CHAPTER V.

Is this the man I loved, to whom I gave
The deep devotion of my early youth?—S.M.

Algernon Hurdlestone in his forty-second, and Algernon Hurdlestone in his twenty-fourth year, were very different men. In mind, person, and manners, the greatest dissimilarity existed between them. The tall graceful figure for which he had once been so much admired, a life of indolence, and the pleasures of the table, had rendered far too corpulent for manly beauty. His features were still good, and there was an air of fashion about him which bespoke the man of the world and the gentleman; but he was no longer handsome or interesting. An expression of careless good-humor, in spite of the deep mourning he wore for the recent death of his wife, pervaded his countenance; and he seemed determined to repay Fortune for the many ill turns he had received from her in his youth, by enjoying, to their full extent, the good things that she had latterly showered upon him.

He had been a kind manageable husband to a woman whom he had married more for convenience than affection; and was a fatally indulgent father to the only son, the sole survivor of a large family that he had consigned to the tomb during the engaging period of infancy. Godfrey, a beautiful little boy of two years old, was his youngest and his best beloved, on whom he lavished the concentrated affections of his warm and generous heart.

Since his marriage with the rich and beautiful Miss Maitland, he had scarcely given Elinor Wildegrave a second thought. He had loved her passionately, as the portionless orphan of the unfortunate Captain Wildegrave; but he could not regard with affection or esteem the wife of the rich Mark Hurdlestone—the man from whom he had received so many injuries. How she could have condescended to share his splendid misery, was a question which filled his mind with too many painful and disgusting images to answer. When he received his brother's hasty message, entreating him to come and make up their old quarrel before he died, he obeyed the extraordinary summons with his usual kindness of heart, without reflecting on the pain that such a meeting might occasion, when he beheld again the object of his early affections as the wife of his unnatural brother.

When he crossed the well-known threshold, and his shadow once more darkened his father's hall, those feelings which had been deadened by his long intercourse with the world resumed their old sway, and he paused, and looked around the dilipidated mansion with eyes dimmed with regretful tears.

"And it was to become the mistress of such a home as this, that Elinor Wildegrave—my beautiful Elinor—sold herself to such a man as Mark Hurdlestone, and forgot her love—her plighted troth to me!"

So thought Algernon Hurdlestone, as he followed the parish girl up the broad uncarpeted oak stairs to his brother's apartment, shocked and astonished at the indications of misery and decay which on every side met his gaze. He had heard much of Mark's penurious habits, but he had deemed the reports exaggerated or incorrect; he was now fully convinced that they were but too true. Surprised that Mrs. Hurdlestone did not appear to receive him, he inquired of Ruth, "if her mistress were at home?"

"At home!—why, yes, sir; it's more than her life's worth to leave home. She durst not go to church without master's leave."

"And is she well?"