An Unknown Quantity

Chapter I

A PERI. Paracelsus. — "I am he that aspired to know ; and thou ? " Aprile. — " I would love infinitely, and be loved ! " Paracelsus. — " Poor slave ! I am thy king indeed." Browning. It was Thursday night, and Lady Hardimont's guests, in all the motley splendour of fancy ball costumes, were already filling the brilliantly lighted rooms of Lord Hardimont's London man sion ; but to some among them there was still virtual emptiness and gloom. Kilmeny had not yet come. Indeed, had they known it, Kilmeny was still in the seclusion of her own room, while her cousin, Elsinore Heath, in her gray satin and dainty lace, sat in the library, waiting patiently, while the red light from the wood fire danced over the books and lit up fitfully the somewhat sombre room. Sometimes she looked up expectantly, thinking she heard a step, and there was a rather troubled expression on her small, gentle face, but she waited on, and still Kilmeny did not come.

Upstairs in her beiroom, where now only one candle made the darkness visible, Kilmeny stood, looking out of the window upon the dreary vista of roofs and chimneys and dim lights, while the fog from the east crept nearer and nearer. It was really very brave of Lady Hardimont to enliven this dull autumn session by a fancy ball, and yet here was one of her guests lingering in the dark and cheerlessness, while she might be enjoying the brightness there ; and that one, of all people, B Kilmeny! Kilmeny, the bright; Kilmeny, who danced like the wind, and who was always as gay as a sun-ray herself— at least, so Austin Vane had said. But Kilmeny looked more like a moon-ray now, as she stood in the window, her white dress catching the candle-light here and there, and her face still and quiet, almost stern, one might have thought.

Her gossamer wings were stiff with silver frosting and dewdrops, and quivered as she suddenly dropped her arms straight to her sides, and a faint, long sigh escaped her closed lips. " I will be free. At least I will be free," she said. "Austin Vane has nothing to give me, and I — I have nothing I care to give him, as I said long ago. He has no right to persecute me. I must be free." She raised her hands to her hair, and as she felt the soft curls she laughed lightly. "Kilmeny! Kilmeny! Why trouble, and think, and sigh? Laugh and dance and sing ! That is far tetter for you," she said. Nevertheless, she sighed again as she lit another candle. Then she looked at Lerself in the long glass, and an irrepressible smile shone out in her face, a smile that was all puie fun and merriment, with nothing of conscious vanity.

She was dressed as a fairy, all in white, with a tiny trans parent diadem and star, and quivering white wings. She danced once the length of the big, dark ruon>, and back again to the glass, and then stooped to pick up her fan, which was shut into the shape of a star-tipped wand. As she did so she caught her own eye in the glass, and stopped short, trembling. A ghost of a sob passed over her face, then she caught up her fan, and ran singing down the stairs : I am an airy thing, With a cobweb snow-white wing. While mortals weep, I sing, I sing. But to-morrow, to-morrow She stopped suddenly at her cousin's chair. " You are late, my dear," said the old lady, rising. "Shall we go now . " "Are we late? I hope you are not tired of waiting, dear fairy godmother. I had to let my wings grow, you see," laughed Kilmeny.

" As I am not in very truth Cinderella, we need not flee at the stroke of twelve." " It is not all laughter to-night," thought the fairy god mother, as they drove away into the fog. A PERI. 3 Austin Vane was still standing at the door of the ball-room, where he had lingered most of the evening. He was watching Kilmeny. All the time he talked to his rather dense neighbour, his eyes never left her. She had given him just a gay little bow as she passed him once earlier in the evening. He had never been able to get near her again. " She will not let me," he said to himself, and his lips tightened under his dark moustache. " Who is the girl in white, with the wings ? " he heard some one say near him. " I never saw such dancing ! She is really like a spirit ! " " Who ? That girl with the white face, who looks all eyes ?

" answered the lady. "Yes, there is certainly no repose about her. She must be on springs, I should think." Her companion smiled. The idea of springs was so ludicrous, connected with the perfectly natural grace and lightness of the slender winged figure which danced and laughed as if in perfect light-hearted pleasure, quite unconscious of the admiration and homage bestowed upon her. " You are not dancing, Mr. Vane," said Lady Hardimont, coming up to Austin ; " and Kilmeny ? " " She is dancing now," he said carelessly. " Mine with her is the next, I think. She is enjoying herself immensely, Lady Hardimont, as all your guests do," he added. "Can I do any thing for you . " " Yes — no — for there is your partner," she said, as Kilmeny came towards them, her little star-tipped fan moving lightly to and fro.

Lady Hardimont turned to speak to another of her guests, and Austin Vane stepped eagerly forward. " Kilmeny ! " There was entreaty, even something of com mand in his voice as he spoke. " Kilmeny, you will dance this with me, will you not?" he added softly. "Kilmeny, why have you avoided me all the evening, when you know " Kilmeny shut her fan slowly. "Please do not talk like that," she said, in a low voice. Then, seeing his dark face, and feeling remorseful for a moment, she said : " Yes, I will dance with you, but only — only — as I should dance with any one." Then they moved away together, and the fairy godmother's face was clouded as she saw them from her corner. That Austin Vane did not care to dance, but wished to talk, Kilmeny knew ; but this was not her idea at all. B "At a ball I like to dance," she said lightly, as she saw her companion making for the door of the picture gallery.

"This is a lovely waltz, and I want to try my wings again." " Kilmeny, I must speak to you. I " "This is not a good time, then," she said impatiently ; " and besides, I have nothing else to say. Indeed, there is nothing more to be said," she added, half sadly. " Why did you come to me at all? But as you would, let us dance — dance!" Austin could only ohey ber, and they whirled away, her face all careless smiles ; his, as dark and rayless as the night outside. However, at the end of the dance, fortune favoured him, for they found themselves practically alone in one of the deep recesses of the gallery. He stood before her as she sat fanning herself gently, and looked down at her, and there was silence for a moment. Then Kilmeny turned her head with the graceful nonchalance be knew so well, and leaned her hand on the seat as if to rise.

Austin bent closer to her. " Kilmeny, you cannot mean it," he said ; " it is impossible. I cannot let you go ; I cannot ! What are you thinking of?" " I was thinking that I don't like to be treated as if I were a big fish that you had hooked in Fevverham Mere. It is odd, is it not, that my sympathies have always been with the fish . " This was said in a thoughtful and deliberate manner. Austin flushed. " Your similes are romantic," he said bitterly. "It was suggested by you," she answered. " Do be sensible, Austin. Is it kind of you to be so self-willed 1 Why can we not be friends as we used to be ? Good friends instead of " She hesitated. "Enemies? " he suggested. " Well — yes, since you don't mind my saying so," she said, toying with her fan. No one passing could have guessed from her appearance that their conversation was serious.

" Why enemies because lovers ? " he asked, with a certain sharpness in his voice, caused by pain. " When one is — a lover, and — one is not, they are apt to become enemies," she answered slowly. "And I want you for my friend " "You seem to think there is only one view of the situation " he said bitterly. A PERl, 5 "I can only take my own," she answered. "I am sorry, but you knew it might end like this. And indeed, I am quite sure it is far better so, for you too. You would have been like — like the Bodleian Library tied to a giddy-go-round." " Kilmeny, I knew you could not mean it ; I knew you were not serious after all," Austin cried, heedless of the compli ment to himself implied in her simile ; and stooping suddenly he caught her hand in his. " Darling, what you say is im possible. What is different between us?

What change can you point to, to make you throw me over after all these months? I may say — years ! Kilmeny, I cannot give you up." Kilmeny was very angry. She had tried to release her hand, but without success. Austin paid no heed to her flashing eyes and curled lip. Now, however, with a sudden slip of her little hand, she freed heiself, and without deigning to answer him she fled along the gallery, without pausing to think how she would enter the dancing-room alone. " Miss Dare ! " She looked up and saw a tall, fair young man advancing rapidly to meet her. " Sir Hugh ! Hush ! I am running away from my guardian. You never had a guardian, or you would have run away from him, I am sure, just for the fun of it." " Will you let me help this escape ? " asked her companion. " Nothing could give me greater happiness."

"I might — perhaps just use you as a convenient pretext," she answered mischievously ; " that is, of course, unless you are already engaged for this dance." " I am. It is mine with you," he answered promptly. " I was looking for you everywhere, Miss Dare," he added reproachfully, as Austin Vane came near ; and there was more truth in his remark than she gave him credit for. "Come," said Kilmeny, as Sir Hugh too seemed inclined to linger in the gallery. " We really must not waste that music in mere talk ! Let us danee ! " There was nobody brighter or more untiring than Kil meny among Lady Hardimont's guests, and her wings were still unbroken as she bade her hostess good-night, and drove home with the fairy godmother through the fog, But Austin Vane shivered as he stood looking down into the dim river as it flowed away, leaving the gieat gray Abbey with the shrouded dead, and St. Thomas's whh the sick and dying, far behind, and the bridge that spans its stream between them.

"Where does it all lead?" he murmured. "Is there nothing but the pain on the one side, and the stillness, the end, on the other ? Why does this dark river of life flow on at all ? And was Kilmeny right?" Then the vision of the white winged fairy dancing night away in careless gaiety returned to him with an inward shiver. Was she absolutely unmoved by what would deeply affect most women ? Had she no pity for him — pity, if nothing more ? She was not thoughtless as regarded other things, he knew. But was her belief in him as a teacher the only tie tbat had bound them together ? Did she now wish to cut that tie because there were some things conceivably removed from human comprehension ? It was surely only a caprice, born of the impatience caused to the unresting explorer by an impassable wall or a deDse mist.

Kilmeny was bewildered by the density of the mist, despairing before the cyclopean masonry of the wall, and he had promised to guide through the one, and over the other, to the pleasant land of reason on the farther side. He was used to the dim light, and did not mind the uncertain length of the journey, but it was otherwise with Kilmeny. " After all, it comes to this," she had said to him, standing as it were at bay on the sharp flints of his chosen path : " is all the joy, and strength, and achievement — yes, and the failure — of life, to end only in the blank of death ? " He remembered there had been a long silence between them ; then he had answered : " I do not know." Now, neither river, nor stars, nor the maxims of his most revered teachers, calmed his restless pain. He went home with the shadow of the Abbey on his heart, knowing only its shadow.

Chapter II

A " WEE POLKS' BAIRN." A wanderer is man from bis birth, He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time ; Brimming with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light, Kivets bis gaze on the banks of the stream. Matthew Arnold. Kilmeny wai an only child. She was born one wild Ojtobir evening, on Hallow E'en, and her mother died on All Souls' Day. Kilmeny was born in her grandfather's house, a lonely place in a quiet Irish glen, shut in by heather-clid mountains on three sides, and the sea on the fourth ; and there she had lived for the first ten or twelve years of her life, growing strong and active among the wild hills, and climbing about the rocky coast, drinking in the fresh air of that north country, and enjoying life to the full, although knowing no one but her old grandfather and her nurse, wh"Se love was the nearest approach to motherliness she had ever known ; and making friends with all the poor people for miles round.

She used to ride about on a shaggy mountain pony, sometimes with her grandfather, but more oftsn alone, and was always a welcome visitor in the lonely mountain cottages. " Dear, but Miss Kilmeny is the wee darl;n'," said the women. " She's that wee and bonny I doubt she's nae common wean. It's a wee folks' bairn she is. She came on a forbye night, poor dear ; the blessed Virgin be praised, there wasn't ane o' my bairn3 about, but Martin McCirthy tellt me he seen a quare sight, coming hame frae the chapel up the glen. It was like a white woman carryin' a wean, an' croonin' over 't, till ye'd a trimbled wid the fear o't, an' he v.ev, that dash'd he dursna run, an' he seen her comin' on and croonin', an', says Martin, ' Holy Mary help us ! ' says he, and crosses himsel', an' when he looks up there was naebody near, an' he heerd the croonin' deeper and deeper ; but he just lifted up his feet an' away wi' him fast enough.

An' they tell me there is nae ane o' her kith nor kin favours her a hair ! " It was Mrs. Wheelan, the keeper's wife, who told this tale, and Kilmeny knew it herself quite well, and would listen, breathless, when they told how she had been left alone when a few hours old, all the household being engrossed by the report that the poor young mother was dying, and how when the nurse came back she screamed with horror, and declared the child was not the same, the one she had left being brown-eyed and dark, while this one looked up with deep blue eyes, and had 30ft yellow hair on its tiny head. The doctor, of course, pooh poohed the nurse's story, and said he knew the child as well as she, and the child was the same ; but the story went abroad, and was soon connected with Martin McCarthy's account of the "white woman and the wean."

At any rate, there was no denying Kilmeny's deep blue eyes. " Ay, an' even her ain father that went near daft wi' grief for the wife's death, does nae care for the wean, an' would it be nature at all, at all, if the wean hadna been changit some way? Ay! ay! let alone," said another; "the grand-da just dotes on her, an' wouldn't he ken his ain daughter's bairn? The father is just an Englishman, and mebbe they're no sae fond to hae their bairns wi' them as wer ane folk. Ay, an' wee folk or no, she's gey an' bonny." " 'Deed, there's no sayin' what the deil and such like can dae till them hereticks that not ane o' the blessed saints and martyrs 'ull speak a gude word for, let alone St. Peter himsel'," said Mrs. Wheelan; "but, dear, dear, hould yer whisht! the wean's listenin' till ivery mortial word, ould-fashioned thing that she is, an' wantin' the mother, poor wee dear ; it's the <_p]are pity o' her."

Only Maria Cormack, Kilmeny's nurse, stoutly denied such tales, and dire was her wrath and freely vented upon any one who dared to repeat them in her hearing. She had been maid to the poor young mother, and after her death devoted heiself entirely to the baby girl she left behind. The superstitious nurse with her story of the changed baby went away when the child was a few weeks old, and since that time Maria Cormack lived only for Kilmeny. Maria was a Roman Catholic, an honest, loving soul, who tried to do her duty faithfully in every respect, and while mourning deeply over the fact that Kilmeny had been baptized only by a " Protestant man," she did her best for tho child's spiritual good as she conceived it, by telling her innumerable stories of saints and their maityrdoms and miracles, and teaching her to tell her beads and cross herself on all correct occasions.

Once a week, on Sunday, Kilmeny went with her grand father to church, and slept peacefully through the ultra evangelical discourse poured forth upon his scanty congregation by the discursive and somewhat illogical Mr. McGlower; but she understood very little of the proceedings, although she would dutifully follow with tiny finger bent upon the page and intent eyes, when her grandfather found the places for her in her big prayer book. On the whole, Kilmeny liked going to church. She was fond of her grandfather, and thought it rather grand and "grown-up " to sit beside him on the stiff red cushions of the square pew, off which she would scramble with a great effort to kneel on the hard straw hassock. She did this because she saw others do it, and, besides, she could from this point much more easily watch the spider who lived in a web in the corner of the pew ; and Kilmeny loved to watch this spider, or see the patches of coloured light from the east window dance upon the walls.

Kilmeny knew every line of that window by heart, and every turn of light and shade ; but she did not thus learn to know and love some Bible scene or story, or even character, for to have pictured forth such things in the window of their church would have been considered rank Popery by Mr. McGlower and most of his parishioners ; it would have been setting up these saints or "scenes" to worship, so they said — whereas they are only for edification and instruction. There should be no breaking of the second Commandment " on this side of the road " ; on the other side, a little further up the glen, stood the " chapel," which, in the language of that country, signifies a Roman Catholic place of worship. And so, instead of such designs, Kilmeny's great-grandfather, who had given the window, had put his own arms.

Instead of figures of Bible history there were armorial bearings, and the sunlight painted on the chancel floor, instead of the Saviour's thorn-crowned brow, or even a simple cross, a dripping dagger in a mail-clad hand. , „ _., "Was it ri<dit, then, rather to worship these," Kilmeny thought wonde.iingly, " if their being in the window meant their worship?" She was bewildered, but, right or wrong, perhaps such things have been worshipped and followed before now, rather than the thorn crown and the cross. Then, as they came home under the wide sycamores, Kil meny would look up the glen, and think of the " white lady " crooning over the baby she carried, and wonder if she would ever come again, and if she herself had ieally been carried by those white arms. Yet, in spite of stories and legends of spirits and saints, which had got strangely mixed in the child's mind, she felt no fear of them, nor was she in the least afiaid to wander abiut the rambling passages of the old house*" after dark," or to play by herself in the sombre ronns.

But she had a strange terror of the churchyard, with its rows of gleaming white head-stones and long, low mounds. She would shut hrr eyes and cling to her grandfather's side coming out of church, that s-he might not see them. Indeed, death was honible to her, and she would cry hysterically over a dead animal or bird, so that Maria kept all such sights away from her as far as possible. But at last there came a change for Kilmeny. Her grandfather died, and the old house in the northern glen ceased to be her home. She never forgot that terrible time, and for long afterwards she couli not bear even to hear it spoken of. Maria C jrmack, however tender in her care for the motherless child, thought that theie were some things wherein she was bound to insist upon Kilmeny's doing "her duty." She thought it utterly wrong that tbe old man should go to his grave without one token of love or respect from the hand of his dearly-loved grandchil 1 ; so the morning after his death she brought a wreath of flowers to Kilmeny, and told her to come and lay it on her grandfather's body.

" I cannot, I cannot, dear Bia ! " cried the child, trembling. " What are you feared on, darlin' ? " said the nurse. " You, a big young lady now, and no child, an' wouldn't ye say a prayer over your grandfather, an' him loving ye that well ? An' wouldn't ye lay the flowers on him ? I would have made ye a cross, but I was afeared that Mr. MacGlower would redd it out when he came — the saints have mercy ! Come, child dear ye wouldn't have them sayin' that ye did not love your grandfather, and wouldn't see the last o' him ? " Kilmeny said nothing, but she trembled as she followed Maria into the dim room where her grandfather's lifeless body lay stretched under the white sheet. She did not dare to raise her eyes, but crept silently to the side of the bed and laid her wreath down, and then, covering her face with her hands, she stole away.

But that night, as she lay awake, listening to the ticking of the great clock on the stairs, and feeling very lonely without the loving old man who had been both father and mother to her, she remembered that she had said no prayer in that room, and never even once looked at the quiet figure on the bed. Then she seemed to hear his voice calling her : " Come and kiss me good-night, my little fairy. Come and kiss your old grand-dad." Kilmeny hid her face under the clothes, and tried to shut her ears, but it was useless. Still the clock kept ticking, "Come, come, come, come," and at last she sat up in bed, listening breathlessly. She even fancied she saw the old man turning round in his big arm-chair as he used to, and saying : " Is my little girl not going to say good-night to her old grand-dad ?

" Then she started up. " Yes, yes, I am coming, dear grand father," she whispered. " I am coming now," and she slipped out of her bed, softly opened the door of her little room, and ran swiftly down the wide, dark stairs to the landing, where a single lamp was left burning. She was tiembling violently as she opened the door of her grandfather's room, but she stepped bravely on. She had often gone to see him there, and never failed to hear the kind voice welcome his " little fairy." Now all was cold and still. The door which she had opened only enough to slip through was banged to by some current of air, and the sound echoing in the silent house startled her. She looked up suddenly towards the bed. It was Dot all dark. Two long candles burned on each side of the bed, and lit up fearfully the rigid form under the white sheet.

Kilmeny's flowers lay on his breast, and there were others strewn over him ; but the child saw nothing except the outline of the face under the white covering. She darted forward, and drew the sheet from his face. Yes, it was her grandfather; though terribly changed, it was the same face. Now, however, the eyes had no welcome for her, the lips were compressed and stern. He did not know she was there, he could not hear her. He had never called her at all. " Grandfather ! grandfather ! " she cried. " Where are you 1 Where are you gone ? Wake, wake, dear grandfather, I want you, I want you ! " But there was no movement, no answer from the stern, closed lips. "Grandfather, where are you gone ? " she cried again, and then she took one of his hands in hers. It was cold, icy, responseless. Kilmeny dropped it again, and with a despairing cry she sank down beside the bed, -overturning the little stand with the candles as she fell.

A minute or two afterwards Maria came in. She had heard the cry and the fall, and full of fear she ran down. She carried the senseless form of the child upstairs and tended her lovingly. " Holy Mary, save us ! " she murmured. " I doubt it was no good, her putting out the blessed lights, poor love ! poor love ! She's lone enough ony ways, an' what kind o' a father can he he, that could leave her all these years?" Then she sank on her fcnees beside the now sleeping child, and offered up prayers for ooth the living and the dead. Kilmeny's father was a traveller and a scholar. As a young man he had been remarkable for his knowledge of Oriental languages and literature, and his ambition had always been to travel in the far East, in untrodden ways and among little-known peoples. This desire had been lost sight of in the new happiness which came to him in his love for the fair Irish girl who became his wife ; but when, two days after the birtb cf her •daughter, she died, travel seemed the only possible mode of existence for him, though tbe joy was taken from it, as from everything, by the blow which had overwhelmed him.

It was with thankfulness that he accepted the offer of his father-in law, which, indeed was more a prayer, that he should leave the child to his care; aud thus it came about that for the first years of her life Kilmeny saw nothing of her father. When at last he did •come home, it was to live a life of studious seclusion, shut up with his books, and only receiving occasional visits from friends, for the most part travellers and scientists like himself. He did, indeed, visit his child in her Irish home, but they seemed to have little mutual attraction. He found the old man and the little girl devoted to each other, and apparently requiring nothing of him but to be left in peace to enjoy their life together. So his visits ended, and things went on much as before his return from foreign lands.

But with the death of his father-in-law came the necessity of providing a home for his daughter, now a girl nearly ten years old. He therefore transplanted her and her nurse to his own English home, the Irish estate passing to the old man's son, an officer in India. He found it hard to understand this new inmate of his house, who did not seem to him either very friendly or very attractive. Her passionate sorrow at leaving her old home seemed to the father both unnatural and unfilial, as he forgot that " father " was little more than a name to her, while all that had been her life was centred in her grandfather and his home. He thought himself indulgent in the extreme when he allowed her Welsh pony and her special dog to be brought with her, and felt that he was doing all that was necessary for her comfort in retaining in his service a nurse whose only recom mendation to him seemed to be her devotion to the child, when in reality she needed a nurse no longer.