 
 fish-wife and drinks like a fish. It is to her that he will 
 carry his newly won laurels when the campaign is over. 
 He will bring me withered leaves and sour looks. I 
 never loved him, George, not even when he was at my 
 feet ; I hated him when he abandoned me for that 
 woman, and when Paris laughed and friends condoled. 
 But hatred soon burnt out, and left only contempt. 
 Never fear a rival in Godefroy de Lussac." 
 
 She had agitated herself by this angry retrospect, and 
 took two or three turns up and down the room before 
 she recovered that happier mood in which she had given 
 George welcome. 
 
 " Do you like your rooms ? " she asked presently, 
 seating herself by her favourite window.
 
 230 5n 1biob UMaces 
 
 All that there was of brightness was on this side of 
 the house, commanding the garden with its straight 
 walks, marble statues, balustrades and vases, its fountain, 
 and bosquet^ through which there flashed glimpses of the 
 sunlit river, and above which rose the towers of Notre 
 Dame. 
 
 " They are much too handsome for me. I am 
 accustomed to homelier rooms and humbler furniture." 
 
 " You say that as if you liked the homely rooms best." 
 
 *' I was more used to them. Pray do not think me 
 ungrateful. I am deeply conscious of your goodness." 
 
 " Ungrateful, no," she answered impatiently. " But I 
 may think you something worse than an ingrate. That 
 is only common. I may think you one of those dull 
 natures that cannot rise above the level where adverse 
 fate first placed them ; that, being bred among coarse 
 companions, and accustomed to vulgar surroundings, 
 you have a soul that cannot aspire, a mind dead to the 
 beauty of the world — knowing no difference between an 
 apprentice's garret and rooms upon which art and gold 
 have been lavished." 
 
 " Your impatience wrongs me, Marchesa. I know 
 how to admire the splendours of a palace, though I 
 have slept soundly under a gipsy's tent. I have no 
 love of coarse company or a squalid lodging, and for 
 the last three years I have been lodged in a nobleman's 
 house, and as commodiously as if I had been his son. 
 But Lord Llanbister's houses are furnished with a 
 Puritan plainness as compared with your sumptuous 
 apartments ; and I confess that I care more for a sunny 
 outlook and a broad horizon than for the finest tapestry 
 in Europe." 
 
 " You will learn to care for the work of great artists. 
 We have artists of the needle as well as of the brush. 
 Basta ! I am foolish to be disappointed at your lack of 
 taste ; and I ought to commend your honesty. Now, 
 as to your wardrobe. You must go to the best tailor in 
 Paris. Tabouret is the man most esteemed. Order 
 what you will, so long as it is of the richest material 
 and the latest fashion ; and bid him send his bill to me."
 
 Tlaften b^ Storm 231 
 
 " My dear Marchcsa, I have clothes to last me for a 
 year." 
 
 "Clothes suitable to Lord Llanbister's airy garrets, 
 not to my house — or to my son," she added, in an 
 undertone. 
 
 " I think in your bounteousness you forget my place 
 in your house," George answered gravely. " If the 
 world is to know me only as your secretary I should 
 but provoke the contempt of your friends and equals 
 were I to ape their splendour. I promise never to go 
 ill clad, or wanting in the things that become a gentle- 
 man. But if — if indeed I have any place in your 
 esteem " 
 
 " * If,' and ' esteem ' ! You have a heart of ice — like 
 your father's." 
 
 She started, and her face crimsoned, conscious of 
 having told too much in those impatient words. George 
 perceived her confusion, and was still more painfully 
 moved. His cheek blanched while hers reddened. 
 
 " Forgive me, mother," he faltered, and his lips 
 trembled at the name. " Forgive me, if I seem dull and 
 cold, while my heart aches with feelings I have no 
 power to express in speech. Think how your love — 
 your bounty — have come upon me like some angelic 
 vision seen in a dream — as suddenly — as strangely." 
 
 " Oh, I was wrong, impatient, exacting ! It is I who 
 should ask you to forgive. I have been longing for you 
 through these last barren years, with a desolate old age 
 creeping nearer and nearer. I had but to look in my 
 glass to see my fate coming. Grey hairs, withered 
 cheeks, and the world's contempt. What could life give 
 me so precious as the son I lost when I was young and 
 handsome ; when he was an infant, a child just like other 
 children ; before Heaven had given me a mother's heart ? 
 It came in after years, that sacred fire of maternal love, 
 when other fires were cold and dead. And then I saw 
 you, the re-incarnation of the man I loved when I was 
 young — and who has no existence now. No! That 
 man is dead ! " 
 
 " Let me be all that a son can be to a mother,''
 
 232 Bn fbiQb flMaces 
 
 George said tenderly, moved to deepest pity by all that 
 was pitiable in a proud woman's self-abasement, " But 
 for your honour and good name I must play my part in 
 this house with discretion. I detected a touch of 
 insolence in your groom of the chambers when he 
 showed me to my apartment — an evident wonder at 
 your indulgence in giving me such a lodging. If I am 
 not to stand at your side as your son, I must fill my 
 office as your servant so as to provoke neither question 
 nor scandal, and by the sobriety of my costume and the 
 reserve of my manners I must hold myself at a distance 
 from the fine gentlemen who crowd your salons — even if 
 it is your desire that I should appear among your 
 company." 
 
 She listened with a gloomy brow, and gave a long 
 sigh before she answered, — 
 
 " You are a model of wisdom, George. I doubt you 
 judge rightly. I live in a circle of human vipers, whose 
 fangs are primed with venom. You shall keep your 
 sober olive doublet. You could look no handsomer 
 in Candale's white satin birthday suit, stiff with gold 
 and gems. You shall live in my house as you please. 
 You shall dictate, and I will obey. Only let me see 
 you in my dark hour ; and bear with my moods and 
 caprices ; and remember that in a life the world would 
 call prosperous I have known few cloudless days." 
 
 He knelt beside her chair, and kissed her hand. 
 
 " Since we must keep our secret before the world," 
 he said, with a mournful earnestness, ** will you think 
 when my lips call you Marchesa my heart says ' Mother ' ; 
 and in all things command me as the most exacting 
 mother would command her son." 
 
 " No, no, I must not exact too much. I have to win 
 your love."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 NOT TO BE BOUGHT. 
 
 To be greatly loved, and not able to give love for love ; 
 to be loaded with benefits, and not to be grateful ; this 
 is of human bankruptcies the most painful : and it was 
 such a bankrupt that George knew himself in the house 
 of Madame de Lussac. He was true to his promise of 
 the first day. He obeyed and honoured her with all 
 courtesy and attention. He was at her beck and call 
 from morn till midnight ; sat in the perfumed atmo- 
 sphere of her ruelle, talking confidentially, or reading to 
 her, for a quiet hour before her fine company assembled, 
 when he withdrew to a distance, and lounged in the 
 embrasure of a window, listening wearily to the fops and 
 fribbles, and the pr^cieuses, whom Moliere's biting wit 
 had not yet etched with the dry point of finest 
 irony. 
 
 He lived amidst splendour that he loathed, and mixed 
 with company he despised. There was no hour before 
 midnight in which he was his own master, no period 
 of the long day when he could be sure of being left 
 to read or write, or dream, in the room that had been 
 given to him for a study, or on the garden terrace where 
 he loved to sit alone, dreamily watching the traffic on 
 the river, or looking with unseeing eyes at the dome 
 and pinnacles on the opposite shore, where all that 
 there was of learning in Paris was concentrated in the 
 College of the Sorbonne, so lately restored by the great 
 
 233
 
 234 Bn Ibiab places 
 
 Cardinal. George sighed as he gazed at the mighty 
 dome rising above the Law Courts and prison roofs of 
 the Cit^ and thought how good a life must be that 
 of a poor student, free to listen to the lectures in the 
 College halls, to listen where Rabelais had listened, to 
 tread the ground hallowed by the footsteps of philo- 
 sophers and poets, grammarians and necromancers, in 
 the dim, romantic centuries before printing and gun- 
 powder. 
 
 Alas ! if he stole into the garden, to his favourite 
 seat on the terrace, or to some sheltered nook under the 
 mulberry-trees, hoping for an hour's freedom, he had 
 rarely been alone for fifteen minutes before he heard 
 the slow footsteps of a lacquey, bringing him a message 
 from Madame la Marquise, who desired the presence of 
 Monsieur Georges in the Ariadne room. 
 
 The name of Mountain had been dropped, at Madame 
 de Lussac's desire. She would not have him associated 
 with that vulgar adventurer, that tool and minion of 
 the Chevreuse. In vain did George plead that Mountain 
 had been his adopted father when he was friendless 
 and roofless. She told him that he might be as grateful 
 as he pleased ; but he was to bear no token of those 
 past years. So he had now no surname, and was only 
 Monsieur Georges, 
 
 He was installed as a superior kind of house steward, 
 and Paolo, the old Italian major-domo, was ordered to 
 give him all documents relating to household expendi- 
 ture, and to the general management of the De Lussac 
 income, which the Marquis had allowed his wife to 
 administer, being alike reckless and ignorant in the use 
 of money. 
 
 Accustomed to the plain and uncomplicated account- 
 ancy of a household in which ready money was paid 
 for most things, and where no tradesman was ever kept 
 waiting for his due, George was horrified, and at the 
 outset almost bewildered, by the mass of bills, and 
 pleading letters, and complaints, and threats of legal 
 process, which Paolo brought before him on the first 
 day of his new office.
 
 iFiot to be Bouabt 235 
 
 His look of consternation was quickly interpreted by 
 the keen-witted Italian. 
 
 " If Monsieur could understand those papers, he would 
 be cleverer than Monsieur le Tellier, the Cardinal's 
 financial manager — who is said to have the longest 
 head in France. It is enough to distract the seven wise 
 men of Greece only to contemplate Madame's embar- 
 rassments. Indeed, I believe that unhappy wretch 
 Clerimont shortened his life by fretting over them. 
 For myself, I have left off trying to understand. I give 
 the creditors whatever funds I can scrape off the land, 
 from farmers who are always groaning — a hundred 
 crowns here, a hundred crowns there — and I wait with 
 resignation for the deluge which is to swallow us all." 
 
 " Sit down, amico mio, and explain all that is explain- 
 able," said George, softened by the old man's frankness, 
 having been prepared to meet with insolence and 
 animosity. 
 
 Paolo shrugged his shoulders, and protested that he 
 could not presume to sit in the presence of his mistress's 
 friend and honoured guest. All his experience was 
 at Monsieur's service as Monsieur's humble servant. 
 
 " First, then, for Madame's income, from all sources 
 Before we reckon her debts it were best to calculate 
 our means of paying them." 
 
 " Ohivie ! Think not to extinguish debts that have 
 been accumulating for a score of years. Monsieur is 
 young, and brave, and clever ; but he is not a saint, 
 to make a roast fowl sit up on the dish and crow. He 
 cannot take a bag of gold and invoke our blessed Lady 
 to quadruple its contents." 
 
 " At least, let me understand the funds we have 
 to administer." 
 
 Again Paolo shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " He who can understand the shifting of quicksands 
 or foretell the eruptions of Vesuvius, could perchance 
 reckon the Signora's resources. They are as irregular 
 as unexpected." 
 
 " But her estates ? They must yield an income which 
 cannot greatly vary," George said impatiently.
 
 236 5n Ibiob BMaces 
 
 " Her estates ? Oh, for estates — she has none. She 
 was penniless when the Marquis married her. The 
 Signora Bianca and your servant had to pledge our 
 poor fields and hovels in the Campagna to furnish her 
 trousseau. The Marquis was rich — riccJiissuno ; but 
 they are both of an improvidence which would exhaust 
 gold-mines. His estates at the present time furnish 
 an income — of which he anticipates the greater part ; 
 and for the rest, money is found somehow — perad- 
 venture a bag of gold — or a diamond on which to 
 borrow a few thousand crowns." 
 
 " God help us, what a mode of living ! And with 
 such letters as these — the prayers of ruined traders — 
 the cries of widows, with hungry children, whose hus- 
 bands died broken-hearted by a commerce that crushed 
 them ! What sordid misery under all this regal splen- 
 dour ! How can a woman of warm feelings and noble 
 character, like the Marquise, endure such a life ? " 
 
 "Women do not think," answered Paolo, with con- 
 viction. " The Marchesa does not read those letters. 
 There are too many of them. Or if she does sometimes 
 look at one, she does not believe the writer. ' They all 
 sing the same song,' she says, and flings me the letter. 
 ' Keep them quiet, Paolo, keep them quiet. You are 
 clever at that,' she says. And then I tell her that 
 to keep peace for another year I must have a round 
 sum. And the round sum is provided — somehow." 
 
 " The Marchesa sells some of her jewels, I doubt." 
 
 " Chi sa ? The money is found." 
 
 George examined the kitchen bills — the accounts of 
 three French cooks and two Italian confectioners. The 
 expenditure horrified him. He knew what a large 
 household ought to cost, carried on upon liberal lines ; 
 for at Lord Llanbistcr's there had been comfort for 
 everybody, down to the meanest scullion, and un- 
 measured beneficence to the sick and necessitous. 
 
 " Waste alone could hardly account for such a con- 
 sumption of provisions," he told Paolo, after a lengthened 
 scrutiny of the purveyors* bills. " There must be dis- 
 honesty somewhere as well."
 
 1Flot to be Bouobt 237 
 
 " There is dishonesty everywhere," answered Paolo. 
 " Do you expect to find honest servants in such a house 
 as this, with a master who is ahvays absent, who is 
 known to have his favoured home in the next street — 
 with a mistress who never looks at a tradesman's bill, or 
 asks the price of any goods she orders? They are 
 arrant thieves, every one of them. They steal provisions 
 enough to maintain half their kindred. I cannot stop 
 them, for if I tax them with cheating they ask me for 
 the wages I cannot pay. They pay themselves by 
 robbery. They have a league of roguery with the 
 purveyors — and most of those accounts in your hands 
 are shameless fabrications, charges for goods half of 
 which have never been supplied." 
 
 "And you, Signor Paolo, what is your part in the 
 scheme of ruin ? " George asked, looking fixedly at 
 the Italian, of whose probity he was still doubtful. 
 
 The steward returned his gaze without flinching. 
 
 " Monsieur thinks that I, too, am a cheat ? Well, 
 it is only natural. But Monsieur is wrong. I do not 
 cheat, because I do not want to be richer than I am. 
 I have an orchard and some fields, and an olive wood, 
 an oil-mill, and a cottage, on the slope of a hill near 
 Albano. Such sunshine steeps that hillside as never 
 warms this gloomy city. If I could buy sunshine with 
 ill-gotten gold I might turn plunderer. To lie in my 
 orchard and bask under that Italian sky, and dine upon 
 a melon and a slice of black bread, or a bunch of my 
 own grapes! That is the life I look forward to. 
 Monsieur, when I am too old and feeble to wear the 
 Marchesa's livery. And I have saved enough to provide 
 for that modest existence — that serene old age." 
 
 " You are wise, Signor, to be content with so little." 
 
 "So little? The Italian sky; my own orchard and 
 maize-fields, my olive wood and mill ! So much ! And 
 again, though Monsieur may not believe it, I love my 
 mistress. I served her when she was a child, a beautiful, 
 wilful, daring child ; and when she came from the 
 convent in the bloom of her girlhood — handsomer 
 than those Italian nieces of the Cardinal's, of whose
 
 238 Sn tfiQb places 
 
 beauty people tell such wonders, and of whom he has 
 so many — bright-plumed, beautiful birds that will peck 
 this French soil bare before we have done with them. 
 No, Monsieur, although I am a steward, I am not 
 a thief." 
 
 •' I am glad to know as much, Signor Paolo. And 
 I take it kindly that you have given me your confi- 
 dence, and do not resent my interference with your 
 duties. You had a diabolical manner when you showed 
 me these rooms — and I doubted we were to be enemies." 
 
 " I love my mistress. Monsieur ; and love is ever 
 jealous. I have been jealous of her greyhound, and 
 kicked the brute on the sly before now. But if it 
 please her to have your company and to entrust you 
 with her affairs — well, it is not for me to object. She 
 had ever curious fancies." 
 
 " I hope to serve her as faithfully as you have done — 
 and to reduce this chaos to order, Paolo," George said, 
 dropping the ceremonious prefix, and offering his hand 
 to the Roman, who clasped it cordially in a skinny paw 
 that was not scrupulously clean. 
 
 George lost no time in informing Lady Llanbister of 
 his altered fortunes : but he did not enter into details, 
 and dealt in the briefest manner with so portentous a 
 change ; telling her only that he had assumed the office 
 of steward or secretary in the household of the Marquise 
 de Lussac ; that it was an arduous post, but involving 
 considerable privileges, and a more sumptuous style of 
 living than he cared for ; but that he hoped to turn to 
 good account all of household economy that he had 
 learnt from his dear benefactress and friend, the loss of 
 whose so cherished company he should ever lament. 
 
 Lady Llanbister's reply came as soon as winds and 
 waves and his Majesty's post could bring it. Her letter 
 expressed an affectionate regard of which he had long 
 felt assured ; but although she congratulated him upon 
 his good fortune, he could divine that she was not 
 pleased with the form it had taken. 
 
 " I must confess I would have had you in a great gentle-
 
 1Rot to be JSouobt 239 
 
 man's service rather than in a fine lady's," she wrote, 
 " since from all I remember to have heard of Madame 
 de Lussac, in the days when the gossip of the French 
 Court used to make a considerable part of the conversa- 
 tion in our poor Queen's company, I fear she is a person 
 of a capricious temper, and renowned for neither religion 
 nor strict morals. But I do wrong perhaps to write thus 
 harshly of an unknown lady, since it is but too common 
 for fine gentlemen to speak ill of a good woman, if she 
 chance to offend them ; and all the harm I know of 
 Madame de Lussac is but hearsay. 
 
 "Yet in this lady's sumptuous home and amid the 
 splendours and fetes of Paris, which has been spared 
 the troubles that have fallen on our unhappy London, 
 I would not have you forget old friends and a much 
 meaner home, where you were ever esteemed, and where 
 your absence has left an empty place that nobody can 
 fill. And, ah, remember, George, that in the days to 
 come, if by any chance I should alter the scheme of 
 my life, and choose to live soberly and aloof from all 
 noisy spirits in a house of my own, rather than to enter 
 a religious order, whatever home I make for myself in 
 England or abroad will be your home as well as mine, 
 and there will be no one more welcome there than my dear 
 young friend and pupil. It may be, as you think, that 
 Fate will for ever refuse you the mistress of your heart, 
 and that we must submit to see the wife I would choose 
 for you given to another. If this should be so, it shall 
 be my privilege to console you with all that friendship 
 can offer in the place of love, and to be your companion 
 till, with the passing of years, your faithful heart, cured 
 of the old sorrow, shall worship at a new shrine, and 
 under happier auspices." 
 
 George was grieved to think of Madame de Lussac's 
 name shuttlecocked on the malevolent Court battledores, 
 tossed lightly from one wit to another amid flying 
 arrows of scorn. He knew how the Frenchmen in 
 London talked of their compatriots at home, and had 
 heard the peals of laughter and the malicious delight
 
 240 5n fbiob iplaces 
 
 at some outrageous anecdote of Madame de Chevreuse, 
 or her youthful step-mother, the Montbazon. The 
 Montbazon, whose reputation made sport for fops and 
 witlings from whose sphere the woman herself was as 
 inaccessible as the stars ! Doubtless among those idle, 
 jest-loving cosmopolitans at Henrietta Maria's lively- 
 Court, there had been some one to slander the beautiful 
 Marquise ; and he had no need to make himself miser- 
 able because the woman he was bound to honour had 
 been lightly spoken of in a circle which would hardly 
 admit the virtue of an archangel. 
 
 He dwelt fondly on the close of his dear lady's 
 letter. Never before had she so urged her life-long 
 friendship, never given him such full assurance of the 
 future. Yet he sighed over those lines, remembering 
 how he was bound by that stronger right of the woman 
 who claimed him as her son. Her son ? He had no 
 evidence but her assertion of his identity ; yet he could 
 scarcely doubt a fact of which she was so convinced, 
 since she must best know how the circumstances of 
 his early years fitted into the history of her lost child. 
 
 After a laborious investigation of the house accounts, 
 and of Madame de Lussac's persona Expenditure, George 
 took the first opportunity of laying a statement of affairs 
 before the lady, and was shocked to find how lightly she 
 regarded obligations which to his mind were appalling, 
 and still more shocked at her scornful dismissal of 
 piteous complaints from tradesmen who laid their ruin 
 at her door. 
 
 " They are all cheats and sycophants," she said, throw- 
 ing aside the letters he wanted her to read. " They bring 
 me their goods, and cajole me into buying, always at 
 exorbitant prices ; and afterwards, when I can't pay, 
 there comes this tragical chorus. It is Madame la 
 Marquise who has ruined them — not their own waste 
 and gluttony, their own finery and aping of their 
 betters ! Oh, I know them." 
 
 " But indeed, Marchesa, there must be truth in some 
 of these complaints. Your tailor's widow was with me
 
 IRot to be JBouobt 241 
 
 this morning — the tears raining down her poor pinched 
 face. She declares it was starvation that killed her 
 husband — the want of necessaries. Their goods had 
 been seized by the silk mercer who supplied the stuff 
 for your last set of liveries, and they had not received 
 a crown piece from you on account of them, though the 
 liveries are a year old." 
 
 " A year old ! No wonder my men look shabby. I 
 was ashamed of them last night. I saw the Montbazon 
 looking at them with a curling lip. She has no year- 
 old liveries. But then, she has so many purses to draw 
 upon. You had best order a new set, George, from 
 Tabouret, who is almost out of fashion, but who has a 
 grand style." 
 
 " And the poor widow ? " 
 
 " If her husband is dead, the business is at an end. 
 Give her some money — as much as you can afford." 
 
 " Dear Marchesa, the treasury is emptier than King 
 Charles's after a year's war. The servants are clamour- 
 ing for their wages, and I can give them nothing. 
 There will be no rents due till Easter." 
 
 " Then I doubt money must be found — somehow," 
 sighed the lady. " Life is very troublesome, George. 
 Give me that bottle of violet essence the Cardinal sent 
 me last night. It came straight from the Certosa at 
 Florence. Dear spot ! The perfume wafts me back 
 to that sunny hillside, and the garden the Carthusians 
 tend so exquisitely." 
 
 This was a morning conference. The Marquise, with 
 her head dressed for Court, and her shoulders covered 
 with a rose-coloured satin neglig^^ was sitting up in 
 bed, propped with pillows, to receive her before-dinner 
 company. The bedstead, mounted on a dais, and 
 richly carved and gilt ; the curtains of fris^ velvet 
 bordered with bullion fringe ; the embroidered satin 
 coverlet ; the clusters of ostrich-feathers that crowned 
 the tall columns ; — were of an almost Royal splendour 
 that stopped short only at the Royal privilege of a 
 surrounding balustrade, or railed barrier, to keep off 
 the crowd of visitors ; a privilege which Mazarin was 
 
 16
 
 242 5n 1bigb flMaces 
 
 afterwards to usurp, in that later zenith of his power 
 which marked the close of vicissitudes such as few 
 but kings are subject to. Amidst all this opulence 
 of gold and velvet and priceless furniture, sumptuous 
 decorations, the spoil of monarchs deposed and palaces 
 deserted, it seemed the irony of fate that there should 
 not be a few crowns to stop the complainings of a 
 starving widow ; and George left his seat in the ruelle, 
 heavy-hearted, almost despairing, and withdrew to his 
 distant station in an oriel window, to make room for 
 the gossips and flatterers, whose airy babble tortured 
 his ear like music out of tune. 
 
 He was not ungrateful. He kept telling himself 
 that. He was not ungrateful for love and confidence 
 so freely given ; but he hated his life in that palace 
 as he had never hated it in his worst intervals of bad 
 luck with Francis Mountain. The very atmosphere 
 of the house sickened him, overcharged with those 
 Italian perfumes which the Cardinal and the Queen 
 loved better than the sweet breath of heaven — a house 
 which had been so planned as to admit as little air 
 as possible ; a house where many of the finest 
 rooms looked out upon a deep stone quadrangle like 
 a dry well. 
 
 There was a reception at the Hotel de Lussac that 
 evening, and it would have been difficult to perceive 
 a flaw in the splendour of the entertainment; for, in 
 spite of the Marchesa's disparagement, the dress liveries 
 of peach-coloured camelot de Hollande with silver passe- 
 menterie, looked as good as new, their magnificence 
 being of a solid kind that would stand the wear of years. 
 Her servants, good or bad, had been sedulously trained 
 in one article of duty, which was to put on the appearance 
 of excellence before the world. They might steal, 
 gamble, drink, fight, blaspheme, in their own quarters ; 
 but they must be equal to the best when the critical eye 
 of courtly Paris was upon them ; and thus, on Madame 
 de Lussac's day and evening, the chefs and the marniitons, 
 the valets de pied, and the grooms of the chambers, 
 appeared the most accomplished servants that ever
 
 IRot to be Bouabt 243 
 
 conducted a household. The supper was such as the 
 most fastidious gourmet must needs praise ; the rooms 
 were perfumed and Hghted and warmed to perfection. 
 
 Mazarin was among the guests, but only vouchsafed 
 a smile and a nod to the secretary. He was full of the 
 troubles in England, and of some diamonds which he 
 had bought from Henrietta Maria, more out of kindness 
 to the poor lady than because he wanted the gems. 
 
 " She left them with the Prince of Orange when she 
 set out upon that tempest-tossed voyage last February," 
 he said. " I sent my jeweller, Lescot, to Holland, to 
 look at the stones ; and 'twas on his report I bought 
 them, paying a price that was measured rather by the 
 lady's necessities than by the value of the gems." 
 
 A gentle smile circulated among the privileged group 
 with whom his Eminence was conversing, since every 
 one knew that of all traffickers he was the most astute, 
 deliberate, and unyielding. From the day when he 
 sprang into power he had been occupied in laying the 
 foundations of that fortune which was finally to become 
 the most stupendous ever possessed by a minister of 
 state. 
 
 " It is good news to hear of your Eminence buying 
 more diamonds, since it proves that France is rich," 
 H^loi'se said, with the faintest suspicion of irony. 
 
 " Say rather it proves that France may have need of 
 money before long, Marchesa. Diamonds are the most 
 convertible kind of wealth. The English Queen has 
 changed hers into munitions of war ; and I may need to 
 change them again into the same commodity, should 
 France want soldiers. All that I possess is held for my 
 master, the King." 
 
 When George paid his accustomed visit to Madame 
 de Lussac's bedside next morning, she seemed in 
 unwonted spirits. 
 
 " Sit there ! " she said, pointing to the chair near 
 her pillows. " Heavens ! what a lugubrious counte- 
 nance ! Has the tailor's widow been riding on your 
 chest all night, like one of Urbain Grandier's hags ?
 
 244 5n Iblob places 
 
 I never knew a man so take another's debts upon his 
 shoulders. Why, everybody of any rank in Paris is 
 in debt. Shopkeepers could not live if we were all 
 sober and cautious, and eager to pay our way. If we 
 did not cheat them now and then — by not paying them 
 — they could not cheat us always, as they do, by their 
 overcharges. Come, try to look cheerful ! Your starv- 
 ing widow shall eat herself into a tertian fever if she 
 pleases. Open that casket on my dressing-table, and 
 say what you find there." 
 
 He rose, looking at her wonderingly, and went to 
 the dressing-table — a broad expanse where an arsenal 
 of toilet implements, gold, silver, steel, with jewelled 
 handles, brushes, mirrors, essence-bottles, were set out 
 in glittering array for the morning parade. The cen- 
 tral object was an oblong casket in tortoiseshell in- 
 laid with gold— a kind of Neapolitan work which he 
 knew well. 
 
 He lifted the lid, and saw that the box, which was 
 about eight inches deep, was lined with copper, and 
 was closely packed with rouleaux of coin, wrapped in 
 white paper. 
 
 " Is this gold, Marchesa ? " 
 
 " Every coin of it. Is there enough there to satisfy 
 your widow and the rest of them, and give me a 
 twelvemonth's peace ? " 
 
 " Do you not know how much there is ? " 
 
 " Not I ! You can count it at your leisure. I told 
 a friend of my distress, and he sent me that casket 
 this morning — the casket by one messenger, and the 
 key by another. My friend is careful, you see. Come, 
 smile, George — if there be a smile in your composition. 
 I hate doleful faces ! " 
 
 "Dear Marchesa, I rejoice that there is wherewithal 
 to satisfy your most pressing creditors — to give some- 
 thing to all. Yes, I am heartily glad : and your friend 
 — is good." 
 
 He spoke earnestly, but without the smile she had 
 asked for. He was relieved at this way out of difficulties 
 that humiliated him for her sake, since he had taken
 
 IRot to be BouGbt 245 
 
 her errors upon his shoulders and held her honour as 
 his own, and since there was ever in his mind a painful 
 recollection of Lady Llanbister's words — " without 
 religion and without morals." His heart was too heavy 
 for smiles. 
 
 He began to count the money, going through every 
 rouleau. 
 
 " Dieit 7nerci ! " cried the Marquise, " cannot you 
 defer that plodding business till you are alone ? I want 
 you to read the Gazette to me — and not count those 
 gold pieces." 
 
 "But I had rather you should know exactly how 
 much money I have to pay away." 
 
 " I never know anything exactly. I hate exact 
 knowledge. It is the bane of life. You are to buy 
 me as long a truce as you can from my importunate 
 creditors. I confide everything to your wisdom. You 
 seem to have a genius for figures — but I pray you not 
 to make me think you an arithmetical machine." 
 
 He submitted reluctantly to leave the gold uncounted, 
 and sat in his usual place to read the news of the war 
 in Flanders — and some brief notices of the troubles in 
 England, where the King seemed still to have the 
 stronger hand, and to hold the winning cards, did he 
 but know how to play them. 
 
 Once in the seclusion of his own study, George 
 applied his whole mind to the disposal of the contents 
 of the casket, which he found amounted to two thousand 
 of the new double louis ; and with this respectable 
 sum he had enough to pacify all Madame de Lussac's 
 creditors, but not enough to pay any of them in full, 
 save in those exceptional cases, such as the tailor's 
 widow, where justice demanded full payment. To do 
 the very best with the sum at his disposal involved 
 profound thought and calculation, and to this task 
 George devoted himself with as much care as if he 
 had been dealing with the finances of a bankrupt 
 nation. 
 
 He locked the cash in the Venetian dower-chest, of 
 which the key was a work of art that would have defied
 
 246 5n HDiob places 
 
 forgery ; and he carried the empty casket back to 
 Madame de Lussac's apartments. There was little need 
 to wonder whence this wealth had been obtained, since 
 the initials " J. M." in a curiously interlaced cypher 
 appeared among the golden arabesques on the lid. It 
 was to the Cardinal, who dealt at his pleasure with the 
 riches of France, that the Marquise had appealed for 
 aid. George thought of the whole transaction with an 
 unconquerable aversion. He would have given much 
 to be able to shut out of his mind all thought of Jules 
 Mazarin and his relations with Hdloi'se de Lussac ; 
 and still more gladly would he have ignored the link 
 between those two lives and his own life. But it was 
 not possible so to forget, and never again could the 
 world be to him as pleasant a place as it had been 
 before that startling revelation which had imposed 
 duties and fetters upon a life that had before been 
 as free as it was lonely. He looked back and remem- 
 bered his repining at that happy ignorance — his 
 yearning to know the story of his birth and parentage. 
 
 Well, knowledge had come to him without effort of 
 his own ; and it had cast a deeper cloud over his days 
 than that vague shadow of shame which had hung upon 
 his nameless youth. 
 
 There were young men in Paris who would be proud 
 of such a lineage, and who would have made it the 
 stepping-stone to high fortune. But George felt that 
 any favour from Mazarin would crush him ; and it was 
 with infinite pain that he thought of Madame de Lussac's 
 easy acceptance of the Cardinal's money. 
 
 He was put to a severe test not long after the incident 
 of the casket A letter from Mademoiselle Lescot, 
 daughter of Pierre Lescot, the famous jeweller of the 
 Parvis Saint-Barthelemy, on the Quai du Palais, in- 
 vited him to an interview, the lady having an important 
 communication to make to him. He knew that Lescot 
 was the Cardinal's jeweller, and trusted agent in the 
 purchase and selection of precious gems, and works 
 of art of all kinds, making frequent journeys to foreign
 
 •Rot to be :fiSougbt 247 
 
 cities on such missions ; but he did not conjecture any 
 link between Cardinal Mazarin and the lady's letter, 
 which he took to be a common lure to get him to the 
 shop, where he would be tempted to buy jewellery by 
 some specious offer of a bargain. 
 
 He went at the time named, not as a buyer, but 
 to waste half an hour in the shop, which was a favourite 
 lounge of the fops of the period, although the jeweller's 
 daughter and able representative was neither young nor 
 beautiful. 
 
 Beauty was to be met there, though not in the 
 mistress of the house — for it was a convenient place 
 in which to interchange greetings that might have been 
 impossible elsewhere. 
 
 George found the shop full of loungers ; but Made- 
 moiselle Lescot left a customer who was cheapening 
 unset emeralds to the care of her clerk, and came from 
 behind her counter to greet the new-comer. 
 
 " Will you honour my humble salon by withdrawing 
 there. Monsieur? I have to talk to you of a serious 
 matter ! " 
 
 " With pleasure. Mademoiselle ; but I must warn you 
 that if you are seeking a buyer for any valuable jewels, 
 'tis but waste of time to display them to me. I am 
 a plain man, with neither taste nor means for gewgaws." 
 
 " My business has nothing to do with the shop, 
 sir." 
 
 " Then I am at your service." 
 
 He followed her through a side door into a low, dark 
 room, facing the river, and so crowded with works of 
 art, busts, pictures, clocks, inlaid coffers, pietra-dura 
 cabinets, and tables in Florentine mosaic, that it 
 was more a storehouse than a sitting-room. There 
 was, however, just space enough for two chairs and a 
 small table in a recessed window. Here Mademoiselle 
 seated herself, and invited George to take the other 
 chair. 
 
 " I will not waste time on compliments, monsieur," 
 she said, " but proceed at once to business. You have 
 powerful friends in Paris."
 
 248 Sn IbfGb places 
 
 " The plural is an error on Mademoiselle's part. I 
 have one friend in this city — the lady whom I have 
 the honour to serve as house steward." 
 
 " Oh, sir, you underrate your advantages. Madame 
 de Lussac is a great lady, but she is a foreigner, and 
 has never possessed much influence at Court. You 
 have better friends — one of whom has entrusted me 
 with a delicate mission. I have to tell you that hence- 
 forward you will be independent of the Marquise, who 
 is capricious " 
 
 " Mademoiselle will kindly remember that the lady 
 is my benefactress and friend." 
 
 " Who is capricious," Madamoiselle Lescot repeated 
 obstinately — " all women are capricious — and who is 
 not rich. You will henceforth enjoy an income — not 
 large, but enough to make you independent of feminine 
 patronage, and which will enable you to choose your 
 own career : arms, the Church, state-craft, law — what- 
 ever inclination prompts." 
 
 He saw, as in a flash of lightning, the figure of Mazarin 
 behind this inviting offer. He saw again the eyes that 
 had looked at him so coldly, the scornful lip, and heard 
 again the intolerable irony in the measured accents of 
 that melodious voice, made to flatter and beguile, to lull 
 suspicion, and pass falsehood for truth. 
 
 " And pray, mademoiselle, where is the Jupiter who 
 would let fall this shower of gold ? and what have I 
 done to merit this unsought beneficence?" 
 
 "That is your friend's business, monsieur. He may 
 at some future time reveal himself F'or the present he 
 does me the honour to make me his agent. An income 
 of five hundred louis d'or, the new coinage at twenty- 
 two carats, will be paid to you quarterly by my father 
 or me at this shop, or will be sent to you on your receipt, 
 if you are at a distance. This income will be continued 
 to you as long as you live, and do nothing — which I 
 know in advance Monsieur will not do — to disgrace 
 your name. Here is a receipt for a hundred and twenty- 
 five louis — the first quarter. Will Monsieur be good 
 enough to sign it, after he has counted the money ? "
 
 IFlot to be Bouobt 249 
 
 She offered him the receipt and a leather bag stuffed 
 with gold. 
 
 " No, mademoiselle, I can have nothing to do with 
 that paper — or that money ! " 
 
 "You will not sign? You refuse the offer of 
 independence?" 
 
 " No man could attain independence under such 
 conditions. I accept no benefits from the unknown. 
 You will be good enough to tell the gentleman whose 
 agent you are in this matter, that I respectfully refuse 
 his favours." 
 
 "But if he counted it no favour? If he were but 
 fulfilling a duty — a sacred obligation ? " Mademoiselle 
 demanded eagerly. 
 
 " No unknown friend can have any obligation to help 
 me. I have asked for nothing, and I can accept 
 nothing." 
 
 " Grace de Dieu, Monsieur ! you are more headstrong 
 and foolish than I thought any man could be. To 
 refuse a substantial income, assured to you for the rest 
 of your life — and to depend on a lady whose extrava- 
 gance is notorious, and whose humours are as fitful as 
 the wind " 
 
 " I know the lady, mademoiselle, better than you can 
 possibly know her ; and I cannot suffer to be instructed 
 in her character by you or any one else. I wish you 
 good day." 
 
 " A la bonne heiire ! You are a monstrous pig-headed 
 
 youth ; and I wonder his Em 1 wonder anybody 
 
 troubles his head about you ! " 
 
 George was half out of the room before that slip of 
 Mademoiselle Lescot's, but she was not the less angry 
 with herself for having made it. She, the hard-headed 
 bargainer with Jews and Alsatians, Germans and 
 Dutchmen, who prided herself on her tact, and thought 
 herself a little Richelieu in petticoats, had promised to 
 carry this business through in the discreetest manner, 
 and she had been baffled by a quality which she had 
 never believed to exist in human nature — a complete 
 indifference to money.
 
 250 Sn Ibiob EMaces 
 
 " Well, if the tie between those two be what I think it 
 is, there never were a father and son less alike in disposi- 
 tion — however they may favour each other in feature," 
 she said, as she put away the unsigned agreement and 
 the unopened bag. 
 
 " Twenty-two carat," she sighed. " There are not 
 many countries that have such gold in circulation. 
 And yonder fool refused it as if it were dirt ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 EBBS AND FLOWS OF FORTUNE. 
 
 After the contents of the tortoiseshell casket had been 
 judiciously distributed, there came a halcyon calm in 
 the offices and ante-chambers of the Hotel de Lussac, 
 No more clamorous creditors battered the solid oak 
 doors, passionately demanding audience with the Mar- 
 quise, or at least with her steward ; no more pinched 
 widows or anxious wives waited and wept in the ante- 
 chamber where a Mater Dolorosa by Raphael, for which 
 a princely price had been given, looked down sorrowingly 
 on their less sacred sorrows. For the time everybody 
 was satisfied, and even George felt his burdens lightened. 
 And so the year waned, and a new year began, and the 
 Marquis came home from the wars, not quite so dashing 
 a figure as Bayard or Dunois, and indeed a somewhat 
 rickety old soldier, whom a month at the Baths of 
 Bourbon had failed to set up, and who, on the rare 
 occasions when he honoured his wife with his company, 
 drank copiously at dinner, and spent the afternoon in 
 a great armchair drawn close under the projecting 
 chimney-piece in the Ariadne room. 
 
 Here he sat and shivered, and flung logs upon the 
 fire with the silver tongs, and grumbled at everything, 
 praising only the days that were gone, the long-ago 
 days at the beginning of the century, when Henriette 
 d'Entragues was reigning over the great king's heart, 
 and the wines of the Cote d'Or were worth drinking. 
 The soil of France had soured since then. Indeed, since 
 
 251
 
 252 3n Ibfgb iplaces 
 
 then everything had changed for the worse, and France, 
 which had been glorious under Henry and Sully, was 
 now a football to be kicked to and fro between an 
 Italian schemer and a General scarce out of his teens, 
 who had more luck than wisdom — to be governed by 
 D'Enghien or by Mazarin, whichever should prove the 
 stronger. 
 
 " One man has an insatiable avarice, the other an 
 insatiable ambition," said De Lussac. " I know not 
 which were the worse for France. One will creep over 
 the land with stealthy, silent exactions, eating us up 
 like the locusts in Holy Writ — the other will squander 
 blood and gold to make his name famous, and will go 
 blundering on to victory by a waste of life that will 
 depopulate his country. The victories we win to-day 
 are wasting the stored-up forces of our glorious past. 
 It is the army Richelieu created that wins, not the 
 genius of Henri de Bourbon. The infantry — our in- 
 vincible infantry — 'twas they won the day at Rocroy 
 — not the boy Prince you all hailed with such insensate 
 clamour." 
 
 " But sure, sir, you must needs deem his Highness a 
 born soldier ? " 
 
 " He is a born Bourbon, and I grant you there is a 
 streak of fire in that blood which he may have inherited, 
 though his father lacks it. And for the rest, he has 
 luck, sir — luck, which is better than science, and which 
 has nothing to do with a man's deserts." 
 
 The Marquis was civil to George, indeed, even friendly, 
 seeming glad to have an intelligent listener to his com- 
 plaints. But he spent the greater part of his life away 
 from the Hotel de Lussac. His wife's carriage some- 
 times passed another carriage in the Cours la Reine, 
 a fine gilt coach in which the Marquis, wrapped to the 
 tip of his nose in Muscovy sables, sat by the side of 
 a mahogany-complexioned person who enjoyed a certain 
 vogue as the ugliest woman in Paris. Her fierce black 
 eyes glared at the handsome Marquise, as their coaches 
 met and passed ; but Madame de Lussac's only notice 
 was a far-away gaze, as of one who saw not anything
 
 Ebbs auD flows of ^Fortune 253 
 
 so near the earth as Madame D^prez's gaudy splendour, 
 or a smile which glanced in amused astonishment at 
 so much ugliness. To George, sitting opposite the 
 Marquise, there seemed something tragic in these brief 
 encounters, albeit she took the outrage so easily. A 
 husband and wife, living in ostensible union, yet utterly 
 apart, hating each other perhaps, and the wife accepting 
 public infidelity with indifference ! Could anything 
 in life be more painful ? He recalled that happy English 
 home he knew so well, the husband's devoted love, the 
 wife's affectionate solicitude. 
 
 George observed with surprise that the Marquis had 
 always some reason for absenting himself from his 
 wife's receptions, and that he was nevertheless curious 
 about her company, as he would seize any opportunity 
 to ask questions when he and George were alone. 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I think last night's assembly was one 
 of the most brilliant I have ever seen here. The House 
 of Cond6 was in full force — Madame de Longueville, 
 the Prince de Conti, the Duke and Duchess, the lady 
 superb in purple and silver." 
 
 " Superb ? Yes, I remember her when Charlotte de 
 Montmorency was the loveliest woman in France, and 
 when the greatest king France ever had put on a 
 postilion's jacket and waited for hours in the wind and 
 rain to get speech of her." 
 
 " Ah, sir, those were the days of romance. The 
 world has grown older and duller," said George. " But 
 I wonder Monsieur le Marquis should deny himself the 
 pleasure of seeing Madame's friends?" 
 
 " I have two excellent reasons for being absent," 
 answered De Lussac. " My wife receives a man I 
 abhor — and refuses to receive a woman I love. 
 When she shows herself as indulgent to my friendships 
 as I have ever been to hers, she will see me at her 
 assemblies." 
 
 The New Year began earlier by the calendar than 
 in England. The year that was gone had been an 
 eventful and adventurous year for both countries — a 
 year that had seen the French King's death and the
 
 254 3n mQh BMaces 
 
 elevation of his consort from insignificance to power ; 
 a year which had witnessed Mazarin's stealthy progress 
 from subservience to paramount authority ; a year of 
 conquest and aggrandisement ; while across the Channel 
 the Royal arms had suffered strange varieties of fortune. 
 
 All through spring and summer the King's men had 
 been in the ascendant, and that handful of peers sitting 
 at Westminster, that mere rag and remnant of a House 
 of Lords, must have felt that it were better to have 
 been charging with Rupert's horse on the Quantocks, 
 or bivouacking on the Cornish hills with Hopton and 
 Sir Bevil Grenvil and their gallant army of the West, 
 than to be sitting there, the minions and slaves of an 
 insolent Commons, with no flavour of romance or 
 chivalry to sweeten ill-fortune. Better to have perished 
 in the field like Falkland at Newbury, rushing madly 
 on his death, sick of a world where the time was out 
 of joint, and where he had no power to bring about 
 the Peace his philosophic mind so ardently desired. 
 
 Falkland was gone ; and Sir Bevil, the gallant 
 Cornishman, and Carnarvon, and many another daunt- 
 less spirit, had gone out into the unknown darkness, 
 content so to die for Church and King. And in the 
 bleak mid-winter that uncrowned leader at Westminster, 
 " King Pym," Strafford's inexorable foe, had surrendered 
 to the common enemy. 
 
 It was the second week in March, and the first soft 
 breathings of spring stirred among the evergreens in 
 the Tuileries Gardens when George received mournful 
 tidings in a long letter from Lady Llanbister written 
 at Isleworth, and sealed with black. 
 
 " A fortnight has passed, dear friend, since the tragedy 
 this letter has to relate ; but indeed I have not till 
 these last two days found courage to take my pen ; 
 and Geraldine, who has shown a brave spirit in the 
 hour of calamity, has written all indispensable letters 
 for me. To you I waited to write with my own hand, 
 for I can unburthcn my heart to you as to none other ;
 
 Bbbs anD jflows ot ^fortune 255 
 
 and there is a mournful consolation in writing of the 
 husband I loved to one who loved him as well as 
 you did. 
 
 " He is gone from us, George. We shall no more 
 see that kind face or hear that beloved voice, in all the 
 space of our mortal lives. God grant that we may 
 meet him in the wider life that lies beyond this earth. 
 I think my heart would break if I did not look forward 
 to that meeting, if I did not hold fast to my faith in that 
 better world where there shall be no more tears, no 
 more death. He has been taken from us ; and, in spite 
 of all my endeavours to keep him in a safe haven, 
 where the troubles of this distracted country should not 
 touch him, his so precious life has been shortened by 
 the cruelty of our time, which has made religion a rod 
 to scourge us instead of a consolation and a defence 
 in the day of trouble. 
 
 " You may have heard how that company of Puritan 
 bigots, the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, has 
 swollen in power since its establishment in the begin- 
 ning of last year, and how it has proceeded from one 
 act of tyranny to another, the last and worst being 
 an insistence upon the signing of the Solemn League 
 and Covenant by all English citizens of whatsoever 
 creed, taking the acceptance of these Articles as a test 
 of fidelity to their rebel Parliament. 
 
 " Although I was told what rigorous means were 
 being pursued to obtain signatures, even in the remotest 
 country parishes, and how the Commissioners were 
 going about to force the hateful Covenant upon men 
 of greater mark, I still hoped that the secluded life 
 my dear lord had been leading, and his avoidance of 
 all overt interference in the struggle between King and 
 Parliament, would have saved him from these persecuting 
 wretches, and secured peace for his declining years. 
 But no, George — these men who murdered Strafford, 
 and who have kept the old Archbishop Laud in a cruel 
 captivity for these two years last past, and who have 
 made their miserable Presbytery an engine of persecu- 
 tion, would not forego the delicate pleasure of torturing
 
 256 5it ibfQb places 
 
 a weak old man, hoping to wring from his feebleness the 
 renunciation of all that he held most sacred. 
 
 " The poor old Earl of Bridgewater, an invalid, and 
 living in retirement since the beginning of the war, had 
 been visited by Lords Rutland and Bolingbroke, and, 
 after a feeble resistance and entreaty for delay, had 
 been scared into signing away his honour. It was 
 these same lords who appeared at this house — now, 
 alas ! hung with black — on the twelfth of last month, 
 three days after Bridgewater's surrender, and demanded 
 my lord's signature. 
 
 " On Llanbister's refusal to sign, they told him how 
 Bridgewater had complied, after so brief a time for 
 consideration as the Parliament would grant, which was 
 but two days. * Indeed, it is best and wisest to comply 
 without hesitation, my dear lord,' Rutland urged. ' It 
 is a bond of union which secures for us a certain peace 
 and brotherhood at home, together with the love and 
 good-will of our Scottish neighbours. In this tranquil 
 retreat you know not how England is rent and harried 
 by fanatical sectaries at home, and how undermined by 
 insidious seminary priests from beyond the sea. Of 
 the Independents or the Jesuits I am uncertain which 
 are the more dangerous ; but I know that if we do not 
 join hands against them we shall have London in flames 
 before the end of the year.' 
 
 " I recall his every word, and the smooth, insidious 
 tones, and the persuasive smile ; for I watched and 
 listened with painful anxiety, knowing how severe a 
 trial this marked in my dear husband's life. I was 
 sure he would refuse to sign the Covenant ; and I knew 
 not how far the power of that tyrannical assembly might 
 go, and whether those last years which I would fain have 
 made so happy might be spent within prison walls. 
 
 " He heard Lord Rutland with a thoughtful counten- 
 ance, and showed no trace of agitation in his reply. He 
 had been ailing since the summer, and I had noted a 
 sad decay of strength, which his physicians indeed 
 admitted, though they comforted me by the hope that 
 he might be spared for some years.
 
 jEbbs anD JFIows of ^fortune 257 
 
 "*I am like Bridgewater,' he said; 'I must have 
 time to consider these Articles before my pen pledges 
 me to adopt them.' 
 
 "The Commissioners urged him to sign at once, 
 but on his being firm in his refusal they consented 
 to leave him till the next day, when they would return 
 at noon for his signature. Bolingbroke added that 
 he made this concession on his own responsibility, and 
 that he would have to deliver the paper to the Parlia- 
 ment, duly signed, on the next afternoon. After this 
 they withdrew to take some refreshment before remount- 
 ing their horses, and took leave of my dear lord with 
 cordial expressions of friendship. Little did I know 
 that they had entered his house as his executioners, 
 and that the paper lying under his hand was no less 
 fatal than the axe. 
 
 " He was thoughtful and very silent for the rest 
 of the afternoon, and his countenance was of so deep 
 a melancholy that I had not the heart to question him 
 as to his resolve. He retired to his chamber directly 
 after supper, at which he ate scarcely anything, and he 
 allowed me to sit beside his bed and read to him from 
 one of those plays of Shakespeare which he ever loved. 
 He bade me read from the third part of Henry the Sixth, 
 though I chid him for choosing so tragical a theme. 
 
 " ' Those troubles of poor weak Henry Plantagenet's 
 jump with our time,' he said — and so I obeyed, and 
 spent two hours by his side, in that melancholy reading ; 
 and looking back on those last peaceful hours it seems 
 to me that the tall wax candles burning beside his 
 bed were like funeral torches, and that the dark green 
 velvet curtains were deepened by the shadows into 
 the blackness of a pall. 
 
 " He lay late next morning, having passed a sleepless 
 night, as his gentleman told me. It wanted less than 
 an hour of noon when he left his dressing-room, attended 
 by his gentleman, and passed through the white parlour 
 where I was sitting with an anxious heart, on his way 
 to his study. 
 
 " I went to meet him as he entered the room, but 
 
 17
 
 2s8 5n Ibigb iplaces 
 
 he had a grave and preoccupied air that forbade 
 conversation. We clasped hands in silence, and I 
 lifted his dear hand to my lips, on which he looked 
 at me with a mournful tenderness, and murmured a 
 blessing in so low a voice that 1 could scarce distinguish 
 his words. I would have gone with him to his study, 
 but he stopped me, saying that he desired to be alone 
 for an hour. I urged him to comply with the Com- 
 missioners, since what was expedient for Lord Bridge- 
 water must be best for him, being in the power of 
 those Westminster fanatics, so that a signature given 
 under such compulsion could count for nothing in the 
 eye of Heaven or of men. He made me no answer, 
 but paused and kissed me as we parted on the threshold 
 of that room he preferred to all others, with its smiling 
 outlook to the Thames. 
 
 " It was later by an hour when Lord Rutland arrived, 
 attended by his secretary, but without his brother peer, 
 and delayed somewhat by his horse having cast a shoe 
 at Turnham Green. I went with him to my lord's 
 room, anxious to be at hand, should my dear husband 
 need counsel or sympathy in this great emergency. 
 
 "Ah, George, there are moments in life that must 
 remain fixed in the mind, like a picture graven upon 
 copper, every stroke standing out with a pitiless dis- 
 tinctness. Such was that moment when I stood within 
 the study door — Rutland and his man waiting behind 
 me — stood looking across the February sunshine to the 
 great armchair— the high-backed tapestry chair you 
 must remember so well — and saw Llanbister sitting 
 there, with his head leaning against the cushion, and 
 one arm hanging loosely across the arm of the chair, 
 and with so ghastly a pallor in his countenance that 
 my heart seemed to stop beating, in that sudden agony 
 of fear. 
 
 " He was dead, George ! He had expired sitting 
 there alone, unwatched, untended in that last moment ; 
 but I thank God his physician and our apothecary of 
 Isleworth — who saw him daily — both assure me that 
 death must have been painless. The heart, which had
 
 JBb\)5 anO 3fIow3 of ^fortune 259 
 
 long been weak, must have failed suddenly, and he had 
 expired in a sigh. 
 
 " The copy of the Solemn League and Covenant was 
 lying on the floor, under his foot. I can but think 
 that, sitting there, after a night of severe meditation, 
 he had determined not to sign, and that, as he set 
 his foot upon the hateful paper, resolved to suffer the 
 worst that tyranny could inflict upon him, his heart 
 beat high with that proud defiance, and, so beating, 
 snapped the frail thread of life. 
 
 " To me that death appeared no less heroic than 
 Falkland's wild charge at Newbury. 
 
 " Do not be unhappy about me, dear George. My 
 sorrow is a deep sorrow, and must be with me till the 
 end of life. But there are consolations and gentle 
 pleasures that can go along with such a sorrow. Your 
 fair young mistress has proved herself of a higher 
 character in this day of our mutual grief than I thought 
 her when we were happy ; and I see now that I sorely 
 belittled her merits, and that she is indeed a jewel 
 which any man, were he the greatest in this land, might 
 be proud to wear in his cap. You know who it is that 
 I would choose for her, was I ever free to choose ; and, 
 knowing that, I doubt not you will set all your thoughts 
 upon making yourself worthy to win so sweet a prize. 
 If, after all, you miss that dear reward, you will be the 
 better for the endeavour, and your life the nobler and 
 happier for having aimed high. 
 
 " At present you have no rival. In these distracted 
 times men's thoughts are not of marrying or giving in 
 marriage ; and many a handsome head has gone down 
 in the blood and dust of an English battlefield. Ah, 
 George, to think of it ! This once so peaceful country 
 one vast battlefield : cities besieged — noblemen's houses 
 stormed and destroyed — a rolling tide of war over all 
 the land, wider and more devastating than the wars of 
 the Roses — for they had no Rupert then, to pillage and 
 slaughter — no Puritan devils to defile cathedrals and 
 riot in wanton mischief You who are happily at a 
 distance from those hideous scenes can scarce conceive
 
 26o 5n 1biab places 
 
 how much of blood and treasure this miserable war has 
 cost us, or although on both sides there is ever a 
 pretended desire for peace, how the possibility of recon- 
 ciliation seems to be further off every day we live. You 
 can scarce conceive the changed aspect of London and 
 its surrounding villages ; for though you saw the streets 
 last winter prepared against attack, the city had nothing 
 then of its present dolorous emptiness — a city abandoned 
 by the best of its inhabitants ; shops closed, markets 
 empty, a silence in the streets as in those mournful days 
 of the pestilence that followed so close upon our heroic 
 Queen's marriage. 
 
 " I look back at my girlhood and remember those 
 long years of peace under King James, when the most 
 we heard of war was a great talk of fighting for the 
 Palatinate, and when the prophecy of hostile armies 
 in our English lanes and woods would have seemed 
 a bugbear to frighten children. God knows when or 
 how peace and comfort and happy days will return 
 to this distracted land. I would to Heaven our King 
 were wiser in his negotiations with his foes, and they 
 less exacting in their demands. All the good and 
 orderly people in town and country are longing for 
 peace, and the King declares that to be reconciled with 
 his Parliament is the chief desire of his heart — yet, while 
 he plays fast and loose with his people, looks now to 
 raising an army in Ireland, and now to joining arms 
 with Scotland, and is never steadfast in his adherence 
 to any one party or any one course of action, what 
 hope can there be of peaceable adjustment of these 
 miserable dissensions ? And while his Majesty hesitates 
 and conspires, the best blood of the land is being spilt 
 like water, and the country grows poorer every day. 
 Heaven knows I would not make light of his difficulties, 
 or misconstrue that obstinate resistance which has its 
 root in kingly honour, yet, when I remember how he 
 yielded Strafford's life to a clamorous mob while he 
 might yet have kept the upper hand, I can but wonder 
 at his stubborn claim for Prerogative now, when every 
 shred of power has been torn from him.
 
 Bbbs an& jflows ot ^fortune 261 
 
 ** I travelled to Oxford in January to see my Royal 
 mistress. Alas ! how changed from that brilliant Queen 
 I saw but a few years ago at Whitehall — that animated, 
 sparkling creature, whose smile was like a light. The 
 smile is brilliant still, but, oh ! so rare — and the so 
 admired beauty is now but a memory. She has a 
 courage that defies fate — and a kind and tender heart. 
 You will have heard how she ran back to her lodgings 
 in the midst of the enemy's cannonade, to rescue her 
 dog which had been left in her chamber. The key to 
 her character is in that action — brave, generous, impulsive, 
 counting no cost when her loving or liking is at stake. 
 She has provoked the slander of the malevolent by her 
 lavish praise of Jermyn — a man I have ever disliked, 
 but who was her valuable ally in those months of 
 perilous adventure between her landing in Yorkshire 
 and her re-union with his Majesty at Oxford. 
 
 " For myself, dear George, I have made no plans yet. 
 The bulk of my dear lord's estate, with the Castle in 
 Wales, descends to Geraldine, as his only son's heiress. 
 To me he has left a large sum of money, and the two 
 houses in which the most of our married life was spent, 
 this dear place and the mansion in Aldersgate Street. 
 Our lawyer has entered upon the troublesome business 
 of compounding for all this property, in Geraldine's 
 interest and in mine, and a considerable portion of 
 all we possess will go to the Parliament, and pay for 
 shot and shell to be used against our King. It is hard, 
 and we feel humiliated at thus having to kiss the rod ; 
 but resistance would but occasion a larger loss — and 
 all we can spare from the expenditure of our retired 
 and unluxurious life here will be conveyed to my Royal 
 mistress. We are indeed now living in a kind of holy 
 poverty, which would be a fit preparation for the cloister. 
 For the rest, there is peace in this retired village, and 
 here Geraldine and I intend to make our abode, though 
 we know not how long it may be before the sounds of 
 war may break upon our quiet, and force us to seek 
 some other refuge. 
 
 *' And now, dear George, let me hear from you soon j
 
 262 3n IbiQb places 
 
 and I pray you to tell me more of your own life than 
 your late letters have told. There was a time when 
 you gave me the history of all you saw and heard in 
 Paris, and of all your occupations and amusements. 
 But since you have been Madame de Lussac's secretary, 
 your letters have been brief and disappointing. Is it 
 that your days are too full of gaiety and pleasure in 
 that brilliant circle for you to find time for letter-writing ; 
 or is it that you are out of spirits and lack the energy 
 to depict the scenes in which you move, with that 
 spirited pen which produced pictures almost as vivid as 
 a painter's brush ? " 
 
 This sad news from Isle worth was a severe blow, 
 and George thought with deep sorrow of the kind old 
 man whose friendship had been so generously given 
 to him, and by whose fireside he had lived as in the 
 house of a kinsman. He must needs contrast that 
 dignified bearing, the grey head and beard, the sober 
 life, the large benevolence and unselfish regard for others, 
 with the manners and appearance of Monsieur de 
 Lussac, who had his beard dyed and his face painted 
 by a barber whose grandfather had been chief valet 
 to Henry III., and who had inherited the secrets of 
 the Valois beauty. Plastered with paint and gaudy with 
 jewels and orders, the Marquis de Lussac, eaten up by 
 gout, hobbled off every afternoon to the not-distant 
 mansion where the ugliest lady in Paris expected his 
 attendance. His wife knew if he spent an evening at 
 home it was only because his Medusa was in the sulks, 
 and had banished him from the light of her mahogany 
 countenance.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FOR A woman's sake. 
 
 The year wore on to May, a mild and early season, and 
 the orchards beside the Cours la Reine were full of 
 perfume and white blossom, the ground between the 
 brown trunks blue with violets or yellow with primroses 
 and celandine ; and the coaches were driving three 
 abreast. 
 
 George drove every evening with the Marquise. It 
 was one of his duties, and one he never sought to avoid, 
 knowing her lonely position in the midst of so-called 
 friends, divining perhaps the deep melancholy of a 
 woman who has touched the age when lovers are im- 
 possible, and the voice of praise rings hollow, and who 
 is forsaken by the one man upon whose devotion she 
 has a sacred claim. An unloved wife, childless, sitting 
 alone in her carriage to see the garish crowd go by ! 
 He could conceive no sadder state, and his heart ached 
 for her sometimes as he sat by her side, and suffered 
 the monotony of this life which she had been leading 
 for years, and which had palled upon him after the 
 experience of a few weeks. 
 
 His heart ached most of all perhaps because, though 
 he compassionated, he did not love her. He thought of 
 her as childless ; since, whatever the link between 
 them, he knew that he could never be to her all that a 
 son should be. Obedience, duty, he might give, and 
 meant to give her ; but love cannot be commanded. 
 He had lived in her house for half a year ; he had 
 accepted her kindness, been cherished and praised by 
 
 263
 
 264 Sn Ibiab places 
 
 her as sons are by doating mothers ; and yet felt no 
 warmer affection for her than in the dawn of their 
 acquaintance, when he had admired her beauty, and 
 had divined the passionate nature that had written its 
 record of storm and suffering upon that splendid face. 
 
 They were driving together on a balmy evening early 
 in May when the low sun shone golden on the grey old 
 city and its girdle of towers, the Temple, the glistening 
 steeple of the Sainte Chapelle, a shaft so delicate and 
 aerial that it suggested a pinnacle in some mirage city 
 rather than a thing of stone and iron. The Royal 
 promenade wore its most brilliant aspect, and almost 
 every other carriage they met showed the colours of a 
 duke, or a prince of the blood Royal. 
 
 Yonder young lady, with the vivacious smile and 
 quick movements, was the Grande Mademoiselle, the 
 richest woman in France, just now resident at her father's 
 palace of the Luxembourg, ^but as likely as not to be 
 banished in a week or two to one of her numerous 
 country seats — a spirited and adventurous young 
 princess, for whom no husband had yet been found, 
 since nothing less than a reigning sovereign would 
 have satisfied her ambition. Had not Anne of Austria 
 sportively suggested that she should marry her child- 
 cousin, the King, making light of their disparity in 
 years? Some people said Louise de Bourbon had set 
 her heart on being Queen of France, and meant to wait 
 for the young Louis. 
 
 Other equipages there were, almost as brilliant as 
 this, with its emblazoned fleur-de-lis on panels and 
 housings. Madame de Longueville, the young Princesse 
 de Conti, Madame de Bouillon, the Princesse Palatine — 
 one after another the gilded coaches, with velvet and 
 brocade coverings and coats-of-arms in bullion and 
 jewels, went by, while gracious salutations and friendly 
 words were exchanged from coach to coach. Madame 
 de Lussac's peach velvet and silver carriage was scarcely 
 inferior to the best, and her new liveries shone in all 
 the glory of passementerie that was fresh from the 
 makers' hands. She was looking her handsomest, too,
 
 fox a Moman's Safte 265 
 
 in a black velvet gown, and a wide-brimmed white felt 
 hat with a bunch of flame-coloured feathers, and a 
 solitaire diamond of surpassing size and brilliancy shining 
 in the triangular opening of her Genoa lace collar. 
 
 " I love to astonish my envious friends with a new 
 jewel, even if I only borrow it for the occasion," she 
 said, when George looked curiously at this pendant, 
 which he had not remarked before. " This was last 
 worn upon a Royal neck." 
 
 " You mean it is one of the Crown jewels the Cardinal 
 bought in Holland ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is one of Mazarin's bargains. He thrives 
 upon Royal vicissitudes." 
 
 " I wonder that you can stoop to borrow his gewgaws." 
 
 " Stoop ? Oh, there is no favour in it. For him the 
 diamonds are but a mode of hoarding money. They 
 would lie hidden in a strong box if I did not give them 
 an airing. Jewellers tell me that pearls sicken with 
 such treatment ; so I shall be obliging enough to wear 
 poor Henriette's necklaces now and then. She had 
 ropes of pearls, which her complexion was vastly too 
 brown to set off. Orient pearls only look their best 
 on a neck that has a purer white than their own." 
 
 "I wonder" — George began again, and stopped, 
 thinking he did ill to cavil at a display of vanity which 
 was but natural in a fine lady. 
 
 The coach was nearing the gate — most of the coaches 
 going back to Paris at this hour — and the western sun 
 was shining in their eyes, and painting golden light 
 upon the roof of the Tuileries and the long gallery of 
 the Louvre, when in the midst of the crowd at the 
 gate a tall, slovenly-clad man, with his hat slouched 
 over his face, leapt forward and flung a paper into 
 Madame de Lussac's lap. 
 
 " A ballad for the Cardinal's " 
 
 The final word cannot be recorded. It turned 
 George's blood to ice — yet flushed his cheeks with the 
 hectic of fever. He sprang out of the coach — not 
 waiting to open the door, but dropping over it — intent 
 upon seizing the wretch who had committed that
 
 266 5n Ibfob places 
 
 outrage. But the crowd was thick here, and the man 
 had disappeared. The coaches had all stopped in the 
 throng at the gate. He heard subdued tittering as he 
 went back to Madame de Lussac's carriage. She was 
 sitting more upright than usual, looking defiance at 
 the gaping crowd on the footpath, but her cheeks were 
 ghastly under the metallic bloom of her rouge. Never 
 of late had he so distinctly noted the paint upon her 
 cheeks and lips, 
 
 A footman was holding the carriage door open. 
 George got in and resumed his seat beside the Marquise. 
 
 '■ The madman who insulted you was not to be found 
 for the moment, Marchesa," he said ; " but I shall know 
 how to discover him later." 
 
 She held the paper crushed in her right hand. He 
 tried to take it from her. 
 
 " No, no, no ! " she muttered. " You must not — for 
 the love of God ! " 
 
 " Nay, but I must, dear Marchesa," he urged in an 
 undertone, with a tenderness she rarely heard in his 
 voice. " It is for me to punish those who outrage you 
 — and I must know " 
 
 She had been making a great effort to keep herself 
 from fainting, and her power of resistance was at its 
 lowest, or she would have done more to withhold that 
 paper from him, apprehending the malignity of a libel 
 so launched at her. 
 
 He thrust the paper in his breast, and turned to her 
 with a smile. 
 
 "It is the common fate of great people to be 
 libelled," he said gently, laying his hand on hers, his 
 face white with suppressed passion. 
 
 They drove home as fast as the postilions could steer 
 their way through the press of carriages all hastening 
 homeward. It was to be a gala night at Renard's 
 Garden, though the year was yet early for an at fresco 
 entertainment. The Queen had promised to appear, 
 and had lent her trumpeters to swell the orchestra, and 
 Mademoiselle's violins were to perform in another part 
 of the gardens. All that there was of beauty and of
 
 for a Moman's Safte 267 
 
 rank in Paris would be gathered in the lantern-lit groves 
 and alleys, 
 
 George wondered whether the Marquise would be in 
 spirits to appear in a crowded assembly after the 
 atrocious insult she had suffered, within the hearing of 
 the Court ; for he had seen, as in one flash of searching 
 light, the faces of the Princess Palatine and of the 
 Grand Mademoiselle, peering out of their coaches in 
 the block at the gate, and he knew not how many 
 more might have heard that foul name, flung like 
 vitriol in the face of the Marquise. Would she have 
 the courage to meet false friends and open enemies 
 within an hour of that affront ? Would it be her best 
 policy to show herself and defy slander ? 
 
 He had not long to wonder about her intention, for 
 while alighting from her carriage she told her people to 
 be ready to drive to the Garden at nine o'clock. 
 
 " What are you going to do with that paper, George ?" 
 she asked, when they were in the vestibule. 
 
 " Read and destroy it." 
 
 " But it concerns me rather than you. It is for me 
 to read the slander, and judge how I may best punish 
 the slanderer." 
 
 "If it resembles those Mazarinades that are printed 
 daily in defiance of the Cardinal's police, it is not fit 
 for a woman's eye. Dear Marchesa, your honour is 
 more precious to me than my own. You may believe 
 I will not suffer your wrongs to go unavenged," 
 
 " To avenge such a wrong means to make a greater 
 scandal — to widen a pool to an ocean. I abhor 
 clamour about my name. I hold myself high enough 
 to defy slanderers." 
 
 " To defy slanderers, but not to submit to slander. 
 Trust yourself to me, Marchesa. Be sure I will do a 
 son's duty." 
 
 They were alone on the staircase when he spoke 
 these last words. She turned from him with a smothered 
 sob, and went slowly upstairs. 
 
 George read the ballad in the seclusion of his study. 
 It was about as vile a specimen of the libellous literature
 
 268 sn Ibigb BMaces 
 
 of Paris as he had ever seen. It was a rhyming biog- 
 raphy, not without a certain caustic wit, but reeking 
 with unutterable foulness, and picturing Madame de 
 Lussac as a modern Margaret of Burgundy, who was 
 only less criminal than her Royal prototype because 
 she lacked power and opportunity for murdering her 
 lovers when she was tired of them. Mazarin's name 
 was interwoven throughout this slanderous farrago ; and 
 he and Madame de Lussac were stigmatised as a pair 
 of penniless adventurers who had descended from the 
 seven-hilled city to devour and pillage Paris. And 
 lastly he saw his own name — ce jeiine fanfaron Anglais, 
 ce meiirt-de-faim Georges — as the latest and most con- 
 temptible of the lady's caprices. From princes and 
 dukes she had descended to a nameless/^///' maitre. 
 
 He had seen too many such libels to give a moment's 
 credence to the accusations in this one. He knew the 
 horrible slanders of the Queen that had been scattered 
 broadcast in Paris. He knew that no vice of the most 
 debased Roman emperor was too loathsome to be 
 ascribed to the Cardinal. Yet it wounded him to think 
 that the woman he was bound to honour could be 
 subject to such an outrage. Had she lived like Lady 
 Llanbister, at the Court, but not of it, ever preferring 
 the serene atmosphere of home to the glare and noise 
 of crowds, such slanders could scarce have been coupled 
 with her name. But it was not for that restless, 
 impetuous spirit so to have lived, nor had she enjoyed 
 Lady Llanbister's domestic blessings. 
 
 He locked the hateful paper in the coffer where he 
 kept all important documents, hoping, by a careful com- 
 parison of type and paper with other such libels — at 
 the head office of the Cardinal's police — to discover, 
 first the printer, and then the writer of the slander. 
 
 He attended the Marquise at the garden concert, 
 and saw her shining among the most brilliant of the 
 Court beauties, and distinguished by the friendly notice 
 of the Queen ; but while watching her from the outer 
 edge of the circle, he was hurt by hearing more than 
 one cynical allusion to the fracas at the gate. He felt
 
 jfor a Moman's Saftc 269 
 
 a rage of impatience until he should lay his hand upon 
 the perpetrator of that outrage ; and he was in the 
 streets of Paris soon after daybreak next morning, on 
 his way to the headquarters of Mazarin's police, that 
 secret band whose members pervaded Paris, whose ears 
 were ever open and eyes ever on the watch for the 
 Cardinal's foes. 
 
 Here the name of Madame de Lussac acted like a 
 charm, and the head official was ready to assist George 
 to the uttermost of his power. The scene of last 
 evening was known, having been witnessed by one of 
 the officers, who had not, however, been able to identify 
 the ruffian who flung the paper. Here, after a close 
 inspection of the file of Mazarinades, the official selected 
 one particular printing-press known to him as the 
 source of the foulest libels, and undertook to obtain the 
 printer's confession. 
 
 " These wretches live in hourly fear of the wheel," 
 he said. " Yet because this despicable work is paid 
 double, there are always scoundrels enough to do it. 
 The utmost rigour has not even reduced the number 
 of his Eminence's slanderers. But in the event of this 
 printer denying his work — the means of identification 
 being but w^eak — it would be well if Monsieur could 
 discover whether the Marquise happens lately to have 
 made an enemy, and his name and person." 
 
 George acted on this suggestion, and in his morning 
 tete-a-tete with Madame de Lussac — both beins too 
 preoccupied to pursue the adventures of Polexandre, 
 in a fashionable romance of eight volumes — he asked 
 her if she had any suspicion as to the author of 
 the libel. 
 
 " I can hardly know whom to suspect, unless I read 
 the thing," she said. 
 
 " That you shall never do if I can help it," George 
 answered resolutely ; and then he urged her to think 
 of any likely person to inspire or to perpetrate such 
 an injury as she had suffered. 
 
 " Behind every libel there is a foe," he said. " Your 
 foes cannot be many."
 
 270 5n Iblob iplaces 
 
 " Can they not ? They are as many as the friends 
 of Madame Desprez. She hates me — not because she 
 fears my rivalry in the affections of her antique adorer, 
 but because I refuse to live on familiar terms with her, 
 or to recognise her in public. She would like for us 
 all to live in this house — which is much handsomer 
 than her own — as a happy family. No doubt it would 
 be more convenient and more economical than our 
 separate establishments, as De Lussac has often in- 
 sinuated ; but she shall not cross this threshold while 
 I live. Her friends are my enemies, for they know 
 the surest way to please her is to injure me." 
 
 " And she patronises the wits and pamphleteers, the 
 duellists, the guzzlers and topers— the men who hold 
 their nightly orgies at the Pine Apple ! " cried George 
 eagerly. " I'll warrant the libel was inspired by her." 
 
 "Tis monstrous likely," assented the Marquise, 
 yawning, as she sipped her chocolate out of a gold 
 cup, " but by all the gods I wish you would burn the 
 loathsome rag, and forget it. The outrage was 
 abominable ; but the wretch may have been drunk, 
 or mad. And you saw last night that his malice has 
 done me no harm. The Queen was never more friendly." 
 
 " And the printed slander, circulated all over Paris 
 perhaps ? " 
 
 " Mazarin's police shall hunt it down, and suppress 
 it. And you may be sure it is no more than has been 
 printed about every woman of mark in Paris." 
 
 "There are women who could scarce endure such 
 an insult and live." 
 
 " Then they are women who have never lived in Paris. 
 Mon ange, how solemn you look ! Do you want me to 
 poison myself because a blackguard has been uncivil ? " 
 
 "God forbid that you should distress yourself! Yet 
 there are occasions when we do well to be angry ; and 
 this is one. But you have given me a clue. I ought to 
 find this scoundrel." 
 
 " George," she cried, lifting herself up among her 
 pillows, and seizing him by the arm, " George, you must 
 not fight him. I will not have your life imperilled for
 
 fov a 1ICloman*6 Safte 271 
 
 my — good name. No, no, no ! You hear ! You must 
 not provoke a duel." 
 
 " I must do my duty," he answered sternly ; and 
 before she could reply the double doors were flung open, 
 and the groom of the chambers announced " Madame la 
 Duchesse de Longueville." 
 
 The fair-haired daughter of Bourbon princes, cousin 
 of the King, came sailing in, tall, graceful, in the zenith 
 of her charms, and was followed almost immediately by 
 the witty Prince de Marsillac, always to be seen in her 
 train — and in a few minutes Madame de Lussac's room 
 was full of the finest people in Paris, a larger crowd than 
 usual, all curious to see how she took the incident of the 
 previous evening, an incident which might possibly 
 develop into as serious a business as that of the famous 
 love-letter dropped from Coligny's pocket, and falsely 
 attributed to Madame de Longueville. 
 
 George was too agitated to endure the babble of that 
 gay crowd. He hurried out of the house, and walked 
 the whole length of the Rue Saint-Antoine, and out of the 
 gate to the bleak heights beyond Paris, where, from the 
 rugged ground above the quarries of Chaumont, he 
 looked down upon the crowded roofs and chimneys of 
 the walled city, and thought with bitterness of the vice 
 and folly within that stone girdle. The long walk and 
 the fresh air quieted brain and nerves, and he was able 
 to think more collectedly as he walked back to the Court 
 quarter. It was past the dinner-hour at the Hotel de 
 Lussac — and even if he had been earlier he would fain 
 have avoided meeting the Marquise ; so he dined at the 
 ordinary, in his old lodging-house of the Golden Crown, 
 knowing that, of all resorts in Paris, this was one of the 
 likeliest at which to obtain information about bullies 
 and reprobates. 
 
 He seated himself next a man with whom he had 
 been on friendly terms when he lived in the house — an 
 out-at-elbows poetaster and political scribbler, who wrote 
 occasionally in the Gazette^ and was said to be in the 
 pay of the Parliament, and who ranked as fairly 
 respectable among men of letters — literature being, at
 
 272 5n fblQb places 
 
 this time, represented by two distinct sets of men, the 
 famous poets and savants who basked in the sunshine 
 of Royal patronage, cherished and petted by the finest 
 company in Paris, and the hack writers who lived as 
 they could, and passed the greater part of their days 
 and nights in taverns, with only occasional admittance 
 to the outer edge of the Court circle. 
 
 George's acquaintance, Jellifort, belonged to this 
 latter set, a person likely to be received by Madame 
 Desprez. 
 
 " If I know her ! " he cried, on being questioned. " I 
 have no better friend for a dinner or a supper. It 
 rains not gold in the Hotel Desprez. It is no El 
 Dorado ; but Madame has a genius for her cook, a fellow 
 she stole from Madame de Lussac, before she stole 
 the Marquis. Perhaps it was the cook De Lussac 
 followed, rather than the lady, who is ugly enough to 
 scare birds, but who has a fine figure, the handsomest 
 hand and foot in Paris, and the tongue of a Seine 
 boatman." 
 
 " And she is kind to men of letters, like yourself? " 
 
 " To many a worse man than myself, more's the 
 pity. Half the thorns that stuff Mazarin's pillow are 
 grown c/ies la Desprez'^ 
 
 " I have been told as much. There is one rascal, 
 a tall, bony wretch with a scarlet beak, like an unclean 
 bird." 
 
 Jellifort flung himself against the wall — the bench 
 on which they sat having no back — and laughed long 
 and loud. 
 
 " Dolroy ! " he cried, " Dolroy to the letter. It costs 
 Madame Desprez a fortune in burgundy and cognac 
 to colour that vulture beak. But then, she has the 
 most virulent pen in Paris — the greatest master of 
 ordure — at her service. Villon was decent, Rabelais 
 restrained, compared with Dolroy in the vein. No one 
 dares make light of a woman who keeps such a cham- 
 pion. The boldest satirist in Paris will hardly venture 
 so much as an epigram upon her wide mouth and 
 East Indian complexion."
 
 3for a Moman'9 Sahe 273 
 
 " With such a talent Dolroy is doubtless rich ? " 
 
 " Pas si bete ! Dolroy enjoys ; he does not save. He 
 drinks his last crown. He counts upon his venom lastinc^ 
 as long as he, and that while he can bite he will be fed." 
 
 " A pretty gentleman ! " 
 
 " I own the character is detestable. Yet if there were 
 no market for such filth, these literary vipers would bite 
 their own tails for very hunger, and die of their own 
 poison. Frankly I sometimes wonder that the wits and 
 poets at the Pine Apple can stomach Dolroy's company ; 
 but men who loathe him and his trade will yet laugh at 
 his most obscene jests, if he strike hard enough at the 
 Cardinal." 
 
 Eleven o'clock had chimed from the tower of St. 
 Jacques, and the tide of revelry was at the flood when 
 George made his entry in the crowded room where the 
 patrons of the Pine Apple took their pleasure, and 
 where the wits and poets of Paris met their patrons and 
 admirers of the noblesse and the bourgeoisie. There only 
 perhaps in all the city might be found a forecast of the 
 Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, which the coming 
 centuries were to bring to all Paris. In this jovial 
 rendezvous the gentleman of the vieille roc/ie rubbed 
 shoulders with the man of yesterday. Under this smoke- 
 blackened ceiling the princely blood of Bourbon scorned 
 not to touch glasses with the out-at-elbows poet or the 
 hireling wit. The common room of the Pine Apple was 
 a republic of disreputable letters, an academy of gutter 
 philosophy, where the Socrates of the night was ever he 
 of the deepest swallow and the dirtiest tongue. 
 
 George wore his oldest suit, and a slouched beaver hat, 
 that had braved wind and weather, so as to approximate 
 as much as possible to the habitue's of the tavern. He 
 had put on his trustiest rapier, having a shrewd suspicion 
 that the night might end in blood ; and indeed, there 
 was that in his eyes which might have sent a thrill along 
 the nerves of some of those careless topers, had not the 
 menace of that look been shadowed by the breadth of 
 his beaver. His entrance passed unchallenged, and he 
 
 18
 
 274 5n Ibiob BMaces 
 
 was able to take a searching survey of the company — 
 passing to and fro among the tables, as if in quest of a 
 friend — and so to convince himself that Dolroy was not 
 yet upon the scene, before he took his seat near the 
 hearth, where some burnt-out logs were smouldering on 
 the accumulated ashes of many fires. 
 
 The nights were chilly, and the guests of the Pine 
 Apple loved warmth ; but the room, being now over- 
 heated by the press of company and the reek of coarse 
 tallow candles, the wood-fire had not been replenished. 
 George called for a tankard of Beaune, and sat silently 
 sipping his wine, amidst a tempest of voices, for there 
 was a group at every table, and in every group at least 
 one loquacious member. He heard them without heed- 
 ing — though the names of Queen, Cardinal, Beaufort, 
 Montbazon, Enghien, were bandied about upon every 
 note in the gamut of abuse— since the man he wanted 
 was not among the speakers. The chimney was like 
 that one in the Rue Saint-Honore, which George had 
 climbed on the memorable ist of September. There 
 was the same penthouse slope overshadowing the hearth ; 
 and in that shadow the stranger remained unnoticed by 
 the boisterous topers and talkers clustered round the 
 tables, their animated faces lighted fitfully by the flare 
 of the candle which burnt in a tall iron candlestick on 
 each table. He sat thus amidst the babble and 
 laughter, the calls for wine, and rough jests between 
 customers and attendants, each of whom was addressed 
 by some nickname, the inspiration of a drunkard's 
 happy moment, which, from a casual jest, had become 
 the man's only appellation. He sat unheeding, deep 
 in painful thought, resolved to sit there waiting for his 
 enemy till the weary landlord drove the last of his 
 customers out of the door, to blink at the morning sun. 
 It was nothing to him to sit there all night if necessary, 
 so long as the slow hours brought the encounter he 
 longed for. 
 
 Presently he heard Dolroy's name from a man at 
 a table near him. Some one had commented on his 
 absence.
 
 jfor a Momau'5 Safte 275 
 
 " Oh, he will be here before 'tis much later," said 
 another man. 
 
 "La mere D^sprez is giving a supper, a snug little 
 assembly — not more than half a score of the most 
 disreputable women in Paris, with their favourite 
 cavaliers — the kind of company old De Lussac loves." 
 
 " Can De Lussac be poltroon enough to sup with 
 Dolroy after the rumpus in the Queen's drive, t'other 
 night, when that scroundrel flung his filthy song into 
 Madame de Lussac's lap?" 
 
 " De Lussac is a poltroon," 
 
 " Come, that's hard measure for the man who fought 
 at Rocroy." 
 
 " Oh, he can face the enemy's guns — or scale a wall 
 under a hail of bullets, with a jewel in his hat, and a 
 smile on his lip, to the tune of Enghien's fiddles, in the 
 Spanish manner. But he can't face a low-bred Zantippe 
 like Madame D^sprez. The devil only knows by what 
 charm the ugly witch holds him ; but she has got him, 
 body and soul : and he is too much her slave to rebel 
 even when her paid bully puts a public affront upon 
 his wife." 
 
 " He may not know of the affront yet." 
 
 " Not know — when all Paris is talking about it ! Ah, 
 here comes the scoundrel — between two wines, I can 
 see, by his walk, and in a savage temper." 
 
 And then the speaker bawled out the first quatrain 
 of a moyen age drinking-song, in a voice somewhat 
 thickened by wine. 
 
 " Beau nez, dont les rubis ont coust(5 mainte pipe 
 De vin blanc et clairet 
 Et duquel la couleur richement participe 
 Du rouge et violet." 
 
 The man with the vulture nose came slouching across 
 the room, halting here and there by one of the tables 
 to speak to an acquaintance. His long, lean figure was 
 clad in a suit that had once been fine, but the frayed 
 and tarnished gold lace and the stained satin testified 
 to hard wear and slovenly habits — the prodigal's one
 
 276 3n Ibiab places 
 
 suit. He wore his hat with the true spadassin tilt, 
 slant-wise over his right eye, while the left glared upon 
 the company with an angry gleam in it — a large black 
 eye, afleiir de tete. 
 
 " Your May midnights are colder than December," 
 he grumbled, making straight for the hearth. " There 
 is a wind blowing up the river that might come straight 
 from Muscovy. Coquin de Dieu ! Nothing but ashes 
 in the chimney ! Here, you scoundrel," calling to the 
 host, who was serving a flagon hard by, " bring some 
 logs and kindle a fire." 
 
 " We'll have no more fire to-night, Dol," protested 
 a young man sitting in a little knot of well-dressed 
 company at a table in front of the hearth. " The room 
 is as hot as a furnace." 
 
 " Sang de Dieu ! It shall be hotter than hell if I 
 choose, pig," said Dolroy, kicking about the burnt-out 
 logs, and scattering a cloud of grey ashes over the fine 
 gentlemen's white boots and satin ribbons. 
 
 " ' Pig ' is scarce civil to an old friend, Dol," remon- 
 strated the youth. 
 
 " Do you suppose I meant to be civil ? You come 
 to the wrong shop when you expect compliments from 
 Jacques Dolroy. But if that's Beaujolais you're drink- 
 ing I've a throat that can be civil to a draught of 
 good wine." 
 
 Dolroy's brutal manners were familiar to the company, 
 and nobody ever took offence at his speech ; so he was 
 seated presently, clinking glasses with the little knot of 
 courtiers ; while mine host, who knew his customer, and 
 hated a row, brought a couple of pine-logs from a basket 
 in the corner, and made a feint of relighting the fire, 
 which served his turn, for Dolroy was warming himself 
 with deep draughts of the hoarded sunshine on the 
 Cote d'Or, and took no further heed of the fireless 
 hearth. 
 
 He absorbed his wine for some time in a moody 
 silence, in spite of his modish friend's endeavours to 
 provoke those ribald sallies and profane jests which 
 constitute the chief attraction of low company. To slip
 
 jfor a Moman'5 Safec 277 
 
 away from the Louvre, where wit walked on stilts, to 
 the Pine Apple, where wit wallowed in the filth of 
 profligate Paris, gave zest to appetites that were sated 
 with refined pleasures. From the Hotel de Rambouillet 
 to the Pine Apple ! The contrast was refreshing ; and 
 Dolroy's frank brutality was a thing to be cherished 
 with choice wine and even gratified with gold. 
 
 " Thou hast the wine sad to-night, Dolroy, and art as 
 gloomy as the Cimetiere des Innocents," said Vallangay, 
 the young man who had been called " pig," and who was 
 still young enough to feel a perverted admiration for the 
 corrupt scoundrel whose coarse satires could make 
 princes of the blood Royal smart and pay, and who had 
 an air of conferring a favour when he drank at a gentle- 
 man's expense. 
 
 Dolroy's only visible eye stared at him with freezing 
 severity. 
 
 " And if I am sad, dost think thou hast wit enough 
 under that hay-cock of frizzled hair to enliven me ; or 
 that this Piquette, which yonder cheat calls Beaujolais, 
 is the stuff to fire my brain ? Bring me a flask of 
 brandy, rascal, to wash out my mouth after your 
 verjuice. Monsieur de Vallangay pays the score." 
 
 " 'Twere ill if I had to look to the Sieur Dolroy for 
 payment," grumbled the host, as he put a bottle of 
 brandy and a pair of long-stemmed Dutch glasses on 
 the table. 
 
 Dolroy filled and drained his glass three times before 
 that evil light within him which he called his mind 
 kindled into speech. And then, Great Heaven, what 
 speech it was that poured its foul torrent from that 
 raucous throat ! what hatred of the rich, what scorn of 
 the poor, what vilification of all that is holy in heaven, 
 all that is sacred in the affections and joys and sorrows 
 of earth ! And the jests which larded that long diatribe 
 against a society that would have none of him — ^jests 
 that had all Rabelais' coarseness, and little of Rabelais' 
 wit, but tickled jaded ears as highly spiced viands tickle 
 jaded palates ! 
 
 The fine gentlemen gave him the replique, knowing
 
 2 78 5n fbiab BMaces 
 
 how to draw him when he was in the humour to be 
 drawn. 
 
 George sat unobserved in his corner, behind the re- 
 probate's back, Hstening to every word, and waiting for 
 that one word — the first mention of Madame de Lussac's 
 name, which should give him the cue for action. So far 
 there had been no allusion to the scene on the Queen's 
 drive, or to the scandalous ballad. The man's talk had 
 been in the air, a series of tirades against the Court and 
 the men and women who shone in that palace from 
 which he had been violently ejected more than a score 
 of years ago, when Louis the Just was young, after 
 having sparkled there for a brief season as wit and poet, 
 before the inborn foulness of his nature had revealed 
 itself by speech and pen. He had never forgiven that 
 expulsion from the paradise of princes ; and under his 
 blatant scorn of noble birth and high places, stars and 
 ribbons, there rankled the gnawing regret of the ban- 
 ished, the envious spirit which exaggerated lost 
 privileges, and hated all who enjoyed them. 
 
 The sin that had exiled him had been an epigram 
 about the Queen and Buckingham, which he had circu- 
 lated widely, in the pride of authorship, and in the hope 
 that those four stinging lines would prove a passport to 
 Richelieu's favour ; but although the great Cardinal 
 laughed at the epigram, and was even heard to call the 
 author a clever dog, he did not wajit Jacques Dolroy ; 
 whereby that long-headed gentleman won neither fee 
 nor favour from his Eminence. 
 
 Weak as Anne of Austria was in those days, she was 
 strong enough to get the man who had insulted her a 
 public caning in the great quadrangle of the Louvre, 
 with a promise of a cell in the Bastille should he 
 ever venture to pass the drawbridge under the Royal 
 gate. Had an insult to his Eviinence Rouge been the 
 offence the Bastille would have been a certainty, and 
 the period of his imprisonment indefinite. It was 
 well for him that he had insulted only the first lady in 
 the land. 
 
 From that hour Jacques Dolroy had cherished an
 
 3for a Moman's Saftc 279 
 
 implacable hatred against the Queen — and it needed 
 but a certain amount of alcohol to set that smothered 
 fire flaming. Vallan^ay and his companions winked at 
 each other as he swallowed the third glass of brandy, 
 and one of them gave the cue. They were all four 
 sworn friends of Beaufort's, and had their grievance 
 against her Majesty. 
 
 " 'Tis pity thou canst not be among us at the Louvre, 
 Dolroy. 'Tvvould amuse thee to see the Queen and 
 Mazarin bill and coo — a pair of middle-aged turtle- 
 doves — remembering what it cost thee to have turned 
 a rhyme upon Buckingham and the scene in the 
 garden." 
 
 " Buckingham ! " cried Dolroy, his one visible eye 
 brightening with the rapture of hate. " Buckingham is 
 the history of the world before the flood. Buckingham 
 is chapter the first in a long book. And the scene in 
 the garden " 
 
 " When she shrieked because he infringed Spanish 
 etiquette, and kissed her hand with too much vehe- 
 mence," interjected Vallancay. 
 
 " She has long since learnt that 'tis idle to make 
 scenes. A succession of lovers have taught her wisdom," 
 said Dolroy. 
 
 And starting on this note he ran up the whole gamut 
 of malignant obscenity, piling up evil words, revolting 
 similes, the flowers of Latin epigram steeped in the 
 filth of the Parisian gutter — Martial mixed with Villon ; 
 and this of a woman, a devout Catholic, Royal daughter 
 of Imperial Spain, mother of the reigning King ! And 
 this tinsel noblesse, the friends and followers of the 
 Importants, laughed louder and louder, gratified to 
 hear that Royal lady reviled, pleased with an invention 
 fouler than their own. 
 
 'Twas when the laughter was loudest that George 
 started from his low bench, and sprang out of the 
 shadows like a tiger leaping from the jungle. Here 
 was his opportunity — to strike for that Royal lady, to 
 punish her traducer, and so keep the Marchcsa's name 
 out of the business. Springing up behind Dolroy, he
 
 28o 5n IbiQb UMaces 
 
 gripped the neck of his doublet with one hand, while 
 he clapped the other over his mouth, and so held him 
 pinioned and dumb for a moment, while the other men 
 started up amazed, as at an apparition. There were 
 plenty of sudden brawls in that room ; but the sudden- 
 ness of this silent attack was out of order. 
 
 " Thou foul-mouthed devil ! he said, after a brief and 
 breathless pause. " If there is not a Frenchman in all 
 this assembly to punish the slanderer of his Queen, there 
 is an Englishman that will stop that obscene mouth of 
 thine for the honour man owes to woman. Down, 
 beast, down among the dust and ashes, and swallow 
 some of the dirt thy soul lovest. Would to God there 
 were a pig-stye handy to receive thy wine-soaked 
 carcass ! " 
 
 His hat had fallen off as he sprang up amongst them, 
 and he stood there in the flare of the tallow candles, his 
 breast heaving, his face radiant with a splendid fury, 
 handsome as a Greek god. The little noblesse remem- 
 bered him. Madame de Lussac's protege — an adven- 
 turer, a young profligate, no doubt ; but, pardieu, he 
 knew how to tackle a man. 
 
 Dolroy struggled in his clutch, roaring behind the 
 hand that stifled him, with a deep, muffled roar like a 
 wild beast. The vulture beak assumed a fiercer dye, 
 and glowed like fire ; the great black eye seemed 
 starting out of the purple face. He had been leaning 
 forward with his elbows on the table and his stool tilted 
 upon two legs. George took stool and man and hurled 
 them crashing on to the hearth, where Dolroy lay on his 
 back, smothered in the soft depths of heapcd-up ashes, 
 choking, spluttering, blaspheming, as the light wood-ash 
 filled his mouth and eyes. 
 
 The little noblesse laughed till they cried. 'Twas pure 
 sport to them to see this sudden fracas. The room was 
 full of eager faces, all turned towards the chimney. 
 This was the kind of thing for which one came to the 
 Pine Apple ; a row, swift and sudden, perhaps even a 
 spice of bloodshed, to enliven the long sitting over 
 doubtful wine, and cards that were not always kind, or
 
 jfor a 1KIloman*5 Safte 281 
 
 dice that had a devil of bad luck hidden in the heart of 
 the ivory. 
 
 '* What's the quarrel about ? " said one ; and, " He 
 deserved it," said another. " 'Twas his old game of 
 abusing the Queen, and those /reluguets yonder, friends 
 of the Importants, encourage his beastly tongue." 
 
 And then a young man in Court dress jumped upon a 
 table, took off his white- plumed hat and waved it, shouting, 
 " La Reine ! Vive la Reine /" And half the company 
 took up the cry with boisterous vehemence, while the 
 other half cried, " Vive Beaufort I A has la catin !" It was 
 a chance that the excitement did not rise to fever heat, and 
 culminate in a free fight all over the room ; but \hefronde 
 had not come yet, though the fever of it was in the air. 
 
 It cost that drunken brain and those slackened limbs 
 of Dolroy's a painful effort before he was able to 
 scramble up from the hearth and stand facing his enemy, 
 grey from top to toe, head and face and garments coated 
 with wood-ash. Only the vulture beak showed scarlet 
 through the grey. 
 
 " Behold a poet's ghost ! " cried Vallangay, amid the 
 general laughter. 
 
 " Is it Virgil or Dante ? It lacks the laurel crown ; 
 but it has a scarlet nose instead." 
 
 Fury braced the drunkard's nerves, and steadied his 
 legs. He looked round him glaring, with eyes that 
 shone like a tiger's, seeking his assailant. Then suddenly, 
 with a wild beast's roar, he sprang upon George, gripping 
 him by the throat with both hands, and flinging all the 
 weight of his long limbs against him. 
 
 " What, was it you ? — the Italian witch's gallant — the 
 last on the roster ? " he cried, while George wrestled with 
 him, grasping his bony wrists, suffocating under the 
 pressure of unclean hands, sickened at the drunkard's 
 fiery breath, puffing fumes of coarse brandy into his face. 
 He was conscious of that loathsome odour even while he 
 struggled for his own breath. 
 
 " I have a good mind to kill thee," roared Dolroy. 
 
 " We'll have no killing here," cried a man in the crowd, 
 everybody in the room being on foot by this time, and
 
 282 5n Ibigb UMaces 
 
 eager to intervene in the quarrel. " Loose your hands 
 from his neck, Dolroy, or you'll strangle him." 
 
 " That's what I want to do," gasped the ruffian, as 
 George flung him off, and sent him reeling into the arms 
 of the bystanders. 
 
 Once free of that murderous clutch, George stood like 
 a rock, gasping, but calm and collected, with his hand on 
 the hilt of his sword. Those in the company who could 
 admire courage, youth, and manly beauty, looked at him 
 with friendly eyes. 
 
 " Who is with me among all you rabble ? " Dolroy 
 demanded savagely, scowling round the crowd. " Who 
 will stand up for an old drunken man assaulted by a 
 sober, fish-blooded jackanapes ? " 
 
 There were plenty of offers, and George had as 
 many. It might have been an engagement of half 
 the room against the other half, so eager was every- 
 body to fight somebody, for something ; but after a 
 wild confusion of tongues, and a hot dispute, the riot 
 gradually subsided, and the combatants and place of 
 meeting were chosen : and George, who had meant to 
 settle his own account with Dolroy as quietly as the 
 nature of the quarrel would allow, found himself one 
 in an engagement of four against four, to fight with 
 swords and pistols, on horseback, in the wood of 
 Vincennes, an hour after sunrise, just when the light 
 was clearest and steadiest. 
 
 " But how to get out of the gate," asked one of the 
 combatants. "They are quick to smell gunpowder, 
 since the law has been so severe against duelling ; and 
 eight men riding out so early " 
 
 " We need not all go by the same gate," said De 
 Chancy, one of George's seconds, who seemed on fire 
 with eagerness. 
 
 " That's easily settled. We shall be a hawking party," 
 said Dolroy. " Some of you can carry a falcon, and 
 you are going to fly your birds t'other side of the wood. 
 I keep no bird save a bald-headed jackdaw that I have 
 taught my own language — and would not sell for a 
 thousand crowns,"
 
 ifor a Moman's Safte 283 
 
 There was the chill of dawn in the air and the pallor 
 of dawn in the sky when George let himself in at the 
 postern door in the tower where there was a corkscrew 
 staircase leading up to a passage that communicated 
 with the gallery on which his rooms opened. Madame 
 de Lussac had given him the key of this postern door, 
 which saved him the fuss and ceremony of the main 
 entrance, and enabled him to go in and out at any 
 hour of the day or night. Before going upstairs he 
 went through a long corridor in the basement, which 
 led to a door opening on the stables, where he roused 
 one of the grooms from his straw pallet in the barrack 
 where the coachmen and grooms had their quarters, and 
 bade him saddle Sully, a horse he had ridden much and 
 schooled to his liking, and have him ready and waiting 
 in the lane behind the stables upon the stroke of four. 
 
 This done, he went to his room and wrote a letter to 
 the Marchesa. 
 
 " I am going straight from this house to meet the 
 man who insulted you — and it may be that either he or 
 I, or both of us, will never see the setting of the sun 
 that now shows red behind the wood where you and 1 
 have driven so often. 
 
 " It was in the Queen's cause I challenged him, but 
 those who saw you insulted may guess that it is for 
 your honour I fight. I go gladly, and, if Fate wills, I 
 shall die gladly for your sake, since so to die is perhaps 
 the only witness this poor life of mine can bear to my 
 gratitude for all the bounties you have heaped upon me 
 — the first and chiefest being your affection, of which I 
 feel myself so little worthy." 
 
 So little worthy. Yes, for he could not pay love 
 with love, and he knew that all other payment is but 
 base coin. He thought of her gratefully, as he scaled 
 the letter — thought of her sorrowfully, knowing that she 
 would grieve for him should the event go ill ; but he 
 could not think of her tenderly. All his love, all his 
 longing, went to others ; to the kind protectress, the
 
 284 5n Ibi^b BMaccs 
 
 low-voiced, sweet-faced woman who had treated him as 
 a kinsman and friend, — with no demonstrative affection, 
 no overwhelming warmth of feeling, but with a pensive 
 regard, as of one who cherished the memory of a lost 
 friend, and loved ^im for his likeness to the dead. The 
 tie had been so fragile that bound him to Lady Llan- 
 bister, but it held him faster than that passionately 
 asserted relationship of mother and son, which he had 
 been constrained to accept, reluctant even to the last. 
 
 And so, as he examined his weapons and arranged 
 his dress for the encounter, there were two faces with 
 him all the time : the fair girl-face, with the brilliant 
 eyes, broad, low brow, and exquisite mouth, where pride 
 was tempered by generous feeling ; the thoughtful 
 woman-face, full of a pleading tenderness, lovely in the 
 passionless calm of a life lived for others. It was of 
 these two he thought, the beloved of his happiest years. 
 They would be sorry if he fell in the fight that was so 
 near. He could not go to meet death without leaving 
 some token for his first — and, alas ! dearest, benefactress. 
 
 He sat at his desk again, when his preparations were 
 finished, and wrote to Lady Llanbister. 
 
 " Beloved friend I these lines may be a last farewell to 
 you and that dear girl for whom, in sight of death, I 
 dare acknowledge my passion — a love which neither 
 years nor absence can lessen, and which can but cease 
 when death stills the heart where Geraldine reigns 
 paramount. 
 
 " Honour constrains me to fight a ruffian ; and I 
 doubt the chances of a happy issue are against me. 
 Receive, dear lady, this last avowal of an affection which 
 words are too weak to express. Living or dying, I 
 revere and admire and love you. 
 
 " George." 
 
 He placed the two letters in the Italian coffer where 
 he kept his richest clothes — laying them on the top of 
 the neatly folded garments, so that they could not fail to 
 be seen by any one who opened the coffer, and yet
 
 jfor a "CCloman's Safte 285 
 
 would not be likely to be discovered till the news of the 
 morning's business reached the Hotel de Lussac, when, 
 if he were killed, there would doubtless be some exam- 
 ination of his rooms. As he calculated upon this, the 
 image of H^loise de Lussac flashed upon him — frantic, 
 tragical, pacing those sumptuous rooms in a wild agony 
 of grief ; and again he was sorry for her sorrow ; and 
 again he hated himself because he could not feel for her 
 as a son should feel for his mother. 
 
 He was riding to the Porte St. Antoine presently, 
 with a hooded peregrine on his wrist, his horse fresh and 
 eager in the keen morning air. Horses and falcons, 
 greyhounds and spaniels, all toys for which youth cares 
 had been lavished upon him by the Marquise ; and it 
 had been with the utmost difficulty that he had restricted 
 her money gifts to the amount which, as her steward 
 and book-keeper, he might fairly have received as 
 wages. 
 
 There was no trouble at the gate. 
 
 " Have my friends ridden ahead with their birds ? " he 
 asked the sentry, in a cheery voice. 
 
 " Yes, monsieur, two cavaliers went through ten 
 minutes ago. A fine morning for a flight." 
 
 And so, with jaunty touch of hat, through the gate, 
 past the grim towers of the Bastille, a great bulk of 
 masonry, dark under the pearly light, and along the 
 level road, between long rows of poplars, grey with 
 dust, to that other fortress, the prison-house for princes, 
 where Henri de Beaufort fretted in captivity, to the 
 wonder of all Paris. 
 
 Three hours later a cart came along the same dusty 
 road at a footpace, entering Paris through that same 
 Porte St. Antoine — a cart in which George Mountain 
 lay on a mattress, his garments soaked in blood, and his 
 countenance livid as death.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 Long days and nights of sufifering, of delirium, of 
 semi-consciousness, succeeded that eventful morning in 
 the wood at Vincennes. The irritation of his wounds, 
 treated by the imperfect lights of a seventeenth-century 
 surgeon, kept the patient in a high fever, while the 
 copious drugs prescribed by a Court physician sapped 
 his strength and protracted his suffering. 
 
 It was a time of torment which George remembered 
 for the rest of his life, an existence in a vague world 
 that he took for Purgatory, or for Hell, according to the 
 measure of his pain. Strange forms stalked there ; an 
 old iron-grey man who plagued him perpetually, forcing 
 him to drink nauseous medicines, dressing his wounds, 
 and seeming only to intensify his agony, a man whom he 
 took sometimes for a malignant fiend, and sometimes 
 knew for the old Roman servant Paolo. Sometimes 
 Paolo vanished, and a woman's dark face — uglier than 
 Paolo's — watched at his bedside. 
 
 And sometimes there came a vision of imperial 
 beauty, a woman who kissed him and cried over him, 
 and implored him to live for her sake, but who never 
 stayed long ; for though Heloise de Lussac loved the 
 sufferer, she did not love a sick-room. She who was so 
 strong in pride and daring had all a fine lady's horror 
 of suffering, and sickened at the sight of the blood- 
 stained bandages, and shrank with something of aversion 
 from George's altered countenance, pinched and cada- 
 verous after a month of suffering. 
 
 286
 
 3Betvveen Xtfe ant) Beatb 287 
 
 " Make haste and get well, vion ami" she pleaded, 
 "and let me have my handsome Georges again. As 
 soon as you can bear the journey I will carry you to 
 the Baths of Bourbon, and there you will soon recover 
 your strength and good looks." 
 
 She visited him every day, and sometimes came to 
 his room late at night — straight from the Court, shining 
 in her evening splendour of diamonds and velvet, when 
 if he were inclined to be light-headed, he would take 
 her for one of the phantoms that haunted him in the 
 night season — Melusine — Gabrielle d'Estrees, Diane de 
 Poictiers, Joan of Arc. He had a hundred names for 
 her ; and she would smile at him, and lay a cool hand 
 on his brow, and bend over him to press a tearful kiss 
 on his burning lips. But she never stayed with him ; 
 and the dull hours in which he saw no face but those 
 two dark faces of Paolo and Bianca weighed upon him 
 like a funeral pall, and he abandoned all hope of ever 
 going out into the sunshine, ever knowing the brightness 
 of life and pleasant companionship, again. 
 
 The Court physician had ordered that his room should 
 be kept dark ; that there should be as little difference 
 as possible between night and day. There was no 
 compromise with sickness in those days. A fever patient 
 was not much better off than a state prisoner in one 
 of the darkest cells of the Bastille. In the matter of 
 air and light the prisoner had the best of it. 
 
 And while he lay in that darkened room, Paris was 
 rejoicing at the conquest of Gravelines in Flanders, 
 which had surrendered to Gaston d'Orleans after a 
 protracted siege, an event celebrated by fireworks and 
 coloured lanterns, by balls and collations, and dances 
 in the open air on the terrace of the Palais Royal. 
 Mademoiselle de Montpensier's violins were playing 
 corantos and passe-pieds all over Paris in that week of 
 jubilation, and all good citizens forgot for the nonce that 
 arbitrary taxation of their houses which had so lately 
 stirred them to revolt. 
 
 One stage there was in George's illness when, the
 
 288 Sn ibigb {places 
 
 pain of his wounds being lessened, his hallucinations 
 took a milder form, and his consciousness drifted away 
 from the actualities around him to a shadow-picture 
 of the past. He was at Isleworth again, sauntering on 
 the river bank with Geraldine, or wading in some cool 
 backwater to gather lilies for her. Or they were on 
 the slope of the hill towards Highgate, in a meadow 
 golden with king-cups, looking back at the city — the 
 Cathedral, with its long line of roof and massive tower ; 
 the fortress prison where Strafford had died, and Laud 
 had pined in a prolonged captivity. Or they were in 
 the Aldersgate garden, listening to unwonted sounds 
 in the street within the gate — the beat of drums, the 
 feet of the trained bands marching westward to guard 
 the Houses of Parliament. Many a scene of that so- 
 cherished past was acted over again in this later stage 
 of delirium, when weakness, and not acute pain, was 
 the cause of the fever. The dear phantoms were with 
 him night after night ; and those beloved shadows came 
 between him and the Marquise when she hung over 
 his bed ; and he turned his face to the wall petulantly, 
 muttering the names of his friends in England. 
 
 The fever burnt itself out at last, and the conscious- 
 ness of every-day life and its obligations came back to 
 him with an unspeakable melancholy and disgust. He 
 lay like a log upon that sumptuous bed which had been 
 his place of torment, and he felt that the world outside 
 his windows was as colourless as the cold grey light 
 of the quadrangle, where the sun never shone. Now 
 that he was pronounced out of danger, the physicians 
 had allowed him the light — but not the air of heaven. 
 "Pour V amour de Dieu not an open casement." 
 
 The days and nights passed now with a dull mono- 
 tony, but he was too weak to feel the desire for action 
 or change of scene, or to take the faintest interest in 
 the great drama of life from which he had been so 
 suddenly withdrawn. He had not even asked the 
 issue of the duel — who had fallen,' and who had survived. 
 With that black melancholy which clouded his mind 
 there went a supreme indifference to all the joys and
 
 Between Xlfe atiD Deatb 289 
 
 cares, hopes and ambitions, of earth. It was in vain 
 that Madame de Lussac tried to rouse him from his 
 apathy. He was no longer able to simulate interest 
 in her conversation, or pleasure in her society. He 
 lay languid and silent, with a face of marble, out of 
 which his haggard eyes looked at her with an unspeak- 
 able sadness. 
 
 " Have they given you the water of Nepenthe among 
 your medicines, mon ami ? " she asked piteously, after 
 trying to arouse his interest in her gossip of the Court 
 intrigues. "You look at me as if you had forgotten 
 who I am — as if a stranger were sitting at your pillow." 
 
 " No, no. I have not forgotten. But everything 
 seems so far away, so long ago. Tell me, Marchesa, 
 how long have I been lying on this bed ? A year, or 
 more than a year ? " 
 
 " Mon ami, why, it is not three months yet, since 
 that dreadful morning." 
 
 He looked across the room at the great coffer, 
 wondering if his letters had been discovered there, and 
 having only this instant remembered writing them. 
 
 " Not three months ? Then it is still summer. 
 Great God ! I thought I had suffered a long winter on 
 this bed — ice, and snow, and storm — a winter of darkness, 
 and horrid shapes and sounds ; endless nights of cold 
 and gloom ; and then came burning days, and I thought 
 I was in the Americas with Raleigh, and the Incas had 
 made me a prisoner, and I was to be sacrificed in the 
 temple of their god — and I saw the knife at my throat. 
 Dreams — only dreams — but dreams that were like 
 years." 
 
 " Pauvre cJier ange ! Helas ! it was dreadful to hear 
 you raving. But it is over now — and we shall be at 
 Bourbon in a few weeks, you and I." 
 
 Then, for the first time since he dropped, head down- 
 wards, from the saddle, he began to think about the scene 
 in the wood at Vincennes. 
 
 " Is that brute Dolroy still alive ? " he asked. 
 
 " He is dead ; but not by your hand. De Chancy rode 
 between you when that devil was rushing at you to give 
 
 19
 
 290 5n UMab places 
 
 the finishing blow. While you swayed in the saddle, 
 fainting from loss of blood, powerless to parry another 
 stroke, De Chancy wheeled his horse, and dashed 
 between you, and shot that evil beast through the brain. 
 It was one of the wickedest and cleverest brains in 
 France, people say ; but there is nothing left of it now— 
 and the body it belonged to is lying in the Cinietiere 
 des Innocents— ^nd. the hand that held the pen will give 
 no more trouble to anybody. He had accused Madame 
 de Chancy of an intrigue with Monsieur, and her 
 husband of being over-indulgent to his wife and her 
 Royal lover. 'Twas truth in both cases ; but such 
 vilifiers should not be suffered to live. You owe your 
 life to De Chancy ; and your liberty to the Cardinal," 
 
 " Indeed ? " 
 
 " The other survivors in the fight are in the Chatelet. 
 They were arrested before they could leave the wood — a 
 sentinel at the Chateau having heard pistol-shots, and 
 guessed what mischief was on foot. Happily for you, 
 my faithful Paolo heard your step upon the tower-stair 
 in the early morning, and followed you— saw you go 
 out at the door, and then, seeing a light at the end 
 of the passage, went straight to the stables, questioned 
 the men, and you and Sully had not been gone half 
 an hour before Paolo and one of the grooms— Laurent, 
 who is staunch and trusty — were riding after you." 
 
 " How did they know where to look for me? " 
 
 " Oh, there is a fashion in these things — and of late 
 Vincennes has been the mode for duels. The boldest 
 scarce venture to meet in the Place Royale so soon 
 after Coligny's death. By reason of your choice of 
 Sully 'twas thought you had to ride some distance— and 
 as you would hardly fight before broad daylight, the 
 hour indicated as much. Paolo has a subtle brain for 
 finding out secrets. He rode on to the ground while 
 you were lying senseless in the dust, where Dolroy lay 
 dead. The rest had ridden off— and your good horse 
 was cropping the grass peacefully within half a dozen 
 yards. Paolo sent the groom to Vincennes to hire 
 u cfirt and a mattress, and he being lucky in falling in
 
 ^Between %itc anb 2)eatb 291 
 
 with a good-natured farmer on his way to the village, 
 there was no time wasted, and you were brought here 
 in safety, past the guards who would have arrested you 
 had not Paolo sworn you were a dying man, which 
 indeed you looked, pauvre ami, when you were carried 
 to this room. That you have escaped being arrested 
 later you owe to the Cardinal, to whom you might owe 
 many valuable favours were you not too stubborn to 
 let him oblige you." 
 
 " I want none of his favours." 
 
 " But surely you are grateful for your liberty ? " 
 
 " I shall be — when I am free ; but so long as I have 
 to lie here I shall feel all the oppression of a prison 
 cell. There is a weight upon my soul which I cannot 
 fling off." 
 
 " Impatient ! Ungrateful ! " 
 
 "Yes, I know I am an ingrate, and that is the 
 heaviest burden of all," he said, with a sigh. 
 
 " Well, I too am weary of Paris. The heat is suffo- 
 cating in the narrow streets, and there is scarcely a 
 breath of air along the Cours ; the river mists reek 
 with foul odours. The Court is at Fontainebleau. Cond6 
 and his Princess are at Chantilly, feting their vic- 
 torious son, and their Court is more brilliant than her 
 Majesty's." 
 
 " And what of unhappy England, Marchesa ? Have 
 the King's arms prospered while I have been lying 
 here?" 
 
 " We hear rumours so various that one knows not 
 what to believe. In June we were told that King 
 Charles and his nephew were victorious on every side ; 
 and that the Parliament must speedily submit : in July 
 came the news of a fatal battle, at Mester-mow, I 
 think 'twas called, where Rupert's invincible cavalry 
 went down before clod-hoppers and city 'prentices, and 
 where the Prince lost his cherished dog. Boy, for which 
 he has mourned no less than for his slaughtered troops. 
 Your Queen has returned to France, and is sick and 
 solitary at the Baths of Bourbon, after giving birth 
 to a princess in one of your English cities, the child
 
 292 5n IbiGb BMaces 
 
 of sorrow, born in poverty and mischance. This hapless 
 infant was left behind, and I , doubt mother and child 
 may never meet again." 
 
 *' Alas, poor Queen ! And has no English letter come 
 for me while I have been ill ? " 
 
 " None. I see you hanker after your English friends, 
 who have most likely forgotten you in the confusion 
 of the times." 
 
 " I know them too well to fear that." 
 
 " You are young enough to believe in the fidelity of 
 friends," answered the Marchesa, with a sneer. 
 
 It was one of her bad days. She was out of humour 
 with herself and with the world. The Queen had gone to 
 Fontainebleau without any intimation that her company 
 would be desired there. Nor had she been bidden 
 to that other Court at Chantilly, where Madame de 
 Longueville was the reigning star. But she had been 
 invited to join the princely circle at Blois, where Gaston 
 d'Orleans was reposing on his laurels, with his wife and 
 children, and where she knew that her presence would 
 be welcome to Monsieur, although perhaps looked coldly 
 upon by Madame, who had too frequent occasion for 
 jealousy of beautiful visitors, or of fair young maids-of- 
 honour, whose youthful innocence was ever slow to take 
 alarm at the ardour of Monsieur's admiration. 
 
 George was allowed to leave his bed for an hour or 
 two on the next day ; and he was shocked at the aspect 
 of his pallid countenance in the looking-glass, and at 
 the feebleness of his limbs, which would scarcely carry 
 him from the bed to the large armchair, even with 
 Paolo's aid. 
 
 " Shall I ever be a man again ? " he questioned 
 despairingly, as he sank into the chair, and looked down 
 at his shrunken and bloodless hands. 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur Georges, and a strong man, able to 
 lay about you in a mclcc, if you will but eat beef and 
 drink Burgundy," answered Paolo. " See ! in the teeth 
 of the doctor, I open the casement, and give you a 
 breath of air. This room is a furnace, and the court-
 
 ^Between Xife anD Beatb 293 
 
 yard is not much better in this sultry weather. And 
 now I must go to the Marchesa, who sent for me half 
 an hour ago. Monsieur has a bell there on the table 
 at his elbow, and Jean sits in the corridor, at Monsieur's 
 service." 
 
 " Oh to be in England, in the meadows beside the 
 Thames ! " cried George, when he found himself alone. 
 
 His heart ached with longing and regret when he 
 recalled that summer of two years ago, and heard the 
 dear music of the Richmond bells floating along the 
 river, out of the heart of the sunset. How often had he 
 seen Geraldine's face, irradiated by that glory of the 
 sinking sun ! How kind she had been, or how capricious ! 
 But in all her humours, how lovely and how dear ! To 
 be the lowest servant at Isleworth or in Aldersgate 
 Street ; to run errands or scrape trenchers ; only to see 
 her now and then as she flitted past a window in the 
 sunlight ; to be anywhere near her, under the meanest 
 conditions ; — were happier than to stifle in the gaudy 
 splendour of a house he hated. Yes, hated ! He was 
 grateful to the woman who loved and cherished him ; 
 but he hated the house he lived in, and the miserable 
 dependence of a life without effort or ambition. 
 
 He yearned for England and the friends he had left 
 there, as he sat with dull eyes fixed on the dead blank 
 wall across the courtyard, broken only by the shuttered 
 windows belonging to the rooms of Monsieur de Lussac, 
 who was at Fontainebleau, where Madame Desprez had 
 a hunting-lodge which the Marquis had given her, and 
 where they held a disreputable little Court of their own, 
 a tohu-boJiu of wits and adventurers, in open opposition 
 to the Queen's stately circle. 
 
 " Oh for a touch of a friend's hand ! " he thought, 
 " for an honest grasp of an English hand ! " 
 
 It was England and his English friends he longed 
 for, with a yearning affection which seemed part of his 
 very flesh. England ! English friends ! What had he 
 to do with England and English ways, if his lineage 
 were what he had been told it was? Italian ! Italian 
 to the marrow of his bones — a son of that beautiful,
 
 294 3n IbiQb BMaces 
 
 that gifted, that terrible people, in whom craft was an 
 instinct, with whom revenge was a religion, and murder 
 an elegant accomplishment. An Italian ! He recalled 
 those scathing denunciations of Jules Mazarin which 
 made the common talk of taverns — his avarice, his 
 invincible hypocrisy, velvet footfall, smiling lips, speech 
 akin to music. 
 
 Footsteps in the corridor — the quick, resolute tread 
 of one who walks the world without fear — startled him 
 from that black melancholy. He could have sworn to 
 that strong yet light step anywhere. His breath came 
 thick and flutteringly as he stared at the door, waiting 
 for it to open and show him the face of a friend. 
 
 " Francis, I knew 'twas you ! God, how I have 
 wanted you ! " he cried ; and then he let his face sink 
 on the arm of his chair, to hide the rushing tears. 
 
 " Dost weep, sirrah ! Diantre ! is this a welcome for 
 a man who has ridden six-and-thirty miles since sunrise, 
 and through the hottest day in a pestiferous summer ? 
 Jour de Dieu, did you think I could stay away while you 
 were ill, and in need of a friend ? I only heard of your 
 narrow 'scape of death three days ago, from a lieutenant 
 in D'Enghien's infantry, whose servant has a brother 
 in this house." 
 
 " But 'twas madness to enter Paris, Mountain. The 
 Cardinal swore he would have you hanged if ever you 
 set foot in the city. Great God ! that you should 
 hazard your life for my sake ! You must be on the 
 road again as soon as 'tis dark, and on your way to 
 a safe harbour. Why should you not cross to England, 
 where you would find friends, in spite of the troubles ? " 
 
 " I have friends everywhere, mon brave ; and I am 
 not going to your beggarly England. As for the little 
 Cardinal, I snap my fingers at him and his foiirches 
 patibulaires. I fear neither the gallows nor Montfaucon, 
 nor the wheel in the Place de Greve. I have trailed 
 a pike in Flanders with Monsieur's army since we two 
 parted. I was all through the siege of Gravelines, and 
 his Royal Highness will give me a character for courage 
 in the face of the enemy. As for the Jesuit in red,
 
 Between %itc anb Deatb 295 
 
 I doubt he is too wise to revive the story of Beaufort's 
 attempt, and Beaufort's arrest. It has ever been his 
 policy to let sleeping dogs lie ; and the dog Beaufort 
 is a dangerous dog, that is ever tugging at his chain 
 and will break it sooner or later, and head a pack of 
 hounds that may hunt his Eminence out of France. 
 Enough of my own fortunes, George, 'Tis of yours I 
 come to talk." 
 
 He had seated himself opposite the invalid, and was 
 leaning forward, clasping George's shrunken hands, 
 and gazing into his face with a severe scrutiny — not 
 unkindly, but deadly earnest. 
 
 " My fortunes are fixed. I am the servant of Madame 
 de Lussac : gratitude and duty are bonds which I 
 cannot break — were I ever so desirous of a freer life 
 and a wider world." 
 
 " Gratitude, duty, to Madame de Lussac ! The lad 
 raves. George, I am here to take you out of this 
 Gomorrah, this house which it is your dishonour ever 
 to have inhabited. If you have strength to sit in that 
 chair, you can bear to be carried in a litter to our old 
 quarters at the Golden Crown. I looked in on my 
 way here, and left my horse in the landlord's charge. 
 Our old room is at liberty ; and I bade them prepare 
 for a lodger who would need more than common comfort." 
 
 " I esteem your kindness, Frank, and I fondly re- 
 member those careless years I spent in your company : 
 but I cannot leave this house, nor can I suffer you to 
 speak ill of its mistress, to whom I am in debt for 
 protection, and the love of a mother for an adopted 
 son." 
 
 ** Sang- de Dim ! An adopted son ! Do you know 
 what Paris says of your sonship ? " 
 
 " I know but of one slanderer, and that dog will bark 
 no more. When I discover another as malignant, I 
 shall know how to silence him." 
 
 " Poor child ! Thou wouldst need a hundred lives 
 to fight Madame de Lussac's slanderers — if that which 
 is for the most part gospel truth can be called slander. 
 Come out of this den, George. Wert thou to talk in
 
 2g6 Sn Ibiob BMaces 
 
 an assembly of men as thou didst just now — of filial 
 feeling towards the lady of this house, thou wouldst 
 be greeted with a burst of Homeric laughter. In sooth, 
 if you talk of adoption, I have a higher claim than the 
 Marquise, for I adopted you when you were a helpless 
 morsel of humanity that must have perished had no 
 man fathered you." 
 
 " Generous friend, I have not forgotten. I shall be 
 your loving debtor so long as I live ; but I will not 
 hear you malign a lady who has honoured me with 
 her affection — the sacred affection which mothers feel 
 for their children ; a love which the difference in our 
 ages justifies." 
 
 " George, are you fooled by a consummate wanton ; 
 or are you trying to fool me ? " 
 
 " I will not hear " 
 
 "You must — you shall hear. It is I, your father 
 by adoption, the man of the world, who warns you 
 that you are in danger of sinking deeper and deeper 
 in a morass of guilt and shame. Maternal affection, 
 forsooth ! You are the woman's latest caprice, and 
 she waits but the hour to throw off the mask. Must 
 I tell you her history ? Must I recite the catalogue 
 of her lovers ? Must I tell you of her intrigue 
 with Bassompierrc, with De Longueville, with Gaston 
 d'Orleans ? Shall I tell you of Count Hector de 
 Lionval, who loved her passionately, sacrificed wealth 
 and Court favour, broke his young wife's heart for her 
 sake — and died cursing her, not without suspicion of 
 poison ? " 
 
 " Lies, slanders, the venom of paid libellers ! You 
 shall not repeat these hellish calumnies. I have lived 
 in her house for a year — I have seen all that is noble 
 and generous in her nature : a woman ill-used by the 
 world ; slighted and betrayed by her husband ; a 
 woman of surpassing beauty and commanding mind, 
 hated by the ugly and the dull. You must not, you 
 shall not, belie her. There are reasons for my presence 
 in this house, for my allegiance to that lady, which I 
 dare not explain, even to you, without her permission.
 
 Between %itc anb Deatb 297 
 
 But you, who know that I am not a fool, may take 
 my word that there never has been, there never could 
 be, the shadow of dishonour in my affection for that 
 lady, nor in hers for me." 
 
 " Oh, what a spell it is — the glamour of beauty, even 
 on the wane. Poor lad ! The sorceress can make you 
 think what she wills. But I tell you that for such a 
 man as you, young, nameless, without rank or fortune, 
 to live under this roof, to drive about Paris by that 
 woman's side, to depend upon her bounty — is dishonour 
 such as I, Francis Mountain, soldier of fortune, 
 adventurer, what you will, could not stomach ; and I 
 warn you that the stain of suspected infamy will 
 darken all the rest of your life, unless you cast off your 
 disgraceful bondage." 
 
 Mountain was pacing the room as he talked, fevered 
 with vexation, caring more for this companion of his 
 adventurous years than he had ever cared for kinsman 
 or friend. But he forgot that he was talking to a man 
 newly risen from a sick-bed, till he saw the sweat-drops 
 break out upon George's pallid brow, and the last 
 vestige of colour fade from his ashen lips. 
 
 " Tonnerre de Dicu, you're near swooning ! Here " — 
 hastily selecting a bottle of strong drops from other 
 medicines on the table by the invalid's chair, and 
 pouring out a dose — " swallow this ! I was a brute to 
 urge you beyond your strength. We'll wait for a day 
 or two. But remember, I came from Flanders to pluck 
 you out of this Tophet, and I will not be denied. I'll 
 not leave Paris till you have said farewell to the Hotel 
 de Lussac." 
 
 " I swear, Frank, you cruelly wrong that unhappy 
 lady. But, whatever thread of truth may run through 
 that fabric of falsehood, for me there is no choice. I am 
 here in the house of a woman who has the strongest 
 claim upon my affection. Were she the wanton you 
 describe, heartless, audacious — nay, were she guilty of 
 that darker crime you talk of — my place would be at 
 her side, — my duty would be to save her from the penalty 
 of sin, to persuade her to repentance and atonement."
 
 298 Bn ibtab places 
 
 " Well, for the poison, 'twas but the common talk that 
 follows every sudden death ; most of all when a man 
 and woman quarrel, and the man dies while their wrath 
 is hot. I'll not go so far as to accuse her of murder, 
 though the women of her country are skilled in the use 
 of anodynes that send troublesome people to sleep. But 
 for the rest — for a life that has never known the shackles 
 of religion or morality ; for adventures as daring, 
 passions as capricious, as can be charged against Ninon 
 or Marion — for so much I will answer." 
 
 " Oh, I know how men talk of women. I can believe 
 you have heard vile stories of the lady I honour. A 
 beautiful woman, proud of soul and fearless of speech, is 
 ever the mark for calumny. In every rejected lover she 
 has an inveterate enemy. And you, who know of what 
 baseness men are capable, can swallow the fabrications 
 of tavern slanderers, who have never crossed Madame 
 de Lussac's threshold, perchance have never seen her 
 face. I know the lady ; and nothing you, or any man 
 on earth, can allege against her, will lessen my attach- 
 ment to her." 
 
 " And you do not fear the world's verdict ? " 
 
 " I fear no judge while my own conscience approves. 
 Look you, Frank, there is but one reason which could 
 justify me in leaving this house. If it were indeed true 
 that the Marchesa's good name can suffer by my presence 
 here " 
 
 " So far as the Marchesa's name is capable of damage, 
 you may be sure 'tis the blacker for your friendship. 
 Nay, more, by your presence in her house, by your 
 companionship out of doors, you have brought upon her 
 that which she can less endure than reprobation, for she 
 is less used to it — the world's laughter. You have made 
 her ridiculous. An elderly Helen, sunning her faded 
 charms along the Cours by the side of a boy lover ! 
 Think what a mark for the wits and song-writers ! Do 
 you suppose there is but one Dolroy in Paris ? Why, 
 lad, wherever you two are seen together scornful 
 laughter follows you. But come, I have pressed you too 
 hard to-day, while you are weak and ailing. God knows
 
 ^Between Xtfe an& Deatb 299 
 
 'tis love makes me troublesome. We'll talk of my 
 fortunes since that September dawn — near a year ago— 
 when I left Paris. A chequered page, George. But 
 before I begin my story, I wonder whether, amid all this 
 splendour of Flemish tapestry and Italian inlaid work, 
 one could happen upon so vulgar a thing as a tankard 
 of Burgundy ? " 
 
 "Forgive me, Frank. I ought to have been more 
 hospitable," George answered hastily, ringing the hand- 
 bell which summoned his attendants ; and then, with 
 a troubled look, he said, " But if the Marquise should 
 find you here — you who have so cruelly reviled her — 
 I beg that you at least offer her the civility of silence." 
 
 " I hope I know how to behave to a lady, George. 
 Were Jezebel herself to enter, in all her bravery of 
 painted cheeks and bedizened head, I would remember 
 first that she was a woman and then that she was a 
 Queen ; and she might talk with me for an hour without 
 (Tiscovering that I thought her something less than 
 a saint." 
 
 " Bring a bottle of your finest Burgundy, and as good 
 a supper as you can contrive for this gentleman," said 
 George, as the lacquey appeared at the door. 
 
 And presently, when Paolo spread a supper-table 
 and lighted a cluster of wax candles in a tall silver 
 candelabrum ; and when Francis Mountain drew his 
 tabouret to the table and began to eat and drink, with 
 a cheerful jingle of glass and silver, while the lowered 
 curtains shut out the grey evening, George felt as if 
 all that had happened since his last parting with that 
 jovial comrade were but a dream from which he had 
 awakened. 
 
 " God knows how sorely I have missed you, Frank ! " 
 he exclaimed by-and-bye, when Mountain handed him 
 a brimmer of Burgundy, and they drank together and 
 touched glasses, with a mellow note that rang true as 
 their friendship. " You have been the something wanting 
 in my life for this long year, and I have been the 
 dullest fellow on earth without you. To spend an hour 
 in your company is to live and to be merry again."
 
 300 Sn Ibigb places 
 
 And then, remembering Mazarin's threat, he urged 
 his friend to leave Paris at daybreak. But he could 
 not awaken that reckless spirit to the consciousness of 
 danger. Mountain persisted in his assertion that the 
 little Cardinal was too shrewd a diplomatist to revive 
 the story of Beaufort's conspiracy. Had not his policy 
 since the arrest of that powerful foe been one of universal 
 conciliation, his manners more ingratiating, his promises 
 more lavish, than ever? while all his efforts had been 
 directed to the task of amassing such treasures of pic- 
 tures, statues, bronzes, tapestries, books, jewels, as 
 constituted in themselves alone one of the greatest 
 fortunes ever acquired — together with such accumulations 
 of specie and such concessions of real estate as made 
 the personal wealth of kings and emperors seem but 
 a dignified poverty. 
 
 " My father had something of that accumulating 
 genius," said Mountain, with a cynical laugh ; " but 
 in him the Parliament called it robbery." 
 
 He swore that he would stay in Paris till he had 
 seen George shift his quarters. 
 
 " I give you a night to sleep upon my arguments," 
 he said, " and if by to-morrow you are not resolved to 
 break through the silken net, and be your free self 
 again, I will say you are not the lad I reared on the 
 highways of Europe, but some vile changeling, that 
 loves splendour and luxurious living better than honour." 
 
 " You had best leave me to manage my life, while 
 you take care of your own neck, Frank," George 
 answered gravely, whereupon Mountain promised to 
 keep out of the way of any one likely to remember 
 him as an agent in Beaufort's plot. 
 
 There were, indeed, few who knew of his association 
 with the Cardinal's enemies, and those few were far 
 off. Madame de Chevreuse was living in strict retire- 
 ment at one of her country houses ; the Campions had 
 left France. The conspirators and the conspiracy had 
 melted into thin air. 
 
 George had put away all thought of Madame de 
 Lussac during that last hour with Mountain. Not till
 
 ^Between Xife an& Deatb 301 
 
 he was alone in the night silence did he look his fate 
 in the face. Sleep was out of the question. His brain 
 was on fire ; his heart was beating with a feverish 
 rapidity. Over and over again the words that he had 
 to speak to her who had the strongest claim to his pity 
 repeated themselves in his mind. However kindly 
 spoken, they must be words of farewell. He could 
 live no longer under that roof Whatever appeal she 
 might make to him, whatever obligation she might urge, 
 he must escape from that house, where every object 
 he looked upon was tarnished with the dishonour of 
 her who owned it. To live amongst splendour and 
 sicken at it is a worse penance than dry bread and 
 water. He had never loved those sumptuous surround- 
 ings ; but now they had become loathsome to him. 
 The atmosphere of the house suffocated him. 
 
 Those lines upon the Marchesa's face ! Guilty 
 passions had written them. Mountain's categorical 
 statements would have failed to convince him, had he 
 not his own dark surmises — had he not recoiled often, 
 with a sudden, sharp agony, at some chance revelation 
 from her lips whom he was bound to honour. 
 
 He could have revered grey hairs blanched by care, 
 wrinkled hands hardened by toil. He could have loved 
 a peasant woman, had such an one, honest, pious, 
 simple-minded, claimed him for her son. There should 
 have been no recoil from rustic ignorance and lowly 
 birth. But to know himself the son of a wanton ; to be 
 called upon to respect a woman who had never respected 
 herself, whose beauty had furnished the loose talk of 
 vicious lips, a prize and a spoil for the boldest assailant, 
 a ribbon to wear on a profligate's sleeve ! That was 
 bitter ! 
 
 Finding sleep impossible, he rose, re-lighted his 
 candles, and paced the room till he sank into a chair, 
 almost fainting with exhaustion. He had forgotten 
 how lately he had risen from a sick-bed. He took 
 pen and ink, and tried to write his farewell ; but the 
 fitting words would not come. He so feared to wound 
 her. She had loved him, and been generous to him.
 
 302 3n ibiob places 
 
 She was a woman, beautiful and highly gifted. It was 
 hard to shape the phrases which should excuse his 
 conduct without insulting his benefactress. 
 
 No, a letter would not serve. He must meet her face 
 to face, must discover, if he could, how much or how 
 little truth there was in Mountain's indictment. He 
 flung himself upon his bed towards daybreak, worn out 
 in body and mind, and fell into a deep and dreamless 
 slumber, that total oblivion which follows exhaustion, 
 and so slept till noon, when he was roused by the 
 great bell of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois tolling for a 
 funeral. Paolo was standing by his bedside, having 
 brought a warm morning drink in a covered silver cup, 
 for his refreshment. 
 
 He took the warm drink, and ate a small wheaten roll, 
 while Paolo expatiated upon Monsieur's prolonged 
 slumbers. He had entered the room more than once 
 since eight o'clock, and had found Monsieur as fast as 
 the Seven Sleepers : though he feared, from the evidence 
 of the candles, and the scattered papers, that Monsieur 
 had been afoot in the night. 
 
 George dressed as quickly as he could, with Paolo's 
 assistance, and sent, while he was dressing, to inquire if 
 the Marquise would allow him to wait upon her before 
 dinner. The answer was. Yes, Madame would receive 
 him in the Ariadne room, if he were strong enough for 
 the journey downstairs. 
 
 He had put on his plainest suit, of dark blue cloth, 
 with a narrow braiding of gold, and the Venetian glass 
 showed him hollow cheeks and a marble pallor against 
 the cold colouring of his doublet : a face to frighten 
 a sensitive woman, he thought, so gloomy was the 
 expression of eyes and mouth. 
 
 Paolo ushered him to the tapestried salon, where he 
 found Madame de Lussac walking to and fro as she 
 had been on that fateful visit of his, nearly a year ago, 
 when she revealed the tie that bound them. She came 
 to him with a smiling welcome ; but at the sight of 
 his face she stopped suddenly. 
 
 " You bring troublesome news I " she exclaimed.
 
 Between Xife an& Deatb 303 
 
 " Bad luck is written in your face. Sa7ig de Dieu ! 
 What can have changed you thus, since yesterday ? " 
 
 " 'Tis not so much bad news, Marchesa, as a painful 
 argument with myself that has made my looks sadder 
 than they were yesterday. I have been meditating 
 upon both our lives ; and I do entreat you not to be 
 angry, and not to deem me ungrateful for all your 
 kindness to me, when I tell you my resolve. I must 
 live under this roof no longer. For your reputation 
 and for my peace it is needful that we should part ! " 
 
 " Not deem you ungrateful ! " she cried, with her eyes 
 flaming, and her tall figure seeming to put on an extra 
 inch or two, as it always did when she was angry. 
 '* Why, if you were to desert me now — after the affection 
 I have lavished on you — I should think you the most 
 ungrateful hound that ever bit the hand that fed him. 
 No, no, inoji enfant, you could not do so vile an act 
 as to abandon me." 
 
 " Nay, dear Marchesa, on that one point my mind 
 is fixed. I must go back to the old free life, must be 
 again the soldier of fortune, depending on such poor 
 talents as I possess for my daily bread. But go where 
 I may — live how I may — I shall still be your grateful 
 debtor and servant ; and should you ever need the 
 service of kinsman and champion, I will come at your 
 bidding." 
 
 " I will accept no such service. I will have you here 
 — here — here in this house," stamping her foot upon 
 the polished floor, "my friend and companion, close 
 at hand when my dark hour comes upon me." 
 
 " That cannot be, Marchesa. If you can live under 
 the shadow of a lying accusation, I cannot. Your un- 
 acknowledged son can have no place in your house." 
 
 " Cruel, to taunt me thus ! When you know I dare 
 not acknowledge you." 
 
 " Would it be to create a worse scandal than any 
 that has ever shadowed your life — a darker story than 
 the death of Hector de Lionval ? " he asked, looking at 
 her with a mournful seriousness. 
 
 He felt that the utterance of that name was cruelj
 
 304 3n IbiQb {places 
 
 but he wanted to test her, to give her a chance of 
 refuting that hideous slander. The result appalled him. 
 A passage in a play he loved recurred to him in the 
 midst of his agitation. It was verily 
 
 "As if that name, 
 Shot from the deadly level of a gun, 
 Had murdered her." 
 
 She recoiled from him a few paces, clutched at a 
 high-backed armchair, the first she could reach, and 
 leant against it, staring at him with features convulsed 
 by her agony of horror or of fear. Her lips moved 
 rapidly, as if she were speaking, but no sound came 
 from them — only a faint white foam, which she wiped 
 from those pale lips with her handkerchief. 
 
 " How dare you ? " she gasped at last. " You, you, 
 you — my own flesh and blood ! How dare you echo 
 the malignant whispers of wretches who accused me 
 of a hideous crime, only because De Lionval's death was 
 sudden, and his fatal illness seized him in my house. 
 I had loved him, sir. I would not have hurt a hair 
 of his head ; though he used me vilely — gave my letters, 
 the out-pouring of a heart that adored him — gave them 
 to one whose esteem was life or death to me, and made 
 me the friendless, desolate woman who thought she 
 had found succour and consolation when she found you, 
 ingrate ! " 
 
 " No, Marchesa, not an ingrate ! You have given me 
 affection for which I must be grateful to my dying day. 
 Should calamity overtake you, test me then ; try me in 
 the hour of your sorrow, and you shall find I will not 
 fail in my duty as man to woman, as son to mother. 
 But I cannot stay in this house. If De Lionval's had 
 been the only name slander has linked with yours, I 
 might believe you the innocent victim of malevolence. 
 But there are others — Gaston, that coward, fop, sybarite, 
 profligate, whom it were shame for any woman to 
 love " 
 
 " Cease your indictment, sir, and come to the verdict. 
 Guilty, guilty, guilty, if you will have it so, 'Tis the
 
 :Bctween %itc anD S)eatb 30s 
 
 old Roman story reversed — not the father who sentences 
 his son, but the son who judges his mother. I will 
 suffer no further interrogation. Think as vilely of me 
 as it pleases you. Condemn me on the evidence of one 
 of Dolroy's ballads — or an epigram by Bussy, Did I 
 ever tell you I was a good woman ? I told you I was 
 an unhappy one. I would have told you more had you 
 asked me for my confidence — had you ever opened your 
 heart to me, and made me feel that I had indeed a 
 son, who would love me in spite of my sins, whose 
 pardon would be infinite — like Christ's. But now — now 
 that you tax me with my past life — it is well you should 
 know under what auspices my womanhood began." 
 
 " Spare yourself, Marchesa, I entreat you. I seek to 
 know nothing of the past — unless you can tell me that 
 there is not one grain of truth in the scandals that 
 blacken your name." 
 
 " Oh, my name ! My name is much of a colour with 
 other noble names at the Regent's Court. I have been 
 more reckless of consequences than meaner women. I 
 come of a race born to rule and not to serve. I have 
 never schooled myself to the petty hypocrisies that pass 
 for virtue. Shall I tell you the tragedy of my girlhood ? 
 Yes ; since you have begun to question, it is right you 
 should know all. Shall I tell you what I was in my 
 seventeenth year ? Motherless, newly released from the 
 convent where I had grown from child to woman, 
 absolutely ignorant of life outside convent walls ; 
 neglected by my father, who was squandering the 
 remnant of his fortune among male and female repro- 
 bates at Rome, while he left me to the care of servants 
 at his villa near Frascati. Paolo, the steward, son 
 and grandson of former stewards, was my friend 
 and counsellor, the only being who took a fatherly 
 interest in my welfare. My nurse and foster-mother 
 was the household drudge at the villa, and her daughter 
 Bianca was my only companion. From my fellow 
 pupils at the convent, the girls of my own rank, I was 
 cut off as completely as if that abandoned villa, with its 
 mouldering walls and garden wilderness, had been in 
 
 20
 
 3o6 5tt IbiQb places 
 
 an Arabian desert. My father told me that he was too 
 poor to keep an establishment befitting my rank either 
 in Rome or at Frascati, and that I must be content to 
 live in seclusion until he was able to arrange a marriage 
 for me. He, himself, was living in a corner of his 
 Roman palace. It was all squalid and miserable ; but 
 I could have been happy if 1 had been allowed but one 
 of my convent friends to keep me company. That 
 happiness was denied to me." 
 
 "It was a hard lot for the morning of life," George 
 murmured compassionately. 
 
 He went to her and took her hand, and led her to a 
 chair near the fire, and seated himself beside her, with 
 a grave tenderness that softened her to tears. And 
 her angry mood changed to an appeal for his pity. 
 
 " Yes, it was a hard lot. How the time comes back 
 as I tell you that cruel story — that first summer of 
 womanhood and liberty ! How I had dreamt of it, 
 longed for it, pictured it, in my convent prison ! And 
 what had freedom brought me ? The right to roam 
 from morning till night, a solitary creature in a deserted 
 garden. You, who have led an adventurous life, have 
 never known what such solitude means." 
 
 " I can imagine all it has of sadness, Marchesa, and 
 can pity you." 
 
 "Yes, I have a right to your pity — most of all when 
 the scene changed, and my garden-wilderness became 
 a paradise of flowers and birds, a place of sunshine and 
 of moonlight, where every hour and every change of 
 light and shadow seemed more beautiful than the last. 
 I was no longer alone. A young soldier-diplomatist, 
 who had fled from the heat of a Roman summer to the 
 seclusion of a lodging at Frascati, had discovered my 
 garden in one of his evening rambles, and had made 
 himself my companion. He claimed to be my father's 
 friend, and assumed the right to be my visitor ; and as 
 the garden was a spacious solitude, and Bianca and 
 Paolo hardly ever left the villa, there was no one to 
 question his right or to interfere with our friendship." 
 
 She was looking at the logs smouldering on the
 
 Between Xite an& Deatb 307 
 
 hearth, and her eyes had the look of a dreamer whose 
 inward gaze sees the things that are not. 
 
 "He was but two years older than I ; but in every 
 accomplishment that can make manhood famous, he was 
 a master. It was as if he had been born of Olympian 
 gods, and had inherited all the arts that the earth-born 
 can only master with time and toil. He had all the 
 gifts that win love and honour. Reared in the Colonna 
 Palace, the playfellow of princes, the favourite pupil of 
 the Jesuits, he had escaped from their influence, had 
 shone like a star in Roman society— a gambler and a 
 profligate, as I know now, but with all the qualities 
 that can adorn vice. For me he was the solitary 
 student, whose heart was set upon lofty things, for 
 whom mean ambitions, the love of place or of gold, 
 h?d no existence. I loved him, George — loved him as 
 a girl loves her first lover. Think of my helplessness — 
 my trustfulness — with the innocence of a child and 
 the passions of a woman. And I know that he loved 
 me, whatever wickedness that young life had known — 
 he was all mine, mine by a love that knew no memory 
 of the past, no care for the future, in that summer 
 wilderness, under those Italian stars." 
 
 She paused in her torrent of speech, and breathed 
 a deep, sobbing sigh. 
 
 " When I recall that enchanting solitude, where I 
 heard no sound but the beating of my lover's heart 
 amidst the song of the nightingales — music that seemed 
 to repeat our own impassioned words — I look back and 
 remember the woman I was, the man he was, in that 
 paradise of unreasoning love, and I know that b^th have 
 long been dead. There is a death that ante-dates the 
 coffin and the grave ; there is a change worse than cor- 
 ruption and the worm. Well, the dream was sweet ; but 
 there was a fearful awakening. My lover had to leave 
 me ; he was sent to Madrid on a diplomatic mission, 
 and I was alone in the dark autumn days, when the 
 bleak north wind came tearing down the mountain side, 
 and the old grey olive woods bent under the storm — alone, 
 and awakened to the knowledge of the bitter penalty that
 
 3o8 5n Iblab iplaces 
 
 women have to pay for sin. And while that horror of a 
 fast-coming shame was new, my father summoned me 
 to Rome. The suitor had been found — a Frenchman, 
 noble and rich, the latest companion of my father's 
 orgies, and my senior by twenty years." 
 
 The agony in the strained features, the deadly pallor 
 that crept from chin to brow, indicated the pain that 
 went even with the memory of her girlhood's tragedy. 
 
 " What could I do, think you ? What friend had 
 I, what counsellor? My foster-mother discovered my 
 secret, and, while she made light of my sin, she was 
 aghast at the peril I had to face. Do you know what 
 Italian fathers are ? You have heard the story of the 
 Cenci, perchance. They are not all such devils incarnate 
 as that hellish tyrant. My father was not. He would 
 not have been cruel for sheer love of cruelty ; but he 
 would have been pitiless to a daughter who dishonoured 
 his name. My faithful nurse told me that my secret 
 must be kept at any cost ; it meant life or death. ' He 
 will kill you,' she repeated, not once, but many times. 
 ' He will have no mercy. By cruel words or by cruel 
 acts he will be your death. If he discovers your 
 situation, you will not escape alive out of his hands.' 
 At any cost of lies, at any suffering, physical or mental, 
 my shameful secret was to be kept all through the 
 coming winter ; and when, a betrothed wife, I returned 
 to the villa, it would be the business of those three 
 faithful servants to carry me safely over my time of 
 peril, and to dispose of the child whose birth none but 
 they must ever know. They would have had even the 
 father of that foredoomed one kept in ignorance of 
 my state ; but to this I would not submit. My letters 
 told him of all my suffering, the anguish of separation 
 from him, and the horror of my fate, unless he came to 
 my rescue, and offered himself as my husband. My 
 father would have scorned such a suitor ; but I would 
 have gone to the end of the earth with him, content 
 to live obscure and in poverty for his sake." 
 
 " Was he so great a villain as not to offer marriage ? " 
 
 * Do not call him villain ! He was only the most
 
 JSetween %itc an& Deatb 309 
 
 accomplished gentleman of his time, who commanded 
 admiration and favour wherever he went ; and while 
 I suffered that long agony of fear and shame he was 
 leading a life of pleasure at Madrid, and narrowly escaped 
 a plebeian marriage with the daughter of a money- 
 lender who had helped him to pay his gambling debts. 
 
 " Dteu, how I hate that heartless villain ! " cried George. 
 'Twas instinct made me loathe him from the hour we 
 first met." 
 
 " No, no, you must not hate him ! Use him, mon ami, 
 use him as he uses the world. Basta ! I obeyed my 
 father's summons, and was received with favour by him 
 and by his friend De Lussac, who affected a passionate 
 admiration for me. Our betrothal was celebrated with 
 Roman pomp, feux-de-joie in the courtyard, and angry 
 creditors in the vestibule ; all that was Royal and 
 princely in the city assembled to witness the signing 
 of the contract. I was prostrate in body and mind 
 after this ordeal, and Bianca took advantage of my 
 wretched state to obtain my father's consent to my 
 leaving Rome for the villa, where quiet and the pure 
 air would restore me to health. 1 had played my part 
 bravely, George. Not you, nor any man living, can 
 know how hard a part a woman has to play when shame 
 stares her in the face ; what sickening fears rack her 
 brain while she carries herself like an empress ; what 
 pangs of heart and body she suffers under the heavy 
 folds of velvet and sable, the burden of gold-embroidered 
 damask, the princely robe that hides the deforming 
 change which, once revealed, would blast her name 
 for ever. I suffered that ordeal, George ; and when 
 the fatal hour was past, and I lay weak and helpless, 
 alone in that desolate villa, can you wonder that, when 
 my lover came to me, my first prayer was that he would 
 hide my dishonour and save me from my father's fury. 
 Of the son that was born to me — that son who, to a 
 happy wife and mother, might have seemed fair as a 
 spirit from Paradise — I had but one thought, the desire 
 that his origin should remain for ever unknown. I 
 accepted the first plan his father offered. I saw him
 
 3IO 3n IbiQl) places 
 
 carried from my chamber without one pang. Think 
 of me if you can, George, as I was — not eighteen years 
 of age, and with a father who had never given me one 
 word of love, who had measured me from head to foot 
 with the cold eye of the merchant, and had said, ' You 
 are handsomer than your mother. I must find you a 
 rich husband, to whom you will doubtless be just as 
 faithful as your mother was to me.' Never can I forget 
 those cruel eyes that scanned and appraised me, or the 
 malignant scorn of that cowardly speech. Think of 
 all this if you can, and try to forgive me. And do not 
 wonder if I have followed the stream down which other 
 women drift to old age and death. Do not wonder 
 if I have been no better than they. But in you — in you 
 — I hoped to find my redemption. From the hour in 
 which I saw your face, in the ante-chamber at the 
 Louvre, my mind has known no thought that has not 
 been of you. And now, if you forsake me in my 
 misery " 
 
 She broke down at this, and covered her eyes with 
 her handkerchief — those proud eyes which had seldom 
 known tears. 
 
 " I will never forsake you," he said earnestly. " I will 
 remember and respect your claim to my affection — but 
 it will be for the happiness of us both that I should leave 
 you. Be sure that if I stayed, the scandal would go 
 further — it would reach the ears of your husband." 
 
 " My husband ! He has ever made light of scandals. 
 But yes, he might make your presence an instrument of 
 torture, were he to put his own foul construction on our 
 friendship. And he must never suspect the truth. He 
 would have no mercy on you or on me. He would be 
 your death. Not by his own hand ; he is too clever for 
 that. He would pay one of his spadassins to pick a 
 quarrel with you, and if the first failed, another and 
 another. He would hunt you to a bloody grave. I 
 know the revengeful heart under his cynical indifference." 
 
 " Indeed, dear lady, it were best and wisest that you 
 should live at peace with him, and do nothing to provoke 
 the world's malice."
 
 Between Xife an& Deatb 311 
 
 " Ay, it were best. I had a dream of something better 
 than the best, when I brought you under this roof. But 
 you have never been happy here — and you do well to 
 go. I will think of you as a friend at a distance." 
 
 '• Never too far to come to you in your sorrow." 
 
 " My sorrow is all my life. What have 1 left ? Grey 
 hairs and the world's contempt ! They go ill together." 
 
 " Nay, you are beautiful still." 
 
 " To-day, perhaps ; but to-morrow is at the door 
 bringing wrinkles and old age. But, George, for the 
 love of God never believe that I had act or part in De 
 Lionval's death. 'Twas an awful death : stricken with 
 sickness in this house — carried out of it after midnight, 
 to die before the dawn. 'Twas an awful, mysterious 
 doom, and I can scarce wonder that those who hated me 
 said 'twas my doing. But you — despite of all the ill 
 you know of me — could not believe that ! " 
 
 " No, no ! Oh, forgive me for having uttered his 
 name. I wanted to hear your denial. Thank God you 
 have spoken freely ! " 
 
 He knelt by the side of her chair, as he had knelt 
 once before, and kissed her hand, which burnt with 
 fever ; he murmured a loving farewell, linked with a 
 prayer for her peace of mind, a promise to be with her 
 at any time of trouble ; and then he rose and went 
 quietly out of the room, leaving her with her head 
 bowed over her knees, in profound dejection. 
 
 She heard the door close behind him, but did not 
 look up. She had been hotly indignant when he 
 announced his intended departure ; but she was almost 
 resigned to it now. He had not been happy. He had 
 attended her as her slave rather than as her son. No 
 love that she could give him could win back the lost 
 years in which they had been strangers. 
 
 " Could I have had him with me from his childhood, 
 my plaything, my petted page, to fetch and carry for 
 me, to lie at my feet when he was idle, he would have 
 grown up to adore me," she thought. " He would have 
 known no law of right or wrong but my will. All I 
 did would have been justifiable in his eyes. He would
 
 312 5n Ibtgb iplaces 
 
 have been a part of myself, thinking as I thought, loving 
 those I loved." 
 
 She dismissed the maitre d'hotel vjhen he announced 
 that dinner was served. She was ill, and would not 
 dine. Should he call the Signora Bianca? Bianca! 
 No, no ; she desired only to be alone. Her fevered 
 cheek paled at the name of her faithful attendant. 
 
 Bianca ! Oh, the horror of De Lionval's name on her 
 son's lips — a name to conjure up the one most tragical 
 memory of her life, a scene of terror indescribable. 
 She looked back at that fatal hour now, sitting there 
 by the lonely hearth, in the vast splendour of those 
 tapestried walls, where in their boldness of design and 
 brilliancy of colouring the classic forms seemed to live 
 and move. Her life had been black with sin — bold, 
 unscrupulous sin ; and she had held her head high, 
 deeming herself no worse than her contemporaries — 
 a Diana compared with the Montbazon — and only less 
 judicious in her amours than the peerless De Longueville, 
 who was but at the beginning of her career. But 
 murder ! A deed of darkness — treacherous, cruel ! Of 
 that she had been incapable. 
 
 She looked back and lived again through that dread- 
 ful scene, as she had lived through it in many a dark 
 hour. No, she had not been capable of murder, even 
 in imagination ; but there was one of a harder nature, 
 of stronger passions, one who cherished her with an 
 unreasoning love, and was ready to risk the gallows 
 or the wheel for her sake, to be revenged upon her 
 betrayer ; and it was from that hand, Bianca's hand, 
 he had met his doom. 
 
 She had loved De Lionval passionately — an intrigue 
 of years — and had wearied of him, as she did of most 
 things on this earth, and had urged him to marry, and 
 to forget her — for the lover of her youth had come back 
 to her, after years of severance — the lover to whom 
 fidelity meant duty, and whose affection, if it were equal 
 to his protestations, might yet redeem her life, as she 
 believed, her marriage being a nullity, and make her 
 that which she had always longed to be, a good woman.
 
 Between %\U an& 2)eatb 313 
 
 And then De Lionval, married to an innocent girl, 
 had sickened for the old love, and had tried to renew 
 the old tie, and, discovering his rival, had turned traitor 
 and sent those burning letters to the great Cardinal's 
 protigi, the Italian diplomatist, newly risen on the Court 
 horizon, sudden and brilliant as the evening star. Then 
 had followed a cruel scene between Mazarin and the 
 Marquise ; and she, who had hoped to ascend to a 
 higher level by the resumption of that old tie which 
 time seemed to have hallowed, saw herself scorned and 
 abandoned. And Bianca had known all that her 
 mistress had hoped, all that she had lost — her sufferings, 
 her hatred of the lover who betrayed her ; and when, 
 in his infatuation, De Lionval had entreated for one last 
 interview, believing in his power to win pardon and the 
 renewal of love, it was Bianca who planned the meeting, 
 urging the necessity of keeping terms with him. It was 
 Bianca who led him to the Marchesa's chamber in the 
 late evening, by the winding stair from the Ariadne 
 room, and it was Bianca who brought the supper and 
 the wine, and who waited on them with her own hands, 
 while both were too agitated — one by suppressed anger, 
 the other by passionate love — to remark her movements, 
 or know what they ate or drank. 
 
 He was stricken with illness while he sat at table — 
 one of those horrible seizures so common in Italy, 
 common even in Paris. He was huddled into De 
 Lussac's sedan chair, and carried to his own house in 
 the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, where he died in less 
 than three hours. That mysterious disease had been 
 kinder to him than to the lovely Gabrielle d'Estrees, for 
 whom the agony of dissolution lasted three days and 
 nights, changing beauty to a thing of terror. No inquiry 
 was held. No one knew where he had spent that fatal 
 night. In some haunt of profligates, his family thought. 
 His heir seized the estate. His young wife carried her 
 dowry back to her own people. It was only afterwards 
 — when the story of a midnight supper at the Hotel dc 
 Lussac got abroad — that malignant tongues linked 
 Madame de Lussac's name with that mysterious death.
 
 314 3n Ibtgb iplaces 
 
 She knew of the slander, and bore it in silence. Not 
 even to clear herself from so horrible a suspicion could 
 she betray the wretch who loved her, and who, by this 
 hellish revenge, had done her more harm than her worst 
 enemy had ever done. And from that hour, Bianca, the 
 foster-sister, the faithful ally who had helped her to 
 hide her shame in the dawn of womanhood, when guilt 
 and shame were new, this devoted slave became a 
 ghastly presence, for ever recalling a deed of horror. 
 Sometimes, looking at the peasant's rugged features, the 
 deep-set eyes, black as night, under lowering brows, the 
 low forehead and heavy jowl, the something animal in 
 the countenance, it seemed to her as if all that was 
 wicked in her life was embodied in this woman — a 
 monstrous presence, a haunting horror, which she must 
 suffer till death divided them. 
 
 And her first lover, the father of her firstborn, what 
 had he been to her since the reconciliation which 
 followed within a year of De Lionval's death? 
 
 Well, he had been Mazarin ! Selfish, calculating, 
 cold as marble, grudging those large sums of money 
 which she demanded from him, complaining of her 
 extravagance with the same breath that swore to an 
 undying love, proud of her beauty, and of the splendour 
 with which his taste and his wealth had invested the 
 grim old mansion of the De Lussacs, yet careful to 
 remind her that the tapestries and bronzes, the pictures 
 and porcelain, the Italian cabinets and parcel -gilt 
 candelabra, were hers only at his pleasure, and must 
 ultimately adorn that palace which the architect 
 Mansard was building for him on the site of the Hotel 
 Tuboeuf, that house which was to surpass the magnifi- 
 cence of kings, and was to suffer strange fortunes, and 
 narrowly escape ruin. He had been Mazarin ! He 
 had parted unwillingly with that which he loved best of 
 all things betwixt earth and sky — his money. To no 
 one else had he been as prodigal of gold ; but if love 
 had ceased to rule him, there was another influence, 
 which grew stronger with his advance in the Queen's 
 favour.
 
 ^Between Xife an& 2)eatb 315 
 
 That influence was fear. He knew H61oTse de 
 Lussac's ungovernable temper and reckless tongue too 
 well to offend her. The higher he climbed upon that 
 dazzling peak where the climber is ever an easy mark 
 for poisoned arrows from sharpshooters below, the more 
 did he desire to keep on good terms with the Marquise ; 
 and if an occasional appearance at her assemblies, a 
 few soft speeches, and, oJiivie ! a few thousand louis 
 d'or, could keep her civil and friendly, the sacrifice 
 must be made.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 '•LIKE A STAR FIXED." 
 
 George went straight to his old lodgings, after packing 
 the two portmanteaux which he had carried to the Hotel 
 de Lussac, and which were large enough to contain 
 the least sumptuous and most useful of his clothing, 
 and all his necessaries. Those finer Court suits which 
 the Marquise had insisted upon ordering for him he 
 left in the Italian coffer ; nor did he carry with him the 
 necessaire in tortoiseshell and gold, presented to him 
 at the New Year, the costliest gift which he had 
 accepted from those lavish hands, since he had rigidly 
 refused the jewels she pressed upon him. 
 
 He wrote to Madame de Lussac on the same evening, 
 begging her to dispose of these splendours, which were 
 unfitted for his present fortunes. 
 
 He found Francis Mountain in the public room at 
 the Golden Crown, drinking with the habitues of the 
 place, an imprudence against which he remonstrated 
 earnestly. 
 
 " Believe me, it is to risk your liberty, if not your 
 life, to be discovered here," he said, " and unless you 
 love a cell in the Chatelet better than the high-road 
 and the free air, you will slip out of Paris at sundown. 
 I shall never forget how great a risk you ran for my 
 sake." 
 
 And then he told his friend that he had left the 
 Hotel de Lussac for ever. 
 
 " I am moved to do this by the respect I bear 
 Madame de Lussac, by the gratitude I owe her," he 
 
 316
 
 t4 
 
 3Lifte a Star 3fi£e^" 317 
 
 said, " and not in any wise by a lessening of that 
 affection which but poorly repays her kindness. I 
 know of how base a stuff men's minds are made, and 
 that for a man and woman to think kindly of each 
 other, and to live in each other's company, is to provoke 
 ribald jests and filthy imaginings." 
 
 " Thank God for that wise resolve of yours, George," 
 cried Mountain, with a swinging slap on his protege's 
 shoulder. " Why, now the sky is clear again, and I 
 will never more breathe a disrespectful word of your 
 Marquise. Let me but see you master of your own 
 life, tied to no fine lady's petticoat, and I am content. 
 Will you come to Flanders with me, and fight under 
 D'Enghien, the greatest captain the world has seen 
 since Caesar ? " 
 
 " Nay, I have no military fever — though I would 
 turn soldier to-morrow if duty called on me. I love 
 books — and tranquil days. I was never so happy as at 
 Isleworth, teaching Mistress Geraldine, and keeping 
 accounts for my dearest lady." 
 
 " Your dearest lady ? What, is Lady Llanbister still 
 your dearest, despite the mysterious tie that binds you 
 to Madame de Lussac ? " 
 
 George's cheek crimsoned, and his eyelids drooped. 
 
 " Lady Llanbister was the first woman who ever 
 cherished me," he answered after a pause, " and I had 
 no claim on her kindness — none ! Her love was a free 
 gift. And as she was the first to love me — so must she 
 ever be the first in my love ; even before the Marquise," 
 he concluded, with a curious deliberation, as if he were 
 answering his own thought rather than his friend's 
 question. 
 
 " Alille millions de tonnerres I I believe you were 
 born to be a schoolmaster, like that Mr. Milton of 
 Aldersgate Street, who writes republican pamphlets, 
 and teaches a starched prig nephew the rudiments — 
 doubtless with some aid of an ash-twig. But how do 
 you propose to earn your bread ? " 
 
 " Perhaps as a schoolmaster. I know Mr. Hobbes, 
 who has influence with his old pupils, and who would,
 
 3i8 5n 1Dtob iplaces 
 
 I doubt, recommend me to a place in some noble 
 family." 
 
 The friends bade farewell that night, as Mountain 
 meant to leave Paris at break of day ; but they promised 
 to keep each other acquainted with their fortunes and 
 whereabouts, whatever fate befell them. 
 
 " Schoolmaster or scrivener, or what low thing it 
 pleases thee best to be, thou wilt ever be my gallant, 
 handsome George — the favourite of beautiful women, 
 the envy of meaner men." 
 
 Paolo appeared at the tavern early next morning, 
 bringing a letter from his mistress, and full of affec- 
 tionate regret at Monsieur's abrupt departure ; full 
 also of horror at beholding him in so rough and 
 comfortless a lodging, where, being yet barely recovered 
 from his long illness, he would be likely to fall ill 
 again. 
 
 Madame de Lussac's letter was only a few words 
 of chiding at his having left his handsomer clothes, and 
 the necessaire. 
 
 " You know not when you may be summoned to 
 the Palais Royal," she wrote, " for there is one there 
 who should take an eager interest in your fortuwes. 
 Think not, niamour, I shall forget thee, and grow 
 careless of thy welfare. To see thy face across the 
 crowd of faces, to know that thou art prosperous and 
 happy ! Those are the only joys that remain to me. 
 I leave Paris to-morrow for Blois, where Madame 
 invites me. Indeed, I only stayed in this pestiferous 
 city — after every one of my rank had left it — that I 
 might be near you." 
 
 Afoicrgon belonging to Monsieur de Lussac brought 
 two capacious trunks containing all of his property 
 which George had left in his rooms : clothes, books, 
 and swords. He piled one trunk upon the other, in 
 a dark corner of his room, and thought no more of 
 them. Life was now too serious a matter for frippery. 
 
 He dined at the ordinary of the Golden Crown, in
 
 t4 
 
 %i\\c a Star jft^eD" 319 
 
 all the noise and bustle of a full house, and ate with 
 a better appetite than he had known since his illness. 
 That black Saturnian humour of the last three months 
 had left him. He walked Paris with a light step, 
 rejoicing in his liberty, and the narrow streets and open 
 quays seemed beautiful to his eyes. He did not miss 
 the throng of coaches on the Cours la Reine, nor find 
 life dull because Renard's Garden was closed for the 
 season. He went about Paris in search of employment, 
 and, having succeeded in finding the philosophical 
 Mr. Hobbes, was courteously received by that gentle- 
 man, who had been acquainted with the late Lord 
 Llanbister, and who promised his good word in the 
 English colony, which included several families of rank 
 and fortune, fugitives from a land devastated by war, 
 and from cities where the homely sounds of daily life 
 were drowned in the roar of the besiegers' guns. 
 
 And now he found himself walking the streets of Paris 
 with three louis d'or in his pocket, a heap of finer clothes 
 than he cared to wear in his present precarious fortunes, 
 and for stock-in-trade some little book-learning and a 
 head for figures. 
 
 In these circumstances his thoughts turned naturally 
 to England, and to her who had offered him a home 
 there. How ardently he longed to accept that generous 
 offer. But to live under the same roof with Geraldine ; 
 to see her courted and won by a lover of her own rank ; 
 to stand by penniless, obscure, the man she had once 
 loved, while that happier suitor sauntered by her side 
 along the familiar pathways, or hung over her as she 
 sang to her lute in the twilit parlour ! — this were a 
 martyrdom of which he knew himself incapable. Sooner 
 or later the imperious passion of youth would burst its 
 bounds, and he would be sobbing out his love at her 
 feet, or drawing his sword upon her betrothed. No, it 
 could but be in the grey after years, when his dearest 
 lady was growing old, and Geraldine had left her to rule 
 another household, that he could dare to resume that 
 dependence which had been so sweet. 
 
 He had waited on the English Ambassador, and had
 
 320 sn ibiab iDlaces 
 
 paid a second visit to Mr. Hobbes, who was busy about 
 the printing of his first philosophical work ; so far with- 
 out result He spent a considerable part of his days at 
 the Sorbonne, listeninj^ to lectures and academical 
 disputations, and his evenings were mostly studious, for 
 he had no love of the riotous company in the neigh- 
 bouring taverns. His books were the dearer to him 
 because of the difficulty he had suffered in snatching an 
 hour's reading while under Madame de Lussac's roof 
 She had ever some employment for him which made 
 study impossible, and had been petulant and offended 
 when he showed a liking for books and solitude. 
 
 As the days wore on without bringing him the promise 
 of employment, he began to think seriously of following 
 Francis Mountain and trailing a pike in Flanders. He 
 would have turned soldier, perhaps, but for the restraining 
 thought that while he remained in Paris he was within 
 call of Lady Llanbister, and had frequent chances of 
 hearing news of her, and of Geraldine, from the English 
 exiles. This consideration determined him to stay until 
 he was starved out. 
 
 In his despair of obtaining a scholarly employment, he 
 began to think of living by his muscles and sinews, and 
 waited one October morning upon Monsieur du Plessis, 
 the fashionable riding-master, to whom he offered 
 himself as an assistant. He was known at Du Plessis' 
 Academy for his fine riding, his handsome person, and 
 patrician air, and the proprietor would have engaged him 
 on the spot to break and school his young horses, and 
 teach the noble art of horsemanship, after the manner of 
 the Marquis of Newcastle ; but George begged a few 
 days for consideration before he closed with the offer, 
 which was a liberal one as to payment. 
 
 There could be no degradation in any honest labour 
 that would give him a livelihood, he told himself; yet 
 the prospect of meeting the white boots and pointed 
 beards, the rodovionts and fanfarons with whom he had 
 lived on equal terms, as a paid servant of the school, 
 galled him, and he waited till sheer want should compel 
 him to take the offered wage.
 
 n 
 
 Xiftc a Star jfijeD" 321 
 
 More than once, in his perambulation of the narrow 
 streets, he had been obliged to hug the wall, in order to 
 give place for the Cardinal's coach ; and the clear-cut 
 Italian face had looked at him from the coach windows, 
 without a sign of recognition. He was surprised, there- 
 fore, when, some days after his visit to Du Plessis' 
 Academy, the coach was suddenly pulled up, as he stood 
 in the gutter waiting for it to pass, and Mazarin's finely 
 formed hand, with the sacred ring upon it, was laid 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 He took off his hat, and waited, bareheaded, silent, 
 and grave even to sullenness. 
 
 " Ecco f the Marchesa's runaway steward has not left 
 Paris ! " exclaimed the Cardinal. " I thought you had 
 sailed for the Indies, Monsieur Georges, to take service 
 with the great Mogul, since the Hotel de Lussac was not 
 fine enough for your magnificence." 
 
 The two faces looked at each other, the elder with 
 a light mockery, not unmixed with dislike, the younger 
 with a proud reserve that savoured of hatred. 
 
 " The Marchesa's house was too magnificent for my 
 habits or my inclination, Monscigneur ; but I left it 
 only because my presence there created a scandal, so 
 unholy are the minds of fine ladies and gentlemen." 
 
 " You were right ! Your presence was a scandal and 
 a folly ; and the most honourable thing I know of you 
 is your surrender of a position that was founded on a 
 woman's self-delusion. You have done wisely to cut 
 yourself free from such an entanglement, and I think 
 the better of you for your independence — as I did, 
 some time past, when you refused a pension. But you 
 may find yourself in need of a friend before long — 
 indeed, you have already a haggard and careworn look 
 — and in that case you can apply to me." 
 
 " Your Eminence is kind ; but while I have thews 
 and sinews for work I will solicit favours from no man, 
 however exalted." 
 
 " Ah, friend, you are young, and youth is subject 
 to a kind of vanity which it calls independence. A 
 month in this city with an empty purse, and you will 
 
 21
 
 322 5n fblQh places 
 
 know what a unit in the sum of life is worth without 
 the help of other units. Drive on, fellows. Arivederci!" 
 
 The postilions cracked their long whips ; the four 
 grey horses started at a walk ; the two footmen who 
 had kept guard on either side of the door sprang back 
 to their places on the footboard ; and his Eminence's 
 coach lumbered along the stony street, a vision of 
 scarlet and gold. And George felt that he had rejected 
 help from the man who held France in the hollow of 
 his hand — the man who had no second in power, except 
 Enghien. While he had thought it no humiliation to 
 ask Mr. Hobbes for a friendly recommendation, or 
 to wait in the ante-rooms of English noblemen, in the 
 hope of getting employment, he had rejected the help 
 and the influence of a patron whose lightest word would 
 command all that ambitious youth could desire. But 
 he had made his choice willingly, and was prepared 
 to suffer the worst that fate could bring. 
 
 It was a week later, and he had but the change of 
 a crown piece between him and hunger. He had 
 husbanded his coins with a rigid self-denial, had allowed 
 himself only two dinners a week, and had lived for the 
 rest of his time upon a morning meal of dry bread and 
 thin red wine, and a supper of cabbage soup. He had 
 given his landlord to understand that he was dining 
 with his friends ; yet, though he might have been sure 
 of hospitable entertainment in several houses, he had 
 been too proud to take his poverty into fine company, 
 nor had he come to the idea of selling his bettermost 
 clothes, or the tortoiseshell and gold neccssaire. 
 
 He had declined Monsieur du Plessis' liberal wages ; 
 but he had not even the promise of any superior employ- 
 ment, though everybody had been civil to him, and had 
 sworn to keep him in mind, when a tutorship or any 
 confidential post offered. Now, with those few small 
 coins in his pocket, the prospect narrowed, and there was 
 nothing but Flanders and the army of the Duke of 
 Orleans before him. For choice he would have served 
 under Enghien, whom he admired, rather than under 
 Gaston, whom he despised ; but he wanted to be with
 
 "Xihe a Star jfijc^" 323 
 
 his friend, and it was in Mountain's regiment he meant 
 to enlist. He had a long tramp on foot to look forward 
 to, and must needs live on the charity of the towns and 
 villages through which he passed. He looked back and 
 remembered that tragic morning at Portsmouth, and the 
 lonely nights that went before, and the pain of his aching 
 limbs and wounded feet. How strange it would seem to 
 be on the high-road again, after years of careless luxury 
 — no better off than in his friendless childhood ! 
 
 He was lying on his bed in the dull autumn afternoon, 
 listening to the wind-driven rain rattling against the 
 casement, and reading a book he loved so well that it 
 could almost make him forget how pleasant a thing it is 
 to dine when one is hungry, and what a strange, light- 
 headed feeling comes to a man after a sequence of 
 dinnerless days. He was reading " Don Quixote," in 
 the Spanish, a book he knew by heart, and comparing 
 the romantic knight's sufferings and deprivations with 
 his own. 
 
 " There is nothing like a touch of madness for taking 
 the sting out of misery," he thought. " I am too sane. 
 Perhaps if I have to walk to Flanders and starve for the 
 greater part of the way, I may fancy myself an emperor 
 before I reach my destination. My brain feels as light 
 as thistledown already." 
 
 It was three days since his last dinner, and he had 
 flung himself on his bed because he felt almost too 
 weak to stand. And in such a condition to contemplate 
 tramping to Monsieur's camp ! Well, the tt^cessaire 
 would have to go, perhaps, to raise money for his journey. 
 He felt unequal to considering ways and means ; and 
 in the next minute he was laughing — almost hysterically 
 — at the scene in the roadside inn which the demented 
 knight mistook for a princely chateau. 
 
 He fell asleep before he had finished the chapter, the 
 heavy sleep of exhaustion, and it was evening when 
 he awakened with a start at the gentle touch of a 
 hand upon his brow, and saw a face he loved looking 
 at him in the twilight. 
 
 " Oh, I am out of my wits again ! " he cried. " 'Tis
 
 324 Bn Ibiab UMaces 
 
 the fever come back. No, no, no," with passionate 
 repetition, turning his face to the wall, " I will not be 
 fooled by dream-faces," 
 
 " George, dear George, you are not dreaming. It 
 is I, Lady Llanbistcr, your old and faithful friend. My 
 poor, poor boy. Your forehead burns like fire. The 
 people downstairs did not tell me you had been ill." 
 
 He had slipped from the bed, and was on his knees 
 at her feet. 
 
 " Dear God, it is real ! 'Tis in God's truth my dearest 
 lady — the friend I have been longing for ever since 
 we parted. And you are here, in this poor room — my 
 friend and benefactor still ! You have not forgotten 
 me. 
 
 " No, George — though you have found other friends, 
 you are no less dear to me. But why do I discover 
 you in this ill-favoured lodging, instead of at the Hotel 
 de Lussac, where I heard of you as the adopted son 
 of the house, cherished and admired, — the spoilt child 
 of fortune ? " 
 
 " You heard of me- ? " 
 
 " Yes. Do you suppose that all news has ceased to 
 travel between Paris and London ? I had a very choice 
 description of your appearance at Renard's Garden, in 
 Madame de Lussac's train. I was told how you attended 
 her everywhere, and the favours she lavished upon you ; 
 and, knowing you as I do, I could but think you must 
 have discovered some claim of kinship with this lady 
 before you would have accepted so much from her 
 bounty." 
 
 " Your ladyship has guessed the riddle. The favours 
 I accepted were forced upon me by the right of kindred. 
 And when I found that the world looked with an evil 
 eye at my post in the Marchesa's house, and made her 
 affection for me a subject for malignant slander, I had 
 no choice but to leave her and go back to my old 
 independent life." 
 
 " And doubtless she recognised your generous sacrifice, 
 and is still your devoted friend ? " 
 
 " Her farewell words were all kindness ; yet I doubt
 
 **Xifte a Star ffijeb" 325 
 
 she must think of mc as an ingrate, and speedily dismiss 
 me from her regard." 
 
 "That cannot be — if — if" — her voice faltered, and 
 she looked at him searchingly, as she continued slowly 
 — " if her reason for so favouring you was founded on 
 a belief that you were her kinsman — perchance her 
 close kinsman. Did she believe that, George ? For 
 God's sake be plain with mc ? " 
 
 There was a passionate insistence in her voice that 
 startled him ; but he was not thrown off his guard. 
 
 " I cannot answer as plainly as I desire, dearest lady. 
 My claim upon the Marchesa's kindness is her secret — 
 not mine." 
 
 " You do well, perhaps, to be silent. And — if I have 
 guessed the riddle — the rest is of no moment." 
 
 She spoke with profound despondency, and her speech 
 ended in a sigh. A silence followed, George still 
 kneeling, with her slender hand held against his lips. 
 To him she appeared almost as an angel, quite as a 
 saint, so widely did she differ from all he had known 
 of womankind since he left her. 
 
 " Dear lady," he murmured at last, " how often has 
 the hour-glass turned since we parted, and how slowly 
 the sands have run for him whose life wanted your 
 sweet presence ! " 
 
 " Flatterer ! You had a new friend and a kinder one." 
 
 " Never a friend so kind, never a friend so dear." 
 
 " You forget the claims of kindred, which must be 
 paramount over mere friendship." 
 
 " Kindred can claim duty — it cannot compel affection. 
 My greatest trouble has been not to love Madame de 
 Lussac as I ought to love her. But tell me, dear lady, 
 when you came to Paris, and what happy fortune has 
 brought me such unlooked-for joy." 
 
 " Alas, George, England is no longer a pleasant place 
 for two lonely women. Since my dear lord's death 
 my heart has turned against the home he loved ; and 
 there was little reason to remain in a country distracted 
 by war, where never a month passes but brings the 
 news of some proud head laid low. 'Tis said that on
 
 326 sn IbiGb iplaces 
 
 both sides there is a great longing for peace, but the 
 insolent demands of the Parliament make reconciliation 
 impossible. It is not alone that they would reduce the 
 King to a cipher — their servant, whose sceptre would 
 have no use but to pass their measures. They ask more 
 than his own honour ; they want him to sacrifice his 
 Church, and to betray his friends." 
 
 " And he refuses ? I doubt he remembers Strafford, 
 and how poor a price he got for the greatest brain and 
 boldest heart that ever served him. But after having 
 yielded ^/lere, 'tis strange he should hold fast by the 
 small fry." 
 
 " Ah, George, you do ill to jeer at him. He failed 
 in that sad extremity only because he saw the lives of 
 his wife and children in peril. He is not a coward. 
 He has ever been careless of his personal safety. His 
 Queen is now out of the enemy's power ; and were his 
 children as safe, I know he would cleave to his friends in 
 the face of death. That being so, I see but scanty hope of 
 peace in England for many a year. But for me Paris is 
 the first stage on the way to a home of perpetual peace." 
 
 " Alas, alas ! It is of the cloister you speak." 
 
 "Yes, George. These evil times — and the deep 
 melancholy that fell upon my spirits after my lord's 
 death — determined my choice. In the world I have 
 nothing to live for. In the convent I shall live for 
 a better world, which 'twere ill to enter without years of 
 penitence and prayer." 
 
 " Nothing to live for ! Dearest lady, I know that 
 I have no claim upon you ; but can you so abandon 
 the lovely girl you have reared ? Can you leave 
 Geraldine alone and unprotected ? " 
 
 " Geraldine will spend the next three years under the 
 same roof with me. Those years will give maturity 
 to her mind, and establish her in the true faith. Her 
 education will be completed by the most accomplished 
 women in France ; and if, when she comes of age and 
 into the possession of her fortune, she should choose 
 the world rather than the cloister, she will be fitted to 
 take her place among the noblest of her time."
 
 **Xifte a Star 3Fi£Cb" 327 
 
 "And if— subject to the subtle influence of minds 
 stronger than her own — she choose the cloister, there 
 will be two stars withdrawn from this base world, where 
 purity and love are so sorely wanting. Oh, dear lady, 
 that you can contemplate a living death for yourself 
 moves me to wonder and grief. That you can think 
 of entombing so bright a creature as Geraldine is more 
 than my patience can suffer." 
 
 " You do but show a heretic's ignorance when you 
 liken a convent to a grave. You know not how living 
 and how sweet that cloistered life can be." 
 
 " Oh, I cannot be patient ! I cannot endure so 
 to lose you ! Dearest friend, kindest, most generous 
 mistress, I entreat you to pause before you commit 
 your ripening years to a changeless captivity — the 
 placid years of mature womanhood, which should glow 
 and brighten with serenest beauty, like those summer 
 sunsets we have watched and loved, ever loveliest 
 towards the close. Think how fair the world is, and 
 how dear a privilege the power to move from one 
 pleasing scene to another ; and then consider what it 
 must be to wake every day in the same narrow chamber, 
 to walk every day on the same path, to watch the 
 shadows creep along the same panel on the same wall, 
 the sunshine slant across the same square of turf — 
 flicker on the same grey stone. Think of the same 
 faces, the same dull habit, day after day and year after 
 year ! You who have the capacity to admire and enjoy ; 
 you who have lived at Court, in company with the 
 finest gentlemen of your day ; you who have been 
 beloved and admired, ever commanding and never 
 commanded ; — can you submit to the irksome discipline, 
 the iron rule of implicit obedience ? " 
 
 " Stay, George. Again I say you prate of things you 
 know not. Yes, I have lived at Court, and my heart 
 has ached there ! And what matters the unchanging 
 order of outward things if the mind within be at peace ? 
 The loveliest scenes this earth can show are valueless to 
 her who has lost the capacity for joy. I can recall the 
 time when a meadow spread with king-cups could put
 
 328 5n Ibigb places 
 
 me in a fever of delight ; yet now I should look with 
 a dejected eye on the most exquisite perspective of 
 mountain, lake, and forest. But we will waste no more 
 time on argument in this wretched chamber. If you 
 will walk with me to my lodgings, on the other side 
 of the river, you shall share my supper, and we can 
 converse to our hearts' content at table." 
 
 "Yes, I can walk the length of the bridge," he answered, 
 rising from his knee ; " and the prospect of a good 
 supper at the end of the walk will put strength into 
 my limbs." 
 
 He broke into a laugh, which was half a sob, for his 
 weak condition disposed him alike to laughter and to 
 tears. The irony of the situation touched on the comic. 
 In his rapture at re-union with this dear friend, he 
 had forgotten penury and hunger ; but the word 
 " supper " reminded him how near he was to starving. 
 
 He lighted a candle-end in the tall iron candlestick on 
 his table — such a morsel of tallow in such a monumental 
 candlestick ! He flung on his cloak and hat, and 
 attended Lady Llanbister to the door, holding the 
 candle to light her steps on the stone stairs, which 
 were not over-clean. Indeed, to the English lady's 
 fastidious senses, the tavern, with its discoloured wains- 
 cot and cracked ceiling, and its mixed odours of wine 
 and garlic and tobacco and dirt, seemed a hideous den, 
 a veritable coupe-gorge^ which she had entered with 
 a shudder, and left with ineffable relief. They went 
 by the Pont Neuf, and to the Rue du Bac, where Lady 
 Llanbister had lodgings in a house near a convent. 
 
 The door was opened by one of the old men-servants 
 from Isleworth, whose homely visage was like a friend's 
 welcome. 
 
 " What, Andrew ? Is it you ? " 
 
 " Yes, your honour ; and right glad to see your 
 honour in this heathenish city." 
 
 He opened the door of a large, low room on the 
 ground-floor — a room that reminded George of her 
 ladyship's parlour in Aldersgate Street. There were 
 signs of womanly occupation all about — the embroidery-
 
 "xme a Star 3fijet>" 329 
 
 frame, the virginals, and the lute with the broad crimson 
 ribbon he remembered so well ; and in the mild yellow 
 candle-light Geraldine's sparkling countenance looked 
 at him with an arch smile. 
 
 " What, have you brought the renegade home with 
 you ? " she cried, and sank almost to the ground in a 
 mocking curtsy. "Welcome, Monsieur le Marquis — 
 for that I presume has become your title since Madame 
 la Marquise adopted you." 
 
 He tried to answer her, but his spirits were too much 
 agitated by the rapture of this meeting, or the distance 
 he had walked had been beyond his strength. He could 
 but stagger to a chair, overcome by sudden faintness. 
 
 Lady Llanbister observed his deathlike pallor, and 
 hastened to his side. 
 
 " Some wine, Andrew, or some brandy ! Mr. Moun- 
 tain is swooning. My poor boy, how exhausted you 
 look ! Alas ! I fear you have but just recovered from 
 some serious indisposition, and I did wrong to bring you 
 so far." 
 
 She was offering a glass of brandy to his pallid lips 
 with a hand that trembled a little, in spite of her 
 endeavour to be calm. The brandy, though he 
 swallowed only a spoonful, revived him, and his colour 
 came slowly back as she wiped the cold drops from his 
 forehead with her cambric handkerchief 
 
 " It was only a passing faintness," he said, " or but a 
 sinking of the spirits from over-much content." 
 
 Geraldine had hurried to his side with a bottle of 
 aromatic essence, and was watching his face with a 
 compassionate tenderness, altogether removed from the 
 mocking spirit of her first greeting. She noted his wan 
 and hollow cheeks, and guessed that he had been 
 unhappy, and loved him the better for looking miserable. 
 It may be that she ascribed all his sufferings to the 
 loss of her own company ; for, to come up to her idea of 
 perfection in a lover, he ought not to have known one 
 cheerful moment since they parted. 
 
 The table was ready laid for supper, and George being 
 seated between the two ladies. Lady Llanbister carved a
 
 330 Bn Ibiob places 
 
 capon and a carbinadoed ham with that practised skill 
 which was a part of a great lady's education ; and 
 although George restrained his ravenous appetite, lest 
 he should shock those delicate ladies, it seemed to him 
 as if he had never in his life eaten anything so delicious 
 as those daintily cut slices from the capon's ample breast, 
 or the spiced ham, that blushed rosy red amidst the 
 white. Even the agitating presence of those he loved 
 best on earth could not altogether subjugate hunger, 
 sharpened by a month of semi-starvation ; and Mistress 
 Geraldine was somewhat scornful at perceiving how 
 good a supper he was able to eat, amidst the agitation of 
 re-union with cherished friends. 
 
 Wine and food brought the colour back to his face, 
 and brightened his eyes ; and his life had known few 
 happier hours than that hour after supper, when he sat 
 between these two recovered friends in front of the 
 hearth, where the blazing pine-logs enlivened the low 
 panelled room, painted white, and decorated with 
 medallion portraits of the princely line for whom the 
 house had been built when Francis I. was king. The 
 autumn nights were chilly, and the fire-glow was welcome, 
 for comfort as well as for cheerfulness. 
 
 Lady Llanbister told him of all that had happened in 
 England in the year that was waning — of cities besieged, 
 and country houses, so lately the abodes of domestic 
 peace, turned into fortresses and girdled with cannon — 
 of the King's victories in the west, and of the crushing 
 defeat at Marston Moor, when Rupert's famous cavalry, 
 unconquered till that hour, went down like a little dust 
 under Cromwell and the horsemen of the Eastern 
 Association. She told him of Newcastle's white-coats, 
 and their heroic stand against overpowering odds, ready 
 to die for their honour and their King, and scarce a 
 handful of them leaving that bloodv field alive. 
 
 " The Marquis left England directly after the battle," 
 she concluded. " 'Twas said he suffered more from the 
 blow to his own pride as a captain than for the loss of 
 those gallant fellows he had led to the gates of death. 
 'Tis a bitter trade, George, that of the soldier, whose
 
 a 
 
 Xihe a Star jfi^eD" 331 
 
 fault of judgment may cost the lives of multitudes. 
 The Royalist losses at Marston Moor were computed at 
 four thousand ; and their loss ended not there, for on 
 this disaster, the loyal city of York, which had made so 
 heroic a defence, had no choice but to surrender. And 
 so ended his Majesty's hold upon the north." 
 
 " I heard of Lord Newcastle in this city, and guessed 
 his presence here was of ill augury. Indeed, I feared 
 the day was lost when I heard of the Queen's flight," 
 George said. " But since May last past I have lived in 
 a troubled dream, and all I have heard of English news 
 of late has been from gentlemen to whom I have gone 
 as a suitor for employment, and whom I had no right to 
 harass with importunate questions." 
 
 This evening was the first of many nights which 
 George spent by the fireside in this most dear company. 
 It was almost as if the old life in Aldersgate Street had 
 come back ; and sometimes, sitting with Geraldine in 
 the firelight, he forgot that he was in Paris, and that 
 the garden, on which one window of the salon looked, 
 where the yellow chestnut-leaves were drifting down 
 under the autumn rain, was the garden of a Benedictine 
 convent, and not their old paradise in London. The 
 convent garden stretched behind the houses on this side 
 of the street, and they could catch glimpses of the nuns 
 and their pupils walking on the trim pathways beyond a 
 century-old yew-hedge, battlemented at the top. 
 
 Lady Llanbister persuaded George to exchange his 
 room at the Golden Crown for a lodging near the 
 Church of St. Sulpice — two airy upper rooms, with a 
 pleasant outlook towards the gardens of the Luxembourg 
 Palace ; and he had scarely shifted his belongings to 
 this tranquil haven when he received a letter from 
 Mr. Hobbes, bidding him call on Sir Nathaniel Burbery, 
 a wealthy London merchant, who had retired from the 
 turbulent alarms of East Chepe to a handsome house 
 near the Sorbonne, where he had brought his wife and 
 only son, a youth of fifteen, to whom he wished to give 
 those advantages of foreign travel and foreign tongues 
 which had been denied to himself.
 
 332 Bn fbiQb places 
 
 " Sir Nathaniel is rich and liberal, and may prove a 
 better patron than a greater man, if you can please 
 him," Hobbes wrote in conclusion. 
 
 George waited on Sir Nathaniel without loss of time, 
 and was cordially welcomed by the worthy citizen. 
 
 " Mr. Hobbes swears you are a 'varsal genius, sir," he 
 said, after presenting George to his lady, a much more 
 stately personage than the knight, and very disdainful of 
 trade and the city, as the daughter of a small Wiltshire 
 squire of ancient descent. " He says you are as good 
 at the foils as at Greek and Latin, know French like 
 your mother tongue, can jabber Italian and Spanish, 
 when drove to it, and can ride like a centurion." 
 
 Lady Burbery gave her shoulders a despairing shrug, 
 and tapped the floor with her high-heeled shoe. Sir 
 Nathaniel would make these odious mistakes, instead 
 of letting her do all the talking. 
 
 " You will teach my son how to wear a sword and 
 how to use it ; to ride and walk like a youth of good 
 breeding ; shoot with a pistol ; and if you can make 
 a dancer of him you will command my gratitude," said 
 the lady. " And you will teach him to converse in 
 French with all the newest words that are in use at 
 Court and at the Hotel de Rambouillet. Mr. Hobbes 
 assured me that you have been at Court." 
 
 " Mr, Hobbes only told your ladyship the truth." 
 
 " Then I take it you will be able to make my son 
 familiar with all those pretty turns of speech, and 
 movements of the features and limbs, which are un- 
 fortunately unknown in East Chepe, where the poor 
 child has been bred." 
 
 " You smoke her, sir ? You are to turn the city lad 
 into a fine gentleman, for which my lady will be your 
 grateful servant ; and if you can bring it about without 
 teaching him to laugh at his father I shall be as much 
 beholden to you." 
 
 " If he is to be a gentleman. Sir Nathaniel, one of 
 his first lessons will be reverence for his parents ; but 
 I doubt he has mastered that already," George answered, 
 with his grave smile.
 
 ti 
 
 %iU a Star fijeD" 333 
 
 He liked the jovial, rubicund knight much better than 
 the pale-faced lady, who took too little trouble to hide 
 her contempt for her husband. The young Nathaniel 
 was presently introduced — a languid, overgrown youth 
 of fifteen, who looked with scanty favour on his future 
 tutor. 
 
 George was asked to name his salary ; and, the figure 
 at which he valued his services being a modest one. Sir 
 Nathaniel promptly agreed, with the promise of an 
 augmentation whenever the pupil's progress justified 
 such reward. The tutor's duties were to begin at nine 
 in the morning, and continue till four in the afternoon, 
 and he was to dine with the family, in order that his 
 eye might be upon his pupil throughout that important 
 function. 
 
 " I would sooner have my son a dunce at Latin than 
 a sloven at the dinner-table," Lady Burbery told George. 
 " And I hope your attention to his intellects will 
 never make you unmindful of his habits in eating and 
 drinking ; for what is the use of Homer and Virgil to 
 a man who thrusts his knife half-way down his throat, 
 and sops up his gravy with a hunch of bread ? " 
 
 A severe glance in Sir Nathaniel's direction gave 
 point to this remark. 
 
 A new chapter in George's life-story began from that 
 day. He had an employment that assured him a decent 
 living, and he had his evenings free to spend with those 
 dear friends so happily restored to him, and so kind. 
 
 To be bear-leader to a somewhat silly youth of fifteen, 
 and to suffer the airs and graces of a petty squire's 
 daughter, was certainly not the most congenial occupa- 
 tion for a young man who had roamed the Continent 
 as a soldier of fortune with so bold and cheery a comrade 
 as Francis Mountain ; but George had that sturdy spirit 
 which prefers drudgery to dependence ; and he did not 
 consider himself a victim because his morning hours 
 were spent in teaching a dull-witted boy to speak French 
 with something of the native accent, and his afternoons 
 in the fencing-school or the riding-academy with the same 
 slow pupil. Master Nathaniel was a warm-hearted lad,
 
 334 3n HbfQb places 
 
 who loved his vulgar father, and made mock of his 
 genteel mother ; and he soon took kindly to George, 
 than whom he had seen no gentleman at London or 
 Paris with a handsomer face or a grander manner. 
 
 " I shall never carry my sword like my tutor," he told 
 his mother, when she complained of his awkwardness ; 
 " and if I try to fling back my cloak as he does his, it 
 gets round my neck and strangles me. He sits upon 
 his horse all as one, and the wildest brute in the school 
 can't kick him off. And the fencing-master swears 
 there's not a man of his age could beat him with the 
 rapiers." 
 
 Dull as the boy was, he made visible progress under 
 a tutor he so greatly admired, and who laboured 
 conscientiously to bring about improvement. The lad 
 was no coward, and took kindly to the manege and the 
 salle cTarmes, and loved to ride with his master along the 
 Cours la Reine in the short winter afternoons, where 
 there were a good many carriages, though they no 
 longer went four and five abreast, as in spring and early 
 summer, and where George and his pupil sometimes 
 rode beside Lady Llanbister's coach. 
 
 George would hardly have ridden daily along that 
 familiar drive had he not known that Madame de 
 Lussac was at Rome, whither she had gone for the 
 winter, after a month's visit at Blois — a fact he learned 
 from Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who always gave 
 him a friendly greeting, and sometimes kept him at 
 her coach- door in conversation for half the length of 
 the Cours. 
 
 " I think all the handsome ladies like you, because 
 you are so handsome," said his pupil. " But I know 
 the lady / like best." 
 
 " La Grande Mademoiselle, perhaps, the King's cousin, 
 who dresses finest and wears the biggest diamonds ? " 
 
 " Nay, I vow to God 'tis not she I like best — but the 
 fair, pretty lady, with no jewels but a string of pearls 
 round her neck, that sometimes is so smiling and kind 
 to you, and sometimes as still and as mute as the stone 
 figure you called Diurna in the Tuileries Garden. Your
 
 *'%i\ic a Stat ifixet)** 335 
 
 sweetheart, Mistress Geraldine, is the likeliest lady I've 
 laid eyes on in Paris." 
 
 " You must not call the goddess of the chase Diurna, 
 nor Mistress Geraldine my sweetheart, Nat. She is but 
 my kind friend, and is vastly my superior in birth." 
 
 " I snap my fingers at your ' vastly.' I know she 
 loves thee. Master Mountain, though she is not always 
 civil. Her eye flashes like the sun through a chink in 
 the shutter when she sees you ; and then she drops 
 her eyelids, and pulls down her lips, and looks as proud 
 and as prim as ever she can. But I knows what 1 
 knows." 
 
 " You must say ' I know,' Nat, not ' I knows ' ; and 
 you must not say foolish things about a lady," said 
 George, who could have hugged the boy for the speech 
 he reproved. 
 
 His heart beat thick and fast at the mere sound of 
 her name, pronounced by his stripling pupil. Yes ; he 
 knew that she loved him, with an affection as earnest 
 as his own, that had stood the test of a year and a 
 half of separation ; but, alas ! what could come of their 
 love? Could she, a fortune and a beauty, consent to 
 marry one who was alike nameless and penniless, whose 
 best hope of independence was in the schoolmaster's 
 despised trade ? Had England been at peace he might 
 have hoped, by Lady Llanbister's influence, to gain 
 some post at Court, or some state office, which would 
 have led to higher things, and so brought him nearer 
 his mistress's level, or at least excused her for marrying 
 him. But in the present disruption of all English 
 society his dear lady's friendship could not advance his 
 fortunes. 
 
 Yes ; she loved him. He had seen the same look 
 in her eyes, had heard the same faltering in the full, 
 sweet voice, of late in Paris, that he remembered two 
 years ago in Aldersgate Street, when he began to feel 
 assured of her love. Two summers had come and gone, 
 and had left her unchanged. But then, in distracted 
 England he had had no rival. All that was gallant 
 and splendid in English youth was absorbed by the
 
 336 5n Ibiab iplaces 
 
 war. There was neither time nor opportunity for lovers. 
 And so this lovely girl had lived in a seclusion almost 
 as complete as the cloister towards which she had of 
 late turned her thoughts. 
 
 But now that she was in the gayest city in the 
 world, where all the days and nights were marked by 
 entertainments and assemblies — the theatres for the 
 afternoons, the drive for the exhibition of beauty, the 
 Palais Royal, the Luxembourg, vying with each other 
 in fetes and dances, the Hotel de Rambouillet offering 
 a soberer but even more distinguished society ; — how 
 could he doubt that among the plumed hats and 
 pointed beards, the red heels and long swords. Mistress 
 Geraldine would find wooers enough to make her 
 forget the tutor drudge whose richest clothes still lay 
 folded and packed in chests that he had never opened 
 since he left the Hotel de Lussac? More than once 
 of late he had been tempted to put on a suit of that 
 courtly attire for his evening visit to the Rue du Bac ; 
 but the idea of a tutor in frise velvet and jewelled 
 embroidery seemed incongruous, and he feared that 
 Geraldine would be more disposed to ridicule than 
 to admire him. 
 
 So far he had been fortunate, in that she had not 
 appeared at any of the assemblies where her fresh 
 young beauty could scarce have failed to hit the general 
 taste. Lady Llanbister had avoided all fine company, 
 and paid no visits except to her unhappy Queen, who 
 was now lodged at the Louvre, and liberally entertained 
 at her Royal sister-in-law's expense. Nor did George 
 hear of any visitor except her ladyship's Director, who 
 was with her every day, but whom he had never 
 happened to meet going out or coming in, though on 
 more than one occasion the Director had been closeted 
 with her ladyship in her study or oratory, while George 
 was in the salon with Geraldine. 
 
 " I doubt 'tis the same man I caught sight of once 
 at Isleworth," he exclaimed petulantly, when the girl 
 told him how Lady Llanbister was occupied. " I hate 
 to think of his power over my dear lady, for 'tis he
 
 **%i\{C a Star jfiECt)" 337 
 
 and he alone who has turned her inclinations from 
 God's fair earth and all who love her on it, to the 
 perpetual imprisonment of a cloister — and I can but 
 wonder, madam, that you encourage her in so cruel 
 a self-immolation — nay, that you can even think of 
 sharing that gloomy life." 
 
 "What else should I choose, sir? Do you think this 
 world can be vastly attractive for an orphan who has 
 not a friend in it that cares what becomes of her ? 
 Were the convent gate to close on her ladyship and 
 leave me outside, there would scarce be a lonelier 
 creature living than I. Do you marvel, then, that I 
 mean to follow her where there will be a holy sister- 
 hood to receive me — where I shall be one of many 
 happy souls who live to serve and worship God, and 
 who have renounced all affection for a cold-hearted 
 world ? " 
 
 " Cold-hearted ? Is the heart of the world ever cold 
 to beauty and youth, think you ? Ah, Geraldine, were 
 you but to appear for an hour at the Palais Cardinal, 
 you would find yourself the dazzling focus of a throng 
 of admirers. You would learn the supreme power with 
 which nature has endowed you — the power to charm 
 all hearts, and to make one heart ineffably happy." 
 
 A disdainful shrug was her only notice of this 
 compliment. She turned from him with a sullen air, 
 and looked out of the window by which she was sitting. 
 
 " You must know something of this man who has 
 haunted my dear lady like the shadow of doom for 
 these four years past," George said presently. 
 
 " I know he is a very disagreeable person, and that 
 he keeps the keys of her conscience. I suspect he is 
 an emissary from her brother at Rome. For my own 
 part I have kept as much aloof from him as I could." 
 
 "Then it is not he who set you thinking of the 
 convent ? " 
 
 " No, sir. You are monstrous dull this evening. Must 
 I tell you over again that if I go to the convent, and 
 live there, and grow to love the life well enough to 
 adopt it for the rest of my days, it will be because I 
 
 22
 
 338 Sn ibiob {places 
 
 am a solitary creature, and that of all this throng of 
 admirers your flattery promises me, there is not one 
 I value at a penny fee? " 
 
 There was anger and there was also the sound of 
 tears — angry tears perhaps — in her voice as she answered 
 him, with her face resolutely turned towards the street, 
 where the lanterns were being lighted in the gathering 
 dusk of December. Before he could reply the door 
 opened, and Lady Llanbister came in, looking white 
 and weary, and stifling a sigh before she returned his 
 greeting. He heard the outer door close as he went 
 to meet her, and, glancing quickly towards the window, 
 saw the man in black pass in the dusk — a cloaked figure, 
 with a hat of clerical shape. 
 
 The evening meal was more silent than it was wont 
 to be. Lady Llanbister had the worn and saddened 
 look he remembered in Aldersgate Street, when she 
 came late to supper after a conference with the man 
 in black. Geraldine was in ruffled spirits, and enlivened 
 the table with flashes of ill-humour which were at least 
 better than mute despondency. 
 
 " There is one man in this world whom I hate," 
 George said to Lady Llanbister on the next evening, 
 when he found her alone : " that odious Jesuit — I'll 
 warrant he is a Jesuit — who is at the bottom of your 
 resolve to forsake those that love you " 
 
 " Forsake ! No, no, George ! I shall love my friends 
 as dearly as ever I did, when I am a cloistered nun ! " 
 
 " Love them, yet leave them ? That is not possible ! 
 Love them, and be satisfied to see them once in a way, 
 when the Superior gives you leave, for ten minutes, 
 in a convent parlour, perhaps behind a grate?" 
 
 " The Order I enter will not be so severe as to make 
 friendship difficult." 
 
 "Will the Order let you live with those you love? 
 Will the Order let me spend hours in your company, 
 as I do now ? " George cried. He had grown bolder 
 than of old during this happy interval of re-union, 
 and he thought of a lifelong severance with an angry
 
 **%i]\c a Star 3fije5" 339 
 
 despair. " Is the felicity I have enjoyed to end for 
 ever when you pass the convent gate, when I see you 
 kneeling before the altar, a penitent — you, who have 
 never sinned " 
 
 " Hush, George ; you must not speak so. We are 
 all sinners." 
 
 " It is that Jesuit's work — the slow and subtle process 
 of years. He has haunted you like an evil spirit. First 
 he would have you a Papist, and now he would have 
 you a nun. He would strip you of the fortune which 
 you have ever used with a divine discretion — in 
 charity and kindness. At Isleworth you were a centre 
 of happiness, and all the neighbourhood turned to you 
 for comfort. In the dark city lanes your presence 
 shone like a star. And this Jesuit would have you 
 immure that sweet influence, that precious charity 
 within four walls, to be absorbed in the mechanical 
 virtues of a Sisterhood ! Oh, it is shameful I I detest 
 the name of Jesuit." 
 
 " Because you know nothing of that gifted, that 
 sublime Brotherhood — or of the saint its founder. In 
 your ignorance you must be pleased to keep silence 
 about the gentleman who directs my conscience, or 
 to speak of him with respect. He has long been my 
 spiritual councillor, and knows my life as none other 
 knows it ; and it is because he believes there is but one 
 safe haven for my declining years that he would have 
 me take the veil." 
 
 " For your declining years ! And you are still in 
 the prime of womanhood — your beauty scarcely touched 
 by time ; you are still of an age to taste all the best 
 pleasures of existence — travel, wise and amiable com- 
 pany, music, pictures, the theatre with its new and 
 shining lights, Corneille, Moliere. In a year or two, 
 as I dare hope, the troubles in England will be ended, 
 and you may enjoy your pleasant houses and estates 
 there ; and you have Geraldine, who should be to you 
 as a daughter, whose husband would cherish you as 
 your very son, whose children " — his voice faltered as 
 he spoke the word — " would be to you as your own, and
 
 340 3n Ibiab places 
 
 would renew your youth. All that long life of happiness, 
 of simple womanly joys, lies fair before you, like one of 
 those sunlit perspectives seen through a palace gate." 
 
 " And as false ! Painted sunshine, unreal beauty ! " 
 
 " No, no, it is very real. It is the prospect to which 
 every woman in your circumstances — not blinded by 
 bigotry — would look forward. But because this fanatic 
 prates of penitence, for you whose conscience is stainless ; 
 of self-sacrifice, where to sacrifice yourself is to profit 
 nobody, and to hurt all who love you — because of his 
 persistence, his persecution, you shut your heart against 
 Geraldine — against me, the nameless waif whom you 
 have taught to love you. By Heaven, it was cruel to be 
 so kind — to so possess yourself of my affection — if you 
 meant to forsake me ! " 
 
 That reproachful appeal moved her. She looked at 
 him for a few moments in silence, and then burst into 
 tears. 
 
 " My conscience is my guide, George, and I must 
 follow — though it may not lead me by pleasant paths." 
 
 " No, no, not your conscience, but a fanatic's teaching 
 — a bigot's endeavour to absorb you and your fortune 
 into the bosom of his Church. Do I not know what 
 the Jesuits are, and what they can do? The grain of 
 mustard-seed that Loyola planted has become a tree 
 whose ever-extending branches blight all things their 
 shadow falls upon." 
 
 " No, George, say rather a tree beneath whose shelter 
 the weary and sin-laden may find rest from earthly 
 cares." 
 
 " It is not rest, but death — to surrender thought and 
 will, to forego all natural affections, to love the stranger 
 of yesterday as well as oldest friends or closest kin, to be 
 a cipher in the sum of life ! It makes me mad to think 
 of so cruel a sacrifice." 
 
 " Because you are a heretic, George, and the love of 
 God has never entered into your heart. The joys of 
 heaven would be but weariness for a mind so out of tune 
 with religion." 
 
 George was kneeling beside her, as he had knelt on
 
 t( 
 
 Xifte a Star jftjeD" 341 
 
 the evening of their reunion, in his room at the Golden 
 Crown. Her left hand, which lay upon the arm of her 
 chair, was clasped in his, but her face was still turned 
 from him, to hide her tears. 
 
 " If Geraldine were your daughter — if you had a son 
 like me — would this tyrant conscience let you leave 
 them ? " he asked. 
 
 " If I had a son," she repeated, " would God accept 
 maternal love as an atonement for ? " 
 
 She spoke in a low, dreaming tone, as one who looks 
 inward — rather questioning herself than replying to her 
 questioner ; and she left the sentence unfinished. 
 
 " Atonement ! " he cried, beside himself with im- 
 patience. " You talk of atonement ! — you, whose saintly 
 life has been an example of all womanly virtue, a lesson 
 for all women " 
 
 " Hush, hush ! You do not know me, George. He 
 who has been my spiritual guide for many years sees 
 me as God sees me, and knows my need of pardon." 
 
 " Your Jesuit confessor, who strikes through your 
 heart at your fortune. Curse him ! " 
 
 "Silence, sir, or you will irrevocably offend me," 
 she cried, snatching her hand from his in sudden anger. 
 " The gentleman you so outrage is my brother." 
 
 " Your brother ! Oh, forgive me ! I knew not — 
 never suspected " 
 
 " No ; for in England he could only visit me in 
 secret, by reason of the persecutors of his Order. My 
 brother's inclination ever turned to the old faith, and 
 he entered the Roman Church less than a year after 
 my father's death, who had himself been of the High 
 Church party. My brother was a saint from his 
 earliest boyhood, George, and over his severe temper 
 the pleasures and splendours of this world had no 
 power. From the day he was received into the Order — 
 after so long a trial of service and obedience as proved 
 an iron will and an exemplary patience — he has laboured 
 with a zeal and a courage that neither suffering nor 
 danger could shake. Under an untowardly manner 
 he has a great soul, and I must needs honour him."
 
 342 Sn Ibiab BMaces 
 
 " Alas ! 'tis but natural you should listen to a 
 brother's voice — that you should follow the leading of 
 one you love." 
 
 " No, George, it is duty, not love, that leads me. It 
 is one of my sins never to have loved my brother. 
 From my childhood even, he lived in a world which 
 I could not reach ; his thoughts were given to higher 
 things than my mind could grasp. But there came 
 for me a time — of great sorrow " — the sad, sweet voice 
 faltered, and there was a brief interval of silence before 
 she continued the sentence — "a sorrow in which my 
 brother was my only counsellor and friend. That 
 sorrow made him the master of my life There was 
 no other earthly guide to whom I could turn, for I 
 had long been motherless, and I had forfeited my 
 father's regard by one unhappy act of disobedience. 
 Yes, George, I, whom you presumed but now to call 
 sinless — as if any human life ever passed from cradle 
 to grave without sin ! We might doubt that Christ 
 was very God, if humanity could so escape defilement." 
 
 " At least grant me one prayer," George pleaded. 
 " Promise that you will do nothing hurriedly." 
 
 " Hurriedly ! Why, this step has been urged upon 
 me — has been the purpose of my mind — from the hour 
 of my dear lord's death. Indeed, George, you know 
 that it was my purpose before I lost him." 
 
 "Yes, I know — because, having lost that cherished 
 friend, you thought life would be empty, so poorly 
 did you esteem Geraldine's love and mine." 
 
 The door opened before she could answer him, and 
 Geraldine came in from church, where she had been 
 with Mistress Betty, who was in process of conversion 
 to the Roman Catholic religion, following her young 
 mistress into the fold, and who, in the dearth of suitors 
 caused by the civil war, had serious thoughts of the cloister. 
 
 George went back to his lodging much disheartened. 
 He could better understand the influence of that 
 stealthy visitor, now that he knew the man in black 
 was Lady Llanbister's brother, whose authority over 
 her was the slow growth of years, and to whom she
 
 n 
 
 Xifte a Star fijet)" 343 
 
 chose to believe herself indebted for help in a time 
 of trouble. 
 
 She had spoken of some great sorrow in her earlier 
 life. He could think but of one kind of grief — a love 
 unhappy, or forbidden. Love for one who was her 
 inferior in the world's esteem. Yes, that was the sorrow 
 his imagination pictured. One who loved her as he 
 loved Geraldine, and held himself aloof, and died 
 perhaps of that hopeless passion, or flung his life away 
 on some foreign battlefield, an unremcmbered unit in 
 the sum of slaughter. Or it might be that, in her girlish 
 ignorance, she had not measured the abyss between 
 the Bishop's lovely daughter and her low-born lover, 
 and she had secretly favoured his suit — and this was 
 the act of disobedience which she remembered now, 
 with penitential tears ; a soul so pure making much 
 of so light a stain. And her brother, the Jesuit, striving 
 for the aggrandisement of his Order, greedy to absorb 
 her fortune into the maw that swallowed the revenues 
 of kings, had worked upon a mind too sensitive, prating 
 of atonement for this girlish error while enlarging upon 
 the beatitude of a cloistered life. George hated that 
 black figure only the worse for knowing that he was 
 so near a kinsman, since he could but deem him the 
 more dangerous tyrant because of that relationship. 
 
 The wintry days grew longer. January had brought 
 bad news from England — the execution of the turncoat 
 Hothams, father and son ; the judicial murder of Laud ; 
 the losses at Abingdon, where Sir Henry Gage, Charles's 
 faithful governor at Oxford, was slain. Lady Llanbister 
 had reason for anxiety in her Royal mistress's cares, 
 with whom she spent a sad hour from time to time, 
 and who had so denuded herself by her remittances to 
 the King as to already feel the pinch of poverty in her 
 splendid lodgings at the Louvre, despite the Queen 
 Regent's generous gifts, 
 
 George was a nightly visitor in the Rue du Bac, 
 where a cover was always laid for him at the evening 
 meal ; but a shadow of melancholy now brooded over
 
 344 3n 1biob UMaccs 
 
 the little party, and, save for an occasional outburst of 
 gaiety or of spleen from Geraldine, supper would have 
 been for the most part silent 
 
 From Geraldine George learnt that Lady Llanbister 
 had fixed upon Holy Week as the date of her retire- 
 ment from the world. He heard, and sighed, and held 
 his peace. He had reiterated every plea that affection 
 could urge against an act that to his mind seemed fatal 
 as self-murder. And so the days went on till the eve 
 of Palm Sunday, and in less than a week the lodging 
 in the Rue du Bac was to be deserted for the seclusion 
 of an enclosed convent. 
 
 Never could George forget that Saturday evening, 
 and the dull, aching melancholy that hung upon his 
 spirits as he walked from Sir Nathaniel's house by the 
 Sorbonne to the street he knew so well, through the 
 windy gloom of a bitter March. The day was waning 
 when he took leave of his pupil, and it was nearly dark 
 when he let himself in at Lady Llanbister's lodgings, 
 where the door was usually left on the latch till night. 
 
 He knocked at the door of the salon, and the sweet 
 voice he loved bade him enter. 
 
 She was not alone. The only light in the room 
 was the faint grey of the dying daylight from the low, 
 wide window, and the flame of a pile of logs in the 
 deep chimney. A man — the man in black— was 
 standing with his back to the hearth, and the tall, 
 dark figure made a screen between the room and the 
 firelight, and spread its distorted shadow on the low 
 ceiling. 
 
 " I beg your ladyship's pardon. I did not know you 
 had company," George faltered, looking at the black 
 figure, and making a movement towards the door. 
 
 " Nay, George, there is no need for you to withdraw. 
 This gentleman was about to leave me ; and we shall 
 go to supper so soon as Geraldine comes in from the 
 .sermon at St. Sulpicc." 
 
 The man in black did not move, but remained silent ; 
 and George felt that he was being scrutinised by dark, 
 deep-set eyes, whose expression he could not see. A 

 
 "Xthe a Stac jfi^et)" 345 
 
 strange, dream-like feeling came over him as he stood 
 waiting in that embarrassing silence. 
 
 " Has Sir Nathaniel received any further news from 
 London ? " Lady Llanbistcr asked presently. 
 
 "Yes, he had a news-letter this morning," George 
 answered slowly, while he stared at the face in shadow, 
 as if he could scarce find words for so simple a reply. 
 
 " Good news ? " 
 
 " Nay, they were — ill news — or mixed news. Mon- 
 trose has beaten Argyle and his Covenanters — but there 
 is a new army forming for the Parliament — and I 
 doubt " 
 
 His speech grew slower. He could not take his eyes 
 or his thoughts from that figure in black, standing 
 straight and rigid in front of the flames, the pale face 
 and dark brows but half seen in the fitful light. His 
 words came with spaces between — as of one dropping 
 asleep, and then he lapsed into silence, and stood fixed 
 and mute, as in a cataleptic trance. 
 
 "George!" exclaimed Lady Llanbister, "what ails 
 }'ou ? What are you thinking about ? " 
 
 " Of that gentleman, madam. Surely, sir, I have seen 
 you before ? " 
 
 " 'Tis not impossible, sir, though I have no memory of 
 such a meeting." 
 
 " Oh, but I remember. Memory could not so mock 
 me ! 'Twas many years ago — when I was a little 
 child. You were standing betwixt flame and shadow 
 then, as you are standing now." 
 
 " Indeed, sir ! 'Tis something of my habit to stand 
 with my back to the fire — not an uncommon one, I 
 believe. And pray where did this marvel — of your 
 childish recollection — come to pass ? " 
 
 " In a cottage within a day's walk of the Portsmouth 
 Road." 
 
 Lady Llanbister looked white as a ghost in the sudden 
 light of the brand that fell and flamed upon the hearth ; 
 but George had no eyes for his dear lady. All he had 
 of sight and hearing, of attention and thought, was 
 concentrated upon the man in black.
 
 346 5n fbiQb places 
 
 " That is not a precise description of any place," the 
 man answered, in a sneering voice. " A day's journey 
 from the Portsmouth Road might be anywhere in 
 Surrey, or Sussex, or Hampshire. The road begins at 
 London and ends at the sea. I cannot help your 
 memory if you can tell me no more than that." 
 
 In a man who is always pale, emotion shows little 
 change ; but George, whose eyes were now accustomed 
 to the half-light, detected an agitated twitching in this 
 man's under lip, while his slower speech indicated a 
 struggle to maintain his stately composure. 
 
 " My memory needs no help, sir," George cried im- 
 petuously. "Your voice is better known to me than 
 your face — and both come back to me as though 'twas 
 yesterday when you stood — as you were standing just 
 now — your hands clasped behind your back, your head 
 bent, and your eyes looking down at me, who was then 
 no higher than the top of your boot." 
 
 "You have a wonderful memory, sir, a marvellous 
 memory, to remember that which never was ! " 
 
 " Oh, sir, it was, it was ! It is your memory that fails. 
 Perhaps you have paid for the maintenance of many 
 nameless children in your life." 
 
 Had not all his thoughts been centred in the man he 
 must have heard the low, agitated cry that broke from 
 Lady Llanbister, as she leant with clasped hands against 
 the great armchair from which she had just risen. 
 
 " And perchance you have branded many such with 
 your mark, to indicate their dependence on your bounty." 
 
 " I fear, sister, that this gentleman, whom you so 
 lauded a little while ago, has gone out of his wits since 
 he was last in your company. You are talking like a 
 lunatic, sir, and I have no taste for such extravagance 
 of speech. I beg there may be an end to it." 
 
 " I swear, sir, I have all my wits — nay, more than I 
 commonly have ; for I feel as if I were all sight and 
 hearing and apprehension, so earnest am I to discover 
 the truth. Believe me, sir, I know you as I know my 
 face in the glass. You came twice to my foster-father's 
 cottage '-"
 
 *'%i\\c a Star jfijeD" 347 
 
 " Your foster-father ! " cried the priest, with sudden 
 fury. " Your very father, you mean. What have stray 
 sprigs like you to do with foster-fathers ? — a bit of dirt 
 in a peasant's hovel — a pretty gentleman to give me 
 the lie ! " 
 
 " Will you swear — before her ladyship — that you 
 never saw me till to-night?" 
 
 He turned towards Lady Llanbister as he asked this 
 question, and saw her leaning over the back of the 
 chair, her face hidden, her frame shaken with sobs. 
 
 " Dearest friend, have I grieved you by my speech ? 
 Bid me be silent, and I will question this gentleman 
 no farther. But no blast of his displeasure can shake 
 me from my recognition of his person." 
 
 " Go on, George ! I implore you to speak," she cried 
 passionately, lifting her head suddenly and looking at 
 him with eyes that flashed fire through her tears, and 
 seemed to him to shine as he had never seen them shine 
 before. " Go on, I beseech you. Yes ; that was your 
 first home, the house where you were born, the wretched, 
 comfortless peasant's house — rough-handed people, yet 
 not unkind. Yes; that was your foster-father — a 
 peasant farmer ; that was where you were born ; that 
 was where you were left. He willed it so" — pointing to 
 the dark figure, the wrathful face — " left to thrive or to 
 die ! And God was good, and you are here to-night, 
 given back to me as if by a miracle, for the felicity of 
 my declining years." 
 
 " You are as mad as the lunatic you favour, madam," 
 said her brother, in that chilling voice she knew too 
 well. " You suffer me to be bearded by a fantastic 
 stripling whom your womanish fancy cherishes because 
 he chances to resemble one whose features you should 
 pray God to blot from your mind for ever. You 
 have fostered unholy memories ; have sobbed and sighed 
 over recollections which the penitent's scourge should 
 have ripped out of your heart, leaving only remorse 
 for your wanton folly." 
 
 " 1 was not a wanton ! I will not have you call me so 
 before /iwi ! You know I was no wanton, I trusted
 
 348 Sn UMab places 
 
 the man who besought me to be his wife — and 
 whom I believed my Prince, my King that was to 
 be " 
 
 " A villain who told you a lie that would scarce have 
 gulled a child. You believed the fable because you 
 loved that profligate, and cared not whether he was 
 true or false. You would have given yourself to the 
 devil, had he come in as fair a guise. You stole from 
 your father's house — a wanton before you were a woman 
 — and would have brought everlasting dishonour upon 
 that good old man, and upon me, had I not hindered 
 you, and hid you from the world, and suppressed every 
 evidence of your infamy, and so enabled you to marry 
 a great gentleman, and to hold your head as high as 
 the most immaculate she in England." 
 
 " Leave my house, sir. I have suffered your unkind- 
 ness too long, and now it has passed all bounds of 
 Christian patience. I will not submit to be upbraided 
 and belied in the hearing of my son." 
 
 George ran to her, and fell on his knees at her feet, 
 clasping the hand that hung at her side, kissing and 
 crying over it. 
 
 " Dearest, dearest lady ! 'Twas nature made me so 
 honour, so love you, from those first days at Isleworth. 
 Dear and revered lady ! Can God be so good to me ? 
 Am I verily your son ? " 
 
 " Yes, George, you are my son. It has been ever 
 in my mind, as a strange chance that might become 
 a certainty — since your likeness to the man I once too 
 dearly loved inspired hopes which I tried in vain to 
 stifle. You are my son — your recognition of my brother 
 is proof enough for me." 
 
 " Nay, dearest madam, there is proof tangible and 
 material which your brother can scarce gainsay — the 
 brand he set upon my flesh, what time he doomed mc 
 to a farm-labourer's life. At least, sir, if you forget 
 your speech — how you sentenced me to live obscure, 
 and by the sweat of my brow— you can scarce forget 
 the sailor you ordered to mark me — thus." 
 
 He tore open his shirt, and showed the letter V
 
 *'%iUc a Star jfireD 349 
 
 tattooed upon his chest. Time had made no change 
 in the deep purple of the charcoal stain. 
 
 " Will you deny that, sir?" 
 
 'Nay, I admit your identity, which it is for you to 
 be ashamed of. You are the waif that disappeared from 
 the farmer, Luke Scriven's homestead, in the year 
 'twenty-eight. I found the house deserted and the man 
 lying in the nearest graveyard, in the November of 
 that year. You have established your lineage, sir ; and 
 neither you nor this lady, who is so eager to own you, 
 have any need to be proud of your pedigree. I leave 
 you, madam, to your son's company, and your own 
 after-thoughts, which I can scarce doubt will shortly 
 bring your mind to a better state for that first step upon 
 the heavenly road that you are pledged to take next 
 Thursday." 
 
 " You are mistaken, Ralph. This revelation changes 
 all things in my life. I have new purposes to live for." 
 
 " Oh, you are red-hot in folly ! You will soon come 
 to a better way of thinking. You, who have yearned 
 for the peace of the cloister, cannot so surrender heaven. 
 I know the natural piety of your mind, and that you but 
 need leisure for meditation. I charge you, sir, you, who 
 kneel and fawn there, not to stand in your mother's 
 pathway to heaven. She has been a great sinner, vain, 
 deceitful, disobedient to a pious father, clinging with 
 unholy love to a liar and a profligate ; but she may yet 
 become as great a saint, if your evil influence does not 
 hinder her." 
 
 He flung out of the room, casting a malignant glance 
 at George as he passed him ; but George was on his 
 knees at his mother's feet, with her arms clasped about 
 his neck. He thought for one instant of that other 
 woman, who had wept upon his breast, and claimed him 
 for her son. His heart had been marble then ; but 
 now it was as if he had found that one dearest and best 
 to whom his arms had been outstretched since he was 
 a little child — the mother whose love had been ever the 
 something wanting in his life. 
 
 He left the house when Geraldine's foot was on the
 
 350 Bn Ibfgb places 
 
 threshold — at Lady Llanbister's desire, who was too 
 deeply agitated to spend the rest of the evening in her 
 ward's company. 
 
 " Come to me to-morrow afternoon, dearest, when we 
 can converse freely, and I will tell you how much or 
 how little of wantoness there was in my unhappy love." 
 
 " And you will think no more of the convent ? You 
 will give me your promise ? " 
 
 " For the rest of my life I shall think only of my son. 
 He shall be my counsellor and guide." 
 
 In the long tete-a-tete of the following day, mother 
 and son sitting side by side, hand locked in hand, in 
 the confidence of an affection which was at once the 
 instinctive love of closest kinship and the gradual growth 
 of happy years, Lady Llan bister told the secret of his 
 birth to the son who could never bear a father's name. 
 
 Her sorrowful story was related in faltering accents, 
 in speech broken by tears, and in a spirit of self-humilia- 
 tion which ignored the guilt of her betrayer and the 
 childlike innocence of his victim.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A RETROSPECT. 
 
 The tragedy of Lady Llanbister's girlhood was but 
 the common story of a woman's confiding love and a 
 man's treason. It was only the seducer's exalted rank 
 and the victim's noble character which distinguished 
 the history of this case from the history of other women 
 whose lives have been blighted before their knowledge 
 of life began. 
 
 It was in the summer of 1620, when Lord Effingham 
 entertained King James at his mansion near South- 
 minster, that Viola Redgrave passed from the monotony 
 of a joyless girlhood to the tempest and passion of 
 a fatal love. 
 
 Evening shadows veiled the dark bulk of the cathedral 
 when the Royal party rode in front of the Bishop's 
 palace ; but the setting sun shone full upon that 
 pompous cavalcade, and to Viola, who had seen so 
 little of earthly splendour, that passing picture suggested 
 rather a vision of knights and ladies from Spenser's 
 " Faerie Queen " than a procession of mortals fashioned 
 in the common mould. 
 
 The dust of summer roads had spread a faint grey 
 veil over velvet and satin, snowy plumage and jewelled 
 embroidery ; but that dim greyness, the cloud of dust 
 under which they rode, only made the passing vision 
 more dreamlike. The Bishop's daughter leant out of 
 an upper window, with a basket of lilies on the ledge 
 before her, ready to be flung upon the Royal roadway — 
 
 351
 
 352 3n Ibiab places 
 
 herself in shadow, the road below golden in the low 
 sunlight. Her eager eyes roamed over the glittering 
 train, but she had only time to distinguish three of 
 the most striking figures in that Royal progress — first 
 the old King, with bent shoulders, leaning somewhat 
 wearily over his horse's neck, the feeble body jolted 
 a little in the heavy saddle, the spindle legs hanging 
 loosely against the gold and crimson housings ; next 
 a lady, whose gaudy splendour, lurid in the sunset, 
 reminded Viola of the wicked Duessa in the allegory she 
 loved — so arrogant, so imperious, was her bearing, so 
 magnificent her riding-habit of green velvet and silver, 
 the bodice thickly studded with emeralds and pearls, her 
 hat with its towering mass of ostrich feathers and 
 bandeau of diamonds — a woman past her first youth, 
 but still in the full bloom of a commanding beauty. 
 This lady rode in the rear of the King, but a few paces 
 in advance of a bevy of younger women, who had the 
 air of being in attendance upon her, and, young, beauti- 
 ful, richly dressed, and mounted on high-bred horses, 
 looked but servants as compared with her, who as 
 Countess of Buckingham assumed an almost regal state. 
 
 Only one of the courtly train rode his horse level with 
 the Royal charger, and Viola's eager gaze, shifting in 
 tremulous haste from point to point, suddenly concen- 
 trated itself upon that picturesque figure— the plumed 
 hat, roped with jewels ; the crosses and stars that flashed 
 many-coloured light from the white velvet doublet ; the 
 grace of the tall form ; the slender hand that held the 
 bridle with as light a touch as if it had been a thread of 
 silk— the right hand resting on the hip. She had time, 
 while the King and his companion approached at a foot- 
 pace, to note even the deep bullion fringe upon the 
 white gauntlet, as she leant out of her open casement, 
 and dropped a shower of lilies in front of the Royal 
 charger's hoofs. 
 
 As the flowers fell, the King jerked his bridle with a 
 sudden clutch of his feeble old hand, startled himself, 
 and fearing a movement of his horse. The cavalier at 
 his side looked up, curious to discover whose hand had
 
 B IRetrospect 353 
 
 thrown the h'lies ; and in one dazzh'ng moment Viola 
 met the upward glance of eyes that were like stars — at 
 least to a girl's fancy : Royal eyes, with pride and 
 laughter in their light, the eyes of her future King — for 
 she never doubted that he who rode at James's bridle- 
 rein was the Prince of Wales. How was she, the 
 Bishop's daughter, bred in a seclusion as close as a 
 cloister, to know the pinnacle to which a weak king's 
 favourite might ascend ; or the splendid insolence of 
 youth that has never known failure ; or the Royalty of 
 consummate beauty in man or woman ? This man 
 came of a race predestined to conquer, endowed by 
 Nature with the graces and gifts that belong to princes 
 of fairyland, a race that walked this workaday world like 
 Olympian gods, and seemed as certain of homage and 
 victory. What if their enemies declared that the mother 
 of these Olympians had once been a kitchen wench, and 
 that the divine gift of beauty had filtered through the 
 veins of peasants ? It was that ruder race perhaps 
 which gave strength as well as comeliness to the 
 younger children of Sir George Villiers, and justified 
 his union with his first wife's humble companion, 
 or tire-woman, or kitchen-maid. Stories varied as to the 
 exact depth of obscurity from which the most arrogant 
 peeress in England had been elevated. Some measured 
 the lowness of her origin by the altitude of her bearing, 
 and swore she would never have been so arrogant had 
 she not climbed from the kitchen to the steps of the 
 throne. 
 
 The cavalier's upward-looking face, with its rich 
 colouring and star-like eyes, appealed to Viola as the 
 most perfect face her eyes had ever looked upon. She 
 drew back dazzled, her cheeks crimsoning with a thrill- 
 ing surprise that was new, and strange, and sweet — as if 
 in very truth she had seen one of the elder gods, a vision 
 of supernatural beauty materialised for a moment in the 
 sunset. When she looked out of her casement again, 
 they were gone — King and favourite, proud dame and 
 girlish beauties, and the train of courtiers and statesmen. 
 All had vanished in the dim perspective of the narrow 
 
 23
 
 354 5n Ibi^b BMaces 
 
 street. There was nothing to be seen but her lilies lying 
 trampled in the dust. They were gone ; and " Baby 
 Charles," riding with the Lord Keeper, soberly clad in 
 black velvet cloak and hose, and tawny leather jerkin, 
 had passed unobserved by the Bishop's daughter. 
 
 Her father was to sup with the King at Lord 
 Effingham's mansion that night. Viola heard him 
 return to the palace in his heavy leathern coach after 
 midnight, and she hoped he might give her some 
 account of the Royal banquet when they met at dinner 
 next day. But his lordship's brow was dark, and he 
 ate his temperate meal in silence, and Viola, who called 
 him "my lord," and never presumed to begin a con- 
 versation with him, sat silent also, though longing to 
 ask questions. 
 
 Her life was as dull as the life of Danae in her brazen 
 tower. She had no resources but her dogs, her aviary, 
 and the one little cabinet of books which she read over 
 and over again, till even those she loved the most made 
 her heart ache with the burden of an indescribable 
 melancholy. Books, life, the house in which she lived, 
 the garden where she walked, the river that flowed 
 beside the long terrace, the cathedral bells, whose 
 deep-toned music was so old and so familiar that it 
 seemed a part of her own being rather than of an outer 
 world, as inevitable as the beating of her heart, — all 
 things were steeped in the same dull grey, all things 
 sickened her with their everlasting monotony. Chaucer, 
 Spenser ! What a revelation of fairyland, of brightness 
 and beauty, love, pride, chivalry, war, splendour, their 
 old-world romances and picturesque allegories had once 
 seemed to her ! — but now, alas ! she knew them all 
 by heart, and though she still loved them, they could 
 move her neither to smiles nor tears. Indeed, she often 
 found herself reading mechanically, while her thoughts 
 were far away from the page, wandering in a world 
 of vague surmises, longing for something — knight, 
 dragon, angel or fiend — to break through the grey web 
 that shut her from the world. 
 
 " I have been taught to pity the nuns in their convent
 
 H iRetrospect 355 
 
 prisons ; but was there ever a nun with less pleasure 
 in life than I have ? " she said to herself. 
 
 Her education was finished. The various masters 
 who had taught her Greek and Latin, to play upon 
 the virginals, to embroider upon velvet and silk, to 
 dance, and write, and cipher, had been dismissed. She 
 was an accomplished young lady, who knew something 
 of the classics, and the uses and properties of all the 
 plants that grew in the physic-garden. She was fitted 
 to take the head of a fine gentleman's household ; 
 but until any such gentleman — high-born, wealthy, and 
 for choice noble — should appear upon the scene, matri- 
 monially disposed — or, in other words, until Dr. Redgrave 
 could find an opportunity of disposing of his daughter 
 to the highest bidder — she was left to eat her heart 
 out in an existence whose sameness was beguiled by 
 no vision of future grandeurs. His lordship took the 
 current view of parental obligations, and it never 
 occurred to him to confide his schemes for his daughter's 
 aggrandisement to the subject of them ; nor had he 
 any fear that his daughter might sicken of her colourless 
 life, and sigh for change and action, a world in which 
 to expand those spirit-wings that beat so violently in 
 the breast of youth. He looked at her with a critical 
 eye, and saw that she was beautiful, graceful, gracious, 
 with that innate air of high-breeding which would not 
 misbecome a ducal coronet or the Royal dais. For 
 such a daughter, even with the restricted opportunities 
 of a cathedral city, it ought not to be difficult to find 
 a noble and a rich alliance. 
 
 The Bishop explained his views to his only son — the 
 confidant of all his designs, clerical and domestic ; but 
 the confidence was not too graciously received. Nature, 
 which had been so liberal to the sister, had been churlish 
 to the brother, who was a plain likeness of a plain father, 
 the austere dignity of the Bishop's countenance de- 
 generating into sullen sourness in the son, the features 
 following the lines, but bluntly, like a bad copy of a 
 face in a picture. Yes, Mr. Redgrave admitted the 
 girl's beauty, and that she might please the eye of some
 
 356 5n tJi^b IMaces 
 
 Court profligate, such as the man whose existence was 
 the curse of England. 
 
 " I doubt there are a score of petty Buckinghams 
 with the Villiers' insolence and greed, if not the Villiers' 
 comeliness ; and my sister might find a mate among 
 them — if you will pledge half your income to dower 
 her," he answered moodily ; whereupon the Bishop 
 assured him that, having so lovely a creature to offer 
 in the matrimonial market, he counted on making a 
 far different bargain. 
 
 Ralph Redgrave went back to Oxford immediately 
 after the Royal visit to Southminster. He was a fellow 
 of New College, and spent half his life within those 
 venerable walls, taking his only pleasure in solitary 
 visits to the Continent, where he had a few chosen 
 friends living wide apart — at Paris, at Madrid, at Rome. 
 He seldom stayed long at Southminster ; and he took 
 very Uttle notice of his sister. Viola had at least the 
 Hberty to do as she pleased at home, and had no one 
 to interfere with her movements, so long as she was 
 punctual at meals, and appeared with her duenna and 
 sometime nurse at the cathedral services. Dr. Redgrave 
 — ambitious, disappointed, angry with fate and with the 
 world — spent all his leisure in his Hbrary, toiling at 
 erudite pamphlets subversive of everything, one of 
 which he occasionally printed at his own expense, 
 dedicating it to the most discontented statesman he 
 could hit upon — latterly to Lord Verulam — and which, 
 though bristling with capitals and virulent adjectives, 
 in long primer, made no more stir in the world of action 
 than if he had dropped his manuscript into the Palace 
 well. To be for ever abusing people and institutions, 
 and never to provoke retort, is one of the states of 
 life that tend towards untimely death ; and the Bishop 
 was too unhappy a man to be a kind father. He had 
 missed preferment under two reigns, having vegetated 
 at Southminster since the year of the Armada. He 
 was suspected of a hankering after the old faith, and 
 even of having maintained a correspondence with more 
 than one of the Roman Cardinals ; but those who were
 
 H IRetrospect 357 
 
 in his confidence knew that these dallyings with the 
 Scarlet Woman were not of his own initiating. They 
 were inspired by a more restless spirit than his. The 
 ruling mind at the Palace — the active element of dis- 
 content — was not the Bishop, but the Bishop's son. 
 There had been mysterious visitors at the Palace at 
 long intervals, and always when Ralph Redgrave was 
 at home to assist in receiving them — olive-complexioned 
 gentlemen, sleek and supple of mien and manner, 
 whom Dr. Redgrave described as foreign merchants, 
 and who were closeted with him night after night. 
 
 While he held in reserve all schemes for his daughter's 
 establishment, and while her future of wealth and power 
 was but a splendid dream, interwoven with other visions 
 of personal aggrandisement, the girl herself was trembling 
 on the threshold of a dream more dazzling than the 
 fairest vision possible to the Bishop's duller imagination, 
 worn and blunted by the experience of hard facts. The 
 parterres and pleached alleys, the fountain and maze, 
 which Viola had ever loved, were now transformed into 
 an enchanted garden, where at each turn in the terraced 
 walks, at each ar(^ed opening in the high yew-hedges 
 she might meet a demigod. 
 
 Three of the gentlemen of the Court had their lodgings 
 in the house of a wealthy townsman, whose gardens ad- 
 joined the episcopal grounds, and whose upper windows 
 overlooked the pleasaunce ; and thus it happened that in 
 the summer twilight Viola heard strange voices and the 
 musical jingle of sword-hilts and spurs, as these courtiers 
 amused themselves playing football on the citizen's lawn. 
 
 Even the sound of those unknown voices thrilled her ; 
 but how overpowering was her surprise when, sauntering 
 by the river in the growing darkness, a boat was pulled 
 in suddenly to the bank, and a man leapt lightly on to 
 the terrace walk in front of her — a man in whom, even 
 by that faint light, she recognised the cavalier who had 
 ridden at King James's saddle-bow ! He was less magni- 
 ficent to-night, attired in ash-leaf velvet ; but she saw 
 the star on his breast, and she had no shadow of doubt 
 that the Prince of Wales stood before her.
 
 358 5n IbiQb places 
 
 She had been brought up in the fear and reverence of 
 kings, to think them gods, and to believe they could do 
 no wrong, nor ever exact too much from their subjects. 
 She sank on one knee, half swooning at this beatific 
 vision ; but the intruder raised her to her feet with hands 
 that were as strong as they were gentle — raised her till 
 her face was near his own, eyes looking into eyes ; and 
 then, in that dim solitude, began Viola's love-story, the 
 passionate wooing of a high-bred profligate, the self- 
 abandonment, confiding adoring, of an innocent girl, too 
 chaste to fall an easy prey to the seducer, but simple 
 enough to be won by an audacious ruse. 
 
 It were needless, in this later stage of that wronged 
 lady's life, to follow the dream of her girlhood through 
 all its phases. Her lover found means to pursue his 
 secret courtship, and so far succeeded in his evil influence 
 as to persuade the girl to keep silence, and so deceive 
 her father. Quick to take advantage of her mistake as 
 to his identity, Villiers told her that their union must be 
 kept secret during the King's lifetime, but that when he 
 came to his kingdom, she should be proclaimed to all 
 the world as his Queen. When she argued that a prince 
 should marry the daughter of a Royal house, that his 
 future subjects would never accept Bishop Redgrave's 
 daughter as their Queen, he laughed her fears to scorn. 
 Kings could choose whom they would, so long as they 
 could win and keep the love of their people. Had 
 not Edward IV. married Anne Woodville ? and was 
 he a less popular monarch because he had not chosen 
 some foreign princess for his consort, with not a word of 
 English to answer an English subject's petition, mute 
 among her husband's people as a stock or a stone? 
 
 "Be sure the lovely lady of my choice will please 
 them better than the Spanish Infanta, or any Papistical 
 princess living," he told her ; and so, beguiled by vows of 
 lifelong devotion, by the fervid eloquence of one who 
 knew how to strike every note in the gamut of passion, 
 the confiding girl suffered herself to be led away 
 from her father's house, and trusted her person and 
 her fate to the man she loved.
 
 H iRettospect 359 
 
 It was but three weeks since the lilies she flung from 
 her window had lain bruised and trampled in the 
 summer dust, and the lovers were on the road, in a 
 coach-and-six, travelling by easy stages to Bucking- 
 ham's mansion and stronghold of Burleigh-on-the-Hill. 
 Duchess Katharine was at York House, by the Thames, 
 writing loving letters to her lord, telling of the baby- 
 daughter's progress in baby graces, a wife almost as 
 confiding as the girl who sat beside him on that journey 
 of days and weeks through the pleasant highways of 
 England, between south-west and north-east. He was 
 her Prince still, Charles, Prince of Wales, her King that 
 was to be, and she was his proud and happy wife ; for 
 at their first halting-place at a nobleman's mansion on 
 the borders of Wiltshire the Prince's chaplain had been 
 in attendance, and had married them with all due 
 solemnity, reading the marriage service of the Church 
 of England, in a private chapel, by the light of two 
 flambeaux held by the Prince's body-servants, who were 
 the only witnesses of the ceremony. 
 
 Happy journey, happy dream ! She had the most 
 accomplished gentleman in England at her feet, her 
 devoted lover, skilled in every art, gifted with every 
 grace that can win a woman's love. She had him in 
 the pride and glory of his youth, romantically attached 
 to the mistress whose unworldly simplicity made her 
 seem more nymph than woman, whose every look and 
 every thought was in marked contrast with the words 
 and looks of the women of the Court, those indulgent 
 beauties who challenged him to facile victories. Viola's 
 freshness and purity gave him a new idea of woman ; 
 and if he was her fairy prince, she was his fairy princess. 
 
 " When I drop asleep at your side, I sometimes wake 
 with a shiver of fear, lest, on opening my eyes, I find 
 the coach empty," he said. " You have an aerial look 
 by torchlight, as of a creature that might vanish." 
 
 Outriders carrying torches accompanied their coach 
 when the nights were dark and the roads difficult. 
 There was a magnificence in their progress which 
 sustained Viola's idea of Royalty. Who but princes
 
 36o sn ibigb places 
 
 would travel in such state, and with such a troop of 
 servants ? Her father, the Bishop, moved about with 
 infinitely less pomp, yet he counted himself a great 
 personage. 
 
 Her dream had lasted nearly two months, and she 
 was at Burleigh when her brother burst in upon that 
 solitude of two. The pursuit had been difficult, since 
 there was no clue to the person of the seducer. Ralph 
 Redgrave, hastily summoned from Oxford, found a 
 distracted household, and the Bishop crushed by the 
 calamity that had fallen upon him like a stone from 
 heaven. Among a variety of speculations and wild 
 assertions, Mr. Redgrave heeded only the positive 
 statement that ten days after the Royal party had left 
 Southminster, a coach-and-six, with a bevy of attendants, 
 had been seen at nightfall in the road that skirted 
 the north bank of the river, about a mile below the 
 Bishop's garden on the south bank, where Viola walked 
 every evening. It was surmised that she had stolen 
 away by water, though no one had seen her leave 
 the garden or land on the opposite shore, Ralph 
 followed the scent like a sleuth-hound. But even his 
 shrewdness and tenacity were slow to prevail, and the 
 search lasted long ; for Buckingham had protracted that 
 summer journey to a rambling progress among the 
 houses of some of his patrician satellites, received 
 everywhere with admirable discretion and sumptuous 
 hospitality, by hosts who were either absent or invisible. 
 
 " How well your father's subjects love you," Viola 
 said, when she praised the richness of their entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 The journey thus conducted by capricious cross-roads 
 had been difficult to follow, an ignorant peasantry giving 
 little help to the inquirer ; but by a stubborn patience 
 Mr. Redgrave at last succeeded in getting on the right 
 scent — and, once his face set towards Burleigh-on-the- 
 Hill, he no longer doubted that his sister's lover was 
 cither some creature of Buckingham's or the Favourite 
 himself. The thought of this latter contingency infuriated 
 him, for it was in his nature to hate any man who
 
 a IRetrospect 361 
 
 had sprung from nothing to superlative power, and 
 he had long brooded with malignant envy upon the 
 dazzling image of George Villiers, whom he had never 
 seen until the late Royal progress, and whom he hated 
 with a keener and more personal malice after the brief 
 association of a festive evening at Lord Effingham's, 
 during which Villiers had treated the Bishop's son with 
 a magnificent carelessness — though not uncivil. Would 
 an eagle be uncivil to a sparrow ? 
 
 He had his revenge upon the Duke now, when, on 
 the edge of midnight, he burst, booted and mud- 
 bespattered, pale with fury, almost voiceless with passion 
 and hard riding, into the saloon at Burleigh, and tore 
 his sister from her seducer's arms. 
 
 There is no fortress so well defended that hatred 
 cannot find an entrance. Redgrave had leapt the moat 
 and found an unfastened door in the offices. Where 
 there is a regiment of servants, there is always an open 
 door. He had threaded the unknown labyrinth of that 
 stately house and surprised the lovers in their bower, 
 where the Duke had thought himself triply guarded 
 from intrusion. 
 
 " Your Prince ! " he echoed with brutal scorn, when 
 Viola bade him respect the King's son. " What, has 
 the villain put tJiat lie upon you ? Poor fool ! Prince 
 Charles is an honest man. The wretch who tempted 
 and betrayed you is that venal slave, a King's Favourite 
 — a dotard's pampered parasite — spawn of a kitchen- 
 wench — exalted for a handsome face and a neat foot, 
 bedecked with borrowed jewels — the curse, and shame, 
 and ruin of England." 
 
 The Duke struck him across the face with the flat of 
 his sword before he hissed out the last sentence, and in 
 the next instant they were grappling each other, in a 
 blind fury, more like beasts than men. Viola threw 
 herself between them, her bare arms wreathing her 
 lover's neck, her slender body flung against his breast, 
 warding off the assailant. Duke or prince, traitor or 
 true, she loved him, and in this desperate crisis thought 
 but of his peril. She fell at his feet, swooning, and was
 
 362 Sn HDtab places 
 
 carried into an adjoining room, whither her women were 
 called to tend her ; while her lover followed his foe to 
 the courtyard, where a bloody duel was fought by torch- 
 light, without seconds, or any of the ceremony common 
 to such encounters. 
 
 Both men were wounded, but Redgrave's injuries 
 were the slighter ; and while the Duke lost a great deal 
 of blood, and had to be carried to his bed, where he lay 
 in a high fever, and passed from stupor to delirium, 
 Ralph's were but flesh-wounds, which the surgeon 
 dressed so as to enable him to leave Burleigh with his 
 sister next morning. 
 
 For the better part of a year after that cruel night, 
 Viola's life was spent in ignominious captivity. No 
 cloistered nun, false to her vow of chastity, ever 
 suffered a heavier expiation. For the deluded girl, 
 who had fancied herself the wife of the second highest 
 personage of the realm, England's Queen that was to 
 be, whose path was to be strewn with roses, in the 
 sunshine of a nation's love — for this innocent victim 
 the strong, stern man was remorseless. 
 
 " I will save your father from the shame of an un- 
 chaste daughter, and will spare you the disgrace you have 
 merited, if I can ; but to do this I must have your 
 implicit obedience," he said, when his sister was at last 
 in a condition to hear reason. 
 
 She was too unhappy to refuse submission, had 
 the penance inflicted been a dark cell and a diet of 
 bread-and-water. That innocent victim of man's per- 
 fidy was deeply imbued with a sense of sin. All the 
 religious influences of her childhood were revivified 
 by the misery and humiliation of her state. She sub- 
 mitted meekly to every kind of hard usage, except 
 to hear her betrayer reviled. Her spirit rose against 
 Ralph's sneers and disparagement. "A parasite — a 
 venal slave ! " That man who was like a god ; that 
 creature of a nobler aspect than she had ever seen 
 in living man, till her dazzled eyes looked upon him ! 
 A man whose thoughts were as noble as his counten-
 
 a IRetrospect 363 
 
 ance, whose voice was music, who spoke to the meanest 
 of his attendants with an inimitable courtesy, whom 
 his dependents served with an affection that verged 
 upon idolatry. 
 
 " You do well to disparage him, for he and you 
 scarce belong to the same species ; you remind me 
 of a monkey that snarls at a man : like, and yet 
 unlike ! " she said to her brother one night, rising 
 from the supper-table at the obscure inn where they 
 rested, trembling with passion, her eyes flaming, her 
 head high. 
 
 All trace of the humble penitent had vanished, and 
 only the indignant woman was left. 
 
 " You love your seducer better than you love your 
 soul, mistress ! " 
 
 " Aye, that do I, and would sell my soul to Satan if he 
 would make me my Charles's true wife ! " 
 
 " Charles ! Oh, you abject fool, still to love the liar 
 who tricked and dishonoured you ! " 
 
 For eleven dreary months the Bishop's daughter 
 endured banishment from home and kindred, comfort- 
 less lodgings, rough fare, and all the galling circumstances 
 of a life hidden from the world. A lonely farmhouse 
 in a pastoral valley between Hindhead and the Hog's 
 Back was the scene of her seclusion ; and no detail 
 was wanting that could remind her of her degraded 
 condition — waiting for the martyrdom of motherhood, 
 and without one touch of pity or affection from kindred 
 or friend to soothe her mental agonies, or help her 
 through the ordeal to which she looked forward in her 
 loneliness. Her only hope was that the peril through 
 which she had to pass would end in her release from 
 shame and sorrow. She could imagine no future happi- 
 ness possible for her, except that Paradise of peace 
 beyond the Gate of Death. 
 
 The people of the house served her with profound 
 respect, tempered by a compassion which they dared 
 not express ; but in her inexperience of the lower 
 classes, they seemed to her creatures of a coarser race, 
 and she held them as completely aloof in her misery as
 
 364 Bn tlQb places 
 
 she could have done had she been at the pinnacle of 
 fortune. She was indeed haughtier in her fallen state 
 than she had ever been in her stainless girlhood, and 
 her whole nature had taken a sterner mould. Deeply 
 as she felt her degradation, her grief expressed itself in 
 no weak supplications to the tyrannical brother, whose 
 occasional visits brought no consolation, and who made 
 a favour of even such small mercies. She employed her 
 loneliness in prayer and study, enlarging her little stock 
 of Latin by a diligent perusal of Saint Thomas a Kempis 
 and Virgil's Eclogues, two volumes which Mr. Redgrave 
 had brought her grudgingly, in acquiescence with a reit- 
 erated request, and which he had given to her with a 
 sneer at woman's mode of learning, and the remark 
 that the Latin of one author would doubtless seem to 
 her as choice as the Latin of the other. She beguiled 
 the hours her limited supply of books could not fill 
 with that exquisite and elaborate embroidery in which 
 she was almost as accomplished as the unfortunate 
 Queen who, half a century before, had lightened her 
 captivity at Fotheringay by the same feminine labour. 
 
 The day of her release came at last, after a lingering 
 illness, during which her wandering wits had taken little 
 heed of the infant that lay for only a few hours at her 
 bosom. When she recovered her senses, and asked 
 to look upon the face of her child, Ralph told her that 
 the nameless brat had been adopted by the woman of 
 the house, and that its future fortunes would be his care. 
 
 " It will be happy for you if you can go through 
 life without ever seeing him or hearing of him," he said, 
 " and so may be spared the disgrace which your folly 
 has deserved." 
 
 She was too weak and ill to contend for a mother's 
 rights, and the maternal instinct moved her little for 
 a child whom she was bidden to consider an embodied 
 shame. She went back to the Palace at Southminster 
 crushed and heart-broken ; yet she bore herself through- 
 out the painful crisis of that home-going with a proud 
 silence, which paralysed the officious pity commonly 
 given to a penitent daughter. She knelt, pale and mute,
 
 H IRetrospect 365 
 
 at her father's feet, and bent her head under the hand 
 that trembled as it blessed her ; but no word of repent- 
 ance passed her lips. That attitude of submission was 
 her only acknowledgment of her sin. Her dignity 
 in sorrow impressed the Bishop more than the most 
 passionate demonstrations of remorse. It was a year 
 since he had looked upon her face, and he told himself 
 that she was lovelier in her sorrowful womanhood 
 than ever she had been in the gladness of unsullied 
 youth, and that, if her secret were but faithfully kept, 
 she might still attain the proud position he had reckoned 
 upon as the price of her beauty. 
 
 It was three years after her return that, by her brother's 
 influence — the influence of a man born for intrigue — 
 the Bishop's daughter was offered the post of maid- 
 of-honour to the new Queen, an offer which was perhaps 
 inspired by the rumour of his lordship's Papistical 
 inclinations. She would have refused a position so 
 conspicuous, and one in which she must needs meet 
 the beloved enemy whose falsehood had blighted her 
 life ; but her father and her brother were equally 
 insistent upon her acceptance of the proffered honour ; 
 and Ralph, who was now frequently at Whitehall, 
 assured her of a fraternal guardianship that would 
 render Buckingham's approach impossible. 
 
 '* If you meet him — and it may be impossible to avoid 
 such a meeting — it will be in the broad light of the 
 Court, and you will meet as strangers." 
 
 They did so meet, some half-dozen times before 
 the murder at Portsmouth, and looked at each other 
 with marble countenances and passionately beating 
 hearts ; but they never touched hands again, or spoke 
 words of love, or grief, or pardon. 
 
 Her marriage, which occurred a year after Buckingham's 
 death, was a surprise to the Court, and a disappoint- 
 ment to the Bishop and his son. After refusing 
 alliances of the highest mark, which would have furthered 
 their ambitious schemes, she chose Lord Llanbister, a 
 widower, of grave disposition and deportment, and old
 
 366 3n 1btab BMaces 
 
 enough to be her father, having discovered in him a 
 generous and sympathetic nature, and being able to 
 confess to him, as she could have done to no other of 
 her suitors, the sorrow and the shame of her first love. 
 He had cherished her but the more fondly after the 
 anguish of that humiliating confession, and had been 
 grateful for the tender regard which her confidence 
 indicated.
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 Time makes but little change in gardens whose verdure 
 is the growth of centuries, whose fashion dates from a 
 day long dead ; and the years between 1645 ^^^ ^^S7> 
 which changed the government of England and the 
 manners of Englishmen, made no perceptible difference 
 in the old house at Isleworth, or the river that rippled 
 past its lawns and parterres. April and May showed 
 choicer tulips in \hosQ. parterres, and some young cedars 
 of Lebanon had been planted on the lawn, at the 
 advice of Mr. Evelyn ; otherwise the garden in the 
 year 1657 was very much the garden George remembered 
 when his foot first touched the springy turf and his 
 eyes first beheld Geraldine's girlish figure and flying 
 hair. 
 
 Another Geraldine tossed her shuttlecock towards 
 the blue sky — a smaller Geraldine, whose flying hair 
 was of a brighter gold, and who had but lately cele- 
 brated her eighth birthday with a feast for the village 
 children, and — tell it not in the austere society of 
 Whitehall — a May-pole dance upon the lawn. Nor 
 was this eight-years maiden in undisturbed possession 
 of her garden kingdom, though, by right of superior 
 years, she had a certain despotic power. Masters 
 George and Charles, both active and clamorous, though 
 George was but three years old, gave old Nurse Hillyer, 
 and Mistress Betty, still a spinster, all the trouble that 
 high-spirited and healthful childhood could give to its 
 guardians. 
 
 England was at peace within its borders and powerful 
 among the nations. The Protector reigned at Whitehall, 
 
 367
 
 368 Sn iblQb places 
 
 with a certain dogged tyranny which made London 
 a dull city, but ensured comfort of a humdrum sort 
 to the citizens, so long as they were content to forego 
 the Liturgy of the Church in which most of them had 
 been reared, and to abstain from bear-baiting, theatres, 
 cockpits, and other once-familiar pleasures. 
 
 It was a dull England assuredly to which George 
 Mountain and Geraldine, his wife (married at the chapel 
 of the Embassy in Paris, on the Feast of St. John the 
 Baptist, in the year '45), returned with their daughter, 
 and an infant son, after six years of delightful wander- 
 ings in southern France and Italy — from Montpelier 
 to Naples — always in the company of that beloved 
 friend and benefactress who shared every joy and sorrow 
 of their young lives. 
 
 George Mountain had given his allegiance to the 
 warrior-statesman who ruled England — not the less 
 deploring that unpardonable tragedy at Whitehall, but 
 too little attached to the monarchical form of govern- 
 ment to set his face against a ruler who had made 
 England prosperous, and had kept within the limits 
 of constitutional law. A varied experience at foreign 
 Courts, and intercourse with the chosen spirits of great 
 cities, had educated him in the philosophy of life and 
 the policy of nations ; and he entered the arena of public 
 affairs better equipped for success than one man in a 
 hundred who offers himself for election. He sat in 
 Cromwell's third parliament as one of the Members 
 for Middlesex, and soon rose to parliamentary distinction, 
 and to an important post in the administration of foreign 
 affairs, which brought him into close relations with 
 Mr. Secretary Milton. In the year '56 he received 
 the honour of knighthood from the Protector, and, as 
 Sir George Mountain, became a personage of weight and 
 authority in the country, bearing a name that ranked 
 with the best names in the Republic. 
 
 For the titular King of England, that out-at-elbows, 
 pleasure-loving wanderer in the Netherlands, George 
 Mountain had but scanty reverence, having been too 
 familiar with that Royal exile's manner of life and
 
 Eptlogue 369 
 
 mode of thinking ; but he was careful to utter no word 
 which could vex his dear Lady Llanbister, who main- 
 tained an occasional correspondence with Henrietta 
 Maria, and who hoped to see the King established in 
 his rights, than which establishment nothing seemed 
 more improbable in the year '57, since the country had 
 accepted a Republican government with a steadfast 
 adherence which promised to be as permanent as the 
 English soil. Liberties attained by such rugged and 
 painful paths, at such sacrifice of men and treasure, 
 would scarcely be surrendered for a sentiment of loyalty to 
 an unknown youth, whose highest claim to the affection 
 of Englishmen was his descent from those ancient 
 Scottish kings with whom England's rulers had been 
 ever at war. 
 
 George, who looked deeper into things than most 
 people, saw the possibility of change in a government 
 which, despite all show of liberty, hung on the life of 
 one bold despot ; and when the Restoration came he was 
 content to withdraw into private life — that blissful tran- 
 quillity of a home where love reigns supreme — and to 
 await the hour when his services might be demanded 
 under the new order. Nor was it long before the want 
 of that clear brain and cosmopolitan experience was felt 
 at the Foreign Office — and Sir George Mountain was 
 again in harness when the Triple Alliance was signed. 
 He was in favour with Clarendon and Albemarle — but 
 he was out of favour at Court, because of a churlish 
 disposition which made him withhold his handsome 
 wife and daughter from the festivities of a Palace where 
 Barbara Palmer reigned as Sultana, and where the 
 Queen's ladies were more famous by reason of their 
 adventures than renowned for their virtues. 
 
 His political career having only begun in '54, Sir 
 George Mountain stood clear of all association with the 
 enemies of the martyred King ; but the fact that he had 
 served Cromwell with distinction, and that he preferred 
 the unfashionable neighbourhood of Aldersgate to the 
 Piazza, and the rusticity of Isleworth to the gaiety of 
 Hampton Court, won him the reputation of a Puritan, 
 
 24
 
 370 3n fbiQb places 
 
 although his womenkind were strict adherents to the 
 Roman Catholic religion, and had their private chapel 
 and chaplain. 
 
 And if anybody inquired who was this Sir George 
 Mountain who had married Llanbister's heiress, and 
 upon whom Lady Llanbister had settled the bulk of 
 her estate, it was answered casually that he was one of 
 the Brewer's new men. The want of ancestors counted 
 for little in a man who had risen to eminence under 
 the Usurper Cromwell. 
 
 Sir George was not a man of many friends ; but those 
 whom he admitted to the happy circle in Aldersgate 
 Street and at Isleworth were among the choicest spirits 
 of the age. The friend most cherished, and ever certain 
 of being warmly welcomed — let him appear as often or 
 as suddenly as he chose — was the debonnaire gentleman 
 who found the nameless child on Southsea Common, 
 and on whose high spirits and happy-go-lucky temper 
 neither the passing years nor the change of governments 
 made any impression. 
 
 George's children called him Uncle, and adored him. 
 He was the boys' godfather, and chief instructor in all 
 manly arts, and the girl's admiring slave. 
 
 Once only after his marriage did George and Madame 
 de Lussac meet face to face. It was at a ball at the 
 French Ambassador's palace in Rome that he saw her 
 shining like a star among the most brilliant figures in 
 that patrician crowd. De Lussac's death, slain in a 
 savage duel with one of his mahogany-faced Circe's 
 vulgar admirers, had released the Marchesa from a 
 hateful bond, and she had exchanged Paris, where her 
 foes outnumbered her friends, for the Eternal City, where 
 she received all the honour due to princely birth and 
 powerful alliances. If she was not as rich as people 
 thought her, on the evidence of jewels that queens 
 might envy, she was to the last able to live in un- 
 diminished splendour, and to keep her creditors at bay. 
 
 There was weeping and gnashing of teeth among the
 
 JEpiloaue 371 
 
 purveyors and usurers of Rome after this lady's death, 
 which happened with appalling suddenness at a card- 
 table in the Doria Palace, the worn-out heart swooning 
 in a fatal syncope, amidst the buzz and gaiety of 
 a crowded assembly. Nor was the sorrow of her 
 creditors unmixed with indignation when they dis- 
 covered that the jewels which had startled Rome by 
 their magnificence had never belonged to the wearer, 
 but were a loan from Cardinal Mazarin, then an exile 
 at Bruhl, to whom they were carried by Madame de 
 Lussac's white-headed old chamberlain, Signor Paolo, 
 attended by a Papal guard.
 
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 I Jiii