Who was that young and lovely creature—what her name, condition, character?

He determined to ascertain as quickly as he could. He knew that he should be restless and unhappy until he had acquired this information at least.

Had he conceived a sudden absorbing passion for her? Was this love at first sight?

CHAPTER XV.—THE PROPOSITION.

Great floods have flown
From simple sources; and great seas have dried;
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there,
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.
—Shakspere.

Mr. Grahame entered his library, on the morning following his interview with Chewkle, at least an hour before the time appointed for the return of that individual, with the deed which he had promised to obtain, and of which he had possessed himself—to use as an instrument of extortion.

There was no sound in the library, save the ticking of the valuable and exquisitely finished specimen of handicraft, the skeleton timepiece, upon the broad marble mantel-shelf, for Mr. Grahame sat with hands clasped before him, plunged in profound, and uneasy thought.

But though a death-like stillness pervaded the apartment, there was a terrible storm raging within his bosom.

Mr. Grahame’s position was perilous and critical.

On attaining his majority, he had inherited landed property, from which he derived an income of nearly ten thousand a year, and personal property to the value of thirty thousand pounds. He married a near relative of a Scotch Duke, also a Grahame, and kin of many of the proudest—if poorest—families in Scotland. With her he had a dowry of ten thousand pounds; and thus he may be said to have commenced his married life in a station of affluence, and with the brightest prospects of happiness.

But he had, during his minority, been brought up in parsimonious seclusion. Like the majority of his race, he was burdened with an arrogant pride—a pride that would eat toasted herrings and potatoes in state, that would look down in ineffable scorn upon the tradesmen it was too poor to pay—a pride that was essentially inflation, and wholly devoid of true dignity.

When approaching manhood, provided with the narrowest allowance, he had preferred to be chiefly in the glen or on the mountain, where but little money was needed, to mixing with the gay world into which his narrow stipend would have introduced him—slightly above the condition of a beggar. And thus he passed his minority away, yearning for the death of his miserly father, who scraped, and saved, and accumulated, without a thought crossing him that some day the mean and acquisitive spirit which inhabited his frame would take its flight suddenly to the unknown land; and, with the old and withered trunk it had inhabited, leave all the savings, and dirty hoardings and scrapings behind.

So it turned out. One morning old Grahame was found at the threshold of his bed-room door—a stiff, stark, grinning corpse—and Claverhouse Grahame was declared the inheritor of ten thousand a year, and thirty thousand pounds besides.

Shortly after this, he encountered Margaret Grahame. As she was marriageable, and had ten thousand pounds by way of dowry, he proposed for her hand. How could she refuse ten thousand a year? The possibility of liking Claverhouse Grahame never entered her imagination. She took him as part of the fortune—rather because she could not have the fortune without him, and because the married state was not altogether complete without a husband.

Of love, in its purity and holiness, she had no conception. She considered her father and mother as grand and dignified persons, entitled to filial respect and deference from her. She was passionately fond of state, and pomp, and display, of jewels, of dress, of genealogy—whatever pertained to an elevated position; but an emotion purely disinterested, one equal to a self-sacrifice, she never possessed. She gave her hand to Grahame, because the act brought her ten thousand a year. Her heart was only so far involved in the transaction that it vibrated with pleasure at the prospect of the situation in which such an income would place her.

It was a natural consequence of Grahame’s probation, and his wife’s immeasurable pride—a pride which, like his, had been confined by the economical style of living adopted by her parents, to enable them to give such a wedding portion with her as he had received—that his imagination should convert the capabilities of ten thousand a year into those of five times the amount, and that, by the same process of mental exaggeration, his forty thousand pounds, should appear inexhaustible.

He proceeded to live as though his income possessed an elasticity which enabled it to stretch to any length, and was startled, at the end of some few years, to find that his forty thousand pounds had not only evaporated, but that his liabilities more than exceeded three years’ income. He was too proud to make his wife acquainted with this unpleasant state of his affairs, because it would necessitate suggestions of retrenchment. Now she had formed so large an estimate of her dowry, that he was quite aware she would taunt him with having unjustifiably made away with it, although she had herself spent every shilling of it, and a large sum in addition, in the indulgence of her overweening pride.

She would too, he knew, hurl upon him expressions of contempt, for having inveigled her with so splendid a jointure, from her castle home in the Highlands—where a great deal of dirty state was maintained at a small cost—only to subject her to the degradation of being compelled, when she formed a wish suggested for the gratification of her darling pride, to take the means of accomplishing it into consideration.

He therefore said not a word to her, and went on as before, save that he looked more closely into his own affairs, raised his rents where possible to the highest limits, forgave no tenant, on any plea, arrears, and squeezed all he could out of renewals of leases. Hard, uncompromising, refusing to spend a shilling on his land, he was hated by the whole tenantry, and when, to gratify the stately dreams of his wife, he paid an annual visit to the castle, his tenants, one and all uttered reluctantly the hurrahs which, under the dark threats of the steward, they gave to greet his arrival.

In spite of his efforts, he found it impossible to pay off his liabilities, and make his income support the style in which he lived. What he contrived to save, his wife expended, growing, as her family increased in years, more arrogantly proud than ever. It was not that she lavished or squandered money, but her tastes were enormously expensive. She bought as an empress, preferring to give many hundreds for rare objects rather than single pounds for articles equally handsome, but more common; and it was these heavy drains upon his resources which kept Mr. Grahame in a perpetual state of embarrassment.

At length many of his debts assumed a pressing character; he shrank from appearing in a tradesman’s eyes deficient in funds, and, to obtain ready cash, a first mortgage on a portion of his property was executed.

Once within the vortex, rescue by the aid of his remaining property, without the most rigid curtailment of every unnecessary expense, was utterly hopeless, and at the moment of his forging Wilton’s name to the deed which Chewkle had that morning stolen, a few thousand pounds at his bankers was all he possessed to meet heavy engagements, and all the future, for every acre of his lands was in the possession of a mortgagee.

There was, however, an enormous property to which he preferred a claim by right of descent. It was disputed, and in Chancery; the claimants had been many, but they had dwindled down by death to two—himself and Eustace Wilton.

Years back, during the lifetime of the owner of the property, Wilton had lived upon a portion of the estate—a slice of considerable dimensions, and held under a simple document—a deed of gift, though not drawn up by a lawyer. The original owner died suddenly, and, as it was believed, intestate. As he died without issue, and no will could be found, a host of claimants sprang up, and the estate went into Chancery.

Then Wilton was called upon to prove his claim to the estate he held, and to improve which he had expended every sixpence of the fortune he had possessed independent of it. He produced his document. So far as the wording of the instrument went, it had full legal force; but proof was needed that it was in the actual handwriting of the deceased, and that it was in all respects executed by him in favour of Wilton—given freely, fairly, without coercion, and with the full intention that Wilton should enjoy, have, and hold possession of the estate thus presented to him for ever.

It had been witnessed, but the witness was gone away, no one knew where. The handwriting of the document was questioned, and on the trial to prove Wilton’s title to the estate, the weight of evidence for and against its being genuine was divided—if it did preponderate, it was rather against than for him.

The judge held the non-production of the witness to be fatal to the claim, and a verdict was so given. The property was therefore wrested from Wilton; he was turned homeless into the world, with his wife and family, while the estate itself was joined to the other property, and the whole income went into the hands of the receiver appointed by the Court—to be held in trust, disgorged only when a claimant appeared, who could prove his title to inherit it.

In the claim to the property as a whole, Wilton was the nearest of kin, but here again he was debarred for want of a witness, who was believed to be living, but who could not be found.

Grahame’s chain of evidence in support of his claim was unbroken, and his title to the property indisputable if Wilton were out of the way. The only thing which debarred Wilton’s obtaining the estates was a doubt thrown upon the validity of his mother’s marriage. Grahame knew that, and, so far as it went, it was enough to keep him out of possession. But if Wilton signed a paper waiving all claim to the property, which was at his finger tips, without the power to grasp it, Grahame would, as the only other surviving claimant become entitled to it, and would obtain it; for, as we have said, his chain of evidence proving his right to it, next of kin failing, was complete in all its parts.

It may now be understood how immensely important it was to him to obtain Wilton’s signature to a deed which he had had most carefully drawn up, and we have seen the lengths to which he went to obtain it. It may also be understood wherefore Wilton preferred imprisonment, under the strong hope that his much-wanted witness would some day appear, rather than sign a deed which excluded not only himself but his family from the possession of wealth, which was in truth and justice, though not to the satisfaction of the law, actually theirs.

Grahame pondered over the past down to the present despairing moment.

What was now to be done? With the payment of the two bonds given by Wilton while trying his right to possess that which had been given him, he had lost all power by pressure over him: and destitution, perhaps imprisonment, stared him in the face—no, not imprisonment—no, not that.

He opened a drawer, and took out a case, which, with a furtive glance round the chamber, he opened.

It contained within a beautifully-finished pair of pistols. He took one out, and examined it.

“It is loaded,” he muttered, “and in good order.”

He replaced it in the velvet compartment made to receive it, and returned the case to the drawer, which he closed and locked.

“They are there when needful,” he said, between his clenched teeth. “A Grahame knows how to die, but not to endure the degradation of poverty and ignominy. I will never die a pauper’s death!” he added, with a fearful oath.

He pressed his hands over his burning forehead, and racked his brain to find a path by which he could conquer his difficulties.

“That usurious wretch, Gomer, has promised me funds upon the very document which before this he must know will not be completed,” he muttered. “What is to be done? What if I persist in affirming that the signature has been given, and act upon the man Chewkle’s advice, suborn the men he named, and boldly claim the whole property? It is an enormous prize, and worth the risk. I can pay the villains well to hold their tongues until I am fairly in possession, and then—then—who knows—at some carouse at which all are assembled to celebrate their success—something in their drink may make them sleep—sleep to the day of doom. I do not like the man, Chewkle; the scoundrel is beginning to grow insultingly familiar, and will, I foresee, ere long assume a mastery over me. I must specially direct my attention to his permanent welfare. When, by his aid, my scheme is consummated, then—then if he escapes what I shall prepare for him, his good fortune will be a marvel”——

“Mr. Chewkle, sir!” exclaimed a servant, suddenly throwing open the library door.

Mr. Grahame’s heart leaped within him, and it palpitated painfully, but he exhibited his accustomed cold hauteur.

“Show him in!” he exclaimed.

Chewkle entered with the air of a chap-fallen, disappointed man. His manner presented a strong contrast to the half-drunken, offensive, easy indifference it had displayed the evening before.

Mr. Grahame detected it instantly; he replied to Chewkle’s bow by an inclination of the head, and pointed to a chair upon the edge of which Mr. Chewkle gently sank, poising himself when there with the skill of a performer on the tight rope.

“You have obtained the deed, Chewkle,” said Mr. Grahame—“that of course.”

“Well, no sir,” returned Chewkle, “not quite. I entertained ’igh, very ’igh hopes, but they has been chucked down into the deeps of the greatest disappointment. Them lawyers, sir”——

“What do you mean?—they did not refuse to give it to you?” asked Mr. Grahame, hastily and sternly.

“Why, no, not quite that, sir.”

“Then where is it?”

“That’s jest it—where is it, sir? That’s jest what I should like to know.”

“What do you mean?” cried Mr. Grahame, springing to his feet with a countenance of alarm. “You do not mean to say it has been stolen?”

“Stolen!” cried Chewkle, leaping up with a face suddenly of the hue of scarlet. “That would be too good a joke, too. Who’d prig such a thing as that, I’d like to know?”

“Explain yourself, man! You are speaking in enigmas!” cried Mr. Grahame, excitedly.

Mr. Chewkle drew from out of a dirty piece of light brown paper—which had been employed in the task of enclosing half-a-pound of “moist” sugar—the letter he received from the solicitor.

Mr. Grahame snatched it from him, and tore it open. He read the contents twice, and then sat down and reflected for a minute.

“There is nothing, Chewkle,” he said, more composedly, “that I perceive in this communication to occasion alarm: the deed will be sent here to day by one of the clerks.”

“I hopes it may,” observed Chewkle, laconically.

“In the meantime, my good friend,” said Grahame, assuming a bland tone, “I have been pondering over the situation, and I am afraid we have gone a little too far to pause now, or to retrace our steps.”

“We,” echoed Chewkle, opening his eyes widely.

“Yes,” continued Mr. Grahame; “if I stand in the position of a principal in the affair, you take the part of an accessory before the fact, and a very important one you are, too, inasmuch as you counselled the deed, and instructed me how to perform it, lending your assistance throughout.”

Mr. Chewkle would have here interposed some very emphatic observations, but that Mr. Grahame checked him, and continued speaking.

“It is not my intention,” he said, “or my wish that the conversation should assume its present tone. I would rather that it took a shape which, while it consulted my interest, gave liberal promise of rich advantages to you.”

Chewkle pricked up his ears.

“Last night, if you remember,” said Mr. Grahame, slowly fixing his eye firmly upon that of his ‘agent,’ “you threw out several suggestions calculated to afford me, in the distress of mind under which I was labouring, a very considerable degree of consolation. Do you remember this?”

Chewkle caught hold of his dusty, shaggy whiskers at the roots, and drew them out to their full extent with the tips of his fingers and thumb several times, to appear the unconscious act of a man plunged in reflection. Presently he said—

“Ain’t altogether certain as I does.”

Mr. Grahame now repeated the plan which he had the previous evening proposed to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Jukes and his companions, by which, in spite of all Wilton’s protestations and oaths to the contrary, the signature was to be sworn to as being bona fide and genuine.

Chewkle listened in silence, and when Mr. Grahame concluded by observing that he had almost decided upon adopting it, Mr. Chewkle felt himself to be unpleasantly situated upon the horns of a dilemma. Mr. Grahame had been candid enough to acknowledge that, unless he obtained the estate, he would be lost, destroyed, unable to reward the services of any person; but that if he, by the assistance of “zealous friends,” succeeded in securing it, the most magnificent recompense should be bestowed upon them.

Mr. Chewkle’s difficulty consisted in having possession of the deed. If he retained it, it seemed that Mr. Grahame would be reduced to poverty, and his exposé of the guilty act of forgery would bring him nothing, perhaps, but the questionable advantage of being brought under the anxious consideration of a judge and jury, as a particeps criminis. If he gave it up to Mr. Grahame, he would have to account for its possession, an acknowledgment of the truth would place him at once in the power of Mr. Grahame, who could give him, if he pleased, into the custody of the police as a thief.

There was, certainly, no middle course to steer, save waiting for a little while, to see what direction matters would take. He reflected that it would be wise not to be precipitate, but that it would be best to carefully consider whether there was a safe way to hit upon, which would conduct him out of his perplexing position. He began to fear he had been too hasty in securing the deed. The possession now seemed to be by no means so valuable to him, as it had done, when he locked it up carefully in his iron safe. The figure of Nathan Gomer kept dancing before his eyes, too, in the most disagreeable fashion—it was embarrassingly suggestive, and it disturbed him.

Mr. Grahame awaited his opinion upon the adoption of the desperate course with impatience, and at length said, hastily—

“Why are you silent? Does the intention to carry out your own suggestion startle and terrify you?”

“No,” he replied, “it is not that; but swearing point blank in a court of law that a signature to a deed was written by a man whose hand never went near it, and in the teeth of his oath to the contrary, ain’t altogether to be done without a good deal o’ consideration and arrangement.”

“Granted.”

“And—don’t you think it will be the best plan to wait until you have got the deed back in your own hands?”

“No—wherefore? It is in the custody of my solicitor”—

“I ain’t so sure about that,” suggested Chewkle, artfully but uncomfortably. “He could not find it this morning”——

“Bah! His managing clerk has it safe enough; he will proceed by the proper legal course to claim the estate which this waiver of Wilton’s at once will put me in possession of. Of course Wilton will dispute it. We shall swear he signed to be released from the judgments we held against him, prove his signature on oath, I obtain the estate, and you and your friends a rich reward. Therefore, having finally resolved to pursue this plan, the deed cannot be better placed than where it is now.”

Mr. Chewkle shook his head. He had rather the deed had been anywhere but where it now was. He, however, interposed no further objection, but suggested that he should pay a visit to Messrs. Jukes and Nutty to sound them upon the matter.

“You see, sir, this plan makes us commit perjury as well as forgery,” he exclaimed, laying such emphasis on the two crimes, that Mr. Grahame started, and involuntarily shuddered. “Now,” he continued, “it is not every man who has the pluck to take a false oath and stick to it—stick to it, that’s the rub, sir. Taking a false oath ain’t much, but it’s when the counsel begins to badger you, and to ask you this question and that, sometimes about the subjeck, and sometimes about things as has nothen to do with it, and then comes slap back to the subjeck again, so as to jerk a contradictory confession out on you; it’s that as tries you. I ain’t got much doubt about Jukes; he can stand any amount o’ cross-examining, he can, but it’s t’other I ain’t certain about. However, I will go onto ’em at once, sound ’em cautiously without using any names”——

“Right,” observed Mr. Grahame, approvingly.

“And if they agrees, I will come to terms with them; and if they don’t, sir”——

“We must get some one else,” suggested Mr. Grahame.

Chewikle passed his hand over his chin. “Yes,” he replied, “that is, if they are to be got.” Very few words more were interchanged between them ere Mr. Chewkle quitted the house, cursing the deed which he had with such an exercise of cunning purloined, and which would require so much ingenuity to restore, and leave him unsuspected of the theft.

“Perjury and Forgery!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, as soon as he knew himself to be alone. “This is hastening on in the career of crime. What if some voice were to howl in the ear of Mistress Grahame that her husband was a perjurer and a forger! A Grahame, one of the race that has prided itself upon never having cowered under the taint of dishonour—a wretched criminal—liable to be dragged, with all the horrors of the lowest degradation, to the bar of justice, thence to work out in chains a fearful servitude, in the company of wretches the most desperate. Into what a frightful, position has my pecuniary embarrassment hurled me? Henceforth I shall live in perpetual horror of discovery, of being called upon at any moment to face an officer to”——

A loud, single knock at the library door at this moment made his heart leap into his mouth, and nearly caused him to scream with fright, but that his voice forsook him. Before he could recover sufficiently to accord permission to enter, Nathan Gomer walked into the room.

Pale and haggard, Mr. Grahame regarded him with any other feeling than that of complacency. Nathan Gomer held mortgages on his property, and had advanced money on a bond; the day of payment named in it was fast approaching. He had also promised, upon certain security, to furnish additional funds. Mr. Grahame could only look upon him with the eyes of one deeply indebted to him; he believed that he would realise some portion of the sums he had loaned, but he knew that if fate proved adverse to him, Nathan would lose largely as well. He both hated and feared him, and he viewed his presence now with distrust. He anticipated that he was the harbinger of bad news: everything had gone so wrong of late, there was nothing else to expect.

Nathan Gomer turned up his shining yellow visage, and grinned. How Grahame loathed that grin!—it seemed to betoken only mischief.

He motioned to Nathan to take a chair, and, in a husky voice, begged to be informed what fortunate circumstance it was to which he was indebted for the felicity his presence thus unannounced, afforded him.

“A matter I apprehend of no small importance to you, Mr. Grahame,” replied Nathan.

Mr. Grahame gulped. No doubt it was of importance to him; he expected that—most painful importance. What else could it be.

“I think I am prepared,” he said, “for anything you may have to communicate to me, whatever distressing features it may possess.”

“I think not,” said Nathan. “Hearken: you have a new neighbour next door to you;” he pointed as he spoke, and asked—“Do you know his name?”

Mr. Grahame looked at him with some surprise. What did such a question portend?

Nathan only grinned, and Mr. Grahame answered coldly—

“I am not accustomed to take any notice of my neighbours, or trouble myself to make inquiries respecting them.”

“You would have been interested if you had, in the present instance.”

“Indeed!” ejaculated Grahame, a curl turning his lip.

“Ay! His name is Wilton—Eustace Wilton—ah, you are interested now.”

Mr. Grahame clutched Nathan by the arm.

“What?” he shouted, “the wretched man dying inch by inch in his poverty—a day or so back in the Queen’s Prison, and now”——

“Your next door neighbour, with an income of five thousand a-year, and cash to the tune of sixty thousand pounds.” replied Nathan Gomer, with forcible emphasis.

“Impossible!” groaned Grahame.

“Fact!” ejaculated Gomer.

“By what magic has it been accomplished?” inquired Grahame, apparently stupefied by what he heard.

“No magic at all,” returned Nathan Gomer, grinning. “A simple process of law. Years ago a near relative, named Eglinton, a connection of your own, gave to him an estate”——

“Which the law took from him, exposing a trumped up”——

“Gently, Mr. Grahame, be careful what you say until you have heard more. When our tongues run away with us, we have sometimes occasion to lament the want of a curb. This estate was taken from him by the Court of Chancery, because he failed only to produce the attesting witness.”

“Tush! the witness was a fiction, an imaginary person, who”——

Has recently returned from India, a colonel in the East India Service, and sufficiently tangible to satisfy the law. This officer has not only sworn to the genuineness of the deed of gift, but has proved its validity, by giving information of the existence of a duplicate lodged by Eglinton himself in the hands of a solicitor long since retired from practice. This has been produced, attested to the satisfaction of the Chancellor, and the estate, together with the large arrears accumulated, are in the process of being restored to “Wilton.”

Mr. Grahame listened in grim silence. He felt choking, with spite and envy. The man he had pressed to the verge of despair, in the hope to compel him to sign away his birthright, was now immeasurably his superior in position as he was his equal in descent. He would be a formidable antagonist to fight with the miserable deed he had forged. He could not dare to attempt it.

He fell back in his chair with a groan. Nathan Gomer had brought him ill news indeed. He had expected foul tidings, yet not such as this. He could have wept scalding tears of bitterness, vexation, and rage. He bit his white and trembling lips, and exerting himself to control his tremulous voice, he said—

“It is to give me this information you have waited upon me, Mr. Gomer, I suppose, and with no other object?” The misty shapes dancing before his eyes began to take the distinct form of a pistol with which he had resolved to anticipate the thunderbolt hovering over to crush him.

“I have another object, calculated, I think, to prove vastly advantageous to you,” returned Nathan, with a grin. “You know I have your interest at heart,” he grined again; “and I wish to serve you—in my own way.” He rubbed his hands, and grinned again, then he went on. “You and Wilton are the claimants to the whole of old Eglinton’s property. Wilton wants a witness—you want—Wilton dead—hem! All this time, neither of you are deriving any benefit from the property. Now supposing you and Wilton were to unite your claims and possess it jointly; the sum accumulated in arrears is enormous, and the yearly rental largely improved since Eglinton’s death, is at least thirty thousand a-year. Now, an income of fifteen thousand pounds sterling, with half the enormous sum in cash for each, would not be so bad, I conceive! The money would be doing more good, I suspect—administering to the comforts, the pleasures, the enjoyments of yourselves and respective families—than it will in swelling the millions already held in trust by the Court of Chancery. How say you, Mr. Grahame—what is your opinion of my proposition?”

All the time Nathan Gomer was speaking, Mr. Grahame experienced a variety of emotions. He was cold and hot by turns—now his knees quivered, and his teeth chattered—anon he burnt as if scorched by fever. What burst of sunshine was this on a heart almost buried in a dense, life-destroying gloom? What sudden saving hand was this lifting him up out of the engulph-ing quicksands of almost fathomless debt, and placing him upon a rock firm enough to stand the shock of any storm? What haven of safety was this stretching out its unassailable arms to receive him into its secure shelter, even while sinking beneath the hurricane raging around him?

Did he hear aright? Had Nathan Gomer come hither only to taunt him? The gold-faced dwarf, albeit he grinned, seemed to be perfectly earnest and sincere in his proposition, and had, no doubt, good grounds for making it.

It struck Grahame suddenly that Wilton had, perhaps, ascertained that his chance of obtaining any of the property beyond what he had recovered, was hopeless, and, therefore, now sought by a stratagem to secure half. If this were the fact, there was nothing to bar Grahame’s claim to all, and the splendid income, with the immense sum in ready cash, roused his avarice—it dazzled his vision. Not a farthing should Wilton have, if he could obtain all—all. What a grand thing it would be to possess himself of all! He did not observe how keenly Nathan was perusing his features, nor conceive with what skilled eyes he read in their changing expression the thoughts which were passing through his mind. He little thought how bare his base greed lay before the man from whom, of all others, he would have most concealed it.

After a pause purposely made by him to reduce his tone of voice and his manner to an attitude of perfect calm, he said to Nathan—

“Your friend Wilton of course suggested this proposition?”

“He does not even dream of it,” was the reply. “On the contrary, he is most sanguine of shortly discovering the witness who can prove the validity of his mother’s marriage with his father. Certainly his chances of doing so are such as to bar any other claim to the property, until it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that all his efforts have hopelessly failed. In the meantime, you have heavy liabilities approaching maturity. You best know what resources you possess to meet them, and if they are not unquestionable and beyond the reach of casualties, it seems to me you ought to leap with gladness at the chance of suddenly acquiring the wealth my suggestion would place within your reach.”

Mr. Grahame thought for a moment; his present position was very ugly; still he could not bring himself to think a proposition so extraordinary as this would be made to him unless his chances of obtaining the property had, in some manner unknown to himself, materially improved. Now if he could elicit this, he would not, for an instant, hesitate to decline to accede to the terms, and with this object he commenced to cross-examine Nathan Gomer; but before he had completed a sentence a servant entered with a letter.

Mr. Grahame recognised the superscription as his lawyer’s handwriting, and saying to Gomer hastily—“Pardon me,” he tore it open, and read its contents. They were to inform him that the managing clerk of the firm having returned, it was ascertained that he had not had the deed; it must, therefore, be unfortunately mislaid. Mr. Grahame was assured that prompt steps would be taken to recover it, but if they failed, the usual course to discover any article of importance, missing or stolen, would be adopted without the least loss of time.

Mr. Grahame was aghast at this information. That the deed was lost or stolen was clear. In either case, his position was painfully embarrassing. The proposal of Nathan Gomer was, therefore, a harbour of refuge to be secured instanter to be secured at all; so he turned to him, and said, quickly—

“What reason have you to suppose that Wilton will meet your views, if he is in the position in this affair which you declare him to be?”

“It is unnecessary to give my reason. Will you have an interview with him upon the subject?”

“Oh—yes—yes—readily! When shall it take place?”

“Now!”

“Now?”

“This minute, if you will. I know that he is at home.”

“This is so sudden that”——

“I hardly imagine the possession of fifteen thousand a-year can occur too soon for your peace and safety, Mr. Grahame.”

“Lead on, sir. I will accompany you.”

Within five minutes from that time, Nathan Gomer and Mr. Grahame were ushered into Mr. Wilton’s library.

The persecutor and the persecuted stood face to face.

CHAPTER XVI.—SELFISHNESS AND SORROW.

But most the proud Honoria fear’d th’ event,
And thought to her alone the vision sent:
Her guilt presents to her distracted mind
Heaven’s justice.
—Dryden.

If Flora Wilton’s lovely countenance had so remarkable an effect upon the Duke of St. Allborne, and specially upon the heart of the Honorable Lester Vane, it is very certain that the persons of those gentlemen made no such impression either upon Flora or even Lotte. Both were so embarrassed at their sudden intrusion, as it appeared, upon the privacy of the party in the adjoining garden, that they hurried away without taking particular notice of the individuals composing it.

But both Flora and Lotte had a floating impression that one of the gentlemen there had large, deep, dark eyes; and that he used them too unreservedly and unscrupulously. Flora had also an idea of a fair, young, gentle face, the soft eyes of which regarded her with tenderness and admiration.

Beyond this, nothing was retained in their minds of the persons they had encountered. Flora only laughingly suggested that she should scarcely attempt again to observe her neighbour’s garden from that point of view.

Both girls had quite overlooked Malcolm Grahame; but if the Duke and Lester Vane were struck by the beauty of Flora’s face, so was Malcolm by that of Lotte. It was precisely of that order of prettiness which especially commended itself to his taste. Selfish and proud as his mother, silly and conceited too, there was not much space in his heart for affection; nevertheless, passion occupied a tolerably large space, and the gratification of it was a first consideration with him.

In his eyes Lotte was the “prettiest” girl he had yet seen, and to call the prettiest girl in the kingdom his was an ambition. He did not count the cost even to the poor girl who was to be captured and wear his chains. He had found satins and jewels, and golden gifts achieve wonders; he believed there was no limit to their efficacy in conquering a woman’s scruples, and he had the strongest possible conviction that, if employed without reserve or hesitation, the most severely rigid propriety would succumb to their influence.

To be smitten with the face of Lotte was to desire to obtain her. He viewed it as a question of time and money, and he made a memorandum in his note-book to that effect.

Lotte, thus favoured by his admiration and his intentions, had not observed him; if she had, she would have forgotten him immediately afterwards.

No; her thoughts were employed upon the future. Under the care and kindness of Flora, she had in one short week won back more strength and health than she would have done in a month under the roof of Mrs. Bantom, or such an one as she could herself afford. It must be remembered, too, that her mind was at peace in respect to the present, and hopeful as regarded the future.

One week longer she decided to stay beneath the roof of her good friend, and then into the world again, that she might eat the bread for which her own hands had laboured successfully. It was in vain that Flora endeavoured to change her determination; her self-dependent nature and free spirit recoiled from being indebted even to Flora for a home. So long as she had strength to work, and was able to obtain it, she would support herself until she became the wife of the man she had yet to see and love, and then if able to keep her, she would accept the luxury the wedded state might afford her; if not, they would work together, and together win a living for both.

She did not refuse to accept from Flora a complete stock of clothes, nor the loan of a small sum of money to start with, nor did she ridiculously refuse her profferred assistance in procuring an apartment in a respectable dwelling; nor when Flora urged upon her to employ her abilities upon some description of needlework less slavish and better paid than cap-front making, did she refuse to make the effort, or hesitate to accept work from a juvenile clothing warehouse, obtained through the influence of Flora’s new dressmaker.

Her spirit of independence was neither fastidious nor affected; it was genuine, sincere, and directed her along a path that, while by her open, ingenuous, cheerful, loving disposition, she gained the affection of all who knew her, she commanded their respect by eschewing all obligations calculated to fetter her freedom of action.

Malcolm Grahame, during the last few days of his stay, had contrived to ascertain her name, and the information that she was a humble friend of Miss Wilton’s—a communication he received with great satisfaction, because it intimated that she was poor. To be poor was to be accessible to temptation, and he resolved to use gold profusely to gain her.

He little thought while making this ignoble calculation, that he himself stood on the very brink of a degraded beggary. Lotte was poor, but her poverty had no blur of dishonour upon it.

He caught sight of her walking alone in the garden several times, and rushed to an upper window to waft a kiss viâ his fingers to her, or to lay his hand upon the left side of a rather narrow chest, or to render himself conspicuously ridiculous in other ways. His vagaries were uselessly performed and expended without result, for Lotte did not once perceive him, and left the roof of Flora Wilton, in the Regent’s Park, without knowing, or desiring to know, that any such vain heartless coxcomb as Malcolm Grahame was in existence.

The interview between old Wilton and Grahame was brief; on the side of the former; it was conducted with cold dignity, and on the latter—after two or three revelations were made which yet further opened his eyes to the tremendous character of the gulf, on the verge of which he had stood with so slippery a footing—with an oily obsequiousness which was contemptible.

Nathan Gomer conducted the whole proceedings, and displayed an influence over Wilton, the more extraordinary as it was evidently not obtained at the price of pecuniary obligations. The preliminaries were all arranged, Mr. Grahame consenting to terms which gave him the enjoyment of half the property and surplus funds in trust, until the claim of Wilton was fully substantiated, when Mr. Grahame was to resign his half, and enter upon arrangements by which he would gradually restore to the estate the sums he had received from it.

The arrangement was far from being a satisfactory one to Grahame, but his position was that of a drowning man, and, therefore, he was only too glad to seize anything that floated within his reach, by which he might support himself for a time, if not save himself altogether.

A memorandum was drawn up by Nathan, who grinned as he composed it, grinned as Grahame signed it, and grinned yet more when he appended his name as a witness to it. He even laughed a fat, chuckling laugh as he drew Grahame’s attention to the fact, that the sheet of paper, upon which the memorandum was executed, bore the proper stamp.

It was Grahame’s turn to smile when, throwing a cold doubt upon the realisation of the estates to be thus divided, Gomer laconically requested him to furnish him with a list of his most pressing engagements, and he would at once liquidate them.

“I have some thousands lying idle at my bankers,” he said. “I may as well realize a slightly better percentage from you.”

“And the security?” questioned Grahame, doubtfully.

“I require nothing more than your acknowledgment of the amounts advanced, and your copy of this memorandum,” replied Gomer.

Grahame assented delightedly, and would have taken the most affectionate farewell of both Wilton and Nathan Gomer, but that the former coldly repelled him, and the latter grinned in his face in a manner so strangely impish that he involuntarily shuddered, and hastened away.

As he descended the stairs, he encountered Flora Wilton, just as she was entering her favourite sitting-room, a small one overlooking the garden.

He started as he caught sight of her upturned face, and turning to Nathan Gomer, who was following him, he said—

“Miss Wilton, I presume.”

Nathan nodded.

“How strikingly beautiful!” he ejaculated. “Pray introduce me,” he added.

Gomer did so briefly, saying—

“You will soon have the opportunity of knowing each other better.”

“In truth, Mr. Gomer,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, in his grandest manner, “I shall look forward with impatience for that honour, I need not add, and high gratification.”

Flora could only look timidly from one to the other, and feel extremely relieved by the absence of both.

Nathan Gomer having, ere they parted, reiterated his promise of supplying Mr. Grahame with all the funds his present need required, that gentleman walked into his mansion with the cold loftiness of a Sultan, and with high elation of spirits. Not that the latter emotion rendered him cheerful; on the contrary, it expanded and inflated his pride—it made him look over to the verge of the horizon, and believe the lands and domains between were his own. It made him regard his servants as serfs, his tradespeople as vassals, his acquaintances as persons who lived only to bask in the sunshine of his smiles, himself an imperial personage, to whom it was the duty of the world in general to bow down and worship.

During the last ten days, he had felt rather disposed to sneak out of sight than to exhibit his greatness to wondering eyes. Now, removed from the danger of imminent disgrace, his own grand staircase appeared too circumscribed for the majesty of his presence.

Whelks, who had—by hot lotions and cold lotions, and fomentations, and blistering garlic, new flannel, a couple of calomel pills, and a half-a-pint of black draught—subdued the ear-ache, lost a sovereign—how, he was mystified in imagining—and taken the form of a ghostly shadow—noticed the change in his master, but with infinitely less surprise than that alteration which made him almost familiar with Chewkle.

With the instinctive perception of individuals of his class, he presumed, by the ascendancy of the commission agent, that “something was up.” He was extremely anxious to find out what: hence, his civility to Chewkle, and his desire to form an acquaintance with him. Whatever that something was, it was plain, by his master’s resumption of stern pomposity that it was “down again.”

Mr. Grahame, preceded by Whelks, entered the room in which he expected to find Mrs. Grahame and one at least of her daughters, but the whole family as well as the two guests, who had been prevailed to extend their visit beyond the term originally intended, were assembled together, engaged in conversation, which did not pause for an instant at the appearance of Mr. Grahame.

“Can it be pawsible, Lady Mawgawet,” exclaimed the young Duke, addressing Miss Margaret Grahame, using the prefix “Lady” as he said in “playfulness,” “that you did not considaw that that young cweachaw wejoices in one of the fawest, divinest faces, ever pwesented by the wosy goddess Beauty to one of youaw chawming sex?”

“I scarcely noticed the person,” returned Margaret, in a cold, supercilious tone, bending her half-closed eyes upon a magnificently jewelled bracelet, clasping her fat white arm, which she placed in various positions to study the effect of the ornament, and to admire trinket and arm together.

Helen looked up at the Duke with a quick action and a glittering eye. She said in a slightly petulant tone—

“Wax dolls have the ‘fairest, divinest faces,’ my lord Duke, yet we do not fall into raptures with them.”

“Not we, assuredly Miss Grahame,” observed Lester Vane, slowly, “but little children do. In their eyes dolls’ faces possess immense attractions, and they have a title to be ranked as the best judges of beauty in dolls, as”——

He paused, and looked into Helen’s eyes.

“As men lay claim to be of loveliness in woman,” she responded, with a scarcely perceptible sneer.

He bowed.

“As, indeed, they ought to be,” he rejoined, quickly; “else why are your sex so desirous to obtain the approving admiration of ours?”

“A fallacy, which your sex has the impertinence to assert, and the fatuity to believe,” she responded with a curling lip.

“A shrewd imbecility, nevertheless,” returned Vane, smiling meaningly. “What say you, Miss Evangeline?”

“Indeed, I think she had the sweetest face I ever beheld!” exclaimed Evangeline, with an enthusiasm which afflicted Mrs. Grahame—if that lady permitted any emotion, residing soberly within her well-ordered frame, to agitate itself to the extent of affliction.

“Pish!” cried Malcolm, “you like dolls, even now. The fact is, you are all at fault; the companion was the prettiest of the two.”

“What, haw maid?” inquired the Duke, extending his eyebrows half way up his forehead.

“No, her friend. I have seen them arm in arm. None of you looked at her face; I did—she had the prettiest in Christendom, St. Allborne, all the world to nothing.”

“May I, without inadvertence, inquire whose merits you are discussing?” inquired Mr. Grahame, with a loftiness he had for some time not displayed.

“I have been listening in pain and astonishment,” responded Mrs. Grahame; “the subject is some creature who suddenly intruded herself upon your family and your guests in your garden, Mr. Grahame.”

“Intruded herself in my garden!” exclaimed ‘Mr. Grahame, in a tone of outraged dignity.

“His grace, perhaps, will repeat the romantic story?” added Mrs. Grahame.

“Oh, weadily, weadily! you are wight, madam, the stowy is womantic,” returned the Duke, with vivacity. “The fact is, my deaw host,” continued he, “we weaw all in the gawden the othaw mawning; we had awested owaw steps for a few seconds, when, all of a moment, an appawition of angelic beauty pwesented itself to owaw dazzled eyes.”

“In my garden!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, fiercely, as much as to say, “how dare apparitions of angelic beauty present themselves in my garden?”

“No,” returned the Duke, “in the next gawden to the left. She wemained but faw an instant, and then dis-appeawed. We aw divided in opinion with wespect to haw chawms.”

The manner of Mr. Grahame in a moment strangely altered its character.

“The young lady is exquisitely beautiful!” he exclaimed, with an emphasis which made Mrs. Grahame slowly elongate upwards and Margaret Claverhouse open her eyes to their full extent, while the others looked at him with surprise.

At length Mrs. Grahame found a tongue.

“I should have hardly conceived that such a person had attracted the notice of Claver’se Grahame!” she exclaimed, in a tone of contemptuous surprise.

“I have just returned from a visit to the young lady’s father,” he returned, sharply stung by the tone of his wife’s remark.

Mrs. Grahame knew not how to support this dreadful wound to her pride; her upper lip trembled.

“Pray, Mr. Grahame,” she said, “have you been seized by the weakness of toadying to some man, some person, some mushroom trader, because he has been able to make a little parade by successful plunder?”

“Stay, Mistress Grahame,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with imperious grandeur. “Before you suffer yourself to be betrayed into any observation you may be disposed hereafter to recall, let me inform you that Mr. Wilton, the father of the young lady of whom you appear to speak and think so slightingly, is a gentleman possessing twenty thousand a year, and cash to the extent of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds”——

An exclamation burst from the lips of all present. Mrs. Grahame felt that she had been premature. How Margaret began to hate Flora!

“Let me add,” continued Mr. Grahame, “that Mr. Wilton can claim an older and a nobler descent than either you, madam, or myself. In his veins runs the blood of the Stuarts, the Eglintons, the Grahames, and the Gordons. When, therefore, you apply the epithets of ‘man’ and ‘person’ to him, you injuriously insult a gentleman entitled to your highest consideration.”

He ought to have added, also, for the “consideration” of his proud lady—“A short time back he was a pauper whom I sued and thrust into prison.”

Mrs. Grahame was sure now she had been premature.

Margaret hated Flora more than ever. She had despised her before; she feared her now.

“Weally,” cried the Duke, “this is a twuly bwilliant dénouement to owaw womance. Gwahame, you must pawsitively intwoduce me to that delightful young lady. Miss—what is haw name?”

“Wilton,” responded Grahame; “Mrs. Grahame will probably make a visit to Miss Wilton, and introduce the young ladies. Miss Wilton, I have no doubt, will be induced to return the visit. This, as a matter of course. Our families are, though distantly, related. Mr. Wilton descends from the elder branch.”

“I shall have the greatest pleasure in paying a visit to this pearl of beauty,” said Mrs. Grahame, with an animation quite unusual to her. “I regret my hasty observations, but who could have dreamed that our next neighbour was of such distinguished birth and position; and a relative too? I will not defer my visit, and taking advantage of the relationship, waive a portion of that ceremony I consider it essential in other cases to observe.”

“So I shall have, too, an introduction to this ‘pearl of beauty,’” thought Lester Vane; “it will save me a world of trouble.”

“May I not go with you when you pay your first visit to Miss Wilton, dear mamma?” asked Evangeline.

“Absurd!” muttered Margaret, contemptuously; “mamma will go alone; I shall not go.”

Mr. Grahame frowned; his wife caught the expression of his face, and in a tone which her daughters all knew was intended to silence opposition, she said—

“Helen and Margaret will accompany me; they will exert themselves to win the favourable opinion of their relative—attracting her to visit us by their cheerful smiles, rather than repelling her by any formal frigidity. You, Evangeline, who set all the rules of propriety at defiance, must remain at home, or you will only commit yourself in some such manner as heroines do in novels.”

“Don’t you think I ought to accompany you, madam?” exclaimed Malcolm, with a strong impression that he should get an opportunity of exchanging looks and words with Lotte. “I think the visit will hardly be en règle, without my presence.”

It suddenly struck Mr. Grahame that a match between Malcolm and Flora Wilton would, in all respects, be most desirable. The young lady possessed a long line of ancestry, wealth, and beauty. What more could a man desire in a wife? A marriage, too, would end the conflicting interests of both parties. He did not doubt for a moment, that Wilton would gladly embrace the advantages offered by such a plan, and he, therefore, almost looked upon it as being accomplished, his own future peace being secured by the arrangement.

It did not occur to him that Flora might object, or Malcolm offer any opposition. He looked upon marriage as a contract, in which it was the parent’s duty to secure for their children eligible matches, and for the children to unhesitatingly complete them.

He was immediately, therefore, anxious that Malcolm should accompany his mother, and his suggestion took the shape of a command. No one but himself had any inkling of his project, but though some little surprise was manifested, no remark was made or objection raised.

As the visit was not to be paid until the next morning, the subject was here changed, and Lester Vane, as before, addressed his attentions almost exclusively to Helen. He rarely spoke to her without conveying a meaning beyond the apparent import of his words. He omitted no opportunity, either by word or glance, to induce her to believe that he was fascinated by her personal attractions and charmed by the graces of her mind.

She threw herself as much in his way as possible, whether in the presence of her family or alone, and she exerted all her powers to enslave him. She was by turns full of fire and life, seemingly gratified by his presence; anon, cold and pettish. She would laugh with him, and frown at him, display interest in what he said or did when he appeared least to desire to chain her attention, and seem most provokingly indifferent when he wished her to listen to him heedfully.

Most of all, when alone, did she play with him.

When, by some tenderness of manner, he would be induced to commence acknowledgments warmer than those warranted by friendship, she would parry his observations, turn them to ridicule, or give to them an interpretation they were never intended to bear: so that he would trust only to his expressive eyes to say what she refused to hear his tongue utter.

He could tell by her drooping lid and rising blush that she comprehended that language, and that if she would defiantly encounter his gaze, she must read it and interpret it.

“She loves me,” he would say to himself, “and she must be mine—under what contract circumstances must alone decide for me.”

That decision was arrived at when he heard that Flora Wilton was well born and rich—his hand should be for her, his passion for Helen.

It is easy to make calculations based on probabilities, but when contingencies are left out, the result mostly takes a very different form to that which it first promised to assume.

Helen had carefully watched his countenance while her father spoke of Flora Wilton; she had not forgotten how his eyes seemed to gloat on her beauty when he beheld her in the garden, and she felt convinced by the expression which passed over his features when he learned that Miss Wilton was of good birth and rich, that he then formed designs respecting her.

A flush of indignation and mortification passed through her frame.

“I will bring him to my feet, and spurn him yet!” she said to herself.

It was in this spirit they were all but toying with each other, when Malcolm, who had been reading the Times, uttered an exclamation, and, turning to his father, he said—

“You remember young Riversdale, sir?—you do, Helen, of course,” he cried, turning to his sister.

Had fame—life—depended upon an unchanged countenance, she must have lost both. She on the instant grew deathly pale; she could not reply—she merely bent her head.

“A son of Major Riversdale,” said Mrs. Grahame; “I think we met them in the north?”

“Yes,” returned Malcolm.

“Ah! I remember; his father died a beggar, and his uncle, an East India merchant, took charge of him—made him a clerk, or something of that kind,” observed Mr. Grahame—“a person one could not notice now. Why did you introduce his name to our notice?”

“Here is a paragraph about him in the Times. It is rather a strange affair, I’ll read it out,” replied Malcolm.

“Do so,” said his mother.

Helen held her breath. She felt that some dreadful disclosure was about to be made, which would overwhelm her, too. Oh, that she might not faint! If only she did not faint, and could get to her room, to wrestle with the trial—for such it must be—alone! She sat with closed hands, teeth, her eyes only open, motionless as a statue. Malcolm turned his eyes upon the journal he held in his hand, and, in a loud, clear voice, read as follows:—

“A singular circumstance attended the departure from these shores of the Peninsula and Oriental Steam Company’s ship, the ‘Ripon,’ bearing the mails for India and China. When off the Needles, a young gentleman, whose name was ascertained to be Mr. Hugh Riversdale, was observed to be regarding the receding cliffs of England with deep emotion. Suddenly, uttering a loud cry, said by some who heard it to be the name of a lady, he sprang on to the taffrail of the ship, and leaped into the sea. Fortunately, a pilot-boat was standing off and on, waiting the arrival of an American liner. Her crew had observed the suicidal act, and made most noble efforts to rescue the young gentleman. Their exertions were, we are happy to say, so far crowned with success that they picked up the body in a lifeless state. Meanwhile, the engines of the ‘Ripon,’ under the thrilling cry of ‘a man overboard,’ had been stopped and reversed, and the crew of the pilot-boat were thus enabled to convey the body on board the steam-ship—the most advisable course to be pursued, as the best medical assistance, with ready access to restoratives, could be there promptly afforded. We are unable to state whether the exertions to restore life were successful, as on the recovery of the body the engines of the steamer were set in motion. The crew of the pilot-boat returned to their vessel, and the Ripon, at race-horse speed, proceeded on her distant voyage.”

“Rather strange affair that!” concluded Malcolm, laying down the paper.

“Vewy womantic! ha! ha!” laughed the young Duke. “Pwepostewous folly that, to dwown oneself for love! Ha! ha!”

Suddenly they were all startled by a terrified cry bursting from the lips of Evangeline. She sprang from her seat, and twined her arms round her eldest sister.

“Helen! Helen!” she cried; “Helen, dearest Helen, you are ill, darling! Speak, Helen! Speak, for Heaven’s sake! Oh, mamma, mamma, pray come to Helen; she is dying!”

Helen sat erect, still, rigid as a stone statue and as lifeless.

She had listened in a state of high-wrought feeling to the reading of the paragraph up to a certain point. She heard the description of Hugh’s emotion at the sight of the diminishing heights of the land containing all that he loved or prized. She knew that her form—her averted form was at that instant before his humid eyes.

She heard his despairing call upon her name; she saw him suddenly spring up upon the vessel’s edge, and leap out with a wild cry, plunging down, down into the dreadful depths of the surging sea, to find that peaceful release from intense mental anguish which she had selfishly and heartlessly denied to him here.

Then all was dark!

She sat motionless, stark, corpse-like, consciousness departing from her, and leaving her without sense or motion.

Mr. and Mrs. Grahame were disturbed at the undignified departure from the proprieties of life displayed by both Helen and Evangeline. Mrs. Grahame especially was grieved to think that the example of icy immobility set on all occasions by Margaret Claverhouse was not followed by both her sisters. The bell was rung violently by Malcolm, who, except Evangeline, displayed the most feeling of the family. Chayter was summoned, and Helen, accompanied by Evangeline, was borne to her apartment.

Lester Vane retired to the garden.

Folding his arms, he paced the sinuous paths thoughtfully.

“So,” he muttered, “the mystery is solved. This youth, Hugh Riversdale, was my assailant in the alcove, and Helen was his companion there. Hem! His merchant uncle has despatched his clerk to India. He, out of his love-sick grief, like a mad fool, leaps into the sea, and she swoons to hear of his folly. She is selfish; but she loves him and seeks to fool me. ’Um! He struck me—this clerk. Well, she shall avenge the blow: away with thoughts of marriage! No; Miss Wilton, young, exquisitely lovely, of proud descent, and great wealth, she shall be my bride; while you, Helen, you—’um! we shall see.”

He leaned upon the slight iron rail which ran along the end of the garden, and gazed thoughtfully into the depths of the flowing stream running soundlessly by.