How the quarrel might have ended even then, I cannot tell, had not the master of the house, Mr. Herschel, tried to throw oil on the troubled waters. But the bitterness was left—a bitterness which Leslie Travers felt was hatred; and yet, if his mother's Bible told true, hatred was a seed which might grow into an awful upas-tree, shadowing life with its deadly presence. With that strangely mysterious power, which words from the great code of Christian morals are sometimes forced, as it were, to be heard within, Leslie heard: "He that hateth his brother is a murderer, and we know that no murderer hath eternal life!"
Again and again, as Sir Maxwell Danby's figure rose before him, and his narrow though finely-chiselled face seemed to mock him with its scornful smile, so did the words echo in his secret heart: "He that hateth his brother is a murderer, and we know that no murderer hath eternal life!"
Late into the night the strains of Leslie's violoncello rose and fell. The largo of Haydn seemed to soothe him into calm, calling up before him the beautiful face of Griselda Mainwaring, as with rapt, impassioned gaze she had drank in the music of Caroline Herschel's voice, as she sang, "Come unto Me ... and I will give you rest."
"I love her! I adore her! I will win her if I serve for her as Jacob served for Rachel! My queen of beauty! Griselda! Griselda!"
CHAPTER VI.
GRAVE AND GAY.
"The quality" of Bath and of other towns and cities in England, a hundred years ago, knew nothing—and, except in rare and isolated instances, cared less—of those who were reduced to the lowest depths of poverty, and whose struggle for daily bread was often in vain.
It was in a low, unhealthy quarter of Bath—that queen of the West—that the child, who had begged for money at Mr. Herschel's door the evening before, was seated in an attic-chamber, with a heap of finery before her. Her little slender fingers were busy mending rents in gaudy gowns, sewing beads on high collars, and curling feathers with a large bodkin.
Stretched on a bed in the corner of the room lay a man, whose pale face, sunken eyes, and parched white lips, told of suffering and want. A sigh, which was almost a groan, broke from the man, and the child got up and left her work for a minute that she might wet a rag in vinegar and water and lay it on her father's forehead.