One Maiden only

Chapter I. Etta

was not long in perceiving that her best card had failed. When next she saw Miss Hazlitt and Hartley together, it was evident that no coolness had arisen between them. On the contrary, they were more friendly than ever before they had been, and Miss Hazlitt took some little pains to make the fact apparent to Etta's eyes. Etta was deeply disappointed, and her spirit was embittered more and more. Hart ley had one more occasion to laugh her to scorn, she said, for she had small doubt now that Miss Hazlitt had told him what had passed between them. Her hatred of Hart ley was greater than ever, and against Miss Hazlitt she cherished an indignant scorn, as at one who had betrayed a confidence, and VOL. III. B ONE MAIDEN ONLY. had basely sided with an insolent enemy of her sex. While Etta had cherished the hope of a speedy revenge against Hartley, the strength of her hope, and the communion of their hate, had drawn her into comparative har mony with her husband.

With her failure came the end of this short-lived peace ; it was but a gourd of the night, and the bald day-light of accustomed fact brought it to an end. Henceforth the wretchedness of Mr. Monsell's home was greater than ever. To his wife's dislike and contempt, and to her irritation at his presence, he was well in ured ; but added to all that, now, there was a restlessness in Etta's mind, an impatience of the conditions of her life, a morbid crav ing for excitement, which made life with her like life with a mad woman. Etta was impatient of her whole life ; most of all she was impatient of her husband. " If you could but show some signs of manliness, I could bear you better," she said ; " why, even my fool brother Giles had more manhood in him than you have." How her husband should show his manli ness, Etta did not say, but the goad was not less powerful on that account ; and because Mr. Monsell was not a coward, but only a fair average specimen of human weakness, brought to the verge of imbecility by the torture of his wife's cankered spirit, her coarse contempt chafed and maddened him almost beyond endurance.

Explosives are not rational in their ac tivity, and the most inopportune spark is apt to set them blazing. It happened that Mr. Monsell and Etta, Hartley and Miss Hazlitt, were all at an evening party again. one of the last of the season among their set, as it was to be. Hartley and Miss Haz litt had been together a good deal through the evening, for she had announced to him the fact of her intention to accept an invita tion to spend the summer months in Scot land, and this being, perhaps, the last time that he would see her before her departure, he was naturally anxious to make the most of his opportunities. Etta and her husband had seen them thus together, and the sight b ONE MAIDEN ONLY. had had its due effect upon the mind of each. Presently, supper-time came, and Mr. Monsell had a lady committed to his charge, while Hartley took Miss Hazlitt under his care.

The two couples were en tering the supper-room about the same time, though Mr. Monsell and his partner had a shade the start. Hartley7, however, going in jauntily, and turning, as he went, to talk to Miss Hazlitt, did not see the other couple, and, though by a touch only, jostled and forestalled them. The spark had fallen ; Mr. Monsell blazed up, and pushing Hartley roughly in the breast, he said, " Stand back, sir, and wait your turn, can't you ?" Hartley was taken quite unawares, and staggered back a step or two with the push, falling against Miss Hazlitt as he did so. She saw in a moment what had happened, and said quietly, " You will not be so foolish as to make a scene; I am not hurt." It was a sharp battle for Hartley, who was not used to accept buffetings unre turned, but he conquered himself in an instant, and said quietly to Mr. Monsell's partner, " I beg your pardon, very humbly; I did not see you.

I am sorry you have such a cur for your knight." The lady was a little frightened, for she had expected worse to follow, but she smiled on Hartley, and dropping Mr. Mon sell's arm, she put herself at Miss Hazlitt's side, and they two went in to supper together. Hartley remained behind for a second, and said to Mr. Monsell, " We will finish our conversation to-morrow." Then he followed the ladies, while Mr. Monsell stood, infuriated, but silent, where the fray had taken place ; till, scarce knowing what he did, he sprang into the hall, and snatching up a hat, he made at once for his own home. Etta was a few paces behind her husband, and saw this manifestation of his manliness. She saw Hartley's innocence of any rude in tention, and her husband's violence ; she saw Miss Hazlitt speak to Hartley, the manner of Hartley's apology to the lady, the lady's act, Hartley's passing words to her husband, and her husband's exit.

All this she saw, and she saw as well man}' eyes half-stealthily turned towards her when it was over. She appeared to notice neither, but went into the room talking on to her partner almost without a falter. Yet all the while she talked, and while supper was going on, she was consumed with a tumult of passion that she could scarcelv endure, and muttered "fool "in her heart as a refrain to every sentence she uttered. This was her idiot husband's manliness at last, she supposed. She had not dreamt what a fool he was. If his purpose had been to make her despise him, he could not have done better, nor could he have chosen a fitter audience be fore which to advertise the last extremity of his imbecility. How long was she to bear him? To bear herself was hard enough. Was there no escape from the burden of a fool-husband as well ?

Etta went home, and passed at once to her own room. She did not see her husband at all ; neither in the morning did she see him, for she breakfasted in her room, and did not come downstairs until she had learned that he had gone out. Through the day he did not come home, and at night, when he did return, there were things pre pared for his contemplation that secured his mind at least from listlessness and vacancy, however little to be preferred the forestalled of those evils may in themselves have been. Etta had left the party as soon as supper was over, but Miss Hazlitt and Hartley remained. After supper there was dancing, and these two were again together. " You behaved very well," Miss Hazlitt said. " I think I deserve your praise ; virtue and you had a hard battle to win." " It would have been hard if virtue and I together had not won.

You will not, to morrow, cancel your good behaviour of to night, I hope." " I will remember virtue and you to-morrow and always," said Hartley, with just a tone in his words which implied that to-morrow must be left to him. " I am sure you will," said Miss Hazlitt. "Do you certainly go to Scotland?" Hartley asked. "There is no doubt, I think. I shall start next week. We shall have to say good-bye to-night, for a time." "To-night, must it be," said Hartley; " can't you come to the Rowsleys' on Mon day? It is a very sudden departure." " Yes, it is sudden ; but I shan't be able to come on Monday, I am sure, and short agonies are best, you know," she said, laughing. " You have something to say to me before you go . " Nothing special, I think. Only good wishes, and such things." "Have you forgotten what important question remains open all this time ?"

" Oh, no ; I could hardly forget that." " And will you not close it before you __ *_" go? " Yes, if you like ; only then it will be in the negative. My mind is not ready for an affirmative yet." " Why not, if ever it will be ? You have surely seen enough of me now !" " Not enough yet. It is an important matter, as I said to you, and one cannot force one's mind in such a case." " I think you like to torture me. " Are you suffering torture ?" " I hate suspense." " I daresay. No one likes it ; but there is no help for it, unless you would prefer the negative answer." "You know that I would not prefer that." "Then be patient. There is no other road to happiness or to wisdom." " But you may bid me be patient till my death-day." " I will not, unless that comes sooner than we have reason to expect.

I think that when I come back from Scotland, I shall see my way clearer." " You promise, then ?" " I promise nothing ; I say I ' think.' " Further than this, Hartley could not in duce Miss Hazlitt to go. She was ever so friendly to him, was neither coy nor cool, uttered no warning words, as if to prepare him for disappointment, or for herself a way of escape ; yet when they parted she shook hands with him with a light good-bye, and kissed her glove to him from the carriage window as gaily as though she should certainly see him to-morrow, or as if whether she saw him to-morrow or a twelvemonth hence were a matter of complete indiffer ence to her. Hartley went home in a tantrum, and uttered some sweeping denunciations against the sex and all their ways. This perverse woman had marred all the pleasant com pleteness of his plans.

He had made sure that she would say some definite words before the season came to an end, and had built half-a-dozen plans upon that assurance. Now all these plans must wait, and the con templation of his Walcote property, and the enjoyment of the first payment of rental, which had lately been made to him, were his only consolations. It is hard when a man is cut down to an armful of blessings that three months before summed up the whole sweep of his desires. Hartley gave up thinking of Miss Hazlitt in a pet, and turned his attention forthwith to the fact that Mr. Monsell had insulted him. He turned to this fact with consider able calmness, for he had too much self esteem to be specially tempestuous over an affront. Yet, on the other hand, it did not often occur to him to let an affront pass un avenged'; and that Mr. Monsell had insulted him, there could be no doubt.

How should he punish this offender? Duelling was illegal, he believed. Well, that would not stop him fighting a duel, if he were so disposed ; but he thought he would not like to fio-ht a duel with Etta's husband, or to challenge him to it, whether the offender might be disposed to accept his challenge or not. Against horsewhipping the law had a less violent objection ; but horsewhipping was vulgar, and he would no more like to horse whip Ettas husband than to shoot him. How, then, could he punish Mr. Monsell for his insult? Hartley studied this question a good while, and many thoughts, but remotely connected with it, passed through his mind. At last he came to a conclusion that seemed to satisfy him, and then he went to bed. In the course of the next day, the post brought to Etta, sitting alone in her desolate home, two letters, one of which was for herself, and the other for her husband.

She took up her husband's first, and looked list lessly at the direction. She looked listless ly, but with the look her listlessness van ished. The handwriting was Hartley's, and she knew it in a moment. Etta and her husband were not on such terms that they opened each other's letters, but she had no hesitation in opening this one. It ran : — " Sir, — Last night you coarsely insulted me, and my first impulse was to shoot you or horsewhip you. It was no consideration for you that led me to draw back from this impulse. Having, however, more respect for your wife's dignity than it seems to have entered your mind to conceive, I refrain from pursuing my quarrel with you, lest some portion of your humiliation should fall upon her head. You will be good enough to consider yourself forgiven for her sake.

" I remain, your obedient servant, " Hartley Leighton.' Etta opened her own letter. It ran : — " Dear Mrs. Monsell, — I have to throw myself upon your generosity. Your husband's conduct of last night was such that I fear not many of my guests would feel well pleased to meet him on Monday. Can you leave him behind you ? Of your own wel come always you do not need me to assure you. " Yours very sincerely, "Ellen Rowsley. Without a moment's delay, Etta answered her own letter. She said : " Dear Mrs. Rowsley, — You might have spared your letter. I think that you are safe from my husband. I am quite sure that you are safe from me. " Yours very sincerely, "Etta Monsell." Etta put away the letters and occupied herself as best she could till her husband came home at night ; then she gave them both to him.

He read Mrs. Rowsley's first. " Well," she said, when he had finished ; " that's a very nice letter, isn't it ? I hope you are proud of it. You'll be prouder still of the other, when you've read it. It was not addressed to me ; but I took the liberty of opening it." Mr. Monsell read Hartley's letter. " What right had you to open this ?" he said. " I am your wife, I believe, and I chose to see it." "It gratified you, then, Madam, I hope." " It neither gratified me nor the reverse. I am indifferent for evermore." Then Etta lighted her candle and once more went to her room. Before she slept. she wrote a letter to her father, which said : " Dear Papa, — I can bear this no longer. You must come and fetch me in the morn ing. Be here as early as possible after you get this letter. "Ever your affectionate " Etta."

Mr. Monsell went out early in the morn ing, and Etta sent off her note. In an hour or two, both her parents came. Mrs. Monc ton pleaded hard with her child not to take this terrible step, and added to her words the supplication of nearly heart-broken tears. But Etta was immoveable. " I will not stay here," she said. " If you will not take me with you, I will go out homeless on to the wide world ; I cannot be more wretched than I am." When her parents saw that she would not relent, they took her to their home ; and Etta's treason and Mr. Monsell's folly had come to their ripest fruit. Mr. Monsell had left home early, as has been said. His mission was to Hartley's house. Hartley was at breakfast when he arrived, and he followed the servant who announced him into the room. For the moment, Hartley scarcely knew his visitor, so changed was Mr. Monsell's face and manner.

Even Etta would have said that he was a man at last. " I have come to bring you back your letter," he said. " Thank you ; but I have no use for it." "And to offer you an insult that you will not so readily forgive," Mr. Monsell con tinued, not heeding Hartley's words. " I have to tell you that you are a mean, lying villain and scoundrel." Hartley rose. "You are right," he said. "That is the kind of insult I do not forgive a man, even for his wife's sake." " Hold your insolent tongue," said Mr. Monsell, " and do not dare to soil my wife's name again by taking it into your lying mouth." Hartley had passed across the room as Mr. Monsell was speaking, and stood till he had finished. " Now will you go, or shall I kick you out," Hartley said. " I will go," said Mr. Monsell ; "but first I have to tell you that I will fight you; and if you will not fight, I will cane you in the street like a dog."

Hartley laughed. "You may spare your threats," he said; " I will fight you with pleasure, if you wish ; but I think you had better not. I have not been abroad for nothing, and I shall shoot you dead, you may be sure." " I will take my chance," Mr. Monsell answered, and they arranged for a meeting. It was to be quite secret, and they were to have no seconds. The third day hereafter was fixed as the day, and then they parted. Mr. Monsell went straight to Mrs. Monc ton's house. He was going on a journey, he wTould tell her, and ask her to stay with his wife during his absence. Perhaps, also, it came into his mind, he would tell her some what of his wretchedness, and beg her to do what she could to soften his wife's heart to wards him. VOL. III. c He reached the house. Mrs. Moncton was out, the servant said, but she had left word that she would soon return.

He waited, and in about an hour Mr. and Mrs. Moncton and Etta came in. Etta, at the moment, inferred an impossible mission for him. " You may save yourself all trouble," she said ; "I will never come back to you." "What?" said Mr. Monsell, not under standing her words. " I have left you for ever," Etta said ; " I can bear my life with you no longer. You had better go. There is no use in wasting words." " Left me for ever !" Mr. Monsell said, and the words fell upon his heart like a doom. He had no doubt that the second day after the next would be his last. He turned at once and left the room, bidding no adieux. Mrs. Moncton followed him out, and tried to detain him and comfort him with hope. " It is no use," he said ; " I feel that we have come to the end. Good-bye. You alone have been kind to me."

Mrs. Moncton went back to the room where the others were, and between her pity for her child, and her pity for the man whose life her child had spoiled, her heart was so torn that she could do nothing but mourn and weep. Hartley prepared for his unexpected journey. He did not think much. The coarseness of Mr. Monsell's insult and his challenge left him no room for debate. He should not be killed, he supposed, and his hope was that the fact of the duel might never be known, as such knowledge would complicate his career very gravely indeed. He told his friends that he was going to Paris, and thence a good deal further per haps, and that the time of his stay abroad was uncertain. The two men travelled by the same mail, and reached Calais together. A few miles more, not taken together, carried them to their place of meeting.

They did not speak, c2 but silently walking backwards from each other, took places as by common consent. Then they raised their hands together, and fired. Mr. Monsell aimed wide, and did not touch Hartley. Hartley had assured Mr. Monsell that he should kill him, yet he had never the least intention of trying to do so. He was an excellent shot since he had been in California those eighteen months, and could hit almost where he pleased. It was his pleasure to maim Mr. Monsell's right hand, and so end the duel. He did in fact carry away his trigger-finger, and the duel was ended. Hartley's Californian sojourn had made him somewhat of a rough surgeon. He went up to his enemy and offered to staunch the bleeding for him, until he could get within the reach of more efficient aid. But Mr. Monsell would have no help from him ; he would die first, he said. " Very well," said Hartley ; " it is a pity," and somade his way to Paris.

Chapter II. The

time came when Geoffrey's child and her sister had been on their travels about seven months, and still he had heard nothing of them. The silence that Mary had said they would not break, had remain ed unbroken, and Geoffrey had full opportunity of satiating himself, if so his appetite did not fail him, upon the " bliss of ab sence." On the whole his appetite did not flag. Many a time indeed his heart leapt at the thought of that fuller bliss which would be his when again he should have his dear one in his sight. But he still had strength to be thankful for lesser mercies, and the sense of his blessed child, absent, even, was so great a joy that it could only be called a lesser mercy in the light of the fruition of happiness which he had known when, in bodily presence, she sat by his side. This peace remained with him for over six months, and then there came a change.

One morning he woke from his sleep with a feeling of oppression and restlessness upon him, for which he could in no way account ; and through the clay it remained with him, disturbing his sleep when night came, making work the next day almost impossible, and lasting so through four days and nights. During all this time he had upon him the impulse to do something, though what he knew not ; and he was haunted by the conviction that, through that something remaining undone, results altogether sad would be brought about. At the end of the fourth day his restlessness came to an end, and there fell upon him instead a torpor and a sense of vacancy so great, that Beata be lieved some serious illness to be surely ap proaching. This new state lasted for more than a week, and then came its most pitiful explanation.

Geoffrey continued to read his daily paper, and very often, as every one does, he glanced his eye down the obituary column. One morning his reading was brought to an end by the following : — " On 5th October, at Genoa, after a short illness, Elia, second daughter of Charles Gray, Esq. Aged 19." " That was it, then," he said. " Have pity upon me, good God, for my last hope is gone !" He put the paper down, and sat stunned, with his head buried in his hands upon the table the whole morning. His child was dead, that much he knew ; more than that he did not realise. He shed no tears, made no moan, prayed no prayer, after that first blind cry, but, immersed in bitter vacanc}', hung, as it were, between oblivion and life. Now and then his child's face passed before him, and he shuddered ; once or twice some glimmering sense of the meaning of his loss broke upon him, and a great sob tore his heart, and brought him back for the moment to the life of his pain.

After about three hours it happened that the organist of a church that was not many paces from his house, began to practise the music for the next day, which wTas Sunday. How many Saturday mornings he had waited for that to begin ! — it had helped him over his work a hundred times, had touched his thoughts with a fragrance of beauty or tenderness like that which his child's sweet nature had poured so richly upon him. It was identi fied with her. As the sound came to him across the quiet air, his heart woke right up, and the fulness of his sorrow wras upon him. He lifted up his face to heaven, and while the tears streamed from his eyes, he cried, "My darling ! How could you die with out me ! I cannot bear it. Give me back my child, 0 God, for I am not able to live without her !" The tears poured down like rain from his seldom-weeping eyes ; and they flowed on for an hour, and then the reaction came, and he lay upon his bed half dead with the exhaustion of his emotion.

His four o'clock dinner hour came, and the woman of the house knocked to tell him that his food was ready. As he entered his sitting-room again, his eye caught sight of the paper, and he remembered Beata, who would before long be expecting him. He folded up the paper, and ringing for the woman of the house, he begged her to take or send it in his stead. Then he helped himself to some food, and tried to eat a mouthful or two ; and then, putting down his knife and fork without knowing what he was doing, he sat motionless before his plate, until his landlady, having returned from her errand, came to clear away his things, and removed them, wondering greatly to find an all but untouched meal still upon his table. Beata received the newspaper with a good deal of surprise. Geoffrey sometimes brought his paper with him, though this not often ; but he had never before sent her one, and by the time this reached her he himself was almost due.

No message came with the paper, and she opened it and glanced through it, to see if there were any portion marked, or any message written upon it for her. There was neither, so she looked through it more carefully to find what there was in it of special interest to Geoffrey or to her. She could find nothing, and she put it down, waiting till Geoffrey himself should arrive to explain his mysterious conduct. His time came, and passed, by an hour, and yet he did not arrive ; and Beata, wondering more and more, again took up the paper to see if, after all, she had not missed some thing that he had written or marked for her. Still, she found nothing, and disap pointed almost to tears, she got out some needlework to pass the now weary hours till bed-time. But she could not accept her disappointment, and she put down her work, and once more took up the newspaper.

This time her eye passed to the obituary column, and third on the list she found the short paragraph that had spoiled her evening, and struck Geoffrey's life down to the ground. Her eyes dizzied as she read it, and the grief came choking up into her throat ; but mastering herself, and saying only, " My poor Geoffrey ! " she went and put on her things, that she might go to him. "Where are you going, Beata, and what's the matter?" said Aileen, seeing her dressed, and looking at her face. Beata had forgotten the child. By a sud den impulse she said, " Put on your bonnet, Aileen, and I will tell you about it as we go along." Aileen had on her bonnet in a minute, and they started. " Where are we going, and what's the matter, dear Beata ?" Aileen said again, when they had gone some distance ; and Beata, deep in thought, had told her no thing.

" We are going to Geoffrey, little one ; his child is dead." "What, Geoffrey's child, Elia?" said Aileen, looking up awe-struck into Beata's face. " Yes, my little one ; we must go and comfort poor Geoffrey, if we can." The child made no answer, and they walked on in silence, until they reached Geoffrey's house. " I have only just seen it, dear," Beata said, going up to him, and putting her hand upon his. She spoke very softly, as if asking no answer ; only she thought he might per haps have had mind enough to wonder at her delay. He looked into her face, and smiled a little. She hoped that she might never see him smile like that again. She knelt down by him, and kept her hand upon his. It was all she could do. There were no words that she could frame her mouth to say. His hand felt like a dead hand, and his face was very pale.

Beata left the room to speak with his landlady. He had scarcely tasted food that day, she learned, for the paper had come early, and had been on the table with his breakfast. She set about making some tea for him, and in a few minutes she had it ready, and took it in. Aileen sat on a chair near the door. She had put herself there when she entered, too much awed at what she had heard to ap proach nearer to Geoffrey, who did not even see her as she sat. When Beata left the room, the child grew nervous, and had all but followed her. She did not do so, how ever, but sat still, watching Geoffrey. Pre sently she rose from her seat, and very slowly began to creep towards him. Once he half looked round, and it frightened her so, that she could scarcely stand. But still she continued to creep nearer, and at last she stood by his side, he yet not seeing her.