Some weeks had now passed since Bevil Goring last saw Alison Cheyne—weeks that seemed as ages to him!
If weeks seem interminable when a pair of hopeful lovers are thus separated and can count to a day when they shall meet again, absence 'making their hearts grow fonder,' what must they seem to those who are hopelessly apart and kept in utter ignorance of each other's movements, thoughts, and plans!
Mrs. Trelawney at Chilcote Grange heard nothing of her young friend, or of Lord Cadbury, and though the movements of the 'upper ten' are pretty accurately chronicled in the society papers, as they are named, no record was given of those in the yacht, which Goring attributed to its voyaging in the Mediterranean; yet he thought it most singular that it had not been heard of turning up at Naples, Palermo, Civita Vecchia, Malta, or elsewhere affected by tourists and travellers.
Had Alison by this time bent to the circumstances that surrounded her—bent to her father's influence, and, in utter weariness of heart and despair of escape, accepted Lord Cadbury—been married to him perhaps?
The public prints would in these days of watchful and incessant paragraphing have duly announced such an event; but now to be destined for foreign service, and for a protracted and doubtful period, the dangers of war and climate apart, rendered the chances of their ever meeting again extremely problematical.
If there is any place in the world where lasting or temporary care might find an antidote, it is the great camp at Aldershot, with its thousands of horse, foot, and artillery, the incessant parading and marching, bugling and drumming, and amid the sociality of a regiment, with its merry mess, 'the perfection of dinner society,' as Lever calls it; but Bevil Goring shrank from it as soon as he could, and often preferred the solitude of his leaky hut—we say leaky, for those residences erected by the economical John Bull admit both wind and rain most freely through their felt roofs and red-painted wooden walls. And therein he chummed with Jerry, now a changed and somewhat moody fellow, addicted to heavy smoking and frequent brandy and sodas.
Dalton, too, would seem not to have made much progress with the gay widow during their absence at Wilmothurst, and seemed to have seen but little of her lately.
Ere long, unless the regiment departed betimes, they would have the spring drills before them; but there was every prospect of a speedy move, so their comrades congratulated themselves on the chance of escaping being perhaps under canvas in the North Camp, days of toil in the Long Valley, when the eyes, nose, and ears—yea, the pores of the skin, were often filled with dust—often being under arms from 9 a.m. till 4.30 p.m., with no other rations than a mouthful of Aldershot sand. Even the prospect of fighting in the dense African bush was deemed better work than that.
One morning after tubbing, and lingering over coffee and cigars in their patrol jackets, with O'Farrel in attendance, before morning parade, the corporal who acted as regimental postman brought Goring and Jerry their letters. There was only one for the former, but several for the latter, who regarded them ruefully, and said,
'What the devil is the use of opening them—they are all to amount of account rendered—blue envelopes,' and, after glancing leisurely at each, he cast it into the fire. 'I thought so! That —— tailor in the Strand. I gave him a remittance two years ago; should be thankful if he is ever paid at all. Account for a bracelet—got that in Bond Street for Emily; that vet's account for my horse; Healy's for boots of all kinds—pomades, gloves—no fellow can do without them; but then there is the interest accumulating on these mortgages, and as I won't pick up much prize money, though it is the Gold Coast we are bound for, I'll be up a tree one of these days. But, hollo, Bevil, old man, what does your solitary epistle contain?' he suddenly exclaimed, when, on glancing at his friend, he saw that the latter had changed colour, that he became very pale and then flushed red, while, as he read over his letter for the third time, his hands trembled so much that the paper rustled.
Goring then passed one hand across his forehead as if a little bewildered, and handed the document to Jerry, saying,
'Read for yourself.'
'Does it concern Miss Cheyne?' asked Jerry.
'Please God it may in time,' was the curious reply of Goring, as he put a dash of brandy into his coffee, and then looked over the shoulder of Jerry to re-peruse his letter again.
It ran thus:
'Gray's Inn Square.
'DEAR SIR,
'We have the pleasure to inform you that by the death of your father's much respected cousin, Bevil Goring, Esq., of Chowringee, Calcutta, you have become his heir to a fortune of considerably above £20,000 per annum in India stock, bank shares, Central India and other railway shares, &c., the items of which we shall send you fully detailed in a few days. We shall take all the necessary measures about proving the will, and, trusting that we shall be continued as your legal advisers, we are, dear sir, yours faithfully,
'TAYPE, SHAWRPE, AND SCRAWLY,'Solicitors.'
More accustomed to wealth, and personally less interested in the document, Jerry took in the situation at once.
'Whoop!' he exclaimed, as he wrung Goring's hand. 'Whoop and hurrah! I congratulate you, I do, from my heart and soul, old fellow. There is not a soul in the Brigade deserves good fortune more than you do. What a trump this old Bevil was to die just in the nick of time, before the route came!'
'What do you mean by that, Jerry?'
'You'll be sending in your papers—cutting the Rifles now. A fortune, by Jove—I always knew you had expectations, as they are called.'
'Every fellow has; they are often, too often, bad things to rely upon; and yet how few—how very few amongst us can resist the temptation of doing so in some fashion or other. But as for quitting the corps—with war rumours in the air too—by Jove, that is the last thing I should think of doing.'
'Egad! What a night we'll have of it at the mess hut to-night—a jolly deep drink, and have the band out!'
'I wish this fortune—money or whatever it is—had only come a little sooner,' said Goring, as his thoughts fled at once to the absent Alison.
'Better late than never!'
'There sounds the bugle, and now for every-day life, and a truce to the world of dreams, if possible! What a lot I shall be able to do now for the men of my company—their wives and little ones—for the corps generally!'
'Only take care that the mess don't begin to look upon you as their factor, and be seized with a singular desire to possess your autograph. I know what that sort of thing means,' added Jerry, as his mind wandered to Mr. Chevenix and the mortgages.
'The worst of being poor is that one can never follow one's inclinations for good.'
'Or for evil,' added Jerry, cynically.
Never in his life before did Bevil Goring pass so extraordinary a time as in the parade of that morning. In the pre-occupation of his mind he made such a number of mistakes that the colonel and adjutant—knowing that he was one of their most perfect officers—were at their wits' end with surprise; though on parade, as in anything else, a man may act correctly and acquit himself by mere force of habit, with Goring, in this instance, it was not so.
It was not the fortune that had so suddenly accrued to him, nor the amplitude thereof, which affected him thus; it was only because the said fortune—'the filthy lucre, the root of all evil,' as it is wrongly stigmatised—might be, with him, the means of a great and happy end.
It might be the means, ere too late, of saving Alison Cheyne from a life of misery, could he only discover her; but where was she? In what direction was he to turn his steps—for that he would search, he had resolved, if the corps did not depart, as seemed too probable, in a short time now. Amid the routine of the parade these busy thoughts filled his brain, and in 'telling off' the battalion, when Dalton called out 'Number one, Right Company,' Goring responded with 'No. 20,000, Left Company,' at least so Jerry Wilmot asserted.
All rejoiced in the good fortune of Goring, for he was a favourite with people generally, and, as for the members of his battalion of the Rifle Brigade, he was a 'pet,' with them all, from the colonel down to the youngest little bugle boy; they loved him for his good temper, good heart, and the strict impartiality with which he discharged his duties to all.
In the dawn of fresh hopes and the confidence which having a well-lined pocket gives, he found himself at mess, joining heartily in the laughter his own mistakes created, and 'standing' many rounds of champagne in response to the congratulations of his brother officers on all hands.
He felt that wealth gave power.
'Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law,' says Goldsmith.
In wealth he was still inferior to Cadbury, and the latter was a peer, he—Bevil Goring—was a gentleman by many descents, and that, he knew, counted much by Sir Ranald Cheyne.
Could he but trace the latter now!
'Letters of Readiness' came, and it was fully announced that the corps was destined to take part in the war against Ashantee; but, with all his military ardour, his zeal for the service and desire to add to the distinction he had already won in India, Bevil Goring,—situated as he was with regard to Alison Cheyne, with his great chance of losing her for ever—was not sorry when he found he was one of those 'detailed' for the de pot, and would thus, for a time at least, be left behind in England, and free to search and look about him.
But before the 'Queen's morning drum' has announced in Aldershot the morning on which the regiments march for embarkation—and before Bevil Goring discovers the lost traces of his lost love—we have the two last appeals to record of two pairs of lovers, appeals which had very different sequels eventually; and the first we shall relate is that of Jerry Wilmot.
'The last time we three shall ride out of this gate together. Whenever I do anything with a conviction that it is for the last time, I always feel unconsciously a kind of sadness come over me. What do you think, Jerry?'
The speaker was Goring, as he, Dalton, and Jerry Wilmot quitted the North Camp on horseback and separated—the two former, in hunting costume, to have a 'spin' with the Royal Buckhounds, the latter to the household at Wilmothurst, to which an hour or two more brought him by train; and to the last interview with his mother, one brief enough—too brief for Jerry's taste, as he found Lady Wilmot—afternoon tea over—preparing to pay some carriage visits in the vicinity.
Her French maid, Mademoiselle Florine, was in the act of dressing her ladyship's hair, and, as that was a very important matter, she could barely turn her head to bid farewell to Jerry, who stood near her looking irresolute, reproachful, and wistful with his heart and his eyes full together.
Lady Julia Wilmot, whilom a graceful beauty—a handsome woman still—had a theory that worry of any kind told unfavourably on the female face, that thought wrinkled the forehead, puckered the eyes and mouth, and consequently she never thought or worried herself about anything, and therefore was wonderfully young-looking and smooth-visaged for her years—being one of the best preserved women in England.
She had a marquise air of bygone days about her, as the flattering Mademoiselle Florine often said, and suggesting to her mind patches and powdered hair, a long stomacher, hoop or sacque, and pomander ball.
'Actually going, and to that horrid place, my poor boy,' she said, without quite turning her face towards him. 'You should have gone into the Guards, Jerry, and have done your soldiering in Pall Mall and at Windsor.'
'The Guards, mother,' exclaimed Jerry, as he thought of his mortgages. 'Before I return, if I ever return at all, you may have to cut down the Wilmot woods, and put down your carriages and horses.'
'Why, and for what?'
'To pay Mr. Chevenix his overdue interest.'
'Don't talk of him. I detest his name. By the way, Twesildown calls there occasionally, I believe, the result of your introduction at the ball—and has given the girl a huge fox-terrier.'
'A fox-terrier. Curious present for a lady.'
'Very suitable in this instance, I should say.'
'And now, mother dearest—good-bye.'
Her cold manner and frigid kiss from her half-turned face, as Florine brushed out her hair, pained him. He gave her another farewell glance, and as he saw her slim figure, her perfect feet and hands, her placid face and still magnificent hair, which Mademoiselle Florine was deftly manipulating, he felt that all her retention of apparent youth was due to her utter want of heart; and, after receiving a somewhat effusive kiss from Cousin Emily, he thought of betaking himself to the path that led to the house of Mr. Chevenix.
Albeit, used as he was to his aristocratic mother's fashionable demeanour and coldness of heart, Jerry's grew sore at the general mode and tenor of his farewell under all the circumstances. Thus he clung more fondly to the hope that Bella Chevenix might be more tender, and send him away with kindly thoughts of home and Old England.
He passed through the drawing-room, where his mother and cousin had just had their afternoon tea. It was flooded with sunlight, and the delicate Wedgwood china, and silver tea equipage, were yet on the blue velvet gipsy table. It was a magnificent apartment; flowers from the conservatory were in old-fashioned china bowls on the marble consoles, and in rich majolica jardinières between the windows; and Jerry sighed as he gave a farewell glance and turned away.
His mother might be deprived of all that luxury ere he returned to look upon it again, if—as he said before—he ever returned at all; for many were doubtless doomed to leave their bones amid the primeval forests that overshadowed the Prah river and the wild jungles of horrible Coomassie.
The somewhat pert Mademoiselle Florine, who looked as if she had no objection should the handsome Jerry have kissed her, began to sob when he withdrew, an emotion which 'my Lady' at once snubbed by a calm, steady, and enquiring stare, for she was a cold, proud woman, who, with all her remains of undoubted beauty, had outlived all the memory of her youth, and the genial impulses of her youth, if she ever had them. And she had to the fullest extent that which a writer curiously styles 'the intense vulgarity which passes by the name of high-breeding.'
Remembering—he had never forgotten it—the tenor of his last conversation with Bella Chevenix and the way in which it ended, it was not without a doubt whether he could see her if alone, and with a certain clamorous emotion in his heart, that Jerry Wilmot—the usually jolly and unabashed Jerry—approached the great red-bricked square villa that overlooked the village green, and the walls of which were covered by masses of Virginia creepers, roses, and clematis in summer.
'Mr. Chevenix was out—had ridden over to Langley Park,' was the response of the domestic who received Jerry's card.
'Ah, considers it his own property, like the other places, no doubt,' was the thought of Jerry, without anger, however.
'Miss Chevenix?'
'Is at home, sir.'
Another moment, and he was face to face with the smiling and brilliant Bella, who received him with somewhat of a flutter. A hot colour swept through the girl's soft face, and, retiring as suddenly, left her rather pale.
'I hope I don't intrude on you,' said Jerry, seized with a curious access of bashfulness. 'I find you sitting, full of thought, with your head on one side, like a canary.'
'Was I?' said she, caressing a great fox-terrier, with a plated collar—Twesildown's present, no doubt, thought Jerry.
The latter had called in the hope of having a solemn leave-taking, if not something better—one of those eternal adieux peculiar, he thought, to heroes and heroines in novels and plays; thus he was rather bewildered to find that Bella began to run on in a style of conversation (adopted to cover her own nervousness or chagrin) that was 'sparkling;' thus she chatted away, without waiting for answers, on subjects culled from the society papers, fashionable journals, and so forth, leaving him for a time, as he thought, 'unable to get a word in, even edgeways,' till he announced to her that 'the battalion had received its letters of readiness, and that the route had come.'
At these tidings her manner and colour changed at once, and her voice and eyes softened, as she said,
'And you are really going away?'
'At last!'
'To Ashanti.'
'Yes, to Ashanti,' he replied.
Each seemed as if afraid to trust themselves to words of their own. What he was doing while he spoke he scarcely knew; but he was trying to fit on the top of his fingers in succession a tiny silver thimble picked from her work-basket, and in every case without success.
The doubts in the mind of each still kept the cold cloud between them—she believing that the love he might speak of again was prompted by worldly selfishness combating with family pride: he fearing that she received his love as inspired by fear of the mortgages alone.
'Surely this is very sudden?' said she, after a pause.
'Oh no, we have expected a move for some time past—you will miss me, I hope?'
'We have not seen much of you lately.'
'However, I should like to take with me into my place of exile—for such I deem it—a knowledge, a hope that you did miss me a little.'
Bella was about to reply, what she knew not, but a choking emotion came into her white, slender throat. Jerry saw the emotion, and gathering courage, said,
'Do you remember, Bella, that more than once I had struggled with the love with which you had inspired me till I could keep the secret no longer.'
Jerry was still on the wrong tack, and was again terribly misunderstood. Bella's pride and indignation came again to her aid, and she replied, with a haughty smile,
'I am not likely to forget, Captain Wilmot: women do not forget such speeches, or when a friend takes up therôleof a lover; but, after what youdidsay, we can never be the same to each other again.'
'What did I say?' he exclaimed, regarding her earnestly and wistfully. 'I remember that I made you an honest and straight-forward avowal of the love that was in my heart, Bella.'
'Perhaps—but I only remember the terms in which you did make it,' replied Bella, in whose mind the unfortunate and misconstrued term 'contempt of his world' was rankling.
'Once again, Bella,' said he, with his hand stretched out towards her, and a great expression of entreaty in his eyes—'will you be my wife—will you marry me?'
'It cannot be,' said she, with a firmness that was not entirely assumed; 'but let us part friends.'
'Nothing more?' he asked, sadly.
'Nothing more,' she replied, in a choking voice.
In her angry pride of heart, one moment she had gone near to hating him, but she does not hate him now—oh, far, far from it, when looking upon the handsome and earnest face, as perhaps she may be doing for the last time, but, so far as her words go, she is as unyielding as ever. A little indignation at her hardness began to gather in Jerry's heart, and he said, in a light tone of reproach,
'Of course, it is too much to expect an English girl to give up—on a sudden, too—the comforts of an English home, the prospect of a season in London and another at Brighton, to broil with a poor devil on the Gold Coast, and share a South African bungalow.'
Bella took a peculiar view of this speech, and believed it was a sudden way of 'shelving herself,' as she had refused him. She knew nothing of the military etiquette and iron rule that prevented an officer from quitting in any way after letters of readiness came, and thought that Jerry might retire when he pleased, marry and keep his wife at home. She gave a little disdainful smile and remained silent, so Jerry spoke again—
'When I was a big boy in knickerbockers, and you were a little girl in short frocks, we used to be like Paul and Virginia in the Wilmot Woods.'
'Well, Paul and Virginia have grown up, and the young lady has come to her senses.'
'If the gentleman has not.'
'He has come to his senses too, and has his eyes very wide open indeed.'
'She is referring to those infernal mortgages,' thought Jerry (which was the case), 'and how shall I ever undeceive her?'
'In our boy and girl time you would have trusted me,' he urged.
'Perhaps, but I did not know you as I do now, and the world you live in.'
'The past, Bella——'
'Is past, Captain Wilmot; let us not refer to it again. I do not understand you.'
'May I—can I—dare I explain?' he began, impetuously.
'Certainly not—there is nothing I wish explained,' said she, warmly, though tears were in her eyes, and, as they seemed to be almost 'sparring now,' Jerry rose to withdraw, yet lingered, with a heavy, loving, and angry heart, and said,
'To me you are in no way what you were once, Bella, and what I hoped you might have been. When I was last in Wilmothurst I saw that puppy Twesildown hovering about; surely you—you don't encourage him?'
This was a blunt and unfortunate speech, for Bella's brown eyes sparkled as she asked, hotly,
'How dare you think, much less ask, if I would encourage anyone?'
'I don't know—pardon me; I scarcely know what I think or what I say.'
'So it seems.'
Both were standing now, but apart. Oh, how Jerry longed to take her in his arms and pour his farewell kisses on her lips and hair and eyes; but this was not to be.
'How hard you are with me!' said he, after a pause.
'Have you deserved that I should be otherwise?'
'My mother has said——'
'Oh, I am infinitely obliged to Lady Julia for her opinion of me, of course,' said Bella, cresting up her beautiful head; 'but what has she said of me?'
'That you are the greatest flirt in Hampshire, and that, young as you are, you have flirted with every man that came near you.'
'I think you must know more of me than she does, and may know how much of all this is true; but she told me the same of you, and even more, and that she could not get you off to your regiment soon enough.'
'Why?' asked Jerry, with surprise.
'Because of atendressefor her own maid; and that you have been making love to every woman and girl since. But all this gossip does not concern me, so let the conversation end. You came to bid me good-bye?'
'Yes,' said Jerry, in a hard tone.
'Had you not better bid papa good-bye too? I think I heard him come in.'
She put her hand upon the bell.
'Stay one moment—stay!' he said, imploringly.
She looked down and played nervously with the silver bangles on her wrists, some of them the gift of Jerry in happier moments.
'Consider once again,' said he, brokenly; 'think of what my life will be apart from you. Will you dream of me when I am gone?'
'Why should I dream—and dreams come unbidden?'
'Think of me, then?'
'A waste of time surely. I shall have much to think of—papa and my poor people.'
'Why do you speak like this to me?' he said, with a flash of indignation. 'Is it because each day sees me a poorer and your father a richer man? or has another touched your heart?'
An angry smile curled her lip at this question. She recollected the scene in the conservatory, and remembered it has been said that 'a woman never yields an inch, however innocently and generously, to a man that he does not suspect her, sooner or later, of having given way in a similar manner to some man who has comeearlier.'
'I listen to all this too late. I know your motive. I thank you for the honour you condescend to do me, but let the matter end,' said Bella, while a shuddering sigh escaped her pale lips, for her respiration came in little proud gasps and her heart throbbed painfully—painfully for the part that pride inspired, and a doubt of the purity of Jerry's love, though at the time loving him dearly herself. It was every way a curious situation, and at last Jerry took up his hat and gloves.
'We have been somewhat apart of late,' said he; 'yet I do not wish—that—that we should part coldly.'
'Oh no; why should we?' she asked, in her sweetest tone. 'I am,' she thought, 'in reality—but for the encumbrances on his estate—nothing more to him than all the other girls he has talked to, laughed with, and flirted with, as his cold hard mother told me. So let me be on my guard—on my guard!'
'You will—most probably—be married before I return, if I ever return at all, which God only can foresee,' he said.
'I may never marry,' said Bella, with a curious ring in her voice.
'But youwillthink of me, Bella, won't you—broiling and fighting in far away Africa—won't you? I would not like to think that you quite forgot me.'
'Nor shall I,' said she, making a super-human effort to repress her tears.
'Good-bye.'
'Good-bye.'
He was gone—gone, and no kiss was exchanged between those two—only a clinging pressure of the hand, and that was all!
Could it be that, after all, he was no more to her—through her misconception and doubt of him—than a stick or a stone? If her assumed calm covered—as it really did—a sore, sore heart, how was he to know it?
With her hands interlaced above her head, as if to stay the throbbing of her brain, and her swelling eyes cast upward, she said, in a husky voice,
'If I have erred, oh! may heaven protect him, and make his life happy in some other way!'
However, she did not say with another.
When Jerry was fairly gone, it seemed to Bella that an unnatural stillness—a hush fell over all the house. She threw open a window to court the cool atmosphere, for her temples were hot and quivering; she could hear the murmur of the stream and the rustle of the trees, in shadow now, as the sun had crept round to the back of the house, and a gloom was falling on the landscape, even as a gloom was sinking on her heart; and she began to upbraid herself with hardness and cruelty, and to feel she might never know rest again.
And Jerry's voice lingered in her ears, as the expression of his face clung to her memory, and, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, she wailed in her heart—
'Oh, he is going away, and I have acted a cruel part to him—away to face death, and our parting seems like a farewell of the dying; and his love for me may be true, tender, and honest, after all! If so, what will he—what must he think of me? But it is over and done with—over and done with now!'
And she took refuge in floods of bitter, bitter tears. When, for good or for evil, for love and for peace, should she see Jerry Wilmot again? Too probably, never more!
Goring and Dalton had gone to a meet of the Royal Buckhounds, as we have stated in the preceding chapter, and the day's run had been a brilliant one. The gathering took place at Salt Hill again, and there was a large field, comprising the Master of the Hounds, the usual followers of the latter, and a vast assemblage of spectators, on whom the two officers looked with some interest, as it might be the last time they might see such a sight again—together at least.
The hounds ran the deer by Stoke Park to Farnham village, near which he got hung up in a wire fence, but broke away to the left and got shelter in Brocas Wood, but only for a time. Driven out by the dogs, and followed by a vast field, including many men in pink with faultless tops, and not a few ladies, he was taken at last in Hedgerley Park.
Somewhere thereabout, at the close of the run, Goring lost sight of Dalton, who, when leaping his horse over a hedge into a lane, nearly came in contact with Mrs. Trelawney, who had also been at the meet, but by him unseen hitherto. The animal she rode reared wildly, but she soothed it, and Dalton caught it by the bridle.
'Pray pardon me,' he exclaimed; 'had I been a little nearer——'
'You might have unhorsed me,' said she, laughing.
She looked very bright and handsome in her riding-habit; thechef-d'œuvreof some London tailor, it fitted her to perfection, and, being of a bright blue colour, suited her brilliant complexion and blond style of beauty. A French writer says, 'There is but one way in which a woman can be handsome, but a hundred thousand in which she can be pretty;' and Mrs. Trelawney had those ways in perfection.
Since his last visit Dalton had not seen her, and many of the speeches she had in her petulance or pride permitted herself to say rankled in his memory, exciting anger, sorrow, and surprise; while she, on her part, had been thinking that she had gone quite far enough in the game she was playing with him—for that she was playing a game we shall ere long show—and had been anxiously hoping he would come to Chilcote Grange at least once more ere the departure of his regiment, of which event she had heard a rumour, but he never came.
There was a little constraint in the manner of both, but being too natural to act, it soon passed off.
'I was just thinking of you, curious to say, when you came flying over that hedge,' said Mrs. Trelawney, with a smile in her bright, bewitching hazel eyes, while the dark lashes that fringed their white lids seemed to flicker. Oh, those wonderful hazel eyes! thought Dalton, as he replied.
'Well, it is said to be always a good point in a man's favour when a pretty woman thinks about him in any way. And what were you thinking?'
'That I was certain we had not seen the last of each other—you remember I said so.'
'It is my last day with the hounds. To-morrow my horses go to Tattersall's. And you have done us the honour of following the field to-day?' he added, as they rode slowly side by side.
'No—I only came to see them throw off, and am now riding home.'
'A pretty mare that of yours, and takes her fences like a bird, Goring told me.'
'I never engage in these sports that way now.'
'Why?'
'Because I am getting too old,' she replied, with a pretty demure expression.
'Old—is this a joke!'
'Besides, I must be careful of myself for little Nettie's sake. If aught happened to me——'
'You are an expert whip—here is a low hedge, and I shall be charmed to give you a lead.'
'Thanks—no; I would rather not.'
How soldierly Tony Dalton looked, she was thinking, with his bronzed complexion, thoughtful, dark eyes, his dark shorn hair, and long moustache a shade darker, his erect and well-knit figure sitting well down in his saddle, his hunting-coat soiled and stained by service and exposure to the weather.
'Then you have seen enough of the sport?' said he.
'Quite, and am now taking the road homeward.'
'Permit me to escort you.'
She bowed her assent. There was no reason why he should not do so, and an expression of triumph made her eyes sparkle, and then she asked—
'Has Captain Goring utterly failed as yet to discover a trace of where Miss Cheyne has sailed to, or rather of where her father has taken her?'
'Yes—quite.'
'It is very singular—people don't disappear in that way now-a-days. Poor Goring; he is, I know, so passionately attached to her, but her father's opposition is so resolute that I think he should school himself——'
'To relinquish her? oh, no—we cannot control our love, Mrs. Trelawney—can we?'
'I think not.'
'If we could—if we could——'
'What a deal of trouble would be spared us in this world,' said she, laughing; 'but Sir Ranald Cheyne is, no doubt, still unaware that Captain Goring is now a very rich man, and will, I hear, remain in England for a little time yet.'
'A little time only; the transport awaits us at Southampton; we are all in readiness, and the order to march may come at any hour. This is the last time we may see each other,' he said, in a suddenly somewhat broken voice; 'and perhaps it is as well, Laura—I have seen too much of you—too much for my own peace.'
'Captain Dalton,' said she, looking him direct in the eyes, 'you have tried to woo me. I need not mince words or matters with you, but I have one question to ask.'
'Ask it,' said he, huskily.
'Are you at liberty to woo any woman honestly, honourably?'
Dalton grew very pale, but he replied, evasively,
'I have loved against my will—against my conscience—though your very name should have repressed that love.'
'My name!'
'Your name of Laura.'
The name left his lips, as she remarked it had done before, in an unwilling manner, as if it were familiar, yet most distasteful.
'Why?' she asked.
'I knewanotherLaura, and she—but let me not think of her at this moment when I feel that I love you with a passion that I have sought in vain to overcome.'
'Why?' she asked, impetuously.
'Because there are hopeless obstacles between us.'
'Ihave none,' was her somewhat pointed reply.
'But I have,' said he, while bead-drops coursed from his temples; and she regarded him curiously through her veil, and said,
'Then you should never have addressed me at all in the language of a lover. I had good reason to suspect something of this kind,' she continued, in a tone of severity.
'And hence it was that you always spoke so enigmatically to me.'
'Perhaps.'
'As one who would judge of a man by his past history rather than by his capacity for good in the future, and so judged me harshly.'
He stooped from his saddle, and suddenly kissed her gloved hand. As he did so she heard him whisper, as if to himself,
'My darling—my darling—without destroying your honour and my own, I can hope for no nearer caress. Pardon me,' he added, aloud.
When he raised his head, she saw that his face was deadly pale; but again the smile of triumph glittered in her half-closed hazel eyes as she merely said,
'Captain Dalton, you have all the gallantry of a Spaniard, and seem inclined to pass therôleof Platonic affection I accorded to you; but you must pardon me if I mean resolutely to live in my past.'
'We cannot—ought not to live for the dead alone,' said Dalton.
'It is said that we bury our dead out of our sight, and may try to forget them, otherwise the world would not go on as it does. We may bury our dead—true, but memory remains.'
'How she must have loved that fellow Trelawney,' thought Dalton, with jealousy and sorrow.
'May there not be kindred souls that often meet too late?' she asked.
'And you apply this to yourself and me?'
'Yes.'
'I always thought that such ideas of kindred thought and passionate enthusiasm occurred only in youth, and were the result of propinquity and daily intercourse.'
'How coldly you respond to me!'
'After the mysteriousobstacleyou so openly referred to, what would you have me do or say?' she asked, with a certain hauteur of tone, and then gave one of her merry little laughs.
Dalton could not help thinking that the alternate hauteur and mirth of the handsome widow at his grave, solemn, and earnest love-making were—to say the least of them—exceedingly ill-timed, while her pretty apparent indifference to the strength of the passion that filled his soul, especially when on the eve of his departure to a distant land, piqued and exasperated him.
'Can the woman be a "free-lance," though still in society?' he surmised, with pain in his heart, for, 'free-lance' or not, he felt that he loved her—yea, madly—as only men at his age often do love a woman. He knew that she was deemed by some what they termed rather a 'debatable widow,' whom the social police in the vicinity of Aldershot, where she had rather suddenly appeared—police who consist of embittered spinsters, inquisitive matrons with unmarried daughters, whom her dazzling beauty eclipsed, were rather addicted to 'tearing to pieces,' a process which Mrs. Trelawney treated with profound indifference or disdain. There was a bold, gaybonhomieabout her that might be no more than a mere delight in the things of this life, a pretty playfulness and recklessness of spirit that passed in a handsome young matron, and which the 'social police' resented, adding 'that admiration was food and drink to her.' '"Free-lance" or not,' he thought again; 'to see is to admire, to know her is to love her; but she laughs at my passion as if it were that of a love-sick boy.'
'Would to God I had never met you!' said he, 'for the meeting has ruined a life that, but for you, if not a happy, was at least a contented one.'
'Ruinedyourlife!' she exclaimed, as if with surprise.
'Yes; and I shall cross your path no more. Our lives are shaped out for us to a great extent, and mine was planned out for me by others. Oh, by what infernal fatality have you, too, the name of Laura!'
'It was, I suppose, given me by my godfathers and godmothers. You seem to be familiar with it,' she added, with one of her merriest laughs.
Dalton knew that a lover laughed at has a lost cause; he knew too—fatally for his own peace—that the love he had for weeks upon weeks past been striving to stifle in his breast, was a love that he had no right to offer; but her reception of it stung him deeply, and in reply to her laughter he said, gravely and steadily,
'Then I am to understand that you have been amusing yourself with me—simply flirting to keep your hand in, Mrs. Trelawney?' he asked, in a voice that was intensely low and clear.
'Precisely so,' she said, with a nod and a saucy smile; 'playing the game that always requires two to play it.'
'What game?'
'Love-making.'
'Cruel—cruel! God may forgive you, but I never will!' he exclaimed, and wheeling round his horse, galloped furiously away.
How astonished Dalton would have been could he have seen the change that came over the face and manner of the lady he had just left so abruptly.
Her eyes flashed with joyous triumph, yet they were full of welling tears; her lip quivered; her cheeks were deeply flushed; an agitation beyond her control made her whole form to vibrate; and as she struck her gloved hands together she exclaimed, in a low and fervent voice, with almost a sob in it, 'At last—at last I have completely triumphed—have ground him to the dust! At last he loves me, and I have conquered his cold, proud heart!'
Then leaping lightly as a girl from her horse, on reaching her own gate, she passionately embraced and kissed little Netty again and again, greatly to the bewilderment of the child, who had never seen her mother so agitated before.
That night she despatched a note to the camp requesting Captain Dalton to visit her again.
All the next day passed, and no answer came.
Her excitement became intense; she sent a messenger to the North Camp to make inquiries, and he returned with the, to her, now most startling tidings that the Rifles had marched that morning for embarkation, and that her note was lying undelivered in the empty hut of Captain Dalton, who had left the lines for Southampton.
She had boasted to him laughingly and with affected pride and bitterness of the game she had been playing. She had held a trump card in her hand, and now it seemed that she had played and lost it.
'I have gone too far, too far, and now may lose him altogether, and after all—after all!' she exclaimed, with genuine dismay.
It was so; those comfortless wooden wigwams in the lines of the North Camp, which had known the Rifles for so many months, now, in the words of the Book of Job, knew them no more; and nothing of the smart but sombre battalion now remained there save a few soldiers—recruits whose training was not complete, or men whose time of service was nearly expired.
The mess had been broken up, its massive and trophied service of plate packed up and placed in the charge of Goring, who had command of the fragment of the battalion left behind. The senior captain of a regiment was never employed on this duty, as, for obvious reasons, his presence at headquarters is always desirable.
On the eventful morning of their march from camp the gallant battalion of the 'Prince Consort's Own' scarcely knew themselves in their new 'Ashanti toggery,' as they called it, which was furnished from the stores at Pimlico, and consisted, for each man, of a grey tweed tunic, resembling a shooting-jacket, suitable for the climate, with ample pockets; belt and trousers of the same material, and rough canvas leggings; the head-dress, a light grey Indian helmet, perhaps the first time such a thing had been worn on British ground.
Soldier-like looked the Rifles in their black belts and their heavy marching order, with knapsacks, haversacks, great-coats, canteens, and water-bottles.
If there was little of the pomp and circumstance of war in this costume, by repetition in numbers and by uniformity in the mass it did not seem unimposing; and if splendour was wanting, certainly enthusiasm was not, and loud and hearty were the cheers that rang along the Lines from one street of huts to another, as the grey column, preceded by the bands of several corps, began its short march to the railway which was to convey it to Southampton just as the red sun of November, the pioneer of winter, shone out through clouds that had a ragged and dreary look in a grey and gloomy sky.
The moorlands around Aldershot were odorous with withered bracken, and a stray heron might have been seen, perhaps, at Fleet Pond, motionless amid the water as if sculptured in bronze; in the adjacent thickets the woodsman was going forth, armed with axe and bill-hook, his dog close behind him, heedless of war and its accompaniments, pausing, perhaps, as he heard in the distance on the ambient air the crash of the brass bands that led the Rifles on the first part of the long route to terrible Ashanti, or it might be the chorus of hundreds of manly voices shouting 'Cheer, boys, cheer,' on the wind of the early morning, but he was thinking only of the bundles of faggots on his shoulder, the crackling fire, the clean-swept hearth, the kettle on the hob, and the trim little wife that awaited him at home.
Bevil Goring was accompanying the battalion to Southampton to see the last of his friends, and to 'kill,' as he thought, 'another day of suspense,' the long and empty days of waiting with gloomy forebodings.
It seemed to him that a few hours had wrought a curious change in both Jerry Wilmot and Tony Dalton, but more especially in the latter, who from being a grave, earnest, and pleasant fellow had suddenly became morose, preoccupied, and even sullen and most impatient; one thing alone seemed to gratify him—the sudden and speedy departure to the seat of war.
'What has come to you, my dear fellow?' asked Goring more than once; 'you look as if you were going into a fever.'
'I am in a fever of the mind, Goring,' replied Dalton, 'and I may tell you all about it before the transport sails.'
Among the crowd that assembled to see the battalion depart were many ladies on horseback. There was one under whose tightly-tied veil the hot tears were falling, as she saw Jerry march past in the strange Ashanti uniform at the head of his company; but Jerry—his sad thoughts turned inward—saw not her, and he had no prevision that she of whom his heart was so full at that moment—Bella Chevenix—was so near him.
'Time will test his truth,' thought the girl; 'true love does not die, but the false only, as it depends upon outward influences. Yettimemay see this regiment return, and Jerry not with it—oh, God, if it should be—not with it!'
And the crash of the brass bands went on, and the tramp of the steadily marching column, the flash of accoutrements and arms, the cheers, the chorusing, the general hubbub, all portions of a terrible phantasmagoria, amid which he was taken away from her.
Southampton was reached in due time, and by sound of bugle the battalion was 'detrained,' to use the term now in use, and marched to the steam transport which lay in those busy and stately docks, where of old the sea had ebbed and flowed upon a silent and sandy shore, and where, it is difficult now to believe, Canute the Dane sat in a chair, and took his part in that well-known incident by which he rebuked the flattery of his courtiers.
By a hand gangway the grey column defiled at once on board the ship, whose capacious womb received it. The men were speedily divided into their watches; a guard was detailed; berths were apportioned; arms racked; knapsacks hung on pegs or cleats; bedding inspected; duck shirts and fatigue trousers served out; and so, for a time, the officers and sergeants had a busy time of it; while a thousand mysterious returns, receipts, and requisitions seemed to require the signature of the colonel and everyone else, and these were affixed on the capstan head, the gunwale, the back of the nearest soldier, or anything else that might be improvised as a table.
Incessant was the clatter of the donkey-engines as stores were taken on board, baggage, shot, shell, gatling-guns, waggons, provisions, wheel-barrows, shovels, and pickaxes in bundles. Night fell, and still the odious hurly-burly on deck and by the gaping hatchways went on, to the sound of many a merry chorus or song at times:
'It's no matter what you do,If your heart be only true.And his heart was true to his Poll.'
Though our soldiers are generally too young to have wives nowadays, in these short-service times, a few years ago it was not so; thus several women of the Rifle Battalion, some with babies in their arms, had followed it to Southampton to see the last of those they might never look upon again.
'Good-bye, my poor Mary,' Goring heard a young soldier cry, looking wistfully to his girl-wife, who stood weeping on the quay, where she held up their baby from time to time. 'How are you to get back to camp?'
'Never mind, Tom darling; I'm here, anyhow.'
'Have you any money?'
'No.'
'God help you, darling,' he replied, and proceeded in a mechanical but hopeless way to investigate his pockets.
'I'll take her back, and all the women of ours who are here. Pass the message along, lads,' cried Bevil Goring, who now gave a sergeantcarte blancheto distribute money among all for what they required, and directing them all to meet him at the railway station next morning.
'Three cheers for Captain Goring!' was now the cry, and many men crowded gratefully forward to salute him and shake his hand, while he felt now that he could spend some of the rupees of Bevil Goring of Chowringee to good purpose; and sure enough he met his strange detachment at the station next morning; and after giving them a hearty breakfast, including buns and cans of milk galore for the little ones, he brought them all into camp, while the transport was steaming down the waters of the Solent, and heading for the Channel.
But in this part of our narrative we are anticipating certain events which occurred at Southampton, and which Dalton and Goring, but more particularly the former, were destined to have long in their memory.
'I cannot understand the terms on which you say you and Mrs. Trelawney have parted,' said Goring, to whom his most valued friend Dalton had been, as a sort of relief to his own mind, apparently making what he called 'a clean breast of it,' and detailing his relations with the fair widow of Chilcote Grange. 'You seem to have made love enough to her—that I saw for myself often. You seemed to have expressed admiration enough for her, to all of which she appears to have listened with patience and pleasure in some instances; with impatience and petulance in others; and yet you seem to have wound up with a kind of quarrel at last!'
'She acknowledged that she had only been amusing herself and befooling me.'
'It would also seem by your own account that amid all the curious love-making you never made her a direct proposal of marriage.'
'No.'
'Why?'
'I dared not,' said Dalton, sadly.
'You dared not—and why?'
'Because—because I am a married man—there now, the murder is out!'
'A married man—you, Tony Dalton!' exclaimed Goring, in utter bewilderment.
'I, Tony Dalton—the biggest fool in Her Majesty's service,' replied that personage, with a groan.
'Does Mrs. Trelawney know of this state of affairs?' asked Goring, after a long pause.
'I have more than once feared as much.'
'She hinted to me once that there was a secret in your life that precluded her reception of your addresses. Then it is so?'
'Yes, that I am a married man,' replied Dalton, as he threw open his dark green and silk-braided patrol jacket (which he had resumed after the march) as if its collar choked him, tossed his half-finished cigar into the blazing fire, and drained his glass only to replenish it again.
It was in a hotel at Southampton, not far from where the transport lay, when they were having a 'farewell drink' after a cutlet or so, that Dalton made this astounding revelation to his friend—one that seemed fully to account for many peculiarities which the latter had remarked in Dalton's intercourse with Mrs. Trelawney.
'Why, in the name of all that is wonderful, have you concealed this so long?'
'An emotion of shame perhaps—shame at my own egregious folly tied my tongue.'
'But when, where, how did it all come about?'
'The most miserable stories are often told in a few words, and thus told best; and, Goring, I shall tell you mine,' replied Dalton.
'When I was being educated for the service—my parents being dead—I was boarded by my uncle Sir John Dalton—on whose hands and generosity I was utterly cast—with a tutor at Hastings.
'My uncle was most generous. I had quarterly as much pocket-money—too much indeed—as a young fellow in his early teens could desire to have; I had a horse at my command, a pleasure-boat whenever I liked it, and was a frequent attender at the theatre; for my tutor was a careless fellow, fond of amusement too, and did not look sufficiently after me.
'All this was some ten or twelve years ago. At the theatre there was a young girl who figured in the bills as Miss Laura Dorillion, and who was deemed quite a star.
'One story went that she was a lady of high family, who, in a rage for histrionic fame, had fled from home, changed her name, and adopted the stage as a profession; another story was that she was the only daughter of a man of rank, whom dissipation or bad speculations on the turf had ruined; and rumour added that, when only twelve years of age, she had played Juliet to perfection in amateur theatricals at a fashionable West End School; at fifteen she was a genius; at seventeen she was cast as Miss Hardcastle in the "School for Scandal;" and more than once when I saw her as Juliet I longed, with all my soul, to be her Romeo.
'Boylike I fell madly in love with her—in love as dreamy boys at my then years are wont to do—and nightly I haunted the theatre, often in defiance of my tutor, and my studies became a farce; in fact they were utterly neglected, and I had but one thought—Laura Dorillion!
'How pretty—how sweetly pretty—the name sounded to me, and I was never weary of repeating it to myself.
'Wasshe pretty, you will ask? When made-up for the stage and surrounded by all its accessories, she looked downright lovely; but, when watching her going from her lodgings to morning rehearsal, I was obliged to confess to myself that my goddess had rather a large mouth, but fine eyes with a sleepy or dreamy expression, long lashes and drooping lids of which she could make a most seductive use; that in figure she was tall but not ungraceful, and was neither fully grown nor developed; but there seemed a great want of finish about her for one who was alleged to be the daughter of a noble family. This might proceed, I thought, from the style of her toilette, which certainly did not come from Swan & Edgar's.
'The girl was quite a favourite in Hastings; she played for, sang for, and subscribed to many local charities, and had about her none of that fastness of dress or demeanour peculiar to so many young girls on the stage; and so I loved her, or thought I did. I was but a boy—it was what the French—so happy in their phrases—callun grand caprice enflammé par des obstacles—nothing more, perhaps; and the obstacles were my lack of independent means to take her off the stage; my having no profession; and my uncle's well known family pride, position, and general views regarding me, his brother's only son, and all that sort of thing. Otherwise, I might have continued "to sigh like a furnace," and eventually, when I went elsewhere, forget her; but it was not to be.
'I was not a bad-looking fellow, and always dressed scrupulously well; thus she was not long in discovering me as I sat night after night, bouquet in hand, in a certain pit stall; and she no doubt connected me with the beautiful bouquets that came to the stage door nightly, in more than one instance with little complimentary notes on pink and perfumed paper inserted therein.
'Once she appeared at the wings with one of these notes in her hand. She blew me a kiss from the tips of her fingers, and placed the missive in her bosom, two little actions which raised me to the seventh heaven of ecstacy. After that Laura Dorillion sang to me, acted to me, glanced and smiled at me in a way that completed her conquest, and, in short, I was a lost Tony Dalton!
'As a pledge of solemn engagement, I gave her a diamond and opal ring.
'In the end I achieved an introduction in the most matter-of-fact way in the world—just as Sir Walter Scott did to his first love—by the prosaic offer of my umbrella on a wet day, and then my dream began to take a more tangible form in little lunches and solid presents, in escorting her to and from the theatre, which became an established kind of expected duty; in walks on the Sunday mornings along the towering cliffs that overhang the sea; along the breezy Marina; by the Lover's Seat in lonely Fairlight Glen with its thickly wooded sides and tapestry of wild flowers; by the Dripping Well, that an enormous beech-tree overhangs; among the ruins of the old castle, when "the old, old tale" was told again—not of Hastin and his men, or of Saxons or Normans—but of our love for each other, and life became to me a species of feverish intoxication for some weeks at least.
'Some little points of manner, accent, pronunciation certainly did at times jar upon my better taste; and she seemed, for a girl educated at a West End seminary for young ladies, rather ignorant of the manners and customs of that "society" which she affected in genteel comedy to pourtray upon the stage; but the former I attributed to association with her inferiors—to wit, the members of the company to which she belonged.
'From what you know of my disposition and general character, you may guess the end of all this.'
'No—I do not,' said Goring.
'I married her.'
'Whew!' whistled Goring; 'in church?'
'In church! where she was given away by the manager. The "heavy old woman" acted as mother, two young ladies of the company were bridesmaids, and when, tremulously, she subscribed herself in the register Laura Dorillion, the clerk and the pew-opener gave their signatures as witnesses. The breakfast is but a confused memory. There was no rice—no old slippers; and we are told that no girl likes to be married without any of the gay things which make marriage such a joyous experience—no gay preparations—no pretty wedding in a flower-decked church—no presents—not even a new dress!'
'Well?'
'Then came a life of misery and jealousy. I trembled when other men went near her, and boiled with exasperation when love was openly made to her on the stage in the mere business of the play. I had seen enough of that done before with considerable placidity, but somehow I could not stand it now.
'With my last quarter's allowance in my pocket, and utterly vague ideas of the future in my mind, I left the house of my tutor and went to share her humble lodging in a rather obscure part of Hastings, and soon the sordid nature of our surroundings began to impress me most disagreeably, as the bubble began to burst.
'At last there came a night which I was fated not to forget for a time.
'I had brought her home from the theatre, where she had acquitted herself with singular skill and sweetness as blind Iolanthe in "King René's Daughter," and she was in the act of repeating a portion of her dialogue with Tristan as we ascended the stair—
"Another time,When I had pined for many tedious days,Because my father was detained from home,I wept for very gladness when he came!Through tears I gave my bursting heart relief,And at mine eyes it found a rushing vent."
'In our little sitting-room I found an elderly man, wearing a battered grey hat girt by a black band, and clad in shabby-genteel—nay, quite threadbare garments—standing on the hearthrug, smoking a short clay pipe, with his coat-tails over his arms, his bleared and tipsy-looking eyes—one of which had a white plaister over it—regarding the furniture and details of the apartment critically, while he took a sip from a pewter mug of beer, and set it down with a clank.
'"Hullo, my girl," he exclaimed; "here you are at last! This here is a rum go. So this is the young gent as you have gone and made such a fool of yourself by marrying?"
'Laura's heart was beating fast—so fast that even respiration seemed to suffocate her; her face was blanched; her eyes had a scared expression; and gave me a glance that seemed full of shame and agony.
'"Who is this impertinent scoundrel?" I demanded.
'"Scoundrel in your teeth again!" he exclaimed, turning up the cuffs of his coat, threateningly, and striking his battered hat firmly on his head; "is this your company manners, you young cub?" he added, with a frightful imprecation.
'"Who are you, and what do you want here?" I demanded, looking about for a stick.
'"Dabchick is my name! Jo Dabchick, clown, Banger's Circus, Surreyside o' the river, and no mistake; and I have come here to see my own daughter, Laura Dorillion, as she calls herself, or must it be Mrs. Antony Dalton now—Lady Dalton perhaps that's to be, when your uncle hops his blessed twig?"
'"Oh, father," said Laura, in a breathless voice, "why have you come, and how did you find me out?"
'"I come because I want money; and, as for finding you out, that was easy enough; the Hastings theatre ain't at the bottom of the sea."
"'And mother?"
'"Is there in your bed—has had a drop too much, and so I have tucked her in there; and now what have you got for supper—tripe, sausages, bloaters, or summat tasty, I hope? Speak—you look as lively as a couple of glow-worms in the sunshine!"
'My soul sickened within me! And with these additions to our little household—a slatternly, odious mother, a beery, broken-down actor, whose line had once been genteel comedy, a clown in a circus latterly, but whose incessant dissipation had deprived him of all employment—life became a burden now, and my stupendous folly stood in letters of fire before me.
'Existence became unendurable, and neither Laura nor I dared to look forward to the dark and vague future we might be doomed to drag out in the world.
'Their arrival filled my wife with shame and anger, and I do believe with generous sorrow for me. My quarter's pittance was soon expended;hersalary could not maintain us all. My tutor soon discovered the whole situation, and laid it mercilessly bare before my uncle, Sir John Dalton, who from that hour cast me off, ignored my letters and my existence, and disinherited me by his will.
'I had no money, or means of getting any, after the best of my jewellery and wardrobe had departed. Laura's father and mother soon proved abusive and most obnoxious to me; they insulted me hourly, and eventually drove me from the squalid lodgings we shared together. Laura one night took their part; it required but that to fill up the measure of my disgust, and I found myself wandering in the streets with all I possessed in the world—the clothes that I wore. I rooted the love of her out of my heart; but it was long before I could efface her image, which often a fancied resemblance in another brought before me.
'There are some men of whom it is said that they will not acknowledge their false steps even to their own hearts; but I am not one of them, and must acknowledge, dear Goring, that in sackcloth and ashes I have repented of mine.
'My haughty uncle proving obdurate to the last degree, there was no hope for me so far as he was concerned; so I took the Queen's shilling and sailed for India, and there I strove to forget my boyish folly, the contemptible position I had occupied with such a father and mother-in-law, the disgust and horror with which their advent and their surroundings inspired me—sick, too, of the slatternly girl I had married, for slatternly she too was in her home and when off the stage, reserving all her toilettes and her graces for the British public.
'You know the rest. I soon got a commission through the ranks—sooner than I could have got it through the medium of a crammer and exams. From the hour I turned at midnight along the Marina of Hastings, and heard the monotonous sound of the surge, as it rolled on the beach in the dark, I have never heard of my wife or been able to trace her. Her odious parents I discovered have been long since dead, and that she is no longer on the stage, or, if so, bears another name, or has gone I know not where.
'I have sometimes hoped that I had been freed from her by death—ungenerous though that hope may be, and that my uncle must have heard of her demise, when by a codicil to his will he left me all his fortune. And now you know why it was that I dared not make a proposal to Mrs. Trelawney—nor did I ever think of love or marriage till I met her lately; and how I love her, and have struggled to tear that hopeless passion from my heart, is known only to God and to myself!'