1 
 
 i 
 
y <.it-' K- 
 
 PHANTOM FORT-UNE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. ' r' 
 
 PENELOPE. 
 
 People dined earlier forty years ago than they do now. Even 
 the salt of the earth, the elect of society, represented by that 
 little great world which lies within the narrow circle bounded 
 by Bryanstone Square on the north and by Birdcage walk on 
 the south, did not consider seven o'clock too early an hour for 
 a dinner party, which was to be followed by rorts, drums, con- 
 certs, conversazione, as the case might be. It was seven o'clock 
 on a lovely June evening, and the Park was already deserted, 
 and carriages were rolling sv/iftly along all those West End 
 streets, and through the West End squares, carrying rank, fashion, 
 wealth and beauty, political influence and intellectual power, to 
 the particular circle in \vhich each was destined to shine upon 
 that particular evening. Stateliest among London squares, 
 Grosvenor, in some wise a wonder to the universe as newly 
 lighted with gas, grave Grosvenor, with its heavy old Georgian 
 houses, and pompous entrances, sparkled and shone, not alone 
 with the novel splendor of gas, but with the light of many wax 
 candles, clustering flower-like in silver branches and girandoles, 
 multiplying their flame in numerous mirrors ; and of all tlie 
 houses in that stately square none had a more imposing figuie 
 than Lord Denyer's dark-red brick mansion, with stone dress- 
 ings, and the solidity of an Egyptian mausoleum. 
 
 Lord Denyer was an important personage in the political and 
 diplomatic world. He had been embassador at Constantinople 
 and at Paris, and had now retired on his laurels, an influence 
 still, but no longer an active power in the machine of govern- 
 ment. At his house gathered all that was most brilliant in Lon- 
 don society. To be seen at Lady Denyer's evening parties was 
 the guinea stamp of social distinction ; to dine with Lord Den- 
 yer was an opening in life, almost as valuable as University 
 honors, and more difficult of attainment. 
 
4 FIJANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 It was during the quarter of an hox^r before dinner that a group 
 of persons, mostly of prominent social position, congregated 
 round Lord Denyer's hearthrug, naturally trending towards the 
 social hearth, albeit it was the season of roses and lilies rather 
 than of fires, and the hum of the city was floating m upon the 
 breath of the warm June evening through the five tall windows 
 which opened upon Lord Denyer's balcony. 
 
 The ten or twelve persons assembled seemed only a sprink- 
 ling in the large lofty room, furnished sparsely with amber satin 
 sofas, a pair of Florentine marble tables, and half an acre or so 
 of looking-glass. Voluminous amber draperies shrouded the 
 windows, and deadened the sound of rolling wheels, and the 
 voice and murmur of western London. The drawing-rooms of 
 those days were neither artistic nor picturesque — neither early 
 English nor low Dutch, nor Renaissance, nor Anglo-Japanese. A 
 stately commonplace distinguished the reception-rooms of the 
 great world. Upholstery stagnated at a dead level of fluted legs, 
 gikhng, plate glass, and amber satin. 
 
 Lady Denyer stood a little way in advance of the group on 
 the hearthrug, fanning herself, with her eye on the door, while 
 she listened languidly to the remarks of a youthful Secretary of 
 Legation, a sprig of a lordly tree, upon the last debut at Her 
 Majesty's Theater. 
 
 *' My own idea was that she screamed,'* said her Ladyship. 
 " But the new Rosin as generally do scream. Why do we have 
 a new Rosin a every year, whom nobody ever hears of after- 
 wards ? What becomes of them ? Do they die, or do they set 
 up as singing mistresses m second-rate watering-places ? " haz- 
 arded her Ladyship, with her eyes always on the door. 
 
 She was a large woman in amethyst satin, and a gauze turban 
 with a diamond aigrette, a splendid jewel which would not have 
 misbeseemed the head-gear of an Indian prince. Lady Denyer 
 was one of the last women who wore a turban, and that Oriental 
 head-dress became her bgld and massive features. 
 
 Jntinitely bored by the whiskerless attache, who had entered 
 upon a disquisition on the genius of Rossini as compared with 
 this new man Meyerbeer, her Ladyship made believe to hear, 
 while she listened intently to the confidential murmurs of the 
 group on the hearth-rug, the little knot of personages clustered 
 round Lord Denver. 
 
 " Indian mail in this morning:," said one. " nothing else talked 
 of at the clubs. A flagrant case, almost as bad as Warren 
 Hastings. Quite clear there must be a public inquiry — House 
 of Lords — criminal prosecution." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 5 
 
 " I was told, on very good authority, that he has been re- 
 called, and is now on his passage home," said another man. 
 
 Lord Denyer shrugged his shoulders, pursed up his lips and 
 looked ineffably wise, a way he had when he knew very little 
 about the subject under discussion. 
 
 " How will she take it, do you think .? " inquired Colonel 
 Madison, of the Life Guards, a man about town and an inveter- 
 ate gossip, who knew everybody and everybody's history, down 
 to the very peccadilloes of their great-grandmothers. 
 
 " You have an opportunity of judging," replied his Lordship, 
 coolly ; " she's to be here this evening." 
 
 " But do you think she'll show ? " asked the Colonel. " The 
 mail must have brought the news to her as well as to other peo- 
 ple — supposing she knew nothing of it beforehand. She must 
 know that the storm has burst. Do you think she'll — " 
 
 " Come out in the thunder and lightning ! " interrupted Lord 
 Denyer ; "I'm sure she will. She has the pride of Lucifer and 
 the courage of a lion. Five to one in ponies that she is here 
 before the clock strikes seven." 
 
 " I think you're right. I knew her mother, Constance Tal- 
 mash. Pluck was a family characteristic with the Talmashes. 
 Wiched as devils and brave as lions Old Talmash, the grand- 
 father, shot his valet in a paroxysm of delirium tremens," said 
 Colonel Madison. " She's a splendid woman, and she won't 
 flinch. I'd rather back her than bet against her." 
 
 " Lady Maulevrier ! " announced the groom of the chambers, 
 and Lady Denyer moved at least three paces forward to meet 
 her guest. 
 
 The lady who entered with slow and stately movements and 
 proudly balanced head might have served as a model for Juno 
 or the Empress Livia. She was still in the bloom of youth, at 
 most seven and twenty, but she had all the calm assurance of 
 middle age. No dowager, hardened by the varied experiences 
 of a quarter of a century in the great world, could have faced soci- 
 ety wath more perfect coolness and self-possession. She was 
 beautiful, and she let the world see that she was conscious of her 
 beauty and the power that went along with it. She was clever, 
 and she used her cleverness with unfailing tact and unscrupur 
 lous audacity. She had won her place in the world as an ac- 
 knowledged beauty and one of the leaders of fashion. Two 
 years ago she had been the glory and delight of Anglo-Indian 
 society in the city of Madras, ruling that remote and limited 
 kingdom with a despotic power. Then all of a sufiden she was 
 ordered, or she ordered her physician to order her, an immediate 
 
6 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 departure from that perilous climate, and she came back to 
 England wiih her three-year-old son, two Ayahs, and four Euro- 
 pean servants, leaving her husband, Lord Maulevrier, Governor 
 of the Madras Presidency, to finish the terms of his service in 
 an enforced widowhood. 
 
 She returned to be the delight of London society. She threw 
 open the family mansion in Curzon Street to the very best peo- 
 ple, but to those only. She went out a good deal, but she was 
 never seen ar a second-rate party. She had not a single doubt- 
 ful acquaintance upon her visiting list. She spent half of every 
 year at the family seat on the Scottish border, was a miracle of 
 goodness to the poor of her parish, and taught her boy his al- 
 phabet. 
 
 Lord Denver came forward while his wife and Lady Maule- 
 vrier were shaking hands, and greeted her with more than his 
 usual cordiality. Colonel Madison watched for the privilege of 
 a recognizing nod from the divinity. Sir Jasper Paulet, a legal 
 luminary of the first brilliancy, likely to be employed for the 
 government if there should be an inquiry into Lord Maulevrier's 
 conduct out yonder, came to press Lady Maulevrier's hand and 
 murmur a tender welcome. 
 
 She accepted their friendliness as a matter of course, and not 
 by the faintest extra quiver of the tremulous stars which glittered 
 in a circlet above her raven hair did she betray her conscious- 
 ness of the cloud that darkened her husband's reputation. 
 Never had see appeared gayer, or more completely satisfied 
 with herself and the wor*ld in which she lived. She was ready 
 to talk about anything and everything — the newly-wedded 
 queen, and the fortunate prince, whose existence among us had 
 all the charm of novelty — of Lord Melbourne's declining health 
 — and Sir Robert Peel's sliding scale — mesmerism — the latest 
 balloon ascent — the opera — Macready's last production at Drury 
 Lane and Ikilwer's new novel. 
 
 Seated next Lord Denyer, who was an excellent listener, Lady 
 Maulevrier's vivacity never flagged throughout the dinner, hap- 
 pily not so long as a modern banquet, albeit more ponderous 
 and not less expensive. From the turtle to the pines and straw- 
 berries, Lady Maulevrier held her host or her right-hand 
 neighbor in interested conversation. She always knew the par- 
 ticular subjects likely to interest particular pe^ople, and was a 
 good listener as well as a good talker. Her right hand neigh- 
 bor was Sir Jasper Paulet, who had been allotted to the pompous 
 wife of a Court physician, a lady who had begun her married life 
 in the outer darkness of John Street, Bloomsbury, with a house- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 7 
 
 hold consisting of a maid-of-all-work and a boy in buttons, with 
 an occasional interregnum of charwoman ; and for whom all 
 the length and breadth of Harley Street was now much too 
 small. 
 
 Sir Jasper was only decently civil to this haughty matron, who 
 on the strength of a card for a ball or a concert at the palace 
 once in a season affected to be on the most intimate terms with 
 royalty, and knew every thing that happened, and every fluctu- 
 ation of opinion in that charmed circle. The great lawyer's 
 left ear was listening greedily for any word of meaning that 
 might fall from the lips of Lady Maulevrier ; but no such word 
 fell. She talked delightfully, with a touch-and-go vivacity which 
 is the highest form of tiinner-table talk, not dwelling with a 
 heavy hand upon any one subject, but glancing from theme to 
 theme with airy lightness. But not one word did she say about 
 the Governor of Madras ; and at this juncture of affairs it would 
 have been the worst possible taste to inquire too closely after 
 the nobleman's welfare. 
 
 So the dinner wore on to its stately c^ose, and just as the 
 solemn procession of flunkeys, long as the shadowy line of the 
 kings in Macbeth, filed off with the empty ice-dishes. Lady 
 Maulevrier said something which was as if a shell had exploded 
 in the middle of the table. 
 
 " Perhaps you are surprised to see me in such good spirits," 
 she said, beaming upon her host, and speaking in those clear, 
 perfectly finished syllables which are heard further than the 
 louder accents of less polished speakers, " but you will not 
 wonder when I let you into the secret. Maulevrier is on his 
 way home." 
 
 " Indeed," said Lord Denyer, with the most benignant smile 
 he could command at such short notice. He felt that his orbic- 
 ular muscles and the corners of his mouth were betraying too 
 much of his real sentiments. " You must be very glad." 
 
 " I am gladder than I can say," answered Lady Maulevriei 
 gayly. " That horrid climate— a sky like molten copper— an 
 atmosphere that tastes of red-hot sand — that flat, barren coast 
 never suited him. His term of office would expire in a little more 
 than a year. However, I am happy to say the mail that came 
 in to-day — I suppose you know the mail is in?" (Lord Denyer 
 bowed) — " brought me a letter from his Lordship, telling me that 
 he has sent in his resignation and taken his passage by the next 
 big ship that leaves Madras. I imagine he will be home in 
 October." 
 
 " If he have a favorable passage," said Lord Denyer. "Fav- 
 
8 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE, 
 
 ored by your good wishes the winds and waves ought to deal 
 gently with him," 
 
 "Ah, we have done with the old days of Greek story, when 
 Poseidon was open to feminine influence," sighed her ladyship. 
 " My poor Ulysses has no goddess of wisdom to look after him." 
 
 ''Perhaps not, but he has the most charming of Penelopes 
 waiting for him at home." 
 
 " A Penelope who goes to dinners and takes life pleasantly 
 in his absence. That is a new order of things, is it not } " 
 said her Ladyship, laughingly. " I hope my poor Ulysses will 
 not come home thoroughly broken in health, but that our Suther- 
 landshire breezes will set him up again." 
 
 " Rather an ordeal after India, I should think," said Lord 
 Denyer. 
 
 *' It is his native air. He will revel in it." 
 
 *' Delicious country, no doubt," assented his Lordship, who 
 was no sportsman, and who detested Scotland, grouse moors, 
 deer forests, salmon rivers included. 
 
 His only idea of a Winter residence was Florence or Capri, 
 and of the two he preferred Capri. The island was at that time 
 little frequented by Englishmen. It had hardly been fashion- 
 able since the time of Tiberius, but Lord Denyer went there, 
 accompanied by his French chef and a dozen other servants, 
 and roughed it in the native hotel, while Lady Denyer wintered 
 at the family seat among the hills near Bath, and gave herself 
 over to Low Church devotion and works of benevolence. She 
 made herself a terror to the neighborhood by the strictness of 
 her ideas all through the Autumn and vVinter ; and in the Spring 
 she went up to London, put on her turban and her diamonds, 
 and plunged into the vortex of West End society, where she 
 revolved among other diamonded matrons for the season, telling 
 herself and her intimates that this sacrifice of inclination was 
 due to his Lordship's position. Lady Denyer was not the less 
 serious-minded because she was seen at every aristocratic resort, 
 and wore low gowns with very short sleeves and a great display 
 of mottled arm and dimpled elbow. 
 
 Now came her ladyship's smiling signal for the withdrawal of 
 that fairer half of the assembly which was supposed to be indif- 
 ferent to Lord Denver's famous port and Madeira. She had 
 been throwing out her gracious signals unperceived for at least 
 five minutes before Lady Maulevrier responded, so entirely was 
 that lady absorbed in her conversation with Lord Denyer ; but 
 she caught the look at last, and rose as if moved by the same 
 machinery which impelled her hostess, and then, graceful as a 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 9 
 
 swan sailing with the current, she drifted down the room to the 
 distant door, and headed the stately procession of matronly vel- 
 vet and diamonds, herself at once the most regal and the most 
 graceful figure in that bevy of matrons. 
 
 In the drawing-room nobody could be gayer than La<dy Mau- 
 levrier, as she marked the time of Signor Paponizzi's tarantella, 
 exquisitely performed on the signer's famed Amati violin, or 
 talked of the latest scandal — always excepting that latest scan- 
 dal of all which involved her own husband — in subdued murmurs 
 with one of her intimates. In the dinmg-room the men drew closer 
 together over their wine, and tore Lord Maulevrier's character 
 to rags. Yea, they rent him with their teeth and gnawed the 
 flesh from his bones, until there was not so much left of him as 
 the dogs left of Jezebel. 
 
 He had been a scamp from his cradle, a spendthrift and a 
 cheat at Eton and Oxford, a blackleg in his manhood. Clever, 
 yes, undoubtedly, just as Satan is clever, and as unscrupulous as 
 that very Satan. This is what his friends said of him over their 
 wine. And now he was rumored to have sold the British forces 
 in the Carnatic provinces to one of the native princes. Yes, to 
 have taken gold, gold to an amount which Clive in his most 
 rapacious moments never dreamt of, for his country's blood. 
 Tidings of dark transactions between the Governor and native 
 princes had reached the ears of the government ; tidings so 
 vague, so incredible, that the government might naturally be 
 slow to believe, still slower to act. There were whispers of a 
 woman's influence, a wicked Indian princess, a creature as fas- 
 cinating and as unscrupulous as Cleopatra. The scandal had 
 been growing for months past, but it was only in the letters 
 received to-day that the rumor had taken a tangible shape, and 
 now it was currently reported that Lord Maulevrier had been 
 recalled, and he would have to answer at the bar of the House 
 of Lords for his misdemeanors, just as Warren Hastings 
 had done at the bar of the House of Commons, and with far less 
 chance of escape. 
 
 Yet, in the face of all this. Lady Maulevrier bore herself as 
 proudly as if her husband's name were spotless, and talked of 
 his return with all the ardor of a fond and trusting wife. 
 
 " One of the finest bits of acting I ever saw in my life," said 
 the court physician. " Mademoiselle Mars never did anything 
 better." 
 
 " Do you really think it w^as acting ? " inquired Lord Denyer, 
 affecting a youthful candor and trustfulness which at his age and 
 with his experience he could hardly be supposed to possess. 
 
10 PHANTOM FORTtlNE. 
 
 " I know it," replied the doctor. " I watched her while she 
 was talking of Maulevrier, and I saw just one bead of perspira- 
 tion break out on her upper lip — an unmistakable sign of the 
 mental struggle." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ULYSSES. 
 
 October was ending drearily with northwest winds, dust, drift- 
 ing dead leaves, and a steel-gray sky, and the Dolphin Hotel at 
 Southampton was glorified by the presence of Lady Maulevrier 
 and suite. Her Ladyship's suite was on this occasion limited to 
 three servants — her French maid, a footman and a kind of fac- 
 totum, a man of no distinct and arbitrary signification in her 
 Ladyship's household, neither butler nor steward, but that privi- 
 leged being, an old and trusted servant, and a person who was 
 supposed to enjoy more of Lady Maulevrier's confidence than 
 any other member of her establishment. 
 
 This James Steadman had been valet to her Ladyship's father, 
 Lord Peverill, during the declining years of that nobleman. The 
 narrow limits of a sick-room had brought the master and servant 
 into a closer companionship than is common to that relation. 
 Lady Diana Angersthorpe was a devoted daughter, and in her 
 attendance upon the Earl during the last three years of his life 
 — a life which closed more than a year before her own marriage 
 — she saw a great deal of James Steadman and learned to trust 
 him as servants are not often trusted. He was not more than 
 twenty years of age at the beginning of his service, but he was 
 a man of extraordinary gravity, much in advance of his years ; a 
 man of shrewd common sense and clear, sharp intellect. Not a 
 reading man, or a man in any way superior to his station and 
 belongings, but a man who could think quickly and understand 
 quickly, and who always seemed to think rightly. Prompt in 
 action, yet steady as a rock, and to all appearance recognizing 
 no earthly interest, no human tie beyond or above the interests 
 of his master. As a nurse, Steadman showed himself invaluable. 
 Lord Peverill left him a hundred pounds in acknowledgment 
 of his services, which was something for Lord Peverill, who had 
 very little ready cash wherewith to endow his only daughter. 
 After his death the title and estates went to a distant cousin, and 
 Lady Diana Angersthorpe was taken in hand by her aunt, the 
 
PIIA NTOM FOR TUNE. 1 1 
 
 Dowager Marchioness of Carrisbrook, and james Steadman 
 would have had to find employment among strangers if Lady 
 Diana had not pleaded so urgently with her as to secure him a 
 somewhat insignificant post in her Ladyship's establishment. 
 
 " If ever I have a house of my own, you shall have a better 
 place in it, Steadman," said Lady Diana. 
 
 She kept her word, and on her marriage with Maulevrier, 
 which happened about eighteen months afterward, Steadman 
 passed into that nobleman's service. He was a member of her 
 Ladyship's body-guard, and his employment seemed to consist 
 chiefly in poking fires, cutting the leaves of books and news- 
 papers, superintending the footman's attendance upon her Lady- 
 ship's household pets, and conveying her sentiments to the other 
 servants. He was in a manner Lady Maulevrier's mouthpiece, 
 and although treated with a respect that verged upon awe, he 
 was not a favorite with the other servants. 
 
 And now^ the house in May Fair was given over to the charge 
 of caretakers, and all the other servants had been dispatched by 
 coach to her Ladyship's favorite retreat in Westmoreland, within 
 a few miles of the Laureate's home at Rydal Mount, and James 
 Steadman was charged with the whole responsibility of her Lady- 
 ship's traveling arrangements. 
 
 Penelope had come to Southampton to wait for Ulysses, whose 
 ship had been due for more than a week, and whose white sails 
 might be expected above the horizon at any moment. James 
 Steadman spent a good deal of his time waiting about at the 
 docks for the earliest news of Greene's ship, the Hypermnestra, 
 while Lady Maulevrier waited patiently in her sitting-room at the 
 Dolphin, whose three long French windows commanded a view 
 of the High Street, with all those various distractions afforded 
 by the chief thoroughfare of a provincial town. Her Ladyship 
 was provided with a large box ot books from Ebers's in Bond 
 Street, a basket of fancy work, and her favorite Blenheim span- 
 iel, Lalla Rookh ; but even these sources of amusement did not 
 prevent the involuntary expression of weariness in occasional 
 yawns, and frequent pacings up and down the long empty room, 
 where the formal hotel furniture had a comfortless and chilly 
 look. 
 
 Fellside, her Ladyship's place in Westmoreland, was the pleas- 
 ure house which, among all her possessions, she most valued ; 
 but it had hitherto been reserved for Summer occupation, or for 
 perhaps two or three weeks at Easter, when the Spring was ex- 
 ceptionally fine. The sudden determination to spend the Winter 
 in the house near Grasmere was considered a curious freak of 
 
1 2 PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier's, and she was constrained to explain her mo- 
 tives to her friends. 
 
 " His Lordship is out of health," she said, " and wants perfect 
 health and retirement. Now, Fellside is the only place we have 
 in which he is likely to get perfect rest. T^ny where else we 
 should have to entertain. Fellside is out of the world. There 
 is no one to be entertained." 
 
 " Except your neighbor, Wordsworth. I suppose you see him 
 sometimes ? " 
 
 " Dear simple-minded old soul, he gives nobody any trouble," 
 said her Ladyship. 
 
 " But is not Westmoreland very cold in Winter ? " asked her 
 friend. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier smiled benignly, as at inoffensive ignorance. 
 
 "So sheltered," she murmured. "We are at the base of the 
 fell. Loughrigg rises up like a cyclopean wall between us and 
 the wind." 
 
 " But when the wind is in the other direction ? " 
 
 " We have Nabb Scar. You do not know how we are girdled 
 and defended by hills." 
 
 " Very pleasant," agreed the friend ; " but for my own part 
 I would rather Winter in the South." 
 
 Those terrible rumors which had first come upon the world of 
 London last June had been growing darker and more defined 
 ever since, but still Lady Maulevrier made believe to ignore 
 them ; and she acted her part of unconsciousness with such con- 
 summate skill that nobody in her circle could be sure where the 
 acting began and where the ignorance left off. The astute 
 Lord Denyer declared that she was a wonderful woman, and 
 knew more about the real state of the case than anybody else. 
 
 Meanwhile it was said by those who were supposed to be well 
 informed that a startling mass of evidence was accumulating 
 against Lord Maulevrier. The India House, it was rumored, 
 was busy with the secret investigation of his case, prior to that 
 ])ublic inquiry which was to come on during the next session. 
 His private fortune would be made answerable for his misdemean- 
 ors — his life, said the alarmists, might pay the penalty of his 
 treason. On all sides it was agreed that the case against Lord 
 Maulevrier looked as black as Erebus ; and still Lady Maule- 
 vrier looked society in the face with an unshaken courage, and 
 was ready with smiles and gracious word for all comers. 
 
 And now came a harder trial, which was to receive the man 
 who had disgraced her, lowered her pride to the dust, degraded 
 the name she bore. She had married him, not loving him— ' 
 
r n A NTOM FORTUNE. 13 
 
 nay, plucking another love out of her heart in order that she 
 might give herself to him. She had married him for position 
 and fortune, and now by his follies, by his extravagance and by 
 that greed of gold which is the natural result of the spendthrift's 
 habits, he had gone near to cheat her out of both name and 
 fortune. Yet she so commanded herself as to receive him with 
 a friendly air when he arrived at the Dolphin on a dull gray 
 Autumn afternoon, after she had waited for him nearly a fort- 
 night. 
 
 James Steadman ushered in his Lordship, a frail, attenuated 
 looking figure, of middle height, wrapped in a furred cloak, yet 
 shivering, a pale sickly face, light auburn whiskers, light blue eyes, 
 full and large, but with no intellectual power in them. Lady 
 Maulevrier was sitting by the fire, in a melancholy attitude, with 
 the Blenheim spaniel on her lap. Her son was at Hastings with 
 his nurses. She had nothing nearer and dearer than the span- 
 iel. 
 
 She rose and went over to her husband, and let him kiss her. It 
 would have been too much to say that she kissed ; but she sub- 
 mitted her lips unresistingly to his, and they sat down on oppo- 
 site sides of the hearth. 
 
 "A wretched afternoon," said his Lordship, shivering, and 
 drawing his chair closer to the hre. Steadman had taken away 
 his fur-lined cloak. " I had really underrated the disagreeable- 
 ness of the English climate. It is abominable." 
 
 " To-day is not a fair sample," answered her Ladyship, trying 
 to be cheerful. " We have had some pleasant Autumn days." 
 
 " I detest Autumn ! " exclaimed Lord Maulevrier, "a season 
 of dead leaves, damp and dreariness. I should like to get away 
 to the south of France as soon as we can." 
 
 Her Ladyship gave him a scathing look, half scornful, half in- 
 credulous. 
 
 " You surely would not dream of leaving the country," she 
 said, " under present circumstances. So long as you are here 
 to answer all charges no one will interfere with your liberty, but 
 if you were to cross the Channel — " 
 
 " My slanderers might insinuate that I was running away," 
 interrupted Maulevrier, " although the very fact of my return 
 ought to prove to every one that I am able to meet and face 
 this cabal." ' 
 
 " Is it a cabal ? " asked her Ladyship, looking at him with a 
 gaze that searched his soul. " Can you meet their charges ? 
 Can you live down this hideous accusation, and hold up your 
 head as a man of honor ? " 
 
14 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 The sensualist's blue eyes nervously shunned that look of 
 earnest interrogation. His lips answered the wife's spoken 
 question with a lie, a lie made manifest by the expression of his 
 countenance. 
 
 " I am not afraid," he said. 
 
 His wife answered not a word. She was assured that the 
 charges were true, and that the battered rake who shivered over 
 the fire had neither courage nor ability to face his accusers. 
 She saw the whole fabric of her life in ruins, her son the penni- 
 less successor to a tarnished name. There was silence for some 
 minutes. Lady Maulevrier sat with lowered eyelids looking at 
 the fire, deep in painful thought. Two perpendicular wrinkles 
 upon her broad white forehead — so calm, so unclouded in so- 
 ciety — told of gnawing cares. When she stole a look at her 
 husband, as he reclined in his arm chair, his head lying back 
 against the cushions in listless repose, his eyes looking vacantly 
 toward the wdndow, whence he could see only the rain-blurred 
 front of opposite houses, blank, dull windows, gray slated roofs, 
 against a gray sky. 
 
 He had been a handsome man, and he was handsome still, 
 albeit premature decay, the result of a dissipated, evil life, was 
 distinctly marked in his faded face. The dull yellow tint of the 
 complexion, the tarnished dimness of the large blue eyes, the 
 discontented droop of the lips, the languor of the attitude, the 
 pallid transparency of the wasted hands, all told of a life worn 
 threadbare, energies exhausted, chances thrown away, a mind 
 abandoned to despair. 
 
 " You look very ill," said his wife, after that long, blank inter- 
 val, which marked so unnatural an apathy between husband and 
 wife, meeting after so long a severance. 
 
 " I am very ill. I liave been worried to death — surrounded 
 by rogues and liars— the victim of a most infernal conspiracy." 
 He spoke hurriedly, growing whiter and more tremulous as he 
 went on. 
 
 " Don't talk about it. You agitate yourself to no purpose," 
 said Lady Maulevrier, not unkindly, but with a tranquillity which 
 seemed to indicate supreme coldness, yet wdiich might be the 
 result of suppressed feeling. " If you are to face this scandal 
 firmly and boldly next January, 5'ou must try to recover physical 
 strength in the mean while. Mental energy may come with bet- 
 ter health." 
 
 "I shall never be any better," said Lord Maulevrier testily; 
 " that infernal climate has shattered my constitution." 
 
 " Two or three months of perfect rest and good nursing will 
 
PHANTOM FOR TONE. 15 
 
 make a new man of you. I liave arranged that we shall go 
 straight from here to Fellside. No one can plague you there 
 with that disguised maliciousness called sympathy. You can 
 give your thoughts to the ordeal before you, and be ready to meet 
 vour accusers. Fortunately, you have no Burke against you." 
 
 ''Fellside!" 
 
 " Yes. You know how fond I am of that place. I little 
 thought when you settled it upon me — a cottage in Westmore- 
 land with fifty acres of garden and meadow — so utterly insig- 
 nificant — that I should ever like it better than any of your 
 places." 
 
 " A charming retreat in Summer, but we have never wintered 
 there. What put it into your head to go there at such a season 
 as this ? Why, I dare say the snow is on the tops of the hills 
 already." 
 
 " It is the only place I know where you will not be watched 
 and talked about," replied Lady Maulevrier. " You will be out 
 of the eye of the world. I should think that consideration would 
 weigh more with you than two or three degrees of the thermom- 
 eter." 
 
 " I detest cold," said the Earl, *' and in my weak health — " 
 
 " We will take care of you," answered her Ladyship, and in 
 the discussion which followed she bore herself so firmly that her 
 husband was fain to give way. How could a disgraced and 
 ruined man, broken in health and spirits, contest the mere de- 
 tails of life with a resolute, high-spirited woman ten years his 
 junior. 
 
 The Earl wanted to go to London and remain there at least a 
 week, but this her ladyship strenuously opposed. He must see 
 his lawyer, he urged ; there were steps to be taken which could 
 be taken only under legal advice — counsel to be retained. If 
 this lying invention of Satan were really destined to take the 
 form of a public trial he must be prepared to fight his foes on 
 their own ground. 
 
 •' You can make all your preparations at Fellside," answered 
 his wife, resolutely. " I have seen Messrs. Rigby and Ryder, 
 and your own particular ally, Rigby, will go to you at Fellside 
 whinever you want him." 
 
 " That is not like being on the spot," said his Lordship, nen^- 
 ously, evidently much disconcerted by her Ladyship's firmness, 
 but too feeble in mind and body for a prolonged contest ; " I 
 ought to be on the spot. I am not without influence ; I have 
 friends, men in power." 
 
 " Surely you are not 2;oing to appeal to friendship in order to 
 
,6 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 vindicate your honor. These charges are true or false. If they 
 are false your own manhood, your own rectitude, can face them 
 and trample upon them, unaided by backstairs influence. If 
 they are true no man can help you." 
 
 " I think you, at least, ought to know that they are as false as 
 hell," retorted the Earl, with an attempt to maintain his dignity. 
 
 " I have acted as if I so believed," replied his wife, gravely. 
 "I have lived as if there were no such slander in the air. I 
 have steadily ignored every report, every insinuation — have 
 held my head as high as if I knew you w^ere immaculate." 
 
 " I expected as much from you," answered the Earl, coolly. 
 *' If I had not known you were a woman of sense I should not 
 have married you." 
 
 This was his utmost expression of gratitude. His next re- 
 mark had reference solely to his own comfort. Where were his 
 rooms, at what hour were they to dine ? And hereupon he rang 
 for his valet, a German Swiss, and a servant out of a thousand. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE WRONG ROAD. 
 
 Lord and Lady Maulevrier left Southampton next morning 
 posting. They took two servants in the rumble, Steadman 
 and the footman. Steadman was to valet his Lordship, the foot- 
 man to be useful in all emergencies of the journey. The maid 
 and the valet were to travel by heavy coach with the luggage — 
 her Ladyship dispensing v/ith all attendance during the journey. 
 
 The first day' took them to Rugby, whither they traveled 
 across country by Wallingford and Oxford. The second day 
 took them to Lichfield. Lord Maulevrier was out of health and 
 feeble, and grumbled a good deal about the fatigue of the journey, 
 the badness of the weather, which was dull and cold, east winds 
 all day, and a light frost morning and night. As they progressed 
 northward the sky looked grayer, the air became more biting. 
 His Lordship insisted upon the stages being shortened. He^ay 
 in bed at his hotel till noon, and was seldom ready to start till 
 two o'clock. He could see no reason for haste ; the Winter 
 would be long enough in all conscience at Fellside. He com- 
 plained of mysterious aches and pains, described himself in the 
 presence of hotel-keepers and head-waiters as a mass of mala- 
 dies. He was nervous, irritable, intensely disagreeable. Ladv 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 17 
 
 Maulevrier bore his humors with unwavering patience, and won 
 golden opinions from all sorts of people by her devotion to a 
 husband whose blighted name was the common talk of England. 
 Everybody, even in distant provincial towns, had heard of the 
 scandal against the governor of Madras ; and everybody looked 
 at the sallow-faced Anglo-Indian with morbid curiosity. His 
 Lordship, sensitive on all points touching his own ease and com- 
 fort, was keenly conscious of this unpleasant inquisitiveness. 
 The journey, protracted by Lord Maulevrier's languor and ill- 
 health, dragged its slow length along for nearly a fortnight, un- 
 til it seemed to Lady Maulevrier as if they had been traveling 
 upon those dismal, flat, unpicturesque roads for months. Each 
 day was so horribly like yesterday. The same hedgerows and 
 flat fields, and passing glimpse of river or canal. The same 
 absence of all beauty in the landscape — the same formal hotel 
 rooms and smirking landladies — and so on till they came to Lan- 
 caster, after which the country became more interesting — hills 
 arose in the background, even the smoky manufacturing towns 
 through which they passed without stopping were less abomina- 
 ble than the level respectability of the Midland counties. 
 
 But now as they drew nearer the hills the weather grew colder. 
 Snow was spoken of, and when they got into Westmoreland the 
 hill tops gleamed whitely against the leaden gray of the sk3\ 
 
 " You ought not to have brought me here in such weather,'* 
 complained the Earl, shivering in his furs, as he sat in his cor- 
 ner of the traveling chariot, looking discontentedly at the gloomy 
 landscape. " What is to become of us if we are caught in a 
 snowstorm ? " 
 
 " W^e shall have no snow worth talking about before we are 
 safely housed at Fellside, and then we can defy the elements," 
 said Lady Maulevrier coolly. 
 
 They slept that night at Oxenholme, and started next morning 
 under a clear, bright sky, intending to take luncheon at Winder- 
 mere and to be at home by nightfall. 
 
 But by the time they got to Windermere the sky had changed 
 to a dark gray, and the people at the hotel prophesied a heavy 
 fall before night, and urged the Earl and Countess to go no 
 further that day. The latter part of the road to Fellside was 
 rough and hilly. If there should be a snowstorm the horses 
 would never be able to drag the carriage up the steepest bit of 
 the way. Here, however, the Earl's obstinacy came into play.- 
 He would not drag out another night at a hotel so near his own 
 house. He was sick to death of traveling, and wanted to be at- 
 rest among comfortable surroundings. 
 
i8 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " It was murder to bring me here," he said to his wife " It 
 I had gone to Hastings I should have been a new man by this 
 time. As it is I am a great deal worse than when I landed." 
 
 Every one at the hotel noticed his Lordship's white and hag- 
 gard looks. He had been known there as a young man in the 
 "bloom of health and strength, and his decay was particularly ob- 
 vious to these people. 
 
 *' I saw death in his face," the landlord said, afterward. 
 
 Everything, even her Ladyship's firmness and good sense, 
 gave way before the invalid's impatience. At three in the after 
 noon they left the hotel, with four horses, to make the remainirj? 
 nineteen miles of the way in one stage. They had not been on 
 the road half an hour before the snow began to fall thickly, 
 whitening everything around them, except the lake, which showed 
 a dark leaden surface at the bottom of the slope along the ^d^'g<t 
 of which they were traveling. Too sullen for speech Lord 
 Maulevrier sat back in his corner, with his sable cloak drawn 
 up to his chin, his fur traveling cap covering head and eyes, his 
 eyes contemplating the whitening world with a weary anger. 
 His wife watched the landscape as long as she could, but the 
 snow soon began to darken all the air, and she could see noth- 
 mg but that blank blinding fall. 
 
 Half way to Fellside there was a point where two roads met, 
 one leading toward Grasmere, the other toward the village of 
 Great Langdale, a lonely cluster of humble habitations among 
 the hills. When the horses had struggled as far as this point, 
 the snow was six inches deep on the road, and made a thick 
 curtain around them as it fell. By this time the Earl had dozed 
 off to sleep. 
 
 He woke an hour later, let down the window which let in a 
 snow-laden gust, and tried to pierce the gloom without. 
 
 " As black as Erebus ! " he exclaimed, " but we ought to 
 be close at home by this time. Yes, thank God, there are the 
 lights." 
 
 The carriage drew up a minute afterward and Steadman came 
 to the door. 
 
 " Very sorry, my Lord. The horses must have taken a wrong 
 turn after we crossed the bridge and brought us here. And now 
 the men say they can't go back to Fellside unless we can get 
 fresh horses, and I'm afraid there's no chance of that here." 
 
 " Here ! " exclaimed the Earl, " what do you mean by here ? 
 Where the devil are we ? " 
 
 *' Great Langdale, my Lord." 
 
 A door ooened and let out a flood of light — the red light of a 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 19 
 
 wood fire, the pale flame of a candle — upon the snowy darkness, 
 revealing the paneled hall of a neat little rustic inn ; an eight- 
 day clock ticking in the corner, a black and white sheep dog 
 coming out at his master's heels to investigate the travelers. 
 To the right of the door showed the light of a window, shel- 
 tered by a red curtain, behind which the chiefs of the village 
 were enjoying their evening. 
 
 " Have you any post horses ? " asked the Earl, discontentedly, 
 as the landlord stood on the threshold, shading the candle with 
 his hand. 
 
 " No, sir. We don't keep post horses." 
 
 " Of course not. I knew as much before I asked," said the 
 Earl. " We are fixed in this dismal hole for the night, I sup- 
 pose. How far are we from Fellside .-' " 
 
 " Seven miles," answered the landlord. *' I beg your pardon, 
 my Lord; I didn't know it was your Lordship," he added hur- 
 riedly. " We're in sore trouble, and it makes a man daft-like , 
 but if there's anything we can do — " 
 
 " Is there no hope of getting on, Steadman ? " asked the Earl, 
 cutting short these civilities. 
 
 " Not with these horses, my Lord." 
 
 '' And you hear we can't get any others. Is there any farmer 
 about here who could lend us a pair of carriage horses ? " 
 
 The landlord knew of no such person. 
 
 "Then we must stop here till to-morrow morning. What 
 infernal fools those post boys must be," protested Lord Mau- 
 levrier. 
 
 James Steadman apologized for the postilions, explaining that 
 when they came to the critical point of their journey, where the 
 road branched off to the Langdales, the snow was falling so 
 thickly, the whole country was so hidden in all-pervading white- 
 ness, that even he, who knew the way so well, could give no 
 help to the drivers. He could only trust to the instinct of local 
 postilions and local horses, and instinct had proved wrong. 
 
 The travelers alighted, and were ushered into a not uncom- 
 fortable-looking parlor ; very low as to the ceiling, very old- 
 fashioned as to the furniture, but spotlessly clean and enlivened 
 by a good fire, to which his Lordship drew near, shivering and 
 muttering discontentedly to himself. 
 
 " We might be worse off," said her Ladyship, looking round 
 the bright little room, which pleased her better than many a 
 state apartment in the large hotels at which they had stopped. 
 
 " Hardly, unless we were out on the moor," grumbled hei 
 husband. *' I am sick to death of this ill-advised, unreasonable 
 
20 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 journey. I am at a loss to imagine your motive in bringing 
 me here. You must have had a motive." 
 
 " 1 had," answered Lady Maulevrier, with a freezing look. 
 " I wanted to get you out of the way. I told you that plainly 
 enough at Southampton." 
 
 " 1 don't see why I should be hurried away and hidden," 
 said Lord Maulevrier. " I must face my accusers sooner or 
 later." 
 
 " Of course. The day of reckoning must come. But in the 
 meantime have you no delicacy ? Do you want to be pointed 
 at everywhere t " 
 
 *' All I know is that I am very ill," answered her husband, 
 "and that this wretched journey has done me a great deal of 
 harm." 
 
 " We shall be safe at home before noon to-morrow, and you 
 can have Horton to set you right again. You know you always 
 believed in his skill." 
 
 " Horton is a clever fellow enough, as country doctors go, but 
 at Hastings I could have had the best physicians in London to 
 see me," grumbled his Lordship. 
 
 The rustic maid-servant came in to lay the table, assisted by 
 her Ladyship's footman, who looked a good deal too tall for the 
 room. 
 
 " I sha'n't dine," said the Earl. " I am a great deal too ill and 
 cold. Light a fire in my room, and send Steadman to me " 
 — this to the footman, who hastened to obey. "You can 
 send me up a basin of soup presently. I shall go to bed at 
 once." 
 
 He left the room without another word to his wife, who sat 
 by the hearth, staring thoughtfully at the cheery wood fire. 
 Presently she looked up, and saw that the man and maid were 
 going on with their preparations for dinner. 
 
 " I don't care about dining alone," said her Ladyship. "We 
 lunched at Windermere, and I have no appetite. You can clear 
 away those things, and bring me some tea." 
 
 When the table furniture had been cleared, and a neat lit- 
 tle tea tray set upon the white cloth, Lady Maulevrier drew her 
 chair to the table, and took out her pocketbook, from which 
 she produced a letter. This she read more than once, medita- 
 ting profoundly upon its contents. 
 
 " I am very sorry he has come home," wrote her correspond- 
 ent, " and 3-et if he had stayed in India there must have been 
 an investigation on the spot. A public inquiry is inevitable, 
 and the knowledge of his arrival in the country will hasten it on. 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 2 1 
 
 From all I hear I much fear that there is no chance of the re- 
 sult being favorable to him. You have asked me to write the 
 unvarnished truth, to be brutal even, remember. His de- 
 linquencies are painfully notorious, and I apprehend that the 
 last sixpence he owns will be answerable. His landed estate I 
 am told can also be confiscated, in the event of an impeachment 
 at the bar of the House of Lords, as in the Warren Hastings 
 case, before the Commons. But as yet nobody seems clear as 
 to the form which this investigation will take. In reply to your 
 inquiry as to what would have happened if his Lordship had died 
 on the passage home I believe I am justified in saying the scandal 
 would have been allowed to die out with him. He has con- 
 trived to provoke powerful animosities both in the Cabinet 
 and at the India House, and there is, I fear, an intention to pur- 
 sue the inquiry to the bitter end." 
 
 Assurances of the writer's sympathy followed these harsh 
 truths. But to this polite commonplace her Ladyship paid no 
 attention. Her mind was intent on hard facts, the dismal prob- 
 abilities of the near future. 
 
 " If he had died upon the passage home ! " she repeated. 
 " Would to God that he had so died, and that my son's name 
 and fortune could be saved." 
 
 The innocent child who had never given her an hour's care ; 
 the one creature she loved with all the strength of her proud 
 nature — his future was to be blighted by his father's misdoings 
 — overshadowed by shame and dishonor in the very dawn of 
 life. It was a wicked wish — an unnatural wish to find room 
 in a woman's breast, but the wish was there. Would to God he 
 had died before the ship reached an English port. 
 
 But he was living, and would have to face his accusers — and 
 she, his wife, must give him all the help she could. 
 
 She sat long by the waning fire. She took nothing but a cup 
 of tea, although the landlady had sent in substantial accompani- 
 ments to the tea-tray in the shape of cold ham, new-laid eggs 
 and hot cakes, arguing that a traveler on such a night must be 
 hungry, albeit disinclined for a ceremonious dinner. She had 
 been sitting for nearly an hour in almost the same attitude, 
 when there came a gentle knock at the door, and, on being bid- 
 den to enter, the landlady came in with some logs in her apron, 
 under pretense of replenishing the fire. 
 
 _" I was afraid your fire must be getting low, my Lady," she 
 said, as she put on the logs, and swept up the ashes on the 
 hearth. ^ " Such a dreadful night. So early in the year, too. 
 I'm afraid we shall have a hard Winter." 
 
22 PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 "That does not always follow," said Lady Maulevrier. 
 " Has Steadman come down stairs ? " 
 
 " Yes, my Lady. He told me to tell your Ladyship that his 
 Lordship is pretty comfortable, and hopes to pass a good night." 
 
 *' I am glad to hear it. You can give me another room, 1 sup- 
 pose. It would be better for his Lordship not to be disturbed, 
 as he is very much out of health." 
 
 " There is another room, my Lady, but it's very small." 
 
 " I don't mind how small, if it is clean and airy." 
 
 "Yes, my Lady. I am thankful to say you won't find dirt or 
 stuffiness anywheVe in this house. His Lordship do look mortal 
 bad," added the landlady, shaking her head dolefully ; " and I 
 remember him such a fine young gentleman when he used to 
 come down the Rothay with the otter hounds, running along 
 the bank — dashing in and out of the beck— up to his knees in 
 the water — and now to see him, so white and mashiated, and 
 broken-down like, in the very prime of life, all along of living 
 out in a hot country, among blackamoors, which is used to it — 
 poor, ignorant creatures — and never knew no better. It must 
 be a hard trial for you, my Lady." 
 
 " It is a hard trial." 
 
 " Ah ! we all have our trials, rich and poor," sighed the 
 woman, who desired nothing better than to be allowed to un- 
 bosom her woes to the grand-looking lady in the fur-bordered 
 cloth pelisse, with beautiful dark hair piled up in clustering 
 masses above a broad white forehead, with slender white hands 
 on which diamonds flashed and glittered in the firelight — an 
 unaccusto.med figure by that rustic hearth. 
 
 " We all have our trials — high and low." 
 
 "That reminds me," said Lady Maulevrier, looking up at 
 her, " your husband said you were in trouble. What did that 
 mean ? " 
 
 " Sickness in the house, my Lady. A brother of mine that 
 went to America to make his fortune, and seemed to be doing 
 so well for the first five or six years, and wrote home such beau- 
 tiful letters, and then left off writing all at once, and we made 
 sure as he was dead, and never got a word from him for ten 
 years, and just three weeks ago he drops in upon us as we was 
 sitting over our tea between the lights, looking as white as a 
 ghost. I gave a shriek when I saw him, for I was regular 
 scared out of my senses. ' Robert's ghost,' I cried ; but it was 
 Robert himself, come home to us to die. And he's lying up- 
 stairs now^ with so little life in him that I expect every breath 
 to be his Jast." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 23 
 
 " What is his complaint ? " 
 
 " Apathy, my Lady. Dear, dear, that's not it. I never do re- 
 member the- doctor's foreign names." 
 
 " Atrophy, perhaps." 
 
 " Yes, my lady, that was it. No doubt such words come easy 
 to a scholar like your Ladyship." 
 
 " Does the doctor give no hope ? " 
 
 "Well, no, my Lady. He don't go so far as to say that the 
 case is hopeless. It all depends, he says, upon the rallying 
 power of the constitution. The lungs are not gone, and the 
 heart is not diseased. If there's rallying power Robert will 
 come round, and if there isn't he'll sink. But the doctor says 
 nature will have to make an effort. But I have my own idea 
 about the case," added the landlady, with a sigh. 
 
 " What is your idea ? " 
 
 " That the stamp of death was on our Robert when he came 
 into this house, and that he meant what he said when he spoke 
 of coming home to die. Things had gone against him for the 
 last ten years in America. He married and took his wife out 
 to a farm in the Bush, and thought to make a good thing out 
 of farming with the money he'd accumulated up to then. But 
 America isn't Westmoreland, you see, my Lady, and his knowl- 
 edge stood him in no stead in the Bush ; and first he lost his 
 money, and then he lost a child or two, and then he lost his 
 wife, and he came back to us a broken-hearted man with no 
 wish to live. The doctor may call it atrophy, but I call it what 
 the Scripture calls it, a broken and a wounded spirit." 
 
 " Who is your doctor .? " 
 
 " Mr. Evans, of Ambleside." 
 
 "That little half-blind old man!" exclaimed her Ladyship. 
 " Surely you have no confidence in him ? " 
 
 " Not much, my Lady. But I don't believe all the doctors in 
 London could do anything for Robert. Good nursing will bring 
 him round if anything can ; and he gets that, I can assure your 
 Ladyship. He's my only brother, the only kith and kin that's 
 left to me, and he and I were rare and fond of each other when 
 we were young. You may be sure I don't spare any trouble, and 
 my good man thinks the best of his larder or his cellar hardly 
 good enough for Robert." 
 
 " I am sure you are kind, good people," replied her Ladyship, 
 gentl}^ " but I should have thought Mr. Horton, of Grasmere. 
 could have done more than old Evans. However, you know best 
 I hope his Lordship is not going to add to your cares by bein^ 
 laid up here, but he looked very ill this evening." 
 
24 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " He did, my Lady, mortal bad." 
 
 *' However, we must hope for the best. Steadman is a splendid 
 servant in illness. He nursed my father for years. Will you 
 tell him to come to me, if you please. I want to hear what he 
 thinks of his Lordship, and to discuss chances of our getting home 
 early to-morrow." 
 
 The landlady retired and summoned Mr. Steadman, who was 
 enjoying his modest glass of grog in front of the kitchen fire. He 
 had taught himself to dispense with the consolations of tobacco, 
 lest he should at any time make himself obnoxious to her Ladyship. 
 
 Steadman was closeted with Lady Maulevrier for the next 
 half-hour, during which his Lordship's condition was gravely 
 discussed. When he left the sitting-room he told the landlord 
 to be sure to feed the post-horses well and make them comfort- 
 able for the night, so they might be ready for the drive to Fell- 
 side early next morning. 
 
 " Do you think his Lordship will be well enough to travel ? " 
 asked the landlord. 
 
 " He has made up his mind to get home — ill or w^ell," an- 
 sw^ered Mr. Steadman. " He has wasted about a week by his 
 dawdling ways on the road, and now he's in a fever to get to 
 Fellside." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LAST STAGE. 
 
 The post-horses — which had been well fed, but accommodated 
 somewhat poorly in barn and stable — were quite ready to go on 
 next morning; but Lord Maulevrier w^as not able to leave his 
 room, where her Ladyship remained in close attendance upon 
 him. The hills and valleys were white with snow, but there was 
 none falling, and Mr. Evans, the elderly surgeon from Amble- 
 side, rode over to Great Langdale on his elderly cob, to look at 
 Robert Haswell, and was called in to see Lord Maulevrier, Her 
 Ladyship had spoken lightly of his skill on the previous even- 
 ing, but any doctor is better than none, so this feeble little per- 
 sonage was allowed to feel his Lordship's pulse and look at 
 his Lordship's tongue. 
 
 His opinion, never too decidedly given, was a little more hazy 
 than usual on this occasion, perhaps because of a certain awful- 
 tiess — to unaccustomed eyes — in Lady Maulevrier's proud bear 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 25 
 
 ing. He said that his Lordship was low, very low, and that 
 the pulse was more irregular than he liked, but he committed 
 himself no further than this, and went away, promising to send 
 such pills and potions as were appropriate to the patient's con- 
 dition. 
 
 A boy rode the same pony over to Langdale later in the 
 afternoon with the promised medicines. 
 
 Throughout the short winter day, which seemed terribly long 
 in the stillness and solitude of Great Langdale, Lady Maulevrier 
 kept watch in the sick room, Steadman coming in and out in 
 constant attendance upon his master — save for one half-hour 
 only, which her Ladyship passed in the parlor below in conver- 
 sation with the landlady — a very grave and earnest conversation, 
 as indicated by Mrs. Smithson's grave and somewhat troubled 
 looks when she left her Ladyship ; but a good deal of her trouble 
 may have been caused by her brother, who was pronounced by 
 the doctor to be " much the same." 
 
 At eleven o'clock that night a mounted messenger was sent 
 off to Ambleside in hot haste to fetch Mr. Evans, who came to 
 the inn to find Lady Maulevrier kneeling beside her husband's 
 bed, while Steadman stood with a grave and troubled counte- 
 nance at a respectful distance. 
 
 The room was dimly lighted by a pair of candles burning on 
 a table near the window, and at some distance from the old 
 four-post bedstead, shaded by dark moreen curtains. The sur- 
 geon looked around the room, and then fumbled in his pocket 
 for his spectacles, without the aid of which the outside world 
 presented itself to him under a blurred and uncertain aspect. 
 
 He put on his spectacles, and moved toward the bed ; but 
 the first glance showed what had happened. The outline of 
 the rigid figure under the coverlet looked like a sculptured effigy 
 upon a tomb. A sheet was drawn over the face of death. 
 
 " You are too late to be of any use, Mr. Evans," murmured 
 Steadman, laying his hand upon the doctor's sleeve, and drawing 
 him away toward the door. 
 
 They went softly on to the landing, off which opened the door 
 of that other sick-room where the landlady's brother was lying. 
 
 " When — when did this happen ? " 
 
 " A quarter of an hour after the messenger rode off to fetch 
 you," answered Steadman. " His Lordship lay all the afternoon 
 in a heavy sleep, and we thought he was going on well, but 
 after dark there was a trouble in his breathing which alarmed 
 her Ladyship, and she insisted upon your being sent for. The 
 messenger had hardly been gone a quarter of an hour when his 
 
26 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Lordship woke suddenly, muttered to himself in a curious way, 
 gave just one long, shuddering sigh, and — and all was over. It 
 was a terrible shock for her ladyship." 
 
 " Indeed it must have been," murmured the village doctor. 
 " It is a great surprise to me. I knew Lord Maulevrier was low, 
 very low, the pulse feeble and intermittent ; but I had no fear of 
 anything of this kind. It is very sudden." 
 
 ''' Yes, it is awfully sudden," said Steadman, and then he mur- 
 mured in the doctor's ear, '' You will give the necessary certifi- 
 cate, I hope, with as little trouble to her Ladyship as possible. 
 This is a dreadful blow, and she — " 
 
 " She shall not be troubled. The body will be removed to- 
 morrow, I suppose." 
 
 " Yes, he must be buried from his own house. I sent a 
 second messenger to Ambleside for the undertaker. He will be 
 here very soon, no doubt, and if the shell is ready by noon to- 
 morrow, the body can be removed then. I have arranged to 
 get her Ladyship away to-night." 
 
 " So late ? After midnight ? " 
 
 " Why not ? She cannot stay in this small house — so near 
 the dead. There is a moon, and there is no snow falling, and 
 we are within nine miles of Fellside." 
 
 The doctor had nothing further to say against the arrange- 
 ment, although such a drive seemed to him a somewhat wild and 
 reckless proceeding. Mr. James Steadman's grave, self-pos- 
 sessed manner answered all doubts. Mr. Evans filled in the 
 certificate for the undertaker, drank a glass of hot brandy and 
 water, and remounted his nag, in nowise relishing his midnight 
 ride, but consoling himself with the reflection that he would be 
 handsomely paid for his trouble. 
 
 An hour later Lady Maulevrier's traveling carriage stood 
 ready in the stable yard, in the deep shadow of wall and gables. 
 It was at Steadman'^s order that the carriage waited for her Lady- 
 ship at an obscure side door, rather than in front of the inn. 
 An east wind was blowing keenly along the mountain road, and 
 the careful Steadman was anxious that his mistress should not 
 be exposed to that chilly blast. 
 
 There was some delay, and the four horses jingled their bits 
 impatiently, and then the door of the inn opened, a feeble light 
 gleamed in the narrow passage within, Steadman stood ready to 
 assist her Ladyship into the carriage, there was a bustle, a con- 
 fusion of dark figures on the threshold, the carriage door clapped 
 to, the horses went clattering out of the stony yard, turned 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 27 
 
 sharply into the snowy road, and started at a swinging pace 
 toward the dark sullen bulk of Loughrigg Fell. 
 
 The moon was shining upon Elterwater in the valley yonder 
 — the mountain ridges, the deep gorges below those sullen 
 heights, looked black where the shadow of night enfolded them ; 
 but all along the snow-white road the silver light shone full and 
 clear, until the mountain way looked like a path through fairy- 
 land. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AFTER FORTY YEARS — LADY MAULEVRIER'S GRANDDAUGHTER. 
 
 " What a horrid day," said Lady Mary, throwing down her 
 book with a yawn, and looking out of the deep bay window into 
 a world of mountain and lake, which was clouded over, nay, al- 
 most blotted out and altogether extinguished, by the thick veil 
 of rain and dull gray mist ; such rain as one sees only in a lake 
 district, a dense wall of water which shuts off sky and distance, 
 and narrows the world to one solitary dwelling, suspended among 
 clouds and water, like another ark in a new deluge. 
 
 Rain — such rain as makes out-of-door exercise impossible — 
 was always an affliction to Lady Mary. Her delight was_ in 
 open air and sunshine — fishing in the lake and rivers — sitting 
 in some sheltered hollow of the hills, more fitting for an eagle's 
 nest than for the occupation of a young lady, trying to paint 
 those ever-varying, unpaintable mountain slopes, which change 
 their hues with every change of the sky — swimming, riding, 
 roving far and wide over hill and heather — pleasures all more 
 or less masculine in their nature, and which were a subject of 
 regret with Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 Lady Lesbia was of a different temper. She loved ease and 
 elegance, the gracious luxuries of life — she loved art and music, 
 but not to labor hard at either. She played and sang a little — 
 excellently within that narrow compass which she had allotted 
 to herself — played Mendelssohn's "Lieder" exquisitely, with 
 finished touch and faultless accent, sang Heine's ballads with 
 consummate expression. She painted not at all. Why should 
 any one draw or paint indifferently, she asked, when Providence 
 has furnished the world with so many great painters in the past 
 and present ? She could not understand Mary's ardent desire 
 to do the thing herself — to be able with her own pencil and 
 
28 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 her own brush to reproduce the lakes and valleys, the wild 
 brown hills she loved so passionately. Lesbia did not care 
 two straws for the lovely lake district amidst which she 
 had been reared — every pike and force, every beck and gill 
 M'hereof was distinctly dear to her younger sister. She thought 
 it a very hard thing to have spent so much of her life at Fell- 
 side, a trial that would have hardly been endurable if it were 
 not for grandmamma. Grandmamma and Lesbia adored each 
 other. Lesbia was the one person in the world for whom Lady 
 Maulevrier's stateliness was subjugated by perfect love. To all 
 the rest of the world the Countess was marble, but to Lesbia 
 she was wax. Lesbia could mold her as she pleased ; but 
 happily Lesbia was not the kind of young person to take ad- 
 vantage of this privilege ; she was thoroughly ductile or docile, 
 and had no desire, at present, which ran counter to her grand- 
 mother. 
 
 Lesbia was a beauty. In her nineteenth year she was a curi- 
 ous reproduction in face and figure, expression and carriage, 
 of that Lady Diana Angersthorpe who four-and-forty years ago 
 fluttered the dove-cotes of St James's and May Fair by her brill- 
 iant beauty and her wit. There in the paneled drawing-room 
 at Fellside hung Harlow's portrait of Lady Diana in her zenith, 
 in her short-waisted, white satin frock, with large puffed gauze 
 sleeves, through which the perfect arm shows dimly. Standing 
 under that picture Lady Lesbia looked as if she had stepped 
 out of the canvas. She was to be painted by Millais next year. 
 Lady Maulevrier said, when she had been introduced, and soci- 
 ety was beginning to talk about her : for Lady Maulevrier made 
 up her mind five or six years ago that Lesbia should be the 
 reigning beauty of her season. To this end she had educated 
 and trained her, furnishing her with all those graces best calcu- 
 lated to please and astonish society. She was too clever a 
 woman not to discover Lesbia's shallowness and lack of all 
 great gifts, save that one peerless dower of perfect beauty. 
 She knew exactly what Lesbia could be trained to do; and to 
 this end Lesbia had been educated ; and to this end Lady Mau- 
 levrier brought down to Fellside the most accomplished of Han- 
 overian governesses, w-ho had learned French in Paris and who 
 had toiled in the educational mill with profit to herself and her pu- 
 pils for a quarter of a century. To this lady the Countess in- 
 trusted her granddaughters' minds, while for their physical train- 
 ing she provided another teacher in the person of a clever little 
 Parisian dancing mistress, who had set up at the West End of 
 London as a teacher of dancing and calisthenics, and had ut 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 29 
 
 terly failed to find pupils enough to pay her rent and keep her 
 modest pot-au-feu going. Mademoiselle was very glad to ex- 
 change the uncertainties of a first floor in North Audley Street 
 for the comfort and security of Fellside Manor with a salary of 
 one hundred and fifty pounds a year. 
 
 Both Fraulein and Mademoiselle had been quick to discover 
 that Lady Lesbia was the apple of her grandmother's eye, 
 while Lady Mary was comparatively an outsider. 
 
 So it came about that Mary's education was in somewise a 
 mere picking-up of the crumbs which fell from Lesbia's table, 
 and that she was allowed in a general way to run wild. She 
 was much quicker at learning than Lesbia, learned the lessons 
 that were given her at railroad speed, and rattled off her exer- 
 cises with a slapdash penmanship, which horrified the neat and 
 niggling Fraulein, and then rushed off to the lake or mountain, 
 and by this means grew browner and browner, and more indeli- 
 bly freckled, day by day, thus widening the gulf between her 
 and her beauty sister. 
 
 But it is not to be supposed that because Lesbia was beauti- 
 ful, Mary was plain. This is very far from the truth. Mary 
 had splendid hazel eyes, with a dancing light in them when she 
 smiled, ruddy auburn hair, white teeth, a deeply-dimpled chin, 
 and a vivacity and archness of expression which served only in 
 her present state of tutelage for the subjugation of old women 
 and peasant boys. Mary had been taught to believe that her 
 chances of future promotion were of the smallest ; that no one 
 would even talk of her, or think of her, by and by, when she 
 in her turn would make her appearance in London society, and 
 that it would be a very happy thing for her if she were so for- 
 tunate as to attract the attention of a fashionable physician, a 
 cannon of Westminster or St. Paul's, or a barrister in good prac- 
 tice. Mary turned up her pert little nose at this humdrum lot. 
 
 " I would much rather spend all my life among these dear 
 hills than marry a nobody in London," she said, fearless of that 
 grand old lady at whose frown so many people shivered. " If 
 you don't think people will like me, and admire me — a little 
 — you had better save yourself the trouble of taking me to 
 London. I don't want to play second fiddle to my sister ! " 
 
 "You are a very impertinent person, and deserve to be taken 
 at your word," replied my Lady, scowling at her; "but I have 
 no doubt before you are twenty you will tell another story." 
 
 "Oh!" said Mary, now just turned seventeen ; "then I am 
 not to go out till I am twenty." 
 
 " That will be. soon enough," answered the Countess. " It 
 
3® 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 will take you as long to get rid of those odious freckles. And 
 no doubt by that time Lesbia will have made a brilliant mar- 
 riage." 
 
 And now on this rainy July morning these two girls, neither 
 of whom had any serious employment for her life, or any serious 
 purpose in living, wasted the hours, each in her own fash- 
 ion. 
 
 Lesbia reclined upon a cushioned seat in the deep embrasure 
 of a Tudor window, her pose perfection — it was one of many 
 poses which Mademoiselle has taught her, and which, by assid- 
 uous training, had become a second nature. Poor Mademoiselle, 
 having finished her mission and taught Lesbia all she could 
 teach, had now departed to a new and far less luxurious situa- 
 tion in a finishing school at Passy; but Fraulein Kirsch was 
 still retained, as watch-dog and duenna. 
 
 Lesbia's pale-blue morning gown contrasted exquisitely with 
 a complexion of lilies and roses, violet eyes, and golden brown 
 hair. Her features were distinguished by that perfect chiseling 
 which gave such a haughty grace to her grandmother's counte- 
 nance, even at sixty-sev'^en years of age — a loveliness which, like 
 the marble loveliness it suggests, is unalterable by time. Les- 
 bia was reading Keats. It was her habit to read the poets, care- 
 fully and deliberately, taking up one at a time, and duly laying 
 a volume aside when she found herself mistress of its contents. 
 She had no passion for poetry, but it was an elegant leisurely 
 kind of reading which suited her languid temperament. More- 
 over, her grandmother had told her that an easy familiarity 
 with the great poets of all time is of all knowledge that which 
 best qualifies a woman to shine in conversation, without offend- 
 ing the Superior sex by any assumption of scholarship. 
 
 "Mary was a very different class of reader, omnivorous tearing 
 out the hearts of books, roaming from flower to flower in the 
 fields of literature, loving old and new, romance and reality, 
 novels, travels, plays, poetry, and never dwelling long on any 
 one theme. Perhaps if Mary had lived in the bosom of a par- 
 ticularly sympathetic family she might have been reckoned 
 almost a genius, so much of poetry and originality was there in 
 her free, unconventional character, but hitherto it had been 
 Mary's mission in life to be snubbed, whereby she had acquired 
 a very poor opinion of her own talents. 
 
 " Oh," she cried with a desperate yawn, while Lesbia smiled 
 her languid smile over Endymion, "how I wish something would 
 happen — anything to stir us out of this statuesque, sleeping- 
 beauty state of being. I verily believe the spiders are all asleep 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 31 
 
 in the ivy, and the mice behind the wainscot, and the horses in 
 the stable." 
 
 " What could happen ? " asked Lesbia, with a gentle eleva- 
 tion of penciled brows. " Are not these lovely lines, 
 
 * And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach, 
 Or ripe October's faded marigolds, 
 Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds ? ' 
 
 Faded marigolds ! Is not that intensely sweet ? " 
 
 " Very well for your sleepy Keats, but I don't suppose you 
 would have noticed the passage if marigolds were not in fashion," 
 said Mary, with a touch of scorn. " What could happen t Why 
 a hundred things — an earthquake, flood or fire. What could 
 happen, do you say, Lesbia.-* Why, Maulevrier might come 
 home unexpectedly, and charm us out of this death-in-life." 
 
 '' He would occasion a good deal of unpleasantness if he did," 
 answered Lesbia coldly. " You know how angry he has made 
 grandmother." 
 
 " Because he keeps racehorses which have an unlucky knack 
 of losing," said Mary, dubiously. " I suppose if his horses won 
 grandmother would rather approve ? " 
 
 " Not at all. That would make hardly any difference, except 
 that he would not ruin himself quite so quickly. Grandmother 
 says that a young man who goes on the turf is sure to be ruined 
 sooner or later. And then Maulevrier's habits are altogether 
 wild and foolish. It is very hard upon grandmother, who has 
 such noble ambition for all of us." 
 
 *' Not for me," answered Mury smiling. " Her views about 
 me are very humble. She considers that I shall be most fortu- 
 nate if a doctor or a lawyer condescend to like me well enough 
 to make me an offer. He might make me the offer without 
 liking me, for the sake of hearing himself announced as Mr. and 
 Lady Mary Snooks at dinner parties. That would be too horrid, 
 but I dare say such things have happened." 
 
 " Don't talk nonsense, Mary," said Lesbia, loftily. " There 
 is no reason why you should not make a really good marriage 
 if you follow grandmother's advice and don't affect eccentricity." 
 
 " I don't affect eccentricity, but I'm afraid I really am eccen- 
 tric," murmured Mary, meekly, "for I like so many things I 
 ought not to like, and detest so many things which I ought to 
 admire." 
 
 " I dare say you will have tamed down a little before you are 
 presented," said Lesbia, carelessly. 
 
 She could not even affect a profound interest in anv one but 
 
32 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 herself. She had a narrowness of mental vision which pre- 
 vented her looking beyond the limited circle of her own pleasures, 
 her own desires, her own dreams and hopes She was one of 
 those strictly correct young women who was never likely to do 
 any harm in the world, but who was just as unlikely ever to do 
 any good. Mary sighed, and went back to her book, a bulky 
 volume of travels, and tried to lose herself in the sandy wastes 
 of Africa, and lo be deeply interested in the sources of the Congo, 
 not, in her heart of hearts, caring a straw whether that far away 
 river comes from the Mountains of the Moon, or from the moon 
 itself. To-day she could not pin her mind to pages which had 
 interested at another time. Her thoughts were with Lord Mau- 
 levrier, that fondly loved only brother, just seven years her sen- 
 ior, who had taken to racehorses and bad ways, and was trying 
 his hardest to dissipate the splendid fortune which his grand- 
 mother, the Dowager Countess, nursed so judiciously during 
 his long minority. Maulevrier and Mary had always been what 
 the young man called " no end of chums." 
 
 He called her his brown-eyed Molly, much to the annoyance 
 of Lady Maulevrier and Lesbia, and Mary's life was all gladness 
 when Maulevrier was at Fellside. She devoted herself wholly 
 to his amusements, rode and drove with him, followed on her 
 famous pony when he went otter hunting, and very often aban- 
 doned the pony to the care of some stray mountain youth in or- 
 der to join the hunters, and go leaping from stone to stone on 
 the margin of .the stream, and occasionally, in moments of wild 
 excitement, when the hounds were in full cry, splashing in and 
 out of the water, like a naiad in a short riding skirt. 
 
 Mary looked after Maulevrier's stable when he was away, and 
 had supreme command of a kennel of fox-terriers which cost her 
 brother more money than the Countess would have cared to 
 know, for in the wide area of Lady Maulevrier's ambition there 
 was no room for two hundred guinea fox-terriers, were they never 
 so perfect. 
 
 Altogether, Mary's life was a different life when her brother 
 was at home ; and in his absence the best part of her days 
 were spent in thinking about him and fulfilling the duties of her 
 position as his representative in stable and kennel, and among 
 certain rustics in the district, chiefly of the sporting type, who 
 were Maulevrier's chosen allies or proteges. 
 
 Never, perhaps, had two girls of patrician lineage lived a 
 more secluded life than Lady Maulevrier's granddaughters. 
 They had known no pleasures beyond the narrow sphere of home 
 and home friends. They had never traveled— they had seen 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 33 
 
 hardly anything of the outside world. They had never been to 
 London or Paris, or to any city larger than York ; and their 
 visits to that center of dissipation had been of the briefest, a 
 mere flash of mild gayety, a race meeting, an oratorio, and back 
 by express train, closely guarded by governess and footmen to 
 Fellside. In the Autumn, when the leaves were falling in the 
 wooded grounds of Fellside, the young ladies were sent, still 
 under guardianship of governesses and footmen, to some quiet 
 seaside resort between Alnwick and Edinburgh, where Mary 
 lived the wild free life she loved, roaming about the beach, boat- 
 ing, shrimping, sea-weed gathering, making hard work for the 
 governesses and footmen who had been sent in charge of her. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier never accompanied her granddaughters on 
 these occasions. She was a vigorous old woman, straight as a 
 dart, slim as a girl, active in her degree as any young athlete 
 among those hills, and she declared that she never felt the need 
 of change of air. The sodden shrubberies, the falling leaves did 
 her no harm. Never within the memory of this generation had 
 she left Fellside. Her love of this mountainous retreat was a 
 kind of cult. She had come here broken-spirited, perhaps 
 broken-hearted, bringing her dead husband from the little inn 
 at Langdale, forty years ago, and she had hardly left the spot 
 since that day. 
 
 In those days Fellside House was a very different kind of 
 dwelling from the gracious, modern Tudor mansion which now 
 crowned and beautified the hillside above Grasmere Lakes. It 
 was then an old rambling cottage, with queer little rooms and 
 inconvenient passages, low ceilings, thatched 'gables, and all 
 manner of strange nooks and corners. Lady Maulevrier was of 
 too strictly conservative a temper to think of pulling down an old 
 house which had been in her husband's family for generations. 
 She left the original cottage undisturbed, and built her new 
 house at right angles with it, connecting the two with a wide 
 passage below and a handsome corridor above, so that access 
 should be perfect in the event of her requiring the accommoda- 
 tion of the old, quaint, low-ceiled rooms for her family or her 
 guests. During forty years no such necessity had ever arisen, 
 but the old house known as the south wing was still left intact, 
 the original furniture undisturbed, although the only occupants 
 of the building were her Ladyship's faithful old house steward, 
 James Steadman, and his elderly wife. 
 
 _jrhe house which Lady Maulevrier had built for herself and 
 her grandchildren had not been created all at once, though the 
 nucleus dating forty years back was a handsome building. She 
 3 
 
34 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 had added more rooms as necessity or fancy dictated — now a 
 library with bedrooms over it ; now a music room for Lady Les- 
 bia and her grand piano — anon a bilUard room, as an agreeable 
 surprise for Maulevrier when he came home after a tour in Amer- 
 ica. Thus the house had grown into a long, low pile of Tudor 
 masonry — steep gables, heavily mullioned casements, gray 
 stone walls, curtained with the rich growth of passion-flower, 
 magnolia, clematis, myrtle and roses — and all those flowers which 
 thrive and flourish in that mild and sheltered spot. 
 
 The views from those mullioned casements were perfect. 
 Switzerland could give hardly any more exquisite picture than 
 that lake shut in by hills, grand and bold in their varied outlines, 
 so rich in their coloring that the eye, dazzled with beauty, for- 
 got to calculate the actual height of .those craggy peaks and 
 headlands, the mind forgot to despise them because they were 
 not so lofty as Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn. The velvet 
 sward of the hill sloped steeply downward from Lady Maulevrier's 
 drawing-room windows to the road beside the lake, and this 
 road was so hidden by the wooded screen which bounded her 
 Ladyship's grounds that the lake seemed to lie in the green heart 
 of her gardens, a lovely, placid lake on summer days, reflecting 
 the emerald lines of the surrounding hills, and looking like a 
 smooth, green meadow, which invited the foot passenger to cross 
 it. 
 
 The house was approached by a winding carriage-drive that 
 led up and up and up from the road beside the lake, so screened 
 and sheltered by shrubberies and pine woods that the stranger 
 knew not whither he was going till he came upon an opening in 
 the wood, and the stately Italian garden in front of a massive 
 stone porch, through which he entered a spacious oak paneled 
 hall, and anon, descending a step or two, he found himself in 
 Lady Maulevrier's drawing-room, and face to face with that 
 divine view of the everlasting hills, the lake shining below him, 
 bathed in sunlight. 
 
 Or if it were the stranger's evil fate to come in wet weather, 
 he saw only a rain-blotted landscape — the blurred outlines of 
 gray mountain peaks scowling at him from the other side of a 
 gray pool. But if the picture without were depressing, the 
 picture within was always good to look upon, for those oak- 
 paneled or tapestried rooms, communicating by richl3'-curtained 
 doorways from drawing-room to library, from library to billiard- 
 room, were as lovely as wealth and taste could make them. 
 Lady Maulevrier argued that as there was but one house among 
 all the possessions of her race which she cared to inhabit, she 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 35 
 
 had a right to make that house beautiful, and she had spared 
 nothing upon the beautification of Fell side ; and yet she had 
 spent much less than would have been squandered by any 
 pleasure-loving dowager, restlessly roving from Piccadilly to the 
 Engadine, from Pontresina to Nice or Monaco, winding up with 
 Easter in Paris, and then back to Piccadilly. Her Ladyship's 
 friends wondered that she could care to bury herself alive in 
 Westmoreland, and expatiated on the eccentricity of such a life ; 
 nay, those who had never seen Fellside argued that Lady 
 Maulevrier had taken in her old age to hoarding and that she 
 pigged at a cottage in the Lake district in order to swell a fort- 
 une which young Maulevrier would set about squandering as 
 soon as she was in her coffin. But here they were wrong. It was 
 not in Lady Maulevrier's nature to lead a sordid life in order to save 
 money. Yet in those quiet years that were gone — starting with 
 that golden nucleus which Lord Maulevrier had brought home 
 from India, obtained no one knows how, the Countess had 
 amassed one of the largest fortunes in actual hard cash pos- 
 sessed by any member of the peerage. She had it, and she held 
 it with a grasp that nothing but death could loosen ; nay, that 
 all-foreseeing mind of hers might contrive to cheat grim death 
 itself, and to scheme a way for protecting this wealth even when 
 she who had gathered and garnered it should be moldering in 
 her grave. The entailed estates belonged to Maulevrier, were 
 he never such a fool or spendthrift, but this fortune of the 
 dowager's was her own, to dispose of as she pleased, and not a 
 penny of it was likely to go to the young earl. 
 
 Her granddaughter, Lesbia, was Lady Maulevrier's rock of 
 defense against future follies. She should be the inheritress of 
 this noble fortune — she should spread and widen the power of 
 the Maulevrier race. Her son should link the family name with 
 the name of his father ; and if by any hazard of fate the pres- 
 ent earl should die young and childless the old countess' in- 
 terest should be strained to the uttermost to obtain the title for 
 Lesbia's offspring. Why should she not be Countess of Mau- 
 levrier in her own right? But in order to make this future 
 possible the most important factor in the sum was yet to be 
 found in the person of a husband for Lady Lesbia — a husband 
 worthy of peerless beauty and exceptional wealth, a husband 
 whose own fortune should be so important as to make him above 
 suspicion. That was Lady Maulevrier's scheme — to wed wealth 
 to wealth — to double or quadruple the fortune she had built up 
 in the long slow years of her widowhood, and thus to make her 
 granddaughter one of the greatest ladies in the land ; for it need 
 
36 PHA NTQM FOR TUNE. 
 
 hardly be said that the man who was to wed Lady Lesbia must 
 be her equal in rank, if not her superior. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier was not a miser. She was liberal and be- 
 nevolent to all who came within the circle of her life. Wealth 
 for its own sake she valued not a jot. But she lived in an age 
 in which wealth is power, and ambition was her ruling passion. 
 As she had been ambitious for her husband in the days that 
 were gone, she was now ambitious for her granddaughter. Time 
 had intensified the keen eagerness of her mind. She had been 
 disappointed, cruelly, bitterly, in the ambition of her youth. She 
 had been made to drink the cup of shame and humiliation. But 
 to this ambition of her old age she held with even greater te- 
 nacity. God help her if she should be disappointed here. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that so astute a schemer as Lady 
 Maulevrier had not surveyed the marriage market in order to 
 discover that fortunate youth who should be deemed worthy to 
 become the winner of Lesbia's hand. Years ago, when Lesbia 
 was still in the nursery, the dowager had made herself informed 
 of the age, weight and colors of every likely runner in the mat- 
 rimonial stakes, or, in plainer words, had kept herself by her 
 correspondence with a few intimate friends, and her close study 
 of the fashionable newspapers, thoroughly acquainted with the 
 character and exploits, the disposition and antecedents of those 
 half-dozen eldest sons, among whom she hoped to fine Lesbia's 
 lord and master. She knew her peerage by heart, and knew the 
 family history of every house recorded therein ; the sins and 
 weaknesses, the follies and losses of bygone years ; the taints, 
 mental and physical ; the lateral branches and intermarriages, 
 the runaway wives and unfaithful husbands ; idiot sons or 
 scrofulous daughters. She knew everything that was to be 
 known about that aristocratic world into which she had been 
 born sixty-seven years ago, and the sum total of her knowledge 
 was that there was one man, and one only, whom she desired 
 for her granddaughter's husband — one man, and one only, into 
 whose hands, when earth and sea and sky were melting from 
 her glassy eyes, she could be content to resign the sceptre of 
 power. 
 
 There was no doubt half a dozen or more, in the list of elder 
 sons, who were fairly eligible. But this young man was the 
 Achilles in the rank and file of chivalry, and her soul 3^earned 
 to have him and no other for her darling. 
 
 Her soul yearned to him with a tenderness which was not all 
 on Lesbia's account. Forty-nine years ago she had fondly loved 
 his father — loved him and had been fain to renounce him ; for 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 37 
 
 Ronald Hollister, afterward Lord Hartfield, was then a younger 
 son, and the two families had agreed that marriage between 
 paupers was an impudent flying in the face of Providence, which 
 must be put down with an iron hand. Lord Hartfield sent his 
 son to Turkey in the diplomatic service, and the old dowager 
 Lady Carrisbrook whisked her niece off to London, and kept her 
 there under watch and ward till Lord Maulevrier had proposed 
 and been accepted by her. There should be no foolishness, no 
 clandestine correspondence. The iron hand had crushed two 
 young hearts, and secured a brilliant future for the bodies which 
 survived. 
 
 Ten years later Ronald's elder brother died unmarried. He 
 abandoned that career of vagrant diplomacy which had taken 
 him all over Europe and America, and reappeared in London, 
 the most elegant man of his era, but thoroughly blase There 
 were rumors of an unhappy attachment in the Faubourg Saint 
 Germain ; of a tragedy at Petersburg. Society protested that 
 Lord Hartfield would die a bachelor, as his brother died before 
 him. The HoUisters are not a marrying family, said Society. 
 But six or seven years after his return to England Lord Hart- 
 field married Lady Florence Ilmington, a beauty in her first sea- 
 son, and a very sweet but somewhat mindless young person. 
 The marriage resulted in the birth of an heir, whose appearance 
 upon this mortal stage was followed within a year by his father's 
 exit. Hence the Hartfield property, always a fine estate, had 
 been nursed and fattened during a long minority, and the pres- 
 ent Lord Hartfield was reputed one of the richest young men of 
 his time. He was also spoken of as a superior person, inheriting 
 all his father's intellectual gifts, and having the reputation of 
 being singularly free from the vices of profligate youth. He was 
 neither prig nor pedant, and he was very popular in the best 
 society ; but he was not ashamed to let it be seen that his am- 
 bition soared higher than the fashionable world of turf and stable, 
 cards and pigeon matches. 
 
 Though not of the gay world, nor in it. Lady Maulevrier had 
 contrived to keep herself thoroughly en rapport with fashion. 
 Her few chosen friends, with whom she corresponded on terms 
 of perfect confidence, were among the best people in London — 
 not the circulators of club-house canards, the pickers-up of sec- 
 ond-hand gossip from the society papers, but actors in the com- 
 edy of high life, arbiters of fashion and taste, born and bred in 
 the purple. 
 
 Last season Lord Hartfield's absence had cast a cloud over the 
 matrimonial horizon. He had been a traveler for more than a 
 
38 PHANlVM FORTUNE. 
 
 year — Patagonia, Peru, the Pyramids, Japan, the North Pole — 
 society oared not where — the fact that he was gone was all-suffi- 
 cient.' Bachelors a shade less eligible came to the front in his 
 absence and became first favorites. Lady Maulevrier, well in- 
 formed in advance, had deferred Lesbia's presentation till next 
 season, when she was told Lord Hartfield would certainly reap- 
 pear. His plans had been made for return before Christmas, 
 and it would seem that his plan of life was laid down with as 
 much precision as if he had been a prince of the blood royal. 
 Thus it happened, to Lesbia's intense disgust, that her debut 
 was deferred till the verge of her twentieth birthday. It would 
 never do. Lady Maulevrier told herself, for the edge to be taken 
 off the effect which Lesbia's beauty was to make on society dur- 
 ing Lord Hartfield's absence. He must be there, on the spot, 
 to see this star rise gently and slowly above society's horizon, 
 and to mark how everybody bowed down and worshiped the 
 new light. 
 
 " I shall be an old woman before I appear in society," said 
 Lesbia petulantly ; " and I shall be like a wild woman of the 
 woods, for I have seen nothing and know nothing of the civilized 
 world." 
 
 " You will be ever so much more attractive than the young 
 women I hear of, who have seen and known a great deal too 
 much," answered the dowager ; and as her granddaughter knew 
 that Lady Maulevrier's word was as the law of the Medes and 
 Persians, there were no more idle repinings. 
 
 Her Lad3'ship gave no reason for the postponement of Lesbia's 
 presentation. She was far too diplomatic to breathe a word of 
 her ideas with regard to Lord Hartfield. Anything like a mat- 
 rimonial scheme would naturally have been revolting to Lesbia, 
 who had grand but not sordid views about matrimony. She 
 thought it her mission to appear, and to conquer. A crowd of 
 suitors would sigh around her, like the loves and graces round 
 that fair Belinda, whose story she had read so often, and it would 
 be her part to choose the most worthy. The days are gone 
 when a girl would so much as look at Sir Plume. Her virgin 
 fancy demands the Tennysonian ideal, the grave and knightly 
 Arthur. 
 
 But when Lesbia thought of the most worthy, it was always 
 the worthiest in her own particular sphere ; and he of course 
 would be titled and wealthy, and altogether fitted to be her hus- 
 band. He would take her by the hand and lead her to a higher 
 seat on the dais, and place upon her head, or at least upon her 
 letter-pai)er and the panels of her carriage, a coronet in which 
 
FHANTOM FORTUNE. 39 
 
 the strawberry leaves should stand out more prominently than 
 in her brother's emblazonment. Lesbia's mind could not con- 
 ceive an ignoble marriage, or the possibility of the most worthy 
 happening to be found in a lower circle than her own. 
 
 And now it was the end of July, and the season which should 
 have been glorified by Lady Lesbia's debut was over and done 
 with. She had read in the society papers of all the balls, and 
 birthdays, and race meetings, and regattas, and cricket matches, 
 and gowns, and parasols, and bonnets — what this beauty wore 
 on such an occasion — and how that other beauty looked on 
 another occasion — and she felt as she read like a spell-bound 
 princess in a fairy tale, mewed up in a stony bower, and deprived 
 of her legitimate share in all the pleasures of earth. She had no 
 patience with Mary — that wild, unkempt, ungraceful creature, 
 who could be as happy as summer days are long, racing about 
 the hills with her bamboo alpenstock, rioting with a pack of fox- 
 terriers, practicing crack shots at billiards, rowing on the lake, 
 doing all things unbecoming Lady Maulevrier's granddaughter. 
 
 That long rainy day dragged its slow length to a close, and 
 then came fine days, in which Molly and her fox terriers went 
 wandering over the sun-lit hills, skipping and dancing across the 
 mountain streamlets — gills, as they were called in this particu- 
 lar world — almost as gayly as the shadows of fleecy cloudlets 
 dancing up yonder in the windy sky. Molly spent half her days 
 among the hills, stealing off from governess and grandmother 
 and the stately beauty sister, and sometimes hardly missed 
 by them, so ill did her young exuberance harmonize with their 
 calmer life. 
 
 " One can tell when Mary is at home by a perpetual banging 
 of doors," said Lesbia, which was a sisterly exaggeration founded 
 upon fact, for Molly was given to impetuous rushing in and out 
 of rooms when that eager spirit of hers impelled the light, lithe 
 body upon some new expedition. Nor is the society of fox-ter- 
 riers conducive to repose or stateliness of movement ; and Mau- 
 levrier's terriers, although strictly forbidden the house, were for- 
 ever breaking band and leaping in upon Molly's retirement at 
 all unreasonable hours. She and they were enchanted to get 
 away from the beautiful luxurious rooms, and to go roving by 
 hill side and force away to Easedale Tarn to bask for hours on 
 the grassy margin of the deep still water, or to row round and 
 round the mountain lake in a rotten boat. It was here, or in 
 some kindred spot, that Molly got through most of her reading 
 — here that she read Shakespeare, Byron, and Shelley, and 
 ^^'ordsworth — dwelling lingeringly and lovingly upon every line 
 
40 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 in which that good old man spoke of her native land. Some- 
 times she climbed to higher ground and felt herself ever so much 
 nearer heaven upon the crest of Silver Howe, or upon the rug- 
 ged stony steep of Dolly Waggon pike half-way up the dark brow 
 of Helvellyn, sometimes she had disappeared for hours, and had 
 climbed to the summit of the hill, and had wandered in perilous 
 pathways on Striding Edge, or by the dark still water of the red 
 tarn. This had been her life ever since she had been old enough 
 to have an independent existence, and the hills, and the lakes 
 and the books of her own choosing had done a great deal more 
 in ripening her mind than Fraulein Kirsch and that admirable 
 series of educational works which has been provided for the tu- 
 ition of modern youth. Grammars and geographies, primers, 
 and elementary works of ail kinds were Mary's detestation ; but 
 she loved books that touched her heart and filled her mind with 
 thoughts wide and deep enough to reach into the infinite of time 
 and space, the mystery of mind and matter, life and death. 
 
 Nothing occurred to break the placid monotony of life at Fell- 
 side for three long days after that rainy morning ; and then came 
 an event which, although commonplace enough in itself, marked 
 the beginning of a new era in the existence of Lady Maule- 
 vrier's granddaughters. 
 
 It was evening, and the two girls were dawdling about on the 
 sloping lawn before the drawing-room windows, while Lady Mau- 
 levrier read the newspapers in her own particular chair by one 
 of those broad Tudor windows, according to her infallible cus- 
 tom. Remote as her life had been from the busy world, her 
 Ladyship had never allowed her knowledge of public life and the 
 bent of modern thought to fall into arrear. She took a keen 
 interest in politics, in progress of all kinds. She was a stanch 
 Conservative, and looked upon every Liberal politician as her 
 personal enemy ; but she took care to keep herself informed of 
 everything that w^as being said or done in the enemy's camp. 
 She had an intense respect for Lord Bacon's maxim : Knowledge 
 is power. It was a kind of power secondary to the power of 
 wealth, perhaps ; but wealth unprotected by wisdom would soon 
 dwindle into poverty. 
 
 Lady Lesbia sauntered about the lawn, looking very elegant 
 in her cream-colored Indian silk gown, very listless, very tired 
 of her lovely surroundings. Neither lake nor mountains pos- 
 sessed any charm for her. She had had too much of them, 
 Mary roamed about with a swifter footstep, looking at the roses, 
 plucking off a dead leaf or a cankered bud here and there. Pres- 
 enlly she tore across the lawn to the shrubbery which screened 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 41 
 
 the lawn and flower gardens from the winding carriage drive 
 sunk many feet below, and disappeared in a thicket of arbutus 
 and Irish yew. 
 
 " What terribly hoydenish manners," murmured Lesbia, with 
 a languid shrug of her shoulders, as she strolled back to the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 She cared very little for the newspapers, for politics not at all, 
 but anything was better than everlasting contemplation of the 
 blue still water, and the rugged crest of Helm Crag. 
 
 " What was the matter with Mary that she rushed off like a 
 madwoman ? " inquired Lady Maulevrier, looking up from the 
 Times. 
 
 " I haven't the least idea. Mary's movements are quite be- 
 yond the limits of my comprehension. Perhaps she has gone 
 after a bird's nest." 
 
 Mary was intent upon no bird's nest. Her quick ear had 
 caught the sound of manly voices in the winding drive under the 
 pine wood ; and, surely, yes, surely one was a dear and familiar 
 voice, which heralded'the coming of happiness. In such a mo- 
 ment she seemed to have wings. She became unconscious that 
 she touched the earth, she went skimming bird-like over the lawn, 
 and in and out, with fluttering muslin frock, among arbutus and 
 pine, yew and laurel, till she stood poised lightly on the top of 
 the wooded bank which bordered the steep ascent to Lady Mau- 
 levrier's gate, looking down at two figures which were saunter- 
 ing up the road. 
 
 They were both young men, both tall, broad-shouldered, manly, 
 walking with the easy swinging movement of men accustomed 
 to active exercise. One, the handsomer of the two in Mary's 
 eyes, since she thought him simply perfection, was fair-haired, 
 blue-eyed, the typical Saxon. This was Lord Maulevrier. The 
 other was dark, bronzed by foreign travel, perhaps, with black 
 hair, cut very close to an intelligent looking head, bared to the 
 evening breeze. 
 
 " Hulloa? " cried Maulevrier, " there's Molly. How d'ye do, 
 old girl?" 
 
 The two men looked up, and Molly looked down. Delight at 
 her brother's return so filled her heart and mind that there was 
 no room left for embarrassment at the appearance of a stranger. 
 
 " Oh, Maulevrier, I am so glad. I have been pining for you. 
 Wliy didn't you write to say you were coming. It would have 
 been something to look forward to." 
 
 " Couldn't. Never knev/ from day to day what I was going to 
 be up to ; besides, I knew I should find you at home." 
 
42 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " Of course. We are always alhome," said Mar}' ; "go up to 
 the house as fast as ever you can. I'll go and tell grand- 
 mother." 
 
 " And tell them to get us some dinner," said Maulevrier. 
 
 Mary's fluttering figure dipped and was gone, vanishing in the 
 dark labyrinth of shrubs. The two young men sauntered up to 
 the house. 
 
 " We needn't hurry," said Maulevrier to the companion whom 
 he had not taken the trouble to introduce to his sister. " We 
 shall have to wait for our dinner." 
 
 " And we shall have to change our dusty clothes," added the 
 other ; "I hope that man will bring our portmanteau in time." 
 
 " Oh, we needn't dress. We can spend the evening in my 
 den, if you like ! " 
 
 Mary flew across the lawn again, and bounded up the steps of 
 the veranda — a picturesque Swiss veranda which made a cov- 
 ered promenade in front of the house. 
 
 " Mary, may I ask the meaning of this excitement ? " inquired 
 her Ladyship, as the breathless girl stood before her. 
 
 " Maulevrier has come home." 
 
 "At last?" 
 
 " And he has brought a friend." 
 
 " Indeed. He might have done me the honor to inquire if his 
 friend's visit would be agreeable. What kind of person ? " 
 
 " I have no idea. I didn't look at him. Maulevrier is look- 
 ing so well. They will be here in a minute. May I order din- 
 ner for them ? " 
 
 " Of course, they must have dinner," said her Ladyship, resign- 
 edly, as if the whole thing were an infliction, and Mary ran out 
 and interviewed the butler, begging that all things might be made 
 particularly comfortable for the travelers. It was nine o'clock 
 and the servants were enjoying their eventide repose. 
 
 Having given her orders, Mary went back to the drawing-room 
 impatiently expectant of her brother's arrival, for which event 
 Lesbia and her grandmother waited with perfect tranquillity, the 
 dowager calmly continuing the perusal of her Ti?nes, while Les- 
 bia sat at her piano in a shadowy corner, and played one of 
 Mendelssohn's softest Lieder. To those dreamy strains Mau- 
 levrier and his friend presently entered. 
 
 " How d'ye do, grandmother ? how do, Lesbia ? This is my 
 very good friend and Canadian traveling companion, Jack Ham- 
 mond. Mr. Hammond, Lady Maulevrier, Lady Lesbia." 
 
 " Very glad to see you, Mr. Hammond," said the dowager, in 
 a tone so purely conventional that it might mean anything. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 43 
 
 " Hammond ! I ought to remember your family — the Ham- 
 monds of — " 
 
 " Of nowhere," answered the stranger, in the easiest tone. " I 
 spring from a race of nobodies, of whose existence your Lady- 
 ship is not likely to have heard." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 maulevrier's humble friend. 
 
 That faint interest which Lady Lesbia had felt in the advent of 
 a stranger dwindled to nothing after Mr. Hammond's frank 
 avowal of his insignificance. At the very beginning of her career, 
 with the world waiting to be conquered by her, a high-born beauty 
 could not be expected to feel any interest in nobodies. Lesbia 
 shook hands with her brother, honored the stranger with a 
 stately bend of her beautiful throat, and then withdrew herself 
 from their society altogether as it were, and began to explore 
 her basket of crewels, at a distant table, by the soft light of a 
 shaded lamp, while Maulevrier answered his grandmother's ques- 
 tions, and Mary stood watching him, hanging on his words, as 
 if unconscious of any other presence. 
 
 Mr. Hammond went over to the window and looked out at 
 the view. The moon was rising above the amphitheater of hills, 
 and her rays were silvering the placid bosom of the lake. Lights 
 were dotted here and there about the valley, telling of village 
 life. The lighted hotel wonder sparkled with its many windows, 
 like a castle in a fairy tale. The stranger had looked upon 
 many a grander scene, but on none more lovely. It was lake 
 and mountain in little, without the snow-peaks and awful, inac- 
 cessible regions of solitude and peril; homely hills that one 
 might climb, placid English vales in which English poets have 
 lived and died. 
 
 " Hammond and I mean to spend a month or six weeks with 
 you if you can make us comfortable," said Maulevrier. 
 
 " I am delighted to hear that you can contemplate staying a 
 month anywhere," replied her Ladyship. " Your usual habits 
 are as restless as if your life were a disease. It shall not be my 
 fault if you and Mr.' Hammond are uncomfortable at Fellside." 
 
 There was courtesy, but not cordiality in the reply. If Mr. 
 Hammond was a sensitive man, touchily conscious of his own ob- 
 
44 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 scurity, he must have felt that he was not wanted at Fellside 
 — that he was an excrescence, matter in the wrong place. 
 
 Nobody had presented the stranger to Lady Mary. It never 
 entered into Maulevrier's mind to be ceremonious about his sister 
 Molly. She was so much a part of himself that it seemed as if 
 anv one who knew him must needs know her. Molly sat a little 
 way from the window by which Mr. Hammond was standing, 
 and looked at him doubtfully, wonderingly, with not altogether 
 a friendly eye, as he stood with his profile turned to her, and his 
 eyes upon the landscape. She was inclined to be jealous of her 
 brother's friend, who would most likely deprive her of much of 
 that beloved society. Hitherto she had been Maulevrier's chosen 
 companion at Fellside — indeed, his sole companion after the 
 dismissal of his tutor. Now this brown-bearded stranger would 
 usurp her privileges — those two young men would go roaming 
 over the hills, fishing, otter-hunting, going to distant wrestling 
 matches without her. It was a hard thing, and she was pre- 
 pared to detest the interloper. Even to-night she would be a 
 loser by his presence. Under ordinary circumstances she would 
 have gone to the dining-room with Maulevrier, and sat by him 
 and waited upon him as he ate. But she dared not intrude her- 
 self upon the meal when it was shared with the stranger. 
 
 She looked at John Hammond critically, eager to find fault 
 with his appearance, but unluckily for her present humor there 
 was not much room for fault-finding. 
 
 He was tall, broad-shouldered, well-built. His enemies would 
 hardly deny that he was good-looking, nay, even handsome. 
 The massive, regular features were irreproachable. He was 
 more sunburnt than a gentleman ought to be, Mary thought. 
 She told herself that his good looks were of a vulgar quality, like 
 those of Charles Ford, the champion wrestler, whom she saw at 
 the sports the other day. Why did Maulevrier pick up a com- 
 panion who was evidently not of his own sphere. Hoydenish, 
 plain-spoken, frank, and affectionate as Mary Haselden was, she 
 knew that she belonged to a race apart, that there were circles 
 beneath, circles below her own world, circles which hers could 
 never touch ; and she supposed Mr. Hammond to be some waif 
 from one of those nethermost worlds — a village doctor's son, 
 perhaps, or even a tradesman's — sent to the University by some 
 benevolent busy-body, and placed at a disadvantage ever after- 
 ward, as hanging between two worlds, like Mahomet's coffin. 
 
 The butler announced that Lord Maulevrier's meal was served. 
 
 '' Come along, Molly," said his Lordship ; " come and tell me 
 about the terriers while I eat my dinner." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 45 
 
 Mary hesitated, glanced doubtfully at her grandmother, who 
 made no sign, and then slipped out of the room, hanging fondly 
 on her brother's arm, and almost forgetting that there was any 
 such person as Mr. Hammond in existence. 
 
 When these three were gone Lady Lesbia expressed herself 
 strongly upon Maulevrier's folly in bringing such a person as Mr. 
 Hammond to Fellside. 
 
 " What are we to do with him, grandmamma ? " she said, pet- 
 tishly. " Is he to live with us and be one of us, a person of 
 whose belongings we know positively nothing, who owns that his 
 people are common ? " 
 
 " My dear, he is your brother's friend, and we have the right 
 to suppose he is a gentleman." 
 
 " Not on that account," said Lesbia, more sharply than her 
 wont. " Didn't he make a friend, or almost a friend, of Jack 
 Howell, the huntsman, and of Ford, the wrestler. I have no 
 confidence in Maulevrier's ideas of fitness." 
 
 " We shall find out all about this Mr. Hamleigh — no, Ham- 
 mond — in a day or two," replied her Ladyship, placidly ; " and 
 in the mean time we must tolerate him and be grateful to him if 
 he reconciles Maulevrier to remaining at Fellside for the next 
 six weeks." 
 
 Lesbia was silent. She did not consider Maulevrier's pres- 
 ence at Fellside an unmitigated advantage, or, indeed, his pres- 
 ence anywhere. They two were not sympathetic. Maulevrier 
 made fun of his elder sister's stately perfections, chaffed her intol- 
 erably about the great man she was going to captivate in her first 
 season, the great houses in which she was going to reign. Les- 
 bia despised him for his neglect of all those opportunities of cul- 
 ture which had left him, after the most orthodox and costly cur- 
 riculum, almost as ignorant as a plowboy. She despised a man 
 whose only delight was in horse and hound, gun and fishing 
 tackle. Molly would have cared very little for the guns or the 
 fishing tackle perhaps in the abstract, but she cared for ever}-- 
 thing that interested Maulevrier, even to the bag full of rats 
 which were let loose in the stable yard sometimes for the educa- 
 tion of a particularly game fox-terrier. 
 
 There was plenty of talk and laughter at the dinner-table, while 
 the Countess and Lady Lesbia conversed gravely and languidly 
 in the dimly-lighted drawing-room. The dinner was excellent, 
 and both travelers were ravenous. They had eaten nothing 
 since breakfast, and had driven from Windermere on the top of 
 the coach in the keen evening air. When the sharp edge of appe- 
 tite was blunted, Maulevrier began to talk of his adventures 
 
46 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 since he and Molly had last met. He had not been dissipating 
 in London all the time—or indeed, any great part of the time of 
 his absence from Fellside ; but Molly had been left in Cimme- 
 rian darkness as to his proceedings. He never wrote a letter if 
 he could possibly avoid doing so. If it became a vital necessity 
 to nim to communicate with any one he telegraphed, or, in his 
 own language, wired to that person ; but to sit down at a desk 
 and labor with pen and ink was not within his capacities or his 
 views of his mission in life. 
 
 " If a fellow is to write letters he might as well be a clerk in an 
 office," he said, " and sit on a high-legged stool." 
 
 Thus it happened that when Maulevrier was away from Fell- 
 side, no fair chatelaine of the middle ages could be more igno- 
 rant of the movements or whereabouts of her crusader knight 
 than Mary was of her brother's goings on. She could but pray 
 for him with fond and faithful prayer and wait and hope for his 
 return. And now he told her that things had gone badly with 
 him at Epsom, and worse at Ascot, that he had been, as he ex- 
 pressed it, " up a tree," and that he had gone off to the Black 
 Forest directly the Ascot week was over, and at Rippoldsan he 
 had met his old friend and fellow-traveler, Hammond, and they 
 had gone for a walking tour together among the homely villages, 
 the watchmakers, the timber cutters, the pretty peasant girls. 
 They had danced at fairs, and shot at v.'llage sports, and had al- 
 together enjoyed the thing. Hammond, who was something of 
 an artist, had sketched a good deal. Maulevrier had done noth- 
 ing but smoke his German pipe and enjoy himself. 
 
 " I was glad to find myself in a world where a horse was an ex- 
 ception and not the rule," he said. 
 
 " Oh, how I should love to see the Black Forest," cried Mary, 
 who knew the first part of " Faust " by heart, albeit she had 
 never been told to read it, " the gnomes and the witches — der 
 Freyschutz — all that is lovely. Of course you went up the 
 Brocken .? " 
 
 " Of course," answered Mr. Hammond ; " Mephistopheles 
 was our valet de place, and we went up among a company of 
 witches riding on broomsticks." 
 
 This was the first time he had addressed himself directly to 
 Mary, who sat close to her brother's side, and never took her 
 eyes from his face, ready to pour out hi^ wine, or to change his 
 plate even, for the serving-men had been dismissed at the begin- 
 ning of this unceremonious meal. 
 
 Mary looked at the stranger almost as superciliously as Les- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 47 
 
 bia might have done. She was not mclined to be friendly to her 
 brother's friend. 
 
 " Do you read German ? " she inquired, with a touch of surprise. 
 "You had better ask him what language he does not read or 
 speak," said her brother. " Hammond is an admirable Crichton, 
 my dear " — (by the bye, who was admirable Crichton ? ) — " knows 
 everything, can twist your little head the right way upon any 
 subject." 
 
 " Oh," thought Mary, " highly cultivated, is he ? Very proper 
 in a man who was educated on charity to have worked his hard- 
 est at the University." 
 
 She was not prepared to think very kindly of young men who 
 had been successful in their college career since poor Maulevrier 
 had made such a dismal failure of his, had been gated and sent 
 down, and plowed, and had had everything ignominious done 
 to him that could be done, which ignominy had involved an ex- 
 penditure of money that Lady Maulevrier moaned and lament- 
 ed until this day. Because her brother had not been virtuous 
 Mary grudged virtuous young men their triumphs and their hon- 
 ors. Great, raw-boned fellows, who have taken their degrees at 
 Scotch Universities, come to Oxford and Cambridge and sweep 
 the board, Maulevrier had told her, when his own failures de- 
 manded explanation. Perhaps this Mr. Hammond had grad- 
 uated north of the Tweed and had come southward to rob the 
 native. Mary was not any more inclined to be civil to him be- 
 cause he was a linguist. He had a pleasant manner, frank and 
 easy, a good voice, a cheery laugh. But she had not yet made 
 up her mind that he was a gentleman. 
 
 " If some benevolent old gentleman were to take a fancy to 
 Charles Ford, the wrestler, and send him to a Scotch Univer- 
 sity, I dare say he would turn out just as fine a fellow," she 
 thought, Ford being somewhat of a favorite as a local hero. 
 
 The two young men went off to the billiard room after they 
 had dined. It was half-past ten by this time, and, of course, 
 Mary did not go with them. She bade her brother good-night 
 at the dining-room door. 
 
 " Good-night, Molly, be sure you are up early to show me the 
 dogs," said Maulevrier, after an affectionate kiss. 
 
 " Good-night, Lady Mary," said Mr. Hammond, holding out 
 his hand, albeit she had no intention of shaking hands with him. 
 She allowed her hand to rest for an instant in that strong, 
 friendly grasp. She had not risen to giving a couple of fingers 
 to a person whom she considered her inferior, but she was in- 
 clined to shirk Mr. Hammond as rather a presuming person. 
 
4 48 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 s " Well, Jack, what do 3'ou think of my beauty sister ? " asked 
 i: his Lordship as he chose his cue from the well-filled rack, 
 h The lamps were lighted, the table uncovered and read}', Ca- 
 r rambole in his place, albeit it was months since any player had 
 Y entered the room. Everything which concerned Maulevrier's 
 t comfort or pleasure was done as if by magic at Fellside ; and 
 c Mary was the household fairy whose influence secured this 
 ? happy state of things. 
 
 y "Think.? What can any man think except that she is as 
 lovely as the finest of Reynolds's portraits, as that Lady Di and 
 I Beauclerk of Colonel Aldridge's, or the Kitty Fisher, or any ex- 
 ample you please to name of womanly loveliness." 
 
 "Glad to hear it," answered Maulevrier, chalking his cue; 
 " can't say I admire her myself — not my style, don't you know. 
 Too much of my Lady Di — too little of poor Kitty. But still, of 
 course, it always pleases a fellow to know that his people are ad- 
 mired, and I know that my grandmother has views, grand views," 
 smiling down at his cue. " Shall I break 1 " and Carambole, 
 tapped gently, coaxingly, by Maulevrier's ball, came rolling at 
 a measured pace down to balk, accompanied by the white, and 
 stayed there. 
 
 " Thank you," said Mr. Hammond, beginning to play. " Mat- 
 rimonial views, of course. Very natural that her Ladyship should 
 expect such a lovely creature to make a great match. Is there 
 no one in view ? Has there been no family conclave — no se- 
 cret treaty ? Is the young lady fancy free ? " 
 
 " Perfectly. She has been buried alive here — except parsons 
 and a few decent people whom she is allowed to meet now and 
 : then at the houses about here, she has seen nothing of the world. 
 My grandmother has kept Lesbia as close as a nun. She is not 
 \ so fond of Molly, and that young person has wild ways of her 
 I own, and gives everybody the slip. By the bye, how do you like 
 - my little Moll ? " 
 
 \ The adjective was hardly accurate about a young lady who 
 measured five feet six, but Maulevrier had not yet grown out of 
 ,' the ideas belonging to that period when Mary was really his lit- 
 ^ tie sister, a girl of twelve, with long hair and short petticoats. 
 
 Mr. Hammond was slow to reply. Mary had not made a 
 ' verv strong impression upon him. Dazzled by her sister's pure 
 and classical beauty, he had no eyes for Mary's homelier charms. 
 She seemed to him" a frank, affectionate girl, not too well-man- 
 nered ; and that was all he thought of her. 
 
 " I'm afraid Lady Mary does not like me," he said, after his 
 shot, which gave him time for reflection. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 49 
 
 "Oh, Molly is rather farouche in her manners ; never would 
 train fine, don't you know. Her Ladyship lectured till she was 
 tired, and now Mary runs wild, and I suppose will be left at 
 grass till six months before her presentation, and then they'll 
 put her on the pillar-reins a bit to give her a better mouth. 
 Good shot, by Jove ! " 
 
 John Hammond was used to his Lordship's style of conversa 
 tion, and understood his friend at all times. Maulevrier was 
 not an intellectual companion, and the distance was wide be- 
 tween the two men ; but his Lordship's gayety, good-nature, and 
 acuteness made amends for all shortcomings in culture. And 
 then Mr. Hammond may have been one of those good Con- 
 servatives who do not expect very much intellectual power in 
 an hereditary legislator. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN THE SUMMER MORNING. 
 
 John Hammond loved the wild freshness of morning, and was 
 always eager to explore a new locality ; so he was up at five 
 o'clock next morning and out of doors before six. He left the 
 sophisticated beauty of Fellside below him and climbed higher 
 and higher up the Fell till he was able to command a bird's-eye 
 view of the lake and village, and just under his feet, as it were, 
 Lady Maulevrier's favorite and cherished abode. He was pro- 
 vided with a landscape glass which he always carried in his 
 rambles, and with the aid of this he could see every stone of 
 the building. 
 
 The house, added to at her Ladyship's pleasure, and without 
 regard to cost, covered a considerable extent of ground. The 
 new part consisted of a straight range of about one hundred and 
 twenty feet, facing the lake, and commandingly placed on the 
 crest of a steepish slope ; the old buildings, at right angles with 
 the new, made a quadrangle, the fourth side of which was formed 
 by the dead wall of stables and coach houses, which had no win- 
 dows upon this inner inclosed side. The old buildings were 
 low and irregular, one portion of the roof thatched, another tiled. 
 In the quadrangle there was a little, prim, old-fashioned garden, 
 with geometrical flower-beds and a stone sun-dial in the center. 
 A peacock stalked about in the morning light, and greeted the 
 4 
 
4 50 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 s newly-risen sun with a strident scream. Presently a man came 
 i) out of a half glass door under a veranda which shaded one 
 h side of the quadrangle, and strolled about the garden, stopping 
 r here and there to cut a dead rose or trim a geranium, a stoutly- 
 y built, broad-shouldered man, with gray hair and beard, the im- 
 t age of well-fed respectability. 
 
 c Mr. Hammond wondered a little at the man's leisurely move- 
 c ments as he sauntered about, whistling to the peacock. It was 
 A not the manner of a servant who had duties to perform — rather 
 that of a gentleman living at ease and hardly knowing how 
 < to get rid of his time. 
 
 " Some upper functionary, I suppose," thought Hammond ; 
 " the house steward, perhaps." 
 
 He rambled a long way over the hill, and came back to Fell- 
 side by a path of his own discover}^, which brought him to a 
 wooden gate leading into the stable yard, just in time to meet 
 Maulevrier and Lady Mary emerging from the kennel, where 
 his Lordship had been inspecting the terriers. 
 
 " Angelina is bully about the muzzle," said Maulevrier ; " we 
 shall have to give her away." 
 
 " Oh, don't," cried Mary. " She is a most perfect darling, 
 and laughs so deliciously whenever she sees me." 
 
 Angelina was in Lady Mary's arms at this moment ; a beauti- 
 fully marked little creature, all thew and sinew, palpitating with 
 t suppressed emotions, and grinning to her heart's content, 
 i Lady Mary looked very fresh and bright in her neat tailor 
 i gown, ki,lted kirtle, and tight-fitting bodice, with neatest, small- 
 est brass buttons. It was a gown of Maulevrier's ordering, made 
 c at his own tailor's. Her splendid chestnut hair was uncovered, 
 the short crisp curls about her forehead dancing in the morning 
 w air. Her large, bright, brown eyes were dancing, too, with de- 
 n light at having her brother home again. 
 
 F She shook hands with Mr. Hammond more graciously than 
 B last night, but still with a carelessness which was not compli- 
 mentaiy, looking at him absently as if she hardly knew that he 
 w was there, and hugging Angelina all the time, 
 w Hammond told his friend about his ramble over the hills, yon- 
 der, up above that homely bench called Rest and be Thankful, 
 ]V on the crest of Loughrigg Fell. He was beginning to learn the 
 e; names of the hills already. Yonder darkling brow, rugged, 
 p gloomy-looking, was Nabb Scar, yonder green slope of sunny past- 
 n ure, stretching wide its two arms as if to enfold the valley, was 
 Fairfield, and here close on the left as he faced the lake, were 
 Silver Howe and Helm Crag, with that stony excrescence c.i 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 51 
 
 its summit known as the Lion and the Lamb. Lady Maulevrier's 
 house stood within a circle of mountain peaks, and long fells, 
 which walled in the deep, placid, fertile valley. 
 
 " If you are not too tired to see the gardens we might show 
 them to you before breakfast," said Maulevrier. " We have 
 three-quarters of an hour to the good." 
 
 " Half an hour for a stroll, and a quarter to make myself pre- 
 sentable after my long walk," said Hammond, who did not wish 
 to face the Dowager and Lady Lesbia in disordered apparel. 
 Lady Mary was such an obvious Tomboy that he might be par- 
 doned for leaving her out of the question. 
 
 They set upon an exploration of the gardens, Mary clinging 
 to her brother's arm, as if she wanted to make sure of him, and 
 still carrying Angelina. 
 
 The gardens were as other gardens, but passing beautiful. 
 The sloping lawns, and richly timbered banks, winding shrub- 
 beries, broad terraces cut on the side of the hill, gave variety to 
 the grounds. All that wealth and taste and labor could do to 
 make those grounds beautiful had been done — the rarest coni- 
 fers, the loveliest flowering shrubs grew and flourished there, and 
 the flowers bloomed as they bloom only in lakeland, where every 
 cottage garden can show a wealth of luxurious bloom, unknown 
 in less sheltered districts. Mary was very proud of those gar- 
 dens. She had loved them and worked in them from her baby- 
 hood, trotting about on chubby legs after some chosen old gar- 
 dener, carrying a few weeds or withered leaves in her pinafore, 
 fancying herself infinitely useful. 
 
 " I help '00, doesn't I, Teeven," she used to say to the gray 
 headed old gardener, who first taught her the difference be- 
 tween flowers and weeds. 
 
 " I shall never learn as much out of these horrid books as 
 poor old Stevens taught me," she said afterward, when the 
 gray head was at rest under the sod, and governesses, botany- 
 manuals, and hard words from the Greek were the order of the day. 
 
 Nine o'clock was the breakfast hour at Fellside. There were 
 no family prayer^. Lady Maulevrier did not pretend to be 
 pious, and she put no restraints of piety upon other people. 
 She went to church on Sundays for the sake of example, but 
 she read all the newest scientific books, subscribed to the An- 
 thropological Society, and thought as the newest scientific peo- 
 ple think. She rarely communicated her opinions among her 
 own sex; but now and then, in strictly masculine and superior 
 society, she had been heard to express herself freely upon the 
 nebular hypothesis and the doctrine of evolution. 
 
52 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " After all, what does it matter ? " she said, finally, with her 
 grand air ; " I have only to marry my granddaughters creditably, 
 and prevent my grandson going to the dogs, and then my 
 mission on this insignificant planet will be accomplished. 
 What new form that particular modification of molecules which 
 you call Lady Maulevrier may take afterward is hidden in the 
 great mystery of material life." 
 
 There was no family prayer, therefore, at Fellside. The sis- 
 ters had been properly educated in their religious duties, had 
 been taught the Anglican faith carefully and well by their gov- 
 erness, Fraulein Kirsch, who had become a staunch Anglican 
 before entering the families of the English nobility, and by the 
 kind Vicar of Grasmere, who took a warm interest in the orphan 
 girls. Their grandmother had given them to understand that 
 they might be as religious as they liked. She would be no let 
 or hindrance to their piety ; but they must ask her no awkward 
 questions. 
 
 "I have read a great deal and thought a great deal, and my 
 ideas are still in a state of transition," she told Lesbia; and 
 Lesbia, who was somewhat automatic in her piety, had no desire 
 to know more. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier seldom appeared in the forenoon. She was 
 an early riser, being too vivid and highly strung a creature, even 
 at sixty-seven years of age, for the possibility of slothful habits. 
 She rose at seven. Summer and Winter, but she spent the early 
 part of the day in her own rooms, reading, writing, giving orders 
 to her housekeeper, and occasionally interviewing Steadman, 
 who, without any onerous duties, was certainly the most influen- 
 tial person in the house. People in the village talked of him 
 and envied him so good a berth. He had a gentleman's house 
 to live in, and to all appearance lived as a gentleman. This 
 tranquil retirement, free from care and labor, was a rich reward 
 for the faithful service of his youth. And it was known by the 
 better informed among the Grasmere people that Mr. Steadman 
 was saving money and had shares in the North Western Rail- 
 way. These facts had oozed out of themselves, as it were. He 
 was not a communicative man, and rarely wasted half an hour 
 at that inn near St. Oswald's Church, amidst the cluster of habi- 
 tations that was once called Kirktown. He was an unsociable 
 man, people said, and thought himself better than Grasmere 
 folk, the lodging-house keepers, and the guides, and the wrest- 
 lers, and the honest, friendly souls who were the outcome of 
 that band of Norwegian exiles which found a home in these 
 peaceful vales. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 53 
 
 Fraulein Kirsch, more commonly known as Fraulein, officiated 
 at breakfast. She never appeared at the board when Lady 
 INIaulevrier was present, but in her Ladyship's absence Miss 
 Kirsch was guardian of the proprieties. She was a stout, kindly 
 creature, and by no means a formidable dragon. When the 
 gong sounded, John Hammond went into the dining room, where 
 he found Miss Kirsch seated alone in front of the urn. 
 
 He bowed, quick to read " governess " or " companion " in 
 the lady's appearance, and she bowed. 
 
 " I hope you have had a nice walk ? " she said. " I saw you 
 from my bed-room window." 
 
 " Did you ? Then I suppose yours is one of the few windows 
 which look into that curious quadrangle .^" 
 
 " No, there are no windows looking into the quadrangle. 
 Those that were in the original plan of the house were walled 
 up at her Ladyship's orders, to keep out the cold winds which 
 sweep down from the hills in Winter and early Spring, when the 
 edge of Loughrigg Fell is white with snow. My window looks 
 into the gardens, and I saw you there with his Lordship and 
 Lady Mary." 
 
 Lady Lesbia came in at this moment, and Saluted Mr. Ham- 
 mond with a haughty inclination of her beautiful head. She 
 looked lovelier in her simple morning gown of pale blue cam- 
 bric than in her more elaborate toilet of last evening ; such purity 
 of complexion, such lustrous eyes, the perfect untarnished beauty 
 of youth, breathing the dehcate freshness of a newly-opened 
 flower. She might be as scornful as she pleased, yet he could 
 not withhold his admiration. He was inclined to admire a 
 woman who kept him at a distance ; for the general bent of 
 young women nowadays is otherwise. 
 
 Maulevrier and Mary came in, and every one sat down to 
 breakfast. Lady Lesbia unbent a little presently, and smiled 
 upon the stranger. There was a relief in a stranger's presence. 
 He talked of new things, places and people she had never seen. 
 She brightened and became quite friendly, deigned to invite the 
 expression of Mr. Hammond's opinions upon music and art, 
 and after breakfast allowed him to follow her into the drawing- 
 room, and to linger there fascinated for half an hour, looking 
 over her newest books and her last batch of music from the 
 circulating library, but looking most of all at her, while Maule- 
 vrier and Mary were loafing on the lawn outside. 
 
 " What are you going to do with yourself this morning ? " 
 asked Maulevrier appearing suddenly at a window. 
 
 " Anything you like. Stay, there is one pilgrimage I am 
 
54 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 eager to make. I must see Wordsworth's grave, and Words- 
 worth's house." 
 
 " You shall see them both, but they are in opposite directions 
 — one at your elbow, the other a four-mile walk. Which will 
 you see first ? We'll toss for it," taking a shilling from a 
 pocketful of loose cash always ready for moments of hesitation. 
 " Heads, house ; tails, grave. Tails it is. Come and have a 
 smoke and see the poet's grave. The splendor of the monu- 
 ment, the exquisite neatness with which it is kept, will astound 
 you, considering that we live in a period of Wordsworth wor- 
 ship." 
 
 Hammond hesitated and looked at Lady Lesbia. 
 
 " Aren't you coming ? " called Maulevrier from the lawn. 
 " It was a fair offer. I've got my cigarette case." 
 
 "Yes, I'm coming," answered the other with a disappointed 
 air. 
 
 He had hoped that Lesbia would offer to show him the poet's 
 grave. He could not abandon that hope without a struggle. 
 
 " Will you come with us. Lady Lesbia .? We'll suppress the 
 cigarettes ! " 
 
 " Thanks, no," she said, suddenly frigid. " I am going to 
 practice." 
 
 " Do you never walk in the morning — on such a lovely morn- 
 ing as this? " 
 
 " Not very often." 
 
 She had re-entered those frozen regions from which his atten- 
 tions had lured her for a little while. She had reminded herself 
 of the inferiority of this person, in whose conversation she had 
 allowed herself to be interested. 
 
 " Filons," cried Maulevrier from below, and they went. 
 
 Mary would have very much liked to go with them, but she 
 did not want to be intrusive, so she went off to the kennels to 
 see the terriers eat their morning and only meal of dog biscuit. 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 THERE IS ALWAYS A SKELETON. 
 
 The two young men strolled through the village, Maulevrier 
 pausing to exchange greetings with almost every one they met, 
 and so to the rustic churchyard above the rushing waters of the 
 romantic Roth a. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 55 
 
 The Rotha was swollen with late rains, and was brawling 
 merrily over its stony bed ; the churchyard was deep and cool 
 and shadowy under the clustering branches. The poet's tomb 
 was disappointing in its unlovely simplicity, its stern, slaty hue. 
 The plainest granite cross would have satisfied Mr. Hammond, 
 or a cross in pure white marble, with a sculptured lamb at the 
 base. Surely the lamb, emblem at once pastoral and sacred, 
 ought to enter into any monument to Wordsworth ; but that 
 gray headstone, with -its catalogue of dates, those stern iron 
 railings — were these fit memorials of one whose soul so loved 
 nature's loveliness .'* 
 
 After Mr. Hammond had seen the little old, old church, and 
 the medallion portrait inside, had seen all that Maulevrier 
 could show him, in fact, the two young men went back to the 
 place of graves, and sat on the low parapet above the beck, 
 smoking their cigarettes, and talking with that perfect unreserve 
 which can only obtain between men who are old and tried 
 friends. They talked, as it was only natural they should talk, 
 of that household at Fellside, where all things were new to 
 Juhn Hammond. 
 
 "You like my sister Lesbia? " said Maulevrier. 
 
 " Like her ! Well, yes. The difficulty with most men must 
 be not to worship her." 
 
 " Ah, she's not my style. And she's beastly proud." 
 
 " A little hauteur gives piquancy to her beauty. I admire a 
 proud woman." 
 
 " So do I in a picture ; Titian's Queen of Cyprus, or any 
 party of that kind ; but for flesh and blood I like humility — a wo- 
 man who knows she is human, and not infallible, and only just 
 a little better than you or me. When I choose a wife, she will 
 be no such example of cultivated perfection as my sister Lesbia. 
 I want a woman and not a goddess to jog along the rough and 
 tumble road of life with me." 
 
 " Lady Maulevrier's influence no doubt has been a prime fac- 
 tor in the growth of your sister's character, and from what you 
 have told me about her Ladyship, I should think pride and a 
 fixed idea of her own superiority would be inevitable in any girl 
 trained and educated by her." 
 
 " Yes, she is a proud woman — a proud, hard woman — and 
 she has steeped Lesbia's mind in all her own pet ideas and prej- 
 udices. Yet, God knows, we have little reason to hold our 
 heads high," said Maulevrier, with a gloomy look. 
 
 John Hammond did not reply to this remark — perhaps there 
 was some difficulty for a man situated as he was in finding a fit 
 
56 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 reply. He smoked in silence, looking down at the pure swift 
 waters of the Rotha tumbling over its craggy bed. 
 
 " Doesn't somebody say there is always a skeleton in the cup- 
 board, and the grander and older the race the bigger the skel- 
 eton ? " said Maulevrier, with a philosophical air. 
 
 "Yes, your family secret is an attribute of a fine old race. 
 The Pelopidae, for instance — but in their case it was not a sin- 
 gle skeleton, but a whole charnel house. I don't think your 
 skeleton need trouble you, Maulevrier. It belongs to the re- 
 mote past." 
 
 "Those things never belong to the past," said the young man. 
 "If it were any other kind of taint — profligacy — madness, even 
 — the story of a duel that touched the confines of murder — a 
 runaway wife — a rebellious son — a cruel husband. I have heard 
 such stories hinted at in association with some of our best fami- 
 lies — but our story means disgrace ; and I seldom see strangers 
 putting their heads together at the club without fancying they 
 are telling each other about my grandfather, and pointing me 
 out as the grandson and heir of a thief." 
 
 " Why use unduly hard words ! " 
 
 " Why should I stoop to sophistication with you, my friend ? 
 Dishonesty is dishonesty all the world over, and to plunder 
 Rajahs on a large scale is no less vile than to pick a pocket on 
 Ludgate Hill." 
 
 " Nothing was ever proved against your grandfather." 
 
 " No, he died in the nick of time, and the inquiry was quashed, 
 thanks to the Angersthorpe interest, and my grandmother's 
 cleverness. But if he had lived a few weeks longer England 
 would have rung with the story of his profligacy and his dishonor. 
 Some people say he committed suicide in order to escape the 
 inquiry ; but I have heard my father emphatically deny this. 
 He had often talked with the people who kept the little inn 
 where his father died, and they were clear enough in their as- 
 sertion that the death was a natural death — the sudden collapse 
 of an exhausted constitution." 
 
 " Was it on account of this scandal that 3'our father spent 
 the best part of his life on the continent? " Hammond asked, 
 feeling that it was a relief to Maulevrier to talk about this se- 
 cret burden of his. 
 
 The young earl was light-hearted and frivolous by nature, yet 
 even he had his graver moments, and upon this subject of the 
 old Maulevrier scandal he was peculiarly sensitive, perhaps all 
 the more so because his grandmother had never allowed him to 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 57 
 
 speak to her about it, had never satisfied his curiosity upon any 
 details of that painful story. 
 
 " I have very little doubt it was so — though I wasn't old 
 enough when he died to hear as much from his own lips. My 
 father went straight from the University to Vienna, where he be- 
 [^an his career in the diplomatic service dowerless, married a 
 o-irl of high family at Vienna, and died of fever at New Orleans 
 within seven years of his marriage, leaving a widow and three 
 babies, the youngest in long clothes. Mother and babies all came 
 over to England, and were at once established at Fellside. I 
 can just remember the voyage — and I can just remember my poor 
 mother, who never recovered the blow of my father's death, and 
 who died in yonder house, after two years of broken health and 
 broken spirits. We had no one but the dowager to look to as 
 children — hardly another friend in the world. She did what 
 she liked with us — she has kept the girls as close as nuns, so 
 they have never heard a hint of the old history — -no breath of 
 scandal has reached their ears. But she could not shut me up 
 in a country house forever, though she did succeed in keeping 
 me away from a public school. The time came when I had to 
 go to the University, and there I heard all that had been said 
 about Lord Maulevrier. The men who told me about it, in a 
 friendly way, pretended not to believe it ; but one night when I 
 had got into a row at a wine party with a tailor's son, he told me 
 that if his father was a snip my grandfather w^as a thief, and so 
 he thought himself the better bred of the two. I smashed his 
 nose for him, but as it was a decided pug before the row began, 
 that hardly squared the matter." 
 
 " Did you ever hear the exact story ? " 
 
 " I heard a dozen stories ; and if only a quarter of them are 
 true my grandfather was a scoundrel. It seems that he was 
 intensely popular for the first year or so of his government, 
 gave more splendid entertainments than had been given in Ma- 
 dras for half a century before his time, lavished his wealth upon 
 his favorites ; then arose a rumor that the governor was insolvent 
 and harassed by his creditors, and then a new source of wealth 
 seemed to be at his command ; he was more reckless, more 
 princely than ever, and then, little by little, there arose the 
 suspicion that he was trafficking in English interests, selling his 
 influence to petty princes, winking at those mysterious crimes 
 by which rightful heirs are pushed aside to make room for 
 usurpers. Lastly, it became notorious that he was the slave of 
 a wicked woman, false wife, suspected murderess, whose hus- 
 band, a native prince, disappeared from the scene, just when 
 
58 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 his existence became perilous to the governor's reputation. 
 According to one version of the story, the scandal of this man's 
 mysterious disapjDearance, and the disapi^earance of his large 
 fortune in money and jewels, was the immediate cause of my 
 grandfather's recall. How much or how little of this story — or 
 other dark stories of the same kind — is true, whether my grand- 
 father was a consummate scoundrel, or the victim of a baseless 
 slander — whether he left India a rich man, or a poor man — is 
 known to no mortal except Lady Maulevrier, and compared with 
 her the Theban Sphinx was a communicative individual." 
 
 " Let the dead bury their dead," said Hammond ; " neither 
 you nor your sisters can be the worse for this ancient slander — 
 no doubt every part of the story has been distorted and exag- 
 gerated in the telling — and a great deal of it may be pure inven- 
 tion, evolved from the inner consciousness of the slanderer. 
 God forbid that any whisper of scandal should ever reach Lady 
 Lesbia's ears." 
 
 He ignored poor Mary. It was to him as if there was no 
 such person. Her feeble light was extinguished by the radiance 
 of her sister's beauty, her very individuality was annihilated. 
 
 " As for you, dear old fellow," he said, with warm affection, 
 " no One will ever think the worse of you on account of your 
 grandfather's peccadilloes." 
 
 ''Yes, they will. Hereditary genius is one of the modern 
 crazes. When a man's grandfather was a rogue, there must be 
 a taint in his blood. People don't believe in spontaneous gen- 
 eration, moral or physical, nowadays. A man is taken to be 
 the outcome of his ancestors." 
 
 " In that case, knowing what kind of a man the grandson is, 
 I will never believe that the grandfather was a rogue," said Mr. 
 Hammond, heartily. 
 
 Maulevrier put out his hand without a word, and it was warmly 
 grasped by his friend. 
 
 " As for her Ladyship, I respect and honor her as a woman 
 who has led a life of self-sacrifice, and has w^orn her pride as an 
 armor," continued Mr. Hammond. 
 
 " Yes, I believe the dowager's character is rather fine," said 
 Maulevrier ; " but she and I have never hit our horses very well 
 together. She would have liked such a fellow as you for a grand- 
 son, Jack — a man \vho took high honors at Oxford, and could 
 hold his ow^n against all comers. Such a grandson would have 
 gratified her pride, and would have repaid her for the trouble 
 she has taken in nursing the Maulevrier estate ; for however 
 her husband may have dipped the estate by his Indian extrava- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 59 
 
 gances, there is no doubt that it is a fine property now, and that 
 the dowager has been the making of it." 
 
 The two young men strolled up to Easedale tarn before they 
 went back to Fellside, where Lady Maulevrier received them 
 with a stately graciousness, and where Lady Lesbia unbent con- 
 siderably at luncheon and condescended to an animated convex 
 sation with her brother's friend. It was such a new thing to 
 have a stranger at the family board, a man whose information 
 could talk eloquently upon every subject which society talks 
 about. In this new and animated atmosphere Lesbia seemed 
 liked an enchanted princess suddenly awakened from a spell- 
 bound slumber. Molly looked at her sister with absolute as- 
 tonishment. Never had she seen her so bright, so beautiful, 
 no longer a picture or a statue, but a woman warm with the 
 glow of life. 
 
 " No wonder Mr. Hammond admires her," thought poor Molly, 
 who was quite acute enough to see the stranger's keen appre- 
 ciation of her sister's charms, and positive indifference toward 
 herself. 
 
 There are some things which women find out by instinct, just 
 as the needle turns toward the magnet. Shut a girl up in a 
 bower till she is eighteen years old, and on the day of her re- 
 lease introduce her to the first man her eyes have ever looked 
 upon, and she will know at a glance whether he admires her or 
 not. 
 
 After luncheon the four young people started for Rydal 
 Mount, with Fraulein as chaperon and watch-dog. They were 
 all good walkers. Lady Lesbia even, though she looked like a 
 hot-house flower, had been trained to active habits, could walk 
 and ride and play tennis and climb a hill as became a mountain- 
 bred damsel. Molly, feeling that her conversational powers 
 were not appreciated by her hostess' friend, took half a dozen 
 dogs for company, and with three fox terriers, a little Yorkshire 
 dog, a colley and an otter hound, was at no loss for society on 
 the road ; more especially as Maulevrier gave her most of his 
 company, and entertained her with an account of his Swiss ad- 
 ventures, and all the fine things he had said to the fair-haired, 
 blue-eyed Helvetians, who had sold him photographs or wild 
 strawberries, or had awakened the echoes of the hills with the 
 music of their rustic flutes. 
 
 Fraulein was perfectly aware that her mission upon this par- 
 ticular afternoon was not to let Lady Lesbia out of her sight for 
 an instant, to hear every word the young lady said, and every 
 word Mr. Hammond addressed to her. She had received no 
 
6o PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 specific instructions from Lady Maulevrier. They were not nec- 
 essary, for the Fraulein knew her Ladyship's intentions with re- 
 gard to her eider niece — Icnew them at least so far as that Lesbia 
 was intended to make a brilliant marriage ; and she knew, there- 
 fore, that the presence of this handsome and altogether attract- 
 ive young man was to the last degree obnoxious to the Countess. 
 She was obliged to be civil to him for her nephew's sake, and 
 she was too wise to let Lesbia imagine him dangerous ; but the 
 fact that he was dangerous was obvious, and it was Fraulein's 
 duty to protect her employer's interests. 
 
 Everybody knew Lord Maulevrier, so he had no difficulty in 
 getting admission to Wordsworth's garden and Wordsworth's 
 house, and then they went back to the shores of the little lake 
 and cHmbed that rocky eminence upon which the poet used to 
 sit above the placid waters of silvery Rydal. It is a lovely spot, 
 and that narrow lake, so poor a thing if magnitude were the 
 gauge of beauty, had a soft and pensive loveliness in the clear 
 afternoon light. 
 
 " Poor Wordsworth," sighed Lesbia, as she stood on the grassy 
 crag looking down at the shining water, broken in the foreground 
 by fringes of rushes, and the rich luxuriance of water plants. 
 " Is it not pitiable to think of the years he spent in this mo- 
 notonous place, without any society worth speaking of, with 
 only the shabbiest collection of books, with hardly any interest 
 in life except the sky, and the hills and the peasantry t " 
 
 " I think Wordsworth's life was an essentially happy life, in 
 spite of his narrow range," answered Hammond. " You, with 
 your ardent youth and vivid desire for a life of action, cannot 
 imagine the calm blisses of reverie and constant communion with 
 nature. Wordsworth had a thousand companions you and I 
 would never dream of ; for him every flower that grows was an 
 individual existence — almost a soul." 
 
 " It was a mild kind of lunacy, an everlasting opium-dream 
 without the opium ; but I am grateful to him for living such a 
 life, since it has bequeathed us some exquisite poetry," said Les- 
 bia, who had been too carefully cultured to fleer or flout at Words- 
 worth. 
 
 "I do believe there's an otter just under that bank," cried 
 Molly, who had been watching the obvious excitement of her 
 bandy-legged hound, and she moved down to the brink of the 
 water, leaping lightly from stone to stone, and inciting the hound 
 to business. 
 
 " Let him alone, can't 3'ou," roared Maulevrier ; " leave him 
 in peace till he's wanted. If you disturb him now he"!l desert 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 6i 
 
 his holt, and we may have a blank day. The hounds are to be 
 out to-morrow — " 
 
 " And I may go widi you ? " pleaded Mary. 
 
 " Well, yes, I suppose you'll want to be in it." 
 
 Molly and her brother went on an exploring ramble along the 
 eds^e of the water toward Ambleside, leaving John Hammond 
 in Lesbia's companv, but closely guarded by Miss Kirsch. They 
 went to look at "Nabb Cottage, where poor Hartley Coleridge 
 ended his brief and clouded days, and they had gone some way 
 on their homeward walk before they were rejoined by Maule- 
 vrier and Mary, the damsel's kilted skirt considerably worse for 
 mud and mire. 
 
 " What would grandmamma say if she were to see you ? " ex- 
 claimed Lesbia, looking contemptuously at the muddy petti- 
 coat. 
 
 '' I am not going to let her see me, so she will say nothing," 
 cried Mary, and then she called to the dogs, " Ammon, Aga- 
 memnon, Angelina," and three fox terriers flew along the road, 
 falling over themselves in the swiftness of their flight, darting 
 and leaping and scrambling over each other, and offering the 
 spectators the most intense example of joyous animal life. 
 
 The colley was far up on the hillside, and the other hound was 
 still hunting the water, but the terriers never went out of Mary's 
 sight. They looked to her to take the initiative in all their 
 sports. 
 
 They were back at Fellside in time for a very late tea. Lady 
 Maulevrier was waiting for them in the drawing-room. 
 
 " Oh, grandmamma, why did you not take your tea ? '* ex- 
 claimed Lesbia, looking really distressed. " It is six o'clock." 
 
 " I am used to have you at home to hand me my teacup," re- 
 plied the dowager, with a touch of reproachfulness. 
 
 " I am so sorry," said Lesbia, sitting down before the tea ta- 
 ble, and beginning her accustomed duty. " Indeed, dear grand- 
 mamma, I had no idea it was so late ; but it was such a lovely 
 afternoon, and Mr. Hammond is so interested in everything con- 
 nected with Wordsworth — " 
 
 She was looking her loveliest at this moment, all that w^as 
 softest in her nature called forth by her desire to please her 
 grandmother, whom she really loved. She hung over Lady 
 Maulevrier's chair, attending to her small wants, and seeming 
 scarcely to remember the existence of any one else. In this 
 phase of her character she seemed to Mr. Hammond the perfec- 
 tion of womanly grace. 
 
 Mary had rushed off to her room to change her muddy gown, 
 
62 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 and came in presently dressed for dinner, looking the picture of 
 innocence. 
 
 John Hammond received his teacup from Lesbia's hand, and 
 lingered in the drawing-room talking to the dowager and her 
 granddaughters till it was time to dress. Lady Maulevrier found 
 herself favorably impressed by him in spite of her prejudices. 
 It was very provoking of Maulevrier to have brought such a man 
 to Fellside. His very merits were objectionable. She tried 
 with exquisite art to draw him into some revealment as to his 
 family and antecedents, but he evaded every attempt of that 
 kind. It was too evident that he was a self-made man, whose 
 intellect and good looks were his only fortune. It was criminal 
 in Maulevrier to have brought such a person to Fellside. Her 
 Ladyship began to think seriously of sending the two girls to St. 
 Bees or Tynemouth for change of air, in charge of Fraulein. 
 But any sudden proceeding of that kind would inevitably awaken 
 Lesbia's suspicion ; and there is nothing so fatal to a woman's 
 peace as this idea of danger. No, the peril must be faced. She 
 could only hope that Maulevrier would soon tire of Fellside. A 
 week's Westmoreland weather — gray skies and long days of per- 
 petual rain might send these young men away. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT SHRIEK. 
 
 The peril had to be faced, for the weather did not favor Lady 
 Maulevrier's hopes. Westmoreland skies forgot to shed their 
 accustomed water drops. Westmoreland hills seemed to have 
 lost their power of drawing down the rain. That August was a 
 lovely month, and the young people at Fellside reveled in ideal 
 weather. Maulevrier took his friend everywhere — by hill and 
 stream and force and gill — to all those chosen spots which 
 make the glory of the lake country — on Windermere and Thirl- 
 mere away through the bleak pass of Kirkstone to Ullswater — on 
 driving excursions and on boating excursions and pedestrian 
 rambles, which latter the homely-minded Hammond seemed to 
 like best of all, for he was a splendid walker, and loved the 
 freedom of a mountain ramble, the liberty to pause and loiter 
 and waste an hour at will, without being accountable to any 
 coachman or responsible for the well-being of anybody's horses. 
 
 On some occasions the two irirls and Miss Kirsch had been 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 63 
 
 of the party, and then it had seemed to John Hammond as if 
 nothing were needed to complete the glory of earth and sky. 
 There were other days — rougher journeys — when the men went 
 alone, and there were days when Lady Mary stole away from 
 her books and music, and all those studies which she was sup- 
 posed still to be pursuing, no longer closely supervised by her 
 governess, but on parole, as it were, and went with her brother 
 and his friend across the hills and far away. Those were 
 happy days for Mary, for it was always delight to her to be with 
 Maulevrier — yet she had an acute sense of John Hammond's in- 
 difference, kind and courteous as he was in all his dealings with 
 her — a sense of her own inferiority, of her own humble charms 
 and little power to please, which was so acute as to be almost 
 pain. One day this keen sense of humiliation broke from her 
 unawares in her talk with her brother, as they two sat on a broad 
 heathy slope face to face with one of the Langdale pikes, and 
 with a deep valley at their feet, while John Hammond was climb- 
 ing from rock to rock in the gorge on their right, exploring the 
 beauties of Dungeon Ghyll. 
 
 " I wonder whether he thinks me very ugly," said Mary, with 
 her hands clasped upon her knees, her eyes fixed on Wether- 
 lam, upon whose steep brow a craggy mass of brown rock 
 clothed with crimson heather stood out from the velvety green 
 of the hillside. 
 
 " Who thinks you ugly ? " 
 
 "Mr. Hammond. I'm sure he does. I am so sunburnt and 
 so horrid." 
 
 *' But you are not ugly." 
 
 " I may not seem so to you, perhaps, because you are used to 
 me ; but I know he must think me very plain compared with 
 Lesbia, whom he admires so much." 
 
 " Yes, he admires Lesbia. There is no doubt of that." 
 
 " And I know he thinks me plain," said Molly, contemplating 
 Wetherlam with sorrowful eyes, as 'f it were the inevitable se- 
 quence. 
 
 " My dearest darling, what nonsense ! Plain; forsooth ! Ugly ! 
 Why there are not a finer pair of eyes in Westmoreland than 
 my Molly's, or a prettier mouth, or finer teeth." 
 
 " But all the rest is horrid," said Mary, intensely in earnest. 
 " I am sunburnt, freckled, and altogether odious — like a hay- 
 maker or a market woman. Grandmother has said so often 
 enough, and I know it is the truth. I can see it in Mr. Ham- 
 mond's manner." 
 
 " What ! freckles ancf sunburn, and the haymaker, and all 
 
64 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 that ? " cried Maulevrier, laughing. " What an expressive man- 
 ner Jack's must be, if it can convey all that — like Lord Bur- 
 leigh's nod, by jove. Why, what a goose you are, Mary. Jack 
 thinks you are a very nice girl, and a very pretty girl, I'll be 
 bound ; but aren't you clever enough to understand that when 
 a man is over head and ears with one woman he is apt to seem 
 just a little indifferent to all the other women in the world, and 
 there is no doubt Jack is desperately in love with Lesbia." 
 
 " You ought not to let him be in love with her," protested 
 Mary. " You know it can only lead to his unhappiness. You 
 must know what grandmother is, and how she has made up her 
 mind that Lesbia is to marry some great person. You ought 
 not to have brought Mr. Hammond here. It is like letting him 
 into a trap." 
 
 " Do you think it was wrong ? " asked her brother, smiling at her 
 earnestness. " I should be very sorry if poor Jack should come 
 to grief. But still, if Lesbia likes him — which I think she does 
 — we ought to be able to talk over the dowager." 
 
 " Never," cried Mary. " Grandmother would never give way. 
 You have no idea how ambitious she is. Why, once when Les- 
 bia was in a poetical mood, and said she would marry the man 
 she liked best in the world, if he were a pauper, her Ladyship 
 fiew into a terrible passion and told her she would renounce 
 her, that she would curse her, if she were to marry beneath her, 
 or marry without her grandmother's consent." 
 
 " Hard lines for Hammond," said Maulevrier, rather lightly. 
 " Then I suppose we must give up the idea of a match between 
 him and Lesbia." 
 
 "You ought not to have brought him here," retorted Mary. 
 " You had better invent some plan for sending him away. If 
 he stays it will be only to break his heart." 
 
 "Dear child, men's hearts do not break so easily. I have 
 fancied that mine was broken more than once in my life, yet it 
 is sound enough, I assure you." 
 
 " Oh ! " sighed Mary, " but you are not like him — wounds do 
 not go so deep with you." 
 
 The subject of their conversation came out of the rocky cleft 
 in the hills as Mary spoke. She saw his hat appearing out of 
 the gorge, and then the man himself emerged, a tall, well-built 
 figure, clad in brown tweed, coming toward them, with sketch- 
 book and color-box in his pocket. He had been making what 
 he called memoranda of the waterfall, a stone or tw^o here, a 
 cluster of ferns there, or a tree torn up by the roots, and ^'Cc green 
 and living, hanging across the torrent, a rude natural bridge. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 65 
 
 This round by the Langdale Pikes and Dungeon Ghyll was 
 one of their best days, or at least Molly and her brother thought 
 so, for to those two the presence of Lesbia and her chaperon 
 was always a restraint. 
 
 Mary could walk twice as far as her elder sister, and reveled 
 in hillside paths and all manner of rough places. 
 
 They ordered their luncheon at the inn below the waterfall, 
 and had it carried up on to the furzy slope in front of Wether- 
 lam, where they could eat and drink and be merry to the music 
 of the force as it came down from the hills behind them, while 
 the lights and shadows came and went upon yonder ragged 
 brow, now gray in the shadow, now ruddy in the sunshine. 
 
 Mary was as gay as a bird during that rough and ready lunch- 
 eon ; no one would have suspected her uneasiness about John 
 Hammond's peril or her own plainness. She might let her real 
 self appear to her brother, who had been her trusted friend and 
 father confessor from her babyhood, but she was too thorough 
 a woman to let Mr. Hammond discover the depth of her sympa- 
 thy, the tenderness of her compassion for his woes. 
 
 Later as they were v/alking home across the hills, by Great 
 Langdale and Little Langdale, and Fox How and Loughrigg 
 Fell, she dropped behind a few paces with Maulevrier, and said 
 to him very earnestly : 
 
 " You won't tell, will you, dear? " 
 
 " Tell what ? " he asked, staring at her. 
 
 "Don't tell Mr. Hammond what I said about his thinking me 
 ugly. He might want to apologize to me, and that would be 
 too humiliating. 1 was very childish to say such a silly thing." 
 
 " Undoubtedly you were." 
 
 *' And you won't tell him ? " 
 
 " Tell him anything that would degrade my Mary ? Assail 
 her dignity bv so much as a breath ? Sooner would I have this 
 tongue torn out with red-hot pincers." 
 
 On the next day and the next sunshine and summer skies still 
 prevailed, but Mr. Hammond did not seem to care for rambling 
 far afield. He preferred loitering about the village, rowing on 
 the lake, reading in the garden, and playing lawn tennis. He 
 had only inclination for those amusements which kept him with- 
 in a stone's throw of Fellside ; and Mary knew that this disposi- 
 tion had arisen in his mind since Lesbia had withdrawn herself 
 from all share in their excursions. She had not been rude to 
 her brother, or her brother's friend ; she had declined their in- 
 vitations with smiles and sweetness ; but there was always some 
 reason — a nev/ song to be practiced, a new book to be read, a 
 
66 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 letter to be written — why she should not go for drives or walks 
 or steamboat trips with Maulevrier and his friend. 
 
 So Mr. Hammond found out all at once that he had seen all 
 that was worth seeing in the Lake country, and that there was 
 nothing so enjoyable as the placid idleness of Fellside ; and at 
 Fellside Lady Lesbia could not always avoid him, without a too 
 marked purpose ; so he tasted the sweetness of her society to a 
 much greater extent than was good for his peace, if the case 
 were indeed as hopeless as Lady Mary declared. He strolled 
 about the grounds with her ; he drank the sweet melody of her 
 voice in Heine's tenderest ballads set to Jensen's tender mel- 
 odies — he read to her on the sun-lit lawn in the lazy afternoon 
 hours — he played billiards with her ; he was her faithful attend- 
 ant at afternoon tea — he gave himself up to the study of her 
 character, which, to his charmed eyes, seemed the perfection of 
 pure and placid womanhood. There might, perhaps, be some 
 lack of passion and of force in this nature, a marked absence of 
 that impulsive feeling which is a charm in some women ; but 
 this want was atoned for by sweetness of character, and Mr. 
 Hammond argued that in these calm natures there was often an 
 unsuspected depth, a latent force, a grandeur of soul which only 
 revealed itself in the great ordeals of life. 
 
 So John Hammond hung about the luxurious drawing-room 
 at Fellside in a manner which his friend Maulevrier ridiculed as 
 unmanly. 
 
 " I had no idea you were such a tame cat," he said ; " if when 
 we were salmon fishing in Canada anybody had told me you 
 could loll about a drawing-room all day listening to a girl squall- 
 ing, or reading novels, I shouldn't have believed a word of it." 
 
 " We had plenty of roughing on the shores of the St. Law^ 
 rence," answered Hammond, " summer idleness in a drawing- 
 room is an agreeable variety." 
 
 It is not to be supposed that John Hammond's state of mind 
 could long remain unperceived by the keen eyes of the dowager. 
 She saw the gradual dawning of his love, she saw the glow of 
 its meridian. She was pleased to behold this proof of Lesbia's 
 over the heart of man. So would she conquer the man fore- 
 doomed to be her husband when the coming time should bring 
 them together. But agreeable as the fact of this first conquest 
 might be as an evidence of Lesbia's supremacy among women, 
 the situation was not without its peril ; and Lady Maulevrier 
 felt that she could no longer defer the duty of warning her 
 granddaughter. She had wished, if possible, to treat the thing 
 Ughtly to the very last, so that Lesbia should never know there 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. (,7 
 
 had been danger. She had told her, a few days ago, that those 
 drives and walks with the two young men, even although guard- 
 ed by the Fraulein's substantial presence, were undignified. 
 
 " You are making yourself too much a companion to Maule- 
 vrier and his friend," said the dowager. " If you do not take 
 care you will grow like Mary." 
 
 " I would do anything to avoid that," replied Lesbia. " Our 
 \valks and drives have been very pleasant. Mr, Hummond is 
 extremely clever, and can talk about everything." 
 
 Her color heightened ever so little as she spoke of him, an 
 indication duly observed by Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 " No doubt the man is clever, all adventurers are ; and you 
 have sense enough to see that this man is an adventurer — a 
 mere sponge and toady of Maulevrier's." 
 
 "There is nothing in his manner of the sponge or the toady," 
 protested Lady Lesbia, with a very palpable blush, the warm 
 glow of angry feeling. 
 
 " My dear child, what do you know of such people — or of the 
 atmosphere in which they are generated. The sponge and 
 toady of to-day is not the clumsy swindler you have read about 
 in old-fashioned novels. He can fawn and flatter and feed 
 upon his friends, and yet maintain a show of manhood and inde- 
 pendence. I'll wager Mr. Hammond's trip to Canada did not 
 cost him sixpence, and that he hardly opened his purse all the 
 time he was in Switzerland." 
 
 " If my brother wants the company of a friend who is much 
 poorer than himself, he must pay for it," argued Lesbia. " 1 
 think Maulevrier is lucky to have such a companion as Mr. 
 Hammond." 
 
 Yet, even while she argued. Lady Lesbia felt in some manner 
 humiliated by the idea that this man who so palpably worship- 
 ed her was too poor to pay his own traveling expenses. 
 
 Let poets and philosophers say what they will about the grand- 
 eur of plain living and high thinking, a young woman thinks bet- 
 ter of the plain-liver who is not compelled to simplicity by want 
 of cash. The idea of narrow means, of dependence upon the 
 capricious generosity of a wealthy friend, is not without its hu- 
 miliating influence. Lesbia was barely civil to Mr. Hammond 
 that evening, when he praised her singing, and she refused to 
 join in a four game proposed by Maulevrier, albeit she and Mr. 
 Hammond had beaten Mary and Maulevrier the evening before 
 with much exultant hilarity. 
 
 Mr. Hammond had been at Fellside nearly a month, and 
 Maulevrier was beginning to talk about a move further north- 
 
68 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 ward. There was a grouse moor in Argyleshire which the two 
 young men talked about as belonging to some unnamed friend 
 of the earl's, which they had thought of shooting over before 
 the grouse season was ended. 
 
 " Lord Hartfield has property in Argyleshire," said the dowa- 
 ger, when they talked of these shootings. " Do you know his 
 estate, Mr. Hammond?" 
 
 " Hammond knows that there is such a place, I dare say," re- 
 plied Maulevrier, replying for his friend. 
 
 " But you do not know Lord Hartfield, perhaps," said her 
 Ladyship, not arrogantly, but still in a tone which implied her 
 conviction that John Hammond could not be hand-in-glove wiih 
 earls in Scotland or elsewhere. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know him — by sight — ever}^ one in Argyleshire 
 knows him by sight." 
 
 " Naturally, a young man in his position would be widely 
 known. Is he popular ? " 
 
 " Fairly so." 
 
 " His father and 1 were friends many years ago," said Lady 
 Maulevrier, with a faint sigh. " Have you ever heard if he re- 
 sembles his father } " 
 
 " I believe not. I am told he is like his mother's family." 
 
 "Then he ought to be handsome; Lady Florence Ilmington 
 was a famous beauty." 
 
 They were sitting in the drawing-room after dinner, the room 
 dimly lighted with darkly-shaded lamps, the windows wide open 
 to the summer sky and moon-lit lake. In that subdued light 
 Lady Maulevrier looked a woman in the prime of life. The 
 classical modeling of her features, the delicacy of her complex- 
 ion, were unimpaired by time ; and those traces of thought and 
 care which gave age to her face in the broad light of day were 
 invisible at night. John Hammond contemplated that refined 
 and placid countenance with profound admiration. He remem- 
 bered how her Ladyship's grandson had compared her with the 
 Sphinx ; and it seemed to him that night, as he studied that 
 proud and tranquil beauty, that there was indeed something of 
 the mysterious, the unreadable, in that countenance, and that 
 beneath its heroic calm there might be the asiies of tragic pas- 
 sion, the traces of a life-long struggle with Fate. That such a 
 woman, so beautiful, so gifted, so well fitted to shine and govern 
 in the great world, should have been content to live a long life 
 of absolute seclusion in this remote valley was in itself a social 
 mystery which must needs set any observant young man won- 
 dering. It was all very well to say that Lady Maulevrier loved 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 69 
 
 a country life, that she had made Fellside her earthly Paradise, 
 and that she had no desire beyond it. The fact remained that 
 it was not in Lady Maulevrier's temperament to be satisfied with 
 such an existence — that falcon eye was never meant to gaze for- 
 ever upon one narrow range of mountain and lake, that lip was 
 meant to speak among the great ones of the world. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier was particularly gracious to her grandson's 
 friend this evening. Maulevrier spoke so decisively about a 
 speedy migration northward, seemed so inclined to regret the 
 time wasted since the twelfth of the month, that she thought the 
 danger was past, and that she could afford to be civil. She 
 really liked the young man, had no doubt in her own mind that 
 he was a gentleman in the highest and broadest sense of the 
 word, but not in the sense which made him an eligible husband 
 for either of her granddaughters. 
 
 Lesbia was in a pensive mood this evening. She sat in the 
 veranda, looking dreamily at the lake, and at Fairfield yonder, 
 the broad green slope silvered with moonlight and seeming to 
 stretch far away into unfathomable distance. 
 
 Ah, how sweet life would be if one could but take one's lover 
 by the hand and go wandering over those mystic moonlit slopes 
 into some new unreal world where it would not matter whether 
 a man were rich or poor, high-born or low-born, where there 
 should be no such things as rank and state to be won or lost. 
 Lesbia felt to-night as if she w^ould like to live out her life in 
 dream-land. Reality was too hard, too much set round by diffi- 
 culties and sacrifices. » 
 
 While Lesbia was losing herself in that dream-world, Lady 
 Maulevrier unbent considerably to Mr. Hammond, and talked 
 to him with more appearance of interest in his actual self, and 
 in his own affairs, than she had manifested hitherto, although 
 she had been uniformly courteous. 
 
 She asked him his plans for the future— had he chosen a pro- 
 fession ? 
 
 He told her that he had not. He meant to devote himself to 
 literature and politics. 
 
 " Is not that rather vague ? " inquired her Ladyship. 
 
 " Everything is vague at first." 
 
 " But literature now — as an amusement, no doubt, it is de- 
 lightful — but as a profession — does literature ever pay ? " 
 
 " There have been such cases." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so. Sir Walter Scott, Gibbon, Macaulay, 
 Froude, those made money no doubt. But there is a suspicion 
 of hopelessness in the idea of a young man starting in life in- 
 
70 PHANTOM FORTUNE^ 
 
 tending to earn his bread by literature. One remembers Chat- 
 terton. I should have thought that in your case the law or the 
 church would have been better. In the latter profession Mau- 
 levrier might have been useful to you. He is patron of three or 
 four livings." 
 
 " You are too good even to think of such a thing," said Ham- 
 mond ; " but I have set my heart upon a political career — I 
 must swim or sink in that sea." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier looked at him with a compassionate smile. 
 Poor young man ! No doubt he thought himself a genius, and 
 that doors which had remained shut to everybody else would 
 turn on their hinges directly he knocked at them. She was 
 sincerely sorry for him. Young, clever, enthusiastic, and doomed 
 to bitterest disappointment. 
 
 " You have parents, perhaps, who are ambitious for you — a 
 mother who thinks her son a heaven-born statesman ! " said her 
 Ladyship, kindly. 
 
 "Alas, no ! that grand incentive to ambition is wanting in my 
 case. I have neither father nor mother living." 
 
 " That is very sad. No doubt that fact has been a bond of 
 sympathy between you and Maulevrier t " 
 
 " I believe it has." 
 
 " Well, I hope Providence will smile upon your patho" 
 
 "Come what may, I shall never forget the happy weeks I 
 have spent at Fellside," said Hammond, *' or your Ladyship's 
 gracious hospitality." 
 
 He took up the beautiful hand, white to transparency, and 
 showing the delicate tracing of blue veins, and pressed his lips 
 upon it, in chivalrous worship of age and womanly dignity. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier smiled upon him with her calm, grave smile. 
 She would have liked to say, "You shall be welcome again 
 at Fellside," but she felt that the man was dangerous. Not 
 while Lesbia remained single could she court his company. If 
 Maulevrier brought him she must tolerate his presence, but she 
 would do nothing to invite that danger. 
 
 There was no music that evening. Maulevrier and Mary were 
 playing billiards ; Fraulein Kirsch was sitting in her corner work- 
 ing at a high-art counterpane. Lesbia came in from the veran- 
 da presently, and sat on a low stool by her grandmother's arm- 
 chair, and talked to her in soft, cooing accents, inaudible to 
 John Hammond, who sat a little way off turning the leaves of 
 the Contemporary Review ; and this went on till eleven o'clock, 
 the regular hour for retiring, when Mary came in from the bill- 
 iard room, and told Mr, Hammond that Maulevrier was wait- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 71 
 
 ing for a smoke and a talk. Then candles were lighted, and 
 the ladies all departed, leaving John Hammond and his friend 
 with the house to themselves. 
 
 They played a fifty game, and smoked and talked till the 
 stroke of midnight, by which time it seemed as if there were 
 not another creature awake in the house. Maulevrier put out 
 the lamps in the billiard room, and then went softly up the 
 shadowy staircase, and parted in the gallery, the earl going one 
 way and his friend the other. 
 
 The house was large and roomy, spread over a good deal of 
 ground, Lady Maulevrier having insisted upon there being only 
 two stories. The servant's rooms were all in a side wing, cor- 
 responding with those older buildings which had been given 
 over to Steadman and his wife, and among the villagers of Gras- 
 mere enjoyed the reputation of being haunted. A wide paneled 
 corridor extended from one end of the house to the other. It 
 was lighted from the roof, and served as a gallery for the dis- 
 play of a small and choice collection of modern art, which her 
 Ladyship had acquired during her long residence at Fellside. 
 Here, too, in Sherraton cabinets, were those treasures of old 
 English china which Maulevrier had inherited from past genera- 
 tions. 
 
 Her Ladyship's rooms were situated at the southern end of 
 this corridor, her bedchamber being at the extreme end of the 
 house, with windows commanding two magnificent views, one 
 across the lake and the village of Grasmere to the green slopes 
 of Fairfield, the other along the valley toward Rydal Water. 
 This and the adjoining boudoir were the prettiest rooms in the 
 house ; and no one wondered that her Ladyship should spend 
 so much of her life in the luxurious seclusion of her own apart- 
 ments. 
 
 John Hammond went to his room, which was on the same 
 side of the house as her Ladyship's ; but he was in no disposition 
 for sleep. He opened the casement, and stood looking out on 
 the moon-lit lake and the quiet village, where one solitary light 
 shone like a faint star, in a cottage window, amidst that little 
 cluster of houses by the old church, which was once known as 
 Kirktown. Beyond the village rose gentle slopes, crowned with 
 foliage, and above those fertile wooded crests appeared the 
 grand outline of the hills, surrounding and guarding Easedale's 
 lonely valley, as the hills surrounded Jerusalem of old. 
 
 He looked at this delicious landscape with eyes that hardly 
 saw its beauty. The image of a lovely face came between him 
 and all the glory of earth and sky. 
 
72 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " I think she likes me," he was saying to himself. " There 
 was a look in her eyes to-night that told me the time was come 
 when — " 
 
 The thought died unfinished in his brain. Through the silent 
 house, across the placid lake, there rang a wild, shrill cry that 
 froze the blood in his veins, or seemed so to freeze it — a shriek 
 of agony, and in a woman's voice. It rang out from an open 
 window near his own. The sound seemed close to his ear. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "O BITTERNESS OF THINGS TOO SWEET." 
 
 Only for an instant did John Hammond stand motionless 
 after hearing that unearthly shriek. In the next moment he 
 rushed into the corridor, expecting to hear the sound re- 
 peated, to find hmiself face to face with some midnight robber 
 whose presence had caused that wild cry of alarm. But in the 
 corridor all was silent as the grave. No open door suggested 
 the entrance of an intruder. The dimly-burning lamps showed 
 only the long empty gallery. He stood still for a few moments 
 listening for voices, footsteps, the rustle of garments, but there 
 was nothing. 
 
 Nothing ? Yes, a groan, a long-drawn moaning sound as of 
 unutterable pain. This time there was no doubt as to the direc- 
 tion from which the sound came. It came from Lady Maule- 
 vrier's room. The door was ajar and he could see the faint light 
 of the night lamp within. That fearful cry had come from her 
 Ladyship's room. She was in peril or pain of some kind. 
 
 Convinced of this one fact Mr. Hammond had not an instant's 
 hesitation, but pushed open the door without compunction and 
 entered the room, prepared to behold some terrible scene. 
 
 But all was quiet as death itself. No midnight burglar had 
 violated the sanctity ot Lady Maulevrier's apartment. The soft, 
 steady light of the night-lamp shone on the face of the sleeper. 
 Yes, all was quiet in the room, but not in the sleeper's soul. 
 The broad white brow was painfully contracted, the lips drawn 
 down and distorted, the delicate hand, half hidden by the deep 
 Valenciennes ruffle, clutched the coverlet with convulsive force 
 — sigh after sigh burst from the agitated breast. John Ham- 
 mond gazed upon the sleeper in an agony of apprehension, un- 
 certain what to do. Was this dreaming only, or was it some 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 73 
 
 kind of seizure which called for medical aid ? At her Ladyship's 
 age the idea of a paralysis was not too improbable for belief. 
 If this was a dream, then indeed the visions of Lady Maule- 
 vrier's head upon her bed were more terrible than the dreams of 
 common mortals. 
 
 In any case Mr. Hammond felt that it was his duty to send 
 some attendant to Lady Maulevrier, some member of the house- 
 hold who was famiUar with her Ladyship's habits, her own maid, 
 if that person could be unearthed easily. He knew that the 
 servants slept in a separate wing, but he thought it more than 
 likely that her Ladyship's personal attendant occupied a room 
 near her mistress. 
 
 He went back to the corridor, and looked round him in doubt 
 for a moment or two. 
 
 Close against her Ladyship's door there was a swing door, 
 covered with dark, red cloth, which seemed to communicate with 
 the old part of the house. John Hammond pushed this door, 
 and it yielded to his hand, revealing a lamp-lit passage, narrow, 
 old-fashioned, and low. He thought it likely that Lady Maule- 
 vrier's maid might occupy a room in this half-deserted wing. As 
 he pushed open the door he saw an elderly man coming toward 
 him, with a candle in his hand, and with the appearance of hav- 
 ing flung on his clothes hastily. 
 
 " You heard that scream ? " said Hammond. 
 
 " Yes. It was her Ladyship, I suppose — nightmare. She is 
 subject to nightmare." 
 
 " It is very dreadful. Her whole countenance was convulsed 
 just now, when I went into her room to see what was wrong. I 
 was almost afraid of a fit of some kind. Ought not her maid to 
 go to her t " 
 
 " She wants no assistance," the man answered coolly. " It 
 was only a dream. It is not the first time I have been awak- 
 ened by a shriek like that. It is a kind of nightmare, no doubt, 
 and it passes off in a few minutes, and leaves her sleeping 
 calmly." 
 
 He went to her Ladyship's door, pushed it open a little way 
 and looked in. 
 
 " Yes, she is sleeping as quietly as an infant," he said, :}iVrt- 
 ting the door softly as he spoke. 
 
 " I am very glad ; but surely she ought to have her maid near 
 her at night, if she is subject to those attacks." 
 
 " It is no attack, I tell you, It is nothing but a dream," 
 answered Steadman, impatiently. 
 
 "Yet you were frightened, just as I was, or you would not 
 
74 PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 have got up and dressed," said Hammond, looking at the man 
 suspiciously. 
 
 He had heard of this old servant Steadman, who was sup- 
 posed to enjoy more of her Ladyship's confidence than any one 
 else in the household ; but he had never spoken to the man be- 
 fore that night. 
 
 " Yes, I came. It was my duty to come, knowing her Lady- 
 ship's habits. I am a light sleeper, and that scream woke me 
 instantly. If her Ladyship's maid were wanted I should call her. 
 I am a kind of watch-dog you see, sir." 
 
 " You seem to be a very faithful dog." 
 
 " I have been in her Ladyship's service m.ore than forty years. 
 I have reason to be faithful. I know her Ladyship's habits bet- 
 ter than any one in the house. I know that she has had a great 
 deal of trouble in her early life, and I believe the memory of it 
 comes back upon her sometimes in her dreams, and gets the 
 better of her." 
 
 " If it was memory that wrung that agonized shriek from her 
 just now, her recollections of the past must be very terrible." 
 
 " Ah, sir, there is a skeleton in every house," answered James 
 Steadman, gravely. 
 
 This was exactly what Maulevrier had said under the yew 
 trees which Wordsworth planted. 
 
 " Good-night, sir," said Steadman. 
 
 " Good-night. You are sure that Lady Maulevrier may be 
 left safely — that there is no fear of illness of any kind 1 " 
 
 '• No, sir. It was only a bad dream. Good-night, sir." 
 
 Steadman went back to his own quarters. Mr. Hammond 
 heard him draw the bolts of the swing door, thus cutting off all 
 communication with the corridor. 
 
 The fine old eight-day clock in the staircase struck one as 
 Mr. Hammond returned to his room, even less inclined for 
 sleep than when he left it. Strange, that nocturnal disturbance 
 of a mind which seemed so tranquil in the day. Or was that 
 tranquillity only a semblance — a mask which her Ladyship wore 
 before the world, and was the bitter memory of events which 
 happened forty years ago still a source of anguish to that highly 
 strung nature ? 
 
 " There are some minds which cannot forget," John Ham- 
 mond said to himself as he meditated upon her Ladyship's char- 
 acter and history. " The story of her husband's crime may still 
 be fresh in her memory, though it is only a tradition for the out- 
 side world. His crime may have involved some deep wrong to 
 herself, some outrage against her love and faith as a wife. One 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 7 5 
 
 of the stories Maulevrier spoke of the other day was of a wicked 
 woman's influence upon the governor — a much more likely story 
 than that of any traffic in British interests, or British honor, 
 which would have been almost impossible for a man in Lord 
 Maulevrier's position. If the scandal was of that darker kind 
 — a guilty wife — the mysterious disappearance of a husband — 
 the horror of the thing may have made a deeper impression on 
 Lady Maulevrier than even her nearest and dearest dream of ; 
 and that superb calm which she wears like a royal mantle — that 
 queen-like bearing and gracious smile with which she greets all 
 comers — may be maintained at the cost of struggles which tear 
 her heart-strings. And then at night, when the will is dormant, 
 when the nervous system of the brain is no longer dominated by 
 the sovereign power of waking intelligence, the old family agony 
 returns, the hated images flash back upon the brain with all 
 the pictorial power of a fervent imagination, and in proportion 
 to the fineness of the nature and temperament is the intensity 
 of the dreamer's pain. 
 
 And then he went on to reflect upon the long, monotonous 
 years spent in that one house, shut in from the world by those 
 everlasting hills. Albeit the house was an ideal house, set in a 
 landscape of infinite beauty, the monotony was none the less 
 oppressive for a mind burdened with dark memories, weighed 
 down by sorrows which could seek no relief from sympathy, 
 which could never become familiarized by discussion. 
 
 " I wonder that a woman of Lady Maulevrier's intellect should 
 not have better known how to treat her own malady," thought 
 Hammond. 
 
 Mr. Hammond inquired after her Ladyship's health next morn- 
 ing, and was told she was perfectly well. 
 
 " Grandmamma is in capital spirits," said Lady Lesbia. " She 
 is pleased with the contents of yesterday's Globe. Lord Den- 
 yer, the son of one of her oldest friends, has been making a 
 great speech at Liverpool in the Conservative interest, and her 
 Ladyship thinks we shall have a change of parties before long." 
 
 "A general shuffle of the cards," said Maulevrier, looking up 
 from his breakfast. " I'm sure I hope so. I'm no politician, 
 but I like a row." 
 
 " I hope you are a Conservative, Mr. Hammond," said Lesbia. 
 
 " I had hoped you would have known that ever so long ago, 
 Lady Lesbia." 
 
 Lesbia blushed at his tone, which was almost a reproach. 
 
 "I suppose I ought to have understood from the general 
 tenor of vour conversation," she said, " but I am terribly stupid 
 
76 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 about politics. I take so little interest in them. I am always 
 hearing that we are being badly governed — that the men who 
 legislate for us are stupid or wicked — yet the world seems to go 
 on somehow, and we are no worse." 
 
 "It is just the same with sport," said Maulevrier. "Every 
 rainy Spring we are told that all the young birds have been 
 drowned, and that we shall have nothing to shoot ; but when 
 August comes the birds are there all the same." 
 
 " It is the nature of mankind to complain," said Hammond. 
 " Cain and Abel were the first farmers, and you see one of them 
 grumbled." 
 
 They were rather lively at breakfast that morning — Maule- 
 vrier's last breakfast but one — for he had announced his deter- 
 mination of going to Scotland next day. Other fellov/s would 
 have shot all the birds if he dawdled any longer. Mary was in 
 deep despondency at the idea of his departure, yet she laughed 
 and talked with the rest. And perhaps Lesbia felt ever so 
 little moved at the thought of losing Mr. Hammond. Maulevrier 
 would come back to Mary, but Mr. Hammond was hardly likely 
 to return. Their parting would be forever. 
 
 " You needn't sit quite in my pocket, Moll," said Maulevrier 
 to his young sister. 
 
 " I like to make the most of you, now you are going away," 
 sighed Mary. " Oh, dear, how dull we shall all be when you 
 are gone." 
 
 " Not a bit 01 it. You will have some fox hunting, perhaps, 
 before the snow is on the hills." 
 
 At the very mention of fox-hounds Lady Mary's bright young 
 face crimsoned, and Maulevrier began to laugh in a provoking 
 way, with side-long glances at his sister. 
 
 " Did you ever hear of Molly's fox hunting, by-the-bye, Ham- 
 mond } " he asked. 
 
 Mary tried to put her hand before his lips, but it was useless. 
 
 " wiry shouldn't I tell ? " he asked. " It was quite a heroic 
 adventure. You must know our fox hunting here is rather a 
 peculiar institution, very good in its way, but strictly local. No 
 horse could live among our hills, so we hunt on foot, and as the 
 pace is good and the work hard nobody who starts with the 
 hounds is likely to be in at the death, except the huntsman. 
 We are all mad for the sport, and off we go over the hills and 
 far away, picking up fresh sportsmen as we go. The plow- 
 man leaves his plow, and the shepherd leaves his fiock, and 
 the farmer leaves his thrashing to follow us ; in every field we 
 cross we get fresh blood, while those who join us at the start 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 77 
 
 fall off by degrees. Well, it happened one day late in Octobci, 
 when there were long ridges of snow on Helvellyn's dark brow, 
 and patches of white on Fairfield, Mistress Mary here must 
 needs take her bamboo staff and start for the Striding Edge. 
 It was just the day upon which she might have met her death 
 easily on that perilous ridge, and no doubt that is why she 
 chose it; but happily something occurred to divert her Ladyship's 
 fancy, for scarcely had she reached the bottom of Dolly Wagon 
 Pike — NOM know Dolly — " 
 
 " Intimately," said Hammond, wath a nod. 
 
 " Scarcely had she neared Dolly Wagon when she heard the 
 huntsman's horn and the hounds in full cry streaming along 
 toward Grisdale Tarn. Oif flew Molly, all among the butcher 
 boys, and farmers' men, and rosy-cheeked squireens of the dis- 
 trict — racing over the rugged fields — clambering over the low 
 stone walls — up hill, down hill — shouting when the others 
 shouted — never losing sight of the tails of the hounds — winding 
 and doubling, and still going upward and upward, till she stood, 
 panting and puffing like a young grampus, on the top of Hel- 
 vellyn, still all among the butcher boys, and the farmers' men, 
 and the guides, and the red-cheeked squireens, her frock torn to 
 ribbons, her hat lost in a ditch, her hair streaming down her 
 back, and every inch of her, from the pose downward, splashed 
 and spattered with mire and clay. What a spectacle for gods 
 and men, guides and butcher boys. And there she stood with 
 the sun going down beyond Coniston Old Man, and a seven- 
 mile walk between her and Fellside." 
 
 " Poor Lady Mary ! " said Hammond, looking at her very 
 kindly; but Mary did not see that friendly glance which betok- 
 ened sympathy rather than scorn. 
 
 She sat silent and very red, with drooping eyelids, thinking 
 her brother horribly cruel for thus publishing her foolishness. 
 
 ^' Poor, indeed. She came crawling home after dark, footsore 
 and draggled, looking like a beggar girl, and as evil fate w^ould 
 have it, her Ladyship must needs have been taking afternoon tea 
 at the vicarage upon that particular occasion, and was driving 
 up the avenue as Mary crawled to the gate. The storm that 
 followed may be more easily imagined than described." 
 
 "It was years and years ago," expostulated Mary, looking 
 very angry. " I was quite a child. Grandmother needn't have 
 made such a fuss about it." 
 
 " Ah, but in those days she still had hopes of civilizing you," 
 answered Maulevrier. " Since then she has abandoned all en- 
 deavor in that direction, and has given you up to your own de- 
 
78 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 vices — and me. Since then you have become a chartered hber-| 
 tine — you have letters of mark." 
 
 "I don't care what you call me," said Mary. " I only know 
 that I am very happy when you are at home, and very miserable 
 when you are away." 
 
 " It is hardly kind of you to say that. Lady Mary," remonstra- 
 ted Fraulein Kirsch, who up to this point had been busily en- 
 gaged with muffins and gooseberry jam, 
 
 " Oh, I don't mean that any one is unkind to me or uses me 
 badly," said Mary. " I only mean that my life is empty when 
 Maulevrier is away, and that 1 am always longing for him to 
 come back again." 
 
 " I thought you adored the hills, and the lake, and the vil- 
 lagers, and your pony, and Maulevrier's dogs," said Lesbia, 
 faintly contemptuous. . 
 
 " Yes, but one wants something human to love," answered 
 Mary, making it very obvious that there was no warmth of affec- 
 tion between her and the feminine members of her family. 
 
 She had no thought of the significance of her speech. She 
 was very angry with Maulevrier for having held her up to ridi- 
 cule before Mr. Hammond, who already despised her, as she be- 
 lieved, and whose contempt was more galling than it need have 
 been, considering that he was a mere casual visitor who would 
 go away and return no more. Never till his coming had she felt 
 her deficiencies, but in his presence she writhed under the sense 
 of her unworthiness, and had an almost agonizing consciousness 
 of all those faults which her grandmother had told her about so 
 often, with not the slightest effect. In those days she had not 
 cared what Lady Maulevrier or anyone else might say of her or 
 think of her. She lived her life, and defied fortune. She was 
 worse than her reputation. To-day she felt it a bitter thing that 
 she had grown to the age of womanhood lacking all those graces 
 and accomplishments which made her beautiful sister adorable, 
 and which might make even a plain woman charming. 
 
 Never till John Hammond's coming had she felt a pang of 
 envy in the contemplation of Lesbia's beauty or Lesbia's grace ; 
 but now she had so keen a sense of the difference between her- 
 self and her sister that she began to fear that this cruel pain must 
 indeed be the lowest of all vices. Even the difference in their 
 gowns was a source of humiliation to her now. Lesbia was 
 looking her loveliest this morning, in a gown that was all lace 
 and soft Madras muslin, flowing, diaphanous, cloudlike, while 
 Mary's tailor gown, with its trim tight bodice, horn buttons and 
 kilted skirt, seemed to cry aloud that it had been made for atom- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 79 
 
 boy. And this tailor gown was a costume to which Mar\^ had 
 condemned herself by her own folly. Only a year ago, moved 
 by an artistic admiration of Lesbia's delicate breakfast gowns, 
 Mary had told her grandmother that she would like to have gowns 
 of the same kind ; whereupon the dowager, who did not take the 
 faintest interest in Mary's toilet, but who had a stern sense of 
 justice, replied : 
 
 '' I do not think Lesbia's frocks and your habits will agree, 
 but you can have some pretty morning gowns if you like ; " and 
 the order was forthwith given for a confection in muslin and lace 
 for Lady Mary. 
 
 Mary came down to breakfast one bright June morning, in a 
 new frock, feeling very proud of herself, and looking very 
 pretty. 
 
 " Fine feathers make fine birds," said Fraulein Kirsch. " I 
 should hardly have known you." 
 
 "I wish you would always dress like that," said Lesbia. 
 " You really look like a young lady ; " and Mary had danced 
 about on the lawn feeling sylph-like, and quite in love with her 
 own elegance, when a sudden cry of canine voices in the distance 
 had sent her ikying to see what was the matter with the terrier 
 pack. 
 
 In the kennel there was riot and confusion. Ahab was demol- 
 ishmg Angelina, Absalom and Agamemnon were annihilating 
 each other. Dog-whip in hand, Mary rushed to the rescue, and 
 laid about her, like the knights of old, utterly forgetful of her 
 frock. She left the kennel panting, and in rags and tatters, 
 some of the muslin and lace hanging about her in strips a yard 
 long, but the greater part remaining in the possession of the ter- 
 riers, the lively pack having mauled and munched her finery to 
 their heart's delight while she was reading the Riot Act. 
 
 She went back to the house bowed down by shame and con- 
 fusion, and marched straight to the dowager's morning-room. 
 
 _" Look what the terriers have done to me, grandmother," she 
 said, with a sob. " It is all my own fault, of course. I ought 
 not to have gone near them in that stupid muslin. Please for- 
 give me for being so foolish. I am not fit to have pretty frocks." 
 
 " I think, my dear, you can now have no doubt that the tailor- 
 gowns are fittest for you,", answered Lady Maulevrier with crush- 
 ing placidity. " We have tried the experiment of dressing you 
 like Lesbia, and you see it does not answer. Tell Kibble to 
 throw your new gown in the rag-bag, and please let me hear no 
 more about it." 
 
 After this dismal failure IMary could not feel herself ill-used 
 
8o PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 in having to wear tailor gowns all the year round. She was al- 
 lowed cotton frocks for very warm weather, and she had pretty 
 gowns for the evenings, but her common wear was cloth or lins'ey 
 woolsey made by the local tailor. Sometimes Maulevrier or- 
 dered her a gown or a coat from his own man in Conduit street, 
 and then she felt herself smart and fashionable. And even the 
 local tailor contrived to make her gowns prettily, having a 
 great appreciation of her straight willowy figure, and deeming it 
 a privilege to work for her, so that Mary had felt very well con- 
 tent with her cloth attire. But now that John Hammond so ob- 
 viously admired Lesbia's delicate raiment, poor Mary began to 
 think woollen-stuff as odious as poor Mrs. Oldfield thought it for 
 her grave clothes. 
 
 After breakfast Mary and Maulevrier went straight off to the 
 kennels. His Lordship had numerous instructions to give on this 
 last day, and his lieutenant had to receive and register his orders. 
 Lesbia went to the garden with her book and with Fraulein — 
 the inevitable Fraulein, as Hammond thought her — in close at- 
 tendance. 
 
 It was a lovely morning, sultry, summer-like, albeit Septem- 
 ber had just begun. The tennis lawn, which had been leveled 
 on one side of the house, was surrounded on three sides by shrub- 
 beries planted forty years ago, in the beginning of Lady Mau- 
 levrier's widowhood. All loveliest trees grew there in perfection, 
 sheltered by the mighty wall of the mountain, fed by the mists 
 from the lake. Larch and mountain ash, and Lawsonian Cy- 
 prus — Deodara and magnolia, arbutus and silver broom, acacia 
 and lilac, flourished and throve here in that rich beauty which 
 made every cottage garden in the happy district a little para- 
 dise, and here in a semicircular recess at one end of the lawn 
 were rustic chairs and tables and an umbrella tent. This was 
 Lady Lesbia's favorite retreat on summer mornings, a favorite 
 place for afternoon tea. 
 
 Mr. Hammond followed the two ladies to their bower. 
 
 "This is to be my last morning," he said, looking at Lesbia. 
 "Will you think me a great bore if I spend it with you ? " 
 
 " We shall think it very nice of you," answered Lesbia, with- 
 out a vestige of emotion, " especially if you will read to us." 
 
 " I will do anything to make myself useful. What shall I 
 read ? " 
 
 " Anything you like. What do you say to Tennyson ? " 
 
 " That he is a noble poet, a teacher of all good ; but too phil- 
 osophical for my present mood. May I read you some of 
 Heine's ballads, those songs which you sing so exquisitely, or 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 8l 
 
 rather some you do not sing, and which will be fresher to you. 
 My Germaii is far from perfect, but I am told it is passable, and 
 Fraulein Kirsch can throw her scissors at me when my accent 
 is too dreadful." 
 
 "You speak German beautifully," said Fraulein. "I wonder 
 where you learned it ? " 
 
 " I have been a good deal in Germany, and I had a Hanove- 
 rian valet who was quite a gentleman, and spoke admirably. I 
 think I learnt more from him than from grammars or diction- 
 aries. I'll go and fetch Heine." 
 
 " What a very agreeable person Mr. Hammond is," said Frau- 
 lein, when he was gone. " We shall quite miss him." 
 
 "Yes, I have no doubt we shall miss him," said Lesbia, again 
 without the faintest emotion. 
 
 The governess began to think that the ordeal of an agreeable 
 young man's presence at Fellside had been passed in safety, and 
 that her pupil was unscathed. She had kept a close watch on the 
 two, as in duty bound. She knew that Hammond was m love 
 with Lesbia, but she thought Lesbia was heart-whole. 
 
 Mr. Hammond came back with a shabby little book in his 
 hand, and established himself comfortably in one of the low 
 Beaconsfield chairs. 
 
 He opened his book at that group of short poems called 
 Heimkehr, and read here and there as fancy led him. Some- 
 times the strain was a love song, brief, passionate as the cry of 
 0. soul in pain ; sometimes the verses were bitter and cynical ; 
 sometimes full of tenderest sympathy, telling of childhood, and 
 youth and purity ; sometimes dark with hidden meanings, 
 grim, awful, cold with the chilling breath of the charnel house ; 
 sometimes Lesbia's heart beat a little faster as Mr. Hammond 
 read, for it seemed as if it was he who was speaking to her, and 
 not the dead poet. 
 
 An hour or more passed in this way, Fraulein Kirsch, charmed 
 at hearing some of her favorite verses, asking now for this little 
 bit, and anon for another, and expatiating upon the merits of 
 German poets in general and Heine in particular, in the pauses 
 of the lecture. She was quite carried away by her delight in 
 the poet, and was so entirely uplifted to the ideal world that 
 when a footman came with a message from Lady Maulevrier re- 
 questing her presence, she tripped gayly off at once without a 
 thought of danger in leaving those two together on the lawn. 
 She had been a faithful watch-dog up to this point ; but she was 
 now lulled into a false sense of security by the idea that t''^e time 
 of peril was all but ended. 
 
82 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 So she left them ; but could she have looked back two min- 
 utes afterwards he would have perceived the unwisdom of that 
 act. 
 
 No sooner had the Fraulein turned the corner of the shrub- 
 bery than Hammond laid aside his book and drew nearer Lesbia, 
 who sat looking downward, with her eyes upon the delicate piece 
 of fancy work which had occupied her fingers all the morning. 
 
 "Lesbia, this is my last day at Fellside, and you and I may 
 never have a minute alone together again while I am here. 
 Will you come for a little walk with me on the Fell ? There is 
 something I must say to you before I go." 
 
 Lesbia's delicate cheek grew a shade more pale. Instinct told 
 her what was coming, though never mortal man had spoken to 
 her of love. Nor until now had Mi. Hammond ever addressed 
 her by her Christian name without the ceremonious prefix. 
 There was a deeper tone in his voice, a graver look in his eyes 
 than she had ever noticed before. 
 
 She rose and took up her sunshade and went with him meek- 
 ly through the cultivated shrubbery of ornamental timber to the 
 rougher pathway that wound through a copse of Scotch fir, 
 U'hich formed the outer boundary of Lady Maulevrier's domain. 
 Beyond the fir trees rose the grassy slope of the hill, on the 
 brow of which sheep were feeding. Deep down in the hollow 
 below the lawns and shrubberies of Fellside the placid bosom of 
 the lake shone like an emerald floor in the sunlight, reflecting the 
 verdure of the hill and the white sheep dotted about the 
 slope. 
 
 There was not a breath in the air around them as those two 
 sauntered slowly side by side in the pine wood, not a cloud in 
 the dazzling blue sky above ; and for a little time they too were 
 silent, as if bound by a spell which neither dared to break. 
 Then at last Hammond spoke. 
 
 "Lesbia, you know that I love you," he began, in his low, 
 grave voice, tremulous with feeling. " No words I can say to- 
 day can tell you of niy love more plainly than my heart has been 
 telling you in every hour of this happy, happy time that you and 
 I have spent together. I love you as I never hoped to love, fer- 
 vently, completely, believing that the perfection of earthly bliss 
 will be mine if I can but win you. Dearest, is there such a 
 sweet hope for me ; are you indeed my own, as I am yours, heart 
 and soul, and mind and being, till the last throb of life in this 
 poor clay ? " 
 
 He tried to take her hand, but she drew herself away from 
 him with a frightened look. She was very pale, and there waA 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 83 
 
 infinite distress in the dark violet eyes, which looked entreat- 
 ingly, deprecatingly at her lover. 
 
 " 1 dare not answer as you would like me to answer," she fal- 
 tered, after a painful pause. " I am not my own mistress. My 
 grandmother has brought me up, devoted herself to me almost, 
 and she has her own views, her own plans. I dare not frustrate 
 them." 
 
 " She would like to marry you to a man of rank and fortune, 
 a man who will choose you, perhaps, because other people ad- 
 mire you rather than because he himself loves you as you ought 
 to be loved ; who will choose you because you are altogether the 
 best and most perfect thing of your year ; just as he would buy 
 a yearling at Newmarket or F.psom. Her Ladyship means you 
 to make a great alliance — coronets, not hearts, are the counters 
 for her game ; but, Lesbia, would you, in the bloom and fresh- 
 ness of youth — you, with the pulses of youth throbbing at your 
 heart — lend yourself to the calculations of age which has lived 
 its life and forgotten the very meaning of love ; would you sub- 
 mit to be played as a card in the game of a dowager's ambition ? 
 Trust me, dearest, in the crisis of a woman's life there is one 
 only counselor she should listen to, and that counselor is her 
 own heart. If you love me — as I dare to hope you do — trust in 
 me, hold by me, and leave the rest to heaven. I know that I 
 can make your life happy." 
 
 " You frighten me by your impetuosity," said Lesbia. " Surely 
 you forget how short a time we have known each other." 
 
 " An age. All my life before the day I saw you is a dead, dull 
 blank, as compared with the magical hours I have spent with 
 you." 
 
 " I do not even know who you are." 
 
 " First, I am a gentleman, or I should not be your brother's 
 friend. A poor gentleman, if you like, with only my own right 
 arm to hew my pathway through the wood of life to the temple of 
 fortune ; but trust me, only trust me, Lesbia, and I will so hew 
 my path as to reach that temple. Look at me, love. Do I look 
 like a man born to fail ? " 
 
 She looked up at him shyly, with her soft eyes dim with tears. 
 He looked like a demi-god, tall, straight as the pine trunks 
 among which he was standing, a frame formed for strength and 
 activity, a face instinct with mental power, dark eyes that glowed 
 with the fires of intellect and passion. The sunlight gave an 
 almost unearthly radiance to the clear darkness of his complex- 
 ion, the curly brown hair cut close to the finely shaped head, the 
 broad brow, and boldly modeled features. Lesbia felt in her 
 
84 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 heart that such a man must be destined for success, born to be 
 a conqueror in all strifes, a victor upon every field. 
 
 '' Have I the thews and sinews of a man doomed to be beaten 
 in the battle ? " he asked her. " No, dearest, Heaven meant me 
 to succeed, and with you to fight for I shall not be bested by 
 adverse fortune. Can you not trust Providence and me.'*" 
 
 " I cannot disobey my grandmother. If she will consent — " 
 
 " She will not consent. You must defy Lady Maulevrier, Les- 
 bia, if you mean to reward my love. But I will promise you 
 this, darling, that if you will be my wife — with your brother's 
 consent — which I am sure of before I ask for it, within a month 
 of our marriage I will find means of reconciling her Ladyship to 
 the match and winning her entire forgiveness for you and 
 me." 
 
 " You are talking of impossibilities," said Lesbia, frowning. 
 " Why do you talk to me as if I were a child .'' I know hardly 
 anything of the world, but I do know the woman who has reared 
 and educated me. My grandmother would never forgive me if 
 I married a poor man. I should be an outcast." 
 
 " We would be outcasts together — happy outcasts. Besides, 
 we should not always be poor. I tell you I am predestined to 
 conquer fate." 
 
 " But we should have to begin from the beginning." 
 
 " Yes, we should have to begin from the beginning, as Adam 
 and Eve did w^hen they left Paradise." 
 
 " We are not told in the Bible that they had any happiness 
 after that. It seems to have been all trouble and weariness and 
 toil and death, after the angel with the flaming sword drove them 
 out of Eden." 
 
 " They were together, and they must have been happy. Oh, 
 Lesbia, if you do not feel that you can face poverty and the 
 world's contempt by my side, and for my sake, you do not love 
 me. Love never calculates so nicely ; love never fears the fut- 
 ure. And yet you do love me, Lesbia," he said, trying to fold 
 her in his arms ; but again she drew herself away from him, this 
 time with a look almost of horror, and stood facing him, cling- 
 ing to one of the pine trunks, like a scared wood-nymph. 
 
 " You have no right to say that," she said. 
 
 " I have — the divine right of my own deep love — of heart which 
 cries out to heart. Do you think there is no magnetic power in 
 true love which can divine the answering love in another? Les- 
 bia, call me an insolent coxcomb, if you like, but I know you 
 love me, and that you and I may be utterly happy together. Oh, 
 why — why do you shrink from me, my beloved : why withhold 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 85 
 
 yourself from my arms. Oh, love, let me hold you to my heart 
 —let me seal our betrothal with a kiss ! " 
 
 " Betrothal ! — no, no ; not for the world," cried Lesbia. 
 " Lady Maulevrier would cast me off forever ; she would curse 
 me." 
 
 " What w^ould the curse of an ambitious w^oman weigh against 
 my love ? And I tell you that her anger would be only a pass- 
 ing tempest. She would forgive you." 
 
 " Never — you don't know her." 
 
 " I tell you she would forgive you, and all would be well with 
 us before we had been married a year. Why cannot yoU believe 
 me, Lesbia ? " 
 
 " Because I cannot believe impossibilities, even from your 
 lips," she answered, sullenly. 
 
 She stood before him with downcast eyes, the tears streaming 
 down her pale cheeks, exquisitely lovely in her agitation and 
 sorrow. Yes, she did love him ; her heart was beating pas- 
 sionately ; she was longing to throw herself on his breast, to be 
 folded upon that manly heart, to trust in that brave outlook 
 w^hich seemed to defy fortune. Yes, he was a man born to con- 
 quer — he was handsome, intellectual, powerful in all mental and 
 physical gifts. A man of men. But he was by his own admis- 
 sion a very obscure and insignificant person, and he had no 
 money. Life with him meant a long fight with adverse circum- 
 stances ; life for his wife must mean patience, submission, long 
 waiting upon destiny, and perhaps with old age and gray hairs 
 the tardy turning of Fortune's wheel. And was she for this to 
 resign the kingdom that had been promised to her, the giddy 
 heights which she was born to scale, the triumphs and delights 
 and victories of the great world ? Yes, Lesbia loved this fort- 
 uneless knight, but she loved herself and her prospects of pro- 
 motion still better. 
 
 " Oh, Lesbia, can you not be brave for my sake, trustful for 
 my sake ? God will be good to us if we are true to each other." 
 
 " God will not be good to me if I disobey my grandmother. 
 I owe her too much, ingratitude in me would be doubly base. 
 I wall speak to her. I will tell her all you have said, and if she 
 gives me the faintest encouragement — " 
 
 " She will not. That is a foregone conclusion. Tell her all, 
 if you like, but let us be prepared for the answer. And when 
 she denies the right of your heart to choose its own mate, 
 then rise up in the might of your womanhood and defy 
 her. Tell her ' I love him, and be he rich or poor, I will share 
 his fate.' Tell her boldly, bravely, nobly, as a true woman 
 
86 PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 should, and if she be adamant still, proclaim your right to diso- 
 bey her worldly wisdom rather than the voice of your own heart. 
 And then come to me, darling, and be my own, and the world 
 which you and I will face together shall not be a bad world. I 
 will answer for that. No trouble shall come near you. No hu- 
 miliation shall ever touch you. Only believe in me/' 
 
 " I can believe in you, but not in the impossible," answered 
 Lesbia, wdth measured accents. 
 
 The voice was silver sweet but passing cold. Just then there 
 w^as a rustling among the pine branches, and Lesbia looked 
 round with a startled air. 
 
 " Is there any one listening ? " she exclaimed. " What was 
 that?" 
 
 " Only the breath of heaven. Oh, Lesbia, if you were but a 
 little less wise, a little more trustful. Do not be a dumb idol. 
 Say that you love me, or do not love me. If you can look me 
 in the face, and say the last, I will leave you without another 
 word. I will take my sentence and go." 
 
 But this was just what Lesbia could not do. She could not 
 deny her love, and yet she could not sacrifice all things for her 
 love. She lifted the heavy lids which veiled those lovely eyes, 
 and looked up at him imploringly. 
 
 " Give me time to breathe, time to think," she said. 
 
 " And then will you answer me plainly, truthfully, without a 
 shadow of reserve, remembering that the fate of two lives hangs 
 on you and vour words t " 
 
 "I will." ' 
 
 " Let it be so, then. I'll go for a ramble over the hills, and 
 return in time for afternoon tea. I shall look for you on the 
 tennis-lawn at half-past four." 
 
 He took her hand, which this time she yielded to him, kissed 
 it fervently, and in the next moment was gone^ leaving her alone 
 among the pine trees. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " THEN FLASHED THE LIVING LIGHTNING FROM HER EYES." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier rarely appeared at luncheon ; she took 
 some light refection in her morning room, among her books and 
 papers, and in the society of her canine favorites, whose com- 
 pany suited her better at certain hours than the noisier compan- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 87 
 
 ionship of her grandchildren. She was a studious woman, lov- 
 ing the silent life of books better than the inane chatter of every- 
 day humanity. She was a v/oman who thought much, and read 
 much, and who lived more in the past than the present. She 
 lived also in the future, counting much upon the splendid career 
 of her beautiful granddaughter, which should be in a manner a 
 lengthening out, a renewal of her own life. She looked forward 
 to the day when Lesbia should reign supreme in the great world, 
 a famous beauty and leader of fashion, her every act and word 
 inspired, directed by her grandmother, who w^ould be the shadow 
 behind the throne. It was possible — nay, probable — that in 
 those days Lady Maulevrier would herself reappear in society, 
 establish her salon, and draw around her closing years all that 
 is wittiest, best and wisest in the world of fashion. 
 
 Her Ladyship was reposing in her low reading chair, with a 
 volume of Tyndall on the book-stand before her, when the door 
 was opened softly and Lesbia came gliding in, and seated her- 
 self without a word on the hassock at her grandmother's feet. 
 Lady Maulevrier passed her hand caressingly over the girl's 
 pretty hair, without looking up from her book. 
 
 *' You are a late visitor," she said ; " why did you not come 
 to me after breakfast ? " 
 
 " It was such a lovely morning, we went straight from the 
 breakfast table to the garden. I did not think you wanted me." 
 
 " I did not want you, but I am always glad to see my pet. 
 What were you doing in the garden all the morning ? I did not 
 hear the tennis balls." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier had already interrogated the German govern- 
 ess upon this very subject ; but she had her own reasons for 
 wishing to hear Lesbia's account. 
 
 " No, it was too warm for tennis. Fraulein and I sat and 
 worked and Mr. Hammond read to us." 
 
 " What did he read ? " 
 
 " Heine's ballads. He reads German beautifully." 
 
 " Indeed. I dare say he was at school in Germany. There 
 are cheap schools there to which middle-class people send their 
 boys." 
 
 This was like a thrust trom a rusty knife. 
 
 " Mr. Hammond was at Oxford," Lesbia said, reproachfully; 
 and then, after a longish pause, she clasped her hands upon 
 the arm of Lady Maulevrier's chair and said, in a pleading 
 voice : " Grandmamma, Mr. Hammond has asked me to marry 
 him." 
 
 " Indeed ! Only that ? And pray, did he tell you what are 
 
88 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 his means of maintaining Lord Maulevrier's sister in the posi- 
 tion to which her birth entitles her ? " inquired the Dowager, 
 with crushing calmness. 
 
 " He is not rich ; indeed, I believe, he is poor ; but he is 
 brave and clever, and he is full of confidence to conquer fort- 
 une." 
 
 " No doubt ; that is your true adventurer's style. He con- 
 fides implicitly in his own talents, and in somebody else's bank- 
 er. Mr. Hammond would make a tremendous figure in the 
 world, I dare say ; and while he was making it your brother 
 would have to keep him. Well, my dear Lesbia, I hope you 
 gave this gentleman the answer his insolence deserved ; or that 
 you did better, and referred him to me. I should be glad to 
 give him my opinion of his conduct — a person admitted to this 
 house as your brother's hanger-on — tolerated only on your 
 brother's account ; such a person — nameless, penniless, friend- 
 less (except for Maulevrier's easy-tempered patronage), to dare 
 to lift his eyes to my granddaughter — it is most ineffable inso- 
 lence ! " 
 
 Lesbia crouched by her grandmother's chair, her face hidden 
 from Lady Maulevrier's falcon eye. Every word uttered by 
 her Ladyship stung like the knotted cords of a knout. She 
 knew not whether to be most ashamed of her lover or of herself 
 — of her lover for his obscure position, his hopeless poverty, of 
 herself for her folly in loving such a man. And she did love 
 him, and would fain have pleaded his cause, had she not been 
 cowed and crushed by the authority that had ruled her all her 
 life. 
 
 " Lesbia, if I thought you had been silly enough, degraded 
 enough, to give this young man encouragement, to have justi- 
 fied his audacity of to-day by any act or word of yours, I should 
 despise, I should detest you. What could be more contemptible, 
 more hateful in a girl reared as you have been than to give en- 
 couragement to the first comer — to listen greedily to the first 
 adventurer who has the insolence to make love to you, to be eager 
 to throw yourself into the arms of the first man who asks you ? 
 That my granddaughter, a girl reared and taught and watched 
 and guarded by me, should have no more dignity, no more 
 naodesty, or womanly feeling, than a barmaid at an inn." 
 
 Lesbia began to cry. 
 
 " I don't see why a barmaid should not be a good woman, or 
 why it should be a crime to fall in love," she said, in a voice 
 broken by sobs. " You need not speak to me so unkindly. 1 
 am not going to marry Mr. Hammond." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 89 
 
 " Oh, you are not ; that is very good of you. I am deeply 
 grateful for such an assurance." 
 
 " But I like him better than any one I ever saw in my life be- 
 fore." 
 
 " You have seen so many people. You have had such a wide 
 area for choice." 
 
 " No ; I know I have been kept like a nun in a convent, 
 but I don't think when I go into the world I shall ever see any 
 one I should like better that Mr. Hammond." 
 
 " Wait till you have seen the world before you make up your 
 mind about that, and now, Lesbia, leave off talking and thinking 
 like a child. Look me in the face and listen to me, for I am 
 going to speak seriously ; and with me, when I am in earnest, 
 what is said once is said forever." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier grasped her granddaughter's arm with long, 
 slender fingers, which held it as tightly as the grasp of a vise. 
 She drew the girl's slim figure round till they were face to face, 
 looking into each other's eyes, the dowager's eagle coun4;enance 
 lit up with impassioned feeling, severe, awful as the face of one 
 of the fatal sisters, the avengers of blood, the harbingers of 
 doom. 
 
 " Lesbia, I think I have been good to you, and kind to you," 
 she said. 
 
 " You have been all that is kind and dear," faltered Les- 
 bia. 
 
 "Then give me measure for measure. My life has been a 
 hard one, child ; hard and lonely, and loveless and joyless. 
 My son, to whom I devoted myself in the vigor of youth and in 
 the prime of life, never loved me, never repaid me for my love. 
 He spent his days far away from me when his presence would 
 have gladdened my difficult life. He died in a strange land. 
 Of his three children you are the one I took into my heart. I 
 did my duty to the others, I lavished my love upon you. Do not 
 give me cursing instead of blessing. Do not give me a stone 
 instead of bread. I have built every hope of happiness or 
 pleasure in this world upon you and your obedience. Obey me, 
 be true to me, and I will make you a queen, and I will sit in the 
 shadow of the throne, I will toil for you and be wise for you. 
 You shall have only to shine and dazzle and envy the giory of 
 life. My beautiful darling, for pity's sake do not give yourself 
 over to folly." 
 
 " Did you not marry for love, grandmother ? " 
 
 *' No, Lesbia. Lord Maulevrier and I got on very well to 
 gether, but ours was no love match." 
 
90 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " Does nobody in your rank ever marry for love ? are all 
 marriages a mere exchange and barter ? " 
 
 " No, there are love-matches now and then, which often turn 
 out badly. But, my darling, I am not asking you to marry for 
 rank or for money. I am only asking you to wait till you find 
 your mate among the noblest in the land. He may be the 
 handsomest and most accomplished of men, a man born to win 
 women's hearts, and you may love him as fervently as ever a 
 village girl loved her first lover. I am not going to sacrifice 
 you or to barter you, dearest. I mean to marry you to the best 
 and noblest young man of his day; You shall never be asked 
 to stoop to the unworthy, not even if worthlessness wore straw- 
 berry leaves in his cap and owned the greatest estate in the land." 
 
 " And if — instead of waiting for this King Arthur of yours — 
 if I were to do as Iseult did — as Guinevere did — choose for my- 
 self—" 
 
 " Iseult and Guinevere were wantons. I wonder that you can 
 name them as examples among women." 
 
 " If I were to marry a good and honorable man who has his 
 place to make in the world, would you never forgive me t " 
 
 " You mean Mr. Hammond. You may just as well speak 
 plainly," said Lady Maulevrier, freezingly. " If you were ca- 
 pable of such idiocy as that, Lesbia, I would pluck you out of 
 my heart like a foul weed. I would never look upon you, or 
 hear your name spoken, or think of you again as long as I lived. 
 My life w^ould not last very long after that blow. Old age can- 
 not bear such shocks. Oh, Lesbia, I have been father and 
 mother to you; do not bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the 
 grave." 
 
 Lesbia gave a deep sigh, and brushed the tears from her eyes. 
 Yes, the ver}^ idea of such a marriage was foolishness. Just 
 now, in the pine wood, carried away by the force of her lover's 
 passion, by her own softer feelings, it had seemed to her as if 
 she could count the world well lost for his sake ; but now, at 
 Lady Maulevrier's feet, she became again true to her training, 
 and the world was too much to lose. 
 
 " What can I do, grandmamma ? " she asked, submissively, 
 despairingly. " He loves me and I love him. How can I tell 
 him that he and I can never be anvthing to each other in this 
 world ? " 
 
 " Refer him to me and I will give him his answer." 
 
 " No, no, that will not do. I have promised to answer him 
 myself. He has gone for a walk in the woods, and will come 
 back at half-past four for my answer." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 91 
 
 " Sit down at that table and write as I dictate." 
 
 " But a letter will be so formal." 
 
 " It is the only way in which you can answer him. When he 
 comes back from his walk you will have left Fellside. I shall 
 send you off to St. Bees with Fraulein. You must never look 
 upon that man's face again." 
 
 Lesbia brushed away a few more tears, and obeyed. She had 
 been too well trained to attempt resistance. Defiance was out 
 of the question. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 "the greater cantle of the world is lost." 
 
 The sky was still cloudless when John Hammond strolled 
 slowly up the leafy avenue at Fellside. He had been across 
 the valley and up the hill to Easedale tarn, and then, by rough 
 untrodden ways, across a chaos of rock and heather into a sec- 
 ond valley, long, narrow and sterile, known as Far Easedale, a 
 desolate gorge, a rugged cleft in the heart of the mountains. 
 The walk had been long and laborious, but only in such clamb- 
 ering and toiling, such expenditure of muscular force and latent 
 heat, could the man's restless soul endure these long hours of 
 suspense. 
 
 " How will she answer me ? Oh, my God ! how will she an- 
 swer me .? " he said within himself, as he walked up the romantic 
 winding road, which made so picturesque an approach to Lady 
 Maulevrier's lovely domam. " Is my idol gold or clay ? How 
 will she come through the crucible? Oh, dearest, sweetest, 
 loveliest, only be tru'e to the instinct of your womanhood and 
 my cup will be full of bliss, and all my days will flow as sweetly 
 as' a burden of a song. But if you prove heartless, if you love 
 the world's wealth better than you love me — ah ! then all is 
 over, and you and I are lost to each other forever. I have 
 made up my mind." 
 
 His face settled into an expression of indomitable determina- 
 tion, as of a man who would die rather than be false to his own 
 purpose. There was no glow of hope in his heart. He had no 
 deep faith in the girl he loved ; indeed, in his heart of hearts 
 he knew that this being to whom he had given his hopes of bliss 
 was no heroine. She was a lovely, lovable girl, nothing more. 
 Flow would she greet him when they met presently on the ten- 
 nis lawn ? With tears and entreaties, and pretty little depre- 
 
92 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 eating speeches, irresolution, timidity, vacillation, perhaps ; 
 hardly with heroic resolve to act and dare for his sake. 
 
 There was no one on the tennis lawn when he went there, 
 though the hour was close at hand at which Lesbia had prom- 
 ised to give him his answer. He sat down in one of the low 
 chairs, glad to rest after his long ramble, having had no refresh- 
 ment but a bottle of soda water and a biscuit at the cottage by 
 Easedale tarn. He waited, calmly as to outward seeming, but 
 with a heavy heart. 
 
 " If it were Mary, now, whom I loved I should have little fear 
 of the issue," he thought, weighing his sweetheart's character 
 as he weighed his chances of success. " That young termagant 
 would defy the world for her lover." 
 
 " He sat in the summer silence for nearly half an hour, and 
 still there was no sign of Lady Lesbia. Her satin-lined work- 
 basket, with the work thrown carelessly across it, was still on 
 the rustic table, just as she had left it when they went to the 
 pine wood. Waiting was weary work when the bliss of a life- 
 time trembled in the balance ; and yet he did not want to be 
 impatient. She might find it difficult to get away from her fam- 
 ily, perhaps. She was closely watched and guarded, as the most 
 precious thing at Fellside. 
 
 At last the clock struck five, and Hammond could endure 
 delay no longer. He went round by the flower garden to the 
 terrace before the drawing-room window, and through an open 
 window to the drawing-room. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier was in her accustomed seat, her own partic- 
 ular little table, her magazines, books, newspapers at her side. 
 Lady Mary was pouring out the tea, a most unusual thing, and 
 Maulevrier was sitting on a stool at her feet, with his arms up 
 to his chin, very warm and dusty, drinking tea. 
 
 " Where the mischief have you been hiding yourself all day, 
 Jack ? " he called out as Hammond appeared, looking round 
 the room as he entered with eager, interrogating eyes for that 
 one figure which was absent. 
 
 " I've been for a walk." 
 
 " You might have had the civility to announce your design, 
 and Molly and I would have shared your peregrinations." 
 
 " I am sorry that I lost the privilege of your company." 
 
 " I suppose that you lost your luncheon, which was of more 
 importance ? " said Maulevrier. 
 
 " Will you have some tea ? " asked Mary, who looked more 
 womanly than usual in a cream-colored surah gown — one of her 
 Sunday gowns. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 93 
 
 She had a faint hope that by this essentially feminine apparel 
 she might lessen the prejudicial effect of Maulevrier's cruel 
 story about the fox-hunt. 
 
 Mr. Hammond answered absently, hardly looking at Mary, 
 and quite unconscious of her pretty gown. 
 
 " Thanks, yes," he said, taking the cup and saucer, and look- 
 ing at the door by which he momentarily expected Lady Lesbia's 
 entrance, and then, as the door did not open, he looked down 
 at Mary, very busy with China tea-pots and a brass kettle w^iich 
 hissed and throbbed over a spirit lamp. 
 
 " Won't you have some cake ? " she asked, looking up at him 
 gently, grieved at the distress and disappointment in his face. 
 " I am sure you must be dreadfully hungr}^" 
 
 " Not in the least, thanks. How came you to be intrusted 
 with those sacred vessels, Lady Mary .'' What has become of 
 Fraulein and your sister .'' " 
 
 *' They have rushed off to St. Bees. Grandmamma thought 
 Lesbia looking pale and out of spirits, and packed her off to 
 the sea-side at a minute's notice." 
 
 *' What ! She has left Fellside ? " asked Hammond, paling 
 suddenly, as if a man had struck him. " Lady Maulevrier, do 
 I understand that Lady Lesbia has gone away t " 
 
 He asked the question in an authoritative tone, with the air 
 of a man who had a right to be answered. The dowager won- 
 dered at his surprising insolence. 
 
 " My granddaughter has gone to the sea-side with her gov- 
 erness," she said, haughtily. 
 
 *' At a moment's notice ? " 
 
 " At a moment's notice. I am not in the habit of hesitating 
 about any step which I consider necessary." 
 
 She looked him full in the face with those falcon eyes of hers ; 
 and he gave her back a look as resolute, and every whit as full 
 of courage and of pride. 
 
 " Well," he said, after a very perceptible pause, " no doubt 
 your Ladyship has done wisely, and I must submit to your 
 jurisdiction. But I had asked Lady Lesbia a question, and I 
 had been promised an answer." 
 
 " Your question has been answered by Lady Lesbia. She 
 left a note for you," replied Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 "Thanks," answered Mr. Hammond, briefly, and he hurried 
 from the room without another word. 
 
 The letter was on the table in his bed-room. He had little 
 hope of any good waiting for him in a letter so written. The 
 
94 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Dowager and the world had triumphed over a girl's dawning 
 love, no doubt. 
 
 This was Lesbia's letter : 
 
 " Dear Mr. Hammond — Lady Maulevrier desires me to say 
 that the proposal which you honored me by making this morn- 
 ing is one which I cannot possibly accept, and that any idea of 
 an engagement between you and me could result only in misery 
 and humiliation to both. She thinks it best, under these cir- 
 cumstances, that we should not again meet, and I shall, there- 
 fore, have left Fellside before you receive this letter. 
 
 *' With all good wishes, very faithfully yours, 
 
 "Lesbia Haselden." 
 
 " Very faithfully mine — faithful to her false training, to the 
 worldly mind that rules her ; faithful to the gods of this world 
 — Belial and mammon, and the Moloch Fashion. Poor cow- 
 ardly soul ! She loves me, and owns as much, yet weakly flies 
 from me, afraid to trust the strong arm and the brave heart of 
 the man who loves her, preferring the glittering shams of the 
 world to the reality of true and honest love. Well, child, I 
 have weighed you in the balance and found you wanting. 
 Would to God it had been otherwise ! If you had been brave 
 and bold for love's sake, where is that pure and perfect chryso- 
 lite for which I would have bartered you ? " 
 
 He flung himself into a chair, and sat with his head bowed 
 upon his folded arms, and his eyes not innocent of tears. 
 What would he not have given to find truth and courage and 
 scorn of the world's wealth in that heart which he had tried to 
 win. Did he think her altogether heartless because she re- 
 nounced him ? No, he was too just for that. He called her 
 only half-hearted. She was like the cat in the adage, " Letting 
 I dare not wait upon I would." But he told himself with one 
 deep sigh of resignation that she was lost to him forever. 
 
 " I have tried her and found her not worth the winning," he 
 said. 
 
 The house, even the lovely landscape smiling under his win- 
 dow, the pastoral valley, smooth lake and willowy island, seemed 
 hateful to him. He felt himself hemmed round by those green 
 hills, by yonder brown and rugged wall of Nabb Scar, stifled 
 for want of breathing space. The landscape was lovely enough, 
 but it was like a beautiful grave. He longed to get away from it. 
 
 " Another man would follow her to St. Bees," he said. " I will 
 not." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 95 
 
 He flung a few things into a Gladstone bag, sat down, and 
 wrote a brief note to Maiilevrier, asking him to make his excuses 
 to her Ladyship. He had made up his mind to go to Keswick 
 that afternoon, and would rejoin his friend to-morrow, at Car- 
 lisle. This done he rang for Maulevrier's valet, and asked that 
 person to look after his luggage and bring it on to Scotland 
 with his master's things; and then, without a word of adieu to 
 any one, Mr. Hammond went out of the house with his Glad- 
 stone bag in his hand, and shook the dust of Fellside off his 
 feet. 
 
 He ordered a fly at the Prince of Wales's Hotel, and drove to 
 Keswick, where he went on to the Lodore. The gloom and 
 spaciousness of Derwentwater, gray in the gathering dusk, suited 
 his humor better than the emerald prettiness of Grasmere — 
 the roar of the waterfall made music in his ear. He dined in a 
 private room, and spent the evening roaming on the shore of the 
 lake, and at eleven o'clock went back to his hotel and sat late 
 into the night reading Heine, and thinking of the girl he had 
 wooed and failed to win. 
 
 Mr. Hammond's letter was delivered to Lord Maulevrier five 
 minutes before dinner, as he sat in the drawing-room with her 
 Ladyship and Mary. Poor Maiy had put on another pretty govv^n 
 for dinner, still bent upon effacing Mr. Hammond's image of 
 her as a tousled, frantic creature in torn and muddy raiment. 
 She sat watching the door, just as Mr. Hammond had watched 
 it three hours ago. 
 
 " So," said Maulevrier, " your Ladyship has succeeded in driv- 
 ing my friend away. Mr. Hammond has left Fellside, and begs 
 me to convey to you his compliments and his grateful acknowl- 
 edgment of all your kindness." 
 
 " I hope I have not been uncivil to him," answered Lady 
 Maulevrier, coldly. " As you had both made up your minds to 
 go to-morrow, it can matter very little that he should go to-day." 
 
 Mary looked down at the ribbon and lace on her prettiest 
 frock, and thought that it mattered a great deal to her. Yet, if 
 he had stayed, would he have seen her frock or her ? With his 
 bodily eyes perhaps, but not with the eyes of his mind. Those 
 eyes saw only Lesbia. 
 
 " No, perhaps it hardly matters," answered Maulevrier, with 
 suppressed anger. " The man is not worth talking about or 
 thinking about. What is he ? Only the best, truest, bravest fel- 
 low I ever knew." 
 
 " There are shepherds and guides in Grasmere of whom we 
 could say almost as much," said Lady Maulevrier, "yet you 
 
96 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 would scarcely expect me to encourage one of them to pay his 
 addresses to your sister ! Pray spare us all nonsensical talk, 
 Maulevrier. This business is very well ended. You ought 
 never to have brought Mr. Hammond hi;re. 
 
 " I am sure of that now. I am very sorry I did bring him." 
 
 " Oh, the man will not die for love. A disappointment of that 
 kind is good for a young man in his position. It will preserve 
 him from more vulgar entanglements, and perhaps from the 
 folly of a too early marriage." 
 
 " That is a mighty philosophical way of looking at the mat- 
 ter." 
 
 " It is the only true way. I hope when you are my age you 
 will have learnt to look at everything in a philosophical spirit." 
 
 " Well, Lady Maulevrier, you have had it all your own way," 
 said the young man, walking up and down the room with ardent 
 impatience. " I hope you will never be sorry for having come 
 between two people who loved each other and might have made 
 each other happy." 
 
 '' I shall never be sorry for having saved my granddaughter 
 from an imprudent marriage. Give me your arm, Maulevrier, 
 and let me hear no more about Mr. Hammond. We have all 
 had quite enough of him," said her Ladyship, as the butler an- 
 nounced dinner. 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 Fraulein Kirsch and her charge returned from St. Bees after 
 a sojourn of about three weeks upon that quiet shore, but Lady 
 Lesbia did not appear to be improved in health or spirits by the 
 revivifying breezes of the ocean. 
 
 " It is a dull, horrid place, and I was bored to death there ! " 
 she said, when Mary asked how she had enjoyed herself. 
 " There was no question of enjoyment. Grandmamma took it 
 mto her head that I was looking ill, and sent me to the sea, but 
 I should have been just as well at Fellside." 
 
 This meant that between Lesbia and that distinctly inferior 
 being, her younger sister, there was to be no confidence. Mary 
 had watched the life-drama acted under her eyes too closely not 
 to know all about it, and was not inclined to be so put off. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 97 
 
 That pale, perturbed countenance of John Hammond's, those 
 eager inquiring eyes looking to the door which opened not, had 
 haunted Mary's waking thoughts, had even mingled with the 
 tangled web of her dreams. Oh, how could a woman scorn such 
 love ? To be so loved, and by such a man, seemed to Mary the 
 perfection of earthly bliss. She had never been educated up to 
 those wider and loftier views of life which teach a woman that 
 houses and lands, place and power, are the supreme good. 
 
 " I can't understand how you could treat that good, noble- 
 minded man so badly," she exclaimed one day, when she and 
 Lesbia were alone in the library, and after she had sat for ever 
 so long, staring out of the window, meditating upon her sister's 
 cruelty. 
 
 " Of whom are you speaking, pray 1 " 
 
 " As if you didn't know ! Of Mr. Hammond." 
 
 " And pray, how do you know he is noble-minded, or that I 
 treated him badly ? " 
 
 " Well, as to his being noble-minded, that jumps to the eyes, 
 as French books say. As for your treatment of him, I was look- 
 ing on all the time, and I know how unkind you were, and I 
 heard him talking to you in the fir copse that day." 
 
 '• You were listening," cried Lesbia, indignantly. 
 
 "I was not listening! I was passing by. And if people 
 choose to carry on their love affairs out of doors they must ex- 
 pect to be overheard. I heard him pleading to you, telling you 
 how he would work for you, fight the battle of life for you, ask- 
 ing you to be trustful and brave for his sake. But you have a 
 heart of stone. You and grandmamma both have hearts of stone. 
 I think she must have taken out your heart when you were little, 
 and put a stone in its place." 
 
 " Really," said Lesbia, trying to carry things with a high 
 hand, albeit her very human heart was beating passionately all 
 the time, " I think you ought to be very grateful to me — and 
 grandmamma — for refusing Mr. Hammond." 
 
 " Why grateful ? " 
 
 ''Because it leaves you a chance of getting him for yourself; 
 and everybody can see you are desperately in love with him. 
 That jumps to the eyes, as you say." 
 
 Mary turned crimson, trembled with rage, looked at her sis- 
 ter as if she would kill her, for a moment or so, and finally 
 burst into tears. 
 
 " That is not true, and it is shameful for you to say such a 
 thing," she cried. 
 
 " Why, what a virago you are^ Mary. Well, I'm very glad it is 
 
98 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 not true. Mr. Hammond is — yes, I will be quite candid with you 
 — he is the only man I am ever likely to admire for his own 
 sake ; he is good, brave, clever, all that you think him. But 
 you and I do not live in a world in which girls are free to follow 
 their own inclinations. I should break Lady Maulevrier's heart 
 if I were to make a foolish marriage, and I owe her too much 
 to set her wishes at naught, or to make her declining years un- 
 hajDpy. I must obey her at any cost to my own feelings. Please 
 never mention Mr. Hammond's name. I'm sure I have had 
 quite enough unhappiness about' him." 
 
 " I see," said Mary bitterly. " It is your own pain you think 
 of, not his. He may suffer, so long as you are not worried." 
 
 "You are an impertinent chit," retorted Lesbia, "and you 
 know nothing about it." 
 
 After this there was no more said about Mr. Hammond, but 
 Mary did not forget him. She wrote long letters to her brother, 
 who was still in Scotland, shooting, deer-stalking, fishing, killing 
 something or other daily, in the most approved fashion of an 
 Englishman taking his pleasure. Maulevrier occasionally re- 
 paid her with a telegram ; but he was not a good correspondent. 
 He declared that life was too short for letter-writing. Summer 
 was gone ; the lake was no longer a shining emerald floor, dot- 
 ted with the reflection of the flock upon the verdant slopes above 
 it, but dull and gray of hue and broken by white-edged wavelets. 
 Patches of snow gleamed on the misty heights of Helvellyn and 
 the autumn winds howled and shrieked around Fellside in the 
 evenings when all the shutters were shut and the outside world 
 seemed little more than an idea. 
 
 Those October evenings were very long and weary for Lesbia 
 and her sister. Lady Maulevrier read and mused in her low 
 chair beside the fire, with her books piled upon her own partic- 
 ular table, and lighted by her own particular lamp. She talked 
 very little, but she was always gracious to her granddaughters 
 and their governess, and she liked them to be with her in the even- 
 ing. Lesbia played or sang, or sat at work at her basket table, 
 which occupied the other side of the fire-place, and Fraulein and 
 Mary had the rest of the room to themselves, as it were, those 
 two places by the hearth being sacred, as if dedicated to house- 
 hold gods. Mary read immensely in those long evenings, de- 
 vouring volume after volume, feeding her imagination with every 
 kind of nutriment, good, bad and indifferent. Fraulein Kirsch 
 knitted a woollen shawl, which seemed to have neither beginning, 
 middle nor end, and was always ready for conversation ; but 
 there were times when silence brooded over the scene for long 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 99 
 
 intervals, and when every sound of the light wood ashes dropping 
 on the tiled hearth was distinctly audible. 
 
 This state of things went on for about three weeks after Les- 
 bia's return from St. Bees, Lady Maulevrier watchful all the 
 time, though saying nothing. She saw that Lesbia was not 
 happy, not as she had been in the time before the coming of 
 John Hammond. She had never been particularly gay or light- 
 hearted, never gifted with the wild spirits and buoyancy which 
 makes girlhood so lovely a season to some natures, a time of 
 dance and song and joyousness, a morning of life steeped in the 
 beauty and gladness of the universe. She had never been gay 
 as young lambs and foals and fawns and kittens and puppy dogs 
 are gay, by reason of the well-spring of delight within them, 
 ■ needing no stimulus from the outside world. She had been just 
 a little inclined to murmur at the dullness of her life at Fellside, 
 yet she had borne herself with a placid sweetness which had 
 been Lady Maulevrier's delight. But now there was a marked 
 change in her manner. She was not less submissive and dutiful 
 in her bearing to her grandmother, whom she both loved and 
 feared ; but there were moments of fretfulness and impatience 
 which she could not conceal. She was captious and sullen in 
 her manner to Mary and the Fraulein. She would not walk or 
 drive with them, or share in any of their amusements. Some- 
 times of an evening that studious silence of the drawing-room 
 was suddenly broken by Lesbia's weary sigh, an unconscious 
 sigh, which she breathed unawares as she bent over her work. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier saw, too, that her cheek was paler than of 
 old, her eyes less bright There was a heavy look that told of 
 broken slumbers, there was a pinched look even in that oval 
 cheek. Good heavens! if her beauty were to pale and wane be- 
 fore society had bowed down and worshiped it, if this fair 
 flower were to fade untimely, if this prize-rose in the garden of 
 beauty were to wither and decay before it won the prize. 
 
 Her Ladyship was a woman of action, and no sooner did this 
 fear shape itself in her mind than she took steps to prevent the 
 evil her thoughts foreshadowed. 
 
 Among those friends of her youth and allies of her house with 
 whom she had always maintained an affectionate correspond- 
 ence was Lady Kirkbank, the fashionable wife of a sporting 
 baronet, owner of three country seats and a fine house in Arling- 
 ton Street, with an income large enough for their thorough en- 
 joyment. When Lady Diana Angersthorpe shone forth in the 
 West End world as the acknowledged belle of the season, the 
 star of Georgina Lorimer was beginning to wane. She was the 
 
lOQ PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 eldest daughter of Colonel Lorimer, a man of good old family, 
 and a fine soldier, who had fought shoulder to shoulder with Gough 
 and Lawrence, and who had contrived to make a figure in socie- 
 ty with very small means. Georgina's sisters had all married 
 well. It was a cas.e of necessity, the Colonel told them ; they 
 must either marry or gravitate ultimately to the workhouse. So 
 the Misses Lorimer made the best of their youth and freshness, 
 and '• no good offer refused " was the guiding rule of their young 
 lives. Lucy married an East India merchant and set up a fine 
 house in Portchester Terrace. Maud married wealth personified 
 in the person of a leading member of the Tallow Chandlers' 
 Company, and had her town house and country house, and as 
 fine a set of diamonds as a duchess. 
 
 But Georgina, the eldest, trifled with her chances, and her 
 twenty-seventh birthday beheld her pouring out her father's tea 
 in a small furnished house in a street off Portland Place, which 
 the Colonel had hired on his return from India, and which he 
 declared himself unable to maintain another year. 
 
 " Directly the season is over I shall give up housekeeping 
 and take a lodging at Bath," said Colonel Lorimer. " If you don't 
 like Bath all the year round you can stay with your sisters." 
 
 "That ts the last thing I am likely to do," answered Georgina ; 
 " my sisters were barely endurable when they were single and 
 poor. They are quite intolerable now they are married and rich. 
 I would sooner live in the monkey house at the Zoological than 
 stay with either Lucy or Maud." 
 
 "That's rank envy," retorted her father. "You can't forgive 
 them for having done so much better than you." 
 
 " I can't forgive them for having married snobs. When I 
 marry I shall marry a gentleman." 
 
 " When ! " echoed the parent, with a sneering laugh. " Hadn't 
 you better say ' if ' ? " 
 
 At this period Georgina's waning good looks were in some 
 measure counterbalanced by the cumulative effects of half a 
 dozen seasons in good society, w^iich had given style to 
 her person, ease to her manners and sharpness to her tongue. 
 Nobody in society said sharper or more unpleasant things than 
 Miss Lorimer, and by virtue of this gift she got invited about a great 
 deal more than she might have done had she been renowned 
 for sweetness of speech and manner. Georgie Lorimer's pres- 
 ence at a dinner table gave just that pungent flavor which is like 
 the faint suspicion of garlic in a fricassee or of shalot in a salad. 
 
 Now in this very season, when Colonel Lorimer was inclined 
 to speak of his daughter, as Sainte Beuve wrote of Musset, as a 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. loi 
 
 young woman with a very brilliant past, a lucky turn of events 
 o-ave Georgina a fresh start in life, which may be called a new 
 departure. Lady Diana Angersthorpe, the belle of the season, 
 took a fancy to her, was charmed with her sharp tongue and 
 acute sense of the ridiculous. The two became fast friends 
 and were seen everywhere together. The best men all flocked 
 round the beauty, and all talked to the beauty's companion ; and be- 
 fore the season was over, Sir George Kirkbank, who had half 
 made up his mind to propose to Lady Diana, found himself en- 
 gaged to that uncommonly jolly girl, Lady Diana's friend. Geor- 
 gina; spent August and September with her friend, at the Mar- 
 chioness of Corrisbroke's delightful villa in the Isle of Wight, 
 and Sir George kept his yacht at Cowes all the time, and w^as in 
 constant attendance upon his fiancee. It was George and 
 Georgie everywhere. In October Colonel Lorimer had the pro- 
 found pleasure of giving away his daughter, before the altar in 
 St. George's Hanover Square, and it may be said of him that 
 nothing in his relations with that young lady became him better 
 than his manner of parting with her. 
 
 So the needy Colonel's daughter became Lady Kirkbank, and 
 in the following spring Diana Angersthorpe was magged at the 
 same St. George's to the Earl of Maulevrier. The friends were 
 divided by distance and by circumstances as the years rolled on, 
 but friendship was steadily maintained, and a regular correspond- 
 ence with Lady Kirkbank, whose pen was as sharp as her 
 tongue, was one of the means by which Lady Maulevrier had 
 kept herself thoroughly posted in all those small events, unre- 
 corded by newspapers, which make up the secret history of 
 society. 
 
 It was of her old friend Georgie that her Ladyship thought in 
 her present anxiety. Lady Kirkbank had more than once sug- 
 gested that Lady Maulevrier's granddaughters should vary the 
 monotony of Fellside by a visit to her place near Doncaster, or 
 her castle north of Aberdeen ; but her Ladyship had evaded these 
 friendly suggestions, being very jealous of any strange influence 
 upon Lesbia's life. Now, however, there had come a time when 
 Lesbia must have a complete change of scenery and surround- 
 ings, lest she should pine and dwindle in sullen submission to 
 fate, or else defy the world and elope with Mr. Hammond. 
 
 Now, therefore, Lady Maulevrier decided to accept Lady 
 Kirkbank's hospitality. She told her friend the whole story 
 with perfect frankness, and her letter was immediately answerQd 
 by telegram. 
 
 *' I start for Scotland to-morrow, will break my journey by 
 
102 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 staying a night at Fellside, and will take Lady Lesbia on to 
 Kirkbank with me next day, if she can be ready to go." 
 
 " She shall be ready," said Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 She told Lesbia that she had accepted an invitation for her, 
 and that she was to go to Kirkbank the day after to-morrow. 
 She was prepared for unwillingness, resistance even ; but Lesbia 
 received the news with evident pleasure. 
 
 " I shall be very glad to go," she said, " this place is so dull. 
 Of course I shall be sorry to leave you, grandmamma, and I 
 wish you would go with me ; but any change will be a relief. I 
 think if I had to stay here all the Winter, counting the days and 
 hours, I should go out of my mind." 
 
 The tears came into her eyes, but she wiped them away hur- 
 riedly, ashamed of her emotion. 
 
 " My dearest child, I am so sorr}' for you," murmured Lady 
 Maulevrier, " but believe me, the day will come when you will 
 be very glad that you conquered the first foolish inclination of 
 your girlish heart." 
 
 " Yes, I dare say, when I am eighty," Lesbia answered im- 
 patiently. 
 
 She had made up her mind to submit to the inevitable. She 
 had loved John Hammond — had been as near breaking her heart 
 for him as it was in her nature to break her heart for anybody ; 
 but she wanted to make a great marriage, to be renowned and 
 admired. She had been reared and trained for that ; and she 
 was not going to belie her training. 
 
 A visitor from the great London world was so rare an event 
 that there was naturally a little excitement in the idea of Lady 
 Kirkbank's arrival. The handsomest and most spacious of the 
 spare bed-rooms had been prepared for the occasion. The 
 housekeeper had been told that the dinner must be perfect. 
 There must be nothing old-fashioned or ponderous ; there must 
 be mind as well as matter in everything. Rarely did Lady 
 Maulevrier look at a bill of fare, but on this particular morning 
 she went carefully through the menu, and corrected it with her 
 own hand. 
 
 A pair of post-horses brought Lady Kirkbank and her maid 
 from Windermere station in time for afternoon tea, and the 
 friends who had only met twice within the last forty years, em- 
 braced each other on the threshold of Lady Maulevrier's morn- 
 ing-room. 
 
 " My dearest Di," cried Lady Kirkbank, " what a delight to 
 see you again after such ages ; and what a too lovely spot you 
 have choosen for your retreat from the world, the flesh and the 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 103 
 
 devil. If I could "be a recluse anywhere, it would be amongst 
 just such delicious surroundings." 
 
 Without, twilight shades were gathering ; within, there was 
 only the light of a fire and a shaded lamp upon the tea-table ; 
 there was just light enough for the two women to see each 
 other's face and the change which time had wrought there. 
 
 Never did womanhood in advanced years offer a more strik- 
 ing contrast than that presented by the woman of fashion and 
 the recluse. Lady Maulevrier was almost as handsome in the 
 Winter of her days as she had been when life was in its Spring. 
 The tali, slim figure, erect as a dart, the delicately chiseled feat- 
 ures and alabaster complexion, the soft, silvery hair, the perfect 
 hand, whiter and more transparent than the hand of girlhood, 
 the stately movements and bearing, all combined to make Lady 
 Maulevrier a queen among women. Her brocade gown of a 
 deep shade of red, with a border of dark sable on cuffs and 
 collar, suggested a portrait by Velasquez. She wore no orna- 
 ment except the fine old Brazilian diamonds which flashed and 
 sparkled upon her slender fingers. 
 
 If Lady Maulevrier looked like a picture in the Escurial, 
 Lady Kirkbank resembled a caricature in the Vie Parisienne. 
 Everything she wore was in the very latest fashion of the Par- 
 isian demi-monde, that exaggerated elegance of a fashion-plate 
 which only the most exquisite of women could redeem from vul- 
 garity. Plush, brocade, peacock's feathers, golden bangles, 
 mousquetaire gloves, a bonnet of purple plumage set off by or- 
 naments of filigree gold, an infantine little muff of lace and wild 
 flowers, buttercups and daisies, and hair, eyebrows and com- 
 plexion as artificial as the flowers on the muff. 
 
 All that art could do to obliterate the traces of age had been 
 done for Georgina Kirkbank. But seventy years are not to be 
 obliterated easily, and the crow's feet showed through the bloom 
 de Ninon, and the eyes under the painted arches were glassy 
 and haggard — the carnation lips had a withered look. Age was 
 made all the more palpable by the artifice which would have 
 disguised it. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier suffered an absolute shock at beholding the 
 friend of her youth. She had not accustomed herself to the idea 
 that women in society could raddle their cheeks, stain their lips 
 and play tricks before high heaven with their eyebrows and 
 eyelashes. In her own youth painted faces had been the ghastly 
 privilege of a class of womanhood of which the women of society 
 were supposed to know nothing. Persons who showed their 
 ankles and rouged their cheeks were to be seen of an afternoon 
 
104 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 in Bond Street ; but Lady Angersthorpe had been taught to pass 
 them by as if she saw them not, to behold without seeing these 
 creatures outside the pale. And now she saw her own dearest 
 friend, a person distinctly within the pale, plastered with bis- 
 muth and stained with carmine, and wearing hair of a color so 
 obviously false and inharmonious that child-like faith could 
 hardly accept it as a reality. Forty years ago Lady Kirkbank's 
 long ringlets had been darkest, glossiest brown, to-day she wore 
 a tousled fringe of bright yellow, piquantly contrasting with burnt 
 sienna eyebrows. 
 
 It took Lady Maulevrier some moments to get over the 
 shock. She drew a chair to the fire and established her friend 
 in it, and then, with a little gasp, she said : 
 
 " I am charmed to see you again, Georgie ! " 
 
 " You darling, I was sure you would be glad. But you must 
 find me awfully changed — awfully." 
 
 For worlds Lady Maulevrier could not have denied this 
 truth. Happily Lady Kirkbank did not wait for an answer. 
 
 " Society is so wearing, and George and I never seem to get 
 an interval of quiet. Kirkbank is to be full of men next week. 
 Your granddaughter will have a good time. 
 
 "There will be a few women, of course 1 " 
 
 " Oh, yes, there's no avoiding that ; only one doesn't reckon 
 them. Sir George only counts his guns. We expect a splendid 
 season. I shall send you some birds of my own shooting." 
 
 " You shoot ! " exclaimed Lady Maulevrier, amazed. 
 
 " Shoot ! I should think I do. What else is there to amuse 
 one in Scotland, after the salmon fishing is over t I have never 
 missed a season for the last thirty years, unless we have been 
 abroad." 
 
 " Please don't inoculate Lesbia with your love of sport." 
 
 " What ! you wouldn't like her to shoot ? Well, perhaps you 
 are right. It is hardly the thing for a pretty girl with her 
 fortune to make. It spoils the delicacy of the skin. But I'm 
 afraid she'll find Kirkbank dull if she doesn't go out with the 
 guns. She can meet us with the rest of the women at luncheon. 
 We have some capital picnic luncheons on the moor, I can as- 
 sure you." 
 
 " I know she will enjoy herself with you. She has been 
 accustomed to a ver}^ quiet life here." 
 
 " It is a lovely spot, but I own I cannot understand how you 
 can have lived here exclusively during all these years, you who 
 used to be all life and fire, loving change, action, political and 
 diplomatic society, to dance upon the crest of the wave, as it 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 105 
 
 were. Your whole nature must have suffered some curious 
 
 change." , , r 1 r 
 
 Their close intimacy of the past warranted some freedom of 
 speech in the present. 
 
 '' My nature did undergo a change, and a severe one," 
 answered Lady Maulevrier, gloomily. 
 
 "It was that horrid — and I dare say unfounded — scandal 
 about his Lordship; and then the sad shock of his death," 
 murmured Lady Kirkbank, sympathetically. "Most women, 
 with your youth and beauty, would have forgotten the scandal 
 and the husband in a twelvemonth, and would have made a 
 second marriage more brilliant than the first. But no Indian 
 widow who ever performed suttee was more worthy of praise 
 than you, or even that person of Ephesus, whose story I have 
 heard somewhere. Indeed, I have always spoken of your life 
 as a long suttee. But you mean to reappear in society next 
 season, I hope, when you present your granddaughter." 
 
 " I shall certainly go up to London to present her, and possi- 
 bly I may spend the season in town ; but I shall feel like Rip 
 Van Winkle." 
 
 " No, no, you won't, my dear Di. You have kept yourself au 
 courant, I know. Even my silly gossiping letters may have 
 been of some use. 
 
 "They have been most valuable. Let me give you another 
 cup of tea," said Lady Maulevrier, who had been _ officiating at 
 her own exquisite tea table, an arrangement of inlaid woods, 
 antique silver and modern china, which her friend pronounced 
 a perfect poem. 
 
 Indeed the whole room was poetic. Lady Kirkbank declared, 
 and there are many highly praised scenes which less deserve 
 the epithet. The dark red walls and cedar dado, the stamped 
 velvet curtains, of an indescribable shade between silver gray 
 and olive, the Sheraton furniture, the parqueterie floor and 
 Persian prayer-rugs, the deep yet brilliant hues of crackle 
 porcelain and Chinese cloisonne enamel, the artistic fireplace, 
 with dog-stove, lov/ brass fender and andirons and ingle nook 
 nestling under the high mantelpiece, all combined to form a 
 luxurious and harmonious whole. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank admired the tout ensemble in the fitful light 
 of the fire and dim gray of deepening twilight. 
 
 "There never was a more delicious cell," she exclaimed, 
 " but still I should feel it a prison if I had to spend six weeks 
 in the year in it. I never stay more than six weeks anywhere 
 out of London ; and I always find six weeks more than enough. 
 
I06 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 The first fortnight is rapture, the third and fourth are calm 
 content, the fifth is weariness, the sixth a fever to be gone. 
 I once tried a seventh week at Pontresina, and I hated the 
 place so intensely that I dared not go back there for the next 
 three years. But now tell me, Diana, have 3-ou really performed 
 suttee, have you buried yourself in this sweet spot deliberately, 
 or has the love of retirement come upon you, and have you 
 become a kind of lotus eater "i " 
 
 " I believe I have become a kind of lotus eater. My retire- 
 ment here has been no sentimental sacrifice to Lord Maule- 
 vrier's memory." 
 
 " I am glad to hear that, for really I think the worst possible 
 use a woman can make of her life is in wasting it on lamenta- 
 tion for a dead and gone husband. Life is odiously short at 
 the best, and it is mere imbecility to fritter away any of our 
 scanty portion upon the dead, who can never be any the better 
 for our tears." 
 
 " My motive in living at Fellside was not reverence for the 
 dead. And now let us talk of the gay world, of which you 
 know all the secrets. Have you heard anything more about 
 Lord Hartfield ? " 
 
 "Ah, there is a subject in which you have reason to be in- 
 terested. 1 have not forgotten the romance of your youth — 
 that first season in w^hich Ronald Hollister used to haunt every 
 place at which you appeared. Do you remember that wet 
 afternoon at the Chiswick flower show when you and he and I 
 took shelter in the orange house, and you two made love to 
 each other most audaciously in an atmosphere of orange blos- 
 soms that almost stifled me ? Yes those were glorious days." 
 
 " A short Summer of gladness, a brief dream," sighed Lady 
 Maulevrier. " Is young Lord Hartfield like his father } " 
 
 "No, he takes after the Ilmingtoons ; but still a look of your 
 old sweetheart — yes, I think there is an expression. I have 
 not seen him for nearly a year. These young men who be- 
 long to the Geographical and the Alpine Club are hardly ever 
 at home." 
 
 *' But though they may be sometimes lost to society, they are 
 all the more worthy of society's esteem w^hen they do appear," 
 said Lady Maulevrier. " I think there must be an ennobling 
 and purifying influence in Alpine travel, or in the vast solitudes 
 of the dark continent. A man finds himself face to face wdth 
 unsophisticated nature and the grandest forces of the universe. 
 Professor Tyndall writes delightfully of his Alpine experiences; 
 his noble mind seems to have ripened in the solitude and un- 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUA 'E. 1 07 
 
 tainted air of the Alps. And I believe Lord Hartfield is a young 
 man of very high character and of considerable cultivation, is he 
 not ? " 
 
 " He is a splendid young fellow, I never heard a word to 
 his disparagement, even from those people who pretend to know 
 something bad about everybody. What a husband he would 
 make for one of your girls ! " 
 
 " Admirable, but those perfect arrangements, which seem pre- 
 destined by heaven itself, are so rarely realized on earth," 
 answered the Dowager, lightly. 
 
 She was not going to show her cards, even to an old friend. 
 
 " Well, it would be very sweet if they were to meet next sea- 
 son and fall in love with each other," said Lady Kirkbank. 
 " He is enormously rich, and I dare say your girls will not be 
 portionless." 
 
 " Lesbia may take a lowly place among heiresses," said Lady 
 Maulevrier. " I have lived so quietly during the last forty 
 years that I could hardly help saving money — " 
 
 " How nice," sighed Georgie. " I never saved sixpence in 
 my life, and am always in debt." 
 
 '" The little fortune I have saved is much too small for di- 
 vision. Lesbia will therefore have all I can leave her. Mary 
 has the usual provision as a daughter of the Maulevrier house." 
 
 *' And I suppose Lesbia has that provision, also ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 "Lucky Lesbia. I only wish Hartfield were coming to us 
 for the shooting. I would engage he should fall in love with 
 her. Kirkbank is a splendid place for match-making. And 
 now, my dear Diana, tell me more about yourself and your own 
 life in this delicious place." 
 
 "There is so little to tell. The books I have read, the 
 theories of literature and art and science which I have adopted 
 and dismissed, learnt and forgotten — thc:.e are the history ot 
 my life. The ideas of the outside world reach me here only in 
 books ; but you who have been living in the world must have 
 so much to say. Let me be the listener." 
 
 Lady Kirkbank desired nothing better. She rattled on for 
 three-quarters of an hour about her doings in the great world, 
 her social triumphs, the wonderful things she had for Sir 
 George, who seemed to be as a puppet in her hands, the princes 
 and princelings she had entertained, the songs she had com- 
 posed, the comedy she had written, for private representation 
 only, albeit the Haymarket manager was dying to produce it, 
 the scathins: witticisms with which she had withered her social 
 
io8 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 enemies. She would have gone on much longer but for the 
 gong which reminded her that it was time to dress for dinner. 
 
 Half an hour later Lady Kirkbank was in the drawing-room 
 where Mary had retired to the most shadowy corner, anxious to 
 escape the gaze of the fashionable visitor. 
 
 But Lady Kirkbank was not inclined to take much notice of 
 Mary. Lesbia's brilliant beauty, the exquisite Greek head, the 
 faultless complexion, the deep, violet eyes, caught Georgina 
 Kirkbank's eye the moment she entered the room, and she saw 
 that this girl and no other must be the beauty, the beloved and 
 chosen grandchild. 
 
 " How do you do, my dear t " she said, taking Lesbia's hand, 
 and then, as if with a gush of warm feeling, suddenly drawing 
 the girl toward her and kissing her on both cheeks. " I am go- 
 ing to be desperately fond of you, and I hope you will soon con- 
 trive to like me — just a little." 
 
 "I feel sure that I shall like you very much," Lesbia an- 
 swered, sweetly. " I am prepared to love you as grandmother's 
 old friend." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, to think that I should ever be the old friend 
 of anybody's grandmother," sighed Lady Kirkbank, with unaf- 
 fected regret. " When I was your age I used to think all old 
 people odious. It never occurred to me that I should live to be 
 one of them." 
 
 "Then you had no dear grandmother whom you loved," 
 said Lesbia, " or you would have liked old people for her sake." 
 
 " No, my love, I had no grandparents. I had a father, and 
 he was all sufficient ; anything beyond him in the ancestral line 
 would have utterly crushed me." 
 
 Dinner was announced, and Mary came shyly out of her 
 corner, blushing deeply. 
 
 " And this is Lady Mary, I suppose," said Lady Kirkbank in 
 an off-hand way. " How do you do, my dear ? I am going to 
 steal your sister." 
 
 " I am very glad," faltered Mary. " I mean I am glad that 
 Lesbia should enjoy herself." 
 
 " And some fine day when Lesbia is married and a great lady 
 I shall ask you to come to Scotland," said Lady Kirkbank, con- 
 descendingly, and then she murmured in her friend's ear, as they 
 went to the dining-room, " Quite an English girl ; very fresh and 
 frank and nice," which was great praise for such a second-rate 
 young person as Lady Mary. 
 
 " What do you think of Lesbia? " asked Lady Maulevrier, in 
 the same undertone. 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 1 09 
 
 " She is simply perfect. Your letters prepared me to expec4: 
 beauty, but not such beauty. My dear, I thought the progress 
 of the human race was all in a downward line since our time, 
 but your granddaughter is as handsone as you were in your first 
 season, and that is going very far." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " NOT YET." 
 
 Lady Kirkbank carried off Lesbia early next day, the girl 
 radiant at the idea of seeing life under the new conditions. She 
 had a few minutes' serious talk with her grandmother before she 
 went. 
 
 " Lesbia, you are going into the world," said Lady Maule- 
 vrier ; " yes, even a country house is the world in little. You 
 will have many admirers instead of one ; but I think, I believe, 
 that you will be true to me and yourself." 
 
 " You need not fear, grandmamma. I have been an idiot ; 
 but — but it was only a passing folly, and I shall never be so 
 weak again." 
 
 Lesbia's scornful lips and kindling eyes gave intensity to her 
 speech. It was evident that she despised herself for that one 
 touch of womanly softness which had made her as ready to fall 
 in love with her first wooer as any peasant girl in Grasmere 
 Vale. , 
 
 " I am delighted to hear you speak thus, dearest," said Lady 
 Maulevrier. "And if Mr. Hamilton — Hammond, I mean — 
 should have the audacity to follow you to Kirkbank, and to in- 
 trude himself upon you there — perhaps to persecute you with 
 clandestine addresses — " 
 
 " I do not believe he would do anything clandestine," said 
 Lesbia drawing herself up. '• He is quite above that." 
 
 " My dear child, we know absolutely nothing about him. He 
 has his way to make in this world, unaided by family or connec- 
 tions. He is clever — daring. Such a man cannot help being 
 an adventurer; and an adventurer is capable of anything. I 
 warn you to beware of him." 
 
 " I don't suppose I shall ever see his face again," retorted 
 Lesbia, irritably. 
 
 She had made up her mind that her life was not to be spoiled, 
 
no PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 her brilliant future sacrificed, for the sake of John Hammond ; 
 but the wound which she had suffered in renouncing him was 
 still fresh, her feelings were still sore. Any contemptuous irien- 
 tion of him stung her to the quick. 
 
 " I hope not. And you will beware of other adventurers, 
 Lesbia, men of a worse stamp than Mr. Hammond, more expe- 
 rienced in ruse and iniquity, men steeped to the lips in worldly 
 knowledge, men who look upon women as mere counters in the 
 game of life. The world thinks that I am rich, and you will no 
 doubt take rank as an heiress. You will therefore be a mark 
 for every spendthrift, noble or otherwise, who wants to restore his 
 broken fortunes by a wealthy marriage. And now, my dearest, 
 good-by. Half my heart goes with you. Nothing could induce 
 me to part with you, even for a few weeks, except the conviction 
 that it is for your good." 
 
 " But we shall not be parted next year, I hope, grandmother," 
 said Lesbia affectionately. '' You said something about present- 
 ing me and then leaving me in Lady Kirkbank's care for the 
 season. I should not like that at all. I want you to go every- 
 where with me, to teach me all the mysteries of the great world. 
 You have always promised me that it should be so." 
 
 " And I have always intended that it should be so. I hope 
 that it will be so," answered her grandmother, with a sigh, 
 " but I am an old woman, Lesbia, and I am rooted to this 
 place.'' 
 
 " But why should you be rooted here ? What charm can keep 
 you here, when 3^ou are so fitted to shine in society ? You are 
 old in nothing but years, and not even old in 3'ears in compari- 
 son with women whom we hear of going everywhere and mixing 
 in every fashionable amusement. You are 'full of fire and energy, 
 and as active as any girl. Why should you not enjoy a London 
 season, grandmother?" pleaded Lesbia, nestling her head lov- 
 ingly against Lady Maulevrier's shoulder. 
 
 " I should enjoy it, dearest, with you. It would be a renewal 
 of my youth to see you shine and conquer. I should be as proud 
 as if the glory were all my own. Yes, dear, I hope I shall 
 be a spectator of your triumphs. But do not let us plan the fut- 
 ure. Life is so full of changes. Remember what Horace 
 says — " 
 
 " Horace is a bore," said Lesbia. " I hate a poet who is al- 
 ways harping upon change and death." 
 
 The carriage which was to take the travelers to Windermere 
 station was announced at this moment, and Lesbia and her 
 grandmother gave each other the farewell embrace. 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 1 1 1 
 
 " You like Lady Kirkbank, I hope," said Lady Maulevrier, as 
 they went toward the hall where that lady was waiting for them, 
 wilh Lady Mary and Fraulein Kirsch in attendance upon her. 
 
 " She seems very kind, but I should like her better if she did 
 not paint — or if she painted better." 
 
 " My dear child, I'm afraid it is the fashion of the day, just 
 as it was in Pope's time, and we ought to think nothing about 
 it." 
 
 " Well, I suppose I shall get hardened in time." 
 
 " My dearest Lesbia," shrieked Lady Kirkbank from below, 
 " remember, we have to catch a train." 
 
 Lesbia hurried downstairs, followed by Lady Maulevrier, who 
 had bid her friend adieu. The luggage had been sent on in a 
 cart. Lesbia's trunks and dress baskets forming no small item. 
 She was so well furnished with pretty gowns of all kinds that 
 there had been no difficulty in getting her ready for this sudden 
 visit. Her maid was on the box beside the coachman. Lady 
 Kirkbank's attendant, a French woman of five-and-thirty, was to 
 occupy the back seat of the landau. 
 
 Lady Mary looked after her sister longingly as the carriage 
 drove down the hill. She was going into a new world, to see all 
 kinds of people — clever people — distinguished people — musical, 
 artistic, political people — hunting and shooting people — while 
 Mary was to stay at home all the Winter among the old familiar 
 faces. Dearly as she loved these hills and vales her heart sank 
 a little at the thought of these long, lonely months, days and 
 evenings that would be all alike, and which must be spent with- 
 out sympathetic companionship. And there would be the dreary 
 days on which the weather would keep her a prisoner in her lux- 
 urious jail, when the mountains, and the rugged paths beside 
 the mountain streams, would be inaccessible, when she would be 
 restricted to Fraulein Kirsch's phlegmatic society, that lady 
 being stout and lazy, fond of her meals, and given to afternoon 
 skmibers. Lesbia and Mary were not by any means sympa- 
 thetic, yet after all blood is thicker than water, and Lesbia was 
 intelligent and could talk of the things Mary loved, which was 
 better than total dumbness, even if she generally took an an- 
 tagonistic view of them. 
 
 " I shall miss her dreadfully," thought Mary, as she strolled 
 listlessly in the garden, where the leaves were falling and the 
 flowers fading. 
 
 " I wonder if she will see Mr. Hammond at Lady Kirkbank's," 
 mused Mary. " If he were anything like a lover he would find 
 out all about her visit, and seize the opportunity of her being 
 
1 1 2 PIIA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 away from grandmother. But then if he had been much of a 
 lover he would have followed her to St. Bees." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier sorely missed her favorite grandchild. In a 
 life spent in such profound seclusion, so remote from the busy 
 interests of the world, this beloved companionship had become 
 a necessity to her. She had concentrated her affections upon 
 Lesbia, and the girl's absence made a fearful blank. But her 
 Ladyship's dignity was not compromised by any outward sign of 
 trouble or loss. 
 
 She spent her morning in her own room, reading and writing 
 and musing at her leisure ; she drove or walked every fine after- 
 noon, sometimes alone, sometimes attended by Mary, except on 
 those rare occasions when there were visitors — the vicar and his 
 wife, or some wandering star from other worlds. 
 
 Mary lived in profound awe of her grandmother, but was far 
 too frank a nature to be able to adapt her speech or her man- 
 ners to her Ladyship's idea of feminine perfection. She was 
 silent and shy under those falcon eyes ; but she was still the 
 same Mary, the girl to whom pretense or simulation of any kind 
 was impossible. 
 
 Letters came almost every day from Kirkbank Castle, letters 
 from Lesbia describing the bright, gay life she was living at that 
 hospitable abode, the excursions, the rides, the dances, the pic- 
 nic luncheons after the morning's sport, the dinner parties. 
 
 " It is the most delightful house you can imagine," wrote Les- 
 bia ; " and Lady Kirkbank is an adorable hostess. I have quite 
 forgiven her for wearing false eyebrows ; for after all, you know, 
 one must have eyebrows, it is a necessity ; but why does she not 
 have the two arches alike ? They are never a pair, and I really 
 think that French maid of hers does it on purpose. 
 
 " By-the-by, Lady Kirkbank is going to write to you to be- 
 seech you to let me go to Cannes and Monte Carlo with her. 
 Sir George insists upon it. He says they both like young soci- 
 ety, and will be horribly vexed if I refuse to go with them. And 
 Lady Kirkbank thinks my chest is just a little weak — I almost 
 broke down the other night in that lovely song of Jensen's — and 
 that a Winter in the south is just what I want. But, of course, 
 dear grandmother, I won't ask you to let me be away so long if 
 you think you will miss me." 
 
 " If I think I shall miss her ! " repeated Lady Maulevrier. 
 " Has the girl no heart that she can ask such a question t But 
 can I wonder at that ? Of what account was I or my love to 
 her father, although I sacrificed myself for his good name ? Can 
 I expect that she should be of a different clay 1 " 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE, 1 1 3 
 
 Ana then, meditating upon the events of the Summer that 
 was gone, Lady Maulevrier thought — 
 
 " She renounced her first lover at my bidding ; she renounces 
 her love for me at the bidduig of the world. Or was it not 
 rather self-interest, the fear of making a bad marriage, which 
 influenced her in her renunciation of Mr. Hammond } It was 
 not obedience to me, it was not love to me which made her give 
 him up. It was the selfishness engrained in her race. Well, I 
 have heaped my love upon her because she is fair and sweet, 
 and reminds me of my own youth. I must let her go and try 
 to be happy in the knowledge that she is enjoying her life far 
 away from me." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier wrote her consent to the extension of Les« 
 bia's visit, and by return of post came a letter from Lesbia 
 which seemed brimming over with love and which comforted 
 the grandmother's wounded heart. 
 
 "Lady Kirkbank and I are both agreed, dearest, that you 
 must join us at Cannes," wrote Lesbia. " At your age it is very 
 wrong of 3'ou to spend a Winter in our horrible climate. You 
 can travel with Steadman and your maid. Lady Kirkbank will 
 secure you a charming suite of rooms at the hotel, or she would 
 like it still better if you would stay at her own villa. Do con- 
 sent to this plan, dear grandmother, and then we should not be 
 parted for a long Winter. Of course Mary would be quite happy 
 at home running wild." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier sighed as she read this letter, sighed again, 
 and heavily, as she put it back into the envelope. Alas, how 
 many and many a year had gone, long, monotonous, colorless 
 years, since she had seen that bright southern world which she 
 was now urged to revisit. In fancy she saw it again to-day, the 
 tideless sea of deepest sapphire blue, the little wavelets break- 
 ing on a yellow beach, the white triangular sails, the woods full 
 of asphodel and great purple and white lilies, the atmosphere 
 steeped in warmth and light and perfume, the glare of white 
 houses in the sun, the red and yellow blinds, the pots of green 
 and orange and crimson clay, with oleanders abloom, the won- 
 derful glow of color everj^where and upon all things. And then 
 as the eyes of the mind recalled these vivid images her bodily 
 eyes looked out upon the rain-blotted scene, the mountains ris- 
 ing in a dark and dismal circle round that somber pool below, 
 walling her in from the outer world. 
 
 " I am at the bottom of a grave," she said to herself. " I am 
 in a living tomb, from which there is no escape. Forty years ! 
 
1 1 4 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 Forty years of patience and hope, for what ? For dreams which 
 may never be realized ; for descendants who may never give me 
 the price of my labors. Yes, I should like to go to my dear 
 one. I should like to revisit the south of France, to go on to 
 Italy. I should feel young again amidst that eternal, unchange- 
 able loveliness. I should forget all I have suffered. But it can- 
 not be. Not yet, not yet ! " 
 
 Presently with a smile of concentrated bitterness she repeated 
 the words, " Not yet ! " 
 
 " Surely at my age it must be folly to dream of a future, and 
 yet I feel as if there were half a centur}^ of life in me, as if I 
 had lost nothing in either mental or bodily vigor since I came 
 here forty years ago." She rose as she said these words, and 
 began to pace the room, with quiet, firm step, erect, stately, 
 beautiful in her advanced years as she had been in her bloom 
 and freshness, only with another kind of beauty — an empress 
 among women. The boast that she had made to herself was no 
 idle boast. At sixty-seven years of age her physical powers 
 showed no signs of decay, her mental qualities were at their 
 best and brightest. Long years of thought and study had 
 ripened and widened her mind. She was a woman fit to be the 
 friend and counselor of statesmen, the companion and confi- 
 dante of her sovereign ; and yet fate willed that she should be 
 buried alive in a Westmoreland valley, seeing the same hills and 
 streams, the same rustic faces, from year's end to year's 
 end. Surely it was a hard fate, a heavy penance, albeit self- 
 imposed. 
 
 Lesbia went straight from Scotland to Paris with Sir George 
 and Lady Kirkbank. Here they stayed at the Bristol for just 
 two days, during which her hostess went all over the fashionable 
 quarter buying clothes for the Cannes campaign, and assisting 
 Lesbia to spend the hundred pounds which her grandmother 
 had sent her for the replenishment of her well-provided ward- 
 robe. It is astonishing what a little way a hundred pounds goes 
 among the dressmakers, corsetmakers and shoemakers of Lu- 
 tetia. 
 
 " I had no notion that clothes were so dear," said Lesbia, 
 when she saw how little she had got for her money. 
 
 " My dear, you have two gowns which are absolutely chien," 
 replied Lady Kirkbank, " and 3'ou have a corset which gives you 
 a figure, which 3'ou must forgive me for saying you never had 
 before."' 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 1 1 5 
 
 Lady Kirkbank had to explain that chien as applied to a gown 
 or bonnet was the same thing as chic, only a little more so. 
 
 " I hope my gowns will always be chien," said Lesbia 
 meekly. 
 
 Next evening they were dining at Cannes, with the blue sea 
 in front of their windows, dining at a table all abloom with 
 orange flowers, tea roses, mignonette, waxen camelias and pale 
 Parma violets, while Lady Maulevrier and Mary dined tete a 
 tete at Fellside, with the feathery snowflakes falling outside, 
 and the world whitening all around them. 
 
 Next day the world was all white, and Mary's beloved hills 
 were inaccessible. 
 
 Who could tell how long they might be covered ; the winding 
 tracks hidden ; the narrow fences looking like black water or 
 molten iron against that glittering whiteness. Mary could only 
 walk along the road by Loughrigg to the bench called " Rest 
 and be Thankful," from which she looked with longing eyes 
 across toward the Langdale Pikes, and to the sharp cone- 
 shaped peak, known as Coniston Old Man, just visible above 
 the nearer hills. 
 
 Fraulein Kirsch suggested that it was in just such weather as 
 this that a well-brought-up young lady, a young lady with 
 Vernunf t and Anstand, should devote herself to the improvement 
 of her mind. 
 
 " Let us read German this abscheulich afternoon," said Frau- 
 lein. " Suppose we go on with the ' Sorrows of Werter.' " 
 
 " Werter was a fool," cried Mary ; '' any book but that." 
 
 " Will you choose your own book ? " 
 
 " Let me read Heine." 
 
 Fraulein looked doubtful. There were things in Heine — an 
 all pervading tone — which rendered him hardly an appropriate 
 poet for " the young person." But Miss Kirsch compromised 
 the matter by letting Mary read Atta Troll, the exact bearing of 
 which neither of them understood. 
 
 " How beautifully Mr. Hammond read Heine that morning," 
 said Mary, breaking off suddenly from a perfectly automatic 
 reading. 
 
 " You did not hear him, did you ? You were not there," said 
 the Fraulein. 
 
 *• I was not there, but I heard him. I — I was sitting on the 
 bank among the pine-trees." 
 
 " Why did you not come and sit with us ? It would have 
 been more ladylike than to hide yourself behind the trees." 
 
 Mary blushed crimson. 
 
ii6 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " I had been in the kennels with Maulevrier — I was not fit to 
 be seen," she said. 
 
 " Hardly a ladylike admission," replied Fraulein Kirsch, who 
 felt that with Lady Mary her chief duty was to reprove. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " OF ALL MEN ELSE I HAVE AVOIDED THEE." 
 
 It was afternoon. The white hills yonder and all the length 
 of the valley were touched here and there with gleams of wintry 
 sunlight, and Lady Maulevrier was taking her solitary walk on 
 the terrace in front of her house, a stately figure wrapped in a 
 furred mantle, tall, erect, moving with measured pace up and 
 down the smooth gravel path. Now and then at the end of the 
 walk the dowager stopped for a minute or so, and stood as if in 
 deep thought, with her eyes dreamily contemplating the land- 
 scape. An intense melancholy shadowed her face, as she thus 
 gazed with brooding eyes on the naked monotony of those win- 
 try hills. So had she looked in many and many a Winter, 
 and it seemed to her that her life was of a piece with those 
 bleak hills, where in the dismal Winter time nothing living trod. 
 She stood gazing at the sinking sun, a fiery ball shining at the 
 end of a long gallery of crag and rock, like a lamp at the end 
 of a corridor ; and as she gazed the red round orb dropped sud- 
 denly behind the edge of a crag, as if she had been an enchant- 
 ress and had dismissed it with a wave of her wand. 
 
 " Oh, Lord, how long, how long ! " she said. " How many 
 tunes have I seen that sun go down from this spot, in Winter 
 and Summer, in Spring and Autumn ! And now that the one 
 being I loved and cared for is far away I feel all the weariness 
 and emptiness of my life." 
 
 As she turned to resume her walk she heard the muffled sound 
 of wheels in the road below, that road which was completely 
 hidden by foliage in Summer, but which was now visible here 
 and there between the leafless trees. A carriage with a pair of 
 horses was coming along the road from Ambleside. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier stood and watched until the carriage drew 
 up at the lodge gate, and then, when the gate had been opened, 
 slowly ascended the winding drive to the house. 
 
 She expected no visitor ; indeed, there was no one likely to 
 come to her from the direction of Ambleside. Her heart began 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 117 
 
 to beat heavily with the apprehension of coming evil. What 
 kind of evil she knew not. Bad news about her granddaughter 
 perhaps, or about Maulevrier. And yet that could hardly be. 
 Evil tidings of that kind would have reached her by telegram. 
 Perhaps it was Maulevrier himself. His movements were gener- 
 ally erratic. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier hurried back to the house. She went through 
 the conservatory, where the warm whiteness of azalia and spirea 
 and arum hlies contrasted curiously with the cold white snow 
 out of doors, to the hall, where a stranger was standing talking 
 to the butler. 
 
 He was a man of foreign appearance, wearing a black coat 
 lined with sables and a sable cap, which he removed as Lady 
 Maulevrier approached. He was thin and small, with a clear 
 olive complexion, olive inclining to pale bronze, sleek raven 
 hair and black almond eyes. At the first glance Lady Maule- 
 vrier knew he was an Oriental. Her heart sank within her, and 
 seemed to grow chill as death at sight of him. Anything 
 associated with India was horrible to her. 
 
 The stranger came forward to meet her, bowing deferentially. 
 He had those lithe, gliding movements which she remembered 
 of old, when she had seen the princes and dignitaries of the 
 East creeping shoeless to her husband's feet. 
 
 " Will your Ladyship do me the honor to grant me an inter- 
 view ? " he said, in very good English. " I have traveled from 
 London expressly for that privilege." 
 
 " Then I fear you have wasted time, sir, whatever your mis- 
 sion may be," the Dowager answered haughtily. " However, I 
 am willing to hear anything you may have to say, if you will be 
 good enough to come this way." 
 
 She moved toward the library, the butler preceding her to 
 open the door, and the stranger followed her into the spacious 
 room, where coals and logs were heaped high upon the wide dog 
 stove, deeply recessed beneath the old English mantelpiece. 
 
 It was one of the handsomest rooms of the house, furnished 
 with oak book-cases about seven feet high, above which vases 
 of Oriental ware and coloring stood boldly ouf against the dark 
 oak wall. Richly bound books in infinite variety testified to the 
 wealth and taste of the owner, while one side of the room was 
 absorbed by a wide Gothic window, beyond which appeared the 
 panorama of lake and mountain, beautiful in every season. A 
 tawny velvet curtain divided this room from the drawing-room ; 
 but there was also a strong oak door behind the curtain, which 
 was generally closed in cold weather. 
 
Ii8 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier went over to this door, and took the precau- 
 tion to draw the bolt before she seated herself in her arm-chair 
 by the hearth. She had her own particular chair in all the 
 rooms she occupied — a chair which was sacred as a throne. 
 
 She drew off her sealskin glove and motioned with her slen- 
 der white hand to the stranger to be seated. 
 
 " To whom have I the honor of speaking? " she asked, look- 
 ing him through and through with an unflinching gaze, as she 
 would have looked at Death himself had the grim skeleton fig- 
 ure come to beckon her. 
 
 He quietly handed her a visiting card on which was engraved — 
 
 " Louis Asaph, Rajah of Bisnagar." 
 
 " If my memory does not deceive me as to the history of 
 modern India, the territory from which you take your title has 
 been absorbed into the English dominion," said Lady Maule- 
 vrier. 
 
 " It was trafficked away forty-three years ago, stolen, filched 
 from my father, and so long as I have power to think and to act 
 I will maintain my claim to that land ; yes, if only by the empty 
 mockery of a name on a visiting card. It is a duty I owe to 
 myself as a man, which I owe still more to my murdered father." 
 
 '" Have you come all the way from London, and in such 
 weather, only to tell me this story ? " 
 
 She had twisted his card between her fingers as she listened 
 to him, and now with an action at once careless and contempt- 
 uous she flung it upon the burning logs. Slight as the action 
 was it was eloquent of scorn for the man. 
 
 " No, Lady Maulevrier, my mention of this story, with which 
 you are no doubt perfectly familiar, is only a preliminary. I 
 have come to claim my own, and to appeal to you as a woman of 
 honor to do me justice. Nay, I will say as a woman of common 
 honesty ; since there is no point of honor in question, only the 
 plain laws of mine and thine, which I believe are the same laws 
 among all nations and creeds. I come to you. Lady Maule- 
 vrier, to ask you to restore to me the wealth which your husband 
 stole from my father." 
 
 " You come to my house, to me, an old woman, helpless, de- 
 fenseless, in the absence of my grandson, the present Earl, to 
 insult me, and to insult the dead," said Lady Maulevrier, white 
 as statuary marble, and as cold and calm. " You come to rake 
 up old lies, and to fling them in the face of a solitary woman, 
 old enough to be your mother. Do you think that is a noble 
 thing to do ? Even in your barbarous Eastern code of morals 
 and manners, is that the act of a gentleman ? " 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 1 19 
 
 " We are not barbarians in the East, Lady Maulevrier. I come 
 from the cradle of civilization, the original fount of learning. 
 We were scholars and gentlemen, priests and soldiers, two thou- 
 sand years before your British ancestors ran wild in their woods, 
 and sacrificed to their unknown gods on rocky altars reeking 
 with human blood. I know the errand upon which I have come 
 is not a pleasant one, either for you or for me; but I come to 
 you strong in the right of a son to claim the heritage which was 
 stolen from him by an infamous mother and her more infamous 
 paramour — " 
 
 " I will not hear another word," cried Lady Maulevrier, start- 
 ing to her feet, livid with passion. " Do not dare to pronounce 
 that name in my hearing — the name of that abominable woman 
 who brought disgrace and dishonor upon my husband and his 
 race." 
 
 " And who brought your husband the wealth of my murdered 
 father," answered the Indian, defiantly. " Do not ignore that 
 fact, Lady Maulevrier. What has become of that fortune — two 
 hundred thousand pounds in money and jewels ? It was known 
 to have passed into Lord Maulevrier's possession after my father 
 was put away by his paid instruments." 
 
 " How dare you bring that vile charge against the dead ? " 
 
 " There are men living in India who know the truth of that 
 charge, men who were at Bisnagar when my father, sick and 
 heart-broken, was shut up in his deserted harem, hemmed in by 
 spies and traitors, men with murder in their faces. There are 
 those who know that he was strangled by one of those wretches, 
 that a grave was dug for him under the marble floor of his Ze- 
 nana, a grave in which his bones were found less than a year 
 ago in my presence, and fitly entombed at my bidding. He 
 was said to have disappeared of his own free will — to have left 
 his palace under cover of night, and sought refuge from possible 
 treachery in another province ; but there were those, and not a 
 few, who know the real history of his disappearance — who knew, 
 and at the time were ready to testify in any court of justice, that 
 he had been got rid of by the Ranee's agents, and at Lord 
 Maulevrier's instigation, and that his possessions in money and 
 jewels had been conveyed in the palankins that carried the Ra- 
 nee's women to his Lordship's summer retreat near Madras. 
 Had your husband lived, Lady Maulevrier, this story must have 
 been brought to light. There were too many people in Madras 
 interested in sifting the facts. There must have been a public 
 inquiry. It was a happy thing for you and your race that Lord 
 Maulevrier died before that inquiry had been instituted, and that 
 
I20 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 many animosities died with him. Lucky too for 3-011 that I was 
 a helpless infant at that time, and that the Manratta adventurer 
 to whom my father's territory had been transferred in the shuf- 
 fling of cards at the end of the war was deeply concerned in 
 hushing up the story." 
 
 " And pray, why have you nursed your wrath in all these 
 years ? Why do you intrude upon me after nearly half a cen- 
 tury with this legend of rapine and murder 1 " 
 
 " Because for nearly half a century I have been kept in pro- 
 found ignorance of my father's fate — in ignorance of my race. 
 Lord Maulevrier's jealousy banished me from my mother's arms 
 shortly after my father's death. I was sent to the south of 
 France under the care of an Aryah. My first memories are of 
 a monastery near Marseilles, where I was reared and educated 
 by a Jesuit community, where I was baptized and brought up in 
 the Roman Catholic faith. By their influence I was placed in a 
 house of commerce at Marseilles. Funds to provide for my ed- 
 ucation and establishment in life, under very modest conditions, 
 were sent periodically by an agent at Madras. It was known 
 that I was of East Indian birth, but little more was known about 
 me. It was only when years had gone by and I was a merchant 
 on my own account and could afford to go to India on a voyage 
 of discovery — yes, as much a voyage of discovery as that of Vas- 
 co de Gama or of Drake — that I got from rhe Madras agent the 
 clue which enabled me at the cost of infinite patience and infi- 
 nite labor to unravel the mystery of my birth. There is no need 
 to enter now upon the details of that story. I have over\thelm- 
 mg documentary evidence — a cloud of witnesses — to convince 
 the most skeptical as to who and what I am. The documents 
 are some of them in my valise, at your Ladyship's service. Others 
 are at my hotel in London ready for the inspection of your Lady- 
 ship's lawyers. I do not think you will desire to invite a public 
 inquiry, or force me to recover my birthright in a court of justice. 
 I believe that you will take a broader and nobler view of the case, 
 and that you will restore to the wronged and abandoned son the 
 fortune stolen from his murdered father." 
 
 " Ho\v dare you come to me with this tissue of lies ? How 
 dare you look me in the face and charge my dead husband with 
 treachery and dishonor ? I believe neither in your story nor in 
 you, and I defv you to the proof of this vile charge against the 
 dead." 
 
 " In other words, you mean that you will keep the money and 
 jewels that Lord Maulevrier stole from my father ? " 
 
 " I deny the fact that any such jewels or money ever passed 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 1 21 
 
 into my Lordship's possession. That vile woman, your mother, 
 whose infamy cast a dark cloud over Lord Maulevrier's honor, 
 may have robbed her husband, may have emptied the public 
 treasury. I will not bear the burden of her crimes. Her exist- 
 ence spoiled my life — banished me from India, a widow in all 
 but the name, and more desolate than many widows." 
 
 " Lord Maulevrier was known to leave India carrying with 
 him two large chests — supposed to contain books — but actually 
 containing treasure. The books collected together to be packed 
 in those two chests — supposed at the time to have been packed 
 in them — were found years afterward in a closet at the Govern- 
 ment House. A man who was in the Governor's confidence, and 
 who had been the go-between in his intrigues, confessed on his 
 death-bed that he had assisted in removing the treasure. Now, 
 Lady Maulevrier, since your husband died immediately after his 
 arrival in England, and before he could have had any opportu- 
 nity of converting or making away with the valuables so appro- 
 priated, it stands to reason that those valuables must have passed 
 into your possession, and it is from your honor and good feeling 
 that I claim their restitution. If you deny the claim so advanced, 
 there remains but one course open to me, and that is to make 
 my wrongs public, and claim my right from the law of the land.'* 
 
 " And do you suppose that any English judge or any English 
 jury will believe so wild a story, or countenance so vile an accu- 
 sation against the defenseless dead?" demanded Lady Maule- 
 vrier, standing up before him, tall, stately, with flashing eye and 
 scornful lip, the image of proud defiance. " Bring forward your 
 claim, produce your documents, your witnesses, your death-bed 
 confessions. I defy you to injure my dead husband or me by 
 your wild lies, your' foul charges. Go to an English lawyer, and 
 see what an English law court will do for you and your claim. 
 I will hear no more of .either." 
 
 She rang the bell, once, twice, thrice, with passionate hand, 
 a servant flew to answer that impatient summons : 
 
 " Show this gentleman to his carriage instantly," she said im- 
 periously. 
 
 The gentleman who called himself Louis Asaph bowled and 
 retired without another word. 
 
 As the door closed upon him, Lady Maulevrier stood, with 
 clenched hands and frowning brow, staring into vacancy. Her 
 right arm was outstretched, as if she would have waved the in- 
 truder away with it. Suddenly, a strange numbness crept over 
 that uplifted arm, and it sank helpless at her side. From her 
 shoulder down to her foot, that proud form grew cold and feeling* 
 
1 2 2 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 less and dead, and she, who had so long carried herself as a 
 queen among women, Sc in a senseless heap upon the floor. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " HEr. FACE RESIGNED TO BLISS OR BALE." 
 
 Lady Mary and the Fraulein had been sitting in the drawing- 
 room all this time waiting for Lady Maulevrier to come in to tea. 
 They heard her come in trom the garden ; and then the foot- 
 man told them that she was in the library with a stranger. Not 
 even the muffled sound of voices penetrated th2 heavy velvet 
 curtain and the thick oak door. It was only by the loud ring- 
 ing of the bell and the sound of footsteps in the hall that Lady 
 Mary knew of the guest's departure. She went to the door be- 
 tween the two rooms, and was surprised to find it bolted. 
 
 " Grandmamma, won't you come to tea } " she asked timidly, 
 knocking at the oaken panel, but there was no reply. 
 
 She knocked again, and louder. Still no reply. 
 
 " Perhaps her Ladyship is going to take tea in her own room," 
 she said, afraid to be officious. 
 
 Attendance upon her grandmother at afternoon tea had been 
 one of Lesbia's particular duties ; but Mary felt that she was 
 an unwelcome substitute for Lesbia. She wanted to get a little 
 nearer her grandmother's heart if she could ; but she knew that 
 her attentions were endured rather than liked. 
 
 She went into the hall, where the footman on duty was star- 
 ing at the light snowflakes dancing past the window, perhaps 
 wishing he were a snowflake himself and enjoying himself in 
 that white whirligig. 
 
 " Is her Ladyship having tea in the morning-room ? " asked 
 Mary. 
 
 The footman gave a little start, as if awakened out of a kind 
 of trance. The sheer vacuity of his mind might naturally slide 
 into mesmeric sleep. 
 
 He told Lady Mary that her Ladyship had not left the library, 
 and Mary went in timidly, wondering why her grandmother had 
 not joined them in the drawing-room when the stranger was 
 gone. 
 
 The sky was dark outside the wide windows, white hills and 
 valleys shrouded with the shades of night. The librar}' was 
 only lighted by the red glow of the logs on the hearth, and in 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 1 23 
 
 that ruddy light the spacious room looked empty. Mary was 
 turning to go away, thinking the footman had been mistaken, 
 when her eye -suddenly lighted upon a dark figure lying on 
 the ground. And then she heard an awful stertorous breathing, 
 andlcnew that her grandmother was lying there, stricken and 
 helpless. 
 
 Mary shrieked aloud, with a cry that pierced curtams and 
 doors, and brought Fraulein and half a dozen servants to her 
 help. ' One of the men brought a lamp, and among them they 
 lifted the smitten figure. Oh, God ! how ghastly the face looked 
 in the lamplight— the features drawn to one side, the skin livid. 
 
 " Her Ladyship has had a stroke," said the butler. 
 
 " Is she dying ? " faltered Mary, white as ashes. " Oh, grand- 
 mamma, dear grandmamma, don't look at us like that ! " 
 
 One of the servants rushed off to the stables to send for the 
 doctor. Of course, being an indoor man, he no more thought of 
 going out himself into the snowy night on such an errand than 
 Noah thought of going out of the ark to make his discoveries of 
 drv land in person. 
 
 They carried the Countess to her bed and laid her there, 
 like a figure carved out of stone. She was not unconscious. 
 Her eyes were open, and she moaned every now and then as if 
 in bodily and mental pain. Once she tried to speak, but hadno 
 power to shape a syllable aright, and ended with a shuddering 
 sigh. Once she lifted her left arm and waved it in the air, as 
 if waving some one off in fear or anger. The right arm, indeed 
 the whole of the right side, was lifeless, motionless as a stone. 
 It was a piteous sight to see the beautiful features drawn and 
 distorted, the lips so accustomed to command mouthing the 
 broken syllables of an unknown tongue. Lady Mary sat beside 
 the bed with clasped hands, praying dumbly, with her eyes fixed 
 on her grandmother's altered face. 
 
 Mr. Horton came, as soon as his stout mountain pony could 
 bring him. He did not seem surprised at her Ladyship's condi- 
 tion, and accepted the situation with professional calmness. 
 
 "A marked' case of hemiplegia," he said, when he had ob- 
 served the symptoms. 
 
 " Will she die ? " asked Mary. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no. She will want great care for a little while, 
 but we shall bring her round easily. A splendid constitution, a 
 noble frame, but I think she has overworked her brain a httle, 
 reading Huxley and Darwin and the German physiologists upon 
 whom Huxley and Darwin have built themselves ; metaphysics, 
 too. A wonderful woman. Very few brains could hold what 
 
124 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 hers has had poured into it in the last thirty years. The con- 
 ducting nerves between the brain and the spinal marrow have 
 been overworked ; too much activity, too constant a strain. 
 Even the rails and sleepers on the railroad wear out, don't you 
 know, if there's excessive traffic." 
 
 Mr. Horton had known Mary from her childhood, had given 
 her Gregory's powder, had seen her safely through measles and 
 other infantine ailments, so he was quite at home with her, and 
 at Fellside generally. Lady Maulevrier had given him a good 
 deal of her confidence during those thirty years in which he 
 had practiced as his farther's partner and successor at Grasmere. 
 He used to tell people that he owed a good deal of his educa- 
 tion to her Ladyship, who condescended to talk to him of the new 
 books she read, and generally gave him a volume to put in his 
 pocket when he was leaving her. 
 
 " Don't be down-hearted. Lady Mary," he said, " I shall come 
 in two or three times a day and see how things are gomg on, 
 and if I see the slightest difficulty in the case I'll telegraph in- 
 stanter for Jenner." 
 
 Mary and the Fraulein sat up with the invalid all that night. 
 Lady Maulevrier's maid was also in attendance, and one of the 
 men-servants slept in his clothes on a couch in the corridor, ready 
 for any emergency. But the night passed peacefully, the pa- 
 tient slept a good deal, and next day there was evident improve- 
 ment. 
 
 The stroke which had prostrated the body, which reduced the 
 vigorous, active frame to an awful, statue-like stillness — a quie- 
 tude as of death itself — had not overclouded the intellect. Lady 
 Maulevrier lay on her bed in the spacious, luxurious room, with 
 wide Tudor windows commanding half the circle of the hills, and 
 w^as still the ruling spirit of the house, albeit powerless to move 
 the slender hand, the lightest wave of which had been as potent 
 to command in her little world as royal sign-manual or scepter 
 in the great world outside. 
 
 Now there remained only one thing unimpaired by that awful 
 shock which had laid the stately frame low, and that was the 
 will and sovereign force of the woman's nature. Voice was al- 
 tered, speech was confused and difficult ; but the strength of 
 w'ill, the supreme power of mind, seemed undiminished. 
 
 When Lady Maulevrier was asked if Lesbia should be tele- 
 graphed for, she replied no, not unless she was in danger of sud- 
 den death. 
 
 " I should like to see her before I go," she said, laboring to 
 pronounce the words. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 125 
 
 " Dear grandmother," said Mary, tenderly, " Mr. Horton 
 says there is no danger." 
 
 " Then do not send for her, do not even tell her what has 
 happened ; not yet." 
 
 " But she will miss your letters." 
 
 " True. You must write twice a week at my dictation. You 
 must tell her that I have hurt my hand, that I am well but can- 
 not use a pen. I would not spoil her pleasure for the world." 
 
 " Dear grandmamma how unselfish you are ! And Maulevrier 
 shall be sent for t He is not so far away," said Mary, hoping 
 she would say yes. 
 
 What a relief, what an unspeakable solace Maulevrier's pres- 
 ence would be in that dreary house, smitten to a sudden and 
 awful stillness as if by the Angel of Death. 
 
 " No, I do not want Maulevrier ! " answered her Ladyship, 
 impatiently. 
 
 " May 1 sit here and read to you, grandmother ? " Mary asked, 
 timidily. " Mr. Horton said you were to be kept very quiet, 
 and that we w^ere not to let you talk, or talk much to you, but 
 that we might read to you if you like." 
 
 " I do not wish to be read to. I have my thought! for com- 
 pany," said Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 Mary felt that this implied a wish to be alone. She bent over 
 the invalid's pillow and kissed the pale cheek, feeling as if she 
 were taking a liberty in venturing so much. She would hardly 
 have done it had Lesbia been at home ; but she had a feel- 
 ing that in Lesbia's absence Lady Maulevrier must want 
 somebody's love — even hers. And then she crept away, leav- 
 ing Halcott the maid in attendance, sitting at her work at the 
 window furthest from the bed. 
 
 "Alone with my thoughts," mused Lady Maulevrier, looking 
 out at the wintry hills, white, ghost-like against a leaden sky, 
 " Pleasant thoughts, truly ! Walled in by the hills — walled in 
 and hemmed round forever. This place has always felt like a 
 grave ; and now I know that it is my grave." 
 
 Miss Kirsch, and Lady Mary, and the maid Halcott, a sedate 
 personage of forty summers, had all been instructed by the 
 doctor that Lady Maulevrier was to be kept profoundly quiet. 
 She must not talk much, since speech was likely to be a painful 
 effort with her for some little time ; she must not be talked to 
 much by any one, least of all must she be spoken to upon any 
 agitating topic. Life must be mad© as smooth and easy for her 
 
126 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 as a newborn infant. No rough breath from the outer world 
 mu6t come near her. She was to see no one but her maid and 
 her granddaughter ; Mr. Horton, a plain family man, taking it 
 for granted that the granddaughter was dear to her heart, and 
 likely to exercise a soothing influence. Thus it happened that 
 although Lady Maulevrier asked repeatedly that James Si 
 man should be brought to her she was not allowed to ser 
 She whose will had been paramount in that house, whose word 
 had been law, was now treated as a little child, while the will 
 was still as strong, the mind as keen as ever. 
 
 " She would talk to him of business," said Mr. Horton, when 
 he was told of her Ladyship's desire to see Steadman, " and that 
 cannot be allowed, not for some little time at least." 
 
 " She is very angry with us for refusing to obey her," said 
 Lady Mary. 
 
 " Naturally, but it is for her own welfare she is disobeyed. 
 She can have nothing to say to Steadman which will not keep 
 till she is better. This establishment goes by clockwork." 
 
 Mary wished it was a little less like clockwork. Since Lady 
 Maulevrier has been lying upstairs — the voice which had once 
 ruled over the house muffled almost to dumbness — the monotony 
 of life at Fellside had seemed all the more oppressive. The serv- 
 ants crept about with stealthier tread. Mary dared not touch 
 either piano or billiard balls, and was naturally seized with a 
 longing to touch both. The house had a darkened look, as if 
 the shadow of doom overhung it. 
 
 During this regimen of perfect quiet Lady Maulevrier was not 
 allowed to see the newspapers ; and Mary was warned that in 
 reading to her grandmother she was to avoid all exciting topics. 
 Thus it happened that the account of a terrible collision be- 
 tween the Scotch express and a luggage train a little way beyond 
 Preston, an accident in which seven people were killed and 
 about thirty seriously hurt, was not made known to her Ladyship ; 
 and yet that fact would be of intense interest and significance to 
 her. 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 The wintry weeks glided smoothly by in a dull monotony, 
 and now Lady Maulevrier, still helpless, still compelled to lie on 
 her bed or her invalid couch, motionless as marble, had at least 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 127 
 
 recovered her power of speech, was allowed to read and to talk, 
 and to hear what was going on in that metropolitan world which 
 she seemed unlikely ever to behold again. 
 
 Lady Lesbia was still at Cannes, whence she wrote of her 
 pleasures and her triumphs, of flowers and sapphire sea, and az- 
 ur<M<y, of all things which were not in the gray bleak mountain 
 wof!§^hich hemmed in Fellside. She was meeting many of the 
 people whom she was to meet again next season in the London 
 world. She had made an informal debut in a very select circle, 
 a circle in which everybody was more or less chic or chien, and 
 she was tasting all the sweets of success. But in none of her 
 letters was there any mention of Lord Hartfield. He was not 
 in the little great Vv^orld by the blue tideless sea. 
 
 There was no talk of Lesbia's return. She was to stay till the 
 carnival, she was to stay till the week before Easter. Lady 
 Kirkbank insisted upon it, and both Lesbia and Lady Kirkbank 
 upbraided Lady Maulevrier for her cruelty in not joining them 
 at Cannes. 
 
 So Lady Maulevrier had to resign herself to that solitude 
 which had become almost the habit of her life, and to the society 
 of Mary and the Fraulein. Mary was eager to be of use, to sit 
 with her grandmother, to read to her, to write for her. The 
 warm young heart was deeply moved by the spectacle of this 
 stately woman stricken into helplessness, chained to her couch, 
 immured within four walls. To Mary, who so loved the hills and 
 streams, the sun and the winds, this imprisonment seemed un- 
 speakable woe. In her pity for such a martyrdom she would 
 have done anything to give pleasure or solace to her grandmother. 
 Unhappily there was very little Mary could do to increase the in- 
 valid's sum of pleasure. Lady Maulevrier was a woman of 
 strong feeling, not capable of loving many people She had con- 
 centrated her affection upon Lesbia, and she could not open her 
 heart to Mary all at once, because Lesbia was out of the way. 
 
 " If I had a dog I loved, and he w^ere to die, I would never 
 have another in his place," Lady Maulevrier said once, and that 
 speech was the keynote of her character. 
 
 She was very courteous to Mary, and seemed grateful for her 
 attentions ; but she did not cultivate the girl's society. Mary 
 wrote all her letters in a fine bold hand, and with a rapid pen ; 
 but when the letter writing was over Lady Maulevrier always 
 dismissed her. 
 
 *' My dear, you want to be out in the air, riding your pony, or 
 scampering about with your dogs," she said, kindly. " It would 
 be a cruelty to keep you indoors." 
 
1 28 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 " No, indeed, dear grandmamma, I should like to stay. May 
 I stop and read to- you ? " 
 
 " No, thank you, Mary, I hate being read to. I like to de- 
 vour a book. Reading is such slow work." 
 
 "But I am' afraid you must sometimes feel lonely," faltered 
 Mary. 
 
 " Lonely," echoed the Dowager, with a sigh. " I have been 
 lonely for the last forty years — I have been lonely all my life. 
 Those I loved never gave me back love for love — never — not 
 even your sister. See how lightly she cuts the link that bound 
 her to me. How happy she is among strangers. Yes, there 
 was one who loved me truly, and fate parted us. Does fate part 
 all true lovers, I wonder?" 
 
 " You parted Lesbia and Mr. Hammond," said Mary, impetu- 
 ously. *' I am sure they loved each other truly." 
 
 '' The old and the worldly wise are fate, Mary," answered the 
 Dowager, not angry at this daring reproach. " I know your sis- 
 ter ; and I know she is not the kind of woman to be happy in 
 an ignoble life — to bear poverty and deprivation. If it had been 
 you, now, whom Mr, Hammond had chosen, I might have taken 
 the subject into my consideration." 
 
 Mary flamed crimson. 
 
 " Mr. Hammond never gave me a thought," she said, " unless it 
 was to think me contemptible. He is worlds too good for such 
 a tomboy. Maulevrier told him about the fox-hunt, and they 
 both laughed at me — at least, I have no doubt Mr. Hammond 
 laughed, though I was too much ashamed to look at him." 
 
 " Poor Mary, you are beginning to find out that a young lady 
 ought to be lady-like," said Lady Maulevrier ; " and now, my 
 dear, you may go. I was only joking with you. Mr. Hammond 
 would be no match for any granddaughter of mine. He is no- 
 body, and has neither friends nor interest. If he had gone into 
 the church Maulevrier could have helped him ; but I dare say 
 his ideas are too broad for the church, and he will have to starve 
 at the bar, where nobody can help him. I hope you will bear 
 this in mind, Mary, if Maulevrier should ever bring him here." 
 
 " He is never likely to come back again. He suffered too 
 much ; he was treated too badly in this house." 
 
 " Lady Mary, be good enough to remember to whom you are 
 speaking/' said her Ladyship, with a frown. " And now please 
 go, and tell some one to send Steadman to me." 
 
 Mary retired without a word, gave Lady Maulevrier's message 
 to a footman in the corridor, slipped off to her room, put on 
 her sealskin hat and jacket, took her staff and went out for a 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 129 
 
 long ramble. The hills and valleys were still white. It had 
 been a long, cold Winter, and it was' not half over yet — February 
 had only just begun. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier's couch had been wheeled into the morning- 
 room — that luxurious room which was furnished with all things 
 needful to her quiet life — books, her favorite flowers, every 
 detail studiously arranged for her pleasure and comfort. She 
 was wheeled into this room every day at noon. When the day 
 was hot and sunny her couch was placed near the window ; when 
 the day was dull and gray the couch was drawn close to the low 
 hearth, which flashed and glittered with brightly colored tiles 
 and artistic brass. 
 
 To-day the sky was dull, and the velvet couch stood beside 
 the hearth. Halcott sat at work in an adjoining bed-chamber, 
 and came in every now and then to replenish the fire ; a footman 
 was always on duty in the corridor. A spring-bell stood among 
 the elegant trifles upon her Ladyship's table and the lightest touch 
 of her left hand upon the bell brought her attendants to her side. 
 She resolutely refused to have any one sitting with her all day 
 long. Solitude was a necessity of her being, she told Mr. Hor- 
 ton, when he recommended that she should have some one al- 
 ways in attendance upon her. 
 
 As the weeks wore on her features had been restored to their 
 proud calm beauty, her articulation was almost as clear as of old ; 
 yet, now and then, there would be a sudden faltering, the tongue 
 and lips would refuse their ofhce, or she would forget a word, or 
 use a wrong word unconsciously. But there was no recovery of 
 power and movement on that side of the body which had been 
 stricken. The paralyzed limbs were still motionless, lifeless as 
 marble ; and it was clear that Mr. Horton had begun to lose 
 heart about his patient. There was nothing obscure in the case, 
 but the patient's importance made the treatment a serious mat- 
 ter, and the surgeon begged to be allowed to summon Sir Wil- 
 liam Jenner. This, however, Lady Maulevrier refused. 
 
 " I don't want any fuss made about me," she said. *' I am 
 content to trust myself to your skill, and I beg that no other 
 doctor may be summoned." 
 
 Mr. Horton understood his patient's feelings on this point. 
 She had a sense of humiliation in her helplessness, and, like some 
 wounded animal that crawls to its covert to die, she would fain 
 have hidden her misery from the eye of strangers. She had al- 
 lowed no one, not even Maulevrier, to be informed of the nature 
 of her illness, 
 
 " It will be time enough for him to know all about me when 
 9 
 
J30 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 he comes here," she said. " I shall be obliged to see him when- 
 ever he does come." 
 
 Maulevrier had spent Christmas and New Year in Paris, Mr. 
 Hammond still his companion. Her Ladyship commented upon 
 this with a touch of scorn. 
 
 " Mr. Hammond is like the Umbra you were reading about 
 the other day in Lord Lytton's * Last Days of Pompeii,' " she 
 said to Mary. " It must be very nice for him to go about the 
 world with a triend who franks him everywhere." 
 
 " But we don't know that Maulevrier franks him," protested 
 Mary, blushing. " We have no right to suppose that Mr. Ham- 
 mond does not pay his own expenses." 
 
 " My dear child, is it possible for a young man who has no 
 private means to go gadding about the world on equal terms 
 with a spendthrift like Maulevrier — to pay for moors in Scot- 
 land and apartments at the Bristol ? " 
 
 " But they are not staying at the Bristol," exclaimed Mary. 
 " They are staying at an old-established French hotel on the 
 left side of the Seine. They are going about amongst the stu- 
 dents and the workmen, dining at popular restaurants, hearing 
 people talk. Maulevrier says it is delightfully amusing — ever 
 so much better than the beaten track of life in Anglo-American 
 Paris." 
 
 " I dare say they are leading a Bohemian life, and will get 
 into trouble before they have done," said her Ladyship, gloomily. 
 " Maulevrier is as wild as a hawk." 
 
 " He is the dearest boy in the world," exclaimed Mary. 
 
 She was deeply grateful for her brother's condescension in writ- 
 ing her a letter of two pages long, letting her into the secrets of 
 his life. She felt as if Mr. Hammond were ever so much nearer 
 to her, now she knew where he was and how he was amusing 
 himself. 
 
 " Hammond is such a queer fellow," wrote Maulevrier, " the 
 strangest things interest him. He sits and talks to the work- 
 men for hours ; he pokes his nose into all sorts of places — hos- 
 pitals, workshops, poverty-stricken dens — and people are always 
 civil to him. He is what Lesbia calls sympatico. And what a 
 mistake Lesbia and my grandmother made when they rejected 
 Hammond ! What a pearl above price they threw away ! But 
 you see neither my Lady nor Lesbia could appreciate a gem un- 
 less it was richly set." 
 
 And now Lady Maulevrier lay on her couch by the fire wait- 
 ing for James Steadman. She had seen him several times since 
 the day of her seizure ; but never alone. There was an idea 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 131 
 
 that Steadman must necessarily talk to her of business matters ; 
 so there had been a well intentioned conspiracy in the house to 
 keep him out of her way, but now she was much better, and her 
 desire to see Steadman need no longer be thwarted. 
 
 He cam^e at her bidding, and stood a little way within the 
 door, tall, erect, square-shouldered, resolute-looking, with a quiet 
 force of character expressed in every feature. He was very 
 much the same man as he had been forty years ago, when he 
 went with her Ladyship to Southampton, and accompanied his 
 master and mistress on that tedious journey which was destined 
 to be Lord Maulevrier's last earthly pilgrimage. Time had 
 done little to Steadman in those forty years, except to whiten 
 his hair and beard, and imprint some thoughtful lines upon his 
 sagacious forehead. Time had done something for him men- 
 tally, insomuch as he had read a great many books and cultiva- 
 ted his mind in the monotonous quiet of Fellside. Altogether 
 he was a superior man for the passage of those forty years. 
 
 He had married within the time, choosing for himself the 
 buxom daughter of a lodge-keeper, whose wife had long been laid 
 at rest in Grasmere churchyard. The buxom girl had grown 
 into a bulky matron, but she was a colorless personage, and her 
 existence made hardly any difference in James Steadman's life. 
 She had brought him no children, and their fireside was lonely ; 
 Steadman was one of those self-contained personages to whom 
 a solitary life is no affliction. 
 
 " I hope I see you in better health, my Lady," he said, stand- 
 ing straight and square like a soldier on parade. 
 
 " I am better, thank you, Steadman, better, but a poor life- 
 less log chained to this sofa. I sent for you because the time 
 has come when I must talk to you upon some business. You 
 heard, I suppose, that a stranger called upon me just before I 
 had my attack ? " 
 
 " Yes, my Lady." 
 
 " Did you hear who and what he was ? " 
 
 " Only that he was a foreigner, my Lady." 
 
 " He is of Indian birth. He claims to be the son of the 
 Ranee of Bisnagar." 
 
 " He could do you no harm, my Lady, if he were twenty times 
 her son." 
 
 " I hope not. Now, I want to ask you a question. Among 
 those trunks and cases and packages of Lord Maulevrier's which 
 were sent here by heavy coach, after they were landed at South- 
 ampton, do you remember two cases of books ? " 
 
 "There are two large cases among the luggage, my Lady, 
 
132 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 very heavy cases, iron clamped. I shouldn't be surprised if they 
 were full of books." 
 
 " Have they never been opened ? " 
 
 " Not to my knowledge." 
 
 " Are they locked ? " 
 
 " Yes, my Lady. There are two padlocks on each chest." 
 
 " And are the keys in your posession ? " 
 
 " No, my Lady." 
 
 " Where are the cases ? " 
 
 " In the Oak Room, with the rest of the Indian luggage." 
 
 " Let them remain there. No doubt, those cases contain the 
 books of which I have been told. You have not heard that the 
 person calling himself Rajah of Bisnagar has been here since 
 my illness, have you ? " 
 
 " No, my Lady, I am sure he has not been here." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier gave him a scrutinizing look. 
 
 " He might have come, and my people might have kept the 
 knowledge from me, out of consideration for my imfirmity," she 
 said. " I should be very angry if it were so. I should hate to 
 be treated like a child." 
 
 " You shall not be so treated, my Lady, while I am in this 
 house ; but I know there is no member of the household who 
 would presume so to treat you." 
 
 "They might do it out of kindness ; but I should loathe such 
 kindness," said Lady Maulevrier, impatiently. " Though I have 
 been smitten down, though I lie here like a log, I have a mind 
 to think and to plan ; and I am not afraid to meet danger face 
 to face. Are you telling me the truth, Steadman ? Have there 
 been no visits concealed from me, no letters kept from me since 
 I have been ill ? " 
 
 " I am telling you nothing but the truth, my Lady. No letter 
 has been kept from you ; no visitor has been to this house whose 
 coming you have not been told of." 
 
 " Then I am content," said her Ladyship, with a sigh of relief . 
 
 After this there followed some conversation upon business 
 matters. James Steadman was trusted with the entire manage- 
 ment of the Dowager's income, the investment of her savings. 
 His honesty was above all suspicion. He was a man of simple 
 habits, his wants few. He had saved money in every 3-ear of 
 his service ; and for a man of his station was rich enough to be 
 unassailable by the tempter. 
 
 He had reconciled his mind to the monotonous course of life 
 at Fellside in the beginning of things; and, as_ the years glided 
 smoothly by, his character and wants and inclinations had as it 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 133 
 
 were molded themselves to fit that life. He had easy duties, a 
 comfortable home, supreme authority in the household, he was 
 looked up to and made much of in the village whenever he con- 
 descended to appear there, and by the rareness of his visits to the 
 inn or the reading-room, and his unwillingness to accept hospi- 
 tality from the tradesmen of Grasmere and Ambleside, he main- 
 tained his dignity and exaggerated his importance. He had 
 his books and his newspapers, his evening leisure which no one 
 ever dared to disturb. He had the old wing of the house for his 
 exclusive occupation, and no one ventured to intrude upon him in 
 his privacy. There v/as a bell in the corridor which communi- 
 cated with his rooms, and by this bell he was always summoned. 
 There were servants who had been ten years at Fellside, and 
 who had never crossed the threshold of the green baize door 
 which was the only communication between the new house and 
 the old one. Steadman's wife performed all household duties 
 of cookmg and cleaning in the old wing, where she and her hus- 
 band took all their meals, and lived entirely apart from the other 
 servants, an exclusiveness which was secretly resented by the 
 establishment. 
 
 " Mr. Steadman maybe a very superior man," said the butler, 
 *' and I know that in his own estimation the Premier isn't in it 
 compared with him; but 1 never was fond of people who set 
 themselves upon pinnacles, and I'm not fond of the Steadmans." 
 
 " Mrs. Steadman's plain and homely enough," replied the 
 housekeeper, •' and I know she'd like to be more sociable and 
 drop into my room for a cup of tea now and then ; but Stead- 
 man do so keep her under his thumb ; and because he's a misan- 
 thrope she's obliged to sit and mope alone." 
 
 If Steadman wanted to drive, there was a gig and horse at his 
 disposal ; but he did not often leave Feilside. He seemed in 
 his humble way to model his life upon Lady Maulevrier's se- 
 cluded habits. 
 
 It was growing dusk when Steadman left Lady Maulevrier, 
 and she lay for some time looking at the landscape over which 
 twilight shadows were stealing, and thinking of her own life. 
 Over that life, too, the shadows of evening were creeping. She 
 had begun to realize the fact that she was an old woman ; that 
 for her all personal interest in life was nearly over. She had 
 never felt her age while her activity was unimpaired. She had 
 been obliged to remind herself very often that youth and middle 
 age had slipped away unawares in that tranquil retirement, and 
 that the night was at hand. 
 
 For her the close of early life meant actual night. No new 
 
134 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 dawn, no mysterious after-life shone upon her with magical 
 gleams of an unknown light upon the other side of the dark 
 river. She had accepted the Materialists' bitter and barren 
 creed, and had taught herself that this little life was all. She 
 had learned to scorn the idea of a great Artificer outside the uni- 
 verse, a mighty Spirit riding amidst the clouds and ruling the 
 course of nature and the fate of man. She had schooled her- 
 self to think that the idea of a blind unconscious Nature, working 
 automatically through infinite time and space, was ever so much 
 grander than that old-world notion of a personal God, a Being 
 of infinite power and inexhaustible beneficence, mighty to devise 
 and direct the universe, with knowledge reaching to the farthest 
 confines of space, with ear to listen to the prayer of His lowest 
 creatures. Her belief stopped short even of the Deist's faith in 
 an Almighty Will. She saw in creation nothing but the inevit- 
 able development of material laws ; and it seemed to her that 
 there was quite as much hope of a heavenly world after death 
 for the infusoria in the pool as for man in his pride and power. 
 
 She read her Bible as diligently as she read her Shakespeare, 
 and the words of the preacher in some measure embodied her 
 own dreary creed. And now, in the darkening winter day, she 
 watched the gloomy shadows creep over the rugged breast of 
 Nabb Scar, and she thought how there was a time for all things, 
 and that her day of hope and ambition was past. 
 
 Of late years she had lived for Lesbia, looking forward to the 
 day when she was to introduce this beloved grandchild to the 
 great world of London ; and now that hope was gone forever. 
 What could a helpless cripple do for a fashionable beauty 1 
 What good would it be for her to be conveyed to London and 
 to lie on a couch in Mayfair, while Lesbia rode in the Row and 
 went to three or four parties every night ? 
 
 She had hoped to go everywhere with her darling, to glor}' in 
 all her successes, to shield her from all possibility of failure. 
 And now Lesbia must stand or fall alone. 
 
 It was a hard thing, but perhaps the hardest part of it all was 
 that Lesbia seemed so very well able to get on without her. The 
 girl wrote in the highest spirits, and although her letters were 
 most affectionately worded, they were all about self. That note 
 was dominant in every strain. Her triumphs, her admirers, her 
 bonnets, her gowns. She had had more money from her grand- 
 mother and more gowns from Paris. 
 
 " You have no idea how the people dress in this place," she 
 wrote. " I should have been quite out in the cold without my 
 three new frocks from Worth. The little Princess bonnets J 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 135 
 
 wear are the rage. Worth recommended me to adopt special 
 flowers and colors ; so I have worn nothing but primroses since 
 I have been here, and my little primrose bonnets are to be seen 
 everywhere, sometimes on hideous old women. Lady Kirkbank 
 hopes you will be able to go to London directly after Easter. 
 She says I must be presented at the May drawing-room— that 
 is imperative. People have begun to talk about me, and unless 
 I make my debut while their interest is fresh I shall be a failure. 
 There is an American beauty here, and I believe she and I are 
 considered rivals, and young men make bets about us as to which 
 will look best at a ball, or a regatta, what colors we shall wear, 
 and so on. It is immense fun. I only wish you were here to 
 enjoy it. The American girl is a most insolent person, but I 
 have had the pleasure of crushing her on several occasions in 
 the calmest way. In the description of a concert in last week's 
 newspaper I was called I'Anglaise de Marbre. Miss Bolsover's 
 voice was heard ever so many times above the music. According 
 to our English ideas she has most revolting manners, and the 
 money she spends on her clothes would make your hair stand 
 on end. Now do, dearest grandmother, make all your arrange- 
 ments for beginning the campaign directly after Easter. You 
 must take a house in the very choicest quarter — Lady Kirk- 
 bank suggests Grosvenor Place — and it must be a large house, 
 for of course you will give a ball. Lady K. says we might have 
 Lord Bolingbroke's house — poor Lady Bolingbroke and her baby 
 died a few weeks ago, and he has gone to Sweden, quite broken- 
 hearted. It is one of the new houses, exquisitely furnished, and 
 Lady K. thinks you might have it for a song. Will you get 
 Steadman to write to his Lordship's steward and see what can 
 be done ? 
 
 *' I hope the dear hand is better. You have never told me 
 how you hurt it. It is very sweet of Mary to write me such long 
 letters, and quite a pleasant surprise to find she can spell ; but 
 I want to see your own dear hand once more." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 " AND COME AGEN BE IT BY NIGHT OR DAY." 
 
 Those Winter months were unutterably dreary for Lady Mary 
 Haselden. She felt weighed down by a sense of death and woe 
 near at hand. The horror of that dreadful moment in which 
 
136 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 she found her grandmother lying senseless on the ground, the 
 terror of that distorted countenance, those starting eyes, 
 that stertorous breathing, was not easily banished frorn a 
 vivid girlish imagination, seeing how few distractions there were 
 to divert Mary's thoughts, and how the sun sank and rose again 
 upon the same inevitable surroundings, the same monotonous 
 routine. 
 
 Her grandmother was kinder than she had been in days gone 
 by, less inclined to find fault with her ; but Mary knew that her 
 society gave Lady Maulevrier very little pleasure, that she 
 could do hardly anything toward filling the gap made by 
 Lesbia's absence. These was no one to scold her, no one to 
 quarrel with her. Fraulein Kirsch lectured her mildly from 
 time to time ; but that stout German was too lazy to put any 
 force or fire into her lectures. Her reproofs were like the fall 
 of waterdrops on a stone, and ages would have been needed to 
 cause any positive impression. 
 
 February came to an end without sign or token from the 
 outer world to disturb the even tenor of life at Fellside. Mary 
 read, and read, till she felt she was made up of the contents of 
 books, crammed with other people's ideas. She read history, 
 or natural science, or travels, or poetry in the morning, and 
 novels or English poetry in the evening. She had pledged her- 
 self to devote her morning indoor hours to instructive literature, 
 and to accomplish some portion of study in every day. She 
 was carrying on her education on parole, as before stated, and 
 she was too honorable to do less than was expected from her. 
 
 March came in with its most leonine aspect, howling and 
 blustering ; northeast winds shrieking along the gorges and 
 wailing from height to height. 
 
 '* I wonder the lion and the lamb are not blown into the 
 lake," said Mary, looking at Helm Crag from the library 
 window. 
 
 She scampered about the gardens in the very teeth of those bit- 
 ter blasts, and took her shivering terriers for runs on the green 
 slopes on the Fell. The snow had gradually melted from the sides 
 of the lowermost range of hills, but the mountain peaks were still 
 white and ghostly, the ground still hard and slippery in the 
 early mornings. Mary had to take her walks alone in this 
 bleak weather. Fraulein Kirsch had a convenient bronchial 
 affection which forbade her to venture so much as the point of 
 her nose outside the house in an east wind, and which justified 
 her in occasionally taking her breakfast in bed. She spent her 
 days for the most part in her arm-chair, drawn close to the fire- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 137 
 
 place, which she still persisted in calling the oven, knitting 
 diligently, or reading a German newspaper. Even music, which 
 had once been her strong point, was neglected in this trying 
 weather. It was such a cold journey from the oven to the 
 piano. 
 
 Mary played a good deal in her desultory manner, now that 
 she had the drawing-room all to herself, and no fear of Lady 
 Maulevrier's critical ear or Lesbia's superior smile. The Frau- 
 lein was pleased to hear her ramble on with her favorite bits 
 from Raff, and Hensel, and Brahm, and Mendelssohn, and 
 Mozart, and was very well content to let her play just what she 
 liked and to escape the trouble of training her to that exquisite 
 perfection into which Lady Lesbia had been drilled. Lesbia 
 was not a genius, and the training process had been quite as 
 hard for the governess as for the pupil. 
 
 Thus the slow days wore on till the first week in March, and 
 on one bleak bitter afternoon, when Fraulein Kirsch stuck to 
 the oven even a little closer than usual, Mary felt she must go 
 out, in the face of the east wind which was tossing the leafless 
 branches in the valley below until the trees looked like an angry 
 crowd, hurling its arms in the air, fighting, struggling, writhing. 
 She must leave that dreary house for a little while, were it even 
 to be lashed and bruised and broken by that fierce wind. So 
 she told Miss Kirsch that she really must have her constitu- 
 tional, and after a feeble remonstrance Miss Kirsch let her go, 
 and subsided luxuriously into the pillowed depth of her arm- 
 chair. 
 
 There had been a hard frost, and all the mountain ways were 
 perilous, so Mary set out upon a steady tramp along the road 
 leading toward the Langdales. The wind seemed to assail 
 her from every side, but she had accustomed herself to defy the 
 elements, and she only hugged her sealskin jacket closer to her, 
 and quickened her pace, chirruping and whistling to Ahab and 
 Ariadne, the two fox-terriers which she had selected for the 
 privilege of a walk. 
 
 The terriers raced along the road, and Mary, seeing that she 
 had the road all to herself, raced after them. A light snow 
 shower, large feathery flakes flying wide apart, fell from the 
 steel-gray sky ; but Mary minded the snow no more than she 
 minded the wind. She raced on, the terriers scampering, rush- 
 ing, flying before her, until, just where the road took a curve, 
 she almost ran into a horse, which was stepping along at a tre- 
 mendous pace, with a light, high dog-cart behind him. 
 
138 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " Hi ! " cried the driver, " where are you coming, young wom- 
 an ? Have you never seen a horse till to-day ? " 
 
 Some one beside the driver leapt out, and ran to see if Mary 
 was hurt. The horse had swerved to one side, reared a little, 
 and then spun on for a few yards, leaving her standing in the 
 middle of the road. 
 
 " Why, it's Molly," cried the driver, who was no less distin- 
 guished a whip than Lord Maulevrier, and who had recognized 
 the terriers. 
 
 " I hope you are not hurt," said the gentleman who had 
 alighted, Maulevrier's friend and shadow, John Hammond. 
 
 Mary was covered with confusion by her exploit, and could 
 hardly answer Mr. Hammond's very simple question. 
 
 She looked up at him piteously, trying to speak, and he took 
 alarm at her scared expression. 
 
 " I am sure you are hurt," he said earnestly, " the horse must 
 have struck you, or the shaft, perhaps, which was worse. Is it 
 your shoulder that is hurt or your chest ? Lean on me, if you 
 feel faint or giddy. Maulevrier, you had better drive your sister 
 home and get her looked after." 
 
 " Indeed, I am not hurt ; not the least little bit," gasped 
 Mary, who had recovered her senses by this time. " I was only 
 frightened, and it was such a surprise to see you and Maule- 
 vrier." 
 
 A surprise — yes — a surprise which had set her heart throbbing 
 so violently as to render her speechless. Had horse or shaft-point 
 struck her over so she would have hardly been more tremulous 
 than she felt at this moment. Never had she hoped to see him 
 again. He had set his all upon one cast — loved, wooed, and 
 lost her sister. Why should he ever come again "i What was 
 there at Fellside worth coming for ? And then she remembered 
 what her grandmother thought of him. He was a hanger-on, a 
 sponge, a led captain. He was Maulevrier's Umbra, and must 
 go where his patron went. It was a hard thing so to think of 
 him, and Mary's heart sank at the thought that Lady Maule- 
 vrier's worldly wisdom might have reckoned aright. 
 
 " It was very foolish of me to run into the horse," said Mary, 
 while Mr. Hammond stood waiting for her to recover herself. 
 
 " It was very foolish of Maulevrier to run into you. If he 
 didn't drive at such a break-neck pace it wouldn't have hap- 
 pened." 
 
 Umbra was very plain-spoken at any rate. 
 
 "There's rank ingratitude," cried Maulevrier, who had turned 
 back, and was looking down at them from his elevated perch. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 t39 
 
 "After my coming all the way round by Langdale to oblige yon 
 with a view of Elterwater. Molly all safe and sound. She wouldn't 
 have minded if I'd run over her. Come along, child, get up be- 
 side me. Hammond will take the back seat." 
 
 This was easier said than done, for the back of the dog-cart 
 was piled with Gladstone bags, gun-cases and hat-boxes ; but 
 Umbra was ready to oblige. He handed Mary up to the seat 
 by the driver, and clambered up at the back and hooked 
 himself on somehow among the luggage. 
 
 " Dear Maulevrier, how delicious of you to come," said Mary, 
 when they were rattling on toward Fell side ; " I hope you are 
 going to stay for ages." 
 
 " Well, I dare say, if you make yourself very agreeable, I may 
 stay till after Easter." 
 
 Mary's countenance fell. 
 
 " Easter is in three weeks," she said, despondingly. 
 
 '•And isn't three weeks an age at such a place as Fellside? 
 I don't know that I should have come at all on this side of the 
 August sports, only as the grandmother was ill, I thought it a 
 duty to come and see her. A fellow mayn't care much for his 
 ancestors when they're well, you know, but when a poor old lady 
 is down on her luck, her people ought to look after her. So, 
 here I am, and as I knew I should be moped to death here — " 
 
 " Thank you for the compliment," said Mary. 
 
 " I brought Hammond along with me. Of course I knew Les- 
 bia was safe out of the way," added Maulevrier in an undertone. 
 
 " It is very obliging of Mr. Hammond always to go where you 
 wish," returned Mary, who could not help a bitter feeling when 
 she remembered her grandmother's cruel suggestion. " Has he 
 no tastes or inclinations of his own ? " 
 
 "Yes, he has, plenty of them, and much loftier tastes than 
 mine, I can tell you. But he's kind enough to let me hang on 
 to him, and to put up with my frivolity. There never were two 
 men more different than he and I are, and I suppose that's why 
 we get on so well together. When we were in Paris he was 
 always up to his eyes in serious work — lectures, public libraries, 
 workmen's syndicates — Heaven knows what, making himself 
 master of the political situation in France, while I was rigolant 
 and chaloupant at the Bal Bullier." 
 
 It was generous of Maulevrier to speak of his hanger-on thus, 
 and no doubt the society of a well-informed earnest young man 
 was a great good for Maulevrier, a good far above the price of 
 those pounds, shillings and pence which the Earl might spend 
 for his dependent's benefit ; but when a girl of Mary's fervent 
 
I40 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 temper has made a hero of a man, it galls her to think that her 
 hero's dignity should be sacrificed, his honor impeached, were 
 it by the merest tittle. 
 
 Maulevrier made a good many inquiries about his grand- 
 mother, and seemed really full of kindness and sympathy ; but 
 it was with a feeling of profound awe, nay, of involuntary reluct- . 
 ance and shrinking, that he presently entered her Ladyship's sit- 
 ting-room, ushered in by Mary, who had been to her grand- 
 mother beforehand to announce the grandson's arrival. 
 
 He had hardly ever been in a sick-room before. He half ex- 
 pected to see Lady Maulevrier in bed, with a crowd of medicine 
 bottles and a cut orange on a table by her side, and a sick nurse 
 of the ancient crone species cowering over the hre. It was an 
 Infinite relief to him to find his grandmother lying on a sofa by 
 the fire in her pretty morning room. A little tea-table was 
 drawn close up to her sofa, and she was takmg her afternoon 
 tea. It was rather painful to see her lifting her tea-cup slowly 
 and carefully with her left hand, but that was all. The dark 
 eyes still flashed with the old eagle glance, tlie lines of the lips 
 were as proud and firm as ever. All sign of contraction or dis- 
 tortion had passed away. In hours of calm her Ladyship's beauty 
 was unimpaired ; but with any strong emotion there came a con- 
 vulsive working of the features, and the face was momentarily 
 drawn and distorted, as it had been at the time of the seiz- 
 ure. 
 
 Maulevrier's presence had not an unduly agitating effect on 
 her Ladyship. She received him with tranquil graciousness, and 
 thanked him for his coming. 
 
 " I hope you have spent your Winter profitably in Paris,'' she 
 said. *' There is a great deal to be learnt there if you go into 
 the right circles." 
 
 Maulevrier told her that he had found much to learn, and that 
 he had gone into circles where almost everything was new to 
 him. Whereupon his grandmother questioned him about cer- 
 tain noble families which had been known to her in her own day 
 of power, and whose movements she had observed from a dis- 
 tance since that time ; but here she found her grandson dark. 
 He had not happened to meet any of the people she spoke 
 about, the plain truth being that he had lived altogether as a 
 Bohemian, and had not used one of the letters of introduction 
 that had been given to him. 
 
 " Your friend Mr. Hammond is with you, I am told," said 
 Lady Maulevrier, not altogether with delight. 
 
 " Yes, I made him come, but he is quite safe. He will bolt 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 141 
 
 like a shot at the least hint of Lesbia's return. He doesn't want 
 to meet that young lady again, I can assure you." 
 
 " Pray don't talk in that injured tone. Mr. Hammond is a 
 gentlemanlike person, very well informed, very agreeable. I 
 have never denied that. But you could not expect me to allow 
 my granddaughter to throw herself away upon the first adven- 
 turer who made her an offer." 
 
 " Hammond is not an adventurer." 
 
 " Ver}' well, I will not call him so if the term offends you. 
 But Mr. Hammond is — Mr. Hammond ; and I cannot allow Les- 
 bia to marry Mr. Hammond or Mr. Anybody, and I am very 
 sorry you have brought him here again. There is Mary, a silly, 
 romantic girl ! I am very much afraid he has made an impres- 
 sion upon her. She colors absurdly when she talks of him, and 
 flew into a passion with me the other day when I ventured to 
 hint that he is not a Rothschild, and that his society must be 
 expensive to you." 
 
 '' His society does not cost me anything. Hammond is the 
 soul of independence. He worked as a blacksmith in Canada 
 for three months just to see what life was like in a wild district. 
 There never was such a fellow to rough it. And as for Mary, 
 well, now, really, if he happened to take a fancy to her, and if 
 she happened to like him, I wouldn't burke it, if I were you, 
 grandmother. Take my word for it, Molly might do worse." 
 
 "Of course. She might marry a chimney sweep. There is 
 no answering for a girl of that erratic nature. She is silly 
 enough and romantic enough for anything ; but I shall not coun- 
 tenance her if she wants to throw herself away on a person with- 
 out prospects or connections ; and I look to you, Maulevrier, 
 to take care of her, now that I am a wretched log chained to 
 this room." 
 
 " You may rely upon me, grandmother. Molly shall come to 
 no harm, if I can help it." 
 
 " Thank you," said her Ladyship, touching her bell twice. 
 
 The two clear silvery strokes were a summons for Halcott, 
 the maid, who appeared immediately. 
 
 " Tell Mrs. Powers to get his Lordship's rooms ready immedi- 
 ately, and to give Mr. Hammond the room he had in the Sum- 
 mer," said Lady Maulevrier, with a sigh of resignation. 
 
 While Maulevrier was with his grandmother, John Hammond 
 was smoking a solitary cigar on the terrace, contemplating the 
 mountain landscape in its cold March grayness, and wondering 
 very much to find himself again at Fellside. He had gone 
 forth from that house full of passionate indignation, shaking off 
 
142 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 the dust from his feet, sternly resolving never again to cross the 
 threshold of that fateful cave, where he had met this cold- 
 hearted Circe. And now, because Circe was safe out of the way, 
 he had come back to the cavern, and he was feeling all the pain 
 that a man feels who beholds again the scene of a great past 
 sorrow. 
 
 Was this the old love and the old pain again, he wondered, or 
 was it only the sharp thrust of a bitter memory ? He had be- 
 lieved himself cured of his useless love — a great and noble love 
 wasted on a smaller nature than his own. He had thought that be- 
 cause his eyes were opened, and he understood the character of 
 the girl he loved, his cure must needs be complete. Yet, now, face 
 to face Mdth the well-remembered landscape, looking down upon 
 that dull gray lake which he had seen smiling in the^ sunshine, 
 he began to doubt the completeness of his cure. He recalled 
 the lovely face, the graceful form, the sweet, low voice — the per- 
 fection of gracious womanhood, manner, dress, movements, 
 tones, smiles, all faultless ; and in the absence of that one figure 
 it seemed to him as if he had come back to a tenantless, dis- 
 mantled house, where there was nothing that made life worth 
 living. 
 
 The red sun went down — a fierce and lurid face that seemed 
 to scowl through the gray — and Mr. Hammond felt that it was 
 time to arouse himself from gloomy meditation and go in to 
 dress for dinner. Maulevrier's valet was to arrive by the coach 
 with the heavier part of the luggage, and Maulevrier's valet did 
 that very small portion of valeting which was ever required by 
 Mr. Hammond. A man who has worked at a forge in the back- 
 woods is not likely to be finicking in his ways, or depend upon 
 servants for looking after his raiment. 
 
 Despite Mr. Hammond's gloomy memories of past joys and 
 disillusions, he contrived to make himself very agreeable, by and 
 by, at dinner, and in the drawing-room after dinner, and the 
 evening was altogether gay and sprightly. Maulevrier was in 
 high spirits, full of his Parisian experiences, and talking slang 
 as glibly as a student of the Quartier Latin. He would talk 
 nothing but French, protesting that he had almost forgotten his 
 native tongue ; and his French was die language of Larchey's 
 Dictionary of Argot, in which nothing is called by its right name. 
 Mary was enchanted with this new vocabular}^, and wanted to 
 have every word explained to her ; but Maulevrier confessed 
 that there was a good deal that was unexplainable. 
 
 The evening was much more livelier than those summer even- 
 ings when the Dowager and Lady Lesbia were present. There 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 143 
 
 was something less of refinement, perhaps, and Fraulein remon- 
 strated now and then about some small violation of the unwritten 
 laws of " Anstand,'' but there was more mirth. Maulevrier felt 
 for the first time as if he were master at Fellside. They all 
 went into the billiard-room soon after dinner, and Fraulein' and 
 ^Mary sat by the fire looking on, while the two young men played. 
 In such an evening there was no time for bitter memories, and 
 John Hammond was surprised to find how little he had missed 
 that enchantress whose absence had made the house seem des- 
 olate to him when he re-entered it. 
 
 He was tired with his journey and the varying emotions of 
 the day, for it was not without strong emotion that he had con- 
 sented to return to Fellside — and he slept soundly for the earlier 
 part of the night. But he had trained himself long ago to do 
 with a very moderate portion of sleep, and he was up and dressed 
 while the dawn was still slowly creeping along the edges of the 
 hills. He went quietly down to the hall, took one of the bam- 
 boos from a collection of canes and mountain sticks, and set 
 out upon a morning ramble over the snowy slopes. The snow 
 showers of yesterday had only sprinkled the green sward upon 
 the lower ground, but above the winter snows still fingered, 
 giving an Alpine character to the landscape. 
 
 John Hammond was too experienced a mountaineer to be 
 deterred by a little snow. He went up Silver Howe, and from 
 the rugged breast of the mountain saw the sun leap up from 
 amidst a chaos of hill and crag in all his majesty, while the gray 
 mists of night slowly floated up from the valley that had lain 
 hidden below them, and Grasmere Lake sparkled and flashed 
 in the light of the newly risen sun. 
 
 The church clock was striking eight as he came at a brisk 
 pace down to the valley. There was still an hour before break- 
 fast, so he took a circuitous path to Fellside and descended 
 upon the house from the Fell, as he had done that Summer 
 morning when he saw James Steadman sauntering about in his 
 garden. 
 
 Within about half a mile of Lady Maulevrier's shrubberies 
 Mr. Hammond encountered a pedestrian, who was evidently 
 like himself, taking a constitutional ramble in the morning air, but 
 on a much less extended scale, for this person did not look capable 
 of going far afield. 
 
 He was an old man, something under middle height, but 
 looking as if he had once been taller ; for his shoulders were 
 much bent and his head was sunk on his chest. His whole 
 form looked wasted and shrunken, and John Hammond thought 
 
144 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 he had never seen so old a man — or at any rate any man who 
 was so deeply marked with all the signs of extreme age ; and 
 yet in the backwoods of America he had met ancient settlers 
 who remembered Franklin, and who had been boys when the 
 battle of Bunker's Hill was yet fresh in the memory of their 
 fathers and mothers. 
 
 The little o]d man was clad in a thick gray overcoat of some 
 shaggy kind of cloth which looked like homespun. He wore a 
 felt hat, and carried a thick oak stick, and there was nothing in 
 his appearance to indicate that he belonged to any higher grade 
 than that of the shepherds and guides with whom Hammond 
 made himself familiar during his previous visit. And yet there 
 was something distinctive about the man, Hammond thought, 
 something weird and uncanny which made him unlike any of 
 those old, hale and hearty-looking dalesmen on whom their years 
 sat so lightly. No, Mr. Hammond could not fancy this man, 
 with his pallid countenance and pale crafty eyes, to be of the 
 same race as those rugged and honest looking descendants of the 
 Norsemen. 
 
 Perhaps it was the man's exceeding age, for John Hammond 
 made up his mind that he must be a centenarian, which gave 
 him so strange and unholy an air. He had the aspect of a man 
 who had been buried and brought back to life again. 
 
 So might look one of those Indian Fakirs who had the power 
 to suspend life by some mysterious process, and to lie in the 
 darkness of the grave for a given period, and then at their own 
 will resume the functions of the living. His long, white hair 
 fell upon the collar of his gray coat, and would have given him 
 a patriarchal appearance had the face possessed the dignity of 
 age ; but it was a countenance without dignity, a face deeply 
 scored with the lines of evil passions and guilty memories — 
 the face of the vulture, with the touch of the ferret — altogether 
 a most unpleasant face, Mr. Hammond thought. 
 
 And yet there was a kind of fascination about that bent 
 and shrunken figure, the feeble movements and shuffling gait. 
 John Hammond turned to look after the old man when 
 he had passed him, and stood to watch him as he went 
 slowly up the Fell, planting his stout stick upon the ground be- 
 fore every footstep, as if it were a third leg, and more servicea- 
 ble than either of the other two. 
 
 Mr. Hammond watched him for two or three minutes, but as 
 the old man's movements had an automatic regularity, the oc- 
 cupation soon palled, and he turned and walked toward Fell- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 145 
 
 side. A few yards nearer the grounds he met James Steadman 
 walking briskly, and smoking his morning pipe. 
 
 "You are out early this morning," said Hammond, byway 
 of civility. 
 
 " I am always pretty early, sir. I like a mouthful of morn- 
 ing air." 
 
 " So do I. By-the-by, can you tell me anything about a 
 queer-looking old man I passed just now a little higher up 
 the Fell "i Such an old, old man, with long white hair." 
 
 "Yes, sir. I believe I know him." 
 
 " Who is he ? Does he live in Grasmere ? " 
 
 Steadman looked puzzled. 
 
 " Well, you see, sir, your description might apply to a good 
 many ; but if it's the man I think you mean, he lives in one of 
 the cottages behind the church. Old Barlow, they call jiim." 
 
 " There can't be two such men — he must be at least a hun- 
 dred years old. If any one told me he were a hundred and 
 twenty I shouldn't be inclined to doubt the fact. I never, nev- 
 er saw such a shriveled, wrinkled visage, bloodless, too, as if 
 the poor old wretch never felt your fresh mountain air upon 
 his hollow cheeks. A dreadful face. .It will haunt me for a 
 month." 
 
 " It must be old Barlow," replied Steadman. " Good-day, 
 sir." 
 
 He walked on with his swinging step, and at such a pace 
 that he was up the side of the Fell and close upon old Barlow's 
 heels when Hammond turned to look after him five minutes 
 later. 
 
 " There's a man who shows few traces of age at any rate," 
 thought Hammond. " Yet her Ladyship told me that he is over 
 sixty," 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE OLD MAN ON THE FELL. 
 
 Having made up his mind to stay at f'ellside until after Eas- 
 ter, Maulevrier settled down very quietly — for him. He rode 
 a good deal, fished a little, looked after his dogs, played bill- 
 iards, made a devout appearance in the big square pew at St. 
 Oswald's on Sunday mornings, and behaved altogether as a re- 
 formed character. Even his grandmother was fain to admit 
 10 
 
146 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 that Maulevrier was improved, and that Mr. Hammon S influ- 
 ence upon him must be exercised for good and not for evil. 
 
 " I plunged awfully last year, and the year before that," said 
 Maulevrier, sitting at tea in her Ladyship's morning-room one 
 afternoon about a week after his return, when she had ex- 
 pressed her gracious desire that the two young men should 
 take tea with her. 
 
 Mary was in charge of the tea-pot and brass kettle, and look- 
 ed radiant and as fresh as a summer morning. A regular 
 Gainsborough girl, Hammond called her, when he praised her 
 to her brother ; a true English beauty, unsophisticated, a little 
 rustic, but full of youthful sweetness. 
 
 " You see, I didn't know what a racing stable meant," con- 
 tinued Maulevrier, mildly apologetic, " in fact, I thought it was 
 a fine way for a nobleman to make as good a living as your city 
 swells, with their soft goods or their Brummagem ware, a re- 
 spectable trade for a gentleman to engage in. And it was only 
 when I was half ruined that I began to understand the business'; 
 and as soon as I did understand it I made up my mind to get 
 out of it ; and I am happy to say that I sold the very last of my 
 stud in February, and Tony Lumpkin is his own man again. 
 So you may welcome the prodigal grandson and order the calf 
 to be slain, grandmother ! " 
 
 Lady Maulevrier stretched out her left hand to him, and the 
 young man bent over it and kissed it affectionately. He felt 
 really touched by her misfortunes, and was fonder of her than 
 he had ever been before. She had been somewhat hard with 
 him in his boyhood, but she had always cared for his dignity, 
 and protected his interests ; and after all she was a noble old 
 woman, a grandmother of whom a man might be justly proud. 
 He thought of the painted harridans, the bare-shouldered skele- 
 tons, whom some of his young friends were obliged to own in 
 the same capacity, and he was thankful that he could reverence 
 his father's mother. 
 
 " That is the best news I have heard for a long time, Maule- 
 vrier, better medicine for my nerves than any of Mr. Horton's 
 preparations. If Mr. Hammond's advice has influenced you to 
 get rid of your stable I am deeply grateful to Mr. Hammond." 
 
 Hammond smiled as he sipped his tea, sitting close to Mail's 
 tray, ready to fly to her assistance on the instant should the bra- 
 zen kettle become troublesome. It had a threatening way of 
 hissing and bubbling over its spirit lamp. 
 
 "Oh, you have no idea what a fellow Hammond is to lecture. 
 He is a tremendous Radical and he thinks that every young man 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 147 
 
 in my position ought to be a reformer, and devote the greater 
 part of his time and trouble to turning out the dirty corners of 
 the world, upsetting those poor dear families who like to pig to- 
 gether in one room, ordering all the children off to school, marry- 
 ing the fathers and mothers, thrusting himself between free labor 
 anii free beer, and interfering with the liberty of the subject in 
 ever}^ direction." 
 
 " All that may sound like radicalism, but I think it is the true 
 conservatism and that every young man ought to do as much, if 
 he wants this timevvorn old country to maintain its strength and 
 prosperity," answered Lady Maulevrier, with an improving glance 
 at John Hammond's thoughtful face. 
 
 " Right you are, grandmamma," returned Maulevrier, " and I 
 believe Hammond calls himself a Conservative and means to 
 vote with the Conservatives." 
 
 " Means to vote — an idle phrase, surely," thought her Lady- 
 ship, where the young man's chance of getting into Parliament 
 was so remote. 
 
 That afternoon tea in Lady Maulevrier's room was almost as 
 cheerful as the tea-drinkings in the drawing-room, unrestrained 
 by her Ladyship's presence. She was pleased with her grand- 
 son's conduct, and was therefore inclined to be friendly to his 
 friend. She could see an improvement in Mary, too. The girl 
 was more feminine, more subdued, graver, sweeter ; more like 
 that ideal woman of Wordsworth's, whose image embodies all 
 that is purest and fairest in womanhood. 
 
 Mary had not forgotten that unlucky story about the fox-hunt, 
 and ever since Hammond's return she had been, as it were, on 
 her best behavior, refraining from her races with the terriers, 
 and hokUng herself aloof from Maulevrier's masculine pursuits. 
 She sheltered herself a good deal under Miss Kirsch's substan- 
 tial wing, and took care never to intrude herself upon the amuse- 
 ments of her brother and his friend. She was not one of those 
 young women who think a brother's presence an excuse for a 
 perpetual tete-a-tete with a young man. Yet when Maulevrier 
 came in quest of her and entreated her to join them in a ramble 
 she was not too prudish to refuse the pleasure she so thoroughly 
 enjoyed. But afternoon tea was her privileged hour — the time 
 at which she wore her prettiest frock and forgot to regret her in- 
 feriority to Lesbia in all the graces of womanhood. 
 
 One afternoon when they had all three walked to Easedale 
 tarn, and were coming back by the side of the force, picking 
 their way among the gray stones and the narrow threads of sil- 
 very water, it suddenly occurred to Hammond to ask Mary about 
 
148 PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 that queer old man he had seen on the Fell nearly a fortnight be- 
 fore. He had often thought of making the inquiry when he was 
 avv^ay from Mary, but had always forgotten the thing when he 
 was with her. Indeed Mary had a wonderful knack of making 
 him forget everything but herself. 
 
 " You seem to know every creature in Grasmere, down to the 
 two-year old babies," said Hammond, Mary having just stopped 
 to converse with an infantine group, straggling and struggling 
 over the boulders. " Pray do you happen to know a man called 
 Barlow, a very old man." 
 
 " Old Sam Barlow," exclaimed Mary, " why of course I know 
 him." 
 
 She said it as if he were a near relative, and the question pal- 
 pably absurd. 
 
 '' He is an old man, a hundred, at least, I should think," said 
 Hammond. 
 
 *' Poor old Sam, not much on the wrong side of eighty. I go to 
 see him every week, and take his week's tobacco, poor old dear. 
 It is his only comfort." 
 
 " Is it ? " asked Hammond. " I should have doubted his hav- 
 ing so humanizing a taste as tobacco. He looks too evil a creat- 
 ure ever to have yielded to the softening influence of a pipe ? " 
 
 " An evil creature ! What, old Sam ? Why he is the most gen- 
 ial old thing, and as cheery — loves to hear the newspaper read 
 to him — the murders and railway accidents. He doesn't care 
 for politics. Everybody likes old Sam Barlow." 
 
 " I fancy the Grasmere idea of reverend and amiable age must 
 be strictly local. I can only say that I never saw a more un- 
 holy countenance." 
 
 " You must have been dreaming when you saw him," said 
 Mary. " Where did you meet him ? " 
 
 " On the Fell, about a quarter of a mile from the shrubbery 
 gate." 
 
 " Did you ? I shouldn't have thought he could have got so 
 far. I've a good mind to take you to see him, this very after- 
 noon, before we go home." 
 
 " Do," exclaimed Hammond, " I should like it immensely. I 
 thought him a hateful looking old person, but there was some- 
 thing so thoroughly uncanny about him that he exercised an ab- 
 solute fascination upon me ; he magnetized me, I think, as the 
 green-eyed cat magnetizes the bird. I have been positively long- 
 ing to see him agaiji. He is a kind of human monster, and I 
 ho^pe some one will have a big bottle made ready for him and 
 • preserve him in spirits when he dies." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 149 
 
 '* What a horrid idea. No, sir, dear old Barlow shall lie be- 
 side the Rotha, under the trees Wordsworth planted. He is such 
 a man as Wordsworth would have loved." 
 
 Mr. Hammond shrugged his shoulders and said no more. 
 Mary's little vehement ways, her enthusiasm, her love of that val- 
 lev, which might be called her native place albeit her eyes had 
 opened upon heaven's light far away, her humility were all very 
 delightful in their way. She w^as not a perfect beauty, like Les- 
 bia ; but she was a fresh, pure-minded English girl, frank as the 
 day, and if he had a brother he would have recommended that 
 brother to choose just such a girl for his wife. 
 
 Mr. Sam.uel Barlow occupied a little old cottage which seemed 
 to consist chiefly of a gable end and a chimney stack, in that clus- 
 ter of dwellings behind St. Oswald's Church, which was once 
 known as the Kirk town. Visitors went downstairs to get to Mr. 
 Barlow's ground floor, for the influence of time and advancing 
 civilization had been to raise the pathway in front of Mr. 
 Barlow's cottage until his parlor had become of a cellar-like 
 aspect. Yet it was a very nice little parlor when one got down 
 to it, and it enjoyed in Winter and Summer a perpetual twilight, 
 since the light that crept through the leaded casement was tem- 
 pered by a screen of flowerpots, which were old Barlow's par- 
 ticular care. There were no finer geraniums in all Grasmere 
 than Barlow's, no bigger carnations or picotees, asters or arums. 
 
 It was about Ave o'clock in the March afternoon, when Mary 
 ushered John Hammond into Mr. Barlow's dwelling, and in the 
 dim glow of a cheery little fire and the faint light that filtered 
 through the screen and geranium leaves the visitor looked for a 
 moment or so doubtfully at the owner of the cottage. But only 
 for a moment. Those bright blue eyes and apple cheeks, that 
 benevolent expression bore no likeness to the strange old man 
 he had seen on the Fell. Mr. Barlow was toothless and nut- 
 cracker like of outline, he was thin and shrunken, and bent with 
 the burden of long years ; but the healthy visage had none of 
 those deep lines, those cross markings and hollows which made 
 the pallid countenance of that other old man as ghastly as would 
 be the abstract idea of life's last stage embodied by the bitter 
 pencil of a Hogarth. 
 
 " I have brought a gentleman from London to see you, Sam," 
 said Mary. " He fancied he met you on the Fell the other morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Barlow rose and quavered a cheery welcome, but protested 
 against the idea of his having got so far as the Fell. 
 
 " With my blessed rheumatics, you know it isn't in me, Lady 
 
I50 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Mary. I shall never get no further than the churchyard ; but I 
 likes to sit on the wall hard by Wordsworth's tomb in a warm 
 afternoon and to see the folks pass over the bridge, and I can 
 potter about looking after my flowers, i can. But it would be a 
 dull life now the poor old missus is gone, and the bairns all out 
 at service, if it wasn't for some one dropping in to have a chat, 
 or read to me a bit of news sometimes. And there isn't any- 
 body in Grasmere, gentle or simple, that's kinder to me than 
 you. Lady Mary. Lord bless you. I do look forward to my 
 newspaper. Any more of them dreadful smashes ? " 
 
 " No, Sam, thank Heaven, there have been no more railway 
 accidents." 
 
 "Ah, we shall have 'em in August and September," said the 
 old man, cheerily. "They're bound to come then. There's 
 time for all things, as Solomon says. When the season comes 
 the smashes will come. And no more of these m.ysterious 
 murders, I suppose, which baffle the police and keep me awake 
 o' nights thinkin' of 'em ! " 
 
 " Surely you don't delight in murder, Mr. Barlow," said Ham- 
 mond. 
 
 " No, sir, I do not wish my fellow-creatures to make away 
 with each other ; but if there is a murder going in the papers I 
 like to get the benefit of it. I like to sit in front of my fire of 
 an evening and wonder about it while I smoke my pipe, and I 
 fancy I can see the murderer hiding in a garret in an out-of-the- 
 way alley, or as a stowaway on board a big ship, or as a miner 
 deep down in a coal pit, and never thinkmg that even there the 
 police can track him. Did you ever hear of Mr. de Quincey, sir ? " 
 
 " I believe I have read every line he ever wrote." 
 
 " Ah, you should have heard him talk about murders. It 
 would have made you dream queer dreams, just as he did. He 
 lived for 3/ears in the white cottage that Wordsworth once lived 
 in, just behind the street yonder — a nice neat little gentleman, 
 in a houseful of books. I've had many a talk with him when I 
 was a young man." 
 
 " And how old may you be now, Mr. Barlow ^ " 
 
 " Getting on for eighty-four, sir." 
 
 " But you are not the oldest man in Grasmere, I should say 
 by twenty years ! " 
 
 " I don't think there's many much older than me, sir." 
 
 "The man I saw on the Fell looked at least a hundred. I 
 wish you could tell me who he is, I feel a morbid curiosity about 
 him." 
 
 He went on to describe the old man in the gray coat as mi- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 151 
 
 nutely as he could, dwelling on every characteristic of that sin- 
 gular looking old person ; but Samuel Barlow could not identify 
 the description with any one in Grasmere. Yet a man of that 
 age, seen walking on the hill-side at eight in the morning, could 
 hardly have come from far afield. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LADY MAULEVRIER'S LETTER-BAG. 
 
 Although Maulevrier had assured his grandmother that 
 John Hammond would take flight at the first warning of Lesbia's 
 return. Lady Maulevrier's dread of any meeting between her 
 granddaughter and that ineligible lover determined her in mak- 
 ing such arrangements as should banish Lesbia from Fellside 
 so long as there seemed the slightest danger of such a meeting. 
 She knew that Lesbia had loved her fortuneless lover; and she 
 did not know that the wound was cured, even by a season in 
 tlie little-great world of Cannes. Now that she, the ruler of 
 that household, was a helpless captive in her own apartments, 
 she felt Lesbia at Fellside would be her own mistress, and 
 hemmed round with the dangers that beset richly-dowered beauty 
 and inexperienced youth. 
 
 Mr. Hammond might be playing a very deep game, perhaps 
 assisted by Maulevrier. He might ostensibly leave Fellside 
 before Lesbia's return, yet lurk in the neighborhood, and con- 
 trive to meet her every day. If Maulevrier encouraged this 
 folly, they might be married and over the border before her 
 Ladyship — fettered, impotent, as she was — could interfere. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier felt that Georgie Kirkbank was her strong 
 rock. So long as Lesbia was under that astute veteran's wing 
 there could be no danger. In that embodied essence of worldli- 
 ness and diplomacy, there was an ever-present defense from all 
 temptations that spring from romance and youthful impulses. 
 It was a bitter thing perhaps to steep a young and pure soul in 
 such an atmosphere, to harden a fresh nature in the fiery cruci- 
 ble of fashionable life ; but Lady Maulevrier believed that the 
 end would sanctify the means. Lesbia, once married to a 
 v/orthy man, such a man as Lord Hartfield, for instance, would 
 soon rise to a higher level than that Belgravian swamp over 
 which the malarial vapors of falsehood, and slander, and self- 
 seeking, and prurient imaginings hang dense and thick. She 
 
152 PHANTOM FORTUNES 
 
 would rise to the loftier table-land of that really great world 
 which governs and admonishes the ruck of mankind by examples 
 of noble deeds and noble thoughts ; the world of statesmen, 
 and soldiers, and thinkers, and reformers:, the salt wherewithal 
 society is salted. 
 
 But while Lesbia was treading the tortuous mazes of fashion, 
 it was well for her to be guided and guarded by such an old 
 campaigner as Lady Kirkbank, a woman who, in the language 
 of her friends, " knew the ropes." 
 
 Lesbia's last letter had been to the effect that she was to go 
 back to London with the Kirkbanks directly after Easter, and 
 that directly they arrived she would set off with her maid for 
 Fellside, to spend a week or fortnight with her dearest grand- 
 mother, before going back to Arlington Street for the May cam- 
 paign. 
 
 " And then, dearest, I hope you will make up your mind to 
 spend the season in London," wrote Lesbia. " I shall expect 
 to hear that you have secured Lord Bolingbroke's house. How 
 dreadfully slow your poor dear hand is to recover. I am afraid 
 Horton is not treating the case cleverly. Why do you not send 
 for Mr. Ericsen ? It is a shock to my nerves every time I re- 
 ceive a letter in Mary's masculine hand, instead of in your lovely 
 Italian penmanship. Strange, isn't it, how much better the 
 women of past generations write than the girls of the present ? 
 Lady Kirkbank receives letters from stylish girls in a hand that 
 would disgrace a housemaid." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier allowed a post to go by before she answered 
 this letter while she deliberated upon the best and wisest man- 
 ner of arranging her granddaughter's future. It was an agony 
 to her not to be able to write with her own hand, to be obliged 
 to so shape every sentence that Mary might learn nothing which 
 she ought not to know. It was impossible with such an aman- 
 uensis to write confidentially to Lady Kirkbank. The letters 
 to Lesbia were of less consequence ; for Lesbia, albeit so in- 
 tensely beloved, was not in her grandmother's confidence, least 
 of all about those schemes and dreams which concerned her 
 own fate. 
 
 However, the letters had to be written, so Mary was told to 
 open her desk and begin. 
 
 The letter to Lesbia ran thus : 
 
 " My Dearest Child — This is a world in which our brightest 
 day-dreams generally end in mere dreaming. For years past I 
 have cherished the hope of presenting you to your sovereign, 
 to whom I was presented six-and-forty years ago when she was 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 153 
 
 SO fair and girlish a creature that she seemed to me more like 
 a queen in a fairy tale than the actual ruler of a great country. 
 I have beguiled my monotonous days with thoughts of the time 
 when I should return to the great world, full of pride and de- 
 light in showing old friends what a sweet flower I had reared 
 in my mountain home ; but, alas, Lesbia, it may not be. 
 
 "Fate has willed otherwise. The maimed hand does not re- 
 cover, although Horton is very clever, and thoroughly under- 
 stands my case. I am not ill. I am not in danger, so you need 
 feel no anxiety about me ; but I am a cripple, and I am likely 
 to remain so for months ; so the idea of a London season this 
 year is hopeless. 
 
 " Now, as you have in a manner made your debut at Cannes, 
 it would never do to bury you here for another year. You com- 
 plained of the dullness last Summer, but you would find Fellside 
 much duller now that you have tasted the elixir of life. No, 
 my dear love, it will be well for you to be presented as Lady 
 Kirkbank proposes, at the first drawing-room after Easter, and 
 Lady Kirkbank will have to present you. She will be pleased 
 to do this, I know, for her letters are full of enthusiasm about 
 vou. And after all I do not think you will lose by the exchange. 
 Clever as I think myself, I fear I should have been sorely at 
 fault in the society of to-day. All things are changed, opinions, 
 manners, creeds, morals even. Acts that were crimes in my 
 day are now venial errors — opinions that were scandalous are 
 now the mark of ' advanced thought.' I should be too formal 
 for this easy-going age, should be ridiculed as old-fashioned 
 and narrow-minded, should put you to the blush a dozen times 
 a day by my prejudices and opinions. 
 
 " It is very good of you to think of traveling all this distance to 
 see me ; and I should love to look at your sweet face and hear 
 you describe your new experiences ; but I could not allow you 
 to travel with only the protection of a maid, and there are many 
 reasons why I think it better to defer the meeting till the end 
 of the season, when Lady Kirkbank will bring my treasure back 
 to me, eager to tell me the history of all the hearts she has 
 broken." 
 
 The Dowager's letter to Lady Kirkbank was brief and busi- 
 ness-like. She could only hope that her old friend Georgie, 
 whose acuteness she knew of old, would divine her feelings and 
 her wishes without being explicitly told what they were. 
 
 " My Dear Georgie — I am too ill to leave this house : indeed, 
 I doubt if I shall ever leave it till I am taken away in mycofiin ; 
 but please say nothing to alarm Lesbia. Indeed, there is no 
 
1 54 PHANTOM FOR TUA-E. 
 
 ground for fear, as I am not dangerously ill, and may drag out 
 an imprisonment of long years before the coffin comes to fetch 
 me. There are reasons, which you will understand, why Lesbia 
 should not come here until after the season ; so please keep her 
 in Arlington Street, and occupy her mind as much as you can 
 with the preparations for her first campaign. I give you carte 
 blanch. If Carson is still in business I should like her to make 
 my girl's gowns, but you must please yourself in this matter, as 
 it is quite possible that Carson is a little behind the times. 
 
 " I must ask you to present my darling, and to deal with her 
 exactly as if she were a daughter of your own. I think you 
 know all my views and hopes about her, and I feel that I can 
 trust to your friendship in this my day of need. The dream of 
 my life has been to launch her myself, and direct her every step 
 in the mazes of her life ; but that dream is over. I have kept 
 age and infirmity at a distance, and have even forgotten that the 
 years were going by ; and now I find myself an old woman all 
 at once, and my golden dream has all vanished." 
 
 Lady Kirkbank's reply came by return of post, and iiappil}'- 
 this gushing epistle had not to be submitted to Mary's eye. 
 
 " My Dearest Di — My heart positively bleeds for you. What 
 is the matter with your hand, that you talk of being a life-long 
 prisoner to your room ? Pray send for Paget or Ericsen, and 
 have yourself put right at once. No doubt that local simpleton 
 is making a mess of your case. Perhaps while he is dabbling 
 with lint and lotions the real remedy is the knife. I am sure 
 amputation would be less melancholy than the despondent state 
 of feeling which you are now suffering. If any limb of mine 
 went wrong I should say to the surgeon, cut it off, and patch 
 up the stump in your best style ; I give you a fortnight, and at 
 the end of that time I expect to be going to parties again. Life 
 is not long enough for dawdling surgery. 
 
 " As regards Lesbia, I can only say that I adore her, and I am 
 enchanted at the idea that I am to run her myself. I intend 
 her to be the beauty of the season — not one of the loveliest de- 
 butantes, or any rot of that kind — but just the girl that eveiy- 
 body will be crazy about. There shall be a mob wherever she 
 appears, Di, I promise you that. There is no one in London 
 who can work a thing of that kind better than your humble ser- 
 vant. And when once the girl is the talk of the town all the 
 rest is easy. She can choose for herself among the very best 
 men in society. Offers will pour in as thickly as circulars from 
 undertakers and mourning warehouses, after a death. 
 
 " Lesbia is so cool-headed and sensible that I have not the least 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 155 
 
 doubt of her success. With an impulsive or romantic girl there 
 is always the fear of a fiasco. But this sweet child of yours has 
 been well brought up and knows her own value. She behaved 
 like a queen here, where I need not tell you society is just a 
 little mixed, though, of course, we only cultivate our own set. 
 Your heart would swell with pride if you could see the way she 
 puts down men who are not quite good style ; and the ease with 
 which she crushes those odious American girls, with their fine 
 complexions and coarse manners. 
 
 " Be assured that I shall guard her as the apple of my eye, and 
 that the detrimental who circumvents me will be a very Satan of 
 schemers. 
 
 " I can but smile at your mention of Carson, whose gowns used 
 to fit us so well in our girlish days, and whose bills seem mod- 
 erate compared with the exorbitant accounts I get now. 
 
 " Carson has long been forgotten, my dear soul — gone with the 
 snows of last year. A long procession of fashionable French 
 dressmakers has passed across the stage since her time, like the 
 phantom kings in Macbeth ; and now the last. rage is to have our 
 gowns made by an Englishwoman who works for the Princess, or 
 an Irishwoman who is employed by all the best actresses. It 
 is to the latter, Kate Kearney, I shall intrust our sweet Lesbia's 
 toilettes." 
 
 The same post brought a loving letter from Lesbia, full of regret 
 at not being allowed to go down to Fellside, and yet full of de- 
 light at the prospect of her first season. 
 
 " Lady Kirkbank and I have been discussing my court dress," 
 she wrote, " and we have decided upon a white velvet train with 
 a border of marabouts, over a satin petticoat embroidered with 
 seed pearl. It will be dear, but we know you will not mind that. 
 Lady Kirkbank takes the idea from the costume Buckingham 
 wore at the Louvre the first time he met Anne of Austria. Isn't 
 that clever of her ? She is not a deep thinker like you ; is hor- 
 ribly ignorant of science, metaphysics, poetry even. She asked 
 me one day who Plato was, and whether he took his name from 
 the battle of Platcea, and she says she never could understand 
 why people make a fuss about Shakespeare ; but she has read 
 all' the secret histories and memoirs that ever were written, and 
 knows all the ins and outs of court life and high life for the last 
 three hundred years ; and there is not a person in the peerage 
 whose family history she has not at her fingers' ends, except my 
 grandfather. When I asked her to tell me all about Lord Mau- 
 levrier and his achievements as Governor of Madras, she had 
 not a word to say. So, perhaps, she draws upon her invention 
 
1 s6 PHANTOM FOR TUNE. - — ' 
 
 a little in talking about other people, and felt herself restrained 
 when she came to speak of my grandfather." 
 
 This passage in Lesbia's letter affected Lady Maulevrier as 
 if a scorpion had wriggled from underneath the sheet of paper. 
 She folded the letter and laid it in the satin-lined box on her 
 table with a deep sigh. 
 
 " Yes, she is in the world now, and she will ask questions. I 
 have never warned her against pronouncing her grandmother's 
 name. There are some who will not be so kind as Georgie 
 Kirkbank ! some, perhaps, who will delight in humiliating her, 
 and who will tell her the worst that can be told. My only hope 
 is that she will make a great marriage, and speedily. Once the 
 wife of a man with a high place in the world, worldlings will be 
 too wise to wound her by telling her that her grandfather was 
 an unconvicted felon." 
 
 The die was cast. Lady Maulevrier might dread the hazard 
 of evil tongues, of slanderous memories ; but she could not re- 
 call her consent to Lesbia's debut. The girl was already launch- 
 ed ; she had been seen and admired. The next stage in her ca- 
 reer must be to be wooed and won by a worthy winner. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. . 
 
 ON THE DARK BROW OF HELVELLYN. 
 
 While these plans were being settled, and while Lesbia's fut- 
 ure was the all-absorbing subject of Lady Maulevrier's thoughts, 
 Mary contrived to be happier than she had ever been in her life 
 before. It was happiness that grew and strengthened with every 
 day; and yet there was no obvious reason for this deep joy. 
 Her life ran in the same familiar groove. She walked and rode 
 on the old pathways ; she rowed on the lake she had known from 
 babyhood; she visited her cottagers, and taught in the village 
 school, just the same as of old. The change was only that she 
 was no longer alone ; and of late the solitude of her life, the 
 ever present consciousness that nobody shared her pleasures or 
 sympathized with her upon any point had weighed upon her like 
 an actual burden. Now she had Maulevrier, who was always 
 kind, who understood and shared almost all her tastes, and Mau- 
 levrier's friend, who, although not given to saying smooth things, 
 seemed warmly interested in her pursuits and opinions. He en- 
 couraged her to talk, although he generally took the opposite 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 157 
 
 side in every argument ; and she no longer felt oppressed or ir- 
 ritated by the idea that he despised her. 
 
 Indeed, although he never flattered or even praised her, Mr. 
 Hammond demonstrated that he liked her society. She had 
 gone out of her way to avoid him, very fearful lest he should 
 think her bold or masculine ; but he had taken pains to frustrate 
 all her efforts to avoid him ; he had refused to go upon excur- 
 sions which she could not share. " Lady Mary must come with 
 us," he said, when they were planning a morning's ramble. 
 Thus it happened that Mary was his guide and companion in all 
 his walks, and roamed with him, bamboo in hand, over every one 
 of those mountain paths she knew and loved so well. Distance 
 was as nothing to them — sometimes a boat helped them, and they 
 went over wintry Windermere to climb the heights above Bow- 
 ness. Sometimes they took ponies, and a groom, and left their 
 steeds to perform the wilder part of the way on foot. In this 
 wise John Hammond saw all that was to be seen within a day's 
 journey of Grasmere, except the top of Helvellyn. Maulevrier 
 had shirked the expedition, had always put off Mary and Mr. 
 Hammond when they proposed it. The season was not ad- 
 vanced enough — the rugged pathway by the Tongue Ghyll would 
 be as slippery as glass — no pony could get up there in such 
 weather. 
 
 " We have not had any frost to speak of for the last fortnight," 
 pleaded Mary, who was particularly anxious to do the honors 
 of Helvellyn, as the real lion of the neighborhood. 
 
 " What a simpleton you are, Molly," cried Maulevrier. " Do 
 you suppose because there is no frost in your grandmother's 
 garden — and if you were to ask Staples about his peaches he 
 would tell you a very different story — that there's a tropical at- 
 mosphere on Dolly Wagon Pike. Why, I'd wager the ice on 
 Grisdale tarn is thick enough for skating. Helvellyn won't run 
 away, child. You and Hammond can dance the Highland 
 Schottische on Striding Edge in June if you like." 
 
 " Mr. Hammond won't be here in June," said Mary. 
 
 " Who knows — the train service is pretty fair between London 
 and Windermere. Hammond and I would think nothing of 
 putting ourselves in the mail on a Friday night and coming 
 down to spend Saturday or Sunday with you — if you are good." 
 
 There came a sunny morning soon after Easter which seemed 
 mild enough for June, and when Hammond suggested that this 
 was the very day for Helvellyn Maulevrier had not a word to 
 say against the "truth of that proposition. The weather had 
 been exceptionally warm for a week, and they had played tennis 
 
158 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 and sat in the garden just as if it had been actually Summer. 
 Patches of snow might still linger on the crests of the hills — 
 but the approach to those bleak heights could hardly be gla- 
 cial. 
 
 Mary clasped her hands delightedly. 
 
 " Dear old Maulevrier ! " she exclaimed, " you are always 
 good to me. And now I shall be able to show you the Red 
 Tarn, the highest piece of water in England," she said, turning 
 to Hammond. " x\nd you will see Windermere, winding like a 
 silvery serpent between the hills, and Grasmere shining like a 
 jewel in the depth of the valley, and the sea glittering like a 
 line of white light between the edges of earth and heaven, and 
 the dark Scotch hills far away to the north. 
 
 " That is to say these things are all supposed to be on view 
 from the top of the mountain ; but as a peculiar and altogether 
 exceptional state of the atmosphere is essential to their being 
 seen, I need not tell you that they are rarely visible," said 
 Maulevrier. " You are talking to old mountaineers, Molly. 
 Hammond has done Cotapaxi, and had his little clamber on the 
 equatorial Andes, and I — well, child, I have done my Rigi, and 
 I have always found the boasted panorama enveloped in dense 
 fog." 
 
 " It won't be foggy to-day," said Mary. " Shall we do the 
 whole thing on foot, or shall I order the ponies ? " 
 
 Mr. Hammond inquired the distance up and down, and being 
 told that it involved only a matter of eight miles, decided upon 
 walking. 
 
 " I'll walk and lead your pony," he said to Mary, but Mary de- 
 clared herself quite capable of going on foot, so the ponies were 
 dispensed with as a possible incumbrance. 
 
 This was planned and discussed in the garden before break- 
 fast. Fraulein was told that Mary was going for a long walk 
 with her brother and Mr. Hammond ; a walk which might last 
 over the usual luncheon hour; so Fraulein was not to wait 
 luncheon. Mary went to her grandmother's room to pay her 
 duty visit. There were no letters for her to write that morning, 
 so she was perfectly free. 
 
 The three pedestrians started an hour after breakfast, in light 
 marching order. The two young men wore their Argyleshire 
 shooting clothes — homespun knickerbockers and jackets, thick 
 ribbed hose knitted by Highland lasses in Inverness. They 
 carried a couple of hunting flasks filled with claret, and a couple 
 of sandwich boxes, and that was all. Mary wore her substan- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 159 
 
 tial tailor-gown of olive tweed and little toque to match, with a 
 silver-mounted grouse's claw for her only ornament. 
 
 It was a delicious morning, the air fresh and sweet, the sun 
 comfortably warm, a little too warm, perhaps, presently, when 
 they had trodden the narrow path by the Tongue Ghyll, and 
 were beginning to wind slowly upward over rough boulders 
 and last year's bracken, tough and brown and tangled, toward 
 that rugged wall of earth and stone tufted with rank grasses, which 
 calls itself Dolly Wagon Pike. Here they all came to a stand- 
 still and wiped the dews of honest labor from their foreheads; 
 and here Maulevrier flung himself down upon a big boulder, 
 with the soles of his shooting boots in running water, and took 
 out his cigar case. 
 
 " How do you like it ? " he asked his friend, when he had 
 lighted his cigarette. " I hope you are enjoying yourself." 
 " I never was happier in my life," answered Hammond. 
 He was standing on higher ground, with Mary by his side, 
 pointing out and expatiating upon the details of the prospect. 
 There were the lakes — Grasmere, a disk of shining blue, Rydal, 
 a patch of silver, and Windermere, winding amidst a labyrinth 
 of wooded hills. 
 
 " Aren't you tired ? " asked Maulevrier. 
 "Not a whit." 
 
 " Oh, I- forgot you had done Cotapaxi ; that makes a differ- 
 ence. I am going home." 
 
 " Oh, Maulevrier ! " exclaimed Mary, piteously. 
 " I am going home. You can go to the top. You are both 
 hardened mountaineers and I am not in it with either of you. 
 When I rashly consented to a pedestrian ascent of Helvellyn I 
 had forgotten what the gentleman was like ; and as to Dolly 
 Wagon, I had actually forgotten her existence. But now I 
 see the lady — as steep as the side of a house and as stony — no, 
 naught but herself can be her parallel in stoniness. No, 
 Molly, I will go no further." 
 
 " But we shall go down on the other side," urged Mary. " It's 
 a little steeper on the Cumberland side, but not nearly so far." 
 " A little steeper ! Can anything be steeper than Dolly Wag- 
 on t Yes, you are right. It is steeper on the Cumberland side. 
 I remember coming down a sheer descent, like an exaggerated 
 sugar-loaf ; but I was on a pony, and it was the brute's lookout. 
 I will not go down the Cumberland side on my own legs. No, 
 Molly, not even for you. But if you and Hammond want to go 
 to the top, there is nothing to prevent you. He is a skilled 
 mountaineer. I'll trust you with him." 
 
l6o PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Mary blushed and made no reply. Of all things in the world 
 she least wanted to abandon the expedition. Yet to climb Hel- 
 vellyn alone with her brother's friend would no doubt be a ter- 
 rible violation of those laws of maidenly propriety which Frau- 
 lein was always expounding. If Mary were to do this thing, 
 which she longed to do, she must hazard a lecture from her gov- 
 erness, and probably a biting reproof from her grandmother. 
 
 " Will you trust yourself with me, Lady Mary t " asked Ham- 
 mond, looking at her with a gaze so earnest — so much more 
 earnest than the occasion required — that her blushes deepened 
 and her eyelids fell. " I have done a good deal of climbing in 
 my day, and I am not afraid of anything Helvellyn can do to me. 
 I promise to take great care of you if you will come." 
 
 How could she refuse ? How could she for one moment pre- 
 tend that she did not trust him, that her heart did not yearn to 
 go with him. She would have climbed Cotapaxi with him — or 
 crossed the great Sahara with him — and feared nothing. Her 
 trust in him was infinite — as infinite as her reverence and love. 
 
 " I am afraid Fraulein would make a fuss," she faltered after 
 a pause. 
 
 " Hang Fraulein," cried Maulevrier, puffing at his cigarette, 
 and kicking about the stones in the clear running water. " I'll 
 square it with Fraulein. I'll give her a pint of cham, with her 
 lunch, and make her see everything in a rosy hue. The good 
 soul is fond of her Heidseck. You will be back by afternoon 
 tea. Why should there be any fuss about the matter ? Ham- 
 mond wants to see the Red Tarn, and you are dying to show 
 him the way. Go, and joy go with you both. Climbing a stony 
 hill is a form of pleasure to which I have not yet risen. I shall 
 stroll home at my leisure, and spend the afternoon on the bill- 
 iard-room sofa reading Mudie's last contribution to the comforts 
 of home." 
 
 " What a Sybarite," said Hammond. " Come, Lady Mary, we 
 mustn't loiter, it we are to be back at Fellside by five o'clock." 
 
 Mary looked at her brother doubtfully, and he gave her a lit- 
 tle nod which seemed to mean " go by all means," so she dug 
 the end of her staff into Dolly's rugged breast, and mounted 
 cheerily, stepping lightly from boulder to boulder. 
 
 The sun was not so warm as it had been ten minutes ago, 
 when Maulevrier flung himself down to rest. The sky had 
 clouded over a little, and a cooler wind was blowing across the 
 breast of the hill. Fairfield yonder, that long smooth slope of 
 verdure which a little while ago looked emerald green in the 
 sunlifi^t, now wore a soft and shadowy hue. All the world was 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. i6i 
 
 grayer and dimmer in a moment as it were, and Coniston Lake 
 in its distant valley disappeared beneath a veil of mist, while the 
 shimmering sea-line upon the verge of the horizon melted and 
 vanished among the clouds that overhung it. The weather 
 changes very quickly in this part of the world. Sharp drops of 
 rain came spitting at Hammond and Mary as they climbed the 
 crest of the Pike, and stopped, somewhat breathless, to look 
 back at Maulevrier. He was trudging bhthely down the wind- 
 ing way, and seemed to have done wonders while they had been 
 doing very little. 
 
 " How fast he is going," said Mar}'. 
 
 " Easy is the descent of Avernus. He is going down hill, and 
 we are going upward. That makes all the difference in life, 
 you see," answered Hammond. 
 
 Mary looked at him with divine compassion. She thought for 
 him the hill of life would be harder than Helvellyn. He was 
 brave, honest, clever ; but her grandmother had impressed upon 
 her that modern civilization hardly has room for a young man 
 who wants to get on in the world without either fortune or pow- 
 erful connections. He had better go to Australia and keep sheep 
 than attempt the impossible at home. 
 
 The rain was a passing shower, hardly worth speaking of, but 
 the glory of the day was over. The sky was gray, and there 
 were dark clouds creeping up from the sea-line. Silvery Win- 
 dermere had taken a leaden hue ; and now they turned their last 
 fond look upon the Westmoreland valley and set their faces 
 steadily toward Cumberland and the fine grassy plateau on the 
 top of the hill. 
 
 All this was done in a flash. It took them some time to scale 
 Dolly's stubborn breast, and it took them another hour to reach 
 the grassy platform, and by the time they came to the iron gate 
 in the fence which at this point divides the two counties, the at- 
 mosphere had thickened ominously, and dark wreaths of fog 
 were floating about and around them, whirled here and there by 
 a boisterous wind which shrieked and roared at them with sav- 
 age-seeming fury, as if it were the voice of some Titan monarch 
 of the mountain protesting against this intrusion upon its do- 
 main. 
 
 " I'm afraid you won't see the Scottish hills," shouted Mary, 
 holding on her little cloth hat. 
 
 She was obliged to shout at the top of her voice, though she 
 was close to Mr. Hammond's elbow, for that shrill screaming 
 wind would have drowned the voice of a stentor. 
 
 " Never mind the view," replied Hammond in the sMie for- 
 
i62 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 tissimo, " but I really wish I hadn't brought you up here. If 
 this fog should get any worse, it may be dangerous." 
 
 " The fog is sure to get w^orse," said Mar}^ in a brief lull of 
 the hurly burly, " but there is no danger. I know every inch of 
 the hill, and I am not a bit afraid. I can guide you if you will 
 trust me." 
 
 " My bravest of girls," he exclaimed, looking down at her. 
 " Trust you } Yes, I would trust my life to you — my soul — my 
 honor — secure in your purity and good faith." 
 
 Never had eyes of living man or woman looked down upon 
 her with such tenderness, such fervent love. She looked up at 
 him ; looked with eyes which, at first bewildered, then grew 
 bold, and lost themselves, as it were, in the gray depths of the 
 eyes they met. The savage wind, rustling and howling, blew 
 her nearer to him, as a reed is blown against a rock. Dark 
 gray mists were rising round them like a sea ; but had that ever- 
 thickening, ever-darkening vapor been the sea itself, and death 
 inevitable, Mary Haselden would have hardly cared. For in 
 this moment the one precious gift for which her soul had long 
 been yearning had been freely given to her. She knew all at 
 once that she was fondly loved by that one man whom she had 
 chosen for her idol and hero. 
 
 What matter that he was fortuneless, a nobody, with but the 
 poorest chances of success in the world? What if he must 
 needs, only to win the bare means of existence, go to Australia 
 and keep sheep, or to the Red River country and grow corn ? 
 What if he must labor, as the peasants labored, on the sides of 
 this rude hill ? Gladly would she gc whh him to a strange coun- 
 try and keep his log cabin, and work for him, and share his hard 
 life, rough or smooth. No loss of social rank could lessen her 
 pride in him, her belief in him. 
 
 They were standing side by side a little way from the edge of 
 the sheer descent, below which the Red Tarn showed black in a 
 basin scooped out of the hill, like water held in the hollow of a 
 giant's hand. 
 
 " Look," cried Mary, pointing downward, " you must see the 
 Red Tarn, the highest water in England ! " 
 
 But just at this moment there came a blast which shook even 
 Hammond's strong frame, and with a cry of fear he snatched 
 Mary in his arms and carried her away from the edge of the hill. 
 He folded her in his arms and held her there, thirty yards away 
 from the precipice, safely sheltered against his breast, while the 
 wind raved round them, blowing her hair from the broad white 
 brow, and showino^ it to him in all its power and beauty ; while 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 163 
 
 the darkness deepened round them so that they could see hardly 
 anything but each other's eyes. 
 
 "" My love, my true, dear love," he murmured fondly ; " I will 
 trust you with my life. Will you accept the trust .'' I am hardly 
 worthy, for less than a year ago I offered myself to your sister, 
 and I thought that she was the only woman in this wide world 
 who could make me happy. And when she refused me I was 
 in despair, Mary, and I left Fellside in the full belief that I had 
 done with life and happiness. And then I came back, only to 
 oblige Maulevrier, and determined to be utterly miserable at 
 Fellside. I was miserable for the first two hours. Memories 
 of dead and gone joys and disappointed hopes were very bitter ; 
 and I tried honestly to keep up my feeling of wretchedness for 
 the first few days. But it was no use, Molly. There was a 
 genial spirit in the place, a laughing fairy who would not let me 
 be sad ; and I found myself becoming most unromantically 
 happy, eating my breakfast with a hearty appetite, thinking my 
 cup of tea nectar for love of the dear hand that gave it. And 
 so, and so, till the new love, the purer and better love, grew and 
 grew into a mighty tree, which was an oak to an orchid, com- 
 pared with that passion flower of earlier growth. Mary, will 
 you trust your life to me, as I trust mine to you ? I say to you 
 almost in the words I spoke last year to Lesbia," and here his 
 tone grew graver almost to solemnity, " trust me and I will make 
 your life free from the shadow of care — trust me, for I have a 
 brave spirit and a strong arm to fight the battle of life — trust 
 me, and I will win for you the position you have a right to occupy 
 — trust me, and you shall never repent your trust." 
 
 She looked up at him with eyes which told of infinite faith, 
 childlike, unquestioning faith. 
 
 " I will trust you in all things, and forever," she said. " I am 
 not afraid to face evil fortune. I do not care how poor you are 
 — how hard our lives may be — if — if you are sure you love me." 
 
 " Sure ! There is not a beat of my heart or a thought of my 
 mind that does not belong to you. I am yours to the very 
 depths of my soul. My innocent love, my clear-eyed, clear- 
 souled angel ! I have studied you, and watched you, and 
 thought of you, and sounded the depths of your lovely nature, 
 and the result is that you are for me earth's one woman. I will 
 have no other, Mary, no other love, no other wife." 
 
 " Lady Maulevrier will be dreadfully angry," faltered Mary. 
 
 " Are you afraid of her anger ? " 
 
 " No ; I am afraid of nothing for your sake." 
 
 He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it reverently, and 
 
i64 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 there was a touch of chivalry in that reverential kiss. His 
 eyes clouded with tears as he looked down into the trustful face. 
 The fog- had darkened to a denser blackness, and it was almost 
 as if they were ingulfed in sudden night. 
 
 " If we were never to find our way down the hill ; if this were 
 to be the last hour of our lives, Mary, would you be content ? " 
 
 " Quite content," she answered simply. " I think I have lived 
 long enough, if you really love me — if you are not making fun." 
 
 " What, Molly, do you still doubt .'* Is it strange that I love 
 you ? " 
 
 " Very strange. I am so different from Lesbia." 
 
 " Yes, very different, and the difference is your highest charm. 
 And now, love, we had better go down whichever side of the hill 
 is easiest, for this fog is rather appalling. I forgive the wind, 
 because it blew you against my heart just now, and that is where 
 I want you to dwell forever." 
 
 " Don't be frightened," said Mary. " I know every step of the 
 way." 
 
 So leaning on her lover, and yet guiding him, slowly, step by 
 step, groping their way through the darkness. Lady Mary led 
 Mr. Hammond down the winding track along which the ponies 
 and the guides travel so often in the summer season. And 
 soon they began to descend out of that canopy of fog which en- 
 veloped the brow of Helvellyn, and to see the whole world 
 smiling beneath them, a world of green pastures and sheep-folds, 
 with a white homestead here and there amidst the fields, looking 
 so human and so comfortable after that gloomy mountain-top 
 round which the tempest howled so outrageously. Beyond 
 those pastures stretched the dark waters of Thirlmere, looking 
 like a broad river. 
 
 The descent was passing steep, but Hammond's strong arm 
 and steady steps made Mary's progress very easy, while she had 
 in no wise exaggerated her familiarity with the windings and 
 twistings of the track. Yet as they had need to travel very slowly 
 so long as the fog still surrounded them, the journey downward 
 lasted a considerable time, and it was past five when they ar- 
 rived at the little roadside inn at the foot of the hill. 
 
 Here Mr. Hammond insisted that Mary should rest at least 
 long enough to take a cup of tea. She was very white and 
 tired. She had been profoundly agitated, and looked on the 
 point of fainting, although she protested that she was quite ready 
 to walk on. 
 
 "You are not going to walk another step," said Hammond. 
 "While you are taking your tea I will get you a carriage." 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 1 65 
 
 " Indeed I had rather hurry on at once," urged Mary. "We 
 are so late already." 
 
 " You will get home all the sooner if you obey me. It is your 
 duty to obey me now," said Hammond, in a lowered voice. 
 
 She smiled at him, but it was a weak, wan, little smile, for 
 that descent in the wdnd and the fog had quite exhausted her. 
 Mr. Hammond took her into a snug little parlor where there 
 was a cheerful fire, and saw her comfortably seated in an arm- 
 chair by the hearth before he went to look after a carriage. 
 
 There was no such thing as a conveyance to be had, but the 
 Windermere coach would pass in about half an hour, and for 
 this they must wait. It would take them back to Grasmere 
 sooner than they could get there by walking, in Mary's exhausted 
 condition. 
 
 The tea-tray was brought in presently, and Hammond 
 poured out the tea and waited on Lady Mary. It was a rever- 
 sal of the usual formula, but it was very pleasant to Mary to sit 
 with her feet on the low brass fender and be waited upon by her 
 lover. That fog on the brow of Helvellyn — that piercing wind 
 — had chilled her to the bone, and there was an unspeakable 
 comfort in the glow and warmth of the fire, in the refreshment 
 of a good cup of tea. 
 
 " I am not afraid of trouble." 
 
 " Mary, you are my own property now, remember," said 
 Hammond, watching her tenderly as she sipped her cup of tea. 
 
 She glanced up at him shyly, now and then, with eyes full of 
 innocent wonder. It was so strange to her — as strange as 
 sweet — to know that he loved her ; such a marvelous thing 
 that she had pledged herself to be his wife. 
 
 " You are my very own — mine to guard and cherish, mine to 
 think and work for," he went on, " and you will have to trust 
 me, sweet one : even if the beginning of things is not altogether 
 free from trouble." 
 
 " I will trust you in all things," said Mary. 
 
 " Bravely spoken. First and foremost, then, you will have to 
 announce your engagement to Lady Maulevrier. She will take 
 it ill, no doubt; will do her utmost to persuade you to give me 
 up. Have you courage and resolution, do you think, to stand 
 against her arguments ? Can you hold to your purpose bravely 
 and cry no surrender ? " 
 
 "There shall be no surrender," answered Mary ; " I promise 
 you that. No doubt grandmamma will be very angry, but she 
 has never cared for me very much. It will not hurt her' for 
 me to make a bad match as it would have done in Lesbia's 
 
l66 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 case. She has had no day-dreams — no great ambition about 
 me ! " 
 
 " So much the better, my lowly flower. When you have said 
 all that is sweet and dutiful to her, and have let her know at the 
 same time that you mean to be my wife, come weal come woe, I 
 will see her, and will say my say. I will not promise her a grand 
 career for my darling, but I will pledge myself that nothing of 
 that kind which the world calls evil — no penury or shabbiness 
 of surroundings — shall ever touch Mary Haselden after she is 
 Mary Hammond. I can promise at least so much as that." 
 
 " It is more than enough," said Mary. " I have told you that I 
 would gladly share poverty with you." 
 
 " Sweet, it is good of you to say so much, but I would not take 
 you at your word. You don't know what poverty is." 
 
 " Do you think I am a coward, or self-indulgent ? You are 
 wrong, Jack. May I call you Jack, as Maulevrier does } " 
 
 " May you ? " 
 
 The question evoked such a gush of tenderness that he was 
 fain to kneel beside her chair, and kiss the little hand holding 
 the cup, before he considered he had answered properly. 
 
 " You are wrong. Jack. I do know what poverty means. I 
 have studied the ways of the poor, tried to console them, and 
 help them a little in their troubles ; and I know there is no pain 
 which want of money can bring which I would not share will- 
 ingly with you. Do you suppose my happiness is dependent on 
 a fine house and powdered footmen } I should like to go to the 
 Red River with you, and wear cotton gowns, and tuck up my 
 sleeves and clean our cottage." 
 
 " Very pretty sport, dear, for a summer day ; but my Mary 
 shall have a sweeter life, and shall occasionally walk in silk at- 
 tire." 
 
 That tea-drinking by the fireside in the inn parlor was the 
 most delicious thing within John Hammond's experience. 
 Mary was a bewitching compound of earnestness and simplicity, 
 so humble, so confiding, so perplexed and astonished at her own 
 bliss. 
 
 " Confess, now, in the Summer, when you were in love with 
 Lesbia, you thought me a horrid kind of a girl," she said pres- 
 ently, when they were standing side by side at the window, 
 watching for the coach. 
 
 " Never, Mary. My crime is to have thought very little of 
 you in those days. I was so dazzled by Lesbia's beaut}^ so 
 charmed by her accomplishments and girlish graces, that I for- 
 got to take notice of anything else in the world. If I thought 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 167 
 
 of you at all it was another Maulevrier — a younger Maulevrier 
 in petticoats, very gay, and good humored and nice." 
 
 " But when you saw me rushing about with the terriers, I must 
 have seemed utterly horrid." 
 
 " Why, dearest ? There is nothing essentially horrible in 
 terriers, or in a bright, lively girl running races with them. You 
 made a very pretty picture in the sunlight, with your hat hang- 
 ing on your shoulder, and your curly brown hair and dancing 
 hazel eyes. If I had not been deep in love with Lesbia's peer- 
 less complexion and Grecian features I should have looked be- 
 low the surface of that Gainsborough picture and discovered 
 what treasures of goodness and courage, and truth and purity 
 those frank brown eyes and that wide forehead betokened. I 
 was sowing my wild oats last Summer, Mary, and they brought 
 me a crop of sorrow. But I am wiser now — wiser and happier." 
 
 "But if you were to see Lesbia again, would not the old love 
 revive .? " 
 
 " The old love is dead, Mary. There is nothing left of it but 
 a handful of ashes, which I scatter thus to the four winds," with 
 a wave of his hand toward the open casement. " The new love 
 absorbs and masters my being. If Lesbia were to reappear at 
 Fellside this evening, I could offer her my hand in all brotherly 
 frankness, and ask her to accept me as a brother. Here comes 
 the coach. We shall be at Fellside just in time for dinner." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 WISERTHANLESBIA. 
 
 Lady Mary and Mr. Hammond were back at Fellside at a 
 quarter before eight, by which time the stars were shining on 
 pine woods and Fell. They managed to be in the drawing-room 
 when dinner was announced, after the hastiest of toilets ; yet 
 her lover thought Mary had never looked prettier than she 
 looked that night, in her limp, white cashmere gown, and with 
 her brown hair brushed into a large loose knot on the top of her 
 head. There had been great uneasiness about them at Fellside 
 when evening began to draw in and the expected hour of their 
 return had gone. Scouts had been sent in quest of them, but 
 in the wrong direction. 
 
 " I did not think you would be such idiots as to come down 
 the north side of the hill in a tempest," said Maulevrier ; " we 
 could see the clouds racing over the crest of Seat Sandal and 
 
1 68 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 knew it was blowing pretty hard up there, though it was calm 
 enough down here." 
 
 " Blowing pretty hard ! " echoed Hammond. " I don't think 
 I was ever out in a worse gale ; and yet I have been across the 
 Bay of Biscay when the waves struck the side of the steamer like 
 battering rams, and when the whole surface of the sea was white 
 with seething foam." 
 
 " It was a most imprudent thing to go up Helvellyn in such 
 weather," said Fraulein Kirsch, shaking her head gloomily as 
 she eat her fish. 
 
 Mary felt that the Fraulein 's manner boded ill. There was a 
 storm brewing. A scolding was inevitable. Mary felt quite 
 capable of doing battle with the Fraulein, but her feelings were 
 altogether different when she thought of facing that stern old lady 
 upstairs, and of the confession she had to make. It was not 
 that her courage faltered. So far as resolution went she was as 
 firm as rock. But she felt that there was a terrible ordeal to be 
 gone through ; and it seemed a mockery to be sitting there and 
 pretending to eat her dinner and take things lightly with that 
 ordeal before her. 
 
 " We did not go up the hill in bad weather. Miss Kirsch," 
 said Mr. Hammond. " The sun was shining and the sky was 
 blue when we started. We could not foresee darkness and storm 
 at the top of the hill. That was the fortune of war." 
 
 " I am very sorry Lady Mary had not more good sense," re- 
 plied Fraulein, with unabated gloom ; but on this Maulevrier 
 took up the cudgels. 
 
 " If there was any want of sense in the business that's my look- 
 out, Fraulein," he said, glaring angrily at the governess. " It 
 was I who advised Hammond and Lady Mary to climb the hill. 
 And here they are safe and sound after their journey. I see no 
 reason why there should be any fuss about it." 
 
 " People have different ways of looking at things," replied 
 Fraulein, plodding steadily on with her dinner. 
 
 Mary rose directly the dessert had been handed round, and 
 marched out of the icom like a warrior going to a battle in which 
 the chances of defeat were strong. Fraulein Kirsch shuffled 
 after her. 
 
 " Wiir you be kind enough to go to her Ladyship's room at 
 once, Lady Mary," she said, " she wants to speak to you." 
 
 " And I want to speak to her," said Mary. 
 
 She ran quickly upstairs and arrived in the morning room a 
 little out of breath. The room was lighted by one low moderator 
 lamp, under a dark red velvet shade, and there was the glow of 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 169 
 
 the wood fire, which gave a more cheerful light than the lamp. 
 Lady Maulevrier was lying on her couch in a loose brocade tea- 
 gown, with rich lace collar and ruffles. She was as well dressed 
 in her day of affliction and helplessness as she had been in her 
 day of strength, for she knew to a hair's breadth the value of sur- 
 roundings, and that her stateliness and power were in some man- 
 ner dependent on details of this kind. The one hand which she 
 could use glittered with diamonds, as she waved it with a little 
 imperious gesture toward the chair on which she desired Lady 
 Mary to seat herself ; and Mary sat down meekly, knowing that 
 this chair represented the felon's dock. 
 
 " Mary," began her grandmother, with freezing gravity, " I 
 have been surprised and shocked by your conduct to-day. Yes, 
 surprised at such conduct even in you." 
 
 " I do not think I have done anything very wrong, grand- 
 mother." 
 
 " Not wrong ! You have done nothing wrong ? You have 
 done something absolutely outrageous. You, my granddaughter, 
 well born, well bred, reared under my roof, to go up to Helvellyn 
 and lose yourself in a fog alone with a young man. You could 
 hardly have done worse if you were a Cockney tourist," con- 
 cluded her Ladyship, with ineffable disgust. 
 
 '• I could not help the fog," said Mary, quietly. The battle 
 had to be fought, and she was not going to flinch ! " I had no 
 intention of going up Helvellyn alone with Mr. Hammond 
 Maulevrier was to have gone with us, but when we got to Dolly 
 Wagon he was tired, and would not go any further. He told 
 me to go on with Mr. Hammond." 
 
 " He told you ! Maulevrier ! — a young man who has spent 
 some of the best hours of his youth in the company of jockeys 
 and trainers — who hasn't the faintest idea of the fitness of things. 
 You allowed Maulevrier to be your guide in a matter in which 
 your own instinct should have guided you — your womanly in- 
 stinct ? But you have always been an unwomanly girl. You 
 have put me to shame many times by your hoyd'enish tricks ; 
 but I bore with you, believing that your madcap follies were at 
 least harmless. To-day you have gone a step too far, and have 
 been guilty of absolute impropriety, which I shall be very slow 
 to pardon." 
 
 " Perhaps you will be still more angry when you know all, 
 grandmother," said Mary. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier turned her dark flashing eyes upon the girl 
 with a look which would have almost killed a nervous subject ; 
 
170 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 but Mary faced her steadfastly, very pale, but as resolute as her 
 Ladyship. 
 
 " When I know all ! What more is there for me to know ? " 
 
 *' Only that while we were on the top of Helvellyn, in the fog 
 and wind, Mr. Hammond asked me to be his wife." 
 
 " I am not surprised to hear it," retorted her Ladyship, with 
 a harsh laugh. " A girl who could act so boldly and flirtingly 
 was a natural mark for an adventurer. Mr. Hammond no doubt 
 has been told that you will have a little money by and by, and 
 thinks he might do worse than marry you. And seeing how you 
 have flung yourself at his head, he naturally concludes that you 
 will not be too proud to accept your sister's leavings." 
 
 " There is nothing gained by making cruel speeches, grand- 
 mother," said Mary, firmly. " I have promised to be John 
 Hammond's wife, and there is nothing you nor any one else can 
 say which will make me alter my mind. I wish to act dutifully 
 to you, if I can, and I hope you will be good to me and consent 
 to this marriage. But if you will not consent, I shall marr}' him 
 all the same. I shall be full of sorrow at having to disobey 
 you ; but I have promised, and I will keep my promise." 
 
 " You will act in open rebellion against me — against me, who 
 have reared you, and educated you and cared for you in all these 
 years ! " 
 
 "But you have never loved me," answered Mary, sadly. 
 " Perhaps if you had given me some portion of that affection 
 which you have lavished on my sister I might be willing to sac- 
 rifice this new, deep love for your sake — to lay down my broken 
 heart as a sacrifice on the altar of gratitude. But you have 
 never loved me ; you have tolerated me, endured my presence 
 as a disagreeable necessity of your life because I am my father's 
 daughter. You and Lesbia have been all the world to each other, 
 and I have stood aloof, outside your charmed circle, almost a 
 stranger to you. Can you wonder, grandmother, recalling this, 
 that I am unwilling to surrender the love that has been given 
 me to-day — the true, great heart of a brave and good man 1 " 
 
 Lady Maulevrier looked at her for some moments in scornful 
 wonderment ; looked at her with a slow, deliberate smile. 
 
 " Poor child ! " she said ; " poor, ignorant, inexperienced baby ! 
 For what a Will o' the Wisp are you ready to sacrifice my re- 
 gard and all the privileges of your position as my granddaughter ? 
 No doubt this Mr. Hammond has said all manner of fine things 
 to you ; but can you be weak enough to believe that he who half 
 a year ago was sighing and dying at the feet of your sister can 
 have one spark of genuine regard for you ? The thing is not in 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 171 
 
 nature ; it is an obvious absurdity. But it is easy enough to un- 
 derstand that Mr. Hammond, without a penny in his pocket and 
 his way to make in the world, would be very glad to secure Lady 
 Mary Haselden and her five hundred a year, and to have Lord 
 Maulevrier for his brother-in-law." 
 
 " Have I really five hundred a year ? Shall I have five hun- 
 dred a year when I marry ? " asked Mar}^, suddenly radiant. 
 " Yes ; if you marry with your brother's consent.'' 
 " I am so glad — for his sake. He could hardly starve if I had 
 five hundred a year. He need not be obliged to emigrate." 
 
 " Has he been offering you the prospect of emigration as an 
 additional inducement ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, he does not say that he is very poor, but since you 
 say he is penniless I thought we might be obliged to emigrate. 
 But as I have five hundred a year — " 
 
 " You will stay at home and set up a lodging-house, I suppose," 
 sneered Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 " I will do anything he pleases. We can live in a humble way 
 in some quiet part of London, while Mr. Hammond works at lit- 
 erature or politics. I am not afraid of poverty or trouble. I 
 am willing to endure both for his sake." 
 
 "You aie a fool," said her grandmother sternly. "And I 
 have nothing more to say to you. Go away and send Maule- 
 vrier to me." 
 
 Mary did not obey immediately. She went over to her grand- 
 mother's couch and knelt by her side, and kissed the poor 
 maimed hand which lay on the velvet cushion. 
 
 " Dear grandmother," she said gently, " I am very sorry to 
 rebel against you. But this is a question of life or death with 
 me. I am not like Lesbia. I cannot barter love and truth for 
 worldly advantage — for pride of race. Do not think me so weak 
 or vain as to be won by a few fine speeches from an adventurer. 
 Mr. Hammond is no adventurer, he has made no fine speeches 
 — but I will tell you a secret, grandmamma. I have liked and 
 admired him from the first time he came here. I have looked 
 up to him and reverenced him, and I must be a very foolish girl 
 if my judgment is so poor that I can respect a worthless man." 
 "You are a very foolish girl," answered Lady Maulevrier, 
 more kindly than she had spoken before, " but you have been 
 very good and dutiful to me since I have been ill, and I don't 
 wish to forget that. I never said that Mr. Hammond was worth- 
 less ; but I say that he is no fit husband for you. If you were 
 as yielding and obedient as Lesbia it would be all the better for 
 you, for then I should provide for your establishment in life in 
 
172 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 a becoming manner. But as you are willful and bent on taking 
 your own way — well — my dear, you must take the consequence ; 
 and when you are a struggling wife and mother, old before your 
 time, weighed down with the weary burden of petty care, do not 
 say, ' my grandmother might have saved me from this martyr- 
 dom.' " 
 
 " I will run the risk, grandmamma. I will be answerable for 
 my own fate." 
 
 " So be it, Mary. And now send Maulevrier to me." 
 
 Mary went down to the billiard-room, where she found her 
 brother and her lover engaged in a hundred game. 
 
 " Take my cue and beat him if you can, Molly," said Maule- 
 vrier, when he had heard Mary's message. " I'm fifteen ahead 
 of him, for he has been falling asleep over his shots. I suppose 
 I am going to get a lecture." 
 
 "I don't think so," said Mary. 
 
 " Well, my dearest,«how did you fare in the encounter ? " asked 
 Hammond, directly Maulevrier was gone. 
 
 "Oh, it was dreadful. I made the most rebellious speeches 
 to poor grandmamma, and then I remembered her affliction, and 
 I asked her to forgive me, and just at the last she was ever so 
 much kinder, and I think that she will let me marry you, now 
 she knows I have made up my mind to be your wife — in spite of 
 Fate." 
 
 " My bravest and best." 
 
 " And do you know, Jack," she blushed tremendously as she 
 uttered this familiar name, " I have made a discovery." 
 
 " Indeed." 
 
 " I find that I am to have five hundred a year when I am mar- 
 ried. It is not much. But I suppose it will help, won't it ? We 
 can't exactly starve if we have five hundred a year. Let me see. 
 It is more than a pound a day. A sovereign ought to go a long 
 way in a small house ; and, of course, we shall begin in a very 
 wee bouse, like De Quincey's cottage over there, only in Lon- 
 don." 
 
 'Yes, dear, there are plenty of such cottages in London. 
 Mayfair, for instance, or Belgravia." 
 
 " Now, you are laughing at my rustic ignorance. But the five 
 hundred pounds will be a help, won't it ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear, a great help." 
 
 " I'm so glad." 
 
 She had chalked her cue while she was talking, but, after 
 taking her aim, she dropped her arm irresolutely. 
 
 "Do you know I'm afraid I can't play to-nio^ht," she said. 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 173 
 
 " Helvellyn and the fog and the wind have quite spoilt my neive. 
 Shall we go to the drawing-room and see if Fraulein has recov- 
 ered from her gloomy fit ? " 
 
 " I would rather stay here, where we are free to talk ; but I'll 
 do whatever you like best." 
 
 Mary preferred the drawing-room. It v/as very sweet to be 
 alone with her lover, but she was weighed down with confusion 
 in his presence. The novelty, the wonderment of her position 
 overpowered her. She yearned for the shelter of Fraulein 
 Kirsch's wing, albeit the company of that most prosaic person 
 was certain death to romance. 
 
 Miss Kirsch was in her accustomed seat by the fire, knitting 
 her customary muffler. She had appropriated Lady Maulevrier's 
 place, much to Mary's disgust. It irked the girl to see that 
 stout, clumsy figure in the chair which had been filled by her 
 grandmother's imperial form. The very room seemed vulgarized 
 by the change. 
 
 Fraulem looked up with a surprised air when Mary and Ham- 
 mond entered together, the girl smiling and happy. She had 
 expected that Mary would have left her Ladyship's room in tears, 
 and would have retired to her own apartment to hide her swol- 
 len eyelids and humiliated aspect. But here she was, after the 
 fiery ordeal of an interview with her offended grandmother, not 
 in the least crestfallen. 
 
 "Are we not to have any tea to-night? " asked Mary, looking 
 round the room. 
 
 " I think you are unconscious of the progress of time, Lady 
 Mary," answered Fraulein, stifiiy. " The tea has been brought 
 in and taken out again." 
 
 *' Then it must be brought again if Lady Mary wants some," 
 said Hammond, ringing the bell in the coolest manner, 
 
 Fraulein felt that things were coming to a pretty pass if Mau- 
 levrier's humble friend was going to give orders in the house. 
 Quiet and commonplace as the Hanoverian v/as, she had her 
 ambition, and that was to grasp the household scepter which 
 Lady Maulevrier must needs in some wise resign, now that she 
 was a prisoner to her rooms. But so far Fraulein had met with 
 but small success in this endeavor. Her Ladyship's authority 
 stili ruled the house. Her Ladyship's keen intellect took cog- 
 nizance even of trifles, and it was only in the most insignificant 
 details, that Fraulein telt herself a power. 
 
 * -i^ * * * * 
 
 " Well, ma'am, what's the row ? " said Maulevrier, marching 
 into his grandmother's room, with a free and easy air. 
 
1 74 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 He was prepared for a skirmish, and he meant to take the 
 bull by the horns. 
 
 " I suppose you know what has happened to-day ? " 
 
 " Molly and Hammond's expedition, yes, of course. I went 
 part of the way with them, but I was out of training, got pumped 
 out after a couple of miles, and wasn't such a fool as to go to 
 the top." 
 
 " Do you know that Mr. Hammond made Mary an offer while 
 they were on the hill, and that she accepted him ? " 
 
 "A queer place for a proposal, wasn't it ? The wind blowing 
 great guns all the time. I should have chosen a more tranquil 
 spot." 
 
 " Maulevrier, cannot you be serious ? Do you forget that this 
 business of to-day must affect your sister's w^elfare for the rest 
 of her life } " 
 
 " No, I do not. I will be as serious as a judge after he has 
 put on the black cap," said Maulevrier, seating himself near his 
 grandmother's couch, and altering his tones altogether. " Se- 
 riously I am very glad that Hammond has asked Mary to be 
 his wife, and still more glad that she is tremendously in love 
 with him. I told you some time ago not to put your spoke in 
 that wheel. There could not be a happier or a better marriage 
 for Mary." 
 
 '' You must have rather a poor opinion of your sister's attrac- 
 tions, personal and otherwise, if you consider a penniless young 
 man — of no family — good enough for her ! " 
 
 " I do not consider my sister a piece of merchandise to be 
 sold to the highest bidder. Granted that Hammond is poor, 
 and a nobody. He is an honorable man, highly gifted, brave as 
 a lion, and he is my dearest friend. Can you wonder that I re- 
 joice at my sister's having won him for her adoring lover? " 
 
 " Can he really care for her, after having loved Lesbia } " 
 
 " That was the desire of the eye, this is the love of the heart. 
 I know that he loves Mary ever so much better than he loved Les- 
 bia. I can assure your Ladyship that I am not such a fool as I 
 look. I am very fond of my sister Mary, and I have not been 
 blind to her interests. I tell you, on my honor, that she ought 
 to be very happy as John Hammond's wife.'' 
 
 "I am obliged to believe what you say about his character," 
 said Lady Maulevrier. " And I am willing to admit that the 
 husband's character has a great deal to do with the wife's hap- 
 piness from a moral point of view ; but still there are material 
 questions to be considered. Has your friend any means of sup- 
 porting a wife ? " 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 1 7 5 
 
 " Yes, he has means ; quite sufficient means for Mary's views, 
 which are very simple." 
 
 " You mean to say that he could keep her in decent poverty ? 
 Cannot you be explicit, Maulevrier, and say what means the 
 man has, whether any income or none ? If you cannot tell me 
 I must question Mr„ Hammond himself." 
 
 " Pray do not do that ! " exclaimed her grandson, urgently. 
 " Do not take all the flavor of romance out of Molly's love story, 
 by going into pounds, shillings and pence. She is very young. 
 You would hardly wish her to marry immediately t " 
 
 " Not for the next year, at the very least." 
 
 "Then why enter upon this sordid question of ways and means. 
 Make Hammond and Mary happy by consenting to their en- 
 gagement, and trust the rest to Providence and to me. Take 
 my word for it, Hammond is not a beggar, and he is a man 
 likely to make his mark in the world. If a year hence his in- 
 come is not enough to allow of his marrying I will double Mary's 
 allowance out of my own purse. Hammond's friendship has 
 steadied me, and saved me a good deal more than five hundred 
 a year." 
 
 "I can quite believe that. I believe Mr. Hammond is a 
 worthy man and that his influence has been very good for you; 
 but that does not make him a good match for Mary. However, 
 you seem to have settled the business among you and I suppose 
 I must submit. You had better all drink tea with me to-morrow 
 afternoon and I will receive your friend as Mary's future hus- 
 band." 
 
 " That is the best and kindest of grandmothers." 
 
 " But I should like to have known more of his antecedents 
 and his relations." 
 
 " His antecedents are altogether creditable. He was success- 
 ful at the University, he has been liked and respected every- 
 where. He is an orphan, and it is better not to talk "to him oi 
 his family. He is sensitive on that point, like most men who 
 stand alone in the world." 
 
 " Well, I will hold my peace. You have taken this business 
 into your hands, Maulevrier, and you must be responsible for 
 the result." 
 
 Maulevrier left his grandmother soon after this, and went 
 downstairs whistling for very joyousness. Finding the billiard- 
 room deserted he repaired to the drawing-room, where he found 
 Mary playing scraps of melody to her lover at the shadowy end of 
 the room, while Fraulein sat by the fire weaving her web as stead- 
 ily as one of the Fatal Sisters, and with a brow prophetic of evil. 
 
176 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Maulevrier crept up to the piano and came stealthily behind 
 the lovers. 
 
 " Bless you, my children," he said, hovering over them with 
 outspread hands. " I am the dove coming back to the ark. I 
 am the bearer of happy tidings. Lady Maulevrier consents to 
 your acquiring the legal right to make each other miserable for 
 the rest of your lives." 
 
 " God bless you, Maulevrier," said Hammond, clasping him 
 by the hand. 
 
 " Only as this sister of mine is hardly out of the nursery you 
 will have to wait for her at least a year. So says the Dowager, 
 whose word is like the laws of the Medes and Persians and al- 
 tereth not." 
 
 " I would wait for her twice seven years, as Jacob waited, and 
 toil for her, as Jacob toiled," answered Hammond, *' but I should 
 like to call her my own to-morrow, if it were possible." 
 
 Nothing could be happier or gayer than the tea-drinking in 
 Lady Maulevrier's room on the following afternoon. Her Lady- 
 ship having once given way upon a point knew how to make her 
 concession gracefully. She extended her hand to Mr. Ham- 
 mond as frankly as if it had been her own particular choice. 
 
 " I cannot refuse my granddaughter to her brother's dearest 
 friend," she said, " but I think you are two most imprudent young 
 people." 
 
 " Providence takes care of imprudent lovers, just as it does 
 of the birds in their nests," answered Hammond, smiling. 
 
 "Just as much and no more, I fear. Providence does not 
 keep off the cat or the tax-gatherer." 
 
 " Birds must take care of their nests, and husbands must work 
 for their homes," argued Hammond. " Heaven gives sweet air 
 and sunlight and a beautiful world to live in." 
 
 " I think," said Lady Maulevrier, looking at him critically, 
 "you are just the kind of person who ought to emigrate. You 
 have ideas that would do for die Bush or the Yosemite Valley, 
 but whicli are too primitive for an overcrowded country." 
 
 "No, Lady Maulevrier, I am not going to steal your grand- 
 daughter. When she is my wife she shall live within call. I 
 know she loves her native land, and I don't think either of us 
 would care to put an ocean between us and rugged old Helvel- 
 lyn." 
 
 " Of course having made idiots of 3^ourselves up there in the 
 fog and the storm you are going to worship the mountain for 
 ever afterward," said her Ladyship laughing. 
 
 Never had she seemed gayer or brighter. Perhaps in her 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 177 
 
 heart of hearts she rejoiced at getting Mary engaged, even to 
 so humble a suitor as fortuneless John Hammond. Ever since 
 the visit of the so-called Rajah she had lived as Damocles lived, 
 with the sword of destiny — the avenging sword — hanging over 
 her by the finest hair. Every time she heard carriage wheels in 
 the drive — ^every time the hall-door bell rang a little louder than 
 usual, her heart seemed to stop beating and her whole being to 
 hang suspended on a thread. If the thread were to snap, there 
 must come darkness and death. The blow that had paralyzed 
 one side of her body must needs if repeated bring total extinction. 
 She who believed in no after life saw in her maimed and wasting 
 arm the beginning of death. She who recognized only the life 
 of the body felt that one-half of her was already dead. But 
 months had gone by and Louis Asoph had made no sign. She 
 began to hope that his boasted documents and witnesses were 
 altogether mythical. And yet the engines of the law are slow 
 to be put in motion. He might be working up his case,' line 
 upon line, with some hard-headed London lawyer; arranging 
 and marshaling his facts; preparing his witnesses ; waiting for 
 affidavits from India ; working slowly but surely, underground 
 like the mole ; and all at once, in an hour, his case might be 
 before the law courts. His story and the story of Lord Maule- 
 vrier's infamy might be town talk again, as it had been forty 
 years ago, when the true story of his crime had been happily 
 unknown. 
 
 Yes, with the present fear of this Louis Asoph's revelations, 
 of a new scandal, if not a calamity. Lady Maulevrier felt that it 
 was a good thing to have her younger granddaughter's future 
 in some measure secured. John Hammond had said of himself 
 to Lesbia that he was not the kind of a man to fail, and looking 
 at him critically to-day Lady Maulevrier saw the stamp of power 
 and dauntless courage in his countenance and bearing. It is 
 the inner mind of a man which molds the lines of his face and 
 figure, and a man's character may be read in the way he walks 
 and holds himself, the action of his hand, his smile, his form, his 
 general outlook, as clearly as any phrenological development. 
 John Hammond had a noble outlook, frank and bold, without im- 
 pudence of self-assertion, self-possessed without vanity. Yes, 
 assuredly a man to wrestle with difficulty, and to conquer 
 fate.. 
 
 When that little tea-drinking was over and Maulevrier and 
 his friend were going away to dress for dinner. Lady Maule- 
 vrier detained Mary for a minute or two by her couch. She took 
 her by the hand wilh unaccustomed tenderness. 
 
178 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " My child, I congratulate you," she said. " Last night I 
 thought you a fool, but I begin to think that you are wiser than 
 Lesbia. You have won the heart of a noble young man." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 "a young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks." 
 
 For three too-happy days Mary rejoiced in her lover's society. 
 Maulevrier was with them everywhere, by brookside and fell, on 
 the lake, in the gardens, in the billiard-room, playing propriety 
 with admirable patience. But this could not last forever. A 
 young man who has to win name and fortune and a home for 
 his young wife cannot spend all his days in the primrose path. 
 Fortunes and reputations are not made in dawdling beside a 
 mountain stream or watching the play of sunlight and shadows 
 on a green hill-side ; unless, indeed, one were a new Words- 
 worth, and even then fortune and renown are not quickly 
 made. 
 
 And again Maulevrier, who had been a marvel of good nat- 
 ure and contentment for the last eight weeks, was beginning to 
 be tired of this lovely Lakeland. Just when Lakeland was 
 daily developing into new beauty, Maulevrier began to feel an 
 itching for London, where he had a comfortable nest in the Al- 
 bany, and which was to his mind a town expressly created as a 
 center or starting-point for Newmarket, Epsom, Ascot and 
 Goodwood. 
 
 So there came a morning when Mary had to say good-by to 
 those two companions who had so blessed and gladdened her life. 
 It was a bright, sunshiny morning, and all the world looked ga}^ 
 which seemed very unkind in Nature, Mary thought. And yet, even 
 in the sadness of this parting, she had much reason to be glad. 
 As she stood with her lover in the library, in the three minutes 
 of tete-a-tete stolen from the argus-eyed Fraulein, folded in his 
 arms, looking up at his manly face, it seemed to her that the 
 mere knowledge that she belonged to him and was beloved by 
 him ought to sustain and console her even in long years of 
 severance. Yes, even if he were one of the knights of old, 
 going to the Holy Land on a crusade full of peril and un- 
 certainty. Even then a woman ought to be brave, having such a 
 lover. But her parting was to be only for a few months. Mau- 
 levrier promised to come back to Fellside for the August sports. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 179 
 
 and Hammond was to come with him. Three months — or a 
 little more — and they were to meet again. 
 
 Yet in spite of these arguments for courage Mary's face 
 blanched and her eyes grew unutterably sad as she looked up 
 at her lover. 
 
 " You will take care of yourself, Jack, for my sake, won't 
 you, dear," she murmured. " If you should be ill while you 
 are in London ? If you should die — " 
 
 "Life is very uncertain, love, but I don't feel like sickness 
 or death just at present," answered Hammond cheerily. " In- 
 deed, I feel that the present is full of sweetness, and the future 
 full of hope. Don't suppose, dear, that I am not grieved at this 
 good-by ; but before we are a year older I hope the time will 
 have come when there will be no more farewells for you and 
 me. I shall be a very uxorious husband, Molly. I shall want 
 to spend all the days and hours of my life with you ; to have 
 not a fancy or a pursuit in which you cannot share or with which 
 you cannot sympathize. I hope you will not grow tired of 
 me?" 
 
 " Tired ! " 
 
 Then came silence and a long farewell kiss, and then the 
 voice of Maulevrier shouting in the hall, just in time to warn 
 the lovers before Miss Kirsch opened the door and hastily ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Hammond, we have been looking for you every- 
 where. The luggage is all in the carriage, and Maulevrier says 
 there is only just time to get to the station." 
 
 In another minute or so the carriage was driving down the 
 hill, and Mary stood in the porch looking after the travelers. 
 
 " It seems as if it is my fate to stand here and see everybody 
 drive away," she said to herself. 
 
 And then she looked round at the lovely gardens, bright with 
 spring flowers, the trees glorious with their young, fresh foliage, 
 and the vast panorama of hill and dale, and felt that it was a 
 wicked thing to murmur in the midst of such a world. And she 
 remembered the great unhoped-for bliss that had come to her 
 within the last four days, and the cloud upon her brow vanished, 
 as she clasped her hands in childlike joyousness. 
 
 " God bless you, dear old Helvellyn," she exclaimed, looking 
 up at the somber crest of the mountain. " Perhaps if it had 
 not been for you he would have never proposed." 
 
 But she was obliged to dismiss this idea instantly ; for to 
 suppose John Hammond's avowal of his love an accident, the 
 m&re impulse of a weak moment, would be despair. Had he not 
 
I So PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 told her how she had grown nearer and nearer to his heart, day 
 by day and hour by hour, until she had become part of his 
 life ? He had told her this — he, in whom she believed as in the 
 very spirit of truth. 
 
 She wandered about the gardens for an hour after the car- 
 riage had started for Windermere, revisiting every spot where 
 she and her lover had walked together within the last three days, 
 living over again the rapture of those hours, repeating to her- 
 self his words, recalling his looks, with the fatuity of a first girl- 
 ish love. And 3^et, amidst the silliness inseparable from love's 
 young dream, there was a depth of true womanly feeling, thought- 
 ful, unselfish, forecasting a future which was not to travel al- 
 ways along the primrose path of dalliance — a future in which 
 the roses were not always to be thornless. 
 
 John Hammond was going to London to work for a position 
 in the world, to strive and labor among the seething mass of 
 strugglers all pressing onward for the same goal — independence, 
 wealth, renown. Little as Mary knew of the world by ex- 
 perience, she had at least heard the wiseacres talk ; and that 
 which she had heard was calculated to depress rather than to 
 inspire industrious youth. She had heard how the professions 
 were all overcrowded, how a mighty army of young men were 
 walking the hospitals, all intent on feeUng the pulses and 
 picking the pockets of the rising generation ; how at the bar 
 men were growing old and gray before they saw their first brief ; 
 how competitors were elbowing and hustling each other upon 
 every road, thronging at every gate. And while masculine 
 youth strove and wrestled for places in the race, aunts and 
 sisters and cousins were pressmg into the same arena, doing 
 their best to crowd out the uncles and the brothers and the 
 nephews. 
 
 " Poor Jack," sighed Mary, " at the worst we can go to the 
 Red River country and grow corn." 
 
 This was her favorite fancy, that she and her lover should find 
 their first dwelling in the new world, live as snugly as the peas- 
 ants lived round Grasmere, and humbly wait upon fortune. And 
 yet that would not be happiness, unless Maulevrier were to come 
 and stay with them every Autumn. Nothing could reconcile 
 her to being separated from Maulevrier for any lengthened 
 period. 
 
 There were hours in which she Avas more hopeful, and defied 
 the wiseacres. Clever young men had succeeded in the past — 
 clever men whose hair was not yet gray had come to the front 
 in the present. Granted that these were the exceptional men. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. i8i 
 
 the fine flower of humanity. Did she not know that John Ham- 
 mond was as far above average youth as Helvellyn was above 
 yonder mound in her grandmother's shrubbery ? 
 
 Yes, he would succeed in literature, in politics, in whatever 
 career he had chosen for himself. He was a man to do the 
 thing he set himself to do, were it ever so difficult. To doubt 
 his success would be to doubt his truth and his honesty ; for he 
 had sworn to her he would make her life bright and happy, and 
 that evil days should never come to her ; and he was not the 
 man to promise that which he was not able to perform. 
 
 The house seemed terribly dull now that the two young men 
 were gone. There was an oppressive silence in the drawing- 
 room which had lately resounded with Maulevrier's frank, boy- 
 ish laughter, and with his friend's deep, manly tones — a silence 
 broken only by the click of Fraulein Kirsch's needles. 
 
 The Fraulein was not disposed to be sympathetic or agreea- 
 ble about Lady Mary's engagement. Firstly, she had not been 
 consulted about it. The thing had been done, she considered, 
 in an underhand manner ; and Lady Maulevrier, who had be- 
 gun by being altogether opposed to the match, had been talked 
 over in a way that proved the latent weakness of that great 
 lady's character. Secondly, Miss Kirsch, having herself for 
 some reason missed such joys as are involved in being wooed 
 and won, was disposed to look sourly upon all love affairs and 
 to take a despondent view of all matrimonial engagements. 
 
 She did not say anything openly uncivil to Mary Haselden, 
 but she let her see that she pitied her and despised her infatu- 
 ated condition ; and this was so unpleasant that Mary was fain 
 to fall back upon the society of ponies and terriers, and to take 
 up her pilgrim's staff and go wandering over the hills, carrying 
 her happy thoughts into solitary places, and sitting for hours in 
 a heathery hollow, steeped in a sea of summer light, and trying 
 to paint the mountain side and the rush of the waterfall. Her 
 sketching book was an excuse for hours of solitude, for the in- 
 dulgence of an endless day-dream. 
 
 Sometimes she went among her humble friends in the Gras- 
 mere cottages, or in the villages of Great and Little Langdale ; 
 and she had now a new interest in these visits, for she had made 
 up her mind that it was her solemn duty to learn housekeeping 
 — not such housekeeping as might have been learned at Fellside, 
 supposing she had mustered the courage to ask the dignified 
 upper-servants in that establishment to instruct her ; but such 
 domestic arts as are needed in the dwellings of the poor. The 
 art of making very little money ^o a great way ; the art of s,iv 
 
i82 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 ing grace, neatness, prettiness to the smallest rooms and the 
 shabbiest furniture ; the art of packing all the ugly appliances 
 and baser necessities of daily life, the pots and kettles and 
 brooms and pails, into the narrowest compass, and hiding them 
 from the aesthetic eye. Mary thought that if she began by 
 learning the homely devices of the villagers — the very ABC 
 of cookery and housewifery — she might gradually enlarge upon 
 this simple basis to suit an income of from five to seven hun- 
 dred a-year. The house-mothers from whom she sought infor- 
 mation were puzzled at this sudden curiosity about domestic 
 matters. They looked upon the thing as a freak of girlhood 
 which became eccentric from sheer idleness ; yet they were not 
 the less ready to teach Mary anything she desired to learn. 
 They told her those secret arts by which coppers and brasses 
 were made things of beauty and meet adornment for an old oak 
 mantelshelf. They allowed her to look on at the milking of the 
 cow, and at the churning of the butter, and at bread-making, 
 and cake-making, and pie and pudding-making ; and some pleas- 
 ant hours were spent in the acquirement of this useful knowl- 
 edge. Mary did not neglect the invalid during this new phase 
 of her existence. Lady Maulevrier was a lover of routine, and 
 she liked her granddaughter to go to her at the same hour every 
 day. From eleven to twelve was the time for Mary's duty as 
 amanuensis. Sometimes there were no letters to be written. 
 Sometimes there were several ; but her Ladyship rarely allowed 
 the task to go beyond the stroke of noon. At noon Mary was 
 free, and free till five o'clock, when she was always in attend- 
 ance and ready to give Lady Maulevrier her afternoon tea, and 
 sit and talk with her, and tell her any scraps of local news which 
 she had gathered in the day. 
 
 There were days on which her Ladyship preferred to take her 
 tea alone, and Mary was left free to follow her own devices till 
 dinner time. 
 
 " I do not feel equal even to your society to-day, my dear," 
 her Ladyship would say; "go and enjoy yourself with your dogs 
 and your tennis," forgetting that there was very seldom anybody 
 on the premises with whom Lady Mary could play tennis. 
 
 But in these lonely days of Mary Haselden's life there was 
 one crowning bliss which was almost enough to sweeten solitude, 
 and take away the sting of separation, and that was the delight 
 of expecting and receiving her lover's letters. Busily as Mr. 
 Hammond must needs be engaged in fighting the battle of life, 
 he was in no way wanting in his duty as a lover. He wrote 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 183 
 
 to Mary every other day ; but though his letters were long, they 
 told her hardly anything of himself or his occupation. He wrote 
 about pictures, books, music, such things as he knew must be in- 
 teresting to her, but of his own struggles not a word. 
 
 " Poor fellow," thought Mary, " he is afraid to sadden me by 
 telling me how hard the struggle is." 
 
 Her own letters to her betrothed were simple outpourings of 
 girlish love, breathing that too flattering sweet idolatry which 
 an innocent girl gives to her first lover. Mary wrote as if she 
 herself were at the least possible value among created things. 
 
 With one of Mr. Hammond's earlier letters came the engage- 
 ment ring, no half-hoop of brilliants or sapphires, rubies or em- 
 eralds, but only a massive band of dead gold, on the inside of 
 which was engraved this posy — " Forever." 
 
 Mary thought it the loveliest ring she had ever seen in her 
 life. 
 
 The merry month of May was half over, and the last patch 
 of snow had vanished from the crest of Helvellyn, from Eagle's 
 Crag and Raven's Crag, and Coniston Old Man. Spring — 
 slow to come along these shadowy gorges — had come in real 
 earnest now. Spring that is almost Summer ; and Lady Maule- 
 vrier's gardens were as lovely as dreamland. But it was an 
 unpeopled paradise. Mary had the grounds all to herself, 
 except at those stated times when the Fraulein, who was grow- 
 ing lazier and larger day by day in her leisurely and placid 
 existence, took her morning and afternoon constitutional on the 
 terrace in front of the drawing-room, or slowly and solemnly 
 perambulated the shrubberies. 
 
 On fine days Mary lived in the gardens, save when she was 
 far a-field learning in the domestic art from the cottagers. 
 She read French and German, and worked conscientiously at 
 her intellectual education, as well as at domestic economy. For 
 she told herself that accomplishments and culture might be 
 useful to her in her married life. She might be able to increase 
 her husband's means by giving lessons abroad or taking pupils 
 at home. She was ready to do anything. She would teach 
 the stupidest children or scrub floors or bake bread. There 
 was no service she would deem degrading for his sake. She 
 would not be Lady Mary Hammond, a poor sprig of nobiUty, 
 but plain Mrs. Hammond, a working man's wife. 
 
 Lesbia's presentation was over, and she had realized all Lady 
 Kirkbank's expectations. The society papers had been unani- 
 mous in pronouncing her the prettiest debutante of the season. 
 They had praised her classical features, the admirable poise of 
 
i84 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 her head, her peerless complexion. They had described her 
 dress at the drawing-room; they had described her "frocks" 
 in the Park and at Sandown. They had expatiated on the im- 
 pression she had made at great assemblies. They had hinted 
 at even royal admiration. All this, frivolous fribble though it 
 might be. Lady Maulevrier had read with delight, and she had 
 been still more gratified by Lesbia's own account of her suc- 
 cesses. But as the season advanced Lesbia's letters to her 
 grandmother grew briefer — mere hurried scrawls dashed off 
 while the carriage was at the door, or while her maid w^as 
 brushing her hair. Lady Maulevrier divined with the keen 
 instinct of love that she counted for very little in Lesbia's life, 
 now that the whirligig of society, the fret and fever of fashion 
 had begun. 
 
 One afternoon in May, at that hour when Hyde Park is full- 
 est, and the carriages move slowly in triple rank along the 
 Lady's Mile, and the mounted constables jog up and down with 
 a business-like air which sets every one on the alert for the 
 advent of the Princess of Wales, just at that hour when Lesbia 
 sat in Lady Kirkbank's barouche, and distributed gracious bows 
 and enthralling smiles to her numerous acquaintance, Mary rode 
 slowly down the Fell, after a long rambling ride on the safest 
 and most venerable of mountain ponies. The pony was gray, 
 and Mary was gray, for she wore a neat little homespun habit 
 made by the local tailor, and a neat little felt hat with a ptar- 
 migan's feather. 
 
 All was very quiet at Fellside as she went in at the stable 
 gate. There was not an underling stirring in the large old 
 stable yard, which had remained almost unaltered for a century 
 and a half, for Lady Maulevrier, while spending thousands on 
 the new part of the house, had deemed the existing stables 
 good enough for her stud. They were spacious old stables, 
 built as sofidly as a Norman castle, and with all the virtues and 
 all the vices of their age. 
 
 Mary looked round her with a sigh. The stillness of the 
 place was oppressive, and within doors she knew there would 
 be the same stillness, made still more oppressive by the society 
 of the Fraulein, who grew duller and duller every day, as it 
 seemed to Mary. 
 
 She took her pony into the dusky old stable, where four 
 other ponies began rattling their halters in the gloom by way of 
 greeting. A bundle of purple tares lay ready in a corner for 
 her to feed her favorites, and for the next ten minutes or so 
 she was happily employed going from stall to stall and gratify 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 185 
 
 ing that inordinate appetite for green meat which seems natural 
 to all horses. 
 
 Not a groom or stable-boy appeared while she was in the stable, 
 and she was just going away when her attention was caught by a 
 flood of sunshine streaming into an old disused harness room at 
 the end of the stable — a room with one small window facing the 
 Fell. 
 
 Whence could that glow of western light come ? Assuredly 
 not from the low-latticed window which faced eastward, and 
 was generally obscured by a screen of cobwebs. The room 
 was only used as a storehouse for lumber, and it was nobody's 
 business to clean the window. 
 
 Mary looked in, curious to solve the riddle. A door which 
 she had often noticed, but never seen opened, now stood wide 
 open, and the old quadrangular garden, which was James Stead- 
 man's particular care, smiled at her in the golden evening 
 light. Seen thus this little old Dutch garden seemed to Mary 
 the prettiest thing she had ever looked upon. There were beds 
 of tulips and hyacinths, ranunculus, cyclamen, tuberose, making 
 a blaze of color against the old box borders, a foot high. The 
 crumbling old brick walls of outbuildings, and that dungeon- 
 like wall which formed the back of the new house, were clothed 
 with clematis and wisteria, woodbine and magnolia. All that 
 loving labor could do had been done day by day for the last 
 forty years to make this confined space a thing of beauty. 
 Mary went out of the dark stable into the sunny garden, and 
 looked round her, full of admiration for James Steadman's 
 work. 
 
 " If ever Jack and I can afford to have a garden, I hope we 
 shall be able to make it like this," she thought. " It is such a 
 comfort to know that so small a garden can be pretty ; for of 
 course any garden we could afford must be small." 
 
 Lady Mary had no idea that this quadrangle was spacious as 
 compared with the narrow strip allotted to many a suburban 
 villa calling itself " an eligible residence." 
 
 In the center of the garden there was an old sun-dial, with a 
 stone bench at the base, and coming slowly round the circular 
 yew-tree hedge which environed this sun-dial, and from which 
 the flower beds radiated in a geometrical pattern. Lady 
 Mary was surprised to see an old man — a very old man — 
 sitting on this bench, and basking in the low light of the west- 
 ering sun. 
 
 His figure was shrunken and bent, and he sat with his chin 
 resting on the handle of a crutched stick and his head leaning 
 
i86 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 forward. His long white hair fell in thin straggling locks over 
 the collar of his coat. He had an old-world, old-fashioned, 
 mummvfied aspect, and Mary thought he must be ver)^, very 
 old. 
 
 Very, very old ! In a flash there came back upon her the 
 memory of John Hammond's curiosity about a hoary and 
 withered old man whom he had met on the Fell in the early 
 morning. She remembered how she had taken him to see old 
 Sam Barlow, and how he had protested that Sam in no wise 
 resembled the strange-looking old man of the Fell. And now 
 here, close to the Fell, was a face and figure which in every 
 detail resembled that ancient stranger whom Hammond had 
 described so graphically. 
 
 It was very strange. Could this person be the same her 
 lover had seen two months ago ? And, if so, had he been 
 living at Fellside all the time, or was he an occasional visitor 
 of Steadman's ? 
 
 While she stood for a few moments meditating thus, the old 
 man raised his head and looked up at her with eyes that 
 burned like red-hot coals under his shaggy white brows. The 
 look scared her. There was something awful in it, like the 
 gaze of an evil spirit, a soul in torment, and she began to move 
 away with sidelong steps, her eyes riveted on that uncanny 
 countenance. 
 
 " Don't go," said the man, with an authoritative air, rattling his 
 bony fingers upon the bench. " Sit down here by my side 
 and talk to me. Don't be frightened, child. You wouldn't if 
 you knew what they say of me indoors." He made a motion of 
 his head toward the windows of the old wing — " ' Harmless,' 
 they say, * quite harmless. Let him alone, he's harmless.' A 
 tiger with his claws cut and his teeth drawn — an old, gray- 
 bearded tiger, ghastly and grim, but harmless — a cobra with the 
 poison-bag plucked out of his jaw. The venom grows again, 
 child — the snake's venom — but youth never comes back. Old, 
 and helpless, and harmless." 
 
 Again Mary tried to move away, but those evil eyes held her 
 as if she were a bird riveted by the gaze of a serpent. 
 
 " Why do you shrink away? " asked the old man, frowning at 
 her. '' Sit down here and let me talk to you. I am accustomed 
 to be obeyed." 
 
 Old and feeble and shrunken as he was, there was a power in 
 his tone of command which Mary was unable to resist. She 
 felt very sure that he was imbecile or mad. She knew that 
 madmen are apt to imagine themselves great personages, and 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 187 
 
 to take upon themselves, with a wonderful power of impersona- 
 tion, the dignity and authority of their imaginary rank ; and 
 she supposed that it must be thus with this strange old man. 
 She struggled against her sense of terror, looking up at the 
 windows of the old wing, and hoping to see and be seen 
 by Steadman and his wife. After all there could be no real 
 danger in the broad daylight, within the precincts of her own 
 home, within call of the household. 
 
 She seated herself on the bench by the unknown, willing to 
 humor him a little ; and he turned himself about slowly, as if 
 every bone in his body was stiff with age, and looked at her 
 with a deliberate scrutiny. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 "now nothing left to love or hate." 
 
 The old man sat looking at Mary in silence for some mo- 
 ments ; not a great space of time perhaps as marked by the 
 shadow on the dial behind them, but to Mary that gaze was un- 
 pleasantly prolonged. He looked at her as if he could read 
 every pulsation in every fiber of her brain, and knew exactly 
 what it meant. 
 
 " Who are you ? " he asked at last. 
 
 '•My name is Mary Haselden." 
 
 " Haselden," he repeated musingly. " I have heard that 
 name before." 
 
 And then he resumed his former attitude, his chin resting on 
 the handle of his stick, his eyes bent upon the gravel path, 
 their unholy brightness hidden under the penthouse brows. 
 
 " Haselden," he murmured, and repeated the name over and 
 over again, slowl}^, dreamily, with a troubled tone, like some 
 one trying to work out a difficult problem. " Haselden — when ? 
 where ? " 
 
 And then with a profound sigh he muttered, " Harmless, 
 quite harmless. You may trust him anywhere. Memory a 
 blank, a blank, a blank, my lord ! " 
 
 His head sank lower upon his breast and again he sighed, 
 the sigh of a spirit in torment, Mary thought. Her vivid im- 
 agination was already interested, her quick sympathies were 
 awakened. 
 
 She looked at him wonderingly, compassionately. So old, so 
 
i88 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 infirm, and with a mind astray; and 3'et there were indications 
 in his speech and manner that told of reason strugghng against 
 madness, like the light behind storm-clouds. He had tones 
 that spoke of a keen sensitiveness to pain, not the lunatic's 
 happy-go-lucky temper. She observed him intently, trying to 
 make out what manner of man he was. 
 
 He did not belong to the peasant class, of that she felt assured. 
 The shrunken, tapering hand, so white and withered and semi- 
 transparent, had never worked at peasant's work. The profile 
 turned toward her was delicate to effeminacy. The man's 
 clothes were shabby and old-fashioned, but they were a gentle- 
 man's garments, the cloth of a finer texture than she had ever 
 seen worn by her brother. The coat, with its velvet collar, was 
 of an old-world fashion. She remembered having seen just such 
 a coat in an engraved portrait of Count D'Orsay, a print nearly 
 fifty years old. No Dalesman born and bred ever wore such a 
 coat ; no tailor in the Dales could have made it. 
 
 The old man looked up after a long pause, during which 
 Mary felt afraid to move. He looked at her again with inquir- 
 ing eyes, as if her presence there had only just become known 
 to him. 
 
 " Who are you ? " he asked again. 
 
 " I told you my name just now. I am Mary Haselden." 
 
 " Haselden — that is a name I knew once. Mary ? I think 
 my mother's name was Mary. Yes, yes, I remember that. You 
 have a sweet face, Mary — like my mother's. She had brown 
 eyes, like yours, and auburn hair. You don't recollect her, per- 
 haps ? " 
 
 " Alas ! poor maniac," thought Mary, " you have lost all 
 count of time. Fifty years to you in the confusion of your dis- 
 traught brain, are but as yesterday." 
 
 " No, of course not, of course not," he muttered ; " how 
 should she recollect my mother, who died while I was a boy 1 
 Impossible. That must be half a century ago." 
 
 " Good-evening to you," said Mary, rising with great effort, 
 so strong was her feeling of being spellbound by the uncanny 
 old man. " I must go indoors now\" 
 
 He stretched out his withered old hand, small, semi-trans- 
 parent, with the blue veins showing darkly under the parchment- 
 colored skin, and grasped Mary's arm. 
 
 " Don't go," he pleaded ; " I like your face, child ; I like your 
 voice — I like to have you here. What do you mean by going 
 indoors ? Where do you live .-* " 
 
 " There," said Mary, pointing to the dead wall which faced 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE 1S9 
 
 them. " In the new part of Fellside House. I suppose you are 
 staying in the old part with James Steadman." 
 
 She had made up her mind that this crazy old man must be a 
 relation of Steadman's, to whom he gave hospitality either with 
 or without her Ladyship's consent. All powerful as Lady Maule- 
 vrier had ever been in her own house, it was just possible that 
 now, when she was a prisoner in her own rooms, certain small 
 liberties might be taken, even by so faithful a servant as Stead- 
 man. 
 
 " Staying with James Steadman .?" repeated the old man in a 
 meditative tone. " Yes, I stay with Steadman. A good serv- 
 ant ; a worthy person. It is only for a little while. I shall be 
 leaving Westmoreland next week. And you live in that house, 
 do you .'' " pointing to the dead wall. " Whose house t " 
 
 " Lady Maulevrier's. I am Lady Maulevrier's granddaugh- 
 ter." 
 
 " Lady Mau-lev-rier." He repeated the name in syllables. 
 " A good name — an old title — as old as the conquest. A Nor- 
 man race those Maulevriers. And you are Lady Maulevrier's 
 granddaughter ! You should be proud. The Maulevriers were 
 always a proud race." 
 
 "Then I am no true Maulevrier," answered Mary, gayly. 
 
 She was beginning to feel more at ease with the old man. 
 He was evidently mad, as mad as a March hare ; but his mad- 
 ness seemed only the harmless lunacy of extreme old age. He 
 had flashes of reason, too. To youth in its flush of life and 
 vigor there seems something so unspeakably sad and pitiable in 
 feebleness and age — the brief weak remnant of life, the wreck 
 of body and mind, sunning itself in the declining rays of a sun 
 that is so soon to shine upon its grave. 
 
 " What, are you not proud ? " asked the old man. 
 
 " Not at all. I have been taught to consider myself a very 
 insignificant person ; and I am going to marry a poor man. It 
 would not become me to be proud." 
 
 " But you ought not to do that," said the old man. " You 
 ought not to marry a poor man. Poverty is a bad thing, my 
 dear. You are a pretty girl, and ought to marry a man with a 
 handsome fortune. Poor men have no pleasure in this world — 
 they might just as well be dead. I am poor, as you see. You 
 can tell by this threadbare coat " — he looked down at the 
 sleeve, from which the nap was worn in places — " I am as poor 
 as a church mouse." 
 
 " But you have kind friends, I dare say," Mary said, sooth- 
 inHv. " You are well taken care of, I am sure." 
 
1 90 PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 " Yes, I am well taken care of — very well taken care of. How 
 long is it, I wonder — how many weeks, or months, or years — 
 since they have taken care of me ? It seems a long, long time; 
 but it is all like a dream — a long dream. Once I used to try 
 and wake myself. I used to try and struggle out of that weary 
 dream. But that was a long time ago. I am satisfied now — I 
 am quite content now, so long as the weather is warm, and I 
 can sit out here in the sun." 
 
 " It is growing chilly now," said Mary, " and I think you 
 ought to go indoors. I know that I must go." 
 
 "Yes, I must go in now — I am getting shivery," answered the 
 old man, meekly. " But I want to see you again, Mary ; I like 
 your face and I like your voice. It strikes a string here," touch- 
 ing his breast, " which has long been silent. Let me see you 
 again, child. When can I see you again 1 " 
 
 " Do you sit here every afternoon when it is fine ? " 
 
 " Yes, every day ; all day long sometimes, when the sun is 
 warm." 
 
 " Then I will come here to see you." 
 
 " You must keep it a secret, then," said the old man, with a 
 crafty look. *' If you don't they will shut me up in the house, 
 perhaps. They don't like me to see people, for fear I should 
 talk. I have heard Steadman say so. Yet what should I talk 
 about, heaven help me ? Steadman says my memory is quite 
 gone, and that I am harmless — childish and harmless. I have 
 heard him say that. You'll come again, won't you, and you'll 
 keep it a secret ? " 
 
 Mary deliberated for a few minutes. 
 
 " I don't like secrets," she said ; " there is generally some- 
 thing dishonorable in them. But this would be an innocent se- 
 cret, wouldn't it ? Well, I'll come to see you, somehow, poor 
 old man ; and if Steadman sees me here I will make everything 
 right with him." 
 
 "He mustn't see you here," said the old man. " If he does 
 he will shut me up in my own rooms again as he did once, years 
 and years ago." 
 
 "But you have not been here long, have you ? " Mary asked 
 wonderingly. 
 
 " A hundred years, at least. That's what it seems to me 
 sometimes. And yet there are times when it seems only a 
 dream — a long, long dream. Be sure you come again to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 " Yes, I promise you to come ; good-night." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 191 
 
 Mary went back to the stable. The door was still open, but 
 how could she be sure that it would be open to-morrow. There 
 was no other access that she knew of to the quadrangle, except 
 through the old part of the house, and that was at all times in- 
 accessible to her. 
 
 She found a key, a big old rusty key, in the inside of the 
 door, so she shut and locked it and put the key in her pocket. 
 The door she supposed had been left open by accident, at any 
 rate, this key made her mistress of the situation. If any ques- 
 tion should arise as to her conduct, she could have an explana- 
 tion with Steadman ; but she had pledged her word to the poor 
 mad old man, and she meant to keep her promise, if possible. 
 
 As she left the stable she saw Steadman riding toward the 
 gate on his gray cob. She passed him as she went back to the 
 house. 
 
 Next day, and the day after that, and for many days, Mary 
 used her key, and went into the quadrangle at sundown to sit 
 for half an hour or so with the strange old man, who seemed to 
 take an intense pleasure in her company. The weather was 
 growing warmer as May wore on toward June, and this evening 
 hour, between six and seven, was deliciously bright and balmy. 
 The seat by the sun-dial was screened on every side by a clipped 
 yew hedge, dense and tall, surrounding the circular, graveled 
 space, in the center of which stood the old granite dial, with its 
 octagonal pedestal and moss-grown steps. There, as in a 
 closely shaded arbor, Lady Mary and her old friend were alone 
 and unobserved. The yew-tree boundary was at least eight feet 
 high, and Mary and her companion could hardly have been 
 seen even from the upper windows of the low, old house. 
 
 Mary had fallen into the habit of going for her walk or her ride 
 at the same hour every day, and after her walk or ride she 
 slipped through the stable, and joined her ancient friend. Sta- 
 bles and courtyard were generally empty at this hour, the men 
 only appearing at the sound of a big bell, which summoned 
 them from their snuggery when they were wanted. Most of 
 Lady Maulevrier's servants had arrived at that respectable stage 
 of long service in which fidelity is counted as a substitute for 
 hard work. 
 
 The old man was not particularly conversational, and was 
 apt to repeat the same things over and over again, with a sub- 
 lime unconsciousness of being prosy ; but he liked to hear Mary 
 talk, and he listened with seeming intelligence. He questioned 
 her about the world outside his cloistered life — the news — and 
 though the names of the men of the day seemed utterly strange 
 
192 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 to him, and he had to have them repeated to him again and 
 again, yet he seemed to take an inteUigent interest in the stir- 
 ring facts of the time, and hstened intently when Mary gave 
 him a synopsis of her last newspaper reading. 
 
 When the news was exhausted, Mary hit upon a more childish 
 form of amusement, and that was to tell the story of any novel or 
 poem she had lately been reading. This was so successful that 
 in this manner Mary related the stories of most of Shakespeare's 
 plays; of Byron's Bride of Abydos and Corsair; of Keat's La- 
 mia ; of Tennyson's Idylls, and of a heterogeneous collection of 
 poetry and romance, in all of which stories the old man took a 
 vivid interest. 
 
 "You are better to me than the sunshine," he told Mary one 
 day when she was leaving him. " The world grows darker when 
 you leave me." 
 
 Once at this parting moment he took both her hands and 
 drew her nearer to him, peering into her face in the clear even- 
 ing light. 
 
 "You are like my mother," he said. "Yes, you are very like 
 her, and who else is it that you are like ? There is some one 
 else, I know. Yes, some one else ! I remember ! It is a face 
 in a picture — a picture at Maulevrier Castle." 
 
 " What do you know of Maulevrier Castle ? " asked Mary 
 wonderingly. 
 
 Maulevrier was the family seat in Herefordshire, which had 
 not been occupied by the elder branch for the last forty years. 
 Lady Maulevrier had let it during her son's minority to a younger 
 branch of the family, a branch which had intermarried with the 
 world of successful commerce, and was richer than the heads of 
 the house. This occupation of Maulevrier Castle had con- 
 tinued to the present time, and was likely still to continue, Mau- 
 levrier having no desire to set up housekeeping in a feudal castle 
 in the marches. 
 
 " How came you to know Maulevrier Castle ? " repeated 
 Mary. 
 
 " I was there once, and there is a picture by Lely, a portrait 
 of a Lady Maulevrier in Charles the Second's time. The face 
 is yours, my love. I have heard of such hereditary faces. My 
 mother was proud of resembling that portrait." 
 
 "What did your mother know of Maulevrier Castle ?" 
 
 The old man did not answer. He had lapsed into that 
 dream-like, half imbecile condition into which he often sank, 
 \yhen his brain was not stimulated to attention and coherency 
 by his interest in Mary's narrations. 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 1 93 
 
 Mary concluded that this man had once been a servant in the 
 Maulevrier household, perhaps at the place in Herefordshire, 
 and that all his old memories ran in one groove — the house of 
 Maulevrier. 
 
 The freedom of her intercourse with him was undisturbed for 
 about three weeks ; and at the end of that time she came face 
 to face with James Steadman as she emerged from the circle of 
 greenery. 
 
 " You here. Lady Mary ? " he exclaimed with an angry look. 
 
 " Yes, I have been sitting talking to that poor old man," 
 Mary answered cheerily, concluding that Steadman's look of 
 vexation arose from his being detected in the act of harboring 
 a contraband relation. " He is a very interesting character. 
 A relation of yours, I suppose t " 
 
 " Yes, he is a relation," replied Steadman. " He is very old, 
 and his mind has long been gone. Her Ladyship is kind 
 enough to allow me to give him a home in her house. He 
 is quite harmless and he is in nobody's way." 
 
 " Of course not, poor soul. He is only a burden to himself. 
 He talks as if his life had been very weary. Has he been long 
 in that sad state t " 
 
 " Yes, a long time." 
 
 Steadman's manner to Lady Mary was curt at the best of 
 times. She had always stood somewhat in awe of him, as a 
 person delegated with authority by her grandmother, a servant 
 who was much more than a servant. But to-day his manner 
 was more abrupt than usual. 
 
 " He spoke of Maulevrier Castle just now," said Mary, deter- 
 mined not to be put down too easily. " Was he once in serv- 
 ice there ? " 
 
 " He wis. Pray how did you find your way into this gar- 
 den. Lady Mary t " 
 
 " I came through the stable. As it is my grandmother's 
 garden, I suppose I did not take an unwarrantable liberty in 
 coming," said Mary, drawing herself up and ready for battle. 
 
 " It is Lady Maulevrier's wish that this garden should be 
 reserved for my use," answered Steadman. " Her Ladyship 
 knows that my uncle walks here of an afternoon, and that, owing 
 to his age and infirmities, he can go nowhere else, and if only on 
 that account it is well that the garden should be kept private. 
 Lunatics are rather dangerous company. Lady Mary, andT ad- 
 vise you to give them a wide berth wherever you may meet 
 them?' 
 
 '* I am not afraid of your uncle," said Mary resolutely. " You 
 
194 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 said yourself just now that he is quite harmless, and I am really 
 interested in him, poor old creature. He likes me to sit with 
 him a little of an afternoon and to talk to him ; and if you have 
 no objection I should like to do so, whenever the weather is 
 fine enough for the poor old man to be out in the garden at 
 this hour." 
 
 -' I have a very great objection, Lady Mary, and that objec- 
 tion is chiefly in your interest," answered Steadman firmly. 
 "No one who is not experienced in the ways of lunatics can 
 imagine the danger of any association with them — their con- 
 summate craftiness, their capacity for crime. Every madman 
 is harmless up lo a certain point — mild, inoffensive, perhaps, 
 up to the very moment in which he commits some appalling 
 crime. And then people cry out upon the want of prudence, 
 the want of common sense which allowed such an act to be 
 possible. No, Lady Mary, I understand the benevolence of 
 your motive, but I cannot permit you to run such risk." 
 
 "I am convinced that the poor old creature is perfectly 
 harmless," said Mary, with suppressed indignation. " I shall 
 certainly ask Lady Maulevrier to speak to you upon the subject. 
 Perhaps her influence may induce you to be a little more con- 
 siderate to your unhappy relation." 
 
 " Lady Mary, I beg you not to say a word to Lady Maule- 
 vrier on this subject. You will do me the greatest injury if you 
 speak of that man. I entreat you — " 
 
 But Mary was gone. She passed Steadman with her head 
 held high and her eyes sparkling with anger. All that was 
 generous, compassionate, womanly in her nature was up in 
 arms against her grandmother's steward. Of all other things, 
 Mary Haselden most detested cruelty; and she could see in 
 Steadman's opposition to her wish nothing but the most cold- 
 hearted cruelty to a poor dependent on his charity. 
 
 She went in at the stable door, shut and locked it and put 
 the key in her pocket as usual. But she had little, hope that 
 this mode of access would be left open to her. She knew 
 enough of James Steadman's character, from hearsay rather 
 than from experience, to feel sure that he would not easily 
 give way. She was not surprised, therefore, on returning from 
 her ride or:> the following afternoon, to find the disused harness- 
 room half filled with trusses of straw, and the door of communi- 
 cation completely blocked. It would be impossible for her to 
 remove that barricade without assistance ; and then how could 
 she be sure that the door itself was not nailed up, or secured in 
 some way ? 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 1 95 
 
 It was a delicious, sunny afternoon, and she could picture 
 the lonely old man, sitting in his circle of greenery, beside the 
 dial which for him had registered so many dreary and solitary 
 hours, waiting for the little ray of social sunlight which her 
 presence shed over his monotonous life. He had told her that 
 she was like the sunlight to him — better than sunshine — and 
 she had promised not to forsake him. She pictured him wait- 
 ing, with his hands clasped upon his old-fashioned cane, his 
 chin resting on his hands, his eyes poring on the ground, as she 
 had seen him for the first time. And as the stable clock chimed 
 the quarters he would begin slowly to think himself abandoned, 
 forgotten ; if, indeed, he took any count of the passage of time, 
 of which she was not sure. His mind seemed to her to have 
 sunk into a condition which was between dreaming and waking, 
 a state in which the outside world seemed only half real — a 
 phase of being in which there was neither past nor future, only 
 the insufferable monotony of an everlasting now. 
 
 Pity is so nearly akin to love that Mary, in her deep compas- 
 sion for this lonely, joyless, loveless existence, felt a regard 
 which was almost affection for this strange old man, whose very 
 name was unknown to her. True that there was much in his 
 countenance and manner which was sinister and repellant. 
 He was a being calculated to inspire fear rather than love ; 
 but the fact that he had courted her presence and looked to her 
 for consolation had touched Mary's heart and she had become 
 reconciled to all that was forbidding and disagreeable in the 
 lunatic's physiognomy. Was he not the victim of a visitation 
 which entitled him to respect as well as to pity ? 
 
 For some days Mary held her peace, remembering Stead- 
 man's vehement entreaty that she should not speak of this 
 subject to her grandmother. She was silent, but the image of 
 the old man haunted her at all times and seasons. She saw 
 him even in her dreams — those happy dreams of the girl who 
 loves and is beloved, and before whom the pathway of the fut- 
 ure smiles like a vision of Paradise. She heard him calling to 
 her with a piteous cry of distress, and on waking from this 
 troubled dream she fancied that he must be dying, and that 
 this sound in her dreams was one of those ghostly -varnings 
 which gave notice of death. She was so unhappy about him, 
 altogether so distressed at being compelled to break her word, 
 that she could not prevent her thoughts from dwelling upon 
 him, not even after she had poured out all her trouble to John 
 Hammond in a long letter, in which her garden adventures and 
 her little skirmish with Steadman was orraphically described. 
 
1 96 PHA NTOM FOR Ti WE. 
 
 To her intense discomfiture Hammond replied that he thor- 
 oughly approved of Steadman's conduct in the matter. How- 
 ever agreeable Mary's society might be to the lunatic, Mary's 
 life was far too precious to be put within the possibility of peril 
 by any such tete-a-tetes. If the person was the same old man 
 whom Hammond had seen on the Fell he was a most sinister- 
 looking creature, of whom any evil act might be fairly antici- 
 pated. In a word, Mr. Hammond took Steadman's view of the 
 matter, and entreated his dearest Mary to be careful, and not 
 to allow her warm heart to place herself in circumstances of 
 peril. 
 
 This was most disappointing to Mary, who expected her 
 lover to agree with her upon every point ; and if he had been at 
 Fellside the difference of opinion might have given rise to 
 their first quarrel. But as she had a few hours leisure for 
 reflection before the post went out, she had time to get over her 
 anger, and to remember that promise of obedience given, half 
 in jest half in earnest, at the little inn beyond Dunmail Raise. 
 So she wrote submissively enough, only with just a touch of 
 reproach at; Jack's want of compassion for a poor old man who 
 had such strong claims upon everybody's pity. 
 
 The image of the poor old man was not to be banished from her 
 thoughts, and on that very afternoon, when her letter was dis- 
 patched, Mary went on a visit of exploration to the stables, to 
 see if by any chance Mr. Steadman's plans for isolating his 
 unhappy relative might be circumvented. 
 
 She went all over the stables — into loose boxes, harness and 
 saddle rooms, sheds for wood, and sheds for roots — but she 
 found no door opening into the quadrangle, save that door by 
 which she had entered, and which was securely defended by a 
 barricade of straw that had been doubled by a fresh delivery of 
 trusses since she first saw it. But while she was prowling about 
 the sweet-scented stable, much disappointed at the result of her 
 investigations, she stumbled against a ladder which led to an 
 open trap-door. Mary mounted the ladder, and found herself 
 amidst the dusty atmosphere of a large hayloft, half in shadow, 
 half in the hot bright sunlight. A large shutter was open in the 
 sloping roof, the roof that sloped toward the quadrangle, an 
 open patch admitting light and air. Mary, light and active as a 
 squirrel, sprang upon a truss of hay, and in another moment had 
 swung herself into the opening of the shutter, and was standing 
 with her feet on the wooden ledge at the bottom of the massive 
 frame, and her fi.G:ure supported against the slope of the thick 
 thatched roof. Perched, or half suspended, thus, she was just 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUiVE. 1 97 
 
 high enough to look over the top of the yew-tree hedge into the 
 circle about the sun-dial. 
 
 Yes, there was the unhappy victim of fate and man's inhu- 
 manity to man. There sat the shrunken figure, with bent head, 
 and melancholy altitude — the bent shoulders of feeble old age, 
 the patriarchal locks so appealing to pity. There he sat with 
 drooping head, and eyes poring upon the ground, just as she had 
 seen him the first time. And while she had sat with him and 
 talked with him he had seemed to awaken out of that dull de- 
 spondency, gleams of pleasure had lighted up his w-rinkled face — 
 he had grown animated, a sentient living being, instead of a 
 corpse alive. It was very hard that this little interval of life, 
 these stray gleams of gladness, should be denied to the poor old 
 creature at the behest of James Steadman. 
 
 Mary would have felt less angry upon the subject had she be- 
 lieved in Steadman's supreme carefulness of her own safety, but 
 in this she did not believe. She looked upon the house-steward's 
 prudence as a hypocritical pretense, an affectation of fidelity and 
 wisdom, by which he contrived to gratify the evil tendencies 01 
 his own cruel and hard nature. For some reason of his own, 
 perhaps constrained thereto by necessity, he had given the old 
 man an asylum for his age and infirmity ; but while thus giving 
 him shelter he considered him a burden, and from mere perver- 
 sity of mind refused him all such consolations as were possible 
 to his afflicted state, mewed him up as a prisoner, cut him off 
 from the companionship of his fellow men. 
 
 Two years ago, before Mary emerged from her tomboy-hood, 
 she would have thought very little of letting herself out of the 
 loft window and clambering down the side of the stable, which 
 was well furnished with those projections in the way of gutters, 
 drain-pipes and century-old ivy which make such a descent easy. 
 Two years ago Mary's light figure would have swung itself down 
 among the ivy leaves, and she would have glorified in the thought 
 of circumventing James Steadman so easily. But now Mary 
 was a young lady — a young lady engaged to be married, and 
 impressed with the responsibility of her position, deeply im- 
 pressed with the weight of her dignity, for the preservation of 
 which she was in a manner answerable to her lover. 
 
 " What would he think of me if I went scrambling down the 
 ivy," she asked herself, " and after he has approved of Stead- 
 man's heartless restrictions "i It would be rank rebellion against 
 him if I were to do it. Poor old man. ' Thou art so near and 
 yet so far,' as Lesbia's song says." 
 
 She blew a kiss on the tips of her fingers toward that sad, sol 
 
1 98 PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 itary figure, and then dropped back into the dusty duskiness of 
 the loft. But although her new ideas upon the subject of An- 
 stand-:— or good behavior — prevented her getting the better of 
 Steadman by foul means, she was always the more intent upon 
 having her own w^ay by fair means, now that her impression of 
 the old man's sadness and solitude had been renewed by the 
 sight of the drooping figure by the sun-dial. 
 
 She went back to the house and walked straight to her grand- 
 mother's room. Lady Maulevrier's couch had been placed in 
 front of the open window, from which she was watching the west- 
 ward sloping sun above the long line of hills, dark Helvellyn, 
 rugged Nabb Scar, and verdant Fairfield, with its two giant arms 
 stretched out to enfold and shelter the smiling valley. 
 
 " Heavens, child, w^hat an object you are ! " exclaimed her 
 Ladyship, as Mary drew near. " Why, your gown is all over dust, 
 and your hair — why your hair is sprinkled with hay and clover. 
 I thought you had learnt to be tidy since your engagements. 
 What have you been doing with yourself 1 " 
 
 " I have been up to the hay loft," answered Mary frankly, and 
 intent on one idea she said impetuously : " Dear grandmother, I 
 want you to do me a favor — a very great favor. There is a poor 
 old man, a relation of Steadman'S; who lives with him, out of 
 his mind, but quite harmless, and he is so sad and lonely, so 
 dreadfully sad, and likes me to sit with him in the garden, and 
 tell him stories, and recite verses to him, poor soul, just as if he 
 were a child, don't you know, and it is such pleasure to me to 
 be a little comfort to him in his lonely, wretched life, and James 
 Steadman says I mustn't go near him, because he might change 
 at any moment into a dangerous lunatic, and do me some kind 
 of harm, and I am not a bit afraid, and I'm sure he won't do any- 
 thing of the kind, and please, grandmother, tell Steadman that 
 I am to be allowed to go and sit with his poor old prisoner half 
 an hour every afternoon." 
 
 Carried along by the current of her own impetuous thoughts, 
 Mary had talked very fast, and had not once looked at her 
 grandmother while she was speaking. But now at the end of 
 her speech her eyes sought Lady Maulevrier's face in gentle en- 
 treaty, and Mary recoiled involuntarily at the sight she saw 
 there. 
 
 The queenly classic features were distorted almost as they 
 had been in the worst period of the paralytic seizure. Lady 
 Maulevrier was ghastly pale, and her eyes glared with an awful 
 fire as they gazed at Mary. Her whole frame was convulsed, 
 and she, the cripple, whose right limbs lay numbed and motion- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 199 
 
 less upon the couch, made a struggling motion as she raised her- 
 self a little with the left arm, as if by very force of angry will she 
 would have lifted herself up erect before the girl who had of- 
 fended her. 
 
 For a few moments her lips moved dumbly, and there was 
 something unspeakably awful in those convulsed features, that 
 livid countenance, and those voiceless syllables trembling upon 
 the white dry lips. 
 
 At last speech came. 
 
 " Girl, you were created to torment me ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Dear grandmother, what harm have I done ? " faltered 
 Mary. 
 
 " What harm ? You are a spy. Your very existence is a tor- 
 ment and a danger. Would to God that you were married. Yes, 
 married to a chimney-sweep, even — and out of my way." 
 
 " If that is your only difficulty," said Mary, firing up, " I dare 
 say Mr. Hammond would be kind enough to marry me to-morrow, 
 and take me out of your Ladyship's way." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier's head sank back upon her pillows, those 
 velvet or satin pillows with delicate point lace and crewel work 
 adornment, the labor of Mary and Fraulein — pillows which 
 could not bring peace to the weary head, or deaden the tortures 
 of memory. The pale face recovered its wonted calm, the heavy 
 lids drooped over the weary eyes, and for a few moments there 
 was silence in the room. 
 
 Then Lady Maulevrier raised her eyelids and looked at her 
 granddaughter, imploringly, pathetically. 
 
 " Forgive me, Mary," she said. " I don't know what I was 
 saying just now, but whatever it was forgive and forget it. I am 
 a wretched old woman, heart sick, heart sore, worn out by pain 
 and weariness. There are times when I am beside myself, when 
 I am not much more than Steadman's lunatic uncle. This is 
 one of my days, and you came bouncing in upon me and tor- 
 tured my nerves by your breathless torrent of words. Pray 
 forgive me if I said anything rude." 
 
 " If," thought Mary, but she tried to be charitable and to be- 
 lieve that Lady Maulevrier's attack upon her was a new phase 
 of hysteria, and she murmured meekly, "There is nothing for me 
 to forgive, grandmamma, and I am very sorry I disturbed you." 
 
 She was going to leave the room, thinking that her absence 
 would be a relief to the invalid, when Lady Maulevrier called 
 her back. 
 
 " You were asking me something — something about that old 
 man of Steadman's," she said with a weary air, half indifference, 
 
200 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 half the lassitude natural to an invalid who sinks under the bur- 
 den of monotonous days. " What was it all about ? I forget." 
 
 Mary restated her request, but this time in much more meas- 
 ured tones. 
 
 " My dear, I am sure that Steadman was only properly pru- 
 dent," answered Lady Maulevrier, " and that it would never do 
 for me to interfere in this matter. It stands to reason that he 
 must know his old kinsman's temperament much better than you 
 can, after your half hour interviews with him in the garden. Pray 
 how long have these garden scenes been going on, by the bye 1 " 
 asked her Ladyship with a searching look at Mary's downcast 
 face. 
 
 The girl had not altogether recovered from the rude shock of 
 her grandmother's late attack. 
 
 "About three weeks," faltered Mary. " But it is more than 
 a week now since I was in the garden. It was quite by acci- 
 dent that I first went there. Perhaps I ought to explain." 
 
 And Mary, not being gainsayed, went on to describe that first 
 afternoon when she had seen the old man brooding in the sun. 
 She drew quite a pathetic picture of his joyless solitude, whilst 
 all nature around and about him was looking so glad in the 
 spring sunshine. There was a long silence, a silence of some 
 minutes, when she had done ; and Lady Maulevrier lay with low- 
 ered eyelids, deep in thought. Mary began to hope that she had 
 touched her grandmother's heart, and that her request would be 
 granted ; but she was soon undeceived. 
 
 " I am sorry to be obliged to refuse you a favor, Mary, but I 
 must stand by Steadman," said her Ladyship. "When I gave 
 Steadman permission to shelter his aged kinsman in my house I 
 made it a condition that the old man should be kept in the strict- 
 est care by himself and his wife, and that nobody in this estab- 
 lishment should be troubled by him. Tiiis condition has been 
 so scrupulously adhered to that the old man's existence is known 
 to no one in this house except you and me, and you have discover- 
 ed the fact only by accident. I must beg you to keep this secret 
 to yourself. Steadman has particular reasons for. wishing to 
 conceal the fact of his uncle's residence here. The old man is 
 not actually a lunatic. If he were we should be violating the 
 law by keeping him here. He is only imbecile from extreme 
 old age ; the body has outlived the mind, that is all. But should 
 any officious functionary come down upon Fellside this imbecil- 
 ity would be called madness, and the poor old creature whom 
 you regard so compassionately, and whose case you think so 
 pitiable here, would be carried off to a pauper lunatic asylum, 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 201 
 
 which I can assure you would be a much worse imprisonment 
 than Fcllside Manor." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, grandmother," exclaimed Mary, whose vivid 
 imagination conjured up a vision of padded cells, strait-waist- 
 coats, murderously inclined keepers, chains, handcuffs and bread 
 and water diet ; " now I understand why the poor old soul has been 
 kept so close — why nobody knows of his existence. I beg Stead- 
 man's pardon with all my heart. He is a much better fellow 
 than I thought him." 
 
 " Steadman is a thoroughly good fellow, and as true as steel," 
 said her Ladyship. " No one can know that so well as the mis- 
 tress he has served faithfully for nearly half a century. I hope, 
 Mary, you have not been chattering to Fraulein or any one else 
 about your discovery." 
 
 " No, grandmamma, 1 have not said a word to a mortal, 
 but—" 
 
 " Oh, there is a ' but ' is there ? I understand. You have 
 not been so reticent in your letters to Mr. Hammond." 
 
 " I tell him all that happens to me, grandmamma. There is 
 very little to write about at Fellside, yet I contrive to send him 
 volumes. I often wonder what poor girls did in the days of 
 Miss Austen's novels, when letters cost a shilling or eighteen- 
 pence for postage, and had to be paid by the recipient. It must 
 have been such a terrible check upon affection." 
 
 "And upon twaddle," said Lady Maulevrier. "Well, you 
 told Mr. Hammond about Steadman's old uncle. What did he 
 say ? " 
 
 " He thoroughly approved Steadman's conduct in forbidding 
 me to go and see him/' answered Mary. " I couldn't help think- 
 ing it rather unkind of him ; but, of course, I feel that he must 
 be right," concluded Mary, as much as to say that her lover was 
 necessarily infallible. 
 
 " I always thought Mr. Hammond a sensible young man, and 
 I am glad to find that his conduct does not belie my good opinion," 
 said Lady Maulevrier. " And now, my dear, you had better go 
 and make yourself decent before dinner. I am very weary this 
 afternoon, and even our little talk has exhausted me." 
 
 " Yes, dear grandmamma, I am going this instant. But let 
 me ask one question : What is the poor old man's name t " 
 
 " His name," said her Ladyship, looking at Mary with a puz- 
 zled air, like a person whose thoughts are far away. " His 
 name — oh, Steadman, I suppose, like his nephew's ; but if I ever 
 heard the name 1 have forgotten it, and I don't know whether 
 the kinship is on the father's or the mother's side. Steadman 
 
202 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 asked my permission to give shelter to a helpless old relative, 
 and I gave it. That is really all I remember." 
 
 "Only one other question, grandmamma," pleaded Mary, 
 who was brimful of curiosity upon this particular subject. " Has 
 he been at Fellside very long t " 
 
 " Oh, I really don't know ; a year or two, or three, perhaps. 
 Life in this house is all of a piece. I hardly keep count of 
 time." 
 
 "There is one thing which puzzles me very much," said Mary, 
 still lingering near her grandmother's couch, the baimy evening 
 air caressing her as she leaned against the embrasure of the 
 wide Tudor window, the sun drawing nearer to the edge of the 
 hills, an orb of yellow flame soon to change to a gigantic disk 
 of lurid fire. "I thought from the old man's talk that he, too, 
 must be an old servant in our family. He talked of Maulevrier 
 Castle and said that I reminded him of a picture by Lely, a por- 
 trait of a Lady Maulevrier." 
 
 " It is quite possible that he may have been in service there, 
 though I do not remember to have heard an5/thing about it," 
 cxnswered her Ladyship, carelessly. "The Steadmans come 
 from our part of the country, and theirs is an hereditary service. 
 Good-night, Mary, I am utterly weary. Look at that glorious 
 light yonder, that mighty world of fire and flame, without which 
 our little world would be dark and dreary. I often think of that 
 speech of Macbeth's, ' I 'gin to be aweary of the sun.' There 
 comes a time, Mary, when even the sun is a burden." 
 
 "Only for such a man as Macbeth," said Mary, " a man 
 steeped in crime. Who can wonder that he wanted to hide him- 
 self from the sun ? But, dear grandmother, there ought to be 
 plenty of happiness left for you, even if your recovery is slow to 
 come. You are so clever, you have such resources, in your own 
 mind and memory, and you have your grandchildren, who love 
 you dearly," added Mary, tenderly. 
 
 Her nature was so full of pity that an entirely new affection 
 had grown up in her mind for Lady Maulevrier since that terri- 
 ble evening of the paralytic stroke. 
 
 "Yes, and whose love as exemplified by Lesbia is shown in a 
 hurried scrap of a letter scrawled once a week — a bone thrown 
 to a hungry dog," said her Ladyship, bitterly. 
 
 "Lesbia is so lovely, and she is so surrounded by flatterers 
 and admirers," murmured Mary, excusingly. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, if she had a heart she would not forget me, 
 even in the midst of her flatterers. Good-night again, Mary. 
 Don't try to console me. For some natures consolations and 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 soothing suggestions are like flowers thrown upon 
 
 tomb. They do just as much and just as little good to the 
 
 heart that lies under the stone. Good-night." 
 
 Mary stooped to kiss her grandmother's forehead, and found 
 it cold as marble. She murmured a loving good-night, and left 
 the mistress of Fellside in her loneliness. 
 
 A footman would come in and light the lamps, and draw the 
 velvet curtains, presently, and shut out the later glories of sunset. 
 And then the butler himself would come and arrange the little 
 dinner table by her Ladyship's couch, and would himself preside 
 over the invalid's simple dinner, which would be served exquis- 
 itely with all that is daintiest and most costly in fairy-like glass 
 and antique silver. Yet better the dinner of herbs, and love 
 and peace withal, than the choicest fare or the most perfect ser- 
 vice. 
 
 Before the coming of the servants and the lamps there was a 
 pause of silence and loneliness, an interval during which Lady 
 Maulevrier lay gazing at the declining orb, the lower rim of 
 which now rested on the edge of the hill. It seemed to grow 
 larger and more dazzling as she looked at it. 
 
 Suddenly she clasped her left hand across her eyes, and said 
 aloud — 
 
 " Oh, what a hateful life ! Almost half a century of lies and 
 hypocrisies and prevarications and meannesses for what t For 
 the glory of an empty name, and for a fortune that may slip from 
 my dead hand to become the prey of rogues and adventurers. 
 Who can forecast the future. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CARTE BLANCHE. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank's house in Arlington Street was known to half 
 fashionable London as one of the pleasantest houses in town ; 
 and it was known by repute only to the other half of fashionable 
 London as a house whose threshold was not to be crossed by 
 persons with any regard for their own dignity and reputation. 
 It was not that Lady Kirkbank had ever actually forfeited her 
 right to be considered an honest v/oman and a faithful wife. 
 People who talked of the lady and her set with a contemptuous 
 shrug of the shoulders and a dubious elevation of the eyebrows 
 were ready, when hard pushed in argument, to admit that they 
 
204 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 knew of no actual harm in Lady Kirkbank, no overt bad behav- 
 ior. " But — well," said the punctilious half of society, the Pe- 
 jinks and Pernickitys, the Picksomes and Unco-Goods, "Lady 
 Kirkbank is — Lady Kirkbank. And I would not allow my girls 
 to visit her, don't you know ? " " Lady Kirkbank is received, 
 certainly," said a severe dowager. " She goes to very good 
 houses. She gets tickets for the Royal inclosure. She is always 
 at private views and privileged shows of all kinds, and she con- 
 trives to squeeze herself in at a State ball or a concert, about once 
 in two years ; but any one who can consider Lady Kirkbank 
 good style must have a very curious idea of what a lady ought 
 to be," 
 
 About Sir George, society, adverse or friendly, was without 
 strong opinions. His friends, the men who shot over his Scotch 
 moor, and filled the cabins of his steam yacht, and loaded his 
 drag for Sandown or Epsom, and sponged upon him more or 
 less all the year round, talked of him as " an inoffensive old thing," 
 " a cheery soul," "a genial old boy," and in like terms of ap- 
 proval. That half of society which did not visit in Arlington 
 Street, for which the semi-aristocratic, semi-artistic, altogether 
 Bohemian little dinners, the suppers after the play, the small 
 hours devoted to nap or poker, had an odor as of sulphur, a fla- 
 vor of Tophet, even this half of the great world was fain to ad- 
 mit that Sir George was harmless. He had never had an idea 
 beyond the realms of sport ; he had never had a will of his own 
 outside his stable. To shoot pigeons at Hurlingham or Monaco, 
 to keep half a dozen leather-platers, and attend every race from 
 the Craven to the Leger, to hunt four days a week when he was 
 allowed to spend a Winter in England, and to saunter and sleep 
 away all the hours which could not be given to sport, comprised 
 Sir George's idea of existence. He had never troubled himself 
 to consider whether there might not possibly be a better way of 
 getting rid of one's life. He was as God had made him, and 
 was perfectly satisfied with himself and the universe; save at 
 such times as when a favorite horse went lame, or his banker 
 wrote to tell him that his account was overdrawn. 
 
 He had no children ; he had never had a serious care in his life. 
 He never thought, he never read. Lady Kirkbank declared 
 that she had never seen him with a book in his hand since their 
 marriage. 
 
 " I don't believe he would know at which end to begin," she 
 said. 
 
 What was the specific charge which the very particular people 
 brought against Lady Kirkbank ? Such charges rarely are spe- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 205 
 
 cific. The idea that the lady belonged to the fast and furious 
 section of society, the Bohemia of the upper ten, was an idea in 
 the air. Everybody knew it ; no one could quite adequately ex- 
 plain it. 
 
 From thirty to fifty Lady Kirkbank had been known as a 
 flirty matron. Wherever she went a train of men went with her ; 
 men young and middle-aged and elderly ; handsome youths from 
 the public offices; War, Admiralty, Foreign Office, Somerset- 
 House young men ; attractive men of mature years, with gray mus- 
 tachios, military, diplomatic, horsey, what you will, but always 
 agreeable. At home, abroad, Lady Kirkbank was never with- 
 out her court ; but the court was entirely masculine. In those days 
 the fair Georgie did not scruple to say that she hated women, and 
 that girls were her particular abomination. But as the years rolled 
 on Lady Kirkbank found it very difficult to muster her little 
 court, to keep her train in attendance upon her. Her young 
 adorers found their official duties more oppressive than hitherto ; 
 her elderly swains had threatenings of gout or rheumatism which 
 prevented their flocking round her as of old at race meeting or 
 polo match. They were loyal enough in keeping their engage- 
 ments at the dinner table, for Lady Kirkbank's cook wasDne of 
 the best in London ; and the invited guests were rarely missing 
 at the little suppers after opera or play ; but Georgie's box was 
 no longer crowded with men who dropped in between the acts to 
 see what she thought of the singer or the piece, and her swains 
 were no longer contented to sit behind her chair all the evening 
 seeing an empty corner of the stage across Georgie's ivory shoul- 
 der, and hearing the voices of invisible actors in the brief 
 pauses of Georgie's subdued babble. 
 
 At fifty-five Georgina Kirkbank told herself sadly enough 
 that her day as a bright particular star, all sufficient in her own 
 radiance, was gone. She could not live without her mascu- 
 line circle, men who could bring her all the news, the gossip of 
 the clubs ; where everything seemed to become known as 
 quickly as if each club had its own Asmodeus, unroofing all the 
 house-tops of the West End for inspection every night. She 
 could not live without her courtiers ; and to keep them about 
 her she knew that she must make her house pleasant. It was 
 not enough to give good dinners — elegant little suppers, washed 
 down by choicest wines ; she must also provide fair faces to smile 
 upon the feast and bright eyes to sparkle in the subdued light of 
 low-shaded lamps and many candles winking under colored 
 shades. 
 
 "I am an old woman now," Lady Kirkbank said to herself, 
 
2o6 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 with a sigh, " and my own attractions won't keep my friends 
 about me. C'est trop connu ca." 
 
 And now the house in Arlington Street, in which feminine 
 guests had been as one in ten, opened its doors to the young 
 and the fair. Pretty widows, lively girls, young wives who were 
 not too absurdly devoted to their husbands, actresses of high 
 standing and good looks, these began to be welcomed effusively 
 in Arlington Street. Lady Kirkbank began to hunt for beauties 
 to adorn her rooms, as she had hitherto hunted lions to roar at 
 her parties. She prided herself on being the first to discover 
 this or that new beauty. That lovely girl from Scotland with 
 the large eyes — that sweet young creature from Ireland with the 
 long eyelashes. She was always inventing new divinities. But 
 even this change of plan, this more feminine line of politics, 
 failed to reconcile the strict and the stern, the Queen Charlotte- 
 ish elderly ladies and the impeccable matrons to Lady Kirkbank 
 and her set. The girls who were launched by Lady Kirkbank 
 never took high rank in society. When they made good mar- 
 riages it was generally to be observed that they dropped Lady 
 Kirkbank, soon afterward. It was not their fault, they pleaded 
 piteously, but Edward, or Henry, or Theodore, as the case 
 might be, had a most cruel prejudice against dear Lady Kirk- 
 bank, and they were obliged to obe}^ 
 
 Others there were, however, the loyal few, who, having won 
 the prize matrimonial in Lady Kirkbank's happy hunting-grounds 
 remained true to their friend ever afterward, and defended her 
 character against every onslaught. 
 
 When Lady Maulevrier told her grandson that she had in- 
 trusted Lady Kirkbank with the duty of introducing Lesbia to 
 society, Maulevrier shrugged his shoulders and held his peace. 
 He knew no actual harm in the matter. Lady Kirkbank's was 
 rather a fast set ; and had he been allowed to choose it was not 
 to Lady Kirkbank that he would have delegated his grand- 
 mother's duty. In Maulevrier's own phrase it was " not good 
 enough " for Lesbia. But it was not in his power to interfere. He 
 was not told of the plan until everything had been settled. 
 The thing was accomplished ; and against accomplished facts 
 Maulevrier was the last to protest. 
 
 His friend John Hammond had not been silent. He knew 
 nothing of Lady Kirkbank personally ; but he knew the posi- 
 tion which she held in London societ}^, and he urged his friend 
 strongly to enlighten Lady Maulevrier as to the kind of circle 
 into which she was about to intrust her young granddaughter, a 
 girl brought up in the Arcadia of England. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. C07 
 
 " Not for worlds would I undertake such a task," said Maule- 
 vrier. " Her Ladyship never had any such opinion of my 
 wisdom, and this Lady Kirkbank is a friend of her own youth. 
 She would cut up rough if I were to say a word against her. Be- 
 sides, what's the odds, if you come to think of it 1 ^ All society 
 is fast nowadays, or at any rate all society worth living in. And 
 then again Lesbia is just one of those cool-headed girls who 
 would keep herself head uppermost in a maelstrom. She knows 
 on which side her bread is buttered. Look how easily she 
 chucked you up because she did not think you good enough. 
 She'll make use of this Lady Kirkbank, who is a good soul, I am 
 told, and will make the best match of the season." 
 
 And now the season had begun, and Lady Lesbia Haselden 
 was circulating with other aristocratic atoms in the social vortex, 
 with her head apparently uppermost. 
 
 " Old Lady K. has nobbled a real beauty this time," said one 
 of the Arlington Street set to his friends as they lolled on the 
 railings in the Park, " a long way above any one of those plain- 
 headed ones she tried to palm off upon us last year--the South 
 American girl with the big eyes and a complexion like a toad, 
 the Forfarshire girl with freckles and unsophisticated carrots. 
 * Those lovely Spanish eyes,' said Lady K., ' that Titianesque 
 auburn hair,' but it didn't answer. Both the girls were plain, 
 and they have gone back to their native obscurity spinsters still. 
 But this is a real thoroughbred one, blood, form, pace, all there." 
 
 " Who is she ? " drawled his friend. 
 
 "Lord Maulevrier's sister. Lady Lesbia Haselden. Has 
 money too, I believe , rich grandmother ; old lady buried alive 
 in Westmoreland ; horrid old miser." 
 
 '•' I shouldn't mind marrying a miser's granddaughter," said 
 the other. " So nice to know that some wretched old idiot has 
 scraped and hoarded through a lifetime of deprivation and self- 
 denial, in order that one may spend his money when he is under 
 the sod." 
 
 Lady Lesbia was accepted everywhere, or almost everywhere, 
 as the beauty of the season. There were six or seven other 
 girls who aspired to the same proud position, who were asserted 
 by their own particular friends to have won it ; just as there are 
 generally four or five horses which claim to be first favorites • 
 but the betting was all in favor of Lady Lesbia. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank told her that she was turning every one's head, 
 and Lesbia was quite willing to believe her. But was Lesbia's 
 own head quite steady in this whirlpool ? That was a question 
 which she did not take the trouble to ask herself. 
 
3o8 FHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 Her heart was tranquil enough, cold as marble. No shield 
 and safeguard so secure against the fire of new love as an old 
 love hardly cold. Lesbia told herself that her heart was a sepul- 
 cher, an urn which held a handful of ashes, the ashes of her 
 passion for John Hammond, it was afire quite burned out, she 
 thought ; but that extinguished flame had left death-like cold- 
 ness. 
 
 This was Lesbia's own diagnosis of her case ; but the real 
 truth was that among the herd of men that she had met, almost 
 all of them ready to fall down and worship her, there was not 
 one who caugnt her fancy. Her nature was shallow enough to 
 be passing fickle ; the passion which she had taken for love was 
 little more than a girl's fancy ; but the man who had power to 
 awaken that fancy as John Hammond had done had not yet 
 appeared in Lady Kirkbank's circle. 
 
 " What a cold-hearted creature you must be," said Georgie. 
 * You don't seem to admire any of my favorite men." 
 
 "They are very nice,"' Lesbia answered languidly; "but they 
 are all alike. They say the same things — wear the same clothes 
 — sit in the same attitude. One would think they were all 
 drilled in a body every morning before they go out. Mr. Night- 
 shade, the actor, who came to supper the other night, is the only 
 man I have seen who has a spark of originality." 
 
 "You are right," answered Lady Kirkbank, "there is an ap- 
 palling sameness in men ; only it is odd you should find it out 
 so soon. I never discovered it till I was an old woman. How 
 I env\ Cleopatra her Caesar and her Antony. No mistaking 
 one of tho-e for the other. Mary Stuart, too, what marked 
 varieties of character in Rizzio and Chastelard, Darnley and 
 Bothwell, Ah, child, that is what it is to live." 
 
 " Mary is very interesting," sighed Lesbia ; " but I fear she 
 was not a correct person." 
 
 " My love, what correct person is ever interesting ? And his- 
 tory draws a misty halo round a sinner of that kind, till one al- 
 most believes her a saint. 1 think Mary Stuart, Froude's Mary, 
 simply perfect." 
 
 Lesbia had begun by blushing at Lady Kirkbank's opinions ; 
 but she was now used^to the audacity of the lady's sentiments, 
 and the almost infantile candor with which she gave utterance 
 to them. Lady Kirkbank liked to make her friends laugh. It 
 was all she could do now in order to be admired. And there is 
 nothing like audacity for making people laugh nowadays. Lady 
 Kirkbank was a close student of all those delightful books of 
 French memoirs which bring the tittle tattle of the Regency and 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 209 
 
 the scandals or Louis the Fifteenth's reign so vividly before us, 
 and she had unconsciously founded her manners and her ways of 
 thinking and talking upon that easy-going but elegant age. She 
 did not want to seem better than women who had been so alto- 
 gether charming. She fortified the frivolity of historical Parisian 
 manners by a dash of the British sporting character. She drove, 
 shot, jumped over five-barred gates, contrived on the verge of 
 seventy to be as active as a young woman, and she flattered her- 
 self that the mixture of wit, audacity, sport, and good nature 
 was full of fascination. 
 
 However this might be, it is certain that a good many people 
 liked her, chiefly, perhaps, because she was good-natured, and 
 a little on account of that admirable cook. 
 
 To Lesbia, who had been weary to loathing of her old life 
 amidst the hills and waterfalls of Westmoreland, this new life 
 was one perpetual round of pleasure. She flung herself with 
 all her heart and mind into the amusement of the moment ; 
 she knew neither weariness nor satiety. To ride in the Park in 
 the morning, to go to a luncheon party, a garden party, to rush 
 home and dress for the fourth or fifth time, and then off to dm- 
 ner, and from dinner to drum, and from drum to big ball, at 
 which rumor said the Prince and the Princess were to be present ; 
 and so, from eleven o'clock in the morning till four or five 
 o'clock next morning, the giddy whirl went on ; and every hour 
 was so occupied by pleasure engagements that it was difficult to 
 squeeze in an occasional morning for shopping — necessary to 
 go to the shops sometimes, or one would not know how many 
 things one really wants — or for an indispensable interview with 
 the dressmaker. 
 
 Those mornings at the shops were hardly the least agreeable 
 of Lesbia's hours. To a girl brought up in one perpetual tete- 
 a-tete with green hill-sides and silvery watercourses, the West 
 End shops were as gardens of Eden, as Aladdin caves, as any- 
 thing, everything that is rapturous and intoxicating. Lesbia, 
 the clear-headed, the cold-hearted, fairly lost her senses when 
 she went into one of those exquisite shops, where a confusion 
 of brocades and satins lay about in masses of richest color, with 
 here and there a bunch of lilies, a cluster of roses, a tortoise- 
 shell fan, an ostrich feather, or a flounce of peerless Point 
 d'Alen9on flung carelessly athwart the sheen of a wine-dark 
 velvet or golden-hued satin. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier had said Lesbia was to have carte blanche ; 
 so Lesbia bought everything she wanted, or fancied she wanted, 
 or that the shop people thought she must want, or that Lady 
 
210 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Kirkbank happened to admire. The shop people were so oblig- 
 ing, and so deeply obliged by Lesbia's patronage. She was 
 exactly the kind of customer they liked to serve. She flitted 
 about their show-rooms like a beautiful butterfly hovering over 
 a flower-bed — her eye caught by every novelty. She never 
 asked the price of anything, and Lady Kirkbank informed them, 
 in confidence, that she was a great heiress, with a millionaire 
 grandmother who indulged her every whim. Other high-born 
 young ladies, shopping upon fixed allowances, and sorely per- 
 plexed to make both ends meet, looked with eyes of envy upon 
 this girl. 
 
 And then came the visit to the dressmaker. It happened, 
 after all, that Kate Kearney was not intrusted with Lady Les- 
 bia's frocks. Miss Kearney was the fashion, and could pick 
 and choose her customers, and, as she was a young lady of good 
 business aptitudes she had a liking for ready money, or at least 
 half-yearly settlements ; and, finding that Lady Kirkbank was 
 much more willing to give new orders than to pay old accounts, 
 she had respectfully informed her Ladyship that a pressure or 
 business would prevent her executing any further commands 
 from Arlington Street, while the necessity of posting her ledger 
 obliged her to request the favor of an immediate check. 
 
 This little skirmish — per letter — occurred while Lady Kirk- 
 bank was at Cannes, and Miss Kearney's conduct was stigma- 
 tized as insolent and ungrateful, since had not she, Lady Kirk- 
 bank, by the mere fact of her patronage, given this young per- 
 son her chief claim to fashion. 
 
 " I shall drop her," said Georgie, " and go back to poor old 
 Seraphine, who is worth a cart-load of such Irish adventuresses." 
 
 So to Madame Seraphine, of Clanricarde Place, Lady Lesbia 
 was taken as a lamb to the slaughter-house. 
 
 Seraphine had made Lady Kirkbank's clothes, off and on, for 
 the last thirty years. Seraphine and Georgie had grown old to- 
 gether. Lady Kirkbank was always dropping Seraphine and 
 taking her up again, quarreling and making friends with her. 
 They wrote each other little notes, in which Lady Kirkbank 
 called the dressmaker her cher ange — her bonne chatte, her 
 chere vielle folle — and all manner of affectionate names — and 
 in which Seraphine occasionally threatened the Lady with the 
 dire engines of the law, if money were not forthcoming before 
 Saturday evening. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank within those thirty years had paid Seraphine 
 several thousands, but she had never once got herself out of the 
 dear creature's debt. All her payments were payments on ac 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 2i i 
 
 count. A hundred pounds, or fifty, — or an occasional check 
 for two hundred and fifty, when Sir George had been lucky at 
 Newmarket and Doncaster. But the rolling nucleus of debt 
 v/ent rolling on, growing bigger every year, until the payments 
 on account needed to be larger or more numerous than of old 
 to keep Seraphine in good humor. 
 
 Seraphine was a woman of genius and versatility, and had 
 more than one art at her fingers' ends — those skinny and claw- 
 shaped fingers, the nails whereof were not always clean. She 
 took charge of her customer's figures, and made their corsets, 
 and lectured them if they allowed nature to get the upper hand. 
 
 " If madam's waist gets one quarter of an inch thicker I must 
 refuse to make her gowns," she would tell a ponderous matron, 
 with cool insolence, and the matron would stand abashed before 
 the little, sallow, hook-nosed, keen-eyed Jewess, like a child be- 
 fore a severe mother. 
 
 *' Oh, Seraphine, do you really think that I am stouter ? " the 
 customer would ask feebly, panting in her tightened corset, 
 
 " Is it that 1 think so t Why, that jumps to the eyes. 
 Madam had always that little air of Rubens, even in the fine 
 flower of her youth — but now — it is a Rubens of the Faubourg 
 du Temple." 
 
 And horrified at the idea of her vulgarized charms the meek 
 matron would consent to encase herself in one of Seraphine's 
 severest corsets, called in bitterest mockery a la sante — at five 
 guineas — in order that the dressmaker might measure her for a 
 forty-guinea gown. 
 
 " A plain satin gown, my dear, with an eighteenpenny frilling 
 round the neck and sleeves, and not so much trimming as would 
 go round my little finger. It is a positive robbery," the matron 
 told her friends afterward, not the less proud of her skin-tight 
 high-shouldered sleeves, and the peerless flow of her train. 
 
 Seraphine was an artist in complexions, and it was she who 
 provided her middle-aged and elderly customers with the lilies 
 and roses of youth. Lady Kirkbank's town complexion was 
 superintended by Seraphine, sometimes even manipulated by 
 those harpy-like claws. The eyebrows of which Lesbia com- 
 plained were only eyebrows de Province — eyebrows de voyage. 
 In London Georgie was much more particular ; and Seraphine 
 was often in Arlington Street with her little morocco bag of 
 washes and creams, and brushes and sponges, to prepare Lady 
 Kirkbank for some party, and to instruct Lady Kirkbank's maid. 
 At such times Georgie was all affection for the little dressmaker. 
 
 " Ma chatte, you have made me positively adorable," she 
 
2 1 2 PIIA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 would say, peering at her reflection in the ivory hand mirror, a 
 dazzling image of rouge and bismuth, carmined lips, diamonds, 
 and frizzy yellow hair; " I verily believe I look under thirty — 
 but do not you think this gown is cut a thought too low — un peu 
 trop de peau hein ? " 
 
 " Not for you, Lady Kirkbank, with your fine shoulders. 
 Shoulders are of no age — les epaules sont la vraie fontaine de 
 jouvence pour les femmes." 
 
 " You are such a witty creature, Seraphine Fifine. You ought 
 to be a descendant of that wicked old Voltaire. Rilboche, give 
 madam some more chartreuse." 
 
 And Lady Kirkbank and the dressmaker would chink their 
 liqueur glasses in friendship before the lady gathered up her 
 satin train and allowed her peerless shoulders to be muffled in 
 a plush mantle to go down to her carriage, fortified by that last 
 glass of green chartreuse. 
 
 There was always the finest chartreuse and curacoa in an eb- 
 ony and ormolu liqueur cabinet on Lady Kirkbank's dressing- 
 table. The cabinet formed a companion to the dressing-case 
 which contained all those creamy and rose-hued mixtures, pow- 
 ders, brushes and medicaments, which were necessary for the 
 manufacture of Georgie's complexion. The third bottle in the 
 liqueur case held cognac, and this, as Rilboche the maid knew, 
 was oftenest replenished. Yet nobody could accuse Lady Kirk- 
 bank of intemperate habits. The liqueur box only supplied the 
 peg that was occasionally wanted to screw the superior mind to 
 concert pitch. 
 
 ** One must always be at concert pitch in society, don't you 
 know, my dear," said Georgie to her young protegee. 
 
 Thus it happened that, Miss Kearney having behaved badly, 
 Lesbia was carried off to dear Oid Seraphine, and delivered 
 over to that modern witch, as a sacrifice to the horns of the 
 altar. 
 
 Clanricarde Place is a little nook of Queen Anne houses — 
 genuine Queen Anne, be it understood — between Piccadilly and 
 St. James's Palace, and hardly five minutes' walk from Arlington 
 Street. It is a quiet little cul de sac in the very heart of the 
 fashionable world ; and here of an afternoon might be seen the 
 carriages of Madam Seraphine's customers blocking the whole 
 of the carriage way, and choking up the narrow entrance to the 
 street, which widened considerably at the mner end. 
 
 Madam Seraphine's house was at the end, a narrow house, 
 with tall, old-fashioned windows, curtained with amber satin. It 
 was a small, dark house, but the staircase was a gem in old oak, 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 213 
 
 and the furniture in the triple telescopic drawing-room, dwind- 
 ling to a closet at the end, was genuine Louis Seize. 
 
 Seraphine herself was the only shabby thing in the house — a 
 wizened little woman, with a wicked old Jewish face, and one 
 shoulder higher than the other, dressed in a shiny black moire 
 gown, years after moires had been exploded, and with a rag of 
 old lace upon her sleek black hair, raven black hair, and the 
 only good thing about her appearance. 
 
 One ornament, and one only, had Seraphine ever been guilty 
 of wearing, and that was an old-fashioned half-hoop ring of 
 Brazilian diamonds, brilliants of the first water. This ring she 
 called her yard-measure ; and she was in the habit of using it 
 as her standard of purity, and comparing it with any diamonds 
 which her customers submitted to her inspection. For the 
 clever little dressmaker had a feeling heart for a lady in difficul- 
 ties, and was in the habit of lending money on security, and on 
 terms that were almost reasonable, as compared with the usuri- 
 ous rates one reads of in the newspapers 
 
 Lesbia's first sensation upon having this accomplished person 
 presented to her was one of shrinking and disgust. There was 
 something sinister in the sallow face, the small shrewd eyes, 
 and long hooked nose, the crooked figure, and claw-shaped 
 hands. But when Madam Seraphine began to talk about gowns, 
 and bade her acolytes — smartly dressed young women with 
 pleasing countenances — unroll marvels of brocade and satin, 
 embroideries, stamped velvets, bullion fringes, and ostrich 
 'feather flouncings, Lesbia became interested, and forgot the 
 unholy aspect of the high priestess. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank and the dressmaker discussed Lesbia's charms 
 ?is calmly as if she had been out of the room. 
 
 " What do you think of her figure ? " asked Lady Kirkbank. 
 
 "One cannot criticise what does not exist," replied the dress- 
 maker, in French. " The young lady has no figure. She has 
 evidently been brought up in the country." 
 
 And then with rapid bird-like movements and with her head 
 on one side, Seraphine measured Lesbia's waist and bust, mut- 
 tering little argetic expressions sotto voce as she did so. 
 
 " Waist three inches too large, shoulders six inches too nar- 
 row," she said decisively, and she dictated some figures to some 
 one of the damsels, who wrote them down in an order-book. 
 
 "What does that mean?" asked Lesbia, not at all approving 
 of such cavalier treatment. 
 
 "Only that Seraphine will make your corsets the light size," 
 answered Lady Kirkbank. 
 
214 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " What ! Three inches too small for my waist, and six too 
 wide for my shoulders ? " 
 
 " My love, you must have a figure," replied Lady Kirkbank 
 conclusively. " It is not what you are, but what you ought to 
 be that has to be considered." 
 
 So Lesbia, the cool-headed, who was also weak-minded, con- 
 sented to have her figure adjusted to the regulation mark of ab- 
 solute beauty as understood by Madam Seraphine. It was only 
 when her complexion came under discussion, and Seraphine 
 ventured to suggest that she would be all the better for a little 
 accentuation of her eyebrows and darkening of her lashes, that 
 Lesbia made a stand. 
 
 "What would my grandmother think of me if she heard I 
 painted ? " she asked indignantly. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank laughed at her naivete. 
 
 " My dear child, your grandmother is just half a century be- 
 hind the age," she said. " I hope you are not going to allow 
 your life in London to be regulated by an oracle at Grasmere? " 
 
 '' I am not going to paint my face," replied Lesbia, firmly. 
 
 "Well; perhaps you are right. The eyebrows are a little 
 weak and undecided, Seraphme, as you say, and the lashes would 
 be ail the better for your famous cosmetic ; but, after all, there 
 is a charm in what the painters call ' sincerity,' and any little 
 errors of detail will prove the genuineness of Lady Lesbia's 
 beauty. One may be too artistic." 
 
 And Lady Kirkbank gave a complacent glance at her own 
 image in one of the Marie Antoinette mirrors, pleased with the 
 general effect of arched brows, darkened eyelids and a daisy 
 bonnet. The fair Georgie affected field-flowers and simplicities 
 which would have been charming in a beauty of eighteen. 
 
 "One is obliged to smother one's self in satin and velvet for 
 balls and dinners,'' said Lady Kirkbank when she discussed the 
 great question of gowns, " but I know I always look my best in 
 my cotton frock and straw hat." 
 
 The first visit to Seraphine's den — den as terrible, did one 
 but know it, as that antediluvian hyena cave at Torquay, where 
 the threshold is worn by bodies of beasts dragged across it, and 
 the ground paved with their bones — that first visit was a serious 
 business. Later interviews might be mere frivolities, half an 
 hour wasted in looking at new fashions, an order given care- 
 lessly on the spur of the moment ; but on this occasion Lady 
 Kirkbank had to arm her young protegee for the coming cam- 
 paign, and the question was to the last degree serious. 
 
 The chaperon and the dressmaker put their heads together. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 215 
 
 looked at fashion plates, talked solemnly of Worth and his com- 
 peers, of the gowns that were being worn by Bernhardt and 
 Pierson and Croisette and other stars of the Parisian stage ; and 
 then Lady Kirkbank gave her orders, Lesbia listening and as- 
 sentmg. 
 
 Nothing was said about prices, but Lesbia had a vague idea 
 that some of the things would be rather expensive, and she ven- 
 tured to ask Lady Kirkbank if she were not ordering too many 
 go\vns. 
 
 *' My dear, Lady Maulevrier said you were to have carte 
 blanche," replied Georgie, solemnly. " Your dear grandmother 
 is as rich as Croesus, and she Is generosity itself ; and how should 
 I ever forgive myself if I allowed you to appear in society in in- 
 adequate style ? You have to take the very highest place, Les- 
 bia, and you must be dressed in accordance with that position." 
 
 Lesbia said no more. After all, it was Lady Kirkbank's busi- 
 ness, and not hers. She had been intrusted to Lady Kirkbank 
 as to a person who thoroughly knew the great world, and she 
 must submit to be governed by the wisdom and experience of 
 her chaperon. If the bills were heavy, that would be Lady 
 Kirkbank's affair ; and no doubt dear grandmamma was rich 
 enough to afford anything Lesbia wanted. She had been told 
 that she was to take rank among heiresses. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier had given her granddaughter some old-fash- 
 ioned ornaments, topaz, amethysts, turquoise — jewels that had 
 belonged to dead and gone Talmashes and Angersthorpes — to 
 be reset. This entailed a visit to a Bond Street jeweler, and on 
 the dazzling glass cases on the counter of the Bond Sfreet estab- 
 lishment Lesbia saw a good many things which she felt were 
 real necessities to her new phrase of existence, and these, with 
 Lady Kirkbank's approval, she ordered. They were not impor- 
 tant matters. Half a dozen Indian gold bangles of real Oriental 
 workmanship, three or four jeweled arrows to pin on her laces 
 and flowers, a diamond clasp for her pearl necklace, a dear 
 little gold hunter to wear when she rode in the Park, a diamond 
 butterfly to light up that old-fashioned amethyst parure which 
 the jeweler was to reset with an artistic admixture of brilliants. 
 
 " I am sure you would not like the effect without diamonds," 
 said the jeweler. " Your amethysts are very fine, but they are 
 dark and heavy in tone, and want a good deal of lighting up, 
 especially for the present fashion of half-lighted rooms. If you 
 will allow me to use my own discretion and mix in a few brill- 
 iants, I shall be able to produce a really artistic parure; other- 
 wise 1 would not recommend you to touch them ; the present 
 
2i6 PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 setting is clumsy and inelegant, but I really Ao not know that 
 I could improve upon it without an admixture of brilliants." 
 
 "Will the diamonds add very much to the expense? " Lesbia 
 inquired, tunidiy. 
 
 " My dear child, you are perfectly safe in leaving the matter 
 in Mr. Cabochon's hands," interposed Lady Kirkbank. who had 
 particular reasons for wishing to be on good terms with the 
 head of the establishment. " Your dear grandmother gave you 
 the amethysts to be reset, and of course she would wish it to be 
 done in an artistic manner. Otherwise, as Mr. Cabochon judi- 
 ciously says, why have the stones reset at all .'' Better wear them 
 in all their present hideousness." 
 
 Of course, after this, Lesbia consented Xo the amethysts being 
 dealt with according to Mr. Cabochon's taste. 
 
 " Which is simply perfect," interjected Lady Kirkbank. 
 
 And now Lesbia's campaign began in real earnest — a life of 
 pleasure; a life of utter selfishness and self-indulgence which 
 would go far to pervert the strongest mind, to tarnish the pur- 
 est nature. To dress and be admired, that was what Lesbia's 
 life meant from morning till night. She had no higher or no- 
 bler aim. Even on Sunday mornings at the fashionable church, 
 where the women sat at one side of the nave and the men on 
 the other, where dlvinest music was as a pair of wings on which 
 the enraptured soul flew heavenward — even here Lesbia thought 
 more of her bonnet and her gloves — the chic or non-chic of her 
 whole costume, than of the service. She might kneel gracefully, 
 with her bent head, just revealing the ivory whiteness of a lovely 
 throat, between the edge of her lace frilling and the flowers in 
 her bonnet. She might look the fairest image of devotion ; but 
 how could a woman pray whose heart was a milliner's shop, 
 whose highest ambition was to be prettier and better dressed 
 than other women ? 
 
 The season was six weeks old. It was Ascot week, the croAvn- 
 ing glory of the year, and Lesbia and her chaperon had secured 
 tickets for the Royal inclosure — or it may be said rather that 
 Lesbia had secured them — for the Master of the Royal Buck- 
 hoimds might have omitted poor old Lady Kirkbank's familiar 
 name from his list if it had not been for that lovely girl who 
 went everywhere under the veteran's wing. 
 
 Six weeks, and Lesbia's appearance in society had been one 
 perpetual triumph; but as yet nothing serious had happened. 
 She had had no offers. Half a dozen men had tried their hard- 
 est to propose to her — had sat out dances, had waylaid her in 
 conservatories and in back drawing-rooms, in lobbies while she 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 217 
 
 waited for her carriage — had looked at her piteously with ten- 
 derest declarations trembling on their lips ; but she contrived to 
 keep them at bay, to strike them dumb by her coldness, or con- 
 found them by her coquetry; for all these were ineligibles whom 
 Lady Lesbia Haselden did not want to have the trouble of re- 
 fusing. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank was in no haste to marry her protegee, nay, 
 it was much more to her interest that Lesbia should remain 
 single for three or four seasons, and that she. Lady Kirkbank, 
 might have the advantage of close association with the young 
 beauty, and the privilege of spending Lady Maulevrier's money. 
 But she would have liked to be able to inform Lesbia's grand- 
 mother of some tremendous conquest — the subjugation of some 
 worthy victim. This herd of nobodies — younger sons with 
 courtesy titles and empty pockets — ruined Guardsmen — brief- 
 less barristers. What was the use of telling Lady Maulevrier 
 about such barren victories.'* Lady Kirkbank therefore con- 
 tented herself with expatiating upon Lesbia's triumphs in a gen- 
 eral way ; how graciously the Princess spoke to her ; how she 
 had been asked to sit on the dais at the ball at Marlborough 
 House, and had danced in the royal quadrille. 
 
 " Has Lesbia happened to meet Lord Hartfield ? " Lady 
 Maulevrier asked incidentally in one of her letters. 
 
 No. Lord Hartfield was in London, for he had made a great 
 speech in the Lords on a question of thrilling interest ; but he 
 was not going into society, or at any rate into society of a frivo- 
 lous kind. He had given himself up to politics, as so many 
 young men did nowadays, which was altogether horrid of them. 
 His name had appeared in the list of guests at one or two cabi- 
 net dinners ; but the world of polo matches and afternoon teas, 
 dances and dinners, private theatricals and Orleans House sup- 
 pers, knew him not. As a competitor on the fashionable race- 
 course, Lord Hartfield was, in common parlance, out of the 
 running. 
 
 And now on this glorious June day, this Thursday of Thurs- 
 days, the x\scot Cup day, for the first time since Lesbia's debut. 
 Lady Kirkbank had occasion to smile upon an admirer whose 
 pretensions were worthy of the highest consideration. 
 
 Mr. Smithson, of Park Lane and Old Place, near Henley, 
 and Formosa, Cowes, and Le Bouge, Deauville, and a good 
 many others places too numerous to mention, was one of the 
 richest commoners in England. He was a man of that uncer- 
 tain period of life which enemies call middle-aged and friends 
 call young. That he would never see a five-and-thirtieth birth- 
 
2i8 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 day again was certain, but whether he had passed the rubicon of 
 forty was open to doubt. It is possible that he was enjoying 
 those few golden years between thirty-five and forty which for 
 the wealthy bachelor constitute verily the prime and summer 
 tide of life. Wisdom has come, experience has been bought, 
 taste has been cultivated, the man has educated himself to the 
 uttermost in the great school of daily life. He knows his world 
 thoroughly, whatever that world is, and he knows how to enjoy 
 every gift and every advantage which Providence has bestowed 
 upon him. Mr. Smithson was a great authority on the Stock 
 Exchange, and was supposed to have made his money in foreign 
 stocks, and to be, m his easy-going way, as great a genius as 
 that elder Rothschild, who, with his back leaning against the 
 wall of the " House," seemed with those prophetic eyes of his 
 to peer into the future of nations and to read the Book of Fate. 
 
 Mr. Smithson was said to have commenced life in a very hum- 
 ble capacity, There were some who said he was the very youth 
 who stooped to pick up a pin in a great banker's court-yard, 
 after his services as clerk had just been rejected by the firm, 
 and who was thereupon recognized as a youth worthy of favor 
 and taken into the banker's office. But this touching incident 
 of the pin was too ancient a tradition to fit Mr. Smithson, still 
 under forty. 
 
 Some there were who remembered him twenty years ago as 
 an adventurer in the great wilderness of London, penniless, 
 friendless, a Jack of all trades, living as the birds of the air live, 
 and with as little certainty of future maintenance. And then 
 Mr. Smithson disappeared for a space — a span of years — he 
 went under, as his friends called it, to reappear fifteen years 
 later as Smithson, the millionaire. He had been in Mexico, he 
 had been in California, he had traded in hides, in diamonds, in 
 silver, in stocks and shares. And now he was ^he great Smith- 
 son, whose voice was the voice of an oracle, who was supposed 
 to be able to make the fortunes of other men by a word or a 
 wink, a nod, or a little look across the crowd, and whom all the 
 men and women in London society — short of that exclusive cir- 
 cle which does not open its ranks to Smithsons — were ready to 
 cherish and admire. 
 
 Mr. Smithson had been in St. Petersburg, Paris, Vienna, all 
 over civilized Europe during the last five weeks. He came back 
 to London in time for the Cup Da}^, and in time to fall desper- 
 ately in love with Lesbia, whom he met for the first time in the 
 royal inclosure. 
 
 She was dressed in white, purest ivory white, from top to toe 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 219 
 
 — radiant, dazzling, under an immense sunshade fringed with 
 creamy marabouts. Her complexion — untouched by Seraphine 
 ' — ner dark and glossy hair, her large violet eyes, luminous, dark 
 almost to blackness, were all set off and accentuated by the ab- 
 sence of all color in her costume. Even the cluster of exotics 
 on her shoulder were of the same pure tint, gardenias and lilies 
 of the valley. 
 
 Mr. Smithson was formally presented to the new beauty, and 
 received with a cool contempt which riveted his chains. He 
 was so accustomed to be run after by women that it was a new 
 sensation to meet one who was not in the least impressed by his 
 superior merits. 
 
 " I don't suppose the girl knows who I am," he said to him- 
 self, for although he had a very good idea of his intrinsic worth, 
 he knew that his wealth ranked first among his merits. 
 
 But on after occasions, when Lesbia had been told all that 
 could be told to the advantage of Mr. Smithson, she accepted 
 his homage with the same indifference, and treated him no bet- 
 ter than the ruined Guardsmen and younger sons who were dy- 
 ing for her. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " PROUD CAN I NEVER BE OF WHAT I HATE,'* 
 
 It was a Saturday afternoon, and even in that great world 
 which has no occupation in life except to amuse itself, whose 
 days are all holidays, there is a sort of exceptional flavor, a kind 
 of extra excitement on Saturday afternoons, distinguished by 
 polo matches at Hurlingham, just as Saturday evenings are by 
 the productions of new plays. There was a great military polo 
 match for this particular Saturday — Lancers against Dragoons. 
 It was a lovely June afternoon, and Hurlingham would be at its 
 best. The cool, green sward, the branching trees, the flowing 
 river would afford an unspeakable relief after the block of car- 
 riages in Bond Street and the heated air of London ; and to 
 Hurlingham Lady Kirkbank drove directly after luncheon. 
 
 Lesbia leaned back in the barouche listening calmly, while 
 her chaperon expatiated upon the wealth and possessions of 
 Mr. Smithson. It was now ten days since the meeting at Ascot, 
 and Mr. Smithson had contrived to see a great deal of Lesbia 
 in that short time. He was invited almost everywhere, and he 
 
220 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 had haunted her at afternoon and evening parties ; he had sup- 
 ped in Arlington Street after the opera ; he had played cards 
 with Lesbia, and had enjoyed the felicity of winning her money. 
 His admiration was obvious, and there was a seriousness in his 
 manner of pursuing her which showed that in Lady Kirkbank's 
 unromantic phraseology " the man meant business." 
 
 " Smithson is caught at last, and I am glad of it," said Georgie. 
 " The creature is an abominable flirt, and has broken more hearts 
 than any man in London. He was all but the death of one of 
 the dearest girls I know." 
 
 " Mr. Smithson break hearts ! " exclaimed Lesbia, languidly. 
 " I should not have thought that was in his line. Mr. Smithson 
 is not an Adonis, nor is he particularly fascinating." 
 
 " My child, how fresh you are ! Do you suppose it is the 
 handsomest men or the fascinating men for whom women break 
 their hearts in society 1 It is the rich men they all want to 
 marry— men like Smithson, who can give them diamonds, and 
 yachts, and a hunting stud, and half a dozen fine houses. Those 
 are the prizes — the blue ribbons of the matrimonial race-course 
 — men like Smithson, who pretend to admire all the pretty 
 women, who dangle^ and dangle, and dangle, and keep off other 
 offers, and give ten-guinea bouquets, and then at the end of the 
 season are off to Plombourg or the Scotch moors, without a word. 
 Do you think that kind of treatment is not hard enough to break 
 a penniless girl's heart ? She sees the golden prize within her 
 grasp, as she believes; she tiiinks that she and poverty have 
 parted company ; she imagines herself mistress of town houses 
 and country houses, yachts and stables; and then one fine 
 morning the gentleman is off and away ! Do not you think that 
 is enough to break a girl's heart ? " 
 
 " I can imagine that a girl steeped to the lips in poverty might be 
 willing to marry Mr. Smithson 's houses and yachts," answered 
 Lesbia in her low, sweet voice, with a faint sneer even amidst 
 the sweetness, "but I think it must be a happy release for any 
 one to be let off the sacrifice at the last moment." 
 
 " Poor Belle Trinder did not think so." 
 
 " Who was Belle Trinder ? " 
 
 " A poor parson's daughter whom I took under my wing five 
 years ago — a splendid girl, large and fair, and just a trifle coarse 
 — not to be spoken of in the same day with you, dearest, but still 
 a decidedly handsome creature. And she took remarkably well. 
 She was a very lively girl, ' never ran mute,' Sir George used to 
 say. Sir George was very fond of her. She amused him, poor 
 girl, with her rather brainless rattle." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 221 
 
 " Did Mr. Smithson admire her ? " 
 
 " Followed her about everywhere, sent her whole flower gar- 
 dens in the way of bouquets and Japanese baskets, and floral 
 parures for her gowns, and opera boxes and concert tickets. 
 Their names were always coupled. People used to call them 
 Bel and Dragon. The poor child made up her mind she was to 
 be Mrs. Smithson. She used to talk of what she would do for 
 her own people — the poor old father, buried alive in an Essex par- 
 sonage, and struggling every Winter with chronic bronchitis ; 
 the four younger sisters pining in dullness and penury ; the 
 mother who hardly knew what it was to rest from the continual 
 worries of daily life." 
 
 " Poor things," sighed Lesbia, gazing admiringly at the handle 
 of her last new sunshade. 
 
 " Belle used to talk of what she would do for them all," pur- 
 sued Lady Kirkbank. Father should go every year to the villa 
 at Monte Carlo, mother and the girls should have a month in 
 Park Lane every season, and their Autumn holiday at one of 
 Mr. Smithson's country houses. I knew the world well enough to 
 be sure that this kind of thing would never answer with a'man 
 like Smithson. It is only one man in a thousand — the modern 
 Arthur, the modern Don Quixote — who will marry a whole family. 
 I told Belle as much, but she laughed. She felt so secure of her 
 power over the man, ' he will do anything I ask him,' she said." 
 
 " Miss Trinder must be an extraordinary young person," ob- 
 served Lesbia, scornfully. " The man had not proposed, had 
 he ? " 
 
 " No, the actual proposal hung fire, but Belle thought it was a 
 settled thing, all the same. Everybody talked to her as if she 
 were engaged to Smithson, and these poor, ignorant Vicarage 
 girls used to write her long letters of congratulation, envying her 
 her good fortune, speculating about what she would do when 
 she was married. The girl was too open and candid for London 
 society — talked too much, ' gave the view holloa before she was 
 sure of her fox,' Sir George said. All this silly talk came to 
 Smithson's ears, and one morning we read in the Post that Mr. 
 Smithson had started the day before for Algiers, where he was 
 to stay at the house of the English consul and hunt lions. We 
 waited all day, hoping for some letter of explanation, some 
 friendly farewell which would mean a revoir. But there was 
 nothing, and then poor Belle gave way altogether. She shut 
 herself up in her room, went out of one hysterical fit into another. 
 I never heard a girl sob so terribly. She was not fit to be seen 
 for a week, and then she went home to her father's parsonage in 
 
222 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 the flat, swampy country, on the borders of Suffolk, and eat her 
 heart, as Byron calls it. And the worst of it was that she had 
 no actual justification for considering herself jilted. She had 
 talked, and other people had talked, and among them they had 
 settled the business. But Smithson had said hardly anything. 
 He had only flirted to his heart's content, and had spent a few 
 hundreds upon flowers, gloves and opera tickets, which perhaps 
 would not have been accepted by a girl with a strong sense of 
 her own dignity." 
 
 " I should think not, indeed," interjected Lesbia. 
 
 " But which poor Belle was only too delighted to get." 
 
 " Miss Trinder must be very bad style," said Lesbia, with lan- 
 guid scorn, " and Mr. Smithson is an execrable person. Did 
 she die ? " 
 
 " No, my dear, she is alive, poor soul ! " 
 
 " You said he broke her heart." 
 
 " ' The heart may break, yet openly live on,' " quoted Lady 
 Kirkbank. " The disappointed young women don't all die. 
 They take to district visiting, or rational dressing, or china 
 painting, or an ambulance brigade. The lucky ones marry well- 
 to-do widowers with large families, and so slip into a comforta- 
 ble groove by the time they are five-and-thirty. Poor Belle is 
 still single, still buried in the damp parsonage, where she paints 
 plates and teacups, and wears out my old gowns, just as she is 
 wearing out her life, poor creature ! " 
 
 "The idea of any one wanting to marry Mr. Smithson," said 
 Lesbia. " It seems too dreadful." 
 
 " A case of real destitution, you think. Wait till you have 
 seen Smithson's house in Park Lane — his team, his yacht, his 
 orchid houses in Berkshire." 
 
 Lesbia sighed. Her knowledge of London society was only 
 seven weeks old ; and yet already the day of disenchantment had 
 begun. She was having her eyes opened to the stern realities 
 of life. A year ago, when her appearance in the great world 
 was still only a dream of the future, she had pictured to herself the 
 crowd of suitors who would come to woo, and she had resolved 
 to choose the worthiest 
 
 What would he be like, that worthiest among the wooers, 
 her King Arthur among her knights ? 
 
 First and foremost, he would be of rank higher than her own 
 — a duke, a marquis, or one of the first and oldest among earls. 
 Title and lofty lineage were indispensable. It would be a fall, 
 a failure, a disappointment, were she to marry a commoner, 
 however distinguished. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUiYE. 
 
 223 
 
 The worthy one must be noble, therefore, and of the old no- 
 bility. He must be young, handsome, intellectual. He must 
 stand out from among his peers by his gifts of mind and person. 
 He must have won distinction in the arena of politics, or diplo- 
 macy, arms or letters. He must be " somebody." 
 
 She had been seven weeks in society, and this modern Arthur 
 had not appeared. So far as she had beer^able to discover, 
 there was no such person. The dukes an^ marquises were 
 mostly men of advanced years. The young unmarried nobility 
 were given over to sport, play and foolishness. She had heard 
 of only one man who at all corresponded with her ideal, and he 
 was Lord Hartlield. But Lord Hartfield had given himself up 
 to politics, and was no doubt a prig. Lady Kirkbank spoke of 
 him with contempt, as an intolerable person. But then Lord 
 Hartfield was not in Lady Kirkbank's set. He belonged to that 
 serious circle to which Lady Kirkbank's house appeared about 
 as reputable a place or gathering as a booth on a race-course. 
 
 And now Lady Kirkbank told Lesbia that this Mr. Smithson, 
 a nobody with a great fortune, was a man whose addresses she, 
 the sister of Lord Maulevrier, ought to welcome. Mr. Smithson, 
 whose arrogant claim of belonging to those great Smithsons whose 
 crest he bore on his carriage panels was almost too shallow for 
 the belief of toadies and sycophants. She was told that her 
 conquest of Mr. Smithson was her first real triumph, and that 
 she had reason to be glad and proud. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank and all Lady Kirkbank's friends seemed to 
 have conspired to teach her one lesson, and that lesson meant 
 that money was the first prize in the great game of life. Money 
 ranked before everything — before titles, before noble lineage, 
 genius, fame, beauty, courage, honor. Money was Alpha and 
 Omega, the beginning and the end. Mr. Smithson, whose ante- 
 cedents were as cloudy as those of Aphrodite, was a greater 
 man than a peer whose broad acres only brought him two per 
 cent., or half of whose farms were tenantless, and his fields 
 growing cockle instead of barley. 
 
 Yes, Lady Lesbia's illusions were reft from her one by one. 
 A year ago she had fancied beauty all powerful, a gift which 
 must insure to its possessor dominion over all the kingdoms of 
 the earth. Rank, intellect, fame would bow down before that 
 magical diadem. And, behold she had been shining upon Lon- 
 don society for seven weeks, and only empty heads and empty 
 pockets had bowed down — the frivolous, the ineligible — and Mr. 
 Smithson. 
 
 Another illusion which had been dispelled was Lesbia's com- 
 
224 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 fortable idea of her own expectations. Her grandmother had 
 told her that she might take rank among heiresses; and she 
 had held herself accordingly, deeming that her place was among 
 the wealthiest. And now^ since Mr. Smithson's appearance 
 upon the scene, Lady Kirkbank mformed her with friendly can- 
 dor that Lady Maulevrier's fortune, however large it might 
 seem at Grasmere, would be a poor thing in London, and that 
 Lady Maulevrier's ideas about money were as old-fashioned as 
 her notions about morals. 
 
 " Life is about six times as expensive as it was in your grand- 
 mother's time," said Lady Kirkbank, as the carriage rolled 
 softly along the shabby road between Knightsbridge and Ful- 
 ham. " It is the pace that kills. Society, which used to jog 
 along comfortably, like the old Brighton stage, at ten miles an 
 hour, now goes as fast as the Brighton express. In my mother's 
 time poor Lord Byron was held up to the execration of respect- 
 able people as the type of cynical profligacy ; in my own time 
 people talked about Lord Waterford ; but my dear, the young 
 men now are all Byrons and Waterfords, without the genius of 
 the one or the generosity of the other. We are all going at 
 steeple-chase rate. Social success without money is impossible. 
 The rich Americans, the successful Jews, will crowd us out un- 
 less we keep pace with them. Ah, Lesbia, my dear girl, there 
 would be a great future before you if you could only make up 
 your mind to accept Mr. Smithson." 
 
 " How do you know that he means to propose to me ? " asked 
 Lesbia, mockingly. " Perhaps he is only going to behave as he 
 did to Miss Trinder." 
 
 ''' Lady Lesbia Haselden is a very different person from a 
 country parson's daughter," answered her chaperon ; " Smithson 
 told me all about it afterward. He was really smitten by 
 Belle's showy good looks, but one of her particular friends told 
 him of her foolish talk about her sisters and how well she meant 
 to get them married when she was Mrs. Smithson. This dis' 
 gusted him. He went down to Essex, reconnoitered the parson- 
 age, saw one of the sisters hanging out cuffs and collars in the 
 orchard — another feeding the fowls — both in shabby gowns and 
 country-made boots; one of them with red hair and freckles. 
 The mother was bargaining for fish with a hawker at the kitchen 
 door. And these were the people he was expected to import 
 into Park Lane, under ceilings painted by Leighton. These 
 were the people he was to exhibit on board his yacht, to cart 
 about on his drag. ' I had half made up my mind to marry the 
 girl, but I would sooner have hung myself than marry her 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 225 
 
 mother and sisters, so I took the first train for Paris en route to 
 Algiers,' said Smithson, and upon my word I could hardly blame 
 the man," continued Lady Kirkbank. 
 
 They were driving up the narrow avenue to the gates of Hur- 
 lingham by chis time. Lesbia shook out her frock and looked 
 at her gloves, tan-colored mousquetaires, reaching up to the el- 
 bow, and embroidered to match her frock. 
 
 To-day she was a study in brown and gold. Brown satin pet- 
 ticoat embroidered with marsh marigolds ; little bronze shoes, 
 with marsh marigolds tied on the latchets ; brown stockings 
 with marsh marigold clocks ; tunic brown foulard smothered 
 with quillings of soft brown lace ; Princess bonnet of brown 
 straw, with a wreath of marsh marigolds and a neat little buckle 
 of brown diamonds ; parasol of brown satin, with an immense 
 bunch of marsh marigolds on the top, fan to match parasoL 
 
 The seats in front of the field were nearly full when Lady 
 Kirkbank and Lesbia left their carriage ; but their interests had 
 been protected by a gentleman who had turned down two chairs 
 and sat between them on guard. This was Mr. Smithson. 
 
 " I have been sitting here for an hour keeping your chairs," 
 he said, as he rose to greet them. " You have no idea what a 
 fight I have had, and how suspiciously all the women have looked 
 at me." 
 
 The match was going on. The Lancers scuffiing for the ball 
 —a fine display of hog-maned ponies and close-cropped men in 
 ideal boots. But Lesbia cared very little about the match. She 
 was looking along the serried ranks of youth and beauty to see 
 if anybody's costume looked smarter than her own. 
 
 No. She could see nothing she liked so well as her brown 
 satin and buttercups. She sat down in a perfectly contented 
 frame of mind, pleased with herself and with Seraphine — pleased 
 even with Mr. Smithson, who had shown himself devoted by his 
 patient attendance upon the empty chairs. 
 
 After the match was over the two ladies and their attendant 
 strolled about the gardens. Other men came and fluttered 
 round Lesbia, and women and girls excnanged endearing smiles 
 and pretty little words of greeting with her, and envied her the 
 brown frock and buttercups and Mr. Smithson at her chariot 
 wheel. And then they went to the lawn in front of the club- 
 house, which was so crowded that even Mr. Smithson found it 
 difficult to get a tea-table, and would hardly have succeeded so 
 soon as he did if it had not been for the assistance of a couple 
 of Lesbia's devoted Guardsmen, who ran to and fro and bad- 
 gered the waiters. 
 
226 PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 After much skirmishing they were seated at a rustic round 
 table, the blue river gleaming and glancing in the distance, the 
 good old trees spreading their broad shadows over the grass, 
 the company crowding and chattering and laughing — an anima- 
 ted picture of pretty faces, smart gowns, big parasols, Japanese 
 fans. 
 
 Lesbia poured out the tea with the prettiest air of domesticity. 
 
 " Can you really pour out tea ? " gasped a callow lieutenant, 
 gazing upon her with goggling, enraptured eyes. " I did not 
 think you could do anything so earthly." 
 
 " I can, and drink it too," answered Lesbia, laughing. " I 
 adore tea. Cream and sugar ? " 
 
 " What — I beg your pardon — how many ? " murmured the 
 youth, who had lost himself in gazing, and no longer understood 
 plain English. 
 
 Mr. Smithson frowned at the intruder, and contrived to ab- 
 sorb Lesbia's attention for the rest of the afternoon. He had 
 a good deal more to say for himself than her military admirers, 
 and was altogether more amusing. He had a little cynical air 
 which Lesbia's recent education had taught her to enjoy. He 
 depreciated all her female friends — abused their gowns and bon- 
 nets, and gave her to understand, between the lines as it were, 
 that she was the only woman in London worth thinking about. 
 
 She looked at him curiously, wondering how Belle Trinder 
 had been able to resign herself to the idea of marrying him. 
 
 He was not absolutely bad-looking — but he was in all things 
 unlike a girl's ideal lover. He was short and stout, with a pale 
 complexion, and sunken faded eyes, as of a man who had spent 
 the greater part of his life by candle-light and had pored much 
 over ledgers and bank books, share lists and prospectuses. He 
 dressed well, or allowed himself to be dressed by the most cor- 
 rect of tailors — the Prince's tailor — but he never attempted to 
 lead the fashion in his garments. He had no originality. Such 
 sublime flights as that of the man who revived corduroy, or of 
 him who resuscitated the half-forgotten Inverness coat, were un- 
 known to him. He could only follow the lead of the highest. 
 He had small feet, of which he was intensely proud, pudgy white 
 hands, on which he wore the most exquisite of rings. He 
 changed them every day like a Roman Emperor; was reported 
 to have summer and winter rings' — onyx and the coolest look- 
 ing intaglios set in slenderest gold rims for warm weather — fiery 
 rubies and diamonds for Winter. He was said to devote half 
 an hour every morning to the treatment of his nails, which were 
 perfect. All the inkstains of his youth had been obliterated, 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 227 
 
 and those nails which had once been bitten to the quick during 
 the hours of financial study were now things of beauty. 
 
 Lady Lesbia surveyed Mr. Smithson critically, and shuddered 
 at the thought that this person was the best substitute which the 
 season had yet offered her for her ideal knight. She thought 
 of John Hammond, the tall, strong figure, straight and square ; 
 the head so proudly carried on a neck which would have graced 
 a Greek arena. The straight, clearly cut features, the flashing 
 eyes, bright with youth and hope and the promise of all good 
 things. Yes, there was indeed a man — a man in all the nobility 
 of manhood, as God made him, an Adam before the Fall. 
 
 Ah, if John Hammond had only possessed a quarter of Mr. 
 Smithson's wealth, how gladly would Lesbia have defied the 
 world and married him. But to defy the world upon nothing a 
 year was out of the question. 
 
 " Why didn't he go on the Stock Exchange and make his fort- 
 une t " thought Lesbia, pettishly, " instead of talking vaguely 
 about politics and literature." 
 
 She felt angry with her rejected lover for having come to her 
 empty-handed. She had seen no man in London who was, or 
 who seemed to her, his equal. And yet she did not repent of 
 having rejected him. The more she knew of the world and the 
 more she knew of herself the more deeply was she convinced 
 that poverty was an evil thing, and chat she was not the right 
 kind of person to endure it. 
 
 She was inwardly making these comparisons as they strolled 
 back to the carriage, while Mr. Smithson and Lady Kirkbank 
 talked confidently at her side. 
 
 " Do you know that Lady Kirkbank has promised and vowed 
 three things for you ? " said Mr. Smithson. 
 
 " Indeed ! I thought I was past the age at which one can 
 be compromised by other people's promises. Pray, what are 
 these three things ? " 
 
 " First, that you will come to breakfast in Park Lane with 
 Lady Kirkbank next Wednesday morning. I say Wednesday 
 because that will give me time to ask some nice people to 
 meet you ; secondly, that you will honor me by occupying my 
 box at the Lyceum some evening next week ; and thirdly, that 
 you will allow me to drive you down to the Orleans for sup- 
 per after the play. The drive only takes an hour, and the 
 moonlight nights are delicious at this time of the year." 
 
 " I am in Lady Kirkbank's hands," answered Lesbia, laugh- 
 ing. " I am her goods, her chattels ; she takes me wherever 
 she likes." 
 
228 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " But would you refuse to do me this honor if you were a 
 free agent ? " 
 
 " I can't tell, I hardly know what it is to be a free agent. 
 At Gransmere I did whatever my grandmother told me — in 
 London I obey Lady Kirkbank, I was transferred from one 
 master to another. Why should we breakfast in Park Lane in- 
 stead of Arlington Street } What is the use of crossing Picca- 
 dilly to eat our breakfast t " 
 
 This was a cool-headed style of treatment to which Mr. 
 Smithson w^as not accustomed, and which charmed him accord- 
 ingly. Young women usually threw themselves at his head, as 
 it were ; but here was a girl who talked to him as indifferently 
 as if he were a tradesman offering his wares. 
 
 " What a dreadfully practical person you are ! " he exclaimed. 
 " What is the use of crossing Piccadilly } Well, in the first 
 place, you will make me ineffably happy. But perhaps that 
 doesn't count. In the second place, I shall be able to show 
 you some rather good pictures of the French school — " 
 
 " I hate the French school ! " interjected Lesbia. " Tricky, 
 flashy, chalky, shallow, smelling of the footlights and the 
 studio." 
 
 " Well, sink the pictures. You will meet some very charm- 
 ing people belonging to that artist world which is not to be 
 met everywhere." 
 
 " I will go to Park Lane to meet your people if Lady Kirk- 
 bank likes to take me," said Lesbia, and with this answer 
 Mr. Smithson was bound to be content. 
 
 " My pet, if you had made it the study of your life how to 
 treat that man you could not do it better," said Lady Kirkbank, 
 when they were driving along the dusty road between dusty 
 hedges and dusty trees, past that last remnant of country which 
 was daily being debased into London. ''Upon my word, Les- 
 bia, I begin to think you must be a genius." 
 
 " Did you see any gowns you liked better than mine ? " asked 
 Lesbia, reclining reposefully, with her little bronze shoes upon 
 fhe opposite cushion. 
 
 " Not one — Seraphine has surpassed herself." 
 
 " You are always saying that. One would suppose you were 
 a sleeping partner in the firm. But I really think this brown 
 and buttercups is rather nice. I saw that odious American 
 girl just now — Miss — Miss Milwaukee, the girl people raved 
 about at Cannes. She was in pale blue and cream color — a 
 milk and water mixture — and looked positively plain." 
 
 Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia drove across Piccadilly at 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 229 
 
 eleven o'clock on Wednesday morning to breakfast with Mr. 
 Smithson, and although Lesbia had questioned whether it was 
 worth while crossing Piccadilly to eat one's breakfast, she had 
 subsequently considered it worth while ordering a new gown from 
 Seraphine for the occasion ; or, it may be said, rather that the 
 breakfast made a plausible excuse for a new gown, the pleasure 
 of ordering which was one of those joys of London which had 
 not yet lost its savor. 
 
 Mr. Smithson's house in Park Lane was simply perfect. It 
 is wonderful what good use a parvenu can make of his money 
 nowadays, and how rarely he disgraces himself by any marked 
 offenses"^ against good taste. There are so many people at hand 
 to teach the parvenu how to furnish his house, or how to choose 
 his stud. If he go wrong it must be by sheer perversity, an ar- 
 rogant obstinacy in being governed by his own ignorant incli- 
 nations. 
 
 But Smithson was too good a tactician to go wrong in this way. 
 He had taken the trouble to study the market before he went 
 out to buy his goods. He knew that taste and knowledge were 
 to be bought just as easily as chairs and tables, and he went to 
 the right shop. He employed a clever Scotchman, an artist in 
 domestic furniture, to plan his house and to make drawings for 
 the decoration and furniture of every room — and for six months 
 he gave himself up to the task of furnishing. 
 
 Money was spent like water. Painters, decorators, cabinet- 
 makers had a merry time of it. Royal Academicians were im- 
 pressed into the service by large offers, and the final result of 
 Mr. MacWalter's tastes and Mr. Smithson's banking account 
 was a palace in the style of the Italian Renaissance, frescoed 
 ceilings, painted panels, a staircase of sculptured marble, as 
 beautiful as a dream, a conservatory as exquisite as a jewel cas- 
 ket by Benvenuto Cellini, a picture gallery which was the ad- 
 miration of all London, and of the enlightened foreigner, and of 
 the inquiring American. This was the house which Lesbia had 
 been brought to see, and through which she walked with the 
 calmly critical air of a person who had seen so many palaces that 
 one more or less could make no difference. 
 
 In vain did Mr. Smithson peruse her countenance in the hope 
 of seeing that she was impressed by the splendor of his surround- 
 ings and by the power of the man who commanded such splendor. 
 Lesbia was as cold as the Italian sculptor's Reading Girl in an 
 alcove of Mr. Smithson's picture gallery, and the stockbroker 
 felt very much as Aladdin might have done if the fair Badroul- 
 badour had shown herself indifferent to the hall of the jeweled 
 
230 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 windows, in that magical palace which sprang into being in a 
 single night. 
 
 Lesbia had been impressed by that stor\^ of poor Belle Trin- 
 der, and by Lady Kirkbank's broad assertion that half the young 
 women in London were running after Mr. Smithson, and she had 
 made up her mind to treat the man with supreme scorn. She 
 did not want his houses or his yachts. Nothing could induce 
 her to marry such a man, she told herself ; but her vanity fed 
 upon the idea of his subjugation, and her pride was gratified by 
 the sense of her power over him. 
 
 The guests were few and choice. A poet, one of the leading 
 lights in that new sect which prides itself upon the cultivation 
 of abstract beauty, and occasionally touches the verge of con 
 Crete ugliness. A newspaper man — the editor of a fashionable 
 journal — and a middle-aged man of letters, playwright, critic, 
 humorist, a man whose society was in demand everywhere, and 
 who said sharp things with the most supreme good-nature. A 
 fashionable actress, with her younger sister, the younger a pretty 
 copy of the elder, both dressed picturesquely in flowing cash- 
 mere gowns of faint sea-green, with old lace fichus, Leghorn 
 hats, and a general limpness and simplicity of style which suited 
 their cast of features and delicate coloring. Lesbia wondered to 
 see how good an effect could be produced by a costume which 
 could have cost so little. Mr. Nightshade, the famous tragedian, 
 had been also asked to grace the feast, but the early hour made 
 the invitation a mockery. It was not to be supposed that a man 
 who went to bed at daybreak would get up again before the sun 
 was in the zenith for the sake of Mr. Smithson's society, or Mr. 
 Smithson's Strasbourg pie, for the manufacture whereof a par- 
 ticular breed of geese were supposed to be set apart, like sacred 
 birds in Egypt, while a particular vineyard among the golden 
 hills was supposed to be devoted wholly and solely to the pro- 
 duction of Mr. Smithson's champagne. It was a cabinet wine, 
 like the Rudesheimer or Marcobrunner that is made only for 
 German princes. 
 
 Bieakfast was served in Mr. Smithson's smallest dining-room 
 — there were three apartments given up to feasting, beginning 
 with a spacious banqueting room for great dinners, and dwin- 
 dling down to this snuggery, which held about a dozen comfort- 
 ably, with ample room and verge enough for the attendants. The 
 walls were upholstered m old gold silk, the curtains a tawny 
 velvet of deeper tone, the cabinet and buffet of dark Italian wal- 
 nut, inlaid with lapis lazuli and amber, the fire-place a master- 
 piece of cabinet work, with high narrow shelves, and curious 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 231 
 
 recesses holding priceless jars of Oriental enamel — the deep 
 hearth filled up with aram lilies and'azalias like a font at Easter. 
 
 Ladv Kirkbank, who pretended to adore genius, was affec- 
 tionately effusive to Miss Fitzherbert, the popular actress, but 
 rather ignored the sister. Lesbia was less cordial, and was not 
 enchanted at finding that Miss Fitzherbert shone and sparkled 
 at the breakfast table by the gayety of her spirits and the bright- 
 ness of her conversation. There was something frank and joy- 
 ous, almost to childishness, in her manner, which was full of 
 fascination ; and Lesbia felt herself at a disadvantage almost 
 for the first time since she had been in London. 
 
 The editor, the wit, the poet, the actress, had a language of 
 their own, and Lesbia felt herself out in the cold, unable to 
 catch the ball as it glanced past her, not quick enough to follow 
 the wit that evoked those ripples of silvery laughter from tlie 
 two fair-haired, pale-faced girls in sea-green cashmere. She felt 
 as an Englishman may feel who has made himself master of 
 academical French, and who takes up one of Zola's novels, or 
 goes into artistic society and finds that there is another French, 
 a complete and copious language, of which he knows not a word. 
 
 Lesbia began to think that she had a great deal to learn. She 
 began to wonder even whether, in the event of her having made 
 rather too free use of Lady Maulevrier's carte blanche, it might 
 not be well to make a new departure in the art of dressing, and 
 to wear untrimmed cashmere gowns and rags of limp lace. 
 
 After breakfast they all went to look at Mr. Smithson's pict- 
 ure gallery. His pictures were, as he had told Lesbia, chiefly 
 of the French school, and there may have been a remote period 
 — say in the time of good Queen Charlotte — when such pictures 
 would hardly have been exhibited to young ladies. His pictures 
 were Mr. Smithson's own unaided choice. Here the individual 
 taste of the man stood revealed. 
 
 There were two or three Geromes, and in the place of honor 
 at the end of the gallery there was a grand Delaroche, Anna 
 Boleyn's last letter to the king, the hapless girl-queen sitting at 
 a table in her cell m the Tower, a shaft of golden light from the 
 narrow window streaming on the fair, disordered hair, the face 
 blanched with unutterable woe, a sublime image of despair and 
 self-abandonment, all the rest of the cell in shadow. 
 
 The larger pictures were historical, classic, grand, but the 
 smaller pictures—the lively little bits of color dotted in here and 
 there — were of that new school which Mr. Smithson affected. 
 They were of that school which is called impressionist, in which 
 ballet dancers and jockeys, burlesque actresses, bal-masques, 
 
232 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 and all the humors of the side-scenes are represented with the 
 sublime audacity of an art which disdains finish and relies on 
 the inspiration of the moment. Lesbia blushed as she looked 
 at the ballet girls, thb maskers in their scanty raiment, the demi- 
 mondains lolling out of their boxes, with false smiles and friz- 
 zled hair. And then came the works of that other school, which 
 lavishes the finish of a Meissonier on the most meretricious 
 compositions. A woman in a velvet gown warming her toes on 
 a gilded fender, in a boudoir all aglow with color and lamplight ; 
 a cavalier in satin raiment buckling his sword-belt before a Ve- 
 netian mirror ; a pair of lovers kissing in a sun-lit corridor ; a 
 girl in a hansom-cab ; a milliner's shop, and so on and so on. 
 
 Then came the classical subjects of the last new school. 
 Weak imitations of Alma Tadema. Nero admiring his mother's 
 corpse. Claudius interrupting his wife's marriage with her 
 lover. Claudius discovered in the house of Caesar. Pyrrha's 
 bower. Lady Kirkbank expatiated upon all the pictures, and 
 generally made unlucky guesses at the subjects of them. Clas- 
 sical literature was not her strong point. 
 
 After this breakfast in Park Lane Lady Lesbia and her ad- 
 mirer met daily. He went to all her parties, he sat out waltzes 
 with her in conservatories and on staircases ; for Horace Smith- 
 son was much too shrewd a man to enter himself in the race for 
 dancing men, handicapped by his forty years and his fourteen 
 stone. He contrived to amuse Lesbia by his conversation, 
 which was essentially mundane, depreciating people whom all 
 the rest of the world admired, or pretended to admire, telling 
 her of the secret springs by which the society she saw around 
 her was moved. He was judicious in his revelations of hidden 
 evil, and careful to say nothing which should offend Lady Les- 
 bia's womanly dignity ; yet he contrived in a very short time to 
 teach her that the world m which she lived was an utterly cor- 
 rupt world, whose high-priest was Satan ; that all lofty aspira- 
 tions and noble sentiments were out of place in society ; and 
 that the worst among the people she met were the people who 
 laid any claim to being better than their neighbors, 
 
 " That's why I adore Lady Kirkbank," he said confidentially. 
 " The dear soul never pretends to be any better than the rest 
 of us. She gambles, and we all know she pegs ; and she makes 
 rather a boast of being up to her eyes in debt. No humbug 
 about dear old Georgie Kirkbank." 
 
 Lesbia had seen enough of her chaperon by this time to 
 know that Mr. Smithson's description of the lady was correct, 
 and, this being so, she supposed that the facts and traits of 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 233 
 
 character which he told her about in other people were also 
 true. She thus adapted the Smithsonian or fashionable pessi- 
 mist view of society in general, and resigned herself to the idea 
 that the world was a very wicked world, as well as a very pleas- 
 ant world, that the wickedest people were generally the pleas- 
 antest, and that it did not much matter. 
 
 The fact that Mr. Smithson was at Lesbia Haselden's feet 
 was obvious to everybody. 
 
 The lady, who had at first treated him with supreme hauteur, 
 had grown more civil as she began to understand the place he 
 held in the world, and how much social influence goes along 
 with unlimited wealth. She was civil, but she had quite made 
 up her mind that nothing could ever induce her to become 
 Horace Smithson's wife. That offer which had hung fire in the 
 case of poor Belle Trinder was not too long delayed on this oc- 
 casion. Mr. Smithson called in Arlington Street about ten days 
 after the breakfast in Park Lane, before luncheon, and before 
 Lady Kirkbank had left her room. He brought tickets for a 
 private matinee in Belgrave Square, at which a new and w^onder- 
 ful Russian pianiste was to make a kind of semi-official debut. 
 They were tickets which money could not buy, and were thus a 
 worthy offering for Lady Lesbia, and a plausible excuse for 
 the early call. 
 
 Mr. Smithson succeeded in seeing Lady Lesbia alone, and 
 then and there with very little circumlocution asked her to be 
 his wife. 
 
 Her social education had advanced with rapid strides since 
 that summer day in the pine-wood, when John Hammond had 
 wooed her with passionate wooing. Mr. Smithson was a much 
 less ardent suitor, and jnade his offer with the air of a man who 
 expects to be accepted. 
 
 Lesbia's beautiful head bent a little, like a lily on its stalk, 
 and a faint, faint blush deepened the pale rose tint of her com- 
 plexion. Her reply was courteous and conventional. She was 
 flattered, she was grateful for Mr. Smithson's high opinion of 
 her, but she was deeply grieved if anything in her manner had 
 given him reason to think that he was more to her than a 
 friend, an old friend of dear Lady Kirkbank's, whom she was 
 naturally predisposed to like, as Lady Kirkbank's friend. 
 
 Horace Smithson turned pale as death, but if he was angry 
 he gave no utterance to his angry feelings. He only asked if 
 Lady Lesbia's answer was final ; and on being told that it was 
 so he dismissed the subject in the easiest manner, and with a 
 gentlemanlike placidity which very much astonished the lady. 
 
234 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " You say that you regard me as your friend," he said. " Do 
 not withdraw that privilege from me because I have asked for a 
 higner place in your esteem. Forget all I have said this morn- 
 ing. Be assured I shall never offend you by repeating it." 
 
 " You are more than good," murmured Lesbia, who had ex- 
 pected a wild outbreak of despair or fury, rather than this 
 friendly calm. 
 
 " I hope that you and Lady Kirkbank will go and hear 
 Madam Metzikoff this afternoon," pursued Mr. Smithson, re- 
 turning to the subject of the matinee. '' The r3uchess's rooms 
 are very lovely; but no doubt you know them." 
 
 Lesbia blushed, and confessed that the Duchess of Lostwithiel 
 was one of those select few who were not on Lady Kirkbank's 
 visiting list. 
 
 "There are people Lady Kirkbank cannot get on with," she 
 said. " Perhaps she will hardly like to go to the Duchess's, as 
 she does not visit her." 
 
 " Oh, but this affair counts for nothing. We go to hear Met- 
 zikoff, not to bow down to the Duchess. All the people in 
 town who care for music will be there, and you who play so di- 
 vinely must enjoy fine professional playing." 
 
 " I worship a really great player," said Lesbia, " and i^ I can 
 drag Lady Kirkbank to the house of the enemy, we will be 
 there." 
 
 On this Mr. Smithson discreetly murmured " a revoir," took 
 up his hat and cane, and departed, without, in Sir George's 
 parlance, having turned a hair. 
 
 " Refusal number one," he said to himself, as he went down 
 stairs, with his leisurely, catlike pace, that velvet pace by which 
 he had gradually crept into society. "We may have to go 
 through refusal number two and number three ; but she means 
 to have me. She is a very clever girl for a countrybred one ; 
 and she knows that it is worth her while to be Lady Lesbia 
 Smithson." 
 
 This soliloquy may be taken to prove that Horace Smithson 
 knew Lesbia Haselden better than the girl knew herself. She 
 had refused him in all good faith , but even to-day, after he had 
 left her, she fell into a day-dream in which Mr. Smithson's 
 houses and yachts, drags and hunters formed the shifting pictures 
 in a dissolving view of society ; and Lesbia wondered if there 
 were any other young woman in London who would refuse such 
 an offer as that which she had quietly rejected half an houi ago. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank surpiised her while she was still absorbed in 
 this dreamy review of her position. It is just possible that the 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 235 
 
 fair Georgie may have had notice of Mr. Smithson's morning 
 visit, and may have kept out of the way on purpose, for she was 
 not a person of lazy habits, and was generally ready for her nine 
 o'clock breakfast and her morning stroll in the Park, however 
 late she might have been out over night. 
 
 *' Mr. Smithson has been here, I understand," said Lady 
 Kirkbank, settling herself in an arm-chair by the open window, 
 after she had kissed her protegee. " Rilboche passed him on the 
 stairs." 
 
 " Rilboche is always passing people on the stairs," answered 
 Lesbia, rather pettishly. " I think she must pass her life on the 
 landing listening for arrivals and departures." 
 
 " I had a kind of vague idea that Smithson would call to-day. 
 He was so fussy about those tickets for the Metzikoff recital. 
 I hate pianoforte recitals, and I detest that starched old Duch- 
 ess, but I suppose I shall have to take you chere — or poor 
 Smithson will be miserable," said Lady Kirkbank, watching 
 Lesbia keenly over the top of her newspaper. 
 
 She expected Lesbia to confide in her, to announce herself 
 blushingly as the betrothed of one of the richest commoners in 
 England. But Lesbia sat gazing dreamily across the flowers in 
 the balcony at the house over the way, and said never a word ; 
 so Lady Kirkbank's curiosity burst into speech. 
 
 " Well, my dear, has he proposed ? There was something in 
 his mannei last night when he put on your wraps that made me 
 think the crisis was near." 
 
 " The crisis is come and is past, and Mr. Smithson and I are 
 just as good friends as ever." 
 
 " What ! " screamed Lady Kirkbank. " Do you mean to tell 
 me that you have refused him .? " 
 
 " Certainly. You know I never meant to do anything else. 
 Did you think I was like Miss Trinder, bent upon marrying town 
 and country houses, stables and diamonds ? " 
 
 "I did not think you were a fool," cried Lady Kirkbank, 
 almost beside herself with vexation, for it had been borne in 
 upon her, as the Methodists sometimes say, that if Mr. Smithson 
 prospered in his wooing it would be the better for her. Lady 
 Kirkbank, who would have a claim, upon his kindness ever after. 
 "What can be your motive in refusing one of the very best 
 matches of the season — or of ever so many seasons? You 
 think, perhaps, you will marry a duke, if you wait long enough 
 for his grace to appear ; but the number of marrying dukes is 
 rather small. Lady Lesbia, and I don't think any of those would 
 care to marry Lord Maulevrier's granddaughter." 
 
236 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Lesbia started to her feet, pale as ashes. 
 
 "Why do you mention my grandfather's name — and with 
 that diabolical sneer ? " she exclaimed. " When I have asked 
 you about him you have always evaded my questions. Why 
 should a man of high rank shrink from marrying Lord Mau- 
 levrier's granddaughter t My grandfather vv^as a distinguished 
 man — Governor of Madras. Such posts are not given to no- 
 bodies. How can you dare to speak as if it were a disgrace to 
 me to belong to him ? " 
 
 CHAPTER XXVni. 
 "clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen." 
 
 Lady Kirkbank had considerable difficulty in smoothing 
 Lesbia's ruffled plumage. She did all in her power to undo the 
 effect of her rash words — declared that she had been carried 
 away by temper — she had spoken she knew not what — words of 
 no meaning. Of course Lesbia's grandfather had been a great 
 man — Governor of Madras ; altogether an important and cele- 
 brated person — and Lady Kirkbank had meant nothing, could 
 have meant nothing to his disparagement. 
 
 " My dearest girl, I was beside myself, and talked sheer non- 
 sense," said Georgie. " But you know really now, dearest, any 
 woman of the world would be provoked at your foolish refusal 
 of that dear good Smithson. Only think of that too lovely 
 house in Park Lane, a palace in the style of the Italian Renais- 
 sance — such a house is in itself equivalent to a peerage — and 
 there is no doubt that Smithson will be offered a peerage before 
 he is much older. I have heard it confidently asserted that 
 when the present ministry retires Smithson will be made a peer. 
 You have no idea what a useful man he is, or what stanch 
 service he has done the ministry in financial matters. And then 
 there is his villa at Deauville — you don't know Deauville — a 
 positively perfect place, the villa, I mean, built by the Duke de 
 Morny in the golden days of the Empire — and another at Cowes, 
 and his place in Berkshire, a manor, my love, with a glorious 
 old manor-house built in the time of Elizabeth ; and he has 
 a pied a terre in Paris, in the Faubourg, a ground-floor 
 furnished in the Pompeiian style, half a dozen rooms opening 
 one out of the other, and surrounding a small garden, w.th a 
 fountain in the middle. Some of the greatest people in Paris 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 237 
 
 occupy the upper part of the house, and their rooms of course 
 are splendid , but Smithson's ground-floor is the gem of the 
 Faubourg. However, I suppose there is no use in talking any 
 more ; and there is the gong for luncheon." 
 
 " I would rather have a cup of tea in my own room," she 
 said. " This Smithson business has given me an abominable 
 headache.' 
 
 " But you will go to hear Metzikoff ? " 
 
 ''No, thanks. You detest the Duchess of Lostwithiel, and 
 you don't care for pianoforte recitals. Why should I drag you 
 there .? " 
 
 " But, my dearest Lesbia, I am not such a selfish wretch as to 
 keep you at home, when I know that you are passionately fond 
 of good music. Forget all about your headache, and let me see 
 how that lovely little Catharine of Arragon bonnet suits you. 
 I'm so glad I happened to see it in Seraphme's hands yesterday, 
 just as she was going to send it to Lady Fonvielle, who consid- 
 ers herself such a great beauty, and always wants to get the 
 primeurs in bonnets and things." 
 
 •'Another new bonnet," replied Lesbia. 'What an infinity 
 of things I seem to be having from Seraphine. I'm afraid I 
 must owe her a good deal of money." 
 
 " If you had only accepted Mr. Smithson, it would not mat- 
 ter how much money you owed people," said Lady Kirkbank. 
 " You had better come down to lunch. A glass of Heidseck 
 will bring you up to concert pitch." 
 
 Champagne was Lady Kirkbank 's idea of a universal panacea ; 
 and she had gradually succeeded in teaching Lesbia to believe 
 in the sovereign power of Heidseck as a restorative to shattered 
 nerves. At Fellside Lesbia had drunk only water ; but then at 
 Fellside she had never known that feeling of exhaustion and 
 prostration which follows days and nights spent in society, the 
 wear and tear of a mind forever on the alert, and brilliant spirits 
 which are as often forced as real. For her chief stimulant Les- 
 bia had recourse to the teapot : but there were occasions when 
 she found that something more than tea was needed to main- 
 tain that indispensable vivacity of manner which Lady Kirk- 
 bank called concert pitch. 
 
 To-day she allowed herself to be persuaded. She went down 
 to luncheon, and took a couple of glasses of dry champagne 
 v;ith her cutlet, and, thus restored was equal to putting ot; the 
 new bonnet, which was so becoming that her spirits revived as 
 she contemplated the effect in her glass. So Lady Kirkbank 
 carried her off to the musical matinee, beaming and radiant, hav 
 
238 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 ing forgotten all about that dark hint of evil glancing at the 
 name of her long dead grandfather. 
 
 The Duchess was not in view when Lady Kirkbank and her 
 protegee arrived, and a good many people belonging to Georgie's 
 own particular set were scattered like flowers among those real 
 music-lovers who had come solely to hear the new pianisre. 
 The music-lovers were mostly dowdy in their attire, and seemed 
 a race apart. Among them were several young women of the 
 Blessed Damozel school, who wore flowing garments of sap green 
 or ocher, or puffed raiment of Venetian red, and among whom 
 the cart-wheel hat, the Elizabethan sleeve, and the Toby frill 
 were conspicuous. 
 
 There were very few men except the musical critics in this 
 select assemblage, and Lesbia began to think that it was going 
 to be very dreary. She had lived in such an atmosphere of 
 masculine adulation while under Lady Kirkbank's wing that it 
 was a new thing to find herself in a room where there was none 
 to love and very few to praise her. She felt out in the cold, as 
 it were. Those ungloved critics, with their shabby coats and 
 dubious shirts, snuffy, smoky, everything they ought not to be, 
 seemed to her a race of barbarians. 
 
 Finding herself thus cold and lonely in the midst of the Duch- 
 ess's splendor of peacock-blue velvet and peacock feather dec- 
 oration, Lesbia was almost glad when in the middle of Madam 
 Metzikoff's opening gondoUed — airy, fairy music, executed with 
 surpassing delicacy — Mr. Smithson crept gently into the fau- 
 teuil just behind hers and leant over the back of the chair to 
 whisper an inquiry as to her opinion of the pianiste's style. 
 
 " She is exquisite," Lesbia murmured softly, but the whis- 
 pered question and the murmured answer, low as they were, pro- 
 voked indignant looks from a brace of damsels in Venetian red 
 who shook their Toby frills with an outraged air. 
 
 Lesbia felt that Mr. Smithson's presence was hardly correct. 
 It would have been " better form " if he had stayed away ; and 
 yet she was glad to have him here. At the worst he was some 
 one — nay, according to Lady Kirkbank, he was the only one 
 amongst all her admirers whose offer was worth having. All 
 Lesbia's other conquests had counted as barren honor ; but if 
 she could have brought herself to accept Mr. Smithson she 
 would have secured the very best match of the season. 
 
 But was Lady Kirkbank sure of her facts or truthful in her 
 statement.? Lady Lesbia's experience of her chaperon's some- 
 what loose notions of truth and exactitude made her doubtful 
 upon this point. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 239 
 
 Be this as it might, she was inclined to be civil to Smithson, 
 albeit she was inwardly surprised and offended at his taking her 
 refusal so calml3^ 
 
 " You see I am determined not to lose the privilege of your so- 
 ciety because I have been foolish ! " he said presently, in the 
 pause after the first part of the recital. " I hope you will con- 
 sider me as much your friend to-day as I was yesterday." 
 
 "Quite as much," she answered sweetl}^, and then they talked 
 of Raff, and Brahm, and Hensel, and all the composers about 
 whom it is the correct thing to discourse nowadays. 
 
 Before they left Belgrave Square Lady Kirkbank had offered 
 Mr. Smithson Sir George's place in her box at the Gayety that 
 evening, and had invited him to supper in Arlington Street 
 afterward. 
 
 It was Sarah Bernhardt's first season in London — the never-to- 
 be-forgotten season of the Comedie Francaise in all its force. 
 
 " I should love of all things to be there," said Mr. Smithson, 
 meekly. He had a couple of stalls in the third row for the whole 
 of the season. " But how can I be sure that I shall not be turn- 
 ing Sir George out of doors t " 
 
 " Sir George can never sit out a serious play. He only cares 
 for Chaumont or Judic. The 'Demi-monde' is much too prosy 
 for him." 
 
 " The ' Demi-monde ' is one of the finest plays in the French 
 language," said Smithson. " You know it, of course, Lady Les- 
 bia .? " 
 
 " Alas ! no. At Fellside I -was not allowed to read French 
 plays or novels ; or only a novel now and then, which my grand- 
 mother selected for me." 
 
 " And now you read everything, I suppose — including Zola ? " 
 
 " The books are lying about, and 1 clip into them sometimes 
 while I am having my hair brushed," answered Lesbia, lightly. 
 
 " I believe that is the only time ladies devote to literature dur- 
 ing the season," said Mr. Smithson. '' Well, I envy you the 
 delight of seeing the ' Demi-monde ' without knowing what it is 
 all about beforehand." 
 
 " I dare say there are a good many people who would not take 
 their girls to see Dumas,'' said Lady Kirkbank, "but I make 
 a point of letting my girls see everything. It widens their minds 
 and awakens their intelligence." 
 
 " And does away with a good many silly prejudices," replied 
 Mr. Smithson. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank and Lesbia were due at a Kensington garden- 
 party after the recital, and from the garden-party, for which 
 
240 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 an hour sufficed, they went to show themselves in the Park, then 
 back to ArUngton Street to dress for the play. Then a hurried 
 dinner, and they were in their places at the theater in time for 
 the rising of the curtain. 
 
 '' If it were an English play we would not care for being 
 punctual," said Lady Kirkbank, " but I should hate to lose a 
 word of Dumas. In his plays every speech tells." 
 
 There were the royalties present, and the house was good ; 
 but not so full as it had been on some other nights, for the Eng- 
 lish public had been told that Sarah Bernhardt was the person to 
 admire, and had been flocking sheep-like after that golden-haired 
 enchantress, whereby many of these sheep — fighting greedily 
 for these nights and ignoring all other talent — lost some of the 
 finest acting on the French stage, notably that of Croizette, De- 
 launay and Febvre, in this very ' Demi-monde ' Lesbia, who, 
 in spite of her affectations, was still fresh enough to be charmed 
 with fine acting and a powerful play, was enthralled by the stage, 
 so wrapt in the scene that she was quite unaware of her brother's 
 presence in a stall just below Lady Kirkbank's box. He too 
 had a stall at the Gayety. He had come in very late, when the 
 play was half over. Lesbia was surprised when he presented 
 himself at the door of the box after the fourth act. 
 
 Maulevrierand his sister had met very seldom since the young 
 lady's debut. The young earl did not go to many parties, and 
 the society he cultivated was chiefiy masculine ; and as he 
 neither played polo nor shot pigeons his masculine pursuits did 
 not bring him in his sister's way. Lady Kirkbank had asked 
 him to her house with that wide and general invitation which is 
 so easily evaded. He had promised to go, and he had not gone. 
 And thus Lesbia and he had pursued their several ways, only 
 crossing each other's paths now and then at a race meeting or 
 in a theater. 
 
 " How d'ye do. Lady Kirkbank — how d'ye do, Lesbia ? Just 
 caught sight of you from below as the curtain was going down," 
 said Maulevrier, shaking hands with the ladies and saluting Mr. 
 Smithson with a somewhat supercilious nod. " Rather surprised 
 to see you and Lesbia here to-night, Lady Kirkbank. Isn't the 
 ' Demi-monde ' rather strong meat for babes, eh t Not exactly 
 the play one would take a young lady to see." 
 
 *' Why should a young lady be forbidden to see a fine play, 
 because there are some hard and bitter truths in it .'' " asked 
 Lady Kirkbank. " Lesbia sees Madam de St. Ange and all her 
 sisterhood in the Park and about London every day of her life. 
 Why should not she see them on the stage, and hear their 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 241 
 
 histoty, and understand how cruel their fate is, and learn to pity 
 them, if she can. 1 really think this play is a lesson in Chris- 
 tian charity, and I should like to see that Oliver man strangled, 
 though Delaunay plays the part divinely ! What a voice ! What 
 a manner ! How polished ! How perfect ! And they tell me 
 he is going to leave the stage in a year or two. What will the 
 world do without him ? " 
 
 Maulevrier stayed in the box only a short time, and refused 
 Lady Kirkbank's invitation to supper. She did not urge the 
 point, as she had surprised one or two very unfriendly glances 
 at Mr. Smithson in Maulevrier's honest eyes. She did not want 
 an antagonistic brother to interfere with her plans. She had 
 made up her mind to " run " Lesbia according to her own ideas, 
 and any counter influence might be fatal. So when Maulevrier 
 said he was due at the Marlborough after the play she let him go. 
 " I might as well be at Fellside and you in London, for any- 
 thing I see of you," said Lesbia. 
 
 " You are up to your eyes in engagements, and I don't sup- 
 pose you want to see any more of me," Maulevrier answered 
 bluntly. " But I'll call to-morrow morning, if I am likely to find 
 you at home. I've some news for you." 
 
 " Then I'll stay at home on purpose to see you. News is al- 
 ways delightful. Is it good news, by the bye ? " 
 " Very good ; at least I think so." 
 " What is it about ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's a long story, and the curtain is just going up. 
 The news is about Mary." 
 
 " About Mary ! " exclaimed Lesbia, elevating her eyebrows. 
 " What news can there possibly be about Mary ? " 
 
 " Such news as there generally is about every nice jolly girl, 
 at least once in her life." 
 
 " You don't mean that she is engaged — to a curate ? " 
 " No, not to a curate. There goes the curtain. * I'll see you 
 later,' as the Yankee President used to say when people bothered 
 him, and he didn't like to say no." 
 
 Engaged ! Mary engaged ! The idea of such an altogether 
 unexpected event distracted Lesbia's mind all through the last 
 act of the " Demi-monde." She hardly knew what the actors were 
 talking about. Mary, her youngest sister. Mary, a good look- 
 ing girl enough, but by no means a beauty, and with manners 
 utterly unformed. That Mary should be engaged to be married, 
 while she, Lesbia, was still free seemed an obvious absurd- 
 ity. 
 
 And vet the fact was, on reflection, easily to be accounted for. 
 16"' 
 
242 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 These unattractive girls are generally the first to bind themselves 
 with the vows of betrothal. Lady Kirkbank had told her of 
 many such cases. The poor creatures know that their chances 
 will be few, and therefore gratefully welcome the first wooer. 
 
 " But who can the man be ? " thought Lesbia. " Mary has 
 been kept as secluded as a cloistered nun. There are so few 
 families we have ever been allowed to mix with. The man must 
 be a curate, who has taken advantage of grandmother's illness 
 to force his way into the family circle at Fellside — and who has 
 made love to Mary in some of her lonely rambles over the hills, 
 I dare say. It is really very wiong to allow a girl to roam about 
 in that way." 
 
 Sir George and a couple of his horsey friends were waiting 
 for supper when Lady Kirkbank and her party arrived in Ar- 
 lington Street. The dining-room looked a picture of comfort. 
 The oval table, the low lamps, the cluster of candles under col- 
 ored shades, the great Oriental bowl of wild flowers, eglantine, 
 honeysuckle, foxglove, all the sweet hedge flowers of midsum- 
 mer, made a central mass of color and brightness against the 
 subdued and even somber tones of walls and curtains. The 
 room was old, the furniture old. Nothing had been altered since 
 the time of Sir George's great-grandfather ; and the whirligig of 
 time had just now made the old things precious. Yes, those 
 chairs and tables and side-boards and book-cases and wine-cool- 
 ers against which Georgie's soul had revolted in the early years 
 of wedded life were now things of beauty, and Georgie's friends 
 envied her the possession of indisputably early Georgian furni- 
 ture. 
 
 The adjoining room was Sir George's snuggery ; and it was 
 here that the cosey little round games after supper were always 
 played. Sir George was not a studious person. He never read 
 and he never wrote, except an occasional check on account, for 
 an importunate tradesman. His correspondence was conducted 
 by the telegraph ; and the room, therefore, was absorbed neither 
 by books nor writing desks. It was furnished solely with a view 
 to comfort. There was a round table in the center, under a 
 large moderator lamp, which gave an exceptionally brilliant 
 light. A divan covered with dark brown velvet ran round three 
 sides of the room. A few choice pieces of old blue Oriental 
 ware in the corners enlivened the dark brown walls. Three or 
 four easy chairs stood about near the broad, old-fashioned fire- 
 place, which had been improved with a modern antique brass 
 grate and a blue and white tiled hearth. 
 
 There isn't a room in my house that looks half as comfort 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 243 
 
 able as this den of yours, George," said Mr. Smithson, as he 
 seated himself by Lesbia's side at the card table. 
 
 They had agreed to be partners. " Partners at cards, even if 
 we are not to be partners for life," Smithson had whispered, ten- 
 derly; and Lesbia's only reply had been a modest lowering of 
 lovely eyelids, and a faint, faint blush. Lesbia's blushes were 
 growing fainter every day. 
 
 The game weni on merrily till the pearly lights of dawn began 
 to creep through the chinks of Lady Kirkbank's yellow curtain. 
 Everybody seemed gay, yet everybody could not be winning. 
 Fortune had not smiled on Lesbia's cards or those of her part- 
 ner. The Smithson and Haselden firm had come to grief. Les- 
 bia's little ivory purse had been emptied of its three or four half 
 sovereigns, and Mr. Smithson had been capitalizing a losing con- 
 cern for the last two hours. And the play had been fast and furi- 
 ous, although nominally for small stakes. 
 
 " I am afraid to think how much I must owe you," said Les- 
 bia, when Mr. Smithson bade her good-night. 
 
 " Oh, nothing worth speaking of — sixteen or seventeen pounds 
 at most." 
 
 Lesbia felt cold and creepy, and hardly knew whether it was 
 the chill of new born day or the sense of owing money to Hor- 
 ace Smithson. Those three or four half sovereigns to-night were 
 the end of her last remittance from Lady Maulevrier. She had 
 had a great many remittances from that generous grandmother 
 and the money had all gone, somehow. It was gone, and yet 
 she had paid for hardly anything. She had accounts wdth all 
 Lady Kirkbank's tradesmen. The money had melted away, 
 somehow — it had oozed out of her pockets — at cards, on the 
 race course, in reckless gifts to servants and people, at fancy 
 fairs, for trifles bought here and there by the wayside, as it were, 
 for the sake of buying. If she had been suddenly asked for an 
 account of her stewardship she could not have told what she had 
 done with half of the money. And now she must ask for twen- 
 ty pounds more, and immediately, to pay Mr Smithson. 
 
 She went up to her room in the clear early light and stood 
 like a statue, with fixed, thoughtful eyes, while Kibble took off 
 her finery, the pretty pale yellow gown which set off her dark 
 brown hair, her violet eyes. For the first time in her life she 
 felt the keen pang of anxiety about money matters — the neces- 
 sity to think of ways and means. She had no idea how much 
 money she had received f-om her grandmother since she had 
 begun her career in Scotland last Autumn. The checks had 
 been sent her as she asked for them sometimes even before she 
 
244 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 asked for them, and she had kept no account. She thought 
 her grandmother was so rich that expenditure could not matter. 
 She was drawing upon an inexhaustible supply. And now Lady 
 Kirkbank had told her that Lady Maulevrier was not rich, as 
 the world reckons nowadays. The savings of a dowager count- 
 ess even in forty years of seclusion could be but a small fund to 
 draw upon for the expenses of life at high pressure. 
 
 " The sums people spend nowadays are positively appalling," 
 said Lady Kirkbank. " A man with five or six thousand a year 
 is an absolute pauper. I'm sure our existence is only genteel 
 beggary, and yet we spend over ten thousand." 
 
 Enlightened thus by the lips of the worldlywise, Lesbia 
 thought ruefully of the bills which her grandmother would have 
 to pay for her at the end of the season, bills of the amount 
 whereof she could not even make an approximate guess. Ser- 
 aphine's charges had never been discussed in her hearing — but 
 Lady Kirkbank had admitted that the creature was dear. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 "swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care.'* 
 
 Maulevrier called in Arlington Street before twelve o'clock 
 next day, and found Lesbia just returning from her early ride, 
 looking as fresh and fair as if there had been no such thing as 
 Nap or late hours in the story of her life. She was reposing in 
 a large easy chair by the open window, in habit and hat, just 
 as she had come from the Row, where she had been laughing 
 and chatting with Mr. Smithson, who jogged demurely by her 
 side on his short-legged hunter, dropping out envenomed little 
 jokes about the passers by. People who saw him riding by her 
 side upon this particular morning fancied there was something 
 more than usual in the gentleman's manner, and made up 
 their minds that Lady Lesbia Haselden was to be mistress of 
 the fine house in Park Lane. Mr. Smithson had fluttered and 
 fluttered for the last five seasons ; but this time the flutterer 
 was caught. 
 
 In her newly awakened anxiety about money matters, Lesbia 
 had forgotten Mary's engagement, but the sight of Maulevrier 
 recalled the fact. 
 
 " Come over here and sit down," she said, " and tell me 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 245 
 
 about Mary's engagement. I am expiring with curiosity. The 
 thing is too absurd." 
 
 " Why absurd ? " asked Maulevrier, sitting where she bade 
 him, and studiously perusing the name in his hat, as if it were 
 a revelation. 
 
 " Oh, for a thousand reasons," answered Lesbia, smiting the 
 flowers in the balcony with her light little whip. " First and 
 foremost it is absurd to think of any one so buried alive as 
 poor Mary is finding an admirer, and secondly — well — I don't 
 want to be rude to my own sister — but Mary is not particularly 
 attractive." 
 
 " Mary is the dearest girl in the world." 
 
 " Very likely. I only said that she is not particularly attract- 
 ive." 
 
 " And do you think there is no attraction in goodness, in 
 freshness and' innocence, candor, generosity — ? " 
 
 " I don't know. But I think that if Mary's nose had been a 
 thought longer, and if she had kept her skin free from freckles 
 she would have been almost pretty." 
 
 " Do you really t Luckily for Mary the man who is going to 
 marry her thinks her lovely." 
 
 " I suppose he likes freckles. I once heard a man say he 
 did. He said they were so original — so much character about 
 them. And pray who is the man ? " 
 
 " Your old adorer, and my dear friend, John Hammond." ^ 
 
 Lesbia turned pale as death — pale with rage and mortification. 
 It was not jealousy, this pang which rent her shallow soul. 
 She had ceased to care for John Hammond. The whirlpool of 
 society had spun that first fancy out of her giddy brain. But 
 that a man who had loved the highest, who had worshiped 
 her, the peerless, the beautiful, should calmly turn his affections 
 to her youngest sister, was to the last degree exasperating. 
 
 "Your friend Mr. Hammond must be a fickle fool," she 
 exclaimed, " who does not know his own mind from day to 
 dav." 
 
 " Oh, but it was more than a day after you rejected him that 
 he engaged himself to Molly. It was all my doing, and I am 
 proud of my work. I took the poor fellow back to Fellside 
 last March, bruised and broken by your cruel treatment, heart- 
 sore and depressed, and such a gloomy companion. I gave him 
 over to Molly, and Molly cured him — unconsciously, innocently, 
 she won that noble heart. Ah, Lesbia, you don't know what a 
 heart it is which you so nearly broke." 
 
 " Girls in our rank of life can't afford to marry noble hearts, 
 
246 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 said Lesbia scornfully. " Do you mean to tell me that Lady 
 Maulevrier consented to the engagement ? " 
 
 " She cut up rather rough at first ; but Molly held her own 
 like a young lioness— and the grandmother gave way. You see 
 she has a fixed idea that Molly is a very second-rate sort of 
 person compared with you, and that a husband who was not 
 nearly good enough for you might pass muster for Molly ; and 
 so she gave way, and there isn't a happier young woman in the 
 three kingdoms than Mary Haselden." 
 
 "What are they to live upon.?" asked Lesbia, with an in- 
 credulous air. 
 
 " Mary will have her five hundred a year. And Hammond is 
 a very clever fellow. You may be sure he will make his mark 
 in the world." 
 
 " And how are they to live while he is making his mark ? 
 Five hundred a year won't do more than buy Mary's frocks, if 
 she goes into society." 
 
 " Perhaps they will live without society." 
 
 " In some horrid little hovel in one of those narrow streets off 
 Ecclestone Square," suggested Lesbia shudderingly. " It is too 
 dreadful to think of, a young woman dooming herself to life- 
 long penury, just because she is so foolish as to fall in 
 love." 
 
 " Your days for falling in love are over, I suppose, Lesbia," 
 said Maulevrier, contemplating his sister with keen scrutiny. 
 
 The beautiful face, so perfect in line and color, curiously re- 
 called that other face at Fellside ; the Dowager's face, with its 
 look of marble coldness, and the half-expressed pain under that 
 outward calm. Here was the face of one who had not yet 
 known pain or passion. Here was the cold perfection of beauty 
 with unawakened heart. 
 
 " I don't know ; I am too busy to think of such things.'' 
 
 " You have done with love, and you have begun to think of 
 marriage, of establishing yourself properly. People tell me you 
 are going to marry Mr. Smithson." 
 
 " People tell you more about me than I know about myself." 
 
 " Come now, Lesbia, I have a right to know the truth upon 
 this point. Your brother — your only brother — should be the 
 first person to be told." 
 
 "When I am engaged, I have no doubt you will be the first 
 person, or the second person," answered Lesbia lightly. " Lady 
 Kirkbank, living on the premises, is likely to be the first." 
 
 " Then you are not engaged to Smithson t " 
 
 " Didn't I tell you so just now ? Mr. Smithson did me the 
 
PHAiVTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 247 
 
 honor to make me an offer yesterday, at about this hour, and I 
 did myself the honor to reject him." 
 
 " And yet you were whispering together in the box last night, 
 and you were riding in the Row with him this morning. I just 
 met a fellow who saw you together. Do you think it is right, 
 Lesbia, to play fast and loose with the man — to encourage him, 
 if you don't mean to marry him ? " 
 
 " How can you accuse me of encouraging a person whom I 
 flatly refused yesterday morning. If Mr. Smithson likes my so- 
 ciety as a friend, must I needs deny him my friendship — ask 
 Lady Kirkbank to shut her door against him .? Mr, Smithson is 
 very pleasant as an acquaintance, and, although I don't want 
 to marry him, there's no reason I should snub him." 
 
 " Smithson is not a man to be trifled with. You will find 
 yourself entangled in a web which you won't easily break 
 through." 
 
 " I am not afraid of webs. By the bye, is it true that Mr. 
 Smithson is likely to get a peerage .? " 
 
 " I have heard people say as much. Smithson has spent no 
 end of money on electioneering and is a power in the House, 
 though he very rarely speaks. He is supposed to be great on 
 financial questions, and comes out tremendously on some co- 
 lonial railway or drainage scheme, about which the House in 
 general is in profound ignorance. On those occasions Smithson 
 scores high and is talked of as a useful man. And a man with 
 immense wealth has always chances. No doubt, if you were to 
 marry him, the peerage would be easily managed. Smithson's 
 mone3% backed by the Maulevrier influence, would go a long 
 way. My grandmother would move heaven and earth in a case 
 of that kind. You had better take pity on Smithson." 
 
 Lesbia laughed. That idea of a possible peerage elevated 
 Smithson in her eyes. She knew nothing of his political career, 
 as she lived in a set which ignored politics altogether. Mr. 
 Smithson had never talked to her of his parliamentary duties, 
 and it was a new thing for her to hear that he had some kind of 
 influence in public affairs. 
 
 " Suppose I were inclined to accept him, would you like him 
 as a brother-in-law ? " she asked, lightly. " I thought from your 
 manner last night that you rather disliked him." 
 
 '' I don't quite like him or any of his breed, the newly rich 
 who go about in society swelling with the sense of their own im- 
 portance, perspiring gold, as it were. And one has always a 
 faint suspicion of men who have got rich very quickly, an idea 
 that there must be some kind of juggling. Not in the case of a 
 
248 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 great contractor, perhaps, who can point to a viaduct or a tunnel 
 and say, ' I built that, and that, and that. These are the 
 sources of my wealth.' But a man who gets enormously rich 
 by mere ciphering ! Where can his money come from, except 
 out of other people's pockets .? I know nothing against your 
 Mr. Smithson, but I always suspect that class of men," con- 
 cluded Maulevrier, shaking his head significantly. 
 
 Lesbia was not much influenced by her brother's notions. 
 She had never been taught to think him an oracle. On the con- 
 trary she had been told that his life hitherto had been all fool- 
 ishness. 
 
 " When are Mary and Mr. Hammond to be married ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Grandmother says they must wait a year. Mary is much 
 too young — and so on, and so forth. But I see no reason for 
 waiting." 
 
 ^' Surely there are reasons — financial reasons. Mr. Hammond 
 cannot be in a position to begin housekeeping." 
 
 ''Oh, they will risk all that. Molly is a daring girl. He 
 proposed to her on the top of Helvellyn in a storm of wind and 
 rain." 
 
 " And she never wrote me a word about it. How very un- 
 sisterly ! " 
 
 " She is as wild as a hawk, and I dare say she was too shy to 
 tell you anything about it." 
 
 " Pray when did it all occur ? " 
 
 "Just before I came to London." ' 
 
 " Two months ago. How absurd for me to be in ignorance 
 all this time ! Well, I hope Mary will be sensible and not 
 marry him till he is able to give her a decent home. It would be 
 so dreadful to have a sister muddling in poverty and clamoring 
 for one's cast-off gowns." 
 
 Maulevrier laughed at this gloomy suggestion. 
 
 " It is not easy to foretell the future," he said, "but I think I 
 may venture to promise that Molly will never wear your cast- 
 off gowns." 
 
 " Oh, you think she would be too proud. You don't know, 
 perhaps, how poverty — genteel poverty — lowers one's pride. I 
 have heard stories from Lady Kirkbank that would make your 
 hair stand on end. I am beginning to know the world." 
 
 " I am glad of that. If you are to live in the world it is bet- 
 ter that you should know what it is made of. But if I had a 
 voice or a choice in the matter I had rather my sisters stayed 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 249 
 
 at Grasmere and remained ignorant of the world and all its 
 ways." 
 
 " While you enjoy your life in London. That is just like the 
 selfishness of a man. Under the pretense of keeping his sisters 
 or his wife secure from all possible contact with evil, he buries 
 them alive in a country house, while he has all the wickedness 
 for his own share in London. Oh, I am beginning to under- 
 stand the creatures." 
 
 ^' I am afraid you are beginning to be wise. Remember that 
 knowledge of evil was the prelude to the fall. Well, good- 
 by." 
 
 " Won't you stay to lunch ? " 
 
 " No, thanks, I never lunch — frightful waste of time. I shall 
 drop in at the White Elephant and take a cup of tea later on." 
 
 The White Elephant was a new club in Piccadilly which Mau- 
 levrier and some of his friends affected. 
 
 Lesbia went toward the drawing-room door whh her brother, 
 and just as he reached the door she laid her hand caressingly 
 upon his shoulder. He turned and stared at her, somewhat 
 surprised, for he and she had never been given to demonstra- 
 tions of affection. 
 
 " Maulevrier, I want you to do me a favor," she said, in a low 
 voice, blushing a little, for the thing she was going to ask was 
 a new thing for her to ask and she had a deep sense of shame 
 in making her demand. " I— I lost money at Nap last night- 
 only seventeen pounds. Mr. Smithson and I were partners and 
 he paid my losses. I want to pay him immediately, and — " 
 
 "And you are too hard up to do it. I'll write you a check 
 this instant," said Maulevrier, good-naturedly, but while he was 
 writing the check he took occasion to remonstrate with Lesbia 
 on the foolishness of card-playing. 
 
 " I am obliged to do as Lady Kirkbank does," she answered 
 feebly. " If I were to refuse to play it would be a kind of re- 
 proach to her." 
 
 " I don't think that would kill Lady Kirkbank," replied Maule- 
 vrier, wdth a touch of scorn. " She has had to endure a good 
 many implied reproaches in her day, and they don't seem to 
 have" hurt her very much. I wish to heaven my grandmother 
 had chosen any one else in London for your chaperon." 
 
 " I'm afraid Lady Kirkbank's is rather a rowdy set," answered 
 Lesbia, coolly; " and I sometimes feel as if I had thrown my- 
 self away. We go almost everywhere — at least there are only 
 just a few houses to which we are not asked. But those few 
 make all the difference. It is so humiUating to feel that one is 
 
250 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 not in the best society. However, Lady Kirkbank is a dear 
 old tiling, and I am not going to grumble about her." 
 
 " I've made the check for five and twenty. You can cash 
 it at your milliner's," said Maulevrier. " I should not like Smith- 
 son to know that you had been obliged to ask me for the 
 money." 
 
 " Apropos to Mr. Smithson, do you know if he is in quite the 
 best society ? " asked Lesbia, 
 
 •' I don't know what you mean by quite the best. A man' of 
 Smithson's wealth can generally poke his nose in anywhere, if 
 he knows how to behave himself. But of course there ^ are 
 people with whom money and fine houses have no weight. 
 The Liberals are all civil to Smithson because he comes down 
 handsomely at general elections, and is useful to them in other 
 ways. I believe that Smithson's wife, if she were a thoroughbred 
 one, could go into any society she liked and make her house 
 one of the most popular in I^ondon. Perhaps that is what you 
 really wanted to ask." 
 
 "No, it wasn't," answered Lesbia, carelessly. "I was only 
 talking for the sake of talking. A thousand thanks for the 
 check, you best of brothers." 
 
 " It is not worth talking about ; but, Lesbia, don't play cards 
 any more. Believe me, it is not good form." 
 
 " Well, I'll try to keep out of it in the future. It is horrid to 
 see one's sovereigns melting away, but there's a delightful excite- 
 ment in winning." 
 
 '' No doubt," answered Maulevrier, w^ith a remorseful sigh. 
 
 He spoke as a reformed plunger, and with many a bitter ex- 
 perience of the race-course and the card-room. Even now, 
 though he had steadied himself wonderfully, he could not get 
 on without a little mild gambling — half-crown pool, whist with 
 half-guinea points — but when he condescended to such small 
 stakes he felt that he had settled down into a respectable 
 middle-aged player, and had a right to rebuke the follies of 
 youth. 
 
 Lesbia flew to the piano and sang one of her little German 
 ballads directlv Maulevrier was gone. She felt as if a burden 
 had been lifted from her soul, now that she was able to pay Mr. 
 Smithson without waiting to ask Lady Maulevrier for the 
 money. And, as she sang, she meditated upon Mauleyrier's 
 remarks about Smithson. He knew nothing to the man's dis- 
 credit, except that he had grown rich in a short space of time. 
 Surely no man ought to be blamed for that ? And he thought 
 that Mr. Smithson's wife might make her house the most popular 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 251 
 
 in London. Lesbia, in her mind's eye, beheld an imaginary 
 Mrs. Smithson giving dances in that magnificent mansion, en- 
 tertaining royal personages. And the doorways would be fes- 
 tooned with roses, as she had seen them the other night at a 
 ball in Grosvenor Square ; but the house in Grosvenor Square 
 was a hovel compared with the Smithsonian palace. 
 
 Lesbia was beginning to be a little tired of Lady Kirkbank 
 and her surroundings. Life taken prestissimo is apt to pall. 
 Lesbia sighed as she finished her last song. She was begin- 
 ning to look upon her existence as a problem which had been 
 given to her to solve, and the solution just at present was all 
 dark. 
 
 As she rose from the piano a footman came in with two let- 
 ters on a salver; bulky letters, such packages as Lesbia had. 
 never seen before. She wondered what they could be. She 
 opened the thick envelope first. It was Seraphine's bill — such 
 a bill, page after page on creamy Bath post, written in an ele- 
 gant Italian hand by one of Seraphine's young women. 
 
 Lesbia looked at it aghast with horror. The total at the foot 
 of the first page was apalling, ever so much more than she could 
 have supposed the whole amount of her indebtedness; but the 
 total went on increasing at the foot of every page, until at sight 
 of the final figures Lesbia gave a wild shriek, like a wretched 
 creature who has received a telegram announcing bitter loss. 
 
 The final total was twelve hundred and nmety-three pounds 
 seventeen and sixpence. 
 
 Thirteen hundred pounds for clothes in eight weeks. 
 
 No, the thing was a cheat, a mistake. They had sent her 
 somebody else's bill. She had not had half these things. 
 
 She read the first page, her heart beating violently as she 
 pored over the figures, her eyes dim and clouded with the trou- 
 ble of her brain. 
 
 Yes, there was her court dress. The description was too mi- 
 nute to be mistaken, and the court dress, with feathers, and 
 shoes, and gloves, and fan, came to a hundred and thirty pounds. 
 Then followed innumerable items. The very simplest of her 
 gowns cost five and twentv pounds — frocks about which Sera- 
 phine had talked so carelessly, as if two or three more or less 
 could make no difference. Bonnets and hats, at five or seven 
 guineas apiece, swelled the account. Parasols and fans were 
 of fabulous price, as it seemed to Lesbia, and the shoes and 
 stockings to match her various gowns occurred again and again 
 between the more important items like the refrain of an old bal- 
 lad. All the useless and unnecessary things which she had or- 
 
252 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 dered because she thought them prett)^ or because she was told 
 they were fashionable, rose up against her in the figures of the 
 bill like the record of forgotten sins at the day of judgment. 
 
 She sank into a chair, pallid with consternation, and sat with 
 the bill in her lap, turning the pages listlessly and staring at 
 the figures. 
 
 " It cannot be so much," she cried to herself. " It must be 
 added up wrong ; " and then she feebly tried to cast up a col- 
 umn, but arithmetic not being one of those accomplishments which 
 Lady Maulevrier deemed necessary to a patrician beauty's suc- 
 cess in life. Lesbia's education had been somewhat neglected 
 upon this point, and she flung the bill from her in a rage, una- 
 ble to hold the figures in her brain. 
 
 She opened the second envelope — her jeweler's account. 
 
 At the very first item she gave another scream, fainter than 
 the first, for her mind was getting hardened against such shocks. 
 
 " The resetting a suite of amethysts with forty-four finest Bra- 
 zilian brilliants, three hundred and fifteen pounds." 
 
 Then followed the trifles she had bought at different visits, 
 casual purchases, bought on the impulse of the moment. These 
 swelled the account to a little over eight hundred pounds. 
 Lesbia sat like a statue, numbed by despair, appalled at the 
 idea of owing two thousand pounds. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 "roses choked among thorns and thistles." 
 
 Lady Lesbia eat no luncheon that day. She went to her own 
 room and had a cup of tea, to steady her ner\^es, and sent to 
 ask Lady Kirkbank to go to her as soon as she had finished 
 luncheon. Lady Kirkbank's luncheon was a serious business, 
 a substantial leisurely meal with which she fortified herself for 
 the day's work. It enabled her to endure all the fatigues of 
 visits and park, and to be airily indifferent to the charms of 
 dinner, for Lady Kirkbank was not one of those matrons who 
 with advanced years take to gourmandize as a kind of fine art. 
 She gave good dinners, because she knew people would not 
 come to Arlington Street to eat bad ones ; but she was not a 
 person who lived only to dine. At luncheon she gave her 
 healthy appetite full scope, and eat like a plowman. 
 
 She' found Lesbia in her white muslin dressing-gown, with 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 253 
 
 cheeks as pale as the gown she wore. She was sitting in a low 
 chair, with a low tea table at her side, and the two bills were in 
 the trav with the tea things. 
 
 " Have you any idea how much I owe Seraphine and Cabu- 
 chon ? " she asked, looking up despairingly at Lady Kirkbank. 
 
 " What, have they sent in their bills already ? " 
 
 " Already ! I wish they had sent them before. I should 
 have known how deeply I was getting into debt." 
 
 " Are they very heavy ? " 
 
 " They are dreadful. I owe over two thousand pounds. How 
 can I tell Lady Maulevrier that ? Two thousand pounds ! It 
 is awful ! " 
 
 " There are women in London who would think very little of 
 owing twice as much," said Lady Kirkbank, in a comfortable 
 tone, though the fact, seriously considered, could hardly afford 
 comfort. "Your grandmother said you were to have carte 
 blanche. She may think that you have been just a little ex- 
 travagant ; but she can hardly be angry with you for having 
 taken her at her word. Two thousand pounds 1 Yes, it cer- 
 tainly is rather stiff." 
 
 " Seraphine is a cheat," exclaimed Lesbia angrily. " Her 
 prices are positively exorbitant." 
 
 " My dear child, you must not say that. Seraphine is posi- 
 tively moderate in comparison with the new people." 
 
 "And Mr. Cabuchon too. The idea of his charging me three 
 hundred guineas for resetting those stupid old amethysts." 
 
 " My dear, you would have diamonds mixed with them," said 
 Lady Kirkbank reproachfully. 
 
 Lesbia turned away her head with an impatient sigh. She 
 remembered perfectly that it was Lady Kirkbank who had per- 
 suaded her to order the diamond setting ; but there was no use 
 in talking about it now. The thing was done. She was two 
 thousand pounds in debt — two thousand pounds to these two 
 people only — and there were ever so many shops at which she 
 had accounts, glovers, bootmakers, habit-makers, the tailor who 
 made her Newmarket coats and cloth gowns, the stationer who 
 supplied her with notepaper of every variety, monogrammed, 
 floral, sporting, illuminated with this or that device, the follies of 
 the passing hour, hatched by invention in a garret, pandering 
 to the vanities of the idle. 
 
 " I must write to my grandmother by this afternoon's post," 
 said Lesbia, with a heavy sigh. 
 
 " Impossible. We have to be at the Ranelagh by four o'clock. 
 Smithson and some other men are to meet us there. I have 
 
254 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 promised to drive Mrs. Mostyn down with us. You had better 
 begin to dress." 
 
 " But I ought to write to-day. I had better ask for this 
 money at once, and have done with it. Two thousand pounds ! 
 I feel as if I were a thief. You say my grandmother is not a 
 rich woman ? " 
 
 " Not rich, as the world goes nowadays. Nobody is rich now, 
 except your commercial magnates, like Smithson. Great peers, 
 unless their money is in London ground rents, are great paupers. 
 To own land is to be destitute. I don't suppose two thousand 
 pounds will break your grandmother's bank ; but of course it is 
 a large sum to ask for at the end of two months ; especially as 
 she sent you a good deal of money while we were at Cannes. 
 If you were engaged now — about to make a really good match 
 — you could ask for the money as a matter of course ; but, as it is, 
 although you have been tremendously admired, from a practical 
 point of view you are a failure." 
 
 A failure. It was a hard word, but Lesbia felt it was true. 
 She, the reigning beauty, the cynosure of every eye, had made 
 no conquest worth talking about, except Mr. Smithson. 
 
 " Don't tell your grandmother an3^thing about the bills for a 
 week or two," said Lady Kirkbank, soothingly. " The creatures 
 can wait for their money. Give yourself time to think." 
 
 " I will," answered Lesbia, dolefully. 
 
 " And now make haste and get ready for the Ranelagh. My 
 love, your eyes are dreadfully heavy. You must use a little 
 belladonna. I'll send Rilboche to you." 
 
 And for the first time in her life, Lesbia, too depressed to 
 argue the point, consented to have her eyes doctered by Ril- 
 boche. 
 
 She was gay enough at the Ranelagh, and looked her loveliest 
 at a dinner party that evening, and went to three parties after 
 the dinner, and went home in the faint light of early morning, 
 after sitting out a late waltz in a balcony with Mr. Smithson, a 
 balcony built round with hot-house flowers which were beginning 
 to droop a little in the chilly morning air, just as beauty drooped 
 under the searching eye of day. 
 
 Lesbia put the bills in her desk, and gave herself time to 
 think, as Lady Kirkbank advised her. But the thinking process 
 resulted in very little good. All the thought of which she was 
 capable would not reduce the totals of thqse two dreadful ac- 
 counts. And every day brought some fresh bill. The stationer, 
 the bootmaker, the glover, the perfumer, people who had courted 
 Lady Lesbia's custom with an air which implied that the honor 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 255 
 
 of serving fashionable beauty was the first consideration and 
 the question of payment quite a minor point — these now began 
 to ask for their money in the most prosaic way. Every straw 
 added to Lesbia's burden ; and her heart grew heavier with 
 every post. 
 
 " One can see the season is waning when these people begin 
 to pester with their accounts," said Lady Kirkbank, who always 
 talked of tradesmen as if they were her natural enemies. 
 
 Lesbia accepted this explanation of the avalanche of bills, and 
 never suspected Lady Kirkbank's influence in the matter. It 
 happened, however, that the chaperon, having her own reasons 
 for wishing to bring Mr. Smithson's suit to a successful issue, 
 had told Seraphine and the other people to send in their bills 
 immediately. Lady Lesbia would be leaving London in a week 
 or two, she informed these purveyors, and would like to settle 
 everything before she went away. 
 
 Mr. Smith son appeared in Arlington Street almost every day, 
 and was full of schemes for new pleasures — or pleasures as 
 nearly new as the world of fortune can afford. He was partic- 
 ularly desirous that Sir George and Lady Kirkbank, with Lady 
 Lesbia, should stay at his Berkshire place during the Henley 
 week. He had a large steam launch, and the regatta was a 
 kind of carnival for his intimate friends, who were not too 
 proud to riot and batten upon the Parvenu's luxurious hospital- 
 ity, albeit they were apt to talk somewhat slightingly of his an- 
 tecedents. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank felt that this invitation was a turning point, 
 and that if Lesiba went to stay at Rood Hall her acceptance of 
 Mr. Smithson was a certainty. She would see him at his place 
 in Berkshire in the most flattering aspect — his surroundings as 
 the lord of the manor, the owner of one of the finest old places 
 in the county, would lend dignity to his insignificance. Lesbia 
 at first expressed a strong disinclination to go to Rood Hall. 
 There could be a most unpleasant feeling in stopping at the 
 house of a man whom she had refused, she told Lady Kirkbank. 
 " My dear, Mr. Smithson has forgiven you," answered her 
 chaperon. " He is the soul of good nature." 
 
 "One would think he was accustomed to be refused," said 
 Lesbia. " I don't want to go to Rood Hall, but I don't want to 
 spoil your Henley week. Could not I run down to Grasmere 
 for a week, with Kibble to take care of me, and see dear grand- 
 mamma.? I could tell her about those dreadful bills." 
 
 " Bury yourself at Grasmere in the height of the season ! 
 Not to be thought of ! Besides, Lady Maulevrier objected be- 
 
256 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 fore to the idea of your traveling alone with Kibble. No ! if 
 you can't make up your mind to go to Rood Hall, George and 
 I must make up our minds to stay away But it will be rather, 
 hard lines ; for that Henley week is quite the joUiest thing in 
 the Summer." 
 
 "Then I'll «o," said Lesbia, with a resigned air. "Not for 
 worlds would I deprive you and Sir George of a pleasure." 
 
 In her heart of hearts she rather wished to see Rood Hall. 
 She was curious to behold the extent and magnitude of Mr. 
 Smithson's possessions. She had seen his Italian villa in Park 
 Lane, the perfection of modern art, modern skill, modern taste, 
 reviving the old eternally beautiful forms, recreating the Pitti 
 Palace — the homes of the Medici — the halls of dead and gone 
 Doges — and now she was told that Rood Hall a genuine old 
 English manor-house, in perfect preservation — was even more 
 interesting than the villa in Park Lane. At Rood Hall there 
 w^ere ideal stables and farm, hot-houses without number, rose 
 gardens, lawns, the river and a deer park. 
 
 So the invitation was accepted, and Mr. Smithson immediately 
 laid himself at Lesbia's feet, as it were, with regard to all other 
 invitations for the Henley festival. Whom should he ask to 
 meet her, whom would she have? 
 
 " You are very good," she said, " but I have really no wish to 
 be consulted. I could not presume to dictate." 
 
 " But I wish you to dictate. I wish you to be imperious in the 
 expression of your wishes." 
 
 " Lady Kirkbank has a better right than I, if anybody is to 
 consulted," said Lesbia, modestly. 
 
 " Lady Kirkbank is an old dear, who gets on delightfully 
 with everybody. But you are more sensitive. Your comfort 
 might be marred by an obnoxious presence. I will ask nobody 
 whom you do not like — who is not thoroughly simpatico. Have 
 you no particular friends of your own choosing whom you w^ould 
 like me to ask ? " 
 
 Lesbia confessed that she had no such friends. She liked 
 everybody tolerably, but she had not a talent for friendship. 
 Perhaps it was because in the London season one must be too 
 busy to make friends. 
 
 " I can fancy two girls getting quite attached to each other 
 out of the season," she said, " but in May and June life is all a 
 rush and a scramble — " 
 
 " And one has no time to gather wayside flowers of friend- 
 ship," interjected Mr. Smithson. " Still, if there are no people 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 257 
 
 for whom you have an especial liking, there must be people 
 whom you detest." 
 
 Lesbia owned that it was so. Detestation came of itself, nat- 
 urally. 
 
 " Then let me be sure I do not ask any of your pet aversions," 
 said Mr. Smithson. " You met Mr. Plantagenet Parsons, the 
 theatrical critic, at my house. Shall we have him ? " 
 
 " I like all amusing people." 
 
 " And Horace Meander, the poet. Shall we have him ? He 
 is brimful of conceits and affectations, but he is a tremendous 
 joke." 
 
 " Mr. Meander is charming." 
 
 " Suppose we ask Mostyn and his wife ? Her scraps of science 
 are rather good fun." 
 
 " I haven't the faintest objection to the Mostyns," replied 
 Lesbia. " But who are * we ' ? " 
 
 " We are you and I for the nonce. The invitations will be 
 issued ostensibly by me, but they will really emanate from you." 
 
 " I am to be the shadow behind the throne," said Lesbia. 
 " How delightful ! " 
 
 " I would rather you were the sovereign ruler, on the throne," 
 answered Smithson, tenderly. " That throne shall be empty till 
 you fill it." 
 
 " Please go on with your list of people," said Lesbia, checking 
 this gush of sentiment. 
 
 She began to feel somehow that she was drifting from all her 
 moorings, that in accepting this invitation to Rood Hall she was 
 allowing herself to be ensnared into an alliance about which she 
 was still dotibtful. If anything better had appeared in the pros- 
 pect of her life — if any worthier suitor had come forward, she 
 would have drifted Mr. Smithson down the wind ; but no worthier 
 suitor had offered himself. It was Smithson or nothing. If she 
 did not accept Smithson she would go back to Fellside heavily 
 burdened with debt and an obvious failure. She would have 
 to run the gauntlet of a London season without definite result ; 
 and this, to a young woman so impressed with her transcendant 
 merits, was a most humiliating state of things. 
 
 Other people's names were suggested by Mr. Smithson and 
 approved by Lesbia, and a house-party of about fourteen in all 
 was made up. Mr. Smithson's steam launch would comfortably 
 accommodate that number. He had a couple of barges for 
 chance visitors, and kept an open table on board them all 
 through the regatta. 
 
 The visit arranged, the next question was gowns. Lesbia had 
 17 
 
258 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 gowns enough to have stocked a draper's shop ; but then, as 
 she and Lady Kirkbank deplored, the difficulty was that she had 
 worn them all, some as many as three or four times. They 
 were doubtless all marked and known. Some of them had been 
 described in the society papers. At Henley she would be ex- 
 pected to wear something distinctly new, to introduce some new 
 fashion of gown or hat or parasol. No matter how ugly the new 
 things might be so long as it was startling, no matter how eccen- 
 tric provided it was original. 
 
 " What am I to do ? " asked Lesbia, despairingly. 
 
 " There is only one thing that can be done. We must go in 
 stantly to Seraphine and insist upon her inventing something. 
 If she has no idea ready she must telegraph to Worth and get 
 him to send something over. Your old things will do very well 
 for Rood Hall. You have no end of pretty gov/ns for morning 
 and evening, but you must be original on the race days. Your 
 gowns will t)e in all the papers." 
 
 " But 1 shall be only getting deeper into debt," said Lesbia, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 '' That can't be helped. If you go into society you must be 
 properly dressed. We'll go to Clanricarde Place directly after 
 luncheon and see what that old harpy has to show us." 
 
 Lesbia had a rather uncomfortable feeling about facing the 
 fair Seraphine without being able to give her a check upon ac- 
 count of that dreadful bill. She had quite accepted Lady Kirk- 
 bank's idea that bills need never be discharged in full, and that 
 the true system of finance was to give an occasional check on 
 account, as a sop to Cerberus. True, that while Cerberus fat- 
 tened on the sops, the bill seemed always growing ; and the 
 final crash, when Cerberus grew savage and sops could be no 
 more accepted, was too awful to be thought about. 
 
 Lesbia entered Seraphine's Louis Seize drawing-room with a 
 faint expectation of unpleasantness ; but after a little whisper- 
 ing between Lady Kirkbank and the dressmaker, the latter came 
 to Lesbia siniling graciously, and laid her establishment, as it 
 were, at the damsel's feet. 
 
 " Miladi says you want something of the most original — tan 
 soit peu risque — even for Enley," she said, " let us see now," 
 and she tapped her forehead with a gold thimble which nobody 
 had ever seen her use, but which looked respectable. 
 
 " There is ze dresses what Chaumont wears in zis new play, 
 * Une faute dans le Passe.' Yes, zere is ze watare dress — a Doat- 
 ing party at Bougival, a toilet of the most new, striking, ec rasant, 
 what you English call a ' screamer." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 259 
 
 " What a genius you are, Fiffine," exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, 
 rapturously. "The ' Faute dans le Passe 'was only produced 
 last week. No one will have thought of reproducing Chaumont's 
 gowns yet awhile. The.idea is an inspiration." 
 
 " What is the boating costume like .? " asked Lady Lesbia, 
 faintly. 
 
 "An exquisite combination of simplicity with chic," answered 
 the dressmaker. " A skin-tight indigo blue silk Jersey bodice, 
 closely studded with dark blue beads, a flounced petticoat of in- 
 digo and amber foulard, an amber scarf drawn tightly around 
 the hips, and a dark blue toque with a large bunch of amber 
 poppies. Tan-colored mousquetaire gloves, and Hessian boots 
 of tan-colored kid." 
 
 " Hessian boots ! " ejaculated Lesbia. 
 
 " But, yes, miladi. The petticoat is somewhat short, you 
 comprehend, to escape the damp of the deck, and, after all, 
 Hessians are much less indelicate than silk stockings, legs a 
 cru, as M^e may say." 
 
 "Lesbia, you will look enchanting in yellow Hessians," said 
 Lady Kirkbank. "Let the dress be put in hand instantly, 
 Seraphine." 
 
 Lesbia was inclined to remonstrate. She did not admire the 
 description of the costume ; she would rather have something 
 less outrageous. 
 
 "Outrageous ! It is only original," exclaimed her chaperon. 
 " If Chaumont wears it, you may be sure it is perfect." 
 
 " But on the stage, by gaslight, in the midst of unrealities," 
 argued Lesbia. "That makes such a difference." 
 
 " My dear, there is no difference nowadays between the stage 
 and the drawing-room. Whatever Chaumont wears you may 
 wear. And now let us think of the second day. I think as 
 your first costume is to be nautical and rather masculine, your 
 second should be somewhat languishing and evapore. Creamy 
 Indian muslin, wild flowers, a large Leghorn hat." 
 
 "And what will miladi herself wear?" asked the French 
 woman of Lady Kirkbank. " She will have something new." 
 
 " No ; at my age it doesn't matter. I shall wear one of my 
 cotton frocks and my Dunstable hat." 
 
 Lesbia shuddered, for Lady Kirkbank in her cotton frock was 
 a spectacle at which youth laughed and age blushed. But after 
 all it did not matter to Lesbia. She would have liked a less 
 rowdy chaperon, but as a foil to her own fresh, young beauty 
 Lady Kirkbank was admirable. 
 
 They drove down to Rood Hall early next week, Sir George 
 
26o PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 conveying them in his drag, with a change of horses at Maid- 
 enhead. The weather was peerless, the country exquisite, ap- 
 proached from London. How differently that river landscape 
 looks to the eyes of the traveler returning from wild West of Eng- 
 land, the wooded gorges of Cornwall and Devon, the Tamar 
 and the Dart. Then how small and poor and mean seems sil- 
 very Thames, gliding peacefully between his willowy banks, sing- 
 ing his lullaby to the whispering sedges ; a poor little river, a 
 fiat, commonplace landscape, says the traveler fresh from moor- 
 land and tor, from the rocky shore of the Atlantic, the deep clefts 
 of the great red hills. 
 
 To Lesbia's eyes the placid stream and the green pastures, 
 breathing odors of rneadow-sweet and clover, seemed passing 
 lovely. She was pleased with her own hat and parasol, too, 
 which made her graciously disposed toward the landscape ; and 
 the last packet of gloves from North Audley Street fitted without 
 a wrinkle. The glovemaker was beginning to understand her 
 hand, which was a study for a sculptor, but which had its little 
 peculiarities. 
 
 Nor was she ill disposed to Mr. Smithson, who had come up 
 to town by an early train, in order to lunch in Arlington Street 
 and go back by coach, seated just behind Lady Lesbia, who had 
 the box seat beside Sir George. 
 
 The drive was delightful. It was a few minutes after five 
 when the coach drove past the picturesque old Gatehouse into 
 Mr. Smithson's park, and Rood Hall lay on the low ground in 
 front of them, with its back to the river. It was an old brick 
 house in the Tudor style, with an advanced porch and four pro- 
 jecting wings, three stories high, with picturesque spire roofs over- 
 topping the main building. Around the house ran a boldly 
 carved stone parapet, bearing the herons and bulrushes which 
 were the cognizance of the noble race for which the mansion 
 was built. Numerous projecting mullioned windows broke up 
 the line of the park front. Lesbia was fain to own that Rood 
 Hall was even better than Park Lane. In London Mr. Smithson 
 had created a palace, but it was a new palace, which still had a 
 faint flavor of bricks and mortar, and which was apt to remind the 
 spectator of that wonderful erection of Aladdin, the famous par- 
 venu of Eastern story. Here, in Berkshire, Mr. Smithson had 
 dropped into a nest which had been kept warm for him for three 
 centuries, aired and beautified by generations of a noble race that 
 had obligingly decayed and dwindled in order to make room for 
 Mr. Smithson. Here the parvenu had bought a home, mellowed 
 by the slow growth of years, touched into poetic beauty by the 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 261 
 
 chastening fingers of time. His artist friends told him that every 
 brick in the red walls was " precious," a mystery of color which 
 only an artist could fitly understand and value. Here he had 
 bought associations, he had bought history. He had bought the 
 dust of Elizabeth's senators, the bones of her court beauties. 
 The cofiins in the mausoleum yonder in the ferny depths of the 
 park, the village church just outside the gates, these had all gone 
 with the property. 
 
 Lesbia went up the grand stairway, through the long corridors, 
 in a dream of wonder. Brought up at Fellside, in that new part 
 of the Westmoreland house which had been built by her grand- 
 mother and had no history, she felt thrilled by the sober splendor 
 of this fine old manorial mansion. All was sound and substan- 
 tial, as if created yesterday, so well preserved had been the 
 goods and chattels of the noble race, and yet all wore such un- 
 mistakable marks of age. The deep rich coloring of the wain- 
 scot, the faded hues of the tapestry, the draperies of costly velvet 
 and brocade were all sobered by the passing of years. 
 
 Mr. Smithson had shown his good taste in having kept all 
 things as Sir Hubert Heronville, the last of his race, had left 
 them ; and the Heronvilles had been one of those grand old 
 Tory races which change nothing of the past. 
 
 Lady Lesbia's bed-room was the state chamber which had 
 been occupied by kings and queens in days of yore. That 
 grandiose four-poster, with the carved ebony columns, cut vel- 
 vet curtains, and plumes of ostrich feathers, had been built for 
 Elizabeth when she deigned to include Rood Hall in one of her 
 royal progresses. Charles the First had rested his weary head 
 upon those very pillows before he went on to the inn at Uxbridge, 
 where he was to be lodged less luxuriously. James the Second 
 had stayed there, when Duke of York, with Mistress Anne Hyde, 
 before he acknowledged his marriage to the multitude ; and 
 Anne's daughter had occupied the same room, as Queen of Eng- 
 land, forty years later; and now the royal chamber, with adja- 
 cent dressing-room, and orator}^, and spacious boudoir all in the 
 same suite, was reserved for Lady Lesbia Haselden. 
 
 " I'm afraid you are spoiling me," she told Mr. Smithson, 
 when he asked if she approved of the rooms that had been al- 
 lotted to her. " I feel quite ashamed of myself among the 
 ghosts of dead and gone queens." 
 
 " Why so ? Surely the royalty of beauty has as divine a right 
 as that of an anointed sovereign." 
 
 " 1 hope the royal personages don't walk," exclaimed Lady 
 
262 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 * 
 Kirkbank, in her girlish tone ; " this is just the house in which 
 one would expect ghosts." 
 
 Whereupon Mrs. Mostyn hastened to enlighten the company 
 upon the real causes of ghost-seeing, which she had lately studied 
 in Carpenter's Mental Physiology, and favored them with a di- 
 luted version of the views of that authority. 
 
 This was at afternoon tea in the library, where the brass- 
 vvired bookcases, filled with mighty folios and handsome octavos 
 in old bindings, looked as if they had not been opened for a 
 century. The literature of past ages furnished the room and 
 made a delightful background. Literature of the present lay 
 about on the tables, and testified that the highest intellectual 
 flight of the inhabitants of Rood Hall was a dip into the Con- 
 temporary or Nineteenth Century, or the perusal of the last new 
 scandal in the shape of Reminiscences or Autobiography. One 
 large round table was consecrated to Mudie, another to Rolan- 
 di. On the one side you had Mrs. Oliphant, on the other Zola,, 
 exemplifying the genius of the two nations. 
 
 After tea Mr. Smithson's visitors, most of whom had arrived 
 in Sir George's drag, explored the grounds, and these were 
 lovely beyond expression in the low afternoon light. Cedars of 
 Lebanon spread their broad shadows on the velvet lawn, yews 
 and Wellingtonias of mighty growth made an atmosphere of 
 gloom in some parts of the grounds. One great feature was 
 the Ladies' Garden, a spot apart, a great square garden sur- 
 rounded with a laurel wall eight feet high, containing a rose 
 garden, where the choicest specimens grew and flourished, while 
 in the center there was a circular fish pond and a fountain. 
 There was a Lavender Walk too, another feature of the grounds 
 at Rood Hall, an avenue of tall lavender bushes, much affected 
 by the stately dames of old. 
 
 Modern manners preferred the river terrace as a pleasant 
 place on which to loiter at evening, to watch the boats flashing 
 by in the evening light or the sun going down behind a fringe 
 of willows on the opposite bank. This Italian terrace, with its 
 statues and carved vases filled with roses, fuchsias and geranium, 
 was the great point of rendezvous after dinner at Rood Hall 
 — an ideal spot whereon to linger in the deepening twilight, 
 from which to gaze upon the moon-lit river later on in the night. 
 
 The windows of the drawing-room and music-room and ball- 
 room opened on to this terrace, and the royal wing — the tower- 
 shaped wing now devoted to Lady Lesbia — looked upon the 
 terrace and the river. 
 
 '• Lovely as your house is altogether, I think this river view 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 263 
 
 is the best part of it," said Lady Lesbia, as she strolled with 
 Mr. Smithson on the terrace after dinner, dressed in India mus- 
 lin, which was almost as poetical as a vapor, and with a cloud 
 of dehcate lace wrapped round her head. " I think I shall spend 
 half of my life at my boudoir window, gloating over that delicious 
 landscape." 
 
 The festivities were late on this second evening, as Mr. Smith 
 son had invited a good many people from the neighborhood, but 
 the house party were not the less early on the following morning, 
 which was the first Henley day. 
 
 It was a peerless morning, and all the brass-work of Mr. 
 Smithson's launch sparkled and shone in the sun as she lay in 
 front of the terrace. A wooden pier, a portable construction, 
 was thrown out to enable the company to go on board the launch 
 without the possibility of wet feet or damaged raiment. 
 
 Lesbia's Chaumont costume was a success. The women 
 praised it, the men stared and admired. The dark-blue silken 
 jersey, sparkling with closely studded indigo beads, fitted the 
 slim, graceful figure as a serpent's scales fit the serpent. The 
 coquettish little bkie silk toque, the careless cluster of gold-col- 
 ored poppies in the glossy brown hair, the large sunshade of old- 
 gold satin, the flounced petticoat of softest Indian silk, the 
 dainty litde tan-colored boots with high heels and pointed toes, 
 were all perfect after their fashion, and Mr. Smithson felt that 
 the liege lady of his life, the woman he meant to marry willy nilly, 
 would be the belle of the race-course. Nor was he disappointed. 
 Everybody in London had heard of Lady Lesbia Haselden. 
 Her photograph was in all the West End windows, was enshrined 
 in the albums of South Kensington and Clapham, Maida Vale 
 and Haverstock Hill. People whose circles were far remote from 
 Lady Lesbia's circle were as familiar with her beauty as if they 
 had known her from her cradle. And all these outsiders wanted 
 to see her in the flesh, just as they always thirst to behold 
 royal personages. So when it became known that the beauti- 
 ful Lady Lesbia Haselden was on board Mr. Smithson's launch, 
 all the people in the small boats, or on neighboring barges, 
 made it their business to have a good look at her. The launch 
 was almost mobbed by those inquisitive little boats in the inter- 
 vals between the races. 
 
 " What are the people all staring and hustling each other 
 for? " asked Lesbia, innocently. She had seen the same hus- 
 tling and whispering and staring in the hall at the opera, when 
 she was waiting for her carriage ; but she chose to affect uncon- 
 sciousness. " What do they all want ? " 
 
264 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " I think they want to see you," said Mr. Smithson, who was 
 sitting by her side. " A very natural desire." 
 
 Lesbia laughed, and lowered the big yellow sunshade so as 
 to hide herself altogether from the starers. 
 
 " How silly," she exclaimed. " It is all the fault of those 
 horrid photographers ; they vulgarize everything and everybody. 
 I will never be photographed again." 
 
 " Oh, yes you will, and in that frock. It's the prettiest thing 
 I've seen for a long time. Why do you hide yourself from those 
 poor wretches who keep rowing backward and forward in an 
 obviously aimless way just to get a peep at you en passant. 
 What happiness for us who live near you, and can gaze when 
 we will, without all those absurd maneuvers. There goes the 
 gun — and now for a hard-fought race." 
 
 Lesbia pretended to be interested in the racing — she pre- 
 tended to be gay ; but her heart was as heavy as lead. That 
 burden of debt which had been growing ever since Seraphine 
 sent in her bill was weighing her down to the dust. 
 
 She owed three thousand pounds. It seemed incredible that 
 she should owe so much — that a girl's frivolous fancies and ex- 
 travagances could amount to such a sum within so short a span. 
 But thoughtless purchases, ignorant orders had run on from 
 week to week, and the main result was an indebtedness of close 
 upon three thousand pounds 
 
 Three thousand pounds ! The sum was continually sounding 
 in her ears like the cry of a screech owl. The very ripple of 
 theri ver flowing so peacefully under the blue summer sky 
 seemed to repeat the words. Three thousand pounds ! " Is it 
 much ? " she wondered, having no standard of comparison. " Is 
 it very much more than my grandmother will expect me to have 
 spent in the time ? Will it trouble her to have to pay those 
 bills ? Will she be very angry ? " 
 
 These were questions which Lesbia kept asking herself in 
 every pause of her frivolous existence, in such a pause as this, 
 for instance, while the people round her were standing breath- 
 less, open-mouthed, gazing after the boats. She did not care a 
 straw for the boats, who won or who lost the race. It was all a 
 hollow mockery. Indeed, it seemed just now that the only real 
 tiling in life was those accursed bills, which would have to be 
 paid soniehow. 
 
 She had told Lady Maulevrier nothing about them as yet. 
 She had allowed herself to be advised by Lady Kirkbank, and 
 she had taken time to think. But thought had given her no 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 265 
 
 help. The days were gliding onward, and Lady Maulevrier 
 would have to be told. 
 
 She meditated perplexedly about her grandmother's income. 
 She had never heard the extent of it, but had taken for granted 
 that Lady Maulevrier was rich. Would three thousand pounds 
 make a great inroad on that income ? Would it be a year's in- 
 come — half a year's .' Lesbia had no idea. Life at Fellside 
 was carried on in an elegant manner — with considerable luxury 
 in house and garden — a luxury of flowers, a lavish expenditure 
 of labor. Yet the expenditure of Lady Maulevrier's existence, 
 spent always on the same spot, must be as nothing to the money 
 spent in such a life as Lady Kirkbank's, which involved the 
 keeping up of three or four houses, and costly journeys to and 
 fro and incessant changes of attire. 
 
 No doubt Lady Maulevrier had saved money ; yes, she must 
 have saved thousands during her long seclusion, Lesbia argued. 
 Her grandmother had told her that she was to look upon her- 
 self as an heiress. This could only mean that Lady Maulevrier 
 had a fortune to leave her ; and this being so, what could it 
 matter if she had anticipated some of her portion ? And yet, 
 and yet, there was in her heart of hearts a terrible fear of that 
 stern dowager, of the cold scorn in those splendid eyes when 
 she should stand revealed in all her foolishness, her selfish, 
 mindless, vain extravagances. She, who had never been re- 
 proved, shrank with a sickly dread from the idea of reproof ; 
 and to be told that her career as a fashionable beauty had been 
 a failure, that would be the bitterest pang of all. 
 
 Soon came luncheon and Heidseck, and then an afternoon 
 which was gayer than the morning had been, inasmuch as every 
 one talked and laughed more after luncheon. And then there 
 was five o'clock tea on deck, under the striped Japanese awning, 
 to the jingle of banjos, enlivened by the wit of black-faced min- 
 strels, amidst wherries and canoes and gondolas, and ponder- 
 ous house-boats, and snorting launches, crowding the sides of 
 the sun-lit river, in full view of the crowd yonder in front of the 
 Red Lion, and here on this nearer bank and all along either 
 ^hore, fringing the green meadows with a gaudy border of well- 
 dressed humanity. 
 
 It was a gay scene, and Lesbia gave herself up to the amuse- 
 ment of the hour, and talked and chaffed, as she had learned to 
 talk and chaff in one brief season, holding her own against all 
 comers. 
 
 Rood Hall looked lovely when they went back to it in the 
 gloaming, an Elizabethan pile crowned with towers. The foui 
 
266 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 wings with their conical roofs, the massive projecting windows, 
 gray stone, ruddy brickwork, lattices reflecting the sunlight, 
 Italian terrace and blue river in the foreground, cedars and yews 
 at the back, all made a splendid picture of an English ancestral 
 honne. 
 
 " Nice old place, isn't it ? " asked Mr. Smithson, seeing Les- 
 bia's admiring gaze as the launch neared the terrace. They 
 two were standing in the bows apart from all the rest. 
 
 " Nice ! — it is simply perfect." 
 
 " Oh, no, it isn't. There is one thing wanted yet." 
 
 " What is that ? " 
 
 " A wife. You are the only person who can make any house 
 of mine perfect. Will you .? " He took her hand, which she 
 did not withdraw from his grasp. He bent his head and kissed 
 the little hand in its soft Swedish glove. 
 
 " Will you, Lesbia ? " he repeated, earnestly, and she answered, 
 softly, " Yes." 
 
 That one brief syllable was more like a sigh than a spoken 
 word, and it seemed to her as if in the utterance of that word 
 the three thousand pounds had been paid. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 ^* KIND IS MY LOVE TO-DAY, TO-MORROW KIND." 
 
 While Lady Lesbia was draining the cup of London folly 
 and London care to the dregs. Lady Mary was leading her usual 
 quiet life beside the glassy lake, where the green hill-sides and 
 sheep walks were reflected in all their Summer verdure under 
 the cloudless azure of the Summer sky. A monotonous life — 
 passing dull as seen from the outside — and yet Mary was very 
 happy, happy even in her solitude, with the grave deep joy of a 
 satisfied heart, a mind at rest. All life had taken a new color 
 since her engagement to John Hammond. A sense of new 
 duties, an awakening earnestness, had given a graver tone to 
 her character. Her spirits were less wild, yet not less joyous 
 than of old. The joy was holier, deeper. 
 
 Her lover's letters were the chief delight of her lonely days. 
 To read them again and again, and ponder upon them, and then 
 to pour out all her heart and mind in answering them. These 
 were pleasure enough for any young life. Hammond's letters 
 were such as any young woman might be proud to receive. 
 
PHA NTOM FQR TUNE. 2G7 
 
 They were not love letters only. He wrote as friend to friend ; 
 not descending from the proud pinnacle of mascuhne intelligence 
 to the lower level of feminine silliness ; not writing down to a 
 simple country girl's capacity ; but writing fully and fervently, 
 as if there were no subject too lofty or too grave for the under- 
 standing of his betrothed. He wrote as one sure of being 
 sympathized with, wrote as to his second self ; and Mary showed 
 herself not unworthy of the honor thus rendered to her intel- 
 lect. 
 
 There was one world which had newly opened to Mary since 
 her engagement, and that was the world of politics. Hammond 
 had told her that his ambition was to succeed as a politician — 
 to do some good in his day as one of the governing body ; and 
 from thiL time she had made it her business to learn how 
 England and the world outside England were governed. 
 
 She had no natural learning to the study of political economy. 
 Indeed, she had always imagined any question relating to the 
 government of her country to be inherently dry as dust and 
 uninviting. But had John Hammond devoted his days to the 
 study of Coptic manuscripts or the arrow-headed inscriptions 
 upon Assyrian tablets, she would have toiled her hardest in the 
 endeavor to make herself a Coptic scholar or an adept in the 
 cuneiform character. If he had been a student of Chinese, she 
 would not have been discomfited by the letters of the fifty thou- 
 sand characters in the Chinese alphabet. 
 
 And so, as he was to make his name in the arena of public 
 life, she set herself to acquire a proper understanding of the 
 science of politics ; and to this end she gorged herself with 
 English history, Hume, Hallam, Green, Justin MacCarthy, 
 Palgrave, Lecky, from the days of Witena-gemot to the Reform 
 Bill, the Repeal of the Corn Laws, the Disestablishment of the 
 Irish Church, Ballot, Trade Reunionism, and unreciprocated 
 Free Trade. No question was deep enough to repel her, and 
 what concerned him and his welfare must needs be full of 
 interest for her. 
 
 To this end she read the debates religiously day by day, and 
 she one day ventured shyly to suggest that she should read them 
 aloud to Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 " Would it not be a little rest for you if I were to read your 
 Times aloud to you every afternoon, grandmother? " she asked. 
 *' You read so many books, French, English and German, and I 
 think your eyes must get a little tired sometimes." 
 
 Mary ventured the remark with some timidity, for those falcon 
 eyes were fixed upon her all the time, bright and clear and 
 
266 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Steady as the eyes of youth. It seemed almost an impertinence 
 to suggest that such eyes could ever know weariness. 
 
 " No, Mary, my sight holds out wonderfully for an old 
 woman," replied her Ladyship, gently. " The new theory of the 
 last oculist whose book I dipped into — a very amusing and 
 interesting book, by the by — is that the sight improves and 
 strengthens by constant use, and that an agricultural laborer, 
 who hardly uses his eyes at all, has rarely in the decline of life 
 so good a sight as the watchmaker or the student. I have read 
 immensely all my life and find myself no worse for that indul- 
 gence. But you may read the debates to me if you like, my 
 dear, for if my eyes are strong, I myself am very tired. Sick to 
 death, Mary, sick to death." 
 
 The splendid eyes turned from Mary and looked away to the 
 blue sky, to the hills in their ineffable beauty of color and light 
 — shifting, changing with every moment of the summer day. 
 Intense weariness, a settled despair, were expressed in that 
 look — tearless, yet sadder than all tears. 
 
 " It must be very monotonous — very sad for you," murmured 
 Mary, her own eyes brimming over with tears. '' But it will 
 not be always so, dear grandmother. I hope a time will come 
 when you will be able to go about again — to resume your old 
 life." 
 
 " I do not hope, Mary. No, child, I feel and know that time 
 will never come. My strength is ebbing slowly day by day. 
 If I live for another year — live to see Lesbia married and you, 
 too, perhaps — " she faltered, and the thin, semi-transparent hand 
 was pressed upon her brow. " What will be said of me when I 
 am dead ? " 
 
 Mary feared that her grandmothers mind was wandering. 
 She came and knelt beside the couch and laid her head against 
 the satin pillows, tenderly, caressingly. 
 
 •' Dear grandmother, pray be calm," she murmured. 
 
 " Mary, do not look at me like that, as if you would read my 
 heart- There are hearts that must not be looked into. Mine 
 is like a charnel house. Monotonous, yes ; my life has been 
 monotonous. No conventional gloom was ever deeper than the 
 gloom of Fellside. My boy did nothing to lighten it for me, 
 and his son followed his footsteps. You and Lesbia have been 
 my only consolation. Lesbia ! I was so proud of her beauty, 
 so proud and fond of her because she was like me, and recalled 
 my own youth. And see how easily she forgets me. She has 
 gone into a new world, in which my age and my infirmities 
 have no part ; and I am as nothing to her." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 269 
 
 Mary changed from red 10 pale, so painful was her embarrass- 
 ment. ' What could she say in defense of her sister ? How 
 could she deny that Lesbia was an ingrate, when those rare 
 and hurried letters, so careless in their tone, expressing the 
 selfishness of the writer in every syllable, told but too plainly 
 of forgetfulness and ingratitude ? 
 
 " Dear grandmother, Lesbia has so much to do — her life is 
 so full of engagements," she faltered, feebly. 
 
 " Yes, she goes from party to party — she gives herself up 
 heart and mind and soul to pleasures which she ought to 
 consider only as the trivial means to great ends ; and she for- 
 gets the woman who reared her, and cared for her, and watched 
 over her from her infancy, and who tried to inspire her with 
 a noble ambition. Yes, read to me, child, read ; give me new 
 thoughts, if you can, for my brain is weary with grinding the 
 old ones. There was a grand debate in the Lords last night, 
 and Lord Hartfield spoke. Let me hear his speech. You 
 can read what was said by the man before him ; never mind 
 the rest." 
 
 Mary read Lord Somebody's speech, which was passing dull, 
 but which prepared the ground for a magnificent and exhaustive 
 reply from Lord Hartfield. The question was an important 
 one, affecting the well-being of the masses, and Lord Hartfield 
 spoke with an eloquence which rose in force and fire as he 
 wound himself like a serpent into the heart of his subject- 
 beginning quietly, soberly, with no opening flashes of rhetoric, 
 but rising gradually to the topmost heights of oratory. 
 
 " What a speech," cried Lady Maulevrier, delighted, her 
 cheeks glowing, her eyes kindling; " what a noble fellow the 
 speaker must be. Oh, Mary, I must tell you a secret. I loved 
 that man's father. Yes, my dear, I loved him fondly, dearly, 
 truly, as you love that young man of yours ; and he was the only 
 man I ever really loved. Fate parted us. But I have never 
 forgotten him — never, Mary, never. At this moment I have 
 but to close my eyes and I can see his face — see him looking 
 at me as he looked the last time we met. He was a younger 
 son, poor, his future quite hopeless in those days ; but it was 
 not my fault we were parted. I would have married him — yes, 
 wedded poverty, just as you are going to marry this Mr. Ham- 
 mond ; but my people would not let me, and I was too young, 
 too helpless, to make a fight. Oh, Mary, if I had only fought 
 hard enough, what a happy woman I might have been, and 
 how good a wife." 
 
 " You were a good wife to my grandfather, I am sure," fal- 
 
270 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 tered Mary, by way of saying something consolatory. A dark 
 frown came over Lady Maulevrier's face, which had softened to 
 deepest tenderness just before. 
 
 " A good wife to Maulevrier," she said, in a mocking tone. 
 " Well, yes, as good a wife as such a husband deserved. I was 
 better than Caesar's wife, Mary, for no breath of suspicion ever 
 rested upon my name. But if I had married Hartfield I should 
 have been a happy woman ; and that I have never been since 
 I parted from him.'' 
 
 *' You have never seen the present Lord Hartfield, I think ? " 
 _ " Never ; but I have watched his career. I have thought of 
 him. His father died while he was an infant, and he was 
 brought up in seclusion by a widowed mother, who kept him 
 tied to her apron string till he went to Oxford, She idolized 
 him, and I am told she taught herself Latin and Greek, mathe- 
 matics even, in order to help him in his studies, and later on 
 worked at the classics with him until she becam.e exceptionally 
 learned for a woman. She was her son's companion and friend, 
 sympathized with his tastes, his pleasures, his friendships, de- 
 voted every hour of her life, every thought of her mind to his 
 welfare, his interests, walked with him, rode with him, traveled 
 half over Europe, yachted with him. Her friends all declared 
 that the lad would grow up an odious milksop ; but I am told 
 that there never was a manlier man than Lord Hartfield. From 
 his boyhood he was his mother's protector, helped to adminis- 
 ter her affairs, acquired a premature sense of responsibility, 
 and escaped almost all those vices which make young men de- 
 testable. His mother died within a few months of his majority. 
 He was broked-hearted at losing her and went abroad immedi- 
 ately after her death. From that time he has been a great 
 traveler. But I suppose now that he has taken his seat in the 
 House of Lords, and has spoken a good many times, he means 
 to settle down and take his place among the foremost men of 
 his day. I am told that he is worthy to take such a place," 
 
 " You must feel warmly interested in watching his career t " 
 said Mary, sympathetically. » 
 
 " I am interested in everything that concerns him. I will tell 
 you another secret, Mary. I think I am getting into my dotage, 
 my dear, or I should hardly talk to you like this," said Lady 
 Maulevrier,^,with a touch of bitterness. 
 
 Mary v;as'^tting on a stool by the sofa, close to the invalid's 
 pillow. She clasped her grandmother's hand and kissed it 
 fondly. 
 
 " Dear grandmother, I think you are talking to me like this 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 271 
 
 to-day because you are beginning to care for me a little," she 
 said tenderly. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, you are very good, very sweet and forgiving 
 to care forme at all, after my neglect of you," answered Lady- 
 Maulevrier, with a sigh. "I have kept you out in the cold so 
 long, Mary. Lesbia — well, Lesbia has been a kind of infatua- 
 tion for me, and like all infatuations it has ended in disappoint- 
 ment and bitterness. Ambition has been the bane of my life, 
 Mary ; and when I could be no longer ambitious for myself — 
 when my own existence became a mere death in life, I began to 
 dream and to scheme for the aggrandizement of my grand- 
 daughter. Lesbia's beauty, Lesbia's elegance seemed to insure 
 success — and so I dreamt my dream — which may never be ful- 
 filled." 
 
 " What was your dream, grandmamma ? May I know all 
 about it ? " 
 
 " That was the secret I spoke of just now. Yes, Mary, you 
 may know, for I fear the dream will never be realized. I wanted 
 my Lesbia to become Lord Hartfield's wife. I would have 
 brought them together myself, could I but have gone to London; 
 but failing that, I fancied Lady Kirkbank would have divined 
 my wishes without being told them ; and would have introduced 
 Hartfield to Lesbia ; and now the London season is drawing to 
 a close, and Hartfield and Lesbia have never met. He hardly 
 goes anywhere, I am told. He devotes himself exclusively to 
 politics, and he is not in Lady Kirkbank's set. A terrible dis- 
 appointment to me, Mary ! " 
 
 " It is a pity," said Mary. " Lesbia is so lovely. If Lord 
 Hartfield was fancy free he ought to fall in love with her could 
 they but meet. I thought that in London all fashionable people 
 knew each other and were continually meeting." 
 
 " It used to be so in my day, Mary. Almack's was a common 
 ground, even if there had been no other. But now there are 
 circles and circles, I believe, rings that touch "occasionally, but 
 never break and mingle. I am afraid poor Georgie's set is not 
 quite so nice as I could have wished. Yet Lesbia writes as if 
 she were in raptures with her chaperon, and with all the people 
 she meets. And then Georgie tells me that this Mr. Smithson 
 whom Lesbia had refused is a very important personage, a 
 millionaire, and very likely to be made a peer.'* 
 
 " A new peer," said Mary, making a wry face. " One would 
 rather have an old commoner. I 'always fancy a newly made 
 peer must be like a newly built house, glaring and staring and 
 arid and uncongenial." 
 
272 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE- 
 
 " C'est selon," said Lady Maulevrier, " one would not despise 
 a Chatham or a WeUington because of the newness of his title ; 
 but a man who has only money to recommend him — " 
 
 Lady Maulevrier lett her sentence unfinished, save by a shrug, 
 and Mary made another wry face. She had that grand contempt 
 for sordid wealth which is common to young people who have 
 never known the want of money. 
 
 " I hope Lesbia will marry some one better than Mr. Smith- 
 son," she said. 
 
 " I hope so, too, dear ; and yet do you know I have an idea 
 that Lesbia means to accept Mr. Smithson, or she would hardly 
 have consented to go to his house for the Henley week. Here 
 is a letter from Georgie Kirkbanl: which you will have to answer 
 for me to-morrow — a letter full of raptures about Mr. Smithson's 
 place in Berkshire, Rood Hall. I remember the house well. 
 I was there nearly fifty years ago, when the Heronvilles owned 
 it ; and now the Heronvilles are all dead or ruined, and this cit}- 
 
 ' person is master of the old mansion. It is a strange world', 
 
 ' Mary." 
 
 From that time forward Mary and her grandmother were on 
 
 ' more confidential terms, and when, two days later, Fellside was 
 
 ^ startled into life by the unexpected arrival of Lord Maulevrier 
 
 ^ and Mr. Hammond, the dowager seemed almost as pleased as 
 
 ^ her granddaughter at the arrival of the young men. 
 
 ^ As for Mary, she was almost beside herself with joy when she 
 
 ^ heard their voices from the lawn, and, rushing to the shrubber}^, 
 
 • saw them walk up the hill as she had seen them on that first 
 evening nearly a year ago, when John Hammond came as a 
 stranger to Fellside. 
 
 She tried to take her joy soberly, though her eyes were danc- 
 ing with delight, as she went to the porch to meet them. 
 
 " What extraordinary young men you are," she said, as she 
 emerged breathless from her lover's' embrace. " The idea of 
 
 ' your descending upon us without a moment's notice. Why did 
 you not write or telegraph, that your rooms might be ready." 
 
 ^' " Am I to understand that all the spare rooms at Fellside are 
 kept as damp as the bottom of the lake ? " asked Maulevrier. 
 
 y^ " I did not think any preparation was necessary ; but we can go 
 
 ^^back if we're not wanted, can't we, Jack ? " 
 
 M u You darling," cried Mary, hanging affectionately upon her 
 . brother's arm. " You know I was only joking, you know how 
 
 P^^enraptured I am to have you." 
 
 foi a -pQ i^ave me, only me," said Maulevrier, " Jack doesn't 
 count, I suppose ? " 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 273 
 
 " You know how glad I am, and that I want to hide my glad- 
 ness," answered Mary, radiant and blushing like the rich red 
 roses in the porch. " You men are so vain. And now come 
 and see grandmother. She will be cheered by your arrival. 
 She has been so good to me just lately, so sweet." 
 
 " She might have been good and sweet to you all your life," 
 said Hammond, " I am not prepared to be grateful to her at a 
 moment's notice for any crumb of affection she may throw you." 
 
 ''Oh, but you must be grateful, sir, and you must love and 
 pity her," retorted Mary, " Think how sadly she has suffered. 
 We cannot be too kind to her, or too fond of her, poor dear." 
 
 " Mary is right," said Hammond, half in jest and half in ear- 
 nest, *' What wonderful instincts these young women have." 
 
 " Come and see her Ladyship and then you must have dinner, 
 just as you had that first evening," said Mary. " We'll act the 
 first evening over again, Jack, only you can't fall in love with 
 Lesbia, as she isn't here." 
 
 " I don't think I surrendered that first evening, Mary. 
 Though I thought your sister the loveliest girl I had ever seen." 
 
 " And what did you think of me, sir ; tell me that ? " said 
 Mary, 
 
 " Shall I tell you the truth, tlie whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth ? " 
 
 '' Of course." 
 
 " Then I freely confess that I did not think about you at all. 
 You were there — a pretty, innocent, bright young maiden, with 
 big brown eyes and auburn hair; but I thought no more about 
 you than I did about the Gainsborough on the wall, which you 
 very much resemble." 
 
 ^'That is very humiliating," said Mary, pouting a little in the 
 midst of her bliss. 
 
 "No, dearest, it is only natural," answered Hammond. " I 
 beliene if all the happy lovers in this world could be questioned, 
 at least half of them would confess to having thought very little 
 about each other at first meeting. They meet and touch hands 
 and part again, and never guess the mystery of the future, which 
 wraps them round like a cloud; never say of each other, 'There 
 is my fate,' and then they meet again and again, as hazard wills, 
 and never know they are drifting to their doom." 
 
 Mary rang bells and gave orders just as she had done in that 
 summer gloaming a year ago. The young men had arrived just 
 at the same hour, on the stroke of nine, when the eight o'clock 
 dinner was over and done with, for a tete-a-tete meal with Frau- 
 lein Kirsch was not a feast to be prolonged on account of its fe- 
 r8 
 
274 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 licity. Perhaps they had so contrived as to arrive exactly at 
 this hour. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier received them both with extreme cordiality. 
 But the young men saw a change for the worse in the invalid 
 since the Spring. The face was thinner, the eyes too bright, 
 the flush upon the hollow cheek had a hectic tinge, the voice 
 was feebler. Hammond was reminded of a falcon or an eagle 
 pining and wasting in a cage. 
 
 " lam very glad to see you, Mr. Hammond," said Lady Mau- 
 levrier, giving him her hand and addressing him with unwonted 
 cordiality. " It was a happy thought that brought you and 
 Maulevrier here. When an old woman is as near the grave as 
 I am, her relatives ought to look after her. I shall be glad to 
 have a little private conversation with you to-morrow, Mr. Ham- 
 mond, if you can spare me a few minutes." 
 
 '* As many hours, if your Ladyship pleases," said Hammond ; 
 "my time is entirely at your service." 
 
 " Oh, no, you will want to be roaming about the hills with 
 Mary, discussing your plans for the future. I shall not encroach 
 too much on your time. But I am very glad you are here." 
 
 " We shall only trespass on you for a few days," said Maule- 
 vrier ; " just a flying visit." 
 
 " How is it that you are not both at Henley ? " asked Mary. 
 " I thought all the world was at Henley." 
 
 " Who is Henley ? What is Henley t " demanded Maulevrier, 
 pretending ignorance. 
 
 " I believe Maulevrier has lost so much money backing his 
 college boat on previous occasions that he is glad to run away 
 from the regatta this year," said Hammond. 
 
 " I have a sister there," replied his friend. " That's an all- 
 sufficient explanation. When a fellow's womankind take to go- 
 ing to races and regattas it is high time for him to stop away." 
 
 "Have you seen Lesbia lately t " asked his grandmother. 
 
 "About ten days ago." 
 
 " And did she seem happy ? " 
 
 Maulevrier shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " She was vacillating between the refusal or the acceptance 
 of a million of money and four or five new houses; I don't know 
 whether that condition of mind means happiness. I should 
 call it an intermediate state." 
 
 " Why do you make silly jokes about serious questions ? Do 
 you think Le'sbia means to accept this Mr. Smithson ? " 
 
 " All London thinks so." 
 
 " And is he a ^ood man ? " 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. -75 
 
 "Good for a hundred thousand pounds at half an hour's 
 notice." 
 
 " Is he worthy of your sister ? " 
 
 Maulevrier paused, looked at his grandmother with a curious 
 expression, and then replied : 
 
 " I think he is — quite." 
 
 " Then I am content that she should marry him," said Lady 
 Maulevrier, " although he is a nobody." 
 
 " Oh, but he is a very important nobody, a nobody who can 
 get a peerage next year, backed by the Maulevrier influence, 
 which I suppose would count for something." 
 
 " Most of my friends are dead," said Lady Maulevrier, " but 
 there are a few survivors of the past who might help me." 
 
 " I don't think there'll be any difficulty about the peerage. 
 Smithson stumped up very handsomely at the last general elec- 
 tion, and the Conservatives are not strong enough to be un- 
 grateful." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 WAYS AND MEANS. 
 
 The three days that followed were among the happiest days 
 of Mary Haselden's young life. Lady Maulevrier had become 
 strangely indulgent. A softening influence of some kind had 
 worked upon that haughty spirit, and it seemed as if her whole 
 nature was changed — or it might be, Mary thought, that this 
 softer side of her character had always been turned to Lesbia, 
 while to Mary herself it was altogether new. Lesbia had been 
 the peach on the sunny southern wall, ripening and reddening 
 in a flood of sunshine ; Mary had been the stunted fruit growing 
 in a northeast corner, hidden among leaves, blown upon by cold 
 winds, green and hard and sour for lack of the warm bright light. 
 And now Mary felt the sunshine, and grew glad and gay in those 
 glowing beams. 
 
 " Dear grandmamma, I believe you are beginning to love me," 
 she said, bending over to arrange the invalid's pillows in the 
 July morning, the fresh mountain air blowing in upon old and 
 young from the great open window, like a caress. 
 
 " I am beginning to know you," answered Lady Maulevrier 
 gently. " I think it is the magic of love, Mary, that has sweet- 
 ened and softened your nature and endeared you to me. I think 
 
276 rilANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 you have grown ever so much sweeter a girl since your engage- 
 ment. Or it may be that you were the same always, and it was 
 I who was blind. Lesbia was all in all to me. All in all — and 
 now I am nothing to her," she murmured to herself rather than 
 to Mary. 
 
 " I am so proud to think that you see an improvement in me 
 since my engagement," said Mary modestly. " I have tried very 
 hard to improve myself so that I might be more worthy of him." 
 " You are worthy, Mary, worthy of the best and the highest, 
 and I believe that although you are making what the world calls 
 a very bad match, you are marrying wisely. You are wedding 
 yourself to a life of obscurity; but what does that matter, if it 
 be a happy life ? I have known what it is to pursue the phan- 
 tom, fortune, and to find youth and hope and happiness vanish 
 from the pathway which I followed." 
 
 " Dear grandmother, I wish you had been able to marry the 
 man of your choice," answered Mary, tenderly. 
 
 She was ready to weep over that wasted life of her grand- 
 mother's ; to weep for that forced parting of true lovers' albeit 
 the tragedy was half a century old. 
 
 " I should have been a happier woman and a better woman if 
 fate had been kind to me, Mary," answered Lady Maulevrier, 
 <^ravely, " and now that I am daily drawing nearer the land of 
 shadows I will not stand in the way of faithful lovers. I have a 
 fancy, Mary, that I have not many months to live." 
 
 " Only an invalid's fancy," said Mary, stooping down to kiss 
 the pale forehead, so full of thought and care, " only a morbid 
 fancy, nursed in the monotony of this quiet mom. Maulevrier 
 and Jack and I must find some way of amusing you." 
 
 " You will never amuse me out of that conviction, Mary, my 
 dear. I can see the shadows lengthening and the sands run- 
 ning out. There are but a few grains left in the glass, Mary, 
 and while those last I should like to see you and Mr. Hammond 
 married. I should like to feel that your fate is settled before I 
 go. God knows what confusion and trouble may follow my 
 death." 
 
 This was said with the sharp ring of despair. 
 " I am not going to leave you, grandmamma," said Mary. 
 " Not even for the man you love ? You are a good girl, 
 Mary. Lesbia has forsaken me for a lesser temptation." 
 
 " Grandmamma, that is hardly fair. It was your own wish to 
 have Lesbia presented this season," remonstrated Mary, loyal 
 to the absent. 
 
 " True, mv dear. I saw she was very tired of her life here. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 277 
 
 and I thought it was better. But I'm sorely afraid London has 
 s'poiled her. No, Mary, you can stay with me to the end if you 
 like. There is room enough for you and your husband under 
 this roof. I like this Mr. Hammond. His is the only face 
 that ever recalled the face of the dead. Yes, I like him, 
 and although I know nothing about him except what Maule- 
 vrier tells me — and that is of the scantiest — still I feel, somehow, 
 that I can trust him. Send your lover to me, Mary, I want to 
 have a serious talk with him." 
 
 Mary ran off to obey, fluttering, blushing and trembling. 
 This idea of marriage in the immediate future was to the last 
 degree startling. A year had seemed a very long time, and she 
 had been told that she and her lover must wait a year, at the 
 very least; so that marriage had seemed afar off in the dim 
 shadowland of the future. She had been told nothing by her 
 lover of where she was to live or what her Ufe was to be like 
 when she was his wife. And now she was told that they were 
 to be married almost immediately, and they were to live in the 
 house where she had been reared, in that familiar land of hills 
 and waters, that they were to roam about the dales and mount- 
 ains together, they two, as man and wife. The whole thing 
 was wonderful, bewildering, impossible almost. 
 
 This was on the first morning after Mr. Hammond's arrival. 
 Maulevrier had gone off to hunt the Rotha for otters, and was 
 up to his waist in the water, no doubt, by this time. Ham- 
 mond was strolling up and down the terrace in front of the 
 house, looking at the green expanse of Fairfield, the dark bulk 
 of Seat Sandal, the nearer crests of Helm Crag and Silver 
 Howe. 
 
 " You are to come to her Ladyship directly, please," said 
 Mary, going up to him. 
 
 He took both her hands, drew her near to him, smiling dovm 
 at her. They had been sitting side by side at the breakfast 
 table half an hour ago, he waiting upon her as she poured out 
 the tea ; yet by his tender greeting and the delight in his face 
 it might have been supposed they had not met for weeks. Such 
 are the sweet inanities of love. 
 
 " What does her Ladyship want with me, darling, and why are 
 you blushing t " he asked. 
 
 " I — I think she is going to talk about — our — marriage," fal- 
 tered Mary. 
 
 " Why, i will talk to her upon this theme until mine eyelids 
 can no longer wag," quoted Hammond. " Take me to her, 
 Mary. I hope her Ladyship is growing sensible." 
 
278 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " She is very kind — very sweet. She has changed so much 
 of late." 
 
 Mary went with him to the door of her Ladyship's sitting-room 
 and there left him to go in alone. She went to the library — 
 that room over which a gloomy shadow seemed to have hung 
 ever since that awful winter afternoon when Mary found Lady 
 Maulevrier lying on the floor in the twilight. But it was a no- 
 ble room, and in her studious hours Mary loved to sit here, 
 walled round with books, and able to consult or dip into as 
 many volumes as she liked. To-day, however, her mind was not 
 attuned to study. She sat with a volume of Macaulay open 
 before her, but her thoughts were not with the author. She was 
 wondering what those two were saying in the room overhead, 
 and finding all attempts at reading futile, she let her head sink 
 back upon the cushion of her deep luxurious chair, and sat with 
 her dreamy eyes fixed on the summer landscape and her thoughts 
 with her lover. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier looked very wan and tired in the bright 
 morning light when Mr. Hammond seated himself beside her 
 sofa. The change in her appearance since the Spring was 
 more marked to-day than it had seemed to him last night in the 
 dim lamplight. Yes, there was need here for a speedy settle- 
 ment of all earthly matters. The traveler was nearing the mys- 
 terious end of the journey. The summons might come at any 
 hour. 
 
 " Mr. Hammond, I feel a confidence in your integrit}^ your 
 goodness of heart, and high principle which I never thought I 
 could feel for a man of whom I know so little," began Lady 
 Maulevrier gravely. " All I know of your antecedents is what 
 my grandson has told me — and I must say that the information 
 so given has been very meager. And yet I believe in you — and 
 yet I am going to trust you, wholly, blindly, implicitly — and I 
 am going to give you my granddaughter, ever so much sooner 
 than I intended to give her to you. Soon, very soon, if you 
 will have her ! " 
 
 *' I will have her to-morrow, if I can get a special license," 
 exclaimed Hammond, bending down to kiss the Dowager's hand, 
 radiant with delight. 
 
 " You shall marry her next week, if you like, marry her by spe- 
 cial license, in this room. I should like to see your wedding. 
 1 have a strange impression to behold one of my granddaughters 
 happily married, to know that her future is secure, that come 
 weal, come woe, she is safe in the protection of a brave, true 
 man. I am not scared by the idea of a little poverty. That is 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 279 
 
 often the best education for youth. But while you and I are 
 alone we may talk about ways and means. Perhaps you may 
 hardly feel prepared to take upon yourself the burden of a wife 
 this year." 
 
 " As well this year as next. I am not afraid." 
 
 " Young men are so rash. However, as long as I live your re- 
 sponsibilities will be only nominal. This house will be Mary's 
 home, and yours whenever you are able to occupy it. Of course 
 I should not like to interfere with your professional efforts — but 
 if you are cultivating literature — why books can be written at 
 FeHside better than in London. This lakeland of ours has 
 been the nursery of deathless writers. But I feel that my days 
 are numbered — and when I am dead — well, a death is always a 
 cause of change and trouble of some kind, and Mary will profit 
 very little by my death. The bulk of my fortune is left to Les- 
 bia. I have taught her to consider herself my heiress, and it 
 would be unjust to alter my will." 
 
 " Pray do not dream of such a thing — there is no need — Mary 
 will be rich enough," exclaimed Hammond hastily. 
 
 " With five hundred a year and the fruits of your industry," 
 said Lady Maulevrier. " Yes, yes, with modest aspirations and 
 simple habits, people can live happily, honorably, on a few hun- 
 dreds a year. And if you really mean to devote yourself to lit- 
 erature, and do not mind burying yourself alive in this lake dis- 
 trict until you have made your name as a writer, why the prob- 
 lem of ways and means will be easily solved." 
 
 \" Dear Lady Maulevrier, I am not afraid of ways and means. 
 That is the last question that need trouble you. I told Lesbia, 
 when I offered myself to her nearly a year ago, that if she would 
 trust me, if she would cleave to me, poverty should never touch 
 her, sordid care should never come near her dwelling. But she 
 could not believe me. She was like Thomas the twin. I could 
 show her no palpable security for the promise — and she would 
 not believe for the promise sake. Mary trusted me, and Mary 
 shall not regret her confidence." 
 
 " Ah, it was different with Lesbia," sighed Lady Maulevrier. 
 " I taught her to be ambitious. She had been schooled to set 
 a high price upon herself. I know she cared for you — very much, 
 even. But she could not face poverty ; or, if you like, I will say 
 that she could not face an obscure existence — sacrifice her ambi- 
 tion, a justifiable ambition in one so lovely, at the bidding of her 
 wooer. And then, again, she was told that if she married you she 
 would forever forfeit my regard. You must not blame her for 
 obeying me." 
 
28o PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 *' I do not blame her, for I have won the peerless pearl — the 
 jewel above all price — a perfect woman. And now, dear Lady 
 Maulevrier, give me but your consent, and I am off to York 
 this afternoon, to interview the Archbishop and get the special 
 license, which will allow me to wed my darling here by your 
 couch to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 " I have no objection to your getting the license immediately; 
 but you must let me write a check before you go. A special li- 
 cense is expensive — I believe it costs fifty pounds." 
 
 " If it cost a thousand I should not think it dear. You have 
 made me wild with happiness." 
 
 " But you must not refuse ray check." 
 
 " Indeed I must. Lady Maulevrier. I am not quite such a 
 pauper as you think me." 
 
 " But fifty pounds and the expense of the journey ; an outlay 
 altogether unexpected on your part. I begin to fear that you 
 are very reckless. A spendthrift shall never marry my grand- 
 daughter with my consent." 
 
 " I have never yet spent above half my income." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier looked at him in wonderment and perplexity. 
 Had the young man gone suddenly out of his mind, overwhelmed 
 by the greatness of his bliss 1 
 
 " But I thought you were poor," she faltered. 
 
 " It has pleased you to think so, dear Lady Maulevrier ; but 
 I have more than enough for all my wants, and I shall be 
 able to provide a fitting home for Mary, when you can spare her 
 to preside over her own establishment." 
 
 " Establishment " is rather a big word, but Lady Maulevrier 
 supposed that in this case it meant a cook and housemaid, with 
 perhaps later on a boy in buttons to break windows and block 
 the pantry sink with missing teaspoons. 
 
 " Well Mr. Hammond, this is quite an agreeable surprise," 
 she said, after a brief silence. " I really thought you were poor — 
 as poor as a young man of gentlemanlike habits could be, and 
 yet exists Perhaps you will wonder why, thinking this, I 
 brought myself to consent to your marriage with my grand- 
 daughter." 
 
 " It was a great proof of your confidence in m.e, or in Provi- 
 dence," replied Hammond smilmg. 
 
 " It was no such thing. I was governed by a sentiment — a 
 memory. It was my love for the dead which softened my heart 
 toward you, John Hammond." 
 
 "Indeed," he murmured softly. 
 
 " There was but one man in this world I ever fondly loved — 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 281 
 
 the love of my youth — my dearest and best, in the days when 
 my heart was fresh and innocent and unambitious. The man 
 was Ronald Hollister, afterward Lord Hartfield, and yours is the 
 only face that ever recalled his to my mind. It is only a vague 
 likeness — a look now and then ; but slight as that likeness is it 
 has been enough to make my heart yearn towards you as the 
 heart of a mother to her son." 
 
 John Hammond knelt beside the sofa, and bent his handsome 
 face over the pale face on the pillow, imprinting such a kiss as a 
 son might have given. His eyes were full of tears. 
 
 "Dear Lady Maulevrier, think that it is the spirit of the dead 
 which thanks you for your fidelity to old memories," he said 
 softly. 
 
 CHAPTER :^XXHL 
 
 THY LOVE IS BETTER THAN HIGH BIRTH TO ME. 
 
 After that interview with John Hammond all the arrange- 
 ments for the marriage were planned by Lady Maulevrier with 
 a calm and business-like capacity which seemed extraordinary 
 in one so frail and helpless. For a little while after Hammond 
 left her she remained lost in a reverie, deeply affected by the 
 speech and manner of her granddaughter's lover as he gave her 
 that first kiss of duty and affection, the affection of one who in 
 that act declared the allegiance of a close and holy bond. 
 
 Yes, she told herself, this marriage, humble as it might be, 
 w^as altogether satisfactory. Her own feeling toward the man 
 of her granddaughter's choice was one of instinctive affection. 
 Her heart had yearned to him from the beginning of their 
 acquaintance ; but she had schooled herself to hide all indica- 
 tions of her liking for him, she had made every effort to keep 
 him at a distance, deeming his very merits a source of danger 
 in a household where there were two fresh impressionable girls. 
 
 And despite all her caution and care he had succeeded in 
 wdnning one of those girls; and she was glad, very glad, that 
 he had so succeeded in baffiing her prudence. And now jt 
 was agreeable to discover that he was not quite such a pauper 
 as she had supposed him to be. 
 
 Her heart felt lighter than it had been for some time when 
 she set about planning the wedding. 
 
 The first step in the business was to send for James Stead- 
 man. 
 
282 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 He came immediately, grave and quiet as of old, and stood 
 with his serious eyes bent upon the face of his mistress, await- 
 ing her instructions. 
 
 " Lady Mary is going to be married to Mr. Hammond, by 
 special license, in this room, to-morrow afternoon, if it can be 
 managed so soon," said Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 " I am very glad to hear it, my Lady," answered Steadman, 
 without the faintest indication of surprise. 
 
 " Why are you so — particularly glad \ " asked his mistress, 
 looking at him sharply. 
 
 " Because Lady Mary's presence in this house is a source of 
 danger to — your arrangements. She is very energetic and 
 enterprising — very shrewxl — and — well, she is a woman — so I 
 suppose there can be no harm in saying she is somewhat inquis- 
 itive. Things will be much safer here when Lady Mary is 
 gone ! " 
 
 " But she will not be gone — she is not going away — except 
 for a very brief honeymoon. I cannot possibly do without her. 
 she has become necessary to my life, Steadman ; and there is 
 so little left of that life now rhat there is no need for me to 
 sacrifice the last gleams of sunshine. The girl is very sweet, 
 and loving and true. I was not half fond enough of her in the 
 past, but she has made herself very dear to me of late. There 
 are many things in this life, Steadman, which we only find out 
 too late." 
 
 " But surely, my Lady, Lady Mary will leave Fellside to go to 
 a home of her own after her marriage." . 
 
 " No, I tell you, Steadman," his mistress answered, with a 
 touch of impatience. " Lady Mary and her husband will make 
 this house their home so long as 1 am here. It will not be 
 long." 
 
 " God grant it may be very long before you cease to be mis- 
 tress here, my Lady," answered Steadman, with real feeling, 
 and then in a lower tone he went on : " Pardon me, my Lady, 
 for the suggestion, but do you think it is wdse to have Mr. 
 Hammond here as a resident ? " 
 
 " Why should it not be wise ? Mr. Hammond is a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " True, my Lady ; but an}' accident such as that which brought 
 Lady Mary into the old garden — " 
 
 " No such accident need occur — it must not occur, Stead- 
 man," exclaimed Lady Maulevrier, with kindling eyes. She 
 who had so long ruled supreme w^as not inclined to have any 
 desire of hers questioned. "There must have been gross care- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 2S3 
 
 lessness that day — carelessness on ycur part — or that stable 
 door would never have been left open. The key ought to have 
 been in your possession. It ought not to have been in the 
 power of the stablemen to open that door. As to Mr. Ham- 
 mond's presence at Fellside, I cannot see any danger — any rea- 
 son why harm should come of it more than of Lord Maulevrier's 
 presence here in the past." 
 
 " The two gentlemen are so different, my Lady," said Stead- 
 man, with a gloomy brow. " His Lordship is so light-hearted 
 and careless, his mind taken up with his horses, guns, dogs, 
 fishing, shooting, and all kinds of sport. He is not a gentle- 
 man to take much notice of anything out of his own line. 
 But this Mr. Hammond is different — a very thoughtful gentle- 
 man, an inquiring mind, as one may say." 
 
 '' Steadman, you are getting cowardly in your old age. The 
 danger— such a risk as you hint at, must be growing less and 
 less every day. After forty years of security — " 
 
 "Security!" echoed Steadman, with a monosyllabic laugh 
 which expressed intense bitterness. " Say forty years during 
 which I have felt myself upon the edge of a precipice every day 
 and every hour. Security ! But perhaps you are right, my Lady. 
 I am growing old and nervous, a feebler man than I was a few 
 years ago, feebler in body and mind. Let Mr. Hammond make 
 his home here, if it pleases your Ladyship to have him. So 
 long as I am well and able to get about there can be no dan- 
 ger of anything awkward happening ! " 
 
 Lady Maulevrier looked alarmed. 
 
 " But you have no expectation of falling ill, I hope, Steadman ; 
 you have no premonition of any malady ? " 
 
 "No, my Lady, none — except the malady of old age. I feel 
 that I am not the man I once was, that is all. And if I were to 
 fall ill suddenly—" 
 
 " Oh, it would be terrible, it would be a dire calamity ! There 
 is your wife, certainly, to look after things, but — " 
 
 " My wife would do her best, my Lady. She is a faithful creat- 
 ure, but she is not — yes, without any unkindness I must say 
 that Mrs. Steadman is not a genius ! " 
 
 " Oh, Steadman, you must not fail me ! I am horror-stricken 
 at the mere idea," exclaimed Lady Maulevrier. " After forty 
 years — great God ! it would be terrible. Lesbia, Mary, Maule- 
 vrier ! the great, malignant, babbling world outside these doors. 
 I am hemmed round with perils. For God's sake preserve your 
 strength, take care of your health. You are my strong rock. If 
 you feel that there is anything amiss with you, or that your 
 
284 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Strength is failing, consult Mr. Horton — neglect no precaution. 
 The safety of this house, of the family honor, hangs upon you." 
 
 " Pray do not agitate yourself, my Lady," entreated Stead- 
 man. " I was wrong to trouble you with my fears. I shall not 
 fail you, be sure. Although I am getting old I shall hold out 
 till the end." 
 
 " The end cannot be very far off," said Lady Maulevrier, 
 gloomily. 
 
 " I thought that forty years ago, my Lady. But you are right 
 — the end must be near now. Yes, it must be near. And now, 
 my Lady, your orders about the wedding." 
 
 " It will take place to-morrow, as I told you, in this room. 
 You will go to the Vicar and ask him to officiate. His two 
 daughters will no doubt consent to be Lady Mary's bridesmaids. 
 You will make the request in my name. Perhaps the Vicar will 
 call this afternoon and talk matters over with me. Lady Mary 
 and her husband will go to Cumberland for a brief honeymoon 
 — a week at most — and then they will come back to Fellside. 
 Tell Plalcott to prepare the east wing for them. She will make 
 one of the rooms Into a boudoir for Lady Mary, and let every- 
 thing be as bright and pretty as good taste can make it. She 
 can telegraph to London for any new furniture that may be 
 wanted to complete her arrangements. And now send Lady 
 Mary to me." 
 
 Mary came fresh from the pinewood, where she had been 
 walking with her lover ; her lover of to-day, her husband to-mor- 
 row. He had told her how he was to start for York directly 
 after luncheon, and to come back by the earliest train next day, 
 and how they two were to be married to-morrow afternoon. 
 
 " It is more wonderful than any dream that I ever dreamt," 
 exclaimed Mary ; " But how can it be ? I have not even a wed- 
 ding gown." 
 
 """A fig for wedding gowns ! It is Mary I am to wed, not her 
 gown. Were you clad like patient Grisel I should be content. 
 Besides, you have no end of pretty gowns. And you are to be 
 dressed for traveling, remember, for I am going to carry you off 
 to Lodore directly we are married, and you will have to clamber 
 up the rocky bed of the waterfall to see the sun set behind Gris- 
 dale Park in your wedding gov/n. It had better be one of those 
 neat little tailor gowns which become you so well." 
 
 " I will wear whatever you tell me," answered Mary " I shall 
 always dress to please you, and not the outside world." 
 
 " Will you, my Griselda ? Some day you shall be dressed as 
 Grisel was — 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 285 
 
 " * In a cloth of gold that brighte shone, 
 With a coroune of many a riche stone.' '* 
 
 " Yes, you darling, when you are Lord Chancellor ; and till 
 that day comes I will wear tailor gowns, linsey-woolsey, anything 
 you like," cried Mary, laughing. 
 
 She ran to her grandmother's room, ineffably content, without 
 a thought of trousseau or finery; but then Mary Haselden was 
 one of those few young women for whom life is not a question 
 of fashionable raiment. 
 
 " Mary, I am going to send you off upon your honeymoon to- 
 morrow afternoon," said Lady Maulevrier, smiling at the bright 
 happy face which was bent over her. " Will you come back and 
 nurse a fretful old woman when the honeymoon is over 1 " 
 
 " The honeymoon will never be over," answered Mary, joy- 
 ously. " Our wedded life is to be one long honeymoon. But 
 I will come back in a very few days and take care of you. I 
 am not going to let you do without me now that you have learned 
 to love me." 
 
 " And you will be content to stay with me when your husband 
 has gone to London ? " 
 
 '' Yes ; but I shall try to prevent his going veiy often or stay- 
 ing very long. I shall try to wind myself into his heart, so that 
 there will be an aching void there when we are parted." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier proceeded to tell Mary all her arrangements. 
 Three handsome rooms in the east wing, a bed-room, dressing- 
 room and boudoir were to be made ready for the new-married 
 couple. Fraulein Kirsch was to be dismissed with a retiring, 
 pension, in order that Lady Mary and her husband might feel 
 themselves master and mistress in the lower part of the house. 
 
 " And if your husband really means to devote himself to lit- 
 erature he can have no better workshop than the library I have 
 put together," said Lady Maulevrier. 
 
 " And no better adviser and guide than you, dear grandmother, 
 you that have read everything that has been written worth read- 
 ing during the last half century." 
 
 " I have read a great deal, Mary, but I hardly know if I am 
 wiser on that account," answered Lady Maulevrier. " After all, 
 however much of other people's wisdom we may devour, it is in 
 ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our past follies rise up 
 against us at the end of life, and we see how little our book 
 learning has helped us to stand against foolish impulses, against 
 evil passions. ' Be good, Mary, and let who will be wise,' as 
 the poet says. A faithful heart is your only anchor in the stormy 
 
286 ' PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 scenes of life. Mv dear, I am so glad you are going to be mar- 
 ried." 
 
 "It is very sudden," said Mary. 
 
 " Very sudden ; yet in your case that does not much matter. 
 You had quite made up your mind about Mr. Hammond, I be- 
 lieve." 
 
 " Made up my mind ! I began to worship him the first night 
 he came here." 
 
 " Foolish child ! Well, there is no need to wait for settle- 
 ments. You have only your allowance as Lord Maulevrier's 
 daughter — a first charge on the estate, which cannot be made 
 away with or anticipated, and of which no husband can deprive 
 you." 
 
 " He shall have every sixpence of it," murmured Mary. 
 
 "And Mr. Hammond, though he tells me he is better off 
 than I supposed, can have nothing to settle. So there will be 
 nothing forfeited by a marriage without settlements." 
 
 Mary could not enter upon the question. It was even of less 
 importance than the wedding gown. 
 
 The gong sounded for luncheon. 
 
 " Steadman's dog-cart is to take Mr. Hammond to the station 
 at half-past two," said Lady Mauievrier, "so you had better go 
 and give him his luncheon." 
 
 Mary needed no second bidding. She flew downstairs and 
 met her lover in the hall. 
 
 What a happy luncheon it was. Fraulein munched, and 
 munched, and munched, like the sailor's wife eating chestnuts, 
 but those two lovers lunched upon moonshine, upon each other's 
 little words and little looks, upon their own ineffable bliss. 
 They sat side by side and helped each other to the nicest 
 things on the table, but neither could eat, and they got consid- 
 erably mixed in their way of eating, taking chutnee with straw- 
 berry cream and currant jelly with asparagus. What did it 
 matter .? Everything tasted of bliss. 
 
 "You have had absolutely nothing to eat," said Mary, pite- 
 ously, as the dog-cart came grinding round upon the dry gravel. 
 
 "Oh, I have done splendidly — thanks, I have just had a 
 macaroon and some of that capital gorgonzola. God bless you, 
 dearest, and a revoir, a revoir till to-morrow." 
 
 " And to-morrow I shall be Mary Hammond," cried Mary, 
 clasping her hands. " Isn't it capital fun ? " 
 
 They were in the porch alone. The servants were all at din- 
 ner, save the groom with the cart. Miss Kirsch was still 
 munching at the well-spread table in the dining-room. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. .-^87 
 
 John Hammond folded his sweetheart in his arms, for one 
 brief embrace ; there was no time for loitering. In another mo- 
 ment he was springing into the cart. A shake of the reins, and 
 he was driving slowly down the steep avenue. 
 
 "Life is full of partings," Mary said to herself, as she 
 watched the last glimpse of the dog-cart between the trees down 
 in the road below, "but this one is to be very short, thank God.'' 
 
 She wondered what she should do with herself for the rest of 
 the afternoon, and finally, finding that she was not wanted by 
 her grandmother until afternoon tea, she set out upon a round 
 of visits to her favorite cottagers, to bid them a long farewell as 
 a spinster. 
 
 " You'll be away a long time, I suppose. Lady Mary ? '' said 
 one of her humble friends. " You'll be going to Switzerland 
 or Italy, or some of those foreign parts, where great ladies and 
 gentlemen travel for their honeymoons } " 
 
 But Mary declared that she would be absent a week at long- 
 est. She was coming back to take care of her invalid grand- 
 mother, and she was not going to marry a great gentleman, but 
 a man who would have to work for his living. 
 
 She went back to Fellside and read the Times, and poured 
 out Lady Maulevrier's tea, and sat on her low stool by the sofa, 
 and the old and the young woman were as happy and confiden- 
 tial together as if they had been always the nearest and dearest 
 to each other. Her Ladyship had seen Miss Kirsch, and had in- 
 formed that excellent person that her services at Fellside would 
 no longer be required after Lady Mary's marriage, but that her 
 devotion to her duties during the last fourteen years should be 
 rewarded by a pension, which, together with her savings, would 
 enable her to spend the rest of her days in repose. Miss Kirsch 
 was duly grateful, and owned to a tender longing for the Hei- 
 math, and declared herself ready to retire from her post when- 
 ever her Ladyship pleased. 
 
 " I shall go back to Germany directly I leave you, and I shall 
 live and die there, unless I am wanted by one of my old pupils. 
 But should Lady Lesbia or Lady Mary need my services for 
 their daughters' in days to come, they can command me. For 
 no one else will I abandon the Fatherland." 
 
 The Fraulein thus easily disposed of. Lady Mary felt that 
 matrimony would verily mean independence. And yet she was 
 prepared to regard her husband as her master. She meant to 
 obey him in all meekness and reverence of spirit. 
 
 She spent the rest of the afternoon and the whole of the even- 
 ing in her grandmother's sitting-room, dining tete-^-t^te with the 
 
288 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 invalid for tlie first time since her illness. Lady Maulevrier 
 talked much of Mary's future, and of Lesbia's, but it was evi- 
 dent that she was full of uneasiness upon the latter subject. 
 
 " I don't know what Lesbia is going to do with her life," she 
 said with a sigh. " Her letters tell me of nothing but gowns 
 and parties, and Georgina Kirkbank can only expatiate upon 
 Mr. Smithson's wealth and the grand position he is going to oc- 
 cupy by and by. I should like to see both my granddaughters 
 married before I die — yes, I should like to see Lesbia's fate se- 
 cure, if she were to be only Lady Lesbia Smithson." 
 
 " She cannot fail to make a good match, grandmamma," said 
 Mary. 
 
 " I am beginning to lose faith in her future," answered Lady 
 Maulevrier. "There seems to be a fatality about the career of 
 particularly attractive girls. They are too confident of their 
 power to succeed in life. They trifle with fortune, fascinate 
 the wrong people and keep the right people at arm's length. I 
 think if I had been Lesbia's guide in society her first season 
 would have counted for more than it is likely to count for un- 
 der Lady Kirkbank's management. I should have awakened 
 Lesbia from the dream of dress and dancing — the mere butter- 
 fly of a girl who never looks beyond the present moment. But 
 now go and give orders about your packing, Mary. It is past 
 ten, and Clara had better pack your trunks early to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 Clara was a modest damsel, who had been promoted to be 
 Lady Mary's personal attendant when the more mature Kibble 
 had gone away with Lady Lesbia. Mary required very little 
 waiting upon, but she was not the less glad to have a neat lit- 
 tle smiling maiden devoted to her service, ready to keep her 
 rooms neat and trim, to go on errands to the cottages, to arrange 
 the flowers in the old china bowls, and to make herself generally 
 useful. 
 
 It seemed a strange thing to have to furnish a trousseau from 
 the wardrobe of every-day life — a trousseau in which nothing ex- 
 cept half a dozen pairs of gloves, a pair of boots, and a few odds 
 and ends of lace and ribbon would be actually new. Mary 
 thought very little of the matter, but the position of things struck 
 her maid as altogether extraordinary and unnatural. 
 
 " You should have seen the things Miss Freeman had. Lady 
 Mary, the daughter of that cotton-spinning gentleman from 
 Manchester, who lives at the Gables — you should have seen her 
 new gowns and things when she was married. Mrs. Freeman's 
 maidkeeps company with my brother James — he's in the stables 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 289 
 
 at Freeman's, you know, Lady Mary — and she asked me in to 
 look at the trousseau two days before the wedding. I never 
 saw such beautiful dresses — such hats — such bonnets — such 
 jackets and mantles. It was like going into one of those grand 
 shops at York, and having all the things in the shop pulled out 
 for one to look at — such silks and satins — and trimmed — ah ! 
 how those dresses were trimmed. The mystery was how the 
 young lady could ever get herself into them, or sit down when 
 she'd got one of them on." 
 
 " Instruments of torture, Clara. I should hate such gowns, 
 even if I were going to marry a rich man, as I suppose Miss 
 Freeman was." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Lady Mary. She was only going to marry 
 a Bolton doctor in a small practice, but her maid told me she 
 was determined she'd get all she could out of her pa, in case he 
 should lose all his money, and go bankrupt. They say that 
 trousseau cost two thousand pounds." 
 
 "Well, Clara, I'd rather have my tailor gowns, in which I can 
 scramble about the gills and crags just as I like." 
 
 There was a pale yellow Indian silk, smothered with soft yel- 
 low lace, which would serve for a wedding gown ; for indifferent 
 as Mary was to the great clothes question, she wanted to look 
 in some wise as a bride. A. neat chocolate-colored cloth, al- 
 most new from the tailor's hands, with a little cloth hat to match, 
 would do for the wedding journey. All the details of Mary's 
 wardrobe were the perfection of neatness. She had grown very 
 neat and careful in her habits since her engagement, anxious to 
 be industrious and frugal in all things — a really handy house- 
 wife for a hard-worked bread-winner. And now she was told 
 that Mr. Hammond was not so poor as she had thought. She 
 would not be obliged to stint herself and manage, as she had 
 supposed when she went about among the cottagers, taking les- 
 sons in household economy. It was almost a disappointment. 
 
 She and Clara finished the packing that night, Mary being 
 much too excited for the possibility of sleep. There was not 
 much to pack — only one roomy American trunk, a trunk which 
 held everything, a Gladstone bag for things that might possibly 
 be wanted in a hurry, and a handsome dressing bag, Maule- 
 vrier's last birthday gift to his sister. 
 
 Mary had received no gifts from her lover, save the plain gold 
 engagement ring, and a few new books sent straight from the 
 publishers. Clara took care to inform her that Miss Freeman's 
 young man had sent her all manner of splendid presents, scent 
 bottles, photograph albums, glove boxes and other things of 
 19 
 
290 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 beauty, albeit his means were supposed to be nil. It was evi- 
 dent that Clara disapproved of Mr. Hammond's conduct in this 
 matter, and even suspected him of meanness. 
 
 " He ought to have sent you his photograph, Lady Mary," 
 said Clara, with a reproachful air. 
 
 " I dare say he would have done so, Clara, only he has been 
 photographed but once in his life.^' 
 
 " Lawk a mercy, Lady Mary ! Why most young gentlemen 
 have themselves photographed in every new place they go to, 
 and as Mr. Hammond has been a traveler, like his Lordship, I 
 made sure he'd have been photographed in knickerbockers and 
 every other kind of attitude." 
 
 Mary had not refrained from asking for her lover's portrait, 
 and he had told her that he had carefully abstained from having 
 his countenance reproduced in any manner since his fifteenth 
 year, when he had been photographed at his mother's desire. 
 
 " The present fashion of photographs staring out of every sta- 
 tioner's window makes a man's face public property," he told 
 Mary. " I don't want every street Arab in London to recognize 
 me." 
 
 " But you are not a public man," said Mary, " your photograph 
 would not be in all the windows, although, in my humble opin- 
 ion, you are a very handsome man." 
 
 Hammond blushed, laughed and turned the conversation, and 
 Mary had to exist without any picture of her lover. 
 
 " Millais shall paint me in his grand Reynolds manner by and 
 by," he told Mary. 
 
 " Millais ! oh. Jack ! When will you and I be able to give a 
 thousand or so for a portrait t " 
 
 " Ah, when indeed ? But we may as well enjoy our day 
 dreams, like Alnaschar, without smashing our basket of crock- 
 ery." 
 
 And now Mary, who had managed to exist without the picture, 
 was to have the original. He was to be all her own, her master, 
 her lord, her love, after to-morrow. Unto eternity, in life and 
 in the grave, and in the dim hereafter beyond the grave, they 
 were to be one. In heaven there was to be no marrying or giv- 
 ing in marriage, Mary was told ; but her own heart cried aloud 
 to her that the happily wedded must remain linked in heaven. 
 God would not part the blessed souls of true lovers. 
 
 A short sleep, broken by happy dreams, and it was morning, 
 Mary's Vvcdding morning, fairest of summer days, July in all 
 her beauty. Mary went to her grandmother's room and waited 
 upon her at breakfast. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 291 
 
 Lady Maulevrier was in excellent spirits. 
 
 " Everything is arranged, Mary. I have had a telegram from 
 Hammond, who has got the license, and will be here at half-past 
 one. At three the Vicar will be here to marry you, his daugh- 
 ters, Katie and Laura, acting as your bridesmaids." 
 
 " Bridesmaids ! " exclaimed Mary. " I forgot all about brides- 
 maids. Am I really to have any t " 
 
 " You will have two girls of your own age to bear you com- 
 pany, at any rate. I have asked dear old Horton to be present, 
 and he, Fraulein, and Maulevrier will com.plete the party. It 
 will not be a brilliant wedding, Mary, or a costly ceremonial, 
 except for the license." 
 
 " And poor Jack will have to pay for that," said Mary, with a 
 long face. 
 
 " Poor Jack refused to let me pay for it," answered Lady 
 Maulevrier. " He is vastly independent, and I fear somewhat 
 reckless." 
 
 " I like him for his independence, but he mustn't be reckless," 
 said Mary, severely. 
 
 He was to be the master in all things ; and yet she was to 
 exercise a restraining influence, she was to guard him against 
 his own weaknessess, his too generous impulses. Her voice 
 was to be the voice of prudence. This is how Mary understood 
 the marriage tie. 
 
 Under ordinary conditions Mary would have been in the 
 avenue, lying in wait for her lover, eager to get the very 
 first glimpse of him when he arrived, to see him before he had 
 brushed the dust of the journey from his raiment. But to-day 
 she hung back. She stayed in her grandmother's room, and 
 sat beside the sofa, shy, and even a little downcast. This 
 lover, who was so soon to be transformed into a husband, was 
 a formidable personage. She dare not rush forth to greet him. 
 Perhaps he had changed his mind by this time, and was sorry 
 he had ever asked her to marry him. Perhaps he thought he 
 was being hustled into a marriage. He had been told that he 
 was to wait at least a year. And now, all in a moment, he was 
 sent off to get a special license. How could she be quite sure 
 that he liked this kind of treatment ? 
 
 If there is any faith to be placed in the human countenance, 
 Mr. Hammond was in no wise an unwilling bridegroom, for his 
 face beamed with happy delight as he came into the room pre- 
 sently, followed by an elderly man with gray hair and whiskers, 
 and in a strictly professional frock coat, whom the butler an- 
 nounced as Mr. Dorncliffe. Lady Maulevrier looked startled, 
 
292 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 somewhat offended even, at this intrusion, and she gave Mr. 
 Dorncliffe a very haughty salutation, which was almost more 
 crushing than no salutation at all. 
 
 Mary stood up by her grandmother's sofa, and looked rather 
 frightened. 
 
 " Dear Lady Maulevrier, I ventured to telegraph to my law- 
 yer to meet me at York last night, and come on here with me this 
 morning. He has prepared a settlement which I should like you 
 to hear him read, and which he will explain to you, if necessary, 
 while Molly and I go for a stroll in the grounds." 
 
 He had never called her Molly before. He put his arm round 
 her with a proud air of possession, even under her grandmother's 
 eyes. And she nestled close up to his side, forgetting every- 
 thing but the delight of belonging to him. 
 
 They went downstairs, and through the billiard-room to the 
 terrace, and from the terrace to the tennis lawn, where John 
 Hammond sat reading Heine nearly a year ago, just before he 
 proposed to Lesbia. 
 
 " Do you remember that day ? " asked Mary, looking at him, 
 solemnly. 
 
 " I remember every day and every hour we have spent to- 
 gether since I began to love you," answered Hammond. 
 
 " Ah, but this was before 3^ou began to love me," said Mar}^, 
 with a piteous little grimace. " This was while you were loving 
 Lesbia as hard as ever you could. Don't you remember the 
 day you proposed to her — a lovely summer day like this, the 
 lake just as blue, the sun shining upon Fairfield just as it is 
 shining now, and you sat there reading Heine — those sweet, 
 sweet verses, that seemed made of sighs and tears, and every 
 now and then you paused and looked up at Lesbia, and there 
 was more love in your eyes than in all Heine's poetiy, through 
 that brims over with love." 
 
 "But how do you know all this, Molly? You were not here." 
 
 " No, but I was not very far off. I was behind those bushes 
 watching and listening. I knew you were in love with Lesbia, 
 and I thought you despised me, and I was very, very wretched, 
 and I listened afterward when you proposed to her there — be- 
 hind the pine trees — and I hated her for refusing you, and I'm 
 afraid I hated you for proposing to her." 
 
 " When I ought to have been proposing to my Molly, blind 
 fool that I was," said Hammond, smiling tenderly at her, smiling 
 though his eyes were dim with tears " My own sweet love, it 
 was a terrible mistake, a mistake that might have cost me the 
 happiness of a lifetime. But Fate was very good to me, and let 
 
PHA iVTOM FOR TUNE. 29; 
 
 me have iny Mary after all. And now let us sit down under the 
 old red beech and talk till it is time to go and get ready for oui 
 wedding. I suppose one ought to brush one's hair and wasl: 
 one's hands for that kind of thing, even when the function is nol 
 on a ceremonious scale." 
 
 Mary laughed. 
 
 " I have a prettier gown than this to be married in, althougl" 
 it isn't a wedding gown," she said. 
 
 " Oh, by the bye, I have something for you, something in the 
 way of ornaments, but I don't suppose you'd care to wear then 
 to-day. I'll run and get them." 
 
 He went back to the house, leaving Mary sitting on the rustic 
 bench under the fine old copper beech, a tree that had beer 
 standing long before Lady Maulevrier enlarged the old stone 
 house into a stately villa. He returned in a few minutes, bring 
 ing a morocco bag, about the size of those usually carried b) 
 law}^ers or lawyers' clerks. 
 
 "I don't think I have given you anything since we were en 
 gaged, Mary," said Mr. Hammond. 
 
 Mary blushed, remembering how Clara, the maid, had re 
 marked upon this fact. 
 
 " You gave me my ring," she said, looking down at the mas 
 sive band of gold, " and you have given me ever so many delight- 
 ful books." 
 
 " They have been very humble gifts, Molly, but to-day I have 
 brought you a wedding present." 
 
 He opened the bag and took out a red morocco case, and 
 then half a dozen more red morocco cases of various shapes and 
 sizes. The first looked new, but the others were old-fashioned 
 and passing shabby, as if they had been knocking about brok- 
 ers' shops for the last quarter of a century. 
 
 " There is my wedding gift, Mary," he said, handing her the 
 new case. 
 
 It contained an exquisitely painted miniature of a very beau- 
 tiful woman, in a large oval locket, set with magnificent sap- 
 phires. 
 
 " You have asked me for my portrait, dearest," he said. " I 
 give you my mother's rather than my own, because I loved he? 
 as I never thought to love again till I knew you. I should lik< 
 you to wear that locket sometimes, Mary, as a kind of link be 
 tween the love of the past and the love of the present. Wer 
 my mother living, she would welcome and cherish my bride an^ 
 my wife. She is dead, and you and she can never meet o 
 
291 
 
 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 earth ; but I like you to be familiar with the face which was once 
 the light of my life." 
 
 Mary's eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the face in the 
 miniature. It was the portrait of a woman of about thirty — a 
 face of exquisite refinement, of calm and pensive beauty. 
 
 " I shall treasure this picture always, above all things," she 
 said ; " but why did you have it set so splendidly. Jack .? No 
 gems were needed to give your mother's portrait value in my 
 eyes." 
 
 " I know that, dearest ; and now for the other cases. The 
 locket is your lover's free gift, and is yours to keep or to give 
 away. These are heirlooms, and yours only during your hus- 
 band's lifetime." 
 
 He opened one of the largest cases, and on a bed of black 
 velvet Mary beheld a magnificent collet necklace of fine dia- 
 monds, with a large pendant. He opened another and displayed 
 a set of sprays for the hair. Another contained earrings, 
 another bracelets, the last a tiara. 
 
 " What are they for "i " gasped Mary. 
 
 " For my wife to wear." 
 
 " Oh, but I could never wear such things," she exclaimed, 
 with an idea that these must be stage jewelry. " They are paste, 
 of course — very beautiful for people who like that kind of thing 
 —but I don't." 
 
 She felt deeply shocked at this evidence of bad taste on the 
 part of her lover. How the things flashed in the sunshine — but 
 so did the crystal drops in the old Venetian girandoles. 
 
 " No, Molly, they are not paste ; they are Brazilian diamonds, 
 and as Maulevrier would say, they are as good as they make 
 them. They are heirlooms, Molly. My dear mother wore them 
 in her summertide of wedded happiness. My grandmother 
 wore them for thirty years before her, my great grandmother 
 wore them at the court of Queen Charlotte, and they were worn 
 at the court of Queen Anne. They are nearly two hundred 
 years old, and those central stones in the tiara came out of a cap 
 w^orn by the Great Mogul, and are the largest table diamonds 
 known. They are historic, Mary." 
 
 " Why, they must be worth a fortune." 
 
 " They are valued at something over seventy thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 " But why don't you sell them ? " exclaimed Mary, opening her 
 syes wide with surprise, " they would give you a handsome in- 
 :ome." 
 
 " They are not mine to sell, Molly. Did I not tell you that 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 295 
 
 "•- 
 they are heirlooms ? They are the family jewels of the Count- 
 esses of Hartfield." 
 
 " Then what are you ? " 
 
 " Ronald Hollister, Earl of Hartfield, and your adoring lover." 
 
 Mary gave a cry of surprise, a cry of distress even. 
 
 " Oh, that is too dreadful ! " she exclaimed ; " grandmamma 
 will be so unhappy. She had set her heart upon Lesbia marry- 
 ing Lord Hartfield, the son of the man she loved." 
 
 "" I got wind of her wish more than a year ago," said Hart- 
 field, " from your brother, and he and I hatched a plot between 
 us. He told me Lesbia was not worthy of a man's devotion — 
 told me she was vain and ambitious — that she had been educat- 
 ed to be so. I determined to come and try my fate. I would 
 try to win her as plain John Hammond. If she was a true 
 woman, I told myself, vanity and ambition would be blown to the 
 four winds provided 1 could win her love. I came, I saw her, 
 and to see was to love her. God knows I tried honestly to 
 win her ; but I had sworn to myself that I would woo her as 
 John Hammond, and I did not waver in my resolution — no, not 
 when i word would have turned the scale. She liked me, I 
 think, a little, but she did not like the notion of an obscure life 
 as the wife of a hard-working professional man. The pomps 
 and vanities of this world had it against love or liking, and she 
 gave me up. I thank God that the pomps and vanities prevailed, 
 for this happy chance gave me Mary, my sweet Wordsworthian 
 damsel, found like the violet or the celandine, by the wayside, 
 in Wordsworth's own country." 
 
 " And you are Lord Hartfield," exclaimed Mary, still lost in 
 wonder, and with no elation at this change in the aspect of her 
 life. " I always knew you were a great man. But poor grand- 
 mother ! It will be a dreadful disappointment to her." 
 
 " I think not. I think she has learned my Molly's value, 
 rather late, as I learned it, and I believe she will be rather glad 
 that one of her granddaughters should marry the son of her first 
 lover. Let us go to her, love, and see if she is reconciled to 
 the idea, and whether the settlement is ready for execution. 
 Dorncliffe and his clerk were working at it half through the 
 night." 
 
 " What is the good of a settlement ? " asked Mary. " I am 
 sure I don't want one." 
 
 " Lady Hartfield must not be dependent upon her husband's 
 whim or pleasure for her milliner's bill or her private charities," 
 answered her lover, smiling at her eagerness to repudiate any- 
 thing business-like. 
 
295 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " But I would rather be dependent on your pleasure ; I shall 
 never have any milliner's bills ; and I am sure you would never 
 deny me money for charity." 
 
 " You shall not have to ask me for it, except when you have 
 exceeded your pin money. I hope you will do that now and 
 then just to afford me the' pleasure of doing you a favor." 
 
 *' Hartfield," repeated Mary to herself, as they went toward 
 the house, •' shall I have to call you Hartfield? I don't like the 
 name nearly so well as Jack." 
 
 " You shall call me Jack for old time's sake," said Hartfield 
 tenderly. 
 
 " How did you think of such a name as Jack ? " 
 
 " Rather an effort of genius, wasn't it t Well, first and foremost, 
 I was christened Ronald John— all the Hollisters are christened 
 John — name of the founder ©f the race ; and, secondly, Maule- 
 vrier and I were always plain Mr. Moreland and Mr. Hammond 
 in our travels, and always called each other Jack and Jim." 
 
 "How nice," said Mary. "Would you very much mind our 
 being plain Mr. and Mrs. Hammond while we are on our honey- 
 moon trip ? " 
 
 " I should like it of all things." 
 
 " So should I. People will not take so much notice of us, 
 and we can do what we like and go where we like." 
 
 " Delightful. We'll even disguise ourselves as Cook's Tour- 
 ists, if you like. I would not mind.' 
 
 They were at the door of Lady Maulevrier's sitting room by 
 this time. They went in and were greeted with smiles. 
 
 " Let me look at the Countess of Hartfield that is to be in 
 half an hour," said her Ladyship. " Oh, Mary, Mary, what a 
 blind idiot I have been, and what a lucky girl you are. I told 
 you once that you were wiser than Lesbia ; but I little thought 
 how much wiser you had been." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 " OUR LOVE WAS NEW, AND THEN BUT IN THE SPRING." 
 
 Henley regatta was over. It had passed like a tale that is 
 told ; like Epsom and Ascot, and all the other glories of the 
 London season ; and happy those for whom the glory of Henley, 
 the grace of Ascot, the fever of Epsom, are not as weary as a 
 twice-told tale, brmging with them only bitterest memories of 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 297 
 
 youth that has fled, of hopes that have withered, of day dreams 
 that have never been reaUzed. There are some to whom that 
 mad hastening from pleasure to pleasure, that rush from scene 
 to scene of excitement, that eager crowding into one day and 
 night of gayeties which might fairly relieve the placid monotony 
 of a month's domesticity, a month's professional work — some 
 ther^ are to whom this Vanity Fair is as a treadmill or the turning 
 of a crank, the felon's deepest humiUation, purposeless, unprotit- 
 able labor. 
 
 The regatta was over, and Lady Kirkbank and her charge 
 hastened back to Arlington Street. Theirs was the very first 
 departure ; albeit Mr. Smithson pleaded hard for a prolongation 
 of their visit. The weather was exceptionally lovely, he urged. 
 Water picnics were delightful just now — the banks were alive 
 with the color of innumerable wild flowers, as beautiful and more 
 poetical than the gorgeous flora of the Amazon or the Paraguay 
 River. And Lady Lesbia had developed a genius for punting ; 
 and, standing on the edge of the punt, with her hair flying loose 
 and sleeves rolled up above the elbow, she was a subject for 
 canvas or marble, Millais or Adams Acton. 
 
 " When we are in Italy I will have her modeled just in that 
 attitude, and that dress," he said. " She will make a lovely 
 companion for my Reading Girl, one all repose and reverie, the 
 other all life and action. Dear Lady Kirkbank, you really must 
 stay for another week at least. Why go back to the smoke and 
 sultriness of town ? Here we can almost live on the water ; and 
 I will send to London for some people to make music for us in 
 the evenings ; or if you miss your little game at ' Nap,' we will 
 play for an hour or so every night. It shall not be my fault if 
 my house is not pleasant for you." 
 
 " Your house is charming, and I shall be here only too often 
 in the days to come; you will have more than enough of me, 
 then, I promise you," replied Georgie, with her girlish laugh, 
 " but we must not stop a day longer now. People would begin 
 to talk. Besides, we have engagements for every hour of the 
 week that is coming, and for a fortnight after ; and then I sup- 
 pose I ought to take Lesbia to the North to see her grandmother, 
 and to discuss all the preparations and arrangements for this 
 very serious event in which you and Lesbia are to be the chici 
 performers." 
 
 " I shall be very glad to go to Grasmere myself, and to make 
 the acquaintance of my future grandmother-in-law," said Mr. 
 Smithson. 
 
 " You will be charmed with her. She belongs to the old 
 
298 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 school — something of a fossil, perhaps, but a very dignifieci fossil. 
 She has grown old in a rustic seclusion, and knows less of our 
 world than a mother abbess ; but she has read immensely, and 
 is wonderfully clever. I am bound to tell you that she has very 
 lofty ideas about her granddaug^hter, and I believe she will only 
 be reconciled to Lesbia's marriage with a commoner by the no- 
 tion that you are sure of a peerage. I ventured to hint as much 
 in my letter to Lady Maulevrier yesterday. 
 
 A shade of sullenness crept over Horace Smithson's visage. 
 
 " I should hope that such settlements as I am in a position to 
 make will convince Lady Maulevrier that I am a respectable 
 suitor for her granddaughter, ex-peerage," he said somewhat 
 haughtily. 
 
 " My dear Smithson, did not I tell you that poor Lady Maule- 
 vrier is a century behind the times," exclaimed Lady Kirkbank 
 with an aggrieved look. " If she were one of us, of course she 
 would know that wealth is the paramount consideration, and 
 that you are quite the best match of the season. But she is 
 dreadfully arrieree, poor dear thing, and she has amused herself 
 with the day-dream of seeing Lesbia a duchess, or something of 
 that kind. I shall tell her that Lesbia can be one of the queens 
 of society without having strawberry leaves on her coach panels, 
 and that my dear friend Horace Smithson is a much better 
 match than a seedy duke. So don't look cross, my dear fellow ; 
 in me you have a friend who will never desert you." 
 
 "Thanks," said Smithson, inwardly resolving that, so soon as 
 this little transaction of his marriage was over, he would see as 
 little of Georgie Kirkbank and her cotton frocks and schoolgirl 
 hats as bare civility would allow. 
 
 He had promised her that she should be the richer by a neat 
 little bundle of fat and flourishing railway stock when his happi- 
 ness was secured, apd he was not going to break his promise. 
 But he did not mean to give George and Georgie free quarters 
 at Rood Hall, or at Cowes or Deauville, and he meant to with- 
 draw his wife altogether from Lady Kirkbank's pinchbeck set. 
 
 What were Lesbia's feelings in the early morning after the 
 last day of the regatta, as she slowly paced the lavender walk in 
 the Ladies' Garden, alone, for happily Mr. Smithson was not so 
 early a riser as the Grasmere bred damsel, and she had this 
 fresh morning hour to herself ? Of what was she thinking as she 
 paced slowly up and down the broad gravel walk between two 
 rows of tall old bushes, on which purple masses of blossom 
 stood up from the pale gray foliage, silvery where the summer 
 breeze touched it. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 299 
 
 Well, she was thinking first what a grand old place Rood Hall 
 was, and that it was in a manner hers henceforward. She was 
 to be mistress of this house, and of other houses, each after its 
 fashion as perfect as Rood Hall. She was to have illimitable 
 money at her command, to spend and give away as she liked. 
 She, who yesterday had been tortured by the idea of owing a 
 paltry three thousand pounds, was henceforward to count her 
 thousands by the hundred. Her senses reeled before that daz- 
 zling vision of figures with rows of ciphers after them, one cipher 
 more or less meaning the difference between thousands and mill- 
 ions. Everybody had agreed in assuring her that Mr. Smithson 
 was inordinately rich. Everybody had considered it his or her 
 business to give her information about the gentleman's income, 
 clearly implying thereby that in the opinion of society Mr. 
 Smithson 's merits as a suitor were a question of so much 
 bullion. 
 
 Could she doubt, she who had learned in one short season to 
 know what the world was made of, and what it most valued ? 
 could she, steeped to the lips in the wisdom of Lady Kirkbank's 
 set, doubt for an instant that she was making a better match in 
 the eye of society than if she had married a man of the highest 
 lineage in all England, a peer of the highest rank without large 
 means ? She knew that money was power, that a man might 
 begin life as a pot-boy or a greengrocer, a knacker or a dust con- 
 tractor, and climb to the topmost pinnacles, were he only rich 
 enough. She knew that society would eat such a man's dinners 
 and dance at his wife's balls, and pretend to think him an alto- 
 gether exceptional man, make believe to admire him for his own 
 sake, to think his wife most briUiant among women, if he were 
 only rich enough. And could she doubt that society ivould bow 
 down to her as Lady Lesbia Smithson t She had learned a 
 great deal in her single season, and she knew how society was 
 influenced and governed almost as well as Sir Robert Walpole 
 knew how human nature could be molded and directed at the 
 will of a shrewd diplomatist. She knew that in the fashionable 
 world every man and every woman, every child even, has his or 
 her price and maybe bought and sold at pleasure. She had her 
 price, she, Lesbia, the pearl of Grasmere, and the price having 
 been fairly bidden she had surrendered to the bidder. 
 
 " I suppose I ahvays meant to marry him," she thought, paus- 
 ing in her promenade to gaze across the verdant landscape, a 
 fertile vale against a background of low hills. All to the edge 
 of those hills belonged to Mr. Smithson. " Yes, I must have 
 meant to give way at last, or I should hardly have tolerated 
 
300 
 
 PHANTOM FOR TUi\ 'E. 
 
 his attentions. It would have been a pity to refuse such a place 
 as this . and he is quite gentlemanlike ; and as I have done 
 with all foolish, and romantic ideas, I do not see why I should 
 not learn to like him very much." 
 
 She dismissed the idea of Smithson lighth^, with this conclu- 
 sion, which she believed very virtuous, and then as she resumed 
 her walk her thoughts reverted to the Park Lane Palace. 
 
 " I hardly know whether I like it," she mused languidly ; 
 " beautiful as it is, it is only a reproduction of bygone splendor, 
 and it is painfully, excruciatingly new. For my own part, I 
 would much rather have the shabbiest old house which had be- 
 longed to one's ancestors, which had come to one as a heritage, 
 by divine right as it were, instead of being bought with newly 
 made money. To my mind it would rank higher. Yet I doubt 
 if anybody nowadays sets a pin's value upon ancestors. People 
 ask who is he, but they only mean how much has he ? And 
 provided a person is not absolutely in trade, not actually en- 
 gaged in selling soap, or matches, or mustard, society doesn't 
 care a straw how his money has been made. The only secon- 
 dary question is ' How long will it last t ' and that is of course 
 important." 
 
 Musing thus, worldly wisdom personified, the maiden looked 
 np and saw her lover entering at the light little iron gate which 
 gave entrance to this feminine Eden. She went to meet him, 
 looking all simplicity and freshness in her white morning gown 
 and neat little Dunstable hat. It seemed to him as he gazed 
 at her almost as if this delicate sylphlike beauty were some 
 wild, white flower of the woods personified. 
 
 She gave him her hand graciously, but he drew her to his 
 breast and kissed her, with the air of a man who was exercising 
 an indisputable right. She supposed that it was his right, and 
 she submitted, but released herself as quickly as possible. 
 
 " My dearest, how lovely you look in this morning light," he 
 exclaimed, "while all the other women are upstaiis making up 
 their faces to meet the sun, and we shall see every shade of bis- 
 muth by and by, from pale blue to purple." 
 
 " It is very uncivil for you to say such a thing of your guests," 
 exclaimed Lesbia. 
 
 " But they all indulge in bismuth — you must be quite aware 
 of that. Then call the stuff by different names — Blanc Rosati, 
 Creme de I'lmperatrice, Milk of Beauty, Perline, Opaline, Ivo- 
 rine — but it means bismuth all the same: Expose your fashion- 
 able beauty to the fumes of sewer gas, and that dazzling white- 
 ness would turn to a dull brown hue, or even black. Thank 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 301 
 
 heaven, my Lesbia wears real lilies and roses. Have you been 
 here long ? " 
 
 " About half an hour." 
 
 " I only wish I had known. I should not have dawdled so 
 long over my dressing." 
 
 " I am very glad you did not know," Lesbia answered coolly. 
 " Do you suppose I never want to be alone \ Life in London is 
 perpetual turmoil, one's eyes grow weary with evening and 
 morning crowds, one's ears ache with trying to distinguish one 
 voice among the buzz of voices." 
 
 " Then, why go back to town } Why go back to the turmoil 
 and the treadmill ? It is only a kind of treadmill, after all, 
 though we choose to call it pleasure. Stay here, Lesbia, and 
 let us live upon the river, and among the flowers," urged Smith- 
 son with as romantic an air as if he had never heard of con- 
 tango, or bulling and bearing ; and yet, only half an hour ago, 
 while his valet was shaving him, he was debating within himself 
 whether he should be bear or bull in his influence upon certain 
 stock. 
 
 It was supposed that he never went near the city, that he had 
 shaken the dust of Lombard Street and the House off his shoes. 
 That his fortune was made, and he had no further need of specu- 
 lation. Yet the proverb holds good with the stock-jobbers. 
 He who has once drunk will drink again. Of that fountain 
 there is no satiety. 
 
 " Stay, and hear the last of the nightingale," he murmured ; 
 " we are famous for our nightingales." 
 
 " I wonder you don't order a fricassee of their tongues, like 
 that loathsome person in Roman history." 
 
 " I hope I shal> never resemble any loathsome person. Why 
 can you not stay .? " 
 
 " Why, because it is not etiquette, Lady Kirkbank says." 
 
 " Lady Kirkbank, eh, la belle farce, Lady Kirkbank standing 
 out for etiquette." 
 
 " Don't laugh at my chaperon, sir. Upon what rock can a 
 poor girl lean if you undermine her faith in her chaperon .f" " 
 
 " I hope you will have a better guardian before you are a 
 month older. I mean to be a very strong rock, Lesbia. You 
 do not know how firmly I shall stand between you and all the 
 perils of society. You have been but poorly guarded hitherto." 
 
 ." You talk as if you mean to be an abominable tyrant," 
 said Lesbia. *'If you don't t/ike care I shall change my mind 
 and recall my promise." 
 
 " Not on that account, Lesbia ; every woman likes a man 
 
302 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 who stands up for his own. It is only your inveterate husband 
 whose wife drifts into the divorce court. I mean to keep and to 
 hold the prize I have won. When is it to be, dearest — our wed- 
 ding day 1 " 
 
 " Not for ages, I hope — some time next Summer, at the earli- 
 est." 
 
 " You would like to keep me waiting a year ? " 
 
 " Why not 1 " 
 
 " You would not ask that if you loved me." 
 
 " You are asking too much," said Lesbia, with a flash of defi- 
 ance. "There has been nothing said about love yet. You 
 asked me to be your wife and I said yes — meaning that at some 
 remote period such a thing might be." 
 
 She knew that the man was her slave — slave to her beautv, 
 slave to her superior rank — and she was determined not to les- 
 sen the weight of his chain by so much as a feather. 
 
 " Did not that promise imply something like love 'i " he asked, 
 earnestly. 
 
 " Perhaps it implied a little gratitude for your devotion, which 
 I have neither courted nor encouraged; a little respect for your 
 talents, your perseverance ; a little admiration for your w'onder- 
 ful success in life. Perhaps love may follow these sentiments, 
 naturally, easily, if you are very patient ; but if 3'ou talk about 
 our being married before next year you will simply make me 
 hate you." 
 
 " Then I will say very little except to remind you that there 
 is no earthly reason why we should not be married next month. 
 October and November are the best months in Rome, and I 
 heard you say last night you were pining to see Rome," 
 
 " What then 1 Cannot Lady Kirkbank take me to 
 Rome ? " 
 
 " And introduce 3'ou to the rowdiest people in the city," cried 
 Mr. Smithson. " Lesbia, I adore you. It is the dream of my 
 life to be your husband ; but if you are going to spend a Winter 
 in Italy with Lady Kirkbank, I renounce my right, I surrender 
 my hope. You will not be the wife of my dreams after that." 
 
 " Do you assert a right to control my life during my engage- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " Some little right ; above all, the privilege of choosing your 
 friends. And that is one reason I most fervently desire our 
 marriage should not be delayed. You will find it difficult, im- 
 possible, perhaps, to get out of Lady Kirkbank's claws while 
 you are single, but once my wife, that amiable old person can 
 be made to keep her distance." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 303 
 
 " Lady Kirkbank's claws ! What a horrible way in which to 
 speak of a friend. I thought you adored Lady Kirkbank." 
 
 " So I do ; we all adore her but not as a guide for youth. 
 As a specimen of the middle-aged female of the latter half of 
 the nineteenth century, she is perfect. Such gush, such juve- 
 nility, such broad views, such an utter absence of starch ; but as 
 a lamp for the footsteps of girlhood — no, there we must pause." 
 
 " You are very ungrateful. Do you know that poor Lady 
 Kirkbank has been most strenuous in your behalf ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know that." 
 
 " And you are not grateful ? " 
 
 •' I intend to be very grateful — so grateful as to entirely sat- 
 isfy Lady Kirkbank." 
 
 " You are horribly cynical. That reminds me, there was a 
 poor girl whom Lady Kirkbank had under her w^ing one season 
 — a Miss Trinder, to whom I am told you behaved shame- 
 fully." 
 
 "There was a parson's daughter who threw herself at my 
 head in a most audacious way, and who behaved so badly, egged 
 on by Lady Kirkbank, that I had to take refuge in flight. Do 
 you suppose I am the kind of man to marry the first adventur- 
 ous damsel who takes a fancy to my town house and thinks it 
 would be a happy huntmg-ground for a herd of brothers and 
 sisters. Miss Trinder was shocking bad style, and her designs 
 were transparent from the very beginning. I let her flirt as much 
 as she liked ; but when she began to be seriously sentimental I 
 took wing for the East." 
 
 " Was she pretty ? " asked Lesbia, not displeased at this con- 
 temptuous summing up of poor Belle Trinder's story. 
 
 " If you admire the Flemish type, as illustrated by Rubens, 
 she was lovely. A complexion of lilies and roses — cabbage 
 roses, bien entendu, which were apt to deepen into peonies 
 after champagne and mayonaise at Ascot or Sandown — a figure 
 — oh — well — a tremendous figure — hair of an auburn that 
 touched perilously on the confines of red — large, serviceable feet, 
 and an appetite — an appetite of a plowman's daughter reared 
 upon short commons." 
 
 " You are very cruel to a girl who evidently admired you." 
 
 " A fig for her admiration ! She wanted to live in my house 
 and spend my money." 
 
 " There goes the gong," exclaimed Lesbia, "pray let us go to 
 breakfast. You are hideously cynical, and I am wofuUy tired 
 of you." 
 
 And as they strolled back to the house, by lavender walk and 
 
304 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 rose garden, and across the dewy lawn, Lesbia questioned lier- 
 self as to whether she was one whit better or more dignified 
 than Isabella Trinder. She wore her rue with a difference, that 
 was all. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 "all fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood." 
 
 The return to Arlington Street meant a return to the ceaseless 
 whirl of gayety. Even at Rood Hall life had been as near an 
 approach to perpetual motion as one could hope for in this 
 world, but the excitement and the hurrying and scampering in 
 Berkshire had a rustic flavor; there were moments that were al- 
 most repose, a breathing space between the blue river and the 
 blue sky, in a world that seemed made of green fields and hang- 
 ing woods, and the song of the lark. But in London the very 
 atmosphere was charged with hurry and agitation ; the fresh- 
 ness was gone from the verdure of the parks ; the glory of the 
 rhododendrons had failed; the green park below Lady Kirk- 
 bank's mansion was baked and rusty ; the towers of the Houses 
 of Parliament yonder were dimly seen in a mist of heat. London 
 air tasted of smoke and dust, vibrated with the incessant roll of 
 carriages, and the trampling of multitudinous feet. 
 
 Mr. Smithson had promised Lady Kirkbank, sportively as it 
 were, and upon the impulse of the moment, as he would have 
 offered to wager a dozen of gloves, that were he so happy as to 
 win her protegee's hand he would find her an investment for, sa}', 
 a thousand, which would bring her in twenty per cent. ; nay, 
 more, he would also find the thousand, which would have been 
 the initial difficulty on poor Georgie's part. But this little mat- 
 ter was in Georgie's mind a detail, compared with the advantages 
 to accrue to her indirectly from Lesbia's union with one of the 
 richest men in London. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank had brought about many good matches, and 
 had been too often rewarded with base ingratitude upon the 
 part of her protegees after marriage ; but there was a touch of 
 Arcady in the good soul's nature, and she was always trustful. 
 She told herself now that Lesbia would not be ungrateful — 
 would not basely kick down the ladder by which she had mount- 
 ed to heights empyrean-— would not cruelly shelve the friend 
 who had pioneered her to high fortune. She counted u^^on 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 305 
 
 making the house in Park Lane as her own house — upon being 
 the prime mover of all Lesbia's hospitalities, the supervisor of 
 her visiting list, the shadow behind the throne. 
 
 There were balls and parties nightly, dinners, luncheons, gar- 
 den parties, and yet there was a sense of waning in the glory of 
 the world — everybody felt that the fag end of the season was 
 approaching. All the really great entertainments were over — 
 the cabinet dinners, the reception at the Foreign Office, the last 
 of the State balls and concerts. Some of the best people had 
 already left town, and senators were beginning to complain that 
 they saw no prospect of early deliverance. There was Good- 
 wood still to look forward to ; and after Goodwood the Deluge 
 — or rather the Cowes Regatta, about which Lady Kirkbank's 
 set were already talking. 
 
 Lady Lesbia was to be at Cowes for the regatta week. That 
 was a settled thing. Mr. Smithson's schooner-yacht, the Cay- 
 man, was to be her hotel. It was to be Lady Kirkbank and 
 Lady Lesbia's yacht, for the nonce ; and Mr. Smithson was to 
 live on the shore at the club. He would be only Lady Kirk- 
 bank's visitor. The severe etiquette of the situation would 
 therefore not be infringed ; and yet Mr. Smithson would have 
 the happiness of seeing his betrothed aboard his yacht, sole and 
 sovereign mistress, and of spending the long summer days at 
 her feet. Even to Lady Lesbia this idea of the yacht was not 
 without its charm. She had never been on board such a yacht 
 as the Cayman ; she was a good sailor, as testified by many an 
 excursion in hired sailing boats at Tynemouth and St. Bees, 
 and she knew that she would be the queen of the hour. She ac- 
 cepted Mr. Smithson's invitation for the Cowes week more gra- 
 ciously than she was wont to receive his attentions, and was 
 pleased to say that the whole thing would be rather enjoyable. 
 
 "It will be simple enchantment," exclaimed the more enthu- 
 siastic Georgie Kirkbank. "There is nothing so rapturous as 
 life on board a yacht ; there is a flavor of adventure, a sans- 
 gene, a — in short, everything in the world that I like. I shall 
 wear my cotton frocks, and give myself up to enjoyment, lie on 
 the deck and look up at the blue sky, too deliciously idle even 
 to read the last horrid thing of Zola's." 
 
 But the Cowes Regatta was already three weeks ahead, and 
 in the mean time there was Goodwood, and the raveled threads 
 of the London season had to be wound up. And by this time 
 it was known everywhere that the affair between Mr. Smithson 
 and Maulevrier's sister was really on. " It's as settled a 
 business as the entries and bets for next year's Derby," said one 
 
3o6 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 lounger to another in the smoking-room of the White Elephant. 
 *' Play or pay, don't you know." 
 
 Lady Kirkbank and Lesbia had both written to Lady Mau- 
 levrier, Lesbia writing somewhat coldly, very briefly, and in a 
 half defiant tone, that she had accepted Mr. Smithson's offer, 
 and that she hoped her grandmother would be pleased with a 
 match which everybody supposed to be extremely advantageous. 
 She was going to Grasmere immediately after the Cowes week 
 to see her dear grandmother, and to be assured of her approval. 
 In the mean while she was awfully busy : there were callers 
 driving up to the door at that very moment, and her brain was 
 racked by the apprehension that she might not get her new gown 
 in time for the bachelors' ball at Baron Grant's empty house, 
 which was to be quite one of the nicest things of the year, so 
 dearest grandmother must excuse a hurried letter, etc., etc., 
 etc. 
 
 Georgie Kirkbank was more effusive, much more lengthy. 
 She expatiated upon the enormous alliance which her sweetest 
 Lesbia was about to make, and took credit to herself for having 
 guided Lesbia's footsteps in the right way. 
 
 " Smithson is a most difficult person," she wrote. " The least 
 error of taste on your dear girl's part would have froissed him. 
 Men with that immense wealth are always suspicious, ready to im- 
 agine mercenary motives, on their guard against being trapped. 
 But Lesbia had me at her back, and she managed him per- 
 fectly. He is positively her slave, and you will be able to 
 twist him round your little finger in the matter of settlements. 
 You may do what you like with him, for the ground has been 
 thoroughly prepared by me." 
 
 Ladv Maulevrier's reply was not enthusiastic. She had no 
 doubt Mr. Smithson was a very good match according to the 
 modern estimate of matrimonial alliances, in which money 
 seemed to be the Alpha and Omega. But she had cherished 
 hopes of another kind. She had hoped to see her dear grand- 
 daughter wear one of those noble and historic names which are 
 a badge of distinction for all time. She had hoped to see her 
 enter one of those grand old families which are a kind of royalty. 
 And that she should marry a man whose sole distinction con- 
 sisted of an immense fortune, amassed heaven knows how, was 
 a terrible blow to her pride. 
 
 " But it is not the first," wrote Lady Maulevrier. " My pride 
 has received crushing blows in days past, and I ought to be 
 humbled to the dust. But there is a stubborn resistance in na- 
 tures which stand firm against every shock. You and Lesbia 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Z<^7 
 
 will both be surprised to hear that Mary, from whom I expected 
 so little, has made a really good match. She was married yes- 
 terday afternoon in my morning room by especial license to the 
 Earl of Hartfield, the lover of her choice, whom We at Fellside 
 have all known as plain John Hammond. He is an admirable 
 young man, and sure to make a great figure in the world, as no 
 doubt you know better than I do, for you are in the way of 
 hearing all about him. His courtship of Mary was quite an 
 idvll, and the happy issue of this romantic love affair has 
 cheered and comforted me more than anything that has hap- 
 pened since Lesbia has left me.' 
 
 This letter, written in Fraulein's niggling little hand, Lady 
 Kirkbank handed to Lesbia, who read it through in silence , 
 but when she came to that part of the letter which' told of her sis- 
 ter's marriage her cheek grew ashy pale, her brow contracted, and 
 she started to her feet and stared at Lady Kirkbank with wild 
 dilated eyes, as if she had been stung by an adder. 
 
 " A strange mystification, wasn't it ? " said Lady Kirkbank, 
 almost frightened at the awful look in Lesbia's face, which was 
 even worse than Belle Trinder's expression when she read the 
 announcement of Mr. Smithson's flight. 
 
 "Strange mystification — it was base treacher}^— a vile and 
 wicked lie," cried Lesbia, furiously. " What right had he to 
 come to us under false colors, to pretend to be poor, a nobody 
 — with only the vaguest hope of making a decent position in the 
 future. And to offer himself under such impossible conditions, 
 to a girl brought up as I had been — a girl educated by one of 
 the proudest and most ambitious of women, to force me to re- 
 nounce everything except him. How could he suppose that 
 any girl, so placed, could decide in his favor ? If he had loved 
 me he would have told me the truth — he would not have made 
 it impossible for me to accept him." 
 
 ** 1 believe he is a very high-flown youngman," said Lady Kirk- 
 bank soothingly, " he was never in my set you know, dear. And 
 I suppose he had some old Minerva press idea that he would 
 find a girl who would marry him for his own sake. And your 
 sister, nc doubt eager to marry anybody, poor child, for the sake 
 of getting away from that very lonely dungeon of Lady Maule 
 vrier's, snapped at the chance ; and by a mere fluke she becomes 
 a countess." 
 
 Lesbia ignored these consolatory remarks. She was pacing 
 the room like a tigress, her delicate cambric handkerchief 
 grasped between her two hands, and torn and rent by the con- 
 vulsive action of her fingers. She could have thrown herself 
 
3o8 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 from the balcony on to the spikes of the arena railings, she could 
 have dashed herself against yonder big plate-glass window look- 
 ing toward the Green Park, like a bird which shatters its little 
 life against the glass barrier which he mistakes for the open 
 sky. She could have flung herself down on the floor and 
 groveled, and torn her hair — she could have done anything 
 mad, wicked, desperate, in the wild rage of this moment. 
 
 " Loved me," she exclaimed, "he never loved me. If he had 
 he would have told me the truth. What, when I was in his 
 arms, my head upon his breast, my whole being surrendered to 
 him, adoring him, what more could he want .'* He must have 
 known that this meant real love. And why should he put it 
 upon me to fight so hard a fight — to brave my grandmother's an- 
 ger — to be cursed by her — to face poverty for his sake t I never 
 professed to be a heroine. He knew that I was a woman, with 
 all a woman's weakness, a woman's fear of trial and difficulty 
 in the future. It was a cowardly thing to use me so." 
 
 " It was," said Lady Kirkbank, in the same soothing tone, 
 "but if you liked this Hammond Hartfield creature a little in 
 those days, I know you have outlived that liking long ago." 
 
 " Of course ; but it is a hard thing to know one has been , 
 fooled, cheated, weighed in the balance and found wanting," 
 said Lesbia, scornfully. 
 
 She was taming down a little by this time, ashamed of that 
 outbreak of violent passion, feeling that she had revealed too 
 much to Lady Kirkbank. 
 
 " It was a most caddish thing to do," said Georgie, " and this 
 Hartfield is just what I always thought him — an insufferable 
 prig. However, my sweetest 'girl, there is really nothing to la- 
 ment in the matter. Your sister has made a good alliance, 
 which will score high in your favor by and by, and you are go- 
 ing to marry a man who is three times as rich as Lord Hartfield. 
 
 " Rich, yes — and nothing bilt rich ; while Lord Hartfield is a 
 man of the very highest standing, belongs to the flower of Eng- 
 lish nobility. Rich, yes ; Mr. Smithson is rich ; but, as Lady 
 Maulevrier says, he has made his money Heaven knows how^" 
 
 "Mr. Smithson has not made his money Heaven knows how," 
 answered Lady Kirkbank, indignantly. " He has made it in 
 cochineal, in iron, in gunpowder, in coal, in all kinds of com- 
 modities. Everybody in the city know^s how he has made his 
 money, and that he has a genius for turning everything into 
 gold. If the gold changes back into one of the baser metals, it is 
 only when Mr. Smithson has let it go again. And now he has 
 quite done with the city. The House is the only business of 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 309 
 
 his life, and he is becoming a power in the House. You have 
 every reason to be proud of your choice, Lesbia." 
 
 *' I will try to be proud of it," said Lesbia, resolutely. " I 
 will not be scorned and trampled upon by Mary." 
 
 " She seemed a harmless kind of girl," said Lady Kirkbank, 
 as if she had been talking of a housemaid. 
 
 " She is a designing minx," exclaimed Lesbia, " and has set 
 her cap at that man from the very beginning." 
 
 " But she could not have known that he was Lord Hartfield." 
 
 '• No, but he was a man, and that was enough for her." 
 
 From this time forward there was a change in Lady Lesbia's 
 style and manner, a change very much for the worse, as old-fash- 
 ioned people thought ; but, to the taste of some among Lady 
 Kirkbank 's set, the change was an improvement. She was gayer 
 than of old, gay with a reckless vivacity, intensely eager for action 
 and excitement, for cards, and racing, and all the strongest 
 stimulants of fashionable life. Most people ascribed this in- 
 creased vivacity, this electric manner, to the fact of her engage- 
 ment to Horace Smithson. She was giddy with triumph, daz- 
 zled by a vision of the gold which was so soon to be hers. 
 
 " Egad, if I saw myself in a fair way of being able to write 
 checks upon such an account as Smithson's I should be as wild 
 as Lady Lesbia," said one of the damsel's military admirers at 
 the In and Out club. " And I believe the young lady was 
 slightly dipped." 
 
 " Who told you that ? " asked his friend. 
 
 '-'• A mother of mine," answered the youth, with an apologetic 
 air, as if he hardly cared to own such a humdrum relationship. 
 " Seraphine the dressmaker was complaining — wanted to see 
 the color of Lady Lesbia Haselden's money — vulgar curiosity — 
 asked my old mother if she thought it was safe, and so on. 
 That's how I came to know all about it." 
 
 " Well, she'll be able to pay Seraphine next season." 
 
 Lord Maulevrier came back to London directly after his sis- 
 ter's wedding. The event, which came off so quietly, so happily, 
 tilled him with unqualified joy. He had hoped from the very first 
 that his Molly would win the Cup, even while Lesbia was making 
 all the running, as he said afterward. And Molly had won, and 
 was the wife of one the best young men in England. Maulevrier, 
 albeit unused to the melting mood, shed a tear or two for very 
 joy as the sister he loved and the friend of his boyhood and 
 
310 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 youth stood side by side in the quiet room at Grasmere, and 
 spoke the solemn words that made them one forever. 
 
 The first news he heard after his return to town was of Les- 
 bia's engagement, which was common talk at the clubs. The 
 visitors at Rood Hall had come back to London full of the event, 
 and were proud of giving a detailed account of the affair to out- 
 siders. 
 
 They all talked patronizingly of Smithson, and seemed to 
 think it a rather wonderful fact that he did not drop his aspirates 
 or eat peas with a knife. 
 
 " A man of sterling metal," said the gossips, "who can hold 
 his own with many a fellow born in the purple." 
 
 Maulevrier called in Arlington Street, but Lady Kirkbank 
 and her protegee were out ; and it was at a cricket match at the 
 Orleans Club that the brother and sister met for the first time 
 after Lord Hartfield's wedding, which by this time had been in 
 all the papers, a very simple announcement : 
 
 " On the 29th instant, at Grasmere, by the Rev. Douglas 
 Brooke, the Earl of Hartfield to Mary, youngest daughter of the 
 fifth Earl of Maulevrier." 
 
 Lesbia was the center of a rather noisy little court, in which 
 Mr. Smithson was conspicuous by his superior reserve. 
 
 He did not exert himself as a lover, paid no compliments, was 
 not sentimental. The pearl was won, and he wore it very quiet- 
 ly ; but wherever Lesbia went he went ; she was hardly ever out 
 of his sight. 
 
 Maulevrier received the coolest possible greeting. Lesbia 
 turned with anger at sight of him, for his presence reminded her 
 of the most humiliating passage in her life ; but the big red satin 
 sunshade concealed that pale angry look, and nothing in Lesbia's 
 manner betrayed emotion. 
 
 " Where have you been hiding yourself all this time, and why 
 were you not at Henley ? " she asked. 
 
 " I have been at Grasmere." 
 
 "Oh, you were a witness of that most romantic marriage. 
 The ' Lady of Lyons ' reversed, the gardener's son turning out 
 to be an earl. Was it excruciatingly funny ? " 
 
 " It was one of the most solemn weddings I ever saw." 
 
 " Solemn ! What, with my tombov sister a bride ? Impossi- 
 ble ! ' 
 
 " Your sister ceased to be a tomboy when she fell in love. 
 She is a sweet and womanly woman and will make an adorable 
 wdfe to the finest fellow I know. I hear I am to congratulate 
 you, Lesbia, upon your engagement with Mr. Smithson." 
 
PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 3 1 1 
 
 " If you think I am the person to be congratulated you are at 
 libert}^ to do so. My engagement is a fact." 
 
 " Oil, of course, Mr. Smithson is the winner. But as I hope 
 you intend to be happy I shall wish you joy. I am told Smithson 
 is a really excellent fellow when one gets to know him, and I shall 
 make it my business to become better acquainted with him." 
 
 Smithson was standing just out of hearing, watching the bowl- 
 ing. Maulevrier went over to him and shook hands, their 
 acquaintance hitherto having been of the slightest, and very shy 
 upon his Lordship's part, but now Smithson could see that 
 Maulevrier meant to be cordial. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 A RASTAQUOUERE. 
 
 There was a dinner-party in one of the new houses in Gros- 
 venor Place that evening, to which Lady Kirkbank and Lesbia 
 had been bidden. The new house belonged to a new man, who 
 was supposed to have made millions out of railways and other 
 gigantic achievements in the engineering line ; and the new 
 man and his wife were friends of Mr. Smithson's, who had 
 made the simple Georgie's acquaintance within the past three 
 weeks. 
 
 " Of course, they are stupid, my dear," she remarked in re- 
 sponse to some slighting remark of Lesbia's, " but I am always 
 willing to know rich people. One drops in for so many good 
 things, and they never want any return in kind. It is quite 
 enough for them to be allowed to spend their money upon us." 
 
 The house was gorgeous in all the glory of the very latest fashion 
 in upholstery ; hall Algerian ; dining-room Pompeiian ; drawing- 
 room early Italian ; music-room Louis Quatorze ; billiard-room 
 mediaeval English. The dinner was as magnificent as dinner 
 can be made. Three-fourths of the guests were the haute gomme 
 of the financial world and perspired gold. The other third be- 
 longed to a class which Mr. Smithson described somewhat 
 contemptuously as the shake-back nobility. An Irish peer, a 
 younger son of a ducal house that had run to seed, a political 
 agitator, a grass-widow whose titled husband was governor of an 
 obscure colony, an ancient dowager with hair which was too lux- 
 uriant to be anything but a wig, and diamonds which were so 
 large as to suggest paste. 
 
312 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Lesbia sat by her affianced at the glittering table, lighted with 
 clusters of wax candles, which shone upon a level parterre of tea 
 roses, gardenias and gloire de Malmaison carnation, from which 
 rose at intervals groups of silver-gilt dolphins, supporting shal- 
 low golden dishes piled with peaches, grapes and all the cost- 
 liest produce of Covent Garden. 
 
 Conversation was not particularly brilliant, nor had the guests 
 an elated air. The thermometer was nearly eighty, and at this 
 period of the season everybody was tired of this kind of dinner, 
 and would gladly have foregone the greatest achievements of 
 culinary art in favor of a chicken and a salad, eaten under green 
 leaves, in a garden at Wargrave or Henley, within sound of the 
 rippling river. 
 
 On Lesbia's right hand there was a portly personage of Jew- 
 ish type, dark to swarthiness and som.ewhat oily, whose every 
 word suggested bullion. He and Mr. Smithson were evidently 
 acquaintances of long standing, and Mr. Smithson presented 
 him to Lesbia, and he joined in iheir conversation now and then. 
 
 She wondered how long the two men were gomg to prose about 
 mines and shares in those subdued half mysterious voices, tell- 
 ing each other curious facts in half expressed phrases, which 
 would have been dark to the outside world ; but while she was 
 languidly wondering, a change in her lover's manner startled her 
 into keenest curiosity. 
 
 "Montesma is in Paris," said Mr. Sampayo, the dark gentle- 
 man ; " I dined with him last week at the Continental." 
 
 Mr. Smithson's complexion faded curiously, and a leaden 
 blankness came over his countenance, as of a man whose heart 
 and lungs suddenly refuse their office. But in a few moments 
 he was smiling feebly. 
 
 " Indeed. I thought he was played out years ago." 
 
 " A man of that kind is never played out. Don Gomez de 
 Montesma is as clever as Satan, as handsome as Apollo, and 
 he bears one of the oldest names in Castile. Such a man will 
 always come to the front. C'est un rastaquouere, mais rasta- 
 quouere de bon genre. You knew him intimately, la bas, I 
 believe ? " 
 
 "In Cuba, yes, we were pretty good friends once." 
 
 "And were wseful to each other, no doubt," said Mr. Sampayo 
 pleasantly. " Was that Argentiferous Copper Company m '64 
 yours or his ? " 
 
 " There were a good many people concerned in it." 
 
 "No doubt; it takes a good many people to work that kind 
 of thing ; but I fancy you and Montesma were about the only 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 313 
 
 tw.o who came out of it pleasantly. However, that's an old 
 song. You have had so many good things since then." 
 
 " Did Montesma talk of coming to London t " 
 
 " He did not talk about it, but he would hardly go back to 
 the tropics without having a look round on both sides of the 
 channel. He was always fond of society, pretty women, dancing 
 and amusement of all kinds. I have no doubt we shall see 
 him here before the end of the season." 
 
 Mr. Smithson pursued the subject no further. He turned to 
 Lesbia, who had been curiously interested in this little bit of 
 conversation — interested first because Smithson had seemed 
 agitated by the mention of the Spaniard's name ; secondly, be- 
 cause of the description of the man, which had a romantic 
 sound. The very word tropics suggested a romance. And 
 Lesbia, whose mind was jaded by the monotony of a London 
 season, the threadbare fabric of society conversation, kindled at 
 any image which appealed to her fancy. 
 
 Clever as Satan, handsome as Apollo, scion of an old Cas- 
 tilian family, fresh from the tropics. Her imagination dwelt upon 
 the ideas which these words had conjured up. 
 
 Three days after this she was at the opera with her chaperon, 
 her lover in attendance as usual. The opera was Faust, with 
 Nilsson as Marguerite. After the performance they were to 
 drive down to Twickenham on Mr. Smithson's drag, and to 
 dance and sup at the Orleans. The last ball of the season was 
 on this evening; and Lesbia had been persuaded that it was to 
 be a particular recherche ball, and that only the very nicest 
 people were to be present. At any rate the drive under the 
 light of a July moon would be delicious ; and if they did not 
 like the people they found they could eat their supper and come 
 away immediately after, as Lady Kirkbank remarked philosoph- 
 ically. 
 
 The opera was nearly over — that grand scene of Valentine's 
 death was on — and Lesbia was listening breathlessly to every 
 note, watching every look of the actors, when came a modest 
 Utile knock at the door of her box. She darted an angry glance 
 round, shrugged her shoulders vexatiously. What Goth had dared 
 to knock during that thrilling scene t 
 
 Mr. Smithson rose and went to the door and quietly opened 
 it. 
 
 A dark, handsome man, who was a total stranger to Lesbia, 
 glided in, shaking hands with Smithson as he entered. 
 
 Till this moment Lesbia's whole being had been absorbed in 
 the scene — that bitter anathema of the brother's, the sister's crv 
 
314 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 of anguish and shame. Where else is there tragedy so human, 
 so enthralling — grief that so wrings the spectator's heart ? It 
 needed a Goethe and a Gounod to produce this masterpiece. 
 
 In an instant, in a flash, Lesbia's interest in the stage was 
 gone. Her first glance at the stranger told her who he was. 
 The olive tint, the eyes of deepest black, the grand form of the 
 head and noble chiseling of the features could belong only to ' 
 that scion of an old Castilian race whom she had heard describ- 
 ed the other evening — " Clever as Satan, handsome as Apollo." 
 Yes, this must be the man, Don Gomez de Montesma. 
 There was nothing in Mr. Smithson's manner to indicate that 
 the Spaniard was an unwelcome guest. On the contrary, Mr. 
 Smithson received him with cordiality which in a man of naturally 
 reserved manner seemed almost rapture. The curtain fell, and 
 he presented Don Gomez to Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia ; 
 whereupon dear Georgie began to gush, after her wont, and to 
 ask a good many questions in a manner that was too girlish to 
 seem impertinent. 
 
 " How perfectly you speak English ! " she exclaimed. " You 
 must have lived in England a good deal." 
 
 " On the contrary, it is my misfortune to have lived here very 
 little ; but I have known a good many English and Americans 
 in Cuba and in Paris." 
 
 • " In Cuba ? Do you really come from Cuba ? I have always 
 fancied that Cuba must be an altogether charming place to live 
 in — like Biarritz or Pau, don't you know, only further away. 
 Do please tell me where it is, and what kind of a place." 
 
 Geographically, Lady Kirkbank's mind was a blank. It was 
 quite a revelation to her to find that Cuba was an island. 
 
 " It must be a lovely spot," exclaimed the fervid creature. 
 " Let me see, now, what do we get from Cuba — cigars — and — 
 and tobacco. And I suppose in Cuba eveiybody smokes t " 
 " Men, women and children." 
 
 " How delicious ! Would I were a Cuban ! And the natives, 
 are they nice ? " 
 
 "There are no aborigines. The Indians whom Columbus 
 found soon perished off the face of the island. European civil- 
 ization generally has that effect. But one of our most benevo- 
 lent captain-generals provided us with an imported population 
 of niggers." 
 
 " How delightful. I have always longed to live among a slave 
 population, dear submissive black things, dressed in coral neck- 
 laces and feathers, instead of the horrid overfed wretches we 
 have to wait upon us. And if the aborigines were not wanted it 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 315 
 
 was just as well for them to die out, wasn't it? " prattled Lady 
 Kirkbank. 
 
 " It was very accommodating of them, no doubt. Yet, we 
 could employ half a million of them in draining our swamps. 
 Agriculture suffered by the loss of Indian labor." 
 
 "I suppose they were like the creatures in Pizarro, poor dear 
 5^ellow things with brass bracelets," said Lady Kirkbank. " I 
 remember seeing Macready as Pizarro when I was quite a little 
 thing." 
 
 And now the curtain rose for the last act. 
 
 " Do you care about staying for the end .? " asked Mr. Smith- 
 son of Lesbia. " It will make us rather late at the Orleans." 
 
 " Never mind how late we are," said Lesbia, imperiously. " I 
 have always been cheated out of this last act^or somebody's 
 stupid party. Imagine losing Gounod and Nilsson for the sake 
 of struggling through the mob on somebody's staircase, and 
 being elbowed by inane young men, with gardenias in their 
 coats." 
 
 Lady Lesbia had a pretty little way of opposing any suggestion 
 of her sweetheart. She was resolved to treat him as baaly as a 
 future husband could be treated. In consenting to marry him 
 she had done him a favor, which was a great deal more than 
 such a person had any right to expect. 
 
 She leant forward to watch and listen, with her elbow resting 
 on the velvet cushion — her head upon her hand, and she seemed 
 absorbed in the scene ; but this was mere outward seeming. All 
 the enchantment of music and acting was over. She only heard 
 and saw vaguely, as if it were a shadowy scene enacted ever so 
 far away. Every now and then her eyes glanced involuntarily 
 toward Don Gomez, who stood leaning against the back of the 
 box, pale, languid, graceful, poetic, an altogether different type 
 of manhood from that which she had of late been accustomed to 
 satiety. 
 
 Those deep dark eyes of his had a dreamy look. They gazed 
 across the dazzling house, into space, above Lady Lesbia's head. 
 They seemed to see nothing, and they certainly were not looking 
 at her. 
 
 Don Gomez was the first man she ever remembered to have 
 been presented to her who did not favor her with a good deal 
 of hard staring, more or less discreetly managed, during the first 
 ten minutes of their acquaintance. On him her beauty fell flat. 
 He evidently failed to recognize her supreme loveliness. It 
 might be that she was the wrong type for Cuba. Every nation 
 has its own Venus, and that far-away spot in the torrid zone 
 
3i6 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 might have a somewhat barbarous idea of beauty. At any rate 
 Don Gomez was apparently unimpressed. And yet Lesbia flat- 
 tered herself that she was looking her best to-night and that her 
 costume was a success. She wore a white satin gown, short in 
 the skirt, for the luxury of freedom in waltzing, and made with 
 Quaker-like simplicity, the bodice high to the throat, fitting her 
 like a sheath. ' 
 
 Her only ornaments were a garland of scarlet poppies on one 
 shoulder and a large diamond heart which Mr. Smithson had 
 lately given her — " a bullock's heart," as Lady Kirkbank called 
 it. 
 
 When the curtain fell, and not till then, she rose and allowed 
 herself to be clad in a dark brown velvet Newmarket coat, which 
 completely covered her short satin gown. She had a little 
 brown velvet toque to match the Newmarket, and thus attired 
 she would be able to take her seat on the drag which was wait- 
 ing for her on the quietest side of Covent Garden, 
 
 " Why should not you go with us, Don Gomez ? " exclaimed 
 Lady Kirkbank in a gush of hospitality. " The drive will be 
 charming — not equal to your tropical Cuba — but intensely nice. 
 And the gardens will be something too sweet on such a night as 
 this. I knew them when the dear Due d'Aumale was there. Ay 
 de mi, such a man ! " 
 
 Lady Kirkbank sighed, with the air of having known his Al- 
 tesse Royale intimately. 
 
 " I should be charmed," said Don Gomez, " if I thought my 
 friend Smithson wanted me. Would you really like to have me, 
 Smithson ? " 
 
 " I should be enchanted." 
 
 " And there is room on the drag ? " 
 
 " Room enough for half a dozen. I am only taking Sir 
 George Kirkbank and Colonel Delville — whom w^e are to pick 
 up at the White Elephant — and Mr. and Mrs. Mostyn, who are 
 here." 
 
 " A nice snug little party," exclaimed that charming optimist, 
 Lady Kirkbank. " I hate a crowd on a drag. The way some 
 of the members of the Four-in-hand Club load their coaches on 
 parade reminds me of a Beanfeast." 
 
 They found Lady Kirkbank's footman and one of Mr. Smith- 
 son's grooms wailing in the hall of the opera house. The 
 groom to conduct them to the spot where the drag was waiting, 
 the footman to carry wraps and take his mistress's final orders. 
 There was a Bohemian flavor in the little walk to the great 
 fruit garden, which was odorous of bruised peaches and stale 
 
PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 3 1 7 
 
 salad as they passed it. Wagon loads of cabbages and other 
 garden stuff were standing about by the old church, the road- 
 way was littered with the refuse of the market, and the air 
 was faint and heavy with the scent of herbs and flowers. 
 
 Lesbia mounted lightly to her place of honor on the box 
 seat, and Lady Kirkbank was hoisted up after her. Mr. and 
 Mrs, Mostyn followed, and then Don Gomez took his seat by 
 Lady Kirkbank's side, and behind Lesbia, a vantage point 
 from which he could talk to her as much as he liked. Mr. 
 Smithson seated himself a minute afterward, and drove off 
 by King Street and Leicester Square and on to Piccadilly, 
 steering cleverly through the traffic of cabs and carriages 
 which was at its apogee just now when all the theaters were 
 disgorging their crowds. Piccadilly was quieter, yet there were 
 plenty of carriages, late people going to parties and early peo- 
 ple going home, horses slipping and sliding on stones or wood 
 half the road-way up, and luminous with lanterns. They 
 stopped in front of the White Elephant, where they picked 
 up Sir George Kirkbank and Colonel Delville, a big man with 
 a patriarchal head supposed to be one of the finest whist 
 players in London, and to make a handsome income by his 
 play. He had ridden in the Balaklava charge, was a favor- 
 ite everywhere, and albeit no genius, was much cleverer than 
 his friend and school-fellow, George Kirkbank. They had 
 been at Eton together, had both made love to the lively 
 Georgie, and had been inseparables for the last twenty years. 
 
 " Couldn't get on without Delville," said Sir George : 
 " dooced smart fellow, sir. Knows the ropes and does all the 
 thinking for both of us." 
 
 And now they were fairly started, and the team fell into a 
 rattling pace, with the road pretty clear before them. Hyde 
 Park was one umbrageous darkness, edged by long chains of 
 golden lights. Coolness and silence enfolded all things in the 
 summer midnight, and Lesbia, not prone to romance, sank into 
 a dreamy state of mind, as she leaned back in her seat and 
 watched' the shadowy trees glide by, the long vista of lamps 
 and verdure in front of her. She was glad that no one talked 
 to her, for talk of any kind must have broken the spell. Don 
 Gomez sat like a statue in his place behind her. From Lady 
 Kirkbank, the loquacious, came a gentle sound of snoring, a 
 low ladylike snore, breathed softly at intervals, like a sigh. 
 Mr. Smithson had his team, and his own thoughts, too, for oc- 
 cupation, thoughts which to-night were not altogether pleasant. 
 
 At the back of the coach Mrs. Mostyn was descanting of the 
 
3i8 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 evolution of the nautilus and the relationship of protoplasm 
 and humanity to Colonel Delville, who sat smiling placidly be- 
 hind an immense cigar, and accepted the most stupendous facts 
 and the most appalling theories with a friendly little nod of his 
 handsome head. 
 
 Mr. Mostyn frankly slept, as it was his custom to do upon 
 all convenient occasions. He called it recuperating. 
 
 " Frank ought to be delightfully fresh, for he recuperated all 
 the way down," said his wife when they alighted in the dewy 
 garden at Twickenham, in front of the lamplit portico. 
 
 '' I wouldn't have minded his recuperating if he hadn't 
 snored so abominably," remarked Colonel Delville. 
 
 It was nearly one o'clock and the ball had thinned a little, 
 which made it all the better for those who remamed. Mr. 
 Smithson's orders had been given two days ago, and the A-ery 
 best of waiters had been told off for his especial service. The 
 ladies went upstairs to take off their wrappings and mufflings, 
 and Lesbia emerged dazzling from her brown velvet New- 
 market, while Lady Kirkbank, bending closely over the lookmg- 
 glass, like a witch over a cauldron, revivified her complexion 
 with cotton wool. 
 
 They went through the conservatory to the octagon dining- 
 room, where the supper was ready, a special supper, on a table 
 by a window, a table laden with exotics and brilljant with glass 
 and silver. The supper was of course perfect in its way. Mr. 
 Smithson's chief nad been down to see about it, and Mr. Smith- 
 son's own particular champagne and the claret grown on his 
 own particular clos in the Gironde had teen sent down for the 
 feast. No common cuisine, no common wine could be good 
 enough ; and yet there was a day when the cheapest Gargotte 
 in Belleville or Montmatre was good enough for Mr. Smithson. 
 There had been days on which he did not dine at all, and when 
 the fumes of a gibelotte steaming from a workman's restaurant 
 made his mouth water. 
 
 The supper was all life and gayety. Every one was hun- 
 gry and thirsty, and freshened by the drive, except Lesbia. 
 She was singularly silent, eat hardly anything, but drank three 
 or four glasses of champagne. 
 
 Don Gomez was not a great talker. He had the air of a 
 prince of the blood royal, who expects other people to talk and 
 to keep him amused. But the little he said was to the point. 
 He had a fine baritone, very low and subdued, and a languor 
 which was almost insolent, but not without its charm. There 
 was an air of originality about the manner and the man. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 319 
 
 He was the typical rastaquouere, a man of finished manners, 
 and unknown antecedents, a foreigner, apparently rich, ob- 
 viously accomplished, but with that indefinable air which be- 
 speaks the adventurer and which gives society as fair a warning 
 as if the man wore a placard on his shoulder with the word 
 Cave. 
 
 But to Lesbia this Spaniard was the first really interesting 
 man she had met since she saw John Hammond , and her 
 interest in him was much more vivid than her mterest in Ham- 
 mond at the beginning of their acquaintance. That pale face, 
 with its tint of old ivory, those thin, finely-cut lips, indicative of 
 diabolical craft, could she but read aright, those unfathomable 
 eyes, touched her fancy as it had never yet been touched, awoke 
 within her that latent vein of romance, self-abnegation, su- 
 preme foolishness which lurks in the nature of every woman, be 
 she chaste as ice and pure as snow. 
 
 The supper was long. It w^as past two o'clock, and the ball- 
 room was thinly occupied when Mr. Smithson's party went there. 
 
 " You won't dance to-night, I suppose t " said Smithson, as 
 Lesbia and he went slowly down the room arm-in-arm. It was 
 in a pause between two waltzes. The big window at the end 
 was opened to the summer night, and the room was delightfully 
 cool. " You must be horribly tired ? " 
 
 " I am not in the least tired, and I mean to waltz, if any one 
 will ask me," replied Lesbia decisively. 
 
 " I ought to have asked you to dance, and then it would have 
 been the other way," said Smithson, with a touch of acrimony. 
 " Surely you have dancing enough in town, and you might 
 be obliging for once in a way, and come and sit with me 
 in the garden, and listen to the nightingales." 
 
 " There are no nightingales after June. There is the Ma- 
 nola," as the band struck up, " my very favorite waltz." 
 
 Don Gomez was at her elbow at this moment. 
 
 " May I have the honor of this waltz with you. Lady Lesbia ? " 
 he asked, and then with a seriocomic glance at his stoutish 
 friend, " I don't think Smithson waltzes ? " 
 
 " I have been told that nobody can waltz who has been born 
 on this side of the Pyrenees," answered Lesbia, withdrawing 
 her arm from her lover's, and slipping it through the Spaniard's, 
 with the air of a slave who obeys a master. 
 
 Smithson looked daggers, and retired to a corner of the room 
 glowering. Were a man twenty-two times a millionaire, like 
 the Parisian Rothschild, he could not find armor against the 
 poisoned arrows of jealousy. Don Gomez had many of those 
 
320 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 accomplishments which make men dangerous, but as a dancer 
 he was hors ligne — and Horace Smithson knew that there is no 
 surer road to a girl's fancy than the magic circle of a waltz. 
 
 Those two were floating round the room in the old slow legato 
 step, which recalled to Smithson the picture of a still more 
 spacious room in an island under the Southern Cross — the blue 
 water of the bay shining yonder under the starlight of the trop- 
 ics, fire-flies gleaming and flashing in the foliage beyond the 
 open windows, fire-flies flashing amidst the gauzy draperies of 
 the dancers, and this same Gomez revolving with the same slow 
 languid grace, his arm enlacing the svelte figure of a woman 
 whose Southern beauty outshone Lesbia's blonde English loveli- 
 ness as the tropical stars outshone the lamps which light our 
 colder skies. Yes, every detail of the scene flashed back into 
 his mind, as if a curtain had been suddenly plucked back from 
 a long-hidden picture. The Cuban's tall slim figure, the head 
 gently bent toward his partner's head, as at this moment, and 
 those dark velvety eyes looking up at him. Intoxicated with 
 that nameless, indefinable fascination which it is the lot of some 
 men to exercise. 
 
 " He robbed me of her ! " thought Smithson gloomily. " Will 
 he rob me of this one too } Surely not ! Havana is Havana — 
 and this one is not a Creole. If I cannot trust her there is no 
 woman on earth to be trusted." 
 
 He turned his back upon the dancers, and went out into the 
 garden. His soul was wrung with jealousy, yet he could watch 
 no longer. There was too much pain — there were too many 
 bitter memories of shame, and loss, and ignominy evoked by 
 that infernal picture. If he had been free he would have as- 
 serted his authority as Lesbia's future husband ; he would have 
 taken her away from the Orleans ; he would have told her plainly 
 and frankly that Don Gomez was no fit person for her to know, 
 and he would have so planned that they two should never 
 meet again. But Mr. Smithson was not free. He was bound 
 hand and foot by those fetters which the chain of past events 
 had forged — stern facts which the man himself may forget, or 
 try to forget, but which other people never forget. There is 
 generally some dark spot in the history of such men as Smith- 
 son — men who climb the giddiest heights of this world with that 
 desperate rapidity which implies many a perilous leap from crag 
 to crag, many a moraine skimmed over and many an awful gulf 
 spanned by a hair's-breadth bridge. Mr. Smithson's history was 
 not without such spots, and the darkest of all had relation to his 
 career in Cuba. The story had been known by very few — per- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 321 
 
 haps completely known only by one man, and that man was 
 Gomez. 
 
 For the last ten years the most fervent desire of Horace 
 Smithson's heart had been the hope that tropical nature, in any 
 one of her various disagreeable forms, would be obliging enough 
 to make an end of Gomez. But the forces of nature had not 
 worked on Smithson's side. No loathsome leprosy had eaten 
 his enemy's flesh; neither cayman nor crocodile, juba snake or 
 poisonous spider had marked him for its prey ; the tropical sun 
 had left him unsmitten. He had lived and he had prospered, 
 and he was here, like a guilty conscience incarnate, to spoil 
 Horace Smithson's peace. 
 
 " I must be diplomatic," Smithson said to himself, as he 
 walked up and down an avenue of Irish yews in a solitary part 
 of the grounds, smoking his cigarette, and hearing the music 
 swell and sink in the distance. " I will give her a hint as to 
 that man's character, and I wilJ keep them apart as much as I 
 can ; but if he forces himself upon me there is no help for it. I 
 cannot afford to be uncivil to him." 
 
 " Cannot afford " in this instance meant " dare not," and 
 Horace Smithson's thoughts as he paced the yew-tree walk were 
 full of gloom. 
 
 During that long meditation he made up his mind upon one 
 point — namely, that let him suffer what pangs he might, he must 
 not betray his jealousy. To do that would be to lower himself 
 in Lesbia's eyes, to play into his rival's hand ; for a jealous man 
 is almost always contemptible in the sight of his mistress. He 
 would carry himself as if he were sure of her fidelity, and this 
 very confidence with a woman of honor, a girl reared as Lesbia 
 had been reared, would render it impossible for her to betray 
 him. He would show himself high minded, confident, generous, 
 chivalrous even, and he would trust to chance for the issue. 
 Chance was, Mr. Smithson's only idea of Divinity, and chance 
 had hitherto been kind to him. There had been dark hours in 
 his life, but the darkness had not lasted long, and the lucky ac- 
 cidents of his career had been of a nature to beguile him' into 
 the belief that among the favorites of Destiny he stood first and 
 foremost. 
 
 While Mr. Smithson mused thus, alone and in the darkness, 
 Don Gomez and Lady Lesbia were wandering arm-in-arm in 
 another and lovelier part of the grounds, where golden lights 
 were scattered like Cuban fire-flies among the foliage of seringa 
 and magnolia, arbutus and rhododendron, while at intervals a 
 sudden 'flush of rosier light was shed over garden and river, as 
 
322 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 if by enchantment surprising a couple here and there in the 
 midst of a flirtation which had begun in darkness. 
 
 The grounds were lovely in the balmy atmosphere of a July 
 nio-ht, the river gliding with mysterious motion under the stars, 
 great masses of gloom darkening the stream with an almost 
 awful look where the woods of Petersham and Ham House cast 
 their gigantic shadows on the water. Don Gomez and his com- 
 panion wandered by the water side to a spot where a group of 
 magnolias sheltered them from the open lawn, and where there 
 were some rustic chairs close to the balustrade which protected 
 the parapet. In this spot, which was a kind of island, divided 
 from the rest of the grounds by the intervening road, they found 
 themselves quite alone, and in the midst of a summer stillness, 
 which was broken only by the low, lazy ripple of the tide running 
 seaward. The lights of Richmond looked far away, and the 
 little town, with its variety of levels, had an Italian air in the 
 distance. 
 
 From the ball-room, faint and fitful, came the music of a waltz. 
 
 " I'm afraid I have brought you too far," said Don Gomez. 
 
 " On the contrary, it is a relief to get away from the lights and 
 the people. How delicious this river is ! I was brought up on 
 the shores of a lake ; but, after all, a lake is horribly tame. Its 
 limits are always staring one in the face. There is no room for 
 one's imagination to wander. Now, a river like this suggests 
 an infinity of possibilities, drifting on and on and on into undis- 
 covered regions by ever varying shores. I feel to-night as if I 
 should like to step into that little boat yonder," pomting to a 
 light skiff bobbing gently up and down with the tide at the bot- 
 tom of a flight of steps, " and let the stream take me wherever 
 it chose." 
 
 *' If I could but go with you," said Gomez, in that deep and 
 musical tone which made the commonest words seem melody, 
 " I would ask for neither compass nor rudder. What could it 
 matter whither the boat took me ? There is no place under the 
 stars which would not be paradise with you." 
 
 " Please don't make a dreamy aspiration the occasion of a 
 compliment," exclaimed Lesbia, lightly. *' What I said was so 
 silly that I don't wonder you thought it right to say somethmg 
 just a little sillier. But moonlight and running water have a 
 curious effect upon me, and I, who am the most matter-of-fact 
 young woman, become ridiculously sentimental." 
 
 " I cannot believe that you are matter of fact." 
 
 " I assure you it is perfectly true. I am of the earth, 
 earthy ; a woman of the world in my first season, ambitious, fond 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 323 
 
 of pleasure, vain, proud, exacting, all those things which I am 
 told a woman ought not to be." 
 
 "You pain me when you so slander yourself, and I shall make 
 it the business of my life to find out how much truth there is in 
 that self-slander. For my own part, I do not believe a word of 
 it ; but as it is rude to contradict a lady I will only say that I 
 reserve my opinion." 
 
 " Are you to stay long in England this time ? " asked Lesbia. 
 
 She was leaning against the stone balustrade in a careless at- 
 titude, as of one who was weary, her elbow on the stone slab, 
 and her head thrown back upon her hand and arm. The white 
 satin gown molded to her figure had a statuesque air, and she 
 looked like a marble statue in the dim light, every line of the 
 graceful form expressive of repose. 
 
 " That will depend. I am not particularly fond of London. 
 A very little of your English Babylon satisfies me in a general 
 way ; but there are conditions which might make England en- 
 chanting. Where do you go at the end of the season ? " 
 
 " First to Goodwood and then to Cowes. Mr. Smithson is so 
 kind as to place his yacht at Lady Kirkbank's disposal, and I 
 am to be her guest on board the Cayman just as I am in Arling- 
 ton Street." 
 
 " The Cayman ! That name is a reminiscence of Mr. Smith- 
 son's South American travels." 
 
 " No doubt. Was he long in South America .? " 
 
 " Three or four years." 
 
 " But not in Cuba all that time, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No. He spent only a year or so in Cuba. But I dare say 
 he has told you all his adventures in that part of the world." 
 
 " No, he very rarely talks about his travels. And I have never 
 asked him any questions. There is always so much to think of 
 and talk about in the business of the moment. Are you fond of 
 Cuba .? " 
 
 " Not passionately. I always feel as if I were an exile there, 
 and yet my ancestors were with Columbus when he discovered 
 the island, and my race were among the very earliest settlers. 
 My family has given three Captain-Generals to Cuba ; but I can- 
 not forget that I belong to an older world, and have forfeited 
 that which ought to have been a brilliant place in Europe for 
 the luxurious obscurity of a colony." 
 
 " But you are fond of your island, are you not ? " 
 
 " I like the stars and the sea, the mountains and savannas, 
 the tropical vegetation and the dreamy half-Oriental life ; but at 
 best it is a kind of stagnation, and after a residence of a few 
 
324 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 months in the island of my birth, I generally spread my wings 
 for the wider world of the old continent or the new." 
 
 " You must have traveled so much," said Lesbia, with a sigh ; 
 " I have been nowhere and seen nothing. I feel like a child 
 who has been shut up in a nursery all its life and knows of no 
 world beyond four walls." 
 
 " Not to travel is not to live," said Don Gomez. 
 
 '' I am CO be in Italy next November, I believe," said Lesbia, 
 not caring to own that this Italian trip was to be her honeymoon. 
 
 " Italy ! " exclaimed the Spaniard, contemptuously. " Once the 
 finishing school of the English nobility ; now the happy hunting 
 ground of the Cockney tourist. All the poetry of Italy has 
 been dried up and the whole country vulgarized. If you want 
 romance m the old world, go to Spain ; in the new world, go to 
 Peru or Brazil." 
 
 " I am afraid I am not adventurous enough to go so far." 
 
 " No ; women cling to beaten tracks." 
 
 " We obey our masters," answered Lesbia, meekly. 
 
 " Ah, I forgot. You are to have a master — and soon. I heard 
 as much before I saw you to-night." 
 
 Lesbia half rose, as if to leave this cool retreat above the rip- 
 pling tide. 
 
 " Yes, it's all settled," she said, " and now I think I must go 
 back. Lady Kirkbank will be wondering what has become of 
 me." 
 
 " Let her wonder a little longer," said Don Gomez. " Why 
 should we hurry away from this delightful spot? Why break 
 the spell of — the river ? Life has so few moments of perfect 
 contentment. If this is one with you — as it is with me — let us 
 make the most of it. Lady Lesbia, do you see those weeds yon- 
 der drifting with the tide, drifting side by side, touching as they 
 drift. They have met heaven knows how, and will part heaven 
 knows where, on their way to the sea ; but they let themselves 
 go with the tide. We have met like those poor weeds. Don't 
 let us part till the tide parts us." 
 
 Lesbia gave a little sigh and submitted. She had talked of 
 women obeying their masters, and the implication was that she 
 meant to obey Mr. Smithson. But there is a fate in these things ; 
 and the man who was to be her master, whose lightest breath 
 was to sway her, whose lightest look was to rule her, was here 
 at her side in the silence of the summer night. 
 
 They talked long and of indifferent subjects, and their talk 
 might have been heard by every member of the Orleans Club 
 and no harm done. But words and phrases count for very little 
 
PHANTOM FORTUiYE. 325 
 
 in such a case as this. It is the tone, it is the melody of a voice, 
 it is the magic of the hour that tells. 
 
 The tide came, in the person of Mr. Smithson, and parted 
 these two weeds that were drifting toward the great mysterious 
 ocean of fate. 
 
 " I have been hunting for you everywhere," he said, cheerfully. 
 " If you want another waltz. Lady Lesbia, you had better take 
 the next. I believe it is to be the last, or at any rate our party 
 are clamoring to be driven home. I found poor Lady Kirkbank 
 fast asleep in a corner of the drawing-room." 
 
 " Will you give me that last waltz 1 " asked Don Gomez. 
 
 Lady Lesbia felt that the long-suffering Smithson had en- 
 dured enough. Womanly instinct constrained her to refuse that 
 final waltz ; but it seemed to her that she was making a terrible 
 sacrifice in so doing. And yet she had waltzed to her heart's 
 content during the season that was waning, and knew all the 
 waltzes played by all the fashionable bands. She gave a little 
 sigh, as she said : 
 
 " No, I must not indulge myself. I must go and take care of 
 Lady Kirkbank." 
 
 Mr. Smithson offered his arm, and she took it and went away 
 with him, leaving Don Gomez to follow at his leisure. There 
 would be some delay, no doubt, before the drag started. The 
 lamps had gone out among the foliage, and the stars were waning 
 a little, and there was a faint cold light creeping over the garden 
 which meant the advent of morning. Don Gomez strolled slowly 
 toward the lighted house, smoking a cigarette. 
 
 " She is very lovely, and she is — well — not quite spoiled by 
 her entourage, and they tell me she is an heiress — sure to inherit 
 a fine fortune from some ancient grandmother, buried alive in 
 Westmoreland," he mused. " What a splendid opportunity it 
 would be, if — if the business could be arranged on the square. 
 But as it is — well — as it is there is the chance of an adventure, 
 so when did a Montesma ever avoid an adventure, although 
 there were dagger or poison lurking in the background. And 
 here there is neither poison nor steel, only a lovely woman, and 
 an infatuated stockbroker, about whom I know enough to hang 
 an archbishop. Poor Smithson, how very unlucky that I should 
 happen to come across your pathway in the heydey of your latest 
 love affair. We have had our little adventures in that line al- 
 ready, and we have measured swords together, metaphorically, 
 before to-night. When it comes to a question of actual swords 
 my Smithson declines. Pas si vite." 
 
326 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 "lord hartfield refuses a fortune." 
 
 A HONEYMOON among lakes and mountains, amidst the gor- 
 geous confusion of Borrowdale, in a little world of wild, strange 
 loveliness, shut in and isolated from the commonplace outer 
 world by the vast and towering masses of Skiddaw and Blen- 
 cathara — a world of one's own, as it were, a world steejDed in 
 romance and poetry, dear to the souls of poets. There are many 
 such honeymoons every Summer ; indeed, the mountain paths, 
 the waterfalls and lakes swarm with happy lovers ; and this land 
 of hills and waters seems to have been made expressly for hon- 
 eymoon travelers ; yet never went truer lovers wandering by 
 lake and torrent, by hill and valley, than those two whose brief 
 honeymoon was now drawing to a close. 
 
 It was altogether a magical time for Mary, this dawn of a new 
 life. The immensity of her happiness almost frightened her. 
 She could hardly believe in it or trust in its continuance. 
 
 " Am I really, really, really your wife ? " she asked on their 
 last day, bending down to speak to her husband, as he led her 
 pony up the rough ways to Skiddaw. " It is all so dreadfully 
 like a dream." ' 
 
 " Thank God, it is the very truth," answered Lord Hartfield, 
 looking fondly at the fresh young face, brightened by the sum- 
 mer wind, which faintly stirred the auburn hair under the neat 
 little hat. 
 
 " And am I actually a countess ? I don't care about it one 
 little bit, you know, except as a stupendous joke. If you were 
 to tell me that you had been only making fun of poor grand- 
 mother and me, and that those diamonds are glass, and you only 
 plain John Hammond, it wouldn't make the faintest difference. 
 Indeed, it would be a weight off my mind. It is an awfully op- 
 pressive thing to be a countess." 
 
 " I'm sorry I cannot relieve you of the burden. The law of 
 the land has made you Lady Hartfield; and I hope you are 
 preparing your mind'for the duties of your position." 
 
 " It is very dreadful," sighed Mary. '' If her Ladyship were 
 as well and as active as she was when first you came to Fellside 
 she could have helped me ; but now there will be no one except 
 you. And you will help me, won't you, Jack ? " 
 
 " With all my heart." 
 
 " My own true Jack," with a little fervent squeeze of his sun- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE 327 
 
 burnt hand. " In society I suppose I shall have to call you 
 Hartfield. * Hartfield, please ring the bell.' 'Give me a foot- 
 stool, Hartfield.' How odd it sounds. I shall be blurting out 
 the old, dear name." 
 
 " I don't think it will much matter. It will pass for one of 
 Lady Hartfield's little ways. Every woman is supposed to have 
 little ways, don't you know. One has a little way of dropping 
 her friends, another a little way of not paying her dressmaker, 
 another's little way is to take too much champagne. I hope 
 Lady Hartfield's little way will be her devotion to her hus- 
 band." 
 
 " I'm afraid I shall end by being a nuisance to you, for I 
 shall love you ridiculously," answered Mary, gayly, " and from 
 what you have told me about society it seems to me that there 
 can be nothing so unfashionable as an affectionate wife. Will 
 you mind my being quite out of fashion, Jack ? " 
 
 " I should very much object to your being in the fashion." 
 
 " Then I am happy. I don't think it is in my nature to be- 
 come a woman of fashion ; although I have cured myself, for 
 your sake, of being a hoyden. I had so schooled myself for 
 what I thought our new life was to be ; so trained myself to be 
 a managing, economical wife, that I feel quite at sea now that I 
 am to be mistress of a house in Grosvenor Square and a place 
 in Kent. Still I will bear with it all ; yes, even endure the 
 weight of those diamonds, for your sake." 
 
 She laughed and he laughed. They were quite alone among 
 the hills — hardy mountaineers both — and they could be as fool- 
 ish as they liked. She rested her head upon his shoulder, and 
 he and she and the pony made one as they climbed the hill 
 close together. 
 
 " Our last day," sighed Mary, as they went down again after 
 a couple of blissful hours in that wild world between earth and 
 sky. " I shall be glad to go back to poor grandmother, who 
 must be sadly lonely ; but it is so sweet to be quite alone with 
 you." 
 
 They left the Lodore Hotel in an open carriage after lunch- 
 eon next day, and posted to Fellside, where they arrived just in 
 time to assist at Lady Maulevrier's afternoon tea. She received 
 them both with warm affection, and made Hartfield sit close be- 
 side her sofa ; and every now and then, in the pauses of their 
 talk, she laid her wasted and too delicate fingers upon the 
 young man's strong brown hand with a caressing gesture. 
 
 " You can never know how sweet it is to me to be able to 
 love you," she said tenderly. " You can never know how my 
 
328 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 heart yearned to you from the very first, and how hard it was to 
 keep myself in check and not be too kind to you. Oh, Hartfield, 
 you should have told me the truth. You should not have come 
 here under false colors." 
 
 " Should I not, Lady Maulevrier ? It was my only chance of 
 being loved for my own sake ; or at least of knowing that 1 
 was so loved. If I had come with my rank and my fortune in 
 my hand, as it were — one of the good matches of the year — 
 what security could I ever have felt in the disinterested love of 
 the girl who chose me ? As plain John Hammond I wooed and 
 was rejected ; as plain John Hammond I wooed and won ; and 
 the prize which I so won is a pearl above price. Not for worlds, 
 were the last year to be lived over again, would I have one day 
 of my life altered." 
 
 " Well, I suppose I ought to be satisfied. I wanted you for 
 Lesbia, and I have got you for Mary. Best of all, I have got 
 you for myself. Ronald Hollister's son is mine ; he is of my 
 kin ; he belongs to me ; he will not forsake me in life ; he will 
 be near to me, God grant, when I die." 
 
 " Dear Lady Maulevrier, as far as in me lies, I will be to you 
 as a son," said Lord Hartfield, very solemnly, bending as he 
 spoke to kiss her hand. 
 
 Mary came away from her tea-table to embrace her grand- 
 mother. 
 
 " It makes me so happy to have won a little of your love," 
 she murmured, " and to know that I have married a man M'hom 
 you can love." 
 
 " Of course you have heard of Lesbia's engagement," Lady 
 Maulevrier said presently when they were taking their tea. 
 
 " Maulevrier wrote to us about it." 
 
 " To us." How nice it sounded, thought Mary, as if they 
 were a hrm, and a letter written to one was written to both. 
 
 " And do you know this Mr Smithson ? " 
 
 " Not intimately. I have met him at the Carlton." 
 
 " I am cold that he is very much esteemed by your party, and 
 that he is likely to get a peerage when this Ministry goes out of 
 office." 
 
 " That is not improbable. Peerages are to be had if a man 
 is rich enough, and Smithson is supposed to be inordinately 
 rich." 
 
 " I hope he has character as well as money," said Lady 
 Maulevrier gravely, " But do you think a man can become in- 
 ordinately rich in a short time with unblemished honor? " 
 
 " We are told that nothing is impossible," answered Hartfield. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 329 
 
 '■'■ A camel can go through the eye of a needle, only one does 
 not often see it done. However, I believe Mr. Smithson's 
 character is fairly good, as millionaires go. We do not inquire 
 too closelv into these things nowadays." 
 
 Lady Maulevrier sighed and held her peace. She remem- 
 bered the day when she had protested vehemently, passionately, 
 against Lesbia's marriage with a poor man. And now she 
 had an unhappy feehng about Mr. Smithson's wealth, a 
 doubt, a dread that all might not be well with those millions, 
 that some portion of that golden tide might flow from impure 
 sources. She had lived remote from the world, but she had 
 read the papers diligently, and she knew how often the splen- 
 dor of commercial wealth has been suddenly obscured in a 
 black cloud of obloquy. She could not rejoice heartily at the 
 idea of Lesbia's engagement. 
 
 " I am to see the man early in August," she said, as if she 
 was talking of a butler. " I hope I may like him. Lady Kirk- 
 bank tells me it is a brilliant marriage, and I can only take her 
 word. What can I do for my granddaughter — a useless log — a 
 prisoner in two rooms ? " 
 
 " It is very hard," murmured Mary tenderly, " but I do not 
 see any reason v/hy Lesbia should not be happy. She likes a 
 brilliant life ; and Mr. Smithson can give her as much gayety 
 and variety as she can possibly desire. And after, all yachts, 
 and horses, and villas, and diamonds are nice things." 
 
 " They are the things for which half the world is ready to 
 cheat or murder the other half," said Lady Maulevrier bitterly. 
 
 She had told herself long ago that wealth was power, and she 
 had sacrificed many things, her own peace, her own conscience 
 among them, in order that her children and grandchildren 
 should be rich ; and, knowing this, she felt that it ill became 
 her to be scrupulous and to inquire too closely as to the sources 
 of Mr. Smithson's wealth. He was rich, and the world had no 
 fault to find with him. He had attended the last levee. He 
 went into reputable society, and he could give Lesbia all those 
 things which the world calls good. 
 
 Fraulein Kirsch had packed her heavy old German trunks, 
 and had gone back to the Heimath laden with presents of all 
 kinds from Lady Maulevrier, so Mary and her husband felt as 
 if Fellside were really their own. They dined with her Lady- 
 ship and left her for the night an hour after dinner, and then 
 they went down to the gardens and roamed about in the twilight, 
 and talked and talked and talked, as only true loveis can talk, 
 be they Stephen and Daphne in life's glad morning, or gray- 
 
330 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 haired Darby and Joan, and lastly they went down to the lake 
 and rowed about in the moonlight, and talked of King Arthur's 
 death, and of that mystic sword, Excalibur, " wrought by the 
 lonely maiden of the lake." 
 
 They spent three happy days in wandering about the neigh- 
 borhood, revisiting in the delicious freedom of their wedded 
 life those spots which they had seen together when Mary was 
 still in bondage and the eye of propriety, as represented by 
 Miss Kirsch, was always upon her. Now they were free to go 
 where they pleased — to linger where they liked — they belonged 
 to each other and were under no other dominion. 
 
 The dog-cart — James Steadman's dog-cart — which he had 
 raiely used during the last six months, was put in requisition, 
 and Lord Hartfield drove his wife about the country. They 
 went to the Langdale Pikes and to Dungeon Ghyll, and, stand- 
 ing beside the waterfall, Mary told her husband how miserable 
 she had felt on that very spot a little less than a year ago, when 
 she believed that he thought her plain and altogether horrid. 
 Whereupon he had to console her with many kisses and sweet 
 words for the bygone pain on her part, the past neglect on his. 
 
 " I was a wretch," he said, " blind, besotted, imbecile." 
 
 " No, no, no. Lesbia is very lovely, and I could not expect 
 you would care for me till she was gone away. How glad I am 
 that she went," added Mary naively. ^ 
 
 The sky, which had been cloudless all day, began to darken 
 as Lord Hartfield drove back to Fellside, and Mary drew a little 
 closer to the driver's elbow, as if for shelter from an impending 
 tempest. 
 
 " You have your waterproof, of course," he said, looking down 
 at her, as the first big drops of a thunder-shower dashed upon 
 the splash-board. " No ycung woman in the Lake country 
 would think of being without a waterproof." 
 
 Mary was duly provided, and with the help of the groom put 
 herself into a snug little tartan Inverness, while Hartfield sent 
 the cart spinning along twelve miles an hour. 
 
 They were at Fellside before the storm developed its full 
 power, but the sky was leaden, the landscape dull and blotted, 
 the atmosphere heavy and stifling. The thunder grumbled 
 hoarsely far away yonder in the wdld gorges of Barrowdale, and 
 Mary and her husband made up their minds that the tempest 
 would come before midnight. 
 
 Lady Maulevrier was suffering from the condition of the at- 
 mosphere. She had gone to bed, prostrate with a neuralgic 
 headache, and had given orders that no one but her maid should 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 331 
 
 go near her. So Lord Ilartfield and his wife dined by them- 
 selves, in the room where Mary had eaten so many uninterest- 
 ing dinners tete-a-tete with Fraulein ; and in spite of the storm 
 which howled, pelted, and lightened every now and then, Mary 
 felt as if she were in Paradise. 
 
 There was no chance of going out after dinner, the lake 
 looked like a pool of ink, the mountains were monsters of dark 
 and threatening aspect, the rain rattled against the windows, and 
 ran from the veranda in miniature waterspouts. There was 
 nothing to do but stay indoors, in the sultry, dusky house. 
 
 *' Let us go to my boudoir," said Mary. " Let me enjoy the 
 full privilege of having a boudoir — my very own room. Wasn't 
 it too good of grandmother to have it made so smart for me." 
 
 " Nothing can be too good for my Mary," answered her hus- 
 band, still in the doting stage, "but it was very nice of her 
 Ladyship — and the room is charming." 
 
 Delightful as the new boudoir might be, they dawdled in the 
 picture gallery, that long corridor on which all the upper rooms 
 opened, and at one end of which was the door to Lady Maule- 
 vrier's bed-room, at right angles with that red-cloth door which 
 was never opened except to give egress or ingress to James 
 Steadman, who kept the key of it, as if the old part of Fellside 
 House had been an enchanted castle. Lord Hartfield had not 
 forgotten that summer midnight last year, when his meditations 
 were disturbed by a woman's piercing cry. He thought of it 
 this evening as Mary and he lowered their voices on drawing 
 near Lady Maulevrier's door. She was asleep within there now, 
 perhaps, that strange old woman ; and at any moment that aw- 
 ful shriek, as of a soul in mortal agony, might startle them in 
 the midst of their bliss. 
 
 The lamps were lighted below, but this upper part of the 
 house was wrapped in the dull gray twilight of a stormy evening. 
 A single lamp burned dimly at the further end of the corridor, 
 and all the rest was shadow. 
 
 Mary and her husband walked up and down, talking in sub- 
 dued tones. He was explaining the necessity of his being in 
 London next week, and promising to come back to Fellside 
 directly his business at the House was over. 
 
 " It will be delightful to read your speeches," said Mary, "but 
 I am silly and selfish enough to wish you were a county squire 
 with no business in London. And yet I don't wish that either, 
 for I am intensely proud of you." 
 
 "And some day, befoie we are much older, you will sit in 
 your robes in the peeress's gallery." 
 
332 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " Oh, I couldn't," cried Mary. " I should make a fool of my- 
 self, somehow. I should look like a housemaid in borrowed 
 plumes. Remember, I have no Anstand — I have been told so' 
 all my life." 
 
 " You will be one of the prettiest peeresses who ever sat in 
 that gallery, and the purest, and truest, and dearest," pro- 
 tested her lover husband. 
 
 " Oh, if I am good enough for you, I am satisfied. I married 
 you, and not the House of Lords. But I'm afraid your friends 
 will all say : ' Hartfield, why in heaven's name did you marry 
 that dreadful person ? ' Look ! " 
 
 She stopped suddenly, with her hand on her husband's arm. 
 It was growing momentarily darker in the corridor. They were 
 at the end near the lamp, and that other end by Lady Maule- 
 vrier's-door was in deeper darkness, yet not too dark for Lord 
 Hartfield to see what it was to which Mary pointed. 
 
 The red-cloth door was open, and a faint glimmer of light 
 showed within. A man was standing in the corridor, a small 
 shrunken figure, bent and old. 
 
 " It is Steadman's uncle," said Mary. " Do let us go and 
 speak to him, poor, poor, old man." 
 
 " The madman ! " exclaimed Hartfield. " No, Mar)^, go to 
 your room at once. I'll get him back to his own den." 
 
 " But he is not mad — at any rate, he is quite harmless. Let 
 me say a few words to him. Surely I am safe with you." 
 
 Lord Hartfield was not inclined to dispute that argument ; in- 
 deed, he felt himself strong enough to protect his wife from all 
 the lunatics in Bedlam. He went toward the end of the cor^ 
 ridor, keeping Mary well behind him ; but Mary did not mean 
 to lose the opportunity of renewing her acquaintance with Stead- 
 man's uncle. 
 
 " I hope you are better, poor old soul," she murmured gently, 
 lovingly alrnost, nestling at her husband's side. 
 
 " What, is it you ? " cried the old man, tremulous with joy. 
 " Oh, I have been looking for you — looking — looking — waiting, 
 waiting for you. I have been hoping for you every hour and 
 every minute. Why didn't you come to me, cruel girl ? " 
 
 " I tried with all my might," said Mary, "but people blocked 
 up the door in the stables and they wouldn't let me go to you ; 
 and I have been rather busy for the last fortnight," added Mary, 
 blushing in the darkness, "I have been married to this gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " Married ! Ah, that is a good thing. He will take care ot 
 you if he is an honest man." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. zzZ 
 
 '' I thought he was an honest man, but he has turned out to 
 be an earl," answered Mary, proudly. " My husband is Lord 
 Hartfield." 
 
 " Hartfield — Hartfield," the old man repeated feebly. " Surely 
 I have heard that name before." 
 
 There was no violence in his manner, nothing but imbecility, 
 so Lord Hartfield made up his mind that Mary was right, and 
 that the poor old man was quite harmless, worthy of all com- 
 passion and kindly treatment. 
 
 This was the same old man whom he had met on the Fell in 
 the bleak March morning; there was no doubt in his mind 
 about that, although he could hardly see his face in the shadowy 
 corridor. 
 
 " Come," said the man, " come with me, my dear, and I'll 
 show you your legacy. It is all for you ; all, every rupee — every 
 jewel." 
 
 This word rupee startled Lord Hartfield. It had a strange 
 sound from the lips of a Westmoreland peasant. 
 
 " Come, child, come ! " said the man impatiently. " Come 
 and see v/hat I have left you in my will. I make a new will 
 every day, but I leave everything to you — everything is in your 
 favor. But if you are married you had better have your legacy 
 at once. Your husband is strong enough to take care of you 
 and your fortune." 
 
 " Poor old man," whispered Mary, " pray let us humor him." 
 
 It was the usual madman's fancy, no doubt, boundless wealth, 
 exalted rank, sanctity, power. These things all belong to the 
 lunatic. He is the lord of creation, and, fed by such fancies, 
 there are flashes of wild happiness in the midst of his woe. 
 
 " Come, come, both of you," said the old man eagerly, breath- 
 less with impatience. 
 
 He led the way across the sacred threshold, looking back, 
 beckoning to them with his wasted old hand, and Mary for the 
 first time in her life entered that house which had seemed to her 
 from her very childhood as a temple of silence and mystery. 
 The passage was dimly lighted by a little lamp on a bracket. 
 The old man crept along stealthily, looking back with a face full 
 of cunning, till he came to a broad landing, from which an old 
 staircase with massive oak banisters led down to the square 
 hall below. The ceilings were low, the passages were narrow. 
 All things in the house were curiously different from that spa- 
 cious mansion which Lady Maulevrier had built for herself. _ 
 
 A door on the landing stood ajar. The old man pushed it 
 open and went in, followed by Mary and her husband. 
 
334 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 They both expected to see a room humble almost to poverty 
 — an iron bedstead, perhaps, and such furniture as the under 
 servants in a nobleman's household are privileged to enjoy. 
 Both were alike surprised at the luxury of the apartment they 
 entered, and which was evidently reserved exclusively for Stead- 
 man's uncle. 
 
 It was a sitting-room. The furniture was old-fashioned, but 
 almost as handsome as any in Lady Maulevrier's apartments. 
 There was a large sofa of most comfortable shape covered with 
 dark red velvet, and furnished with pillows and foot-rugs which 
 would have satisfied a Sybarite of the first water. Beside the 
 sofa stood a hookah, with all appliances in the Oriental fashion ; 
 and half a dozen long cherry-wood pipes neatly arranged above 
 the mantel-piece showed that Mr. Steadman's uncle was a 
 smoker of a luxurious type. 
 
 In the center of the room stood a large writing table, with^ a 
 case of pigeon holes at the back, which would not have dis- 
 graced a Prime Minister's study. A pair of wax candles in tall 
 silver candlesticks lighted this table, which was littered with 
 papers in wild confusion, that too plainly told of the condition 
 of the owner's mind. The oak floor was covered with Persian 
 prayer-rugs, old and faded, but of the lichest quality. The win- 
 dow curtams were dark red velvet ; and through an open door- 
 way Mary and her husband saw a corresponding luxury in the 
 arrangements of the adjoining bed-room. 
 
 The whole thing seemed wild and strange as a fairy tale. 
 The weird and wizened old man grinning and nodding his 
 head at them. The handsome room, rich with dark subdued 
 color in the dim light of four wax candles, two on the table, two 
 on the mantel-piece. The perfume of stephanotis and tea roses 
 blended faintly with the all-pervading smell of latakia and Turk- 
 ish attar, All was alike strange, bearing in mind that this old 
 man was a recipient of Lady Maulevrier's charity, a hanger-on 
 upon a confidential servant, who might be supposed to be gen- 
 erously treated if he had the run of his teeth and a shelter of 
 a decent garret. Verily, there was something regal in such 
 hospit'dity as this accorded to a pauper lunatic. 
 
 Where was Steadman^ the alert, the watchful, all this time ? 
 Mary \vondered. They had met no one. The house was as 
 mute as if it were under the spell of a magician. It was like 
 that awful chamber in the Arabian story, where the young man 
 found the necromantic horse, and started on his fatal journey. 
 Mary felt as if here, too, there must be peril ; here, too, fa<-e was 
 vvorkinc:. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 335 
 
 The old man went to the writing table, pushed aside the pa- 
 pers, and then stooped down and turned a mysterious handle or 
 winch under the knee hole, and the writing desk moved slowly 
 on one side, while the pigeon holes sank, and a deep well 
 full of secret drawers was laid open. 
 
 From one of these secret drawers the old man took a bunch 
 of keys, nodding, chuckling, muttering to himself as he groped 
 for them with tremulous hand. 
 
 " Steadman is uncommonly clever — thinks he knows every- 
 thing — but he doesn't know the trick of this table. I could 
 hide a regiment of Sepoys in this table, my dear. Well, well, 
 perhaps not Sepoys — too big, too big — but I could hide all the 
 State papers of the Presidency. There are drawers enough 
 for that." 
 
 Hartfield watched him intently, with thoughtful brow. There 
 was a mystery here, a mystery of the deepest, and it was for him 
 — it must needs be his task, welcome or unwelcome, to unravel 
 it. 
 
 This was the Maulevrier skeleton. 
 
 " Now, come with me," said the old man, clutching Mary's 
 wrist, and drawing her toward the half open door leading into 
 the bed-room. 
 
 She had a feeling of shrinking, for there was something un- 
 canny about the old man, something that might be life or death, 
 might belong to this world or the next, but she had no fear. In 
 the first place, she was courageous by nature, and, in the second, 
 her husband was with her, a tower of strength, and she could 
 know no fear while he was at her side. 
 
 The strange old man led the way across his bed-room to an 
 inner chamber, oak paneled, with very little furniture, but hold- 
 ing much treasure in the shape of trunks, portmanteaux — all 
 very old and dusty — and two large wooden cases. 
 
 Before one of these cases the man knelt down and applied a 
 key to the padlock which fastened it. He gave the candle to 
 Lord Hartfield to hold, and then opened the box. It seemed 
 to be full of books, which he began to remove, heaping them on 
 the floor beside him ; and it was not till he had cleared away a 
 layer of ponderous volumes that he came to a large metal strong- 
 box, so heavy that he could not lift it out of the chest. 
 
 Slowly, tremulously, and with quickened breathing, he un- 
 locked the box where it was, and lifted the lid. 
 
 " Look," he said eagerly, " this is her legacy — this is my 
 Httle girl's legacy." 
 
 Lord Hartfield bent down and looked at the old man's treas- 
 
336 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 ure by the wavering light of the candle; Mary looked over his 
 shoulder, breathless with wonder. 
 
 The strong box was divided into compartments. One, and 
 the largest, was filled with rouleaux of coin, packed as closely 
 as possible. The others contained jewels, set and unset — 
 diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires — which flashed back the 
 flickering flame of the candle with glintings of rainbow 
 light. 
 
 " These are all for her — all — all," exclaimed the old man. 
 " They are worth a prince's ransom. Those rouleaux are all 
 gold ; those gems are priceless. They were the dowry of a prin- 
 cess. But they are hers now — yes, my dear, they are yours — 
 because you spoke sweetly and smiled prettily and was very 
 good to a lonely old man — and because you have my mother's 
 face, dear, a smile that recalls the days of my youth. Lift out 
 the box and take it away with you if you are strong enough, you, 
 you," he said, touching Lord Hartfield. " Hide it somewhere 
 — keep it from her. Let no one know — no one except your 
 wife and you must be in the secret." 
 
 " My dear sir, it is out of the question — impossible that my 
 wife or I should accept one of those coins or the smallest of 
 those jewels." 
 
 " Why not, in heaven's name ? " 
 
 " First and foremost, we do not know how you came in pos- 
 session of them ; secondly, we do not know who you are." 
 
 " They came to me fairly enough — bequeathed to me by one 
 who had the right to leave them. Would you have had all that 
 gold left for an adventurer to wallow in 1 " 
 
 " You must keep your treasure, sir, however it may have come 
 to you," answered Lord Hartfield firmly. " My wife cannot 
 take upon herself the burden of a single gold coin — least of all 
 from a stranger. Remember, sir, to us your possession of this 
 wealth, nay your whole existence, is a mystery," 
 
 " You want to know who I am t " said the old man, drawing 
 himself up with a sudden hauteur which was not without dig- 
 nity, despite his shrunken form and grotesque appearance. 
 " Well, sir, I am—" 
 
 He checked himself abruptly, and looked round the room 
 with a scared expression. 
 
 " No, no, no," he muttered ; " caution, caution ! They have 
 not done with me yet — she v/arned me — they are lying in wait — 
 I mustn't walk into their trap." And then, turning to Lord Hart- 
 field, he said haughtily, " I shall not condescend to tell you who 
 I am, sir. You must know that I am a gentleman, and that is 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 337 
 
 enough for you. There is my gift to your wife," — pointing to 
 the chest — " take it or leave it." 
 
 " I shall leave it, sir, with all due respect." 
 
 A frightful change came over the old man's face at this deter- 
 mined refusal. His eyes glowed at Lord Hartfield under the 
 heavy scowling brows ; his bloodless lips worked convulsively. 
 
 "Do you take me for a thief?" he exclaimed, "Are you 
 afraid to touch my gold — that gold for which men and women 
 sell their souls, blast their lives with shame and pain and dis- 
 honor, all the world over ? Do you stand aloof from it — refuse 
 to touch it, as if it were infected ? And you, too, girl, have you 
 no sense ? Are you an idiot ? " 
 
 " I can do nothing against my husband's wish," Mary answered 
 quietly; "and, indeed, there is no need for us to take your 
 money. We are rich without it. Please leave that chest to a 
 hospital It will be ever so much better than giving it to us." 
 
 " You told me you were going to marry a poor man ? " 
 
 " I know. But he cheated me and turned out to be a rich 
 man. He was a horrid impostor," said Mary, drawing closer 
 to her husband and smiling up at him. 
 
 The old man flung down the iron lid of his strong box, which 
 shut with a sonorous clang. He locked it and put the key in 
 his pocket. 
 
 '' I have done v/ith you," he said. " You can go your ways, 
 both of you. Fool, fools, fools. The world is peopled with 
 rogues and fools; and, by heaven, I would rather have to do 
 with the rogues." 
 
 He flung himself into an arm-chair, one of the few objects of 
 furniture in the room, and left them to fmd their way back 
 alone, 
 
 " Good-night, sir," said Lord Hartfield, but the old man made 
 no reply. He sat frowning sullenly. 
 
 '' Good-night, sir," said Mary, in her gentle voice, breathing 
 infinite pity. 
 
 " Good-night, child," he growled. "" I am sorry you have 
 married an ass." 
 
 This was more than Mary could stand, and she was about to 
 reply with some acrimony, when her husband put his hand upon 
 her lips and hurried her away. 
 
 On the landing they met Mrs. Steadman, a stout, common- 
 place person, who always had the same half-frightened look, as 
 of one who lived in the shadow of an abiding terror, obviously 
 cowed and brow-beaten by her husband, according to the Fell- 
 side household. 
 
338 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 At sight of Lord Hartfield and his wife she looked a little 
 more frightened than usual. 
 
 " Goodness gracious, Lady Mary, how ever did you come 
 here ? " she gasped, not yet having quite reaUzed the fact that 
 Mary had been promoted. 
 
 "We came to please Steadman's uncle — he brought us in 
 here," Mary answered quietly. 
 
 " But where did you find him ? " 
 
 "In the corridor — just by her Ladyship's room." 
 
 " Then he must have taken the key out of Steadman's pocket, 
 or Steadman must have left it about somewhere," muttered 
 Mrs. Steadman, as if explaining the matter to herself rather 
 than to Mary. " My poor husband is not the man he was. 
 And so you met him in the corridor, and he brought you in here. 
 Poor old gentleman ! He gets madder and madder every day." 
 
 " There is method in his madness," sai-d Lord Hartfield. 
 " He talked very much like sanity just now. Has your hus- 
 band had the charge of him long ? " 
 
 Mrs. Steadman answered somewhat confusedly, "Agoodish 
 time, sir, I can't quite exactly say — time passes so quiet in a 
 place like this, one hardly keeps count of the years." 
 
 " Forty years, perhaps ? " 
 
 Mrs. Steadman blenched under Lord Hartfield's steadfast 
 look — a look which questioned more searchingly than his 
 words. 
 
 " Forty years," she repeated, Math a faint laugh. " Oh, dear, 
 no, sir, not a quarter so long. It isn't so many years, after all, 
 since Steadman's poor old uncle went a little queer in his head, 
 and Steadman having such a quiet home here, and plenty of 
 spare room, made bold to ask her Ladyship if he might give the 
 poor old man a home, wheie he would be in nobody's way." 
 
 " And the poor old man seems to have a very luxurious home," 
 ans\vered Lord Hartfield. "Pray when and where did Mr. 
 Steadman's uncle learn to smoke a hookah ? " 
 
 Simple as the question was it proved too much for Mrs. 
 Steadman. She only shook her head and faltered some unin- 
 telligible reply. 
 
 " Where is your husband ? " asked Lord Hartfield. " I should 
 like to have a little talk with him if he is disengaged." 
 
 "He is not very well, my Lord," answered Mrs. Steadman, 
 with a deprecating air. " He has been ailing off and on for 
 the last six months, but I couldn't get him to see the doctor or 
 to tell her Ladyship that he was in bad health. And about a 
 week ago he broke down altogether, and fell into a kind of 
 
PHA/VTOM FORTUNE. 339 
 
 drowsy state. He keeps about, and he does his work pretty 
 much the same as usual, but I can see that it's too much for 
 him. If you like to come downstairs I can let you through the 
 door into the hall — and if he should have woke up since I have 
 left him he'll be at your Lordship's service. But I'd rather not 
 wake him out of his sleep." 
 
 " There is no occasion. What I have to say will keep till 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Lord Hartfield and his wife followed Mrs. Steadman down- 
 stairs to the low dark hall, where an old eight-day clock ticked 
 with hoarse and solemn beat and a fine stag's head over each 
 doorway gave evidence of some former Haselden's sporting 
 tastes. The door of a small paneled parlor stood half-way open, 
 and within the room Lord Hartfield saw James Steadman asleep 
 in an arm-chair by the fire, which burned as brightly as if it had 
 been Christmas time. 
 
 " He was so cold and chilly this afternoon that I was obliged 
 to light a fire," said Mrs. Steadman. 
 
 " He seems to be sleeping heavily," said Hartfield. " Don't 
 awaken him. I'll see him to-morrow morning before I go to 
 London." 
 
 " He sleeps half the day just as heavy as that, my Lord," said 
 the wife, with a troubled air. " I don't think it can be right." 
 
 " I don't think so either, " answered Lord Hartfield. "You 
 had better call in the doctor." 
 
 " I will, my Lord, to-morrow morning. James will be angry 
 with me, I dare say ; but I must take upon myself to do it with- 
 out his leave." 
 
 She led the way along a passage corresponding with the one 
 above, and unlocked a door opening into a lobby near the bill- 
 iard room in the new house. 
 
 " Come, Molly, see if you can beat me at a fifty game," said 
 Lord Hartfield, with the air of a man who wants to shake off 
 the oppression of some dominant idea. 
 
 " Of course you will annihilate me, but it will be a relief to 
 play," answered Mary. " That strange old man has given me 
 a shock. Everything about his surroundings is so different 
 from what I expected. And how could an uncle of Steadman's 
 come by all that money — and those jewels — if they were jewels, 
 and not bits of glass which the poor old thing has chopped up, 
 in order to delude himself with an imaginary treasure .? " 
 " I do not think they are bits of glass, Molly." 
 " They sparkled tremendously — almost as much as my — our 
 — the family diamonds, " said ^ary, puzzled how to describe 
 
340 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 that property which she held in right of her position as count- 
 ess regnant, " but if they are real jewels, and all those rouleaux 
 real money, how could Steadman's uncle become possessed of 
 such wealth ? " 
 
 " How, indeed," said Lord Hartfield, choosing his cue. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVin. 
 
 ON BOARD THE CAYMAN. 
 
 Goodwood had come and gone, a brief, bright season of loss 
 and gain, fine gowns, flirtation, lobster en mayonaise, champagne, 
 sunshine, dust, glare, babble of many voices, successes, failures, 
 triumphs, humiliations. A very pretty picture to contemplate 
 from the outside, this little world in holiday clothes, framed in 
 greenery, but just as on the Brocken, where the nicest girl 
 among the dancers had the unpleasant peculiarity of dropping 
 a little red mouse out of her mouth — so, too, here, under differ- 
 ent forms, there were red mice dropping about among the com- 
 pany. Here a hint of coming insolvency ; there a whisper of a 
 threatened divorce suit, stayed off for a while ; compromises, 
 family secrets, little difficulties everywhere ; betrothed couples 
 smilingly accepting congratulations who should never have been 
 affianced were truth and honor the rule of life ; forsaken wives, 
 pretending to think their husbands models of fidelity; jovial 
 creatures with ruin staring in their faces ; households divided 
 and shamming union ; almost everybody living above his or her 
 means and the knowledge that nobody is any better or any hap- 
 pier than his neighbor society's only foundation of consolation. 
 
 Lady Lesbia's gowns and parasols had been admired, her en- 
 gagement had furnished an infinity of gossip and the fact of 
 Montesma's constant attendance upon her had given zest to the 
 situation, just that flavor of peril and fatality which the soul of 
 society loveth. 
 
 " Is she going to marry them both ? " asked an ancient dowa- 
 ger of the ever-young type. 
 
 '* No, dear Lady Sevenoaks ; she can only marry one, don't 
 you know ; but the other is nice to go about with — and I believe 
 it is the other she really likes." 
 
 " It is always the other that a woman likes," answered the 
 dowager. " I am madly in love with this Peruvian — no, I think 
 you said Cuban — myself. I wish some good-natured creature 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 341 
 
 would present him to me. If you know anybody who knows 
 him tell them to bring him to my next afternoon — Saturday. 
 But why does— chose— machin—Smithson allow such a hand- 
 some hanger-on ? After marriage I could understand that he 
 might not be able to help himself ; but before marraige a man 
 generally has some kind of authority." 
 
 The world wondered a little, just as Lady Sevenoaks won- 
 dered, at Smithson's complacency in allowing a man so attract- 
 ive as Montesma to be so much in the society of his future wife ; 
 yet even the censorious could but admit that the Cuban's man- 
 ner offered no ground for offense. He came to Goodwood " on 
 his own hook," as society put it; and every man who wears a 
 decent coat and is not a welsher has a right to enjoy the pret- 
 tiest race-course in England. He spent a considerable part of 
 the day in Lesbia's company ; but since she was the center of a 
 little crowd all the time, there could be no offense in this. He 
 was a stranger, knowing very few people, and having nothing to 
 do but amuse himself. Smithson was an old and familiar friend, 
 and was in a measure bound to give him hospitality. 
 
 Mr- Smithson had recognized that obligation, but in a some- 
 what sparing manner. There were a dozen unoccupied bed- 
 chambers in the Park Lane Renaissance Villa ; but Smithson 
 did not invite his Cuban acquaintance to shift his quarters from 
 the St. James's Hotel to Park Lane. He was civil to Don 
 Gomez, but any one who had taken the trouble to watch and 
 study the conduct and social relations of these two men would 
 have seen that his civility was a forced civility, and that he en- 
 dured the Spaniard's society under constraint of some kind. 
 
 And now all the world was flocking to Cowes for the regatta, 
 and Lesbia and her chaperon were established on board Mr. 
 Smithson's yacht, the Cayman : and the captain of the Cayman 
 and all her crew were delivered over to Lesbia to be her slaves, 
 and to obey her lightest breath. The Cayman was to lie at 
 anchor off Cowes for the regatta week, and then she was to sail 
 for Ryde, and lie at anchor there for another regatta week, and 
 she was to be a floating hotel for Lady Lesbia so long as the 
 young lady would condescend to occupy her. 
 
 The captain was an altogether exceptional captain, and the 
 crew were a picked crew, ruddy faced, sandy whiskered for the 
 most part. Englishmen all, honest, hardy fellows from between 
 the Nore and the Wash, talking in an honest provincial patois, 
 dashed with sea slang. They were the very pink and pattern of 
 cleanliness, and the Cayman herself from stem to stern was 
 dazzling and spotless to an almost painful degree. 
 
342 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Not content with the existing arrangements of the yacht, 
 which were at once elegant and hixurious, Mr. Smithson had 
 sent down a Bond Street upholsterer to refit the saloon and 
 Lady Lesbia's cabin. The dark velvet and morocco which 
 suited a masculine occupant would not have harmonized with 
 girlhood and beauty, and Mr. Smithson's saloon, as originally 
 designed, had something of the air of a tabagie. The Bond 
 Street man stripped away all the velvet and morocco, plucked 
 up the Turkey carpet, draped the windows with pale yellow cre- 
 tonne garnished with orange pompons, covered the divans with 
 Persian saddlebags, the floor with a delicate India matting, and 
 furnished the saloon with all that was most feminine in the 
 way of bamboo chairs and tea tables, Japanese screens and fans 
 of gorgeous coloring. Here and there against the fluted yellow 
 drapery he fastened a large Rhodes plate, and the thing was 
 done. Lady Lesbia's cabin was all bamboo and embroidered 
 India muslin. An oval glass, framed in Dresden biscuit, adorned 
 the wall, a large white bearskin covered the floor. The berth 
 was pretty enough for the cradle of a duchess's first baby. 
 Even Lesbia, spoiled by much indulgence and unlimited credit, 
 gave a little cry of pleasure at sight of the nest that had been 
 made ready for her. 
 
 " Really, Mr. Smithson is immensely kind," she exclaimed. 
 
 " Smithson is always kind," answered Lady Kirkbank. " And 
 you don't half enough appreciate him. He has given me his 
 very own cabin — such a dear little den. There are his cigar 
 boxes and everything lovely on the shelves, and his own particu- 
 lar dressing-case put open for me to use — all the backs of all 
 the brushes repousse silver, and all the scent bottles filled ex- 
 pressly for me. If the yacht would only stand quite still I 
 should think it more delicious than the best house I ever stayed 
 in ; only I don't altogether enjoy that little way it has of gurg- 
 ling up and down." 
 
 Mr. Smithson's chief butler, a German Swiss, and a treasure 
 of intelligence, had come down to take the domestic arrange- 
 ments of the yacht into his control. The Park Lane chief was 
 also on board, Mr. Smithson's steward acting as his subordinate, 
 grumbling sorely at the smallness of his surroundings ; for the 
 most luxurious yacht was a poor substitute for the spacious 
 kitchens and storerooms and stillrooms of the London man- 
 sion. There was a cabin for Lady Kirkbank's Rilboche and 
 Lady Lesbia's Kibble, where the two might squabble at their 
 leisure ; in a word, everything had been done that forethought 
 could do to make the yacht as perfect a place of sojourn as any 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 343 
 
 floating habitation, from Noah's Ark to the Orient steamers, 
 had ever been made. 
 
 It was between- four and five upon a deUcious July afternoon 
 that Lady Kirkbank and her charge came on board. The 
 maids and the luggage had been sent a day in advance, so that 
 everything might be in its place and the empty boxes all 
 stowed away before the ladies arrived. They had nothing to do 
 but walk on board and fling themselves into the low luxurious 
 chairs ready for them on the deck, a little wearied by the heat 
 and dust of a railway journey, and with that delicious sense of 
 languid indifference to all the cares of life which seems to be in 
 the very atmosphere of a perfect summer afternoon. 
 
 A striped awning covered the deck, and great baskets of 
 roses — pink, and red, and yellow — were placed about here and 
 there. Tea was ready upon a low table, a swinging brass ket- 
 tle hissing merrily, with an air of supreme homeliness. 
 
 Mr. Smithson had accompanied his fiancee from town, and 
 now sat reading the Globe^ and meekly waiting for his tea, 
 while Lesbia took a languid survey of the shore and flotilla of 
 boats, little and big, and while Lady Kirkbank rhapsodized 
 about the yacht, praising everything, and calling almost every- 
 thing by the wrong name. He was to be their guest all day, 
 and every day. They were to have enough of him, as Lesbia 
 had observed to her chaperon, with a spice of discontent, not 
 quite so delighted with the arrangement as her faithful swain. 
 To him the idea was rapture. 
 
 " You have contrived somehow to keep me very much at a 
 distance hitherto," he told Lesbia, " and I feel sometimes as if 
 we were almost strangers ; but a yacht is the best place in the 
 world to brmg two people together, and a week at Cowes will 
 make us nearer to each other and more to each other than three 
 months in London," and Lesbia had said nothing, inwardly re- 
 volting at the idea of becoming any nearer and dearer to this 
 man whom she had pledged herself to marry. She was to be 
 his wife — yes, some day — and it was his desire the some day 
 should be soon ; but in the interval the dearest privilege of her 
 brief freedom was the power to keep him at a distance. 
 
 And yet she could not make up her mind to break with him, 
 to say honestly " I never liked you much, and now we are en- 
 gaged I find myself liking you less and less every day. Save 
 me from the irrecoverable wickedness of a loveless marriage. 
 Forgive me, and let me go." No, this she could not bring her- 
 self to say. She did not like Mr. Smithson, but she valued the 
 position he was able to give her. She wanted to be mistress of 
 
344 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 that infinite wealth — she could not renounce that right to which 
 she fancied she had been born, her right to be one of the 
 queens of society ; and the only man who had offered to crown 
 her as queen, to find her a palace and a court, was Horace 
 Smithson. Without Mr. Smithson her first season would have 
 resulted in dire failure. She might perhaps have endured that fail- 
 ure, and been content to abide the chances of a second season, 
 had it not been for Mary's triumph. But for Mary to be a 
 countess and for Lesbia to remain Lesbia Haselden, a nobody, 
 dependent upon the caprices of a grandmother whose means 
 might after all be but limited — no, that concatenation was not 
 to be endured. Lesbia told herself that she could not go back 
 to Fellside to remain there indefinitely a spinster and a depend- 
 ent. She had learnt the true value of money ; she had found 
 out what the world was like ; and it seemed to her that some 
 such person as Mr. Smithson was essential to her existence, 
 just as a butler is a necessity in a house. One may not like the 
 man, but the post must be filled. 
 
 Again, if she were to throw over Mr. Smithson, and specu- 
 late upon her chances of next year, what hope had she of 
 doing better in her second season than in her first. The hori- 
 zon was blank. There was no great parti likely to offer himself 
 for competition. She had seen all that the market could pro- 
 duce. Wealthy bachelors, high-born lovers, could not drop 
 from the moon. Lesbia, schooled by Lady Kirkbank, knew 
 her peerage by heart ; and she knew that, having missed Lord 
 Hartfield, the're was really no one in the Blue Book worth 
 waiting for. Thus, caring only for those things which wealth 
 can buy, she had made up her mind that she could not do with- 
 out Homce Smithson's money, and she must therefore needs 
 resign herself to the disagreeable necessity of taking Smithson 
 and his money together. "The great auctioneer Fate would not 
 divide the lot to please her. 
 
 She told herself that for her a loveless marriage was, after 
 all, no prodigious sacrifice. She had found out that heart made 
 but a small figure in the sum of her life. She could do without 
 love. A year ago she had fancied herself in love with John 
 Hammond. In her seclusion at St. Bees in the long, dull 
 August days, sauntering up and down by the &^g& of the sea in 
 the melancholy sunset hour, she thought that her heart was 
 broken, that life was worthless without him. She had thought 
 and felt all this, but not strongly enough to urge her to any 
 great effort, not keenly enough to make her burst her chains. 
 She had preferred to suffer this loss than to sacrifice her chances 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 345 
 
 of future aggrandizement. And now she looked back and 
 remembered those sunset walks by the sea and all her thoughts 
 and feelings in those silent summer hours, and she smiled at 
 herself half in scorn, half in pity for her own weakness. How 
 easily she had learnt to do without him who at that hour seemed 
 the better part of her existence. A good deal of gayety and 
 praise, a little mild flirtation at Kirkbank Castle, and lo, the 
 image of her first lover began to grow dim and blurred, like a 
 faded photograph. A season at Cannes, and she was cured. 
 A week in London, and that first love was a thing of the past, a 
 dream from which the dreamer awakeneth forgetting the things 
 that he has dreamt. 
 
 Remembering all this she told herself that she had no heart, 
 that love or no love was a question of very little moment, and 
 that the personal qualities of the man whom she chose for her 
 husband mattered nothing to her, provided that his lands and 
 houses and social status came up to her standard of merit. She 
 had seen Mr. Smithson's houses and lands, and she was dis- 
 tinctly assured that he would in due course be raised lo a peer- 
 age. She had, therefore, every reason to be satisfied. 
 
 Having thus reasoned out the circumstances of her new life, 
 she accepted her fate with a languid grace which became her 
 delicate and patrician beauty. Nobody could have for a mo- 
 ment supposed from her manner that she loved Horace Smithson ; 
 but nobody had the right to think that she detested him. She 
 accepted his attentions as a thing of course. The flowers which 
 he strewed beneath her footsteps ; the pearls which he melted 
 in her wine — metaphorically speaking — were just " good 
 enough " and no more. This afternoon, when Mr. Smithson 
 asked her how she liked the arrangements of the saloon and 
 cabin, she said she thought they would do very nicely. " They 
 would do." Nothing more. 
 
 "It is dreadfully, small, of course," she said, "when one is 
 accustomed to rooms ; but it is rather amusing to be in a sort of 
 doll's house, and on deck it is really very nice." 
 
 This was the most Mr. Smithson had for his pains, and he 
 seemed to be content therewith. If a man will marry the pret- 
 tiest girl of the year he must be satisfied M'ith such scant civility 
 as conscious perfection may give him. We know that Aphrodite 
 was not altogether the most comfortable wife, and that Helen 
 was a cause of trouble. 
 
 Mr. Smithson sat in a bamboo chair beside his mistress, 
 and looked ineffably happy when she handed him a cup of tea. 
 Sky and sea were one exquisite azure — the colors of the boats 
 
346 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 glancing in the sunshine as if they had been jewels — here an 
 emerald rudder, there gunwale painted with liquid rubies. 
 White sails, white frocks, white ducks made vivid patches of 
 light against the blue. The landscape yonder shone and 
 sparkled as if it had been incandescent. All the world of land, 
 and sky, and sea was steeped in sunshine. A day on which 
 to do nothing, read nothing, think nothing, only to exist. 
 
 While they sat basking in the balmy atmosphere, looking la- 
 zily at that bright, almost insupportable picture of blue sea under 
 blue sky, there came the dip of oars making music, and a sound 
 of coolness with every plash of water. 
 
 " How good it is of somebody to row about, just to give us 
 that nice soothing sound," murmured Lesbia. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank, with her dear old head thrown back upon 
 the cushion of her luxurious chair, and her dear little cornflower 
 hat just a thought on one side, was sleeping the sleep of the just, 
 and showing the little golden arrangements which gave variety 
 to her front teeth. 
 
 The soothing sound came nearer and nearer, close under the 
 Cayman's bows, and then a brown hand clasped the gunwale, 
 and a light, slim figure swung itself upon deck, while the boat 
 bobbed and splashed below. 
 
 It w^as Montesma, who had not been expected till the racing, 
 which was not to begin for two days. A faint, faint rose bloom 
 flushed Lady Lesbia's cheek at sight of him ; and Mr. Smithson 
 gave a little look of vexation, just one quick contraction of the 
 eyebrows, which ironed itself out to conventional placidity the 
 next instant. 
 
 " So good of you," he murmured. " I really did not expect 
 you till the beginning of the week." 
 
 " London is simply insupportable in this weather — most of all 
 for a man born in the Havanas. My soul thirsted for blue 
 water. So I said to myself, this good Smithson is at Cowes ; 
 he will give me the run of his club and a room at his villa. 
 W^hy not go to Cowes at once ?" 
 
 " The room and the club are at your service. I have only 
 two or three of my people at Formosa, but just enough to look 
 after a bachelor friend." 
 
 " I want very little service, my dear fellow," answered Mon- 
 tesma pleasantly. " A man who has crossed the Cordilleras 
 and camped in the primeval forest on the shores of the Amazon 
 learns to help himself. So this is the Cayman ? Muy deleitoso, 
 A floating Paradise in little. If the ark had been 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 347 
 
 like this, I don't think any of the passengers would have wanted 
 the flood to dry up." 
 
 He shook hands with Lady Lesbia as he spoke, and with 
 Lady Kirkbank, who looked at him as if he were part of her 
 dream, and then he sank into the chair on Lesbia's left hand 
 with the air of being established for the rest of the day. 
 
 " I have left my portmanteaus at the end of the pier," he said 
 lazily. *' I dare say one of your fellows will be good enough to 
 take them to Formosa for me t " 
 
 Mr. Smithson gave the necessary order. All the beauty had 
 gone out of the sea and the sky for him, all the contentment 
 from his mind ; and yet he was in no position to rebel against 
 Fate — in no position to say directly or indirectly, " Don Gomez 
 de Montesma, I don't want you here, and I must request you 
 to transfer yourself elsewhere." 
 
 Lesbia's feelings were curiously different. The very sight of 
 that nervous brown hand upon the gunwale had sent a strange 
 thrill through her veins. She who believed herself heartless 
 could scarce trust herself to speak for the vehement throbbing 
 of her heart. A sense of joy too deep for words possessed her 
 as she reclined in her low chair, with drooping eyelids, yet feel- 
 ing the fire of those dark Southern eyes upon her face, scorch- 
 ing her like an actual flame. 
 
 " Lady Lesbia, may I have a cup of tea ? " he asked, not be- 
 cause he wanted the tea, but only for the cruel delight of seeing 
 if she were able to give it to him. 
 
 Her hands shook, fluttered, wandered helplessly, as she 
 poured out that cup of tea and handed it to Montesma, a femi- 
 nine office which she had performed calmly enough for Mr. 
 Smithson. The Spaniard took the cup from her with a quiet 
 smile, a subtle look which seemed to explore the inmost depth 
 of her consciousness. 
 
 Yes, this man was verily her master. She knew it, and he 
 knew it, as that look of his told her. Vain to play her part of 
 languid indifference — vain to struggle against her bondage. In 
 heart and spirit she was at his feet, an odalisque, recognizing 
 and bowing down to her sultan. 
 
 Happily for the general peace, Mr. Smithson had been looking 
 away seaward, with a somewhat troubled brow, while that little 
 cup and saucer episode was being enacted. And in the next 
 instant Lesbia had recovered her self-command, and resumed 
 that graceful languor which was one of her charms. She was 
 weak, but she was not altogether foolish, and she had no idea 
 of succumbing to this new influence — of yielding herself up to 
 
348 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 this conqueror, who seemed to take her life into his hand as if 
 it were a bit of thistledown. Her agitation of those few first 
 minutes was due to the suddenness of his appearance — the reac- 
 tion from dullness to delight. She had been told that he was 
 not to be at Cowes till Monday, and lo ! he was here at her side, 
 just as she was thinking how empty and dreary life was without 
 him. 
 
 He dropped into his place so naturally and easily, made him- 
 self so thoroughly at home and so agreeable to every one, that 
 it was almost impossible for Horace Smithson to resent his au- 
 dacity. Mr. Smithson's vitals might be devoured by the gnaw- 
 ing of the green-eyed monster, but however fierce that gnawing 
 were he did not want to seem jealous. Montesma was there as 
 the very incarnation of some experiences in Mr. Smithson's past 
 career and he dared not object to the man's presence. 
 
 And so the summer day wore on. They had the yacht all to 
 themselves that evening, for the racing yachts were fulfilling en- 
 gagements in other waters, and the gay company of pleasure 
 seekers had not yet fully assembled. They were dropping in 
 one by one all the evening, and Cowes Roads grew fuller of life 
 with every hour of the summer night. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Smithson, with his gentlemanlike drawl. 
 " Spanish America and the West Indies are delightful places to 
 talk about. There are so many things one leaves out of the 
 picture ; thieves, niggars, snakes, mosquitos, yellow jack, creep- 
 ing, crawling creatures of all kinds. I always feel very glad I 
 have been to South America." 
 
 " Why .? " 
 
 " In order that I may never go there again," replied Mr. 
 Smithson. 
 
 " I was beginning to hope you would take me there, some 
 day," said Lesbia. 
 
 " Never again ; no, not even for your sake. No man should 
 ever leave Europe after he is five-and-thirty ; indeed I doubt if 
 after that age he should venture beyond the Mediterranean. 
 That is the sea of civilization. Anything outside it means bar- 
 barism." 
 
 Montesma taught Lady Kirkbank monte, which delighted her, 
 and which she would introduce at her supper-parties in the half 
 season in November, when she should be in London for a week 
 or two, as a bird of passage, flitting southward. He began to 
 teach Lesbia Spanish, a language for which she had taken a sud- 
 den fancy ; and it is curious what tender accents, what hid- 
 den meanings even a grammar can take from such a teacher. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 349 
 
 Spanish came easily enough to a learner who had been thor- 
 oughly drilled in French and Italian, and who had been taught 
 the rudiments of Latin ; so by the end of a lesson, which went 
 on at intervals all day, the pupil was able to lisp a passage of 
 Don Quixote in the sweetest Castilian, very sweet to the ear of 
 Don Gomez — a kind of baby language, precious as the first 
 half-formed syllables of infancy to a mother's ear. 
 
 Montesma had nothing to do but to amuse himself and his 
 companions all day in the saloon, amidst odors of roses and 
 peaches, in a shadowy coolness made by striped silken blinds, 
 chocolate color and sage green ; but Mr. Smithson was not so 
 much his own master. That innumerable company of friends 
 which are the portion of the rich man given to hospitality would 
 not let the owner of the Cayman go scot free. 
 
 Mr. Smithson had business on shore, and was fain to leave 
 the yacht for an hour or two before dinner. He invited Don 
 Gomez to go with him, but the oifer was graciously declined. 
 
 " Amigo, I don't care even to look at land in such weather. 
 It is so detestably dry," he pleaded. " It is only the sound of 
 the sea gurgling against the hull that reconciles one to existence. 
 Go, and be happy at your club, and send off those occult tele- 
 grams of yours, dearest. I shall not leave the Cayman till bed- 
 time." 
 
 He looked as fresh and as cool as if utterly unaffected by the 
 heat, which to a Cuban must have been a merely lukewarm con- 
 dition of the atmosphere. But he affected to be prostrate, and 
 Smithson could not insist. He had his cards to play m a game 
 which required extremest caution, and there were no friendly 
 indicators on the backs of his kings and aces. He was feeling 
 his way in the dark, and did not know how much mischief Mon- 
 tesma was prepared to do. %, 
 
 When the owner of the yacht was gone, Don Gomez proposed 
 an adjournment to the deck for afternoon tea, and the trio sat 
 under the awning, drinking and gossiping for the next hour. 
 Lady Kirkbank told the steward to say not at home to every- 
 body, just as if she had a street door. 
 
 "There is a good deal of the dolce far niente about this," said 
 Montesma presently, " but don't you think we have been an- 
 chored in sight of that shabby little town quite long enough, and 
 that it would be rather nice to spread our wings and sail round 
 the island before the racing begins ? " 
 
 " It would be quite exquisite," said Lesbia. " I am very tired 
 of inaction, though I dearly love learning Spanish," she added 
 with a lovely smile, and a look that was half submissive, half 
 
350 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 mutinous. "But I have really been beginning to wonder 
 whether this boat can move." 
 
 " You will see that she can, and at a smart pace too, if I sail 
 her. Shall we circumnavigate the island.? We can set sail after 
 dinner." 
 
 " Will Mr. Smithson consent, do you think ? " 
 
 " Why does Smithson exist, except to obey you." 
 
 " I don't know if Lady Kirkbank would quite like it," said 
 Lesbia, looking at her chaperon, who was waving a big Japanese 
 fan, slowly, unsteadily, and with a somewhat drunken air, the 
 while she slid into dreamland. 
 
 "Quite like what.'"' she murmured drowsily. 
 
 "A little sail." 
 
 " I should dearly love it, if it didn't make me sea-sick." 
 
 " Sea-sick on a glassy lake like this, impossible," said Mon- 
 tesma. " I consider the thing settled. We set sail after din- 
 ner." 
 
 Mr. Smithson came back to the yacht just in time to dress for 
 dinner. Don Gomez excused himself from putting on his dress 
 suit. He was going to sail the yacht himself, and he was 
 dressed for his work, picturesquely, in white duck trowsers, white 
 silk shirt, and black velvet shooting jacket. He dined, with the 
 permission of the ladies, in this costume, in which he looked 
 ever so much handsomer than in the livery of polite life. He 
 had a red scarf tied around his waist, and when at his work by 
 and by he wore a little red silk cap, just stuck lightly on his 
 dark hair. The dinner to-day was all animation and even excite- 
 ment, very different from the languorous calm of yesterday. Les- 
 bia seemed a new creature. She talked and laughed and flashed 
 and sparkled as she had never yet done within Mr. Smithson's 
 experience. He contemplated the transformation with wonder 
 not unmixed with suspicion. Never for him had she been so 
 brilliant — never in response to his glances had her violet eyes 
 thus kindled, had her smile been so entrancingly sweet. He 
 watched Montesma, but in him he could find no fault. Even 
 jealousy could hardly take objection to the Spaniard's manner 
 to Lady Lesbia. There was not a look, not a word that hinted 
 at a private understanding between them, or which seemed to 
 convey deeper meanings than the common language of society. 
 No, there was no ground for fault-finding; and yet Smithson 
 was miserable. He knew this man of old, and knew his influ- 
 ence over women. 
 
 They dined on deck this evening, as they had done the night 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 351 
 
 before, the weather still remaining perfect ; and directly after 
 dinner the preparations for an immediate start began. 
 
 Lesbia wanted to learn all about everything — the name of 
 every sail, of every rope. She stood near the helmsman, a slim, 
 graceful figure in a white gown of soft material, with never a 
 jewel or a flower to relieve that statuesque simplicity. She wore 
 no hat, and the rich chestnut hair was rolled in a loose knot at 
 the back of the small Greek-looking head. Montesma came to 
 her every now and then to explain what was being done ; and 
 by and by, when the canvas was all up and the yacht was skim- 
 ming over the water like a giant swan borne by the current of 
 some vast strong river, he came and stayed by her side, and they 
 two sat making little baby sentences in Spanish, he as teacher 
 and she as pupil, with no one near them but the sailors. 
 
 The owner of the Cayman had disappeared mysteriously a 
 quarter of an hour after the sails were unfurled and Lady Kirk- 
 bank had tottered down to the saloon. 
 
 " I am not going — cabin," she faltered when Lesbia remon- 
 strated with her, " only — going — saloon — sofa — lie down — little 
 — Smithson take care — you," not perceiving that Smithson had 
 vanished, "shall be — quite close." 
 
 So Lesbia and Don Gomez were alone under the summer 
 stars murmuring little bits of Spanish. 
 
 " It is the only true way of learning a language," he said. 
 " Grammars are a delusion." 
 
 It was a very delightful and easy way of learning, at any rate. 
 Lesbia reclined in her bamboo chair and fanned herself indo- 
 lently and watched the shadowy shores of the island, cliff and 
 hill, down and wooded crest, flitting past her like dream-pictures, 
 and her lips slowly shaped the words of that soft, lisping lan- 
 guage — so simple, so musical — a language made for lovers and 
 for song, one would think. It was wonderful what rapid prog- 
 ress Lesbia made. 
 
 She heard the church clock on the island striking, and she asked 
 Don Gomez the time. 
 
 " Ten," he said. 
 
 " Ten ! Surely it must be later. It was past eight before 
 we began dinner, and we have been sailing for ever so long. 
 Captain, kindly tell me the time," she called to the skipper, who 
 was looking over the gunwale a little way off, smoking a medi- 
 tative pipe. 
 
 " Twelve o^clock, my Lady." 
 
 " Heavens ! can I possibly have been sitting here so long ? I 
 should have so liked to stay on deck all night and watched the 
 
352 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 sailing ; but I must really take good care of poor Lady Kirk- 
 bank. I am afraid she is not very well." 
 
 " She had a somewhat distracted air when she went below, 
 but I dare say she will sleep off her troubles. If I were you I 
 should leave her to herself." 
 
 *' Impossible. What has become of Mr. Smithson ? " 
 
 " I have a shrewd suspicion that it is with Mr. Smithson as 
 poor Lady Kirkbank." 
 
 " Do you mean that he is ill .'' " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " What, on a calm summer night, sailing over a sea of glass ! 
 The owner of a yacht ! " 
 
 " Rather ignominious for poor Smithson, isn't it ? But men 
 who own yachts are only mortal, and are sometimes wretched 
 sailors. Smithson is dreadfully feeble on that point, as I know 
 of old." 
 
 " Then wasn't it rather cruel of us to sail his yacht ? " 
 
 " Yachts are meant for sailing, and, again, sea-sickness is sup- 
 posed to be a wholesome exercise." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night," both good-nights in Spanish, and with a touch 
 of tenderness which the w^ords could hardly have expressed in 
 English. 
 
 " Must you really go ? " pleaded Montesma, holding her hand 
 just a thought longer than he had ever held it before. " Ah, 
 the little more, and how much it is," says the poet. 
 
 " Really and truly." 
 
 " I am so sorry. I wish you could have stayed on deck all 
 night." 
 
 " So do I, with all my heart. This calm sea under the star-lit 
 sky is like a dream of heaven." 
 
 " It is very nice, but if you stayed I think I could promise 
 you considerable variety. We shall have a tempest before 
 morning," 
 
 '' Of all things in the world I should love to see a thunder- 
 storm at sea." 
 
 " Be on the alert then, and Captain Parkes and I will try to 
 oblige you." 
 
 " At any rate, you have made it impossible for me to sleep. 
 I shall stay with Lady Kirkbank in the saloon. Good-night, 
 again." 
 
 •^ Good-night." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 353 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 IN STORM AND DARKNESS. 
 
 Lesbia found Lady Kirkbank prostrate on a low divan in the 
 saloon, awake and very cross. The atmosphere reeked with red 
 lavender, sal volatile, eau de cologne, and brandy, which latter 
 remedy poor Georgie had taken freely in her agonies. Kibble, 
 the faithful Grasmere girl, sat by the divan, fanning the sufferer 
 with a large Japanese fan out of the fire-place. Rilboche had 
 naturally, as a French woman, succumbed utterly to her own 
 feelings, and was moaning in her berth, wailing out every now 
 and then that she would never have taken service with Miladi 
 had she suspected her to be capable of such cruelty as to take 
 her on the sea. 
 
 If this was the state of affairs now while the ocean was only 
 gently stirred, what would it be by and by if the tempest should 
 really come. 
 
 " What can you be thinking of, staying on deck all night with 
 those men ? " exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, peevishly. " It is 
 hardly proper." 
 
 She would have been still more inclined to object had she 
 known that Lesbia's companion had been " that man," rather 
 than " those men." 
 
 " What do you mean by all night t " Lesbia retorted con- 
 temptuously. " It is only just twelve." 
 
 "Only twelve. I thought we were close upon daylight. I 
 have suffered an eternity of agony." 
 
 " I am very sorry you should be ill ; but really the sea has 
 been so deliciously calm." 
 
 " I believe I should have suffered less if it had been diabol- 
 ically rough. Oh, that monotonous flip-flap of the water, that 
 slow heaving of the boat ! Nothing could be worse." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say that, for Don Gomez says we are 
 likely to have a tempest." 
 
 " A tempest ! " shrieked Georgie. " Then let him stop the 
 boat this instant and put me on shore. Tell him to land me 
 anywhere — on the needles even. A storm at sea will be simply 
 ray death." 
 
 " Dear Lady Kirkbank, I was only joking," said Lesbia, who 
 did not want to be bothered by her chaperon's nervous appre- 
 hensions ; " so far the night is lovely." 
 
 " Give me a spoonful more brandy, my good creature," — to 
 
3 54 PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 Kibble — " Lesbia, you ought never have brought me into this 
 miserable state. I consented to staying on board the yacht. I 
 nevei' consented to sailing on her." 
 
 "You will soon be well, dear Lady Kirkbanu, and you will 
 have such an appetite for breakfast to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Where shall we be at breakfast time ? " 
 
 " Off St. Catherine's Point, I believe, just half way round the 
 island." 
 
 " If we are not at the bottom of the sea," groaned Georgie. 
 
 They were now in the open Channel, and the boat dipped 
 and rose to larger billows than had encountered her course be- 
 fore. Lady Kirkbank lay in a state of collapse, in which life 
 seemed only sustainable by occasional teaspoonfuls of cognac 
 gently tilted down her throat by the patient Kibble. 
 
 Lesbia went to her cabin, but with no intention of remaining 
 there. She was firmly convinced that the storm would come, 
 and she meant to be on deck while it was raging. What harm 
 could thunder or lightning, hail or rain, do to her w^hile he w^as 
 by to protect her. He would be busy sailing the boat, perhaps, 
 but still he would have a moment now and then in which to 
 think of her and care for her. 
 
 Yes, the storm was coming. There w^as a ghastly livid look 
 upon the waters, and the atmosphere was heavy with heat ; the 
 sky to windward black as a funeral pall. She was almost fear- 
 less, yet she felt a thrill of awe as she looked into that dense 
 blackness. To leeward the stars were still visible ; but that gi- 
 gantic mass of cloud came creeping slowly, solemnly, over the 
 sky, while the shadow flitted fast across the waters, swallowing 
 up that livid electric glare. 
 
 Lesbia wrapped herself in a white cashmere sortie de bal and 
 stole up the companion. Montesma was working at the ropes 
 with his own hands, calling his directions to the sailors, spring- 
 ing from spar to spar, flashing backward and forvv'ard amidst 
 the rigging like a being of supernatural power. He had taken 
 off his jacket, and was clad from top to toe in white, save for 
 that streak of scarlet wdiich lightly girdled his waist. His tall 
 flexible form, perfect in line as a Greek statue of Hermes, stood 
 out against the background of black night. His voice, with its 
 tones of brief imperious command, the proud carriage of his 
 head, the easy grace of his rapid movements, all proclaimed the 
 man born to rule over his fellow men. And it is these master 
 spirits, these born rulers, whom women instinctively recognize 
 as their sovereign lords, and for whom women count no sacrifice 
 too costly. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 355 
 
 In the midst of his activity Montesma suddenly saw that white- 
 robed figure standing at the top of the companion and flew to 
 her side. The boat was pitching heavily, dipping into the trough 
 of the sea at an angle of fort3'-five degrees, as it seemed to Lesbia. 
 
 " You ought not to be here," said Montesma, " it is much 
 rougher than I expected." 
 
 " I am not afraid," she answered, " but I will go back to my 
 cabin if I am in your way." 
 
 " In my way " (with deepest tenderness). " Yes, you are in 
 my way, for I shall think of nothing else now you are here. But 
 I believe we have done all that need be done to the yacht, and 
 I can take care of you till the storm is over." 
 
 He put his arm round her as the stem dipped, and led her 
 toward the stern, supporting her as her light figure swayed 
 against him with the motion of the boat, guiding her footsteps. 
 A vivid flash of lightning showed him her face as they stood for 
 an instant leaning against each other, his arm encircling her. 
 Ah, what deep feeling in that face, once so passionless ; what a 
 new light in those eyes. It was like the awakening of a long 
 dormant soul. 
 
 He took the helm from the captain and stood steering the ves- 
 sel and calling out his orders, with Lesbia close beside him, 
 holding her with his disengaged arm, drawing her near him as 
 the vessel pitched violently, drawing her nearer still when they 
 shipped a sea and a great fountain of spray enfolded them in a 
 dense cloud of salt water. 
 
 The thunder roared and rattled as if it began and ended close 
 beside them. Forked lightnings zigzagged amidst the rigging. 
 Sheet lightning enwrapped those two in a luminous atmosphere, 
 revealing faces that were pale with passion, lips that trembled 
 with emotion. There was but scant opportunity for speech, and 
 neither of these two felt the need of words. To be together, 
 bound nearer to each other than they had ever been yet, than 
 they might ever be again, in the midst of thunder and lightning 
 and dense clouds of spray. This was enough. Once when the 
 Cayman pitched with exceptional fury, when the thunder crashed 
 and roared loudest, Lesbia found her head lying on Montesma's 
 breast, and his arms round her, his lips upon her face. She did 
 not wrench herself from that forbidden embrace. She let those 
 lips kiss hers as never mortal man had kissed her before — but 
 an instant later, when Montesma's attention was distracted by 
 his duty as steersman, and he let her go, she slipped away in 
 the darkness, and melted from his sight and touch like a modern 
 Undine. He dared not leave the helm and follow her then. He 
 
3S6 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 sent one of the sailors below a little later, to make sure that she 
 was safe in her cabin ; but he saw her no more that night. 
 
 The storm abated soon after daybreak and the morning was 
 lovely, but Don Gomez and Lady Lesbia did not meet again 
 till the church bells on the island were ringing for morning ser- 
 vice, and then the lady was safe under the wing of her chaperon, 
 with her affianced husband in attendance upon her at the break- 
 fast table in the saloon. 
 
 She received Montesma with the faintest inclination of the 
 head and she carefully avoided all occasion of speech with him 
 during the leisurely, long, spun out meal. She was as white as 
 her muslin gown, and her eyes told of a sleepless night. She 
 talked a little, very little, to Lady Kirkbank and Mr. Smithson 
 • — to the Spaniard not at all. And yet Montesma was in no 
 manner dashed by this appearance of deep offense. So might 
 Francesca have looked the morning after that little scene over 
 the book ; yet she sacrificed her salvation for her lover, all the 
 same. It was a familiar stage upon a journey which Montesma 
 knew by heart. Here the inclination of the road was so many 
 degrees, more or less ; for this hill you are commanded to put 
 on an extra horse ; at this stage it is forbidden to go more than 
 twenty miles an hour, and so on, and so on. Montesma knew 
 every inch of the ground. He put on a little melancholy look 
 and talked very little. He had been on deck all night, and so 
 there was an excuse for his being quiet. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank related her impressions of the storm and 
 talked enough for four. She had suffered the pangs of purgatory, 
 but her natural cheeriness asserted itself and she made no moan- 
 ing about past agonies, which had exercised a really delightful 
 influence on her appetite. Mr. Smithson also was cheerful. He 
 had paid his annual tribute to Neptune and might hope to go 
 valiantly through the rest of the season. 
 
 " If I had stayed on deck I must have had my finger in the 
 pie, so I thought it better to go below and get a good night's 
 rest in the steward's cabin," he said, not caring to confess his 
 sufferings as frankly as Lady Kirkbank admitted hers. 
 
 After breakfast, which was prolonged till noon, Montesma 
 ^sked Smithson to smoke a cigarette on deck with him. 
 
 " I want to talk with you on a rather serious matter," he said. 
 
 Lesbia heard the words, and looked up with a frightened 
 glance. Could he mean to attempt anything desperate t Was 
 he going to confess the fatal truth to Horace Smithson, to tell 
 her affianced lover that she was untrue to her bond, that she 
 loved him, Montesma, as fondly as he loved her, that their two 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 357 
 
 souls had mingled like two flames fanned by the same current, 
 and thence a conflagration which must end in ruin if she were 
 not set free — free to follow where her heart had gone, free to 
 belong to that man whom her spirit chose for lord and master. 
 Her heart leapt at the hope that Montesma was going to do this, 
 that he was strong enough to break her bonds for her, powerful 
 and rich enough to secure her a brilliant future. Yet this last 
 consideration, which hitherto had been paramount, seemed now 
 of but little moment. To be with him, to belong to him, would 
 be enough for bliss. Albeit that in such a choice she forfeited 
 all that she had ever possessed or hoped for of earthly prosper- 
 ity. Adventurer, beggar, whatever he might be, she chose him 
 and loved him with all the strength of a weak soul newly awak- 
 ened to passionate feeling. 
 
 Unhappily for Lesbia Haselden, Montesma was not at all the 
 kind of a man to make so direct and open a course as that which 
 she imagined possible. 
 
 His business with Mr. Smithson was of quite a different kind. 
 
 " Smithson, do you know that you have an utterly incompe- 
 tent crew ? " he said, gravely, when they two were standing aft, 
 lighting their cigarettes. 
 
 " Indeed I do not. The men are all experienced sailors, and 
 the captain ranks high among yachtsmen." 
 
 " English yachtsmen are not particularly good judges of sail- 
 ors. I tell you your skipper is no sailor and his men are fools. 
 If it had not been for me the Cayman would have gone to pieces 
 on the rocks last night, and if you are to cross to St. Malo, as you 
 talk of doing, for the regatta there, you had better sack these 
 men and let me get you a South American crew. I know of a 
 fellow who is in London just now — the captain of a Rio Janeiro 
 steamer, who'll send you a crew of picked men if you give me 
 authority to telegraph to him." 
 
 " I don't like foreign sailors," said Smithson, looking perplexed 
 and worried, '' and I have perfect confidence in Wilkinson," 
 
 " Which is as much as to say that you consider me a liar ; go 
 to the bottom. your own way, mon ami; ce n'est pas mon affaire," 
 said Montesma, turning on his heel and leaving his friend to his 
 own devices. 
 
 Had he pressed the point Smithson would have suspected him 
 of some evil motive, and would have been resolute in his resist- 
 ance, but as he said no more about it Smithson began to feel 
 uncomfortable. 
 
 He was no sailor himself, knew absolutely nothing about the 
 navigation of his yacht, though he sometimes pretended to sail 
 
258 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 her ; and he had no power to judge of his skipper's capacity or 
 his men's seamanship. He had engaged the captain wholly on 
 the strength of the man's reputation, guaranteed by certain cer- 
 tificates which seemed to mean a great deal. But after all such 
 certificates might mean ver}^ little — such a reputation might be 
 no real guarantee. The sailors had been engaged by the cap- 
 tain, and their ruddy faces and thoroughly British appearance, 
 the exquisite cleanliness which they maintained in every detail 
 of the yacht, had seemed to Mr. Smithson the perfection of sea- 
 manship. 
 
 But it was not the less true that the cleanest of yachts, with 
 deck of spotless whiteness, sails of unsullied purity, brasses 
 shining and sparkling like gold fresh from the goldsmith's, might 
 be spiked upon a rock, or might founder on a sandbank, or heel 
 over under too much canvas. Mr. Smithson was inclined to 
 suspect any proposition of Montesma's, yet he was not the less 
 disturbed in mind by his assertion. 
 
 The day wore on and the yacht sailed merrily over a summer 
 sea. Mr. Smithson fidgeted' about the deck uneasily, watching 
 every movement of the sailors. No boat could be saiUng better 
 as it seemed to him ; but in such weather and over such waters 
 any boat must needs go easily. It was in the blackness of night, 
 amidst the fury of the storm, that Montesma's opinion had been 
 formed. Smithson began to think that his friend was right. The 
 sailors had honest countenances, but they looked horribly stupid. 
 Could men with such vacuous grins, such an air of imbecile good 
 nature, be capable of acting wisely in any terrible crisis — could 
 they have nerve and readiness, quickness, decision, all those 
 grand qualities which are needed by the seaman who has to con- 
 tend with the fury of the elements ? 
 
 Mr. Smithson and his guests had breakfasted too late for the 
 possibility of luncheon. They were in Cowes Roads by one 
 o'clock. A fleet of yachts had arrived during their absence and 
 the scene was full of life and gayety. Lady Lesbia held a levee 
 at afternoon tea, and had a crowd of her old admirers around her 
 — adorers whose presence in no wise disturbed Horace Smith- 
 son's peace. He would have been content that his \yife should 
 go through life with a herd of such worshipers following in her 
 footsteps ; he knew the aimless innocence, the almost infantine 
 simplicity of the typical "Johnnie, Chappie, Muscadin, Petit 
 Creve, Gommeux " — call him by what name you will. From these 
 he feared no evil. But in that one follower who gave no outward 
 token of his worship he dreaded peril. It was Montesma he 
 watched, while dragoons with close-cropped hair and imbecile 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 359 
 
 youths with heads rigid in four-inch collars were hanging about 
 Lady Lesbia's low bamboo chair, and administering obsequiously 
 to the small necessities of the tea-table. 
 
 It was while this tea-table business was going on that Mr. 
 Smithson took the opportunity of setting his mind at rest, were it 
 possible, as to the merits of Captain Wilkinson. Among his 
 visitors this afternoon there was the owner of three or four rac- 
 ing yachts — a man renowned for his victories at home and 
 abroad. 
 
 " I think you knew something of my captain, Wilkinson, be- 
 fore 1 engaged him," said Smithson, with assumed careless- 
 ness. 
 
 " I know every skipper on board every boat in the squadron," 
 answered his friend. " A good fellow, W^ilkinson — thoroughly 
 honest fellow." 
 
 " Honest, oh, yes, I know all about that. But how about his 
 seamanship ? His certificates were wonderfully good, but they 
 are not eveiything." 
 
 " Everything, my dear fellow," cried the other, " they are next 
 to nothing. But I believe Wilkinson is a tolerable sailor." 
 
 This was not encouraging. 
 
 *' He has never been unlucky, I believe ? " 
 
 " My dear Smithson, you are a great authority in the city, but 
 you are not very well up in the records of the yachting world, 
 or you would know that your Captain Wilkinson was skipper on 
 the Orinco when she ran aground on Chesil Bank, coming home 
 from Cherbourg regatta, fifteen lives lost, and the yacht, in less 
 than half an hour, ground to powaer. That was rather a bad 
 case, I remember ; for, though it was a tempestuous night, the 
 accident would never have happened if Wilkinson had not mis- 
 taken the lights. So you see his Trinity House papers didn't pre- 
 vent his going wrong." 
 
 Good heavens ! This was the strongest confirmation of Mon- 
 tesma's charge. The man was a stupid man, an incapable man, 
 a man to whose intelligence and care human life should never 
 be trusted. A fig for his honesty ! What would honesty be 
 worth in a hurricane off the Chesil Beach ? What would hon- 
 esty serve a ship pitted on one of the Jersey rocks ? Montesma 
 was right. If the Cayman was to make a trip to St. Malo she 
 must be navigated by competent men. Horace Smithson hated 
 foreign sailors, copper-faced ruffians with flashing black eyes 
 which seemed to threaten murder did you but say a rough word to 
 them. Sleek, raven-haired scoundrels, with bowie knives in 
 
36o PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 their girdles, ready for mutiny. But, after all, life is worth too 
 much to be risked for a prejudice — a sentiment. 
 
 Perhaps that St. Malo business might be avoided, and then 
 there need be no change in captain or crew. The yacht must 
 be safe enough lying at anchor in the roadstead. By and by 
 when the visitors had departed and Mr. Smithson was repose- 
 fully enjoying his tea by Lady Lesbia's side, he approached the 
 subject. 
 
 " Do you really care about crossing to St. Malo after this — 
 really prefer the idea to Ryde t " 
 
 " Infinitely," exclaimed Lesbia quickly, " Ryde would only be 
 Cowes over again — a lesser Cowes — and I thought when you 
 first proposed it that the plan was rather stupid, though I did 
 not want to be uncivil and say so. But I was delighted with 
 Don Gomez de Montesma's amendment, substituting St. Malo 
 for Ryde. In the first place the trip across will be delicious ; " 
 Lady Kirkbank gave a faint groan ; " and in the second I am 
 dying to see Brittany." 
 
 '* I doubt if you will highly appreciate St. Malo. It is a town 
 of many and various smells." 
 
 " But I want to smell those foreign smells of which one hears 
 so much. At least it is an experience. We need not be on 
 shore any longer than we like. And I want to see that fine rocky 
 coast, and Chateaubriand's tomb on the what's its name. So 
 nice to be buried in that way ; and I am told the bay and the 
 sands are magnificent." 
 
 " Then you have set your heart on going to St. Malo, and 
 would not like any change in our plans." 
 
 "Any change will be simply detestable," answered Lesbia, 
 all the more decidedly since she suspected a desire for change 
 on the part of Mr. Smithson. 
 
 She was in no amiable humor this afternoon. All her nerves, 
 every fiber of her being, seemed strained to their utmost tension. 
 She was irritated, tremulous with nervous excitement, inclined 
 to hate everybody, Mr. Smithson most of all. In her cabin a 
 little later on, when she was changing her gown for dinner, and 
 Kibble was somewhat slow and clum^sy in the lacing of the bod- 
 ice, she wrenched herself from the girl's hands, flung herself 
 into a chair and burst into a flood of passionate tears. 
 
 " Oh ! God ! that I were in one of those islands in the Car- 
 ibbean Sea — an island where Europeans never come — where I 
 might lie down among the ferns and sleep the rest of my life 
 away. I am sick to death of my life here, of the yacht, the peo- 
 ple — everything." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 361 
 
 " This air is too relaxing, Lady Lesbia," the girl murmured 
 soothingly, " and you didn't have your natural rest last night. 
 Shall I get you a nice strong cup of tea ? " 
 
 "Tea ! no. I have been living upon tea for the last twenty- 
 four hours. I have eaten nothing. My mouth is parched and 
 burning. Oh ! Kibble ! " flinging her head upon the girl's bux- 
 om arm, and letting it rest there, " what a happy creature you 
 are — not a care — not a care." 
 
 " I'm sure you can't have any cares, Lady Lesbia," said Kib- 
 ble with an incredulous smile, trying to smoothe the disordered 
 hair, anxious to make haste with the unfinished toilet, for it was 
 within a few minutes of eight. 
 
 " I am full of care. I am in debt — horribly in debt — getting 
 deeper and deeper every day — and I am going to sell myself to 
 the only man who can pay my debts and give me fine houses, and 
 finery like this," plucking at the crepe de chine gown, with its 
 flossy fringe, its delicate lace, a marvel of artistic expenditure 
 — a garment which looked simplicity itself, and which yet was so 
 cleverly contrived as to cost five-and-thirty guineas. The great- 
 est effects in it ought to have been studied with a microscope. 
 
 " But surely, dear Laby Lesbia, you won't marry Mr. Smithson 
 if you don t love him ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose love has anything to do with marriages in 
 society ? " 
 
 " Oh, Lady Lesbia, it would be so unkind to him, so cruel to 
 yourself." 
 
 " Cruel to myself. Yes, I am cruel to myself. I had the 
 chance of happiness a year ago, and I lost it. I have the chance 
 of happiness now — yes, of consummate bliss, and haven't the 
 courage to snatch at it. Take off this horrid gown, Kibble, my 
 head is splitting. I shan't go to dinner." 
 
 " Oh, Lady Lesbia, you are treading on the pearl embroidery," 
 remonstrated poor Kibble, as Lesbia kicked the new gown from 
 under her feet. 
 
 " What does it matter ! " she exclaimed with a bitter little 
 laugh. " It has not been paid for — perhaps it never will be." 
 
 The dinner was silent and gloomy. It was as if a star had 
 been suddenly blotted out of the sky. Smithson, ordinarily so 
 hospitable, had been too much disturbed in mind to ask any of 
 his friends to stay to dinner ; so there were only Lady Kirkbank, 
 who was too tired to be lively, and Montesma, who was inclined to 
 be thoughtful. Lady Lesbia's absence, and the idea that she 
 was ill, gave the feast almost a funeral air. 
 
 After dinner Smithson and Montesma sat in the bows, smoking 
 
362 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 their cigars and lazily watching the lights on sea and the lights 
 on shore ; these brilliant in the foreground, those dim in the dis- 
 tance. 
 
 " Vou can telegraph to your Rio Janeiro friend to-morrow 
 morning, if you like,"' said Smithson presently, " and tell him to 
 send you a first-rate skipper and crew. Lady Lesbia has made 
 up her mind to see St. Malo regatta, and with such a sacred 
 charge I can't be too careful." 
 
 " I'll be on shore by eight o'clock," answerecl Montesma. 
 " You have decided wisely. Your respectable English Wilkin- 
 son is an excellent man — but nothing would surprise me less 
 than his reducing your Cayman to matchwood in the next gale." 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 A NOTE OF ALARM. 
 
 That strange scene in the old house at Fellside made a pro- 
 found impression upon Lord Hartfield. He tried to disguise 
 his trouble, and did all in his power to seem gay and at perfect 
 ease in his wife's company ; but his mind was full of anxiety, 
 and Mary loved him too well to be for a moment in doubt as to 
 his feelings. 
 
 " There is something wrong. Jack," she said, while they were 
 breakfasting at a table in the veranda, with the lake and the hills 
 in front of them and the sweet morning air around them. " You 
 try to talk and be lively, but there is a little perpendicular wrinkle 
 in your forehead which I know as well as the letters of the alpha- 
 bet, and that little line means worry. I used to see it in the old 
 days when you were breaking your heart for Lesbia. Why can- 
 not you be frank and confide in me 1 It is your duty, sir, as 
 my husband." 
 
 " It is my duty to halve my burdens as well as my joys. How 
 do I know if those girlish shoulders are strong enough to bear 
 the weight of them ? " 
 
 " I can bear anything you can bear, and I won't be cheated 
 out of my share in your worries. If you were obliged to have 
 a tooth out I would have one out too, for company." 
 
 *' I hope the dentist would be too conscientious to allow that." 
 
 " Tell me your trouble, Hartfield," she said earnestly, leaning 
 across the table, bringing her grave, intelligent face near to 
 him. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 363 
 
 They were quite alone, he and she. The servants had done 
 their ministering. Behind them there was the empty dining- 
 room, in front of them the sun-lit panorama of lake and hill. 
 There could not be a safer place for telling secrets. 
 
 " Tell me what it is that worries you," Mary pleaded again. 
 
 " I will, dear. After all, perfect trust is best, nay, it is your 
 due, for you are brave enough and true enough to be trusted 
 with secrets that mean life and death. In a word, then, 
 Mary, the cause of my trouble is that old man we saw the other 
 night." 
 
 " Steadman's uncle } '' 
 
 " Do you really believe that he is Steadm.an's uncle ? " 
 
 " My grandmother told me so," answered Mary, reddening to 
 the roots of her hair. 
 
 To this girl, who was the very soul of truth, there was deep- 
 est shame in the idea that her kinswoman, the woman to whom 
 of all the world she most owed reverence and honor, could be 
 deemed capable of falsehood. 
 
 " Do you think my grandmother would tell me an untruth ? " 
 
 " I do not believe that man is a poor dependent, an old serv- 
 ant's kinsman, sheltered and cared for m this house for charity's 
 sake. Forgive me, Mary, if I doubt the word of one you love, 
 but there are positions in life in which, a man must judge for 
 himself. Would Mr. Steadman's kinsman be lodged as that old 
 man is lodged ? would he talk as that old man talks ? and last 
 and greatest perplexity of all, would he possess > a treasure of 
 gold and jewels which must be worth many thousands ? " 
 
 " But you cannot know for certain that those things are val- 
 uable — they may be rubbish that this poor old man has scraped 
 together and hoarded for years, glass jewels bought at country 
 fairs, and those rouleaux may contain lead or coppers." 
 
 '^ I do not think so, Mary. The stones had all the brilliancy 
 of valuable gems, and then there were others in the finest fili- 
 gree settings — goldsmith's work which bore the stamp of an 
 Eastern world. Take my word for it, that treasure came from 
 India, and it must have been brought to England by Lord Maule- 
 vrier. It may have existed all these years without your grand- 
 mother's knowledge. That is quite possible ; but it seems to me 
 impossible that such wealth should be within the knowledge and 
 the power of a pauper lunatic." 
 
 " But if that unhappy old man is not a relation of Steadman's, 
 supported here by my grandmother's benevolence, who can he 
 be, and why is he here ? " asked Mary. 
 
 "Oh, Molly dear, those are two questions which I cannot an- 
 
364 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 swer, and which yet ought to be answered somehow. Since last 
 night I have felt as if there were a dark cloud lowering over 
 this house — a cloud almost as terrible in its menace of danger 
 as a foreshadowing of fate in a Greek legend. For your sake, 
 for the honor of your face, for my own self-respect as your hus- 
 band, I feel that this mystery ought to be solved, and all dark 
 things made light before your grandmother's death. When she 
 is gone the master key to the past will be lost." 
 
 " But she will be spared for many years, I hope, spared to sym- 
 pathize with my happiness, and with Lesbia's." 
 
 " My dearest girl, we cannot hope that. The thread of her 
 life is worn very thin. It may snap at any moment. You can- 
 not look seriously in your grandmother's face and yet delude 
 yourself with the hope that she has years of life before 
 her." 
 
 " It will be very hard to part, just as she has begun to care 
 for me," said Mary, with her eyes full of tears. 
 
 " All such partings are hard, and your grandmother's life has 
 been so lonely and joyless that the memory of it must always 
 have a touch of pain. One cannot say of her as we can of the 
 happy — she has lived her life — all things have been given her 
 and she falls asleep at the close of a long and glorious day. For 
 some reason, which I cannot understand, Lady Maulevrier's life 
 has been a prolonged sacrifice." 
 
 " She has always given us to understand that she was fond of 
 Fellside and that this secluded life suited her," said Mary, med- 
 itatively. 
 
 " I cannot help doubting her sincerity on that point. Lady 
 Maulevrier is too clever a woman, and forgive me, dear, if I add 
 too worldly a woman, to be content to live out of the world. 
 The bird must have chafed its breast against the bars of the cage 
 many and many a time, when you thought that all was peace. 
 Be sure, Mary, that your grandmother had a powerful motive 
 for spending all her days in this place, and I can but think that 
 the old man we saw the other night was a factor in that motive. 
 Do you remember telling me of her Ladyship's vehem.ent anger 
 when she heard you had made the acquaintance of her pen- 
 sioner ? " 
 
 " Yes, she was very angry," Mary answered with a troubled 
 look. " I never saw her so angry — she was almost beside her 
 self— said the harshest things to me— talked as if I had done 
 some dreadful mischief." 
 
 " Would she have been so moved, do you think, unless there 
 was some fatal secret mvolved in that man's presence here ? " 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 365 
 
 " I hardly know what to think ; tell me everything. What is 
 it that you fear — what is it that you suspect ? " 
 
 " To tell you my fears and suspicions is to tell you a family 
 secret that has been kept from you out of kindness all the years 
 of your life — and I hardly think I could bring myself to that if I 
 did not know what the world is, and how many good-natured 
 friends Lady Hartfield will meet in society by and by, ready to 
 tell her by hints and inuendoes that her grandfather, the Gov- 
 ernor of Madras, came back to England under a cloud of dis- 
 grace." 
 
 *' My poor grandfather ! How dreadful," exclaimed Mary, 
 pale with pity and shame. *' Did he deserve his disgrace, poor 
 unhappy creature — or was he the victim of false accusation ? " 
 
 " I can hardly tell you that, Mary, any more than I can tell 
 whether Warren Hastings deserved the abuse that was wreaked 
 upon him at one time, or the acquittal that gave the lie to his 
 slanderers in after years. The events occurred forty years ago — 
 the story was only half known then, and like all such stories 
 formed the basis for every kind of exaggeration and perver- 
 sion." 
 
 " Does Maulevrier know ? " faltered Mary. 
 
 " Maulevrier knows all that is known by the general public, 
 and no more." 
 
 " And you have married the granddaughter of a disgraced 
 man," said Mary, with a piteous look. " Did you know — when 
 you married me .'' " 
 
 " As much as I know now, dear love. If you had been Jona- 
 than Wild's granddaughter you would have been just as dear to 
 me. I married you, dearest ; I love you, I believe in you. All 
 the grandfathers in Christendom would not shake my faith by 
 one tittle." 
 
 She threw herself into his arms and sobbed upon his breast. 
 But sweet as this assurance of his love was to her, she was not 
 the less stricken by shame at the thought of possible infamy in 
 the past, a shameful memory forever brooding over her name in 
 the present. 
 
 " Society never forgets a scandal," she said. " I have heard 
 Maulevrier say that." 
 
 " Society has a long memory for other people's sins, but it 
 only avenges its own wrongs. Give the wicked fairy. Society, a 
 bad dinner, or leave her out of your invitation list for a ball, 
 and she will twit you with the crime or the misfortunes of a re- 
 mote ancestor — she will go about talking of your grandfather 
 the leper, or your great aunt who ran away with her footman. 
 
366 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 But so long as the wicked fairy gets all she wants out of you, 
 she cares not a straw for the misdeeds of past generations." 
 
 He spoke lightly, laughingly almost, and then he ordered the 
 dog-cart to be brought round immediately, and he drove Mary 
 across the hills toward Langdale to bring the color back to her 
 blanched cheeks. He brought her home in time to give hev 
 grandmother an hour for letter-writing before luncheon, while he 
 walked up and down the terrace below Lady Maulevrier's win- 
 dows, meditating the course he was to take. 
 
 He was to leave Westmoreland next day to take his place in 
 the House of Lords during the last important debate of the ses- 
 sion. He made up his mind that before he left he would seek 
 an interview with Lady Maulevrier, and boldly ask her to ex- 
 plain the mystery of that old man's presence at Fellside. He 
 was her kinsman, by marriage, and he had sworn to honor her 
 and to care for her as a son ; and as a son he would urge her to 
 confide in him, to unburden her conscience of any dark secret, 
 and to make the crooked things straight before she was called 
 away. 
 
 While he was forecasting this interview, meeting imaginary ob- 
 jections, arguing points which might have to be argued, a serv- 
 ant came out to him with an ocher envelope on a little silver 
 tray — that unpleasant-looking envelope which seems always a 
 presage of trouble, great or small. 
 
 " Lord Maulevrier, Albany, to Lord Hartfield, Fellside, Gras- 
 mere. 
 
 " For God's sake, come to me at once. I am in great trouble, 
 not on my own account, but about a relation." 
 
 A relation — except his grandmother and two sisters Maulevrier 
 had no relation for whom he cared a straw. This message 
 must have relation to Lesbia. Was she ill — dying, the victim of 
 some fatal accident, runaway horses, boat upset, train smashed. 
 There was something, and Maulevrier appealed to his nearest 
 and best friend. Tiiere was no withstanding such an appeal. 
 It must be answered, and immediately. 
 
 Lord Hartfield went into the library and wrote his reply mes- 
 sage, which consisted of six words : 
 
 " Going to you by first train," 
 
 The next train left for Windermere at three. There was just 
 time to get a fresh horse put in the dog-cart and a Gladstone 
 bag packed. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 367 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 PRIVILEGED INFORMATION. 
 
 Lord Hartfield did not arrive at Euston Square imtil 
 nearly eleven o'clock at night. A hansom deposited him at the 
 entrance to the Albany just as the clock on St. James's Church 
 chimed the hour. He found only Maulevrier's valet. His Lord- 
 ship had waited indoors all the evening, and had only gone out a 
 quarter of an hour ago. He had gone to the Argus, and had 
 begged that Lord Hartfield would be kind enough to follow him 
 there. 
 
 Lord Hartfield was not fond of the Argus, and indeed deemed 
 that lively place of rendezvous a very dangerous sphere for his 
 friend Maulevrier ; but in the face of Maulevrier's telegram 
 there; was no time to be lost, so he walked across Piccadilly and 
 down St. James's Street to the fashionable Uttle club in St. 
 James's Place, where the men were dropping in after the thea- 
 ters and dinners, and where sheafs of bank-notes were being ex- 
 changed for those various colored counters which represented 
 divers values, from the respectable " pony " to the modest 
 " chip." 
 
 Maulevrier was in the first room Hartfield looked into, stand- 
 ing behind some men who were playing. 
 
 "That's something like friendship," he exclaimed, when he 
 saw Lord Hartfi.eld, and then he hooked his arm through his 
 friend's, and led him off to the dining-room. 
 
 " Come and have some supper, old fellow," he said, " and I 
 can tell you my troubles while you are eating it. James, bring 
 us a broil, and a lobster, and a bottle of Heidseck, number 27, 
 you knew." 
 
 " Yes, my Lord." 
 
 " Sorry to find you in this den, Maulevrier," said Lord Hart- 
 field. 
 
 " Haven't touched a card. Haven't done half an hour's punt- 
 ing this season. But it's a kind of habit with me to wander in 
 here now and then. I know so many of the members. One 
 poor devil lost nine thousand one night last week. Rather 
 rough upon him, wasn't it ? All ready money at this shop, don't 
 you know." 
 
 " Thank God, I know nothing about it. And now, Maulevrier, 
 what is wrong and with whom? " 
 
 '• Everything is wrong, and with my sister Lesbia." 
 
368 PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 " Good heavens, what do you mean ? " 
 
 " Only this, that there is a fellow after her whose very name 
 means ruin to women — a Spanish American adventurer — reck- 
 less, handsome, a gambler, seducer, *duelist, daredevil. The 
 man she is to marry seems to have no spunk to defend her. 
 Everybody at Goodwood saw the game that was being played, 
 everybody at Cowes is watching the cards, betting on the result. 
 Yes,' great God, the men at the Squadron Club are staking iheir 
 money upon my sister's character — even monkeys that she bolts 
 with Montesma — five to two against the marriage with Smithson 
 ever coming off.'"' 
 " Is this true ? " 
 
 " It is as true as your marriage with Molly, as true as your 
 loyalty to me. I was told of it all this morning at the White 
 Elephant by a man I can rely upon, a really good fellow, who 
 would not leave me in the dark about my sister's danger when 
 all the smoking rooms in Pall Mall were sniggering about it. 
 My first impulse was to take the first train for Cowes ; but then 
 I knew if I went alone I should let my temper get the better of 
 me. I should knock somebody down — throw somebody out of 
 the window — make a devil of a scene. And this would be fa- 
 tal for Lesbia. I wanted your counsel, your cool head, your 
 steady common sense. ' Not a step forward without Jack,' I 
 said to myself, so I bolted off and sent that telegram. It re- 
 lieved my feelings a little, but I've had a wretched day." 
 
 " Waiter, bring me a Bradshaw or an A. B. C," said Lord 
 Hartfield. 
 
 He had eaten nothing but a biscuit since breakfast, but he 
 was ready to go off at once, supperless ; if there were a train to 
 carry him. Unluckily there was no train. The mail had 
 started. Nothing till five o'clock next morning. 
 
 " Eat your supper, old fellow," said Maulevrier. "After all, 
 the danger may not be so desperate as I fancied this morning. 
 Slander is the favorite amusement of the age we live in. We 
 must allow a margin for exaggeration." 
 
 " A very liberal margin," answered Hartfield. " No doubt 
 the man who warned you meant honestly, but this scandal may 
 have grown out of the merest trifles. The feebleness of the 
 masher's brain is only exceeded by the foulness of the masher's 
 tongue. I dare say this rumor about Lady Lesbia has its be- 
 ginning and end among the masher species." 
 
 " I hope so, but — I have seen those two together— I met them 
 at Victoria one evening after Goodwood. Old Kirkbank was 
 scuffling on ahead, carrying Smithson with her, absorbing his 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 369 
 
 attention by fussification about her carriage. Lesbia and that 
 Cuban devil M^ere in the rear. They looked as if they had the 
 world all to themselves. Faust and Marguerite in the garden 
 were not in it for the expression of intense absorbing feeling, 
 compared with those two. I'm not an intellectual party, but I 
 know something of human nature, and I know when a man and 
 woman are in love with each other. It is one of the things that 
 never has been, that never can be, hidden." 
 
 " And you say this Montesma is a dangerous man." 
 " Deadly." 
 
 " Well, we must lose no time. When we are on the spot it 
 will be easy to find out the truth, and it will be your duty, if 
 there be danger, to warn Lesbia and her future husband." 
 
 " I would much rather shoot the Cuban," said Maulevrier. 
 " I never knew much good to come of a warning in such a case 
 — it generally precipitates matters. If I could play ecarte with 
 him at the club, find him sporting an extra king, throw my 
 cards in his face and accept his challenge for exchange of shots 
 on the sands beyond Cherbourg — there would be something 
 like satisfaction." 
 
 " You say the man is a gambler." 
 
 " Report says something worse of him. Report says he is a 
 cheat." 
 
 *' We must not be dependent upon society gossip," replied 
 Lord Hartfield. " I have an idea, Maulevrier. The more we 
 know about this man — Montesma, I think you called him — " 
 " Gomez de Montesma." 
 
 *'The more fully we are acquainted with Don Gomez de 
 Montesma's antecedents the better we shall be able to cope 
 with him if we come to handy-grips. It's too late to start for 
 Cowes, but it is not too late to do something. Fitzpatrick, the 
 political economist, spent a quarter of a century in South Amer- 
 ica. He is a very old friend — knew my father — and I can ven- 
 ture to knock at his door after midnight — all the more as I know 
 he is a night worker. He is very likely to enlighten us about 
 your Cuban hidalgo." 
 
 " You shall finish your supper before I let you stir. After 
 that you may do what you like. I was always a child in your 
 hands, Jack, whether I was climbing a mountain or crossing the 
 Horse Shoe Fall. I consider the business in your hands now. 
 I'll go with you wherever you like, and do what you tell me. 
 Whan you want me to kick anybody, or fight anybody, you can 
 give me the office and I'll do it. I know that Lesbia's interests 
 are safe in your hands. You on*"'" cared very much for her. 
 24 
 
370 PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 You are her brother-in-law now, and, next to me, you are her 
 natural protector, taking into account that her future husband 
 is a cad and doesn't score." 
 
 " Meet me at Waterloo at five o'clock to-morrow morning, 
 and we'll go down to Cowes together. I'm off to find Fitzpat- 
 rick. Good-night ! " 
 
 So they parted. Lord Hartfield walked across the Park to 
 Great George Street, where Mr. Fitzpatrick had chambers of a 
 semi-official character on the first floor of a solemn-looking old 
 house, spacious, gloomy without and within, walls somber with 
 the subdued coloring of decorations half a century old. 
 
 The lighted windows of those first floor rooms told Lord 
 Hartfield that he was not too late. He rang the bell, which 
 was answered with the briefest delay by a sleepy-looking clerk, 
 who had been taking shorthand notes for Mr. Fitzpatrick's 
 great book on Protection versus Free Trade. The clerk looked 
 sleepy, but his employer had as brisk an air as if he were just 
 beginning the day, although he had been workmg without inter- 
 mission since nine o'clock that evening, and had done a long 
 day's work before dinner. He was walking up and down the 
 large unluxurious room, half office, half library, smoking a cigar. 
 Upon a large table in the middle of the room stood two power- 
 ful reading lamps with green shades, illuminating a chaotic 
 mass of books, heaped and scattered all oyer the table, save 
 just on that spot between the two lamps which accommodated 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick's blotting-pad and inkpot, a pewter inkpot which 
 held about a pint. 
 
 " How d'ye do, Hartfield ? Glad you've looked me up at last," 
 said the Irishman, as if a midnight call were the most natural 
 thing in the world. " Just come from the House ? " 
 
 " No ; I've just come" from Westmoreland. I thought I should 
 find you among those everlasting books ^ of yours, late as it is. 
 Can I have a few words alone with you ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; Morgan, you can go away for a bit." 
 
 " Home, sir ? "■ 
 
 " Home— well, yes, I suppose it's late. You look sleepy. I 
 should have been glad to finish the chapter on beet-root sugar 
 to-night, but it may stand over for the morning. Be sure you're 
 early." 
 
 "Yes, sir," the clerk responded with a faint sigh. 
 
 He was paid handsomely for late hours, liberally rewarded 
 ■for his shorthand services ; and yet he wished the great Fitz- 
 patrick had not been quite so industrious. 
 
 " Now, my dear Hartfield, what can I do for you ? " asked 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 371 
 
 Fitzpatrick, when the clerk had gone. " I can see by your 
 face that you've something serious in hand. Can I help 
 you?" 
 
 " You can, I believe, in a very material wa}-. You were five 
 and twenty years in Spanish America ? " 
 
 '' Rather more than less." 
 
 " Here, there and everywhere." 
 
 " Yes, there is not a city in South America that I have not 
 lived in — for something between a day and a year." 
 
 " You know something about most men of any mark in that 
 part of the world, I conclude ? " 
 
 " It was my mission to know men of all kinds. I had my mis- 
 sion from the Spanish government. I was engaged to examine 
 the condition of commerce throughout the colony, the working of 
 protection as against free trade, and so on. Strange, by the bye, 
 that Cuba, the last place to foster the slave-trade, was of all 
 spots of the earth the first to carry free-trade principles into 
 practical effect, long before they were recognized in any Euro- 
 pean country." 
 
 " Strange to me that you should speak of Cuba so soon after 
 my coming in," answered Lord Hartfield. " I am here to ask 
 you to help me to find out the antecedents of a man who hails 
 from that island." 
 
 " I ought to know something about him, whoever he is," re- 
 plied Mr. Fitzpatrick briskly. " I spent six months in Cuba 
 not very long before my return to England. Cuba is one of my 
 freshest memories, and I have a pretty tight memory for facts, 
 names and figures. Never could remember two lines of poetry 
 in my life." 
 
 " Did you ever hear of or meet with a man called Montesma 
 — Gomez de Montesma ? " 
 
 " Couldn't have stopped a month in Havana without hearing 
 something about that gentleman," answered Fitzpatrick. " I 
 hope he isn't a friend of yours and that you have not lent him 
 money?" 
 
 " Neither ; but I want to know all you can tell me about 
 him." 
 
 " You shall have it in black and white out of my Cuban note- 
 book," replied the other, unlocking a drawer in the ponderous 
 official table. " I always take notes of anything worth record- 
 ing on the spot. A man is a fool who trusts to memory where 
 personal character is at stake. Montesma is as well known at 
 Havana as the Morso Fort or the Tacon Theater. I have heard 
 stories enough about him to fill a big volume ; but all the facts 
 
372 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 recorded there," striking the morocco, cover of the note-book, 
 " have been thoroughly sifted. I can vouch for them." 
 
 He looked at the index, found the page, and handed the book 
 to Lord Hartfield. 
 
 " Read for yourself," he said quietly. 
 
 Lord Hartfield read three or four pages of plain statements as 
 to the various adventures by sea and land in which Gomez de 
 Montesma had figured, and the reputation which he bore in 
 Cuba and on the Main. 
 
 "You can vouch for that," he said at last, after a long silence. 
 
 *' For every syllable." 
 
 " The story of his marriage ? " 
 
 *' Gospel truth — I knew the lady." 
 
 " And the rest ? " 
 
 " All true." 
 
 " A thousand thanks. I know now upon what ground I stand. 
 I have to save an innocent, high-bred girl from the clutches of 
 a consummate scoundrel." 
 
 " Shoot him, and shoot her too, if there's no better way of 
 saving her. It will be an act of mercy," said Mr. Fitzpatrick, 
 without hesitation. 
 
 CHAPTER XLH. 
 
 " SHALL IT BE ? " 
 
 While Lord Hartfield sat in his friend's office in Great George 
 Street reading the life story of Gomez de Montesma, told with 
 the cruel precision and the unvarnished language of a criminal 
 indictment, the hero of that history was gliding round the spa- 
 cious ball-room of the Cowes Club, with Lady Lesbia Haselden's 
 dark brown head almost reclining on his shoulder, her violet 
 eyes looking up at his every now and then shyly, entrancingly, 
 as he bent his head to talk to her. 
 
 The squadron ball was in full swing between midnight and 
 the first hour of the morning. The flowers had not lost their 
 freshness, the odors of dust and feverish human breath had not 
 yet polluted the atmosphere. The windows were open to the 
 purple night, the purple sea. The stars seemed to be close 
 outside the veranda, shining on purpose for the dancers ; and 
 these two — the man tall, pale, dark, with flashing eyes and short, 
 sleek, raven hair, small head, noble bearing ; the girl divinely 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 373 
 
 lovely in her marble purity of complexion, her classical grace of 
 form — these two were, as every one avowed and acknowledged, 
 the handsomest couple in the room. 
 
 " We're none of us in it compared with them," said a young 
 naval commander to his partner, whereupon the young lady 
 looked somewhat sourly, and replied that Lady Lesbia's feat- 
 ures were undeniably regular and her complexion good, but 
 that she was wanting in soul. 
 
 " Is she t " asked the sailor, incredulously. " Look at her 
 now. What do you call that, if it isn't soul ? " 
 
 " I call it simply disgraceful," answered his partner, sharply 
 turning away her head. 
 
 Lesbia was looking up at the Spaniard, her lips faintly parted, 
 all her face listening eagerly as she caught some whispered word, 
 breathed among the soft ripples of her hair from lips that almost 
 touched her brow. People cannot go on waltzing for ten min- 
 utes in a dead silence, like automatic dancers. There must be 
 conversation. Only it is better that the hps should do most of 
 the talking. When the eyes have so much to say society is apt 
 to be censorious. 
 
 Mr. Smithson was smoking a cigarette on the lawn with an- 
 other city magnate. A man to whom tobacco is a necessity can- 
 not always be on his guard ; but it is quite possible that in the 
 present state of Lady Lesbia's feelings Smithson would have 
 had no restraining influence had he been ever so watchful. To 
 what act in the passion-drama had her love come to-night as 
 she floated round the room, with her head inclined toward her 
 lover's breast, the strong pulsation of his heart sounding in her 
 ear like the rhythmical beat of the basses yonder in society's 
 last favorite waltz t Was there still the uncertainty as to the 
 denouement which marks the third act of a good play, or was 
 there the dread foreboding, the sense of impending doom which 
 should stir the spectators with pity and terror as the fourth act 
 hurries to its passionate close ? Who could tell } She had been 
 full of life and energy on board the yacht during the racing, in 
 which she seemed to take an ardent interest. The Cayman had 
 followed the racers for three hours through a freshening sea, 
 much to Lady Kirkbank's disgust, and Lesbia had been the soul 
 of the party. The same yesterday. The yacht had only got 
 back to Cowes in time for the ball, and all had been hurry and 
 excitement while the ladies dressed, and crossed to the club, 
 the spray dashing over their opera mantles, poor Lady Kirk- 
 bank's complexion yellow with mal de mer, in spite of a double 
 coating of Blanc de Fedora, the last fashionable cosmetic. 
 
374 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 To-night Lesbia was curiously silent, depressed even, as it 
 seemed to those who were interested in observing her, and all 
 the world is interested in a famous beauty. She was very pale, 
 her lips even colorless, and the large violet eyes and the firmly 
 penciled brows above gave color in her face. She looked like 
 a marble statue, the eyes and eyebrows accentuated with exper- 
 imental touches of color. Those lovely eyes had a heavy look, 
 as of trouble, weariness, nay, absolute distress. 
 
 Never had she looked less brilliant than to-night, never had 
 she looked more beautiful. It was the loveliness of a newly 
 awakened soul. The wonderful Pandora casket of life, with its 
 infinite evil, its little good, had given up its secret. She knew 
 what passionate love really meant. She knew what such love 
 mostly means — self-sacrifice, surrender of the world's wealth, sev- 
 erance from friends, the breaking of all old ties. To love as 
 she loved means the crossing of a river more fatal than the Ru- 
 bicon, the casting of a die more desperate than that which Caesar 
 flung upon the board when he took up arms against the Republic. 
 
 The river was not yet crossed, but her feet were on the mar- 
 gin, wet with the ripple of the stream. The fatal die was not 
 yet cast, but the dice-box was in her hand ready for the throw. 
 
 They danced together — not too often, three waltzes out of 
 sixteen — but when they were so waltzing they were the cynosure 
 of the room. That betting of which Maulevrier had heard was 
 rife to-night, and the odds upon the Cuban had gone up. It 
 was nine to four that those two would be over the border before 
 the week was out. 
 
 Mr. Smithson was not neglectful of his affianced. He took 
 her into the supper room, where she drank some Moselle cup, 
 but eat nothing. He sat out three or four waltzes with her on 
 the lawn, listening to the murmur of the sea, and talking very 
 little. 
 
 " You are looking wretched ill to-night, Lesbia," he said, after 
 a dismal silence. 
 
 " I am sorry that I should put you to shame by my bad looks," 
 she answered, with that keen acidity of tone which indicates ir- 
 ritated nerves. 
 
 " You know that I don't mean that ; you are always lovely, 
 always the loveliest everywhere ; but I don't like to see you so 
 ghastly pale." 
 
 " I suppose I am over-fatigued, that I have done too much in 
 London and here. Life in Westmoreland was very different," 
 she added, with a sigh, and a touch of wonder that the Lesbia 
 Haselden, whose methodical life had never been stirred by a 
 
PHAMTOM FORTUNE. 375 
 
 ruffle of passion, could have been the same flesh and blood — yes, 
 verily, the same woman, whose heart throbbed so vehemently 
 to-night, whose brain seemed on lire. 
 
 " Are you sure there is nothing the matter ? " he asked, with 
 a faint quiver of the voice. 
 
 '' What should there be the matter ? " 
 
 " Who can say ? God knows that I know no cause for evil. I 
 am honest enough and faithful enough, Lesbia. But your face 
 to-night is like a presage of calamity, like the dull, livid sky that 
 goes before a thunderstorm." 
 
 " I hope there is no thunderbolt coming," she answered lightly. 
 " What very tall talk about a headache, for really that is all 
 that ails me. Hark, they have begun ' My Queen.' I am en- 
 gaged for this waltz." 
 
 " I am sorry for that." 
 
 " So am I. I would much rather have stayed out here." 
 
 Two hours later, in the steely morning light, when sea and 
 land and sky had a metallic look as if lit by electricity, Lady 
 Lesbia stood with her chaperon and her affianced husband on 
 the landing stage belonging to the club, ready to step into the boat 
 in which three swarthy seamen in red shirts and caps were to 
 row them back to the yacht. Mr. Smithson drew the warm sor- 
 tie de bal, with its gold-colored satin hning and white-fox bor- 
 der, closer round Lesbia's slender form. 
 
 " You are shivering," he said ; " you ought to have warmer 
 wraps." 
 
 " This is warm enough for St. Petersburg. I am only tired 
 — very tired." 
 
 " The Cayman will rock you to sleep." 
 
 Don Gomez was standing close by, waiting for his host. 
 The two men were to walk up the hill to Formosa, a villa with 
 a classic portico, delightfully situated above the town. 
 
 " What time are we to come to breakfast ? " asked Mr. Smith- 
 son. 
 
 "Not too early, in mercy's name. Two o'clock in the after- 
 noon, three, four — why not make it five, combine breakfast 
 with afternoon tea," exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, with a tremen- 
 dous yawn. " I never was so thoroughly fagged. I feel as if I 
 had been beaten with sticks, basti— what's its name ? " 
 
 She was leaning all her weight upon Mr. Smithson as he 
 handed her down the steps and into the boat. Her normal weight 
 was not a trifle, and this morning she was heavy with champagne 
 and sleep. Carefully as Smithson supported her, she gave a 
 lurch at the bottom of the steps and plunged ponderously into 
 
376 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 the boat, which dipped and careened under her, whereat she 
 shrieked and implored Mr. Smithson to save her. 
 
 All this occupied some minutes, and gave Lesbia and the 
 Cuban just time for a few words that had to be said somehow. 
 
 "Good-night," said Montesma as they clasped hands, "good- 
 night," and then in a lower voice he said, " Well, have you de- 
 cided at last t Shall it be ? " 
 
 She looked at him for a moment or so, pale in the starlight, 
 and then murmured an almost inaudible syllable — 
 
 " Y^s." 
 
 He bent quickly and pressed his lips upon her gloved hand, 
 and when Mr. Smithson looked round they two were standing 
 apart, Montesma in a listless attitude, as if tired of waiting for 
 his host. 
 
 It was Smithson who handed Lesbia into the boat and ar- 
 ranged her wraps, and hung over her tenderly as he performed 
 those small offices. 
 
 " Now, really," he asked, just before the boat put off, " when 
 are we to be with you to-morrow t " 
 
 "Lady Kirkbank says not till afternoon tea, but I think you 
 may come a few hours earlier. I am not at all sleepy." 
 
 " You look as if you needed sleep badly," answered Smith- 
 son. " I'm afraid you are not half careful enough of yourself. 
 Good-night ! " 
 
 The boat was gliding off, the oars dipping as he spoke. How 
 swiftly it shot from his ken, flashing in and out among the 
 yachts, where the lamps were burning dimly in that clear radiance 
 of new bornday. 
 
 Montesma gave a tremendous yawn as he took out his cigar- 
 case, and he and Mr. Smithson did not say twenty words be- 
 tween them during the walk to Formosa, where servants were 
 sitting up, lamps burning, a great silver tray with brandy, soda, 
 liqueurs, coffee in readiness. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 "alas, for sorrow is all the end of this." 
 
 Lady Kirkbank retired to her cabin directly she got on board 
 the Cayman. 
 
 "Good-night, child! I am more than half asleep," she said, 
 " and I think if there were to be an earthquake an hour hence 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 377 
 
 I should hardly hear it. Go to your berth directly, Le^hia ; you 
 look positively awful. I have seen girls look bad after balls be- 
 fore now, but I never saw such a specter as you look this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Poor Georgie's own complexion left something to be desired. 
 The Blanc de Fedora had been a brilliant success for the first 
 two hours ; after that the warm room began to tell upon it, and 
 there came a greasiness, then a streakiness, and now all that 
 was left of an alabaster skin was a livid patch of purplish paint 
 here and there upon a crowsfoot ground. The eyebrows, too, 
 had given in, and narrow lines of Vandyke brown meandered 
 down Lady Kirkbank's cheeks. The frizzy hair had gone alto- 
 gether wrong, and had a wild look, suggestive of the witches in 
 Macbeth, and the scraggy neck and poor old shoulders showed 
 every year of their age in the ghastly morning light. 
 
 Lesbia waited in the saloon till Lady Kirkbank had bolted 
 herself into her cabin, and then she went up to the deck 
 wrapped in her satin-lined, fur-bordered cloak, and coiled her- 
 self up in a bamboo arm-chair, and nestled her bare head into a 
 Turkish pillow, and tried to sleep there, with the cool morning 
 breeze blowing upon her burning forehead and the plish-plash 
 of sea water soothing her ear. 
 
 There were only three or four sailors on deck, weird, almost 
 diabolical-looking creatures, Lesbia thought, in striped shirts, 
 with bare arms of a smning bronze complexion, flashing black 
 eyes, sleek raven hair, a sinister look. What species of men 
 they were, Meztizoes, Coolies, Yucatekes, she knew not, but she 
 felt that they were something wild and strange, and their pres- 
 ence filled her with a vague fear. He. whose influence now 
 ruled her life, had told her that these men were born mariners, 
 and that she was twenty times safer with them than when the 
 yacht had been under the control of those honest, grinning, red- 
 whiskered English Jack Tars. But she liked the English sailors 
 best, all the same, and she shrank from the faintest contact with 
 these tawny-visaged strangers, plucking away the train of her 
 gov/n as they passed her chair, lest they should brush against 
 her drapery,^ 
 
 On deck this morning, with only those dark faces near, she 
 had a sense of loneliness, of helplessness, of abancTonlnent even? 
 Unbidden the image of her home at Grasmere flashed into her 
 mind— all things so calm, so perfectly ordered, such a sense of 
 safety, of home — no peril, no temptation, no fever; only peace, 
 and she had grown sick to death of peace. She had prayed for 
 tempest, and the tempest had come. 
 
378 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 There was a neavenly quiet in the air in the early summer 
 morning, only the creaking of a spar, the scream of a seagull 
 now and then. How pale the lamps were growing on board the 
 yachts. Paler still, yellow, and dim and blurred yonder in the 
 town. The eastward facing windows were golden with the ris- 
 ing sun. Yes, this was morning. The yachts were moving away 
 yonder, majestical, swan-like, white sails shining against the 
 blue. 
 
 She closed her eyes and tried to sleep ; but sleep would not 
 come. She was always listening — listening for the dip of oars, 
 listening for a snatch of melody from a mellow baritone whose 
 every accent she knew so well. 
 
 It came at last, the sound her soul longed for. She lay among 
 her cushions with closed eyes, listening, drinking in those rich 
 ripe notes as they came nearer and nearer, to the measure of 
 dipping oars, 
 
 *' La donna e mobile — " 
 
 Nearer and nearer, until the little boat ground against the 
 hull. She lifted her heavy eyelids as Montesma leapt over the 
 gunwale, almost into her arms. He was at her side, kneeling 
 by her low chair, kissing the little hands, chill with the fresh- 
 ness of the morning. 
 
 " My own, my very own," he murmured passionateh^ 
 
 He cared no more for those copper-faced Helots yonder than 
 if they had been made of wood. He had fate m his own hands 
 now, as it seemed to him. He went to the skipper and gave 
 him some orders in Spanish, and then the sails were unfurled, 
 the Cayman spread her broad white wings and went off among 
 those other yachts which were gliding, gliding, gliding out to 
 sea, melting from Cowes Roads like a vision that fadeth with the 
 broad light of morning. 
 
 When the sails were up and the yacht was running merrily 
 through the water, Montesma went back to Lady Lesbia and 
 they sat side by side, gilded and glorified in the vivid lights of 
 sunrise, talking as they had never talked before, her head upon 
 his shoulder, a smile of ineffable peace upon her lips, as of a 
 weary child that has found rest. 
 
 They were sailing for Havre, and at Havre they were to be 
 married by the English chaplain, and from Havre they were to 
 sail for Havana and live there ever afterward in a fairy-tale 
 dream of bliss, broken only by an annual visit to Paris, just 
 to buy gowns and bonnets. Surrendered were all Lesbia's am- 
 bitious hopes — forgotten — gone her desire to reign princess paiF 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 379 
 
 amount in the kingdom of fashion — her thirst to be wealthiest 
 among the we Ithy — gone — forgotten. Her dreams now were 
 of tlie dolce f-.r niente of a tropical climate, cigarettes, coffee, 
 nights spent in a foreign opera house, the languid reposeful life 
 of a Spanish dona — with him. For his sake that she had modi- 
 fied all her ideas of life. With him she would have been content 
 to dwell in the tents of the Patagonians on the wild and snow- 
 clad Pampas. A love which was strong enough to make her 
 sacrifice duty, the world, her fair fame as a well-bred woman, 
 was a love that recked but little of the paths along which her 
 lover's hand was to lead her. For him, to be with him, she re- 
 nounced the world. The rest did not count. 
 
 The summer hours glided past them. The Cayman was far 
 out at sea ; all the other yachts had vanished and they were alone 
 amidst the blue, with only a solitary three-master yonder, on the 
 edge of the horizon. More than once Lesbia had talked of go- 
 ing below to change her ball gown for the attire of everyday life, 
 but each time her lover had detained her a little longer, a few 
 more words. Lady Kirkbank would be astir presently and there 
 would be no more solitude for them till they were married and 
 could shake her off altogether. So Lesbia stayed, and those two 
 drank the cup of bliss, hushed by the monotonous sing song of 
 the sea, the rhythm of the swinging sails. But now it was broad 
 morning. The hour w^hen society, however late it may keep its 
 revels over night, is apt to awaken, were it only to call for a 
 strong cup of tea and to turn again on the pillow of lassitude 
 after that refreshment, like the sluggard of the Holy Writ. At 
 ten o'clock the sun sent his golden arrows across the silken cov- 
 erlet of her berth and awakened Lady Kirkbank, who opened 
 her eyes and looked about languidly. The little cabin was heav- 
 ing itself up and down in a curious way. Mr. Smithson's cigar 
 cases sloping now and then as if they were going to fall upon 
 Lady Kirkbank's CQuch, and the looking-glass, with all its 
 dainty appliances, making an angle of forty-five degrees. There 
 was more swirling and washing of water against the hull than 
 ever Georgie Kirkbank had heard in Cowes Roads. 
 
 " Mercy on me, this horrid thing must be moving," she ex- 
 claimed to the empty air. " It must have broken loose in the 
 night." 
 
 She had no confidence in those savage looking sailors, and 
 she had a vision of the yacht drifting at the mercy of winds and 
 waves, drifting for days, weeks and months , drifting to the 
 German Ocean, drifting to the North Pole. Mr. Smithson and 
 
38o PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 Montesma on shore — no one on board to exercise authority 
 over those fearful men. 
 
 Perhaps they had mutinied and were carrying off the yacht as 
 their booty, with Lesbia and her chaperon, and all their gowns. 
 
 " I am almost glad that harpy Seraphine has my diamonds,'' 
 thought poor Georgie, " or I should have had them with me on 
 board this hateful boat." 
 
 And then she rapped vehemently against the panel of the 
 cabin, and screamed for Rilboche, wdiose den was adjacent. 
 
 Rilboche, who detested the sea, made her appearance after 
 some delay, looking even greener than her mistress, who, in ris- 
 ing from her berth, already began to suffer the agonies of sea- 
 sickness. 
 
 " What does this mean ? " exclaimed Lady Kirkbank. " And 
 where are we going ? " 
 
 " That's what I should like to know, my Lady. But I dare 
 say Lady Lesbia and Mr. Montesma can tell you. They are 
 both on deck." 
 
 " Montesma ? Why, we left him on shore." 
 
 " Yes, my Lady, but he came on board at five o'clock this 
 morning. I looked at my v/atch when I heard him land, and he 
 and Lady Lesbia have been sitting on deck ever since." 
 
 " And now it is ten. Five hours on deck — impossible." 
 
 "Time doesn't seem long when one is happy, my Lady," mur- 
 mured Rilboche, in her own language. 
 
 "Help me to dress this instant," screamed her mistress, 
 " that dreadful Spaniard is eloping with us." 
 
 Despite the hideous depression of that malady which strikes 
 down kasier and beggar wdth the same rough hand, Lady Kirk- 
 bank contrived to get herself dressed decently, and to stagger 
 up the companion to that part of the deck where the Persian 
 carpet was spread and the bamboo chairs and tables w^ere set 
 out under the striped awning. Lesbia and her lover were sitting 
 together, he giving her a first lesson in the art of smoking a cig- 
 arette. He had told her playfully that every man, woman and 
 child in Cuba was a smoker, and she had besought him to let 
 her begin, and now, with infinite coquetry, was taking her first 
 lesson. 
 
 " You shameless minx," exclaimed Georgie, pale with anger. 
 " Where is Smithson — my poor, good Smithson." 
 
 " Fast asleep in his bed at Formosa, I hope, dear Lady Kirk- 
 bank/' the Cuban answered wdth perfect sang froid. " Smithson 
 is out of it, as you idiomatic English say. I hope. Lady Kirk- 
 bank, you will be as kind to me as you have been to Smithson, 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 381 
 
 «ind depend upon it I shall make Lady Lesbia as good a husband 
 as ever Sniithson could have done." 
 
 " You ! " exclaimed the matron contemptuously. " You ! A 
 foreigner, an adventurer, who may be as poor as Job for any- 
 thing I know about you." 
 
 "Job was once rather comfortably off. Lady Kirkbank; and 
 I can answer for it that Montesma's wife will know none of die 
 pangs of poverty." 
 
 " If you were a beggar I would not care," said Lesbia, drawing 
 near to him. 
 
 They had both risen at Lady Kirkbank's approach, and were 
 standing side by side, confronting her. Lesbia had shrunk 
 from the idea of poverty with John Hammond ; yet, for this 
 man's sake, she was ready to face penury, ruin, disgrace, any- 
 thing. 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me that Lord Maulevrier's sister, a 
 young lady under my charge, answerable to me for her conduct, 
 is capable of jilting the man to whom she has solemnly bound 
 herself in order to marry you 1 " demanded Lady Kirkbank, 
 turning to Montesma. 
 
 " Yes, that is what I am going to do," answered Lesbia boldly, 
 '" It would be a greater sin to keep my promise than to break it. 
 I never liked that man, and you know it. You badgered me 
 into accepting him against my own better judgment. You 
 drifted me so deeply into debt that I was willing to marry a 
 man I loathed in order to get my debts paid. This is what you 
 did for the girl placed under your charge. But, thank God, I 
 have released myself from your clutches. I am going far away 
 to a new world, where the memory of my old life cannot follow 
 me. People may be angry or pleased. I do not care. I shall 
 be the wife of a man I have chosen out of all the worlc? for my 
 husband — the man God made to be my master." 
 
 "You are — " gasped Lady Kirkbank. " I can't say what you 
 are. I never in my life felt so tempted to use improper lan- 
 guage." 
 
 "Dear Lady Kirkbank, be reasonable," pleaded Montesma. 
 " You can have no interest in seeing Lesbia married to a man 
 she dislikes." 
 
 Georgie reddened a little, remembering that she was inter- 
 ested to the amount of some thousands in the Smithson and 
 Haselden alliance, but she took a higher ground than mercenary 
 considerations. 
 
 " I am interested in doing the very best for a young lady who 
 ;has been intrusted to my care, the granddaughter of an old 
 
382 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 friend," she answered with dignity. " I have no objection to 
 you in the abstract, Don Gomez. You have always been vastly 
 civil, I am sure — " 
 
 " Stand by us in our day of need. Lady Kirkbank, and you 
 will find me the stanchest friend you ever had." 
 
 " I am bound in honor to consider Mr. Smithson, Lesbia," 
 said Lady Kirkbank. " I wonder that a decently brought up 
 girl can behave so abominably." 
 
 " It would be more abominable to marry a man I detest. I 
 have made up my mind. Lady Kirkbank. We shall be at 
 Havre to-morrow morning, and we shall be married to-morrow, 
 shall we not, Gomez ? " 
 
 She let her head sink upon his breast and his arm enfold her. 
 Thus sheltered, she felt safe, thus and thus only. She had 
 thrown her cap over the mills, snapped her fingers at society, 
 cared not a jot what the world might think or say of her. This 
 man would she marry and no other ; this man's fortunes would 
 she follow for good or evil. He had that kind of influence with 
 women which is almost " possession." It smells of brimstone. 
 
 " Come, my dear good soul," said Montesma, smiling at the 
 angry matron. " Why not take things quietly. You have had 
 a good m.any girls under your wing, and you must know that 
 youth and maturity see life from a different standpoint. In your 
 eyes my old friend Smithson is an admirable match. You 
 measure him by his houses, his stable, his banker's book ; but 
 Lesbia would rather marry the man she Joves and take the risks 
 of his fate. I am not a pauper. Lady Kirkbank, and the 
 home to which I shall take my love is pretty enough for a prin- 
 cess of the blood royal, and for her sake I shall grow richer yet," 
 he added, with his eyes kindling, "and if you care to pay us a 
 visit next February in our Parisian apartment I will promise you 
 as pleasant a nest as you can wish to occup}^" 
 
 " How do I know that you will ever bring her back to Eu- 
 rope ? " said Lady Kirkbank piteously. " How do I know that 
 you will not bury her alive in your savage countiy, among black- 
 amoors like those horrid sailors over there — kill her, perhaps, 
 when you are tired of her ? " 
 
 At these words of Lady Kirkbank's, flung out at random, 
 Montesma blanched, and his deep black eye met hers with a 
 strangely sinister look. 
 
 " Yes," she cried, hysterically. " Kill her, kill her ! You 
 look as if you could do it." 
 
 Lesbia nestled closer to her lover's heart. 
 
 *' How dare you say such things to him ? " she cried, angrily, 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 383 
 
 " I trust him, don't you see ? Trust him with my whole heart, 
 with all my soul. I shall be his wife to-morrow, for good or 
 evil." 
 
 " Very much for evil, I'm afraid," said Lady Kirkbank. 
 " Perhaps you will be kind enough to come to your cabin and 
 take off that ball gown, and make yourself just a little less dis- 
 reputable in outward appearance, while I get a cup of tea." 
 
 Lesbia obeyed, and went down to her cabin, where Kibble was 
 waiting with a fresh white muslin frock and all its belongings 
 laid out ready for her mistress, sorely perplexed at the turn which 
 affairs were taking. She had never liked Horace Smithson, al- 
 though he had given her tips which were almost a provision for 
 her old age ; but she had thought it a good thing that her mis- 
 tress, who was frightfully extravagant, should marry a million- 
 aire ; and now they were sailing over the sea with a lot of 
 colored sailors, and the millionaire was left on shore. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank went into the saloon, where breakfast was 
 laid ready, and where the steward was in attendance with that 
 air of being absolutely unconscious of any domestic disturbance 
 which is the mark of a well-trained servant. 
 
 Lesbia appeared in less than an hour, newly dressed, and 
 fresh looking in her pure white gown, her brown hair bound in 
 a coronet round her small Greek head. She sat down by Lady 
 Kirkbank's side, and tried to coax her into good humor. 
 
 " Why can't you take things pleasantly, dear," she pleaded. 
 " Do now, like a good soul. You heard him say he was well off, 
 and that he will take me to Paris next Winter, and you can 
 come to us there on your way from Cannes, and stay with us 
 till Easter. It will be so nice when the Prince and all the best 
 people are in Paris. We shall only stay in Cuba till the fuss 
 about my running away is all over and people have forgotten, 
 aon't you know.'* As for Mr. Smithson, why should I have an" 
 more compunction about jilting him than he had about that poor 
 Miss Trinder ? By the bye, I want you to send him back all his 
 presents for me. They are almost all in Arlington Street. I 
 brought nothing with me except my engagement ring," looking 
 down at the half-loop of diamonds, and pulling it off her finger 
 as she talked. "I had a kind of presentiment — " 
 
 " You mean that you had made up your mind to throw him 
 over." 
 
 " No. But I felt that there were breakers ahead. It might 
 have come to throwing myself into the sea. Perhaps you would 
 have liked that better than what has happened." 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure. The whole thing is disgraceful. 
 
384 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 London will ring with the scandal. What ?.m I to say to Lad}' 
 Maulevrier ? To your brother ? And pray how do you propose 
 to get married at Havre ? You cannot be married in a French 
 town by merely holding up your finger. There are no registry 
 offices. I am sure I have no idea how the thing is done." 
 
 '' Don Gomez has arranged all that — everything has been 
 thought of — everything has been planned. A steamer will take 
 us to St. Thomas, and another steamer will take us on to Cuba." 
 
 *' But the marriage — the license ? " 
 
 " I tell you everything has been provided for. Please take 
 this ring and send it to Mr. Smithson when you go back to Eng- 
 land." 
 
 " Send it to him yourself ; I will have nothing to do with it." 
 
 " How dreadfully disagreeable you are," said Lesbia, pouting, 
 " Just because I am marrying to please myself instead of to 
 please you. It is frightfully selfish of you." 
 
 Montesma came in at this moment. He, too, had dressed 
 himself freshly, and was looking his handsomest in that bucca- 
 neer style of costume which he wore when he sailed the yacht. 
 He and Lesbia breakfasted at their ease, while Lady Kirkbank 
 reclined in her bamboo arm-chair, feeling very unhappy in her 
 mind and far from well. Neptune and she could not accommo- 
 date themselves. 
 
 After a <eisurely breakfast, enlivened by talk and laughter, 
 the cabin windows open, the sun shining, the freshening breeze 
 blowing in, Lesbia and Don Gomez went on deck, and he re- 
 clined at her feet while she read to him from the pages of her 
 favorite " Keats," read tranquilly, lazily, yet exquisitely, for 
 she had been taught to read as well as to sing. The poetry 
 seemed to have been wTitten on purpose for them, and the sky 
 and the atmosphere around them seemed to have been made 
 for the poetry. And so with intervals of strolling on the deck, 
 and an hour or so dawdled away at luncheon, and a leisurely 
 afternoon tea, the day w^ore on to sunset, and they went back to 
 Keats, while Lady Kirkbank sulked and slept in a corner of the 
 saloon. 
 
 " This is the happiest day of my life," Lesbia murmured in a 
 pause of their reading, when they had dropped Endymion's love 
 to talk of their own. 
 
 " But not of mine, my angel. I shall be happier still when 
 we are far away on broader waters, beyond the reach of all who 
 can part us." 
 
 " Can any one part us, Gomez, now that we have pledged our- 
 selves to each other 1 " she asked, incredulously. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 385 
 
 ** Ah, love» such pledges are sometimes broken. AK women 
 are not lion-hearted. While the sea is smootli and the ship 
 runs fair all is easy enough ; but when the tempest and peril 
 come — that is the test, Lesbia. Will you stand by me in the 
 tempest, love ^ " 
 
 " You know that I will," she answered, with her hand locked 
 in his two hands, clasped as with a life-long clasp. 
 
 She could not imagine any severe ordeal to be gone through. 
 If Maulevrier heard of her elopement m time for pursuit there 
 would be a fuss, perhaps — an angry brother raging and fum 
 ing. But what of that ? She was her own mistress. Maule- 
 vrier could not prevent her marrying whomsoever she pleased. 
 
 " Swear that you will hold to me agamst all the world," he 
 said passionately, turning his head 10 look across the stern of 
 the vessel. 
 
 " Against all the world," she answered softly. 
 
 *' I believe your courage will be tested betore long," he said, 
 and then he cried to the skipper, " Crowd on all sail, Tomaso , 
 that boat is chasing us." 
 
 Lesbia sprang to her feet, looking as he looked to a spot of 
 vivid whiteness on the horizon. Montesma had snatched up a 
 glass and was watching that distant spot. 
 
 " It is a steam yacht," he said. " They will catch us." 
 
 He was right. Although the Cayman strained eveiy timber, 
 so that her keel cut through the water like a boomerang, wind 
 and steam beat wind without steam. In less than an hour the 
 steam yacht was beside the" Cayman, and Lord Maulevrier and 
 Lord Hartfield had boarded Mr. Smithson's deck. 
 
 *' I have come to take you and Lady Kirkbank back to Cowes, 
 Lesbia," said Maulverier. " I'm not going to make any undue 
 fuss about this little escapade of yours, provided you go back 
 with Hartfield and me at once, and pledge yourself never to 
 hold any further communication with Don Gomez de Mon- 
 tesma." 
 
 The Spaniard was standing close by, silent, white as death, 
 but ready to make a good fight. That pallor of the clear olive 
 skin was not from want of pluck ; but there was the deadly 
 knowledge of the ground he stood upon, the doubt rhat any wo- 
 man, least of all such a woman as Lady Lesbia Haselden, could 
 be true to him if his character and antecedents were revealed 
 to her. And how much or how little these two men could teli 
 her about himself or his past life was the question which the 
 next few minutes would solve. 
 
 ** I am not going back with you," answered Lesbia. " I am 
 25 
 
386 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 going to Havre with Don Gomez de Montesma. We are to 
 be married there as soon as we arrive." 
 
 '' To be married — at Havre," cried Maulevrier. "An appro- 
 priate place. A sailor has a wife in every port, don't you know," 
 
 " We had better go down to the cabin," said Hartfield, laying 
 his hand upon his friend's shoulder. " If Lady Lesbia will be 
 good enough to go down with us we can tell her all that we 
 have to tell quietly there." 
 
 Lord Hartfield's tone was unmistakable. Ever}T:hing was 
 known. 
 
 "You can talk at your ease here," said Montesma, facing the 
 two men with a diaboUcal recklessness and insolence of manner. 
 " Not one of these fellows on board knows a dozen sentences of 
 English." 
 
 " I would rather talk beloW; if it is all the same to you, senor, 
 and I should be glad to speak to Lady Lesbia alone." 
 
 "-' That you shall not do unless she desires it," answered Mon- 
 tesma. 
 
 " NO; he shall hear all that you have to say. He shall hear 
 how I answer you," said Lesbia. 
 
 Lord Hartfield shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " As you please," he said. " It will make the disclosure a lit- 
 tle more painful than it need have been ; but that cannot be 
 helped.' 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 " O. SAD KISSED MOUTH, HOW SORROWFUL IT IS.'* 
 
 They all went down to the saloon, Avhere Lady Kirkbank sat, 
 looking the image of despair, which changed to delighted sur- 
 prise at sight of Lord Hartfield and his friend. 
 
 " Did you give your consent to my sister's elopement with 
 this man, Lady Kirkbank ? ' Maulevrier asked brusquely. 
 
 " I give my consent ! Good gracious, no. He has eloped 
 with me ever so much more than with your sister. She knew 
 all about it, I've no doubt ; but the wretch ran away with me 
 in my sleen.*' 
 
 " I am glad, for your own self-respect, that you had no hand 
 in this disgraceful business," replied Maulevrier, and then turn- 
 ing to Lord Hartfield, he said : *' Hartfield. will you tell my 
 sister who and what this man is t Will you make- her under- 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE- 387 
 
 stand what kind of pitfall she has escaped ? Upon my soul, 1 
 cannot speak of it." 
 
 " I recognize no right of LordHartfield's to interfere with my 
 actions, and I will hear nothmg that he may have to say," said 
 Lesbia, standing by her lover's side, with head erect and eyes 
 dark with anger. 
 
 " Your sister's husband has the strongest right to control your 
 actions, Lady Lesbia, when the family honor is at stake," 
 answered Hartfield, with grave authority. " Accept me at least 
 as a member of your family, if you will not accept me as yout 
 disinterested and devoted friend." 
 
 " Friend 1 " echoed Lesbia scornfully. " You might have 
 been my friend once. Your friendship then would have been of 
 some value to me ; if you had told me the truth, instead of ap- 
 proaching me with a lie upon your lips. You talk ot honor, 
 Lord Hartfield, you, who came to my grandmother's house as an 
 impostor, under a false name ! " 
 
 " I went there as a man standing on his own merits, assuming 
 no rank save that which God gave him among his fellow men, 
 claiming to be possessed of no fortune except intellect and in- 
 dustry. If I could not win a wife with such credentials it were 
 better for me never to marry at all, Lady Lesbia. But we have 
 no time to speak of the past. I am here as your brother's friend, 
 here to save you." 
 
 "To part me from the man to whom I have given my heart. 
 That you cannot do. Gomez, why do you not speak ? Tell him, 
 tell him 1 " cried Lesbia, with a voice strangled with sobs ; *' tell 
 him that I am to be your wife to-morrow, at Havre. Your wife ! " 
 
 " Dear Lady Lesbia, that cannot be," said Lord Hartfield, 
 sorrowfully, pitying her in her helplessness, as he might have 
 pitied a young bird in the fowler's net. *" I am assured upon un- 
 deniable authority that Senor Montesma has a wife living in 
 Cuba ; and even if this were not so — were he free to marry you 
 — his character and antecedents would forever forbid such a 
 marriage." 
 
 *' A wife ! No, no, no ! " shrieked Lesbia, looking wildly from 
 one to the other. " It is a lie — a he, invented by my brother, 
 who always hated me — by you, who always hated me and de- 
 ceived me. It is a lie — an infamous invention. Don Gomez, 
 speak to me \ for pity's sake answer them. Don't you see that 
 they are driving me mad ? " 
 
 She flung herself into his arms ; she buried her disheveled 
 head upon his breast; she clung to him with hands thai 
 wreathed convulsively ir her agony 
 
3S8 PHANTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 Maulevrier sprang across the cabin and wrenched her from 
 her lover's grasp. 
 
 " You shall not pollute her with your touch," he cried. " You 
 jf«ave poisoned her mind already. Scoundrel, seducer, slave- 
 iealer. Do you hear, Lesbia ? Shall I tell you what this man 
 is — what trade he followed yonder on his native island — this 
 Spanish hidalgo — this all-accomplished gentleman — lineal de- 
 scendant of the Cid — fine flower of Andalusian chivalry. It was 
 not enough for him to cheat at cards, to float bubble companies, 
 bogus lotteries. His profligate extravagance, his love of syba- 
 rite luxury, required a surer resource than the petty schemes 
 which enrich smaller men. A slave ship which could earn nearly 
 twenty thousand pounds on every voyage, and which could make 
 two runs in a year, that was the trade for Don Gomez de Mon- 
 tesma, and he carried it on merrily for six or seven years, till the 
 British cruisers got too keen for him, and the good old game was 
 played out. You see that scar upon the hidalgo's forehead, Les- 
 bia? A token of knightly prowess, you think, perhaps? No, 
 my girl, that is the mark of an English cutlass in a scuffle on 
 board a slaver. A merry trade, Lesbia — the living cargo stowed 
 dose under hatches have rather a bad time of it now and then — 
 short rations of food and water, yellow Jack. They die like rot- 
 ten sheep sometimes — bad then for the dealer. But if he can 
 land the bulk of his human wares safe and sound, the profits are 
 enormous. The Captain-general takes his capitation fee, the 
 blackies are drafted off to the sugar plantations, and everybody 
 is satisfied ; but I think, Lesbia, that your British prejudices 
 would go against marriage with a slave-trader, were he ever so 
 free to make you his wife, which this particular dealer in blacka- 
 moors is not," 
 
 " Is this true, this part of their vile story ? " demanded Les- 
 bia, looking at her lovei, who stood apart from them all now, 
 his arms folded, his face deadly pale, the lower lip quivering 
 under the grinding of his strong white teeth. 
 
 ** There is some truth in it," he answered hoarsely. " Every- 
 body \\\ Cuba has a finger in the African trade. There is no 
 other commerce worth a venture. Mr. Smithson made sixty 
 thousand pounds in that time. It was the foundation of his fort- 
 une. And yet he had his misfortune in running his cargo — a 
 ship burnt, a freight roasted alive. There are some very black 
 Gtories in Cuba against poor Smithson. He will never go there 
 again." 
 
 '' Mr. Smithson may be a scoundrel, indeed I believe he is a 
 pretty bad specimen in that line/' said Lord Hartfield. " But J 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 389 
 
 doubt if there is any story that can be told of him quite so bad 
 as the history of your marriage and the events that went before 
 it. I have been told the beautiful octoroon, who loved and trust- 
 ed you, who shared years of your good and evil fortunes for the 
 most desperate years of your life, was almost accepted as your 
 wife, and whose strangled corpse was found in the harbor while 
 the bells were ringing for your marriage with a rich planter's 
 heiress — the lady who no doubt now patiently awaits your return 
 to her native island." 
 
 " She will wait a long time," said Montesma, "or fare ill if I 
 go back to her. Lesbia, his Lordship's story of the octoroon is 
 a fable, an invention of my Cuban enemies, who hate us old 
 Spaniards with a poisonous hatred. But this much is true. I 
 am a married man — bound, fettered by a tie which I abhor. 
 Our Havre marriage would have been bigamy on my part, a de- 
 lusion on yours. I could not have taken you to Cuba. I had 
 planned our life in a fairer, more civilized world. I am rich 
 enough to have surrounded you with all that makes life worth 
 living. I would have given you love as true and as deep as ever 
 man gave to woman. All that would have been wanting would 
 have been the legality of the tie ; and, as law never yet made a 
 marriage happy which lacked the elements of bliss, our lawless 
 union need not have missed happiness. Lesbia, you said that 
 you would hold by me, come what might. The worsi has come, 
 love, but it leaves me not the less your true lover." 
 
 She looked at him with wild, despairing eyes, and then, with 
 a hoarse, strange cry, rushed from the cabin and up the com- 
 panion with a desperate swiftness which seemed like the flight 
 of a bird. Montesma, Hartfield, Maulevrier, all followed her, 
 heedless of everything except the dire necessity of arresting 
 her flight. Each in his own mind had divined her purpose. 
 
 They were not too late. It was Hartfield's strong arm that 
 caught her, held her as in vise, dragged her away from the 
 edge of the deck, just where there was a space open to the 
 waves. Another instant and she would have flung herself over- 
 board. She fell back into Lord Hartfield's arms with a wild 
 choking cry. " Let me go ! Let me go ! " Another moment 
 and a flood of crimson stained his shirt front as she lay 
 upon his breast, with closed eyelids and blood-bedabbed lips, 
 in blessed unconsciousness. 
 
 They carried her on to the steam yacht, and down to the 
 cabin, where there was ample accommodation and some luxury, 
 although not the elegance of Bond Street upholstery. Rilboche, 
 Lady Kirkbank, Kibble, luggage of all kinds were transferred 
 
390 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 from one yacht to the other, even to the vellum-bound Keats 
 which lay face downward on the deck, just where Lesbia had 
 flung it when the Cayman was boarded. The crew of the steam 
 yacht Philomel helped in the transfer; there were plenty of 
 hands and the work was done quickly. While the Meztizoes, 
 Yukatekes, Caribs, or whatever they were, looked on and 
 grinned ; and while Montesma stood leaning against the mast, 
 with folded arms, and somber brow, a cigarette between his 
 lips. 
 
 When the women and all their belongings were on board the 
 Philomel, Lord Hartfield addressed himself to the Spaniard. 
 
 " If you consider yourself entitled to call me to account for 
 this evening's work, you know where to find me," he said. 
 
 Montesma shrugged his shoulders and threw away his cigar- 
 ette with a contemptuous gesture. 
 
 ''Cen'est pas la peine," he said, "I am a dead shot, and 
 should be pretty sure to send a bullet through you if you gave 
 me the chance ; but I should not be any nearer winning her if 
 I killed you, and it is she and she only that I want. You may 
 think me an adventurer — swindler — gambler — slave-dealer — 
 what you will — but I love her as I never thought to love a 
 woman, and I should have been true as steel if she had been 
 plucky enough to trust me. But, as I told her an hour ago, 
 women have not lion hearts. They can talk tall while the sky 
 is clear and the sun shine. But at the first crack of thunder — 
 va te promener." 
 
 " If you have killed her — " began Hartfield. 
 
 " Killed her ! No ! Some small blood-vessel burst in the agita- 
 tion of that terrible scene. ^She will be well in a week, and she will 
 forget me. But I shall not forget her. She is the one flower 
 that has sprung on the barren plain of my life. She was my 
 Picciola." 
 
 He turned his back on Lord Hartfield, and walked to the 
 other end of the deck. Something in his face, in the vibration 
 of his deep voice, convinced Hartfield of his truth. A bad man 
 undoubtedly— steeped to the lips in evil— and yet so far true 
 that he had passionately, deeply, devotedly loved this one woman. 
 
 It was the dead of night when Lesbia recovered consciousness ; 
 and even then she lay silent, taking no heed of those around her, 
 in a state of utter prostration. Kibble nursed her carefully, ten- 
 derlv, all through the night ; Maulevrier hardly left the cabin ; 
 and Lady Kirkbank, always more or less a victim to the agonies 
 of sea-sickness, still found time to utter lamentations and wait- 
 ings over the ruin of her protegee's fortune. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 391 
 
 " Never had a girl such a chance," she moaned. " Quite the 
 best match in society. The house in Park Lane alone cost a 
 fortune. Her diamonds would have been the finest in London." 
 
 "They would have been stained \yith the blood of the niggers 
 he traded in out yonder," answered Maulevrier. "Do you 
 think I would have let my sister marry a slave-dealer ? " 
 
 " I don't believe a syllable of it," protested Lady Kirkbank, 
 dabbing her brow with a handkerchief steeped in eau de cologne. 
 *'A vile fabrication of Montesma's, who wanted to blacken 
 poor Smithson's character in order to extenuate his own crimes." 
 
 " Well, we won't go into that question," said Maulevrier, wea- 
 rily. " The Smithson match is off, any how, and it matters very 
 little to us whether he made most money out of niggers or bub- 
 ble companies, or lotteries, or gaming hells." 
 
 " I am convinced that Smithson made his fortune in a 
 thoroughly gentlemanlike manner," argued Lady Kirkbank. 
 " Look at' the people who visit him and the houses he goes to ! 
 And I don't see why the match need be off. I'm sure if Lesbia 
 plays her cards properly he will look over this — this little esca- 
 pade." 
 
 Maulevrier contemplated the wrinkled, worldly old face with 
 infinite scorn. 
 
 " Does she look like a girl who will play her cards in your fash- 
 ion ? " he asked, pointing to his sister, whose white face upon 
 the white pillow seemed like a mask cut out of marble. " Upon 
 mv soul. Lady Kirkbank, I consider my sister's elopement with 
 this Spanish adventurer, with whom she was over head and ears 
 in love, a far more respectable act than her engagement to Smith- 
 son, for whom she cared not a straw." 
 
 " Well, I hope if you so approve of her conduct you will help 
 her to pay her dressmaker and the rest of them," retorted Lady 
 Kirkbank. " She has been plunging rather deep, I believe, un- 
 der the impression that Smithson would pay all her bills when 
 she was married. Your grandmother may not quite like the bud- 
 get." 
 
 " I will do all I can for her," answered Maulevrier, " I would 
 do a great deal to save her from the degradation to which your 
 teaching has brought her." 
 
 Lady Kirkbank looked at him for a moment or so with re- 
 proachful eyes, and then shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 
 
 " If I ever expected gratitude from people, I might feel the 
 injustice — the insolence— of your last remark," she said : " but 
 as I never do expect gratitude, I am not disappointed in this 
 case. And now I think if there is a cabin which I can have to 
 
392 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 myself i should like to retire to it," she added, " My cares are 
 thrown away here." 
 
 There was a cabin at Lady Kirkbank's disposal. It had been 
 already appropriated by Rilboche, and smelt of cognac ; but Ril- 
 boche resigned her berth to her mistress, and laid herself meekly 
 on the floor for the rest of the voyage. 
 
 They were in Cowes Roads at eight o'clock next morning, and 
 Lord Hartfield went on shore for a doctor, whom he brought back 
 before nine, and who pronounced Lady Lesbia to be in a very 
 weak and prostrate condition, and forbade her being moved 
 within the next two days. Happily Lord Hartfield had borrowed 
 the Philomel and crew from a friend, who had given him carte 
 blanche as to the use he made of her, and who freely left her 
 at his disposal so long as he and his party should need the ac- 
 commodation. Lesbia could nowhere be better off than on the 
 yatch, where she was away from the gossip and tittle tat- 
 tle of the town. The roadstead was quiet enough now. All 
 the racing yachts had melted away like a dream, and most of 
 the pleasure yachts were off to Ryde. Lady Lesbia lay in her 
 curtained cabin, with Kibble keeping watch beside her bed, 
 with Maulevrier coming in every half hour to see how she was 
 — sitting by her a little now and then, and talking of indifferent 
 things in a low, kind voice, which was full of comfort. 
 
 She seemed grateful for his kindness, and smiled at him once 
 in a way, with a piteous little smile — but she had the air of one 
 in whom the mainspring of life is broken. The pallid face and 
 heavy violet eyes, the semi-transparent hands which lay so list- 
 lessly upon the crimson coverlet, conveyed an impression of su- 
 preme despair. Hartfield, looking down at her for the last time 
 when he came to say good-by before leaving for London, was re- 
 minded of the story of one whose life had been thus rudely 
 broken, who had loved as foolishly, and even more fondly, 
 and for whom this world held nothing when that tie was 
 broken. 
 
 " She looked on many a face with vacant eye, 
 On many a token without knowing what ; 
 She saw them watch her, without asking why, 
 And recked not who around her pillow sat." 
 
 But Lesbia Haselden belonged to a wider and more sophisti- 
 cated world than that of the daughter of the Grecian Isle, and 
 for her existence offered wider horizons. It might be prophesied 
 that for her the dark ending of a girlish dream would not be a 
 lifelong despair. The passionate love had been at fever point, 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 393 
 
 the passionate grief must have its fever too and burn itself 
 out. 
 
 " Do all you can to cheer her," said Lord Hartfield to Maule- 
 vrier, " and bring her to Fellside as soon as ever she is strong 
 enough to bear the journey. You and Kibble, with your own 
 man, will be able to do all that is necessary." 
 
 " Quite able." 
 
 " That's right. I must be in the House for the expected di- 
 vision to-night, and I shall go back to Grasmere to-morrow morn- 
 ing. Poor Mary is horribly lonely." 
 
 Lord Hartfield went off in the boat to catch the Southampton 
 steamer, and Maulevrier was now sole custodian of the yacht, 
 and of his sister. He and the doctor had agreed to keep her 
 on board, in the fresh sea air, till she was equal to the fatigue of 
 the journey to Grasmere. There was nothing to be gained by 
 taking her on to the island or by carrying her to London. The 
 yacht was well found, provided with all things needful to her 
 comfort, and she could be nowhere better off until she was safe 
 in her own home ; that home she had left so gayly, in the fresh- 
 ness of her youthful inexperience, nearly a year ago, and to 
 which she would return so battered and broken, so deeply de- 
 graded by the knowledge of evil. 
 
 Lady Kirkbank had started for London on the previous day. 
 
 " I am evidently not wanted here," she said, with an offended 
 air, " and I must have everything at Kirkbank ready for a house 
 full of people before the 12th of August; so the sooner I get to 
 Scotland the better. I shall make a detour in order to go and 
 see Lady Maulevrier on my way down. It is due to myself 
 that I should let her know that I am entirely blameless in this 
 most uncomfortable business 
 
 "You can tell her Ladyship what you please," answered 
 Maulevrier bluntly, " I shall not gainsay you, so long as you 
 do not slander my sister, but as long as I live I shall regret 
 that I, knowing something of London society, did not interfere 
 to prevent Lesbia being given over to your keeping." 
 
 " If I had known the kind of girl she is, I would have had 
 nothing to do with her," retorted Lady Kirkbank with exaspera- 
 tion ; and so theyparted. 
 
 The Philomel had been lying off Cowes three days before 
 Mr. Smithson appeared upon the scene. He had got wind 
 somehow from a sailor, who had talked with one of the foreign 
 crew, of the destination of the Cayman, and he had crossed 
 to Havre on the steamer Wolf from Southampton during that 
 night in which Lesbia was being carried back to Cowes on 
 
394 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 the Philomel. He was at Havre when the Cayman came in 
 with Montesma and his tawny-visaged crew on board. 
 
 " You may examine every corner of your ship," Montesma 
 cried, scornfully, when Smithson came on board and swore 
 that Lesbia must be hidden somewhere in the vessel. " The 
 bird has flown. She will shelter in neither your nest nor in 
 mine, Smithson. You have lost her, and so have I. We may 
 as well be friends in misfortune." 
 
 He was haggard, livid with grief and anger. He looked ten 
 years older than he had looked the other night at the ball, 
 when his dash and swagger and handsome Spanish head had 
 been the admiration of the room. 
 
 Smithson was very angry, but he was not a fighting man. 
 He had enjoyed various opportunities for distinguishing him- 
 self in that line in the island of Cuba, but he had always 
 avoided such opportunities. So now, after a good deal of blus- 
 ter and violent language, which Montesma took as lightly as 
 if it had been the whistling of the wind in the shrouds, poor 
 Smithson calmed down, and allowed Gomez de Montesma to 
 leave the yacht, with his portmanteau, unharmed. He meant 
 to take the first steamer for the Spanish main, he told Smithson. 
 He had had enough of Europe. 
 
 " I dare say it will end in your marrying her," he said at the 
 last moment. " If you do — be kind to her." 
 
 His voice faltered, choked by a sob, at those last words. Aft- 
 er all it is possible for a man without principle, without mor- 
 ality, to begin to make love to a woman in mere spirit of ad- 
 venture, in sheer deviltry, and to be rather hard hit at last. 
 
 Horace Smithson sailed his yacht back to Cowes without loss 
 of time, and sent his card to Lord Maulevrier on board the 
 Philomel. His Lordship replied that he would wait upon Mr. 
 Smithson that afternoon at four o'clock; and at that hour 
 Maulevrier again boarded the Cayman, but this time very quietly, 
 as an expected guest. 
 
 The interview that followed was very painful, Mr. Smithson 
 was willing that this unhappy episode in the life of his betrothed, 
 this folly into which she had been beguiled by a man of in- 
 finite treachery, a man of all other men fatal to women, should 
 be forgotten, should be as if it had never been. 
 
 " It was her very innocence which made her a victim to that 
 scoundrel," said Smithson, " her girlish simplicity, and Lady 
 Kirkbank's folly. But I love your sister too well to sacrifice 
 her rightly, Lord Maulevrier ; and if she can forget this mid- 
 summer madness, why, so can I." 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE, 395 
 
 "She cannot forget, Mr, Smithson," answered Maulevrier 
 gravely. " She has done you a great wrong by hstening to your 
 false friend's addresses ; but she did you a still greater wrong 
 when she accepted you as her husband, without one spark of 
 love for you. She and you are both happy in having escaped 
 the degradation, the deep misery of a loveless union. I am 
 glad — yes, glad even of this shameful escapade with Montesma 
 — though it has dragged her good name through the gutter — 
 glad of the catastrophe that has saved her from such a marriage. 
 You are very generous in your willingness to forget my sister's 
 folly. Let your forgetfulness go a step further — and forget that 
 you ever met her." 
 
 " That cannot be. Lord Maulevrier. She has ruined my life." 
 
 " Not at all. An affair of a season," answered the young man 
 lightly. "Next year I shall hear of you as the accepted hus- 
 band 'of soifie new beauty. A man of Mr. Smithson's wealth — 
 and good nature — need not languish in single blessedness." 
 
 With this civil speech Lord Maulevrier went back to the Phi- 
 lomel's gig, and this was his last meeting with Mr. Smithson, 
 until they met a year later in the beaten tracks of society. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 " THAT FELL ARREST, WITHOUT ALL BAIL." 
 
 It was the beginning of August before Lesbia was pronounced 
 equal to the fatigue of a long journey ; and even then it was 
 but the shadow of her former self which returned to Fellside, 
 the pale specter of joys departed, of trust deceived. 
 
 Maulevrier had been very good to her, patient, unselfish as a 
 woman in his ministering to the broken-hearted girl. That bro- 
 ken heart would be whole again no doubt in the future, as many 
 other broken hearts have been ; but the grief, the despair, the 
 sense of hopelessness and aimlessness in life were very real in 
 the present. If the picturesque seclusion of Fellside had seemed 
 dull and joyless to Lesbia in days gone by, it was much duller 
 to her now. She was shocked at the change in her grandmother, 
 and she showed a good deal of feeling and affection in her inter- 
 course with the invalid, but once out of her presence Lady 
 Maulevrier was forgotten, and Lesbia's thoughts drifted back 
 into the old current. They dwelt obstinately, unceasingly upon 
 Montesma, the man whose influence had awakened the slumber- 
 
396 PHANTOJl^ FORTUNE. 
 
 ing soul from its torpor, had stirred the depths of a passionate 
 nature. 
 
 Slave-dealer, gambler, adventurer, liar — his name blackened 
 by the suspicion of a still darker crime. She shuddered at the 
 thought of the villain from whose snare she had been rescued ; 
 and yet, his image as he had been to her in the brief golden time 
 when she believed him noble, and chivalrous, and true, haunted 
 her lonely days, mixed itself in her troubled dreams, came be- 
 tween her and every other thought. 
 
 Everybody was good to her. That pale and joyless face, that 
 look of patient, hopeless suffering which she tried to disguise 
 every now and then with a faint, forced smile, and silvery little 
 ripple of society laughter, seemed unconsciously to implore pity 
 and pardon. Lady Maulevrier uttered no word of reproach. 
 " My dearest, fate "has not been kind to you," she said, gently, 
 after telling Lesbia of Lady Kirkbank's visit. " The handsom- 
 est women are seldom the happiest. Destiny seems to have a 
 grudge against them. And if things have gone amiss it is I who 
 am most to blame. I ought never to have entrusted you with 
 such a woman as Georgink Kirkbank. But you will be happier 
 next season, I hope, dearest. You can live with Mary and Hart- 
 field. They will take care of you." 
 
 Lesbia shuddered. 
 
 " Do you think I am going back to the society treadmill ! " she 
 exclaimed. " No, I have done with the world. I shall end my 
 days here or in a convent." 
 
 " You think so now, dear, but you will change your mind by 
 and by. A fancy that has lasted only a few weeks cannot alter 
 your life. It will pass as other dreams have passed at your age. 
 You have the future before you." 
 
 " No, it is the past that is always before me," answered Les- 
 bia. " My future is a blank." 
 
 The bills came pouring in — dressmaker, milliner, glover, boot- 
 maker, tailor, stationer, perfumer — awful bills, which made Lady 
 Maulevrier's blood run cold, so degrading was their story of 
 selfish self-indulgence, of senseless extravagance. But she paid 
 them all without a word. She took upon her shoulders the chief 
 burden of Lesbia's wrong-doing. It was her indulgence, her 
 weak preference which had fostered her granddaughter's selfish- 
 ness, trained her to vanity and worldly pride. The result was 
 ignominious, himiiliating, bitter beyond all common bitterness ; 
 but the cup was of her own brewing and she drank it without a 
 murmur. 
 
 Parliament was prorogued ; the season was over ; and Lord 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 397 
 
 Hartfield was established at Fellside for the Autumn — he and 
 his wife utterly happy in their affection for each other, but not 
 without care as to their surroundings, which were full of trouble. 
 First there was Lesbia's sorrow. Granted that it was a grief 
 which would inevitably wear itself out, as other such griefs have 
 done, from time immemorial ; but still the sorrow was there, at 
 tkeir doors. Next, there was the state of Lady Maulevrier's 
 health, which gave her old medical adviser the gravest fears. 
 At Lord Hartfield's earnest desire a famous doctor was sum^ 
 moned from London ; but the great man could only confirm Mr. 
 Horton's verdict. The thread of life was wearing thinner every 
 day. It might snap at any hour. In the mean time the only 
 regimen was repose of body and mind, an all-pervading calm, 
 the avoidance of all exciting topics. One moment of violent 
 agitation might prove fatal. 
 
 Knowing this, how could Lord Hartfield call her Ladyship to 
 account for the presence of that mysterious old man under 
 Steadman's charge — how venture to touch upon a topic which, 
 by Mary's showing, had exercised a most disturbing influence 
 upon her Ladyship's mind, on that solitary occasion when the 
 girl ventured to approach the subject. 
 
 He felt that any attempt at an explanation was impossible. 
 It was not for him to precipitate Lady Maulevrier's end by pry- 
 ing into her secrets. Granted that shame and dishonor of some 
 kind were involved in the existence of that strange old man, 
 he, Lord Hartfield, must endure his portion of that shame — 
 must be content to leave the dark riddle unsolved. 
 
 He resigned himself to this state of things, and tried to for- 
 get the cloud that hung over the house of Haselden; but the 
 sense of a mystery, a fatal family secret, which must come to 
 light sooner or later — since all such secrets are known at last — 
 known, sifted and bandied about from lip to lip, and published 
 in a thousand different papers and cried aloud in the streets — 
 the sense of such a secret, the dread of such a revelation 
 weighed upon him heavily. 
 
 Maulevrier, the restless, was off to Argyleshire for the grouse 
 shooting as soon as he had deposited Lady Lesbia comfortably 
 at Fellside. 
 
 " I should only be in your way if I stopped," he said, " for 
 you and Molly have hardly got over the honeymoon stage yet, 
 though you put on the airs of Darby and Joan. I shall be back 
 in a week or ten days." 
 
 " In Lady Maulevrier's state of health, I don't think you 
 ought to stay away very long," said Hartfield. 
 
398 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 " Poor Lady Maulevrier. She never cared much for me, 
 don't you know. But I suppose it would seem unkind if I were 
 to be out of the way when the end comes. The end — good 
 heavens ! how coolly I talk of it, and a year ago I thought she 
 was as immortal as Fairfield yonder." 
 
 He went away, his spirits dashed by that awful thought of 
 death ; and Lord and Lady Hartfield had the house to them- 
 selves, since Lesbia hardly counted. She seldom left her own 
 rooms, except to sit with her grandmother for an hour. She 
 lay on her sofa — or sat in a low arm-chair by the window, read- 
 ing Keats or Shelley — or only dreaming — dreaming over the brief 
 golden time of her life, with its fond delusions, its false bright- 
 ness. Mr. Horton went to see her every day, felt the feeble lit- 
 tle pulse, which seemed hardly to have force enough to beat, 
 urged her to struggle against apathy and inertia, to walk a little, 
 to go for a long drive every day, to live in the open air — to which 
 instructions she paid not the slightest attention. The desire 
 for life was gone. Disappointed in her ambition, betrayed in 
 her love, humiliated, duped, degraded — a social failure. What 
 had she to live for ? She felt as if it would have been a good 
 thing — quite the best thing that could happen — if she could turn 
 her face to the wall and die. All that past season, its triumphs, 
 its pleasures, its varieties, was like a garish dream, a horror 
 to look back upon, hateful to remember. 
 
 In vain did Mary and Hartfield urge Lesbia to join in their 
 simple pleasures, their walks and rides and drives and boating 
 excursions, never going very far afield on account of Lady Mau- 
 levrier. She always refused. 
 
 " You know I never cared much for roaming about these ever- 
 lasting hills," she told Mary. "I never had your passion for 
 Lakeland. It is very good of you to wish to have me ; but it is 
 quite impossible. I have hardly strength enough for a little 
 walk in the garden." 
 
 "You would have more strength if you went out more," 
 pleaded Mary, almost with tears. " Mr. Horton says sun and 
 wind are the best doctors for you. Lesbia, you frighten me 
 sometimes. You are just letting yourself fade away." 
 
 " If you knew how I hate the world and sky, Mary, you 
 wouldn't urge me to go out of doors," Lesbia answered, mood- 
 ily. " Indoors I can read and get away from my own thoughts 
 somehow for a little while. But out yonder, face to face with 
 the hills and the lake — the scenes I have known all my life — I 
 feel a heart-sickness that is worse than death. To see the old, 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 399 
 
 old picture of mountain and water, the same forever and ever, 
 no matter what hearts are breaking." 
 
 Mary crept close beside her sister's couch, put her arm round 
 her neck, laid her cheek — rich in the ruddy bloom of health — 
 against Lesbia's pallid and sunken cheek, and comforted her as 
 much as she could with tender murmurs and loving kisses. 
 Other comfort she could give none. All the wisdom in the world 
 will not cure a girl's heart-sickness when she has flung away the 
 treasures of her love upon a worthless object. 
 
 And so the days went by, peacefully, but sadly ; for the 
 shadow of doom liung heavily over the house upon the Fell. 
 Nobody who looked upon Lady Maulevrier could doubt that 
 her days were numbered, that the oil was waxing low in the 
 lamp of life. The end, the awful, mysterious end, was drawing 
 near ; and she who was called was making no such preparations 
 as the Christian makes to answer the dread summons. As she 
 had lived, she meant to die — an avowed unbeliever. More than 
 once Mary had taken courage, and had talked to her grand- 
 mother of the world beyond, the blessed hope of reunion with 
 the friends we have lost, in a new and brighter life, only to be 
 met by the skeptic's cynical smile, the materialist's barren creed. 
 
 " My dearest, we know nothing except the immutable laws of 
 material life. All the rest is a dream — a beautiful dream, if you 
 like — a consolation to that kind of temperament which can take 
 comfort from dreams ; but for any one who has read much and 
 thought much, and kept as far as possible on a level with the 
 scientific intellect of the age — for such an one, Mary, these old 
 fables are too idle. I shall die as I have lived, my dear, the 
 victim of an inscrutable destiny, working blindly, evil to some, 
 good to others. Ah ! love, life has begun very fairly for you. 
 May the fates be kind always to my gentle and loving girl." 
 
 There was more talk between them on this dark mystery of 
 life and death. Mary brought out her poor little arguments, 
 glorified by the light of perfect faith ; but they were of no avail 
 against opinions which had been the gradual growth of a long 
 joyless life. Time had attuned Lady Maulevrier's mind to the 
 gospel of Schopenhauer and the Pessimists, and she was con- 
 tented to see the mystery of life as they had seen it. She had 
 no fear, but she held some anxiety as to the things that were to 
 happen after she was gone. She had taken upon herself a 
 heavy burden, and she had not yet come to the road where her 
 burden might be laid quietly down, her task accomplished. If 
 she fell by the wayside under her load the consequences for her 
 survivors might be full of trouble. 
 
400 PHA NTOM FOR TUNE. 
 
 Her anxieties were increased by the fact that her faithful serv- 
 ant and adviser, James Steadman, was no longer the man he had 
 been. The change in him was painfull}^ evident — the memory 
 failing, energy gone. He came to his mistress's room every 
 morning, received her orders, answered her questions ; but Lady 
 Maulevrier thought he went through the old duties in a mechan- 
 ical way, and that his dull brain but half understood its impor- 
 tance. 
 
 One evening at dusk, just as Hartfield and Mary were leav- 
 ing Lady Maulevrier's room after dinner, an appalling shriek 
 ran through the house — a cry almost as terrible as that which 
 Lord Hartfield heard in the summer midnight just a year ago. 
 But this time the sound came from the old part of the house. 
 
 " Something has happened," exclaimed Hartfield, rushing to 
 the door of communication. 
 
 It was bolted inside. He knocked vehemently, but there was 
 no answer. He ran down stairs, followed by Mary, breathless 
 and in an agony of fear. Just as they approached the lower 
 door, leading to the old house, it was flung open, and Stead- 
 man's wife stood before them, pale with terror. 
 
 " The doctor," she cried. " Send for Mr. Horton, somebody, 
 for God's sake. Oh, my Lord," with a sudden burst of sobbing, 
 »' I'm afraid he's dead." 
 
 " Mary, dispatch some one for Horton," said Lord Hartfield. 
 
 Keeping his wife back with one hand, he closed the door 
 against her and then followed Mrs. Steadman through the long 
 corridor to her husband's sittmg-room. 
 
 James Steadman was lying with his back upon the hearth near 
 "he spot where Lord Hartfield had seen him sleeping in his arm- 
 chair a month ago. 
 
 One look at the distorted face, dark with injected blood, the 
 dreadful glassy glare of the eyes, the foam-stained lips, told that 
 all was over. The faithful servant had died at his post. What- 
 ever his charge had been, his term of service was ended. 
 There was a vacancy in Lady Maulevrier's household. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. ^q, 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 THE DAY OF RECKONING. 
 
 Lord Hartfield stayed with the frightened wife while she 
 knelt beside that awful figure on the hearth, wringing her hands 
 with piteous bewailings and lamentations over the unconscious 
 clay. He had always been a good husband to her, she mur- 
 mured, hard and stern, perhaps, but a good man. And she had 
 obeyed him without a question. Whatever he did or said she 
 had counted right. 
 
 " We have not had a happy life, though there are many who 
 have envied us her Ladyship's favor," she said in the midst of 
 her lamentations. " No one knows where the shoe pinches 
 but those who have to wear it. Poor James ! Early and late, 
 early and late, studying her Ladyship's interest, caring and 
 thinking in order to keep trouble away from her. Always on 
 the watch, always on the listen. That's what wore him out, 
 poor fellow." 
 
 " My good soul, your husband was an old man," argued Lord 
 Hartfield in a consolatory tone, " and the end must come to all 
 of us somehow." 
 
 " He might have lived to be a mubh older man if he had had 
 less worry," said the wife, bending her face to kiss the cold dead 
 brow. " His days were full of care. We should have been 
 happier in the poorest cottage in Grasmere than we ever were 
 in this big grand house." 
 
 Thus, in broken fragments of speech, Mrs. Steadman lamented 
 over her dead, while the heavy pendulum of the eight days' 
 clock in the hall sounded the slowly passing moments, until the 
 coming of the doctor broke upon the quiet of the house with the 
 nofse of opening doors and approaching footsteps. 
 
 James Steadman was dead. Medicine could do nothing for 
 that lifeless clay, lying on the hearth by which he had sat on so 
 many winter nights, for so many years of faithful, unquestioning 
 service. There was nothing to be done for that stiffening form, 
 save the last offices for the dead, and Lord Hartfield left Mr. 
 Horton to arrange with the weeping woman as to the doing of 
 these. He was anxious to go to Lady Maulevrier, to break to 
 her, as gently as might be, the news of her servant's death. 
 
 And what of that strange old man in the upper rooms ? Who 
 was to attend upon him now that the caretaker was laid low.^ 
 
 While Lord Hartfield lingered on the threshold of the door 
 
 20 
 
402 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 that led from the old house to the new, pondering this question, 
 there came the sound of wheels on the carriage-drive, and then 
 a loud ring at the hall door. 
 
 It was Maulevrier, just arrived from Scotland, smelling of 
 autumn rain and cool fresh air. 
 
 " Dreadfully bored on the moors," he said, as they shook 
 hands. " No birds — nobody to talk to — couldn't stand it any 
 longer. How are the sisters ? Lesbia better ? Why, man alive, 
 how queer you look ! Nothing amiss, I hope ? " 
 
 " Yes, there is something much amiss. Steadman is dead ! " 
 
 " Steadman ? Her Ladyship's right hand. That's rather bad. 
 Sut you will drop into his stewardship. She'll trust your long 
 head, I know. Much better that she should look to her grand- 
 daughter's husband for advice in all business matters than to a 
 servant. When did it happen ? " 
 
 " Half an hour ago. I was just going to Lady Maulevrier's 
 room when you rang the bell. Take oft your Inverness and 
 come with me." 
 
 " The poor grandmother ! " muttered Maulevrier. " I'm afraid 
 it will be a blow." 
 
 He had much less cause for fear than Lord Hartfield, who 
 knew of deep and secret reasons why Steadman's death should 
 be a calamity of dire import for his mistress. Maulevrier had 
 been told nothing of that scene v/ith the strange old man — the 
 hidden treasures — the Anglo-Indian phrases — which had filled 
 Lord Hartfield's mind with the darkest doubts. 
 
 If that half-lunatic old man, described by Lady Maulevrier as 
 a kinsman of Steadman's, were verily the person Lord Hartfield 
 believed, his presence under that roof, unguarded by a trust- 
 worthy attendant, was fraught with danger. It would be for 
 Lady Maulevrier, helpless, a prisoner to her sofa, at death's 
 door, to face that danger. The very thought of it might kill 
 her. And yet it was imperative that the truth should be told 
 her without delay. 
 
 The two young men went to her Ladyship's sitting-room. She 
 was alone, a volume of her favorite Schopenhauer open before 
 her, under the light of the shaded reading lamp. Sorry comfort 
 in the hour of trouble. 
 
 Maulevrier went over to her and kissed her, and then dropped 
 silently into a chair near at hand, his face in shadow. Hart- 
 field seated himself nearer the sofa, and nearer the lamp. 
 
 " Dear Lady Maulevrier, I have come to tell you some very 
 bad news — " 
 
 " Lesbia ? " exclaimed her Ladyship, with a frightened look. 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 403 
 
 " No, there is nothing wrong with Lesbia. It is about your 
 old servant, Steadman.'' 
 
 " Dead ? " fahered Lady Maulevrier, ashy pale, as she looked 
 at him in the lamplight. 
 
 He bent his head affirmatively. 
 
 " Yes. He was seized with apoplexy — fell from his chair to 
 the hearrti and never spoke or stirred again," 
 
 Lady Maulevrier uttered no word of sorrow or surprise. She 
 lav, looking straight before her into vacancy, the pale attenuated 
 features rigid as if they had been marble. What was to be 
 done — what must be told — whom could she trust ? Those were 
 the questions repeating themselves in her mind as she stared 
 into space. And no answer came to them. 
 
 No answer came except the opening of a door opposite her 
 couch. The handle turned slowly, hesitatingly, as if moved by 
 a feeble hand ; and then the door was pushed slowly open and 
 an old man came with shuffling footsteps toward the one lighted 
 spot in the middle of the room. 
 
 It was the old man Lord Hartfield had last seen gloating over 
 his treasure of gold and jewels, the man whom Maulevrier had 
 never seen, whose existence for forty years had been hidden 
 from every creature in that house, except Lady Maulevrier and 
 the Steadmans, until Mary found her way into the old gar- 
 den. 
 
 He came close up to the little table in front of Lady Maule- 
 vrier's couch and looked down at her, a strange, uncanny being, 
 withered and bent, with pale, faded eyes, in which there was a 
 glimmer of unholy light. 
 
 " Good-evening to you. Lady Maulevrier," he said, in a mock- 
 ing voice. " I shouldn't have known you if we had met any- 
 where else. I think of the two of us you are more changed 
 than I." 
 
 She looked up at him, her features quivering, her haughty 
 head drawn back— as a bird shrinks from the gaze of a snake, 
 recoiling, but too fascinated to fly. Her eyes met his with a 
 look of unutterable horror. For some moments she was speech- 
 less, and then, looking at Lord Hartfield, she said, piteously : 
 
 " Why did you let him come here ? He ought to be taken 
 care of — shut up. It is Steadman's old uncle — a lunatic — whoni 
 I sheltered. Why is he allowed to come to my room ? " 
 
 " 1 am Lord Maulevrier," said the old man, drawing himself 
 UD and planting his crutch stick upon the floor. " I am Lord 
 Maulevrier, and this woman is my wife. Yes, I am mad some- 
 times, but not always. I have my bad fits, but not often. But 
 
404 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 I never forget who and what I am ; Algernon, Earl of Maulevrier, 
 Governor of Madras." 
 
 " Lady Maulevrier, is this horrible thing true ? " cried her 
 grandson, vehemently. 
 
 " He is mad, Maulevrier. Don't you see that he is mad ? " 
 she exclaimed, looking from Hartfield to her grandson, and then 
 with a look of loathing and horror at her accuser. 
 
 " I tell you, young man, I am Maulevrier," said the accuser, 
 " there is no one else who has a right to be called by that name, 
 while I live. They have shut me up — she and her accomplice — 
 denied my name — hidden me from the world. He is dead, and 
 she lies there — stricken for her sins." 
 
 *' My grandfather died at the inn at Great Langdale," faltered 
 Maulevrier. 
 
 " Your grandfather was brought to this house — ill — out of his 
 wits. All cloud and darkness here," said the old man, touching 
 his forehead. " How long has it been ? Who can tell ? A 
 weary time — long, dark nights, full of ghosts. Yes, I have seen 
 him — the Rajah, that copper-faced scoundrel, seen him as she 
 told me he looked when she gave the signal to her slaves to 
 strangle him, there in the hall, where the grave was dug ready 
 for the traitor's carcass. She too — yes, she has haunted me, 
 calling upon me to give up her treasure, to restore her son." 
 
 " Yes," cried the paralytic woman, suddenly lifted out of her- 
 self, as it were, in a paroxysm of fury, every feature convulsed, 
 every nerve strained to its utmost tension, " yes, this is Lord 
 Maulevrier. You have heard the truth, and from his own lips. 
 You, his only son's only son. You hear him avow himself the 
 instigator of a diabolical murder ; you hear him confess how his 
 paramour's husband was strangled at his false wife's bidding, in 
 his own palace, buried under the Moorish pavement in the hall 
 of many arches. You hear how he inherited the Rajah's treas- 
 ures from a mistress who died strangely, swiftly, conveniently, 
 so soon as he had wearied of her and a new favorite had begun 
 to exercise her influence. Such things are done in the East — 
 dynasties annihilated, kingdoms overthrown, poison or bowstring 
 used at will to gratify a profligate's passion, or pay for a spend- 
 thrift's extravagances.- Such things were done when that man 
 was Governor of Madras as were never done by an Englishman 
 in India before his time. He went there fettered by no preju- 
 dices — he was more Mussulman than the Mussulmans themselves 
 — a deeper, darker traitor. And it was to hide crimes such as 
 these — to interpose the great peacemaker death between him 
 and the government which was resolved upon punishing him-— 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 405 
 
 to save the honor, the fortune of my son, and the children who 
 were to come after him, the name of a noble race, a name that 
 was ever stainless until he defiled it — it was for this great end I 
 took steps to hide that feeble, useless life of his from the world 
 he had offended. I screened him from his enemies — I saved 
 him from the ignominy of public trial — from the execration of 
 his countrymen. His only punishment was to eat his heart un- 
 der this roof in luxurious seclusion, his comfort studied, his 
 whims gratified so far as they could be by the most faithful of 
 servants. A light penance for the dark infamies of his life in 
 India, I think. His mind was all but gone when he came here, 
 but he had his rational intervals, and in these the burden of his 
 lonely life may have weighed heavily upon him, but it was not 
 such a heavy burden as I have borne — I, his jailer, I who have de- 
 voted my existence to the one task of guarding the family honor." 
 
 He, whom she thus acknowledged as her husband, had sunk 
 exhausted into a chair near her. He took out his gold snuff-box 
 and refreshed himself with a leisurely pinch of snuff, looking 
 about him all the while with a senile grin. That flash of passion 
 which for a few minutes had restored him to the full possession 
 of his reason had burnt itself out, and his mind had relapsed 
 into the condition in which it had been when he talked to Mary 
 in the garden. 
 
 " My pipe, Steadman," he said, looking toward the door, 
 " bring me my pipe ; " and then, impatiently, " What has become 
 of Steadman } He has been getting inattentive — very inatten- 
 tive." 
 
 He got up and moved slowly to the door, leaning on his crutch 
 stick, his head sunk upon his breast, muttering to himself as he 
 went ; and thus he vanished from them like the specter of some 
 terrible ancestor which had returned from the grave to announce 
 the coming of a calamity to a doomed race. His grandson 
 looked after him with an expression of intense displeasure. 
 
 " And so. Lady Maulevrier," he exclaimed, turning to his 
 grandmother, " I have borne a title that never belonged to me, 
 and enjoyed the possession of another man's estates all this time, 
 thanks to your pretty little plot. A very respectable position 
 for your grandson to occupy, upon my life." 
 
 Lord Hartfield lifted his hand with a warning gesture. 
 
 " Spare her," he said. " She is in no condition to endure 
 your reproaches." 
 
 Spare her — yes. Fate had not spared her. The beautiful 
 face — beautiful even in age and decay — changed suddenly as 
 she looked at them — the mouth became distorted, the eyes fixed ; 
 
4o6 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 and then the heavy head fell back upon the pillow — the paral- 
 yzed form, wholly paralyzed now, lay like a thing of stone. It 
 never moved again. Consciousness was blotted out forever in 
 that moment. The feeble pulses of heart and brain throbbed 
 with gradually diminishing power for a night and a day; and in 
 the twilight of that dreadful day of nothingness the last glimmer 
 of the light died in the lamp, and Lady Maulevrier and the bur 
 den of her sin were beyond the veil. 
 
 Viscount Haselden, alias Lord Maulevrier, held a long con- 
 sultation with Lord Hartfield on the night of his grandmother's 
 death, as to what steps ought to be taken in relation to the real 
 Earl of Maulevrier, and it was only at the end of a serious and 
 earnest disscussion that both young men came to the decision 
 that Lady Maulevrier's secret ought to be kept faithfully to the 
 end. Assuredly no good purpose could be achieved by letting 
 the world know old Lord Maulevrier's existence. A half-lunatic 
 octogenarian could gain nothmg by being restored to rights 
 and possessions which he'' had most justly forfeited. All that 
 justice demanded was that the closing years of his life should be 
 made as comfortable as care and wealth could make them ; and 
 Hartfield and Haselden took immediate steps to this end. But 
 their first act was to send the old Earl's treasure chest, under 
 safe convoy, to the India House, with a letter explaining how 
 this long hidden wealth, brought from India by Lord Maulevrier, 
 had been discovered among other effects in a lumber room at 
 Lady Maulevrier's country house. The money so delivered up 
 might possibly have formed part of his Lordship's private fort- 
 une ; but, in the absence of any knowledge as to its origin, his 
 grandson, the present Lord Maulevrier, preferred to deliver it 
 up to the authorities of the India House, to be dealt with as 
 they might think fit. 
 
 The old Earl made no further attempt to assert himself. He 
 seemed content to remain in his own rooms as of old, to potter 
 about the garden, where his solitude was as complete as that of 
 a hermit's cell. The only moan he made was for James Stead- 
 man, whose services he missed sorely. Lord Hartfield replaced 
 that devoted servant by a clever Austrian valet, a new importa- 
 tion from Vienna, who understood very little English, a trained 
 attendant upon mental invalids, and who was quite capable of 
 dealing with old Lord Maulevrier. 
 
 Lord Hartfield went a step farther, and within a week of those 
 two funerals of servant and mistress, which cast a gloom over 
 the peaceful valley of Grasmere, he brought down a famous mad- 
 doctor to diagnose his Lordship's case. There was but little risk 
 
PHANTOM FORTUNE. 407 
 
 in so doing, he argued with his friend, and it was their duty so 
 to do. If the old man should assert himself to the doctor as 
 Lord Maulevrier the declaration would pass as a symptom of his 
 lunacy. But it happened that the physician arrived at Fellside 
 on one of Lord Maulevrier's bad days, and the patient never 
 emerged from the feeblest phase of imbecility. 
 
 " Brain quite gone," pronounced the doctor ; " bodily health 
 ver}'- poor. Take him to the south of France for the Winter — 
 Hyeres, or any quiet place. He can't last long." 
 
 To Hyeres the old man was taken, with Mrs. Steadman as 
 nurse and the Austrian valet as body servant and keeper. Mary, 
 for whom in his brighter hours he showed a warm affection, went 
 with him, under her husband's wing. 
 
 Lord Hartfield rented a chateau on the slope of an olive-clad 
 hill, where he and his young wife, whose health was somewhat 
 delicate at this time, spent a Winter in peaceful seclusion, while 
 Lesbia and her brother traveled together in Italy. The old 
 man's strength improved in that lovely climate. He lived to see 
 the roses and orange blossoms of the early Spring and died in 
 his arm-chair suddenly, without a pang, while Mary sat at his 
 feet reading to him — a quiet end of an evil and troubled life. 
 And now he whom the world had known as Lord Maulevrier 
 was verily the earl and could hear himself called by his title 
 once more without a touch of shame. 
 
 The secret of Lady Maulevrier's sin had been so faithfully 
 kept by the two young men that neither of her granddaughters 
 knew the true story of that mysterious person whom Mary had 
 first heard of as James Steadman's uncle. She and Lesbia both 
 knew that there were painful circumstances of some kind con- 
 nected with this man's existence, his hidden life in the old house 
 at Fellside ; but they were both content to learn no more. Re- 
 spect for their grandmother's memory, sorrowful affection for 
 the dead prevailed over natural curiosity. 
 
 Early in February Maulevrier sent decorators and upholster- 
 ers into the old house in Curzon Street, which was ready before 
 the middle of May to receive his Lordship and his young wife, 
 the girlish daughter of a grand old Florentine family, a gazelle- 
 eyed Italian, with a voice whose every tone was music, and with 
 the gentlest, shyest, most engaging manners of any girl in Flor- 
 ence. Lady Lesbia, strangely subdued and changed by the 
 griefs and humiliations of her last campaign, had been her broth- 
 er's counselor and confidante throughout his wooing ot his fair 
 Italian bride. She was to spend the season under her brother's 
 roof, to help to initiate young Lady Maulevrier in the mysterious 
 
4o8 PHANTOM FORTUNE, 
 
 rites of London society, and to warn her of those rocks and shoals 
 which had wrecked her own fortunes. 
 
 The month of May brought a son and heir to Lord Hartfield ; 
 and it was not till after his birth that Mary, Countess of Hart- 
 field, was presented to her sovereign and began her career as a 
 matron of rank and standing, very much overpowered by the 
 weight of her honors, and looking forward with delight to the 
 end of the season and a flight to Argyleshire with her husband 
 and baby. 
 
 THE END.