CHARLES said he would ride on to theBasket of Rosesand bid the landlord prepare a supper against the arrival of the rest. Clare stayed behind to protect the Beau from the hysterical excitement of Mrs. Courteen, who would not be pacified by anything less formidable than an armed escort. She had made up her mind that highwaymen were abroad, refused to allow the chaise to drive fast lest they might gallop unaware into a thieves' ambush, and alarmed herself with so many imaginary bogies that she almost succeeded in making Mr. Ripple fire point blank at Mr. Anthony Clare's shadow looming huge in the hedgerow.
Charles reached theBasket of Rosesnot long after the departure of the lovers, and on hearing the news immediately spurred his grey horse to pursuit. For a couple of miles he plunged along a road that was almost a swamp, fired to greater exertions each minute by the sight of the ruts made by the chariot in front. Suddenly his horse began to go lame; the road grew worse; the ruts proved to be those of a country waggon. He was riding in the wrong direction, so he turned his grey round and walked her back to the inn. While he was inquiring into the possibility of securing a fresh mount, a voice from the parlour called out to know if any person was inquiring into the whereabouts of a young woman.
"She supped alone with the old gentleman," whispered Mrs. Tabrum.
Charles was not proof against a natural curiosity, and decided to wait at the inn till the arrival of the others. He ascertained that Vernon had changed horses so it was evidentthat he intended to post as fast as possible Eastward. His own horse must be tended if they were to proceed that night. There was no other in the stables, and as he was sure of catching the chariot before morning, he felt there would be no harm in learning why Phyllida had supped at a wayside inn, alone with an elderly gentleman. What was Vernon about meanwhile? Why had he not accompanied her? Charles ordered supper and stepped into the Travellers' Room.
"You were asking about a certain young woman," said Sir George, fixing him with deep set eyes of cold steel.
"I was indeed, sir," answered Mr. Lovely pulling forward an armchair into the blaze and stretching his damp legs towards the genial warmth.
"My name is Repington," said the old gentleman.
"Eh! What?"
"Sir George Repington."
Charles stared at him.
"And mine, sir, is Lovely, Charles Lovely."
"My nephew—humph—'tis your existence which has attracted me so many miles West."
"I did not think you knew of my existence," said Charles half sneering.
"You never condescended to inform your uncle of your movements."
"Sir," said the nephew, a smile of bitter recollection twisting the corners of his mouth. "I did not flatter myself that any attention on my side was welcome."
"What! you remember our only interview?"
"I was eight years old, sir."
"Is that a date in youth's short calendar that breeds a specially sensitive disposition of mind?"
"You turned me out of your house."
"On the contrary, nephew, you chose to go back to your father."
"Why wasn't he admitted, too?"
"Because," replied the uncle, "on a former occasion I was unfortunately compelled to invite your father to leave my house."
"By what right?"
Sir George raised his eyebrows.
"Truly, nephew, I think you are indiscreet for a young man of such fashion."
"I have the right to know," Charles burst out. "In all that I can remember of my childhood, you stood like a shadow in the corner of the room, you were the nightmare that haunted my pillow. You used to write sometimes—oh! I can remember your letters in their fat pursy envelopes. I can smell the sealing wax, black sealing wax, now. My father would go out with an oath and my mother would sit by a window with your letter in her lap, weeping, weeping."
"Did she weep, boy?"
"Ah! that pleases you, eh?"
"No, no, I was thinking what a laugh she had once—what a laugh. I expect I was hard—I was—Charles, nephew, give me your hand—I——"
The old man faltered in his speech and, as if the room were dark, groped for our hero's hand; the latter drew back.
"No! thank 'ee, Uncle, once is enough."
The old man did not heed the insult.
"Perhaps I understand your feelings, boy, I've read your poems."
Charles was touched for a moment, but hardened himself as he thought of that wide staircase down which, clutching the balustrade with both hands, he had stumbled alone. A child does not easily forgive a slight, and Charles still regarded his uncle with the eyes of a child.
"Did she speak of me before she died?" murmured the old man with a wistful eagerness.
"She may have spoken," said Mr. Lovely, "the fever was high."
"Or laugh—before she died? Nephew! to-night a young woman came to this inn alone. She smiled like my sister, she laughed like my—like your mother and like your mother she went away with the wrong man."
"What do you mean?" cried Charles too much startledby the sudden violence of his uncle's speech to resent the criticism of his father.
"And you have ridden in pursuit? Then you are her lover—eh? She's played you false as Joan played Roger false, and you are riding after her, and you will shoot him and marry her, and bring her to Repington Hall. 'Fore Heaven, I would give all my fortune to hear that laughter ripple along the lonely corridors of Repington Hall. They used to sit in the sunny window seat; and he would lean over the sill to pluck the roses that blew beneath. I cut the tree down when he was killed, and in the orchard where Lovely murdered him I planted cypresses."
"Murdered him?" cried Charles impressed against his will by the old man's passion.
"Aye, murdered him. Roger was no swordsman, he was a gentle kindly creature who loved old books and old friends, that's why I cannot understand Belladine, why did Belladine let him fight, and what became of—Good G——!" said the old man, "he's come back." Charles looked up and, seeing only Beau Ripple standing in the doorway, concluded that his uncle was gone mad.
"A pinch of snuff, George?" said Mr. Ripple.
"Thank'e, William," said Sir George. "This is my nephew, William—young Charles Lovely."
"We are already very good friends," said the Beau.
The exchange of courtesies effected by the Beau with that unfailing tact which characterized his least actions shed a new serenity over the situation and, though Charles was completely puzzled by a surprizing junction of personalities, he, too, with a profound instinct for the correct attitude, bore a part in what was apparently nothing more out of the way than a conversational episode in a social evening; yet three twigs in a whirlpool do not jostle one another much more roughly than the same three twigs in a puddle.
"How's the gout, George? You threatened at one time to become an easy prey to our physical Alectro."
"Better, William, thankee, far better. I found that hardwork kept it off; or else I grew to drink less Port. I've dined solitary for a round number of years now."
"Your uncle looks well, Charles. Egad, I believe after all gold is better than iron for a man's health whatever the apothecaries tell us. Where is Clare?—a good fellow that friend of yours, Charles. I like Mr. Clare."
Tony came in from the stables at that moment and was presented to Sir George Repington.
He had often heard Charles rail against his uncle, but, perceiving no strain in the relation between them, entered yhe gathering with an easy grace, and gave a very humorous account of their departure from the Wells.
"Tut, tut," exclaimed Mr. Ripple, for Ripple he must remain, since as Ripple he achieved immortality.
"Tut, tut, I cannot have these riotous assemblies. This comes of leaving Curtain Wells. By the way, where is Mrs. Courteen?"
"She has an audience, sir," said Clare, "and is, therefore, as happy as can be expected under the circumstances."
"Who is Mrs. Courteen?" This from Sir George.
"A lady in whose company I have set out upon a very restless adventure. Cupid, George, has been shooting his arrows of late, without much regard to our mortal comfort. I believe the young rogue was unduly elated by the success of his Valentines."
"Sure, you aren't abroad on a love-affair, too, William?"
"Not of my own, George, but I have an onus in the matter. Some one has stolen a porcelain shepherdess from my booth in Vanity Fair."
"That would be the young woman with whom I supped to-night in this inn. Her name was Courteen."
"What! then we all have an interest in this matter, and can discuss the proper conduct of it over the very excellent supper whose arrival I anticipate without apprehension. This is a capital house, George."
"The landlord is an oddity," said Clare, "called me tulip and onion in a breath, and begged to be allowed to brush the mud off my boots which he said was a famousmanure for carnation gillyflowers. I 'faith, the old boy made me feel devilish unclean."
Mrs. Tabrum came in to say the widow would not take supper with the gentlemen. She was much fatigued, and would be glad to retire to bed if Mr. Pipple—or was it Ripple—had no objection.
"None whatsoever," replied the latter in a pensive tone of voice. He was meditating rather sadly upon the circumscription of human fame.
A mere five-and-twenty miles from Curtain Wells, and already there was a doubt as to whether he were Pipple or Ripple.
"The widow don't intend to proceed," said Charles, when Mrs. Tabrum had curtseyed her way out.
"She is a foolish woman," said the Beau.
"But you are not going to leave the daughter to her fate," asked Sir George. "As you——" he stopped.
Charles looked up; Mr. Ripple gravely took a pinch of snuff. "I think," said the former, "that I shall be more likely to catch the chariot. What's o'clock?"
"Half-past ten," said Clare. "Your horse must rest an hour or two yet; I'll ride with you."
"That would be wiser," said Sir George eagerly. "Then nobody will say Charles took an unfair advantage of him. Although—" Again he stopped in a sentence, and again Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff.
It was strange how Sir George had identified himself with Phyllida's fortunes. It seemed as if he were staking his hope of a happy old age upon the result of this love chase. The meeting with Phyllida had filled up the rift which time and disappointment had created. He felt that fortune owed him reparation for his sister's loss; and could not help thinking what an appropriate instrument of the Fates had risen up in the person of his nephew. Sir George Repington had become so much accustomed in his large financial experience to the theory of just exchange that he was inclined to put too blind a confidence in the scales, and was too sure that the balance would adjust itself at some time or other. Hisnephew had not shown himself greatly enraptured by this late reconciliation, and Sir George had been lonely long enough. He was anxious at eventide for company. Death came suddenly like a clock that strikes in the night, and Sir George was afraid of the grey dawn stealing over the tree tops through the gaunt windows of Repington Hall. When the time came for him to face the vast uneasy realms of immortality, he would like to feel that somewhere on this small green earth, some hand would wave a sorrowful, a last farewell. He would cherish these two lovers; the maid would bring him and Charles together in friendship and charity. Everything pointed to a fortunate issue. He no longer brooded resentfully over calamities that were forgotten long ago. Belladine had come back. He and Belladine would sit on the sloping Repington lawns. June was in front of them. Already, like balm upon the old man's wounded heart, there stole the murmurous peace of the longest day. He saw the golden light, and the long shadows of the elms. He heard the caw of homing rooks and the flutter of thrushes in the great Hall shrubberies. In dignity and in rustick ease he would move with measured meditative steps like an English squire to his last account—not account, that savoured too much of Throgmorton Street—to his last bed, his virtues recorded in a Latin eulogy and for a memorial Charles and Phyllida, perhaps a grandson George, certainly four weeping cherubs to guard the four corners of his cenotaph.
Our hero was in that state when a host of conflicting emotions fight for the mastery. So much had happened in this eventful day. Everything and everybody appeared in a new perspective. Beau Ripple, seen by the firelight of the Travellers' Room, was no longer the exquisite despot of a world in miniature, the impersonal porcelain monarch, the rarest and most valuable piece in an universe of Bric-a-brac. He was in some way connected with the tragedy of his uncle's early life. The sovereign marionette of amber and tortoise-shell, of perfumes and pomades, whom Charles had known hitherto, was only an elegant exterior. Underneath thesattin, it seemed, there lived a man—one Belladine, of whose existence Fashion was ignorant. The well-dressed Attitude called Horace Ripple would be revered long after his decease. His epigrams would be quoted. He would represent a period in the frivolous archives of Curtain Wells, but Belladine whose heart had quickened to something more vital than a pretty measure, Belladine who had known tears and laughter, Belladine the Man would be forgotten. Charles pondered with passionate commiseration the myriad heartaches of poor humanity that were once esteemed worthy of exaggeration until a new intrigue caught the publick tongue, and contemplated regretfully the inevitable and gradual insignificance of all scandal. Truly, it was more consoling to regard Beau Ripple, that inexplicable phenomenon, than try to gain the acquaintance of Mr. William Belladine who had once played an important part in his uncle's life.
The latter, too, was different. He had only existed in Charles' mind as an aversion of childhood, but Charles no longer objected to sleep in the dark—the habit had come to him unconsciously. After all he owed Sir George Repington no grudge; it would be absurd to cherish an animosity that was based on a jejune domestick patriotism. The time had long gone by when he thought his own father the finest gentleman in the world. Yet was not this power of taking so much for granted, this passive acceptance of change and decline, a surrender of his youth? Was he, in fact, already divesting himself of all passionate reality? Charles experienced the despair of the devout man whose faith deserts him. He wrestled with his doubts and suddenly (it seemed a miracle) beheld on the ingle seat a swansdown muff. Youth returned—a harlequin with the supple wand of illusion. He stood once more in peach-coloured velvet coat, staring up to a balcony over whose railing dimpled the most enchanting face in England.
"This was your mother, boy," said Sir George almost timidly, breaking in upon his dreams.
Very tenderly, Charles took the locket from the old man, and the sight of the fresh young face brought back to hismind queer old nursery rhymes, and his mother's voice and the smell of a pot of musk and the cries of London coming in through an open window. There was a mist over Charles' eyes and a lump in Charles' throat as he shook his uncle's hand.
The latter wondered at himself for having been content to remain so long without the consolation of an acknowledged heir. For all these years, he had worked without an object. Now the great house of Repington and Son should be incorporated with some equally famous house and a delightful leisure was at last imaginable.
It warmed the old man's heart to hear Charles declare the importance of immediate pursuit, to hear him shout for his horse to be saddled, lame or sound, to see Mr. Clare look to the priming of the pistols and when, on the threshold of departure, the old man saw his nephew pick up the swansdown muff and cram it into the deep pocket of his great cloak, he could scarcely forbear a loud huzza, such vigour and determination were plainly visible on his nephew's attractive countenance.
One incident, just before he set out, served to chill our hero's fervour and discount his conviction of success. He was coming back from the stable and, as he passed the staircase that led to the bedchambers, perceived Mrs. Courteen beckoning from the corridor. He stopped to bow; and in a tone where politeness and condolence and hopefulness were pleasantly mingled, as good as promised the speedy restoration of Miss Phyllida Courteen.
"Sir," said the mother, "you are generous indeed to a fallen young woman."
Our hero frowned at this description of his love.
"And equally generous," she continued, "towards the fault."
Charles made a movement, but the widow plaintively ignored the interruption.
"They have told me of your generous resolve, but I would warn you, Mr. Lovely, that interference in these matters is generally disastrous. The child has done wrong—I do not wish to extenuate her crime—for crime it is when you consider her mother's indulgence of every whim. I know nothing of the eligibleness of the gentleman in whose company she has chosen to shock the sensibility of her mother's small and select circle of intimate friends."
Charles began to fidget.
"He may for all I know be a man of fashion, of rank, of fortune. He may, on the other hand, be a play-actor, an attorney's clerk, or a journeyman tinker. In either case it seems unlikely he will make an offer of marriage. Pray do not put such an idea into his head. Marriages forced upon reluctant suitors commonly turn out unhappy for both parties."
The widow must have been immensely in earnest, monstrously eager to secure her ambition, for never before had her speech betrayed such power of coherent expression.
"Let her go on her way," said the mother. "Let her find out for herself the results of rebellion; when the villain deserts her, she may not be quite so unwilling to stone the damsons next August. Let her learn her lesson, Mr. Lovely, and pray do not persuade her to come back. Her reputation is tarnished; and I am not at all inclined to bear the burden of her ill-behaviour, as I should do, Mr. Lovely, as I certainly should do since the world is censorious, and apt to visit the sins of the children upon the heads of the father, as the Bible says."
Charles could scarcely believe that Mrs. Courteen was in earnest.
He knew her for a worldly-minded woman, careless of everything save her own pleasures, but for such depths of callousness he was not prepared.
"Indeed, madam," he said coldly, "my only excuse for obtruding my presence upon Miss Courteen at such a time is my sincere hope that she will honour my solicitous regard with the bestowal of her hand."
"The child must be punished," insisted the mother.
"Indeed, madam, I venture to think we may safely leavethat office to the small and select circle of your intimate friends."
"I cannot understand what attracts—" Mrs. Courteen began, then changed to "what makes men so generous."
Mr. Lovely regarded her contemptuously.
"So I should think."
"Cruel Mr. Lovely," moaned the widow, "Cruel to suggest that I am ungenerous. Why, I have never mentioned the pearls which were taken out of my jewel-case."
"They say that Miss Courteen's necklace vastly becomes her mother."
"Do they, indeed, sir?" said the widow with an affected sigh.
Charles made an impatient gesture.
"Do you imagine, madam, that I am going to tire a good-hearted horse for the sake of allowing you to bask in the flattery of your friends? By G——! I tell you that one of 'em is already dead—shot for the sake of that daughter whose ruin you contemplate so tranquilly."
The widow turned pale.
"At any rate," Charles continued; "at any rate, the little Major with all his strut died like a cock of the game."
"The Major dead," half screamed the widow; and even that information, so brutally delivered, provided the thought that now more than ever was it necessary to prevent Phyllida's marriage.
"Aye, dead! He'll be here in the morning when the Wells waggon arrives."
Charles turned away from the widow, thinking how impossible it was to believe that a mother could be so heartless. The desire to cherish Phyllida surged over him in a wave of tenderness; but when presently he and Clare set out from the inn-door, under the tail of the storm-cloud shedding stars in slow retreat across the sky, he felt Despair upon his heels and pondered the infamy of this beautiful world. Poor hero! he was a gamester even in his emotions and, having staked his hope in one wild throw, was fearfully watching theissue. What a maddening melody the cubes made when rattled by the hands of Fate.
Pray remember, before you dismiss the widow to your eternal disdain, that she may have loved young Mr. Standish, that rugged Squire Courteen may have been very brutal in his cups, that such a malicious Codicil might have soured a woman less dependent upon the amenity of life. Finally, pray remember that she was a woman who did not wrinkle easily, and the consequent temptations of a deceitful mirrour. Looking-glasses, like human beings, lie more often than is commonly supposed, but possess an unlucky reputation for truthfulness which seldom hampers humanity.
Left alone with Sir George, Mr. Ripple took advantage of the opportunity to explain to his old friend certain events on which the latter had long brooded in vain.
“AND what is your life, William?" asked Sir George Repington, leaning back in his chair and removing his wig.
"My life, George," replied Mr. Ripple, "is a gem carved by a cunning workman to stamp any material sufficiently plastick to record an impression. My life, George, is a conductor of musick. Of itself it produces no sweet sounds, but evokes a fair harmony from many and diverse instruments."
"You had ambitions once."
"I have gratified the most of them."
"Yet your life has not been active."
"No?"
"As for example mine has been."
"I do not know, George, that my contemplative existence has produced less than your phrenzied encounters with mathematical alliances and numerical intrigues. The manipulation of human beings is quite as active. We have neither of us done a vast deal."
"I have had a great influence upon the political situation, more than once," said Sir George proudly.
"So have I," said the Beau.
"Indeed?"
"I have tamed the wives of the most of our ministers."
"But you are not a man of intrigue?"
"Heaven forbid!" said the Beau devoutly. "No, no George, my knowledge of Olympian intrigue taught me to be wise. I found that the gods never improved their dignity by amorous descents. To be sure, on one or twooccasions, they made an effort to assert their divinity by dramatical effects unworthy of a country conjurer, but I do not believe that they ever recovered from the indiscretion of familiarity with their inferiors. No! no! George, I am not a man of intrigue."
"Then what is your life? How do you pass your time?"
Sir George Repington had lit a churchwarden pipe and accentuated the inquiry by waving the long stem. Mr. Ripple took a pinch of snuff and, settling himself deeper in his chair, began to relate his manner of existence in a clear and modulated tone that agreed well with the comfort of the room. The narrative took its own course and reminded one of the purring of a cat amid the flickering shadows cast by firelight on a gaudy rug.
"I assumed my present name—Horace Ripple—partly out of respect to the poet, partly out of respect to my father's mother. Belladine was too metallick, too lustrous an appellation for a man without any desire to agitate the peace of the world. Besides, there were other reasons why I should forget my patronymick. As Horace Ripple, I rode one fine morning into the town of Curtain Wells, procured a pleasant house in the Eastern Colonnade and waited upon Beau Melon. The latter received me very graciously and was pleased to compliment me upon the trimming of my waistcoat. (I have often contemplated the revival of that auspicious fashion.) I was lucky enough to render the great Beau a trifling service, in the matter of adjusting the discordant claims of two dairymaids who were quarrelling rather loudly over the young Earl of—— well, his name don't matter. Melon had been entrusted with the harvesting of the young nobleman's wild oats. After that I was able to lend him five hundred pounds and half a dozen epigrams, also to put him in the way of a neat translation of a song by the passionate Catullus, whereby he secured the hand of the famous, wealthy, and eccentrick Contessa Dilettante. He married, bequeathed to me his house, his notebooks, and his goodwill, so that in a paltry five years I succeeded to the sovereignty ofCurtain Wells. Our season endures from October until June. During that time I am as busy as a monarch should expect to be. I have made many alterations during the years of my rule; for instance, the Assemblies once held every Wednesday are now invariably held every Monday."
"But what the d——l does it matter which day they are held?" interrupted Sir George.
"Of course, it does not matter. Nothing matters. Nevertheless, George, when I announced the change, I tell you my throne, for a moment, tottered. However, I triumphed over the malcontents, and I venture to think it would take a very bold man to suggest they should ever again be held upon Wednesday."
"But, my dear William!" said his friend, "this is nonsense. 'Tis absurd for you to sit there and congratulate yourself as though this were doing something."
"My dear George," said the Beau very blandly. "Did I not read last year in theIntelligencethat you were agitating yourself confoundedly in order to secure some great financial advantage by altering the date of the despatch of bullion to Portugal?"
"You did, William, you did," said Sir George, setting his shoulders back at the proud thought of a great victory won.
"And what the d——l does it matter whether the ships sail in February or March?"
"You don't understand—the depression of the markets, the——"
"Precisely so," interrupted Mr. Ripple, "and you, my dear friend, do not understand the depression of Monday and Tuesday in the time before my great reform."
"But mine was an affair of international importance."
"And mine was an affair of domestick and social importance. Gadslife, do you suppose that my subjects care a jot about your schemes, if their own bodies are uncomfortable? Do you realize that many an election depends—yet why should I dispute the question. Nothing matters, but everything is of the very greatest importance."
Sir George was bewildered by the Beau's sophistry andargued no farther. After all, as he told himself, the atmosphere of Throgmorton Street had probably stultified his outlook. He himself only regarded it as a necessary, if purgatorial prologue to the paradise of the life of a man of leisure. Belladine was a man of leisure, and if Aristotle's politicks were not corrupt, must know more than himself about the affairs of the whole world. So Sir George kindled a fresh pipe with a burning coal, and listened to the continuation of Mr. Ripple's placid narrative.
"I perceived," the latter went on, "that pleasure was the most inexorable fact, setting aside birth and death, in the human economy. Before my time, the diversions of Curtain Wells, though conducted on a lavish scale of expense were somewhat haphazard. They did not always fit in with the moods of the pilgrims of Æsculapius. Too much was left to private enterprize. There was not enough organization and, worst of all, there was not enough stress laid upon the ascetick duties, whose fulfilment would lend such a flavour and zest to relaxation. I instituted, therefore, a rigour of exercise and diet, I insisted upon the sacred character of the Pump Room, I glorified the taking of chalybeate by a ritual at once subtle and magnificent. In a word, I founded a new religion and, as the auctioneers have it, made of Curtain Wells a true Temple of Hygeia. Having trained my subjects to make themselves uncomfortable in a modish way, I was soon able to urge the necessity of enjoying themselves on the same principle. To this end I arranged that every month should have its specifick pleasures, which would be welcomed as we welcome each flower that succeeds in its season. I will not fatigue you with too much detail, but I can honestly affirm that when the great Aquatick Gala or Fête Aqueuse comes to a dazzling conclusion, when the showers of bursting crimson, violet, and golden rockets dim the lustre of the Dog Star on the last night of June, the whole of the fashionable world retires to verdant solitudes with a profound admiration for me and a fixed determination to grace the grand opening Assembly on the first night of October."
"Indeed," said Sir George Repington, on whose mind a new prospect was breaking, "and how do you pass your time during the intervening months?"
"I meditate, George, I meditate in a charming rural retreat which I possess in the green heart of Devonshire. There I spend leafy days in pastoral seclusion. I have my plane tree, my jug of old Falernian. I have my spaniel, Lalage, and an impoverished female cousin who performs very engagingly upon the spinet. I sit in the austere musick-chamber with shadowy white walls, empty save for two or three tall black oaken chairs and the curiously painted instrument. I listen to the cool melodies of Couperin and admire his unimpassioned symbols of the Passions where a purple domino is the most violent, the most fervid emotion. I hear above the chirping of the crickets, the faint harmonies of Archangelo Corelli and the fugues of Domenico Scarlatti, whose name is so vivid, but whose musick like the morning is a mist of gold. I sit in a library hung with faded rose brocades and tarnished silver broideries. There I meditate upon the bloody deaths of Emperors and the grey hairs of Helen of Troy. There I move serenely from shelf to shelf and hark to the muffled thunder of volumes clapped together to exclude the odorous dust. I ponder Religion and Urn Burial and pore over the lurid histories of notable comets. At dusk of a fine day, I step out into the dewy garden to watch the colour fade from the flowers and the stars wink in the lucent green of the western sky. Presently I step indoors, light a tall wax candle set in a silver candlestick, go sedately to bed and fall asleep to the perfume of roses and jasmine and the echo of a cadence from theAnatomy of Melancholy."
"And that is your life?" said Sir George.
"That is my life."
"William, would it have been your life if things had been different on that April morning? I thought my life was as I would have wished to spend it; I have worshipped dull columns of figures and the dust of counting-houses, but to-night when I saw that child, when I saw that nephewof mine, I feared old age and wished I could somehow have thought less, calculated less, striven less, and loved more."
"George," said Mr. Ripple, tapping the lid of his snuff box with not so brave an air as usual, and, as he spoke, his friend apprehended in a moment's illumination that all this decorated narrative had been evoked to defer an explanation which he had felt all the while was inevitable.
"George," said Mr. Ripple, "if upon that morning in April, I could have made up my mind, I should, I believe, have—and yet I don't know," he broke off, "I doubt I was never intended to be a man of commonplace action."
"You did not interfere?"
"I loved her, too."
"You loved her?"
"I saw she cared for him alone, and, when Roger fell, though I had my pistol loaded and levelled, I had no heart to fire. But I was never brave enough to tell you I had let him escape and, having waited too long—oh! well there it is—I waited and could not bear to resume my old life. And indeed, George, I think I have been a happy man. You have conjured up the ghost of Belladine to-night and Belladine was and is and will be miserable to the end of his days, but pray dismiss him, vex not his ghost, and take snuff with Horace Ripple of the Great House, Curtain Wells. We are both too old, George, to do anything now. We must depend on young Charles."
"And if he should fail?"
"We are both old men. We should, therefore, both be able to suffer another disillusion."
"I suppose that is true," said Sir George rather sadly. "William——"
"Horace," corrected Mr. Ripple.
"William," persisted the other, "did I ever mention Thistlegrove Cottage to you?"
"Not that I can remember."
"'Tis a fine night, full of stars," said Mrs. Tabrum, entering the room with a tray full of brightly burningcandles, "and what time would your honours like to be waked up in the morning?"
"I will ring my bell," said Mr. Ripple.
"I will ring my bell," said Sir George Repington.
The two old friends took each a candle, and went upstairs to bed. From the corridor casement they looked out.
"What a laugh she had," says Sir George. A gust of wind extinguished his candle, and he shuddered.
"That is the way I shall go out."
"That is the way we shall all go out," said Mr. Ripple.
"And nothing afterwards?"
"Darkness."
"And nothing else?"
"Perhaps a hand in the darkness."
THE post-chariot that held in its musty recesses Miss Phyllida Courteen and Mr. Francis Vernon rattled on its way with all the vigour imparted by four fresh horses and the exhilarating effect of Plymouth Gin upon the post-boys.
A smell of saddlecloths and damp cushions, of leather straps and the dust of oat and hay, clung to the vehicle while over them was wafted the permeating steam of horses' flanks and the pungent odour of hot lamps.
"Phyllida, my Phyllida, at last."
"Why did you let me travel alone? I was frightened."
"My dear," said Vernon, "indeed, I do not know how to explain my neglect, but I wanted to ride out of the darkness and find you alone in the firelight like a maid in an old tale. It must have seemed cowardice to you."
"I was frightened," murmured Phyllida, growing breathless at the recollection of Mr. Charlie and Mr. Dicky Maggs lurching round the table in the Travellers' Room.
"You longed for me?" Vernon moved closer to his love and took her hand.
"Amor," said the girl shuddering, "I think I am frightened now. I think we will go back. I think I have done wrong."
"You think all these foolish thoughts, dear life. I know that to-day will be to you a day of days for ever."
He held her now in his arms, and she with a sigh yielded herself into his keeping. Soft she was and timid, like a bird which has fallen from the nest, and in the gloom he couldstill see her wide blue eyes and above the jangle of the chariot he could hear her whisper,
"I love you, Amor, I love you."
"My Phyllida."
"Amor, dear, dear Amor."
"'Tis not my name, dear one."
"'Tis the name you told me."
"My name is Vernon."
"To me you will always be Amor. Amor means Love. I asked the Archdeacon and he told me that Amor meant Love."
Vernon was taken outside of himself. As he kissed those lips more soft than the petals of flowers, the other lips he had known seemed cracked and dry. In the darkness, he felt her eyelashes upon his cheek as they drooped to a blush, and a passion of remorse swept over him. He would wed this child at the end of the journey. He would love her for ever. That was certain. Oh, yes, there was no doubt he would love her for ever. He had plucked this flower in a wanton moment, had thought to wear her for a scented month and fling her away. O execrable intent!
"My Phyllida, my Phyllida! Why do you love me?"
"Why do you love me?" Her hand nestled in his.
"I don't know, because—because—oh, because I do love you, because you have driven me mad with your blue eyes and your hair and your lips. My Phyllida, my Phyllida!"
Vernon was no longer conscious of acting. This was no scene set with chairs at appropriate angles. The raffish Mr. Francis Vernon of London, the clever Mr. Francis Vernon who vowed every woman had her price, Mr. Vernon the hero of half a hundred squalid intrigues was dead. Why should he not forget him, taking for his own that fortunate pseudonym which had set him as high as the angels? With a gesture of dismay, he drew from his cuff a greasy King of Hearts and spurned the dishonourable cardboard with his foot.
"Amor!"
"My dear! My lovely one! My heart!"
"Once I climbed up a high hill at home in Hampshire."
He held her more closely.
"I climbed a hill and stared for a long while right into the sun. I was giddy. Amor! Amor! I feel now as I did when I stared for a long while into the sun."
"Phyllida! Phyllida!"
"You'll never not love me, Amor?"
"Never, I swear it."
"I could not bear you not to love me. Once I knew a young woman whose lover forsook her and she used to work woollen flowers all day long with a tambour frame, because she was working woollen flowers when he told her that he loved her, and she never did anything else all the years that we knew her; and, Amor, she is working them now, and oh, I'm afraid when I think of her working those woollen flowers."
Vernon in his new frame of mind could scarcely forbear telling his love of the ills he had intended towards her. He had caught a passion for frankness and would have poured into her ears the whole of his past. He could not endure, to such elation had he been carried, that Phyllida should be ignorant of the worst of him in order that for the future she should know more truly the very best of him. But he was wise and, though Cupid had lent him his own wings, he would not play too many aerial pranks, soar too near the sun, fall and break his neck. It was indeed a form of abnegation that prevented him from showing Phyllida his own bad self. It was bitter to hear her murmur, with a white hand on his sleeve.
"I knew you were true, my true love, all the time, all the time."
Nothing tugs at the heart-strings of a man like a young maid's plighting of her troth. Nothing makes his brain reel like her first kiss freely given.
"Oh, Phyllida, Phyllida! I'm not fit for you."
"Foolish Amor."
"Are you happy, my dearest?"
"Oh, so happy."
"We shall never be parted again."
"Never!"
"I did not know that life was so wonderful."
"I thought it was," she murmured, as she nestled to his heart, "because Spring was always so sweet, and now I need never mind the Winter."
"All the years I did not know you, my Phyllida, were wasted years."
"Amor!"
"Phyllida!"
"How I shall always love you."
"Always?"
"To the end."
"Once," she said with a sigh, "I longed to grow old, and now I would like to be always young."
"Ah! Phyllida, my Phyllida, don't speak of age. I've wasted so much of my life."
He thought with anguish of the dead Summers he had known and wondered with a great dread whether they would come again. If, while he could still feel this splendid passion, they should be grey and dismal, he would never forgive himself for having revelled in the warmth and gaiety of those irrevocable seasons.
"You are not sad?" she asked, jealous of his silence.
"I wish that life were not so short."
Our villain was beginning to examine the foundations of his existence upon this earth, where hitherto he had jogged along, accepting the most outrageous calamity and good luck with placid superficial mind. Meditation upon the brevity of a life, which at any moment a tavern brawl might extinguish, would have seemed to him before this passionate conversation a lunatick method of spending time. Poor villain! he had not enjoyed much leisure for meditation. He was born in a hurry, his mother being under contract to appear as Millamant a long while before she should. He was brought up in a hurry at Alleyn's School to be murdered in a hurry by some Richard III. Moreover, in youth he had assisted at so many tinsel deaths that itwas not surprizing he should regard them lightly. Even his mother's death within sound of the orange girls outside Drury Lane struck him as nothing more final than a last appearance.
Now for the first time, there broke upon him the stunning fact of inevitable decay and, being a self-indulgent man, he had for the moment nothing more dignified than petulant despair with which to meet this sudden apprehension of mortality.
"'Tis monstrous," he declared, "a fearful thought that you and I should ever grow old and die. I cannot bear to think of your brown hair growing white. Phyllida, you cannot grow old."
Love had made a woman of Phyllida and already, with gentle touch, she soothed his anguish.
"Dear Amor, I know that if we love each other truly, we shall never grow old to each other."
"Phyllida, I love you," and clasping her lissome body breathless to his, he defied the lightning of the Gods.
And now a new fear assailed him. 'We shan't be followed,' he had contemptuously informed old Mother Mawhood at Blackhart Farm. In sudden dread he leaned out of the window of the chariot, and strained his eyes to pierce the darkness. He could see nothing save the shadows of the postillions against the hedge, hear nothing save the clatter of the horses. The loneliness and gloom affected his spirits and with a shudder he sought again the musty interior of the vehicle. He caught his love to his heart.
"What did you see?" she asked.
"Nothing, but I was afraid, I could not bear to lose you now."
"You saw nothing?"
"Nothing."
"And heard nothing?"
"Nothing. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, Amor, I thought I saw the shadow of a man on horseback."
"Fancy, my sweet, fancy." Then, with a sinking fear, he remembered he had told Mother Mawhood of the pearls. He called to mind the postboys' insolence, the look that passed between Charlie and Dickie when he told them he would ride in the chariot. He sprang in alarm to open the window, but the carriage pulled up with a jerk which flung him back against Phyllida. The glass crashed to the heavy butt of a pistol and, as he stretched out for his own fire-arms, he saw the postboys resting long barrels on the sill and, by the lamp which one of them held, a masked face that with thick brutal voice demanded their money.
"Hand 'em over."
"Hand what over?" said Vernon, in a futile attempt to delay his humiliation.
"The pops first," said one of the Maggs, winking humorously in the direction of Vernon's pistols that in leathern holsters lay harmless on the dusty floor of the chariot.
Now occurred one of those astonishing coincidences that have tempted the speculation of many sages since the beginning. A field-mouse chose that very moment to cross the road. A large white owl spied the diminutive pilgrim and, having tasted no food that stormy night, swooped daringly upon his prey under the heads of the standing horses. Terrified by the soft white apparition, the leaders plunged forward. In a moment the chariot was bumping and jolting at a wild pace down the road, having broken Charlie Maggs' big toe in transit. The blackguard deserved a scar for his carelessness, if for nothing else, and the limp he earned that night was some time afterwards the means of proving his complicity in the affair of the blind mouse-tamer, thereby ridding the world of a very dirty rascal. Mice were fatal to Charlie Maggs. It is satisfactory to know that the adventurous animal avoided the owl, and it is also consoling to learn that the latter never adorned a gamekeeper's pole, but died a natural death in the hollow trunk where it had spent actually all the days of its life.
It was a moment or two before Vernon understood that the danger was averted; then he bent low to reassure Phyllida, who was crouching in the darkest corner of the chariot.
"My dear," he cried, and for all the swaying motion caught her to him with a certain grace. "My dear, there is nothing to be afraid of now."
"Oh! Amor!" she sobbed, abandoning herself to the horror of remembrance, "that face—that black face."
"My sweet, you shall never see it again."
"It will follow us."
"If he should I have something here that will frighten him away fast enough."
Vernon waved a pistol which he had picked up even as he caught hold of Phyllida. But the masked face did not pursue them and, after a mile or so of noisy swaying progress, Vernon began to consider the possibility of stopping the carriage. He leaned out of the window and nearly had his eyes put out by a bramble sucker. A survey from the other side, where the remaining lamp lent a wavering illumination, showed they were travelling at an alarming pace down a deep rocky lane. Vernon noticed that the boulders in places trespassed considerably upon the road with projecting points, and there seemed every likelihood of the chariot being presently wrecked like a rudderless boat. However, runaway horses and drunken men share a large amount of the world's luck between them, and notwithstanding the headlong speed, every boulder in turn was successfully avoided. Farther along, the surface of the road grew worse and, every other second, one of the wheels would grate against the side of a deep rut with a horrid jar. They were going downhill now and Vernon strained his eyes to discover the lie of the country. The pace was harder than ever, and it seemed impossible for four horses to survive the roughness of the road and the steepness of the descent.
Suddenly above the clatter they heard the roar of water: at the same moment the front wheel struck some permanentobstacle: the chariot dipped forward: Phyllida and Vernon were flung in a tangled heap on the floor, while the sudden cessation of movement made the noise of the water sound very portentous in the gloom. Vernon extricated himself from the vehicle on the lighted side and, jumping out, splashed his way through mire and puddles to the horses' heads. The two leaders with that unexpected philosophy which in horses often succeeds the most fervid excitement were cropping the young herbage peacefully, while the wheelers were only slightly more restive through their inability to reach the same sweet pasture. Vernon snatched the solitary lamp from the socket and went to help Phyllida alight. As she stood upon the step and gave him her little hand, he divined with a sense of awe, begotten by the solitude of the surroundings, that she was truly his. He was Adam greeting Eve with the mystery of woman all about her in that primæval Spring.
The scene of the catastrophe was peculiarly solemn. The chariot had struck a column of stone that rose suddenly out of the ground as if the finger of a Titan had been frozen into perpetuity to mark some early and gigantick travail of his mother Earth. The lamp with feeble yellow light made monstrous shadows of the huge features it sought vainly to illuminate. So far as he could judge they were nearly at the bottom of a deep ravine along which swept a torrent whose magnitude was impossible to estimate, since the roar of the waterfall gave it in the darkness a dreadful importance.
"It must be close on two o'clock," said Vernon, "let's leave this disastrous vehicle. We may find shelter somewhere over this valley."
Phyllida drew the riding hood round her and, taking her lover's arm, silently acquiesced in this proposal.
As they drew near the waterfall, the thunder of it made her shiver. They crossed the torrent by a stone bridge that seemed to have become a natural feature in the landskip.
On the far side by a common impulse they stopped and Vernon leaned down to kiss her face.
"My Phyllida," he murmured; and held the lamp so that he could see the shimmer and gleam of love in her eyes. They stood silent, enraptured, and the hot yellow lamp away down in the depths of this world-forsaken valley became the very torch of Hymen.
With slow steps they climbed the opposite hill, deserting the waters and the rocks, the ferns, the little bridge, for the grey starshine above the gloom. Yet the awe of that solemn ravine, which they had reached after such peril, enthralled them still and I think both felt as if somehow their love had been consecrated by a divine being. It was quite a relief from the strain of reverence when Vernon informed Phyllida that there was no sign of any human habitation.
"What shall we do with the carriage?" asked the latter.
"Don't fret about that."
"And the horses?"
"They must take their chance. I wish I knew the hour."
"You said it must be two o'clock."
"The sun does not rise till half-past five. Three hours and a half. I wonder why we left the chariot. It would be wiser to go back. You will be cold in this open country."
The wind was blowing shrewdly up there in the starlight, and Phyllida would not deny she was cold and tired.
"We had better go back to the chaise. ’Twas warmer in the valley."
Yet both of them felt a strange disinclination to risk the disillusion of return till, suddenly, up there in the wind and starlight, terror caught them, and the noise of water tumbling over rocks gave them a sense of security from this wide place of silence.
"'Tis a monstrous uneasy country," said Vernon, voicing in common speech the sense of woe that oppressed him.
"I feel frightened," Phyllida agreed, "let us go back to the water."
They stopped to listen as people will whose minds have been much wrought upon. There was nothing but the lisp of the wind in the bents of last year's grass and a melodioussighing in the boughs of larches. Yet never throughout that adventurous night had Phyllida's heart pattered at such a pace, never had she been so near to shrieking aloud. Without longer delay they turned back in the direction of the coombe, walking with quick steps as if to avoid an invisible pursuit. Half-way down the hill, Vernon stooped to gather a primrose.
"Here's a daisy," he said.
"A daisy," Phyllida cried. "Why, foolish Amor, 'tis a primrose," and whatever fiend or goblin followed in their wake fled in affright at the sound of her rippling laughter.
I think nothing shows more conclusively that Mr. Vernon was in love with Miss Courteen than his indifference to her ridicule.
"Sweetest," he said, "I'm ignorant of the best things like flowers," and forthwith began to tell Phyllida of his life in London, so that when presently they stood again upon the bridge, he was raising his voice in order to describe his first impressions of rustick Marybone, to which he added a very nice account of the view of the Hampstead Hills.
Under the influence of this narrative, the scene lost some of its grandeur. An air of grottoes, of stone embellishments, arbours, and cunning recesses shed itself over the landskip. One heard comparisons with this or that famous haunt of sight-seeing mobs. In fact both Vernon and Phyllida, being English, felt their late raptures were unbecoming, and having excused a lapse into sensibility by the fright they had suffered, proceeded to declare that the chasm, far from being Titanick, would make a mighty fine site for an excursion of pleasure. At least Vernon clothed the opinion in words, Phyllida was too much fatigued to do more than murmur a weary assent.
They found the chariot just as they had left it and the four horses browsing upon the grass. He handed her into the vehicle, made her comfortable with what rugs and cloaks he could collect and left her to rest with the assurance he would remain close at hand. She gave his hand a tired clasp and almost immediately fell fast asleep. Vernontethered the horses to various stumps in the vicinity, and proceeded to doze and dream away the cold hours before dawn in the shelter of a particularly large and overhanging ledge of rock. The sound of the falling water that deafened him with its roar when first he heard it, now soothed him like a gentle lullaby.
I cannot do justice to the scene: Rembrandt with his powerful and gloomy imagination could have etched it. He would have made the two lovers present themselves to the onlooker in their right proportions to the scenery. You and I are too near to the candlelight of Curtain Wells to believe in the romantick desolation wherein they seemed of no more importance than the ferns that hung down their green tongues to the limpid pools hollowed from jagged rocks. Vernon, huddled in the shelter of the crag, with his hat pressed over his eyes, his knees arched as high as his chin, might well have been a belated herdsman who, having flung himself into this valley to avoid the upland wind, had been bewitched by the magick of running water to dream away the night. The horses in the black shadows and the ruined chariot had an air of Gothick melancholy; the yellow lamp that glimmered fitfully in the heart of the abyss served only to throw into more huge relief the neighbouring rocks, while it lighted the thresholds of gaping caverns that stretched beyond to unimaginable depths of solitude and gloom. The night wore on and over the hill the lovers had found so depressing to their spirits, like a sword in the twilight, lay the first grey streak of dawn. Phyllida and her lover slept while the features of the landskip began to win again their own outlines, while the rocks that were wrapped in the warm velvet of night appeared with a cold sheen. The grey streak widened to a broad lake whose margin was flecked with the faint hues of lavender and mauve. Birds began to twitter and chirp in the trees and bushes that overhung the rocks below, while the winds of dawn fluted in the small withy bed beside the bridge.
Very wan in the morning twilight, Mr. Charles Lovelyand Mr. Anthony Clare clattered down the deep lane that led to the valley. Their horses' flanks glistened with the sweat of hard travel and the riders rose hardly to the jerking downhill motion.
Just as the rose-tipped fingers of Aurora plucked the lavender from the skies, Charles and Tony caught sight of the chariot and just as they pulled their horses to a standstill, Mr. Vernon woke up. It is characteristick of the latter's new-found consideration that his first action was to warn them with a gesture of Phyllida's presence fast asleep inside. Charles tapped his holsters in reply and pointed up the opposite slope. Vernon rose to follow his pursuers with a backward glance in the direction of the chariot.
When they were over the bridge and out of Phyllida's hearing Charles reined in his walking horse and inquired if Vernon was willing to give him satisfaction.
"For what?" said the latter with a sneer.
"For insulting my Muse," said Charles, determined if possible not to make Phyllida the subject of the quarrel.
"Your muse?" echoed Vernon, with the faintest intonation of surprise, "but I promised you satisfaction for that a month hence."
Vernon was equally determined that Phyllida should be the direct occasion of the duel, if duel there must be.
The rosy heavens became a sheet of vivid scarlet intersected with the golden bars of the fast rising sun. Up he came in a blaze and dazzle of glory, lustrous and invigorating; still the colour was not quite effaced, and on the three men that scarlet dawn made an invincible impression of disaster and woe. A red sky is a warning to shepherds and sailors, no doubt it was ominous to lovers.
The summit of the hill was reached and involuntarily the three paused in their wrangling to marvel at the extensive landslip suffused with the amber haze of earliest morn. The homesteads in sight seemed untenanted: there was not a single column of curling smoke to mark the presence of humanity.
Where they were standing, the road was bordered on either side by a wide stretch of level sward. On the left was a spinney of larches showing as yet no crimson plumes of Spring, round which numbers of rabbits gambolled in air that sparkled like golden wine. It seemed indeed more like July than April, and only the bare trees told the true tale of the season's youthfulness. Up here on the top of the world the three men drank in the beauty of the universe and, having as it were performed their orisons, turned to arrange the details of a bloody encounter.
"I promised I would meet you where you would in a month's time," repeated Vernon obstinately.
"But I prefer to meet you now," replied Charles.
"I have no one to act for me."
"Mr. Clare will act for both of us."
"That is an irregular proceeding."
"I don't care."
"And Miss Courteen?" Vernon was resolved to drag Charles to the real point at issue. "What is to become of Miss Courteen?"
"In either event, Mr. Clare will be able to escort her back to Curtain Wells."
"D—— n you," said Vernon, roused by his enemy's assumption of guardianship. "And what if she wishes to stay with me?"
"Mr. Lovely has her mother's authority to conduct her home," interposed Clare.
"What you two prim busybodies don't appear to understand is that Miss Courteen prefers to remain with me."
"Miss Courteen is not her own mistress. She is not of age," said Clare.
"And pray how do you propose to make her accompany you?"
"Why, in this way," interrupted Charles, shaking off his friend's arm, "in this way, Mr. Vernon. If you decline to meet me with pistols, by G—— I'll thrash you senseless with my crop."
Vernon's hands twitched for a moment, but he hadlearned a new restraint, gained a new dignity from the wondrous ride and with scarcely a perceptible quiver in his voice begged to point out to his friend Mr. Lovely that if he shot him, he should not scruple to shoot Mr. Clare were the latter to stand in his way.
"But what if you're shot, Sir?" cried Charles, betraying in his eagerness the true reason for his desire to force an instant encounter, "as by G—— you deserve to be for murdering the poor little Major."
Vernon was perplexed.
"The Major? Is he dead? I had nothing to do with his death." The simplicity of the denial almost convinced his listeners that he was speaking the truth.
"Come, Sirrah, will you meet me? said Charles, lifting his crop.
"Listen, you pair of puppies," said Vernon between his teeth. "I could have put a bullet into either of you at any time during the last five minutes, and by heavens, I don't know why I kept my finger from the trigger. Yes, I do," he shouted. "I've got a chance of happiness and I'm not going to throw it away by having your blood on my head. You're an interfering pair of fools, but I cheated one of you at cards and I played a low game over the book, and by G——, I believe my father was a gentleman. I'll meet you, Mr. Lovely, now."
With these words he flung down on the grass at Charles' feet the two pistols which the skirts of his riding-coat had concealed.
"I'll step fifteen paces," said Mr. Clare, hiding his emotion with a piece of practical utility. And, as he began to measure the ground, away down in the broken chariot, Phyllida woke with a start. She was surprized by the daylight and called to her lover. Only birdsong answered her voice. In sudden dismay, presentiment hanging over her like the aftermath of an evil dream, she jumped from the chariot. Intuition, perhaps the remembrance of last night's fear, made her look towards the summit of the slope. In silhouette against the golden sky, she saw three figures.Breathless with horror she ran in their direction. Up the hill she laboured. It was still cold from the night air and foreboding was heavy upon her heart. Up the hill she struggled, leaving in her path many fluttering pieces of muslin where eager feet had torn the frail flounces. Down the road, she saw them level their weapons. "One, two, three," came in measured tones along the still air of the morning. There were two shots, the scud of frightened rabbits to their burrows, a reeling figure, a cloud across the sun, a mist over life, and she was kneeling in the dewy grass beside Amor.
"Oh, God!" she screamed, "He's dead. Oh! Oh! Oh!"
That anguished cry wounded Lovely deeper than any leaden bullet, for it killed his hopes.
At the touch of his dear one, Vernon opened his dark eyes.
"Here's a bunch of primroses," he murmured, "not daisies. I picked them, Phyllida ... for you ... not daisies ... primroses...."
And so with thoughts of flowers, Mr. Francis Vernon died. Pray let that sentence be his epitaph.
Charles, watching the maid stare into the sun with eyes whose light seemed fled with the swift-flying soul of the dead man, wished passionately—wildly—that he were the quiet body there in the dewy grass.
"What shall we do?" he murmured brokenly to Clare.
"Leave her alone for a while."
"What a mistake it has been."
They walked away with cautious steps and spoke in whispers as if they were afraid.
"What right had I to interfere between lovers?"
"You did it for the best."
"I know, I know, but what a d——d number of silly actions are done for the best."
"To-day is the first of April," said Clare, seeking with a commonplace to relieve the tension of Charles's distracted mind.
"Is it? What an April fool fortune has made of me."