Mrs. Grahame approved of the suggestion, and, within a couple of hours, one, a tall matronly female, was duly installed empress of Helen’s sick chamber.
She had a struggle, at first, to wrest the empire from Evangeline, but she was so forcible in her reasoning, and so kind and gentle in her manner, that Eva yielded up the sway, on the understanding that she should spend the greater portion of her time at her sister’s bedside.
And now the house assumed an aspect of quiet. The Duke of St. Allborne had just begun to find favourable qualities in Margaret, not visible to the eyes of others, but bright in his, for her homage to him had been so direct that he could but notice and approve it. Direct flattery rarely disgusts the weak-minded; it charmed the Duke, and he purred as he received it. He would have become more marked in his attentions to the artful girl, but Helen’s sudden illness brought his and Lester Vane’s visit to an abrupt close.
They quitted, with expressions of complimentary condolence, and promised, at a future time, to repeat their visit. Both intended to keep their word.
Lester Vane had no thought of yielding up his designs on Helen. He neither forgot nor forgave. He had correctly read her intention to make a prize of his heart, and then to toss it away as a worthless gain. He overlooked the provocation he gave her for entertaining such a scheme, unjustifiable as it was, and he resolved to punish her. There was a blow to wipe out, and he thought he knew how to exact ample vengeance in atonement of it.
So he determined to return again to the house when Helen had recovered.
The anticipated visit of old Wilton and his daughter Flora to the house of Mr. Grahame was not paid, the reason assigned was, that Wilton, with his daughter, had gone into the country—rather unexpectedly—to take possession of the estate of which he had been so long deprived.
The pressing claims upon Mr. Grahame were all satisfied, a large sum had been placed to his credit at his bankers, and proceedings were going on to carry into effect Nathan Gomer’s scheme.
Mr. Grahame was, upon the whole, though rather mystified and vexed by a lurking uneasiness, glad that the deed, bearing the signature of Eustace Wilton, which the latter had never written, had so strangely disappeared; and he was also rather pleased, though perplexed, to find Mr. Chewkle had never returned to him, after his departure with the professed object of enlisting the services of two arrant scoundrels in the atrocious business of false swearing. He, therefore, set out on a business visit to an estate he possessed in Scotland, with a much easier frame of mind, and a more decided disposition to enact the part of a haughty feudal lord, than he had done on the visits immediately preceding the present.
Mrs. Grahame and Margaret were incessantly engaged in fulfilling with propriety what they deemed the duties of the station they held. They were in their carriage one-half the day, and one-half the night at the opera, at soirées, and routs.