Cynthia looked round at her visitor with a sort of timidity which she did not often exhibit. He was apparently about sixty years of age, broad-shouldered, and muscularly built, but with a stiffness of gait which seemed to be either the result of chronic rheumatism or of an accident which had partially disabled him. His face was brown, his eyes were dark and bright; but his hair and beard were almost white, although his eyebrows had not a grizzled tint. He was roughly but respectably dressed, and looked like a prosperous yeoman or an artisan of the better class. Cynthia glanced at him keenly, then seemed to gain confidence, and asked him to sit down. The visitor obeyed; but Cynthia continued standing, with her hands on the back of a heavy chair.
"Mr. Reuben Dare?" she said at length, as the old man did not speak.
"Come straight from Ameriky," said he—he sat bolt-upright on his chair, and looked at the girl with a steady interest and curiosity which almost embarrassed her—"and promised to look you up as soon as I got over here. Can you guess who 'twas I promised, missy?"
Cynthia grew first red and then white.
"No," she said; "I am not sure that I can."
"Is there nobody belonging to you that you haven't heard of for years and years?"
"Yes," said Cynthia; "I think perhaps there is."
"A man," said Mr. Reuben Dare, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, and trying to subdue his rather harsh voice to quietness—"a man as was related to you, maybe?"
"If you will say what you mean, I think I can answer you better," said Cynthia.
"Do you think I am going to say what I mean until I know what sort of a young woman you are, and how you'll take the news I bring you?" said the man.
With a somewhat savage and truculent air he drew hiseyebrows down over his eyes as he spoke; but there was a touch of something else as well—of stirred emotion, of doubt, of troubled feeling—which dissipated Cynthia's fears at once. She left the chair which she had been grasping with one hand, and came closer to her visitor.
"I see that you are afraid to trust me," she said quickly. "You think that perhaps I am hard and worldly, and do not want to have anything to do with my relatives? That is not true. You are thinking—speaking—of my poor father perhaps. As long as I was a child—a mere girl—I did not think much about him, I was content to believe what people told me—not that he was guilty—I never believed that!—but that I could do nothing for him, and that I had better not interfere. When I was independent and beginning to think for myself—about six months ago—I found out what I might have done. Shall I go on to tell you what I did?"
"Yes, yes—go on!" The man's voice was husky; his wrinkled hand trembled as it lay upon his knee. He watched the girl's face with hungry eyes.
"I wrote to the Governor of the prison," said Cynthia, "and told him that I had only just discovered—having been such a child—that I could write to my father or see him at regular intervals, and that I should like to do so from time to time. He asked me in return how it was that an intimation—which had been forwarded, I believe, to certain persons interested in my welfare—of my father's fate had not been given to me. My father had, by a desperate effort, succeeded in escaping from Portland; he had never been recaptured; and, from certain information received, the authorities believed that he was dead. He added however that he had a shrewd suspicion that Andrew Westwood had thrown dust into the eyes of the police, had left the country, and was not dead at all."
"And begged you to communicate with the authorities if you heard from him, I suppose?"
"No; he did not go so far as that to the man's own daughter," said Cynthia calmly. "And it would, of course, have been useless if he had."
"Why—why?"
"Because," said the girl, her lips suddenly trembling and her eyes filling with tears—"because I love my father, and would do anything in the world for him—if he wouldlet me. Can you not tell me where he is? I would give all I have to see him once again!"
Reuben Dare fidgeted in his chair, and half turned his face away. Then, without meeting her eager tearful eyes, he replied half sullenly—
"The Governor was right. He got away—away to America."
"Oh, then he is living still? He is well?"
"Oh, yes—he's living, and well enough! He hasn't done so badly neither. He got some land and 'struck ile,' as they say in America; and living under another name, and nobody knowing anything about him—he—well, he's had fair luck."
"And you come from him—you are a friend of his? Did he want to hear of me?"
"Yes, missy, he did. But he would scarce ha' known you if he'd met you in the street—you, grown so tall and handsome and dressed so fine. It was your name as gave him the clue—'Cynthia'—'Cynthia West'; for he read in the papers as you were singing at concerts, and he says to himself, 'Why, that's my gal, sure enough; and she hain't forgotten her mother's name!'"
"Go on!" said Cynthia quickly.
"Go on? What do you mean?" asked Reuben Dare, a little suspiciously. "There's nothing more to say, is there? And he asked me to make inquiries while I was in England—that was all."
"Oh, no, that was not all!" said Cynthia, drawing nearer, and holding out her hands a little, like one under hypnotic influence, fascinated by a power over which she had no control. "I can tell you the rest. The more he thought of his child, and the more he remembered how she used to love him and trust in him, the more he felt that he could not stay away from her; and so, although the risk was great—terrible—he determined to come back to England and see with his own eyes whether she was safe and well. And when he saw her"—there was a sob in her voice—"he said to himself that perhaps after all she was a hard, unfeeling creature who had forgotten him, or a wicked, treacherous woman who would betray her own father, and that he would go away back to America and never see her again, forgetting to ask whether she had not a heart and a memory too, and whether it might not be that she hadloved him all her life, and whether she was not longing to fall upon his neck and kiss his dear face, and tell him that she wanted a father for many, many dreary years, and that she trusts him, believes in him, loves him with all her heart! Oh, father, father!"—and Cynthia lay sobbing on his breast.
She had thrown herself impulsively on her knees beside him; her arms were round his neck, and he was covering her face with kisses. He did not attempt to deny that she had spoken the truth—that he was indeed her father—the man who had been condemned to death, and whom she had believed until this moment to be in America, if still indeed alive; but neither did he try to prove the fact. He sat still, with his arms round her, and—to her surprise—the tears running down his cheeks as freely as they were running down her own. She looked up at him at last and smiled rather piteously in his face.
"Dear father," she said, "and have you come all this way and run into so much danger just to see me?"
"Yes, I have, Cynthy," said the man who called himself Reuben Dare. "I said to myself, I can't get on any longer without seeing her, any way. If that's my girl that sings—as her mother did before her—I shall know her in a trice. But, bless you, my girl, I didn't—not till you began to speak! And then t'was just like your mother."
"Am I so much altered?" said Cynthia wistfully.
"As much as you ought to be, my beauty, and no more. You ain't like the skinny little bit of a thing that ran wild round Beechfield lanes; but then you don't want to be. You're a good deal like your mother; but she wasn't as dark as you. And, being so different, you see, I thought you might be different in yourself—not ready to acknowledge your father as belonging to you at all, maybe; and so I'd try you with a message first and see what you said to that."
"You are altered too, father."
"Yes, my deary, I'm altered too. Hain't I had enough to alter me? Injustice and oppression have almost broke my heart, and ague and fever's taken the strength out o' my limbs, and a knock I got in the States three years ago has nigh crippled me. I'm a broken-down man, with only strength left for one thing—and that's to curse the hard-hearted ruffian, whoever he was, that spoiled my life forme, and thought to hang me by the neck or shut me up in prison for the rest of my days. If ever I could come across him, I'd do my best to make him suffer as I have suffered. I pray God night and day that He'll let me see that rascal on his knees to me yet before I die!"
His voice had grown loud and fierce, his eyes shone beneath the shaggy eyebrows, his hand shook as he raised it to call down vengeance on the man who had left him to his fate. Cynthia trembled in spite of her love for him—the tones, the look, brought back memories which made her feel that her father was in a great many ways unchanged, and that the wild, lawless nature of the man might be suppressed but never utterly subdued. She did not feel the slightest abatement of her love for him on this account; but it suddenly made her aware of the dangers and difficulties of his position, and aroused her fears for his safety, even in that house.
"Father," she said "are you sure that nobody will remember you?"
Westwood laughed harshly.
"They're not likely to know me," he said. "I've taken care to change my looks since then;" and, by a sudden movement of his hand, he showed her that hair, beard, and moustache were all fictitious, and that beneath the silvery exterior there grew a scantier crop of sparse gray hair and whiskers, which recalled his former appearance much more clearly to his daughter's mind.
"Oh, don't take them off!" she cried. "Somebody may come in—the door is not locked! At another time, dear father, you will show me your real face, will you not?"
He looked at her with a mingling of pride and sorrow in his glance.
"And you ain't wanting me to be found out then—you don't want to give me up to the police?"
"Father, how can you think of such a thing?"
"Some women-folks would think of it, my girl. But you—you're fond of your father still, Cynthy?"
She answered by taking his rough hand in her own and kissing it tenderly.
"And you don't believe I killed Mr. Vane down at Beechfield—eh, Cynthy? Because if you believe it, you know, you and me had better part without more words about it. Least said, soonest mended."
"I do not believe it—I never did!" said Cynthia proudly.
"On your word and honor and Bible-oath, Cynthia?"
"On my word and honor and on my Bible-oath, father," she said, repeating the words, because she saw that he attached especial importance to the formula. "I never believed and never will believe that you were guilty of Sydney Vane's murder! My father"—she said it as proudly as if he had been a Royal Prince—"was never capable of a base and wicked deed!"
"It's her mother's voice," murmured the man, raising his hand to his eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the young girl's face, and to abstract himself from everything but the sound, "and it's her mother's trust in me! Cynthia, my dear, what do you know o' your father to make you so ready to stand by him?" There was a great and an unaccustomed tenderness in his tone. "I'm a common man, and I've spent years of my life in gaol, and I was a tramp and a poacher—I won't deny it—in the olden days; and before that—well, before that, I was a gamekeeper on a big estate—turned away in disgrace, my dear, because my master's daughter fell in love with me. You never heard that before, did you?—though any one would guess that you didn't come of a common stock! Wetheral was her name—Cynthia Wetheral of Bingley Park, in Gloucestershire. There are relatives of hers living there still; but they don't acknowledge us—they won't have anything to do with you, Cynthia, my girl. I married her and took her away wi' me; and for twelve blessed months we were as happy as the day was long; and then she died." He paused a little, and caressed Cynthia's head with his hand.
"You're like her, my dear. But I'm only a low common sort o' man that sunk lower and lower since the day she died; and you've no call to trust me unless you feel inclined—no call in the very least. If you say you don't quite believe my word, my pretty, I'll not cut up rough—I'll just go away quiet, and never trouble you any more."
"Father," said Cynthia, "listen to me one moment. We were separated when I was only eleven years old; but don't you think that in eleven years I could learn something of your real disposition—your true nature? I remember how you used to care for me, how tender and kind you were to me, although you might perhaps seem gloomy and moroseto all the world beside. I remember your bringing home a dog with a broken leg, and nursing it till it was cured. You had pets of all kinds—birds, beasts, flowers. You never did a cruel thing in your life; and how could I think then, that you would lie in wait to kill a man out of mere spite and revenge—a man, too, with a wife and a child—a little girl like me? I knew you better, father, all the time!"
Westwood shook his head doubtfully.
"Maybe you're right," he said, "and maybe wrong. I've seen rough deeds done in my day, and never lifted a hand to interfere. I won't deny but what I did lie in wait for Mr. Vane that very afternoon—but with no thought of murder in my mind. I meant to tell him what my opinion was of him and of his doings; for there was carryings-on that I didn't approve of, and it's my belief that in those very carryings-on lies the key of the mystery. I've thought it all out in prison, slow-like—at nights when I lay in bed, and days when I was hewing stone. I won't tell you the story, my pretty; it ain't fit for the likes of you. But there was a woman mixed up in it; and, if there was any man who had rights over the woman—sweetheart or husband, brother or father, or such-like—it's in that quarter that you and me should look for the real murderer of Sydney Vane."
"Can't we do anything, father? Won't you tell me the whole story?"
"Not now, my girl; I must be going."
"Where are you going, father? Will you be in a safe place?"
"Quite safe, my dear—quite safe! Nobody would know me in this guise, would they? I'm at No. 119 Isabella Street, Camden Town—quite a little out-o'-the-way place—just the sort to suit a quiet respectable-looking man like me." He gave vent to a grim little chuckle as he went on. "They don't know who they've got hold of, do they? Maybe they wouldn't be quite so pleased if they did."
"May I come and see you there, father?"
"Well, my girl, I think not. Such a—a splendid-looking sort of a party as you've turned out coming to visit me would make people talk. And we don't want people to talk, do we? Isn't there any quiet spot where you and me could meet and walk about a bit? Kensington Gardens; maybe, or Regent's Park?"
Cynthia thought that Kensington Gardens would be quiet enough in the morning for their purpose, and it was agreed that they should meet there the next day at noon. Westwood's disguise was so perfect that he did not attempt to seclude himself during the day.
"And then," he said, "we can talk about you coming over to Ameriky, and living happy and quiet somewhere with me."
"Oh, I can't leave England!" said Cynthia, with a sudden little gasp. "Don't ask me, father; I can't possibly go away."
He looked at her keenly and scrutinisingly for a moment, and then he said—
"That means that you've got a reason for wanting to stop in England. That means that you've got a sweetheart—a lover, my pretty—and that you won't leave him. I know the ways of women well enough. I don't want to force you, my girl; but I hope that he's worthy of the woman you've grown to be. Tell me his name."
Cynthia's father did not get his question answered, because at that moment a thundering knock at the front-door announced the return of Madame, and there was rather a hasty struggle to get him away from the house without encountering that lady's sharp eyes and vivacious questioning, which Cynthia was not at all sure that he could meet with equanimity. For herself she felt at that moment equal to any struggle involving either cunning or courage. She could combat to death for one she loved.
"Who was that man,carissima? Why was he here at this hour of the night? You are a little imprudent, are you not, to receive such visitors without me?" said Madame, having caught a glimpse of the intruder's retiring figure.
Cynthia laughed.
"He is venerable, Madame—white-bearded, old, and a relative—an uncle from America whom I have not seen since I was a child. I believe that he has made a fortune and wants to endow me with it. We shall see!"
"Ah, my angel, if he would do that," cried Madame cheerfully, "we would welcome him at any hour of the day or night, would not we? Bid him to dinner with thee, little one, or to tea, after thy English fashion—as thou wilt. The uncle with money is always a desired visitor."
And thus Cynthia escaped further questioning, although at the cost of an untruth which she did not consider it her duty to repent. "For surely," she said to herself, "it is right for a daughter to sacrifice anything and everything to her father's safety! I was ashamed of having to tell Hubert what was not true just for my own benefit; but I am not ashamed of deceiving Madame for my father's sake. I am sorry—ah, yes, I am sorry! But what can I do?" And in the solitude of her own room Cynthia wrung her hands together, and shed a few bitter tears over the hardness and strangeness of her fate.
To one who knew all the facts of her story and her father's story, it might indeed have been a matter for meditation that "wrong-doing never ends"—that, because Sydney Vane had been an unprincipled man and Florence Lepel a woman without a conscience, therefore a child of whom they never heard had grown up without the presence of a father's love, or the innate reverence for truth that prevailed in the heart of a Jeanie Deans. Cynthia was no Jeanie Deans; she was a faulty but noble-hearted woman, with a nature that had suffered some slight warping from the effect of adverse circumstance.
Cynthia and her father met the next morning under the spreading branches of the trees in Kensington Gardens; and there, as they walked up and down together, Westwood unfolded his plans. From what he let slip—although he tried not to be too definite—it was evident that he had made considerable sums of money, or what he thought such; and he wanted Cynthia to give up working, and "go West" with him. He assured her that she should have every comfort, every luxury; that he was likely to make more and more money as time went on, and that he might even become a millionaire. Would she not partake of the magnificence that was in store for her? But Cynthia shook her head. And then he spoke of his loneliness, of his long absence from his only child, and his desire to have a home of his own; now that he began to feel the infirmities of age, he not only wanted a daughter asan ornament to his house, but as the prop of his declining years. And at this Cynthia shed tears and began to waver. Ought she not to go with her father? she asked herself. It might be better for Hubert, as well as for her, if she went away; and, even if at the end of two years she became Hubert's wife, she would at any rate have had two years with her father. And, if Hubert married "the other girl," she would stay with her father until his life's end—or hers. But the fact remained at the end of all arguments—she did not want to go.
"What do you want to stay in England for?" Westwood said at length. "Is it to make money? I've got enough for both of us. Is it to sing in public? You'll get bigger audiences over there, my girl. If you love your old father as you say you do, why won't you come along with him?" He paused, and added, almost in a whisper, "Unless there's somebody you like better, I don't see why you want to stay."
Cynthia's face turned crimson immediately. Her father's words made her feel very guilty. She loved him—true; but she loved Hubert better, and she had not known it until that moment. She knew it thoroughly now.
"Well," said Westwood, in a peculiarly dogged tone, "I see what's up. Who is he?"
"He is a very clever man, father," said Cynthia, keeping her hot face away from him as much as possible—"a literary man; he writes plays and novels and poetry. He is thought a great deal of in London."
"As poor as a rat, and wants you to keep him. Is that it?"
"Oh, no, indeed, father! He makes a great deal of money. It was he who sent me to Italy to study music; he paid for me to live where I do, with Madame della Scala."
They were in a quiet part of the Gardens, and her father suddenly laid an iron grip upon her wrist.
"Look at me," he burst out—"tell me the truth! You—you ain't—you ain't bound to him in any way?" He dare not, after all, put his sudden suspicion into plainer words. "It's all fair and square? He's asked you to be his wife, and not——"
Cynthia wrenched away her arm.
"I did not think that my own father would insult me!"she said, in a voice which, though low, vibrated with anger. "I am quite well able to take care of my own honor and dignity; and Mr. Lepel would never dream of assailing either."
Then she broke down a little, and a few tears made their way over the scarlet of her cheeks; but of these signs of distress her father took no notice. He stood still in the middle of the path down which they had been walking, and repeated the name incredulously.
"'Lepel'! 'Lepel'! Is that your sweetheart's name?"
"'Hubert Lepel.' It is a well-known name," said Cynthia, with head erect.
"Hubert Lepel! Not the man at Beechfield, the cousin of those Vanes?" He spoke in a whisper, with his eyes fixed on his daughter's face.
Cynthia turned very pale.
"I do not know. Oh, it can't be the same," she said.
"It's not likely that there are two men of the same name. He was a cousin of the man who was killed, I tell you; and he was the brother—the brother——" Suddenly Westwood stopped short; his eyes fell to the ground, his breathing quickened; he thrust his hands into his pockets and frowned heavily as he reflected. "Have I got a clue?" he said, more to himself than to Cynthia. "He's the brother of that woman—the woman that Sydney Vane used to meet in the wood so often, and thought that nobody knew. Did he—did he——" But, raising his eyes suddenly, he saw the whiteness of Cynthia's face, and did not finish his question. "Listen to me!" he said, with sudden sternness. "This man belongs to them that put me in prison and believe me to have murdered Sydney Vane. Do you understand that, girl?"
"Father, he would trust you—he would believe in you—if once he saw you and talked to you."
"So you mean to betray me to him, do you?"
"Father—dear father!"
"If you say a word to him about my being in England, Cynthia, you may just as well put a rope round my neck or give me a dose of poison. For buried alive at Portland I never will be again!"
"He would no more betray you, father, than——"
"Promise me that you'll not breathe a word to him about me!"
"I promise."
"And swear?"
"I swear, father—not until you give me leave."
"I shall never give you leave. Do you want to kill me, Cynthia? I'd never have thought it of you after all you said! Come, my girl, you needn't cry; I did not mean to suspect you; but I'm so used to being on my guard. Does he know whose daughter you are?"
"No, father."
"You haven't dared to tell him, and yet you wanted to put my safety in his hands!"
"I am sure he is too kind, too noble, to think of betraying any one!" Cynthia pleaded; but her father would not hear.
"Tut! If he thinks I murdered his cousin, he wouldn't feel any particular call to be kind to me, I guess. I should like to understand all about this affair, Cynthia. Come, sit down on this bench here under the trees, and tell me about it. Don't vex yourself over what I said; I was but carried away by the heat of the moment. Now are you promised to this Mr. Lepel—engaged to him, as you young folk call it?"
"I don't know whether I can tell you anything, father," murmured Cynthia.
"You'd better," said Westwood quietly, "because it hangs on a thread whether I ain't going to denounce Mr. Lepel as the man that killed Mr. Sydney Vane. I never thought of him before, although I did see him at the trial and knew that he'd been hanging round the place. He was her brother, sure enough—he had a motive. Well, Cynthia?"
"Father, if you are thinking such terrible things of Hubert, how can I tell you anything? You know I—I love him; if you accuse him of a crime, I shall cling to him still—and love him still—and save him if I can."
"At your father's expense, girl?"
She writhed at the question, and twisted her fingers nervously together, but did not speak. Westwood waited for a minute or two, and then resumed—this time very bitterly.
"It's always so! The lover always drives the parent out of the young folks' hearts. For this man—that you haven't known more than a few months, I suppose—you'dgive up your father to worse than the gallows—to the misery of a life sentence—and be glad, maybe, to see the last of him! If it was him or me, you would save him—and perhaps you're in the right of it. I wish," said the man, turning away his face—"I wish to God that I'd never come back to England, nor seen the face of my girl again!"
Cynthia had been physically incapable hitherto of stemming the flow of his words; but now, although she was trembling with excitement and sorrow and indignation, she answered her father's accusation resolutely.
"You are wrong, father. I will not sacrifice you to him. But you must not expect me to sacrifice him to you either. My heart is large enough to hold you both."
There was a pathos in the tone of her last few words which impressed even Westwood's not very plastic nature. He turned towards her, noting with half-unconscious anxiety the whiteness of the girl's lips, the shadow that seemed to have descended upon her eyes. He put out his rough hand and touched her daintily gloved fingers.
"Don't be put out by what I say, my girl! If I speak sharp, it's because I feel deep. I won't be hard on any one you care for, I give you my word; but it'll be the best thing for you to be fair and square with me and tell me all about him. Are you going to marry him?"
"He wishes to marry me," said Cynthia, yielding, with a sigh; "but there has been an arrangement—a sort of family arrangement, I understand—by which he must—ought to marry a young lady in two years, when she is twenty or twenty-one, if she consents and if she is strong enough. She is ill now, and she does not seem to care for him. That is all I know. I have promised to marry him if he is free at the end of the two years."
It sounded a lame story—worse, when she told it, than when she had discussed it with Hubert Lepel or wept over it in her own room. Westwood uttered a growl of anger.
"And you're at his beck and call like that! He is to take you or leave you as he pleases! Pretty state of matters for a girl like you! Why, with your face and your pretty voice and your education, I should think that you could have half Lunnon if you chose!"
"Not I," said Cynthia, laughing with a little of her old spirit—"or, if I had, it would be the wrong half, father.Besides, Mr. Lepel is not to blame. He—he would marry me to-morrow, I believe, if I would allow it; it was I that arranged to wait. I would rather wait. Why should I marry anybody before I have seen the world?"
"Where does Mr. Lepel live, Cynthy?" said Westwood slowly, as if he had not been attending very much to what she said.
Cynthia hesitated; then she gave him Hubert's address. She knew that her father could easily get it elsewhere, and that it would only irritate him if she refused. Besides, she had too much confidence in her lover to think that harm could come of her father's knowledge of the place in which he lived. But she was a little surprised when her father at once stood, up and said, with his former placidity of tone—
"Well, then, my dear, I'm a-going round to look at Mr. Lepel. I'm not going to harm him, nor even maybe to speak to him; but I want to have a little look at him before I see you again. And then I shall maybe go out of town for a bit. There are one or two places I want to look at again. So you needn't be surprised if you don't hear from me again just yet a while. I'll write when I come back."
"Oh, father, you will not run into any danger, will you?"
"Not a bit, my dear. There's not a soul on earth would know me as I am now. Don't you be afraid! I'll walk back with you to the gate, and, then we'd better say good-bye. If you want anything special, write to me—Reuben Dare, you know—at the address I gave you; but even then, my girl, don't you mention names. It's a dangerous thing to do on paper."
"I'll remember," said Cynthia, with unwonted submissiveness.
They parted at the gate, and Westwood, without looking round, went some paces in the easterly direction which he had chosen to take. But all at once he heard a light footstep behind him, and a small gloved hand was laid upon his arm. It was Cynthia, slightly flushed and panting a little, her eyes unusually bright. She ran after him with a last word to say.
"Father," she said, "you will remember, will you not, that, although I love him, I love you too?"
"Do you, Cynthia?" said the man, rather sadly. "Well, maybe—maybe."
"And that you are to take care of yourself for my sake?"
"Eh? For your sake? Yes, my dear—yes."
"Good-bye, dear father!"
He nodded simply in reply; but, as he pursued his way eastward, his heart grew softer towards his child's lover than it would otherwise have been. How beautiful she had looked with those flushed cheeks and shining eyes! What was he that he should interfere with her happiness? If the man that she loved was good and true why should he not marry her, although he was a kinsman of the Vanes and the brother of a woman whom Westwood held in peculiar abhorrence? For accident had revealed to him many years before the relation between Sydney Vane and Florence Lepel, and she had seemed to him then and ever since to be less of a woman than a fiend. Yet, being somewhat slow in drawing conclusions, he had never associated her or her brother with Mr. Vane's death, until, in the solitude of his cell, he had laboriously "put two and two together" in a way which had not suggested itself either to himself or to his defenders at the time of the trial. He himself, from a strange mixture of delicate feeling and gruff reserve, had not chosen to tell what he knew about Miss Lepel and Sydney Vane; and only when it was too late did it occur to him that his silence had cost him his freedom, and might have cost him his life. He saw it all clearly now. It was quite plain to him that in some way or other Mr. Vane's death had been caused through his unfaithfulness to his wife. Some one had wished to punish him—some friend of hers, some friend of Miss Lepel's. Right enough he deserved to be killed, said Westwood to himself, as he elaborated his theory. If only the slayer, the avenger, had not refused to take the responsibility of his act upon his own shoulders! "If only he hadn't been cur enough;" Westwood muttered to himself, as he went along the London streets, "to leave me—a poor man, a common man, that only Cynthia loved—to bear the blame!"
When Hubert Lepel quitted Beechfield, a sudden calm, almost a stagnation of interest, seemed to fall upon the place. Mrs. Vane was said to be "less strong" than usual; the spring weather tried her; she must be kept quiet, the doctor said, and, if possible, tranquil in mind.
"God bless my soul, isn't she tranquil in mind?" the General had almost shouted, when Mr. Ingledew gave this opinion. "What else can she be? She hasn't a single thing to worry her; or, if she has, she has only to mention it and it will be set right at once."
The village doctor smiled amiably. He was a pale, thin, dark little man, with insight rather in advance of his actual knowledge. He would have been puzzled to say why he had jumped to the conclusion that Mrs. Vane's mind was not quite tranquil; but he was sure that it was not. Possibly, he was influenced by the conviction that it ought not to be tranquil; for, in the course of his visits among the villagers, he had heard some of the ugly rumors about Flossy's past, which were more prevalent than Mrs. Vane herself suspected and than the General ever had it in his power to conceive.
"Well, sir," he said—for Mr. Ingledew was always very deferential to the Squire of the parish—"what I meant was more perhaps that Mrs. Vane requires perfect freedom from all anxiety for the future than that she is suffering from uneasiness of mind at present. Possibly Mrs. Vane is a little anxious from time to time about Master Dick, who is not of a particularly robust constitution, or perhaps about Miss Vane, who does not strike me as looking exactly what I should call 'the thing.'"
"No—does she, Ingledew?" said the General, diverted at once from the consideration of his wife's health to that of his niece. "She's pale and peaky, is she not? Have you seen her to-day?"
"H'm—not professionally," replied Mr. Ingledew, rubbing his chin. "In point of fact, Mrs. Vane intimated to me that Miss Vane refused to see me—to see a doctor atall. I am sorry, for Miss Vane's own sake, as I think that she is not looking well at present—not at all well."
"There she goes!" cried the General. "We'll have her in, and hear what all this is about. Enid, Enid—come here!"
He had seen her in the conservatory, which ran along one side of the house. He and Mr. Ingledew were sitting in the library, and through its half-open glass door he had caught sight of the girl's white gown amongst the flowers. She turned instantly at his call.
"Did you want me, uncle?"
"Yes, dear. You are not looking well, Enid; we are concerned about you," said the General, going up to her and taking her by the hand. "Why do you refuse to see a doctor, my dear child?"
"But I have not refused, uncle."
"Oh—er—Mr. Ingledew——"
"I understood from Mrs. Vane," said the doctor, "that you did not wish for medical advice, Miss Vane."
Enid colored a little, and was silent for a moment; then she answered, in her usual gentle way—
"I had some disinclination a few days ago to consult a doctor, and perhaps Mrs. Vane has accidentally laid more stress upon my saying so than I intended. But I am quite willing—now—to consult Mr. Ingledew a little."
She sank into a chair as if she were very tired, and for a moment closed her eyes. Her face was almost colorless, and there were violet tints on her eyelids and her lips. Mr. Ingledew looked at her gravely and knit his brows. He knew well that her explanation of Mrs. Vane's words was quite insufficient. Mrs. Vane had sweetly and solemnly assured him that she had begged "dear Enid" to see a doctor—Mr. Ingledew or another—and that she had firmly refused to do so, saying that she felt quite well. Enid's words did not tally with Mrs. Vane's report at all. The doctor knew which of the two women he would rather believe.
The General walked away, leaving the patient and the medical man together. At the close of the interview, which did not last more than a few minutes, Enid rose with a weary little smile and left the room. The General came back to Ingledew.
"Well, Ingledew?"—Mr. Ingledew looked grave.
"I should not say that there was anything very serious," he said; "but Miss Vane certainly requires care. She suffers from palpitation of the heart and faintness; her pulse is intermittent; she complains of nausea and dizziness. Without stethoscopic examination I cannot of course be sure whether there is anything organically wrong; but I should conclude—judging as well as I can without the aid of auscultation—that there was some disturbance—functional disturbance—of the heart."
"Heart! Dear, dear—that's very serious, is it not?"
"Oh, not necessarily so! It may be a mere passing derangement produced by indigestion," said the doctor prosaically. "I will come in again to-morrow and sound her. I hope it is nothing more than a temporary indisposition." And so Mr. Ingledew took his leave.
"Mrs. Vane didn't want me to see her!" he said, as he left the house. "I wonder why?"
Meanwhile Enid, passing out into the hall, had been obliged to stand still once or twice by reason of the dizziness that threatened to overcome her. She leaned against the wall until the feeling had gone off, and then dragged herself slowly up the stairs. She had suffered in this way only for the last week or two—since Hubert went away. At first she had thought that the warm spring weather was making her feel weak and ill; but she did not remember that it had ever done so before. She had generally revived with the spring, and been stronger and better in the warmth and sunshine of summer. She could not understand why this spring should make her feel so ill. She went into her own room and lay down flat on the bed. She had the sensation of wishing to sink deeper and deeper down, as if she could not sink too low. Her heart seemed to beat more and more slowly; each breath that she drew was an effort to her. She wondered a little if she was going to die.
Presently she heard somebody enter the room. She was not strong enough to turn her head; but she opened her eyes and saw her maid Parker standing beside her bed and regarding her with alarm.
"Law, miss, you do look bad!" she said.
Enid's white lips moved and tears trembled on her eyelashes; but she did not speak. Parker, seriously alarmed, hastened to procure smelling-salts, brandy, andeau-de-Cologne, and, with a few minutes' care, these applications produced the desired result. Enid looked a little less death-like; she smiled as she took a dose of brandy and sal-volatile, and moved her fingers towards the woman at her side. Parker did not at first know what she wanted, but discovered at last that the girl wanted to hold her hand. Contact with something human seemed to help to bring her back from the shadowy borderland where she had been wandering. Parker, astonished and confused, wanted to draw away her hand; but the small cold fingers closed over it resistlessly. Then the woman stood motionless, holding a vinaigrette in her free hand, and looking at the pale face on the pillow, at the pathetic blue eyes which sought her own from time to time as if in want of pity. Something made Parker's heart beat fast and the hot tears came into her hard, dark eyes. She had never felt any particular fondness for Miss Enid before; but somehow that mute appeal, that silent claiming of sympathy and help, made the woman who had spent the last few weeks in dogging her footsteps and spying out her secrets bitterly regret the bondage in which her past life had placed her.
"Do you feel better now, miss?" she asked, in an unusually soft tone, presently.
"Yes, thank you, Parker; but don't go just yet."
Parker stood immovable. Secretly she began to long to get away. She was afraid that she should cry if she stayed there much longer holding Enid's soft little white hand in hers.
"Parker," said Enid presently, "were you in your room last night soon after I went to bed?" The maid slept in the next room to that of her young mistress.
"Yes, miss—at least, I don't know what time it was."
"It was between nine and ten o'clock when I went to bed. Did you see anybody—any one all in white—come into my room after I was in bed? If your door was open, you might have seen any one pass."
"Good gracious, miss, one would think that you was speaking of a ghost! No, I didn't see anybody pass."
"I thought, perhaps," said Enid rather faintly, "that it might be Mrs. Vane coming to see how I was, you know. She has a loose white wrapper, and she often throws a white lace shawl over her head when she goes down the passages."
"You must have been dreaming, miss," said Parker. She found it easier to withdraw her hand now that the conversation had taken this turn.
"I suppose I must," said Enid, in a scarcely audible tone. Then she turned away her face and said, "You can go now, Parker; I feel better. I think that I shall go to sleep."
But she did not sleep even when Parker had departed. She lay thinking, with the tears gathering and falling one by one, until they made a great wet spot on the pillow beneath her head. The shadow that hung over her young life was growing very dark.
Parker had hurried into her own room, where she first shut and locked the door, as if afraid to think even while it was open, and then wrung her hands in a sort of agony.
"To think of it—to think of it!" she said, bursting into sudden sobs. "And Miss Enid so sweet and innocent and gentle! What has she done? What has she got to be put out of the way for? Just for the sake of the money, I suppose, that it may all go to that wretched little Master Dick! Oh, she's a wicked woman—a wicked woman; and I'd give my life never to have set eyes upon her, for she'll be the ruin of me body and soul!"
But "she" in this case did not mean Enid Vane.
Parker was aroused from her meditations by the sharp tinkle of a bell, which she knew that Mrs. Vane must have rung. She started when she heard it, and a look of disgust crossed her face; but, as she hesitated, the bell rang again, more imperiously than ever. Parker dashed the tears from her eyes, and sped down the long corridor to Mrs. Vane's dressing-room. Her hands were trembling still.
"Why do you keep me in this way when I ring for you, Parker?" said Mrs. Vane, in her coldest tone. "I rang twice."
"Miss Vane wanted me, ma'am. I have been with her."
There was an odd tremor in the woman's voice. Mrs. Vane surveyed her critically.
"You look very strange, Parker. What is the matter with you? Are you ill?"
"No, ma'am; but Miss Vane is."
Flossy grew a shade paler and looked up. She was still in her dressing-gown—white, edged everywhere withcostly lace—and her fair hair was hanging loose over her shoulders.
"Ill? What is the matter with her?"
"I—I thought perhaps you would know, ma'am," said Parker desperately. Then, afraid of what she had said, she turned to a drawer, pulled it open, and began ransacking it diligently. From the momentary silence in the room she felt as if her shaft had gone home; but she dared not look round to see.
"What on earth do you mean, Parker?" said Mrs. Vane, after that one dead pause, which said so much to her maid's suspicious ears; the chill disdain in her voice was inimitable. "How can I tell you what is the matter with Miss Vane when I have not seen her since dinner-time yesterday? She was well enough then—at least, as well as she has been since this trying weather began."
"Didn't you see her last night, ma'am, when you went to her room about eleven o'clock?" said Parker, trying to assume a bolder tone, but failing to hide her nervousness.
Again a short but unmistakable pause.
"No, I did not," said Mrs. Vane drily. "I listened at the door to see if she was asleep, but I did not go in."
"She seems to have been dreaming that you did, ma'am."
"What nonsense!" said Mrs. Vane, a little hurriedly. "You should not attend to all her fancies, Parker. You know that she has very odd fancies indeed sometimes. The shock of her father's death when she was a child had a very injurious effect upon her nerves, and I should never be surprised at anything that she chose to do or say. Pray don't get into the way of repeating her words, or of imagining that they must necessarily be true!"
"No, ma'am," said Parker submissively.
Evidently there was nothing more for her to say. Well, perhaps she had put her mistress on her guard.
"Oh, by-the-bye, Parker! There are two dresses of mine in the wardrobe—the brown one and the silk—that you can do what you like with. And I was thinking of sending a little present to your mother. You may take this purse—there are seven pounds in it; send it to her from me, if you like, as a little acknowledgment of your faithful service. And, if—if there is anything else that I can do for her, you need only mention it."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Parker, but without enthusiasm. "I don't know as there's anything that she wants at present."
"Take the purse," said Flossy impatiently; "and then go away and come back when I ring. I won't have my hair brushed just now. Is Miss Vane better?"
"Yes, ma'am—she's better now." And Parker went away, knowing very well that she had been bribed to hold her tongue.
But after that interview she noticed that Enid seemed to recover tone and strength, that for a few succeeding days she was more like herself than she had been of late, and that the symptoms of faintness and palpitation which she had mentioned to Mr. Ingledew disappeared. Parker nodded mysteriously as she remarked on these facts to herself, and thought that for once her interference had had a good effect.
She had lately found less to report concerning Miss Vane's movements than before Mr. Lepel's visit; for Enid's ministrations amongst the poor had been almost entirely brought to a close, on the ground that close cottages and the sight of suffering must necessarily be bad for her health. Accordingly she had gone less and less to the village, and had seen almost nothing of Mr. Evandale. Parker, being thus less often "on duty," found more time than usual for her own various scraps of business, and took occasion one evening to run out to the post-office when all the family were at dinner; and while at the post-office she noticed a stranger in the village street—a highly respectable, venerable-looking old man with picturesque white hair and beard.
"That's Mr. Dare, who's a-stayin' at the inn," said the postmistress to Parker, who was a person of considerable importance in village eyes. "Such a nice old gentleman! He comes from America, where they say he's made a fortune, and he's very liberal with his money."
So good a character interested Parker at once in Mr. Dare. She felt quite flattered when, in passing down the lane, she was accosted by the gentleman in question, who pulled off his hat to her politely, and asked her whether she could tell him if Mr. Lepel was likely to visit Beechfield Hall in the course of a week or two.
"Let me see," said Parker. "Why, yes, sir—I heard yesterday that he was coming down next Saturday, just for a day or two, you know."
"I used to know a Mr. Lepel once," said the stranger, "and he did me a kindness. If this is the same, I'd like to thank him before I go. I heard him mentioned up at the 'Crown' yonder and wondered whether I could find out."
"I dare say it's the same—he's always a very kind gentleman," quoth Parker, remembering the half-crowns that Hubert had many a time bestowed on her.
"Fair, isn't he?" said Mr. Dare. "That was my Mr. Lepel—fair and short and stout and a nice little wife and family——"
"Oh, dear, no—that isn't our Mr. Lepel!" said Parker, with disdain. "He's tall and very dark and thin; and, as to being married, he's engaged to Miss Vane of Beechfield Hall, or as good as engaged, I know; and they're to be married when she's out of her teens, because the General, her uncle, won't consent to it before."
"Ah," said the stranger, "you're right; that's not the gentleman I know. Engaged, is he? And very fond of the young lady, I suppose?"
"Worships the very ground she treads upon!" said Parker. She would have thought itinfra dig.to allow for one moment that Miss Enid did not meet with her deserts in the way of adoration. "He's always coming down here to see her. And she the same! I don't think they could be happy apart. He's just devoted!"
"And that," said Reuben Dare to himself, "is the man who makes my girl believe that he is fond of her!"
Hubert was sadly puzzled by Cynthia's manner to him at this time. She seemed to have lost her bright spirits; she was grave and even depressed; now and then she manifested a sort of coldness which he felt that he did not understand. Was this the effect of his confession to her that he had pledged his faith before he lost his heart? She had shown no such coldness when he told her first; but perhaps reflection had changed her tone. He began by trying to treat her ceremoniously in return; but he found it a difficult task. He had never been on very ceremonious terms at all with her, and to begin them now, when she had acknowledged that she loved him and he had kissed her ripe red lips—he said to himself that it was absurd.
He did not cease his visits to Madame della Scala's house, nor try to set up an artificial barrier between himself and his love. Why then should she? He would not have this coldness, this conventionality of demeanor, he told himself; and yet he hardly knew how to beat it down. For he certainly had no right to demand that she should treat him as her lover when he was engaged—or half engaged—to marry Enid Vane.
He came one evening in May, and found her on the point of starting for asoiréewhere she was to sing. She wasen grande tenuefor the occasion, dressed, after an old Venetian picture, in dull red brocade, point-lace, and gold ornaments. He had given her the ornaments himself—golden serpents with ruby eyes—which she had admired in a jeweller's window. But for the rest of her dress she was in no wise indebted to him; she had been making money lately, and could afford herself a pretty gown.
She received him, he thought, a little coolly—perhaps only because Madame della Scala was sitting by—gave him the tips of her fingers, and declared that she must go almost immediately. It turned out that he was bound for the same place; and Madame at once asked him to escort them thither—the carriage would be at the door at half-past nine o'clock.
"I shall be only too happy," said Mr. Lepel, "if you will allow me such an honor. And, in the meantime, it is not yet nine o'clock, Cynthia; so, in spite of your impatience, you cannot start quite 'immediately.' What is there so attractive at the Gores' this evening that you wish to set off so early?"
"Oh, nothing—I did not know the time!" said Cynthia.
She did not reply jestingly, after her usual fashion; she sat down languidly, and spread her heavy skirts around her so as to make a sort of silken barrier between herself and Hubert. He bit his lip a little as he looked at her.
"Our little bird is not quite herself," said Madame, with a side grimace at Hubert which she did not want Cynthia to see. "She has what our neighbors call 'la migraine,' monsieur. She has never been well since the return of herold uncle from America, whose fortune—if he has a fortune—does not seem likely to do any of us any good—her least of all."
Cynthia lowered her head a little and darted a sudden and fierce glance at her teacher and chaperon—a glance of which Hubert guessed the meaning. She had never mentioned this "uncle from America" to him; probably she had told Madame not to do so either, and the little Italian lady had broken her compact.
Madame della Scala laughed and spread out her hands deprecatingly.
"Chè, chè—what is it I have done to make you look so fierce at me? I will leave her to you, Mr. Lepel, and trust you to make her tractable before we reach the house where we are to sing. For the last few days I have not known how to contentla signorinaat all; she has twice refused to sing when refusal meant—well, two things—loss of money and offence of friends. Those are two things which I do not like at all."
So saying, Madame, with a fan outstretched before her like a palm-leaf, moved towards the door; but Cynthia intercepted her.
"Madame, do not go!" she cried. "Indeed I am sorry! Do not make Mr. Lepel think that I have been behaving so like a petted child. I will do what you wish henceforward—I will indeed! Do not go, or I shall think that you are angry with me!"
"Angry with you,carissima? Not one bit!" said Madame, touching the girl's hot cheek with the end of her dainty fan. "Not angry, only a little—little tiny bit disappointed! But what of that? I forgive you! Genius must have its moods, its freaks, its passions. But calm yourself now, for Heaven's sake, or we shall be in bad voice to-night! I am just going to my room to get my scent-bottle; I will return immediately;" and Madame escaped.
Hubert was delighted with the little lady's man[oe]uvre, designed, as he knew, to leave him alone with Cynthia. As for Cynthia, she gave one scared look round, as if she dreaded to meet his eyes, then dropped into the nearest chair and placed one hand over her face. He thought that she was crying.
"Cynthia, my darling, what is all this?" he said approaching her. "My dearest, you are not happy! What can I do?"
"Nothing," she answered, dashing away a tear and letting her hand fall into her lap—"nothing indeed!"
"But you are not—as Madame says—quite like yourself."
"I know; I am very cross and disagreeable," said Cynthia, with a resolute assumption of gaiety. "I always had a bad temper; and it is well perhaps that you should find it out."
Without speaking, he bent his head to kiss her; but she drew back.
"No!" she said, with decision. "No, Hubert—Mr. Lepel, I mean—that will not do!"
"What, Cynthia?"
"We are not engaged. We are really nothing to each other; I was wrong to forget that before."
"This is surely a new view on the subject, Cynthia!"
"Yes; it is the view I have taken ever since I thought it over. We will be friends, if you like—I will always be your friend"—and there came over her face an indescribable expression of yearning and passionate regret—"but we must remember that I shall be nothing more."
"Nothing more? Why, my darling, do you forget what you promised me—that at the end of two years——"
"If you were free—yes," she interrupted him. "But it was a foolish promise. You know that you are not likely to be free. You—you knew that when you told me that you loved me!" She set her teeth and gave him a look of bitter reproach.
"What does this mean?" said Hubert, flushing up to the roots of his hair. "I told you everything the next morning, Cynthia; and I acknowledged to you that I loved you only because I thought that I was too miserable a wretch for you to cast a sigh upon. You have changed since then—not I."
Cynthia suddenly rose from her chair.
"I hear the carriage," she said abruptly; "Madame is at the door. There is no use in continuing this conversation."
"No use at all," said Hubert, who by this time was not in the best of tempers. "Perhaps you would rather that I did not accompany you to-night, Miss West?""Oh, pray come!" said Cynthia, with a heartless little laugh. "Madame will never forgive me if I deprive her of a cavalier! It does not matter to me."
Hubert turned at once to Madame della Scala, and offered her his arm with the courtesy of manner which she always averred she found in so few Englishmen, but which he displayed to perfection. Cynthia followed, not waiting for him to lead her to the carriage. He was about to hand her to her seat, but she had so elaborately encumbered herself with gloves, fan, bouquet, and sweeping silken train, that it seemed as if she could not possibly disentangle her hands in time to receive his help. She took her seat beside Madame with her usual smiling nonchalance, and the two ladies waited for Mr. Lepel to take the opposite seat. He took off his hat and made a sweeping bow.
"Madame," he said, "I am unfeignedly sorry, but I find that circumstances will not allow me to accompany you this evening. Will you pardon me therefore if I decline the honor of the seat you have offered me?"
This stately mode of speech was intended to pacify Madame della Scala, who liked to be addressed as if she were a princess; he knew that she would be angry enough at his defection. Before she had recovered herself so far as to speak, he fell back and signed to the coachman to drive on. They had left him far behind before Madame ceased to vent her exclamations of wrath, despair, and disappointment.
"What can he mean by 'circumstances'?" This was the phrase that rose most frequently to her tongue. "'Circumstances will not allow me'! But that is nonsense—absolutely nonsense!"
"I think by 'circumstances' he meant me," said Cynthia at last—by which remark she diverted all Madame's wrath upon her own unlucky head.
She did not seem to mind however. She looked brilliant that evening, and she sang her best. There was a royal personage amongst her hearers, and the royal personage begged to be presented to her, and complimented her upon her singing. As Cynthia made her little curtsey and smiled her bright little smile, she wondered what the royal personage would say if he knew that she was "Westwood, the murderer's daughter." She had been called so too often in her earliest years ever to forget the title.
In spite of her waywardness that night, she was woman enough to wish that Hubert had been there to witness her triumph. She had never offended him before. She thought that perhaps he would come back, and darted hasty glances at the throng of smart folk around her, longing to see his dark face in some corner of the room. But she was disappointed; he did not come.
"Oh, Miss West," said her hostess to her, in the course of the evening, "do come here one moment! I hope you won't be very much bored; you young people always like other young people best, I know. But there is a lady here—an old lady—who is very much impressed by your voice—your charming voice—and wants to know you; and she is really worth knowing, I assure you—gives delightful parties now and then."
"I shall be most happy!" said Cynthia brightly. "I like old ladies very much; they generally have something to say."
"Which young men do not, do they? Oh, fie, you naughty girl! I saw you with young Lord Frederick over there——Dear Miss Vane, this is our sweet songstress, Miss Cynthia West—Miss Vane. I have just been telling her how much you admire her lovely singing;" and then the hostess hurried away.
Something like an electric shock seemed to pass through Cynthia's frame. She did not show any trace of emotion, the smile did not waver on her lips; but suddenly, as she bowed gracefully to the handsome, keen-eyed old lady to whom she had just been introduced, she saw herself a ragged, unkempt, savage little waif and stray, fresh from the workhouse, standing on a summer day upon a dusty road, the centre of a little group of persons whose faces came back to her one by one with painful distinctness. There was the old lady—not so wrinkled as this old lady, but still with the same clearly-cut features, the same sharp eyes, the same inflexible mouth; there was the child with delicate limbs and dainty movements, with sweet sympathetic eyes and lovely golden hair, which Cynthia had passionately admired as she had never admired any other hair and eyes in the world before; and there was a young man. His face had hitherto been the one that she thought she remembered best; she was suddenly aware that she had so idealised and glorified it that its very features had become unreal, and that when she met it in the flesh in later years it remained unrecognisable. Never once till now had it been borne in upon her that this hero of her childish dreams and her present lover were one and the same. It was a terrible shock to her—and greater even then she knew.
"I am glad to make your acquaintance, Miss West," said Miss Leonora Vane, holding out her hand so cordially that Cynthia could not in common politeness refuse to take it. "Your singing has delighted everybody—and myself, I am sure I may say, not least. You have been some time in Italy, I suppose? Do sit down here and tell me where you studied."
Cynthia fancied that she heard the same voice telling her what a wicked girl she was, and that she deserved to be whipped for running away from the workhouse. She repressed a little shudder, and answered smilingly—
"You are very kind. Yes, I have studied in Italy."
"Under Lamperti, I hear. Do you think of coming out in opera next season? You may always count me among your audience."
Cynthia remembered how this courteous gentlewoman had once put her hand over her eyes and declared that the sight of Westwood's daughter made her ill. The burning sense of injustice that had then taken possession of the child's soul rose up as strong as ever in the woman. She wished, in her bitterness, that she were free to rise from her seat and cry aloud—
"Yes, look at me—listen to me—for I am Westwood's daughter! I am the child of a felon and escaped convict, a man whom you call a murderer—and I am proud of my name!"
Curiously enough, Miss Vane touched closely upon this subject before long. She was anxious to know whether Cynthia's name was her own or only assumed for stage purposes, and managed to put her question in such a way that it sounded less like impertinence than a manifestation of kindly interest—which was very clever of Miss Vane.
"No," said Cynthia coldly, "'West' is not my name exactly; but I prefer to be known by it at present."
She had never said as much before; and Miss Vane felt herself a little bit snubbed, and decided that the new singer had not at all good manners; but she meant to secure herfor her next party nevertheless. She rather prided herself upon her parties.
To her utter surprise and bewilderment, Miss Cynthia West absolutely declined to come. She gave no reason except that she thought that she should before long give up singing in drawing-rooms at all; and she was not to be moved by any consideration of payment. Miss Vane ventured to intimate that she did not mind what she paid; but she was met by so frigid a glance that she was really obliged, in self-defence, to be silent. She carried away an unpleasant impression of Cynthia West, and was heard to say afterwards that she could believe anything of that young woman.
Cynthia was, however, acknowledged to have made in every other way a great success. Madame della Scala was delighted with her pupil, and quite forgot all the little disagreeables of the evening; while Cynthia, during their drive home, was as charming and as lively as she had ever been. When the carriage stopped at the quiet little house in Kensington, the weather had changed, and rain was falling rapidly. One of the servants was in waiting with an umbrella, ready to give an arm to Madame, who alighted first. Cynthia followed, scarcely noticing the man who stepped forward to assist her, until something prompted her suddenly to look at his face. Then she uttered an inarticulate exclamation.
"Yes, it is I," said Hubert. "I have been waiting to help you out. I don't know how I have offended you; but, whatever it is, forgive me, Cynthia—I can't bear your displeasure!"
"Nor I yours," she said, with a sob; and, under the umbrella that he was holding, she actually held up her face to be kissed.
Nobody saw the little ceremony of reconciliation. The next moment Cynthia was in the hall, having her dress shaken out and let down by a yawning maid's attentive hands, and the coachman had driven off, and the hall door was shut, and Hubert Lepel was out in the street, with a wall between him and his love. There were tears in Cynthia's eyes as she went wearily, her gaiety all departed, up to her room. Nobody suspected that the charming singer whose gaiety and audacity, as well as her beauty, had won all hearts that evening passed half the night in weeping onthe hard floor—weeping over the fate that divided her from her lover. For ever since the day that she had learned from her father that Hubert Lepel was a cousin of the Vanes—more than ever now she knew that he was the man who had befriended her in her childhood—she felt it to be utterly impossible that she should marry him until he knew the truth; and the truth—that she was Westwood's daughter—would, she felt sure, part him from her for ever.