 11. In which lake under the trees of Brandon and I in my chamber smoke are nocturnal cigars. 12. Miss Lake declined the carriage to-night. Her brother was to see her home, and there was a leave-taking, and the young ladies whispered a word or two, and kissed, after the manner of their kind. To Captain Lake, Miss Brandon's idea were as cold and haughty as her greeting. 13. Did you see that? said Wilder in my ear with a chuckle. 14. And, wagging his head, he added, rather loftily for him. 15. Miss Brandon, I reckon, has taken your measure, Master Stanley, as well as I. 16. I wonder what the deuce the old dowager sees in him. Old women always like rascals, and he added some things still less complimentary. 17. I suppose the balance of attraction and repulsion was overcome by Miss Lake, much as he disliked Stanley. For Wilder followed them out with Lord Shelford to help the young lady into her cloak and galoshes, and I found myself near Miss Brandon for the first time that evening, and much to my surprise she was first to speak, and that rather strangely. 18. You seem to be very sensible. 19. Mr. Decrisceral, pray, tell me, frankly, what do you think of all this? 20. I am not quite sure, Miss Brandon, that I understand your question, I replied inquiringly. 21. I mean of the—the family arrangements in which, as Mr. Wilder's friend, you seem to take an interest, she said. 22. There can hardly be a second opinion, Miss Brandon. 23. I think it a very wise measure, I replied, much surprised. 24. Very wise, exactly, but don't these very wise things sometimes turn out very foolishly? 25. Do you really think your friend, Mr. Wilder, cares about me? 26. I take that for granted, and the nature of things that can hardly be otherwise, I replied, a good deal startled and perplexed by the curious audacity of her interrogatory. 27. It was very foolish of me to expect from Mr. Wilder's friend any other answer. 28. You are very loyal, Mr. Decrisceral. 29. And without awaiting my reply, she made some remark, which I forget, to Lady Chalford, who sat at a little distance, and, appearing quite absorbed in her new subject, she placed herself close beside the Dowager and continued to chat in a low tone. 29. I was vexed with myself for having managed with so little skill a conversation which, opened so oddly and frankly, might have placed me on relation so nearly confidential with that singular and beautiful girl. I ought to have rejoiced, but we don't always see what most concerns our peace. In the meantime I had formed a new idea of her. She was so unreserved, it seemed, and yet in this directness there was something almost contemptuous. By this time Lord Chalford and Wilder returned, and, disgusted rather with myself, I ruminated on my want of generalship. In the meantime Ms. Lake, with her hand on her brother's arm, was walking swiftly under the trees of the back avenue towards that footpath which, through wild copes and broken clumps near the park, emerges upon the still darker road which passes along the wooded glen by the mills and skirts the little pailing of the recluse lady's garden. They had not walked far when Lake suddenly said, What do you think of all this, Rady? This particular version I mean of marriage, à la monde. Are they preparing up there? And he made a little dip of his cane towards Brandon Hall over his shoulder. I really don't think Wilder cares too pence about her, or she about him, and Stanley Lake laughed gently and sleepily. I don't think they pretend to like one another. It is quite understood. It was all, you know, old Lady Chalford's arrangement, and Dorcas is so supine I believe she would allow herself to be given away by anyone, and to anyone, rather than be at the least trouble. She provokes me. But I thought she liked Sir Harry Brackton. He's a good looking fellow, and Queen's Brackton is a very nice thing, you know. Yes, so they said, but that would, I think, have been worse. Something may be made of Mark Wilder. He has some sense and caution, has not he? But Sir Harry is wickedness itself. Why, what has Sir Harry done? That is the way you women run away with things. If a fellow's been a little bit wild, he is Beelzebub at once. Brackton's a very good fellow, I can assure you. The fact is Captain Lake, an accomplished player, made a pretty little revenue of Sir Harry's billiards, which were wild and noisy, and, liking his money, thought he liked himself, a confusion not uncommon. I don't know and can't say how you fine gentlemen define wickedness. Only, as an obscure female, I speak according to my lights, and he is generally thought the wickedest man in this county. Well, you know, Rady, women like wicked fellows. It is contrast, I suppose, but they do, and I'm sure, from what Brackton has said to me, I know him intimately, that Dorcas likes him, and I can't conceive why they are not married. It is very happy for her, at least, they are not, said Rachel, and a long silence ensued. Their walk continued silent for the greater part. Neither was quite satisfied with the other, but Rachel at last said, Stanley, you meditate some injury to Mark Wilder. I, Rady, he answered quietly, why on earth should you think so? I saw you twice watch him when you thought no one observed you, and I know your face too well, Stanley, to mistake. Now that's impossible, Rady, for I really don't think I once thought of him all this evening, except just while we were talking. You keep your secret as usual, Stanley, said the young lady. Really, Rady, you're quite mistaken. I assure you upon my honor I have no secret. You're a very odd girl. Why won't you believe me? Miss Rachel only glanced across her mufflers on his face. There was a bright moonlight broken by the shadows of overhanging bows and withered leaves, and the mottled lights and shadows glided oddly across his pale features. But she saw that he was smiling his sly, sleepy smile, and she said quietly, well, Stanley, I ask no more, but you don't deceive me. I don't try to, if your feelings indeed had been different and that you had not made such a point, you know. Don't insult me, Stanley, by talking again as you did this morning. What I say is altogether on your own account. Mark my words, you'll find him too strong for you, I, and too deep. I see very plainly that he suspects you as I do. You saw it too, for nothing of that kind escapes you. Whatever you meditate, he probably anticipates it. You know best, and you will find him prepared. You have given him time enough. You were always the same, close, dark, and crooked, and wise in your own conceits. I am very uneasy about it, whatever it is. I can't help it. It will happen, and most ominously, I feel, that you are courting a dreadful retaliation, and that you will bring on yourself a great misfortune. But it is quite vain, I know, speaking to you. Really, Rady, you're enough to frighten a poor fellow. You won't mind a word I say, and go on predicting all manner of mischief between me and Wilder, the very nature of which I can't surmise. Would you dislike my smoking a cigar, Rady? Oh no, answered the young lady, with a little laugh and a heavy sigh, for she knew it meant silence, and her dark auguries grew darker. To my mind there has always been something inexpressibly awful in family feuds. Mortal hatred seems to deepen and dilate into something diabolical in these perverted animosities. The mystery of their origin, their capacity for evolving latent faculties of crime, and the steady vitality with which they survive the hearse and speak their deep mouthed malignities in every newborn generation have associated them somehow in my mind with a spell of life exceeding and distinct from human and the special satanic action. My chamber, as I have mentioned, was upon the third story. It was one of many opening upon the long gallery which had been the scene four generations back of that unnatural and bloody midnight duel which had laid one scion of this ancient house in his shroud and driven another afugitive to the moral solitudes of a continental banishment. Much of the day, as I told you, had been passed among the grisly records of these old family crimes and hatreds. They had been an ill-conditioned and not a happy race, when I heard the servant step traversing that long gallery, as it seemed to thee in haste to be gone, and when all grew quite silent, I began to feel a dismal sort of sensation, and lighted the pair of wax candles which I found upon the small writing table. How wonderful and mysterious is the influence of light! What sort of beings must those be who hate it? The floor more than anything else showed the great age of the room. It was warped and arched all along by the wall between the door and the window. The portion of it which the carpet did not cover showed it to be oak, dark, and rugged. My bed was unexceptionably comfortable, but, in my then mood, I could have wished it a great deal more modern. Its four posts were, like the rest of it, oak, well-nigh black, fantastically turned and carved, with a great urn-like capital and base, and shaped midway like a gigantic lance handle. Its curtains were of thick and faded tapestry. I was always a lover of such antiquities, but I confess at that moment I would have vastly preferred a sprightly modern chintz and a trumpery little French bed in a corner of the Brandon Arms. There was a great lowering press of oak, and some shelves with withered green and gold leather borders. All the furniture belonged to other times. I would have been glad to hear a step-stirring, or a cough even, or the gavel of servants at a distance. But there was a silence and desertion in this part of the mansion which, somehow, made me feel that I was myself a solitary intruder on this level of the vast old house. I shan't trouble you about my train of thoughts or fancies, but I began to feel very like a gentleman in a ghost story, watching experimentally in a haunted chamber. My cigar case was a resource. I was not a bit afraid of being found out. I did not even take the precaution of smoking up the chimney. I boldly lighted my charoute. I peeped through the dense window curtain. There were no shutters. A cold, bright moon was shining with clear, sharp lights and shadows. Everything looked strangely cold and motionless outside. The somber old trees, like gigantic hearse plumes, black and awful. The chapelet, full in view, were so many of the strange and equivocal race under whose ancient roof-tree I then stood, were lying under their tombstones. Somehow I had grown nervous. A little bit of plaster tumbled down the chimney and startled me confoundedly. Then, sometime after, I fancied I heard a creaking step on the lobby outside and, candle in hand, opened the door and looked out with an odd sort of expectation and a rather agreeable disappointment upon vacancy. In which Uncle Lorne troubles me. I was growing most uncomfortably like one of Mrs. Anne Radcliffe's heroes, a nervous race of demigods. I walked like a sentinel up and down my chamber, puffing leisurely the solemn incense, and trying to think of the opera and my essay on Paradise Lost and other pleasant subjects. But it would not do. Every now and then, as I turned towards the door, I fancied I saw it softly close. I can't the least say whether it was altogether fancy. It was with the corner, or as the Italians have it, the tail of my eye that I saw, or imagine that I saw, this trifling but unpleasant movement. I called out once or twice sharply, come in, who's there, who's that? And so forth, without any sort of effect, except that unpleasant reaction upon the nerves, which follows the sound of one's own voice in a solitude of this kind. The fact is, I did not myself believe in that stealthy motion of my door, and set it down to one of those illusions which I have sometimes succeeded in analyzing, a half-seen combination of objects which, rightly placed in the due relations of perspective, have no mutual connection whatever. So I ceased to challenge the unearthly inquisitor, and allowed him, after a while, serenely enough, to peep as I turned my back, or to withdraw again as I made my regular, right-about face. I had now got halfway in my second cheroot, and the clock clanged one. It was a very still night, and the prolonged boom vibrated strangely in my excited ears and brain. I had never been quite such an ass before, but I do assure you I was now in an extremely unpleasant state. One o'clock was better, however, than twelve. Although, by Jove, the bell was beating one, as I remember, precisely as that king of ghosts, old Hamlet, revisited the glimpses of the moon upon the famous platform of Elsinor. I had pondered too long over the lore of this satanic family, and drunk very strong tea, I suppose. I could not get my nerves into a comfortable state, and cheerful thoughts refused to inhabit the darkened chamber of my brain. As I stood in a sort of reverie, looking straight upon the door, I saw—and this time there could be no mistake whatsoever—the handle, the only modern thing about it, slowly turned, and the door itself, as slowly, pushed about a quarter open. I do not know what exclamation I made. The door was shut instantly, and I found myself standing at it and looking out upon the lobby with a candle in my hand, and actually freezing with foolish horror. I was looking towards the stair-head. The passage was empty and ended in utter darkness. I glanced the other way, and thought I saw, though not distinctly, in the distance a white figure not gliding in the conventional way, but limping off with a sort of jerky motion, and in a second or two quite lost in darkness. I got into my room again, and shook the door with a clap that sounded loudly and unnaturally through the dismal quiet that surrounded me, and stood with my hand on the handle with the instinct of resistance. I felt uncomfortable, and I would have secured the door, but there was no sort of fastening within, so I paused. I did not mind looking out again. To tell you the plain truth, I was just a little bit afraid. Then I grew angry at having been put into such remote, and possibly suspected quarters, and then my comfortable skepticism supervened. I was yet to learn a great deal about this visitation. So, in due course, having smoked my charoute, I jerked the stump into the fire. Of course, I could not think of depriving myself of candle-light, and being already of a thoughtful, old bachelor temperament, and averse from burning houses, I placed one of my tall wax-lights in a basin on the table by my bed, in which I soon affected a lodgement, and lay with a comparative sense of security. Then I heard two o'clock strike, but shortly after, as I suppose, sleep overtook me, and I have no distinct idea for how long my slumber lasted. The fire was very low when I awoke, and saw a figure, and a very odd one, seated by the embers, and stooping over the grate with a pair of long hands expanded, as it seemed, to catch the warmth of the sinking fire. It was that of a very tall old man, entirely dressed in white flannel, a very long spencer, and some sort of white swathing about his head. His back was toward me, and he stooped without the slightest motion over the fireplace, in the attitude I have described. As I looked, he suddenly turned toward me, and fixed upon me a cold, and as it seemed, a wrathful gaze over his shoulder. It was a bleached and a long-chinned face, the countenance of Lauren's portrait, only more faded, sinister, and apathetic. And having, as it were, secured its awful command over me by a protracted gaze, he rose, supernaturally lean and tall, and drew near the side of my bed. I continued to stare upon this apparition with the most dreadful fascination I ever experienced in my life. For two or three seconds I literally could not move. When I did, I am not ashamed to confess, it was to plunge my head under the bedclothes, with the childish instinct of terror, and there I lay breathless for what seemed to me not far from ten minutes, during which there was no sound nor other symptom of its presence. On a sudden the bedclothes were gently lifted at my feet, and I sprang backwards, sitting upright against the back of the bed, and once more under the gaze of that long-chinned old man. A voice as peculiar as the appearance of the figure said, You are in my bed. I died in it a great many years ago. I am Uncle Lorne, and when I am not here a devil goes up and down in the room. See, he had his face to your ear when I came in. I came from Dorcas Brandon's bed-chamber door, where her evil angel told me a thing, and Mark Wilder must not seek to marry her, for he will be buried alive if he does, and he will, maybe, never get up again. Say your prayers when I go out, and come here no more. He paused, as if these incredible words were to sink into my memory, and then, in the same tone, and with the same countenance, he asked, Is the blood on my forehead? I don't know whether I answered. So soon as a calamity is within twelve hours, the blood comes upon my forehead as they found me in the morning. It is a sign. The old man then drew back slowly, and disappeared behind the curtains at the foot of the bed, and I saw no more of him during the rest of that odious night. So long as this apparition remained before me, I never doubted it's being supernatural. I don't think mortal ever suffered horror more intense. My very hair was dripping with a cold moisture. For some seconds I hardly knew where I was. But soon a reaction came, and I felt convinced that the apparition was a living man. It was no process of reason or philosophy, but simply I became persuaded of it, and something like rage overcame my terrors. Chapter 13 The Pony Carriage So soon as daylight came, I made a swift cold water toilet, and got out into the open air, with a solemn resolution to see the hated interior of that bedroom no more. When I met Lord Shelford in his early walk that morning, I'm sure I looked myself like a ghost, at all events, very wild and seedy, for he asked me, more seriously than usual, how I was, and I think I would have told him the story of my adventure, despite the secret ridicule with which I fancied he would receive it, had not been for a certain insurmountable disgust and horror which helped me tongue tight upon the affair. I told him, however, that I had dreamt dreams, and was restless and uncomfortable in my present birth, and begged his interest with the housekeeper to have my quarters changed to the lower story, quite resolved to remove to the Brandon arms rather than encounter another such night as I had passed. Stanley Lake did not appear that day. Wilder was glowering and abstracted, worse company than usual, and Rachel seemed to have quite passed from his recollection. While Rachel Lake was, as usual, busy in her little garden that day, Lord Shelford, on his way to the town, by the pretty mill road, took off his head to her, with a smiling salutation, and leaning on the pelling, he said, I often wonder how you make your flowers grow here, you have so little sun among the trees, and yet it is so pretty and flowery, it remains in my memory as if the sun were always shining specially on this little garden. Miss Lake laughed. I am very proud of it, they try not to blow, but I never let them alone till they do. See all my watering pots and pruning scissors, my sticks and bas-mat, and glass covers, skill and industry conquer childish nature, and this is my Versailles. I don't believe in those sticks and scissors and watering pots, you won't tell your secret, but I'm sure it's an influence. You smile and whisper to them. She smiled, without raising her eyes, on the flower she was tying up, and, indeed, it was such a smile as must have made it happy, and she said gaily, you forget that Lord Chelford passes this way sometimes, and shines upon them too. No, he's a dull, earthly dog, and if he shines here, it is only in reflected light. Madre, child, fetch me the scissors. And a hobbled ahoy of a girl, with round eyes, and a long white apron, and bare arms, came down the little walk, and, eyeing the pier, with an awful curiosity, presented the shears to the charming atropos, who clipped off the withered blossoms that had bloomed their hour, and were to cumber the stalk no more. Now you see what art may do, how passe this creature was till I made her toilet, and how wonderfully the poor old beauty looks now, and she glanced complacently at the plant she had just trimmed. Well, it is young again and beautiful, but no, I have no faith in the scissors. I still believe in the influence, from the tips of your fingers, your looks and tones. Flowers like fairies have their favourites whom they smile on and obey, and I think this is a haunted glen. Trees, flowers, all have an intelligence and a feeling, and I am sure you see wonderful things by moonlight from your window. With a strange meaning echo those words return to her afterwards. I'm sure you see wonderful things by moonlight from your window. But no matter the winged words making pleasant music flew pleasantly away, now among transparent leaves and glimmering sun, by and by, in moonlight, they will return to the casement piping the same tune in ghostly tones. And as they chanted in this strain, Rachel paused on a sudden, with upraised hand, listening pleasantly. I hear the pony carriage, Dorcas is coming, she said, and the tinkle of tiny wheels, coming down the road, was audible. There is a pleasant sense of adventure too, in the midst of your seclusion, sudden arrivals and passing pilgrims like me, leaning over the pelling, and refreshed by the glimpse of the rogue, steels of this charming oratory. Yes, here comes the fair brony sand. And he made a salutation. Miss Brandon smelt from under her gypsy hat very pleasantly for her. Will you come with me for a drive, Rady? she asked. Yes, dear, delighted. Madre, bring my gloves and cloak. And she unpinned the faded silk shawl that did duty in the garden, and drew off her gauntlets, and showed her pretty hands. And Madre popped her cloak on her shoulders, and the young lady pulled on her gloves. Already in a moment, like a young lady of energy, and chatting merrily, she sat down beside her cousin, who held the reins. As there were no more gates to open, Miss Brandon dismissed the servant, who stood at the pony's heads, and who, touching his hat with his white glove, received his conger, and strode with willing steps up the road. Will you take me for your footmen as far as the town? asked Lord Chelford. So, with permission, up he jumped behind, and away they whirled, close over the ground, on toy wheels ringing merrily on the single, he leaning over the back and chatting pleasantly with the young ladies as they drove on. They drew up at the Brandon arms, and little girls curtsied at doors, and householders peeped from their windows, not standing close to the pains, but respectfully back at the great lady and the nobleman who was now taking his leave. And next they pulled up at that official rendezvous, with white wash front, and post office in white letters on a brown board over its door, and its black, hinged window-pane, through which Mr. Driver, or in his absence, Miss Anne Driver, answered questions and transacted affairs officially. In the rear of this establishment were kept some dogs of loyal larkins, and just as the ladies arrived, that person emerged, looking overpoweringly gentleman-like, in a white hat, grey patalot, lavender trousers, and white riding gloves. He was in a righteous and dignified way pleased to present himself and so becoming a costume, and moreover in good company, for Stanley Lake was going with him to Duttonford Day Sport, which neither of them cared for, but Stanley hoped to pomp the attorney, and the attorney, I'm afraid, liked being associated with the fashionable captain, and so they were each pleased in the way that suited them. The attorney, being long as well as lank, had to stoop under the doorway, but drew himself up handsomely on coming out, and assumed his easy, high-bred style, which, although he was not aware of it, was very nearly insupportable, and smiled very engagingly, and meant to talk a little about the weather. But Miss Brandon made him one of her gravest and slightest bows, and suddenly saw Mrs. Brown at her shop door on the other side, and had a word to say to her. And now Stanley Lake drew up in the tax card, and greeted the ladies, and told them how he meant to pass the day, and the dogs being put in, and the attorney, I'm afraid a little spited at his reception, in possession of the reins, they drove down the little street at a great pace, and disappeared round the corner, and in a minute more the young ladies, in the opposite direction, resumed their drive. The ponies being grave and trustworthy, and having the road quite to themselves, needed little looking after, and Miss Brandon was free to converse with her companion. I think, Rachel, you have a lover, she said. Only a bachelor, I'm afraid, as my poor marjorie calls the young gentleman who takes her out for a walk on a Sunday, and I fear means nothing more. This is the second time I've found Shelford talking to you, Rachel, at the door of your pretty little garden. Rachel laughed. Suppose some fine day he should put his hand over the pelling, and take yours, and make you a speech. You romantic darling, she said. Don't you know that peers and princes have quite given over marrying simple maidens of low estate for love and liking, and understand matchmaking better than you or I, though I could give a tolerable account of myself after the manner of the white cat in the story, which I think is a pattern of frankness and modest dignity. I'd say with courtesy, think not, Prince, that I have always been a cat, and that my birth is obscure. My father was king of six kingdoms, and loved my mother tenderly, and so forth. Rachel, I like you, interrupted the dark beauty, fixing her large eyes from which not light, but as it were, a rich shadow fell softly on her companion. It was the first time she had made any such confession. Rachel returned her look as frankly, with an amused smile, and then said, with a comic little toss of her head, Well, Dorcas, I don't see why you should not, though I don't know why you say so. You're not like other people. You don't complain, and you're not bitter, although you have had great misfortunes, my poor Rachel. There be ladies, young and old, who, the moment they are pitied, though never so cheerful before, will forthwith dissolve in tears. But that was not Rachel's way. She only looked at her with a good humid but grave curiosity for a few seconds, and then said, with rather a kindly smile, And now, Dorcas, I like you. Dorcas made no answer, but put her arm round Rachel's neck, and kissed her. Dorcas made two kisses of it, and Rachel won, but it was cousinly and kindly, and Rachel laughed a soft little laugh after it, looking amused and very lovingly on her cousin, but she was a bold lass, and not given in any ways to the melting mood, and said gaily, with her open hands still caressingly on Dorcas's waist. I make a very good nun, Dorcas, as I told Stanley the other day. I sometimes indeed receive a male visitor at the other side of the palling, which is my grill, but to change my way of life is a dream that does not trouble me. Happy the girl, and I am one, who cannot like until she is first beloved. Don't you remember poor pale Winnie, the mate who used to take us on our walks all the summer at darling, how she used to pluck the leaves from the flowers, like Faust's margarite, saying, he loves me a little, passionately, not at all. Now, if I were loved passionately, I might love a little, and if I loved a little, it should be not at all. They had the road all to themselves, and were going at a walk up an ascent, so the rains lay loosely on the pony's necks, and Dorcas looked with an untold meaning in her proud face, on her cousin, and seemed on the point of speaking, but she changed her mind. And so, Dorcas, as swains are seldom passionately in love with so small a pittance as mine, I think I shall mature into a queer old mate, and take all the little wilders, masters, and missus with your leaf for their walks, and help to make their pineafores. Whereupon Miss Dorcas put her ponies into a very quick trot, and became absorbed in her driving. And of Chapter 13. Chapter 14 of Wilder's Hand This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Caroline. Wilder's Hand by Jay Sheridan Le Fanu Chapter 14 in which various persons give their opinions of Captain Stanley Lake Stanley is an odd creature, said Rachel, so soon as another slight incline brought them to a walk. I can't conceive why he has come down here, or what he can possibly want of that disagreeable lawyer. They've got dogs and gums, and are going, of course, to shoot, but he does not care for shooting, and I don't think Mr. Lark in society can amuse him. Stanley is clever and cunning, I think, but he is neither wise nor frank. He never tells me his plans, though he must know, he does know, I love him. Yes, he is a strange mixture of suspicion and imprudence, he is wonderfully reserved. I'm certain he trusts no one on earth, and at the same time, except in his confidences, he's the rascist man in living. If he were like Lord Shelford, or even like our good vicar, not in piety for poor Stanley's training, like my own, was sadly neglected there. I mean, in a few manly points of character, I should be quite happy, I think, in my solitary nook. Is he so very odd, said Miss Brandon, coldly. I only know he makes me often very uncomfortable, answered Rachel. I never mind what he tells me, for I think he likes to mislead everybody, and I have been too often duped by him to trust what he says. I only know that his visit to Gillingdon must have been made with some serious purpose, and his ideas are all so rash and violent. He was a Doniston for ten days, I think, when I was there, and seemed clever. They had charats and proverbs dramatics. I'm no judge, but the people who understood it said he was very good. Oh yes, he is clever. I knew he was a Doniston, but he did not mention he had seen you there. He only told me he had met you pretty often when you were at Lady Elton's last season. Yes, in town, she answered, a little dryly. While these young ladies are discussing Stanley Lake, I may be permitted to mention my own estimate of that agreeable young person. Captain Lake was a gentleman and an officer, and of course an honourable man, but somehow I should not have liked to buy a horse from him. He was very gentlemanlike in appearance and even elegant, but I never liked him, although he undoubtedly had a superficial fascination. I always thought, when in his company, of old Lord Holland's silk stocking with something unpleasant in it, I think in fact he was destitute of those fine moral instincts which are born with men but never acquired, and in his way of estimating his fellow men and the cannons of honour there was occasionally perceptible a faint flavour of the villainous and an undefined savor at times of brimstone. I know also that when his temper, which was nothing very remarkable, was excited, he could be savage and brutal enough, and I believe he had often been violent and cowardly in his altercations with his sister, so at least two or three people who were versed in the scandals of the family affirmed. But it is a sensorious world, and I can only speak positively of my own sensations in his company. His morality, however, I suppose, was quite good enough for the world, and he had never committed himself in any of those ways, of which that respectable tribunal takes cognizance, so that damned fellow lake is down here still, and that stupid, scheming lubber Larkin driving him about in his tax-card instead of minding his business. I could not see him today. That sort of thing won't answer me, and he is staying at Larkin's house I find. Wilder was talking to me on the doorsteps after dinner, having in a rather sulky way swallowed more than his usual modicum of Madeira, and his remarks were delivered interruptedly, two or three puffs of his cigar interposed between each sentence. I suppose he expects to be asked to the wedding. He may expect—you don't know that lad as I do. Then there came a second cigar, and some little time in lighting, and full twenty enjoyable puffs before he resumed. Now, you're a moral man, Charlie. Tell me really what you think of a fellow marrying a girl he does not care that for, and he snapped his fingers. Just for the sake of her estate. It's the way of the world, of course, and all that, but it's not it a little bit shabby, don't you think, eh? I'll not debate with you, Wilder, on that stupid old question. It's the way of the world, as you say, and there's an end of it. They say she's such a beauty. Well, so I believe she is, but I can't fancy her. Now, you must not be angry. I'm not a poet like you. A book learned, you know, and she's too solemn by half. And grand. I wish she was different. That other girl, Rachel, she is a devilish, handsome craft. I wish almost she was not here at all, or I wish she was in Dawkins' shoes. Nonsense, Wilder, stop this stuff, and it's growing cold. Throw away that cigar and come in. In a minute. No, I assure you, I'm not joking. Hang it, I must talk to someone. I'm devilish, uncomfortable about this grand march. I wish I had not been led into it. I don't think I'd make a good husband to any woman I did not fancy. And where is the good of making a girl unhappy, eh? Tut, Wilder, you also have thought of all that before. I don't like your talking in this strain when you know it's too late to recede. Besides, you are the luckiest fellow in creation. Upon my word, I don't know where the girl marries you. You can't suppose that you could not marry much better. And if you have not made up your mind to break off, of which the world would form but one opinion, you had better not speak in that way anymore. Why, it was only to you, Charlie. And to tell you the truth, I do believe it is the best thing for me. But I suppose every fellow feels a little queer when he is going to be spliced. A little bit nervous, eh? But you are right. And I'm right. And we are all right. It is the best thing for us both. It will make a dused finest state. But hang it, you know if fellows never satisfy it. And I suppose I'm a bit put out by that disreputable dogs being here. I mean Lake. Not that I need care more than Dorcas or anyone else. But he's no credit to the family, you see. And I never could abide him. I have a mind, Charlie, to tell you a thing about hang it. You're such a demure old maid of a chap. Will you have a cigar? No. Well, I believe too is enough for me. And he looked up at the stars. I have a notion of running up to town only for a day or two before this business comes off. Just on the sly, you'll not mention it. And I'll have a word with Lake. Quite friendly, of course. But I'll shut him up. And that's all. I wonder he did not dine here today. Did you ever see so pushing a brute? So Wilder chucked away his cigar and stood for a minute with his hands on his pockets looking up at the stars as if reading fortunes there. I had an unpleasant feeling that Mark Wilder was about some mischief, a suspicion that some game of mine and counter-mine was going on between him and Lake, to which I had no clue whatsoever. Mark had the frankness of Colossity, and could recount his evil deeds and confesses vices with hilarity and detail, and was prompt to take his part in a lark, and was a remarkably hard hitter, and never shrank from the brunt of the row. And with these fine qualities, and a much superior knowledge of the ways of the Flash World, had commanded my boyish reverence and a general popularity among strangers. But with all this he could be as secret as the sea with which he was conversant, and as hard as a stone wall when it answered his purpose. He had no lack of cunning, and a convenient fund of cool cruelty when that stoical attribute was called for. Years, I daresay, and a hard life and profligacy, and command, had not made him less selfish or more humane, or abated his craft and resolution. If one could only see it, the maneuvering and the ultimate collision of two such generals as he and Lake would be worth observing. I daresay my last night's adventure tended to make me more nervous and prone to evil anticipation, and although my quarters had been changed to the lower story, I grew uncomfortable as it worked late, and half regretted that I had not migrated to the Brandon Arms. Uncle Lorne, however, made me no visit that night. Once or twice I fancied something, and started up at my bed. It was fancy merely. What state had I really been in when I saw that long-chinned apparition of the pale portrait? Many a wiser man than I had been mystified by dyspepsia and melancholic vapours. Dorcas shows her jewels to Miss Lake. Stanley Lake and his sister dined next day at Brandon, under the cold shadow of Lady Chelford, the proprieties flourished, and generally very little else. Awful she was, and prompt to lecture young people before their peers, and spoke her mind with fearful directness and precision. But sometimes she would talk, and treat her hearers to her recollections, and recount anecdotes with a sort of grim cleverness, not wholly unamusing. She did not like Wilder, I thought, although she had been the inventor and constructor of the family alliance of which he was the hero. I did not venture to cultivate her, and Miss Brandon had been from the first, specially cold and repellent to Captain Lake. There was nothing very genial or promising, therefore, in the relations of our little party, and I did not expect a very agreeable evening. Notwithstanding all this, however, our dinner was, on the whole, much pleasanter than I anticipated. Stanley Lake could be very amusing, but I doubt if our talk would quite stand the test of print. I often thought, if one of those artists who photograph language and thought, the quiet, clever reporters to whom England is obliged for so much of her daily entertainment, of her social knowledge, and her political safety, were pencil and hand to ensconce himself behind the arras, and present us at the close of the agreeable banquet with a literal transcript of the Feast of Reason which we give and take with so much complacency, whether it would quite satisfy us upon reconsideration. When I entered the drawing-room after dinner, Lord Shelford was plainly arguing a point with the young ladies, and by the time I drew near, it was Miss Lake's turn to speak. Flattering of mankind I am sure I have no talent for, and without flattering and weedling you'll never have conjugal obedience. Don't you remember Robin Hood, how the mother of Robin said to her husband, my honey, my love, and my dear? And all this relieved her ride with her son to see her own brother at Gamwell. I remember, said Dorcas, with a smile, I wonder what has become of that old book with its odd little wood-cuts. And he said, I grant thee thy boon, gentle Joan, take one of my horses straight way. Well, though the book is lost, we retain the moral, you see, said Rachel with a little laugh, and it has always seemed to me that if it had not been necessary to say, my honey, my love, and my dear, that good soul would not have said it, and you may be pretty sure that if she had not, and with the suitable bi-play too, she might not have ridden to Gamwell that day. And you don't think you could have persuaded yourself to repeat that little charm, which obtained her boon and one of his horses straight way? said Lord Shelford. Well, I don't know what a great temptation and a contumacious husband might bring one to, but I'm afraid I'm a stubborn creature, and have not the feminine gift of flattery. If indeed he felt his inferiority, and owned his dependence, I think I might, perhaps, have called him my honey, my love, and my dear, and encouraged and comforted him. But to buy my personal liberty, and the right to visit my brother at Gamwell? Never. And yet she looked, Lord Shelford thought, very good-humored and pleasant, and he fancied a smile from her might do more with some men than all gentle Jones' honeyed vocabulary. I own, said Lord Shelford, laughing, that from prejudice I suppose I am in favour of the apostolic method, and stand up for the divine right of my sex. But then don't you see, it is your own fault, if you make it a question of right, when you may make it altogether one of fascination? Who, pray, is disputing the husband's right to rule? demanded old Lady Shelford unexpectedly. Very timidly defending it against very serious odds, answered her son. My dears, what's all this? You must obey your husband's, cried the dowager, who put down nonsense with a high hand, and had ruled her lord with a rod of iron. That's no tradition of the brandons, said Miss Dorcas quietly. The brandons. Poo, my dear, it is time the brandons should grow like other people. Hitherto, the brandon men have all, without exception, been the wickedest in all England, and the women the handsomest and the most self-willed. Of course the men could not be obeyed in all things, nor the women disobeyed. I'm a brandon myself, Dorcas, so I have a right to speak. But the words are precise, honour and obey, and obey you must, though of course you may argue a point of need be, and let your husband hear a reason, and having ruled the point, old Lady Shelford leaned back, and resumed her doze. There was no longer anything playful in Dorcas's look. On the contrary, something fierce and lurid, which I thought wonderfully becoming. And after a little she said, I promised Rachel to show you my jewels. Come now, will you, and see them. And she placed Rachel's hand on her arm, and the two young ladies departed. Are you well, dear? asked Rachel when they reached her room. Dorcas was very pale, and her gaze was stern, and something undefinably wild in her quietude. What day of the month is this? said Dorcas. The eighth, is it not? Yes, the eighth! answered Rachel. And our marriage is fixed for the twenty-second, just a fortnight hence. I'm going to tell you, Rachel, what I have resolved on. How really beautiful these diamonds are! Quite superb! Yes, said Dorcas, opening the jewel cases which she had taken from her cabinet, one after the other. And these pearls! How very magnificent! I had no idea Mark Wilder's taste was so exquisite. Yes, very magnificent, I suppose. How charming! Quite regal, you will look, Dorcas. Dorcas smiled strangely, and her bosom heaved a little, Rachel thought. Was it elation, or was there not something wildly bitter gleaming in that smile? I must look a little longer at these diamonds. As long, dear, as you please, you're not likely, Rachel, to see them again. From the blue flash of the brilliance, Rachel, in honest amazement, raised her eyes to her cousin's face. The same pale smile was there. The look was oracular and painful. Had she overheard a part of that unworthy talk of Wilder's at the dinner-table the day before, a mistaken Rachel's share in the dialogue? And Dorcas said, you have heard of the music on the waters that lures Mariners to destruction. The pilot leaves the rudder, and leans over the prow and listens. They steer no more, but drive before the wind. And what care they for wreck or drowning? I suppose it was the same smile, but in Rachel's eyes, as pictures will, it changed its character with her own change of thought, and now it seemed the pale-wrapped smile of one who hears music far off, or sees a vision. Rachel, dear, I sometimes think there is an evil genius attendant on our family, continued Dorcas in the same subdued tone, which in its very sweetness had so sinister a sound in Rachel's ear. From mother to child, from child to grandchild, the same influence continues, and one after another wrecks the daughters of our family. A wayward family, and full of misery. Here I stand, forewarned, with my eyes open, determinately following in the funerial footsteps of those who have gone their way before me. These jewels all go back to Mr. Wilder. He never can be anything to me. I was, I thought, to build up our house. I am going, I think, to lay it in the dust. With the spirit of the insane, I feel the spirit of a prophetess too, and I see the sorrow that awaits me. You will see, Dorcas, darling, you are certainly ill. What is the matter? No, dear Rachel, not ill. Only maybe agitated a little. You must not touch the bell, listen to me. But first promise, so help you, heaven, you will keep my secret. I do promise indeed, Dorcas. I swear I'll not repeat one word you tell me. It has been a vain struggle. I know he's a bad man, a worthless man, selfish, cruel maybe. Love is not blind with me, but quite insane. He does not know, nor you, nor anyone. And now, Rachel, I tell you what was unknown to all but myself and heaven, looking neither for counsel, nor for pity, nor for sympathy, but because I must, and you have sworn to keep my secret. I love your brother. Rachel, you must try to like me. She threw her arms round her cousin's neck, and Rachel felt in her embrace the vibration of an agony. She was herself so astonished that for a good while she could hardly collect her thoughts or believe her senses. Was it credible, Stanley? Whom she had received with a coldness, if not aversion, so marked that if he had a spark of Rachel's spirit he would never have approached her more. Then came the thought, perhaps they understood one another, and that was the meaning of Stanley's unexpected visit? Well, Dorcas, dear, I am utterly amazed, but to Stanley— he can hardly hope. Dorcas removed her arms from her cousin's neck. Her face was pale, and her cheeks wet with tears, which she did not wipe away. Sit down by me, Rachel. No, he does not like me. That is, I don't know, but I am sure he can't suspect that I like him. It was my determination it should not be. I resolved, Rachel, quite to extinguish the madness, but I could not. It was not his doing, nor mine, but something else. There are some families, I think, too wicked for heaven to protect, and they are given over to the arts of those who hated them in life and pursue them after death. And this is the meaning of the curse that has always followed us. No good will ever happen to us, and I must go like the rest. There was a short silence, and Rachel gazed on the carpet in troubled reflection. And then, with an anxious look, she took her cousin's hand and said, Dorcas, you must think of this no more. I am speaking against my brother's interest, but you must not sacrifice your self, your fortune, and your happiness to a shadow. Whatever his means are, they hardly suffice for his personal expenses. Indeed, they don't suffice, for I have had to help him. But that is all trifling compared with other considerations. I am his sister, and though he has shown little love for me, I am not without affection, and it's strong affection for him. But I must and will speak frankly. You could not. I don't think anyone could be happy with Stanley for her husband. You don't know him. He's profligate. He's ill-tempered. He's cold. He's selfish. He's secret. He was a spoiled boy, totally without moral education. He might perhaps have been very different, but he is what he is, and I don't think he'll ever change. He may be what he will. It is vain reasoning with that, which is not reason. The battle is over. Possibly he may never know, and that might be best for both. But be it how it may, I will never marry anyone else. Dorcas, dear, you must not speak to Lady Chelford or to Mark Wilder tonight. It is too serious a step to be taken in haste. There has been no haste, Rachel, and there can be no change. And what reason can you give? None. No reason, said Dorcas slowly. Wilder would have been suitable in point of wealth. Not so well, I am sure, as you might have married. But neither would he be a good husband, though not as bad as Stanley, and I do not think that Mark Wilder will quietly submit to his disappointment. It was to have been simply a marriage of two estates. It was old Lady Chelford's plan. I have now formed mine, and all that's over. Let him do what he will. I will leave a lawsuit. Is his worst revenge. I'm indifferent. Just then a knot came to the chamber door. Come in, said Miss Brandon, and her maid entered to say that the carriage, please, ma'am, was at the door to take Miss Lake home. I had no idea it was so late, said Rachel. Stay, dear, don't go for a moment. Jones, bring Miss Lake's cloak and bonnet here. And now, dear, she said after a little pause. You'll remember your solemn promise? I never broke my word, dear Dorcas. Your secret is safe. And Rachel, try to like me. I love you better, Dorcas, than I thought I ever could. Good night, dear. Good night. And the young ladies parted with a kiss, and then another. Jenny put the kettle on. Old Lady Chelford, having dispatched a sharp and unceremonious message to her young kin's woman, absent without leave, warning her in effect that if she returned to the drawing-room it would be to preside alone over gentlemen, departed somewhat to our secret relief. Upon this, on Lord Chelford's motion in our forlorn condition, we went to the billiard-room, and there, under the bright lights and the gay influence of that wonderful game, we forgot our cares, and became excellent friends, apparently. Cuts, cannons, screws, misses, flukes, Lord Chelford joked, wilder chaffed, even Lake seemed to enjoy himself, and the game proceeded with animation and no lack of laughter, beguiling the watches of the night, and we were all amazed at length to find how very late it was. So we laid down our cues with the customary ejaculations of surprise. We declined wine and water, and all other creature comforts. Wilder and Lake had a walk before them, and we bid Lord Chelford good night in the passage, and I walked with them through the deserted and nearly darkened rooms. Our talk grew slow, and our spirits subsided in this changed and tenebrous scenery. The void and the darkness brought back, I suppose, my recollection of the dubious terms on which these young men stood, and a feeling of the hollowness and delusion of the genial hours just passed under the brilliant lights, together with an unpleasant sense of apprehension. On coming out upon the doorsteps we all grew silent. The moon was low, and its yellow disc seemed, as it sometimes does, diluted to a wondrous breadth as its edge touched the black outline of the distant woods. I half-believe in press sentiments, and I felt one now in the chill air, the sudden silence, and the watchful gaze of the moon. I suspect that Wilder and Lake, too, felt something of the same ominous quam, for I thought their faces looked gloomy in the light, as they stood together butting their loose wrappers and lighting their cigars. With a good night, good night, we parted, and I heard their retreating steps crunching along the walk that led to Redmond's Hollow, and by Miss Rachel's quiet habitation. I heard no talking, such as comes between whiffs with friendly smokers side by side, and silent his mutes at a funeral they walked on, and soon the fall of their footsteps was heard no more, and I re-entered the hall and shut the door. The leveled moonlight was shining through the stained heraldic window, and fell bright on the portrait of Uncle Lorne at the other end, throwing a patch of red like a stain on one side of its pale forehead. I had forgot at the moment that the ill-omend portrait hung there, and a sudden horror smote me. I thought of what my vision said of the blood upon my forehead, and by Jove there it was. At this moment the large white Marseille waistcoat of grave Mr. Larkham appeared, followed by a tall powdered footman, and their candles and businesslike proceedings frightened away the phantoms. So I withdrew to my chamber, where I'm glad to say I saw nothing of Uncle Lorne. Miss Lake, as she drove that night towards Gillingdon, said little to the vicar's wife, whose good husband had been away to friars making a sick call, and she prattled on very merrily about his frugal little tea awaiting his late return, and asked her twice on the way home whether it was half-past nine, for she did not boast a watch, and in the midst of her prattle was peeping at the landmarks of their progress. Oh! I'm so glad! Here's a finger-post at last, and then—well, here we are at the cat and fiddle, I thought we'd never pass it. And at last the brome stopped at the little garden gate, at the far end of the village, and the good little mama called to her maid of all work from the window. Has the master come yet, Becky? No, ma'am, please." And I think she offered up a little thanksgiving, she's so long to give him his tea herself, and then she asked, Is our precious mannequin asleep, which also being answered happily as it should be, she bid her fussy adieu with a merry smile, and hurried, gabbling amicably with her handmaid across the little flower-garden, and Miss Lake was shut in and drove on alone under the thick canopy of old trees, and up the mill-road lighted by the flashing lamps to her own little precincts, and was in turn at home, solitary, trist, but still her home. Get to your bed, Marjorie Child, you are sleepy, said the young lady kindly to her queer little maid of honour. Rachel was one of those persons who, no matter what may be upon their minds, are quickly impressable by the scenes in which they find themselves. She stepped into her little kitchen, always a fairy kitchen, so tiny, so white, so rattled, and shining all over with the pleasantest of all effulgence, burnished tins, puters, and the homely decorations of the dresser. And she looked all round and smiled pleasantly, and kissed old Tamar, and said, So, my dear old fairy, here's your Cinderella home again from the ball, and I've seen nothing so pretty as this since I left Redmond's farm. How white your table is, how nice your chairs! I wish you'd change with me and let me be cook week about. And really the fire is quite pleasant tonight. Come, make a cup of tea, and tell us a story, and frighten me and Marjorie before we go to our beds. Sit down, Marjorie, I'm only here by permission. What do you mean by standing? And the young lady with a laugh sat down, looking so pleased and good-natured in Mary, that even old Tamar was feigned to smile a glimmering smile. And little Marjorie actively brought the tea-caddy, and the kettle, being in a skittish singing state, quickly went off in a boil, and Tamar actually made tea in her brown teapot. Oh, no, the Delf cups and saucers! It will be twice as good in them. And as the handsome mistress of the mansion, sitting in the deal-chair, loosened her cloak, and untied her bonnet, she chatted away to the edification of Marjorie and the amusement of both. This little extemporised bivouac, as it were, with her domestics, delighted the young Belle, vanity of vanities, as Mr. Thackeray and King Solomon cry out in turn. Silver trays, and powdered footmen, and Utrecht, velvet upholstery, miserable comforters, what saloon was ever so cheery as this, or flashed all over in so small a light, so splendidly, or yielded such immortal nectar from chaste teapot and urn, as this brewed in brown crockery from the roaring kettle. So Marjorie, sitting upon her stool in the background, for the Queen had said it, and sit she must, and grinning from ear to ear in a great halo of glory, partook of tea. Well, Tamar, where's your story? said the young lady. Story! La, bless you, dear Miss Raddy, where should I find a story? My old head's a poor one to remember, whimpered white Tamar. Anything, no matter what, a ghost or a murder. Old Tamar shook her head. Or an elopement? Another shake of the head. Or a mystery. Or even a dream? Well, a dream. Sometimes I do dream. I dreamed how Master Stanley was coming the night before. You did, did you, selfish old thing, and you meant to keep it all to yourself. What was it? Tamar looked anxiously and suspiciously in the kitchen fire, and placed her puckered hand to the side of her white linen cap. I dreamed, ma'am, the night before he came a great fellow was at the hall door. What, here? Yes, ma'am, this hall door, so muffled up I could not see his face, and he pulls out a letter all over red. Red? I miss a red letter. Red ink? No, miss, red paper, written with black, and directed for you. Oh! And so, miss, in my dream I gave it to you, in the drawing-room, and you opened it, and leaned your hand upon your head, sick like reading it. I never saw you read a letter so serious like before, and says you to me, miss. It's all about Master Stanley. He is coming, and sure enough here he was, quite unexpected, next morning. And was there no more, asked Miss Lake? No more, miss. I awoke just then. It is odd, said Miss Lake with a little laugh. Had you been thinking of him lately? Not a bit, ma'am, I don't know when. Well, it certainly is very odd. At all events it had glanced upon a sensitive recollection unexpectedly. The kitchen was only a kitchen now, and the young lady, on a sudden, looked thoughtful, perhaps a little sad. She rose, and old Tamar got up before her, with her scared, secret look, clothed in white, the witch, whose word had changed all, and summoned round her those shapes, which threw their indistinct shadows on the walls and faces around. Light the candles in the drawing-room, Marjorie, and then, child, go to your bed, said the young lady, awakening from an abstraction. I don't mind dreams, Tamar, nor fortune tellers. I've dreamed so many good dreams, and no good ever came of them. But talking of Stanley reminds me of trouble and follies that I can't help or prevent. He has left the army, Tamar, and I don't know what his plans are. Ah, poor child! He was always foolish and changeable, and a deal too innocent for them wicked officer gentlemen. And I'm glad he's not among them any longer to learn bad ways. I am. So the drawing-room being prepared, Rachel bid Tamar and little Marjorie good-night, and the sleepy little handmaid stumped off to her bed. And white old Tamar, who had not spoken so much for a month before, put on her solemn round spectacles, and by her dipped candle read her chapter in the ponderous Bible she had thumbed so well, and her white lips told over the words as she read them in silence. Old Tamar, I always thought, had seen many untold things in her day, and some of her recollections troubled her, I daresay. And she held her tongue and knitted her white worsteds when she could sit quiet, which was most hours of the day. And now and then, when evil remembrances may be gathered round her solitude, she warned them off with that book of power, so that my recollection of her is always the same white-clad, cadaverous old woman, with a pair of barnacles on her nose, and her look of secrecy and suffering turned on the large print of that worn volume, or else on the fumbling points of her knitting needles. It was a small house, this Redmond's farm, but very silent for all that, when the day's work was over, and very solemn, too, the lookout from the window among the colonnades of tall old trees on the overshadowed earth, and threw them into deepest darkness. The complaining of the lonely stream far down is the only sound in the air. There was but one imperfect vista, looking down the glen, and this afforded no distant view, only a downward slant in the near woodland, and a denser background of forest rising at the other side, and tonight, mistily gilded by the yellow moon-beams, the moon herself unseen. Rachel had opened her window-shutters, as was her want when the moon was up, and with her small white hands on the window-sash, looked into the wooded solitudes, lost in haunted darkness in every direction but one, and their mast in vaporous and discoloured foliage, hardly more distinct, or less solemn. Poor old Tamara says her prayers and reads her Bible, I wish I could, how often I wish it. That good, simple vicar, how unlike his brother, is wiser perhaps than all the shrewd people that smile at him. He used to talk to me, but I've lost that. Yes, I let him understand that I did not care for it, and so that good influence has gone from me, graceless creature. No one seemed to care except poor old Tamara, whether I ever said a prayer, or heard any good thing, and when I was no more than ten years old, I refused to say my prayers for her. My poor father, well, heaven help us all. So she stood in the same sad attitude, looking out upon the shadowy scene in a forlorn reverie. Her interview with Dorcas remained on her memory like an odd, clear, half-horrible dream. What a dazzling prospect it opened for Stanley! What a dreadful one might it not prepare for Dorcas! What might not arise from such a situation between Stanley and Mark Wilder, each in his way a worthy representative of the ill-conditioned and terrible race whose blood he inherited? Was this doomed house of Brandon never to know repose or fraternity? Was it credible? Had it actually occurred that strange confession of Dorcas Brandon's? Could anything be imagined so mad, so unaccountable? She reviewed Stanley in her mind's eye. She was better acquainted perhaps with his defects and his fascinations, and too familiar with both to appreciate at all their effect upon a stranger. What can she see in him? There's nothing remarkable in Stanley, poor fellow, except his faults. There are much handsomer men than he, and many as amusing, and he with no estate. She had heard of charms and filtreys. How could she account for this desperate hallucination? Rachel was troubled by a sort of fear to-night, and the low fever of an undefined expectation was upon her. She turned from the window, intending to write two letters which she had owed too long. Young ladies' letters, for Miss Lake, like many of her sacks, as I am told, had several little correspondences on her hands, and as she turned with a start, she saw Old Tamar standing in the doorway looking at her. Tamar? Yes, Miss Rachel. Why do you come so softly, Tamar? Do you know you frightened me? I thought I'd look in, Miss, before I went to bed, just to see if you wanted anything. No, nothing. Thank you, dear Tamar. And I don't think, Miss Rachel, you are quite well tonight, though you are so gay. You're pale, dear, and there's something on your mind. Don't be thinking about Master Stanley. He's out of the army now, and I'm thankful for it. And make your mind easy about him, and would not it be better, dear? You went to your bed. You rise so early. Very true, good Old Tamar. But tonight I must write a letter. Not a long one, though, and I assure you I'm quite well. Good night, Tamar. Tamar stood for a moment with her odd weird look upon her, and then bidding her good night, glided stiffly away, shutting the door. So Rachel sat down to her desk, and began to write, but she could not get into the spirit of her letter. On the contrary, her mind wandered away, and she found herself listening every now and then, and at last she fancied that Old Tamar, about whom that dream and her unexpected appearance at the door had given her a sort of spectral feeling that night, was up and watching her, and the idea of this white sentinel outside her door excited her so unpleasantly that she opened it, but found no Tamar there. And then she revisited the kitchen, but that was empty too, and the fire taken down. And finally she passed into the old woman's bed-chamber, whom she saw, her white head upon her pillow, dreaming again, perhaps. And so, softly closing her door, she left her to her queer visions and death-like slumber. CHAPTER XVII Rachel Lake sees wonderful things by moonlight from her window. Though Rachel was unfit for letter-writing, she was still more unfit for slumber. She leaned her temple on her hand, and her rich light hair half covered her fingers, and her amazing interview with Dorcas was again present with her, and the same feeling of bewilderment. The suddenness and the nature of the disclosures were dreamlike and unreal, and the image of Dorcas remained impressed upon her sight. Not like Dorcas, though the same, but something ghastly, wane, glittering and terrible, like a priestess at a solitary sacrifice. It was late now, not far from one o'clock, and around her the terrible silence of a still night. Although small sounds lost in the hum of midday life now came into relief, a ticking in the wane's cot, a crack now and then in the joining of the furniture, and occasionally the tap of a moth against the window-pane from outside, sounds sharp and odd, which made her wish the stillness of the night were not so intense. As from her little table she looked listlessly through the window, she saw against the faint glow of the moonlight the figure of a man who seized the paling and vaulted into the flower garden, and with a few swift stumbling strides over the flower beds reached the window, and placing his pale face close to the glass, she saw his eyes glittering through it. He tapped, or rather beat, on the pain with his fingers, and at the same time he said repeatedly, Let me in! Let me in! Her first impression when she saw this person cross the little fence at the roadside was that Mark Wilder was the man, but she was mistaken. The face and figure were Stanley Lakes. She would have screamed in the extremity of her terror, but that her voice for some seconds totally failed her, and recognizing her brother, though like Rhoda in Holy Rit, she doubted whether it was not his angel. She rose up, and with an awful ejaculation she approached the window. Let me in, Raddy! Damn you! Let me in! he repeated, drumming incessantly on the glass. There was no trace now of his sleepy, jeering way. Rachel saw that something was very wrong, and beckoned him toward the porch in silence, and having removed the slender fastenings of the door, it opened, and he entered in a rush of damp night air. She took him by the hand, and he shook hers mechanically like a man rescued from shipwreck, and plainly not recollecting himself well. Stanley, dear, what's the matter? In Heaven's name, she whispered, so soon as she had got him into her little drawing-room. He has done it, damn him! He has done it! gasped Stanley Lake. He looked in her face with a glazed and ashy stare. His hat remained on his head, overshadowing his face, and his boots were soiled with clay, and his wrapping coat marked here and there with the green of stems and branches of trees, through which he had made his way. I see, Stanley, you've had a scene with Mark Wilder. I warned you of your danger. You've had the worst of it. I spoke to him. He took a course I did not expect. I'm not well. You've broken your promise. I see you have used me. How base! How stupid! Could I tell he was such a fiend! I told you how it would be. He has frightened you, said Rachel, herself frightened. Damn him! I wish I had done as you said. I wish I had never come here. Give me a glass of wine. He has ruined me. You cruel, wretched creature, said Rachel, now convinced that he had compromised her as he threatened. Yes, I was wrong. I'm sorry. Things have turned out different. Who's that? said Lake Grasping, her wrist. Who? Where? Mark Wilder? No. It's nothing, I believe. Where is he? Where have you left him? Up there at the pathway near the stone steps. Waiting there? Well, yes, and I don't think I'll go back, Ratty. You shall go back, sir, and carry my message. Or, no, I could not trust you. I'll go with you and see him and disabuse him. How could you? How could you, Stanley? It was a mistake altogether. I'm sorry, but I could not tell there was such a devil on the earth. Yes, I told you so. He has frightened you, said Rachel. He has, maybe. At any rate, I was a fool, and I think I'm ruined. And I'm afraid, Rachel, you'll be in convenience, too. Yes, you have made him savage and brutal, and between you I shall be called in question, you wretched fool! Stanley was taking these hard terms very meekly for a savage young coxcomb like him. Perhaps they bore no very distinct meaning just then to his mind. Perhaps it was preoccupied with more exciting ideas. Or it may be his agitation and fear cried amen to the reproach. At all events he only said in a pettish but deprecatory sort of way. Well, where's the good of scolding? How can I help it now? What's your quarrel? Why does he wait for you there? Why has he sent you here? It must concern me, sir, and I insist on hearing it all. So you shall, Raddy, only have patience just a minute, and give me a little wine or water—anything! There's the key. There's some wine in the press, I think. He tried to open it, but his hand shook. He saw his sister look at him, and he flung the keys on the table rather savagely with, I daresay, a curse between his teeth. There was running all this time in Rachel's mind, and had been, almost since the first menacing mention of Wilder's name by her brother, an indistinct remembrance of something unpleasant or horrible. It may have been mere fancy, or it may have referred to something long ago imperfectly heard. It was a specter of mist that evaporated before she could fix her eyes on it, but was always near her elbow. Rachel took the key with a faint gleam of scorn on her face, and brought out the wine in silence. He took a tall-stemmed Venetian glass that stood upon the cabinet, an antique decoration, and filled it with cherry, a strange revival of old service. How long was it since lips had touched its brim before, and whose? Lovers, maybe, and how? How long since that cold crystal had glowed with the ripples of wine? This at all events was its last service. It is an old legend of the Venetian glass, its shivering at touch of poison, and there are those of whom it is said the poison of asps is under their lips. What's that? ejaculated Rachel with a sudden shriek, that whispered shriek so expressive and ghastly that you perhaps have once heard in your life, and her very lips grew white. Hello! cried Lake. He was standing with his back to the window, and sprang forward as pale as she, and grasped her with a white leer that she never forgot over his shoulder, and the Venetian glass was shivered on the ground. Who's there? he whispered, and Rachel, in a whisper, ejaculated the awful name that must not be taken in vain. She sat down. She was looking at him with a wild stern stare, straight in the face, and he still holding her arm, and close to her. I see it all now, she whispered. Who—what—what is it? said he. I could not have fancied that, she whispered with a gasp. Stanley looked round him with pale and sharpened features. What that devil is it? If that scoundre had come to kill us, you could not cry out loud, or he whispered with an oath. Do you want to wake your people up? Oh, Stanley! she repeated, in a changed and horror-stricken way. What a fool I've been! I see it at last! I see it all now! And she waved her white hands together very slowly towards him, as mesmerizers move theirs. There was a silence of some seconds, and his yellow, farine gaze met her strangely. You were always a sharp girl, Raddy, and I think you do see it, he said at last, very quietly. The witness! The witness! The dreadful witness, she repeated. I'll show you, though. It's not so bad as you fancy. I'm sorry I did not take your advice. But how, I say, could I know he was such a devil? I must go back to him. I only came down to tell you, because, Raddy, you know you proposed it yourself. You must come, too. You must, Raddy. Oh, Stanley! Stanley! Stanley! Why, damn it, it can't be helped now, can it? said he with a peevish malignity. But she was right. There was something of the paltrune in him, and he was trembling. Why could you not leave me in peace, Stanley? I can't go without you, Rachel. I won't, and if we don't, we're both ruined, he said with a bleak oath. Yes, Stanley! I knew you were a coward! she replied fiercely and wildly. You're always calling names, damn you. Do as you like. I care less than you think how it goes. No, Stanley. You know me too well. Ah! No, you shan't be lost if I can help it. Rachel shook her head as she spoke with a bitter smile and a dreadful sigh. Then they whispered together for three or four minutes, and Rachel clasped her jeweled fingers tight across her forehead, quite wildly for a minute. You'll come, then, said Stanley? She made no answer, and he repeated the question. By this time she was standing, and without answering, she began mechanically to get on her cloak and hat. You must drink some wine first. He may frighten you, perhaps. You must take it, Rachel, or I'll not go. Stanley Lake was swearing in his low tones like a swell mobsman tonight. Rachel seemed to have made up her mind to submit passively to whatever he required. Perhaps, indeed, she thought there was wisdom in his advice. At all events, she drank some wine. Rachel Lake was one of those women who never lose their presence of mind, even under violent agitation, for long, and who generally, even when highly excited, see and do instinctively and with decision what is best to be done. And now, with dilated eyes and white face, she walked noiselessly into the kitchen, listened there for a moment, then stole lightly to the servant's sleeping-room, and listened there at the door, and lastly looked in, and satisfied herself that both were still sleeping. Then, as cautiously and swiftly, she returned to her drawing-room, and closed the window-shutters and drew the curtain, and signalling to her brother, they went stealthily forth into the night air, closing the hall-door, and through the little garden at the outer gate of which they paused. I don't know, Rachel. I don't like it. I'm not fit for it. Go back again. Go in and lock your door. We'll not go to him. You need not, you know. He may stay where he is. Let him. I'll not return. I say, I'll see him no more. I'll get away. I'll consult Larkin, shall I? Though that won't do. He's in Wilder's interest. Curse him. What had I best do? I'm not equal to it. We must go, Stanley. You said right just now. Be resolute. We are both ruined unless we go. You have brought it to that. You must come. I'm not fit for it, I tell you. I'm not— You are right, Raddy. I think I'm not equal to a business of this sort, and I won't expose you to such a scene. You're not equal to it either, I think, and Lake leaned on the pailing. Don't mind me. You haven't much, hitherto. Go or stay. I'm equally ruined now, but not equally disgraced, and go we must, for it is your only chance of escape. Come, Stanley, for shame! In a few minutes more they were walking in deep darkness and silence side by side along the path which, diverging from the mill-road, penetrates the coppice of that sequestered gorge, along the bottom of which flows a tributary brook that finds its way a little lower down into the mill stream. This deep gully in character a good deal resembles Redmond's glen, into which it passes, being fully as deep and wooded to the summit at both sides, but much steeper and narrower, and therefore many shades darker. They had now reached those rude stone steps, some ten or fifteen in number, which conducts the narrow footpath up a particularly steep aclivity, and here Lake lost courage again, for they distinctly heard the footsteps that paced the platform above. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Wilder's Hand by J. Sheridan Lefinou Chapter 18 Mark Wilder Slave Nearly two hours had passed before they returned. As they did so, Rachel Lake went swiftly and silently before her brother. The moon had gone down, and the glen was darker than ever. Noiselessly, they re-entered the little hall or Redmond's farm. The candles were still burning in the sitting room, and the light was dazzling after the profound darkness in which they had been for so long. Captain Lake did not look at all like at London Dandy now. His dress was confoundedly draggled, the conventional countenance too was wanting. There was a very natural savagery and ejection there, and a wild lure in his yellow eyes. Rachel sat down. No living woman ever showed a paler face, and she stared with a look that was sharp and stern, upon the wanes good before her. For some minutes they were silent, and suddenly, with an exceeding bitter cry, she stood up, close to him, seizing him in her tiny hands by the collar, and with wild eyes gazing into his, she said, See what you brought me to, wretch, wretch, wretch, and she shook him with violence as she spoke. It was wonderful how that fair young face could look so terrible. There, Reddy, there, said Lake, disengaging her fingers. You're a little hysterical, that's all. I'll be over in a minute, but don't make a row. You're a good girl, Reddy, for heaven's sake, don't spoil all by folly now. He was over-awed and deprecatory. A slave, only think, a slave. Oh frightful, frightful, is it a dream? Oh frightful, frightful. Stanley, Stanley, it would be mercy to kill me. She broke her again. Now, Reddy, listen to reason and don't make a noise. You know we agreed, you must go, and I can't go with you. Lake was cooler by this time, and her sister more excited than before they went out. I used to be brave. My courage, I think, is gone. But who would have imagined what's before me? Stanley walked to the window and opened the shutter a little. He forgot how dark it was. The moon had gone dark. He looked at his watch, and then at Rachel. She was sitting, and in no calmer state. Serene enough in attitude, but the terribly wild look was unchanged. He looked at his watch again, and held it to his ear, and consulted once more before he placed the tiny gold disc again in his pocket. This won't do, he muttered. With one of the candles in his hand, he went out and made a hurried, peeping exploration. And soon, for the rooms were quickly counted in Redmond's farm. He found a chamber small, neat, simplex mandities, bright and natty with a chin's curtains, and the little toilet set out, not inelegantly, and her pet-piping goldfinch asleep on his perch, with his bit of sugar between the wires of his cage, her pillow so white and unpressed, with its little edging of lace. Were slumber sweet as of old ever to know it more? What dreams were hence-forward to haunt it? Shadows were standing about that lonely bed already. I don't know whether Stanley Lake felt anything of this, being very decidedly of the earth, earthy. But there are times when men are translated from their natures, and forced to be romantic and superstitious. When he came back to the drawing room, a toilet bottle of O'er the Cologne in his hand. With her lace handkerchief, he bathed her temples in forehead. There was nothing very brotherly in his look, as he peered into her pale, sharp features during the process. It was a dark and pallid scrutiny of a familiar of the Holy Office, bringing a victim back to consciousness. She was quickly better. There, don't mind me, she said sharply, and getting up, she looked down at her dress and thin shoes. And seeming to recollect herself, she took the candle he had just set down, and went swiftly to her room. Gliding with her noise from place to place, she packed a small black leather bag with a few necessary articles. Then changed her dress quickly, put on her walking boots, a clothes bonnet, and thick veil. And taking her purse, she counted over its contents. And then, standing in the midst of the room, looked round it with a great sigh and a strange look, as it was all new to her. And she threw back her veil, and going hurriedly to the toilet, mechanically surveyed herself in the glass. And she looked fixedly on the pale features presented to her and said, Rachel Leake, Rachel Leake, what are you now? And so, with knitted brows and stern lips, a cadaveric gaze was returned on her from the mirror. A few minutes later, her brother, who had been busy downstairs, put his head in and asked, will you come with me now, Radie, or do you prefer to wait here? I'll stay here, that is, in the drawing room, she answered, and the face was withdrawn. In the little hall, Stanley looked again at his watch, and getting quietly out, went swiftly through the tiny garden, and once upon the mill road, ran at a rapid pace down towards the town. The long street of Gileenden stretched dim and silent before him. Slumber brooded over the little town, and the steps sounded sharp and hollow among the houses. He slackened his pace, and tapped sharply at the little window of the modest post office, at which the young ladies in the pony carriage had pulled up the day before, and within which Luke waggert was wont to sleep in a sort of wooden box that folded up and appeared to be a chest of drawers all day. Luke took care of Mr. Larkin's dogs, and groomed Mr. Wilder's horse, and cleaned up his dog cart, for Mark being close about money, and finding that the thing was to be done more cheaply that way, put up his horse and dog cart in the post office premises, and so evaded the livery charges of the Brandon arms. But Luke was not there, and Captain Lake, recollecting his habits and his haunt, hurried on to the Silver Lion, which has its cable towards the common, only about a hundred steps away, for distances are not great in Gileenden. Here were the flow of soul and of stout long pipes, long yarns, and tolerably long credits, and the humble skip graces of the town resorted to the, for the pleasures of a club life, and often rebelled deep into the small hours of the morning. So Luke came forward. Donald, where is the note, said the Captain, rummaging uneasily in his pockets? You know me, eh? Captain Lake, yes, sir. Well, oh, here it is. It was a scrap pencil on the back of a letter. Luke wagged it, put the horse to, and drive the dog cart to the White House. Look out for me there. We must catch the upmail train at Darlington. Be lively. If Captain Lake chooses to drive, you need not come. I'm wilder. I'll drive, said Captain Lake. Lose no time, and I'll give you half a crown. Luke stuck on his greasy wide awake, and in a few minutes more, the dog cart was trundled out into the lane, and the horse harnessed went between the shafts with that wonderful cheerfulness, with which they're bare to be called up, and the startling circumstances at unseasonable hours. Easily earned, Luke, said Captain Lake, in his soft tones. The captain had buttoned the collar of his loose coat across his face, and it was dark beside. But Luke knew his peculiar smile, and presumed it. So he grinned facetiously, as he put the coin in his breeches' pocket, and thanked him. And in another minute, the captain, with a lighted cigar between his lips, mounted to the seat, took the reins, the horse bounded off, and away rattled the light conveyance, sparks flying from the road, at a devil of a pace, down the deserted street of Gilingdon, and quickly melted in darkness. That night, the spectre stood by old Tamar's bedside, in shape of her young mistress, and shook her by the shoulder, and stripping, said sternly, closed in her face. Tamar, I'm going away, only for a few days, and mind this, I'd rather be dead than any creature living should know it. Little Marjorie must not suspect, he'll manage that. Here's the key of my bedroom, say I'm sick, and you must go in and out, and bring tea and drinks, and talk and whisper a little, you understand? As you might with a sick person, and keep the shutters closed. And if Miss Brandon sends to ask me to the hall, say I have a headache, and fear I can't go. You understand me clearly, Tamar? Yes, Miss Rady, answered old Tamar, wonder-stricken, with a strange expression of fear on her face. And listen, she continued, you must go into my room, and bring the message back, as if from me, with my love to Miss Brandon, and if she or Mrs. William Wilder, the vicar's wife, should call to see me. Always say I'm asleep, and a little better. You see exactly what I mean? Yes, Miss, answered Tamar, whose eyes were fixed in a sort of fascination, full on those of a mistress. If Master Stanley should call, he is to do it just as he pleases. You used to be accurate, Tamar. May I depend upon you? Yes, ma'am, certainly. If I thought you'd fail me now, Tamar, I should never come back. Good night, Tamar. There, don't bless me. Good night. When the light wheeled at the dock got gritted on the mill road before the little garden gate of Redmond's farm, the tall slender figure of Rachel Lake was dimly visible, standing cloaked and waiting by it. Silently, she handed her little black leather bag to her brother, and then there was a pause. He stretched his hands to help her up. In a tone that was icy and bitter, she said, To save myself, I would not do it. You deserve no love from me. You've showed me none, never Stanley, and yet I'm going to give the most desperate proof of love that ever sister gave. All for your sake, and it's guilt, guilt, but my fate, and I'll go, and you'll never thank me, that's all. In a moment more, she sat beside him, and silent as a dead in Sharon's boat, away they glided towards the White House, which lay upon the high road to Darlington. The sleepy clerk that night in the Darlington station stamped two first-class tickets for London, one of which was for a gentleman, and the other for a cloaked lady with a very thick veil. They stood outside on the platform, and almost immediately, after the scream of the engine was heard, piercing the deep tatting, the cyclopean dreadlamps glared neuro and neuro, and the palpitating monster, so stupendous and so docile, came smoothly to a standstill before the trellis work and hollyhocks of the Liberty station. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 of Wilder's Hand This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Cathy Barrett. Wilder's Hand by Jay Sheridan Lafanyou Chapter 19 The Tarn in the Park Next morning Stanley Lake at breakfast with the lawyer said, A pretty room this is, that bow window is worth all the pictures in Brandon, to my eye there is no scenery so sweet as this, at least a breakfast by. I don't love your crags and peaks and sombre grandeur, nor yet the fat, flat luxurians of our other counties, these undulations and all that splendid timber, and the glorious ruins on that hillock over there, how many beautiful ruins that picturesque old fellow Cromwell has left us. You don't eat your breakfast though, said the attorney, with a charming smile of reproach. Thank you, I'm a bad breakfaster. That is, said Stanley, recollecting that he had made some very creditable meals at the same table, when I smoked so late as I did last night. You drove Mr. Wilder to Darlington. Yes, he's gone to town, he says. Yes, the mail train, to get some diamonds for Miss Brandon, a present that ought to have come the day before yesterday. He says they'll never have them in time, unless he goes and blows them up. Are you in his secrets at all? Something in his confidence I should hope, said Mr. Larkin in rather a lofty and reserved way. Oh yes, of course, in serious matters, but I meant other things. You know, he has been a little bit wild, and ladies, you know, ladies will be troublesome sometimes, and to say truth, I don't think the diamonds have much to say to it. Oh! Well, you know, I'm not exactly the confidant Mr. Wilder would choose, I suspect, in a case of that very painful, and I will say, distressing character. I rather think, indeed, I hope not. No, of course, I daresay, but I just fancied he might want a hint about the law of the matter. The gracious attorney glanced at his guest with a thoroughly businesslike and searching eye. You don't think there's any really serious annoyance? You don't know the party, said he. Eye? Oh! Dear no! Wilder has always been very reserved with me. He told me nothing. If he had, of course, I should not have mentioned it. I only conjecture, for he really did seem to have a great deal more on his mind, and he kept me walking, back and forward, near the mill road, a precious long time. And I really think, once or twice, he was going to tell me. Oh! You think, then, Mr. Lake, there may be some serious... Um... Uh... Well, I should hope not. I do most earnestly trust not. This was said with upturned eyes and much unction. But do you happen, Captain Lake, to know of any of those unfortunate, those miserable connections, which, young gentlemen of fashion, eh? It's very sad. Still, it often needs, as you say, professional advice to solve such difficulties. It is very sad. Oh! It's not it's sad. Pray don't let it affect your spirits, said Lake, who was leaning back in his chair and looking on the carpet, about a yard before his lacquered boots, in his usual sly way. I may be quite mistaken, you know, but I wished you to understand, having some little experience of the world. I'd be only too happy to be of any use if you thought my diplomacy could help poor Wilder out of his trouble. That is, if there really is any. But you don't know? No, said Mr. Larkin thoughtfully, and thoughtful he continued for a minute or two, screwing his lips gently as was his wand, while ruminating, his long head motionless, the nails of his long and somewhat large hand, tapping on the arm of his chair, with a sharp glance now and then, at the unreadable visage of the cavalry officer. It was evident his mind was working, and nothing was heard in the room for a minute but the tapping of his nails on the chair, like a death-watch. No, said Mr. Larkin again, I am not suspicious, naturally too much of the reverse I fear, but it certainly does look odd. Did he tell the family at Brandon? Certainly not, that I heard. He may have mentioned it, but I started with him, and we walked together under the impression that he was going, as usual, to the inn, the—what do you call it?—Brandon Arms. And it was a sudden thought, now I think of it, for he took no luggage, though to be sure I daresay he has got clothes and things in town. And when does he return? In a day or two, at furthest, he said, I wonder what they'll think of it at Brandon, said the attorney, with a cavernous grin of sly inquiry at his companion, which, recollecting his character, he softened into a sad sort of smile and added, No harm, I daresay, and after all, you know why should there—any man may have business, and indeed it is very likely after all that he really went about the jewels. Men are too hasty to judge one another, my dear sir. Charity, let us remember, thinketh no evil. By the by, said Lake, rather briskly for him, rummaging his pockets, I'm glad I remembered he gave me a little note to Chelford. Are any of your people going to Brandon this morning? I'll send it, said the lawyer, eyeing the little penciled note wistfully, which Lake presented between two fingers. Yes, it is to Lord Chelford, said the attorney, with a grand sort of suavity, he liked lords, placing it, after a scrutiny, in his waistcoat pocket. Don't you think it had best go at once? There may be something requiring an answer, and your post leaves, doesn't it, at twelve? Oh, an answer is there, said Mr. Larkin, drawing it from his pocket, and looking at it again with a perceptible curiosity. I really can't say, not having read it, but there may, said Captain Lake, who was now and then a little impertinent, just to keep Mr. Larkin in his place, and perhaps to hint that he understood him. Read it! Oh, my dear sir, my dear Captain Lake, how could you? But oh, no, you could not suppose I meant such an idea. Oh, dear, no, no, you and I have our notions about what gentlemen like and professional are, and gentlemen like, as I say, heaven forbid. Quite so, said Captain Lake, gently. Though all the world does not think with us, I can tell you, things come before us in our profession. Oh, and Mr. Larkin lifted up his pink eyes and long hands, and shook his long head with a melancholy smile and a sigh like a shudder. When at the later breakfast, up at Brandon, that irregular pencil scroll, reached Lord Chelford's hand, he said as he glanced on the direction. This is Mark Wilders, what does he say? So Mark's gone to town, he said, but he'll be back again on Saturday, and in the meantime desires me to lay his heart at your feet, Dorcas. Will you read the note? No, said Dorcas quietly. Lady Chelford extended her long, shriveled fingers, on which glimmered sundry jewels, and made a little nod to her son, who gave it to her with a smile. Holding her glasses to her eyes, the note at a distance, and her head rather back, she said, It is not a pretty billet, and she read in a slow and grim way. Dear Chelford, I'm called up to London just for a day, no Lark, but honest business. I'll return on Saturday and tell Dorcas with dozens of loves, I would write to her, but have not a minute for the train. Yours, et cetera, M. Wilder. No, it is not pretty, repeated the old lady, and indeed in no sense was it. Before luncheon, Captain Lake arrived. So Wilder has run up to town, I said, so soon as we had shaken hands in the hall. Yes, I drove him to Darlington last night, we just caught the up-train. He says he'll be back again on Saturday, I said. Saturday is it. He seemed to think—yes, it would be only a day or so. Some jewels, I think, for Dorcas. He did not say distinctly, I only conjecture. Lady Chelford and Miss Brandon, I suppose, in the drawing-room? So to the drawing-room he passed. How is Rachel? How is your sister, Captain Lake? Have you seen her today? asked old Lady Chelford, rather benignantly. She chose to be gracious to the lakes. Only, for a moment, thank you. She has one of her miserable headaches, poor thing, but she'll be better, she says, in the afternoon, and hopes to come up here to see you and Miss Brandon this evening. Lord Chelford and I had a pleasant walk that day to the ruins of Willerton Castle. I find in my diary a note. Chelford tells me it is written in old surveys, Wilderton, and was one of the houses of the Wilders. What considerable people those Wilders were, and what an antique stock! After this he wished to make a visit to the vicar, and so we parted company. I got into Brandon Park by the pretty gate near Latham. It was a walk of nearly three miles across the park from this point to the hall, and the slopes and hollows of this noble, undulating plain came out grandly in the long shadows and slanting beams of evening. That yellow-level light has in my mind something undefinably glorious and melancholy, such as to make almost any scenery interesting, and my solitary walk was delightful. People must love and sympathise very thoroughly, I think, to enjoy natural scenery together. Generally it is one of the few spectacles best seen alone. The silence that supervenes is indicative of the solitary character of the enjoyment. It is a poem and a reverie. I was quite happy striding in the amber light and soft, long shadows among the ferns, the copes-wood, and the grand old clumps of timber, exploring the undulations and the wild nooks and hollows which have each their circumscribed and silven charm. A wonderful interest those little park-like broken dels have always had for me, dotted with straggling birch and oak, and here and there a hoary ashtree with a grand and melancholy grace, dreaming among the songs of wild birds in their native solitudes, and the brown leaves tipped with golden light, all breathing something of old world romance, the poetry of bygone love and adventure, and stirring undefinable and delightful emotions that mingle unreality with sense, a music of the eye and spirit. After many devious wanderings I found under shelter of a wonderful little hollow in which lay dim and still, a tarn, reflecting the stems of the trees that rose from its edge, in a way so clear and beautiful that with a smile and a sigh I sat myself down upon a rock among the ferns, and fell into a reverie. The image of Dorcas rose before me. There is a strange mystery and power in the apathetic, and in that unaffected carelessness, even defiance of opinion and criticism which I had seen here for the first time so beautifully embodied. I was quite sure she both thought and felt and could talk, too, if she chose it. What tremendous self-reliance and disdain must form the basis of a female character which accepted misapprehension and depreciation with an indifference so genuine as to score an even the trifling exertion of disclosing its powers. She could not possibly care for Wilder any more than he cared for her. That odd look I detected in the mirror, what did it mean? And Wilder's confusion about Captain Lake, what was that? I could not comprehend the situation that was forming. I went over Wilder's history in my mind, and Captain Lake's, all I could recollect of it, but could find no clue and that horrible visitation or vision. What was it? This latter image had just glided in and taken its place in my waking dream when I thought I saw reflected in the pool at my feet the shape and face which I never could forget of the white, long-chinned old man. For a second I was unable, I think, to lift my eyes from the water which presented this cadaverous image. But the figure began to move, and I raised my eyes and saw it retreat with a limping gate into the thick copes before me, in the shadow of which it stopped and turned stiffly round and directed on me a look of horror and then withdrew. It is all very fine laughing at me and my fancies. I do not think there are many men who in my situation would have felt very differently. I recovered myself, I shouted lustily after him to stay, and then in a sort of half frightened rage I pursued him. But I had to get round the pool a considerable circuit. I could not tell which way he had turned on getting into the thicket, and it was now dusk, the sun having gone down during my reverie. So I stopped a little way in the copeswood, which was growing quite dark, and I shouted there again, peeping under the branches, and felt queer and much relieved that nothing answered or appeared. Looking round me in a sort of dream, I remembered suddenly what Wilder had told me of old Lauren Brandon, to whose portrait this inexplicable phantom bore so powerful a resemblance. He was suspected of having murdered his own son at the edge of a tarn in the park. This tarn, maybe, and with the thought the water looked blacker, and a deeper and colder shadow gathered over the ominous hollow in which I stood, and the rustling and the withered leaves sounded angrily. I got up as quickly as might be to the higher grounds, and waited there for a while, and watched for the emergence of the old man, but it did not appear. And shade after shade was spreading solemnly over the landscape, and having a good way to walk I began to stride briskly along the slopes and hollows in the twilight, now and then looking into vacancy over my shoulder. The little adventure and the deepening shades helped to sadden my homeward walk, and when at last the dusky outline of the hall rose before me, it wore a sort of weird and haunted aspect.