Chapter XXVI…

Chapter XXVI

If the vigour of Harley’s address had taken by surprise both friend and foe, not one in that assembly--not even the conscience-stricken Egerton--felt its effect so deeply as the assailed and startled Leonard. He was at first perfectly stunned by sarcasms which he so ill deserved; nor was it till after the assembly had broken up, that Leonard could even conjecture the cause which had provoked the taunt and barbed its dart. Evidently Harley had learned (but learned only in order to misconceive and to wrong) Leonard’s confession of love to Helen Digby. And now those implied accusations of disregard to the duties of common life not only galled the young man’s heart, but outraged his honour. He felt the generous indignation of manhood. He must see Lord L’Estrange at once, and vindicate himself,--vindicate Helen; for thus to accuse one was tacitly to asperse the other.

Extricating himself from his own enthusiastic partisans, Leonard went straight on foot towards Lansmere House. The Park palings touched close upon the town, with a shall turnstile for foot passengers. And as Leonard, availing himself of this entrance, had advanced some hundred yards or so through the park, suddenly, in the midst of that very copse in which Avenel had appointed to meet Leslie, he found himself face to face with Helen Digby herself.

Helen started, with a faint cry. But Leonard, absorbed in his own desire to justify both, hailed the sight, and did not pause to account for his appearance, nor to soothe her agitation.

“Miss Digby!” he exclaimed, throwing into his voice and manner that respect which often so cruelly divides the past familiarity from the present alienation, “Miss Digby, I rejoice to see you,--rejoice to ask your permission to relieve myself from a charge that in truth wounds even you, while levelled but at me. Lord L’Estrange has just implied, in public, that I--I--who owe him so much, who have honoured him so truly, that even the just resentment I now feel half seems to me the ingratitude with which he charges me, has implied that--ah! Miss Digby, I can scarcely command words to say what it so humiliates me to have heard. But you know how false is all accusation that either of us could deceive our common benefactor. Suffer me to repeat to your guardian what I presumed to say to you when we last met, what you answered, and state how I left your presence.”

“Oh, Leonard! yes; clear yourself in his eyes. Go! Unjust that he is, ungenerous Lord L’Estrange!”

“Helen Digby!” cried a voice, close at hand. “Of whom do you speak thus?”

At the sound of that voice Helen and Leonard both turned, and beheld Violante standing before them, her young beauty rendered almost sublime by the noble anger that lit her eyes, glowed in her cheeks, animated her stately form.

“Is it you who thus speak of Lord L’Estrange? You, Helen Digby,--you!”

From behind Violante now emerged Mr. Dale. “Softly, children,” he said; and placing one hand on Violante’s shoulder, he extended the other to Leonard. “What is this? Come hither to me, Leonard, and explain.”

Leonard walked aside with the parson, and in a few sentences gave vent to his swelling heart.

The parson shared in Leonard’s resentment; and having soon drawn from him all that had passed in his memorable interview with Helen, exclaimed,--

“Enough! Do not yet seek Lord L’Estrange yourself; I am going to see him,--I am here at his request. His summons, indeed, was for to-morrow; but the squire having written me a hurried line, requesting me to meet him at Lansmere tomorrow and proceed with him afterwards in search of poor Frank, I thought I might have little time for communications with Lord L’Estrange, unless I forestalled his invitation and came to-day. Well that I did so! I only arrived an hour since, found he was gone to the town-hall, and joined the young ladies in the Park. Miss Digby, thinking it natural that I might wish to say something in private to my old young friend Violante, walked a few paces in advance. Thus, fortunately, I chanced to be here, to receive your account, and I trust to remove misunderstanding. Lord L’Estrange must now be returned. I will go back to the house. You, meanwhile, return to the town, I beseech you. I will come to you afterwards at your inn. Your very appearance in these grounds, even the brief words that have passed between Helen and you, might only widen the breach between yourself and your benefactor. I cannot bear to anticipate this. Go back, I entreat you. I will explain all, and Lord L’Estrange shall right you! That is,--that must be his intention!”

“IS--must be his intention--when he has just so wronged me!”

“Yes, yes,” faltered the poor parson, mindful of his promise to L’Estrange not to reveal his own interview with that nobleman, and yet not knowing otherwise how to explain or to soothe; but still believing Leonard to be Harley’s son, and remembering all that Harley had so pointedly said of atonement, in apparent remorse for crime, Mr. Dale was wholly at a loss himself to understand why Harley should have thus prefaced atonement by an insult. Anxious, however, to prevent a meeting between Harley and Leonard while both were under the influence of such feelings towards each other, he made an effort over himself, and so well argued in favour of his own diplomacy, that Leonard reluctantly consented to wait for Mr. Dale’s report.

“As to reparation or excuse,” said he, proudly, “it must rest with Lord L’Estrange. I ask it not. Tell him only this,--that if the instant I heard that she whom I loved and held sacred for so many years was affianced to him, I resigned even the very wish to call her mine--if that were desertion of man’s duties, I am guilty. If to have prayed night and day that she who would have blessed my lonely and toilsome life may give some charm to his, not bestowed by his wealth and his greatness--if that were ingratitude, I am ungrateful; let him still condemn me. I pass out of his sphere,--a thing that has crossed it a moment, and is gone. But Helen he must not blame, suspect; even by a thought. One word more. In this election, this strife for objects wholly foreign to all my habits, unsuited to my poverty, at war with aspirations so long devoted to fairer goals, though by obscurer paths, I obeyed but his will or whim,--at a moment too when my whole soul sickened for repose and solitude. I had forced myself at last to take interest in what I had before loathed. But in every hope for the future, every stimulant to ambition, Lord L’Estrange’s esteem still stood before me. Now, what do I here longer? All of his conduct, save his contempt for myself, is an enigma. And sinless he repeat a wish, which I would fain still regard as a law, I retire from the contest he has embittered; I renounce the ambition he has poisoned; and, mindful of those humble duties which he implies that I disdain, I return to my own home.”

The parson nodded assent to each of these sentences; and Leonard, passing by Violante and Helen, with a salutation equally distant to both, retraced his steps towards the town.

Meanwhile Violante and Helen had also been in close conference, and that conference had suddenly endeared each to the other; for Helen, taken by surprise, agitated, overpowered, had revealed to Violante that confession of another attachment, which she had made to Lord L’Estrange, the rupture of her engagement with the latter. Violante saw that Harley was free. Harley, too, had promised to free herself. By a sudden flash of conviction, recalling his words, looks, she felt that she was beloved,--deemed that honour alone (while either was yet shackled) had forbidden him to own that love. Violante stood a being transformed, “blushing celestial rosy red,” heaven at her heart, joy in her eyes,--she loved so well, and she trusted so implicitly! Then from out the overflow of her own hope and bliss she poured forth such sweet comfort to Helen, that Helen’s arm stole around her; cheek touched cheek,--they were as sisters.

At another moment, Mr. Dale might have felt some amazement at the sudden affection which had sprung up between these young persons; for in his previous conversation with Violante, he had, as he thought, very artfully, and in a pleasant vein, sounded the young Italian as to her opinion of her fair friend’s various good qualities, and Violante had rather shrunk from the title of “friend;” and though she had the magnanimity to speak with great praise of Helen, the praise did not sound cordial. But the good man was at this moment occupied in preparing his thoughts for his interview with Harley; he joined the two girls in silence, and, linking an arm of each within his own, walked slowly towards the house. As he approached the terrace he observed Riccabocca and Randal pacing the gravel walk side by side.

Violante, pressing his arm, whispered, “Let us go round the other way; I would speak with you a few minutes undisturbed.”

Mr. Dale, supposing that Violante wished to dispense with the presence of Helen, said to the latter, “My dear young lady, perhaps you will excuse me to Dr. Riccabocca,--who is beckoning to me, and no doubt very much surprised to see me here,--while I finish what I was saying to Violante when we were interrupted.”

Helen left them, and Violante led the parson round through the shrubbery, towards the side door in another wing of the house.

“What have you to say to me?” asked Mr. Dale, surprised that she remained silent.

“You will see Lord L’Estrange. Be sure that you convince him of Leonard’s honour. A doubt of treachery so grieves his noble heart that perhaps it may disturb his judgment.”

“You seem to think very highly of the heart of this Lord L’Estrange, child!” said the parson, in some surprise. Violante blushed, but went on firmly, and with serious earnestness: “Some words which he-that is, Lord L’Estrange--said to me very lately, make me so glad that you are here,--that you will see him; for I know how good you are, and how wise, dear, dear Mr. Dale! He spoke as one who had received some grievous wrong, which had abruptly soured all his views of life. He spoke of retirement, solitude,--he on whom his country has so many claims. I know not what he can mean, unless it be that his--his marriage with Helen Digby is broken off.”

“Broken off! Is that so?”

“I have it from herself. You may well be astonished that she could even think of another after having known him!” The parson fixed his eyes very gravely on the young enthusiast. But though her cheek glowed, there was in her expression of face so much artless, open innocence, that Mr. Dale contented himself with a slight shake of the head, and a dry remark,--

“I think it quite natural that Helen Digby should prefer Leonard Fairfield. A good girl, not misled by vanity and ambition,--temptations of which it behoves us all to beware; nor least, perhaps, young ladies suddenly brought in contact with wealth and rank. As to this nobleman’s merits, I know not yet whether to allow or to deny them; I reserve my judgment till after our interview. This is all you have to say to me?”

Violante paused a moment. “I cannot think,” she said, half smiling,--“I cannot think that the change that has occurred in him,--for changed he is,--that his obscure hints as to injury received, and justice to be done, are caused merely by his disappointment with regard to Helen. But you can learn that; learn if he be so very much disappointed. Nay, I think not!”

She slipped her slight hand from the parson’s arm, and darted away through the evergreens. Half concealed amidst the laurels, she turned back, and Mr. Dale caught her eye, half arch, half melancholy; its light came soft through a tear.

“I don’t half like this,” muttered the parson; “I shall give Dr. Riccabocca a caution.” So muttering, he pushed open the side door, and finding a servant, begged admittance to Lord L’Estrange.

Harley at that moment was closeted with Levy, and his countenance was composed and fearfully stern. “So, so, by this time to-morrow,” said he, “Mr. Egerton will be tricked out of his election by Mr. Randal Leslie! good! By this time to-morrow his ambition will be blasted by the treachery of his friends! good! By this time to-morrow the bailiffs will seize his person,--ruined, beggared, pauper, and captive,--all because he has trusted and been deceived! good! And if he blame you, prudent Baron Levy, if he accuse smooth Mr. Randal Leslie, forget not to say, ‘We were both but the blind agents of your friend Harley L’Estrange. Ask him why you are so miserable a dupe.’”

“And might I now ask your Lordship for one word of explanation?”

“No, sir!--it is enough that I have spared you. But you were never my friend; I have no revenge against a man whose hand I never even touched.”

The baron scowled, but there was a power about his tyrant that cowed him into actual terror. He resumed, after a pause, “And though Mr. Leslie is to be member for Lansmere,--thanks to you,--you still desire that I should--”

“Do exactly as I have said. My plans now never vary a hair’s breadth.”

The groom of the chambers entered.

“My Lord, the Reverend Mr. Dale wishes to know if you can receive him.”

“Mr. Dale! he should have come to-morrow. Say that I did not expect him to-day; that I am unfortunately engaged till dinner, which will be earlier than usual. Show him into his room; he will have but little time to change his dress. By the way, Mr. Egerton dines in his own apartment.”

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Chapter XXVII

The leading members of the Blue Committee were invited to dine at the Park, and the hour for the entertainment was indeed early, as there might be much need yet of active exertion on the eve of a poll in a contest expected to be so close, and in which the inflexible Hundred and Fifty “Waiters upon Providence” still reserved their very valuable votes.

The party was gay and animated, despite the absence of Audley Egerton, who, on the plea of increased indisposition, had shut himself up in his rooms the instant that he had returned from the town-hall, and sent word to Harley that he was too unwell to join the party at dinner.

Randal was really in high spirits, despite the very equivocal success of his speech. What did it signify if a speech failed, provided the election was secure? He was longing for the appointment with Dick Avenel which was to make “all right!” The squire was to bring the money for the purchase of the coveted lands the next morning. Riccabocca had assured him, again and again, of Violante’s hand. If ever Randal Leslie could be called a happy man, it was as he sat at that dinner taking wine with Mr. Mayor and Mr. Alderman, and looking, across the gleaming silver plateau, down the long vista into wealth and power.

The dinner was scarcely over, when Lord L’Estrauge, in a brief speech, reminded his guests of the work still before them; and after a toast to the health of the future members for Lansmere, dismissed the Committee to their labours.

Levy made a sign to Randal, who followed the baron to his own room.

“Leslie, your election is in some jeopardy. I find, from the conversation of those near me at dinner, that Egerton has made such way amongst the Blues by his speech, and they are so afraid of losing a man who does them so much credit, that the Committee men not only talk of withholding from you their second votes and of plumping Egerton, but of subscribing privately amongst themselves to win over that coy body of a Hundred and Fifty, upon whom I know that Avenel counts in whatever votes he may be able to transfer to you.”

“It would be very unhandsome in the Committee, which pretends to act for both of us, to plump Egerton,” said Randal, with consistent anger; “but I don’t think they can get those Hundred and Fifty without the most open and exortant bribery,--an expense which Egerton will not pay, and which it would be very discreditable to Lord L’Estrange or his father to countenance.”

“I told them flatly,” returned Levy, “that, as Mr. Egerton’s agent, I would allow no proceedings that might vitiate the election, but that I would undertake the management of these men myself; and I am going into the town in order to do so. I have also persuaded the leading Committee men to reconsider their determination to plump Egerton; they have decided to do as L’Estrange directs, and I know what he will say. You may rely on me,” continued the baron, who spoke with a dogged seriousness, unusual to his cynical temper, “to obtain for you the preference over Audley, if it be in my power to do so. Meanwhile, you should really see Avenel this very night.”

“I have an appointment with him at ten o’clock; and judging by his speech against Egerton, I cannot doubt on his aid to me, if convinced by his poll-books that he is not able to return both himself and his impertinent nephew. My speech, however sarcastically treated by Mr. Fairfield, must at least have disposed the Yellow party to vote rather for me than for a determined opponent like Egerton.”

“I hope so; for your speech and Fairfield’s answer have damaged you terribly with the Blues. However, your main hope rests on my power to keep those Hundred and Fifty rascals from splitting their votes on Egerton, and to induce them, by all means short of bringing myself before a Committee of the House of Commons for positive bribery,--which would hurt most seriously my present social position,--to give one vote to you. I shall tell them, as I have told the Committee, that Egerton is safe, and will pay nothing; but that you want the votes, and that I--in short, if they can be bought upon tick, I will buy them. Avenel, however, can serve you best here; for as they are all Yellows at heart, they make no scruple of hinting that they want twice as much for voting Blue as they will take for voting Yellow. And Avenel being a townsman, and knowing their ways, could contrive to gain them, and yet not bribe.”

RANDAL (shaking his head incredulously).--“Not bribe!”

LEVY.--“Pooh! Not bribe so as to be found out.” There was a knock at the door. A servant entered and presented Mr. Egerton’s compliments to Baron Levy, with a request that the baron would immediately come to his rooms for a few minutes.

“Well,” said Levy, when the servant had withdrawn, “I must go to Egerton, and the instant I leave him I shall repair to the town. Perhaps I may pass the night there.” So saying, he left Randal, and took his way to Audley’s apartment.

“Levy,” said the statesman, abruptly, upon the entrance of the baron, “have you betrayed my secret--my first marriage--to Lord L’Estrange?”

“No, Egerton; on my honour, I have not betrayed it.”

“You heard his speech! Did you not detect a fearful irony under his praises, or is it but--but-my conscience?” added the proud man, through his set teeth.

“Really,” said Levy, “Lord L’Estrange seemed to me to select for his praise precisely those points in your character which any other of your friends would select for panegyric.”

“Ay, any other of my friends!--What friends?” muttered Egerton, gloomily. Then, rousing himself, he added, in a voice that had none of its accustomed clear firmness of tone, “Your presence here in this house, Levy, surprised me, as I told you at the first; I could not conceive its necessity. Harley urged you to come,--he with whom you are no favourite! You and he both said that your acquaintance with Richard Avenel would enable you to conciliate his opposition. I cannot congratulate you on your success.”

“My success remains to be proved. The vehemence of his attack may be but a feint to cover his alliance to-morrow.”

Audley went on without notice of the interruption. “There is a change in Harley,--to me and to all; a change, perhaps, not perceptible to others--but I have known him from a boy.”

“He is occupied for the first time with the practical business of life. That would account for a much greater change than you remark.”

“Do you see him familiarly, converse with him often?”

“No, and only on matters connected with the election. Occasionally, indeed, he consults me as to Randal Leslie, in whom, as your special protege, he takes considerable interest.”

“That, too, surprises me. Well, I am weary of perplexing myself. This place is hateful; after to-morrow I shall leave it, and breathe in peace. You have seen the reports of the canvass; I have had no heart to inspect them. Is the election as safe as they say?”

“If Avenel withdraws his nephew, and the votes thus released split off to you, you are secure.”

“And you think his nephew will be withdrawn? Poor young man! defeat at his age, and with such talents, is hard to bear.” Audley sighed.

“I must leave you now, if you have nothing important to say,” said the baron, rising. “I have much to do, as the election is yet to be won, and--to you the loss of it would be--”

“Ruin, I know. Well, Levy, it is, on the whole, to your advantage that I should not lose. There may be more to get from me yet. And, judging by the letters I received this morning, my position is rendered so safe by the absolute necessity of my party to keep me up, that the news of my pecuniary difficulties will not affect me so much as I once feared. Never was my career so free from obstacle, so clear towards the highest summit of ambition; never, in my day of ostentatious magnificence, as it is now, when I am prepared to shrink into a lodging, with a single servant.”

“I am glad to hear it; and I am the more anxious to secure your election, upon which this career must depend, because--nay, I hardly like to tell you--”

“Speak on.”

“I have been obliged, by a sudden rush on all my resources, to consign some of your bills and promissory notes to another, who, if your person should not be protected from arrest by parliamentary privilege, might be harsh and--”

“Traitor!” interrupted Egerton, fiercely, all the composed contempt with which he usually treated the usurer giving way, “say no more. How could I ever expect otherwise! You have foreseen my defeat, and have planned my destruction. Presume no reply! Sir, begone from my presence!”

“You will find that you have worse friends than myself,” said the baron, moving to the door; “and if you are defeated, if your prospects for life are destroyed, I am the last man you will think of blaming. But I forgive your anger, and trust that to-morrow you will receive those explanations of my conduct which you are now in no temper to bear. I go to take care of the election.”

Left alone, Audley’s sudden passion seemed to forsake him.

He gathered together, in that prompt and logical precision which the habit of transacting public business bestows, all his thoughts, and sounded all his fears; and most vivid of every thought, and most intolerable of every fear, was the belief that the baron had betrayed him to L’Estrange.

“I cannot bear this suspense,” he cried aloud and abruptly. “I will see Harley myself. Open as he is, the very sound of his voice will tell me at once if I am a bankrupt even of human friendship. If that friendship be secure, if Harley yet clasp my hand with the same cordial warmth, all other loss shall not wring from my fortitude one complaint.”

He rang the bell; his valet, who was waiting in the anteroom, appeared.

“Go and see if Lord L’Estrange is engaged. I would speak with him.”

The servant came back in less than two minutes.

“I find that my Lord is now particularly engaged, since he has given strict orders that he is not to be disturbed.”

“Engaged! on what, whom with?”

“He is in his own room, sir, with a clergyman, who arrived, and dined here, to-day. I am told that he was formerly curate of Lansmere.”

“Lansmere! curate! His name, his name! Not Dale?”

“Yes, sir, that is the name,--the Reverend Mr. Dale.”

“Leave me,” said Audley, in a faint voice. “Dale! the man who suspected Harley, who called on me in London, spoke of a child,--my child,--and sent me to find but another grave! He closeted with Harley,--he!”

Audley sank back on his chair, and literally gasped for breath. Few men in the world had a more established reputation for the courage that dignifies manhood, whether the physical courage or the moral. But at that moment it was not grief, not remorse, that paralyzed Audley,--it was fear. The brave man saw before him, as a thing visible and menacing, the aspect of his own treachery,--that crime of a coward; and into cowardice he was stricken. What had he to dread? Nothing save the accusing face of an injured friend,--nothing but that. And what more terrible? The only being, amidst all his pomp of partisans, who survived to love him, the only being for whom the cold statesman felt the happy, living, human tenderness of private affection, lost to him forever! He covered his face with both hands, and sat in suspense of something awful, as a child sits in the dark, the drops on his brow, and his frame trembling.

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Chapter XXVIII

Meanwhile Harley had listened to Mr. Dale’s vindication of Leonard with cold attention.

“Enough,” said he, at the close. “Mr. Fairfield (for so we will yet call him) shall see me to-night; and if apology be due to him, I will make it. At the same time, it shall be decided whether he continue this contest or retire. And now, Mr. Dale, it was not to hear how this young man wooed, or shrunk from wooing, my affianced bride, that I availed myself of your promise to visit me at this house. We agreed that the seducer of Nora Avenel deserved chastisement, and I promised that Nora Avenel’s son should find a father. Both these assurances shall be fulfilled to-morrow. And you, sir,” continued Harley, rising, his whole form gradually enlarged by the dignity of passion, “who wear the garb appropriated to the holiest office of Christian charity; you who have presumed to think that, before the beard had darkened my cheek, I could first betray the girl who had been reared under this roof, then abandon her,--sneak like a dastard from the place in which my victim came to die, leave my own son, by the woman thus wronged, without thought or care, through the perilous years of tempted youth, till I found him, by chance, an outcast in a desert more dread than Hagar’s,--you, sir, who have for long years thus judged of me, shall have the occasion to direct your holy anger towards the rightful head; and in me, you who have condemned the culprit shall respect the judge.”

Mr. Dale was at first startled, and almost awed, by this unexpected burst. But, accustomed to deal with the sternest and the darkest passions, his calm sense and his habit of authority over those whose souls were bared to him, nobly recovered from their surprise. “My Lord,” said he, “first, with humility I bow to your rebuke, and entreat your pardon for my erring, and, as you say, my uncharitable opinions. We dwellers in a village and obscure pastors of a humble flock, we, mercifully removed from temptation, are too apt, perhaps, to exaggerate its power over those whose lots are cast in that great world which has so many gates ever open to evil. This is my sole excuse if I was misled by what appeared to me strong circumstantial evidence. But forgive me again if I warn you not to fall into an error perhaps little lighter than my own. Your passion, when you cleared yourself from reproach, became you. But ah, my Lord, when with that stern brow and those flashing eyes, you launched your menace upon another over whom you would constitute yourself the judge, forgetful of the divine precept, ‘Judge not,’ I felt that I was listening no longer to honest self-vindication,--I felt that I was listening to fierce revenge!”

“Call it revenge, or what you will,” said Harley, with sullen firmness; “but I have been stung too deeply not to sting. Frank with all, till the last few days, I have ever been. Frank to you, at least, even now, this much I tell you: I pretend to no virtue in what I still hold to be justice; but no declamations nor homilies tending to prove that justice is sinful will move my resolves. As man I have been outraged, and as man I will retaliate. The way and the mode, the true criminal and his fitting sentence, you will soon learn, sir. I have much to do to-night; forgive me if I adjourn for the present all further conference.”

“No, no; do not dismiss me. There is something, in spite of your present language, which so commands my interest; I see that there has been so much suffering where there is now so much wrath,--that I would save you from the suffering worse than all,--remorse. Oh, pause, my dear Lord, pause and answer me but two questions; then I will leave your after course to yourself.”

“Say on, sir,” said Lord L’Estrange, touched, and with respect.

“First; then, analyze your own feelings. Is this anger merely to punish an offender and to right the living,--for who can pretend to right the dead? Or is there not some private hate that stirs and animates and confuses all?”

Harley remained silent. Mr. Dale renewed,

“You loved this poor girl. Your language even now reveals it. You speak of treachery: perhaps you had a rival who deceived you; I know not, guess not, whom. But if you would strike the rival, must you not wound the innocent son? And, in presenting Nora’s child to his father, as you pledge yourself to do, can you mean some cruel mockery that, under seeming kindness, implies some unnatural vengeance?”

“You read well the heart of man,” said Harley; “and I have owned to you that I am but man. Pass on; you have another question.”

“And one more solemn and important. In my world of a village, revenge is a common passion; it is the sin of the uninstructed. The savage deems it noble! but Christ’s religion, which is the sublime Civilizer, emphatically condemns it. Why? Because religion ever seeks to ennoble a man; and nothing so debases him as revenge. Look into your own heart, and tell me whether, since you have cherished this passion, you have not felt all sense of right and wrong confused,--have not felt that whatever would before have seemed to you mean and base, appears now but just means to your heated end. Revenge is ever a hypocrite: rage, at least, strikes with the naked sword; but revenge, stealthy and patient, conceals the weapon of the assassin. My Lord, your colour changes. What is your answer to my question?”

“Oh,” exclaimed Harley, with a voice thrilling in its mournful anguish, “it is not since I have cherished the revenge that I am changed, that right and wrong grow dark to me, that hypocrisy seems the atmosphere fit for earth. No; it is since the discovery that demands the vengeance. It is useless, sir,” he continued impetuously,--“useless to argue with me. Were I to sit down, patient and impotent, under the sense of the wrong which I have received, I should feel, indeed, that debasement which you ascribe to the gratification of what you term revenge. I should never regain the self-esteem which the sentiment of power now restores to me; I should feel as if the whole world could perceive and jeer at my meek humiliation. I know not why I have said so much,--why I have betrayed to you so much of my secret mind, and stooped to vindicate my purpose. I never meant it. Again I say, we must close this conference.” Harley here walked to the door, and opened it significantly.

“One word more, Lord L’Estrange,--but one. You will not hear me. I am a comparative stranger, but you have a friend, a friend dear and intimate, now under the same roof. Will you consent, at least, to take counsel of Mr. Audley Egerton? None can doubt his friendship for you; none can doubt that whatever he advise will be that which best becomes your honour. What, my Lord, you hesitate,--you feel ashamed to confide to your dearest friend a purpose which his mind would condemn? Then I will seek him, I will implore him to save you from what can but entail repentance.”

“Mr. Dale, I must forbid you to see Mr. Egerton. What has passed between us ought to be as sacred to you as a priest of Rome holds confession. This much, however, I will say to content you: I promise that I will do nothing that shall render me unworthy of Mr. Audley Egerton’s friendship, or which his fine sense of honour shall justify him in blaming. Let that satisfy you.”

“Ah, my Lord,” cried Mr. Dale, pausing irresolute at the doorway, and seizing Harley’s hand, “I should indeed be satisfied if you would submit yourself to higher counsel than mine,--than Mr. Egerton’s, than man’s. Have you never felt the efficacy of prayer?”

“My life has been wasted,” replied Harley, “and I dare not, therefore, boast that I have found prayer efficacious. But, so far back as I can remember, it has at least been my habit to pray to Heaven, night and morning, until at least--until--” The natural and obstinate candour of the man forced out the last words, which implied reservation. He stopped short.

“Until you have cherished revenge? You have not dared to pray since? Oh, reflect what evil there is within us, when we dare not come before Heaven,--dare not pray for what we wish. You are moved. I leave you to your own thoughts.” Harley inclined his head, and the parson passed him by, and left him alone,--startled indeed; but was he softened? As Mr. Dale hurried along the corridor, much agitated, Violante stole from a recess formed by a large bay window, and linking her arm in his, said anxiously, but timidly: “I have been waiting for you, dear Mr. Dale; and so long! You have been with Lord L’Estrange?”

“Well!”

“Why do you not speak? You have left him comforted, happier?”

“Happier! No.”

“What!” said Violante, with a look of surprise, and a sadness not unmixed with petulance in her quick tone. “What! does he then so grieve that Helen prefers another?”

Despite the grave emotions that disturbed his mind, Mr. Dale was struck by Violante’s question, and the voice in which it was said. He loved her tenderly. “Child, child,” said he, “I am glad that Helen has escaped Lord L’Estrange. Beware, oh, beware how he excite any gentler interest in yourself. He is a dangerous man,--more dangerous for glimpses of a fine original nature. He may well move the heart of the innocent and inexperienced, for he has strangely crept into mine. But his heart is swollen with pride and ire and malice.”

“You mistake; it is false!” cried Violante, impetuously. “I cannot believe one word that would asperse him who has saved my father from a prison, or from death. You have not treated him gently. He fancies he has been wronged by Leonard, received ingratitude from Helen. He has felt the sting in proportion to his own susceptible and generous heart, and you have chided where you should have soothed. Poor Lord L’Estrange! And you have left him still indignant and unhappy?”

“Foolish girl! I have left him meditating sin; I have left him afraid to pray; I have left him on the brink of some design--I know not what--but which involves more than Leonard in projects of revenge; I have left him so, that if his heart be really susceptible and generous, he will wake from wrath to be the victim of long and unavailing remorse. If your father has influence over him, tell Dr. Riccabocca what I say, and bid him seek, and in his turn save, the man who saved himself. He has not listened to religion,--he maybe more docile to philosophy. I cannot stay here longer,--I must go to Leonard.”

Mr. Dale broke from Violante and hurried down the corridor; Violante stood on the same spot, stunned and breathless. Harley on the brink of some strange sin! Harley to wake, the victim of remorse! Harley to be saved, as he had saved her father! Her breast heaved, her colour went and came, her eyes were raised, her lips murmured. She advanced with soft footsteps up the corridor; she saw the lights gleaming from Harley’s room, and suddenly they were darkened, as the inmate of the room shut to the door, with angry and impatient hand.

An outward act often betrays the inward mind. As Harley had thus closed the door, so had he sought to shut his heart from the intrusion of softer and holier thoughts. He had turned to his hearthstone, and stood on it, resolved and hardened. The man who had loved with such pertinacious fidelity far so many years could not at once part with hate. A passion once admitted to his breast, clung to it with such rooted force! But woe, woe to thee, Harley L’Estrange, if tomorrow at this hour thou stand at the hearthstone, thy designs accomplished, knowing that, in the fulfilment of thy blind will, thou hast met falsehood with falsehood, and deception with deceit! What though those designs now seem so consummate, so just, so appropriate, so exquisite a revenge,--seem to thee the sole revenge wit can plan and civilized life allow: wilt thou ever wash from thy memory the stain that will sully thine honour? Thou, too, professing friendship still, and masking perfidy under smiles! Grant that the wrong be great as thou deem it,--be ten times greater: the sense of thy meanness, O gentleman and soldier, will bring the blush to thy cheek in the depth of thy solitude. Thou, who now thinkest others unworthy a trustful love, wilt feel thyself forever unworthy theirs. Thy seclusion will know not repose. The dignity of man will forsake thee. Thy proud eye will quail from the gaze. Thy step will no longer spurn the earth that it treads on. He who has once done a base thing is never again wholly reconciled to honour. And woe--thrice woe, if thou learn too late that thou hast exaggerated thy fancied wrong: that there is excuse, where thou seest none; that thy friend may have erred, but that his error is venial compared to thy fancied retribution!

Thus, however, in the superb elation of conscious power, though lavished on a miserable object,--a terrible example of what changes one evil and hateful thought, cherished to the exclusion of all others, can make in the noblest nature, stood, on the hearth of his fathers, and on the abyss of a sorrow and a shame from which there could be no recall, the determined and scornful man.

A hand is on the door,--he does not hear it; a form passes the threshold,-he does not see it; a light step pauses, a soft eye gazes. Deaf and blind still to both.

Violante came on, gathering courage, and stood at the hearth by his side.

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Chapter XXIX

“LORD L’ESTRANGE, noble friend!”

“You!--and here--Violante? Is it I whom you seek? For what? Good heavens! what has happened? Why are you so pale; why tremble?”

“Have you forgiven Helen?” asked Violante, beginning with evasive question, and her cheek was pale no more. “Helen, the poor child! I have nothing in her to forgive, much to thank her for. She has been frank and honest.”

“And Leonard--whom I remember in my childhood--you have forgiven him?”

“Fair mediator,” said Harley, smiling, though coldly, “happy is the man who deceives another; all plead for him. And if the man deceived cannot forgive, no one will sympathize or excuse.”

“But Leonard did not deceive you?”

“Yes, from the first. It is a long tale, and not to be told to you; but I cannot forgive him.”

“Adieu! my Lord. Helen must, then, still be very dear to you!” Violante turned away. Her emotion was so artless, her very anger so charming, that the love, against which, in the prevalence of his later and darker passions, he had so sternly struggled, rushed back upon Harley’s breast; but it came only in storm.

“Stay, but talk not of Helen!” he exclaimed. “Ah, if Leonard’s sole offence had been what you appear to deem it, do you think I could feel resentment? No; I should have gratefully hailed the hand that severed a rash and ungenial tie. I would have given my ward to her lover with such a dower as it suits my wealth to bestow. But his offence dates from his very birth. To bless and to enrich the son of a man who--Violante, listen to me. We may soon part, and forever. Others may misconstrue my actions; you, at least, shall know from what just principle they spring. There was a man whom I singled out of the world as more than a brother. In the romance of my boyhood I saw one who dazzled my fancy, captivated my heart. It was a dream of Beauty breathed into waking life. I loved,--I believed myself beloved. I confided all my heart to this friend,--this more than brother; he undertook to befriend and to aid my suit. On that very pretext he first saw this ill-fated girl, saw, betrayed, destroyed her; left me ignorant that her love, which I had thought mine, had been lavished so wildly on another; left me to believe that my own suit she had fled, but in generous self-sacrifice,--for she was poor and humbly born; that--oh, vain idiot that I was!--the self-sacrifice had been too strong for a young human heart, which had broken in the struggle; left me to corrode my spring of life in remorse; clasped my hand in mocking comfort, smiled at my tears of agony--not one tear himself for his own poor victim! And suddenly, not long since, I learned all this. And in the father of Leonard Fairfield, you behold the man who has poisoned all the well-spring of joy to me. You weep! Oh, Violante! the Past he has blighted and embittered,--that I could forgive; but the Future is blasted too. For just ere this treason was revealed to me, I had begun to awake from the torpor of my dreary penance, to look with fortitude towards the duties I had slighted, to own that the pilgrimage before me was not barren. And then, oh then, I felt that all love was not buried in a grave. I felt that you, had fate so granted, might have been all to my manhood which youth only saw through the delusion of its golden mists. True, I was then bound to Helen; true, that honour to her might forbid me all hope. But still, even to know that my heart was not all ashes, that I could love again, that that glorious power and privilege of our being was still mine, seemed to me so heavenly sweet. But then this revelation of falsehood burst on me, and all truth seemed blotted from the universe. I am freed from Helen; ah, freed, forsooth,--because not even rank and wealth, and benefits and confiding tenderness, could bind to me one human heart! Free from her; but between me and your fresh nature stands Suspicion as an Upas tree. Not a hope that would pass through the tainted air and fly to you, but falls dead under the dismal boughs. I love!

“Ha, ha! I--I, whom the past has taught the impossibility to be loved again. No: if those soft lips murmured ‘Yes’ to the burning prayer that, had I been free but two short weeks ago, would have rushed from the frank deeps of my heart, I should but imagine that you deceived yourself,--a girl’s first fleeting delusive fancy,--nothing more! Were you my bride, Violante, I should but debase your bright nature by my own curse of distrust. At each word of tenderness, my heart would say, ‘How long will this last; when will the deception come?’ Your beauty, your gifts, would bring me but jealous terror, eternally I should fly from the Present to the Future, and say. ‘These hairs will be gray, while flattering youth will surround her in the zenith of her charms.’ Why then do I hate and curse my foe? Why do I resolve upon revenge? I comprehend it now. I knew that there was something more imperious than the ghost of the Past that urged me on. Gazing on you, I feel that it was the dim sense of a mighty and priceless loss; it is not the dead Nora,--it is the living Violante. Look not at me with those reproachful eyes: they cannot reverse my purpose; they cannot banish suspicion from my sickened soul; they cannot create a sunshine in the midst of this ghastly twilight. Go, go; leave me to the sole joy that bequeaths no disappointment, the sole feeling that unites me to social man; leave me to my revenge.”

“Revenge! Oh, cruel!” exclaimed Violante, laying her hand on his arm. “And in revenge, it is your own life that you will risk!”

“My life, simple child! This is no contest of life against life. Could I bare to all the world my wrongs for their ribald laughter, I should only give to my foe the triumph to pity my frenzy, to shun the contest; or grant it, if I could find a second--and then fire in the air. And all the world would say, ‘Generous Egerton! soul of honour!’”

“Egerton, Mr. Egerton! He cannot be this foe? It is not on him you can design revenge,--you who spend all your hours in serving his cause, you to whom he trusts so fondly, you who leaned yesterday on his shoulder, and smiled so cheeringly in his face?”

“Did I? Hypocrisy against hypocrisy, snare against snare: that is my revenge.”

“Harley, Harley! Cease, cease!”

The storm of passion rushed on unheeding.

“I seem to promote his ambition but to crush it into the mire. I have delivered him from the gentler gripe of an usurer, so that he shall hold at my option alms or a prison--”

“Friend, friend! Hush, hush!”

“I have made the youth he has reared and fostered into treachery like his own (your father’s precious choice, Randal Leslie) mine instrument in the galling lesson how ingratitude can sting. His very son shall avenge the mother, and be led to his father’s breast as victor, with Randal Leslie, in the contest that deprives sire and benefactor of all that makes life dear to ambitious egotism. And if, in the breast of Audley Egerton, there can yet lurk one memory of what I was to him and to truth, not his least punishment will be the sense that his own perfidy has so changed the man whose very scorn of falsehood has taught him to find in fraud itself the power of retribution.”

“If this be not a terrible dream,” murmured Violante, recoiling, “it is not your foe alone that you will deprive of all that makes life dear. Act thus--and what, in the future, is left to me?”

“To you? Oh, never fear. I may give Randal Leslie a triumph over his patron, but in the same hour I will unmask his villany, and sweep him forever from your path. What in the future is left to you?--your birthright and your native land; hope, joy, love, felicity. Could it be possible that in the soft but sunny fancy which plays round the heart of maiden youth, but still sends no warmth into its deeps,--could it be possible that you had Honoured me with a gentler thought, it will pass away, and you will be the pride and delight of one of your own years, to whom the vista of Time is haunted by no chilling spectres, one who can look upon that lovely face, and not turn away to mutter, ‘Too fair, too fair for me!’”

“Oh, agony!” exclaimed Violante, with sudden passion. “In my turn hear me. If, as you promise, I am released from the dreadful thought that he, at whose touch I shudder, can claim this hand, my choice is irrevocably made. The altars which await me will not be those of a human love. But oh, I implore you--by all the memories of your own life, hitherto, if sorrowful, unsullied, by the generous interest you yet profess for me, whom you will have twice saved from a danger to which death were mercy--leave, oh, leave to me the right to regard your image as I have done from the first dawn of childhood. Leave me the right to honour and revere it. Let not an act accompanied with a meanness--oh that I should say the word!--a meanness and a cruelty that give the lie to your whole life--make even a grateful remembrance of you an unworthy sin. When I kneel within the walls that divide me from the world, oh, let me think that I can pray for you as the noblest being that the world contains! Hear me! hear me!”

“Violante!” murmured Harley, his whole frame heaving with emotion, “bear with me. Do not ask of me the sacrifice of what seems to me the cause of manhood itself,--to sit down, meek and patient, under a wrong that debases me, with the consciousness that all my life I have been the miserable dupe to affections I deemed so honest, to regrets that I believed so holy. Ah, I should feel more mean in my pardon than you can think me in revenge! Were it an acknowledged enemy, I could open my arms to him at your bidding; but the perfidious friend!--ask it not. My cheek burns at the thought, as at the stain of a blow. Give me but to-morrow--one day--I demand no more--wholly to myself and to the past, and mould me for the future as you will. Pardon, pardon the ungenerous thoughts that extended distrust to you. I retract them; they are gone,--dispelled before those touching words, those ingenuous eyes. At your feet, Violante, I repent and I implore! Your father himself shall banish your sordid suitor. Before this hour to-morrow you will be free. Oh, then, then! will you not give me this hand to guide me again into the paradise of my youth? Violante, it is in vain to wrestle with myself, to doubt, to reason, to be wisely fearful! I love, I love you! I trust again in virtue and faith. I place my fate in your keeping.” If at times Violante may appear to have ventured beyond the limit of strict maiden bashfulness, much may be ascribed to her habitual candour, her solitary rearing, and remoteness from the world, the very innocence of her soul, and the warmth of heart which Italy gives its daughters. But now that sublimity of thought and purpose which pervaded her nature, and required only circumstances to develop, made her superior to all the promptings of love itself. Dreams realized which she had scarcely dared to own; Harley free, Harley at her feet; all the woman struggling at her heart, mantling in her blushes, still stronger than love, stronger than the joy of being loved again, was the heroic will,--will to save him, who in all else ruled her existence, from the eternal degradation to which passion had blinded his own confused and warring spirit.

Leaving one hand in his impassioned clasp, as he still knelt before her, she raised on high the other. “Ah,” she said, scarce audibly,--“ah, if heaven vouchsafe me the proud and blissful privilege to be allied to your fate, to minister to your happiness, never should I know one fear of your distrust. No time, no change, no sorrow--not even the loss of your affection--could make me forfeit the right to remember that you had once confided to me a heart so noble. But”--here her voice rose in its tone, and the glow fled from her cheek--“but, O Thou the Ever Present, hear and receive the solemn vow. If to me he refuse to sacrifice the sin that would debase him, that sin be the barrier between us evermore; and may my life, devoted to Thy service, atone for the hour in which he belied the nature he received from Thee! Harley, release me! I have spoken: firm as yourself, I leave the choice to you.”

“You judge me harshly,” said Harley, rising, with sullen anger; “but at least I have not the meanness to sell what I hold as justice, though the bribe may include my last hope of happiness.”

“Meanness! Oh, unhappy, beloved Harley!” exclaimed Violante, with such a gush of exquisite reproachful tenderness, that it thrilled him as the voice of the parting guardian angel. “Meanness! But it is that from which I implore you to save yourself. You cannot judge, you cannot see. You are dark, dark. Lost Christian that you are, what worse than heathen darkness to feign the friendship the better to betray; to punish falsehood by becoming yourself so false; to accept the confidence even of your bitterest foe, and then to sink below his own level in deceit? And oh, worse than all--to threaten that a son--son of the woman you professed to love--should swell your vengeance against a father! No! it was not you that said this,--it was the Fiend!”

“Enough!” exclaimed Harley, startled, conscience-stricken, and rushing into resentment, in order to escape the sense of shame. “Enough! you insult the man you professed to honour.”

“I honoured the prototype of gentleness and valour. I honoured one who seemed to me to clothe with life every grand and generous image that is born from the souls of poets. Destroy that ideal, and you destroy the Harley whom I honoured. He is dead to me forever. I will mourn for him as his widow, faithful to his memory, weeping over the thought of what he was.” Sobs choked her voice; but as Harley, once more melted, sprang forward to regain her side, she escaped with a yet quicker movement, gained the door, and darting down the corridor, vanished from his sight.

Harley stood still one moment, thoroughly irresolute, nay, almost subdued. Then sternness, though less rigid than before, gradually came to his brow. The demon had still its hold in the stubborn and marvellous pertinacity with which the man clung to all that once struck root at his heart. With a sudden impulse that still withheld decision, yet spoke of sore-shaken purpose, he strode to his desk, drew from it Nora’s manuscript, and passed from his room.

Harley had meant never to have revealed to Audley the secret he had gained until the moment when revenge was consummated. He had contemplated no vain reproach. His wrath would have spoken forth in deeds, and then a word would have sufficed as the key to all. Willing, perhaps, to hail some extenuation of perfidy, though the possibility of such extenuation he had never before admitted, he determined on the interview which he had hitherto so obstinately shunned, and went straight to the room in which Audley Egerton still sat, solitary and fearful.

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Chapter XXX

Egerton heard the well-known step advancing near and nearer up the corridor, heard the door open and reclose; and he felt, by one of those strange and unaccountable instincts which we call forebodings, that the hour he had dreaded for so many secret years had come at last. He nerved his courage, withdrew his hands from his face, and rose in silence.

No less silent, Harley stood before him. The two men gazed on each other; you might have heard their breathing.

“You have seen Mr. Dale?” said Egerton, at length. “You know--”

“All!” said Harley, completing the arrested sentence. Audley drew a long sigh. “Be it so; but no, Harley, you deceive yourself; you cannot know all, from any one living, save myself.”

“My knowledge comes from the dead,” answered Harley, and the fatal memoir dropped from his hand upon the table. The leaves fell with a dull, low sound, mournful and faint as might be the tread of a ghost, if the tread gave sound. They fell, those still confessions of an obscure, uncomprehended life, amidst letters and documents eloquent of the strife that was then agitating millions,--the fleeting, turbulent fears and hopes that torture parties and perplex a nation; the stormy business of practical public life, so remote from individual love and individual sorrow.

Egerton’s eye saw them fall. The room was but partially lighted. At the distance where he stood, he did not recognize the characters; but involuntarily he shivered, and involuntarily drew near.

“Hold yet awhile,” said Harley. “I produce my charge, and then I leave you to dispute the only witness that I bring. Audley Egerton, you took from me the gravest trust one man can confide to another. You knew how I loved Leonora Avenel. I was forbidden to see and urge my suit; you had the access to her presence which was denied to myself. I prayed you to remove scruples that I deemed too generous, and to woo her not to dishonour, but to be my wife. Was it so? Answer.”

“It is true,” said Audley, his hand clenched at his heart. “You saw her whom I thus loved,--her thus confided to your honour. You wooed her for yourself. Is it so?”

“Harley, I deny it not. Cease here. I accept the penalty; I resign your friendship; I quit your roof; I submit to your contempt; I dare not implore your pardon. Cease; let me go hence, and soon!”

The strong man gasped for breath. Harley looked at him steadfastly, then turned away his eyes, and went on. “Nay,” said he, “is that ALL? You wooed her for yourself,--you won her. Account to me for that life which you wrenched from mine. You are silent. I will take on myself your task; you took that life and destroyed it.”

“Spare me, spare me!”

“What was the fate of her who seemed so fresh from heaven when these eyes beheld her last? A broken heart, a dishonoured name, an early doom, a forgotten gravestone!”

“No, no--forgotten,--no!”

“Not forgotten! Scarce a year passed, and you were married to another. I aided you to form those nuptials which secured your fortunes. You have had rank and power and fame. Peers call you the type of English gentlemen; priests hold you as a model of Christian honour. Strip the mask, Audley Egerton; let the world know you for what you are!”

Egerton raised his head, and folded his arms calmly; but he said, with a melancholy humility, “I bear all from you; it is just. Say on.”

“You took from me the heart of Nora Avenel. You abandoned her, you destroyed. And her memory cast no shadow over your daily sunshine; while over my thoughts, over my life--oh, Egerton--Audley, Audley--how could you have deceived me thus!” Here the inherent tenderness under all this hate, the fount imbedded under the hardening stone, broke out. Harley was ashamed of his weakness, and hurried on,

“Deceived,--not for an hour, a day, but through blighted youth, through listless manhood,--you suffered me to nurse the remorse that should have been your own; her life slain, mine wasted,--and shall neither of us have revenge?”

“Revenge! Ah, Harley, you have had it!”

“No, but I await it! Not in vain from the charnel have come to me the records I produce. And whom did fate select to discover the wrongs of the mother, whom appoint as her avenger? Your son,--your own son; your abandoned, nameless son!”

“Son! son!”

“Whom I delivered from famine, or from worse; and who, in return, has given into my hands the evidence which proclaims in you the perjured friend of Harley L’Estrange, and the fraudulent seducer, under mock marriage forms--worse than all franker sin--of Leonora Avenel.”

“It is false! false!” exclaimed Egerton, all his stateliness and all his energy restored to him. “I forbid you to speak thus to me. I forbid you by one word to sully the memory of my lawful wife!”

“Ah!” said Harley, startled. “Ah! false? prove that, and revenge is over! Thank Heaven!”

“Prove it! What so easy? And wherefore have I delayed the proof; wherefore concealed, but from tenderness to you,--dread, too--a selfish but human dread--to lose in you the sole esteem that I covet; the only mourner who would have shed one tear over the stone inscribed with some lying epitaph, in which it will suit a party purpose to proclaim the gratitude of a nation. Vain hope. I resign it! But you spoke of a son. Alas, alas! you are again deceived. I heard that I had a son,--years, long years ago. I sought him, and found a grave. But bless you, Harley, if you succoured one whom you even erringly suspect to be Leonora’s child!” He stretched forth his hands as he spoke.

“Of your son we will speak later,” said Harley, strangely softened. “But before I say more of him, let me ask you to explain; let me hope that you can extenuate what--”

“You are right,” interrupted Egerton, with eager quickness. “You would know from my own lips at last the plain tale of my own offence against you. It is due to both. Patiently hear me out.”

Then Egerton told all,--his own love for Nora, his struggles against what he felt as treason to his friend, his sudden discovery of Nora’s love for him; on that discovery, the overthrow of all his resolutions; their secret marriage, their separation; Nora’s flight, to which Audley still assigned but her groundless vague suspicion that their nuptials had not been legal, and her impatience of his own delay in acknowledging the rite.

His listener interrupted him here with a few questions, the clear and prompt replies to which enabled Harley to detect Levy’s plausible perversion of the facts; and he vaguely guessed the cause of the usurer’s falsehood, in the criminal passion which the ill-fated bride had inspired.

“Egerton,” said Harley, stifling with an effort his own wrath against the vile deceiver both of wife and husband, “if, on reading those papers, you find that Leonora had more excuse for her suspicions and flight than you now deem, and discover perfidy in one to whom you trusted your secret, leave his punishment to Heaven. All that you say convinces me more and more that we cannot even see through the cloud, much less guide the thunderbolt. But proceed.”

Audley looked surprised and startled, and his eye turned wistfully towards the papers; but after a short pause he continued his recital. He came to Nora’s unexpected return to her father’s house, her death, his conquest of his own grief, that he might spare Harley the abrupt shock of learning her decease. He had torn himself from the dead, in remorseful sympathy with the living. He spoke of Harley’s illness, so nearly fatal, repeated Harley’s jealous words, “that he would rather mourn Nora’s death, than take comfort from the thought that she had loved another.” He spoke of his journey to the village where Mr. Dale had told him Nora’s child was placed--“and, hearing that child and mother were alike gone, whom now could I right by acknowledging a bond that I feared would so wring your heart?” Audley again paused a moment, and resumed in short, nervous, impressive sentences. This cold, austere man of the world for the first time bared his heart,--unconscious, perhaps, that he did so; unconscious that he revealed how deeply, amidst State cares and public distinctions, he had felt the absence of affections; how mechanical was that outer circle in the folds of life which is called a “career;” how valueless wealth had grown--none to inherit it. Of his gnawing and progressive disease alone he did not speak; he was too proud and too masculine to appeal to pity for physical ills. He reminded Harley how often, how eagerly, year after year, month after month, he had urged his friend to rouse himself from mournful dreams, devote his native powers to his country, or seek the surer felicity of domestic ties. “Selfish in these attempts I might be,” said Egerton; “it was only if I saw you restored to happiness that I could believe you could calmly hear my explanation of the past, and on the floor of some happy home grant me your forgiveness. I longed to confess, and I dared not. Often have the words rushed to my lips,--as often some chance sentence from you repelled me. In a word, with you were so entwined all the thoughts and affections of my youth--even those that haunted the grave of Nora--that I could not bear to resign your friendship, and, surrounded by the esteem and honour of a world I cared not for, to meet the contempt of your reproachful eye.”

Amidst all that Audley said, amidst all that admitted of no excuse, two predominant sentiments stood clear, in unmistakable and touching pathos,--remorseful regret for the lost Nora, and self-accusing, earnest, almost feminine tenderness for the friend he had deceived. Thus, as he continued to speak, Harley more and more forgot even the remembrance of his own guilty and terrible interval of hate; the gulf that had so darkly yawned between the two closed up, leaving them still standing side by side, as in their schoolboy days. But he remained silent, listening, shading his face from Audley, and as if under some soft but enthralling spell, till Egerton thus closed,

“And now, Harley, all is told. You spoke of revenge?”

“Revenge!” muttered Harley, starting.

“And believe me,” continued Egerton, “were revenge in your power, I should rejoice at it as an atonement. To receive an injury in return for that which, first from youthful passion, and afterwards from the infirmity of purpose that concealed the wrong, I have inflicted upon you--why, that would soothe my conscience, and raise my lost self-esteem. The sole revenge you can bestow takes the form which most humiliates me,--to revenge is to pardon.”

Harley groaned; and still hiding his face with one hand, stretched forth the other, but rather with the air of one who entreats than who accords forgiveness. Audley took and pressed the hand thus extended.

“And NOW, Harley, farewell. With the dawn I leave this house. I cannot now accept your aid in this election. Levy shall announce my resignation. Randal Leslie, if you so please it, may be returned in my stead. He has abilities which, under safe guidance, may serve his country; and I have no right to reject from vain pride whatever will promote the career of one whom I undertook, and have failed, to serve.”

“Ay, ay,” muttered Harley; “think not of Randal Leslie; think but of your son.”

“My son! But are you sure that he still lives? You smile; you--you--oh, Harley, I took from you the mother,--give to me the son; break my heart with gratitude. Your revenge is found!”

Lord L’Estrange rose with a sudden start, gazed on Audley for a moment,--irresolute, not from resentment, but from shame. At that moment he was the man humbled; he was the man who feared reproach, and who needed pardon. Audley, not divining what was thus passing in Harley’s breast, turned away.

“You think that I ask too much; and yet all that I can give to the child of my love and the heir of my name is the worthless blessing of a ruined man. Harley, I say no more. I dare not add, ‘You too loved his mother! and with a deeper and a nobler love than mine.’” He stopped short, and Harley flung himself on his breast.

“Me--me--pardon me, Audley! Your offence has been slight to mine. You have told me your offence; never can I name to you my own. Rejoice that we have both to exchange forgiveness, and in that exchange we are equal still, Audley, brothers still. Look up! look up! think that we are boys now as we were once,--boys who have had their wild quarrel, and who, the moment it is over, feel dearer to each other than before.”

“Oh, Harley, this is revenge! It strikes home,” murmured Egerton, and tears gushed fast from eyes that could have gazed unwinking on the rack. The clock struck; Harley sprang forward.

“I have time yet,” he cried. “Much to do and to undo. You are saved from the grasp of Levy; your election will be won; your fortunes in much may be restored; you have before you honours not yet achieved; your career as yet is scarce begun; your son will embrace you to-morrow. Let me go--your hand again! Ah, Audley, we shall be so happy yet!”

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Chapter XXXI

“There is a hitch,” said Dick, pithily, when Randal joined him in the oak copse at ten o’clock. “Life is full of hitches.”

RANDAL.--“The art of life is to smooth them away. What hitch is this, my dear Avenel?”

DICK.--“Leonard has taken huff at certain expressions of Lord L’Estrange’s at the nomination to-day, and talks of retiring from the contest.”

RANDAL (with secret glee).--“But his resignation would smooth a hitch,--not create one. The votes promised to him would thus be freed, and go to--”

DICK.--“The Right Honourable Red-Tapist!”

RANDAL.--“Are you serious?”

DICK.--“As an undertaker! The fact is, there are two parties among the Yellows as there are in the Church,--High Yellow and Low Yellow. Leonard has made great way with the High Yellows, and has more influence with them than I; and the High Yellows infinitely preferred Egerton to yourself. They say, ‘Politics apart, he would be an honour to the borough.’ Leonard is of the same opinion; and if he retires, I don’t think I could coax either him or the Highflyers to make you any the better by his resignation.”

RANDAL.--“But surely your nephew’s sense of gratitude to you would induce him not to go against your wishes?”

DICK.--“Unluckily, the gratitude is all the other way. It is I who am under obligations to him,--not he to me. As for Lord L’Estrange, I can’t make head or tail of his real intentions; and why he should have attacked Leonard in that way puzzles me more than all, for he wished Leonard to stand; and Levy has privately informed me that, in spite of my Lord’s friendship for the Right Honourable, you are the man he desires to secure.”

RANDAL.--“He has certainly shown that desire throughout the whole canvass.”

DICK.--“I suspect that the borough-mongers have got a seat for Egerton elsewhere; or, perhaps, should his party come in again, he is to be pitchforked into the Upper House.”

RANDAL (smiling).--“Ah, Avenel, you are so shrewd; you see through everything. I will also add that Egerton wants some short respite from public life, in order to nurse his health and attend to his affairs, otherwise I could not even contemplate the chance of the electors preferring me to him, without a pang.”

DICK.--“Pang! stuff--considerable. The oak-trees don’t hear us! You want to come into parliament, and no mistake. If I am the man to retire,--as I always proposed, and had got Leonard to agree to, before this confounded speech of L’Estrange’s,--come into parliament you will, for the Low Yellows I can twist round my finger, provided the High Yellows will not interfere; in short, I could transfer to you votes promised to me, but I can’t answer for those promised to Leonard. Levy tells me you are to marry a rich girl, and will have lots of money; so, of course, you will pay my expenses if you come in through my votes.”

RANDAL.--“My dear Avenel, certainly I will.”

DICK.--“And I have two private bills I want to smuggle through parliament.”

RANDAL.--“They shall be smuggled, rely on it. Mr. Fairfield being on one side of the House, and I on the other, we two could prevent all unpleasant opposition. Private bills are easily managed,--with that tact which I flatter myself I possess.”

DICK.--“And when the bills are through the House, and you have had time to look about you, I dare say you will see that no man can go against Public Opinion, unless he wants to knock his own head against a stone wall; and that Public Opinion is decidedly Yellow.”

RANDAL (with candour).--“I cannot deny that Public Opinion is Yellow; and at my age, it is natural that I should not commit myself to the policy of a former generation. Blue is fast wearing out. But, to return to Mr. Fairfield: you do not speak as if you had no hope of keeping him straight to what I understand to be his agreement with yourself. Surely his honour is engaged to it?”

DICK.--“I don’t know as to honour; but he has now taken a fancy to public life,--at least so he said no later than this morning before we went into the hall; and I trust that matters will come right. Indeed, I left him with Parson Dale, who promised me that he would use all his best exertions to reconcile Leonard and my Lord, and that Leonard should do nothing hastily.”

RANDAL.--“But why should Mr. Fairfield retire because Lord L’Estrange wounds his feelings? I am sure Mr. Fairfield has wounded mine, but that does not make me think of retiring.”

DICK.--“Oh, Leonard is a poet, and poets are quite as crotchety as L’Estrange said they were. And Leonard is under obligations to Lord L’Estrange, and thought that Lord L’Estrange was pleased by his standing; whereas, now--In short, it is all Greek to me, except that Leonard has mounted his high horse, and if that throws him, I am afraid it will throw you. But still I have great confidence in Parson Dale,--a good fellow who has much influence with Leonard. And though I thought it right to be above-board, and let you know where the danger lies, yet one thing I can promise,--if I resign, you shall come in; so shake hands on it.”

RANDAL.--“My dear Avenel! And your wish is to resign?”

DICK.--“Certainly. I should do so a little time after noon, contriving to be below Leonard on the poll. You know Emanuel Trout, the captain of the Hundred and Fifty ‘Waiters on Providence,’ as they are called?”

RANDAL.--“To be sure I do.”

DICK.--“When Emanuel Trout comes into the booth, you will know how the election turns. As he votes, all the Hundred and Fifty will vote. Now I must go back. Good-night.

“You’ll not forget that my expenses are to be paid. Point of honour. Still, if they are not paid, the election can be upset,--petition for bribery and corruption; and if they are paid, why, Lansmere may be your seat for life.”

RANDAL.--“Your expenses shall be paid the moment my marriage gives me the means to pay them,--and that must be very soon.”

DICK.--“So Levy says. And my little jobs--the private bills?”

RANDAL.--“Consider the bills passed and the jobs done.”

DICK.--“And one must not forget one’s country. One must do the best one can for one’s principles. Egerton is infernally Blue. You allow Public Opinion--is--”

RANDAL.--“Yellow. Not a doubt of it.”

DICK.--“Good-night. Ha, ha! humbug, eh?”

RANDAL.--“Humbug! Between men like us,--oh, no. Good-night, my dear friend, I rely on you.”

DICK.--“Yes; but mind, I promise nothing if Leonard Fairfield does not stand.”

RANDAL.--“He must stand; keep him to it. Your affairs, your business, your mill--”

DICK.--“Very true. He must stand. I have great faith in Parson Dale.”

Randal glided back through the park. When he came on the terrace, he suddenly encountered Lord L’Estrange. “I have just been privately into the town, my dear Lord, and heard a strange rumour, that Mr. Fairfield was so annoyed by some remarks in your Lordship’s admirable speech, that he talks of retiring from the contest. That would give a new feature to the election, and perplex all our calculations; and I fear, in that case, there might be some secret coalition between Avenel’s friends and our Committee, whom, I am told, I displeased by the moderate speech which your Lordship so eloquently defended,--a coalition by which Avenel would come in with Mr. Egerton, whereas, if we all four stand, Mr. Egerton, I presume, will be quite safe,--and I certainly think I have an excellent chance.”

LORD L’ESTRANGE.--“SO Mr. Fairfield would retire in consequence of my remarks! I am going into the town, and I intend to apologize for those remarks, and retract them.”

RANDAL (joyously).--“Noble!”

Lord L’Estrange looked at Leslie’s face, upon which the stars gleamed palely. “Mr. Egerton has thought more of your success than of his own,” said he, gravely, and hurried on.

Randal continued on the terrace. Perhaps Harley’s last words gave him a twinge of compunction. His head sunk musingly on his breast, and he paced to and fro the long gravel-walk, summoning up all his intellect to resist every temptation to what could injure his self-interest.

“Skulking knave!” muttered Harley. “At least there will be nothing to repent, if I can do justice on him. That is not revenge. Come, that must be a fair retribution. Besides, how else can I deliver Violante?”

He laughed gayly, his heart was so light; and his foot bounded on as fleet as the deer that he startled amongst the fern.

A few yards from the turnstile he overtook Richard Avenel, disguised in a rough great-coat and spectacles. Nevertheless, Harley’s eye detected the Yellow candidate at the first glance. He caught Dick familiarly by the arm. “Well met! I was going to you. We have the election to settle.”

“On the terms I mentioned to your Lordship?” said Dick, startled. “I will agree to return one of your candidates; but it must not be Audley Egerton.” Harley whispered close in Avenel’s ear.

Avenel uttered an exclamation of amazement. The two gentlemen walked on rapidly, and conversing with great eagerness.

“Certainly,” said Avenel, at length, stopping short, “one would do a great deal to serve a family connection,--and a connection that does a man so much credit; and how can one go against one’s own brother-in-law,--a gentleman of such high standing, pull up the whole family! How pleased Mrs. Richard Avenel will be! Why the devil did not I know it before? And poor--dear--dear Nora. Ah, that she were living!” Dick’s voice trembled.

“Her name will be righted; and I will explain why it was my fault that Egerton did not before acknowledge his marriage, and claim you as a brother. Come, then, it is all fixed and settled.”

“No, my Lord; I am pledged the other way. I don’t see how I can get off my word--to Randal Leslie. I’m not over nice, nor what is called Quixotic; but still my word is given that if I retire from the election, I will do my best to return Leslie instead of Egerton.”

“I know that through Baron Levy. But if your nephew retires?”

“Oh, that would solve all difficulties. But the poor boy has now a wish to come into parliament; and he has done me a service in the hour of need.”

“Leave it to me. And as to Randal Leslie, he shall have an occasion himself to acquit you and redeem himself; and happy, indeed, will it be for him if he has yet one spark of gratitude, or one particle of honour!”

The two continued to converse for a few moments, Dick seeming to forget the election itself, and ask questions of more interest to his heart, which Harley answered so, that Dick wrung L’Estrange’s hand with great emotion, and muttered, “My poor mother! I understand now why she would never talk to me of Nora. When may I tell her the truth?”

“To-morrow evening, after the election, Egerton shall embrace you all.”

Dick started, and saying, “See Leonard as soon as you can,--there is no time to lose,” plunged into a lane that led towards the obscurer recesses of the town. Harley continued his way with the same light elastic tread which (lost during his abnegation of his own nature) was now restored to the foot, that seemed loath to leave a print upon the mire.

At the commencement of the High Street he encountered Mr. Dale and Fairfield, walking slowly, arm-in-arm.

HARLEY.--“Leonard, I was coming to you. Give me your hand. Forget for the present the words that justly stung and offended you. I will do more than apologize,--I will repair the wrong. Excuse me, Mr. Dale, I have one word to say in private to Leonard.” He drew Fairfield aside.

“Avenel tells me that if you were to retire from this contest, it would be a sacrifice of inclination. Is it so?”

“My Lord, I have sorrows that I would fain forget; and though I at first shrunk from the strife in which I have been since engaged, yet now a literary career seems to me to have lost its old charm; and I find that, in public life, there is a distraction to the thoughts which embitter solitude, that books fail to bestow. Therefore, if you still wish me to continue this contest, though I know not your motive, it will not be as it was to begin it,--a reluctant and a painful obedience to your request.”

“I understand. It was a sacrifice of inclination to begin the contest; it would be now a sacrifice of inclination to withdraw?”

“Honestly, yes, my Lord.”

“I rejoice to hear it, for I ask that sacrifice,--a sacrifice which you will recall hereafter with delight and pride; a sacrifice sweeter, if I read your nature aright--oh, sweeter far, than all which commonplace ambition could bestow! And when you learn why I make this demand, you will say, ‘This, indeed, is reparation for the words that wounded my affections, and wronged my heart.’”

“My Lord, my Lord!” exclaimed Leonard, “the injury is repaired already. You give me back your esteem, when you so well anticipate my answer. Your esteem!--life smiles again. I can return to my more legitimate career without a sigh. I have no need of distraction from thought now. You will believe that, whatever my past presumption, I can pray sincerely for your happiness.”

“Poet, you adorn your career; you fulfil your mission, even at this moment; you beautify the world; you give to the harsh form of Duty the cestus of the Graces,” said Harley, trying to force a smile to his quivering lips. “But we must hasten back to the prose of existence. I accept your sacrifice. As for the time and mode I must select in order to insure its result, I will ask you to abide by such instructions as I shall have occasion to convey through your uncle. Till then, no word of your intentions,--not even to Mr. Dale. Forgive me if I would rather secure Mr. Egerton’s election than yours. Let that explanation suffice for the present. What think you, by the way, of Audley Egerton?”

“I thought when I heard him speak and when he closed with those touching words,--implying that he left all of his life not devoted to his country ‘to the charity of his friends,’--how proudly, even as his opponent, I could have clasped his hand; and if he had wronged me in private life, I should have thought it ingratitude to the country he had so served to remember the offence.”

Harley turned away abruptly, and joined Mr. Dale.

“Leave Leonard to go home by himself; you see that I have healed whatever wounds I inflicted on him.”

PARSON.--“And, your better nature thus awakened, I trust, my dear Lord, that you have altogether abandoned the idea of--”

HARLEY.--“Revenge?--no. And if you do not approve that revenge to-morrow, I will never rest till I have seen you--a bishop!”

MR. DALE (much shocked).--“My Lord, for shame!”

HARLEY (seriously).--“My levity is but lip-deep, my dear Mr. Dale. But sometimes the froth on the wave shows the change in the tide.”

The parson looked at him earnestly, and then seized him by both hands with holy gladness and affection.

“Return to the Park now,” said Harley, smiling; “and tell Violante, if it be not too late to see her, that she was even more eloquent than you.”

Lord L’Estrange bounded forward.

Mr. Dale walked back through the park to Lansmere House. On the terrace he found Randal, who was still pacing to and fro, sometimes in the starlight, sometimes in the shadow.

Leslie looked up, and seeing Mr. Dale, the close astuteness of his aspect returned; and stepping out of the starlight deep into the shadow, he said,

“I was sorry to learn that Mr. Fairfield had been so hurt by Lord L’Estrange’s severe allusions. Pity that political differences should interfere with private friendships; but I hear that you have been to Mr. Fairfield,--and, doubtless, as the peacemaker. Perhaps you met Lord L’Estrange by the way? He promised me that he would apologize and retract.”

“Good young man!” said the unsuspecting parson, “he has done so.”

“And Mr. Leonard Fairfield will, therefore, I presume, continue the contest?”

“Contest--ah, this election! I suppose so, of course. But I grieve that he should stand against you, who seem to be disposed towards him so kindly.”

“Oh,” said Randal, with a benevolent smile, “we have fought before, you know, and I beat him then. I may do so again!”

And he walked into the house, arm-in-arm with the parson. Mr. Dale sought Violante; Leslie retired to his own room, and felt his election was secured.

Lord L’Estrange had gained the thick of the streets--passing groups of roaring enthusiasts--Blue and Yellow--now met with a cheer, now followed by a groan. Just by a public-house that formed the angle of a lane with the High Street, and which was all ablaze with light and all alive with clamour, he beheld the graceful baron leaning against the threshold, smoking his cigar, too refined to associate its divine vapour with the wreaths of shag within, and chatting agreeably with a knot of females, who were either attracted by the general excitement, or waiting to see husband, brother, father, or son, who were now joining in the chorus of “Blue forever!” that rang from tap-room to attic of the illumined hostelry. Levy, seeing Lord L’Estrange, withdrew his cigar from his lips, and hastened to join him. “All the Hundred and Fifty are in there,” said the baron, with a backward significant jerk of his thumb towards the inn. “I have seen them all privately, in tens at a time; and I have been telling the ladies without that it will be best for the interest of their families to go home, and let us lock up the Hundred and Fifty safe from the Yellows, till we bring them to the poll. But I am afraid,” continued Levy, “that the rascals are not to be relied upon unless I actually pay them beforehand; and that would be disreputable, immoral,--and, what is more, it would upset the election. Besides, if they are paid beforehand, query, is it quite sure how they will vote afterwards?”

“Mr. Avenel, I dare say, can manage them,” said Harley. “Pray do nothing immoral, and nothing that will upset the election. I think you might as well go home.”

“Home! No, pardon me, my Lord; there must be some head to direct the Committee, and keep our captains at their posts upon the doubtful electors. A great deal of mischief may be done between this and the morrow; and I would sit up all night--ay, six nights a week for the next three months--to prevent any awkward mistake by which Audley Egerton can be returned.”

“His return would really grieve you so much?” said Harley.

“You may judge of that by the zeal with which I enter into all your designs.”

Here there was a sudden and wondrously loud shout from another inn,--a Yellow inn, far down the lane, not so luminous as the Blue hostelry; on the contrary, looking rather dark and sinister, more like a place for conspirators or felons than honest, independent electors,--“Avenel forever! Avenel and the Yellows!”

“Excuse me, my Lord, I must go back and watch over my black sheep, if I would have them blue!” said Levy; and he retreated towards the threshold. But at that shout of “Avenel forever!” as if at a signal, various electors of the redoubted Hundred and Fifty rushed from the Blue hostelry, sweeping past Levy, and hurrying down the lane to the dark little Yellow inn, followed by the female stragglers, as small birds follow an owl. It was not, however, very easy to get into that Yellow inn; Yellow Reformers, eminent for their zeal on behalf of purity of election, were stationed outside the door, and only strained in one candidate for admittance at a time. “After all,” thought the baron, as he passed into the principal room of the Blue tavern, and proposed the national song of “Rule Britannia,”--“after all, Avenel hates Egerton as much as I do, and both sides work to the same end.” And thrumming on the table, he joined with a fine lass in the famous line,

“For Britons never will be slaves!”

In the interim, Harley had disappeared within the Lansmere Arms, which was the headquarters of the Blue Committee. Not, however, mounting to the room in which a few of the more indefatigable were continuing their labours, receiving reports from scouts, giving orders, laying wagers, and very muzzy with British principles and spirits, Harley called aside the landlord, and inquired if the stranger, for whom rooms had been prepared, was yet arrived. An affirmative answer was given, and Harley followed the host up a private stair, to a part of the house remote from the rooms devoted to the purposes of the election. He remained with this stranger about half an hour, and then walked into the Committee-room, got rid of the more excited, conferred with the more sober, issued a few brief directions to such of the leaders as he felt he could most rely upon, and returned home as rapidly as he had quitted it.

Dawn was gray in the skies when Harley sought his own chamber. To gain it, he passed by the door of Violante’s. His heart suffused with grateful ineffable tenderness, he paused and kissed the threshold. When he stood within his room (the same that he had occupied in his early youth), he felt as if the load of years were lifted from his bosom. The joyous, divine elasticity of spirit, that in the morning of life springs towards the Future as a bird soars into heaven, pervaded his whole sense of being. A Greek poet implies that the height of bliss is the sudden relief of pain: there is a nobler bliss still,--the rapture of the conscience at the sudden release from a guilty thought. By the bedside at which he had knelt in boyhood, Harley paused to kneel once more. The luxury of prayer, interrupted since he had nourished schemes of which his passions had blinded him to the sin, but which, nevertheless, he dared not confess to the All-Merciful, was restored to him. And yet, as he bowed his knee, the elation of spirits he had before felt forsook him. The sense of the danger his soul had escaped, the full knowledge of the guilt to which the fiend had tempted, came dread before his clearing vision; he shuddered in horror of himself. And he who but a few hours before had deemed it so impossible to pardon his fellow-man, now felt as if years of useful and beneficent deeds could alone purify his own repentant soul from the memory of one hateful passion.

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Chapter XXXII

But while Harley had thus occupied the hours of night with cares for the living, Audley Egerton had been in commune with the dead. He had taken from the pile of papers amidst which it had fallen, the record of Nora’s silenced heart. With a sad wonder he saw how he had once been loved. What had all which successful ambition had bestowed on the lonely statesman to compensate for the glorious empire he had lost,--such realms of lovely fancy; such worlds of exquisite emotion; that infinite which lies within the divine sphere that unites spiritual genius with human love? His own positive and earthly nature attained, for the first time, and as if for its own punishment, the comprehension of that loftier and more ethereal visitant from the heavens, who had once looked with a seraph’s smile through the prison-bars of his iron life; that celestial refinement of affection, that exuberance of feeling which warms into such varieties of beautiful idea, under the breath of the earth-beautifier, Imagination,--all from which, when it was all his own, he had turned half weary and impatient, and termed the exaggerations of a visionary romance, now that the world had lost them evermore, he interpreted aright as truths. Truths they were, although illusions. Even as the philosopher tells us that the splendour of colours which deck the universe is not on the surface whereon we think to behold it, but in our own vision; yet, take the colours from the universe, and what philosophy can assure us that the universe has sustained no loss?

But when Audley came to that passage in the fragment which, though but imperfectly, explained the true cause of Nora’s flight; when he saw how Levy, for what purpose he was unable to conjecture, had suggested to his bride the doubts that had offended him,--asserted the marriage to be a fraud, drawn from Audley’s own brief resentful letters to Nora proof of the assertion, misled so naturally the young wife’s scanty experience of actual life, and maddened one so sensitively pure into the conviction of dishonour,--his brow darkened, and his hand clenched. He rose and went at once to Levy’s room. He found it deserted, inquired, learned that Levy was gone forth, and had left word he might not be at home for the night. Fortunate, perhaps, for Audley, fortunate for the baron, that they did not then meet. Revenge, in spite of his friend’s admonition, might at that hour have been as potent an influence on Egerton as it had been on Harley, and not, as with the latter, to be turned aside.

Audley came back to his room and finished the tragic record. He traced the tremor of that beloved hand through the last tortures of doubt and despair; he saw where the hot tears had fallen; he saw where the hand had paused, the very sentence not concluded; mentally he accompanied his--fated bride in the dismal journey to her maiden home, and beheld her before him as he had last seen, more beautiful even in death than the face of living woman had ever since appeared to him; and as he bent over the last words, the blank that they left on the leaf, stretching pale beyond the quiver of the characters and the blister of the tears,--pale and blank as the void which departed love leaves behind it,--he felt his Heart suddenly stand still, its course arrested as the record closed. It beat again, but feebly,--so feebly! His breath became labour and pain, his sight grew dizzy; but the constitutional firmness and fortitude of the man clung to him in the stubborn mechanism of habit, his will yet fought against his disease, life rallied as the light flickers up in the waning taper.

The next morning, when Harley came into his friend’s room, Egerton was asleep. But the sleep seemed much disturbed; the breathing was hard and difficult; the bed-clothes were partially thrown off, as if in the tossing of disturbed dreams; the sinewy strong arm, the broad athletic breast, were partly bare. Strange that so deadly a disease within should leave the frame such apparent power that, to the ordinary eye, the sleeping sufferer seemed a model of healthful vigour. One hand was thrust with uneasy straining over the pillows,--it had its hold on the fatal papers; a portion of the leaves was visible; and where the characters had been blurred by Nora’s tears, were the traces, yet moist, of tears perhaps more bitter.

Harley felt deeply affected; and while he still stood by the bed, Egerton sighed heavily and woke. He stared round him, as if perplexed and confused, till his eyes resting on Harley, he smiled and said,

“So early! Ah, I remember, it is the day for our great boat-race. We shall have the current against us; but you and I together--when did we ever lose?”

Audley’s mind was wandering; it had gone back to the old Eton days. But Harley thought that he spoke in metaphorical allusion to the present more important contest.

“True, my Audley,--you and I together--when did we ever lose? But will you rise? I wish you would be at the polling-place to shake hands with your voters as they come up. By four o’clock you will be released, and the election won.”

“The election! How! what!” said Egerton, recovering himself. “I recollect now. Yes,--I accept this last kindness from you. I always said I would die in harness. Public life--I have no other. Ah, I dream again! Oh, Harley my son, my son!”

“You shall see him after four o’clock. You will be proud of each other. But make haste and dress. Shall I ring the bell for your servant?”

“Do,” said Egerton, briefly, and sinking back. Harley quitted the room, and joined Randal and some of the more important members of the Blue Committee, who were already hurrying over their breakfast.

All were anxious and nervous except Harley, who dipped his dry toast into his coffee, according to his ordinary abstemious Italian habit, with serene composure. Randal in vain tried for an equal tranquillity. But though sure of his election, there would necessarily follow a scene trying to the nerve of his hypocrisy. He would have to affect profound chagrin in the midst of vile joy; have to act the part of decorous high-minded sorrow, that by some untoward chance, some unaccountable cross-splitting, Randal Leslie’s gain should be Audley Egerton’s loss. Besides, he was flurried in the expectation of seeing the squire, and of appropriating the money which was to secure the dearest object of his ambition. Breakfast was soon despatched. The Committee-men, bustling for their hats, and looking at their watches, gave the signal for departure; yet no Squire Hazeldean had made his appearance. Harley, stepping from the window upon the terrace, beckoned to Randal, who took his hat and followed.

“Mr. Leslie,” said Harley, leaning against the balustrade, and carelessly patting Nero’s rough, honest head, “you remember that you were good enough to volunteer to me the explanation of certain circumstances in connection with the Count di Peschiera, which you gave to the Duke di Serrano; and I replied that my thoughts were at present engaged on the election, but as soon as that was over, I should be very willing to listen to any communications affecting yourself and my old friend the duke, with which you might be pleased to favour me.”

This address took Randal by surprise, and did not tend to calm his nerves. However, he replied readily,

“Upon that, as upon any other matter that may influence the judgment you form of me, I shall be but too eager to remove a single doubt that, in your eyes, can rest upon my honour.”

“You speak exceedingly well, Mr. Leslie; no man can express himself more handsomely; and I will claim your promise with the less scruple because the duke is powerfully affected by the reluctance of his daughter to ratify the engagement that binds his honour, in case your own is indisputably cleared. I may boast of some influence over the young lady, since I assisted to save her from the infamous plot of Peschiera; and the duke urges me to receive your explanation, in the belief that, if it satisfy me, as it has satisfied him, I may conciliate his child in favour of the addresses of a suitor who would have hazarded his very life against so redoubted a duellist as Peschiera.”

“Lord L’Estrange,” replied Randal, bowing, “I shall indeed owe you much if you can remove that reluctance on the part of my betrothed bride, which alone clouds my happiness, and which would at once put an end to my suit, did I not ascribe it to an imperfect knowledge of myself, which I shall devote my life to improve into confidence and affection.”

“No man can speak more handsomely,” reiterated Harley, as if with profound admiration; and indeed he did eye Randal as we eye some rare curiosity. “I am happy to inform you, too,” continued L’Estrange, “that if your marriage with the Duke of Serrano’s daughter take place--”

“If!” echoed Randal.

“I beg pardon for making an hypothesis of what you claim the right to esteem a certainty,--I correct my expression: when your marriage with that young lady takes place, you will at least escape the rock on which many young men of ardent affections have split at the onset of the grand voyage. You will form no imprudent connection. In a word, I received yesterday a despatch from Vienna, which contains the full pardon and formal restoration of Alphonso, Duke di Serrano. And I may add, that the Austrian government (sometimes misunderstood in this country) is bound by the laws it administers, and can in no way dictate to the duke, once restored, as to the choice of his son-in-law, or as to the heritage that may devolve on his child.”

“And does the duke yet know of his recall?” exclaimed Randal, his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling.

“No. I reserve that good news, with other matters, till after the election is over. But Egerton keeps us waiting sadly. Ah, here comes his valet.”

Audley’s servant approached. “Mr. Egerton feels himself rather more poorly than usual, my Lord; he begs you will excuse his going with you into the town at present. He will come later if his presence is absolutely necessary.”

“No. Pray tell him to rest and nurse himself. I should have liked him to witness his own triumph,--that is all. Say I will represent him at the polling-place. Gentlemen, are you ready? We will go on.”

The polling booth was erected in the centre of the marketplace. The voting had already commenced; and Mr. Avenel and Leonard were already at their posts, in order to salute and thank the voters in their cause who passed before them. Randal and L’Estrange entered the booth amidst loud hurrahs, and to the national air of “See the Conquering Hero comes.” The voters defiled in quick succession. Those who voted entirely according to principle or colour--which came to much the same thing--and were therefore above what is termed “management,” flocked in first, voting straightforwardly for both Blues or both Yellows. At the end of the first half-hour the Yellows were About ten ahead of the Blues. Then sundry split votes began to perplex conjecture as to the result; and Randal, at the end of the first hour, had fifteen majority over Audley Egerton, two over Dick Avenel, Leonard Fairfield heading the poll by five. Randal owed his place in the lists to the voters that Harley’s personal efforts had procured for him; and he was well pleased to see that Lord L’Estrange had not withdrawn from him a single promise so obtained. This augured well for Harley’s ready belief in his appointed “explanations.” In short, the whole election seemed going just as he had calculated. But by twelve o’clock there were some changes in the relative position of the candidates. Dick Avenel had gradually gained ground,--passing Randal, passing even Leonard. He stood at the head of the poll by a majority of ten. Randal came next. Audley was twenty behind Randal, and Leonard four behind Audley. More than half the constituency had polled, but none of the Committee on either side, nor one of the redoubted corps of a Hundred and Fifty.

The poll now slackened sensibly. Randal, looking round, and longing for an opportunity to ask Dick whether he really meant to return himself instead of his nephew, saw that Harley had disappeared; and presently a note was brought to him requesting his presence in the Committee-room. Thither he hastened.

As he forced his way through the bystanders in the lobby, towards the threshold of the room, Levy caught hold of him and whispered, “They begin to fear for Egerton. They want a compromise in order to secure him. They will propose to you to resign, if Avenel will withdraw Leonard. Don’t be entrapped. L’Estrange may put the question to you; but--a word in your ear--he would be glad enough to throw over Egerton. Rely upon this, and stand firm.”

Randal made no answer, but, the crowd giving way for him, entered the room. Levy followed. The doors were instantly closed. All the Blue Committee were assembled. They looked heated, anxious, eager. Lord L’Estrange, alone calm and cool, stood at the head of the long table. Despite his composure, Harley’s brow was thoughtful. “Yes,” said he to himself, “I will give this young man the fair occasion to prove gratitude to his benefactor; and if he here acquit himself, I will spare him, at least, public exposure of his deceit to others. So young, he must have some good in him,--at least towards the man to whom he owes all.”

“Mr. Leslie,” said L’Estrange, aloud, “you see the state of the poll. Our Committee believe that, if you continue to stand, Egerton must be beaten. They fear that, Leonard Fairfield having little chance, the Yellows will not waste their second votes on him, but will transfer them to you, in order to keep out Egerton. If you retire, Egerton will be safe. There is reason to suppose that Leonard would, in that case, also be withdrawn.”

“You can hope and fear nothing more from Egerton,” whispered Levy. “He is utterly ruined; and, if he lose, will sleep in a prison. The bailiffs are waiting for him.”

Randal was still silent, and at that silence an indignant murmur ran through the more influential members of the Committee. For, though Audley was not personally very popular, still a candidate so eminent was necessarily their first object, and they would seem very small to the Yellows, if their great man was defeated by the very candidate introduced to aid him,--a youth unknown. Vanity and patriotism both swelled that murmur. “You see, young sir,” cried a rich, blunt master-butcher, “that it was an honourable understanding that Mr. Egerton was to be safe. You had no claim on us, except as fighting second to him. And we are all astonished that you don’t say at once, ‘Save Egerton, of course.’ Excuse my freedom, sir. No time for palaver.”

“Lord L’Estrange,” said Randal, turning mildly from the butcher, “do you, as the first here in rank and influence, and as Mr. Egerton’s especial friend, call upon me to sacrifice my election, and what appear to be the inclinations of the majority of the constituents, in order to obtain what is, after all, a doubtful chance of returning Mr. Egerton in my room?

“I do not call upon you, Mr. Leslie. It is a matter of feeling or of honour, which a gentleman can very well decide for himself.”

“Was any such compact made between your Lordship and myself, when you first gave me your interest and canvassed for me in person?”

“Certainly not. Gentlemen, be silent. No such compact was mentioned by me.”

“Neither was it by Mr. Egerton. Whatever might be the understanding spoken of by the respected elector who addressed me, I was no party to it. I am persuaded that Mr. Egerton is the last person who would wish to owe his election to a trick upon the electors in the midst of the polling, and to what the world would consider a very unhandsome treatment of myself, upon whom all the toil of the canvass has devolved.”

Again the murmur rose; but Randal had an air so determined, that it quelled resentment, and obtained a continued, though most chilling and half-contemptuous hearing.

“Nevertheless,” resumed Randal, “I would at once retire were I not under the firm persuasion that I shall convince all present, who now seem to condemn me, that I act precisely according to Mr. Egerton’s own private inclinations. That gentleman, in fact, has never been amongst you, has not canvassed in person, has taken no trouble, beyond a speech, that was evidently meant to be but a general defence of his past political career. What does this mean? Simply that his standing has been merely a form, to comply with the wish of his party, against his own desire.”

The Committee-men looked at each other amazed and doubtful. Randal saw he had gained an advantage; he pursued it with a tact and ability which showed that, in spite of his mere oratorical deficiencies, he had in him the elements of a dexterous debater. “I will be plain with you, gentlemen. My character, my desire to stand well with you all, oblige me to be so. Mr. Egerton does not wish to come into parliament at present. His health is much broken; his private affairs need all his time and attention. I am, I may say, as a son to him. He is most anxious for my success; Lord L’Estrange told me but last night, very truly, ‘more anxious for my success than his own.’ Nothing could please him more than to think I were serving in parliament, however humbly, those great interests which neither health nor leisure will, in this momentous crisis, allow himself to defend with his wonted energy. Later, indeed, no doubt, he will seek to return to an arena in which he is so distinguished; and when the popular excitement, which produces the popular injustice of the day, is over, what constituency will not be proud to return such a man? In support and proof of what I have thus said, I now appeal to Mr. Egerton’s own agent,--a gentleman who, in spite of his vast fortune and the rank he holds in society, has consented to act gratuitously on behalf of that great statesman. I ask you, then, respectfully, Baron Levy, Is not Mr. Egerton’s health much broken, and in need of rest?”

“It is,” said Levy.

“And do not his affairs necessitate his serious and undivided attention?”

“They do indeed,” quoth the baron. “Gentlemen, I have nothing to urge in behalf of my distinguished friend as against the statement of his adopted son, Mr. Leslie.”

“Then all I can say,” cried the butcher, striking his huge fist on the table, “is, that Mr. Egerton has behaved d---d unhandsome to us, and we shall be the laughing-stock of the borough.”

“Softly, softly,” said Harley. “There is a knock at the door behind. Excuse me.”

Harley quitted the room, but only for a minute or two. On his return he addressed himself to Randal.

“Are we then to understand, Mr. Leslie, that your intention is not to resign?”

“Unless your Lordship actually urge me to the contrary, I should say, Let the election go on, and all take our chance. That seems to me the fair, manly, ENGLISH [great emphasis on the last adjective], honourable course.”

“Be it so,” replied Harley; “‘let all take their chance.’ Mr. Leslie, we will no longer detain you. Go back to the polling-place,--one of the candidates should be present; and you, Baron Levy, be good enough to go also, and return thanks to those who may yet vote for Mr. Egerton.”

Levy bowed, and went out arm-in-arm with Randal. “Capital, capital,” said the baron. “You have a wonderful head.”

“I did not like L’Estrange’s look, nevertheless. But he can’t hurt me now; the votes he got for me instead of for Egerton have already polled. The Committee, indeed, may refuse to vote for me; but then there is Avenel’s body of reserve. Yes, the election is virtually over. When we get back, Hazeldean will have arrived with the money for the purchase of my ancestral property; Dr. Riccabocca is already restored to the estates and titles of Serrano; what do I care further for Lord L’Estrange? Still, I do not like his look.”

“Pooh, you have done just what he wished. I am forbidden to say more. Here we are at the booth. A new placard since we left. How are the numbers? Avenel forty ahead of you; you thirty above Egerton; and Leonard Fairfield still last on the poll. But where are Avenel and Fairfield?” Both those candidates had disappeared, perhaps gone to their own Committee-room.

Meanwhile, as soon as the doors had closed on Randal and the baron, in the midst of the angry hubbub succeeding to their departure, Lord L’Estrange sprang upon the table. The action and his look stilled every sound.

“Gentlemen, it is in our hands to return one of our candidates, and to make our own choice between the two. You have heard Mr. Leslie and Baron Levy. To their statement I make but this reply,--Mr. Egerton is needed by the country; and whatever his health or his affairs, he is ready to respond to that call. If he has not canvassed, if he does not appear before you at this moment, the services of more than twenty years plead for him in his stead. Which, then, of the two candidates do you choose as your member,--a renowned statesman, or a beardless boy? Both have ambition and ability; the one has identified those qualities with the history of a country, and (as it is now alleged to his prejudice) with a devotion that has broken a vigorous frame and injured a princely fortune. The other evinces his ambition by inviting you to prefer him to his benefactor, and proves his ability by the excuses he makes for ingratitude. Choose between the two,--an Egerton or a Leslie.”

“Egerton forever!” cried all the assembly, as with a single voice, followed by a hiss for Leslie.

“But,” said a grave and prudent Committee-man, “have we really the choice? Does not that rest with the Yellows? Is not your Lordship too sanguine?”

“Open that door behind; a deputation from our opponents waits in the room on the other side the passage. Admit them.”

The Committee were hushed in breathless silence while Harley’s order was obeyed. And soon, to their great surprise, Leonard Fairfield himself, attended by six of the principal members of the Yellow party, entered the room.

LORD L’ESTRANGE.--“You have a proposition to make to us, Mr. Fairfield, on behalf of yourself and Mr. Avenel, and with the approval of your Committee?”

LEONARD (advancing to the table).--“I have. We are convinced that neither party can carry both its candidates. Mr. Avenel is safe. The only question is, which of the two candidates on your side it best becomes the honour of this constituency to select. My resignation, which I am about to tender, will free sufficient votes to give the triumph either to Mr. Egerton or to Mr. Leslie.”

“Egerton forever!” cried once more the excited Blues. “Yes, Egerton forever!” said Leonard, with a glow upon his cheek. “We may differ from his politics, but who can tell us those of Mr. Leslie? We may differ from the politician, but who would not feel proud of the senator? A great and incalculable advantage is bestowed on that constituency which returns to parliament a distinguished man. His distinction ennobles the place he represents, it sustains public spirit, it augments the manly interest in all that affects the nation. Every time his voice hushes the assembled parliament, it reminds us of our common country; and even the discussion amongst his constituents which his voice provokes, clears their perceptions of the public interest, and enlightens themselves, from the intellect which commands their interests, and compels their attention. Egerton, then, forever! If our party must subscribe to the return of one opponent, let all unite to select the worthiest. My Lord L’Estrange, when I quit this room, it will be to announce my resignation, and to solicit those who have promised me their votes to transfer them to Mr. Audley Egerton.”

Amidst the uproarious huzzas which followed this speech, Leonard drew near to Harley. “My Lord, I have obeyed your wishes, as conveyed to me by my uncle, who is engaged at this moment elsewhere in carrying them into effect.”

“Leonard,” said Harley, in the same undertone, “you have insured to Audley Egerton what you alone could do,--the triumph over a perfidious dependent, the continuance of the sole career in which he has hitherto found the solace or the zest of life. He must thank you with his own lips. Come to the Park after the close of the poll. There and then shall the explanations yet needful to both be given and received.”

Here Harley bowed to the assembly and raised his voice: “Gentlemen, yesterday, at the nomination of the candidates, I uttered remarks that have justly pained Mr. Fairfield. In your presence I wholly retract and frankly apologize for them. In your presence I entreat his forgiveness, and say, that if he will accord me his friendship, I will place him in my esteem and affection side by side with the statesman whom he has given to his country.”

Leonard grasped the hand extended to him with both his own, and then, overcome by his emotions, hurried from the room; while Blues and Yellows exchanged greetings, rejoiced in the compromise that would dispel all party irritation, secure the peace of the borough, and allow quiet men, who had detested each other the day before, and vowed reciprocal injuries to trade and custom, the indulgence of all amiable and fraternal feelings--until the next general election.

In the mean while the polling had gone on slowly as before, but still to the advantage of Randal. “Not two-thirds of the constituency will poll,” murmured Levy, looking at his watch. “The thing is decided. Aha, Audley Egerton! you who once tortured me with the unspeakable jealousy that bequeaths such implacable hate; you who scorned my society, and called me ‘scoundrel,’ disdainful of the very power your folly placed within my hands,--aha, your time is up! and the spirit that administered to your own destruction strides within the circle to seize its prey!”

“You shall have my first frank, Levy,” said Randal, “to enclose your letter to Mr. Thornhill’s solicitor. This affair of the election is over; we must now look to what else rests on our hands.”

“What the devil is that placard?” cried Levy, turning pale.

Randal looked, and right up the market-place, followed by an immense throng, moved, high over the heads of all, a Yellow Board, that seemed marching through the air, cometlike:--

Two o’clock p.m.

RESIGNATION OF FAIRFIELD.

------

YELLOWS!

Vote For

AVENEL AND EGERTON.

(Signed) Timothy Alljack

Yellow Committee Room.

“What infernal treachery is this?” cried Randal, livid with honest indignation.

“Wait a moment; there is Avenel!” exclaimed Levy; and at the head of another procession that emerged from the obscurer lanes of the town, walked, with grave majesty, the surviving Yellow candidate. Dick disappeared for a moment within a grocer’s shop in the broadest part of the place, and then culminated at the height of a balcony on the first story, just above an enormous yellow canister, significant of the profession and the politics of the householder. No sooner did Dick, hat in hand, appear on this rostrum, than the two processions halted below, bands ceased, flags drooped round their staves, crowds rushed within hearing, and even the poll clerks sprang from the booth. Randal and Levy themselves pressed into the throng. Dick on the balcony was the Deus ex machina.

“Freemen and electors!” said Dick, with his most sonorous accents, “finding that the public opinion of this independent and enlightened constituency is so evenly divided, that only one Yellow candidate can be returned, and only one Blue has a chance, it was my intention last night to retire from the contest, and thus put an end to all bickerings and ill-blood (Hold your tongues there, can’t you!). I say honestly, I should have preferred the return of my distinguished and talented young nephew--honourable relation--to my own; but he would not hear of it, and talked all our Committee into the erroneous but high-minded notion, that the town would cry shame if the nephew rode into parliament by breaking the back of the uncle.” (Loud cheers from the mob, and partial cries of “We ‘ll have you both!”)

“You’ll do no such thing, and you know it; hold your jaw,” resumed Dick, with imperious good-humour. “Let me go on, can’t you?--time presses. In a word, my nephew resolved to retire, if, at two o’clock this day, there was no chance of returning both of us; and there is none. Now, then, the next thing for the Yellows who have not yet voted, is to consider how they will give their second votes. If I had been the man to retire, why, for certain reasons, I should have recommended them to split with Leslie,--a clever chap, and pretty considerable sharp.”

“Hear, hear, hear!” cried the baron, lustily.

“But I’m bound to say that my nephew has an opinion of his own,--as an independent Britisher, let him be twice your nephew, ought to have; and his opinion goes the other way, and so does that of our Committee.”

“Sold!” cried the baron; and some of the crowd shook their heads, and looked grave,--especially those suspected of a wish to be bought.

“Sold! Pretty fellow you with the nosegay in your buttonhole to talk of selling! You who wanted to sell your own client,--and you know it. [Levy recoiled.] Why, gentlemen, that’s Levy the Jew, who talks of selling! And if he asperses the character of this constituency, I stand here to defend it! And there stands the parish pump, with a handle for the arm of Honesty, and a spout for the lips of Falsehood!”

At the close of this magniloquent period, borrowed, no doubt, from some great American orator, Baron Levy involuntarily retreated towards the shelter of the polling-booth, followed by some frowning Yellows with very menacing gestures.

“But the calumniator sneaks away; leave him to the reproach of his conscience,” resumed Dick, with a generous magnanimity.

“SOLD! [the word rang through the place like the blast of a trumpet] Sold! No, believe me, not a man who votes for Egerton instead of Fairfield will, so far as I am concerned, be a penny the better--[chilling silence]--or [with a scarce perceivable wink towards the anxious faces of the Hundred and Fifty who filled the background]--or a penny the worse. [Loud cheers from the Hundred and Fifty, and cries of ‘Noble!’] I don’t like the politics of Mr. Egerton. But I am not only a politician,--I am a MAN! The arguments of our respected Committee--persons in business, tender husbands, and devoted fathers--have weight with me. I myself am a husband and a father. If a needless contest be prolonged to the last, with all the irritations it engenders, who suffer?--why, the tradesman and the operative. Partiality, loss of custom, tyrannical demands for house rent, notices to quit,--in a word, the screw!”

“Hear, hear!” and “Give us the Ballot!”

“The Ballot--with all my heart, if I had it about me! And if we had the Ballot, I should like to see a man dare to vote Blue. [Loud cheers from the Yellows.] But, as we have not got it, we must think of our families. And I may add, that though Mr. Egerton may come again into office, yet [added Dick solemnly] I will do my best, as his colleague, to keep him straight; and your own enlightenment (for the schoolmaster is abroad) will show him that no minister can brave public opinion, nor quarrel with his own bread and butter. [Much cheering.] In these times the aristocracy must endear themselves to the middle and working class; and a member in office has much to give away in the Stamps and Excise, in the Customs, the Post Office, and other State departments in this rotten old--I mean this magnificent empire, by which he can benefit his constituents, and reconcile the prerogatives of aristocracy with the claims of the people,--more especially in this case, the people of the borough of Lausmere. [Hear, hear!]

“And therefore, sacrificing party inclinations (since it seems that I can in no way promote them) on the Altar of General Good Feeling, I cannot oppose the resignation of my nephew,--honourable relation!--nor blind my eyes to the advantages that may result to a borough so important to the nation at large, if the electors think fit to choose my Right Honourable brother--I mean the Right Honourable Blue candidate--as my brother colleague. Not that I presume to dictate, or express a wish one way or the other; only, as a Family Man, I say to you, Electors and Freemen, having served your country in returning me, you have nobly won the right to think of the little ones at home.”

Dick put his hand to his heart, bowed gracefully, and retired from the balcony amidst unanimous applause.

In three minutes more Dick had resumed his place in the booth in his quality of candidate. A rush of Yellow electors poured in, hot and fast. Up came Emanuel Trout, and, in a firm voice, recorded his vote, “Avenel and Egerton.” Every man of the Hundred and Fifty so polled. To each question, “Whom do you vote for?” “Avenel and Egerton” knelled on the ears of Randal Leslie with “damnable iteration.” The young man folded his arms across his breast in dogged despair. Levy had to shake hands for Mr. Egerton with a rapidity that took away his breath. He longed to slink away,--longed to get at L’Estrange, whom he supposed would be as wroth at this turn in the wheel of fortune as himself. But how, as Egerton’s representative, escape from the continuous gripes of those horny hands? Besides, there stood the parish pump, right in face of the booth, and some huge truculent-looking Yellows loitered round it, as if ready to pounce on him the instant he quitted his present sanctuary. Suddenly the crowd round the booth receded; Lord L’Estrange’s carriage drove up to the spot, and Harley, stepping from it, assisted out of the vehicle an old, gray-haired, paralytic man. The old man stared round him, and nodded smilingly to the mob. “I’m here,-I’m come; I’m but a poor creature, but I’m a good Blue to the last!”

“Old John Avenel,--fine old John!” cried many a voice.

And John Avenel, still leaning on Harley’s arm, tottered into the booth, and plumped for “Egerton.”

“Shake hands, Father,” said Dick, bending forward, “though you’ll not vote for me.”

“I was a Blue before you were born,” answered the old man, tremulously; “but I wish you success all the same, and God bless you, my boy!”

Even the poll-clerks were touched; and when Dick, leaving his place, was seen by the crowd assisting Lord L’Estrange to place poor John again in the carriage, that picture of family love in the midst of political difference--of the prosperous, wealthy, energetic son, who, as a boy, had played at marbles in the very kennel, and who had risen in life by his own exertions, and was now virtually M. P. for his native town, tending on the broken-down, aged father, whom even the interests of a son he was so proud of could not win from the colours which he associated with truth and rectitude--had such an effect upon the rudest of the mob there present, that you might have heard a pin fall,--till the carriage drove away back to John’s humble home; and then there rose such a tempest of huzzas! John Avenel’s vote for Egerton gave another turn to the vicissitudes of that memorable election. As yet Avenel had been ahead of Audley; but a plumper in favour of Egerton, from Avenel’s own father, set an example and gave an excuse to many a Blue who had not yet voted, and could not prevail on himself to split his vote between Dick and Audley; and, therefore, several leading tradesmen, who, seeing that Egerton was safe, had previously resolved not to vote at all, came up in the last hour, plumped for Egerton, and carried him to the head of the poll; so that poor John, whose vote, involving that of Mark Fairfield, had secured the first opening in public life to the young ambition of the unknown son-in-law, still contributed to connect with success and triumph, but also with sorrow, and, it may be, with death, the names of the high-born Egerton and the humble Avenel.

The great town-clock strikes the hour of four; the returning officer declares the poll closed; the formal announcement of the result will be made later. But all the town knows that Audley Egerton and Richard Avenel are the members for Lausmere. And flags stream, and drums beat, and men shake each other by the hand heartily; and there is talk of the chairing to-morrow; and the public-houses are crowded; and there is an indistinct hubbub in street and alley, with sudden bursts of uproarious shouting; and the clouds to the west look red and lurid round the sun, which has gone down behind the church tower,--behind the yew-trees that overshadow the quiet grave of Nora Avenel.

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Chapter XXXIII

Amidst the darkening shadows of twilight, Randal Leslie walked through Lansmere Park towards the house. He had slunk away before the poll was closed,--crept through bylanes, and plunged into the leafless copses of the earl’s stately pasture-grounds. Amidst the bewilderment of his thoughts--at a loss to conjecture how this strange mischance had befallen him, inclined to ascribe it to Leonard’s influence over Avenel, but suspecting Harley, and half doubtful of Baron Levy--he sought to ascertain what fault of judgment he himself had committed, what wile he had forgotten, what thread in his web he had left ragged and incomplete. He could discover none. His ability seemed to him unimpeachable,--totus, teres, atque rotundas. And then there came across his breast a sharp pang,--sharper than that of baffled ambition,--the feeling that he had been deceived and bubbled and betrayed. For so vital a necessity to all living men is TRUTH, that the vilest traitor feels amazed and wronged, feels the pillars of the world shaken, when treason recoils on himself. “That Richard Avenel, whom I trusted, could so deceive me!” murmured Randal, and his lip quivered.

He was still in the midst of the Park, when a man with a yellow cockade in his hat, and running fast from the direction of the town, overtook him with a letter, on delivering which the messenger, waiting for no answer, hastened back the way he had come. Randal recognized Avenel’s hand on the address, broke the seal, and read as follows:

(Private and Confidential.)

DEAR LESLIE,--Don’t be down-hearted,--you will know to-night or to-morrow why I have had cause to alter my opinion as to the Right Honourable; and you will see that I could not, as a Family Man, act otherwise than I have done. Though I have not broken my word to you,--for you remember that all the help I promised was dependent on my own resignation, and would go for nothing if Leonard resigned instead,--yet I feel you must think yourself rather bamboozled. But I have been obliged to sacrifice you, from a sense of Family Duty, as you will soon acknowledge. My own nephew is sacrificed also; and I have sacrificed my own concerns, which require the whole man of me for the next year or two at Screwstown. So we are all in the same boat, though you may think you are set adrift by yourself. But I don’t mean to stay in parliament. I shall take the Chiltern Hundreds, pretty considerable soon. And if you keep well with the Blues, I’ll do my best with the Yellows to let you walk over the course in my stead. For I don’t think Leonard will want to stand again. And so a word to the wise,--and you may yet be member for Lansmere.

R. A.

In this letter, Randal, despite all his acuteness, could not detect the honest compunction of the writer. He could at first only look at the worst side of human nature, and fancy that it was a paltry attempt to stifle his just anger and ensure his discretion; but, on second thoughts, it struck him that Dick might very naturally be glad to be released to his mill, and get a quid pro quo out of Randal, under the comprehensive title, “repayment of expenses.” Perhaps Dick was not sorry to wait until Randal’s marriage gave him the means to make the repayment. Nay, perhaps Randal had been thrown over for the present, in order to wring from him better terms in a single election. Thus reasoning, he took comfort from his belief in the mercenary motives of another. True; it might be but a short disappointment. Before the next parliament was a month old, he might yet take his seat in it as member for Lansmere. But all would depend on his marriage with the heiress; he must hasten that.

Meanwhile, it was necessary to knit and gather up all his thought, courage, and presence of mind. How he shrunk from return to Lansmere House,--from facing Egerton, Harley, all. But there was no choice. He would have to make it up with the Blues,--to defend the course he had adopted in the Committee-room. There, no doubt, was Squire Hazeldean awaiting him with the purchase-money for the lands of Rood; there was the Duke di Serrano, restored to wealth and honour; there was his promised bride, the great heiress, on whom depended all that could raise the needy gentleman into wealth and position. Gradually, with the elastic temper that is essential to a systematic schemer, Randal Leslie plucked himself from the pain of brooding over a plot that was defeated, to prepare himself for consummating those that yet seemed so near success. After all, should he fail in regaining Egerton’s favour, Egerton was of use no more. He might rear his head, and face out what some might call “ingratitude,” provided he could but satisfy the Blue Committee. Dull dogs, how could he fail to do that! He could easily talk over the Machiavellian sage. He should have small difficulty in explaining all to the content of Audley’s distant brother, the squire. Harley alone--but Levy had so positively assured him that Harley was not sincerely anxious for Egerton; and as to the more important explanation relative to Peschiera, surely what had satisfied Violante’s father ought to satisfy a man who had no peculiar right to demand explanations at all; and if these explanations did not satisfy, the onus to disprove them must rest with Harley; and who or what could contradict Randal’s plausible assertions,--assertions in support of which he himself could summon a witness in Baron Levy? Thus nerving himself to all that could task his powers, Randal Leslie crossed the threshold of Lansmere House, and in the hall he found the baron awaiting him.

“I can’t account,” said Levy, “for what has gone so cross in this confounded election. It is L’Estrange that puzzles me; but I know that he hates Egerton. I know that he will prove that hate by one mode of revenge, if he has lost it in another. But it is well, Randal, that you are secure of Hazeldean’s money and the rich heiress’s hand; otherwise--”

“Otherwise, what?”

“I should wash my hands of you, mon cher; for, in spite of all your cleverness, and all I have tried to do for you, somehow or other I begin to suspect that your talents will never secure your fortune. A carpenter’s son beats you in public speaking, and a vulgar mill-owner tricks you in private negotiation. Decidedly, as yet, Randal Leslie, you are--a failure. And, as you so admirably said, ‘a man from whom we have nothing to hope or fear we must blot out of the map of the future.’”

Randal’s answer was cut short by the appearance of the groom of the chambers.

“My Lord is in the saloon, and requests you and Mr. Leslie will do him the honour to join him there.” The two gentlemen followed the servant up the broad stairs.

The saloon formed the centre room of the suite of apartments. From its size, it was rarely used save on state occasions. It had the chilly and formal aspect of rooms reserved for ceremony.

Riccabocca, Violante, Helen, Mr. Dale, Squire Hazeldean, and Lord L’Estrange were grouped together by the cold Florentine marble table, not littered with books and female work, and the endearing signs of habitation, that give a living smile to the face of home; nothing thereon save a great silver candelabrum, that scarcely lighted the spacious room, and brought out the portraits on the walls as a part of the assembly, looking, as portraits do look, with searching, curious eyes upon every eye that turns to them.

But as soon as Randal entered, the squire detached himself from the group, and, coming to the defeated candidate, shook hands with him heartily.

“Cheer up, my boy; ‘t is no shame to be beaten. Lord L’Estrange says you did your best to win, and man can do no more. And I’m glad, Leslie, that we don’t meet for our little business till the election is over; for, after annoyance, something pleasant is twice as acceptable. I’ve the money in my pocket. Hush! and I say, my dear, dear boy, I cannot find out where Frank is, but it is really all off with that foreign woman, eh?”

“Yes, indeed, sir, I hope so. I’ll talk to you about it when we can be alone. We may slip away presently, I trust.”

“I’ll tell you a secret scheme of mine and Harry’s,” said the squire, in a still low whisper. “We, must drive that marchioness, or whatever she is, out of the boy’s head, and put a pretty English girl into it instead. That will settle him in life too. And I must try and swallow that bitter pill of the post-obit. Harry makes worse of it than I do, and is so hard on the poor fellow that I’ve been obliged to take his part. I’ve no idea of being under petticoat government, it is not the way with the Hazeldeans. Well, but to come back to the point: Whom do you think I mean by the pretty girl?”

“Miss Sticktorights?”

“Zounds, no!--your own little sister, Randal. Sweet pretty face! Harry liked her from the first, and then you’ll be Frank’s brother, and your sound head and good heart will keep him right. And as you are going to be married too (you must tell me all about that later), why, we shall have two marriages, perhaps, in the family on the same day.”

Randal’s hand grasped the squire’s, and with an emotion of human gratitude,--for we know that, hard to all else, he had natural feelings for his fallen family; and his neglected sister was the one being on earth whom he might almost be said to love. With all his intellectual disdain for honest simple Frank, he knew no one in the world with whom his young sister could be more secure and happy. Transferred to the roof, and improved by the active kindness, of Mrs. Hazeldean, blest in the manly affection of one not too refined to censure her own deficiencies of education, what more could he ask for his sister, as he pictured her to himself, with her hair hanging over her ears, and her mind running into seed over some trashy novel. But before he could reply, Violante’s father came to add his own philosophical consolations to the squire’s downright comfortings.

“Who could ever count on popular caprice? The wise of all ages had despised it. In that respect, Horace and Machiavelli were of the same mind,” etc. “But,” said the duke, with emphatic kindness “perhaps your very misfortune here may serve you elsewhere. The female heart is prone to pity, and ever eager to comfort. Besides, if I am recalled to Italy, you will have leisure to come with us, and see the land where, of all others, ambition can be most readily forgotten, even” added the Italian with a sigh--“even by her own sons!”

Thus addressed by both Hazeldean and the duke, Randal recovered his spirits. It was clear that Lord L’Estrange had not conveyed to them any unfavourable impression of his conduct in the Committee-room. While Randal had been thus engaged, Levy had made his way to Harley, who retreated with the baron into the bay of the great window.

“Well, my Lord, do you comprehend this conduct on the part of Richard Avenel? He secure Egerton’s return!--he!”

“What so natural, Baron Levy,--his own brother-in-law?” The baron started, and turned very pale.

“But how did he know that? I never told him. I meant indeed--”

“Meant, perhaps, to shame Egerton’s pride at the last by publicly declaring his marriage with a shopkeeper’s daughter. A very good revenge still left to you; but revenge for what? A word with you, now, Baron, that our acquaintance is about to close forever. You know why I have cause for resentment against Egerton. I do but suspect yours; will you make it clear to me?”

“My Lord, my Lord,” faltered Baron Levy, “I, too, wooed Nora Avenel as my wife; I, too, had a happier rival in the haughty worldling who did not appreciate his own felicity; I too--in a word, some women inspire an affection that mingles with the entire being of a man, and is fused with all the currents of his life-blood. Nora Avenel was one of those women.”

Harley was startled. This burst of emotion from a man so corrupt and cynical arrested even the scorn he felt for the usurer. Levy soon recovered himself. “But our revenge is not baffled yet. Egerton, if not already in my power, is still in yours. His election may save him from arrest, but the law has other modes of public exposure and effectual ruin.”

“For the knave, yes,--as I intimated to you in your own house,--you who boast of your love to Nora Avenel, and know in your heart that you were her destroyer; you who witnessed her marriage, and yet dared to tell her that she was dishonoured!”

“My Lord--I--how could you know--I mean, how think that--that--” faltered Levy, aghast.

“Nora Avenel has spoken from her grave,” replied Harley, solemnly. “Learn that, wherever man commits a crime, Heaven finds a witness!”

“It is on me, then,” said Levy, wrestling against a superstitious thrill at his heart--“on me that you now concentre your vengeance; and I must meet it as I may. But I have fulfilled my part of our compact. I have obeyed you implicitly--and--”

“I will fulfil my part of our bond, and leave you undisturbed in your wealth.”

“I knew I might trust to your Lordship’s honour,” exclaimed the usurer, in servile glee.

“And this vile creature nursed the same passions as myself; and but yesterday we were partners in the same purpose, and influenced by the same thought!” muttered Harley to himself. “Yes,” he said aloud, “I dare not, Baron Levy, constitute myself your judge. Pursue your own path,--all roads meet at last before the common tribunal. But you are not yet released from our compact; you must do some good in spite of yourself. Look yonder, where Randal Leslie stands, smiling secure, between the two dangers he has raised up for himself. And as Randal Leslie himself has invited me to be his judge, and you are aware that he cited yourself this very day as his witness, here I must expose the guilty; for here the innocent still live, and need defence.”

Harley turned away, and took his place by the table. “I have wished,” said he, raising his voice, “to connect with the triumph of my earliest and dearest friend the happiness of others in whose welfare I feel an interest. To you, Alphonso, Duke of Serrano, I now give this despatch, received last evening by a special messenger from the Prince Von ------, announcing your restoration to your lands and honours.”

The squire stared with open mouth. “Rickeybockey a duke? Why, Jemima’s a duchess! Bless me, she is actually crying!” And his good heart prompted him to run to his cousin and cheer her up a bit.

Violante glanced at Harley, and flung herself on her father’s breast. Randal involuntarily rose, and moved to the duke’s chair.

“And you, Mr. Randal Leslie,” continued Harley, “though you have lost your election, see before you at this moment such prospects of wealth and happiness, that I shall only have to offer you congratulations to which those that greet Mr. Audley Egerton may well appear lukewarm and insipid, provided you prove that you have not forfeited the right to claim that promise which the Duke di Serrano has accorded to the suitor of his daughter’s hand. Some doubts resting on my mind, you have volunteered to dispel them. I have the duke’s permission to address to you a few questions, and I now avail myself of your offer to reply to them.”

“Now,--and here, my Lord?” said Randal, glancing round the room, as if deprecating the presence of so many witnesses. “Now,--and here. Nor are those present so strange to your explanations as your question would imply. Mr. Hazeldean, it so happens that much of what I shall say to Mr. Leslie concerns your son.”

Randal’s countenance fell. An uneasy tremor now seized him.

“My son! Frank? Oh, then, of course, Randal will speak out. Speak, my boy!”

Randal remained silent. The duke looked at his working face, and drew away his chair.

“Young man, can you hesitate?” said he. “A doubt is expressed which involves your honour.”

“‘s death!” cried the squire, also gazing on Randal’s cowering eye and quivering lip, “what are you afraid of?”

“Afraid!” said Randal, forced into speech, and with a hollow laugh--“afraid?--I? What of? I was only wondering what Lord L’Estrange could mean.”

“I will dispel that wonder at once. Mr. Hazeldean, your son displeased you first by his proposals of marriage to the Marchesa di Negra against your consent; secondly, by a post-obit bond granted to Baron Levy. Did you understand from Mr. Randal Leslie that he had opposed or favoured the said marriage,--that he had countenanced or blamed the said post-obit?”

“Why, of course,” cried the squire, “that he had opposed both the one and the other.”

“Is it so, Mr. Leslie?”

“My Lord--I--I--my affection for Frank, and my esteem for his respected father--I--I--” (He nerved himself, and went on with firm voice)--“Of course, I did all I could to dissuade Frank from the marriage; and as to the post-obit, I know nothing about it.”

“So much at present for this matter. I pass on to the graver one, that affects your engagement with the Duke di Serrano’s daughter. I understand from you, Duke, that to save your daughter from the snares of Count di Peschiera, and in the belief that Mr. Leslie shared in your dread of the count’s designs, you, while in exile and in poverty, promised to that gentleman your daughter’s hand? When the probabilities of restoration to your principalities seemed well-nigh certain, you confirmed that promise on learning from Mr. Leslie that he had, however ineffectively, struggled to preserve your heiress from a perfidious snare. Is it not so?”

“Certainly. Had I succeeded to a throne, I could not recall the promise that I had given in penury and banishment; I could not refuse to him who would have sacrificed worldly ambition in wedding a penniless bride, the reward of his own generosity. My daughter subscribes to my views.”

Violante trembled, and her hands were locked together; but her gaze was fixed on Harley.

Mr. Dale wiped his eyes, and thought of the poor refugee feeding on minnows, and preserving himself from debt amongst the shades of the Casino.

“Your answer becomes you, Duke,” resumed Harley. “But should it be proved that Mr. Leslie, instead of wooing the princess for herself, actually calculated on the receipt of money for transferring her to Count Peschiera; instead of saving her from the dangers you dreaded, actually suggested the snare from which she was delivered,--would you still deem your honour engaged to--”

“Such a villain? No, surely not!” exclaimed the duke. “But this is a groundless hypothesis! Speak, Randal.”

“Lord L’Estrange cannot insult me by deeming it otherwise than a groundless hypothesis!” said Randal, striving to rear his head.

“I understand then, Mr. Leslie, that you scornfully reject such a supposition?”

“Scornfully--yes. And,” continued Randal, advancing a step, “since the supposition has been made, I demand from Lord L’Estrange, as his equal (for all gentlemen are equals where honour is to be defended at the cost of life), either instant retractation--or instant proof.”

“That’s the first word you have spoken like a man,” cried the squire. “I have stood my ground myself for a less cause. I have had a ball through my right shoulder.”

“Your demand is just,” said Harley, unmoved. “I cannot give the retractation,--I will produce the proof.”

He rose and rang the bell; the servant entered, received his whispered order, and retired. There was a pause painful to all. Randal, however, ran over in his fearful mind what evidence could be brought against him--and foresaw none. The folding doors of the saloon were thrown open and the servant announced--

THE COUNT DI PESCHIERA.

A bombshell, descending through the roof could not have produced a more startling sensation. Erect, bold, with all the imposing effect of his form and bearing, the count strode into the centre of the ring; and after a slight bend of haughty courtesy, which comprehended all present, reared up his lofty head, and looked round, with calm in his eye and a curve on his lip,--the self-assured, magnificent, high-bred Daredevil.

“Duke di Serrano,” said the count, in English, turning towards his astounded kinsman, and in a voice that, slow, clear, and firm, seemed to fill the room, “I returned to England on the receipt of a letter from my Lord L’Estrange, and with a view, it is true, of claiming at his hands the satisfaction which men of our birth accord to each other, where affront, from what cause soever, has been given or received. Nay, fair kinswoman,”--and the count, with a slight but grave smile, bowed to Violante, who had uttered a faint cry,--“that intention is abandoned. If I have adopted too lightly the old courtly maxim, that ‘all stratagems are fair in love,’ I am bound also to yield to my Lord L’Estrange’s arguments, that the counter-stratagems must be fair also. And, after all, it becomes me better to laugh at my own sorry figure in defeat, than to confess myself gravely mortified by an ingenuity more successful than my own.” The count paused, and his eye lightened with sinister fire, which ill suited the raillery of his tone and the polished ease of his bearing. “Ma foi!” he continued, “it is permitted me to speak thus, since at least I have given proofs of my indifference to danger, and my good fortune when exposed to it. Within the last six years I have had the honour to fight nine duels, and the regret to wound five, and dismiss from the world four, as gallant and worthy gentlemen as ever the sun shone upon.”

“Monster!” faltered the parson.

The squire stared aghast, and mechanically rubbed the shoulder which had been lacerated by Captain Dashinore’s bullet. Randal’s pale face grew yet more pale, and the eye he had fixed upon the count’s hardy visage quailed and fell.

“But,” resumed the count, with a graceful wave of the hand, “I have to thank my Lord L’Estrange for reminding me that a man whose courage is above suspicion is privileged not only to apologize if he has injured another, but to accompany apology with atonement. Duke of Serrano, it is for that purpose that I am here. My Lord, you have signified your wish to ask me some questions of serious import as regards the duke and his daughter; I will answer them without reserve.”

“Monsieur le Comte,” said Harley, “availing myself of your courtesy, I presume to inquire who informed you that this young lady was a guest under my father’s roof?”

“My informant stands yonder,--Mr. Randal Leslie; and I call upon Baron Levy to confirm my statement.”

“It is true,” said the baron, slowly, and as if overmastered by the tone and mien of an imperious chieftain.

There came a low sound like a hiss from Randal’s livid lips.

“And was Mr. Leslie acquainted with your project for securing the person and hand of your young kinswoman?”

“Certainly,--and Baron Levy knows it.” The baron bowed assent. “Permit me to add--for it is due to a lady nearly related to myself--that it was, as I have since learned, certain erroneous representations made to her by Mr. Leslie which alone induced that lady, after my own arguments had failed, to lend her aid to a project which otherwise she would have condemned as strongly as, Duke di Serrano, I now with unfeigned sincerity do myself condemn it.”

There was about the count, as he thus spoke, so much of that personal dignity which, whether natural or artificial, imposes for the moment upon human judgment,--a dignity so supported by the singular advantages of his superb stature, his handsome countenance, his patrician air,--that the duke, moved by his good heart, extended his hand to the perfidious kinsman, and forgot all the Machiavellian wisdom which should have told him how little a man of the count’s hardened profligacy was likely to be influenced by any purer motives, whether to frank confession or to manly repentance. The count took the hand thus extended to him, and bowed his face, perhaps to conceal the smile which would have betrayed his secret soul. Randal still remained mute, and pale as death. His tongue clove to his mouth. He felt that all present were shrinking from his side. At last, with a violent effort, he faltered out, in broken sentences,

“A charge so sudden may well--may well confound me. But--but--who can credit it? Both the law and commonsense pre-suppose some motive for a criminal action; what could be my motive here? I--myself the suitor for the hand of the duke’s daughter--I betray her! Absurd--absurd! Duke, Duke, I put it to your own knowledge of mankind whoever goes thus against his own interest--and--and his own heart?”

This appeal, however feebly made, was not without effect on the philosopher. “That is true,” said the duke, dropping his kinsman’s hand; “I see no motive.”

“Perhaps,” said Harley, “Baron Levy may here enlighten us. Do you know of any motive of self-interest that could have actuated Mr. Leslie in assisting the count’s schemes?”

Levy hesitated. The count took up the word. “Pardieu!” said he, in his clear tone of determination and will--“pardieu! I can have no doubt thrown on my assertion, least of all by those who know of its truth; and I call upon you, Baron Levy, to state whether, in case of my marriage with the duke’s daughter, I had not agreed to present my sister with a sum, to which she alleged some ancient claim, and which would have passed through your hands?”

“Certainly, that is true,” said the baron.

“And would Mr. Leslie have benefited by any portion of that sum?”

Levy paused again.

“Speak, sir,” said the count, frowning.

“The fact is,” said the baron, “that Mr. Leslie was anxious to complete a purchase of certain estates that had once belonged to his family, and that the count’s marriage with the signora, and his sister’s marriage with Mr. Hazeldean, would have enabled me to accommodate Mr. Leslie with a loan to effect that purchase.”

“What! what!” exclaimed the squire, hastily buttoning his breast-pocket with one hand, while he seized Randal’s arm with the other--“my son’s marriage! You lent yourself to that, too? Don’t look so like a lashed hound! Speak out like a man, if man you be!”

“Lent himself to that, my good sir!” said the count. “Do you suppose that the Marchesa di Negra could have condescended to an alliance with a Mr. Hazeldean--”

“Condescended! a Hazeldean of Hazeldean!” exclaimed the squire, turning fiercely, and half choked with indignation. “Unless,” continued the count, imperturbably, “she had been compelled by circumstances to do that said Mr. Hazeldean the honour to accept a pecuniary accommodation, which she had no other mode to discharge? And here, sir, the family of Hazeldean, I am bound to say, owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Leslie; for it was he who most forcibly represented to her the necessity for this misalliance; and it was he, I believe, who suggested to my friend the baron the mode by which Mr. Hazeldean was best enabled to afford the accommodation my sister deigned to accept.”

“Mode! the post-obit!” ejaculated the squire, relinquishing his hold of Randal to lay his gripe upon Levy.

The baron shrugged his shoulders. “Any friend of Mr. Frank Hazeldean’s would have recommended the same, as the most economical mode of raising money.”

Parson Dale, who had at first been more shocked than any one present at these gradual revelations of Randal’s treachery, now turning his eyes towards the young man, was so seized with commiseration at the sight of Randal’s face, that he laid his hand on Harley’s arm, and whispered him, “Look, look at that countenance!--and one so young! Spare him, spare him!”

“Mr. Leslie,” said Harley, in softened tones, “believe me that nothing short of justice to the Duke di Serrano--justice even to my young friend Mr. Hazeldean--has compelled me to this painful duty. Here let all inquiry terminate.”

“And,” said the count, with exquisite blandness, “since I have been informed by my Lord L’Estrange that Mr. Leslie has represented as a serious act on his part that personal challenge to myself, which I understood was but a pleasant and amicable arrangement in our baffled scheme, let me assure Mr. Leslie that if he be not satisfied with the regret that I now express for the leading share I have taken in these disclosures, I am wholly at Mr. Leslie’s service.”

“Peace, homicide,” cried the parson, shuddering; and he glided to the side of the detected sinner, from whom all else had recoiled in loathing.

Craft against craft, talent against talent, treason against treason--in all this Randal Leslie would have risen superior to Giulio di Peschiera. But what now crushed him was not the superior intellect,--it was the sheer brute power of audacity and nerve. Here stood the careless, unblushing villain, making light of his guilt, carrying it away from disgust itself, with resolute look and front erect. There stood the abler, subtler, profounder criminal, cowering, abject, pitiful; the power of mere intellectual knowledge shivered into pieces against the brazen metal with which the accident of constitution often arms some ignobler nature.

The contrast was striking, and implied that truth so universally felt, yet so little acknowledged in actual life, that men with audacity and force of character can subdue and paralyze those far superior to themselves in ability and intelligence. It was these qualities which made Peschiera Randal’s master; nay, the very physical attributes of the count, his very voice and form, his bold front and unshrinking eye, overpowered the acuter mind of the refining schemer, as in a popular assembly some burly Cleon cows into timorous silence every dissentient sage. But Randal turned in sullen impatience from the parson’s whisper, that breathed comfort or urged repentance; and at length said, with clearer tones than he had yet mustered,

“It is not a personal conflict with the Count di Peschiera that can vindicate my honour; and I disdain to defend myself against the accusations of a usurer, and of a mam who--”

“Monsieur!” said the count, drawing himself up.

“A man who,” persisted Randal, though he trembled visibly, “by his own confession, was himself guilty of all the schemes in which he would represent me as his accomplice, and who now, not clearing himself, would yet convict another--”

“Cher petit monsieur!” said the count, with his grand air of disdain, “when men like me make use of men like you, we reward them for a service if rendered, or discard them if the service be not done; and if I condescend to confess and apologize for any act I have committed, surely Mr. Randal Leslie might do the same without disparagement to his dignity. But I should never, sir, have taken the trouble to appear against you, had you not, as I learn, pretended to the hand of the lady whom I had hoped, with less presumption, to call my bride; and in this, how can I tell that you have not tricked and betrayed me? Is there anything in our past acquaintance that warrants me to believe that, instead of serving me, you sought but to serve yourself? Be that as it may, I had but one mode of repairing to the head of my house the wrongs I have done him, and that was by saving his daughter from a derogatory alliance with an impostor who had abetted my schemes for hire, and who now would filch for himself their fruit.”

“Duke!” exclaimed Randal.

The duke turned his back. Randal extended his hands to the squire. “Mr. Hazeldean--what? you, too, condemn me, and unheard?”

“Unheard!--zounds, no! If you have anything to say, speak truth, and shame the devil.”

“I abet Frank’s marriage! I sanction the post-obit! Oh!” cried Randal, clinging to a straw, “if Frank himself were but here!”

Harley’s compassion vanished before this sustained hypocrisy.

“You wish for the presence of Frank Hazeldean? It is just.” Harley opened the door of the inner room, and Frank appeared at the entrance.

“My son! my son!” cried the squire, rushing forward, and clasping Frank to his broad, fatherly breast.

This affecting incident gave a sudden change to the feelings of the audience, and for a moment Randal himself was forgotten. The young man seized that moment. Reprieved, as it were, from the glare of contemptuous, accusing eyes, slowly he crept to the door, slowly and noiselessly, as the viper, when it is wounded, drops its crest and glides writhing through the grass. Levy followed him to the threshold, and whispered in his ear,

“I could not help it,--you would have done the same by me. You see you have failed in everything; and when a man fails completely, we both agreed that we must give him up altogether.”

Randal said not a word, and the baron marked his shadow fall on the broad stairs, stealing down, down, step after step, till it faded from the stones.

“But he was of some use,” muttered Levy. “His treachery and his exposure will gall the childless Egerton. Some little revenge still!”

The count touched the arm of the musing usurer,

“J’ai bien joue mon role, n’est ce pas?”--(I have well played my part, have I not?)

“Your part! Ah, but, my dear count, I do not quite understand it.”

“Ma foi, you are passably dull. I had just been landed in France, when a letter from L’Estrange reached me. It was couched as an invitation, which I interpreted to--the duello. Such invitations I never refuse. I replied: I came hither, took my lodgings at an inn. My Lord seeks me last night.

“I begin in the tone you may suppose. Pardieu! he is clever, milord! He shows me a letter from the Prince Von -----, Alphonse’s recall, my own banishment. He places before me, but with admirable suavity, the option of beggary and ruin, or an honourable claim on Alphonso’s gratitude. And as for that petit monsieur, do you think I could quietly contemplate my own tool’s enjoyment of all I had lost myself? Nay, more, if that young Harpagon were Alphonso’s son-inlaw, could the duke have a whisperer at his ear more fatal to my own interests? To be brief, I saw at a glance my best course. I have adopted it. The difficulty was to extricate myself as became a man de sang et de jeu. If I have done so, congratulate me. Alphonso has taken my hand, and I now leave it to him to attend to my fortunes, and clear up my repute.”

“If you are going to London,” said Levy, “my carriage, ere this, must be at the door, and I shall be proud to offer you a seat, and converse with you on your prospects. But, peste, mon cher, your fall has been from a great height, and any other man would have broken his bones.”

“Strength is ever light,” said the count, smiling; “and it does not fall; it leaps down and rebounds.”

Levy looked at the count, and blamed himself for having disparaged Peschiera and overrated Randal.

While this conference went on, Harley was by Violante’s side.

“I have kept my promise to you,” said he, with a kind of tender humility. “Are you still so severe on me?”

“Ah,” answered Violante, gazing on his noble brow, with all a woman’s pride in her eloquent, admiring eyes, “I have heard from Mr. Dale that you have achieved a conquest over yourself, which makes me ashamed to think that I presumed to doubt how your heart would speak when a moment of wrath (though of wrath so just) had passed away.”

“No, Violante, do not acquit me yet; witness my revenge (for I have not foregone it), and then let my heart speak, and breathe its prayer that the angel voice, which it now beats to hear, may still be its guardian monitor.”

“What is this?” cried an amazed voice; and Harley, turning round, saw that the duke was by his side; and, glancing with ludicrous surprise, now to Harley, now to Violante, “Am I to understand that you--”

“Have freed you from one suitor for this dear hand, to become myself your petitioner!”

“Corpo di Bacco!” cried the sage, almost embracing Harley, “this, indeed, is joyful news. But I must not again make a rash pledge,--not again force my child’s inclinations. And Violante; you see, is running away.”

The duke stretched out his arm, and detained his child. He drew her to his breast, and whispered in her ear. Violante blushed crimson, and rested her head on his shoulder. Harley eagerly pressed forward.

“There,” said the duke, joining Harley’s hand with his daughter’s, “I don’t think I shall hear much more of the convent; but anything of this sort I never suspected. If there be a language in the world for which there is no lexicon nor grammar, it is that which a woman thinks in, but never speaks.”

“It is all that is left of the language spoken in paradise,” said Harley.

“In the dialogue between Eve and the serpent,--yes,” quoth the incorrigible sage. “But who comes here?--our friend Leonard.”

Leonard now entered the room; but Harley could scarcely greet him, before he was interrupted by the count. “Milord,” said Peschiera, beckoning him aside, “I have fulfilled my promise, and I will now leave your roof. Baron Levy returns to London, and offers me a seat in his carriage, which is already, I believe, at your door. The duke and his daughter will readily forgive me if I do not ceremoniously bid them farewell. In our altered positions, it does not become me too intrusively to claim kindred; it became me only to remove, as I trust I have done, a barrier against the claim. If you approve my conduct, you will state your own opinion to the duke.” With a profound salutation the count turned to depart; nor did Harley attempt to stay him, but attended him down the stairs with polite formality.

“Remember only, my Lord, that I solicit nothing. I may allow myself to accept,--voilia tout.” He bowed again, with the inimitable grace of the old regime, and stepped into the baron’s travelling carriage.

Levy, who had lingered behind, paused to accost L’Estrange. “Your Lordship will explain to Mr. Egerton how his adopted son deserved his esteem, and repaid his kindness. For the rest, though you have bought up the more pressing and immediate demands on Mr. Egerton, I fear that even your fortune will not enable you to clear those liabilities which will leave him, perhaps, a pauper!”

“Baron Levy,” said Harley, abruptly, “if I have forgiven Mr. Egerton, cannot you too forgive? Me he has wronged; you have wronged him, and more foully.”

“No, my Lord, I cannot forgive him. You he has never humiliated, you he has never employed for his wants, and scorned as his companion. You have never known what it is to start in life with one whose fortunes were equal to your own, whose talents were not superior. Look you, Lord L’Estrange, in spite of this difference between me and Egerton, that he has squandered the wealth that he gained without effort, while I have converted the follies of others into my own ample revenues, the spendthrift in his penury has the respect and position which millions cannot bestow upon me. You would say that I am an usurer, and he is a statesman. But do you know what I should have been, had I not been born the natural son of a peer? Can you guess what I should have been if Nora Avenel had been my wife? The blot on my birth, and the blight on my youth, and the knowledge that he who was rising every year into the rank which entitled him to reject me as a guest at his table--he whom the world called the model of a gentleman--was a coward and a liar to the friend of his youth,--all this made me look on the world with contempt; and, despising Audley Egerton, I yet hated him and envied. You, whom he wronged, stretch your hand as before to the great statesman; from my touch you would shrink as pollution. My Lord, you may forgive him whom you love and pity; I cannot forgive him whom I scorn and envy. Pardon my prolixity. I now quit your house.” The baron moved a step, then, turning back, said with a withering sneer,--

“But you will tell Mr. Egerton how I helped to expose the son he adopted! I thought of the childless man when your Lordship imagined I was but in fear of your threats. Ha! ha! that will sting.”

The baron gnashed his teeth as, hastily entering the carriage, he drew down the blinds. The post-boys cracked their whips, and the wheels rolled away.

“Who can judge,” thought Harley, “through what modes retribution comes home to the breast? That man is chastised in his wealth, ever gnawed by desire for what his wealth cannot buy!” He roused himself, cleared his brow, as from a thought that darkened and troubled; and, entering the saloon, laid his hand upon Leonard’s shoulder, and looked, rejoicing, into the poet’s mild, honest, lustrous eyes. “Leonard,” said he, gently, “your hour is come at last.”

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