Edwards_Archie_Lovell.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
CHAPTER I.
durant's court.
The Kght of a cloudless August morning was
shining upon the old hotise and garden down in
Staffordshire. Shining with ruddy warmth upon
the glistening vari-coloured tiles in which the
"rose and crampette," the family badge, was
worked upon the pinnacled gables : flecking with
shafts of quivering brightness the grey stone mul-
lions of the narrow windows ; illuminating in amber
and gold the mouldering cartouche shield upon the
eastern front which told, as well as you could de-
cipher for ivy, how the house was built by a certain
' Hugh Durant, in the year of grace 1570, and
VOL. III. B
2 ARCHIE LOVELL.
where the Durant arms, lichen-grown, and stained
with the weather of three hundred winters were
sculptured.
August was the month of the year when the
Court garden was at its zenith. Geraniums, calce-
olarias, verbenas, all were in their fullest blaze of
colour nX)w ; nor was the sight the only sense grati-
fied, as in too many modem gardens is the case.
Far and wide across the lawns was blown the
subtle, cinnamon firagrance of the cedars ; clove
carnations, and scented pinks were plentiful in the
borders ; the magnolia in the sheltered south angle
of the Court was covered with blossoms that filled*
the air with their intoxicating sweetness a sweet-
ness to which the odour from peaches and necta-
rines in the pleached alleys close at hand was
married most deliciously.
It was a garden that, once seen upon a sunmier
morning like this, was apt to haunt, not your
memory only, but your heart ; as a sweet old tune
does, or a fair and noble face out of one of Van-
dyck's pictures. Every part of it was laid out
strictly in accordance with the fashion of the times
DUBANT*S COURT. 3
in which the house was built There were images
cut in juniper or *^ other garden stuffe ; " little stiff
yew-hedgies^ with occasional pyramids, statues, and
fountains; spacious turf- walks, set as in the days
when Bacon wrote, with bumet, wild thyme, and
water-mints to perfume the air when trodden upon
and crushed, and in disregardance of all those rules
of modem horticulture which keep firuit and flowers
distinct, fruit-trees, espaliered, were ranged on
either side of most of the bordered walks.
And in its quaint antiquity, in its defiance of
science and of fashion, alike, lay the potency, the
human element, of its charm. Just as within the
walls of Durant's Court you were overcome by in-
separable associations of the men who had been
bom and rejoiced over, who had sorrowed and died
there, so imder the cedars, and in the shaded walks
and alleys of the garden, you were haunted by
mute memories' of the youthful vows that must
have been exchanged, the youthful Hps that must
have kissed here in the lapse of time between
Elizabeth and Victoria. The love- whispers of a
dozen buried generations, the roses of three hun-
B 2
4 ARCHIE LOVELL.
dred or so dead Junes seemed to have left some
lingering echo, some intangible pathetic fragrance
in every nook and comer of the unchanged old
place. Love was in its atmosphere! And with
the August sun shining over all as it did now,
the warm air rich with odours, aUve with the
hum of bees and voices of birds, it looked as fitting
a scene as could have been found anywhere for
the enactment of the first brightest act in the play
of life. A fitting background to the two figures, a
young man's and a girl's, who were standing toge-
ther on the lawn beneath the cedars; the sun
flickering down on the girl's white dress and deli-
cate cheek as she looked up with quiet happiness,
with the perfect assurance of acknowledged and
requited love, into her companion's face.
For Gerald and Lucia were once more openly
affianced lovers ; and Lady Durant, too happy in
her heart to see them so, no longer gave lectures
against imdue demonstrations of feeling before
marriage. Ten days had passed on now since
the prodigal had first returned and been forgiven ;
and ^while Mr. Wickham, with unslacked ardour.
dubant's court. 5
was pusliing forward inquiries in London, and
daily gaining fresh evidence in support of the case
that he was working no faintest rumour of the
position in which he stood had as yet reached
Gerald's own ears or to the Court. His first in-
terview with Sir John Durant had been a charac-
teristic one ; the old man for the first five minutes
vehemently declaring that unless his nephew could
prove his innocencQ regarding Maggie Hall, he
would never receive him back to his fireside or to
his affection; and Gerald, with perfect firmness,
but admirable courtesy and temper, declaring that
he neither could nor would seek to prove one cir-
cumstance that should exonerate himself! "I
have already told you, on my honour, that I am
guiltless," he said, simply. " I have told you that
I have had reasons impossible to explain for bear-
ing the imputation silently hitherto, and it rests
with you now, I think, to take the stigma away
from me or not. Say one word, sir, and I will
leave your house in five minutes and return to it
if you choose no more." And Sir John, looking
into his handsome face, the face that had never lied
6 ABCHIE LOVELL.
to him during all the bygone years, had not only
held out his hand to Gerald on the spot, but asked
him with tears in his eyes to forgive them all for
the wrong that they had done to him by their
suspicions.
This was immediately after Gerald's arrival at
the Court. On the very day following, Mrs*
Sherborne, with her dark news of Maggie Hall's
death, returned to Heathcotes ; and while Lucia
in the first happiness of reconciliation was wan-
dering, her hand on Gerald's arm, through the
woods and gardens of the Court, many were the
whispered asides of the county world as to the
opportuneness of Mr. Durant's return at this par-
ticular season, the heartlessness of Lady Durant
in allowing him with such hot haste to be again
the suitor of her daughter.
A woman who, at the best of times, barely
tolerates the people she lives amongst, is sure of
receiving pretty stringent criticism upon her actions
when occasion arises. All the pottery ladies who
had been snubbed ^ignored, perhaps, is the juster
word ^by Lady Durant, felt it their duty now to
durant's court. 7
express what they, as mothers, thought with regard
to her conduct. As long as Maggie Hall lived,
Mr. Durant ^married, or unmarried, who should
say ? ^had been banished from the Court : on the
day succeeding her death ^let it be hoped a death
that was fairly come by! ^he appeared openly
among them again, as Miss Durant's future hus-
band. Of course, every one trusted sincerely that
Mr. Durant had had no share in the unhappy girl's
betrayal; still it must be confessed that things
looked most suspicious against him, and that it
would have been more delicate ^not to say human
of Lady Durant had she allowed a little longer
time to elapse before bringing him forward again in
the eyes of the world at her daughter's side.
This was the outside, or neighbourly, view of
the position ; Lady Durant meanwhile leading her
accustomed imtroubled life, in happy ignorance of
what was being whispered by the people who
courted her bow as she drove abroad, or flocked
round her carriage whenever it stopped in the
village, to offer congratulations on the now openly-
acknowledged engagement of her daughter. Led by
8 ARCHIE LOVELL.
the instinct which, in a true woman's heart so
seldom errs, Lady Durant had never, .from the
first, shared her husband's suspicions against
Gerald, and the only really strong feeling she
had with regard to Mrs. Sherborne's story was
its indecorum. It was, of course, impossible actu-
ally to keep from Lucia the fact of her old play-
mate's death : {he news told, and Lady Durant
made an express request that no allusion should
ever again be made to the subject in her hearing.
It was about the first time in her calm, seques-
tered, selfish existence, that any of the grosser
accidents of every-day life passion, abandonment,
despair : possibilities unrecognised by Mrs. Hannah
More as ever likely to compromise the sensibility"
of any woman of refinement had been thrust upon
her own personal experience ; and the easiest way
of getting rid of the unpleasant sensations they
occasioned was, obviously, not to talk about them.
Poor, common, erring human nature being the one
element which Lady Durant had never taken into
consideration in her otherwise admirable scheme
of human life ; she was about as well fitted to
durant's court. 9
cope with any of its ordinary manifestations^ as
were the pious cloistered nuns fitted to cope with
common storm and common simshine, when the
French Revolution first opened the convent doors
and sent them adrift; upon the world.
On one point only, kindly and charitable as she
was, did the mistress of Durant's Court entertain
any decided opinion in the matter, namely, that it
was a very merciful thing it had pleased Provi-
dence the poor creature M%gie should have been
taken. It was an awftd judgment, upon herself, of
course, and a solemn warning to all other young
women in that condition of life ; still, if a member
of any good family had been implicated, as was
supposed, in the unhappy girl's flight, it was a
mercy for which that family, and, indeed, all right-
thinking persons, could not be too thankful that
she was " released." And when Mrs. Sherborne
went away, with tear-stained face and aching heart,
after the first dreaded ordeal of breaking the news
at the Court, the honest woman felt duly cast down
at the benignity of Providence with respect to the
gentry (as contradistinguished from the lower
10 ARCHIE LOVELL.
dasses) which Lady Durant, in a lecture of an
hour and a half^ had pointed out to her.
" My lady spoke up beautiful," she told her hus-
band that night ; " all * about the wicked cease
from troubling/ and other texty's, Thomas ; but
Sir John, he cares most at heart for our poor girl's
death. The tears were in Sir John's eyes, mark
you, and when my lady had gone away he says to
me, ' Mrs. Sherborne, be satisfied the right shall be
done yet, and whoever did this thing, or caused the
girl to do it, shall be brought to justice if I've any
power to bring him there.' My lady's very kind
and very good, but she has her feeling, you see,
Thomas, as a lady, and Sir John he has his feel-
ings as a gentleman; and nothing can be more
different than the feelings of a lady and of a gen-
tleman," added Mrs. Sherborne, " where a hand-
some girl like poor Maggie is concerned."
And she was right. In small domestic matters
the kindly weak old man was, happily for himself,
entirely under his wife's domination. In any posi-
tion where he felt his honour, however remotely, to
be touched he consulted no one. And honour and
dukant's court. 11
justice alike called upon him to be in some sort the
champion of the dead girl ; every plough-boy, every
dairy-servant on his estate, being, according to the
old man's stately feudal ideas, a rightful claimant
upon his protection. That Gerald had been wholly
innocent of taking Margaret Hall from her home,
he believed now upon hiJ soul. On whose head
the guilt of her death lay, God only knew I but
had his own son lived, and Sir John Durant sus-
pected him of being the man, he would have felt it
his plain duty as a gentleman to help to bring him
to justice.
It was a case simply in which every chivalrous
instinct of his nature bade him take up the side of
the weak against the strong. Towards the follies
which men, collectively, have agreed to condone,
or call by no worse name than follies, Sir John
Duranfs conscience was as passively elastic as are
the consciences of most men who have lived their
threescore years and ten on the earth. He was no
Don Quixote to espouse the cause of a dairy-girl
who of her own free-wiU had forsaken her duty,
and then ^following the natural law of such
12 ARCHIE LOVELL.
matters ^been forsaken in her turn. But Mrs.
Sherborne's story, the vague insinuations of the
newspapers, had hinted to him a far darker sus-
picion than that of abandoned love or broken
trust; the suspicion that Margaret Hall, a law-
fully-married wife, had come by her death unfairly.
And quietly, and without speaking to any one in
the house of what he had done, the old man
wrote off at once to his London lawyer, desiring
him to inquire into the circumstances of the
" London Bridge case " at once, and, if need be,
offer a reward in his name for the discovery of
any person or persons concerned in the girl's
death. "She had been accidentally identified as
a farm-servant of one of his oldest tenants," he
wrote, "and some suspicion seeming to rest upon
the manner of her death, he felt it a kind of
personal duty to encourage the fullest investiga-
tion in the matter." And the reward of 100/.
had been duly offered and posted ; and Mr. Wick-
ham ^knowing the quarter from whence it came
^had prosecuted his researches with redoubled
energy, duly informing Sir John Durant's lawyer
durant's court. 13
how the case was being successfully "worked,"
^and how quiet and patience were, he believed,
all that was requisite to bring home guilt to the
rightful party in this mysterious aflfair. Every
word of which intelligence was read morning after
morning by Sir John at the breakfast-table, with
Gerald sitting at Lucia's side, and Gerald's face
and laugh making the old room bright as it had
never been during the last bitter months of his
estrangement from the Court.
Robert Dennison's name, as if by tacit consent,
was seldom mentioned among them during this
time. Once or twice old Sir John had said some-
thing about writing and making Robert come
down, with Conyers, to talk over electioneering
matters, and Gerald each time had remarked, in
a joking tone, but with a serious face, that he
should certainly go back to London for the occa-
sion ; old Conyers and Robert Dennison discussing
business being something altogether out of his
sphere. The days, however, passed on without
Dennison either writing or making his appear-
ance; and as it was now near the middle of
14 AECHIE LOVELL.
August, Sir John began to say that Robert must
certainly have gone out of town ^probably out of,
England, as usual, for the rest of the vacation ^a
belief which Gerald, who shrank from meeting his
cousin as though he had himself been the guilty
one of the two, was not slow to encourage.
As much as it was in his easy nature to despise
anyone, he despised Eobert Dennison now. A
man might be cynical, selfish, facile-principled,
and so long as he was a gentleman, so long as his
failings were decently glossed over by refinement,
Gerald Durant could like him still. What were
the majority of the men he lived amongst, and
called by the name of friends ? Whether Srobert
Dennison had or had not been legally married to
Maggie Hall, there were no present means setting
aside the evidence of those two letters he had re-
turned to him in Morteville of telling. Married,
or not married, there could of course be little doubt
as to his wearying in six weeks of the poor crea-
ture's society; and Gerald was the last man to
blame another for the inconstancy of feeling which
in his own case he regarded as a happy natural
dueant's coobt. 15
infinnity^ rather than an error. But would not a
man of common manliness, a man possessing one
of the instincts of a gentleman, have shielded all
the more scrupulously from evil the helpless girl to
whom love bound him no more P To win a woman
from her duty was, according to Gerald's light, what
many a good fellow would do under strong tempta-
tion : to tire of her ^well, to tire of everjrthing is
an inseparable condition of human existence ! but
to refuse a woman, so won, protection while she
lived ; to put her away from her rightful place, if
indeed he had been unfortunate enough to marry
her ^was the conduct of a blackguard. (A fine
distinction, perhaps, but. none the less real to a
man educated as Gerald Durant had been.)
Maggie EaU had died a forlorn wanderer upon
the London streets ^for with bitterest self-re-
proach Gerald's memory recalled to him the
woman of whose face he had caught a glimpse
upon the bridge, and whom, in his Sybarite shrink-
ing from misery, he had left to perish : the woman
whom Archie Lovell sought to save ! He remem-
bered how that wan face haunted him: remembered
16 ARCHIE LOVELL.
how he had spoken of it, " the ghost of a Stafford-
shire face," in Dennison's chamhers : remembered
the tone of Dennison's voice, the cold sneer that
rose upon his Kps as he answered. And yet at
that moment as he sat there with his friends, in
his well-appointed rooms, after his excellent dinner
and wines, he must have known what dark shame
was in truth possible . . . the fresh face he had
wooed bared to the disgrace of London gaslight !
the woman who had been his love exposed to
horrors of which a violent and seK-sought dearth
was the lightest !
In his own way, Gerald Durant was capable of
actions that viewed altogether from the heights
were as intrinsically wrong, perhaps, as any of
Robert Dennison's ; and yet, in a higher and very
different degree, he felt himself as removed from
the level of his cousin now, as Waters had felt
himself removed from the level of his Morteville
associates. For Gerald, whatever his faults, had
always been, always must be, a gentleman, " sans
peur et sans reproche!^ He had been brought up
to think that the unstained honour of a dozen
ii
durant's court. 17
generations, at least, of Durante had descended to
him ; and that every good thing of life, nay, life
itself, should always be held ready for sacrifice in
his hand, sooner than that one jot or one tittle of
that bright inheritance should be allowed to pass
away. And any man who believes himself to be
a heritor by birth of what the world calls honour
(or dishonour) is already far upon the road towards
meriting the title by his actions. The code on
which the Durant principles were framed was not
by any means a transcendental or a perfect one.
It was simply the very common -place, faulty,
narrow code, which men of the world unques-
tioningly hold to embody honour. But, whatever
its leniency on some points, it branded falsehood
and cowardice with the brand of shame irretrie-
vable : and in his heart, Gerald felt himself forced
to acknowledge that Robert Dennison was capable
of both ! He had no more thought of betraying
him now than he had had during all the bygone
months, when his own ruin had so nearly been the
price of his generosity. Robert was a poor man ;
and a single breath of such a story as this might
VOL. in.
18 ARCHIE LOVELL.
be enougli to blight his professional prospects for
life. Robert was Lucia's first cousin, Sir John
Durant^s nephew ; and to sully his fair fame was
in some measure to sully the fair fame of the
family. He would keep his counsel; stand by
him, outwardly, with the same staunchness still;
only and this Gerald felt with daily, hourly-in-
creasing repugnance ^he could never again make
Dennison his companion, could never again bear to
see his smooth face here at the Court, or at Lucia's
side. Here, in the quiet old garden, under the
dear old trees where falsehood, cowardice, dis-
honour, were words unknown: the trees under
whose shade Robert first wooed as his wife the
girl who now lay in a nameless London grave and
with only darkest disgrace and shame written over
her for her epitaph.
Such thoughts, joined to other personal ones
by no means void of pain for Archie Lovell was
neither forgotten nor unavenged in his heart ^had
made Gerald a somewhat silent and spiritless lover
during these early days of his renewed engagement
with Lucia. At the present moment, however,
durant's court. 19
standing after an excellent breakfast in the plea-
sant morning air ; his admirable havanna between
his lips ; the sunlight, the smell of flowers, the
song of birds, the sight of Lucia herself afresh,
pure, simple as the white dress she wore all
ministering to the gratification of his keen-strung,
pleasure-craving nature, every dark thought seemed
very far indeed from Gerald Durant. The singu-
larly false platitude about the inability of money
to purchase enjoyment is never more false than
when applied to a man like Gerald. Good horses,
good wines, a good cook ; a place like the Court to
live in during the shooting season ; were precisely^
now that his youth was waning at six-and-twenty !.
the things which he knew himself to need. In
another five years, when he should have done for
ever with balls, and every other lingering folly of
his youth, a favourite arm-chair at the club when
he was in town; horses that were somewhat
heavier weight-carriers in the country; and a
better chef and better wines than ever, con-
stantly. And all this lay before him in the
common course of things if he married Lucia;
2
20 ARCHIE LOVELL.
and she was a very nice girl, poor little thing !
fair, gentle, and feminine ; and really looking her
best, looking as only English girls can look now,
with the morning light searching out her im-
covered face and discovering no flaw thereon;
and the golden sun giving her smooth dust-
coloured hair a tinge of red which made it
almost almost for one passing moment look
like Archie's.
"And what sort of people are these ^Lovells,
did you say ? these new people at the Rectory ? "
Gerald had been in town the last two days and had
only returned to the Court late last night. "What
is this Miss Lovell like who is coming here?
Pretty, I hope ? "
"Oh, dear no,'' answered Miss Durant, deci-
sively. "Not in the least. I called at the
Rectory yesterday, and mamma, and I both
thought her quite plain. A freckled brown skin,
and red hair, and large mouth, and so odd
mannered. I hope you won't mind her coming,
Gerald ? but you know we did not expect you till
this evening, and mamma is anxious I should be
durant's court. 21
friendly to the poor girl. You won't mind her
now, will you ? "
" Well, if she is plain, Lucia, I certainly shall
not ; neither mind her nor look at her. Whatever
she was," he added, in answer to a certain look
that he read in Miss Durant's eyes, " I should not
be likely to think much of her or any one else
when you are by, Lucia ! " And throwing away
the end of his cigar, Mr. Durant put his arm round
his cousin's waist and drew her to his side.
" Oh Gerald, please, how can you ! only think if
mamma "
" Mamma's jurisdiction is over," he interrupted
her. "If mamma was looking through the
window, as I dare say she is, I should make a
point of "
"Oh Gerald, oh please, don't!" cried Miss
Durant, her fair face crimson. " Miss Lovell may
be here any minute. Just think if the new rector's
daughter was to see me like this ! "
" Well, I suppose rector's daughters are some-
times engaged to their first cousins, and even have
dim glimmerings of the fearful results of such a
22 ABCHIE LOVELL.
position," said Gerald. " Don't be a baby, Lucia !
for merc/s sake, don't be *a baby any longer ^I
shall like you so much better if you are not and
now come in, and let's have some music, child. I
heard you mur practising something out of
Dinorah this morning, and I want to give you a
lesson. If you leave off being a baby and learn to
sing well and you have really a very nice voice
I shall be so fond of you, Lucia."
And, his arm around her still, they went through
the open French window into the drawing-room
together ; and then Gerald seated himself at the
piano, and while Lucia looked for her music, began
rambling, as his way was, from one air to another
till he reached Fortunio's song which brought his
thoughts back abruptly, and with singular distinct-
ness, to Archie Lovell.
" You are always singing that thing," said Miss
Durant, as she returned, her arms full of music, to
his side. " I can't think why you are so fond of it.
I see nothing in it at all."
" No ? Perhaps you don't understand it, Lucia,"
answered Gerald, taking his hands away from the
durant's court. 23
keys, and sighing inwardly as he glanced at the
goodly pile of songs that his beloved had brought.
" Not understand ? Why I understand French
as well as English. Si vom croyez*' ^Lucia's
accent was very British indeed " que je vats dire.
If you believe that I am going to say whom I dare
to love, I should not know for an empire "
"Ah, Lucia, for pity ! " interrupted Gerald,
jumping up, and clasping a hand on each side of
his head. " Sing, my child, sing * Beautiful Star/
or * Ever of Thee,' or any other of your favourites,
but for heaven's sake don't meddle with mine.
Neyer translate French again, there's a good girl.
I shall be so much fonder of you, Lucia, if you
don't try to translate French again."
" But did I not translate it accurately, Gerald P
Was I wrong in one word ? Si vom croyez "
"Sing," interrupted Gerald, peremptorily and
making her sit down before the piano " What P
Oh, anything in the world that you like ^this."
And taking up the first song from the heap she had
deposited on the top of the instrument, he opened
it before her, and Lucia sang.
24 ARCHIE LOVELL.
She had a tolerably correct ear, and a really nice
voice ; and she had been taught as well as English
masters in the country do teach, and when it was
marked piano in the score she sang soft, and when
forte, loud : arid she played her accompaniments
correctly; and altogether irritated Gerald more
thoroughly than any singer he had ever listened to
in his life.
He had many tastes love, pictures, books, good
horses, good wines ^but only one passion : and
that passion was music. He could sit through the
longest classical concerts ^the first English guards-
man, I believe, of whom the fact has been recorded
with acute unmixed enjoyment : could pass any
number of hours listening to the choruses of Greek
or Italian sailors, when he was yachting in the
Mediterranean: could hear, with a certain pleasure
even the " belle voix fausse," of Theresa, herself.
No music in which music was, from the highest
rendering of Beethoven down to the rude choruses
of half a dozen sailors, or, lower far, the songs of a
caf6 chantant, came amiss to him. He said of him-
self that he would rather have bad music than no
durant's court. 25
music ; and, with the exception of Lucia's singing,
this was true. But Lucin's singing was a thing
apart : perhaps because he knew he was going to
listen to it all his life. He got actually hot and
irritable, when he listened to her ^it was so cor-
rectly irreproachable, so utterly inexplicably void of
nature, feeling, sympathy.
" Brava, brava, Lucia ! " This when four con-
secutive modem English songs had been sung to
him, without the omission of a verse, without the
wrong playing of a bar ; with only that subtle want
in every note that caused him such intolerable
suffering as he listened. ** Of the songs themselves
I don't think much, but you really sing them most
correctly. Now, shall we try something of a
different kind that air from Dinorah I heard you
singing this morning ? "
" Just as you like, but I have not near done my
English songs yet.- However, I can go back to them
afterwards, if the rector's daughter is not here.
* Sd vendicati assai ; ' " the Italian accent, if pos-
sible, more loyally British than the French one ;
"it's rather low, but Mr. Bligh thinks my lower
26 AECHIE LOVELL.
notes quite as good as my high ones." And then
doke and piano, and gradually crescendo, according
to the printed directions^ Miss Durant went on
duly with tiie execution of the song.
Gerald heard her out in patient martyrdom
through one verse, and into the middle of the
second ; then he made a sudden swoop down upon
her hands, and before Miss Durant had had time
to recover herself, had dispossessed her from her
place at the piano and seated himself there instead.
** My dear Gerald, what is the matter ? " she
cried, in her little prim old-maidish way, and
smoothing down the ruflled bows of blue ribbon at
her wrists. "Do you really mean that I don't
know that song perfect? Why, Mr. Bligh
said "
" You know it perfectly perfect, Lucia ! You
sing it like a bird ! only, do yo.u see, the circum-
stances under which the young man in the opera
sings that song, are not cheerful ones, and a little
just a little more expression is demanded than
you give to the words. If you remark now, at this
particidar point, we are told that the voice is to be
durant's coubt. 27
^ mfocato dalle lagrime.* He is calling upon the
woman he has lost, you know ''
"I know;" Miss Purant always knew every-
thing ; "Mr. Bligh told me, and said I attended to
all the marks very carefully indeed. It's quite
absurd to take things literally in songs," added
Lucia, wisely. " I am no more choked with tears
than I am ready to expire at anyone's feet, and as
Mr. Bligh says "
"Shall I sing it to you, Lucia?" interrupted
Oerald, who felt himself going mad every time Mr.
Bligh's name was mentioned ; " I can't play the
accompaniment right, because, as you know, I play
more than half by ear ; but I really can, Lucia, if
you would only believe me, show you the kind of
feeling that should be thrown into the song."
" Oh, yes, Gerald, I shall be very glad to hear
you. Still I assure you, Mr. "
But, before that horrible name could sound
again, began a low, plaintive prelude at which
Miss Durant smiled pityingly, inasmuch as it was
not the accompaniment written and printed, and
taught to her by Mr. Bligh a minute later and
28 ARCHIE LOVELL.
Gerald's voice was filling the room "with its rich
flood of true and natural music. As he sang he
forgot his little irritation against Lucia; remem-
bered only the part into which, with all the fervour
of his happy temperament, he had thrown himself
in a moment ; and when he reached the point at
which he had interrupted her,
** Rispondia a chi t'implora,
Rispondi' o cara a me ! "
Mr. Durant put his right arm round Lucia's waist,
and turned his face caressingly up to hers as the
soft Italian words of tenderness and despair floated
from his Hps.
No picture of mutual and happy love could be
prettier than the one they formed at this moment :
Lucia in her white dress, and with her slight figure
and fair young head half bending over, half turning
away from her cousin; Gerald with one hand
lightly touching the keys, the other clasped round
the 'girl's slender waist as his lips parted, his
handsome eyes softening with the passionate mean-
ing of the music he looked up, full and im-
ploringly, into her face.
DURANT^S COURT. 29
And the picture was not unseen. A step, un-
heard, had come up to the open window ; a jGlgure,
unnoticed, had stood and watched aU that little
love scene : and then and there and while in very
truth his imagination was addressing Archie Wil-
son, not Lucia Durant died by sudden death,
whatever fancy for Gerald had once existed in the
heart of the woman he loved, or believed he could
have loved, best on earth.
" Miss Miss Lovell ! " cried Lucia, starting
away from Gerald's arm as the figure moved at
last, and a shadow falling across the pages of the
song told her that they were not alone. " I beg
your pardon, but we were signing, and the time
went so quickly "
**Lady Durant told me to come this way," said
a voice quietly ; a voice that seemed to send every
drop of blood in his body to Gerald's heart. " Don't
let me interrupt you, please, unless your song is
finished."
And then, with calm and stately self-possession,
the new rector's daughter walked into the room.
Gerald had prepared himself from Lucia's de-
30 AfiCHIE LOVELL.
scription, for a red-haired, repulsive young person
of six-and-twenty ; a young person canying a
basket, and requesting subscriptions, and generally
speaking through her nose, and talking of the
parish and the Sunday-schools. He turned round,
startled by the voice, and full before him, fresher,
brighter than he had ever seen her yet, stood
Archie.
" Eispondia a chi t'implora,
Bispondi' o cara a me ! "
His prayer was answered already ; but Mr.
Burant did not feel near as comfortable as he had
done when dying musically of despair, his arm
round JLucia's waist, a minute ago.
CHAPTER. II.
Archie pays her debt.
She was cold as ice, and received the profound
bow under which Gerald sought to cover his con-
fusion as Lucia introduced them with a dignified
little bend of the neck that to Miss Durant- seemed
impertinent. The rector's daughter to assume a
manner like this when she was being introduced to
the future husband of Miss Durant of Durant !
"We had not expected Mr. Durant until this
evening/' she explained, as though to let the poor
young person know that her being in Mr. Durant's
society at all arose solely from mistake. " Would
you like to take your hat off, Miss Lovell, or shall
we go out a little first? You have not seen the
gardens yet, I think."
" 1 will do whatever you like," answered Miss
Lovell, still standing by the window where she had
32 AKCHIE LOVELL.
entered, and still with the self-possession upon her
face that in Lucia's sight was so unbefitting. " I
^ shall not be able to stay more than an hour or two,
so don't make any difference for me at all, please."
" Oh, but Miss Lovell, mamma invited you to
spend the day. I hope "
" Thanks. I can only stay an hour or two. My
father wants me this afternoon." And Archie half
turned away from the lovers, and leaning her arm
more with the gesture of a boy than of a young
lady, Lucia thought against the window frame,
looked out into the garden.
Miss Durant glanced at Gerald, as though to say
" Was I not right ? Are we not going to be bored
with this awkward, plain young woman I told you
of? " and saw that a crimson flush was dyeing Mr.
Durant's fair face, and that his eyes were intently
fixed upon a song that, in his fij'st bewilderment,
he had caught up and was holding in his hand.
Evidently he was annoyed by the girl's curt in-
different reception of him ; evidently, too, he
thought her ugly and repulsive, and wanted to be
rid of her.
AECHIE PAYS HEB DEBT. 33
The latter consideration lent a great deal more
kindness to Miss Durant's feelings towards her
visitor. The poor thing had been invited to spend
the day with them ; came shyly, no doubt, at pay-
ing a first visit alone to the Court and the Court
to Lucia seemed much the same as the Imperial
Court of St. Petersburg would seem to the Emperor
of aU the Eussias and now, finding herself de trop^
offered humbly to go away again in an hour or
two.
" We shall not hear of you leaving us till after
luncheon. Miss LoveU, and then, if you really must
go, you shall give me a promise to come and spend
another day, a real long day, with me soon. Per-
haps for tiie next hour it would be cooler in the
garden than here. What do you think, Gerald ?
If we were to take out a book to the Pleasaunce,
and you were to read to us. You are fond of
poetry, Miss Lovell ? "
Yes, Miss LoveU answered ; not without a half
smile, for the sense of the ludicrous was never far
absent from Archie, and there was something in
the idea of Gerald's sitting between them and read-
VOL. III. D
84 ARCHIE LOVELL.
ing tender loye-scenes perhaps-that, indignant
as she was, struck her irresistibly. Then Gerald
having stammered out something incoherent about
heat and shade, and very pleasant he was sure, if
if Miss Lovell liked it ^Lucia ran away to get her
garden-hat and parasol, and Miss Lovell and Gerald
Durant found themselves alone.
Without hesitating a moment Archie took a
purse from her pocket ; drew out something neatly
wrapped up in paper from amongst its contents,
and walked up to Gerald's side. " Here is what I
owe you, Mr. Durant. It is correct, I think-*-
forty-two shillings and sixpence. I had it with me
ready, thinking that possibly I might meet you
here to-day.*'
Gerald started back from the little outstretched
hand as if he had received a blow. " Miss Wil-
son ! is it possible that you can wish to hurt me so
deeply ? " he exclaimed.
" I am Miss Wilson no longer, Mr. Durant,*' she
answered, not without a ring of moumftdness in her
voice. "I've never been Miss Wilson since the
day I went with you to London. Papa's poverty
ARCHIE FATS HB DEBT. 35
and liis debts made us live under a false name
abroad, the name you knew me by. All that is
over ^not to be re-called, please. Papa is rector of
Hatton, and I am Miss Lovell a very different
person in everything to Archie Wilson! Forty-
two shillings and sixpence ^you will find it quite
right, I think? My travelling expenses from
Morteville-sur-Mer to London and back, you re-
member."
And as Gerald still did not hold out his hand to
receive it, she laid the money down on a little
work-table that stood beside her, then walked back
composedly to her place beside the window.
Gerald was cut to the very quick ; but he was
too much a man of the world to allow himself ta
remain in a ridiculous position. Whatever became
of the forty-two shil l ings and sixpence. Miss Du-
rant's curiosity on the subject must certainly not be
awakened by finding them there among her em-
broidery ; and so, with the best grace he could, he
forced himself to take the money up and put it in
his pocket.
Archie's eyes triumphed as she watched him, and
D 2
36 ARCHIE LOVELL.
something so like the days of old (of a fortnight
ago) was in their expression that Gerald in a mo-
ment found himself at her side, and with her hand,
whether she would or no, clasped firm in his.
" Miss Lovell ^Archie, forgive me ! " he exclaimed
in his eager impulsive way. "You don't know
what my life is you don't know how hardly I am
placed ^how everything is forced upon me. To
have to meet you as a stranger to be treated as
you have treated me now ! can any punishment,
can the worst punishment I deserve, be more than
this ? "
His face was flushed with emotion; his lips
quivered! his eyes softened and filled with pas-
sionate eagerness as he looked at her. " Say one
word tell me you forgive me, and let everything
between us be as it once was ! " he pleaded, clasp-
ing her unwilling hand closer in his.
" Everything as it once was ! " and ArcLio
laughed: a hard little laugh that jarred on
Gerald's heart. " What do you mean by * as it
once was,' Mr. Durant ? Before I went with you
to London, or ^but that would be going back a
ARCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. S7
very long time indeed ^before the time when you
were engaged to marry Miss Durant P "
"I am not talking of her at all," he exclaimed.
" I am talking only of you asking only for your
forgiveness. Will you give it me ? "
" I don't know what you mean by forgiveness,"
said Archie. " I can never feel to you as I used,
if you mean that. You told me when I said good-
bye to you last I must leave all reckoning up of '
accounts until we met again, and then, if the
balance was in your favour, pay you. I have paid
you. Has anything more got to be said between
us?"
Gerald dropped her hand in a moment, and stood
silent: intently watching her face. "You will
never feel for me as you used. Miss Lovell ? " he
said at last. "I am to take that as your final
decision."
" You may take it as you like," she answered,
quickly. " With me it is not a question of will. I
could not care for you again if I tried, and I do
not try."
" Speak candidly. You detest me."
38 ARCHIE LOVELL.
" No, Mr. Durant, I do not."
" What then ? "
'* I think you acted badly to me ^badly, badly ! ''
she broke forth, her eyes lighting up, as only blue
eyes can light, with sudden passion. " When you
could have saved me you did not ! When a word
of advice from you would have made me leave you
and go home, you did not speak it! If I was
placed so now," she went on, bitterly, " I could
save myself, I would want advice from no man ;
but then I was a little girl, a child, and I saw less
harm in going on with you to London, than in
landing alone at Calais. Tell me if what I say is
true, Mr. Durant? Had I any save a child's
ideas, a child's knowledge of the world, before that
day I went with you to London ? And now "
her voice changing with one of the sudden pathetic
modulations Gerald Durant knew so well " what
am I now ? "
" Your position is changed," stammered Gerald,
with a rising, a guilty sense of her meaning : for
until this instant his own infidelity had been the
worst ofience with which his conscience, or his
ARCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. S?
very long time indeed ^before the time when you
were engaged to marry Miss Durant ? "
"I am not talking of her at all," he exclaimed.
" I am talking only of you asking only for your
forgiveness. Will you give it me ? "
" I don't know what you mean by forgiveness,"
said Archie. " I can never feel to you as I used,
if you mean that. You told me when I said good-
bye to you last I must leave all reckoning up of '
accounts until we met again, and then, if the
balance was in your favour, pay you. I have paid
you. Has anything more got to be said between
us?"
Gerald dropped her hand in a moment, and stood
silent: intently watching her face. "You will
never feel for me as you used, Miss Lovell ? " he
said at last. "I am to take that as your final
decision."
" You may take it as you like," she answered,
quickly. " With me it is not a question of will. I
could not care for you again if I tried, and I do
not try."
" Speak candidly. You detest me."
40 ARCHIE LOVELL.
you exaggerate the importance of a mere accident,
Miss Lovell. No one was to blame there is
nothing that I can see to conceal "
And Gerald Durant stopped with a start as
the drawing-room door opened, and Miss Durant,
equipped in a garden hat, a blue veil, and a parasol
for her complexion, came up to his side.
" What book shall we take ? " she asked, a great
deal too taken up with the painful contrast that
she felt existed between her own appearance and
Miss LoveU's, to remark the expression of her
lover's face. " Do you like Tennyson, Miss Lovell ?
Never read any of it? Fancy, Gerald, Miss
Lovell has never read any of Tennyson. Then let
us have something of his by all means. The
' Idylls of the King ' is the most improving metre
for reading aloud. Miss Barlow used to say."
And, neither Gerald nor Archie offering any
opinion on the subject of metres. Miss Durant took
up a book from her mother's writing-table ; then
with a condescending, encouraging little smile to
the rector's daughter, put her hand on her arm and
led her out into the garden ; Mr. Durant, who fer-
ARCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. 41
vently wished himself, or one at least of his com-
panions, at the remotest comer of the earth just
then, meekly following.
"You have not seen the Court before, Miss
Lovell, I think P " said Lucia, stopping under the
shade of the cedars, and turning Archie round to
have the lions pointed out to her. " As you have
lived so much abroad, I suppose you have never
seen a house like this in your life. It was built in
1570 by one of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, Hugh
Duraat. His arms, you see, together with those of
his wife, Brune of Plumber, are sculptured in a
cartouche shield on the pediment of the eastern
front.
" Indeed I '' answered Archie, putting on a look
of great interest, for the expression of Gerald's face
had told her already what it cost him to listen to
his poor pedantic little betrothed, and she was not
insensible to a certain feeling of satisfaction in his
pain. " What an old family the Durants must be,
if you count back as far as Queen Elizabeth."
" Queen Elizabeth ! " cried Lucia, with im-
mense animation for her. " Do you call that old ?
42 ARCHIE LOVELL.
Gerald, Miss Lovell says we must be an old family,
because we can go back to the days of Queen
Elizabeth. Why, an ancestor of ours, Geraldine
de Durant, accompanied "William the Conqueror to
England, and in the reign of Edward I. we find
that the family were already settled in this parish/'
" Edward I. ? But I thought Sir Hugh Durant
built the house in 1570 P " said Archie, with the
air of one humbly seeking for information.
"Certainly,'' answered Lucia, "certainly. You are
quite right as to date. This house was first built
in 1570, but we have records to show that our
family lived in the parish as early as the reign of
Edward I. I must caution you, however. Miss
Lovell," she added, " about using the title of ' Sir.'
It was not until the year 1611, that my ancestor,
Francis Durant, was made a baronet. He was the
seventh gentleman on whom this honour was be-
stowed. During the civil wars of Charles I., Sir
Francis Durant was distinguished by his loyalty,
which he showed by giving nearly all his money
and also his two sons' lives to the king. After the
death of Charles, they say he was so mortified that
ARCHIE PAYS HEB DEBT. 43
he clothed himself in sackcloth, and, causing his
grave to be dug some time before his death, laid
himself there every Friday morning, exercising
himself in divine meditation and prayer/'
And then Archie took another look at Gerald's
face, and her heart softened towards him ^ it had
never done since the moment when she first made
the confession of her flight to Bettina. He had
behaved cruelly to her : no doubt whatever about
that ; had all but won her heart such a heart as
she could have given ! to pin upon his sleeve for a
day ; and through him and his selfish weakness the
worst folly of her life, a folly whose consequences
might darken all her future years, had been
brought about. But he was to marry Miss Durant
of Durant's Court. He was to spend the re-
mainder of his days with a woman who talked of
cartouche shields, and William the Conqueror, and
ancestors in sackcloth ; a woman who put on a
blue veil for her complexion when she walked in
her own garden ; a woman, ten minutes of whose
society seemed to weigh on Archie as no ten hours
of her life had ever done before. And her heart
44 ARCHIE LOVELL.
softened to him. Bitter, hard, relentless as she
had felt when she first heard his voice, first saw
his arm around Lucia's waist, she softened to him
now that she began to know Lucia herself. What-
ever Gerald Durant's sins had been, his punish-
ment, at least, would be an ample one.
" I wish I had your memory. Miss Durant. I
never could remember anything, in prose, as long
as what you have been telling me."
" It depends upon how one has been brought
up," answered Lucia, complacently. "Travelling
about, as you have, I dare say your studies have
been interrupted ; now, I had the same governess
Miss Barlow for eleven years. From the very
first Miss Barlow made me learn the epistle, gospel,
and collect every week, and as to the kings of
England "
"Oh, Lucia, do let us go on," interrupted
Gerald, impatiently, and with a horrible dread
that all the kings since the Conqueror, with a
dozen or so collects and epistles, would be repeated
for Archie's amusement, and his own torture, on
the spot. " It's all very well for you, with a hat
ARCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. 45
and veil and parasol, to stand in the broiling sun,
but as I happen to have nothing on my head, and
have no wish to experience a sun-stroke, I must
really ask you to hurry ^interesting though of
course your descriptions are, Lucia dear," he
added, demurely.
And MissDurant, who took every word in its
most direct sense, and who was indeed too encased
in the triple armour of self-esteem ever to suspect
the existence of irony, smiled placidly at the com-
pliment. Then, still affording historical and anti-
quarian information as they walked, led the way
to the Pleasaunce or heath, an inclosure, which lay
at the extreme verge of the Court gardens, and to
which a vine-covered alley, cool even at noonday,
led through the side grounds the entire distance
from the house.
The Pleasaunce occupied about an acre of land
^not the six acres which Bacon, with his royal
disregard of space, directs. Saving in size, how-
ever, all the rules that the great philosopher laid
down, had been adhered to by its original con-
structor, and strictly followed by all succeeding
48 ARCHIE LOVELL.
" You might grow fairer/' said Lucia, circum-
spectly. "No doubt you might grow fairer; but
I think never fair. Miss Barlow used to say that
a skin once thoroughly deteriorated can never be
restored to its pristine condition."
" That's bad for me," said Archie, shaking her
head. "Mr. Durant," with a mocking look at
Gerald, "what do you think? Would anything
ever bring my copper-coloured hands and face to
what they should be P "
Miss Dorant actually opened her eyes at the
audacity of the question. A young girl at her
first introduction to. a gentleman to mention such
a subject as the skin of her own hands and face !
It was indelicate : positively indelicate. " I think
we had better get on with the reading, Gerald,"
she remarked primly, and while Gerald was look-
ing, not speaking, his answer to Archie. " That is,
if Miss Lovell cares to hear it. We shall not have
time to get through one of the Idylls before
luncheon imless you be^ at once."
" As you like," said Gerald, reluctantly ; for it
seemed to him just now that to sit and watch
ARCfflE PAYS HER DEBT. 49
Archie in this golden shade ^yes, even with Lucia
there too was poetry sufficient. "The heat really
makes one feel so lazy."
" Oh, please read," cried Miss Lovell, with well-
acted eagerness ; " please do not disappoint us. I
am so very anxious to hear the Idylls." And she
took the book from Lucia, handed it over to Gerald,
then composed herself with folded hands and pre-
ternatural gravity of face, to listen.
" The Idylls of the King " were about as un-
known to this little outer barbarian as the tragedies
of -^schylus would have been. An Idyll she ima-
gined was probably a good deal like an elegy ; as
Miss Durant had selected the book, it was sure at
all events to be improving and horribly dull ; and,
in the pass to which they had all come now, the
best amusement going, perhaps, would be slyly to
watch Gerald's face as he read, listen to Miss
Durant's annotations, and occasionally offer igno-
rant remarks of her own the better to draw out the
superior wisdom of her companions.
" You have no work with you, I see," rema
Lucia, as Gerald turned over the pages of the book,
VOL. III. E
50 ARCHIE LOVELL.
hesitating whicli of tlie four Idylls would be best
suited to bis audience ; and as she spoke she drew
out a neatly-pinned roll of embroidery from her
pocket. "I always think it is such a waste of
time to sit out of doors or listen to reading without
working/'
" But I can't work," said Archie, " except
mending, and that I detest, and besides I'm
not clever enough to do so many things at once.
To be out of doors in such a place as this,
.and to listen to poetry at the same time, would
be quite enough for me, particularly if the poetry
was yery well read and the subject very appro-
priate ! "
And she gave a half-sigh and a little significant
smile towards Gerald.
Both sigh and smile, as it chanced, were inter-
cepted by Lucia, who on the instant scrutinised,
with other eyes than she had yet done, her visitor's
personal appearance. Fresh, delicate, refined, the
girl looked, with some quivering reflected light
brightening into gold her waving chestnut hair,
and with her blue eyes laughing under their black
AfeCHIE PAYS HEE DEBT. 51
lashes, and the white teeth gleaming from the sun-
burnt face. And a prompt decision rose in Miss
Durant's mind that Archie Lovell's visits should
be very few and stately so long as Gerald was at
the Court ! Pretty she was not, nor graceful, nor
well educated; but she had the sort of brusque
manners, the sort of gipsy good-looks that might
attract, by their mere oddity, a man so prone to be
bored with everything to which he was accustomed
as Gerald. And Lucia had no wish that he should
be so attracted. The days of her generosity towards
him were quite over, now that in her heart, and in
her chilly little way, she was beginning to love
him. The rector's daughter was not in the least
prettier than she had thought; nay, there was
something almost repellant in the juxtaposition of
those blue eyes and that brown face now that you
saw them close, only, only ^instinctively, Lucia
Durant already was afraid of her. How could she
know what sort of ideas a girl brought up among
foreigners might not have? how tell that these
were not the manners of that horrible outer-artist
world which, it is said in novels, young men do in
E 2
52 ARCHIE LOVELL.
their hearts prefer to all the accomplishments, all
the graces, of refined female society ?
"Read Elaine, Gerald, if you please. That is
the Idyll I know that mamma -would approve of
most. Miss Lovell, don't you think you would
hear better if you were to come and sit on this
side of me? You cannot catch the meaning if
you are too near to the reader."
"No, thanks, I like to be where I am," an-
swered Archie Gerald had thrown himself almost
at her feet on the turf " I have just a little view
through the trees of the Court, Miss Durant, and
if I don't understand the reading I can look at
that and think of all the histories you Trere so
good as to tell me. Now, Mr. Durant, please.
We are all attention."
*' Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable."
Gerald read, as he sang, with taste, with feeling;
with an absence of artifice or seeking for effect that
gave his reading the simple happy charm of the
very highest art. After the first six lines, Archie's
imagination had taken fire : at the end of two
ARCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. 53
pages she was leaning forward, her eyes fixed on
Gerald, her lips parted and tremulous ; aU the
beauty of that marvellous poetry lighting up her
childish face with rapt and eager attention.
" Aro you so wise ? ^you were not once so wise."
Gerald's voice trembled ever so slightly as he
read these first words of Launcelot's to the Queen ;
and for an instant he raised his eyes to Archie's
face.
" I have lost my needle," said Miss Durant, with
cold distinctness ; " be kind enough, Gerald, to
leave oflf reading till I have found it. Listen
without working ? No, indeed ; " as Gerald, not
without temper, suggested the alternative. "I
should be very sorry to waste my morning in such
a fashion, and as I've heard all the story before, I
am really not so interested but that I can bear to
leave ofi^ for a little. Miss Lovell, may I trouble
you to rise ? "
And as the searching for a needle among moss
is an afiair demanding time and patience, it was
ten minutes, at least, before the reading proceeded.
54 ARCHIE LOVELL.
" You seem quite excited, Miss Lovell/*
Lucia remarked, glancing at Archie's animated
face as Gerald took up the book again. **You
must be a great admirer of poetry, I should
say."
" Of that poetry, yes," said Archie. " I never
heard anything like it before. It touches me like
music ! " clasping her hands with the un-English
gesture, that to her was nature " I could sit here
and listen for hours."
A remark that naturally lent fresh tenderness to
Gerald's voice (and filled Miss Durant's mind with
renewed and stem determinations respecting the
degree of intimacy to be observed with the rector's
daughter) throughout all the remainder of the
reading of Elaine.
When it was over, Lucia wondered what o'clock
it was ; then, having satisfied her curiosity by
looking at her watch, asked Gerald if his throat
felt dry ; and finally remarked that she had em-
broidered a spray and a half while he read. These
were Miss Durant's commentaries after hearing the
noblest poetry, read by the voice she loved, in such
ARCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. 56
a scene as this. But then, as she said, she had
heard the story before.
" And you, Miss Lovell ? " said Gerald, turning
from Lucia to Archie ; " what do you think of
Elaine? She deserved a happier fate, did she
not ? "
," I don*t know," answered Archie, with a sort of
shyness on her face that Gerald had not been
accustomed to see there. "I think, perhaps, to
have loved Launcelot and to die ^was better
than any common living for her. Would you
mind, please, reading again the description of
where she sees him first? I mean, after that
line :
""Won by tho mellow voice before she looked.
))
"I thought you had a bad memory, Miss
Lovell," Lucia interpolated ; but Gerald, the blue
eyes flattering him so pleasantly, turned back to
the page and read the passage through without a
word. What feeling but one could have called
forth that shy, sweet blush, on the girlish face ?
For whom, save himself, could that feeling as yet
56 ARCHIE LOVELL.
have stirred in Archie Lovell's heart ? He read it
through to the concluding lines :
** However marr'd, of more than twice her yeai*s,
Seam'd with an ancient sword-cut on the cheek,
And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes
And loved him with that love which was her doom."
" Bruised, and bronzed, and seamed," remarked
Miss Durant, pinning up her embroidery, then
carefully picking oflf every tiny morsel of dead
moss or leaf from her dress, as she rose from the
ground. " Well, I cannot say that Sir Launcelot
would have been one of my heroes. It seems to
me he only wants a broken front tooth, and a pair
of high shoulders, to be exactly like old Major
Seton of Ludbrooke."
" And it seems to me," said Gerald, somewhat
indignantly, " that the story of that broken front
tooth alone ought to make every woman in her
heart think Major Seton a hero ! A radical defect
in your character, Lucia, is your incapacity for
hero-worship."
"Oh, so you have told me before," said Miss
Durant, placidly; "but really I never have been
%
ABCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. 57
taught to see anything admirable in the mere bull-
dog sort of courage men possess in common with
the lower animals. Fancy, Miss Lovell, once when
the boys were at Eton together, Ralph Seton, a
near neighbour of yours, and my two cousins ^as
they were all going through the town they saw
some people, dreadful common people you know,
fighting, and Ralph Seton would insist upon taking
part, and got a fall that nearly killed him, and one
of his front teeth broken. Now, is there anything
wonderfully heroic in the story ? "
" Not told as you have told it, Lucia, certainly,"
said Gerald, curiously watching Archie's face
meanwhile ; "when you consider, however, that the
* dreadful common people' were a huge coster-
monger very nearly killing a woman, and that
Ralph, a little lad of fourteen, rushed in single-
handed to the rescue, it rather alters the case. I
have often thought," added Gerald, with the easy
generosity that sat so gracefully upon him, " that
the characters of all three of us were well brought
out upon that occasion. I showed an extraordinary
amount of indignant emotion amounting even to
58 ARCHIE LOVELL.
tears, I believe but no more. Robert Dennison
remarked, coolly, that every one probably was serv-
ing every one else richly right. Ralph, without a
word, went straight to the front '^
" And got knocked to pieces for his pains,'' inter-
rupted Lucia. " Well, I never did, and I never
shall, see the beauty of that sort of thing except
of course in poetry. If people have to go through
the world (where, as Miss Barlow used to say, two-
thirds at least of success depend on appearance),
what object is there in getting yourself disfigured
by fighting for dirty wicked people you don't care
about ? What do you think. Miss LoveU ? "
" I I ? " cried Archie ; but with an effort that
Gerald noticed keenly ; " I think you are quite right,
MissDurant. The description ofSirLauncelot might
be Ralph Seton's word for word, and I know that
Ralph always was, and always will be, a hero to
me. What you and Mr. Durant have been saying
now makes me like him a hundred times better f
that is possible ^than I ever did before." And she
raised her face bravely, but blushing furiously still,
fiill up to Gerald's.
ARCHIE PAYS HEE DEBT. 59
'Their eyes met ; and a new light broke suddenly
upon the heart of each. On Archie flashed the
truth that Ealph Seton ever since that first day in
Morteville had been present in her thoughts ; that
she liked him, not indeed with a love to be her
doom ^for the passion of love was still a terra in-
cognita to this heart of seventeen ^but with a
liking second only to the love she bore her father ;
a liking] dimly akin to Elaine's for Launcelot;
a liking that put her fancy to Gerald and for the
Eussian prince and Willy Montacute very much
upon the same level. On Mr. Durant was forced
the conviction that the heart he had been playing
fast and loose with, the only woman in whose
society he had ever thought he would like to spend
his life, was lost ! His memory went back to every
little scene in which Archie had ever seemed the
nearest to loving him : the time when they stood
upon the moonlit terrace by the sea, the time when
she found herself alone with him on London
Bridge, and he knew that her face, her voice, had
never softened as they did now. Had they soft-
ened for the imaginary Launcelot only, or for
60 ARCHIE LOVELL.
Ralph Seton ? Seton who, with all his fine quali-
ties, Gerald had ever looked upon as a man alto-
gether out of the world of love or youth ? This
was a detail over which, in the first angry flush
of disappointment, he did not trouble himself to
think. They had not softened for him. He might
marry Lucia; listen to her songs; read aloud
improving metres to her for the remainder of his
days; and Archie ^with horrible sharpness the
thought stung him ^would be entirely unmoved
by anything he did or thought or suffered. And
up to a minute ago those blue eyes, those
parted lips, those little clasped soft hands had
befooled him still ! He had seen love hidden under
the coldness of her manner love under the pas-
sionate reproaches with which she had met him
had read to her with veiled tenderness in every
word, with furtive glances at her face ^believing
himself Sir Launcelot, and she Elaine or Guinevere,
or both, as regarded the intensity, the hopelessness,
of the regard she bore to him.
He very nearly hated Archie on the spot. Vanity
was by far the strongest feeling Gerald Durant
ARCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. 61
ever carried into any love aflfair ; and when vanity,
as now, received a death-stroke there needed very
little more for his love to give one fierce blaze of
disgust, then smoulder (three days generally saw
the whole process out) into indiflference. I spoke
before of French proclivities in his nature: this
was one of them. The best Mend living to men
the least touchy, the least paltrily vain ^it was
next to impossible to him to act or feel very gene-
rously towards any woman who had omitted to be
in love with him. It is not quite pleasant to
record in black and white ; but Gerald had such
a charming way of making you see everything in
his light, that you really thought none the worse
of him for this or any other weakness when you
were with him ; and then how much must always
be laid to the account of the school in which a
man has been brought up ! To Gerald, as to his
compeers, a woman's heart was a stake to be won ;
the more up-hill the game, the greater number
of odds against him, the more exciting the con-
test. Lost, his own special amusement in the
game over, and the bits of red and white bone
62 ARCHIE LOVELL.
with which a successM adversary has scored his
tricks at ^cart^ were scarcely, according to his
creed, more fitting objects for a wise man's regret.
You will nearly always observe this kind of opti-
mist philosophy to prevail among the class of
men who at once cultivate love as a pastime, and
study it as a science.
" Dear old Ralph ! " he cried, rising hastily
from the ground, and not deigning to give another
glance at Archie Lovell's face. "I can imagine
any woman thinking him a hero, if he is like
what he used to be in the days of old. Still,
Lucia," his voice growing soft and tender as he
turned to her, " I don't know that I wish to have
you changed in anything."
'* What ! not in my incapacity for hero-worship,
Gerald ? "
Gerald's answer was a whisper that brought the
colour to Miss Durant's cheeks; and then, with
more little fond murmurs passing between them, ho
folded her muslin scarf round her shoulders, handed
her her parasol, arranged her veil round her face,
and oflfered to carry her work-basket to the
ARCHIE PAYS HER DEBT. 63
house with most lover-like and demonstrative
devotion.
"And how is it that you know Major Seton,
Miss Lovell ? '' asked Lucia, as they were walking
filowly back through the garden, and growing very
much pleasanter in her tone now that Gerald's
undivided attention had returned to herself. "I
should not have thought you had had time yet to
get acquainted even with any of your neighbours."
" Oh, we have not seen much of Major Seton
here," answered Archie, turning aside her face ;
** he only returned from Scotland the day before
yesterday, and and ^has been round to see us
three or four times since ^but we knew him, years
ago, when I was a child in Naples. He is more
than a brother to me he is papa's best friend,"
she added quickly, and with an intuitive feeling
that Ralph was one of the people Miss Durant
would be likely to disparage.
" Ah ! that will be very pleasant for you, then,
to live so near him. Major Seton is an excellent
sort of person, I dare say, when you know him.
We have only seen him once since his return from
64 ARCHIE LOVELL.
India, and mamma and I both thought his manners
rough, but "
" You did not understand him, I should think,"
broke in Archie, bluntly. " Ralph Seton rough !
Why he is the kindest ^the gentlest " but here,
chancing to meet Gerald*s eyes again, she inter-
rupted herself abruptly, stopped a moment, buried
her hot face in a great branch of jessamine that
hung down low across the path, and did not open
her lips again till they reached the house.
" A strange unmannered kind of girl, Gerald,"
said Miss Durant, when some minutes later they
had said good-by to Archie at the park-gates;
for no persuasion could induce her to remain longer
with the lovers. " But I don't know that there is
anything really to dislike in her. How excited she
got about the reading and old Major Seton ! There
must be something serious there, I should say,
shouldn't you ? "
"Really, Lucia, I don't know. I cannot say
that I feel any special interest in the state of Miss
Lovell's feelings."
" Ah ! did you think her pretty then, Gerald, or
ARCHIE. PAYS HEB DEBT. 65
was she like some one you have known, or what ?
for I am sure you looked at her enough all the
time you were in the Pleasaunce."
" She is like some one I have known," answered
Oerald, " and I do not think the term * pretty ' is
one I should apply to her. Will that do, Lucia ? "
** I I was afraid you did not care about her ! '*
cried Miss Durant^^ looking radiant. "I mean I
thought most likely you were a little bored by the
poor thing but I'm half afraid mamma will be
vexed that we let her go so soon. Don't you
think, now, we might ask her and Major Seton
to spend the afternoon here to-morrow ? If there
is an attachment between them we ought to do our
best to bring it about, and you know you want to
see Major Seton. Croquet and high-tea upon the
lawn would be pleasant, Gerald, eh ? "
" Remarkably pleasaQt," answered Gerald, laco-
nically, and watching the last flutter of Archie's
summer dress behind the trees. "You are be-
ginning to understand my tastes beautifully,
Lucia."
"And" after a minute's silence ''is the
VOL. III. p
66 ABCHIE LOVEI^L.
person Miss LoVell reminds yon of some one you
care abont, Gerald ? I won't ask yon any more."
" Some one I care abont? Well, my dear Lucia,
I should think you could answer that question for
yourself. Is Miss Lovell in the very slightest
degree like you ? "
Miss Durant, with pretty consciousness of the
absurdity of the question, answered no, and was
satisfied.
CHAPTER III.
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF "THE TIMES."
A SOLITARY first-class passenger had aKghted
from the midday express that stopped by signal at
Hatton; and, directed by the one porter the station
possessed, was starting across the fields to Durant's^
Court just as Archie Lovell bade good-by to-
Gerald and Miss Durant at the park gates.
The sultry morning had softened into one of'
those silent mellow days in which English fields
and woods and hedge-rows wear a pathos and a
beauty all their own. A yellow sunshine, a smalt-
blue heaven, i^eem ever somewhat of an ana-
chronism in England. To-day, mid- August though
it was, there was just that foreshadowing of change
that paUor in the sky, that haze across the red-
dening woods, that fitful freshness on the western
wind ^which gives our northern summers their
p 2
68 ARCHIE LOVELL.
peculiar charm ; one which the glaring splendour
of the south for ever lacks ; the charm of evanes-
cence and of frailty. The coarsest, the least sym-
pathetic man could scarcely have walked untouched
among the golden fields to-day ; the fields that in
another month : the sky paler, the distant woods
more hectic : should be shorn and crisped by early
frost ^brief summer already in its grave ! Even
the stranger, ordinarily a much more interested
observer of green cloth than of green fields, was
moved into something near akin to genuine feeling,
tender memories, as he went sloWly and lingeringly
upon his way.
How familiar and how strange the sights and
smells of English fields, the babble even of the
little meadow stream beside the path, seemed to
him after aU these dreary years of disuse ! Years
in which he had dissipated health, strength, energy
everjrthing save the intolerable weight and te-
diousness of living : years in which he had played
without excitement, drank without solace, roamed
over the world without making a friend, and
worked harder than many an honest man at his
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF " THE TIMES." 69
miserable vocation without at any time seeing more
than a month's dinners ahead. What a ludicrous
lottery it all was ! that ever-present burthen to
the thoughts of unsuccessful men manipulating a
cigarette absently, then holding it unlit between
the fingers of his delicately-gloved hand. His
brother, without any capacity whatever for enjoy-
ment, but simply because there chanced to be
eighteen months diflference in their ages, the
possessor of two or three estates of pleasant
EngHsh land like this ; and he, a man who could
have taken intense pleasure in his shooting and his
fishing and his farming, an adventurer, a frequenter
of foreign caf^s, a picker-up of napoleons at cards,
an intimate acquaintance of the police. Every-
thing for which his nature did not fit him ! How
easy it was, he thought, for elder sons to keep
right! If a nice Uttle allotment say, even, of
ft
eighty or a hundred acres of land like this ^with a
good house to live in, and an income to keep it up
upon, were to be assigned to him now, how honour-
able and straight- walking a fellow he would be to
the end of his days ! Failing this ^well, failing
70 AKCHIE LOVELL.
this, he must just remain what he was : the out-
cast younger son of an old race, Edward Eandall,
alias Colonel Vavasour, alias Captain De Vere,
alias Jemmy Waters ; obliged by the fact of being
human, to eat ^by the fact of being disgraced, to
earn his food as he could; and at the present
moment employed on the kind of business which
men even with no special pretensions to delicacy or
honour would shrink from as from the last dis-
grace. The business of exacting hush-money out of
a girl's fears, or of selling her secret to the highest
bidder her own father, or the Durants : this
was simply a matter of detail that he could
find.
Captain Waters lit up his cigarette, and with a
slow slouching step, very different to that airy one
which he was wont to wear before watering-place
spectators, walked on, miserably meditating, a little
perhaps on the ignominy of his own position, but a
great deal more upon the injustice of the laws of
primogeniture, in the direction of Durant's Court.
At a sudden turn in the path, just where the
stream to which he was mechanically listening still
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF " THE TIMES." 71
wound out of sight beneath a clump of alder bushes
on the bank, he suddenly perceived a girl's figure
approaching through a field of standing com, not
twenty yards ahead of him to the right.^ He
stopped instantly, drew himself behind the shelter
of the bushes, and watched her. It was Archie
LoveU ; dressed in a fresh linen suit, just as she
used to be upon the Morteville sands, a bright
flush upon her face, a great heap of wild flowers
field poppies, clematis, briony, dog-roses ^in her
arms. Prettier and more like a child than ever
she looked, and altogether a picture. Captain
Waters thought admiringly as she approached,
breast-high among the waves of barley, and with
the misty woods for background, and the paUid,
golden-grey sky above her head !
He waited until she was within five or six yards
from the trees under whose shade he stood, then
stepped quietly into the path, taking off his hat, as
he pretended, with a start of surprise, first to re-
cognise her. The blood rushed in a moment over
the girl's face and neck. She gave a hurried look
on aU sides, as if for escape or help a look whose
72 ARCHIE LOVELL.
significance was by no means lost upon Captain
Waters.
" You are surprised to see me, Miss Lovell," he
remarked, as in her very terror she stopped and
ofiered him her hand ; " and the surprise is
mutual." He had had a letter three or four
days before telling him of Mr. LoveU's departure
from Morteville. " I had no idea that you were
coming to England yet/'
"We have been in England a week," stammered
Archie, mortally terrified, yet with a half hope now
that Captain Waters' appearance here might be
unconnected with herself. "We had not meant
to come so soon, but as the Rectory was standing
empty, and there was nothing to keep us in Morte-
ville "
"Ah yes, very wise, I am sure," interrupted
Waters, jauntily. " Very wise in any one not to
stay a day longer than there was necessity for in
that gottverlassen place. I got away earlier myself
than I expected, and have been spending the last
few days very pleasantly, very pleasantly indeed,
with some of my people in town. I suppose you
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF " THE TIMES.'' 73
don't know if Gerald Durant is at the Court still.
Miss Lovell P I could not find him in London, so
came down here on the chance of seeing him." .
" Yes, he is here," answered Archie, taking re-
newed heart of grace at the thorough unconcern of
Captain Waters' tone. "I have been spending
the morning with Miss Durant," she added, " and
am on my way home from the Court now."
" The Rectory is some distance oflf, is it not P "
asked Waters, rather to gain time than because he
had any interest in the parish topography. " About
two miles from the Court ^just a good walk and
you like Miss Durant P That is pleasant for you
both ; you will be nice neighbours for each other.
Ko talk still of her being engaged to her cousin
Gerald, I suppose P "
" Every talk of it, I should think," said Archie,
stooping down and examining the petals of one of
her wild roses. " It is all quite settled ; indeed,
Lady Durant has already invited us to the wedding
in the autumn."
" And you believe that wedding will take place,
Miss LoveU P "
74 ABCHIE LOVELL.
"I I of course I believe it will," bluslmig
hotly, at she Scarcely knew what meamng in
Waters' voice. "Why should it be broken off? "
she asked, trying very unsuccessfully to smile and
look unconcerned.
" Because Miss Lovell, have you ever heard
of Margaret HaU ? "
She raised her eyes up with a sense of intense
relief to Captain Waters' face. It was not to her-
self, then, not to her miserable secret the secret
that night and day never ceased to haunt her
that he was alluding ! " I have heard the name,
Captain Waters, and something of the story since
we came here. But every one looks upon it as a
thing of the past now. You know, of course, that
Margaret Hall is dead ? '*
" Yes, Miss Lovell, I do. I know a good deal
more than I care to know in the matter ; indeed,
it is on business directly connected with it that I
have come down to see Gerald Durant to-day. He
is well, I don't know that I need hesitate
about telling you ! If you had remained abroad I
d hoped, sincerely hoped," said Waters, compas-
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OP *' THE TIMES." 75
sionately, "that nothing of all this would have
reached your ears ; but as you are here, so close to
Gerald and to his people, you must heax of it before
rery long, and by warning you now, it seems to me
that I shall be acting fairest by you both. Gerald
Durant (unknown, I verily believe, to himself) is at
present in a position of the most extreme danger
with regard to this girl Margaret Hall's death, and
perhaps ^mind, I only say perhaps ^it may be in
your power to be his salvation.'*
The flowers feU in a heap at Archie's feet : she
clasped her hands together eagerly. " Mr. Durant
in danger. Captain Waters, and I be of service to
him? IsavehimP"
** Well, I believe so. Miss Lovell. I may be
wrong, of course, but I believe so ! " He rested
his forehead an instant on his hand, and an ad-
mirably well-acted expression, half of pain, half
bewilderment, came over his face. " The question
is," he went on, after a minute, but looking away
from her as he spoke, " would you do it ? "
" Would I ? Why, of course I would ! " she
cried, with a hearty readiness that, had Captain
76 ARCHIE LOVELL.
Waters been learned in any subject so delicate as
. the intricacies of a girl's heart, might have told
him what kind of regard she really bore towards
Gerald. " Tell me what I can do to help him, and
I will do it in a moment, gladly."
"Well, that is generous of you. Miss Lovell,
very: but women are, I believe, extraordinarily
generous always in these matters. Gerald Durant
really it's not an easy thing to speak about ^is
suppossd, for reasons which you may perhaps
guess, to have had an interest in the death of Mar-
garet Hall. It took place on the night of the 2nd
you know, and unless he can prove with extreme
minuteness what he was doing at that time, I
fancy things are likely to go pretty hard with him.
Now, of course, any one who happened to be in his
company on that night, might, if they chose, come
forward and be of service to him. Do you under-
stand me ? '*
" No, I do not,'' she answered, hoarsely, leaning
her arm heavily against a stem of the overhanging
alder, and with every tinge of colour dying on her
face and lips. "I do not understand you. What
I
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF " THE TIMES. 77
do I know of this Margaret Hall, or of her
death ? "
" Nothing whatever, Miss Lovell. The question
rather is, do you know anything of Mr. Durant
and his actions on the night when her death took
plaee?''
" Of course I do not. What right have you to
question me ? You are trying to frighten me still
as you did in Morteville, and you will not succeed,
sir ! I wiU teU papa and and another friend I
have the whole truth, and they will protect me from
you. I think you should be ashamed to persecute
me so. What have I ever done to harm you ? "
Captain Waters shrugged his shoulders, then
calmly took out a folded newspaper from his
pocket. " You spoke to me in this weU, I won't
use harsh words, in this very impetuous spirit once
before, Miss LoveU, and I bore you no ill will for
it. I shall bear you none now. The whole affair,
as I am going to show you, is already in stronger
hands than mine, and if you will take my advice
you will keep your nerve, and above all your
temper cool. As to consulting your friends," he
78 abchu lovell.
added, ** I should think it woidd be about the very
best thing you could do. Bead this, please." And
ho opened the paper, a copy of The Times, and
pointing out an adyertisement in the second column
of the first sheeti put it pleaaantly into her hands.
"Information Wanticd. The lady who lent a scarlet
travtiUing cloak to another lady on board the excursion steamer
Lord of the lelea, aomowhere between Morteville-snr-Mer and
Lundonj on the 2nd instant, is earnestly requested to send
hur name and address immediately to the undersigned.
a, Wiokharo, Lilac Court, Inspector of the City district of
Police,"
As Archie Lovell read the advertisement ^pain-
fully, dowly read it, with burning eyes, with a
hvixxn tlmt seemed incapable of taking in its mean-
ingWaters stood silent and scanned her face
narrowly. His knowledge of the case, and of
Archie Lovell's possible implication in it, was
necessarily confined as yet to the most meagre out-
lines, Mr. Wickham being far too astute a eneral
to betray the plan of his attack to an auxiliary save
on that particidar point at which his assistance was
required. But long experience in the lower grades
of human nature, long experience in the lower
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OP " THE TIMES." 79
walks of intrigue if only the intrigae brought
into action in hunting down victims for the pharo
or bilHard table ^had developed not a little quasi-
professional acuteness in Captain "Waters himself.
During his first interview with Wickham, in spite
of all his friend's flowery circumlocution, he had
felt certain that legal evidence of some kind was
wanted respecting Gerald Dnrant's actions on that
second day of August when he spoke to him from
the Calais pier: certain, also, that the cause for
which Mr. Wickham gave him a dinner and (for
Oxford Street) excellent champagne, must be an
urgent one. His story, such as it was, told ; and
Wickham had afiected to treat the whole affair as
a joke, dexterously changing the conversation to
completely foreign subjects before they parted. But
Captain Waters perfectly well knew that the eyes
of Mr. Wickham and of his satellites had watched
his comings and his goings ever since; and by
dint of aU kind of underhand research, joined to
the vague hints thrown out by the newspapers, had
succeeded in constructing a theory tolerably near
the truth, as to the perilous position in which
80 ARCHIE LOVELL.
Gerald Durant stood ; the kind of price that his
own evidence, or opportune disappearance out of
England, might hereafter command. Theories,
unfortunately, however, not possessing any parti-
cular market value, the only course open to Cap-
tain Waters had, till yesterday, been to hold him-
self in readiness and play a waiting game. Then,
suddenly the adverstisement that he had read in
The Times had given form and coherence to the
whole shadowy chain of suspicion, which up to that
moment his own brain alone had put together :
had supplied him, too, with light as to the precise
link in the evidence of which ' Wickham was at
present in search. And on the instant Captain
"Waters decided to risk a first-class return-ticket to
StaflEbrdshire without delay. Into what market the
knowledge of which he had to dispose should be
brought : whether his price should be paid by Mr.
Durant, in some Quixotic desire to save Miss
Lovell, or by Miss Lovell, in some praiseworthy
desire to save herself : Captain Waters, as I have
said, cared little. Only as selfishness was, he held,
a sounder general basis to proceed upon than
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF " THE TIMES." 81
generosity ; and as experience had shown him that
women are more amenable to reason than men, in
. all cases of converting fear into money ; it was as
well, perhaps ^this he thought now, as he stood
watching the girl's terror-stricken face that chance
had thrown her, not Gerald Durant, first across his
path.
"You look pale, Miss Lovell take courage.
The word * police ' is a formidable one, no doubt,
to a young lady, but take courage. Everything
may be hushed up yet."
" Do they know?" asked Archie, looking at him
with frightened, dilated eyes, " do these people
does the man who wrote this ^know where I am
nowP"
The simplicity of the question made a half-smile
stir imder Captain Waters' little blonde moustache.
" Know where you are ! certainly not, my dear Miss
Lovell. Do you think I should bo talking to you
in this informal way if anything was definitely
known? I see that you are bewildered and
shocked ^now sit down on the bank ^here in the
shade" she obeyed him mechanically "and I
VOL. III. a
82 ARCHIE LOVELL.
will put it all before you as plainly and as briefly
as I can: Mr. Gerald Durant some months ago
was accused ^wrongly, we will assume of being
Margaret Hall's lover, some have said her hus-
band, and is now supposed to be implicated in
some mysterious way in her death. Very well.
A reward having been offered which has stimu-
lated to tha utmost the zeal of the police, inqui-
ries have already gone so far that the whole
matter is, I fear, certain to become public." She
gave a start of terror at the word. " Mr. Gerald
Durant will, in fact, be brought before a magistrate
to give some account of himself and of his actions
on the night of the 2nd. And now you will under-
stand what I meant by sajdng that any one who
was with him at that time might possibly come
forward and save him. If it could be proved that
he was in another pUce and in other society at ten
o'clock " ^he paused a moment and looked steadily
in her face " the time when this young person (so
unhappily for every one connected with her) ended
her life, what, in law, is called an aJibi would be
established, and Mr. Durant would be free.'*
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF " THE TIMES." 83
" And what have I to do with it ! " she cried,
passionately. " Why must I suffer P Why must
I "
"Miss Lovell," interrupted Waters, gravely,
** these are not words that I ought to allow you to
speak ; these are not considerations for you to dis-
cuss with me. How you will act will be for your
own future consideration. The duty which, meet-
ing you suddenly now, it has seemed thrust upon
me to fulfil is simply to warn you of the position
in which you are likely to be placed, and I have
done it ! I have done more, Miss Lovell. My
evidence has already been sought ^well ^by a
detective officer; it would be false kindness to
make too light of anything now ^respecting the
way in which Mr. Durant left Morteville, the com-
panion with whom I saw him at the Calais pier ;
and remembering the promise that I made to you
in MorteviUe, I have managed so far to screen you.
When I saw this advertisement in last night's
paper, I certainly thought it right to come down
here, see Gerald, poor fellow ! and offer such help
as I could give him at once. But meeting you,
o 2
84 ARCHIE lovel;..
Miss Lovell, has given another direction to mjr
thoughts. Unless you bid me speak, I will remain-
silent still ; and then, as far as I can at present see,,
only yoor own freewill or or Mr. Duranfs can
bring yon into the trial or before the public at all."
Into the trial before the public ! Sho, Archie
Lorell, who yesterday, it seemed, took her doll to-
her pillow with her, brought forward to tell her
own shameful story before men in a public court
(she had been in tho courts of law in Italy, and
she remembered how the lawyers jibed and bow
the crowd hooted the witnesses) ; her father dis-
graced ; Ralph Seton's love forfeited ; every happi-
ness of her life over and for what P Because sho
must save Gerald, Miss Dnrant's promised hna-
band, the man whose selfish weakness had alone
led her into all this labyrinth of falsehood and of
wrong.
The poor little girl was far at this moment from
grasping anything like the true proportions of the
danger that menaced her. Vaguely she remem-
bered how, standing by Gerald's side, she had put
her cloak around the miserable woman upon the
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF *' THE TIMES." 85
iridge ; vaguely realised that to save Gerald Durant
Jfrom some mistaken suspicions that rested upon him,
she would he hrought forward and have to tell the
story of her journey with him to London, and dis-
grace her father, and estrange Ralph, and all good
men and women from her for ever.
" I thank you for what you have done. Captain
Waters. Try to screen me still. Don't go to the
Court don't tell the Durants of this. Mr. Durant
would not injure me, I think, even to help himself;
but Lucia Lady Durant what would they care
if he could be saved by our disgrace ? Help me
still. I have no one to help me but you." And
the childish white face that looked up to hini
imploringly touched even Captain Waters' heart
with a^ sensation of pity.
"I will stand by you to the last, Miss Lovell.
As far as a man of honour can " ^the word came
trippingly from his lips "I will stand by you
even when I am upon my oath. If you still wish
to tell your father, I will come with you to him at
once and "
u
No, no ! " she interrupted, " not to him. He
I
r'
86 ARCHIE LOVELL.
shall know nothing of all this as long as I am able
to bear it alone." And then the thought of him,
happy with his pictures and his poems at the Rec-
tory, looking forward to fair years of peace and
honour in his new home, overcame her, and with a
convulsive sob she buried her face down between
her hands.
Waters watched this outburst of emotion nar-
rowly. Was she foolish, and vacillating, and a
coward, like other women ? he wondered, just as
he had wondered that day upon the Morteville .
sands. A weak girl, who would say one thing to
him and another to the next person who addressed
her, and incapable alike of coming boldly forward
to Gerald's rescue, or of dogged resolve in standing
staunch to herself and leaving him to his fate. If
she were made of materials like this, Waters
thought, the sooner he gave her up and saw what
was to be made out of Gerald Durant himself the
better.
He was quickly re-assured of the kind of cha-
racter this girl of seventeen possessed. That one
convulsive sob was the first and last sign of her
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF " THE TIMES." 87
weakness. She kept her tears back bravely;
steadied her brain resolutely to think; went
through a moment's fierce combat with every im-
pulse of her nobler nature ; then succumbed and
spoke. "I don't, of course, understand all this
yet " looking up to Waters with a face of marble,
with tearless eyes, and hard-set lips " but, what-
ever happens, I am determined in one thing. I
will not hurt my father. I will not tell that story
of my going to London to save any one. Mr.
Durant must help himself, as I should have to do
if I was in danger. Now you understand me.
What return do you expect for befriending me.
Captain Waters ? Money ? I can get it ^tell me
how much and I can get it."
He shifted about somewhat uneasily, then, " it
pained him inexpressibly, he said, to accept any
assistance whatever from her, but he was horribly
hard up just now, all this business might put him
to a great deal of expense travelling expenses, in-
terviews, if requisite, with lawyers, and so on
and if, say, fifty pounds or so, could be forth-
coming ? "
88 ARCHIE LOVELL.
"You shall have what I can get," she inter-
rupted him, sullenly. " I will heg from a friend I
have, and what he gives me I shall send: no more.
What is your address ? "
He took out a card and gave it to her ; remark-
ing, delicately, that the sooner any little assistance
she could render him was sent the better; then
asked if he might attend her part of the way back
to her father's house. " For," he added, taking
out his watch, " I have quite decided now not to see
Gerald Durant. My allegiance is to you, and to
you alone, and if I return at once to the station I
shall be just in time to catch the next fast train to
London."
''Go, then," said Archie, without oflFering to
leave her place, " I shall yiot return yet I want
to be alone."
" And you will have no ill-feeling towards me,
Miss Lovell, because chance has made me the
bearer of this disagreeable news ? "
" Why should I ? You are doing what you
think best for yourself, I suppose, as I do as all
the world does ! " And, just touching his out-
IN THE SECOND COLUMN OF " THE TIMES." 89
stretclied hand with her death-cold fingers, she
burst into a laugh : a hollow, old-sounding laugh
that even Captain Waters did not find it pleasant
to listen to.
When he had walked away about half the length
of the field he turned and saw her sitting still
the pale face blankly upturned, the motionless
hands lying on her lap, just as he had left her.
Captain Waters never more heartily wished that
he was .an elder son and free from the necessity of
bread-winning than at this moment. Only, as
money was to be made, and as he was obliged to
make it, he was glad that he was able to do
the girl a benefit, not an injury by his work.
She was a woman worth working for and with, he
thought ; for so unconquerably averse to the sense
of our moral degradation are we even this man
strove to whiten himself by saying that his victim's
motives were very little higher than his own ! Let
her good name, her worldly reputation, be at stake,
and, with all her soft girlishness of manner, she
would save herself even if the ruin of the man
she loved yesterday were to be the price.
90 ABCmS LOTEUL
'^ And quite light too/' Captain Waiers deddcd^
as he tumed and went awaT. " What has this
idiofw, Gerald Dmant, done to merit her gene-
rosity?"
Little did he think where, and nnder what czr-
comstances, he would see the face of Archie Lorell
next
CHAPTER IV.
THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM.
Ltjdbrooke, Major Seton's place, was about
tliree-quarters of a mile distant from the Lovells*
cottage, and before Ralpb had been twenty-four
hours at home, it seemed just as much a matter of
course that his time should be passed with them as
in the happy days of seven years ago at the Villa
Andreo, in Genoa. The days when every morning
Archie used to wait for him, a flower ready in her
han^, all a child's delicious prodigality of love upon
her lips, at the broken doorway of the old Italian
garden : days when his only rival was Tino ! when
looking forward to the years to come, he was wont
to feel the impossibility of Archie Lovell, among
all the children of the world, ever deteriorating to
the common standard of commonplace humanity as
she grew up. She might not bloom for his wear-
92 ARCHIE LOVELL.
ing, of course ; what was there in him to deserve a
different fate to other men's? But, whether for
him or for another, the frank nature mtist keep its
frankness ; the sweet lips their candour ; the honest
eyes their truth. All were foresworn now and he
was haunting her steps still : thrilling if only a
fold of the girl's dress touched him as she passed ;
his pulse beating like a boy's whenever the blue
eyes stole up to his ; a spasm of hot jealousy con-
tracting his heart every time that Gerald Durant's
name passed her lips. And still steadfastly saying
to himself that the passionate folly of his life was
cured ; that, following the voice of honour and of
prudence alike, he had put Archie Lovell away out
of his heart !
He came to the Rectory soon after noon on, the
day succeeding Archie's visit to the Court, and
found her alone in the garden that lay in front of
the cottage, working with her own hands, and with
a feverish sort of energy, at cutting up the turf of
the little grass-plot for ftiture flower-beds. She
threw down her spade the moment she saw Major
Seton, and running up to his side, said that she
I
THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM. 93
was tired and sick of work ; then stole her hand
under his arm and led him in, almost he thought
with the unconscious warmth of old Italian days,
to the house. The Rectory was a low-roofed, irre-
gular cottage, all on the groimd floor ; one of those
ofen added to country parsonages wherein more
space is occupied by useless closets and passages
leading nowhere, than by actual living rooms ; but
which, standing in its own upland garden and
orchard, exposed to every wind that blew, seemed
to Archie's gipsy instincts a far more congenial
place to live in than Durant's Court sequestered
shade, stately cedars, and cartouche shields in-
cluded. At the present moment every room, every
passage of the cottage, was strewed with Mr.
Lovell's newly-unpacked bric-al-brac ^the thousand
pounds' worth of toys that Ralph Seton's money
had saved from the hammer. Dresden and Sevres,
Marqueterie and Buhl, met you whichever way
you turned ; and it was only by dint of much
careftd steerage that Archie brought MaJ9r Seton
safely through to the little parlour, where the table
was already spread for the Lovells' early dinner
94 ABCHIE LOVELL.
lunclieoii^ as Bettina, on the strength of new eccle-
siastical dignities, insisted it should now be called.
" I have an invitation for this evening for you,
Miss Lovell/' said Ralph, taking a tiny note from
his pocket after he had stood -and watched the girl
for three or four minutes, as his custom was, in
silence. " It came enclosed in one to me, and I
thought I might as well walk over at once and see
what your answer would be. I called late last
night to see you ^to smoke a pipe, I mean, with
your father and Mrs. Lovell told me that she had
sent you to your room, ill."
" HI ! " cried Archie, throwing oflF her hat with
a laugh, and displaying cheeks like damask-roses,
eyes that an unwonted light made brilliant. "I
came back from my walk flushed, as I am now,
and nothing would do for Bettina, but I must go
oflF to my bed at once. If I look a shade more
sunburnt than usual, papa and Bettina, or both,
are sure to think I am dying. What is this invi-
tation about? I didn't think that any one in
Stafibrdshire, but you, knew our name as yet."
And she took the note from Major Seton's hand.
THE LULL BEFOBE THE STOBM. 95
and standing close enough for him to look orer
with her if he chose, broke the seal, and read it
through.
It was a prettily- worded invitation from Lucia
Durant ; every line mathematically equi-distanced,
and with neat little commas and semicolons exactly
where they ought to be, expressing Lady Durant's
sorrow that Miss Lovell had not stayed to luncheon
yesterday, and asking her to come over to croquet
and high tea that evening. If Mr. and Mrs.
Lovell would accompany her, Lady Durant would
be charmed ; if not, perhaps Major Seton would be
Miss Lovell's escort, as they had written and asked
him to join the party.
" Well,*' said Ealph, who had been reading, not
the note, but Archie's face, " do you care to go, or
would the long walk be too much for you ? "
"The long walk would not, for certain," she
answered; "but ^well. Major Seton, honestly, I
don't think I am very fond of Durant's Court.
Something seems to stifle me there, and then, you
know, lovers are not amusing, are they ? Gerald
Durant was very well by himself, as a partner at a
96 ARCHIE LOVELL.
Morteville ball ; with Miss Durant alone, I could
find something to say perhaps about her trousseau,
or the bridesmaids' dresses, but together no !
How can they want me P How can Mr. Durant
want any other society than his cousin's ? "
" Because he does not happen to care about her,
I suppose," said Ralph, drily. "Theirs is an
engagement without any pretence of sentiment, as
I dare say you had occasion to guess, Archie, even
during your short experience of Gerald Durant in
Morteville. Miss Durant likes her cousin because
she has never seen any one else in her life. Gerald
marries her "
"Because she is rich,'' interrupted Archie,
quickly. " I know, and I repeat, I don't see why
they ask me to be with them so much. If they
are in love with each other, they caonot want
strangers. If they are not "
" If they are not, Archie ? "
" Well, they certainly won't become so through
having me in their company .... besides, it's
much pleasanter at home, and there is plenty to be
done in the garden, if you'll help me. I don't at
THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM. 97
idl see why you and I should trouble ourselves to
luake society for the Durants, when we have the
xjhoice of remaining here alone by ourselves ! "
But Bettina, who entered the room just then, on
poor Mr. Lovell's arm, stately as if she had been a
bishop's wife, for the one o'clock dinner, saw the
matter in a very different light. An invitation, a
first invitation to Durant's Court to be refused!
The best neighbours they had : and showing such a
friendly spirit asking them already to the wedding
and everything ! Some member of the family at
;dl events should accept ; and she had a very great
mind to put on her mauve moire and start, herself,
:as soon as luncheon was over : a threat that brought
Archie, who shrank with nervous terror from the
thought of Bettina and Gerald meeting, to instant,
almost eager, submission. She would go ; she
would be agreeable to Lucia; would try, if she
-could, to behave like a young lady ^not a boy;
would accept any invitations they gave her : every-
thing that Bettina wished only, let her and Major
Seton go alone. And then Mrs. LoveU happily
remembering that the doctor's wife had promised
VOL. II r. H
i
98 ABCHIE LOYELL.
to call and talk over parish business that afternoon,
the matter was settled ; and at three o'clock Archie
stood ready by Major Seton's side at the Rectory-
gate, with Bettina still calling out to her through
the parlour-window, to be pleasant to everybody,
and to accept all overtures of intimacy that Lady
Durant and her daughter might be good enough to
make.
The coolest summer path from the Rectory to
Duranfs Court was a footway that led throt^h a
comer of the Ludbrooke woods, then, after half a
mile or so of steep and sheltered lane, fell into one
of the side alleys of the old Chase : and this was
the path Major Seton chose for Archie now. She
was in a tumult of wild spirits as soon as she
got away out of Bettina's sight, and made the
woods echo with her jokes and bursts of laughter
as they walked along. But Ralph knew her well
enough to detect a false ring in her voice, a bitter-
ness very unlike her old self, under all her little
jests, and his heart was pained for her exceedingly.
More than ever the girl's beauty and grace, and
fitful winning ways, had touched his fancy to-day :
TBE LULL BEFORE THE STOESf. 99
I
more than ever his reason bade him note how
thorough, how consistent was her capacity for dis-
simulation : and more than ever he loved her !
Loved her so he strove to believe ^with a love
from which every selfish hope, every smaller
jealousy, was absent. Whatever the nature of her
feelings towards Gerald Durant : whether the last
act in this part that she was playing should be
comedy or tragedy: he, at least, would hold by
her ^blindly, unquestioningly ! Not, perhaps, as a
man would hold by the woman into whose hands
he meant to entrust his own honour, but rather as.
a father would hold faithful to an erring child, a
child whom no fault, no guilt, could ever estrange
from his affection.
" You laugh too much, Archie ; it pains me to
hear it. I don't think there is quite a true sound
in your voice or in your laugh to-day.*'
They had just reached the point where Durant's
Court was first visible among the distant trees, and
Archie, in the middle of some wild childish jest or
other, was laughing, a stranger would have said,
with her whole heart, when Ralph spoke. She
100 ARCHIE LOVELL.
turned to him, and the laugh died in a moment :
her lips began to quiver.
" I I don't know what you mean, Major Seton.
I never used to tire you by my nonsense once, I
think!''
*' It was all real then, Archie. If your voice
had got its old sound I could listen to your laugh
for ever.'*
" The old sound ! How can one's voice remain
the same always P Doesn't life change P isn't one
changed oneself P I shall be eighteen in October.
How can you expect me to be a child in any-
thing P " Saying all this quickly, passionately, and
with the same quiver yet about her lips.
'*Well, you are not quite a child of course,
Archie," said Ralph, kindly ; " but you are of an
age to have a child's spirits certainly not to need
to force them as you do to-day."
"You think so? Major Seton, what do you
know of my life and of my troubles ^the things I
have to make my heart heavy P Is our age
measured by years P Bettina and papa are ten
times lighter-hearted, both of them, than I."
THE LULL BEFORE THE STOBM. 101
" Poor little Archie ! If I could help you I
would, child ^help you with my life but you
won't let me, you know. I am nothing to you
now. Do you remember the old motto that I
taught you, and made you hold to when you were
little the motto that you acted upon when you
saved Tino from being punished for your sinsP
Of course you don't, though. How should you
remember anything that happened all those years
ago?" .
" I remember it distinctly," said Archie ; " a
very nice motto it was ^for me and Tino ! but
it would never fit into the lives of grown-up men
and women ^women especially: * Pais ce que
dois : advienne que pourra/ A beautiful maxim !
* Fats ce que dois : ' easy to follow if other people
did the same ; but they don't ; and one's life is
mixed up with other lives, and what we do
comes from other people, not from ourselves. If
each of us lived in a desert, your motto would
be an admirable one ; but we don't live in deserts
^I don't, at least and I can't do what is right,
and I care a great deal sometimes I am told
102 ABCHIE LOVELL.
my first duty is to care for what follows.
Allez ! ''
She snatched oflf a great head of foxglove from
the hedge^ and hegan plucking it to pieces as she
walked ; throwing away flower after flower with a
certain restless gesture of the hand that Ralph
remembered was always the sign of some unusual
emotion in her when she was a child.
" And I can't even advise you, Archie, then ? "
Never had he admired her more than at this
moment : her fresh lips playing at scepticism and
sophistry; the scoffing, defiant look upon her soft
child's face. Never had she more recalled to him
the days when he believed that the germ of every
fair and noble quality was latent in Archie Lovell's
hei;. " There is nothing you will let me do for
youP"
" In the way of advice, nothing. Advice never
did me any good: it never will. Now, if ^if ^" she
hesitated an instant j then shot a quick glance up
into Ralph's face, " I hate to say this, Major Seton,
when I think of all you have done for us, but I
have no one to go to but you I asked Bettina in
THE LULL BEFOBE THE STOBBL 103
a roundabout way this morning, and she told me
we had not five pounds in the house ^if you could
lend me some money, fifty pounds say, you would
help me infinitely ! help me, ah, so that I could
never repay you while I live ! " And she came
close to him, and suddenly put up her hand, all in
a tremble, on his arm.
The touch thrilled through every fibre of Balph
Seton's heart. "I wish you had asked me for
anything els6, Archie, by Heaven, I do ! What
do you want money for P TeU me everything you
desire in the world, and let me oh, child, let, me
have the foolish pleasure of giving it you ^but.
money! You, at your age, to want-mon^y!"
And for an instant the sickening suspicion that
her father must have tutored her into asking this
overcame him.
"WeU, you have only to refuse me,'' said
Archie, quietly j "but her face blanched at the
thought of his refusal. ^*It is not to spend upon
myself ; it is not for anything I can tell papa about.
I am in a great trouble a trouble where only
money can help me, and I thought perhaps you
104 ARCHIE LOVELL.
would iiave lent me some. I will speak of it na
more Ralph, dear Ralph ! " half repentant, half
cajoling, and looking .up at him with eyes unused
to denial, " you have sacrificed enough for US'
already, I am sure ! ''
And upon this Major Seton straightway did
what many another stem, high-principled man
would have done, perhaps, with a soft hand
weighting his arm, blue eyes imploring to him
through unshed tears ^succumbed utterly; pro-
mised to write out a cheque for fifty pounds a
hundred pounds whenever Archie wished ; to ask
ier no question, direct or indirect, about the way
in which it pleased her to spend it ; but to stand
for this she pleaded to him wistfully to stand by
her and aid her in every difficulty of her life, now
and always. Then he took her hand, and, raising
it reverently, held it long ^poor little trembling
hand that it was ^to his lips. This was part of
his system, doubtless, for his folly's cure : part of
his system for putting the girl away out of his
heart.
They found Lucia and Gerald already out on
THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM. 105
the lawn, pretending, in a lover-like fashion, to
play croquet, when they arrived. Miss Durant, in
her little affable way, assigned Archie and Major
Seton to be partners at once ; and the match was
soon going on as gaily as though no heart out of
the four were burthened by fear or jealousy as
calmly as though no storm, which might for ever
wreck the lives of all, were already dark upon the
horizon! Won by the irresistible frankness of
Gerald's manner, the hearty grasp of his hand
when they met, Ralph Seton foxmd it impossible,
after the first five minutes were over, to treat him
either with coldness or distrust. Indeed, as the
day wore on, and as he marked Gerald's thoroughly
unconcerned manner towards Archie, his devotion
to Lucia ; marked, too could he fail to mark P
the conscious blush that ever and anon rose upon
Archie Lovell's face when, by chance, her eyes met
his own ; it began to dawn upon the mind of the
old Moustache that a good many of his severest
foregone resolutions were somewhat transcendental
ones. Through folly or through accident, this girl
and this man had once spent eight or ten hours
106 ARCHIE LOVELL.
of a summer's day scarcely more than indifferent
acquaintance spend at a pic-nic or a yachting
party ^together ; and neither caring for the other,
and the world happily knowing nothing of that
foolish chance each with honour would marry and
be happy apart, some day look back and 5peak
with calmness of that accidental half-liking of the
past. Archie had spoken falsely to him in Morte-
ville, certainly ; ay ^but how fair she looked, bare-
headed beneath the cedar shade, the cool light
playing on her white dress, her bright hair dus-
tering round her neck, her slender figure girlishly,
innocently free in every new attitude, as she flitted
across the grass. She had been false ^was false
still. But something must ever be forgiven in
what we love ; and marvellously easy, it would be,
he thought, to forgive her anything! And with
an instinctive, a growing consciousness of why
Major Seton watched her so steadfastly, Archie,
all her forced spirits gone, was soft, quiet, womanly^
as she had never been till to-day : soft and womanly
to an extent that occasionally gave Gerald's heart
a very sore pang yet; and even made Lucia con-
THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM. 107
fess to him, aside, that, with training and attention,
and care of her complexion, the rector's daughter
might possibly yet become "nice-looking than
otherwise."
When their match was over, Major Seton and
Archie shamefdlly defeated, high tea as dinner,
if eaten cold or at an earlier hour than usual, must
now be called ^was served to them upon the lawn.
Archie sat by Sir John Durant, charming him, as
that sunny face and laugh of hers always charmed
old people, and long before the meal was over had
begun to confess to herself that the air of Durant's
Court, the presence even of the lovers themselves,
no longer stifled her. A welcome sense of peace
and protection came over her as she looked at Sir
John and Lady Durant, at the stately old house,
the hemmed-in gardens, the grave grey-headed
butler standing erect and impassive behind his
master's chair. Impossible, she thought, that
vulgar, noisy trouble, the scandal of a public expo-
sure, could be coming near a place so sheltered,
near people so separated from the outer world as
these. What was there to prove that Captain
108 AKCHIE LOVELL.
Waters' story had a word of truth in it P Might
he not himself have put that notice in the paper ?
Would such a man hesitate as to means where
money was to be extorted? And she had been
weak, cowardly enough to take all his threats at
their full worth ! Lucky that it had been out of
her power to send him off the money at once. She
would make fullest confession, she thought, as she
walked home with Ralph to-night; would throw
herself upon his pity ; ask him to save her from
the possibility of Captain Waters' further persecu-
tion; and then ^then bright vistas of a peaceful
future floated, rose-coloured, before Archie's mind !
Her father happy with his pictures, Bettina with
the parish, and she and Ralph fast friends, not a
shadow of distrust between them, and in time,
perhaps, long after Gerald and Lucia were
married
At this point of her meditation ^Ralph was
watching her downcast face just then, thinking
how pure, how childlike, how untainted by a touch
of falsehood, that face was one of the under-
servants of the Court came across the lawn from
THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM. 109
the house, and, beckoning the butler mysteriously
aside, said a few words in his ear. The old man
at first shook his head, as though protesting agednst
the indecorum of the message, whatever it was,
that had been delivered to him; then, after a
minute's consultation, returned behind his master's
chair, and bending low, told him, in a whisper,
that a person from London desired to see him
without delay a person on most important busi-
ness, of the name of Wickham.
The word, whispered though it was, fell full on
Archie Lovell's ear. Another instant, and her
face ^that innocent face that Ralph was watching
so tenderly ^had grown white as ashes.
CHAPTER V.
FABEWELLS TO LUCIA.
Mr. Wickham stood quietly waiting for the
seiranfs return in the great hall of the Court;
and as he waited he took a brief mental inventory
of all the different objects by which he was sur-
rounded. The dark groined roof ^not used to
shelter men of his particular class ^the armour in
which the Durants of old had tilted, and sometimes
bled to death for honour ; the coats of arms upon
the painted windows; the glimpse through the
open door of the garden, lying peaceful in the rosy
evening flush, and of the little party beneath the
cedars, Mr. "Wickham took note of all : profession-
ally, mechanically, with a view to possible contin-
gencies, without any sense of triumph or of pity ;
simply as he would have taken note of the squalid
FAREWELLS TO LUCLi. Ill
furniture in that waterside tavern to which he
conducted Mrs. Sherborne on the day succeeding
Margaret Hall's death.
Sir John Durant would see him in a few minutes,
the servant brought in word; Sir John was at
present finishing dinner with some friends on the
lawn, if the gentleman would walk into the library ?
So into the library, with his peculiar, stealthy,
noiseless tread, the gentleman walked (taking more
notes on his way) ; and there, upright, unmoved,
just as it chanced under the moumful-eyed portrait
of Sir Francis Durant ^the cavalier who was wont
to lay himself in his coffin in memory of the mar-
tyred king stood and waited for the present
master of the Court: the old man whose pride,
whose name, it was his mission to bring lower than
the pride, the name, of any Durant since the Con-
quest had ever yet been brought !
Sir John came in with his accustomed courteous,
blandly-condescending air ; seated himself by the
open window, from whence he could still see
Gerald at Lucia's side, and signed graciously to
Mr. Wickham that he might take a chair.
112 ARCHIE LOVELL.
" You have come to see me on business,
Mr. ?''
," Wickham, Sir John Durant. Inspector Wick-
ham/' put in the visitor, deferentially, and remain-
ing standing stiU.
" Mr* Wickham ah, yes, I did not quite catch
the name. Some communication from Conyers
Brothers, of Lincohi's Inn, I suppose ? "
Mr. Wickham gave an apologetic half-cough,
and raised the back of his hand to his mouth.
"Mr. Conyers was the party, I understand. Sir
John Durant, who first opened your offer to
our people, but my business is not connected
with that in any way payment of course never
being made in these cases until the information
sought for has been brought to proof. I have
come down to-day on a mission of a remarkably
grave nature, and the circumstances being un-
usually delicate ones ^it seems to me a duty"
on the strength of addressing a baronet, Mr.
Wickham made his sentences as long and as in-
verted as he could "a painM duty. Sir John
Durant, to put you in possession of some of
FAREWELLS TO LUCIA. 113
the leading facts my inquiries have brought to
light before proceeding to execute it."
"Ah, yes, I'm much obliged to you for your
attention, I am sure." And Sir John, always
sleepy after dinner, gave a half-yawn as he spoke
If you really donH think Conyers would have done
as well ? I have a great dislike 'to business, and
^and all painful subjects, and I am sure I shall
gladly pay the hundred pounds (something has
been discovered you say ?) to know that the
thing is set at rest. It has been a very harassing
occurrence to me, Mr. Wickham, very." And Sir
John drew out his spectacles, wiped them, adjusted
them on his nose, and looked imploringly at his
visitor, as much as to say, "Pray be brief, my
good Mr. Wickham ; you are an excellent person,
no doubt, and have done everything that excellent
persons of your class are usually paid to do in these
matters, and I'm ready to glance at any distressing
documents you may have with you, or sign you a
cheque : anything to get rid of you, and of all other
unpleasant subjects as briefly as possible ! " And
Mr. Wickham, no bad interpreter of expression,
VOL. III. r
114 ARCHIE LOVELL.
saw at a glance with what kind of human creature
he had to deal. Durant's Court was not the only-
old house with an unsullied name and an ancestry-
dating back to William the Conqueror into which
his professional duties had been the means of bring-
ing him.
"I am sorry, Sir John Durant ahem! very
sorry ^to say that my communication cannot be
told in six words. This is a matter of no common
importance, sir, and I think perhaps it would be as
weU to have a third party present during our
conversation."
Sir John bowed resignedly. " Whatever you
think necessary only, really, if Conyers could
have done it all and another person present, you
say ! Now is that necessary, Mr. Wickham ? It was
my duty of course to see that these inquiries were
made a very good girl, poor thing ! the Sherbomes
most respected tenants of ours for generations past
and it has been your duty to make them but
why should we pain another person by compelling
him to listen to any of the harrowing details you
have collected ? Why should we, Mr. Wickham ?"
FABEWELLS TO LUCIA. 115
" Well, Sir John Durant," answered Mr. Wiok-
ham, with a little abrupt shift from his upright
posture. "You being, as I hear, a magistrate,
don't need to be told that there's a form in all
these things a form that if s just as well to attend
to. I'm placed by my duty in a position where
it's best for all parties to be plain spoken, and
I hope you'll say hereafter I conducted every-
thing honourable and above-board. Mr. Gerald
Durant is, I believe, staying in this house ?
Well, I understood so I understood so and if
I may make so free as to offer an opinion, I
should say that Mr. Gerald Durant is the gentle-
man who ought to be present at our conversa-
tion."
" Dear me well, now, I cannot see that I "
oried Sir John. " What earthly difference can it
make whether two people or one has to bore him-
self ^I beg your pardon, to go through aU this
very distressing business ? however, of course you
know best. May I ask you to have the goodness
to touch that bell? -thank you, I have been
rather helpless, Mr. Wickham, since my last
I 2
116 ARCHIE LOVELL.
attack of gout,- and I feel every change in the
weather. We are going to have rain now, I'm
afraid. The harvest has been getting on very well
hitherto." Making these little remarks in the
affably familiar tone he always employed towards
his inferiors. " A great deal is in round us
already, and we are not generally an early
county."
Mr. Wickham was deferentially interested.
Being a Londoner himself he was not much of a
hand at such things, but seemed to think the crops
looked forward, certainly, as he came down by the
train. After this, a servant having meanwhile
entered and been told to request Mr. Gerald
Durant's presence in the library, there was a
pause. Sir John helped himself to a pinch of
snuff from his gold snuff-box, and turned his face
again towards the window (very handsome the
kindly weak old face looked in the sinking light) ;
Mr. Wickham stood respectfiilly in the background
still: the hard features immovable, expressionless
as ever: the keen eyes adding more and more
items to that professional inventory which his
FAREWELLS TO LUCLi. 117
tmresting brain was never wearied of drawing out.
In five or six minutes' time Gerald Durant entered
the room.
^'Here is my nephew, Mr. Gerald Durant,"
aid Sir John. " Gerald, this is Mr. Wickham
Inspector Wickham, you know, whom Conyers got
io inquire about poor Maggie Hall, and we thought
you might as well be present to hear how it is all
settled. I wrote to Conyers a week or two back
didn't I tell you? offering a reward if anything
-could be discovered about the way she came by her
-death, poor soul, and "
But the old man's hazy talk was brought to a
sudden stop before the look of Gerald's face. He
had, I have said before, a complexion which
flushed and faded like a girl's under any strong
amotion ; at this moment the blood rushed violently
to his temples, then ebbed away and left him a pale
:ashen hue, very painful to witness. "You you
offered a reward, sir ! " he exclaimed, his voice
shaken with agitation ; for now that the police had
been at work, could he doubt what story he had
been summoned here to listen to ? could he doubt
118 ARCHIE LOVELL.
that the shame of Robert Dennison's marriage
flie treble shame of his having deserted his wife,
was to become pubKc ? " No, you did not tell me
of this before. I wish to heaven you had ! '* he
added bitterly.
ITp to this moment he had scarcely noticed
Wiokham, who was still keeping respectfully aloof
in the backgroimd ; as he turned impatiently from
his uncle now, his eyes fell full upon the detective's
face, and then Mr. Wickham came half a step for-
ward, and after giving another of his small coughs
of apology spoke :
" My duty is a painful one, Mr. Gerald Durant,
but I wish to discharge it as delicately and as
fairly as possible, and I warn you, sir, that anything
you say now may hereafter be brought up to your
detriment. I have no wish ^there is no necessity,'*
he added with emphasis, " for me to employ sub-
terfuge of any kind. I am an officer of detective
police. I have been employed by the authorities
to investigate the circumstances connected with
Margaret Hall's death, on the second instant, and
I warn you again, Mr. Durant, that anything you
FABEWELLS TO LUCIA. 119
nowgay may hereafter be made use of to your
disadvantage."
"And why the deuce, sir, should we require
this, or any other warning of yours?" cried
Gerald, hotly. " Sir John Durant has offered a
sum of money for the discovery of certain circum-
stances. You, it appears, have discovered them^
and have come to claim your reward. What can
we possibly have to say at all in such a matter P
You have to speak, and we to listen, I think, sir."
And drawing up a chair, Gerald took his place at
Sir John Durant's side. Only too clearly he fore-
saw the cruel blow the chivalrous old man was
about to receive ; and his blood rose at the thought
that already a man like this was treating them
half with pity ; warning them to say nothing that
could hereafter be used against themselves ! They,
the Durants of Durant, warned not to betray their
complicity with the guilty hushand and betrayer-
their own flesh and blood of Margaret Hall. the
dairy-maid !
" I made use of a form only," said Wickham,
suavely accurately calculating, meanwhile, the
120 ABCHIE LOVELL.
precise angle which Gerald occupied between the
window and the spot where he himself stood.
"There is, as Mr. Gerald Durant says, no ne-
cessity for the warning in this particular instance,
but there are formulas that we are instructed to
follow in every case of ar of criminal procedure,
and I adhered to duty in giving it. I have now,
Sir John Durant, to lay before you briefly the
results of my search in this matter. If they lead
to a most imlooked-for conclusion, if they fix the
guilt upon parties the least suspected by yourself,
you will, I hope, be in some measure prepared for
the shock. I have been placed in positions of this
kind before often before," said Mr. Wickham,
with honourable pride ; " and I have always found,
if I may be excused the remark, that the higher
bom a gentleman is, the better he bears any pain-
ful or unexpected disclosure ; even a disclosure,"
lowering and concentrating his voice, "and moving a
stealthy step or two in advance, " that may
darkly affect his honour and the honour of his
family."
Gerald passed his hand with irrepressible im-
* FABEWELLS TO LUCIA. 121
patience across his face : old Sir John gave a
puzzled benign look of inquiry at Wickham.
V
"This extreme delicacy does you credit, Mr.
Wickham, still I cannot but think you over-esti-
mate our interest in the case. The girl was a
good girl, poor thing ! the servant of one of my
tenant-farmers, you understand nothing more."
Mr. Wickham bowed ; and looking down, traced
out, for a second or two, one of the patterns on the
carpet with his foot. He felt as assured now of
the old man's utter ignorance as of Gerald's guilt,
and it seemed to him that the shortest way of
finishing what he had come to accomplish would
be the most merciful ; he also wanted to return by
the seven-forty train to London.
" On the night of the second instant. Sir John
Duranf taking a note-book from his pocket, and
occasionally glancing at it, but more for form's
sake than because his memory required artificial
aid as he spoke " the body of a woman was, as
you know, found in the Thames, a little below
London Bridge. From the first, and although
nothing material was brought to light at the in-
122 ARCHIE LOVELL.
quest, some suspicions of foul play were entertained
among our people, and I was entrusted wifli the
fnrtlier management of the case. It has proved
as difficidt a one, sir, as was ever worked;
but no stone has been left unturned although I
say so in working it ; and bit by bit, as I am
about to show, every portion of the requisite evi-
dence has come into my hands. The story, shortly
put, comes to this: Margairet Hall, seven months
ago, eloped from her employer's house, here in
Staffordshire, with a gentleman (whom at present I
need not name), and, to the best of my belief,
though of this I have no absolute proof, became hisr
wife." Gerald gave a sigh of relief. Discovery
had not, after all, gone so far, perhaps, as he had
dreaded. "On the second of August, Sir John
Durant, this gentleman returned from France,
accompanied by a lady ^we may say, for short-
ness, by his wife-and arrived mth her in town, as
I have evidence to show, at about eight o'clock in
the evening. They came direct from MorteviUe-
sur-Mer to London, and the name of the excursion
steamer that brought them was the Lord of the
FAREWELLS TO LUCLi. 123
Isles. A man called Randall, better known among'
our people by the name of Waters, saw them on
board together from the Calais pier; the gentle-
man*s own servant, reluctantly, as is natural, is
witness to the same ; and, lastly, a lady who was
one of their fellow-passengers swears to a travelling
cloak she lent the young woman in the course of
the voyage, and which, in the hurry of landing, or
some other cause, was not returned to its owner.
Well, sir, the gentleman (whom at present I need
not call by name) was next seen with his com-
panion by one of our officers on London Bridge, at
a few minutes before ten o'clock that night ; and
here, as throughout, not* a shadow of doubt rests
upon the accuracy of the evidence, the officer,
uiider my directions, having watched the gentle-
man at his town lodgings, not three days ago, and
sworn positively to his identity. The girl was at
this time dressed, it is remembered, in a scarlet
travelling cloak; the gentleman was standing, no
hat on, and his coat torn, by her side. Whether
a quarrel had taken place between them already ia
a matter of surmise. There had been a disturbance
124 ARCHIE LOVELL.
shortly before on the bridge, which, it is suggested,
may account for the state of the gentleman's dress.
Something unusual, at all eyents, about their ap-
pearance and manner made the officer watch them
narrowly before proceeding on his beat. It was
now, you will remark, near upon ten o'clock ; a
quarter of an hour only before the time when a
woman's shriek was heard, and a body seen to fall
from the bridge. An hour or so later, the gentle-
man went alone to the house of a relation, excited
in manner, and disordered in his dress, and when
joked with about his appearance, volunteered the
singular statement that he had seen the ghost of
an old friend's face ' the ghost of a Staffordshire
face ' on London Bridge that night. Some hours
afterwards the body of a female was found drowned
in the river, dressed in the scarlet cloak since
identified, a handkerchief marked with initials
corresponding to the name of the suspected party
in her breast. The body was recognised and sworn
to by Martha Sherborne, on the afternoon of the
inquest, as that of her late dairy servant, Margaret
Hall." And here Mr. Wickham paused.
%
FABEWELLS TO LUCIA. 125
"And what does all this prove?" cried Sir
John, a nervous tremor in his voice. " I am a
magistrate, Mr. Wickham, I understand law my-
self, and I don't see that these facts, supposing
them all to be established, go to prove that the
girl came by her death unfairly. If they point to
anything, it is to what we have suspected from the
first suicide."
" That is a question for the lawyers," answered
Wickham, with excessive gravity. "I make no
accusation, I seek to establish nothing. My duty
has been to search for facts alone. These facts
having been considered conclusive, a warrant has
been granted for the apprehension of the person
who was Margaret Hall's companion on the night
of her death, and my duty here is to carry that
warrant into effect."
"Here!" exclaimed old Sir John, a deep red
flushing over his face as he got up slowly from his
chair. " You are misinformed, Mr. Wickham, or
*
you are carrying some mistaken sense of duty too
far. What apprehension can you possibly have to
execute in my house ? "
126 ARCHIE LOVELL.
" I have to arrest the person of Margaret Hall's
companion," said Wickham, with increasing firm-
ness, and producing a paper from his pocket.
" You are a magistrate, Sir John Durant, and I
look to you to help rather than hinder me in my
duty ^painftil though it may be ? "
"And that person?" faltered Sir John, with
whitening lips, as a new and awful suspicion orer-
came him.
" That person," answered Wickham, " is now, I
regret to say, before you. Mr. Durant," coming
across the room in a second, and laying a heavy
hand on Gerald's shoulder, " I arrest you on the
charge of having caused, or been party to, the
death of Margaret Hall, on the night of August the
second. You must consider yourself my prisoner,
sir, and you will be pleased to accompany me back
to London by the seven-forty train to-night."
Gerald had been sitting till this minute with his
hands tightly pressed across his eyes. He started
to his feet in a second at Wickham's touch, and as
his hand dropped from his face, both of the men
who were watching, him felt literally startled by
%
FAREWELLS TO LUCIA. 127
the calmness of its expression. I imagine most
innocent men or women would look to the fiill as
guilty as really criminal ones in the first stunned
moment of an imjust accusation; guilty or inno-
eent, the majority of human cheeks would certainly
blanch the majority of human nerves falter at
fluch a moment as this ! But Gerald Durant's /ace
kept just as calm as it had been half an hour
before, when he was whispering soft nothings to
Lucia under the cedar-trees on the lawn. " Blood
tells/' thought Wickham, proud of the verification
of his theory. " Evidence enough against him to
hang a bishop, and he ups after his arrest, as cool
as a cucumber, and with a face like this. Fine
family ^fine spirit! Pleasure to a man to have
his duty lie with real gentleman who can act as
such I" And possibly Mr. Wickham was right.
Possibly it was his blood, the inherited instincts of
a gentle race, that upheld Gerald at this moment.
Robert Dennison, the manufacturer's son, could
confront personal danger with the strength, the
aheer animal courage, of a lion. Gerald could do
more : he could confront disgrace sooner than be-
128 ARCHIE LOVELL.
tray a trust : could confront it with the carelessness
of a cavalier dying for his worthless king, the grace
of a French marquis arranging his necktie, and
smiling adieux to his friends, upon his way to the
tumbril ! As Wickham told his story ^from the
moment when the word Morteville first turned
suspicion aside from Robert to the last Gerald
had followed him calmly and minutely, his quick
imagination supplying a hundred links that in
"Wickham's purposely short account were wanting ;
and, long before the heavy hand was laid upon his
shoulder, had realized the position in which he
stood, the very plain and straightforward path that
lay before him. To whatever pass this extraordi-
nary chain of accidents might lead, a double trust
must, he felt, seal his Hps from speaking one soli-
tary word of self-defence. By disclosing what he
knew of Robert's marriage, he might possibly clear
himself and present to the world the chivalrous
spectacle of a Durant striving to shift danger from
his own shoulders to that of another member of his
family. By bringing forward Archie Lovell he
could, for very certain, reduce the whole accusation
FAREWELLS TO LUCLA- 129
to an absurdity: save his own at the price of a
woman's reputation And the temptation, the con-
flict, that might have assailed many a man, equally
honest, but of different race, never really for a
moment came near Gerald Durant. He was placed
awkwardly ^simply that : and before his imcle,
And before this man whose heavy hand was on his
shoulder alike, must give not a sign, say not a
word, that could by possibility criminate the two
persons his honour bade him shield. How things
would probably end as regarded himself was a
speculation he did not enter upon. To be the hero
of a melodrama might yield him, if the play did
not last too long, a new emotion or two at all
-events; and as to coming to definite grief ^well,
as he had told Robert, no one ever finally does that
in these days off the boards of the Adelphi.
"Seven-forty;" taking out his watch, quietly.
'* I think it would be rather a mistake to go by
that, Mr. Wickham. The seven-forty is a slow
train. If we go by the mail, which leaves Hatton
at eight, we shall get to town an hour earlier, and
I shall be able to have a cup of coffee and a cigar
VOL TIT. K
i
I
130 ABGHIE LOYELL.
^you want something too, perhaps, after your
' journey ? ^before we start."
For about the first time in his long official ex-
perience, Mr. Wickham felt actually taken aback
by his prisoner's unconcerned and courteous manner.
He required no refreshment for himself, but Mr^
Durant was doubtless right ; the mail would be the
best train for them to go by, and he wished to
make everything comfortable, and let Mr. Durant
take leave of his friends-^though generally best
i avoided ^before they left.
!
\ Then Gerald turned to his uncle who was stand-
1^ ing by, too stunned as yet to speak, and with his
* fine old face white to the very lips with agitation.
ti " A ridiculous mistake, sir, is it not ? but four-and-
f twenty hours wiU set it all to rights. You can
V come up to-morrow and we'll see Conyers together,.
1^ and for to-night I think it would be wise to keep
ri silence about it in the house. Say I have haJ to
i go up to town on business, nothing more."
" But ^the thing is monstrous ! " exclaimed Sir
John, recovering his breath at last. ^' You
Gerald accused of . . . why, good God ! '' he broke
FAREWELLS TO LUCIA. 131
out passionately, " the very suspicion is a disgrace !
Explain it away at once explain at once to this
officer how he is mistaken say what you were
doing at the time when the woman came by her
death. The thing is a joke, of course it will prove
to be a joke ^you take it in the right way, Gerald
^but don't let it be carried any further. If this
officer's duty is to take you to London, you must
of course go ; but show at once before him, and
before me, the ludicrous impossibihty of your even
being mixed up in such a charge." And with very
poor success the old man tried to laugh, then
turned abruptly aside and hid away his face be-
tween his hands.
" If I was to give an opinion,'' put in Mr. Wick-
ham, with extreme politeness, " I should say that
the less Mr. Gerald Durant states about himself
before me just now the better. If a gentleman,
circimistanced as Mr. Durant is, was as innocent as
the babe unborn, and as able to prove an alibi as I
am to prove I am standing here, Sir John Durant,
I should observe to a gentleman so circumstanced,
* the less you say before me, except in the ways of
K 2
132 AKCHIE LOVELL.
general conversation, the better.' These things are
forms, certainly," added Mt. Wickham, " but formis
are forms ^and justice is justice and what I say
to Mr. Gerald Durant is, that every word he makes
use of now it wiU be my duty to bring up against
him in the course of examination hereafter.''
" And you are quite right, Mr. Wickham," said
Gerald, quickly. " I see now why you warned me
before not to speak. The arrest itself is palpably
absurd, but you have performed your part in it
with honesty. You will have no objection, I sup-
pose, to my speaking a few words in private to my
uncle ? "
" None in life, Mr. Durant, none in life. I wish
to put you and all the family to no more illcon-
venience than necessary." And having previously
satisfied himself as to the height of the window
; from the ground, Mr. Wickham retired to the door,
turned aside, and took out his notebook ; and
Gerald was left to whisper whatever counsel or
consolation he could find to give to his uncle.
He said very few words, and all with a smile
upon his face, all with a manner of calm, of thorough
FAREWELLS TO LUCLA.. 133
assurance as to the whole thing being an absurd
ft
and insignificant kind of practical joke. " You will
come up to-morrow morning, sir, bring Seton with
you if he will come, and see Conyers at once,
though I hardly think it likely we shall want a
lawyer^s help at all. For the present the best way
is for you to return quietly to the party in the
garden, and let nothing whatever be known in the
house about my arrest. If Lucia and her mother
insist upon having suspicions, let them think I
am in one of my usual difficulties about money.
Women are not generally very difficult to blind in
such matters. I won't even see Lucia before I go,
sir; I couldn't, poor child! I'll see that little
friend of hers. Miss Lovell girls are the best
ambassadors in each other's affairs and entrust
her with my farewells, if you can contrive to let
me speak to her here alone? Lucky I left that
rascal, Bennett, in town ; he can bring my things
from my lodgings to-morrow, supposing, which is
very unlikely, that I am to be kept in durance over
another day."
' " And you won't see Lucia before you go,
134 ARCHIE LOYELL.
rerald ? Isn't this an oTer-delicacy of feeling ;
won't die child herself think it hard ? ''
^ I eauld not see her/' said Gbrald, hastQy, and
turning his face away rom his nnde's eyes. ^' Can't
yon understand^ sir, that I would not hare her, of
all others, look upon me in such company as this?"
glancing for a second towards Mr. Wickham's im-
moyable figure. " When everything is over, Lucia
and I will laugh at it all together, hut now ^no, I
cotdd not see my poor little cousin now ! I'll send
my &rewells to her, as I said, hy the parson's
daug^ter,if you can manage for me to speak to her
here alone, afterwards, when I have had a cup of
coffee, I can just get quietly away with my Mend
here, and later in the evening you will tell them all
that I am gone."
He stretched out his hand, and poor Sir John,
too stupified hy the suddenness of all that had
happened to do more than obey, took and held it
silently within his own : then, with a heavy heart
(Mr. Wickham opening the door for him as he
passed) the old man stole out into the garden, and
after parrying the questions of Lady Durant and
%
FABEWELLS TO LUCU. 135
Lucia as to the cause of Gerald's absence, made
some excuse for asking the rector's daughter to
walk with him towards the house. Five minutes
later, with sinking limbs, with her breath coming
awfiilly, guiltily fast, Archie Lovell entered the
library, where Gerald, a cup of coflFee in his hand,
stood waiting for her in the embrasure of the
farthest window ; Mr. Wickham upright and mo-
tionless, but keeping stealthy watch over every
movement his prisoner made, at his post still beside
the door.
The poor little girl began to cross the room with
faltering uncertain steps, and Gerald, seeing her
hesitation, came forward kindly, took her hand in
his, and led her to the window, where he had been
standing. All coldness, all small animosity towards
Archie had died in his heart during the moment
when he first realized the new position in which
they stood to each other, the danger into which
through his agency she was about to be brought.
Miss Lovell, the coquette, whose blue eyes, whose
clasped hands, had cost his vanity so dear, was
gone : and in her place stood Archie Wilson ^the
136 ARCHIE LOVELL.
child who had chattered to him in the moonlight^
the bright-haired Kttle queen of the Morteville ball,
the girl whose fair fame, unless he stood staunch to-
her now, might, through his fault and for ever, be
forfeited. For the first time in his life he felt as^
simply, frankly generous towards a woman as he^
would have felt had she been a man. Neither a.
prey to be run down nor a toy to be forgotten
(Gerald's broad classification, generally), did Archie
seem to him now; but a friend, a comrade
the hon gargon participator in a madcap freak, of
which he, as the guiltier of the two, must bear
the punishment.
" Archie, how kind of you ! but I thought you
would come. You were always kind to me
kinder far than I deserved ! "
He spoke to her just in the tone of their happy
Morteville intimacy ; as though their last cold
meeting, as though his engagement to Lucia had
never been ; and every pulse of Archie's heart
vibrated at his voice. " I don't know what great
kindness there is in walking a hundred yards^
Mr. Durant. Your uncle told me you were called
FAREWELLS TO LUCIA. 137
away on business and wanted to speak to me about
Lucia, and I came."
" Well, it is not of Lucia that I want to speak,
but of myself. Would you have come to me as
quickly, I wonder, if you had known that ? "
" Of course I would. I am more interested a
hundred times in you than I am, or ever shall be,
in Lucia. You ought to know that, I think.
What what is this that you are going to say to
me, Mr. Durant ? "
Dim though the light was, Gerald could note
the ebbing colour on Archie Lovell's face ; could
note the quick-drawn breath, the quiver of that
sensitive fine-cut mouth ; and, as if by inspiration,
there flashed a suspicion singularly near the truth
across his mind. " You have no idea already of
what I am going to say, Archie ? The time has
come, you know, when you and I must keep no
more secrets from each other."
" I ^how should I ? I don't understand you ! "
But the words came indistinct and broken from
her lips. "How is it possible that I caa tell
what you are going to say to me ? "
138 ABCHIE LOVELL.
"Archie/' said Gerald, earnestly, "take my
advice, and speak to me more openly. We shall
not have ten minutes' conversation together at
most, and on these ten minutes a great deal of my
life and of yours may hang, I fancy. Look upon
me as a friend a brother, if you like the word
better and be frank ! In short, be Archie Wil-
son again ^Archie Wilson in the days before she
had learnt to be wise ! "
She stood for a minute or more, speechless,
motionless, and the little hand that Gerald till
now had forgotten to relinquish seemed to turn to
ice within his own : at last, with a sort of sob ^a
sob that made Mr. Wickham in his distant comer
look up one instant from his notebook, the truth
came out. "I know everything, Mr. Durant,"
she whispered. "I was too great a coward to
speak when I might have warned you, but I know
everything ! Captain Waters told me, and I have
promised to pay him to be silent. I am an im-
postor, ever3rthing that is vilest, but it was for
papa's sake and . . .Ah, Mr. Durant, I think the
shame would kill me if I had to come forward,
FAREWELLS TO LUCU. 139
as Captain Waters said, and tell before a judge
and a court full of men how I went with you to
London ! *' And then, in broken whispers the
sweet face wet with tears not six inches from
Gerald's she made fullest confession of all that
Waters had told her, and of her own vileness, so
she called it, in determining to keep her own
counsel at whatever cost.
Gerald's lips had grown set and stem long before
she finished. " The scoundrel ! " he muttered
between his teeth; "the double-dyed infernal
scoundrel ! Archie, my poor little friend, how
glad I am that you have had courage to tell me all
this. You shall never be troubled with Captain
Waters any more. He frightened you for nothing,
Archie, believe me. I am in a difficult position,
the victim rather of a most ridiculous misted^e, but
there is no more chance of your name being brought
forward in any way than of Lucia's. Keep per-
fectly quiet ^it was this I sent for you to say ; keep
quiet whatever you are told or may fear, and no
harm can possibly come near you, I swear it."
" And if if my evidence is all that can prove
140 ARCHIE LOVELL.
you to be innocent ? " she faltered, looking at him
with dilated, frightened eyes, as Captain Waters*
words came back to her recollection.
" Your evidence ! '' Gerald laughed, lightly.
"Why, one would think you were a Lord Chan-
cellor at least, to hear all the fine legal words you
use ! It wiU not be a question of giving evidence
at all. I have to go up to London to-night with
the gentleman you see standing there, and to-
morrow or next day the whole mistake will be
cleared up.''
" And if it is not ? if nothing can clear you
unless I do come forward and speak ? I am not a
child, Mr. Durant ; I have grown old and wise
during the last few weeks," she added, with xm-
conscious sadness, " and if they accuse you of
having been present when this woman died, of
course I could help you by telling how we gave her
the cloak, for I am beginning to connect all these
things clearly now, and how Captain Waters
saw us together at Calais on board the steamer,
and "
" Archie," interrupted Gerald, gravely, " if the
FAREWELLS TO LUCIA. 141
mistake is harder to prove than I think now, if I
am brought into a position of absolute danger the
most improbable occurrence in the world and
want you to speak, I will send word to you to come.
Seton will be with me in town most likely, and I
will send him down to you ^nay, don't misunder-
stand me," for at the mention of Ealph she had
turned from him with a start, " neither Seton nor
any other human being shall oyer know what at
present is a secret between ourselves. If I want
you, Seton will bring you this simple message,
* Come.' K I do not, you will have no message
from me at all. Now, I think we understand each
other."
" And Captain Waters ? " she asked. " I must
keep my word, and send him the money."
" You must do nothing of the kind," interrupted
Gerald, promptly. "You must hold no written
communication whatsoever with Captain Waters.
I wiU arrange with the gentleman ^pay him the
price he asks, and undertake that you, at least,
shall never be troubled with him again. You have
not forgotten his address, I hope ? '*
142 ARCHIE LOVELL.
No, she had not forgotten it : forgotten ? had
one word he told her been ever really absent from
her thoughts since yesterday ? " Captain Waters,
60, Cranboume Street, Leicester Square.**^ Gerald
took out a card and wrote this address down,
leaning forward through the open window to catch
whatever light still lingered as he did so, and
Mr. Wickham, looking round quickly, remarked
in a voice which seemed, although he stood twenty
feet at least away, to whisper awfully, mysteriously
close to Archie's ear ^that he believed the time
was getting on.
" I am ready for you," said Gerald, cheerily ;
then in a lower tone, " Good-bye, Archie," turn-
ing so that he sheltered the girl's shrinking figure
from Wickham's sight. " Let me have your hand
so ! " and he carried it to his lips, for the second,
the last time in his life. ''If things had gone
differently, I think you might have grown to like
me in time, and I- ^well, I could have loved you
better than I have ever loved or shall love any
woman while I live. The injury I did you was
unintentional, you believe that, Archie ? and the
i
FAREWELLS TO LUCIA. 143
temptation great! Don't you recollect how bine
the sea was that day, and how one accident after
another seemed fated to fall upon us, and how
pleasant it was to be together ? You forgive me ? **
She could only clasp his hand closely for answer.
"Very well, then. We shall be fast friends
still, whatever happens. Recollect all I have told
you about keeping quiet and not troubling yourself
on my accoxmt, and ^let me see, is there anything
more for us to say ? Well, I've got your glove,
and, don't be angry, but I shall kiss it sometimes
still, Archie, and tl;iink of the night I stole it from
you. Do you remember our quarrel, and how
bright the moon shone in as we danced that last
waltz, and made friends again? You mustn't
quite forget the Morteville days, you know ; and
however things turn out, Archie, you must try to
think of me kindly ! And now," with one long
last look into her face, " God bless you, dear ! "
This was how Mr. Durant sent his farewells to
Lucia.
CHAPTER VI.
" FAIS CE QUE DOIS ! "
In painful, visible constraint, not trusting her-
self to speak of Gerald or of the interview that she
had had with him, Archie Lovell walked home
that night by Ralph's side. Early next morning
Major Seton, without calling at the Rectory, left
home for London ; and by evening of the same
day Bettina had already obtained information, from
the most authentic village sources, as to the cause
of Mr. Durant's departure ; the profession of the
mysterious man in plain clothes who had been
seen to accompany him into a first-class railway
carriage at the Hatton station.
These rumours, whispered at first, and contra-
dicted as soon as whispered, were spoken next day
above the breath, and allowed to pass. On the
following morning a short paragraph in the London
" FAIS CE QUE DOIS ! " 145
papers told the Staffordshire world how Mr. Durant
had already appeared before the magistrate on the
charge of being accessory to the death of Margaret
Hall; and then every one rushed away to leave
cards and inquiries for poor dear Lady Durant;
and remembered how they always thought Gerald
had a vile trick of contracting his eyebrows, and a
most sinister expression at times about the comers
of his mouth !
And up to the evening of the fourth day from
that of his arrest, Archie Lovell heard no more
than the vague contradictory reports of the village
gossips as to how the case was going on. She
called with her stepmother at the Court, ostensibly
to inquire for Sir John, who had been seized with
an attack of gout on the morning he was to have
accompanied Seton to London, and had not left his
room since. She listened while Bettina talked by
the hour together of Gerald ; the likelihood, con-
sidering his character, of his guilt : the disgrace to
the Durants that must ensue ; and the number of
fine old families that she, Bettina, had seen Pro-
vidence wisely, perhaps consign to ruin during
VOL. III. L
146 ARCHIE LOVELL.
her life. She helped her father to arrange his
cabinets and hang his pictures ; went on working
at her garden ; ate her meals ; rose in the morning,
and went to bed as usual. Did she suflFer ? She
hardly knew herself. The time went awfully,
deathfiilly slow ; her heart beat thick and fast at
every chance sound, every strange voice she heard ;
a dull, heavy weight was never absent from her
brain. This was as much as Archie could have
ix)ld of her own condition. Poor Mr. Lovell,
observing her heavy eyes and pallid cheeks, hoped,
measles being about in the village, that the child
was not going to take that disorder a second time :
and Bettina well, Bettina knowing all she did
concerning the past, was not without a suspicion ,
that Archie "fretted" about Gerald still, and in
her own innermost soul felt not unreasonably
grieved over the young man's misfortunes. It was
a terrible blow for the Durants, of course, but very
lucky it all came out before the marriage instead
of after ; and really if he had had anything to do
with the young woman's death, it would be impious
to wish him to escape altogether from justice. The
t
FAIS CE QUE DOIS ! " 147
Durants of Durant would be just as much their
neighbours without bi'm as with him ; and Archie's
secret of a Vast deal less consequence. Not, poor
young man, that she wished the very worst to
come to him : but an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth were the words of Scripture ; and Bettina
had never seen any particular good come of your
Colensos and other softeners-away of Holy Writ,
as yet.
On the evening of August the 20ih, four days
after that of Gerald's arrest. Major Seton suddenly
made his appearance at the Rectory. The Lovells
were just at tea in their pleasant myrtle-scented
little parlour, the amber sunset streaming in cheer-
fully through the open casement, when he was
ushered in : Mr. Lovell with a manuscript book
beside him on the table; Bettina chattering in
high spirits as she poured out the tea ; Archie in a
pale muslin dress, her air shining, a flower in her
waistbelt, a goodly pile of seed-cake and fruit upon
her plate. Ralph Seton's heart swelled with a
feeling that was almost disgust as he looked at her.
Her tear-stained cheeks, her silence, her constraint
L 2
148 ARCHIE LOVELL.
upon the night of Gerald's arrest, had made hinr
feel all too keenly then! ^that a matter of na
common interest had been discussed between them
during their parting interview. The fact of her
never reminding him again of the money she had
wished to borrow, showed, he thought, some
serious preoccupation of mind, some remorse, some
sympathy at least with Gerald in his danger ; and
during his journey down Ralph had pictured ta
himself continually the sorrowful face, the eyes
haunted by self-reproach, that would greet him
when he reached the Rectory. He saw, instead, a
peaceful family group ; a girl, even in such a pass
as this, too frivolous (and frivolity in a woman
was, to Ralph, the one unpardonable sin) to forget
so much as the flower at her own dainty waist I
her blue eyes as xmtroubled, her facile smile as
sweet, as on that day when Gerald out of sight
and out of mind she waved her adieux to himself
at the Morteville pier : the day when he had the
excessive wisdom first to resolve upon putting her
away out of his heart !
Very grim and stem, the old Moustache took a
" FAIS CE QUE DOIS ! " 149
chair on the side of the table next to Mr. Lovell,
4ind away from Archie, and curtly declining
Bettina^s oflfer of tea, brought the conversation
round, without an attempt at softening or preamble,
to Gerald Durant. " You have all of you heard
the truth by this time,'' he said, addressing himself
ostensibly to Mrs. Lovell, "and nothing can be
gained by treating the thing as a secret any longer.
Oerald Durant comes up for his final examination
to-morrow. They have brought the poor fellow
twice before the magistrate already, and each
time he has been remanded. To-morrow will
settle it."
"And you think he will be found guilty?"
^ried Bettina, opening her eyes wide. "Dear,
dear, now Major Seton, do you think he will be
really condemned ? "
"Condemned to as much as a magistrate can
5ondemn, most certainly," was Ralph's answer.
" Condenmed to an imprisonment which, however
it may hereafter end, will eflfectually blacken his
hopes, his prospects, his whole future life. By
this time to-morrow Gerald Durant will, in all
150 ARCHIE LOVELL.
human probability^ be committed to take his trial
for the wilful murder of Margaret Hall. He has
the best lawyers in London to help him, and as far
as the preliminary examination goes, they all
confess that the evidence against him is simply
overwhelming. It is circumstantial, all of it,*' he
went on, turning to Mr. Lovell, " but none the
less crushing for that. Nothing but the unex-
pected proving of an alibi at the eleventh hour can
save Gerald Durant now."
" And how does he take it ? " asked Mr. Lovell,
whose calm interest in other persons' concerns
always savoured rather of aesthetic than of common-
place human curiosity. " The situation of an in-
nocent man awaiting an unjust doom is one of- the
deepest dramatic interest, yet I su^ect most
writers in treating it take their stand on a some-
what too transcendental groimd. Now this Mr.
Durant, to be sure, the same name as the people at
the Court ^is, I dare say, not at all in the inflamed
heroic state of mind that the majority of drama-
tists and poets would, under such circumstances,
pamt?''
" FAIS CE QUE DOIS ! '* 1 51
"He is," answered Ralph, purposely speaking
slow and distinct so as to give his words a chance
of sinking even on the " frivolous *' heart of Archie
Lovell, "more frankly, unaflFectedly cheerful than
I ever thought to see any man in such a position.
Not indiflforent to what to-morrow may bring
poor lad ! for he thinks of those who will suffer by
his disgrace ^but as calmly ready to meet it as the
men of his race have always been to meet danger.
Until I looked at Gerald Duranfs face in prison I
don't think I ever rightly understood the meaning
of the word ' loyalty.* "
Bettina sighed heavily as she raised her tea-cup
to her lips. " Let us hope all things," she mur-
mured, "even while we fear the worst. Let us
hope that, as in the case of Jeroboam, hardened
impenitence is not being added to the weight of
the young man's sins."
" I think not, Mrs. Lovell," said Ralph, with
cold emphasis; "Gerald Durant is, / hmWf as
innocent of the monstrous charge brought against
him as I am. He had not seen Margaret Hall for
months ; he had no interest in her death ; he was
152 ARCHIE LOVELL.
not on London Bridge at the moment when her
death took place. A chain of unhappy accidents
has, I believe, so woven itself aroxmd him, that he
is not able to bring forward evidence in his own
favour without betraying the confidence of another
person ; and this poor Gerald would no more do
than one of his Jacobite ancestors would have
saved himself by wishing life to King George upon
the scaffold.**^
"Well, then, he is a fine fellow,'' exclaimed
Mr. Lovell, with animation ; " and I should like to
shake his hand. It is not often now that one
comes across a trait of the Bayard-like, chivalrous
feeling of old days. What manner of man can he
be, though, who will accept his safety at such a
price ? Archie, are you listening P This friend of
Seton's is ready, like one of the knights of old,
to brave his own disgrace, sooner than betray a
trust reposed in him . . . nay, but the story is too
much for you, little one ! Look at her face, Ealph
she is always so any story of high resolve, or
courage, is always too much for Archie's heart."
She was of an awfiil, greyish pallor, a pallor that
FAIS CB QUE DOIS ! '' 153
extended to her lips and throaty and her eyes were
fixed with a yearning, eager expression, on her
father's face. " It is not too much for me at all,
papa," bringing out each syllable with a painful,
visible eflfort. " I know I am pale I can't help
it ^I turn so always when I hear of things that
move me. Papa, you would like to shake Gerald
Durant*s hand, you say? Would you like to
shake the hand of the person ho is seeking to
ecreenP I mean if ^if that person voluntarily
accepts his safety."
" No, Archie," said Mr. Lovell, half-smiling at
her eagerness. " I would no more care to shake
his hand or to hold fellowship with him than you
would. Cowardice is the one thing (strange that
it should be so, Seton ! 'tis the most natural of
our vices) that puts a man or woman, either, for
the matter of that ^for ever out of the reach of my
sympathy.''
Then, after an aside from Bettina as to " coward-
ice being one thing, my poor Frederick, and
, common worldly prudence another," Major Seton
suffered the conversation to go into a fresh chan-
154 ABCHIE LOVELL.
nel : and in a few minutes ArcMe rose and stole
out alone, her father stopping her to kiss her cheek
and her hand as she passed, to the garden.
Cool, sweet, silent almost to moumfiilness, was the
August eyening at that half-hour after sunset : the
sky of opal paleness, saye where one mighty rose^
flush stained the west; a solitary planet shining
fednt aboye the pure horizon ; the hght on russet
woods and yellow cornfields slowly dying, through
a thousand gradations of fleeting colour, into the
exquisite sombre purple of the night. With a
feeling almost of loathing at the sight ef all that
smiling golden calm, Archie walked away to the
part of the garden farthest &om the house ; and
there seating herself wearily upon the low stone
wall that formed the boundary of the Httle orchard,
strove to steady the beatings of her feverish heart ;
to collect her thoughts ; to reason ; to resolve.
Earnestly, with her very might, she strove ; and,
instead of obeying her, her heart throbbed on more
hotly, her thoughts refused to concentrate them-
selves, her senses took note, with intense, with
sickening acuteness, of every outward object by
" FAIS CE QUE DOIS ! " 166
which she was surrounded : the sweet smell of a
neighbouring bed of kitchen-herbs ; the ridiculous
tumult the grasshoppers were making in the
orchard; the redness of the apples on one par-
ticular bough that overhung the wall. When she
had remained thus five minutes, or an hour, she
knew not which ^there are conditions of the body
under which all these arbitrary divisions of time
exist for us no more than time itself exists for a
man who dreams a measured step she knew
came along the gravel path. She started up ner-
vously, and turning round, found Ralph Seton
standing dose beside her. Oldened and worn her
face seemed to him now that he saw it in the broad
evening light ; the fair young forehead lined and
heavy ; the cheeks sunken ; a deep shade round
the eyes, giving their blue an almost unnatural
lustre. "Major Seton," she exclaimed, abruptly,
"explain the meaning of the word alibi to me. ,51 I
have been told once, but I forget.'*
" An alibi consists in proving the presence of an
accused man in some other place than that where
his supposed crime was committed, Archie. An
156 ABCHIE LOYELL.
alibi, ^ I told your father, is all we can look to
now for saving Gerald Durant to-morrow/'
" Have you seen him to-day ? "
" I have. I saw him not an hour before I left
London this afternoon."
'^ And he told you that there was some person
whose evidence could yet save him ? He told you
there was some person whose secret he was deter-
mined never to betray ? "
"No, Archie, he did not. I believe, nay, I
know, that this is the case ; and I urged upon him
^I speak to you frankly ^I urged upon him that
it was his duty to neglect no means of proving his
own innocence "
" Go on," she exclaimed, breathlessly. " Why
do you hesitate ? He answered "
" By laughing at the very idea of the generosity
I imputed to him," replied Ralph. " Said that I
might be quite sure he would take better care of
himself than of anybody else; that while he
trusted implicitly in his innocence making itself
felt in the end^an alibi was the one thing it was
not in his power to prove. At the very time when
\
"FAIS CE QUE DOIS!" 167
it was necessary to account for himself he was
driying ahout London in a hansom^ the number of
which he had not even looked at, and "
" And at what hour does his trial take place ? "
interrupted Archie, shortly, and in a hard, un-
modulated Yoice. " The trial to-morrow, I mean?"
" The examination ^it is not a trial yet is to
begin at ten o'clock," answered Major Seton. " It
will last over a good many hours, possibly will not
be finished in one day. Sir John Durant is coming
up, if he is well enough, by the first express, and
will be in time, poor old man! to hear all that
concerns him most ^the evidence, such as it is, that
wiU be brought forward in Gerald's defence."
" And you ^when do you return ? "
" By the mail-train to-night. I came down for
a few hours only, principally, Archie, to see you."
" Did Mr. Durant send me any message ? "
"He bade me tell you that everything was
right ; and he hoped you would go over often and
see his cousin Lucia."
"And what does a return-ticket cost from
Hatton to London ? "
158 ARCHIE LOVELL.
"A return-ticket costs exactly two sovereigns,
Archie. Do you want to go to London ? "
"I wish you would lend me two sovereigns,
Major Seton. I asked you for money before, and
did not want it after all ^most likely I shan't want
this still I wish that you would lend it to
me.
He took out his purse and, without speaking a
word, put two sovereigns into Archie's hand : burn-
ing with fever he felt her hand was as it came into
cental with his own.
"You have nothing else to say to me, Archie,
before I go ? for my time is up ; I must say good-
bye to you directly. There is no other way in
which I can be of use to you ? "
" I ^I don't know that there is," she faltered.
" Tell Mr. Durant you saw me and gave me his
message, and oh Ralph ! " with a sudden im-
pulse, and moving a step nearer to his side, "how
I wish that I dared ask you one question before
you go ! "
"Ask it, Archie," said Ralph. "I will give
you a very truthful answer if I can."
" FAIS CE QUE DOIS ! " 159
" Well, if mind, this is all that I mean to tell
you ^if any one, a girl of my age, was placed . , .
placed, how shall I say it? so that to save
another person she must run the risk of forfeiting
her own good name, the good name of all the
people she cared for most, what ought she to do P
If I asked Bettina she would talk about pride and
self-respect and family honour ! and papa I cannot
^I will not ask. Now what do you say P "
" Fats ce que dois/* answered Major Seton, in-
stantly. " Truth, uncompromising, imwavering, is
the only rule of life that I have ever known to
answer either for man or for woman. If pride and
self-respect and family honour had to be main-
tained by sacrificing it, they would not, I should
imagine, be worth holding any of them."
" And the good opinion of the people who love
one," faltered the girl, with pitiful earnestness,
" Ralph dear Ralph ! ^is that to be sacrificed as
nothing too ? "
" Most unquestionably," said Ralph, without a
softening inflection in his staid Scotch voice.
*' Love that had to be bought by falsehood would
160 ARCHIE LOVELL.
be a dear bargain in the end^ depend upon it,
Archie."
" Ah ! I am glad I had the courage to ask you
this ; there is only one more thing I have to
trouble you about now. If, Ralph, at any time it
should happen that you grow to despise or hate me
don't let it make any diflference between you anJ
papa. Everything bad that I have done has been
by my own free will ^no one ought to suffer for it
but me ^and papa ^poor papa would want your
friendship all the more if anything happened to
turn him a little from me. Will you promise me
this?"
" I don't think it requires a promise, Archie,"
he answered. "I endeavour when I can to be
just. My regard for your father would be
strengthened rather than lessened by any ill- doing
of yours."
" Thank you, Ralph " ^her heart dying within
her at his coldness " you have been very good to
me, and I . . . . have been false to you from the
first hour I saw you in Morteville till now ! It's
all past, and I don't know, if I had to go through
i
FAIS C QUE BOIS!" 161
it again, that I should act differently ^however,
it*s no use talking about that now. You'll re-
member your word, I think? you'll be good to
papa whatever happens *'
And then her voice broke into a sob : she
turned ; walked abruptly away from his side, and
Balph Seton saw her face no more.
Despise ! hate ! Kever had he so passionately
loved her as in this moment of her humiliation,
this crowning hour of sorrow in her child's life !
The truth was told: the "frivolous*' heart of
Archie Lovell laid bare before him at last.
VOL. III.
CHAPTER VIL
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE.
The evening that had closed in with such fair
promise for the morrow, wa^ already changing by
the time that the moon rose, pale and watery, above
the distant woods. As night wore on, the wind
swept up in fitfiil gusts from the south-west, bear-
ing before it thick wreaths of serried lead-white
cloud, and when the morning dawned it was in
rain : fine driving rain, that fell with a persistent
wintry sound against the exposed windows of
Hatton Rectory, and laid low whatever summer
flowers stiU lingered in the borders of its little up-
land garden.
And throughout all the dreary hours, from that
chill moonrise to the chiller morning, Archie
Lovell never slept. Men and women meet their
troubles more sharply face to face upon their pil-
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE. 163
lows than at any other time : a child sobs his to
rest there in five minutes : and Archie till to-night
had been a child, eyen in her fashion of suffering.
This was past. The first real conflict of reason and
passion which her life had known, was stirring in
her now : and sleep, the blessed immunity of un-
awakened conscience, was over. For a short space
after her head wad laid upon its pillow, the girl
was her old self the old childish mixture of
frivolity and earnestness still: speculating, through
her tears, as to what Ralph had thought of her
after her half-confession ; wondering (if she went)
what frock and ribbons she would look well in to-
morrow ; and if the magistrate would speak to her
" out aloud '* before all the lawyers and people in
the court ; and if her name, Archie Lovell, would
really be put in print in the papers next day, and
if, supposing she stayed away, some other witness
would not be sure to come forward and save poor
Mr. Durant at the last ! Then, when her faculties
were more than half-way along the accustomed
quick sweet road to sleep, every detail of her posi-
tion and of her duty seemed suddenly to start out
ii 2
164 ARCHIE LOYELL.
before her in a new light a harsh, pitQess, con-
centrated light ; snch as she had never seen any
position or any dniy in before. It was not a ques-
tion, a Toice beside her pillow seemed to say, of
whether her faiths might or might not snffier by
her exposore ; not a qn^tion of whether Cierald
Dorant had or had not deserved her gratitode, of
idiether she might or might not fiirfeit Balph
Seton's loTe, It was a qnestion of abstract rig^
or wrong; tradi or Msehood; life or deafli as
rqpBurded her own sonl, whidi her lesohitioBS of to-
nigiht must solTe. If she decided imrightpoQsLy :
diidded her feflier, won Balph's loTe won die
whole wodd, and pczjmed timi^ how much would
die have gained? This was what die had to
answer. And siaitiii^ back lo fiaD^t cchbcboo^
nes^ widi a liemUing sense of sane odier pros^^
dianhers indie liUdeioaDi, die poor cliildsas;a^
in her bed, and duae die cold dew scanding: sl
her face and hands slioi^diioQghdiedbj^hiOioffs
rf due ni^ii td wn^de widi die nsstseea awlEsil
lusDifear wlio had arisen Ijo qoesdon hiar.
Ik K Biik', peshif^ by a straoo^ eiibirtt dr iimi^
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE. 165
nation that we who have fought many such battles,
gained the victory sometimes and more often suc-
cumbed, can picture to ourselves the first passionate
conflict of so very white a soul as this. With all
the suddenly awakened woman's conscience, Archie
had still a child's narrow vision, a child's distorted
fear of the punishment that would fall upon her-
self as the price of her truth-telling; and the
greater part of her thoughts would bo to the full as
ludicrous as pathetic, if faithfully recorded. Of the
truths originally laid down by Bettina, she never
for an instant doubted. A girl who had passed
a day and a night away from home, as she had
done, must, if her story became known, be dis-
graced. No honest woman would associate with
her ; no honest man would ever make her his wife.
Up to a certain hour to-morrow she would be
Archie Lovell, a girl with all bright possibilities of
life open before her still: after that a blank.
Never another ball, or croquet party, or happy
walk with Ralph ! No more pleasure in her good
looks, or her dress : no more of the vague golden
dreams which of late had made her like to be
166 ABCHIE LOVELL.
alone^ looking up at tl^e clouds^ or across the woods
to Ludbrooke, in the twiKght ! She would live on,
year after year, in this dull Kectory-house ; and
her father would love her always ^with a sad-
dened, pit3nuig love ; and Bettina be justified in re-
quiring her to be reli^ous; and the servants
whisper together, and look at her as something
apart from the rest of the household ; bitterest of
all, Lady Durant and_^Lucia would know her, in a
distant way, still,'.her_father being the clergyman
of their parish ; Sir John; perhaps, his wife and
daughter not by, stop and speak a kind word occa-
sionally, when he met her in his walks. This
would be her life. lAnd in time, she would see
Gerald happy with^his fair young wife ; and Ralph
would marry too . . . were her friends to abstain
from happiness because hers happened to be
spoiled P and she would just continue to stagnate
on, alone, unloved, till she was old and graceless,
and bitter, like Mrs. Maloney ! This was to be her
portion and reward for doing the thing that was
right : and still towards the right (not towards Mr.
Gerald Durant, personally; inasmuch as he was
AWAKENINa CONSCIENCE. 167
yotoig, and handsome, and fond of her : the foun-
dation, hitherto, of whateyer heroic resolyes Archie
had formed), she felt herself irresistibly drawn.
Towards right, simply as right. Nothing to do
with inherited traditions, as in Gerald's case : or
with fears of heaven, on one hand, and hopes of
the world on the other, as in Bettina's. Right
simply as right: a stem inflexible reality, to
which, whether her cowardly wiU shrank from its
fulfilment or no, she was forced, by some sympathy,
some instinct stronger than herself, to cling.
She tossed feyerishly on her pillow till dawn,
then got up, went across to the casement-window,
drew back the curtain, and looked out. Standing
there in her long white dress, her feet bare, her
hands clasped across her breast, poor Archie, who
a week ago could haye represented nothing higher
in art than Greuze or Watteau, might at this mo-
ment haye been taken as a liying picture of one of
RaphaeFs Marys : a girl still in the undeyeloped form
and childish attitude, a woman in the imutterable
sadness, the wistful prophecy of suffering upon her
quiyering lips, and tear-stained, dead- white cheeks.
168 ABGHIE LOVELL.
It was barely daybreak yet. She could just dis-
cern the line of distant woods, wan and spectre-
like, through the driving mists ; could just see the
geraniums and mignonette the flowers that in her
southern ignorance she had thought would last till
Christmas ^lying, sodden and defaced, beneath her
window. What a miserable, altered world it
looked ! What an admirably fitted world for right
and duty, .and the life that she was going to lead in
it ! She stood, chilled and shivering, yet with a
sort of sullen satisfaction, watching the rain as it
beat against the window ; and while she watched
it her heart ^poor, unheroic child's heart ! ^went
back to irresolution again. How would it be pos-
sible for her to walk to the station in weather like
this? They had no carriage, and there was no
way of hiring one, and her father and Bettina
would never let her start alone on foot. She had
meant, had meant faithfidly, to go. Had she not
borrowed money from Ralph for her journey last
night ? Could she help it if accidents beyond her
own control held her back ? If it had been fine,
and her father had given her leave, she would have
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE. 169
gone ; and now^ if tliis storm lasted, and her father
forbade her to leave home, she must stay. It
would no longer be a question of choice, it would
be a decision made by fate, not herself, as to which
path she took, and by that decision she must abide.
When dawn had become broad day she crept
back to her bed, and in two or three minutes, the
rain stiU driving against the window, was asleep.
At seven o'clock Bettina knocked as usual at her
door, calling out to her cheerfully that it was a
beautiful morning after the rain, and, waking with
a start from a heavy, dreamless sleep, Archie saw
^with guilty disappointment even in that first in-
stant of consciousness a room fiill of light and
sunshine. The storm was over. So far the path
towards this miserable, self-imposed, inexorable
duty of hers lay clear.
She got up ; dressed herself in a clean white
frock; then laid out ready on her drawers her
muslin scarf, sailor's hat, and blue veil, and, for
the first time since the day after her return from
London, went down to break&st with her hair
hanging loose upon her shoulders.
170 ARCHIE LOVEIiL.
"As I like to see you once more," said Mr.
Lovell, as lie put his arms round her. "If you
knew what was becoming, Archie, you would never
torture your hair into fashionable braids and twists
again. But how ill you look, my child ! " anxiously
scrutinising the hard lines about her mouth, the
worn, dark hollows under her eyes. "Bettina,
don^t you think her lookiQg really ill P "Wouldn't
it be as wise for her to keep to her bed for a day,
just to see whether it can be measles coming on
again or not ? "
If Bettina had thought enough about the ques-
tion to say "Yes,'* Archie would probably have
succumbed to her decision as final: the interpo-
sition of some will stronger than her own, and
against which it would be idle for her to struggle.
But all Mrs. Lovell's energies happened to be
directed at this particular moment to parish mat-
ters of the most vital and urgent interest. In the
vestry of the church was to be held to-day the
great annual meeting of the Hatton soup and flan-
nel club, in which, the deceased rector being an old
bachelor, the wife of the village doctor had for
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE. 171
years held absolute and tyrannical sway. A secret
cabal had long existed^ it appeared^ for the de-
thronement of this potentate; and in Bettina
versed already in every detail of the village civil
wars ; convinced, too, that to be the head of soup
and flannel was hers by anointed right ^the cabal
had at length found a leader. A large, an over-
whelming, majority of voters were, she believed,
safe on the side of heiself and the new coalition.
Still, at the very last, a designing, ambitious
woman like the doctor's wife might be capable of
anything bribing the voters to stay away; in-
capacitating them pro tern, out of her husband's
bottles ; an3rthing. And in fierce haste, her bonnet
already on her head, Bettina, eager to be off to the
field, was swallowing scalding tea, standing, and
learning by heart an extempore speech with which
4
she meant to address the meeting, when her hus-
band spoke.
"Measles? Nonsense, Frederick! Not one
person in a hundred has measles a ^second time.
Let Archie be in the air all day, the heat makes
her pale. * It being the opinion of this meeting.
172 ARCHIE LOVELL,
and of the parish generally^ that too much power
has hitherto been usurped by certain parties . . /
That will be the very thing. Cutting, but not too
personal. You are sure, Frederick, you will not
look in upon us in the course of the meeting?
Well, then, I must express your opinions for you.'
You shall not be a cipher in your own parish, as
long as I can prevent it. Don't wait dinner for
me I may be away all day." And then, still
learning her speech aloud as she walked, Mrs.
Lovell vanished ; and another obstacle in the path
of Archie's going to London was removed.
It was now nearly nine o'clock; the express
train by which Sir John Durant was to go left
Hatton station at ten. She went up to her room,
put on her sailor's hat and white scarf, took the
French grey parasol from Bettina's room, and came
down again to her father. She had not the
smallest idea of what she would have to do or
say when she foimd herself in that London police
court, but she thought vaguely that she had better
appear there dressed exactly as she had been on
the day of her flight from Morteville. It might
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE. 173
help to prove that her story was true ; the woman
who lent her the cloak would be present, perhaps, to
confront her; and she had no wish to hide one
iota of the truth now. The magistrate, the lawyers,
all the world should see her as she was on that
day, the last day of her innocence ^in her white
frock, and sailor's hat, and with her hair hanging
on her shoulders. Perhaps (the hope half crossed
her) they would not judge her so very hard when
they saw how pretty and how childish she had
looked at that fatal time of her wrong-doing !
Mr. Lovell was in the room that was to be his
study, standing before "Troy,'' a little disquieted
in his heart as to that chef d^ceuvre not being in
the best possible light, when Archie returned to
him. She thought of the night in Morteville
when she had stood at his side in the little painting-
room, and mourned with him for the old Bohemian
life that was over for ever. Over everything was
over now ! She crept up softly, and touched his
hand.
" Papa, I have a favour to ask of you, please.
Some of the Durants are going up to London and
174 ABCHIE LOVELL.
back to-day ^Major Seton told me so last night
and I want you to let me go too. They will be
quite ready to take care of me, I know."
Mr, Lovell turned round and looked at her with
open eyes.
" To London and back P Why, Archie, this
will never do ! No, no, no, child ; don't take such
fancies. The Durants are going up, of course,
about this difficulty the young man Gerald, is he
called? ^has got into, and won't want you, I
couldn't hear of it. I shall be having you laid up
in earnest. Ask me anything else."
" I want nothing else, papa. It shall be as you
choose only, I thought I would just ask you, you
know." And she took off her hat, and seated
herself down resignedly by the open window.
Could she help it if her father insisted on with-
holding his consent ? Had she not done as much
as lay within her power to do by asking hiTn p
** The weather, certainly, is not so hot after the
rain as it was," said Mr. Lovell, coming up to her
side, and pretending to look out at the clouds.
He had never been able to deny Archie anything
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE. 175
since that morning fourteen years ago when he
had refused to get up at five o'clock, and carry her
round the Dresden market. " The weather is not
as hot, and if I was quite sure we should have
no more storms only, unfortunately, my love, I
have not a farthing of change in the house. I
don't know how it happened, but Bettina took off
my last shilling with her to this dreadful meeting.'*
" I have the money, papa, I have two sovereigns
of my own, but I don't want to go unless you
choose."
" And are you quite sure the Durants are going
and want you P ^not that I wonder at that ^Miss
Durant must be too glad, poor thing, to have you
for her companion now. Well then, Archie, I
don't know really that I eught to forbid it. It is
like you, my little one, to wish to be with your
friends at a season of trouble like this ! "
And in a quarter of an hour's time Archie was
walking across the meadow path that led the
shortest way from the Rectory to the station.
She was not going to be saved by accidental help,
she felt now. Of her own free will she had taken
176 ARCHIE LOVELL.
the first step in the direction of right, but every
obstacle that might have hindered its {iilfihnent
had been removed by aKen means, not by any en-
deavours of her own. Unless Sir John Durant
were at the last too ill to travel, nothing could
save her now from the accomplishment of her
work. Unless! How tumultuously her heart
throbbed at the thought ! It would be impossible,
utterly, for her to go alone she, who knew nothing
of London, not even the name of the court at
which Gerald was to be tried. If Sir John Durant
did not go, her whole self-constructed scheme of
duty must, of necessity, fall to the ground. It
would be a question of will no longer. She would
have tried her best to carry out the moral suicide
which she conceived to be right, and have failed
in it perforce, not through any fault or weakness
of her own.
The Durants' carriage stood at the door of
Hatton station, and the first persons Archie saw as
she entered the office were Sir John and Lucia
standing together outside upon the platform. She
bought a first-class return ticket for London ^with
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE. 177
a consciousness that the clerk stared strangely at
her as he put it in her hand ^went out and joined
them.
" Going up to London and back alone ? " cried
Miss Durant, aghast, when Archie had declared
her intentions. " "Why, I should be frightened to
death! I should think every one I met was a
madman in disguise, or something more dreadful
still ! And and in that dress ! " drawing her
aside. " Do you know, Miss Lovell ? ^you won't
mind my telling you I am sure, but no one wears
white dresses and sailor hats in London ! ''
" Don't they, indeed ! '^ said Archie, brusquely ;
" weU, I'm going on business, very painfol busi-
ness, and I shan't be thinking whether people look
at my dress or not. Who can think of dress at
such a time as this, Lucia ? " calling the heiress
of Durant's Court by her Christian name for the
first time " you don't know how miserable I am
about all this trouble that has fallen upon you."
From her infancy upwards, Lucia had always
been equal to any emergency requiring pretty pious
sentiments, and a nice little lady-like way of ex-
VOL. in. N
178 ^ ARCHIE LOVELL.
pressing them ; and what she answered was very
well chosen and well said, and ntterly devoid, to
Archie's heart, of an3rthing like the ring of deep
or passionate feeling. It had been terribly sudden,
and her mamma at first had broken down, but was
cahner now their old governess and friend, Miss
Barlow, haviQg come to spend a few days with
them ^and it was very painful to think of its being
in everybody's mouth, but there was much to be
thankful for, especially that it should have occurred
now, not later, and Mfes Barlow's presence was a
great solace to them ; Miss Barlow having a mind
beautiftdly schooled by affiction.
"I'd rather be alone," said Archie, turning from
her abruptly. " I should decline solace from Miss
Barlow, 'or Miss Anybody in the world, if my heart
was foU ! "
After this she stood silent thinking over the
character of the woman for whose happiness she
was about to surrender h^r own ^until the train
came up. Then, in spite of renewed warnings from
Miss Durant as to madmen, got into a carriage
away from old Sir John, and as it chanced re-
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE, 179
mained alone the entire way to London. What an
Eternity that journey seemed ! how slow the pace
^fifty miles an hour ^to her feverish heart ! how
she hoped, with blent terror and impatience, that
every large town they came near would be London
at last ! Now that the excitement of action had
set in, all she wanted was to be at her joume/s
end, and before Ralph Seton before the whole
world ^to tell her story in the court. The bravery
which is not so much courage as a desperate desire
to get through the worst quickly, had come to her
at last : and the moment the train reached Euston
Square she jumped out on the platform; then,
without giving herself time to think or hesitate,
walked straight up to Sir John Durant as he was
getting down slowly and with difi&culty from his
carriage.
**I have a favour to ask of you, Sir John,'*
bringing out each word with mechanical distinct-
ness, as if she was repeating some lesson that she
had learnt by heart. " Take me with you to the
court where Mr. Gerald Durant is to be tried to-
day.'*
N 2
180 ARCHIE LOVELL.
Poor old Sir John looked at her in blank sur-
prise. " To the court ? my dear Miss Lovell, im-
possible ; you don't know what you ask a London
police-court / is no place for you. At any other
time, in any other way, you may command my
services, but now you must really excuse me if I
am obliged to refuse you." And he bowed to her,
with his courteous old-fashioned air of deference,
and walked on a few steps alone down the plat-
form.
But Archie followed him pertinaciously. "Sir
John, it is impossible for you to deny me in this ! "
she said, touching his arm with her hand. "I
must be at Mr. Durant's trial ! I ^I have im-
portant evidence to give there, and if you refuse to
take me with you I must go alone. Surely, for
your nephew's sake, you wiU give me your pro-
tection as far as the court ? '' "
At the word "evidence" Sir John Durant,
stopped; and as he looked down into Archie
Lovell's face, something in its intense, its painful
eagerness, touched him with an irresistible con-
viction of her sincerity at least. That her presence
AWAKENING CONSCIENCE. 181
could be of any service to Gerald was of course out
of the question: but it was impossible to doubt that
her request was made in good faith ; not for the
gratification of a girlish caprice, as he had thought
at first.
" You will take me with you ? " she repeated, as
she saw him hesitate. "You will help me, for
Gerald^s sake, in what I have to do when we reach
the court ? ''
"You put it out of my power to refuse you,
Miss Lovell/' answered the old man, gravely. " If
you insist upon exposing yourself ^uselessly, I fear
^to a scene of such a nature, I will certainly take
you with me to the court, and when we arrive
there I will arrange, if it is not too late, for you
to speak with one of my nephew's lawyers, if I am
satisfied, that is to sav "
You will ^you must be satisfied ! " interrupted
Archie, impetuously. " Do you think I am asking
you this without reason, or for my own pleasure ?
You talk of being too late. . . Why do we waste
a moment standing here if there is a chance of it?*'
And putting her hand within Sir John Durant's
182 ARCHIE LOVELL.
ann, she walked beside him with a firm unshrink-
ing step through the crowded station : a minute later
knew that she was being borne along through the
mocking glare and life and tumult of the London
streets to her doom.
Too late ! Oh, Heaven, too late I But the
guilty cry found utterance in her heart alone.
All was not over then ^there was a chance of her
own salvation even yet !
CHAPTER VIIL
"where is she?
f
Some of the best lawyers in England had been
retained for Gerald : the great Mr. Slight to watch
his case during the preliminary examination : the
greater Serjeant Adams to defend him in the event
of his beiQg tried hereafter before a judge. Some
of the best lawyers in England were engaged, like-
wise, on the side of the Crown : and amongst the
whole high legal phalanx, amongst the lawyers for
the prosecution and the lawyers for the defence
alike, one opinion was fast becoming imiversal:
namely, that the prisoner's committal for trial was
inevitable.
Whether Gerald Durant happened to be guilty
or innocent in the matter was, of course, a very
secondary detail in the sight (^ the profession.
The vital question was : would thQ evidence against
184j archie lovell.
him be too much even for Slight ^now that the
Crown had recalled old Sleek from Italy to con-
duct the prosecution ? And the unanimous answer
was, Yes. Not a link seemed wanting in the
chain of 'circumstantial evidence that Mr. Wick-
ham's fertile genius had evoked. The motive for
committing the crime with which the prisoner
stood charged : his presence at the fatal hour upon
the scene of guilt : the identity of the girl who was
seen in his company on London Bridge : his sus-
picious manner immediately after her death was
known to have taken place : of these, as of a dozen
other minor facts, there was, it was affirmed, proof
incontestable. And still, as far even as an attempt
at his own justification went, Gerald Durant's lips,
to friends and counsellors alike, continued obsti-
nately sealed ! He was innocent, he said, and had
not the slightest fear of anythiug so ridiculous as
the law finding him guilty. No innocent men were
ever condemned now-a-days, and very few guilty
ones. Circumstances connected with other people
withheld him from explaining one or two things
that at present, perhaps, did look rather suspicious
"WHERE IS SHET' 185
in the case. It was folly to think that everything
would not come right in the end. And so when
the final day of his examination came^ and while
his approaching committal was looked upon as a
certainty among the lawyers, even those who cared
for Gerald most, dared hope no more than that he
might escape the charge of actual criminality as
regarded Margaret HaU's death. That he was
with her up to the last there seemed scarcely a
possibility of disproving ; that he was the cause of
her death there could be, it was hoped, no direct
evidence to show. What more' likely than that,
immediately after leaving her lover, or, as it was
now whispered pretty loudly, her husband, the
unhappy girl, maddened by his neglect or his cold-
ness, had made away with her own life ? Not a
defence calculated, certainly, to restore Gerald
Durant with unsullied name to the world; but
when it becomes a question, like this, of- life and
death, what the Mends of an accused man begin to
think about, I imagine, is his safety ^the life that
is worth so little, rather than the good name, with-
out which, to most men, life itself is intolerable
186 ARCHIE LOVELL.
This, at all events, was the desperate view of his
case to whiqh, with one exception, Gerald's friends
(men who a fortnight ago would have staked their
lives upon the certainty of his innocence) were
now reduced.
The exception was Ralph. Of the promise
which sealed Gerald's lips with respect to D^-
nison's marriage, he of course knew nothing: of
his silence concerning that fatal night when Archie
Lovell had been his companion in London, Major
Seton imderstood the cause as well as Gerald
understood it himself. And placed in the same
position ^yes, even with Archie to be saved,
Ralph, in his inmost, modest heart, believed that
he would have acted far less chivalrously than hi?
friend.
" A man's first duty is to his God ^his second to
himself," he said to Gerald on the morning of the
final examination; the last time he ever visited
Gerald Durant in his prison. " I know, just as
well as if you had told me, that you . are silent
to shelter some other person's reputatioi^, and I bet
lieve, on my soul, that you are wrong ! If I was i^
" WHERE IS SHE ? " 187
your place, and ki^ew that my truth-telUng would
cover ,with mere conventional shame the name
y^eU, the name of the woman] I loved best on
,epr^" said Ealph, the blood rising over his
rough old face, " and save my own from blackest,
unmerited dishonour, I believe that I would tell it.
I don*t see that you owe a stronger duty to apy
man or woman living than you owe to yourself.
Xhei thing is, to do simply what is right."
" Eight ! " said Gerald, with a smile ; that
careless smile of his which was the real beauty
of his face. " But, my dear fellow, what is right ?
Monsieur Seton me le reponds, mats qui me reponch
d^ Monsieur Seton? The world, according to
JFiguier^ I never went deeper, was in twilight
during a few thousand years Cambrian or Silu-
rian epoch, I forget which ^with the sun just
strong enough to allow the graptolites and trilo-
bites to see a yard or two before their noses. I
suppose we are morally in the same kind of twi-
light now. Vague lights break in upon us of
something higher thanpnere eating, drinking, and
sleeping, and in ouj^ different Mays, and under
188 ARCHIE LOVELL.
different names, we try to follow them. Definitely,
we don't see muclx fixriher, I fancy, than the trilo
bites did ; not so far, perhaps, for as their eyes had
about five hundred facets that enabled them to
look about them in all directions at once, they
were better adapted to their situation most likely
than we are to ours."
This was talk entirely out of the range of the
old Moustache. Who was Figuier? and what
were graptolites and trilobites ? The earth at the
beginning was without form and void, and in six
days was covered with life as we see it now. And
truth was truth, and falsehood falsehood ; and
neither deep thinking nor fine talking had ever
smoothened down the path between them in his
sight.
" You follow your own idea of honour, Durant,"
lajdng his arm affectionately on Gerald's shoulder,
" and ^while you talk of not distinguishing right
from wrong 'tis a nobler one, I feel, than mine ;
just that. You have the edge on all your finer
emotions yet" ^poor simple Ealph ! " and mine
is blunted. When you have lived to my age
"WHERE IS SHE?" 189
perhaps you will not think any woman worth the
sacrifice of your own honour, the risk of your
own life/*
" I should think this one worth it always," said
Gerald, simply ; " for there can be no harm now in
my confessing this much to you, Seton there is a
good name, a name worth a yast deal more than
mine, that my silence shields. If it had been a
love-afifair, which it never was'* even at this mo-
ment what a thrill of delight shot through Major
Seton's heart! "I might feel very diflferently.
Love, between a man and woman of the world, I
have always held to be a stand-up fight, in which
a fair field and no favour is all that can be reason-
ably required on either side. Each risks some-
thing ; each must abide by the issue of the contest.
But this was nothing of the kind. An honest,
true-hearted little girl through me was very nearly
brought to grief once. I don't say whether I was
in love with her ; for certain she was not in love
with me, and ^well, everything turned out as it
should have done, and is forgotten."
*' And this is the woman with whom you were
190 ARCHIE LOVBLL.
seen en tibat night P^' said Balph in an altered
voice, as Gerald hesitated. " This is "
" This is one of the causes for which I am and
ever shaU be silent," answered Gerald, gravely.
" To betray such a trust would be a worse betrayal
than that of friend or mistress ^the betrayal of a
child. If the honour of every Durant who ever
lived could be saved by her disgrace, the honour of
the Durants should go!" A]^d then he turned
the conversation pointedly aside^ and during the
short remainder of time they were together, spoke
only of the business matters that he wished Balph
to fulfil for him in the event of his committal ; an
event which, in spite of all his outward calmness.
Major Seton could see he had now thoroughly pre-
pared himself to meet.
The time at which the examination was to take
place was ten o'clock. From an early hour in tiie
morning, however, every approach to the court was
besieged by such^^people ^many of them, although
London was " empty " of the better class as were
possessed of cards giving them a right of entrance
to this charming little sensation drama of real life
" WHERE IS SHE ? " 191
about to be played. Without such cards no admis-
sion save by sheer physical strength could be ob-
tained ; and even the fortunate men and women
who held them found they had plenty of hard
work to go through, many a severe struggle with
the experienced roughs to encounter, before an
entrance to the scene of their morning's amusement
could be won.
At ten o'clock precisely the prisoner, or principal
actor in the entertainment, was broT]^ht into the
dock; and a breathless hush passed through the
entire mass of spectators at the sight of him. He
was a Httle pale and worn, as any man might
weU be after a week spent in a London prison in
August, but looked in good spirits and smiled and
nodded to his different Mends, Ralph among the
rest, as one after another he recognised them
amidst the crowd. Mr. Slight, wi.o "watched"
the case for the prisoner, now appUed for a copy of
the information on which the warrant' was granted,
with a view, he said, to s^e what were the state-
ments laid down, and also "V^ho was Nominally the
prosecutor in the case. This, after some discus-
192 ARCHIE LOVELL.
sion, was granted; and then the warrant having
been read over to the prispner, and the witnesses
ordered out of court, the well-known short rubi-
cund figure of Mr. Sleek rose, on behalf of the
Crown, to address the bench.
He appeared before them, he said, in his soft,
well-modulated voice, for the purpose of preferring
and bringing home, as he trusted he would do, the
charge against the prisoner at the bar which had
just been read from the warrant. The ofience they
were about to inquire into was one of a most
heinous character. He did not think that he
should be putting, it too strongly if he said it was
one of the most heinous, the most cowardly, the
most repugnant to every natural and divine law,
that it was in the power of man to commit. Such
observations however (having made them) were,
Mr. Sleek continued, out of place here. They had
met for the purpose only of instituting a prelimi-
nary examination ; and if he should adduce facts
to justify the bench in committing the prisoner for
trial, it would of course be the duty of the prose-
cution to elaborate those facts, and produce them
' WHERE IS SHE ? " 193
hereafter in a more complete form than lie had an
opportunity of doing in this conrt. The offence
with which Mr. Durant stood charged was that of
murder ; the victim was a young and beautiful girl
a girl, it was scarcely possible to doubt, bound
to the prisoner by all those ties which constitute
a woman's dearest and most sacred claim to man's
love and protection. Mr. Sleek and the court
generally showed emotion; an irrepressible smile
passed for an instant over Gerald's face. It ap-
peared that at about a quarter-past ten on the night
of the second instant, a dark body was heard to fall
or to be thrown' with violence into the Thames
from London Bridge ; an alarm was instantly
raised, and by three o'clock next morning the body
of deceased was foimd, some three or four hundred
yards down the river, with life extinct. An inquest
was held on the following day, but was unfortu-
nately conducted with the deplorable looseness that
Mr. Sleek had observed to be the general rule of
coroners' inquests, and nothing of material import-
ance was brought to light. Circumstances arising,
however, immediately afterwards which aroused
VOL. III.
194 ARCHIE LOVELL.
the susjpicions of the poKce, to Inspector Wickham;
of the detective force was entrusted. the duty o
maHng further inquiry into this darkly piysterioua
tragedy; and ^thanks to the skill and unremitting
attention of that excellent officer ^the prosecution,
was now in a position to present to the bench the
following fticts: facts which Mr. Sleek believed
could leave them no alternative whatever but the
committal of the prisoner for trial Ibefore another
court. It seemed that as long ago as the tenth of
January, the deceased girl left her employer's
house in Staffordshire mi although rumours as ta
the supposed companion of her flight were rife at
the time about the county, nothing definite had
since transpired on the subject. On the night of
the second instant, a girl dressed in the clothes in
which the body of Margaret Hall was afterwards
found was seen, at a few minutes before ten, walk-
ing across London Bridge from the Surrey side-
upon a man*s arm ; at a quarter-past ten a woman's
shriek was heard, a dark body seen to fall into
the water ; and by an early hour next morning a
woman's body was found drifted in, among some
'WHERE IS SHE?" 195
sUpping at a little distance down the river. That
the woman who thus crossed the bridge was Mar-*
garet Hall there was, as he should hereafter show,
no reasonable canse to doubt. The man upon
whose arm she leaned was, it would be proved by
incontestable evidence, the prisoner Mr. Gerald
Durant.
Profoimd sensation through the court. A smile,
unconcealed this time, passed across the prisoner's
face.
Medical testimony, proceeded Mr. Sleek, would be
called to show the condition in which the body was
found. They would be told of a wedding-ring tied
by a ribbon around the unhappy girl's neck ; of a
handkerchief embroidered with Mr. Durant's mono-
gram in her breast; and they would also hear
evidence as to a man's hat, which was found
floating in the river ; and which it would be
proved was the property of the prisoner. The
next points that it would be his duty to bring
before their consideration were the acts and conduct
of Mr. Durant himself. On that second day of
August he was proved to have crossed from Morte-
02
196 ARCHIE LOVELL.
ville to London in the company of a young girl,
answering to the description of the deceased, Mar-
garet Hall. On the passage across, one of their
fellow-travellers lent the girl a cloak, which in the
hurry of landing was not returned to its owner,
and in this cloak the body of Margaret Hall was
found. At about ten o'clock, as he had stated,
Mr. Durant, with the girl upon his arm, was seen
walking upon London Bridge, and it was remarked
at the time that there was something strange
and excited about the appearance of them both.
What was the prisoner's subsepuent conduct?
Between eleven and twelve, minus a hat, and
with his dress disordered and torn, Mr. Durant
went to the chambers of a Mr. Robert Dennison, a
relation of his in the Temple ; gave curt and con-
tradictory answers when questioned by his friends
as to the strangeness of his appearance ; and finally
let fall a remark about having just seen the ghost
of an old Mend's face " a Staffordshire face "
on London Bridge, as though to account for his
pallor and depression. Every portion of this
evidence was, Mr. Sleek allowed, circumstantial ;
"WHERE IS SHE?" 197
but it was not necessary, neither was it liis place to
observe, that a concurrence of suspicions circnm-
stances was of all human evidence the one least
liable to bias or error, more particularly when the
silence of the accused and of his counsellors tacitly
admitted such circumstances to be authentic. It
was a melancholy satisfaction of course to know
that Mr. Durant was in a position to command the
best services of the profession. Her Majesty's
government wished to press a conviction upon no
man ; and it was a satisfaction to know that every-
thing that could be said on behalf of the prisoner
would be said, and with the greatest force and
eloquence. Still, what would really tell far more
in Mr. Durant's favour, what it would yield him-
self, Mr. Sleek, the most unmixed personal satis-
faction to hear, would be ^not eloquence at aU, but
a plain straightforward counter-statement of facts as
regarded Mr. Durant's proceedings on the night of
August the second ! It was an axiom of English
law that no man should be called upon to offer
explanations of his conduct or of any circum-
stances of suspicion which might attach to him.
198 ARCHIE LOVELL.
It was Ids duty, however, to remark that if an
accused person refused such explanation, where a
strong primd facie case had been made out against
him, it must necessarily raise a presumption that
his silence arose from guilty or sinister motiyes.
Gould common sense do otherwise than adopti this
conclusion, especially when, as in the present case,
it was manifest that facts inaccessible to the prose-
cution were in the power of the accused? Mr.
Durant, it was proved, did on the second day of
August cross from Morteville to London in the
company of a lady. By the testimony of his own
valet it appeared that he was left alone with this
lady between eight and nine o'clock at the South-
Eastem Terminus ; and at ten o'clock, a quarter of
an hour only before Margaret Hall's death took
place, it would be shown that he was once more
seen standing by her side on London Bridge.
" And now, with respect to this lady," exclaimed
Mr. Sleek, with sudden fervour, " I have a question
to ask which I am certain must address itself with
irresistible force to every person in this court.
Where is she ? If this lady, as it will doubtless
" WHERE IS SHE ? " 199
be alleged^ was not Margaret Hall^ but some other
person stiU Kving andweU,is her evidence to be
adduced or not on* the prisoner's behalf P It may,
and doubtless will, be hinted to us that there may
be cases in which a man would risk the unmeeited
punishment of guilt sooner than bring forward a
woman's name before the world ; but I put it to
you, whether the Kps of a man charged with the
most heinous and cowardly of all crimes could
remain so sealed? Nay more, I ask does the
woman Kye who would see an innocent man incur
even the imputation of a crime Hke this sooner
than allow the record of her own indiscretion, of
her own frailty, to be made public P "
They might be told he proceeded, that the lady
who accompanied Mr. Durant from France did
certainly wear this scarlet trayelling cloak when
she arrived in London, but might yet have trans-
ferred it to the deceased during the few minutes
that elapsed between the time when she was last
seen at Mr. Durant's side and that of Margaret
Hall's death. If they accepted tins startling
assumption, if they for once presumed that any
200 ARCHIE LOVELL.
giyen fact was due, not to criminality, but to un-
toward accident, they would, certainly, be less
inclined towards such a merciM supposition a
second time. But, alas ! this unhappy victim to
adyerse coincidences would call upon them imme-
diately afterwards to give another violent mental
wrench favourable to his innocence. A hand-
kerchief, embroidered with Gerald Sydney Durant's
initials was found in the woman's breast. It had
been well said that the die which is orderly in its
sequences may be rightly supposed to be loaded.
Every successive circumstance that bore against
the prisoner was, it must be remembered, cumula-
tive proof ^proof multiplied by hundreds. And
when to the foregoing facts was added that of Mr.
Durant's hat being found floating near the body of
the deceased, it seemed folly to ask them again to
receive an arbitrary and separate conclusion in-
stead of the plain cause which could alone account
for this overpowering accumulation of dark facts
the prisoner's guilt. With regard, he said, to Mr.
Durant's manner at his cousin's chambers, it was
not his province now to speak. This conduct
"WHERE IS SHE?" 201
might possibly be compatible with, imiocence if it
stood alone^ but it must be recollected that it was
one of a series of facts which, though small,
perhaps, in their individual capacity, did, when
grouped together, lead to the irresistible conclusion
that the prisoner had secret and guilty knowledge
of the girl's death. What motive could have
prompted the crime it was unneedful also for him
to suggest. A dark drama, an old story of passion,
satiety, and neglect, of which this was the closing
scene, had doubtless been enacted. He had to do
with facts alone; and these were the facts which
he was able to present to the bench. They saw
in the prisoner a young man overwhelmed with
debts which he was utterly powerless, to meet un-
aided. His uncle, Sir John Durant, was the only
person to whom he could look for assistance ; and
his uncle, it was known, not three weeks ago, had
threatened to disinherit him if his reported con-
nection with Margaret Hall proved to be a fact.
They next found him alone with the unhappy girl
on London Bridge upon the night of her death.
They had then the mute and touching evidence of
202 ABCHIE LOVELL.
the body itself flie wedding-ring tied aroxind her
neck; the handkerchief of GeraldDuraat in her
breast; and lastly, they had the fact that the
prisoner already realised to the fall those advan-
tages for which, it might be surmised, the death
was accomplished. Whateyer benefit of doubt Mr.
Durant might be entitled to would, for certain, be
amply accorded to bim hereafter. He beKeved
himself that the magistrate could come to no
other conclusion now than that the case was fraught
with suspicions of the grayest character, and that
the interests of public justice imperatiyely de-
manded that the prisoner should be sent for trial
before another and a higher tribunal.
And then Mr. Sleek wiped his crimson face, and
sat down. His address had been, intentionally, a
short one, for the thermometer stood at ninety-six
in the shade ; and, in common with every other
lawyer present, Mr. Sleek fervently hoped to get
the examination over to-day. A great surgeon,
recalled by enormous fees, to cut off the limb of an
illustrious patient, knows that he will be forced to
wait and watch over the result of the operation.
" WHERE IS SHE ? " 203
With a lawyer, what is done is done.- Whether
Mr. Sleek or Mr. Slight got the best of ity their
work would be finished, their fees paid, the moment
the bench had pronounced its judgment upon the
prisoner ; and a pardonable preference for mountain
oxygen to city carbonic add in Angust made'both
of them disposed to be concise. Mr. Sleek's address
had not lasted two hours ; Mr. SHght's for certain
would not occupy more; and it was now only
twelve o'clock. By employing a little happy brevity
in cross-examination they might yet be able to
have a comfortable dinner together, and start off
on their respective journeys one for the Highr
lands, the other for the Italian lakes to-night.
The first witness called was Mrs. Sherborne of
Heathcotes, and as she came into the witness-box,
making her village curtsey to the usher, whom in
her agitation she took for the magistrate at least,
her country carriage and open snnbnmt fae seemed
almost to bnng a breath of wholesome meadow
freshness into the noisome human atmoqhere of
the court. Her first movement was to look
towards the prisoner and cry ; her second, upon a
204 ABCHIE LOYELL.
mild opening question from the bencli, to plunge
into wildly irrelevant statements about Sir John's
goodness to her husband, and her regret at haying
to appear against Mr. Gerald, and the love she had
always borne to the family at the Court. But a
Uttle judicious treatment at the hands of Mr. Sleek
soon reduced these symptoms of contumacy, and
brought the poor woman to a due sense of the
position in which she stood, as an important and
accredited witness on the side of the Crown. After
giving her evidence as to the identification of Mar-
garet Hall after death, Mrs. Sherborne was desired
to tell what she knew about her disappearance in
January last, and she had just faltered out a few
tearful words as to the note the poor girl had
written home, and how it was thought about in the
county at the time, when Mr. Slight jumped up
Mid, with a stony face and peremptory voice, in-
terrupted her. They had nothing to do in this
court with what was " thought about '^ by anybody
anywhere. They had to do with Mrs. Sherborne's
personal evidence, of which he should be glad to
hear rather more than she had at present given
'* WHERE IS SHE?" 205
them. And then, putting up his double eyeglass
and looking at her with a certain expression of
disbelief and insolence, that made the modest
countrywoman almost ready to drop with shame,
Mr. Slight proceeded to cross-question her a little.
"Flighty? strange? No, never! never saw
anything unusual, in any way, in poor Maggie's
manner. She was a handsome girl a skin like
snow, gentlemen" (with an apologetic curtsey to
the bench), "and eyes and hair like the raven's
wing, and a bit set up about it, perhaps, at times ;
but as honest a girl, and as cool a hand for butter
as ever churned. Suitors ? Well, for the matter
of that, she'd as many suitors as most. In her own
class of life ? Certainly ; whose else class should
they be in?" For, in spite of her terror, Mrs.
Sherborne had her keen country wits about her still.
She was in that witness-box to speak the truth ^if
truth-telling cpuld do it, to get poor Mr. Gerald out
of his trouble. But she was equally there to shield
the honour of the girl that was dead and gone,
and a subtle woman's instinct had interpreted to
her aright the object of Mr. Slights last question.
206 ABCHIE LOVELL.
''And Margaret Hall accepted none of these
suitors of her own class of life, it appears, Mrs,
Sherborne P What did she say to the suitors of a
class above her own ? "
I can't teU, sir/'
"You can't tell. Were gentlemen ^unmarried
ones acciistomed to come about the farm at
Heathcotes during the tune that Margaret Hall
was in your employment P "
"Yes, certainly. A many gentlemen used to
come to see my husband and me."
-' Name those who came oftenest."
Mrs. Sherborne hesitated, and shot a quick
appealing glance across towards Gerald. "Sir
George Chester used to come when he were down
at the Court, sir ; and Mr. Bobert Dennison, and
sometimes Mr. Gerald Durant himself, and "
"Mrs. Sherborne," exclaimed Mr. Slight, sud-
denly exchanging his air of bantering encourage*
ment for one of scowling ferocity, " have the good-
ness to "weigh your answers more careftdly, and
remember this is not a time or place for levity."
The poor womwi's mouth was contorted, through
" WHEBE IS SHE ? " 207
nervousness^ into the ghastly semblance of b smile.
" Have you, or have you not, known Mr. Bobert
Dennison to be frequently alone in the cmpany
of Margaret Hall ? "
Qerald's lips had continued inviokbly sealed as
respected his personal knowledge of Robert's mar-
riage with Kaggie; but he had never hidden, or
sought to hide, from his counsel any of the well
known facts relative to their extreme intimacy*
His promise to Bobert, his fSuth with Archie
Lovell, were all that he felt himself bound to keep.
Quixotic enough to lay aside any legitimate weapon
of self-defence, he was not and Mr. Slight, with-
out any positive knowledge c^ the truth, suspected
enough to be sure thart his dient bad neither been
the sole noE the first claimant upon poor Maggie's
affection. ,
" Have you, or have you not, frequently seen
Mr. Dennison alone in the girl's coDfipany?" he
repeated.
"Well, I have seen him, sir ; but not oftener "
"Keep to what I ask you, Mrs. Sherborne,"
interrupted Mr.: Slight, in a cruel voice "and leave
208 ARCHIE LOVELL.
every other subject alone. You have seen Mr.
Dennison in the girl's company. How often ? "
" I don't remember, sir," answered Mrs. Sher-
borne piteously.
" Try to think, if you please. Six times ? Ten
times P "
" Oh dear, yes," she cried, brightening at having
something definite to go upon. The young gen-
tlemen used to walk down Heathcotes way after
their dinner, one one time, perhaps, and one ano-
ther, and then Maggie she'd walk a bit with them
in the garden or round the orchard while they
smoked their cigars. Pd known both of them &om
boys, gentlemen," she added, turning towards the
magistrate, with her good, brown face softening all
over, " and never gave a thought me or my hus-
band either that harm would come of it."
" No more with one than with the other, I sup-
pose, Mrs. Sherborne P " put in Mr. Slight, blandly.
"No, sir."
Exactly ! " and Mr. Slight sat down. The
evidence for the prosecution had assuredly not done
much damage to his dLenfs cause as yet.
"WHERE IS SHE?" 209
At the appearance of the next witness who
entered the box Gerald half rose, and leaned
forward with an expression of greater eagerness
than his face had worn before. The witness was
Captain "Waters, and as his eyes met the prisoner's
a certain veiled look of intelligence passed for a
second between them.
The man had got his hush-money, but ^was he
safe? was Gerald's uneasy thought, for at his
direction a goodly sum had been paid anonymously
to Waters, with sternest injunctions never to molest
Miss Lovell, or seek in any way to bring her name
forward while he lived. The scoundrel had re-
ceived his bribe, but how was he to know that
another man had not meanwhile bid a higher price
over his head ?
"You may be perfectly at your ease, my in-
fatuated but chivalrous young friend," was Waters'
reflection, as he caught sight of Gerald's eager face.
" No fear of my killing the goose that lays such
very golden eggs ! If you are committed for your
trial, as you certainly will be, I shall have an
income safe without work or trouble for the
VOL. III. .P
210 ARCHIE LOVELL.
next six months a small annuity perhaps for
lifeP'
And then, in his accustomed bored languid tonc^^
Captain Waters, or Edward Baudall, as his name
was imtten in the police-^eet, gave his evidence.
Had stayed in the same hotel with Mr. Purant
about three weeks ago, at Morteyyie. BememT;
bered seeing him on board a steamer bpund for
England .from the Calais pier. Had no concepUou
what the name of the steamer was; ixeyer remem-
bered the names of steamers ^wouldn't Bradshaw
tell P It seemed a. small vessel, chiefly occ^pied by
persons of the lower dass. Believed te spoke to
Mr. Durant from the pier ^was sure he did, now
he thought of it congratulated him, if he recol-
lected right, on having got away fron^ Morteville.
A lady was certainly at Mr. Durant's side ^might
have had his arm seldom felt sure enough of any-
thing to take a positive oath to it. If obliged to
bet ? Well, would rather say she had not got his
arm couldn't see the object of people going about
arm-in-arm on board steamers. The lady was too
closely veiled for him to see her face did not, to
"WHERE IS SHE?" 211
the best of his remembrance, wear a red doak ;
beKeyed she was in white, but positively declined
swearing about articles of female dress. Certainly
had seen Mr. Durant in the society of ladies at
Morteville. What ladies P Lots of ]^es could
it really be expected of him to know their names ?
Never thought Mr. Durant seemed harder up for
money than other men ^paid, at all events, what he
lost to him at cards. How much ? Well, a very
trifling sum ; between a hundred and a hundred
and fifty pounds, he should say.
This was Captain Waters' evidence ; and it was
to be remarked that he was not cross-questioned or
meddled with in any way by Mr. Slight while he
gave it. The next name called was that of Sophia
Dawson. A rumour had got abroad that the evi-
dence of this witness was to be of the most fatal
importance as regarded Gerald; and a silence,
such as hushes the opera house when some great
actress plays the Bridge scene in Somnambula^ pre-
vailed through the court during her examination.
She was, she stated, the wife of Mr. Alfred ^
Dawson, merchant, of the city of London, and on
r 2
212 ARCHIE LOVELI..
the second of the present month returned to
England from a visit that she had been paying to
her sister in Paris. She happened to miss the
mail in the morning and crossed by the Lord of
the Isles, an excursion steamer that left Morteville
at two in the afternoon. Soon after getting clear
of Calais the wind rose fresh, and as she, witness,
felt ill, and was going down to the cabih, she
oflfered her cloak to a young girl whom she saw
sitting in a thin summer dress upon the deck.
Yes ; the cloak produced (a thrill of satisfaction
seemed to run through the expectant crowd at
sight of it!) was hers. The colour was stained
and altered, but she was positiye as to its beiug the
cloak she lent to the girl on board the steamer.
Her initials were marked on a piece of tape
stitched inside the collar. She would know it,
even without these initials, among a hundred
cloaks. It was home made, and she had cut out
the hood and put it together herself. Saw no
more of the girl till they came up the river, and
then found her sitting on deck in the company of
the same gentleman with whom she had first
" WHERE IS SHE ? " 213
noticed her off the coast of France. That gentle-
#
man was she could swear the prisoner at the bar
but the woman's kindly face here paled visibly as
Gerald turned and looked at her full. Knew at
the time that his name was Durant ; read it on a
valise that his servant carried in his hand. Told
the girl she might keep the doak on still, as the
air was fresh coming up the river, and when they
reached London Bridge forgot all about it in the
hurry of landing, and did not see the lady or
gentleman again. The cloak was of no great
value, and she had never made any inquiries about
its loss. Had forgotten all about it until a few
days ago, when an advertisement in The Times
was pointed out to her by a friend. This adver-
tisement was addressed to the lady who lost a
scarlet cloak on board the Lord of the Isles on
such a date ; and her husband thought it right to
communicate at once with the poUce.
This was her evidence. In cross-examination,
very suavely and cautiously conducted by Mr,
Slight, Mrs. Dawson stated, with confidence, that
she could swear to the person of the girl to whom
214 ARCHIE LOVELL.
she lent her cloak. It was an uncommon face, and
she remembered it perfectly. The girl's veil was
not oyer her fstce when she first spoke to her.
The photographs of Margaret Hall, and of one
or two other indifferent persons, were now handed
to the witness. She examined them as she was
directed to do, under a strong microscope, but
would not swear as to whether the portrait of the
girl who was with the prisoner was among them or
not. Did not think much of photographs herself ;
never had. Would she swear none of them was
the portrait of the girl? No she would not.
Declined giving any opinion on the subject.
Would swear to her own cloak: would swear to
the gentleman. Was positive she could swear to
the young lady if she saw her. She had bright
blue eyes, long fair hair, and a brown complexion.
The prisoner at this point, leaned anxiously
forward, and evidently tried to arrest Mr. Slight's
attention. But Mr. Slight either did not, or would
not, imderstand the glance. His client's case was
just as weak as it was possible to be already ; |but
whatever could be^ done to strengthen it, Mr. Slight
" WHERE IS SHE ? " 215
was determined to do : and this last voluntary
statement of Mrs. Dawson's was, lie knew, the
brightest ray of light that had dawned as yet for
the defence.
" Blue eyes and fair hair. You state upon your
oath, that the young person to whom you lent
your cloak had blue eyes ? " ;
'^ I do." But here, re-examined by the bench,
Mrs. Dawson confessed to having been seasick at
the time she lent the girl her cloak. Her head was
swimming round ; and she saw nothing distinctly.
When .they got into the river, the girl had put
down her veil, and she could not, for certain,
say that she had remarked the colour of her eyes
then.
**And yet two minutes ago, you positively
stated that the young woman's eyes were blue?*'
exclaimed Mr. Slight, indignantly. "I must
reaUy request, madam, that you will recoUect the
importance of your words. You are not, you
know, deciding as to the colour of a new dress, but
answering a question upon which a man's life may
depend. We have nothing to do in this court with
216 ARCHIE LOVELL. -
your sea sickness, or any condition of your bodily
frame whatsoever. Do you swear that the young
woman to whom you lent your cloak on board
the Lord of the Isles had blue eyesP Yes, or
no?''
" I swear that she had blue eyes.'*
"Good. Now, Mrs. Dawson, what was the
manner, may I ask, of Mr. Durant to the young
person during the voyage ? Seasick, or not seasick,
this is a point to which no young married lady "
Mrs. Dawson was forty-five at least " can ever be
blind. Was it your opinion at the time, now, that
Mr. Durant and this young person were man and
wife?"
But to this , question, Mr. Sleek positively ob-
jected. The private opinions or deductions of any
individual as his friend, Mr. Slight, with ad-
mirable clearness, had reminded them ^not being
evidence ; and the bench confirming this objection,
Mr. Slight had to repeat his question in its first
form ^What was the manner of Mr. Durant to the
young person with whom he travelled ?
A very polite manner. That, of course. He
" WHERE IS SHE ? " 217
never doubted for a moment, that the manner of
any gentleman to any lady would be a polite one.
"Was it a marked manner ? the manner of a lover,
in short ?
"Well, no ; Mrs. Dawson could not say it was.
She thought, at the time, they looked like brother
and sister, or, perhaps, two young people gone oflP
for a freak. The girl's manner seemed very good-
natured and oflf-hand with her companion cer-
tainly not the manner of a wife to a husband.
And now, having worked round after all to the
exact admission that he required, Mr. Slight
allowed the witness to leave the box.
The evidence of constable X 22, of the Gty
division of poHce, was next taken. He was on his
beat, he said, on the night of August the second,
and remembered seeing a girl and a gentleman
standing together on London Bridge, a few minutes
before ten o'clock. Saw the gentleman's face as
distinct as if it had been broad day, for they were
standing talking immediately under a lamp, when
he came up, and he stopped a minute to look at
ihem. The prisoner at the bar was the gentleman :
218 ^ ARCHIE LOVELL.
identified hhn about a week ago, when, under
Mr. Wiekham's directions, lie watched him from
an opposite window at his lodgings at darges
Street. Thought on the night of the second they
must be foreigners, from their queer appearance
the lady was, he described, in a scarlet travelling-
oloak; the gentleman without a hat.: Tkought
there seemed some kind of discussion going on
between them. There had been ' a disturbance
{this in cross-examination) on the bridge just
before ; but couldn^t say if the prisoner had been
mixed up in it or not.
One of the lightermen who first raised the alarm
on the night of the second was now brought for-
ward. The clocks had gone the quarter, he said,
about four or five minutes before. Could take his
Bible oath he was right as to time. It was his
turn to go ashore at half-past ten ; and he had
been counting the different quarters as they struck.
It was a clear night, and he was sitting smoking
his pipe on deck, when he heard a woman^s shriek,
and immediately afterwards saw the splash of some
heavy object, close alongside, it seemed,^of where
" WHERE IS SHE 1 " 219
the barge was moored. Was not present when the
body' was found. He and his mate gaye the alarm
at once; and went ashore as usual at the half-
hour.
Lengthened medical evidence came next from
the doctors who had before appeared at the inquest,
and who still held conflicting opinions as to what
had been the immediate cause of death, and
whether death had or had not taken place before
the body reached the water. After this science
haying been apathetically listened to by the ex-
perienced trial-goers as a sort of interlude, or by*-
play, not bearing upon the general interest of the
plot the testimony of the riyer police, with its
accustomed burthen of dark horrors, was recorded ;
and then-
Then, eyery man and woman in that dense
crowd {:essmg breathlessly forward to catch a sight
of him, Mr. Eobert Dennison was summoned to
take his place in the witness-box.
His face wore a cadayerous yellow hue the hue
of a man who has newly passed through some
220 ABCHIE LOVELL.
sharp bodily pain or sickness ; but still the dark
eyes kept their counsel inviolate as ever : still not
a quiver of the lips betrayed either fear or weak-
ness to any who were watching him. As soon as
he appeared, Q^rald Durant leant forward^ upon
his clasped arms, over the ledge of the dock, fixing
iiis eyes steadfastly upon his cousin's face : and so
for a few silent moments, they stood ^the guilty
man and the innocent one confronting each other.
This was perhaps the strongest situation in 4he
whole morning's performance; and a good many
of the ladies present raised their handkerchiefs to
their eyes. The sympathies of the common people
were, here as throughout, upon Gerald Durant's
side. The educated and refined few were naturally
alive to the pathos of poor Mr. Dennison's position ;
the intense suflferiug with which this duty of giving
evidence against one so near akin to him as the
prisoner must be performed.
He was examined by Mr. Sleek, and stated that
he was first cousin to Gerald Durant, and had been
on terms of intimacy and affection with him all his
life. On the first of the present month he parted
*' WHERE IS SHE ? 221
from liis cousm at Morteville. Did not know that
he was in particular money difficulties at the time ;
was about the same in that respect as most young
men of his profession and age. An estrangement
had certainly existed between Gerald and his
uncle, Sir John Durant. Saw his cousin next on
the night of the following day, August the second.
On that occasion witness had a party of frie^ds
dining with him in his chambers, and towards mid-
night Gerald Durant unexpectedly came in. He
was dressed in a morning suit, and explained that
he had only arrived in London that evening by a
steamer from France. Did not recollect anything
imusual in his appearance: was unable to say
whether he had a hat with him or not. Admitted
and that the admission cost him dear no one
looking at Robert Dennison's face, his bloodless
lips, the great drops standing upon his livid fore-
head, could doubt that the prisoner had made
some allusion to having been on London Bridge
that night : did not remember the exact words the
prisoner used.
Mr. Sleek : " I must beg of you to recollect
i
222 ARCHIE laVELU
{heniy Mr. Denmson. The proeeeotioii lias ereiy
wiflL to spaie the jGaeliiigs of yoa and of your EDiiiIj
to the nttennost, hut this is a most important part
of the eyidence, and cannot he sbmed orer."
And thus adjnred and with Gerald's eyes iqpon
him still ! ^Mx. Dennison spoke. As the evening
progressed, and as some of the guests were pre-
paring to leaye, Gerald Borant asked him what
old fidend he imagined he had seenlliat nig^t on
London Bridge. "Witness answered that he did
not know; and Gerald Borant then went on to
say that he had seen a Staffordshire eu they both
knew, or one so like it as to be its ghost, cronching
out of sight in one of the recesses of London
Bridge. Witness treated the remark lightly at
the time^ not knowing any Staffordshire person
who would be likely to be seen in such a position.
Thought, and still belieyed, it to be meant as a
joke. Parted that night on friendly terms with
his cousin, and had not seen him since. Had held
no communication with Mr. Durant since his
arrest.
All this portion of Bobert Dennison's deposition
i(
WHERE IS SHE?" 223
oonld be scarcely more than guessed at in the
court, for he spoke in an excessively low key, and
with a voice that trembled either with.^ feigned or
unfeigned agitation* But aS; soon aa Hr. Slight
commenced bis cross-examination, Mr. JDennison
was forced, agitated or not, to be audible. "So one
knew better how to affect occas^on^^ dea&ess than
!Mi*. iSlight. 1^0 one knew better than .Mr. Slighit
the effect upon seone witnesses of being forced to
speak out in a tone that the whx)le court could
hear.
c I "You parted from the prisoner at MorteviUe on
August the first. "Will you inform- the Court, Mr.
Dennisony as to the nature of your, business in
MorteviUe at that particular time ?"
" I had no business there at all. I was on my
way back from Paris to London."
"All! And what had been your business in
Paris, Mr. DennisonP Be careful."
" I decline answering the question.^
" Were you in the company of the same lady
with whom you visited Paris in January or Feb-
ruary last P "
224 ARCHIE LOYELL.
''I dedine entering into my private affidrs at
alL"
"Very well, sir/* cried ont Mr. Slight, with
sadden deadly animosity, " then there is one ques-
tion which this Court will oblige you to answer,
whether it suits your convenience or not. What
was the nature of your conversation with Mx.
Oerald Durant on the morning you left Morte-
ville ? ^the conversation you held together on the
subject of Mai^ret Hall ? '*
Kobert Dennison's face grew, if possible, a shade
more livid. "I ^I do not understand you," he
stanmiered ; but the moment's hesitation gave his
brain time to work. Either Gerald had. betrayed
him, and fullest exposure was coming on, or Mr.
Slight was fencing with such weapons only as his
client's half-confidence had supplied to him. In
either case his quick presence of mind counselled
bim to answer with honesty. Could a lie have
saved him he would have told it ^yes, in the faoe
of a hundred newly-uttered oaths; but the time,
he knew, was gone for denial of any kind. Truth,
plain and literal, was what he was reduced to now ;
" WHEBE IS SHE ? " 225
and, boldly-faithful as he was boldly-false, Robert
Dennison stood, the first momentary irresolution
over, prepared to tell it.
As he stood thus no abasement in his eyes, no
tremble on his lips, no token of fear on all the iron
face Gerald felt that he admired Dennison as he
had never admired him in his life before. Talk of
pluck ! why his own was nothing, for he was
innocent. But here was a man guilty of actions
wHch in every class of society axe branded as
infamous ^betrayal of the woman who bore his
name, darkest dishonour in allowing another man
to abide the consequences of his act ; and, in a
moment, for aught that he could know, the fair
reputation he set such store upon might be
spotted ^fame, money, position, every dearest hope
of his life, attainted. And he stood and waited
for the blow thus ! I repeat, Gerald in his heart
admired him, as one admires the brutal heroes of
the ring, for his sheer blind animal strength, un-
leavened though it was by any of the moral quali-
ties which raise a nobler man's courage above the
courage of a bull-dog. The stamina of the Duranis
VOL. III. Q
226 ABCHIE LOViXL.
was there, he thought The poor felloVs inade-
quate sense of finer hononr was to be credited more
perhaps to the base admixture of Dennison blood
than to any fault of his. Bon sang ne pent pas
mentir. There was no virtue in hk ever acting
like a gentleman ; but how can you expect a man
without a grandfather to know how to conduct
himself decently ? When' they were boys together,
nice delicacy, even with respect to half-crowns,
was, he remembered, the one thing he had never
looked for in his roturier cousin. It was the same
now. But the good blood showed in the felloVs
face and attitude at this moment; and Gerald's
heart, his fitncy ^what was it that fired so easily
in that facile organisation ? warmed towards him.
"You don't understand me," said Mr. Slight,
"yet the question is a simple one* Can you
remember the substance of the conversation that
took place between you and your cousin on the
morning of your leaving Morteville ? "
" I can remember the general tenour of it, cer-
tainly," said Dennison, firmly. " The subject of
Margaret Hall's continued disappearance was
"WHEBE IS SHE?" 227
talked of, and I advised Mr. Durant to return to
England at once, and endeavour to prove his inno-
cence in the matter. Suspicions had arisen as to
his being the companion of the girrs flight, and I
wished him to set himself right with his friends at
once."
"And what was your cousin's answer to this
excellent advice ?"
" My cousin's answer was, that he had perfect
confidence in his innocence eventually asserting
itself. As for suspicions, he believed they had
been very much stronger against myself than
agsdnst him."
" To which you replied ^'
" In words that I cannot consider it necessary
to repeat here," said Dennison, with admirable
audacity. " I decline, as I have observed, to enter
at all upon my own personal aflfairs."
Mr. Slight's eyeglass fell; and he shifted his
ground a little.
"Have you ever stated your conviction to be
that Gerald Durant was Margaret Hall's lover, and
that you had good reasons for saying so ?''
q2
228 ABCmE LOTELL.
" Xot in those voids, certainly/'
^' Did you state once to 3Ir. Sholto McItof that
yon believed Gerald Barant had got into a mess
with his uncle about Margaret HaU?"
" I may hare said so. I don't recollect it.**
^'Haye yon endearonred to set right the mis-
tmderstanding that you say existed between the
prisoner and his uncle ?'*
" I have."
'^ Mr. Dennison," with an abrupt emphasis that
took every one in the court aback^ "are you
failing the prisoner at the bar Sir John Dnranf s
next male heir?"
The inflection of Mr. Slight's voice as he said
this was something wonderful. Bobert Dennison's
heart stood still at the terse embodiment of his
own guilty hopes which those few words, spoken in
that tone, put before him. But rallying instantly,
with thorough self-command, with a face of
marble to the last, he answered coldly that he
was not and never could be Sir John Durant's
heir. And then a sound, not exactly a hiss,
but a sound decidedly the reverse of applause
"WHERE IS SHE?" 229
following him from the court Mr. Demuson
was allowed to leave the witness-box, and poor
little Sholto Mclvor was called to take his place
there.
At no time wise or eloquent, Sholto was, on this
most memorable day of his life, a very monument
of helpless, well-meaning, total imbecility. He
contradicted himself; he made statements d tart et
d travers ; he remembered what he ought to have
forgotten; forgot what he ought to have remem-
bered; and was alternately browbeaten by the
defence, reprimanded for contempt of court by the
magistrate, and reminded of the stringency of the
law against perjury by the prosecution. But
bullied by the lawyers, and laughed at by the
whole court, Gerald included, he succeeded in
creating a stronger impression against the prisoner
than any witness had yet done. (" Did your best
to hang me," Gerald tells him to this day.) He
was so wholly, so palpably guileless, it waS so evi-
dent that his sympathies were on the prisoner's
side, that every admission wrung from him seemed
to carry the kind of weight with it that men are
230 ABCHIE LOVELL.
prone to accord to the evidence of a child. The
description of Gerald's manner and appearance
when he entered his cousin's chambers ; his alter-
cation with Dennison; the "chaflf" about some
lady at MorteyiUe ; Gerald's voluntary admission
that he had seen ^'the ghost of a Staffordshire
ace^ on London Bridge ; his imusual taciturnity
as they drove home together to their lodgings in
Olarges Street every word that Sholto uttered
told. And immense was the success of this part
of the entertainment among the higher class of
spectators. With a thermometer at ninety-six,
and such air to breathe as a London police-
court generates, the nerves require relaxation after
three or four hours heavy business, even with the
prospect of seeing a guardsman committed to
Newgate, to carry one's interest on.
When he had said his worst on the subject of
the dinner-party, Sholto was questioned as to
Gerald's money difB.culties, and again did him
simply as much damage as was possible. Hard
up ? Of course, Durant had always been deucedly
hard up, like everybody eke. First heard of his
it
WHERE IS SHE?" 231
coolness with his imcle from Mr. Dennison. What
was it about? . . . "Would like to know whose
business that was. Well, then ^the bench having
sternly interfered ^it was about a woman, this
wretched, ridiculous milkwoman, Margaret Hall.
What did Sir John Durant threaten P Why, to
disinherit him, he supposed. Thought that was
what "uncles and governors and that" always
threatened. During the last three weeks Durant
had come right with his people again. Knew it
because he had written and asked him, Sholto, to
be his best man at his approaching marriage with
his cousin. Did they want any better proof than
that?
After Sholto, appeared Mr. Bennett; all his
elegant language taken out of him, and covered
with shame and contrition at having to appear
against his master. He had very little to tell, and
that little was terribly in favour of the prosecution.
He returned with Mr. Durant, on August the
second, from a tour they had been making abroad ;
stopped a few days in Paris, and no lady was with
his master then. Saw his master two or three
232 ABCHIE LOVELL.
times in a lady's society at Morteville ; she crossed
to London in the Lord of the Isles with them.
Saw that she wore a scarlet cloak during the latter
part of the voyage ; took up lunch to her and
Mr. Durant on the paddle-box, and got out one
of his master's cambric handkerchiefs for the
lady to tie round her head. Yes ; the handker-
chief shown him was the same ; knew it by his
master's monogram called by Mr. Bennett mono-
graph. The hat produced was the kind of hat
Mr. Duraut travelled in, but declined swearing to
it. At the London Bridge station his master dis-
missed him with the luggage, and he left them
standing there together, Mr. Durant and the lady.
His master returned home between one and
two o'clock; one of the sides of his coat was
much torn ; he did not bring any hat home
with him. Did not know the lady's name (this
was in answer to Mr. Slight). Had only lived
with Mr. Durant four months, and to the best
of his belief never saw Margaret Hall in his
life.
Then ^the formal, ofi&cial evidence of Mr. "Wick-
" WHERE IS SHE ? " 233
ham having occupied a very few minutes only ^it
was announced that there would be a brief adjourn-
ment of the court, and that the case for the prose-
cution was closed.
CHAPTER IX.
" HEBE ! "
Every one present detected a marked and sig-
nificant change upon Mr. Slight's face when the
court reassembled, and whispers of good augur
for the coming defence were at once passed about
among the lawyers. It was already known how,
immediately after the adjournment. Sir John
Durant, accompanied by a young girl, had arrived
and had an interview with Mi*. Slight ; and how,
on re-entering the court, Mr. Slight had crossed at
once to the dock and held an earnest whispered
conversation with his client. It was remarked,
how Gerald Duranf s face flushed and paled as
they spoke ; how at first he had appeared eagerly
to oppose some proposition that was being made to
him, afterwards ^Mr. Slight's expression brighten-
ing every moment ^how an unwilling assent had
" HERE ! " 235
evidently been wrung from his lips. And putting
an these things together, an opinion of , good omen
for the prisoner was, as I have said, fast gaining
ground in the court. Old Slight would not look
so ridicxdously pleased without solid cause. Some
new and important evidence was probably coming
to light, at the eleventh hour, for the defence.
The face of the lawyer for the Crown grew
ominously long at the thought. As the case
already stood, they had calculated upon getting
it over, with half an hour or so to spare, before
dinner-time. One witness more, on either side,
might just make the difference of an adjournment
till next day; above all, a witness of sufficient
importance to make Slight look so foolishly ex-
cited. And, with a pathetic yearning for the
'twenty-four hours of blue Italian lake and pure
Italian sky that he would be called upon to resign,
Mr. Sleek, like every person present in a state
bordering on asphyxia, loosened his cravat, leant
back with half-closed eyes in his seat, and pre-
pared himself for the worst.
The first welcome sOimd that fell on his ear was
236 ARCHIE LOVELL.
on annoTincement that the address made on the
prisoner's behalf would be a very brief one. It
had never, of course, Mr. Slight remarked, been
his intention to assert that his client was innocent
of the horrible crime laid to his charge. He had
not been summoned to his present position to
assert Mr. Durant's innocence ; innocence, accord-
ing to all civilised laws, being a thing to be pre-
sumed criminality never; and the burthen of
proof, as it was unnecessary for him to say, resting
alwayfi with the prosecution. In a case of purely
circumstantial evidence like this, if the facts ad-
duced were capable of solution upon any other
hypothesis than the guilt of the accused, they must
be discarded: nay, although the matter remained
so wholly mysterious that no supposition save the
prisoner's guilt could account for it, that supposi-
tion would not be basis sufficient on which to rest a
judgment against him. Before committing Gerald
Durant for trial for the murder of Margaret Hall,
the bench must be as morally convinced, by the
chain of evidence brought forward, that he was
guilty, as though they had seen him conunit the
'' HERE ! " 237
act under their own eyes. That chain of evidence,
he positively afl&nned, had never existed ; indeed,
he did not hesitate to say that the counsel for the
Crown were reversing every legal and cuistomary
mode of proceeding. Instead of proving a murder
first and discovering the murderer afterwards, they
were seeking first to prove the murderer and thence
to deduce a murder I It had never, he repeated,
been his intention to assert his client's innocence ;
but, imtil a quarter of an hour ago, he had cer-
tainly intended to point out, link by link, the
palpable weakness of the attempt to prove his
guilt : had meant to show how revolting to pro-
bability, how surrounded at every step with contra-
diction, was the presumption of a murder ; while,
on the other hand, if they yielded to the supposi-
tion of suicide, how every fact could at once be
explained, naturally, and without distortion.
"The necessity for my doing this, however,"
cried Mr. Slight, "is now happily removed. I
have no longer to allude to the paucity of proof
that a murder was ever conmiitted at all ; to the
difficulty, I may say impossibility, of such an act of
238 ARCHIE LOVELL.
violence having taken place unobserved in one of
the most crowded thoroughfares of London ; to the
discrepancy between the person of Mr. Duranfs
companion and the person of the deceased; to
mysterious circumstances respecting which a feeling
of honour may have caused the prisoner's lips to be
sealed. My esteemed friend who conducts the
prosecution" here he put up his eyeglass and
took a glance at Mr. Sleek's hot fage " has proved
to us that a lady dressed in a scarlet travelling
cloak did, on the second night of August, cross
London Bridge with Mr. Gterald Durant. This
fact it is impossible for me to deny. But my
esteemed friend also added that, with regard to this
lady, he had a question to ask ; a question which
he knew must address itself with irresistible force
to every person in the court ^* Where is she?*
And to this question," went on Mr. Slight, speak-
ing in a voice so distinct that not a syllable was
lost throughout the whole silent crowd, "I have
one brief and simple answer to make Here!
Here ^waiting to be brought into the witness-box
and to prove to the bench, with certainty unim-
" HERE 1 " 239
peachable, the innocence of the accused ! At
twenty minutes past ten on the night of August
the second, the death of Margaret Hall, according
to the evidence of witnesses for the jHrosecution,
took place. At twenty minutes past ten, Gerald
Durant stood beside the lady whopi I am now
going to bring before you, on the platform of the
South Eastern Railway, at London Bridge."
A smothered exclamation, half of approval, half
of sheer stupefied surprise, burst from the crowd.
Perhaps it would not be too much to say that an
imacknowledged sense of disappointment did, for a
moment, cross the minds of most of the spectators
of the play : the kind of feeling people have when
a fire is put out sooner than was expected, or when
an impending fight ends unexpectedly in the com-
batants seeing their error and shaking hands. No
one wanted Gerald Durant to be hung, or even
committed, as far as he, poor fellow, was indivi-
dually concerned. But every one who had fought
his or her way into the court, every one who had
gone through the heat and burthen of the day,
did expect some good strong sensation as the re-
240 ABCHIE LOVELL.
ward of their sufferings. And the proving of an
alibi even with a young and pretty woman in
the witness-box could never be one half so sensa-
tional an incident as to see a handsome guardsman,
the heir of an old unsullied name, committed for
trial, and borne away to Newgate like any common
felon.
This was the first feeling of the coarser crowd ;
but in one breast in that court a feeling, almost
tragic in its intensity, of disappointment had
arisen at Mr. Slight's last words. Mr. Wickham,
his face immoved as ever, was standing edgeways
in one of the crowded entrances to the court,
Kstening with the indifference engendered by long
habit to the little stereotyped preamble about the
certainty of the prisoner's innocence, when that one
awfully distinct monosyllable, "Here," broke in
upon his senses ; and in a moment, mechanical
though his attention had been, he recalled the drift
of Mr. Slight's whole address, and imderstood its
meaning. The defence was going to prove an aHbi.
Mr. Wickham in his inmost soul staggered as if he
had got a deathstroke. An alibi ! He was like a
" HERE ! " 241
man to whom a flaw in his noblest belief, his
dearest affection, has been unexpectedly discovered ;
like the cA^ whose wounded spirit could not sur-
vive the disgrace of that one spoilt salmi ! The
London Bridge case had been the culminating
triumph of Mr. Wickham's life. He had received
the compliments of those high in office, had
awakened the jealousy of his peers, by the way in
which he had worked that case up. The remem-
brance of it was to have been the solace of his
superannuated years, an honourable heirloom to
leave to his children after him. And here, in a
moment, through some paltry miscalculation, some
miserable lawyer's sleight-of-hand, his crown was to
be wrested from him by aa aKbi. Any other defeat
he thought he might have borne better, but an
alibi! An alibi, cooked up at the lasi; an alibi
which, if established and something on Mr.
Slight's face left little ground for hope that the
defence was a sham ^would turn the whole prose-
cution into a ridiculous mistake, and reduce the
very name of Wickham into a reproach and a by-
word in the profession.
VOL. III. B
242 ABCHIE LOVELL.
Circumstances unnecessary to dilate upon, pro-
ceeded Mr. Slight's cheerful voice, had conspired
together to hinder this most important witness for
the defence from appearing until the last moment ;
and it was doubtless a painful reflection for the
officers of the Crown to feel that, had a longer
delay occurred, a conmiittal condemning an inno-
cent man to imprisonment, and casting a stigma
upon a loyal and unspotted name, would have
been the result of the spirit in which the prose^
cution has been conducted. Happily, provi-
dentially, all danger of this fearful injustice was
past; and the welcome duty that now lay before
the bench was the restoration of an honourable
man, without suspicion, without the faintest stain
of any kind upon his character, to his position and
Jiis friends.
A long low murmur, a murmur of intense, irre-
pressible excitement, passed for a minute or two
through the court, then slowly the door of the
witness-box opened, and a girl appeared there; a
girl dressed in white, with long hair falling round
her neck, with a child's freshness on her lips and
" HERE ! " 243
in her eyes; the faireist apparition that had
brightened those unlovely walls any time during
the last five and twenty years at least. She moved
a step or two forward, with the uncertain reeling
movement of one who walks in his sleep, then
shrank away against the side of the witness-box,
and a frightftd pallor gathering round her lips
looked with bewildered eyes about her.
"Your nameP" said Mr. Slight, unconsciously
modulating his voice to the tone he would have
used had he been seeking to reassure a very
frightened child. "What is your name? Now
take time to recover yourself."
She started and clasped her hands together, with
#
the little foreign gesture so painfully familiar to
the eyes of two men who were watching her in
that court ; but though her lips parted, no sound as
yet reached the impatient ears of the crowd ; and
for the third time, with ever-increasing gentleness
and encouragement, Mr. Slight repeated his ques-
tion.
Just at this moment a ray of sunshine struggled
in through one of the high barred windows of the
B 2
244 ARCHIE LOVELL.
court, and falling, as it chanced, straight across the
prisoner's dock, brought out, in fullest golden re-
lief, the pale and eager face of Gerald Durant. At
the sight of him a wonderful, sudden light rose in
the girl's eyes. She stood a second or more motion-
less ; a scarlet flood rushing across her cheeks and
forehead; then stepped forward, and in a clear
vibrating voice a voice which for an instant
touched the heart even of that police-court crowd
^gave her answer :
*' Archie Lovell."
CHAPTER X.
Archie's ovation.
From the moment that she left the Euston Square
Station until now, Archie Lovell had realised
nothing of what was going on around her. The
drive along the noisy city streets; the crowded
entrance of the court ; the room where she had had
her interview with Mr. Slight ; the passages along
which they had led her next; the door through
which some voice had bade her pass ; the moment
when she foimd herself in that sickening atmos-
phere, before that pale and surging mass of human
faces : of all this she had taken note accurately,
as far as external detail went, but with no more
vivid sense of its connection with herself than if it
had been the shifting, unreal background of a
dream. Until the moment when she saw Gerald,
it seemed as though some one else were reaUy
246 ARCHIE LOVELL.
acting out for her the final scene of her sacrifice,
and as though she were heing carried blindly along
in it, a mere passive, stupefied spectator. Then in
one sudden, mighty wave, swept back across her
brain the meaning, the purpose, the present shame,
the future penalty, of all this that she was doing.
She was neither dreaming nor at play the two
states that had compassed every act of her little
life till now. An innocent man was standing
before her, charged with a crime fix)m which, no
matter at what price, her duty was to save him ;
and she had got to speak the truth ^this Mr.
Slight had told her ^nothing but the truth and to
fear no one, not even the magistrate upon the
bench, but answer soberly and faithfully whatever
questions were put to her. She clenched her
fingers firmly upon the palms of her hands ; held
her breath tight ; felt herself blinded by a dark
red mist that for a second swam before her sight ;
then rallied every faculty she possessed in one
desperate eflfort, and told her name. After this Mr.
Slight at once began her examination, and through-
out it all she kqpt her head erect and spoke out
Archie's ovation. 247
clear^ cool, and undaunted, just as she had spoken
when she was eleven years old, saving Tino from
Bettina's wrath. The sea of faces before which
she had shrunk with the mere animal terror that
overcomes any one for the first time confronting a
crowd, seemed to lessen and fade away, and in its
place she saw two faces only; Mr. Slight's, who
questioned her, and Gerald's ^his whom she was
here to save. What was there to make her fear
or falter now P
She was seventeen on the twelfth of last October.
Her father was the Honourable Frederick Lovell,
Rector of Hatton, jbi Staflfordshire. First knew
Mr. Durant about four weeks ago, in Morteville-
sur-Mer. " I met him a few times on the Grfeve,
and went to a ball, and danced with him ; I think
I knew him very well. On the second of August,
Mr. Durant left Morteville, and I went down on
the pier to see him oflf. Papa and Bettina were
away from home, and the servant too, and no one
knew I went. I wanted to see a steamer, and
asked Mr. Durant to take me on board with him.
He took me, and the boatman was stupid and left
248 AKCHIE LOVELL.
me there, and before we knew where we were, the
steamer had started, and the captain wouldn't stop.
Mr. Borant was very sorry about it, and said I
should land at Calais, and get back by another
boat to Morteville ; but when we reached Calais,
there were a number of people I knew standing on
the pier, and I was ashamed to land among them
so we came on to London. It wasn't Mr.
Durant's fault more than mine. I ought to have
landed at Calais, but I was ashamed ... at all
events, we went on ! I liked being at sea. I liked
being with Mr. Durant ecco! The wind was
fresh going across, and a lady on deck lent me her
cloak. It was a scarlet cloak ; I should know it if
I saw it again. Yes," after examining the cloak
which was handed to her, " this is the same. It is
changed in colour, I think ; it looks as if it had
been in the water. When we got to London I was
confused in the great crowd, and forgot to return
the doak ^I meant no robbery, I only forgot it.
We went to a station, Mr. Durant and I, and had
some tea ; then he took me for a walk on London
Bridge. Mr. Durant asked me to drive with him
ARCHIE'S OVATION. 249
and see the streets, but I was afraid there wouldn't
be time before the train left, so we walked instead.
I was to go back to Folkestone by the half-past
ten train. When we were on the bridge, a crowd
got round us, and in the zuffa I lost Mr. Durant's
arm. Some men molested me because I spoke
Italian, I think, and Mr. Durant knocked one of
them down. The man bled and looked hurt, and
then Mr. Durant's coat got torn, and his hat was
lost. It was a peaked hat, such as I have seen the
peasants wear in the Tyrol. The hat you show me
is like it ^how can I swear it is the same P ^it is
like it. Then came the polizia police, you say
and sent the crowd away. One of the police
stopped and looked at Mr. Durant and me. Ho
said nothing, but he looked at us hard. Am I to
know if he saw my face P We walked on over the
bridge and crossed, so as to see the other side of
London, on our way back. As we came, I saw a
woman in one of the little angoli on the bridge.
Becesses P well, then, in one of the recesses. She
was thinly dressed, and was sitting with her head
leaning against the wall. I thought she was ill.
250 ARCHIE LOVELL.
and asked Mr. Dorant to let me give her the doak.
I don't say that it was out of kindness, it was,
chiefly, I think, because I wanted to get rid of the
doak ^I shoidd have been ashamed to land in it
at Morteville. Mr. Durant said no, I shouldn't
give it her, but I had my way, and went up and
spoke to the woman. I saw her fetce, plain. Mr.
Durant stood a few steps away. I can't tell
whether he saw her I should think not ^he may
have had a glimpse of her ... I would rather
you asked me question^ about myself! She was
young, and good looking about twenty, perhaps,
with pale skin, and black hair and eyebrows. I
remember her quite well. I saw her hands : they
did not look like a lady's hands. I asked her
if she would take the cloak, and when she didn't
speak, I put it round her and fastened it at the
throat. She tried to answer then, but there was
something thick and strange about the way she
spoke, and I did not understand her. I don't
know what was the matter with her ^how should
I ? I believe I left a handkerchief of Mr. Durant's
in the pocket of the cloak. The handkerchief you
akchie's ovation. 251
show me is exactly like it: I tell by the hatistey
and the lilac stitching round the letters. I can't
swear that it is the same : a whole set of handker-
ehiefe might be marked the same. Just alter we
were walking on again^ the clocks in London
struck one that was a quarter-past ten, Mr.
Durant told me, and we must get on quick. The
train I went by left at half-past ten, and Mr.
Durant stayed by the carriage where I was till the
last. I heard no clocks strike : I heard the con-
ductor say we were five minutes behind our time.
Then I went away home. I got to Morteville very
early in the morning, and no one I knew, except
Captain Waters, saw me land on the pier. Papa
did not return home till the middle of the day. I
have never told him anything about my going to
London. I told my stepmother about it the same
afternoon, and she said I must never talk of it to
any one. I never shoidd have told, but for this :
when Mr. Durant was first taken up, I did not
mean to tell. I don't know whether I thought he
would get clear without me : I know I did not
mean to teU. I was at Durant's Court when some
252 ARCHIE LOVELL.
one came to take him to London, and Mr. Durant
told me then to keep silent, whatever happened,
and he would never betray me. I had not made
np my mind to tell till last night. I don't know
what decided me. I never spoke to Bettina, or to
papa about coming. Mr. Gerald Durant is engaged
to marry his cousin Lucia. He was never engaged
to me. No ; it is certainly not for Miss Durant's
sake that I have told the truth : I care very little
about her ... I cannot answer you. I don't
know why I have told it."
And here Mr. Slight stopped ; and, by order of
the magistrate, Mrs. Dawson was recalled into the
witness-box.
At the sight of the girl who stood there the
resurrection, as it seemed to her, of the dead
dressed exactly as she had seen her that day, on
the deck of the Lord of the Isles, Mrs. Dawson
gave a start and a half-scream that, before she had
uttered a word, bore incontestable evidence to the
truth of all Archie Lovell had said. Did she know
the yoimg lady at her side P Ay, indeed she did :
could not be surer if it was her own daughter she
Archie's ovation. 253
had to answer to. This was Mr. Durant's com-
panion ^the girl to whom she lent the cloak on
board the steamer. Would swear most positively
to it on oath. It was not a face likely to be
forgotten. Told the Court in her evidence ^with
a look of triumph at both lawyers ^that the young
lady had light brown hair, and blue eyes. Could
not help it if she had been " that cross-questioned
and mortified " at the time, as to make her hardly
know herself which way she was swearing. Mr.
Slight now wrote something on a slip of paper,
which was handed by one of the ofl&cers of the
court to the magistrate ; and a minute or two later
Archie standing there still " Mr. Edward
Eandall^^ was re-summoned to take his place in
the witness-box.
If ever a man on earth was placed in, a position
likely to end in a committal for perjury, it was
Captain "Waters at this moment : and he read his
danger at a glance. His threats to Archie, the
anonymous bribe to silence that he had accepted,
the truths which two hours before he had in this
court suppressed every detail of his situation came
264 AECHIE LOVELL.
dear before his mind with his first hurried look at
Archie Lovelies face. Some melodramatic outburst
of generosity had brought the girl forward after
all ; and (following the law by which innocence and
virtue are ever trampled upon in this world) he
was to be the suflferer. And he put up his eye-
glass cabnly ; stroked down his blonde moustache
with his deHcate^ paste-decked fingers, and looked
round at the magistrate, lawyers, and the rest, just
in the same quiet, unmoved way with which he was
accustomed to read the faces of the adversary, and
the adversary's gallery at ^cart^. He had not
much to lose even in such a moment as this the
thought crossed Waters' mind. To some men, a
conviction for perjury, might be the loss of Mends,
reputation, ambition, money : to hini it would be
what P Not even the loss which, to his judgment,
seemed immeasurably the most important in the
scale, money. Imprisonment cost one nothing,
and was no greater bore than liberty ; nay, as he
knew from experience, it sent a man back, some-
times, with nerves strengthened by early hours, and
abstinence from tobacco, to the accustomed duties
ARCHIE'S OVATION. 266
of his life. If the worst came to the worst, he
would still, at the end of a few months, more or
less, be the exact amount of money which he had
received from Gerald Durant to the good. The
game had been well played ; and, whether the last
deal went against him or not, he had the calm as-
surance of his own conscience to tell him that he
had reckoned up the odds with accuracy.
And he came admirably through it all ! Came
through it as it is very doubtful that a better man
would have done. Perhaps the season of the year,
and the unparalleled heat of this particular day,
may have been the chosen instruments by which
the gods of Captain "Waters' faith saw fit to deliver
him. "With a city court-house at ninety-six, in
August, few magistrates or lawyers would seek to
proixact their own suffering by probing the exacti-
tude of a comparatively unimportant witness too
narrowly. Skimming lightly, and with delicate
adroitness, over the Calais episode, Mr. Slight ex-
tracted an admission from the witness, that he had
seen Miss Lovell, the young lady who stood beside
him now, land alone at Morteville, on the morning
256 ARCHIE LOVELL.
of August the third. And after this, without a
word of cross-examinatioii, Captain Waters passed
away out of the witness-box ; passed away, too, for
ever out of the record of Archie Lovell's life.
[That I may not have to stain the last and
fairest chapter of my story by the mention of him,
I will say here that he was seen last autumn at
Homburg; a jewelled chevalier of industry no
longer, but one of the scantily-paid servants of the
public tables ; in which capacity unless ill-health
should chance to bring him lower still ^his life will
probably be passed. Paralysis, the Nemesis of
such men, seized Waters within a few months of
the day of Gerald's trial ; and taking from him
nerve, memory, power of combination ^the mental
stock-in-trade of his craft left him just bodily
strength enough to fulfil the duties of a croupier.
Ealph Seton was the man who saw him thus at
Homburg ; and at the pitying request of a soft
voice at his side, managed to slip a napoleon or
two into the sickly attenuated hand, not engaged
at the moment with the professional rateau: a
Archie's ovation. 257
kindness which, coming from the source it did,
made something very like tears rise into the poor
wretches eyes. " And which shows he is not alto-
gether worthless," the soft voice said to Ealph,
when they came out from the crowded Kur Saal
into the blue German night. " No man, unless he
had some good left in him, would be touched by a
kindness ! " A purely womanly inference, which
Ealph would not for worlds have shattered by
remarking how a scoundrel brought, by smoking
and alcohol, to the state of Waters, wiU shed tears
of maudlin gratitude over your charity at one mo-
ment, and betray or revile the hand that has
assisted him at the next !]
The examination was virtually over. Already-
the crowd was beginning to move; already the
lawyers for the crown, and for the defence, in-
diflferentiy, were congratulating each other, with
brightened faces, upon the termination in one day
of the inquiry. In a few emphatic words, the
magistrate then pronounced the discharge of the
prisoner, ** without a blot, or the suspicion of a
VOL, III. s
258 AECHIE LOVELL.
blot, upon his honour : " and almost before Archie
Loyell, confused and faint, had left the witness^
box, a prolonged irrepressible outburst of applause
from the court, told her that the work she had set
herself to do was accomplished ^Gerald Durant
free.
In performing any act heroic to ourselves we are
apt to gauge' the effect it will produce on others by
the effect that it produces on our own imagination
beforehand. That her future life was to be irre-
vocably darkened, Archie had never doubted ; but
that, in the first hour of her victory over self, men
would appreciate her heroism she had felt equally
sure. In what form this hero-worship would be
laid at her feet she had not speculated ; she had
felt only that it mmt be accorded to her. What
was the triumph that she met with in reality?
Flushed, weary, bewildered, she found herself,
after traversing a dark, noisome room or two, with
the other discharged witnesses, among the crowd
such a crowd as only a disgorging London court
can show; a crowd of sallow-faced men and
women, whose jokes defiled her ears, whose toucli
ABCHIE'S OVATION. 269
was abhorrent to her ; men and women bandying
yile police-court jests together, and to whose lips
her own name with what a shudder she heard it
there ! ^was already familiar. Her heart died
within her; she shrank back against the Uack,
polluted wall nearest to which she stood, and pulled
her veil down over her face. This was her reward,
she felt. She had sacrificed the happiness of her
whole life freely, and even in tikis finri; moment
after the accomplishment of the sacrifice, was for-
gotten. Gerald, Sir John Durant, Balph Seton,
were thinking, joyfully no doubt, of the cause that
had been won ; and she who had won it was stand^-
ing here alone a thousand times worse tiian alone :
was standing among a coarse and cruel crowd, in
her shame !
Just at this moment a kind voice whispered in
her ear, a friendly hand took hold of hers, and
drew it within the shelter of a stalwart, untrembling
arm.
" Keep along with me, my dear, and you'll be
all right. There's my cousin 'Melia's husband
waiting for me down by the steps the little man
8 2
260 AECHIE LOVELL.
with the black hatband and he'll get us into a
cah, and see us to the station comfortable, if so
be that you don't mind riding with us under the
circumstances."
It was not Gerald, it was not Ralph, but the
homely farmer's wife from Heathcotes who had
been the first to come to her succour. With the
timely aid of 'Melia's husband they struggled their
way at last through the crowd ; and just as Gerald
was leaving the court, his friends pressing round to
shake his hand and congratulate him, the poor
little heroine of the day, more dead than living,
was being driven from its door, with the yells and
laughter and brutal jokes of the mob for her
ovation.
CHAPTER XL
IN THE DARK HOUR.
Of all the conflicting emotions called into play
by the unexpected ending of Gerald Durant's ex-
amination ^from the childish, tearful delight of
poor old Sir John, down to the blank professional
disappointment of Inspector Wickham, the emo-
tions of Robert Dennison would be, perhaps, the
hardest of analysis.
Paradoxical though it may sound, his first sensa-
tion was one of positive relief. Was a lurking,
human remorse towards Gerald the cause of thisP
had his quick brain foreseen fresh combinations of
possible danger to himself in the event of his
cousin's committal P or was it simply the physical
reaction which good and bad human creatures alike
are sensible of when, after acute mental tension,
the end comes, and suspense, at least, is overP
262 ARCHIE LOVELL.
Robert Dennison himself could scarcely have an-
swered this as he left the police-court, leaning back
out of men's sight in the comer of his cab, and
screening away with his hand the bright evening
sunshine from his eyes. AU he knew was that lie
felt relieved ! that he had exchanged the pesti-
lential air of the court and witness-room for the
purer one of the streets^ and was returning home
now to change hia dress, and take his bath before
dinner. And then it first occw^d to him that he
had not swallowed food to-day; had scarcely eaten,,
had never slept an hour of wholesome sleep during
the past week ; and with a childish interest, very
unlike himself, Mr. Dennison fell to wondering
whether he would dine well this evening, and on
what dishes ? and whether, if he went to bed early
^by eleven qe twelve o'clock, say there would be
a chance of his getting a good night's rest at last ?
A worn-out brain .and empty stomach seldom admit
of much grandiloquence in our thoughts or in our
sufferings just at first.
He got home, took a couple q glasses of sherry,
dressed, w^nt out, and dined ; and by eight o'clock
IN THE DABK HOUB. 263
had retamed to his chamberay and was sitting by
that -window where he had sat and watched ihe
river on the morning after Maggie's death; the
window fix)ni whence he had heard the children's
Toices at the moment when he was nerving himself
to look over and destroy the last mute mem^atoS'
of his dead love for her. Had his love been ever
utterly and indeed dead? he asked himself; for
now that mere animal exhaustion was- passed,
memory and remorse had arisen^ like giants re-
freshedy to torture him again. His passionate
fancy for her had cooled, of course, as all fancies
for beautiM toys cool in possession; and he had
wronged her cruelly, and her death, however men
might think, lay (and his heart knew it !) at his
door. But love ^had he not in truth loved her ?
Would he not at this moment give up years of life
could he but feel the warm hand still in his, but
see the faithful womanly face looking, as it used to
look, in perfect, blissful, slavish contentment up to
his ? Something within his heart cried yes. Loss
of Mends and reputation here in England; aliena-
tion from his uncle and his uncle's money ; the up-
264 ARCHIE LOVELL.
hill prospect of making himself another name else-
where, all these seemed as nothing to him now.
In this hour, this first hour of what he knew was
to be in some measure a new life ^the common
human nature of the man, the weakness on all
exemption jfrom which he was wont to pride him-
self, sheer craving desire for sympathy in his deso-
lation overcame him. The dark heart, as in Herod
of old, bled for what it had destroyed ; cried out,
with vain and passionate regret, for thp love that it
had murdered.
He had a cigar between his Kps when he first
placed himself at the window, but it burnt out, and
it did not seem to occur to him to light it, or to
take another. His servant, as usual, had placed
some wine and brandy on the table at his master's
side ; but Dennison drank nothing. Stimulants,
taken even in a quantity that would have set most
men's brains perforce to rest, would but have stimu-
lated his to keener thought; and he had the
wisdom to abstain from them. God knows he
needed no sharpening of his faculties ! needed no
whetstone for his remorse ^no new vividnesg added
IN THE DAEK HOUR. 266
to the pictured fisice that, wliite and haggard^ and
with wan, beseeching eyes, seemed to stand before
hini eveiywhere eveiywhere, in the waning
twilight!
It was his first hour of pure, concentrated suffer-
ing since Maggie's death, for dread of suspicion
resting on himself at first, anxiety later in the
result of Gerald's trial, had until now held every
other motive in abeyance ; and he suffered, as he
did most things, with his might, with brains!
Good, diffuse, kindly natures, prone to bleed a
dozen times a week, can, perhaps, hardly estimate
to what extent an intensely selfish man like this
softens when three or four times in a life the flinty
heart is smitten, and the floodgates of the soul are
loosed.
A little after nine came a ring at his chambers
door. The boy, in obedience to his master's com-
mands, told the visitor, whose face he did not by
this light distinguish, that Mr. Bennison had
business and could not be disturbed.
" Mr. Dennison will see me, Andrew," answered
a voice, cheerfully, a voice that Robert Dennison,
266 ARCHIE LOVELL.
eren through the closed doors, had heard and
recognised in a momait. Immediately afterwards
a well-known step ^with triumph, hope, light-
heartedness, Dennison felt bitterly, in its tread
came along the passage, and Gerald Burant, un-
announced, walked into his room, and up to his
side.
"Congratulate me, Robert I" he said, taking
hold of his cousin^s hand, and grasping it heartily,
whether Dennison wiUed it or not. " Things hare
gone better than could have been hoped fcr with
every one, after all.''
" Well, that depends upon whom you mean by
* every one,' " said Dennison, in his coldest voice,
and freeing his hand abruptly from Gerald's warm
grasp. " Does * every one ' mean you, or the little
girl who came forward to save you ?. Scarcely her,
I suppose?"
" I did not mean her, certainly, Robert, but even
wiih Miss Lovell things have, in one sense, gone
well. To a noble nature like hers the exposure of
to-day is, I verily believe, better than living through
a life of hypocrisy, as the poor little thing must
IN THE DABK HOUR. 267
liave done if she hadn't had the courage to come
forward, and speak the truth.''
Bohert Dennison laughed : the old cjmical laugh
with which he was accustomed to receive any of
what he called Gerald's heroics. ^^ Noble nature^
hypocrisy, courage ! What fine words you always
have at command, Gerald ! How charmingly dear
it always is to you that every woman must be right
in sacrificing herself for the beaux yeux of Mr.
Gerald Durant ! I need scarcely ask," he added,
" how Miss Lovell's heroism, nobility, and courage,
will be rewarded ? With her name compromised
as it is, I need scarcely ask if you mean to give up
Luda fifty thousand pounds and all and make
Miss Lovell your wife ? "
At the tone of Robert Dennison's voice, at the
Qoljl reception that it was evident he intentionally
gave him, Gerald moved a step or two away from
his side ; and leaning his arm up against the wall
bei^de the window, tunied his face slightly from his
cousin. As he stood thus, the graceful profile of
his head and face showed, in clear silhouette,
against the pure grey of the evening sky; and
268 ABCHIE LOVELL.
Dennison felt how he hated, how he abhorred, its
beauty! He had never loved Gerald from the
moment of his birth. As a child, a boy, a man, he
had been jealous of every good thing which had
been accorded to this easy, careless, unambitious
nature, and denied to himself; but he had never
positively loathed him until this moment. For now
Gerald had committed the one offence which, to a
heart like Dennison's, is beyond forgiveness : had
treated him with generosity !
"You don't answer, Gerald. I suppose my
question about Miss Lovell was an indiscreet one
for me to ask, eh P '*
" It certainly is not the subject which I came
here to speak about," answered Gerald ; *' but if
you really care to have an answer, FU give it you
in two words. Miss Lovell *' ^with a sort of effort
he brought this out " will never be my wife ! "
"Ah, so I thought. The honour of having
saved you must be her reward ! We wiU speak no
more of her. And what is the subject then, as love
matters are too sacred for us to handle, to which
I am indebted for the pleasure of seeing you P "
IN THE DARK HOUR. 269
Dennison's tone and manner were unmistakably
those of a man determined to quarrel ; but Gerald
kept his temper admirably. Incapable though he
was of thoroughly fathoming the depths of that
sombre nature, he knew enough of it to sympa-
thise with the miserable position of humiliated
pride in which Dennison at this hour must feel
himself to stand ; and pitied him from his heart.
" There is much to be said between us, Robert,
and ^and I thought it might be as well got over
to-night. If you don't care to be disturbed,
though, I can go away, and come another time.'*
"No, no,*' interrupted Dennison, brusquely.
" No other time for me, thank you. I know pretty
well what you've come here about, and Pd rather
have it out at once. ' After the late painftil cir-
cumstances, the honour of the Durants, of Mr.
Gerald Durant especially, requires a more complete
vindication. Sooner than sully the honour of his
family, and the sacredness of his own word, he did
not betray the secret of a certain ill-bom cousin of
his, when by betraying it he could have insured his
own safety. What he now demands is that this
270 ABCHIE LOVELL.
plebeian oonnectioii shall betray himself^ and, baving
named bis price for doing so, engage to go quietly
out of tbe country^ and disturb tbe peace and
honour of his family no more/ ' Curse it 'speak
out, canH you ! " he exclaimed, with sullen passion,
as Gerald continued silent. "You know your
lesson, and Fm sure IVe made it easy enough for
you to say."
Then Gerald turned round, and faced Demiison
ftdl. " I don't think that I deserve this tone^from
you, Robert;, upon my soul, I don't! IVe kept
pretty staunch to you throughout, as you know,
and what I want now is, that everything that must
be said between us should be said in a friendly
spirit : said as it ought to be," he added, kindly,
" between two men brought up, as we were, to look
upon each other as brothers."
" After^rards ! You can suppose all this sort of
preamble said, please. Afterwards! What is it
that you want from me ? What has brought you
here now P "
And thus forced to use plain language ; seeing,
too, the temper of the man he had. to deal with
IN THE DARK HOUR. 271
but still with hesitation^ still in the softest, most
generous, words that he could choose Gerald
spoke. Up to this moment he had not mentioned
to any living man one word of his cousin's mar-
riage; but the time had come when, for other
interests as weU as his own, it was simply just that
the truth should be made known : not publicly, of
necessity, but among themselves to Sir, John and
Lady Durant, and to Lucia. He thought he had a
right to demand this ; and in return undertook to
promise that no estrangement between Dennison
and any member of the family diould bp the result,
" You\e suffered bitterly epough already, Robert,"
he finished, his voice trembling with earnestness;
" and among all of us who care for you, the past
shall be as much dead as though it had never been.
The only brains we have among us are in your
head, and if you want anything that Sir John's
interest could do, I know right weU, ^''
" If anything tiiat Sir John's interest pould do,'*
interrupted Dennison, slowly and distinctly; "if
if anything that the interest of eveiy Durant who
ever lived could do,, was put before me at this
272 ARCHIE LOVELL.
instant, I should refuse it. Family interest, family
name, honour, money, are for you. I wish you
joy of them. Do you think I canH foresee all
your deUghtful future life P " he added, with cut-
ting irony. "Married to Lucia, and bored to
death by her ; taking a row of Lucia's children to
church, to set a good example in your parish ;
cringing to constituents ; yawning through debates
in the House, about which you know nothing, and
for which you care less ; increasing domination of
your wife, port wine, gout, and a place in the
family vault ! This, my poor Gerald, will be your
life, and it will suit you. Only doxi't think I wish
to encroach upon any of the prerogatives that are
yours by birthright.'*
But still no sarcasm rose to Gerald's lips; no
taunt as to how Robert Dennison had once desired
these things, and had failed in the attainment of
them. Men speak strongly about the things for
which they care in earnest. Money, respectability,
a seat in Parliament, would (could he have pos-
sessed them) have been Dennison's gods ; and their
forfeiture fired him into passion. The prospect of
IN THE DARK HOUR. 273
inlieritiiig them all touched Gerald Durant with no
thrill of pleasure whatsoever. A dinner' in good
company at the Maison Dorie ; a hard run, well
mounted ; a voice like Patti's ; a pair of blue eyes
like Archie Lovell's : these were the only things in
life that his pleasure-loving nature ever coveted,
and in his heart there was not one feeling^of exul-
tation over his approaxjhing good fortune or of
anger against Bobert for his depreciation of it.
Nay, in his heart, were the very truth told, he
half envied his roturier cousin at this moment iot
he was free, still !
"And what are your prospects then, Robert?
After the delightful sketch you have given of my
life ^for which I am so well suited ^it is fair, I
think, that you should give me a feUow-picture
of your own. You are not going to marry your
first cousin, certainly, but m what other respects
wiU your life be so very much freer from the
common bore and weariness of living than mine P'^
"Simply in this and to you, perhaps, the words
contain less meaning than they do to me : I shall
be my own master ! The bread that my own right
VOL. ni. T
274 ABGHIS LOYELL.
hand earns lor me I shall eat, nnembitiered by the
thought that I have sold my life and manhood to
buy it. You understand ? '*
" I hear you."
" As to my prospects, they can be told in a few
Words joyM words for you to bear to Durant's
Court to-moiTOW, OP whenever you go there next!
In a fortnight I shall have left England, and all of
y^u, for OTter."
^' Left England? Bobert, this is madness ^the
mere over-wrought feeling of ihe moment.'^
" It is nothing of the kind,'\interrupted Den-
nison, curtly. ^^ Months ago I knew that there
was an opening for me iu Melbourne, and it suits
my cbnvenl^ce now to accept it. 'Tis no place of
honour, Cferald^'* he added, with' a bitterness of
tone impossible to dissemble. ^' No post that any
of the family will care to boast a relation, unhap-
pily near to them in blood, fills ! One of the con-
tributors to the principal Melbourne paper was
killed in a street-quarrel a few months ago, and
the editor sent an offer to the writer of certain
articles in one of the London reviews to replace
IN THE DARK HOUR. 275
liiin. That writer was myself. Now you know
my prospeots, and also how very unprofitable even
the highest county interest would be to me for the
future! No, thank you/* for Gterald was about,
eagerly, to speak; "I don't even want money.
A couple of flannel shirts, a coat, revolver, and
bowie-knife, are about as much as a Melbourne
penny-a-liner need possess ! If I'm not stabbed,
like my predecessor, I haven't much doubt about
earning money enough to live upon, and if I am
at least I shan't lie under the weight of family
marble, and have the charity children hired to
walk, two and two, and whine over me at my
funeral! But that difference is one of degree
rather than of kind, and it will be but a matter of
a few years whether you, in the tomb of all the
Durants, or I in a nameless grave, in a Melbourne
burial-ground, are fertilising the ground again!
Now, have you anjrthing more to say P I ought, I
dare say, to make speeches about the occurrences
of the last few days, but really I see no object to
be fulfilled by doing so. You have adied ^Uke a
Durant, let us say, and I like a Dennison ! No
T 2
276 ARCHIE LOVELL.
words to you can be stronger. But, gentleman or
blackguard, our paths for the future at all events
lie apart." And he rose, and with cold and not
undignified stateliness moved a step or two in the
direction of the door.
Faithful, generous, true as he had been through-
out, Gerald Durant did yet at this moment feel
wonderfully small in his own estimation. When
you have come to befriend, to forgive a man who
has wronged you, under his own roof, and he tells
you boldly that he is a blackguard ^if you like to
think him so but desires nothing either from your
forgiveness or your friendship, it is not an easy
thing to retreat from the scene with a very thorough
sense of your own dignity !
*' I shall remember you always as the nearest
relation I have, Robert. All our present feelings
will soften some day, and then ''
" Then, perhaps, Eobert Dennison will come to
lis smses and be glad, at whatever price is bid, to
offer the reparation he owes to the wounded family
honour. Robert Dennison will do nothing of the
sort. He gives you freely, now, the information
IN THE DARK HOUR. 277
you have come here to seek. On the tenth of
January last, Robert Dennison was married to
Margaret Hall at the church of St. Ethelburga, in
the city, and you ^are freed from your promise !
You may get a certificate of the marriage ^it is my
wish that you should do so and take it with you
to Durant's Court to-morrow. Has more to be
said?*' for Gerald lingered uneasily yet. "You
have got Lucia, and I ^have lost "
His voice died : he turned, walked across to the
window, and there, through blinding mists, stood
looking out at the river, black and desolate to him
now as it had been to Maggie on that night when
she fled from the girl's song, and from her own
last hopes of love and of life down the narrow city
street !
And so alone in the dark hour of retribution
Gerald left him.
CHAPTER XII.
"advienne que poukra!"
That evening, dose to suffocation in the hot
heart of London, was fresh, as early autumn
evenings are afiier rain, in the green stiUness of the
far-away Staffordshire fields.
When Archie Lovell had bade good-bye to her
companion at the Hatton Station, and was walking
slowly homeward through the sinking light, it
seemed to her that trees had never looked so green,
nor meadows smelt so sweet, as on this evening ; and
greenness and freshness both smote. upon her heart
with an unutterable sense of pain! What, the
world had not changed a bit, then, only her life P
The trees were ready with their Mendl/ shelter,
the fields with their thousand odours for all the
lives that could enjoy them still ! for young girls
with their companions; for lovers whispering in
" ADVIENNE QUE POURBA ! " 279
the twilight ; for all bright and joyous lives lives
imdarkened by shame, loveless aad alone as hers
would be I
As she walked along she pictured drearily to
herself how the remainder of this dreary week
would pass. To-day was Wednesday ; three days
to drag through before she must put on her new
bonnet^ and best dress, and go to the village
church for all the people to gaze at her ! To look
forward to the end of lifeitself could scarcely have
seemed longer, than to look forward these three
days. After Sunday she thought it would be
different. When all the parish people, when
the Durants and Major Seton had seen, her, and
said and thought their worst| she m^ht brave her
altered condition better. The newness of the
shame would wear even from her father's heart in
time; and people after. nine days would tire of
talking of her this consolation Mrs. Sherborne
had offered during. the journey and she would
set herself regular tasks of work ; and .so. get
through the hours, perhaps.
After Sunday. But how bear the intolerable
280 ABCHIE LOVELL.
weight of the three intervening daysP how bear
the silent misery of her father's faceP how
endure Bettina's loud reproaches, and the silent
wonder of the servants P Next week, it seemed to
her, she would be old in suffering callous,
hardened. If she could but shirk the present
crouch down her head in some dark comer where
no eye should see her, and wake and find the thing
told half of the nine days* wonder over! and
then, with a blank dead sensation, almost like a
physical pain, the knowledge fell full upon her of
how she had no choice whatever in the matter, but
must bear all ^the first hot shame, the fevered
excitement of notoriety, the dull passing away into
oblivion and contempt: all. The whole harvest
which her foUy had sown : her self-sacrifice and her
generosity garnered in for her. Was truth such
a much finer and nobler thing than falsehood?
she asked herself. And the only answer her heart
gave was, that while she was telling falsehood she
had been tolerably happy ; and now that she had
told the truth she was intolerably miserable. In
her heroic moments, as she was travelling up to
" ADVIENNE QUE POURBA ! " 281
London this morning, she had thought, ** I shall
be Archie Wilson, the Bohemian, again, after to-
day. When everything is known, my conscience
will have got back its freedom, whatever else I
lose." And everything was known, and she was
not Archie Wilson, the Bohemian, at all. She
was a Philistine, heart and soul: a Philistine
yearning bitterly after the good, solid things of life
the peace, the honour, the repute, which her own
rash generosity had robbed her of.
All was peaceftd and at rest when she reached
home : the purple twilight closing round the little
parsonage, the birds twittering to each other yet
among the garden-trees, the rain-washed china-
roses smelling sweet around the porch : all peaceful
and at rest in the quiet country home upon which
the knowledge of her story was about to bring
shame and desolation. With a beating heart she
walked to the parlour-door, opened it, and found
Bettina seated alone there at her tea, her bonnet
still on the strings turned back over her shoulders
^her face heated, and with one candle, as if in
ostentatious economy, to light her at her repast.
282 ABCHIE LOVELL.
"Where's papa?" said Archie, bluntly; and
walking up to the table, she looked steadily into
her stepmother's face.
Mrs. Lovell turned down the comers of her
mouth, and pushed a couple of plates from her
with a gesture of repugnance. They contained
the remains of an exceUent high tea ; cold chicken
bones, a look as of salad upon one ; a large piece
of home-baked cake, butter, and a suspicion of
marmalade on the other. But nothing exaspe-
rated Bettina so much as tha imputation. of being
able to swallow food when she waa alone or in
adversity.
" Don't ask me where your father is, Archie !
At Major Seton's, no doubt, talking of his bronzes,
and his docks, and his Madame Pompadours
a very nice subject for a minister of the gospel 1
and leaving me to work the precious cure of souls
. . . beard that vile woman,, and then be in-
sulted by my own turn-coat party in a public vestry,
and when they tantamount to promised me sixteen
votes last night ! But I've done my best," added
Bettina, with rising choler. " I've tried to start
" ADYIENNB QUE POUERA ! " 283
things as they should be started in the parish, and
now your father may do the rest. Only don't ask
me where he is. I wash my hands of everything to
do with the parish .... and when he ought to have
been at my side, supporting me. Nine hours with
only a cracknel, and now the sight of food makes
me sick I " And she pushed the plates, virtuously,
a couple of inches farther on the t^ble.
Parochial victory had, after all, not fallen into
the hands Mrs. Lovell inteoided* Mrs. Brown, the
surgeon's wif9 had certainly been ousted, mainly
through Bettioa's exertions, from the place of
power ; but at the eleventh hour a base coalition
had arisen, by which old Miss Smith, the miller's
sister, hod been put into her place. On that
memorable thirteenth of June, when Pitt declared
to the thunderstruck House that he should vote in
favour of Mr. Fox, a greater blank could scarcely
have overcome the hearts of Warren Hastings*
followers than had overcome Mrs. LoveU when
before eighteen ladies in the vestry the leader of
her own party had announced Jier intention of
supporting the miller's sister, vice Mrs. Brown
284 ABCHIE LOVELL.
deposed. The barrenness of human ambitions
the firailty of human alliances ^was laid bare before
her heart in that hour ; and the continued absence
of her husband and stepdaughter^ on her return
home, had worked her wounded spirit up to the last
point of irritation. Archie saw that it was so with
relief. Kind words, gentleness, were, she knew,
what would be too much for her bursting heart
now ; and, seating herself at the table, she cut off
a slice of bread, and asked Bettina, in a voice
that she tried to make like her usual one, for tea.
" You ^you don't ask after my news,** she stam-
mered, after some moments had passed in silence.
" Have you heard '*
** I have heard nothing," interrupted Mrs. Lovell,
hotly, "and I don't wish to hear. No news is
ever of any good to us."
"Mr. Durant is free, Bettina, that is all. I
thought perhaps you might be glad to know it,"^
" I am not glad. I want to hear nothing about
the Durants ; *' and Bettina, burning in her very
soul with curiosity, got up with dignity from the
table, "I have no further interest in anjrthing
"ADVIENNE QUE POUERA ! " 285
connected with this parish. As Mr. Durant is in
possession of the clue to our dishonour you need
scarcely tell me that he will return to the neigh-
bourhood ! To-day I should say would be about
the last time you will ever be invited to the Court
for, although you have not the civility to tell me,
I conclude that is where you have spent the day.
I^othing but this scrape of his own has, I am con-
vinced, kept the young man silent so long. Good-
night to you, Archie, and when your father does
return let him know that, worn out with fatigue
and trouble, I have retired to my rest.'*
" But, Bettina, I want to tell you ^*
" I will hear nothing to-night, Archie. Peace
and quiet, not frivolous worldly talk, are what I
stand in need of now ! *'
And blind to the white wan face, the hollow eyes
that were pleading to her to stay, Mrs. Lovell went
off at once to her room, shutting the door imme-
diately afterwards with the peculiar sharp energy
which always warned the other members of the
household when any lengthened course of medita-
tion was in prospect.
286 ARCHIE LOVELL.
So to her father alone the &|tt hard confession
would have to be made ! if indeed some blackened,
distorted version of the story Mrs. Sherborne had
brought down from London had not abready reached
his ears. She hngered over the tea-table ; absently,
and without hunger, eating a mouthful or two of
bread until the servant came in to clear the things ;
then, nervously dreading lest the girl should watch
her too closely, went out of doors and with heavy
limbs dragged herself to the same spot at the
boundary of the [orchard where she had parted
from Ralph last night.
She would rest herself here, she thought, tiU she
heard her father's step at the garden-gate ; then go
boldly to him, and while he kissed her, while he
held her in his arms, sob out to him the story of
her shame ! It would be easier so perhaps, after
all! easier with no one to come between her
prayers and his forgiveness ! easier with the dark-
ness screening away the horrible suffering that she
shrank from having to look at on his face !
It was nearly ten o'clock before Mr. Lovell re-
turned home. Archie started up eagerly at the
c
ADVIENNE QUE POURRA ! " 287
Isound of his we^-known step upon the gravel;
then sank back with sickening terror^ into her
seat. Her fa&er was not alone ; and the yoice
that was talking to him in those low but earnest
tones was Major Seton's. Then all was told and
oyer ! How the time that followed passed she
never knew ; or whether minutes or hours went by
in the kind of deathly swoon into which her heart
fell. What she distinctly knew, what she dis-
tinctly remembers next, was Major Seton being at
her side, speakii^ very gently to her, and with
tender care wrapping something warm around her
chilled frame.
"Margaret told us you were out here stiU,
and your father made me bring this ^his own
thick plaid-^and faithftdly promise to wrap you
in it. I have not suffocated you quite, have I,
Archie?''
"Does does papa knowP" was all she could
falter : and her liead sank forward on her
breast.
"Yes, Archie, he knows everything," said Major
Seton. "You must not be angry with me for
288 ARCHIE LOVELL.
telling him first, but I met him j^etuming from the
village, as I walked up from the station, and the
temptation to be the bearer of the good news was
too strong for me. Why did you run away from us
allP'* he added, taking her cold, pulseless hand
into his. " We all wanted to be your escort from
the police-court, old Sir John, Gerald, and I and
foimd you flown. If you had waited to come by
the express, as I did, you see you would have
got home very nearly as soon, and have had me
as your companion on your journey.''
" I ^I never thought that you would remember
me ! I thought every one would be thinking of
Mr. Durant alone ! Major Seton," raising her
face deathly pale, even in that dim light, he saw
it was ; and in its pallor loved it more than he had
ever loved it in its bloom " are you sure that you
have told him an?"
"I have told him all, Archie. Your father
knows every word of the story now; knows how
true to herself his daughter has been at last ^how
brave, how faithful "
"Oh," she cried, starting up passionately, "-let
"ADVIENNE QUE POURRA!" 289
me go to him ! I, brave ^I^ fEiithful and papa'
knows eveiything, and can think me so still ! "
But Major Seton kept her hand fast in his.
'^ You shall go to your a.ther in a few minutes^ but
I am going to talk to you a little first. He wishes
it to be so."
She seated herself obediently ; and Balph, in-
. stead of speaking, busied himself again in drawing
the plaid around her shoulders. As he did this,
Archie was conscious that his hand trembled
strangely; and the blood began to flow with life
again in her veins. Was it dimly possible, not
only that her father forgave her, but that Balph
would take her back to the old place no, not to
that; to a place higher and dearer far in his
heart?
She stammered out something about his great
goodness, and the trouble he took for her, and how
imworthy she wasx)f it all; and then Balph flung
his arm around the little shrinking figure, plaid
and all, and drew her to his side.
" Archie, can you ever care for me P " he whis-
pered. ** Tm too old and too rough and too plain
VOL. in. IT
290 ARCHIE LOVELL.
for you, I know, but I love you from niy lieaxt !
"Will you have me P "
"I ^IP ah-, Major Seton, you are saying this
now out of kindness ! "
"Am IP Kindness to myself, then. Why,
Archie," his voice sinking into a tone oi^ wonderfiil
tenderness, " what hope but you have I had in my
lifeP What have I ever wanted to possess but
youP Don't pretend to think it a new thing.
You know that as a child I loved you, as a
girl "
"As a girl found me changed and false and
worthless!" she interrupted, with something of
her old impetuousness. " The first day in Morte-
ville, don't you remember how I looked in your
face oh. Major Seton, you won't hate me when
you think of it P and told you I had never been
in London in my life ! I was afraid at first you
had recognised me, and were going to tell papa,
and then, when you didn't speak, I thought per-
haps if I told one great story it might set every-
thing right and I told it ! "
" You did," said Major Seton ; " and considering
a
ADVIENNE QUE POURRA ! " 291
ihat I had looked deliberately in your face in
London^ and then helped you into the train at
Ashford, you would have acted less like a child
perhaps by speaking the truth."
"And you knew everything from the first
thenP" she cried. "You have known all along
that I was acting a false part to you ? "
Major Seton did not answer; only held her
closer to his side^ and looked down fondly into the
face upheld so close to his.
" You have known all along that I was deceiving
you P " she persisted ; " and yet you tell me that
you care for me still P It's pity, pity that makes
you say this, Major Seton ! You are so sorry for
what I suffered to-day, and for papa, and the
shame I have brought upon him and "
" And I ask you to be my wife, Archie ? Do
you refase me P "
" If I thought it wasn't from pity that you ask
me ! " she stammered, trying^ in vain to turn away
from him.
And then Major Seton held her close against his
heart: the heart from which he had never ^no,
v2
292 ABCHIE LOYELL.
not for one instant succeeded in putting her
away, and their compact was made.
" I shall never be quite sure you did not
ask me out of pity!" said Archie, after a long
silence.
" And I shall never be quite sure that you did
not once like Gerald Durant better than you will
ever like me ! " said Major Seton, quickly. " So we
shall each have some kind of misgiving to disturb
our peace. Which has the most probability, do
you think, for its basis P Look in your glass 'any
morning, Miss Lovell, and say if it's likely that I,
Balph Seton, asked you to be my wife out of pity ?
Look at me and Gerald, any time when we are
together, and say which would be the likeliest man
to win a young girl's fancy P '*
" I didn't know we were talking of fancies now,
Major Seton ; I thought we were talking of ^*
'* Of what, Archie P "
" Of love, then I as you make me say it ; and
Gerald did take my fancy once ; he takes it still :
and you oh, how badly I express everything ! *'
But Balph Seton did not seem to think so.
" ADVIEMKE QUE FOtJBBA. ! " 293
They lingered on and on, forgetting, mtti flie
sublime selfishness of lovers, that poor Mr. Lovell,
all this time, was patiently waiting for them at the
hall-door; and were only recalled at last to a
consciousness of the external woi:ld by the distant
village clock striking eleven. As they rose to go,
Archie stood for a minute or two, silent and
thoughtM; then suddenly she turned, threw up
her arms around Major Seton's neck, and, drawing
down his head to her level, pressed his brown
scarred cheek with her lips : the lips whose bloom
was still intact as when she had kissed and dung
to him last, a little child in Genoa.
"You forgive me utterly, . Ralph? Fm not
noble, or heroic, or any of the fine things you have
called me. It was accident, I think, that made me
tell the truth at all, and up to the last I would
have got out of teUing it if I could ; but you for-
give me freely, as you forgave my falsehood about
Tino long ago P You know that you have not one
scruple in asking me to be your wife?**
And I find, alter several unsuccessful attempts,
that I must give up trying to describe what Ralph
294 ABCHIE LOYELL.
Seton felt and answered. Can one language ever
adequately reproduce another? Can dull ink and
paper transcribe what a girl's fresh yoice, what the
touch of a girFs Ups say^ to the world-wearied
heart of a man like Seton, in such a moment as
thisP
" Forgive you, my dearest ! " he cried at last,
bending over her with a great reverence in his
tenderness. " No, Archie. When it is a question
of forgiveness, of unworthiness, between us two, I
feel that it is my place to be silent. Kiss nie once
more ; put your hands in mine so. Kow, child,
you and I will keep perfect faith, whatever comes,
for the future. 'Faia ce que dais, advienne que
pourra/ you remember P "
" I remember," she answered, between her tears..
*^ * Advienne que pmrra*. oh, Ralph! can any-
thing ever happen to part us two again P "
CHAPTER Xm.
A GLIMPSE OF THE BLUE.
When Sunday came, the country people, from
miles around, flocked in to Hatton church, as Archie
had expected, to look at her ; only, instead of being
an object of contempt, she found herself a heroine !
instead of humiliation, she had her triimiph at last I
On the preceding Friday, Lady Durant and Lucia
(acting, no doubt, from the generous dictates of
their own hearts, but a little, too, under male
domination) had not only made a stately call at the
Bectory, but had ostentatiously taken Archie for a
drive through the village in their carriage, thus
showing, publicly, to the country world what view
was held by those high in authority of her conduct.
The example was as contagious as royal favour
shown unexpectedly to a half-suspected favourite.
296 AfiCmS LOYELL.
The parson's daughter was one of the right sort
had come fomrard and helped Mr. Oerald through
thick and thin ; the parson's daughter was riding
all the afternoon with the ladies of the Court The
leading parishioners came up, forthwith, with their
wives and daughters, to call at flie Bectoiy. Not
only] Archie herself, but Mr. Lovell and Bettina,
clothing-club feuds forgotten, were Tested with the
interest of public characters ; and on Sunday, as I
have said, crowds of country people flocked in to
Hatton church, eager to have a look at the down-
cast girlish face in the parson's pew ^the heroine,
Archie LovelL
Her triumph made the girl infinitely sad, infi-
nitely humble. There was so wide a difference
between the Archie Lovell whom the world called
noble, and the weak, wavering, passion-tossed
Archie Lovell whom she knew. If things had
shaped themselves differently at this sharp turning-
point of her life ^if Balph had forsaken her; if
the people she lived amongst, instead of crowning her
with laurel, had happened to consider her as lost-
ten chances to one she would have hardened and
A GLIMPSE OF THE BLUE. 297
deteriorated down to the level assigned her. But
success is the real touchstone of character^ and
Archie's stood the test beautifully. Four weeks
Qgo she was a self-willed child, smoking her
cigarettes, and defying Mrs. Maloney and the pro-
prieties as she ran wild about the Morteville streets :
a chfld suspecting no evil, and caxdess Low she
incurred its imputation. As she walked home on
her father's arm from Hatton church to-day, she
was a woman softened by a sense of her own
weakness, brought low and meek by the love which
in her inmost heart she seemed so Uttle to have
deserved. In her hour of success every baser
element was cast out from that fine nature, and all
that remained, henceforth and for ever, was pure
gold.
I don't think I need describe a double wedding
that took place one soft October morning in Hatton
church. How opinions varied as to whether the
pensive fair face or the mignonne dark one looked
best beneath its orange blossoms; how Bettina,
afraid really to cry because of her lovely dress and
98 ABCHIE LOYELL.
bonnei-strings, held her handkerchief to her eyes
in delightful proximity to Lady Dnrant of Daranfs
Court; how Mr. LoveU, in his agitation, very
nearly married the wrong people to each other ;
how Sholto M'lyor, in returning thanks, as best
man, for the bridesmaids, contrived in twenty in-
coherent words to condense together every em-
barrassing remark that could possibly be made on
the subject of old loves and transferred affections.
It is all a thing of the past now. The wedding
took place more than a year ago, and the four
people most interested know pretty well whether
the adventure they made then in the great lottery
is likely to turn out a prize or not.
Gerald Durant hajs left the army, and Hves at
Durant's Court with the old people. He is a good
deal bored, but not more, he fondly tries to think,
than he would be if he was going through his
former mill-horse life of London and Paris dissi-
pation. He keeps excellent hunters, has instituted
a chef in. the Court kitchen, already inclines ever so
slightly to stoutness, and is not very much worried,
save by his wife's occasional fits of jealousy about
A GLIMPS OF THE BLUE. 299
Mrs. Seton and the persistency mUx wHcli she
sings long songs^ always in the siyle -of Mr. Bligh,
of an eyening.. As years go by, he thinks,
and as -Lucia's baby-daughter grows old enough to
require training, he will probably be less bored
still ; and in the meantime it is a great thing to
have as pleasant a house to go to as Ludbrooke, a
woman as charming as Mrs. Seton to leaven the
whole dull mass of heavy county society.
Of the Setons, all I have to say is written in
four words four very rare words to be able to
record of any two human beings ^they suit each
other ! Half Mr. Lovell's time is spent at Lud-
brooke. Troy hangs there there was no good
light for it in the parsonage, the poor fellow sud-
denly discovered, when Archie married and of an
evening he and his daughter stand before it still,
talking in whispers, her hand within his arm, of
the great poet and painter he may yet become,
should fate prove a little kinder to his wishes.
I can fancy them talking just as foolishly when
all the roses shall have died on Mrs. Seton's face,
and when the blue eyes have grown dimmed, and
300 ABCHIE LOYELL.
other aBM!tiQii8y other caies, sanaimd her in the
years to come.
Women of weaker calibre can finget afier ihejr
are manied that they were daughters once. In a
heart as loving and as large as Ardue's, there will
be no dethronements.