All these groundless suspicions wore on his really noble nature, every thing giving way before them; even the sacred hope which once had been so dear to him, the re-establishing his mother's fame, became a blank. He cared for nothing, except to watch and verify his doubts; he became weary, feverish, ill, and an enigma to all! almost too—oh, worse than all—a terror to poor Minnie, who was lost in wonder and perplexity. If she quitted the room for a longer time than was pleasing to him, he stole from his easel, and listened; if he saw her writing, he could not rest till the letter was placed in his hands, even the book on which she had written it was examined, to trace whether the blotting-paper had kept the words confided to it; and, when all had been done with feverish haste, the man sat down, and hated himself for his meanness, and seeking out Minnie, drew her to his heart, as if he would keep her ever there, and almost wept over her in penitence and love; for never a man loved more madly or fatally for the peace of both.
He would start from some mad dream of desertion, and, stilling his very heart to listen, find her sleeping purely and calmly as an infant beside him. Such a state could not last; Minnie, every one noticed it, but few—or better said, none—guessed the cause, so well did he veil his thoughts.
We have spoken little of Minnie's late home, but there was little to interest the reader in that tranquil abode,—tranquil, except when Dorcas sought to recall Minnie there, and to their hearts; this might have been accomplished long before the present time of which we write, had there not been extraneous influence to keep alive the feeling against her. Marmaduke Burton was not only a visiter, but a constant correspondent, when absent, of Juvenal's; nothing was left undone which could widen the breach, and it was with the "deepest regret," he said, that he felt compelled, by a sacred duty, to inform Juvenal, as her uncle, that the once pure Minnie was deceiving her husband, as she had all of them.
Alas! the girl who flies her home, leaves an unanswerable argument against her, when the world afterwards adds sin, shame, or a levity to her charge; however innocent she may be, the "once" is a precedent for all.
Dorcas, and even poor Mrs. Gillett, loudly exclaimed against this; the former refused positively to meet or sit in company with Burton; Sylvia shook her head, and looked more sinister than ever, as she said, "It might very likely be; she never expected any thing better from her marriage with such a man; she had indeed raised a barrier between them," and chapters more to the same effect. Poor Dorcas cried bitterly, and reproached herself for her supineness in the first instant, in not vigorously opposing Minnie's incarceration. She knew the girl better than any, and knew nothing would have tempted her honest nature to duplicity, had she not been driven half frantic by wrong accusations, and suspicion of her truth. In her trouble, Dorcas sought her only comforter, Mr. Skaife, and urged him so anxiously to see her beloved niece, that he quitted Yorkshire for town; before he arrived, sorrow was gathering fast over both those he felt so much interested about.
Our readers will recall to mind, that Mary Burns had obtained teaching, by which she principally supported her mother; for she felt a delicacy in receiving succour from Tremenhere, however generously offered. Of late he seldom quitted home, never except when absolutely forced to do so, and generally he so arranged it, to be driven in by Lord Randolph; thus only could he feel secure. One thing we forgot to mention sooner, that nothing was wanting to urge a jealous man to madness; he was in the constant habit of receiving anonymous letters, those vile arms of coward strength; these were written, so bearing upon acts of actual occurrence, that, though he read and flung them into the fire, still they left an unerring shaft behind, piercing his heart with doubt, for in every one there was but the one name registered, which was eating into his soul—Lord Randolph's. He was truly a man fighting with shadows; he feared every thing, seeing nothing. It was a state of irritability which could not last much longer. He was borne to earth with the tortures of his mind; and Minnie crept, like the ghost of herself, through those almost silent rooms—once all light and happiness.
It must not be supposed that Marmaduke Burton, who was working under-ground like some vermin, did it for mere revenge, or wanton wickedness; no, he was impelled to it by fear; he knew in his heart that Miles had right on his side, and he saw that might, too, would probably become his. Environed as he was by powerful friends, whom he was daily gaining by his talents as an artist, he felt his only security lay in driving Tremenhere to some act of desperation, which would make him fly the country, either in despair or to conceal Minnie from all. He had known his cousin's disposition from boyhood; he knew every turn of his hasty, but noble heart; and all the harsher feelings of it had been drawn forth, as stains by fire, in the wrongs of his mother and his own Minnie. There are so many vile ones on earth, who know no law where money is proffered in exchange for evil, that Burton found ready tools to watch all—report all; even the household hearth was not sacred from this pollution.
Some weeks had passed; Minnie had not seen Mary Burns for a considerable time, when, one day, a note reached her from her, brought by a messenger who said it required immediate attention. Tremenhere had left home about half an hour, on business which would occupy him nearly the whole day. His manner had been feverish and excited all the morning, and Minnie would not have wondered had she read the contents of another of those vile missives which he had received an hour before leaving. After reading it, by an involuntary movement of disgust, he pushed her from him, as she stooped her head over him while he sat motionless at his easel, the uplifted brush awaiting the command of genius to call life on the lifeless canvass; but his thoughts were more of death, than any existing, glowing creation.
"Miles, dearest," and she bent down to embrace him, and her always slight figure, looked now like a lithe graceful withey, so fragile its outline; "what are you thinking of?"
He pushed her from him, and then, as the girl stood, pale and alarmed at his violence, his haggard eye forgot its troubled glance, to soften into tenderness, as he drew her passionately to his heart. And the trembling voice said—