XXIII. CAPTAIN THORN IN TROUBLE ABOUT “A BILL.”…

XXIII. CAPTAIN THORN IN TROUBLE ABOUT “A BILL.”

In talking over a bygone misfortune, we sometimes make the remark, or hear it made to us, “Circumstances worked against it.” Such and such a thing might have turned out differently, we say, had the surrounding circumstances been more favorable, but they were in opposition; they were dead against it. Now, if ever attendant circumstances can be said to have borne a baneful influence upon any person in this world, they most assuredly did at this present time against Lady Isabel Carlyle.

Coeval, you see, with the arrival of the ex-captain, Levison, at East Lynne, all the jealous feeling, touching her husband and Barbara Hare, was renewed, and with greater force than ever. Barbara, painfully anxious that something should be brought to light, it would have puzzled her to say how or by what means, by which her brother should be exonerated from the terrible charge under which he lay; fully believing that Frederick Thorn, captain in her majesty’s service, was the man who had committed the crime, as asserted by Richard, was in a state of excitement bordering upon frenzy. Too keenly she felt the truth of her own words, that she was powerless, that she could, herself, do nothing. When she rose in the morning, after a night passed in troubled reflection more than in sleep, her thoughts were, “Oh, that I could this day find out something certain!” She was often at the Herberts’; frequently invited there--sometimes going uninvited. She and the Herberts were intimate and they pressed Barbara into all the impromptu gay doings, now their brother was at home. There she of course saw Captain Thorn, and now and then she was enabled to pick up scraps of his past history. Eagerly were these scraps carried to Mr. Carlyle. Not at his office; Barbara would not appear there. Perhaps she was afraid of the gossiping tongues of West Lynne, or that her visits might have come to the knowledge of that stern, prying, and questioning old gentleman whom she called sire. It may be too, that she feared, if seen haunting Mr. Carlyle’s office, Captain Thorn might come to hear of it and suspect the agitation, that was afloat--for who could know better than he, the guilt that was falsely attaching to Richard? Therefore she chose rather to go to East Lynne, or to waylay Mr. Carlyle as he passed to and from business. It was little she gathered to tell him; one evening she met him with the news that Mr. Thorn had been in former years at West Lynne, though she could not fix the date; another time she went boldly to East Lynne in eager anxiety, ostensibly to make a call on Lady Isabel--and a very restless one it was--contriving to make Mr. Carlyle understand that she wanted to see him alone. He went out with her when she departed, and accompanied her as far as the park gates, the two evidently absorbed in earnest converse. Lady Isabel’s jealous eye saw that. The communication Barbara had to make was, that Captain Thorn had let fall the avowal that he had once been “in trouble,” though of its nature there was no indication given. Another journey of hers took the scrap of news that she had discovered he knew Swainson well. Part of this, nay, perhaps the whole of it, Mr. Carlyle had found out for himself; nevertheless he always received Barbara with vivid interest. Richard Hare was related to Miss Carlyle, and if his innocence could be made clear in the sight of men, it would be little less gratifying to them than to the Hares. Of Richard’s innocence, Mr. Carlyle now entertained little, if any doubt, and he was becoming impressed with the guilt of Captain Thorn. The latter spoke mysteriously of a portion of his past life--when he could be brought to speak of it at all--and he bore evidently some secret that he did not care to have alluded to.

But now look at the mean treachery of that man, Francis Levison! The few meetings that Lady Isabel did witness between her husband and Barbara would have been quite enough to excite her anger and jealousy, to trouble her peace; but, in addition, Francis Levison took care to tell her of those she did not see. It pleased him--he could best tell with what motive--to watch the movements of Mr. Carlyle and Barbara. There was a hedge pathway through the fields, on the opposite side of the road to the residence of Justice Hare, and as Mr. Carlyle walked down the road to business in his unsuspicion (not one time in fifty did he choose to ride; the walk to and fro kept him in health, he said), Captain Levison would be strolling down like a serpent behind the hedge, watching all his movements, watching his interviews with Barbara, did any take place, watching Mr. Carlyle turn into the grove, as he sometimes did, and perhaps watch Barbara run out of the house to meet him. It was all related over, and with miserable exaggeration, to Lady Isabel, whose jealousy, as a natural sequence, grew feverish in its extent.

It is scarcely necessary to explain, that of this feeling of Lady Isabel’s Barbara knew nothing; not a shadow of suspicion had ever penetrated to her mind that Lady Isabel was jealous of her. Had she been told that such was the fact, she would have laughed in derision at her informant. Mr. Carlyle’s happy wife, proudly secure in her position and in his affection, jealous of her! of her, to whom he had never given an admiring look or a loving word! It would have taken a great deal to make Barbara believe that.

How different were the facts in reality. These meetings of Mr. Carlyle’s and Barbara’s, instead of episodes of love-making and tender speeches, were positively painful, especially to Barbara, from the unhappy nature of the subject to be discussed. Far from feeling a reprehensible pleasure at seeking the meetings with Mr. Carlyle, Barbara shrank from them; but that she was urged by dire necessity, in the interests of Richard, she would wholly have avoided such. Poor Barbara, in spite of that explosion of bottled-up excitement years back, was a lady, possessed of a lady’s ideas and feelings, and--remembering the explosion--it did not accord with her pride at all to be pushing herself into what might be called secret meetings with Archibald Carlyle. But Barbara, in her sisterly love, pressed down all thought of self, and went perseveringly forward for Richard’s sake.

Mr. Carlyle was seated one morning in his private room at his office, when his head clerk, Mr. Dill came in. “A gentleman is asking to see you, Mr. Archibald.”

“I am too busy to see anybody for this hour to come. You know that, Dill.”

“So I told him, sir, and he says he’ll wait. It is that Captain Thorn who is staying here with John Herbert.”

Mr. Carlyle raised his eyes, and they encountered those of the old man; a peculiar expression was in the face of both. Mr. Carlyle glanced down at the parchment he was perusing, as if calculating his time. Then he looked up again and spoke.

“I will see him, Dill. Send him in.”

The business leading to the visit was quite simple. Captain Frederick Thorn had got himself into some trouble and vexation about “a bill”--as too many captains will do--and he had come to crave advice of Mr. Carlyle.

Mr. Carlyle felt dubious about giving it. This Captain Thorn was a pleasant, attractive sort of a man, who won much on acquaintance; one whom Mr. Carlyle would have been pleased, in a friendly point of view, and setting professional interest apart, to help out of his difficulties; but if he were the villain they suspected him to be, the man with crime upon his hand, then Mr. Carlyle would have ordered his office door held wide for him to slink out of it.

“Cannot you advise me what my course ought to be?” he inquired, detecting Mr. Carlyle’s hesitation.

“I could advise you, certainly. But--you must excuse my being plain, Captain Thorn--I like to know who my clients are before I take up their cause or accept them as clients.”

“I am able to pay you,” was Captain Thorn’s reply. “I am not short of ready money; only this bill--”

Mr. Carlyle laughed out, after having bit his lip with annoyance. “It was a natural inference of yours,” he said, “but I assure you I was not thinking of your purse or my pocket. My father held it right never to undertake business for a stranger--unless a man was good, in a respectable point of view, and his cause was good, he did not mention it--and I have acted on the same principle. By these means, the position and character of our business, is rarely attained by a solicitor. Now, in saying that you are a stranger to me, I am not casting any doubt upon you, Captain Thorn, I am merely upholding my common practice.”

“My family is well connected,” was Captain Thorn’s next venture.

“Excuse me; family has nothing to do with it. If the poorest day laborer, if a pauper out of the workhouse came to me for advice, he should be heartily welcome to it, provided he were an honest man in the face of the day. Again I repeat, you must take no offence at what I say, for I cast no reflection on you; I only urge that you and your character are unknown to me.”

Curious words from a lawyer to a client-aspirant, and Captain Thorn found them so. But Mr. Carlyle’s tone was so courteous, his manner so affable, in fact he was so thoroughly the gentleman, that it was impossible to feel hurt.

“Well, how can I convince you that I am respectable? I have served my country ever since I was sixteen, and my brother officers have found no cause of complaint--any position as an officer and a gentleman would be generally deemed a sufficient guarantee. Inquire of John Herbert. The Herberts, too, are friends of yours, and they have not disdained to give me room amidst their family.”

“True,” returned Mr. Carlyle, feeling that he could not well object further; and also that all men should be deemed innocent until proved guilty. “At any rate, I will advise you what must be done at present,” he added, “though if the affair is one that must go on, I do not promise that I can continue to act for you. I am very busy just now.”

Captain Thorn explained his dilemma, and Mr. Carlyle told him what to do in it. “Were you not at West Lynne some ten years ago?” he suddenly inquired, at the close of the conversation. “You denied it to me once at my house; but I concluded from an observation you let fall, that you had been here.”

“Yes, I was,” replied Captain Thorn, in a confidential tone. “I don’t mind owning it to you in confidence, but I do not wish it to get abroad. I was not at West Lynne, but in its neighborhood. The fact is, when I was a careless young fellow, I was stopping a few miles from here, and got into a scrape, through a--a--in short it was an affair of gallantry. I did not show out very well at the time, and I don’t care that it should be known in the country again.”

Mr. Carlyle’s pulse--for Richard Hare’s sake--beat a shade quicker. The avowal of “an affair of gallantry” was almost a confirmation of his suspicions.

“Yes,” he pointedly said. “The girl was Afy Hallijohn.”

“Afy--who?” repeated Captain Thorn, opening his eyes, and fixing them on Mr. Carlyle’s.

“Afy Hallijohn.”

Captain Thorn continued to look at Mr. Carlyle, an amused expression, rather than any other, predominant on his features. “You are mistaken,” he observed. “Afy Hallijohn? I never heard the name before in my life.”

“Did you ever hear or know that a dreadful tragedy was enacted in this place about that period?” replied Mr. Carlyle, in a low, meaning tone. “That Afy Hallijohn’s father was--”

“Oh, stay, stay, stay,” hastily interrupted Captain Thorn. “I am telling a story in saying I never heard her name. Afy Hallijohn? Why, that’s the girl Tom Herbert was telling me about--who--what was it?--disappeared after her father was murdered.”

“Murdered in his own cottage--almost in Afy’s presence--murdered by--by- ---” Mr. Carlyle recollected himself; he had spoken more impulsively than was his custom. “Hallijohn was my father’s faithful clerk for many years,” he more calmly concluded.

“And he who committed the murder was young Hare, son of Justice Hare, and brother to that attractive girl, Barbara. Your speaking of this has recalled, what they told me to my recollection, the first evening I was at the Herberts. Justice Hare was there, smoking--half a dozen pipes there were going at once. I also saw Miss Barbara that evening at your park gates, and Tom told me of the murder. An awful calamity for the Hares. I suppose that is the reason the young lady is Miss Hare still. One with her good fortune and good looks ought to have changed her name ere this.”

“No, it is not the reason,” returned Mr. Carlyle.

“What is the reason, then?”

A faint flush tinged the brow of Mr. Carlyle. “I know more than one who would be glad to get Barbara, in spite of the murder. Do not depreciate Miss Hare.”

“Not I, indeed; I like the young lady too well,” replied Captain Thorn. “The girl, Afy, has never been heard of since, has she?”

“Never,” said Mr. Carlyle. “Do you know her well?” he deliberately added.

“I never knew her at all, if you mean Afy Hallijohn. Why should you think I did? I never heard of her till Tom Herbert amused me with the history.”

Mr. Carlyle most devoutly wished he could tell whether the man before him was speaking the truth or falsehood. He continued,--

“Afy’s favors--I speak in no invidious sense--I mean her smiles and chatter--were pretty freely dispersed, for she was heedless and vain. Amidst others who got the credit for occasional basking in her rays, was a gentleman of the name of Thorn. Was it not yourself?”

Captain Thorn stroked his moustache with an air that seemed to say he could boast of his share of such baskings: in short, as if he felt half inclined to do it. “Upon my word,” he simpered, “you do me too much honor; I cannot confess to having been favored by Miss Afy.”

“Then she was not the--the damsel you speak of, who drove you--if I understand aright--from the locality?” resumed Mr. Carlyle, fixing his eyes upon him, so as to take in every tone of the answer and shade of countenance as he gave it.

“I should think not, indeed. It was a married lady, more’s the pity; young, pretty, vain and heedless, as you represent this Afy. Things went smoother after a time, and she and her husband--a stupid country yeoman- -became reconciled; but I have been ashamed of it since I have grown wiser, and I do not care ever to be recognized as the actor in it, or to have it raked up against me.”

Captain Thorn rose and took a somewhat hasty leave. Was he, or was he not, the man? Mr. Carlyle could not solve the doubt.

Mr. Dill came in as he disappeared, closed the door, and advanced to his master, speaking in an under tone.

“Mr. Archibald, has it struck you that the gentleman just gone out may be the Lieutenant Thorn you once spoke to me about--he who had used to gallop over from Swainson to court Afy Hallijohn?”

“It has struck me so, most forcibly,” replied Mr. Carlyle. “Dill, I would give five hundred pounds out of my pocket this moment to be assured of the fact--if he is the same.”

“I have seen him several times since he has been staying with the Herberts,” pursued the old gentleman, “and my doubts have naturally been excited as to whether it could be the man in question. Curious enough, Bezant, the doctor, was over here yesterday from Swainson; and as I was walking with him, arm-in-arm, we met Captain Thorn. The two recognized each other and bowed, merely as distant acquaintances. ‘Do you know that gentleman?’ said I to Bezant. ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘it is Mr. Frederick.’ ‘Mr. Frederick with something added on to it,’ said I; ‘his name is Thorn.’ ‘I know that,’ returned Bezant; ‘but when he was in Swainson some years ago, he chose to drop the Thorn, and the town in general knew him only as Mr. Frederick.’ ‘What was he doing there, Bezant?’ I asked. ‘Amusing himself and getting into mischief,’ was the answer; ‘nothing very bad, only the random scrapes of young men.’ ‘Was he often on horseback, riding to a distance?’ was my next question. ‘Yes, that he was,’ replied Bezant; ‘none more fond of galloping across the country than he; I used to tell him he’d ride his horse’s tail off.’ Now, Mr. Archibald, what do you think?” concluded the old clerk; “and so far as I could make out, this was about the very time of the tragedy at Hallijohn’s.”

“Think?” replied Mr. Carlyle. “What can I think but that it is the same man. I am convinced of it now.”

And, leaning back into his chair, he fell into a deep reverie, regardless of the parchments that lay before him.

The weeks went on--two or three--and things seemed to be progressing backward, rather than forward--if that’s not Irish. Francis Levison’s affairs--that is, the adjustment of them--did not advance at all.

Another thing that may be said to be progressing backward, for it was going on fast to bad, instead of good, was the jealousy of Lady Isabel. How could it be otherwise, kept up, as it was, by Barbara’s frequent meetings with Mr. Carlyle, and by Captain Levison’s exaggerated whispers of them. Discontented, ill at ease with herself and with everybody about her, Isabel was living now in a state of excitement, a dangerous resentment against her husband beginning to rise up in her heart. That very day--the one of Captain Levison’s visit to Levison Park--in driving through West Lynne in the pony carriage, she had come upon her husband in close converse with Barbara Hare. So absorbed were they, that they never saw her, though her carriage passed close to the pavement where they stood.

On the morning following this, as the Hare family were seated at breakfast, the postman was observed coming toward the house. Barbara sprang from her seat to the open window, and the man advanced to her.

“Only one miss. It is for yourself.”

“Who is it from?” began the justice, as Barbara returned to her chair. In letters as in other things, he was always curious to know their contents, whether they might be addressed to himself or not.

“It is from Anne, papa,” replied Barbara, as she laid the letter by her side on the table.

“Why don’t you open it and see what she says?”

“I will, directly; I am just going to pour out some more tea for mamma.”

Finally the justice finished his breakfast, and strolled out into the garden.

Barbara opened her letter; Mrs. Hare watched her movements and her countenance. She saw the latter flush suddenly and vividly, and then become deadly pale; she saw Barbara crush the note in her hand when read.

“Oh, mamma!” she uttered.

The flush of emotion came also into Mrs. Hare’s delicate cheeks. “Barbara, is it bad news?”

“Mamma, it--it--is about Richard,” she whispered, glancing at the door and window, to see that none might be within sight or hearing. “I never thought of him; I only fancied Anne might be sending me some bit of news concerning her own affairs. Good Heavens! How fortunate--how providential that papa did not see the paper fall; and that you did not persist in your inquiries. If he--”

“Barbara, you are keeping me in suspense,” interrupted Mrs. Hare, who had also grown white. “What should Anne know about Richard?”

Barbara smoothed out the writing, and held it before her mother. It was as follows:--

“I have had a curious note from R. It was without date or signature, but I knew his handwriting. He tells me to let you know, in the most sure and private manner that I can, that he will soon be paying another night visit. You are to watch the grove every evening when the present moon gets bright.”

Mrs. Hare covered her face for some minutes. “Thank God for all his mercies,” she murmured.

“Oh, mamma, but it is an awful risk for him to run!”

“But to know that he is in life--to know that he is in life! And for the risk--Barbara, I dread it not. The same God who protected him through the last visit, will protect him through this. He will not forsake the oppressed, the innocent. Destroy the paper, child.”

“Archibald Carlyle must first see it, mamma.”

“I shall not be easy until it is destroyed, Barbara.”

Braving the comments of the gossips, hoping the visit would not reach the ears or eyes of the justice, Barbara went that day to the office of Mr. Carlyle. He was not there, he was at West Lynne; he had gone to Lynneborough on business, and Mr. Dill thought it a question if he would be at the office again that day. If so, it would be late in the afternoon. Barbara, as soon as their own dinner was over, took up her patient station at the gate, hoping to see him pass; but the time went by and he did not. She had little doubt that he had returned home without going to West Lynne.

What should she do? “Go up to East Lynne and see him,” said her conscience. Barbara’s mind was in a strangely excited state. It appeared to her that this visit of Richard’s must have been specially designed by Providence, that he might be confronted by Thorn.

“Mamma,” she said, returning indoors, after seeing the justice depart upon an evening visit to the Buck’s Head, where he and certain other justices and gentlemen sometimes congregated to smoke and chat, “I shall go up to East Lynne, if you have no objection. I must see Mr. Carlyle.”

Away went Barbara. It had struck seven when she arrived at East Lynne.

“Is Mr. Carlyle disengaged?”

“Mr. Carlyle is not yet home, miss. My lady and Miss Carlyle are waiting dinner for him.”

A check for Barbara. The servant asked her to walk in, but she declined and turned from the door. She was in no mood for visit paying.

Lady Isabel had been standing at the window watching for her husband and wondering what made him so late. She observed Barbara approach the house, and saw her walk away again. Presently the servant who had answered the door, entered the drawing-room.

“Was not that Miss Hare?”

“Yes, my lady,” was the man’s reply. “She wanted master. I said your ladyship was at home, but she would not enter.”

Isabel said no more; she caught the eyes of Francis Levison fixed on her with as much meaning, compassionate meaning, as they dared express. She clasped her hands in pain, and turned again to the window.

Barbara was slowly walking down the avenue, Mr. Carlyle was then in sight, walking quickly up it. Lady Isabel saw their hands meet in greeting.

“Oh, I am so thankful to have met you!” Barbara exclaimed to him, impulsively. “I actually went to your office to-day, and I have been now to your house. We have such news!”

“Ay! What? About Thorn?”

“No; about Richard,” replied Barbara, taking the scrap of paper from the folds of her dress. “This came to me this morning from Anne.”

Mr. Carlyle took the document, and Barbara looked over him whilst he read it; neither of them thinking that Lady Isabel’s jealous eyes, and Captain Levison’s evil ones, were strained upon them from the distant windows. Miss Carlyle’s also, for the matter of that.

“Archibald, it seems to me that Providence must be directing him hither at this moment. Our suspicions with regard to Thorn can now be set at rest. You must contrive that Richard shall see him. What can he be coming again for?”

“More money,” was the supposition of Mr. Carlyle. “Does Mrs. Hare know of this?”

“She does, unfortunately. I opened the paper before her, never dreaming it was connected with Richard--poor, unhappy Richard!--and not to be guilty.”

“He acted as though he were guilty, Barbara; and that line of conduct often entails as much trouble as real guilt.”

“You do not believe him guilty?” she most passionately uttered.

“I do not. I have little doubt of the guilt of Thorn.”

“Oh, if it could but be brought home to him!” returned Barbara, “so that Richard might be cleared in the sight of day. How can you contrive that he shall see Thorn?”

“I cannot tell; I must think it over. Let me know the instant he arrives, Barbara.”

“Of course I shall. It may be that he does not want money; that his errand is only to see mamma. He was always so fond of her.”

“I must leave you,” said Mr. Carlyle, taking her hand in token of farewell. Then, as a thought occurred to him, he turned and walked a few steps with her without releasing it. He was probably unconscious that he retained it; she was not.

“You know, Barbara, if he should want money, and it be not convenient to Mrs. Hare to supply it at so short a notice, I can give it to him, as I did before.”

“Thank you, thank you, Archibald. Mamma felt sure you would.”

She lifted her eyes to his with an expression of gratitude; a warmer feeling for an uncontrolled moment mingled with it. Mr. Carlyle nodded pleasantly, and then set off toward his house at the pace of a steam engine.

Two minutes in his dressing-room, and he entered the drawing-room, apologizing for keeping them waiting dinner, and explaining that he had been compelled to go to his office to give some orders subsequent to his return to Lynneborough. Lady Isabel’s lips were pressed together, and she preserved an obstinate silence. Mr. Carlyle, in his unsuspicion, did not notice it.

“What did Barbara Hare want?” demanded Miss Carlyle, during dinner.

“She wanted to see me on business,” was his reply, given in a tone that certainly did not invite his sister to pursue the subject. “Will you take some more fish, Isabel?”

“What was that you were reading over with her?” pursued the indefatigable Miss Corny. “It looked like a note.”

“Ah, that would be telling,” returned Mr. Carlyle, willing to turn it off with gayety. “If young ladies choose to make me party to their love letters, I cannot betray confidence, you know.”

“What rubbish Archibald!” quoth she. “As if you could not say outright what Barbara wants, without making a mystery of it. And she seems to be always wanting you now.”

Mr. Carlyle glanced at his sister a quick, peculiar look; it seemed to her to speak both of seriousness and warning. Involuntarily her thoughts--and her fears--flew back to the past.

“Archibald, Archibald!” she uttered, repeating the name, as if she could not get any further words out in her dread. “It--it--is never--that old affair is never being raked up again?”

Now Miss Carlyle’s “old affair” referred to one sole and sore point-- Richard Hare, and so Mr. Carlyle understood it. Lady Isabel unhappily believing that any “old affair” could only have reference to the bygone loves of her husband and Barbara.

“You will oblige me by going on with your dinner, Cornelia,” gravely responded Mr. Carlyle. Then--assuming a more laughing tone--“I tell you it is unreasonable to expect me to betray a young woman’s secrets, although she may choose to confide them professionally to me. What say you, Captain Levison?”

The gentleman addressed bowed, a smile of mockery, all too perceptible to Lady Isabel, on his lips. And Miss Carlyle bent her head over her plate, and went on with her dinner as meek as any lamb.

That same evening, Lady Isabel’s indignant and rebellious heart condescended to speak of it when alone with her husband.

“What is it that she wants with you so much, that Barbara Hare?”

“It is private business, Isabel. She has to bring me messages from her mother.”

“Must the business be kept from me?”

He was silent for a moment, considering whether he might tell her. But it was impossible he could speak, even to his wife, of the suspicion they were attaching to Captain Thorn. It would have been unfair and wrong; neither could he betray that a secret visit was expected from Richard. To no one in the world could he betray that, however safe and true.

“It would not make you the happier to know it, Isabel. There is a dark secret, you are aware, touching the Hare family. It is connected with that.”

She did not put faith in a word of the reply. She believed he could not tell her because her feelings, as his wife, would be outraged by the confession; and it goaded her anger into recklessness. Mr. Carlyle, on his part, never gave a thought to the supposition that she might be jealous; he had believed that nonsense at an end years ago. He was perfectly honorable and true; strictly faithful to his wife, giving her no shadow of cause or reason to be jealous of him; and being a practical, matter-of-fact man, it did not occur to him that she could be so.

Lady Isabel was sitting, the following morning, moody and out of sorts. Captain Levison, who had accompanied Mr. Carlyle in the most friendly manner possible to the park gate on his departure, and then stolen along the hedgewalk, had returned to Lady Isabel with the news of an “ardent” interview with Barbara, who had been watching for his going by at the gate of the grove. She sat, sullenly digesting the tidings, when a note was brought in. It proved to be an invitation to dinner for the following Tuesday, at a Mrs. Jefferson’s--for Mr. and Lady Isabel Carlyle and Miss Carlyle.

“Do you go?” asked Miss Carlyle.

“Yes,” replied Isabel. “Mr. Carlyle and I both want a change of some sort,” she added, in a mocking sort of spirit; “it may be well to have it, if only for an evening.”

In truth this unhappy jealousy, this distrust of her husband, appeared to have altered Lady Isabel’s very nature.

“And leave Captain Levison?” returned Miss Carlyle.

Lady Isabel went over to her desk, making no reply.

“What will you do with him, I ask?” persisted Miss Carlyle.

“He can remain here--he can dine by himself. Shall I accept the invitation for you?”

“No; I shall not go,” said Miss Carlyle.

“Then, in that case, there can be no difficulty in regard to Captain Levison,” coldly spoke Lady Isabel.

“I don’t want his company--I am not fond of it,” cried Miss Carlyle. “I would go to Mrs. Jefferson’s, but that I should want a new dress.”

“That’s easily had,” said Lady Isabel. “I shall want one myself.”

“You want a new dress!” uttered Miss Carlyle. “Why, you have a dozen!”

“I don’t know that I could count a dozen in all,” returned Lady Isabel, chafing at the remark, and the continual thwarting put upon her by Miss Carlyle, which had latterly seemed more than hard to endure. Petty evils are more difficult to support than great ones, take notice.

Lady Isabel concluded her note, folded, sealed it, and then rang the bell. As the man left the room with it, she desired that Wilson might be sent to her.

“Is it this morning, Wilson, that the dressmaker comes to try on Miss Isabel’s dress?” she inquired.

Wilson hesitated and stammered, and glanced from her mistress to Miss Carlyle. The latter looked up from her work.

“The dressmaker’s not coming,” spoke she, sharply. “I countermanded the order for the frock, for Isabel does not require it.”

“She does require it,” answered Lady Isabel, in perhaps the most displeased tone she had ever used to Miss Carlyle. “I am a competent judge of what is necessary for my children.”

“She no more requires a new frock than that table requires one, or that you require the one you are longing for,” stoically persisted Miss Carlyle. “She has got ever so many lying by, and her striped silk, turned, will make up as handsome as ever.”

Wilson backed out of the room and closed the door softly, but her mistress caught a compassionate look directed toward her. Her heart seemed bursting with indignation and despair; there seemed to be no side on which she could turn for refuge. Pitied by her own servants!

She reopened her desk and dashed off a haughty, peremptory note for the attendance of the dressmaker at East Lynne, commanding its immediate dispatch.

Miss Corny groaned in her wrath.

“You will be sorry for not listening to me, ma’am, when your husband shall be brought to poverty. He works like a horse now, and with all his slaving, can scarcely, I fear, keep expenses down.”

Poor Lady Isabel, ever sensitive, began to think they might, with one another, be spending more than Mr. Carlyle’s means would justify; she knew their expenses were heavy. The same tale had been dinned into her ears ever since she married him. She gave up in that moment all thought of the new dress for herself and for Isabel; but her spirit, in her deep unhappiness, felt sick and faint within her.

Wilson, meanwhile, had flown to Joyce’s room, and was exercising her dearly beloved tongue in an exaggerated account of the matter--how Miss Carlyle put upon my lady, and had forbidden a new dress to her, as well as the frock to Miss Isabel.

And yet a few more days passed on.

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XXIV. RICHARD HARE AT MR. DILL’S WINDOW

Bright was the moon on that genial Monday night, bright was the evening star, as they shone upon a solitary wayfarer who walked on the shady side of the road with his head down, as though he did not care to court observation. A laborer, apparently, for he wore a smock-frock and had hobnails in his shoes; but his whiskers were large and black, quite hiding the lower part of his face, and his broad-brimmed “wide-awake” came far over his brows. He drew near the dwelling of Richard Hare, Esq., plunged rapidly over some palings, after looking well to the right and to the left, into a field, and thence over the side wall into Mr. Hare’s garden, where he remained amidst the thick trees.

Now, by some mischievous spirit of intuition or contrariety, Justice Hare was spending this evening at home, a thing he did not do once in six months unless he had friends with him. Things in real life do mostly go by the rules of contrary, as children say in their play, holding the corners of the handkerchief, “Here we go round and round by the rules of contrary; if I tell you to hold fast, you must loose; if I tell you to loose, you must hold fast.” Just so in the play of life. When we want people to “hold fast,” they “loose;” and when we want them to “loose,” they “hold fast.”

Barbara, anxious, troubled, worn out almost with the suspense of looking and watching for her brother, feeling a feverish expectation that night would bring him--but so had she felt for the two or three nights past-- would have given her hand for her father to go out. But no--things were going by the rule of contrary. There sat the stern justice in full view of the garden and the grove, his chair drawn precisely in front of the window, his wig awry, and a long pipe in his mouth.

“Are you not going out, Richard?” Mrs. Hare ventured to say.

“No.”

“Mamma, shall I ring for the shutters to be closed?” asked Barbara, by and by.

“Shutters closed?” said the justice. “Who’d shut out this bright moon? You have got the lamp at the far end of the room, young lady, and can go to it.”

Barbara ejaculated an inward prayer for patience--for safety of Richard, if he did come, and waited on, watching the grove in the distance. It came, the signal, her quick eye caught it; a movement as if some person or thing had stepped out beyond the trees and stepped back again. Barbara’s face turned white and her lips dry.

“I am so hot!” she exclaimed, in her confused eagerness for an excuse; “I must take a turn in the garden.”

She stole out, throwing a dark shawl over her shoulders, that might render her less conspicuous to the justice, and her dress that evening was a dark silk. She did not dare to stand still when she reached the trees, or to penetrate them, but she caught glimpses of Richard’s face, and her heart ached at the change in it. It was white, thin, and full of care; and his hair, he told her, was turning gray.

“Oh, Richard, darling, and I may not stop to talk to you!” she wailed, in a deep whisper. “Papa is at home, you see, of all the nights in the world.”

“Can’t I see my mother?”

“How can you? You must wait till to-morrow night.”

“I don’t like waiting a second night, Barbara. There’s danger in every inch of ground that this neighborhood contains.”

“But you must wait, Richard, for reasons. That man who caused all the mischief--Thorn--”

“Hang him!” gloomily interrupted Richard.

“He is at West Lynne. At least there is a Thorn, we--I and Mr. Carlyle-- believe to be the same, and we want you to see him.”

“Let me see him,” panted Richard, whom the news appeared to agitate; “let me see him, Barbara, I say----”

Barbara had passed on again, returning presently.

“You know, Richard, I must keep moving, with papa’s eyes there. He is a tall man, very good-looking, very fond of dress and ornament, especially of diamonds.”

“That’s he,” cried Richard, eagerly.

“Mr. Carlyle will contrive that you shall see him,” she continued, stooping as if to tie her shoe. “Should it prove to be the same, perhaps nothing can be done--immediately done--toward clearing you, but it shall be a great point ascertained. Are you sure you should know him again?”

“Sure! That I should know him?” uttered Richard Hare. “Should I know my own father? Should I know you? And are you not engraven on my heart in letters of blood, as is he? How and when am I to see him, Barbara?”

“I can tell you nothing till I have seen Mr. Carlyle. Be here to-morrow, as soon as ever the dusk will permit you. Perhaps Mr. Carlyle will contrive to bring him here. If--”

The window was thrown open, and the stentorian voice of Justice Hare was heard from it.

“Barbara, are you wandering about there to take cold? Come in! Come in, I say!”

“Oh, Richard, I am so sorry!” she lingered to whisper. “But papa is sure to be out to-morrow evening; he would not stay in two evenings running. Good-night, dear.”

There must be no delay now, and the next day Barbara, braving comments, appeared once more at the office of Mr. Carlyle. Terribly did the rules of contrary seem in action just then. Mr. Carlyle was not in, and the clerks did not know when to expect him; he was gone out for some hours, they believed.

“Mr. Dill,” urged Barbara, as the old gentleman came to the door to greet her, “I must see him.”

“He will not be in till late in the afternoon, Miss Barbara. I expect him then. Is it anything I can do?”

“No, no,” sighed Barbara.

At that moment Lady Isabel and her little girl passed in the chariot. She saw Barbara at her husband’s door; what should she be doing there, unless paying him a visit? A slight, haughty bow to Barbara, a pleasant nod and smile to Mr. Dill, and the carriage bowled on.

It was four o’clock before Barbara could see Mr. Carlyle, and communicate her tidings that Richard had arrived.

Mr. Carlyle held deceit and all underhand doings in especial abhorrence; yet he deemed that he was acting right, under the circumstances, in allowing Captain Thorn to be secretly seen by Richard Hare. In haste he arranged his plans. It was the evening of his own dinner engagement at Mrs. Jefferson’s but that he must give up. Telling Barbara to dispatch Richard to his office as soon as he should make his appearance at the grove, and to urge him to come boldly and not fear, for none would know him in his disguise, he wrote a hurried note to Thorn, requesting him also to be at his office at eight o’clock that evening, as he had something to communicate to him. The latter plea was no fiction, for he had received an important communication that morning relative to the business on which Captain Thorn had consulted him, and his own absence from the office in the day had alone prevented his sending for him earlier.

Other matters were calling the attention of Mr. Carlyle, and it was five o’clock ere he departed for East Lynne; he would not have gone so early, but that he must inform his wife of his inability to keep his dinner engagement. Mr. Carlyle was one who never hesitated to sacrifice personal gratification to friendship or to business.

The chariot was at the door, and Lady Isabel dressed and waiting for him in her dressing-room. “Did you forget that the Jeffersons dined at six?” was her greeting.

“No, Isabel; but it was impossible for me to get here before. And I should not have come so soon, but to tell you that I cannot accompany you. You must make my excuses to Mrs. Jefferson.”

A pause. Strange thoughts were running through Lady Isabel’s mind. “Why so?” she inquired.

“Some business has arisen which I am compelled to attend to this evening. As soon as I have snatched a bit of dinner at home I must hasten back to the office.”

Was he making this excuse to spend the hours of her absence with Barbara Hare? The idea that it was so took firm possession of her mind, and remained there. Her face expressed a variety of feelings, the most prominent that of resentment. Mr. Carlyle saw it.

“You must not be vexed, Isabel. I assure you it is no fault of mine. It is important private business which cannot be put off, and which I cannot delegate to Dill. I am sorry it should have so happened.”

“You never return to the office in the evening,” she remarked, with pale lips.

“No; because if anything arises to take us there after hours, Dill officiates. But the business to-night must be done by myself.”

Another pause. Lady Isabel suddenly broke it. “Shall you join us later in the evening?”

“I believe I shall not be able to do so.”

She drew her light shawl around her shoulders, and swept down the staircase. Mr. Carlyle followed to place her in the carriage. When he said farewell, she never answered but looked out straight before her with a stony look.

“What time, my lady?” inquired the footman, as he alighted at Mrs. Jefferson’s.

“Early. Half-past nine.”

A little before eight o’clock, Richard Hare, in his smock-frock and his slouching hat and his false whiskers, rang dubiously at the outer door of Mr. Carlyle’s office. That gentleman instantly opened it. He was quite alone.

“Come in, Richard,” said he, grasping his hand. “Did you meet any whom you knew?”

“I never looked at whom I met, sir,” was the reply. “I thought that if I looked at people, they might look at me, so I came straight ahead with my eyes before me. How the place has altered! There’s a new brick house on the corner where old Morgan’s shop used to stand.”

“That’s the new police station. West Lynne I assure you, is becoming grand in public buildings. And how have you been, Richard?”

“Ailing and wretched,” answered Richard Hare. “How can I be otherwise, Mr. Carlyle, with so false an accusation attached to me; and working like a slave, as I have to do?”

“You may take off the disfiguring hat, Richard. No one is here.”

Richard slowly heaved it from his brows, and his fair face, so like his mother’s, was disclosed. But the moment he was uncovered he turned shrinkingly toward the entrance door. “If any one should come in, sir?”

“Impossible!” replied Mr. Carlyle. “The front door is fast, and the office is supposed to be empty at this hour.”

“For if I should be seen and recognized, it might come to hanging, you know, sir. You are expecting that cursed Thorn here, Barbara told me.”

“Directly,” replied Mr. Carlyle, observing the mode of addressing him “sir.” It spoke plainly of the scale of society in which Richard had been mixing; that he was with those who said it habitually; nay, that he used it habitually himself. “From your description of the Lieutenant Thorn who destroyed Hallijohn, we believe this Captain Thorn to be the same man,” pursued Mr. Carlyle. “In person he appears to tally exactly; and I have ascertained that a few years ago he was a deal at Swainson, and got into some sort of scrape. He is in John Herbert’s regiment, and is here with him on a visit.”

“But what an idiot he must be to venture here!” uttered Richard. “Here of all places in the world!”

“He counts, no doubt, on not being known. So far as I can find out, Richard, nobody here did know him, save you and Afy. I shall put you in Mr. Dill’s room--you may remember the little window in it--and from thence you can take a full view of Thorn, whom I shall keep in the front office. You are sure you would recognize him at this distance of time?”

“I should know him if it were fifty years to come; I should know him were he disguised as I am disguised. We cannot,” Richard sank his voice, “forget a man who has been the object of our frenzied jealousy.”

“What has brought you to East Lynne again, Richard? Any particular object?”

“Chiefly a hankering within me that I could not get rid of,” replied Richard. “It was not so much to see my mother and Barbara--though I did want that, especially since my illness--as that a feeling was within me that I could not rest away from it. So I said I’d risk it again, just for a day.”

“I thought you might possibly want some assistance, as before.”

“I do want that, also,” said Richard. “Not much. My illness has run me into debt, and if my mother can let me have a little, I shall be thankful.”

“I am sure she will,” answered Mr. Carlyle. “You shall have it from me to-night. What has been the matter with you?”

“The beginning of it was a kick from a horse, sir. That was last winter, and it laid me up for six weeks. Then, in the spring, after I got well and was at work again, I caught some sort of fever, and down again I was for six weeks. I have not been to say well since.”

“How is it you have never written or sent me your address?”

“Because I dared not,” answered Richard, timorously, “I should always be in fear; not of you, Mr. Carlyle, but of its becoming known some way or other. The time is getting on, sir; is that Thorn sure to come?”

“He sent me word that he would, in reply to my note. And--there he is!” uttered Mr. Carlyle, as a ring was heard at the bell. “Now, Richard, come this way. Bring your hat.”

Richard complied by putting his hat on his head, pulling it so low that it touched his nose. He felt himself safer in it. Mr. Carlyle showed him into Mr. Dill’s room, and then turned the key upon him, and put it in his pocket. Whether this precautionary measure was intended to prevent any possibility of Captain Thorn’s finding his way in, or of Richard’s finding his way out, was best known to himself.

Mr. Carlyle came to the front door, opened it, and admitted Captain Thorn. He brought him into the clerk’s office, which was bright with gas, keeping him in conversation for a few minutes standing, and then asking him to be seated--all in full view of the little window.

“I must beg your pardon, for being late,” Captain Thorn observed. “I am half an hour beyond the time you mentioned, but the Herberts had two or three friends at dinner, and I could not get away. I hope, Mr. Carlyle, you have not come to your office to-night purposely for me.”

“Business must be attended to,” somewhat evasively answered Mr. Carlyle; “I have been out myself nearly all day. We received a communication from London this morning, relative to your affair, and I am sorry to say anything but satisfactory. They will not wait.”

“But I am not liable, Mr. Carlyle, not liable in justice.”

“No--if what you tell me be correct. But justice and law are sometimes in opposition, Captain Thorn.”

Captain Thorn sat in perplexity. “They will not get me arrested here, will they?”

“They would have done it, beyond doubt; but I have caused a letter to be written and dispatched to them, which must bring forth an answer before any violent proceedings are taken. That answer will be here the morning after to-morrow.”

“And what am I do to then?”

“I think it is probable there may be a way of checkmating them. But I am not sure, Captain Thorn, that I can give my attention further to this affair.”

“I hope and trust you will,” was the reply.

“You have not forgotten that I told you at first I could not promise to do so,” rejoined Mr. Carlyle. “You shall hear from me to-morrow. If I carry it on for you, I will then appoint an hour for you to be here on the following day; if not--why, I dare say you will find a solicitor as capable of assisting you as I am.”

“But why will you not? What is the reason?”

“I cannot always give reasons for what I do,” was the response. “You will hear from me to-morrow.”

He rose as he spoke; Captain Thorn also rose. Mr. Carlyle detained him yet a few moments, and then saw him out at the front door and fastened it.

He returned and released Richard. The latter took off his hat as he advanced into the blaze of light.

“Well, Richard, is it the same man?”

“No, sir. Not in the least like him.”

Mr. Carlyle, though little given to emotion, felt a strange relief-- relief for Captain Thorn’s sake. He had rarely seen one whom he could so little associate with the notion of a murderer as Captain Thorn, and he was a man who exceedingly won upon the regard. He would heartily help him out of his dilemma now.

“Excepting that they are both tall, with nearly the same color of hair, there is no resemblance whatever between them,” proceeded Richard. “Their faces, their figures, are as opposite as light is from dark. That other, in spite of his handsome features, had the expression at times of a demon, but this one’s expression is the best part of his face. Hallijohn’s murderer had a curious look here, sir.”

“Where?” questioned Mr. Carlyle, for Richard had only pointed to his face generally.

“Well--I cannot say precisely where it lay, whether in the eyebrows or the eyes; I could not tell when I used to have him before me; but it was in one of them. Ah, Mr. Carlyle, I thought, when Barbara told me Thorn was here, it was too good news to be true; depend upon it, he won’t venture to West Lynne again. This man is no more like that other villain than you are like him.”

“Then--as that is set at rest--we had better be going, Richard. You have to see your mother, and she must be waiting in anxiety. How much money do you want?”

“Twenty-five pounds would do, but----” Richard stopped in hesitation.

“But what?” asked Mr. Carlyle. “Speak out, Richard.”

“Thirty would be more welcome. Thirty would put me at ease.”

“You shall take thirty,” said Mr. Carlyle, counting out the notes to him. “Now--will you walk with me to the grove, or will you walk alone? I mean to see you there in safety.”

Richard thought he would prefer to walk alone; everybody they met might be speaking to Mr. Carlyle. The latter inquired why he chose moonlight nights for his visits.

“It is pleasanter for travelling. And had I chosen dark nights, Barbara could not have seen my signal from the trees,” was the answer of Richard.

They went out and proceeded unmolested to the house of Justice Hare. It was past nine, then. “I am so much obliged to you Mr. Carlyle,” whispered Richard, as they walked up the path.

“I wish I could help you more effectually, Richard, and clear up the mystery. Is Barbara on the watch? Yes; there’s the door slowly opening.”

Richard stole across the hall and into the parlor to his mother. Barbara approached and softly whispered to Mr. Carlyle, standing, just outside the portico; her voice trembled with the suspense of what the answer might be.

“Is it the same man--the same Thorn?”

“No. Richard says this man bears no resemblance to the real one.”

“Oh!” uttered Barbara, in her surprise and disappointment. “Not the same! And for the best part of poor Richard’s evening to have been taken up for nothing.”

“Not quite nothing,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The question is now set at rest.”

“Set at rest!” repeated Barbara. “It is left in more uncertainty than ever.”

“Set at rest so far as regards Captain Thorn. And whilst our suspicions were concentrated upon him, we thought not of looking to other quarters.”

When they entered the sitting-room Mrs. Hare was crying over Richard, and Richard was crying over her; but she seized the hand of Mr. Carlyle.

“You have been very kind; I don’t know whatever we should do without you. And I want to tax your kindness further. Has Barbara mentioned it?”

“I could not talk in the hall, mamma; the servants might have overheard.”

“Mr. Hare is not well, and we terribly fear he will be home early, in consequence; otherwise we should have been quite safe until after ten, for he is gone to the Buck’s Head, and they never leave, you know, till that hour has struck. Should he come in and see Richard--oh, I need not enlarge upon the consequences to you, Archibald; the very thought sends me into a shiver. Barbara and I have been discussing it all the evening, and we can only think of one plan; it is, that you will kindly stay in the garden, near the gate; and, should he come in, stop him, and keep him in conversation. Barbara will be with you, and will run in with the warning, and Richard can go inside the closet in the hall till Mr. Hare has entered and is safe in this room, and then he can make his escape. Will you do this, Archibald?”

“Certainly I will.”

“I cannot part with him before ten o’clock, unless I am forced,” she whispered, pressing Mr. Carlyle’s hands, in her earnest gratitude. “You don’t know what it is, Archibald, to have a lost son home for an hour but once in seven years. At ten o’clock we will part.”

Mr. Carlyle and Barbara began to pace in the path in compliance with the wish of Mrs. Hare, keeping near the entrance gate. When they were turning the second time, Mr. Carlyle offered her his arm; it was an act of mere politeness. Barbara took it; and there they waited and waited; but the justice did not come.

Punctually to the minute, half after nine, Lady Isabel’s carriage arrived at Mrs. Jefferson’s, and she came out immediately--a headache being the plea for her early departure. She had not far to go to reach East Lynne--about two miles--and it was a by-road nearly all the way. They could emerge into the open road, if they pleased, but it was a trifle further. Suddenly a gentleman approached the carriage as it was bowling along, and waved his hand to the coachman to pull up. In spite of the glowing moonlight, Lady Isabel did not at first recognize him, for he wore a disfigured fur cap, the ears of which were tied over his ears and cheeks. It was Francis Levison. She put down the window.

“I thought it must be your carriage. How early you are returning! Were you tired of your entertainers?”

“Why, he knew what time my lady was returning,” thought John to himself; “he asked me. A false sort of a chap that, I’ve a notion.”

“I came out for a midnight stroll, and have tired myself,” he proceeded. “Will you take compassion on me, and give me a seat home?”

She acquiesced. She could not do otherwise. The footman sprang from behind the door, and Francis Levison took his place beside Lady Isabel. “Take the high road,” he put out his head to say to the coachman; and the man touched his hat--which high road would cause them to pass Mr. Hare’s.

“I did not know you,” she began, gathering herself into her own corner. “What ugly thing is that you have on? It is like a disguise.”

He was taking off the “ugly thing” as she spoke and began to twirl it round his hand. “Disguise? Oh, no; I have no creditors in the immediate neighborhood of East Lynne.”

False as ever it was worn as a disguise and he knew it.

“Is Mr. Carlyle at home?” she inquired.

“No.” Then, after a pause--“I expect he is more agreeably engaged.”

The tone, a most significant one, brought the tingling blood to the cheeks of Lady Isabel. She wished to preserve a dignified silence, and did for a few moments; but the jealous question broke out,--

“Engaged in what manner?”

“As I came by Hare’s house just now, I saw two people, a gentleman and a young lady, coupled lovingly together, enjoying a tete-a-tete by moonlight. Unless I am mistaken, he was the favored individual whom you call lord and master.”

Lady Isabel almost gnashed her teeth; the jealous doubts which had been tormenting her all the evening were confirmed. That the man whom she hated--yes, in her blind anger, she hated him then--should so impose upon her, should excuse himself by lies, lies base and false as he was, from accompanying her out, on purpose to pass the hours with Barbara Hare! Had she been alone in the carriage, a torrent of passion had probably escaped her.

She leaned back, panting in her emotion, but hiding it from Captain Levison. As they came opposite to Justice Hare’s she deliberately bent forward and scanned the garden with eager eyes.

There, in the bright moonlight, all too bright and clear, slowly paced arm in arm, and drawn close to each other, her husband and Barbara Hare. With a choking sob that could no longer be controlled or hidden, Lady Isabel sunk back again.

He, that bold, bad man, dared to put his arm around her, to draw her to his side; to whisper that his love was left to her, if another’s was withdrawn. She was most assuredly out of her senses that night, or she never would have listened.

A jealous woman is mad; an outraged woman is doubly mad; and the ill- fated Lady Isabel truly believed that every sacred feeling which ought to exist between man and wife was betrayed by Mr. Carlyle.

“Be avenged on that false hound, Isabel. He was never worthy of you. Leave your life of misery, and come to happiness.”

In her bitter distress and wrath, she broke into a storm of sobs. Were they caused by passion against her husband, or by those bold and shameless words? Alas! Alas! Francis Levison applied himself to soothe her with all the sweet and dangerous sophistry of his crafty nature.

The minutes flew on. A quarter to ten; now a quarter past ten; and still Richard Hare lingered on with his mother, and still Mr. Carlyle and Barbara paced patiently the garden path. At half-past ten Richard came forth, after having taken his last farewell. Then came Barbara’s tearful farewell, which Mr. Carlyle witnessed; and then a hard grasp of that gentleman’s hand, and Richard plunged amidst the trees to depart the way he came.

“Good night, Barbara,” said Mr. Carlyle.

“Will you not come in and say good night to mamma?”

“Not now; it is late. Tell her how glad I am things have gone off so well.”

He started off at a strapping pace toward his home, and Barbara leaned on the gate to indulge her tears. Not a soul passed to interrupt her, and the justice did not come. What could have become of him? What could the Buck’s Head be thinking of, to retain respectable elderly justices from their beds, who ought to go home early and set a good example to the parish? Barbara knew, the next day, that Justice Hare, with a few more gentlemen, had been seduced from the staid old inn to a friend’s house, to an entertainment of supper, pipes, and whist, two tables, penny points, and it was between twelve and one ere the party rose from the fascination. So far, well--as it happened.

Barbara knew not how long she lingered at the gate; ten minutes it may have been. Nobody summoned her. Mrs. Hare was indulging her grief indoors, giving no thought to Barbara, and the justice did not make his appearance. Exceedingly surprised was Barbara to hear fast footsteps, and to find that they were Mr. Carlyle’s.

“The more haste, the less speed, Barbara,” he called out as he came up. “I had got half-way home and have had to come back again. When I went into your sitting-room, I left a small parcel, containing a parchment, on the sideboard. Will you get it for me?”

Barbara ran indoors and brought forth the parcel, and Mr. Carlyle, with a brief word of thanks, sped away with it.

She leaned on the gate as before, the ready tears flowing again; her heart was aching for Richard; it was aching for the disappointment the night had brought forth respecting Captain Thorn. Still nobody passed; still the steps of her father were not heard, and Barbara stayed on. But--what was that figure cowering under the shade of the hedge at a distance, and seemingly, watching her? Barbara strained her eyes, while her heart beat as if it would burst its bounds. Surely, surely, it was her brother? What had he ventured back for?

Richard Hare it was. When fully assured that Barbara was standing there, he knew the justice was still absent, and ventured to advance. He appeared to be in a strange state of emotion--his breath labored, his whole frame trembling.

“Barbara! Barbara!” he called. “I have seen Thorn.”

Barbara thought him demented. “I know you saw him,” she slowly said, “but it was not the right Thorn.”

“Not he,” breathed Richard; “and not the gentleman I saw to-night in Carlyle’s office. I have seen the fellow himself. Why to you stare at me so, Barbara?”

Barbara was in truth scanning his face keenly. It appeared to her a strange tale that he was telling.

“When I left here, I cut across into Bean lane, which is more private for me than this road,” proceeded Richard. “Just as I got to that clump of trees--you know it, Barbara--I saw somebody coming toward me from a distance. I stepped back behind the trunks of the trees, into the shade of the hedge, for I don’t care to be met, though I am disguised. He came along the middle of the lane, going toward West Lynne, and I looked out upon him. I knew him long before he was abreast of me; it was Thorn.” Barbara made no comment; she was digesting the news.

“Every drop of blood within me began to tingle, and an impulse came upon me to spring upon him and accuse him of the murder of Hallijohn,” went on Richard, in the same excited manner. “But I resisted it; or, perhaps, my courage failed. One of the reproaches against me had used to be that I was a physical coward, you know, Barbara,” he added, in a tone of bitterness. “In a struggle, Thorn would have had the best of it; he is taller and more powerful than I, and might have battered me to death. A man who can commit one murder won’t hesitate at a second.”

“Richard, do you think you could have been deceived?” she urged. “You had been talking of Thorn, and your thoughts were, naturally bearing upon him. Imagination--”

“Be still, Barbara,” he interrupted in a tone of pain. “Imagination, indeed! Did I not tell you he was stamped here?” touching his breast. “Do you take me for a child, or an imbecile, that I should fancy I see Thorn in every shadow, or meet people where I do not? He had his hat off, as if he had been walking fast and had got hot--fast he was walking; and he carried the hat in one hand, and what looked like a small parcel. With the other hand he was pushing the hair from his brow- -in this way--a peculiar way,” added Richard, slightly lifting his own hat and pushing back his hair. “By that action alone I should have known him, for he was always doing it in the old days. And there was his white hand, adorned with his diamond ring! Barbara, the diamond glittered in the moonlight!”

Richard’s voice and manner were singularly earnest, and a conviction of the truth of his assertion flashed over his sister.

“I saw his face as plainly as I ever saw it--every feature--he is scarcely altered, save for a haggardness in his cheeks now. Barbara, you need not doubt me; I swear it was Thorn!”

She grew excited as he was; now that she believed the news, it was telling upon her; reason left its place and impulse succeeded; Barbara did not wait to weigh her actions.

“Richard! Mr. Carlyle ought to know this. He has but just gone; we may overtake him, if we try.”

Forgetting the strange appearances it would have--her flying along the public road at that hour of the night--should she meet any who knew her- -forgetting what the consequence might be, did Justice Hare return and find her absent, Barbara set off with a fleet foot, Richard more stealthily following her--his eyes cast in all directions. Fortunately Barbara wore a bonnet and mantle, which she had put on to pace the garden with Mr. Carlyle; fortunately, also, the road was remarkably empty of passengers. She succeeded in reaching Mr. Carlyle before he turned into East Lynne gates.

“Barbara!” he exclaimed in the extreme of astonishment. “Barbara!”

“Archibald! Archibald!” She panted, gasping for breath. “I am not out of my mind--but do come and speak to Richard! He has just seen the real Thorn.”

Mr. Carlyle, amazed and wondering, turned back. They got over the field stile, nearly opposite the gates, drew behind the hedge, and there Richard told his tale. Mr. Carlyle did not appear to doubt it, as Barbara had done; perhaps he could not, in the face of Richard’s agitated and intense earnestness.

“I am sure there is no one named Thorn in the neighborhood, save the gentleman you saw in my office to-night, Richard,” observed Mr. Carlyle, after some deliberation. “It is very strange.”

“He may be staying here under a feigned name,” replied Richard. “There can be no mistake that it was Thorn whom I have just met.”

“How was he dressed? As a gentleman?”

“Catch him dressing as anything else,” returned Richard. “He was in an evening suit of black, with a sort of thin overcoat thrown on, but it was flung back at the shoulders, and I distinctly saw his clothes. A gray alpaca, it looked like. As I have told Barbara, I should have known him by this action of the hand,” imitating it, “as he pushed his hair off his forehead; it was the delicate white hand of the days gone by, Mr. Carlyle; it was the flashing of the diamond ring!”

Mr. Carlyle was silent; Barbara also; but the thoughts of both were busy. “Richard,” observed the former, “I should advise you to remain a day or two in the neighborhood, and look out for this man. You may see him again, and may track him home; it is very desirable to find out who he really is if practicable.”

“But the danger?” urged Richard.

“Your fears magnify that. I am quite certain that nobody would know you in broad daylight, disguised as you are now. So many years have flown since, that people have forgotten to think about you, Richard.”

But Richard could not be persuaded; he was full of fears. He described the man as accurately as he could to Mr. Carlyle and Barbara, and told them they must look out. With some trouble, Mr. Carlyle got from him an address in London, to which he might write, in case anything turned up, and Richard’s presence should be necessary. He then once more said farewell, and quitted them, his way lying past East Lynne.

“And now to see you back, Barbara,” said Mr. Carlyle.

“Indeed you shall not do it--late as it is, and tired as you must be. I came here alone; Richard did not keep near me.”

“I cannot help your having come here alone, but you may rely upon it, I do not suffer you to go back so. Nonsense, Barbara! Allow you to go along the high road by yourself at eleven o’clock at night? What are you thinking of?”

He gave Barbara his arm, and they pursued their way. “How late Lady Isabel will think you!” observed Barbara.

“I don’t know that Lady Isabel has returned home yet. My being late once in a while is of no consequence.”

Not another word was spoken, save by Barbara. “Whatever excuse can I make, should papa come home?” Both were buried in their own reflections. “Thank you very greatly,” she said as they reached her gate, and Mr. Carlyle finally turned away. Barbara stole in, and found the coast clear; her papa had not arrived.

Lady Isabel was in her dressing-room when Mr. Carlyle entered; she was seated at a table, writing. A few questions as to her evening’s visit, which she answered in the briefest way possible, and then he asked her if she was not going to bed.

“By and by. I am not sleepy.”

“I must go at once, Isabel, for I am dead tired.” And no wonder.

“You can go,” was her answer.

He bent down to kiss her, but she dexterously turned her face away. He supposed that she felt hurt that he had not gone with her to the party, and placed his hand on her shoulder with a pleasant smile.

“You foolish child, to be aggrieved at that! It was no fault of mine, Isabel; I could not help myself. I will talk to you in the morning; I am too tired to-night. I suppose you will not be long.”

Her head was bent over her writing again, and she made no reply. Mr. Carlyle went into his bedroom and shut the door. Some time after, Lady Isabel went softly upstairs to Joyce’s room. Joyce, fast in her first sleep, was suddenly aroused from it. There stood her mistress, a wax light in her hand. Joyce rubbed her eyes, and collected her senses, and finally sat up in bed.

“My lady! Are you ill?”

“Ill! Yes; ill and wretched,” answered Lady Isabel; and ill she did look, for she was perfectly white. “Joyce, I want a promise from you. If anything should happen to me, stay at East Lynne with my children.”

Joyce stared in amazement, too much astonished to make any reply.

“Joyce, you promised it once before; promise it again. Whatever betide you, you will stay with my children when I am gone.”

“I will stay with them. But, oh, my lady, what can be the matter with you? Are you taken suddenly ill?”

“Good-bye, Joyce,” murmured Lady Isabel, gliding from the chamber as quietly as she had entered it. And Joyce, after an hour of perplexity, dropped asleep again.

Joyce was not the only one whose rest was disturbed that eventful night. Mr. Carlyle himself awoke, and to his surprise found that his wife had not come to bed. He wondered what the time was, and struck his repeater. A quarter past three!

Rising, he made his way to the door of his wife’s dressing-room. It was in darkness; and, so far as he could judge by the absence of sound, unoccupied.

“Isabel!”

No reply. Nothing but the echo of his own voice in the silence of the night.

He struck a match and lighted a taper, partially dressed himself, and went about to look for her. He feared she might have been taken ill; or else that she had fallen asleep in some one of the rooms. But nowhere could he find her, and feeling perplexed, he proceeded to his sister’s chamber door and knocked.

Miss Carlyle was a slight sleeper, and rose up in bed at once. “Who’s that?” cried out she.

“It is only I, Cornelia,” said Mr. Carlyle.

“You!” cried Miss Corny. “What in the name of fortune do you want? You can come in.”

Mr. Carlyle opened the door, and met the keen eyes of his sister bent on him from the bed. Her head was surmounted by a remarkable nightcap, at least a foot high.

“Is anybody ill?” she demanded.

“I think Isabel must be, I cannot find her.”

“Not find her?” echoed Miss Corny. “Why, what’s the time? Is she not in bed?”

“It is three o’clock. She had not been to bed. I cannot find her in the sitting-rooms; neither is she in the children’s room.”

“Then I’ll tell you what it is, Archibald; she’s gone worrying after Joyce. Perhaps the girl may be in pain to-night.”

Mr. Carlyle was in full retreat toward Joyce’s room, at this suggestion, when his sister called to him.

“If anything is amiss with Joyce, you come and tell me, Archibald, for I shall get up and see after her. The girl was my servant before she was your wife’s.”

He reached Joyce’s room, and softly unlatched the door, fully expecting to find a light there, and his wife sitting by the bedside. There was no light there, however, save that which came from the taper he held, and he saw no signs of his wife. Where was she? Was it probable that Joyce should tell him? He stepped inside the room and called to her.

Joyce started up in a fright, which changed to astonishment when she recognized her master. He inquired whether Lady Isabel had been there, and for a few moments Joyce did not answer. She had been dreaming of Lady Isabel, and could not at first detach the dream from the visit which had probably given rise to it.

“What did you say, sir? Is my lady worse?”

“I asked if she had been here. I cannot find her.”

“Why, yes,” said Joyce, now fully aroused. “She came here and woke me. That was just before twelve, for I heard the clock strike. She did not stay here a minute, sir.”

“Woke you!” repeated Mr. Carlyle. “What did she want? What did she come here for?”

Thoughts are quick; imagination is still quicker; and Joyce was giving the reins to both. Her mistress’s gloomy and ambiguous words were crowding on her brain. Three o’clock and she had not been in bed, and was not to be found in the house? A nameless horror struggled to Joyce’s face, her eyes were dilating with it; she seized and threw on a large flannel gown which lay on a chair by the bed, and forgetful of her master who stood there, out she sprang to the floor. All minor considerations faded to insignificance beside the terrible dread which had taken possession of her. Clasping the flannel gown tight around her with one hand, she laid the other on the arm of Mr. Carlyle.

“Oh, master! Oh, master! She has destroyed herself! I see it all now.”

“Joyce!” sternly interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

“She has destroyed herself, as true as that we two are living here,” persisted Joyce, her own face livid with emotion. “I can understand her words now; I could not before. She came here--and her face was like a corpse as the light fell upon it--saying she had come to get a promise from me to stay with her children when she was gone, I asked whether she was ill, and she answered, ‘Yes, ill and wretched.’ Oh, sir, may heaven support you under this dreadful trial!”

Mr. Carlyle felt bewildered--perplexed. Not a syllable did he believe. He was not angry with Joyce, for he thought she had lost her reason.

“It is so, sir, incredible as you may deem my words,” pursued Joyce, wringing her hands. “My lady has been miserably unhappy; and that has driven her to it.”

“Joyce, are you in your senses or out of them?” demanded Mr. Carlyle, a certain sternness in his tone. “Your lady miserably unhappy! What do you mean?”

Before Joyce could answer, an addition was received to the company in the person of Miss Carlyle, who appeared in black stockings and a shawl, and the lofty nightcap. Hearing voices in Joyce’s room, which was above her own, and full of curiosity, she ascended, not choosing to be shut out from the conference.

“Whatever’s up?” cried she. “Is Lady Isabel found?”

“She is not found, and she never will be found but in her winding- sheet,” returned Joyce, whose lamentable and unusual state of excitement completely overpowered her customary quiet respect and plain good sense. “And, ma’am, I am glad that you have come up; for what I was about to say to my master I would prefer to say in your presence. When my lady is brought into this house, and laid before us dead, what will your feelings be? My master has done his duty by her in love; but you--you have made her life a misery. Yes, ma’am, you have.”

“Hoity-toity!” muttered Miss Carlyle, staring at Joyce in consternation. “What is all this? Where’s my lady?”

“She has gone and taken the life that was not hers to take,” sobbed Joyce, “and I say she has been driven to it. She has not been allowed to indulge a will of her own, poor thing, since she came to East Lynne; in her own house she has been less free than either of her servants. You have curbed her, ma’am, and snapped at her, and you made her feel that she was but a slave to your caprices and temper. All these years she has been crossed and put upon; everything, in short, but beaten--ma’am, you know she has--and has borne it all in silence, like a patient angel, never, as I believe, complaining to master; he can say whether she has or not. We all loved her, we all felt for her; and my master’s heart would have bled had he suspected what she had to put up with day after day, and year after year.”

Miss Carlyle’s tongue was glued to her mouth. Her brother, confounded at the rapid words, could scarcely gather in their sense.

“What is it that you are saying, Joyce?” he asked, in a low tone. “I do not understand.”

“I have longed to say it to you many a hundred times, sir; but it is right that you should hear it, now things have come to this dreadful ending. Since the very night Lady Isabel came home here, your wife, she had been taunted with the cost she has brought to East Lynne and to you. If she wanted but the simplest thing, she was forbidden to have it, and told that she was bringing her husband to poverty. For this very dinner party that she went to to-night she wished for a new dress, and your cruel words, ma’am, forbade her having it. She ordered a new frock for Miss Isabel, and you countermanded it. You have told her that master worked like a dog to support her extravagances, when you know that she never was extravagant; that none were less inclined to go beyond proper limits than she. I have seen her, ma’am, come away from your reproaches with the tears in her eyes, and her hands meekly clasped upon her bosom, as though life was heavy to bear. A gentle-spirited, high-born lady, as I know she was, could not fail to be driven to desperation; and I know that she has been.”

Mr. Carlyle turned to his sister. “Can this be true?” he inquired, in a tone of deep agitation.

She did not answer. Whether it was the shade cast by the nightcap, or the reflection of the wax taper, her face looked of a green cast, and, for the first time probably in Miss Carlyle’s life, her words failed her.

“May God forgive you, Cornelia!” he muttered, as he went out of the chamber.

He descended to his own. That his wife had laid violent hands upon herself, his reason utterly repudiated, she was one of the least likely to commit so great a sin. He believed that, in her unhappiness, she might have wandered out in the grounds, and was lingering there. By this time the house was aroused, and the servants were astir. Joyce--surely a supernatural strength was given her, for though she had been able to put her foot to the ground, she had not yet walked upon it--crept downstairs, and went into Lady Isabel’s dressing-room. Mr. Carlyle was hastily assuming the articles of attire he had not yet put on, to go out and search the grounds, when Joyce limped in, holding out a note. Joyce did not stand on ceremony that night.

“I found this in the dressing-glass drawer, sir. It is my lady’s writing.”

He took it in his hand and looked at the address--“Archibald Carlyle.” Though a calm man, one who had his emotions under his own control, he was no stoic, and his fingers shook as he broke the seal.

“When years go on, and my children ask where their mother is, and why she left them, tell them that you, their father, goaded her to it. If they inquire what she is, tell them, also, if you so will; but tell them, at the same time, that you outraged and betrayed her, driving her to the very depth of desperation ere she quitted them in her despair.”

The handwriting, his wife’s, swam before the eyes of Mr. Carlyle. All, save the disgraceful fact that she had flown--and a horrible suspicion began to dawn upon him, with whom--was totally incomprehensible. How had he outraged her? In what manner had he goaded her to it. The discomforts alluded to by Joyce, and the work of his sister, had evidently no part in this; yet what had he done? He read the letter again, more slowly. No he could not comprehend it; he had not the clue.

At that moment the voices of the servants in the corridor outside penetrated his ears. Of course they were peering about, and making their own comments. Wilson, with her long tongue, the busiest. They were saying that Captain Levison was not in his room; that his bed had not been slept in.

Joyce sat on the edge of a chair--she could not stand--watching her master with a blanched face. Never had she seen him betray agitation so powerful. Not the faintest suspicion of the dreadful truth yet dawned upon her. He walked to the door, the open note in his hand; then turned, wavered, and stood still, as if he did not know what he was doing. Probably he did not. Then he took out his pocket-book, put the note inside it, and returned it to his pocket, his hands trembling equally with his livid lips.

“You need not mention this,” he said to Joyce, indicating the note. “It concerns myself alone.”

“Sir, does it say she’s dead?”

“She is not dead,” he answered. “Worse than that,” he added in his heart.

“Why--who’s this?” uttered Joyce.

It was little Isabel, stealing in with a frightened face, in her white nightgown. The commotion had aroused her.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Where’s mamma?”

“Child, you’ll catch your death of cold,” said Joyce. “Go back to bed.”

“But I want mamma.”

“In the morning, dear,” evasively returned Joyce. “Sir, please, must not Isabel go back to bed?”

Mr. Carlyle made no reply to the question; most likely he never heard its import. But he touched Isabel’s shoulder to draw Joyce’s attention to the child.

“Joyce--Miss Lucy in future.”

He left the room, and Joyce remained silent from amazement. She heard him go out at the hall door and bang it after him. Isabel--nay, we must say “Lucy” also--went and stood outside the chamber door; the servants gathered in a group near, did not observe her. Presently she came running back, and disturbed Joyce from her reverie.

“Joyce, is it true?”

“Is what true, my dear?”

“They are saying that Captain Levison has taken away my mamma.”

Joyce fell back in her chair with a scream. It changed to a long, low moan of anguish.

“What has he taken her for--to kill her? I thought it was only kidnappers who took people.”

“Child, child, go to bed.”

“Oh, Joyce, I want mamma. When will she come back?”

Joyce hid her face in her hands to conceal its emotion from the motherless child. And just then Miss Carlyle entered on tiptoe, and humbly sat down on a low chair, her green face--green that night--in its grief, its remorse, and its horror, looking nearly as dark as her stockings.

She broke into a subdued wail.

“God be merciful to this dishonored house!”

Mr. Justice Hare turned into the gate between twelve and one--turned in with a jaunty air; for the justice was in spirits, he having won nine sixpences, and his friend’s tap of ale having been unusually good. When he reached his bedroom, he told Mrs. Hare of a chaise and four which had gone tearing past at a furious pace as he was closing the gate, coming from the direction of East Lynne. He wondered where it could be going at that midnight hour, and whom it contained.

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XXV. CHARMING RESULTS

Nearly a year went by.

Lady Isabel Carlyle had spent it on the continent--that refuge for such fugitives--now moving about from place to place with her companion, now stationary and alone. Quite half the time--taking one absence with the other--he had been away from her, chiefly in Paris, pursuing his own course and his own pleasure.

How fared it with Lady Isabel? Just as it must be expected to fare, and does fare, when a high-principled gentlewoman falls from her pedestal. Never had she experienced a moment’s calm, or peace, or happiness, since the fatal night of quitting her home. She had taken a blind leap in a moment of wild passion, when, instead of the garden of roses it had been her persuader’s pleasure to promise her she would fall into, but which, in truth, she had barely glanced at, for that had not been her moving motive, she had found herself plunged into a yawning abyss of horror, from which there was never more any escape--never more, never more. The very instant--the very night of her departure, she awoke to what she had done. The guilt, whose aspect had been shunned in the prospective, assumed at once its true frightful color, the blackness of darkness; and a lively remorse, a never-dying anguish, took possession of her soul forever. Oh, reader, believe me! Lady--wife--mother! Should you ever be tempted to abandon your home, so will you awake. Whatever trials may be the lot of your married life, though they may magnify themselves to your crushed spirit as beyond the nature, the endurance of woman to bear, resolve to bear them; fall down upon your knees, and pray to be enabled to bear them--pray for patience--pray for strength to resist the demon that would tempt you to escape; bear unto death, rather than forfeit your fair name and your good conscience; for be assured that the alternative, if you do rush on to it, will be found worse than death.

Poor thing--poor Lady Isabel! She had sacrificed husband, children, reputation, home, all that makes life of value to woman. She had forfeited her duty to God, had deliberately broken his commandments, for the one poor miserable mistake of flying with Francis Levison. But the instant the step was irrevocable, the instant she had left the barrier behind, repentance set in. Even in the first days of her departure, in the fleeting moments of abandonment, when it may be supposed she might momentarily forget conscience, it was sharply wounding her with its adder stings; and she knew that her whole future existence, whether spent with that man or without him, would be a dark course of gnawing retribution.

Nearly a year went by, save some six or eight weeks, when, one morning in July, Lady Isabel made her appearance in the breakfast-room. They were staying now at Grenoble. Taking that town on their way to Switzerland through Savoy, it had been Captain Levison’s pleasure to halt in it. He engaged apartments, furnished, in the vicinity of the Place Grenette. A windy, old house it was, full of doors and windows, chimneys and cupboards; and he said he should remain there. Lady Isabel remonstrated; she wished to go farther on, where they might get quicker news from England; but her will now was as nothing. She was looking like the ghost of her former self. Talk of her having looked ill when she took that voyage over the water with Mr. Carlyle; you should have seen her now--misery marks the countenance worse than sickness. Her face was white and worn, her hands were thin, her eyes were sunken and surrounded by a black circle--care was digging caves for them. A stranger might have attributed these signs to the state of her health; she knew better- -knew that they were the effects of her wretched mind and heart.

It was very late for breakfast, but why should she rise early only to drag through another endless day? Languidly she took her seat at the table, just as Captain Levison’s servant, a Frenchman whom he had engaged in Paris, entered the room with two letters.

“Point de gazette, Pierre?” she said.

“Non, miladi.”

And all the time the sly fox had got the Times in his coat pocket. But he was only obeying the orders of his master. It had been Captain Levison’s recent pleasure that the newspapers should not be seen by Lady Isabel until he had over-looked them. You will speedily gather his motive.

Pierre departed toward Captain Levison’s room, and Lady Isabel took up the letters and examined their superscription with interest. It was known to her that Mr. Carlyle had not lost a moment in seeking a divorce and the announcement that it was granted was now daily expected. She was anxious for it--anxious that Captain Levison should render her the only reparation in his power before the birth of her unhappy child. Little thought she that there was not the least intention on his part to make her reparation, any more than he had made it to others who had gone before her. She had become painfully aware of the fact that the man for whom she had chosen to sacrifice herself was bad, but she had not learned all his badness yet.

Captain Levison, unwashed, unshaven, with a dressing-gown loosely flung on, lounged in to breakfast. The decked-out dandies before the world are frequently the greatest slovens in domestic privacy. He wished her good morning in a careless tone of apathy, and she as apathetically answered to it.

“Pierre says there are some letters,” he began. “What a precious hot day it is!”

“Two,” was her short reply, her tone sullen as his. For if you think my good reader, that the flattering words, the ardent expressions, which usually attend the first go-off of these promising unions last out a whole ten months, you are in egregious error. Compliments the very opposite to honey and sweetness have generally supervened long before. Try it, if you don’t believe me.

“Two letters,” she continued, “and they are both in the same handwriting--your solicitors’, I believe.”

Up went his hand at the last word, and he made a sort of grab at the letters, stalked to the farthest window, opened it, and glanced over its contents.

“Sir--We beg to inform you that the suit Carlyle vs. Carlyle, is at an end. The divorce was pronounced without opposition. According to your request, we hasten to forward you the earliest intimation of the fact.

“We are, sir, faithfully yours,

“MOSS & GRAB.

“F. LEVISON, Esq.”

It was over, then, and all claim to the name of Carlyle was declared to have been forfeited by the Lady Isabel forever. Captain Levison folded up the letter, and placed it securely in an inner pocket.

“Is there any news?” she asked.

“News!”

“Of the divorce, I mean?”

“Tush!” was the response of Captain Levison, as if wishing to imply that the divorce was yet a far-off affair, and he proceeded to open the other letter.

“Sir--After sending off our last, dated to-day, we received tidings of the demise of Sir Peter Levison, your grand-uncle. He expired this afternoon in town, where he had come for the benefit of medical advice. We have much pleasure in congratulating you upon your accession to the title and estates, and beg to state that should it not be convenient to you to visit England at present, we will be happy to transact all necessary matters for you, on your favoring us with instructions. And we remain, sir, most faithfully yours,

“MOSS & GRAB.

“SIR FRANCIS LEVISON, Bart.”

The outside of the letter was superscribed as the other, “F. Levison, Esquire,” no doubt with a view to its more certain delivery.

“At last, thank the pigs!” was the gentleman’s euphonious expression, as he tossed the letter, open, on the breakfast-table.

“The divorce is granted!” feverishly uttered Lady Isabel.

He made no reply, but seated himself to breakfast.

“May I read the letter? Is it for me to read?”

“For what else should I have thrown it there?” he said.

“A few days ago you put a letter, open on the table, I thought for me; but when I took it up you swore at me. Do you remember it Captain Levison?”

“You may drop that odious title, Isabel, which has stuck to me too long. I own a better, now.”

“What one, pray?”

“You can look and see.”

Lady Isabel took up the letter and read it. Sir Francis swallowed down his coffee, and rang the table hand-bell--the only bell you generally meet with in France. Pierre answered it.

“Put me up a change of things,” said he, in French. “I start for England in an hour.”

“It is very well,” Pierre responded; and departed to do it. Lady Isabel waited till the man was gone, and then spoke, a faint flush of emotion in her cheeks.

“You do not mean what you say? You will not leave me yet?”

“I cannot do otherwise,” he answered. “There’s a mountain of business to be attended to, now that I am come into power.”

“Moss & Grab say they will act for you. Had there been a necessity for your going, they would not have offered that.”

“Ay, they do say so--with a nice eye to the feathering of their pockets! Besides, I should not choose for the old man’s funeral to take place without me.”

“Then I must accompany you,” she urged.

“I wish you would not talk nonsense, Isabel. Are you in a state to travel night and day? Neither would home be agreeable to you yet awhile.”

She felt the force of the objections. Resuming after a moment’s pause-- “Were you to go to England, you might not be back in time.”

“In time for what?”

“Oh, how can you ask?” she rejoined, in a sharp tone of reproach; “you know too well. In time to make me your wife when the divorce shall appear.”

“I shall chance it,” coolly observed Sir Francis.

“Chance it! chance the legitimacy of the child? You must assure that, before all things. More terrible to me than all the rest would it be, if--”

“Now don’t put yourself in a fever, Isabel. How many times am I to be compelled to beg that of you! It does no good. Is it my fault, if I am called suddenly to England?”

“Have you no pity for your child?” she urged in agitation. “Nothing can repair the injury, if you once suffer it to come upon him. He will be a by-word amidst men throughout his life.”

“You had better have written to the law lords to urge on the divorce,” he returned. “I cannot help the delay.”

“There has been no delay; quite the contrary. But it may be expected hourly now.”

“You are worrying yourself for nothing, Isabel. I shall be back in time.”

He quitted the room as he spoke, and Lady Isabel remained in it, the image of despair. Nearly an hour elapsed when she remembered the breakfast things, and rang for them to be removed. A maid-servant entered to do it, and she thought how ill miladi looked.

“Where is Pierre?” miladi asked.

“Pierre was making himself ready to attend monsieur to England.”

Scarcely had she closed the door upon herself and the tray when Sir Francis Levison appeared, equipped for traveling. “Good-bye, Isabel,” said he, without further circumlocution or ceremony.

Lady Isabel, excited beyond all self-control, slipped the bolt of the door; and, half leaning against it, half leaning at his feet, held up her hand in supplication.

“Francis, have you any consideration left for me--any in the world?”

“How can you be so alarmed, Isabel? Of course I have,” he continued, in a peevish, though kind tone, as he took hold of her hands to raise her.

“No, not yet. I will remain here until you say you will wait another day or two. You know that the French Protestant minister is prepared to marry us the instant news of the divorce shall arrive; if you do care still for me, you will wait.”

“I cannot wait,” he replied, his tone changing to one of determination. “It is useless to urge it.”

He broke from her and left the room, and in another minute had left the house, Pierre attending him. A feeling, amounting to a conviction, rushed over the unhappy lady that she had seen him for the last time until it was too late.

She was right. It was too late by weeks and months.

December came in. The Alps were covered with snow; Grenoble borrowed the shade, and looked cold, and white, and sleety, and sloppy; the gutters, running through the middle of certain of the streets, were unusually black, and the people crept along especially dismal. Close to the fire in the barn of a French bedroom, full of windows, and doors, and draughts, with its wide hearth and its wide chimney, into which we could put four or five of our English ones, shivered Lady Isabel Vane. She had an invalid cap on, and a thick woolen invalid shawl, and she shook and shivered perpetually; though she had drawn so close to the wood fire that there was a danger of her petticoats igniting, and the attendant had frequently to spring up and interpose between them and the crackling logs. Little did it seem to matter to Lady Isabel; she sat in one position, her countenance the picture of stony despair.

So had she sat, so looking, since she began to get better. She had had a long illness, terminating in a low fever; but the attendants whispered among themselves that miladi would soon get about if she would only rouse herself. She had got so far about as to sit up in the windy chamber; and it seemed to be to her a matter of perfect indifference whether she ever got out of it.

This day she had partaken of her early dinner--such as it was, for her appetite failed--and had dozed asleep in the arm chair, when a noise arose from below, like a carriage driving into the courtyard through the porte cochere. It instantly aroused her. Had he come?

“Who is it?” she asked of the nurse.

“Miladi, it is monsieur; and Pierre is with him. I have begged milady often and often not to fret, for monsieur would surely come; miladi, see, I am right.”

The girl departed, closing the door, and Lady Isabel sat looking at it, schooling her patience. Another moment, and it was flung open.

Sir Francis Levison approached to greet her as he came in. She waved him off, begging him, in a subdued, quiet tone, not to draw too near, as any little excitement made her faint now. He took a seat opposite to her, and began pushing the logs together with his boot, as he explained that he really could not get away from town before.

“Why did you come now?” she quietly rejoined.

“Why did I come?” repeated he. “Are these all the thanks a fellow gets for travelling in this inclement weather? I thought you would at least have been glad to welcome me, Isabel.”

“Sir Francis,” she rejoined, speaking still with almost unnatural calmness, as she continued to do throughout the interview--though the frequent changes in her countenance, and the movement of her hands, when she laid them from time to time on her chest to keep down its beating, told what effort the struggle cost her--“Sir Francis, I am glad, for one reason, to welcome you; we must come to an understanding one with the other; and, so far, I am pleased that you are here. It was my intention to have communicated with you by letter as soon as I found myself capable of the necessary exertion, but your visit has removed the necessity. I wish to deal with you quite unreservedly, without concealment, or deceit; I must request you so to deal with me.”

“What do you mean by ‘deal?’” he asked, settling the logs to his apparent satisfaction.

“To speak and act. Let there be plain truth between us at this interview, if there never has been before.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Naked truth, unglossed over,” she pursued, bending her eyes determinately upon him. “It must be.”

“With all my heart,” returned Sir Francis. “It is you who have thrown out the challenge, mind.”

“When you left in July you gave me a sacred promise to come back in time for our marriage; you know what I mean when I say ‘in time,’ but--”

“Of course I meant to do so when I gave the promise,” he interrupted. “But no sooner had I set my foot in London than I found myself overwhelmed with business, and away from it I could not get. Even now I can only remain with you a couple of days, for I must hasten back to town.”

“You are breaking faith already,” she said, after hearing him calmly to the end. “Your words are not words of truth, but of deceit. You did not intend to be back in time for the marriage, or otherwise you would have caused it to take place ere you went at all.”

“What fancies you do take up!” uttered Francis Levison.

“Some time subsequent to your departure,” she quietly went on, “one of the maids was setting to rights the clothes in your dressing-closet, and she brought me a letter she found in one of the pockets. I saw by the date that it was one of those two which you received on the morning of your departure. It contained the information that the divorce was pronounced.”

She spoke so quietly, so apparently without feeling or passion, that Sir Francis was agreeably astonished. He should have less trouble in throwing off the mask. But he was an ill-tempered man; and to hear that the letter had been found to have the falseness of his fine protestations and promises laid bare, did not improve his temper now. Lady Isabel continued,--

“It would have been better to have undeceived me then; to have told me that the hopes I was cherishing for the sake of the unborn child were worse than vain.”

“I did not judge so,” he replied. “The excited state you then appeared to be in, would have precluded your listening to any sort of reason.”

Her heart beat a little quicker; but she stilled it.

“You deem that it was not in reason that I should aspire to be the wife of Sir Francis Levison?”

He rose and began kicking at the logs; with the heel of his boot this time.

“Well, Isabel, you must be aware that it is an awful sacrifice for a man in my position to marry a divorced woman.”

The hectic flushed into her thin cheeks, but her voice sounded calm as before.

“When I expected or wished, for the ‘sacrifice,’ it was not for my own sake; I told you so then. But it was not made; and the child’s inheritance is that of sin and shame. There he lies.”

Sir Francis half turned to where she pointed, and saw an infant’s cradle by the side of the bed. He did not take the trouble to look at it.

“I am the representative now of an ancient and respected baronetcy,” he resumed, in a tone as of apology for his previous heartless words, “and to make you my wife would so offend all my family, that--”

“Stay,” interrupted Lady Isabel, “you need not trouble yourself to find needless excuses. Had you taken this journey for the purpose of making me your wife, were you to propose to do so this day, and bring a clergyman into the room to perform the ceremony, it would be futile. The injury to the child can never be repaired; and, for myself, I cannot imagine any fate in life worse than being compelled to pass it with you.”

“If you have taken this aversion to me, it cannot be helped,” he coldly said, inwardly congratulating himself, let us not doubt, at being spared the work of trouble he had anticipated. “You made commotion enough once about me making you reparation.”

She shook her head.

“All the reparation in your power to make--all the reparation that the whole world can invent could not undo my sin. It and the effects must lie upon me forever.”

“Oh--sin!” was the derisive exclamation. “You ladies should think of that beforehand.”

“Yes,” she sadly answered. “May heaven help all to do so who may be tempted as I was.”

“If you mean that as a reproach to me, it’s rather out of place,” chafed Sir Francis, whose fits of ill-temper were under no control, and who never, when in them, cared what he said to outrage the feelings of another. “The temptation to sin, as you call it, lay not in my persuasions half so much as in your jealous anger toward your husband.”

“Quite true,” was her reply.

“And I believe you were on the wrong scent, Isabel--if it will be any satisfaction to you to hear it. Since we are mutually on this complimentary discourse, it is of no consequence to smooth over facts.”

“I do not understand what you would imply,” she said, drawing her shawl round her with a fresh shiver. “How on the wrong scent?”

“With regard to your husband and that Hare girl. You were blindly, outrageously jealous of him.”

“Go on.”

“And I say I think you are on the wrong scent. I do not believe Mr. Carlyle ever thought of the girl--in that way.”

“What do you mean?” she gasped.

“They had a secret between them--not of love--a secret of business; and those interviews they had together, her dancing attendance upon him perpetually, related to that, and that alone.”

Her face was more flushed than it had been throughout the interview. He spoke quietly now, quite in an equal tone of reasoning; it was his way when the ill-temper was upon him: and the calmer he spoke, the more cutting were his words. He need not have told her this.

“What was the secret?” she inquired, in a low tone.

“Nay, I can’t explain all; they did not take me into their confidence. They did not even take you; better, perhaps that they had though, as things have turned out, or seem to be turning. There’s some disreputable secret attaching to the Hare family, and Carlyle was acting in it, under the rose, for Mrs. Hare. She could not seek out Carlyle herself, so she sent the young lady. That’s all I know.”

“How did you know it?”

“I had reason to think so.”

“What reason? I must request you to tell me.”

“I overheard scraps of their conversation now and then in those meetings, and so gathered my information.”

“You told a different tale to me, Sir Francis,” was her remark, as she turned her indignant eyes toward him.

Sir Francis laughed.

“All stratagems are fair in love and war.”

She dared not immediately trust herself to reply, and a silence ensued. Sir Francis broke it, pointing with his left thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the cradle.

“What have you named that young article there?”

“The name which ought to have been his by inheritance--‘Francis Levison,’” was her icy answer.

“Let’s see--how old is he now?”

“He was born on the last day of August.”

Sir Francis threw up his arms and stretched himself, as if a fit of idleness had overtaken him; then advanced to the cradle and pulled down the clothes.

“Who is he like, Isabel? My handsome self?”

“Were he like you in spirit, I would pray that he might die ere he could speak, or think!” she burst forth. And then remembering the resolution marked out for herself, subsided outwardly into calmness again.

“What else?” retorted Sir Francis. “You know my disposition pretty well by this time, Isabel, and may be sure that if you deal out small change to me, you will get it back again with interest.”

She made no reply. Sir Francis put the clothes back over the sleeping child, returned to the fire, and stood a few moments with his back to it.

“Is my room prepared for me, do you know?” he presently asked.

“No, it is not,” she quietly rejoined. “These apartments are mine now; they have been transferred into my name, and they can never again afford you accommodation. Will you be so obliging--I am not strong--as to hand me that writing case?”

Sir Francis walked to the table she indicated, which was at the far end of the great barn of a room, and taking the writing-case from it, gave it to her.

She reached her keys from the stand at her elbow, unlocked the case, and took from it some bank-notes.

“I received these from you a month ago,” she said. “They came by post.”

“And never had the grace to acknowledge them,” he returned, in a sort of mock reproachful tone.

“Forty pounds. That was the amount, was it not?”

“I believe so.”

“Allow me to return them to you. Count them.”

“Return them to me--for what?” inquired Sir Francis, in amazement.

“I have no longer anything whatever to do with you in any way. Do not make my arm ache, holding out these notes to you so long! Take them!”

Sir Francis took the notes from her hand and placed them on a stand near to her.

“If it be your wish that all relations should end between us, why, let it be so,” he said. “I must confess I think it may be the wisest course, as things have come to this pass; for a cat and dog life, which would seemingly be ours, is not agreeable. Remember, though, that it is your doing, not mine. But you cannot think I am going to see you starve, Isabel. A sum--we will fix upon the amount amicably--shall be placed to your credit half-yearly, and--”

“I beg of you to cease,” she passionately interrupted. “What do you take me for?”

“Take you for! Why, how can you live? You have no fortune--you must receive assistance from some one.”

“I will not receive it from you. If the whole world denied me, and I could find no help from strangers, or means of earning my own bread, and it was necessary that I should still exist, I would apply to my husband for means, rather than to you. In saying this, it ought to convince you that the topic may cease.”

“Your husband!” sarcastically rejoined Sir Francis. “Generous man!”

A flush, deep and painful, dyed her cheeks. “I should have said my late husband. You need not have reminded me of the mistake.”

“If you will accept nothing for yourself, you must for the child. He, at any rate, falls to my share. I shall give you a few hundred a year with him.”

She beat her hands before her, as if beating off the man and his words. “Not a farthing, now or ever. Were you to attempt to send money to him, I would throw it into the nearest river. Whom do you take me for? What do you take me for?” she repeated, rising in her bitter mortification. “If you have put me beyond the pale of the world, I am still Lord Mount Severn’s daughter!”

“You did as much toward putting yourself beyond its pale as--”

“Don’t I know it? Have I not said so?” she sharply interrupted. And then she sat, striving to calm herself, clasping together her shaking hands.

“Well, if you will persist in this perverse resolution, I cannot mend it,” resumed Sir Francis. “In a little time you may probably wish to recall it; in which case a line, addressed to me at my banker’s, will--”

Lady Isabel drew herself up. “Put away those notes, if you please,” she interrupted, not allowing him to finish his sentence.

He took out his pocket-book and placed the bank notes within it.

“Your clothes--those you left here when you went to England--you will have the goodness to order Pierre to take away this afternoon. And now, Sir Francis, I believe that is all: we will part.”

“To remain mortal enemies from henceforth? Is that to be it?”

“To be strangers,” she replied, correcting him. “I wish you a good day.”

“So you will not even shake hands with me, Isabel?”

“I would prefer not.”

And thus they parted. Sir Francis left the room, but not immediately the house. He went into a distant apartment, and, calling the servants before him--there were but two--gave them each a year’s wages in advance--“That they might not have to trouble miladi for money,” he said to them. Then he paid a visit to the landlord, and handed him, likewise a year’s rent in advance, making the same remark. After that, he ordered dinner at a hotel, and the same night he and Pierre departed on their journey home again, Sir Francis thanking his lucky star that he had so easily got rid of a vexatious annoyance.

And Lady Isabel? She passed her evening alone, sitting in the same place, close to the fire and the sparks. The attendant remonstrated that miladi was remaining up too late for her strength, but miladi ordered her and her remonstrances into an adjoining room.

When Lady Isabel lay down to rest, she sank into a somewhat calmer sleep than she had known of late; also into a dream. She thought she was back at East Lynne--not back, in one sense, but that she seemed never to have gone away from it--walking in the flower garden with Mr. Carlyle, while the three children played on the lawn. Her arm was within her husband’s, and he was relating something to her. What the news was, she could not remember afterward, excepting that it was connected with the office and old Mr. Dill, and that Mr. Carlyle laughed when he told it. They appeared to be interrupted by the crying of Archibald; and, in turning to the lawn to ask what was the matter, she awoke. Alas! It was the actual crying of her own child which awoke her--this last child--the ill-fated little being in the cradle beside her. But, for a single instant, she forgot recent events and doings, she believed she was indeed in her happy home at East Lynne, a proud woman, an honored wife. As recollection flashed across her, with its piercing stings, she gave vent to a sharp cry of agony, of unavailing despair.

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XXVI. ALONE FOR EVERMORE

A surprise awaited Lady Isabel Vane. It was on a windy day in the following March that a traveller arrived at Grenoble, and inquired his way of a porter, to the best hotel in the place, his French being such as only an Englishman can produce.

“Hotel? Let’s see,” returned the man, politely, but with native indifference. “There are two hotels, nearly contiguous to each other, and monsieur would find himself comfortable at either. There is the Tross Dauphins, and there is the Ambassadeurs.”

“Monsieur” chose haphazard, the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, and was conducted to it. Shortly after his arrival there, he inquired his road to the Place Grenette, and was offered to be shown: but he preferred that it should be described to him, and to go alone. The Place was found, and he thence turned to the apartments of Lady Isabel Vane.

Lady Isabel was sitting where you saw her the previous December--in the precise spot--courting the warmth of the fire, and it seemed, courting the sparks also, for they appeared as fond of her as formerly. The marvel was, how she had escaped spontaneous combustion; but there she was yet, and her clothes likewise. You might think that but a night had passed, when you looked at the room, for it wore precisely the same aspect now, as then; everything was the same, even to the child’s cradle in the remote corner, partially hidden by the bed-curtains, and the sleeping child in it. Lady Isabel’s progress toward recovery was remarkably lingering, as is frequently the case when mind and body are both diseased. She was so sitting when Susanne entered the room, and said that a “Monsieur Anglais” had arrived in the town to see her, and was waiting below, in the saloon.

Lady Isabel was startled. An English gentleman--to see her!

English for certain, was Susanne’s answer, for she had difficulty to comprehend his French.

Who could be desirous to see her? One out of the world and forgotten! “Susanne,” she cried aloud, a thought striking her, “it is never Sir Fran--it is not monsieur!”

“Not in the least like monsieur,” complacently answered Susanne. “It is a tall, brave English gentleman, proud and noble looking like a prince.”

Every pulse within Lady Isabel’s body throbbed rebelliously: her heart bounded till it was like to burst her side, and she turned sick with astonishment.

“Tall, brave, noble?” could that description apply to any but Mr. Carlyle? Strange that so unnatural an idea should have occurred to her; it would not have done so in a calmer moment. She rose, tottered across the chamber, and prepared to descend. Susanne’s tongue was let loose at the proceeding.

“Was miladi out of her senses? To attempt going downstairs would be a pretty ending, for she’d surely fall by the way. Miladi knew that the bottom step was of lead, and that no head could pitch down upon that, without ever never being a head any more, except in the hospitals. Let miladi sit still in her place and she’d bring the monsieur up. What did it signify? He was not a young petit maitre, to quiz things: he was fifty, if he was a day: his hair already turned to fine gray.”

This set the question touching Mr. Carlyle at rest, and her heart stilled again. The next moment she was inwardly laughing in her bitter mockery at her insensate folly. Mr. Carlyle come to see her! Her! Francis Levison might be sending over some man of business, regarding the money question, was her next thought: if so, she should certainly refuse to see him.

“Go down to the gentleman and ask him his name Susanne. Ask also from whence he came.”

Susanne disappeared, and returned, and the gentleman behind her. Whether she had invited him, or whether he had chosen to come uninvited, there he was. Lady Isabel caught a glimpse, and flung her hands over her burning cheeks of shame. It was Lord Mount Severn.

“How did you find out where I was?” she gasped, when some painful words had been uttered on both sides.

“I went to Sir Francis Levison and demanded your address. Certain recent events implied that he and you must have parted, and I therefore deemed it time to inquire what he had done with you.”

“Since last July,” she interrupted. Lifting up her wan face, now colorless again. “Do not think worse of me than I am. He was here in December for an hour’s recriminating interview, and we parted for life.”

“What have you heard of him lately?”

“Not anything. I never know what is passing in the world at home; I have no newspaper, no correspondence; and he would scarcely be so bold as to write to me again.”

“I shall not shock you, then by some tidings I bring you regarding him,” returned Lord Mount Severn.

“The greatest shock to me would be to hear that I should ever again be subjected to the sight of him,” she answered.

“He is married.”

“Heaven have pity on his poor wife!” was all the comment of Lady Isabel.

“He has married Alice Challoner.”

She lifted her head, then, in simple surprise. “Alice? Not Blanche?”

“The story runs that he has played Blanche very false. That he has been with her much during the last three or four months, leading on her expectations; and then suddenly proposed for her younger sister. I know nothing of the details myself; it is not likely; and I heard nothing, until one evening at the club I saw the announcement of the marriage for the following day at St. George’s. I was at the church the next morning before he was.”

“Not to stop it; not to intercept the marriage!” breathlessly uttered the Lady Isabel.

“Certainly not. I had no power to attempt anything of the sort. I went to demand an answer to my question--what he had done with you, and where you were. He gave me this address, but said he knew nothing of your movements since December.”

There was a long silence. The earl appeared to be alternately ruminating and taking a survey of the room. Isabel sat with her head down.

“Why did you seek me out?” she presently broke forth. “I am not worth it. I have brought enough disgrace upon your name.”

“And upon your husband’s and upon your children’s,” he rejoined, in the most severe manner, for it was not in the nature of the Earl of Mount Severn to gloss over guilt. “Nevertheless it is incumbent upon me, as your nearest blood relative, to see after you, now that you are alone again, and to take care, as far as I can, that you do not lapse lower.”

He might have spared her that stab. But she scarcely understood him. She looked at him, wondering whether she did understand.

“You have not a shilling in the world,” he resumed. “How do you propose to live?”

“I have some money yet. When--”

“His money?” sharply and haughtily interposed the earl.

“No,” she indignantly replied. “I am selling my trinkets. Before they are all gone, I shall look out to get a living in some way; by teaching, probably.”

“Trinkets!” repeated Lord Mount Severn. “Mr. Carlyle told me that you carried nothing away with you from East Lynne.”

“Nothing that he had given me. These were mine before I married. You have seen Mr. Carlyle, then?” she faltered.

“Seen him?” echoed the indignant earl. “When such a blow was dealt him by a member of my family, could I do less than hasten to East Lynne to tender my sympathies? I went with another subject too--to discover what could have been the moving springs of your conduct; for I protest, when the black tidings reached me, I believed that you must have gone mad. You were one of the last whom I should have feared to trust. But I learned nothing, and Carlyle was as ignorant as I. How could you strike him such a blow?”

Lower and lower drooped her head, brighter shone the shame on her hectic cheek. An awful blow to Mr. Carlyle it must have been; she was feeling it in all its bitter intensity. Lord Mount Severn read her repentant looks.

“Isabel,” he said, in a tone which had lost something of its harshness, and it was the first time he had called her by her Christian name, “I see that you are reaping the fruits. Tell me how it happened. What demon prompted you to sell yourself to that bad man?”

“He is a bad man!” she exclaimed. “A base, heartless man!”

“I warned you at the commencement of your married life to avoid him; to shun all association with him; not to admit him to your house.”

“His coming to East Lynne was not my doing,” she whispered. “Mr. Carlyle invited him.”

“I know he did. Invited him in his unsuspicious confidence, believing his wife to be his wife, a trustworthy woman of honor,” was the severe remark.

She did not reply; she could not gainsay it; she only sat with her meek face of shame and her eyelids drooping.

“If ever a woman had a good husband, in every sense of the word, you had, in Carlyle; if ever man loved his wife, he loved you. How could you so requite him?”

She rolled, in a confused manner, the corners of her warm shawl over her unconscious fingers.

“I read the note you left for your husband. He showed it to me; the only one, I believe, to whom he did show it. It was to him entirely inexplicable, it was so to me. A notion had been suggested to him, after your departure, that his sister had somewhat marred your peace at East Lynne, and he blamed you much, if it was so, for not giving him your full confidence on the point, that he might set matters on the right footing. But it was impossible, and there was the evidence in the note besides, that the presence of Miss Carlyle at East Lynne could be any excuse for your disgracing us all and ruining yourself.”

“Do not let us speak of these things,” said Lady Isabel, faintly. “It cannot redeem the past.”

“But I must speak of them; I came to speak of them,” persisted the earl; “I could not do it as long as that man was here. When these inexplicable things take place in the career of a woman, it is a father’s duty to look into motives and causes and actions, although the events in themselves may be, as in this case, irreparable. Your father is gone, but I stand in his place, there is no one else to stand in it.”

Her tears began to fall. And she let them fall--in silence. The earl resumed.

“But for that extraordinary letter, I should have supposed you had been actuated by a mad infatuation for the cur, Levison; its tenor gave the matter a different aspect. To what did you allude when you asserted that your husband had driven you to it?”

“He knew,” she answered, scarcely above her breath.

“He did not know,” sternly replied the earl. “A more truthful, honorable man than Carlyle does not exist on the face of the earth. When he told me then, in his agony of grief, that he was unable to form even a suspicion of your meaning, I could have staked my earldom on his veracity. I would stake it still.”

“I believed,” she began, in a low, nervous voice, for she knew that there was no evading the questions of Lord Mount Severn, when he was resolute in their being answered, and, indeed she was too weak, both in body and spirit, to resist--“I believed that his love was no longer mine; that he had deserted me, for another.”

The earl stared at her. “What can you mean by ‘deserted!’ He was with you.”

“There is a desertion of the heart,” was her murmured answer.

“Desertion of a fiddlestick!” retorted his lordship. “The interpretation we gave to the note, I and Carlyle, was, that you had been actuated by motives of jealousy; had penned it in a jealous mood. I put the question to Carlyle--as between man and man--do you listen, Isabel!--whether he had given you cause; and he answered me, as with God over us, he had never given you cause; he had been faithful to you in thought, word and deed; he had never, so far as he could call to mind, even looked upon another woman with covetous feelings, since the hour that he made you his wife; his whole thoughts had been of you, and of you alone. It is more than many a husband can say,” significantly coughed Lord Mount Severn.

Her pulses were beating wildly. A powerful conviction that the words were true; that her own blind jealousy had been utterly mistaken and unfounded, was forcing its way to her brain.

“After that I could only set your letter down as a subterfuge,” resumed the earl--“a false, barefaced plea, put forth to conceal your real motives, and I told Carlyle so. I inquired how it was he had never detected any secret understanding between you and that--that beast, located, as the fellow was, in the house. He replied that no such suspicion had ever occurred to him. He placed the most implicit confidence in you, and would have trusted you with the creature around the world, aye, with any one else.”

She entwined her hands one within the other, pressing them to pain. It would not deaden the pain at her heart.

“Carlyle told me he had been unusually occupied during the stay of that man. Besides his customary office work, his time was taken up with some private business for a family in the neighborhood, and he had repeatedly to see them, more particularly the daughter, after office hours. Very old acquaintances of his, he said, relatives of the Carlyle family; and he was as anxious about the secret--a painful one--as they were. This, I observed to him, may have rendered him unobservant to what was passing at home. He told me, I remember, that on the very evening of the--the catastrophe, he ought to have gone with you to a dinner party, but most important circumstances arose, in connection with the affair, which obliged him to meet two gentlemen at his office, and to receive them in secret, unknown to his clerks.”

“Did he mention the name of the family?” inquired Lady Isabel, with white lips.

“Yes, he did. I forgot it, though. Rabbit! Rabit!--some such name as that.”

“Was it Hare?”

“That was it--Hare. He said you appeared vexed that he did not accompany you to the dinner; and seeing that he intended to go in afterward, but was prevented. When the interview was over in his office, he was again detained at Mrs. Hare’s house, and by business as impossible to avoid as the other.”

“Important business!” she echoed, giving way for a moment to the bitterness of former feelings. “He was promenading in their garden by moonlight with Barbara--Miss Hare. I saw them as my carriage passed.”

“And you were jealous that he should be there!” exclaimed Lord Mount Severn, with mocking reproach, as he detected her mood. “Listen!” he whispered, bending his head toward her. “While you may have thought, as your present tone would seem to intimate, that they were pacing there to enjoy each other’s society, know that they--Carlyle, at any rate--was pacing the walk to keep guard. One was within that house--for a short half hour’s interview with his poor mother--one who lives in danger of the scaffold, to which his own father would be the first to deliver him up. They were keeping the path against that father--Carlyle and the young lady. Of all the nights in the previous seven years, that one only saw the unhappy son at home for a half hour’s meeting with his mother and sister. Carlyle, in the grief and excitement caused by your conduct, confided so much to me, when mentioning what kept him from the dinner party.”

Her face had become crimson--crimson at her past lamentable folly. And there was no redemption!

“But he was always with Barbara Hare,” she murmured, by way of some faint excuse.

“I have mentioned so. She had to see him upon this affair, her mother could not, for it was obliged to be kept from the father. And so, you construed business interviews into assignations!” continued Lord Mount Severn with cutting derision. “I had given you credit for better sense. But was this enough to hurl you on the step you took? Surely not. You must have yielded in the persuasions of that wicked man.”

“It is all over now,” she wailed.

“Carlyle was true and faithful to you, and to you alone. Few women have the chance of happiness, in their married life, in the degree that you had. He is an upright and good man; one of nature’s gentlemen; one that England may be proud of as having grown upon her soil. The more I see of him, the greater becomes my admiration of him, and of his thorough honor. Do you know what he did in the matter of the damages?”

She shook her head.

“He did not wish to proceed for damages, or only for the trifling sum demanded by law; but the jury, feeling for his wrongs, gave unprecedently heavy ones. Since the fellow came into his baronetcy they have been paid. Carlyle immediately handed them over to the county hospital. He holds the apparently obsolete opinion that money cannot wipe out a wife’s dishonor.”

“Let us close those topics” implored the poor invalid. “I acted wickedly and madly, and have the consequences to bear forever. More I cannot say.”

“Where do you intend to fix your future residence?” inquired the earl.

“I am unable to tell. I shall leave this town as soon as I am well enough.”

“Aye. It cannot be pleasant for you to remain under the eyes of its inhabitants. You were here with him, were you not?”

“They think I am his wife,” she murmured. “The servants think it.”

“That’s well, so far. How many servants have you?”

“Two. I am not strong enough yet to do much myself, so am obliged to keep two,” she continued, as if in apology for the extravagance, under her reduced circumstances. “As soon as ever the baby can walk, I shall manage to do with one.”

The earl looked confounded. “The baby!” he uttered, in a tone of astonishment and grief painful to her to hear. “Isabel, is there a child?”

Not less painful was her own emotion as she hid her face. Lord Mount Severn rose and paced the room with striding steps.

“I did not know it! I did not know it! Wicked, heartless villain! He ought to have married you before its birth. Was the divorce out previously?” he asked stopping short in his strides to put the question.

“Yes.”

“Coward! Sneak! May good men shun him from henceforth! May his queen refuse to receive him! You, an earl’s daughter! Oh, Isabel, how utterly you have lost yourself!”

Lady Isabel started from her chair in a burst of hysterical sobs, her hands extended beseechingly toward the earl. “Spare me! Spare me! You have been rending my heart ever since you came; indeed I am too weak to bear it.”

The earl, in truth, had been betrayed into showing more of his sentiments than he intended. He recalled his recollection.

“Well, well, sit down again, Isabel,” he said, putting her into her chair. “We shall go to the point I chiefly came here to settle. What sum will it take you to live upon? Quietly; as of course you would now wish to live, but comfortably.”

“I will not accept anything,” she replied. “I will get my own living.” And the earl’s irascibility again arose at the speech. He spoke in a sharp tone.

“Absurd, Isabel! Do not add romantic folly to your own mistakes. Get your own living, indeed! As much as is necessary for you to live upon, I shall supply. No remonstrance; I tell you I am acting as for your father. Do you suppose he would have abandoned you to starve or to work?”

The allusion touched every chord within her bosom, and the tears fell fast. “I thought I could get my living by teaching,” she sobbed.

“And how much did you anticipate the teaching would bring you in?”

“Not very much,” she listlessly said. “A hundred a year, perhaps; I am very clever at music and singing. That sum might keep us, I fancy, even if I only went out by the day.”

“And a fine ‘keep’ it would be! You shall have that sum every quarter!”

“No, no! no, no! I do not deserve it; I could not accept it; I have forfeited all claim to assistance.”

“Not to mine. Now, it is of no use to excite yourself, my mind is made up. I never willingly forego a duty, and I look upon this not only as a duty, but as an imperative one. Upon my return, I shall immediately settle four hundred upon you, and you can draw it quarterly.”

“Then half that sum,” she reflected, knowing how useless it was to contend with Lord Mount Severn when he got upon the stilts of “duty.” “Indeed, two hundred a year will be ample; it will seem like riches to me.”

“I have named the sum, Isabel, and I shall not make it less. A hundred pounds every three months shall be paid to you, dating from this day. This does not count,” said he, laying down some notes on the table.

He took her hand within his in token of farewell; turned and was gone.

And Lady Isabel remained in her chamber alone.

Alone; alone! Alone for evermore!

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XXVII. BARBARA’S MISDOINGS

A sunny afternoon in summer. More correctly speaking, it may be said a summer’s evening, for the bright beams were already slanting athwart the substantial garden of Mr. Justice Hare, and the tea hour, seven, was passing. Mr. and Mrs. Hare and Barbara were seated at the meal; somehow, meals always did seem in process at Justice Hare’s; if it was not breakfast, it was luncheon--if it was not luncheon, it was dinner--if it was not dinner, it was tea. Barbara sat in tears, for the justice was giving her a “piece of his mind,” and poor Mrs. Hare deferently agreeing with her husband, as she would have done had he proposed to set the house on fire and burn her up in it, yet sympathizing with Barbara, moved uneasily in her chair.

“You do it for the purpose; you do it to anger me,” thundered the justice, bringing down his hand on the tea-table and causing the cups to rattle.

“No I don’t, papa,” sobbed Barbara.

“Then why do you do it?”

Barbara was silent.

“No; you can’t answer; you have nothing to urge. What is the matter, pray, with Major Thorn? Come, I will be answered.”

“I don’t like him,” faltered Barbara.

“You do like him; you are telling me an untruth. You have liked him well enough whenever he has been here.”

“I like him as an acquaintance, papa; not as a husband.”

“Not as a husband!” repeated the exasperated justice. “Why, bless my heart and body, the girl’s going mad! Not as a husband! Who asked you to like him as a husband before he became such? Did ever you hear that it was necessary or expedient, or becoming for a young lady to act on and begin to ‘like’ a gentleman as ‘her husband?’”

Barbara felt a little bewildered.

“Here’s the whole parish saying that Barbara Hare can’t be married, that nobody will have her, on account of--of--of that cursed stain left by--- -, I won’t trust myself to name him, I should go too far. Now, don’t you think that’s a pretty disgrace, a fine state of things?”

“But it is not true,” said Barbara; “people do ask me.”

“But what’s the use of their asking when you say ‘No?’” raved the justice. “Is that the way to let the parish know that they ask? You are an ungrateful, rebellious, self-willed daughter, and you’ll never be otherwise.”

Barbara’s tears flowed freely. The justice gave a dash at the bell handle, to order the tea things carried away, and after their removal the subject was renewed, together with Barbara’s grief. That was the worst of Justice Hare. Let him seize hold of a grievance, it was not often he got upon a real one, and he kept on at it, like a blacksmith hammering at his forge. In the midst of a stormy oration, tongue and hands going together, Mr. Carlyle came in.

Not much altered; not much. A year and three-quarters had gone by and they had served to silver his hair upon the temples. His manner, too, would never again be careless and light as it once had been. He was the same keen man of business, the same pleasant, intelligent companion; the generality of people saw no change in him. Barbara rose to escape.

“No,” said Justice Hare, planting himself between her and the door; “that’s the way you like to get out of my reach when I am talking to you. You won’t go; so sit down again. I’ll tell you of your ill-conduct before Mr. Carlyle, and see if that will shame you.”

Barbara resumed her seat, a rush of crimson dyeing her cheeks. And Mr. Carlyle looked inquiringly, seeming to ask an explanation of her distress. The justice continued after his own fashion.

“You know, Carlyle, that horrible blow that fell upon us, that shameless disgrace. Well, because the parish can’t clack enough about the fact itself, it must begin about Barbara, saying that the disgrace and humiliation are reflected upon her, and that nobody will come near her to ask her to be his wife. One would think, rather than lie under the stigma and afford the parish room to talk, she’d marry the first man that came, if it was the parish beadle--anybody else would. But now, what are the facts? You’ll stare when you know them. She has received a bushel of good offers--a bushel of them,” repeated the justice, dashing his hand down on his knee, “and she says ‘No!’ to all. The last was to- day, from Major Thorn, and, my young lady takes and puts the stopper upon it, as usual, without reference to me or her mother, without saying with your leave or by your leave. She wants to be kept in her room for a week upon bread and water, to bring her to her senses.”

Mr. Carlyle glanced at Barbara. She was sitting meekly under the infliction, her wet eyelashes falling on her flushed cheeks and shading her eyes. The justice was heated enough, and had pushed his flaxen wig nearly hind-part before, in the warmth of his argument.

“What did you say to her?” snapped the justice.

“Matrimony may not have charms for Barbara,” replied Mr. Carlyle half jokingly.

“Nothing does have charms for her that ought to have,” growled Justice Hare. “She’s one of the contrary ones. By the way, though,” hastily resumed the justice, leaving the objectionable subject, as another flashed across his memory, “they were coupling your name and matrimony together, Carlyle, last night, at the Buck’s Head.”

A very perceptible tinge of red rose to the face of Mr. Carlyle, telling of inward emotion, but his voice and manner betrayed none.

“Indeed,” he carelessly said.

“Ah, you are a sly one; you are, Carlyle. Remember how sly you were over your first----” marriage, Justice Hare was going to bring out, but it suddenly occurred to him that all circumstances considered, it was not precisely the topic to recall to Mr. Carlyle. So he stopped himself in the utterance, coughed, and went on again. “There you go, over to see Sir John Dobede, not to see Sir John, but paying court to Miss Dobede.”

“So the Buck’s Head was amusing itself with that!” good-naturedly observed Mr. Carlyle. “Well, Miss Dobede is going to be married, and I am drawing up the settlements.”

“It’s not she; she marries young Somerset; everybody knows that. It’s the other one, Louisa. A nice girl, Carlyle.”

“Very,” responded Mr. Carlyle, and it was all the answer he gave. The justice, tired of sitting indoors, tired, perhaps, of extracting nothing satisfactory from Mr. Carlyle, rose, shook himself, set his wig aright before the chimney-glass, and quitted the house on his customary evening visit to the Buck’s Head. Barbara, who watched him down the path, saw that he encountered someone who happened to be passing the gate. She could not at first distinguish who it might be, nothing but an arm and shoulder cased in velveteen met her view, but as their positions changed in conversation--his and her father’s--she saw that it was Locksley; he had been the chief witness, not a vindictive one; he could not help himself, against her brother Richard, touching the murder of Hallijohn.

Meanwhile Mrs. Hare had drawn Mr. Carlyle into a chair close by her own.

“Archibald, will you forgive me if I say a word upon the topic introduced by Mr. Hare?” she said, in a low tone, as she shook his hand. “You know how fondly I have ever regarded you, second only to my poor Richard. Your welfare and happiness are precious to me. I wish I could in any way promote them. It occurs to me, sometimes, that you are not at present so happy as you might be.”

“I have some sources of happiness,” said Mr. Carlyle. “My children and I have plenty of sources of interest. What do you mean, dear Mrs. Hare?”

“Your home might be made happier.”

Mr. Carlyle smiled, nearly laughed. “Cornelia takes care of that, as she did in the old days, you know.”

“Yes, I know. Would it not be as well to consider whether she would not be better in a home of her own--and for you to give East Lynne another mistress?”

He shook his head.

“Archibald, it would be happier for you; it would indeed. It is only in new ties that you can forget the past. You might find recompense yet for the sorrow you have gone through; and I know none,” repeated Mrs. Hare, emphatically, “more calculated to bring it you than that sweet girl, Louisa Dobede.”

“So long as--” Mr. Carlyle was beginning, and had not got so far in his sentence, when he was interrupted by an exclamation from Barbara.

“What can be the matter with papa? Locksley must have said something to anger him. He is coming in the greatest passion, mamma; his face crimson, and his hands and arms working.”

“Oh, dear, Barbara!” was all poor Mrs. Hare’s reply. The justice’s great bursts of passion frightened her.

In he came, closed the door, and stood in the middle of the room, looking alternately at Mrs. Hare and Barbara.

“What is this cursed report, that’s being whispered in the place!” quoth he, in a tone of suppressed rage, but not unmixed with awe.

“What report?” asked Mr. Carlyle, for the justice waited for an answer, and Mrs. Hare seemed unable to speak. Barbara took care to keep silence; she had some misgivings that the justice’s words might be referring to herself--to the recent grievance.

“A report that he--he--has been here disguised as a laborer, has dared to show himself in the place where he’ll come yet, to the gibbet.”

Mrs. Hare’s face turned as white as death; Mr. Carlyle rose and dexterously contrived to stand before her, so that it should not be seen. Barbara silently locked her hands, one within the other, and turned to the window.

“Of whom did you speak?” asked Mr. Carlyle, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he were putting the most matter-of-fact question. He knew too well; but he thought to temporize for the sake of Mrs. Hare.

“Of whom do I speak!” uttered the exasperated justice, nearly beside himself with passion; “of whom would I speak but the bastard Dick! Who else in West Lynne is likely to come to a felon’s death?”

“Oh, Richard!” sobbed forth Mrs. Hare, as she sank back in her chair, “be merciful. He is our own true son.”

“Never a true son of the Hares,” raved the justice. “A true son of wickedness, and cowardice, and blight, and evil. If he has dared to show his face at West Lynne, I’ll set the whole police of England upon his track, that he may be brought here as he ought, if he must come. When Locksley told me of it just now, I raised my hand to knock him down, so infamously false did I deem the report. Do you know anything of his having been here?” continued the justice to his wife, in a pointed, resolute tone.

How Mrs. Hare would have extricated herself, or what she would have answered, cannot even be imagined, but Mr. Carlyle interposed.

“You are frightening Mrs. Hare, sir. Don’t you see that she knows nothing of it--that the very report of such a thing is alarming her into illness? But--allow me to inquire what it may be that Locksley said?”

“I met him at the gate,” retorted Justice Hare, turning his attention upon Mr. Carlyle. “He was going by as I reached it. ‘Oh, justice, I am glad I met you. That’s a nasty report in the place that Richard has been here. I’d see what I could do toward hushing it up, sir, if I were you, for it may only serve to put the police in mind of by gone things, which it may be better they should forget.’ Carlyle, I went, as I tell you, to knock him down. I asked him how he could have the hardihood to repeat such slander to my face. He was on the high horse directly; said the parish spoke the slander, not he; and I got out of him what it was he had heard.”

“And what was it?” interrupted Mr. Carlyle, more eagerly than he generally spoke.

“Why, they say the fellow showed himself here some time ago, a year or so, disguised as a farm laborer--confounded fools! Not but what he’d have been the fool had he done it.”

“To be sure he would,” repeated Mr. Carlyle, “and he is not fool enough for that, sir. Let West Lynne talk, Mr. Hare; but do not put faith in a word of its gossip. I never do. Poor Richard, wherever he may be--”

“I won’t have him pitied in my presence,” burst forth the justice. “Poor Richard, indeed! Villain Richard, if you please.”

“I was about to observe that, wherever he may be--whether in the backwoods of America, or digging for gold in California, or wandering about the United Kingdom--there is little fear that he will quit his place of safety to dare the dangerous ground of West Lynne. Had I been you, sir, I should have laughed at Locksley and his words.”

“Why does West Lynne invent such lies?”

“Ah, there’s the rub. I dare say West Lynne could not tell why, if it were paid for doing it; but it seems to have been a lame story it had got up this time. If they must have concocted a report that Richard had been seen at West Lynne, why put it back to a year ago--why not have fixed it for to-day or yesterday? If I heard anything more, I would treat it with the silence and contempt it deserves, justice.”

Silence and contempt were not greatly in the justice’s line; noise and explosion were more so. But he had a high opinion of the judgment of Mr. Carlyle; and growling a sort of assent, he once more set forth to pay his evening visit.

“Oh, Archibald!” uttered Mrs. Hare, when her husband was half-way down the path, “what a mercy that you were here! I should inevitably have betrayed myself.”

Barbara turned round from the window, “But what could have possessed Locksley to say what he did?” she exclaimed.

“I have no doubt Locksley spoke with a motive,” said Mr. Carlyle. “He is not unfriendly to Richard, and thought, probably, that by telling Mr. Hare of the report he might get it stopped. The rumor had been mentioned to me.”

Barbara turned cold all over. “How can it have come to light?” she breathed.

“I am at a loss to know,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The person to mention it to me was Tom Herbert. ‘I say,’ said he meeting me yesterday, ‘what’s this row about Dick Hare?’ ‘What now?’ I asked him. ‘Why, that Dick was at West Lynne some time back, disguised as a farm laborer.’ Just the same, you see, that Locksley said to Mr. Hare. I laughed at Tom Herbert,” continued Mr. Carlyle; “turned his report into ridicule also, before I had done with him.”

“Will it be the means of causing Richard’s detection?” murmured Mrs. Hare from between her dry lips.

“No, no,” warmly responded Mr. Carlyle. “Had the report arisen immediately after he was really here, it might not have been so pleasant; but nearly two years have elapsed since the period. Be under no uneasiness, dear Mrs. Hare, for rely upon it there is no cause.”

“But how could it have come out, Archibald?” she urged, “and at this distant period of time?”

“I assure you I am quite at a loss to imagine. Had anybody at West Lynne seen and recognized Richard, they would have spoken of it at the time. Do not let it trouble you; the rumor will die away.”

Mrs. Hare sighed deeply, and left the room to proceed to her own chamber. Barbara and Mr. Carlyle were alone.

“Oh, that the real murderer could be discovered!” she aspirated, clasping her hands. “To be subjected to these shocks of fear is dreadful. Mamma will not be herself for days to come.”

“I wish the right man could be found; but it seems as far off as ever,” remarked Mr. Carlyle.

Barbara sat ruminating. It seemed that she would say something to Mr. Carlyle, but a feeling caused her to hesitate. When she did at length speak, it was in a low, timid voice.

“You remember the description Richard gave, that last night, of the person he had met--the true Thorn?”

“Yes.”

“Did it strike you then--has it ever occurred to you to think--that it accorded with some one?”

“In what way, Barbara?” he asked, after a pause. “It accorded with the description Richard always gave of the man Thorn.”

“Richard spoke of the peculiar movement of throwing off the hair from the forehead--in this way. Did that strike you as being familiar, in connection with the white hand and the diamond ring?”

“Many have a habit of pushing off their hair--I think I do it myself sometimes. Barbara, what do you mean? Have you a suspicion of any one?”

“Have you?” she returned, answering the question by asking another.

“I have not. Since Captain Thorn was disposed of, my suspicions have not pointed anywhere.”

This sealed Barbara’s lips. She had hers, vague doubts, bringing wonder more than anything else. At times she had thought the same doubts might have occurred to Mr. Carlyle; she now found that they had not. The terrible domestic calamity which had happened to Mr. Carlyle the same night that Richard protested he had seen Thorn, had prevented Barbara’s discussing the matter with him then, and she had never done so since. Richard had never been further heard of, and the affair had remained in abeyance.

“I begin to despair of its ever being discovered,” she observed. “What will become of poor Richard?”

“We can but wait, and hope that time may bring forth its own elucidation,” continued Mr. Carlyle.

“Ah,” sighed Barbara, “but it is weary waiting--weary, weary.”

“How is it you contrive to get under the paternal displeasure?” he resumed, in a gayer tone.

She blushed vividly, and it was her only answer.

“The Major Thorn alluded to by your papa is our old friend, I presume?”

Barbara inclined her head.

“He is a very pleasant man, Barbara. Many a young lady in West Lynne would be proud to get him.”

There was a pause. Barbara broke it, but she did not look at Mr. Carlyle as she spoke.

“The other rumor--is it a correct one?”

“What other rumor?”

“That you are to marry Louisa Dobede.”

“It is not. I have no intention of marrying any one. Nay, I will say it more strongly; it is my intention not to marry any one--to remain as I am.”

Barbara lifted her eyes to his in the surprise of the moment.

“You look amused, Barbara. Have you been lending your credence to the gossips, who have so kindly disposed of me to Louisa Dobede?”

“Not so. But Louisa Dobede is a girl to be coveted, and, as mamma says, it might be happier for you if you married again. I thought you would be sure to do so.”

“No. She--who was my wife--lives.”

“What of that?” uttered Barbara, in simplicity.

He did not answer for a moment, and when he did, it was in a low, almost imperceptible tone, as he stood by the table at which Barbara sat, and looked down on her.

“‘Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery.’”

And before Barbara could answer, if, indeed, she had found any answer to make, or had recovered her surprise, he had taken his hat and was gone.

To return for a short while to Lady Isabel. As the year advanced she grew stronger, and in the latter part of the summer she made preparations for quitting Grenoble. Where she would fix her residence, or what she would do, she knew not. She was miserable and restless, and cared little what became of her. The remotest spot on earth, one unpenetrated by the steps of civilized man, appeared the most desirable for her. Where was she to find this?

She set out on her search, she and the child and its nurse. Not Susanne. Susanne had a sweetheart in Grenoble, and declined to leave it, so a girl was engaged for the child in her place. Lady Isabel wound up her housekeeping, had her things packed and forwarded to Paris, there to wait her orders and finally quitted Grenoble. It was a fine day when she left it--all too fine for the dark ending it was to bring.

When a railway accident does take place in France, it is an accident. None of your milk-and-water affairs, where a few bruises and a great fright are the extent of the damages but too often a calamity whose remembrance lasts a lifetime. Lady Isabel had travelled a considerable distance that first day, and at the dusk of evening, as they were approaching a place, Cammere, where she purposed to halt for the night, a dreadful accident occurred. The details need not be given, and will not be. It is sufficient to say that some of the passengers were killed, her child and nurse being amongst them, and she herself was dangerously injured.

The injuries lay chiefly in her left leg and in her face--the lower part of her face. The surgeons, taking their cursory view of her, as they did of the rest of the sufferers, were not sparing in their remarks, for they believed her to be insensible. She had gathered that the leg was to be amputated, and that she would probably die under the operation--but her turn to be attended to was not yet. How she contrived to write she never knew, but she got a pen and ink brought to her, and did succeed in scrawling a letter to Lord Mount Severn.

She told him that a sad accident had taken place; she could not say how; all was confusion; and that her child and maid were killed. She herself was dangerously injured, and was about to undergo an operation, which the doctors believed she could not survive; only in case of her death would the letter be sent to Lord Mount Severn. She could not die, she said, without a word of thanks for all his kindness; and she begged him, when he saw Mr. Carlyle, to say that with her last breath she humbly implored his forgiveness, and his children’s whom she no longer dared to call hers.

Now this letter, by the officiousness of a servant at the inn to which the sufferers were carried, was taken at once to the post. And, after all, things turned out not quite so bad as anticipated; for when the doctors came to examine the state of Lady Isabel, not cursorily, they found there would be no absolute necessity for the operation contemplated. Fond as the French surgeons are of the knife, to resort to it in this instance would have been cruel, and they proceeded to other means of cure.

The letter was duly delivered at the town house of Lord Mount Severn, where it was addressed. The countess was sojourning there for a few days; she had quitted it after the season, but some business, or pleasure, had called her again to town. Lord Vane was with her, but the earl was in Scotland. They were at breakfast, she and her son, when the letter was brought in: eighteen pence to pay. Its scrawled address, its foreign aspect, its appearance, altogether, excited her curiosity; in her own mind, she believed she had dropped upon a nice little conjugal mare’s nest.

“I shall open this,” cried she.

“Why, it is addressed to papa!” exclaimed Lord Vane who possessed all his father’s notions of honor.

“But such an odd letter! It may require an immediate answer; or is some begging petition, perhaps. Get on with your breakfast.”

Lady Mount Severn opened the letter, and with some difficulty spelt through its contents. They shocked even her.

“How dreadful!” she uttered, in the impulse of the moment.

“What is dreadful?” asked Lord Vane, looking up from his breakfast.

“Lady Isabel--Isabel Vane--you have not forgotten her?”

“Forgotten her!” he echoed. “Why, mamma, I must possess a funny memory to have forgotten her already.”

“She is dead. She has been killed in a railway accident in France.”

His large blue eyes, honest and true as they had been in childhood, filled, and his face flushed. He said nothing, for emotion was strong within him.

“But, shocking as it is, it is better for her,” went on the countess; “for, poor creature what could her future life had been?”

“Oh, don’t say it!” impetuously broke out the young viscount. “Killed in a railway accident, and for you to say that it is better for her!”

“So it is better,” said the countess. “Don’t go into heroics, William. You are quite old enough to know that she had brought misery upon herself, and disgrace upon all connected with her. No one could ever have taken notice of her again.”

“I would,” said the boy, stoutly.

Lady Mount Severn smiled derisively.

“I would. I never liked anybody in the world half so much as I liked Isabel.”

“That’s past and gone. You would not have continued to like her, after the disgrace she wrought.”

“Somebody else wrought more of the disgrace than she did; and, had I been a man, I would have shot him dead,” flashed the viscount.

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“Don’t I!” returned he, not over dutifully. But Lady Mount Severn had not brought him up to be dutiful.

“May I read the letter, mamma?” he demanded, after a pause.

“If you can read it,” she replied, tossing it to him. “It is written in the strangest style; syllables divided, and the words running one into the other. She wrote it herself when she was dying.”

Lord Vane took the letter to a window, and stayed looking over it for some time; the countess ate an egg and a plate of ham meanwhile. Presently he came back with it folded, and laid in on the table.

“You will forward it to papa to-day,” he observed.

“I shall forward it to him. But there’s no hurry; and I don’t exactly know where your papa may be. I shall send the notice of her death to the papers; and I am glad to do it; it is a blight removed from the family.”

“Mamma, I do think you are the unkindest woman that ever breathed!”

“I’ll give you something to call me unkind for, if you don’t mind,” retorted the countess, her color rising. “Dock you of your holiday, and pack you back to school to-day.”

A few mornings after this Mr. Carlyle left East Lynne and proceeded to his office as usual. Scarcely was he seated, when Mr. Dill entered, and Mr. Carlyle looked at him inquiringly, for it was not Mr. Carlyle’s custom to be intruded upon by any person until he had opened his letters; then he would ring for Mr. Dill. The letters and the Times newspaper lay on the table before him. The old gentleman came up in a covert, timid sort of way, which made Mr. Carlyle look all the more.

“I beg pardon, sir; will you let me ask if you have heard any particular news?”

“Yes, I have heard it,” replied Mr. Carlyle.

“Then, sir, I beg your pardon a thousand times over. It occurred to me that you probably had not, Mr. Archibald; and I thought I would have said a word to prepare you, before you came upon it suddenly in the paper.”

“To prepare me!” echoed Mr. Carlyle, as old Dill was turning away. “Why, what has come to you, Dill? Are you afraid my nerves are growing delicate, or that I shall faint over the loss of a hundred pounds? At the very most, we shall not suffer above that extent.”

Old Dill turned back again.

“If I don’t believe you are speaking of the failure of Kent & Green! It’s not that, Mr. Archibald. They won’t affect us much; and there’ll be a dividend, report runs.”

“What is it, then?”

“Then you have not heard it, sir! I am glad that I’m in time. It might not be well for you to have seen it without a word of preparation, Mr. Archibald.”

“If you have not gone demented, you will tell me what you mean, Dill, and leave me to my letters,” cried Mr. Carlyle, wondering excessively at his sober, matter-of-fact clerk’s words and manner.

Old Dill put his hands upon the Times newspaper.

“It’s here, Mr. Archibald, in the column of deaths; the first on the list. Please, prepare yourself a little before you look at it.”

He shuffled out quickly, and Mr. Carlyle as quickly unfolded the paper. It was, as old Dill said, the first on the list of deaths:

“At Cammere, in France, on the 18th inst., Isabel Mary, only child of William, late Earl of Mount Severn.”

Clients called; Mr. Carlyle’s bell did not ring; an hour or two passed, and old Dill protested that Mr. Carlyle was engaged until he could protest no longer. He went in, deprecatingly. Mr. Carlyle sat yet with the newspaper before him, and the letters unopened at his elbow.

“There are one or two who will come in, Mr. Archibald--who will see you; what am I to say?”

Mr. Carlyle stared at him for a moment, as if his wits had been in the next world. Then he swept the newspaper from before him, and was the calm, collected man of business again.

As the news of Lady Isabel’s marriage had first come in the knowledge of Lord Mount Severn through the newspapers, so singular to say did the tidings of her death. The next post brought him the letter, which his wife had tardily forwarded. But, unlike Lady Mount Severn, he did not take her death as entirely upon trust; he thought it possible the letter might have been dispatched without its having taken place; and he deemed it incumbent on him to make inquiries. He wrote immediately to the authorities of the town, in the best French he could muster, asking for particulars, and whether she was really dead.

He received, in due course a satisfactory answer; satisfactory in so far as that it set his doubts at rest. He had inquired after her by her proper name, and title, “La Dame Isabelle Vane,” and as the authorities could find none of the survivors owning that name, they took it for granted she was dead. They wrote him word that the child and nurse were killed on the spot; two ladies, occupying the same compartment of the carriage, had since died, one of whom was no doubt the mother and lady he inquired for. She was dead and buried, sufficient money having been found upon her person to defray the few necessary expenses.

Thus, through no premeditated intention of Lady Isabel, news of her death went forth to Lord Mount Severn and to the world. Her first intimation that she was regarded as dead, was through a copy of that very day’s Times seen by Mr. Carlyle--seen by Lord Mount Severn. An English traveller, who had been amongst the sufferers, and who received the English newspaper daily, sometimes lent them to her to read. She was not travelling under her own name; she left that behind her when she left Grenoble; she had rendered her own too notorious to risk the chance recognition of travellers; and the authorities little thought that the quiet unobtrusive Madame Vine, slowly recovering at the inn, was the Dame Isabella Vane, respecting whom the grand English comte wrote.

Lady Isabel understood it at once; that the dispatching of her letter had been the foundation of the misapprehension; and she began to ask herself now, why she should undeceive Lord Mount Severn and the world. She longed, none knew with what intense longings, to be unknown, obscure, totally unrecognized by all; none can know it, till they have put a barrier between themselves and the world, as she had done. The child was gone--happy being! She thought she could never be sufficiently thankful that it was released from the uncertain future--therefore she had not his support to think of. She had only herself; and surely she could with ease earn enough for that; or she could starve; it mattered little which. No, there was no necessity for her continuing to accept the bounty of Lord Mount Severn, and she would let him and everybody else continue to believe that she was dead, and be henceforth only Madame Vine. A resolution she adhered to.

Thus the unhappy Isabel’s career was looked upon as run. Lord Mount Severn forwarded her letter to Mr. Carlyle, with the confirmation of her death, which he had obtained from the French authorities. It was a nine day’s wonder: “That poor, erring Lady Isabel was dead”--people did not call her names in the very teeth of her fate--and then it was over.

It was over. Lady Isabel was as one forgotten.

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XXVIII. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR AT EAST LYNNE

There went, sailing up the avenue to East Lynne, a lady, one windy afternoon. If not a lady, she was attired as one; a flounced dress, and a stylish looking shawl, and a white veil. A very pretty woman, tall and slender was she, and she minced as she walked, and coquetted with her head, and, altogether contrived to show that she had quite as much vanity as brains. She went boldly up to the broad entrance of the house, and boldly rang at it, drawing her white veil over her face as she did so.

One of the men-servants answered it, not Peter; and, seeing somebody very smart before him, bowed deferentially.

“Miss Hallijohn is residing here, I believe. Is she within?”

“Who, ma’am?”

“Miss Hallijohn; Miss Joyce Hallijohn,” somewhat sharply repeated the lady, as if impatient of any delay. “I wish to see her.”

The man was rather taken aback. He had deemed it a visitor to the house, and was prepared to usher her to the drawing-room, at least; but it seemed it was only a visitor to Joyce. He showed her into a small parlor, and went upstairs to the nursery, where Joyce was sitting with Wilson--for there had been no change in the domestic department of East Lynne. Joyce remained as upper maid, partially superintending the servants, attending upon Lucy, and making Miss Carlyle’s dresses as usual. Wilson was nurse still.

“Miss Joyce, there’s a lady asking for you,” said the man. “I have shown her into the gray parlor.”

“A lady for me?” repeated Joyce. “Who is it? Some one to see the children, perhaps.”

“It’s for yourself, I think. She asked for Miss Hallijohn.”

Joyce looked at the man; but she put down her work and proceeded to the gray parlor. A pretty woman, vain and dashing, threw up her white veil at her entrance.

“Well, Joyce, how are you?”

Joyce, always pale, turned paler still, as she gazed in blank consternation. Was it really Afy who stood before her--Afy, the erring?

Afy it was. And she stood there, holding out her hand to Joyce, with what Wilson would have called, all the brass in the world. Joyce could not reconcile her mind to link her own with it.

“Excuse me, Afy, but I cannot take your hand, I cannot welcome you here. What could have induced you to come?”

“If you are going to be upon the high ropes, it seems I might as well have stayed away,” was Afy’s reply, given in the pert, but good-humored manner she had ever used to Joyce. “My hand won’t damage yours. I am not poison.”

“You are looked upon in the neighborhood as worse than poison, Afy,” returned Joyce, in a tone, not of anger but of sorrow. “Where’s Richard Hare?”

Afy tossed her head. “Where’s who?” asked she.

“Richard Hare. My question was plain enough.”

“How should I know where he is? It’s like your impudence to mention him to me. Why don’t you ask me where Old Nick is, and how he does? I’d rather own acquaintance with him than with Richard Hare, if I’d my choice between the two.”

“Then you have left Richard Hare? How long since?”

“I have left--what do you say?” broke off Afy, whose lips were quivering ominously with suppressed passion. “Perhaps you’ll condescend to explain. I don’t understand.”

“When you left here, did you not go after Richard Hare--did you not join him?”

“I’ll tell you what it is, Joyce,” flashed Afy, her face indignant and her voice passionate, “I have put up with some things from you in my time, but human nature has its limits of endurance, and I won’t bear that. I have never set eyes on Richard Hare since that night of horror; I wish I could; I’d help to hang him.”

Joyce paused. The belief that Afy was with him had been long and deeply imbued within her; it was the long-continued and firm conviction of all West Lynne, and a settled belief, such as that, is not easily shaken. Was Afy telling the truth? She knew her propensity for making false assertions, when they served to excuse herself.

“Afy,” she said at length, “let me understand you. When you left this place, was it not to share Richard Hare’s flight? Have you not been living with him?”

“No!” burst forth Afy, with kindling eyes. “Living with him--with our father’s murderer! Shame upon you, Joyce Hallijohn! You must be precious wicked yourself to suppose it.”

“If I have judged you wrongly, Afy, I sincerely beg your pardon. Not only myself, but the whole of West Lynne, believed you were with him; and the thought has caused me pain night and day.”

“What a cannibal minded set you all must be, then!” was Afy’s indignant rejoinder.

“What have you been doing ever since, then? Where have you been?”

“Never mind, I say,” repeated Afy. “West Lynne has not been so complimentary to me, it appears, that I need put myself out of my way to satisfy its curiosity. I was knocking about a bit at first, but I soon settled down as steady as Old Time--as steady as you.”

“Are you married?” inquired Joyce, noting the word “settled.”

“Catch me marrying,” retorted Afy; “I like my liberty too well. Not but what I might be induced to change my condition, if anything out of the way eligible occurred; it must be very eligible, though, to tempt me. I am what I suppose you call yourself--a lady’s maid.”

“Indeed!” said Joyce, much relieved. “And are you comfortable, Afy? Are you in good service?”

“Middling, for that. The pay’s not amiss, but there’s a great deal to do, and Lady Mount Severn’s too much of a Tartar for me.”

Joyce looked at her in surprise. “What have you to do with Lady Mount Severn?”

“Well, that’s good! It’s where I am at service.”

“At Lady Mount Severn’s?”

“Why not? I have been there two years. It is not a great deal longer I shall stop, though; she had too much vinegar in her for me. But it poses me to imagine what on earth could have induced you to fancy I should go off with that Dick Hare,” she added, for she could not forget the grievance.

“Look at the circumstances,” argued Joyce. “You both disappeared.”

“But not together.”

“Nearly together. There were only a few days intervening. And you had neither money nor friends.”

“You don’t know what I had. But I would rather have died of want on father’s grave than have shared his means,” continued Afy, growing passionate again.

“Where is he? Not hung, or I should have heard of it.”

“He has never been seen since that night, Afy.”

“Nor heard of?”

“Nor heard of. Most people think he is in Australia, or some other foreign land.”

“The best place for him; the more distance he puts between him and home, the better. If he does come back, I hope he’ll get his desserts--which is a rope’s end. I’d go to his hanging.”

“You are as bitter against him as Mr. Justice Hare. He would bring his son back to suffer, if he could.”

“A cross-grained old camel!” remarked Afy, in allusion to the qualities, social and amiable, of the revered justice. “I don’t defend Dick Hare--I hate him too much for that--but if his father had treated him differently, Dick might have been different. Well, let’s talk of something else; the subject invariably gives me the shivers. Who is mistress here?”

“Miss Carlyle.”

“Oh, I might have guessed that. Is she as fierce as ever?”

“There is little alteration in her.”

“And there won’t be on this side the grave. I say, Joyce, I don’t want to encounter her; she might set on at me, like she has done many a time in the old days. Little love was there lost between me and Corny Carlyle. Is Mr. Carlyle at home?”

“He will be home to dinner. I dare say you would like some tea; you shall come and take it with me and Wilson, in the nursery.”

“I was thinking you might have the grace to offer me something,” cried Afy. “I intend to stop till to-morrow in the neighborhood. My lady gave me two days’ holiday--for she was going to see her dreadful old grandmother, where she can’t take a maid--and I thought I’d use it in coming to have a look at the old place again. Don’t stare at me in that blank way, as if you feared I should ask the grand loan of sleeping here. I shall sleep at the Mount Severn Arms.”

“I was not glancing at such a thought, Afy. Come and take your bonnet off.”

“Is the nursery full of children?”

“There is only one child in it. Miss Lucy and Master William are with the governess.”

Wilson received Afy with lofty condescension, having Richard Hare in her thoughts. But Joyce explained that it was all a misapprehension--that her sister had never been near Richard Hare, but was as indignant against him as they were. Upon which Wilson grew cordial and chatty, rejoicing in the delightful recreation her tongue would enjoy that evening.

Afy’s account of herself, as to past proceedings, was certainly not the most satisfactory in the world; but, altogether, taken in the present, it was so vast an improvement upon Joyce’s conclusions, that she had not felt so elated for many a day. When Mr. Carlyle returned home Joyce sought him, and acquainted him with what had happened; that Afy was come; was maid to Lady Mount Severn; and, above all, that she had never been with Richard Hare.

“Ah! You remember what I said, Joyce,” he remarked. “That I did not believe Afy was with Richard Hare.”

“I have been telling her so, sir, to be sure, when I informed her what people had believed,” continued Joyce. “She nearly went into one of her old passions.”

“Does she seem steady, Joyce?”

“I think so, sir--steady for her. I was thinking, sir, that as she appears to have turned out so respectable, and is with Lady Mount Severn, you, perhaps, might see no objection to her sleeping here for to-night. It would be better than for her to go to the inn, as she talks of doing.”

“None at all,” replied Mr. Carlyle. “Let her remain.”

Later in the evening, after Mr. Carlyle’s dinner, a message came that Afy was to go to him. Accordingly she proceeded to his presence.

“So, Afy, you have returned to let West Lynne know that you are alive. Sit down.”

“West Lynne may go a-walking for me in future, sir, for all the heed I shall take of it,” retorted Afy. “A set of wicked-minded scandal- mongers, to take and say I had gone after Richard Hare!”

“You should not have gone off at all, Afy.”

“Well, sir, that was my business, and I chose to go. I could not stop in the cottage after that night’s work.”

“There is a mystery attached to that night’s work, Afy,” observed Mr. Carlyle; “a mystery that I cannot fathom. Perhaps you can help me out.”

“What mystery, sir?” returned Afy.

Mr. Carlyle leaned forward, his arms on the table. Afy had taken a chair at the other end of it. “Who was it that committed the murder?” he demanded, in a grave and somewhat imperative tone.

Afy stared some moments before she replied, astonished at the question. “Who committed the murder, sir?” she uttered at length. “Richard Hare committed it. Everybody knows that.”

“Did you see it done?”

“No,” replied Afy. “If I had seen it, the fright and horror would have killed me. Richard Hare quarreled with my father, and drew the gun upon him in passion.”

“You assume this to have been the case, Afy, as others have assumed it. I do not think that it was Richard Hare who killed your father.”

“Not Richard Hare!” exclaimed Afy, after a pause. “Then who do you think did it, sir--I?”

“Nonsense, Afy.”

“I know he did it,” proceeded Afy. “It is true that I did not see it done, but I know it for all that. I know it, sir.”

“You cannot know it, Afy.”

“I do know it, sir; I would not assert it to you if I did not. If Richard Hare was here, present before us, and swore until he was black in the face that it was not him, I could convict him.”

“By what means?”

“I had rather not say, sir. But you may believe me, for I am speaking truth.”

“There was another friend of yours present that evening, Afy. Lieutenant Thorn.”

Afy’s face turned crimson; she was evidently surprised. But Mr. Carlyle’s speech and manner were authoritative, and she saw it would be useless to attempt to trifle with him.

“I know he was, sir. A young chap who used to ride over some evenings to see me. He had nothing to do with what occurred.”

“Where did he ride from?”

“He was stopping with some friends at Swainson. He was nobody, sir.”

“What was his name?” questioned Mr. Carlyle.

“Thorn,” said Afy.

“I mean his real name. Thorn was an assumed name.”

“Oh, dear no,” returned Afy. “Thorn was his name.”

Mr. Carlyle paused and looked at her.

“Afy, I have reason to believe that Thorn was only an assumed name. Now, I have a motive for wishing to know his real one, and you would very much oblige me by confiding it to me. What was it?”

“I don’t know that he had any other name, sir; I am sure he had no other,” persisted Afy. “He was Lieutenant Thorn, then and he was Captain Thorn, afterward.”

“You have seen him since?”

“Once in a way we have met.”

“Where is he now?”

“Now! Oh, my goodness, I don’t know anything about him now,” muttered Afy. “I have not heard of him or seen him for a long while. I think I heard something about his going to India with his regiment.”

“What regiment is he in?”

“I’m sure I don’t know about that,” said Afy. “Is not one regiment the same as another; they are all in the army, aren’t they, sir?”

“Afy, I must find this Captain Thorn. Do you know anything of his family?”

Afy shook her head. “I don’t think he had any. I never heard him mention as much as a brother or a sister.”

“And you persist in saying his name was Thorn?”

“I persist in saying it because it was his name. I am positive it was his name.”

“Afy, shall I tell you why I want to find him; I believe it was he who murdered your father, not Richard Hare.”

Afy’s mouth and eyes gradually opened, and her face turned hot and cold alternately. Then passion mastered her, and she burst forth.

“It’s a lie! I beg your pardon, sir, but whoever told you that, told you a lie. Thorn had no more to do with it than I had; I’ll swear it.”

“I tell you, Afy, I believe Thorn to have been the man. You were not present; you cannot know who actually did it.”

“Yes, I can, and do know,” said Afy, bursting into sobs of hysterical passion. “Thorn was with me when it happened, so it could not have been Thorn. It was that wicked Richard Hare. Sir, have I not said that I’ll swear it?”

“Thorn was with you--at the moment of the murder?” repeated Mr. Carlyle.

“Yes, he was,” shrieked Afy, nearly beside herself with emotion. “Whoever has been trying to put it off Richard Hare, and on to him, is a wicked, false-hearted wretch. It was Richard Hare, and nobody else, and I hope he’ll be hung for it yet.”

“You are telling me the truth, Afy?” gravely spoke Mr. Carlyle.

“Truth!” echoed Afy, flinging up her hands. “Would I tell a lie over my father’s death? If Thorn had done it, would I screen him, or shuffle it off to Richard Hare? Not so.”

Mr. Carlyle felt uncertain and bewildered. That Afy was sincere in what she said, was but too apparent. He spoke again but Afy had risen from her chair to leave.

“Locksley was in the wood that evening. Otway Bethel was in it. Could either of them have been the culprit?”

“No, sir,” firmly retorted Afy; “the culprit was Richard Hare; and I’d say it with my latest breath--I’d say it because I know it--though I don’t choose to say how I know it; time enough when he gets taken.”

She quitted the room, leaving Mr. Carlyle in a state of puzzled bewilderment. Was he to believe Afy, or was he to believe the bygone assertion of Richard Hare?

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XXIX. A NIGHT INVASION OF EAST LYNNE

In one of the comfortable sitting-rooms of East Lynne sat Mr. Carlyle and his sister, one inclement January night. The contrast within and without was great. The warm, blazing fire, the handsome carpet on which it flickered, the exceedingly comfortable arrangement of the furniture, of the room altogether, and the light of the chandelier, which fell on all, presented a picture of home peace, though it may not have deserved the name of luxury. Without, heavy flakes of snow were falling thickly, flakes as large and nearly as heavy as a crown piece, rendering the atmosphere so dense and obscure that a man could not see a yard before him. Mr. Carlyle had driven home in the pony carriage, and the snow had so settled upon him that Lucy, who happened to see him as he entered the hall, screamed out laughingly that her papa had turned into a white man. It was now later in the evening; the children were in bed; the governess was in her own sitting room--it was not often that Miss Carlyle invited her to theirs of an evening--and the house was quite. Mr. Carlyle was deep in the pages of one of the monthly periodicals, and Miss Carlyle sat on the other side of the fire, grumbling, and grunting, and sniffling, and choking.

Miss Carlyle was one of your strong-minded ladies, who never condescended to be ill. Of course, had she been attacked with scarlet fever, or paralysis, or St. Vitus’ dance, she must have given in to the enemy; but trifling ailments, such as headache, influenza, sore throat, which other people get, passed her by. Imagine, therefore, her exasperation at finding her head stuffed up, her chest sore, and her voice going; in short, at having, for once in her life, caught a cold like ordinary mortals.

“What’s the time, I wonder?” she exclaimed.

Mr. Carlyle looked at his watch. “It is just nine, Cornelia.”

“Then I think I shall go to bed. I’ll have a basin of arrowroot or gruel, or some slop of that sort, after I’m in it. I’m sure I have been free enough all my life from requiring such sick dishes.”

“Do so,” said Mr. Carlyle. “It may do you good.”

“There’s one thing excellent for a cold in the head, I know. It’s to double your flannel petticoat crossways, or any other large piece of flannel you may conveniently have at hand, and put it on over your night-cap. I’ll try it.”

“I would,” said Mr. Carlyle, smothering an irreverent laugh.

She sat on five minutes longer, and then left, wishing Mr. Carlyle good- night. He resumed his reading; but another page or two concluded the article, upon which Mr. Carlyle threw the book on the table, rose and stretched himself, as if tired of sitting.

He stirred the fire into a brighter blaze, and stood on the hearthrug. “I wonder if it snows still?” he exclaimed to himself.

Proceeding to the window, one of those opening to the ground, he threw aside the half of the warm crimson curtain. It all looked dull and dark outside. Mr. Carlyle could see little what the weather was, and he opened the window and stepped half out.

The snow was falling faster and thicker than ever. Not at that did Mr. Carlyle start with surprise, if not with a more unpleasant sensation; but a feeling a man’s hand touch his, and at finding a man’s face nearly in contact with his own.

“Let me come in, Mr. Carlyle, for the love of life! I see you are alone. I’m dead beat, and I don’t know but I’m dodged also.”

The tones struck familiarly on Mr. Carlyle’s ear. He drew back mechanically, a thousand perplexing sensations overwhelming him, and the man followed him into the room--a white man, as Lucy called her father. Aye, for he had been hours and hours on foot in the snow; his hat, his clothes, his eyebrows, his large whiskers, all were white. “Lock the door, sir,” were his first words. Need you be told that it was Richard Hare?

Mr. Carlyle fastened the window, drew the heavy curtains across, and turned rapidly to lock the two doors--for there were two to the room, one of them leading into the adjoining one. Richard meanwhile took off his wet smock-frock of former memory--his hat, and his false black whiskers, wiping the snow from the latter with his hand.

“Richard,” uttered Mr. Carlyle, “I am thunderstruck! I fear you have done wrong to come here.”

“I cut off from London at a moment’s notice,” replied Richard, who was literally shivering with the cold. “I’m dodged, Mr. Carlyle, I am indeed. The police are after me, set on by that wretch Thorn.”

Mr. Carlyle turned to the sideboard and poured out a wineglass of brandy. “Drink it, Richard, it will warm you.”

“I’d rather have it in some hot water, sir.”

“But how am I to get the hot water brought in? Drink this for now. Why, how you tremble.”

“Ah, a few hours outside in the cold snow is enough to make the strongest man tremble, sir; and it lies so deep in places that you have to come along at a snail’s pace. But I’ll tell you about this business. A fortnight ago I was at a cabstand at the West End, talking to a cab- driver, when some drops of rain came down. A gentleman and lady were passing at the time, but I had not paid any attention to them. ‘By Jove!’ I heard him exclaim to her, ‘I think we’re going to have pepper. We had better take a cab, my dear.’ With that the man I was talking to swung open the door of his cab, and she got in--such a fair young lady, she was! I turned to look at him, and you might just have knocked me down with astonishment. Mr. Carlyle, it was the man, Thorn.”

“Indeed!”

“You thought I might be mistaken in him that moonlight night, but there was no mistaking him in broad daylight. I looked him full in the face, and he looked at me. He turned as white as cloth. Perhaps I did--I don’t know.”

“Was he well dressed?”

“Very. Oh, there’s no mistaking his position. That he moves in the higher classes there’s no doubt. The cab drove away, and I got up behind it. The driver thought boys were there, and turned his head and his whip, but I made him a sign. We didn’t go much more than the length of a street. I was on the pavement before Thorn was, and looked at him again, and again he went white. I marked the house, thinking it was where he lived, and--”

“Why did you not give him into custody, Richard?”

Richard Hare shook his head. “And my proofs of his guilt, Mr. Carlyle? I could bring none against him--no positive ones. No, I must wait till I can get proofs to do that. He would turn round upon me now and swear my life away to murder. Well, I thought I’d ascertain for certain what his name was, and that night I went to the house, and got into conversation with one of the servants, who was standing at the door. ‘Does Captain Thorn live here?’ I asked him.

“‘Mr. Westleby lives here,’ said he; ‘I don’t know any Captain Thorn.’

“Then that’s his name, thought I to myself. ‘A youngish man, isn’t he?’ said I, ‘very smart, with a pretty wife?’

“‘I don’t know what you call youngish,’ he laughed, ‘my master’s turned sixty, and his wife’s as old.’

“That checked me. ‘Perhaps he has sons?’ I asked.

“‘Not any,’ the man answered; ‘there’s nobody but their two selves.’

“So, with that, I told him what I wanted--that a lady and gentleman had alighted there in a cab that day, and I wished to know his name. Well, Mr. Carlyle, I could get at nothing satisfactory; the fellow said that a great many had called there that day, for his master was just up from a long illness, and people came to see him.”

“Is that all, Richard?”

“All! I wish it had been all. I kept looking about for him in all the best streets; I was half mad--”

“Do you not wonder, if he is in this position of life, and resides in London, that you have never dropped upon him previously?” interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

“No, sir; and I’ll tell you why. I have been afraid to show myself in those latter parts of the town, fearing I might meet with some one I used to know at home, who would recognize me, so I have kept mostly in obscure places--stables and such like. I had gone up to the West End this day on a matter of business.”

“Well, go on with your story.”

“In a week’s time I came upon him again. It was at night. He was coming out of one of the theatres, and I went up and stood before him.”

“‘What do you want, fellow?’ he asked. ‘I have seen you watching me before this.’

“‘I want to know your name,’ I said, ‘that’s enough for me at present.’

“He flew into a passion, and swore that if ever he caught sight of me near him again he would hand me over into custody. ‘And remember, men are not given into custody for watching others,’ he significantly added. ‘I know you, and if you have any regard for yourself, you’ll keep out of my way.’

“He had got into a private carriage as he spoke, and it drove away; I could see that it had a great coat-of-arms upon it.”

“When do you say this was?”

“A week ago. Well, I could not rest; I was half mad, I say, and went about, still trying if I could not discover his name and who he was. I did come upon him, but he was walking quickly, arm-in-arm with--with another gentleman. Again I saw him, standing at the entrance to the betting rooms, talking to the same gentleman, and his face turned savage--I believe with fear as much as anger--when he discerned me. He seemed to hesitate, and then--as if he acted in a passion--suddenly beckoned to a policeman, pointed me out, and said something to him in a fast tone. That frightened me, and I slipped away. Two hours after, when I was in quite a different part of the town, in turning my head I saw the same policeman following me. I bolted under the horses of a passing vehicle, down some turnings and passages, out into another street, and up beside a cabman who was on his box, driving a fare past. I reached my lodgings in safety, as I thought, but happening to glance into the street, there I saw the man again, standing opposite, and reconnoitering the house. I had gone home hungry, but this took all my hunger away from me. I opened the box where I kept my disguise, put it on, and got out by a back way. I have been pretty nearly ever since on my feet reaching here; I only got a lift now and then.”

“But, Richard, do you know that West Lynne is the very worst place you could have flown to? It has come to light that you were here before, disguised as a farm laborer.”

“Who the deuce betrayed that?” interrupted Richard.

“I am unable to tell; I cannot even imagine. The rumor was rife in the place, and it reached your father’s ear. The rumor may make people’s wits sharper to know you in your disguise, than they otherwise might have been.”

“But what was I to do? I was forced to come here first and get a little money. I shall fix myself in some other big town, far away from London-- Liverpool or Manchester, perhaps; and see what employment I can get into, but I must have something to live upon till I can get it. I don’t possess a penny piece,” he added, drawing out his trousers pockets for the inspection of Mr. Carlyle. “The last coppers, I had, three pence, I spent in bread and cheese and half a pint of beer at midday. I have been outside that window for more than an hour, sir.”

“Indeed!”

“And as I neared West Lynne I began to think what I should do. It was no use in me trying to catch Barbara’s attention such a night as this; I had no money to pay for a lodging; so I turned off here, hoping I might, by good luck, drop upon you. There was a little partition in the window curtain--it had not been drawn close--and through it I could see you and Miss Carlyle. I saw her leave the room; I saw you come to the window and open it, and then I spoke. Mr. Carlyle,” he added, after a pause, “is this life to go on with me forever?”

“I am deeply sorry for you, Richard,” was the sympathizing answer. “I wish I could remedy it.”

Before another word was spoken the room door was tried, and then gently knocked at. Mr. Carlyle placed his hand on Richard, who was looking scared out of his wits.

“Be still; be at ease, Richard; no one shall come in. It is only Peter.”

Not Peter’s voice, however, but Joyce’s was heard, in response to Mr. Carlyle’s demand of who was there.

“Miss Carlyle has left her handkerchief downstairs, sir, and has sent me for it.”

“You cannot come in--I am busy,” was the answer, delivered in a clear and most decisive tone.

“Who was it?” quivered Richard, as Joyce was heard going away.

“It was Joyce.”

“What! Is she here still? Has anything ever been heard of Afy, sir?”

“Afy was here herself two or three months ago.”

“Was she, though?” uttered Richard, beguiled for an instant from the thought of his own danger. “What is she doing?”

“She is in service as a lady’s maid. Richard, I questioned Afy about Thorn. She protested solemnly to me that it was not Thorn who committed the deed--that it could not have been he, for Thorn was with her at the moment of its being done.”

“It’s not true!” fired Richard. “It was Thorn.”

“Richard, you cannot tell; you did not see it done.”

“I know that no man could have rushed out in that frantic manner, with those signs of guilt and fear about him, unless he had been engaged in a bad deed,” was Richard Hare’s answer. “It could have been no one else.”

“Afy declared he was with her,” repeated Mr. Carlyle.

“Look here, sir, you are a sharp man, and folks say I am not, but I can see things and draw my reasoning as well as they can, perhaps. If Thorn were not Hallijohn’s murderer, why should he be persecuting me--what would he care about me? And why should his face turn livid, as it has done, each time he has seen my eyes upon him? Whether he did commit the murder, or whether he didn’t, he must know that I did not, because he came upon me, waiting, as he was tearing from the cottage.”

Dick’s reasoning was not bad.

“Another thing,” he resumed. “Afy swore at the inquest that she was alone when the deed was done; that she was alone at the back of the cottage, and knew nothing about it till afterwards. How could she have sworn she was alone, if Thorn was with her?”

The fact had entirely escaped Mr. Carlyle’s memory in his conversation with Afy, or he would not have failed to point out the discrepancy, and to inquire how she could reconcile it. Yet her assertion to him had been most positive and solemn. There were difficulties in the matter which he could not reconcile.

“Now that I have got over my passion for Afy, I can see her faults, Mr. Carlyle. She’d no more tell an untruth than I should stick--”

A most awful thundering at the room door--loud enough to bring the very house down. No officers of justice, searching for a fugitive, ever made a louder. Richard Hare, his face turned to chalk, his eyes starting, and his own light hair bristling up with horror, struggled into his wet smock-frock after a fashion, the tails up about his ears and the sleeves hanging, forced on his hat and his false whiskers, looked round in a bewildered manner for some cupboard or mouse-hole into which he might creep, and, seeing none, rushed to the fireplace and placed his foot on the fender. That he purposed an attempt at chimney-climbing was evident, though how the fire would have agreed with his pantaloons, not to speak of what they contained, poor Dick appeared completely to ignore. Mr. Carlyle drew him back, keeping his calm, powerful hand upon his shoulder, while certain sounds in an angry voice were jerked through the keyhole.

“Richard, be a man, put aside this weakness, this fear. Have I not told you that harm shall not come near you in my house?”

“It may be that officer from London; he may have brought half a dozen more with him!” gasped the unhappy Richard. “I said they might have dodged me all the way here.”

“Nonsense. Sit you down, and be at rest, it is only Cornelia; and she will be as anxious to shield you from danger as I can be.”

“Is it?” cried the relieved Richard. “Can’t you make her keep out?” he continued, his teeth still chattering.

“No, that I can’t, if she has a mind to come in,” was the candid answer. “You remember what she was, Richard; she is not altered.”

Knowing that to speak on this side the door to his sister, when she was in one of her resolute moods, would be of no use, Mr. Carlyle opened the door, dexterously swung himself through it, and shut it after him. There she stood; in a towering passion, too.

It had struck Miss Carlyle, while undressing, that certain sounds, as of talking, proceeded from the room underneath, which she had just quitted. She possessed a remarkably keen sense of hearing, did Miss Carlyle; though, indeed, none of her faculties lacked the quality of keenness. The servants, Joyce and Peter excepted, would not be convinced but that she must “listen;” but, in that, they did her injustice. First of all, she believed her brother must be reading aloud to himself; but she soon decided otherwise. “Who on earth has he got in there with him?” quoth Miss Carlyle.

She rang her bell; Joyce answered it.

“Who is it that is with your master?”

“Nobody, ma’am.”

“But I say there is. I can hear him talking.”

“I don’t think anybody can be with him,” persisted Joyce. “And the walls of this house are too well built, ma’am, for sounds from the down stairs rooms to penetrate here.”

“That’s all you know about it,” cried Miss Carlyle. “When talking goes on in that room, there’s a certain sound given out which does penetrate here, and which my ears have grown accustomed to. Go and see who it is. I believe I left my handkerchief on the table; you can bring it up.”

Joyce departed, and Miss Carlyle proceeded to take off her things; her dress first, her silk petticoat next. She had arrived as far as the flannel petticoat when Joyce returned.

“Yes, ma’am, some one is talking with master. I could not go in, for the door was bolted, and master called out that he was busy.”

Food for Miss Carlyle. She, feeling sure that no visitor had come to the house, ran her thoughts rapidly over the members of the household, and came to the conclusion that it must be the governess, Miss Manning, who had dared to closet herself with Mr. Carlyle. This unlucky governess was pretty, and Miss Carlyle had been cautious to keep her and her prettiness very much out of her brother’s sight; she knew the attraction he would present to her visions, or to those of any other unprovided-for governess. Oh, yes; it was Miss Manning; she had stolen in; believing she, Miss Carlyle, was safe for the night; but she’d just unearth my lady. And what in the world could possess Archibald--to lock the door!

Looking round for something warm to throw over her shoulders, and catching up an article that looked as much like a green baize table- cover as anything else, and throwing it on, down stalked Miss Carlyle. And in this trim Mr. Carlyle beheld her when he came out.

The figure presented by Miss Carlyle to her brother’s eyes was certainly ridiculous enough. She gave him no time to comment upon it, however, but instantly and curtly asked,--

“Who have you got in that room?”

“It is some one on business,” was his prompt reply. “Cornelia, you cannot go in.”

She very nearly laughed. “Not go in?”

“Indeed it is much better that you should not. Pray go back. You will make your cold worse, standing here.

“Now, I want to know whether you are not ashamed of yourself?” she deliberately pursued. “You! A married man, with children in your house! I’d rather have believed anything downright wicked of myself, than of you, Archibald.”

Mr. Carlyle stared considerably.

“Come; I’ll have her out. And out of this house she tramps to-morrow morning. A couple of audacious ones, to be in there with the door locked, the moment you thought you had got rid of me! Stand aside, I say, Archibald, I will enter.”

Mr. Carlyle never felt more inclined to laugh. And, to Miss Carlyle’s exceeding discomposure she, at this juncture, saw the governess emerge from the gray parlor, glance at the hall clock, and retire again.

“Why! She’s there,” she uttered. “I thought she was with you.”

“Miss Manning, locked in with me! Is that the mare’s nest, Cornelia? I think your cold must have obscured your reason.”

“Well, I shall go in, all the same. I tell you, Archibald, that I will see who is there.”

“If you persist in going in, you must go. But allow me to warn you that you will find tragedy in that room, not comedy. There is no woman in it, but there is a man; a man who came in through the window, like a hunted stag; a man upon whom a ban is set, who fears the police are upon his track. Can you guess his name?”

It was Miss Carlyle’s turn to stare now. She opened her dry lips to speak, but they closed again.

“It is Richard Hare, your kinsman. There’s not a roof in the wide world open to him this bitter night.”

She said nothing. A long pause of dismay, and then she motioned to have the door opened.

“You will not show yourself--in--in that guise?”

“Not show myself in this guise to Richard Hare--whom I have whipped-- when he was a child--ten times a day! Stand on ceremony with him! I dare say he looks no better than I do. But it’s nothing short of madness, Archibald, for him to come here.”

He left her to enter, telling her to lock the door as soon as she was inside, and went himself into the adjoining room, the one which, by another door, opened to the one Richard was in. Then he rang the bell. It was answered by a footman.

“Send Peter to me.”

“Lay supper here, Peter, for two,” began Mr. Carlyle, when the old servant appeared. “A person is with me on business. What have you in the house?”

“There’s the spiced beef, sir; and there are some home-made raised pork pies.”

“That will do,” said Mr. Carlyle. “Put a quart of ale on the table, and everything likely to be wanted. And then the household can go to bed; we may be late, and the things can be removed in the morning. Oh--and Peter--none of you must come near the room, this or the next, under any pretence whatever, unless I ring, for I shall be too busy to be disturbed.”

“Very well, sir. Shall I serve the ham also?”

“The ham?”

“I beg pardon, sir; I guessed it might be Mr. Dill, and he is so fond of our hams.”

“Ah, you were always a shrewd guesser, Peter,” smiled his master. “He is fond of ham I know; yes, you may put it on the table. Don’t forget the small kettle.”

The consequence of which little finesse on Mr. Carlyle’s part was, that Peter announced in the kitchen that Mr. Dill had arrived, and supper was to be served for two. “But what a night for the old gentleman to have trudged through on foot!” exclaimed he.

“And what a trudge he’ll have of it back again, for it’ll be worse then!” chimed in one of the maids.

When Mr. Carlyle got back in the other room, his sister and Richard Hare had scarcely finished staring at each other.

“Please lock the door, Miss Cornelia,” began poor shivering Dick.

“The door’s locked,” snapped she. “But what on earth brought you here, Richard? You must be worse than mad.”

“The Bow-street officers were after me in London,” he meekly responded, unconsciously using a term which had been familiar to his boyish years. “I had to cut away without a thing belonging to me, without so much as a clean shirt.”

“They must be polite officers, not to have been after you before,” was the consolatory remark of Miss Carlyle. “Are you going to dance a hornpipe through the streets of West Lynne to-morrow, and show yourself openly?”

“Not if I can help it,” replied Richard.

“You might just as well do that, if you come to West Lynne at all; for you can’t be here now without being found out. There was a bother about your having been here the last time: I should like to know how it got abroad.”

“The life I lead is dreadful!” cried Richard. “I might make up my mind to toil, though that’s hard, after being reared a gentleman; but to be an exile, banned, disgraced, afraid to show my face in broad daylight amidst my fellowmen, in dread every hour that the sword may fall! I would almost as soon be dead as continue to live it.”

“Well, you have got nobody to grumble at; you brought it upon yourself,” philosophically returned Miss Carlyle, as she opened the door to admit her brother. “You would go hunting after that brazen hussy, Afy, you know, in defiance of all that could be said to you.”

“That would not have brought it upon me,” said Richard. “It was through that fiend’s having killed Hallijohn; that was what brought the ban upon me.”

“It’s a most extraordinary thing, if anybody else did kill him, that the facts can’t be brought to light,” retorted Miss Carlyle. “Here you tell a cock-and-bull story of some man’s having done it, some Thorn; but nobody ever saw or heard of him, at the time or since. It looks like a made-up story, Mr. Dick, to whiten yourself.”

“Made up!” panted Richard, in agitation, for it seemed cruel to him, especially in his present frame of mind, to have a doubt cast upon his tale. “It is Thorn who is setting the officers upon me. I have seen him three or four times within the last fortnight.”

“And why did you not turn the tables, and set the officers upon him?” demanded Miss Carlyle.

“Because it would lead to no good. Where’s the proof, save my bare word, that he committed the murder?”

Miss Carlyle rubbed her nose. “Dick Hare,” said she.

“Well?”

“You know you always were the greatest natural idiot that ever was let loose out of leading strings.”

“I know I always was told so.”

“And it’s what you always will be. If I were accused of committing a crime, which I knew another had committed and not myself, should I be such an idiot as not to give that other into custody if I got the chance? If you were not in such a cold, shivery, shaky state, I would treat you to a bit of my mind, you may rely upon that.”

“He was in league with Afy, at that period,” pursued Richard; “a deceitful, bad man; and he carries it in his countenance. And he must be in league with her still, if she asserts that he was in her company at the moment the murder was committed. Mr. Carlyle says she does; that she told him so the other day, when she was here. He never was; and it was he, and no other, who did the murder.”

“Yes,” burst forth Miss Carlyle, for the topic was sure to agitate her, “that Jezebel of brass did presume to come here! She chose her time well, and may thank her lucky stars I was not at home. Archibald, he’s a fool too, quite as bad a you are, Dick Hare, in some things--actually suffered her to lodge here for two days! A vain, ill-conducted hussy, given to nothing but finery and folly!”

“Afy said that she knew nothing of Thorn’s movements now, Richard, and had not for some time,” interposed Mr. Carlyle, allowing his sister’s compliments to pass in silence. “She heard a rumor, she thought, that he had gone abroad with his regiment.”

“So much the better for her, if she does know nothing of him, sir,” was Richard’s comment. “I can answer for it that he is not abroad, but in England.”

“And where are you going to lodge to-night?” abruptly spoke Miss Carlyle, confronting Richard.

“I don’t know,” was the broken-spirited answer, sighed forth. “If I lay myself down in a snowdrift, and am found frozen in the morning, it won’t be of much moment.”

“Was that what you thought of doing?” returned Miss Carlyle.

“No,” he mildly said. “What I thought of doing was to ask Mr. Carlyle for the loan of a few shillings, and then I can get a bed. I know a place where I shall be in safety, two or three miles from here.”

“Richard, I would not turn a dog out to go two or three miles on such a night as this,” impulsively uttered Mr. Carlyle. “You must stop here.”

“Indeed I don’t see how he is to get up to a bedroom, or how a room is to be made ready for him, for the matter of that, without betraying his presence to the servants,” snapped Miss Carlyle. And poor Richard laid his aching head upon his hands.

But now Miss Carlyle’s manner was more in fault than her heart. Will it be believed that, before speaking the above ungracious words, before Mr. Carlyle had touched upon the subject, she had been casting about in her busy mind for the best plan of keeping Richard--how it could be accomplished.

“One thing is certain,” she resumed, “that it will be impossible for you to sleep here without its being known to Joyce. And I suppose you and Joyce are upon the friendly terms of drawing daggers, for she believes you were the murderer of her father.”

“Let me disabuse her,” interrupted Richard, his pale lips working as he started up. “Allow me to see her and convince her, Mr. Carlyle. Why did you not tell Joyce better?”

“There’s that small room at the back of mine,” said Miss Carlyle, returning to the practical part of the subject. “He might sleep there. But Joyce must be taken in confidence.”

“Joyce had better come in,” said Mr. Carlyle. “I will say a word to her first.”

He unlocked the door and quitted the room. Miss Carlyle as jealously locked it again; called to Joyce and beckoned her into the adjoining apartment. He knew that Joyce’s belief in the guilt of Richard Hare was confirmed and strong, but he must uproot that belief if Richard was to be lodged in his house that night.

“Joyce,” he began, “you remember how thoroughly imbued with the persuasion you were, that Afy went off with Richard Hare, and was living with him. I several times expressed my doubts upon the point. The fact was, I had positive information that she was not with him, and never had been, though I considered it expedient to keep my information to myself. You are convinced now that she was not with him?”

“Of course I am, sir.”

“Well, you see, Joyce, that my opinion would have been worth listening to. Now I am going to shake your belief upon another point, and if I assure you that I have equally good grounds for doing so, you will believe me?”

“I am quite certain, sir, that you would state nothing but what was true, and I know that your judgment is sound,” was Joyce’s answer.

“Then I must tell you that I do not believe it was Richard Hare who murdered your father.”

“Sir!” uttered Joyce, amazed out of her senses.

“I believe Richard Hare to be as innocent of the murder as you or I,” he deliberately repeated. “I have held grounds for this opinion, Joyce, for many years.”

“Then, sir, who did it?”

“Afy’s other lover. That dandy fellow, Thorn, as I truly believe.”

“And you say you have grounds, sir?” Joyce asked, after a pause.

“Good grounds; and I tell you I have been in possession of them for years. I should be glad for you to think as I do.”

“But, sir, if Richard Hare was innocent, why did he run away?”

“Ah, why, indeed! It is that which has done the mischief. His own weak cowardice was in fault. He feared to come back, and he felt that he could not remove the odium of circumstances. Joyce I should like you to see him and hear his story.”

“There is not much chance of that, sir. I dare say he will never venture here again.”

“He is here now.”

Joyce looked up, considerably startled.

“Here, in this house,” repeated Mr. Carlyle. “He has taken shelter in it, and for the few hours that he will remain, we must extend our hospitality and protection to him, concealing him in the best manner we can. I thought it well that this confidence should be reposed in you, Joyce. Come now and see him.”

Considering that it was a subdued interview--the voices subdued, I mean- -it was a confused one. Richard talking vehemently, Joyce asking question after question, Miss Carlyle’s tongue going as fast as theirs. The only silent one was Mr. Carlyle. Joyce could not refuse to believe protestations so solemn, and her suspicions veered round upon Captain Thorn.

“And now about the bed,” interjected Miss Carlyle, impatiently. “Where’s he to sleep, Joyce? The only safe room that I know of will be the one through mine.”

“He can’t sleep there, ma’am. Don’t you know that the key of the door was lost last week, and we cannot open it?”

“So much the better. He’ll be all the safer.”

“But how is he to get in?”

“To get in? Why, through my room, of course. Doesn’t mine open to it, stupid?”

“Oh, well, ma’am, if you would like him to go through yours, that’s different.”

“Why shouldn’t he go through? Do you suppose I mind young Dick Hare? Not I, indeed,” she irascibly continued. “I only wish he was young enough for me to flog him as I used to, that’s all. He deserves it as much as anybody ever did, playing the fool, as he has done, in all ways. I shall be in bed, with the curtains drawn, and his passing through won’t harm me, and my lying there won’t harm him. Stand on ceremony with Dick Hare! What next, I wonder?”

Joyce made no reply to this energetic speech, but at once retired to prepare the room for Richard. Miss Carlyle soon followed. Having made everything ready, Joyce returned.

“The room is ready, sir,” she whispered, “and all the household are in bed.”

“Then now’s your time, Richard. Good-night.”

He stole upstairs after Joyce, who piloted him through the room of Miss Carlyle. Nothing could be seen of that lady, though something might be heard, one given to truth more than politeness might have called it snoring. Joyce showed Richard his chamber, gave him the candle, and closed the door upon him.

Poor hunted Richard, good-night to you.

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