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Title: Her fairy prince

Author: Gertrude Warden

Release date: April 18, 2023 [eBook #70582]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1895

Credits: Mary Glenn Krause, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HER FAIRY PRINCE ***







 HER FAIRY PRINCE

 BY

 _Gertrude Warden_

 AUTHOR OF "THE HAUNTED HOUSE AT KEW," "AS A
 BIRD TO THE SNARE," ETC.


 [Illustration]


 PHILADELPHIA
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
 1895




 Copyright, 1895,
 by
 J.B. Lippincott Company.


 Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A.




HER FAIRY PRINCE.




CHAPTER I.


"Hallo, Armstrong! Thought you were in Australia!"

"Hallo, Garth! Thought you were in gaol!"

Such were the greetings interchanged in Boulogne market-place on a hot
August forenoon by two Englishmen who had not met for five years.

The first speaker, Mr., or Captain Garth, as he styled himself, was a
man of medium height, inclined to stoutness and of florid complexion,
with bloodshot blue eyes, plentiful prematurely-white hair, a heavy
cavalry moustache, and a jovial swaggering manner. His clothes were
carefully brushed and darned, his boots beautifully polished, and his
chimney-pot hat, set rakishly on one side on his white curls, was
suspiciously shiny in its surface. The Captain's red face, overhanging
eyebrows, and ferocious moustache were wont to frighten children, of
whom he was specially fond; but his features were well-cut and his
manners plausible, and most women considered him a very good-looking
man for his six-and-fifty years.

Of his companion's claims to personal beauty there could be no doubt,
in spite of the air of drink, dissipation, and neglect which hung about
him. Wallace Armstrong at six-and-twenty was intended by nature to
be a splendid specimen of muscular manhood--tall, broad-shouldered,
vigorous, and sinewy, looming enormous over the small French soldiers
who slouched in twos and threes across the market-place, and followed
where he walked by the admiring glances of the stalwart bare-footed
fish-girls trooping up and down to and from the quay.

But already Wallace Armstrong had done his best to injure the heritage
of vigour and manly beauty which had devolved upon him at birth. Under
his eyes, of a brilliant bluish-gray colour shaded by thick black
lashes, late hours and hard drinking had imprinted lines and shadows
ill-suited to early manhood; his whole expression was sullen and
defiant, as though he distrusted and despised his fellow men and was
at little trouble to disguise his feelings towards them. His manner of
greeting his old acquaintance was not only insolent as to words, but
still more so in the tone he used the while he roughly shook Garth's
detaining hand off his coat-sleeve.

"It's of no use to claim acquaintanceship with me now!" Armstrong
remarked, harshly. "I'm broke, stone-broke--and, what's more, if I had
any money, I know better now than to play cards with you for it!"

Captain Garth's red face grew a shade redder; but he was not sensitive
as to snubs, and his tone was altogether friendly when he spoke again.

"We're all broke occasionally," he observed, soothingly; "even I do
not absolutely wallow in gold at the present minute. Still, I've a
little place up here in the High Town where I can put up a friend in
difficulties until things blow over."

"Oh, I'm not wanted by the police, if that's what you mean!" the other
interrupted, scornfully. "My early indiscretions have been whitewashed
by a visit to Australia, which means that, having got into bad company
in England, I was sent across the sea to get into worse company in
Australia."

"Have you been back long?" Garth inquired, accommodating with
difficulty his footsteps to the long strides of his companion.

"Long enough to spend in Paris the money which was to take me back to
England! Look!" And he turned his empty pockets inside out for Garth's
edification.

The elder man looked thoughtful, and walked on by his side for some
seconds in silence.

"But your uncle?" he suggested at last. "Surely Alexander Wallace's
credit should help his nephew in raising the 'needful'?"

"A lot of use when for four years the old skinflint has gone about
denouncing me as a ne'er-do-weel, and proclaiming the fact that I shall
never get another ha'penny from him. I've written to him from here--it
was the only thing to be done; but it won't be any good. The picture I
drew in my letter of my sick and starving young wife was enough to melt
the heart of a stone! But it won't move Uncle Alec."

"Your wife?" Garth repeated, in surprise.

"Yes. The young, lovely, and pious orphan daughter of a clergyman,
who fell in love with me on board ship and decided to take in hand my
reformation. There never was such a perfect woman--if, indeed, she's
alive still; but as, when I wrote, she'd had nothing to eat for three
days--and I can swear she's had nothing since--she may very likely be
dead by this time!"

Captain Garth was neither a good nor a scrupulous man, but he had the
remnants of a heart about him, and his companion's words shocked and
startled him.

"Are you mad or drunk, Armstrong?" he cried. "Do you really mean to
tell me your wife is here in Boulogne starving?"

Armstrong turned and looked at him. Then he thrust his hands into his
empty pockets and burst out laughing.

"Why, you old idiot," he exclaimed, "she's only my wife on paper! What
in the world should I want to burden myself with a wife for? Uncle Alec
has always been soft-hearted about women, probably because he's had
very little to do with them and doesn't know what fools and plagues
they are; so the idea came into my head to pitch this starving-wife
story, and see whether that would move him. But I don't hope much from
it."

"It would be rather awkward, though, if he took you at your word and
asked you to produce her!"

"Nothing less likely. He has frequently stated in the letters of
good advice he sent me at Melbourne that he never wished to set eyes
on me again; and Heaven knows I am not hungering for a sight of the
sanctimonious old bag of bones! My precious cousin is now the darling
of his eye, the industrious apprentice and good boy, and all that sort
of thing! He has been taken into the bank, and, no doubt, will get
the old screw's money when he dies--if he ever will die, which I am
beginning to doubt! He never would if I were his heir, for certain.
Curse my luck!"

Clearly Armstrong was in a communicative mood as he strode along, every
now and then savagely kicking the stones on the pathway. His last franc
had been spent on a dose of fiery cognac, which, taken after long
fasting, had mounted to his brain and brought on a talkative mood. All
the time they conversed the two men were mounting the dusty white road
which led to the High Town, Armstrong insensibly and Garth by design.

Captain Garth, as has been said before, was not wholly ill-natured.
Five years before he had had some hand in the ruining of Wallace
Armstrong, then a high-spirited lad of one-and-twenty, and known to be
the favourite nephew of a wealthy Scotch banker. At that time Garth
was the secret proprietor of a gambling club, and it was to meet the
liabilities contracted there that young Armstrong forged his uncle's
name, and was subsequently banished from his native country and his
uncle's favour. The gambling club in question had been raided and
dispersed long ago; but Garth had evaded the law and taken up his
residence abroad. He was now really sorry to note the shabbiness and
recklessness of his former dupe, and was casting about in his mind as
to whether he could not assist him with possible profit to himself.

"Come up to my diggings!" he said, cheerily. "My little girl will cook
us a cutlet and mix a French salad as well as any waiter in Paris!"

"Your little girl? I didn't know you had any family!"

"Mrs. Garth died in England three years ago," returned the Captain.
"She was a very good woman, according to her lights; but--h'm--a little
narrow, you know! Country rector's sister, kept house for him in a
Sussex village, fell in love with a handsome blue-eyed young racing-man
she saw in church. I like church--it's an institution that ought to
be kept up. And eighteen years ago, Armstrong,--though I say it that
shouldn't--there wasn't a better-looking fellow at Goodwood than
Randolph Garth. I have always been weak--I own it--where a pretty woman
is concerned; and the late Mrs. Garth was certainly pretty, though
she was eight-and-twenty when I first met her, and had never had an
offer. That sly old brother of hers drove would-be suitors away--wanted
to keep her little pittance--just a beggarly life-interest in three
hundred a year in the family, d'ye see? But she fell in love, as pretty
women will, quarrelled with her family, ran away to London, and met
and married me by appointment in an old church in the City. As to the
little misunderstandings which followed, no doubt each of us was a
little to blame; but Mrs. Garth was a lady, and never made scenes. Our
methods of life didn't suit; so ten years ago we parted quite amicably,
and my wife settled down with our little girl Laline in a cottage in
the Lake district, where I visited them occasionally. Three years ago
Mrs. Garth died very suddenly, and her income died with her. So my
little girl had to come over and rough it in Boulogne with her father."

Such was the story of his marriage, detailed airily by Captain Garth--a
story true in the main, but with many touches omitted which would have
lent meaning and pathos to the whole. The story of a good and tender
woman's mistake, of her gradual disillusion and growing hopelessness,
and of the self-sacrifice by which, at last, she forfeited annually
one-third of her little income to her worthless husband, in order that
she might keep and educate her child far from the gambling, drinking,
and unscrupulous set to which the man she had once so loved belonged.

Possibly, had Wallace Armstrong paid much attention to Garth's story,
he might have read between the lines some of these truths; but he was
at present too much occupied with his own affairs to trouble himself
with the autobiography of a man whom he despised and mistrusted.

The Rue Planché, where Captain Garth's lodgings were situated, was a
mean street in the High Town, composed of tumble-down ill-built little
houses, painted in various tints of cream-and-mustard colour, one
storey high, and furnished with green shutters and little back gardens
liberally adorned with clothes to dry.

One worn step only divided No. 7, Rue Planché, from the street. The
front door was open as the two men approached, showing a very narrow,
brick-paved passage, and the linen-hung garden beyond, in which
_la mère_ Bénoîte, the Captain's landlady, was engaged in hanging
up clothes. The Captain's rooms comprised a little _salon_ on the
right, and a little _salle-à-manger_ on the left of the entrance,
and up-stairs two tiny bedrooms; but before now Mr. Garth had put up
a friend on the sofa of one of the ground-floor rooms, and he was
prepared to offer a similar privilege to the nephew of Alexander
Wallace.

The _salon_ was the Captain's special den. Although the window was
open, the scent of spirits and stale tobacco hung on the air, a few
sporting prints adorned the walls, and the Captain's desk was littered
by cuttings from sporting papers. A card-table stood in the middle of
the room, and an empty bottle of cognac, half a dozen glasses, and a
dirty well-thumbed pack of cards clearly showed the manner in which
the Captain had spent the preceding evening. Nothing in this room was
removed except by Garth's special permission; but when he caught sight
of the sardonic expression on his visitor's face, he shut the door
somewhat hastily, and inwardly regretted that he had not ordered the
place to be put straight before leaving home that morning.

"At your old tricks, I see," Armstrong observed, an unpleasant smile
curving his full lips under his heavy black moustache.

"Oh, just a game with the boys, to charm away homesickness in the
evenings. But I must introduce you to my little girl. Laline," he
cried, throwing open the door of the _salle-à-manger_, "I have brought
a visitor--Mr. Wallace Armstrong!"

Even Armstrong's clouded senses understood at once the contrast offered
by this apartment to the dirty and neglected-looking _salon_. Here the
green shutters were wide open, letting the sunlight flood the shining
deal flooring, stained and polished to resemble oak, and the cheap
suite of dining-room furniture, which had been beautified in the same
manner. An earthenware jug, filled with poppies, marguerites, and
cornflowers, stood on the mantelpiece, and a bowl of poppies on the
snowy well-darned cloth laid upon the table, which article of furniture
was pushed back to allow full space for the gambols of a girl, a cat,
and a kitten on the uncarpeted floor.

Laline's back was turned to the two men as they entered. She was
kneeling, holding a small black-and-white Persian kitten high above
her head, and the sunlight from the window seemed to concentrate and
shimmer in the loose masses of her abundant auburn hair, from which a
restraining black ribbon had slipped on to the floor. Her dress was a
long, loose blouse of dark-blue linen, yoked at the neck and wrists,
and falling straight to her ankles, and her slim feet, in blue cashmere
stockings, were innocent of shoes, Laline having kicked off her little
high-heeled slippers in school-girl fashion, the better to enjoy her
game of "romps."

Immediately in front of her sat the mother-cat, watching the struggles
of her squeaking kitten with attention, but with no apparent alarm. She
was a matron of ripe experience, and was well assured that her young
ones would come to no harm in the hands of Laline Garth. The girl was
laughing as the door opened, a happy laugh of childish gaiety, which
sounded wonderfully sweet to Wallace Armstrong's ears.

"Aren't you frightened, Nell? Aren't you afraid that I shall let your
silly scratching little ball of fluff fall and kill itself? Oh, you
unnatural mother!"

"Laline," said the Captain again, "here is a gentleman to see us."

She sprang to her feet and faced them, still holding the kitten--a
lovely over-grown child, to all appearance, a bright rose-flush
mantling in her sunburnt cheeks right up to the long, brown lashes
of her hazel eyes. A very, very pretty child, too tall for her short
skirts, too long in the arm for her short sleeves, from which her
slender brown wrists were thrust out too far. There existed no trace
of likeness between the girl and her father. From her mother Laline
inherited her slender limbs, her bright hair, broad brow, level
eyebrows, and a certain delicate grace which distinguished her even at
this half-formed period from other girls of her age. Only one detail
of her face suggested that she had experienced more of life's trials
than her years warranted--two little perpendicular lines between her
eyebrows became clearly marked as her father presented her to this
handsome, ill-dressed, unshaved young man, with the loose mouth, square
jaw, and singularly-attractive blue eyes.

"Won't you shake hands with me, Miss Laline?" Wallace asked, gently.
"Or am I too dirty?"

She held out her small brown hand in silence, looking straight up into
his face as she did so. And at the questioning gaze of her dreamy,
dark eyes Armstrong's eyes fell. It was absurd, of course, as he told
himself afterwards when he recalled this incident, and due to his
nerves being in a bad order, but it seemed as though this child's look
conveyed a reproach.

"I had no idea, Garth, that your little girl as you called her, would
be such a tall, well-grown young lady," he said, turning to Garth to
hide his sudden embarrassment. "She looks quite fourteen or fifteen."

"I am sixteen to-day," Laline said, in full, sweet tones.

Laline's voice was unlike any voice which Armstrong had ever heard,
with a sound in it which constitutes what the French call _une voix
voilée_, a low-pitched cooing inflection, peculiarly soothing to the
ear.

"Have you had any nice presents?" he asked, determining instantly to go
down to the town and buy the pretty child some sweets, until, with a
hot flush of vexation, he remembered his empty pockets.

"I haven't had any presents," the girl answered; and then, with a
little break in her voice, she added, "Papa had forgotten the date!"

"Not at all, my dear, not at all. The fact was I was on my way to
choose you some pretty trifle when I met our friend here. And, as soon
as you and the good Bénoîte have prepared us a little _déjeuner_, I
will go down to the town and get you some little souvenir. But now a
cutlet and a little salad will be acceptable; and here"--he fumbled in
his pockets and produced at length a coin--"take this, my child, to
Monsieur Desjardins, and bring a bottle of _vin ordinaire_. He'll let
you take it for cash, though we have a little account there."

Laline took a wide-brimmed Zulu straw hat from a nail, slung a basket
over her arm, and went pattering down the stone-paved street on the
little wooden-heeled shoes, into which she had thrust her feet when
disturbed at her play. Wallace Armstrong leaned his elbows on the
window-sill and stared after the slim figure in blue with hair that
shone gold in the bright sunlight.

"How in the world," he said to Garth, without looking round, "do you
come to have a daughter like that? And what are you about letting her
potter about dirty little wine-shops in Boulogne?"

"Monsieur Desjardins is our grocer--a most respectable person,"
returned Captain Garth, joining Armstrong at the window and lighting
a cigarette. "Every one knows that Laline and I belong to the upper
classes, although we're not very ready with our money just now."

"I'm sorry for the child," was his companion's only comment--"very
sorry!"




CHAPTER II.


Laline, for her part, had almost forgotten the time when she had first
flushed with indignation at the notion of running errands for her
father.

One gets used to a great many things in three years, and it was three
years since Laline, a forlorn little figure in deep mourning, had stood
on the deck of a Folkestone steamer on her way to her widowed father
and her motherless home. Of her father she knew very little indeed
at that time, not having seen him for two years. England had become
too hot to hold Mr. Garth about that period, and he had taken up his
residence permanently in Boulogne; but for many years before he had
been practically a stranger in that tiny household in Westmoreland.
The late Mrs. Garth had been a gentle, dreamy-eyed lady, of refined
but narrow mind, fond of poetry, fancywork, church-decoration, and
district-visiting, easily shocked, and thoroughly orthodox in her views
on all subjects. Her great aim with regard to her daughter, whom she
loved devotedly, was to make of her a refined gentlewoman, and to guard
her from all knowledge of, and contact with, the wickedness of the
great world outside the hills of Westmoreland.

From this life of watchfulness, this sheltered, peaceful existence
under the shadow of the little grey church in the valley, Laline was
unexpectedly torn and transferred to an atmosphere of debt, neglect,
and shiftlessness, the life of a ruined gamester, exiled from his
native country, and earning by his wits a precarious subsistence in a
back street of Boulogne.

Before her tears for her mother's loss were dry, Laline had begun to
realise that Captain Garth fully intended that she should, in some
measure, make up to him for the hundred a year which he had lost by his
wife's death. He was kind to her in his manner, but he never for one
moment understood her. When he tried to speak to her of her mother,
she received his remarks in silence, watching him with great eyes
full of wondering pain. His talk jarred on the girl, and it seemed a
desecration to hear him discuss his dead wife in his favourite terms.

"A good woman, a very good woman, according to her lights! We didn't
quite hit it off together; but I am not blaming her. And no doubt she
has done her best with you; no doubt---- Why, my dear, what are you
crying for?"

"I would so much rather that you did not talk to me about mother," the
girl had said; and Captain Garth had respected her wish without in the
least understanding it.

Then began a twofold existence for the dreamy, imaginative child.
An indoor life of poverty and hard work--cooking, washing, tidying,
dusting, and mending, under the superintendence of Bénoîte, until
Laline could replace Aurélie the _bonne_ and spare her father the
latter's keep and wages, and an outdoor life of long rambles, sometimes
by herself and sometimes in charge of the little Bertins' next door,
up to the _vallée_ or down to the sands and along the shore to the
neighbouring seaside villages, with her friend the sea lapping the
sands at her feet.

Day-dreams for ever filled her mind, sharing it with recollections
of her happy childhood among the hills. Her soft, near-sighted eyes
could never with bare vision perceive the coast of England; but the
eldest Bertin boy possessed a telescope, by the aid of which she could
distinguish with a bounding heart the white cliffs of her native land.
All that she knew of joy and peace, of tender love and gentle sympathy,
of refinement and of culture, came from her English experiences; her
present life, half drudgery, half solitary wandering, was lonely and
hard by comparison. In England she had been the one thought of her
mother's mind, the vicar's favourite pupil, the village pet, "little
Miss Garth," daughter of a lady known and honoured by all. Here, in the
Rue Planché, she was "_la p'tite Gart_," who ran errands, begged for
credit from tradespeople, and looked after the _ménage_ with deaf and
irascible old Bénoîte.

Of her beauty Laline was unconscious; a few artists had sketched her
from memory, and she had seen the sketches, and wondered whether
her hair really looked like that in the sunshine. But she had read
_Ivanhoe_ and other novels by Walter Scott, and her ideal of loveliness
was the black-haired type with sloping shoulders, alabaster brow, eyes
black as night, and the smallest possible mouth.

French romances, except some especially goody-goody stories avowedly
intended for the very young, were altogether unknown to her. Captain
Garth respected the child-like innocence of his daughter's mind and
locked up his amusing paper-covered novels. Of her father's sporting
and card-playing associates Laline knew but little. Captain Garth
received visitors in his den, which the girl never entered unless her
father was the sole occupant of the room. He would have wished to pose
before her as a high-minded, hardworking, and honourable gentleman,
driven from his country and his equals by the envious spite of a cabal
and the undeserved blows of "outrageous fortune;" but when he vapoured
to his little girl concerning his high principles and unrecognised
genius, Laline said never a word, and contented herself with scanning
him with soft eyes which saw outer things but dimly, but which seemed
to have the gift at times of divining the hidden spirit beyond.

Walking down the rough stone-paved street on this particular midsummer
day, Laline's thoughts busied themselves with the figure of Wallace
Armstrong the tallest, handsomest Englishman to whom she had ever yet
spoken. No self-consciousness touched her mind; she knew quite well
that both Mr. Armstrong and her father regarded her as a child, and
she had not the slightest wish to develop into a "young lady," fenced
in with conventional proprieties. Captain Garth so seldom introduced
any of his associates to her that that fact alone was sufficient to
attract her notice; and then this powerfully-built young man with the
black brows, drooping black moustache, brilliant eyes, and saturnine
expression at once interested the girl from his resemblance to her
ideal of the Templar in _Ivanhoe_.

Mr. Wallace Armstrong could not be very good, she decided. Her
knowledge of evil was limited, but she opined that he played cards,
and put money on horses and swore when they lost, and that he drank
cognac, and perhaps did not pay his bills. His voice had sounded gentle
enough in speaking to her, but rough and scornful when he addressed
her father. Just so must Brian de Bois-Guilbert's voice have rung out,
harsh and imperious, when he rated Rebecca's father. And yet Laline
began to wonder at the fair Jewess's invincible dislike against the
Templar. Meantime her little high-heeled feet had taken her to Monsieur
Desjardins's, and the old man behind the counter, grumbling, took the
money she proffered, and bade her remind her father that his little
account had long been unsettled.

"_La p'tite Gart_ is growing too tall for her short skirts," his wife
remarked, as Laline left the shop. "She becomes _une très-jolie fille_,
and will soon be wanting a nice little _beau_."

"Bah! It is a child!" responded her husband. "In England they do
not think of love and marriage until they are old maids of five- or
six-and-twenty. Mam'selle Laline has a good ten years yet."

_Déjeuner_ at Rue Planché was a success that day. Laline cooked to
perfection, and waited at table deftly. At the latter arrangement
Wallace Armstrong demurred. He disliked to see so pretty a girl
made into a household drudge; but Laline explained that Bénoîte's
snuff-taking proclivities rendered her an undesirable waitress. She did
not add that the household resources were at so low an ebb that cutlets
at luncheon were a luxury she could not permit herself; she contented
herself with assuring Mr. Armstrong that she had already partaken of
luncheon, dignifying by that name a plate of thin vegetable soup and a
piece of stale bread in the kitchen.

Eating made Wallace more hopeful. After all, as Captain Garth reminded
him, he was six-and-twenty, and nephew to one of the richest men in
London. No man was worthy the name, so the elder declared, who had not
"sown his wild oats;" and the prodigal son, or prodigal nephew, as the
case might be, was always the favourite in the end. Card-playing was
not an exciting pastime between two men, neither of whom possessed
any money or any immediate certainty of procuring any; but habit made
them gamble away the sunny hours of a midsummer afternoon until five
o'clock, when Armstrong suggested that they should stroll down to the
hotel where he had been staying since his arrival in Boulogne three
days before, and ascertain whether by chance there was any answer to
his appeal to his uncle.

With characteristic improvidence, Wallace Armstrong had put up at an
hotel which, although not specially dear as summer seaside prices go,
was most certainly far beyond his means. Since his arrival at this
establishment, which was under French management and faced the Museum
in the Grand Rue, the big shabby young Englishman had consumed hardly
any food, but a large amount of drinks, and the _patron_ within the
office in the hall eyed him askance as he approached and inquired for
letters.

"_Mais, oui, Monsieur; il y a bien une lettre._"

Wallace seized it, and the blood rushed to his face. The address was in
his uncle's handwriting, and the letter was registered!

"Come outside," he said, after he had signed the receipt, thrusting his
hand within Garth's arm. "I don't want these prying foreigners to get
wind of my affairs."

Standing under an awning in front of a shop, Wallace tore open his
uncle's letter, and Garth, watching him furtively under his white
eyebrows, noted the swift changes of expression which passed over his
face. First astonishment, then amusement, and finally a baffled and
angered look characterised his features as he thrust the letter into
the hands of his companion.

"Read it," he said, "and see if your infernal cunning can get me out of
the scrape! It beats me!"

Alexander Wallace's handwriting was small and cramped, but perfectly
legible. His letter was written from his London office, and ran as
follows,--

  "DEAR NEPHEW,--If it be true that a pious and virtuous lady has been
  so misguided as to link her fate with such an idle and dissipated
  ne'er-do-weel as I fear you have become, your wife has my heartiest
  sympathy. But I have a belief which is almost unlimited in the
  capability of a good woman for reforming a man, however deeply
  he be sunk in depravity, and I intend, for your wife's sake, to
  give you yet another chance. To this end I send you ten pounds to
  relieve your present necessities; and within a week, if your wife
  is strong enough to travel, I will forward the money wherewith you
  may at once make your way to my house in London. But understand--my
  future dealings with you will depend upon your absolute truthfulness
  and candour in the matter. If I find that Mrs. Wallace Armstrong
  is indeed what you describe--a gentle, high-minded, romantic, and
  unworldly young lady, your equal in birth, of truly Christian
  training, devoted to you, and believing in your higher capabilities,
  I will take both her and you into my house, which sadly needs the
  sweetening presence of a daughter for my old age. More than that;
  upon your arrival with your wife at my office--armed, of course, with
  all necessary credentials, such as your marriage-certificate and such
  papers as shall show your wife's position and home-training before
  you married her--I will provide you with immediate employment, and
  I will settle upon your wife, whose name, by-the-way, you do not
  mention, the sum of three hundred pounds a year, to be paid quarterly
  for her sole use and benefit, and to be increased in a given time
  to five hundred if I deem it expedient. On receipt of this letter
  and enclosure I must ask you to pay at once all that you owe at the
  hotel, to provide your wife with food and necessaries, and to send
  on to me full receipts for all amounts you may disburse from the
  enclosed ten pounds. Will you also tell me at what date I may expect
  you and your wife, and you shall receive by return the necessary
  sum for your fares and other expenses incidental on your journey.
  Remember, I had not meant, nor had I wished, to see your face again;
  but, if a good woman has been brought to believe in you, and to link
  her fate with yours, I will try to forget your past conduct, and will
  give you yet one more chance of attaining that position which, but
  for your follies and vices, should be yours already.

 "Your uncle,
 "Alexander Wallace."

Captain Garth read the letter twice through. Then he returned it to its
owner and began pulling reflectively at his white moustache.

"My boy," he observed, "it is a poser--certainly a poser! But the
chance is not one to let slip. Three hundred a year going begging for
want of a wife. We must have a _petit verre_ together at the nearest
_café_ out of this sunshine and think it over. Three hundred a year!"

Oddly enough, as he reflected, it was the exact amount of the late Mrs.
Garth's life-interest, which had passed away on her death to her own
family. A third of that had been his; and although two pounds a week
was an absurd trifle for a gentleman of his taste and social position,
yet, with only himself to keep, it had often sufficed in bad times to
keep the wolf from the door. And times grew worse instead of better,
and the three hundred would probably soon be increased to five--more
than that, if once Wallace Armstrong was restored to his uncle's
favour, the lion's share of old Wallace's wealth might well be his some
day, since, of the banker's two nephews, he had undoubtedly at that
time been the best-loved. Such a chance must by no means be allowed to
slip from this young man's grasp.

It must not be supposed that Captain Garth's solicitude on Armstrong's
behalf was wholly unselfish. At fifty-six Captain Garth was almost
incapable of formulating any plan into which self-interest entered
not, and he clearly wanted, in his own parlance, to "make a good thing
out of" Wallace Armstrong. He set then to work drawing up a mental
inventory of the potential brides with any one of whom, at the shortest
possible notice, he might unite his young friend in matrimony.

"There is only one thing to be done, of course," he said, sipping the
cognac Armstrong had ordered on the strength of his uncle's remittance,
and jotting down names in pencil on his cuff under the awning of the
_café_--"there is only one thing to be done. You must get married."

Wallace stared at him, and then laughed contemptuously.

"If that's all you've got to suggest," he observed, "I can dispense
with your advice!"

"Now, my boy, be reasonable! With a wife you can get your fare to
England at once advanced, return to the bosom of your family with
everything forgotten and forgiven, enjoy the fatted calf, obtain in
all probability a position in your uncle's bank, live in his house
rent-free, pocket a tidy little income, and eventually succeed to the
bulk of your uncle's property. Without a wife--well, I don't want to be
too personal, but you know best the details of your present financial
position."

"You talk as if getting married were as easy as putting on one's coat!"
Armstrong broke out impatiently. "I've had a rough time of it lately,
but, thank Heaven, I've never been dragged down by a nagging, whining
woman. I've never yet met the woman who was worth spending half an
hour's thought upon--an extravagant, capricious, vain, mercenary,
hypocritical crew----"

"Perhaps your experiences have been unfortunate?" suggested Garth,
soothingly. "There are plenty of nice girls about, plenty, if one knows
where to find them."

"Nice girls," sneered Armstrong, "who would be ready at a moment's
notice to marry a penniless scamp with scarcely a rag to his back who
hasn't even the decency to pretend to be in love with them!"

"Nice girls," Garth repeated, imperturbably, "who are not very happy
at home, and who would be glad enough to make a good wife to a fine
handsome young fellow, nephew to old Alexander Wallace, who would
provide them with a comfortable home and a liberal allowance of
pocket-money."

"You mean that I can buy a wife with all the domestic virtues for this
promised three hundred a year?" Armstrong inquired, harshly.

"Well, yes--that's one way of putting it, if you like!" returned Garth,
his patience beginning to give way. "Great Scot, man! You can't expect
to have sentiment thrown in, too, in matters of this kind! What do most
girls marry for? Why, a comfortable home, of course. And when they
marry for anything else, such as a fine figure or a twinkling eye or a
handsome pair of moustaches, what is the result? When the tax-collector
and the butcher's and baker's bills come in at the door, love flies out
at the window. It's all a matter of money and expediency. They manage
these things much better here in France."

"You forget," said Wallace, "that, when I wrote to my uncle a week ago,
I described myself as already married. Even if this paragon of a bride
can be discovered, there would be, I suppose, some necessary delay
before the ceremony could be performed----"

"About three weeks."

"Just so. And my wily old uncle has requested me to bring my
certificate with me."

"That might be arranged. A little mistake as to the date, and the
necessary delay before your wife is strong enough to travel--remember,
you said she was starving, and a girl doesn't get over that in a day."

"And, after all this, where is the girl?"

The Captain recommenced pulling his white moustache and glanced at the
initials scrawled in pencil on his cuff.

"I have a friend in the town," he began again, after a few seconds'
reflection. "Talented man--Oxford man--but down on his luck. His
daughters are good-looking girls and very much admired. The younger
one is really handsome, a big blonde, very fine girl indeed--Nanny
Westbrook. I could take you round this evening and introduce you."

"How old is she?"

"Oh, ha--one can never tell a woman's age! Not more than thirty, and
looks much less. A very good amateur actress, and could do all the
parson's-orphan-daughter-business thoroughly well. A really jolly girl,
full of fun, with no nonsense about her. The best waltzer in the town,
too. Last carnival ball here she went as a Pierrette, and I assure you
she was the belle of the room. Didn't look more than eighteen, on my
honour."

"None of your carnival-ball hacks for me!" said Armstrong, in a tone of
disgust. "I know the type, and I hate it! If I've got to put up with a
wife at all, I'll have one who'll stay at home and behave decently and
give me no trouble. I don't think they grow them among your Boulogne
acquaintances."

Two Frenchmen, who were sipping coffee and absinthe at an adjoining
table, broke at this moment into lively expressions of admiration at
sight of a young girl coming up from the quay.

"Look well, Jules! Is she not ravishing, the little English girl?
She is English assuredly; no French girl so pretty as that would be
promenading about all alone. It is not often that the English have
such pretty feet. But, _sapristi_, what a dress! It is rather like a
blue-bag than a gown! These English girls have no coquetry!"

The object of their remarks was none other than Laline Garth, fresh
from a long swim out to sea, her loose auburn hair drying on her
shoulders in the sun, the low, level rays of which shone in her soft,
dark eyes and lit up the bright tints of her cheeks and lips. Hers was
the _beauté du diable_ which nothing can spoil--not even shapeless
gowns, ill-fitting silk-gloves, and a Zulu hat which cost fifty
centimes--the sparkling evanescent loveliness of a child merging into a
maiden.

Wallace Armstrong turned in his seat at the Frenchman's words and
looked fixedly under his level, black brows at Laline as she climbed
the hill with swift, springing steps.

"Garth," he said, suddenly, "I've made up my mind to take your advice.
And I'll marry your daughter Laline."




CHAPTER III.


Captain Garth's second _petit verre_ of cognac almost dropped from
his fingers on its way to his lips in his astonishment at his young
friend's proposition.

"Laline," he repeated, blankly--"you marry Laline? Why, man, she's a
child--a baby!"

"She is sixteen," Armstrong repeated, coolly, "and she'd look older if
you dressed her properly. French girls of all classes marry at sixteen."

"So do English-factory-hands!" Garth broke in, bluntly. "But the
daughters of English gentlemen haven't left the schoolroom at that age."

"Your daughter has. What are you making of her? A household
drudge--nothing more or less! It's no good coming any of the parental
love-business with me, Garth. I've got to marry apparently, and my wife
must be a pretty, young English girl of blameless reputation, connected
with the clergy, and all that sort of thing. Well, from what you tell
me of your little girl, her mother brought her up in a way that would
be quite after my old psalm-singing uncle's heart. I don't pretend to
be in love with her; but I've never seen a prettier or sweeter face
than hers; and, even if she can't be a wife or a companion to me at
first, we shall no doubt grow as fond of each other in due time as most
married people. She has just the face and voice to get round Uncle
Alec. I'm hanged if I can understand how she comes to be your daughter?
She's not in the least like you, or, you may take my word for it, I
shouldn't want to marry her! Of course I don't expect you to agree to
anything that isn't to your own advantage. Your daughter can't be worse
off than she is here; and I'm ready to offer you compensation for the
loss of her services. Once she's married me, she's got to be an orphan,
and you've got to be a dead clergyman; but, as you'll be paid something
for keeping quiet, that won't matter."

Captain Garth glanced at his proposed son-in-law under his white
eyebrows, and his expression was by no means friendly. A lifetime of
snubs and shifts had not succeeded in destroying the man's conceit
and self-importance, and only the thought of old Alexander Wallace's
millions checked his desire to resent Mr. Armstrong's studied insolence
of tone and words. Even now he would at once have rejected the young
man's proposal from sheer personal dislike but for the fact that
the little household in Rue Planché was financially in a very bad
way indeed, and that the precarious living which the self-styled
captain earned as bookmaker, gambler, speculator in antiques and
curios, cicerone, and money-lender, had of late brought in less and
less grist to the mill. Yet somewhere in Randolph Garth's tortuous
mind there lurked an appreciation for what is good and pure, and he
heartily wished that some other man's daughter and not his own could be
sacrificed to Wallace Armstrong.

For it would be a sacrifice. Garth knew it, with his experience of the
seamy side of life and the worst qualities of his fellow-men. He could
read it in the fierceness and sullenness of Armstrong's expression, in
the puffiness of the skin under his eyes and their bloodshot whites, in
the shakiness of the strong brown hand which raised the glass to his
lips, and in the lips themselves, over-full and sensual in outline,
perpetually curving in an ugly sneer.

As if to emphasise the contrast between her and the man who had asked
her hand in marriage, Laline herself stopped on the opposite side
of the street and began talking and laughing with a group of French
children, comprising the little Bertins and others of her neighbours.
The little white-headed, brown-faced, toddling things pulled at her
hands; evidently they all wished her to go down again to the sands
with them, and she was as plainly pleading her household duties as her
excuse.

"_Voyons donc_, Laline! _Viens avec nous!_"

Laline laughed and shook her head. Her small, regular teeth shone white
as a child's between her parted red lips. The two Frenchmen beneath the
_café_ awning sat up, twirled their moustaches, and wasted many an ogle
over the road, tributes to her beauty which Laline was too shortsighted
to see, and which, if she had seen them, would have filled her with
wonder.

The sight of his daughter seemed to trouble Garth's conscience. It was
almost as though he heard the voice of her dead mother in his ear,
begging him to remember his trust and to guard Laline against such men
as the one who sat by his side.

"It is nonsense," he muttered, suddenly, "to talk of marrying a child
like that! It is not as if she were even precocious--she has scarcely
left off playing with her dolls. In a year or two's time it will be
quite early enough for her to think of sweethearts. Besides, she
wouldn't dream of leaving me and her home for a stranger; and the days
of a stern parent coercing his child into a hated marriage are over, if
they ever existed."

"Will you let me try and persuade her?" suggested Armstrong. "You don't
see the best side of me; but then I have an old grudge against you. And
I can be very nice when I choose."

Before Garth could answer, Armstrong had risen and crossed the sunny
street to where the girl stood talking to the laughing children. His
long shadow fell across Laline's face as she stooped to kiss the
youngest Bertin, and a sudden silence came upon the erstwhile animated
group.

"I wanted to know, Miss Garth," Wallace began, in a tone of genial
kindness, "whether you and your young friends would like some sweets
and pastry, because I am going to buy some myself at a certain
fascinating shop at the corner of the Rue de la Paix, and, as I am
certain to make myself ill if I go in all by myself, I propose that you
should all come with me and protect me."

The children's shyness vanished at such a proposition; and very soon
Captain Garth, from his seat before the _café_, saw a little procession
pass down towards the quay; in front, two little Bertin boys and
Maggie Royston, aged eleven, from No. 15, Rue Planché, and, a little
way behind them, Laline, leading two smaller Bertins by the hand,
while a younger Royston trotted contentedly by the side of the big
shabbily-dressed young man with the blue eyes and the black moustache,
and grasped his fingers confidingly.

After all, the Captain told himself, there must be a lot of good in
a man so fond of children as Armstrong appeared to be. He was still
little more than a boy, and would probably settle down now that he was
given another chance, and become quite a respectable member of society.
Reformed rakes proverbially make the best husbands; and it was not so
easy nowadays to marry a girl without a penny to her name that she
could afford to be over-particular as to the character of her suitors.
Besides, what was there against Armstrong? A little over-partiality
for cards, for drink, and for fast society, a little mistake as to a
certain signature on a certain cheque; mere trifles these, such as
could easily be lived down and forgotten by any man with a decent
balance at his banker's. Laline would be kindly treated--Alexander
Wallace would see to that. The old gentleman was clearly longing
to fold a daughter to his heart; and, once Laline was installed in
his house, there was little doubt but that she would soon become
indispensable to his happiness.

"She's a good girl, an excellent little girl," the Captain said to
himself; "and, 'pon my soul, I think it's the best thing I can do for
her! She seems quite to take to the fellow. He's a gentleman, and may
some day be worth his twenty-five thousand a year. She's getting too
tall and too pretty for those childish pinafore frocks, and I can't
afford to dress her well. I wonder how much he means to offer me?
He's deucedly hard and sharp for a young man; but, if I let him marry
Laline, he couldn't surely think of putting me off with less than
three pounds a week, to be raised to two hundred a year later on. I
must have it all down in black and white, though, for it's my belief
he's a slippery customer. Curse his impudent airs!"

From which soliloquy it may be gathered that Captain Garth was
gradually reconciling himself to the prospect of parting from his only
child.

He did not attempt to join his daughter and her companions. If
Armstrong really could contrive to impress Laline favourably, he should
have a fair field and no favour; and, with this idea in his mind, the
Captain presently betook himself to his favourite billiard-table in
the town, where he talked largely to his customary acquaintances of
his young friend Wallace Armstrong, godson and favourite nephew of old
Alexander Wallace the banker, and certain heir to his vast fortune;
and, on the strength of Armstrong's future wealth, he succeeded in
borrowing five francs from one of the _habitués_ of the table.

At a quarter to seven it occurred to him that Wallace Armstrong must
stand him a dinner out of his uncle's cheque; so, putting down his
billiard-cue, he thrust his fingers jauntily through his white curls
before a looking-glass, set his hat a little on one side, and sallied
forth on his young friend's track. He judged that Laline and the
children had probably gone home, and was therefore greatly surprised
at hearing his own name cried from a _fiacre_ which was being driven
through the principal street of the town with the rapid and zigzag
course of the Gallic cabman. Within were seated Wallace Armstrong and
Laline in the places of honour, and on Wallace's knee was placed the
youngest Mademoiselle Bertin, hugging a new doll and eating sweets from
a paper bag. Three more children with their backs to the horses, and
the eldest Bertin boy on the box, all looked equally hot, tired, and
happy, and laden with sweets and toys, while Laline's eyes shone like
stars in her excitement and delight.

The toys and sweets had not cost very much, and even the enchanting
drive was not an unreasonably-priced item. But this good fairy of a
Mr. Armstrong had confided to Laline that he owed her father a great
deal of money, and had been by him authorised to spend a part of it
upon her. As a result, she was wearing her first beautiful shop-made
hat of black open-work straw and black lace, with a wreath of small,
pink rosebuds outlining her fresh, young face, and other rosebuds
decorating the crown. Fifteen francs had been the price of this triumph
of millinery; and in all her life afterwards Laline never again derived
from any clothes the absolute joy the wearing of this first smart hat
afforded her.

Sweets and cakes, too, she loved, as do all girls of sixteen; and,
most of all, she enjoyed having her small friends about her to
participate in these unexpected favours of fortune. Her frank gratitude
made Wallace wince more than once; and, when she thanked him for his
goodness, he interrupted her almost roughly.

"Don't, Miss Garth, please! I am not good, and I don't like it!"

At his tone a startled look came into her eyes, and, seeing it, he bent
towards her, speaking very gently.

"The fact is, I am very fond of children--small ones like these, and
grown-up ones like you."

"Oh, but you wouldn't call me grown up, even in this hat, would you?"
she asked, with a happy little laugh. "I think I'm a tiresome sort of
age--neither the one thing nor the other."

"And which would you rather be?"

"A child, if I could be a child as I used to be. I was so happy! But
that seems a long time ago. I shouldn't like to be a child again as
things are now!"

He noted the sadness of her tone, and instantly divined that she was
thinking with regret of the old days when her mother was still alive.
But he was too tactful to try to seek her confidence as yet.

"I suppose you don't often have treats, since such simple things please
you?" he presently suggested.

"Oh, never!" she answered, promptly. "You see papa has to work very
hard, and cannot afford it. But this has been a most beautiful
birthday; and, thanks to you, Mr. Armstrong, I feel a regular
Cinderella, and you are the good fairy."

"I would rather be the prince."

"Would you?"

"Yes. You see he married Cinderella."

His tone was so entirely playful that Laline attached no importance
to his words, though she remembered them long afterwards. Her freedom
from self-consciousness interested and pleased him. He began to feel
regretful that he could not wait until this sweet, childish frankness
developed into a maturer charm. This was a school-girl to pet and
caress, not a woman to love as a wife. But, half-fledged bird as
she was, she was yet the prettiest thing he had ever seen; and to
Armstrong, who had no domestic tastes, the idea of an unworldly,
unsuspicious little creature, who would obey implicitly, exact nothing
in return, and contentedly spend her time alone with her needlework by
her own fireside, was more agreeable than the prospect of the love and
companionship of the wisest and the most helpful and devoted wife ever
sent by Heaven to bless a lonely man's career.




CHAPTER IV.


That was a gala day in Laline's life, a day towards which, in after
years, she often looked back with a swift pain at her heart.

How kind they had all seemed! Wallace Armstrong was gentleness itself,
and there was in his manner towards her a blending of protecting care
with playful admiration peculiarly flattering to a girl in her early
teens. Her father, too, was unusually indulgent; and, when he got into
the _fiacre_ at Wallace's invitation, and drove back with them to
the High Town and the Rue Planché, it was quite a triumphal journey,
and the arrival at number seven created considerable sensation. Even
Bénoîte was almost civil. Decidedly, she told herself, _Monsieur le
Capitaine_ had got hold of a rich and foolish young man, to whom gold
was as dross--a _riche Anglais eccentrique_, who might very possibly
be coaxed into paying the arrears of monsieur's rent. So that Bénoîte,
like every one else, saw everything _couleur de rose_ that evening. And
when Laline at last went to bed, after a dinner--a real substantial
dinner, with good red wine--her first dinner at a restaurant--and in
her new hat, too, with her father and his friend--she laid her head
upon her pillow, convinced of her mistake in supposing that Wallace
Armstrong was a Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a morose and evil-minded
Templar, when in reality he was a Prince Charming!

And, while Laline slept peacefully above, dreaming of triumphal drives,
of marvellous new hats, and unlimited bonbons and toys for her friends
the children, Mr. Wallace Armstrong and her father, in the shabby
smoke-laden _salon_ below, concocted between them the following letter
for the delectation of Mr. Alexander Wallace in London,--

  "My Dear Uncle Alec,--I can't tell you how grateful I felt at
  receiving your letter and enclosure. Things were at a pretty bad
  pass for me and my poor Laline when your unexpected help arrived.
  I say unexpected, because I know quite well I didn't deserve it;
  but you have given me another chance, and I mean to profit by it.
  Unfortunately, I fear that it will be quite a fortnight before my
  wife is fit to travel. You see, owing to my ill-luck, she has had
  a rough time of it lately, and she is young--very little more than
  a child, in fact--and un-used to privations. Happily the doctor,
  whom I at once fetched in on receiving your kindly help, declares
  her constitution to be so good that with rest and nourishing food
  she will be herself again in a very short time. But he strongly
  recommends me to defer our journey for a fortnight or ten days, at
  the least. My wife's maiden name was Laline Garth; her mother was a
  country rector's daughter, and she has been most carefully trained
  in all womanly virtues, besides being an excellent little cook and
  housekeeper. She is wonderfully pretty, although very thin, poor
  child! She is not yet eighteen, and knows next to nothing of the
  world. In short, she is much, very much too good for me! I am not
  sending you the receipts you ask for, as at every moment I find some
  new thing we are in need of. Poor Laline and I haven't even decent
  clothing yet. You may well say that under the circumstances it was
  madness to marry. I admit that perhaps it was; but such madness might
  well be inspired by such a girl as Laline. However, you must see her
  yourself and judge whether I have over-praised her, and whether among
  my many faults there may not be counted unto me the saving virtue of
  knowing and loving a good women when I see one.

 "Always your affectionate nephew,

 "Wallace Armstrong."

"The difficulty now is," observed Wallace, as he fastened the letter
and addressed the envelope, after studying the contents with his mentor
and friend, "to coach Miss Laline up in her part of the business. She
seems somehow or other to possess a good deal of the awkward George
Washington faculty. It will be a delicate matter to make her understand
that you were an estimable clergyman, and that you are slumbering
peaceful within the tomb."

"The best plan," advised the Captain, thoughtfully sipping at his
cognac, "is to warn her that your uncle disapproves of all men
connected with the turf, and to beg her to think of me as dead. Of
course it is not a particularly pleasant experience for an affectionate
father----"

"You are going to be paid for it!" Wallace interrupted, with his usual
brutal directness. "It is not as though you were being asked to do
anything for nothing!"

"And, by-the-bye, the sum was never fixed," said Garth, resting his
elbows on the table and scanning his prospective son-in-law sharply. "I
must have all that clearly settled before I make that call with you on
the Consul to-morrow morning."

And here a difference of opinion was made manifest which seemed to
threaten a serious breach between the worthy pair. Wallace Armstrong
was inclined to dismiss his future father-in-law's pretensions with
the offer of a pound a week for life, or so long as he should retain
his uncle's favour. But Laline's father had prepared a fixed scale
of charges, from which nothing would induce him to depart. He was
making a great sacrifice, he declared; he was relinquishing the love,
companionship, and services of his only living relative, the pride of
his heart, the legacy of his lost wife, and, out of sheer kindness
and compassion for an old friend in difficulties, he was giving her
in marriage to a man who he greatly feared would never make her truly
happy.

"And if you should grow tired of her or become unkind to her, where
would the poor child fly but to me, her old father, whom she has been
forced to consider dead, but who, in his old age, must at least be
sufficiently well off to provide her with a home when all else fails
her!"

Tears stood in Captain Garth's eyes at his own eloquence, to which the
younger man listened quite unmoved.

Two pounds a week, to be paid quarterly from the date of the marriage,
three pounds a week when the income allowed by Alexander Wallace should
be raised to five hundred a year; and in the event of the banker dying
and leaving a will favourable to Armstrong, an income for Garth of two
hundred and fifty a year for the remainder of his life.

Until fully three o'clock the two men sat smoking and drinking cognac,
while they quarrelled and haggled and finally out cards over the
settlement of the elder man's allowance in the event of his giving his
daughter in marriage to the ex-forger and family scapegrace before him.
Not until the early sunrise forced its rays through the green shutters
did they part, Randolph Garth having won all he demanded, and retiring
to bed in high good humour; while Wallace, disdainfully refusing the
offer of a "shake-up" in the _salle-à-manger_, took his way down to the
town and his hotel, cursing his future father-in-law for a swindling
old reprobate, and his uncle for a narrow-minded old skinflint and
imbecile.

The bargain was effected, a bargain which was to transfer the charge
of a girl--young, beautiful, innocent, and friendless--from an old
scamp to a young one. Garth and Armstrong had arranged their visit to
the English Consul after they had renovated their toilets with the
remainder of Alexander Wallace's gift; and at the Consul's office due
notice was given of the marriage between Laline Garth, aged seventeen,
daughter of Randolph Garth, an English subject residing in Boulogne,
and Wallace Armstrong, aged twenty-six, of no occupation, whose present
address was the Hôtel Mendon, Boulogne.

The one part of the affair which both men appeared to shirk was
breaking to Laline the news that she was to be married in three
weeks' time. Captain Garth in some measure paved the way for the
announcement by taking her into his confidence concerning his state
of hopeless insolvency, a thing he had never before done. Laline sat
on the window-sill opposite to him in the little _salle-à-manger_,
listening very quietly to the tale of his embarrassments, her soft dark
eyes fixed intently on his face. She knew quite well, to her bitter
mortification, the ever-increasing amounts they owed to Bénoîte and
to the tradespeople, whose patience was in several cases altogether
exhausted. She herself ate little but bread and butter, and drank
nothing but water; but her father was extremely fond of the pleasures
of the table, and invariably spent his last franc on wine or tempting
_charcuterie_ for his own delectation.

At the end of his recital of his debts and difficulties, which were
real enough, Laline looked up suddenly.

"Papa," she said, "I have an idea. It's not the first time it has come
into my mind, but I didn't like to speak of it to you before! Why
shouldn't I go out and earn some money as a nursery governess? I speak
French as well as English, and I'm very fond of children. Then the
money I earned would help to pay the bills."

"My dear child," her father began, rather nonplussed by her offer and
by the earnestness of her tone, which taught him that this plan had
become fixed in her mind, "do you look like a nursery governess? No one
would engage you!"

"But Mr. Armstrong took me to Madame Caillard's shop yesterday and
made me order a gray cashmere dress and be measured for it--a proper
grown-up dress, touching the ground all around; he said he owed
you money, and you had told him to buy me what I liked. You can't
think how grown-up I shall look in it. And he told me to look in the
hair-dresser's shops and notice how hair was dressed now, because I am
growing too tall to wear my hair tied back with a ribbon. And I thought
all the time of this nursery-governess idea, and was delighted, for I
am longing to pay off the bills!"

"My dear little girl," put in her father, who had been listening
with ill-concealed impatience, "if you had the least idea of a
nursery-governess's duties and salary, you wouldn't entertain such
a project for a moment. Nursery governesses are treated much worse
than nursemaids, are worked about thirteen hours a day, and paid
from fifteen to twenty pounds a year. You, at your age, and without
experience, could not hope to receive more than about twelve or
fourteen pounds a year to start with, and you would be simply a
nurse-girl, a servant, to take your orders from some vulgar and
domineering nurse. Even if by a miracle you received the highest
possible salary for such a situation, of what use would twenty pounds
a year be to me? Five hundred francs, out of which your washing and
clothes must come--and we owe about eight thousand francs, at least.
No, no, my dear, it's not to be thought of! They must come and carry
off our poor little sticks, I suppose, as they have done before; and,
if the very worst comes, they can put me in prison."

This conversation impressed and pained Laline deeply. She was greatly
disappointed at the manner in which her father disparaged the possible
help she was capable of affording him, and fell to wondering if there
was no other way out of their difficulties. Down to the pier she
wandered, late on a hot afternoon, to think over the subject that was
troubling her. In appearance she was a little more sedate than she had
been on her first introduction to Wallace Armstrong twelve days before.
Her abundant hair was looped up, and her pink cotton frock, fashioned
by her own hands, made some attempt to follow the lines of her slim
figure. Wallace Armstrong had bought her a pair of long Suède gloves,
of which she was extremely proud; so that, with these additions to her
toilet, and her new black-lace hat with the rosebuds, she looked a very
different being to "_la p'tite Gart_," with the flying hair and blue
cotton blouse of a few days ago.

It was of Wallace the girl was thinking as she sat at the end of the
pier, looking down into the shining green water. He seemed so rich
and so kind; would he not help her father out of his difficulties,
especially as he owed him money, on his own confession? She grew
suddenly hot and unhappy when she thought of the many francs she had
allowed Mr. Armstrong to waste over sweets and trifles to herself,
while all the time there was such desperate need of money at home. Was
it possible that her father was too proud to ask for help from his
friend? But no; she at once dismissed that idea as unlikely. From her
knowledge of her father she was not inclined to think that motives
of delicacy would ever restrain him from borrowing money wherever he
could. Laline was not in the least suspicious, but in her dreamy,
half-childish, half-womanly nature there lurked a strange intuition,
which illuminated more than any reasoning powers could the natures of
those around her.

Of the mercenary plot by which she was to be made the means of
supplying her father and Wallace Armstrong with money for their vices
and extravagances by her marriage with the latter, she had not the
slightest suspicion. More than once she had been startled by the
troubled and remorseful expression which crept into Mr. Armstrong's
face when she raised her clear eyes to his. The young man had the
saving grace to realise the paltry part he was playing, and for three
days now he had avoided Laline, and had spent his time in bars and
billiard-rooms of the town. He was fully determined to marry her, and
to play the part of a kindly and affectionate brother until she could
grow to love him. That she would do this sooner or later he took as a
foregone conclusion, sharing, as he did with most men, the idea that
any woman married to him was bound in time to love him. But meanwhile
he did not care to meet the long trustful gaze of her soft dark eyes;
and it was almost with a feeling of vexation that this afternoon, as he
strolled down the pier, smoking a cigar, with his hands in his pockets
and his straw hat tilted over his eyes to protect them from the sun, he
found himself face to face with Laline, and saw the look of pleasure on
her face as she recognised him.

"We haven't seen you for three days," she said, as he took a seat by
her side. "I began to think you must have left Boulogne."

"Without saying 'Good-bye' to you? Was that likely?"

He was to be married to this girl in ten days--they were to pass
their future lives together. And yet, seated here by her side in the
sunshine, Wallace Armstrong, ordinarily the most self-possessed of
men, felt tongue-tied and abashed before her.

She was wonderfully pretty, but her very freshness and fairness became
a reproach. He knew that he did not love her--knew, too, that her
attraction for him lay chiefly in the utter dissimilarity between her
and such women as he had heretofore chiefly noticed. The thought of his
own unworthiness, while it failed to turn him from his purpose, served
to render him morose and discontented. Laline saw his heavy black
eyebrows contract into an ugly frown, and involuntarily drew back from
him.

"Are you vexed with us in any way?" she asked, timidly. "With my father
or myself, I mean?"

"Don't talk of your father in the same breath with yourself!" he said,
harshly. "I never think of you as in any way akin."

Laline flushed painfully.

"Please remember," she said, in a low voice, "that he is my father."

"Do you love him for that, simply because you are told it is your duty?"

"I hope I do," she answered very low. "But I cannot love him as I loved
her--my mother."

"Well, you will leave him some day, of course, and will find some one
who will appreciate you better. Tell me, Miss Laline--have you any
sweethearts in the town?"

She opened her dark eyes wide and laughed.

"Dear, no!" she answered, without the least hesitation. "How should I
have time for such things? I am always busy, you know."

"Spoiling your pretty hands with rough housework!"

"Ah, but I remember what you said the other day, and am going to take
great care of my nails. And mother always taught me to wear gloves in
housework."

"Don't you sometimes want to go back to England?"

Such a transfiguration took place in her face at the words! Her eyes
shone, her cheeks flushed, her lips quivered.

"Ah!" she whispered, "I try not to think how much I want to go back
there!"

"Would you thank any one who would take you?"

"As a governess, do you mean? But it would put papa to such expense if
I were to leave him. And I think--I think there is something or some
one that prevents his ever going back there at all."

"But if, for your sake, some one came forward and paid all your
father's debts, and provided for him comfortably, and then sailed away
with you in one of those nice white-funnelled steamers, and gave you
a beautiful home in England, and surrounded you with everything that
money and forethought could provide, and all for love of you, what
would you say?"

"Why, who would do such a thing?"

"Some one who is very fond of you. Some one not very good, but who
believes you could make him better by your sweet influence. Some one
whose home is very lonely without a bright-faced Laline to look after
things, and to sing about the house as I have heard you sing at the Rue
Planché. Some one who loves you, Laline."

She stared into his face with wondering eyes which betrayed no
self-consciousness.

"It sounds like a fairy-tale," she said.

"It is true, all the same. You are Cinderella, and I am a degenerate
Fairy Prince, Laline!"




CHAPTER V.


Thus far had Wallace Armstrong proceeded in his unique love-making,
when the lady he meant to wed in a few days' time disconcerted him by
bursting into a hearty peal of laughter.

"Look at my hand," she said, pulling off her glove and showing a soft
pink palm. "I had my fortune told several months ago, and I am not to
fall in love until I am years older than I am now."

"Give me your hand," he said. "I know something of palmistry, too."

This statement was absolutely untrue. But, as he meant to leave no
means untried to gain his end, and could see that the girl half
believed in the fortune told by her hand, he resolved to practise on
her childish credulity and superstition. In truth, he did not know one
line from another, and could only decide that it was a nice soft girl's
hand and eminently kissable.

"Show me your line of fate!" he said, peremptorily.

Laline eagerly pointed it out.

"As I suspected," he said, crumpling her hand together to emphasise the
lines and looking absorbed in the study of them; "very early in your
career you fall under the influence of a man of far stronger will than
yours. His line of fate and yours run side by side, and only death can
separate them!"

He spoke with much solemnity, but, more than his words, the magnetism
of his touch affected Laline's sensitive nature. She shivered and
turned pale.

"Can you really read that in my hand?" she asked, fearfully.

"Clearly. This man will love you, and you will not be able to escape
from him. Before you are seventeen you will be his wife."

"Oh, it's impossible!"

"Not at all. It's inevitable," he said--"written indelibly, for all who
understand to read, here in the centre of your hand!"

And, as he spoke in slow impressive tones, he pointed his finger at
random into her upturned palm. Looking up to see the effect of his
prophecy, he found that she was leaning back in her seat, pale to the
lips.

"What is the matter, child?" he exclaimed.

"You will laugh," she answered, in a low troubled tone, "but, as you
held my hand and told me these things, something flashed into my head
that you were right, and that there would be in my life a will against
which I should fight in vain. The feeling terrified me, and I can't
forget it!"

She raised her hands to her eyes, in which tears were shining, and
pressed them close. Wallace Armstrong watched her, surprised and
amused by what he considered her folly and weak-mindedness. In reality
Laline was neither foolish nor specially weak-minded, only abnormally
sensitive to influences to which a coarser nature would have been
impervious. Looking into Wallace Armstrong's bold bright eyes, in the
depths of which a scornful smile was lurking, the young girl seemed to
read there, better than any fortune-teller could inform her, a will,
selfish, resolute, and cruel, a nature attracted by and yet strongly
antagonistic to her own, a personality she might grow to fear and even,
it might be, to hate, but which she would never be able to regard with
indifference.

Not in so many words did these convictions come upon her, but the
sense of them grew as she gazed, her soft, near-sighted eyes, that had
something of the wistfulness of a dumb animal, straining to realize
what she saw.

At last Wallace broke the silence with a laugh.

"If we sit so still, staring at each other, people will think that I am
mesmerising you," he said. "And, by-the-way, I believe I could."

"Please don't try!" she exclaimed, starting from her seat and pushing
her hair from her forehead with a quick nervous gesture peculiar to
her. "I must be getting back home now to see after papa's dinner."

"I will walk up with you," he said; "but you haven't yet told me
whether you would like to go back to England, leaving your father
comfortably settled here, provided for for life, and with all his bills
paid."

"Why do you ask me such questions," she said, "when you know what you
suggest is impossible?"

Then an inspiration seized Armstrong. In his pocket was another advance
from his uncle to provide his niece Laline with medicines, new clothes,
and other necessaries. Wallace directed his steps to the Rue Royale.

"Come and look in this jeweller's shop-window," he said, "and tell me
whether you are fond of trinkets."

"Very fond," she answered, "and I often look in here."

"Don't you want to have some of the pretty things?"

"I should, I dare say, if I had any money. But I have never had any
jewelry except my dear mother's gold watch and chain. I hope I shall
never part with that; but I don't wear it, because it is a great deal
out of repair, and I can't afford to have it put right."

"Come inside and look at the things," he said. "Oh, it's all right," he
added, seeing that she hesitated; "I have to buy something for myself!"

Once within the jeweller's shop, Wallace approached the attendant and
held towards him Laline's hand.

"I want a very pretty ring for this young lady," he said in French.
"Take off your glove, Laline."

In her astonishment she did not notice that, for the first time, he
called her by her name without any prefix. Before she could do more
than stammer a few words of inquiry, Wallace had deftly unbuttoned her
glove and drawn it off, and the smiling attendant was showing her a
trayful of rings.

"Here is one suitable to mademoiselle," the man suggested, showing her
two tiny pearl hearts intertwined with a true-lover's knot.

"They are all too large!" Wallace complained. "No--I can't wait for one
to be altered. Have you nothing smaller?"

A turquoise heart, surrounded by very small diamonds, proved so small
that, once it was thrust upon the girl's finger, it could hardly be
withdrawn. Wallace beat the price down to a hundred francs, and paid
the money over the counter before Laline could do more than gasp an
astonished protest.

"Now that you are formally engaged to me," he said, "I may as well
order the wedding-ring, too."

This he proceeded to do, and, having at length discovered one of
suitable smallness, he slipped the little parcel into his pocket, after
paying for it, and left the shop, drawing Laline's arm through his in
an authoritative manner as he did so.

"We will fetch your father," he said, "and we will all dine in the town
together to celebrate our engagement."

"But, Mr. Armstrong," gasped Laline, "you must be in fun! Do you know
that I am only sixteen?"

"Well, plenty of your friends over here get married at sixteen,"
he returned, "and my own mother was married before her seventeenth
birthday!"

"But I don't want to marry you!"

"Not to go to England, to live in a big, beautiful house under my
care and that of my old uncle, one of the worthiest and kindest old
gentlemen alive, who is simply longing to welcome you as his daughter,
and writes to me about you nearly every day?"

"Why, what can you mean?" she was beginning, when he drew from his
pocket the letter from his uncle which he had received that morning,
and, carefully folding down one portion, held it before her eyes.

The lines which the girl read ran thus:--

"Give my love to Laline, and tell her how much I look forward to
welcoming her in my house. If she is like your description, she must
indeed be a sweet and womanly young creature. Be sure to buy her all
that she requires. I want my niece to enter her new home in the style
that befits a lady of gentle birth and careful training."

"I can't understand it!" exclaimed Laline, bewildered. "You never told
me that you had been writing about me to your uncle. And what does he
mean by calling me his niece?"

"I told him I hoped to marry you very shortly."

"But you never even asked me!"

"You are too young to know your own mind, so it had to be made up for
you," he said, laughing. "Now listen, Laline dear. As soon as I saw
you it went to my heart to think that you were wasting your youth and
beauty and refinement among such coarse and sordid surroundings. An
atmosphere of unpaid bills and greasy cards and cognac was not suited
for so fresh and sweet a flower. I know your father thoroughly well. I
won't talk about him lest I should hurt your feelings. But he is not
the man to be entrusted with the care of a girl like you; and, had your
dear mother lived to see you degraded into a half-starved kitchen
drudge, friendless and neglected----"

"Don't--ah, don't!" cried Laline, passionately. "I can't bear it!"

By that outburst he understood how keenly the girl felt her position,
and how well-timed had been his allusion to her lost mother. At once he
followed up his advantage.

"You want a home, my dear little girl," he continued, drawing her
hand through his arm and patting it affectionately. "This is not the
place for you, and these are not the surroundings you ought to have.
In my home you will enjoy what should be your position by right--that
of an English lady! You will be petted and loved and cared for, you
will have your own rooms and your own furniture, pocket-money to spend
on pretty frocks and little presents for your friends, plenty of
books to read, ample leisure and servants to wait upon you. My uncle,
Alexander Wallace, is one of the richest bankers in London, and I am
his favourite nephew and heir. You will have just what money you want
now; and, later on, you will be an extremely rich woman, able to buy
diamonds and horses and carriages and everything that you wish for in
the world."

She turned her wondering eyes upon him.

"And what makes you offer me all these things?" she asked, simply.

"Because I love you," was the answer on the tip of his tongue; and he
was angry with both her and himself because he could not speak it.
Something in her absolute innocence and candour disarmed him. Almost
for one moment he wished that he could tell her the whole truth in
words of brutal frankness--"Because I am a ruined and dishonoured
good-for-nothing, and my only hope of help consists in the immediate
production of a wife at my rich uncle's house! I have chosen you
because you are very pretty, and too young and ignorant of the world to
disbelieve my lying statements. Also because you have a mercenary scamp
of a father, who has sold you to me for my wife for a consideration! I
don't pretend to love you; much of your society would bore me to death.
But I don't intend to have much of your society; and you are just the
good, sweet-faced, refined sort of a little girl to get round my uncle,
and coax money out of him for my extravagances!"

This is what Wallace Armstrong longed for one brief moment to say. He
felt that he should despise himself less than if he were successful in
deceiving her. But he was not in the habit of following good impulses
when they stood in the way of his interests; and he slipped again into
lying, and cleverly affecting a kindly and tender interest in the girl,
until Rue Planché was reached and they entered the street together.

Then suddenly Laline, who had been listening to him in silence,
stopped. She had something she wished to say to him before she entered
the house. Her tones were low and earnest, and her eyes were grave.

"It is all very strange and wonderful," she said, "that you, who have
known me so short a time, and your uncle, who has never seen me, should
love me and want me to be with you always. I don't deserve it, and I
don't understand it! There must be so many beautiful girls who would be
much more suitable to you than I can be. And--I can't understand why,
and it seems dreadfully ungrateful--but all the time you are talking I
seem to hear whispered in my ear, 'Don't listen; he does not mean what
he says!' And though you are so kind, and though I long to go back to
England, and cannot bear the life here, I--I am afraid of you!"

Although she half whispered the last words, there was no mistaking the
startled look in her eyes. At that moment Armstrong positively disliked
her, although her slight opposition only had the effect of making him
more than ever determined to carry through his project.

What business had this ignorant child with intuitions warning her
against him? Was it possible that under her demure and child-like
exterior there lurked a spirit which would not easily be swayed and
mastered by his own? Some hint of this flashed upon him as he watched
her and listened to her faltering confession.

"You need never be afraid of me," he said, gently. "My ways are
unpolished, I know. I have been knocking about in Australia for nearly
five years, roughing it in the Bush and among miners. I wanted to see
something of the world before marrying and settling down in England.
But you shall cure my uncouth ways, and correct all my other defects,
too, my dear Laline!"

Once in the house, and alone with Captain Garth in his den, Wallace's
tone changed.

"For Heaven's sake give me a drop of brandy to wash out of my mouth the
taste of all the lies I've been telling!" he cried, irritably. "It's my
opinion, Garth, that little bread-and-butter prig of yours will be dear
at the price!"

"She's a good child, and won't give you any trouble," Laline's father
assured him, soothingly. "Have you broached the subject of the marriage
to her yet?"

"Your fingers are itching to touch the two 'quid' a week, I see!"
sneered Armstrong, as he tossed off a glass of neat cognac. "Oh, it's
safe enough! She's delighted at the idea, which is more than I am.
However, it's got to be gone through with. Unluckily, I've promised to
take her and you to dine with me in the town this evening. Can't we put
her off?"

Garth shook his head dubiously.

"Better not," he said. "If she's left alone, she'll get thinking--she's
a great one for thinking and dreaming and fancying. Now that the
thing's settled, she had better not be left alone this evening."

"As you like. But, mind, I've had enough of nursery courtship; and
she mustn't expect to see much of me during the next few days. On the
third, as soon as the ceremony is over, we will cross by the midday
boat; and Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Armstrong will proceed to London and
dine on fat veal, _au Fils Prodigue_! It will be time enough to tell
Laline the day when her frocks are ready."

"Here's to your happy married life!" observed Garth, pouring himself
out some brandy. "I hope you'll be kind to her, Armstrong, when I am
not by to look after her!"

Up-stairs in her own room, Laline was kneeling before her little
dressing-table of painted deal, gazing earnestly at her dead mother's
portrait.

"Mother," she murmured, with tears in her eyes, "if you could only
speak to me and advise me! Is it your voice which seems to tell me not
to listen to Mr. Armstrong? And yet he seems so kind, and he is going
to be so good and generous to papa! Such a fairy prince to such a poor
little penniless Cinderella! How good it is of him to be so sorry for
me--to sympathise with me so deeply about losing you, and to understand
how much it would hurt you to know just how things have been since you
left me! I remember how you once said to me, while I sat reading at
your feet and you smoothed my hair, 'I hope and pray that my little
girl may some day marry a good man, who will love her for herself, as a
woman should be loved!' I have not remembered that speech until to-day.
I wanted to wait for years before I thought of love and marriage for
myself. There is no one to help me and advise me. Oh, mother, if you
could only come back for one moment and tell me what to do!"

But the wills of two unscrupulous men were warring against the vague
intuitions of an inexperienced girl; and every day the net was drawn
more closely about Laline's feet, until the dawn of the thirtieth of
August, her wedding-morning.




CHAPTER VI.


"Happy is the bride the sun shines on!"

Laline had heard the words somewhere, and remembered them as she woke
very early on the thirtieth of August and saw the rain pouring in a
steady flood upon the sun-dried earth.

She stood looking out on the mean little back street of St. Denis,
commanded by her bedroom window. What outlook would there be from the
windows of her new home? she wondered. Old Mr. Wallace's house was vast
and dreary, situated over his banking-establishment in the Strand,
London; from his nephew's brief description it was a paradise of luxury
and comfort. Laline was all agog with excitement. She did not want to
marry Wallace Armstrong; she was fascinated by and yet afraid of him.
But she had become so convinced of his disinterested goodness to her,
and she was so troubled by her father's debts and difficulties, that it
seemed wicked to refuse his offer. And yet she had not said "Yes;" her
"Yes" had been taken for granted, her father had effusively blessed her
as the means of delivering him from his embarrassments, and Bénoîte and
her few acquaintances could hardly shower enough congratulations upon
her for her unique good fortune, which clearly astonished them.

"So rich a man, so handsome, so distinguished-looking, the heir to a
millionaire, and nothing would content him but marrying _la p'tite
Gart_! It was certainly very wonderful, although she had greatly
improved in appearance since she had taken to long frocks and put her
hair up."

Such were among the neighbours' comments; and every one seemed to envy
Laline's good fortune. And yet this little beggar-maid could not subdue
a secret fear of her King Cophetua; and as she stood now, looking very
fair and saint-like in her long, white gown, with her bright hair
floating about her shoulders, and the wistful look of her hazel eyes, a
little quiver of dread passed over her as she thought of that unknown
future to which the flying minutes were leading her.

Her wedding-dress, which was also to be her travelling-costume, lay
on the bed, a plain blue serge of perfect fit and cut, in which she
looked very tall and slim, a neat little blue straw hat, and a tweed
travelling-cape. Laline had very little more real notion of love or
of the responsibilities of a wife than the little Bertins next door;
but her heart beat fast as she finished dressing and heard her future
husband's voice as he entered the hall below.

"Don't I look grown-up?" she asked, as she ran down-stairs to greet him.

Wallace was in a bad temper that morning, having sat up until four
o'clock losing money at cards. He kissed Laline's cheek without much
effusion.

"I hope you are going to do your hair up," he observed. "You look about
twelve with all that about your shoulders!"

"I haven't finished dressing it. It's all got to be coiled and twisted
and pinned away. But I thought you would like to see me in my new gown."

"Well, don't waste time dressing! We have to be at the Consul's at ten;
and the boat leaves at ten minutes past two o'clock. It's a beastly
morning; I've got wet through coming over from the hotel!"

An hour later the three set forth in a closed _fiacre_, accompanied
by an elderly sporting friend of Captain Garth, to whom the latter
owed a good deal of money, and who went ostensibly as a witness, but
in reality to make sure that Miss Garth's marriage with Alexander
Wallace's nephew was not a creation of his friend and debtor's facile
brain.

It was by no means a festive party. The bridegroom was morose and
sullen, and did not once glance at the poor little bride, who sat in
silence facing him, with a startled look in her eyes. Captain Garth
was restless and voluble, striving, by his forced cheerfulness, to
impart something like suitable brightness to the occasion; his friend
Mr. Mitcham endeavoured to pay compliments to Laline, who received his
well-meant efforts with a dreamy wonder that was not encouraging; the
cab splashed through the muddy streets, the rain beat upon the windows,
and at every yard traversed Laline's spirits sank to a low ebb, and her
mind became more and more overshadowed by dismal forebodings of the
future in store for her.

The Consul, a grey-haired fussy man, with a preoccupied manner, made
short work of the ceremony; and to Laline, whose ideas of weddings
were chiefly gained from those she had witnessed in the village church
in Westmoreland, there was something bald and unmeaning in the total
absence of any religious ceremony, something that savoured of a bargain
made across a counter, and not of a holy sacrament to be honoured
throughout a lifetime.

A few words spoken by an elderly gentleman in ordinary attire in the
presence of his secretary, his clerk, Garth, Armstrong, Mitcham, and
Laline, in a bare-looking office, a few statements made by a man and
a woman, a few signatures and the payment of certain fees, and Laline
Garth had become Laline Armstrong, wife of the tall, frowning young man
who stood facing her with an aching head which had not yet recovered
from the gambling and brandy-drinking of the preceding evening.

It was all startling, shocking, and painful to Laline. To the last they
had not told her that hers was to be solely a civil marriage; to the
last she had hoped that a clergyman might bless her in a holier name
before she started on her new life. She was half a child still, but
woman enough to feel deeply the inadequacy of such a ceremony as had
just taken place to satisfy the requirements of her mind.

Almost as soon as the little party left the Consular residence the
bridegroom announced his intention of going to his hotel, "to put
his things together," a proposition which his father-in-law urgently
combated.

"It isn't half-past ten yet!" growled Armstrong. "That Consul-fellow
fixed the ceremony so infernally early! What in the world can one do
with oneself in the Rue Planché on a pouring wet day like this?"

"There are plenty of little things to talk over," said Garth, slipping
his arm through that of his son-in-law. "We have to drink success to
your married life too," he added, insinuatingly.

"In that filthy brandy of yours? There's one good thing about going
back to England, one can get something fit to drink there!"

With such bad grace Armstrong agreed to accompany his bride and her
father home. Captain Garth was fully determined to keep Wallace
securely under his eye until he saw the newly-married pair safely
on board the boat bound for England. He had had some experience of
the young man's moods, and knew that he was quite capable of getting
extremely intoxicated in the town out of mere bravado, and in that
condition presenting himself at the boat, or even, at the worst, of
forgetting that appointment altogether.

"Poor little girl! She's caught a Tartar!" was Mitcham's mental
comment, as he took leave of the bridal party, who, in another
_fiacre_, splashed their way back to the High Town.

Here the little bride was dismissed to her room, to complete her
packing. But, most unluckily for the plans of Messrs. Armstrong and
Garth, it so chanced that almost as soon as Laline arrived up-stairs,
and before she had even removed her hat, she remembered that she
had left her keys in the _salle-à-manger_ below, and forthwith she
descended in search of them.

Nell the cat and her kitten were playing on the floor of the _salle_,
and the little bride slipped on her knees beside them to bid them an
affectionate and tearful farewell. Nell's kitten had an untidy habit
of dragging any plaything it could find from one room to another about
the house; as she caressed it, Laline remembered that her three keys
on a little piece of string were among the kitten's favourite toys,
which might account for the fact that they were at this present moment
nowhere to be found.

On consulting Bénoîte, the latter declared that she had seen the "_le
p'tit chat_" amusing itself with some keys on the floor of the _salon_
that morning; but, as she never meddled with anything of Monsieur's,
she had not rescued them. Clearly the _salon_ was the place to search
for the missing keys, and with that idea Laline turned the handle of
her father's den.

The two men were sitting by Garth's desk with their heads bent over a
paper; close at hand stood the cognac, a syphon, and two well-filled
glasses. They seemed absorbed in the contents of the paper before them,
and did not hear Laline's timid turning of the handle of the door.
Before, however, she had opened it sufficiently wide to enable her to
enter, some words, loudly spoken in her bridegroom's voice, arrested
her attention, and made her suddenly stop as though turned to stone.

"You've only got to alter the date of the certificate from the
thirtieth of August to the thirtieth of July, and the thing is done. I
wrote to my uncle that I was married and that my wife was starving just
twenty-four days ago. I didn't say how long I'd been married; and, as I
landed at Marseilles in the middle of July on my way to Paris, I should
have had plenty of time to get on here and through the ceremony by the
thirtieth. Of course, Laline doesn't look as if she were starving,
though I think you've kept her pretty short in the matter of food.
But, if she's only sea-sick, she may look woebegone enough for the
character!"

"Your difficulty will be," said Garth, "to persuade her to back you
up in those few little necessary lies. For one thing, I have stated
her age as seventeen; for another, she must be made to understand that
she's been married a month, and has been starving in Boulogne for
some days. But your toughest job will be to induce her to state that
she's the orphan daughter of a clergyman, and that she met you coming
home from Australia. It's almost a pity to have left all these very
important details to the last moment."

"It's all the fault of that humbugging training of hers," growled
Armstrong. "But I'm not going to let any whimpering school-girl spoil
my prospects. Laline's my wife, and she's got to obey me. I shall
impress upon her that my uncle, who is very particular, would never
forgive me for marrying the daughter of such a man as you, ex-keeper
of a gambling-club, where I got fleeced and ruined five years ago,--a
man who daren't show his face in England; and I shall assure her that
I invented this story of a dead parson-father in order to spare her
natural feelings."

"Stop a bit!" exclaimed Garth, whose flesh-tints had deepened from
crimson to purple while Armstrong was speaking. "I draw the line at
that. It's bad enough to be deprived of my daughter's companionship;
but I won't have her mind poisoned against me; understand that! You can
tell her that I am connected with the turf, as I suggested before, and
that your uncle has a Puritanical horror of horse-racing. But I won't
have my memory blackened in the mind of the only kith-and-kin I have in
the world!"

"I shall arrange it as I said!" said Armstrong obstinately, while he
helped himself to more brandy. "You've sold me your daughter for a
hundred a year, to be afterwards raised on two separate occasions. You
wanted money, and so did I. Both of us were stone-broke. I wrote to my
uncle, pretending I had a starving wife; he took me at my word, and
promised to forgive me and provide for me if I would produce her. It
was necessary to find a wife immediately, and desirable that she should
be too young or too silly to ask questions. I settled on your daughter.
The bargain was struck, and she passed from your keeping to mine,
having filled her very proper mission of providing us both with money.
But, now that she is mine, and I have saddled myself with a lanky,
half-fledged school-girl, you have no more part in her, and I shall
speak to her of you or of anybody else in just what terms I choose!"

"My daughter is my daughter until she leaves my roof, at least!" cried
Garth his patience suddenly deserting him. "I'm sick of your bullying,
blustering, hectoring ways! The settlement as to my future income is
all signed and sealed and witnessed, and what is to prevent me from
informing Laline of your true character before she leaves this house?
What authority would you exercise over her if I told her your record?
A gambler, a drunkard, a bully, and a forger, who has only escaped
a felon's cell by the leniency of an uncle, who shipped him off to
Australia in order to get rid of him!"

Captain Garth rose while he spoke, and made as though he were
approaching the door, when, suddenly, Armstrong sprang from his seat
with a smothered oath, and caught him roughly by the shoulder. Just for
one moment Laline, gazing with distended eyes through the crack of the
door, saw them, the faces of both excited and angry--Garth's with a red
rage of indignation, and Armstrong's with a white cruelty which was
infinitely more dangerous. Then, as the two men struggled, the sound of
scuffling commenced, drowning Laline's flying footsteps, and enabling
her to gain the staircase and her own apartment unseen and unheard.

One only idea filled her mind--to escape at that instant from both
these men; and the strange lucidity of thought which comes to some
emotional natures at moments of high tension seemed suddenly to make
clear to her ways and means.

It was only a few minutes past eleven; she had heard the church-clocks
chime the hour while she listened at the _salon_ door. The Folkestone
boat did not leave until ten minutes past two; if Armstrong and her
father had their luncheon served to them at twelve, they would not
think of her until past one. She would tell Bénoîte that she was going
to call upon some friends before leaving Boulogne, and that she would
be back in time for the boat; she would lock her bedroom-door and throw
away the key in order to still further delay pursuit. But then--where
was she to go?

All her thoughts and wishes pointed to England. And yet where in her
native country was she to make her home until she could find means to
earn her own living, as she had so long desired to?

Her uncle, the clergyman in Sussex, had held no communication with
his sister since her marriage with Randolph Garth, and only as a last
resource could Laline entertain the idea of seeking shelter under his
roof. But there was a much-loved school-friend of the late Mrs. Garth,
a widow named Melville, whose constant and affectionate letters had
been much looked forward to by the little household in the Westmoreland
village. Her messages to her old friend's little daughter had been
of the kindest description. She kept a girls'-school in Norwood, and
Laline remembered her address; but since her arrival in Boulogne she
had had no communication with Mrs. Melville, who, Laline realised,
would be shocked by the Bohemian mode of life in the Rue Planché.

Laline had not seen this lady since she was a very little child;
but she remembered her as kind, and believed that, for her dead
mother's sake, Mrs. Melville might be induced to help her, and to Mrs.
Melville's protection Laline resolved to fly.

There was no time to be lost indeed. The girl could hear men's voices
in angry discussion below. England must be reached as speedily as
possible; and yet to travel by the Folkestone boat was clearly out of
the question. The Calais route was shorter, if Laline could only get
to Calais; and by that journey she would arrive in London more than
hour before her pursuers, should they even guess that she had escaped
thither.

Providentially, she recalled the fact that the train from Paris to
Calais stopped at Boulogne for a few minutes before proceeding on its
journey at a quarter to twelve o'clock. Laline's mind was at once made
up; and in less time than it takes to tell it she had seized her cloak
and gloves, locked her bedroom-door, slipped the key in her pocket, and
astonished Bénoîte by darting into the kitchen and whispering a hurried
message in her ear before leaving the house by the way into the Rue St.
Denis.

Her entire worldly wealth consisted of one franc and fifty centimes;
but her father's chronic impecuniosity had taught Laline the method by
which the poor and improvident raise money, and, with a beating heart
and a hot flush on her cheek, Laline stopped on her way to the station
to change the two rings which Armstrong had given her, the turquoise
and diamond engagement-ring, the hated wedding-ring, together with her
much-loved mother's watch and chain, for money wherewith to buy her
freedom.

For it seemed to Laline that she would be free of the horrible,
loveless bargain which her marriage had been could she but tear from
her finger the gold circlet which Wallace Armstrong had an hour ago
placed there, could she but put the sea between herself and him, and,
losing herself in the vastness of London, change her name and live out
her life away from him and his evil influence.

Her heart was full of the most passionate indignation against both
him and her father; of the latter, indeed, she hardly dared to think,
so deeply did she resent his treatment of her; but of Armstrong she
thought with a growing fear and horror, which dwelt upon the brutality
of his speeches and the cruelty of his expression, until he seemed to
her to be scarcely human. Rather death than a return to the care of
either of those men! Terror lent wings to her feet, until, breathless,
panting, but with a great sigh of relief, she jumped into the already
moving train for Calais.

Fortune favoured the runaway. The passage was smooth enough under a
gray, lowering sky, and Laline's heart leaped within her at sight
of the white cliffs of her native land in the afternoon. Before six
o'clock on that eventful day the Dover train steamed into Charing-Cross
Station, and Laline Armstrong stepped out upon the platform, a slim,
girlish figure, alone and friendless in the great city of London.




CHAPTER VII.


On a winter afternoon in London, rather more than four years after
Laline's flight from Boulogne, a beautiful young woman stood in the
ground-floor sitting-room of a London lodging-house, poring over the
advertisements headed "Wanted" in a daily paper.

To the owner of the house, who was a relative of her old friend Mrs.
Melville, of Norwood, this young lady was known as Miss Lina Grahame;
but the reader has already made her acquaintance as Laline Garth, who,
on a certain rainy morning in Boulogne, became the bride of Wallace
Armstrong.

For four years Laline had earned her living in the girls'-school kept
by her mother's old school-fellow--four well-occupied uneventful years,
spent in the schoolroom, the dormitory, the Crystal Palace, and walks
in the neighbourhood of Norwood, looking after the younger pupils,
teaching French to the elder ones, preparing and correcting lessons
and studying for examinations, with the duties of every hour in the day
well-defined and clear, a healthy but monotonous life of gray routine
and unchangeable discipline.

And now, at the age of forty-two, Mrs. Melville, Laline's employer
and friend, had been carried off to Canada by a cousin and old
sweetheart, who, finding himself at the age of forty-five a well-to-do
widower, with four young children, had bethought him of that eminent
instructress of youth, his widowed cousin, and in a very practical
letter had proposed to come over to England, marry her, and take her
back with him to Canada to look after his household and his children.

Such an offer, in the eyes of a buxom business-like woman of forty-two,
was too advantageous to be refused. Mrs. Melville thought so; and,
after speedily disposing of her house and selling the scholastic
good-will and name to her senior teacher, she married her cousin with
the utmost composure, and dutifully accompanied him to his Canadian
home in order to undertake the mental and moral education of her four
step-children.

To her junior governess, Miss Lina Grahame, Mrs. Melville gave on
parting a travelling-clock, an ivory-bound prayer-book, and some
excellent advice.

"I have only one fault to find with you, my dear," she had said,
kindly--"you are too pretty. It grew to be quite awkward sending away
the foreign masters because they made themselves silly about you, and
the pupils noticed it. No--I don't tell you to cut your hair off or to
wear blue spectacles; but I do say that I am not surprised that Miss
Finch doesn't want to keep you on with the school, although you have
such nice ways with the children and such a good French accent. I have
myself been a very successful teacher--but then I have always been
plain. Now, although it goes against the grain to say it, for a girl
with your appearance I suppose that the most desirable profession is
marriage."

Laline had suddenly flushed at Mrs. Melville's words, and then burst
into a peal of laughter.

"Now, Mrs. Melville," she had cried, "that comes very oddly from you,
who are just marrying for the second time! And I have often told you
that it is useless to talk like that to me, as I shall never marry."

This parting conversation recurred to Laline as she turned over the
advertisement-pages of the papers on this wintry afternoon in search of
a suitable scholastic engagement.

"I wonder," she reflected, "that all those years I never let out
that I was really married in talking to Mrs. Melville. I often felt
strongly tempted to tell her, but that it seemed impossible that just a
visit to a Consul's house, and some mumbled words, and a ring which I
never wore, can mean a tie for life. It is not as if it had been in a
church, and I had gone through a proper religious ceremony, with some
kindly-faced clergyman to utter the beautiful words I know. I should
have held that to be binding; but as to this, it all seems now like an
incident in a half-forgotten dream. And yet I suppose that, if Wallace
Armstrong is not dead, I really am his wife, and shall be as long as
he and I both live. Yet if he saw me now he would not know me, and I
think I should hardly recognise him. It seems absurd. Luckily I have
never been the least little bit in love, and do not mean to be, except
in day-dreams and with wholly imaginary persons. I never felt anything,
I know, when Monsieur Marchand and Herr Pfeiffer got sentimental about
me. I suppose they behaved like that just because I was what Mrs.
Melville called pretty. She thinks my looks will stand in my way; she
would have been amused at my impudence in answering yesterday this
advertisement, which I see is inserted again to-day."

And, with her soft eyes sparkling with fun, Laline read over the
somewhat remarkable insertion to which she had replied.

  "Wanted, as companion and amanuensis to a lady, a well-educated
  young girl, refined and beautiful, of high character and gentle
  birth. Apply by letter, enclosing photograph, to Occult, Box 72,631,
  advertisement-office, _Daily Post_."

"Occult, whoever she may be, must be rather mad," Laline decided. "But
I haven't a doubt that she will get dozens of answers. I wonder what
she is like? There is an originality about the advertisement which is
fascinating; and to be a companion and amanuensis sounds much nicer and
more vague than to be teacher in a school."

At that identical moment the repeated double-knock of a telegraph-boy
resounded through the hall. Then came a tap at the door of Laline's
sitting-room, and a slatternly little servant entered and presented a
telegram addressed to "Miss Grahame."

The message ran thus:--

  "_Re_ Occult's advertisement. Come at once to 21, Queen Mary
  Crescent, Kensington. Photograph and letter approved."

It was with excitement not unmingled with a curious sense of
trepidation that Laline got out of a hansom cab, the driver of which
had had considerable trouble in discovering the narrow _cul-de-sac_
turning which led to St. Mary's Crescent--a row of old-fashioned
houses, mellowed by age and smoke to a deep crimson colour. Near them
waved the tall trees of Kensington Gardens, and before their narrow
green-painted doors two steps led to a walk three feet wide and a
stone-paved yard, over which the wheels of Laline's cab clattered
noisily, awakening the protests of more than one pet-dog from the quiet
houses into which the noise from the busy thoroughfare of the High
Street came only as a distant and soothing murmur.

As Laline laid her hand on the knocker of number seven, she became
suddenly embarrassed as to the name of its occupant. Could she ask for
Miss or Mrs. Occult?

"I have come in answer to a telegram about an advertisement," she
finally announced, as the door was opened by a neatly-dressed
parlour-maid, and Laline found herself in a very small square hall
dimly lighted by an oil-lamp, and furnished with tapestry-hangings and
two oak settles of old-fashioned make.

The servant opened the door of a room to the right of the entrance, and
asked the visitor to step inside. Almost at the same moment a young
lady darted down the staircase into the hall, so swiftly and suddenly
as to suggest the idea that she had been on the watch for the visitor,
and joined Laline at the door of the room into which she was being
shown.

"It is my aunt who has sent for you," the new-comer whispered
confidentially to Laline, after carefully closing the door behind her;
"and I do hope she will engage you! The moment I saw your face at the
door I took such a fancy to you!"

The speaker was a girl of apparently Laline's own age, well developed,
and of medium height, with curiously lithe feline movements. Her dress,
of yellow-green serge, was loosely draped about her and caught here and
there by silver buckles, her skin was white as paper and framed in an
untidy halo of silky yellow-red hair. Regular features, oddly-gleaming
green-gray eyes under pale-yellow lashes, and narrow curved red lips
completed an _ensemble_ which to Laline was at once repellent and
attractive.

"If this was the niece, what would the aunt be?" she asked herself,
fascinated by the strange brightness of the girl's eyes. But, as Laline
gazed, her new acquaintance suddenly lowered her white eyelids, and the
trick struck the other as affected and insincere.

The same cat-like quality which characterised her movements was
shown also in her voice, which was marked by a purring and caressing
intonation.

"Do you know who my aunt is?" she asked.

And then, as Laline shook her head, the red-haired girl enunciated her
aunt's name with much impressiveness.

"She is Mrs. Vandeleur--Mrs. Sibyl Vandeleur."

The name meant nothing to Laline, but she saw that the red-haired
girl expected her to be struck by it, and she hastened to explain her
unmoved attitude.

"I know nothing of London celebrities," she said; "I have not lived in
London since I was a child."

"Oh, that accounts for your not having heard of her!" said the other,
evidently disappointed. "My aunt is extremely well known; and I should
have thought that, to any one who reads the papers----"

"But I don't read the papers!" put in Laline. "I have never had time."

The other girl drew back her head, and appeared to be studying her.

"How delightful!" she murmured, sympathetically. "I should like to be
like that--it leaves so many things to be found out. You have lived all
your life at Norwood, haven't you?"

The question was asked with such point-blank directness, but, at the
same time, with such an appearance of spontaneous simplicity, that
Laline was a little taken aback. With the strange intuition which
she had retained from her childish days, she already distrusted the
apparent friendliness of this picturesque stranger, and she accordingly
framed her answer in vague and reserved tones.

"I have lived for a part of my life at Norwood," she answered.

"At a girls'-school? That must be a dull life, but nice and restful for
the nerves. Have you any nerves? This house is the worst possible place
for you if you have."

The last words were uttered in a very low voice, after a quick glance
round the room.

"I don't think I am particularly nervous," Laline replied.

"But you look nervous," remarked the red-haired girl. "Those delicate
faces, with pale-pink skins and dark eyes and auburn hair, are always
the nervous ones. Now I am colourless and lymphatic, so this house
doesn't hurt me!"

"And why is it likely to hurt me?" inquired Laline, calmly.

"Hush--don't talk so loudly! I liked your face so much that I thought I
ought to speak to you just to put you on your guard!"

She glanced round her again, and, drawing nearer to Laline, breathed
rather than spoke in her ear--

"Are you afraid of ghosts?"

Before Laline could answer, a thin but silvery voice broke upon the
silence, and caused the red-haired girl to start guiltily from her
companion's side.

"Go to your room, Clare--I wish to speak to Miss Grahame alone!"

Without a word Clare stole away, leaving Laline _tête-à-tête_ with
a lady whom she rightly judged to be "Occult," otherwise Mrs. Sibyl
Vandeleur.

Standing before the picturesque background of dark-red plush curtains
which draped the folding-doors through which she had entered, Mrs.
Vandeleur appeared to Laline one of the most picturesque figures
she had ever seen. Rather under the medium height, and of extreme
thinness and fragility, she looked more like a spirit than a woman,
an effect heightened by her powdered hair, dressed loosely and high
upon her head, her piercing, dark eyes, ivory-white skin, and the soft
silvery-gray draperies swathed round her slender form. In her thin hand
she held a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, the handle of which was thickly
encrusted with turquoise and garnets in an old-fashioned gold setting,
and through these she peered in a bird-like manner at Laline, with her
head poised a little on one side.

"What is your name," she asked--"your full name, given you at baptism?"

The terms of the question rather disconcerted Laline, and there was a
perceptible hesitation in her voice as she replied--

"I am called Lina Grahame."

"That is not your real name!"

"It is the one by which I am known."

"That means," said Mrs. Vandeleur, putting down her eye-glasses
and tapping her thin fingers with them, "that you have reasons for
concealing your identity?"

"I had at one time, Mrs. Vandeleur, and I have now got used to the
names of Lina Grahame, to which I have some right!"

"The surname was a family name?"

"Yes!"

Grahame was indeed the maiden name of Laline's mother, and the girl
was startled and interested by Mrs. Vandeleur's surmise.

"I was often called Lina as a child," she added, quickly, to forestall
Mrs. Vandeleur's interrogatories.

"The mystery concerns a man," said the little lady in gray, peering
again at Laline through her gold-rimmed glasses. "And yet your
face----Take off your glove--no, the left hand--and let me look at your
lines!"

Laline obeyed. As she did so, with startling distinctness there flashed
back upon her memory a similar scene in which she had taken part more
than four years ago. In her mind's eye she saw it all again--the hot
stirless afternoon in mid-August, the sun's rays shining over a long
stretch of gleaming sand and peeping under the straw hat-brim of a big
black-haired Englishman with insolent, bright blue eyes. By his side
sat a thin over-grown girl of sixteen, listening in rapt silence while
he told her fortune by the lines of her hand, and prophesied that all
her life through she would be haunted by the influence of a stronger
will than hers, and that, before the age of seventeen, she would marry
a man who would never cease to dominate her life until death should
part them.

Half dreamily, with her thoughts elsewhere, she began to listen while
Mrs. Vandeleur, in a level, monotonous voice, as though speaking words
dictated to her rather than spontaneous utterances, began to repeat
aloud what she professed to read in Laline's hand.

"Early in your life," she murmured, "you were subjected to
strangely-opposing influences. Your career has been unlike that of
girls of your age. Let me look at your eyes; the light is bad, and I am
near-sighted but, before I see them, I will tell you their colour--it
will be that of the darkest hazel-nut, a mossy green, with red-brown
lights here and there. Do you dream much and vividly?"

"Constantly. And by day as well as by night, I am ashamed to say!"
Laline answered, laughing. "I am a born dreamer."

"You are just the person I want!" exclaimed Mrs. Vandeleur, a touch
of restless excitement showing itself in her voice and manner. "My
niece Clare cannot dream. A dreamer--a day-dreamer--must have a pure
white soul, must be untouched by the world, and far above all monetary
considerations. What is your age? I could find out by your hands, but I
know that I can believe your words."

"I was twenty last August."

"You look younger; you have not yet lost your child-mind. You have
never been in love--oh, I know you haven't--you need not tell me!"

"I have certainly never been in love with any one alive."

"That means that you have had ideals, and have loved them in dreams and
waking fancies?"

"Sometimes."

"Keep your ideals for your dreams, child, and love them there. In
real life you will never meet them. There is but little ideality in
end-of-the-century Englishmen. We read the old fairy-tale of the
Briar-Rose Princess, and are glad that she awakes at the Prince's kiss.
But she was much happier dreaming. In her dreams he and she would never
grow old, would never fall sick, would never tire of loving, would
never die: autumn winds would never blow down summer leaves, or spring
flowers wither at the touch of frost. Life is full of sadness, full of
disillusions! Only in dreams and fancies can true happiness be found!"

Something in the sadness of Mrs. Vandeleur's sweet voice brought the
tears to Laline's eyes. This woman, with her fairy-like appearance
and disconnected talk, her pretensions to sibylline magic, her ready
intuition, quick observation, and random guesses at truths she could
not know, possessed an undeniable fascination, to which older and more
experienced brains than Laline's were wont to succumb. The girl felt
that she had met a friend, and one wholly in sympathy with an especial
side of her nature; and Mrs. Vandeleur, for her part, had discovered
just such a personality as she required, sensitive, impressionable, yet
maidenly, reserved, and proud.

"You will make your home here with me, of course," she said, patting
Laline's hand. "Bring your things here directly; your room has
been waiting for you a long time. Fifty pounds a year and all your
expenses. You won't find it too much, for I shall want you always to be
picturesquely dressed; but come to me when you require more, and you
shall have it. No--I ask no references. Your face and your hand are
sufficient references for me. I shall study your hand when I mean to
know more. One thing I have learned from it already: in the troubled
time before you will want me as a friend--you will come to me for
counsel, and I will give it."




CHAPTER VIII.


Laline dined that evening with Clare Cavan, Mrs. Vandeleur's niece.

"Aunt Cissy never eats before people," the latter explained. "She
thinks it's a great pity we have to eat at all. She's a dear sweet
thing, and I quite agree with her that eating is very mundane; but we
can't all of us live on air. Aunt Cissy tries to, but even she can't
quite succeed. I call her Aunt Cissy when we are alone because her
real name is Cecilia. But since she became celebrated she has taken the
name of 'Sibyl,' which is more suggestive of mystery, you know."

There was a veiled sneer in the words which made Laline glance quickly
across the table at Clare's face. But Miss Cavan was eating her dinner
with a placid countenance untouched by sarcasm, her light-yellow
eyelashes veiling her eyes.

"I am perfectly beside myself with delight that aunt has chosen you!"
Clare presently remarked. "You have no idea what a number of answers
she had to her advertisement. That was through putting in the word
'beautiful.' Such old bags sent their photographs, too, and answers and
pictures are still pouring in by every post. Did Aunt Cecilia tell you
anything about the nature of your duties?"

"No."

"That is just like her! She is always so vague. Perhaps, when you know
all about this house, you won't stay. It's rather uncanny. The only
servants aunt can keep are an old Scotch cook, who doesn't know what
nerves mean, and the maid who opened the door to you. She stays because
she's afraid to run away."

"Afraid?"

"Yes. Aunt Cecilia is a Devonshire woman, and can put a wish upon
any one she's vexed with. She leaves the most valuable things about;
but though at one time she was always changing her parlour-maids, no
one has ever dared to steal anything from her private sitting-room
up-stairs. You'll understand why when you've once been inside it."

Clare's white face grew, if possible, a shade whiter as she spoke,
lowering her voice to a very subdued key.

"Are you afraid of your aunt too?" Laline asked.

Clare shivered and glanced towards the door.

"Horribly!" she replied, in a very low voice. Then she gave a little
nervous laugh. "It sounds absurd to you, doesn't it? But Aunt Cecilia
is a wonderful woman! I am an orphan, and she was my mother's younger
sister. My mother often told me how Cissy used to terrify her as a
child by prophesying things. Well, she has cultivated her powers in
that direction until she almost forgets she has a body at all; she is
all mind and spirit and that sort of thing, you know! Won't you have
some more apple-pie? Aunt Cissy's cook makes such capital pastry, it's
a pity to neglect it! As I was saying, my aunt, who isn't forty yet, in
spite of her powdered hair, went in for spiritualism and all that sort
of thing quite early. She was the seventh child of a Scotchwoman and a
Devonshire man, and both my grandparents were dreadfully superstitious.
Aunt Cissy was very pretty, my mother told me, in a sort of ethereal
way--a figure like yours, I should say, only not so tall and a little
thinner--you are so charmingly slender that I feel a great fat thing
beside you!"

"I think you have a beautiful figure!" said Laline, simply.

"Oh, it's very sweet of you; but there are too many curves about me!
I know I must appear very plump and earthly in Aunt Cissy's eyes. Men
like curves, I know; but then I don't care about pleasing men a little
bit--they simply bore me when they try to make love to me! Do you feel
the same about them?"

"I don't know. No man has ever tried to make love to me."

And then Laline, although she had answered with perfect truthfulness,
suddenly blushed, remembering that she was actually a married woman.
Clare noted the blush and decided that her new friend was lying.

"I am so fond of women," she proceeded, with apparent enthusiasm. "Men
are all very well in their way--I don't mind talking to them for a few
minutes; but for a friend, a companion, a confidant, give me a woman.
You and I ought to get on splendidly together. We are both orphans--at
least, I am an orphan--and your parents are dead, are they not?"

Again Laline flushed deeply.

In truth she had neither seen nor heard anything of her father since
that fateful thirtieth of August more than four years ago. But she
was by no means inclined to confide in Miss Cavan, whom she admired
but instinctively mistrusted; and she therefore contented herself by
stating that her mother was dead, and that she had not seen her father
for some years.

"How sad!" cooed Clare. "Well, to go back to Aunt Cissy. When she was
five- or six-and-twenty she married Mr. Vandeleur, a distinguished
man, a good deal older than herself, who held a good government post
in India. Out there Aunt Cissy got friendly with Buddhist priests and
jugglers and snake-charmers and all sorts of wonderful people, and
picked up the most interesting things travelling about the country.
After some years of study at occult subjects she found out that
Mr. Vandeleur's soul didn't soar high enough to reach the rarified
atmosphere she had herself attained, and that comparative solitude was
essential to her. So she left him quite amicably in India and came and
settled in Kensington, to pursue her studies undisturbed. I believe he
had a liver, and was very fond of eating, and had most conservative and
orthodox notions. So that altogether he must have been a trial to Aunt
Cissy."

"And have you lived here with your aunt ever since?"

"Oh, no," returned Clare, opening her glittering green eyes; "I have
only been with Aunt Cissy a few months, since my mother died in Dublin
last summer and left me in her care. I am not in mourning, because Aunt
Cissy objects to it. She doesn't believe in death, you know! That is
one of her notions. She thinks that dead people are all about us in the
air, and that, if we keep our spirits sufficiently clear, we are able
to see and talk to them. It makes my flesh creep even to think of it!"

"Do you do any work for your aunt?" asked Laline, wondering greatly
what the nature of her own duties would be.

"No. I wanted to, but she found me too 'earthly.' That means, I
suppose, that I am not skinny enough to please her," Clare added,
rather viciously--"at least," she corrected herself, glancing
at Laline's slim figure, "I don't exactly mean skinny--I mean
spiritual-looking."

Laline burst into a hearty laugh.

"I don't in the least mind being called skinny, I assure you," she
said, good-humouredly.

The two girls offered a very marked contrast in appearance. Clare
Cavan's startling fairness and pallor, her abundant hair, red by day,
but converted by artificial light into a ripe gold, the voluptuous
curves of her figure, her aquiline features, almost Egyptian in profile
from the sharp outlines of the nose and chin and curled upper lip, her
scarlet mouth that constantly smiled, her heavy white eyelids drooping
over her brilliant eyes, and complexion "pale with the golden gleam of
an eyelash dead on the cheek"--all these items combined to form a most
picturesque and unique personality, and a type of beauty certain to
provoke discussion and arouse in some keen admiration, and in others a
feeling akin to repulsion.

In Laline Armstrong, or "Lina Grahame," as she now called herself,
there was no element to provoke spontaneous dislike. A little above
the medium height, her girlish slenderness made her appear taller than
she really was; but her quick, graceful movements were rather those of
a short than a tall person. Her habitual expression was alternately
eager and dreamy. Her soft auburn hair, which had grown some shades
darker within the past few years, was coiled neatly at the back of
her shapely head, and rippled in natural waves above her broad brow.
Her nose was short and straight, her mouth rather large than small,
and full of charming curves, humorous and tender, her chin was round,
and under her level dark eyebrows her eyes, of wonderful depth and
darkness, looked out with a wistful intentness, accentuated by the
comparative shortness of her vision. When Laline was amused she laughed
outright, showing two rows of dazzling teeth; whereas Clare never
passed beyond a smile, in spite of her native Irish humour.

In colouring, too, the girls offered a marked contrast. Laline's
complexion was of a pinky fairness, varying from cream to a rose-flush
in her cheeks, which came and went with the least excitement. Her voice
was lower in pitch, and of a more contralto quality than that of Clare,
who to the silvery sweetness of Mrs. Vandeleur's tones added a touch of
caressing "Irish blarney" in her intonation.

"I should so very much like to help Aunt Cissy in her work!" resumed
Miss Cavan. "And it seems rather hard that I can't just because I am
rather plump, doesn't it? In evening-dress I am only twenty-two inches
round the waist--and that isn't absolutely unwieldy, is it?"

"Not at all," said Laline.

She was beginning to wonder whether she herself would get discharged
from her post if she grew any fatter; but she had already decided
that in this household she must get used to surprising incidents and
alarming statements, so she made no further comment at the time.

Clare was going to an evening "At home" at nine o'clock, she informed
her new acquaintance.

"And I shall be so grateful if you will help me to dress and give me
your opinion of my frock. It is a deep-red velvet, cut square. Rather
daring with my red hair, isn't it? But I think the effect is nice."

Susan, the maid, entered at that moment with a message to the effect
that Mrs. Vandeleur would be glad if Miss Grahame would come up-stairs
to see her in her study.

"I can't come with you," said Clare--"I've got to dress; and, besides,
aunt hasn't asked me. But I shall just pop my head in before I go. I
hope she won't frighten you too much! She's dreadfully weird at times;
and I believe she drove one of her secretaries into an asylum. Oh,
you're not the first secretary she's had by at least a dozen! They've
all been too mundane or too unimpressionable, or too illiterate or not
beautiful enough, or else Aunt Cissy has sent them quite off their
heads and they've been packed off to asylums! Of course she might have
saved herself all the expense of a secretary by employing me--indeed,
that was poor mamma's idea when she left me in Aunt Cissy's care, and
my aunt's idea, too. But, as soon as she saw me, she wouldn't hear of
my touching her precious papers and things! However, I am beginning to
do her a great deal of good socially by going out and talking of my
wonderful aunt, and making people want to consult her; so that I am
worth having after all."

Laline was convinced by this speech that Miss Cavan deeply resented her
aunt's refusal to employ her as her secretary, and that she cherished
a keen jealousy against any other applicant for the post, and would
not be loath to warn them away by exaggerating its difficulties and
dangers. But Laline's life had taught her self-control, and it was with
a firm step and composed manner that she proceeded to the room on the
first floor, given up to Mrs. Vandeleur's "studies."

The apartment occupied the entire first floor of the house, which was
by no means large. Folding-doors had once filled an archway in the
middle of the room, but they were now replaced by hangings of tapestry.
Dark oak panelling, mellowed by age, went up to within a few feet of
the ceiling, across which the stars in their courses were painted upon
a midnight sky, while a frieze of tapestry, which in faded colours
and mediæval outlines pictured the "Dance of Death," completed the
wall-decoration of the apartment.

The room was full of furniture, chiefly of oak and elaborately carved,
and many curious old-fashioned cabinets and cupboards of various shapes
and sizes were to be found in the corners and against the walls. A
high carved oak mantelshelf was surmounted by a mystical picture,
incomprehensible to the uninitiated, but which was named the "Awakening
of the Spirit World;" and everywhere, scattered over the mantelpiece,
on shelves, within glass-covered antique tables, and in the cabinets
about the room, there was a multitude of curios, of old-fashioned
charms and relics, of amulets, and metal images of roughly-beaten
gold, ornaments from the East, fat little gods in soapstone and ivory,
bead fetiches of North American Indians, and delicately-carved skulls
and skeletons in German work of the Middle Ages--a heterogeneous
collection, to which the superstitions of the entire world seemed to
have each contributed their part.

In a deep arm-chair of dark oak, with a high-carved back, the little
priestess of the room sat among cushions of Oriental brocade. The chair
was so large and the little lady so small and fragile that she seemed
to Laline to encamp rather than to sit in it; but the darkened wood
formed a most effective background for her pale face and powdered hair.
Mrs. Vandeleur was writing at a table littered with papers; but as
Laline entered she laid down her pen and put her gold-rimmed spectacles
on the table.

"Sit down, child," she said, pointing to a low-cushioned seat near
the wide fireplace, furnished with red tiles and shining brass-dogs,
upon which logs of wood were burning, it being one of Mrs. Vandeleur's
principles to ignore the existence of gas and of coals alike--"sit
down, and let me look at you! To-morrow morning you must come to me for
money and buy something else to wear. I detest black, and black silk
most of all!"

"What would you like me to wear?" asked Laline, smiling.

"White--white in soft folds. There should be no stiff outlines about
you; your skin and hair supply the requisite colour."

"But white will get very dirty in London, surely!" Laline objected.

"Not if you have enough white dresses," returned her employer, loftily.
"Go to-morrow and buy four, of creamy-white nun's veiling. I will make
a sketch to show you how they must be made. Presently you shall have
others. I should like to see you in white velvet," she concluded,
gazing dreamily at Laline through her jewelled eye-glasses, which she
invariably used in preference to her spectacles when not alone or not
engaged in writing.

"White velvet would be very expensive, I am afraid," Laline was
beginning, when Mrs. Vandeleur cut her short.

"Leave off thinking of money altogether!" she said. "What does money
matter? If we can have the necessaries of life--and among them I count
beautiful surroundings, which are essential to a woman of my nature--of
what use is extra money? Look at my niece Clare. She is forever drawn
this way and that by two mastering passions--love of men and their
admiration and desire of money. The conflict will spoil her beauty.
Already it is so marked in its results that her presence troubles me.
The beings by whom in the spirit and the flesh I am surrounded must be
without harrowing passions or disturbing longings. Tell me--how does
this room affect you? Stand up, look about you, and speak out quite
fearlessly."

Laline rose and looked about her. As she did so she became conscious
of a singular perfume, faint but penetrating, which filled the air.
This arose in part from the many sandal-wood ornaments and receptacles
about the room, and also from Mrs. Vandeleur's practice of burning
joss-sticks and pastilles.

As Laline afterwards learned, her employer was also much addicted to
the use of Eastern perfumes, high in price and difficult to obtain,
with which her hair, hands, and clothing were liberally sprinkled. The
wood logs, too, seemed to emit a fragrant odour, and the mingled scents
gave to the atmosphere a quality peculiar to that room, and with which
Laline ever afterwards associated it.

A lamp of ruby glass, suspended by silver chains from the ceiling
on the farther side of the tapestry-hangings, supplied light to the
farther portion of the room, illuminating feebly the spacious bookcase,
the low divans, the corner cupboards, and the tall brazier, which
formed its chief furniture. The standing-lamp of Mrs. Vandeleur's
writing-table was shaded by amber silk, and, with the two unlit
wax-candles in silver stands on her table, gave, but for the dancing
firelight, the sole means of illuminating the apartment.

Laline stood for a few seconds gazing about her at the crystal balls,
the strange little ebony wands, the framed parchment-scrolls inscribed
with cabalistic signs, the heavy volumes in moth-eaten covers, and the
many other signs of abstruse and unwholesome studies into the unknown
which met her eye. Then she turned slowly, fascinated by the piercing
gaze of Mrs. Vandeleur; and, drawing insensibly a little nearer to her,
she scanned that lady's face.

"The room is beautiful and interesting," she said, "but it affects me
rather unpleasantly. I feel oppressed and stifled, as though a weight
had been put upon my heart and I could not breathe. There are so many
things about that I do not understand, and some that fascinate but half
frighten me. I feel--"

She hesitated, blushed, then stopped outright.

"Go on!" said Mrs. Vandeleur, imperatively.

"Well, it sounds tactless and discourteous, but I feel as if I would
rather be on a wide common, with the wind blowing a little rain into my
face, than here, and that, if I passed much of my life here, I might
grow into an idle, listless dreamer, with all the best side of my
nature sent to sleep forever."

"Silly child!" said Mrs. Vandeleur, holding out her little hands and
gently drawing the girl down on her knees beside her chair. "But yours
is just the temperament I want. My secretary, my companion, who will
take down my ideas and clothe them in suitable language, must not be
a mere echo of myself. I am at present engaged on two great works.
One is to be called _Necromancy in the Nineteenth Century_, and the
other _The Occult Vision_. With a mind like yours, fresh and untainted
by the world, to supplement my own, I can reach higher altitudes of
thought. But for this purpose your mind and spirit must be as clear
as a rivulet, in which I may read my changing fancies mirrored. While
engaged with me on this work, no thoughts of either of those disturbing
elements, love or money, must derange your spirit. I can read in your
eyes that you are not mercenary; as to love--you have never loved, and
yet you are keeping back some secret from the world and from me."

Looking closely into the girl's eyes, Mrs. Vandeleur softly smoothed
her forehead with her fingers. Laline was conscious of a sudden and
overpowering desire to confide in the weird little lady, which she
rightly attributed to the magnetism of the latter's touch and gaze.
Disengaging herself by a quick gesture, she rose to her feet, and spoke
with ringing earnestness and unexpected decision.

"If I am to help you in your work, Mrs. Vandeleur," she said, "it is of
no use to begin by trying to paralyse my will and make it subject to
yours. On such terms I could not stay with you. I think your work is
very interesting and fascinating, and that you are exceedingly kind.
I know quite well that I am very easily influenced on one side of my
character; but I have another side, too, or I should not be here now,
nor should I have taken my life into my own hands as I did four years
ago. As to money, I think as you do. As to love and marriage, they are
not for me; they are shut out of my life altogether. I must not think
of them either now or at any future time. If I have a secret, it is not
one to be ashamed of. Why, then, try to force it from me?"

"I know your secret," said Mrs. Vandeleur, quietly--"you are already
married!"




CHAPTER IX.


That night, when Clare Cavan returned at midnight from her reception,
she thanked the yawning Susan for sitting up for her, and softly
proceeded to the top floor, where were three bedrooms occupied
respectively by Mrs. Vandeleur's two servants, and by her niece and her
new secretary.

Laline was in bed but not asleep. She lay awake, thinking with
interest of her new surroundings. Her work that evening had been
writing at the dictation of Mrs. Vandeleur a long treatise concerning
second sight. Part of it she had understood, and part had been
wholly incomprehensible to her, as she was not yet accustomed to the
semi-mystical jargon in which Mrs. Vandeleur clothed her ideas.

Very little more talk of a personal nature had passed between her and
her employer. Laline had neither denied nor agreed to the latter's
assertion that she was already married, nor had the little lady again
alluded to the subject, contenting herself by warning her new secretary
against placing any confidence in Clare Cavan, who, she declared, had
been born under an opposing star to that of Laline.

It was all very new and fascinating to the imaginative young girl,
coming as this experience did after the monotonous drudgery of a
suburban day-school, and so much excited had she been by the incidents
of the evening that she was fully awake when, at a little after twelve
o'clock, a tap at her bedroom door heralded the entrance of Clare Cavan.

Mrs. Vandeleur's niece was shading her eyes with one hand from the
light of a candle carried in the other. Her gown of crimson velvet
was out very low in the square front, displaying to full advantage
the startling whiteness and smooth texture of her skin, and by the
candle-light her eyes sparkled like green topazes.

"Do wake up!" she whispered. "I've something most interesting and
wonderful to tell you--I'm in love!"

Placing her candle on the dressing-table, she sat in a chair near, and,
clasping her hands round her knees, proceeded to purr out her story.

"It was Lady Moreham's reception, as I told you. She goes in for
artists and celebrities, and she has an immense belief in Aunt Cissy,
and consults her about everything. Artists, you know, always rave about
me; they have the bad taste to admire my horrid red hair! But, to
explain really what happened last night, I must go back. It's lovely to
have at last a girl of my own age to talk to and confide in! You must
know that Aunt Cissy gets cards for all private views and that sort of
thing; she seldom goes, except to quite the most exclusive; but I use
her tickets. I simply adore pictures! Well, about two months ago, I was
looking at a lovely fat Paris Bordone lady in an old-master exhibition.
I didn't really mean to attract attention to myself, because the lady
in the picture had my coloured hair. Do you know Paris Bordone's
beauties? They are always fat and white-skinned, in clothes much too
tight for them, with red-velvet dresses and pearls in their red hair.
Suddenly I heard a voice behind me--a man's voice--say, 'By George,
what colouring! The very replica of the picture! She's superb!' Of
course, I never thought he could be talking of me; but I turned round
and found the man who spoke looking full at me. Such a handsome man!
Tall, with a splendid figure, a square jaw, black hair, blue eyes--an
Irish combination that I love, though in this case I've learned he
gets it from his Highland descent. He stared at me so hard that I could
hardly get my eyes away; he was really looking at me so intently that I
was quite fascinated. At last I felt I was blushing deeply, and he too
flushed. His friend touched his arm, and that seemed to recall him to
himself, for he moved away, and I saw him no more that day. It was the
strangest thing, for I fell a good deal in love with him on the spot,
and somehow felt certain that I should meet him again. So sure I was,
that I had my new evening gown, the one I have on now, made just like
the Paris Bordone picture simply because I felt convinced that some day
he would see me in it. Aunt Cissy would be able to explain the meaning
of that sort of feeling. I only know that I felt it."

"And did you never meet him again until to-night?" asked Laline,
sitting up in bed, interested, as are all girls, in anything in the
nature of a love-story.

"Once only. He was coming out of the South Kensington Museum late on a
Saturday afternoon, and I had been shopping in the Brampton Road. He
passed quite close to me, and knew me in a moment, as I could see, and
I was so disappointed that he did not speak to me."

"How could he," exclaimed Laline, scandalised, "since you are a lady,
and, I suppose, he is a gentleman? It would have been an insult which
you would have resented."

Clare eyed her curiously under half-lowered white eyelids, and began
taking the hairpins out of her hair.

"Of course I should!" she answered, after a slight pause. "But he
didn't. Then I went to the South Kensington Museum constantly on nearly
all the free days for more than a month, until I knew all the cases
near the entrances by heart. But I never met him, and I began really to
despair until to-night."

"And were you introduced to him?" asked Laline, much interested. Her
notions of what was right and becoming in a young gentlewoman had been
considerably startled by Clare's confessions; but she was a sympathetic
listener all the same.

"As soon as I walked into the room I saw him," replied Clare,
triumphantly. "He was watching me all the while I was shaking hands
with Lady Moreham; and only a few moments after I could feel rather
than see that he was being brought up to be introduced by Miss Moreham,
who was helping her mother to receive. He had asked to be introduced to
me, as I knew he would. And fancy! I had supposed all the time that he
was only an artist, but I learned that he is in a very good position,
and will have heaps of money some day. Isn't that delightful?"

"Why?"

"Why? Because I adore him! His eyes are perfectly lovely--they sparkle
like blue stars! And he has a trick of listening very attentively when
one is talking, and just drawing his black eyebrows together while he
stares hard at one's face, which is irresistible!"

"And is he in love with you?"

"Of course he is! He fell in love with me the first moment he saw me."

"Did he tell you so?"

"Do you think one requires to be told that sort of thing?" inquired
Clare, disdainfully. "He looked it--that was enough. Before I left,
Miss Moreham contrived to compliment me on my conquest. She told me
that he is next of kin to one of the richest men in London."

"And what will your aunt say?"

"Oh, there is nothing that aunt would like better than to see me safely
married to somebody with money! That is why she buys me nice clothes,
and sends me to 'At homes' and dances and private views. She wants to
get me off her hands. In spite of her dreaminess, you'll find later on
that there's a lot of the wisdom of the serpent about Aunt Cissy."

"Shall you tell her about this?"

"I shall have to, for he's going to call either to-day or the next day.
He has heard a great deal about aunt, he said, and is very anxious
to know her, as he is awfully interested in all about palmistry and
divination and that sort of thing. It is my belief that he's going to
consult her as to our future lives. Oh, I shall never sleep to-night! I
feel so terribly excited! I love his voice; it's deep and sweet, with a
certain firmness; and, when I gave him my hand in saying 'Good-bye,' he
didn't give a conventional handshake, but held it tight a long time. I
hadn't the heart to draw it away, as I dare say I should have done. It
made me thrill all over. I shall simply count the minutes until I see
him again!"

There was no doubt in Laline's mind as to her companion's sincerity.
Clare's eyes shone with a tender, reflective light, which marvellously
enhanced her beauty; and when at last she left off talking of her
conquest and retired to her own room, it was with the avowed intention
of dreaming of her new admirer.

Laline for her part lay awake for a long time after Clare's departure.
Just the least little pang of regret, which, however, was far removed
from envy, shot across the young girl's heart as she reflected that
her position in life would always be that of confidant and never of
principal in love-affairs. How short a time it had taken that journey
in the _fiacre_ in the rain to the house of the English Consul; and yet
the effects of that one half-hour were to be stamped upon her entire
life! Of her father she often thought, sometimes with anxiety not
untouched by self-reproach. She did not wish ever to see him again,
nor could she school herself to forgive the callous greed with which
he had designed to make a bargain of his motherless child. But he was
her father--her mother had once loved him; and Laline often wondered
how he had weathered the rain-cloud of debts and difficulties which had
gathered over his head.

But of the man whom that same fateful visit had made her lord and
master Laline hardly ever thought at all. Her life at Norwood had been
too busy to allow her to indulge either in recollections of the past
or dreams of the future, and in the three short weeks that she had
known Wallace Armstrong she had seen so little of him that it was not
surprising if her memory of him had become blurred and indistinct. The
fact that he too was bound for life to a lost mate had hardly ever
occurred to her; the bond was of his own choosing, and a man who,
according to her father's accusations, was a forger and a cheat, might
well be expected to ignore any ties which brought no profit to him.

But to-night for the first time the idea of this detested husband,
this man who, in order to secure for himself an income, had married
an ignorant child, for whom he cared nothing, that a lie might be
turned to a truth and a victim provided, haunted Laline's wakeful
spirit. She was as yet too young and too entirely fancy-free to lament
with any bitterness the lifelong loneliness which Wallace Armstrong's
selfish action had entailed upon her. But something in Clare's joyous
description of her new love-affair recalled with painful clearness to
Laline the fact that she herself was set apart from all other girls,
and that never to her ears would a man's lips murmur words of love.

"I can't understand Clare's nature," she said to herself, as she lay
with wide-open eyes fixed upon the darkness. "Of course I must never
let myself grow fond of any man, but if I were as free as she and
really cared, I could not speak of it to a stranger, and especially
a stranger I did not like! And I feel sure that Clare doesn't like
me, in spite of her friendliness, and that she is very jealous of me
with her aunt. Life in Queen Mary Crescent will be much more difficult
and complicated than it was at Norwood. But this house is very quiet,
at least, and no one will dream of seeking for Laline Garth in Mrs.
Vandeleur's new secretary Lina Grahame."

With this soothing reflection, Laline fell to sleep, only to awaken
in terror as early morning was breaking under the influence of a
disquieting dream. It seemed to her that she was transported to the
gates of an earthly paradise, a garden of enchanting beauty, where
she wandered at will over mossy sward, breathing moss-laden air and
listening to music of a more than earthly sweetness, music that seemed
to whisper of love. Suddenly, as she was giving herself up to the full
delights of the scene, a loud and brutal laugh sounded close behind
her, her arms were seized and loaded with chains which cut into her
flesh, and when she awoke and sprang up in bed with a stifled scream,
weeping and trembling, she could still hear ringing in her ears the
words of her captor--

"You belong to me! I am your husband!"

Too terrified to go to sleep again, Laline lay awake until the morning,
and the unpleasant impression remained so strong that when she came
down to breakfast her unusual pallor excited Clare's comments.

"You look as though you and not I had been up late last night," Miss
Gavan said. "I am always white, so that I don't look any different
to-day. You don't seem to have any appetite. What is the matter?"

"Nothing. I've only had a horrid dream!"

"Oh, you must tell Aunt Cissy! She is great on dreams, and knows what
everything in them means. People come from tremendous distances to
consult her about their dreams. What was yours all about?"

"Only silly fancies. This morning I want you to tell me where I ought
to go shopping. You see I don't know London at all, and I have to order
four gowns of white nun's veiling, and something white I must get to
wear in the house this afternoon. I have only three dresses--a black
silk, a blue serge, and a gray tweed; and your aunt says they all set
her teeth on edge, they are so dark and stiff and plain."

"So aunt thinks white is your color?" observed Clare, glancing
askance at Laline. "She evidently considers you very candid and
unsophisticated."

The words suggested a sneer, but not so the tone; and that morning
Clare proved herself invaluable in assisting Laline to make her
purchases. She was the right guide on such an expedition, having
excellent taste and the advantages of an extremely economical training;
and when the girls returned home for luncheon they were both laden with
parcels and brimful of good-humour and excitement.

Very early in the afternoon Mrs. Vandeleur drove off in a hired
brougham on some mysterious errand connected with her divining powers,
leaving a message for her secretary to the effect that she would
return between three and four o'clock, and hoped to find Miss Grahame
awaiting her in the study. Clare Cavan, in a flutter of anticipation
over her admirer's visit, betook herself to her room to put the
finishing touches to her hair and toilet, after impressing upon Susan
the necessity of letting her know at once if a gentleman should call to
see her; and Laline, in the waning light of a wintry afternoon, found
herself in the room sacred to her employer's occult studies.

It was too early for lamplight, yet the shadows cast by the dancing
flames from the logs looked strange and eerie in that room of spells
and charms. Altogether in keeping with her surroundings was the slender
form, draped in the soft folds of a tea-gown of creamy-white serge and
silk, seated on a low chair by the fire gazing into the glowing wood.
Laline felt very nervous that day. Whether it was the result of her
dream or the influence of the room she could not tell; but gradually
a presentiment gathered in her mind that some momentous crisis in her
life was coming nearer and nearer to her at every breath she drew.

Oppressed and over-strung, divided between a longing to fly from
the room and a quivering desire to know the meaning of the strange
foreboding which hung upon her spirit, Laline rose and began restlessly
moving about the room, lightly lifting and as quickly putting down
various trifles which arrested her attention. The firelight, glancing
here and there, centred and sparkled on a crystal ball which stood on
Mrs. Vandeleur's desk. In the magic crystal, Laline's employer had
gravely assured her, those of pure hearts and minds, when they knew its
secret, could see mirrored the future and the past. Laline raised the
crystal in her hands and pored into its depths.

Half mesmerised by so intent a gaze, the memory of last night's dream
returned in force upon her mind, thrown out of balance by her agitated
nerves and strange surroundings. Mistily, as she looked, she seemed to
behold a face she once knew mirrored within the glistening depths of
the crystal. But before she could do more than recognise the features
of the man she had married, the study-door opened, and a voice, not
from dreamland but from reality, spoke the name--

"Mr. Wallace Armstrong!"




CHAPTER X.


At the announcement by the servant "Mr. Wallace Armstrong" the crystal
ball fell from Laline's relaxed fingers and rolled upon the floor.

She stood as though paralysed, with her back to the window, through
which the last rays of a fast-fading sunset touched her bright hair,
making a halo of gold round her shadowed face. Her eyes were lowered;
she dared not lift them; dared not meet her husband's gaze; dared not
speak lest he should recognise her voice.

Wallace Armstrong, for his part, coming into the dark room, could
distinguish little but a tall, slender woman's figure in long white
draperies, a figure that neither moved nor spoke when the servant
announced him, but stood more like a wraith than a living thing between
him and the light. Was it a trick of the celebrated Mrs. Vandeleur, he
wondered, to receive strangers in this way? It was certainly original
and striking, if hardly calculated to set visitors at their ease.

"Is it Mrs. Vandeleur?" he asked. "I am afraid you dropped something as
I came in. May I find it for you?"

As he bent his head Laline looked down upon it, and remembered, with
a little quiver of repulsion, how often at the Rue Planché she had
noticed his thick curly black hair.

"Here it is!" he exclaimed, at that moment. "A crystal ball. It isn't
broken or even chipped. Is it a magic crystal, like the one Rossetti
wrote about?"

Still she did not answer, and found, to her horror, that he was looking
at her in surprise. Raising her eyes to his in a sudden defiant
impulse, she realised at once that Wallace had changed almost as much
as she herself had done. For one thing, the heavy dark moustache,
which four years ago had shaded his mouth, was close shaved; he wore
his hair much shorter than before, and the look of brooding sullenness
was gone from his brow. He was now to all appearance as perfectly "in
condition," physically and mentally, as before at Boulogne he had been
neglected and "run down." Under straight black eyebrows his brilliant
blue eyes glanced in searching interested fashion upon the face of
the still figure before him; but the old haggard insolence, the old
defiance and distrust, seemed to have entirely disappeared from his
voice, face, and bearing, and before she had even opened her lips to
speak to him, Laline felt that the horror and the hatred of years had
already begun to melt away within her heart.

"I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Vandeleur," the visitor observed,
after a short pause, "for my intrusion. But I know so many of your
intimate friends very well indeed that I thought I might venture to
call, on the strength of the letter from Lady Moreham, which I sent to
you by messenger this morning. I hope, by the way, that you received
it?"

It was necessary for Laline to speak at last, and in very low tones she
informed Mr. Armstrong that Mrs. Vandeleur was out, and that she was
her secretary.

Her heart beat so violently as she spoke that it seemed to choke
her, and she almost feared that he would hear its throbbing. She had
often been told that her speaking voice was one of unusual depth and
sweetness, and she dreaded lest he should recognise its tones. But
though he inclined his head a little in her direction, the better to
catch her murmured words, Mr. Armstrong made no comment upon them, but
broke at once into talk upon the different objects of interest about
the room.

"May I wait here until Mrs. Vandeleur returns?" he asked; and, when she
bowed her head in response, he went on at once with his remarks. "Like
a page of old-world romance this room is. One might expect any wonder
amid such surroundings. Are you versed in occult lore, may I ask?
Miss Cavan, as I understand, admits that it has a kind of terrifying
fascination for her."

A light seemed to flash upon Laline. This man, Wallace Armstrong,
her husband, was none other than Clare Cavan's rich admirer, to whom
she had been introduced on the preceding evening. Why had not some
prescience taught her--Laline--who it was that Clare had described as
tall and strong, blue-eyed, black-haired, of Highland descent, and
next-of-kin to one of the richest men in London!

This man, then, had presented himself at Mrs. Vandeleur's house in the
character of her niece's lover, disregarding altogether the ceremony
which had bound him, more than four years ago, to a bride who had
escaped from him.

As to his gentleness of manner, Laline knew better than to trust to
that. Vividly, while he spoke, she recalled Wallace's good-humour and
kindness to her friends the children, and the treats he had given them
at the pastry-cook's, and afterwards in that memorable drive. All the
experiences of those three weeks seemed to crowd back upon the girl's
memory, the while Wallace, not unnaturally mistaking her awkward
silence for shyness, strove by talking to put her at her ease.

If only Mrs. Vandeleur or Clare would come, she thought, and end this
terrible _tête-à-tête_! She scarcely heeded the words he uttered, so
concerned was she in listening for tones in his voice which she could
recognise. She had never even asked him to sit down, nor did she dare
to ring for lights. So that she was standing just where he had found
her on entering the room, with her back to the window and her hands
clasped before her, when the door opened noiselessly, and Clare Cavan
crept towards them.

"Why, how dark it is!" she exclaimed. "And how stupid of Susan to have
shown you up here, Mr. Armstrong! How are you? I must ring at once for
the lamp. I had no idea that you were here."

"I think the servant was under the impression that your aunt had
returned," said Wallace, as he turned to shake hands with Clare. In an
instant Laline made a swift movement towards the door, hoping to escape
before he had clearly seen her; but in this design she was circumvented
by the sudden entry of Susan, who met her in the doorway, carrying in
her hands the upper portion of the tall lamp which usually stood by the
side of Mrs. Vandeleur's writing-table.

The light fell full on Laline's face, and quick as thought Wallace
Armstrong turned and gazed upon her features thus revealed to him. As
though to facilitate his inspection, Susan, lamp in hand, paused by the
door to inform Miss Grahame of Mrs. Vandeleur's return; and Wallace
Armstrong gazed his fill, and all his life remembered vividly just
how her face looked then--the lovely flesh-tints paled with agitation
and fear, the soft dark eyes distended, and between the level brown
eyebrows two perpendicular lines indicative of worry and distress.
Every curve of the parted red lips, of the firmly-modelled chin and
long well-rounded throat, he learned by heart in those few seconds,
and his eyes lingered with wondering admiration upon her small pink
ear, set far back, and enhanced in beauty by the bright hair, almost
yellow at this point, which half-veiled the upper portion of its curled
outline.

Clare Cavan noted with astonishment and indignation the direction of
Wallace's eyes--noted, too, the perceptible start he gave as he first
beheld Laline's face in the full light, and the fixed intensity of his
gaze. A keen stab of venomous jealousy shot through Clare's heart,
and she mentally registered a vow to be even with Laline for having
provoked Mr. Armstrong's attention.

Left alone with Clare, Wallace surprised her by making no reference
to Laline. He began, on the contrary, at once to talk of the various
persons whom they had met on the preceding evening--light desultory
conversation, not at all after Miss Cavan's heart, which he continued
until the entrance of Mrs. Vandeleur broke up their _tête-à-tête_.

Wallace Armstrong was a man of considerable determination and strength
of character, as might be guessed by the squareness of his jaw and the
firm lines of his handsome mouth. He had fully made up his mind this
afternoon to please Mrs. Vandeleur, and he succeeded admirably. The
genuine interest he took both in her personality and her pursuits made
it easy work for him to please her, the more so as the little lady was
greatly swayed by the outside appearance of those she met, and Mr.
Armstrong's finely proportioned figure, handsome face, and frank and
courteous manners were well calculated to satisfy the most exacting of
women.

To him the experience was unique and delightful. This picturesque
little old-young lady, with her powdered hair, her odd talk and
pretensions to hidden powers, her shimmering gray-satin gown redolent
of some faint Eastern perfume, her dainty lace frills and cuffs,
her small fingers sparkling with diamonds, and her searching dark
eyes peering at him from behind her jewelled eye-glasses, Wallace
considered a most interesting and delightful personage; while,
as offering a contrast to her _rococo_ charm, Clare Cavan, in a
tea-gown of sea-green cashmere and silk, her untidy yellow-red hair
crowning her alluring white face, appeared to supply just the note of
flesh-and-blood actuality which would otherwise have been wanting in
the scene.

Clare made tea, and hovered near him as much as possible. Not once
did Mr. Armstrong allude to his meeting with the secretary; but he
questioned Mrs. Vandeleur closely as to the properties of the crystal
which he had seen fall from Laline's hands when he entered the room.

"The story is that only certain special temperaments can discover
anything in it, isn't it?" he asked, while he held the ball in his
hands and examined it carefully.

"It is a gift," said Mrs. Vandeleur--"a gift given to few. Happily I
have discovered a young girl whose mind is so finely tempered that in
time she may go very far, very far indeed, in the study of the occult."

"Indeed! May I ask how you came across her?"

"Outsiders would tell you by accident; but my creed does not admit of
accident. I put certain words in a public print, and directed them to
one particular type of mind. I wanted that especial spirit; I appealed
to that, and it came to me as surely as a needle comes to a magnet.
That was all."

"But you had heaps and heaps of unsuitable replies as well, aunt," put
in Clare, sweetly.

It was by such remarks as this that she daily alienated her aunt's
liking more completely; but for reasons of her own Clare did not wish
the conversation to turn upon Laline.

"They do not count," said Mrs. Vandeleur, loftily, though with a shade
of annoyance on her brow. "The world will always be composed of the
two or three who understand and the millions who do not. Suffice it
that I found the temperament I required--a creature of perfect purity
and truth, unsullied by thoughts of love or money."

 "'Her soul was pure and true;
   The good stars met in her horoscope,
 Made her of spirit, fire, and dew,'"

quoted Wallace Armstrong, looking steadily in the fire, as though he
saw some picture there--a picture, it might be, of a tall and slender
maiden, in straight white draperies, with her sweet face lowered and
the light making an aureole of her hair.

"Whose lines are those," asked Mrs. Vandeleur, much interested, "and
why do you quote them?"

"They are from Browning's 'Evelyn Hope,' and they seemed appropriate to
such a woman as you were describing."

"You have seen Miss Grahame, my aunt's secretary, of whom she is
speaking, Mr. Armstrong," said Clare, hardly able to control her
vexation, but speaking very sweetly. "She was here with you when I came
in."

"There was a lady here when I entered, and I supposed that she was Mrs.
Vandeleur at first," he answered, composedly; "but she hardly spoke,
except to tell me of my mistake, and it was much too dark to see her
face."

"I thought you saw her when the lamp came in," observed Clare,
innocently. "She is such a nice girl, full of fun, and does so enjoy
shopping! I hope you will like the tea-gown I got for her at Baker's
this morning, aunt. Lina much prefers stiff tweed or serge tailor-built
things; but I knew you insisted upon white dresses and flowing lines
for her, so I coaxed her into having them. I don't think I ever saw
anybody so fond of sweets; she is quite like a child in a grocer's
shop!"

By this artfully-planned speech Clare hoped that she had spoiled the
romantic effect of Laline's appearance. "Evelyn Hope" enjoying sweets
in a grocer's shop, and with difficulty restrained from purchasing
tweed tailor-made gowns, was surely sufficiently prosaic. Apparently
Wallace thought so too, for he did not pursue the subject, and the talk
presently drifted to palmistry.

"Some day you must tell my fortune, Mrs. Vandeleur," her visitor said.

"A good deal of it I can read in your face," said the little lady,
promptly. "You have considerable self-control, but you are capable of
going to the greatest lengths of what people would call folly for the
sake of one you love. You like many people; you love very few. But
where you love, it is a passion, a religion."

He flushed deeply, and then laughed.

"I don't think I am quite so fine a character as you are kind enough to
suppose me," he said. "There are no deep tragedies in the daily routine
of life at a bank for a rich man's nephew."

"Yet you have had some moving experiences," pursued Mrs. Vandeleur
thoughtfully, still scanning him through her eye-glasses--"experiences
involving much will-power and considerable self-sacrifice, and making
their mark upon your after-life."

"Has Lady Moreham told you much about me?" he asked, quickly.

"I do not need to be told by others what I can read in your face. Give
me your hand; now both hands."

She bent closely over first one and then the other for a moment, and
then looked up.

"Another's life, another's career is strangely involved in yours,"
she said. "Your line of fate is hampered by another's. It is an
association which will bring you nothing but harm. It still lies within
your power to sever it."

Clare Cavan, watching curiously, saw the young man's healthy colour
pale and a set look come into his mouth. But he did not speak, and Mrs.
Vandeleur continued.

"Just at this point in your career the easy life you have led of late
will be utterly changed. Your whole existence will be swerved from its
ordinary course, for a new and most powerful element will enter it.
From what I can judge, it will be love, the love of a woman."

A triumphant smile flashed into Clare's eyes. She was inclined to place
implicit faith in her aunt's prophecies, and had little doubt but that
a passion for herself would be the new element introduced into Wallace
Armstrong's career. Apart from his monetary position, she was really
very much in love with this extremely personable young man, who clearly
admired her, and was desirous of getting into her aunt's good graces.
Mrs. Vandeleur's Sibylline speeches about his future were therefore
profoundly interesting to Clare, who sat supporting her chin on her
hands in a picturesque attitude near the fire, listening with all her
ears.

"Your love-affairs will bring you a great deal of trouble," pursued the
little prophetess. "Or, rather, I should say, your love-affair, for you
will have but one."

"Won't she return my affection, then?" asked Wallace, half laughing,
but with a note of suppressed eagerness in his voice.

"There will be trouble and partings and evil wrought you by an enemy,
until death severs a link and you are free."

Mrs. Vandeleur spoke slowly and oracularly on her last words; she
dropped his hands, and, leaning back in her chair, passed her fingers
wearily over her eyes.

"I am tired," she said. "But I foresee trouble before you, and I should
like to warn you, for I take a great interest in you. Be very wary of
your friends. False love and false friendship are Will-o'-the-wisps, to
lead you to destruction. Now you must go. I have my work to attend to.
But you must come and see me again often, very often, for I like you."

With an imperial graciousness she stretched out her hand, which Wallace
lightly kissed, as he felt he was expected to do.

"I am really grateful for your kind forethought about my future," he
said, "and I shall certainly come again."

He was not in the least superstitious, and Mrs. Vandeleur's pretensions
to omniscience surprised and amused him; but he realised that she was
at least sincere in her charlatanism, and that she believed in herself
almost as much as she expected others to believe in her. Moreover, she
had touched a sore and secret place in his heart in her rambling talk.
No one knew better than he how the course of his life for the past few
years had been overshadowed by an association of ill omen, so far as
his own prospects were concerned, and Mrs. Vandeleur's intuition in
this respect impressed him considerably.

Clare Cavan led him down the stairs and opened the street-door for him,
looking strangely beautiful with the light from the ruby-coloured lamp
in the hall falling on her shining hair and white face, and Wallace
turned on the pavement to look back and bow again to her. But Miss
Cavan had closed the door, not finding the north-east wind to her
liking; and at the dining-room window, close pressed against the glass,
watching his retreating figure, was the face of the secretary, Lina
Grahame, wearing a look of unmistakable dislike and fear.

"That little old lady with the powdered hair is a witch!" Wallace said
to himself, as he pursued his way. "I am already in love, and already
in trouble over it."




CHAPTER XI.


That night Laline went to bed with her head in a whirl of emotion and
perplexity.

All through the evening she had had to endure the comments of both Mrs.
Vandeleur and her niece on the manners and appearance, the character,
and the prospects of Wallace Armstrong, and had had to listen, to all
appearance unmoved, while the possibilities of his falling in love and
marrying were freely discussed.

And all the while she knew that she was his wife, sold by an
impecunious father, bought by a penniless husband, unrecognised and
forgotten, but his wife none the less in the eyes of the law and the
sight of heaven.

She could have laughed aloud when Mrs. Vandeleur gravely stated that
Wallace Armstrong was a man of "singular nobility of character, of
fine artistic tastes, chivalrous instincts, and a high disregard of
mercenary considerations." She could not even join in praise of his
good looks.

"I think I have a prejudice against men with square jaws and black hair
and light eyes," was all that she said.

But there was a marked constraint in her tone, and Mrs. Vandeleur
glanced at her sharply.

"You seem to have taken a dislike against Mr. Armstrong," she said.
"It is curious, for his is a nature which should blend perfectly with
yours. I should certainly not have thought you had been born under
opposing planets."

"I don't feel that I ever want to meet him again!" said Laline,
emphatically.

"Above all, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Vandeleur, holding up a warning
forefinger, "don't attempt to run counter to such an instinct as that!
When your whole spirit seems to rise in arms against a personality, the
feeling of repulsion is given you as a token to beware of them; and, if
you feel as you say towards Mr. Armstrong, have nothing whatever to do
with him!"

"I will take your advice," said Laline, dutifully.

But the oddest little prick of vexation came to her as she spoke.
In spite of her dread of her husband, and her terror lest he should
recognise in her the lost Laline, she had been strangely interested in
him that afternoon. His gentleness and geniality she knew to be a sham,
his agreeable manners merely things he assumed and dropped at will.
None knew better than she that Wallace Armstrong was a man without
honour, principle, or remorse--one who would lie and cheat and drink
and swear, who would strike an old man and deceive a friendless girl--a
creature in whom no truth was to be found. And yet, in spite of all
this, and of the fact that he had entered Mrs. Vandaleur's house in the
character of Clare Cavan's favoured admirer, Laline could not rid her
mind of a secret hankering to see him again.

After all, he was her husband, although he did not know it. It would be
her duty not to let his courtship of Clare go too far. Reveal herself
she could not and would not; but she might at least contrive to learn
from him news of her father. With such excuses she tried to blind
herself to the fact that she wanted--greatly wanted, and yet as greatly
feared--to meet Wallace Armstrong again.

The thought of him was ever present in her mind, although neither Mrs.
Vandeleur nor Clare could contrive to draw from her another remark
concerning him. Her brain was fully occupied with him as she put her
head down on her pillow, and it was but natural that he should dominate
her dreams, through the whole course of which she fancied herself
alternately pursuing and fleeing from her husband.

Life at No. 21, Queen Mary Crescent was an entirely novel experience
for Laline. Mrs. Vandeleur breakfasted in her bedroom--a small but cosy
apartment on the ground floor, built out at the back of the house,
and adjoining the dining- and drawing-rooms. By eleven o'clock she
was visible, and Laline was required to read aloud to her, to copy
or write at dictation, and to listen to long, rambling accounts of
her employer's dreams, her opinions, or her psychic experiences. At
half-past one the secretary was sent down-stairs to her luncheon; and
from half-past three to half-past six or seven on four days a week Mrs.
Vandeleur received visitors by appointment, and was by them consulted
as to their past, present, and future.

There was no fixed rate of payment for these interviews; and, but for
Clare's insidious suggestions, Laline would have thought that Mrs.
Vandeleur cast horoscopes, read hands, and shuffled cards from pure
love of necromantic lore. But on this point Miss Cavan undeceived her.

"Of course, dear Aunt Cissy doesn't make fixed charges," she purred,
"because she knows its actionable. There's an absurd prejudice against
fortune-telling and all that sort of thing, you know, though it's only
really wicked when dirty old women do it at the back door! When ladies
call on Aunt Cissy, after Susan has shown them into the drawing-room,
and you have next gone in and taken stock of them and prepared aunt to
receive them, they talk to her about themselves and their characters
and their love-affairs, and ask her advice and so on, till she must be
perfectly sick of them! And, although she likes the importance of it
enormously, divination and all that sort of thing take it out of her
dreadfully. So it's only fair that she should get paid well for it.
People know that, and, when they go, they slip gold or a cheque under
the blotting-book on the writing-table. I peeped in once just before
a _séance_, and saw the ends of several cheques sticking out of the
shark's-skin cover of the blotter, and several loose sovereigns on the
table beside it, just to give visitors a hint, no doubt. Aunt Cissy
only has a mean little allowance from her husband--nothing like enough
to satisfy her desire for the beautiful. You can't surround yourself
with old oak and old silver and china and curios, and wear the whitest
diamonds and the finest lace on two hundred a year. Oh, Aunt Cissy's
very rich indeed--or she would be if she didn't waste so much money on
knick-knacks and lumber!"

More than once Laline asked herself if she was not tacitly condoning
a fraud by accepting her position in the establishment. But it was so
clear that Mrs. Vandeleur thoroughly believed in herself, and also
so certain that her intuition was little short of marvellous and her
advice generally excellent, that Laline could not esteem her less on
account of her professional fortune-telling.

Only on very rare occasions was Laline present at the interviews
between Mrs. Vandeleur and her clients. The secretary herself, slim
and tall, in her straight, white draperies, was a fascinating addition
to the little sibyl's household, her pure profile and dreamy dark eyes
proving specially attractive to Mrs. Vandeleur's male visitors. Clare
Cavan, listening to all that passed between Laline and these latter
from behind the plush curtains between the dining- and drawing-rooms,
clenched her fists with envy, and could scarcely repress her scorn for
a girl who let slip such splendid opportunities of securing valuable
presents and the possibility of a brilliant marriage.

"It's aunt's wicked jealousy which makes her forbid me to see anybody
who calls on business," Miss Cavan told herself. "That fool Lina
snubbed a Russian prince yesterday! If I had been in her place,
and he had offered me jewelry, I wouldn't have let him off under a
hundred-guinea bracelet. I know as well as she does how to take care of
myself; but an offer like that deserves something better than a frigid
'I have no jewels, and I require none! I will tell Mrs. Vandeleur you
wish to consult her on your domestic affairs, and will explain by whom
you are introduced.' Lina is a prude, or else she is much deeper than I
am."

Meantime Clare was somewhat concerned because a whole week had elapsed
since Wallace Armstrong's visit. It was true that he had written to
Mrs. Vandeleur, asking whether she and her niece and secretary would
care to pay a visit to the ancient house over Alexander Wallace's bank,
to take tea there with himself and his uncle; but the wording of his
letter had been far from satisfactory to Miss Cavan.

"I know how much interested you are in all that is ancient and
historical," he wrote, "and I feel sure that, with your vivid
imagination and insight, you would people some of the old rooms with
occupants long since dead. My uncle, who declares himself too old to
pay visits, and who is indeed verging on seventy, is very desirous
of making your acquaintance. His early Scotch training inclines him
to especial interest in second sight and similar phenomena, and I am
certain that you would have many subjects in common. He particularly
loves to see bright young faces about him, and would, I know, be
delighted to welcome those charming young ladies, Miss Cavan, and your
secretary Miss Grahame, under his roof. So that I hope you will be able
to fix an afternoon next week on which to honour the old house with a
visit."

Mrs. Vandeleur had shown this letter to Clare, whose anger over one
portion thereof had been extreme.

"Those charming young ladies, Miss Cavan and Miss Grahame," was the
line that especially stuck in Clare's throat. By some means Lina
Grahame must be kept away from this visit, which should be made to
serve the very desirable purpose of introducing Clare to her future
husband's uncle. That Alexander Wallace would take a great fancy to her
Clare never doubted. Old men always admired her, her striking colouring
and beautifully-rounded figure appealing even to the purblind. And she
meant to be a very good niece to the wealthy banker, and a devoted wife
to Wallace, so long as she should remain in love with him; and at the
present time she did not foresee the possibility of her quick passion
waning, as it had done on previous occasions. But Lina Grahame must not
be present to spoil her plans; and Clare was greatly relieved when that
young lady flatly refused the invitation as soon as it was announced to
her.

"I shall ask Mrs. Vandeleur to let me stay at home," she said, while a
deep flush spread over her face.

It was not only that she dreaded seeing more of her husband, in spite
of the lurking fascination which he exercised over her, but that she
felt unequal to the signal hypocrisy of meeting face to face that
kindly-natured old Alexander Wallace, whose letter welcoming her as
his niece she so well remembered reading in the streets of Boulogne
more than four years ago. Naturally truthful and sincere, Laline felt
that it would be impossible for her to grasp the old man by the hand
and sit at his table, the while she was rewarding his hospitality and
friendliness with mean deceit, and that she would be untrue to herself
were she to submit to such an ordeal.

Clare understood none of the thoughts which flew through her
companion's brain, but she could not fail to note the changes on
Laline's face, the sudden blush and the agitated expression in her eyes.

"I think you are quite right not to go," she said, soothingly. "Of
course aunt and I and the nicer sort of people one meets appreciate you
thoroughly, and know that you are a lovely and charming and well-bred
lady. But I have heard that dear Mr. Armstrong was at one time rather
go-ahead, and men are so stupid about little social distinctions;
they never seem to realise the difference between a secretary and a
lady's-maid, especially if both are pretty!"

Laline knew by this time quite enough of Clare to understand that the
latter wished her to remain at home, and she almost laughed outright
at the idea that she must not meet her own husband, lest she might
spoil another girl's chances of marrying him. But there was no thought
of marriage yet, and there would be time enough to speak out before
then. Laline felt that she had reached a point in her life when to look
forward was impossible. Wallace himself knew that he was married, and
surely that knowledge should be sufficient to deter him from creating
false hopes within another girl's heart! But in Wallace's honour, as
Laline knew well, but little reliance was to be placed, and a pang of
pity went through her as she looked at Clare and noticed the eager
brightness of her eyes.

"Are you really fond of this Wallace Armstrong?" she asked her.

"My dear, I simply adore him! Do you wonder? Oh, I forgot that
you didn't admire him! But you must admit that he is handsome and
fascinating."

"I dare say many people would think so. But you told me just now
that he had been wild. Surely you could not love a man of really bad
reputation!"

"Oh, he has sown his wild oats by this time, no doubt! I should think
he is nearly thirty. Besides, all men go the pace a little--I'm sure
I should if I were a man. It's really too bad that we women should
have to be so very, very good! Besides, I didn't hear anything very
bad--only that he'd gambled a little bit and got into debt and been
sent abroad for a time to cool him down. You can't cut a man for
that sort of thing, otherwise one would have to drop all one's male
acquaintances except school-boys."

Laline said no more. It was obviously impossible under the
circumstances to warn Clare. Sometimes the girl wondered whether she
should confide in Mrs. Vandeleur; but again she hesitated. Might not
that lady--who, if her niece spoke truly, was of the world-worldly--be
inclined to advise her young secretary to leave off the difficult
struggle for life of a penniless girl, and, by simply announcing her
identity, become reconciled to an easy and prosperous existence with
a wealthy husband, who to strangers' eyes appeared to be all that was
handsome, well-bred, and charming?

The mere idea was horrible to Laline. Never so long as she lived would
she forget that scene of which she had been an unsuspected witness
on her wedding morning. At any moment she could close her eyes and
recall her father's flushed face and the angry pallor of her husband,
could see both men, excited by drink and hate, struggling within a few
feet of where she stood. At any moment she could recall the callous
tones in which her newly-made husband had spoken of her as a "lanky,
half-fledged school-girl," who would be a "drag and a burden" on his
life after having served his purpose by procuring for him his uncle's
money and favour, and could hear again the sinister menace in his tones
when he alluded to the possibility that she might refuse to tell lies
to Alexander Wallace on his behalf.

That scene in the little _salon_ of the Rue Planché had been the
turning-point of Laline's career, and had suddenly transformed the
dreamy, lonely child, super-sensitive to kindness and of grateful,
docile nature, into a woman, alert and thoughtful beyond her years, and
armed with self-control, with suspicion, and with reserve.

Her nature was not meant to tend towards independence and mistrust of
others. Love had been a necessity to Laline as a child; she had loved
her mother intensely, and had felt her loss as irreparable. Torn from
the refined seclusion of her early home, she had tried to adapt herself
to the impecunious Bohemianism of her father's house, and had tried
also very hard indeed to love her father. Had Wallace Armstrong not
shown himself in his true colours on his wedding morning, she would in
all probability have grown much attached to him, in spite of his sullen
temper and dissipated habits. Already he had appeared to her eyes as a
hero, a fairy prince, who had come to rescue Cinderella from Bénoîte's
back kitchen and eternal darning, cooking, and dish-washing. But when,
by the half-open _salon_ door, she had stood and heard her husband and
father quarrelling over the terms of the sale by which she had become
Wallace Armstrong's property to free him from his money difficulties,
her child's heart broke within her breast; she seemed to see the very
minds and souls of the two men, vicious, sordid, and cruel, and her
pure spirit shrank in horror at the sight. The impression was one
which neither time nor the wear and tear of life would ever efface; and
even now, when Wallace Armstrong had again appeared within her life, to
all appearance a reformed character, with little trace of his former
self remaining between her and her thoughts of him, the black soul of
the scoundrel who had married her seemed to rise in warning against the
folly of trusting such a man.

It was on a Saturday that Clare had discussed with Laline the
invitation to the bank, a day that Laline ever afterwards remembered,
bleak and wintry, the sky a chill gray, deepening to saffron near the
horizon. On Saturday and Wednesday afternoons Mrs. Vandeleur drove out,
sometimes with her secretary and sometimes alone. On this particular
day she was bidden to a conference between patrons of the "occult" and
distinguished sceptics at the house of a well-known woman of title
interested in every new craze. Before four o'clock Clare also left
the house to go to one of the many "At homes" at which her beauty and
liveliness rendered her a most popular guest; and Laline found herself
for the first time since her arrival in London alone and free, with at
least three hours at her own disposal.

Twenty-one Queen Mary Crescent was by no means a cheerful house
after dusk, being full of creaking boards and a general "eeriness."
Laline wanted to think, and had never lost her old love of wandering
about alone in the open air. Within ten minutes of Clare's departure
therefore she emerged from the house in her blue serge gown and a long
fur-lined black cloak, and struck at once from the High Street into
Kensington Gardens, her cheeks rosy under the touch of frosty air, and
her heart beating with a strange excitement, which seemed to presage
some unusual experience.




CHAPTER XII.


Laline met very few people in Kensington Gardens that afternoon.

The wind was keen, and every now and then drifting snowflakes told
of the coming storm. The Round Pond was covered with a thin sheet of
ice, and upon the green roof of Kensington Palace the snow was lightly
strewn.

Laline walked fast, with eyes fixed steadfastly in front of her,
absorbed in her own thoughts, holding her cloak together round her, and
bending her supple frame to the wind.

It was her first walk unattended in the Gardens, and her errant
footsteps led her to a long leafless avenue, through which she walked
rapidly, listening to the wind in the branches above her head.

Suddenly mingling with the sound came a voice close behind her, upon
hearing which she stopped with a smothered cry and turned a startled
face towards the speaker.

Some instinct had told her that she would meet him, and it was to her
own astonishment that she realised how glad she was to see him.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Grahame! Isn't it odd? Bad as the day is, I felt
certain I should meet you here!"

"And I knew that I should meet you," she returned, quickly, before
taking thought; then, seeing the gladness in his eyes, she added,
hastily,--

"That is nothing! I have had those presentiments about people ever
since I was a child. And they are not necessarily about people I know
and like well, but also----"

"About people you dislike--such as I?"

"I was not going to say that, Mr. Armstrong," she said, rather coldly.
"'About strangers,' I should have said, although I really think," she
added, thoughtfully, "that there is a sympathy of dislike, if one can
call it so."

"And so by your sympathy of dislike you knew I should be here, and by
my sympathy of like I knew you would be here--and we have met."

This was flirting, of course. Even inexperienced Laline knew that quite
well. There was, of course, no harm in flirting with one's own husband;
but then he did not know he was that, and must be put in his place.

"I am not good at discussing abstract subjects with strangers," she
said; "and, also, I must be getting back home now."

"Just a moment," he pleaded. "I know Mrs. Vandeleur will be at Lady
Northlake's conversazione--so that she can spare you; and this keen
wind is wonderfully invigorating. Don't you feel the benefit of it
after the exotic atmosphere of Mrs. Vandeleur's study? Too much
of that can't be good for any one, either physically or mentally;
and especially," he added, glancing at her thin face and lustrous
eyes--"especially bad for you."

"Why especially bad for me?"

"Because I should think you are exceptionally sensitive, Miss Grahame.
What you said just now proved that--I mean about those presentiments."

"Are you exceptionally sensitive, then?" she asked, forcing a little
laugh. "For, as I understand, you have presentiments, too."

"Perhaps I am," he answered, slowly, "where some people are concerned.
I have an impression about you, Miss Grahame, which is very strong
indeed, and about which I want to speak to you."

For a moment Laline's heart seemed to stand still. Was he going to tell
her that he had recognised her, and to show himself at last in his true
colours?

"Please don't tell me!" she cried, sharply, with an unmistakable tremor
in her voice. "It is late, and I am going home. Good-afternoon, Mr.
Armstrong!"

"Don't go yet! Just walk once more up the avenue."

"I have not been very much about the world," Laline said, icily, "but
I do not think it is customary for young ladies to walk about with
strangers."

"I am not a stranger!" he said, emphatically. "Why do you look so
startled, Miss Grahame? I can't believe that you and I met for the
first time a week ago. If we did, why did you drop that crystal ball
in consternation as soon as I entered the room, and why did I feel, as
soon as I saw the lamplight on your face, that I had beheld it before?
Only my recollection of you is as a child, with long bright hair waving
about your shoulders, and----"

"Fancies--mere fancies!" she interrupted. "Mine is not an unusual type
of face in England."

"A most unusual type, I call it," he rejoined, earnestly, "and one that
I am longing to commit to paper. My body, you must know, Miss Grahame,
sits before a desk in a bank all day, but in my mind I am forever
drawing and painting, committing lovely scenes and lovely faces very
inadequately to canvas."

"I remember," she said, in constrained tones, "that you first met Miss
Cavan in a picture-gallery."

"And I remember," he returned, composedly, "how like I thought her to
a Paris Bordone. Miss Cavan's colouring is very fine, and there is
altogether a Venetian opulence about her appearance. If you are at all
interested in pictures, you will see some very good ones when you
come, as I hope you will, with Mrs. Vandeleur to my uncle's house next
week to tea."

"Thank you," she said, trying vainly to adopt an indifferent 'society'
tone. "I am unfortunately engaged that day."

"But no day was fixed," he cried; "and it must be a day on which you
are not engaged! I am most anxious that you should know my uncle. You
must, I think, be quite his ideal."

"How can you possibly know," she asked, "what my character may be? You
forget, Mr. Armstrong, that you know absolutely nothing about me."

"It seems impossible," he said, thoughtfully, "and yet I suppose it is
true, as facts go, and that I must have seen that face so like yours,
with floating hair, in my dreams. But facts are the least important
things in this world, Miss Grahame. It is only by reading between the
lines of the facts of his life that we really know any man. A bare
summary of events teaches us nothing. We live outside, or, rather,
inside of what happens to us."

"Now you are talking like Mrs. Vandeleur," said Laline, interested in
spite of herself.

"But don't you agree with me? Here are you and I, as far apart as
two fixed stars, each within a little world wherein the other cannot
hope to tread, except, perhaps, sometimes in dreams. To show you how
little value facts have--I met you, as you say, a week ago for the
first time; you just spoke a few words, telling me Mrs. Vandeleur was
out and would soon return. I spoke to you; I don't know what I talked
about, for I was feeling your presence too deeply to be coherent even
before I saw your face; then a light was brought, and I learned your
features by heart, every turn of every line of them, before you left
the room. And, as I went out of the house, fully an hour later, I saw
your face again, pressed against the window, watching me with something
in your eyes that looked like dislike and fear. To-day I meet you for
the second time, and you speak to me with coldness and dislike in every
note of your voice. All that is not much to go upon--is it?"

Although she hated and despised herself for it, her heart went out to
him as her ear caught the ring of deep feeling in his voice.

"I don't know what you mean!" she faltered, lamely.

"I mean that such an acquaintance as ours would seem short and slight
as mere facts go. And yet the thought of you has never once left my
mind since I parted from you, and the moment I close my eyes in sleep
you dominate my dreams. You come to me, and in just the voice you speak
in now, only less hard and cold, you tell me that something stands
between us and prevents you from liking me; and just as I am urging you
to tell me what the barrier is, I awake, with my question unanswered."

"I am really not responsible for your dreams, Mr. Armstrong."

"Yet it is your influence which suggests them. Do you never dream
yourself?"

"Yes; but I attach no importance to such disconnected nonsense as
dreams always are!" she said, hastily, realising, to her intense
discomfiture, that she was suddenly growing crimson.

"But tell me," he said, earnestly, "just for curiosity, as I know that
you are interested in all psychic studies, whether you ever dream of
strangers whom you dislike--of me, for instance?"

"It is beginning to snow," said Laline, staring up in the sky and
ignoring his question, "and I have no umbrella."

"But I have. You must let me hold it over you."

And, almost before she guessed his intention, he had opened his
umbrella and drawn her hand through his arm.

"You can't get wet now," he said.

"Would you like really to know what I think of you?" Laline asked, in a
low and rather unsteady voice.

"Yes--even though I am sure it will hurt me!"

"I think," she said, with much deliberation, "that, in a very cruel
and cowardly manner, you are taking advantage of the fact that I am a
friendless dependant to treat me with a flirting familiarity which you
would not dare to show towards a lady whom you considered your equal!"

He could feel that the hand on his arm was quivering, as was her whole
frame, with excitement and anger.

"Is that what you think of me?" he asked, quietly.

"It is. And, if you wish me to retain any respect for you, or ever to
speak to you when I am forced to meet you in my employer's house, you
will leave me at once, Mr. Armstrong."

"Surely not in the snow, without an umbrella?" he suggested, still
unmoved.

She withdrew her hand sharply from his arm, biting her lips with
vexation.

"I cannot run away from you," she began.

"I should certainly run after you, and that would look absurd!" he put
in.

"I shall be compelled to speak about you to Mrs. Vandeleur," Laline
said, beginning to walk rapidly homewards.

"I hope and intend to speak of you to Mrs. Vandeleur very shortly,"
said Wallace Armstrong.

She turned and stared at him in surprise.

"You mean to speak to Mrs. Vandeleur about me? I don't understand you!"

"No; you don't in the least understand me, or you would never have
spoken to me as you did just now! If you will only be good and come
under the umbrella again and take my arm, I will explain. Miss Grahame,
I force my attentions and my society upon you, and behave with what you
call flirting familiarity, because I am not much used to courting, and
it's the only method I know. Finding you here alone was far too good
a chance to miss, so you must forgive me if I have hurried the pace a
little. It may be a very long time before I have such an opportunity
again."

"I have not the least notion of what you mean," she said, haughtily.

"Then I will speak more plainly. I have fallen in love with you, Miss
Grahame. It seems to me that I have been in love with you for years;
but, as you say that is impossible, I will only date it from last week.
It was not only that I saw and spoke to you, but I heard your character
described in a few words by Mrs. Vandeleur, who, for all her touch
of charlatanism, understands the natures of those about her. Shall I
tell you her words? She said you were 'a creature of perfect purity
and truth, unsullied by thoughts of love or money.' Thoughts of love
would only sweeten, and not sully, such a character; but let that pass.
I love you, Miss Grahame, and I want in time to persuade you to love
me. That is the explanation of what you call my cowardly and offensive
conduct."

Laline stopped short in her walk and looked at him intently. It was
past five o'clock, but the sky was lighter since the snowfall and she
could see his face clearly, the broad forehead and straight nose,
the square outline, firm jaw, and handsome mouth softened now into
tenderness, the clear olive skin and crisply curling black hair. Every
feature seemed refined and idealised from what she remembered of the
man a few years before, at which time his mouth was hidden under a
heavy moustache and his brow darkened by loosely-falling hair. Only
the eyes were the same in shape and colour, a clear blue, under the
unusual setting of jet-black lashes and eyebrows; but in Wallace
Armstrong's eyes, as they now met those of Laline's, a soft light
was shining, making them unlike any she had ever yet beheld. And, as
she gazed, this proud and self-reliant maiden, who so much wished to
convince herself that she could never forgive this man, experienced the
most unaccountable desire to creep into his arms under the protecting
umbrella and whisper in his ear that she was not in the least angry
with him and was really his wife all the time.

This sudden impulse Laline strongly combated. What right had this man,
who knew himself to be married, to go about making love to unsuspecting
girls? she asked herself, steeling her heart against him and reminding
herself that to Clare also he had in all probability made similar
overtures.

"I will try to forget all the absurd things you have said, Mr.
Armstrong," she was beginning very gravely, when again he interrupted
her.

"That is just what I don't want you to do! I want you, on the contrary,
to remember every word, and to think of me when you get home, and try
to get used to the idea of me. Then when you come to tea next week at
my uncle's house----"

"I cannot come, as I told you, Mr. Armstrong. Dependants are not in the
habit of making social calls with their employers."

"If you so greatly resent being in a position of what you call
dependance, surely you will not be unwilling to change it?" he
suggested.

They were close to the gates at the corner of the Gardens now, and
Laline held out her hand.

"Good-bye!" she said. "I prefer to walk to the Crescent alone."

"Good-bye!" he said, and held her hand close in his. "But I can't quite
let you go like this," he added, deprecatingly, still retaining her
hand. "You haven't even told me whether you mean to leave off disliking
me."

"I have told you before that I much object to that flirting manner!"
she said, severely.

"And I have told you," he retorted, "that it's the only manner I
know--or that I dare employ!" he added, in a lower voice.

"If you wish to be a friend of mine----"

"I wish to be more than a friend."

"Really, Mr. Armstrong, this is absurd! Please let my hand go at once.
I cannot stand here with you like----"

"Like lovers?"

"Like two people in a Christmas number."

"I can't let you go until you promise to try and like me."

"You tell me of your dreams and presentiments and fancies," she said,
with sudden fire; "perhaps I, too, have fanciful ideas about people,
and in my mind may have just as much reason for disliking you as you
have for liking me!"

"Not liking--loving."

"Well, and not disliking--hating!" she cried, drawing her hand sharply
away from his.

"I would rather you hated me than that you were indifferent--extremes
meet. You will come to my uncle's, will you not, Miss Grahame?"

"Extremes meet, but we need not!" she returned, with a sudden
school-girl pertness, which made him burst out laughing. Before he had
recovered his gravity she had dashed past him through the park gate,
and in a few minutes' time had arrived, breathless, before the doors of
21, Queen Mary Crescent.

Up to her own room she ran as soon as Susan opened the front door.

"I declare," she exclaimed, as she saw her blushing face in the glass,
"I look like a jubilant nursemaid who has just parted from her 'young
man'! And so I have, I suppose; but the odd part of it is that I don't
seem to feel afraid of him now. I even have a sort of sneaking regard
for him--almost a liking, it might be called, if I didn't know what
a fearfully bad man he is. He must be a marvellously clever actor,
for he doesn't look in the least cruel or callous, or like a forger
or drunkard or bully. I remember I always thought that he was very
handsome, and that he had the most beautiful blue eyes. I suppose he
must have come right over to England when I disappeared, and persuaded
his uncle to forgive him, and reformed. He half-recognised me as soon
as he saw me; but he doesn't realise that growing up and putting my
hair up have altered me just as shaving his moustache and having his
hair out have altered him. He must know the truth sooner or later, I
suppose, and then--will he be glad or sorry, I wonder? Now, of course,
he makes love to any girl he pleases, knowing quite well that he is
safely married, though nobody suspects it. But if I were to turn
upon him in a majestic way and say, 'Sir, I am your wife already!'
he wouldn't perhaps be quite so pleased. And, by-the-bye, in all his
talk he never committed himself by mentioning marriage, which was very
artful of him!"




CHAPTER XIII.


In spite of Wallace Armstrong's entreaties, Laline could not alter her
arrangement not to make the acquaintance of Alexander Wallace; for when
Mrs. Vandeleur fixed upon the following Wednesday as the afternoon
on which she would call at the bank, the young secretary had already
announced to her employer her wish to remain at home.

"You are very right," the little lady had observed, "to avoid Mr.
Armstrong if his society is uncongenial to you. Those strong instincts
of liking and of hating are given to us women as safeguards. Although
to my mind Mr. Armstrong is wholly sympathetic, if a secret voice tells
you to beware of him, it is that of some beneficent spirit of the
so-called dead, who see with fleshless eyes through the fleshly veil
into the soul, and know that this man's society would be in some way
harmful to you."

Laline was growing accustomed by this time to Mrs. Vandeleur's singular
methods of expression. A strong liking had grown up between them,
although the elder woman was hardly sufficiently human in her ways of
thought to constitute a true friend. But Laline dared not confide in
her, for many reasons, so she let her statements pass without comment.
So far from cherishing any sentiment of repulsion against Wallace
Armstrong, she could hardly keep her thoughts from dwelling on the
subject of his tender speeches and tenderer eyes; and it was only by
constantly reminding herself of the mean and cowardly trick by which he
had become her husband that she was enabled to preserve any lingering
resentment against him.

On the Tuesday evening before Mrs. Vandeleur's promised visit to Mr.
Wallace's house Laline received the first approach to a love letter she
had ever had despatched to her. Dinner was over, and she was engaged in
writing in the study at Mrs. Vandeleur's dictation, when the postman's
knock preluded the tap at the door of Susan and her entrance with a
salver, upon which were two letters, one for the mistress of the house,
and the other for Miss Lina Grahame.

"A letter for you, my child," said the elder lady, peering at the
address through her eye-glass--"the first you have received since your
arrival."

Long before Laline had opened it or even glanced at the handwriting on
the envelope, she knew that Wallace Armstrong was her correspondent,
and felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair under Mrs.
Vandeleur's critical scrutiny.

"Do you know the writing?" the latter asked; and Laline replied with
perfect truth that she had never seen it before.

  "My dear Miss Grahame," the letter began--"I am writing to entreat
  you to come with Mrs. Vandeleur to-morrow. Even if you don't like
  me you would most certainly like my uncle, who is one of the
  noblest and best of men, generous and forgiving to a fault, and
  one who, in spite of his wealth, has suffered many deep and bitter
  trials in what to him has been far more important than money, his
  domestic affection. He is very old and very lonely, though with his
  chivalrous kindness towards all women he is the very man who should
  by rights be surrounded by a happy family circle. I owe everything
  to him, and can hardly with a lifelong devotion repay his more than
  fatherly goodness. I am sure that you are gentle and pitiful as you
  are beautiful--'fair, kind, and true,' as Shakspere puts it. And,
  being all these things, won't you come, Miss Grahame, and, by giving
  yourself just a little trouble, and putting up for an hour or more
  with the presence of some one you hate, confer a great pleasure upon
  one of the best old men alive? I solemnly promise not to 'flirt,'
  as you call it. If I may not talk to you, I will console myself by
  talking of you to Mrs. Vandeleur, which is the next best thing.
  In my dream last night you promised to come. Be as sweet as your
  dream-prototype is the prayer of yours always devotedly,

 "Wallace L. Armstrong."

This letter moved and interested Laline deeply. Since it was now
impossible for her to accompany Mrs. Vandeleur and her niece, she felt
that she must send a few words in answer, lest she might be thought
too unfeeling. She was also very anxious to prevent Wallace from
carrying out his threat of talking about her to Mrs. Vandeleur. The
latter had guessed already that she was a married woman; and might she
not be capable of hinting as much to Mr. Armstrong under the mistaken
impression that his attentions would be disagreeable to her secretary?

Lost in thought, Laline bent over the letter which lay on her lap,
ignoring the steady, curious gaze of Mrs. Vandeleur's keen, dark eyes.
The fact that it was absolutely the first letter she had ever received
from her husband excited her strangely, and she found herself fingering
the paper with a touch that was almost affectionate. It seemed a little
in the light of a confession that Wallace should expatiate so much upon
his uncle's generous and forgiving nature and fatherly goodness, and on
his lonely life and domestic troubles.

"I believe--I want to believe that Wallace has utterly changed,"
she said to herself, with flushed cheeks and moist eyes. "If he were
anything like the man he was four years and a half ago, when he entered
into that horrible bargain with my father, he could never have written
this letter. His uncle's goodness must have changed him by gradually
softening his heart. And then--my father was so much older that he may
have led him into things, and Wallace was penniless--perhaps I have
been too hard in my judgment on him all these years, although I am
afraid if it were all to happen again I should act in just the same
way."

"Have you any letters to write, dear child?" Mrs. Vandeleur's silvery
tones broke in. "I shall be sending Susan to the post with mine within
the next half-hour."

"There is just one I want to write, if you please," the secretary
answered.

And Mrs. Vandeleur obligingly made room for her at the other end of her
writing-table.

Laline took a pen between her fingers; but the letter was not so easily
written. There was very much she wished to tell Wallace Armstrong, and
very much again that she did not want him to know. She wanted to tell
him that she would willingly come to see his uncle, since he so much
desired it, but that, having once refused, she did not see her way to
changing her mind without exciting comment. She would also have liked
him to know that she by no means hated him, that she might even in time
be induced to like him very much, but that if he wished to please her
he must refrain from talking about her to Mrs. Vandeleur.

But she had no idea how to word her letter, and, even before writing
it, she began to rack her brains in the vain endeavour to remember
whether her husband possessed or had ever seen any of her handwriting.

Finally, having wasted more than ten minutes, she seized her pen and
began the heading, "Dear Mr. Armstrong," hoping that other words would
come.

A little laugh, like that of a mischievous fairy, made her start and
drop the pen.

"'Dear Mr. Armstrong,' and nothing more?" Mrs. Vandeleur asked,
mockingly. "That is not a very fluent love-letter for the poor young
gentleman, is it?"

Laline looked at once astonished and confused. But Mrs. Vandeleur's
prescience in this case was easily explained. She had recognised the
writing on the envelope of Wallace's letter, and had watched Laline's
fingers tracing three words, which she guessed to be those she quoted.

"You seem in a difficulty over your letter," the little lady suggested,
in an insinuating tone. "Can I not help you in any way? I have some
judgment, and my advice may be of value to you. What is it you want to
say to Mr. Armstrong?"

Laline arose, agitated and nervous, and, tearing her letter across,
dropped it in the fire.

"It isn't a bit necessary to send it at all," she said; "and that is
what made it difficult to write. I met Mr. Armstrong in Kensington
Gardens while you were out last Saturday afternoon, and I told him I
did not wish to accompany you and Miss Gavan to tea at Mr. Alexander
Wallace's. But he took it into his head to want me to go, and wrote
to especially ask me. I wanted to write and say I couldn't change my
mind--that is all."

"You mean that is all you are going to tell me?"

"I mean that is all that happened."

"Does Clare know?"

"Clare? Oh, no! Why should she?"

Mrs. Vandeleur shook her head.

"You know what I read in the cards about you yesterday," she said,
mysteriously. "You must beware of the evil done by a red-haired woman
and a black-haired man. Lina, tell me--is Wallace Armstrong in love
with you?"

"How can he be when he has seen so little of me?" she asked, parrying
the question, and partly vexed, partly glad to talk upon the subject.

Mrs. Vandeleur studied the girl's face through her eye-glasses. There
was something about it which she did not understand and which she
mistrusted. It was not yet the tremulous softness of love she read in
the girl's lowered eyes and lips curved into a half-smile; but there
was about her a look suggesting that she was secretly happy and amused
over some knowledge she did not mean to share with others.

"You cannot love him, Lina," Mrs. Vandeleur reminded her, softly. "You
are not free."

"No," Laline repeated--and her half-smile deepened--"I am not free.
And now we won't talk about him, will we, dear Mrs. Vandeleur? And I
sha'n't write the letter; I shall just stop away."

"Do you wish to go?"

Laline's lips were framing "No," when she stopped.

"I hardly know," she said, after a pause. "But I think I should like to
go."

"I shall be strangely disappointed in you, Lina," said Mrs. Vandeleur,
coldly, "if you encourage Mr. Armstrong to love you solely for vanity's
sake."

The girl knelt down at Mrs. Vandeleur's feet and gazed earnestly up
into her face.

"Trust me, dear Mrs. Vandeleur," she said, "for I shall never do that!
But--but I heard a good deal about Mr. Armstrong before I came to your
house at all, and there is much more about him that I want to find out."

"Does he know that you had any previous acquaintance with him?"

"He has no idea of it."

"He doesn't recognise you? That's strange! Was he at all in love with
you before?"

"Oh, no!" the girl answered, with a very sad little smile. "If he had
been----"

She did not finish her speech. In her own mind she was saying that, if
Wallace Armstrong had indeed loved her at Boulogne, she would have been
living by his side as his wife all these years in that very house to
which she was hidden as a guest on the following day.

"Does Wallace Armstrong know your husband?" Mrs. Vandeleur asked,
suddenly.

The blood swept over Laline's face as she answered,--

"Yes."

"And you want to find out about him?" pursued Mrs. Vandeleur. "Surely,
if you detest and dread him so much, it would be wiser to restrain your
curiosity."

"I want also to learn, if I can, whether my father is alive."

Mrs. Vandeleur threw up her little hands and sighed.

"Like all women," she murmured--"hankering after chains and slavery
after being once freed from them. Our work together should absorb you,
to the exclusion of such thoughts. But you shall go with me to-morrow,
if you like. I knew that Wallace Armstrong's spirit was too fine to
assimilate with that of Clare. Her destiny will lead her, late in life,
to the arms of some stout and bald-headed stock-broker. When he is
asleep, after dinner, she will flirt with his clerks or his partner,
and be very happy; but you--life holds something very different in
store for you. I suppose you must dree your weird. But remember, once
you let love come into your life, trouble--terrible trouble--will come
too!"

Secretly, Mrs. Vandeleur was very curious to see Laline and Wallace
together. She interested herself readily in other people's affairs
when these latter attracted her in any way--she liked to constitute
herself a sort of _deus ex machina_ in the lives of her friends, to
pull the strings which moved their destinies; and the fact that both
Laline and Wallace, whom she sincerely admired, declined to confide in
her wholly, piqued her curiosity the more.

Against her niece Clare, on the other hand, Mrs. Vandeleur entertained
a sentiment which was almost dislike; and she was annoyed to notice, on
the following afternoon, when the two girls came down into the hall,
ready dressed for their drive, that Clare, in a picturesque costume of
red-brown cloth and beaver fur, appeared far more strikingly handsome
at first sight than Laline, in the quietest of blue serge gowns and
small black felt hat.

"Why have you those horrid, plain, masculine clothes on?" she inquired
crossly of her secretary.

"They are my only walking things," Laline replied. "You know, dear
Mrs. Vandeleur, I can't pay an afternoon call in those trailing white
garments I wear in your room."

"Dear Lina would look like a ghost dropping into afternoon tea!"
purred Clare, happy under the becoming framework of a red-brown velvet
'picture' hat and feathers. "I think she looks so sweet and neat in
that dear little black felt hat and black cloth jacket!"

Mrs. Vandeleur snapped her glasses to and shut her mouth very hard.
Then she ordered the girls into the brougham, and gave the coachman
some order which they did not hear, but in consequence of which he drew
up before a particularly smart millinery establishment on the way to
the Strand.

Here Mrs. Vandeleur insisted that Laline should get out with her while
Clare remained in the carriage, to which the little lady presently
returned in triumph by the side of her secretary, in whose appearance
a transformation had taken place by the substitution of a costly black
velvet "picture" hat and graceful black velvet cape, trimmed with fur
and lined with wine-coloured silk, for her former dowdy garments.

A flash of genuine anger passed into Clare's green eyes; but she was
far too much afraid of her aunt to enter a protest, and declared, with
apparent enthusiasm, that "dear Lina looked perfectly lovely; but then
she looked that before!"

Wallace's Bank was a vast gloomy-looking building, of which a
considerable frontage faced the Strand. It was built in a square, with
a paved courtyard in the middle, which led from one portion of the Bank
to the other. Alexander Wallace possessed many commodious houses in
different parts of London, and notably a charming family mansion and
estate at Hampstead. But he hated change and he hated moving a little
more every year. His father and his grandfather had lived over the
Bank, and what was good enough for them was good enough for him. His
tastes were very simple, and in his personal expenses he was economical
almost to miserliness; but his kindness of heart and generosity in
cases of real distress were well known.

A sedate elderly man-servant opened the big doors which led into the
private portion of the house, and the visitors found themselves in a
small but very lofty hall, papered in old-fashioned unæsthetic drab, in
which a fire was burning. Would the ladies mind coming up-stairs? the
man asked, and proceeded to lead the way up several short flights of
winding stairs and through a labyrinth of passages to a door, before
which he paused.

"These are Mr. Armstrong's rooms," he explained, and forthwith showed
the ladies into a good-sized apartment, distinguished by an appearance
of extreme cosiness and bachelor comfort. The cheeriest of fires burned
within the wide hearth, the furniture was of the saddle-bag order,
roomy, and easy-giving, plush curtains drawn over the windows kept out
all glimpse of the snowy night, and a multitude of clever water-colour
sketches, chiefly of picturesque foreign scenery and of pretty girls,
covered all the available wall space.

On a round table, set unfashionably in the centre of the room, a
tempting array of cakes and sweets awaited the visitors; and the two
occupants of the room--Wallace Armstrong and his uncle Alexander
Wallace--rose at the visitors' entrance and advanced to greet them.

Laline's heart beat fast as she was formally introduced to the man
who had long ago by letter welcomed her so warmly as a daughter. She
felt she hardly dared to look up into his face lest he should read
her secret in her eyes; but when she did at last summon up sufficient
courage to do so, she was struck by the extreme benevolence of the old
Scotchman's regard. Light gray eyes, at once keen and kind, looked out
from his pale and deeply-furrowed face, which possessed but little
of his nephew's beauty of outline. In spite of his great wealth, the
banker's manner towards the three ladies was constrained and even shy,
but full of a gentleness and consideration which won the heart of
Laline.

"How kind a father he might have been to me all these years!" she
thought.




CHAPTER XIV.


It seemed to Laline that Wallace Armstrong made no attempt to disguise
the look of triumphant delight which spread over his face when she
placed her hand in his.

"I was so afraid you wouldn't come!" he murmured.

"I was much pleased to accept your kind invitation," she returned,
demurely, while Clare shot a quick glance of jealous inquiry from one
to the other.

Miss Cavan could not, however, complain that the companion whose
presence she so much objected to endeavoured in any way to outshine
her in conversation. Laline scarcely spoke at all during tea, at which
meal she presided behind the tea-urn, her manipulation of which filled
Wallace with secret rapture. There was something so delightfully
domestic in the sight of her slim wrists peeping from her neat
blue-serge sleeves as she filled the cups, something so suggestive of
honeymoon-breakfasts and little _tête-à-tête_ meals on winter evenings,
that it was as much as he could do to refrain from springing from his
seat and proposing to her there and then, and prefacing his remarks
with a kiss on each enchanting wrist.

Old Mr. Wallace sat stroking his silver-gray beard and gazing with
much satisfaction on the assembled guests after they had taken their
place round the tea-table. At length he turned to Mrs. Vandeleur, and
addressed her in his usual slow tones, marked by a strong Scotch accent.

"I believe, madam," he said, "that I am very much behind the times. But
I am an old man, and I live in a very old house and carry on a very old
business, and that must be my excuse. My boy Wallace humours me; he
knows I like a table to be where I'm used to seeing it--in the middle
of the room--and the chairs drawn up round it, and so he puts it there.
And now I am wondering whether the two charming young ladies you have
brought with you to-day will humour me too?"

"In what, Mr. Armstrong?"

"Would they take off their hats while they are here?" he asked, with
a wistful eagerness which touched Laline deeply. "You see," he added,
apologetically, "this is not a fashionable call, and there are no
fashionable people to meet you. And when I see young people about me
without their hats it makes me feel for the time that they are not only
visitors, but my own family."

Long before he had finished speaking Laline had removed her hat, much
to Wallace's delight, and had confided it to him to place on one side
for her, thus enabling him to feast his eyes upon her white brow and
soft hair, waving in Madonna-like fashion over her temples and across
the tips of her little pink ears.

"Have you no women-relations at all, then?" Mrs. Vandeleur inquired.

Alexander Wallace sighed and shook his head.

"None that I see now," he answered. "Of my twin-sisters, one, this
boy's mother, is dead, and the other has married for the second time
and lives in South America. Of my two nieces--this boy's sisters--one
is dead, and the other married a German baron and lives with him in
the Black Forest. I never see any of them. Once, more than four years
ago, I expected a daughter to come into my house as my nephew's wife, a
gentle and beautiful young girl, whom I longed to welcome to my heart.
But it was not to be."

"Don't speak of that now, Uncle Alec," put in Wallace, quickly,
throwing an uneasy glance in the direction of his guests; "it only
makes you unhappy to recall that time!"

Laline watched both men with a fluttering heart. It was quite clear
that Wallace wished to keep his uncle from the topic of the niece who
never arrived, and as patent that the old gentleman was anxious to
prose on the subject to sympathetic feminine listeners. The younger
man at once strove to create a diversion by drawing Mrs. Vandeleur's
attention to his sketches on the walls of the room; but old Mr.
Wallace, who was very obstinate, returned to his former subject before
the little lady had had time to express an opinion.

"This boy thinks of nothing but art and society, spelt with capital
letters, you must know, Mrs. Vandeleur!" he broke in, testily. "I am
fond of good pictures myself; but pictures won't fill an empty house
with sunshine and laughter. That is what this house wants--young
voices, music, and pattering feet to drive the ghosts away. My niece
Laline would have been twenty-one by this time. I had prepared one
entire floor for her at the Hampstead house, as well as three rooms
here on the floor below this. Just what I thought a very young
newly-married woman would like I put there--the newest novels, and
fresh flowers, and pretty hangings, and cut-glass scent-bottles, and
plenty of looking-glasses--all pretty girls like looking-glasses, and
plain ones, too, for the matter of that. And I bought a canary for her,
and a white Persian kitten, and a King Charles spaniel; that was the
popular dog that year, and I know girls like pets and prefer them to be
in the fashion. Then, when everything was prepared, and I was counting
the hours until my nephew brought home his wife, I received a telegram
to say that at the moment of starting she had been seized with typhoid
fever and was already dangerously ill."

"How terribly sad!" ejaculated Mrs. Vandeleur, politely, while Clare
yawned furtively, and Laline kept her eyes fixed on her plate lest
they might betray her.

"You are making Mrs. Vandeleur quite miserable, Uncle Alec," put in
Wallace, his black brows contracting into an impatient frown.

"My boy," observed his uncle, doggedly, "I am telling a story and I
have not yet finished. As you know the end and do not appear to want to
hear it again, I should advise you to make a tour of the room with the
young ladies and show them your sketches!"

Clare rose with alacrity; but Laline declared that she preferred to
listen to Mr. Wallace; so, much against his will, Mr. Armstrong had
to pair off with Miss Gavan. Laline could see clearly how he tried to
catch his uncle's words, even while conducting Clare round the walls
and explaining to her his various drawings; but her interest was so
centred in the story told by old Mr. Wallace that she had little
attention to spare for his nephew.

"Constant telegrams were sent to me," the old gentleman proceeded, in
great satisfaction at securing so absorbed a listener as Laline, "and
I was making arrangements for going over to see for myself that the
poor girl had the best of nursing, when I received a message telling
me that my niece had succumbed to the disease and was already dead.
Only seventeen, and a bride of a few weeks! It was indeed a cruel
blow! But the part that especially grieved me, and of which I never
think without the keenest self-reproach, is that when my nephew first
arrived in Europe from the Colonies he was in dire straits for money
and too proud to apply to me. His poor little bride had relatives
in the town of Boulogne, and thither they made their way; but these
relations were extremely poor and could do little for them. One of
them, a Captain Garth, wrote me a most touching letter after the
poor child's death--which I fear was hastened by the privations she
had undergone--in which he detailed her last moments and her pitiful
disappointment at not being able to see her beautiful English home.
Poor little Laline! No one mourned her more sincerely than I. Her rooms
in this house and at Hampstead have never been used since that time,
and never will be until my nephew marries."

"You wish him to marry, then?" Mrs. Vandeleur suggested.

"Most earnestly I do. But, though I have nothing to complain of about
him, and he is making amends to me in every way for the terrible
trouble I have had, he seems strangely averse to settling down, and
talks a great deal about failing to meet his ideal, and not being able
to put up with any one else, and so on. Young men nowadays are too
fond of talking about themselves and their feelings; and this boy is
so popular, and gets invited out so much, that in the multitudes of
fresh pretty faces he is constantly meeting he is in danger, I fear, of
frittering his time away. Boating-parties in summer, perpetual racing
and punting, riding, tennis, and golf, and in the winter balls and
skating-parties--his time is so filled up that he doesn't have a moment
left for love-making. With all that, he's an excellent man of business
and invaluable to me at the Bank. Oh, I have nothing to complain of
about the boy!"

To Laline's sensitive ears there was something a little disparaging
in Alexander Wallace's praise of his nephew, some note which almost
suggested that he regretted not being able to find fault with him.
For her own part, the knowledge of her husband's deceitful treachery
towards his over-indulgent uncle filled her with disgust, and she had
been hardly able to restrain her indignation when Alexander Wallace
alluded to Captain Garth's "pathetic letter" containing his "niece"
Laline's last words. Unable to account for her disappearance, and
unwilling to give themselves the trouble of searching for her, it was
clear to Laline that her father and her husband had invented the story
of her seizure and death by typhoid fever in order to extract further
sympathy and further funds from the kind and credulous old banker, and
she grew hot with shame to think that she should have almost allowed
herself to pardon and to like a man so mercenary and deceitful as
Wallace Armstrong must be.

"Would you like to look over the house, Miss Grahame? There are some
rather interesting rooms, one especially, in which a great ball was
given on the very day when that prodigious swindle, the South Sea
Bubble, burst. It is called the 'South Sea Room,' and has a wonderful
Chinese paper; I think it would interest you."

It was her husband's voice, and a little shiver of repulsion passed
through Laline at the sound. Nevertheless she rose, and Alexander
Wallace rose also. Adams, the discreet-looking man-servant, was
summoned with his key, and the tour of the old house began.

Clare Cavan was inquisitive. Moreover, she fully intended, if that were
possible, installing herself as mistress in this gloomy old mansion at
some future date. She therefore peered and peeped about her, noting
the size and number of the rooms, and perpetually asking questions in
what seemed like overflowing girlish vivacity. Mr. Armstrong's suite of
apartments comprised the sitting-room, in which tea had been served, a
bedroom and dressing-room adjoining, and up another flight of stairs,
a spacious studio, lighted entirely from above, and containing casts,
clay models, canvases, easels, and innumerable sketches placed along
the dado of the room, the walls of which were painted Indian-red.
To this room, at Clare's urgent request, Wallace conducted the two
girls, passing, as he did so, the closed door of another attic of equal
dimensions.

"Is this another studio of yours?" Clare inquired, stopping before the
closed door.

"It is a disused lumber-room," Wallace answered, "and kept locked, as
you see," he added, shaking the handle of the door before leading the
way into his studio adjoining.

Clare lingered behind the other two and bent to examine the keyhole.

"It may be locked," she said to herself, "but the key is on the inside.
I wonder why Mr. Armstrong tried to deceive me? Is it some pretty model
he is keeping here on the sly?"

Resolved to settle this point to her own satisfaction so soon as an
opportunity should arise, Clare followed the others into the studio,
and affected great admiration of Wallace's sketches, which were in
truth far too fanciful and unconventional to arouse her interest.

"This is where my heart is," he said to Laline on her first
introduction to the studio; "or, rather"--glancing quickly round and
perceiving that Clare had not yet joined them--"this is where it was."

Laline glanced at him coldly and turned to examine some drawings.
Nothing, she told herself, should ever induce her to forgive him; but
his pictures interested her, and especially a pencil sketch, as yet
uncompleted, of extreme delicacy and beauty, entitled "Evelyn Hope."

The figure of the dead girl, exquisitely youthful and pure in outline,
lay stretched upon the bed, touched and glorified by two long rays
of light that stole through the hinges of the close shutters. A
dark-haired young man sat, with face averted from the spectator, gazing
intently at the still white figure, into whose hand he was gently
thrusting a single geranium leaf.

 "'So hush--I will give you this leaf to keep!
     See--I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
 There--that is our secret; go to sleep.
     You will wake and remember and understand.'"

Wallace came behind Laline as she stood before the easel examining the
picture, and softly quoted Browning's lines, which she had never heard
before, and which touched her with a keen delight.

"I should like to read you the entire poem," he said.

"But who did you take for your heroine--I mean, who sat for it?"

"No one. It was a memory. I did it on my return from that walk in
Kensington Gardens."

He spoke very low, so as not to be heard by Clare, who was at the
farther end of the room turning over some sketches in a portfolio
against the wall. Laline had already recognised her own profile in
"Evelyn Hope," and was not ill-pleased by the dreamy loveliness which
characterised the drawing.

She learned that Wallace frequently exhibited at the minor
picture-shows, and, further, that he was a regular contributor of
black-and-white drawings to more than one English and American magazine.

"You see I can't give the work the time I would like," he explained,
"though luckily banking hours are not onerous. I sit down-stairs from
ten until four, with a calculating-machine clicking away in my brain;
but in the early summer mornings or the long winter evenings I bring my
heart and mind up here."

At this point Clare, tired of a conversation which was no longer
specially addressed to her, suggested a move to the South Sea Room,
which she declared herself "dying to see;" and to the first floor
they forthwith descended to a vast apartment, with floor of shining
polished oak and an immense mantelpiece in carved and coloured marble,
an apartment in which the electric-light, shining down from bosses in
the elaborately-carved ceiling, seemed a glaring anachronism, and in
which a few old-fashioned chairs and sofas, covered with moth-eaten
brocade and set in far corners of the room, suggested ghostly dowagers
and wall-flowers silently watching a rustling fleshless ball.

Mrs. Vandeleur was delighted, and went about with upraised eye-glasses,
"sniffling the air for ghosts," as Clare irreverently whispered to
Wallace Armstrong.

"You have done your very worst," the little lady observed with much
severity to old Alexander, "with your odious glaring electric-light.
And, as I perceive, some Vandal forefather of yours has gilded and
whitened over all the lovely woodwork of the ceiling! As to your
dreadful Chinese wall-paper, sticky with varnish and most inartistic
and patchy in effect, I haven't a doubt that it is plastered all over
the original beautiful oak-panelled walls, and that the spirits of the
malevolent little pigtailed horrors who designed and executed it have
driven away all the dear, charming, picturesque people in patches and
powder and stiff brocade who used to congregate here a hundred years
ago. I declare I can hardly hear a rustle of their silk petticoats or a
tap of their high-heeled shoes!"

"If you hear as much as that, madam, you are cleverer than I," said the
old Scotchman, drily.

"If I had my way with this room," pursued Mrs. Vandeleur, "I'd have all
the paper and all the paint and varnish off, and take down your nasty
electric-light and substitute wax candles. And I would have an old
spinet in the corner and play it softly in the evenings, until I had
reconstituted the entire scene. As it is, it hurts me to see a place so
desecrated. Is there no corner in the entire house left sacred for the
poor spirits to come back to and feel themselves at home?"

But here Adams, who had been listening, equally scared and scandalised,
interposed to suggest that if the lady liked old things she might
admire the banqueting-hall, which had never yet been "properly
restored;" and thither he led the way, followed by Mrs. Vandeleur,
still intent upon demonstrating to the old Scotchman his enormities and
that of his predecessors in the arrangement of the old rooms.

Laline, who had been examining with interest the odd designs upon the
walls, turned to follow her employer; but Clare had already gone out,
and Wallace detained her as she tried to pass him.

"Don't go yet!" he whispered, quickly. "I must speak to you. Why are
you so cold to me again to-day?"

"Nonsense, Mr. Armstrong! Remember, we are strangers."

"We are not! Feel my heart!"--and, suddenly seizing her hand, he
pressed it against his heart, so that she felt its quick strong
throbs. "Could a stranger make my heart beat like this? Miss
Grahame--Lina----Oh, I don't mind if you are angry! You are Lina to me
in my thoughts and dreams. Lina, why do you try so hard to hate me? For
you are trying; I can see it in your eyes, which seek mine until you
hastily avert them; I can feel it in your hand, which half returns my
pressure before you snatch your fingers from me. Lina, why do you try
to steel your heart against me? What have I done, dear, that you should
refuse to follow your heart and love me as I love you?"




CHAPTER XV.


A sudden rage seized Laline against both Wallace and herself. She hated
herself for tolerating and even liking him, and she hated him for what
she regarded as his unparalleled duplicity.

"You are asking me a great many questions!" she said, turning a
white, angry face upon him. "Now I want to question you! Tell me, if
you have the slightest regard for truth--do you know of no tie, no
responsibility, which should prevent you from making love to me?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, falling back a step and speaking in
low troubled tones, quite unlike the passionate accents of his first
love-avowal.

"You answer my question by asking another!" she exclaimed, stamping her
foot impatiently. "What I want you to tell me is this--is there nothing
and no one to stand between us--no barrier which should keep you and me
apart?"

The flush of excitement faded from his dark face, which in a moment
seemed to age and grow stern and sad. For the first time he averted his
eyes from hers.

"What have you heard?" he asked, abruptly.

"Tell me the truth," she said, "and then I will tell you whether it is
what I have heard."

He looked at her doubtfully.

"It is for you to decide," he said at last, in a very low voice. "If
what you have learned about a tie, a responsibility, which I undertook
more than four years ago, is sufficient to part us, I must bow to your
decision. I cannot undo what I have done."

"You are not free!" she whispered, as he turned away.

"I am free to love you!" he cried, suddenly clasping her hands in his
and drawing them up against his heart again. "Lina, we can't talk here,
and I can see that we have both much to say. On Saturday your time is
your own, is it not? Well, Saturday next I will come to you so soon as
you are free. What time shall it be? Two o'clock or half-past two? Fix
the time, or I shall burst in before you have finished luncheon!"

"You cannot come to the house for me," exclaimed Laline--"it is out
of the question! What do you imagine you could say to Mrs. Vandeleur
and her niece to explain such conduct--'If you please, ma'am, I
understand it's your secretary's afternoon out, and I've come to take
her out walking?' Do you really suppose that earning one's living quite
destroys one's sense of what is due to the position of a lady?"

"Don't be angry, Lina," he was beginning, when she cut him short again.

"I will not permit you to call me by my Christian name, Mr. Armstrong!"

"As you like. At what time shall I call for you on Saturday?"

"Call for me? It is out of the question! I would not for the world let
Mrs. Vandeleur know of your silly conduct!"

"Well, we'll keep her in the dark at present, if you wish it, although
I would far rather go direct to her and tell her I fell in love with
you at first sight. I feel sure she'd sympathise. I'll be waiting,
then, just by the little gate that leads into the Gardens--the gate by
which we came out last time. At two o'clock I will be there; and, if
you are not there by the half-hour, I will go to the house and ask for
you."

"This is persecution----"

"No--it is love! Lina, I hear footsteps on the stairs. There is no real
barrier between us. In another moment we shall be interrupted. Kiss me,
dear--just once first!"

"Mr. Armstrong, you are insulting!"

He bent his handsome, eager, dark face close down towards her own; and
that ill-regulated little heart of hers began to tremble and flutter as
though this man were not a heartless deceiver and an utterly worthless
person.

After all he was her husband, and kissing one's husband is not
considered a crime; added to which, she was almost afraid she loved
him a little. Half insensibly her head inclined towards his, and in
another moment their lips would have met, when Clare Cavan darted at
astonishing speed into the room, and stood before them, wide-eyed and
panting, her brilliant flesh-tints changed for a chalky pallor, and
abject fear clearly marked in every line of her face.

"I've had a fright!" she faltered. "I--I wanted to have another look at
these lovely sketches of yours, Mr. Armstrong; so I stole up-stairs to
the top floor by myself, and--somehow I had forgotten--and I opened the
wrong door!"

"The wrong door?" Wallace repeated, with a clearly startled expression
in his eyes. "Do you mean that you went into the lumber-room? Wasn't
the door locked?"

"Yes--no--that is to say, I fell over a box or something near the door,
and slipped and hurt myself in the dark! And, being very absurdly
nervous, it gave me such a shock!"

Laline glanced at Clare and then at Mr. Armstrong. It was clear that
Clare was lying, and equally clear that he knew it. There was nothing
for him to do, however, but to express his regret at her accident, and
to suggest that a glass of wine or a little brandy might assist in
restoring her nerves--a proposition to which Clare assented without
much protest; and the three proceeded to the dining-room together.

Here they found Mrs. Vandeleur inspecting the choicest curiosity of
the bank--a centenarian clerk, who had been employed there for over
eighty-five years, and who invariably alluded to his septuagenarian
employer as "Master Alec."

"I've been here, man and boy, for nigh on eighty-six years," he was
piping, as Wallace and the young ladies entered, "and disgrace has only
once come upon the bank since I entered it! That was Master Wallace, to
be sure. Oh, he's quiet enough now--butter wouldn't melt in his mouth!
But he's a rank bad 'un--a rank bad 'un; and so I've always told Master
Alec! Never trust him is what I've always said. Wine or whiskey, women
or money, he can't resist any of 'em, for all he looks so quiet. He's a
bad man, sir--a bad man is Wallace Armstrong!"

Laline heard every word, and turned to look at Wallace. He flushed
and lowered his eyes under her inquiring gaze. Presently, drawing her
apart, he confided to her in a whisper that old Farquharson was "quite
off his head, and hadn't a notion what he was talking about."

A little later the ladies left, after being pressed by old Mr. Wallace
to fix an early date for another visit, and drove home through the
snow-covered streets in the early gloom of a winter's evening.

Clare was unusually quiet on the return journey; and it was only
after the girls had retired to their rooms that night that she crept
into Laline's room, looking very ghostly in her loose white flannel
dressing-gown, with her long reddish-gold hair falling about her
shoulders.

"Aren't you longing to know about my ghost-fright this evening?" she
asked. "Of course I didn't tell Mr. Armstrong the truth. The fact is
he's got some one in that other room he's keeping quiet--some one who
rushed out at me in the dark with a sort of curse, and threw me out of
the room. It was a woman, of course, and I suppose she was jealous, and
that would account for her savagery."

"Clare," exclaimed Laline, "are you inventing this? How can I tell that
you are speaking the truth now?"

For answer Clare slipped off her dressing-grown, and, pushing up
the sleeve of her night-dress, displayed four black bruises, as of
finger-marks, on the dazzling whiteness of her shoulder.

Laline uttered an exclamation of dismay.

"Clare, why didn't you tell Mr. Armstrong?"

"I don't think he would much have relished that!" Clare answered, with
a disagreeable smile. "I am afraid, Laline, that he is a dreadfully
bad lot--too bad even for me! There were lots of little things I
noticed. For one, that the keys of the wine and of the spirits also
were kept in old Mr. Wallace's possession. He doesn't even trust his
nephew with a bottle of wine; for, when the sideboard was opened in the
sitting-room, where we had tea, I particularly noticed that there were
no bottles there. That might not mean anything if I hadn't heard that
Mr. Armstrong drinks terribly at times. I think that must be the reason
for that sort of sad saturnine look he gets in his eyes sometimes.
I've noticed it before in people who drink. And then you know what old
Farquharson said about him, and he ought to know."

"He's so old that I think he's lost his wits," said Laline. "Anyhow,
it's rather hard to suppose a man is a drunkard simply because there
are no bottles about his rooms."

"Why, I thought you didn't like Mr. Armstrong," Clare exclaimed,
innocently, "and here you are defending him! This is a change indeed!
Was he so very agreeable to-day as to destroy your old prejudice, or
did the sight of the house and the banking business soften your hard
heart towards him?"

There was no mistaking the unkindness of the sneer in this instance.
Clare was indeed so profoundly jealous at the kind of understanding
which she thought she had detected between Laline and Wallace during
the latter part of the afternoon that her ordinary sweetness of manner
was for the time forgotten. But Laline was in no mood for quarrelling.
She wanted to be left alone with her thoughts and plans; so she
contented herself with observing that Mr. Armstrong certainly improved
on acquaintance, but that he appeared to have acquired, rightly or
wrongly, a bad reputation. Then she yawned, and asked Clare to put out
the candle before she left the room, upon which hint to retire Miss
Cavan in considerable indignation acted.

All through Thursday and Friday and the morning of Saturday, Laline was
going over in her mind the conversation she meant to have with Wallace
Armstrong when she joined him at the gate of the Gardens that afternoon.

Concerning the lumber-room incident, she hardly felt justified in
questioning him, so little reliance did she place upon Clare's
statements. There was no doubt that Miss Cavan had been violently
ejected from a room which Wallace had declared to be empty; but even
now Laline's keen susceptibilities taught her that Clare was concealing
something. As to the rumour concerning Wallace's occasional excesses,
that was to Laline a far more serious matter. Long ago Captain Garth
had styled him a drunkard, and Laline well remembered the copious
and constant draughts of cognac in which her husband had indulged at
Boulogne. But of these excesses there seemed no trace in Wallace's
present manner. Save for the sudden infatuation he had conceived for
her, and for an occasionally dreamy and fanciful habit of speech, there
was nothing about him to suggest that he was not the sanest and most
well-conducted of athletic and art-loving young English gentlemen.

The more she thought about Wallace the less she understood him; and
what puzzled her most of all was that, while he admitted the fact of
a responsibility he had incurred more than four years ago, he should
still continue to pay her his addresses, without apparently ever
troubling his head with the consideration that he was a married man.

Saturday dawned in clear cold sunshine, an ideal winter's day. Most
fortunately for Laline, Clare was engaged to lunch at a friend's house,
and afterwards to accompany a skating-party on the Long Water. Mrs.
Vandeleur was absent-minded and absorbed in taking notes to be used at
an interview with a very celebrated American spiritualist who was to
visit her that afternoon, and by two o'clock there was nothing in the
world to prevent Laline from walking out of the house to fulfil her
appointment.

For the first time in her life she felt inclined to linger before
her looking-glass, arranging and rearranging the set of her new hat,
wondering whether she would look prettier with a regular curled fringe
instead of the natural waves of hair which shaded her brow, taking her
veil on and off because she was not quite sure that it suited her,
desperately anxious to look her best, and wholly dissatisfied with her
appearance, in spite of the fact that she had never in her life looked
half so handsome as she did now, with a bright light of excitement in
her hazel eyes and the pink colour coming and going in her cheeks.

So beautiful indeed did she appear to the love-stricken Wallace,
waiting for her by the gate, as arranged, that the sight of her almost
took his breath away.

"By Jove, you are lovely!" he exclaimed, half under his breath, like a
school-boy.

"That sounds genuine, at any rate!" she said, laughing. "But, please,
Mr. Armstrong, don't stand staring at me like that. Since you began by
being personal, I will follow suit and say what a lovely fur-lined coat
you have! It is so gorgeous that you look quite like a duke!"

"Or an actor," he suggested, laughing. "Actors are very partial to
fur-lined coats, and being clean shaved makes me look still more like
one."

"You used to wear a moustache?" she said, more as a statement than a
question.

"Yes; but it was such a bad one that I abolished it. The reason for
this coat is that I thought it might be cold driving."

"Driving?" she repeated, in surprise.

"Yes. Don't you see my cart waiting? I've brought a warm fur rug for
you; but I'm afraid you'll be cold about the shoulders. It's only a few
minutes past two, however, and we shall be able to buy a cape or a boa
or something in one of the shops in the High Street."

Stepping up to the groom, who was driving a handsome bay mare in the
neatest of dog-carts, Wallace directed him to follow while he turned
back with Laline in the direction of the shops.

"You must choose it yourself," he explained to Laline. "Something very
warm in fur."

"What are you thinking of?" she exclaimed. "You cannot for one moment
suppose that I would accept valuable presents from a stranger?"

She had stopped in her walk, and he stopped, too, and looked down for
a moment into her face, his blue eyes shining with a soft light, the
sight of which brought sudden blushes to her cheek.

"I had forgotten," he said. "There is something else we must buy first."

In an instant she knew what he meant. Had she not been through the
same experience with him before, years ago? She could almost have
laughed aloud as he hurried her into a jeweller's shop, and they stood
together before the counter while Wallace asked again, as he had done
in Boulogne, to be shown some engagement-rings, "to fit this lady's
finger."

The man's half-smile was just the same as it had been years ago. Surely
some faint recollection of that former scene would come back to Wallace
now, as he stood by her side and gently drew off her glove, just as he
had done before, to try the rings!

"Which one do you like best?" he asked; and, breaking into a hysterical
laugh, Laline declared that she must have "a turquoise heart surrounded
by small diamonds."

"The price will be one hundred francs," she said, and almost expected
that Wallace would at once proceed to purchase, as before, the
wedding-ring as well.

But he did not do so. He only looked rather surprised, and inquired of
the jeweller whether he had a ring of the description given. The man
answered in the negative; and Laline, blushing and confused, allowed
a moonstone-and-diamond heart and lovers'-knot to be slipped on her
finger, and declared herself to be perfectly satisfied with it. The
price this time was twenty guineas instead of one hundred francs; and,
being now for the second time formally engaged to her husband, as she
expressed it in her thoughts, Mrs. Wallace Armstrong left the shop with
him.

She was still so overwhelmed by the way in which her little outburst
had fallen flat that she behaved with great docility, and hardly
uttered a protest as Wallace took her into a fashionable millinery
establishment and purchased for her a deep sable collar, which he at
once proceeded to fasten round her neck over her velvet cape.

"Now you will be safe from cold," he said, triumphantly. "As soon as my
dear old uncle heard that to-day I was coming courting, he simply lined
my pockets with bank-notes."

"Did you tell him?"

"Of course I did! And he was in a state of the highest delight. 'Not
the red-haired one, I hope--I didn't like her mouth,' was his only
objection. When he heard that it was you I was in love with, it was all
I could do to prevent him from coming with me to plead my cause."

"You seem to have been very confident," observes Laline, "and very sure
of winning my consent."

"I knew I should get it sooner or later by dint of asking," he
answered, as he helped her into the dog-cart and carefully wrapped a
fur rug round her knees. "Ever since I saw the lamplight shine on your
face that first evening at Mrs. Vandeleur's I knew that I should never
have a moment's peace until I had made you my wife."

"You have never even asked me to marry you!" said Laline, her spirits
rising under the strangeness of her surroundings. "You have only
met me four times, and have talked a lot of sentiment and abstract
love-making; then to-day, before I had time to think, you dragged
me into a jeweller's shop and bought me a ring. But you have never
proposed to me, and I have never accepted you. Consequently we cannot
be engaged."

"Lina Grahame," he said bending his head to look in her face as he took
his seat by her side, "will you be my wife?"

"Wallace Armstrong," she returned, in quick staccato utterance, "what
has become of Laline Garth?"




CHAPTER XVI.


As soon as the words "Wallace Armstrong, what has become of Laline
Garth?" had left her lips, Laline's heart sank within her. On Wallace's
answer very much depended. And at first he did not answer, but only
drew his level black brows near together and stared straight before him
at his horse's head.

"I cannot imagine," he said at length, after a pause which seemed
interminable to the girl by his side, "why you ask me that now. It is
such a sad and painful subject, and I meant to-day to be so happy. What
is the use of trying to revive a dead past?"

"Do you never think of it?" she asked.

"Never, if I can help it! I suppose you heard the whole affair from my
uncle? Whether you blame me or not, I don't see that I could have acted
otherwise."

"And you never think of her?"

"Never!" he answered, calmly. "Why should I? The poor child is long ago
dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes. Surely my uncle told you that?"

"Yes--no--I don't remember. How do you know that she is dead?"

"I saw her grave. Why, how white you are, and how excited you seem! Why
do you take such a strange interest in the girl?"

"I--I am sorry for her," faltered Laline.

She could not understand it. Was it some trick of her father's, she
wondered--and did Wallace really believe her to be dead?

"What became of that Captain Garth who wrote the letter to your uncle?"
she inquired, suddenly.

"Oh, that old sinner? He died of apoplexy two years ago, having enjoyed
a handsome annuity from my soft-hearted uncle on the strength of the
poor girl Laline having been his niece. But, dearest, if you knew how
much I hate the subject, you would not, I am sure, compel me to discuss
it."

"I will say no more about it now," she observed, quietly.

In spite of the quick drive through the keen air she was very pale. His
news had strangely affected her, and the certainty that her father was
dead moved her deeply. She tried to remember all that was good about
him, and recalled on the instant many little acts of careless kindness
which until then she had forgotten. All the Boulogne life came before
her again in its sordid daily details, and she saw herself as Wallace
had first seen her--an over-grown child in a short blue-cotton gown,
with her long hair floating over her shoulders under her "Zulu" hat.

A barrier seemed suddenly to have arisen between her and Wallace. His
belief that she was dead complicated things; and the fact that he
clearly disliked all allusion to the events which occurred at Boulogne
distressed Laline. Sooner or later she would have to enlighten him as
to her identity; and might not this news go far to weaken his passion
for her? Troubled with these thoughts, she sat still and silent, with
big tears gathering in her eyes, hearing without listening to Wallace's
light-hearted talk about indifferent subjects.

"Lina," he suddenly exclaimed, "you have tears in your eyes! What is
the matter, darling?"

"I don't know. A fit of the blues, I suppose."

"You want exercise and amusement, that's what it is," he said,
decisively. "My plan for to-day will do you all the good in the world.
That room of Mrs. Vandeleur's isn't good for you. The mental atmosphere
is unnatural; you are growing to look ghostlike yourself in it!"

"I am quite well," she said, rousing herself from her reverie. "But
where are we? I don't know much about London yet, and I am very
near-sighted, and have been thinking of something else. But surely this
is a part of the world I haven't been in before?"

"This is Baker Street, and we are on our way to Regent's Park and
Hampstead. We shall stop at my uncle's Hampstead house, the Homestead,
and have some skating in the grounds; then Mrs. Sylvester the
housekeeper will give us tea, and I will drive you back home in good
time this evening."

"But it's just like an elopement!" she protested.

"Well, you must blame my uncle for that, and not me. It is he who
arranged the whole thing, and telegraphed to Mrs. Sylvester that we
were coming. I always run over to the Homestead once or twice a week to
see that the horses aren't eating their heads off. I intended driving
over this afternoon if I had not been going out with you; and it was my
uncle who declared that you must see the place and judge whether you
would like to live in it."

"To live in it!" she repeated, in astonishment. "You and your uncle,"
she added, "seemed to have settled everything between you in a very
remarkable manner, without the preliminary formality of consulting me.
Pray, when did you arrange these nice little plans together?"

"As soon as you had left the house last Wednesday. My uncle was already
aware that I was in love with one of you two younger ladies, but did
not know which, and he was overjoyed when he found it was you. You won
his heart by listening to his long stories, even if he hadn't been
charmed by your lovely face and voice."

"I always understood," Laline put in, demurely, "that you made your
first visit to Mrs. Vandeleur's house in the character of Clare Cavan's
admirer?"

"I did and do admire Miss Cavan very much," he answered, promptly.
"I should like to paint her as Vivien charming Merlin, both of them
in modern evening-dress, with Miss Cavan showing off her beautiful
white neck and arms for a senile and rather Jewish-looking Merlin's
edification. Miss Cavan represents a very attractive type, but not the
type I should care to marry."

"You talk," she said, with a touch of impatience in her tone, "as
though any girl would jump at the chance of marrying you!"

"I certainly don't mean to convey that impression," he retorted;
"although I am sorry to say that many girls I meet would be delighted
to marry Alexander Wallace's nephew, whatever he might be like--old,
ugly, deformed, or hateful--just for the sake of Alexander Wallace's
money!"

"And is it that belief," she asked, blushing hotly, "which made you so
confident in my case?"

"Lina," he exclaimed, in reproachful tones, "why do you ask me such a
question? It is neither fair to yourself nor to me."

"Well, I get annoyed when you show how sure you felt of winning me,"
she explained, apologetically.

"Of course," he said, flicking his horse's ears reflectively with his
whip--"of course I knew that in time I should worry you into saying
'Yes.' But at first I own I was a good deal troubled by the strange
look of repulsion and even a fear that came into your lovely eyes when
you looked at me. You remember when, as I left the house after my first
visit, I turned and looked back and caught you watching my departure
from a window on the ground-floor?"

"I remember."

"Well, your look then was one of terror and dislike combined, which
simply struck dismay into my soul. Tell me, Lina--why did you look at
me like that?"

"You reminded me of some one whom I used to know and dislike four years
and a half ago," she answered, faintly.

She half hoped that the date she gave would form a link in his mind;
but her words evidently conveyed to him no hint of her intention, for
he only laughed.

"Four years and a half ago you must have been such a very little girl
that your prejudices were probably wholly unreasonable," he said,
cheerfully. "How old are you now, Lina?"

"Twenty."

"As old as that? I thought you were fully two years younger. Well,
Lina, there is just the right difference between us. What does
Shakspere say?--

 'Let still the woman take
 An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
 So sways she level in her husband's heart.'

Our marriage will be ideal in every way."

"If I marry you."

"If! You won't be able to help yourself. How slowly this mare is going!"

"Slowly! We seem to me to be skimming over the ground!"

"Ah, but that's because you are not so anxious as I to get there!"

Laline glanced shyly up at him, and her heart began to suddenly beat
quicker. She had never yet been made love to in her life, but she felt
certain that Wallace was counting the moments until he could claim the
kiss out of which Clare Cavan's sudden entrance had defrauded him on
the preceding Wednesday. For the first time it became strongly borne
in upon her mind that she was doing something altogether startling
and unconventional in thus accompanying a young man, against whose
character very serious accusations had been made, to his country-house
without the necessary sacrifice to Mrs. Grundy provided by the presence
of a chaperon. But, after all, was she not engaged to him, with his
uncle's full sanction--and was he not by law her natural guardian and
protector, being in very truth her husband?

Looking at him under the bright, clear light of a frosty winter sun,
Laline could see in Wallace's face no signs at all of the vices and
follies attributed to him. The study of his features, on the other
hand, filled her with a secret delight and pride of possession which
thrilled through her entire being. This was essentially a manly man,
handsome, erect, full of life, strength, and vigour--a man whose mere
outward appearance attracted long and admiring glances from women of
all ranks as he drove along, and whose driving and perfectly neat and
smart turn-out drew towards him looks of approbation from masculine
equals and inferiors alike. And he was not only her husband, but in
love with her--a man wealthy, popular, and much sought after, who had
gone out of his way to implore her, a little penniless dependant, to
be his wife.

They were driving up a steep hill by this time, not far from Hampstead
Heath.

"That is the Homestead," Wallace said, indicating with his whip the
tall stacks of chimneys of a large white house peering from among trees
near the summit of the hill.

Laline felt glad of both Wallace's and Mrs. Vandeleur's recent
additions to her wardrobe as she drove in the dog-cart through the
lodge-gates of the Homestead. Clearly the rumour that the young
master was bringing down his future bride had spread abroad, for the
lodge-keeper came out to pull his forelock and smile, with his wife
curtseying and smiling behind him.

At the house--a big rambling erection, decked with ivy and creepers,
and wearing an air of homelike comfort--Mrs. Sylvester, a plump,
middle-aged, gray-haired woman, came out in an evident flutter of
excitement and her best silk dress and cape to welcome the visitors.

Mrs. Sylvester wanted nothing better than for the young master to marry
and instal himself at the Homestead, to impart a little liveliness to
the establishment, and prevent it from being let to strangers, and she
was delighted with the appearance of Mr. Armstrong's _fiancée_.

"Quite the lady!" she confided afterwards to the cook, in discussing
Laline's appearance. "As handsome as you may wish to see, though p'raps
a bit too thin for some people's tastes; but that only makes her more
elegant. A sweet face, cook, and dressed in the height of fashion. That
sable collarette she was wearing must have cost thirty or forty pounds;
and her black velvet hat and cape were quite the latest fashion. For my
part, I like a young lady with some style about her."

Big fires had been lit everywhere about the house in accordance with
old Mr. Wallace's orders, so that Laline might be favourably impressed
with the place, and by her own request she was presently shown over the
identical rooms prepared for her reception when she had been expected
as a bride four years before. These rooms wore by this time a more or
less faded and neglected air; but the affectionate forethought with
which the whole suite had at first been planned touched Laline deeply
as she wandered through the pretty sitting-room, furnished with books
and piano, the daintily-appointed dressing-room and bath-room, and the
cosy little study fitted with every trifle necessary to the mistress of
a household.

After the inspection was over, Laline found Wallace waiting for her in
the drawing-room at the back of the house, which led into the grounds
through a spacious conservatory. A large fire was burning in the
fireplace, and, as the door closed on Mrs. Sylvester, Wallace drew his
betrothed towards the friendly blaze.

"You must get your hands warm before you go out again," he said. "You
must have got cold sitting still in the cart."

Standing with her in front of the fire, he drew up her hands against
his neck, and looked down into her eyes, his own alight with love.

"At last we are alone," he whispered. "Lina, do you love me?"

"I'm afraid I do."

"Then put your arms round my neck of your own accord and kiss me.
See--I let them go. It must be of your own accord."

Her hands crept gently up until they were clasped behind his neck, and
her soft lips fluttered lightly upon his for a second, until, with a
sigh of content, he folded his arms about her, and kissed her again and
again with all his soul in his lips.

"My darling--my Lina--my wife!"

It seemed to Laline that all her life through she had been waiting for
this moment, and that no future happiness could equal this of the first
kiss of love given and returned.

"To think that I have let you grow to twenty before I claimed you!" he
exclaimed, while they stood together before the fire and he stroked
her soft hair as she pillowed her cheek on his shoulder. "Ever since I
first came to Mrs. Vandeleur's, and you dropped that magic crystal at
sight of me, I have dreamed of this moment. For though you seemed to be
so strangely afraid of me in life, in my dreams you were always just as
you are now, with my arms about you and your head on my shoulder; and
I knew the moment would soon come when my dreams would come true. From
the very first I knew that you belonged to me by right and must be mine
some day."

"That is only because you happened to take a fancy to me," she
protested, perversely. "Supposing that I had been married to some one
else, where would your presentiments have been then?"

"Ah, but you couldn't have looked as you did if you had been married to
any one else, or if you had loved any one else! I know--I am certain
that you never cared for any one before. But tell me so; I like to hear
it."

She laid her hands upon his shoulders and drew a little away from him,
looking earnestly into his eyes.

"I solemnly swear," she said, "that I have never in my life known
what it was to love before, and that I love you with my whole heart!
There--will that satisfy you?"

"And when will you be my wife?"

"Oh, not for a long time yet."

"Why not? Don't you wish to be always with me?" he demanded, jealously.

"Yes; but you hardly know me. We must be at least engaged long enough
to make each other's acquaintance. I shall want to hear all your past
life; you will want to hear all mine----"

"Your past life is written in your face, dear. All I want to read is
there."

"But there are things which you must hear--things which may anger and
surprise you, and even make you cease to love me."

He held her from him at arm's length while he scanned her face intently.

"There is only one thing I care to know," he said. "Has any man ever
kissed your lips before?"

"Never!"

"There," he cried triumphantly, folding her in his arms again and
covering her cheeks and lips and eyes with quick kisses--"that is all
I want to know and all I will listen to! Come outside now and skate,
or we shall deeply wound the feelings of the men who have been all the
morning clearing the ice from show. Let me help you to put on your hat.
If you look up at me under the brim like that I shall never let you get
outside, but shall spend the entire afternoon kissing you! Your lips
are as soft as a rose-leaf, and you have been allowed to grow to twenty
without being forcibly carried off and married, whether you consented
or not! Waiting for me, my dear, beautiful Lina? One last kiss before
we leave the conservatory, and one more on that enchanting little pink
ear, and one more still on the soft cream-coloured space behind your
ear, where the gold-brown hair grows! Here we are at the conservatory
door. A moment more, and I sha'n't be able to kiss you. Just stop long
enough to tell me that you love me. No more 'Mr. Armstrong;' call me
by my second name, as my uncle does--'Lorin.' My name is Wallace Lorin
Armstrong. Now say that you love me and are glad to be my wife."

Tears were in her eyes as she obeyed him--tears of intense happiness
after long years of loneliness and separation.

"I love you, Lorin dear," she murmured, in tender, trembling tones;
"and I am glad with all my heart and soul to be your wife!"




CHAPTER XVII.


Skating in the Homestead grounds was skating at its best.

A considerable expanse of water, forming a miniature lake, led out into
a long winding canal, which took its course under tall over-arching
trees and between steep banks, in summer decked with flowering reeds,
forget-me-nots, and ferns.

Laline had not skated since she lived in the country with her mother
as a little child; but Wallace Armstrong excelled in skating, as he
did in all outdoor exercises, and once he had fitted to her feet one
of several pairs of skates he had provided, and had affixed his own
as well, the two started, he grasping both her hands in support and
teaching her to bend and sway her supple figure as they moved over the
ice together.

The keen air blew in their faces, the whirr of their skates and here
and there the snapping of a twig under the weight of snow were the only
sounds that came to them; across the western sky red bands of light
showed where the sun was sinking to rest; while over a long stretch of
sparkling white snow they could see through the bare tree-branches the
comfortable lights shine out of the windows of the house to beckon them
to warmth and shelter.

But Laline and Wallace were on enchanted ground; they seemed no longer
two persons, but moved by one and the same spirit as they sped hand
in hand over the frozen lake. Faster and faster they flew, until they
seemed to leave the beaten wind behind them and to glow with a warmth
that was kindlier than sunshine. It was as though they could not tire;
the magnetic effect of shoulder touching shoulder, hand clasped in
hand, spurred them ever to fresh efforts. Not until six o'clock did
Laline remember that she was tired. Then suddenly her ankle gave way;
she slipped, and would have fallen had not Wallace caught her in his
arms.

"I am tired," she said, clasping both hands round his arm as she smiled
up in his face. "I never thought of it until this minute, because it
was so perfectly beautiful. But I am really very tired."

He reproached himself strenuously for having allowed her to do too
much, and, tenderly assisting her to a seat, removed her skates and led
her to the house. In the drawing-room a lamp was burning under a shade
of crimson silk, throwing a ruddy glow over the room, and the leaping
firelight shone on the tea-things spread on a small table near its
cheerful blaze.

"You must want dinner now, my poor, dear child!" exclaimed Wallace,
ruefully. "We ought to have had tea an hour and a half ago, only we
forgot all about it."

"Tea is just exactly what I want," she declared--"tea by the fire!
And then I must be rushing back as fast as I can go. What will Mrs.
Vandeleur say?"

"I will see her to-night, if you like."

"Not for the world!"

Into Laline's face a troubled look crept. There was still so much to be
told. Mrs. Vandeleur had yet to learn that Wallace was her husband; and
Wallace had yet to be told that he was at length in love with his own
wife. She was so happy at this moment that instinct warned her against
the risk of explanations. Wallace saw the cloud on her face, and was by
her side in a moment.

"What is the matter, my darling?"

"Nothing," she said, turning to him suddenly with tears glistening in
her eyes--"except the fear that some day you may learn things, hear
things, which will make you love me less."

"There is no possibility with me of loving you less, dear," he said,
"for I love you absolutely. Until I met you I merely drifted through
life; art, business, society, athletics, each took a certain portion
of my time, but I wanted an anchorage. I was frittering my time away
waiting for you. Do you know what that wonderful little old lady of
yours told me when she first saw me? She said--I remember her actual
words--'You are capable of going to the greatest lengths of what people
would call folly for the sake of one you love. You like many people,
you love very few. But where you love it is a passion, a religion!'"

"Did she tell you anything else?" asked Laline, deeply interested.

"Yes. She predicted that I was on the eve of a new experience which
would alter the whole course of my life. Why, Lina, that was loving
you!"

"Yes; but did she make no prediction? I know one ought not to be so
superstitious as to believe those things, but she makes such strangely
true guesses sometimes. Did she say your love would make you happy?"

He hesitated.

"Of course Mrs. Vandeleur doesn't know everything," he said at last,
half laughing. "She is merely a remarkably close observer, and a good
judge of character from the face and hand."

"But what did she say?" persisted Laline.

"She said," he answered, throwing his arm about her waist and drawing
her closely to him, as though defying Fate to separate them, "that my
love-affair would bring me a great deal of trouble, and that there
would be sorrow and partings and evil wrought me by an enemy, until
death should set me free."

Almost unconsciously, as he quoted the little sibyl's words, his tone
changed from banter to deep seriousness; and to Laline there was
something ominous and terrifying in Mrs. Vandeleur's prophecy.

"I can't bear to hear you repeat her words," she whispered, clinging to
him as she spoke, "for to me also she prophesied that trouble--terrible
trouble--would come into my life if once I let love enter my heart."

"And yet what trouble can come between you and me?" he asked, smoothing
her brow with his hand as she rested her head against his shoulder.
"Who can part us? No one, so far as I know, has either the power or
the will to do so. My uncle is almost as anxious for my marriage as
I am--and, if I had my way, it should take place to-morrow. Mrs.
Vandeleur will offer no objection, I imagine, and, even if she did, she
has no authority over you. Your health is good----"

"I never remember a day's real illness in my life."

"Nor do I. And here is your house ready for you. As to money to buy
frocks and things--you have only to mention a sum and my uncle will
send it to you by return of post. Nothing can part us now!"

"Don't, don't!" she exclaimed, laying her fingers on his lips--"it
sounds like a challenge to Fate!"

He laughed as he kissed her finger-tips.

"That ghost-ridden panelled room of Mrs. Vandeleur's has held you too
long," he said. "You are growing as superstitious as an old villager.
And, my darling, there are actually tears rolling down your cheeks! Now
let me dry them, and then you must bathe your eyes and take off your
hat and cloak, and we will sit down facing each other at the tea-table
and play at being a newly-married clerk on a hundred a year bringing
home his bride!"

Half laughing, but with moist eyes, she obeyed him, and in a very few
minutes they were sitting down to an old-fashioned country tea of hot
cakes, hot buttered toast, and eggs served in various ways. To each it
seemed the most absolutely satisfactory meal ever placed before them;
but then they were very much in love, and they were together.

The one predominating idea in Wallace's mind was the wedding-day; and
upon whatever subject Laline began to talk he invariably brought it
round to the date he wanted her to fix.

"You have just said you are so fond of sunshine and that you don't
like cold and fogs," he said. "Well, then, why put up with any more of
them? We will be married at once, and set sail for Algiers or Cairo or
the Canary Islands, or just where you please where there is sunshine
and warmth and a blue sky above us. Why should you be shivering in St.
Mary's Crescent, and I be freezing at a desk in the Strand, when we
might be enjoying ourselves on sunny seas together? Are you fond of the
sea?"

"Very, very fond. I was never so happy when I lived in Boulogne as when
I could wander alone for miles along the sands, watching the waves. And
I am a capital sailor too."

"So you have lived at Boulogne?" he remarked, in some surprise. "I had
a short and very unpleasant experience of the place rather more than
four years ago--a time I much dislike recalling. But, if you love the
sea, we have endless delight to look forward to, for I am never happier
than when on board ship. So that brings me back to the day, Lina dear;
and if you really loved me you wouldn't put me off and keep me waiting."

"I have never bought a _trousseau_!" she demurred. "You must let me
consult Mrs. Vandeleur as to just what time I shall want to get my
things together."

"I think it is the most preposterous convention in the world," he
protested, energetically, "that two people who love each other should
be kept apart over a silly matter of millinery! As though I should
value you more highly with a dozen hats than with one, or think you
more beautiful in any gown than you look at this minute! In Shakspere's
time girls knew what love meant. Juliet didn't worry Romeo to wait
while she ordered and tried on frills and furbelows, but went straight
to the point--

 'If that thy bent of love be honourable,
 Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
 By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
 Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite;
 And all my fortunes at thy feet I'll lay,
 And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world!'"

"Juliet was only fourteen, and didn't know the value of dress," Laline
retorted, laughing.

"If we have a special license," he remarked, ignoring her protest, "we
need not have that tiresome fortnight of delay."

"When I do marry you," she said, quickly, "it must be in a church.
Marriage in a registry office means nothing to me and seems only an
impious mockery."

"Of course we'll be married in a church!" he returned, in some
surprise. "St. Mary-le-Strand or Kensington Church, whichever you
prefer. And, now that we have come to the place, dear, it is as well to
fix the day."

It was only after long persuasion that Laline at last agreed that the
ceremony should take place in February, a month that had just begun. It
seemed as though she were afraid of hurrying on the wedding lest those
misfortunes at which Mrs. Vandeleur had hinted should follow close
upon her decision. She was intensely anxious, for the same reason, to
defer, for the next few days, at least, any public announcement of her
forthcoming marriage.

"Everybody will say I am marrying you for your money," she explained,
"and I sha'n't like to hear it."

"What in the world does it matter to us what they may say?" he
inquired. "They will scarcely tell you so to your face; and, if such
things are going to be said, they will be uttered just the same if we
marry next week or next year. If you loved me a hundredth part as much
as I love you, you wouldn't want to defer our marriage by an hour."

"We are so perfectly happy as we are!" she was pleading, when he
interrupted her.

"Perfectly happy! When I have to leave you and exist through hours
before I see you again I am not happy. Of course I will call to-morrow
at St. Mary's Crescent----"

"Not to-morrow. Monday."

"Lina, you are proving every moment more clearly how little you care!"

"Lorin, dear, I do care! But I must have breathing time."

This conversation took place in the brougham, in which Laline was
being driven back to Kensington, as Wallace feared lest she might
catch cold in the dog-cart. In the brougham, too, he could sit beside
her with his arms wrapped round her, which was an ideal method of
travelling and to the taste of both. To Wallace it seemed as though
immense capabilities for passion and tenderness, which for years had
been closed up within his heart, overflowed now for the first time.
He could not lavish enough caresses upon her, could not call her by
enough tender names; and the contrast between his present extreme
demonstrativeness and the easy courteous self-possession of his
habitual manner might well have startled Laline, but that the change in
her own bearing was, if possible, even more marked.

Very early deprived of a mother's love, and placed in a position
entailing a measure of responsibility, Laline had received little or no
marks of affection from man or woman since her early childhood. "_La
p'tite Gart_" had cooked her father's dinners, run on her father's
errands, and taken care of the neighbours' children; and, later, Miss
Lina Grahame, assistant mistress at Mrs. Melville's select Academy for
Young Ladies, had been looked up to as a paragon of austere propriety,
engaged from seven in the morning until nine at night in instilling
English, French, needlework, and manners to her employer's pupils.

In all this life of routine there had been no love at all. For seven
years the girl's whole nature, originally confiding and affectionate,
had been repressed and thrown back on itself. Knowing that she was
really married, she had set herself the task of crushing out of her
heart every trace of tender feeling for any person of the opposite sex.
She had not dared to love, and had planned for herself a future of
incessant work and activity, into which no thoughts of love might ever
enter. The shock of overhearing her father and husband haggling over
the money bargain by which she was transferred from the one to the
other had been great and even terrible; but fortunately Laline's nature
was too sweet to be permanently embittered against all men by those
unhappy early experiences. Still the result of these latter had been to
make her both self-reliant and reserved, and to induce her to regard
herself as a person set apart, for whom the happiness of loving and
being loved could never exist, doomed by man's selfishness to a life of
loveless solitude.

Matters being thus with her, the affection with which, almost from
the moment of his entrance into Mrs. Vandeleur's house, Wallace had
inspired her, came like the warmest sunshine into Laline's heart,
melting the icy reserve in which it perforce was wrapped. She had
never really tried to resist the feelings of interest and tenderness
with which he had inspired her. He was her husband--it was right
that she should love him; and neither her remembrance of his selfish
treachery towards her years ago, nor the vague rumours of drunkenness
and dissipation which she had heard against him recently, sufficed to
diminish her growing regard. Duty and inclination went hand in hand,
and she knew now that she had loved him as they wandered together
under the snow-covered trees in Kensington Gardens, had loved him as
they stood together in the South Sea room at his uncle's house, and
that she loved him now, passionately and without reserve, receiving
and returning his kisses with a warmth and tenderness which satisfied
even a lover's exacting spirit, and nestling against him with a gentle
confidence which touched and delighted him beyond the power of words to
express.

It was nearly ten o'clock when the carriage arrived in the
old-fashioned red-brick Crescent and clattered over the stone-paved
court until it drew up before Mrs. Vandeleur's door. A light burned in
the front room on the ground-floor, and Clare Cavan's face was clearly
to be seen, pressed against the window and peeping out at them.

"Don't kiss me, Lorin--some one is watching!" whispered Laline; but her
warning was thrown away.

"I am proud of my right to kiss you, darling, and I don't care who sees
me!" he whispered back, as, raising his hat, he pressed his lips to
hers.

The next moment the door was opened by Susan, and Laline ran into the
house.

In the front room Clare bit her thin red lips until the blood started;
she was too genuinely angry even to go after Laline.

"Cat!" she whispered to herself. "Sly cat, with her Puritan airs! But
I'll make her suffer for cutting me out and making me look ridiculous!
And Aunt Cecilia, too, laughing at me absolutely, and telling me I'd
better leave off trying to attract with Lina about! I can at least
make her thoroughly miserable and uncomfortable to-morrow morning. But
as soon as he comes he will set it right. Never mind; he shall have a
bad time of it to-morrow, too, and shall be made to feel disgraced and
ashamed before Lina and Aunt Cecilia and me if I can manage it. It's
most unlucky that to-morrow's Sunday!"

A sudden inspiration came at that moment to Miss Cavan; her odd green
eyes gleamed with satisfaction as she quickly seated herself before
a desk and proceeded to write, in a round disguised hand, a letter
addressed to "Wallace Armstrong, Esq.," and signed "A Well-Wisher."

She laughed as she read it; and, still laughing, ran lightly to her
room, put on her hat and cloak, slipped the letter into her pocket,
and, venturing boldly out into the snowy night, chartered a hansom and
directed the man to drive to a certain address, in order that with her
own hands she might place her precious missive in the letter-box.




CHAPTER XVIII.


To Laline's great relief, no one spoke to her or interferred with her
in any way on her return; and she was able to retire with her ecstatic
thoughts to her own room.

To say that she had never been so happy in her life would be to
understate the case. Until this day she had not known what happiness
was. Sleep was out of the question for a long time; Laline was too
happy to sleep. She laid her flushed cheek upon her pillow, and
proceeded slowly and lingeringly to recall every word, every look, and
every caress she had received from Wallace Armstrong.

Her vivid imagination being excited to its utmost, she thrilled again
at her lover's touch, saw again the love-light in his eyes, turned her
face to meet his kisses, and murmured into her pillow answering vows of
unalterable love.

No scruples restrained her from giving herself up heart and soul to
thoughts of him. He was her husband, and she had a right to love
him, to glow with delight at the memory of his caresses, and to long
ardently for the moment when she should see him again. In a very few
days she would be doubly married to him--for Laline was resolved that
the blessing of the Church should cement that hurried and unimpressive
civil ceremony at Boulogne.

It occurred to her more than once that Wallace, in his impatience to
claim her as his wife, might wish, when once he learned her identity,
to dispense with the delay of a second wedding; and for this reason
alone she debated whether it might not be better to defer telling him
the truth until after the ceremony had been performed.

Yet again she told herself that before the altar she must speak
the truth. Laline Armstrong and not Lina Grahame was her name, and
as Laline Armstrong she must be married--Laline Armstrong, neither
spinster, widow, nor wife. The definitions confused her, and she
laughed aloud in the dark from sheer light-heartedness to think that a
man should be unknowingly wooing and wedding his own wife.

She would never feel that she was really his wife until they had been
married in a church. So utterly different was the man she now knew and
loved from the reckless, defiant, capriciously kind Wallace Armstrong
of the old Boulogne days, that it seemed as though another soul had
entered into the man, and that another ceremony was necessary to make
him truly her husband.

The marked dislike, amounting almost to abhorrence, with which he
alluded to his past experiences was characteristic of his complete
reformation; but it was just this quality which made Laline dread
breaking the truth to him. At least for a few days she decided that she
must still be Lina Grahame. Their relations were so perfect that the
introduction of any new element might mar their complete harmony; and
having once arrived at this determination, Laline let her brain slip
back again to the congenial employment of living again through every
incident of her second courtship until at length her waking dreams of
passionate delight were merged in sleep.

At this precise moment all happiness fled. No sooner was she asleep
than terrible dreams afflicted her soul--dreams in which she was
always endeavouring to reach her lover until some terrible catastrophe
occurred to prevent their union, and she was hurled away into space
with the sound of a man's mocking laughter in her ears.

Sometimes she thought she was wandering in a flower-bedecked meadow
under a cloudless sky while numberless birds sang sweetly overhead. At
a little distance she perceived Wallace approaching her, with gladness
in his eyes and arms outstretched to embrace her. Through all her joy
at sight of him a sense of foreboding hung over her which was too soon
justified; for as, advancing rapidly to her side, he had almost seized
her hands in his, the solid earth cleft open beneath their feet and
they were irrevocably parted.

"You are mine--mine!" another voice seemed to mutter in her ear.
Invisible hands imprisoned her, holding her back whenever she strove
through the long hours of hideous dreaming to reach her lover; and,
when at length the morning dawned and she awoke, it was with a terrible
sense of impending trouble weighing upon her mind.

Just such a night of horrors had she experienced on a previous
occasion not many days before. The night preceding Wallace Armstrong's
appearance at Mrs. Vandeleur's house had been marked by exactly similar
dreams; and Laline, as she dressed and contemplated her pale face
and startled eyes in the looking-glass, tried to reassure herself by
recalling that no untoward event had followed her dreams on the former
occasion.

"They say dreams are always fulfilled in just the reverse way," she
told herself. "Meeting my husband again was the happiest thing that
ever happened to me; so why should not last night's horrible fancies,
which were exactly similar in character, portend some unexpected
blessing? Oh, I am growing too sillily superstitious! Wallace is
quite right; this house isn't good for me. But I shall leave it soon;
and this month my husband's home will be mine. Nothing can part us
now--nothing!"

In spite of her assumed brave front, Laline could not get rid of the
unpleasant impression produced by her night fancies; and when she
joined Clare Cavan at the breakfast-table, that young lady commented at
once upon her altered appearance.

"My dearest Lina, you look so pale and so upset! What is it? Did you
overtire yourself yesterday? You were out with some friends from your
old school, were you not?"

Looking up suddenly, Laline perceived the lurking malice in the
speaker's eyes and boldly took up the challenge Clare had thrown down.

"I was with Mr. Armstrong," she answered, in clear, firm tones,
"skating in the grounds of his uncle's house at Hampstead."

"With Mr. Wallace Armstrong?" Clare inquired, in tones of assumed
surprise and anxiety.

"Yes. I thought I saw you at the window watching us drive up to the
house," Laline observed, calmly.

"Well, I certainly thought it was you and he," the ingenuous Clare
returned, "but in the dark I couldn't be sure. I am so sorry!"

"Why should you be sorry?"

"Well, I hardly like to tell you; and yet perhaps I ought to. Of course
you know that Mr. Armstrong admired me very much and paid me a great
deal of attention? Well, I liked him too, as you know; but certain
facts about him came into my possession yesterday which made me
resolve to ask Aunt Cecilia to drop him for the future."

"What are those facts?"

"It's a most shocking affair, dear, and I am afraid will distress you.
I was dreadfully grieved about it; for you know I thought Mr. Armstrong
so nice at first. It appears that old Mr. Farquharson the clerk was
right, and that, though Mr. Armstrong appears so pleasant and well-bred
and charming, he indulges periodically in fits of heavy drinking,
during which he is really like a wild beast and not responsible for his
actions."

"Who told you all this?"

"Mrs. Fitzroy Cleaver was talking about it yesterday. She had to forbid
him her house because he got frightfully tipsy and tried to make
love to the servants. That happened last year; but he is never to be
trusted, she declared, and may break out at any moment."

"I simply don't believe it!"

"Will you believe your eyes?" asked Clare, lowering her white lids to
hide the triumph in her gaze. "Read this; it is from the _Daily Leader_
of last June."

As she spoke, she took from her purse and laid in front of Laline's
plate a cutting from a newspaper, headed--"Disgraceful Conduct of a
Gentleman."

Laline's heart beat with a sickening apprehension. Not wishing Clare
to see her emotion, she rose from the table and took the cutting to
the window, where, with checks crimson with mortification, she read
that Wallace Armstrong, "stated to be nephew to the well-known banker
Alexander Wallace," had been brought before the magistrate on a charge
of drunkenness and brutal assault on the police. The accused, it was
stated, made no answer to the charge; and, it being proved that on
three previous occasions fines had been inflicted for similar offences
and instantly paid, the magistrate decided to mark his sense of the
man's disgraceful conduct by sending him to prison with hard labour for
six months.

"Of course they got him off again," Clare volunteered, as Laline
returned the paper to her without speaking, "and it was kept out of
most of the papers. I am so dreadfully sorry for that poor dear old
Mr. Wallace! That sort of drunkenness is nothing else but insanity;
and I suppose one ought to be sorry for Mr. Armstrong as well. As soon
as I heard the dreadful story it explained so many things I couldn't
understand during our visit the other day. That person shut up near the
studio, for instance, was no doubt Mr. Armstrong's keeper, close at
hand to look after him in case he should have one of his attacks."

"You pretended that it was a woman who sprang out upon you."

"Did I say so? Of course in the dark I couldn't see. In any case, I am
very, very sorry for the whole business; and I do hope, dear Lina, that
you won't take it too much to heart. Remember, Mr. Armstrong is only
a very slight and recent acquaintance; it isn't as if he were an old
friend. Don't worry yourself about him, dear."

"I don't want your sympathy and I don't want your advice; I don't
believe in either of them!" flamed out poor Laline. "I believe that
these are all lies and that Mr. Armstrong will be easily able to
disprove them. And as to being a mere acquaintance--I love him, and I
am going to marry him!"

With that, Laline swept from the room, desperately unhappy, but
determined in spite of all appearances to be loyal to the man she loved.

She tried not to think about him in church, tried to appear at
luncheon as though nothing had ruffled her usual serenity. But Clare's
exaggerated consideration and obvious sympathy were well-nigh
intolerable. Laline could neither eat nor talk, and could hardly keep
back from her eyes tears of shame and vexation at the turn things had
taken since the morning.

Wallace, her chivalrous, tender, manly lover, a drunkard and an
insensate brute! The thought seemed sacrilege. And yet Laline
remembered she had somewhere heard that dipsomaniacs were often, but
for that one hideous vice, among the most refined and sweet-natured
of men. Of one thing she was the more resolved every hour--she would
see her husband at once, tax him with what she had learned, and if
possible elicit from him the entire truth. If only her influence might
avail to wean him from this degrading vice she would not for one moment
hesitate, but would dedicate her life to the task of reclaiming him.

With these conflicting reflections agitating her mind, she could
hardly pretend to pay any attention to Clare's easy and incessant
flow of chatter during the course of the meal any more than she could
attune her mind to Mrs. Vandeleur's fantastic talk in her study in the
afternoon. The little lady shook her head sadly as she looked at her
secretary.

"Already spoiled! Already spoiled!" she murmured. "Lina, have you
nothing to say to me?"

"I shall have ever so much that I want to say to you by this time
to-morrow!" Laline cried, springing from her chair and beginning to
move restlessly about the room. "But you must let me see Mr. Armstrong
once more first, dear Mrs. Vandeleur. After that, I promise I will tell
you the entire truth."

The little sibyl looked at her long and intently through her jewelled
eye-glasses.

"You are very much in love," she observed, in her light silvery voice,
and forthwith sighed. "It is a great pity, when we were getting on
so well together," she added, regretfully. "I wish," said Laline,
wistfully, "that you could tell me whether it will all turn out
happily. What does it mean, Mrs. Vandeleur, when one dares not look
ahead, when one watches the hands of the clock in dread of what the
next hour will bring forth? And all for no reason or for insufficient
reason. It is true that to-day I have heard something that troubles me
greatly. But I was not wholly unprepared to face it, and this dreadful
foreboding seems to presage something even worse, some terrible
misfortune for which I am wholly unprepared."

She stood before Mrs. Vandeleur in her trailing white draperies, with
scarcely more colour in her face than in her gown. Even her lips were
pale, as, with low trembling accents, she gave voice to her fears.

"I have told you that love would bring trouble into your life,"
said Mrs. Vandeleur, "but of course I did not expect you to pay any
attention to my words. To a limited extent, you have yourself the
gift of second sight. I am going out now to pay a long-promised call
on Lady Wray. While I am away take this crystal; concentrate your
gaze immovably upon it, and let your heart guide your thoughts. It is
possible that you may be able to learn as much about your future as I
can tell you."

With that, she gently pushed Laline into a seat, and, placing in her
hand the crystal ball, passed her fingers lightly and rapidly over the
girl's brow, softly murmuring some undistinguishable words the while.

A feeling of drowsiness crept over Laline. Her eyelids closed, and for
a few seconds she was lost to her surroundings. When she again opened
her eyes she was alone, sitting by the fire, the light from which
danced on the gleaming tiles and tall brass "dogs" within the fender.
The afternoon was one of black frost and gray fog, and although it was
not yet four o'clock the dull, red sun gave but little illumination.
St. Mary's Crescent was intensely quiet, but the boards and panelling
of Mrs. Vandeleur's study emitted fitful creakings in the highest
degree calculated to startle a nervous person.

Laline, as a rule, did not like to be alone there in the twilight, but
this afternoon she was so much absorbed in her thoughts that she was
almost indifferent to outer influences. She was intensely anxious to
see Wallace and deeply regretted her own parting mandate to the effect
that he must defer his visit until the following day. It was terrible
to live in suspense, dreading and doubting lest he should not be able
to clear himself from the abominable charges made against him. And yet,
in the face of that newspaper cutting, what could he say? Already the
ecstastic happiness which had filled her heart on the preceding evening
had been dispelled; in spite of everything, she persisted in loving
Wallace as dearly as ever, but her tranquil joy in loving him was a
thing of the past.

As she leaned over the fire, lost in thought and rendered dreamier than
was her wont by Mrs. Vandeleur's parting touches, Laline had entirely
forgotten the crystal which the latter had placed in her hand, and it
was only the sparkle of the glass as it caught the firelight which
attracted her attention to it again. She held it from her and gazed
into its glistening depths; the dancing flames, the ruddy logs, the
cloudy night sky flecked with stars painted on the ceiling, the dark
oak panelling of the walls, and the faded tints and gruesome figures
in the "Dance of Death" tapestry which ran as a frieze round the room,
were all mirrored there in miniature, seen imperfectly by the aid of
her near-sighted vision. Gradually, as she bent nearer, fascinated
by the prettiness of the reflections, her own face came within focus,
unusually intent and pale, with eyes fixed and distended. Once before,
on the afternoon of Wallace's first visit, she had held the crystal in
her hands, and on that occasion, as she recalled now, she had seemed to
see imaged the figure of her husband.

Would the same thing happen now? she wondered, as, with straining eyes,
she stared into the crystal.

Presently the glass became clouded, the various objects about the room
were no longer there, and in their stead Laline caught a gleam of green
shutters, opened to flood with sunshine a small uncarpeted room on the
floor of which a bright-haired girl was playing with a kitten. Laline
held her breath. She knew before it happened that the door would open
and a red-faced man with a heavy white moustache would enter, bringing
another man after him.

"A gentleman to see us, Laline!"

She could almost hear the words, but, as the door opened and the girl
sprang to her feet to greet the visitor, the figures in the crystal
began to fade, and of the tall massive form following close on that of
Captain Garth Laline caught barely more than a glimpse.

Only a glimpse, yet it drove the blood from her cheeks and lips
and made her catch her breath as one half suffocated. With all the
will-power she possessed she strove to gaze again into the past. At
first her efforts were in vain, but after a few seconds of quivering
apprehension the crystal depths became cleared again. She could see
waves rippling in the sunlight and up the shiny green supports of a
pier, upon which two figures were seated side by side--a man and a girl.

Every detail was correct. Laline remembered the pink cotton frock,
made with her own fingers, and the black lace hat and Suède gloves,
Wallace's gifts, which she had worn so proudly. The man's head was
lowered over the girl, whose left hand he held in his. But although
Laline could not see his face she experienced a thrill of repulsion and
terror at sight of his figure and thick curly black hair which showed
under his straw hat.

Once again her memory brought back words from the past to complete the
picture, and a man's voice, at sound of which her heart stood still
with fear, slowly and impressively pronounced these words--

"This man will love you, and you will not be able to escape from him.
His line of fate and yours run side by side and nothing but death can
separate them!"

On the words the glass became clouded, the figures grew fainter and
fainter until they vanished altogether, and Laline sat, trembling in
every limb, with a new dread in her soul.

"It is the future and not the past which I must see," she told herself.
"If I could only get sight of something to guide me!"

From the depths of the crystal the face of a man seemed to resolve
itself, and brilliant bluish-gray eyes under heavy black eyebrows to
fix themselves upon her. A faint cry rose to Laline's lips. She did not
wish to see what the glass held; she would not believe her eyes. Every
moment the face became clearer while her sentiment of loathing and
detestation increased in proportion.

Moved out of herself by overmastering excitement, she would have flung
the crystal from her; but at that exact moment the silence in the
room was suddenly broken by the opening of the door and Susan's voice
announcing--

"Mr. Wallace Armstrong!"




CHAPTER XIX.


Trembling like a leaf in the wind, unnerved and weeping, Laline started
from her seat, and as the door closed on the servant held out her arms
towards her lover.

"You have come at last!" she sobbed out. "Oh, if you had stayed away
another moment, I think I should have gone mad!"

He hesitated for a moment and then advanced into the room. As he did so
she made a step towards him; but her limbs trembled so much that she
faltered and would have fallen had he not drawn her into his arms.

For an instant she clung to him, sobbing hysterically, while he held
her close against his breast smoothing her hair with one hand. Then
over her from head to foot passed a quiver of the same strong repulsion
and dread she had experienced a few seconds earlier. For a few seconds
she remained absolutely motionless while her very blood seemed to turn
cold drop by drop. Then, disengaging herself suddenly, she fell back
from him and stared through the obscurity at his face.

"Wallace," she cried--"it is not Wallace Armstrong!"

"That is my name, at your service, all the same."

She did not faint or scream. She stood perfectly still before him while
her heart seemed to turn to stone. She did not attempt to deceive
herself. No mistake was possible now. All the old happy delusion was
destroyed for ever by this man's touch, by this man's voice.

For, although she could not clearly see his face, although he had only
spoken a few words, the voice was the same as that which had uttered
the prophecy on Boulogne pier four years ago.

And at the sound of that voice all hope of love, all thought of
happiness died out of Laline's heart. Her dream was over. Not the man
she loved but this man whom she hated was her husband.

The whole truth poured in upon her brain as a sudden shaft of light in
those terrible moments of silence. Five words told the story. There
were two Wallace Armstrongs, and she had chosen to persuade herself
that the one she loved was her husband. This man who stood before her
now, with mocking laughter in his voice, an echo of which had haunted
her dreams--this man, whose very clothing exhaled a nauseous perfume
of spirits and whose accents were husky with drink, was the husband to
whom she had pledged herself until death should part them on that fatal
summer morning.

There was much to be explained, much that she could not understand;
but of this one awful fact she was convinced and needed no further
testimony. He had come into her life again, and already his sinister
shadow had darkened all its sunshine.

So she stood before him in the twilit room and lived a lifetime of
despairing grief before he spoke again.

"I am really exceedingly sorry to disappoint you," he said. "I suppose
you expected my cousin? Your servant made a similar mistake at first.
From your greeting I presume that I may congratulate him?"

"Yes, you presume," she said, and, passing him swiftly, she gained the
door.

"One moment, please," he interposed, before she had time to leave the
room. "I don't think there is any mistake on my part. I have come here
on an introduction to Mrs. Sibyl Vandeleur, the celebrated sorceress
or thought-reader or pin-finder--I don't quite know how she styles
herself. I was not aware, until I arrived at the house, of the--well,
the very intimate terms upon which my cousin was received here."

He paused, as though he expected her to speak. At every word he
uttered in those leisurely sneering tones which she ought never to
have forgotten Laline hated him a little more. She wondered now how
she could ever have believed that such a man as this could grow
gentle and chivalrous, unselfish and kind. Bitter and contemptuous
in manner he had always been, but there was about him now an added
recklessness--outcome of a savage scorn against himself and all the
world. In manner he was the antithesis of his cousin, and yet every now
and then Laline caught in his voice some inflection which reminded her
of the man she loved. Even by this light she realised that in figure he
was a little taller and of much heavier build than his namesake, and
already inclining to the unhealthy stoutness which comes of lazy and
dissipated habits.

It was strange that this time she felt but little of the fear of
recognition she had before experienced when she believed herself in
the presence of her husband. This man and she seemed in spirit so many
leagues asunder, and there was so strong a barrier of gross material
instincts between his mind and hers, that Laline intuitively knew he
would not remember her. One woman would be the same as another to him;
he would be incapable of differentiating between them. Moreover, any
other thought she might entertain about him was swallowed up in the
overpowering sensation of physical dislike with which he inspired her.
In this dislike fear had a part, but it was the shrinking horror of a
delicate and refined nature when confronted by one essentially coarse
and brutal, and not a personal fear lest he should know and claim her
as his wife which moved Laline.

The man was sunk enough, but not so sunk that he failed to recognise,
even in the twilight of Mrs. Vandeleur's room, how this slenderly-made,
sweet-voiced girl, who had clung so tenderly to him when she mistook
him for his cousin, shrank from him, once her error was made known
to her, in aversion none the less plain that it was not expressed in
words. Wallace Armstrong the elder was a very handsome man, and had
won some cheap reputation as a "lady-killer;" consequently this girl's
antagonistic attitude piqued and angered him.

"Can I wait here for Mrs. Vandeleur?" he inquired, with mock
politeness. "Or can I wait somewhere else--because, if you expect my
cousin, I fear I shall be rather in the way?"

"Mrs. Vandeleur is out. She expects no visitors to-day, and I do not
know when she will return."

"But you expect my cousin? I am sure he will be delighted to see me if
you will allow me to wait until he arrives."

"If Mr. Wallace Armstrong is your cousin," Laline said, frigidly, with
her hand on the door, "he has certainly never mentioned you. Under the
circumstances, perhaps it would be better if you communicated your
business to Mrs. Vandeleur by letter. She only receives strangers by
appointment."

She was desperately anxious to get rid of this man, to stir his pride
so that he should leave at once and never gain a footing within the
house. His presence tortured her, and she longed to escape to her room
that she might consider the new and horrible situation in which she
found herself. But before the unwelcome visitor could do more than
make one step towards the door, it was suddenly flying open, and Clare
Cavan, in walking-dress, hurried in, and held out her hand cordially
towards him.

"Good-afternoon, Mr. Armstrong! So good of you to come on such a
horrid foggy day! Why--have I made a mistake? Susan said it was Mr.
Armstrong----"

"And it is Mr. Armstrong. Unfortunately my cousin and I were given
precisely the same name by our respective mothers, both of whom were
sisters to Alexander Wallace the banker, and anxious to propitiate him
by making us his godsons. Two sisters married two brothers, you see.
I was the unlucky result in the one case, and my Admirable Crichton
of a cousin was the satisfactory result in the other. I come with an
introduction to Mrs. Vandeleur; but it seems I am rather _de trop_----"

"Pray don't say so. I am sure we are delighted to see you!" exclaimed
Clare, effusively. "I am Mrs. Vandeleur's niece, and my name is Cavan.
Any friend or relation of Mr. Armstrong's is extremely welcome here.
Isn't that so, Lina dear?"

Laline did not respond. A combination between Clare and this man
suggested all manner of vague dangers. She longed to quit the room,
and yet feared to leave them alone together lest they should discuss
her and make she knew not what discovery thereby. Meanwhile Clare was
flitting about, ringing the bell for the lamp and chattering gaily to
her aunt's visitor, apparently bent upon putting him at his ease.

"Detestable weather to-day, isn't it, Mr. Armstrong? This fog is so
fearfully depressing! And I have been calling on a family, half of
whom were down with the influenza and the other half deadly afraid
of catching it. London on a foggy Sunday afternoon is a most ghastly
place, isn't it? I like church, but I do hate church bells! In the
country--across meadows and all that sort of thing--they sound musical
and soothing; but in town they are most funereal and out of tune with
other sounds, and always suggest that one will be late, and that one's
glove-buttons will come off at the last minute, and one will walk into
church after the service has begun all red and perspiring and plain!
And that's an awful ordeal!"

The lamp was brought in during the foregoing speech, and by its
light, toned down by the amber silk-shade which veiled it, Wallace
Armstrong the elder gazed curiously at the two other occupants of the
room. Laline had resumed her usual low seat by the fire, but it was
not to her that his glance was at first directed. Clare Cavan stood
immediately before him, and his bold eyes ran approvingly over the
voluptuous curves of her figure, the dead whiteness of her skin, and
the red and yellow lights in her untidy coil of hair. Her white eyelids
and pale lashes were lowered to all appearance modestly under his
scrutiny, but out of the corners of her eyes she too was taking stock
of him.

What she saw was by no means wholly pleasing. Even by the subdued light
of the lamp and fire it was easy to read in this man's appearance the
deterioration of his moral and physical nature. Originally handsomer
than his cousin, he had at thirty years of age acquired the look of
a man ten years older. His plentiful curly hair, which fell heavily
over his forehead, was already streaked with gray. His cheeks were
haggard and pale, contrasting with the puffiness of the skin under his
eyes and about his chin and jaw, and his eyes, beautiful in shape and
colour, were bloodshot and red in the lids. There was undoubtedly a
strong family likeness between himself and his cousin; both men were
tall, broad-shouldered, and well made, black-haired, blue-eyed, and of
regular features, but there all resemblance ceased. Wallace Armstrong
the elder was clearly on the downward road. His voice and manner had
become coarse and rough, and the bitterness of his nature showed
itself in almost every word he uttered. Especially in his allusions
to his cousin did this sneering tone assert itself; and as if she
perceived this and wished to ascertain the reason for it Clare led the
conversation at once to the topic of the younger Wallace Armstrong.

"Now that I see you by the light," she said, "you are really very much
alike. But I think your eyes have more gray about them; your cousin's
are wholly blue."

"My hair has more gray about it too," he remarked, sardonically.

"Has it? I hadn't noticed that. But do you know I so much admire gray
hair on young men? It is so piquant, I think! Then you are taller and
bigger than the Wallace Armstrong we know; and you wear a moustache,
while he is clean-shaved."

"Yes--a moustache is the one thing Lorin can't cultivate successfully,"
he sneered. "But he is so eminently lucky in every other respect that
he ought not to mind that one deficiency."

"Then your voices are different, very different," Clare continued,
standing before him with her head on one side reflectively, and
speaking with the air of ingenuous innocence she knew so well how
to assume. "There are just tones now and then which resemble your
cousin's, but not many."

"My voice is not adapted to cooing and flattering, as his is!" he
retorted, with sudden savagery. "It has had no practice in such arts."

"It is odd," Clare said, affecting not to notice his growing anger,
"that we did not see you when we visited your uncle's house last
Wednesday afternoon!"

"Oh, I am kept in the background!" he returned, with a short laugh. "I
am not pretty or nice-mannered enough to be shown to visitors; and
they have never thought of a cage for me, with 'Keep away--he bites!'
as a warning inscription. My cousin is the show animal, with nice,
tea-drinking, tennis-playing manners. My roughness frightens people.
Why, I have already frightened your friend here, as you see."

Clare glanced at Laline. The latter was sitting with her eyes fixed, in
fascinated dislike, upon the third occupant of the room. Perhaps she
hardly realised how clearly her features expressed the disgust with
which he inspired her. But Wallace saw it and winced under it. No woman
in his sober moments had contemplated him like that yet, and he felt he
hated both her and himself for that look.

"I ought to have introduced you!" cried Clare. "How stupid of me! Lina,
this is our Mr. Armstrong's cousin, and he thinks he frightened you.
Isn't that absurd?"

"Very. I am not at all afraid of Mr. Armstrong."

"By----But you shall be!" was the thought that sprang into life in
Wallace's mind as he noted the quiet scorn of her tones. He turned
to look at her as she sat by the fire in her soft white draperies,
with slender hands clasped loosely round her knee, one foot on a
stool before her, and her head a little thrown back. She looked very
beautiful at that moment and her beauty struck into his heart like a
dull pain. There was something proud and aloof in her appearance of icy
purity and reserve; and when he contrasted her present haughtiness of
bearing with the passionate demonstrativeness with which she had, as
she thought, flung herself into the arms of his cousin a few moments
before, a bitter anger was stirred within him.

Why should she lavish caresses upon Lorin and treat him--Wallace--like
a dog?

He would make her pay for it, for certain, and he was not a man to
register a vow of vengeance against any one and fail to make it good.

He could not guess that Laline's appearance of scornful quiet was to a
great extent the result of the tumult of emotions which agitated her. A
fierce despair held possession of her heart. She seemed to see, lying
in ruins about her feet, the beautiful castle in the air that love had
built; and the dirge of a love that must die was ringing in her ears
as an accompaniment to every word he uttered. This extreme tension of
feeling kept her rigid as a statue, outwardly cold, but with heart and
brain on fire. Her every nerve was in quivering rebellion against Fate,
which had linked her to this man she hated, while with all her soul she
longed to be the wife of another. And so she sat, within a few feet
of her husband, preternaturally pale and still, her heart throbbing
with a woman's passionate love and as passionate grief under her white
conventual gown; and Wallace looked and hated her for her scornful
pride, and hated his cousin for having won her love, and told himself
that he would punish the pair of them if the chance should come in his
way.

But to Clare his visit was a disappointment.

"He is rough and rather dreadful," she said to herself, "but
comparatively sober. I hoped he would be mad with drink, as he was
last Wednesday, and as he often is, or I would never have asked him to
come."




CHAPTER XX.


Clare Cavan had wholly misunderstood the man with whom she had to deal
when, by means of an anonymous letter, signed "A Well-Wisher," which
she herself had delivered at his lodgings on the previous evening, she
had summoned Wallace Armstrong the elder to her aunt's house.

From what her friends at the skating-party had told her she imagined
him to be a degraded sot, lost to all sense of decency, barely sane,
and utterly unpresentable.

"Awful thing for that poor young fellow Wallace Armstrong!" her
friend Mr. Fitzroy Cleaver had confided to her. "He's got a cousin
who's rather like him in appearance, and has the same name too,
which is playing it very low down on a fellow. This chap--the other
Wallace Armstrong, you know--is always getting had up for assault and
drunkenness and all that sort of thing; and old Alexander Wallace has
to pay to have the things kept out of the papers. He's been sent out of
the country more than once, but always comes back, like a bad ha'penny.
The last scandal about him was in the summer; my sister has a copy of
the newspaper about it somewhere. I believe his uncle has disowned him
since then. I am not quite sure but what he's doing 'time' now for
that. People like that ought to be shut up--don't you think so? He'll
only end by committing a murder or something unpleasant of that sort if
he's left at large; and think how horrid that will be for his family!"

From her hostess, Mr. Cleaver's sister-in-law, Clare received the
paragraph she showed to Laline, and other details concerning the
reprobate in question.

"I had no idea what the creature was like, my dear; and, when he
introduced himself to me at Hurlingham as a cousin of Mr. Armstrong
and a nephew of Alexander Wallace, it never occurred to me to be on
my guard against him. I made the terrible mistake of inviting him to
dinner. Luckily, it was only ourselves and two very old friends. My
dear child, when he arrived he was already half tipsy! Of course I
affected not to notice it and tried to keep things out of his way;
but it was of no use. He drank fearfully during dinner and grew very
noisy and insulting. As to joining the ladies afterwards--he was hardly
capable of standing upright and wanted to fight the butler--such an
excellent man! He had been with us five years, and was really almost to
be depended upon not to steal too much wine--and that is high praise
for a butler! But this dreadful Armstrong person struck out at him and
upset him so much that he gave notice the next morning. Mr. Armstrong
used fearful language too, and made my parlour-maid cry by trying to
kiss her when she handed him his hat. Dreadful, wasn't it? I assure you
I didn't get over it for weeks. And the next time I heard of him he
was in prison, where he richly deserved to be. My dear, such a person
should be sent to an institution for dipsomaniacs or shipped to the
Colonies! I believe he hates his cousin, whom he accuses of supplanting
him in his uncle's favour, and that he will try and murder him some
day."

Of Mr. Wallace Armstrong the elder's rough brutality Clare herself
could bear personal evidence. Curiosity had led her on the occasion
of her visit to Alexander Wallace's house to peer into the room on
the top floor adjoining the studio; and she would not easily forget
the momentary vision she had had of a man's face, red and swollen by
drink and fury, which appeared at the doorway, or the violence with
which, to an accompaniment of curses, she had been thrust from the
room. The incident at the time had been inexplicable to her, although
with characteristic mendacity she had made use of it to endeavour to
prejudice Laline against the younger Armstrong. But as soon as she
learned of the existence of the scapegrace cousin, recently released
from gaol, who was forbidden his uncle's house and only frequented it
by stealth, she judged rightly that it was he whom she had seen upon
the evening in question.

She was far too spiteful to communicate her intelligence to Laline, and
thoroughly enjoyed the latter's evident distress when she was led to
believe that the man charged with repeated drunkenness and assault was
her lover. Clare knew quite well that only a few words would suffice
to remove this misconception from Laline's mind, and that she must
therefore devise some new plan by which to revenge herself upon her.
Understanding as she did to some extent the other girl's sensitive
and impressionable nature, she decided that the coarse insults of
a half-insane drunkard, who was the near relation of her affianced
husband, would be infinitely painful to Laline, and that a visit paid
by his disreputable cousin to his lady-love would deeply distress the
younger Armstrong.

With this conviction, Clare had sat down on the preceding evening and
indited the following letter, in a disguised handwriting, to the elder
Wallace, whose address she had learned from her friends.

  "SIR--I have never met you, but I have heard of you, and how you, the
  elder and the legal heir, have been cruelly and unjustly supplanted
  in your uncle's heart and your uncle's home--which last should
  certainly be yours--by the cunning tricks of your younger cousin.
  Although a stranger, I have a fellow-feeling for you, as I too have
  had my rightful place in the affections of my relations usurped by
  an interloper. It is only fair that you should know that your cousin
  is now engaged to be married to a lady who has never even heard of
  your existence, and who is marrying him for your uncle's money, to
  which she believes him to be heir. In justice to yourself and to
  her, can you not see her and tell her the truth? She resides with
  Mrs. Vandeleur, the celebrated palmist, at 21, St. Mary's Crescent,
  Kensington. If you call, you might pretend to consult her.

 "A Well-Wisher."

Instead of the tipsy maniac she had confidently expected, this letter
had produced a man of sardonic humour and rough and unpleasant manners,
but undeniably sane and passably sober--a man, too, of strikingly
handsome appearance, however marred by an ill-regulated life; and
Clare, wholly ignorant of the deadly blow struck at Laline's happiness
by his very existence, felt that her shot had missed fire.

Tea was brought in at this point and refused with some disdain by the
visitor. With a sickening pang of remembrance, Laline recalled the fact
that at Boulogne Wallace had never partaken of tea.

"Liquids that didn't intoxicate weren't worth swallowing," he had
declared; and as a child she had been shocked and startled by such a
statement until he had managed to convince her that he was joking.
How could she have been so blind, so foolish, as to suppose that such
a man as this could develop into the Wallace Armstrong she had grown
to love? This creature before her was but the man of four years ago,
with all his evil habits, his roughness of manners, his scorn for his
fellow-creatures, his cynicism, and his degraded tastes intensified;
and a shudder ran through her at the thought that, but for her flight
on her wedding-day, she would be even now his property, his chattel,
dragged down in all possibility to his level.

"Not that! I should be dead!" was the cry that rose within her heart at
the thought.

And yet she was his wife! Those few words spoken before the English
Consul by a reckless adventurer and an ignorant child had made her his
for life, even though he ignored her existence, even though she had
given her heart and her word to another.

A shudder ran through her at the thought, and involuntarily her dark
eyes turned upon him again with a look in which hate and fear were
mingled. Meeting his gaze, she quickly averted her own; but that second
look had the effect of completely sobering Wallace.

The intensity of contempt and dislike it suggested was a revelation to
him. Demoralised as he was, he would rather have faced any danger than
this girl's quiet scorn, and the aversion she entertained against him,
which her sensitive face unmistakably betrayed, attracted his attention
to her as nothing else could have done.

As he watched her, a dull resentment against his cousin grew stronger
within him at every moment. It was impossible that this girl could
look at him and speak to him as she had done if her mind had not
been poisoned against him. That her haughty coldness was assumed he
knew from the manner in which she had at first greeted him. It must
certainly be Lorin who had made her hate him in advance, and for this
Lorin should be made to suffer.

"You expect my cousin this afternoon, I believe?" he said, addressing
Clare, abruptly.

"Don't ask me," the young lady replied, archly; "you must ask my
friend, Miss Grahame. Lina dear, do you expect Mr. Armstrong to-day?"

"I think not."

"Think? Surely you know, darling! When you were skating at his uncle's
house at Hampstead yesterday, didn't he make any appointment to come
to-day? But perhaps I oughtn't to ask."

"Were you at the Homestead yesterday?" Wallace asked, his face changing
suddenly.

"Yes."

"It's a charming old house, is it not?" Clare asked him, innocently.

"Oh, you mustn't ask me!" he answered, with an assumption of
carelessness. "I am not allowed inside it, and I haven't seen even the
outside for ten years now. You must know, Miss Cavan, that during that
time I have been a pariah, driven from my home, and sent as a scapegoat
into the wilderness. You know the Prodigal Son story; well, I am the
prodigal nephew, only there wasn't any outlay on veal on my account!
And so far from my excellent industrious apprentice of a cousin having
to turn out for me, it is only by his condescending charity that I am
enabled to live at all! He has my uncle's confidence and affection, and
no doubt he will have his money. He has his position in Wallace's Bank
and will be made a partner there very shortly. He lives in clover in
the best rooms in the house and the Homestead is practically his own
property already. Everywhere in society he is courted and _fêted_--he
is such a charming-mannered man, you see, and wears such nice clothes,
and, best of all, he will be Alexander Wallace's heir. Consequently,
beautiful girls, all saintly pride and touch-me-not coldness towards
poor broken-down disinherited devils like me, carney to my cousin,
and throw themselves into his arms, declaring that they can't live
without him, and should have gone mad had he stayed away one moment
longer. Oh, it's the way of the world, Miss Cavan! Your vestal virgin
of the present day is ice to the man with no banking-account, but
thaws marvellously in the presence of a fellow with ready cash and
expectations. The men who go under need expect no sympathy nor any
civility. The really good women are so busy making love to and marrying
the eligibles that they have no time to waste on the others; and the
modern prodigal son, if he ventured back to his father's villa, would
be insulted on the doorstep by his younger brother's _fiancée_, who
would look at him as if he were dirt, and speak to him as if he were a
dog. That, at least, is my experience of women!"

He had risen while he spoke, and now towered massively in the centre
of the room, his hands clenched, his face pale with anger, which he
with difficulty repressed from breaking into a storm of fury. Although
nominally addressing Clare, he stared across at Laline where she sat
with lowered eyes by the fire, and clearly directed his diatribe
against her.

Clare glanced from one to the other, barely able to conceal her delight
at the turn things were taking. To hear Laline insulted was balm to
Miss Cavan; and she with difficulty kept a note of triumph out of
her voice as she begged Mr. Armstrong to resume his seat and not to
distress himself.

"It must be very hard to feel yourself supplanted, as you say,"
she purred in her soft tones; "but really I can't allow you to
speak so severely against women! I am sure that many--indeed, most
of them--sympathise with the unfortunate, and that we are not all
mercenary. I for one am extremely sorry for you, and so, I am sure, is
Miss Grahame--aren't you, Lina dear!"

Laline did not speak; and after a few seconds of silence Wallace took
up his tale again.

"You are most kind, Miss Cavan," he said; "but you are injudiciously
so when you lavish sympathy upon an unsuccessful man. Your friend
Miss Grahame is, if I may say so, far more business-like. She metes
out devotion to the rich man and scorn to the poor one in admirably
calculating fashion."

Challenged thus directly, Laline slowly rose from her seat, quivering
in every limb, and almost as white as her dress.

"My affection and respect are not given to your cousin because he
is rich, Mr. Armstrong," she said in a low voice that vibrated with
intense feeling, "but because he is a frank and loyal and honourable
gentleman, honest in his dealings with men, and gentle and chivalrous
to all women. I have never heard of you until to-day, but now that I
have seen you my warmest sympathy goes to your cousin. Please let me
pass!"

Her soft dark eyes literally blazed with excitement as she waved him
imperiously aside and passed from the room, leaving Clare and Wallace
standing opposite each other, subdued with sudden quiet by Laline's
words and by the note of passionate indignation and despair they could
not understand which thrilled through her voice.

"I can't understand Lina," Clare protested, after a pause; "she is
usually so gentle. I am afraid you and she have taken a dislike to each
other."

"How long has she known my cousin?" her companion inquired.

"Oh, she has only met him two or three times! I myself had no idea that
there was anything at all between them until yesterday, when she was
out with him all the afternoon; but this morning she confessed to me
that she was engaged to him. It seems so very strange, as dear Lina had
never given me or my aunt the least hint of such a thing. But of course
I am extremely glad for her sake, as she is an orphan, poor child, and
hasn't a penny----"

"Why do you say you are glad," Wallace interrupted, bluntly, "when in
reality you are bitterly angry? Do you suppose I haven't guessed who
wrote me that letter I got last night telling me to call here to-day?"

"What can you mean?"

"Oh, humbug is no good with me, Miss Cavan!" he said, laughing
scornfully. "You've got your knife into this Grahame girl, and into my
cousin too, for some reason best known to you. Did you want to marry
him yourself?"

"Really, Mr. Armstrong----"

"Oh, it's no use turning on injured innocence for me! I never yet met
the woman whose word I believed. If you want to know how it was I
guessed you wrote me that letter, I'll tell you in a very few words.
In it you spoke about sympathising with me and being very sorry for
me; and you used the same expressions this evening. Well, no one is
really sorry for me--why should they be? My troubles are of my own
making; and if I get disinherited, it is entirely my own fault. What
are you opening those pretty wicked-looking eyes for? Are you so little
accustomed to truth that it startles you to hear it? I say my troubles
are my own fault, because my uncle cares more for my little finger
than for my cousin's whole body. Being a narrow-minded and a tediously
pious and virtuous old nuisance himself, he has a secret love for a
thorough-paced scamp. I have only to pretend to reform for a few weeks
to get what I liked out of him; but I can't be bothered with it. For
years roughing it among bad company in the Colonies took away all the
taste for civilised society I ever had, which was never much. I can't
sit hour after hour tied to a desk quill-driving; I can't pretend to
interest myself in tomes and ledgers and bills-of-exchange any more
than I can talk twaddle in a drawing-room over sloppy tea, or play
lawn-tennis with a lot of prim bread-and-butter misses without a word
to say for themselves. If I think a woman pretty, I tell her so; if I
feel inclined to make love, I do so. I am made to lead my own life, to
eat and drink and walk and sleep and fight and make love, and perhaps
get drunk and get sober again, but it must be in my own way. No one
can drive me, and no one presumes to pity me. Consequently, it wasn't
difficult for me to guess that this pretty but unnecessary sympathy
of yours was only a trick of speech to serve your own ends. Do you
understand, Miss Cavan?"

"I understand," she replied, a rare blush creeping over her white skin,
"that you are frightfully impertinent!"

"I mean to be more impertinent yet," he said, and, suddenly stooping,
kissed her.

"That is the way to treat pretty women who tell lies," he observed,
coolly picking up his hat as he spoke. "And, now that I have sampled
both the young ladies, I won't stop and see the old one. You and I are
friends, Miss Cavan, and you may rely on me to do you a good turn if it
suits my book also. As to this proposed marriage of my angelic cousin
with that infernally proud stuck-up girl, I'm no more minded to it
than you. I should dearly love to pay her out for her insolence, and
I have little doubt that an opportunity will come in my way. You know
who obligingly finds mischief for idle hands. Well, mine are always
idle. There's some one coming in down-stairs--your aunt, I expect. Give
me another kiss before she comes. Oh, don't pretend to be offended;
it's silly waste of time! Girls with eyes like yours--_les yeux en
coulisse_--always like kisses! And who knows? I am worth encouraging,
for I may be my uncle's heir after all."




CHAPTER XXI.


There is a cynical French proverb which states that the worse the man,
the better he understands women.

In the case of the two Armstrongs the saying was so far true that
Wallace Armstrong the elder, after only half-an-hour's intercourse,
gauged to a nicety the mental and moral attributes of Clare Cavan, of
which his cousin had but an elementary notion. He admired her beauty,
and looked with amusement on her untruthfulness, her slyness, and her
envious disposition. Vanity and sensuality were two qualities he always
expected to find in women, and he at once recognised them as leading
characteristics of Clare's nature. She belonged to a type he thoroughly
understood; and he knew perfectly well that in her secret heart she
would not in the least resent the insolently-worded admiration or the
careless caresses of a man as handsome as himself, even though she
believed herself to be in love with his cousin. Like many another man
who professes to understand women, however, Wallace Armstrong had
gained his experience among the least worthy members of a sex which he
in consequence thought himself justified in scorning. Love of money
and love of themselves were, in his opinion, the two ruling motives
in every woman's life; and by appealing strongly enough to either of
these, any man could make a conquest of any woman--a conquest which,
when made, would be, in Wallace's opinion, not worth having. These
ideas, which he freely professed, only made him the more popular with
such women as came in his way, and he was able from experience to
calculate exactly the effect of his unconventional behaviour upon Clare
Cavan.

That young lady was not accustomed to being found out. Her drawing-room
triumphs had not prepared her for this rough-and-ready style of
address; but she relished it none the less, belonging as she did to the
type of woman who secretly worships a bully. Her intense vanity led
her to believe that the elder Armstrong had fallen in love with her at
first sight; and she would have been deeply mortified had she known
that his sole reason for ingratiating himself with her, and presently
with Mrs. Vandeleur, was that he might have opportunities of meeting
the girl who had been introduced to him as Lina Grahame. Clare Cavan's
kiss he instantly forgot; but Lina Grahame's look of scorn and hatred
seemed to burn into his soul.

How dared she--a penniless companion, a prudish, calculating,
fortune-hunter, intent on securing a wealthy husband--how dared she
gaze at him as though he were a thing accursed? Not for a moment
could he forget her dark eyes, distended with horror, as they fixed
themselves upon him, or the disdainful curve of her sweet red month,
or the tone in which she said she loved Lorin for being an honourable
gentleman, but pitied him since she had met his cousin.

For years he had not wished for anything so ardently as he now longed
to humble this girl's pride and give her back scorn for scorn. Her
face lingered persistently in his mind; he had but to close his eyes
to recall every feature with absolute distinctness, even the two
perpendicular lines between her eyebrows when she frowned, and the
quick trick of her fingers pushing her hair from her brow, seeming
strangely familiar to him. It was presumably the sympathy of hate, he
told himself, which made her image so clear and dominant in his mind.
Yet he lingered at Mrs. Vandeleur's, in the hope that Lina Grahame
might again appear, for fully an hour after the elder lady's return.

His handsome appearance and surly manners interested Mrs. Vandeleur,
who promptly prophesied all manner of evil things for him from a
cursory study of his hand and face.

"You have quite a remarkably wicked hand!" she exclaimed, bending over
it with a touch of genuine excitement. "Decidedly you were born under
an evil star, for you bring misfortunes to yourself and to other people
alike; and what is more curious, you appear to deserve them. I am
really afraid of telling you more, lest I should hurt your feelings."

"Not a bit. I am accustomed to strong language on the subject of my
character, from my relations and from police-court officials alike."

"You have no moral principles whatever," continued the little lady,
turning over his large, well-shaped, but, truth to tell, not over-clean
hand with her delicate be-ringed fingers. "You are wholly unreliable
and most ungrateful; your passions are violent, and you make no attempt
to control them. You are selfish to the core----"

"Pray stop the catalogue of my deficiencies, Mrs. Vandeleur, or your
niece here will fall madly in love with me!"

"Your past has been troubled and stormy, and your future looks very
black," continued the little lady, quite unmoved by his sarcasm. "Only
one thing can save you--the love of a good, pure woman."

She uttered the words with her usual slow impressiveness, letting his
hand fall as she finished speaking; and, although he affected to treat
the matter lightly, her words rang through Wallace's brain when he left
her house a little later in the evening.

It was a miserably dull and gloomy evening, bitterly cold and
shrouded in fog. There was some excuse for spirit-drinking under the
circumstances; but Wallace did not require an excuse for the constant
whiskies-and-sodas and "nips" of raw brandy in which he indulged at all
hours of the day and night when free from his cousin's watchful care.
Since his imprisonment he had been lodging in a street off the Strand;
and, although he was forbidden to enter Alexander Wallace's house, his
cousin encouraged his visits there in the hope of keeping him out of
mischief. It was easy enough for him to summon Adams by knocking in a
peculiar manner agreed upon between them, and then to slip up-stairs
to Lorin's rooms, where he was sure of warmth and comfort and a hearty
welcome. Old Alexander was aware that his orders regarding his elder
nephew were set at naught, and he was well pleased that it should be
so. Wallace had angered and shamed him so deeply that his name was a
forbidden subject in the household, and the old gentleman affected to
believe that he had only one nephew. That his sister's child, whom he
had brought up from a boy and loved as his own son, should be convicted
of drunkenness and brutal violence and sent to prison with hard labour,
had been a terrible blow to the old man, from whom Lorin had often
contrived to keep his cousin's delinquencies a secret. The disgrace of
the whole affair went nigh to break Alexander's heart, and none the
less so because he had always most unreasonably loved his elder nephew
the better of the two.

Lorin was now seven-and-twenty; and since his parents' death, eighteen
years before, he had been adopted by his uncle, to whom he had been
in every way a credit. Beyond a few school scrapes, the result of
boyish high spirits, and a little unnecessary expenditure at college,
there had been no fault to find with him. He had been a good, even a
brilliant scholar, and had won the liking and esteem of all who had to
do with him as a growing lad; and when arrived at man's estate the same
tale was true. Although disinclined for office work, he had set himself
to master the entire business at the bank, with the result that his
opinion was already of value in the house, while outside among general
society he was extremely popular and everywhere in great request.

With his cousin it was far otherwise. As a mere baby he had been
placed in Alexander Wallace's care by the latter's elder sister, a
woman of passionate and ungovernable temper, very unhappily married
to a man from whom she was speedily separated. The heart of the old
bachelor-uncle went out to the handsome black-haired baby boy at
first sight, and no subsequent delinquencies on Wallace's part could
wholly alienate from him his uncle's love. By turns he was expelled
from school, "plucked" for examinations, rusticated from college,
and gradually shunned by the more respectable and law-abiding of his
acquaintances. A fierce, sardonic temper and instinctive rebellion
against all constituted authority characterised him from early boyhood,
and his uncle's indulgence, while it bred in him no reciprocal
affection, developed to the full the boy's intensely selfish nature
and extravagant disposition. As a lad he possessed considerable charm
of manner, despite his intractable disposition; and from the time
when, at the respective ages of nine and twelve, the two cousins first
met, Lorin had loved and shielded him, often taking upon himself the
blame for Wallace's misdemeanours, and showing towards his elder an
affectionate forbearance which the latter was wholly incapable of
appreciating.

At twenty-one, Wallace Armstrong forged his uncle's name on several
separate occasions, chiefly in order to settle his heavy gambling
debts, some of which he had contracted at the club kept at one time by
Captain Garth, Laline's father.

Then followed years of banishment, spent for the most part in
gambling-dens, hotel-bars, and billiard-rooms, among the male and
female "riff-raff" of the Colonies, leading up to the moment of
Wallace's return to Europe, and his memorable meeting with Captain
Garth in the market-place of Boulogne.

From the time of his return to his uncle's house, under his cousin
Lorin's care, in deep mourning for the youthful bride of whom typhoid
fever had, so he said, deprived him, Wallace Armstrong's conduct had
grown daily worse. At the beginning he did indeed make some pretence
of earning his living as a clerk in his uncle's employment; but his
unpunctuality, his carelessness, and his habit of appropriating as
his own any loose change that might pass through his hands, speedily
proved his unsuitability for such a position. Both Lorin and his uncle
set to work to find some outdoor occupation which such a ne'er-do-well
might find within his powers; but Wallace's total unreliability, his
insolence and laziness, together with his intemperate habits, rendered
him undesirable in any wage-earning capacity whatever. He did not like
work and had no intention of working, and he detested regular hours and
the conventions of peaceable citizenship. But for Lorin's incessant
care and kindness and the generosity with which he denied himself in
order to provide his cousin with more than the mere necessities of
life, Wallace would have gone under long before. Yet he was in no way
grateful to Lorin, but cherished against him a bitter snarling envy
which he did not scruple to express in words.

"I know you enjoy unselfishness and that sort of thing," he would
say, while pocketing his cousin's money, "so I won't deprive you of
the chance of feeling virtuous. This doling out pocket-money to me,
and filling up my whiskies with your infernal soda-water, and bailing
me out when I am run in, all places you in a beautiful light of
self-sacrifice and stained-glass-window sort of nobility and charity.
The prodigal son's brother made a great mistake in openly grudging the
outlay on the other fellow; it would have paid him better in the long
run to have pretended a great concern for his welfare, as you do for
mine."

On this particular evening, when Wallace found himself in the Crescent
outside Mrs. Vandeleur's house, he did not feel in the mood for his
favourite amusement of sneering at his cousin. Certain things he had
seen and heard during the course of his visit had made an unusually
strong impression upon his ordinarily callous and drink-sodden brain.

"I love your cousin because he is a frank and loyal and honourable
gentleman--honest in his dealings with men, and gentle and chivalrous
to all women."

He could hear the words now ringing through his head in those sweet
deep tones of a voice which was oddly familiar to him.

Had this Lina Graham known him intimately instead of being a complete
stranger to him, she could scarcely have chosen words more calculated
to wound him by emphasising the differences between him and his cousin.

Frank and loyal, honourable and honest, gentle and chivalrous!

Not one of those qualities was to be found in Wallace, and he knew it.
Even his apparent brusque truthfulness was assumed, and he could, if
the occasion served, lie with apparent directness and simplicity. Women
in general, or, at least, such women as he met, liked a man the better
for his bad reputation; but this little prude in white was clearly not
of these. He hated to recall the scorn of her gaze; it pricked and
stung him even while he endeavoured to drown all clear remembrance in
copious draughts of fiery fluid. To-night, as he wandered from one to
another of his usual haunts, the miserable futility of the life he led
came before him for the first time. In the clear eyes of a girl he saw
himself mirrored and shrank in horror and disgust at the reflection.

In his thirty-first year, what was he but a homeless waif, a gaol-bird
and a drunkard, subsisting upon charity, and biting the hand that
fed him? Wallace buried his head in his hands and groaned aloud at
the thought. Among the common and degraded persons by whom he was
surrounded not one dared to ask what ailed him, for his surly and
insolent temper was well known. Looking up and around him, he felt
that he hated his companions, and that the coarse joviality which
he had hitherto commended as unconventional was mere forced drunken
buffoonery. Lina Grahame would know her contempt to be justified could
she see him among such surroundings. With a muttered oath, and leaving
his glass unemptied, he strode out again into the night. The fog got
into his throat and choked him, the streets were deserted, but for a
passing policeman on his beat and a few pedestrians loudly complaining
of the bitter frost and hurrying home.

Home! Wallace had no home. His landlady had already more than once
given him notice to quit; there would certainly be neither fire nor
welcome awaiting him there. As to his uncle's house, he could indeed
slip in there on the sly; but he had given his word to his cousin not
to present himself there when he had been drinking too freely, and of a
certainty he had been drinking too freely to-night.

What right had Lorin to extract such a promise--Lorin, to whom drink
offered no temptation? What right had such a man to make rules of
conduct for others? Doubtless he was sitting comfortably by the fire
in his well-furnished rooms, thinking of Lina Grahame, and writing
letters to her, or reading hers to him, or perhaps sketching her
portrait. Warmth and comfort, the glow of the fire, and sweet thoughts
of his love for him; the cold and dirty streets, the fog and frost,
the flaring lights of a gin palace, and the thought of a woman's
scorn, for his cousin. Very soon Lorin would marry, and then his,
Wallace's, surreptitious visits to his uncle's house would be forbidden
altogether. He could hear the voice in which she would speak the order
concerning them.

"Lorin dear, you must really keep your cousin away. His very appearance
is a disgrace to you. He is not fit to enter a gentleman's house."

In some such words she would speak, in that voice which to Wallace was
like an echo from the past. And to-morrow she would tell Lorin about
his disreputable cousin's visit, while she twined her arms about his
neck and clung to him as she had clung to Wallace that evening when she
had mistaken his identity.

He could feel the clasp of her fingers upon his shoulders now, and
the silky softness of her hair as he stroked it, and the quiver that
ran through her frame as he clasped her supple waist. She loved
Lorin--there was little doubt of that. Passionate love thrilled through
her touch, thrilled in her voice when she murmured--

"You have come at last!"

No good woman had ever loved him--no good woman had ever clung to him
and welcomed his coming with such whole-hearted delight. What had that
little witch woman prophesied about him?

"Your past has been stormy. Your future looks black. Only one thing can
save you--the love of a pure, good woman."

The fact that he was really married seldom if ever troubled him. If
it came into his mind at all, the remembrance provoked only curses
on the head of his missing wife. Had she only proved reasonable, he
might now have been installed with her in that very house at Hampstead
which would soon be prepared for the reception of Lorin and his bride.
Wallace cursed them both as he thought of them and of the happiness
that awaited them. Fate had been against him, luck had been against
him. His evil instincts, his ungovernable temper, his hatred of
authority and love of violent pleasures, had been born with him and had
led him on to the ship-wreck of his life.

Only the love of a good woman could save him, Mrs. Vandeleur had said.
But good women looked at him with the eyes of Lina Grahame.

"Curse her!" he muttered, as he tossed down the raw spirit in his
glass. "I wish, with all my soul, that I could do her an injury!"




CHAPTER XXII.


When Laline left the study and fled up-stairs to her room, she had by
no means terminated her adventures for the day.

At first she could do nothing but sit with her hands tightly clasped
in her lap, half-numbed by the extent of her misfortune. Her folly in
failing to distinguish between the two cousins appeared to her now
equally inexcusable and incomprehensible. Gradually, as she collected
in her mind the evidence upon which she had acted, a conviction
strengthened within her mind that she had been only too desirous of
deceiving herself.

"I loved him, and so I persisted in believing he was my husband!" was
the despairing cry of her heart. She had fallen in love at first with
the younger Wallace Armstrong, and had encouraged herself in loving
him by assuring herself that she was his wife already. This was now
the first week in February, the month in which they were to have been
married. Laline sprang from her chair at the thought and pressed her
hands to her burning cheeks.

"How can I tell him?" she cried aloud. "How can I say that I must
break it off and that we must never meet again, when only yesterday
I kissed him and let him kiss me, and promised to be his wife? It is
all horrible--impossible! What excuse can I give that he will believe?
I cannot go to him and say, 'I will not marry him because I am his
cousin's wife!' No one must ever know that. I would a thousand times
rather die at this moment than be claimed by that horrible man, the
very sight of whom turns me sick with disgust and hate! How could
I ever think that Lorin, my Lorin, could have acted like that at
Boulogne, could have ever been a gambler and a forger, ungrateful,
deceitful, selfish, dissipated, and worthless?"

A wave of joy passed over her heart, in spite of her grief and
perplexity, at the thought that the man she loved was in very truth the
honourable and chivalrous gentleman Mrs. Vandeleur had declared him to
be. Like Tennyson's "Lily maid of Astolat," Laline felt it was--

 "Her glory to have loved
 One peerless, without stain."

She had been ready to take him as her husband in spite of all she
remembered and all she heard against him, but now that she knew his
record to be absolutely clear she loved him the more. Tears rushed from
her eyes as she realised that the happy life they had planned together
could never be theirs. She must banish him from her sight; or, if he
would not obey her entreaties and commands, she must herself pass out
of his life and begin a new career in some place out of his reach and
ken.

Until she met him, the prospect of a busy existence uncheered by the
love of a man had not appeared specially formidable to Laline. But
now her future life seemed to stretch before her as an arid plain,
cheerless, and dreary, the mere thought of which made her shudder.

"I cannot live without him!" she sobbed. "I cannot live without his
love! Why did he come into my life at all, if it was only to offer me a
taste of happiness which I must never hope for again? It is too hard,
too cruel!"

Rebellious, passionate thoughts rose in her mind, thoughts at which
her own soul took fright. Through the fog the church-bells pealed out,
faint and muffled; but Laline grew calmer at the sound. Her early
training had been deeply religious, and now, in this hour of loneliness
and despair, she sought comfort and refuge from her distracting grief
in the service of the church.

Hastily slipping on her hat and cloak and the furs which Lorin had
bought for her on the preceding day, she hurried down the stairs and
out of the house unnoticed by any of the other inmates. To her aching
heart and tired brain the quiet of the sacred building, the dignified
yet simple words of the service she knew so well, and the sermon,
taken from a beautiful passage in St. John's Gospel, proved infinitely
soothing, and the mere act of supplication brought with it a sense of
strength and coming help.

She had prayed to be taught what was her duty, and rising from her
knees at the close of the service, tired out with the emotions of
the day and very pale, her eyes red with long weeping and her lips
quivering in the endeavour to keep back her tears, she passed out of
the church with the rest of the congregation.

A walk of a very few minutes led to the opening of St. Mary's Crescent,
and Laline was hastening thither, a little dazed by the fog and
darkness after the brightly-lighted church, when some one laid a hand
upon her shoulder.

"At last, my darling!"

She had known by his touch, which thrilled her with delight, that it
was Lorin even before she had seen or heard him; and in the first
moment of joy at the unexpected meeting she turned on him a face
radiant with love and welcome. The light from a gas-lamp at the side of
the pavement fell full upon her, and Lorin started back.

"My darling, how pale you are! And you have been crying! What has
troubled you?"

His words recalled the truth to her. She turned away and strove to
answer coldly.

"My head aches this evening," she said. "I must get off to bed early.
I--I dare say it is the fog."

"Let me come in with you and speak to Mrs. Vaudeleur about you. I have
a great deal to say to her."

"No, no--not to-night, and not until you have spoken to me first! You
must come to-morrow and have a long talk with me. It is too late now,
and I feel ill and tired--very tired!"

He drew her hand tenderly through his arm.

"You are crying again, my dear one!" he said. "I have a right to know
what is troubling you. Let me take you home and stay with you a little
while. Mrs. Vandeleur will, I am sure, excuse the informality of the
visit now that she knows that we are so soon to be married."

"She knows nothing of all that."

"What? You have not told her?"

"Not yet. Don't be vexed, Lorin. I have not even seen her since you
left me at the door last night."

"Well, at least you have told Miss Cavan?"

"Yes," Laline admitted, reluctantly, "I did say something about you to
Miss Cavan."

"Something about me? Well, I suppose I must be content with that! But,
Lina dear, are you so very much ashamed of me that you don't like to
mention to any one that we are engaged?"

"No, of course not! How can you ask such an absurd question! But"--and
here Laline was seized by a brilliant idea--"you know Mrs. Vandeleur
will be very much annoyed at the idea of losing me just when I am
beginning to be so useful to her as a secretary. We are exceedingly
busy over her two books, and she has often told me that my value to her
lies in the fact that my mind is not distracted by thoughts of love or
money. She has been exceedingly kind to me, and it really seems too
bad to talk about leaving her to get married almost as soon as we have
started comfortably working together. It isn't fair to her, you see."

She spoke very fast, and lowered her head that he might not see the
anxiety and distress in her eyes.

He laughed and drew her arm closer against his.

"Not fair to her!" he said. "How about being fair to me? Which is the
more important--that Mrs. Vandeleur should lose an amanuensis to assist
her in the compilation of her interesting but mischievous mysticism,
or that you and I should miss the happiness of both our lives? Under
the circumstances I should say it was rather wise of her to foretell
terrible troubles to you should you fall in love. You are in love, I
hope, dearest! And where are all these prophesied griefs and woes? No
future can look brighter than ours."

She shuddered and clung closer to his arm. If he only knew!

"My uncle," Lorin continued, "is in the highest state of delight about
our coming marriage. He wants you to have luncheon with him to-morrow.
Bring Mrs. Vandeleur, if she will come at such short notice; but don't
disappoint him. He was most anxious that I should bring you round
to-day to receive his congratulations. I told him you had forbidden
me to call until Monday. What I did not tell him was that I have been
hanging round St. Mary's Crescent at intervals the whole day, hoping to
catch you as you went in or out. I had a presentiment that you would be
in trouble or low spirits, the result, I suppose, of a bad dream I had
about you last night."

"What was that?"

"Oh, just as utterly meaningless and inconsequent as are most dreams!
I thought I was in a forest, looking for you and following you. Every
now and then I caught a glimpse of your white dress--you wore that gown
you had on when I first saw you--glimmering through an opening in the
trees. But as soon as I dashed forward in pursuit the branches closed
together, as in the 'Sleeping Beauty' story, and you were lost to me
again, while the whole wood seemed filled with mocking laughter."

"What sort of laughter?" she inquired, eagerly. "Was it like the
laughter of any one you know?"

"Why do you ask? Perhaps it was--a little. But, Lina dear, you are
trembling. It is horribly selfish of me to keep you walking about in
the fog when you told me you were so tired! Let me take you home!"

"No--not yet, Lorin! I have a great deal to say to you, and I must say
it now while no one can hear me. I--I have been thinking deeply all
to-day, and I have decided that you and I have been too hasty--we have
not given ourselves time to know our own minds."

"Wait!" he exclaimed. "I felt sure something was weighing on your mind;
but I can't listen here in the noise of the streets. We will pass into
the Park while you tell me."

They had reached the Albert Hall, and he led her at this point into
Hyde Park, deserted but for a few devoted sweethearts, as regardless as
themselves of the cold and fog and frost.

"Now tell me again, dear," he said, gently, "what you have to say about
our engagement!"

In the obscurity he slipped his arm about her waist, and at his touch
a restful delight crept over her senses. For a few seconds she kept
silence. Very soon they must part, and with a whole lifetime of dreary
lovelessness before her, surely she might without great sin afford
herself the momentary joy of revelling in his caresses.

But duty, stern and forbidding, lay before her, and suddenly nerving
herself to the effort, she drew away from him.

"I have something to say to you," she began, "and I want you to walk
quietly by my side listening, and not to touch me while I speak.
Lorin, we have made a great mistake; I, at least, know that I was only
flirting with you. I had made up my mind before I met you not to marry,
and I am still of the same mind. Let us just be friends again!"

"Never! We never have been friends, my darling, and we never can be! I
loved you from the first moment when I heard your voice, from the first
moment when I saw your face in the full lamplight. I was never your
friend only, and I never shall be. I was and am your lover, and I shall
be your husband!"

"I was only flirting!" she cried in desperation. "I thought you were in
love with Clare Cavan! You flirted with her, I flirted with you. I--I
have no real feeling for you at all! It was just a little petty triumph
to get you away from her!"

The words died on her lips. He had stopped in the middle of the
gravel-path and had drawn up her hands upon his shoulders.

"I told you not to touch me!" she faltered.

"Lina," he whispered, "Lina dear, even in fun I can't let you speak of
yourself like that!"

He drew her tenderly into his arms. Her heart was beating madly and
convulsive sobs began to shake her frame.

"Why do you torment me?" she cried, breaking into a storm of tears.
"Can't you see that I am in earnest--that I am trying to find any
excuse to free myself from my promise to you? I cannot marry you--I
will not marry you! It is of no use to ask me for reasons! On my word
of honour I am in earnest--I was never more in earnest in my life! It
has all been a mistake from the beginning. I can never be your wife!"

"Lina!"

"It is of no use," she cried, hysterically, "to remonstrate with me or
to appeal to my feelings. I have no feelings where men are concerned. I
was always a flirt--Mrs. Melville could have told you that. At Norwood
the foreign masters used to propose to me; but I never cared. It is all
vanity with me and I don't know what love means!"

"Lina!"

"Oh, don't stand repeating my name like that! It would be more
dignified if you get angry. But nothing can make any difference. You
might spend the rest of your life and mine on your knees to me, but I
cannot marry you--cannot! Do you understand, Mr. Armstrong? It is all
over, this love-story of ours, and all we have to do now is to forget
it!"

Through all the hysterical excitement of her talk there rang a note
of despair which Lorin failed not to recognise and for which he was
greatly at a loss to account.

"Lina," he said, again, "you are ill and unstrung; you don't know what
you are saying. Something very serious has happened to trouble you
to-day. Presently, when you feel better and calmer, you must tell me
all about it. But, my darling, it is useless to try and persuade me
that you did not love me yesterday or that you do not love me now!"

"I do not!"

"Lina, it is horribly dark and foggy and you don't see very well with
those lovely, tearful eyes of yours. But look up now into my face, with
your hands in mine--so--and your heart beating near mine, and tell me
again that you do not love me!"

She stood still as he directed, and, clasping her hands, he held them
up against his breast. Her face was ashen pale and even her lips were
white. She strove to keep up the pitch of unnatural nervous excitement
to which she had worked herself; but gradually, as he clasped her
hands close in his, he felt their tension relax. Her form lost its
defiant erectness; she quivered and swayed towards him, and would have
fallen had he not caught her in his arms.

"Oh, Lorin, Lorin, I am so unhappy! I think my heart will break!"

Very weak and pitiful her accents sounded now as, like a tired child,
she rested her cheek upon his shoulder for a few seconds, weeping
bitterly. Lorin asked her no questions and contented himself with
gently soothing her. Presently her sobs ceased, and suddenly raising
her head, she tried to laugh.

"It's like a servant on her 'Sunday out,' isn't it," she said, with
a feeble attempt at cheerfulness, "to meet my 'young man' after
church, and walk in Hyde Park, with his arm round my waist, crying?
Servants, when they get engaged, always cry a great deal. I remember
when our parlour-maid at Norwood got engaged to the baker, she used
to shed floods of tears in the pantry, and even weep while waiting at
table. She and her young man were perpetually having what she called
'words'--about three times a week it used to happen--and then Emma
cried her eyes out until they made it up. And after all she married the
postman."

"Well, and, now that we have had our 'words,' darling, and you have had
your weeping, and we have made it up, since we are having our 'Sunday
evening out' in the Park, and it's so dark one can't see across the
road, you must kiss me in sign of reconciliation."

But she shrank away from him, remembering, with a pang, that she was
another man's wife, and that her love for Lorin was no longer a pride
to her but a grievous fault.

"Not now," she said; and then, before he had time to complain of her
coldness, she suddenly asked him why he had never, in speaking to her,
alluded to his namesake and cousin.

Lorin did not answer for a moment, and when he spoke, it was in a
somewhat constrained tone.

"I may not have mentioned him by name," he said, "but we have certainly
alluded to him in our conversations. I have spoken to you of the
responsibility I undertook more than five years ago, when I brought my
cousin over from Boulogne to England after his wife's death----"

"You brought him over?"

"Yes. Uncle Alec thought he had reason to distrust him; but I believed
my cousin's letters and went to him. It was a very sad and painful
experience in many ways. He had only been married a month when the poor
girl died. I was shown her grave and a picture of her, painted when she
was a child. She must have been very pretty; but from what my cousin
subsequently told me, I should say that she and old Garth, who called
himself her uncle, but who impressed me very unfavourably, and who, I
strongly suspect, was really her father, were nothing better than a
couple of needy and swindling adventurers. Wallace always speaks of
them both with intense bitterness; but Uncle Alec has never heard him,
and persists in believing that this Laline is an angel of goodness,
and that, had she lived, Wallace would have been very different. And
I think he is probably right. A good wife is a man's salvation if she
will only cling to him through good report and ill, and may well redeem
him by her unselfish love."

"You overrate me, I know," Laline said, in a stifled voice, "and think
me much better than I am. Tell me truly, Lorin, knowing me and knowing
him, do you think that if your cousin Wallace had been married to me,
for instance, he would have been induced to lead a better life?"

He pressed both her hands tightly in his.

"It seems sacrilege," he exclaimed, "to think of you as married to him!
But I believe that, if you had met him at the time I speak of, you
might have saved him."




CHAPTER XXIII.


Lorin little guessed how his words, "You might have saved him,"
concerning his cousin Wallace stung Laline.

It was a view of the matter which had never presented itself to her
that she had failed in her duty when she fled from her husband and
her father at Boulogne. The formal and business-like contract before
the Consul had meant so little to her, and the shock of discovering
Wallace's real feelings and character was so great, that flight seemed
the only course open to her at the time. But now, from the mouth of the
man she loved, she heard the first judgment and condemnation of her
conduct which had ever reached her, and as she walked on in silence by
his side in her heart she rebelled against the sentence.

She was so young. What possible influence could a girl of sixteen have
had over a man of determined temper and confirmed bad habits such as
Wallace Armstrong? He did not even love her. Had she not heard him avow
to her father that he considered her in the light of an encumbrance?
More than that--his words had clearly foreshadowed the rough and even
brutal treatment she would receive should she refuse to tell a series
of lies to gain his ends. And by her help he had attained them. He
had been taken to England, had been received into his uncle's house
and given that start in life of which he professed to stand in need.
Had she sacrificed her life to him as well, what more could he have
secured? He had had his chance and had miserably failed to make use of
it. With a wife or without a wife, in all probability he would still
have been the same worthless, reckless, ne'er-do-well he had that
evening shown himself to be.

Another point presented itself clearly to Laline in the pause that
followed Lorin's speech. It was evident that he had formed an
unfavourable opinion of his cousin's lost bride. On the strength of
the falsified certificate and Wallace's misrepresentations he believed
that she had been married for rather more than a month before she
died. Should Laline therefore have been minded to tell him the whole
truth, she would not only have had the greatest difficulty in making it
credible and comprehensible to him, but she would have had to persuade
him, in the face of her husband's and her late father's testimony and
that of the certificate, that she had never been more than a nominal
wife to his cousin.

A hot blush enveloped her from head to feet at the thought. Lorin was
inclined to be jealous. How would he ever believe her again when he
recalled her oft-repeated assertions that never before had she known
the happiness of loving and being loved, and that his kisses were the
first she had ever received, in the face of the fact of that early
marriage?

To confide in him was clearly impossible. From what he had already
stated as his opinions he might even think it right for her to go back
to her husband, a course of which the mere idea sickened and terrified
her. And yet, while he ignored the fact of her marriage, how could she
possibly sever the link between them?

"Lorin," she asked him, suddenly, "what would you do, loving me as you
say you do--and I believe you--if some terrible obstacle were to come
between us?"

"I should fight against it until it was destroyed, of course."

"No--don't answer lightly. I am in earnest--in terrible earnest!
Suppose it was with you as with some people in a book I read not long
ago--that you had, while very young, contracted a marriage, a wholly
unsuitable marriage, with a woman, whom you had left immediately
because you found you had been terribly mistaken in her; suppose that
you saw and heard nothing of her for years, and that then, having good
reason for believing your wife dead, you had met me--just as you did,
you know--and had grown to love me, as a man can love, with all your
heart and mind and soul?"

"Well?"

"Then--say, at just this point where we are now--either to-night or
to-morrow--say that you learned that the woman you married was not
dead, but that, so far from wanting you, she ignored your existence,
that she was practically insane, and that you could neither get free
from her nor render her the least assistance, what would you do? Now
think well, dearest, before you answer, for a great deal depends upon
it."

"What can you mean?"

"Nothing; but that, much as I love you, I can't love you wholly unless
I understand you wholly. Remember how short a time we have really known
each other. I know you always tell me the truth; and so, by putting
these imaginary cases and learning how you would act in them, I can
grow to understand you better. Tell me what you would do?"

"It's so difficult to say," he answered, after a short pause, knitting
his brows. "And you have made it more difficult by something you have
just said--'I know you always tell me the truth.' A man might be
terribly tempted in such a case as you described to say nothing, and
to seize his happiness while it lay within reach. Life is so short and
happiness so hard to get. But, if a woman trusted a man as you say you
trust me, that would be a cowardly and treacherous act towards her."

"How, cowardly and treacherous if it made her happy--if it would have
broken her heart to part from him?"

"My darling, you are exciting yourself very unnecessarily over these
imaginary difficulties! There are actually tears in your eyes! Surely
life has enough worries without inventing others? Let us dismiss the
subject and be happy together while we may."

"I can't be happy unless you satisfy me. I am fanciful to-night, I
know, but my head aches; and--and please humour me, Lorin dear, and
answer me about yourself and what you would do. Don't say 'a man
might,' but 'I should do' so and so. Think again! If you told me the
truth in such a case, I suppose the only word you could expect would be
'Good-bye'?"

"I wonder," he said, thoughtfully--"I wonder if you would say that?"

"No--I shouldn't--I couldn't!" she cried, suddenly clinging to his arm.
"And if I refused to part from you, knowing all, what would you do?"

"I suppose a man ought to protect a woman even against herself," he
replied. "But I don't like to think of what I might do if losing you
were at stake. You see, Lina, I have been waiting for you all my life;
and I am twenty-eight this year--approaching middle life, in fact.
Women have often charmed and interested me. I have wanted to talk to
them, to sketch them, to look at them, but never to marry them. But
as soon as I saw your face, and even before I saw it, when I had only
stood near you and heard you speak, a voice within me said, 'That is my
wife.' If you had been in quite another rank of life it would have been
the same. Had you been a princess of the blood-royal or a laundress, I
should have had to what is called 'make a fool of myself' for you. I
was bound to follow you, to tell you of my love, to try and make you
love me, but in any case to marry you. There was nothing else to be
done, even if it involved Israel's seven years' courtship, though I
should certainly have rebelled against such a long engagement! All my
nature cried out for you. It is not only your beauty--though I love
that most heartily--but it is the beautiful soul looking from your
eyes that I love. Your voice, your touch, your presence, your mind and
thoughts, are all just what I have dreamed of as my ideal, just what I
require to make my life complete. Selfish that sounds, doesn't it? But
I could not quite feel all that unless you had almost equal need of me.
That is why I say that nothing must part us; and it would be not only
folly but absolute wickedness either for you or for me to try to break
the bond between us."

"Even if either of us was--married?" she faltered almost inaudibly.

"To some one else? But that would be impossible. I could not have felt
as I did about you if I had not been, as you have often told me, the
first and only man who ever spoke to you of love; nor could your eyes
have met mine as they did and shown me your sweet child-mind shining
through had you ever before cared for any man. There--are all your
questions answered, and all your doubts set at rest?"

"Yes--I suppose so," she conceded. "I am tired, Lorin. Take me home
now."

They passed out of the Park into the high road, and she walked by his
side in silence while he spoke to her, tentatively at first, but with
more assurance as she did not attempt to interrupt him, concerning
their future plans, gently urging her to fix the exact date of their
wedding.

"It seems odd that Mrs. Vandeleur should know nothing as yet direct
from you about our engagement," he said; "but of course as you have
not seen her that could not be helped. She will be in when you return,
no doubt; and then you can tell her and arrange about the purchase of
this wonderful _trousseau_ which seems to trouble you so much. Surely a
fortnight will be amply sufficient to buy all the finery you want? My
uncle sends you, with his love, a blank cheque, to be filled in with
what amount you please. Shall I give it to you now, or will you take it
to-morrow when you are coming to luncheon with us?"

"Oh, to-morrow--to-morrow!" she answered, hurriedly, snatching at the
chance of deferring that explanation which sooner or later was bound to
come.

If she could only put off the marriage indefinitely the while she could
enjoy the solace of Lorin's society, she told herself she would be well
content.

"We are so happy as we are," she observed, presently, "that it seems to
me to be very silly to hurry to another state of things. Old married
people always look back to their courting days as to the happiest
period of their lives. Personally I don't in the least want to be
married for years to come. We can be dear friends and companions, and
can meet when we please----"

"That is not nearly enough for me," he interrupted. "It is like
offering a starving man a caramel to expect me to be satisfied with
seeing you occasionally. I must not only see you all the time, but you
must belong to me and I to you. My friend Robert Browning, whom you
must grow to read and love, has glorified married love, which is the
only happy love, in some of the finest lines ever written. Listen!

 "'Life will just hold out the proving both our powers, alone and blended;
 And then, come next life quickly! This world's use will have been ended.'"

A sob rose in Laline's throat as Lorin, holding her hand close within
his arm, bent his head to murmur the words in her ear. The picture they
presented before her mind's eye was tantalisingly happy, and yet it was
just such perfect happiness that she must nerve herself to banish from
her life. Tears blinded her as, with lowered head, she walked on by his
side.

They had by this time reached the High Street, deserted at this late
hour on Sunday night but for a small group of dirty loiterers outside
a public-house, from the doors of which a man was apparently being
forcibly thrown.

Laline, who had a feminine terror of drunken men, clung closer to
Lorin's arm; but as he moved quickly to the outer edge of the pavement
in order to give the group a wide berth, she felt him suddenly start
violently, and looking up, perceived that he was frowning heavily and
that he wore a look of deep annoyance.

Following the direction of his eyes, Laline instantly understood
the cause of his vexation; for the man who, lividly pale and madly
intoxicated, was struggling in the grasp of three others, shouting
curses and dealing murderous blows to right and left of him, was
Wallace Armstrong, Lorin's cousin and her husband.

Tightening the pressure of her hand within his arm, Lorin was hurrying
Laline past the shameful spectacle, when she suddenly stopped him.

"Leave me," she whispered, with pale lips--"go to him! Take him away
before he does more mischief!"

Lorin stared at her in astonishment.

"What--do you know----" he began, when she cut him short.

"I know everything. Leave me and take him home!"

Then, before he could speak, she drew her hand from his arm and flew
rather than walked the short distance to St. Mary's Crescent.

Once she had re-entered the house and gained the privacy of her own
room, she threw herself face downwards on the bed, feeling utterly worn
out and exhausted by the experiences of the past twenty-four hours.
Before her closed eyes two faces arose in the darkness--those of the
man she loved and the man who was her husband.

As she had last seen them, so they flitted before her, Lorin's face
clouded by a look of distress and indignation, which changed to deep
tenderness as his eyes met hers, and Wallace's distorted by drink and
by fury, as she had seen it years ago upon her wedding-day and again
beheld it on this eventful evening.

And as she marked the contrast between them and compared her
instinctive dislike and disgust in the presence of her husband with the
passionate delight which thrilled her at the proximity of her lover, a
temptation stole into her mind and grew stronger every moment.

Why, she asked herself, should not the dead past bury its dead? Laline
Armstrong had disappeared--Wallace himself had given out that she was
dead and his cousin and uncle believed him. She would even have some
difficulty in proving her identity; and without the testimony of Mrs.
Melville, between whom and herself many miles of ocean rolled, she
would find it almost impossible to connect Lina Grahame with Laline
Garth. The latter was dead and her actions had died with her. Why
should she, Lina Grahame, hesitate to marry the man she loved because
that dead Laline had once gone through a form of marriage with his
cousin?

It was quite clear that Wallace did not recognise his over-grown
child-bride in the tall and slender woman who was engaged to his
cousin; and even Lorin, who had at first been haunted by her likeness
to a portrait he had seen of Laline as a child, failed to recall where
the picture had met his eyes. Only her own word could betray her, and
that word she was strenuously resolved not to utter.

Surely--surely, she argued, as she lay there like some dead thing,
scarcely breathing, so intent she was in thought, she would be
committing no great sin if she ignored the past? It was not as if
Wallace wanted her, remembered her, or had even ever loved her. Wallace
was hopeless; and she almost wondered now at her own conduct when she
despatched Lorin to his cousin's aid that night. Was she to spoil
Lorin's life, and her own as well, for the sake of a degraded and
drunken creature, alike incapable of gratitude and of love?

And yet the next moment, through all her horror of the man, there
shone a gleam of compassion. Was it wholly his own fault that he
was a pariah, driven to herd with social outcasts, to sit and drink
his brains away amid tavern surroundings? To her personally, in
those far-away Boulogne days, he had seemed extremely kind. She well
remembered the treats he had given her and the children, the drives
and sweets and pastry, and the pretty things he had bought for her.
Her childish mind had been fascinated and interested by the man whose
sable locks and stalwart frame reminded her of Brian de Bois-Guilbert.

Since those days he had indeed degenerated rapidly; but some good there
must certainly be in him, or he could not have retained through all
these years the affection of his uncle and his cousin. Her own father,
too, had helped to ruin him as a very young man; and it was to settle
debts incurred in Captain Garth's gaming establishment that Wallace had
committed the forgery which first brought about his banishment from his
native land.

These thoughts tortured Laline; and through the long hours of the night
she lay awake, torn by conflicting sentiments of pity for Lorin, pity
for herself, and pity for her husband. Towards morning she had half
decided on flight as the sole way out of her difficulties, until the
thought of a confession to old Alexander Wallace of all but the name of
her husband suggested itself as an alternative course.

Throughout the wakeful hours she strove to fight down the insidious
temptation to hold her peace and fulfil her engagement with the man she
loved. No happiness could come, she repeatedly reminded herself, of a
union founded on a lie. And how could she ever meet Lorin's eyes and
hear him asseverate his trust and his belief in her with such a secret
between them?

So all through the night the turmoil of her mind endured; and, when she
rose in the morning, it was with the feeling that many years of thought
and suffering had passed over her head.

Not one word of Lorin did she speak to Mrs. Vandeleur when she asked
permission to go out to luncheon; and, once arrived at the bank, she
half dreaded meeting him. Adams, the sedate-looking man-servant, showed
her into the cosy sitting-room up-stairs, in which tea had been served
on the occasion of her former visit.

A man, who was seated by the fire, with his back to the door, reading
a newspaper, rose on her entrance and faced her. And Laline saw, to
her intense vexation and alarm, that it was not Lorin, but his cousin
Wallace Armstrong.




CHAPTER XXIV.


The colour fled from Laline's face as she found herself in the full
daylight face to face with the man whom of all the world she least
wished to meet.

Wallace on his part was deeply moved by her beauty, by the grace and
refinement that distinguished her, and stirred to wonder where he had
met the direct gaze of those wistful hazel eyes before. A sleepless
night, together with the emotions she had recently experienced,
rendered Laline unusually pale; but her pallor and extreme slightness
only served to emphasise the spirituality and fragility of her
appearance; and, standing there before him in her broad-brimmed
black-velvet hat and rich furs, she looked like one of Gainsborough's
dainty great ladies come to life in modern costume.

But the daylight, which revealed no flaw in the girl's clear skin and
delicate features, touched the man less becomingly. Hard living had
furrowed his face and prematurely silvered his hair and the light
in his eyes was fitful and sunken. He looked what he was--the wreck
of a man gifted by nature with exceptional strength and beauty, one
who should have been a king among men, but who had let himself drift
downward to the dregs of society.

He would have held out his hand, but her cold glance and still colder
bow restrained him. An angry flush passed over his face as he noted
them.

"Oh, I remember!" he said, trying to speak with defiant carelessness.
"We insulted each other at our last merry meeting, didn't we, Miss
Graham? But won't you let by-gones be by-gones?"

"I expected to meet Mr. Wallace and his nephew," she said icily,
turning away that he might no longer study her face. She was trembling
with excitement and nervousness and almost sick with fear lest he
should recognise her. But her secret alarm was only indicated by an
unsympathetic staccato of utterance.

"My cousin was telegraphed for to the City this morning, and cannot be
here for at least half an hour. As to my uncle, he is at present in his
rooms, and I have given particular instructions that he is not to know
that you are here."

She turned upon him, white with indignant surprise.

"Do I understand you to say that you have given such an order?" she
inquired.

"Yes."

"May I ask, Mr. Armstrong, your reason for taking so extraordinary a
step?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

Laline's heart sank within her. Surely he could not have recognised her?

"I have not the slightest wish for any conversation with you, Mr.
Armstrong!" she said, in a voice which it needed all her self-control
to render firm. "May I ask you to ring the bell, that the servant may
inform Mr. Alexander Wallace that I am here?"

"Wait a minute! I want to go back to something you said the last time I
saw you!"

"There is no need, and I must decline to discuss the subject. If you do
not ring the bell, Mr. Armstrong, I shall!"

She moved quickly towards the fireplace. She was horribly afraid
of being left alone with him. Something in his coarse and masterful
personality affected her with a sense of mingled fear and repulsion,
and it seemed difficult for her to breathe the same air with him.

"I want," he repeated, doggedly, coming between her and the fireplace,
"to speak to you about what you said when I last saw you."

"Pardon me," she exclaimed, flashing a look of deep scorn upon him,
"that was not the last time I saw you! Much later, between ten and
eleven at night, I was passing along the High Street, Kensington, and I
saw you again!"

She lowered her voice on the last words, and a deep blush of shame for
him passed over her face. Wallace saw the colour, and recognised the
sentiment that called it there. Something like a flush crossed his face
too.

"So you were with Lorin," he said. "I thought as much! All the more
reason why I should speak to you. Miss Grahame, it was you who drove me
to drink last night--you and no one else!"

For almost the first time in her life Laline smiled satirically.
Clearly she did not believe him.

"It is true, all the same," he said, answering her look. "When Lorin
got me out of that hole last night--and I admit he's had to do the same
thing before--he took me home to my diggings; and presently, when I
had had a cooling draught and put my head under the tap, it came out
in a little talk that I had called on that table-rapping little woman
yesterday afternoon in order to have a look at you. Then, for once in
his life, my immaculate cousin lost his temper. I have hardly ever
seen him so angry. It appears that he had been trying hard to keep me
dark. Such men as I, he had the impudence to tell me, were not fit to
cross the paths of such women as you, and it was sacrilege for me even
to mention your name. 'Now I know why she wanted to break off her
engagement with me!' he cried out. 'She could not bear the thought of
being even distantly connected with you!' It was the first time that
Lorin had ever rounded on me like that, and I could have killed him but
for the fact that he had just bruised his arm a bit getting me out of a
scrape."

"Bruised his arm! Oh, is he much hurt?" Laline cried, anxiously.

An ugly smile crossed Wallace's face.

"A bruise on his arm is of more importance to you than my whole
existence--isn't it?" he asked, bitterly.

Laline's spirit was roused.

"Certainly it is, Mr. Armstrong," she retorted; "and I should never
forgive myself if, after I had sent your cousin to rescue you in a
disreputable scuffle, he had been hurt while protecting you."

"Don't distress yourself. A little arnica, together with your sympathy,
will soon cure him!" he sneered. "What I want to speak about is this.
When you met me yesterday you told me my cousin had never mentioned my
name to you; he confirmed your statement, and he is one of those George
Washington sort of prodigies who scorn to tell a lie. I was sober
enough yesterday afternoon in all conscience; and yet, from what he
said, you at once hated me so much that you wanted to break with him on
my account. Is that true?"

The colour came and went in Laline's face, and her heart beat fast.
It was indeed only too true that on his account she must part from
Lorin--but true in a far deeper and distant sense than Wallace knew or
could guess.

"I cannot discuss my private affairs with you," she said in a very low
voice, and without looking him in the face.

"But if you have any sense of justice," he returned, quickly, "you
will tell me what reason you had for the scorn and hatred--for it was
nothing short of that--you showed from the moment that you found out
it was not my cousin but I to whose arms you had rushed. Those few
seconds, while you clung to me before you found out your mistake, were
among the sweetest in my life."

"Mr. Armstrong," she said, growing hot with anger, "if you are only
detaining me here to insult me, your conduct is even worse than I
expected from you."

"Is it an insult," he asked, "to tell you that a spontaneous caress
from a woman as good as she is beautiful made me feel another man? Is
it an insult to tell you that, during those few seconds, while you
rested your head on my shoulder and I felt the touch of your hands
about my neck, I would have given the rest of my life to have been for
a few moments only the man you loved?"

"It is impossible!" she cried, in great agitation. "You had not even
seen my face!"

"Just a fleeting glimpse in the twilight of beautiful appealing eyes
and beautiful arms outstretched towards me. But it was the love in
your touch, Miss Grahame, and the love in your voice which moved me.
No woman has ever loved me like that. The women I have known have been
fools, or worse. But as you nestled in my arms for those few seconds
and I smoothed your hair, I understand what a woman like you might make
of a man like me."

Instinctively he moved one step towards her, and as instinctively
Laline put up her hand, as though to ward him off, and drew a step
farther away from him. He saw the action and frowned impatiently.

"Why should you hate me as you do?" he asked, in tones of passionate
anger. "Can you not love my cousin without hating me? I tell you it was
the thought of your scornful eyes and your scornful voice that drove
me to drink yesterday. I had been half inclined to swear off and reform
and be reconciled to my uncle, and all that; but your disdain seemed
to choke me. I couldn't go home and think about it, so I tried to
drown the memory of you and your words too. Now be frank with me, Miss
Grahame. What could have made you hate me even before we had ever met,
unless it was Lorin's account of me?"

"I had heard about you from others," she answered, in a confused tone,
averting her face from him. "I--I have a horror of people who drink. I
had seen things about you in the papers----"

"Oh, I don't pretend to be a saint!" he broke in. "My life is my
own--it's of no value to any one but myself; and what I do with it is
no one's concern but my own. My flawless cousin is perpetually playing
guardian angel to me. It is a part he enjoys, and he ought to be
grateful to me for providing employment for him in that capacity."

"It is your paltry sneers about your cousin that make me dislike you,
Mr. Armstrong!" Laline flashed out at last. "I am not one of the women
who care for dissipated heroes or who believe in the love of reformed
rakes; and I see nothing to sneer at in the unselfish goodness of
an honourable man towards an ungrateful relative. The sneers and
sarcasm, to my mind, should be for the man who deliberately indulges
in degrading vices and then poses as unloved and misunderstood because
well-conducted people have no wish to know him."

Just for one second a look of furious anger shot from Wallace's eyes.
Then he turned humble again.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "for seeming to disparage my cousin.
But why should he have everything and I nothing? Is it not enough to
be accepted as my uncle's heir--to be rich, successful, and popular,
and a partner in one of the finest businesses in London--but he must
also have the love of one of the best and purest and most beautiful of
women? Why should he have everything and I nothing? In this very house,
every corner of which I knew as a boy, I have had for weeks and months
past to slink about like a hunted thief, flying from the man who should
by rights stand to me in the place of a father. I have been allowed
here on sufferance by my cousin and the butler, who take it upon them
to lock up everything but tea and soda-water while I am about, and who
watch me as though I were a dangerous wild beast. Do you think such
treatment tends to sweeten a man's disposition or to make him think
better of his fellow-creatures?"

"You did not look, when I entered, as though you were here on
sufferance, or as if you greatly feared being found here by Mr.
Wallace," Laline remarked, coldly.

"No; but for this immunity I have had to do penance with bell and
candle. I was only taken back into favour this morning at Lorin's
intervention, and have had to promise and vow unheard-of things in the
way of reformation before my uncle would condescend to shake hands with
me."

"And it was Lorin who brought the reconciliation about?"

"Oh, Lorin--always Lorin to the fore in good works!" he sneered. "I
think in this case it was as a set-off in the ledger of his conscience
against having gone for me and called me bad names last night."

"Is it possible you feel no gratitude towards him?"

"No," he answered, roughly; "I don't understand gratitude! Love and
hate I know, and scorn, and even now and then, in weak moments,
something like regret. But that last is waste of time; and as to
gratitude--why should one be grateful? No man does more for another
than he feels inclined to. Some people enjoy giving up things and being
unselfish and denying themselves and so on. I don't. I have never
yet met the man or woman who, in my opinion, was worth the slightest
sacrifice from me, and I don't suppose I ever shall. Don't turn from me
in such disgust, Miss Grahame. Most people think as I do, but fear of
others make them hold their tongue about it and pose as being fond of
doing good and all that sort of humbug. Now I am not like that."

"No," she returned; "I see you are not. You like to boast of your evil
qualities as though you were proud of them; and you think it a fine
thing to utter bitter and uncalled-for jests at the expense of others,
under the pretence of loving truth."

"Miss Grahame," he said, suddenly seizing her gloved hands and turning
her face to the light, "what makes you hate me as you do? It sounds in
your voice, which vibrates with dislike; you shrink back from my touch
as though I were a viper; you can't even look me in the face; and your
scorn breaks out in every word you utter. What possible harm have I
ever done you that you should hate me as you do?"

His fierce pressure of her hands hurt her, and the very touch of his
fingers had the effect of making her tingle from head to foot with
aversion. A desire, which was almost hysterical in its intensity, came
upon Laline to answer him back the truth, and cry,--

"I hate you because you are my husband, because you won me by a cruel
and heartless trick, because I understand your nature and my own
revolts against it, and because you stand between me and the man I love
with all my heart and soul!"

"Why won't you look at me?" he was asking. "Is my appearance so
loathsome that you daren't even do that? Look in my eyes, and you
will read there whether, if I had Lorin's chance, I could not love
you a thousand times better than he is capable of doing. Love! He
doesn't know what it means. How can a man with beautiful manners and
beautiful clothes, a man who paints pretty pictures and plays tennis
with pretty girls, a man of flawless character with his pockets full
of money and his future nicely garden-rolled before him, know of the
passion that burns in the veins of a friendless scamp such as I? Your
good men who go to church on Sunday and stick to their desks so many
hours on weekdays don't know the meaning of the word passion. Lorin has
everything in life--why should he want you too? Good women like you are
sent into the world to redeem bad men like me, not to carve beef and
mutton for such estimable citizens as my cousin Lorin. A good woman
whom I loved and who loved me might do what she liked with me; and,
Lina, from the moment when yesterday you ran into my arms, I have loved
you and longed to hold you there again!"

"You must be mad!" she exclaimed, struggling to free her hands from his
grasp. "If you were in your right senses you would not dare to speak to
me like this! I have only once before seen you--I have no feeling for
you but contempt and dislike--and yet you talk to me of love! Let my
hands go this instant, and never presume to so insult me again!"

She was looking him full in the face this time, with mingled terror
and aversion shining in her soft, dark eyes. As he met their gaze,
Wallace Armstrong suddenly dropped his hands and fell back a step with
a muttered expletive--

"What a likeness!" he ejaculated, and continued staring fixedly at
Laline.

In terror lest he should have recognised her, the girl turned abruptly
from him and hurried towards the door. Before she could reach it he had
arrested her steps by laying his hand on her arm.

"I beg your pardon," he stammered, "but just for one moment you looked
so strangely like some one I once knew--my wife, in fact--a worthless
hussy, who deserted me on our wedding-day. I meant to treat her well,
for I liked her, and she might have made something of me if she had
tried; but she was a true daughter of her father, and bad to the core.
For just an instant, though, you looked so like her that it was quite
startling."

During this speech Laline had had full time to recover her
self-possession.

"Thank you," she said, with glacial politeness. "From your description
it is hardly flattering to be likened to such a person. Your uncle and
your cousin must have been misinformed. They told me that your wife was
an orphan when you first met her, and that she died, deeply regretted,
of typhoid fever about a month after your marriage."

He gazed at her curiously, still with his hand on her arm.

"So that is the story you heard--eh?" he remarked. "I said my wife
bolted from me on her wedding-day; but I never said I didn't get
her back, did I? As to the 'deeply-regretted'--well, we are all
deeply-regretted on our tombstones, aren't we? No--don't shake my hand
off; if we are to be cousins by marriage, mayn't I even touch your
sleeve?"

And at that identical moment, as they stood close together facing each
other, Wallace with his hand on Laline's arm and both clearly agitated,
the door opened quickly, and Lorin and his uncle came upon them.




CHAPTER XXV.


A look of astonishment passed into old Alexander Wallace's face, and
into that of Lorin an expression of acute vexation as they stood in the
open doorway.

"Lina," the latter exclaimed, "I am so sorry I could not come before.
Apparently I need not introduce you to my cousin. You never told me
that you had met him?"

"Your cousin visited Mrs. Vandeleur's yesterday afternoon, but I was
out of the room nearly all the time," said Laline, constrainedly.
"Didn't I mention it to you? Now please let me say 'How do you do?' to
your uncle."

"Welcome to my niece Lina!" exclaimed old Alexander, beaming with
benevolent joy. "May I have an uncle's privilege, my dear?"

With paternal tenderness he took both the girl's hands in his and
kissed her on the cheek.

Luncheon was served in the dining-room on the ground-floor. To Laline
it was a terrible ordeal to sit between Lorin and Wallace. The latter,
as she afterwards learned, had insisted upon being included in the
party, maintaining that his presence at such a family gathering would
be the clinching proof that he had been taken back into favour. He was
in the highest possible spirits, devoting himself to Laline, paying
her compliments, and forestalling her wants at table, the while he,
with what appeared like irresponsible gaiety, rallied Lorin on his
backwardness in looking after his _fiancée_.

"'A laggard in love,' that's what you are, Lorin!" he cried. "This is
the second time you have neglected to hand the salt to Miss Grahame.
Take care I don't prove another young Lochinvar, and carry off your
prize under your nose."

"In the case of young Lochinvar, Mr. Armstrong, the bride was willing
to go," Laline remarked with some acerbity, whereat old Alexander, who
in no way understood the undercurrent of bitterness which lay in both
sallies, laughed heartily and declared that Wallace had met his match.

"I wish I had with all my heart, sir!" his nephew retorted, directing
a bold glance of admiration at Laline's face; and the old gentleman
laughed again in childish enjoyment.

It hurt Laline to see how, in spite of his serious and repeated
delinquencies, Wallace was clearly the favourite of Alexander, who
was delighted to kill the fatted calf in his behalf, Lorin's years of
filial devotion and unselfishness counting for nothing against the
shallow good humour and assumed affection of this showy ne'er-do-well.
Old Alexander's eyes rested constantly, with evident content, upon
his elder nephew's face; and, pleased as he was by the prospect of
Lorin's marriage, to him it was clearly an even greater subject for
thankfulness that his boy Wallace had humbled himself before him and
been forgiven.

"You must make allowance for me if my high spirits carry me away this
afternoon, Miss Grahame," Wallace said. "The fact is--and as you are
so soon to be a member of the family I can talk freely before you--I
have been a very, very bad boy, and a dreadful disgrace to everybody
about me. So I was punished, as bad boys ought to be. The worst part of
my punishment was the knowledge that I had deeply hurt the best man in
the world, and that I was shut out from my old home and my old place in
his affections. So this morning I went to him and appealed for another
chance; and he, having, as I believe, a corner in his heart somewhere
for me, took me home there again. That is the reason of my gaiety
to-day, cousin Lina, and I feel sure you will sympathise with me and
understand."

As Wallace spoke he laid his hand, with what looked like spontaneous
affection, upon that of his uncle, to the left of whom he was sitting.
Old Alexander grasped his hand warmly and tears filled his eyes. But
the little scene failed altogether to move Laline, who felt only
indignant that the simple-natured and kindly old man should be so
flagrantly deceived in his worthless nephew, whose sneers and gibes at
his uncle's expense were still fresh in her mind.

Lorin for his part talked very little. He had considerable difficulty
in concealing his deep annoyance at the attitude which Wallace had
adopted towards Laline. He had opposed as strongly as he could the
suggestion that Wallace should form one of the luncheon-party that
day. Knowing his cousin's record, he disliked the idea that anything
approaching familiar friendship should be instituted between his
cousin and the woman he loved. Lorin's sense of character was as keen
as that of his uncle was deficient. Wallace's pretended affection and
pretended reformation in no way deceived him, and, although, from the
associations of his boyhood, he still retained some little love for
the scapegrace elder who had taught him cricket and football years
ago, experience had taught him that no reliance was to be placed in
Wallace's honour or Wallace's word.

He grew hot with indignation, therefore, when he marked the insolent
admiration in his cousin's gaze, and heard the familiar "cousin Lina"
he addressed to Laline. One of Wallace's favourite boasts was that
he could fascinate any woman if he choose to try, and beautiful,
pure-minded Laline would not be the first woman who has been
temporarily attracted by a plausible scamp.

It was clear to Lorin that, since his cousin's visit to Mrs.
Vandeleur's house on the preceding day, Laline had changed towards
him. All their talk during their foggy walk in the Park after church
had been of deferring their marriage, and to-day her manner towards
him was strangely cold and absent. He had surprised her with his
cousin's hand on her arm, an incident concerning which neither she nor
Wallace had volunteered the slightest explanation, and even now she was
passively receiving his flattery and thinly-veiled love-making without
any evident signs of disapproval. Not one look, not one word had he a
chance of exchanging with her unnoticed by his cousin, although there
was very much that he was longing to communicate to her. He had hoped
that the occasion of seeing her home might give him the opportunity he
longed for; but his presence was required in the bank that afternoon,
and old Alexander was loath to let Laline leave so early.

"Even if Lorin is busy, and Wallace here finds for once something
useful to do, my dear," he said, "you can stay and have a cup of tea
with me at four o'clock, can't you?"

"I have nothing more useful or more pleasant to do than to stay also,"
Wallace was beginning, when Laline cut him short.

"I will stay alone with you, Mr. Wallace," she said. "You and I can
have a nice quiet _tête-à-tête_ together."

The idea had been strengthening in her mind ever since her arrival
that by old Alexander's assistance she might contrive to break her
engagement. The presence of Wallace, looming large and aggressive
upon her mental horizon, made all hope of association with his cousin
impossible. Laline was suffering acutely. The watchfulness of
Wallace's bold eyes incessantly fixed upon her face wrought her to such
a pitch of nervous excitement that she was hardly conscious of what she
said or did. The man exercised a magnetic power over her, so that, much
as she disliked and even detested him, she was profoundly affected by
his presence. A knowledge of the suffering she would shortly bring upon
Lorin increased her distress of mind; she felt she dared not look in
his face, lest her glance should be intercepted, or lest he should read
in her eyes the consciousness that she was deceiving him.

Yet the very strength of her love and pity for Lorin, and the necessity
for putting a severe curb upon her emotions, made her manner of parting
with him seem strangely cold.

"Good-bye, Lina dear! At about five o'clock I will return and take you
home."

"I may not be able to wait until then. Good-bye!"

How could he tell that her indifferent manner was only assumed, and
that her woman's heart was throbbing with grief and vain regret? She
could not even trust herself to return his look as he gazed down into
her face, his own full of surprise and pain. She drew her fingers
swiftly from the caressing clasp of his hand, lest his touch should
unnerve her for the work before her, and she let him go from her
presence thus, without one word or look to tell him that she loved him.

Wallace Armstrong noted the parting, and formed his own conclusions
thereon. He would have given a good deal to win this girl from his
cousin. Her beauty, her disdain, and something reminiscent in her face
and voice at once piqued and fascinated him. So far as he was capable
of loving a woman, he loved her, and he longed most ardently to humble
her pride and to make her will subservient to his. He was nearly
thirty-one, and his constitution was prematurely aged by his irregular
method of life. Possibly he knew that he was on the downward road,
and seized at the idea that he could be saved by the sacrifice of the
love of a pure and beautiful girl. Certain it was that he definitely
resolved, if the thing could be done, to win Laline from her allegiance
to his cousin, either before or after her marriage. Pity and remorse
were qualities as foreign to Wallace's nature, where his own selfish
enjoyment was concerned, as reverence and gratitude; and on this very
day of reconciliation and forgiveness, which was to herald a new era
of reformation, when he unwillingly left his uncle and Laline to their
_tête-à-tête_, he betook himself, not to the office, in which he had
again been offered a position, but to one of his favourite drinking
haunts, where he speedily made amends for his comparative abstinence at
luncheon.

In Lorin's sitting-room a cheery fire was burning, and Laline drew old
Mr. Wallace's arm-chair towards the blaze, while she herself stood
with one hand on the mantelpiece and one foot on the fender, looking
earnestly down into the glowing coals.

"What a slip of a girl you are, to be sure, my dear!" remarked
Alexander Wallace, as he noticed the graceful but unduly slender
outline of her figure in its severely-cut blue-serge gown. "It's time
you had some one to look after you and make life pleasanter for you!
And what is the exact day you have fixed for the wedding?"

She turned and faced him suddenly, very pale, with big tears gathering
in her eyes.

"Mr. Wallace," she said, "I am going to hurt you dreadfully--but it
hurts me even more. My marriage with your nephew Lorin can never take
place!"

Alexander started from his seat and gazed at her blankly.

"Never take place?" he repeated slowly. "You are surely joking, my
lassie! I thought you seemed a bit cold to the boy; but it's only some
lovers' tiff, and you will make it up when you meet again. I am not too
old to forget young folks' ways."

"There has been no tiff. I love your nephew far too well to quarrel
with him; but we must part, all the same."

"Can it be possible," Alexander asked, in bewildered tones, "that you
have taken a fancy to my other nephew? I hope not, my dear. Much as I
love Wallace--and he is like my own son to me--I hope not. A good woman
might be the making of Wallace, I do believe, but her heart might be
broken in the process. He's a wild harum-scarum fellow, and----"

"Do you think for one moment," cried Laline, indignantly, "that I would
break off my engagement with Lorin in order to marry your other nephew?
I have seldom met any one I dislike so much as he in all my life!"

"Yet he's a fine, handsome fellow, and I have heard that women go crazy
about him. There's a lot of good in Wallace, too," said his uncle,
anxiously; "and you and he seemed very good friends when Lorin and I
came in suddenly and found you together before luncheon."

"He had roughly seized my arm and I could not get it away," returned
Laline, shuddering at the remembrance of the scene. "I can't endure
even to talk about him! Lorin is worth a whole regiment of such men!
Lorin is manly and sincere, unselfish and kind----"

"If he is all this, why don't you want to marry him?"

"But I do want to marry him--I want to marry him with all my heart!"
she cried, distractedly. "Oh, Mr. Wallace, listen to me and help me
with your advice, for I am very, very unhappy!"

She slipped down on her knees on the hearthrug before his chair, and
told her tale thus, nervously clasping and unclasping the slender hands
in her lap while she spoke.

"What I am going to tell you you must give me your word to keep
secret," she said. "No one must know--not even Lorin. Promise me that."

"I promise; but----"

"I loved Lorin as soon as I met him, and I was proud of loving him, and
encouraged him to love me in return. I agreed to marry him directly he
asked me. I never tried to hide my feelings for him. You know this,
don't you?"

"Why should you hide your feelings? He is a man any girl might be proud
to love."

"He is indeed! That's what makes it so hard to give him up!"

Tears were raining down Laline's cheeks now and her voice was choked by
sobs.

Alexander Wallace gazed upon her in wondering pity for a moment. Then
he gently took her hands, which were pressed to her eyes, and drew her
to the side of his chair.

"Tell me all your trouble, my child," he said, tenderly. "Why should
you give up Lorin, since you love each other and since there is no
quarrel between you?"

"Mr. Wallace," she faltered, "don't think too harshly of me! I have
deceived you all. When I was little more than a child I was married!"

"Married?" Alexander repeated, in astonishment. "Then you are a widow?"

"No!"

"Your husband is alive?"

She bowed her head.

A long pause followed. Mr. Wallace let her hands go and rose from his
chair.

"Heaven forgive you," he said, solemnly, "for playing with a good
man's love! It was an ill deed, whatever prompted it? My poor boy!"

"Mr. Wallace," cried Laline, springing up and facing him, "don't
misjudge me! When I met Lorin, I believed myself free to be his wife.
It is only quite recently--within the past few days, indeed--I found
out that----"

"That your husband was alive?"

"Yes."

"And you have to return to him?"

"No, no--not for the whole world! I----Please--please don't ask me any
questions, Mr. Wallace! My marriage was a terrible mistake! I had heard
and seen nothing of the man I married for several years; I knew of
nothing to prevent my marriage with Lorin. Then, by sheer accident, I
learned that that other man was still alive. I cannot tell you how much
I hate him; and he never cared for me for one moment, and has forgotten
my existence. But he lives, and I cannot marry Lorin!"

"But why tell me all this, my child? Why not go to Lorin, and let him
hear the truth from your own lips?"

"No, no--I can't; it is quite impossible! I have made up my mind what
to do. I must go away from here, to some place where he cannot follow
me; and then you must break it to him. Only remember one thing. You
must tell him I loved him with all my heart and soul. Tell him I never
knew what love was until I met him. Tell him that my marriage was a
miserable farce, that within one hour of the ceremony I was far away
from my husband, and that I never went back to him again. Be sure to
tell him that. Tell him it is of no use to think of me any more. I
don't want him to leave off loving me, but he must love me as though
I were dead, for I must be dead to him. I shall leave England, and he
must not attempt to find me or follow me. I trust to his honour to
respect my wishes, for it is of no use pretending to be better or
stronger than I am, Mr. Wallace. I love Lorin so dearly that, if I
were to see him or write to him, I don't know what I might say or do.
You see it is a great temptation. I am tied to a man I hate, who does
not even know that I am alive; yet, because of those words we spoke
together years ago when I was too young to understand the meaning
of what I did, I must break my own heart and that of the man I love
and live lonely and uncared for perhaps all my life. To me it seems
bitterly, cruelly hard! Yet I would not for anything let Lorin fall
from my ideal of him; and, if we were together, and he asked me to
become his wife, in spite of the law, I could not be sure of myself,
and perhaps I might say 'Yes.' Now do you understand why you must tell
him all this and not I?"

"I understand," the old man answered, in a broken voice. "My poor
children!"




CHAPTER XXVI.


Alexander Wallace was, it is to be feared, incapable of keeping a
secret.

Had he not been a singularly lucky man with an excellent head for
figures, he would never have augmented the splendid business which came
to him from his father, for he was almost incapable of deception and by
nature as trustful as he was truthful.

His nephews were both men of wider education and more subtle brains
than he possessed, and both could read him like a book. As a result of
this, Lorin anticipated his wishes and studied his comfort in every
detail, while Wallace took advantage of the old man's weak points and
sneered at his guilelessness.

It followed therefore that, as soon as Lorin entered his uncle's
presence at about five o'clock that day, and found him greatly agitated
and Laline already departed, he became convinced that some talk had
passed between them intimately connected with his own future happiness,
and set himself to work to find out of what it was composed.

"Have you and Lina settled the wedding-day between you, Uncle Alec?" he
inquired, taking his stand by the fireplace, so that the lamplight fell
full on his companion's face.

Alexander Wallace's features twitched as at some painful remembrance,
and there was an embarrassed pause before he replied--

"'There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,' my boy. I should not
tease Lina about the date, if I were you. She has known you so short a
time that it is not surprising she should want the wedding put off for
a bit."

"Oh, but I shall never agree to that!" Lorin returned, in tones the
coolness of which belied his keen anxiety. "The first thing to-morrow I
shall buy the licence; and before the end of this month we shall be man
and wife."

"Ay, if she will have you."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing!" Alexander returned, confusedly, remembering his promise
to reveal nothing until Lina was far away. "But girls change their
minds, so people say."

His attempt at acting was a complete failure--a child would not have
been deceived by it. Lorin, from his vantage-ground back to the light,
stared relentlessly into the old man's face, which gave his words the
lie, and a great fear began to creep into his heart.

"Did Lina tell you she does not love me?" he asked, after a pause.

"No, no, my boy--no word of such a thing!"

"Did she tell you she meant to break with me? Answer, for Heaven's
sake, and tell me the truth! It is not like you, Uncle Alec, to
hesitate and beat about the bush and say what you do not mean, and it
is not fair to me. My life's happiness is at stake and I must know what
she said to you."

"I cannot break my promise to her!" exclaimed Alexander, rising in deep
distress. "Lorin, my boy, you should give up all thoughts of her--for
the present, at least. I fear, my lad, it is not to be and that you
must forget her."

"You might as well tell me to tear my heart out and not feel the pain!
What reason did she give you? But she can't be in earnest; she only
means to try me."

"She is absolutely in earnest, and she trusts to you to respect her
wishes. Consider what a short time you have known her----"

His words fell upon heedless ears. Before he had finished speaking
Lorin darted from the room. In a very few seconds he was down the
stairs, out of the house, and in a hansom on his way to 21, St. Mary's
Crescent.

Only one idea filled his brain--he must see Lina, must never leave her
until she had sworn to be his as soon as the Church could marry them.
To-morrow he would buy a special licence, and, that bought, she must
instantly become his wife, so that no more deadly torturing fears of
losing her could harass him.

Twice he shouted to the driver to go faster; and a block in the
thoroughfare at the top of Sloane Street threw him into a fever of
nervous impatience. The hideous supposition that she might be induced
to jilt him for his cousin rose more than once in his mind, to be
angrily dismissed again. She must be merely wishing to try him out of
girlish coquetry, for which she should be punished by being married,
_trousseau_ or no _trousseau_, within the next twenty-four hours. Of
that he was fully determined.

"I am too jealous to be an engaged man," he told himself. "Lina must
be mine altogether, and I must take her away with me. I know she loves
me. What could possibly come between us? It must be some girlish freak
on her part. But I am glad I have to see her, for I am starving for a
kiss! I must see her alone, and will kiss away from her lips the memory
of her coldness to-day. What a confoundedly slow cab this is! I could
walk the distance in half the time!"

At St. Mary's Crescent bad news awaited him. Susan, who showed him
into the morning-room on the ground-floor, and took his name up-stairs
to Miss Grahame, returned to tell him that that young lady could not
receive him. She was suffering from a bad headache, and had gone to bed.

"Gone to bed? It isn't six o'clock yet! Is she really ill, Susan?"

"Yes, sir."

Lorin looked doubtfully at Susan; then he drew a sovereign from his
pocket and laid it in her hand. While she was feebly affecting to
return it, he closed her hand upon it, and spoke in low quick tones in
her ear.

"Susan, have you a sweetheart?"

"Dear--no, sir!"

"No one who loves you?"

"Well, sir, I won't quite say that----"

"Susan, remember what your sweetheart would feel if he were
disappointed about seeing you, and tell me the truth. Has Miss Grahame
really gone to bed?"

"Not quite, sir; but she is in her room, and looks dreadful bad. She's
been crying, sir. She was crying while she spoke to me."

"You must take her a note."

"Will you write it in here, sir?" asked Susan, in sympathetic tones,
putting pen, ink, and paper on the table before him, and discreetly
retiring a few steps.

And Lorin wrote thus--

  "MY OWN DARLING HEART--I must see you! I can't live another hour
  unless you speak to me! I have something of the utmost importance to
  both of us to propose. Lina, my only love, why were you so cold to me
  to-day? Why won't you see me now? And why are you crying? See me just
  for one brief instant, and let me kiss your tears away! Lina, I shall
  go mad if you treat me coldly! You can't possibly understand what
  you are to me or you would never play with me like this. Lina, you
  have my very heart and soul in your keeping; I will not even believe
  it possible that you could treat me badly until I hear it from your
  lips! See me, my darling, for Heaven's sake, just for one moment! You
  need not even speak. Come down and give me one kiss, my wife that is
  to be, and I will go away happy. Only come!

 "Yours, through life and death,
 "Lorin."

A silly, incoherent, lover's letter, but poor Laline's eyes overflowed
at each line of it.

Susan waited discreetly outside the door while Miss Grahame read it,
and heartily hoped the handsome, pleasant-spoken young gentleman with
the beautiful blue eyes and lovely curly black hair would not be
disappointed.

Presently Laline's voice came to her from within the bedroom.

"Go to Mr. Armstrong, Susan, and tell him I am very sorry but I am not
well enough to see any one to-night."

A stifled sob came after the words, and Susan decided that Miss Grahame
was "awful cruel," and did not deserve so fascinating a sweetheart.

"And him a young gentleman of fortune, and she only a sort of
governess, too!"

This was Susan's private comment. Aloud she said timidly--

"Mr. Armstrong seems in a dreadful way about you, miss. Shall I tell
him you are feeling a little better now?"

"Please tell Mr. Armstrong just what I have said and no more!"

"Fine airs she do give herself, to be sure--and her no better-looking
than some other people!" Susan said to herself, as she flounced
down-stairs. "It isn't everybody that admires them thin women! She
isn't half as pretty as Miss Clare to my way of thinking! Miss Clare
and me we have got a bit of flesh on our bones; and I've heard say
that's what the men admire, and not your scrag-ends of girls!"

But aloud to Mr. Armstrong, eagerly waiting in the front room, Susan,
with demure mien, merely repeated the message Miss Grahame had given
her.

Lorin knitted his brows.

"She is really ill, then, Susan?"

"I think she is upset, sir, about something--more than ill, so to say."

"Ah! Is your mistress in?"

"Yes, sir. She is in her study."

"Alone?"

"Yes, sir."

"Will you take her a note, too, Susan, while I wait for an answer?"

"Certainly, sir!"

Susan was growing quite excited over this little romance. Lorin, on
his part, understood something of Mrs. Vandeleur's nature, of her
shrewdness, her inquisitiveness, and her love of what Americans call
"bossing the show," and being appealed to as an arbiter of fate. There
was therefore some subtlety in his note, which ran as follows--

  "MY DEAR MRS. VANDELEUR--On my memorable first interview with you
  not many weeks ago you told me various things about myself that were
  true, and foretold others that have since come to pass. You were also
  good enough to express yourself in kind and friendly terms towards
  me, and to advise me to come to you should I need counsel. At this
  present moment I am in deep distress and perplexity, and should be
  most grateful for your advice and help. Will you give them? Hoping
  fervently that your kindness may move you to do so, I remain,

 "Yours very faithfully,
 "Wallace Lorin Armstrong."

He had not long to wait for an answer. In a very few seconds Susan
tripped down with a gracious message, and showed the visitor into her
mistress's study.

How well he remembered, as he entered, his first meeting with Laline,
the slim white figure dimly visible in fog and firelight, and the look
of fear and astonishment with which she had turned towards him as she
dropped the crystal ball at his feet in her alarm at his unexpected
entrance. It had all happened so few days ago, and yet it seemed to
Lorin that he must always have known Laline, that she must always have
been part of his very existence, and that his hopes and aims must ever
have centred wholly in her. The room, with its odd accessories, gleaned
from Eastern and mediæval art by modern superstition, recalled her
image so vividly before his mind that his eyes turned involuntarily
to the low seat by the fire, as if expecting that the form of Laline
herself would resolve itself from the shadows and rise on his approach.

But the little gray lady with the jewelled fingers and the bird-bright
eyes was alone, peering at him out of her long-handled eye-glass set
with garnets and turquoise.

"So you have sought me?" she said, extending a small ivory-like hand
towards him. "I thought you would! You were rather sceptical, too. But
let that pass. Shall I tell you, or will you tell me, what you have
come about?"

"As you like," he answered, sinking into the chair she indicated with a
wave of her hand.

"You are passionately in love with my beautiful secretary. For
that I owe you a very deep grudge. She was just the white-souled,
child-hearted creature I wanted for my work, and you have spoiled her.
When she came to me her mind was as a clear page; now it is disfigured
by an ideal picture of you. Yes--disfigured, to my way of thinking,
in spite of your good looks, Mr. Armstrong. If she had remained the
passionless white-flower soul she was when she came to me, we might
together have completed my two great works in a comparatively short
space of time. But now this tiresome, transient love-rubbish has
already rendered her self-conscious, capricious, and hysterical, and
from the calm, soulful study of the occult, she has fallen to studying
only you. What is the result? Lina can't write, she can't think, she
has headaches, and cries when she is looked at. That is not the psychic
state in which to approach loftier spheres of thought. That is the
worst of our sex. Give them the hope of fortune, of distinction, of a
career, a calm and elevated sphere of thought, which would raise them
above the little aches and pains and vexations of humanity, and what
do they do? At the distant vision of a man, it all goes to the winds!
All my secretaries have been like that; and I might have guessed that
Lina, who is very much the most beautiful, would not escape this craze
for the male sex which is a drag upon the spiritual progress of almost
every woman between seventeen and fifty. Why could you not have fallen
in love with my niece Clare? That would in no way have interfered with
my work or my plans. Clare is very handsome, I suppose, although it is
not a type that I personally admire. Were I an elderly man, however, I
could imagine myself raving about her. You were supposed to be Clare's
admirer at first, and had you continued to be so I should have nothing
to complain of. Between my niece and me there is nothing in common.
She is too mundane, too full-blooded for me. She is like too much
sunlight coming glaringly in one's eyes between Venetian blinds--the
shock all the cruder because of the pretence of concealment and shade.
But Lina--she is far too good to be wasted on a man! Love and marriage
take all life and individuality out of ninety-nine of every hundred
Englishwomen; and the better the woman, the more like a cow or a
cabbage she becomes under domesticity. There--my sermon is ended! Now
you can recount your little love-troubles; but don't suppose for a
moment that you have happened upon a sympathetic listener!"

"I would rather be understood than sympathised with," he returned,
gravely. "Mrs. Vandeleur, all that you have been saying is extremely
interesting. But, to take your own admissions, Lina is young,
exceptionally beautiful, and essentially womanly. That being the case,
she must necessarily give and inspire love. Although she is exceedingly
intelligent, she makes no claim to mental or spiritual gifts above the
average. Although you and I may agree that she is made of 'spirit,
fire, and dew,' and that the 'good stars stood in her horoscope,' to
most people she would only appear a charmingly attractive girl, whom
any man might fall in love with. That is the way in which men, and
women too, think and speak of girls, and I am inclined to think such
a method of thought will prevail as long as this world of ours. Given
these premises, isn't it a good thing that Lina, of whom I am sure you
are fond, should be going to marry a man whom you dislike so little as
you dislike me?"

"I don't dislike you at all," said the little lady, smiling graciously
enough. "There is much in your nature that I admire, and with which I
am in accord. Your cousin, on the other hand, is quite remarkably evil,
although extremely interesting. But, to go back to your tiresome little
love-affair, which of course to you blocks out all other subjects
from your mind, and will for a few weeks--what puzzles me is not that
Lina should be trying to part from you, but that she should ever have
consented to marry you. Did you really in so many words ask her to be
your wife? And did she say 'Yes'?"

"Most certainly."

"It is very extraordinary indeed! And I must tell you it was only
through my niece Clare that I heard one word of this love-business
between you and Lina. The girl herself can hardly be persuaded to speak
of you at all."

"Why should you be surprised at our engagement, Mrs. Vandeleur? You
must have seen that I loved her."

"To fall in love and to suffer was marked in your hand. With Lina
things were different."

She was thinking of that previous marriage of Lina's, which the girl
had half confided after the elder lady had half guessed it.

"And now," said Lorin, rising and coming over to Mrs. Vandeleur's
table, "as the mischief is done, and your secretary merged in the woman
who loves, I have come to throw myself upon your compassion and implore
your help. Something--I don't know what--has come between Lina and me.
Last night, when I met her on her return from church, she was strangely
agitated, although twenty-four hours before I had left her full of
love and happiness. She spoke of deferring our marriage, and to-day,
when she came to luncheon, her manner towards me had incomprehensibly
altered and she barely spoke to me. Some confidence passed in my
absence between her and my uncle, and induced him on my return to speak
to me about breaking off our engagement. And when, on realising the
purport of his stumbling hints, I hurried off here, Lina refused to see
me, and sent a message to say that she had a headache and had gone to
bed. Mrs. Vandeleur, there must be some reason for this extraordinary
change of front. I do not, I will not, believe that it is mere caprice
on Lina's part which induces her to treat me thus. Therefore, I come
to claim your help. You understand her, you can influence her, you can
find out what is the obstacle her imagination--for it can be nothing
else--has placed between us. Do this for me out of the kindness of your
heart--I beg, I beseech of you!"

She looked up smiling into his handsome, glowing face.

"I promise you I will do my best to serve your cause," she said,
holding out her small pale hand; and Lorin, catching at the hope,
raised her fingers gratefully to his lips.




CHAPTER XXVII.


When Lorin Armstrong descended the stairs after his interview with Mrs.
Vandeleur he felt that he had secured a valuable ally.

If any one could coax from Lina the reason for her conduct it was
the little gray witch, whose manner inspired and almost compelled
confidence, and who, however much or little she might understand the
world of spirits, was marvellously quick in finding out anything she
wanted to know about matters pertaining to this earth.

It had been arranged between them that he should call at noon on the
following day, by which time Mrs. Vandeleur was to have had a long
interview with Lorin's recalcitrant love-lady. Had the matter rested
with him the young man would have gladly waited on the doorstep of
Number Twenty-one throughout the whole of that evening, or, with
equal celerity, would have presented himself there before dawn on the
following day. But Mrs. Vandeleur clearly was not a woman to be hurried
in well-doing, and she had no intention of either detaining Lorin this
evening or of putting in an appearance before her usual time on the
next morning, solely because her secretary had tried to quarrel with
her sweetheart.

Lorin had therefore to content himself with impressing upon her the
vital importance to his very existence of a speedy reconciliation
between himself and his divinity, and had then perforce to depart,
full of new hopefulness, until, at the foot of the stairs, he found
gleaming at him across the dimly-lighted hall the strange green eyes of
Clare Cavan.

Meeting with the girl at this exact moment affected Lorin unpleasantly
as an evil omen. From the artist's point of view he admired her
immensely, and often hoped he might some day have time and opportunity
to sketch her as Vivien tempting Merlin. She was an ideal Vivien,
but that fabled lady was also a more or less sinister personage, and
at this moment it clearly appeared as though mockery gleamed in Miss
Cavan's cat-like eyes and echoed through her purring accents.

"Oh, Mr. Armstrong, I am so sorry you are off just as I have come back!
I have never yet been able to offer you my congratulations on your
engagement. It was so very sudden, you see, and Lina has said so very
little about it. But perhaps I am premature?"

"Not at all," he returned, coolly. "So far as I am concerned I heartily
wish my marriage with Miss Grahame could take place to-morrow."

"How perfectly sweet! But you men are all like that; you want us
poor little women to scamper off to the altar without a thought of
_chiffons_ and bridal costume, and frocks and shoes and gloves and
those pretty things which will perhaps last us longer than all your
much-vaunted affection! I've been quite longing to meet you for another
reason, too. Your cousin and namesake called on us on Sunday afternoon,
and I think he is perfectly delightful! So humorous and original, and
so unlike the ordinary men one meets in drawing-rooms. I assure you we
all found him simply irresistible! Didn't Lina tell you so?"

"I really can't recall it."

"Oh, Mr. Armstrong, I do really believe you are jealous! But I assure
you Lina will never have a chance of talking to your cousin while I
am about. I do so love eccentrics. And I have just been hearing the
quaintest stories about him from my friends the Fitzroy-Cleavers."

Lorin winced. The cat-claws showed through the fur in that last thrust,
and he felt he hated the girl and her malignant tongue.

"I am glad my cousin pleased you, Miss Cavan," he said, quietly, "and
that his conversation was so well suited to your taste."

She flushed ever so slightly under his remark.

"Shall I tell you a secret?" she asked, assuming her most ingenuous and
innocent air. "Women always like that type of man the best, whatever
else they may pretend. There's a confession! You must go after that.
But you'll find some day that I'm right."

As soon as she had closed the door upon him, Clare summoned Susan and
closely cross-questioned her as to the length and other details of
Lorin's visit. On these points the maid was voluble and precise, having
supplemented her knowledge at first-hand by listening at the library
keyhole.

"It wasn't much that I could catch, miss--I was that afraid of misses
finding me out and setting her spirits after me, or of cook coming up
and down stairs. But something misses is going to do for Mr. Armstrong;
and he's to come round about it at twelve o'clock to-morrow. Most
likely misses is going to try to make friends between them again--don't
you think so, miss?"

"I can't tell, Susan. But it's very interesting, isn't it? Quite like a
novel. And you shall have that green-velvet hat of mine."

Clare was intensely curious to know the rights of this quarrel between
her rival and Lorin Armstrong. "Pumping" Laline was never any use;
but by adroit flattery and artful questions she could sometimes
extract information from her aunt, even though the latter resented her
intrusion in the study during working hours. But, with the secretary in
tears in her room, Clare decided she might risk it, and she accordingly
sped lightly to the study door, and, after an admonitory tap, burst in
with a great appearance of spontaneity.

"Oh, auntie," she exclaimed, "do let me run in for a few minutes' chat!
Why, where is Lina?"

"She is ill--a headache or something. Pray don't flutter, Clare!
Fluttering gets on my nerves."

"I wonder what is the matter with Lina?" Clare remarked, taking a seat
and slowly removing her hat. "Have you noticed how strangely she has
altered since her engagement?"

"All girls alter when they get engaged," said her aunt, maliciously.
"Joy turns their heads, I suppose."

"I don't think it's joy in Lina's case," pursued Clare, shaking her
head doubtfully. "No; it seems to me she has something on her mind."

"What do you mean?"

By her aunt's tone Clare divined she was on the right tack.

"Well, do you know, Aunt Cissy," she said, with confidential mystery,
"I have some reason for supposing that Lina knows of a secret barrier
between her and Mr. Armstrong--that is why she is trying to break with
him--before he finds it out, I mean."

"Where did you get that idea from?" asked Mrs. Vandeleur, sharply.

"Well, I would rather not say who told me in so many words; but I
have suspected the thing before," Clare went on, feeling her way, and
wondering whether she was going to stumble on the truth. "Of course
you know how people will talk, and this is the sort of thing they
say--that it is quite too reckless of Mr. Armstrong, in his position,
to offer marriage to a girl about whose antecedents he knows absolutely
nothing at all. Why, even you know very little more, do you, auntie?
And Lina is twenty, and has had to earn her living somehow since she
was a child. And of course she is perfectly lovely, in that thin
ethereal style that some people rave about. She is so oddly reticent,
too, about her past--haven't you noticed it? But, now that she is going
to make such a splendid and unexpected marriage with such an extremely
charming man as Mr. Armstrong, no doubt it all comes back to her. She
is very religious, you know, and very likely would rather give him up
than be married under false pretences, poor girl!"

To the whole of this elaborate speech, evolved bit by bit from Clare's
inner consciousness, Mrs. Vandeleur listened, with her brilliant hazel
eyes peering intently through her glasses upon her niece's face. But
as the girl finished, the little gray lady rose from her chair in her
wrath, every fold of her soft brocade bristling with indignation.

"Do you venture to insinuate," she inquired in icily deliberate tones,
"that my friend and companion and fellow-worker hesitates to become an
honourable gentleman's wife because her past career has rendered her
unworthy to fill that position?"

Clare was considerably taken aback; but she resolved to stick to her
guns.

"I certainly meant that," she answered, feeling in her own heart that
after all she had probably hit upon something very like the truth.

"Then, if these are your opinions--and they are, after all, only such
as I should expect from you--let me tell you that you are not fit
to take my white-souled Lina by the hand! I know every secret of her
heart, and there is not one thought hidden there which would not shame
you by its purity!"

"I would not disturb your belief in Lina for the world," observed
her niece, a little red spot of anger forming itself in the whiteness
of her cheeks; "but, on a subject like this, we may each keep our own
opinion, may we not? I myself am very fond of Lina."

"That is not true! You hate her, and are bitterly envious of her!"

"I! Envious of her!"

The white eyelids and yellow lashes were scornfully lowered over the
angry eyes.

"I wonder, Aunt Cissy, that with your gifts and your genius you are
so easily deceived! I am not strait-laced, as you know; but, really,
I have never cared to make a companion of Lina Grahame. She has, I
don't doubt, some very good reason of her own for letting Mr. Armstrong
escape from her clutches."

"Would you like me to prove to your face that you are lying?" Mrs.
Vandeleur inquires, in a white heat of anger and excitement.

"Unfortunately that is impossible--isn't it? You could only get
Lina's word, and I don't quite think I should accept that under the
circumstances."

"You shall hear it in a form which you cannot fail to believe!" the
little lady cried in triumph. "I will put Lina into a hypnotic sleep,
and she shall answer me as she would answer her own soul. With her own
lips she shall, in your presence, clear her good name from the foul
slur which you, in your mean jealousy, have cast upon it. And this
shall be done this very evening--here, before your eyes!"

"Dear auntie, pray don't excite yourself!" Clare urged. "Such an
ordeal would be unfair to the girl. I really meant nothing."

"I have made up my mind," said the little sibyl, as she sharply rang
the silver hand-bell on the table before her.

In Lorin's interests she had already decided to submit Lina to hypnotic
influence in order to extract from her the entire truth with regard to
her present plans, and she was genuinely glad of the opportunity of
proving to her niece how undeserved were her reflections on her rival.

For Mrs. Vandeleur had no trace of doubt but that Laline, when put to
the test, would triumphantly prove her spotless innocence in a manner
which must convince even the evil-minded and unbelieving Clare. She was
revelling in her favourite part of Fate's representative. Lorin should
be made happy, Clare confounded, and Laline vindicated by one and the
same process.

"Hide yourself!" she signed to her niece imperatively. "Lina must
believe herself alone with me. Turn out the lamp in the inner room, and
conceal yourself behind that Japanese screen. When she is unconscious,
I will signal you to come near."

"Ask Miss Grahame if she will kindly join me here at once, Susan," was
the mandate given to that young woman on her appearance in answer to
the summons.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I think Miss Grahame's poorly and is
lying down."

"Do as I tell you! Ask her to come to me now!"

A few minutes later, almost as pale as the white dress she had donned
to please her employer, Laline entered the room. Suffering had made
her super-sensitive; she seemed instantly to be aware of an inimical
presence, for she glanced nervously about her before advancing towards
Mrs. Vandeleur.

"I--I thought Clare was with you!" she stammered.

"I have just sent her away. I want to talk to you. My dear child, why
this avoidance of me? I assure you I am beginning to be hurt. To think
that I should have to wait to learn the news of your engagement from
the lips of others----"

"Don't--oh, please don't!"

The girl pressed both hands to her burning forehead. She had wept
herself into a weak hysterical state, but she was anxious not to break
down.

"I meant to write to you to-night," she went on presently, more calmly.
"I didn't feel quite equal to talking to you. During the past few days
I have lived through several lives of pain and thought, and I feel weak
and worn out. Dear Mrs. Vandeleur, you have been so wonderfully kind
to me that I wish I could tell you all the truth! The one thing I must
tell you is that I must leave your house to-morrow."

"Leave me to-morrow! Why, where are you going?"

"I must not tell you--I hardly know myself yet. But it must be
somewhere where no one I have met lately will ever find me. I have to
begin life all over again."

"But, my child, what does all this mean? first, I am astonished by
hearing of your engagement with Mr. Armstrong, knowing, as I did,
that you were not free to marry; next, you refuse to see the poor
young man, and worry him until he is nearly mad by your sudden and
capricious coldness; and, finally, you walk in here, with red eyes and
white cheeks, and tell me you are going to the other end of the world
to-morrow. What can it all mean?"

"I cannot tell you. It has all been a terrible mistake. But, if you
believe in me and care for me at all, dear--dear Mrs. Vandeleur, put no
obstacle in the way of my going, and never let Lorin or any one know
where I have taken refuge. Don't ask me to tell even you, but let me
pass out of all your lives within the next few hours, and try to always
think the best you can of me."

Just for one instant the thought flashed through Mrs. Vandeleur's brain
that perhaps, after all, Clare's suspicions might not be altogether
without foundation. Laline's mental attitude seemed hardly consistent
with perfect innocence. But she loyally hated to entertain the doubt,
and held out her little hands impulsively towards her _protégée_.

"Come here, my poor, dear, pale child!" she cried. "Put your head in my
lap--so--and let me charm away your headache with my fingers. No--don't
cry any more! These love-affairs are infinitely wearing, I know. There;
let me touch your eyelids and charm away your tears! Is that better?"

"Much better!"

Laline spoke drowsily. She had flown to her friend, deeply moved by her
sudden display of tenderness and sympathy, and had unsuspectingly knelt
at her feet, weeping tears of gratitude. Yielding herself thus readily
to the magic of Mrs. Vandeleur's touch, she became, in her unnerved
and broken condition of mind, the most susceptible subject possible to
hypnotic influence.

Even while she still spoke her eyes became fixed and vacant in their
gaze. Still the little lady's fingers swept in slow caressing touches
about her brow and eyelids. A deep sigh quivered through the girl's
parted lips, and her head fell heavily forward on Mrs. Vandeleur's
knees.

"Clare! Quick! Help me to lay her in this chair. Move away and let me
place my hand on her brow--so!"

Pale and inert as a dead thing Laline lay. Clare drew a little on one
side and held her breath with excitement. Then, through the perfect
stillness of the room, Mrs. Vandeleur's sweet voice sounded, speaking
low, in slow distinct tones.

"Lina, can you hear me?"

A faint quiver passed over the still face; then the voice came as from
a long way off--

"Yes."

"Do you love Lorin Armstrong?"

"Yes."

"Shall you marry him?"

"No."

"Why have you broken your engagement?"

"Because I am already married."

"Married!" burst from Clare's lips in amazement.

"Silence!" exclaimed her aunt, imperatively. Then, turning again to
Laline, she asked slowly--

"What is the name of your husband?"

A pause, and then softly, but with perfect distinctness, came the
words--

"Wallace Armstrong."

"Not Wallace Armstrong--Lorin's cousin? Can you mean him?" cried Mrs.
Vandeleur, in horror.

"Yes."

"When did you marry him?"

"More than four years ago."

"Tell me your name before you married."

"Laline Garth."

"Good heavens! But he thinks you dead. Does he or any one know or guess
the truth?"

"No one."

Clare drew a long breath. The discovery meant everything to her, and
the one idea in her mind was to communicate the precious secret in the
right quarter.

A faint sigh and a fluttering of the eyelids from Laline made Mrs.
Vandeleur bend anxiously over her prostrate form; and in the slight
diversion thus afforded Clare slipped noiselessly from the room.




CHAPTER XXVIII.


Every nerve in Clare's body was tingling with revengeful joy over the
possession of her rival's secret.

Of Laline's selfishness in wanting to marry both the Armstrongs she
could not think without hot indignation. Ignoring the mistake which
Laline had made on her first meeting with Lorin, Clare naturally
supposed that her rival had deliberately gone to work to win Lorin from
his allegiance, although she knew herself to be already married.

That Laline detested her husband was very clear. Under an entirely new
light Clare recalled the short and angry scene between them to which
she had been a witness on the preceding Sunday.

Doubtless, so Clare decided, Laline was at present drawing back and
holding Lorin off only in order to pique him into an immediate union;
and Miss Cavan set her short, sharp, white teeth vindictively together
as she planned destruction to Laline's schemes.

"Of course she married the one cousin for his money, and probably found
him a brute and ran away from him. Then she must have trusted to not
meeting him or to his not recognising her when she set to work to get
hold of the other! What consummate impudence! I really almost admire
her for it. Now if I can only find Wallace Armstrong the elder, and
find him sober, I shall be the blessed means of restoring a missing
wife to a loving husband's arms."

A very unpleasant smile curved her thin scarlet lips as she reflected
thus while completing a hasty outdoor toilet before the looking-glass
in her room. Opening her door, she stealthily crept out to listen for
sounds from the floor below; then, reassured by the perfect stillness,
she fled noiselessly down and out of the house, sprang into a hansom
in the High Street, and directed the driver to Wallace Armstrong's
lodgings off the Strand, where once before she had called in order to
deliver "A Well-Wisher's" warning letter.

Mr. Armstrong was out, Clare was informed by an elderly housekeeper,
who gazed at her with evident suspicion, and who evidently disapproved
of a beautiful and well-dressed young lady calling at the rooms of a
handsome and dissipated bachelor at nine o'clock in the evening.

But Clare was too much excited to be sensitive on this point, and
at once begged for an envelope and a piece of paper, upon which she
scribbled an emphatic mandate to Wallace to come at once to St. Mary's
Crescent on receipt of her message at any time before midnight.

"Drive very slowly along the Strand," she told her driver, when she
left the house; "I am looking out for some one."

Laline's evil star was in the ascendant that night, for Clare's cab had
not proceeded many yards, with its occupant craning her neck out of it,
when she suddenly signalled to the driver to stop.

For there, before her eyes, lurching along the Strand, with his hands
in his pockets, on his way from one drinking-bar to another, was the
object of her search--Wallace Armstrong, Laline's husband.

Laline's husband! Clare's heart leaped in triumph at the thought, which
amply avenged her for any slights and disappointments Laline had
unwittingly caused her to suffer.

_In vino veritas_--and, after three or four hours of constant tippling,
there was that about this man's face which it was not good to see. The
"ape-and-tiger" qualities within him, which for over ten years his way
of life had fostered and developed, never very far beneath the surface,
were rampant now, and stared from his bloodshot angry eyes, and showed
themselves again in his rolling walk, his hot clenched hands, and
swollen, sullen mouth. Had Clare Cavan's nature held aught of the
womanly she would have shrunk from the notion of handing even an enemy
over to the tender mercies of such a man as this.

But Clare Gavan had no pity for the girl who had supplanted her in her
aunt's favour and in the love of so rich and handsome a suitor as Lorin
Armstrong; and, although she was annoyed at the stupefied condition in
which she had found the man of her search, she was by no means minded
to put off her interview with him.

Stopping her cab, she sprang out and seized Wallace by the arm.

At first he stared at her stupidly, then, with a laugh and an oath, he
tried to shake her off.

"Mr. Armstrong, don't you know me?" she hissed in his ear. "I am Clare
Cavan, niece to Mrs. Vandeleur. We had a talk yesterday--about your
cousin and that Miss Lina Grahame he is engaged to. Don't you remember?"

"Curse them both!"

He was swaying heavily in his walk, and hardly seemed capable of
understanding her words; but Clare was not inclined to lose a moment.

"Jump into this cab with me!" she urged, holding tight to his arm,
in part to sustain his halting footsteps and in part to impress the
importance of her mission upon him. "People are staring at us. We can't
talk here; and I have something I must tell you."

His spirit-laden breath made her faint and sick with disgust; but spite
was stronger in Clare at that moment than any other feeling, and she
waited quietly while Wallace hurled his massive form into the seat by
her side, and with tipsy hilarity flung his arm about her waist.

"I remember you now," he hiccoughed--"the wicked little red-haired
girl, whom I kissed yesterday afternoon over the tea-table when I went
to the little witch's house to see what Lorin's girl was like! I hate
that girl! I dreamed of her scornful face and disdainful eyes; and
she 'cottons' to my precious cousin, and is down on me just because I
am poor and out of favour. It's the way of the world--the way of the
world----"

"Should you like," broke in Miss Cavan, impatient of his maudlin
prolixity--"should you like an opportunity of punishing this girl for
her insulting conduct towards you, and of paying out your cousin at the
same time for having stolen your place in your uncle's favour?"

"Should I like? Give me the chance!"

"What would you give," Clare asked slowly and distinctly, "to have
that girl in your power, to know that you were her master, and that
she could not escape from you, while Lorin, whose wife she was to have
become, gnashed his teeth and tore his hair with jealousy and rage?"

"What would I give? I think I would give my soul--if any one would take
it!"

"I have come to you to-night," pursued Clare, her eyes glittering like
emeralds under sunlight, "to tell you that this girl, Lina Grahame, is
your lost wife, Laline Garth!"

"Laline! By----! I half guessed it!"

The shock of the news sobered him. For some seconds he sat by her side,
perfectly quiet, staring in front of him and pulling at his heavy
moustache. Then, suddenly turning upon her, he asked, in an altered
tone--

"How did you find all this out? Mind, I know it's true; I don't require
proofs. Jove! How she brazened it out to-day, trying to stare me in the
eyes while I held her hands! She's a confoundedly good actress! But all
you women are good at lying and deceiving. What possessed her, though,
to confide in you?"

"She didn't confide in me. She has no idea that I have discovered her
secret. She doesn't mean that any one shall know. Your half recognising
her must have frightened her, though. She has been talking of breaking
off her engagement to Lorin and of going off somewhere by herself."

"Her engagement to Lorin! My wife's engagement!"

He burst into a coarse laugh of enjoyment--a long laugh, during the
course of which Clare watched him impatiently.

"Well, what do you mean to do?" she asked at length. "Do you mean
to stand quietly by and see your model cousin take not only your
inheritance but actually your wife from under your nose?"

"No, by----, I don't! Laline shall come with me. I'll break her spirit
and tame her pride for her! She always gave promise of being pretty,
but she's a real beauty now! So that's the reason of her black looks
and scornful words--eh? Husband number one had turned up to spoil
sport just as husband number two was fairly hooked. Upon my soul,
the impudence of it beats me! And this slim, Christian-martyr-like
saint, who looks almost too pure for things of this earth, was coolly
planning bigamy all the time, and would have carried it through but for
the chance of your finding her out! Hang the hussy! She has cost me a
pretty penny already. Her father ruined me, when I married her to get
him out of a hole, and she bolted on our wedding-day----"

"On your wedding-day? I thought you had been married a month!"

"How should I know? It all happened years ago. Anyhow, there shan't be
any doubt that she's my wife now."

"I wouldn't claim her to-night if I were you," purred Clare. "I
wouldn't come to the house and make a scene so late. I would wait until
the morning. Lorin is coming in the morning at about twelve, so you
will know when to time your visit. But you must take her by surprise
and appeal to her sense of duty, otherwise I know her quite well enough
to be sure she will give you the slip again. For you know she doesn't
like you."

"I know she hates me," he returned coolly, stopping the cab as he
spoke. "Here we are in the High Street, and I'll stroll back home and
think things over. My head aches a bit. I know Laline hates me, but,
by Jove, she doesn't hate me as you hate her! I could almost find it
in me to be sorry for the poor wretch now that you've got your knife
so deeply into her," he concluded, as Clare bent out over the hansom
and gave him her hand in parting. "You are delighted with this night's
work," he said roughly, "because you think you have handed over a girl
you hate to a drunken brute who will ill-treat her."

"I am glad," she said, with a narrow smile that showed her white teeth,
"to have found for Laline a husband of whom any girl might be proud.
Good-night, Mr. Armstrong."

He could have struck her sneering red lips and forced the lie back into
her throat. He hardly knew which of the two he hated the most at that
moment--himself or her. He stood staring after the hansom for some
seconds after it had driven away, and threw an oath or two after it
before resuming his stumbling walk Strandwards.

"There goes my match," he said to himself.

He was perfectly clear in his thoughts by this time, though still
unsteady on his feet. All through his moral turpitude, his treachery,
ingratitude, and bitter sneers at his betters he never for one moment
deceived himself, as so many better and worse men have done, by
believing himself a fine and noble character labouring under undeserved
persecution.

Right down in his heart he knew that Laline was infinitely too good
for him, and that, if her love was given to Lorin, it was the man and
not his money that she prized. Her treatment of himself he resented
bitterly, but he knew full well that she, of all people, had good
reason for despising him. Years ago he had learned that the true reason
of his bride's flight lay in the fact that she had overheard the
interview between her father and himself immediately after the ceremony
in the registry-office, and had thus been rudely thrust from her fool's
paradise of childish gratitude and affection.

At the time her flight had angered him, as it had rendered the task of
propitiating his uncle and extracting money from him more difficult;
but for the girl herself he had had few regrets that an extra glass of
cognac could not effectually drown. She had been only a pretty ungainly
child then; but now it was very different.

Staggering along the snow-covered streets, he laughed aloud as he
thought of the blow he was about to direct against both his cousin and
Laline.

"Lorin's fond of unselfishness," he reflected, sardonically. "He's
always had a mania for giving up things to me--I wonder how he will
like giving me up my wife? The joke of it is that, whatever I may do,
she must certainly be in the wrong in the eyes of everybody, for the
simple reason that I am her husband--husband to one of the prettiest
women in London, and I didn't know my own luck till half an hour ago.
Lorin will be hard hit; but I'll make him a present of the red-haired
one, and she'll keep his hands full looking after her. My doddering
old uncle will be delighted. He'll bless us and weep over us and set
us up in the Homestead; and, by Jove, I'll invite Lorin to dinner and
bully Laline before him! I knew her eyes in a moment--I remember how
that innocent stare of hers used to make me uncomfortable years ago.
For every scornful word, for every scornful look, I'll pay her back a
hundredfold. While she was Lorin's sweetheart there were leagues before
us, and nothing I could say or do could touch her; but, now that she is
my wife, I think I can punish her, and her hatred will give a wonderful
zest and excitement to our future life together."

It was very necessary, however, that she should not be frightened away
prematurely. Wallace forgot even to drink as he walked on, his brain
becoming clearer at every step. He must have an interview with Laline
on the following morning, and he would not come too early--a very early
visit will start her fears, and she might refuse to see him--but about
midday. Then, with a flush of excitement, he recollected that his
cousin was to call at St. Mary's Crescent at twelve.

"She is certain to see him," he reflected, with a grin; "and when they
are comfortably _tête-à-tête_, and he is well into the swing of his
wooing, urging her to marry him at once, and she coyly deprecating and
kissing--no doubt they will be kissing--I will tip the servant to show
me right into the room where they are. _Tableau!_ It will be the finest
moment of my life!"

Having settled his plans for the morrow with elaborate cunning,
Wallace reeled off to finish the evening among his favourite tavern
acquaintances, to drink a farewell to his bachelor-existence, as he put
it in his own mind, although he knew quite well he should encounter
from Laline a desperate resistance against his wish to take her back
again.

"But my will is stronger than hers," he reflected. "I remember
frightening her once by telling her some stuff I invented about the
lines of her hand. My will should dominate hers, and our fates should
be bound up the one in the other, or some such nonsense. But it had a
bit of truth in it all the same."

Not one word concerning Laline did he breathe to his cousin when they
met at the bank on the following morning. Lorin, as he observed, looked
pale and worried and anxious. At half-past eleven the younger Armstrong
left the building, and Wallace quickly followed him. Lorin hailed a
hansom, his cousin followed in another, which he stopped opposite the
narrow turning into St. Mary's Crescent.

Wallace, from across the road, saw his cousin admitted into Mrs.
Vandeleur's house, whither he was bent on following him. Meantime
he walked up and down on the opposite side of the way, smoking and
watching the narrow opening to the Crescent, the while he revelled in
the joys of vengeful anticipation.

"Just a quarter of an hour, and I will darken your horizons!" he said,
and chuckled to himself.

But very much may happen where emotions are concerned in fifteen
minutes by the clock, and, long before then, Lorin Armstrong had found
himself alone in the presence of Laline.

Mrs. Vandeleur had said so far not one word of last night's discovery
to Laline. She had sent for her at an unusually early hour in the
morning, and had kept her fully employed, on one pretext or another,
until Lorin's arrival. Then, when Susan announced his name, Laline
sprang from her seat and would have left the room, but Mrs. Vandeleur
detained her.

"You must see him!" she exclaimed imperatively, laying her hand on the
girl's arm. "And you must tell him the truth--the whole truth. It is
the only course fair alike to him and to you."

Then, before the girl could speak, the little sibyl had glided from the
room, giving place to Lorin, and the door had closed behind him.

"Lina, my darling--at last!" he had cried, stretching his arms towards
her. But she, with a white, terrified face, had held up her hands to
ward off his caress.

"Don't!" she called out in a strangled voice. "Lorin, we must not love
each other! And I have deceived you, for I am a married woman!"




CHAPTER XXIX.


"You can't know what you are saying," Lorin said, gently, after a
pause. "You forget what has passed between us--you forget that you have
again and again sworn that I am the first man you have ever loved, that
my kisses are the first ever laid on your lips; and now you tell me,
without any warning, that you are another man's wife----"

"No, Lorin--I never said so! It would not be true. Just four years and
a half ago I went through a ceremony at a registry-office. Remember
I was only just sixteen and very unhappy at home, and I had no idea
of the real value of my action. I had only known this man for three
weeks, and had seen hardly anything of him. He was my father's friend,
and--my father is dead, Lorin; but he was not a very good man. The two
arranged the whole thing. It was a bargain, for a certain sum of money
depended upon an immediate marriage; and this sum they agreed to divide
between them. Of all this I knew nothing; but we were very poor and in
debt, and I was very lonely after my dear mother's death, and had to
do rough servant's work. And when this man came and bought me sweets
and pretty things to wear, and took me and all my childish friends out
for treats and excursions, he seemed a sort of fairy prince, and I was
quite proud of the idea of getting married and coming away to England,
where I had been so happy with my mother as a child. But, within an
hour of the marriage, I heard them quarrelling--my father and this man;
and he--my husband--spoke of me already as a drag and a bore to him. I
was to be made to lie and cheat if I did not help him in his schemes to
get money, and to be subjected to ill-treatment if I did not obey him.
And, as I listened to all this, I suddenly changed, and from a child
grew into a woman. Escape was the one and only thought in my mind. By
myself I came away to England, to the house of an old school-fellow of
my mother's, who kept a school at Norwood. I taught there until she
left for Australia to get married; and then I answered Mrs. Vandeleur's
advertisement and became her companion. There--now you know all my
life, and I am not deceiving you any more!"

Her voice broke as she finished speaking, and she sank on a chair by
the window, gazing out, with tear-laden eyes that saw not, upon the
dreary snow-covered square. Every line of her figure looked drooping
and forlorn, and Lorin's heart ached with pity as he beheld her.

"Dear," he whispered, gently, "was it quite fair to wait until now to
tell me all this?"

"You don't understand," she returned, looking at him in a helpless,
frightened manner. "When I first knew you, I thought I would not speak
one word of this until after--after we were married."

"After we were married? Laline, you can't know what you are saying! If
your husband is alive, our marriage would not be legal."

"I can never make you understand," she said, leaning her elbows on a
little table before the window and burying her face in her hands. "I
was dense enough, mad enough, to believe you were my husband! That
is why I loved you so readily--that is why I let my heart go out to
you--that is why I encouraged you to make love to me! Oh, I have been a
fool! But you would try to forgive me, I know, if I could tell you what
I am suffering now."

"You--thought--I--was your husband?" he repeated, slowly, feeling
utterly bewildered. "Laline, what can you mean?"

"It was the same name!" she sobbed, weakly, breaking down altogether.
"And, when you were shown into this room that evening, I had no idea
that there could be another Wallace Armstrong----"

"Good heavens!" he cried. "You cannot mean----It would be too horrible!"

"It is true all the same," she said, raising a white tear-washed face
to his. "I am Laline, your cousin Wallace's wife."

"Am I dreaming?" he asked, staring down at her with dilated eyes. "I
saw his wife's grave--Wallace and her uncle showed it me----"

"It was all an invention," she said, wearily, "to account for my
disappearance. Captain Garth was not my uncle, but my father. I was
married to your cousin not a month, but an hour, when I disappeared.
They altered the date of the certificate. Oh, you can prove that what I
say is true by making inquiries at Boulogne! And now I have confessed;
no more lies stand between us and we can just say 'Good-bye!'"

He stood silent for a few moments, looking at her.

"Why should we say 'Good-bye'?" he asked, in a low, unsteady voice.
"Does Wallace know of this?"

She shook her head.

"No. And until he came last Sunday, and I, thinking it was you, rushed
into his arms, I believed--on my honour I believed, Lorin--that you
were my husband. Oh, I cannot tell you how happy the thought made
me! I used to whisper to myself, 'I am Laline Armstrong and his wife
already.' But I dared not tell you, partly because we were so happy
together that I feared to spoil things, and partly because I had heard
you speak so harshly of that poor Laline. So I waited, and you never
hinted at the existence of a cousin and a namesake; nor did your uncle
either----"

"We were ashamed of him," Lorin said, curtly. "He had not long been out
of prison, and I feared to displease you. But go on."

"There is nothing more to tell," she said, in the same tired way. "When
I found the horrible mistake I had made, I felt as if I should go mad.
For the first glance at your cousin's face and the first sound of his
voice told me that it was he I had known at Boulogne and whom I had
married!"

"And you could believe," he exclaimed, in reproachful astonishment,
"that I could have married you as a child for money, and could have
threatened to ill-treat you if you did not lie and cheat for me?"

"Lorin," she said, suddenly, "when once I knew you it didn't matter
what I remembered against you; for I loved you instantly, and I
forgot--deliberately forgot--all that I thought I knew against you!
At every word you uttered during our first meeting my thoughts grew
gentler about you. When you left the house I watched you, as you know.
I dreamed about you all that night; and from that moment the idea of
you never left my mind. You see," she added, breaking down again, "I
thought I was growing to love my own husband."

"And I remembered you," he said, wonderingly. "I had seen at Boulogne a
portrait of you, with loose hair about your shoulders, as a child. But
are you really sure that Wallace does not recognise you?"

"I half feared he would yesterday. Oh, Lorin, I can't bear even
to talk of him! The very sight of him turns me sick and cold with
dislike! Lorin"--seeing that he stood aloof from her, looking stern and
pale--"you are not going to tell me to go back to him?"

In an instant he was kneeling by the side of her chair with his arms
wrapped about her.

"Go back to him!" he repeated in horror. "Heaven forbid! Lina, you
don't know the man--you can't understand his nature. The very thought
of his claiming you is sacrilege! That marriage of yours is all an ugly
dream which you must forget. It is not as if he wanted you, or as if
he even knew of your existence. I want you, darling! My whole nature
cries out for you! I cannot live another day without you. Listen to me,
my dear one! I don't believe your story--you have no proofs of it. You
have, on the contrary, my cousin's word, Captain Garth's letters, and
the Boulogne certificate against you--and the testimony of my own eyes
too, for I saw Laline's grave. You are not she. You are 'Lina Grahame;'
and by this time to-morrow you shall be 'Lina Armstrong.' All that you
told me was pure fancy. You are weak and hysterical and over-wrought,
and living in the unwholesome, over-strained mental atmosphere of this
ghost-ridden and witchcraft-haunted house has turned your brain a
little. There is only one real and true thing in life, only one thing
worth reckoning with--our love for each other. The rest are shadows and
fancies. Clasp your dear hands round my neck, my queen, my wife, and
forget everything but that I love you and you love me!"

He was holding her passionately to him, raining quick hot kisses upon
her lips and eyes. The fear of losing her worked in him like madness,
and he felt that he must clasp her close and fast against the world.

And she? For a few brief seconds she yielded to the dear delight of his
embrace, and clung to him, still sobbing like a penitent child. But,
even while her lips met his, it seemed as though the spectre of Duty
rose impalpably between them, and she turned her face abruptly away
from his kisses and drooped her cheek upon his shoulder.

"We must part, all the same," she whispered. "Think, Lorin. I am your
cousin's wife--I have sworn to keep faith with him. How could I meet
him and your uncle and all the world and know that I was a cheat and a
fraud?"

"I tell you those are mere fancies!" he exclaimed, almost angrily. "But
you need never meet these people. I have quite sufficient income for us
to live abroad. We should not mind where we went, so long as we were
together--should we, dear?"

"No," she cried, rousing herself by a supreme effort and walking away
from him, with her hands pressed to her eyes--"no, Lorin; I must not
listen, and you must not urge me! You know in your heart that what I
said is true, and you know that we must say 'Good-bye.' To-night I
shall leave London----"

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know yet. I have to begin a new life alone."

"That you shall never do. Your life belongs to me, as mine to you. Even
if all that fancied tale were true, of what value is the promise wrung
by fraud from an ignorant child beside the vow made with all her heart
by a loving woman? You have given me your word, and you cannot take it
back. I will not release you; and wherever you go, Lina, I will follow
you!"

He had sprung after her and caught her in his arms, holding her so
closely that his grasp hurt her. Laline trembled and cried; but, with
all her heart and soul yearning for his caress, she felt powerless to
resist him. So they stood a moment, she with her pale cheek pillowed on
his breast, while, bending his head, he spoke rapidly and passionately
in her ear.

"Does nature count for nothing?" he whispered. "Does it mean nothing
that your whole soul asks for me as mine does for you? Does it mean
nothing that our ears are dull and dead to other voices, and our nerves
unresponsive to other touches, but that when we speak to each other,
when my lips meet yours--like this--a very heaven opens to us both? We
never meant to love each other, darling, but, as soon as we met, love
came! I knew that you must be mine. And, even if your story were true
and not an idle dream, what should stand between us? Our love, our
life's happiness, on the one side; on the other, a childish promise to
a man who does not want you, who does not love you, who is not even
aware of your existence. There is no hesitation possible, Lina. Your
heart, throbbing with love for me, has answered for you."

She reddened and paled by turns as she listened to his words, and a
very intoxication of bliss seemed to rise to her brain as he put the
temptation before her. Yet that it was a temptation she knew; and,
with only the thought of religion and of her dead mother's teaching to
support her, she meant to fight against it. She could not love Lorin
the less for wishing to persuade himself that a lie was truth; but the
consciousness of her power to make him faithless to his ideals, and his
power to make her perjured and foresworn, filled her with something
like terror. Inwardly she called on a Higher Power for aid in her
weakness; and, as they stood together thus, moved by a very whirlwind
of passion, doubt, hope, and despair, neither Laline nor Lorin heard
the door softly open to admit a third actor into the scene.

The new-comer was Wallace Armstrong.

No contrition, but a malicious joy filled his mind as he beheld the
two standing together in lover-like attitude--Lorin with his arm round
Laline's waist, and she with her head on his shoulder. The sight of
their pale, agitated faces amused him hugely. He had already taken
the edge off any finer sensations he might possess by more than
one brandy-and-soda, and for the space of several seconds he stood
watching, with a kind of ogre-like geniality, the endearments of the
pair whom he was about to separate forever.

From the inner room where he stood their figures were clearly revealed
against the window; but they, for their part, had no suspicion of his
presence until Laline broke again away from Lorin.

"Ah, what is the use of talking?" she cried. "I am another man's wife;
no words can alter that, even if he has forgotten me!"

"But he has not forgotten you, Laline!"

Then they both turned and faced him, knowing that the worst had
happened and Wallace had come to claim his own; and, as Lorin gazed
from his cousin's face to that of the woman he loved, a dumb rage
seized him.

He understood Wallace better than any man living, and, although he
invariably took his part and bore with him as no one else had ever
done, in his heart he could not refrain from loathing the man's vices
even while he tried to make allowances for him to others. Grief had
rendered Laline's appearance even more fragile and spiritual than it
was normally; the despair in her soft eyes was like the voiceless agony
of a dying animal. Lorin felt that his self-control would give way if
he looked at her, or if his eyes sought that companion-picture of the
man, brutalised and degraded by drink and dissipation, whom the law had
made her master. Turning abruptly away, he walked to the window and
stood there a few seconds with his back to the other occupants of the
room.

"I am afraid," Wallace observed sardonically, after a short pause,
"that neither of you are particularly glad to see me. I am really sorry
to disturb your charming little matrimonial plans; but, as I happen to
be the lady's husband----"

"Understand," exclaimed Lorin, turning round upon him fiercely--"I will
have no cowardly sneers at the expense of this lady! If she has indeed
the misfortune to be your wife, I pity her with all my heart and soul!"

"Pity is akin to love, they say."

"And I love her and honour her and reverence her, and would give my
life to serve her! Lina, you know that, do you not?"

"Yes," she said, softly--"I know it, Lorin. But we must say 'Good-bye,'
for I am going away!"

"Not without me!" put in Wallace, advancing farther into the room.
"Why, Laline, now that I have found you, do you think I shall let you
give me the slip again? Look at my cousin there and look at me. Which
of us looks as though he wanted a woman's helping, saving hand--he
or I? He has his money-making, his friends, his amusements, his
afternoon-parties and balls, his painting and dabbling in art. But
what have I? I am shunned and despised because I went off the rails
long ago and contracted bad habits which no one has ever cared for me
sufficiently to break me of. If you had stuck by me all these years and
had had a little patience with me, I should not have been the worthless
wreck I have become."

She looked at him doubtfully, a woman's gentle pity struggling with her
instinctive aversion against him.

"I could not have helped you!" she murmured. "And, when I had heard the
truth, I could not stay."

"The truth!" he repeated, in what sounded like accents of genuine
passion. "What do you call the truth? You heard an angry altercation
between two men, neither of them wholly sober and each trying to
provoke the other. I have never been one to wear my heart upon my
sleeve, and, had I told your father I wanted to marry you because I
loved you, and because I believed that you could make another man of
me, he would have been the first to disbelieve me. Remember, though he
was your father it was he who first ruined me, he who first introduced
me to bad company, and taught me cynicism and taught me fraud. Oh, I
was an apt enough pupil, I dare say! It is always easier to learn evil
than good. But, Laline, with all my heart, bad as I may have been, I
pitied you for the hardness of your life at Boulogne, and I meant to
make you happy. In your pure eyes I read my last hope of salvation;
and, though I won you by a trick, I never meant you to regret your
bargain. I meant to reform--I should have reformed, but your desertion
maddened me; and, since you left me, I have gone from bad to worse.
Listen, Laline--I am your husband, but I renounce a husband's right to
your obedience! I want your helping hand to save my life, such as it
is, as a drowning man wants a rope to save him. Will you refuse to hold
it out to me?"

His voice seemed to ring with sincerity and fervour. Laline began
nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. Her eyes sought those of
Lorin; but he, very pale, with features sternly set, stood a little
apart from the other two, as though he knew that his part was played,
and that he could now be only a spectator in their life-drama of life.
Already he guessed how it would end, for he knew that his cousin would
move Laline to pity and remorse, both of which would be causeless and
undeserved.

For Lorin understood that his cousin was but acting the penitent to
gain his own ends, as he had often acted it before and afterwards
mocked at his own performance. In this case the prize for which
he played was no longer the loosening of a credulous old man's
purse-strings, but the life and soul of a woman, the woman Lorin loved.

Yet his tongue was tied. He would not even raise his eyes to her face
lest he should influence her decision. And, as he waited in the silence
that followed Wallace's appeal, Lorin felt himself growing old with
pain.

Had he only known, it was his presence which swayed Laline far more
than that of her husband. Her heart was torn between regrets for lost
opportunities and neglected duties, pity for the man before her, and an
instinctive, intense dislike against him; but, stronger than all these,
there surged up in her heart a flood of passionate love for Lorin, a
love so strong and unreasoning that she herself was terrified by its
force. That she should feel thus now in the very presence of the man
who had a legal right to claim her and whom she had sworn to cherish
seemed to Laline a sting both horrible and sinful. Once she turned to
Lorin appealingly; but his eyes were averted and he steadily avoided
her gaze. The full daylight showed her her husband's face, worn and old
before its time, his stooping form and prematurely silvered hair, and
the look of eager humble longing he knew well how to assume.

Only by one act could she save herself and Lorin too, and it seemed to
Laline that her mother's voice sounded in her ears, telling her of the
duty which lay straight before her.

With a dry sob in her throat she spoke to Wallace.

"I am your wife," she said, "and I will come to you. Now please go--and
leave me quite alone!"




CHAPTER XXX.


Exactly a fortnight later Laline stood for the last time within the
little room in which she had slept during her stay in Mrs. Vandeleur's
house. Within an hour she would have turned her back on St. Mary's
Crescent forever. Now, as she gazed for the last time round the
simply-furnished room, it seemed as though she had lived, not a few
weeks only, but a whole lifetime within the four walls of the old
house in Kensington. Love, joy, and hope, terror, hatred, and dumb
despair, were mere names to her until she became an inmate of Mrs.
Vandeleur's household, and the first three of these she was leaving
behind her as it seemed forever.

She moved mechanically about, putting the finishing touches to her
packing. Clare's help she had declined, for Clare's malevolent
satisfaction at the turn things had taken was more than Laline could
bear. Of Lorin she had seen nothing since that interview which Wallace
had interrupted; but she knew that he had left London. Old Mr. Wallace
had told her that when he had come to visit her, ready and willing to
forgive all Wallace's past lies and deception, and to welcome Wallace's
wife with open arms. He had distracted her with questions, and striven
hard to induce her to alter her determination to leave England with her
husband immediately, but to no purpose.

"I cannot stay in England," she had said; "but, if you can find your
nephew an opening abroad, I will go with him, and will do my best
to make him happy and to help him to lead a new life amid fresh
surroundings."

As to Wallace, he was tired of London, so he declared, and perfectly
willing to leave it. Once away from his uncle's and his cousin's eyes,
he could dispense with all make-believe of working, and settle down
comfortably to spend the liberal allowance which old Alexander would
settle upon the wife of his favourite nephew. In a few years' time, so
the old man stipulated, the young couple must return--if not for good,
at least for a long visit.

"I must have my children about me when I die!" he had pleaded.

And to this Laline had agreed. She would have agreed to anything only
to put the sea between her and the man she loved, but of whom she
would not even let herself think now.

She had sent him back his ring without a word; and now, within a few
hours of leaving London for Liverpool on her way to Canada, a letter
from Lorin had arrived with the postmark "Rome."

She would not open it at first, but held it in her hand as she walked
about the room. She had reached a passive stage of grief, a point at
which all feeling seemed to have left her, and she could look forward
without either interest, curiosity, or even dread to her future
existence.

By a succession of cablegrams Alexander Wallace had secured for his
ne'er-do-weel nephew an opening in Toronto in the office of an old
friend and client. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong were to travel from London
that evening, and sail from Liverpool for New York early on the
following day.

And now, just as Laline had reached the stage of dull, feelingless
acquiescence which usually follows a storm of emotion, the sight of
Lorin's handwriting on the envelope made her heart quiver and ache,
awakening to pain again.

Yet his words, when she could summon up courage to read them, were few
and restrained.

  "I received the ring," he wrote, "and I am sorry you did not care to
  keep it. My uncle writes that you are going to Canada. I hope with
  all my heart that you will be happy there--happy and prosperous.
  You will no doubt be writing sometimes to my uncle, so that I shall
  be able to hear about you. I shall be in Italy some weeks, or I may
  cross to Spain. I do not very much care where I go, but I may have
  to cut my wanderings short for Uncle Alec's sake. He is used to
  me and may be lonely. I shall not be writing again; but you will
  remember--will you not?--that at any time, while we both live, if
  there is anything in the world you wish me to do it shall be done.

 "Wallace Lorin Armstrong."

She read the letter with hot dry eyes. Then she sat down and learned
it by heart--every word. That done, she tore it into little pieces and
burned them one by one in the candle she lit for the purpose. Not one
tear did she shed during the work, and her eyes were still tearless
when she descended to the study to take leave of Mrs. Vandeleur.

To all appearance that lady was far more agitated than she.

"You are really going to him!" she exclaimed, rising hurriedly
and coming over to where Laline stood, white as death, in her
travelling-costume. "To the last I thought you would escape. Lina, you
don't know what it is to live with a wholly uncongenial nature. You and
your husband were born under opposing stars; he is wholly animal, you
are as wholly spiritual. My poor dear child, my heart bleeds for you,
and I feel as though I had brought all this upon you!"

The little lady had indeed bitterly reproached herself for having
permitted her treacherous niece to be present on the occasion when
Laline, under the influence of hypnotism, had confessed her marriage.

"You have always been very kind to me," Laline said, in dull steady
tones. "I ought to have confided in you fully from the first; but it is
useless to speak of that now."

"You seem so strangely resigned," the little lady exclaimed, peering
at her curiously--"almost as though you did not realise what you are
doing! It is a terrible thing to give your whole life into the keeping
of a man you can neither love nor respect; but perhaps your feelings
towards him have changed."

A shiver ran through Laline's frame. For a moment her dry lips refused
to speak. Then at last she answered in unnaturally low level tones--

"Love is not everything! I want to do my duty!"

"It is so difficult to say what is one's duty," the elder woman said.
"We owe duty to ourselves first of all. We may starve our own souls
while fulfilling what we imagine to be our duty towards others. Is your
mind quite made up?"

"Quite!"

"Take this, then, as a parting gift."

With a little key which hung at her watch-chain Mrs. Vandeleur unlocked
a glass-covered table in which she kept some of the more valuable of
her amulets and charms. Drawing out a slender gold chain of Eastern
workmanship, from which a five-pointed star in beaten gold open-work
depended, she flung it round the girl's neck. On the star some words
were inscribed in Oriental letters.

"It is a charm," she whispered--"a charm which will preserve its wearer
against the wickedness of evil minds. Wear it for my sake. Good-bye, my
poor child! Remember, if you find the life impossible, you have always
a home with me."

"Good-bye," Laline said, with a pale smile--"and thank you! But I shall
not come back."

Her mind was resolutely fixed upon the line in life which she must
follow, nor would she allow any room in it for regrets over the past
or dread of the future. She had seen a good deal of Wallace during the
past few days when he had called at St. Mary's Crescent. By Laline's
request Mrs. Vandeleur had generally been present on these interviews,
and Wallace had always been on his best behaviour, assiduously acting
the part of a man of good and kindly impulse, whom weakness and neglect
had caused to deviate from the straight path.

Yet, school himself though he might, here and there a look, a chance
phrase, betrayed his real nature--selfish, cynical, and callous--and
struck a chill fear into Laline's heart. That good existed in him
she could not doubt, nor did he lack appreciation of goodness in
others. And in yet another fact there lay hope for his future--he was
unmistakably in love with his wife. Possibly his love, strong as it
was, was of its nature ephemeral, too fitful and violent to last; but
it was none the less certain that Wallace loved Laline, after his own
fashion, with a jealous and exacting passion, stronger than he had ever
yet felt for any woman.

Yet his love was very far from bringing happiness along with it. So far
in life he had accustomed himself to despising the entire female sex,
and the conviction that this woman, who was by law his property, was
immeasurably above him, that only her religion and duty constrained her
to tolerate him, that he might kill her pride and break her spirit, but
that never could he hope to win the love she had so freely lavished
upon his cousin, irritated him at times almost to madness.

He was her husband; she would follow him through the world, link
her life to his broken fortunes, bear with his furious temper, his
drunkenness, and his brutality, be proudly silent under his ill-usage,
and remain throughout her whole existence faithful to him in word and
deed, and yet he knew already that of her mind and heart he would never
be master, that she would be kind to him, pitiful, and patient, but
that her love he might not hope to gain.

Sometimes, after leaving Mrs. Vandeleur's little oak-panelled
sitting-room, in the scented air and amid the weird accessories of
which he felt strangely out of place, he would give way to a furious
access of rage against his wife as he recalled her image, sitting there
in her low chair by the fire facing Mrs. Vandeleur, and looking at him
with those soft, searching dark eyes of hers. She was always kind to
him; she listened to him with a great effort to appear interested in
the unfolding of his plans for their future; but it was very difficult
to lie to her, and sometimes an impotent rage against her kept him
silent, lest he should break into curses against her cold quiet purity
and aloofness from such a man as he.

His nerves were broken by the life he had led, and now and then he
absolutely dreaded lest the mingled love and hate with which she
inspired him might move him to strike the light out of that beautiful
pale face of hers. Through all her gentleness he fancied he could read
her dislike of him and the strain his presence inflicted upon her, and
the thought stung his pride and self-love intolerably.

Thus the time had passed with him until the very day fixed for their
departure from London. It had been arranged that Laline should call in
a cab at her husband's rooms, and that they should proceed together
to the station to catch the train for Liverpool. The arrangement was
Laline's. She especially wished that Wallace should not come for her
to St. Mary's Crescent. Between him and Clare there appeared always
to be a kind of secret understanding, which puzzled and distressed
Laline, who had no suspicion of the part Clare had played in the recent
events of her life. Unpunctuality was one of Wallace's distinguishing
characteristics, and, to guard against this, it had been arranged that
Mrs. Wallace Armstrong should call with her luggage on the cab at nine
o'clock, as the train for Liverpool left Euston Station at ten.

On the stroke of nine, therefore, a four-wheeled cab drew up at the
door of Wallace's rooms in the dreary side street off the Strand. The
elderly landlady opened the door so promptly that it was plain she had
been on the watch, and her manner to Laline was very different from
what it had been towards Clare Cavan on the occasion of that young
lady's flying visit a fortnight before.

"Mr. Armstrong's things are all packed, ma'am, according to his orders.
But Mr. Armstrong is not in just now. I expect him every minute. He
went out about ten this morning and hasn't yet returned. But he expects
you, ma'am. Please step inside and let me give you a cup of tea."

As she spoke she opened the door of a sitting-room on the ground-floor,
a room furnished in the depressing fashion peculiar to London lodgings.
Something in the untidy and neglected air of it, in the odour of stale
spirits and tobacco, and the quantity of newspapers strewn around, took
Laline's thoughts back instantly to the old Boulogne life with her
father. There was plenty of time yet, and her head throbbed with a dull
incessant pain. She therefore accepted the landlady's offer of tea and
sat down in a shiny black horsehair arm-chair, with her eyes fixed on
the clock, to wait for her husband.

The minutes ticked by. Tea was brought in. Laline drank it and
dismissed the sympathetic but inquisitive landlady, who opined that
"gentlemen do get detained like when they meet a friend in the
Strand--especially gentlemen that are going abroad. It's 'Good luck
to you!' and a glass here and a glass there, until many a gentleman
doesn't rightly know the time of day or whether he's on his head or his
heels."

Still the minutes ticked by. The half-hour struck, the quarter, and
finally the hour. The train which was to take them on the first stage
of their journey towards that new life in the West had left the station
by this time, Laline knew. Motionless she sat, watching the hands of
the clock, while the cab waited outside with her luggage, until the
full pain and humiliation of her position suddenly burst upon her with
overwhelming force.

Wallace was spending the day drinking, and had probably forgotten all
about the appointment. The landlady outside, peeping curiously at her
every now and then through the chink in the folding-doors leading to
the adjoining room, knew it, and pitied her. She could not go back
to Mrs. Vandeleur's--she had burned her ships. By this time every
one believed that she and her husband had left London. This was the
beginning of the ordeal she must go through, and, coming after a long
period of intense strain and suffering, it seemed more than Laline
could bear.

Suddenly slipping on her knees before the chair on which she had been
sitting, she stretched up her arms in a despairing prayer to Heaven.

"Help me! Help me! I cannot bear it! My heart will break!"

She did not hear the folding-doors open; she did not see the shambling
figure standing in the aperture with haggard eyes fixed upon her. She
never guessed that Wallace had come home after a day spent in wild
excess, and that, hearing of her presence, he had crept first into the
bedroom and endeavoured, by plunging his head in cold water, to make
himself presentable to his wife. He had forgotten the time fixed for
the train, but he retained an uneasy sense of a last chance lost.
The cold water partly sobered him, but right through his dull blurred
senses Laline's heart-breaking cry pierced to his very soul.

He had spoiled his own life, and no new one was possible. He knew in
his secret heart that he should go on in the old way again and drag her
life down in the misery of his. She had come to him to save him, and
already her heart was breaking. Lorin, too, who had been his friend
through everything, was breaking his heart away from his home and his
love. He turned back into the room and looked at himself in a strip of
glass affixed to the wardrobe. Gray-haired, pallid, with shaking hands
and bloodshot eyes, was he worth the sacrifice this girl was making for
him?

Every nerve in his body thundered "No!" And, moved by the first
unselfish impulse of his life, he crept out into the darkness and
slippery rain of the thaw outside.

"'Found drowned,' that's what they'll call it. And she need never know."

So his horrid stumbling footsteps led him down to the embankment, and
the turbid waters closed that night over one more wasted life.

       *       *       *       *       *

One year later Laline Armstrong, a widow but never a wife, was married
very quietly to Lorin in the presence of his uncle and Mrs. Vandeleur.
Clare Cavan was not present. She had not indeed been invited, but was
consoled about that time by an offer of marriage from an elderly and
wealthy stock-broker, which she at once accepted. Rumour has it that it
has proved a miserable union, and that Clare's husband's jealousy is
beyond parallel. But, at least, her toilettes are much admired.

As to Lorin and Laline, we may leave them with a quiet mind, sure that
for them--

 "Life will just hold out the proving both their powers, alone and blended;
 And then, come next life quickly! This world's use will have been ended."


THE END.











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