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East Lynne

by Mrs. Henry Wood · English · Gutenberg #3322 · 1,158,097 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: East Lynne

Author: Mrs. Henry Wood


        
Release date: April 6, 2006 [eBook #3322]
                Most recently updated: November 20, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3322

Credits: Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST LYNNE ***




Produced by Dagny and John Bickers





EAST LYNNE

by Mrs. Henry Wood



PREPARER’S NOTE

This text was prepared from an 1883 edition, New York: John B. Alden,
Publisher.






CONTENTS



EAST LYNNE



CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CHAPTER XXX.

CHAPTER XXXI.

CHAPTER XXXII.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

CHAPTER XXXV.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CHAPTER XL.

CHAPTER XLI.

CHAPTER XLII.

CHAPTER XLIII.

CHAPTER XLIV.

CHAPTER XLV.

CHAPTER XLVI.

CHAPTER XLVII.







EAST LYNNE




CHAPTER I.

THE LADY ISABEL.

In an easy-chair of the spacious and handsome library of his town-house,
sat William, Earl of Mount Severn. His hair was gray, the smoothness of
his expansive brow was defaced by premature wrinkles, and his once
attractive face bore the pale, unmistakable look of dissipation. One of
his feet was cased in folds of linen, as it rested on the soft velvet
ottoman, speaking of gout as plainly as any foot ever spoke yet. It
would seem--to look at the man as he sat there--that he had grown old
before his time. And so he had. His years were barely nine and forty,
yet in all save years, he was an aged man.

A noted character had been the Earl of Mount Severn. Not that he had
been a renowned politician, or a great general, or an eminent statesman,
or even an active member in the Upper House; not for any of these had
the earl’s name been in the mouths of men. But for the most reckless
among the reckless, for the spendthrift among spendthrifts, for the
gamester above all gamesters, and for a gay man outstripping the gay--by
these characteristics did the world know Lord Mount Severn. It was said
his faults were those of his head; that a better heart or a more
generous spirit never beat in human form; and there was much truth in
this. It had been well for him had he lived and died plain William Vane.
Up to his five and twentieth year, he had been industrious and steady,
had kept his terms in the Temple, and studied late and early. The sober
application of William Vane had been a by word with the embryo
barristers around; Judge Vane, they ironically called him; and they
strove ineffectually to allure him away to idleness and pleasure. But
young Vane was ambitious, and he knew that on his own talents and
exertions must depend his own rising in the world. He was of excellent
family, but poor, counting a relative in the old Earl of Mount Severn.
The possibility of his succeeding to the earldom never occurred to him,
for three healthy lives, two of them young, stood between him and the
title. Yet those have died off, one of apoplexy, one of fever, in
Africa, the third boating at Oxford; and the young Temple student,
William Vane, suddenly found himself Earl of Mount Severn, and the
lawful possessor of sixty thousand a year.

His first idea was, that he should never be able to spend the money;
that such a sum, year by year, could not be spent. It was a wonder his
head was not turned by adulation at the onset, for he was courted,
flattered and caressed by all classes, from a royal duke downward. He
became the most attractive man of his day, the lion in society; for
independent of his newly-acquired wealth and title, he was of
distinguished appearance and fascinating manners. But unfortunately, the
prudence which had sustained William Vane, the poor law student, in his
solitary Temple chambers entirely forsook William Vane, the young Earl
of Mount Severn, and he commenced his career on a scale of speed so
great, that all staid people said he was going to ruin and the deuce
headlong.

But a peer of the realm, and one whose rent-roll is sixty thousand per
annum, does not go to ruin in a day. There sat the earl, in his library
now, in his nine-and-fortieth year, and ruin had not come yet--that is,
it had not overwhelmed him. But the embarrassments which had clung to
him, and been the destruction of his tranquility, the bane of his
existence, who shall describe them? The public knew them pretty well,
his private friends knew better, his creditors best; but none, save
himself knew, or could ever know, the worrying torment that was his
portion, wellnigh driving him to distraction. Years ago, by dint of
looking things steadily in the face, and by economizing, he might have
retrieved his position; but he had done what most people do in such
cases--put off the evil day sine die, and gone on increasing his
enormous list of debts. The hour of exposure and ruin was now advancing
fast.

Perhaps the earl himself was thinking so, as he sat there before an
enormous mass of papers which strewed the library table. His thoughts
were back in the past. That was a foolish match of his, that Gretna
Green match for love, foolish so far as prudence went; but the countess
had been an affectionate wife to him, had borne with his follies and his
neglect, had been an admirable mother to their only child. One child
alone had been theirs, and in her thirteenth year the countess had died.
If they had but been blessed with a son--the earl moaned over the long-
continued disappointment still--he might have seen a way out of his
difficulties. The boy, as soon as he was of age, would have joined with
him in cutting off the entail, and----

“My lord,” said a servant entering the room and interrupting the earl’s
castles in the air, “a gentleman is asking to see you.”

“Who?” cried the earl, sharply, not perceiving the card the man was
bringing. No unknown person, although wearing the externals of a foreign
ambassador, was ever admitted unceremoniously to the presence of Lord
Mount Severn. Years of duns had taught the servants caution.

“His card is here, my lord. It is Mr. Carlyle, of West Lynne.”

“Mr. Carlyle, of West Lynne,” groaned the earl, whose foot just then had
an awful twinge, “what does he want? Show him up.”

The servant did as he was bid, and introduced Mr. Carlyle. Look at the
visitor well, reader, for he will play his part in this history. He was
a very tall man of seven and twenty, of remarkably noble presence. He
was somewhat given to stooping his head when he spoke to any one shorter
than himself; it was a peculiar habit, almost to be called a bowing
habit, and his father had possessed it before him. When told of it he
would laugh, and say he was unconscious of doing it. His features were
good, his complexion was pale and clear, his hair dark, and his full
eyelids drooped over his deep gray eyes. Altogether it was a countenance
that both men and women liked to look upon--the index of an honorable,
sincere nature--not that it would have been called a handsome face, so
much as a pleasing and a distinguished one. Though but the son of a
country lawyer, and destined to be a lawyer himself, he had received the
training of a gentleman, had been educated at Rugby, and taken his
degree at Oxford. He advanced at once to the earl, in the
straightforward way of a man of business--of a man who has come on
business.

“Mr. Carlyle,” said the latter, holding out his hand--he was always
deemed the most affable peer of the age--“I am happy to see you. You
perceive I cannot rise, at least without great pain and inconvenience.
My enemy, the gout, has possession of me again. Take a seat. Are you
staying in town?”

“I have just arrived from West Lynne. The chief object of my journey was
to see your lordship.”

“What can I do for you?” asked the earl, uneasily; for a suspicion had
crossed his mind that Mr. Carlyle might be acting for some one of his
many troublesome creditors.

Mr. Carlyle drew his chair nearer to the earl, and spoke in a low tone,-
-

“A rumor came to my ears, my lord, that East Lynne was in the market.”

“A moment, sir,” exclaimed the earl, with reserve, not to say hauteur in
his tone, for his suspicions were gaining ground; “are we to converse
confidentially together, as men of honor, or is there something
concealed behind?”

“I do not understand you,” said Mr. Carlyle.

“In a word--excuse my speaking plainly, but I must feel my ground--are
you here on the part of some of my rascally creditors, to pump
information out of me, that otherwise they would not get?”

“My lord,” uttered the visitor, “I should be incapable of so
dishonorable an action. I know that a lawyer gets credit for possessing
but lax notions on the score of honor, but you can scarcely suspect that
I should be guilty of underhand work toward you. I never was guilty of a
mean trick in my life, to my recollection, and I do not think I ever
shall be.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Carlyle. If you knew half the tricks and ruses played
upon me, you would not wonder at my suspecting all the world. Proceed
with your business.”

“I heard that East Lynne was for private sale; your agent dropped half a
word to me in confidence. If so, I should wish to be the purchaser.”

“For whom?” inquired the earl.

“Myself.”

“You!” laughed the earl. “Egad! Lawyering can’t be such bad work,
Carlyle.”

“Nor is it,” rejoined Mr. Carlyle, “with an extensive, first-class
connection, such as ours. But you must remember that a good fortune was
left me by my uncle, and a large one by my father.”

“I know. The proceeds of lawyering also.”

“Not altogether. My mother brought a fortune on her marriage, and it
enabled my father to speculate successfully. I have been looking out for
an eligible property to invest my money upon, and East Lynne will suit
me well, provided I can have the refusal of it, and we can agree about
the terms.”

Lord Mount Severn mused for a few moments before he spoke. “Mr.
Carlyle,” he began, “my affairs are very bad, and ready money I must
find somewhere. Now East Lynne is not entailed, neither is it mortgaged
to anything like its value, though the latter fact, as you may imagine,
is not patent to the world. When I bought it at a bargain, eighteen
years ago, you were the lawyer on the other side, I remember.”

“My father,” smiled Mr. Carlyle. “I was a child at the time.”

“Of course, I ought to have said your father. By selling East Lynne, a
few thousands will come into my hands, after claims on it are settled; I
have no other means of raising the wind, and that is why I have resolved
to part with it. But now, understand, if it were known abroad that East
Lynne is going from me, I should have a hornet’s nest about my ears; so
that it must be disposed of privately. Do you comprehend?”

“Perfectly,” replied Mr. Carlyle.

“I would as soon you bought it as anyone else, if, as you say, we can
agree about terms.”

“What does your lordship expect for it--at a rough estimate?”

“For particulars I must refer you to my men of business, Warburton &
Ware. Not less than seventy thousand pounds.”

“Too much, my lord,” cried Mr. Carlyle, decisively.

“And that’s not its value,” returned the earl.

“These forced sales never do fetch their value,” answered the plain-
speaking lawyer. “Until this hint was given me by Beauchamp, I had
thought East Lynne was settled upon your lordship’s daughter.”

“There’s nothing settled on her,” rejoined the earl, the contraction on
his brow standing out more plainly. “That comes of your thoughtless
runaway marriages. I fell in love with General Conway’s daughter, and
she ran away with me, like a fool; that is, we were both fools together
for our pains. The general objected to me and said I must sow my wild
oats before he would give me Mary; so I took her to Gretna Green, and
she became Countess of Mount Severn, without a settlement. It was an
unfortunate affair, taking one thing with another. When her elopement
was made known to the general, it killed him.”

“Killed him!” interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

“It did. He had disease of the heart, and the excitement brought on the
crisis. My poor wife never was happy from that hour; she blamed herself
for her father’s death, and I believe it led to her own. She was ill for
years; the doctors called it consumption; but it was more like a wasting
insensibly away, and consumption never had been in her family. No luck
ever attends runaway marriages; I have noticed it since, in many, many
instances; something bad is sure to turn up from it.”

“There might have been a settlement executed after the marriage,”
 observed Mr. Carlyle, for the earl had stopped, and seemed lost in
thought.

“I know there might; but there was not. My wife had possessed no
fortune; I was already deep in my career of extravagance, and neither of
us thought of making provision for our future children; or, if we
thought of it, we did not do it. There is an old saying, Mr. Carlyle,
that what may be done at any time is never done.”

Mr. Carlyle bowed.

“So my child is portionless,” resumed the earl, with a suppressed sigh.
“The thought that it may be an embarrassing thing for her, were I to die
before she is settled in life, crosses my mind when I am in a serious
mood. That she will marry well, there is little doubt, for she possesses
beauty in a rare degree, and has been reared as an English girl should
be, not to frivolity and foppery. She was trained by her mother, who
save for the mad act she was persuaded into by me, was all goodness and
refinement, for the first twelve years of her life, and since then by an
admirable governess. No fear that she will be decamping to Gretna
Green.”

“She was a very lovely child,” observed the lawyer; “I remember that.”

“Ay; you have seen her at East Lynne, in her mother’s lifetime. But, to
return to business. If you become the purchaser of the East Lynne
estate, Mr. Carlyle, it must be under the rose. The money that it
brings, after paying off the mortgage, I must have, as I tell you, for
my private use; and you know I should not be able to touch a farthing of
it if the confounded public got an inkling of the transfer. In the eyes
of the world, the proprietor of East Lynne must be Lord Mount Severn--at
least for some little time afterwards. Perhaps you will not object to
that.”

Mr. Carlyle considered before replying; and then the conversation was
resumed, when it was decided that he should see Warburton and Ware the
first thing in the morning, and confer with them. It was growing late
when he rose to leave.

“Stay and dine with me,” said the earl.

Mr. Carlyle hesitated, and looked down at his dress--a plain,
gentlemanly, morning attire, but certainly not a dinner costume for a
peer’s table.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said the earl; “we shall be quite alone, except my
daughter. Mrs. Vane, of Castle Marling, is staying with us. She came up
to present my child at the last drawing-room, but I think I heard
something about her dining out to-day. If not, we will have it by
ourselves here. Oblige me by touching the bell, Mr. Carlyle.”

The servant entered.

“Inquire whether Mrs. Vane dines at home,” said the earl.

“Mrs. Vane dines out, my lord,” was the man’s immediate reply. “The
carriage is at the door now.”

“Very well. Mr. Carlyle remains.”

At seven o’clock the dinner was announced, and the earl wheeled into the
adjoining room. As he and Mr. Carlyle entered it at one door, some one
else came in by the opposite one. Who--what--was it? Mr. Carlyle looked,
not quite sure whether it was a human being--he almost thought it more
like an angel.

A light, graceful, girlish form; a face of surpassing beauty, beauty
that is rarely seen, save from the imagination of a painter; dark
shining curls falling on her neck and shoulders, smooth as a child’s;
fair, delicate arms decorated with pearls, and a flowing dress of costly
white lace. Altogether the vision did indeed look to the lawyer as one
from a fairer world than this.

“My daughter, Mr. Carlyle, the Lady Isabel.”

They took their seats at the table, Lord Mount Severn at its head, in
spite of his gout and his footstool. And the young lady and Mr. Carlyle
opposite each other. Mr. Carlyle had not deemed himself a particular
admirer of women’s beauty, but the extraordinary loveliness of the young
girl before him nearly took away his senses and his self-possession. Yet
it was not so much the perfect contour or the exquisite features that
struck him, or the rich damask of the delicate cheek, or the luxuriant
falling hair; no, it was the sweet expression of the soft dark eyes.
Never in his life had he seen eyes so pleasing. He could not keep his
gaze from her, and he became conscious, as he grew more familiar with
her face, that there was in its character a sad, sorrowful look; only at
times was it to be noticed, when the features were at repose, and it lay
chiefly in the very eyes he was admiring. Never does this unconsciously
mournful expression exist, but it is a sure index of sorrow and
suffering; but Mr. Carlyle understood it not. And who could connect
sorrow with the anticipated brilliant future of Isabel Vane?

“Isabel,” observed the earl, “you are dressed.”

“Yes, papa. Not to keep old Mrs. Levison waiting tea. She likes to take
it early, and I know Mrs. Vane must have kept her waiting dinner. It was
half-past six when she drove from here.”

“I hope you will not be late to-night, Isabel.”

“It depends upon Mrs. Vane.”

“Then I am sure you will be. When the young ladies in this fashionable
world of ours turn night into day, it is a bad thing for their roses.
What say you, Mr. Carlyle?”

Mr. Carlyle glanced at the roses on the cheeks opposite to him; they
looked too fresh and bright to fade lightly.

At the conclusion of dinner a maid entered the room with a white
cashmere mantle, placing it over the shoulders of her young lady, as she
said the carriage was waiting.

Lady Isabel advanced to the earl. “Good-bye, papa.”

“Good-night, my love,” he answered, drawing her toward him, and kissing
her sweet face. “Tell Mrs. Vane I will not have you kept out till
morning hours. You are but a child yet. Mr. Carlyle, will you ring? I am
debarred from seeing my daughter to the carriage.”

“If your lordship will allow me--if Lady Isabel will pardon the
attendance of one little used to wait upon young ladies, I shall be
proud to see her to her carriage,” was the somewhat confused answer of
Mr. Carlyle as he touched the bell.

The earl thanked him, and the young lady smiled, and Mr. Carlyle
conducted her down the broad, lighted staircase and stood bareheaded by
the door of the luxurious chariot, and handed her in. She put out her
hand in her frank, pleasant manner, as she wished him good night. The
carriage rolled on its way, and Mr. Carlyle returned to the earl.

“Well, is she not a handsome girl?” he demanded.

“Handsome is not the word for beauty such as hers,” was Mr. Carlyle’s
reply, in a low, warm tone. “I never saw a face half so beautiful.”

“She caused quite a sensation at the drawing-room last week--as I hear.
This everlasting gout kept me indoors all day. And she is as good as she
is beautiful.”

The earl was not partial. Lady Isabel was wondrously gifted by nature,
not only in mind and person but in heart. She was as little like a
fashionable young lady as it was well possible to be, partly because she
had hitherto been secluded from the great world, partly from the care
bestowed upon her training. During the lifetime of her mother, she had
lived occasionally at East Lynne, but mostly at a larger seat of the
earl’s in Wales, Mount Severn; since her mother’s death, she had
remained entirely at Mount Severn, under the charge of a judicious
governess, a very small establishment being kept for them, and the earl
paying them impromptu and flying visits. Generous and benevolent she
was, timid and sensitive to a degree, gentle, and considerate to all. Do
not cavil at her being thus praised--admire and love her whilst you may,
she is worthy of it now, in her innocent girlhood; the time will come
when such praise would be misplaced. Could the fate that was to overtake
his child have been foreseen by the earl, he would have struck her down
to death, in his love, as she stood before him, rather than suffer her
to enter upon it.






CHAPTER II.

THE BROKEN CROSS.

Lady Isabel’s carriage continued its way, and deposited her at the
residence of Mrs. Levison. Mrs. Levison was nearly eighty years of age,
and very severe in speech and manner, or, as Mrs. Vane expressed it,
“crabbed.” She looked the image of impatience when Isabel entered, with
her cap pushed all awry, and pulling at the black satin gown, for Mrs.
Vane had kept her waiting dinner, and Isabel was keeping her from her
tea; and that does not agree with the aged, with their health or with
their temper.

“I fear I am late,” exclaimed Lady Isabel, as she advanced to Mrs.
Levison; “but a gentleman dined with papa to-day, and it made us rather
longer at table.”

“You are twenty-five minutes behind your time,” cried the old lady
sharply, “and I want my tea. Emma, order it in.”

Mrs. Vane rang the bell, and did as she was bid. She was a little woman
of six-and-twenty, very plain in face, but elegant in figure, very
accomplished, and vain to her fingers’ ends. Her mother, who was dead,
had been Mrs. Levison’s daughter, and her husband, Raymond Vane, was
presumptive heir to the earldom of Mount Severn.

“Won’t you take that tippet off, child?” asked Mrs. Levison, who knew
nothing of the new-fashioned names for such articles, mantles, burnous,
and all the string of them; and Isabel threw it off and sat down by her.

“The tea is not made, grandmamma!” exclaimed Mrs. Vane, in an accent of
astonishment, as the servant appeared with the tray and the silver urn.
“You surely do not have it made in the room.”

“Where should I have it made?” inquired Mrs. Levison.

“It is much more convenient to have it brought in, ready made,” said
Mrs. Vane. “I dislike the embarass of making it.”

“Indeed!” was the reply of the old lady; “and get it slopped over in the
saucers, and as cold as milk! You always were lazy, Emma--and given to
use those French words. I’d rather stick a printed label on my forehead,
for my part, ‘I speak French,’ and let the world know it in that way.”

“Who makes tea for you in general?” asked Mrs. Vane, telegraphing a
contemptuous glance to Isabel behind her grandmother.

But the eyes of Lady Isabel fell timidly and a blush rose to her cheeks.
She did not like to appear to differ from Mrs. Vane, her senior, and her
father’s guest, but her mind revolted at the bare idea of ingratitude or
ridicule cast on an aged parent.

“Harriet comes in and makes it for me,” replied Mrs. Levison; “aye, and
sits down and takes it with me when I am alone, which is pretty often.
What do you say to that, Madame Emma--you, with your fine notions?”

“Just as you please, of course, grandmamma.”

“And there’s the tea-caddy at your elbow, and the urn’s fizzing away,
and if we are to have any tea to-night, it had better be made.”

“I don’t know how much to put in,” grumbled Mrs. Vane, who had the
greatest horror of soiling her hands or her gloves; who, in short, had a
particular antipathy to doing anything useful.

“Shall I make it, dear Mrs. Levison?” said Isabel, rising with alacrity.
“I had used to make it quite as often as my governess at Mount Severn,
and I make it for papa.”

“Do, child,” replied the old lady. “You are worth ten of her.”

Isabel laughed merrily, drew off her gloves, and sat down to the table;
and at that moment a young and elegant man lounged into the room. He was
deemed handsome, with his clearly-cut features, his dark eyes, his raven
hair, and his white teeth; but to a keen observer those features had not
an attractive expression, and the dark eyes had a great knack of looking
away while he spoke to you. It was Francis, Captain Levison.

He was grandson to the old lady, and first cousin to Mrs. Vane. Few men
were so fascinating in manners, at times and seasons, in face and in
form, few men won so completely upon their hearers’ ears, and few were
so heartless in their hearts of hearts. The world courted him, and
society honored him; for, though he was a graceless spendthrift, and it
was known that he was, he was the presumptive heir to the old and rich
Sir Peter Levison.

The ancient lady spoke up, “Captain Levison, Lady Isabel Vane.” They
both acknowledged the introduction; and Isabel, a child yet in the ways
of the world, flushed crimson at the admiring looks cast upon her by the
young guardsman. Strange--strange that she should make the acquaintance
of these two men in the same day, almost in the same hour; the two, of
all the human race, who were to exercise so powerful an influence over
her future life!

“That’s a pretty cross, child,” cried Mrs. Levison as Isabel stood by
her when tea was over, and she and Mrs. Vane were about to depart on
their evening visit.

She alluded to a golden cross, set with seven emeralds, which Isabel
wore on her neck. It was of light, delicate texture, and was suspended
from a thin, short, gold chain.

“Is it not pretty?” answered Isabel. “It was given me by my dear mamma
just before she died. Stay, I will take it off for you. I only wear it
upon great occasions.”

This, her first appearance at the grand duke’s, seemed a very great
occasion to the simply-reared and inexperienced girl. She unclasped the
chain, and placed it with the cross in the hands of Mrs. Levison.

“Why, I declare you have nothing on but that cross and some rubbishing
pearl bracelets!” uttered Mrs. Vane to Isabel. “I did not look at you
before.”

“Mamma gave me both. The bracelets are those she used frequently to
wear.”

“You old-fashioned child! Because your mamma wore those bracelets, years
ago, is that a reason for your doing so?” retorted Mrs. Vane. “Why did
you not put on your diamonds?”

“I--did--put on my diamonds; but I--took them off again,” stammered
Isabel.

“What on earth for?”

“I did not like to look too fine,” answered Isabel, with a laugh and a
blush. “They glittered so! I feared it might be thought I had put them
on to look fine.”

“Ah! I see you mean to set up in that class of people who pretend to
despise ornaments,” scornfully remarked Mrs. Vane. “It is the refinement
of affectation, Lady Isabel.”

The sneer fell harmlessly on Lady Isabel’s ear. She only believed
something had put Mrs. Vane out of temper. It certainly had; and that
something, though Isabel little suspected it, was the evident admiration
Captain Levison evinced for her fresh, young beauty; it quite absorbed
him, and rendered him neglectful even of Mrs. Vane.

“Here, child, take your cross,” said the old lady. “It is very pretty;
prettier on your neck than diamonds would be. You don’t want
embellishing; never mind what Emma says.”

Francis Levison took the cross and chain from her hand to pass them to
Lady Isabel. Whether he was awkward, or whether her hands were full, for
she held her gloves, her handkerchief, and had just taken up her mantle,
certain it is that it fell; and the gentleman, in his too quick effort
to regain it, managed to set his foot upon it, and the cross was broken
in two.

“There! Now whose fault was that?” cried Mrs. Levison.

Isabel did not answer; her heart was very full. She took the broken
cross, and the tears dropped from her eyes; she could not help it.

“Why! You are never crying over a stupid bauble of a cross!” uttered
Mrs. Vane, interrupting Captain Levison’s expression of regret at his
awkwardness.

“You can have it mended, dear,” interposed Mrs. Levison.

Lady Isabel chased away the tears, and turned to Captain Levison with a
cheerful look. “Pray do not blame yourself,” she good-naturedly said;
“the fault was as much mine as yours; and, as Mrs. Levison says, I can
get it mended.”

She disengaged the upper part of the cross from the chain as she spoke,
and clasped the latter round her throat.

“You will not go with that thin string of gold on, and nothing else!”
 uttered Mrs. Vane.

“Why not?” returned Isabel. “If people say anything, I can tell them an
accident happened to the cross.”

Mrs. Vane burst into a laugh of mocking ridicule. “‘If people say
anything!’” she repeated, in a tone according with the laugh. “They are
not likely to ‘say anything,’ but they will deem Lord Mount Severn’s
daughter unfortunately short of jewellery.”

Isabel smiled and shook her head. “They saw my diamonds at the drawing-
room.”

“If you had done such an awkward thing for me, Frank Levison,” burst
forth the old lady, “my doors should have been closed against you for a
month. There, if you are to go, Emma, you had better go; dancing off to
begin an evening at ten o’clock at night! In my time we used to go at
seven; but it’s the custom now to turn night into day.”

“When George the Third dined at one o’clock upon boiled mutton and
turnips,” put in the graceless captain, who certainly held his
grandmother in no greater reverence than did Mrs. Vane.

He turned to Isabel as he spoke, to hand her downstairs. Thus she was
conducted to her carriage the second time that night by a stranger. Mrs.
Vane got down by herself, as she best could, and her temper was not
improved by the process.

“Good-night,” said she to the captain.

“I shall not say good-night. You will find me there almost as soon as
you.”

“You told me you were not coming. Some bachelor’s party in the way.”

“Yes, but I have changed my mind. Farewell for the present, Lady
Isabel.”

“What an object you will look, with nothing on your neck but a
schoolgirl’s chain!” began Mrs. Vane, returning to the grievance as the
carriage drove on.

“Oh, Mrs. Vane, what does it signify? I can only think of my broken
cross. I am sure it must be an evil omen.”

“An evil--what?”

“An evil omen. Mamma gave me that cross when she was dying. She told me
to let it be to me as a talisman, always to keep it safely; and when I
was in any distress, or in need of counsel, to look at it and strive to
recall what her advice would be, and to act accordingly. And now it is
broken--broken!”

A glaring gaslight flashed into the carriage, right into the face of
Isabel. “I declare,” uttered Mrs. Vane, “you are crying again! I tell
you what it is, Isabel, I am not going to chaperone red eyes to the
Duchess of Dartford’s, so if you can’t put a stop to this, I shall order
the carriage home, and go on alone.”

Isabel meekly dried her eyes, sighing deeply as she did so. “I can have
the pieces joined, I dare say; but it will never be the same cross to me
again.”

“What have you done with the pieces?” irascibly asked Mrs. Vane.

“I folded them in the thin paper Mrs. Levison gave me, and put it inside
my frock. Here it is,” touching the body. “I have no pocket on.”

Mrs. Vane gave vent to a groan. She never had been a girl herself--she
had been a woman at ten; and she complimented Isabel upon being little
better than an imbecile. “Put it inside my frock!” she uttered in a
torrent of scorn. “And you eighteen years of age! I fancied you left off
‘frocks’ when you left the nursery. For shame, Isabel!”

“I meant to say my dress,” corrected Isabel.

“Meant to say you are a baby idiot!” was the inward comment of Mrs.
Vane.

A few minutes and Isabel forgot her grievance. The brilliant rooms were
to her as an enchanting scene of dreamland, for her heart was in its
springtide of early freshness, and the satiety of experience had not
come. How could she remember trouble, even the broken cross, as she bent
to the homage offered her and drank in the honeyed words poured forth
into her ear?

“Halloo!” cried an Oxford student, with a long rent-roll in prospective,
who was screwing himself against the wall, not to be in the way of the
waltzers, “I thought you had given up coming to these places?”

“So I had,” replied the fast nobleman addressed, the son of a marquis.
“But I am on the lookout, so am forced into them again. I think a ball-
room the greatest bore in life.”

“On the lookout for what?”

“For a wife. My governor has stopped supplies, and has vowed by his
beard not to advance another shilling, or pay a debt, till I reform. As
a preliminary step toward it, he insists upon a wife, and I am trying to
choose one for I am deeper in debt than you imagine.”

“Take the new beauty, then.”

“Who is she?”

“Lady Isabel Vane.”

“Much obliged for the suggestion,” replied the earl. “But one likes a
respectable father-in-law, and Mount Severn is going to smash. He and I
are too much in the same line, and might clash, in the long run.”

“One can’t have everything; the girl’s beauty is beyond common. I saw
that rake, Levison, make up to her. He fancies he can carry all before
him, where women are concerned.”

“So he does, often,” was his quiet reply.

“I hate the fellow! He thinks so much of himself, with his curled hair
and shining teeth, and his white skin; and he’s as heartless as an owl.
What was that hushed-up business about Miss Charteris?”

“Who’s to know? Levison slipped out of the escapade like an eel, and the
woman protested that he was more sinned against than sinning. Three-
fourths of the world believed them.”

“And she went abroad and died; and Levison here he comes! And Mount
Severn’s daughter with him.”

They were approaching at that moment, Francis Levison and Lady Isabel.
He was expressing his regret at the untoward accident of the cross for
the tenth time that night. “I feel that it can never be atoned for,”
 whispered he; “that the heartfelt homage of my whole life would not be
sufficient compensation.”

He spoke in a tone of thrilling gentleness, gratifying to the ear but
dangerous to the heart. Lady Isabel glanced up and caught his eyes
gazing upon her with the deepest tenderness--a language hers had never
yet encountered. A vivid blush again arose to her cheek, her eyelids
fell, and her timid words died away in silence.

“Take care, take care, my young Lady Isabel,” murmured the Oxonian under
his breath, as they passed him, “that man is as false as he is fair.”

“I think he is a rascal,” remarked the earl.

“I know he is; I know a thing or two about him. He would ruin her heart
for the renown of the exploit, because she’s a beauty, and then fling it
away broken. He has none to give in return for the gift.”

“Just as much as my new race-horse has,” concluded the earl. “She is
very beautiful.”






CHAPTER III.

BARBARA HARE.

West Lynne was a town of some importance, particularly in its own eyes,
though being neither a manufacturing one nor a cathedral one, nor even
the chief town of the county, it was somewhat primitive in its manners
and customs. Passing out at the town, toward the east, you came upon
several detached gentleman’s houses, in the vicinity of which stood the
church of St. Jude, which was more aristocratic, in the matter of its
congregation, than the other churches of West Lynne. For about a mile
these houses were scattered, the church being situated at their
commencement, close to that busy part of the place, and about a mile
further on you came upon the beautiful estate which was called East
Lynne.

Between the gentlemen’s houses mentioned and East Lynne, the mile of
road was very solitary, being much overshadowed with trees. One house
alone stood there, and that was about three-quarters of a mile before
you came to East Lynne. It was on the left hand side, a square, ugly,
red brick house with a weathercock on the top, standing some little
distance from the road. A flat lawn extended before it, and close to the
palings, which divided it from the road, was a grove of trees, some
yards in depth. The lawn was divided by a narrow middle gravel path, to
which you gained access from the portico of the house. You entered upon
a large flagged hall with a reception room on either hand, and the
staircase, a wide one, facing you; by the side of the staircase you
passed on to the servants’ apartments and offices. That place was called
the Grove, and was the property and residence of Richard Hare, Esq.,
commonly called Mr. Justice Hare.

The room to the left hand, as you went in, was the general sitting-room;
the other was very much kept boxed up in lavender and brown Holland, to
be opened on state occasions. Justice and Mrs. Hare had three children,
a son and two daughters. Anne was the elder of the girls, and had
married young; Barbara, the younger was now nineteen, and Richard the
eldest--but we shall come to him hereafter.

In this sitting-room, on a chilly evening, early in May, a few days
subsequent to that which had witnessed the visit of Mr. Carlyle to the
Earl of Mount Severn, sat Mrs. Hare, a pale, delicate woman, buried in
shawls and cushions: but the day had been warm. At the window sat a
pretty girl, very fair, with blue eyes, light hair, a bright complexion,
and small aquiline features. She was listlessly turning over the leaves
of a book.

“Barbara, I am sure it must be tea-time now.”

“The time seems to move slowly with you, mamma. It is scarcely a quarter
of an hour since I told you it was but ten minutes past six.”

“I am so thirsty!” announced the poor invalid. “Do go and look at the
clock again, Barbara.”

Barbara Hare rose with a gesture of impatience, not suppressed, opened
the door, and glanced at the large clock in the hall. “It wants nine and
twenty minutes to seven, mamma. I wish you would put your watch on of a
day; four times you have sent me to look at that clock since dinner.”

“I am so thirsty!” repeated Mrs. Hare, with a sort of sob. “If seven
o’clock would but strike! I am dying for my tea.”

It may occur to the reader, that a lady in her own house, “dying for her
tea,” might surely order it brought in, although the customary hour had
not struck. Not so Mrs. Hare. Since her husband had first brought her
home to that house, four and twenty-years ago, she had never dared to
express a will in it; scarcely, on her own responsibility, to give an
order. Justice Hare was stern, imperative, obstinate, and self-
conceited; she, timid, gentle and submissive. She had loved him with all
her heart, and her life had been one long yielding of her will to his;
in fact, she had no will; his was all in all. Far was she from feeling
the servitude a yoke: some natures do not: and to do Mr. Hare justice,
his powerful will that must bear down all before it, was in fault: not
his kindness: he never meant to be unkind to his wife. Of his three
children, Barbara alone had inherited his will.

“Barbara,” began Mrs. Hare again, when she thought another quarter of an
hour at least must have elapsed.

“Well, mamma?”

“Ring, and tell them to be getting it in readiness so that when seven
strikes there may be no delay.”

“Goodness, mamma! You know they do always have it ready. And there’s no
such hurry, for papa may not be at home.” But she rose, and rang the
bell with a petulant motion, and when the man answered it, told him to
have tea in to its time.

“If you knew dear, how dry my throat is, how parched my mouth, you would
have more patience with me.”

Barbara closed her book with a listless air, and turned listlessly to
the window. She seemed tired, not with fatigue but with what the French
express by the word ennui. “Here comes papa,” she presently said.

“Oh, I am so glad!” cried poor Mrs. Hare. “Perhaps he will not mind
having the tea in at once, if I told him how thirsty I am.”

The justice came in. A middle sized man, with pompous features, and a
pompous walk, and a flaxen wig. In his aquiline nose, compressed lips,
and pointed chin, might be traced a resemblance to his daughter; though
he never could have been half so good-looking as was pretty Barbara.

“Richard,” spoke up Mrs. Hare from between her shawls, the instant he
opened the door.

“Well?”

“Would you please let me have tea in now? Would you very much mind
taking it a little earlier this evening? I am feverish again, and my
tongue is so parched I don’t know how to speak.”

“Oh, it’s near seven; you won’t have long to wait.”

With this exceedingly gracious answer to an invalid’s request, Mr. Hare
quitted the room again and banged the door. He had not spoken unkindly
or roughly, simply with indifference. But ere Mrs. Hare’s meek sigh of
disappointment was over, the door re-opened, and the flaxen wig was
thrust in again.

“I don’t mind if I do have it now. It will be a fine moonlight night and
I am going with Pinner as far as Beauchamp’s to smoke a pipe. Order it
in, Barbara.”

The tea was made and partaken of, and the justice departed for Mr.
Beauchamp’s, Squire Pinner calling for him at the gate. Mr. Beauchamp
was a gentleman who farmed a great deal of land, and who was also Lord
Mount Severn’s agent or steward for East Lynne. He lived higher up the
road some little distance beyond East Lynne.

“I am so cold, Barbara,” shivered Mrs. Hare, as she watched the justice
down the gravel path. “I wonder if your papa would say it was foolish of
me, if I told them to light a bit of fire?”

“Have it lighted if you like,” responded Barbara, ringing the bell.
“Papa will know nothing about it, one way or the other, for he won’t be
home till after bedtime. Jasper, mamma is cold, and would like a fire
lighted.”

“Plenty of sticks, Jasper, that it may burn up quickly,” said Mrs. Hare,
in a pleading voice, as if the sticks were Jasper’s and not hers.

Mrs. Hare got her fire, and she drew her chair in front, and put her
feet on the fender, to catch its warmth. Barbara, listless still, went
into the hall, took a woolen shawl from the stand there, threw it over
her shoulders, and went out. She strolled down the straight formal path,
and stood at the iron gate, looking over it into the public road. Not
very public in that spot, and at that hour, but as lonely as one could
wish. The night was calm and pleasant, though somewhat chilly for the
beginning of May, and the moon was getting high in the sky.

“When will he come home?” she murmured, as she leaned her head upon the
gate. “Oh, what would life be like without him? How miserable these few
days have been! I wonder what took him there! I wonder what is detaining
him! Corny said he was only gone for a day.”

The faint echo of footsteps in the distance stole upon her ear, and
Barbara drew a little back, and hid herself under the shelter of the
trees, not choosing to be seen by any stray passer-by. But, as they drew
near, a sudden change came over her; her eyes lighted up, her cheeks
were dyed with crimson, and her veins tingled with excess of rapture--
for she knew those footsteps, and loved them, only too well.

Cautiously peeping over the gate again, she looked down the road. A tall
form, whose very height and strength bore a grace of which its owner was
unconscious, was advancing rapidly toward her from the direction of West
Lynne. Again she shrank away; true love is ever timid; and whatever may
have been Barbara Hare’s other qualities, her love at least was true and
deep. But instead of the gate opening, with the firm quick motion
peculiar to the hand which guided it, the footsteps seemed to pass, and
not to have turned at all toward it. Barbara’s heart sank, and she stole
to the gate again, and looked out with a yearning look.

Yes, sure enough he was striding on, not thinking of her, not coming to
her; and she, in the disappointment and impulse of the moment, called to
him,--

“Archibald!”

Mr. Carlyle--it was no other--turned on his heel, and approached the
gate.

“Is it you, Barbara! Watching for thieves and poachers? How are you?”

“How are you?” she returned, holding the gate open for him to enter, as
he shook hands, and striving to calm down her agitation. “When did you
return?”

“Only now, by the eight o’clock train, which got in beyond its time,
having drawled unpardonably at the stations. They little thought they
had me in it, as their looks betrayed when I got out. I have not been
home yet.”

“No! What will Cornelia say?”

“I went to the office for five minutes. But I have a few words to say to
Beauchamp, and am going up at once. Thank you, I cannot come in now; I
intend to do so on my return.”

“Papa has gone up to Mr. Beauchamp’s.”

“Mr. Hare! Has he?”

“He and Squire Pinner,” continued Barbara. “They have gone to have a
smoking bout. And if you wait there with papa, it will be too late to
come in, for he is sure not to be home before eleven or twelve.”

Mr. Carlyle bent his head in deliberation. “Then I think it is of little
use my going on,” said he, “for my business with Beauchamp is private. I
must defer it until to-morrow.”

He took the gate out of her hand, closed it, and placed the hand within
his own arm, to walk with her to the house. It was done in a matter-of-
fact, real sort of way; nothing of romance or sentiment hallowed it; but
Barbara Hare felt that she was in Eden.

“And how have you all been, Barbara, these few days?”

“Oh, very well. What made you start off so suddenly? You never said you
were going, or came to wish us good-bye.”

“You have just expressed it, Barbara--‘suddenly.’ A matter of business
suddenly arose, and I suddenly went upon it.”

“Cornelia said you were only gone for a day.”

“Did she? When in London I find so many things to do! Is Mrs. Hare
better?”

“Just the same. I think mamma’s ailments are fancies, half of them; if
she would rouse herself she would be better. What is in that parcel?”

“You are not to inquire, Miss Barbara. It does not concern you. It only
concerns Mrs. Hare.”

“Is it something you have brought for mamma, Archibald?”

“Of course. A countryman’s visit to London entails buying presents for
his friends; at least, it used to be so, in the old-fashioned days.”

“When people made their wills before starting, and were a fortnight
doing the journey in a wagon,” laughed Barbara. “Grandpapa used to tell
us tales of that, when we were children. But is it really something for
mamma?”

“Don’t I tell you so? I have brought something for you.”

“Oh! What is it?” she uttered, her color rising, and wondering whether
he was in jest or earnest.

“There’s an impatient girl! ‘What is it?’ Wait a moment, and you shall
see what it is.”

He put the parcel or roll he was carrying upon a garden chair, and
proceeded to search his pockets. Every pocket was visited, apparently in
vain.

“Barbara, I think it is gone. I must have lost it somehow.”

Her heart beat as she stood there, silently looking up at him in the
moonlight. Was it lost? What had it been?

But, upon a second search, he came upon something in the pocket of his
coat-tail. “Here it is, I believe; what brought it there?” He opened a
small box, and taking out a long, gold chain, threw it around her neck.
A locket was attached to it.

Her cheeks’ crimson went and came; her heart beat more rapidly. She
could not speak a word of thanks; and Mr. Carlyle took up the roll, and
walked on into the presence of Mrs. Hare.

Barbara followed in a few minutes. Her mother was standing up, watching
with pleased expectation the movements of Mr. Carlyle. No candles were
in the room, but it was bright with firelight.

“Now, don’t laugh at me,” quoth he, untying the string of the parcel.
“It is not a roll of velvet for a dress, and it is not a roll of
parchment, conferring twenty thousand pounds a year. But it is--an air
cushion!”

It was what poor Mrs. Hare, so worn with sitting and lying, had often
longed for. She had heard such a luxury was to be bought in London, but
never remembered to have seen one. She took it almost with a greedy
hand, casting a grateful look at Mr. Carlyle.

“How am I to thank you for it?” she murmured through her tears.

“If you thank me at all, I will never bring you anything again,” cried
he, gaily. “I have been telling Barbara that a visit to London entails
bringing gifts for friends,” he continued. “Do you see how smart I have
made her?”

Barbara hastily took off the chain, and laid it before her mother.

“What a beautiful chain!” muttered Mrs. Hare, in surprise. “Archibald,
you are too good, too generous! This must have cost a great deal; this
is beyond a trifle.”

“Nonsense!” laughed Mr. Carlyle. “I’ll tell you both how I happened to
buy it. I went into a jeweller’s about my watch, which has taken to lose
lately in a most unceremonious fashion, and there I saw a whole display
of chains hanging up; some ponderous enough for a sheriff, some light
and elegant enough for Barbara. I dislike to see a thick chain on a
lady’s neck. They put me in mind of the chain she lost, the day she and
Cornelia went with me to Lynchborough, which loss Barbara persisted in
declaring was my fault, for dragging her through the town sight-seeing,
while Cornelia did her shopping--for it was then the chain was lost.”

“But I was only joking when I said so,” was the interruption of Barbara.
“Of course it would have happened had you not been with me; the links
were always snapping.”

“Well, these chains in the shop in London put me in mind of Barbara’s
misfortune, and I chose one. Then the shopman brought forth some
lockets, and enlarged upon their convenience for holding deceased
relatives’ hair, not to speak of sweethearts’, until I told him he might
attach one. I thought it might hold that piece of hair you prize,
Barbara,” he concluded, dropping his voice.

“What piece?” asked Mrs. Hare.

Mr. Carlyle glanced round the room, as if fearful the very walls might
hear his whisper. “Richard’s. Barbara showed it me one day when she was
turning out her desk, and said it was a curl taken off in that illness.”

Mrs. Hare sank back in her chair, and hid her face in her hands,
shivering visibly. The words evidently awoke some poignant source of
deep sorrow. “Oh, my boy! My boy!” she wailed--“my boy! My unhappy boy!
Mr. Hare wonders at my ill-health, Archibald; Barbara ridicules it; but
there lies the source of all my misery, mental and bodily. Oh, Richard!
Richard!”

There was a distressing pause, for the topic admitted of neither hope
nor consolation. “Put your chain on again, Barbara,” Mr. Carlyle said,
after a while, “and I wish you health to wear it out. Health and
reformation, young lady!”

Barbara smiled and glanced at him with her pretty blue eyes, so full of
love. “What have you brought for Cornelia?” she resumed.

“Something splendid,” he answered, with a mock serious face; “only I
hope I have not been taken in. I bought her a shawl. The venders vowed
it was true Parisian cashmere. I gave eighteen guineas for it.”

“That is a great deal,” observed Mrs. Hare. “It ought to be a very good
one. I never gave more than six guineas for a shawl in all my life.”

“And Cornelia, I dare say, never more than half six,” laughed Mr.
Carlyle. “Well, I shall wish you good evening, and go to her; for if she
knows I am back all this while, I shall be lectured.”

He shook hands with them both. Barbara, however, accompanied him to the
front door, and stepped outside with him.

“You will catch cold, Barbara. You have left your shawl indoors.”

“Oh, no, I shall not. How very soon you are leaving. You have scarcely
stayed ten minutes.”

“But you forget I have not been at home.”

“You were on your road to Beauchamp’s, and would not have been at home
for an hour or two in that case,” spoke Barbara, in a tone that savored
of resentment.

“That was different; that was upon business. But, Barbara, I think your
mother looks unusually ill.”

“You know she suffers a little thing to upset her; and last night she
had what she calls one of her dreams,” answered Barbara. “She says that
it is a warning that something bad is going to happen, and she has been
in the most unhappy, feverish state possible all day. Papa has been
quite angry over her being so weak and nervous, declaring that she ought
to rouse herself out of her ‘nerves.’ Of course we dare not tell him
about the dream.”

“It related to--the----”

Mr. Carlyle stopped, and Barbara glanced round with a shudder, and drew
closer to him as she whispered. He had not given her his arm this time.

“Yes, to the murder. You know mamma has always declared that Bethel had
something to do with it; she says her dreams would have convinced her of
it, if nothing else did; and she dreamt she saw him with--with--you
know.”

“Hallijohn?” whispered Mr. Carlyle.

“With Hallijohn,” assented Barbara, with a shiver. “He was standing over
him as he lay on the floor; just as he did lay on it. And that wretched
Afy was standing at the end of the kitchen, looking on.”

“But Mrs. Hare ought not to suffer dreams to disturb her peace by day,”
 remonstrated Mr. Carlyle. “It is not to be surprised at that she dreams
of the murder, because she is always dwelling upon it; but she should
strive and throw the feeling from her with the night.”

“You know what mamma is. Of course she ought to do so, but she does not.
Papa wonders what makes her get up so ill and trembling of a morning;
and mamma has to make all sorts of evasive excuses; for not a hint, as
you are aware, must be breathed to him about the murder.”

Mr. Carlyle gravely nodded.

“Mamma does so harp about Bethel. And I know that dream arose from
nothing in the world but because she saw him pass the gate yesterday.
Not that she thinks that it was he who did it; unfortunately, there is
no room for that; but she will persist that he had a hand in it in some
way, and he haunts her dreams.”

Mr. Carlyle walked on in silence; indeed there was no reply that he
could make. A cloud had fallen upon the house of Mr. Hare, and it was an
unhappy subject. Barbara continued,--

“But for mamma to have taken it into her head that ‘some evil is going
to happen,’ because she had this dream, and to make herself miserable
over it, is so absurd, that I have felt quite cross with her all day.
Such nonsense, you know, Archibald, to believe that dreams give signs of
what is going to happen, so far behind these enlightened days!”

“Your mamma’s trouble is great, Barbara; and she is not strong.”

“I think all our troubles have been great since--since that dark
evening,” responded Barbara.

“Have you heard from Anne?” inquired Mr. Carlyle, willing to change the
subject.

“Yes, she is very well. What do you think they are going to name the
baby? Anne; after her mamma. So very ugly a name! Anne!”

“I do not think so,” said Mr. Carlyle. “It is simple and unpretending, I
like it much. Look at the long, pretentious names of our family--
Archibald! Cornelia! And yours, too--Barbara! What a mouthful they all
are!”

Barbara contracted her eyebrows. It was equivalent to saying that he did
not like her name.

They reached the gate, and Mr. Carlyle was about to pass out of it when
Barbara laid her hand on his arm to detain him, and spoke in a timid
voice,--

“Archibald!”

“What is it?”

“I have not said a word of thanks to you for this,” she said, touching
the chain and locket; “my tongue seemed tied. Do not deem me
ungrateful.”

“You foolish girl! It is not worth them. There! Now I am paid. Good-
night, Barbara.”

He had bent down and kissed her cheek, swung through the gate, laughing,
and strode away. “Don’t say I never gave you anything,” he turned his
head round to say, “Good-night.”

All her veins were tingling, all her pulses beating; her heart was
throbbing with its sense of bliss. He had never kissed her, that she
could remember, since she was a child. And when she returned indoors,
her spirits were so extravagantly high that Mrs. Hare wondered.

“Ring for the lamp, Barbara, and you can get to your work. But don’t
have the shutters closed; I like to look out on these light nights.”

Barbara, however, did not get to her work; she also, perhaps, liked
“looking out on a light night,” for she sat down at the window. She was
living the last half hour over again. “‘Don’t say I never gave you
anything,’” she murmured; “did he allude to the chain or to the--kiss?
Oh, Archibald, why don’t you say that you love me?”

Mr. Carlyle had been all his life upon intimate terms with the Hare
family. His father’s first wife--for the late lawyer Carlyle had been
twice married--had been a cousin of Justice Hare’s, and this had caused
them to be much together. Archibald, the child of the second Mrs.
Carlyle, had alternately teased and petted Anne and Barbara Hare, boy
fashion. Sometimes he quarreled with the pretty little girls, sometimes
he caressed them, as he would have done had they been his sisters; and
he made no scruple of declaring publicly to the pair that Anne was his
favorite. A gentle, yielding girl she was, like her mother; whereas
Barbara displayed her own will, and it sometimes clashed with young
Carlyle’s.

The clock struck ten. Mrs. Hare took her customary sup of brandy and
water, a small tumbler three parts full. Without it she believed she
could never get to sleep; it deadened unhappy thought, she said.
Barbara, after making it, had turned again to the window, but she did
not resume her seat. She stood right in front of it, her forehead bent
forward against its middle pane. The lamp, casting a bright light, was
behind her, so that her figure might be distinctly observable from the
lawn, had any one been there to look upon it.

She stood there in the midst of dreamland, giving way to all its
enchanting and most delusive fascinations. She saw herself, in
anticipation, the wife of Mr. Carlyle, the envied, thrice envied, of all
West Lynne; for, like as he was the dearest on earth to her heart, so
was he the greatest match in the neighborhood around. Not a mother but
what coveted him for her child, and not a daughter but would have said,
“Yes, and thank you,” to an offer from the attractive Archibald Carlyle.
“I never was sure, quite sure of it till to-night,” murmured Barbara,
caressing the locket, and holding it to her cheek. “I always thought he
meant something, or he might mean nothing: but to give me this--to kiss
me--oh Archibald!”

A pause. Barbara’s eyes were fixed upon the moonlight.

“If he would but say he loved me! If he would but save the suspense of
my aching heart! But it must come; I know it will; and if that
cantankerous toad of a Corny--”

Barbara Hare stopped. What was that, at the far end of the lawn, just in
advance of the shade of the thick trees? Their leaves were not causing
the movement, for it was a still night. It had been there some minutes;
it was evidently a human form. What was it? Surely it was making signs
to her!

Or else it looked as though it was. That was certainly its arm moving,
and now it advanced a pace nearer, and raised something which it wore on
its head--a battered hat with a broad brim, a “wide-awake,” encircled
with a wisp of straw.

Barbara Hare’s heart leaped, as the saying runs, into her mouth, and her
face became deadly white in the moonlight. Her first thought was to
alarm the servants; her second, to be still; for she remembered the fear
and mystery that attached to the house. She went into the hall, shutting
her mamma in the parlor, and stood in the shade of the portico, gazing
still. But the figure evidently followed her movement with its sight,
and the hat was again taken off, and waved violently.

Barbara Hare turned sick with utter terror. She must fathom it; she must
see who, and what it was; for the servants she dared not call, and those
movements were imperative, and might not be disregarded. But she
possessed more innate courage than falls to the lot of some young
ladies.

“Mamma,” she said, returning to the parlor and catching up her shawl,
while striving to speak without emotion. “I shall just walk down the
path and see if papa is coming.”

Mrs. Hare did not reply. She was musing upon other things, in that
quiescent happy mood, which a small portion of spirits will impart to
one weak in body; and Barbara softly closed the door, and stole out
again to the portico. She stood a moment to rally her courage, and again
the hat was waved impatiently.

Barbara Hare commenced her walk towards it in dread unutterable, an
undefined sense of evil filling her sinking heart; mingling with which,
came, with a rush of terror, a fear of that other undefinable evil--the
evil Mrs. Hare had declared was foreboded by her dream.






CHAPTER IV.

THE MOONLIGHT INTERVIEW.

Cold and still looked the old house in the moonbeams. Never was the moon
brighter; it lighted the far-stretching garden, it illuminated even the
weathercock aloft, it shone upon the portico, and upon one who appeared
in it. Stealing to the portico from the house had come Barbara Hare, her
eyes strained in dread affright on the grove of trees at the foot of the
garden. What was it that had stepped out of that grove of trees, and
mysteriously beckoned to her as she stood at the window, turning her
heart to sickness as she gazed? Was it a human being, one to bring more
evil to the house, where so much evil had already fallen? Was it a
supernatural visitant, or was it but a delusion of her own eyesight? Not
the latter, certainly, for the figure was now emerging again, motioning
to her as before; and with a white face and shaking limbs, Barbara
clutched her shawl around her and went down that path in the moonlight.
The beckoning form retreated within the dark recess as she neared it,
and Barbara halted.

“Who and what are you?” she asked, under her breath. “What do you want?”

“Barbara,” was the whispered, eager answer, “don’t you recognize me?”

Too surely she did--the voice at any rate--and a cry escaped her,
telling more of sorrow than of joy, though betraying both. She
penetrated the trees, and burst into tears as one in the dress of a farm
laborer caught her in his arms. In spite of his smock-frock and his
straw-wisped hat, and his false whiskers, black as Erebus, she knew him
for her brother.

“Oh, Richard! Where have you come from? What brings you here?”

“Did you know me, Barbara?” was his rejoinder.

“How was it likely--in this disguise? A thought crossed my mind that it
might be some one from you, and even that made me sick with terror. How
could you run such a risk as to come here?” she added, wringing her
hands. “If you are discovered, it is certain death; death--upon--you
know!”

“Upon the gibbet,” returned Richard Hare. “I do know it, Barbara.”

“Then why risk it? Should mamma see you it will kill her outright.”

“I can’t live on as I am living,” he answered, gloomily. “I have been
working in London ever since--”

“In London!” interrupted Barbara.

“In London, and have never stirred out of it. But it is hard work for
me, and now I have an opportunity of doing better, if I can get a little
money. Perhaps my mother can let me have it; it is what I have come to
ask for.”

“How are you working? What at?”

“In a stable-yard.”

“A stable-yard!” she uttered, in a deeply shocked tone. “Richard!”

“Did you expect it would be as a merchant, or a banker, or perhaps as
secretary to one of her majesty’s ministers--or that I was a gentleman
at large, living on my fortune?” retorted Richard Hare, in a tone of
chafed anguish, painful to hear. “I get twelve shillings a week, and
that has to find me in everything!”

“Poor Richard, poor Richard!” she wailed, caressing his hand and weeping
over it. “Oh, what a miserable night’s work that was! Our only comfort
is, Richard, that you must have committed the deed in madness.”

“I did not commit it at all,” he replied.

“What!” she exclaimed.

“Barbara, I swear that I am innocent; I swear I was not present when the
man was murdered; I swear that from my own positive knowledge, my
eyesight, I know no more who did it than you. The guessing at it is
enough for me; and my guess is as sure and true a one as that the moon
is in the heavens.”

Barbara shivered as she drew close to him. It was a shivering subject.
“You surely do not mean to throw the guilt on Bethel?”

“Bethel!” lightly returned Richard Hare. “He had nothing to do with it.
He was after his gins and his snares, that night, though, poacher as he
is!”

“Bethel is no poacher, Richard.”

“Is he not?” rejoined Richard Hare, significantly. “The truth as to what
he is may come out, some time. Not that I wish it to come out; the man
has done no harm to me, and he may go on poaching with impunity till
doomsday for all I care. He and Locksley--”

“Richard,” interrupted his sister, in a hushed voice, “mamma entertains
one fixed idea, which she cannot put from her. She is certain that
Bethel had something to do with the murder.”

“Then she is wrong. Why should she think so?”

“How the conviction arose at first, I cannot tell you; I do not think
she knows herself. But you remember how weak and fanciful she is, and
since that dreadful night she is always having what she calls ‘dreams’--
meaning that she dreams of the murder. In all these dreams Bethel is
prominent; and she says she feels an absolute certainty that he was, in
some way or other, mixed up in it.”

“Barbara, he was no more mixed up in it than you.”

“And--you say that you were not?”

“I was not even at the cottage at the time; I swear it to you. The man
who did the deed was Thorn.”

“Thorn!” echoed Barbara, lifting her head. “Who is Thorn?”

“I don’t know who. I wish I did; I wish I could unearth him. He was a
friend of Afy’s.”

Barbara threw back her neck with a haughty gesture. “Richard!”

“What?”

“You forget yourself when you mention that name to me.”

“Well,” returned Richard. “It was not to discuss these things that I put
myself in jeopardy; and to assert my innocence can do no good; it cannot
set aside the coroner’s verdict of ‘Wilful murder against Richard Hare,
the younger.’ Is my father as bitter against me as ever?”

“Quite. He never mentions your name, or suffers it to be mentioned; he
gave his orders to the servants that it never was to be spoken in the
house again. Eliza could not, or would not remember, and she persisted
in calling your room ‘Mr. Richard’s.’ I think the woman did it
heedlessly, not maliciously, to provoke papa; she was a good servant,
and had been with us three years you know. The first time she
transgressed, papa warned her; the second, he thundered at her as I
believe nobody else in the world can thunder; and the third he turned
her from the doors, never allowing her to get her bonnet; one of the
others carrying her bonnet and shawl to the gate, and her boxes were
sent away the same day. Papa took an oath--did you hear of it?”

“What oath? He takes many.”

“This was a solemn one, Richard. After the delivery of the verdict, he
took an oath in the justice-room, in the presence of his brother
magistrates, that if he could find you he would deliver you up to
justice, and that he would do it, though you might not turn up for ten
years to come. You know his disposition, Richard, and therefore may be
sure he will keep it. Indeed, it is most dangerous for you to be here.”

“I know that he never treated me as he ought,” cried Richard, bitterly.
“If my health was delicate, causing my poor mother to indulge me, ought
that to have been a reason for his ridiculing me on every possible
occasion, public and private? Had my home been made happier I should not
have sought the society I did elsewhere. Barbara, I must be allowed an
interview with my mother.”

Barbara Hare reflected before she spoke. “I do not see how it can be
managed.”

“Why can’t she come out to me as you have done? Is she up, or in bed?”

“It is impossible to think of it to-night,” returned Barbara in an
alarmed tone. “Papa may be in at any moment; he is spending the evening
at Beauchamp’s.”

“It is hard to have been separated from her for eighteen months, and to
go back without seeing her,” returned Richard. “And about the money? It
is a hundred pounds that I want.”

“You must be here again to-morrow night, Richard; the money, no doubt,
can be yours, but I am not so sure about your seeing mamma. I am
terrified for your safety. But, if it is as you say, that you are
innocent,” she added, after a pause, “could it not be proved?”

“Who is to prove it? The evidence is strong against me; and Thorn, did I
mention him, would be as a myth to other people; nobody knew anything of
him.”

“Is he a myth?” said Barbara, in a low voice.

“Are you and I myths?” retorted Richard. “So, even you doubt me?”

“Richard,” she suddenly exclaimed, “why not tell the whole circumstances
to Archibald Carlyle? If any one can help you, or take measures to
establish your innocence, he can. And you know that he is true as
steel.”

“There’s no other man living should be trusted with the secret that I am
here, except Carlyle. Where is it they suppose that I am, Barbara?”

“Some think that you are dead; some that you are in Australia; the very
uncertainty has nearly killed mamma. A report arose that you had been
seen at Liverpool, in an Australian-bound ship, but we could not trace
it to any foundation.”

“It had none. I dodged my way to London, and there I have been.”

“Working in a stable-yard?”

“I could not do better. I was not brought up to anything, and I did
understand horses. Besides, a man that the police-runners were after
could be more safe in obscurity, considering that he was a gentleman,
than--”

Barbara turned suddenly, and placed her hand upon her brother’s mouth.
“Be silent for your life,” she whispered, “here’s papa.”

Voices were heard approaching the gate--those of Justice Hare and Squire
Pinner. The latter walked on; the former came in. The brother and sister
cowered together, scarcely daring to breathe; you might have heard
Barbara’s heart beating. Mr. Hare closed the gate and walked on up the
path.

“I must go, Richard,” said Barbara, hastily; “I dare not stay another
minute. Be here again to-morrow night, and meanwhile I will see what can
be done.”

She was speeding away, but Richard held her back. “You did not seem to
believe my assertion of innocence. Barbara, we are here alone in the
still night, with God above us; as truly as that you and I must sometime
meet Him face to face, I told you the truth. It was Thorn murdered
Hallijohn, and I had nothing whatever to do with it.”

Barbara broke out of the trees and flew along, but Mr. Hare was already
in, locking and barring the door. “Let me in, papa,” she called out.

The justice opened the door again, and thrusting forth his flaxen wig,
his aquiline nose, and his amazed eyes, gazed at Barbara.

“Halloo! What brings you out at this time of night, young lady?”

“I went down to the gate to look for you,” she panted, “and had--had--
strolled over to the side path. Did you not see me?”

Barbara was truthful by nature and habit; but in such a cause, how could
she avoid dissimulation?

“Thank you, papa,” she said, as she went in.

“You ought to have been in bed an hour ago,” angrily responded Mr.
Justice Hare.






CHAPTER V.

MR. CARLYLE’S OFFICE.

In the centre of West Lynne stood two houses adjoining each other, one
large, the other much smaller. The large one was the Carlyle residence,
and the small one was devoted to the Carlyle offices. The name of
Carlyle bore a lofty standing in the county; Carlyle and Davidson were
known as first-class practitioners; no pettifogging lawyers were they.
It was Carlyle & Davidson in the days gone by; now it was Archibald
Carlyle. The old firm were brothers-in-law--the first Mrs. Carlyle
having been Mr. Davidson’s sister. She had died and left one child. The
second Mrs. Carlyle died when her son was born--Archibald; and his half-
sister reared him, loved him and ruled him. She bore for him all the
authority of a mother; the boy had known no other, and, when a little
child he had called her Mamma Corny. Mamma Corny had done her duty by
him, that was undoubted; but Mamma Corny had never relaxed her rule;
with an iron hand she liked to rule him now, in great things as in
small, just as she had done in the days of his babyhood. And Archibald
generally submitted, for the force of habit is strong. She was a woman
of strong sense, but, in some things, weak of judgment; and the ruling
passions of her life were love of Archibald and love of saving money.
Mr. Davidson had died earlier than Mr. Carlyle, and his fortune--he had
never married--was left equally divided between Cornelia and Archibald.
Archibald was no blood relation to him, but he loved the open-hearted
boy better than his niece Cornelia. Of Mr. Carlyle’s property, a small
portion only was bequeathed to his daughter, the rest to his son; and in
this, perhaps there was justice, since the 20,000 pounds brought to Mr.
Carlyle by his second wife had been chiefly instrumental in the
accumulation of his large fortune.

Miss Carlyle, or, as she was called in town, Miss Corny, had never
married; it was pretty certain she never would; people thought that her
intense love of her young brother kept her single, for it was not likely
that the daughter of the rich Mr. Carlyle had wanted for offers. Other
maidens confess to soft and tender impressions. Not so Miss Carlyle. All
who had approached her with the lovelorn tale, she sent quickly to the
right-about.

Mr. Carlyle was seated in his own private room in his office the morning
after his return from town. His confidential clerk and manager stood
near him. It was Mr. Dill, a little, meek-looking man with a bald head.
He was on the rolls, had been admitted years and years ago, but he had
never set up for himself; perhaps he deemed the post of head manager in
the office of Carlyle & Davidson, with its substantial salary,
sufficient for his ambition; and manager he had been to them when the
present Mr. Carlyle was in long petticoats. He was a single man, and
occupied handsome apartments near.

Between the room of Mr. Carlyle and that of the clerks, was a small
square space or hall, having ingress also from the house passage;
another room opened from it, a narrow one, which was Mr. Dill’s own
peculiar sanctum. Here he saw clients when Mr. Carlyle was out or
engaged, and here he issued private orders. A little window, not larger
than a pane of glass, looked out from the clerk’s office; they called it
old Dill’s peep-hole and wished it anywhere else, for his spectacles
might be discerned at it more frequently than was agreeable. The old
gentleman had a desk, also, in their office, and there he frequently
sat. He was sitting there, in state, this same morning, keeping a sharp
lookout around him, when the door timidly opened, and the pretty face of
Barbara Hare appeared at it, rosy with blushes.

“Can I see Mr. Carlyle?”

Mr. Dill rose from his seat and shook hands with her. She drew him into
the passage and he closed the door. Perhaps he felt surprised, for it
was not the custom for ladies, young and single, to come there after Mr.
Carlyle.

“Presently, Miss Barbara. He is engaged just now. The justices are with
him.”

“The justices!” uttered Barbara, in alarm; “and papa one? Whatever shall
I do? He must not see me. I would not have him see me here for the
world.”

An ominous sound of talking; the justices were evidently coming forth.
Mr. Dill laid hold of Barbara, whisked her through the clerks’ room, not
daring to take her the other way, lest he should encounter them, and
shut her in his own. “What the plague brought papa here at this moment?”
 thought Barbara, whose face was crimson.

A few minutes and Mr. Dill opened the door again. “They are gone now,
and the coast’s clear, Miss Barbara.”

“I don’t know what opinion you must form of me, Mr. Dill,” she
whispered, “but I will tell you, in confidence, that I am here on some
private business for mamma, who was not well enough to come herself. It
is a little private matter that she does not wish papa to know of.”

“Child,” answered the manager, “a lawyer receives visits from many
people; and it is not the place of those about him to ‘think.’”

He opened the door as he spoke, ushered her into the presence of Mr.
Carlyle, and left her. The latter rose in astonishment.

“You must regard me as a client, and pardon my intrusion,” said Barbara,
with a forced laugh, to hide her agitation. “I am here on the part of
mamma--and I nearly met papa in your passage, which terrified me out of
my senses. Mr. Dill shut me into his room.”

Mr. Carlyle motioned to Barbara to seat herself, then resumed his own
seat, beside his table. Barbara could not help noticing how different
his manners were in his office from his evening manners when he was “off
duty.” Here he was the staid, calm man of business.

“I have a strange thing to tell you,” she began, in a whisper, “but--it
is impossible that any one can hear us,” she broke off, with a look of
dread. “It would be--it might be--death!”

“It is quite impossible,” calmly replied Mr. Carlyle. “The doors are
double doors; did you notice that they were?”

Nevertheless, she left her chair and stood close to Mr. Carlyle, resting
her hand upon the table. He rose, of course.

“Richard is here!”

“Richard!” repeated Mr. Carlyle. “At West Lynne!”

“He appeared at the house last night in disguise, and made signs to me
from the grove of trees. You may imagine my alarm. He has been in London
all this while, half starving, working--I feel ashamed to mention it to
you--in a stable-yard. And, oh, Archibald! He says he is innocent.”

Mr. Carlyle made no reply to this. He probably had no faith in the
assertion. “Sit down, Barbara,” he said drawing her chair closer.

Barbara sat down again, but her manner was hurried and nervous. “Is it
quite sure that no stranger will be coming in? It would look so peculiar
to see me here; but mamma was too unwell to come herself--or rather, she
feared papa’s questioning, if he found out that she came.”

“Be at ease,” replied Mr. Carlyle; “this room is sacred from the
intrusion of strangers. What of Richard?”

“He says that he was not in the cottage at the time the murder was
committed; that the person who really did it was a man of the name of
Thorn.”

“What Thorn?” asked Mr. Carlyle, suppressing all signs of incredulity.

“I don’t know; a friend of Afy’s, he said. Archibald, he swore to it in
the most solemn manner; and I believe, as truly as that I am now
repeating it to you, that he was speaking the truth. I want you to see
Richard, if possible; he is coming to the same place to-night. If he can
tell his own tale to you, perhaps you may find out a way by which his
innocence may be made manifest. You are so clever, you can do anything.”

Mr. Carlyle smiled. “Not quite anything, Barbara. Was this the purport
of Richard’s visit--to say this?”

“Oh, no! He thinks it is of no use to say it, for nobody would believe
him against the evidence. He came to ask for a hundred pounds; he says
he has an opportunity of doing better, if he can have that sum. Mamma
has sent me to you; she has not the money by her, and she dare not ask
papa for it, as it is for Richard. She bade me say that if you will
kindly oblige her with the money to-day, she will arrange with you about
the repayment.”

“Do you want it now?” asked Mr. Carlyle. “If so, I must send to the
bank. Dill never keeps much money in the house when I’m away.”

“Not until evening. Can you manage to see Richard?”

“It is hazardous,” mused Mr. Carlyle; “for him, I mean. Still, if he is
to be in the grove to-night, I may as well be there also. What disguise
is he in?”

“A farm laborer’s, the best he could adopt about here, with large black
whiskers. He is stopping about three miles off, he said, in some obscure
hiding-place. And now,” continued Barbara, “I want you to advise me; had
I better inform mamma that Richard is here, or not?”

Mr. Carlyle did not understand, and said so.

“I declare I am bewildered,” she exclaimed. “I should have premised that
I have not yet told mamma it is Richard himself who is here, but that he
has sent a messenger to beg for this money. Would it be advisable to
acquaint her?”

“Why should you not? I think you ought to do so.”

“Then I will; I was fearing the hazard for she is sure to insist upon
seeing him. Richard also wishes for an interview.”

“It is only natural. Mrs. Hare must be thankful to hear so far, that he
is safe.”

“I never saw anything like it,” returned Barbara; “the change is akin to
magic; she says it has put life into her anew. And now for the last
thing; how can we secure papa’s absence from home to-night? It must be
accomplished in some way. You know his temper: were I or mamma to
suggest to him, to go and see some friend, or to go to the club, he
would immediately stop at home. Can you devise any plan? You see I
appeal to you in all my troubles,” she added, “like I and Anne used to
do when we were children.”

It may be questioned if Mr. Carlyle heard the last remark. He had
dropped his eyelids in thought. “Have you told me all?” he asked
presently, lifting them.

“I think so.”

“Then I will consider it over, and--”

“I shall not like to come here again,” interrupted Barbara. “It--it
might excite suspicions; some one might see me, too, and mention it to
papa. Neither ought you to send to our house.”

“Well--contrive to be in the street at four this afternoon. Stay, that’s
your dinner hour; be walking up the street at three, three precisely; I
will meet you.”

He rose, shook hands, and escorted Barbara through the small hall, along
the passage to the house door; a courtesy probably not yet shown to any
client by Mr. Carlyle. The house door closed upon her, and Barbara had
taken one step from it, when something large loomed down upon her, like
a ship in full sail.

She must have been the tallest lady in the world--out of a caravan. A
fine woman in her day, but angular and bony now. Still, in spite of the
angles and the bones, there was majesty in the appearance of Miss
Carlyle.

“Why--what on earth!” began she, “have you been with Archibald for?”

Barbara Hare, wishing Miss Carlyle over in Asia, stammered out the
excuse she had given Mr. Dill.

“Your mamma sent you on business! I never heard of such a thing. Twice I
have been to see Archibald, and twice did Dill answer that he was
engaged and must not be interrupted. I shall make old Dill explain his
meaning for observing a mystery over it to me.”

“There is no mystery,” answered Barbara, feeling quite sick lest Miss
Carlyle should proclaim there was, before the clerks, or her father.
“Mamma wanted Mr. Carlyle’s opinion upon a little private business, and
not feeling well enough to come herself, she sent me.”

Miss Carlyle did not believe a word. “What business?” asked she
unceremoniously.

“It is nothing that could interest you. A trifling matter, relating to a
little money. It’s nothing, indeed.”

“Then, if it’s nothing, why were you closeted so long with Archibald?”

“He was asking the particulars,” replied Barbara, recovering her
equanimity.

Miss Carlyle sniffed, as she invariably did, when dissenting from a
problem. She was sure there was some mystery astir. She turned and
walked down the street with Barbara, but she was none the more likely to
get anything out of her.

Mr. Carlyle returned to his room, deliberated a few moments, and then
rang his bell. A clerk answered it.

“Go to the Buck’s Head. If Mr. Hare and the other magistrates are there,
ask them to step over to me.”

The young man did as he was bid, and came back with the noted justices
at his heels. They obeyed the summons with alacrity, for they believed
they had got themselves into a judicial scrape, and that Mr. Carlyle
alone could get them out of it.

“I will not request you to sit down,” began Mr. Carlyle, “for it is
barely a moment I shall detain you. The more I think about this man’s
having been put in prison, the less I like it; and I have been
considering that you had better all five, come and smoke your pipes at
my house this evening, when we shall have time to discuss what must be
done. Come at seven, not later, and you will find my father’s old jar
replenished with the best broadcut, and half a dozen churchwarden pipes.
Shall it be so?”

The whole five accepted the invitation eagerly. And they were filing out
when Mr. Carlyle laid his finger on the arm of Justice Hare.

“You will be sure to come, Hare,” he whispered. “We could not get on
without you; all heads,” with a slight inclination towards those going
out, “are not gifted with the clear good sense of yours.”

“Sure and certain,” responded the gratified justice; “fire and water
shouldn’t keep me away.”

Soon after Mr. Carlyle was left alone another clerk entered.

“Miss Carlyle is asking to see you, sir, and Colonel Bethel’s come
again.”

“Send in Miss Carlyle first,” was the answer. “What is it, Cornelia?”

“Ah! You may well ask what? Saying this morning that you could not dine
at six, as usual, and then marching off, and never fixing the hour. How
can I give my orders?”

“I thought business would have called me out, but I am not going now. We
will dine a little earlier, though, Cornelia, say a quarter before six.
I have invited--”

“What’s up, Archibald?” interrupted Miss Carlyle.

“Up! Nothing that I know of. I am very busy, Cornelia, and Colonel
Bethel is waiting; I will talk to you at dinner-time. I have invited a
party for to-night.”

“A party!” echoed Miss Carlyle.

“Four or five of the justices are coming in to smoke their pipes. You
must put out your father’s leaden tobacco-box, and--”

“They shan’t come!” screamed Miss Carlyle. “Do you think I’ll be
poisoned with tobacco smoke from a dozen pipes?”

“You need not sit in the room.”

“Nor they either. Clean curtains are just put up throughout the house,
and I’ll have no horrid pipes to blacken them.”

“I’ll buy you some new curtains, Cornelia, if their pipes spoil these,”
 he quietly replied. “And now, Cornelia, I really must beg you to leave
me.”

“When I have come to the bottom of this affair with Barbara Hare,”
 resolutely returned Miss Corny, dropping the point of the contest as to
the pipes. “You are very clever, Archie, but you can’t do me. I asked
Barbara what she came here for; business for mamma, touching money
matters, was her reply. I ask you: to hear your opinion about the scrape
the bench have got into, is yours. Now, it’s neither one nor the other;
and I tell you, Archibald, I’ll hear what it is. I should like to know
what you and Barbara do with a secret between you.”

Mr. Carlyle knew her and her resolute expression well, and he took his
course, to tell her the truth. She was, to borrow the words Barbara had
used to her brother with regard to him, true as steel. Confide to Miss
Carlyle a secret, and she was trustworthy and impervious as he could be;
but let her come to suspect that there was a secret which was being kept
from her, and she would set to work like a ferret, and never stop until
it was unearthed.

Mr. Carlyle bent forward and spoke in a whisper. “I will tell you, if
you wish, Cornelia, but it is not a pleasant thing to hear. Richard Hare
has returned.”

Miss Carlyle looked perfectly aghast. “Richard Hare! Is he mad?”

“It is not a very sane proceeding. He wants money from his mother, and
Mrs. Hare sent Barbara to ask me to manage it for her. No wonder poor
Barbara was flurried and nervous, for there’s danger on all sides.”

“Is he at their house?”

“How could he be there and his father in it? He is in hiding two or
three miles off, disguised as a laborer, and will be at the grove to-
night to receive this money. I have invited the justices to get Mr. Hare
safe away from his own house. If he saw Richard, he would undoubtedly
give him up to justice, and--putting graver considerations aside--that
would be pleasant for neither you nor for me. To have a connection
gibbeted for a willful murder would be an ugly blot on the Carlyle
escutcheon, Cornelia.”

Miss Carlyle sat in silence revolving the news, a contraction on her
ample brow.

“And now you know all, Cornelia, and I do beg you to leave me, for I am
overwhelmed with work to-day.”






CHAPTER VI.

RICHARD HARE, THE YOUNGER.

The bench of justices did not fail to keep their appointment; at seven
o’clock they arrived at Miss Carlyle’s, one following closely upon the
heels of another. The reader may dissent from the expression “Miss
Carlyle’s,” but it is the correct one, for the house was hers, not her
brother’s; though it remained his home, as it had been in his father’s
time, the house was among the property bequeathed to Miss Carlyle.

Miss Carlyle chose to be present in spite of the pipes and the smoke,
and she was soon as deep in the discussion as the justices were. It was
said in the town, that she was as good a lawyer as her father had been;
she undoubtedly possessed sound judgment in legal matters, and quick
penetration. At eight o’clock a servant entered the room and addressed
his master.

“Mr. Dill is asking to see you, sir.”

Mr. Carlyle rose, and came back with an open note in his hand.

“I am sorry to find that I must leave you for half an hour; some
important business has arisen, but I will be back as soon as I can.”

“Who has sent for you;” immediately demanded Miss Corny.

He gave her a quiet look which she interpreted into a warning not to
question. “Mr. Dill is here, and will join you to talk the affair over,”
 he said to his guests. “He knows the law better than I do; but I will
not be long.”

He quitted his house, and walked with a rapid step toward the Grove. The
moon was bright as on the previous evening. After he had left the town
behind him, and was passing the scattered villas already mentioned, he
cast an involuntary glance at the wood, which rose behind them on his
left hand. It was called Abbey Wood, from the circumstance that in old
days an abbey had stood in its vicinity, all traces of which, save
tradition, had passed away. There was one small house, or cottage, just
within the wood, and in that cottage had occurred the murder for which
Richard Hare’s life was in jeopardy. It was no longer occupied, for
nobody would rent it or live in it.

Mr. Carlyle opened the gate of the Grove, and glanced at the trees on
either side of him, but he neither saw nor heard any signs of Richard’s
being concealed there. Barbara was at the window, looking out, and she
came herself and opened the door to Mr. Carlyle.

“Mamma is in the most excited state,” she whispered to him as he
entered. “I knew how it would be.”

“Has he come yet?”

“I have no doubt of it; but he has made no signal.”

Mrs. Hare, feverish and agitated, with a burning spot on her delicate
cheeks, stood by the chair, not occupying it. Mr. Carlyle placed a
pocket-book in her hands. “I have brought it chiefly in notes,” he said:
“they will be easier for him to carry than gold.”

Mrs. Hare answered only by a look of gratitude, and clasped Mr.
Carlyle’s hand in both hers. “Archibald, I must see my boy; how can it
be managed? Must I go into the garden to him, or may he come in here?”

“I think he might come in; you know how bad the night air is for you.
Are the servants astir this evening?”

“Things seem to have turned out quite kindly,” spoke up Barbara. “It
happens to be Anne’s birthday, so mamma sent me just now into the
kitchen with a cake and a bottle of wine, desiring them to drink her
health. I shut the door and told them to make themselves comfortable;
that if we wanted anything we would ring.”

“Then they are safe,” observed Mr. Carlyle, “and Richard may come in.”

“I will go and ascertain whether he is come,” said Barbara.

“Stay where you are, Barbara; I will go myself,” interposed Mr. Carlyle.
“Have the door open when you see us coming up the path.”

Barbara gave a faint cry, and, trembling, clutched the arm of Mr.
Carlyle. “There he is! See! Standing out from the trees, just opposite
this window.”

Mr. Carlyle turned to Mrs. Hare. “I shall not bring him in immediately;
for if I am to have an interview with him, it must be got over first,
that I may go back home to the justices, and keep Mr. Hare all safe.”

He proceeded on his way, gained the trees, and plunged into them; and,
leaning against one, stood Richard Hare. Apart from his disguise, and
the false and fierce black whiskers, he was a blue-eyed, fair, pleasant-
looking young man, slight, and of middle height, and quite as yielding
and gentle as his mother. In her, this mild yieldingness of disposition
was rather a graceful quality; in Richard it was regarded as a
contemptible misfortune. In his boyhood he had been nicknamed Leafy
Dick, and when a stranger inquired why, the answer was that, as a leaf
was swayed by the wind, so he was swayed by everybody about him, never
possessing a will of his own. In short, Richard Hare, though of an
amiable and loving nature, was not over-burdened with what the world
calls brains. Brains he certainly had, but they were not sharp ones.

“Is my mother coming out to me?” asked Richard, after a few interchanged
sentences with Mr. Carlyle.

“No. You are to go indoors. Your father is away, and the servants are
shut up in the kitchen and will not see you. Though if they did, they
could never recognize you in that trim. A fine pair of whiskers,
Richard.”

“Let us go in, then. I am all in a twitter till I get away. Am I to have
the money?”

“Yes, yes. But, Richard, your sister says you wish to disclose to me the
true history of that lamentable night. You had better speak while we are
here.”

“It was Barbara herself wanted you to hear it. I think it of little
moment. If the whole place heard the truth from me, it would do no good,
for I should get no belief--not even from you.”

“Try me, Richard, in as few words as possible.”

“Well, there was a row at home about my going so much to Hallijohn’s.
The governor and my mother thought I went after Afy; perhaps I did, and
perhaps I didn’t. Hallijohn had asked me to lend him my gun, and that
evening, when I went to see Af--when I went to see some one--never mind-
-”

“Richard,” interrupted Mr. Carlyle, “there’s an old saying, and it is
sound advice: ‘Tell the whole truth to your lawyer and your doctor.’ If
I am to judge whether anything can be attempted for you, you must tell
it to me; otherwise, I would rather hear nothing. It shall be sacred
trust.”

“Then, if I must, I must,” returned the yielding Richard. “I did love
the girl. I would have waited till I was my own master to make her my
wife, though it had been for years and years. I could not do it, you
know, in the face of my father’s opposition.”

“Your wife?” rejoined Mr. Carlyle, with some emphasis.

Richard looked surprised. “Why, you don’t suppose I meant anything else!
I wouldn’t have been such a blackguard.”

“Well, go on, Richard. Did she return your love?”

“I can’t be certain. Sometimes I thought she did, sometimes not; she
used to play and shuffle, and she liked too much to be with--him. I
would think her capricious--telling me I must not come this evening, and
I must not come the other; but I found out they were the evenings when
she was expecting him. We were never there together.”

“You forget that you have not indicted ‘him’ by any name, Richard. I am
at fault.”

Richard Hare bent forward till his black whiskers brushed Mr. Carlyle’s
shoulder. “It was that cursed Thorn.”

Mr. Carlyle remembered the name Barbara had mentioned. “Who was Thorn? I
never heard of him.”

“Neither had anybody else, I expect, in West Lynne. He took precious
good care of that. He lives some miles away, and used to come over in
secret.”

“Courting Afy?”

“Yes, he did come courting her,” returned Richard, in a savage tone.
“Distance was no barrier. He would come galloping over at dusk, tie his
horse to a tree in the wood, and pass an hour or two with Afy. In the
house, when her father was not at home; roaming about the woods with
her, when he was.”

“Come to the point, Richard--to the evening.”

“Hallijohn’s gun was out of order, and he requested the loan of mine. I
had made an appointment with Afy to be at her house that evening, and I
went down after dinner, carrying the gun with me. My father called after
me to know where I was going; I said, out with young Beauchamp, not
caring to meet his opposition; and the lie told against me at the
inquest. When I reached Hallijohn’s, going the back way along the
fields, and through the wood-path, as I generally did go, Afy came out,
all reserve, as she could be at times, and said she was unable to
receive me then, that I must go back home. We had a few words about it,
and as we were speaking, Locksley passed, and saw me with the gun in my
hand; but it ended in my giving way. She could do just what she liked
with me, for I loved the very ground she trod on. I gave her the gun,
telling her it was loaded, and she took it indoors, shutting me out. I
did not go away; I had a suspicion that she had got Thorn there, though
she denied it to me; and I hid myself in some trees near the house.
Again Locksley came in view and saw me there, and called out to know why
I was hiding. I shied further off, and did not answer him--what were my
private movements to him?--and that also told against me at the inquest.
Not long afterwards--twenty minutes, perhaps--I heard a shot, which
seemed to be in the direction of the cottage. ‘Somebody having a late
pop at the partridges,’ thought I; for the sun was then setting, and at
the moment I saw Bethel emerge from the trees, and run in the direction
of the cottage. That was the shot that killed Hallijohn.”

There was a pause. Mr. Carlyle looked keenly at Richard there in the
moonlight.

“Very soon, almost in the same moment, as it seemed, some one came
panting and tearing along the path leading from the cottage. It was
Thorn. His appearance startled me: I had never seen a man show more
utter terror. His face was livid, his eyes seemed starting, and his lips
were drawn back from his teeth. Had I been a strong man I should surely
have attacked him. I was mad with jealousy; for I then saw that Afy had
sent me away that she might entertain him.”

“I thought you said this Thorn never came but at dusk,” observed Mr.
Carlyle.

“I never knew him to do so until that evening. All I can say is, he was
there then. He flew along swiftly, and I afterwards heard the sound of
his horse’s hoofs galloping away. I wondered what was up that he should
look so scared, and scutter away as though the deuce was after him; I
wondered whether he had quarreled with Afy. I ran to the house, leaped
up the two steps, and--Carlyle--I fell over the prostrate body of
Hallijohn! He was lying just within, on the kitchen floor, dead. Blood
was round about him, and my gun, just discharged, was thrown near. He
had been shot in the side.”

Richard stopped for breath. Mr. Carlyle did not speak.

“I called to Afy. No one answered. No one was in the lower room; and it
seemed that no one was in the upper. A sort of panic came over me, a
fear. You know they always said at home I was a coward: I could not have
remained another minute with that dead man, had it been to save my own
life. I caught up the gun, and was making off, when--”

“Why did you catch up the gun?” interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

“Ideas pass through our minds quicker than we can speak them, especially
in these sorts of moments,” was the reply of Richard Hare. “Some vague
notion flashed on my brain that my gun ought not to be found near the
murdered body of Hallijohn. I was flying from the door, I say, when
Locksley emerged from the wood, full in view; and what possessed me I
can’t tell, but I did the worst thing I could do--flung the gun indoors
again, and got away, although Locksley called after me to stop.”

“Nothing told against you so much as that,” observed Mr. Carlyle.
“Locksley deposed that he had seen you leave the cottage, gun in hand,
apparently in great commotion; that the moment you saw him, you
hesitated, as from fear, flung back the gun, and escaped.”

Richard stamped his foot. “Aye; and all owing to my cursed cowardice.
They had better have made a woman of me, and brought me up in
petticoats. But let me go on. I came upon Bethel. He was standing in
that half-circle where the trees have been cut. Now I knew that Bethel,
if he had gone straight in the direction of the cottage, must have met
Thorn quitting it. ‘Did you encounter that hound?’ I asked him. ‘What
hound?’ returned Bethel. ‘That fine fellow, that Thorn, who comes after
Afy,’ I answered, for I did not mind mentioning her name in my passion.
‘I don’t know any Thorn,’ returned Bethel, ‘and I did not know anybody
was after Afy but yourself.’ ‘Did you hear a shot?’ I went on. ‘Yes, I
did,’ he replied; ‘I suppose it was Locksley, for he’s about this
evening,’ ‘And I saw you,’ I continued, ‘just at the moment the shot was
fired, turn round the corner in the direction of Hallijohn’s.’ ‘So I
did,’ he said, ‘but only to strike into the wood, a few paces up. What’s
your drift?’ ‘Did you not encounter Thorn, running from the cottage?’ I
persisted. ‘I have encountered no one,’ he said, ‘and I don’t believe
anybody’s about but ourselves and Locksley.’ I quitted him, and came
off,” concluded Richard Hare. “He evidently had not seen Thorn, and knew
nothing.”

“And you decamped the same night, Richard; it was a fatal step.”

“Yes, I was a fool. I thought I’d wait quiet, and see how things turned
out; but you don’t know all. Three or four hours later, I went to the
cottage again, and I managed to get a minute’s speech with Afy. I never
shall forget it; before I could say one syllable she flew out at me,
accusing me of being the murderer of her father, and she fell into
hysterics out there on the grass. The noise brought people from the
house--plenty were in it then--and I retreated. ‘If she can think me
guilty, the world will think me guilty,’ was my argument; and that night
I went right off, to stop in hiding for a day or two, till I saw my way
clear. It never came clear; the coroner’s inquest sat, and the verdict
floored me over. And Afy--but I won’t curse her--fanned the flame
against me by denying that any one had been there that night. ‘She had
been at home,’ she said, ‘and had strolled out at the back door, to the
path that led from West Lynne, and was lingering there when she heard a
shot. Five minutes afterward she returned to the house, and found
Locksley standing over her dead father.’”

Mr. Carlyle remained silent, rapidly running over in his mind the chief
points of Richard Hare’s communication. “Four of you, as I understand
it, were in the vicinity of the cottage that night, and from one or the
other the shot no doubt proceeded. You were at a distance, you say,
Richard; Bethel, also, could not have been--”

“It was not Bethel who did it,” interrupted Richard; “it was an
impossibility. I saw him, as I tell you, in the same moment that the gun
was fired.”

“But now, where was Locksley?”

“It is equally impossible that it could have been Locksley. He was
within my view at the same time, at right angles from me, deep in the
wood, away from the paths altogether. It was Thorn did the deed, beyond
all doubt, and the verdict ought to have been willful murder against
him. Carlyle, I see you don’t believe my story.”

“What you say has startled me, and I must take time to consider whether
I believe it or not,” said Mr. Carlyle, in his straightforward manner.
“The most singular thing is, if you witnessed this, Thorn’s running from
the cottage in the manner you describe, that you did not come forward
and denounce him.”

“I didn’t do it, because I was a fool, a weak coward, as I have been all
my life,” rejoined Richard. “I can’t help it; it was born with me, and
will go with me to my grave. What would my word have availed that it was
Thorn, when there was nobody to corroborate it? And the discharged gun,
mine, was a damnatory proof against me.”

“Another thing strikes me as curious,” cried Mr. Carlyle. “If this man,
Thorn, was in the habit of coming to West Lynne, evening after evening,
how was it that he never was observed? This is the first time I have
heard any stranger’s name mentioned in connection with the affair, or
with Afy.”

“Thorn chose by-roads, and he never came, save that once, but at dusk
and dark. It was evident to me at the time that he was striving to do it
on the secret. I told Afy so, and that it augured no good for her. You
are not attaching credit to what I say, and it is only as I expected;
nevertheless, I swear that I have related the facts. As surely as that
we--I, Thorn, Afy and Hallijohn, must one day meet together before our
Maker, I have told you the truth.”

The words were solemn, their tone earnest, and Mr. Carlyle remained
silent, his thoughts full.

“To what end, else, should I say this?” went on Richard. “It can do me
no service; all the assertion I could put forth would not go a jot
toward clearing me.”

“No, it would not,” assented Mr. Carlyle. “If ever you are cleared, it
must be by proofs. But--I will keep my thought on the matter, and should
anything arise----What sort of a man was this Thorn?”

“In age he might be three or four and twenty, tall and slender; an out-
and-out aristocrat.”

“And his connections? Where did he live?”

“I never knew. Afy, in her boasting way, would say he had come from
Swainson, a ten mile ride.”

“From Swainson?” quickly interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

“Could it be one of the Thorns of Swainson?”

“None of the Thorns that I know. He was a totally different sort of man,
with his perfumed hands, and his rings, and his dainty gloves. That he
was an aristocrat I believe, but of bad taste and style, displaying a
profusion of jewellery.”

A half smile flitted over Carlyle’s face.

“Was it real, Richard?”

“It was. He would wear diamond shirt-studs, diamond rings, diamond pins;
brilliants, all of the first water. My impression was, that he put them
on to dazzle Afy. She told me once that she could be a grander lady, if
she chose, than I could ever make her. ‘A lady on the cross,’ I
answered, ‘but never on the square.’ Thorn was not a man to entertain
honest intentions to one in the station of Afy Hallijohn; but girls are
simple as geese.”

“By your description, it could not have been one of the Thorns of
Swainson. Wealthy tradesmen, fathers of young families, short, stout,
and heavy as Dutchmen, staid and most respectable. Very unlikely men are
they, to run into an expedition of that sort.”

“What expedition?” questioned Richard. “The murder?”

“The riding after Afy. Richard, where is Afy?”

Richard Hare lifted his eyes in surprise. “How should I know? I was just
going to ask you.”

Mr. Carlyle paused. He thought Richard’s answer an evasive one. “She
disappeared immediately after the funeral; and it was thought--in short,
Richard, the neighborhood gave her credit for having gone after and
joined you.”

“No! did they? What a pack of idiots! I have never seen or heard of her,
Carlyle, since that unfortunate night. If she went after anybody, it was
after Thorn.”

“Was the man good-looking?”

“I suppose the world would call him so. Afy thought such an Adonis had
never been coined, out of fable. He had shiny black hair and whiskers,
dark eyes and handsome features. But his vain dandyism spoilt him; would
you believe that his handkerchiefs were soaked in scent? They were of
the finest cambric, silky as a hair, as fine as the one Barbara bought
at Lynneborough and gave a guinea for; only hers had a wreath of
embroidery around it.”

Mr. Carlyle could ascertain no more particulars, and it was time Richard
went indoors. They proceeded up the path. “What a blessing it is the
servants’ windows don’t look this way,” shivered Richard, treading on
Mr. Carlyle’s heels. “If they should be looking out upstairs!”

His apprehensions were groundless, and he entered unseen.

Mr. Carlyle’s part was over; he left the poor banned exile to his short
interview with his hysterical and tearful mother, Richard nearly as
hysterical as she, and made the best of his way home again, pondering
over what he had heard.

The magistrates made a good evening of it. Mr. Carlyle entertained them
to supper--mutton chops and bread and cheese. They took up their pipes
for another whiff when the meal was over, but Miss Carlyle retired to
bed; the smoke, to which she had not been accustomed since her father’s
death, had made her head ache and her eyes smart. About eleven they
wished Mr. Carlyle good-night, and departed, but Mr. Dill, in obedience
to a nod from his superior, remained.

“Sit down a moment, Dill; I want to ask you a question. You are intimate
with the Thorns, of Swainson; do they happen to have any relative, a
nephew or cousin, perhaps, a dandy young fellow?”

“I went over last Sunday fortnight to spend the day with young Jacob,”
 was the answer of Mr. Dill, one wider from the point than he generally
gave. Mr. Carlyle smiled.

“Young Jacob! He must be forty, I suppose.”

“About that. But you and I estimate age differently, Mr. Archibald. They
have no nephew; the old man never had but those two children, Jacob and
Edward. Neither have they any cousin. Rich men they are growing now.
Jacob has set up his carriage.”

Mr. Carlyle mused, but he expected the answer, for neither had he heard
of the brothers Thorn, tanners, curriers, and leather-dressers,
possessing a relative of the name. “Dill,” said he, “something has
arisen which, in my mind, casts a doubt upon Richard Hare’s guilt. I
question whether he had anything to do with the murder.”

Mr. Dill opened his eyes. “But his flight, Mr. Archibald, And his
stopping away?”

“Suspicious circumstances, I grant. Still, I have good cause to doubt.
At the time it happened, some dandy fellow used to come courting Afy
Hallijohn in secret; a tall, slender man, as he is described to me,
bearing the name of Thorn, and living at Swainson. Could it have been
one of the Thorn family?”

“Mr. Archibald!” remonstrated the old clerk; “as if those two respected
gentlemen, with their wives and babies, would come sneaking after that
flyaway Afy!”

“No reflection on them,” returned Mr. Carlyle. “This was a young man,
three or four and twenty, a head taller than either. I thought it might
be a relative.”

“I have repeatedly heard them say that they are alone in the world; that
they are the two last of the name. Depend upon it, it was nobody
connected with them;” and wishing Mr. Carlyle good-night, he departed.

The servant came in to remove the glasses and the obnoxious pipes. Mr.
Carlyle sat in a brown study; presently he looked round at the man.

“Is Joyce gone to bed?”

“No, sir. She is just going.”

“Send her here when you have taken away those things.”

Joyce came in--the upper servant at Miss Carlyle’s. She was of middle
height, and would never see five and thirty again; her forehead was
broad, her gray eyes were deeply set, and her face was pale. Altogether
she was plain, but sensible-looking. She was the half-sister of Afy
Hallijohn.

“Shut the door, Joyce.”

Joyce did as she was bid, came forward, and stood by the table.

“Have you ever heard from your sister, Joyce?” began Mr. Carlyle,
somewhat abruptly.

“No, sir,” was the reply; “I think it would be a wonder if I did hear.”

“Why so?”

“If she would go off after Richard Hare, who had sent her father into
his grave, she would be more likely to hide herself and her doings than
to proclaim them to me, sir.”

“Who was that other, that fine gentleman, who came after her?”

The color mantled in Joyce’s cheeks, and she dropped her voice.

“Sir! Did you hear of him?”

“Not at that time. Since. He came from Swainson, did he not?”

“I believe so, sir. Afy never would say much about him. We did not agree
upon the point. I said a person of his rank would do her no good; and
Afy flew out when I spoke against him.”

Mr. Carlyle caught her up. “His rank. What was his rank?”

“Afy bragged of his being next door to a lord; and he looked like it. I
only saw him once; I had gone home early, and there sat him and Afy. His
white hands were all glittering with rings, and his shirt was finished
off with shining stones where the buttons ought to be.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“Never since, never but once; and I don’t think I should know him if I
did see him. He got up, sir, as soon as I went into the parlor, shook
hands with Afy, and left. A fine, upright man he was, nearly as tall as
you, sir, but very slim. Those soldiers always carry themselves well.”

“How do you know he was a soldier?” quickly rejoined Mr. Carlyle.

“Afy told me so. ‘The Captain’ she used to call him; but she said he was
not a captain yet awhile--the next grade to it, a--a----”

“Lieutenant?” suggested Mr. Carlyle.

“Yes, sir, that was it--Lieutenant Thorn.”

“Joyce,” said Mr. Carlyle, “has it never struck you that Afy is more
likely to have followed Lieutenant Thorn than Richard Hare?”

“No, sir,” answered Joyce; “I have felt certain always that she is with
Richard Hare, and nothing can turn me from the belief. All West Lynne is
convinced of it.”

Mr. Carlyle did not attempt to “turn her from her belief.” He dismissed
her, and sat on still, revolving the case in all its bearings.

Richard Hare’s short interview with his mother had soon terminated. It
lasted but a quarter of an hour, both dreading interruptions from the
servants; and with a hundred pounds in his pocket, and desolation in his
heart, the ill-fated young man once more quitted his childhood’s home.
Mrs. Hare and Barbara watched him steal down the path in the telltale
moonlight, and gain the road, both feeling that those farewell kisses
they had pressed upon his lips would not be renewed for years, and might
not be forever.






CHAPTER VII.

MISS CARLYLE AT HOME.

The church clocks at West Lynne struck eight one lovely morning in July,
and then the bells chimed out, giving token that it was Sunday.

East Lynne had changed owners, and now it was the property of Mr.
Carlyle. He had bought it as it stood, furniture and all; but the
transfer had been conducted with secrecy, and was suspected by none,
save those engaged in the negotiations. Whether Lord Mount Severn
thought it might prevent any one getting on the scent, or whether he
wished to take farewell of a place he had formerly been fond of, certain
it is that he craved a week or two’s visit to it. Mr. Carlyle most
readily and graciously acquiesced; and the earl, his daughter, and
retinue had arrived the previous day.

West Lynne was in ecstacies. It called itself an aristocratic place, and
it indulged hopes that the earl might be intending to confer permanently
the light of his presence, by taking up his residence again at East
Lynne. The toilettes prepared to meet his admiring eyes were prodigious
and pretty Barbara Hare was not the only young lady who had thereby to
encounter the paternal storm.

Miss Carlyle was ready for church at the usual time, plainly, but well
dressed. As she and Archibald were leaving their house, they saw
something looming up the street, flashing and gleaming in the sun. A
pink parasol came first, a pink bonnet and feather came behind it, a
gray brocaded dress and white gloves.

“The vain little idiot!” ejaculated Miss Carlyle. But Barbara smiled up
the street toward them, unconscious of the apostrophe.

“Well done, Barbara!” was the salutation of Miss Carlyle. “The justice
might well call out--you are finer than a sunbeam!”

“Not half so fine as many another in the church will be to-day,”
 responded Barbara, as she lifted her shy blue eyes and blushing face to
answer the greetings of Mr. Carlyle. “West Lynne seems bent on out-
dressing the Lady Isabel. You should have been at the milliner’s
yesterday morning, Miss Carlyle.”

“Is all the finery coming out to-day?” gravely inquired Mr. Carlyle, as
Barbara turned with them toward the church, and he walked by her side
and his sister’s, for he had an objection, almost invincible as a
Frenchman’s, to give his arm to two ladies.

“Of course,” replied Barbara. “First impression is everything, you know,
and the earl and his daughter will be coming to church.”

“Suppose she should not be in peacock’s plumes?” cried Miss Carlyle,
with an imperturbable face.

“Oh! But she is sure to be--if you mean richly dressed,” cried Barbara,
hastily.

“Or, suppose they should not come to church?” laughed Mr. Carlyle. “What
a disappointment to the bonnets and feathers!”

“After all, Barbara, what are they to us, or we to them?” resumed Miss
Carlyle. “We may never meet. We insignificant West Lynne gentry shall
not obtrude ourselves into East Lynne. It would scarcely be fitting--or
be deemed so by the earl and Lady Isabel.”

“That’s just how papa went on,” grumbled Barbara. “He caught sight of
this bonnet yesterday; and when, by way of excuse, I said I had it to
call on them, he asked whether I thought the obscure West Lynne families
would venture to thrust their calls on Lord Mount Severn, as though they
were of the county aristocracy. It was the feather that put him out.”

“It is a very long one,” remarked Miss Carlyle, grimly surveying it.

Barbara was to sit in the Carlyle pew that day, for she thought the
farther she was from the justice the better; there was no knowing but he
might take a sly revengeful cut at the feather in the middle of service,
and so dock its beauty. Scarcely were they seated when some strangers
came quietly up the aisle--a gentleman who limped as he walked, with a
furrowed brow and gray hair; and a young lady. Barbara looked round with
eagerness, but looked away again; they could not be the expected
strangers, the young lady’s dress was too plain--a clear-looking muslin
dress for a hot summer’s day. But the old beadle in his many-caped coat,
was walking before them sideways with his marshalling baton, and he
marshaled them into the East Lynne pew, unoccupied for so many years.

“Who in the world can they be?” whispered Barbara to Miss Carlyle. “That
old stupid is always making a mistake and putting people into the wrong
places.”

“The earl and Lady Isabel.”

The color flushed into Barbara’s face, and she stared at Miss Corny.
“Why, she has no silks, and no feathers, and no anything!” cried
Barbara. “She’s plainer than anybody in the church!”

“Plainer than any of the fine ones--than you, for instance. The earl is
much altered, but I should have known them both anywhere. I should have
known her from the likeness to her poor mother--just the same eyes and
sweet expression.”

Aye, those brown eyes, so full of sweetness and melancholy; few who had
once seen could mistake or forget them; and Barbara Hare, forgetting
where she was, looked at them much that day.

“She is very lovely,” thought Barbara, “and her dress is certainly that
of a lady. I wish I had not had this streaming pink feather. What fine
jackdaws she must deem us all!”

The earl’s carriage, an open barouche, was waiting at the gate, at the
conclusion of the service. He handed his daughter in, and was putting
his gouty foot upon the step to follow her, when he observed Mr.
Carlyle. The earl turned and held out his hand. A man who could purchase
East Lynne was worthy of being received as an equal, though he was but a
country lawyer.

Mr. Carlyle shook hands with the earl, approached the carriage and
raised his hat to Lady Isabel. She bent forward with her pleasant smile,
and put her hand into his.

“I have many things to say to you,” said the earl. “I wish you would go
home with us. If you have nothing better to do, be East Lynne’s guest
for the remainder of the day.”

He smiled peculiarly as he spoke, and Mr. Carlyle echoed it. East
Lynne’s guest! That is what the earl was at present. Mr. Carlyle turned
aside to tell his sister.

“Cornelia, I shall not be home to dinner; I am going with Lord Mount
Severn. Good-day, Barbara.”

Mr. Carlyle stepped into the carriage, was followed by the earl, and it
drove away. The sun shone still, but the day’s brightness had gone out
for Barbara Hare.

“How does he know the earl so well? How does he know Lady Isabel?” she
reiterated in her astonishment.

“Archibald knows something of most people,” replied Miss Corny. “He saw
the earl frequently, when he was in town in the spring, and Lady Isabel
once or twice. What a lovely face hers is!”

Barbara made no reply. She returned home with Miss Carlyle, but her
manner was as absent as her heart, and that had run away to East Lynne.






CHAPTER VIII.

MR. KANE’S CONCERT.

Before Lord Mount Severn had completed the fortnight of his proposed
stay, the gout came on seriously. It was impossible for him to move away
from East Lynne. Mr. Carlyle assured him he was only too pleased that he
should remain as long as might be convenient, and the earl expressed his
acknowledgments; he hoped soon to be re-established on his legs.

But he was not. The gout came, and the gout went--not positively laying
him up in bed, but rendering him unable to leave his rooms; and this
continued until October, when he grew much better. The county families
had been neighborly, calling on the invalid earl, and occasionally
carrying off Lady Isabel, but his chief and constant visitor had been
Mr. Carlyle. The earl had grown to like him in no common degree, and was
disappointed if Mr. Carlyle spent an evening away from him, so that he
became, as it were, quite domesticated with the earl and Isabel. “I am
not quite equal to general society,” he observed to his daughter, “and
it is considerate and kind of Carlyle to come here and cheer my
loneliness.”

“Extremely kind,” said Isabel. “I like him very much, papa.”

“I don’t know anybody that I like half as well,” was the rejoinder of
the earl.

Mr. Carlyle went up as usual the same evening, and, in the course of it,
the earl asked Isabel to sing.

“I will if you wish, papa,” was the reply, “but the piano is so much out
of tune that it is not pleasant to sing to it. Is there any one in West
Lynne who could come here and tune my piano, Mr. Carlyle?” she added,
turning to him.

“Certainly there is. Kane would do it. Shall I send him to-morrow?”

“I should be glad, if it would not be giving you too much trouble. Not
that tuning will benefit it greatly, old thing that it is. Were we to be
much at East Lynne, I should get papa to exchange it for a good one.”

Little thought Lady Isabel that that very piano was Mr. Carlyle’s, and
not hers. The earl coughed, and exchanged a smile and a glance with his
guest.

Mr. Kane was the organist of St. Jude’s church, a man of embarrassment
and sorrow, who had long had a sore fight with the world. When he
arrived at East Lynne, the following day, dispatched by Mr. Carlyle,
Lady Isabel happened to be playing, and she stood by, and watched him
begin his work. She was courteous and affable--she was so to every one--
and the poor music master took courage to speak of his own affairs, and
to prefer a humble request--that she and Lord Mount Severn would
patronize and personally attend a concert he was about to give the
following week. A scarlet blush came into his thin cheeks as he
confessed that he was very poor, could scarcely live, and he was getting
up this concert in his desperate need. If it succeeded well, he could
then go on again; if not, he should be turned out of his home, and his
furniture sold for the two years’ rent he owed--and he had seven
children.

Isabel, all her sympathies awakened, sought the earl. “Oh, papa! I have
to ask you the greatest favor. Will you grant it?”

“Ay, child, you don’t ask them often. What is it?”

“I want you to take me to a concert at West Lynne.”

The earl fell back in surprise, and stared at Isabel. “A concert at West
Lynne!” he laughed. “To hear the rustics scraping the fiddle! My dear
Isabel!”

She poured out what she had just heard, with her own comments and
additions. “Seven children, papa! And if the concert does not succeed he
must give up his home, and turn out into the streets with them--it is,
you see, almost a matter of life or death with him. He is very poor.”

“I am poor myself,” said the earl.

“I was so sorry for him when he was speaking. He kept turning red and
white, and catching up his breath in agitation; it was painful to him to
tell of his embarrassments. I am sure he is a gentleman.”

“Well, you may take a pound’s worth of tickets, Isabel, and give them to
the upper servants. A village concert!”

“Oh, papa, it is not--can’t you see it is not? If we, you and I, will
promise to be present, all the families round West Lynne will attend,
and he will have the room full. They will go because we do--he said so.
Make a sacrifice for once, dearest papa, and go, if it be only for an
hour. I shall enjoy it if there’s nothing but a fiddle and a
tambourine.”

“You gipsy! You are as bad as a professional beggar. There--go and tell
the fellow we will look in for half an hour.”

She flew back to Mr. Kane, her eyes dancing. She spoke quietly, as she
always did, but her own satisfaction gladdened her voice.

“I am happy to tell you that papa has consented. He will take four
tickets and we will attend the concert.”

The tears rushed into Mr. Kane’s eyes; Isabel was not sure but they were
in her own. He was a tall, thin, delicate-looking man, with long, white
fingers, and a long neck. He faltered forth his thanks with an inquiry
whether he might be allowed to state openly that they would be present.

“Tell everybody,” said she, eagerly. “Everybody you come across, if, as
you think, it will be the means of inducing people to attend. I shall
tell all friends who call upon me, and ask them to go.”

When Mr. Carlyle came up in the evening, the earl was temporarily absent
from the room. Isabel began to speak of the concert.

“It is a hazardous venture for Mr. Kane,” observed Mr. Carlyle. “I fear
he will only lose money, and add to his embarrassments.”

“Why do you fear that?” she asked.

“Because, Lady Isabel, nothing gets patronized at West Lynne--nothing
native; and people have heard so long of poor Kane’s necessities, that
they think little of them.”

“Is he so very poor?”

“Very. He is starved half his time.”

“Starved!” repeated Isabel, an expression of perplexity arising to her
face as she looked at Mr. Carlyle, for she scarcely understood him. “Do
you mean that he does not have enough to eat?”

“Of bread he may, but not much better nourishment. His salary, as
organist, is thirty pounds, and he gets a little stray teaching. But he
has his wife and children to keep, and no doubt serves them before
himself. I dare say he scarcely knows what it is to taste meat.”

The words brought a bitter pang to Lady Isabel.

“Not enough to eat! Never to taste meat!” And she, in her carelessness,
her ignorance, her indifference--she scarcely knew what term to give it-
-had not thought to order him a meal in their house of plenty! He had
walked from West Lynne, occupied himself an hour with her piano, and set
off to walk back again, battling with his hunger. A word from her, and a
repast had been set before him out of their superfluities such as he
never sat down to, and that word she had not spoken.

“You are looking grave, Lady Isabel.”

“I’m taking contrition to myself. Never mind, it cannot now be helped,
but it will always be a dark spot on my memory.”

“What is it?”

She lifted her repentant face to his and smiled. “Never mind, I say, Mr.
Carlyle; what is past cannot be recalled. He looks like a gentleman.”

“Who? Kane? A gentleman bred; his father was a clergyman. Kane’s ruin
was his love of music--it prevented his settling to any better paid
profession; his early marriage also was a drawback and kept him down. He
is young still.”

“Mr. Carlyle I would not be one of your West Lynne people for the world.
Here is a young gentleman struggling with adversity, and you won’t put
out your hand to help him!”

He smiled at her warmth. “Some of us will take tickets--I, for one; but
I don’t know about attending the concert. I fear few would do that.”

“Because that’s just the thing that would serve him? If one went,
another would. Well, I shall try and show West Lynne that I don’t take a
lesson from their book; I shall be there before it begins, and never
come out till the last song’s over. I am not too grand to go, if West
Lynne is.”

“You surely do not think of going?”

“I surely do think of it; and papa goes with me--I persuaded him; and I
have given Mr. Kane the promise.”

Mr. Carlyle paused. “I am glad to hear it; it will be a perfect boon to
Kane. If it once gets abroad that Lord Mount Severn and Lady Isabel
intend to honor the concert, there won’t be standing room.”

She danced round with a little gleeful step. “What high and mighty
personages Lord Mount Severn and Lady Isabel seem to be! If you had any
goodness of heart, Mr. Carlyle, you would enlist yourself in the cause
also.”

“I think I will,” he smiled.

“Papa says you hold sway at West Lynne. If you proclaim that you mean to
go, you will induce others.”

“I will proclaim that you do,” he answered; “that will be all
sufficient. But, Lady Isabel, you must not expect much gratification
from the performance.”

“A tambourine will be quite enough for me; I told papa so, I shan’t
think of music; I shall think of poor Mr. Kane. Mr. Carlyle I know you
can be kind if you like; I know you would rather be kind than otherwise-
-it is to be read in your face. Try and do what you can for him.”

“Yes, I will,” he warmly answered.

Mr. Carlyle sold no end of tickets the following day, or rather caused
them to be sold. He praised up the concert far and wide, and proclaimed
that Lord Mount Severn and his daughter would not think of missing it.
Mr. Kane’s house was besieged for tickets, faster than he could write
his signature in their corner; and when Mr. Carlyle went home to
luncheon at midday, which he did not often do, he laid down two at Miss
Corny’s elbow.

“What’s this? Concert tickets! Archibald, you have never gone and bought
these!”

What would she have said had she known that the two were not the extent
of his investment?

“Ten shillings to throw away upon two paltry bits of cardboard!” chafed
Miss Carlyle. “You always were a noodle in money matters, Archibald, and
always will be. I wish I had the keeping of your purse!”

“What I have given will not hurt me, Cornelia, and Kane is badly off.
Think of his troop of children.”

“Oh, dear!” said Miss Corny. “I imagine he should think of them. I
suppose it was his own fault they came. That’s always it. Poor folks get
a heap of children about them, and then ask for pity. I should say it
would be more just if they asked for blame.”

“Well, there the tickets are, bought and paid for, so they may as well
be used. You will go with me, Cornelia.”

“And stick ourselves there upon empty benches, like two geese, and sit
staring and counting the candles! A pleasant evening?”

“You need not fear empty benches. The Mount Severns are going, and West
Lynne is in a fever, racing after tickets. I suppose you have got a--a
cap,” looking at the nondescript article decorating his sister’s head,
“that will be suitable to go in, Cornelia; if not you had better order
one.”

This suggestion put up Miss Carlyle. “Hadn’t you better have your hair
curled, and your coat tails lined with white satin, and a gold opera-
glass, and a cocked hat?” retorted she. “My gracious me! A fine new cap
to go to their mess of a concert in, after paying ten shillings for the
tickets! The world’s coming to something.”

Mr. Carlyle left her and her grumbling to return to the office. Lord
Mount Severn’s carriage was passing at the moment, and Isabel Vane was
within it. She caused it to stop when she saw Mr. Carlyle, and he
advanced to her.

“I have been to Mr. Kane’s myself for the tickets,” said she, with a
beaming look. “I came into West Lynne on purpose. I told the coachman to
find out where he lived, and he did. I thought if the people saw me and
the carriage there, they would guess what I wanted. I do hope he will
have a full concert.”

“I am sure he will,” replied Mr. Carlyle, as he released her hand. And
Lady Isabel signed to the carriage to drive on.

As Mr. Carlyle turned away, he met Otway Bethel, a nephew of Colonel
Bethel’s, who was tolerated in the colonel’s house because he had no
other home, and appeared incapable to making himself one. Some persons
persisted in calling him a gentleman--as he was by birth--others a
mauvais sujet. The two are united sometimes. He was dressed in a
velveteen suit, and had a gun in his hand. Indeed, he was rarely seen
without a gun, being inordinately fond of sport; but, if all tales
whispered were true, he supplied himself with game in other ways than by
shooting, which had the credit of going up to London dealers. For the
last six months or near upon it, he had been away from West Lynne.

“Why, where have you been hiding yourself?” exclaimed Mr. Carlyle. “The
colonel has been inconsolable.”

“Come, no gammon, Carlyle. I have been on the tramp through France and
Germany. Man likes a change sometimes. As to the revered colonel, he
would not be inconsolable if he saw me nailed up in a six-foot box, and
carried out feet foremost.”

“Bethel, I have a question to ask you,” continued Mr. Carlyle, dropping
his light manner and his voice together. “Take your thoughts back to the
night of Hallijohn’s murder.”

“I wish you may get it,” cried Mr. Bethel. “The reminiscence is not
attractive.”

“You’ll do it,” quietly said Mr. Carlyle. “It has been told me, though
it did not appear at the inquest, that Richard Hare held a conversation
with you in the wood a few minutes after the deed was done. Now--”

“Who told you that?” interrupted Bethel.

“That is not the question. My authority is indisputable.”

“It is true that he did. I said nothing about it, for I did not want to
make the case worse against Dick Hare than it already was. He certainly
did accost me, like a man flurried out of his life.”

“Asking if you had seen a certain lover of Afy’s fly from the cottage.
One Thorn.”

“That was the purport. Thorn, Thorn--I think Thorn was the name he
mentioned. My opinion was, that Dick was either wild or acting a part.”

“Now, Bethel, I want you to answer me truly. The question cannot affect
you either way, but I must know whether you did see this Thorn leave the
cottage.”

Bethel shook his head. “I know nothing whatever about any Thorn, and I
saw nobody but Dick Hare. Not but what a dozen Thorns might have run
from the cottage without my seeing them.”

“You heard the shot fired?”

“Yes; but I never gave a thought to mischief. I knew Locksley was in the
wood, and supposed it came from him. I ran across the path, bearing
toward the cottage, and struck into the wood on the other side. By and
by, Dick Hare pitched upon me, like one startled out of his seven
senses, and asked if I had seen Thorn leave the cottage. Thorn--that was
the name.”

“And you had not?”

“I had seen nobody but Dick, excepting Locksley. My impression was, that
nobody else was about; I think so still.”

“But Richard--”

“Now look you here, Carlyle, I won’t do Dick Hare an injury, even by a
single word, if I can help it; and it is of no use setting me on to it.”

“I should be the last to set you on to injure any one, especially
Richard Hare,” rejoined Mr. Carlyle; “and my motive is to do Richard
Hare good, not harm. I hold a suspicion, no matter whence gathered, that
it was not Richard Hare who committed the murder, but another. Can you
throw any light upon the subject?”

“No, I can’t. I have always thought poor wavering Dick was nobody’s
enemy but his own; but, as to throwing any light on that night’s work, I
can’t do it. Cords should not have dragged me to the inquest to give
evidence against Dick, and for that reason I was glad Locksley never let
out that I was on the spot. How the deuce it got about afterward that I
was, I can’t tell; but that was no matter; my evidence did not help on
the verdict. And talking of that, Carlyle, how has it come to your
knowledge that Richard Hare accosted me? I have not opened my lips upon
it to mortal man.”

“It is of no consequence now,” repeated Mr. Carlyle; “I do know it, and
that is sufficient. I was in hopes you had really seen this man Thorn
leave the cottage.”

Otway Bethel shook his head. “I should not lay too much stress upon any
Thorns having been there, were I you, Carlyle. Dick Hare was as one
crazy that night, and might see shapes and forms where there were none.”






CHAPTER IX.

THE SONG AND THE DIRGE.

The concert was to take place on Thursday, and on the following Saturday
Lord Mount Severn intended finally to quit East Lynne. The necessary
preparations for departure were in progress, but when Thursday morning
dawned, it appeared a question whether they would not once more be
rendered nugatory. The house was roused betimes, and Mr. Wainwright, the
surgeon from West Lynne, summoned to the earl’s bedside; he had
experienced another and a violent attack. The peer was exceedingly
annoyed and vexed, and very irritable.

“I may be kept here a week--a month--a fortnight--a month longer, now!”
 he uttered fretfully to Isabel.

“I am very sorry, papa. I dare say you do find East Lynne dull.”

“Dull! That’s not it; I have other reasons for wishing East Lynne to be
quit of us. And now you can’t go to the concert.”

Isabel’s face flushed. “Not go, papa?”

“Why, who is to take you. I can’t get out of bed.”

“Oh, papa, I must be there. Otherwise it would like almost as though--as
though we had announced what we did not mean to perform. You know it was
arranged that we should join the Ducies; the carriage can still take me
to the concert room, and I can go in with them.”

“Just as you please. I thought you would have jumped at any plea for
staying away.”

“Not at all,” laughed Isabel. “I should like West Lynne to see that I
don’t despise Mr. Kane and his concert.”

Later in the day the earl grew alarmingly worse; his paroxysms of pain
were awful. Isabel, who was kept from the room, knew nothing of the
danger, and the earl’s groans did not penetrate to her ears. She dressed
herself in a gleeful mode, full of laughing willfulness, Marvel, her
maid, superintending in stiff displeasure, for the attire chosen did not
meet her approbation. When ready, she went into the earl’s room.

“Shall I do, papa?”

Lord Mount Severn raised his swollen eyelids and drew the clothes from
his flushed face. A shining vision was standing before him, a beauteous
queen, a gleaming fairy; he hardly knew what she looked like. She had
put on a white lace hat and her diamonds; the dress was rich, and the
jewels gleamed from her delicate arms: and her cheeks were flushed and
her curls were flowing.

The earl stared at her in amazement. “How could you dress yourself off
like that for a concert? You are out of yours senses, Isabel.”

“Marvel thinks so, too,” was the gay answer; “she has had a cross face
since I told her what to put on. But I did it on purpose, papa; I
thought I would show those West Lynne people that I think the poor man’s
moment worth going to, and worth dressing for.”

“You will have the whole room gaping at you.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll bring you word all about it. Let them gape.”

“You vain child! You have so dressed yourself to please your vanity.
But, Isabel, you--oooh!”

Isabel started as she stood; the earl’s groan of pain was dreadful.

“An awful twinge, child. There, go along; talking makes me worse.”

“Papa, shall I stay at home with you?” she gravely asked. “Every
consideration should give way to illness. If you would like me to
remain, or if I can do any good, pray let me.”

“Quite the contrary; I had rather you were away. You can do no earthly
good, for I could not have you in the room. Good-bye, darling. If you
see Carlyle, tell him I shall hope to see him to-morrow.”

The room was partly full when Mrs. Ducie, her two daughters, and Lady
Isabel entered, and were conducted to seats by Mr. Kane--seats he had
reserved for them at the upper end, near the orchestra. The same
dazzling vision which had burst on the sight of Lord Mount Severn fell
on that of the audience, in Isabel, with her rich, white dress, her
glittering diamonds, her flowing curls, and her wondrous beauty. The
Misses Ducie, plain girls, in brown silks, turned up their noses worse
than nature had done it for them, and Mrs. Ducie heaved an audible sigh.

“The poor motherless girl is to be pitied, my dears,” she whispered;
“she has nobody to point out to her suitable attire. This ridiculous
decking out must have been Marvel’s doings.”

But she looked like a lily among poppies and sunflowers whether the
“decking out” was ridiculous or not. Was Lord Mount Severn right, when
he accused her of dressing so in self-gratification? Very likely, for
has not the great preacher said that childhood and youth are vanity?

Miss Carlyle, the justice, and Barbara also had seats near the
orchestra; for Miss Carlyle, in West Lynne, was a person to be
considered, and not hidden behind others. Mr. Carlyle, however,
preferred to join the gentlemen who congregated and stood round about
the door inside and out. There was scarcely standing room in the place;
Mr. Kane had, as was anticipated, got a bumper, and the poor man could
have worshipped Lady Isabel, for he knew he owed it to her.

It was very long--country concerts generally are--and was about three
parts over when a powdered head, larger than any cauliflower ever grown,
was discerned ascending the stairs, behind the group of gentlemen; which
head, when it brought its body in full view, was discovered to belong to
one of the footmen of Lord Mount Severn. The calves alone, cased in
their silk stockings, were a sight to be seen; and these calves betook
themselves inside the concert room, with a deprecatory bow for
permission to the gentlemen they had to steer through--and there they
came to a standstill, the cauliflower extending forward and turning
itself about from right to left.

“Well, I’ll be jiffled!” cried an astonished old fox-hunter, who had
been elbowed by the footman; “the cheek these fellows have!”

The fellow in question did not appear, however, to be enjoying any great
amount of cheek just at that moment, for he looked perplexed, humble and
uneasy. Suddenly his eye fell upon Mr. Carlyle, and it lighted up.

“Beg pardon, sir; could you happen to inform me where-abouts my young
lady is sitting?”

“At the other end of the room, near the orchestra.”

“I’m sure I don’t know however I am to get to her, then,” returned the
man more in self-soliloquy than to Mr. Carlyle. “The room is choke full,
and I don’t like crushing by. My lord is taken alarmingly worse, sir,”
 he explained in an awe-stricken tone; “it is feared he is dying.”

Mr. Carlyle was painfully startled.

“His screams of pain were awful, sir. Mr. Wainwright and another doctor
from West Lynne are with him, and an express has gone to Lynneboro’ for
physicians. Mrs. Mason said we were to fetch my young lady right home,
and not lose a moment; and we brought the carriage, sir, Wells galloping
his horses all the way.”

“I will bring Lady Isabel,” said Mr. Carlyle.

“I am sure, sir, I should be under everlasting obligations if you
would,” returned the man.

He worked his way through the concert room--he was tall and slender--
many looking daggers at him, for a pathetic song was just then being
given by a London lady. He disregarded all, and stood before Isabel.

“I thought you were not coming to speak to me to-night. Is it not a
famous room? I am so pleased!”

“More than famous, Lady Isabel,” choosing his words, that they might not
alarm her, “Lord Mount Severn does not find himself so well, and he has
sent the carriage for you.”

“Papa not so well!” she quickly exclaimed.

“Not quite. At any rate, he wishes you to go home. Will you allow me to
pilot you through the room?”

“Oh, my dear, considerate papa!” she laughed. “He fears I shall be
weary, and would emancipate me before the time. Thank you, Mr. Carlyle,
but I will wait till the conclusion.”

“No, no, Lady Isabel, it is not that. Lord Mount Severn is indeed
worse.”

Her countenance changed to seriousness; but she was not alarmed. “Very
well. When the song is over--not to disturb the room.”

“I think you had better lose no time,” he urged. “Never mind the song
and the room.”

She rose instantly, and put her arm within Mr. Carlyle’s. A hasty word
of explanation to Mrs. Ducie, and he led her away, the room, in its
surprise, making for them what space it might. Many an eye followed
them, but none more curiously and eagerly than Barbara Hare’s. “Where is
he going to take her to?” involuntarily uttered Barbara.

“How should I know?” returned Miss Corny. “Barbara, you have done
nothing but fidget all the night; what’s the matter with you? Folks come
to a concert to listen, not to talk and fidget.”

Isabel’s mantle was procured from the ante-room where it had been left,
and she descended the stairs with Mr. Carlyle. The carriage was drawn up
close to the entrance, and the coachman had his reins gathered, ready to
start. The footman--not the one who had gone upstairs--threw open the
carriage door as he saw her. He was new in the service, a simple country
native, just engaged. She withdrew her arm from Mr. Carlyle’s, and stood
a moment before stepping in, looking at the man.

“Is papa much worse?”

“Oh, yes, my lady; he was screaming shocking. But they think he’ll live
till morning.”

With a sharp cry, she seized the arm of Mr. Carlyle--seized it for
support in her shock of agony. Mr. Carlyle rudely thrust the man away;
he would willingly have flung him at full length on the pavement.

“Oh, Mr. Carlyle, why did you not tell me?” she shivered.

“My dear Lady Isabel, I am grieved that you are told now. But take
comfort; you know how ill he frequently is, and this may be but an
ordinary attack. Step in. I trust we shall find it nothing more.”

“Are you going home with me?”

“Certainly; I shall not leave you to go alone.”

She moved to the other side of the chariot, making room for him.

“Thank you. I will sit outside.”

“But the night is cold.”

“Oh, no.” He closed the door, and took his seat by the coachman; the
footman got up behind, and the carriage sped away. Isabel gathered
herself into her corner, and moaned aloud in her suspense and
helplessness.

The coachman drove rapidly, and soon whipped his horses through the
lodge-gates.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Mason, waited at the hall-door to receive Lady
Isabel. Mr. Carlyle helped her out of the carriage, and gave her his arm
up the steps. She scarcely dared to inquire.

“Is he better? May I go to his room?” she panted.

Yes, the earl was better--better, in so far as that he was quiet and
senseless. She moved hastily toward his chamber. Mr. Carlyle drew the
housekeeper aside.

“Is there any hope?”

“Not the slightest, sir. He is dying.”

The earl knew no one; pain was gone for the present, and he lay on his
bed, calm; but his face, which had death in it all too plainly, startled
Isabel. She did not scream or cry; she was perfectly quiet, save that
she had a fit of shivering.

“Will he soon be better?” she whispered to Mr. Wainwright, who stood
there.

The surgeon coughed. “Well, he--he--we must hope it, my lady.”

“But why does his face look like that? It is pale--gray; I never saw
anybody else look so.”

“He has been in great pain, my lady, and pain leaves its traces on the
countenance.”

Mr. Carlyle, who had come, and was standing by the surgeon, touched his
arm to draw him from the room. He noticed the look on the earl’s face,
and did not like it; he wished to question the surgeon. Lady Isabel saw
that Mr. Carlyle was about to quit the room, and beckoned to him.

“Do not leave the house, Mr. Carlyle. When he wakes up, it may cheer him
to see you here; he liked you very much.”

“I will not leave it, Lady Isabel. I did not think of doing so.”

In time--it seemed an age--the medical men arrived from Lynneborough--
three of them--the groom had thought he could not summon too many. It
was a strange scene they entered upon: the ghastly peer, growing
restless again now, battling with his departing spirit, and the gala
robes, the sparkling gems adorning the young girl watching at his side.
They comprehended the case without difficulty; that she had been
suddenly called from some scene of gayety.

They stooped to look at the earl, and felt his pulse, and touched his
heart, and exchanged a few murmured words with Mr. Wainwright. Isabel
had stood back to give them place, but her anxious eyes followed their
every movement. They did not seem to notice her, and she stepped
forward.

“Can you do anything for him? Will he recover?”

They all turned at the address, and looked at her. One spoke; it was an
evasive answer.

“Tell me the truth!” she implored, with feverish impatience: “you must
not trifle with me. Do you not know me? I am his only child, and I am
here alone.”

The first thing was to get her away from the room, for the great change
was approaching, and the parting struggle between the body and the
spirit might be one of warfare--no sight for her. But in answer to their
suggestion that she should go, she only leaned her head upon the pillow
by her father and moaned in despair.

“She must be got out of the room,” cried one of the physicians, almost
angrily. “Ma’am,” turning suddenly upon Mrs. Mason, “are there no
reserves in the house--no one who can exert influence over the young
lady?”

“She has scarcely any relatives in the world,” replied the housekeeper;
“no near ones; and we happen to be, just now, quite alone.”

But Mr. Carlyle, seeing the urgency of the case, for the earl, with
every minute, grew more excited, approached and whispered her: “You are
as anxious as we can be for your father’s recovery?”

“As anxious!” she uttered reproachfully.

“You know what I would imply. Of course our anxiety can be as nothing to
yours.”

“As nothing--as nothing. I think my heart will break.”

“Then--forgive me--you should not oppose the wishes of his medical
attendants. They wish to be alone with him, and time is being lost.”

She rose up; she placed her hands on her brow, as if to collect the
sense of the words, and then she addressed the doctors,--

“Is it really necessary that I should leave the room--necessary for
him?”

“It is necessary, my lady--absolutely essential.”

She broke into a passion of tears and sobs as Mr. Carlyle lead her to
another apartment.

“He is my dear father; I have but him in the wide world!” she exclaimed.

“I know--I know; I feel for you all that you are feeling. Twenty times
this night I have wished--forgive me the thought--that you were my
sister, so that I might express my sympathy more freely and comfort
you.”

“Tell me the truth, then, why I am kept away. If you can show me
sufficient cause, I will be reasonable and obey; but do not say again I
should be disturbing him, for it is not true.”

“He is too ill for you to see him--his symptoms are too painful. In
fact, it would not be proper; and were you to go in in defiance of
advice, you would regret it all your after life.”

“Is he dying?”

Mr. Carlyle hesitated. Ought he to dissemble with her as the doctors had
done? A strong feeling was upon him that he ought not.

“I trust to you not to deceive me,” she simply said.

“I fear he is--I believe he is.”

She rose up--she grasped his arm in the sudden fear that flashed over
her.

“You are deceiving me, and he is dead!”

“I am not deceiving you, Lady Isabel. He is not dead, but--it may be
very near.”

She laid her face down upon the soft pillow.

“Going forever from me--going forever? Oh, Mr. Carlyle, let me see him
for a minute--just one farewell! Will you not try for me!”

He knew how hopeless it was, but he turned to leave the room.

“I will go and see. But you will remain here quietly--you will not
come.”

She bowed her head in acquiescence, and he closed the door. Had she
indeed been his sister, he would probably have turned the key upon her.
He entered the earl’s chamber, but not many seconds did he remain in it.

“It is over,” he whispered to Mrs. Mason, whom he met in the corridor,
“and Mr. Wainwright is asking for you.”

“You are soon back,” cried Isabel, lifting her head. “May I go?”

He sat down and took her hand, shrinking from his task.

“I wish I could comfort you!” he exclaimed, in a tone of deep emotion.

Her face turned of a ghastly whiteness--as white as another’s not far
away.

“Tell me the worst,” she breathed.

“I have nothing to tell you but the worst. May God support you, dear
Lady Isabel!”

She turned to hide her face and its misery away from him, and a low wail
of anguish broke from her, telling its own tale of despair.

The gray dawn of morning was breaking over the world, advent of another
bustling day in life’s history; but the spirit of William Vane, Earl of
Mount Severn, had soared away from it forever.






CHAPTER X.

THE KEEPERS OF THE DEAD.

Events, between the death of Lord Mount Severn and his interment,
occurred quickly; and to one of them the reader may feel inclined to
demur, as believing that it could have no foundation in fact, in the
actions of real life, but must be a wild creation of the author’s brain.
He would be wrong. The author is no more fond of wild creations than the
reader. The circumstance did take place.

The earl died on Friday morning at daylight. The news spread rapidly. It
generally does on the death of a peer, if he has been of note, whether
good or bad, in the world, and was known in London before the day was
over--the consequence of which was, that by Saturday morning, early, a
shoal of what the late peer would have called harpies, had arrived, to
surround East Lynne. There were creditors of all sorts; for small sums
and for great, for five or ten pounds up to five or ten thousand. Some
were civil, some impatient, some loud and rough and angry; some came to
put in executions on the effects, and some--to arrest the body!

This last act was accomplished cleverly. Two men, each with a remarkably
hooked nose, stole away from the hubbub of the clamorous, and peering
cunningly about, made their way to the side or tradesman’s entrance. A
kitchen-maid answered their gentle appeal at the bell.

“Is the coffin come yet?” said they.

“Coffin--no!” was the girl’s reply. “The shell ain’t here yet. Mr. Jones
didn’t promise that till nine o’clock, and it haven’t gone eight.”

“It won’t be long,” quoth they; “its on its road. We’ll go up to his
lordship’s room, please, and be getting ready for it.”

The girl called the butler. “Two men from Jones’, the undertaker’s,
sir,” announced she. “The shell’s coming on and they want to go up and
make ready for it.”

The butler marshaled them upstairs himself, and introduced them to the
room. “That will do,” said they, as he was about to enter with them, “we
won’t trouble you to wait.” And closing the door upon the unsuspicious
butler, they took up their station on either side of the dead, like a
couple of ill-omened mutes. They had placed an arrest upon the corpse;
it was theirs until their claim was satisfied, and they sat down to thus
watch and secure it. Pleasant occupation!

It may have been an hour later that Lady Isabel, leaving her own
chamber, opened noiselessly that of the dead. She had been in it several
times during the previous day; at first with the housekeeper; afterward,
when the nameless dread was somewhat effaced, alone. But she felt
nervous again this morning, and had gained the bed before she ventured
to lift her eyes from the carpet and encounter the sight. Then she
started, for there sat two strange-looking men--and not attractive men
either.

It darted through her mind that they must be people from the
neighborhood, come to gratify an idle and unpardonable curiosity. Her
first impulse was to summon the butler; her second, to speak to them
herself.

“Do you want anything here?” she quietly said.

“Much obleeged for the inquiry, miss. We are all right.”

The words and tone struck her as being singular in the extreme; and they
kept their seats, too, as though they had a right to be there.

“Why are you here?” she repeated. “What are you doing?”

“Well, miss, I don’t mind telling you, for I suppose you are his
daughter”--pointing his left thumb over his shoulder at the late peer--
“and we hear he have got no other relative anigh him. We have been
obleeged, miss, to perform an unpleasant dooty and secure him.”

The words were like Greek to her, and the men saw that they were.

“He unfortunately owed a slight amount of money, miss--as you, perhaps,
be aware on, and our employers is in, deep. So, as soon as they heard
what had happened, they sent us down to arrest the dead corpse, and we
have done it.”

Amazement, horror, fear, struggled together in the shocked mind of Lady
Isabel. Arrest the dead. She had never heard of a like calamity: nor
could she have believed in such. Arrest it for what purpose? What to do?
To disfigure it?--to sell it? With a panting heart and ashy lips, she
turned from the room. Mrs. Mason happened to be passing near the stairs,
and Isabel flew to her, laying hold of her with both hands, in her
terror, as she burst into a fit of nervous tears.

“Those men--in there!” she gasped.

“What men, my lady?” returned Mrs. Mason, surprised.

“I don’t know; I don’t know. I think they are going to stop there; they
say they have taken papa.”

After a pause of bewildered astonishment, the housekeeper left her
standing where she was, and went to the earl’s chamber, to see if she
could fathom the mystery of the words. Isabel leaned against the
balustrades; partly for support, partly that she seemed afraid to stir
from them; and the ominous disturbances downstairs reached her ears.
Strangers, interlopers, appeared to be in the hall, talking vehemently,
and complaining in bitter tones. More and more terrified, she held her
breath to listen.

“Where’s the good of your seeing the young lady?” cried the butler, in a
tone of remonstrance. “She knows nothing about the earl’s affairs; she
is in grief enough just now, without any other worry.”

“I will see her,” returned a dogged voice. “If she’s too start-up and
mighty to come down and answer a question or two, why I’ll find my way
on to her. Here we are a shameful crowd of us, swindled out of our own,
told there’s nobody we can speak to; nobody here but the young lady, and
she must not be troubled. She didn’t find it trouble to help to spend
our money. She has got no honor and feelings of a lady, if she don’t
come and speak to us. There.”

Repressing her rebellious emotions, Lady Isabel glided partly down the
staircase, and softy called to the butler. “What is all this?” she
asked. “I must know.”

“Oh, my lady, don’t go amongst those rough men! You can’t do any good;
pray go back before they see you. I have sent for Mr. Carlyle, and
expect him here momentarily.”

“Did Papa owe them all money?” she said, shivering.

“I’m afraid he did, my lady.”

She went swiftly on; and passing through the few stragglers in the hall,
entered the dining-room, where the chief mass had congregated, and the
hubbub was loudest. All anger, at least external anger, was hushed at
her sight. She looked so young, so innocent, so childlike in her pretty
morning dress of peach-colored muslin, her fair face shaded by its
falling curls, so little fit to combat with, or understand their
business, that instead of pouring forth complaints, they hushed them
into silence.

“I heard some one calling out that I ought to see you,” she began, her
agitation causing the words to come forth in a jerking manner. “What did
you want with me?”

Then they poured forth their complaints, but not angrily, and she
listened till she grew sick. There were many and formidable claims;
promissory notes and I O Us, overdue bills and underdue bills; heavy
outstanding debts of all sorts, and trifles, comparatively speaking, for
housekeeping, servants’ liveries, out-door servants’ wages, bread and
meat.

What was Isabel Vane to answer? What excuse to offer? What hope or
promise to give? She stood in bewilderment, unable to speak, turning
from one to the other, her sweet eyes full of pity and contrition.

“The fact is, young lady,” spoke up one who bore the exterior of a
gentleman, “we should not have come down troubling you--at least, I can
answer for myself--but his lordship’s men of business, Warburton & Ware,
to whom many of us hastened last evening, told us there would not be a
shilling for anybody unless it could be got from furniture. When it
comes to that, it is ‘first come, first served,’ and I got down by
morning light, and levied an execution.”

“Which was levied before you came,” put in a man who might be brother to
the two upstairs, to judge by his nose. “But what’s such furniture as
this to our claims--if you come to combine ‘em? No more than a bucket of
water is to the Thames.”

“What can I do?” shivered Lady Isabel. “What is it you wish me to do? I
have no money to give you, I--”

“No, miss,” broke in a quiet, pale man; “if report tells me, you are
worse wronged than we are, for you won’t have a roof to put your head
under, or a guinea to call your own.”

“He has been a scoundrel to everybody,” interrupted an intemperate
voice; “he has ruined thousands.”

The speech was hissed down; even they were not men gratuitously to
insult a delicate young lady.

“Perhaps you’ll just answer us a question, miss,” persisted the voice,
in spite of the hisses. “Is there any ready money that can--”

But another person had entered the room--Mr. Carlyle. He caught sight of
the white face and trembling hands of Isabel, and interrupted the last
speaker with scant ceremony.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, in a tone of authority.
“What do you want?”

“If you are a friend of the late peer’s, you ought to know what we
want,” was the response. “We want our debts paid.”

“But this is not the place to come to,” returned Mr. Carlyle; “your
coming here flocking in this extraordinary manner, will do no good. You
must go to Warburton & Ware.”

“We have been to them and received their answer--a cool assurance that
there’ll be nothing for anybody.”

“At any rate, you’ll get nothing here,” observed Mr. Carlyle, to the
assembly, collectively. “Allow me to request that you leave the house at
once.”

It was little likely that they would for him, and they said it.

“Then I warn you of the consequences of a refusal,” quietly said Mr.
Carlyle; “you are trespassing upon a stranger’s property. This house is
not Lord Mount Severn’s; he sold it some time back.”

They knew better. Some laughed, and said these tricks were stale.

“Listen, gentlemen,” rejoined Mr. Carlyle, in the plain, straightforward
manner that carried its own truth. “To make an assertion that could be
disproved when the earl’s affairs come to be investigated, would be
simply foolish. I give you my word of honor as a gentleman--nay, as a
fellow-man--that this estate, with the house and all it contains, passed
months ago, from the hands of Lord Mount Severn; and, during his recent
sojourn here, he was a visitor in it. Go and ask his men of business.”

“Who purchased it?” was the inquiry.

“Mr. Carlyle, of West Lynne. Some of you may possibly know him by
reputation.”

Some of them did.

“A cute young lawyer,” observed a voice; “as his father was before him.”

“I am he,” proceeded Mr. Carlyle; “and, being a ‘cute lawyer,’ as you do
me the honor to decide, you cannot suppose I should risk my money upon
any sale not perfectly safe and legal. I was not an agent in the affair;
I employed agents; for it was my own money that I invested, and East
Lynne is mine.”

“Is the purchase money paid over?” inquired more than one.

“It was paid over at the time--last June.”

“What did Lord Mount Severn do with the money?”

“I do not know,” replied Mr. Carlyle. “I am not cognizant of Lord Mount
Severn’s private affairs.”

Significant murmurs arose. “Strange that the earl should stop two or
three months at a place that wasn’t his.”

“It may appear so to you, but allow me to explain,” returned Mr.
Carlyle. “The earl expressed a wish to pay East Lynne a few days’ visit,
by way of farewell, and I acceded. Before the few days were over, he was
taken ill, and remained, from that time, too ill to quit it. This very
day--this day, gentlemen, as we stand here, was at length fixed for his
departure.”

“And you tell us you bought the furniture?”

“Everything as it stands. You need not doubt my word, for the proofs
will be forthcoming. East Lynne was in the market for sale; I heard of
it, and became the purchaser--just as I might have bought an estate from
any of you. And now, as this is my house, and you have no claim upon me,
I shall be obliged to you to withdraw.”

“Perhaps you’ll claim the horses and carriages next, sir,” cried the man
with the hooked nose.

Mr. Carlyle raised his head haughtily. “What is mine is mine, legally
purchased and paid for--a fair, just price. The carriages and horses I
have nothing to do with; Lord Mount Severn brought them down with him.”

“And I have got a safe watcher over them in the out premises, to see as
they don’t run away,” nodded the man, complacently; “and if I don’t
mistake, there’s a safe watcher over something else upstairs.”

“What a cursed scoundrel Mount Severn was.”

“Whatever he may have been, it does not give you the right to outrage
the feelings of his daughter,” warmly interrupted Mr. Carlyle; “and I
should have thought that men, calling themselves Englishmen, would have
disdained the shame. Allow me, Lady Isabel,” he added, imperatively
taking her hand to lead her from the room. “I will remain and deal with
this business.”

But she hesitated and stopped. The injury her father had done these men
was telling painfully on her sense of right, and she essayed to speak a
word of apology, of sorrow; she thought she ought to do so; she did not
like them to deem her quite heartless. But it was a painful task, and
the color went and came in her pale face, and her breath was labored
with the excess of her tribulation.

“I am very sorry,” she stammered; and with the effort of speaking,
emotion quite got the better of her, and she burst into tears. “I did
not know anything of all this; my father’s affairs were not spoken of
before me. I believe I have not anything; if I had, I would divide it
amongst you as equally as I could. But, should the means ever be in my
power--should money ever be mine, I will thankfully pay all your
claims.”

All your claims! Lady Isabel little thought what that “all” would
comprise. However, such promises, made at such a moment, fell heedlessly
upon the ear. Scarcely one present but felt sympathy and sorrow for her,
and Mr. Carlyle drew her from the room. He closed the door upon the
noisy crew, and then sobs came forth hysterically.

“I am so grieved, Lady Isabel! Had I foreseen this annoyance, you should
have been spared it. Can you go upstairs alone, or shall I call Mrs.
Mason?”

“Oh, yes! I can go alone; I am not ill, only frightened and sick. This
is not the worst,” she shivered. “There are two men up--up--with papa.”

“Up with papa.” Mr. Carlyle was puzzled. He saw that she was shaking
from head to foot, as she stood before him.

“I cannot understand it, and it terrifies me,” she continued, attempting
an explanation. “They are sitting in the room, close to him: they have
taken him, they say.”

A blank, thunderstruck pause. Mr. Carlyle looked at her--he did not
speak; and then he turned and looked at the butler, who was standing
near. But the man only responded by giving his head a half shake, and
Mr. Carlyle saw that it was an ominous one.

“I will clear the house of these,” he said to Lady Isabel, pointing back
to the dining-room, “and then join you upstairs.”

“Two ruffians, sir, and they have got possession of the body,” whispered
the butler in Mr. Carlyle’s ear, as Lady Isabel departed. “They obtained
entrance to the chamber by a sly, deceitful trick, saying they were the
undertaker’s men, and that he can’t be buried unless their claims are
paid, if it’s for a month to come. It has upset all our stomachs, sir;
Mrs. Mason while telling me--for she was the first one to know it--was
as sick as she could be.”

At present Mr. Carlyle returned to the dining-room, and bore the brunt
of the anger of those savage, and it may be said, ill-used men. Not that
it was vented upon him--quite the contrary--but on the memory of the
unhappy peer, who lay overhead. A few had taken the precaution to insure
the earl’s life, and they were the best off. They left the house after a
short space of time; for Mr. Carlyle’s statement was indisputable, and
they knew the law better than to remain, trespassers on his property.

But the custodians of the dead could not be got rid of. Mr. Carlyle
proceeded to the death-chamber, and examined their authority. A similar
case had never occurred under his own observation, though it had under
his father’s, and Mr. Carlyle remembered hearing of it. The body of a
church dignitary, who had died deeply in debt, was arrested as it was
being carried through the cloisters to its grave in the cathedral. These
men, sitting over Lord Mount Severn, enforced heavy claims; and there
they must sit until the arrival of Mr. Vane from Castle Marling--now the
Earl of Mount Severn.

On the following morning, Sunday, Mr. Carlyle proceeded again to East
Lynne, and found, to his surprise, that there was no arrival. Isabel sat
in the breakfast-room alone, the meal on the table untouched, and she
shivering--as it seemed--on a low ottoman before the fire. She looked so
ill that Mr. Carlyle could not forbear remarking upon it.

“I have not slept, and I am very cold,” she answered. “I did not close
my eyes all night, I was so terrified.”

“Terrified at what?” he asked.

“At those men,” she whispered. “It is strange that Mr. Vane has not
come.”

“Is the post in?”

“I don’t know,” she apathetically replied. “I have received nothing.”

She had scarcely spoke when the butler entered with his salver full of
letters, most of them bearing condolence with Lady Isabel. She singled
out one and hastened to open it, for it bore the Castle Marling post-
mark. “It is Mrs. Vane’s handwriting,” she remarked to Mr. Carlyle.

CASTLE MARLING, Saturday.

“MY DEAR ISABEL--I am dreadfully grieved and shocked at the news
conveyed in Mr. Carlyle’s letter to my husband, for he has gone cruising
in his yacht, and I opened it. Goodness knows where he may be, round the
coast somewhere, but he said he should be home for Sunday, and as he is
pretty punctual in keeping his word, I expect him. Be assured he will
not lose a moment in hastening to East Lynne.

“I cannot express what I feel for you, and am too bouleversee to write
more. Try and keep up your spirits, and believe me, dear Isabel, with
sincere sympathy and regret, faithfully yours,

“EMMA MOUNT SEVERN.”

The color came into Isabel’s pale cheek when she read the signature. She
thought, had she been the writer, she should, in that first, early
letter, have still signed herself Emma Vane. Isabel handed the note to
Mr. Carlyle. “It is very unfortunate,” she sighed.

Mr. Carlyle glanced over it as quickly as Mrs. Vane’s illegible writing
allowed him, and drew in his lips in a peculiar manner when he came to
the signature. Perhaps at the same thought which had struck Isabel.

“Had Mrs. Vane been worth a rush, she would have come herself, knowing
your lonely situation,” he uttered, impulsively.

Isabel leaned her head upon her hand. All the difficulties and
embarrassments of her position came crowding on her mind. No orders had
been given in preparation for the funeral, and she felt that she had no
right to give any. The earls of Mount Severn were buried at Mount
Severn; but to take her father thither would involve great expense;
would the present earl sanction that? Since the previous morning, she
seemed to have grown old in the world’s experience; her ideas were
changed, the bent of her thoughts had been violently turned from its
course. Instead of being a young lady of high position, of wealth and
rank, she appeared to herself more in the light of an unfortunate pauper
and interloper in the house she was inhabiting. It has been the custom
in romance to present young ladies, especially if they be handsome and
interesting, as being entirely oblivious of matter-of-fact cares and
necessities, supremely indifferent to future prospects of poverty--
poverty that brings hunger and thirst and cold and nakedness; but, be
assured, this apathy never existed in real life. Isabel Vane’s grief for
her father--whom, whatever may have been the aspect he wore for others,
she had deeply loved and reverenced--was sharply poignant; but in the
midst of that grief, and of the singular troubles his death had brought
forth, she could not shut her eyes to her own future. Its blank
uncertainty, its shadowed-forth embarrassments did obtrude themselves
and the words of that plain-speaking creditor kept ringing in her ears:
“You won’t have a roof to put your head under, or a guinea to call your
own.” Where was she to go? With whom to live? She was in Mr. Carlyle’s
house now. And how was she to pay the servants? Money was owing to them
all.

“Mr. Carlyle, how long has this house been yours?” she asked, breaking
the silence.

“It was in June that the purchase was completed. Did Lord Mount Severn
never tell you he had sold it to me?”

“No, never. All these things are yours?” glancing round the room.

“The furniture was sold with the house. Not these sort of things,” he
added, his eye falling on the silver on the breakfast table; “not the
plate and linen.”

“Not the plate and linen! Then those poor men who were here yesterday
have a right to them,” she quickly cried.

“I scarcely know. I believe the plate goes with the entail--and the
jewels go also. The linen cannot be of consequence either way.”

“Are my clothes my own?”

He smiled as he looked at her; smiled at her simplicity, and assured her
that they were nobody’s else.

“I did not know,” she sighed; “I did not understand. So many strange
things have happened in the last day or two, that I seem to understand
nothing.”

Indeed, she could not understand. She had no definite ideas on the
subject of this transfer of East Lynne to Mr. Carlyle; plenty of
indefinite ones, and they were haunting her. Fears of debt to him, and
of the house and its contents being handed over to him in liquidation,
perhaps only partial, were working in her brain.

“Does my father owe you any money?” she breathed in a timid tone.

“Not any,” he replied. “Lord Mount Severn was never indebted to me in
his life.”

“Yet you purchased East Lynne?”

“As any one else might have done,” he answered, discerning the drift of
her thoughts. “I was in search of an eligible estate to invest money in,
and East Lynne suited me.”

“I feel my position, Mr. Carlyle,” she resumed, the rebellious tears
forcing themselves to her eyes; “thus to be intruding upon you for a
shelter. And I cannot help myself.”

“You can help grieving me,” he gently answered, “which you do much when
you talk of obligation. The obligation is on my side, Lady Isabel; and
when I express a hope that you will continue at East Lynne while it can
be of service, however prolonged that period may be, I assure you, I say
it in all sincerity.”

“You are very kind,” she faltered; “and for a few days; until I can
think; until--Oh, Mr. Carlyle, are papa’s affairs really so bad as they
said yesterday?” she broke off, her perplexities recurring to her with
vehement force. “Is there nothing left?”

Now Mr. Carlyle might have given the evasive assurance that there would
be plenty left, just to tranquilize her. But to have used deceit with
her would have pricked against every feeling of his nature; and he saw
how implicitly she relied upon his truth.

“I fear things are not very bright,” he answered. “That is, so far as we
can see at present. But there may have been some settlement effected for
you that you do not know of. Warburton & Ware--”

“No,” she interrupted: “I never heard of a settlement, and I am sure
there is none. I see the worst plainly. I have no home, no home and no
money. This house is yours; the town house and Mount Severn go to Mr.
Vane; and I have nothing.”

“But surely Mr. Vane will be delighted to welcome you to your old home.
The houses pass to him--it almost seems as though you had the greater
right in them, than he or Mrs. Vane.”

“My home with them!” she retorted, as if the words had stung her. “What
are you saying, Mr. Carlyle?”

“I beg your pardon, Lady Isabel. I should not have presumed to touch
upon these points myself, but--”

“Nay, I think I ought to beg yours,” she interrupted, more calmly. “I am
only grateful for the interest you take in them--the kindness you have
shown. But I could not make my home with Mrs. Vane.”

Mr. Carlyle rose. He could do no good by remaining, and did not think it
well to intrude longer. He suggested that it might be more pleasant if
Isabel had a friend with her; Mrs. Ducie would no doubt be willing to
come, and she was a kind, motherly woman.

Isabel shook her head with a passing shudder. “Have strangers, here,
with--all--that--in papa’s chamber!” she uttered. “Mrs. Ducie drove over
yesterday, perhaps to remain--I don’t know; but I was afraid of
questions, and would not see her. When I think of--that--I feel thankful
that I am alone.”

The housekeeper stopped Mr. Carlyle as he was going out.

“Sir, what is the news from Castle Marling? Pound said there was a
letter. Is Mr. Vane coming?”

“He was out yachting. Mrs. Vane expected him home yesterday, so it is to
be hoped he will be here to-day.”

“Whatever will be done if he does not come?” she breathed. “The leaden
coffin ought to be soldered down, for you know, sir, the state he was in
when he died.”

“It can be soldered down without Mr. Vane.”

“Of course--without Mr. Vane. It’s not that, sir. Will those men allow
it to be done? The undertakers were here this morning at daybreak, and
those men intimated that they were not going to lose sight of the dead.
The words sounded significant to us, but we asked them no questions.
Have they a right to prevent it, sir?”

“Upon my word I cannot tell,” replied Mr. Carlyle. “The proceeding is so
rare a one, that I know little what right of law they have or have not.
Do not mention this to Lady Isabel. And when Mr. Va--when Lord Mount
Severn arrives, send down to apprise me of it.”






CHAPTER XI.

THE NEW PEER--THE BANK-NOTE

A post-chaise was discerned thundering up the avenue that Sunday
afternoon. It contained the new peer, Lord Mount Severn. The more direct
line of rail from Castle Marling, brought him only to within five miles
of West Lynne, and thence he had travelled in a hired chaise. Mr.
Carlyle soon joined him, and almost at the same time Mr. Warburton
arrived from London. Absence from town at the period of the earl’s death
had prevented Mr. Warburton’s earlier attendance. Business was entered
upon immediately.

The present earl knew that his predecessor had been an embarrassed man,
but he had no conception of the extent of the evil; they had not been
intimate, and rarely came in contact. As the various items of news were
now detailed to him--the wasteful expenditure, the disastrous ruin, the
total absence of provision for Isabel--he stood petrified and aghast. He
was a tall stout man, of three-and-forty years, his nature honorable,
his manner cold, and his countenance severe.

“It is the most iniquitous piece of business I ever heard of!” he
exclaimed to the two lawyers. “Of all the reckless fools, Mount Severn
must have been the worst!”

“Unpardonably improvident as regards his daughter,” was the assenting
remark.

“Improvident! It must have been rank madness!” retorted the earl. “No
man in his senses could leave a child to the mercy of the world, as he
has left her. She has not a shilling--literally, not a shilling in her
possession. I put the question to her, what money there was in the house
when the earl died. Twenty or twenty-five pounds, she answered, which
she had given to Mason, who required it for housekeeping purposes. If
the girl wants a yard of ribbon for herself, she has not the pence to
pay for it! Can you realize such a case to the mind?” continued the
excited peer. “I will stake my veracity that such a one never occurred
yet.”

“No money for her own personal wants!” exclaimed Mr. Carlyle.

“Not a halfpenny in the world. And there are no funds, and will be none,
that I can see, for her to draw upon.”

“Quite correct, my lord,” nodded Mr. Warburton. “The entailed estates go
to you, and what trifling matter of personal property may be left the
creditors will take care of.”

“I understand East Lynne is yours,” cried the earl, turning sharply upon
Mr. Carlyle; “Isabel has just said so.”

“It is,” was the reply. “It became mine last June. I believe his
lordship kept the fact a close secret.”

“He was obliged to keep it a secret,” interposed Mr. Warburton,
addressing Lord Mount Severn, “for not a stiver of the purchase money
could he have fingered had it got wind. Except ourselves and Mr.
Carlyle’s agents, the fact was made known to none.”

“It is strange, sir, that you could not urge the claims of his child
upon the earl,” rejoined the new peer to Mr. Warburton, his tone one of
harsh reproof. “You were in his confidence; you knew the state of his
affairs; it was in your line of duty to do it.”

“Knowing the state of his affairs, my lord, we knew how useless the
urging it would be,” returned Mr. Warburton. “Your lordship has but a
faint idea of the burdens Lord Mount Severn had upon him. The interest
alone upon his debts was frightful--and the deuce’s own work it was to
get it. Not to speak of the kites he let loose; he would fly them, and
nothing could stop him; and they had to be provided for.”

“Oh, I know,” replied the earl, with a gesture of contempt. “Drawing one
bill to cover another; that was his system.”

“Draw!” echoed Mr. Warburton. “He would have drawn a bill on Aldgate
pump. It was a downright mania with him.”

“Urged to it by his necessities, I conclude,” put in Mr. Carlyle.

“He had no business to have such necessities, sir,” cried the earl,
wrathfully. “But let us proceed to business. What money is there lying
at his banker’s, Mr. Warburton? Do you know?”

“None,” was the blank reply. “We overdrew the account ourselves, a
fortnight ago, to meet one of his pressing liabilities. We hold a
little; and, had he lived a week or two longer, the autumn rents would
have been paid in--though they must have been as quickly paid out
again.”

“I’m glad there’s something. What is the amount?”

“My lord,” answered Mr. Warburton, shaking his head in a self-condoling
manner, “I am sorry to tell you that what we hold will not half satisfy
our own claims; money actually paid out of our pockets.”

“Then where on earth is the money to come from, sir? For the funeral--
for the servants’ wages--for everything, in fact?”

“There is none to come from anywhere,” was the reply of Mr. Warburton.

Lord Mount Severn strode the carpet more fiercely. “Wicked improvidence!
Shameful profligacy; callous-hearted man! To live a rogue and die a
beggar--leaving his daughter to the charity of strangers!”

“Her case presents the worst feature of the whole,” remarked Mr.
Carlyle. “What will she do for a home?”

“She must, of course, find it with me,” replied his lordship; “and, I
should hope, a better one than this. With all these debts and duns at
his elbow, Mount Severn’s house could not have been a bower of roses.”

“I fancy she knew nothing of the state of affairs; had seen little, if
anything, of the embarrassments,” returned Mr. Carlyle.

“Nonsense!” said the peer.

“Mr. Carlyle is right, my lord,” observed Mr. Warburton, looking over
his spectacles. “Lady Isabel was in safety at Mount Severn till the
spring, and the purchase money from East Lynne--what the earl could
touch of it--was a stop-gap for many things, and made matters easy for
the moment. However, his imprudences are at an end now.”

“No, they are not at an end,” returned Lord Mount Severn; “they leave
their effects behind them. I hear there was a fine scene yesterday
morning; some of the unfortunate wretches he has taken in made their
appearance here, all the way from town.”

“Oh, they are Jews half of them,” slightingly spoke Mr. Warburton. “If
they do lose a little, it will be an agreeable novelty to them.”

“Jews have as much right to their own as we have, Mr. Warburton,” was
the peer’s angry reprimand. “And if they were Turks and infidels, it
would not excuse Mount Severn’s practices. Isabel says it was you, Mr.
Carlyle, who contrived to get rid of them.”

“By convincing them that East Lynne and its furniture belonged to me.
But there are those two men upstairs, in possession of--of him; I could
not get rid of them.”

The earl looked at him. “I do not understand you.”

“Did you not know that they have seized the corpse?” asked Mr. Carlyle,
dropping his voice. “Two men have been posted over it, like sentinels,
since yesterday morning. And there’s a third in the house, I hear, who
relieves each other by turn, that they may go down in the hall and take
their meals.”

The earl had halted in his walk and drawn near to Mr. Carlyle, his mouth
open, his face a marvel of consternation. “By George!” was all Mr.
Warburton uttered, and snatched off his glasses.

“Mr. Carlyle, do I understand you aright--that the body of the late earl
has been seized for a debt?” demanded the peer, solemnly. “Seize a dead
body! Am I awake or dreaming?”

“It is what they have done. They got into the room by stratagem.”

“Is it possible that transactions so infamous are permitted by our law?”
 ejaculated the earl. “Arrest a dead man! I never heard of such a thing.
I am shocked beyond expression. Isabel said something about two men, I
remember; but she was so full of grief and agitation altogether, that I
but half comprehended what she did say upon the subject. Why, what will
be done? Can’t we bury him?”

“I fancy not. The housekeeper told me, this morning, she feared they
would not even suffer the coffin to be closed down. And that ought to be
done with all convenient speed.”

“It is perfectly horrible!” uttered the earl.

“Who has done it--do you know?” inquired Mr. Warburton.

“Somebody of the name of Anstey,” replied Mr. Carlyle. “In the absence
of any member of the family, I took upon myself to pay the chamber a
visit and examine into the men’s authority. The claim is about three
thousand pounds.”

“If it’s Anstey who has done it it is a personal debt of the earl’s,
really owing, every pound of it,” observed Mr. Warburton. “A sharp man,
though, that Anstey, to hit upon such a scheme.”

“And a shameless and a scandalous man,” added Lord Mount Severn. “Well,
this is a pretty thing. What’s to be done?”

While they consult, let us look for a moment at Lady Isabel. She sat
alone, in great perplexity, indulging the deepest grief. Lord Mount
Severn had intimated to her, kindly and affectionately, that henceforth
she must find her home with him and his wife. Isabel returned a faint
“Thank you” and as soon as he left her, burst into a paroxysm of
rebellious tears. “Have her home with Mrs. Vane!” she uttered to her own
heart; “No, never; rather would she die--rather would she eat a crust
and drink water!” and so on, and so on. Young demoiselles are somewhat
prone to indulge in these flights of fancy; but they are in most cases
impracticable and foolish--exceedingly so in that of Lady Isabel Vane.
Work for their living? It may appear very feasible in theory; but theory
and practice are as opposite as light and dark. The plain fact was, that
Isabel had no alternative whatever, save that of accepting a home with
Lady Mount Severn; and the conviction that it must be so stole over her
spirit, even while her hasty lips were protesting that she would not.

Two mourners only attended the funeral--the earl and Mr. Carlyle. The
latter was no relative of the deceased, and but a very recent friend;
but the earl had invited him, probably not liking the parading, solus,
his trappings of woe. Some of the county aristocracy were pallbearers,
and many private carriages followed.

All was bustle on the following morning. The earl was to depart, and
Isabel was to depart, but not together. In the course of the day the
domestics would disperse. The earl was speeding to London, and the
chaise to convey him to the railway station at West Lynne was already at
the door when Mr. Carlyle arrived.

“I was getting fidgety fearing you would not be here, for I have barely
five minutes to spare,” observed the earl, as he shook hands. “You are
sure you fully understood about the tombstone?”

“Perfectly,” replied Mr. Carlyle. “How is Lady Isabel?”

“Very down-hearted, I fear, poor child, for she did not breakfast with
me,” replied the earl. “Mason privately told me that she was in a
convulsion of grief. A bad man, a bad man, was Mount Severn,” he
emphatically added, as he rose and rang the bell.

“Let Lady Isabel be informed that I am ready to depart, and that I wait
to see her,” he said to the servant who answered it. “And while she is
coming, Mr. Carlyle,” he added, “allow me to express my obligations to
you. How I should have got along in this worrying business without you,
I cannot divine. You have promised, mind, to pay me a visit, and I shall
expect it speedily.”

“Promised conditionally--that I find myself in your neighborhood,”
 smiled Mr. Carlyle. “Should--”

Isabel entered, dressed also, and ready, for she was to depart
immediately after the earl. Her crape veil was over her face, but she
threw it back.

“My time is up, Isabel, and I must go. Is there anything you wish to say
to me?”

She opened her lips to speak, but glanced at Mr. Carlyle and hesitated.
He was standing at the window, his back towards them.

“I suppose not,” said the earl, answering himself, for he was in a fever
of hurry to be off, like many others are when starting on a journey.
“You will have no trouble whatever, my dear; only mind you get some
refreshments in the middle of the day, for you won’t be at Castle
Marling before dinner-time. Tell Mrs. Va--tell Lady Mount Severn that I
had no time to write, but will do so from town.”

But Isabel stood before him in an attitude of uncertainty--of
expectancy, it may be said, her color varying.

“What is it, you wish to say something?”

She certainly did wish to say something, but she did not know how. It
was a moment of embarrassment to her, intensely painful, and the
presence of Mr. Carlyle did not tend to lessen it. The latter had no
idea his absence was wished for.

“Bless me, Isabel! I declare I forgot all about it,” cried the earl, in
a tone of vexation. “Not being accustomed to--this aspect of affairs is
so new--” He broke off his disjointed sentences, unbuttoned his coat,
drew out his purse, and paused over its contents.

“Isabel, I have run myself very short, and have but little beyond what
will take me to town. You must make three pounds do for now, my dear.
Once at Castle Marling--Pound has the funds for the journey--Lady Mount
Severn will supply you; but you must tell her, or she will not know.”

He shot some gold out of his purse as he spoke, and left two sovereigns
and two half sovereigns on the table. “Farewell, my dear; make yourself
happy at Castle Marling. I shall be home soon.”

Passing from the room with Mr. Carlyle, he stood talking with that
gentleman a minute, his foot on the step of the chaise, and the next was
being whisked away. Mr. Carlyle returned to the breakfast-room, where
Isabel, an ashy whiteness having replaced the crimson on her cheeks, was
picking up the gold.

“Will you do me a favor, Mr. Carlyle?”

“I will do anything I can for you.”

She pushed a sovereign and a half toward him. “It is for Mr. Kane. I
told Marvel to send in and pay him, but it seems she forgot it, or put
it off, and he is not paid. The tickets were a sovereign; the rest is
for tuning the piano. Will you kindly give it him? If I trust one of the
servants it may be forgotten again in the hurry of their departure.”

“Kane’s charge for tuning a piano is five shillings,” remarked Mr.
Carlyle.

“But he was a long time occupied with it, and did something with the
leathers. It is not too much; besides I never ordered him anything to
eat. He wants money even worse than I do,” she added, with a poor
attempt at a smile. “But for thinking of him I should not have mustered
the courage to beg of Lord Mount Severn, as you have just heard me do.
In that case do you know what I should have done?”

“What should you have done?” he smiled.

“I should have asked you to pay him for me, and I would have repaid you
as soon as I had any money. I had a great mind to ask you, do you know;
it would have been less painful than being obliged to beg of Lord Mount
Severn.”

“I hope it would,” he answered, in a low, earnest tone. “What else can I
do for you?”

She was about to answer “Nothing--that he had done enough,” but at that
moment their attention was attracted by a bustle outside, and they moved
to the window.

It was the carriage coming round for Lady Isabel--the late earl’s
chariot, which was to convey her to the railway station six or seven
miles off. It had four post-horses to it, the number having been
designated by Lord Mount Severn, who appeared to wish Isabel to leave
the neighborhood in as much state as she had entered it. The carriage
was packed, and Marvel was perched outside.

“All is ready,” she said, “and the time is come for me to go. Mr.
Carlyle I am going to leave you a legacy--those pretty gold and silver
fish that I bought a few weeks back.”

“But why do you not take them?”

“Take them to Lady Mount Severn! No, I would rather leave them with you.
Throw a few crumbs into the globe now and then.”

Her face was wet with tears, and he knew that she was talking hurriedly
to cover her emotion.

“Sit down a few minutes,” he said.

“No--no. I had better go at once.”

He took her hand to conduct her to the carriage. The servants were
gathered in the hall, waiting for her. Some had grown gray in her
father’s service. She put out her hand, she strove to say a word of
thanks and of farewell, and she thought she would choke at the effort of
keeping down the sobs. At length it was over; a kind look around, a
yearning wave of the hand, and she passed on with Mr. Carlyle.

Pound had ascended to his place by Marvel, and the postboys were
awaiting the signal to start, but Mr. Carlyle had the carriage door open
again, and was bending in holding her hand.

“I have not said a word of thanks to you for all your kindness, Mr.
Carlyle,” she cried, her breath very labored. “I am sure you have seen
that I could not.”

“I wish I could have done more; I wish I could have shielded you from
the annoyances you have been obliged to endure!” he answered. “Should we
never meet again--”

“Oh, but we shall meet again,” she interrupted. “You promised Lord Mount
Severn.”

“True; we may so meet casually--once in a way; but our ordinary paths in
life lie far and wide apart. God forever bless you, dear Lady Isabel!”

The postboys touched their horses, and the carriage sped on. She drew
down the blinds and leaned back in an agony of tears--tears for the
house she was leaving, for the father she had lost. Her last thoughts
had been of gratitude to Mr. Carlyle: but she had more cause to be
grateful to him than she yet knew of. Emotion soon spent itself, and, as
her eyes cleared, she saw a bit of crumpled paper lying on her lap,
which appeared to have fallen from her hand. Mechanically she took it up
and opened it; it was a bank-note for one hundred pounds.

Ah, reader! You will say that this is a romance of fiction, and a far-
fetched one, but it is verily and indeed true. Mr. Carlyle had taken it
with him to East Lynne, that morning, with its destined purpose.

Lady Isabel strained her eyes, and gazed at the note--gazed and gazed
again. Where could it have come from? What had brought it there?
Suddenly the undoubted truth flashed upon her; Mr. Carlyle had left it
in her hand.

Her cheeks burned, her fingers trembled, her angry spirit rose up in
arms. In that first moment of discovery, she was ready to resent it as
an insult; but when she came to remember the sober facts of the last few
days, her anger subsided into admiration of his wondrous kindness. Did
he not know that she was without a home to call her own, without money--
absolutely without money, save what would be given her in charity?

When Lord Mount Severn reached London, and the hotel which the Vanes
were in the habit of using, the first object his eyes lighted on was his
own wife, whom he had believed to be safe at Castle Marling. He inquired
the cause.

Lady Mount Severn gave herself little trouble to explain. She had been
up a day or two--could order her mourning so much better in person--and
William did not seem well, so she brought him up for a change.

“I am sorry you came to town, Emma,” remarked the earl, after listening.
“Isabel is gone to-day to Castle Marling.”

Lady Mount Severn quickly lifted her head, “What’s she gone there for?”

“It is the most disgraceful piece of business altogether,” returned the
earl, without replying to the immediate question. “Mount Severn has
died, worse than a beggar, and there’s not a shilling for Isabel.”

“It never was expected there would be much.”

“But there’s nothing--not a penny; nothing for her own personal
expenses. I gave her a pound or two to-day, for she was completely
destitute!”

The countess opened her eyes. “Where will she live? What will become of
her?”

“She must live with us. She--”

“With us!” interrupted Lady Mount Severn, her voice almost reaching a
scream. “That she never shall.”

“She must, Emma. There is nowhere else for her to live. I have been
obliged to decide it so; and she is gone, as I tell you, to Castle
Marling to-day.”

Lady Mount Severn grew pale with anger. She rose from her seat and
confronted her husband, the table being between them. “Listen, Raymond;
I will not have Isabel Vane under my roof. I hate her. How could you be
cajoled into sanctioning such a thing?”

“I was not cajoled, and my sanction was not asked,” he mildly replied.
“I proposed it. Where else is she to be?”

“I don’t care where,” was the obstinate retort. “Never with us.”

“She is at Castle Marling now--gone to it as her home,” resumed the
earl; “and even you, when you return, will scarcely venture to turn her
out again into the road, or to the workhouse. She will not trouble you
long,” carelessly continued the earl. “One so lovely as Isabel will be
sure to marry early; and she appears as gentle and sweet-tempered a girl
as I ever saw; so whence can arise your dislike to her, I don’t pretend
to guess. Many a man will be ready to forget her want of fortune for the
sake of her face.”

“She shall marry the first who asks her,” snapped the angry lady; “I’ll
take care of that.”






CHAPTER XII.

LIFE AT CASTLE MARLING.

Isabel had been in her new home about ten days, when Lord and Lady Mount
Severn arrived at Castle Marling, which was not a castle, you may as
well be told, but only the name of a town, nearly contiguous to which
was their residence, a small estate. Lord Mount Severn welcomed Isabel;
Lady Mount Severn also, after a fashion; but her manner was so
repellant, so insolently patronizing, that it brought the indignant
crimson to the cheeks of Lady Isabel. And if this was the case at the
first meeting, what do you suppose it must have been as time went on?
Galling slights, petty vexations, chilling annoyances were put upon her,
trying

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