In this great London world of ours it is our boast that we live free and unfettered by the opinions of our neighbours; that we may be unacquainted with those persons who for a score of years have resided on either side of us; that our sayings and doings, our "goings on," the company we keep, the lives we lead, and the pursuits we follow, are nothing to anybody, and are consequently unnoticed. We pride ourselves on this not a little; we shrug our shoulders and elevate our eyebrows when we talk of the small scandal and the petty spite of provincial towns; we are grateful that, in whatever state the larger vices may be, the smaller ones, at all events, do not flourish among us; and, in short, we take to ourselves enormous credit for the possession of something which has not the slightest real existence, and for the absence of something else which is of daily growth. It is true that in London a man need not be particular about the shape of his hat or the cut of his coat, so far as London itself is concerned, any more than he need fear that his having taken too much wine at a public dinner, or held a lengthened flirtation with a barmaid, will appear in the public prints; but in his own circle, be it high or low, large or small, pharisaical or liberal-minded, as much attention will be paid to all he does, his speeches, actions, and mode of life will be the subject of as much spiteful comment, as if he lived at Hull or vegetated at York. The insane desire to talk about trifles, to indulge in childish chit-chat and terrible twaddle, to erect mole-hills into mountains, and to find spots in social suns, exists everywhere amongst people who have nothing to do, and who carry out the doctrine laid down by Dr. Watts by applying their "idle hands" to "some mischief still." The Duke of Dilworth, interested in the management of his own estates, looking after the race-horses under his trainer's care, hunting up his political influence, and seeing that it sustains no diminution, marking catalogues of coming picture-sales for purchases which he has long expected must enter the market, devising alterations in his Highland shooting-box, planning yachting expeditions, going through, in fact, that business of pleasure which is the real business of his life, has no time for profitless talk and ridiculous gossip, which, as his grace says, "he leaves for women." But the women like what is left for them. The Duchess and the Ladies Daffy have none of these occupations to fill the "fallow leisure of their lives"--their calls and visits, their fête-attendances and garden-parties, their play at poor-visitings and High-Church-service frequentings, leave them yet an enormous margin of waste time, which is more or less filled up by tattle of a generally derogatory nature. It is the same in nearly every class of life: men must work, and women must talk; and when they talk, their conversation is robbed of half its zest and point if it be not disparaging and detrimental to their dearest friends.
It was not to be imagined that the Ramsay-Caird ménage, even had it been very differently constituted, could have escaped criticism; as it was, it courted it. The mere fact of Ramsay Caird himself having somehow or other slipped into the society of nous autres (it was solely through the Kilsyths that he was known in the set), and having had the audacity to carry away one of the prizes, would in itself have attracted sufficient attention to him and his, had other inducements been wanting. But other inducements were not wanting. The alteration which had taken place in Madeleine since her illness in Scotland, more especially since the time of the announcement of her engagement, was matter of public comment; and all kinds of stories were set afloat by her dearest friends to account for it. That she had had some dreadful love-affair, highly injudicious, impossible of achievement, was one of the most romantic; and being one of the most mischievous, consequently became one of the most popular theories, the only difficulty being to find for this desperate affair--which, it was said, had superinduced her illness, scarlet-fever being, as is well known to the faculty, essentially a mental disease--a hero. The list of visitors to the house was discussed in half-a-dozen different places; but no one at all likely to fill the character could be found, until Colonel Jefferson was accidentally hit upon. This, coupled with the fact that Colonel Jefferson's mad pursuit of Lady Emily Fairfax, which everyone knew had so long existed, had ceased about that time, was extensively promulgated, and pretty generally accepted. So extensively promulgated, that it reached the ears of Colonel Jefferson himself, and elicited from him an expression of opinion couched in language rather stronger than that gallant officer usually permitted himself the use of--to the effect that, if he found anyone engaged in the fetching and carrying of such infernal lies, he, Colonel Jefferson, should make it his business to inflict personal chastisement on him, the said fetcher and carrier. A representation of this kind coming from a very big and strong man, who in such matters had the reputation of keeping his promise, had the effect of doing away with all identification of Mrs. Ramsay Caird's supposed heartbroken lover, and of restoring him his anonymity, but the fact of his existence, still was whispered abroad; else why had one of the brightest girls of the past season--not that there was ever anything in her very clever, or that she was ever anything but extremely "missy," but still a pleasant, cheerful kind of girl in her way--why had she become dull and triste, and obviously uncaring for anything? That was what society wanted to know.
As for her husband, as for Ramsay Caird, society's tongue said very little about him; but society's shoulders, and eyebrows, and hands, and fluttering fans, hinted a great deal. Society was divided on the subject of Mr. Ramsay Caird. One portion of it threw out nebulous allusions to the fascinations of Madame Favorita of the Italian Opera, suggested the usual course pursued by beggars who had been set upon horseback, wondered how Madeleine's relations could endure the state of things which existed under their very eyes, and thought that the time could not be very far distant when Captain Kilsyth--who had the name, as you very well know, my dear, for being so very particular in such matters, not to say strait-laced--would call his brother-in-law to account for his goings on. The other portion of society was more liberal, so far at least as the gentleman was concerned. What, it asked, was the position of a man who found his newly-married wife evidently preoccupied with the loss of some previous flirtation? What was to be expected from a man who had found Dead-Sea apples instead of fruit, and utter indifference instead of conjugal love and domestic happiness? The nous-autres feeling penetrated into the discussion. It was not likely that a young man who had been brought up in a different sphere, who had been, if what people said was correct, a clerk or something of the kind to a lawyer in Edinburgh, could comprehend the necessity for such a course of conduct under the circumstances as the belonging to their class would naturally dictate. If Mr. Caird had made a mistake--well, mistakes were often made, often without getting the equivalent which he, in allying himself with an old family in the position of the Kilsyths, had secured for himself. But they were always borne sub silentio--at all events the sufferer, however he might seek for distraction in private, did not let the mistake which he had made, and the means he had adopted for his own compensation, become such common gossip-matter for the world at large.
Such conversation as this is not indulged in without its reaching the ears of those most concerned. When one says most concerned, one means those likely to take most concern in it. It is doubtful if Madeleine's ears were ever disturbed by any of the rumours in which she played so prominent a part. It is certain that her husband never knew of the interest which he excited in so many of his acquaintances; equally certain that if he had known it, the knowledge thus gained would not have caused him an emotion. Lady Muriel, however, was fully acquainted with all that was said. The world, which did her homage as one of its queens of fashion, took every possible occasion to remind her that she was mortal, and found no better opportunity than in pointing out the mistake which she had made in the marriage of her stepdaughter and the settlement in life of her protégé. Odd words dropped here and there, sly hints, innuendoes, phrases capable of double meaning, and always receiving the utmost perversion which could be employed in their warping, nay, in some instances, anonymous letters--the basest shifts to which treachery can stoop,--all these ingredients were made use of for the poisoning of Lady Muriel's cup of life, and for the undermining of that pinnacle to which society had raised her.
Nor was Ronald Kilsyth ignorant of the world's talk and the world's expressions. Isolate himself as much as he would, be as self-contained and as solitary as an oyster, fend off confidence, shut his ears to gossip,--all he could do was to exclude pleasant things from him; the unpleasant had penetrating qualities, and invariably made their way. He knew well enough what was said in every kind of society about Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay Caird. When he dined away from the mess, he had a curiously unpleasant feeling that advantage would be taken of his absence to discuss that unfortunate ménage. When he dined at his club, he had a morbid horror lest the two men seated at the next table should begin to talk about it. The disappointment about the whole thing had been so great as to make him morbidly sensitive on the point, to ascribe to it far greater interest than it really possessed for the world in general, and to allow it to prey on his mind, and seriously to influence his health. It had been such a consummate failure! And he, as he owned to himself,--he was primarily responsible for the marriage! If Lady Muriel had not had his assistance, she would never have carried her point of getting Madeleine for Ramsay Caird; one word from him would have nipped that acquaintance in the bud, would have stopped the completion of the project, no matter how far it had advanced. And he had never said that word. Why? He comforted himself by thinking that Caird had never shown himself in his real character before his marriage; but the fact was, although Ronald would not avow it, that he had been hoodwinked by the deference so deftly paid to him both by his stepmother and her confederate, who had consulted him on all points, and cajoled him and used him as a tool in their hands. He thought over all this very bitterly now; he saw how he had been treated, and stamped and raved in impotent fury as he remembered how he had been led on step by step, and how weak and vacillating he must have appeared in a matter in which he was most deeply interested, and which, during the whole of its progress, he thought he was managing so well.
To no man in London could such a fiasco as his sister's marriage had turned out be more oppressively overwhelming, productive of more thorough disgust and annoyance than to Ronald Kilsyth. The fiasco was so glaring, that at once two points on which the young man most prided himself stood impugned. Everyone knew that dear old Kilsyth himself would not have interfered in such a matter, and that the final settlement of it, after Lady Muriel's light skirmishing had been done, must have been left to Ronald, who was the sensible one of the family. He had then, in the eyes of the world, either had so little care for his sister's future as to sanction her marriage with a very ineligible man, or so little natural perspicacity and sharpness as to be deceived by such a shallow pretender as Caird. That anyone should entertain either of these suppositions was gall and wormwood to Ronald. He whose reputation forclear-headedness and far-seeing had only been equalled by the esteem in which by all men he had been held for his strict honesty and probity and the Spartan quality of his virtue,--that he should be suspected--more than suspected, in certain quarters accused--of folly or want of proper caution where his sister was concerned, was to him inexpressibly painful. Perhaps the worst thing of all was to know that people knew that he was aware of what was said, and that he suffered under the tittle-tattle and the gossip. He tried to forget that idea, to dispel and do away with it by changing his usual habits; he went about; he was seen--for one week--oftener in society than he had been for months previously: but the morbid feeling came upon him there; he fancied that people noticed his presence, and attributed it to its right cause; that every whisper which was uttered in the room had Madeleine for its burden; that the whole company had their minds filled with him, and were thinking of him either pityingly, sarcastically, or angrily, according to their various temperaments.
He avoided Brook-street at this time as religiously as he avoided the little residence in Squab-street. He did not particularly care about meeting his father, though he thought Kilsyth would probably know nothing of what so many were talking of; and he had resolutely shunned a meeting with Lady Muriel, for Ronald in his inmost heart did his stepmother a gross injustice. He fully believed that she was perfectly cognisant of Ramsay Caird's real character; whereas, in truth, no one had been more astonished at what her protégé had proved himself than Lady Muriel--and very few more distressed. Ronald, however, thought otherwise; and being a gentleman, he carefully avoided meeting her ladyship, lest he might lose his temper and forget himself. The Kilsyth blood was hot, and even in the heir to the name there had been occasions when it was pretty nearly up to boiling-point.
For the same reason he avoided all chance of running across his brother-in-law. In common with most men of strong feelings always kept in a state of repression, Ronald Kilsyth was particularly sensitive; and the idea of the publicity already accruing to this wretched business being increased by any possible tattle of open rupture between members of the family horrified him dreadfully. If he did not dare trust himself with Lady Muriel, he should certainly have to exercise a much stronger command over himself in the event of his ever meeting Ramsay Caird. Every governing principle of his life rose up within him against that young man; and on the first occasion of his hearing--accidentally, as men often hear things of the greatest import to themselves--of Mr. Caird's doings, Ronald Kilsyth had for the whole night paced his barrack-room, trying in every possible form to pick such a quarrel with Caird as might leave no real clue to its origin, and enable him to work out his revenge without compromising anyone. But he soon saw the futility of any such proceeding, which, carried out between sous-officiers, might form the basis of a French drama, but which was impossible of execution between English gentlemen, and elected absence from Squab-street, and total ignorance of Mr. Caird's mode of procedure, as his best aids to a tolerably quiet life for himself. Besides, absence from Squab-street meant absence from Madeleine; and absence from Madeleine meant a great deal to Ronald Kilsyth. He, in his self-examination found Madeleine's behaviour since her marriage the one point on which he could neither satisfy himself by a feeling of pity nor bluster himself into a fit of indignation. He knew well enough what her abstracted manner, her dulness, her sad weary preoccupied mind, her impossibility to join in the nonsensical talk floating around her,--he knew well enough what all these symptoms meant. . If he had ever doubted that his sister had a strong affection for Wilmot--and it is due to his perspicacity to say that no such doubt ever crossed his mind--he would have been certain of it now. If he had ever hoped--and he had hoped very earnestly--that any girlish predilection which his sister might have entertained for Wilmot was merely girlish and evanescent, and would pass away with her marriage, he could not more effectually have blighted any such chance than by marrying her to the man whose suit he, her brother, had himself urged her to accept Perhaps under happier circumstances that childish dream would have passed away, merged into a more happy realisation; but as it had eventuated, Ronald knew perfectly well that Madeleine could not but contrast the blank loveless present with the bright past, could not but compare the days when she now sat solitary and uncared for with those when the man for whom she had such intense veneration--for whom, as she doubtless had afterwards discovered, she had such honest, earnest love--had given up everything else to attend to her and shield her in the hour of danger. With such feelings as these at his heart, it was but little wonder that Ronald sedulously avoided being thrown in Madeleine's way.
He had always been so "odd;" his comings, and goings in Brook-street had been so uncertain; it was so utterly impossible to tell when he might or might not be expected at his father's house, that his prolonged absence caused no astonishment to any of the members of the family, nor to any one of their regular visitors. Lady Muriel, indeed, with a kind of guilty consciousness of participation in his feelings, guessed the reason why her step-son eschewed their society; but no one else. And Lady Muriel, who from her first suspicion of Ramsay Caird's conduct--suspicion not entertained, be it understood, until some time after the marriage--had looked forward with great fear and trembling to a grand éclaircissement, a searching explanation with Ronald, in which she would have to undergo an amount of cross-questioning in his hardest manner, and a judgment which would inevitably be pronounced against her, was rather glad that this whim had taken possession of Ronald, and that her dies irae was consequently indefinitely deferred. But it happened one day that Ronald, walking down to Knightsbridge barracks, came upon his father waiting to cross the road at the corner of Sloane-street, and came upon him so "plump" and so suddenly, that retreat was impossible. The young man accordingly, seeing how matters stood, advanced, and took his father by the hand.
In an instant he saw that one other, at all events, had suffered from the--well, there was no other word for it--the disgrace, the discredit, to say the least of it, which had fallen on the family during the past few months. Kilsyth seemed aged by ten years. The light had died out of his bright blue eyes, and left them glassy and colourless, with red rims and heavy dark "pads" underneath each. The bright healthy colour had faded from his cheeks, and few would have recognised the lithe and active mountaineer, the never-tiring pedestrian, and the keen shot, in the bent and shrunken form which stood half-leaning on, half-idly dallying with, its stick. He pressed his son's hand warmly, however; and something like his well-known kind old smile lighted up his face as he exclaimed--
"Ronald, I'm glad to see you, my boy! very glad! You've not been near us for ages! And not merely that--I can understand that--we're not very good company for young people now in Brook-street; there's little inducement to come there now since poor Maddy has left us. But I don't think that I was ever half so long in London without dining with you as your guest over there at the barracks. I used to like an outing with your fellows there; it brisked me up, and made me forget what an old fogie I am growing; but--but you haven't given me the chance this time, sir,--you haven't given me the chance!"
There was something in the evidently strained attempt at cheeriness with which his father said these words which contrasted so strongly with the depression under which it was impossible for him to prevent showing he was labouring, and with the marked alteration in his personal appearance, that touched Ronald deeply. His heart sank within him, and his tongue grew dry; he had to clear his throat before he replied--and even then huskily--
"It is a long time since we've met, sir; and I confess the fault is mine--entirely mine. The fact is I've been very much engaged lately--regimental duty, and--and some business in which I've been particularly interested--business which I fear you would hardly care about--and--"
"Likely enough, my dear boy!" said Kilsyth, coming to his rescue, as he floundered about in a way very unusual to him. "Likely enough! I never did care particularly for a good many of your pursuits, you know, Ronald, though I tried very hard at one time--when you were quite a lad, I recollect--to understand them and share in them. But that was not to be. I was not bright enough. I'm of the old school, and what we old fellows cared about seems to have died out with our youth, and never to have interested anybody ever since. I don't say this complainingly--not in the least--but it was deuced odd. However, I'm very glad I've met you, Ronald, for I have long wished--and lately, within the last few days more especially--to have a talk with you, a serious talk, my boy, which will take up some little time. Have you half-an-hour you can give me now? I shall be very glad if you have."
It was coming at last. He had but put off the evil day, and now it was upon him. Well--better to hear himself condemned by his father than by anyone else. Let it come.
"My time is yours, sir," said Ronald, almost echoing Wilmot, as he remembered, on the day of that eventful interview in Charles-street. "I shall of course be delighted to give my best attention to anything you may have to say."
"Well, then, let's take a turn in the Park opposite," said Kilsyth, hooking his arm into his son's. "Not among the people there, where we should be perpetually interrupted by having to speak to those folks who bail one so good-naturedly at every step, but away on the grass there, by ourselves."
The two men passed through the Albert Gate, and turning to the right, struck on to the piece of turf lying between the Row and the Drive. A few children were playing about, a few nurse-maids were here and there gossiping together; else they had it all to themselves.
"I want to talk to you," commenced Kilsyth, "about your sister--about Maddy. I have been a good deal to Squab-street in the last few weeks, and I've thought Maddy looks anything but as I should wish her to look. Has that struck you, Ronald?"
"I--I'm sorry to say that I haven't seen Madeleine for some little time, sir. The business which, as I just explained to you, has prevented my coming to Brook-street has equally prevented me from calling on her."
"Of course, yes! I beg pardon--I forgot! Well, Maddy looks anything but well. For a long time past--indeed ever since her marriage--she has been singularly low-spirited and dull; very unlike her usual self."
"I don't know that that is much to be wondered at. Madeleine was always a peculiar girl, in the sense that she had an extraordinary attachment for her home; and the fact of being parted from you, with whom all her life has been passed, and to whom she is devotedly attached, may explain the cause of any little temporary lowness of spirits."
"Ye-es, that's true so far; but it's not that; I wish I could think it was. What you say, though, Ronald, I think gets somewhat near the real cause. Maddy has been unlike most other girls of her class; much more home-y and domestic, thinking much more of those around her with whom she has been brought into daily contact than of the outside pleasures, if I may so call them. And she's had a great deal of love. She's accustomed to it, and can't get on without it. Love's just as essential to Madeleine as light to the flowers, or the keen clear air to the stags. She's had it all her life, and she would die without it. And, Ronald, I'll say to you what I'd not say to another soul upon earth, but what's lying heavy on my heart this month past--I doubt much whether she gets it, my boy; I doubt much whether she gets it."
The old man stopped suddenly in his walk, and clutched his son's arm, and looked up earnestly into his son's fade. There was so much sharp agony in the glance, hurried and fleeting though it was, that Ronald scarcely knew what to say in reply to the quivering jerky speech.
His father saved him from his embarrassment by continuing: "I don't think she gets the love that she's been accustomed to, and that she had a right to expect. I tell you that Maddy is not happy, Ronald; that her little heart aches and pines for want of sympathy, for want of appreciation, for want of love. I'm an old fellow; but in this case I suppose my affection for my darling has opened my eyes, and I can see it all plainly."
"Don't you think, sir, that your undoubted devotion to Madeleine may, on the other hand, have had the effect of warping your judgment a little, and prejudicing you in the matter? Though I've not seen my sister very lately, when I did see her I confess I did not observe any marked difference in her--any difference at all from what she has been during the last few months."
"The last few months! That's just it; that's just what--however, we'll come to that presently. I know you're wrong, Ronald; I know that Madeleine is thoroughly changed and altered from the bright darling girl of the old days. And I know why, my boy! God help me, I know why!"
Again Ronald essayed to speak, and again he only muttered unintelligibly.
"Because her home is unhappy," said Kilsyth, stopping short in his walk, and dropping his voice to a whisper; "because the marriage into which she was--was persuaded--I will use no harsh words--has proved a wretched one for her; because her husband has proved himself to be--God forgive me--a scoundrel!"
"You speak strongly, sir, notwithstanding your professions," said Ronald, on whom warm words of any kind had always the effect of rendering him even more cold and stoical than was his wont.
"I speak strongly because I feel strongly, Ronald! I don't expect you to share my feelings in this matter, but I do expect you to have some of your own, although you may not show them. For God's sake cast aside for a few minutes that cloak of frost in which you always shroud yourself, and let us talk as father and son about one who is daughter to the one and sister to the other!"
Ronald looked up in surprise. He had never seen his father so much excited before.
"I have no doubt about this," continued Kilsyth. "I have hoped against hope, and I have shut my eyes against what I have seen, hoping they might be fancies; and my ears against what I have heard, hoping they might be lies. But I can befool myself in this manner no longer. Ah! to think of my darling thus--to think of my darling thus!" Tears started to the old man's eyes, and he smote fiercely with his stick upon the ground.
"If you are really persuaded of this, sir," said Ronald, "it is our duty to take immediate measures. Mr. Caird must be taught--"
"Who brought him to our house?" asked Kilsyth in a storm of passion; "or rather--not that--but when he was brought, who backed him up and encouraged him in every way? You, Ronald! you--you--you! By your advice he was permitted free access to the house, was constantly thrown in Madeleine's company, and gave the world to understand that he was going to marry her. I postponed the settling of the engagement once; but the second time, when--when I fancied that the child might have had some other views--might have formed some other fancy--you persuaded me to agree, and--"
"You should apportion the blame properly, sir," said Ronald in his coldest tones. "I did not introduce Caird to your house, nor was I the principal advocate of his cause."
"You're quite right, Ronald, quite right--and I've been hasty and passionate and inconsiderate, I know; but if you knew how utterly heartbroken I am--"
"I think, with regard to Mr. Caird," interrupted Ronald, "the best plan will be--"
"No, no; not Caird now--leave him for the present; afterwards we'll do for him. Now about Maddy--nothing but about Maddy--and not about her dulness, or anything of that kind, nor--worse, much worse--you recollect--no, you didn't know; I think you weren't there--what Wilmot, Dr. Wilmot, said to me at Kilsyth about her chest? He told me that one of her lungs was threatened--that the lungs were her weak point; and he asked me whether any of our family had suffered from such disease."
"Well, sir," said Ronald, anxiously now.
"This disease has been gaining ground for months past; I'm sure of it. I have had my opinions for some time; but Maddy never complains, you know, and I didn't like to ask her about her symptoms, lest she might be frightened. But within the last few days she has been so bad that It has been evident to us all, to myself and--and Lady Muriel that the disease was on the increase. She caught cold at the theatre the other night, and her cough is now frightful. I have seen her just now, poor darling! She was on the sofa, but very weak--all they could do to get her there--and when the paroxysms of coughing come on it's awful to see her--she hardly seems to have the strength to live through them. My poor darling Maddy!"
"What do the doctors say, sir? Who is attending her?"
"Whittaker--Dr. Whittaker--a very good man in his way, I daresay but--I don't know--somehow I don't think much of him. Now that is the very point I wanted to talk to you about. Somehow--how, I never understood--somebody--I don't know who--offended Dr. Wilmot, a man to whom we were under the greatest obligation for kindness rendered; and though he has been back in England for some time, he has never called in Brook-street, nor on Madeleine even, since his return. There is no one in whom I have such faith; there is no one, I am convinced, who understands Madeleine's constitution like Wilmot; and I want to know what is the best method for us to put our pride in our pockets and implore him to come and see her."
"You were not thinking of asking Dr. Wilmot to visit Madeleine?"
"I was indeed. What objection could there possibly be?"
"I suppose you know that he has retired from practice, that he even declines to attend consultations, since he inherited Mr. Foljambe's money?"
"I know that; but I am perfectly certain, from what I saw of him at Kilsyth, that if I were to go to him and tell him the state of affairs, he would overlook anything that may have annoyed him, and come and see Maddy at once."
"That would be a condescension!" said Ronald. "Perhaps it might be on the other side that the 'overlooking' might be required. However, there are other reasons, sir, why I, for one, should think it highly inadvisable that Dr. Wilmot should be requested to visit my sister."
"What are they, then, in Heaven's name, man?" said Kilsyth petulantly. "You don't seem to see that the matter is of the utmost urgency."
"It is because of its urgency that I speak of it at all; it is by no means a pleasant topic for me or for any of us. You spoke to me just now, sir, in warm words of the part I took in pressing Ramsay Caird to visit at your house, and supporting his claims for Madeleine. I don't know that I was at all eager for it at first; I'm certain I never cared particularly for Ramsay Caird; but I freely own that latterly I did my best for him, convinced that a speedy alliance with him was the only chance of rescuing Madeleine from another offer which I was sure was impending--which would have been far more objectionable, and yet which she would have accepted."
"Another offer?--from whom?"
"From the gentleman of whom you entertain so high an opinion--from Dr. Wilmot."
"From Wilmot! An offer from Wilmot to Madeleine! You must be mad, Ronald!"
"I never was more sane in my life, sir. I repeat, I am perfectly certain Dr. Wilmot was in love with Madeleine, that he would have made her an offer, and that she would have accepted him."
"And why should she not have accepted him? God knows I would have welcomed him for a son-in-law, and--"
"I scarcely think this is the time to enter into that subject, sir; but now that I have enlightened you, I presume you see the objection to calling in Dr. Wilmot to my sister."
"I see the difficulty, Ronald; but the objection and the difficulty shall be overcome. You shall yourself go and see Wilmot; and I know he'll not refuse you."
"Don't you think, sir, before I take upon myself to do that, it would be, to say the least of it, desirable that we should consult Madeleine's husband?"
"Indeed I do not, Ronald," said Kilsyth; "indeed I do not. In giving up my daughter to Mr. Caird I yielded privileges which I alone had enjoyed from her birth, and which I would gladly have retained until her death or mine. But I did not give up the privilege of watching over her health, more especially when it has been so shamefully neglected; and I shall claim the power to use it now."
"And you think, after all I have told you, that there is no objection to asking Dr. Wilmot to visit Madeleine?"
"See here, Ronald!--I will be very frank with you in this matter--I think that if I had known all you have told me now seven or eight months ago, we should never have had this conversation. For I firmly believe that--granting your ideas were correct--if my darling had married Wilmot, he would have taken care both of her health and her happiness, both of which have been so grossly neglected."
The father and son took their way in silence back across the grass, each filled with his own reflections. They had only reached the Albert Gate, and were about to pass through it into the street, when a brougham passed them, and a gentleman sitting in it gravely saluted them.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Kilsyth; "there's Wilmot!"
"Yes," said Ronald. He was surprised, and secretly agitated by the sight of the man towards whom his feelings had insensibly changed, and was hardly master of his emotion.
The carriage had passed on, but Kilsyth was standing still at the crossing.
"What an extraordinary chance--what a wonderful Providence, I should say!" said Kilsyth; "the only man I have confidence in--fancy his passing by just at this time! Thank God! No chance of his calling at Brook-street before he goes home, as he used to do; we must go on to his house at once and leave a message for him." Here the impetuous old gentleman hailed a hansom, which drew up abruptly in dangerous proximity to his toes.
"Stop a moment," said Ronald. "You had better get home, in case I can persuade Dr. Wilmot to call, and tell Lady Muriel; it will save time. I will go on to his house."
"All right," said Kilsyth in a voice of positive cheerfulness. The mere sight of Wilmot had acted like a strong cordial upon him--had restored his strength and his confidence.
"Don't I recollect how he saved her before, when she was much worse, when she was actually in the clutch of a mortal disease? And he will save her again! he will save her again!" said the old man to himself as he drove homewards. He went directly to Lady Muriel's boudoir, and communicated to her the glad tidings of Ronald's mission, which had filled him with hope and joy.
The rich red colour flew to Lady Muriel's cheek, and the light shone in her dark eyes. To her too the news was precious, delicious; but not so the intelligence which formed its corollary. What! Ronald Kilsyth gone to solicit Dr. Wilmot's attendance on his sister! Ronald Kilsyth bringing about the renewal of this danger which she, apparently ably assisted by fate, had put far from her! What availed Wilmot's return, if he might see Madeleine again--might be with her? What availed it that Madeleine was no longer in the house with him, that she was free to see him, to enjoy his society undisputed? As Kilsyth saw how her face lighted up, how her colour rose, he rejoiced in her sympathy with his feelings; with his hope and relief, he blessed her in his heart for her love for his Madeleine. And she listened to him, dominated in turn by irresistible joy and by burning anger.
That there can be such a thing as a broken heart; that love, misguided, misdirected, fixed upon the wrong object, and never finding "its earthly close," having to pine in secret, and to take out its revenge in saying deteriorating and spiteful things of its successful rival, ever kills, is nowadays generally accepted as nonsense. In the daily round of the work-a-day life there are too many things hourly cropping up to allow a man of any spirit to permit himself to hug to his bosom the corpse of a dead joy, or to bemoan over the reminiscence of vanished happiness. He must be up and doing; he must go in to his business, read his newspaper, give his orders to his clerks, write his letters--or at least sign them; go to his club, eat his dinner, and go through his ordinary routine, each item of which fills up his time, and prevents him from dwelling on the atrocious perfidy of the Being who has deceived him. The evening has generally been considered a favourable time for indulging in those reflections which, by their bitterness, bring about the anatomical consequences so much to be deplored; but your modern Strephon either forgets his own woes in reading of the fictitious woes of others, duly supplied by Mr. Mudie, or in witnessing them depicted on the stage, or in listening to the cynical wisdom of the smoking-room, which, if he duly imbibe it, leads him rather to think he has had a wonderful escape; or in the friendly game of whist, when deference to his partner's interest, to say the least of it, requires that he should keep his thoughts from wandering into that subject so redolent of bitter-sweet. The heart-breaking business is out of date, it is rococo, it is bygone; and one might as well look to see the brazen greaves of bold Sir Lancelot flashing in our English imitation of the sunshine, and to hear the knight singing "Lirra-lirra!" as he rode up the banks of the Serpentine, as to believe in its existence nowadays.
So that those who may have imagined that Chudleigh Wilmot had given up all relish of and interest in life must have been grievously disappointed. When he first went abroad, grief and rage were in his heart, and he cared but little what became of him. When he first received the news of Mr. Foljambe's bequest, there sprung up in him a new feeling of hope and joy, such as he had never had before, which lasted but a very few hours, being uprooted and cast out by the announcement of Madeleine's marriage in the newspaper. When he returned to London, his mind was so far made up, that he contemplated very calmly the possibility of such an existence--without Madeleine, that is to say--as a few hours previously he had deemed impossible; and though on first entering on the new life the old ghosts which "come to trouble joy" would occasionally await him; and though after that chance meeting with Madeleine and Lady Muriel in the Park he was for some little time much disturbed, yet, on the whole, he managed to live his life quietly, soberly, peacefully, and not unhappily.
The man who, after years of active employment, inherits or obtains a competency, and straightway lies upon his oars and looks round him for the remainder of his life, immediately falls into a sad way, and comes speedily to a bad end. Wilmot was quite sufficient man of the world to be aware of this; and though he had retired from the active practice of his profession, indeed from practising in any way, he still kept up his medical studies, and now became one of the most sought-after and most influential contributors to the best of our scientific publications. In this way he found exercise enough for his mental faculties, which had been somewhat burdened and overtasked with all the hard work which he had gone through in his early life; and as for the rest, he found he had done society a great injustice in estimating its resources so meanly as he had been used to do. By degrees he gave up the rule which he had at first kept so strictly, never to go into ladies' society; and the first plunge made he felt that he enjoyed himself therein more than in any other. He found that his reputation, which had been considerably increased by the literary work on which he had recently engaged, smoothed the way for him on first introduction; and that the fact of his being a middle-aged widower secured for him that pleasant license accorded to fogies, of which only fogies are thoroughly conscious and appreciative. Instead of losing caste or position, he felt that he had gained it; all the best people who had been his patients in the old days kept up their acquaintance with him, and asked him to their houses; and after the publication of a paper by him on a momentous subject of the day, containing new and striking views which at once commanded public attention and attracted public comment, he was placed on a Royal Commission among some of the first men of the time, and an intimation was conveyed to him that Government would be glad to avail themselves of his services.
And the old wearing, tearing feeling of love and disappointment and regret which had blighted so many hours of his life, and which he thought at one time would sap life itself, was gone, was it? Well, not entirely. It had been an era in his life which was never to be forgotten, which was never to be otherwise renewed. Night after night he saw pretty charming girls, all of whom would have been pleased by a flattering word from the celebrated Dr. Wilmot, many of whom would have listened more than complacently to anything he might have chosen to say to them,--"he is very rich, my dear, and goes into excellent society." But he never said anything, because he never thought anything of the kind. Sometimes when alone, in the pauses of his work, he would look up from off his book or his paper, and then straightway he would see--although his thoughts had been previously engrossed with something entirely different--a bright flushed face, with blue eyes, and a nimbus of golden hair surrounding it. But for a moment he would see it, and then it would fade away; but in that moment how many memories had it evoked! Sometimes he would take from a special drawer in his desk a small knot of blue ribbon, and a thin letter, frayed in its folds, and bearing traces of having been for some time carried in the pocket. Slight memorials these of the only love of a lifetime which had now extended to some forty years; not much to show in return for an all-absorbing passion which at one time threatened to have dire effect on his health, on his life--yet cherished all the more, perhaps, on account of their insignificance! These were memorials of Miss Kilsyth, be it understood: of Mrs. Ramsay Caird Chudleigh always rigidly repeated to himself that he knew nothing--that he never would know anything.
But one morning Chudleigh Wilmot was sitting in his library after his breakfast, his slippered feet resting idly on a chair, he himself in placid enjoyment of the newspaper and a cigar, which, since he had freed himself from professional restraint, he had taken as a pleasant solace, when suddenly, and without being in any way led up to, the subject of his dream of the previous night flashed suddenly across his mind. It was about Madeleine. He remembered that he had seen her lying outstretched on her bed dead; there were Christmas berries in her golden hair, and the robe which covered her was embroidered with the initial letters of his name twisted into a monogram, such as was engraved on the binding of a present of books which he had recently received from one of his great friends, and on the little finger of her hand, which lay outside the coverlet, was Mabel's signet-ring. He remembered all this vividly now; remembered too how, when he had gone forward with the intention of taking off the ring, a female form, clad in dark sweeping garments, but with its face shrouded, had risen by the bedside and motioned him away. He remembered how he felt persuaded, although the face was hidden, that the form was known to him--was that of Henrietta Prendergast; how he had persisting in approaching; and how at length the muffled form had spoken, saying only these words, "It was not to be!" What followed he could not remember: there was a kind of chaos, out of which rose figures of Whittaker and Colonel Jefferson, the man whom he had met in Scotland, and Ronald Kilsyth in full uniform, with his sword drawn and pointed at his (Chudleigh's) heart; and then he had waked, and the whole remembrance of the dream had departed from him until that moment, when simultaneously the door of his room was thrown open, and Ronald Kilsyth stood before him.
That was no dream. Wilmot thought at first that his waking fancies were running in the track of his sleeping thoughts; but there was Ronald Kilsyth, somewhat changed from the man he remembered--less grim and stoical, a trifle less cynical, and a trifle more human,--but still Ronald Kilsyth standing before him.
"You are surprised to see me, Dr. Wilmot," said Ronald, advancing hesitatingly,--"surprised to see me here, after--after so long an interval."
"On the last occasion of our meeting, Captain Kilsyth," replied Wilmot, "you were good enough to tell me that you objected to the ordinary set phrases of society, and preferred straightforward answers. I have not forgotten that interview, or anything that passed therein; and I have every desire, believe me, to accommodate you--at least so far as that wish is concerned. My straightforward answer to your question is, I am surprised to see you in this house."
"I looked for no other reply. You seem to forget that, even so far ago as our last meeting, you were pleased to fall in with my whim, and to answer me with perfect candour, however painful it might have been--it was--to you. That conversation will doubtless be remembered by you, Dr. Wilmot."
What did this mean? Was the man come here, in the assurance of his own cold, calm stoicism, to triumph over him? Whence this most indecorous outrage on his privacy, this insult to his feelings? Of all men, this man knew how he had suffered, and how he had borne his sufferings. Why, then, was he here, at such a moment, with such words on his lips?
"I perfectly remember that conversation, Captain Kilsyth," was all Wilmot replied.
"You will spare me, then, a great deal of acute pain in referring to it," said Ronald. "Refer to it I must, but my reference will be of the most general kind. I sought that interview beseeching you"--Wilmot gave a short half-laugh, which Ronald noticed--"Well, you stickle for terms, it appears,--demanding of you to give up a pursuit in which you were then engaged--a pursuit to which you attached the greatest interest, but which I knew would not only be futile in its results to you, but would be fraught with distress and danger to one who was very dear to me. You acquiesced in my reasoning--at great sorrow and disappointment to yourself, I know--and you gave up the pursuit."
"You are very good to make such large allowances for me, Captain Kilsyth," said Wilmot in a hard dry voice. "Yes, I gave it up; at great sorrow and disappointment to myself, as you are good enough to say."
"I can fully understand the feelings which now influence you, Dr. Wilmot," said Ronald, far more gently than was his wont; "and, believe me, I do not quarrel with or take exception at the tone in which they are now expressed. You gave up that pursuit, and you carried out the intention you then expressed to me of leaving England."
"I did. I left England within a fortnight of that conversation. I should not have returned when I did--I should not have returned even now, most probably--had it not been for circumstances then utterly unforeseen, but of which you may have heard, which compelled me to come back at once."
Ronald bowed; he had heard of those circumstances, he said.
"And now, pardon me, Captain Kilsyth, if I just run through what has occurred. It cannot be, you will allow, less unpleasant for me to do so than for you; but since we have met again,--at an interview not of my seeking, recollect,--it is as well that they should be understood. You told me in my consulting-room in Charles-street that you had reason to believe that your sister, Miss Kilsyth, was--let us put it plainly--loved by me. You said that, or at least you implied that, you had reason to believe that she was interested in me. You told me that any question of marriage between us was impossible; first, because I had originally made your sister's acquaintance when I was a married man; secondly, because my station in life--you put it kindly, as a gentleman would, but that was the gist of your argument--because my station in life was inferior to hers. I do not know, Captain Kilsyth," continued Wilmot, whose voice grew harder as he proceeded, "that your reasoning was so subtle in either case as not to admit of controversy, perhaps even of disproof; but I felt that when a young lady's name was in question, when there was, as you assured me there was--and you were much more a man of the world than I--the chance of the slightest slur being cast on her, it was my duty to sacrifice my own feelings, however strong they might have been in the matter. I did so. To the best of my ability I stamped out my love; I pocketed my pride; I gave up the best feelings of my nature, and I did as you and your friends wished. I went abroad, and remained grizzling and feeding on my own heart for months. At length I heard of a stroke of good fortune which had befallen me. I had previously made for myself a name which was respected and honoured; and you, who know more of these things than your compeers, or people in your 'set,' can appreciate the worth of the renown which a man makes off his own bat by the exercise of his talents; and by the chance which I have named I had now inherited a fortune--a large fortune for any man not born to wealth. When this news reached me, my first thought was, Now, surely, my coast is clear. I can go back to England; I can say to Miss Kilsyth's friends, I am renowned; I am rich; I am, I hope, a gentleman in the ordinary acceptation of the term. If this young lady will accept my court, why should it not be paid her? Within twenty-four hours of my learning of my inheritance, of my determination, I heard that Miss Kilsyth was married."
"There was no stipulation, I believe, Dr. Wilmot--at least so far as I am concerned--no compact, no given time during which Miss Kilsyth should keep single, in the view of anything that might happen to you?"
"None in the world; and so far as Miss Kilsyth is concerned--her name is being bandied between us in the course of conversation, but it is my duty to say that I have not the smallest atom of complaint to make against her. To this hour, so far as I know, she is unacquainted with my feelings towards her, and can consequently be held responsible for no acts of hers at which I may feel aggrieved. But you must let me continue. I will not tell you what effect the intelligence of Miss Kilsyth's marriage had on me. I had been raised to the highest pinnacle of hope, I was cast down into the lowest depths of despair. That concerned no one but myself. I returned to England. Miss Kilsyth was Mrs. Ramsay Caird--I had learned that from the public prints--no private announcement, no wedding-cards awaited me. The story of my vast inheritance got wind, as such things do, and all my friends--all my acquaintance, let me say, to use a more fitting word, called on me or sent their congratulations. From your family, from Mrs. Ramsay Caird, I had not the slightest notice. The young lady whose life--if you credit her father--I had saved a few months previously, and her family, who professed themselves so grateful, ignored my existence. To this hour I have had no communication with Kilsyth, with Lady Muriel, with the Ramsay Cairds. I met Lady Muriel and her daughter once by the merest accident--an accident entirely unsought by me--and they bowed to me as though I were a tradesman who had been pestering for his bill. What am I to gather from this treatment? One of two things--either that I was regarded merely as the 'doctor' who was called in when his services were needed, but who, when he had fulfilled his functions and saved the patient, was no more to be recognised than the butcher when he had supplied the required joint of meat; or that, by those who knew, or thought they knew, the inner circumstances of the case, my moral character was so highly esteemed that, guessing I had been in love with Miss Kilsyth, it was judged expedient that I should have no opportunity of acquaintance with Mrs. Ramsay Caird. I ask you, Captain Kilsyth, which of these suppositions is correct?"
Wilmot spoke with great warmth. Ronald Kilsyth looked on with wonder; he could scarcely imagine that the man who now stood erect before him with flashing eye and curled lips, every one of whose sentences rang with scorn, was the same being who, on the occasion of their last interview, had urged his suit so humbly, and accepted his dismissal with such resignation.
After a short pause Ronald said: "You speak strongly, Dr. Wilmot, very strongly; but you have great cause for annoyance; and the fact that you have borne it so long in silence of course adds to the violence of your expressions now. I think I could soften your opinion--I think I could show that my father and Lady Muriel have had some excuse for their conduct; at all events, that they believed they were doing rightly in acting as they did. But this is not the time for me to enter into that discussion. I have come to you in the discharge of a mission which is urgent and imperative. You know me to be a cold and a proud man, Dr. Wilmot, and will therefore allow I must be convinced of its urgency when I consented to undertake it. I have come to say to you--leaving all things for the present unexplained, and even in the state in which you have just described them--I have come to say to you my sister is very ill; will you go and see her?" He was standing close by Wilmot as he spoke, and saw him change colour, and reel as though he would have fallen.
"Very ill?" he said, after a moment's pause, with white lips and trembling voice. "Mad--Mrs. Caird, very ill?"
"Very ill; so ill, that my father is seriously alarmed about her; so ill, that I have obeyed his wishes, and ask you to come to her."
Wilmot was silent for a moment, in thought; not that he had the smallest doubt as to what he should do; but the news had come so suddenly upon him, that he could scarcely comprehend its significance. Then he said, "Where is she? in town?"
"She is--at her own house. I know I am asking you a great deal in begging you to go there, but--you won't refuse us, Wilmot?"
"I will go at once to your sister, Captain Kilsyth," said Wilmot, pressing Ronald's outstretched hand; "and God grant I may be of service to her!"
"I won't say any thanks; but you know how grateful we shall all of us be. Perhaps Madeleine had better be a little prepared for your visit; if you were to meet quite unexpectedly, it might agitate her."
Wilmot agreed in this, and promised to come that afternoon.
It was three o'clock--just the hour when Squab-street woke up, and became alive to the fact that day had dawned. The light had indeed penetrated the little street at its usual hour, and the sun had shone; but still Squab-street could not be considered to be fully awake. Tradesmen had come and gone; area-bells had rung out shrilly; grooms on horseback had followed the Amazon daughters of the natives to the morning-ride in the Row; governesses had arrived, and had taken their young charges into the neighbouring square garden for bodily exercise and mental recreation; neat little broughams had deposited neat little foreigners, whose admission into the houses had been immediately followed by the thumping of the piano and the screaming of the female voice; but the cream of Squab-street society had not yet been seen, save by its female attendants. Three o'clock, however, had arrived; luncheon was over, carriages began to rattle up and down, the street resounded with double knocks indefinitely prolonged, and all the little passages were redolent of hair-powder. All society's mummers were acting away at their hardest; and all who passed up and down Squab-street were too much engrossed with themselves or their fellow-performers to notice a very blank and mournful face looking out at them from the drawing-room window of the little house at the corner of the mews. This was Kilsyth's face, which had been planted against the window for the previous half-hour, in anxious expectation of Wilmot's arrival. Sick at heart, and overpowered by anxiety, the old man had taken his position where he could catch the first glimpse of him on whom his life now solely rested; and he scanned every vehicle that approached with eager eyes. At length a brougham, very different from that in which he used to pay his visits in his professional days, perfectly appointed, and drawn by horses which even Clement Penruddock himself could not have designated as "screws," drew up at the door, and Wilmot jumped out. Two minutes afterwards Kilsyth, with his eyes full of tears, was holding both his friend's hands, and murmuring to him his thanks.
"I knew you would come!" he said; "I knew you would come! No matter what had happened in the interval--no matter that, as they told me, you had retired from practice and went nowhere--I said, 'Let him know that Madeleine is very ill, and he'll come! he'll be sure to come!'"
"And you said right, my dear sir," said Wilmot, returning the friendly pressure; "and I only hope to Heaven that my coming now may be as efficacious as it was when you summoned me to Kilsyth--ah, how long ago that seems! Now tell me--for my conversation with Captain Kilsyth was necessarily brief, and admitted of no details concerning the state of his sister--the tendency to weakness on the lungs, which I spoke to you about just before I left Scotland, has increased, I fear?"
"It has been increasing rapidly, we fancy, for the last few months; and she is now never free from a cough, a hollow, dreadful cough, the paroxysms of which are sometimes terrible, and leave her perfectly exhausted. She never complains; on the contrary, she makes light of it, and struggles to hide her pain and weakness from us. But I fear she is very, very ill!" The old man's voice sunk as he said this, and the tears flowed down his cheeks.
"Come, come, you must not give way, my good friend; while there's life there's hope, you know; and what is very dreadful and hopeless to an unprofessional eye has a very different aspect frequently to those who have studied these diseases. I think Captain Kilsyth came here to prepare Mrs. Caird for my visit?"
"O yes, she expects you. She was greatly excited at first; so much so that we were afraid she would do herself harm; but I think she is calmer now."
"Then perhaps I had better go to her at once. It is always desirable in these cases as much as possible to avoid suspense. Will you show me the way?"
They went upstairs together; and when they arrived at the room, Kilsyth opened the door, and left Wilmot to enter by himself. As the door closed behind him, he looked up, and saw the woman whom he had loved with such devotion and yet with such bitter regret. She was lying on a sofa drawn across the window, propped up by pillows. She turned round at the noise of his entrance; and as soon as she recognised her visitor, her cheeks flushed to the deepest crimson. Wilmot advanced rapidly, with as cheerful a smile as he could assume, and took her hand--her hot, wasted, and trembling hand--within both of his. She was dreadfully changed--he saw that in an instant. There were deep hollows in her cheeks, and round her blue eyes, which were now feverishly bright and lustrous, there were large bistre circles. She wore a white dressing-gown trimmed with blue,--such a one as was associated with his earliest recollections of her; and as he saw her lying back and looking up at him with earnest trusting gaze, he was reminded of the first time he saw her in the fever at Kilsyth, but with O what a difference in his hope of saving her!
"You see I have come back to you, Mrs. Caird," said Wilmot, seating himself by the sofa, but still retaining her hand. "You thought you had got rid of me for ever; but I am like the bottle-imp in the story, impossible to be sent away. Now, own you are surprised to see me!"
"I am not indeed, Dr. Wilmot," Madeleine replied, in a voice the hollow tones of which went to Wilmot's heart. Ah, how unlike the sweet, clear, ringing tones which he so well remembered! "I am not indeed surprised to see you. I had a perfect conviction," she said very calmly, "that I should see you once again. At that time--at Kilsyth, you remember--I thought I was going to die, you know; and when I knew I should recover, as I lay in a dreamy half-conscious state, I recollect having a presentiment that when I did die you would be near me--that you would stand by my bedside, as you used to do, and--"
"My dearest Mrs. Caird, I cannot listen to you; my--my child, for God's sake don't talk in that way! I used to have to tell you to calm yourself, you know; but now you must rouse up--you must indeed."
"O no, Dr. Wilmot; not rouse myself to any action, not wake up again to the dreary struggle of life! O no; let me sink quietly into my grave, but--"
His hand trembled with emotion as he laid his finger lightly on her lip, and his voice was choked and husky as he said: "I must insist! You used to obey me implicitly, you recollect; and you must show that you have not forgotten your old ways. And now tell me all about yourself."
Half an hour afterwards, as Wilmot was descending the stairs, he met Kilsyth at the drawing-room door, with haggard looks and trembling hands, waiting for him. They went into the drawing-room together; and the old man, carefully closing the door behind him, turned to his friend, and said in broken accents; "Well, what do you say? what--what do you think?"
Wilmot's face was very grave, graver than Kilsyth had ever seen it, even at the worst time of the fever, as he said: "I think it is a very serious case, my dear friend--a very serious case."
"Has the--the mischief increased much since you detected it--up in Scotland?"
"The disease has spread very rapidly--very rapidly indeed."
"And you--you think that she is--in danger?"
"I think--it would be useless, it would be unmanly in me to withhold the truth from you; I fear that Mrs. Caird's state is imminently dangerous, and that--"
Wilmot stopped, for Kilsyth reeled and almost fell. Recovering himself after a moment, he said, in a low hoarse whisper: "Change of climate--Madeira--Egypt--anywhere?"
"No; she has not sufficient strength to bear the journey. If she had spent last winter at Cannes, and had gone on in the spring to Egypt--but it is too late."
"Too late!" shrieked Kilsyth, bursting into an agony of grief; "too late! My darling child! my darling, darling child!"
"My poor friend," said Wilmot, himself deeply affected, "what can I say to comfort you in this awful trial? what can I do?"
"One thing!" said the old man, rising from the sofa on which he had thrown himself, "there is one thing you can do--visit her, watch her, attend her; you'll see her again, won't you, Wilmot?"
"Constantly--and to the end. She knows that. I made her that promise just now;" and he wrung his friend's hand and left him.