CHAPTER XXII.

"MRS. GRUNDY."

General Trecarrel, who was an amiable and well-disposed man, felt the utmost regret in having been present at an interview so painful, unseemly, and perplexing. Notwithstanding the calmness, dignity, and confidence with which Constance asserted her claims to wifehood and nobility, he had his secret doubts—which Downie had not—as to the legality of the ties that had subsisted between her and his late friend, Richard Trevelyan. Yet he could not but think of her kindly, humanely, and with interest; she seemed so perfectly ladylike, was so gentle and so beautiful.

In short, the old soldier, little given to study character or matters not military, felt sorely bewildered by the strange story so suddenly unfolded by his fair neighbour, and withdrew to think over it and to dress for dinner.

"So that odious woman and the cunning minx, her daughter, are gone at last?" said Mrs. Downie—the acknowledged Lady Lamorna—entering the carpeted library, softly and noiselessly, in her usual languid and wearied way.

"Yes, Gartha—at last," replied her husband, who was still seated at the writing-table with his head resting on his left hand, for he was full of thoughts that oppressed him.

"You look disturbed, Downie dear?" she lisped, as she sank into her easy chair and resumed the feather fan or hand screen.

"That idiot Audley has complicated matters by forming an attachment for the woman's daughter; but Trecarrel, who goes soon to India now, shall take him off there at once."

"And what was the object of her visit, pray?"

"Oh, she came here to try the favourite Whig scheme—conciliation at any price, no matter how humiliating; and exhibited a letter she had manufactured, as from my brother; but it won't pass with me—no, no!"

"You are right to repel such attempts as this; and I agree with you that Audley had better relinquish what remains of his leave and quit England," she replied, yet not without a sigh, for her son had been but a short time at home, and India was so far away. But anything was better than that he should entangle himself with a girl like this—her son Audley, when she had almost registered a vow "never to syllable a name unchronicled by Debrett;" the idea was absurd, horrible in the extreme!

"Perhaps, Downie dear," said she, after a little consideration, "we are too fearful. I have read somewhere that 'boy and girl cousins never fraternise.'"

"Don't they, by Jove!" growled Downie; "especially when they come to the age of puberty, without having known each other previously. Then the Scots have a proverb about 'blood being thicker than water,' though I can't see it in that way myself. The girl is remarkably handsome, and Audley's affair with her must have made considerable progress ere her letter came into my possession in London."

"Handsome? dear, dear! do you really think so? I thought her very saucy in expression, and a positive dowdy, in a dress made, no doubt, by some Penzance milliner," replied the lady, while contemplating complacently her own magnificent black moire, for she did not entertain more charitable opinions respecting the daughter than the mother.

Though more advanced in life than Constance (for she had been married some years before her), the wife of Downie had still considerable remains of beauty, and, despite time and dimples turning fast to wrinkles, she was bent upon being gay, young, and beautiful still. She had an air that decidedly denoted high breeding, with much of languor and indifference to all that passed around her. She had completely attained that bearing of placidity, utter vacuity or unimpressionability, so sedulously affected or adopted by many among the upper class of English society, and even by their middle-class imitators. However, all the little spirit or energy she ever possessed fired up now, in the conviction that she was the Right Honourable Lady Lamorna, that Audley was one of "England's Honourable Misters," and that Gartha should find a husband among the tufts and strawberry leaves at least.

Downie had not her ambition even in these matters, but had naturally avarice; and his profession had, of course, taught him trickery. "Despair of no man," it has been said: "there are touches of kindness in natures the very roughest, that redeem whole lives of harshness;" but to have sought for charity or kindness at the hands of Downie were a task as easy as taking a bone from a famished tiger.

That day, at the dinner-table, after the ladies had withdrawn, and Downie, the General, and Audley were lingering over their wine (or wines rather), the conversation naturally turned to the recent visit of Constance and her daughter; and a painful theme it proved to the young officer.

From General Trecarrel he had previously obtained a narrative of all that had passed, and though he thanked Heaven that he had been absent, his heart was preyed upon by many keen and conflicting emotions. He loved Sybil tenderly, he acknowledged to himself; but could he think of marriage with her, when she was the daughter of a woman in a position as dubious as that of Constance was now openly declared to be—one, moreover, whose claims were so startling, and whose allegations were, as his father called them, so daring as to merit criminal prosecution,—for so had the lawyer said in his wrath and the strength of his own position!

Intense pity for the girl mingled with his passion for her, and added to his great perplexity; and thus, while his cheek alternately flushed and grew pale, he sat with half-averted face, and the fingers of one hand buried among his thick brown hair, irritated by the conviction that his father's cold, keen, and scrutinising eyes were bent loweringly upon him, while in silence he heard the General bluntly urging him "if he had any tender views in that quarter, to get rid of them as soon as possible, and be off to join his regiment;" for to Trecarrel military service seemed a cure for every human ill.

"But the letter she showed you?" pled Audley.

"That letter, sir, I have already denounced as a most daring forgery!" replied Downie, with as much energy as his usually quiet manner permitted.

"Could she—one so eminently like a lady—be guilty of such a crime?"

"Your uncle's mistress would be, of course, familiar with his handwriting."

Audley felt his heart vibrate painfully at this injurious but, as the circumstances seemed to stand, not inapplicable term. Compassion and tenderness pleaded for the dove-eyed Sybil; but policy, society, or the promptings of "Mrs. Grundy" urged that he should, nay must, relinquish all thought of her for ever; so while sitting there, sipping his golden-tinted château yquem, and playing with the embossed grape scissors, to all appearance very calm and quiet, a storm of doubt and shame was struggling in his heart with love; "for this passion," says Lord Bacon, "hath its floods in the very times of weakness, which are great prosperity and great adversity, both which times kindle love and make it more fervent." And now Sybil was in an adversity of which he knew not the actual depth.

"To me it seems that you are somewhat severe in this whole affair, General," said he, after a pause.

"God forgive me if I am so!" replied Trecarrel, earnestly.

"Suppose this girl's position to be all you advance, if we love because we like and admire each other, are we to be censured?"

"Then who the devil should be censured?" said his father, with asperity.

"Destiny."

"Pshaw!" said Downie; "this is mere romance—mooning!"

"And deuced unlike one of the 14th Hussars," added Trecarrel.

"The very rubbish of which dramas are made."

"You are right, Downie; but, till now, I always thought this young fellow of yours was rather fond of my girl Rose."

Audley coloured deeply, and assisted himself to wine, as he said—

"I greatly admire both Miss Trecarrel and her sister Miss Rose; but I have not the honour to stand higher in their favour than that of others."

"But this girl Devereaux——" his father was beginning passionately.

"Excuse me, dear sir," interrupted Audley, "if I beg that you will cease to taunt me on this painful subject. The tenor of the letter she wrote to me—the letter which you found on my desk, and which in all fairness you should not have read—a Lieutenant of the Line not being exactly a schoolboy—sufficiently evinced that we were on terms of affection and intimacy. I knew not then who she was, or who her people were. I had saved her life, as the General knows, at considerable peril, and so there grew a tender tie between us; but all shall be ended now," he continued in a tone of emotion. "I see that it must be so, sir. I see also the necessity for not compromising your just title to the rank and place you hold by attaching myself in any way to the fortunes of the Devereaux. So I implore you to let the matter cease, or I shall quit the room—yes, even the house itself, so surely as I shall ere long quit England, perhaps never to return!"

"I thank you for this promise, Audley," said Downie emphatically; "and when once with your regiment, you shall find your allowance most amply increased."

"For that I thank you, sir," said Audley, sighing.

"I am richer now than when you were in the Hussars."

"And out of that wealth, Downie—I beg pardon, I mean my Lord Lamorna—I trust you will do something handsome now for poor Dick's widow and orphan?" blundered the General.

"Widow and orphan!" repeated Downie, with growing anger.

"Well, widow in one sense."

"In what sense?"

"A widow of the heart," persisted Trecarrel, reddening to the roots of his grizzled hair. "She and her pretty daughter have suffered a fearful stroke of fortune—and even poverty may not be the most severe trial before them."

"I shall settle a small sum on the mother, perhaps," said Downie, reluctantly; "and get the girl, if you wish it, a situation as companion at a distance from this."

"Companion? That is a kind of upper servant who must wash the spaniel, and feed the parrot," said the General, testily; "supervise the maid that dresses her mistress's hair, read novels aloud, and sermons on Sunday; write invitations, and answer them; pay all bills, and stand all manner of vapours and ill-humours, for thirty pounds per annum and a quiet home! Come, come, Downie, d—n it," added Trecarrel, "you might do something more handsome than that for a daughter of Richard Trevelyan."

"Sir," replied the other, becoming slightly ruffled by the old officer's perfect bluntness, "when certain people in this world cannot get white bread and wine, they should content them with brown bread and water; they must also work, if they would not beg. I think that I shall have done enough if I do what I propose for the daughter; and as for the mother, through my humble endeavours, a housekeeper's place or the matronage of a lunatic asylum may be procured for her, if she is in poverty, and if her want of previous character could be tided over with the Board of Guardians. By her daring claim, she has certainly striven to injure me and all my innocent family," added Downie loftily; "yet I do not wish evil to happen to her."

"Whether we wish it or wish it not, neither will come according to our mere human desire," retorted the General; "so pass the Madeira, please, Audley, for here comes Funnel with the coffee—a hint that we are to join the ladies in the drawing-room."

Downie Trevelyan had always had his secret fears of the family in the villa at Porthellick, and he knew not exactly how strong their claims upon his dead brother might be. However, he had lost no time in having himself fully served heir to the late lord, on the loss of the steamer "Admiral" becoming an ascertained fact; and, though a lawyer by profession, he now literally loathed the sight of the circulars and letters that poured in upon him on his accession to rank and fortune. There were legal details to be filled up, dry formalities to be gone through with perplexing repetitions and minuteness; there were entreaties from tradesmen that "his Lordship would not change the family custom," and applications of a similar nature from town and country agents to retain their agencies, &c., &c. Then there was "the suit of those Devereaux," as he called a bulky and menacing document which a shabby-looking fellow deposited at Rhoscadzhel one morning, with lists of the vexatious papers required for the defence—all the preparation of "some hedge-lawyer—some low legal desperado," as Downie styled him; for he now himself felt, in the tone and tenour of these legal letters and documents, the pointed stings he had for years past so pitilessly planted in others.

The legal document had the effect of completing all the silent arguments of Mrs. Grundy in the mind of Audley. But a few days ago, he was so happy in the conviction that he loved Sybil and was beloved again; and now he saw the necessity for action and resolution, and alike quitting her and England.

He seated himself at his desk one evening for the purpose of writing an explanatory or, if he could achieve it, an exculpatory and farewell letter to Sybil; but, after various attempts, he had got no further than the date, when Mr. Jasper Funnel entered the room, with a little sealed packet on a silver salver.

It had just come in the household despatch-box from Hayle, and bore the Porthellick postmark, so he tore it open with trembling hands.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A LEGAL "FRIEND."

Constance never smiled again; yet in the presence of Sybil she never gave way to the paroxysms of passionate grief that came over her when she was alone or in the seclusion of her own chamber. Wealth and title, so long looked forward to in the years that were gone, seemed alike most worthless now, save that with the loss of these her children lost their position in life, and herself her name and honour! Ever present was the idea, Oh that her husband could look up from his grave, and see the impending ruin and desolation of their once-happy home! for, as we have already said, their means of subsistence died with him.

And now, how were they to live? The present time was agony; the future dark and gloomy.

Paragraphs, the tenour of which proved intensely annoying to Downie Trevelyan and all his family, and which were painful and degrading to Constance and Sybil (for such they felt them to be), began to find their way into the local and even the London papers, under exciting titles or headings, such as "Singular Case of Presumption," or "Insanity," "The Cornish Widow again," "The Lamorna Peerage," and so forth; and Messrs. Gorbelly and Culverhole, as "his Lordship's solicitors," in writing answers or contradictions to some of these effusions, were but too happy, by such legal advertisements, to mix their somewhat obscure and vulgar names with the affair.

Audley read those insulting notices, assertions, and contradictions with infinite sorrow and pain, for then Sybil's pleading and upbraiding eyes would come before him. Through such uncourted publicity, however, the mother and daughter began to find themselves coldly viewed by neighbours now. The rector ceased to come near the villa; the village doctor whipped up his horse as he passed the end of the willow avenue; and even the usually friendly Trecarrels left for town—rumour said correctly, for India—without paying another visit, though perhaps, as theirs had never been returned, they could not do otherwise.

All the charity and good they had performed, in all the necessities relieved, all the ailments alleviated, all the countless little kindnesses done, went for nothing now; for the world is a malevolent and censorious one; and that devilish maxim of Rochefoucauld, that people feel a strange satisfaction in the misfortunes of their best friends, was fully exemplified. Constance's new and startling assertion of rank and position, however meekly done, formed excellent food for the tongues of the malicious and vulgar, who exist everywhere. She had to bear unjustly the contempt of many, the ridicule of all; so that her pretty villa became daily less and less a home.

From the tenour of that horrible interview at Rhoscadzhel, where every word that passed seemed as if burned into her heart with letters of fire, Sybil felt a sure conviction that all must and should be at an end between herself and Audley Trevelyan. The treatment of her mother, of her absent brother's claims, of her own, and of her dead father's memory, his will and wishes, all required this sacrifice at her hands; so resolutely and calmly—though a few tears rolled silently down her cheek the while—she drew his diamond ring from her "engaged" finger—an engaged one now no longer—and making it up in a packet, together with a few letters he had written to her, she despatched it, addressed by her own trembling hand, and without a word of comment, to Rhoscadzhel; and this packet it was which we have just seen Jasper Funnel place in the hands of his excited young master.

Her mother's embraces, tenderness, and kisses were her sole but best reward for acting thus; yet poor Sybil seemed the very impersonation of beauty, grief, and girlhood bordering on womanhood. The buoyancy of the former was gone; a change had come over her soft and once bright face, which wore a sad and settled expression now. It was that white woe which someone styles "the deepest mourning features can put on."

Her pencil and her piano, each so much the solace of her lonely hours, were, of course, relinquished now; and it seemed as if she should never take to them again. She looked ill, and appeared to be pining: but, sooth to say, it was less the loss of Audley than her mother's grief that affected her. The doctor, when summoned, pocketed his guinea, but did nothing more; so Winny Braddon urged Constance, but in vain, that "their poor chealveen" should be taken to the nearest Mean-tol (or Holed Stone) so that she might try the sovereign old Cornish cure for all mysterious ailments, by creeping through the orifice thereof; for in the ancient duchy, as in some parts of Ireland and the remote Scottish Isles, where such natural or artificial perforations were used of old by the Druids to initiate and dedicate their children to the offices of rock-worship, they are still regarded with superstition, as possessing the gift of effecting miraculous cures.

Constance, too, was ill, and in the excess of her grief and lowness of heart, she fancied herself worse than she really was; and ever present was the thought, how perilous the lonely path of life would be to a girl so beautiful as Sybil, if she—her mother—were taken away by the hand of death before another and fitting protector were provided. Morbid at times by sorrow, this reflection made the breast of Constance a prey to the most craving and clamorous anxiety.

But a short time before, and their worldly prospects had all been so different—so brilliant and happy. Now all was dark indeed! When she thought over all the baronial splendours of Rhoscadzhel, and the many mementoes of her husband which must be there, something of hatred for the invaders of her children's patrimony and her own marital rights began to mingle with her dull despair of ever proving that she had the latter; and with all her constitutional gentleness, when she recalled the glance bestowed upon her by Mr. Trevelyan on quitting the library, and the insinuations uttered by Downie against her, in presence of General Trecarrel, too, her blood boiled up within her.

"Oh, Sybil!" she exclaimed one day, after sitting long buried in thought, "some author says, 'there are wild beasts in the human race;' and truly your uncle Downie is one of these. Can it be possible that they had the same parents—he and your frank, generous, and open-hearted papa?—that they share the same blood, were nursed at the same breast, and nestled together, as I have heard, in the same little cot?"

Sybil was silent; she had, in this view of the matter, but one secret and reclaiming thought. Downie was Audley's father, and she would be merciful.

But it was when inspired by one of those gusts of indignation that Constance received, perhaps unfortunately, a visitor—an attorney from a neighbouring town—who stated that he had heard her strange and painful story, and had come to make a "friendly" offer of his legal services.

Now Mr. Sharkley—for such was his name—was exactly, in many respects, what Downie, in his rage, called him, and was an excellent specimen of perhaps the most dangerous character in society—a needy and unscrupulous lawyer. He was attired in rusty black garments, that seemed to have been made for a much taller man. The collar of his swallow-tailed coat rose above the nape of his neck, while the cuffs nearly reached to the points of his fingers, and the legs of his trousers flapped loosely over his instep. He had a low projecting forehead and keen eyes, the expression of which varied only between intense cunning and the lowest suspicion. His ears were enormous, set high upon his head; and the right one, from being long used as a pen-holder, projected from his skull more than the left. His features would have shocked Lavater, while Gall and Spurzheim would have augured the worst of his character by the development of his head.

His legal practice—though Constance was in blessed ignorance of the circumstance—was of the lowest kind, and had seldom proved beneficial in a monetary or any other sense to those for whom he unluckily acted as agent; but the fellow could be, when it suited him, suave, artful, and plausible when he had a purpose to serve, and a relentless bully when it was achieved; thus, seeing that though little or nothing could be made of the present case with the hope of success, much might be made of it in the way of money, perhaps, of notoriety certainly, and that in the end he might betray all he knew to Downie Trevelyan for a consideration—with these amiable views, he sought to worm himself as a friend and legal volunteer into the confidence of the otherwise friendless Constance.

Mr. Sharkley heard her story attentively, and committed it all to writing. That her marriage had been duly celebrated in a chapel at Montreal he doubted not, nor the reason for keeping it so secret—the absurd pride of old Lord Lamorna, whose aristocratic prejudices were a local proverb and hence her having, so unfortunately for her own honour, passed so long under her maiden name of Devereaux with her son and daughter.

But how was all this to be proved?

Père Latour was dead; the records of his chapel had been burned in one of the many conflagrations incident to the city; the certified extract from them had perished in the sea with her husband. Dick Braddon too had been drowned, and the acolyte, the other witness in the little French chapel, had been long since laid under a wooden cross in the little burial-ground that adjoined it. A few letters alone were not sufficient proof to upset in England—whatever they might have done in Scotland—the title and succession of a wealthy peer already in possession; yet nevertheless Mr. Sharkley talked about the instant institution of legal proceedings, having the matter brought before a select committee of privileges in the House of Lords, and so forth, quite as confidently and as pompously as if he was a Q.C. and high-class parliamentary lawyer; and poor Constance felt a glow of hope for her children's future rising in her heart, while he compiled a narrative, took away the letters of her husband, and, receiving in advance a handsome sum for certain imaginary fees and expenses, departed with nearly all the ready money she possessed.

He really attempted, however, to get up a case against "Lord Lamorna," and hence the bulky and presumptuous document which exasperated Downie; but from the weakness of her cause and the character of her legal adviser it speedily fell to the ground, only to fix a deeper stigma on the hapless and innocent Constance.

Rumours of misfortune and mystery brought all their creditors, now pretty numerous (for during her husband's lifetime they had lived in good style at the villa), down upon her in a pitiless horde.

Denzil, she knew, would now lose the liberal allowance his father had promised him after leaving Sandhurst on appointment; but with tentage, batta, and other allowance, a subaltern can live on his pay in India, when he might starve elsewhere. In her misery Constance gathered some comfort from this knowledge, though ruin and penury—or work for which they were both unfitted—were all that remained to her and Sybil now.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCES.

And what of Audley, the lover, all this time?

He had written from Rhoscadzhel to Constance, imploring her permission in moving terms to see Sybil once again, and have some farewell explanation with her, ere he departed to India, too probably for years; for, with the usual inconsistency of the human heart, no sooner did he find himself repelled, than he felt the attraction towards her redoubled. This letter had been addressed to Constance as "Mrs. Devereaux;" and, without reflecting that he could not bestow upon her a title already borne by his own mother, she felt fresh anger at the circumstance. Without showing the missive to Sybil, who conceived it might be on some legal business, she cast it in the fire, and replied by an emphatic refusal, adding that if he came near the villa, which they were soon about to leave, her servant, Winny Braddon (she had but one domestic now) had received orders not to admit him.

Undeterred, he next wrote to Sybil, but this effort proved equally unavailing. Resolved not to add to her mother's distress by any disobedience or duplicity on her part, she showed her the letter unopened; and it was at once re-addressed to Rhoscadzhel, with the envelope unbroken, and Audley flushed to the temples when it was placed in his hand.

He felt himself to be still solemnly engaged to Sybil, yet hopelessly separated from her, through no fault of his own—separated without even a lovers' quarrel. He wondered now at the selfish thoughts which more than once had occurred to him, particularly on that day when he quitted the library, and even the house, in such haste to avoid her, and times there were when he blushed at the memory of it. Relations they were unquestionably by blood, whether there had been a marriage or no marriage; and this made Audley reflect all the more deeply and tenderly on the subject of his severed ties with Sybil.

He wished to restore the ring to her in person, to replace it on her finger as a memento of himself; for the repossession of it made him restless and uneasy, as the crazed Halfheller with his bottle-imp; and if he was to do this, there was no time to be lost, as he had but one day to spend in Cornwall now.

The wild longing or craving to see her once again, to have an explanation of some kind—he knew not what—but beyond anything a letter could contain (even were she permitted to receive it), still inspired him, though prudence might have suggested the utter inexpediency of further interviews between them, circumstanced as they were. Audley, however, was not of an age, neither was he of the temperament, of one to play the part of casuist.

"Why may I not baffle them all—this strange mother, who can be so winning and yet is so repellant, my cold and calculating father too—and carry off the dear girl in defiance of all and everything? This very night I might do it," he pondered: "the train in an hour or so would set me down close by her; and if we make allowance for human frailty and the 'doctrine of chances,' why the deuce should I not succeed, for I know that she loves me?"

He started from a deep and easy library-chair, in which he had been seated, enjoying a pipe of cavendish, as this idea, or chain of ideas, occurred to him; but then calmer reflection suggested a view of the future—his father's rage, his proud mother's disgust, his allowance cut off, and no home for his bride in India, but barrack accommodation or a subaltern's bungalow.

"No—no—by Jove, that would never do!" he muttered, and reseated himself. Yet he was resolved to see her, if he could. Perhaps old Winny Braddon might not have a heart so flinty as her mistress; and even if she had, it might not be inaccessible to temptation; so that night, when dusk was closing over land and sea, saw Audley Trevelyan speeding along the Cornwall Railway, with no very defined idea, save a desire to see, to speak with Sybil, and to hold once again her little hand in his, ere he left the country, it might be for ever.

The train had been unaccountably delayed; so the hour was late, almost close on ten, when he passed down the avenue, and found himself near the villa. To hope to see Sybil at that unwonted hour was absurd; but, after having come so far, he could not deny himself the pleasure of hovering near the place which, from its association with her presence, had for him so great a charm.

Thus it was with much of tender interest he surveyed the façade of the little villa, the walls and rose-bound portico of which glimmered white in the light of the stars; for, as yet, the moon had not risen, but he could not fail to observe with genuine concern that the stables, as he passed them, and the coach-house too, seemed empty and deserted; for the little phaeton and its pretty ponies, so long the pets of Sybil, had been sold, with many other things, to furnish fees for the grasping Mr. Sharkley: moreover, the villa was ticketed to let.

There might be company, guests, or visitors at the villa; if so, even at that hour, he might perhaps see at least her figure. But no; as he drew nearer, all seemed dark and silent,—on the entrance floor at least; and now the barking of a watch-dog from its kennel near the house made him pause and consider how strange it was that he should be prowling thus, like a housebreaker in the night, when he might, under happier auspices, have been an honoured and welcome guest.

Constance and her daughter had evidently retired for the night, lights being visible in their bedrooms only. That of Sybil, he had chanced to know, was in the north wing of the house, and faced the garden, through the iron gate of which he could see a ray of light from her window falling on the trees, parterres, and shrubbery.

The iron gate was locked; could he but reach her window, he might leave a message for her pencilled on a calling-card,—for to write by post was hopeless; yet he should like her to know in the morning that he had been lingering so near her. Through the iron bars he looked most wistfully at the lighted window, where once or twice the candles cast a flitting shadow on the blind. Could he but attract her attention, make her aware of his presence, and exchange a word or two; perhaps he might have an interview with her, though that would be unseemly, and what she would not probably consent to; and yet, after relinquishing the handful of gravel he was about to toss against the window, he suddenly resorted to a plan, which, if discovered, would prove more awkward still.

The locked gate barred all entrance to the garden; but he perceived that a great espalier had its branches trained over all the wall, forming a solid and veritable ladder from the ground to its summit. The place was sequestered; the hour lonely, and every moment of delay might be perilous, for if she had begun to disrobe, he would be compelled to retire, so Audley proceeded at once to scale the barrier, that he might descend on the other side.

This proceeding was bold, rash, and rude, perhaps; but he had no other resource if he would see her ere he left Cornwall, which he must certainly do, by an early train on the morrow. With the speed of lightning, his thoughts reverted to their brief but pleasant past, and to every passage of their acquaintance; their first meeting beside the moorland tarn; her rescue from the Pixies' Hole; their solitary walks, and that one delightful hour in yonder conservatory, and he felt assured that she, at least, would forgive his present temerity.

Other ideas flashed through his mind, as he clambered from branch to branch, feeling them yielding the while under his feet as he tore or wrenched them from the masonry. He felt that his real object might be doubted; that his position was anomalous and improper, and might compromise the girl he loved. What would the mess of the Hussar regiment he had left, or that of the Light Infantry corps he was about to join, think if they saw him now? What would his cold-hearted, legal "papa"—his proud, aristocratic, and unimpressible mamma have thought of such an adventure; and in fancy he saw the stern grimace of the former, and the latter using her vinaigrette and fan with unwonted vigour, at the idea of her son visiting any lady thus—more than all, the daughter of "Mrs. Devereaux!"

Then fears occurred to him that some change might have taken place in the internal arrangements at the villa, and that the window before which he found himself, after dropping noiselessly into the garden, might open to the room, not of Sybil, but her mother, or old Winny Braddon!

Trusting to his doctrine of chances, he hoped this might prove a lucky one.

The blind of the window (which opened in the French fashion down to a flight of steps) was not completely closed; thus he could see the whole interior of a spacious and handsome bedroom, nearly in the centre of which stood a dressing-table and mirror festooned gracefully with white lace, and before it was seated Sybil in her dark mourning dress, with her chin resting in the hollow of one hand, the elbow being placed upon the table. Her other arm hung by her side, and she seemed lost in thought, for her eyes instead of gazing into the large oval mirror, wherein, by the light of two tall wax candles in ormolu holders, her own loveliness was reflected, were bent upon vacancy, or the floor.

Sybil's usually pale and always pure complexion, was paler now; thus her eyes, their brows and lashes, and the masses of her hair seemed by contrast to be very dark indeed; and the latter in rich profusion fell over her shoulders and back below her waist. In the background of this pretty picture, stood forth the white and elegant draperies of her bed, the festooned muslin of which hung in vapour-like folds, over curtains of rose-coloured silk, looped up by white cords and tassels of the same material.

A glance enabled Audley to take in all these details, and his breathing became a series of sighs as he regarded Sybil, who sat quite motionless and sunk in reverie. He flattered himself that she was thinking of him; but it was not so; she had just concluded a sorrowful letter to Denzil, her only brother, and her thoughts were far away with him, or with her mamma and all their coming troubles; for all those luxuries by which the wealth and taste, and more than all, the love of her dead father had surrounded them, were about to be relinquished now, and ere long grim poverty would be staring them gauntly in the face.

At times her nether lip quivered; the tears began to roll over her cheeks, and as a sigh escaped her, the heaving movement of her neck and shoulders made more apparent their graceful character and undulating curve. Then suddenly, as with her quick white fingers she was proceeding to coil up the tresses of her hair for the night, a sound seemed to startle her, she paused, and her eyes flashed and dilated with surprise.

"There it is again—good heavens—what can it be?" she exclaimed half aloud, and rising from her seat, as Audley tapped very audibly on the window panes for a second time.

"The deuce!" thought he, "I hope she won't scream—for that would spoil all."

With a candle in her hand, she paused midway between the window and her dressing-table, when he said distinctly,—

"It is I, dearest Sybil—Audley Trevelyan—open the window, and speak with me—but for a moment."

"Audley—you—you—here at this hour!" replied Sybil, with intense astonishment, bordering on fear.

She replaced the candle on the table, clasped her hands, and shrunk back irresolutely, for though she fully recognised the voice that thrilled her heart's core, it was somewhat bewildering to hear it there and at such a time; but summoning courage she drew up the blind, and beheld Audley's whole figure on the upper step, which formed the sill of her window.

"Oh, Audley—Audley—what has happened—what brings you here again?" she asked imploringly.

"The love I bear you," said he, humbly.

"You cannot think of entering here!"

"Far from it, dearest Sybil—I have no such thought; but pardon me for alarming you—pardon me for intruding on you thus."

"I do pardon you, but require you to explain—"

"The object of such a visit at such a time," said he, lowering his voice lest he should be overheard in the stillness of the night.

"Most certainly," said she, weeping.

"Have you indeed discarded me—withdrawn your heart from me, and for ever, Sybil?"

"What would you have me to do, Audley?"

"There is an arbour in the garden—throw a shawl over you, and grant me but a minute to say a few farewell words."

"The moment you first asked for has become a minute—so would the minute soon become an hour."

"In pity to me, Sybil," urged Audley, with clasped hands.

After a little indecision, seeming to listen and perceive that all was still, she threw a shawl over her head, unbolted the French sash, and stepped forth into the garden, where now the light of an uprisen moon fell in a bright flood upon the grass plots, the shining evergreens, and tipped all the leafless trees with liquid silver. There seemed a divine peace over all the earth and sky; but the hearts of these two young people were sad and aching, while Audley pressed a long and silent kiss upon her upturned face, as he led her towards the bower in question.

"I leave this to-morrow, Sybil," said he, as he seated himself by her side, and took her hands caressingly in his own, "and I could not resist the craving, the desire to see you once again, and explain much that my returned letters were meant to elucidate to you and your mamma—that I have no share in the spirit of animosity—hostility—how shall I term it?—cherished by my family against you and yours. With this family quarrel, for so shall I style it, I have nothing to do, and you, dear Sybil, have nothing to do. The employment of a legal wretch like Sharkley was, of course, a fatal mistake, making much public that need never have been so, and tending greatly to complicate and embitter our affairs."

"My poor mamma had none to advise her," urged Sybil, not heeding a slight tone of reprehension in what Audley said.

"How fortunate has been the chance that led me to you to-night!" he whispered in her ear.

"But to what end or purpose do we meet at all?"

"Fettered as I am—most true!"

Audley could only sigh deeply and press her to his breast.

"Then you—you love me still?" said Sybil, as her slender fingers strayed among his hair, the action in itself a mute caress.

"My darling—I have never ceased to love you!" he exclaimed, gazing tenderly on the pure pale face whose features he could see distinctly, even amid the obscurity of the bower. Her head drooped on his shoulder, and they sat for some minutes quite silent, and full of thoughts that were beyond utterance; yet Audley's delight was not without alloy. He felt that he loved her dearly, and yet, with all the joy of the time, there mingled a selfish regret that he had won her so completely, as their love could never be a successful one.

"And you leave this to-morrow?"

"To-morrow."

Her voice was broken and tremulous. Audley became deeply moved as he heard her weep; and he began to think, as better impulses inspired him, was it possible that he could relinquish or sacrifice a girl so soft and tender, so loving and true, for "Mrs. Grundy and Society?" and had he actually at one time—young-officer-like—felt a little glow of satisfaction when she returned the eye of Vishnu, and he felt himself once more free!

In his vacillation there was every prospect of the proposal to elope being made, but prudence made him pause, and an observation of Sybil's changed the current of his ideas.

"Your father has acted most cruelly to poor mamma," said Sybil; "and most unjustly to his own brother's memory."

"My father is a—"

"Oh hush, Audley," said Sybil.

What epithet or adjective he was about to use in irritation at the chances of his allowance being cut off, we are unable to record, for Sybil's quick little hand intercepted it on his lips.

"And now we must separate—you will find the key inside the garden gate, so no more escalading; oh, leave me," she urged, "for if you were discovered—"

"One kiss more—one promise to remember me when I am gone."

"Oh, Audley, could I ever forget you?"

They were lingering now midway between the bower and the house, and the full splendour of the moonlight fell around them.

"And you will take back your ring," he whispered; and once more the eye of Vishnu glittered on the hand of Sybil. "Keep it as the memento of a poor fellow who loves you well—and you must do something more for me."

"In what way, Audley?" asked Sybil, pausing on the upper step, and near the still open window of her room.

"Keep poor Rajah for me; my lady mother won't abide the dog, and I can't take him back all the way to India, as I am perhaps going overland by the desert; and now my beloved girl—dear, dear Sybil—I must leave you, perhaps never to see you again."

A desperate calm seemed to come over Sybil, as she replied,—

"Situated as we are; related as we are, and enemies as my mamma and your parents must ever be, it is indeed better that we should meet no more—yet part as friends."

"As friends—oh, Sybil—as friends!" murmured Audley, becoming more excited as she grew calm.

"Yes—this meeting and parting will form a pleasant memory to look back upon, in years to come, when we are far apart."

Often in after times did these words come back to the heart of Audley Trevelyan.

"And you will always wear my ring?"

"For life—dear cousin Audley—farewell."

She was about to close the casement, her hands trembling and her cheeks ghastly pale, when he urged,—

"I must write to you—under cover to some one—permit me—oh, permit me?"

"I cannot—I cannot," she replied, with a torrent of tears.

"I must—pardon my importunity, darling."

"Go—go, I entreat you—good-bye—farewell."

She was about to shut the French sash, when a voice startled her, by exclaiming,—

"Oh, my God—what is this I see?" and as Sybil started back, Audley found himself confronted by Constance, in her dressing-gown, for she had entered the room, candle in hand, having been roused by the sound of their voices at the open window.

This dénouement, so unexpected, was very awkward, and liable to the most serious misconstruction; so Audley's doctrine of chances proved a failure here.

CHAPTER XXV.

MISCONCEPTION.

Little could Sybil or Audley have foreseen how fatal was to be the ultimate termination of this night's adventure.

The usually sweet and placid little face of Constance was now inflamed with rage and distorted by grief. Her colour came and went, like her breath, rapidly; and through their tears, her dark eyes were sparkling with fire.

A painful silence was maintained by the three for a few moments.

Sybil scarcely understood the cause of her mother's terrible excitement, while Audley, who knew more of life and the world's ways, was filled with genuine shame and mortification on finding that his presence there was misunderstood, and the perfect purity of his intentions misconceived or entirely doubted.

Constance, on the other hand, was full of indignation against him for taking what she not unnaturally believed to be a most unwarrantable and unfair advantage of their now false position, their growing monetary troubles and disgrace, to insult her helpless daughter; she was furious, therefore, as a tigress about to be robbed of her young, and though fiery in her wrath, yet stately and proud in her bearing as a little tragedy queen.

"How, sir, have you dared to come hither after being forbidden my house?" she exclaimed, in the full belief that Audley, when entreating only that he might write to Sybil, had been forcing a passage into her chamber; "and why at such an untimeous hour as this? Oh shame, sir! shame! Have you neither honour nor compassion? Could you forget that the poor girl you pretended to love was your own cousin?" Then changing suddenly from upbraiding to scorn, she added, "Truly the legal snake Downie Trevelyan is well represented by his son, who would break into my daughter's room like a thief in the night, and seek perhaps to steal her honour, after having stolen her patrimony! Begone, sir, instantly, ere I summon aid and have you exposed—it may be, arrested."

"Oh, madam, do permit me to explain all this," urged Audley almost piteously; but Constance, in the full tide of her indignation would listen to nothing. She showered upon him reproaches, and, summoning Winny Braddon, ordered her to ring the long disused house-bell, cast loose the watch-dog, and bring assistance. Never had the terrified Sybil seen her constitutionally gentle, placid, and ladylike mother in so wild a gust of passion; and with clasped hands and colourless face, she turned her weeping eyes alternately, with imploring glances, from her to Audley, who seemed to feel acutely that his position was absurd, dangerous, and pitiful; so he was filled by an emotion of shame till it took the phase of irritation.

"Leave us, Audley, I entreat you—see, mamma is seriously ill!" said Sybil, on perceiving Constance press her hands upon her temples, displaying, as she did so, the snowy whiteness of her taper arms, while tottering into a chair. Audley gave the scared girl a glance full of agony in expression, and said:—

"I shall write and explain all, and she will do me justice when calmer; to-night, any attempts at elucidation were utterly vain. I am to blame for my rashness and selfishness in compromising you thus; but not so much to blame as she thinks, however. Your heart at least will excuse and plead for me; and now, dearest Sybil, a long, long—farewell!"

He was gone!

Sybil stayed not to listen to his departing steps, but sprang to the side of her mother, who, weakened by past sorrow and emotion, had felt this episode in all its real and imaginary details, too much for the nervous system. She had fainted, and now lay back in her chair whiter than a lily.

Full of humiliation and anger, Audley retired, not as he had come, by scaling the wall, but by the garden-gate, which he unlocked, and then quitted the place, resolving to write to Constance fully on the morrow. Irresolute and infirm of purpose, he continued to linger near the villa, as the chill hours of the morning succeeded each other, and it was far advanced ere he thought of seeking the vicinity of the train that was to take him home. He saw the day-dawn spread over the sea, and the shadows of the land, with its rocks and precipices cast, by the level sunlight, far across its brightening waters. He saw the gray mist rising from the valleys and rolling up the brown mountain sides, as it did so revealing new ravines and hollows it had hitherto concealed. He saw the red rays light up the mighty headland known as Willapark Point; all the barren ridge of Resparvell Down, and all the rocks and foam, and broken shore about Tintagel and Trevana tinted with marvellous beauty, and varied light and shadow, by the morning sun; and inland, Little Minster church, secluded in its nook among the hills; and from an eminence which he ascended, he could see amid the dun-coloured moorland, the lonely tarn and huge rock pillar where he had first met Sybil Devereaux; and with these all her presence, and the nameless magnetic charm she possessed in her own person, came vividly home to his heart. When the hedgerows that intersected the landscape would be green and those enclosures of stone coped with turf in the Cornish fashion, would be covered with wild violets, daisies, and kingcups; and when yonder groves of sycamore, ash, and elm, and the cherry orchards should be covered with the bloom of summer, half the world would be lying between him and Sybil!

He stifled the emotions that were rising within him, hurried to the railway, and throwing himself into a well-cushioned first-class carriage (after "tipping" the guard, that he might be free from intrusion), overcome and weary with the excitement and events of the past night, he sank into a profound slumber, and reached home in time to have a refresher of iced brandy and soda from Jasper Funnel before that stolid functionary rung the breakfast-bell, and before his somewhat unusual absence had been discovered by any one save his valet.

From Rhoscadzhel he wrote immediately to Constance, explaining that the sole object of his visit to Sybil was to bid her farewell, and entreating her pardon for the misconception and annoyance he had caused. To enable her to reply, he delayed his departure two days, but in vain. However, the circumstance of his humble and contrite letter being returned, not to himself, but under cover and unopened to his father (whom she addressed as "D. Trevelyan, Esq., Barrister-at-Law"), thereby causing a fresh family explosion, completed the full measure of his chagrin; and the young officer felt deeply stung by the contemptuous manner in which it was tossed to him across the breakfast-table.

"There, sir," said Downie, bitterly; "there is your precious production; and remember that a fool should never post his letters till twenty-four hours after they are written. I suppose we shall next have notice of an action filed against you, for breach of promise by that scoundrel Sharkley—Devereaux versus Trevelyan!"

That evening saw Audley depart from Rhoscadzhel.

He repaired at once to the depôt of his regiment, then lying in Tilbury Barracks, that quaint old tumble-down fort, whose handsome gateway, like a stately Temple Bar, has faced the river for nearly three centuries; and there he strove to forget Cornwall and all the trouble he had encountered, amid the dissipation and amusements afforded by English garrison life to every wealthy young man.

Thus, when off duty, his days were consumed in tandem-driving, pigeon, cricket, or rowing matches; déjeûners, an occasional steeple-chase in Essex or Kent (or a day's leave in London to see the Trecarrels); while his nights were devoted to dining out, dancing, and drinking, billiards, and garrison balls, private theatricals, and, consequently, a fierce flirtation with an occasional pretty actress, despite rouge and pearl-powder.

It has been said that "at no time is a man so prone to fall in love as immediately after his being jilted;" but many a fair one tried her blandishments on Audley in vain; for he had been separated by adverse fortune from, and not jilted by, the object of his attachment. A long journey was before him, and he doubted not that he would get over the memory of Sybil in time.

So passed the weeks till he would have to go to India in the spring of the year; and thus he strove to forget her, who was yet to exercise a wondrous influence on his future life; with the recollection of those kisses that had thrilled his heart to the core, and those soft dark eyes whose beauty made even silence eloquent.

And did he achieve this complete forgetfulness?

Time and our story will show.

CHAPTER XXVI.

REVERSES.

Meanwhile how fared it with poor Sybil, who knew not whether he was at home or abroad, or had already forgotten her, and married perhaps the more sparkling and showy Rose Trecarrel?

Re-addressing Audley's letter was fated to be the last action the right hand of Constance was to perform in this world.

For the two days subsequent to the episode just related she remained in bed, exhausted apparently, sadder and lower in spirit than usual; and on the morning of the third, Sybil, when drawing back the curtains to see if she were asleep or awake, to receive her daily kiss and join in prayer, was inexpressibly shocked and terrified to perceive a peculiar fixity in one eye, and that a corner of her still beautiful mouth was strangely drawn down on one side.

Paralysis had supervened, and poor Constance had totally lost the use of one half of her body!

Summoned in hot haste, the village doctor came, with his stereotyped professional expression of sympathy. He felt her pulse, repeater in hand, and ominously shook his head.

"Oh, sir, do you think there is danger?" asked Sybil, in intense agitation.

"Hush, child—come this way," said he, and led her from the room.

"God help me, sir—you have something terrible to tell me?"

"I have, indeed; but nerve yourself, for she has none to depend upon now but you."

"None, indeed, save One who is in Heaven."

Her disease, he said, was embalism; it came from the region of the heart, and had been gradually but rapidly forming in her system for some time past; anxiety and sorrow had doubtless induced it. and some recent excitement—that night affair, of which the doctor knew not—had brought it to a head. A second shock, he added, must inevitably prove fatal!

With dilated eyes and clasped hands, the unhappy girl listened to this sentence of death, for such it sounded in her overstrained ear and to her aching heart, as the doctor spoke it in an impressive and never-to-be-forgotten whisper, in a room adjoining that in which the sufferer lay. He then paused, and gazed with much of genuine sympathy into the pale face of the startled listener; perhaps he was mentally speculating upon the probable future of this lovely girl, with whose sad family history he was quite familiar now.

And what was embalism, she asked, in a low and intensely agitated voice.

A species of weed, or little fungus, that grew in the upper region of the heart, from whence it passed, by minute fibres, fine as a gossamer thread, through the blood-vessels, till, by choking the passage of one of them, there ensued the dire effect they had seen. And was it curable? No; yet the patient might linger for months; and, he added, that Sybil must control her grief, nor let the sufferer see by it that danger was apprehended.

The doctor was gone; but he was to come again, and for some minutes Sybil sat like one transformed to stone, unable even to weep, or reply to the excited questions, showered upon her by Winny Braddon, so stunning was the sense of this sudden and unrealisable calamity. She was, perhaps, on the very eve of losing her mamma—her sole relative and friend—that beautiful, and gentle, and loving mamma, to whom she had been quite as much like a sister and companion as a daughter; for, though a parent, Constance was still so young in appearance and manner, and, till their late calamities had come to pass, naturally so gay, happy, and buoyant in spirit, despite the secret of her wedded life.

She rushed to the bedroom, and clasped the sufferer in her arms, pillowing her head upon her bosom, and so for hours she hung about her, that she might have the melancholy joy of her society while yet spared to her; and for a time she almost forgot the grave warning given so recently, to control her emotions, nor excite the now passive and helpless Constance, who, ignorant alike of her own condition and danger, and propped up by cushions, could but gaze at her wistfully, and make efforts to speak that were intensely painful to the hearer.

The doctor had assured her, that "to expect an ultimate recovery was vain; that her mother's life was but a thing of time now—as it is with us all," he added; yet, hoping against hope and these sad words, Sybil was unremitting in her attentions to her parent. Days there were when she rallied a little, and could even move her right hand, but only to become worse subsequently, and to find her breathing more laborious and painful.

The doctor was an honest though not brilliant man, and did his best for the patient, without thinking of fee or reward. Sybil, in her intense anxiety, doubted his skill: but how was she to procure that of others? There were, she knew, great physicians in London and elsewhere, but she was destitute of the means for employing them. Times there were, when, in her desperation, she thought of writing to Audley; but she knew that her mother would never have approved of such a proceeding; and their parting had been so strange, that she shrunk from the idea as suddenly as it had been conceived, and she thought, as she whispered in her heart the words of a once familiar song, that hers was—

"A love that took an early root,
    And had an early doom,
Like trees that never come to fruit,
    And early shed their bloom—
Of vanished hopes and sunny smiles,
    All lost for evermore;
Like ships that sailed for sunny isles
    But never saw their shore."

She thought, too of the fatherly old soldier, General Trecarrel, and then as quickly remembered that he had been present during that humiliating interview at Rhoscadzhel; but any idea of writing to him for advice was crushed finally, when a stray newspaper announced one day, that the General "and his family" had sailed in the Netley transport for India, his extra aide-de-camp, the Honourable Mr. Audley Trevelyan, having proceeded overland, to serve on his staff in the new campaign against the Afghans.

Something of secret satisfaction mingled with the sorrow and fear of the lonely girl, as she read this paragraph—which she did a great many times—satisfaction that Audley had not gone in the same vessel with these gay Trecarrels, which he could easily have done, if so disposed; sorrow, that they were so completely and hopelessly separated now, and fear for the events of the coming campaign in which he was to serve, and more than probably her brother Denzil, too. Sybil could little suppose that it was purposely to avoid being quizzed by the Trecarrels about herself, and to avoid the imputation, or too probable danger, consequent to a long voyage with two such handsome and enterprising flirts as Mabel and Rose were known to be, that he had, with a few brother officers, started for the East overland, a less easy and luxurious journey then than it is now.

But Sybil was soon compelled by the exigencies of their situation to exert herself beyond her years and experience, for creditors, we have said, had become clamorous. Everything that could be spared was to be turned into money, and they were to seek another and more humble home. All the beautiful art-treasures collected by the taste of her parents in their continental wanderings, the oak and marqueterie cabinets, the chaste china of Dresden and Sèvres, the quaint Majolica vases, and alabaster groups, with all the most valued household gods, were despatched to the nearest market town in charge of the useful Mr. Sharkly, and disposed of with a ruinous commission to that somewhat "seedy" personage! and a little time after saw the pretty villa, so long the abode of so much peaceful and sequestered happiness, in the possession of strangers, while Sybil and her mamma were content to locate them in a small cottage which they rented from old Michael Treherne, the miner, and furnished in the plainest manner; but all their debts were cleared, and even Denzil's Indian outfit paid.

To Constance all places were pretty much alike now, for she had become listless and indifferent to external objects; but times there were when much of exasperation mingled with Sybil's grief, at the thought that her mamma—she so gently bred and nurtured, and so petted by her drowned father—she, who should then be in Rhoscadzhel, surrounded by every appliance that wealth, luxury, skill, and rank could furnish, was now in her desolate widowhood, and sore extremity, the inmate of a poor and sordid cottage.

Thus day succeeded day, and weeks rolled on without any change, at least for the better—weeks which seemed so long, heavy and monotonous, that to Sybil the world and time appeared to stand still. No letters came from Denzil now, for he had marched up-country somewhere, and India was not then what it has been since the Great Mutiny of the Sepoys, intersected by railways and telegraph wires; but Denzil's last epistle was full of unusual interest to Sybil and her mamma.

He had, of course, been duly acquainted by the former of all that had occurred at home, with the startling revelations consequent to his father's journey to Montreal, and his death at sea; and now he should probably meet, ere long, this cousin of his, this Audley Trevelyan, for they belonged to the same regiment, and it was, perhaps, to form a portion of Trecarrel's brigade. And how were they to meet—as friends and brother officers, as relations or enemies?—for Audley's father occupied his (Denzil's) place in the world or in society, at least.

Relations—pshaw!—could they ever be aught but foes? was the young man's immediate thought, and his sister's boding fear. And so his father was gone—his good, kind father, his friend, companion, and preceptor in many a manly sport. How often had they rode and rambled, shot and fished together in Calabria, the Abruzzi, and Switzerland, and at home in sturdy Cornwall, so many thousand miles away! Only those who are so far from home—so far away as India, with all its strange external influences and objects—can know how keen, and strong, and tender, to the young at least, are the ties of home and kindred, especially as the home-ties decrease in number by distance, change, and death.

Dead—his father dead! The "governor," as he had styled him, like "other fellows" at Sandhurst, his "dear old dad," as he called him in the home that was a broken home now; and as the pleasant face, that he never more would look upon, with years of past affection, came back to memory, the lad had covered his face with his hands, and wept.

"It is only when we have been long at sea and have lost sight of Europe," wrote Denzil, "ay, dearest Sybil, even of Europe, which seems all one country and one home to us, that the Anglo-Indian feels his banishment has fairly begun, and he is to be, henceforth, as some fellow has it, 'among the dusky people of Ind, with whom we have no traditions, no religious, few domestic, and scarcely any moral sentiments in common, and whose very costume (want of it, sometimes, I should say) is only characteristic of a much greater difference of inward nature.' And so I am actually by birth a lord—a lord! I have thought, and many visions of future greatness have floated through my mind—and dear mamma is a lady—-Dowager Lady Lamorna. How odd it sounds. Are we all losing our identity; and how is all this to be proved? The past mystery nearly cost me my life when I first joined, and in this fashion:—

"Bob Waller, one of ours, a pleasant but sometimes supercilious fellow, asked me one evening in the mess bungalow, if 'my people were from the Channel Islands?'

"'No,' replied I, colouring, for I always felt that some mystery existed about us; 'but why do you ask?'

"'The name sounds like a French one,' replied Waller.

"'We are connected somehow with Montreal.'

"'Oh, that explains it,' rejoined Waller.

"'There is nothing to explain,' said I, angrily.

"'Think not?—well—have a cigar?'

"I roughly, perhaps, declined it, so Waller returned to the charge by saying—

"'Your father was once in the Cornish Light Infantry, you say?'

"'Yes—a captain—some twenty years ago.'

"'Strange. I have looked all through the Army Lists, and can find no such name in the corps.'

"This assertion exasperated me (I afterwards found it correct), and I challenged him to meet me the next morning in a grove of peepul trees, outside the cantonments; but duelling days are over—the affair got wind, and each of us was placed under arrest within his own compound till we exchanged mutual promises. Bob Waller and I are excellent friends now, and at the moment I am writing, he is sitting opposite me in his shirt and drawers, for we are having a glass of brandy-pawnee—the alcohol with water—and a couple of Chinsworah cheroots together; and I must close now, to catch the dauk-boat—as we call the mail."

This was Denzil's last letter, and after its arrival the weeks continued to roll monotonously on, and still found Sybil watching, with unwearied and unrepining zeal, by what she knew to be a bed of death.

Constance could speak but little, and then only to murmur her fears and prayers for the future of her daughter.