“Nevertheless, you must have done so in this instance,” resumed General Grant; “but the mistake is easily to be accounted for. Lord Bellefield tells me that in order more safely to carry on his schemes, this rascally valet used to disguise himself so as to resemble his master as much as possible, even wearing false moustachios to increase the likeness; the fact of his having deceived you proves how successfully the fellow had contrived his disguise.”
While the General was speaking, Lewis hastily ran over in his mind all the evidence he possessed to prove Lord Bellefield’s guilt; and though he still felt as deeply convinced as he had ever been that in his first impression he had not erred, yet so skilfully had this story of the valet been adapted to suit the circumstances of the case that it appeared impossible to undeceive a man whose habits of mind were so obstinate as those of General Grant. His first introduction to the girl after the glove affair in the ice-room, although it carried conviction to his own mind, proved nothing, save that having witnessed a quarrel between two gentlemen, she was naturally enough alarmed as to the probable consequences to which it might lead. Again, in his second interview she might have been herself deceived by the valet’s representations into believing him to be Lord Bellefield, or, as she said, Mr. Leicester, his brother; or again, it was still more probable that she had been in her lover’s confidence, and striving to mystify and deceive Lewis. Hardy might have been aware of other facts, but his mistake in regard to Lewis proved that his information was not to be relied on. All this Lewis saw at a glance; and seeing, felt more annoyed and embarrassed than he could express.
“Time will prove the truth,” he said; “I cannot believe in Lord Bellefield’s innocence, but I am unable, at the present moment, to adduce any facts which might not bear the interpretation he has chosen to put upon them, and can only express my sorrow at having annoyed you, sir, by making a charge which I have failed to substantiate.”
“You annoy me more, Mr. Arundel, by refusing to be convinced by evidence which, after having given the matter my fullest attention, has sufficed to satisfy me. I can only imagine that in this matter private pique has warped your usually clear judgment; perhaps, after a little cool reflection, you may be induced to take a more charitable view of the affair.” So saying, the General stalked out of the room with a majestic port, as of an offended lion, leaving Lewis in a frame of mind the reverse of seraphic. But his trials for that morning were not yet at an end. Annie Grant had brooded over the young tutor’s gloomy looks and altered demeanour till she had made herself quite unhappy, when the idea occurred to her that she herself might be to blame. Since the last German lesson, to which allusion has been made, she had felt an instinctive dread of sounding the depth of her own feelings, or of allowing any one else, and much more Lewis, to perceive them. But it now struck her that in avoiding one extreme she had fallen into the other, and that Lewis might conceive the alteration in her manner to be owing to Lord Bellefield’s influence. This notion having once struck her, was so inconceivably painful that she determined to avail herself of the first opportunity of inquiring to what cause Lewis’s estrangement might be attributed; and if she found it had been produced by any supposed coolness on her part, she resolved to explain away such impression, and as she herself would have termed it, “make friends” again. Pondering these thoughts, she entered the library by a door communicating with the garden; in her hand she carried a bunch of roses, which she had just gathered, and hanging from her arm was her garden bonnet, which she had converted for the occasion into an extempore basket, also filled with roses; her golden ringlets, scared from their propriety by the wind, hung in picturesque disorder about her face and neck; the alarm she had lately undergone had rendered her somewhat paler than ordinary, and her delicate features were characterised by an unusually pensive expression. She entered so quietly, that Lewis, who, buried in thought, was seated at the table, his head resting on his hands, did not perceive her presence until, in a soft, low voice, she uttered his name. At the moment she spoke he was thinking of her—striving in vain to banish her image, which haunted his imagination like some restless ghost—trying to think down the temptation which was hourly becoming too strong for him; and when the sound of her voice reached him, and looking up with a start he saw her standing by him in the power of her dazzling beauty, it seemed as though the phantom of his imagination had suddenly assumed a bodily shape to tempt him beyond all power of resistance. Something of all this must have appeared in the expression of his features, for Annie began, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Arundel, I had no idea of startling you; I fancied you had heard me enter—but you look pale and tremble, surely you are not ill?”
“Oh, no!” he replied, forcing a smile, “it is nothing; a slight giddiness which will pass away in a moment.”
As he spoke, however, he pressed his hand to his brow, which throbbed as though it would burst. Annie became alarmed, and placing her flowers on the table, she drew nearer to him, saying—
“I am sure there is something the matter; you are either ill or unhappy; you have received some bad news of your mother, or dear Rose, is it not so?”
“Indeed you are mistaken,” returned Lewis, making an effort to rouse himself; “I was buried in thought, and your sudden entrance startled me. I am not usually given to such freaks, but since our nocturnal adventure I must confess to having become practically convinced of the existence of nerves. I must have lost more blood from this cut in the wrist than I was at first aware of.”
“Ah! that dreadful night!” exclaimed Annie, clasping her hands and turning pale at the recollection; “I shall never forget all I went through on that night if I live to be a hundred. I had been asleep for an hour or more, when I suddenly woke and saw Lisette standing by my bedside pale and trembling; as soon as she could find voice to speak she told me there were robbers in the house, and that we should all be murdered. My first idea was that you would be able to save us, and I told her to go and arouse you instantly; I soon found, however, she was too much alarmed to go alone, so I rose and accompanied her. The rest you know; but you can never know the agony of mind I suffered after you had left me: first, the dreadful interval of suspense before the robbers came upstairs, and then the fearful sounds of the conflict. I felt sure they would kill you, and I thought how wickedly selfish I had been to allow you to stay there and meet them, when, but for me, you might have escaped. I felt as if I had condemned you to death, and that I could never—never be happy again. Oh! it was too horrible!” and carried away by the recollections she had called up, Annie sank into a chair and covered her eyes with her hands, as if to shut out some painful object.
And Lewis, what had been his feelings, as, hurried on by the interest of her subject, Annie had thus unconsciously afforded him a glimpse into the inmost recesses of her heart? When she mentioned that her impulse on the first alarm of danger had been to rely on his protection, his dark eyes beamed with an inexpressible tenderness; but as she proceeded, and her artless confession proved that in the moment of peril her fears were not for herself but for him, his emotions became uncontrollable, and the volcano of passion, whose secret fires had already begun to prey upon his very life-springs, threatened to burst forth and bear down all before it. Already he had half risen from his seat; in another moment his arm would have encircled her, and the words that told of his deep, his overpowering love—the words that, once said, could never have been recalled, would have been poured forth, when, by one of those dispensations of Providence which men call Chance, his eye fell upon two persons who were pacing, arm-in-arm, along a terrace walk on the farthest side of the lawn—they were General Grant and Lord Bellefield. The revulsion of feeling was instantaneous; duty, honour, pride, all came to the rescue, and the fight was won, but the cost remained yet to reckon. Lewis, once excited, was not a person to take half-measures; with the speed of thought, the resolution rushed upon him that while their mutual relations remained unchanged, he and Annie must never meet again. The purpose was no sooner formed than it was acted upon. Turning to his companion, who, engrossed by her own feelings, had remained wholly unconscious of the struggle that had been proceeding in Lewis’s breast, he said in a calm, mournful voice, “Although I have not exactly received evil tidings, yet circumstances have occurred which require my presence elsewhere, and I am now about to ask your father’s permission to leave Broadhurst; this will, therefore, probably be the last time I shall see you.”