"And Belinda, mother dear?" Edward said presently, in a grave undertone.

"Belinda is an angel," Mrs. Arundel answered, quite as gravely. "She has been in her own room all day, and no one has seen her but her mother; but she came down to the hall as I was leaving the house this evening, and said to me, 'Dear Mrs. Arundel, tell him that he must not think I am so selfish as to be sorry for what has happened. Tell him that I am very glad to think his young wife has been saved.' She put her hand up to my lips to stop my speaking, and then went back again to her room; and if that isn't acting like an angel, I don't know what is."

CHAPTER XIII.
"ALL WITHIN IS DARK AS NIGHT."

Paul Marchmont did not leave Stony–Stringford Farmhouse till dusk upon that bright summer's day; and the friendly twilight is slow to come in the early days of July, however a man may loathe the sunshine. Paul Marchmont stopped at the deserted farmhouse, wandering in and out of the empty rooms, strolling listlessly about the neglected garden, or coming to a dead stop sometimes, and standing stock–still for ten minutes at a time, staring at the wall before him, and counting the slimy traces of the snails upon the branches of a plum–tree, or the flies in a spider's web. Paul Marchmont was afraid to leave that lonely farmhouse. He was afraid as yet. He scarcely knew what he feared, for a kind of stupor had succeeded the violent emotions of the past few hours; and the time slipped by him, and his brain grew bewildered when he tried to realise his position.

It was very difficult for him to do this. The calamity that had come upon him was a calamity that he had never anticipated. He was a clever man, and he had put his trust in his own cleverness. He had never expected to be found out.

Until this hour everything had been in his favour. His dupes and victims had played into his hands. Mary's grief, which had rendered her a passive creature, utterly indifferent to her own fate,––her peculiar education, which had taught her everything except knowledge of the world in which she was to live,––had enabled Paul Marchmont to carry out a scheme so infamous and daring that it was beyond the suspicion of honest men, almost too base for the comprehension of ordinary villains.

He had never expected to be found out. All his plans had been deliberately and carefully prepared. Immediately after Edward's marriage and safe departure for the Continent, Paul had intended to convey Mary and the child, with the grim attendant whom he had engaged for them, far away, to one of the remotest villages in Wales.

Alone he would have done this; travelling by night, and trusting no one; for the hired attendant knew nothing of Mary's real position. She had been told that the girl was a poor relation of Paul's, and that her story was a very sorrowful one. If the poor creature had strange fancies and delusions, it was no more than might be expected; for she had suffered enough to turn a stronger brain than her own. Everything had been arranged, and so cleverly arranged, that Mary and the child would disappear after dusk one summer's evening, and not even Lavinia Weston would be told whither they had gone.

Paul had never expected to be found out. But he had least of all expected betrayal from the quarter whence it had come. He had made Olivia his tool; but he had acted cautiously even with her. He had confided nothing to her; and although she had suspected some foul play in the matter of Mary's disappearance, she had been certain of nothing. She had uttered no falsehood when she swore to Edward Arundel that she did not know where his wife was. But for her accidental discovery of the secret of the pavilion, she would never have known of Mary's existence after that October afternoon on which the girl left Marchmont Towers.

But here Paul had been betrayed by the carelessness of the hired girl who acted as Mary Arundel's gaoler and attendant. It was Olivia's habit to wander often in that dreary wood by the water during the winter in which Mary was kept prisoner in the pavilion over the boat–house. Lavinia Weston and Paul Marchmont spent each of them a great deal of their time in the pavilion; but they could not be always on guard there. There was the world to be hoodwinked; and the surgeon's wife had to perform all her duties as a matron before the face of Kemberling, and had to give some plausible account of her frequent visits to the boat–house. Paul liked the place for his painting, Mrs. Weston informed her friends; and he was so enthusiastic in his love of art, that it was really a pleasure to participate in his enthusiasm; so she liked to sit with him, and talk to him or read to him while he painted. This explanation was quite enough for Kemberling; and Mrs. Weston went to the pavilion at Marchmont Towers three or four times a week without causing any scandal thereby.

But however well you may manage things yourself, it is not always easy to secure the careful co–operation of the people you employ. Betsy Murrel was a stupid, narrow–minded young person, who was very safe so far as regarded the possibility of any sympathy with, or compassion for, Mary Arundel arising in her stolid nature; but the stupid stolidity which made her safe in one way rendered her dangerous in another. One day, while Mrs. Weston was with the hapless young prisoner, Miss Murrel went out upon the water–side to converse with a good–looking young bargeman, who was a connexion of her family, and perhaps an admirer of the young lady herself; and the door of the painting–room being left wide open, Olivia Marchmont wandered listlessly into the pavilion––there was a dismal fascination for her in that spot, on which she had heard Edward Arundel declare his love for John Marchmont's daughter––and heard Mary's voice in the chamber at the top of the stone steps.

This was how Olivia had surprised Paul's secret; and from that hour it had been the artist's business to rule this woman by the only weapon which he possessed against her,––her own secret, her own weak folly, her mad love of Edward Arundel and jealous hatred of the woman whom he had loved. This weapon was a very powerful one, and Paul used it unsparingly.

When the woman who, for seven–and–twenty years of her life, had lived without sin; who from the hour in which she had been old enough to know right from wrong, until Edward Arundel's second return from India, had sternly done her duty,––when this woman, who little by little had slipped away from her high standing–point and sunk down into a morass of sin; when this woman remonstrated with Mr. Marchmont, he turned upon her and lashed her with the scourge of her own folly.

"You come and upbraid me," he said, "and you call me villain and arch–traitor, and say that you cannot abide this, your sin; and that your guilt, in keeping our secret, cries to you in the dead hours of the night; and you call upon me to undo what I have done, and to restore Mary Marchmont to her rights. Do you remember what her highest right is? Do you remember that which I must restore to her when I give her back this house and the income that goes along with it? If I restore Marchmont Towers, I must restore to her Edward Arundel's love! You have forgotten that, perhaps. If she ever re–enters this house, she will come back to it leaning on his arm. You will see them together––you will hear of their happiness; and do you think that he will ever forgive you for your part of the conspiracy? Yes, it is a conspiracy, if you like; if you are not afraid to call it by a hard name, why should I fear to do so? Will he ever forgive you, do you think, when he knows that his young wife has been the victim of a senseless, vicious love? Yes, Olivia Marchmont; any love is vicious which is given unsought, and is so strong a passion, so blind and unreasoning a folly, that honour, mercy, truth, and Christianity are trampled down before it. How will you endure Edward Arundel's contempt for you? How will you tolerate his love for Mary, multiplied twentyfold by all this romantic business of separation and persecution?

"You talk to me of my sin. Who was it who first sinned? Who was it who drove Mary Marchmont from this house,––not once only, but twice, by her cruelty? Who was it who persecuted her and tortured her day by day and hour by hour, not openly, not with an uplifted hand or blows that could be warded off, but by cruel hints and inuendoes, by unwomanly sneers and hellish taunts? Look into your heart, Olivia Marchmont; and when you make atonement for your sin, I will make restitution for mine. In the meantime, if this business is painful to you, the way lies open before you: go and take Edward Arundel to the pavilion yonder, and give him back his wife; give the lie to all your past life, and restore these devoted young lovers to each other's arms."

This weapon never failed in its effect. Olivia Marchmont might loathe herself, and her sin, and her life, which was made hideous to her because of her sin; but she could not bring herself to restore Mary to her lover–husband; she could not tolerate the idea of their happiness. Every night she grovelled on her knees, and swore to her offended God that she would do this thing, she would render this sacrifice of atonement; but every morning, when her weary eyes opened on the hateful sunlight, she cried, "Not to–day––not to–day."

Again and again, during Edward Arundel's residence at Kemberling Retreat, she had set out from Marchmont Towers with the intention of revealing to him the place where his young wife was hidden; but, again and again, she had turned back and left her work undone. She could not––she could not. In the dead of the night, under pouring rain, with the bleak winds of winter blowing in her face, she had set out upon that unfinished journey, only to stop midway, and cry out, "No, no, no––not to–night; I cannot endure it yet!"

It was only when another and a fiercer jealousy was awakened in this woman's breast, that she arose all at once, strong, resolute, and undaunted, to do the work she had so miserably deferred. As one poison is said to neutralise the evil power of another, so Olivia Marchmont's jealousy of Belinda seemed to blot out and extinguish her hatred of Mary. Better anything than that Edward Arundel should have a new, and perhaps a fairer, bride. The jealous woman had always looked upon Mary Marchmont as a despicable rival. Better that Edward should be tied to this girl, than that he should rejoice in the smiles of a lovelier woman, worthier of his affection. This was the feeling paramount in Olivia's breast, although she was herself half unconscious how entirely this was the motive power which had given her new strength and resolution. She tried to think that it was the awakening of her conscience that had made her strong enough to do this one good work; but in the semi–darkness of her own mind there was still a feeble glimmer of the light of truth, and it was this that had prompted her to cry out on her knees before the altar in Hillingsworth church, and declare the sinfulness of her nature.

* * * * *

Paul Marchmont stopped several times before the ragged, untrimmed fruit–trees in his purposeless wanderings in the neglected garden at Stony Stringford, before the vaporous confusion cleared away from his brain, and he was able to understand what had happened to him.

His first reasonable action was to take out his watch; but even then he stood for some moments staring at the dial before he remembered why he had taken the watch from his pocket, or what it was that he wanted to know. By Mr. Marchmont's chronometer it was ten minutes past seven o'clock; but the watch had been unwound upon the previous night, and had run down. Paul put it back in his waistcoat–pocket, and then walked slowly along the weedy pathway to that low latticed window in which he had often seen Mary Arundel standing with her child in her arms. He went to this window and looked in, with his face against the glass. The room was neat and orderly now; for the woman whom Mr. Marchmont had hired had gone about her work as usual, and was in the act of filling a little brown earthenware teapot from a kettle on the hob when Paul stared in at her.

She looked up as Mr. Marchmont's figure came between her and the light, and nearly dropped the little brown teapot in her terror of her offended employer.

But Paul pulled open the window, and spoke to her very quietly. "Stop where you are," he said; "I want to speak to you. I'll come in."

He went into the house by a door, that had once been the front and principal entrance, which opened into a low wainscoted hall. From this room he went into the parlour, which had been Mary Arundel's apartment, and in which the hired nurse was now preparing her breakfast. "I thought I might as well get a cup of tea, sir, whiles I waited for your orders," the woman murmured, apologetically; "for bein' knocked up so early this morning, you see, sir, has made my head that bad, I could scarcely bear myself; and––––"

Paul lifted his hand to stop the woman's talk, as he had done before. He had no consciousness of what she was saying, but the sound of her voice pained him. His eyebrows contracted with a spasmodic action, as if something had hurt his head.

There was a Dutch clock in the corner of the room, with a long pendulum swinging against the wall. By this clock it was half–past eight.

"Is your clock right?" Paul asked.

"Yes, sir. Leastways, it may be five minutes too slow, but not more."

Mr. Marchmont took out his watch, wound it up, and regulated it by the Dutch clock.

"Now," he said, "perhaps you can tell me clearly what happened. I want no excuses, remember; I only want to know what occurred, and what was said––word for word, remember."

He sat down but got up again directly, and walked to the window; then he paced up and down the room two or three times, and then went back to the fireplace and sat down again. He was like a man who, in the racking torture of some physical pain, finds a miserable relief in his own restlessness.

"Come," he said; "I am waiting."

"Yes, sir; which, begging your parding, if you wouldn't mind sitting still like, while I'm a–telling of you, which it do remind me of the wild beastes in the Zoological, sir, to that degree, that the boil, to which I am subjeck, sir, and have been from a child, might prevent me bein' as truthful as I should wish. Mrs. Marchmont, sir, she come before it was light, in a cart, sir, which it was a shaycart, and made comfortable with cushions and straw, and suchlike, or I should not have let the young lady go away in it; and she bring with her a respectable, homely–looking young person, which she call Hester Jobling or Gobson, or somethink of that sound like, which my memory is treechrous, and I don't wish to tell a story on no account; and Mrs. Marchmont she go straight up to my young lady, and she shakes her by the shoulder; and then the young woman called Hester, she wakes up my young lady quite gentle like, and kisses her and cries over her; and a man as drove the cart, which looked a small tradesman well–to–do, brings his trap round to the front–door,––you may see the trax of the wheels upon the gravel now, sir, if you disbelieve me. And Mrs. Marchmont and the young woman called Hester, between 'em they gets my young lady up, and dresses her, and dresses the child; and does it all so quick, and overrides me to such a degree, that I hadn't no power to prevent 'em; but I say to Mrs. Marchmont, I say: 'Is it Mr. Marchmont's orders as his cousin should be took away this morning?' and she stare at me hard, and say, 'Yes;' and she have allus an abrumpt way, but was abrumpter than ordinary this morning. And, oh sir, bein' a poor lone woman, what was I to do?"

"Have you nothing more to tell me?"

"Nothing, sir; leastways, except as they lifted my young lady into the cart, and the man got in after 'em, and drove away as fast as his horse would go; and they had been gone two minutes when I began to feel all in a tremble like, for fear as I might have done wrong in lettin' of 'em go."

"You have done wrong," Paul answered, sternly; "but no matter. If these officious friends of my poor weak–witted cousin choose to take her away, so much the better for me, who have been burdened with her long enough. Since your charge has gone, your services are no longer wanted. I shan't act illiberally to you, though I am very much annoyed by your folly and stupidity. Is there anything due to you?"

Mrs. Brown hesitated for a moment, and then replied, in a very insinuating tone,––

"Not wages, sir; there ain't no wages doo to me,––which you paid me a quarter in advance last Saturday was a week, and took a receipt, sir, for the amount. But I have done my dooty, sir, and had but little sleep and rest, which my 'ealth ain't what it was when I answered your advertisement, requirin' a respectable motherly person, to take charge of a invalid lady, not objectin' to the country––which I freely tell you, sir, if I'd known that the country was a rheumatic old place like this, with rats enough to scare away a regyment of soldiers, I would not have undertook the situation; so any present as you might think sootable, considerin' all things, and––––"

"That will do," said Paul Marchmont, taking a handful of loose money from his waistcoat pocket; "I suppose a ten–pound note would satisfy you?"

"Indeed it would, sir, and very liberal of you too––––"

"Very well. I've got a five–pound note here, and five sovereigns. The best thing you can do is to get back to London at once; there's a train leaves Milsome Station at eleven o'clock––Milsome's not more than a mile and a half from here. You can get your things together; there's a boy about the place who will carry them for you, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir; there's a boy by the name of William."

"He can go with you, then; and if you look sharp, you can catch the eleven–o'clock train."

"Yes, sir; and thank you kindly, sir."

"I don't want any thanks. See that you don't miss the train; that's all you have to take care of."

Mr. Marchmont went out into the garden again. He had done something, at any rate; he had arranged for getting this woman out of the way.

If––if by any remote chance there might be yet a possibility of keeping the secret of Mary's existence, here was one witness already got rid of.

But was there any chance? Mr. Marchmont sat down on a rickety old garden–seat, and tried to think––tried to take a deliberate survey of his position.

No; there was no hope for him. Look which way he could, there was not one ray of light. With George Weston and Olivia, Betsy Murrel the servant–girl, and Hester Jobson to bear witness against him, what could he hope?

The surgeon would be able to declare that the child was Mary's son, her legitimate son, sole heir to that estate of which Paul had taken possession.

There was no hope. There was no possibility that Olivia should waver in her purpose; for had she not brought with her two witnesses––Hester Jobson and her husband?

From that moment the case was taken out of her hands. The honest carpenter and his wife would see that Mary had her rights.

"It will be a glorious speculation for them," thought Paul Marchmont, who naturally measured other people's characters by a standard derived from an accurate knowledge of his own.

Yes, his ruin was complete. Destruction had come upon him, swift and sudden as the caprice of a madwoman––or––the thunderbolt of an offended Providence. What should he do? Run away, sneak away by back–lanes and narrow footpaths to the nearest railway–station, hide himself in a third–class carriage going Londonwards, and from London get away to Liverpool, to creep on board some emigrant vessel bound for New York?

He could not even do this, for he was without the means of getting so much as the railway–ticket that should carry him on the first stage of his flight. After having given ten pounds to Mrs. Brown, he had only a few shillings in his waistcoat–pocket. He had only one article of any great value about him, and that was his watch, which had cost fifty pounds. But the Marchmont arms were emblazoned on the outside of the case; and Paul's name in full, and the address of Marchmont Towers, were ostentatiously engraved inside, so that any attempt to dispose of the watch must inevitably lead to the identification of the owner.

Paul Marchmont had made no provision for this evil day. Supreme in the consciousness of his own talents, he had never imagined discovery and destruction. His plans had been so well arranged. On the very day after Edward's second marriage, Mary and her child would have been conveyed away to the remotest district in Wales; and the artist would have laughed at the idea of danger. The shallowest schemer might have been able to manage this poor broken–hearted girl, whose many sorrows had brought her to look upon life as a thing which was never meant to be joyful, and which was only to be endured patiently, like some slow disease that would be surely cured in the grave. It had been so easy to deal with this ignorant and gentle victim that Paul had grown bold and confident, and had ignored the possibility of such ruin as had now come down upon him.

What was he to do? What was the nature of his crime, and what penalty had he incurred? He tried to answer these questions; but as his offence was of no common kind, he knew of no common law which could apply to it. Was it a felony, this appropriation of another person's property, this concealment of another person's existence; or was it only a conspiracy, amenable to no criminal law; and would he be called upon merely to make restitution of that which he had spent and wasted? What did it matter? Either way, there was nothing for him but ruin––irretrievable ruin.

There are some men who can survive discovery and defeat, and begin a new life in a new world, and succeed in a new career. But Paul Marchmont was not one of these. He could not stick a hunting–knife and a brace of revolvers in his leathern belt, sling a game–bag across his shoulders, take up his breech–loading rifle, and go out into the backwoods of an uncivilised country, to turn sheep–breeder, and hold his own against a race of agricultural savages. He was a Cockney, and for him there was only one world––a world in which men wore varnished boots and enamelled shirt–studs with portraits of La Montespan or La Dubarry, and lived in chambers in the Albany, and treated each other to little dinners at Greenwich and Richmond, or cut a grand figure at a country–house, and collected a gallery of art and a museum of bric à brac. This was the world upon the outer edge of which Paul Marchmont had lived so long, looking in at the brilliant inhabitants with hungry, yearning eyes through all the days of his poverty and obscurity. This was the world into which he had pushed himself at last by means of a crime.

He was forty years of age; and in all his life he had never had but one ambition,––and that was to be master of Marchmont Towers. The remote chance of that inheritance had hung before him ever since his boyhood, a glittering prize, far away in the distance, but so brilliant as to blind him to the brightness of all nearer chances. Why should he slave at his easel, and toil to become a great painter? When would art earn him eleven thousand a year? The greatest painter of Mr. Marchmont's time lived in a miserable lodging at Chelsea. It was before the days of the "Railway Station" and the "Derby Day;" or perhaps Paul might have made an effort to become that which Heaven never meant him to be––a great painter. No; art was only a means of living with this man. He painted, and sold his pictures to his few patrons, who beat him down unmercifully, giving him a small profit upon his canvas and colours, for the encouragement of native art; but he only painted to live.

He was waiting. From the time when he could scarcely speak plain, Marchmont Towers had been a familiar word in his ears and on his lips. He knew the number of lives that stood between his father and the estate, and had learned to say, naïvely enough then,––

"O pa, don't you wish that Uncle Philip and Uncle Marmaduke and Cousin John would die soon?"

He was two–and–twenty years of age when his father died; and he felt a faint thrill of satisfaction, even in the midst of his sorrow, at the thought that there was one life the less between him and the end of his hopes. But other lives had sprung up in the interim. There was young Arthur, and little Mary; and Marchmont Towers was like a caravanserai in the desert, which seems to be farther and farther away as the weary traveller strives to reach it.

Still Paul hoped, and watched, and waited. He had all the instincts of a sybarite, and he fancied, therefore, that he was destined to be a rich man. He watched, and waited, and hoped, and cheered his mother and sister when they were downcast with the hope of better days. When the chance came, he seized upon it, and plotted, and succeeded, and revelled in his brief success.

But now ruin had come to him, what was he to do? He tried to make some plan for his own conduct; but he could not. His brain reeled with the effort which he made to realise his own position.

He walked up and down one of the pathways in the garden until a quarter to ten o'clock; then he went into the house, and waited till Mrs. Brown had departed from Stony–Stringford Farm, attended by the boy, who carried two bundles, a bandbox, and a carpet–bag.

"Come back here when you have taken those things to the station," Paul said; "I shall want you."

He watched the dilapidated five–barred gate swing to after the departure of Mrs. Brown and her attendant, and then went to look at his horse. The patient animal had been standing in a shed all this time, and had had neither food nor water. Paul searched amongst the empty barns and outhouses, and found a few handfuls of fodder. He took this to the animal, and then went back again to the garden,––to that quiet garden, where the bees were buzzing about in the sunshine with a drowsy, booming sound, and where a great tabby–cat was sleeping stretched flat upon its side, on one of the flower–beds.

Paul Marchmont waited here very impatiently till the boy came back.

"I must see Lavinia," he thought. "I dare not leave this place till I have seen Lavinia. I don't know what may be happening at Hillingsworth or Kemberling. These things are taken up sometimes by the populace. They may make a party against me; they may––"

He stood still, gnawing the edges of his nails, and staring down at the gravel–walk.

He was thinking of things that he had read in the newspapers,––cases in which some cruel mother who had ill-used her child, or some suspected assassin who, in all human probability, had poisoned his wife, had been well–nigh torn piecemeal by an infuriated mob, and had been glad to cling for protection to the officers of justice, or to beg leave to stay in prison after acquittal, for safe shelter from honest men and women's indignation.

He remembered one special case in which the populace, unable to get at a man's person, tore down his house, and vented their fury upon unsentient bricks and mortar.

Mr. Marchmont took out a little memorandum book, and scrawled a few lines in pencil:

"I am here, at Stony–Stringford Farmhouse," he wrote. "For God's sake, come to me, Lavinia, and at once; you can drive here yourself. I want to know what has happened at Kemberling and at Hillingsworth. Find out everything for me, and come. P. M."

It was nearly twelve o'clock when the boy returned. Paul gave him this letter, and told the lad to get on his own horse, and ride to Kemberling as fast as he could go. He was to leave the horse at Kemberling, in Mr. Weston's stable, and was to come back to Stony–Stringford with Mrs. Weston. This order Paul particularly impressed upon the boy, lest he should stop in Kemberling, and reveal the secret of Paul's hiding–place.

Mr. Paul Marchmont was afraid. A terrible sickening dread had taken possession of him, and what little manliness there had ever been in his nature seemed to have deserted him to–day.

Oh, the long dreary hours of that miserable day! the hideous sunshine, that scorched Mr. Marchmont's bare head, as he loitered about the garden!––he had left his hat in the house; but he did not even know that he was bareheaded. Oh, the misery of that long day of suspense and anguish! The sick consciousness of utter defeat, the thought of the things that he might have done, the purse that he might have made with the money that he had lavished on pictures, and decorations, and improvements, and the profligate extravagance of splendid entertainments. This is what he thought of, and these were the thoughts that tortured him. But in all that miserable day he never felt one pang of remorse for the agonies that he had inflicted upon his innocent victim; on the contrary, he hated her because of this discovery, and gnashed his teeth as he thought how she and her young husband would enjoy all the grandeur of Marchmont Towers,––all that noble revenue which he had hoped to hold till his dying day.

It was growing dusk when Mr. Marchmont heard the sound of wheels in the dusty lane outside the garden–wall. He went through the house, and into the farmyard, in time to receive his sister Lavinia at the gate. It was the wheels of her pony–carriage he had heard. She drove a pair of ponies, which Paul had given her. He was angry with himself as he remembered that this was another piece of extravagance,––another sum of money recklessly squandered, when it might have gone towards the making of a rich provision for this evil day.

Mrs. Weston was very pale; and her brother could see by her face that she brought him no good news. She left her ponies to the care of the boy, and went into the garden with her brother.

"Well, Lavinia?"

"Well, Paul, it is a dreadful business," Mrs. Weston said, in a low voice.

"It's all George's doing! It's all the work of that infernal scoundrel!" cried Paul, passionately. "But he shall pay bitterly for––––"

"Don't let us talk of him, Paul; no good can come of that. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I sent for you because I wanted your help and advice. What's the good of your coming if you bring me no help?"

"Don't be cruel, Paul. Heaven knows, I'll do my best. But I can't see what's to be done––except for you to get away, Paul. Everything's known. Olivia stopped the marriage publicly in Hillingsworth Church; and all the Hillingsworth people followed Edward Arundel's carriage to Kemberling. The report spread like wildfire; and, oh Paul, the Kemberling people have taken it up, and our windows have been broken, and there's been a crowd all day upon the terrace before the Towers, and they've tried to get into the house, declaring that they know you're hiding somewhere. Paul, Paul, what are we to do? The people hooted after me as I drove away from the High Street, and the boys threw stones at the ponies. Almost all the servants have left the Towers. The constables have been up there trying to get the crowd off the terrace. But what are we to do, Paul? what are we to do?"

"Kill ourselves," answered the artist savagely. "What else should we do? What have we to live for? You have a little money, I suppose; I have none. Do you think I can go back to the old life? Do you think I can go back, and live in that shabby house in Charlotte Street, and paint the same rocks and boulders, the same long stretch of sea, the same low lurid streaks of light,––all the old subjects over again,––for the same starvation prices? Do you think I can ever tolerate shabby clothes again, or miserable make–shift dinners,––hashed mutton, with ill–cut hunks of lukewarm meat floating about in greasy slop called gravy, and washed down with flat porter fetched half an hour too soon from a public–house,––do you think I can go back to that? No; I have tasted the wine of life: I have lived; and I'll never go back to the living death called poverty. Do you think I can stand in that passage in Charlotte Street again, Lavinia, to be bullied by an illiterate tax–gatherer, or insulted by an infuriated baker? No, Lavinia; I have made my venture, and I have failed."

"But what will you do, Paul?"

"I don't know," he answered, moodily.

This was a lie. He knew well enough what he meant to do: he would kill himself.

That resolution inspired him with a desperate kind of courage. He would escape from the mob; he would get away somewhere or other quietly and there kill himself. He didn't know how, as yet; but he would deliberate upon that point at his leisure, and choose the death that was supposed to be least painful.

"Where are my mother and Clarissa?" he asked presently.

"They are at our house; they came to me directly they heard the rumour of what had happened. I don't know how they heard it; but every one heard of it, simultaneously, as it seemed. My mother is in a dreadful state. I dared not tell her that I had known it all along."

"Oh, of course not," answered Paul, with a sneer; "let me bear the burden of my guilt alone. What did my mother say?"

"She kept saying again and again, 'I can't believe it. I can't believe that he could do anything cruel; he has been such a good son.'"

"I was not cruel," Paul cried vehemently; "the girl had every comfort. I never grudged money for her comfort. She was a miserable, apathetic creature, to whom fortune was almost a burden rather than an advantage. If I separated her from her husband––bah!––was that such a cruelty? She was no worse off than if Edward Arundel had been killed in that railway accident; and it might have been so."

He didn't waste much time by reasoning on this point. He thought of his mother and sisters. From first to last he had been a good son and a good brother.

"What money have you, Lavinia?"

"A good deal; you have been very generous to me, Paul; and you shall have it all back again, if you want it. I have got upwards of two thousand pounds altogether; for I have been very careful of the money you have given me."

"You have been wise. Now listen to me, Lavinia. I have been a good son, and I have borne my burdens uncomplainingly. It is your turn now to bear yours. I must get back to Marchmont Towers, if I can, and gather together whatever personal property I have there. It isn't much––only a few trinkets, and suchlike. You must send me some one you can trust to fetch those to–night; for I shall not stay an hour in the place. I may not even be admitted into it; for Edward Arundel may have already taken possession in his wife's name. Then you will have to decide where you are to go. You can't stay in this part of the country. Weston must be liable to some penalty or other for his share in the business, unless he's bought over as a witness to testify to the identity of Mary's child. I haven't time to think of all this. I want you to promise me that you will take care of your mother and your invalid sister."

"I will, Paul; I will indeed. But tell me what you are going to do yourself, and where you are going?"

"I don't know," Paul Marchmont answered, in the same tone as before; "but whatever I do, I want you to give me your solemn promise that you will be good to my mother and sister."

"I will, Paul; I promise you to do as you have done."

"You had better leave Kemberling by the first train to–morrow morning; take my mother and Clarissa with you; take everything that is worth taking, and leave Weston behind you to bear the brunt of this business. You can get a lodging in the old neighbourhood, and no one will molest you when you once get away from this place. But remember one thing, Lavinia: if Mary Arundel's child should die, and Mary herself should die childless, Clarissa will inherit Marchmont Towers. Don't forget that. There's a chance yet for you: it's far away, and unlikely enough; but it is a chance."

"But you are more likely to outlive Mary and her child than Clarissa is," Mrs. Weston answered, with a feeble attempt at hopefulness; "try and think of that, Paul, and let the hope cheer you."

"Hope!" cried Mr. Marchmont, with a discordant laugh. "Yes; I'm forty years old, and for five–and–thirty of those years I've hoped and waited for Marchmont Towers. I can't hope any longer, or wait any longer. I give it up; I've fought hard, but I'm beaten."

It was nearly dark by this time, the shadowy darkness of a midsummer's evening; and there were stars shining faintly out of the sky.

"You can drive me back to the Towers," Paul Marchmont said. "I don't want to lose any time in getting there; I may be locked out by Mr. Edward Arundel if I don't take care."

Mrs. Weston and her brother went back to the farmyard. It was sixteen miles from Kemberling to Stony Stringford; and the ponies were steaming, for Lavinia had come at a good rate. But it was no time for the consideration of horseflesh. Paul took a rug from the empty seat, and wrapped himself in it. He would not be likely to be recognised in the darkness, sitting back in the low seat, and made bulky by the ponderous covering in which he had enveloped himself. Mrs. Weston took the whip from the boy, gathered up the reins, and drove off. Paul had left no orders about the custody of the old farmhouse. The boy went home to his master, at the other end of the farm; and the night–winds wandered wherever they listed through the deserted habitation.

CHAPTER XIV.
THERE IS CONFUSION WORSE THAN DEATH.

The brother and sister exchanged very few words during the drive between Stony Stringford and Marchmont Towers. It was arranged between them that Mrs. Weston should drive by a back–way leading to a lane that skirted the edge of the river, and that Paul should get out at a gate opening into the wood, and by that means make his way, unobserved, to the house which had so lately been to all intents and purposes his own.

He dared not attempt to enter the Towers by any other way; for the indignant populace might still be lurking about the front of the house, eager to inflict summary vengeance upon the persecutor of a helpless girl.

It was between nine and ten o'clock when Mr. Marchmont got out at the little gate. All here was very still; and Paul heard the croaking of the frogs upon the margin of a little pool in the wood, and the sound of horses' hoofs a mile away upon the loose gravel by the water–side.

"Good night, Lavinia," he said. "Send for the things as soon as you go back; and be sure you send a safe person for them."

"O yes, dear; but hadn't you better take any thing of value yourself?" Mrs. Weston asked anxiously. "You say you have no money. Perhaps it would be best for you to send me the jewellery, though, and I can send you what money you want by my messenger."

"I shan't want any money––at least I have enough for what I want. What have you done with your savings?"

"They are in a London bank. But I have plenty of ready money in the house. You must want money, Paul?"

"I tell you, no; I have as much as I want."

"But tell me your plans, Paul; I must know your plans before I leave Lincolnshire myself. Are you going away?"

"Yes."

"Immediately?"

"Immediately."

"Shall you go to London?"

"Perhaps. I don't know yet."

"But when shall we see you again, Paul? or how shall we hear of you?"

"I'll write to you."

"Where?"

"At the Post–office in Rathbone Place. Don't bother me with a lot of questions to–night Lavinia; I'm not in the humour to answer them."

Paul Marchmont turned away from his sister impatiently, and opened the gate; but before she had driven off, he went back to her.

"Shake hands, Lavinia," he said; "shake hands, my dear; it may be a long time before you and I meet again."

He bent down and kissed his sister.

"Drive home as fast as you can, and send the messenger directly. He had better come to the door of the lobby, near Olivia's room. Where is Olivia, by–the–bye? Is she still with the stepdaughter she loves so dearly?"

"No; she went to Swampington early in the afternoon. A fly was ordered from the Black Bull, and she went away in it."

"So much the better," answered Mr. Marchmont. "Good night, Lavinia. Don't let my mother think ill of me. I tried to do the best I could to make her happy. Good–bye."

"Good–bye, dear Paul; God bless you!"

The blessing was invoked with as much sincerity as if Lavinia Weston had been a good woman, and her brother a good man. Perhaps neither of those two was able to realise the extent of the crime which they had assisted each other to commit.

Mrs. Weston drove away; and Paul went up to the back of the Towers, and under an archway leading into the quadrangle. All about the house was as quiet as if the Sleeping Beauty and her court had been its only occupants.

The inhabitants of Kemberling and the neighbourhood were an orderly people, who burnt few candles between May and September; and however much they might have desired to avenge Mary Arundel's wrongs by tearing Paul Marchmont to pieces, their patience had been exhausted by nightfall, and they had been glad to return to their respective abodes, to discuss Paul's iniquities comfortably over the nine–o'clock beer.

Paul stood still in the quadrangle for a few moments, and listened. He could hear no human breath or whisper; he only heard the sound of the corn–crake in the fields to the right of the Towers, and the distant rumbling of wagon–wheels on the high–road. There was a glimmer of light in one of the windows belonging to the servants' offices,––only one dim glimmer, where there had usually been a row of brilliantly–lighted casements. Lavinia was right, then; almost all the servants had left the Towers. Paul tried to open the half–glass door leading into the lobby; but it was locked. He rang a bell; and after about three minutes' delay, a buxom country–girl appeared in the lobby carrying a candle. She was some kitchenmaid or dairymaid or scullerymaid, whom Paul could not remember to have ever seen until now. She opened the door, and admitted him, dropping a curtsey as he passed her. There was some relief even in this. Mr. Marchmont had scarcely expected to get into the house at all; still less to be received with common civility by any of the servants, who had so lately obeyed him and fawned upon him.

"Where are all the rest of the servants?" he asked.

"They're all gone, sir; except him as you brought down from London,––Mr. Peterson,––and me and mother. Mother's in the laundry, sir; and I'm scullerymaid."

"Why did the other servants leave the place?"

"Mostly because they was afraid of the mob upon the terrace, I think, sir; for there's been people all the afternoon throwin' stones, and breakin' the windows; and I don't think as there's a whole pane of glass in the front of the house, sir; and Mr. Gormby, sir, he come about four o'clock, and he got the people to go away, sir, by tellin' 'em as it wern't your property, sir, but the young lady's, Miss Mary Marchmont,––leastways, Mrs. Airendale,––as they was destroyin' of; but most of the servants had gone before that, sir, except Mr. Peterson; and Mr. Gormby gave orders as me and mother was to lock all the doors, and let no one in upon no account whatever; and he's coming to–morrow mornin' to take possession, he says; and please, sir, you can't come in; for his special orders to me and mother was, no one, and you in particklar."

"Nonsense, girl!" exclaimed Mr. Marchmont, decisively; "who is Mr. Gormby, that he should give orders as to who comes in or stops out? I'm only coming in for half an hour, to pack my portmanteau. Where's Peterson?"

"In the dinin'–room, sir; but please, sir, you mustn't––––"

The girl made a feeble effort to intercept Mr. Marchmont, in accordance with the steward's special orders; which were, that Paul should, upon no pretence whatever, be suffered to enter the house. But the artist snatched the candlestick from her hand, and went towards the dining–room, leaving her to stare after him in amazement.

Paul found his valet Peterson, taking what he called a snack, in the dining–room. A cloth was spread upon the corner of the table; and there was a fore–quarter of cold roast–lamb, a bottle of French brandy, and a decanter half–full of Madeira before the valet.

He started as his master entered the room, and looked up, not very respectfully, but with no unfriendly glance.

"Give me half a tumbler of that brandy, Peterson," said Mr. Marchmont.

The man obeyed; and Paul drained the fiery spirit as if it had been so much water. It was four–and–twenty hours since meat or drink had crossed his dry white lips.

"Why didn't you go away with the rest?" he asked, as he set down the empty glass.

"It's only rats, sir, that run away from a falling house. I stopped, thinkin' you'd be goin' away somewhere, and that you'd want me."

The solid and unvarnished truth of the matter was, that Peterson had taken it for granted that his master had made an excellent purse against this evil day, and would be ready to start for the Continent or America, there to lead a pleasant life upon the proceeds of his iniquity. The valet never imagined his master guilty of such besotted folly as to be unprepared for this catastrophe.

"I thought you might still want me, sir," he said; "and wherever you're going, I'm quite ready to go too. You've been a good master to me, sir; and I don't want to leave a good master because things go against him."

Paul Marchmont shook his head, and held out the empty tumbler for his servant to pour more brandy into it.

"I am going away," he said; "but I want no servant where I'm going; but I'm grateful to you for your offer, Peterson. Will you come upstairs with me? I want to pack a few things."

"They're all packed, sir. I knew you'd be leaving, and I've packed everything."

"My dressing–case?"

"Yes, sir. You've got the key of that."

"Yes; I know, I know."

Paul Marchmont was silent for a few minutes, thinking. Everything that he had in the way of personal property of any value was in the dressing–case of which he had spoken. There was five or six hundred pounds' worth of jewellery in Mr. Marchmont's dressing–case; for the first instinct of the nouveau riche exhibits itself in diamond shirt–studs, cameo rings, malachite death's–heads with emerald eyes; grotesque and pleasing charms in the form of coffins, coal–scuttles, and hobnailed boots; fantastical lockets of ruby and enamel; wonderful bands of massive yellow gold, studded with diamonds, wherein to insert the two ends of flimsy lace cravats. Mr. Marchmont reflected upon the amount of his possessions, and their security in the jewel–drawer of his dressing–case. The dressing–case was furnished with a Chubb's lock, the key of which he carried in his waistcoat–pocket. Yes, it was all safe.

"Look here, Peterson," said Paul Marchmont; "I think I shall sleep at Mrs. Weston's to–night. I should like you to take my dressing–case down there at once."

"And how about the other luggage, sir,––the portmanteaus and hat–boxes?"

"Never mind those. I want you to put the dressing–case safe in my sister's hands. I can send here for the rest to–morrow morning. You needn't wait for me now. I'll follow you in half an hour."

"Yes, sir. You want the dressing–case carried to Mrs. Weston's house, and I'm to wait for you there?"

"Yes; you can wait for me."

"But is there nothing else I can do, sir?"

"Nothing whatever. I've only got to collect a few papers, and then I shall follow you."

"Yes, sir."

The discreet Peterson bowed, and retired to fetch the dressing–case. He put his own construction upon Mr. Marchmont's evident desire to get rid of him, and to be left alone at the Towers. Paul had, of course, made a purse, and had doubtless put his money away in some very artful hiding–place, whence he now wanted to take it at his leisure. He had stuffed one of his pillows with bank–notes, perhaps; or had hidden a cash–box behind the tapestry in his bedchamber; or had buried a bag of gold in the flower–garden below the terrace. Mr. Peterson went upstairs to Paul's dressing–room, put his hand through the strap of the dressing–case, which was very heavy, went downstairs again, met his master in the hall, and went out at the lobby–door.

Paul locked the door upon his valet, and then went back into the lonely house, where the ticking of the clocks in the tenantless rooms sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness. All the windows had been broken; and though the shutters were shut, the cold night–air blew in at many a crack and cranny, and well–nigh extinguished Mr. Marchmont's candle as he went from room to room looking about him.

He went into the western drawing–room, and lighted some of the lamps in the principal chandelier. The shutters were shut, for the windows here, as well as elsewhere, had been broken; fragments of shivered glass, great jagged stones, and handfuls of gravel, lay about upon the rich carpet,––the velvet–pile which he had chosen with such artistic taste, such careful deliberation. He lit the lamps and walked about the room, looking for the last time at his treasures. Yes, his treasures. It was he who had transformed this chamber from a prim, old–fashioned sitting–room––with quaint japanned cabinets, shabby chintz–cushioned cane–chairs, cracked Indian vases, and a faded carpet––into a saloon that would have been no discredit to Buckingham Palace or Alton Towers.

It was he who had made the place what it was. He had squandered the savings of Mary's minority upon pictures that the richest collector in England might have been proud to own; upon porcelain that would have been worthy of a place in the Vienna Museum or the Bernal Collection. He had done this, and these things were to pass into the possession of the man he hated,––the fiery young soldier who had horsewhipped him before the face of wondering Lincolnshire. He walked about the room, thinking of his life since he had come into possession of this place, and of what it had been before that time, and what it must be again, unless he summoned up a desperate courage––and killed himself.

His heart beat fast and loud, and he felt an icy chill creeping slowly through his every vein as he thought of this. How was he to kill himself? He had no poison in his possession,––no deadly drug that would reduce the agony of death to the space of a lightning–flash. There were pistols, rare gems of choicest workmanship, in one of the buhl–cabinets in that very room; there were both fowling–piece and ammunition in Mr. Marchmont's dressing–room: but the artist was not expert with the use of firearms, and he might fail in the attempt to blow out his brains, and only maim or disfigure himself hideously. There was the river,––the black, sluggish river: but then, drowning is a slow death, and Heaven only knows how long the agony may seem to the wretch who endures it! Alas! the ghastly truth of the matter is that Mr. Marchmont was afraid of death. Look at the King of Terrors how he would, he could not discover any pleasing aspect under which he could meet the grim monarch without flinching.

He looked at life; but if life was less terrible than death, it was not less dreary. He looked forward with a shudder to see––what? Humiliation, disgrace, perhaps punishment,––life–long transportation, it may be; for this base conspiracy might be a criminal offence, amenable to criminal law. Or, escaping all this, what was there for him? What was there for this man even then? For forty years he had been steeped to the lips in poverty, and had endured his life. He looked back now, and wondered how it was that he had been patient; he wondered why he had not made an end of himself and his obscure troubles twenty years before this night. But after looking back a little longer, he saw the star which had illumined the darkness of that miserable and sordid existence, and he understood the reason of his endurance. He had hoped. Day after day he had got up to go through the same troubles, to endure the same humiliations: but every day, when his life had been hardest to him, he had said, "To–morrow I may be master of Marchmont Towers." But he could never hope this any more; he could not go back to watch and wait again, beguiled by the faint hope that Mary Arundel's son might die, and to hear by–and–by that other children were born to her to widen the great gulf betwixt him and fortune.

He looked back, and he saw that he had lived from day to day, from year to year, lured on by this one hope. He looked forward, and he saw that he could not live without it.

There had never been but this one road to good fortune open to him. He was a clever man, but his was not the cleverness which can transmute itself into solid cash. He could only paint indifferent pictures; and he had existed long enough by picture–painting to realise the utter hopelessness of success in that career.

He had borne his life while he was in it, but he could not bear to go back to it. He had been out of it, and had tasted another phase of existence; and he could see it all now plainly, as if he had been a spectator sitting in the boxes and watching a dreary play performed upon a stage before him. The performers in the remotest provincial theatre believe in the play they are acting. The omnipotence of passion creates dewy groves and moonlit atmospheres, ducal robes and beautiful women. But the metropolitan spectator, in whose mind the memory of better things is still fresh, sees that the moonlit trees are poor distemper daubs, pushed on by dirty carpenters, and the moon a green bottle borrowed from a druggist's shop, the ducal robes threadbare cotton velvet and tarnished tinsel, and the heroine of the drama old and ugly.

So Paul looked at the life he had endured, and wondered as he saw how horrible it was.

He could see the shabby lodging, the faded furniture, the miserable handful of fire struggling with the smoke in a shallow grate, that had been half–blocked up with bricks by some former tenant as badly off as himself. He could look back at that dismal room, with the ugly paper on the walls, the scanty curtains flapping in the wind which they pretended to shut out; the figure of his mother sitting near the fireplace, with that pale, anxious face, which was a perpetual complaint against hardship and discomfort. He could see his sister standing at the window in the dusky twilight, patching up some worn–out garment, and straining her eyes for the sake of economising in the matter of half an inch of candle. And the street below the window,––the shabby–genteel street, with a dingy shop breaking out here and there, and children playing on the doorsteps, and a muffin–bell jingling through the evening fog, and a melancholy Italian grinding "Home, sweet Home!" in the patch of lighted road opposite the pawnbroker's. He saw it all; and it was all alike––sordid, miserable, hopeless.

Paul Marchmont had never sunk so low as his cousin John. He had never descended so far in the social scale as to carry a banner at Drury Lane, or to live in one room in Oakley Street, Lambeth. But there had been times when to pay the rent of three rooms had been next kin to an impossibility to the artist, and when the honorarium of a shilling a night would have been very acceptable to him. He had drained the cup of poverty to the dregs; and now the cup was filled again, and the bitter draught was pushed once more into his unwilling hand.

He must drink that, or another potion,––a sleeping–draught, which is commonly called Death. He must die! But how? His coward heart sank as the awful alternative pressed closer upon him. He must die!––to–night,––at once,––in that house; so that when they came in the morning to eject him, they would have little trouble; they would only have to carry out a corpse.

He walked up and down the room, biting his finger–nails to the quick, but coming to no resolution, until he was interrupted by the ringing of the bell at the lobby–door. It was the messenger from his sister, no doubt. Paul drew his watch from his waistcoat–pocket, unfastened his chain, took a set of gold–studs from the breast of his shirt, and a signet–ring from his finger; then he sat down at a writing–table, and packed the watch and chain, the studs and signet–ring, and a bunch of keys, in a large envelope. He sealed this packet, and addressed it to his sister; then he took a candle, and went to the lobby. Mrs. Weston had sent a young man who was an assistant and pupil of her husband's––a good–tempered young fellow, who willingly served her in her hour of trouble. Paul gave this messenger the key of his dressing–case and packet.

"You will be sure and put that in my sister's hands," he said.

"O yes, sir. Mrs. Weston gave me this letter for you, sir. Am I to wait for an answer?"

"No; there will be no answer. Good night."

"Good night, sir."

The young man went away; and Paul Marchmont heard him whistle a popular melody as he walked along the cloistered way and out of the quadrangle by a low archway commonly used by the tradespeople who came to the Towers.

The artist stood and listened to the young man's departing footsteps. Then, with a horrible thrill of anguish, he remembered that he had seen his last of humankind––he had heard his last of human voices: for he was to kill himself that night. He stood in the dark lobby, looking out into the quadrangle. He was quite alone in the house; for the girl who had let him in was in the laundry with her mother. He could see the figures of the two women moving about in a great gaslit chamber upon the other side of the quadrangle––a building which had no communication with the rest of the house. He was to die that night; and he had not yet even determined how he was to die.

He mechanically opened Mrs. Weston's letter: it was only a few lines, telling him that Peterson had arrived with the portmanteau and dressing–case, and that there would be a comfortable room prepared for him. "I am so glad you have changed your mind, and are coming to me, Paul," Mrs. Weston concluded. "Your manner, when we parted to–night, almost alarmed me."

Paul groaned aloud as he crushed the letter in his hand. Then he went back to the western drawing–room. He heard strange noises in the empty rooms as he passed by their open doors, weird creaking sounds and melancholy moanings in the wide chimneys. It seemed as if all the ghosts of Marchmont Towers were astir to–night, moved by an awful prescience of some coming horror.

Paul Marchmont was an atheist; but atheism, although a very pleasant theme for a critical and argumentative discussion after a lobster–supper and unlimited champagne, is but a poor staff to lean upon when the worn–out traveller approaches the mysterious portals of the unknown land.

The artist had boasted of his belief in annihilation; and had declared himself perfectly satisfied with a materialistic or pantheistic arrangement of the universe, and very indifferent as to whether he cropped up in future years as a summer–cabbage, or a new Raphael; so long as the ten stone or so of matter of which he was composed was made use of somehow or other, and did its duty in the great scheme of a scientific universe. But, oh! how that empty, soulless creed slipped away from him now, when he stood alone in this tenantless house, shuddering at strange spirit–noises, and horrified by a host of mystic fears––gigantic, shapeless terrors––that crowded in his empty, godless mind, and filled it with their hideous presence!

He had refused to believe in a personal God. He had laughed at the idea that there was any Deity to whom the individual can appeal, in his hour of grief or trouble, with the hope of any separate mercy, any special grace. He had rejected the Christian's simple creed, and now––now that he had floated away from the shores of life, and felt himself borne upon an irresistible current to that mysterious other side, what did he not believe in?

Every superstition that has ever disturbed the soul of ignorant man lent some one awful feature to the crowd of hideous images uprising in this man's mind:––awful Chaldean gods and Carthaginian goddesses, thirsting for the hot blood of human sacrifices, greedy for hecatombs of children flung shrieking into fiery furnaces, or torn limb from limb by savage beasts; Babylonian abominations; Egyptian Isis and Osiris; classical divinities, with flaming swords and pale impassible faces, rigid as the Destiny whose type they were; ghastly Germanic demons and witches.––All the dread avengers that man, in the knowledge of his own wickedness, has ever shadowed for himself out of the darkness of his ignorant mind, swelled that ghastly crowd, until the artist's brain reeled, and he was fain to sit with his head in his hands, trying, by a great effort of the will, to exorcise these loathsome phantoms.

"I must be going mad," he muttered to himself. "I am going mad."

But still the great question was unanswered––How was he to kill himself?

"I must settle that," he thought. "I dare not think of anything that may come afterwards. Besides, what should come? I know that there is nothing. Haven't I heard it demonstrated by cleverer men than I am? Haven't I looked at it in every light, and weighed it in every scale––always with the same result? Yes; I know that there is nothing after the one short pang, any more than there is pain in the nerve of a tooth when the tooth is gone. The nerve was the soul of the tooth, I suppose; but wrench away the body, and the soul is dead. Why should I be afraid? One short pain––it will seem long, I dare say––and then I shall lie still for ever and ever, and melt slowly back into the elements out of which I was created. Yes; I shall lie still––and be nothing."

Paul Marchmont sat thinking of this for a long time. Was it such a great advantage, after all, this annihilation, the sovereign good of the atheist's barren creed? It seemed to–night to this man as if it would be better to be anything––to suffer any anguish, any penalty for his sins, than to be blotted out for ever and ever from any conscious part in the grand harmony of the universe. If he could have believed in that Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, and that after cycles of years of suffering he might rise at last, purified from his sins, worthy to dwell among the angels, how differently would death have appeared to him! He might have gone away to hide himself in some foreign city, to perform patient daily sacrifices, humble acts of self–abnegation, every one of which should be a new figure, however small a one, to be set against the great sum of his sin.

But he could not believe. There is a vulgar proverb which says, "You cannot have your loaf and eat it;" or if proverbs would only be grammatical, it might be better worded, "You cannot eat your loaf, and have it to eat on some future occasion." Neither can you indulge in rationalistic discussions or epigrammatic pleasantry about the Great Creator who made you, and then turn and cry aloud to Him in the dreadful hour of your despair: "O my God, whom I have insulted and offended, help the miserable wretch who for twenty years has obstinately shut his heart against Thee!" It may be that God would forgive and hear even at that last supreme moment, as He heard the penitent thief upon the cross; but the penitent thief had been a sinner, not an unbeliever, and he could pray. The hard heart of the atheist freezes in his breast when he would repent and put away his iniquities. When he would fain turn to his offended Maker, the words that he tries to speak die away upon his lips; for the habit of blasphemy is too strong upon him; he can blague upon all the mighty mysteries of heaven and hell, but he cannot pray.

Paul Marchmont could not fashion a prayer. Horrible witticisms arose up between him and the words he would have spoken––ghastly bon mots, that had seemed so brilliant at a lamp–lit dinner–table, spoken to a joyous accompaniment of champagne–corks and laughter. Ah, me! the world was behind this man now, with all its pleasures; and he looked back upon it, and thought that, even when it seemed gayest and brightest, it was only like a great roaring fair, with flaring lights, and noisy showmen clamoring for ever to a struggling crowd.

How should he die? Should he go upstairs and cut his throat?

He stood before one of his pictures––a pet picture; a girl's face by Millais, looking through the moonlight, fantastically beautiful. He stood before this picture, and he felt one small separate pang amid all his misery as he remembered that Edward and Mary Arundel were now possessors of this particular gem.

"They sha'n't have it," he muttered to himself; "they sha'n't have this, at any rate."

He took a penknife from his pocket, and hacked and ripped the canvas savagely, till it hung in ribbons from the deep gilded frame.

Then he smiled to himself, for the first time since he had entered that house, and his eyes flashed with a sudden light.

"I have lived like Sardanapalus for the last year," he cried aloud; "and I will die like Sardanapalus!"

There was a fragile piece of furniture near him,––an étagère of marqueterie work, loaded with costly bric à brac, Oriental porcelain, Sèvres and Dresden, old Chelsea and crown Derby cups and saucers, and quaint teapots, crawling vermin in Pallissy ware, Indian monstrosities, and all manner of expensive absurdities, heaped together in artistic confusion. Paul Marchmont struck the slim leg of the étagère with his foot, and laughed aloud as the fragile toys fell into a ruined heap upon the carpet. He stamped upon the broken china; and the frail cups and saucers crackled like eggshells under his savage feet.

"I will die like Sardanapalus!" he cried; "the King Arbaces shall never rest in the palace I have beautified.

'Now order here
Fagots, pine–nuts, and wither'd leaves, and such
Things as catch fire with one sole spark;
Bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, and spices,
And mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile;
Bring frankincense and myrrh, too; for it is
For a great sacrifice I build the pyre.'

I don't think much of your blank verse, George Gordon Noel Byron. Your lines end on lame syllables; your ten–syllable blank verse lacks the fiery ring of your rhymes. I wonder whether Marchmont Towers is insured? Yes, I remember paying a premium last Christmas. They may have a sharp tussle with the insurance companies though. Yes, I will die like Sardanapalus––no, not like him, for I have no Myrrha to mount the pile and cling about me to the last. Pshaw! a modern Myrrha would leave Sardanapalus to perish alone, and be off to make herself safe with the new king."

Paul snatched up the candle, and went out into the hall. He laughed discordantly, and spoke in loud ringing tones. His manner had that feverish excitement which the French call exaltation. He ran up the broad stairs leading to the long corridor, out of which his own rooms, and his mother's and sister's rooms, opened.

Ah, how pretty they were! How elegant he had made them in his reckless disregard of expense, his artistic delight in the task of beautification! There were no shutters here, and the summer breeze blew in through the broken windows, and stirred the gauzy muslin curtains, the gay chintz draperies, the cloudlike festoons of silk and lace. Paul Marchmont went from room to room with the flaring candle in his hand; and wherever there were curtains or draperies about the windows, the beds, the dressing–tables, the low lounging–chairs, and cosy little sofas, he set alight to them. He did this with wonderful rapidity, leaving flames behind him as he traversed the long corridor, and coming back thus to the stairs. He went downstairs again, and returned to the western drawing–room. Then he blew out his candle, turned out the gas, and waited.

"How soon will it come?" he thought.

The shutters were shut, and the room was quite dark.

"Shall I ever have courage to stop till it comes?"

Paul Marchmont groped his way to the door, double–locked it, and then took the key from the lock.

He went to one of the windows, clambered upon a chair, opened the top shutter, and flung the key out through the broken window. He heard it strike jingling upon the stone terrace and then bound away, Heaven knows where.

"I shan't be able to go out by the door, at any rate," he thought.

It was quite dark in the room, but the reflection of the spreading flames was growing crimson in the sky outside. Mr. Marchmont went away from the window, feeling his way amongst the chairs and tables. He could see the red light through the crevices of the shutters, and a lurid patch of sky through that one window, the upper half of which he had left open. He sat down, somewhere near the centre of the room, and waited.

"The smoke will kill me," he thought. "I shall know nothing of the fire."

He sat quite still. He had trembled violently while he had gone from room to room doing his horrible work; but his nerves seemed steadier now. Steadier! why, he was transformed to stone! His heart seemed to have stopped beating; and he only knew by a sick anguish, a dull aching pain, that it was still in his breast.

He sat waiting and thinking. In that time all the long story of the past was acted before him, and he saw what a wretch he had been. I do not know whether this was penitence; but looking at that enacted story, Paul Marchmont thought that his own part in the play was a mistake, and that it was a foolish thing to be a villain.

* * * * *

When a great flock of frightened people, with a fire–engine out of order, and drawn by whooping men and boys, came hurrying up to the Towers, they found a blazing edifice, which looked like an enchanted castle––great stone–framed windows vomiting flame; tall chimneys toppling down upon a fiery roof; molten lead, like water turned to fire, streaming in flaming cataracts upon the terrace; and all the sky lit up by that vast pile of blazing ruin. Only salamanders, or poor Mr. Braidwood's own chosen band, could have approached Marchmont Towers that night. The Kemberling firemen and the Swampington firemen, who came by–and–by, were neither salamanders nor Braidwoods. They stood aloof and squirted water at the flames, and recoiled aghast by–and–by when the roof came down like an avalanche of blazing timber, leaving only a gaunt gigantic skeleton of red–hot stone where Marchmont Towers once had been.

When it was safe to venture in amongst the ruins––and this was not for many hours after the fire had burnt itself out––people looked for Paul Marchmont; but amidst all that vast chaos of smouldering ashes, there was nothing found that could be identified as the remains of a human being. No one knew where the artist had been at the time of the fire, or indeed whether he had been in the house at all; and the popular opinion was, that Paul had set fire to the mansion, and had fled away before the flames began to spread.