Chapter Thirty Three.

Chapter Thirty Three.Twisting the Threads of Fate.The weeks that followed Lucian’s accident had been a time of severe trial to Sylvester Riddell. All the responsibility rested on his shoulders of deciding whether they should go ashore at Kirkwall, or get on to Edinburgh in the yacht, on which latter course Sylvester, finding that the Kirkwall doctor authorised it, and could accompany them, had finally fixed. He had to telegraph to Mrs Leigh, who was still in Switzerland, to come to Edinburgh, and when he did so he had scarcely any hope that she would find her son alive. He knew nothing of illness, was not a person of ready practical resource, and was far too sensitive not to feel the sight of such suffering to be a terrible strain upon him. Imaginative and sympathetic, he felt all the horror of the sudden striking down of the strong young life, and to be calm and cheerful was almost beyond his power. Lucian was far too ill to fret about himself or his future; when he was conscious, relief from pain was all he could desire, and the first time he showed much sense of the situation was when he knew Mrs Leigh was coming.“Oh, Syl!—the mother!” he said, looking up with wistful eyes, “try to help her.”There was very little help or comfort to be given. Sylvester knew that the worth of life would be as much crushed out for Mrs Leigh by Lucian’s death, or hopeless illness, as for the poor young fellow himself. She was a good woman, and a brave one, but heavy trial was new to her, and her misery took the line of trying every expedient, getting every opinion, wondering constantly whether anything else could have been done at first, and perhaps, spite of herself, her state of mind became apparent to Lucian, for he tried to say something of “Syl being so clever, and always knowing what to do,”—an opinion perhaps hardly shared by the trained nurses, but which went to Syl’s heart. Mrs Leigh, however, to say nothing of Lucian, would have been so much more forlorn without him, that he could not possibly leave them alone; he remained with them in Edinburgh, and, when his old playfellow’s vigorous youth enabled him to rally up to a certain point, he arranged for the difficult journey south, and escorted them back to London. Here he was obliged to leave them, to return to his duties at Oxford, taking a few days’ much-needed rest at home by the way.He had had no time to think of himself, though there was much in his life which required consideration; he felt how severe the strain upon him had been, when he found himself once more in the dear old home, with his father’s loving eyes scanning his face, and noting the traces on it of anxiety and fatigue.There was Amethyst and his chance of winning her. She had never been out of his thoughts, but it went against every generous instinct to seek her the moment that he left her old lover’s side, when poor Lucian’s long heart-ache had been betrayed in every unconscious murmur of the beloved name. The unselfish good wishes which had been meant to set him free from all such scruples only intensified them. And yet he had said too much to say no more, and, without his father’s concurrence, he was hardly in a position to say anything.He murmured an inquiry as to where she was, and if his aunt ever heard from her, and soon had told his father all there was to tell.Mr Riddell sighed, and shook his head. He had guessed it all before, and he did not quite see his way through it.“My dear boy,” he said, “whatever I can do to forward your happiness you may regard as done. What else can I wish for? But, if you’ll take advice, give her a little time. She isn’t thinking of you just now, Syl. She needs to be left a little to herself, to find herself out. She knows how you have been occupied, and I am sure she is ready for no sudden definite appeal from you, which is all that is at present in your power. We will not lose sight of her for you.”Sylvester acquiesced, yet utter silence was impossible to him. He could ask nothing from her just then, but he must let her know that he continued to give her all himself. He wrote some verses, veiled under the familiar disguise of Amelot to Iris, and sent them, unsigned and undated, to the address which he soon caused his aunt to give him. But it was a little like posting them to the rainbow’s end.If he could not woo her, he might make himself worthy of her. When he went back to Oxford, he took up his work there with the determination to make it more real. He would in no way stand aside from the struggle of life to which he had urged her. The outward changes in his life were slight, but, nevertheless, it was pervaded by a new and more earnest spirit. The lads who had come to his help in his extremity were no longer strangers to him, and men began to say that Riddell would gain influence in the place.Mrs Leigh had written encouraging accounts of Lucian. The London doctors had recommended the winter abroad as the best cure for the injured lungs, and had not forbidden a hope that the serious internal injuries resulting from the strain might be surmounted by Lucian’s hitherto unbroken health and strength. At least, so the mother interpreted their verdict, and it was decided that they were to go by sea to the Mediterranean, and finally to settle at Bordighera, a place Mrs Leigh knew and liked, and where she hoped Sylvester would join them at Christmas, and find his friend much nearer recovery than when they parted.Sylvester hoped that so it might be, and made all necessary arrangements for spending part of his winter vacation abroad, all the more willingly, because he knew that the Haredales were somewhere among the towns of the Riviera. So it came to pass that one day, just after Christmas, Lucian lay on a couch under the verandah of one of the prettiest villas of Bordighera, wrapped up and propped with pillows, and listened, with a half-smile, to his mother’s assurances to the newly-arrived Sylvester, of how much good the climate was doing him, and how much better he was than he had been in London.“Let Syl stay and talk to me, mother,” he said, “and you go and get your drive; he’ll take care of me. Perhaps we’ll go by and by for a drive in the pony carriage. Then I can show him the place.”“Very well,” said Mrs Leigh, “that will be very nice for you. But it is good for him to walk a little too, Sylvester. He has been longing for you to come, to show you how much better he can do so.”There were anxious lines on her smooth handsome face, which contradicted her cheerful words, as she went away after a little bustle of arrangements, and left the two young men alone together.“Well, dear boy,” said Sylvester, turning to his friend, “and how is it? Do you like this lovely place?”“Yes,” said Lucian, “the soft air is comfortable, and I can talk better than in the autumn, I have more breath.”Sylvester felt as if he had never realised before what the change had been, as he listened to the gentle languid voice, and noticed how the handsome face had lost all its sturdy impassiveness, and had fined away into a sort of ethereal beauty, while nobody could accuse the clear grey eyes now of want of expression. Sylvester hardly knew how to meet their gaze, but it prepared him for the next words.“You won’t mind my talking to you, Syl. You know I’m not really any better.”“No?” said Sylvester, with difficulty.“No. You see I was so strong and healthy, I took a great deal of killing. But I dare say the doctors always told you that there was fatal mischief done by the strain, and there’s not a bit inside me but what’s all wrong. I had to know the probabilities before I left England, you see, to get my affairs settled.”“It is hard to believe,” said Sylvester.“Yes, I suppose I should mind more: but I’m so tired out with pain that any sort of rest seems welcome.”Lucian was as straightforward and to the point as ever, and, as his friend did not at once answer, he said—“I thought you knew it—and it’s a comfort to speak out. You see how the mother takes it, and poor old Jackson (he’s out here with two of his sisters, you know), he thinks he ought to cheer me up.”“Dear Lucy,” said Sylvester, “talk just as you like, and when you like; I’m too glad to help you.”“Could you make the mother understand by degrees? It’s very bad for her. You see James Leigh is only a distant cousin, and he must have Toppings. She thought so much of my living here, I wish she’dgive me up.”“I’ll try,” said Sylvester; “but she will come to it in her own time.”“Your father could help her. Syl, do you think he could come out here by and by? He would make it much easier for my mother, and I should like to do all that’s right, and prepare myself as much as possible.”“I am sure he will come, if you wish it.”“And then—Amethyst. The Jacksons know her and Una, they met them in the autumn. But I shall never see her again. Wasn’t it odd that we talked of her that last day in Orkney? Ask her to forgive me for being such a fool. Give her my love. I wish I could have taken care of her. I wish I could know she was happy.”“I will tell her everything. Don’t talk too much now, dear boy, there’ll be plenty of chances.”“I don’t know. You see, sometimes, speaking hurts me so badly; but I’ve thought it all over, in and out. You know, Syl, if I’d been in the army, and got killed out in Egypt or anywhere, you would have thought nothing of it, though I am young. And we’re bound to believe that it’s all right, and God’s will, as it is.”“Lucy,” said Sylvester, “there’s one thing you must letmesay. I know you gave your life for mine, quite as much as if we’d been under fire, and you had waited to help me out.”“Oh no, I didn’t,” said Lucian. “I let go because I thought there was no good in killing two people instead of one. I was done for before that. What! the pony carriage come round? Let me rest for five minutes, Syl, and then we’ll go.” Lucian was helped into the pony carriage, and Sylvester sat beside him, and drove along a lovely sunny road with a wide view of the blue sparkling sea. They did not talk much more, only Lucian made his companion notice each point of interest, and very observant eyes he had for bird or flower, picturesque costume, or strangely-shaped boat dancing on the water—the traveller’s keen eyes for the characteristics of a new country.Suddenly the keen eyes fixed themselves, and he started half upright, and laid a detaining hand on the reins.“There she is!” he said, breathlessly.Sylvester saw a tall young lady, in a grey dress, coming along the road towards them; but his sight was shorter than Lucian’s, and only a lover’s instant insight made him say—“Amethyst? Impossible!”“No—they are somewhere in these parts. Stop, Syl! She is coming.”Sylvester pulled up short, sprang out, and went to meet her.“Miss Haredale,” he said, desperately, “Lucian is here. He has seen you; will you come and speak to him?”“Here!” ejaculated Amethyst. “Oh yes—if he wishes it. I hope he is better?”She came up to the side of the carriage, and Lucian raised himself, and looked up in her face.Alas, she needed no answer to her question; her colour fled, her eyes brimmed with tears, nothing that she had heard had prepared her for the truth.“We have been enjoying our drive,” said Sylvester nervously, “but I must not let him stay out till it gets chilly. Have you been here long, Miss Haredale?”“Only since yesterday. We are at Hôtel—”She faltered; and Lucian said, with something of his old abruptness,—“Never mind me. I am sorry I look so bad, it frightens you. But people soon get used to it.”“I was taken by surprise,” said Amethyst, with a great struggle for composure. “I hope you will soon look better.”“My mother will call on Lady Haredale,” said Lucian punctiliously, but with wistful eyes.Amethyst gave him her hand, as Sylvester made a decided movement, but, as he held it close for a moment, the contrast with the well-remembered grasp of his strong brown fingers broke her down completely, and she hurried away, half-blinded with tears. Lucian did not speak another word till the drive was over and he was back again on his couch. Then he whispered—“Syl!”“Yes—what is it?”“Won’t she come sometimes and let me see her? Tell her how it is with me. I should like it, so much. Just to look at her!”“I will tell her, and I am sure she will come. Rest now, and I will go and find her,” said Sylvester, gently.“Yes, that’s what I want. Tell her how the Jackson girls come to tea, and many people. And the mother will call. Butyoutell her the truth.”“Yes.”“Just a few times more,” said Lucian, as he watched his messenger go.Sylvester went with hurried steps, urged as much by his own feelings as by Lucian’s words. He made his way down into the sunny road where he had left Amethyst, and soon overtook her walking fast along it, with little heed to the beauty of sea or sky.“I am grieved to have given you such a shock,” he said, “but I was obliged to think first of him.”“Oh, I knew he was ill, but he looks as if he was dying!” broke out Amethyst, with a husky voice.“Yes,” said Sylvester, “that is the sad truth. Life is all over for him, he cannot recover. He wishes you to know it. But, if you will, come sometimes to Casa Remi, as others do, and let him see you. It will give him pleasure. Mrs Leigh thinks society good for him. If he could see the old friendliness restored, he would not fret so much over his past want of insight.”“I thought that he believed himself to have been perfectly right.”“Ah, he has learned many lessons—in a hard school, poor boy! But you will give him this great pleasure—for a little while?”“If Mrs Leigh wishes—it is for her to decide,” said Amethyst, still a little stiffly; then with a sudden break down—“Oh, how he is altered!”“Yes, indeed.”Sylvester was pale, he turned his troubled eyes upon her.“It is impossible, just now,” he said, “to think of ourselves—of oneself I mean, of anything but of him.”“I will do just whatyouthink is best for him,” said Amethyst. “Tell him I will come. You understand?” She put her hand into Sylvester’s, and he held it in his own.“I understand,” he said.Their eyes met as they parted. She looked very unhappy; but Sylvester’s heart bounded as he felt that once again she yielded to his influence, and she forgot that she had ever dreaded meeting him again, and had been half angry when his verses reached her.

The weeks that followed Lucian’s accident had been a time of severe trial to Sylvester Riddell. All the responsibility rested on his shoulders of deciding whether they should go ashore at Kirkwall, or get on to Edinburgh in the yacht, on which latter course Sylvester, finding that the Kirkwall doctor authorised it, and could accompany them, had finally fixed. He had to telegraph to Mrs Leigh, who was still in Switzerland, to come to Edinburgh, and when he did so he had scarcely any hope that she would find her son alive. He knew nothing of illness, was not a person of ready practical resource, and was far too sensitive not to feel the sight of such suffering to be a terrible strain upon him. Imaginative and sympathetic, he felt all the horror of the sudden striking down of the strong young life, and to be calm and cheerful was almost beyond his power. Lucian was far too ill to fret about himself or his future; when he was conscious, relief from pain was all he could desire, and the first time he showed much sense of the situation was when he knew Mrs Leigh was coming.

“Oh, Syl!—the mother!” he said, looking up with wistful eyes, “try to help her.”

There was very little help or comfort to be given. Sylvester knew that the worth of life would be as much crushed out for Mrs Leigh by Lucian’s death, or hopeless illness, as for the poor young fellow himself. She was a good woman, and a brave one, but heavy trial was new to her, and her misery took the line of trying every expedient, getting every opinion, wondering constantly whether anything else could have been done at first, and perhaps, spite of herself, her state of mind became apparent to Lucian, for he tried to say something of “Syl being so clever, and always knowing what to do,”—an opinion perhaps hardly shared by the trained nurses, but which went to Syl’s heart. Mrs Leigh, however, to say nothing of Lucian, would have been so much more forlorn without him, that he could not possibly leave them alone; he remained with them in Edinburgh, and, when his old playfellow’s vigorous youth enabled him to rally up to a certain point, he arranged for the difficult journey south, and escorted them back to London. Here he was obliged to leave them, to return to his duties at Oxford, taking a few days’ much-needed rest at home by the way.

He had had no time to think of himself, though there was much in his life which required consideration; he felt how severe the strain upon him had been, when he found himself once more in the dear old home, with his father’s loving eyes scanning his face, and noting the traces on it of anxiety and fatigue.

There was Amethyst and his chance of winning her. She had never been out of his thoughts, but it went against every generous instinct to seek her the moment that he left her old lover’s side, when poor Lucian’s long heart-ache had been betrayed in every unconscious murmur of the beloved name. The unselfish good wishes which had been meant to set him free from all such scruples only intensified them. And yet he had said too much to say no more, and, without his father’s concurrence, he was hardly in a position to say anything.

He murmured an inquiry as to where she was, and if his aunt ever heard from her, and soon had told his father all there was to tell.

Mr Riddell sighed, and shook his head. He had guessed it all before, and he did not quite see his way through it.

“My dear boy,” he said, “whatever I can do to forward your happiness you may regard as done. What else can I wish for? But, if you’ll take advice, give her a little time. She isn’t thinking of you just now, Syl. She needs to be left a little to herself, to find herself out. She knows how you have been occupied, and I am sure she is ready for no sudden definite appeal from you, which is all that is at present in your power. We will not lose sight of her for you.”

Sylvester acquiesced, yet utter silence was impossible to him. He could ask nothing from her just then, but he must let her know that he continued to give her all himself. He wrote some verses, veiled under the familiar disguise of Amelot to Iris, and sent them, unsigned and undated, to the address which he soon caused his aunt to give him. But it was a little like posting them to the rainbow’s end.

If he could not woo her, he might make himself worthy of her. When he went back to Oxford, he took up his work there with the determination to make it more real. He would in no way stand aside from the struggle of life to which he had urged her. The outward changes in his life were slight, but, nevertheless, it was pervaded by a new and more earnest spirit. The lads who had come to his help in his extremity were no longer strangers to him, and men began to say that Riddell would gain influence in the place.

Mrs Leigh had written encouraging accounts of Lucian. The London doctors had recommended the winter abroad as the best cure for the injured lungs, and had not forbidden a hope that the serious internal injuries resulting from the strain might be surmounted by Lucian’s hitherto unbroken health and strength. At least, so the mother interpreted their verdict, and it was decided that they were to go by sea to the Mediterranean, and finally to settle at Bordighera, a place Mrs Leigh knew and liked, and where she hoped Sylvester would join them at Christmas, and find his friend much nearer recovery than when they parted.

Sylvester hoped that so it might be, and made all necessary arrangements for spending part of his winter vacation abroad, all the more willingly, because he knew that the Haredales were somewhere among the towns of the Riviera. So it came to pass that one day, just after Christmas, Lucian lay on a couch under the verandah of one of the prettiest villas of Bordighera, wrapped up and propped with pillows, and listened, with a half-smile, to his mother’s assurances to the newly-arrived Sylvester, of how much good the climate was doing him, and how much better he was than he had been in London.

“Let Syl stay and talk to me, mother,” he said, “and you go and get your drive; he’ll take care of me. Perhaps we’ll go by and by for a drive in the pony carriage. Then I can show him the place.”

“Very well,” said Mrs Leigh, “that will be very nice for you. But it is good for him to walk a little too, Sylvester. He has been longing for you to come, to show you how much better he can do so.”

There were anxious lines on her smooth handsome face, which contradicted her cheerful words, as she went away after a little bustle of arrangements, and left the two young men alone together.

“Well, dear boy,” said Sylvester, turning to his friend, “and how is it? Do you like this lovely place?”

“Yes,” said Lucian, “the soft air is comfortable, and I can talk better than in the autumn, I have more breath.”

Sylvester felt as if he had never realised before what the change had been, as he listened to the gentle languid voice, and noticed how the handsome face had lost all its sturdy impassiveness, and had fined away into a sort of ethereal beauty, while nobody could accuse the clear grey eyes now of want of expression. Sylvester hardly knew how to meet their gaze, but it prepared him for the next words.

“You won’t mind my talking to you, Syl. You know I’m not really any better.”

“No?” said Sylvester, with difficulty.

“No. You see I was so strong and healthy, I took a great deal of killing. But I dare say the doctors always told you that there was fatal mischief done by the strain, and there’s not a bit inside me but what’s all wrong. I had to know the probabilities before I left England, you see, to get my affairs settled.”

“It is hard to believe,” said Sylvester.

“Yes, I suppose I should mind more: but I’m so tired out with pain that any sort of rest seems welcome.”

Lucian was as straightforward and to the point as ever, and, as his friend did not at once answer, he said—

“I thought you knew it—and it’s a comfort to speak out. You see how the mother takes it, and poor old Jackson (he’s out here with two of his sisters, you know), he thinks he ought to cheer me up.”

“Dear Lucy,” said Sylvester, “talk just as you like, and when you like; I’m too glad to help you.”

“Could you make the mother understand by degrees? It’s very bad for her. You see James Leigh is only a distant cousin, and he must have Toppings. She thought so much of my living here, I wish she’dgive me up.”

“I’ll try,” said Sylvester; “but she will come to it in her own time.”

“Your father could help her. Syl, do you think he could come out here by and by? He would make it much easier for my mother, and I should like to do all that’s right, and prepare myself as much as possible.”

“I am sure he will come, if you wish it.”

“And then—Amethyst. The Jacksons know her and Una, they met them in the autumn. But I shall never see her again. Wasn’t it odd that we talked of her that last day in Orkney? Ask her to forgive me for being such a fool. Give her my love. I wish I could have taken care of her. I wish I could know she was happy.”

“I will tell her everything. Don’t talk too much now, dear boy, there’ll be plenty of chances.”

“I don’t know. You see, sometimes, speaking hurts me so badly; but I’ve thought it all over, in and out. You know, Syl, if I’d been in the army, and got killed out in Egypt or anywhere, you would have thought nothing of it, though I am young. And we’re bound to believe that it’s all right, and God’s will, as it is.”

“Lucy,” said Sylvester, “there’s one thing you must letmesay. I know you gave your life for mine, quite as much as if we’d been under fire, and you had waited to help me out.”

“Oh no, I didn’t,” said Lucian. “I let go because I thought there was no good in killing two people instead of one. I was done for before that. What! the pony carriage come round? Let me rest for five minutes, Syl, and then we’ll go.” Lucian was helped into the pony carriage, and Sylvester sat beside him, and drove along a lovely sunny road with a wide view of the blue sparkling sea. They did not talk much more, only Lucian made his companion notice each point of interest, and very observant eyes he had for bird or flower, picturesque costume, or strangely-shaped boat dancing on the water—the traveller’s keen eyes for the characteristics of a new country.

Suddenly the keen eyes fixed themselves, and he started half upright, and laid a detaining hand on the reins.

“There she is!” he said, breathlessly.

Sylvester saw a tall young lady, in a grey dress, coming along the road towards them; but his sight was shorter than Lucian’s, and only a lover’s instant insight made him say—“Amethyst? Impossible!”

“No—they are somewhere in these parts. Stop, Syl! She is coming.”

Sylvester pulled up short, sprang out, and went to meet her.

“Miss Haredale,” he said, desperately, “Lucian is here. He has seen you; will you come and speak to him?”

“Here!” ejaculated Amethyst. “Oh yes—if he wishes it. I hope he is better?”

She came up to the side of the carriage, and Lucian raised himself, and looked up in her face.

Alas, she needed no answer to her question; her colour fled, her eyes brimmed with tears, nothing that she had heard had prepared her for the truth.

“We have been enjoying our drive,” said Sylvester nervously, “but I must not let him stay out till it gets chilly. Have you been here long, Miss Haredale?”

“Only since yesterday. We are at Hôtel—”

She faltered; and Lucian said, with something of his old abruptness,—

“Never mind me. I am sorry I look so bad, it frightens you. But people soon get used to it.”

“I was taken by surprise,” said Amethyst, with a great struggle for composure. “I hope you will soon look better.”

“My mother will call on Lady Haredale,” said Lucian punctiliously, but with wistful eyes.

Amethyst gave him her hand, as Sylvester made a decided movement, but, as he held it close for a moment, the contrast with the well-remembered grasp of his strong brown fingers broke her down completely, and she hurried away, half-blinded with tears. Lucian did not speak another word till the drive was over and he was back again on his couch. Then he whispered—

“Syl!”

“Yes—what is it?”

“Won’t she come sometimes and let me see her? Tell her how it is with me. I should like it, so much. Just to look at her!”

“I will tell her, and I am sure she will come. Rest now, and I will go and find her,” said Sylvester, gently.

“Yes, that’s what I want. Tell her how the Jackson girls come to tea, and many people. And the mother will call. Butyoutell her the truth.”

“Yes.”

“Just a few times more,” said Lucian, as he watched his messenger go.

Sylvester went with hurried steps, urged as much by his own feelings as by Lucian’s words. He made his way down into the sunny road where he had left Amethyst, and soon overtook her walking fast along it, with little heed to the beauty of sea or sky.

“I am grieved to have given you such a shock,” he said, “but I was obliged to think first of him.”

“Oh, I knew he was ill, but he looks as if he was dying!” broke out Amethyst, with a husky voice.

“Yes,” said Sylvester, “that is the sad truth. Life is all over for him, he cannot recover. He wishes you to know it. But, if you will, come sometimes to Casa Remi, as others do, and let him see you. It will give him pleasure. Mrs Leigh thinks society good for him. If he could see the old friendliness restored, he would not fret so much over his past want of insight.”

“I thought that he believed himself to have been perfectly right.”

“Ah, he has learned many lessons—in a hard school, poor boy! But you will give him this great pleasure—for a little while?”

“If Mrs Leigh wishes—it is for her to decide,” said Amethyst, still a little stiffly; then with a sudden break down—“Oh, how he is altered!”

“Yes, indeed.”

Sylvester was pale, he turned his troubled eyes upon her.

“It is impossible, just now,” he said, “to think of ourselves—of oneself I mean, of anything but of him.”

“I will do just whatyouthink is best for him,” said Amethyst. “Tell him I will come. You understand?” She put her hand into Sylvester’s, and he held it in his own.

“I understand,” he said.

Their eyes met as they parted. She looked very unhappy; but Sylvester’s heart bounded as he felt that once again she yielded to his influence, and she forgot that she had ever dreaded meeting him again, and had been half angry when his verses reached her.

Chapter Thirty Four.All these things have ceased to be with my Desire of Life.Mrs Leigh obeyed her son’s wish, and made theamendewith all the gracious tact that could possibly be shown in dealing with so difficult a situation. It suited Lady Haredale much better to ignore the past than to keep up any kind of coldness. The Jacksons were a connecting link, with their eager seeking of Amethyst and Una; Lucian’s two young sisters were glad to resume friendly relations with Kattern and Tory, who had but newly joined their mother, with Miss Haredale and Carrie Carisbrooke.It was a fortunate moment. Lord Haredale was away at Monte Carlo, and his wife, who, with what Una called “my lady’s dreadful capacity for enjoying herself,” had found friends of every sort on their travels, lost in some marvellous way the nameless look, shabby, “shady” (only some slang word could quite describe it), which had just a little tarnished her graceful ladyhood, when there were only shabby, shady people with whom to associate, and fitted at once into her old circle. Other residents and visitors called upon her, so that a time of cheerfulness and gaiety set in for all the young people, who met every day, and made expeditions together, which often began and ended in Mrs Leigh’s garden at Casa Remi. Amethyst came with the rest. If she had been deaf to Sylvester’s appeal, she could hardly have resisted the half-acknowledged misery in Mrs Leigh’s face. She was kind and gentle to Lucian, and her manner never betrayed under-currents of feeling; but the dreary months of dissatisfaction with herself and with her lot in life had stolen away her bloom, and she looked unhappy and weary.Lucian could not talk to her much. As he had said, he lay and looked at her; but how life and death seemed to him, when she was in his sight, it was hard to tell. Sylvester sometimes feared that the pleasure, which he had so much desired, had been dearly bought. Surely that restraint must be hard for Lucian, which was so great a strain upon himself, but the wonder how it was with her, the fear that all was not well with her, the pity for the dying lover, and the passion that beat in his own heart, were almost more than he could bear.“Syl,” said Lucian one day, after one of these gatherings, about three weeks after Amethyst’s first visit, “Syl, Amethyst isn’t happy.”“No,” said Sylvester, a little startled, “I fear not; her life has many hardships.”“I want to speak to her alone,” said Lucian, “our parting has always stung her. It’s bad for her to look back on; I think I can make it better. You’ll manage it, won’t you?”“If it’s not too much for you, I will try.”“I’ve got it to do,” said Lucian. “Get her to come by herself; I know what I want to say.”“Well,” said Sylvester, “I’ll try—when you are feeling strong enough.”“To-morrow then.” He paused a moment and looked at Sylvester, and then said distinctly—“She is not the least bit in love withmenow, you know, Syl.”“Oh, my dear boy,” said Sylvester, hurriedly, “all this is very bad for you. Even for her sake, I can’t bear to have you distress yourself. It is so hard for you.”“Why, Syl, I don’t feel enough like living, to mind as much as you suppose. Of course sometimes,”—he paused again, then smiled a little—“I know better than she does now, about a good many things.—Oh, I’m bad to-day! Lift me, Syl. A change makes it easier.”Sylvester did what he could to mitigate the attack of pain which followed, glad that Lucian did not try to hide it from him, as he too often did from his mother.He did not see how to manage the interview without Mrs Leigh’s co-operation, and decided to tell her of Lucian’s wish. She gave him a look which went to his heart; for in it was the acknowledgment of all which she could not bring her tongue to utter.“I leave it to you,” she said, “he must have his own way now.”Sylvester went straight to Amethyst and asked her to come at a given time, and to let Lucian say to her whatever he would. She looked at him for a moment, and he could see that she shrank from such a meeting, but she only said—“I will come.”“Thank you,” said Sylvester; “he has set his heart on it.”She looked, as she stood silent, as if with another word her self-control would break down into passionate grief, but the moment passed, and she recovered her usual manner, as she repeated her promise to come to-morrow morning. Her troubled look dwelt in Sylvester’s mind. Had the old love woke again in tender pity, and were they breaking her heart once more with this recall of the past? But this time Sylvester did not understand her, and tormented himself in vain.She came on the next day, punctual to the moment, very grave and quiet, and perfectly calm.Lucian had been resting all the morning, and now lay on his couch under the verandah, while Mrs Leigh greeted Amethyst, and set a chair for her close by, within easy reach of his eyes and voice, then with hardly a word she left them.“Amethyst,” said Lucian, “you know I’m going to die, and you, I suppose, will have a long life. I want to take the pain out of your thoughts of me, so that when you think of those days when we were engaged to each other, it may be pleasant to you, as if we’d had a good time when we were children.”Amethyst looked at him, but she could not speak.“I never ought to have lost patience with a girl like you, and I ought to have known you better. But I was too young and stupid, it was a dreadful thing to me when I knew I had wronged you—had been so wrong—and couldn’t make up for it. And when I saw you again, I knew I had never thought enough of you, though I loved you so much.”“Oh, Lucian—no—”“If we’d married, I suppose I should have learned in time. But I should have made mistakes and vexed you, I wasn’t fit to guide you. I should always have thought I knew best Well, then, you see it has all been for the best, and I want to tell you, that if I hadn’t had the loving, and the getting to understand you, and the trying to get on without you, it would have been much worse for me now. And so, as that poor little old time has helped me to die better, it seemed to me that perhaps the thought of it might make your life better for you—at least to know what you have done for me.”“Oh, Lucian, that’s not quite it. Why was I such a wicked girl as to forget you? It wasn’t because I was angry. If I had been faithful too—you might—we might—”“No, dear,” said Lucian. “That’s what I want to show you. You couldn’t—you wanted more than I had got to give you. That’s what I found out. You’ll have it some day, and then you won’t feel I did you nothing but harm.”“Oh,” said Amethyst, with streaming tears, “I shall always—I shall always feel—glorifiedby your having loved me—so.”He got hold of her hand, and held it gently in both his own, and when she was a little calmer, he said—“Tell me about your troubles.”“They’re not worth it,” she said, “hard, sordid money troubles—things that are hateful. And the wrong things I do—and feel—and think.”“I think there’ll be better times for you,” said Lucian; then he smiled, and said, “As there will be soon for me.”“If—if you could but get better—”Lucian gave her the strangest look.“Oh, no,” he said, quietly, and then, with a little more of his usual manner—“I’m sorry to have made you cry. But I think you’ll like by and by to know I quite understood. Now there’s just one thing more.”He took hold of a gold locket that hung from his watch chain, and opened it slowly, then took out of it the broad gipsy ring, set with a big amethyst and two diamonds—the very ring that his boyish taste had thought both handsome and symbolical enough to give his betrothed.“Let me give it you back,” he said. “Perhaps you won’t like to wear it now; but, when you put another ring on your finger, let this be a guard to it. That’s my fancy.”“Oh, Lucian! Put it on—I never—never shall—”“I think you will,” he said. “Ihopeyou will.” He took her warm young hand, and, with his weak fingers, put on the ring, and back upon them both came the joyous moment when he had first put it on, and “all the world was young.”“And then,” continued Lucian, “when Mr Riddell is here, and gives me my last Communion, will you come too? I remember the Sunday we were engaged—”“Oh,” said Amethyst, “all the love went away together. But now, I will—I will—”“There is Syl, across the garden,” said Lucian, after a moment—“He thinks—I shall be tired. He takes such care of me, he is so good to me—now he must come and take you home. Good-bye, my dear love. God bless you! I am quite happy now.”He looked up at her, and with a sudden impulse she stooped down and kissed him, and then turning her head away, and waving Sylvester back, she fled across the garden and out of sight.Lucian had covered his face with his hands, it was flushed and burning, as all that was left of life in him surged up and rebelled against the approaching hand of death.“In much pain, dear boy?” said Sylvester anxiously, after a minute.“More—more than I knew,” said Lucian, with panting breath, then, with a look which Sylvester never forgot, he whispered—“But it’s quite right,—Syl.”By and by, when he was able to leave Lucian, Sylvester went out on to the hill-side under silvery olive woods, and over broken ground covered with rosemary and thyme. The sun was bright, and the sea pure, clear blue beneath it. He thought that he had come to seek solitude and silence; but, when he saw Amethyst coming towards him, he knew that he had been really in search of her.She came up to him, and stood by his side, and they looked into each other’s faces.“It did not hurt him?” she said presently in a trembling voice.“Oh, no, he will be more at rest now.”“Oh,” said Amethyst, with a fresh burst of tears, “oh—I am so sorry—so sorry for him! Oh—I think I’d die, if he could get well and be happy.”They were passionate words; but her tone and look lifted the dread from Sylvester’s heart. It was for Lucian, not for herself, that she was weeping.“One cannot dare to wish, for such as he,” he said.“But I was so cruel to him, when he came back, in London. I hurt him more than I need. Oh, I have been a wicked girl, always trying to get something for myself, to make up for having been ill-treated! I despised every one. I despised him. Oh, I’ve had a lump of ice instead of a heart, I hate myself for it!”“But now the ice has melted?”“Yes,” said Amethyst, with childish directness, “I am sorry now.”They walked on slowly, side by side. Words were difficult; but a great peace came over them both.“Do you think,” said Amethyst, presently, “is he worse? It will not be very soon, will it?”“I don’t know,” said Sylvester. “He is much weaker than he was. I am glad my father is coming next week. Poor Lucy was meant for living! But he does suffer frightfully, night and day. I shall not leave him—I have arranged for that—and I couldn’t possibly go away now.”“He likes to have you.”“Yes, the dear boy! He always has clung to me, though, heaven knows, I often manage badly enough for him. But whatever he likes—There’s one thing I must tell you. You know I tried to hold him up when he fell. My strength was going—in another minute he must have pulled me over. And he knew it—and let my hand go!”Sylvester could hardly speak of that most awful moment, and Amethyst grew paler with sympathy. “Oh—that was splendid of him!” she said.Then her heart gave a great throb and bound, and she knew which life was the dearest to her. The blood rushed back to her temples, she could see nothing, but she felt that Sylvester held her hand close in his own, and presently she heard his voice whispering—“You know what makes my life worth living?” She turned, and at once giving him her hands, and putting him away from her, she said—“Oh, we will do everything for him, we will not think of anything but him—while he wants us.”She fled away as she spoke; but her words seemed to Sylvester the most beautiful answer that she could have given him, the perfect expression of their according hearts.In his pocket-book was still preserved the young primrose springing from dead leaves, with which, long ago, Amethyst had illustrated her saying that “beginnings come out of endings.”It was no inapt type of the sweet hopes springing up in these days of mourning—hopes all the sweeter for the generous reverence with which they waited for fulfilment.

Mrs Leigh obeyed her son’s wish, and made theamendewith all the gracious tact that could possibly be shown in dealing with so difficult a situation. It suited Lady Haredale much better to ignore the past than to keep up any kind of coldness. The Jacksons were a connecting link, with their eager seeking of Amethyst and Una; Lucian’s two young sisters were glad to resume friendly relations with Kattern and Tory, who had but newly joined their mother, with Miss Haredale and Carrie Carisbrooke.

It was a fortunate moment. Lord Haredale was away at Monte Carlo, and his wife, who, with what Una called “my lady’s dreadful capacity for enjoying herself,” had found friends of every sort on their travels, lost in some marvellous way the nameless look, shabby, “shady” (only some slang word could quite describe it), which had just a little tarnished her graceful ladyhood, when there were only shabby, shady people with whom to associate, and fitted at once into her old circle. Other residents and visitors called upon her, so that a time of cheerfulness and gaiety set in for all the young people, who met every day, and made expeditions together, which often began and ended in Mrs Leigh’s garden at Casa Remi. Amethyst came with the rest. If she had been deaf to Sylvester’s appeal, she could hardly have resisted the half-acknowledged misery in Mrs Leigh’s face. She was kind and gentle to Lucian, and her manner never betrayed under-currents of feeling; but the dreary months of dissatisfaction with herself and with her lot in life had stolen away her bloom, and she looked unhappy and weary.

Lucian could not talk to her much. As he had said, he lay and looked at her; but how life and death seemed to him, when she was in his sight, it was hard to tell. Sylvester sometimes feared that the pleasure, which he had so much desired, had been dearly bought. Surely that restraint must be hard for Lucian, which was so great a strain upon himself, but the wonder how it was with her, the fear that all was not well with her, the pity for the dying lover, and the passion that beat in his own heart, were almost more than he could bear.

“Syl,” said Lucian one day, after one of these gatherings, about three weeks after Amethyst’s first visit, “Syl, Amethyst isn’t happy.”

“No,” said Sylvester, a little startled, “I fear not; her life has many hardships.”

“I want to speak to her alone,” said Lucian, “our parting has always stung her. It’s bad for her to look back on; I think I can make it better. You’ll manage it, won’t you?”

“If it’s not too much for you, I will try.”

“I’ve got it to do,” said Lucian. “Get her to come by herself; I know what I want to say.”

“Well,” said Sylvester, “I’ll try—when you are feeling strong enough.”

“To-morrow then.” He paused a moment and looked at Sylvester, and then said distinctly—“She is not the least bit in love withmenow, you know, Syl.”

“Oh, my dear boy,” said Sylvester, hurriedly, “all this is very bad for you. Even for her sake, I can’t bear to have you distress yourself. It is so hard for you.”

“Why, Syl, I don’t feel enough like living, to mind as much as you suppose. Of course sometimes,”—he paused again, then smiled a little—“I know better than she does now, about a good many things.—Oh, I’m bad to-day! Lift me, Syl. A change makes it easier.”

Sylvester did what he could to mitigate the attack of pain which followed, glad that Lucian did not try to hide it from him, as he too often did from his mother.

He did not see how to manage the interview without Mrs Leigh’s co-operation, and decided to tell her of Lucian’s wish. She gave him a look which went to his heart; for in it was the acknowledgment of all which she could not bring her tongue to utter.

“I leave it to you,” she said, “he must have his own way now.”

Sylvester went straight to Amethyst and asked her to come at a given time, and to let Lucian say to her whatever he would. She looked at him for a moment, and he could see that she shrank from such a meeting, but she only said—

“I will come.”

“Thank you,” said Sylvester; “he has set his heart on it.”

She looked, as she stood silent, as if with another word her self-control would break down into passionate grief, but the moment passed, and she recovered her usual manner, as she repeated her promise to come to-morrow morning. Her troubled look dwelt in Sylvester’s mind. Had the old love woke again in tender pity, and were they breaking her heart once more with this recall of the past? But this time Sylvester did not understand her, and tormented himself in vain.

She came on the next day, punctual to the moment, very grave and quiet, and perfectly calm.

Lucian had been resting all the morning, and now lay on his couch under the verandah, while Mrs Leigh greeted Amethyst, and set a chair for her close by, within easy reach of his eyes and voice, then with hardly a word she left them.

“Amethyst,” said Lucian, “you know I’m going to die, and you, I suppose, will have a long life. I want to take the pain out of your thoughts of me, so that when you think of those days when we were engaged to each other, it may be pleasant to you, as if we’d had a good time when we were children.”

Amethyst looked at him, but she could not speak.

“I never ought to have lost patience with a girl like you, and I ought to have known you better. But I was too young and stupid, it was a dreadful thing to me when I knew I had wronged you—had been so wrong—and couldn’t make up for it. And when I saw you again, I knew I had never thought enough of you, though I loved you so much.”

“Oh, Lucian—no—”

“If we’d married, I suppose I should have learned in time. But I should have made mistakes and vexed you, I wasn’t fit to guide you. I should always have thought I knew best Well, then, you see it has all been for the best, and I want to tell you, that if I hadn’t had the loving, and the getting to understand you, and the trying to get on without you, it would have been much worse for me now. And so, as that poor little old time has helped me to die better, it seemed to me that perhaps the thought of it might make your life better for you—at least to know what you have done for me.”

“Oh, Lucian, that’s not quite it. Why was I such a wicked girl as to forget you? It wasn’t because I was angry. If I had been faithful too—you might—we might—”

“No, dear,” said Lucian. “That’s what I want to show you. You couldn’t—you wanted more than I had got to give you. That’s what I found out. You’ll have it some day, and then you won’t feel I did you nothing but harm.”

“Oh,” said Amethyst, with streaming tears, “I shall always—I shall always feel—glorifiedby your having loved me—so.”

He got hold of her hand, and held it gently in both his own, and when she was a little calmer, he said—

“Tell me about your troubles.”

“They’re not worth it,” she said, “hard, sordid money troubles—things that are hateful. And the wrong things I do—and feel—and think.”

“I think there’ll be better times for you,” said Lucian; then he smiled, and said, “As there will be soon for me.”

“If—if you could but get better—”

Lucian gave her the strangest look.

“Oh, no,” he said, quietly, and then, with a little more of his usual manner—

“I’m sorry to have made you cry. But I think you’ll like by and by to know I quite understood. Now there’s just one thing more.”

He took hold of a gold locket that hung from his watch chain, and opened it slowly, then took out of it the broad gipsy ring, set with a big amethyst and two diamonds—the very ring that his boyish taste had thought both handsome and symbolical enough to give his betrothed.

“Let me give it you back,” he said. “Perhaps you won’t like to wear it now; but, when you put another ring on your finger, let this be a guard to it. That’s my fancy.”

“Oh, Lucian! Put it on—I never—never shall—”

“I think you will,” he said. “Ihopeyou will.” He took her warm young hand, and, with his weak fingers, put on the ring, and back upon them both came the joyous moment when he had first put it on, and “all the world was young.”

“And then,” continued Lucian, “when Mr Riddell is here, and gives me my last Communion, will you come too? I remember the Sunday we were engaged—”

“Oh,” said Amethyst, “all the love went away together. But now, I will—I will—”

“There is Syl, across the garden,” said Lucian, after a moment—“He thinks—I shall be tired. He takes such care of me, he is so good to me—now he must come and take you home. Good-bye, my dear love. God bless you! I am quite happy now.”

He looked up at her, and with a sudden impulse she stooped down and kissed him, and then turning her head away, and waving Sylvester back, she fled across the garden and out of sight.

Lucian had covered his face with his hands, it was flushed and burning, as all that was left of life in him surged up and rebelled against the approaching hand of death.

“In much pain, dear boy?” said Sylvester anxiously, after a minute.

“More—more than I knew,” said Lucian, with panting breath, then, with a look which Sylvester never forgot, he whispered—“But it’s quite right,—Syl.”

By and by, when he was able to leave Lucian, Sylvester went out on to the hill-side under silvery olive woods, and over broken ground covered with rosemary and thyme. The sun was bright, and the sea pure, clear blue beneath it. He thought that he had come to seek solitude and silence; but, when he saw Amethyst coming towards him, he knew that he had been really in search of her.

She came up to him, and stood by his side, and they looked into each other’s faces.

“It did not hurt him?” she said presently in a trembling voice.

“Oh, no, he will be more at rest now.”

“Oh,” said Amethyst, with a fresh burst of tears, “oh—I am so sorry—so sorry for him! Oh—I think I’d die, if he could get well and be happy.”

They were passionate words; but her tone and look lifted the dread from Sylvester’s heart. It was for Lucian, not for herself, that she was weeping.

“One cannot dare to wish, for such as he,” he said.

“But I was so cruel to him, when he came back, in London. I hurt him more than I need. Oh, I have been a wicked girl, always trying to get something for myself, to make up for having been ill-treated! I despised every one. I despised him. Oh, I’ve had a lump of ice instead of a heart, I hate myself for it!”

“But now the ice has melted?”

“Yes,” said Amethyst, with childish directness, “I am sorry now.”

They walked on slowly, side by side. Words were difficult; but a great peace came over them both.

“Do you think,” said Amethyst, presently, “is he worse? It will not be very soon, will it?”

“I don’t know,” said Sylvester. “He is much weaker than he was. I am glad my father is coming next week. Poor Lucy was meant for living! But he does suffer frightfully, night and day. I shall not leave him—I have arranged for that—and I couldn’t possibly go away now.”

“He likes to have you.”

“Yes, the dear boy! He always has clung to me, though, heaven knows, I often manage badly enough for him. But whatever he likes—There’s one thing I must tell you. You know I tried to hold him up when he fell. My strength was going—in another minute he must have pulled me over. And he knew it—and let my hand go!”

Sylvester could hardly speak of that most awful moment, and Amethyst grew paler with sympathy. “Oh—that was splendid of him!” she said.

Then her heart gave a great throb and bound, and she knew which life was the dearest to her. The blood rushed back to her temples, she could see nothing, but she felt that Sylvester held her hand close in his own, and presently she heard his voice whispering—

“You know what makes my life worth living?” She turned, and at once giving him her hands, and putting him away from her, she said—

“Oh, we will do everything for him, we will not think of anything but him—while he wants us.”

She fled away as she spoke; but her words seemed to Sylvester the most beautiful answer that she could have given him, the perfect expression of their according hearts.

In his pocket-book was still preserved the young primrose springing from dead leaves, with which, long ago, Amethyst had illustrated her saying that “beginnings come out of endings.”

It was no inapt type of the sweet hopes springing up in these days of mourning—hopes all the sweeter for the generous reverence with which they waited for fulfilment.

Chapter Thirty Five.The Power of the Past.While all the bitterness of past wrongs was thus, for Amethyst, softening into a tender haze of memory, it became apparent to Una that a new future was offered to herself.The pleasant, wholesome intercourse that had begun for her at Restharrow, had made the days cheerful at Bordighera, and, together with health much improved by the southern climate, had brought her for the first time something of the natural gaiety of her eighteen years. She very soon knew quite well, that her presence made the pleasure for Wilfred Jackson, that he sought her at every possible moment, and offered her the natural and innocent courtship of a warm-hearted youth, which ought to have been the opening of all the joys and rights of her young womanhood.But behind her lay, not the “duties enough and little cares” of unawakened childhood, not the playful preferences of attractive girlhood, but the searing, burning memory of premature passion.She let the pleasant thing go on, she hesitated and doubted, for she liked Wilfred Jackson very much, and she liked—she always would like—intercourse that was touched with possibilities of emotion. And she would have been so glad to forget all her miserable past, to go on into a happy future.She knew that she was watched by Tory and Kattern, and she did not put them off the scent; she knew that Amethyst was only blind because her thoughts were absorbed by Lucian’s condition; she knew how welcome her engagement would be to every one belonging to her. But day by day her heart grew heavier within her, and she dreaded more and more the moment of decision.It came one day, among the olive trees, over a bed of violets, with the blue sea behind them, and the white peaks before, a sweet sense of spring-time in the air, and everything befitting the spring of fresh young hope.He was alone with her, and his tongue was loosed, and all his honest love and his eager longings were laid at her feet, and the prospect of a good and happy life was offered to her, all the blessings the value of which she had learned to know full well.And her heart turned from it utterly, she shrank from his hand and his kiss. She had had her day—a day almost before the dawn—and she thought that she could never give herself to any man again.She refused him, with a rain of tears and a passion of self-reproach, knowing that she had allowed him to expect another answer. Her words were so wild, and her manner so strange, that Wilfred, as he stood, pale and bitterly disappointed, felt as if he had wooed a mermaid, some incomprehensible, uncanny creature of a different race from his own. But he was stunned.“Una,” he said, “I think you gave me a right to expect another answer. You have given me a bitter blow. I shall go away where I cannot see your face—your cruel face. But I don’t give you up. I shall try again!”Una fled away from him, and rushed home, where she threw herself into Amethyst’s arms, and sobbed out all her self-reproach and her self-despair.“Oh, my dear, I should have looked after you better!” said Amethyst regretfully. “But are you sure? Can’t you ask him to give you a little time?”“Oh, Amethyst, I like him, I hoped it would come to me, till yesterday, when we were picking flowers, he kissed my hand, and then—then all last night I dreamt ofotherkisses, oh, I felt them—I can feel them now. I’ve none left!”“Dear Una, the past is not meant to spoil our future—there is forgiveness and peace—”“For you—for you—You look back on a paradise, and I on—”“Oh, Una—but it’s all over, you have all your life left!”“I have—I have!” cried Una, lifting her face from Amethyst’s shoulder, “I would not have that past again, not the maddest moment of it! I will live—I will be good for something in spite of it. Oh—I should like to give my life to telling girls that onecanbe different. I think I’ddieto keep another child from my fate! But it has been—and alas and alas, it will be!”This was the wrong that Tony had done her.She had saved her soul alive, but the first spring of her heart was gone for ever, and if a second came, it might not be till the chances of life were over for her.She threw herself on her knees when Amethyst left her.“Oh, God!” she whispered, “let me not look back—let me look forward up, up to Thee!”There was a great outcry, when Wilfred stirred up his sisters to go back with him on the next day to Nice. The girls were angry, and declared that Una was a heartless flirt and had led him on; but Wilfred would not hear a reproach cast at her, and went up to the Leighs’ villa to bid Lucian farewell, and to tell his story.It was a bad day with Lucian, indeed each day began to show failing strength, and the shadow lay so heavily on all around him, that it was no wonder that Wilfred Jackson’s affairs had never been guessed at. Lucian could not talk to him, but lay and listened while Sylvester put in occasional questions, and shortened the interview as much as possible. Then it came over Wilfred, that he was bidding his friend farewell for the last time, and he felt how much he had let himself be diverted from his state by a new interest. He muttered something, he hardly knew what, as he squeezed Lucian’s hand, but it ended in “never forgetting the Rockies.”“All right,” said Lucian, “and don’t forget either that—I said—that I hoped, when you’re dying, you may thank God for your love, as I do—though we’ve neither of us been lucky.”Wilfred was utterly overcome, and could only hurry away with another hand-squeeze. Lucian felt that the first of the final partings had come for him, and his breath came a little quickly.“You’ll stay with me, Syl, won’t you?” he whispered.“Why yes, of course, dear boy, that’s all settled, long ago. Now let me read you to sleep. Then, if Amethyst comes by and by, you will be able to see her.”Amethyst was the bright spot in the sorrowful household. She was loving to Mrs Leigh, listening to her sorrow, and trying to give her all the care which after so long a strain she was beginning to need, and cheering the poor young girls as they grew too sorrowful to care for their usual amusements, while in her ways with Lucian she showed the most absolutely simple and unaffected tenderness, thinking of nothing but how to give him pleasure. That the pleasure was sometimes not easily known from pain, Lucian hid from all eyes but Sylvester’s keen ones, and, as he grew weaker, the inevitable longings mercifully sank away, or were bravely offered up with all the other sufferings of his failing life, and he took the joy as simply as it was given.Lady Haredale, as usual, had adapted herself to circumstances. She took the greatest interest in “dear Lucian,” never grudged Amethyst’s intercourse with him, and, as she took occasion to tell Sylvester, “felt that the past was entirely blotted out.”“She may,” Lucian had said bluntly, when this speech was reported to him, “but, as far as she is concerned, I don’t, and I never shall.”Sylvester entirely concurred in this sentiment. If he detested any one on earth it was “my lady.” If she had ever found out that Una had refused Wilfred Jackson, she might have found it hard to forgive her, for money grew scarcer and scarcer, and while she smiled, and talked, and found little satisfactions in the amusements of hotel life, she did not know in the least what was to become of them all.What Lord Haredale did, with their scanty means, it was easy to guess, and, though his wife could trust to some happy-go-lucky solution, his sister’s face grew more anxious every day.Her greatest comfort was Carrie Carisbrooke, who transferred the incipient affection she had felt for Charles to all his family. She told Miss Haredale, that she hoped they would continue to live together either at Silverfold or at Cleverley, and she fully intended to put it in her chaperon’s power to give Tory the education she so much desired.It was an undeserved return for the worldliness which had done her so great a disservice in trying to prop up a falling family with her fortune; but nevertheless, it made home and happiness for a very lonely girl, and so was its own reward.Carrie’s twenty-first birthday was imminent, and on the day of the Jacksons’ departure, she received a letter from her uncle, saying that he meant to spend it with her, and to give up his stewardship of her fortune.Una heard with a start of horror, “That Amethyst should meet that man again!”“You need have no fear,” said Amethyst. “If he comes, and people guess he ever had anything to do with me, it is no more than I deserve. He nearly ruined my life for me, but it was my own fault Lucian will never know, and—”She did not finish her sentence, but she knew that, some day, she would tell Sylvester how his trust in her had helped to save her from a second shipwreck. She would tell him, and he would understand.

While all the bitterness of past wrongs was thus, for Amethyst, softening into a tender haze of memory, it became apparent to Una that a new future was offered to herself.

The pleasant, wholesome intercourse that had begun for her at Restharrow, had made the days cheerful at Bordighera, and, together with health much improved by the southern climate, had brought her for the first time something of the natural gaiety of her eighteen years. She very soon knew quite well, that her presence made the pleasure for Wilfred Jackson, that he sought her at every possible moment, and offered her the natural and innocent courtship of a warm-hearted youth, which ought to have been the opening of all the joys and rights of her young womanhood.

But behind her lay, not the “duties enough and little cares” of unawakened childhood, not the playful preferences of attractive girlhood, but the searing, burning memory of premature passion.

She let the pleasant thing go on, she hesitated and doubted, for she liked Wilfred Jackson very much, and she liked—she always would like—intercourse that was touched with possibilities of emotion. And she would have been so glad to forget all her miserable past, to go on into a happy future.

She knew that she was watched by Tory and Kattern, and she did not put them off the scent; she knew that Amethyst was only blind because her thoughts were absorbed by Lucian’s condition; she knew how welcome her engagement would be to every one belonging to her. But day by day her heart grew heavier within her, and she dreaded more and more the moment of decision.

It came one day, among the olive trees, over a bed of violets, with the blue sea behind them, and the white peaks before, a sweet sense of spring-time in the air, and everything befitting the spring of fresh young hope.

He was alone with her, and his tongue was loosed, and all his honest love and his eager longings were laid at her feet, and the prospect of a good and happy life was offered to her, all the blessings the value of which she had learned to know full well.

And her heart turned from it utterly, she shrank from his hand and his kiss. She had had her day—a day almost before the dawn—and she thought that she could never give herself to any man again.

She refused him, with a rain of tears and a passion of self-reproach, knowing that she had allowed him to expect another answer. Her words were so wild, and her manner so strange, that Wilfred, as he stood, pale and bitterly disappointed, felt as if he had wooed a mermaid, some incomprehensible, uncanny creature of a different race from his own. But he was stunned.

“Una,” he said, “I think you gave me a right to expect another answer. You have given me a bitter blow. I shall go away where I cannot see your face—your cruel face. But I don’t give you up. I shall try again!”

Una fled away from him, and rushed home, where she threw herself into Amethyst’s arms, and sobbed out all her self-reproach and her self-despair.

“Oh, my dear, I should have looked after you better!” said Amethyst regretfully. “But are you sure? Can’t you ask him to give you a little time?”

“Oh, Amethyst, I like him, I hoped it would come to me, till yesterday, when we were picking flowers, he kissed my hand, and then—then all last night I dreamt ofotherkisses, oh, I felt them—I can feel them now. I’ve none left!”

“Dear Una, the past is not meant to spoil our future—there is forgiveness and peace—”

“For you—for you—You look back on a paradise, and I on—”

“Oh, Una—but it’s all over, you have all your life left!”

“I have—I have!” cried Una, lifting her face from Amethyst’s shoulder, “I would not have that past again, not the maddest moment of it! I will live—I will be good for something in spite of it. Oh—I should like to give my life to telling girls that onecanbe different. I think I’ddieto keep another child from my fate! But it has been—and alas and alas, it will be!”

This was the wrong that Tony had done her.

She had saved her soul alive, but the first spring of her heart was gone for ever, and if a second came, it might not be till the chances of life were over for her.

She threw herself on her knees when Amethyst left her.

“Oh, God!” she whispered, “let me not look back—let me look forward up, up to Thee!”

There was a great outcry, when Wilfred stirred up his sisters to go back with him on the next day to Nice. The girls were angry, and declared that Una was a heartless flirt and had led him on; but Wilfred would not hear a reproach cast at her, and went up to the Leighs’ villa to bid Lucian farewell, and to tell his story.

It was a bad day with Lucian, indeed each day began to show failing strength, and the shadow lay so heavily on all around him, that it was no wonder that Wilfred Jackson’s affairs had never been guessed at. Lucian could not talk to him, but lay and listened while Sylvester put in occasional questions, and shortened the interview as much as possible. Then it came over Wilfred, that he was bidding his friend farewell for the last time, and he felt how much he had let himself be diverted from his state by a new interest. He muttered something, he hardly knew what, as he squeezed Lucian’s hand, but it ended in “never forgetting the Rockies.”

“All right,” said Lucian, “and don’t forget either that—I said—that I hoped, when you’re dying, you may thank God for your love, as I do—though we’ve neither of us been lucky.”

Wilfred was utterly overcome, and could only hurry away with another hand-squeeze. Lucian felt that the first of the final partings had come for him, and his breath came a little quickly.

“You’ll stay with me, Syl, won’t you?” he whispered.

“Why yes, of course, dear boy, that’s all settled, long ago. Now let me read you to sleep. Then, if Amethyst comes by and by, you will be able to see her.”

Amethyst was the bright spot in the sorrowful household. She was loving to Mrs Leigh, listening to her sorrow, and trying to give her all the care which after so long a strain she was beginning to need, and cheering the poor young girls as they grew too sorrowful to care for their usual amusements, while in her ways with Lucian she showed the most absolutely simple and unaffected tenderness, thinking of nothing but how to give him pleasure. That the pleasure was sometimes not easily known from pain, Lucian hid from all eyes but Sylvester’s keen ones, and, as he grew weaker, the inevitable longings mercifully sank away, or were bravely offered up with all the other sufferings of his failing life, and he took the joy as simply as it was given.

Lady Haredale, as usual, had adapted herself to circumstances. She took the greatest interest in “dear Lucian,” never grudged Amethyst’s intercourse with him, and, as she took occasion to tell Sylvester, “felt that the past was entirely blotted out.”

“She may,” Lucian had said bluntly, when this speech was reported to him, “but, as far as she is concerned, I don’t, and I never shall.”

Sylvester entirely concurred in this sentiment. If he detested any one on earth it was “my lady.” If she had ever found out that Una had refused Wilfred Jackson, she might have found it hard to forgive her, for money grew scarcer and scarcer, and while she smiled, and talked, and found little satisfactions in the amusements of hotel life, she did not know in the least what was to become of them all.

What Lord Haredale did, with their scanty means, it was easy to guess, and, though his wife could trust to some happy-go-lucky solution, his sister’s face grew more anxious every day.

Her greatest comfort was Carrie Carisbrooke, who transferred the incipient affection she had felt for Charles to all his family. She told Miss Haredale, that she hoped they would continue to live together either at Silverfold or at Cleverley, and she fully intended to put it in her chaperon’s power to give Tory the education she so much desired.

It was an undeserved return for the worldliness which had done her so great a disservice in trying to prop up a falling family with her fortune; but nevertheless, it made home and happiness for a very lonely girl, and so was its own reward.

Carrie’s twenty-first birthday was imminent, and on the day of the Jacksons’ departure, she received a letter from her uncle, saying that he meant to spend it with her, and to give up his stewardship of her fortune.

Una heard with a start of horror, “That Amethyst should meet that man again!”

“You need have no fear,” said Amethyst. “If he comes, and people guess he ever had anything to do with me, it is no more than I deserve. He nearly ruined my life for me, but it was my own fault Lucian will never know, and—”

She did not finish her sentence, but she knew that, some day, she would tell Sylvester how his trust in her had helped to save her from a second shipwreck. She would tell him, and he would understand.

Chapter Thirty Six.Out of the Deep.“No, Annabel—no, Amethyst, I shall not go. I am quite sure Charles has not deserved any attention from me. Read the telegram—‘Come at once, Charles dying; his own fault. Bring money.’ My lord is the most unpractical person I ever knew! He knows I have no money. What could I do for Charles over at Monte Carlo? Some horrid scandal, no doubt.”“It would be a far greater scandal to neglect him when he is dying, Lady Haredale. At least, I will go and help my poor brother.”“You, my dear Anna! Oh, that would be the very thing. You are always goodness itself, and full of kind thoughts. Do go; but as for the money—”“There needn’t be any trouble about that, Lady Haredale,” said Carrie, who was in the room, “for I have plenty of money—quite handy, and Miss Haredale can take it with her to Monte Carlo.”“Why, my dear Carrie, you are quite a little guardian angel. Now it is all nicely settled, and I dare say you’ll find my lord has got nervous about some mere trifle.”The Haredale party were all assembled in Lady Haredale’s bedroom, which formed a sort of family gathering-place. Tory had rushed in with a telegram in her hand, and this was the end of a hot discussion.“Then—the train, oh, when is it?” said Miss Haredale, “and—oh yes, telegraph to my brother to meet me—for I should not know—”“I shall go with you,” said Amethyst, “there is nothing else to be thought of. There will be a great deal more than you could manage alone, Aunt Anna.”“Oh, but, Amethyst, you are the last person to be seen in such a place—on such an occasion.”“When my brother is dying,” said Amethyst, “I don’t think it can be wrong to go anywhere. If I don’t like it, I’ll come back again. There’s a train in an hour, we can catch that.”Una ran after her as she went to get ready.“Oh, Amethyst,” she said, “I am afraid it will be very dreadful.”“So am I,” said Amethyst. “But what would become of Carrie’s money if auntie were there alone? And I have never been kind to poor Charles, nor had any mercy for him. Imustgo, Una. Only try to keep it all from Lucian; he will hurt himself with worrying about me.”“If Sylvester Riddell could go with you!”“Oh no. Then Lucian would hear about it. Besides—oh no, Una, no one ought to come.”“Give my love to Charles,” said Una, kissing her. “Oh dear, what is to become of us all?”“I don’t know,” said Amethyst; “I’ve got to catch the train first.”The train was caught, and off they set, with poor Carrie’s little roll of gold pieces carefully secreted in Amethyst’s dress. She was sick with fear of what she might find. To see evil which has been only heard of is a frightful thing, and she squeezed Lucian’s ring through her glove, as if it gave her a sense of guardianship.No Lord Haredale appeared at the station, which seemed ominous and depressing. They took a carriage, and with some difficulty found theBella Italia, the hotel from which his telegram had been dated, the driver declining to believe that the ladiescouldwant to go there.It was a second-rate little place, with noisy voices coming from the open windows of the coffee-room, and from the restaurant in the garden outside.The two ladies got out of their carriage and walked in, and Amethyst in careful broken Italian asked for Lord Haredale, and for the English gentleman who was there very ill.The host came forward, and answered her with smiles, shrugs and gestures, and a flood of incomprehensible words.Amethyst stood perplexed. Some men started up from the tables and began to explain, evidently with the best intentions, but with such vehemence of tone and gesture that Miss Haredale clutched her niece’s arm, with a terrified conviction that they were all making excuses to stare at Amethyst, who began to make her inquiries in French—when, behind her, a voice that might have been the echo of her own said “Aunt Annabel!”She turned, and by one of the little tables stood a tall woman, with a slight swaying figure like Una’s, a dress incongruously splendid in that squalid place, and a face—the face of one of themselves—not so much older as to have lost all its kindred beauty, but with pale cheeks and painted eyes, and a look at once familiar, as only the nearest of kin can be, and strange, as of one belonging to another kind of world.“Blanche!” exclaimed Miss Haredale, “Blanche! can it be you?”“Oh yes, Aunt Annabel. It is. I am staying here for a little variety, and I saw papa, and Charles—both of them—in the rooms. And I thought I’d better come and look after my brother, when I heard he was ill.”She laughed a little, as she uttered these words in something of Tory’s tone when she did the good little girl, an effect heightened by the use of the old-fashioned appellation by which, long, long ago, Lord Haredale’s elder children had been wont to call him; but her eyes were on her sister. “Is that Amethyst?” she said. “Ah, you don’t remember me.”“Yes, Blanche, I do,” said Amethyst; but she had turned deadly pale, for Blanche had been little more than an abstraction to her mind.“But where is your father?” said Miss Haredale. “And Charles, is he any better?”“Oh no—nor can be. He’s got D.T. and all sorts of other horrors. Just drank himself to death, poor fellow. I can pay the nurse and the doctor: but I can’t bear the sight of him. Whatwasthe good of your coming?”“Is the nurse trained, my dear? Indeed, I ought to go up,” said Miss Haredale.“Well, I can show you. Perhaps he is asleep. Trained—oh dear no; she’s a horrid old woman.”Lady Clyste led the way up-stairs, and, as they followed her, outcries, sounds that made Amethyst’s heart die within her, led them on their way.“Oh, he’s quite off his head,” said Blanche, as she opened the bedroom door.There, on the narrow bed, lay Charles; and Amethyst saw what months of neglect and evil living, and frightful ills and sufferings, had made of a man already marred and ruined beyond repair.Miss Haredale recoiled with a sob, and Amethyst gathered up her courage and came forward.“Charles,” she said.The sick man started up and swore at her for a ghost. Then his eyes cleared a little, and he stuttered out—“Amethyst! Oh, damn it all. Go away; you mustn’t stop here, here withme. And there’s Blanche; you mustn’t stay with Blanche. Take her away, Aunt Anna. Take her away this moment.”Blanche gave a sort of laugh, and then began to sob hysterically.“Hush, Charles,” said Amethyst, “I came to see you. You won’t hurt me,—and Blanche—is very kind. Lie still.—Una sent you her love.”Her lips and hands trembled a little, but her eyes were full of yearning pity. Never, in her loveliest moments, had she looked as she did now.She stood by Charles, and laid her hand on his, then glanced from him to his other sister, of whom he had spoken thus.She looked at this sister, who had loved foolishly, and married unlovingly, and then yielded to the passion that offered a change from the dullness of the world’s prosperity, and she thought of herself, and of what so easily might have been her fate; and no longer scorn and hatred, but a deep and awful pity filled her soul for those who had not been saved as she had, and who had been unable to save themselves.She did not in the least know what to do, however much she might pity, and had turned to the white-capped peasant who was acting as nurse, when there was a rush up-stairs, and the host who had received them dashed into the room and shouted out something in Italian. Blanche, who understood, screamed aloud, and crying out—“He says my father has had a fit and is brought in—dead,” rushed down the stairs, while Miss Haredale, half distracted, followed her, and host and nurse flew to join the fray.Charles had grasped Amethyst’s hand, she thought that he might die at that moment, and dared not leave him. Of what passed in that dreadful hour, when she was left alone with the dying man, she never afterwards spoke. The sun was setting in a fiery glow, and streamed in at the window on to the bed, revealing with the dreadful clearness of a light from heaven, its squalor and wretchedness, and the misery and degradation of him who lay on it.There was shouting and calling below, and terrible crazy utterances from Charles, mixed now and then with a kindly word, “Una—good girl—poor little Carrie,” then frightful visions and fear, oaths and cursing, and over all the approach of the King of Terror in his most awful form.Amethyst was utterly ignorant and helpless, she could have done little, had she had trained skill. But she stood by and touched him and spoke to him, and uttered prayers that were at first mere outbursts of fear, mere cries for help in her extremity. But gradually they grew conscious and clear, and she prayed for her brother’s soul with all her might, and her terror passed away, as he sank into quieter mutterings. She prayed aloud with the instinct of a child, but as the yearning impulse grew stronger, it found fewer words. She said, “Our Father—Our Father,” over and over again, as if she could and need say nothing more, and at last came a weak hoarse echo to her voice.“Our Father—” muttered Charles, with the last look of his dying eyes fixed on his young sister’s beautiful face, on which the last rays of the sunlight fell.“An angel—down in hell! Our Father—” he said, and then his head fell back, the great change came, and Amethyst saw him die.“Oh, my dear, I had to leave you; but your father’s breathing still. Come down; and here’s the doctor, let him see Charles;” and Miss Haredale, pale and shaking, but with composure gained from the very extremity, came into the room, followed by an Italian doctor, who gave one glance at the bed.“The young lady must not stay here,” he said, “there is no more to be done. Nor you either, Signora; Milord will perhaps have need of you.”Miss Haredale gave a little gasp of horror; but she was hardly able to realise anything fresh. She took Amethyst down-stairs to the coffee-room, which had been cleared of all its occupants; while Lord Haredale, who had fallen down in the street, not far from the inn, had been laid on a bed, roughly made up on one of the tables. Two Englishmen, who had some slight acquaintance with him, were there, and had sent for the doctor, and done what they could to help the helpless ladies, and now, one of them, hearing what had happened up-stairs, went to see the doctor and make the first needful arrangements.Lord Haredale was quite unconscious; there was no chance, the doctor said, of a rally, but it might not be over for some hours. Lady Clyste sat crouched up by a stove at the end of the room, crying in a violent unrestrained fashion. Miss Haredale sat down by her brother’s side, shedding a few tears, but faithfully watching him; while Amethyst, stupefied and silent, stood at the sick man’s feet. Presently the other Englishman came back and spoke to her.“Miss Haredale?” he said, bowing. “My name is Williams. I had the honour of his lordship’s acquaintance. You are perhaps hardly aware how quickly arrangements have to be made in this country. And the expense is great. Your brother’s funeral, would it be here? Have you friends to consult?”“Oh, no,” exclaimed Miss Haredale, interposing. “Impossible! anything but that. We all lie at Haredale.”Amethyst looked at Mr Williams, who was not a very prepossessing person; but he was much better than no one, and she decided to trust him.“I have some money,” she said, “but I don’t know. We must telegraph to my mother at Bordighera, and, yes—to another friend. But—is there no one here—an English chaplain or clergyman?”Mr Williams never appeared to have heard of such an official, but he promised to inquire, and to despatch the telegrams to Lady Haredale, and to Sylvester Riddell, who could surely come for an hour or two and help them in such extremity, then all would be well. Then he departed, promising to do all he could to delay matters till something definite occurred, with a glance at Lord Haredale’s heavily-breathing figure.“Amethyst, Amethyst, do come here,” sobbed Blanche, calling to her. “Is Charles dead? Oh, how awful, how dreadful!—oh, I wish I hadn’t come!”“I think you were quite right to come,” said Amethyst, as Blanche came towards her, catching hold of her, and clinging to her with a touch that strangely reminded her of Una’s agitated clasp. “Oh, come and sit here, let us talk of something else. Really, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be with me. Won’t they get us something to eat? These Italians are all so frightened when any one’s ill.”Amethyst spoke to the old peasant woman, and asked her to fetch them soup or coffee. One trouble had succeeded another so rapidly that she seemed to have no feelings left.The coffee was brought, and Lady Clyste revived a little as she drank it.“So you had a great success in London? But why didn’t you marry that rich baronet? How pretty you are. Was there anybody else? I think you’d better have married him. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been such a jealous tyrant as Sir Edward. That was why I came away. There really wasn’t anything wrong; he had his amusements, and so had I.”Amethyst could not answer, and suddenly Blanche changed her tone.“But didn’t I hear that Oliver Carisbrooke was there? Oh, Amethyst, never you have anything to do with him. He was the ruin of me. There, he made me over head and ears in love with him, little, young thing that I was—and then he left me to bear all the blame. I declare, Amethyst, he planned it all, how I was to run away with him, and when he found out my mother’s money could be kept away from me, he threw me over. Oh, and he’s tried since. He’d make you believe anything. Being in love amuses him. He does that instead of gambling, or drinking, or being wicked like other men. He gets up an emotion! I hope you don’t like him.”“No, I hate him,” said Amethyst under her breath.“I want to hear all about you. Do you get on with my lady? I liked her—she was great fun. But when I was in trouble—ah, how she threw me over! And how she tried to cut me out! I could tell you—”Amethyst started up, and went over to her father’s side. In that presence, with that other awful death-bed fresh in her mind, this idle trifling seemed the most dreadful of all the horrors which she had had to face.She knelt down by her aunt’s side, and laid her face against her shoulder, the child-love of long ago coming to her help; while Miss Haredale pressed her close, and watched in silence.The hours passed, and there was no arrival from Bordighera, and no message.Amethyst’s heart sank within her. Why did not her mother come?—And surely nothing but the worst trouble at Casa Remi could have kept Sylvester from coming to her help in such extremity.In the dawn of the morning, without rally or suffering, Lord Haredale died, and, as Amethyst turned to face the chilly light at the opened door, there, with pale face and anxious eyes, stood Sylvester Riddell. She flew to him with outstretched hands.“Oh, you are here?” she cried, “I have been longing—”Sylvester clasped her hands close.“Oh, my dearest,” he cried. “It was almost all over last night. They never even gave me your telegram till too late. But he is still alive, and he caught a whisper of your trouble, and his first word was ‘Go.’ Now, now I can take care of you. How could your mother let you come?”

“No, Annabel—no, Amethyst, I shall not go. I am quite sure Charles has not deserved any attention from me. Read the telegram—‘Come at once, Charles dying; his own fault. Bring money.’ My lord is the most unpractical person I ever knew! He knows I have no money. What could I do for Charles over at Monte Carlo? Some horrid scandal, no doubt.”

“It would be a far greater scandal to neglect him when he is dying, Lady Haredale. At least, I will go and help my poor brother.”

“You, my dear Anna! Oh, that would be the very thing. You are always goodness itself, and full of kind thoughts. Do go; but as for the money—”

“There needn’t be any trouble about that, Lady Haredale,” said Carrie, who was in the room, “for I have plenty of money—quite handy, and Miss Haredale can take it with her to Monte Carlo.”

“Why, my dear Carrie, you are quite a little guardian angel. Now it is all nicely settled, and I dare say you’ll find my lord has got nervous about some mere trifle.”

The Haredale party were all assembled in Lady Haredale’s bedroom, which formed a sort of family gathering-place. Tory had rushed in with a telegram in her hand, and this was the end of a hot discussion.

“Then—the train, oh, when is it?” said Miss Haredale, “and—oh yes, telegraph to my brother to meet me—for I should not know—”

“I shall go with you,” said Amethyst, “there is nothing else to be thought of. There will be a great deal more than you could manage alone, Aunt Anna.”

“Oh, but, Amethyst, you are the last person to be seen in such a place—on such an occasion.”

“When my brother is dying,” said Amethyst, “I don’t think it can be wrong to go anywhere. If I don’t like it, I’ll come back again. There’s a train in an hour, we can catch that.”

Una ran after her as she went to get ready.

“Oh, Amethyst,” she said, “I am afraid it will be very dreadful.”

“So am I,” said Amethyst. “But what would become of Carrie’s money if auntie were there alone? And I have never been kind to poor Charles, nor had any mercy for him. Imustgo, Una. Only try to keep it all from Lucian; he will hurt himself with worrying about me.”

“If Sylvester Riddell could go with you!”

“Oh no. Then Lucian would hear about it. Besides—oh no, Una, no one ought to come.”

“Give my love to Charles,” said Una, kissing her. “Oh dear, what is to become of us all?”

“I don’t know,” said Amethyst; “I’ve got to catch the train first.”

The train was caught, and off they set, with poor Carrie’s little roll of gold pieces carefully secreted in Amethyst’s dress. She was sick with fear of what she might find. To see evil which has been only heard of is a frightful thing, and she squeezed Lucian’s ring through her glove, as if it gave her a sense of guardianship.

No Lord Haredale appeared at the station, which seemed ominous and depressing. They took a carriage, and with some difficulty found theBella Italia, the hotel from which his telegram had been dated, the driver declining to believe that the ladiescouldwant to go there.

It was a second-rate little place, with noisy voices coming from the open windows of the coffee-room, and from the restaurant in the garden outside.

The two ladies got out of their carriage and walked in, and Amethyst in careful broken Italian asked for Lord Haredale, and for the English gentleman who was there very ill.

The host came forward, and answered her with smiles, shrugs and gestures, and a flood of incomprehensible words.

Amethyst stood perplexed. Some men started up from the tables and began to explain, evidently with the best intentions, but with such vehemence of tone and gesture that Miss Haredale clutched her niece’s arm, with a terrified conviction that they were all making excuses to stare at Amethyst, who began to make her inquiries in French—when, behind her, a voice that might have been the echo of her own said “Aunt Annabel!”

She turned, and by one of the little tables stood a tall woman, with a slight swaying figure like Una’s, a dress incongruously splendid in that squalid place, and a face—the face of one of themselves—not so much older as to have lost all its kindred beauty, but with pale cheeks and painted eyes, and a look at once familiar, as only the nearest of kin can be, and strange, as of one belonging to another kind of world.

“Blanche!” exclaimed Miss Haredale, “Blanche! can it be you?”

“Oh yes, Aunt Annabel. It is. I am staying here for a little variety, and I saw papa, and Charles—both of them—in the rooms. And I thought I’d better come and look after my brother, when I heard he was ill.”

She laughed a little, as she uttered these words in something of Tory’s tone when she did the good little girl, an effect heightened by the use of the old-fashioned appellation by which, long, long ago, Lord Haredale’s elder children had been wont to call him; but her eyes were on her sister. “Is that Amethyst?” she said. “Ah, you don’t remember me.”

“Yes, Blanche, I do,” said Amethyst; but she had turned deadly pale, for Blanche had been little more than an abstraction to her mind.

“But where is your father?” said Miss Haredale. “And Charles, is he any better?”

“Oh no—nor can be. He’s got D.T. and all sorts of other horrors. Just drank himself to death, poor fellow. I can pay the nurse and the doctor: but I can’t bear the sight of him. Whatwasthe good of your coming?”

“Is the nurse trained, my dear? Indeed, I ought to go up,” said Miss Haredale.

“Well, I can show you. Perhaps he is asleep. Trained—oh dear no; she’s a horrid old woman.”

Lady Clyste led the way up-stairs, and, as they followed her, outcries, sounds that made Amethyst’s heart die within her, led them on their way.

“Oh, he’s quite off his head,” said Blanche, as she opened the bedroom door.

There, on the narrow bed, lay Charles; and Amethyst saw what months of neglect and evil living, and frightful ills and sufferings, had made of a man already marred and ruined beyond repair.

Miss Haredale recoiled with a sob, and Amethyst gathered up her courage and came forward.

“Charles,” she said.

The sick man started up and swore at her for a ghost. Then his eyes cleared a little, and he stuttered out—

“Amethyst! Oh, damn it all. Go away; you mustn’t stop here, here withme. And there’s Blanche; you mustn’t stay with Blanche. Take her away, Aunt Anna. Take her away this moment.”

Blanche gave a sort of laugh, and then began to sob hysterically.

“Hush, Charles,” said Amethyst, “I came to see you. You won’t hurt me,—and Blanche—is very kind. Lie still.—Una sent you her love.”

Her lips and hands trembled a little, but her eyes were full of yearning pity. Never, in her loveliest moments, had she looked as she did now.

She stood by Charles, and laid her hand on his, then glanced from him to his other sister, of whom he had spoken thus.

She looked at this sister, who had loved foolishly, and married unlovingly, and then yielded to the passion that offered a change from the dullness of the world’s prosperity, and she thought of herself, and of what so easily might have been her fate; and no longer scorn and hatred, but a deep and awful pity filled her soul for those who had not been saved as she had, and who had been unable to save themselves.

She did not in the least know what to do, however much she might pity, and had turned to the white-capped peasant who was acting as nurse, when there was a rush up-stairs, and the host who had received them dashed into the room and shouted out something in Italian. Blanche, who understood, screamed aloud, and crying out—

“He says my father has had a fit and is brought in—dead,” rushed down the stairs, while Miss Haredale, half distracted, followed her, and host and nurse flew to join the fray.

Charles had grasped Amethyst’s hand, she thought that he might die at that moment, and dared not leave him. Of what passed in that dreadful hour, when she was left alone with the dying man, she never afterwards spoke. The sun was setting in a fiery glow, and streamed in at the window on to the bed, revealing with the dreadful clearness of a light from heaven, its squalor and wretchedness, and the misery and degradation of him who lay on it.

There was shouting and calling below, and terrible crazy utterances from Charles, mixed now and then with a kindly word, “Una—good girl—poor little Carrie,” then frightful visions and fear, oaths and cursing, and over all the approach of the King of Terror in his most awful form.

Amethyst was utterly ignorant and helpless, she could have done little, had she had trained skill. But she stood by and touched him and spoke to him, and uttered prayers that were at first mere outbursts of fear, mere cries for help in her extremity. But gradually they grew conscious and clear, and she prayed for her brother’s soul with all her might, and her terror passed away, as he sank into quieter mutterings. She prayed aloud with the instinct of a child, but as the yearning impulse grew stronger, it found fewer words. She said, “Our Father—Our Father,” over and over again, as if she could and need say nothing more, and at last came a weak hoarse echo to her voice.

“Our Father—” muttered Charles, with the last look of his dying eyes fixed on his young sister’s beautiful face, on which the last rays of the sunlight fell.

“An angel—down in hell! Our Father—” he said, and then his head fell back, the great change came, and Amethyst saw him die.

“Oh, my dear, I had to leave you; but your father’s breathing still. Come down; and here’s the doctor, let him see Charles;” and Miss Haredale, pale and shaking, but with composure gained from the very extremity, came into the room, followed by an Italian doctor, who gave one glance at the bed.

“The young lady must not stay here,” he said, “there is no more to be done. Nor you either, Signora; Milord will perhaps have need of you.”

Miss Haredale gave a little gasp of horror; but she was hardly able to realise anything fresh. She took Amethyst down-stairs to the coffee-room, which had been cleared of all its occupants; while Lord Haredale, who had fallen down in the street, not far from the inn, had been laid on a bed, roughly made up on one of the tables. Two Englishmen, who had some slight acquaintance with him, were there, and had sent for the doctor, and done what they could to help the helpless ladies, and now, one of them, hearing what had happened up-stairs, went to see the doctor and make the first needful arrangements.

Lord Haredale was quite unconscious; there was no chance, the doctor said, of a rally, but it might not be over for some hours. Lady Clyste sat crouched up by a stove at the end of the room, crying in a violent unrestrained fashion. Miss Haredale sat down by her brother’s side, shedding a few tears, but faithfully watching him; while Amethyst, stupefied and silent, stood at the sick man’s feet. Presently the other Englishman came back and spoke to her.

“Miss Haredale?” he said, bowing. “My name is Williams. I had the honour of his lordship’s acquaintance. You are perhaps hardly aware how quickly arrangements have to be made in this country. And the expense is great. Your brother’s funeral, would it be here? Have you friends to consult?”

“Oh, no,” exclaimed Miss Haredale, interposing. “Impossible! anything but that. We all lie at Haredale.”

Amethyst looked at Mr Williams, who was not a very prepossessing person; but he was much better than no one, and she decided to trust him.

“I have some money,” she said, “but I don’t know. We must telegraph to my mother at Bordighera, and, yes—to another friend. But—is there no one here—an English chaplain or clergyman?”

Mr Williams never appeared to have heard of such an official, but he promised to inquire, and to despatch the telegrams to Lady Haredale, and to Sylvester Riddell, who could surely come for an hour or two and help them in such extremity, then all would be well. Then he departed, promising to do all he could to delay matters till something definite occurred, with a glance at Lord Haredale’s heavily-breathing figure.

“Amethyst, Amethyst, do come here,” sobbed Blanche, calling to her. “Is Charles dead? Oh, how awful, how dreadful!—oh, I wish I hadn’t come!”

“I think you were quite right to come,” said Amethyst, as Blanche came towards her, catching hold of her, and clinging to her with a touch that strangely reminded her of Una’s agitated clasp. “Oh, come and sit here, let us talk of something else. Really, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be with me. Won’t they get us something to eat? These Italians are all so frightened when any one’s ill.”

Amethyst spoke to the old peasant woman, and asked her to fetch them soup or coffee. One trouble had succeeded another so rapidly that she seemed to have no feelings left.

The coffee was brought, and Lady Clyste revived a little as she drank it.

“So you had a great success in London? But why didn’t you marry that rich baronet? How pretty you are. Was there anybody else? I think you’d better have married him. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been such a jealous tyrant as Sir Edward. That was why I came away. There really wasn’t anything wrong; he had his amusements, and so had I.”

Amethyst could not answer, and suddenly Blanche changed her tone.

“But didn’t I hear that Oliver Carisbrooke was there? Oh, Amethyst, never you have anything to do with him. He was the ruin of me. There, he made me over head and ears in love with him, little, young thing that I was—and then he left me to bear all the blame. I declare, Amethyst, he planned it all, how I was to run away with him, and when he found out my mother’s money could be kept away from me, he threw me over. Oh, and he’s tried since. He’d make you believe anything. Being in love amuses him. He does that instead of gambling, or drinking, or being wicked like other men. He gets up an emotion! I hope you don’t like him.”

“No, I hate him,” said Amethyst under her breath.

“I want to hear all about you. Do you get on with my lady? I liked her—she was great fun. But when I was in trouble—ah, how she threw me over! And how she tried to cut me out! I could tell you—”

Amethyst started up, and went over to her father’s side. In that presence, with that other awful death-bed fresh in her mind, this idle trifling seemed the most dreadful of all the horrors which she had had to face.

She knelt down by her aunt’s side, and laid her face against her shoulder, the child-love of long ago coming to her help; while Miss Haredale pressed her close, and watched in silence.

The hours passed, and there was no arrival from Bordighera, and no message.

Amethyst’s heart sank within her. Why did not her mother come?—And surely nothing but the worst trouble at Casa Remi could have kept Sylvester from coming to her help in such extremity.

In the dawn of the morning, without rally or suffering, Lord Haredale died, and, as Amethyst turned to face the chilly light at the opened door, there, with pale face and anxious eyes, stood Sylvester Riddell. She flew to him with outstretched hands.

“Oh, you are here?” she cried, “I have been longing—”

Sylvester clasped her hands close.

“Oh, my dearest,” he cried. “It was almost all over last night. They never even gave me your telegram till too late. But he is still alive, and he caught a whisper of your trouble, and his first word was ‘Go.’ Now, now I can take care of you. How could your mother let you come?”

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