END OF THE SECOND BOOK.
BOOK THE THIRD.
CHAPTER I.
Ægrotat Animo.
Miss Grace Lambert had made herself so popular at Hardriggs, had so ingratiated herself with all staying in that hospitable mansion that the news, duly conveyed to the breakfast-table by Mrs. Bloxam on the morning after Miles Challoner's visit, that she was too unwell to leave her room, threw a considerable damp over the Company assembled. Old Sir Giles, who had been very much impressed by Gertrude's quiet manner and cheerful spirits since she had been staying in the house--who had been perfectly astonished at the discovery that, though an opera-singer and a great public favourite, she had, as he phrased it, "no d--d nonsense about her"--was the first to break out into loudly-expressed lamentation, mingled with suggestions of sending off at once to Hastings for medical advice, or telegraphing to London with the same object. Lady Belwether was distressed beyond measure; the idea of anyone so charming, anyone capable of yielding such exquisite delight, suffering from pain or sickness seemed to be something quite beyond the old lady's ken. She was at Gertrude's bedside within five minutes after she had heard of her young friend's indisposition, and was shocked at the swollen eyelids and pallid drawn face of her idol. The Dean, too, received the news with great regret: he had experienced much pleasure in Miss Lambert's society. The very fact of her position had had its secret charm; there was something specially pleasant in being brought into daily communion with one whose status in life was considered equivocal, but whose conduct was unexceptionable, and, if occasion required, would bear any amount of scrutiny. All great men have their enemies; the Dean was not without his. The odium theologicum, than which there is nothing stronger, had made him its butt on various occasions, and many of his clerical brethren had poured out the vials of their wrath, through the medium of the Church journals to which they contributed, on his devoted head. The Dean had hitherto never replied to any of these attacks; but he had thought more than once, as he sat nursing his knee and looking out through the bay-window of the library at Hardriggs, that he should be by no means sorry if the contemporaneous visit of Miss Lambert and himself were made the subject of attack; and he had planned out a very brilliant and taking letter in reply--a letter abounding in charity and in quotations from the Fathers, Pollok's Course of Time, and the Christian Year.. The Dean expressed to Lady Belwether that, charming as her guests were in the aggregate, Miss Lambert's secession would leave among them a blank, a hiatus, which was not merely valde deflendus, but which, in point of fact, it would be impossible to fill up; and the old lady, though she did not understand Latin, comprehended the general nature of the remark, and found in it new cause for self-gratulation, and fresh weapons of defence against the insidious attacks of Martha and the Reverend Tophet. There were, it is true, certain people staying at Hardriggs who seemed to take it as a grievance that any "person in Miss Lambert's position," as they were good enough to call it, should be taken ill at all; but they were in a decided minority, and most of them were very much ashamed of the opinion they had held when they found the Dean of Burwash taking the young lady's indisposition so much to heart.
Had any one of them the slightest suspicion of the real cause of Gertrude's ailment? Not one. Would any one of them have given credence for a moment, if they had been told, that on the previous day the girl had refused the proffered hands of two men, one of them an earl, the other a wealthy commoner? Not one. "Such things are all very well in books, my dear," Lady Belwether would have told you, adding from memory a list of ennobled actresses who had all done honour to the position in life to which they had been raised; but the chances came but seldom, and were always taken advantage of by those to whom they were offered. What would have been the effect on the host and hostess, and on the rest of their company, if it had become known that Lord Ticehurst had made Miss Lambert an offer, it would be impossible to say. They would have wondered at him, they would have wondered much more at her, and they would have professed to pity, and probably have cordially hated them both. However, that was a secret which of all in that house was known but to Gertrude alone, and she was not one who would wittingly let it pass her lips.
She was ill; she had a perfect right to say so, and was not uttering the slightest falsehood in the assertion. That dreadful sinking of the heart, that utter prostration, that deep, dead blankness of spirits, that hopelessness, that refusal to be comforted--if this did not constitute illness, what did? He didlove her, then? She had known it long, but what bliss it was to hear him avow it! Should she ever lose the remembrance of him as he stood before her--the light in his eye, the poseof his head, the tone of his voice? True? She would stake her life on that man's truth. What a difference between his diffident earnestness and the theatrical swagger with which Gilbert Lloyd asked her the same question--ah, how many years ago! Lord Ticehurst, too,--she had almost forgotten his visit and its purport, so overshadowed was it by the importance of the affair which immediately succeeded it,--Lord Ticehurst--he was, in his way, considerate and kindly--meant to be all courteous and all honest; she hoped her manner to him had not been brusque or abrupt. Countess of Ticehurst, eh?--rank, wealth, station. For an instant a hard, cold, proud look, which had been a stranger to her face of late, flitted across her features, and then faded away. No! Those might have had their allurements when she first learned Gilbert Lloyd's worthlessness, and recommenced her life, scorning to yield, and merely looking on all human weaknesses as stepping-stones for her advancement. She had learned better things than that now. Miles! Could it be possible that but a comparatively short time ago he had been supremely indifferent to her? that she had looked on and seen the love for her growing in his heart, without a dream of ever reciprocating it? And now--Refused him! she could have done nothing else. And for his own sake--as she had told him, but as he seemed unable to comprehend,--for his own sake. For the love of such a man as Miles Challoner she would have risked everything, in the first appreciation of such a sentiment so fresh and novel to her in all her experience of life--and that experience had been singular and not small; to be the recipient of such a passion as that man proffered and laid at her feet, she would have let her dead past bury its dead; forgotten, buried, stamped down out of all chance of resurrection the events of her early life--her marriage, her separation from her husband The compact made between her and Gilbert Lloyd should have been more than ever religiously fulfilled. That she held that husband at her mercy she knew perfectly well: only once had he ventured to question her power that evening at Mrs. Burge's reception, and his conduct then had given her ample proof of the impossibility of his resistance to her will. She had nothing to fear from him; and she knew him well enough to be certain that he had kept that secret at least locked in his own breast. But Miles? No! she had done rightly; even if her appreciation of Miles Challoner's warm admiration and generous regard had not grown and deepened into a feeling, the strength of which forbade her striving against it, and which she knew and confessed to herself to be love, she would have rebelled against any attempt to hoodwink or deceive that loyal-hearted gentleman. But now the attempt had been treachery of the basest kind. She loved him--loved him wildly, passionately, and yet with an intermingled reverence and respect such as her girlish fancy had never dreamed of; and she had refused him, had told him--not indeed calmly or quietly, for once her self-control had failed her, but with earnestness and decision--that her fate was decided, her way of life quite fixed, and that she could never be his wife! Ah, if they could have known all, those good people downstairs, they would scarcely have wondered at Miss Lambert's indisposition. They ascribed her illness to over-exertion, over-excitement, the reaction after the feverish professional life of the past few months. A little rest, they said to each other, would "bring her round." A little rest! Something more than a little rest is required, as they would have allowed, could they have seen what no one, not even Mrs. Bloxam, saw,--the favourite of the public with dishevelled hair and streaming eyes stretched prone upon her pillow, and sobbing as though her heart would break!
Miss Grace Lambert's illness or indisposition, thus evoking the compassion of the company staying at Hardriggs, was, whatever the company might have thought about it, known to herself to spring purely from mental distress. The same teterrima causaacted on Lord Sandilands, but brought about a different physical result. On the morning after Miles had communicated the result of his interview with Gertrude the old nobleman awoke with a return of the symptoms which had previously alarmed him so much increased that he felt it necessary to send for a local practitioner, by whose report he would be guided as to the expediency of summoning his own ordinary physician from London.
Hastings is so essentially a resort of invalids, that the faculty is to be found there in every variety. Allopathy, seated far back in its brougham, looks sedately and smugly at the saunterers on the promenade; while Homoeopathy, thinking to assume a virtue even if it have it not, and to wear the livery of medicine though scorned by regular practitioners, whirls by, black-clothed and white-chokered, in its open four-wheeler. Nor are there wanting the followers of even less generally received science. On that charming slope, midway between Hastings and St. Leonards, where a scrap of green struggles to put in an arid appearance amidst the vast masses of rock and sand, Herr Douss, the favourite pupil of Priessnitz (what a large-hearted fellow he must have been, to judge by the number of his favourite pupils!), opened a water-cure establishment, to which, for financial reasons, he has recently added the attractions of a Turkish bath, and invariably has a houseful of damp hypochondriacs. And in the immediate neighbourhood is there not the sanatorium of the celebrated Mr. Crux? a gentleman who has discovered the secret that no mortal ailment can withstand being rubbed in a peculiar manner, and who shampoos you, and rubs you, and pulls your joints, and pommels you all over until you become a miracle of youth and freshness, to which the renovated Æson could not be compared.
It is not for an instant to be supposed that any of this unlicensed band were allowed to work their will on the person of Lord Sandilands. The old gentleman was far too careful of his health to quit the immediate precincts of his private physician without being relegated to someone to whom that physician had knowledge, and in whom he had trust. Sir Charles Dumfunk, of Harley-street, habitually attended Lord Sandilands, and was liked by his lordship as a friend as well as esteemed as a physician. A very courtly old gentleman was Sir Charles, one who for years had been honorary physician to the Grand Scandinavian Opera, and had written more medical certificates for sulky singers and dancers than any other member of his craft. In his capacity of fashionable physician--the lungs and throat were supposed to be his speciality--Sir Charles Dumfunk had the power of bidding many of his patients to quit their usual pursuits, and devote themselves to the restoration of their health in a softer climate. The ultra-fashionables were generally sent to Nice, Cannes, or Mentone; "it little matters," the old gentleman used to remark; "they will carry Belgrave-square and its manners and customs with them wherever they go." Nouveaux richeswere despatched to Madeira, energetic patients to Algiers, while mild cases were permitted to pass their winter at Hastings. At each one of these places the leading physician was Sir Charles Dumfunk's friend. Little Dr. Bede, of St. Leonards, swore by the great London Galen, who invariably sent him a score of patients during the winter, and was as good to him as a couple of hundred a-year. Lord Sandilands had come down armed with a letter of introduction to Dr. Bede, and had sent it on by his servant, accompanied by a brace of partridges from the Belwether estate, very soon after his arrival. Dr. Bede had acknowledged the receipt of letter and birds in a very neat little note, had looked-up Lord Sandilands in the Peerage--the only lay book in his medical library--and had left his card at his lordship's lodgings. Consequently, when, the morning after Miles's fiascoat Hardriggs, Dr. Bede was summoned to come to Lord Sandilands at once, physician and patient knew as much about each other as, failing a personal interview, was possible.
Symptoms detailed, examination made, Dr. Bede--a very precise and methodical little gentleman, with a singularly neatly-tied black neckerchief, towards which the eye of every patient was infallibly attracted, and a curiously stony and expressionless blue eye of his own, out of which nothing could ever be gleaned,--Dr. Bede, tightly buttoned to the throat in his little black surtout, gives it as his decided opinion that it is gout, "and not a doubt about it." Lord Sandilands, really half-gratified that he is literally laid by the heels by an aristocratic and gentlemanly complaint, combats the notion--no hereditary predisposition, no previous symptoms. Dr. Bede is firm and Lord Sandilands is convinced. An affair of time, of course; an affair very much at the patient's own will; entire abstinence from this and that and the other, and very little of anything else; perfect quiet and rest of mind and body--of mind quite as much as body--repeats the little doctor, with a would-be sharp glance at the patient, whose mental worry shows itself in a thousand little ways, all of which are patent to the sharp-eyed practitioner. Lord Sandilands promises obedience with a half laugh; he is very much obliged to Dr. Bede, he has thorough confidence in his comprehension and treatment of the case; there is no need to send to town for Dumfunk? Dr. Bede, with confidence dashed with humility, thinks not--of course it is for his lordship to decide; but he, Dr. Bede, has not the smallest fear, provided his instructions are strictly obeyed; and he is quite aware of the value of the charge Sir Charles Dumfunk has confided to him. So far all is arranged. The doctor will look in every day, and his lordship promises strict compliance with his instructions.
So far all is arranged; but when the doctor is fairly gone, and the door is shut, and Lord Sandilands has heard the sound of the wheels of the professional brougham, low on the sand and loud on the stones, echo away, the old gentleman is fain to admit--first to himself, secondly to Miles, whom he summons immediately--that it is impossible for him to keep his word so far as being mentally quiet is concerned.
"If I'm to be clapped down on this particularly slippery chintz sofa, my dear boy," said he, "I must accept the fiat. It might be better, but it might be much worse. I can hear the pleasant plashing of the sea, which, though a little melancholy, is deuced musical; and I can see the boats floating away in the distance; and I have every opportunity of making myself acquainted with the hideousness of the prevailing fashion in female dress; and, if I'm feeling too happy, there's safe to arrive a German band, and murder some of my favourite morceauxin a manner which reminds me that, like that king of Thingummy, I am mortal, begad! But it's no use for that little medico--polite, pleasant little person in his way, too--no use for that little medico to tell me to keep my mind perfectly quiet, and not to excite myself about anything. What a ridiculous thing for a man to prescribe! as though we hadn't all of us always something to worry ourselves about!"
Miles Challoner was, as times go, a wonderful specimen of a selfless man. He had temporarily laid aside his own trouble on finding that his old friend was really ill, and it was in genuine good faith that he said:
"Why, what in the world have you to worry you now, old friend? What should prevent your keeping rigidly to that mental repose which Dr. Bede says is so essential to your well-doing?"
"What have I got to worry me? What is likely to prove antipathic to my being quiet?" asked Lord Sandilands in petulant querulous tones. "'Gad, when it man's old it's imagined that he has no care, no interest but in himself! You ought to know me better, Miles; 'pon my soul you ought!"
"I do know all your goodness, and--"
"No, no! Goodness and stuff! Do you or do you not know the interest I take in you? You do? Good! Then is it likely I could allow affairs to remain as they are between you and Miss Lambert without worrying myself about them? without trying my poor possibleto bring them right?"
"My dear old friend--"
"Yes, yes! your dear old friend; that's all very well; you treat me like a child, Miles. I know you mean it kindly; but I've been accustomed to act and think for myself for so long that I can't throw off the habit even now, when that dapper little fellow tells me I ought; and I must at once go into this business of Grace Lambert's. I have my own ideas on that matter, and I won't at all regard her decision as final, notwithstanding your solemn face and manner. Now, look here, my dear boy, it's of no use lifting up that warning finger; if you cross my wishes I shall become infinitely worse, and less bearable. I've always heard that gout is a disease in which, above all others, the patient must be humoured. I must see--There! you're jumping up at once--and quite enough to give me a sharp attack--simply because you thought I was going to name your divinity. Wasn't it so? I thought as much. Nothing of the sort; I was about to say that I must see Mrs. Bloxam at once. I have some very special business to talk over with her, and I should be much obliged if you, Miles, would take a fly and go over at once to Hardriggs and bring Mrs. Bloxam back with you."
"I?--go over to Hardriggs after--"
"Go over to Hardriggs! And why not? I'm sure you could not complain of your reception by Sir Giles and Lady Belwether; they have been most cordially polite to you on every occasion of your visiting them, and they are the host and hostess at Hardriggs, I believe. Besides, I ask you to do me a special favour, in doing which you need expose yourself to no disagreeables, even to seeing anyone whom you would rather not see."
"You are quite right, and I will be off at once."
"That's spoken like my dear good fellow! Goodbye, Miles, goodbye!--If he does come across her in the house or the grounds?" said the old gentleman, as the door closed behind his protégé.. "Well, you never can tell; it might have been whim, a mere passing caprice, in which case she might be perfectly ready to revoke to-day; and no harm could be done by his meeting her again. Or it might be something more serious--is something more serious probably, for Gertrude is a girl with plenty of resolution and firm will. At any rate, I'm right in having Mrs. Bloxam here to talk it over, and I think I shall hold to the programme which I have already arranged in my mind."
The Hastings fly, drawn by the flea-bitten gray horse, which conveyed Miles Challoner to Hardriggs, went anything but gaily over the dusty, hilly road. The driver, a sullen young man, with dreary views of life, saw at a glance that his fare was in an abstracted frame of mind, and looked anything but likely to pay for extra speed. So he sat on his box, driving the usual half-crown-an-hour rate, giving the flea-bitten gray an occasional chuck with the reins, producing a corresponding "job" from the bit, and occupying himself now by fitting a new end to his whip-lash, now by humming dolorous ditties in the hardest Sussex twang, with a particularly painful and constantly recurring development of the letter "r." Miles sat leaning back in the carriage, his hat thrust over his eyes, his hands plunged deep in his pockets. He was buried in thought of no pleasant kind, and neither heard nor heeded the chaff of the passers-by, which was loud and frequent. The first portion of the way to Hardriggs lies along the Fairlight-road, and numerous parties of cheerful Cockneys, in vehicles and on foot, on their way to the romantic Lover's Seat, and the waterfall where there is no water, and the pretty glen, passed the carriage containing the moody young man, and commented openly on its occupant. "He don't look like a pleasurer, he don't!" was a remark that gained immediate sympathy; while a more comic suggestion that "he looked as if he'd lost a fourpenny-piece," was received with tumultuous applause. Neither style of comment had the least effect on Miles Challoner, who remained chewing the cud of his own reflections until the stopping of the fly at the outer gate of Hardriggs Park reminded him of having seen Lord Ticehurst driving through that gate on the occasion of his visit on the previous day. Suddenly it flashed across him that the young nobleman's manner had been specially odd and remarkable. Could it have been that--and yet the expression of Lord Ticehurst's face was chapfallen and disconsolate, anything but that of a successful suitor. All the world had said, during the past season, that his lordship had been very strongly éprisof Miss Lambert, he had paid her constant attention, and-- That could have had no influence on her decision of yesterday; she could never have listened to Lord Ticehurst's protestations, even if he had made any such, or he would not have gone away in so melancholy and depressed a state. Besides, had not Grace told him that she loved him, Miles--that he was not mistaken in her--that she had not misled him? And yet she would not marry him? Ah, there must be some mistake, something which could be explained away? Lord Sandilands had evidently felt that when he had asked him to come over with this message to Mrs. Bloxam. He would see Miss Lambert--not asking for her directly, that would be too marked, but taking an opportunity of chancing on her, and--well, after all, the dearest object of his life might be obtained.
They were pleased to see the good-looking young man at Hardriggs, as he descended from the fly and joined the pre-luncheon croquet-party on the lawn. He had been there very recently, it is true; but good-looking young men are always welcome in country-houses, where indeed a fresh face, a fresh voice, a few fresh ideas, are priceless. Miles threw a hurried glance over the croquet-players. Miss Lambert was not amongst them. They were all young people, who, after the first greeting, returned to their game and its necessary accompaniment of flirtation. But Dean Asprey was seated under a "wide-spreading beech-tree," reading the Times, and he rose as he saw Miles approach, dropped the paper, and went to meet him. As the Dean approached, Miles could not help noticing his aristocratic appearance; could scarcely help smiling at the wonderful way in which the tailor had combined the fashionable and clerical element in his dress.
"How do you do, my dear Mr. Challoner?" said Dean Asprey, in those bland mellifluous tones which had won so many hearts. "So delighted to see you here again! With only one fear tempering my pleasure, and that is that--believing you to be alone? yes, that is so?--the fear that my dear old friend Lord Sandilands is indisposed? Say I'm wrong, and set my fears at rest!"
"I would gladly, Mr. Dean; but I cannot. Lord Sandilands has a sharp attack of the gout."
"Of the gout? Well, well, I can recollect John Borlase these--ah, no matter how many years; too many to trouble to recollect--and the gout was the last complaint one would have ascribed to him."
"Well, he has it tow, without a doubt. Dr. Bede of St. Leonards has seen him, and pronounced definitely in the matter. I have come over to ask Mrs. Bloxam, who is a very old friend of his, to go and see him."
"Ay, ay, indeed! Mrs. Bloxam--a very charming and estimable person, by the way, and apparently well versed in many questions which, for females at least, would be considered abstruse--Mrs. Bloxam is in great request just now. Her young charge Miss Lambert is also ill, and--"
"Miss Lambert ill!" cried Miles; "what is the matter?"
"O, nothing of any consequence, I believe," replied the Dean. ("Charmingly ingenuous the youth of the present day," he said to himself: "he has at once revealed the reason of his coming over here again so soon, without having the smallest idea that he has done so.") "Nothing of any consequence; a trifling indisposition, a migraine, a nichts, which in anyone else would be thought nothing of, but which in Miss Lambert is naturally regarded with special interest. You know her, of course. I mean know to appreciate her, rather than know in the mere ordinary sense of acquaintance?"
"I--I--yes, O yes! I've had, the pleasure of seeing Miss Lambert frequently in town, and think her--of course, most charming--You're sure there's nothing serious the matter with her, because Lord Sandilands, don't you know, is such an old friend of hers, and takes such interest, that--"
"I know that perfectly, and would not dream of deceiving you for an instant. Some of us, I know, are suspected of doing evil that good may come," said the Dean, with a specially sweet smile; "but it is a very dangerous doctrine, which I have always held in abhorrence. I see a servant passing the end of the lawn, and I suppose I may be considered sufficiently at home here to venture to give an order.--- James, would you be good enough to let Mrs. Bloxam know that Mr. Challoner is here, and would gladly speak with her? Thank you, very much.--And now, my dear Mr. Challoner, to return to our very interesting conversation. What were we talking about?"
"You were mentioning that Miss Lambert was ill, and--"
"Ay, to be sure, Miss Lambert! What a charming girl! what grace and beauty! what amiability! what unaffected-- And you have known her for some time? I can well understand her creating a great sensation in London. Such a mixture of beauty and talent is very rare, and naturally very impressive. What says Dryden?--
'Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.'
What a charming couplet, is it not? And so, as you were saying, Miss Lambert is a great success in London society?"
"Rather as you were saying, Mr. Dean," said Miles, with a feeble attempt at a smile,--he knew he should not see Gertrude, and the conversation was beginning to bore him,--"though I can cordially indorse the remark. Miss Lambert made a complete conquest of everyone she met, including Lady Belwether, who is hastening towards us.--How do you do, Lady Belwether? I'm sorry to learn I have left one sick friend to come to another."
"Our dear Grace is certainly better, my dear Mr. Challoner.--Dean, you will be glad to hear that.--Fancy my position, Mr. Challoner; the responsibility of having anyone like that in one's care, on whom so much might be said to hang, you know. Sir Giles was for telegraphing off at once to London for advice, but Grace would not have it. And she has proved to be right, as she always is, dear creature! She is much better, and she heard the message you brought, Mr. Challoner, about Mrs. Bloxam, and has not raised the least objection to her going. Indeed, so like her, sweet thing! she seems to have forgotten herself in anxiety about Lord Sandilands."
"I suppose, Lady Belwether, that there is not much chance of my seeing Miss Lambert?"
"Seeing her? To-day? My dear sir, not the remotest chance in the world. I strictly forbade her thinking of leaving her room to-day; and when Mrs. Bloxam has gone away with you, I shall take her place at Grace's side.--You think I'm right, Dean? The importance of such a case as this is--Exactly, I knew you'd agree with me. What do you think Lady Hawksley said when she heard the darling was ill?"
"Knowing Lady Hawksley," said the Dean, again with his pleasant smile, "the field of speculation is too vast for me to attempt to enter on it. What did her ladyship remark?"
"She said it must be a horrid bore for me; and what would Miss Lambert have done if she had been taken ill in the season, when she was singing. Did you ever hear such horrible things? But I told her that if Miss Lambert had been taken ill in town she would have had everybody's sympathy, from the Queen downwards; which is more than can be said of some people, I could not help adding."
As the old lady finished speaking, Mrs. Bloxam appeared, and very shortly afterwards she and Miles took their leave, and started off for Hastings in the fly. Miles had rather looked forward to this drive in Mrs. Bloxam's company. The thought of it had afforded him some little consolation when he found that there was no chance of his seeing Grace. In default of the presence of the adored one it is the lover's greatest delight to find someone who will either talk about her, or will listen to his outspoken raptures. Miles thought that in Mrs. Bloxam he might possibly find both these virtues combined; and accordingly they had scarcely cleared the gates of the Hardriggs avenue before he began to ply his companion with a series of questions concerning Miss Lambert. These questions were artfully framed, and a less worldly-wise woman than Mrs. Bloxam might have been deceived as to their purport. But that worthy lady was not merely always perfectly cute and observant, but on this particular occasion she was, if possible, more than ever on her guard. Although during the previous day her fingers had been unremittingly engaged on her "fancy-work" during the entire period of Lord Sandilands' visit, her eyes had strayed now and then to the large looking-glass close by her, which reflected a window and a part of the garden beyond, leading to the lime-walk. In that looking-glass Mrs. Bloxam had seen her charge and Miles Challoner walking together, talking earnestly, and through the same medium Mrs. Bloxam had seen each of them return separately, and ill at ease. The ex-school-mistress had all her life been in the habit of putting two and two together, and arriving at the result with commendable quickness and accuracy, and her perspicacity did not fail her now. She felt certain that Miles had proposed, and that Gertrude had refused him, though she loved him; equally certain that Lord Sandilands was aware of a portion--she couldn't tell how much--of the real state of affairs, and that he had sent for her with the intention of discussing them with her; and Mrs. Bloxam very much deprecated the idea of any such discussion. She did not know where it might end, or what it might lead to; and there were passages in the life of her quondam pupil which Mrs. Bloxam had not thought it necessary to dilate upon, or indeed to introduce to Lord Sandilands' notice; and circumstances might render the further suppression of those passages impossible.
So Mrs. Bloxam sat back in the fly and answered all Miles Challoner's questions in monosyllables, and was glad when, finding it impossible to extract anything from his companion, the young man lapsed into silence and left her to her own reflections, occupying himself with his. Neither were roseate-hued. The hope which had sprung up in Miles's breast as he journeyed to Hardriggs seemed suddenly to have paled and faded out--why he knew not. Grace was ill, to be sure, but the fact of her illness did not account for the sudden change in the aspect of his fortunes--did not account for that sinking of the heart, that depression, that avertissementof coming trouble which we have all of us experienced many times in our lives, and which just then was settling down in thick black clouds over Miles Challoner. And Mrs. Bloxam's reflections were sombre and unpleasant. What Mr. Browning calls "the conscience-prick and the memory-smart" were beginning to tell upon her; she had lost the power of self-possession, and the faculty of lying--at least of lying in that superior manner which she had once possessed--had deserted her.
So they drove along in silence, and the holiday excursionists to Fairlight had more fun out of them and much openly-expressed chaff, opining how that "his mother had found him out courtin' the gal, and had fetched him away;" how that "he'd married the old woman for her money, and found out his mistake." But when they arrived at Robertson's-terrace, they found that Lord Sandilands had experienced a renewal of his attack, and that Dr. Bede had expressed a strong desire that his patient should be left perfectly quiet and undisturbed. To this, however, Lord Sandilands would not agree, and, pursuant to his orders, Mrs. Bloxam was shown to his room immediately after her arrival.
She found the old nobleman faint and weak, just recovering from a sharp bout of pain. The sight of her seemed to rouse and please him. He asked her a few unimportant questions about the people at Hardriggs, seemed difficult to convince that Gertrude's indisposition was only of a temporary character, spoke in a manner that was anything but cheerful or reassuring about his own health, and remained so long flying round the real matter at his heart, that Mrs. Bloxam began to think he would never settle on it. At length, when the landlady of the lodgings had left the room and they were alone, Lord Sandilands said:
"Our acquaintance dates so far back, Mrs. Bloxam, and has been of such a character, that there need be no reticence on either side."
Mrs. Bloxam winced at his words, and moved uneasily on the chair which she had taken by the sick man's bedside. But she was sufficient mistress of herself to bow and utter a few polite commonplaces.
"I could not get an opportunity of speaking to you yesterday," continued his lordship; "but I know how generally observant you are, and I am sure you cannot have failed to remark that my visit to Hardriggs with my young protégé--for so I must regard Mr. Challoner--was not a mere ceremonious call. There is no need in disguising from you--if indeed you do not know it already--that he is desperately in love with Gertrude. It will further tend to place us in our proper position if I tell you plainly, and without reserve, that Mr. Challoner yesterday proposed to Gertrude, and--was rejected."
If Mrs. Bloxam had seen all plain-sailing before her it is probable that she would have professed the liveliest astonishment, the greatest stupefaction, at this statement. But as she knew that she should have to wind her course through very doubtful channels, and would require all her skill to avoid shoals and contest storms, she thought it better to rely upon Lord Burleigh's plan, and content herself with a nod.
This nod Lord Sandilands took to mean acquiescence. "You did comprehend all that?" he asked. "I was only doing justice to the acuteness which I have always ascribed to you when I imagined such was the case. Now we come to the more serious part of the question. Why did Gertrude refuse that young man's offer? Not that she did not, does not, love him? I'm an old fellow now, but I'm not old enough to have forgotten entirely that pleasant mute language; and if woman's looks and woman's ways are the same as they were thirty years since, Gertrude is decidedly in love with Miles Challoner. You have not had many opportunities of seeing them together, and therefore cannot judge so well. But I knowit. Why did she reject him, then? Why, ma'am, because, thank God, she inherits a certain proper pride; and she felt that she, an unknown woman--unknown so far as family and friends are concerned, and with a precarious income dependent on her health and strength--was not going to permit a member of an old county family to enter into what might be thought a mésalliancefor her."
"Very proper," murmured Mrs. Bloxam, having nothing else to say.
"Exactly; very proper, under circumstances. But those circumstances must be changed; they must be no longer permitted to exist. It must be my care, Mrs. Bloxam," continued Lord Sandilands, with additional gravity, "as it is my duty yes, my bounden duty--to endow that young lady with such means that she can freely and frankly give herself to the man she loves; without any obligation on either side."
"But to do that, my lord, you must acknowledge your relationship to Gertrude?"
"I have made up my mind to that already, Mrs. Bloxam," said the old gentleman; "I have a sort of idea that I sha'n't get over this attack, and that is a reparation which must be made before I die. O, not that I'm going to die just now," he added, as he saw her face change; "but still--"
"Don't you think you should have a nurse, my lord,--someone more accustomed to illness, and more able to devote herself entirely to your service, than the landlady here? If I could be of any use--"
"A thousand thanks, Mrs. Bloxam. But I have telegraphed to town for my housekeeper--ah, I forgot you have not seen her; she has only recently come to me, but seems a clear-headed, sensible woman--and she will come down and nurse me. I am a little faint just now, Mrs. Bloxam, and must ask you to leave me for the present. I will speak again to you on that subject before you and Gertrude leave Hardriggs."
Mrs. Bloxam left the room with sentiments of a very unpleasant kind. Lord Sandilands thought it was the want of fortune that induced Gertrude to refuse Miles Challoner. But what about her relations with Mr. Gilbert Lloyd, of which his lordship was totally unaware?
CHAPTER II.
Recognition.
The meditations of Mrs. Bloxam as she returned to Hardriggs were not agreeable. She was exceedingly puzzled as to what her best line of action would be, in consideration of her own interests, and, indeed, to do her justice, those of Gertrude. Justice is the more easily done in this respect, as the two were identical, and not to be separated by any of the ingenuity which Mrs. Bloxam would no doubt have found for the occasion, had there been any profit in its employment. The position was a difficult one, and she was glad of the solitary drive, which enabled her to lay it all out, like a map, before her mind, and study it at comparative leisure. The temporary illness of Gertrude was, she felt, in the present conjuncture of affairs, a point in her favour. She could not go to Lord Sandilands, and, daring the continuance of his attack of gout, Lord Sandilands could not go to her. That they should not meet until a decisive line of action had been arranged--first by Mrs. Bloxam in her own mind, and then imparted to and acceded to by Gertrude--was of the last importance; and that was safe. The revelation of her parentage to Gertrude by Lord Sandilands would so immediately and radically alter the relations between her and her noble friend, that it could hardly be practicable to keep the fact of her marriage concealed from Lord Sandilands. That revealed, the sequel to the marriage must also be made known; and what view would the old nobleman be likely to take of the remarkably original arrangement into which Gilbert Lloyd and Gertrude had entered? Would he be excessively shocked, and insist at once on its reversal? or would he regard it as on the whole the best and most sensible proceeding for two persons, who had discovered their marriage to be an immeasurable mistake and an incalculable evil, to have given themselves such redress and relief as the law would have afforded them only at the cost of much expense and publicity? Mrs. Bloxam entertained a conviction that the latter view was much the more probable one to be taken by Lord Sandilands; but, in any case, how should she stand with him? Not only should she be convicted of having deceived him, and of gross negligence and breach of trust as regarded the young girl placed under her care, but she should be proved guilty of having received money for Gertrude's maintenance and education for two years after they had ceased to be any concern of hers--after the girl's husband had undertaken the one, and the world had become the vehicle of the other. There was a double awkwardness and difficulty in this part of Mrs. Bloxam's puzzle. It was almost as unpleasant to admit the fact to Gertrude as to have it stated to herself by Lord Sandilands. Under no circumstances would it do for her to quarrel with Gertrude, that was clear. If she ran the risk of contracting another marriage, the secret of the first would remain in Mrs. Bloxam's possession, and she would always be in Mrs. Bloxam's power. It must not be supposed that the woman was altogether heartless and cold-blooded in making these calculations: she had real affection for Gertrude at the bottom of them all; but she was of a cool temperament and businesslike habits, and she thoroughly understood the useful art of classifying her sentiments, and not permitting one order of them to interfere with another out of time and place. The position was a difficult one; and it was the business aspect of it she had to consider just now. A comfortable home for the remainder of her life, a reasonable amount of the kind of pleasure and society which she liked, and a necessity for only the most trifling inroads upon her savings: such were the blessings to the attainment of which Mrs. Bloxam looked forward as the legitimate value of her lien upon Gertrude. In the event of her declining to run the risk of marriage, and remaining on the stage, Mrs. Bloxam's material interests would be almost as secure; so that she could afford to consider the matter with tolerable impartiality. She did not like to face the discussion which must take place between her and Gertrude, because of the money-transaction involved in it. Could she avoid acknowledging it, she thought, and trust to Lord Sandilands, though he must find it out, being too careless and indifferent to think about it? Thatwould be very nice, only she had no reason to suppose that Lord Sandilands was by any means careless or indifferent in money-matters. It was very unpleasant; but it must be left to right itself somehow; and as for the other, and greater breach of trust? After all, the girl eloped from the Vale House; she did not assist or connive at the affair; and she might excuse herself to Lord Sandilands on the plea of the readiness and kindness with which she acceded to Gertrude's request when she proposed to return to her house. What would Gertrude think, how would she act, when the revelation and the offer should be made to her? Mrs. Bloxam had not answered any of these questions to her satisfaction, or dispelled any of these anxieties, when she reached Hardriggs.
Miss Lambert was better, Lady Belwether was happy to say; she had had some refreshing sleep, and would no doubt get on nicely now. Mrs. Bloxam went to the invalid's room, and found Grace awake and looking very much better. Her face bore traces of mental strife and suffering, but they had passed over, and she was now quite composed. Mrs. Bloxam was a judicious woman in everything, and she took care not to agitate Gertrude.
"Lord Sandilands is very ill," she said, "but not dangerously so; and he is comfortable enough there, and not badly looked after. But he has sent for his own housekeeper, which is a good move. It is nothing but gout; but he is not strong, and he will probably be laid up for some time."
Gertrude asked some general questions, and Mrs. Bloxam answered them; and then, settling herself in a comfortable attitude, and keeping Gertrude's face well in view, she told her that in requesting her to visit him Lord Sandilands had a particular object in view. The colour deepened a little on Gertrude's cheek as she inquired its nature.
"I mean to tell you all about it, my dear," said.
Mrs. Bloxam; "but if I am to do so, I must break through the reserve which I have always maintained--as I think it was best for both of us I should--and refer not only to your marriage"--Gertrude started--"but to later circumstances, which render your position difficult. I suppose I have your permission to speak plainly?"
"Certainly," replied Gertrude. "I am sure you would not, unnecessarily or without due consideration, say anything to wound my feelings; and I am prepared to listen to anything you think it right to say."
This was not a cordial speech, but Mrs. Bloxam did not mind that. She wanted permission to speak, and she had gotten it; the manner of it was of no consequence. Things had changed since Gertrude had written the letter which procured her readmittance to the Vale House, but the natures of the two women had not undergone much alteration, and they felt only as much more warmly towards each other as prosperity and success predispose towards general kindliness and complacency.
"You are right," said Mrs. Bloxam; "I would not. You have not told me any particulars concerning your quarrel with your husband, and I don't wish to know--I really do not. I am not more free from curiosity, no doubt, than other people; but I would rather not gratify it in this instance. There is only one thing that I must know, if you will tell it to me." She paused, and Gertrude said, looking steadily at her,
"What is it? I may use my discretion about answering your question at all when I hear it; but if I decide on answering it, be quite sure that I will tell you the exact truth."
"No, you won't, my dear," said Mrs. Bloxam; "I don't require it. I want only the vague truth; tell me that. Is the secret of your quarrel with your husband one which puts him in your power--which secures your liberty, your right of action, to you under all circumstances--which makes the carrying out of this daring scheme of yours, this self-divorce, a matter distinctly of your choice, in which he cannot thwart or foil you?"
Gertrude's gaze at the speaker did not relax, her eyelids did not droop, but she took a little time before she answered.
"I will tell you what you ask. The secret of my quarrel with Gilbert Lloyd is one which puts him in my power. He mustdo as I choose in every matter in which I am concerned. I am perfectly free; he is hopelessly bound. But the agreement between us is mutual I have no right over him, as he has none over me. I shall never recognise his existence in any way."
"That you have the power of carrying out that resolution is the only thing I need to know," said Mrs. Bloxam. "It makes me clear about the advice I am going to give you. Having this perfect guarantee for his not venturing to interfere with you, you consider yourself of course entitled to act as if no such person as your husband were in existence. Have you any objection to tell me whether you are disposed to push this right of action to the extent of marrying again--of marrying Miles Challoner, for instance?"
Mrs. Bloxam shifted her position as she asked this question, laid her head well back against the cushion of her chair, and did not look a Gertrude, who took longer to reply than before. When she spoke, the words came with difficulty.
"You must have some very strong reason for asking me such a question."
"I have, my dear. Mere curiosity, or even anything short of the necessity which exists for our understanding each other to a certain extent, would never have induced me to ask it. Will you answer me?"
"Yes," said Gertrude, "I will. I acknowledge no limits to the extent to which I am disposed to push my right of action. I should marry without hesitation from motives of ambition; I should marry without hesitation if the man were any but what he is--if he were anyone but Miles Challoner.."
Mrs. Bloxam sat bolt upright, and gazed at Gertrude in irrepressible, unmixed amazement. "What do you say?" she asked. "Can it be possible that we are all mistaken? Lord Sandilands and I, and Miles Challoner himself, for he thinks you love him. I am as certain as I ever was of any human being's sentiments. Have you been blind to his love, his devotion to you? What doyou mean?"
"I mean this," said Gertrude: "I know that Miles Challoner loves me; he has told me so; but I knew it before; I have not been blind to his devotion; and I love him." She paused. The listener's attitude and expression of uncomprehending astonishment remained unchanged. "I love him; I know the difference now, and I know that what I once took for love did not deserve the name. I would not deceive him; I would not dishonour him; I would not involve himin the degradation of my life,--for the degradation of the past is still upon me--for any joy the world could give me, not even for that of being his wife."
The passion and earnestness of her speech almost transformed Gertrude. She surprised Mrs. Bloxam so much, that all her previously-arranged line of argument escaped her memory, and she could say nothing but "Gertrude, Gertrude, you doastonish me!"
"Not more than I astonish myself, I assure you; not so much. Before I knew him I don't think I could even have imagined what it was like to care more for the peace and happiness of another than for my own. I have learned what it is like now, and the lesson, in one word, means love. Go on with what you have to say to me, Mrs. Bloxam, remembering in it all that I love Miles Challoner, and will never involve him in any way in my life."
"But this completely upsets what I was going to say to you," said Mrs. Bloxam; "it changes the whole state of things, but it renders it no less necessary that you should make up your mind how you will explain matters to Lord Sandilands."
"To Lord Sandilands?" said Gertrude inquiringly. "What have I to explain to him, and why?"
"Because he is Miles Challoner's friend and yours; and because he knows that Miles wants to marry you, and most earnestly desires that the marriage should take place."
"Hedesires it! How can that be? How can a man of Lord Sandilands' rank wish his friend to make so unequal a marriage--a marriage which the world he lives in would so utterly condemn?"
"Probably because he has lived long enough in that world to know that its opinion is of no great value, and to think that Miles Challoner had better consult his own happiness than its prejudices. He is a great friend and admirer of yours also; and, in short, I may as well tell you plainly and abruptly, he sent for me to consult me on the best means of overcoming what he considers misplaced pride and overstrained delicacy on your part, and inducing you to consent to his arranging the preliminaries to the marriage; I mean"--here Mrs. Bloxam hesitated a little--"settling everything as your mutual friend."
"It is well for him it cannot be," said Gertrude bitterly, "or the world would hardly praise his conduct in helping Miles Challoner to a marriage with me. The interest Lord Sandilands takes in me deserves all my gratitude and as much of my confidence as I can give, and he shall have them. He may be displeased that his kind projects are not to be carried out, but he will understand that it is impossible."
"I don't see that he will understand it," said Mrs. Bloxam, "unless you tell him about your marriage; and how are you to do that?" She forgot for the moment that she spoke with the knowledge of Gertrude's parentage in her mind, but that Gertrude was quite ignorant of it.
"Tell Lord Sandilands of my marriage!" said Gertrude; "what can you be thinking of? That must never be known to anyone; he is a kind friend indeed, but nothing would induce me to tell him that.."
"I beg your pardon; of course not," said Mrs. Bloxam, recovering herself, and remembering that the communication Lord Sandilands intended to make must not be forestalled. "Your resolution surprised me so much, I grew confused. But how will you account for refusing Mr. Challoner?"
"I shall account for it," said Gertrude, "on the best grounds--grounds which would be adequate in my own judgment had I never made the fatal mistake of my miserable marriage. If I were nothing more than the world knows or believes me to be, I should still hold myself an unsuitable wife for him, and should still refuse him for his own sake."
"And this is what you will tell Lord Sandilands?" said Mrs. Bloxam. "Gertrude, are you sure you can stand firm to your decision against the pleading of your lover and the support and arguments of your friend?"
"I am quite sure," said Gertrude, "for I shall stand firm for their own sakes. To yield would be to injure, to hesitate would be to torment them: I will neither yield nor hesitate."
"Lord Sandilands wishes to see you as soon as you can come with me to see him," said Mrs. Mourn. "I know he intends to urge Mr. Challoner's cause with all the argument and all the authority in his power."
"No argument and no authority can avail," said Gertrude.
"And you are determined to go on in this stage-life?"
"Yes; it is delightful to me in some respects, and it is independent and free. I don't say I have not had a struggle in reaching the determination I have arrived at; but I have reached it, and there is nothing more to be said or done. Whenever you choose, after a day or two, I will see Lord Sandilands; he will help me to impress on Miles Challoner the uselessness, indeed the cruelty, of pressing a suit which can only pain me and avail him nothing. I shall convince him easily; he knows the world too well to be difficult of persuasion of the justice of all that I shall say to him."
"It appears to me," thought Mrs. Bloxam, "that I shall get out of this business safely whatever happens, if she only perseveres in hiding her marriage; and I don't think there's much danger of her not doing so."
"I am rather tired, dear," said Gertrude after a pause, during which they had both kept silence, and turning towards Mrs. Bloxam with perhaps the sweetest smile and the friendliest gesture she had ever bestowed upon that lady; "and I think we will not talk any more just now. Tell Lady Belwether I shall try to come down for a little this evening. I am far from suspecting the kind old lady of wishing me to tumble for the company; but I should like to oblige her and the Dean, if possible."
Mrs. Bloxam took the hint. Gertrude was left alone, to endure all the agony caused her by the resolution she had taken; but yet to feel that she derived strength from having taken it, and that to get her decision finally and authoritatively communicated to Miles Challoner by Lord Sandilands, with the addition of an earnest request that he would not remain in England at present, and subject her and himself to the pain of meeting, was a very sensible relief. The bitterness of the suffering through which she passed at this time never quite died out of Gertrude's memory. There was something in it which wrung her soul with a far keener and deadlier anguish than all the coarser, more actual miseries which had beset her miserable married life. By the measure of the increased strength and refinement of her feelings, of the growth of her intellect, and the development of her tastes, the power and the obligation to suffer in this instance were increased. Of the man whom she had once fancied she loved, Gertrude never thought with any distinctness either of abhorrence, fear, or regret. The few words she had spoken to him in the midst of the fashionable crowd where they had last met had, she felt, effectually freed her from his pursuit henceforth; and in her present frame of mind, with her whole nature softened by her love for Miles, she was accustomed to look back rather on her own errors of judgment and perception as the fatal folly of her own girlhood, as the origin of her misfortunes, and to allow the sinister figure of her husband to slink in the backgrounds of her memory, something to be shunned and left in obscurity. In the wildest and deepest of her misery, and when her resolution was highest and sternest, there was one steadfast feeling in Gertrude's heart, by which she clung in all the tempest of emotion, while the clamour was loudest in her storm-tossed heart. It was the indestructible happiness of knowing herself beloved. Nothing could take that from her, whatever befell; life might have many more trials, many more deprivations in store for her, but it could not deprive her of that--not even change on his own part: and she did not think he would change. Very early in their acquaintance she had recognised, with the pleasure of a kindred disposition, the tranquil stability of Miles Challoner's character; but not even change could alter that truth, could efface that blessedness, could deprive her of that priceless treasure. She even asked herself, in the mood of mournful exultation in which she was, whether she could have felt this secret, subtle joy so keenly if she had not learned to distinguish the false from the true by such a terrible experience? If this had been a first love, could it have been so awfully dear and precious, a consolation so priceless, as to be hugged and hidden in her utmost heart; a talisman against misery, a talisman sufficiently powerful to subdue the anguish of its own ineffectualness, its own hopelessness? Could any girl unversed in the world's way, unskilled in the world's delusions, innocent and ignorant, knowing no ill of herself or others, have loved Miles Challoner as she loved him--this woman who had been brought in such close contact with crime, meanness, degradation, who had passed from girlhood to womanhood, on the border of respectability, with a tolerably uninterrupted look-out, very little space intervening over the debatable land of scheming, shifts, and general Bohemianism--this woman, whose dearest hope was to keep the knowledge of the truth about her--her life--her very name--from the man she loved?
The task of speaking with Lord Sandilands, of destroying the hopes the kind old man cherished for his friend and for her, of defending the position she had to take up, for the destruction of all the prospect of happiness which life had to offer her, was not one to be contemplated with anything but intense reluctance. But Gertrude forced herself to the contemplation of it, and made up her mind to get the interview over as soon as possible. She had not forgotten that she had promised Miles to see him again, to speak with him again, on the subject of the suit he had urged. She knew well how impatient he would be; but while her illness and seclusion continued, he would know the fulfilment of her promise was not possible. What if she made an effort to go down to the drawing-room to-night, and found him there--was forced to meet him in the presence of strangers? She could not endure that; she felt that her nerves, in such a trial, would refuse to obey her will. She would write a line to him, asking him to remain away from Hardriggs until he should hear from her again. There could be no harm in that; but suppose he should be intending to come there that evening, the intimation of her wish would reach him too late. She rang the bell, and sent her maid for Mrs. Bloxam, to whom she propounded the difficulty.
"I know he will be here," Mrs. Bloxam said; "Lady Belwether has just said so."
"Then I must write," said Gertrude; "and you must give him the note."
Mrs. Bloxam conveyed the few lines, in which Gertrude begged Miles to abstain from appearing in the drawing-room after dinner, to the hands of that anxious and almost-despairing lover, and he instantly obeyed the behest which it contained. Lord Sandilands' illness and need of his society furnished an excuse which was not only valid, but did him credit with his hostess and Mr. Dean, who was pleased to remark that his attention to his noble friend was a very gratifying spectacle, very gratifying indeed. When Miles rejoined his noble friend he told him most ruefully of the fresh rebuff he had received, and presented a doleful aspect anything but exhilarating to an invalid in want of cheerful companionship. Lord Sandilands did not seem to notice the depressed state of his spirits, but listened to him with an air rather of satisfaction than otherwise.
"Never mind, Miles," he said; "it's a good sign that she did not choose to meet you in the presence of a lot of strangers. Have patience, my dear boy and I promise you, on the faith of your old friend, which never failed you yet, all will be well."
Miss Lambert made her appearance that evening in the drawing-room at Hardriggs for a short time. She was warmly congratulated on her recovery, and had many pretty things said to her about her temporary eclipse. She even ventured to sing just one song; a simple but beautiful one, which went to the hearts of the company in general, and apparently to the nose of Mr. Dean in particular, as that dignitary used his handkerchief with prolonged solemnity while the concluding cadence was yet lingering in the air. It was agreed on all hands that never had Miss Lambert been more completely charming.
On the day but one after,--a bright, balmy day, when the earth looked its best, and the sky its bluest,--one of the Hardriggs equipages conveyed Mrs. Bloxam and Miss Lambert to Lord Sandilands' seaside abode. The visit had been duly notified by a message from Mrs. Bloxam, and the ladies had the satisfaction of learning that his lordship was much better, and quite able to receive them. They were ushered upstairs, and into a sitting-room on the first-floor. The room was empty, and the folding-doors which communicated with another room were closed. In a few moments they opened, and gave admittance to a middle-aged woman, plainly dressed, very respectable; the exact model of all a housekeeper ought to be. On her steady arm Lord Sandilands leaned; and as he limped slowly towards his visitors with extended hand, expressing his pleasure at seeing them, Gertrude recognised in the housekeeper Mrs. Bush, and Mrs. Bush recognised in the lady whom she had heard announced as Miss Lambert the wife of her ci-devant lodger, Gilbert Lloyd.