Only an Ensign: A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul, Volume 1 (of 3)

CHAPTER VI.

RICHARD'S MYSTERY.

To explain much that the reader may have begun to suspect or misjudge, we must now go back a few years, into the private life of Richard Trevelyan.

When stationed with his regiment in Montreal he had made, at some public assembly, the acquaintance of Constance Devereaux, then a girl fresh from school. He was fascinated by her rare beauty, and a certain espieglerie of manner, which the thoughts and cares of future years eventually crushed out of her; and she, on her part, was dazzled by the attentions of a handsome and wealthy young officer; for Richard being his uncle's favourite nephew and heir, received from him a handsome yearly allowance, in addition to that which he inherited from his father.

Unfortunately Constance Devereaux, with all her beauty and accomplishments, was the daughter of one who would have been deemed of very humble caste indeed, if judged by the standard applied to such matters at Rhoscadzhel. The girl loved him passionately and blindly, and little foreseeing all such a step would cost her in the end, she consented to a private marriage; so they were united in secret by Père Latour, the catholic curé of the chapel of St. Mary, near Montreal; an acolyte of the chapel and Richard's servant, a soldier named Derrick Braddon, being the only witnesses.

The marriage was duly registered in the books of the little church, and an attested copy was lodged with the curé who performed the ceremony; but as the regiment was ordered soon after to another colony, it was left in his hands for the time.

Richard obtained leave of absence, and soon after, much to his uncle's surprise, left the army by selling out, and led a kind of wandering life on the Continent, taking his wife's name of Devereaux, the better to conceal from the proud, and as yet unsuspecting old lord, the mésalliance he had formed—a union, however; of which he had never cause to repent, for his wife was gentle and tender, and possessed many brilliant mental qualities; but well did Richard know that if that union were discovered, the immense fortune, which was at Lord Lamorna's entire disposal, would be left, if not altogether to Downie, to others, and past himself and the heirs of his line; and that such a calamity should not occur he became more anxious and more solicitous after the birth of two children, a son whom he named Denzil, after his own father, and a daughter, Sybil, born to them since their wanderings in Italy.

Many difficulties attended the course of this secret matrimonial life! Even in their continental travels, when seeking the most secluded places, stray English tourists would come suddenly upon them if they ventured near a table d'hôte; once or twice an old brother officer, or other people who knew or recognised in the so-called Captain Devereaux, Richard Trevelyan; and then mysterious nods or knowing smiles were exchanged, and odd whispers went abroad in the clubs of London and elsewhere—innuendoes that would have withered up the heart of Constance had she heard them.

She knew all that might be suspected, and felt that the positions of herself and her children, were alike false and liable to misconstruction; that malignant scandal might be busy with the names of them all. But the die was cast now, and she had but to suffer and endure; to pray and to wait the death of the poor old man who was so kind to her husband, and who loved him so well—yet not well enough to forgive—had he ever discovered it—the deception which had been practised upon him and upon society.

Repining in secret, sorrowing for the falsehood of her position, knowing that her husband, the father of her children, passed in the world as an eligible bachelor, the object of many a designing mother, open to the attentions, the coquetries and captivations of their daughters, aware that he resided with her only by stealth and under another name than his own, Constance had indeed much to endure, though rewarded in some degree therefor, to see her children growing up in health and beauty, each a reproduction of their parents, for Denzil had all the personal attributes of his father, with much higher mental qualities, while the soft-eyed Sybil possessed all the dark beauty, the petite figure and lady-like grace of Constance herself.

The latter, we have said, was but the daughter of a Canadian trader; yet amid all the ease and luxury with which her husband's ample means and tender love supplied her, there were times, when she could not but murmur in her heart at the anomaly of her situation, so different from the honest security of her father's humble home, and her native pride revolted against it; and with this pride there grew a species of shame, which she felt to be totally unmerited, and then she felt an utter loathing for the very name of Lord Lamorna, (though it should one day be borne by her own husband) as being the cause of all her secret suffering, her dread of the present and doubt of the future.

On the education of their children, Richard, who doted on them, had spared nothing. Both were highly accomplished, and wherever they had wandered they had the most talented masters that wealth could procure. Now Denzil had taken the highest prizes at Sandhurst and was gazetted to a Regiment of the Line, and was going forth into the world under the false name of Devereaux!

How was this to be altered—how explained and rectified?

A necessity for being much about Rhoscadzhel, as being the heir to the estates and as his uncle's years increased, had compelled Richard Trevelyan to be more often present in his native county than he had hitherto been; hence, he had settled his secret ties in the pretty little villa of Porthellick, at what he conceived to be a safe distance of some forty miles or so from the residence of Lord Lamorna.

In and about that villa he was simply known as "Captain Devereaux," and as he had almost entirely relinquished hunting and field sports—save an occasional shot at a bird—and when there lived a retired and secluded life; and as his wife and children seemed to live for themselves and him only, making friends with few save the poor and ailing, time glided by, and the mystery of Richard's career was never fully laid bare.

For those there are in this world (and his uncle was one) who would have pardoned Richard making Constance Devereaux his mistress, and yet would mockingly have resented his making her a wedded wife!

Lamorna's friend General Trecarrel—the representative of one of the oldest families in Cornwall—who lived near Porthellick, had met Richard on horseback more than once in the vicinity of that place, when he was supposed to be in London, Paris, or elsewhere, and the mention of these circumstances caused Mr. Downie Trevelyan, who, as we have shown, had a keen personal interest in the matter, to prosecute certain inquiries in that part of the duchy, and the result led him to believe that the Captain Devereaux who occasionally resided at the Grecian Villa in the Willow Cove, and his irreproachable brother Richard, were one and the same person!

If it were so, the character of the lady must be—he supposed—somewhat questionable; and Downie knew right well that their uncle might forgive a liaison, but never a marriage with one of an inferior grade. The conduct and bearing of the lady at the villa seemed unimpeachable; so Downie had long felt doubtful how to act, and only indulged in vague hints to his brother's prejudice.

The pride and anger even these had kindled in the heart of the old lord, who was now gone, and the threats in which he had indulged, afforded Richard Trevelyan a fair specimen of what would assuredly be the result were his marriage ever known at Rhoscadzhel; and when pressed on the subject pretty pointedly, he had assured his uncle—while his cheek flushed and his heart burned with shame—that he was still unwedded and free; and even as he made the false avowal, the soft pleading eyes of Constance, his own true wife, and the voices of their children, came vividly and upbraidingly to memory!

Now the foolish old man had passed away, the barrier was removed, and all should be made light that had hitherto been darkness, as her husband's hastily written letter informed her.

Yet she thought, with honest indignation, how hard it was that she had been for all these eighteen years and more kept out of her proper sphere as the wedded wife of Richard Trevelyan, often taking almost flight from this town and that hotel, lest he should be recognised; consigned hence to a life of secresy and seclusion; a life that might yet cast doubts upon the very name and birth of her children, through the whim, the old-fashioned pride and folly of an absurd and antiquated peer, whose ideas went back, even far beyond the days of his youth, when people travelled in stage-coaches, used sand and sealing-wax for letters; when steam and telegraphy were unknown, when papers were published weekly at sixpence; and was one who deemed that railways, electricity, penny-dailies, and what is generally known as progress, are sending all the world to ruin.

Her husband's letter filled her with joy. He playfully added, "I fear I have drunk of the well of St. Keyne before you," alluding to the well-known spring near Liskeard, a draught from which the Cornish folks suppose will ensure ascendancy in domestic affairs, and the letter was signed for the first time "Your loving husband, LAMORNA."

How strange to her eye the new signature looked. She felt somehow that she preferred his old one of "Richard." But they were one and the same now, and a little time should see her in her place, as mistress of that stately dwelling, Rhoscadzhel, which she had only seen once from a distance, and felt then, with an emotion of unmerited humiliation, that she could not, and dared not, enter.

Like all its predecessors, this letter, that contained so much in a few lines, was addressed to her as "Mrs. Devereaux," and she felt a momentary pang, but remembered that to have addressed her by the title, which was now so justly hers, might have sorely perplexed the rural postman of her neighbourhood.

CHAPTER VII.

LADY LAMORNA.

It was a difficult task for Constance Devereaux to conceal her undeniable joy from her affectionate and observant son and daughter; and her heart would sometimes upbraid her that she should feel thus happy on an occasion which must cause them all to wear mourning, the external livery of at least conventional woe.

Denzil and his sister attributed her alternate fits of radiance and silence to pleasure at the anticipated return of their father, who on this occasion had necessarily been longer absent than usual from the Villa at Porthellick.

The equivocation and anxiety of years—years the happiness of which had in it so much of alloy—were about to be removed now! She was at last Constance Lady Lamorna of Rhoscadzhel—the wife of him who represented one of the oldest, and perhaps, most noble families in the duchy; but one passage in her husband's letter troubled and perplexed her, though it caused neither fear nor doubt—of one kind at least—in her loving and trusting heart.

"Our marriage must still be kept a secret for a little time; when we meet, I shall tell you why."

After so much had been endured, and now when the barrier had been swept away by death, why should there be more secresy still—at a time so critical for their Denzil, too?

For a week she tortured herself with endless surmises which might have grown into actual fears but for the arrival of her husband, looking so well and so handsome, and though grave (for he had loved his generous old uncle—his second father, as he termed him), so evidently pleased and happy; and Constance thought it fortunate that their son and daughter were both absent, she had so much to say and to hear.

Denzil had taken his rod and gone forth to fish in some lonely tarn amid the moors, while Sybil had driven away in the pony phaeton to visit some friend at a distance.

"Here's his lord—— the master himself, ma'am!" said Derrick Braddon, who was the only human being in England that shared their mystery, and who was now "dying," as the phrase is, for permission to share with others the great secret the faithful fellow had kept so long and so well; and now Dick's weather-beaten visage was radiant with pride and pleasure as he ushered Richard into the pretty little drawing-room, when, with a girlish bound, Constance sprang into his open arms.

"Well, dearest Materfamilias," said he, kissing her tenderly on the proffered lips and radiant eyes; "you are looking as young and as charming as ever—ay, even as on that eventful morning in St. Mary's, at Montreal, a morning we may remember now without fear, my own one!"

"So the poor old man is gone at last, and our days of dissimulation are over," she replied, sobbing amid the smiles that beamed on her up-turned face.

"And you have acted wisely in not adopting deep mourning yet."

"Why—wisely?" she asked, while perceiving that her husband must have doffed his black costume somewhere on the way to Porthellick, for he was as usual attired in a shooting-suit and brown-leather gaiters; and she felt an unpleasant emotion by this circumstance, for whence this continued caution, she thought; this care, this hateful continuation of an alias, as it seemed, this playing of a double character, if all were right and clear? and now the passage in his letter flashed upon her memory.

"I said 'wisely,' dearest Constance; because we have still a part to play."

"Still?" she queried, mournfully, and her eyelids drooped.

"Tell me—the children know nothing of this change in our fortunes, I hope?"

"No—and dear Denzil, you are aware, has been—gazetted."

"To my old corps—so I saw; God bless the boy?" exclaimed Richard Trevelyan; "yes, but what I mean is, that I must bring you all before the world—you as the wife, and them as the children, of Lord Lamorna, with judicious care and a strength of conviction that none can doubt or challenge."

"Oh, Richard," said she, trembling, "I do not understand you."

"Here, I am still known as Captain Devereaux; but the world, which deems me a bachelor, must be convinced that we were married to each other in faciæ ecclesiæ, as those lawyer-fellows have it; and the proofs of that circumstance must be forthcoming."

"Proofs?" she repeated, faintly, as she seated herself, and grew very, very pale, for it seemed to her over-sensitive mind, as if his manner had become hard and sententious, even while he stooped over, and tenderly and caressingly held in his, her little hand whereon was the wedding ring that Père Latour had consecrated; and now there ensued a brief pause, for in his knowledge of her extreme sensibility, and the amount of his own loving nature, he feared the explanation of all he meant might wound.

Though some might have deemed the secresy to which he had condemned her for years (lest they might lose the large fortune now theirs) selfish; Richard Trevelyan had ever been nervously jealous of her honour, and the honour of their innocent children; and at times, he had accused himself of moral cowardice in his submission to the caprice of his uncle. In his heart he had always cursed the duplicity to which they had been compelled to resort, and the false position in which that duplicity had placed them all for such a length of time. All this was to be atoned for now; but he felt that it must be done wisely, warily and surely, or, as he had said, with strength, lest the world in which he had hitherto moved as a bachelor—that selfish and suspicious bugbear called "Society" might shrug its shoulders, and ask, "Can all this story be true?"

He had some difficulty in explaining all this to Constance, but, fortunately, what he lacked in tact, he made up for in tenderness; yet, after a minute of silence and tears, she exclaimed with uncontrollable bitterness,

"I alone am to blame! I ought to have foreseen the difficulties with which I should encumber you; but I was a simple, a trusting and a heedless girl!——"

"Nor has the trust of your girlhood been misplaced, Constance," he urged.

"What Eden is without its serpent—what house without its skeleton? and I am yours!"

"My darling Constance, do not speak thus, and do not weep; think if Denzil or Sybil were to return and see you thus agitated—see what they never saw before, tears in your eyes; at least, tears so bitter as these," urged her husband, as he caressed her tenderly. "You know, my own love, that solid proofs of our marriage, beyond mere assertion, must be forthcoming; and until these proofs are in our hands, we must appear to the world as Captain and Mrs. Devereaux; we must act wisely and warily, I repeat, for the sake of our dear children."

The face of Constance became ghastly, and a dangerous gleam, such as Richard had never seen before, was in her dark eyes, while she said, huskily,

"Honest Derrick Braddon witnessed our marriage, Richard."

"True; but I am now a peer of the realm, and I wish the full proof of it all. You know that during the past year I have thrice written to the Père Latour for the certificate of our marriage, but wrote in vain, he has left my letters unanswered. I might employ those lawyers, Gorbelly and Culverhole to sift the matter, but to use their aid, might set abroad a scandal at once; hence I now propose to start by the first steamer for America to get the necessary documents in person, and Derrick Braddon shall accompany me."

"And may not I?" she pleaded, softly.

"No, darling Constance, I shall be gone for more than a month—for two, perhaps, and you have to get Denzil fitted out for his regiment—my poor Denzil, I shall grudge those two months' loss of his society fearfully, as you may suppose."

"Pardon my momentary bitterness, dearest Richard, but after so much endurance, after such long concealment—" her voice failed her, and wreathing her soft arms round his neck, she nestled her little head on his breast, and whispered with a sigh, as if her heart would burst, "is it irrevocable—and must I too, be separated from my boy?"

"It is but for a time, Conny—no young fellow should be idle; and a year or so in the army——"

"And he will return, Richard——"

"As the son and heir of Lord Lamorna!"

"But oh, how I shall miss him!"

"You will have Sybil and me!"

"But you, too, I am about to lose."

"For a time only; and do not speak so forbodingly, dear Constance."

"I felt such disappointment that Denzil should appear at Sandhurst, and even in the Gazette, not as a Trevelyan, but as a Devereaux!"

"And a Devereaux he deems himself, and must continue to do so, till I return from Montreal. Old Trecarrel is going in command to India, and when matters are all squared here, I'll get Denzil on his Staff with ease. We have been the victims of circumstances; have I not a thousand times said, that if my uncle had discovered our marriage, we should have lost all? He is gone at last; but you know, Conny darling, that his ideas were simply absurd—in some respects suited only to the middle-ages—the middle ages do I say? By Jove, to those when the Anglo-Saxons wore coats of paint, and dyed their yellow hair blue. But are things arranged in this world wisely, think you, Constance?'

"I dare not impugn the plans of a beneficent Providence."

"But Providence never meant the conditions of life to turn out as they too often do."

"How, Richard," she, asked gently; "I don't quite understand you?"

"That the greatest number of the rich, the powerful and the most successful—by flukes, perhaps—are fools or knaves."

"Ah, but if riches brought talent—the wealthy and powerful would be too happy, and Fate or Providence do not make them so."

"I cannot express to you how my heart was wrung with jealous envy, and even with shame, when I saw Downie's family stand around my uncle's grave, and enjoying all the freedom and hospitality of Rhoscadzhel—even his cold-blooded, fashionable wife, too—and thought how my own three tender loves were debarred——"

"And unknown—"

"Yes——d—m it, unknown, and must be for a few weeks still, but time cures all evils, and it will cure this. Yet is not the gazetting of the two cousins, Denzil and the oldest of Downie's four boys, in one paragraph, and to my old corps, too a remarkable coincidence—all the more so, that they are ignorant of each other's existence?"

"My poor Denzil—he is so bright and clever!"

"Ay, more clever than ever I was. In my time, when I met you so happily in pleasant Montreal, one could be a fair average soldier without all the polyglot accomplishments so necessary now, when he who quits Sandhurst as a candidate for a commission direct, with five shillings and threepence per diem to further his extravagance, might quite as well come out for the Church or Bar, with the chance of a safer and better paid berth in either."

"And he joins his regiment as a Devereaux—my poor boy!"

"Still harping on that string!" said Richard, a little impatiently. "On my return when matters are all sorted and made clear by the legal documents, Denzil and Sybil must be simply told, that my succession to estates and a title have necessitated a change of name."

"But our Denzil is no longer a boy—and I shall almost blush for my past duplicity, before my own girl!"

"Come, come, Conny, this is foolish; what is done cannot be undone, and it is useless to cry over spilt milk."

"And how to explain this absence, for perhaps two months, you say, when they have been longing every hour for your return from London, where they believed you to be?"

"I know not yet, Constance; but a little time will make all things clear. We had no marriage contract—a love-sick subaltern and a schoolgirl were not likely to think of such a thing—we had only the brief certificate deposited with Père Latour; but a will executed by me, in favour of you and the children shall make all right and secure; and now my little wife, for a biscuit and glass of dry sherry, as I have ridden this morning all the way from beyond Launceston."

Constance retired for a minute to bathe her eyes, to smooth her hair, and came back to look composed and smiling; for she had still to act a part.

The hour for which she had so pined and yearned—especially since her son Denzil first saw the light in a lonely village among the Apennines—the time when she should take her place as the wife of Richard Trevelyan, (not that she cared for the wealth that place might bring her) had come; and yet there were fresh delays to be endured by her, and now it might be dangers dared by him she loved so well; but he strove in his honest, manly, and affectionate way to cheer her; and as he filled his glass with the sparkling golden sherry, he kissed her once more as if they were lovers still and said merrily,

"I drink to your speedy welcome home, my dear little Lady Lamorna!"

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BROKEN CIRCLE.

Sybil who was clever with her pencil, made up quite a collection of sketches from her portfolio, a pleasant labour of love, for Denzil to take with him, as a souvenir of herself and their beloved Cornwall, and skilfully the girl's able hand and artistic eye had reproduced the wondrous stone avenues of Dartmoor and Merivale, the Stone Pillar of St. Colomb, the Cliff Castles of Treryn, Tintagel and elsewhere, with many a pretty and peaceful cottage scene.

Preparations for her husband's journey, and more than all, the Indian outfit of Denzil, luckily occupied the attention of Constance for a time; thus her hands and those of Sybil were fully employed, and the minds of both had no leisure to brood over the coming separation.

Weary of the monotony of life at the villa, great was the delight of old weather-beaten Dick Braddon, to "be off" as he said, "to see the world once more with the master," whom he loved only second perhaps to Denzil, whose free frank bearing charmed the veteran, who averred that he was exactly like what his father was, when he joined the Cornish Light Infantry, a cherry-cheeked ensign, long ago in America.

But the hour of separation drew near, when both father and son were to leave Porthellick, and depart each upon their long watery journey;—the former to America, and the latter to what seemed the other end of the world—India; and the heart of Constance began to sink in spite of herself.

"Oh, Richard," she whispered once, with her soft face nestling in her husband's neck, while his protecting arm went kindly round her; "the greatest joy on earth is to possess a child—the greatest woe to lose it! The loss of our parents we may, and must, in the course of time anticipate; but the loss of our children—never!"

"But Denzil will return, Conny—you would not have the boy tied to your apron-strings, like Sybil?" urged Richard, laughing to cheer and rouse her; but, nevertheless, the rank, title and fair fortune now before them all, the mother's anxious heart foreboded sorrow in the future; and now came the last night her boy was to sleep under his father's roof, ere he was to go forth into the world—forth like a branch torn from its parent stem.

When all were in slumber that night, poor Constance stole in to watch her Denzil as he slept. The feeble rays of the night-lamp played on the features of her boy, and on the glitter of a laced scarlet-coat and gold epaulettes that hung on the pier glass. With the vanity natural to youth, he had been contemplating himself in his Regimental finery ere he went to repose, and his bullock-trunk and overland, lettered for "India," were among the first things that caught her eye, bringing more home to her heart the fact of his departure.

He was still hers!

To-morrow he should be far away from her, out on the great and stirring highway of life—her petted boy no longer; and smiles, like ripples upon shining water, seemed to spread over the smooth face of the sleeping lad, even as the tears gathered in the eyes, and prayer in the heart of the mother who watched him for a time, with her hands clasped, and stole away with many a backward glance, thinking how lonely she should be when that hour on the morrow came.

And this tall and handsome lad—this young soldier going forth to carry the Queen's colours in the distant East, was once her "baby boy," the child she had borne, nursed and nurtured. She had a sweet and sad, yet proud and joyous consciousness in this. Had he been weakly, deformed or crippled, she should have loved him all the same; but then, thank God! her Denzil was so handsome.

Often in far-away lands, on weary marches, in comfortless tents and rickety bungalows, on the banks of the Sutlej, or amid hostile Sikhs and Afghans, would he dream of the soft and loving face that had been bent in silence over his—the face he never more might see, save in those kind visions that God sends in sleep, to soothe—it may be, to sadden and to warn us.

"No child can ever know how dearly its parents love it—how they suffer in its illness, loss or departure," whispered Constance to herself; "still," she thought upbraidingly, "I left my poor father to sorrow in his humble home at Montreal—but then it was with a husband, so dear and true!"

The child that is ill or absent, is always valued the most; so poor Sybil was almost forgotten by her mother for the time. A few hours more, and both husband and son had left her in tears, to separate in London, each to pursue his own journey.

Of Richard's ultimate intentions, Denzil and Sybil were to be left in ignorance, and also of the object and purport of his absence. So Constance was left with her daughter only by her side.

The poor mother's heart felt as if thrust back upon herself now, for she was the mistress of a great family secret, which, as yet, she could not share even with Sybil.

So the long dreaded "to-morrow," had come, and other morrows followed, and Constance began to feel herself most sadly alone. Often she stole into the well-known room to kiss the pillow on which her Denzil's cheek had rested; to weep over the bed as if a death had been there, and not the departure of a gallant boy full of hope and life; and on each occasion as she lingered there, she strove to pourtray in fancy his face, as she last saw him, sleeping all unconscious that she hovered near; and with a wild but loving presentiment and hope that he would again occupy it some day, she kept his room intact, exactly as he had left it; his books, his fencing foils on those particular shelves, his old hat stuck round with fishing flies, on that particular peg where he was wont to hang it; his rods and guns, in yonder corner; though every detail, such as these, reminded her of him more vividly, fed her grief and roused the intense longing for his presence and return to her arms again.

"India—India?" she would say half aloud when communing with herself; "it may be ten years of separation. Ten years! Oh—no, never, surely! With my Richard's great influence as a peer of the realm, that must never be permitted. In ten years what changes must inevitably happen; who may be alive then, and who dead? Sybil should then be seven-and-twenty—married perhaps—and to whom?—with children it may be—my poor innocent Sybil! Oh no; three years at the utmost, and Denzil shall be again by his mamma's side!"

So the lonely Constance pondered, hoped and lovingly spun out like a web, her desires or mental view of the future, striving to gather happiness therefrom; while Sybil sought in vain to cheer her with music, to lure her out for a walk in the willowed dell, or a drive along the coast road, in their pretty pony phaeton.

The month was October now. With a sullen wail the autumnal blasts swept from the wooded hollows of Moorwinstow to the cavernous headland of Tintagel, cresting before their breath the waves of the Bristol Channel. There came gusts of rain too, that beat dolefully on the window panes, with an angry and impatient patter, adding to the dreariness of heart experienced by those in the Villa of Porthellick. The season was bleak, and nowhere could it seem more so than among the barren moors, the sea-beat bluffs, and resounding caverns, the wind swept pasture lands and promontories of Cornwall.

The woods were almost bare; the few remaining leaves, fluttered brown and crisp on the bared twigs; the stackyards were full, and the produce of the potato fields was consigned to long brown pits of fresh earth and straw, for the coming winter; the uplands were covered with decaying stubble, or being ploughed, while, gorged with worms, the great crows sat sleepily in the shining furrows. Thick as gnats in summer, the dingy coloured sparrows twittered in the hedgerows, which were being lopped and trimmed; and the axes of the woodmen were heard in thicket and copse; while the smoke of the steam-engine that worked and drained the adjacent copper-mine, hung low in the frowsy air, adding at times to the gloom of the landscape.

Richard Trevelyan had sailed, and Denzil too; and Constance was aware that each of them had to traverse a wintry sea, the former before he returned and the latter before he reached his destination.

The public prints had duly announced that "the Right Hon. Lord Lamorna and suite (i.e. old Derrick Braddon) had gone for a tour in America;" and Denzil if his eyes ever saw the announcement—which is doubtful—could little have dreamed how nearly it concerned him, and the mother on whom he doted, and whom he still knew only as "Mrs. Devereaux."

The latter had to make many an excuse, even to Sybil, to account for her husband's protracted absence from the villa; and Downie Trevelyan, when he read the above announcement in the "Morning Post," wiped his gold eye-glass and read it again with much perplexity and secret annoyance, while surmising "what the deuce could take Richard so suddenly to America at this season of the year!"

The new task and anxiety of watching the shipping intelligence next occupied the attention of Constance. The steamer in which Richard sailed, had been seen, signalled and spoken with in sundry Atlantic latitudes and longitudes; and some seventeen days or so saw her safely at the end of her voyage; but the transport, a great Indiaman with Denzil on board, was seldom heard of, some at long dates; and at longer dates too, came his hastily written letters from St. Helena, and from Ascension, or by homeward-bound ships; few men, even of the most wealthy, thought then of proceeding to India by the scarcely developed overland route; and how fondly those letters were read over and over again, the last thing at night, and the first in the morning, the mother, situated as Constance was then, may imagine; for the loving little family circle was broken now.

CHAPTER IX.

FOREBODINGS.

If ever Constance left the villa, she sought the direction of the coast, and when there never wearied of watching the wide expanse of the Bristol Channel with its passing ships and steamers; for the changing ocean was the path by which her loved ones were to return to her; Richard, within a month perhaps, now; but their son Denzil—oh, years must elapse, her heart foreboded and knew, ere she should see him again.

And now as the season advanced, and storms and wrecks among the Scilly Isles and about the Land's End were not unfrequent, her soul became a prey to nervous fears, that were fed and fostered in spite of herself by Derrick's sister, Winny Braddon, a superstitious old Cornish woman, who had been Sybil's nurse.

Winny, a devout believer in dreams, visions, the virtues of miraculous wells and so forth, was wont to declare that when all specifics failed she had been cured of rheumatism by crawling through the famous Men-an-tol, or Holed Stone near Lanyon; and now she shook her grey head ominously when the wind blew a gale and rolled a heavy surf upon the shore, and averred that she could hear the wreck-bells booming under the sea at Boscastle.

So Constance, though naturally free from all idle fancies save that which we may term the affectionate superstition of the heart, could not listen to the croaking of this old woman without vague and growing fear; for though Winny knew nothing of the interest that "Mrs. Devereaux" had in the family of Lamorna, or her connection therewith (Derrick having kept his secret well) those sounds amid the deep at Boscastle were supposed by Cornish tradition to bode evil to the line of Trevelyan.

For it would appear, as Winny Braddon related, that long ago the villagers of Boscastle were very envious of the melodious and musical bells that were rung in the church of Tintagel, to which they were a gift from its superior the Abbot of Fontevrault in Normandy. So De Bottreaux who was lord of the manor, and the site of whose castle is now marked by a green mound only, to gratify those villagers who were his vassals, ordered from London a merry peal for the spire of Boscastle church; and those bells were duly shipped on board a vessel named the Koithgath caravel, for her captain, Launcelot Trevelyan, was a younger son of the family of Lamorna. He had been a wild fellow, of whose future career evil had been predicted by a Pyrdrak Brâz (old Cornish for a great-witch) who dwelt in the Zawn Reeth, a granite cavern at Nans Isal, on the western side of the bay so named—a wild and savage place surrounded by masses of scattered rock.

So Master Launcelot ran off to sea, and served under Drake and Hawkins in many a dark and desperate day's work among the Spaniards in Brazil, Madeira, and the Cape de Verde; and had once been round the Cape of Storms as far as the realms of that mysterious personage then known as Prester John.

Thus in due time, steered by Paul Poindester, a famous pilot from the Scilly Isles, the Koithgath, with the bells on board, arrived in the offing and in sight of Boscastle, with all its furzy hollows, above which rose the castle of Bottreaux, with the standard of its owner flying—a great banner, bearing three toads and a griffin.

As the ship drew in shore, the bells of Tintagel church, that towers still on a bleak, exposed, and lofty cliff to the westward of King Arthur's castle, rang out a taunting and a joyous peal that mingled with the booming of the ocean as it rolled on the bluffs below, or far up the sandy bay of Trebarreth Strand.

Then, according to the story, Launcelot Trevelyan swore an exulting oath as he surveyed the stupendous scenery of his native shore, adding,

"I am here again—thank my good ship and her canvas!"

"Nay," said the old pilot Poindester, as he reverently lifted his hat, "rather thank God and St. Michael of Cornwall."

"By Heaven," rejoined Trevelyan, "I thank myself and the fair wind only."

Poindester though fearless, for he was a native of those dangerous Isles where for one who dies a natural death nine are drowned, rebuked this irreverence, on which the wild Trevelyan stormed and blasphemed, and forgetting to heed his compass or steerage, permitted his caravel to be dashed ashore, just as a sudden storm came on, and the waves of the Bristol Channel hurled her on the cliffs of the Black Pit, where every soul on board perished, save old Paul Poindester. From the high gilded poop of his caravel, Launcelot Trevelyan, with a fierce malediction, cast into the sea, before it swallowed him up, the silver whistle and chain, his badge of naval authority, the gift of Sir Francis Drake, lest it should become some wrecker's prey; and as the timbers parted, and the ship went down into the angry sea, the clangour of the bells resounded in her hold; and there to this day they are heard by people loitering on the shore, when storms are nigh—or when aught is about to happen to the family of Lamorna, add the superstitious folks of Cornwall.

"Oh, why did this absurd old woman relate such a boding story to me?" thought Constance, for situated as she was, she had become somewhat of a prey to gloomy and grotesque fancies; hence, often in the night she would dream of wrecks, and seem to hear the sound of alarm-bells in her ear, and starting from bed, would draw up the window-blind and look forth to see if a storm was raving without, forgetting then, even though it were so, all might be calm and peaceful elsewhere.

Then when she saw the autumnal moon in all its unclouded glory flooding her chamber and her white night-dress with silver lustre; that all was calm and still, the diamond-like stars sparkling above the dark willows in the glen, or the darker woodland in the distance; and that no noises came to her listening ear, but perhaps the bark of a house-dog, or such as may be aptly termed the sounds of night and silence, she would go back to her lonely pillow with a prayer on her lips for those who were absent, and for all who were on the sea.

A letter from Richard, made her supremely happy!

He had reached Montreal in safety. The poor old curé of the secluded little chapel of St. Mary—the good Père Latour—was dead, and had been so for some time; hence the reason that her husband's letters had remained unanswered. Even the little acolyte, the other witness of their marriage, had gone to his last home; and now in memory, Constance could recall the thin, spare figure of the old clergyman, with his white hair brushed behind his ears, his peculiar shovel hat, long black soutane, cape and gaiters to the knee—for he had been a man of the old school of French colonial priests.

"His little chapel and vestry, both built of wood, as you will remember, Conny, were burned down three years after our regiment left the city," continued Richard's letter; "and all the Records there perished in the flames; among other things, the volume of the Register in which our marriage was entered. But, most providentially, the successor of Latour in the poor incumbency, found among some of his papers, the signed copy—or rather I should say, the original of our marriage lines or certificate—which we had never received. It is now in my possession, and I have folded it inside a will which I prepared on the voyage out—a will, dearest Conny, in which, to make all certain for the future—as there are those at home, whom I doubt—I leave all I have in the world to you for life, and to Denzil and Sybil after you, absolutely. Your poor father and mother are interred not far from the grave of Père Latour, and I have ordered white marble crosses to be erected to the memory of the three. I shall sail for England a fortnight hence, in the steamer Admiral, and till then, shall renew in sweet fancy the days of our loverhood, by many a ramble about Montreal; by Hochlega, the picturesque site of the old Indian village, now its eastern suburb; the nine aisles of the great Cathedral; the gardens of the Convent of Notre Dame, and among the mountains close by—in many a shady walk and lane; and Heaven and myself alone can know how I miss you and our dearest Sybil, and how I am longing to return." It was signed "Lamorna."

"My dear, dear Richard!" sobbed the wife, while her tears of joy fell fast.

"All the places I mention, you must remember well," he added in a postscript; "and you may imagine how sad it is for me to wander alone where once we were so happy together."

"He was to sail in a fortnight from the date of his letter," thought Constance, with a glow of pleasure in her heart; "he must now be on the sea! and in a fortnight from this, I shall see him again—my dear, dear husband—so kind, so good, so true and thoughtful, even to mark, unasked by me, the last resting-place of poor mamma and papa—and even of the good Père Latour. The latter act, is in itself, a compliment to me."

Then an emotion of terror seized her, as she perused the letter again.

What if the attested copy of those important "lines," their certificate of marriage, had perished in the same fire which consumed the wooden chapel, the vestry, and its registers! What then would have been her fate, and more than all, by sequence, the fate and position of the children she idolised—her proud boy Denzil, and the beautiful Sybil, now budding on the verge of womanhood?

A stigma—a stain—she could never remove, might have been on them, to the end of their lives; and her soul seemed to die within her as she thought of the peril—the narrow escape, they had all made!

She thanked Heaven with fervour in her heart, and again and again, it swelled with gratitude to her husband, and with love for him and confidence in him; with joy, too, that he would so soon hear all this from her own loving lips—for in a few days now, the Admiral would be due in the Thames!

CHAPTER X.

THE LONELY TARN.

While Constance Trevelyan—or Lady Lamorna, for so we ought to name her, though still known only as Mrs. Devereaux—was counting the hours of her husband's absence, and looking forward fondly to his return, Sybil, unnoticed, was absent from home more often and for longer periods than had been her wont; and the mother, preoccupied by her own secret thoughts, and anxiety for those who were far distant, failed to remark the circumstance till it was incidentally mentioned by Winny Braddon.

When questioned, Constance remarked with concern, that Sybil blushed deeply, and hastened to show her sketch-book, now nearly full, as an evidence of her artistic industry, and the progress she had made; she did not add with whom, or that she had a lover. She who never before had a secret from her mamma, was beginning to have one now; and had the latter looked more closely at the sketch-book, she might have found traces and touches of a bolder and more masterly pencil than Sybil's; and it all came to pass thus.

A mile or two from the Villa of Porthellick, there lies a lake, which had been a favourite resort of her brother Denzil when fishing for pike; and of this place, and a great old Druidical stone that stands thereby, Sybil wished to make a sketch, and on a suitable day proceeded thither with all her apparatus, as she was anxious to have her production finished before her papa's return.

It was a lonely tarn, deep and dark, yet there the bright green leaves and snowy flowers of the water lilies floated, and the voracious pike which rose at times to snap a fly or so, went plunging to the oozy bottom at the sight of aught so unusual as a human being invading the solitude.

There were within its circuit, three tiny willow-tufted isles, where the water-ducks built their nests amid the osiers, and near which an occasional wild swan flapped defiance with its wings among the floating lilies that impeded its stately progress.

On the hill slopes the varied tints of autumn were in all their beauty; the ripened apples and pears were dropping among the long grass of many an orchard; green yet lingered amid the foliage of the old Cornish elms; but the beeches were almost blood red, and the oaks were crisped and brown. In the calm depth of the tarn was reflected the shadow of the giant stone pillar, around which the storms, the winds and rain of perhaps three thousand years had swept; yet there it stood, solid, silent, grim and monstrous. Could that stone have spoken, what a tale it might have told of savage rites and human sacrifice; what a history unfolded of races long since passed away or merged in others—the men of days before even the galleys of the Phoenicians cast anchor in Bude Bay, when their crews came to barter for tin with the wild aborigines of Cornwall.

Sybil, seated on a little camp-stool, was so intent upon her work, that some time elapsed before she perceived that another artist—whether professional or, like herself an amateur, she could not determine—was similarly occupied not far from her; and insensibly her eye wandered, from time to time, in the direction of this stranger.

He was decidedly a handsome young man, whose grey tweed suit and round hat of grey felt, encircled by a narrow crape band, failed to conceal a very distinguished air. His features were good and well bronzed by a foreign sun, apparently. He was without whiskers, or was closely shaven; but a smart mustache and dark eyebrows gave character to his face. He was seated on a fragment of rock, and in intervals between the progress of his work and the whiffs of a cigar, spoke caressingly to a large dog that lay near him on the grass.

The latter, a magnificent Thibet mastiff, with heavy jowl and pendant flap-like ears, suddenly rose and came slowly, leisurely and steadily forward to Sybil, and after a glance of survey, eyed her with what was almost a smile—if a dog can be said to smile. He then sniffed her skirts, and pawed them with his enormous paw. Sybil evinced no fear; she patted the clog's huge rough head; but was somewhat surprised, when he lay down on her skirts with the utmost composure, and showed no disposition to release her.

The young man, whose eyes had followed, with some interest, the motions of his dog, now whistled to him; but the mastiff did not stir.

"Rajah—Rajah—you impudent rascal, come here!" he cried.

But Rajah made no other response, than by whipping the turf with his long tail.

Upon this his master came round the margin of the tarn, and approaching Sybil, threw aside his cigar, lifted his hat and apologized, adding,—

"I trust that my dog has not alarmed you?"

"Oh no—not in the least," replied Sybil, who began to feel somewhat embarrassed now.

"I assure you that he is very gentle; but he is permitting himself to be too free, and very few young ladies would, like you, have seen such an animal approach them without betraying signs of alarm, and all that sort of thing. Get up sir!"

"Oh, please don't," said Sybil holding out an ungloved and very pretty hand, deprecatingly, between the dog and the young man's uplifted cane; "all dogs, and even cats, like me."

"Thereby acknowledging your power—eh?" responded the stranger, looking down admiringly into the soft, bright, earnest face, and clear dark eyes that were turned upward to his own.

"I don't know what you mean by my power," said Sybil, with simplicity; "but, as most people like me, why should not dogs—and—and this is such a splendid fellow!'

"I have brought him from a very distant country—he was the farewell gift of a friend who died, otherwise," he added, gallantly, "I should beg your acceptance of him."

Sybil now coloured more deeply, and became uneasy; but the stranger resumed in his most suave tone,—

"And you have been sketching this pretty little lake—like me? Our tastes and occupation are quite similar!"

Sybil had closed her book of sketches.

"Will you not do me the favour to——"

"Show you my poor production—do you mean, sir?"

"Yes."

"But you may be an artist, and a well-skilled one."

"And what then?"

"I should blush for my work."

"Nay. Well, then, I am not an artist, but merely an amateur—an officer on leave; yet I am fond of using my pencil, and have the regimental reputation of doing so with pretty good success."

Sybil thought of her brother Denzil—he too was an officer; poor Denzil, now so far, far away—and she gave her new acquaintance a half shy and half doubtful glance, that served to charm him very much, and then showed her sketch, which he praised warmly, as by good breeding and in duty bound.

It was doubtless cleverly done, but his eye wandered to the rare and delicate beauty of the little hand that had achieved it. Her sketch, however, was inferior to his own, which he now produced, with Sybil's own figure seated on the camp-stool introduced in the middle distance, so as to give the exact proportion of the great rock-pillar.

"Oh, sir," she exclaimed, "you have me in your sketch, as well as the big stone."

"Could I omit the most pleasing feature in my little landscape?"

Sybil coloured again, for her education, and the peculiar mode in which she had been reared, made her, at times, shy and reserved; she knew not why, for to be so was not her natural character, which was rather candid, frank, and free; so, to change the subject from herself, she hastened to turn over the leaves of the stranger's sketch-book, wherein were many drawings full of spirit and interest.

"That wooden cross," said he, "marks the grave of poor Jack Delamere, who gave me Rajah, through whom I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance to-day. He died when we were on the march up country to Allahabad, and I buried him in a grove of date palms."

"And he lies there alone?" said Sybil, her eyes involuntarily wandering to the great dog which lay near them on the grass.

"Quite alone—poor Jack! he was the soul of the mess-bungalow."

"And what is this Hall with the wonderful pillars?"

"Oh! that is a Buddhist Temple—all hewn out of the living rock. I sketched it at Ellora. Those caves are masses of carving, and are among the most wonderful things in India, as they often consist of many apartments or halls of vast height, decorated, as you see, with elaborate columns and monstrous statues. My next sketch is a Hindoo water-girl. I gave her a rupee to stand for me at Arcot; but, as her clothing is somewhat scanty, we shall skip to the next. Ah—that is a mango tree, and here are the palace of Mysore and the town and fort of Agra."

"How much you have seen of the world!" said Sybil, her dark eyes dilating as she glanced for a moment at the stranger's young and handsome face; "I wonder if Denzil will ever look upon those places. Heavens, how poor and mean do my Cornish sketches of ruins, rocks, and engines look, after yours!"

"Nay, do not say so," replied the other, smiling, as he surveyed with growing interest the soft bright face of the speaker, under its piquant little hat and veil; "hideous as the edifices are in reality, some of our mining engine-houses, with all their chains and pulleys, wheels and timber, blocks and gearing, their heaps of rubbish and debris, they make somewhat picturesque sketches."

"True; but I prefer those great solemn stones of unknown antiquity, and I never tire of drawing them."

"But they are so deucedly alike," replied the young officer; "and now for your book—ah, do permit me," he added, turning the leaves.

"That is the Lake of Como, where we passed several months," said Sybil, tremulous with hesitation, for what she deemed alike the boldness of the attempt and the poverty of her execution. "I now wonder how I dared to think of depicting such a scene, with all its white villas and green groves of orange and flowering arbutas; its cliffs and crags, and, over all, the snow-clad peaks of the Alps, and the mountains of the Brianza covered with pine-forests!"

"Perhaps each sketch is the souvenir of some past or tender happiness? And this stately palace, with the terrace before it?"

"Is one where papa and mamma resided when I was very young."

"You are not very old yet," was the laughing rejoinder.

"It is on the Arno. But how often have I wished for power to depict the lovely Lake of Como, as we could see it by night from the windows of our villa—the shore all dark, or dotted only by the lights in many a palace and dwelling, the snowy summits of the Splugen Alps rising against the starlit sky, and the oars of the gondoliers flashing as their little vessels shot across the sheet of silent water."

"You are quite an enthusiast!" said the officer, smiling; and at that moment, with her sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks, the usually pale girl looked radiantly beautiful; but her dark eyes drooped, and she replied—

"I did so love Como and our pleasant picnics to Bellaggio and other places, where the orange-trees overhang the water so closely that the golden fruit dipped in it from time to time, when the laden branches were stirred by the passing wind."

"Now you will surely agree with me, that when contrasted with such scenery as you describe, our Cornish rock-pillars and mines are but stupid affairs?"

"Ah, no—I cannot assent to that; there is Bottalick Mine, for example, where the gloomy precipices of slate are hewn into such fantastic shapes, and the great engine, perched on the ledge of a terrible cliff, enables the miner to work below the sea. Oh, think of that, to be quarrying for copper and tin in damp grottoes and cells four hundred and eighty feet below the ocean, and to hear its waves—the same waves that dash against Cape Cornwall—rolling the mighty boulders in thunder on the bluffs overhead!"

"Have you been down and heard all that?"

"No," replied Sybil, blushing for her own energy and enthusiasm.

"How then——"

"Denzil has been down often."

"Denzil again," said the stranger with a smile, and perhaps the faintest tone of pique; "you are surely very fond of this Denzil."

"Fond—I love him dearly!"

"A candid admission."

"He is my only brother."

"I am so glad to hear that he is a brother, and not—not——"

"What?"

"A cousin or—friend."

Sybil felt that the conversation was wandering from the picturesque, and now said, a little hastily,

"I must bid you good morning—my way lies there," she added, pointing westward.

"And mine also; so far, at least, as the high road—allow me to have the pleasure of carrying your camp-stool."

"Many thanks."

"Do you reside in this neighbourhood?" he asked, after a pause.

"Yes—a little way from this," she replied, evasively.

"I am on a visit to an old Indian friend—General Trecarrel," said the stranger, in a tone and manner calculated to invite confidence; but Sybil instantly became reserved. Her absent parent, she knew not why, had ever most sedulously avoided the General and all his family, and her mamma had apparently acquiesced in this, for they knew that the General would at once, in the spurious "Captain Devereaux," recognise Richard Trevelyan. "You, perhaps, know the Trecarrels?" added her companion.

"I have not the pleasure—though I have heard of them, of course," replied Sybil, adjusting her veil tightly over her face, with an air of annoyance.

The gentleman said no more; but in silence carried her sketch-book and camp-stool until they reached the high road, where, aware that to remain longer with her might appear intrusive, he lifted his hat, and with studious politeness bade her adieu.

Sybil hastened homeward, nor dared to look back, though perfectly conscious that the eyes of the stranger, whose voice seemed to linger in her ear, would be looking after her more than once. She had all a young girl's perfect conviction of this.

CHAPTER XI.

CONCERNING FLIRTATION.

The next noon proved a lovely autumnal one, and Sybil repaired once more to the tarn for the purpose of giving a few finishing touches to her sketch. She would have blushed with annoyance, and indignantly repudiated the idea that a chance of the stranger being there, perhaps, for the same purpose, led her to go at precisely the same hour as on the preceding day. And yet, though a disappointment, it was somewhat of a relief to her, that neither he nor his great dog were in sight; the floating swans and the huge rock-pillar alone met her eye in the solitude; and seating herself, she spread out her skirts, threw up her veil, and assumed her pencil; but in the midst of her work, her tiny white hand grew tremulous, every pulse quickened, and a thrill passed through her when she heard steps among the long rank grass; the great nose of the Thibet mastiff was placed upon her knee, and she perceived her new friend again approaching, but on horseback.

He had not made even the pretence of coming to sketch as on the preceding morning; he was without the materials for doing so, and hence must have come deliberately in search of her, for he dismounted.

"I am indeed fortunate in meeting you here again," said he, "but I shall not intrude, as I fear I did yesterday; I am merely rambling towards the sea-shore, to enjoy the breeze and a cigar till some friends join me."

Sybil, who felt that she was painfully pale, bowed to her new acquaintance, who manifested no haste to prosecute his "ramble," but seemed perfectly confident and disposed to be politely familiar. Still Sybil had no emotion of alarm at this; she had never in her life been insulted, and felt that there was no real cause to repulse him, save that he was a visitor of the Trecarrels.

He, on the other hand, while gazing from time to time into her upturned face, was struck more by the calm, honest, and innocent expression of her radiant features than by their beauty, which was less that of form than of character, for though small and exquisitely feminine, her face, like that of her mother, was strongly marked, by the darkness of her eyes, their brows and long lashes. Her mouth certainly was beautifully formed, with a soft smile ever playing about it, for she was naturally of an arch and highly impressionable nature.

He did not permit the conversation to flag, but hovered near her, venturing to look over her shoulder from time to time, and giving little suggestions concerning her drawing, while in reality he was admiring the ladylike contour of her head, the delicacy of her slender neck, and the gloss of a single thick dark ringlet that strayed so captivatingly behind.

The first flush of emotion passed away in Sybil's breast, and insensibly she found herself lured into an easy interchange of opinion on various subjects; for in the topics of foreign travel, the galleries, habits, tastes, and amusements of other lands, they had ample matter for conversation, and found themselves sliding into the position of friends, and talking of things and themes that seldom occupy the thoughts of a young girl.

Now, as each knew not the name of the other, and could not ask it, there was a decided awkwardness in this; and as they continued to talk with animation, the huge Thibet mastiff, who had been their introducteur, rolled his great dark eyes from one to the other, and lashed the grass with his tail, as if quite satisfied with the result.

"After the colourless Indo-Britons and yellow Bengallees, how lovely seems the complexion of this fresh young English girl!" was the ever-recurring thought of the young officer, as he surveyed her critically, from her smart hat and feather to her foot that peeped from under her dress; and a lovely little foot it was—tiny enough to have entered the famous slipper of Cinderella.

That the solitary girl was a lady was evident to him; her carriage and bearing were full of graceful ease, and she had an attraction of manner and gesture peculiarly her own; but who was she, that she, at her early years, had seen so much of the world, and could speak of Spain and Rome, of Athens and Sicily, and seemed to know every second village among the wilds of the Apennines and the Abruzzi?

The sketching of this day was somewhat protracted, and Sybil became aware that their eyes sought each other with an interest she had never felt before in those of a stranger, and that each time they so met, her pulses quickened and her cheek flushed or grew pale. Whence was this emotion? she whispered in her heart.

"I shall often think of this moorland tarn, when I am far away," said the officer.

"You leave this soon, then?" she remarked.

"Yes; I am, ere long, going back to India."

"My brother Denzil has gone there to join his regiment."

Had the stranger asked the almost inevitable military question, "What regiment?" a little discovery might have been made; but he was full of the girl's beauty, and thought of that only. Something of admiration or of ardour in his eyes inspired her with confusion, and abruptly closing her book as on the preceding day, she rose from the bank on which she had been seated, and said, with a little trepidation,

"I am going now, and—and here our sketching and meetings must end."

"Ah! why?"

"I fear," she stammered as she spoke, aware that her speech was full of awkwardness—"I fear that I have done wrong in—in——"

"What?"

"Engaging in quite a flirtation with a total stranger."

"You cannot flirt—you are too sensible and artless; neither could I—with you, at least."

"Have you never flirted?" asked Sybil, laughing to cover what she felt to be a second mistake.

"Often."

"Then why not with me?" she asked naïvely and archly.

"First, tell me what is flirtation?"

"I know what it is; but cannot define or describe it."

"Shall I make the attempt?"

"Do, please," said Sybil, now laughing outright.

"It is neither coquetry nor exactly playing at courtship. It is one of those things most difficult indeed of description and of definition. It depends so much upon the time and place, the tone and tenor of those who attempt it, and on the mood of the moment, whether it be sad or gay. It is perilous work among the young and beautiful, as it is often so much mere nonsense, and yet is so much more dangerous to one's peace of mind than any nonsense could ever be. It is not so earnest or solemn as deliberate love-making, and yet it is not quite a mockery of it. It is a sharp weapon in the hands of the wary; but a dangerous pastime for those who have had no experience in affaires du coeur. It is a kind of lovemaking that commits one to no promise, and yet may raise the proudest and wildest anticipations in the breast, and elicit the most unwary confidence. Thus it is difficult to find where flirtation exactly begins, and still more to say where it may end—perhaps in real love and marriage. I fear I have read you quite a dissertation on the subject, a most hazardous one while looking into your bright eyes; and now tell me," added the officer, his tone and manner becoming more soft and earnest, "have you not done injustice to yourself and to me, for in all we have talked over so pleasantly both yesterday and to-day has anything of this vague kind been attempted?"

"Most certainly not," replied Sybil, laughing again.

"With you it would indeed be perilous for me," said the officer, taking her hand caressingly between his own; "for I could not feign, where I would rather feel."

His eyes were dark and deep, their colour a kind of blue, difficult to define, but unfathomable in expression, though very soft just then; and now Sybil grew pale, for if the speaker was not flirting, he had suddenly slid into downright love-making; so she said, with an effort—

"We have been here more than an hour; am I not detaining you from your friends?"

"Perhaps," said he, with an air of pique; "pardon me for looking at my watch. Two o'clock, by Jove! and I promised to meet the Trecarrel girls on the Camelford road half-an-hour ago. I shall catch it from little Rose for this! And now good morning—pardon me again if I have seemed intrusive, but I do not despair of our meeting again."

He had mounted while speaking, and, lifting his hat with studious politeness, cantered off, while Rajah went bounding and barking before him.

"What a bright little fairy it is—and so clever with her pencil! who the deuce can she be?" he was thinking, while Sybil, with a vague sense of disappointment and doubt, looked after him, half fearing that she had been too pointed in her hint that he should leave her; and yet how were they to continue such meetings as strangers.

In her lonely life, at least latterly, since they had settled at Porthellick, she had met but few persons, and with none so pleasing as this young officer.

She hoped to meet him again on a more recognisable footing, for she felt that though stolen interviews might be very sweet, they could not be without some peril; and to the young girl's mind, it seemed that the formation of the acquaintance—the whole adventure—was quite like some of the episodes to be read of in novels; for a box from "Mudie's," came regularly to Porthellick Villa, and perhaps, by the laws of such literature, her strange friend might prove a peer of the realm—a prince it might be, incog.; who could say?