Mr. Lyttleton, to whom he freely confided his trouble, sympathized deeply with him, and tried to induce him to take a rest—to go to Paris, or even to Rome, for a change. But Gerald only shuddered at this proposal.
“Oh, I do not want to rest. I do not want a chance to think. I shall lose my mind if I am left to myself!” he responded in a tone of despair that keenly smote the kind heart of his friend. “Give me work—piles of work,” he added nervously; “I do not care how hard you crowd me, if it will serve to occupy my thoughts and keep me from dwelling upon that railway horror and upon that knave who, I firmly believe, drove my darling to her death.”
So Mr. Lyttleton made work for him, realizing his need of employment, but the white, drawn face of the bereaved lover haunted him continually, until he began to feel as if he also had been personally afflicted.
Had it not been for the deep and absorbing interest which, previous to this, Gerald had begun to take in the wonderful case upon which his employer was engaged, it is doubtful if he would have been able to bear up during these first dark days of his crushing trouble.
Mr. Lyttleton’s sister had, when very young, married an Englishman, and under very peculiar circumstances.
The home of the lawyer, during his youth, had been in a small town in Illinois; and, educational advantages being at that time very meager in their vicinity, Mabel Lyttleton had been sent East to pursue her studies, at a noted seminary in one of the suburbs of Boston.
While there she had become acquainted with Charles Bromley, an Englishman, who was making a tour of this country, and just at that time visiting some relatives who resided in the vicinity of the above-mentioned seminary.
The young man proceeded at once, upon their introduction, to fall violently in love with pretty Miss Lyttleton. His affection was most fervently reciprocated, and ere long both grew to feel that life apart from the other would be unendurable.
Mr. Bromley intended to remain in the United States some six months longer, but, just on the eve of the holiday recess of the seminary, he was suddenly recalled to England by the peremptory order of his father.
He was somewhat puzzled by this command, but, while discussing it with his betrothed, and arranging to return to her by the time her school-days were over, it suddenly struck him that it might have some connection with an old project of his father to consummate a union with a distant cousin, whose rent-roll amounted to some thousands of pounds per annum.