Mr. Lloyd gone! They could scarcely believe it at Baden. Lady Carabas was in despair, and the Duchess of Winchester was vexed, for she was fond of flirtation, and she had found Mr. Lloyd "very nice." The led captains and the other male retainers of both factions looked on Gilbert as a dangerous rival, and were rather glad than otherwise that he was out of the way. Gone to England, eh? Yes. Summoned by a telegram on most important business, so Dolly Clarke said; he happened to be with him at the time the telegram arrived, and so of course knew all about it. On Lord Ticehurst's business, of course? Well, Dolly Clarke supposed so; in fact, he might go so far as to say "yes," and rather unpleasant business too. Lord Ticehurst was rather annoyed about it, and so perhaps you would be so good as not to mention it to him? Needless to say there were some people who did not believe this statement, even when vouched for on such excellent authority as Mr. Dolly Clarke's. There are some people who will not believe anything. Mr. Toshington is one of them. He thinks it a "deuced odd story," and sets about to investigate it. He sees the landlord, porter, waiters,Hausknechtof the hotel, every individual separately, and puts them through the strictest investigation in the most extraordinarymélangeof languages; finally, he goes to the telegraph-office and ascertains triumphantly that for the Herr Lloyd, Englander, no telegraphic despatch received was. Tommy opines that Gilbert's absence has reference to some infernal chicanery connected with the turf, and sets that down as the reason why Ticehurst is so shy about speaking about it. Queer business for peers of the rel-lum to be mixin' up in such matters, Tommy thinks, and anythin' but a good sign in these infernal levellin' times. Lady Carabas is really very sorry. She had a sort of idea that Gilbert was "coming round;" but his having gone away in this sudden manner, and gone away without a hint of his going, or word of adieu to her, was a deathblow to that hope. And Mr. Pennington, the gentlemanly creature creature in the F.O., though charming to look at and pleasant so far as his conversation lasted, was soon exhausted, and was not to be compared with Gilbert Lloyd as a bright and amusing companion. "He might have thought of me before he went away," Lady Carabas thought to herself. She had no idea that Gilbert Lloyd had thought about her, and with considerable earnestness too, as he was walking away from the Kursaal in company with Mr. Dolly Clarke, immediately previous to his quitting Baden. He had carefully weighed in his mind whether there was any use in getting her to appeal to Lord Ticehurst in his behalf, founding his appeal on a tremendous story of his innocence and of his being the victim of circumstances, which story he could arrange during the night. But he finally rejected the notion; there was something decisive and pitiless about Mr. Clarke's manner, which told Lloyd it would be useless for him to indulge himself with any hopeful view of the case. As he travelled through the night, and turned all the events of the past days, of the past years, over and over in his mind, during his weary journey, he felt convinced that he had acted wisely in this matter. Only one thing annoyed him; if the worst came to the worst, and he was obliged, as Clarke had hinted, to go away to Australia or America, he should want all the money he could lay his hands on, and he might have "bled" her ladyship for a good round sum. He had letters of hers in his possession, written in all innocence it is true, but quite sufficiently compromising if read from the legal point of view, which ought to have effected that.
When Lloyd arrived in London, he did not go to Lord Ticehurst's house in Hill-street, where were all his goods and chattels; he would go there later, he thought, and see what could be done after a careful examination of the books and papers. He drove to a house in Duke-street, St. James's, where he had lodged years before; and the landlady of which, looking scarcely a day older, came out to the door, told him his old rooms were vacant, and welcomed him heartily. Gilbert Lloyd always was popular with his inferiors; it was part of his policy in life to be so, and he took every opportunity of saying polite things to them, and doing them cheap civilities. Even now, as he jumped out of the cab, he told Mrs. Jobson how well she was looking, and how he felt quite pleased at the notion of coming back to the old rooms; and then he bade her take his luggage in, and ran upstairs.
The old rooms! He looked round them, and found them scarcely changed. The furniture was a little shabbier, perhaps, and looking through the window the opposite side of the street seemed, if possible, a little closer than before. The same slippery chintz on the sofa, the same regulation number of chairs, the same portrait of the Princess Charlotte, at which Gertrude had screamed with laughter, and called it a "hideous old thing," the first day he brought her there. Gertrude? Yes; that was their first lodging after their marriage. He brought her there, and at that instant he seemed to see her as she was when she first entered the little room; how she looked round in surprise, and then ran to the window and knelt and looked up for the sky. The chain of his reflection was broken by the entrance of Mrs. Jobson, who expressed her delight at seeing him again.
"But, do you know, I did not reckernise you at first, Mr. Lloyd--I did not, indeed. Seeing you alone, I suppose it was. I hope you're not alone in the world, Mr. Lloyd?--that you've not lost that dear sweet lamb?"
"O no, Mrs. Jobson, thank you; Mrs. Lloyd is alive and very well."
"That's good hearing, I'm sure; and grown into a fine woman, I've no doubt. Those slight slips of girls with plenty of bone, when they fill out, improve wonderful;" and then Mrs. Jobson changed the subject, and launched into questions of domestic economy into which it is not necessary to follow her.
And the next day Gilbert Lloyd prepared to play the last trump-card which he found in his hand when he so carefully examined it on the night he left Baden. He had given deep consideration to his plan since, had gone through every detail, had turned and twisted the intended mode of working his scheme, and had definitely, resolved upon the manner in which he would carry it out.
And this was his resolution--to claim his wife. He had calculated exactly all the risk that was contained in that one sentence, and he had determined to brave it, or at all events to pretend to be prepared to brave it. From those few words which Gertrude had whispered to him, when in his rashness he had braved her at Mrs. Stapleton Burge's party, he knew that she was mistress of the secret of Harvey Gore's death. But the question then arose, would she dare to avail herself of the knowledge she possessed? Yes, he thought she would, sooner than be forced to return to him. Except during the first few months of girlish idolatry, she had never cared for him, and now she had many reasons for positively hating him. The manner in which he had treated her would have been quite enough to a girl of her spirit, without the suspicion of his crime, the position which she had subsequently gained for herself in the world, and--her love for another man. Even in the strait in which he found himself, that last thought was sufficient to tempt him to run almost any risk to prevent her being anything to any other man, but to that man above all others in the world.
Another question then arose: how much did she know about what had transpired in those accursed Brighton lodgings? Foxey Walker, with all his knowingness, with all the means which he had employed, with all the tremendous inducement he had to endeavour to find out everything, to drag its deepest depths, and expose all he could rake therefrom in the light of day, had only been able to patch up a case of suspicion. So Dolly Clarke had said. To be sure he, Gilbert Lloyd, had taken fright at the bogey thus raised, and had run away; but he was taken aback, the charge was brought forward so suddenly, and it was impossible to face thecharivariwhich would have risen round him, or to silence the accusation offhand on the spur of the moment. Impossible, and not particularly worth his while. He had always thought that the connection between him and Lord Ticehurst must be brought to an end some day, and had often imagined, more especially during the last few weeks, that it would terminate in a row. Well, that could not be helped. He had had wonderfully good pickings for a very long time; and though he had lost all that he had put by in his recent unfortunate speculations, the mine was not yet exhausted, the milch-cow was not yet dry. In the message which Clarke had conveyed to him from Lord Ticehurst, he was directed to go to Hill-street, and make up the books and balance the accounts between them; and it was odd if he could not show a considerable balance due in his favour; ay, and claim it too, so long as a portion of his lordship's banking-account was responsive to cheques bearing Gilbert Lloyd's signature. The question remained then, how much did Gertrude know? He could not guess from the few words she had whispered to him that night, for on that occasion also he had taken fright, and rushed off without probing the matter. But if Foxey Walker could bring forward nothing positive, nothing actually damnatory, the odds were very strongly against Gertrude's being able to do so. And it was a great stake he was going in for now. She could always earn a huge income by her voice; but this was not all. This old Lord Sandilands, who had almost adopted Gertrude as his daughter--so, at least, Lady Carabas had told him, and she ought to know--had the reputation of being immensely rich. He lived so quietly and unostentatiously, that the world insisted he had been putting by two-thirds of his income for years; and he had no relatives to whom to bequeath it. It would therefore probably all be Gertrude's, or of course, his identity once established, Gertrude's husband's. Now, what course would they adopt? Would they accept him; let him live with her during the old man's lifetime, and inherit with her at the old man's death? Even if all the capital were tied down, the interest would afford a splendid income. Or would they offer to buy him off with a sum down and a yearly income? Either would do, though the first would be best, for--yes, by Jove! much best, for the second would leave Gertrude open to the attentions of his brother Miles, However, he was in a strait, and could not afford to be particular, unless they fought him, and then--well, he would risk that, and play his last trump-card.
So Gilbert Lloyd, on the morning after his arrival in London from Baden, sat down and wrote a long and elaborate letter to his wife. He told her that from the first he had never ceased to grieve over that unfortunate step which they had taken under the influence of temper and youthful folly. He did not repine; indeed, he had no doubt that the separation had had a properly chastening effect--had given them time and opportunity to see the mistake of indulging in headstrong passion, and had probably rendered them both--he certainly could speak for himself--worthier members of society; but the time, he thought, had arrived when it would be not merely advisable, but proper, to place themselves right with each other and before the world. There existed between them a tie which was far more solemnly obligatory on them than any human-made law,--although he need scarcely point out to his wife that their marriage had never been legally dissolved,--and while both the spiritual and moral contracts were in force it was impossible to shirk their influence. He owned that he had been profoundly touched, on the several occasions on which he had met her recently in society, by the fact that he, her legitimate protector, who should have been at her side, whose proper position was at her right hand, should have had to stand aloof and look on, while others pressed round her, owing to the foolish step they had taken. She would agree with him, he felt sure, that this was a fain position, and one which should be at once set right; and the only way in which that could be done would be by their at once coming together and assuming their proper relations before the world. He, on his part, would not object, if it was thought necessary or advisable, for an entirely fresh marriage between them; that detail could be arranged afterwards. He was writing this in his old lodgings in Duke-street, which she would recollect, to which he had first taken her after their marriage. She was agrand damenow, but he did not think he wronged her, or flattered himself, in stating his belief that she had never known more real happiness than when inhabiting those little rooms. Might the omen prove propitious!--Ever hers, G.L.
"And for a sort of thing that's not the least in my line I don't think that's bad," said Gilbert Lloyd, as he read it over. "It seems to me to combine the practical with the romantic, a very difficult thing to hit off, and one likely to please both phases of Gertrude's character." Then he sealed it, and addressed it to Miss Lambert, to Sir Giles Belwether's care, despatched it, and waited the result.
There must be a clear day at least before he could receive a reply, and that day he found it very difficult to get through. He could not go to Hill-street, though there was plenty of work awaiting him there, because on the tone of Gertrude's reply to his letter would greatly depend the tone of his conduct towards Lord Ticehurst. If his wife, no matter from whatever motives of policy, thought it better to yield to his views, he would then be in a position to resent his sudden dismissal, and to speak his plain and unadorned sentiments to his lordship in equally plain and unadorned language. If, on the contrary, Gertrude temporised or refused point-blank, and he saw there was no chance of carrying out his wishes, then all he had left him was to go to Hill-street to see the very best arrangement he could make for himself, by which he meant to ascertain the largest amount he could draw on the fund for which his signature was good at Lord Ticehurst's banker's--other available funds he had none--and making the best of his way to Australia or America under a feigned name, begin life againde novo.. So he mooned about during the dreary day--it was dreary enough; none of his friends were in London, and the aspect of the town was deserted and wretched in the extreme--and was not sorry when it was time to go home and to bed. The next morning before he was yet up Mrs. Jobson knocked at his door, and pushed in a letter which had just arrived by the post. Lloyd sprang up, and seized it at once. It was a large folded letter, addressed not in Gertrude's hand, but in writing which had once been bold and was still large, but a little shaky and tremulous, and was sealed with a coronet and a cipher. Gilbert broke it open hurriedly, and read as follows:
"Hastings, Sept. 26, 186--..
"Geoffrey Challoner,--for it would be absurd in me to address you by any other name,--the lady who has the inexpressible misfortune of being dressed to her, and has begged me to reply to it. The reply to such a letter could not be confided to fitter hands than those of the lady's father, in which position I stand. The young lady whose professional name is Miss Grace Lambert is my natural daughter; the fact has been duly acknowledged by me, and the first act after the avowal is to champion my daughter's cause against a villain. For you are a villain, Geoffrey Challoner; though God knows it is with the deepest pain that I write such words of any man bearing your paternal name; for in applying this term to you I am not actuated by a remembrance of the wrongs you have done to Gertrude, I am not even thinking of the fearful crime which you committed, and which was revealed to her by your victim with his dying breath on the occasion of your final separation. I am looking back across a gulf of years to the time when the dearest friend I had in the world was your father. Now, Geoffrey Challoner, do you begin to understand? To me your father confided the narrative of the events which ended with your banishment from home, and your erasure from the family annals for ever. That narrative I have by me now. Your career has been hitherto so successful, you have gone so long unpunished, that you will be sceptical on this point, but I will prove it to you. That narrative, written in your father's own hand, sets forth your boyish disobedience, your tendency to dissipation, the impossibility to make you think or act rightly; and finally, your awful crime. When you have read thus far you will still cling to the hope that the knowledge of the nature of that crime may have passed into the grave with him whose heart it broke, who never held up his head after its discovery. If any such hope arises in you, it is my duty to stamp it out. Geoffrey Challoner, in my possession, complete in every detail from its commencement to its frustration, is the story of your attempted fratricide. There can be read, couched in your father's homely, serious, truth-begetting phrases, the record of how you, finding it impossible to undermine your father's confidence in your elder brother by lies and slanders of the most malignant nature, at length determined to step into that brother's position by taking away his life by poison. Do you admit the force of my position now, or would you wish the details brought out one by one into the light of day, before the public eye?
"This letter is written in self-defence, or, what is the same thing, in defence of my child. The letter she has received from you, however pleasantly and skilfully worded, was a threat, an order to her to receive you as her husband, a threat as to what she might expect if she refused. Now beware. Had you been content to leave Gertrude unmolested, had you shown the slightest remorse for the horrible crimes, one of which you contemplated, the other which, as I verily believe, you committed, I would have tempered justice with mercy, and left you to the never-failing retribution which your conscience would sooner or later have claimed of you. That is now impossible. By your own act you have prevented my using any such discretion in the matter. You have thrown down the gauntlet, however covertly, and must take the consequences. I have telegraphed to your brother and to my solicitor to come to me at once. I shall place before them your father's narrative, and shall tell them what Gertrude has told me. Do not flatter yourself with the notion that a wife cannot be a witness against her husband. There is plenty of other evidence, some of which I find has been already worked up; and we shall take such steps as may seem to us advisable..
"SANDILANDS."
"I've knocked twice with Mr. Lloyd's breakfast, and I can't make him hear," said Mrs. Jobson to her servant that morning; "and he such a light sleeper too, in general. I'll try once more, and if he don't answer, I'll peep in."
The landlady knocked again, but with no effect; and when she "peeped in" she found Gilbert Lloyd fallen prone on his face on the floor, with a letter grasped in his stiffened hand.
It was fortunate that Mrs. Jobson was a practical woman of resources and presence of mind, for the first thing she did was to fling the contents of the water-jug over Lloyd's head (he was a favourite with her, or she would scarcely have risked damaging the carpet by such a proceeding); the second was to open the window; and the third was to loosen his collar, and raise him into a half-sitting position. She then called out to the servant to run for the doctor; but Lloyd, who had by this time opened his eyes and come to his senses, vehemently opposed this suggestion, declaring himself to be quite recovered, and leading Mrs. Jobson to believe that these were attacks to which he was by no means unaccustomed--which, though unpleasant to the lookers-on, were not dangerous to the sufferer, and that he knew how to treat himself, to prevent the recurrence of the seizure for some time to come. Mrs. Jobson was much pleased to hear this, for, with all her practicality, she had that vague fear of sudden death, and its necessitated coroner's inquest, which is so often found among people of her class. After her fashion, too, she really liked her lodger, for Gilbert Lloyd had always been civil and agreeable--had given little trouble, and paid his way with consistent punctuality; so she was glad to find him looking something like himself, and lightly treating what she had at first imagined would be a very serious matter.
But when he was left to himself, and the reaction after the cold water, and the mental spurt which he had put on to talk to the landlady, set in, Gilbert Lloyd felt that the blow which for the last few days he had been certain was impending, had fallen at last. The depression under which he had been recently labouring was then accounted for; that attempted crime, which had brought upon him the sentence of banishment from his father's house, the loss of his ancestral name and family position, which had sent him forth into the wilderness of the world, there to stand or fall entirely by his own arts or luck,--this crime was to be visited on him again, just at the very time when everything else was going wrong with him!
Lord Sandilands, then, was the friend to whom his father had confided that horrible secret. He had often wondered to whom his father's letter had alluded, but had never thought of identifying the bland, pleasant old nobleman with the man who held the history of his dishonour in his keeping. His father's letter had said, "This friend is not acquainted with your personal appearance, and cannot therefore recognise you, should your future conduct enable you to present yourself in any place where he may be found." Even in the desperate circumstances in which he was placed, Gilbert Lloyd almost laughed as he recalled these words, and thought how frequently his conduct had "enabled him to present himself" in places where old Sandilands was to be found; how, indeed, he had been a leader and prime favourite in the very society which the old nobleman most affected. "Not acquainted with his personal appearance:" of course not, or Lord Sandilands would never have consented to meet him on the terms on which they had met, and which, though not intimate, were sufficiently familiar; would never have suffered him to be the second-self of Lord Ticehurst--his lordship could endure Gilbert Lloyd the turfite, but Geoffrey Challoner--How had he learned about Geoffrey Challoner, then?--whence had come this secret information? Not from Gertrude: that little fact was yet to be broken to her, he thought with bitter delight. Who had been Lord Sandilands' informant? Miles, of course!--he had forgotten him, his dear, charming brother Miles! O, that boyish hatred had not been misplaced; there was something in it beyond the mere desire to get rid of one who stood between him and the estate. If Miles had been nothing to him, he should have hated him. Miles, of course! His father's letter had told him that this friend would be "always in close and constant intercourse with my son." Close and constant intercourse!--that was true enough; and now this precious pair had put their heads together for the purpose of his humiliation. Why just at that time? It could only have been recently that Miles had told the old gentleman, though he had known it so long ago. Why had he only just told Lord Sandilands, when he had known it ever since Gertrude's first appearance at Carabas House? Gertrude--and Miles! was that the clue? Miles was desperately in love with Gertrude--he had seen that with his own eyes; and, besides, Toshington--everybody--had told him so. In their confidence on this point, can Miles have revealed this fact to his old friend? Gilbert did not see what end could have been gained by that, more especially as the greatest secret of all--the existence of the marriage between him and Gertrude--was evidently not yet known to Miles.
And Gertrude was Lord Sandilands' daughter? That was a surprise to Gilbert. That the old nobleman would have adopted her, and made her his heiress, Lloyd had expected; but the thought that she was his natural daughter had never suggested itself to him. Ah, what an infernal fool he had been! All these years he had been congratulating himself on his good fortune, and now he found he had been merely running after the shadow and neglecting the substance. What a dolt he had been to allow Gertrude to leave him at all! He might have lived on her in a princely manner--first on the money which she made by her profession, and secondly by properly working this secret of her relationship to Lord Sandilands. And now he had lost all!
His time was come, he thought.Venit summa dies et ineluctabile fatum!That line remained haunting his brain. He felt that matters were closing round him very rapidly. What was that he had read in Lord Sandilands' letter about that cursed Brighton business with Harvey Gore? He could not distinctly recollect; he would read the letter again. He turned round to look for it; it was nowhere to be found.
He hunted for it high and low; searched every portion of the room again and again; examined, as people will do in the desperation of such circumstances, the most impossible places. He did not like to ask Mrs. Jobson about it. If she had seen it her curiosity might have been aroused; she might have read it, and then--At length he rang his bell, and Mrs. Jobson appeared; and Gilbert saw in an instant by her face that whatever might have happened she had not read the letter.
"When you were good enough to come to my assistance just now, Mrs. Jobson, when I had that little attack, did you happen to see an open letter lying about?" said Gilbert.
"A letter, sir?" said Mrs. Jobson dubiously; "there were no letter that I saw, 'cept the one in your hand."
"In my hand?"
"Clinched tight up, as was both your fists, so that I could hardly uncrook your fingers; and in one of 'em therewasa letter all squeezed up."
"That must have been it. What did you do with it?"
"Put it on to the table by the window, just as it might be there," said Mrs. Jobson, taking an exact aim, and marking a particular spot on the table with her finger.
"It's no good looking there," said Gilbert testily--for Mrs. Jobson still kept peering on the table, as though she expected to see the letter swim up to the surface through the wood--"it's not there. What can have become of it?"
"Well, now I recollect," said Mrs. Jobson slowly, "that I thought you would be all the better for a puff of fresh air, so I opened the window, and the paper might have blowed out."
"Good God, woman, what have you done!" cried Gilbert, starting up and rushing towards the street, pushing past Mrs. Jobson, who this time began to be seriously alarmed, thinking her lodger was going out of his mind.
The street was tolerably empty when Gilbert Lloyd reached it. There is not much doing in Duke-street, St. James's, in the month of September--a slack season, when even the livery-stable-keepers' helpers are probably out of town, and there were but few people about to express surprise at seeing a gentleman fly out of a house, and begin searching the pavement and the kennel with intense anxiety and perseverance. In the season, a dozen young gutter-bloods, street-boys, would have been round him in a moment, all aiding in the search for an unknown something, the probable finding of which, if seen, would bring them a few coppers, the possible stealing of which, unseen, might fill their pockets. But on this calm September morning a Jew clothesman going his rounds, the servant of a lodging-house opposite, and an elderly-gentleman lodger, who never went out of town, and who in the winter never got out of bed, and who at the then moment was calmly looking on at Lloyd's proceedings as at a show, were all the spectators of the hunt for the missing paper, in which none of them evinced anything but the most cursory interest.
Not so the seeker. He hunted up and down, poked in wind-swept corners, peered down rusty gratings, seemed to have at one time a vague idea of following the chase up the livery-stableman's yard, and glared at the barrel swinging in mid-air from the crane outside the oilman's warehouse-door, as though it might have sucked up the precious document. He must have it, Gilbert Lloyd kept repeating to himself; he must have it. But he could not find it, and at the end of an hour's search he returned to the house, worn out with fatigue, and in a state of feverish anxiety.
If it had blown out of the window, as the woman had suggested, into the street--and the probabilities were that it had done so--somebody must have picked it up. There was no wet or mud to discolour the paper or efface the writing; it was a peculiar and striking-looking letter, and anyone finding it would doubtless read it through. If such had been the case it was lost--irretrievably, for ever. Great beads of perspiration stood upon his pallid forehead as this notion flashed across him. His name headed the letter, the name of his accuser was signed at its foot, and its contents plainly set forth one attempted crime and hinted at the knowledge of another, which had been more than attempted, which had been carried into effect. Anyone reading this would see the whole state of affairs at a glance, would feel it incumbent on them to give information to the police, and--he was a dead man! What was that Lord Sandilands had said about further inquiries relative to Harvey Gore? Foxey had been doing his best to find out something definite in that quarter, and had failed; but then Lord Sandilands was a man of influence, with plenty of money, which he would not scruple to spend freely in any matter such as this. That made all the difference; they might succeed in tampering with that wretched doctor fellow, who plainly had had his suspicions--Gilbert had often recalled his expression about therigor mortis--and there would be an end of it. Pshaw! what a fool he was! He passed his hand across his damp brow, sprang from the chair on which he had been sitting, and commenced pacing the room. An end of it? No, not yet. He had always had his own notion of how that end should be brought about, if the pressure upon him became unbearable. Most men leading such precarious shifty lives have thus thought occasionally, and made odd resolves in regard to them. But there was hope yet. He was seedy, weak, and unhinged; a glass of brandy would set him all right, and then he would go off to Hill-street, look through the accounts, draw on the bankers to the uttermost farthing, and start for America. It was hard lines to leave town, where he had played the game so long and so successfully. However, that was all over, he should never play it any more, and so he might as well--better, much better--begin his new life in a fresh place.
He dressed himself, got into a cab, and drove to Hill-street. The house had been left in charge of some of those wonderful people who occupy houses during the temporary absence of their legitimate owners; but when Gilbert rang the bell the door was opened, to his intense surprise, by Martin, Lord Ticehurst's valet, whom he had left behind with his lordship at Baden.
"You here, Martin!" said Lloyd with an astonishment mingled with an uncomfortable sensation which he could not conceal. "Why, when did you arrive, and what has brought you?"
"Arrived last night, sir," said Martin with a jaunty air, very different from his usual respectful bearing. "Came by his lordship's orders."
"By his lordship's orders?" echoed Lloyd. "That was rather sudden, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir; very sudden, sir; done all in a hurry, sir; after a long talk with Mr. Clarke the lawyer, sir."
"With Mr. Clarke, eh?" again echoed Lloyd, feeling more and more uncomfortable. "Well, no matter; it's all right, I suppose. Just come up to my room and tell me all about it;" and he was passing on into the house.
"Beg pardon, sir," said Martin, placing himself before him and barring the way; "beg pardon, sir, but you're not to come in; his lordship's orders, sir."
"Not to come in!" cried Lloyd, white with passion; "what the devil do you mean?"
"Just what I say, sir," replied Martin, with perfect coolness; "his lordship's orders, sir; last words he said to me. Got a note here for you, sir. Lordship said if you was here I was to give it you at once; if you wasn't, I wasn't to trouble about finding you until you came here."
"Give it here!" said Lloyd savagely; and Martin dived in his pocket, fetched out the note, and handed it to him with a polite bow. It was in Ticehurst's unformed round schoolboy hand, which Gilbert knew so well; was very short, but very much to the purpose. It said that Lord Ticehurst had given orders that Mr. Lloyd should be denied access to the house in Hill-street; the question of accounts between them could be gone into on Lord Ticehurst's return from the Continent, which would be in the course of the ensuing week. Lord Ticehurst would remain a couple of days in London on his way to his place in Sussex, and would devote those days to settling all matters with Mr. Lloyd. It would be advisable, in the mean time, that Mr. Lloyd should draw no cheques on the account hitherto open to his signature at Lord Ticehurst's bankers, as Lord Ticehurst had given instructions to his bankers to close that account so far as Mr. Lloyd was concerned.
"That's that infernal Clarke's doing," said Gilbert to himself; "Etchingham's writing, certainly, but Clark's suggestion and dictation; Etchingham would not have thought of the idea, and could not have expressed it half so succinctly. There's a chance yet. That order to the bankers could not have been sent by telegram. They would not have risked that. Perhaps I'm in time.--Martin, did you bring any other letters to England?"
"Yes, sir; one from his lordship to Messrs. Tilley and Shoveller. Delivered it at the bank at nine this morning, sir."
"Thanks; I'll write to his lordship. Good-day, Martin." He saw the man bow ironically and stick his tongue in his cheek, but he took no notice. He turned round, but had to make an effort to gather all his strength together and walk away without staggering. The pavement surged up in front of him; the houses on either side threatened to topple over him. When he got out of sight of the valet still lingering at the door, he stopped, and leaned against some railings to recover himself.
It was all over, then! The last chance had been tried, and failed. A day sooner, and he could have carried out his notion of drawing on the bankers and escaping to America. That accursed couple--his wife and his brother--had been against him in that, as well as in all his other misfortunes lately. If he had not waited for that answer from Gertrude,--that answer which, when it came, filled him with so much anxiety,--he would have gone to Hill-street on the previous day, before Martin had arrived, have drawn his cheques, and made all square. Curses on them both! That letter from Gertrude--from Lord Sandilands rather--this last business in Hill-street had driven from his mind; but the thought of it now returned in tenfold agony. It was lost, with all its terrible accusations! Had been found and read, and was probably now in the hands of the police. And he had no means for providing for flight. The few pounds in his purse were all he possessed in the world. He should be taken, and have to die on the scaffold! No, not that; he knew a better trick than that yet.
Once again he had to stop. His legs failed him; his head was burning; he felt his heart beating with loud thick throbs. A dizziness came over him, and it needed all his strength to prevent himself from falling. After a minute or two he felt a little relieved. He called a cab, and was driven to his club. The porter was away from his post, and his deputy, one of the page-boys, failed to recognise the dashing Mr. Lloyd in the pallid man who passed him with unsteady gait, and asked him for his name. He went into the deserted coffee-room, swallowed a glass of brandy, which revived him, then made his way to the writing-room, and wrote a note. It was to a sporting acquaintance of his, who happened at the time to be house-surgeon to one of our largest hospitals, and ran as follows:
"Private..
"Dear Pattle--A nag that has carried my lord (and master) for ten years has become past work, and is dangerous to ride. But his l'ship won't give him up, and some day he'll get his neck broken for his pains. To prevent this I want to put the poor beast quietly out of the way, and I can't trust our vet., who is a blab. Nor do I want to buy any 'stuff' at a chemist's, as, if anything came of it, and it got wind, chemist might peach. Can you manage to send me a small bottle of strychnine by bearer? Do so; and the next good thing that comes off, you shall stand in with the profit.Keep it dark..
"Yours,
"GILBERT LLOYD."
"That's vague enough," said Lloyd, as he read the letter before placing it in an envelope. "But Pattle's a great ass; he'll be flattered to think he is helping my Lord Ticehurst's 'confederate,' and he'll have a dim idea that there's a chance of making some money--quite enough to make him do it." And Gilbert was right. He stopped the cab outside the hospital, and sent in the note. Within five minutes the porter appeared at the door with a parcel, which he handed in "With Mr. Pattle's compliments," and with which Lloyd drove off to his lodgings.
His haggard looks on alighting alarmed Mrs. Jobson, who expressed a hope that he had been to see a doctor. This gave him the opportunity for making an explanation which he had been seeking to bring about, as he came along in the cab. He told the worthy landlady that he had consulted his physician, who told him that the attacks, one of which she had been a witness to, were highly dangerous, and that every means should be taken to check them. With this view the doctor had recommended him, if he felt one coming on, as was not unlikely, judging from the present deranged state of his health, to take a slight quantity of the medicine which he prescribed for him, and which would give him instant relief. Upon which Mrs. Jobson remarked that of course the doctors knew best. She did not herself "hold with" sedatives, confessing at the same time that her experience as regarded their application was confined to certain interesting cases, in which she looked upon the taking of them as flying in the face of Providence, which would not have sent pain if it was not meant to be endured.
Gilbert Lloyd retired to his room, and did not see his landlady again until about nine o'clock that evening, when he sent for her to tell her that he felt a renewal of the symptoms of his attack, that he should at once get to bed, and that he begged he might not be disturbed. This Mrs. Jobson promised, and took her leave. When she was gone Gilbert opened his despatch-box, and commenced the following letter:
"My Dear Lord--You tell me you hear that my relations with Lord Ticehurst are at an end, and you ask me if I will undertake the management of your stud, and personally supervise your affairs. I need scarcely say that I am highly flattered by the proposal, thus repeated, I believe, for the third time. At present, however, I must, in all respect, decline to entertain it. I have been so far lucky that my circumstances are such as to prevent any necessity for my doing any more work for the remainder of my life, while my state of health, especially during the last few weeks, peremptorily forbids my doing anything but nurse myself for some time to--"
Here he finished abruptly, leaving the sheet on the blotting-pad, by the side of the open, despatch-box.
"They'll not be able to get over that," he said with a shudder; "and the woman's testimony will be concurrent. It's an odd thing that a man who can do it should care about what people say of him after it's done."
He shuddered again as from his dressing-case he took a small phial of medicine which he had purchased at a chemist's for the purpose, and from the drawer in which he had locked it the strychnine-bottle, and placed them side by side on the table. He then leisurely undressed himself, turned the bedclothes back, and rumpled the bed to give it the appearance of having been slept in; then he extinguished the light, took the phial of strychnine in his hand, lifted it to his mouth, drained it, and with one convulsive spring managed to throw himself on the bed.
"And he's quite gone, sir?" inquired weeping Mrs. Jobson the next morning of the doctor who had been hastily summoned.
"Gone, madam!" said the doctor, who was a snuffy Scotchman of the old school--"he's as dad as Jullius Cæsar. And this is another case o' the meschief of unauthorised parsons doctorin' themsalves and takkin' medicines in the dark."
Wordsworth has written of one of those beautiful scenes which he loved so intensely, and with whose loveliness he was so familiar--
"The spot was made by Nature for herself;The travellers know it not. * * ** * * But it is beautiful,And if a man should plant his ottage near,Should sleep beneath the shelter of its trees,And blend its waters with his daily meals,He would so love it, that in his death-hourIts image would survive amongst his thoughts."
"The spot was made by Nature for herself;The travellers know it not. * * ** * * But it is beautiful,And if a man should plant his ottage near,Should sleep beneath the shelter of its trees,And blend its waters with his daily meals,He would so love it, that in his death-hourIts image would survive amongst his thoughts."
It was amid a scene to which these lines might be applied, that Lord Sandilands and his daughter were living, a year after the death of Gilbert Lloyd--a scene so grand, and yet so full of soft and tender beauty, that an English writer, who knew it better than anyone except the native Swiss dwellers in it, declared it to be, "even amongst the wonders of the Alps, a very miracle of beauty." It was a nook in the Savoy Alps, near the Valley of the Sixt. It had needed both money and interest to enable the old English nobleman to make even a temporary "settlement" in the remote region; but he had used both to good purpose, when he found that the wounded spirit, the mind diseased, of his daughter were not to be healed by the distractions of travelling in the busy and populous centres of European life. They had tried many places, but she had sickened of all, though she tried hard to hide from her father--whose solicitude for her increased daily, as did her affection for him--that all his efforts to procure peace and pleasure for her were to a great extent ineffectual. The young Englishprima donna--whose brief and brilliant career, whose sudden, unexplained disappearance from the scene of her triumphs, had been the subject of much talk and many conjectures in London--was not identified on the Continent with the Miss Keith who kept so much to herself, but who was so very charming when she could be induced to enter into the pastime of the hour. This was the more natural, as Gertrude never exerted her greatest, her most characteristic, talent--she never sang after she left England The last occasion on which she had "tumbled," as she had said, to a limited but critical audience at Hardriggs, was the last appearance of Miss Lambert on any stage. Miss Keith looked well, when he was to be seen, and talked well, when she could be heard; but she never sang, and thus a kindly mist diffused itself over her identity.
It seemed incredible to Gertrude that the incidents which had occurred, the great emotions she had experienced, the various kinds of suffering she had undergone, could all have passed over her within so brief a period: that in so short a space of time the exterior and interior conditions of her life should be so completely changed. She had passed through many widely-varying phases of mind since she had left England with her father: the uncertainty of her life over, the necessity for personal exertion at an end, and the death of her husband--horrible and unlamented as it was--had produced a great effect upon her. It was like relief from torturing, bodily pain, exhausting and constant; it made her feel the need of deep and prolonged rest, quite undisturbed and irresponsible. She turned impatiently, in the great relief of her freedom, from men and cities; and longed for the solitudes of nature, and the release from conventionalities, which she felt was needed to complete the sense of her emancipation. Lord Sandilands, who, though he had been very well since they left England, was sensibly older, and who had gradually come to centre all his interests in this woman--who, though a reproach, was yet a constant delight to him--instantly obeyed her wishes, and they went to Switzerland. The beaten track of the tourists did not content Gertrude, whose taste for the wild and solitary beauties of nature was thoroughly gratified in the Alp region; and at no late period of their wanderings, they found themselves in the neighbourhood of the beautiful and little-known valley of the Sixt. The place had an interest for Gertrude, from association with a favourite volume which she had read many a time, wondering whether the time would ever come when the scenery of the great glacier-world should be other than a romantic, unattainable vision to her. Lord Sandilands found the air invigorating, and though he could not join Gertrude in her explorations, he made every possible arrangement for their being effected with comfort and safety; and by means of supplying himself with a number of truly English "comforts"--most of which were entirely unintelligible to the simple people of the district, and caused him to be regarded with more than common awe--he established himself very satisfactorily at the hospitable hostelry of the Fer à Cheval, formerly the Convent of Sixt. There had always been a good deal of philosophical contentment in the disposition of Lord Sandilands, and under his present circumstances this useful mental characteristic grew stronger and more ready at call. Reflecting, as he often did now, upon the past, it had an almost amusing effect upon his mind to remember how his time had formerly been passed--the people whom he had really thought of consequence to him, the things he had cared for and taken an interest in. How far away, how along ago, it all seemed now--now that he cared for nothing but Gertrude: the memory of Gertrude's mother--ah, what a blunder his conduct to her had been, as well as what a sin!--and his dead friend's son, mysteriously involved in that sin's consequence. Who remembered him, he thought; and whom did he remember of the many who had been his associates, and had called themselves his friends? If tidings of his death were to be sent to England, how many would say or think more than--"Old Sandilands has popped off, I hear; deuced good thing for the parson's son in Dorsetshire, nephew or cousin, isn't it?" None he knew--and the knowledge did not pain him--except Miles Challoner. And of these phantom friendships, these several associations, he had made the pabulum of his life. What utter nonsense it seemed now, to be sure, when his daughter, sedulously kept out of sight and out of mind during so many years, was now the great central truth and occupation of his life, and his books and the eternal hills the quiet company in which he most delighted! To the old man, too, the time seemed strangely short though eventful, since the whole aspect of his existence had been changed by the revelation made to him by his daughter. Since Gilbert Lloyd's death he had watched her even more closely than before, for the purpose of making up his mind whether she should be left in entire ignorance of who the wicked man who had blighted her young life, and was now removed from it for ever, really was, or whether she should be told the truth. He decided that the latter course should be pursued if Gertrude pined for Miles Challoner's presence, if she made any persistent attempts to break through the barrier of separation which circumstances and her own consent had placed between them. If change of scene, the excitement and interest of travel, and the natural influence of her youth and her recovered liberty should produce the effect he hoped for, should lead her to remember Miles with only a soft, kindly, painless regret, he would not tell her the truth at all; the whole mystery of Geoffrey Challoner's life should rest in his grave with him, instead of only that dark secret which now Lord Sandilands could never by any possibility be forced to divulge. The purpose which his dead friend had had in view in imparting it to him had been faithfully served so long as the unhappy man lived,--it had died with him. Neither Miles nor Gertrude should ever learn that tremendous truth. Lord Sandilands took great delight in his daughter's society, and sometimes under its influence lost sight of the troubles of the past. But the future fate of Gertrude occupied his mind painfully. He had never felt very strong since the illness he had gone through at St. Leonards, and he had become sensible since then that his life was not likely to be much prolonged. He had said nothing to Gertrude of his conviction on this point, nor had he alluded to it in his communications with Miles Challoner. But in the quiet majestic region where they had now taken up their abode, Lord Sandilands found an influence which attuned his mind to very serious thought, and disposed him to the setting of his house in order. What was to become of Gertrude when he should be gone? The painful and peculiar circumstances of her former life disinclined her to seek the busy haunts of the world, and her disposition required companionship, sympathy, and affection. He could leave her in easy circumstances, to be sure,--and he was of much too practical a turn of mind to underrate the importance of such a power,--but he could not give her security or happiness for the future. His heart turned yearningly to Miles Challoner as this solicitude troubled him, and he wondered whether his daughter's heart turned in the same direction. It had not been mentioned between them for long. The death of Gilbert Lloyd had set Gertrude free, so far as she knew; but she felt that the barrier between her and Miles existed still. He had loved and wooed her under a false impression, and since he had known the truth had made no attempt to see or write to her. Lord Sandilands had not failed to discern that she suffered keenly from this cause, but he still believed that she would suffer more keenly had she known the truth--the imperative and insurmountable reason which prevented Miles from again seeking her presence. Thus on this subject--the most interesting, the most vital to the father and the daughter--there had been silence, and now Lord Sandilands wished to break it, but hardly knew how to do so.
The time since the travellers had set up their rest at the Fer à Cheval had passed tranquilly away, and Gertrude had frequently assured her father that she had never enjoyed her foreign tour so much as now, when she found herself among the solemn and majestic beauties of the Alpine lands, and surrounded only by associations with nature, and people of the simplest and most primitive habits. This assurance, so far as it went, was strictly true, and yet Gertrude was not quite happy. It was not altogether the shadow of the past which oppressed her--it was dark, and fell chill upon her, doubtless--but there was an actual haunting grief which was more painful even than that. She had loved worthily a man worthy of her love, she had loved him more than she had known or realised to herself, and he was lost to her now,--a great gulf seemed to have fixed itself between them, and she was perforce condemned to stand upon the opposite shore and gaze vainly across it with longing eyes. What was he doing there, far away in the distance beyond her ken? She did not know, and now not to know was becoming unbearable. Had he forgotten her? How had he borne the revelation which Lord Sandilands had made to him, and which had disclosed to him the terrible deception of her life? Her father had conveyed to her an assurance of his perfect forgiveness, and told her that he had said, hopeless as his suit was now, and void of expectation or happiness as his life must be, he could not regret that he had known and loved her. This was all she knew, and the need, the strong, desperate desire to know more became very potent as the time lengthened, and the first shock of her husband's death, with the revulsion of feeling it had caused, passed away. Thus it happened that by a somewhat analogous process a similar result was wrought in the minds of the father and the daughter, and it became imminent that Miles Challoner should be spoken of between them.
The occasion arose on a splendid evening, late in the summer, when the beauty of the scene amid which they lived was at its height, when the peace and the majesty of the mountains filled their spirits, and the turmoil of the past in their lives seemed an impossible delusion. A time to think of the beloved dead with joyful hope as well as with poignant sorrow; a time to make eternity seem true and near, and hardly surprising; a time and a scene to soften and refine every feeling, and to put far away the passions and pursuits of the common world. Lord Sandilands was keenly impressed by this vague and beautiful influence of nature; and under the impression reverted, as the old do, to the long-past scenes of youth, its pleasures, its dreams, its occupations, and its companions. He talked a great deal to his daughter that evening of her mother, and of his own. The great wrong he had done Gertrude Gautier once frankly acknowledged, and the sincere repentance he had come to feel earnestly professed, Lord Sandilands had alluded to that no more. Gertrude's mother might have been his honoured wife for any tone of restraint or difference there was in his infrequent mention of her. Then he strayed into talk of the associates of his boyhood and his school and college days, and mentioned Mark Challoner, the "young Squire" of Rowley in those distant days. Here was Gertrude's opportunity, and she availed herself of it promptly.
"Tell me about the Squire," she said, looking up into her father's face from her low seat by his side, and laying her clasped hands upon his knee. "I should like to hear all about him. Miles Challoner used to speak of him with the greatest affection and respect."
"Yes," said Lord Sandilands, "Miles loved his father. He was a very good son."
Seeing that a thoughtful expression spread itself over his face, Gertrude was afraid he might lapse again into silence, and once more asked him eagerly to tell her about the Squire. He did so. He told her of the old times at Rowley, of the geniality, heartiness, popularity, happiness of the Squire; of his pretty young wife, her death, the change it wrought in the friend he so loved; of the long-unbroken confidence which had existed between them, only disturbed by death; and as he told the story, and dwelt upon the affectionate remembrances which it revived, he felt how little death had really disturbed the tie between them, how faithfully he had kept his friend's secret, and how wonderful it was to think that his own daughter was so deeply concerned in it--quite unconsciously. As her mobile, expressive face lighted up with interest and emotion, he looked at her with deep tenderness and compassion, thinking of the common suffering which linked her with his dead friend, and made that secret more important to her than even it had been to him. For him it was over and done with for ever; for her its baleful and guilty influence lingered still.
"Is Miles like the Squire?" Gertrude asked.
"Yes," replied Lord Sandilands, "like him in face and in character, but of a milder temper. Mark Challoner was very hot-tempered in his youth, quick, and impatient. Miles is more like his mother in his ways. She was a very sweet woman, and a terrible loss to her husband."
It was a relief to them to have thus slipped into an easy and familiar mention of him whose name had been for so long unspoken between them.
"Have you heard of Miles lately, father?" said Gertrude quietly, and without removing her eyes from Lord Sandilands' face.
"I am very glad you have asked me, my dear," replied her father. "I did not like to talk of Miles to you until you should mention him first. I have heard from him lately, and I don't like the tone in which he writes about himself."
"Is he ill?" said Gertrude, with quick alarm in her face and in her voice.
"No, not at all; but he is thoroughly discontented and unhappy. He has tried his very best and hardest to live the life of a moral English squire at Rowley, but he cannot do it; he has no heart for it; and I should not be surprised any day to hear that he had given up the useless attempt. He has not forgotten you, Gertrude; and he cannot forget you."
"I am glad of that," she said in the same calm tone. "I suppose I ought to say otherwise; but it would not be true, and I cannot say it. I deceived him, and was forced to disappoint him, and bring a great cross on his life; but Icannotsay that I should be glad to know he had forgotten me, and had found elsewhere the happiness he thought he might have had with me."
"I am glad you speak so frankly to me," said Lord Sandilands, laying his hand tenderly on the shining bands of Gertrude's dark-brown hair. "I have been thinking a great deal about you and Miles Challoner; and I should like to know exactly how you feel about him."
The answer was very plainly to be read in her face, but Gertrude did not hesitate to give it in words.
"There is no change in my feelings for him, father," she said. "I shall never cease to love him."
"Would you marry him, Gertrude, if he came to ask you, though your marriage should involve your relinquishing all connexion with England, breaking entirely, even more completely than we have done, with old associations, and making quite a new life in a new country for yourselves? Don't start, my dear, and look so agitated; he has not told me to ask you this. You are not required to give a decision. I have asked you for my own satisfaction, because I want to know."
"I would marry him," Gertrude answered, "to go to the other end of the world with him, if it did not mean parting with you--but that can never be--without a scruple, without a regret, without a fear. But he could not marry me--have I not deceived him?--even supposing he cared for me now as he once did. No, no, that is over and I must not repine, blest as my life is far above my deserts."
She put her father's hand to her lips as she spoke, then laid her soft cheek tenderly upon it.
"And you think the obstacle which your hard fate raised between you and Miles is insurmountable?" said Lord Sandilands, thinking the while of that obstacle of which she was unconscious.
"I think so," Gertrude answered sadly. "Do not you? Have you any reason for thinking it is not so?"
"None that I can make you understand, my child," said Lord Sandilands. "But I have a strong conviction--a feeling which may not be reasonable, but is irresistible--that all this strange riddle of your life will yet work itself out to a clear and happy solution in your becoming Miles Challoner's wife. I understand the extent and force of the objections much better than you do, and give them their full weight in the estimation of the world. But (since I have been here particularly) I have for some time ceased to set very great store by the opinions of the world, and to believe that there is much happiness or even satisfaction to be got out of conformity to them. I fancy Miles is very strongly of my opinion, and in time--not a very long time either--I have a perfect conviction that all will be well, and that when I leave you I shall do so in better hands than mine."
Gertrude's tears were falling before her father concluded these sentences, which he spoke with much earnestness, and for some time she did not speak. At length she said:
"When he writes to you, does he ever mention me?"
"Always, and always in the same invariable tone. No other woman will ever be offered the place in his home which he once hoped would have been yours. This he has told me often, and desired I should tell you, if ever, or whenever, you should again speak of him to me."
"He knows we have not spoken of him lately?"
"He knows that, and has been satisfied that it should be so; the time that has elapsed since the event that set you free has not been too long for a silence dictated by propriety; but it has expired now, Gertrude, and I think you and he might be brought to understand each other, and make up your minds, like rational people, what extent of sacrifice you are prepared to make to secure the privilege of passing the remainder of your lives together."
"I have it not in my power to make any sacrifice," said Gertrude; "that must come from him, if it is to come at all. I wish I had; but it is he who would have all to forgive, all to forego, all to endure."
Lord Sandilands, with his secret knowledge of the truth, felt that she had reason in her words. But he had strong faith in Miles Challoner, and confident hope in the result of a plan which he had formed, and on which this conversation with his daughter finally determined him to act. He did not prolong their conference, but bade Gertrude be of good cheer, and trust in him and in the future. She gave him her ready promise, and a fervent assurance of the happiness and contentment of her life with him, and said a few earnest words of affection to him, which her father received with a fervour which would have astonished himself almost as much as it would have surprised his London acquaintances. As the shades of evening deepened, silence fell upon Lord Sandilands and Gertrude once more, unbroken until he asked her to sing to him. She complied immediately (her father and the peasants were the only persons who now heard the glorious voice which had enchanted the most splendid, refined, and critical audience in the world), and the rich, thrilling strains soon floated out upon the pure mountain-air. Her father--lying on a couch beneath the window at the end of the long room, which commanded a glorious view of the valley leading up to the Col d'Auterne, and from whence Gertrude had watched many a sunrise, and gazed at many a moonlight scene, such as no words could convey a description of--listened to her singing, and was transported in fancy back to the long-vanished past. The last song which Gertrude sung that night was the first she had sung at the concert at Carabas House, when Miles Challoner had looked upon her to love her, and Lord Sandilands had looked at her and found Gertrude Gautier's features in her face.
A few days later, when he had considered the matter maturely, and made up his mind that in the way which had suggested itself to him the happiness of his daughter and Miles Challoner might be secured, Lord Sandilands wrote to his dead friend's son. The letter was a long one, replying fully to the last which he had received from Miles, and giving him excellent advice, which the writer was thoroughly well qualified to offer, concerning the disposition and management of his property. It contained intelligence of Lord Sandilands' health, and a description of the locale and its resources. Then it continued:
"I have purposely avoided mentioning Gertrude to you until the present stage of my letter should have been reached, because I have much to say concerning her of a more serious nature than the details of her daily occupations, and a report of her health and looks. The latter are good, the former are as usual. She still retains unaltered her pleasure in the mountain scenery, the primitive people, and the flowers. She is still the same to me--an affectionate daughter and a charming companion. But some time has now passed since the death of her unhappy husband, and its influence is telling upon her. I have not been blind to the change in her; and a few days ago, for the first time, I mentioned you, and elicited from her an avowal which I am about to disclose to you, addressing you in my double character (and of course without her knowledge) of Gertrude's father and your oldest, and I think I may add truest, friend. She is still attached to you--and in spite of all the sorrow and all the equivocal experiences which have been hers--with a fresh, vivid, and trusting affection, which would suffice, or I am very much mistaken in my estimate of both of you, to make your lives, if united, happy. I do not entertain any doubt that your feelings towards her remain unchanged, and it is on this supposition that I now address you. You have known me long, my dear Miles, and as well as a man of your age can know a man of mine; and when I tell you that I regret more deeply, bitterly, and unavailingly than anything else--it is my lot, the common one of old age, to look back upon the past with vain bitterness and regret--the having hesitated before the opinion of the world in doing my duty by the woman I loved, and following to a practical issue my own conviction of the means by which my true happiness might have been secured, you will not suspect me of unduly underrating, or carelessly despising, the opinion and the judgment of the world. The circumstances must be very exceptional indeed under which I would counsel any man, holding a fair position in society and endowed with the duties and privileges of a landed proprietor as you we, to defy the opinion of society, and to turn his back on those duties and privileges. But yours is a very exceptional position, and I do counsel you to do both these things. Your heart is not in Rowley Court, nor are you capable of fulfilling your duties as you are at present. Make new ones for yourself, my dear Miles. Yield to the inclination which you have partly confessed, and which I have very distinctly perceived, and turn your back upon the scene which has been overclouded for you since your boyhood by a sorrow which has ever been, and must remain, a mystery to you. Geoffrey Challoner's crime is buried in the grave of Gilbert Lloyd; but you will never lay its ghost while you remain at Rowley Court. I am neither a credulous nor a superstitious man; but I have seen more instances than one of the passing away of the 'luck' of an old place, and I feel that Rowley Court is one of those from which the old 'luck' has passed away. So far as leaving the place is concerned, I believe my advice will only anticipate, if even it does anticipate, the resolution I fully expect to hear you have by this time taken. And now to my other point. Society in England and English law do not recognise such a marriage as that of yourself and Gertrude would be; and under anything like ordinary circumstances I should be one of the first and strongest protestants against such a union; but as I have already said, yours are the most exceptional circumstances conceivable out of the region of the wildest romance. Your marriage with Gertrude could not injure any rights, or offend any principles or prejudices, as no one ever likely to see your faces again, or, if you did marry, ever to be aware of the fact, has the least notion of the existence of those circumstances. Sell the property, leave England, and if you still love Gertrude, as she loves you, marry her, and seek happiness and home in a foreign land. I write now, you must bear in mind, remembering that she is entirely ignorant of the complication in your story and hers which sets it apart from perhaps any other human experience. She regards herself as a faulty woman, who deceived the man she loved by an assumption which she deems unpardonable, undeniable, even after that wretched man's death had set her free. You regard her as still (as I believe) the object of your truest love, but parted from you by the fact that the man who made her miserable, and might have made her guilty had not true love intervened to save her, was your own brother, the author of the misery which made the latter years of your father dark and cheerless. These are both substantial truths and phantoms,--the first in their simple existence, the second in the effect they ought to produce on such a mind as yours. The misfortunes of your life are irremediable; but they are also past and gone, and the future may still be yours--yours too, without a braving of opinion, a defiance of the world to which you would probably not feel equal, if the selection of your future course of proceeding were put before you hampered with any such imperative condition. You might take wealth with you to a foreign land, and the antecedents of your wife could never be known there to anyone; here, only to me; and I am ready to give your determination to carry out such a scheme as this my warmest approbation and support, though, if you do it, I must lose the society of my child, which is inexpressibly dear to me. But I owe it to Gertrude, and still more to Gertrude's mother, that I should not rest content with a half-compensation to my daughter, that she should not be only half-happy. I know in what her true happiness would consist, and it shall not be wanting through any failure of self-denial on my part. My time here is not to be long; perhaps it may be peaceful, and less haunted by remorse, if my daughter becomes your wife. I have sinned much towards the living and the dead; and though there does not at first sight appear to be any reparation in the scheme which I propose, there is a reparation which you will understand in part, and I entirely. If I am not in error in respect to your feelings, write to me, and say that you will join us here, when the necessary arrangement of your affairs will admit of your coming.."
When Lord Sandilands had written this letter, he did not immediately despatch it, but laid it by-for a few days, during which he deliberated with himself much and secretly. But the end of all his meditations, the upshot of all his close observation of Gertrude, was a conviction that the letter was an exposition of the truth, and ought to be sent. Accordingly, on the fourth day after he had written he despatched it, and it was fortunate that he had taken and acted upon the resolution at the time he did; for Lord Sandilands was not to act upon any more resolutions, or play any active part in the affairs of this world any more.
On the evening of the day on which his letter to Miles Challoner had been sent away, and while his daughter was singing to him, Lord Sandilands was taken ill with acute gout. The attack had many features in common with that which had tried him so severely at St. Leonards, but was more severe and exhausting. The English doctor from Chamouni shook his head and looked very grave from the first,--he was naturally a gloomy practitioner, but in this instance his gravity was amply justified. There was not enough rallying-power in the constitution of the patient it seemed, and the illness rapidly assumed a fatal aspect. The intelligence was conveyed, not without humane gentleness, to Gertrude, on whom its effect was overwhelming indeed. A kind of stupefaction came over her; she could render but little assistance, but she never left her father, and even when his exhaustion was greatest he was conscious of her presence.
One day, when the end was only a few hours off, she was sitting by Lord Sandilands' bed, holding one of his thin hands in hers, and gazing with looks expressive of such anguish as only such a vigil knows, on his sleeping face. A slight noise at the door disturbed her, but she merely raised her hand with a warning gesture, and did not turn her head. In another moment a man's form approached her with swift, noiseless strides, and she was silently clasped in the arms of Miles Challoner.
Thus sheltered, thus comforted, her father found her when he awoke, and a little while after Lord Sandilands died.