The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

THE RAKE'S PROGRESS

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.

At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

CONTENTS

PART I

PART II

PART III

THE RAKE'S PROGRESS

PART I

CHAPTER I

MISS SUSANNAH CHRESSHAM OBSERVES

"You ask me about Rose—what can I say? Alas, that my talents should not be equal to your curiosity! My letters at best are feeble productions, and when I have a deliberate request to answer I swear my pen refuses its duty. 'Tell me about Rose,' you say. 'Our one meeting, two years ago, remains in my mind.' And you would know more of the most charming person you ever met—so I finish the sentence for you!

"And rightly, I am sure. But, again, what can I say? I know too much, and not enough.

"I have chosen a wet day to write to you and the afternoon hours when my duties are done, so that nothing interferes between us but my faltering pen. Aunt Agatha sits in the next room making knots. You see how I avoid the subject! And now how I valiantly strive faithfully to answer you.

"You say you have heard 'whispers and more than whispers in London.' You imply about Rose, and I cannot pretend not to understand.

"I, too, have been made aware (in what extraordinary fashion, more subtle than words, is scandal communicated!) of various rumours. Remember that I have not seen Rose since I was last in town, six months ago, and then only amid the distractions of a gay season. Laughter passed between us, little else. You will recall the charming laughter of Rose. My prayer is that its gaiety may never be quenched, as—ah!—I fear it may be. I must repeat—(here give me credit for a pause of earnest thought)—that I know nothing.

"If youth, beauty, race, talents, a fine name, the most winning manners, the sweetest temper, the lightest spirits are to be ruined by the common lures of the world, if ordinary vices are to tarnish a character so bright——

"But—no, I will not think it, nor must you. Remember Rose as all nobility, virtue, and discretion, the sweetest gentleman in England.

"Marius comes home to-night. His letters read full of a sparkling pleasure in the incidents of the tour. I fear he has not spared money; I dread the moment when he must be made aware how perilously near the limit of our fortunes we all live. Hideous subject! Even to you I shrink from putting the word on paper, but I anticipate that this lack of money will mean trouble for both Rose and Marius. The Lyndwoods were ever thriftless. I remember my sweet mother losing £300 at faro; the silk dress she wore, unpaid for, and my father having to sell the silver plate to pay her page and her carriage. I recall other scenes, but all taken with a smile on my mother's part—like Rose!

"Aunt Agatha says (as you must have heard her) that my mother's death alone saved my father from ruin, which seems to me a dreadful thing. Reflecting on it, I think of these two cousins of mine. Imagine Rose or Marius without money—impossible, is it not? Yet I know of mortgages, of encumbered estates.

"Still, I must not play the pedant; I am not the monitor of the Lyndwoods nor any wiser than they. And Marius comes home to-night. We had hoped Rose would be here to meet him; but, no. He comes to-morrow, full of eagerness, his note reads, to see us all again. Yet I fear they will both find Lyndwood dull, and it will be but a while before their poor cousin is waving them farewell again.

"I must tell you (perceive that this epistle alters with the current of my thoughts) that Marius visited Genoa and saw the Lyndwood property, which is of but little value, he writes, since the whole town has fallen into neglect and decay.

"I notice that Aunt Agatha is rising, and I must follow her to see that Marius's chamber is ready and the table set with flowers. So au revoir, my friend, and remember I await your letters with impatience.—Ever your faithful

"Susannah Chressham.

"Lyndwood Holt,
Lyndwood in the County of Kent,
June 17, 1748."

The clear and gentle evening sunlight fell through the long open windows on the bright hair and face of the writer as she rose, slowly folding her letter. Mellow shadows rested in the spacious beautiful chamber; smooth dark walls, painted ceiling and polished floor, rich sombre paintings of fruit made a glowing background for the rounded figure of Miss Chressham as she stood looking thoughtfully at the exquisite vista of parkland that spread beyond the stone terrace on to which the windows gave.

Where the distant golden green elms quivered in the steady breeze a few faint white clouds rested in the pale blue sky; the glade formed by the nearer trees was crossed with bars of sunshine where slow sheep moved.

Along the terrace grew late spring flowers—tulips, striped, purple, and red; hyacinths, deep blue, and soft clusters of fragrant stocks. A swallow flew by, a great sound of birds came from the trees about the house. Miss Chressham turned from the window to open folding doors that revealed an inner room.

"Aunt Agatha," she said.

A lady emerged from the gloom of the other chamber. She held a number of knotted skeins of coloured silk.

"I thought I heard you moving," smiled Miss Chressham, "so I finished my letter and am now at your service." Her smile deepened prettily. "How charming it will be to see Marius again," she added.

Lady Lyndwood smoothed her silks out with delicate fingers.

"I wish Rose could have been here," she answered.

Miss Chressham was ready.

"Marius has been so uncertain as to the date of his arrival, and Rose wrote he was under an engagement for to-night that he could not contrive to avoid. He is coming to-morrow."

The elder lady replied with a certain languid impatience attractively in keeping with her slender dignified grace.

"Ah, my dear, I hope he will come to-morrow; not only because of Marius—for other reasons! And now you had better call for candles."

Miss Chressham pulled the bell.

"For other reasons?" she repeated.

Lady Lyndwood's answer came wearily through the twilight.

"The estate, you know," she complained. "I vow it worries me. Since Mr. Langham left us we have had no steward. I wrote to Rose he must come and see after it; he is aware from Mr. Langham when he gave up his accounts that the value of the land is decreasing, or whatever the term may be."

"And what does Rose say?"

"Rose laughed, of course, and Mr. Langham——"

"Oh—he," cried the girl impatiently, "I know that he sold Brenton Farm at half its value, and the crops, too, always!"

"Perhaps so," Lady Lyndwood laughed vaguely, "but one must have someone. Rose should come himself and put a person he can trust into the place, for really I cannot be worried."

"We understand so little about it," said Miss Chressham sadly, "and Rose tells us nothing."

"My dear!" the Countess protested. "Rose has managed his own affairs since he was eighteen. His fortune is his own concern, and it would be mightily ill-bred of him to trouble the ladies of his family with the buying and selling of horses and dogs."

The servant entered with a long taper and began to light the candles. Miss Chressham answered with restraint.

"You have no head for business, Aunt Agatha."

The Countess of Lyndwood was standing by the mantelshelf. As the sconces either side were lit her delicate shoulders and pale lovely face were reflected in the dark depths of the mirror.

"No," she admitted; "after all, one can manage without it. I could never see it as a reproach, Susannah," she added.

Miss Chressham looked at her.

"Not if one is as pretty as you are," she answered, and smiled half sadly.

"Oh, fie, my dear! You must not flatter an old woman."

The Countess sank easily into a brocaded chair and her pearl-coloured satin dress gleamed in the candle-light. The lace over her faint blonde hair and over her shoulder seemed pearl-coloured too. She folded her silks away into a blue and silver bead-bag and when the servant had left the room she spoke again.

"You are so sensible, Susannah," she remarked in a tone of gentle helplessness; "such a comfort to me, my dear." She sighed, and rested her cheek on her long white fingers. "Rose is heedless, and I really know so little of what he does in London. Of course, I hear things"—she paused, and added placidly—"which, of course, are also no business of mine. But I do wish"—she gave Susannah an appealing look—"that he would come down and look after the place, and I wish he would marry."

"I dare swear he will do both," answered Miss Chressham cheerfully; "nay, it would be vastly strange if he did not."

The room was very pleasantly full of candle-light; it sparkled in the folds of Miss Chressham's red silk gown as she moved close to the Countess's chair; through the still open window terrace, trees and sky showed luminous and purple.

"I have heard the names of several ladies," remarked the Countess, "mentioned by Rose and other people, but not one he could or would marry."

"Why, when he meets her he will not speak of it," smiled Susannah.

Lady Lyndwood sighed.

"Well, I wish he would come. Marius will want to see him about his fortune."

"Is it in Rose's hands?" asked Miss Chressham, a faint look of surprise on her fair face.

"Ah—yes," the Countess spoke vaguely, "all the money went to Rose; but Marius has something when he comes of age, which was last October. I am sorry he should have been abroad, and now, I suppose, he will want to leave us again."

"I suppose so," assented Susannah absently.

"Nothing else is to be expected," returned Lady Lyndwood. "Rose cannot ask Marius to look after the estate, and really it is very dull here. I think we must all go to town this season."

Susannah was silent.

The Countess continued her gentle disconnected talk.

"Two years ago—how different Marius will be! I hope he will get on with Rose. And—la, my dear, 'tis near seven of the clock!" She rose, her grey eyes agitated and a flush in her cheeks. "Seven he is to be here!"

"Let us walk to the front and watch for him," said Miss Chressham.

The elder lady took her arm, and they went into the quiet hall, looked into the dining-room where early moss roses showed between the glass and silver on the table and the candles in their sconces sent flickerings on the portraits of fair gay Lyndwoods, past to the open door, and so on to the wide, shallow steps.

It was a most beautiful evening, a new moon floated in gauzy vapour above the soft dark lines of the trees; mysterious and beckoning the white road gleamed away into the twilight; the stone vases at the bottom of the steps were dimly visible; a faint sweetness rose from the early pinks they carried.

Jasmine and roses covered the front of Lyndwood Holt, and their tendrils, lightly stirring now and then, touched the dresses of the two ladies waiting in the dusk.

The village clock sounded faintly, then from the stable came the chimes of seven.

"He will be very tired," said the Countess.

Miss Chressham laughed.

"He will only have ridden from Maidstone, dear."

"Of course," answered Lady Lyndwood's sweet vague voice. "I always think of him as coming from Paris—as if he had come straight from there"—she laughed aimlessly. "I wish Rose had been here," she added. "I swear I feel quite nervous."

"Rose comes to-morrow," repeated the younger lady.

A little pause, then the Countess spoke again.

"The place looks very well, does it not? though perhaps after the gaieties of the Continent——"

"Here he is," interrupted Miss Chressham.

Down the dusky glimmer of road came the sound of a hurrying horse.

The Countess advanced impulsively down the steps. A rider galloped up through the twilight—a slender young man in a travelling cloak was kissing Lady Lyndwood, laughing and breathless, before Miss Chressham had freed her skirt from a long rose bough.

"Susannah!" He held out his hand as she joined them. "May I still kiss her?" he asked his mother.

"Yes, Marius," smiled Miss Chressham; "to-night, at least."

He saluted her cheek and her hands. The three came towards the house together.

"And you are well and safe? And your portmantles? And where is Mr. Hardinge? And—oh, Marius—I fear it will seem so dull!" cried the Countess in a breath.

Marius Lyndwood laughed an answer.

"Indeed, I am well, and the man is following with the trunks. I left Mr. Hardinge at Dover. And, now my turn. Where is Rose?"

"He is coming to-morrow," answered both the ladies, as they passed into the hall.

"Why, he wrote to me he would be here to-night," said Marius Lyndwood.

"He could not," replied Miss Chressham hastily. "His engagements."

The young man flung off his cloak and hat with a pleasant laugh.

"Rose is the fashion—a town rake. His brother must not hope to see him. Well, I cannot care to-night——"

He turned into the dining-room, looking about him. The ladies followed, and there, in the strong fair light of the candles, the three cast eager eyes on each other.

After the gay warmth and joy of their meeting this pause came almost like embarrassment, as if they found themselves, after all, strangers.

His mother was quick to see the change in the new arrival. At first she did not think this Marius as handsome as the boy who had left her two years ago. The next second she told herself that his powdered hair, his elegant clothes, his graceful bearing, had vastly improved him, and that he was very like his father.

He came round the table, took her hand and kissed it.

"How beautiful you are, mother," he said.

The Countess coloured. That, too, was like his father. Across this scene of the handsome room, with its pleasant appointments, with the figures of young man and woman, rose the picture of a tablet in the parish church. She felt suddenly very lonely.

"Susannah will show you your room," she said faintly, "and then we will have dinner."

"The same room?" smiled Marius.

"Oh, yes!" nodded Susannah.

"Then I can find it. I have not been away a hundred years, my lady, and I hear them with the portmantles. You must not move for me."

Laughing, he left the room. They heard his greetings to the servants in the hall, and the agreeable bustle of arrival filled the quiet house.

The Countess sat down at the head of the table; one of her fair hands lay among the glasses on the shining white cloth. The other drooped in her lap; she looked up at Susannah, and her eyes were wistful.

"Do you think he has changed?" she asked.

"Into a man—yes."

Lady Lyndwood sighed.

"He has the air—he was never as handsome as Rose."

Miss Chressham laughed shortly.

"He is handsome enough." She moved a silver bowl of roses further on to the table. "Rose, of course, is—" She suddenly broke off, and her manner had an air of distance. "You must be very proud of them, Aunt Agatha."

The Countess shook her delicate head.

"I feel a helpless old woman, my dear, and quite a stranger to both."

The window stood open on the June evening, a most exquisite perfume lingered round the chamber, a perfume of roses, violets, and indefinable things of the night; an almost imperceptible breeze caused the candle flames to tremble against their shining silver sconces and filled the room with a sense of life and movement.

In each of the glasses on the table a gem of light quivered, and the little gold labels hung round the necks of the dark wine bottles gave forth long shuddering rays. The white china was painted in pink, the hue of the half-opened moss roses; in the centre of the table two harts in ivory, each wearing a collar of turquoise, bore between their antlers a crystal dish filled with pale lilies.

Miss Chressham slipped to her seat, her brown hair and eyes, her rich complexion and bright dress made her catch the light in rivalry even of the sparkling crystal and silver. As she moved something fell from her dress. "My letter to Selina!" she laughed, picking it up, "and I have never addressed it—that was Marius."

"Selina Boyle?" questioned the Countess, listening for her son's step.

"Yes, my dearest friend, you know, though I so seldom see her; she is in Bristol with her family now," smiled Miss Chressham.

Lady Lyndwood turned her sweet face to the door.

"Of course, I remember her, my dear; she was here two seasons back—how long Marius is!"

"She sends her greeting to you," said Susannah, "and asks after Rose; she has heard so much of him, even in Bristol. I meant to tell you before."

She glanced at the Countess with a feeling almost of guilt, and two lines from Selina Boyle's letter—"tell me, I pray you, of your cousin the Earl, who I hear has all the graces and all the vices—the saddest rake in London!"—seemed to weigh on her as if her own.

But Lady Lyndwood smiled absently.

"Marius must be so fatigued—he is rather pale, do you not think? And I wish he had brought Mr. Hardinge."

Miss Chressham reminded her gently.

"Mr. Hardinge had to accompany Mr. Brereton's son to London, and I expect Marius would not have cared to travel through England with a tutor."

She was grateful her mention of Selina Boyle's letter (that she had been nerving herself to for three days past) had passed without comment.

To attain this end she had chosen a moment of abstraction; Lady Lyndwood, weary with leisure, would most probably have desired to see the letter.

And Miss Chressham did not wish to show it to her.

Now Marius re-entered, fresh and elegant in grey satin, his eyes wonderfully dark under his powdered hair, a knot of thick lace at his throat and a fine pink cameo clasping it—a more animated Marius, a more charming Marius than the slightly ungainly lad from college who had, on occasion, flouted his mother and teased his cousin two years ago.

"Mr. Hardinge has done wonders, I swear," sighed the Countess, still striving with that sense of loss.

And Marius, too young to admit he had ever been different from what he was, blushed, and for a moment was awkward.

"'Tis only two years," he said; then he caught his mother's yearning gaze and became conscious of his modish side curls and all the little fopperies of his dress so delightfully new, and the fresh colour deepened in his smooth cheeks.

"'Twill seem very quiet here," remarked Susannah, coming delicately to the rescue, as he took his place opposite her; "look at the moon"—she pointed towards the violet night.

"She appears so different in Venice," cried Marius; "are you sure she is the same, Susannah?"

"Not at all," she answered. "And did you like Venice?"

"All of it—so much, but this is sweet, the sweetest of all, my lady," he bowed towards his mother.

"Ah, Marius," said the Countess wistfully, "I do not look to keep you long."

"Rose and I must talk of that," he answered youthfully, and joyously important. "I shall take you and Susannah to London, my lady. I have been thinking you must be over quiet here."

"We go to stay with Rose in the season," answered Lady Lyndwood; then she became rather abruptly silent, since what she had been about to add could not be said before the servants.

Miss Chressham, sensitive to the reason of the pause, covered it. She spoke of little home affairs, and drew out Marius to relate again those incidents of his travels that had so entertained them in his letters.

He talked with animation, with gaiety, his listeners were interested and loving; but whenever he touched on the future, on his bright plans, on his young unconscious hopes for it, Susannah Chressham winced.

After dinner they went into the great withdrawing-room that looked on to the hidden fragrance of the terrace and the park, and Marius sat beside the Countess on the long Spanish leather couch; his laughing voice made the old room ring with youth, and his mother's face flushed as she looked at him.

Miss Chressham moved to the writing-table and observed both of them; she felt curiously averse to speech to-night; in her heart she was sorry—sorry for all of them, and—afraid. Idly she picked a quill and stared at Marius.

His young English face, fair and bright, with rounded features, grey eyes, and rebellious brown hair under the powder, wore a proud air of distinction given by the beautiful mouth and arrogant cleft chin, common to the Lyndwoods; when he smiled, which was not seldom, he showed a charming dimple.

As Miss Chressham gazed at him, in a half-troubled manner, he looked round, and she glanced away and began addressing the letter she held in her hand.

Marius Lyndwood rose and crossed to her.

"How quiet you are, Susannah!"

She kept her face turned from him as she answered; lightly and hurriedly her quill glided over the smooth paper.

"I am finishing my letter to Selina—interrupted because of your return, Marius! You would not remember her, 'twas after you left that she was here."

He scrutinised her clear writing.

"Miss Selina Boyle!" he said. "Is she a friend of yours?"

Susannah's glittering brown hair was blown across her brow by the little breeze from the terrace as she turned to glance up at him.

"We were at school together—yes, a dear friend of mine; you do not know her?"

"I heard of her but now at Dover—Miss Selina Boyle——"

"Heard of her?"

Marius laughed.

"Mr. Hardinge met a friend who was lately from the Wells," he explained, "and Rose was mentioned; this gentleman had seen him at the Wells; he had a rake-helly reputation, he declared...."

"Marius!" protested the Countess, rising delicately; "that is not fair to Rose."

"But about Selina?" cried Miss Chressham, and her white brow was wrinkled.

"Oh, la, Susannah, I only heard that she was at the Wells, and what a name she had for a belle, and how Rose was paying her a deal of attention—you must know that!"

Miss Chressham was completely off her guard.

"No!" she cried; "and I cannot understand Selina—she writes from Bristol, and Rose is in London."

"Why, this was a month or so ago, maybe," answered Marius.

"Still, it is rather curious," remarked the Countess. "Rose never spoke of her—and their names coupled! my dear, it would be an impossible match."

Susannah Chressham put her letter into her pocket.

"After all, they met here, Aunt Agatha." She spoke slowly, looking the while at the moonlit park, "And why should Rose mention it? and as for the gossip, people will always gossip about anyone like Rose."

Lady Lyndwood fluttered open a delicate ivory fan.

"Last time it was Mrs. Fanshawe—and one always hears it so indirectly," she complained.

Marius glanced from her to his cousin.

"It seems I have thrown the apple of discord, my lady; I was foolish to repeat it, but I thought you would know!"

Susannah laughed, clearly and suddenly.

"How vastly foolish that we are all fallen grave over this! Now I am going down to the lodge to leave my letters for the night coach, it will be passing soon. Do you remember how we used to wait for it? Nay, you must not come with me; I shall be only a moment, a few moments."

She stepped out on to the terrace, her red gown showed a moment against the dark, then disappeared.

Marius Lyndwood was following her, when the Countess called him.

"Come and talk to me, Marius; Susannah is quite well alone."

He was beside her instantly; a slender eager figure he looked leaning against the wide mantelshelf with the golden candle-light over him.

Lady Lyndwood kept silent, but her eyes were busy with him; the lace had fallen from her blonde curls and lay shimmering about her shoulders, she moved her fan to and fro as if she did not know she had it there.

"Dear heart," she said softly, "you are wearing a miniature round your neck; may I see it?"

Marius became slowly pale and did not answer, but he loosened from his stock the black ribbon his mother had noticed, and held out the gold case.

The Countess opened it, gazed at the timid placid face of a girl it contained, and sighed and smiled.

"Where did you meet her, Marius?" she asked.

He answered, looking away.

"In Vienna—in Paris;" then he added, "she is coming to London this autumn, and then I may see her again."

Lady Lyndwood returned the locket.

"Is she very sweet?"

"Yes," said Marius Lyndwood stiffly; "I do not know her people—we met by chance—but I found her—sweet."

The Countess fell into silence again; she thought of Rose, who had never mentioned to her the name of any woman in this manner, and she looked at the ardent, innocent face of her younger son.

She spoke at last, under her breath.

"Thank you, Marius, and I hope you will present her to me—in the autumn. Now will you not show me what you brought me from Venice?"

Marius kissed her hand; he would have liked to have kissed her feet.

CHAPTER II

ROSE LYNDWOOD

Susannah Chressham had walked steadily half-way to the lodge before she stopped and reminded herself that she had no object in going there, and that the letter she carried would never be sent.

However, she could not at once return; if only to give colour to the feint that had got her from the house, she must remain a few moments in the garden.

It was a warm evening, but she had nothing over her silk dress, and as she paused in the shade of the chestnut avenue she shivered.

Through the broad leaves of the trees showed the night sky, pale with moonlight and the sparkle of the stars.

Miss Chressham tore the letter addressed to Selina Boyle into fragments and suddenly hurried on, the scraps of paper crushed in her hand.

She turned from the drive and mounted some shallow stone steps to a temple set on a hillock; a little Grecian temple shaded by the tops of the trees that lined the road and grown about with violets; behind the bank sloped away to a stream crossed by a moss-covered bridge.

The moonlight was brilliant over it all, save where the chestnut leaves cast a moving shade on the white pillars.

Susannah Chressham stepped on to the bridge and listened for a while to the endless ripple of the water falling over the stones below; then she again tore the letter across and across, and cast the fragments down into the stream.

Lifting her eyes she could see the yellow lights in the windows of Lyndwood House, and for the second time she shivered.

Slowly she retraced her way past the temple and reached the head of the steps.

Beneath her the moonlight fell in bars across the road, fell between the chestnut trunks and glimmered on the hard white drive.

Susannah Chressham stood motionless. A man's figure stepped out of the shadows into one of the patches of moonlight; he wore a long cloak flung over one shoulder and walked towards the house; the little clang of his sword against his spurs was distinct in the great stillness.

Susannah uttered an exclamation; at that he stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up.

"Rose," she said; "Rose—is that you?"

"It is I," he answered; and at the tone of his voice she winced, as if, in a moment, all her unreasonable dreads faced her in tangible form. She did not speak.

Her cousin came slowly up the steps to her.

"It is late, why are you here, Susannah?"

"And you—you return unexpectedly, Rose."

He stood hat in hand, the moonlight on his shoulders and shining on the heavy hilt of his sword.

"Marius is here?"

"He came to-night—we thought you would follow to-morrow;" she spoke hurriedly half under her breath to get the better of the unsteadiness of her voice.

Rose Lyndwood glanced at the lights of the house sparkling through the trees.

"My lady is with Marius?"

"Yes."

"Then we will not disturb them yet, my dear—the meeting can well wait."

His cousin let go of her red silk skirt, and it rustled about her on the steps.

"Why do you speak in such fashion, Rose?" she cried.

He laughed.

"I do not bring the best of news—for Marius."

"It is as if I had known you were going to say that," answered Miss Chressham, shivering; "come into the temple."

He followed her under the Doric portico into the cool pillared interior; through the doorway the moonshine streamed, and the light perfume of violets seemed to emanate from the smooth polished columns.

The Earl crossed to one of the square windows and stared across his park; his bearing showed a man weary, indifferent, and reckless.

A marble seat ran round the wall; Susannah Chressham leant against it and turned her eyes on her cousin; but, owing to the thick shadows, she could only see the outline of his figure.

"Won't you tell me what this means, Rose?" she asked. "You used always to confide in me."

"Vastly unfair on you," he answered lightly, but without gaiety; "give me credit for outgrowing my selfishness—or some of it."

She seated herself and clasped her hands.

"Do not evade me—I might help you."

He turned to face her; now, with the moonlight behind him, she could not see his features at all.

"You cannot, my dear." His very pleasant soft voice was grave.

"It affects Marius?" asked Susannah.

"Yes."

"It is about money?"

"You were always a sensible lady," answered the Earl; "it is about money"—he gave the last word a curious little intonation of disdain.

"I have been waiting for this," said Susannah quietly.

"I give you credit for your observation, my cousin."

He moved slowly across the marble floor, and as his cloak fell back straining at the clasps, she saw the gleam of his blue and silver dress beneath.

"Tell me what has happened," she entreated.

He paused, then swung round and paced to the window again.

"Since you are not involved, Susannah, in my unfortunate affairs, I have the less reluctance."

Still she could not see his face, the moonlight dazzled her straining eyes.

"Not involved!" she murmured.

Lord Lyndwood pulled his gloves off slowly.

"I have come home to tell my lady and Marius that I am ruined."

She did not move nor speak.

"The estate hardly meets its own mortgage, and the land has been so neglected as to be almost valueless." He quoted his last steward's report, though she did not know it. "My lady does not realise this?" he questioned.

"She realises nothing—how should she? you have kept us in ignorance."

"By Gad, I only knew myself a few days ago," said the Earl. "When I was forced to look into the cursed business."

"But Marius has his money?" cried Susannah.

"Marius has not a penny! It will be pleasant telling him so, will it not?"

Susannah rose.

"I do not understand."

"Marius never had any money, my lord dying so suddenly without a will—Brereton was our guardian, and a careless one."

"Careless!" interrupted Susannah Chressham. "There has been fine carelessness here——"

"Damned carelessness," answered the Earl with a short laugh. "And when Brereton died and I took over my own affairs—I'm afraid I didn't improve on it. But Marius has not been stinted."

"No, and now you are going to tell him he is a pauper," said Susannah. "Now, when he is full of plans, of hopes—oh, Rose, Rose!"

A little silence fell; very strong was the perfume of the violets, very delicate too, insistent. Susannah spoke again.

"The lawyers must have warned you."

"I left their warnings behind me two years ago, when I first went to the Jews, my dear."

"Then—you are—in debt?"

She felt that he smiled.

"A good deal in debt."

"And my lady?"

"My lady has some money of her own, not much—the estate must go."

"Oh, Rose!" she gave a little gasp; "is there no way out—nothing to be done?"

The Earl appeared amused.

"Nothing, my dear. I have, naturally, tried—now we will go to the house."

She did not move.

"There must be something we can do?"

The misery of her voice touched him.

"It is good of you to care so, cousin—I might have expected reproaches."

"Since I am in no way involved," she quoted his sentence—"is that what you want to say, Rose?—but my whole life is involved," she added almost dreamily. "Lyndwood to go—you ruined, you and I to tell Marius and my lady so to-night?"

She looked over the quiet park and saw the peaceful lights in Lyndwood House, and she could not believe her own words.

"Ruin!" she repeated.

The Earl came towards her.

"Are you thinking of Marius?"

"No," said Susannah, "of you."

"I am the least to be considered," he answered.

"The most!" she cried. "Could you help what was in your blood?—I knew this must happen, though now I hardly credit it—I knew this must happen."

Rose Lyndwood sighed lightly.

"Let us go on to the house."

But she stood in the doorway.

"Tell me what you mean to do?"

"I do not know—it will be according to how they take it—my lady and Marius."

He fingered the ends of his long tie.

"For myself," he lifted his shoulders, "I could get the appointment at Venice, easily, and the place in Ireland would pay some of them; I do not know what Marius will expect."

"Poor Marius!" she echoed softly. "Remember he is only a boy, Rose."

She stepped into the open now; he following.

"A Lyndwood, too—there is the army, or I would give him the estate in Genoa."

"He says it is worth nothing," cried Miss Chressham, trembling—"and in Italy!"

Lord Lyndwood had no reply to that; he wrapped his cloak about him, and his cousin preceded him down the steps.

For a little while they went along the avenue in silence, she holding up her dress, he swinging his gloves.

"Will you tell them to-night?" she asked.

"I must get back to London as soon as may be;" he glanced up at the great chestnut leaves that hid the stars—"to-night? Gad, I suppose so."

After a moment he added:

"Neither my lady nor Marius will understand, and I cannot explain, so it is very quickly over—one word, after all."

"Ruin," said Susannah Chressham.

"It has been the Lyndwood way, has it not? It is twelve years to-morrow since they brought my father home—do you remember?"

"Yes," she answered.

"He tried to speak to me," said the Earl softly. "I knew what he meant—be generous to Marius. That occurred to me last night when I faced it, and that it would also be the easiest way for me—a duel in Hyde Park."

He laughed.

And Susannah Chressham was silent.

They turned the bend of the avenue and saw before them the straight front of Lyndwood House.

When they came to the foot of the steps Susannah held out her hand.

"Good-night, Rose; you will find them in the withdrawing-room—you do not want me—I shall go upstairs. Good-night."

He kissed her fingers.

"In the withdrawing-room? I will go round by the garden; good-night."

They parted; she to enter the house, he to make his way through the roses and laurels to the terrace at the back.

The long windows still stood open as Susannah had left them; the gleam of candle-light fell over the stone balustrade and the flowers, the hyacinths, pinks, and tulips.

Rose Lyndwood heard voices, light, laughing voices, and the rustle of silk; he stepped into the light and saw the Countess standing on the hearth.

In her fair hands she held a fine lace scarf that fell over her gleaming dress, and she was looking at Marius, who showed her an ivory framed mirror, wonderfully carved.

The Earl pushed the window a little wider open and entered the room.

"Rose!" cried his mother in a frightened voice.

Marius laid down the mirror and flushed; two years of change in each of them had sufficed to make his brother a stranger to him.

Lord Lyndwood swept off his hat and crossed the room to kiss his mother's hands.

She flushed and fluttered into her usual sweet aimless talk.

"La! you startled me, Rose; we expected you to-morrow—and have you walked?—and I protest you have not noticed Marius!"

"My horse fell lame and I left him at the lodge." The Earl turned to his brother—"Good evening, Marius."

They looked at each other, and the younger man was overawed and abashed; then he laughed awkwardly.

"I scarcely know you, my lord."

Rose Lyndwood smiled.

"Two years, Marius—you also have altered."

He unclasped his cloak and flung it over a chair.

The Countess glanced at him.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked suddenly.

"Can you see so much?" He was still smiling. "Yes, but I will not trouble you with it yet, my lady."

He crossed to the table.

"I must speak to Marius."

An expression of annoyance clouded Lady Lyndwood's fair face.

"This is a poor home-coming, Rose. I have not seen you for months—and 'tis the first evening I have had Marius."

The Earl seated himself at the table.

"I am sorry," he said.

At his elbow lay the ivory framed mirror his brother had put down; it reflected the glimmer of his blue sleeve.

"I am sorry," he repeated; "I had, however, better acquaint Marius—at once."

He leant back in his chair and glanced from one to the other; his long grey eyes were half closed, and his disdainful, cold expression chilled and annoyed my lady.

"Won't you acquaint me also, Rose?" she asked weakly. "I had better know."

She was vaguely aware that with any personal misfortune he would never have troubled them; this, therefore, must be something overwhelming.

The Earl looked at his brother, and Marius spoke.

"Give me leave, my lady; let me hear what Rose has to say."

His young face was serious and pale; the Countess clasped her hands and began to tremble.

"It is about the estates. Susannah always said Mr. Langham mismanaged everything——"

"Come into the library, Marius. We shall be back in half an hour."

Lady Lyndwood sank on the leather settee.

"There are no candles there, Rose, shall I ring?" Her anxious eyes appealed to him.

"No," he answered, "this will suffice."

He took one of the candles from the table and led the way from the room; Marius followed, very grave.

The Countess heard them enter the next room and the door close after them.

She glanced about her, at the scarf Marius had brought her, lying where she had let it slip, upon the hearth, at his mirror on the table, and beside it Rose's grey gloves and riding stock.

The chamber grew unnaturally quiet; she was afraid to move; cruel memories that came to her always in the silences made her blood go cold; a look of age and suffering settled in her delicate face, she fixed her eyes on the portrait of her husband over the mantelshelf and clasped her hands tightly in her lap.

CHAPTER III

THE SECOND LETTER TO MISS SELINA BOYLE

The Earl set the candle on the mantelshelf, and its feeble rays dimly revealed the massive handsome chamber, the rows of books on carved shelves, the dark pictures, the heavy furniture.

Marius fingered his cravat, and was silent; he felt constrained and ill at ease—troubled, not so much by the threatened revelation of misfortune as by the presence of his magnificent brother, who was a more splendid gentleman than any he had seen.

"I wished to tell you first and alone," said Rose Lyndwood, "for I dare swear my lady will make a scene."

He leant against the wall by the fireplace, the candle-light full over him. His light brown hair was unpowdered and tied with a turquoise ribbon in his neck; he wore no jewels; the silk flowers, pink and red, on his waistcoat sparkled with threads of gold. His complexion was naturally pale; at the corner of his full lower lip a patch of black velvet cunningly cut into the shape of a bat showed in contrast with it. His delicate fair brows were slightly frowning, and his languid lids almost concealed his eyes. He did not seem to see Marius, shyly observing him.

"I have been looking into my affairs," he said. This remark meant nothing to Marius, and his brother saw it. "It's a damned unpleasant thing to say," he added, with a half-insolent smile, "but—it's ruin."

Marius stared.

"What do you mean?" he cried.

Rose Lyndwood opened his eyes wide now and gave his brother a full glance.

"I mean I am as far in debt as I can go—that my credit is no longer good for—anything. That Lyndwood must go to pay its mortgage, that is what I mean."

"I don't understand," answered Marius stupidly.

"Have you never heard of a man being ruined before?" asked the Earl. "Gad, it is not so rare!"

"But in such a fashion—so suddenly."

Rose Lyndwood shrugged his shoulders.

"Not so suddenly, only we ignored everything until now. The crash—who cared as long as the money came from somewhere? Neither I nor you, nor my lady."

Marius took a step towards his brother.

"And my fortune?" he said.

Lord Lyndwood gave him a kindly glance.

"For that I am sorry," he answered, "and blame myself that ye have ever been led to believe there was anything solely yours, for now that I can no longer pay your allowance ye stand there as poor as I."

Marius sat down by the desk against the wall.

"Nothing?" he muttered. "Nothing at all?" and his lips trembled.

"When they have sold me up," replied my lord slowly, "here and in London, I do not see that there will be a groat between us."

"I cannot credit it!" muttered Marius.

"Believe me, you may. I have told you the truth in the fewest words."

Marius took his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the desk.

"And I am a pauper!" he said—"a pauper!"

Lord Lyndwood crossed and stood beside him.

"What can I say, Marius? When my lord died he left all in confusion, and in confusion all has remained. While the money sufficed we shared it. I could never have done differently to what I did, not being by nature thrifty."

Marius was silent.

"My lady has a few hundreds of her own," continued the Earl. "Susannah's money, too, is safe, of course"—he glanced at his brother, whose face was concealed from him—"but as for us——"

Marius looked up now. His cheeks were red, his eyes suffused.

"Well, what for us?" he asked hoarsely.

Lord Lyndwood answered the abrupt question with another.

"Do you blame me, Marius?"

The younger man rose.

"Blame you—yes, I do blame you!" he cried. "You had no right, by God, you had no right!"

"So this is how you take it," remarked the Earl quietly. "Well, it will help neither of us."

He crossed to the fireplace, and his brother's fierce eyes followed him.

"You take it very easily, my lord, but I cannot be so patient. You have told me that I am penniless—penniless!"

Lord Lyndwood looked at him steadily.

"Yes," he said.

"Then," answered Marius, very pale, "I tell you that you have behaved bitterly to me, and that I can never forgive you!"

The Earl fingered the silver braid on his sleeve.

"Why, you are very fierce," he said.

His languid manner maddened Marius.

"Reflect on what you have done, my lord. You have brought me up as a gentleman to think nothing of money—to imagine it was there for me when I was a man. I have seen it spent on all sides, and now you dare face me with this tale of ruin."

"By Gad, it is not very pleasant for me," answered the Earl.

"You!" cried Marius, goaded. "A spendthrift, a prodigal! Oh, I have heard of your reputation! If you chose to squander a fortune on your pleasures you had no right, I say, no right to involve me in paying the price."

He sank into the chair beside the desk again. He was trembling from head to foot, clutching and unclutching his hands in the fine lace at his cuffs.

The Earl looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"Have you done?" he demanded.

"What is the use of speech?" cried Marius bitterly.

Rose Lyndwood faintly smiled.

"Railing easeth rage," he said. "Hear me a little longer, and I have done. There is the entailed property in Genoa; I will make that over to you——"

"Nay," interrupted Marius hotly, "that is poor charity, my lord. I will not be exiled in a dead city."

The Earl slightly flushed.

"I could get you a captaincy in the Guards."

"To starve on my pay!"

"Beyond that I can do nothing."

Marius pressed his hand to his forehead.

"You have wronged me bitterly," he said in a rough voice.

The Earl set his beautiful mouth sternly.

"These reproaches," he said, "do nought but display your ill-manners!"

Marius gave an ugly laugh.

"I am not a town rake, so I pray you excuse my behaviour. I have not yet learnt to disguise my vices and my passions."

"Enough of that!" said Lord Lyndwood shortly.

"Oh, I have heard things of you!" cried Marius, with gleaming eyes. "This fortune was not lost soberly."

"Ye speak like a boy," said Rose Lyndwood, "and there is no answer to what you say. What I have done, I have done, and to no one, Marius, will I justify myself."

"There is no justification of what you have done," answered his brother, gazing at him. "A pauper, a beggar! I think I hate you, my lord!"

The Earl moved slightly towards him.

"As you will," he said quickly; "but remember ye held no bond of mine for the fortune you imagined. All you had I gave you."

Marius rose; his face was pale and passionate. Since they had entered the room his expression had changed utterly.

"So ye would remind me that I have been living on your charity!" he cried. "That ye have educated me——"

Lord Lyndwood interrupted.

"I had not thought you would take it so hardly, Marius. I did the only thing there was to do—what my father would have desired me to do. While the money was there we spent it." He looked into his brother's angry eyes and his face hardened. "I can say no more."

Marius struck his hand on the lace at his breast.

"There will be much more to be said, much more," he answered. "You have spoilt my life for me"—he suddenly laughed—"and I suppose I take it damned ungracefully. Good night, my lord."

He went out of the room and closed the heavy door after him with a force that caused the candle flame to flicker and the window to shake.

Rose Lyndwood looked in front of him with an aimless gaze into the shadows; his drooping lids and his pallor gave him an expression of weariness.

The carved clock in the corner struck ten; as the last note quivered to stillness, my lady entered the library.

"Oh, Rose, Rose!" she said before she had closed the door. "Marius tells me, in one sentence, this—that we are ruined!"

"Yes," answered the Earl.

Lady Lyndwood dropped into the chair Marius had pulled out of place and clasped her shaking hands on the desk.

"Marius also?" she whispered.

"Yes," said my lord again. "He blames me——"

"Do you wonder?" cried the Countess bitterly. "Do you wonder, Rose?"

"It seems you too find me at fault," he answered. The candle-light only faintly revealed her, sitting by the massive desk, but fell bright over his tall restrained presence, over his grave tired face.

"What did you expect of me?" asked Lady Lyndwood; then added, with a kind of feeble energy, "Rose, it cannot happen—it must not, however entangled you are. It must not come to—to that—to selling the place."

"Not selling it," he corrected.

"I don't understand any of it," she answered, "but it is impossible for us to leave Lyndwood."

"It is impossible for us to keep it. Believe me, my lady, I have considered it all. If I had seen any means to help myself I should not be here to-night."

"But Marius!" cried the Countess miserably. "Marius to come home to this—Marius penniless!"

The Earl's lids flickered a little.

"There are chances for Marius."

The Countess rose with a movement of impatience.

"It is bitterly unfair on him. He has been brought up to wealth; he was as ignorant as I that the money you squandered was all we had."

Rose Lyndwood flushed.

"We have all been thriftless and careless, my lady," he said. "I the most of any, and if I could have done anything to avert this——"

"Oh, you talk!" she interrupted with a quivering voice. "And that is easy; but you have no right to stand there and tell me you are ruined. How is it with others? You had as fair chances as any."

"By Gad—no!" said the Earl softly. "I had no chance to do anything—but what I did."

My lady's anger could find no direct expression; she wavered from one charge to another.

"You could have married," she cried. "Most gentlemen strengthen their fortunes by a wealthy match. But you—who received your attentions? I forbear to name them! And now it is too late."

"Too late for a fine match—yes," said Rose Lyndwood. "I have not time to hunt an heiress before the bailiffs are in, and——"

"You would not if you could," interrupted the Countess.

"I would rather sell the estates than myself, madam."

"Your bearing is out of joint with your fortune," she returned. "Ye speak proudly. It had been a finer pride that had prevented ye coming to tell your mother ye had disgraced your name thus!"

The Earl looked away from her into the shadows at the far end of the room.

"Prudence was not in my inheritance," he said slowly. "If you take it as a disgrace that my fortune was not equal to my position—" He broke off. "In any case, my lady, 'tis tedious and painful to discuss the matter."

"You have no thought for me!" The Countess flung reproaches at him. "Oh, none at all! Nor what this means to me, or to Marius! Did you ever consider us when you wasted your father's heritage?"

"My father?" repeated the Earl. "I have lived as he lived, only 'tis my misfortune to have faced the consequences."

Lady Lyndwood very tightly clutched the back of the chair; the wavering candle-light sought out her face and showed it wild and sad beneath the loose blonde hair.

Rose Lyndwood suddenly turned his beautiful head and looked at her.

"Have you nothing but bitterness for me, my lady?" he asked.

"I think of Marius," she answered.

The Earl's face hardened again.

"Marius has the world before him."

"You have broken his heart—you! And to-night he came back to me so joyously! Listen! He met a lady abroad; he hoped to marry her."

"At one-and-twenty?" Rose Lyndwood half smiled. "How many marry their first loves, my lady?"

The Countess sank into the chair.

"I did," she murmured in an uncontrolled voice, "and I had nothing but happiness." And she began weeping for the twelve years dead.

"Marius was my lord's heir with you," said the Earl, "and I have brought you nothing but misfortune. Do not shed tears, my lady, and shame me, for maybe I can still sell myself to buy Marius his romance."

The Countess struggled with sick sobs; half under her breath she murmured incoherent railings and feeble complaints. The Earl became paler as he listened to her.

The candle was burning to the socket; the moonlight lay on the floor between them, in a shifting, widening patch.

"I am returning to London to-night," said Rose Lyndwood at last.

My lady got to her feet and supported herself against the side of the desk, holding her handkerchief to her eyes.

"Go when you will," she answered; "nay, go soon, for I have no desire to see you in the house—let me be alone with Marius." A sudden gleam of anger shone through her weak tears. "Nay, I doubt not you have companions in London in whose society ye can soon forget my unhappiness."

He made no answer, nor did he move, and without a look between them the Countess left the room.

As the door closed after her the candle guttered and went out in the gust of air.

For a moment or two the Earl walked up and down in the dark, crossing and recrossing the patch of moonlight.

Then he returned to the withdrawing-room.

It was empty, the window still stood open on to the terrace, and the air was full of the pungent smell of the flowers without.

Rose Lyndwood seated himself at the table where Miss Chressham had written, earlier that evening, the letter whose fragments were now being swirled down the stream into the open country.

He picked up a pen and slowly mended it, pulled out a sheet of Susannah's gilt-edged paper, and paused.

What had happened since he had left London that morning—his meeting with his cousin, the fierce disappointment and anger of Marius, the foolish, bitter reproaches of the Countess—had hardly touched his real feelings, and, personally, moved him not at all.

He had endured these scenes, disdainful of them; he knew that neither his mother nor Marius had ever attempted to avert the ruin that so overwhelmed them, and that they knew nothing of his real position.

To both he was a stranger in all things save blood, and now as he sat alone, his thoughts were where they had been on the ride from London, with the people and things of his own world, though through all was the stinging recollection of his brother's sneers and his mother's tears.

Presently he began to write, slowly but without hesitation.

"Madam,—You will remember that I acquainted you with the fact that my affairs approached a crisis, and that I considered accepting the appointment at Venice as a retreat from a life my fortunes would no longer support. You know what other hope I dared to cherish—believe that I have ever held dear the assurances you once gave me, and that in writing this I taste fully the bitterness of poverty.

"I cannot go to Venice, since both my lady and Marius, my brother, find me at fault in this entanglement of my fortunes, and 'tis but decent that I should strive to repair losses that affect them, since they demand it of me.

"More 'tis difficult to say on paper, yet I have no fear that you will not understand since we never found it hard to comprehend one another. When last you wrote you said that you were being pressed in the matter of your betrothal to your cousin Francis—he is one to whom I should have given my esteem in other circumstances, and one whom, even as it is, I cannot hate, though his fortune is more brilliant than mine——"

The Earl broke off and stared out at the night with darkening eyes, then he signed his name and the date.

Without reading the letter through he folded and addressed it to:

Miss Selina Boyle,
Bristol.

As he finished he looked round, for he heard the door softly open.

"Susannah," he said. His intonation held welcome; he half smiled.

Miss Chressham crossed the room; within a little distance of her cousin's chair she paused; he was again gazing out at the night, and she saw only his back, the blue ribbon at his neck, and the long smooth curls that hung beneath it.

"What have they said to you?" she asked.

"That which I might have expected."

He fingered his letter, still with his face from her; she came round his chair, her scarlet dress rippled out of the shadows with colour.

"Of course they cannot forgive," she said intensely.

Now he looked round at her suddenly, and his expression startled even her strained anticipation.

"What are they doing?" he demanded.

"My lady is weeping—and Marius—raving like the boy he is."

The Earl leant back.

"They blame me, Susannah—curse me, I think, make me the thief of their happiness, and—" he checked himself. "I am to blame, but I will repay."

"How?" she asked, and her voice was almost frightened.

Again he gave her his stormy grey eyes.

"Marius is in love," he smiled, not softly. "Principally my lady thinks of that—spendthrift, you, she says, ruining this romance—well, Marius must not be a pauper either for this love or the next, and so——"

"And so—what?" breathed Miss Chressham.

"I must mend my fortunes even as I ruined them—I must resort to an expedient not pleasant—but I keep you standing"—he rose, his glance sought the clock—"and it is late."

"I know what you mean to do," said Miss Chressham. "And if I had been one with any claim on you"—she checked herself for fear of the extravagant—"I cannot understand how they can force you," she finished.

"They do not think of me," answered Lord Lyndwood. "My lady considers Marius, and Marius himself—I have done nothing that they should think of me."

"But you take the obligation of their future upon you," cried Susannah Chressham.

He answered her in the spirit of the words he had written to Miss Boyle.

"I am the elder—it is but decent; and, after all," he turned to her with a touch of his usual lightness, "'tis the fashion to marry for money."

That glimpse of his old self unnerved her utterly.

"Oh, Rose," she protested in trembling accents, "think what you are doing—why should you sell yourself because of Marius?"

The Earl was silent; Miss Chressham looked at him a little space, then moved towards the window.

"But as you say," she said in another and heavier tone, "everyone does it, and perhaps you do not care."

As she finished her glance fell on the letter lying on the little desk between them, and she saw the name on it.

"Ah!" she added swiftly. "Do you care?"

He answered the eager look in her hazel eyes.

"Enough not to wish to speak of it," he said quietly. "Enough to ask you to forget that I have said even that——"

"This for Marius!" she cried, hardly knowing what she did or what words she spoke.

"Nay, for myself," he answered recklessly, "that I may not hear their reproaches all my days—it had to be—by Gad, we cannot hope to end our lives in fairy tales."

He picked up the letter and put it in his pocket.

"Tell my lady to rest tranquil and Marius that he shall not starve—and for yourself—thank you, my sweet cousin."

She turned her head away.

"You will stay here to-night?"

"No, I do not need to sleep to-night."

"You have been riding all day—you cannot go back—like this."

She made an effort to look at him now; he was taking his hat and gloves from the chair where he had thrown them on his entry.

"I shall walk to Brenton and get a horse there; I must be in London as soon as may be."

He put on his cloak over his bright shining dress and fastened the heavy clasps.

"You will leave them, like this?" asked Miss Chressham.

"There is no more to say," he answered.

"You will think hardly of them," said Susannah; her voice, her eyes, her pose expressed intense excitement.

Rose Lyndwood smiled.

"Nay, I am the culprit;" he hesitated a moment, then his voice fell beautifully soft, "do not you think hardly of me?"

"I!" she smiled bravely; "I—I understand."

"I will write soon, to you and to my lady."

He moved towards the window, and the sweet breeze stirred the loose hair on his forehead.

Miss Chressham followed him.

"We shall see you again?" She bit her lip, and the colour rose under her eyes.

"Ah, soon." He took her hand and kissed it; she saw the white corner of the letter addressed to Miss Boyle showing from the glimmering brocade of his waistcoat, and her mouth tightened.

"My duty to my lady," said the Earl; "and—you will know what to tell them—good-night."

His tone, his smile were endearments; to her alone that evening had he shown anything of his usual manner; this his thanks for her patient sympathy.

"Good-night," she answered.

He stepped out on to the terrace; the moon was directly overhead and the trees mighty with black shadows; the white flowers looked as if carved out of silver, and the red tulips, half seen, seemed to pulse in the obscurity of the shade cast by the gleaming balustrade.

Rose Lyndwood looked up at the house; in his mother's room burnt a pale light; he glanced down again at Miss Chressham standing before the ruddy candle glow of the chamber he had just left; bright colour showed in her scarlet dress, in her heated cheeks and brilliant eyes; she had one hand on her bosom, and her slack fingers were soft and fair.

"Good-night," he said again, and turned away towards the shallow steps.

Miss Chressham watched him go; the stillness was, to her, rent with voices—Marius speaking in the hot bitterness of youth, Lady Lyndwood weeping complaining words, the soft tones of Selina Boyle and the sad laugh of Rose Lyndwood.

"Rose Lyndwood." She repeated the name to herself, then closed the window and drew the heavy curtain across the prospect of the stars.

CHAPTER IV

THE BARGAIN

The clear, kindly morning sun lay over the straight handsome houses in Bedford Row and dazzled in the white dust of the wide street.

From the stucco porticoes of the mansions slanting shadows were cast over the doors. A woman in a blue cap crying "Chairs to mend!" moved slowly along; a few passers-by were gathered, with an air of curiosity, about an elegant green curricle that waited outside a house in no way different from the others, save that the shutters were up in every window but those on the second floor.

This equipage excited attention, not only by the manifest splendour of the white horses, the sumptuous livery of the footman, and the gold-plated harness, but by the fact that the small crest on the body of the chariot was that of the famous Lord Lyndwood, a name they all knew as that of the most brilliant personage in that brilliant but vague world of fashion that sparkled somewhere beyond their vision.

At one of the unshuttered windows stood the owner of the green chariot, observing languidly the prospect of the wide sunny street, broken by the little knot of people about the curricle, and the slow-moving figure of the chair-mender, with her slender bundle of canes under her arm.

Rose Lyndwood saw these things as a bright, expressionless picture. Even the blue sky arching the houses had no meaning; but the thick dust that stirred in the slow breeze and whitened the dry aspect of the street conveyed a quiet dreariness.

The Earl moved away from the window, and his half-veiled gaze dwelt on the details of the lofty chamber in which he waited.

Everything was very new, very magnificent. A cold, uncultured taste expressed itself in stiff, splendid furniture; in pictures selected for no reason, it seemed, but their bright colours and their massive frames, and in enormous mirrors that, rising from floor to ceiling, reflected their glories again and again after the manner of a public dancing-room.

The chairs and settees wore linen covers that concealed all but their shining gilt legs. There were no flowers in the painted vases nor any small or intimate object to disturb the stately expanses of the marble-topped tables and Japan cabinets; it appeared a room never often used and of late long shut up.

Rose Lyndwood walked softly up and down. He had his hat under his arm and his gloved hands clasped behind him; he wore an olive-green riding-coat, his hair unpowdered and plainly arranged.

He was utterly out of harmony with his surroundings. It might be that he was aware of this, for when he saw his image in the ostentatious mirrors he very slightly smiled, and not pleasantly.

The sunlight entered by the tall bare window and lay in a great square on the highly coloured carpet, dazzling in its passage on the flaunting gold of furniture and pictures.

Lord Lyndwood paced to and fro, glancing, when he reached the window, at the green chariot below, with its idle admirers, and at the empty street beyond, and when he reached the great glass the other end of the chamber at the reflection of his own superb person with that slight and sneering smile.

He was by the window when the heavy-carved door quickly opened, and a man stepped into the room.

Lord Lyndwood stood where he was.

"Good morning, Mr. Hilton," he said.

The new-comer advanced.

"I have kept you waiting, my lord," he said. "A domestic matter detained me."

He looked at the Earl gravely, yet intently, and came nearer. He was a middle-aged man, heavy in build, with a commonplace countenance imparted by ambitions satisfied and a prosperity hardly attained and keenly relished.

He was dressed in plum-coloured velvet. Across his waistcoat was a watch-chain set with rubies that he fingered with his coarse left hand, as if he could not forget it; he wore a large, old-fashioned peruke heavily powdered, that, flowing on to his shoulders, gave a touch of remote dignity to his person, belied by his shrewd, alert face.

"Your lordship must excuse the disorder of my house," he said. "We are but newly arrived in London."

"I observe no disorder," answered the Earl. His slow glance rested on the owner of the mansion. "It appears to me prodigious neat."

Mr. Hilton bowed.

"Will you be seated, my lord?"

Rose Lyndwood moved to one of the stiff, awkward-looking sofas, and seated himself there, with his back to the light.

"You received my letter?" he asked, placing his hat beside him.

"I had that honour, my lord."

Mr. Hilton placed himself in one of the covered chairs, sat erect in unconscious discomfort, and gazed at the Earl with narrowed eager eyes.

"Then there is the less for me to say," answered Rose Lyndwood.

He sat carelessly, and his voice was languid, as if it were no great matter that he discussed; but his face was pale above the black stock, and his lips had the look of disdain that came to them when against his will he forced himself to touch affairs he wished to spurn.

"If your lordship's object in this visit is what I imagine it to be," said Mr. Hilton, "there is not much for us to discuss."

Rose Lyndwood lifted his head; he did not look at the other man, but beyond him.

"A year ago, or nearly a year ago, Mr. Hilton, you and I met on a matter of business." The disdainful smile was now unmistakable. "You, as one of the gentlemen connected with my banking house, knew, and know, something of my affairs."

Mr. Hilton nodded, as if he heard what he had expected and was satisfied.

The Earl began to pull off his gloves slowly, loosening each finger first. He turned his eyes on Mr. Hilton, and they looked as dark as the velvet bat at the corner of his beautiful mouth.

"I was in difficulties then, you will remember, and you made a proposition to me that I rejected. How much of this need I recall to you?"

"I recollect it," said Mr. Hilton, "perfectly."

There was a hardly noticeable pause and a hardly noticeable effort on the part of the Earl before he spoke again.

"I am now an utterly ruined man."

Mr. Hilton nodded for the second time, as if he listened to something that he knew, and yet something that he was pleased to hear put into words.

"I shall not even be able to save Lyndwood or the property in the North. My credit is strained to the utmost, and it is only a matter of days before the brokers seize even my personal effects."

He smiled rather insolently and looked fixedly at his listener.

"Do you care to repeat what you said when last we met, Mr. Hilton?"

"The proposal I made you, my lord?"

"Yes."

Mr. Hilton clasped the arm of his chair with his right hand; his left fondled the ruby watch-chain, his lips were set firmly, and a little sparkle danced in his eyes.

"I repeat that proposal, my lord."

"You understand my position, Mr. Hilton—that I am a penniless man?"

"I understand, my lord, what a nobleman's ruin means. I will assume the worst—that your debts are immense, the Jews outrageous, the creditors flint, that you have obligations, hungry relations and the like, and still I make you the offer I made you a year ago."

Lord Lyndwood flushed faintly.

"I have come to accept it, Mr. Hilton."

The elder man rose abruptly.

"I thought," he said, in a soft tone, "that it could be only a question of time, my lord."

The Earl was now on his feet, too.

"Let us put this matter formally," he said, and his grey eyes were afire. "I request the honour of your daughter's hand in marriage. Now is it Yes?"

The colour had deepened in his face, and the knot of the black silk cravat on his breast rose and fell quickly; but for that he had the appearance of complete composure.

"It is Yes, my lord," answered Mr. Hilton. "From this moment Lavinia is your betrothed wife"—he uttered the words as if they gave him intense pleasure, and repeated them—"your betrothed wife."

The Earl stood silent, his right hand closed down on the hilt of his sword, his eyes on Mr. Hilton, who took a sharp turn about the room, then stopped before him.

"What are your debts?" he asked; and his fingers were busily caressing his watch-chain. "How much do you owe the Jews, and what is the mortgage on Lyndwood? But no matter, that is a business affair, we must see the lawyers," he smiled; "all shall be paid—every penny," his smile deepened; "it is good to have money, is it not, my lord?"

"It is necessary," said my lord, and he also smiled. "As I have found——"

Mr. Hilton moved slowly away and contemplated Rose Lyndwood out of wholly triumphant eyes.

The great chamber, the rich paintings, the gilt mirrors were his, bought with his money; this man, Rose Lyndwood, eighteenth Earl of Lyndwood, aristocrat and proud, the most famous beau in town, this man was his also, bought as surely as the gaudy furniture against which he stood. This was Mr. Hilton's crude thought, and the Earl read it.

"You are satisfied?" he asked in a tone that was an insult.

"I am satisfied, my lord; the debts within a week, the wedding within a month."

Rose Lyndwood picked up his gloves; Mr. Hilton waited for him to speak; when the words came they were unexpected.

"May I see Miss Hilton?" His voice was courteous again.

"She is in the house;" her father was instantly at the bell-rope—"yes, I should wish you to see her."

My lord pulled out his glass and dangled it by the ribbon; he had an air of complete abstraction, of aloofness from his surroundings.

"A year ago Lavinia was at school," said Mr. Hilton; "she has had the education of a noblewoman, my lord."

Rose Lyndwood was silent; he looked past the speaker towards the door; glass and ribbon swung from his fine idle hand.

The bell had been obviously a signal, for it was the lady herself who entered.

She came a little way into the room.

"Lord Lyndwood, Lavinia," muttered Mr. Hilton. He moved awkwardly from the hearth; embarrassment made him appear clumsy, even foolish; his daughter, too, stood dumb and fluttering, but the Earl was now perfectly at his ease.

He crossed to Miss Hilton and took her hand; she trembled a curtsey.

"I come as a suitor, madam," he said, as he kissed her finger tips—"would it mightily displease you to become Countess of Lyndwood?"

Then he looked at the girl; he found her fair, pale, very young; to him, at least, without charm or savour; her large eyes seemed to widen with fright, her lips quivered.

"I am honoured," she said, and glanced at her father, then down again at the floor.

"And I am grateful, Miss Hilton," smiled Lord Lyndwood, "that I have your consent—for it is a consent, is it not?"

"Yes, my lord," then she moved suddenly away from him. "Sir," she addressed her father, "will you permit me to retire?"

The eyes of the two men met for a second across her shrinking presence.

Miss Hilton had not come more than a few paces from the door; and now she retreated towards it, with lowered eyes.

"When may I wait on you, madam?" asked the Earl. "You must send me your command."

Again she looked towards her father, who was regarding her with a mixture of shame and pride extraordinary to see.

"Ask my father, sir," she answered, and showed such a piteous desire to be gone that he could not but open the door for her.

Mr. Hilton strode up and down the lengthening patch of sunlight.

"She is shy, my lord, you must forgive it; but a charming girl, for any situation, charming—and now for the lawyers; make your own appointment, my lord."

Rose Lyndwood came across the room eyeing him.

"A moment, Mr. Hilton; have you or I thought over what we are doing?"

Suspicion clouded the older man's face.

"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

The young Earl flushed and his eyes darkened.

"I think of Miss Hilton—this—bargain concerns her, does it not?"

The merchant was cautious, as one dealing with qualities strange to him.

"Still I do not understand, my lord."

Rose Lyndwood answered on a quick scornful breath.

"You know my motive in this matter, Mr. Hilton, and your own—brutal words could not make it clearer between us than it is now—but what of your daughter, is it fair to her?"

The other fumbled for the meaning behind these words.

"This is a curious thing for you to say, Lord Lyndwood."

"I speak against my own advantage, Mr. Hilton, which lies in this match," he smiled bitterly; "and Gad, I know not why I do speak save that there is no one else to say to you—reflect."

Mr. Hilton frowned heavily.

"Do you seek to evade the contract pledged between us?"

The Earl's voice was stormy as he answered.

"This is a sordid enough business, sir; believe me I do not find it pleasant." He checked himself, then flashed out again, haughtily, "I have seen Miss Hilton, and I have seen she is reluctant to become my wife. God in Heaven! do you not understand? What can you offer her? I am not famous for the domestic virtues."

Mr. Hilton was quick now to think he saw the intention behind the words.

"I am not asking for your reformation, my lord," he answered. "I expect nothing but to see my daughter your wife."

"And I," said Rose Lyndwood, "was thinking not of you nor of myself, but of Miss Hilton; is it not possible for you to comprehend that?"

The expression of baited anger returned to Mr. Hilton's intent face.

"What does this mean?" he asked. "That ye seek to evade what ye have pledged yourself to, my lord?"

"Leave the matter, I pray you"—it was almost as if he addressed his servant—"I spoke from a passing impulse, a foolish one." He picked up his hat from the linen cover of the settee; his manner closed the subject.

Mr. Hilton, baffled but appeased, was silent, fondling his watch-chain.

"Monday will be convenient to me," said Lord Lyndwood. "I shall look to see you then, at my house, about twelve of the clock. My lawyer will be acquainted."

"And the betrothal shall be made public at once," assented Mr. Hilton.

He glanced up at Rose Lyndwood and was surprised into an exclamation.

"What is the matter?" asked the Earl quietly.

"You looked so pale, my lord; I thought you were ill."

The Earl's heavy lids almost concealed his eyes; he smiled, ignoring both the remark and the speaker.

"I shall await you on Monday; now I must no longer trespass on your time—au revoir." He bowed, not it seemed to Mr. Hilton, but to some intangible quality in the room, and turned to the door, swinging his gloves.

The older man was profuse and respectful in his leave-taking; my lord smiled beyond and above him, remote in an unnatural composure.

Mr. Hilton accompanied him down the stairs, not forgoing the moment on the doorstep when the idlers round the green chariot turned agape to see the Earl, to mark his companion and the intimate manner of their parting.

My lord was still noticeably pale when he mounted the curricle; as he gathered up the reins he shuddered.

The groom sprang to his place behind and the impatient white horses trampled the dust with joy.

My lord looked over his shoulder and saw Mr. Hilton lingering on the doorstep—he stood up and whispered to the horses.

As the chariot sped glittering down the street, one of the loiterers hailed a new-comer:

"There goes Lord Lyndwood—driving like the devil!"

CHAPTER V

THE TRUE LOVE

Mrs. Beale stopped her chair and stepped out.

"Lord Lyndwood," she said softly, and beckoned him with her fan.

The shifting idle crowds of the Mall divided them, but if her voice was lost on the gay summer air (already so laden with whispers and laughter) he saw the gesture and came over to her.

Her languishing eyes were reproachful as he kissed her hand.

"La! I have seen so little of you! Will you walk on with me?"

"Is there need to ask, my dear?"

She tossed her head, her cheeks were suffused with colour. As they sauntered side by side under the lime trees her glance searched for rivals to witness and envy.

"I am to play Statira to-night."

"Who is Roxana?" He smiled down at her dark prettiness.

"Do you care?" she pouted.

"Not at all."

"'Tis Miss Fenton in an ugly red gown from Paris," she informed him; "a hoyden!"

Rose Lyndwood looked languidly before him. She touched his black velvet sleeve with scented fingers.

"Will you come?" she demanded, her regard full of fire and entreaty.

"To-night?"

"I am not playing to-morrow."

"Then I will come to-night."

She flounced her white skirts out of the dust.

"Only come if it please you."

"Why, it pleases me," smiled Lord Lyndwood.

They were nearing St. James's Park. Very pleasantly the evening light glimmered in the fresh leaves of the limes and chestnuts and lay in flakes of gold on the lake, where the white ducks swam. Long pale shadows trailed over the gravel walks and close grass lawns; here and there the red and pink of the hawthorns starred the green.

For a little while the actress was silent. When they reached the edge of the water she looked up at her companion; her wide straw hat cast half her face into the shade and the red strings tied at her throat showed off the whiteness of her round chin.

"You are going to be married, I am told."

"The town knows it," he replied.

"At last!" laughed Frances Beale. "Well, I wish you happiness."

He turned a glance on her that checked her laughter.

"Thank you, my dear," he said.

They had paused at the margin of the lake; the gold ripples ran like a pathway from the toe of Mrs. Beale's little shoe to the tall poplars on the opposite bank, through the dark leaves of which the sun blazed, cloudless to its setting.

"You are very fortunate," said Mrs. Beale, gazing at the water. "The wealthy Miss Hilton. La, there has been a power of men after her swinging fortune!"

"That isn't amusing," answered Rose Lyndwood. "I think, my dear, that you had better leave the subject."

"Am I bound to be amusing?" she demanded.

He lifted his hat to a passing acquaintance.

"'Tis your profession," he replied lazily.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You endeavour to put me off—you think me a fool, no doubt; but I know what every fool knows, that old Hilton has been playing for you for a year and more." Her accent was violent and slightly vulgar; she pulled tempestuously at some unhappy roses at her breast and scattered them on the ground. "That doll!" she cried. Then her tone softened. "Well, 'tis the way of the world," and she sighed.

One pale fair cloud hovered above the poplars opposite. Lord Lyndwood looked at it as he answered:

"There is no remark to be made about such a commonplace affair save this, that the lady is too good for me."

Mrs. Beale laughed.

"Too good—yes! You aren't seen with her much."

"Miss Hilton is indisposed," he answered. "And, by Gad, Fanny, I'll not have you speak in such fashion—of her or me!"

She wilted at once beneath the hint of his anger.

"Why, I meant no harm," she breathed quickly. "Forget about it, and come to see Statira to-night. You promised."

He rewarded her submission with a smile.

"I will be there from the rise of the curtain."

They sauntered on again. Mrs. Beale found consolation for much in the glances bestowed on her companion and by the reflection that half the town must have seen whom she walked with, yet this was only a passing pleasure merely softening deep and sad feeling.

"Come and tell Statira that she was better than Roxana, afterwards," she said. "We so seldom see you in the Fields now that I think ye must go to Drury Lane."

A sudden breeze arose, ruffling the water and blowing the ends of his powdered hair on to her shoulder.

"I have been occupied of late, in truth," he answered.

"With Miss Hilton?" she could not resist saying.

"With my approaching marriage—yes." Then he laughed sweetly. "Let Statira expect me to-night after the play."

"Statira will be proud." Her eyes glowed. "La, I shall act well to-night!"

"As always."

"Ah, no!" she answered almost bitterly. "I cannot act. I can rant upon the boards, 'tis all. When most I wish to disguise my feelings, then do I find how poor an actress I am."

"Do you wish to act for my benefit, my dear?" asked Lord Lyndwood lightly.

She gave him a dark bright glance.

"Sometimes, maybe. Now the sun is setting, will you see me to my chair?"

They made slow way back through the thinning crowd.

Mrs. Beale was suddenly gay.

"What flowers will you bring me to-night? When last I played Statira, Lord Sandys sent me more yellow roses than I could wear in a month. The Fenton was furious; but you, nothing from you!"

"I was in Kent." His words were the merest excuse, but his eyes made amends. "I will redeem myself to-night."

Her lids drooped.

"Whatever you may send I will wear."

He sighed.

"What can London yield fair enough?"

"Anything you have chosen," she answered in a low voice. Then abruptly she looked up at him. "Don't you know it?"

"My hopes were, maybe, so presumptuous."

They reached her chair under the limes. The golden dust of evening hovered in the chilling air; overhead the sky was a fading blue, and the fragrant leaves shivered together.

The grey eyes of Rose Lyndwood laughed into the fair face of Frances Beale, and for a moment she forgot that there were many to mark it.

"Till to-night, au revoir," she said, and her lips quivered.

He had possession of her hand for some seconds. When at last she drew up the glass and her chair was borne away down the Mall, he sauntered idly in the opposite direction.

The long walks emptied as the sky filled with deep and pure gold and the encroaching shadows merged into one darkness over the park.

Rose Lyndwood leant against the posts that bordered the grass, and drew a letter from his pocket, the latter part of which he re-read in the waning afterglow:

"... Marius is staying with Mr. Brereton now; I had his Confidences before he left. Had You heard You had pitied! He is very much in Love. He does not, it seems, know her Name, though she has his. He is awaiting her letter in an ardour Beautiful to behold.

"I tell You this to put a gloss upon his Selfishness. He is frankly Pleased at your Marriage and the prospect it unfolds for him. He desires you will write to him to let him know your Commands about his attendance at the Ceremony.

"My Lady has forgiven you; indeed, I think has forgotten that she Ever reproached you. She makes complaint of Miss Hilton's lack of Pedigree, but wishes her friendship. I think she is not Eager to go to London for the Wedding, which she desires to be very Private, so as not to make a show of a necessity; but this must be as you Wish.

"From what you say of Miss Hilton I think she must be Good and Sweet. Convey our duty to her; we shall be glad when you bring her to Lyndwood.

"We are very Quiet here now Marius has gone, and the white Roses that are Just coming to a bloom are become my best Companions.—Your dutiful cousin,

"Susannah Chressham.

"Postscriptum.—I have had no Letter for a long While from Miss Boyle. Is she still in Bristol? I heard you had met her at The Wells. I would be Obliged if you would Tell me if she be in London and at what address.—S. C."

Rose Lyndwood folded up the letter, returned it to his pocket, and walked idly through the twilight streets to his mansion near Panton Square.

His solitary and splendid dinner over, he answered his cousin's letter in this manner, writing with a steady hand but showing a face which reflected emotions not to be forever repressed:

"My Cousin,—Accept my dear thanks, and this brief answer, for your Epistle, which was pleasant to receive and to read.

"The marriage is for the 3rd of July in St. James's Church. Very few will be present. I shall not desire my Lady's attendance.

"Afterwards we go to Paris, and shall return to Lyndwood the beginning of August, when I shall desire Marius to be at home that I may Speak with him.

"I have seen but Little of Miss Hilton; at present she is Indisposed and confined to her House.

"She sings and plays with a Charming air, but I think she hath a Melancholy disposition.

"Convey my Service to her Ladyship.—Your dutiful cousin,

"Lyndwood.

"Postscriptum.—I have not seen Miss Boyle since I was at the Wells. I believe she is still at Bristol.—L."

As the Earl sealed this letter he smiled with a sad disdain—not at what he had said, but at what lay unexpressed behind the bare sentences, and for a while he sat silent with dreaming eyes.

CHAPTER VI

THE FAREWELL

The theatre was crowded and the air close and heavy; a continual murmur of voices rose from the pit, laughter, snatches of song, and whispers.

Rose Lyndwood leant from his box, put up his glass and surveyed the house; behind him two young men yawned, and laughed, aimlessly, lounging against the side of the box.

The Earl was silent; they could not involve him in their jests or comments. He remained with face averted idly gazing at the faces below; nearly all turned towards him, he was commonly more stared at than the play.

"'Tis vastly warm here," complained one of his companions. "Why aren't they beginning?"

Rose Lyndwood suddenly swung about and lifted dark eyes to the speaker.

"Who is that opposite with Sandys?" he asked.

"The charmer in green?"

"Yes, do you know her?"

George Cochrane answered.

"'Tis Miss Lescelles; the dame in the huge toupee is her mother."

"She and Sandys are to be married in July," added the other.

"She is prodigious pretty," said my lord languidly, "and I never saw a countenance express more happiness."

Lord Cochrane smiled.

"She is quite enamoured of Sandys."

"Sandys! Good Gad!" yawned the other.

Rose Lyndwood gazed again at the lady opposite; rosy and smiling she was in her green gown with her swansdown cloak revealing the pearls on her white neck.

"Sandys is to be envied," he said, "in that he can make her look so happy."

George Cochrane, signalled by a group entering below, took his leave; his companion followed, and the Earl remained alone in the box.

Through the murmuring noises of the audience settling to their places sounded the light joyous laugh of Miss Lescelles, and as Rose Lyndwood glanced in her direction his eyes saddened.

At last the curtain stirred and parted; Miss Fenton stepped into the yellow artificial light and lisped the prologue.

She was gorgeous in a scarlet farthingale and a gold silk turban looped with diamonds; she ogled the boxes with good effect, and was apt in the management of her fan; the Earl approved her with a smile, and the pit was generous in applause.

She withdrew, reluctantly, from the public gaze, and the curtain was looped back before an Eastern scene.

It had been very handsomely done. Barry was playing, and Quin; the perukes were from Paris, and the management had been lavish in the matter of Turkish mail and jewelled scimitars.

When Statira appeared the house shouted welcome; she turned her eyes up at Rose Lyndwood as she curtsied.

She held his gaze through the scene that followed, and the knowledge of it made her acting splendid—Roxana was eclipsed, vanquished.

The Earl found the high emotions, the stormy expressions, the fierce gestures, the lights, the jewels suited to his mood; he was pleased as he had seldom been pleased at the play.

Statira was beautiful to look upon; she wore her purple with a regal air, as she moved to and fro gold gleamed round her slender waist, her black curls floated beneath her green turban, red lilies, his gift, heaved on her stormy bosom, and her dark eyes flashed to the box where Rose Lyndwood sat alone.

He was held by the passion she expressed, by her movements, her changing voice; the tempestuous play, the angry jealousy, the flash of arms, the glint of daggers, the sonorous eloquence of Quin, the languishing grace of Barry combined to captivate his senses; he did not move or once take his eyes from the scene till the curtain fell on the first act.

Statira, panting and flushed beneath her paint, swept a great curtsey to the acclaiming house.

My lord unfastened one of the white roses at his cravat and flung it at her feet. She carried it to her lips as she retired into the wings, and he kissed his hand.

The audience relaxed after their silence. The beaux stood up in the pit to show off their clothes, some of the ladies readjusted their masks; the porters went round snuffing the candles. Rose Lyndwood leant back in his box smiling to himself a little.

Then he chanced to lift his eyes and saw—her.

She sat alone, directly opposite, erect and smiling at him; their gaze met across the lights, the jests and laughter, that in an instant were utterly tawdry, and he got to his feet, breathing sharply.

Miss Selina Boyle still smiled. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was wrapped in a soft grey mantle; against the shadows of the empty background her light hair showed like a wreath of faint flame about her head.

He descended into the theatre and passed through the noisy crowds, not knowing of them; he opened the door of her box.

"May I come in, madam?"

She looked at him, saying nothing, and he entered.

"I thought you were in Bristol."

"We came to London yesterday," said Miss Boyle. "Will you sit down, my lord?"

He took the chair behind her.

"Who is with you to-night, madam?"

"My father—he has gone to visit the room behind the scenes, he will not return till after this act."

"May I stay?" asked Rose Lyndwood gravely. "I wish to speak to you."

She gave him a full glance out of soft and rich eyes.

"I wondered," she said, below her breath, "if you would care to come—I have been watching you since we entered—just after the rising of the curtain, my lord."

Those past moments, wasted on Statira's noisy charms while she gazed at him, were too utterly dead, too smitten into extinction by her voice and her look to be even regretted.

"Do not think," he answered, "that I left this to chance, madam. I should have come to Bristol."

She moved half round so that she could see his face. They were both in shadow, only the yellow light from without touched his white silk cuff, and his hand resting on the back of the empty chair before him.

"I received your letter, my lord," she said. "Forgive me if I could not answer it."

"You understood?" asked Rose Lyndwood intently; "by what I said and what you have heard since, you understand?"

Her delicate and spiritual face quivered with a smile.

"Oh, yes," she replied. The folds of the grey silk wrap touched her chin, and the pale auburn curls loosely gathered on her proud head fell apart softly on her low brow. Looking at her my lord changed in voice, in mien, in expression, and a part of him that no other had ever seen was hers to gaze on.

"If my lady and your brother wished it," she added, "there was no other thing to do, and I would have desired you to act as you did, my lord."

"As I knew," he answered; "but I am selfish enough to wish you, madam, to know what it costs me"—he caught his breath and bent towards her—"no, not that, I wish to tell you——"

Miss Boyle interrupted him.

"Shall we not, for our own sakes, remember Miss Hilton? What you have not dared to say to me before you cannot say now," her tone sank to an exquisite tenderness; "this is farewell."

"And because it is farewell," said my lord in a tone low but swelling, "I must be bold enough to say some things to you—to tell you this at least, that you have given me the sweetest pain—that I would sooner have died on my own sword than do what I have to do."

"But that way is for boors," she flashed response; "gentlemen must live. Perhaps I also see no great joy ahead"—her eyes were like live gold in her shadowed face; "it has all been a pitiful matter, and I am sorry for Miss Hilton, but as for us—we may find some greatness in our way of meeting the future."

Her breath came hastily, and she lifted her fine fingers to her throat and loosened the grey wrap.

"What do you think I can do?" asked my lord, something wildly; he straightened himself and half withdrew into the shadow of the box. She heard the rattle of his sword, the shiver of his silks, and saw that he pressed his clenched hand to his brow. "Where am I to find my consolation?"

"Oh, sir!" cried Miss Boyle. "What can I say, or how judge for you? My philosophy is a woman's, and suited to a woman's needs."

Rose Lyndwood stared at her across the dusty shadows, and all that was noble in him lay bare in his gaze.

"It is not possible, madam," he said, "that you could care as I care. It is not possible!"

The spectators had returned to their seats. The curtain had risen upon the pageant of love and jealousy. These two did not heed it, save by lowering a little their already hushed voices. Miss Boyle had her back to the stage, and my lord did not notice what took place upon it. He did not know whether Roxana or Statira raved, or if Barry or Quin declaimed.

"You must not think that of me," answered Miss Boyle. "When first I had your letter I thought St. Mary's vaults the sweetest place to be—the sunshine was like a sword—but I strove to justify your—what you thought of me—by some fortitude, and then it came to me, like a bird might come to a flower, how little it mattered."

Rose Lyndwood sat motionless in the shadows of the box, only the lace round the raised hand that held his head trembling a little.

"My lord," continued Miss Boyle, in a voice mournfully sweet, "thus I reason it—that sure knowledge we both have is so great a thing that—ah, 'tis as if we had been together in some pure temple that none other knew of, and the memory of it were enough. Even if the portals are forever closed, none can steal the picture we have of what lies beyond the doors—but you will smile at me and my poor fancies."

His answer came unsteadily.

"You have lost so little—God knows how little—but I have lost—everything."

Her delicate breast heaved.

"Have I given you nothing, my lord—nothing that you may keep always?"

"You shame me," said Rose Lyndwood, "and I am too ignoble for these words you speak to me. I have been born and bred in folly, and in folly I must live and die, but I am not yet a patient fool to take this smilingly——"

The manifold colours of the stage flashed and glittered. Roxana shrieked, and Statira lost her fire staring at an empty box, but these two saw nothing.

The mantle slipped from Miss Boyle's shoulders, showing her pale, shining dress, and the tender curve of her chin and throat. The Earl spoke again:

"Because I thought of you I was false to you; because I had you always in my thoughts I put you out of my life; but this you must have known, and I but mar with words my meaning. 'Tis when we strive to interpret our silences that we misunderstand one another."

"About Marius?" breathed Miss Boyle. "Susannah wrote me somewhat——"

"Yes," answered the Earl. "Marius is my lady's heir. He hath inherited all her affection for my dead lord, and she in her grief reproached me that I had ruined him, for it seems he hath fallen in love in a fantastical sad fashion. A year ago I had laughed at it, but now it weighed greatly with me. What had I been, thought I, had I met and won her when I was twenty-one? What may it not mean to Marius to win or lose this lady? I did not dare it should be through me. 'Twas my happiness or his, and I had not the right."

"No," said Selina Boyle softly. "You had not the right; you are the elder of your house."

Leaning towards her, Rose Lyndwood answered:

"My life hath been amiss, as my lady reminded me, and Marius shall not be so shackled that his can be no better. If his romance is strong enough to save him from being the useless rake-helly fool I have been, somewhat hath been achieved; if not, at least I have tried to make amends, and he hath it in his own hands."

He paused a moment and pressed his handkerchief to his lips.

"Mine own deeds can I take on my own soul, but not the life of another man; so Marius is free."

Silence fell in the dark, narrow little box. Miss Boyle bent her head.

"You understand, madam?" asked the Earl, after a moment's agonised scrutiny of her averted face.

She gave a torn little sigh.

"My silly heart incommodes me. I strive to tell you, my lord, that you have done the best that could be—for Mr. Lyndwood and your honour."

Still she would not look at him, and he rose in his seat.

"If he is spared what I endure now," he said unsteadily, "through any act of mine, he hath cause to thank me."

Now she slowly turned her eyes on him.

"There is one we do not speak of," she whispered. "What of Miss Hilton?"

His pale face darkened.

"She knows why I seek her hand, and assents to the dictates of her ambition."

"Maybe of her father," said Miss Boyle. "She is very young."

"I cannot find it in me to pity her, madam, for this honour I do her. She will find me courteous, as I doubt not I shall find her obedient."

A sudden smile radiated Miss Boyle's ardent face.

"I do not commiserate her in that she will be your wife, my lord, but in that she hath no place in your affections. Your wife—ah, sir, the theatre grows something close, and my head throbs piteously."

The smile faded from her face, and her long lids drooped.

"Give me that flower from your lace," she whispered, "and go. You must go!"

She rested her head against the side of the box, and her lashes showed dark yet gleaming against her smooth pale cheeks.

"I cannot give you that," answered my lord, "for it hath touched one I degraded, lain next a fellow I treated carelessly."

She did not move, speak, or raise her eyes, but her whole slight body quivered and trembled with her breathing.

"This is for you," said Rose Lyndwood, under his breath, and faintly. "When I was a child I loved it; it seemed to me sacred. I—I did not understand it, and so I kept it hidden; it hath been secret all my life because of this. Will you take it?"

She looked, and her eyes were drenched with tears; it was a small white shell with a smooth pink lip that lay on my lord's palm. She did not put out her hand, and he placed it on the edge of the box.

Then she took it up.

"'Tis safe with me," she breathed, "for ever."

The act came to a tearing conclusion. These two looked at each other.

"It is better you should go now," whispered Miss Boyle.

He stooped in the darkness and took up the end of her scarf, laid it to his lips, and was gone.

A shaft of strong light fell across her face as he opened the door. As he softly closed it, and she was again concealed in soft darkness, she closed her eyes and smiled while the great tears quivered on her lashes.

Lord Lyndwood's box stood empty for the rest of the performance. Statira acted like a fury, and afterwards fell into hysterics in the green-room, to the triumph of Miss Fenton and the other ladies performing in The Rival Queens.

CHAPTER VII

"ASPASIA"

"I wish you would go and meet them at the lodge," said Susannah Chressham.

"'Tis near an hour before they are due," smiled Marius, looking at his watch. "How impatient you are!"

"To see her, yes." Miss Chressham unfurled her pink parasol. "I am quite agitated."

"Shall we return to the house?"

"No, it is very pleasant here; let us go to my rose garden, it will pass the time, and really some of the blooms are beautiful."

They took a path that led towards the lake across the cedar-shaded lawn; the sun was strong before its setting and cast a soft glow through the rosy silk of Miss Chressham's parasol on to her bare brown head and white dress; Marius Lyndwood was very exquisitely arrayed in dove-coloured satins; as he walked beside his cousin he played with the red tassels on his ivory-headed cane.

"Has Rose written to you of late?" asked Miss Chressham suddenly.

"I received a letter from him two days ago, as I was leaving Brereton's," answered Marius half shyly. "I spoke of it to my lady, but she did not encourage me to show it to her."

He switched at the thick daisies with his cane.

"Rose wrote from Calais—charmingly—he enclosed bills to a large amount, and said he had arranged a captaincy for me in the Blues—'twas all very sweetly worded."

"Rose has a chivalrous soul," said Miss Chressham.

Marius flushed.

"You, with him, make me out a selfish boor, maybe," and the crimson deepened in his cheeks. "I was passionate with my lord, but he hath given me no chance to put it aright."

They were now skirting the borders of the lake, and their bright dresses were reflected like painted shadows in the still water.

Susannah spoke firmly.

"What Rose has done he did because he was the head of the house and because you and my lady made it clear that you expected his duty of him—it was natural that you should——"

"Ye make me uneasy with this talk of his sacrifice," cried Marius.

"I said duty, not sacrifice," returned Miss Chressham; "this marriage hath saved the estates, the name, my lady and you."

It was at the irises growing at the water's edge that Marius struck now with his impetuous cane.

"But," he said as if in self-justification, "a man in my lord's position must marry, and 'tis usually an heiress; the thing is done every day; many might have expected Rose to do it sooner, before it came to openly making a bargain of it."

Susannah Chressham tilted her parasol and turned keen eyes on his half-ashamed face.

"Would you have cared to marry a stranger, Marius, because she had a hundred thousand pounds to her dowry, and her father had paid your debts?"

"I am not the Earl," said he, wincing.

"But had you been——"

He interrupted.

"Had I been, Susannah, maybe I had not so wasted my fortunes that I had need to mend them in this way; take it as you will, my lord is a rake and a prodigal; why, Beau Lyndwood is the most conspicuous name in town."

"My lord," she answered warmly, "hath lived as his father before him, and ye have no cause to speak; your romance lies open to you—my lord has paid, and with the price he gets you can save yourself from my lord's sins."

Marius answered in a soft troubled voice.

"Do not blame me, cousin, 'tis not entirely for me that he does this——"

"Very largely for you, that you may have the chance to win this lady who may be all in all to you."

"I am grateful," said Marius simply. "For indeed I want little else but that same lady—we shall not trouble Rose."

They had turned away from the lake into a little grove of Eastern shrubs, myrtles, laurels and oleanders; Susannah's skirt trailing over the fallen fragrant leaves made a pleasant sound; she softly closed the parasol.

"Has she written to you, Marius?"

"No," he looked away, "but she said she would not be returning to London till September, and, of course, it does not matter whether she writes or no."

"You are so sure of her?" breathed Susannah.

"So sure," he smiled.

"Not even knowing her name!"

He lifted a bough of myrtles from the path.

"I called her in my fancy 'Aspasia' from Mr. Fletcher's play, 'twas enough; I only spoke to her twice; the first time we said so little! the second time I gave her my name and she gave me her picture. 'I will write to you,' she said—and so—and so——"

"You are very fortunate," answered Miss Chressham in a hushed way, "it must make you more tender with my lord."

She passed under the trellis arch that led into the garden, he followed, and they stood among the heavy roses looking at each other.

"What do you mean, cousin?" asked Marius.

She put her hand among the thorns and leaves and shook a huge crimson bloom free from wet.

"This—do not be over-righteous, Marius—when you have found her, and won her, and are as happy as you dreamed, remember my lord's unlovely marriage, and be a little sorry for him."

Her voice broke; she turned away, pressing against the rose bushes; Marius lifted her hand and kissed it in silence.

"I grow sentimental," she cried. "Come, which of these flowers do you think the new Countess would give the preference to?"

She shifted her parasol and her fingers fondled the ribbon on the handle.

"We must pick her some of my roses," she added. "I want to like her, Marius—my lady will be cold with fear, but she might have been sour or vain or common; Rose has always spoken of her as gentle and sweet."

"Her birth is well enough," answered Marius uneasily. "Her people have never been less than gentlefolk."

He did not care to think his brother had mated too utterly beneath him, and it seemed that Susannah was making too much of it—as the matter really only interested him obliquely he would have had it taken for granted and put aside; he would have preferred to relate how he first met Aspasia in the Luxembourg gardens in Paris; Susannah could be, when she chose, a perfect listener.

But she would not suffer the subject to change. "It must be difficult for her—at first," she said. "I am very curious to see her. Lavinia hath quite a pretty sound, hath it not? I wonder if she likes riding."

"Ye seem very desirous to please her," smiled Marius.

Susannah paused before an opulent bush bearing roses red almost to a purple tinge.

"I want her to like me," she repeated.

Marius looked at his cousin; certainly she was making too much of it; he could not find Rose's wife of such importance.

"Why?" he asked. "Why do you want her to like you?"

Miss Chressham answered with an ardent gravity.

"Because I am afraid of hating her," she said; "I wish to like her before I am lured into loathing her."

She pulled two roses from the stem, never heeding the thorns, and gazed intently at them.

"I think you take it over heavily," replied Marius with a judicial air. "Rose was bound to marry and to marry a fortune—he would scarcely have made a love match." Marius was boyishly pompous. "We hear the lady has qualities, is as desirable as another lady with a hundred thousand pounds, and I cannot think Rose would ever let his wife interfere with him."

Susannah's eyes flashed over the gorgeous blooms she held to her lips.

"And you will supply sentiment for two; well, no doubt I am foolishly romantical."

But the words were a mere dismissal of a subject she disdained to discuss with one who would not understand.

"I think we might go now," she added; "surely it is time?"

"The moments have been vastly swift!" He glanced at his watch. "Yes, they are due—shall I go straight to the lodge?"

"Had you not better? My lady awaits them in the withdrawing-room. She thinks of her own home-coming, I know—a triumphal arch, villagers lining the road with flowers—and regrets this for Rose; but his commands were stern."

Miss Chressham spoke rapidly. Her restless eyes and fluttering lashes showed agitation. As Marius parted from her by the lake she laughed nervously, and waved her hand to the careless youthful figure hurrying through the shrubbery.