"Eyes," he said, "now throbbing thro' me are ye eyes which did undo me?Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian marble stone?Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid.O'er the desolate sand desert of my heart, and life alone?"Lady Geraldine's Courtship.
"Eyes," he said, "now throbbing thro' me are ye eyes which did undo me?Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian marble stone?Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid.O'er the desolate sand desert of my heart, and life alone?"
Lady Geraldine's Courtship.
It was a beautiful May evening. The air seemed full of incense, the trees which clothe the heights of Heidelberg were just one sheet of snowy blossom. The dull red castle was gilded by the slanting rays of the sun, and for a few moments stood out more decidedly that it is wont to do from the background of hills which surround it. The Neckar lay broad and calm under the light, at one end of the view lost in a narrowing gorge, at the other emerging wide into a seemingly limitless plain.
Down the stream a boat was slowly floating. The current was taking her down quite fast enough to please her inmates. The young man's sculls lay idly skimming the surface of the shining water, and his eyes were turned up towards the bowery heights and the romantic ruin which lay to his right.
The lady in the stern lay back with one hand and wrist clasped lightly on the rudder-lines; but there was little need for very accurate steering, as the season was too early and the stream too strong to tempt many boats out on the water.
"By Jove, how lovely everything looks this evening! like a city in a dream," said Osmond Allonby, for it was he, turning up a face of artistic enjoyment to the lovely scene, with its quaint old roofs clustering down to the river, and its faint blue haze enveloping city and pinewoods alike in the mystery and stillness of evening.
"Charming," said his companion, Mrs. Frederick Orton, as she roused herself, and let her eye follow the direction of his. "Let us land, and stroll up to theSchloss. It will be fine to see the sun set from that height."
"Ah! you are improving, I see. Learning, under my tuition, to appreciate the beauties of nature," said Osmond, in a tone which seemed to imply considerable intimacy.
He was a good deal changed for the worse in the few short months which had elapsed since the shattering of his hopes. It seemed as though his entire will had concentrated itself towards one aim, which, when removed, left his whole moral nature in fragments. His mouth looked hard and mocking, his eyes like those of one who sat up late, his whole manner had degenerated and taken a different tone.
His falling in with the Ortons in Paris had been about the worst thing which could possibly have befallen him. Ottilie's bitter hatred of Percivale and Elsa made her a dangerously sympathetic confidante. With one of those impulses of kind-heartedness which she was not wholly without, she had commissioned the forlorn young man to paint her portrait. This was at the time when his utter solitude and misery were so great, that his better nature was on the point of reasserting itself and sending him back to his forsaken home. But the daily sittings in Mrs. Orton's luxurious boudoir supplied his craving better than a return to duty would have done. She made aprotégéof him. He was good-looking and had plenty to say for himself, his present sardonic and bitter frame of mind was amusing. He fell into the habit of escorting her about when, as frequently happened, her husband was too indolent to accompany her. When they moved from Paris, he went with them. She declared she should be dull without him. For several reasons it suited them better to remain abroad, and Osmond had grown to believe that he could not set foot in England till after Elsa's marriage. The notice of that event in the newspapers did not, however, seem to quicken his desire to go back and take up the broken threads of his life. He was content to dawdle on at Ottilie's side, railing at fate, sneering at the world, and growing every day less able to retrieve himself, and face disappointment like a man.
Ottilie laughed at his remark, as she laughed at all his sneers, whether directed against herself or others.
"Oh, you'll do wonders with me, if you keep on the course of training long enough," she said. "Now pull a few strokes on the bow side. I want to go in."
"This is a sweet place.... I should like to make some stay in it," said Osmond, musingly.
"Like most Edens, you would find there was a snake in it," said she, laughing.
"Might I ask whether you mean anything particular by that remark?"
"What makes you ask?"
"I fancied there was a hidden meaning in it, somehow."
"My dear boy, your penetration is fast becoming a thing to dread. Yes, if you will have it, therewasa special meaning. I looked at the visitors' list this morning, and saw, among the arrivals——"
She paused. They were just in shore. The young man shipped his sculls, leaned his arms on his knees, and faced her steadily.
"Well—who were among the arrivals?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Percivale," she answered, rising. He sprang up to help her to land.
"What a mercy all that folly is over and done with," he said; and laughed, the harsh and dreary laugh proving the falsity of his words as he uttered them.
Turning to the boat he collected her wraps, paid the boatman, and then turned absently towards the town.
"We were going to the castle, I think?"
They set off walking in silence. At last Osmond abruptly broke out:
"They are returning from their honeymoon, I suppose."
"Doubtless. They are soon tired of seclusion; but Mrs. Percivale is no lover of seclusion; she had too much of that in her youth. What she wants now is to have her fling; and that is the very thing which does not by any means meet her husband's wishes."
"Why not? Is he jealous of her?" asked Osmond, in dry, hard tones.
"Jealous? He may be. I daresay she will give him cause; but that is not his reason for not wishing to appear very conspicuously before the public."
"Do you know the real reason?" asked Osmond, after a pause, staring at the ground.
"Broadly speaking, yes, I do. But not the details; they are too carefully concealed. Osmond, my young friend, if you want to be revenged on your successful rival, as is the fashion in the story-books, I could surely show you the easiest way in the world to do it."
"You could?" he said, with a momentary flash of unmistakable interest.
"I could indeed. I mean it."
"Rubbish," he said, in the unceremonious way of addressing her which he had rapidly acquired.
"Oh, very well, if you contradict me flatly—"
"I didn't contradict. I only thought it was another flight of that brilliant fancy of yours."
"It is no fancy, but a solid fact," said she, vehemently, "that nobody knows who Percivale's father was. There! You have it in black and white."
Osmond gave a long whistle, and mused a few minutes in silence. At last—
"Won't do, my friend," said he. "She would never have been allowed to marry a man who could give no account of his antecedents."
"Oh—you think so! You are as clever as all the rest of them! I tell you the man is an adventurer—a mere adventurer! He had no difficulty in bamboozling that old idiot Henry Fowler, who was taken in by him from the first moment he saw him. As for the women, they could none of them see beyond his red beard and his red sash. It is as clever a case of fraud as I ever saw."
Osmond laughed bitterly.
"If it were fraud how can you prove it?" he said. "It is of no use to set indefinite reports afloat. There are hundreds of them already, but nobody believes them. And how can you get at facts?"
"Let me have Mrs. Elsa alone for half-an-hour, and I will engage to know as much as she does by the end of that time."
"And how much does she know?"
"Everything there is to tell."
"How in the world do you know that?"
"Because, my friend, I am, unlike you, a student of character. Percivale is besottedly in love, and, with his idiotic, romantic notions, would be sure to think he must tell his precious Elsa everything."
"Your inconsistency pains me, Mrs. O. Does this tally with the character of the deliberate adventurer? Surely he would have more prudence."
"Well," said she, after a pause, "if she does not know it now, she could certainly make him tell her, if it were put into her head to ask."
"You would be a bad ambassadress. If there is one person on the face of this earth whom she hates, I imagine it to be yourself."
"Oh! Pooh! Let me have her for an hour, I would be her warmest friend."
He smiled.
"You are sanguine," he answered.
"Osmond, you think I am talking nonsense," she said, impetuously. "I tell you I am not. Will you bet on it? Will you bet me that I don't get an interview with Elsa Percivale, win her over, and extract her husband's secret?"
"Yes, I will. Twelve pairs of gloves—anything you choose. You won't do it. To begin with, is it likely her husband will ever leave her alone? Besides, I think you are all wrong. I don't believe in any mystery except what is the invention of gossip."
"Very good. We shall see," was the lady's oracular answer. "Remember, it's a bet."
"Certainly. What am I to have if you fail?"
"A couple of boxes of the very best cigars."
"Done."
No more was said, for they were in the very steepest part of the ascent, and even Osmond's breath began to fail.
At last they were at the summit, repaid by a view which more than atoned for past struggle. As they leaned over the terrace, and gazed down, there was nothing beneath their eye but a foaming sheet of white, spray-like blossom and tender green foliage. The whole air was heavy with its fragrance. It was like a fairy sea, and inspired a longing to plunge one's weary limbs into its flowery midst and be at rest. As Osmond gazed around him, a sadness, born of the evening consecration, stole meltingly over his passion-twisted heart. The monotonous iterance of a little vesper bell somewhere in the valley, hidden by the orchard bowers, added the finishing touch. Leaning over the parapet, he felt unmanly tears welling up from his heart. All around spoke of peace, and it seemed as though the force of an invisible yet all pervading love flung around him.
"A slow arm of sweet compression felt with beatings at the breast."
"A slow arm of sweet compression felt with beatings at the breast."
Not for long had nature had the power so to move him; not since the fair June day when, in the Devonshire Combe, had first shone on him the eyes of the girl who was to prove his undoing. Remorseful memories swept over him all in a moment. A wholesome sense of failure, not in his worldly career, but morally, weighed down his spirit.
Ottilie, seated on the parapet, with her jewellery and her gorgeous parasol, looked out of place. At the moment it seemed as if he loathed her company, and must leave her.
A great yearning to be at peace, and forgive, flooded his heart. All the springs of sentiment were touched. Perhaps if any spot could lift up the degraded soul, and speak to it intensely of its own high possibilities, that spot is Heidelberg at the blossoming of spring.
A bough of lilac swayed close to his lips. Its surpassing freshness drifted past him on the breeze. The wallflower in the cleft of the red sandstone wall gave out with odorous sighs the store of warm sunlight which it had imbibed all day. He covered his face with his hands. Had he been alone, he would have fallen on his knees. There, on the bounteous hill-side, was the ruin of a palace—one of those "little systems of this world, which have their day, and cease to be." The kings who had erected it and lived in it, the men who had, may be, broken their hearts there, as he, Osmond, had lately done, were all past and gone, like a dream. But all around the woods were yet green, the fruit-trees blossomed still; and, encircling the decaying works of man, the works of God took on the semblance of the endless youth of immortality.
No such thought as this took definite shape in Osmond's mind; but the influence spoke all around him in the eloquent silence, teaching him, as God is apt to teach, without words, by the stress of the unseen upon his soul, felt without being comprehended. He had wandered away from Mrs. Orton's incongruous presence, and was alone in the most lonely part of the terrace.
Steps on the gravel roused him—low voices. Then the light ripple of a girl's laugh, like a splash of musical water, made him almost leap from his attitude of musing, every fibre of him alive and quivering with a rush of memory.
She stood before him—Elsa Percivale. Inwardly he said over the strange name that was now hers. One hand was in her husband's arm, the other was full of lilac and cherry-blossom. Her shining eyes beamed from beneath the most alluring of large hats. They looked, at that moment, an ideal bride and bridegroom.
Osmond whitened to the very lips as he faced the pair. He had no moment of preparation. Though he had just heard that they were in Heidelberg, the idea of meeting them face to face had not occurred to him very forcibly.
But, after the first moment of confusion, he felt that he could perhaps more easily have achieved such a meeting in this particular spot, than anywhere else in the world. His mood was that of being lifted above disappointment. He raised his hat with a hand that hardly trembled, and then stepped forward with a low word of greeting.
As for Elsa, when she saw who confronted her, the color flew to her face, and she glanced up at Leon's face with a guilty start. He scarcely looked surprised, but advanced with frank courtesy, saying.
"How do you do? What a lovely spot in which to meet."
"It is indeed," said Osmond, wondering at the calm with which he was able to proceed to offer the customary hopes as to the bride's health, and inquire what sort of weather they had had for their honeymoon.
Elsa was in radiant spirits this evening. She was on her way to London—that London which she loved so well. She was travelling, too, from place to place. Almost every night they stopped at a different hotel, and she sunned herself in the admiring glances of freshtables-d'hôte. Whatever she expressed a wish for was immediately hers. Marriage, so far, suited her exactly. Certainly it was rather dull at Schwannberg and Leon had been rather tiresome sometimes, talking in a manner she could not understand. But that was over now; and honeymoons are not, as a rule, of frequent occurrence in one's career.
Whether Percivale was equally satisfied was a problem not yet to be answered. His thoughts were always hard to guess. Osmond could only note afresh every grace of his person and bearing with a bitterness which not even his late musings could take away.
"Are you here alone?" asked Elsa of Osmond, after her first panic; she was so relieved to find that he shook hands like any other mortal, and attempted no denunciations, that she felt quite at ease.
"No," he said, "I am with the Ortons."
"The Ortons!" cried she, with a gesture of dislike, and then she turned her head, and saw Ottilie Orton just behind her.
"I don't wonder at that involuntary expression of opinion, Mrs. Percivale," said Ottilie, in the soft low tones she could employ when she chose. "I am afraid you will never be able to forgive me for the wrong I did—for the greater wrong I intended to do you."
Ottilie dearly loved a little melodrama, anything approaching a "scene" was quite in her line. After the above speech she looked imploringly at Elsa, not holding out her hand, yet seeming by her whole attitude and expression, to denote that from one so good and beautiful she dared to hope much.
Elsa looked at her husband, and her husband hesitated. His distrust of the lady was profound, yet he did not wish to be rude.
"You cannot know, how can anyone tell," pleaded she, "what little Godfrey was to me? Ah, you saw only the bad side of his nature, you never knew what he could be to those he loved. I—never," here the rich, expressive voice broke, "I never had a child of my own—he was all I had to love. Cannot you imagine the burning sense of wrong—the feeling that my darling was dead, that some one must and should pay for his death? I was blind—mad! I lost all sense of right. I never thought of you, I only wanted vengeance for my boy."
It was beautifully done. The fervent tones took fresh meaning from the picturesque ruin and the lovely surroundings. Two of her auditors listened eagerly, the third, Osmond, turned away sick with disgust. He knew Mrs. Frederick pretty well by now. He had heard her conversation as they climbed the hill together, he knew that, if she possessed one sensation more prominently than another, it was hatred of the two standing before her. Yet she could speak thus to compass her own ends.
Almost before he knew what had happened, both the husband and wife had shaken hands with her, and she had seated herself on the parapet, holding Elsa's hand in hers. He stood apart, hearing as in a dream the conversation which Ottilie knew so well how to sustain—hearing her faltering statements of contrition, and her pitiful complaint of sleepless nights, spent in the wonder as to whether chance would ever give her the opportunity to crave that forgiveness which she so sorely needed.
What the influence of the calm, spring sunset had begun, the violent revulsion of feeling completed in Osmond. A stinging contempt for himself, in that he had worse than idled away three months in this woman's society, overcame him. The thought that, in his cowardly desire of revenge, he had well nigh plotted with her the destruction of this young Elsa's golden dream of happiness seemed to strike him like a lash.
No more—no more! A little fount of longing for his despised and deserted home broke over his barren heart. Home, straight home, now. To sever instantly all connection with the Ortons was his one fixed intention.
"The Castle Hotel!" Ottilie was saying, "why, that is ours. We shall meet at thetable-d'hôteto-night."
A lady! In the narrow spaceBetween the husband and the wife!... She showed a faceWith dangers rife.A subtle smile, that dimpling fledAs night-black lashes rose and fell.The Letter L.
A lady! In the narrow spaceBetween the husband and the wife!... She showed a faceWith dangers rife.A subtle smile, that dimpling fledAs night-black lashes rose and fell.
The Letter L.
"You are an excessively foolish boy," said Ottilie, angrily. "It is idiotic of you, Osmond. Leave the place by express train because of the Percivales! Why, they will probably leave themselves the day after to-morrow, at further. They are making no stay."
"It is of no use to argue," said Osmond, turning his haggard face away from the window, where the twilight was growing obscure. "I am off, Mrs. Orton. I seem an ungrateful brute, I know, but I can't help it. It's my lot, I think, to disappoint everybody who expects anything of me. I have, the feeling upon me that I must go; but, before I go, I want to say one thing."
He stopped short. From the depths of an easy chair, Ottilie made an impatient exclamation.
"Well, then, say it, do," said she, "if it's worth hearing."
"I want to say that the bet's off, as far as I am concerned."
She laughed loudly.
"O ho, that is it, is it? No, no, my friend, you don't get off in that way. When you betted so valiantly, you thought you were putting your money on a certainty; but, since the specimen of my ability I gave you up on the terrace, you begin to tremble. You find that I am not such a fool as you took me for! Excellent! But you shan't beat such a cowardly retreat as that."
"You mistake, partly," said the young man, hurriedly. "I admit that, when I dared you to try a reconciliation, I thought the whole thing was out of the question; and now I see I was mistaken. But don't think I withdraw for fear of loss. You shall have your gloves without the trouble of winning them; sooner than that——"
"Dear me! Then what is all the fuss about?" she asked, sneeringly.
He came up to her chair, laying a clenched hand on the back of it.
"Don't try to do harm—to make mischief," he said, in a low voice. "It's devil's work."
"O—oh! Are we there? It is a sudden attack of virtue you are laboring under, is it? My good friend, don't attempt the part. It doesn't suit you nearly as well as the one you have lately appeared in."
"And what is the part I have lately appeared in?"
"Well, something very nice and fascinating, and easy to get on with. If you are going to be all over prickles, and object to everything on high moral grounds, you will make yourself an emphatic nuisance, as Artemus Ward observed."
"Much better that I should take my departure, then. We shall never agree. But, Mrs. Orton, you have been very kind to me——"
"Oh! don't allude to your gratitude. It is so patent."
"You are bitter. I am glad, perhaps, to think that you will regret me a little bit. But won't you promise me this one thing—the only favor I ever asked you, I believe. Let Percivale's wife alone."
"Osmond, you are a poor, chicken-hearted coward. I am ashamed of you. Why your reasons for hating those two ought to be even stronger than mine. Here lies revenge ready to your hand. Yet you drop it and sneak away. You are worse than Macbeth."
"And you," he rejoined, excitedly, "are worse than Lady Macbeth—a woman who hounded a man on to crime. Thank God I am not so completely under your influence as that, Mrs. Orton."
"You are too complimentary, Mr. Allonby. One would think that I was anxious to murder the Percivales in their beds."
"You are anxious to do them all the harm you can."
"Now listen to me, if your generous rage will allow you to be impartial for a moment. What is all this rhodomontade about? If Percivale is an adventurer, he deserves to be exposed—it is a kindness to his wife to accomplish it. If he is not, my shaft will recoil harmless. I shall do no injury in either case."
"Pardon me. She is his wife. If he is unworthy, for Heaven's sake spare her the pain of knowing it. If he is not, you will most probably achieve the wreck of his married happiness by making her suspect him. Either way you cannot fail to do infinite harm."
"Dear me! You ought to have been a lawyer, not an artist. You have such a logical mind. One would think you cherished no grudge against that empty little jilt for her treatment of you."
"You would think right. I love Elsa. I always shall. Mine is the kind of love that is immortal; I wish it could die. But it cannot. Like Prometheus, it must live for ever, though a vulture gnaw at its very heart. Her treatment of me makes no difference at all. I would die to save her from pain."
"You are a contemptible fool, then!"
"Possibly. My folly may make me happier than your revenge will make you." He walked once or twice through the room, then stopped again at her side. "Won't you give me a promise?" he said, wistfully. "I am going away, and you won't see me again for some time. Won't you promise?"
"I decline to speak to you at all. I am disgusted with you; sorry I ever troubled myself to be kind to such a poor-spirited——"
She rose with passion, flung past him, and left the room. Osmond put his hand over his brow and stood silent for several minutes. Ought he to warn Percivale that Mrs. Orton's pretence of friendship was only specious? Perhaps he ought. And yet——He could not control his jealous dislike so far as that. No, it was impossible. If he washed his own hands of the whole affair, surely that was enough. It was the husband's duty to protect his wife; it was certainly not Osmond's place to interfere. Percivale had obtained possession of the treasure. Let him keep it. So said he vindictively to his own heart.
The sound of the opening door made him start. It was so dark that he could hardly see Frederick Orton as he walked in.
"Is Ottilie here?" he asked, lazily.
"She has just gone out," returned Osmond. "I'll wish you good-bye, Orton; my train goes in half-an-hour."
"Your train? Where the deuce are you off to?"
"England. I have played long enough. I am going back to work."
Frederick stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled.
"Oho! I see daylight. Mr. and Mrs. Percivale are in the hotel," he drawled. "Pooh! what does that matter? Stay and cut him out. Easily done. He's too virtuous to keep any woman's affection for long."
Osmond laughed bitterly.
"Which means that I am not?"
Orton laughed too.
"Look at Ottilie, she is hand and glove with them; sharp girl!" he said. "Thinks they are rich enough to be useful acquaintances, I suppose. Bury the hatchet, old man, and get the happy bridegroom to give you a commission."
"Might manage it seven years hence, but it's no good to try yet," said Osmond, with an effort to copy his tone. "I am afraid Mrs. Orton doesn't like my defection, but she will soon get over it. Remember me to her. I must not wait now, or I shall miss my train."
After all, he had to wait for the next train. Firm in his purpose, however, he declined to go in to thetable-d'hôte, but walked out into the gardens of the hotel, and sat down in the spring starlight, meditating. He recalled the gush of feeling with which the castle had inspired him, and the meeting, so laden with emotion of the most poignant kind.
Meanwhile, Elsa had asked in surprise what had become of Mr. Allonby. She was excessively disappointed not to see him again. She had decked herself in one of her most radianttrousseaugowns, in order to inspire him with fresh despair at sight of what he had lost. In point of fact, she had never regretted her treatment of him until that day. He was greatly altered, and, in her opinion, much for the better. His world-worn air and cold cynicism were just the very things to attract her. How much more interesting he would have been if he had always had that air! He was her timid slave no longer. A desire to subjugate him afresh fired her bosom. He was far better worth thinking about than she had previously imagined. And now, just when she wanted him, he had disappeared.
He was not far off, had she known it. He slowly paced the walk under the trees in the shadow until the dinner was over, and the ladies came out on the balcony. He saw Elsa, in the shimmer of her pale dress, with the moon on her golden hair. She leaned over the balcony and laughed at Ottilie, who was down in the fragrant garden below. Osmond heard Mrs. Orton ask her to come down—it was so cool and fresh among the flowers; and, after a few minutes' hesitation, the girl disappeared within doors, fetched a wrap, and came gliding like a silver moonbeam down the staircase to the lawn.
The young man held his breath as he saw the two walk away together into the gloom of the garden. He was tempted for a moment to emerge from his concealment, join them, and defy Ottilie.
At the moment a clock struck. He started. He must not lose his sole chance of escaping from Heidelberg that night.
Slowly he turned and moved away, his eyes still on the two ladies, the dark and the fair, as they strolled in the picturesque setting of the purple night together; and the sound of Elsa's joyous laugh was the last memory he took with him from the enchanted spot.
It was in this wise that Osmond returned to his duty and his senses.
Hilda and Wynifred had just left Edge Combe, and returned to Mansfield Road in preparation for the wedding-day of the latter, which was to be on the first of June, when, to their delighted astonishment, arrived a letter from Cologne, from Osmond, warm, loving, and penitent, announcing that he was travelling back to them as fast as train would carry him. It is needless to describe the joy with which the sisters and Sally prepared the little house for the wanderer's reception, carefully hiding away out of the studio any picture or study which might bring unpleasant memories in its train.
When he experienced the delight of their welcome, and the sweet surrounding atmosphere of home, he was more ready than ever to marvel at the folly which had led him, in his dark hour, to fly from such a prodigal wealth of sympathy. It seemed, after all, as if trouble had strengthened him. His total failure to bear up like a man against disappointment had taught him a lesson. The ease with which he had lapsed into a "lower range of feeling" was also serviceable in showing him his inherent weakness. Only for the next few months his heart was overshadowed by a deep misgiving. He could not banish from his conscience the idea that he ought to have warned Percivale against Mrs. Orton. His quitting the field, as he had done, washing his hands, like Pilate, free from the guilt of destroying a just man, seemed a despicable piece of pusillanimity. Every day he feared to hear ill tidings of some sort—to learn from the Wynch-Frères, or Henry Fowler, that some unpleasantness had arisen between Elsa and her husband.
But time went on. Wynifred's wedding-day came and went, the Percivales were in town, Elsa's name figured at all the best receptions. She and her husband were seen everywhere together, and though, certainly, there were those who said that he looked very ill, still, the world is always prone to calumny. They were leaving the old house by the river, and moving into an enormous mansion in one of the fashionable squares. The decorating and furnishing of this abode was the delight of the bride's life. Society said that she grew every day more gay and entrancing, her husband more pale and silent. He was not used to the confined life of London—to being up all night in heated rooms, in noise, glare, and crowd. Physically, it told upon him. Lady Mabel Wynch-Frère saw it, and told Elsa, she must take her husband away as soon as possible,
"Yes, poor fellow, it is unfortunate we cannot manage to get away yet, is it not?" said Elsa, brightly. "But you know what upholsterers and decorators are unless one is personally there to superintend them? It is impossible to leave town until things are rather more finished. It is that hateful house in St. James' Place that makes Leon ill, I am sure of it. He will be a different creature when we move."
Certainly no results had as yet followed from Mrs. Orton's enmity. Osmond grew at last to believe that all her talk had been at random, that no mystery existed, that she had done nothing, and that he was a fool to have distressed himself over an angry woman's idle threats.
Yet there were moments,—times of deep thought and solitude, when, on pondering over what he knew of Ottilie's character, this explanation hardly satisfied him. There was a power for evil about this woman which was undeniable—a keenness, a mental activity which were at times formidable. Was it possible that she had obtained the knowledge she sought for, and as yet held it in her bosom like a concealed weapon, waiting a favorable opportunity to strike?
A pleasant autumn afternoon shed its mellow light over Edge Combe. The fields were golden with harvest, and the air was warm with sunshine. In the porch at Lower House, Wynifred Cranmer stood leaning against the arched doorway, her needle-work in her hands. Near her, in a capacious wicker chair, her husband was enjoying his afternoon "weed."
Very contented and serene did Claud look, in his countrified suit of rough cloth, his leggings and thick boots. The costume suited him admirably, and the healthy out-of-door life had already given a glow of red-brown to his fair complexion. His gun lay near at hand, ready for him to clean, when so disposed; but at present life seemed to offer no more perfect enjoyment than to sit still, smoke, and look at his wife's delicate head in a setting of sunny sky and purple clematis blossom.
"Penny for your thoughts, Wyn," he remarked, after a more lengthy pause than usual; for they were, on the whole, rather a talkative pair.
"I was thinking about saucepans," said Wyn, peacefully, as she drew her needleful of silk out of the cloth and stuck in her needle with a click of her thimble.
"Saucepans, my dear girl?"
"Yes, saucepans. Where is my penny?"
"Do you think pots and pans are worth such a sum?"
"I wish they were not. It would be pleasant if we could stock our house with them at the price. No; it was Miss Willoughby's lovely preserving-pan that filled my thoughts. We must drive into Philmouth and get one to-morrow. You are so terribly addicted to jam that I expect I shall pass my whole career in boiling and skimming fruit!"
"Yes, let us have plenty of jam," returned Claud, with interest. "Dear me, how entertaining all the little details of life are, to be sure. I don't know when I have been more excited than when I had successfully contrived those bookshelves; and the sinking of the well in our garden kept me awake two whole nights."
"You silly boy! New brooms sweep clean," said his wife, laughing. "You will get tired of it all one day. No! I don't believe you will! We shall always be planning some improvement, we two. Housekeeping is a great pleasure."
"To think we shall be under our own roof in a month's time, my child," cried Claud, gleefully. "It sounds ungrateful to dear old Fowler, who is such a first-rate fellow; but it will be nice to be all to ourselves, won't it?"
"Won't it!" said Wyn, rapturously, letting fall her work, while she gazed at her husband with devotion.
"Mrs. Cranmer, come here and sit on my knee. I want to say something."
"Can't you say it as we are?"
"It's private and confidential."
"You must put down your pipe then. I can't talk to you if you puff smoke in my face."
He obediently laid aside the pipe and held out his arms invitingly.
Wyn decorously took a seat, still armed with her work.
"A gardener is sure to come by in a moment," she remarked, primly.
"The entire staff of domestics may march past in procession, for aught I care. Don't be silly," said her husband, pinching her ear.
"Well, now, what did you want to say?" asked she.
"Why, that something has upset dear old Henry. I expect it is to do with Elsa. I know he is very anxious about her. I was down at the quarries this morning, and he rode up to give me the message I gave you—that he would not be in to dinner. I thought he seemed not quite himself, and I asked him what it was. He said he would tell me later. He looked most horribly put out."
"Oh, it can't be Elsa. Why, they are coming here in the yacht to-morrow, to spend a week at Edge Willoughby. Something connected with business, it must be."
"I don't think so, from his manner; but we shall see. Imagine those other two honey-moonists turning up to-morrow. I wonder if they enjoyed themselves as much as you and I did?"
"They couldn't!" cried Wyn, letting her work slip from her knee, while she took her husband's face between her hands and caressed it. "No wedding-journey was ever like ours, or ever will be, will it?"
"I don't quite see how itcould," he returned, with an air of candid reflection. "Ours was jolly. We'll have another next year, and go further afield, if we can save up enough out of our income."
"My dear silly, we shall saveheaps! We arerich, I keep on telling you, but you won't believe it. Do you remember my last month's accounts?"
"They were absurd; but we have not tried housekeeping yet."
"And, as we are going to keep such a great deal of dinner company, our expenses will be heavy indeed."
"My dear girl, reflect! Think of the cost of your preserving-pan!"
"As to you, you have just bought that expensive fowling-piece. Whenever my weekly balance is low, I shall send you out shooting. No more butcher's meat till things come right again."
"Ah! Henry Fowler speaks the truth. I am indeed a hen-pecked husband."
"Claud! How dare you? I am sure Mr. Fowler never said such a thing."
"I never said he did."
"You are quite too foolish; and now you must let me go, for here comes George, and he is bringing the tea-tray out here."
"Well done, George," said Mr. Cranmer. "Just what I feel to want. And there comes the postman over the bridge. Run like a good little girl and bring me my letters."
"None for you," said Wyn, returning. "Only one for the Honorable Mrs. C. Cranmer, from Lady Mabel."
As she stood by the rustic tea-table, opening and reading her letter, her husband, for the hundredth time, thought how pretty she looked. Fresh and dainty as to her gown, her face just tinged with color, no longer unnaturally thin, but alive and sparkling with animation. Her soft hair waved about her in the pleasant air, her sole ornaments were the two wide gold rings on the third finger of her left hand. Henry Fowler had witnessed the change he had so longed to effect in her—the combined result of happiness and the Combe air.
From her serene brow to her neatly-shod feet, this doting Claud had not a fault to find with her. She was his own, the darling of his heart, the fulfilment of every need of his soul.
But, even as he gazed, Wyn's happy face clouded; a furrow came in the smooth forehead.
"Oh, Claud!" she said, hurriedly, "here is something very disagreeable. I wonder if Mr. Fowler can have heard this; it would be enough to make him feel very disturbed, at least. Mabel is at Moynart, and Edward joined her yesterday, and he says there is a hateful story about Mr. Percivale going the round of the clubs."
"My child, there usually is a hateful story about him going the round of the clubs——"
"Yes, but Colonel Wynch-Frère seems to think there is something in this one. The names and dates are so accurate. I—it was before my time. Did you ever hear of R——?"
She named a notorious political offender, who, nearly thirty years before, fled to Germany, and there committed suicide on the eve of his arrest.
"Yes," said Claud, thoughtfully, "I remember hearing of it. I was in the nursery at the time. I think Mabel and I acted the whole scene together. We liked a violent death of any sort. But what about him?"
"They say Leon Percivale is his son."
Claud raised his eyes to the scene before him. There lay the bay, there was the spot where the whiteSwanhad anchored. There in the dawn, a twelvemonth ago, he had seen the sun rise over Percivale the victor—Percivale, who had saved Elsa Brabourne from a stigma worse than death.
Now the blow had fallen. The girl whom he had rescued had betrayed him, as Claud had feared she would. The blood rushed to his face, a storm of angry sorrow to his heart. Why, why had such a man wasted his heart on so slight a thing as Elsa?
Wynifred's eyes rested keenly on her husband. She saw his silence, his consternation.
"Oh, Claud, it is not true, is it?"
"No, darling, I know that it is not true; and yet—yet—I fear there is some truth in it."
She came close to him, laying her hands on his shoulders.
"Who can have spoken of such a thing?" she said, earnestly.
"There was only one human being who knew the facts," was the answer. "That was—his wife."
"Claud, no!" Her vehemence startled him. "You should say such a thing of no wife!" she cried. "It is impossible—unnatural! She never could have betrayed such a secret!"
He rose, and slipped an arm round her neck.
"You judge all women by your own standard, dear."
"I don't! I don't do anything of the kind! I do not think highly of Elsa—you know I never did! But that would be too horrible. It has come out some other way. No wife could be such a traitor."
As she spoke the words, Henry Fowler came over the bridge; and instinctively they held their breath. His face looked calmer and he was smiling.
"Well, young people," he said, brightly, "my eyes are getting old, you know, but I don't fancy I'm wrong. Claud, look out to sea. Isn't there a sail out there towards Lyme? Isn't it the cutter?"
Claud turned his eyes in the direction indicated.
"Right enough," he said. "If this breeze holds, she'll be here in no time. She has made her journey a day faster than was expected."
"Ay lad! It's a year to-day since she came sailing into the bay! Yesterday was the night of the great storm."
He turned to Wyn. "I got a bit upset to-day by some foolish talk that I heard in Stanton about Leon. But I've decided to think no more of it. As soon as I see him I know I should feel ashamed of myself to have thought ill of the lad—God bless him! Now, Mrs. Cranmer, a cup of tea, if you please, for I must be off down to the shore."
Wyn slipped her letter into her pocket, and betook herself to the tea-pot. Her husband hastily got up, leaving his own tea almost untasted, and disappeared into the house to collect himself a little; for he felt as though his meeting with Percivale might be agitating.