Ambrose Murray had his little portmanteau packed ready for the journey to Wales several days before the other preparations could possibly be completed. Miss Bellamy had never seen him so elated before. He went about the house singing to himself in an under-tone, or whistling snatches of old tunes that had been popular when he was a boy. That cloud of quiet melancholy, which would sometimes oppress him for days together, without a break in its dulness, had all but vanished, leaving but a shadow of its former self behind. Miss Bellamy had asked him several times to go and have his portrait taken, but up to the present he had always declined to do so. One fine day, however, after the journey to Wales had been decided on, he astonished her by telling her that if she would go and be photographed he would follow her example.
"First of all, Maria, you shall be photographed by yourself," he said, "and then I'll be photographed by myself; and after that, what do you say to our being photographed together, eh? Such old friends as you and I are ought to be photographed together. But, above all things, Maria, don't forget to be taken with your locket."
This latter remark was a sly hit at the large, old-fashioned locket which Miss Bellamy wore round her neck on high days and holidays--at such times, in fact, as she wore her silver grey dress and her company cap, but at no other. Ambrose Murray could remember Miss Bellamy wearing this locket when she was a girl of nineteen, and she wore it still. He often joked her about it, and would offer to wager anything that if she would only let him have a peep inside it he should find there the portrait of a certain handsome cornet of dragoons, with whom, according to his account, she had at one time a desperate flirtation. But he never had seen inside the locket, and Miss Bellamy was quite sure that he never would do so with her consent; for within that old-fashioned piece of jewellery was shut up the cherished secret of Miss Bellamy's life. Ambrose Murray's laughing assertion that in it was hidden the portrait of a man was so far true, but the likeness was not that of any young cornet of dragoons, but that of Ambrose Murray himself--of Ambrose Murray at two-and-twenty, with brown hair, and laughing eyes, and no care in the world beyond that of making up his mind which one out of a bevy of pretty girls he was most in love with. He fell in love, not with Miss Bellamy, but with her friend, and Miss Bellamy's secret remained buried for ever in her own heart. With the portrait were shut up two locks of hair: one lock was of a light golden brown colour, the other was white.
"There is room for another portrait," said Miss Bellamy to herself, with a sigh, when Ambrose Murray proposed going to the photographer's, "and then it will be full." She had left orders in her will that the locket should be buried with her. How her heart fluttered, how the unwonted colour rushed to her face, when Ambrose proposed that they should be photographed together! Years had no power to weaken or alter her love, but she would have died rather than let Murray suspect for a moment the existence of any such feeling on her part. He knew it not, but it was a fact that, with the exception of a few trifling legacies, all her little property was bequeathed to him, or, in event of his prior demise, to Eleanor. In her secret heart she could not help dreading a little the coming of that time when father and daughter should learn to know and love each other. She must then, of necessity, fall into the background; she must then, of necessity, sink into little more than a mere cypher in the sum of Ambrose Murray's existence. Had Eleanor been a daughter of her own she could hardly have loved her better, and she told herself, times without number, that to see the girl and her father happy in each other's love ought to be sufficient reward for any one who thought of others more than herself. And ought she not to study the happiness of these two, both of whom were so dear to her, rather than her own selfish feelings?
However sharp the pang might be, whatever the cost to herself might be, she would so study it--she would do her best to bring them together.
That time when Ambrose Murray was, as it were, living under the same roof with her, was a very happy time for Miss Bellamy. Murray himself did not seem to know, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that he never thought how greatly he was indebted to her. Beyond a flying visit now and then from Gerald, he had no society save that of Miss Bellamy, and of the children of the two houses in which he and she had apartments. He almost invariably took tea and supper with Miss Bellamy, and spent his evenings with her, and made, besides, almost as free a use of her sitting-room as of his own. He looked upon her, in fact, as he would have looked upon a sister to whom he was much attached, and that she regarded him in the light of a brother he was fully convinced.
An agreement had long ago been come to between Gerald and Miss Bellamy by which it was arranged that Ambrose Murray should be relieved from all pecuniary cares and liabilities. No one ever presented him with a bill for the rent of his apartments. The servant would ask him what he would have for breakfast or dinner, and whatever he might order was there for him ready to the minute, but no butcher or baker ever vexed his soul with unpaid accounts. Now and then he would find a sovereign in some odd place or other--in his razor-case, inside one of his gloves, or in the folds of his Sunday cravat. He would pick up the coin, look at it curiously for a moment or two, wondering how he could possibly have been so absent-minded as to leave money there, and then put it quietly into his pocket and think no more about it.
A brief telegram from Byrne reached Ambrose Murray one afternoon:--
"Preparations completed. Shall be ready to start from Euston Square at nine o'clock on Saturday morning. Shall expect to find you on platform, unless I hear from you in course of to-day."
He was so fluttered by the receipt of this telegram that he could not eat any dinner. He at once sat down and wrote a note to Gerald, enclosing the telegram, and begging of him, if he could possibly do so, to join him in Wales early in the ensuing week. Then he said to himself, "I must write to Mary before I go. I feel sure that she is expecting a letter from me. But first the boat must be finished."