CHAPTER III.

H.M.S. "HOLYROOD."

After being struck down by Reeve Rudderhead, in the merciless way we have described, Derval lay long insensible, and when his thoughts began to turn again to earth, he was haunted by a dream of home—of wild grass where the brindled cattle stood knee-deep, of fields studded with the white stars of the dog-daisies, the golden buttercups, and scarlet poppies, of rose-tangled hedges and meadow-sweet; then came the face and figure of Rudderhead—and starting, he staggered up on his hands and knees, weak and giddy with loss of blood, dim of sight, and his head racked with pain by the force of the blow.

What sounds were these? Cannon and musketry and yells in the air, as if the fiends of the lower world had broken loose. He remembered the savages from which the boats' crews were escaping, and with a heart filled by terrible emotions of anxiety and rage—anxiety for himself, and rage to find that he was the victim of a plot between Reeve Rudderhead and Mrs. Hampton—he crept cautiously through the brushwood among which he had been lying, and where a pool of his blood yet lay, till he reached the brow of a little eminence which overlooked the bay, and arrived in time only to see the last of the conflict between the Amethyst and the savages.

The bay was strewed with the floating ruins of many canoes, and the dead bodies of their whilom occupants; others were being paddled away in hot haste; the ship was under weigh, with her topsails sheeted home and her head-sails filled;—under weigh, and he—unable to join her, or make any sign or signal—was left behind!

With all that conviction implied, a great stupor—the stupor of utter horror—fell upon him, and he could have wept tears of rage and despair.

Defenceless, helpless, powerless, almost petrified by the whole situation, he gazed after the ship, on which sail after sail was spread to catch the land breeze, as she already began to lessen in distance upon the blue and shining sea; then sight seemed to pass from him—a blindness to descend upon his eyes; he became faint, and, falling on the earth, with the last effort of sense, crept under some of the gigantic ferns, with which the island abounds, and for a time remembered no more.

When sense again came, and he looked about him, the shadows were falling eastward; the ship had become diminished to a speck upon the ocean, then reddened by the setting sun. He gazed after her as if his soul followed her, and when he could see even the spectrum of her no longer, a groan escaped him, and he burst into tears.

On one hand spread the boundless sea; on the other, a succession of knolls and hills and bluffs, with pine-covered summits, and little grassy vales between them, all glowing under the gleaming west.

What was to be his fate?

He dared not speculate upon it, though whatever was in store for him must be close indeed now!

Dipping his handkerchief in a runnel he bathed the back of his head, thus removing the clotted and extravasated blood, and then bandaged up the wound with his necktie. A deep draught taken in the hollow of his hands from the same pool revived him, and a few wild peaches, figs, and grapes afforded him food; after which hermit-like repast he seated himself against a rock and strove to think—to think, of what? While the lower portion of the western sky assumed a vermilion hue, and the upper was violet braced with gold; sunk in shadow now, the waves rose with a silvery sheen upon the yellow sand, their ripple alone breaking the stillness of the place and time; but the moment the sun, with its tropical rapidity, sank beyond the sea, all these varied and wonderful tints passed away at once.

Derval remembered the picturesque elements of the scene afterwards; at the time, he was certainly not in the mood to appreciate them.

The parrots, pigeons, and straw-necked ibises had all gone to their nests; some kangaroo-rats (about the size of rabbits) and squirrels were flitting about; Derval's first fear was of snakes, but he saw none.

The multitude of savages that in the morning had been swarming on the shore, had all disappeared, and gone inland to their kraals and villages; but how long would he be able to elude them; and as for their habits and nature, he could not doubt that they were in any way less terrible and revolting than those of other South Sea islanders, most of whom are cannibals.

As he thought of the home he had quitted years ago, of his father's changed nature and indifference, his brother's selfishness, his stepmother's unrelenting malevolence, and Reeve Rudderhead's cruel treachery, all culminating in the present catastrophe, leaving him to perish helpless and unavenged, excitement made his wound burst out afresh, and he staunched it again with difficulty.

The southern constellations came out in all their wonderful brilliance, and under their silvery light, he sat lost in thoughts that wrung his heart. How long—even if he found food and concealment—might it be ere a ship passed that way; and if one did, how was he to attract the attention of those on board—how signal to them unseen by the savage inhabitants of the isle?

The memory of much that he had read, of men wrecked or marooned in lonely and desolate places, together with the fancies of a quick and fertile imagination, added greatly to the poignancy of his mental sufferings. For in its desperation his situation was a maddening one, and calculated to blind him with horror and despair.

Was he to perish of starvation and exposure in the groves of the island, or to find a death of torture at the hands of its inhabitants, without obtaining even a grave? for there was a detail in the future after death, that made his blood run cold to think of.

And was this unthought-of fate to be the end of all his once bright day-dreams, his hopes and aspirations! And were all his bright ambitions and little vanities—the vanities and ambitions of ardent youth—to end in less and worse than utter nothingness?

He feared to move about even in search of food, lest the track of his footsteps might be found, for he knew that the aboriginals of such places can follow as blood-hounds do—but by sight, not scent, and in a manner that seems incredible to the European—any track they find, and follow it, too, over grass and rock, even up a tree; thus he knew that were his traces found, he would inevitably be tracked and discovered, wherever he went.

So the long hours of the night went slowly past, and he longed, as a change or relief, for morning. "Poor fools that we are!" says a writer; "our hours are in time so few, and yet we forever wish them shorter, and fling them, scarcely used, behind us roughly, as a child flings his broken toys."

At last exhaustion of the mind and body brought blessed sleep, and on the dewy earth, under the shelter of some black and silver mimosa trees, he slumbered heavily till the noon of the next day was well advanced, and the sun shone in the unclouded sky.

He had a dream of the now defunct cottage at Finglecombe, as it existed when he was wont to play by his mother's knee, or watch with childish wonder his silent father, a moody and discontented man. He started and awoke, recalling an old Devonshire superstition, that to have a dream of one's childhood, when in maturity, was a sure sign that something was about to happen.

"Oh, what may that something be!" was his first despairing, rather than hopeful, mental thought, and with it came a terror of what the long and solitary hunger-stricken day might bring forth.

But he was not left long in doubt. There came distinctly to his ear the familiar sound of an anchor being let go, and the rush of a chain-cable through a hawse-hole, followed by the blowing-off of steam!

A sudden revulsion of thought from despair to keenest joy—a gush of prayer and gratitude to God filled his heart, and a shout escaped his lips—help, succour, escape, were all at hand, and already—already!

Forgetful, oblivious of what savages might be near or might see him, he started to an eminence close by, and saw in the bay, the very place occupied but yesterday morning—a time that seemed ages upon ages ago—by the Amethyst, a stately steam corvette, riding at anchor, and all her snow-white canvas being handed with man-o'-war celerity.

She had no ensign flying, but to Derval's experienced eye, it was evident that she was a British ship. If any of the natives saw her, as there was every reason to suppose they did, the terrible lesson taught them by the guns and small-arms of the Amethyst, made them conceal themselves, for nothing was seen of them when Derval rushed to the beach, and, without attempting to make a signal or waiting for a boat, and heedless or unthinking of whether there might be sharks in the water, plunged into the waves that rippled on the rocks, and swam off at once, through the debris of battered canoes and dead bodies that were still floating about.

"Man overboard—a rope—a rope—stand by!" he heard voices shouting as he cleft the water and neared her fast, for he was a powerful and skilful swimmer, and after a few minutes he found himself, panting, breathless, and faint with excitement, past anxiety and present joy, safe upon the deck of the ship-of-war, where he was of course, supposed by all to be a ship-wrecked man—the last survivor of some unfortunate crew—and found himself overwhelmed with questions.

But none of these could he answer with coherence, until he was taken into the cabin of the captain, who at once ordered him wine and other refreshments. He then told his story, which elicited considerable commiseration, and much more indignation at the foul treachery of which his messmate had been guilty.

He now found that he was on board H.M. corvette Holyrood, of 16 guns, an iron ship, cased with wood, of 5,000 horse-power, commanded by Captain —— who came into these seas with orders to look after any survivors of wrecks, and who had been last at the Crozet Islands, that wild and mountainous group which lies in south latitude 47 and east longitude 46, and the peaks of which, high as Ben Nevis, are covered with eternal snow. He had visited Turtle Island for the same purpose, and meant now to haul up for England, viâ the Cape, St. Helena, and Ascension.

But for the circumstance of this ship's fortuitous visit, it is not difficult to speculate upon what must eventually have been the awful fate of Derval Hampton!

The latter now found himself recognised by the third lieutenant of the Holyrood, who had belonged to the President training ship, and astonished the rescued man by accosting him by name, and they shook hands quite as old friends.

Finding that Derval was a gentleman by education and bearing, and an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve, whose name as such was in the Navy List, the officers of the gun-room at once requested that he would mess with them during the passage home, or till he made some other arrangement.

What other arrangement could he make, but rejoin his ship? and that, as yet, was impossible.

The homeward voyage was a very protracted one, and for several reasons the Holyrood was long detained at the Cape by the Commodore commanding our squadron there.

It was when lying in Table Bay that Derval read in an old number of the Times, that Lord Oakhampton, his meeting with whom he had well-nigh forgotten amid more exciting events, had returned home from Bermuda. Then he thought of Clara, and wondered if the little maid, with the rosebud mouth she had given him so frankly to kiss, remembered the young sailor to whom she owed her life in the Summer Isles.

The paragraph announcing that Lord Oakhampton had resigned his governorship, concluded by stating that strange rumours were abroad, to the effect that his Lordship's return was connected with a new and unexpected claimant to his title and estates, whose pretensions thereto would soon be a knotty matter for a committee of privileges.

Derval read all this with singular indifference. So keen was his disgust of his own family, that he cared little whether his father succeeded in his claim or not. One fact he felt assured of, that it would avail him—Derval—nothing to communicate to him the cruel treachery of which his step-mother, and her kinsman, had made his eldest son their victim. She would simply deny it, and the breach made wide enough now by coldness and indifference, would become more so by solid mistrust and dislike.

Thus he resolved to go no more near his home, and hence the long ignorance of all there as to his movements, and even of his existence.

When the Amethyst returned home, and Derval stepped on board of her in the London docks, old Joe Grummet, who was smoking his pipe in the gangway, thought he saw a ghost, and uttered a roar of absolute terror! Most extravagant was the joy of the worthy old salt on being assured of Derval's identity.

"Of all my yarns, this beats them—beats old Boots!" he exclaimed, as he drew a match across the sole of his shoe and relighted his pipe.

"Where is the Captain, Joe?" asked Derval.

"Captain 's in the cabin."

The unexpected visitor descended at once.

"Just come on board, sir!" said he, reporting himself with comic coolness and gravity.

"Good heavens—can it be—Derval—Derval Hampton!" exclaimed Captain Talbot, springing up from his writing-desk, and scattering his letters over the deck, and he took both Derval's hands in his own, shook them heartily, and mutual explanations at once ensued.

After rejoining the Amethyst, Derval made many voyages with her, and thus four years and more passed on, till, seeing an account of his father's death in a paper some weeks old, a great revulsion of feeling came over him, with much of repentance for the mutual indifference in which he had indulged; and a species of craving came over him to see the home of his childhood, or rather the place thereof, once again, for his father lay there in the great granite mausoleum, and his mother near the yew of other years, in the old church-yard—the true "God's acre" of Finglecombe; and he longed, too, to see old Patty Fripp.

As for his father, his old face came back to memory, as he remembered it in the days of his infancy, out of the long dim vista of the vanished years; and so for a time his whole heart went forth to his father—the father that loved his mother, and her memory so, before that other came!

Derval was now first mate of the Amethyst, Tom Tyeblock having got a ship of his own. He was moreover a sub-lieutenant of the Royal Naval Reserve, had done his gunnery drill again and again on board the training-ship, drawing the pay of his rank, and messing in the gun-room.

Of course he still connected all that had befallen him on Turtle Island, with Mrs. Hampton and her letter to the late Mr. Reeve Rudderhead; thus, after taking the train to Finglecombe, on reaching that place no power could make him take up his abode underneath the roof of his half-brother and Mrs. Hampton. So he took rooms at the hotel, the "Hampton Arms" (the armorial three choughs), where Rookleigh visited him promptly enough; but the meeting between those two who shared the same blood, was a strange and unnatural one, after their long separation, though Derval's heart warmed to Rookleigh, and was more stirred than vanity would have permitted him to own.

"What will people think," said Rookleigh, "of your being here at an hotel, and not at home?"

"Home!" exclaimed Derval, with a bitter laugh.

"Yes—it is home."

"Yours—not mine; and as to 'the people,' they may think precisely what they please, my dear Rookleigh."

"And what shall I tell mother is your reason?" asked Rookleigh, who, to do him justice, was ignorant of much that Derval knew.

"Say it is my desire that she should forget her dear and amiable cousin, Reeve Rudderhead, and all connected with him, especially their epistolary correspondence," was the—to Rookleigh—enigmatical, yet bitter reply of Derval.

Save the surrounding hills and woods, he found all the once secluded localities of his childhood so changed by the erection of marine villas, terraces, and formal promenades, that he would soon—in disgust—have gone back to London, but for certain influences that came to bear upon his actions.

Derval fell in love!

CHAPTER IV.

"THE DESIRE OF THE MOTH FOR THE STAR."

"I have never been so far out from the Marine Parade before—so far out at sea, I mean."

"But you are not uneasy—alarmed?" asked the young man, with great tenderness of manner.

"Oh, no; am I not with you?" answered the girl sweetly and simply, as she drew off a glove and let the water slip through her slender white fingers, as the boat, urged by the powerful hands and arms of a handsome and sunburnt young fellow of twenty-two or thereabout, clad in a white flannel boating costume, with canvas shoes and a straw hat, shot through the water of the bay in view of Finglecombe.

It was a summer evening. The sun was setting beyond the Bristol Channel, and seeming to light its waves with fire. The rocks, the gardens and orchards along the shore, and all the villas of "the rising watering-place" were bathed in ruddy light, blended with a misty golden haze; and the warm glow fell on two bright faces in particular. When the oarsman looked with wonder at the changes on the shore, as he sometimes did, the girl looked at him, not in a way she was wont to do, but with a soft expression in her tender eyes that he would have given the world to have seen.

Anon, when at some distance from the shore, he rested on his skulls, leaving them in the rowlocks, while the boat floated idly on the sunlit water.

"Please do not do any more of that," said the young lady.

"Of what?" asked her companion.

"This tatooing," said she, pointing with her parasol to his handsome bare arms, on which he had punctured, in sailor fashion, a ship in full sail, three choughs, and other insignia known to himself alone.

"Ah! Joe Grummet did all these one evening, when we were standing off and on under easy sail near Cuba," said Derval, for the speaker was he, and the beautiful girl who sat opposite to him in the stern-sheets, and on the dainty cushions of the pleasure-boat, was Clara, Lord Oakhampton's only daughter.

And now to explain how all this came about, and that these two were so intimate.

Derval was not long in discovering, from the visitors' lists, that Lord Oakhampton had taken, for the summer months, a villa in Bayview Terrace, Finglecombe, but had ignored the existence of the widow of his late namesake.

This was nothing to Derval, who immediately called at the villa and sent up his card, and was warmly received by Lord Oakhampton, who, we have said, was a tall and handsome man, with stately manners. He was elderly now, with silvery hair, but his fine aquiline features were unchanged in noble outline and honesty of expression. After a few mutual remarks and inquiries,

"I called," said Derval, "to do myself the honour of personally thanking your Lordship for the medal for which you so kindly recommended me."

"A medal most deservedly won by you, and my life-long gratitude went with it to you!" replied Lord Oakhampton, as did his daughter, who soon made her appearance, and saw that their visitor was a handsome and manly-looking young fellow. His brown hair was deeper in colour than it had been in Bermuda, and a slight moustache shaded a sensitive mouth. His tall and slender figure had all the strength and grace of manhood in it, and his manners were unexceptionable. His early training had made him grave in manner, thoughtful in expression of eye, courteous to men and deferential to women; in fact, he was all his mother could have wished him to be.

"Clara, my dear," said Lord Oakhampton bowing, with much of the old-fashioned courtesy which certainly did distinguish his manner when addressing her, or, indeed, any female of his household, "may I introduce an old friend to you—one to whom, indeed, you owe much!"

Clara Hampton looked up with something of surprise, and saw only a young man like a naval officer—but a very handsome one certainly—who answered her inquiring gaze by a bow and a smile.

"How unfortunate I am to have been forgotten by you, Miss Hampton," he said.

"Forgotten—oh, no, no," she exclaimed as sudden recognition flashed upon her, and lightened all her features; "I remember you perfectly, and the sharks' pool and the coral cavern in Bermuda—you are our namesake, Mr. Derval Hampton?"

And she frankly put both her hands in his.

"You are grown quite a woman, Miss Hampton."

"She will be eighteen on her next birthday," said her father; "but women are by nature older than men," he added laughingly.

And so it all came about thus.

Every detail of a beauty that seemed to have no peer, in his eyes at least, did Derval take in by one swift glance. In all the bloom of her age, the girl was radiantly bright and fresh. Her rich brown hair was darker now, and more luxuriant than ever; but the violet eyes were softer and more shy than in the girlish time, when she accorded to Derval that kiss over which he fondly pondered now. But perhaps she was remembering it too. On her delicate cheeks there was a soft flush, as of the rose-leaf; her mouth was perfect in shape, and sweet. Refined, proud, and lovely, and she looked—birth stamped on every feature—a peer's daughter every inch, and in every way a picture fair to look upon; and so thought Derval. Never before had he dreamed that a woman could be so fair.

He was invited to stay to dinner; the invitation was repeated for a second occasion and a third. Lord Oakhampton had evidently few friends in that part of the world, was the modest thought of Derval, and the Bermuda Isles formed a safe and easy topic for general conversation when other subjects failed; and the usually haughty peer thawed fast and easily towards his young friend—little dreaming that the latter was learning faster to love his daughter, and not the less that he deemed this love a midsummer madness, and too surely might be only like the desire of the moth for the star!

They met on the marine parade, on the shingly beach, and singularly enough in some of the shady green lanes, that had escaped recent improvements; but Miss Sampler was always with her, a companion now. Derval felt his heart leap when he saw her, and it trembled as she drew near him, and as it had never trembled under human influence before. He showed her the locket she had given him at Bermuda. She laughed at first, and then coloured deeply to find that he wore it attached to his neck by a ribbon.

Yet after this she neither avoided him, nor made any change in her demeanour towards him. What could he deduce from that, but that she favoured him, or received him as a means of passing the time in a stupid watering-place. It was bitter for him to think that she—secure in a position so far above him in many respects—might be doing thus; but from the soft, shy gentleness of her manner, it was impossible to adopt such a conviction.

Twice, when escorting her to the dinner-table, he thought that her hand—how little it was!—leant rather fondly on his arm, and the idea made his heart thrill. Is it a marvel that his head was turned and intoxicated by the opportunities offered by propinquity, and that the secret of his heart was daily trembling on his lips?

Was she luring him on to his own destruction? Her calm, gentle eye, and perfect quietude of manner, repelled this idea. Could he but have looked into the girl's heart! At that very time she was asking herself, what was this young sailor to her? Why should she feel so deeply interested in him, for such was indeed the case! Cold reason replied that he ought to be as nothing to her; yet her heart already told her that he was something, and more than something to dream of—to ponder on fondly—to be sorely missed when he departed—as if his life were already mysteriously linked with her own.

"His life linked with hers? What folly!" she whispered to herself, as she thought of her proud father and "society."

So now they had taken them to boating on the bay; but Miss Sampler who usually played propriety in their apparently casual walks, disliked aquatic excursions, and generally sat reading on the beach, while Derval pulled far enough out to be beyond the ken of anything but a powerful lorgnette, and of this Clara generally possessed herself "to see the coast."

On the evening mentioned, when Clara referred to the tatooing, and made Derval promise to disfigure his arms no more in that remarkable way, it may be inferred that their intimacy had made considerable progress—the result of the somewhat untrammelled life they led at Finglecombe—and seldom does the evening sun fall upon a pair of more attractive-looking lovers—for lovers they were undoubtedly—though no distinct word of love had passed between them.

It lingered, softly as Derval's own eyes, on Clara's graceful figure, her creamy dress and soft laces, on her shining hair, and pretty little feet encased in hose of bright cardinal silk and tiny bottines, the most perfect that Paris could produce—bottines which the folds of her dress had kindly revealed for a time.

Seeing that Derval was resting, as we left him—resting dreamily on his sculls, and letting the boat drift with the current, while his soul was full of her beauty, and his heart seemed at his lips, she said:

"Of what are you thinking?"

"Of you," he replied, and he saw that she grew pale at the idea of what might follow, and the conviction that she had drawn it on herself; "I was thinking that you could be a friend good and true, if you chose; and heaven knows," he added with a sigh, and timidly fencing as he thought, "I want one."

"Have you not Rookleigh, your brother of whom I have heard, but, oddly, never seen?"

"To me he is a brother, and no brother!"

"I will be your friend," said she, coyly.

"Ever!"

"Ever and always. Think of all I owe you—that I am here to-day, alive and in the world, listening to you, and spared to Papa."

Bright ardour filled his eyes, and stooping he pressed her hand to his lips; but she snatched it away.

"I do not mean friendship of that kind!" said she, blushing with anger at herself for taking, as she thought, the initiative; then he too reddened, and a pause ensued.

Clara had not the least idea of flirting; and yet the most consummate coquette could not have been more fascinating in her charming frankness of manner.

"Of what are you thinking now?" he asked, as her white fingers played with the shining ripples.

"Of Bermuda," she replied, with a soft smile in her averted face.

"You were a child then—five years ago—and now——"

"What am I now?" she asked, laughingly.

"Look into the water where your face is reflected, and you will see."

"See—what?"

"A face, like no other in this world—to me, especially."

"Now you talk foolishly."

"God knows, I do—perhaps," said he, sadly; "it is pleasant to dream for the present, and to forget the coming future, for all this sweet companionship must end, and when I return to England again, you will be no longer Clara Hampton."

"What then—or who then?" she asked in a low voice.

"The wife of some happy man."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Of what?"

"That he will be happy."

"Could he be otherwise with you?"

All this was pointed enough; but both were fencing—he dreading a repulse, and she thinking of her father's pride. Yet both were very pale, and their hearts beat violently.

"And how came you to be so assured of all this?" she asked, looking down.

"You are beautiful, rich, noble, Clara!"

"You must not call me Clara. Rich? You think, then, that no one would love me for myself alone?" she asked a little bitterly.

"I have not said so."

"Did you think so?"

"Heaven forbid! but judging from my own heart, I wish, indeed—indeed——"

"What?"

"That you were as humble and as poor as the beggar-maid whom King Cophetua loved."

"Thank you, a very odd wish!" she said, with a low musical laugh.

"Oh, do not mock me!" he exclaimed bitterly—for no lover likes his heroics to be made a jest of; but no mockery was in the girl's heart; she felt as if dreaming; she only felt and knew that her lover was beside her, looking more manly and handsome, and more fascinating, than the first day they met; but she thought of her father and his lofty pride, and said with apparent firmness, yet with a gasp in her slender white throat,—

"I do not mock you—oh, never, never think that of me; but for pity's sake, talk no more in this strain; and do pull the boat in shore, for I see Miss Sampler is making signals of impatience."

Though her long lashes imparted a dreamy depth to the young girl's eyes, there were in the low, broad brow, firm lips, and clearly-cut nostrils, evidence of force of character and strength of resolution.

Derval understood the situation; he sighed, shipped his sculls, and pulled in silently, feeling that he had said enough to show that he loved her, and that she chid him not, he resigned her to her chaperone, and betook him, full of anxious thoughts, to the solitude of his room at the hotel; yet each felt that they must meet again, or that henceforward life would be a blank to them; and eye said this to eye as they parted on the shore.

It was rather a source of exasperation to Mrs. Hampton in her stately villa, that Derval should be so intimate with Lord Oakhampton and his daughter, while she and her son were not—were ignored, in fact; and this, with Derval's protracted residence at the hotel, caused no speculation among her friends and the gossips of the new settlement or watering-place; and, incited to mischief by his mother, Rookleigh Hampton began to scheme revenge; nor were Patty Fripp's ample and exulting expatiations on the rare beauty of Miss Hampton, and the great glory of Derval's boating expeditions with her, wanting as a spur on this occasion.

Lord Oakhampton remarked to himself that neither by word, act, nor hint, did Derval ever refer to his late father's dreaded claim to the coronet. This pleased with him with his young friend, yet it was not without annoyance and alarm that he discovered and viewed the growing intimacy between him and his daughter, and painfully, indeed, did the latter blush when he began to remonstrate with her upon the subject; and her pain was all the deeper by a knowledge that she had brought it upon herself.

Seated together with her father in an oriel window overlooking the bay, her mind, as evening darkened and the moonlight came upon the water, was full of what had passed between herself and Derval but a very short time before, and after a silence of some minutes she said, with the irrepressible desire to talk of what was nearest her heart and uppermost in her thoughts,—

"Have you ever remarked, Papa, what a handsome young man Mr. Hampton is?"

Lord Oakhampton started quickly, and looked at her, but Clara's face was hidden in shadow.

"Of course I have observed it," he replied; "he is not only handsome, but distinguished-looking, for a man of his class. He comes of a good family."

"Yes—is he not some relation of our own, Papa?"

"Has he ever said so—does he talk of such a matter?" asked Lord Oakhampton, in a changed tone.

"Oh, no, Papa, but he strikes me as so unlike the men I usually meet."

Lord Oakhampton was silent for a minute; then he said, with some asperity of manner,—

"Since when has this extreme intimacy with Mr. Hampton been in progress?"

"Extreme intimacy, Papa!" said Clara, in a tone of dismay, and colouring deeply in the twilight.

"Yes; you understand me, I presume?"

"I have known him since the day he sent up his card, and renewed the intimacy that began at Bermuda."

"That was but a casual, but very important episode; but what passed then, under the circumstances, temporarily, when you were but a child, cannot be continued or tolerated now. He is but a merchant seaman!"

"A mate, Papa, and a commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve."

"Pshaw!"

"And heir to a large estate."

"That is doubtful, Clara; his brother is the heir. I know there is much common sense in that little head of yours, and I wish you to bring it to bear upon the present question. This intimacy is unseemly. Good heaven! what would society say of it?"

"Society! how I do hate that word, Papa!"

"Indeed! You are young and inexperienced, and it is for me to consider that which may become insolence on his part, and folly on yours."

Never before had her father spoken with such severity of tone, and the soft eyes of Clara filled with unseen tears.

"Ours is a levelling age certainly; but this intimacy carries the game rather far. It is outrageous!" he continued, nursing his annoyance, and warming with it.

"But he bears our name, and why may we not know him? If he is a kinsman——"

"Kinsman!" exclaimed her father, with growing anger, as he recalled the visit of Mr. De Murrer; "the devil! don't speak thus; and as for the mere matter of a name, one would think you were an old Scotsman of a hundred years ago, rather than an English girl of the nineteenth century!"

"I only think of what I owe him, Papa," urged Clara, greatly apprehensive that Derval's name would now be struck off the visitor's list—but prudence forbade such an order as yet.

"It is possible you may think too much," continued Lord Oakhampton, greatly ruffled; "but remember, Clara, that this young man is as much out of your world as one of yonder boatmen in the bay!"

"Do not suppose, dear Papa, that I will ever do aught unbecoming your daughter. I have always done my best to please you," she added, as her graceful figure bent over him, and a white arm stole round his neck, while her sweet face grew almost softer in expression, as she caressed him.

But she now discovered the truth of the German proverb, "Speech is silver, silence is gold," and knew to her infinite mortification, that by her first remark on Derval's appearance, and her attempted defence of their friendship, she had thoroughly awakened the suspicions of her father, of whose old hostility to the Hamptons of Finglecombe she knew nothing; and the results were that her liberty was much more circumscribed than it had been. There was no more boating on the bay, and Miss Sampler was for ever on duty now. Forbidden to think of him, she cherished the idea all the more. To her, Derval, honest, manly, straightforward, and single-hearted, seemed worth all "the white-handed glittering youth" she had yet met with; and thus it was in vain that her father urged that he did not and never would belong to her class in society—even by thought, culture, and education; but, in some of the latter premises, his lordship was in error. Yet, too keenly aware of what the claims were that Derval, or interfering friends for him, might urge to the title he held, he could neither forbid him his house nor request that he would cease to address Miss Hampton.

To Derval the idea of these claims never occurred; he felt that there was a change now, that he saw Clara more seldom, and never alone. Whether this was her own desire, or that of her father, he could not tell; he only knew that the first stirrings of a deeply-absorbing love were quickening his pulses and thrilling in his veins. He had heard of the desire of the moth for the star, and felt himself somewhat akin to that foolish insect indeed. She was the daughter of a peer, and in the fulness of that thought, and the greatness of his passion, he forgot that he might yet be a peer himself!

Time was passing on—day followed day, and he missed the sweet companionship sorely. Her face was ever before him in all its soft beauty and variety of expression; her voice seemed ever in his ear, as he conned over her utterances, and recalled her attractive and pretty little modes of manner. He was never weary of watching the roof that covered her, the windows she might be looking from, or the walks where he might chance to meet, even to see her; and he resolved, that come what might, he would not go away without declaring how he loved her, without telling her the old, old story, that was first told in Eden; and that he would never forget her, and never love another.

The time for his departure was drawing near now, and thus he was a prey to the most terrible anxiety.

He felt that the relief of words he must have, or his heart would sink. So much had this strong passion become a part of himself, that he felt and thought that he would rather be dead and buried with her, than that she should become the wife of another. And yet such separations come to pass every day, and no one dies of them, so far as the world knows.

He had gathered courage from what he could read in her eyes, more than once, when he had met her and her chaperone, and they had lingered together, talking the merest commonplaces, but with their hearts very full indeed, and Miss Sampler keenly observant of their words and actions. Thus he had resolved that there should be no mistake when the opportunity came, and come it did one day, most unexpectedly, when he met her suddenly, alone too, and then, all the world seemed to stand still!

It was in one of the last places where he would have thought to meet her unattended—at the Nutcracking Rock, an ancient logan-stone, which rests, as it were, upon a keel, so that a push rolls it from side to side, at each vibration being arrested by a stone, against which it knocks. Hence its name, and it stands in a wooded and solitary place, near the shore of the bay, covered with golden moss and surrounded by dwarf oak-trees and hawthorns.

She was seated on a camp-stool, and so intent on her work of sketching it, that he drew near her unperceived, with his heart beating almost painfully, and every fibre tingling with love and joy. His step aroused her, she looked round; a faint exclamation escaped her, and she dropped her pencil.

"Mr. Hampton, you here?"

"Thank heaven that I find you as I do, alone, Clara," said he, picking up the fallen pencil, and kneeling on one knee by her side after he did so. They were eye to eye now, and both were greatly agitated.

"Alone, Clara," said he, taking her unresisting hand, "how are you here alone?"

"Miss Sampler has just left me; did not you meet her?"

"No, I came by the beach."

"And what were the wild waves saying?" she asked, smiling honestly and fondly down on his upturned face.

"They seemed to sing to me of love and you, Clara," he answered, in the same joyous manner, and drawing her towards him he kissed her tenderly, passionately, and there was no need for declaring the love that filled his heart and trembled on his lips, and yet he did so in words that filled her heart with mingled joy and fear—joy, for they were such as no young girl could have heard unmoved when addressed to herself—and a great fear, as she thought of her father, and all his words flashed on her memory. She grew pale, and even when Derval's kisses were pressed upon her cheek in that sequestered place, she glanced round her fearfully.

"And you love me in return, Clara, my own Clara?" he murmured, caressing her tenderly after their first incoherences were over.

"Yes, oh yes, Derval, I love you!" she replied.

"It is said to be fortunate for us, that the future is a sealed book," said he, drawing her head and face caressingly into his neck and his breast, "yet I should like to have known that the little girl whose life I saved in Bermuda was to be my wife—my own darling wife—in the years to come!"

His wife!

The sweet assumption made her tears flow fast, and hot and bitter tears they were. The intensity of his love had touched her, and delighted her heart; but these words recalled her father's remarks and injunctions, and even while Derval spoke and she responded, while joining with him in the delirious joy of the present, she had the chilling and terrible fear, that this great love and his suit would prove—all nonsense in the future, and never come to anything!

I was an awful conviction or fear to have at such a moment, and the intensity of her agitation, her sobs and tears, attracted the attention of Derval.

"My own darling," he asked, inquiringly, "why all those tears?"

"My father, Derval,"

"You dread his opposition—so do I; but I would not have him ashamed of me, if you are not—my own love!"

"Derval—we leave this for Paris to-morrow morning. In the joy of seeing you, I almost forgot it," she continued, sobbing heavily.

"To-morrow—oh heavens, Clara! And I! next day for a ship—a few days whole seas will be between us! We sail for the Cape."

"It is awful to think, Derval, that we may pass out of each others' lives, and be as if we never met—never known each other!"

"Why—how?" he asked regarding her anxiously.

"What can such a secret and forbidden love as ours, with such a separation, lead to? a separation without a place or period for meeting again, and without a means of hearing of each others' lives, safety, or happiness."

As she spake her pearly teeth were set, and there came into her face something of the expression that Derval had seen it wear in the boat on the last occasion, force of character and strength of resolution, young though she was.

As the reader may conjecture, the sketch of the famous Nutcracking rock was never finished.

"I shall ever thank heaven for the impulse that sent me to meet you to-day, darling Clara," said he, as they reached the spot at which they would be compelled to separate. "We must, and shall, meet again when I return, for I shall seek you out, wherever you are, and we must think of each other every day and every hour. Till then—oh, my love, till then!"

Much more was said, brokenly and incoherently, and they lingered so long, that at last she had to leave him, blinded in tears, and with one long and clinging kiss they parted, as so many lovers have done before, and will do so again.

They had exchanged rings and locks of hair in the most orthodox fashion. It was arranged that Rookleigh should be the medium through which their correspondence should be conducted, their letters being mutually, if necessary, sent under cover to him. There could be no harm in their hearing of each other secretly, they thought, and deemed such an institution necessary for their happiness—their very existence, indeed; for both were rash, young, loving, and enthusiastic, and both, too, were somewhat ignorant of the conventional ways of the world; and to Rookleigh now they both mutually looked for succour in the great love that bound their hearts together.

Though his heart was weary with the keen sorrow of their separation, Derval felt full of bright hope for the future—that hope which furnishes all our Chateaux in Espagne, or in the air—"hope that lends us alabaster bricks and golden mortar to build these castles withal; hope that turns the hue of the stalest loaf into the richest plum-cake, and the smallest of beer into the mellowest of Burgundy."

As if chance were already beginning to favour him, Derval, who did not, and never would visit the villa at Finglecombe, on returning to the hotel found his brother Rookleigh awaiting him there.

"You asked me the other day if I would do you a favour, Rook," said he, "and I promised to do it—though I was in a great hurry."

"Yes—Miss Hampton was waiting for you on the beach. I saw you meet—well?"

"You must in turn do a favour for me—and I am sure you will, old fellow!" added Derval, and he placed a hand affectionately on his brother's shoulder, feeling at that moment, in the great joy of being loved by Clara, that he forgave him everything, and could love him too.

He then related to Rookleigh much that had passed between himself and Clara—told of their secret engagement—secret, at least, as yet; showed her engagement-ring, but failed to see the sneer of Rookleigh's lip, as he kissed it with what the latter deemed idiotic ardour; and in the end, begged him to be the medium through whom their correspondence was to be conducted; and to this Rookleigh, affecting demurrage, ultimately consented, for which he was extravagantly thanked and well-nigh embraced by Derval, who said:

"And now, Rook, dear old boy, what is the favour you wanted of me—in what can I serve you?"

An unfathomable expression stole over the face of Rookleigh at that moment, and his pale green shifty hazel eyes perhaps never looked so shifty. Skilfully veiled hatred, malice, and anticipated triumph were mingling there; but Derval, whose heart and thoughts were utterly strangers to passions such as these, could little have conceived they were so near him.

We have said that both Mrs. Hampton and Rookleigh resented Derval's intimacy with Lord Oakhampton, and the revengeful feeling of the half-brother eventually took a very remarkable form.

Seeing that Rookleigh seemed embarrassed, Derval pressed him to say what favour he required of him.

"I want a thousand pounds sorely on loan just now," said Rookleigh, in a very measured voice, while avoiding his brother's eye; "I know you have more than double that sum lying at your bankers, as you have scarcely drawn a penny of what our good father left you."

"He left me so little and you so much, Rook, that I marvel greatly you can want any more, especially from a poor devil like me; but you are heartily welcome to the thousand; and as for dear Clara's letters—"

"They will be fully attended to. Thank you, dear Derval, I knew you would assist me if you could. My monetary annoyance is a very temporary one indeed."

"There you are—and welcome!" exclaimed Derval, as with a dart of his pen he filled up a cheque and handed it to his brother, who, after carefully placing it in his pocketbook, drew forth a document of somewhat portentous aspect.

"Why—what is this?" said Derval.

"Knowing that you would give me the money, and that it would be necessary to give you some admission or receipt for it, I had this prepared, as time is short."

"True, I must be off in twenty-four hours. But what is the meaning of all this, Rook? The cheque is a crossed one—and I can trust you—can you not trust yourself?"

Rookleigh's rather pale face was crossed by a blush as he said—

"We never know what may happen, and if you are to marry Clara Hampton, as I hope you will, all the money you can scrape together will be necessary."

"But, man alive! what is all this you have written here?" exclaimed Derval; "it looks like a title-deed—a marriage settlement—or a bill in chancery. Surely all this raggabash is not necessary between you and me!"

"For legal purposes it is—you, as a sailor, are ignorant of the ridiculous tautology of legal composition; but if you will affix your ordinary signature, witnessed by me, in these two places, without troubling you to read it, we shall post it to old De Murrer for security in his hands."

"All right, old fellow, I'll do anything you like but read over all that rigmarole," replied Derval, who dashed off his signature at the places indicated, and the document was enclosed in an envelope, addressed to their mutual agent at Gray's Inn for preservation, and placed in the usual receptacle at the hotel for letters to be posted.

There is no doubt that it was extremely culpable and negligent of Derval to sign that document as he did, without once troubling himself by an examination of its contents and nature—all the more so was he culpable, from the past knowledge he had of Rookleigh's general character; but his correspondence with Clara was uppermost then in his thoughts; and when the half-brothers parted for the night, there came into Rookleigh's face a diabolical smile, and he laughed, as he took his homeward way muttering to himself—

"How easily that fool allowed himself to be chiselled out of everything; but he is a sailor, ignorant of land life, for sailors go round and round the world but never into it!"

And again he laughed loudly.

On the morrow, the pretty villa at Bayview was tenantless; the shrine was empty, so Derval gladly welcomed the hour that took him from Finglecombe, and the change of scene and occupation that came with it.

Lord Oakhampton had seen of late the preoccupation of his daughter's thoughts, and knew the cause thereof. Hence this sudden Parisian trip; after which a season in London would, he hoped, find another whose presence might obliterate what he deemed to be a foolish, a girlish, and outré fancy for Derval Hampton.

Ere the Amethyst sailed, the latter wrote to her under cover to Rookleigh, who was to discover Lord Oakhampton's address, and contrive some means of having it delivered.

The letter, full of passionate love and longing, of the tender little incoherences in which all lovers indulge, and many prayerful hopes for the future, duly reached the hands of his brother; but it was fortunate for Derval's peace of mind that he did not see the strange and horrible smile that crept over the face of Rookleigh as he perused it, and then tossed it into the fire.

The latter was the receptacle of most of its successors, and of Clara's too.

CHAPTER V.

"DEEPER THAN E'EN PLUMMET SOUNDED."

Derval was back to his old work on the sea, but now it had lost all zest, and even the love for and hope of adventure had gone out of him. His whole soul and existence seemed to centre in the image of Clara, and his mind was never weary of dwelling upon it, and all the minutiæ of his late sojourn at Finglecombe, and all that had come of it.

She loved him; he had the dearest and sweetest assurance of that, and they were engaged—solemnly engaged; but how, and when was the end to be? Their future was painfully vague! He could scarcely hope for her father's consent, and without it he feared that he would never win Clara for his wife, as he knew, but too well, that though the name and blood were the same, their relative positions in life—in that "society" in which she moved—were different, far apart, and that—as yet—he had no place therein.

His imagination was fertile in the art of self-torment; and still more did it become so, as time and distance increased between him and their parting hour and parting place; and, after skirting the Bay of Biscay, that turbulent corner of the seas where, at times, all their storms seem gathered together, the Amethyst shaped her course towards Madeira.

On the lone sea by day and in the silent watches of the starry night of what could he think but her, and the new and hitherto unknown emotion she had kindled in his heart!

He hailed with joy and anxiety the Pico Ruivo as it rose from the sea, and the Amethyst ran into the roads of Funchal, where she lay-to while Joe Grummet went ashore for any ship letters that might have come ahead of them by the steam-packet.

Letters there were for the Captain, Harry Bowline, and others on board, but not one for him, and his spirit began to fall. He strove hard to console himself with the doctrine of chances and mischance, and hoped letters might await him at Ascension or the Cape of Good Hope.

Rough old Joe Grummet, a shrewd observer, especially of those for whom he had a regard, saw how his countenance changed when the letters were distributed and none appeared for him.

"I was sorry to see you so disappointed, sir," said Joe, as they walked the deck together that night, after the Pico Ruivo had sunk into the sea, "but I think it is often better not to get letters when in blue water, for we can't amend evil things then, as we might when ashore; and I had a shipmate, who lost his life through getting one—and out of the smallest post-office in the whole world."

"Where is that, Joe?"

"It is a barrel that swings from the outermost rock of the sheer mountains that overhang the Straits of Magellan, right opposite to La Tierra del Fuego. Every ship passing opens it to place in letters or take them out, and undertakes their transit, if possible. It hangs there at an iron chain, washed, beaten, and battered by wind and storm; but no post-office, even in London, is more secure from robbers. Well, this poor fellow laid well out on the foretopsail yard, while the ship was thrown in the wind, to see what letters were in the barrel. There was but one, and it was for himself. It was from his wife, but was sealed with black. Sitting outside the yard he read it; then a cry escaped him, and falling into the sea between the ship and the rocks he was seen no more. The letter fluttered aft to where I stood near the taffrail. It told poor Bill of his mother's death, months and months before, and the shock had been too much for him. But you have come back to the Amethyst sorely changed, surely Mr. Hampton?"

"How, Joe?"

"Why—all the fun and cheeriness are quite gone out of you."

"They should not, Joe, as there is no reason therefor. But were you ever in love, Joe?"

"Bless my heart, many and many times, as long as my pay lasted, and I had to come aboard again."

"Ah! Joe," said Derval, laughing, "I fear you don't know what love is."

"Don't I, though!" exclaimed old Grummet, as he bit a quid off the twist of pigtail that was always in his right-hand pocket. "I often boast myself as one of the not-to-be-done squadron of the Royal Naval Reserve, Mr. Hampton; yet I am always done brown when I am on shore, which is the reason I generally stick close to the ship, as one can't fall in love when in blue water and the anchor's catted."

"Joe, the love I mean is the merging of your whole existence in that of another; placing every hope and wish on the will of another; living a glad, wild, feverish dream, with the strange sense that without that other all life is worthless."

"Well, I'm blessed! On that other, as you call her, I have too often spent every 'tarnal penny, and come to grief in the end, and found myself toeing a line before the beak. No, no! love ain't for me now; and for you, perhaps, it as well you didn't get any letters, for perhaps your girl may have slipped from her moorings and gone foreign with some other fellow."

Derval laughed at Joe's phraseology, but said, "This is perhaps my last trip, Joe, and if I leave the ship I hope to see you a mate of her."

"Mate—no, no, Mr. Hampton; I ain't used to the luxuriance of a cabin, where knives and forks and tea-cups is used; and where the grog-tot, the bread-barge, and the mess-kid ain't known."

The wind was fair, the weather delightful, and the Amethyst in due time crossed the equator.

"Let me be patient, let me be patient!" sighed Derval, when the volcanic peaks of Ascension, the rendezvous of our African squadron, came in sight; and the Amethyst, having sprung one of her topmasts, ran in to refit. Letters for her came off in a Government boat. There were some for nearly every man on board save Derval, whose anxiety was fast becoming painful.

As at Madeira, he wrote and left a passionate and appealing letter to Clara, under cover to his brother, and sailed in hope for the Cape. Hope; he could not abandon that! Was Clara ill? had Rookleigh mismanaged their correspondence? or had Lord Oakhampton discovered and intercepted all their letters? Clara could address letters to the ship—letters which would follow him all over the world; but he remembered that his movements were somewhat unknown to her, and gathered a little mental relief from the idea. But from what did the silence of Rookleigh arise? He might at least write and state that he had no letters to enclose!

Why did she never write to him? he was incessantly asking himself. Where were the fondly promised letters that Rookleigh was to transmit to him, in exchange for those transmitted to him for her—passionate letters, expressing all the complete and wild abandonment of his heart and soul to an earthly love, to which he had given up all that God had given him.

Times there were when already he began to have strange and terrible doubts of her. Yet, why had she been so sweet, so kind, so loving in her manner to him, if she was but luring him into misery and disappointment? She could not be so cruel—his very life was in those little white hands of hers—hands that he had so often covered with kisses. Then he thrust these aching thoughts aside, and hoped and trusted that time would unravel and explain all; but as yet a black cloud, a pall, seemed to have come between him, his past existence, and Clara!

In the life he knew she must lead in the gay world, where she participated in all that fashion, wealth, and rank could surround her with, was she forgetting him? would be his tormenting thought anon; and had what he deemed a mutual love been to her but a sea-side romance, a summer flirtation? Oh! what was he, he would mutter, that she, a peer's daughter, in her beauty and her bloom, should remember him?

If true to him, at all risks and hazards, even of her father's anger, she should have written to him; and passing over Rookleigh, at the same risks and hazards, he should have written direct to her, and ended his cruel anxiety if possible; but he knew not her address, or whether she had returned from Paris to England.

"I thought that I had too many reasons for being happy," said he, "a sure sign of grief to come—of sorrow close at hand."

At last, after a voyage (including her delay at Ascension) of more than two months, the Amethyst hauled up for Table Bay, came to anchor, and the boats came off from Cape Town.

"At last, at last—surely now!" exclaimed Derval as a letter was given him, and he opened it with trembling hands. It was from Rookleigh, in answer to one he had written from Madeira, saying that "Miss Hampton had never sent a single letter for transmission," and nothing more.

What had happened? What did this cruel mystery mean?

He wrote her one cold and brief letter, almost a farewell, under cover to Rookleigh, and then an illness and fever came upon him while the ship lay at Cape Town, and through the long days and nights there, he lay in his little cabin, almost mad with his mental misery—a misery athwart which there came no gleam of light or hope; and when next he came on deck, after many weeks of illness, he found that the Amethyst, instead of returning to England, had been freighted for Batavia under Captain Talbot, and was working out of Table Bay, and heading eastward for the Indian Ocean!

Thus it would be long before he should see or hear of Clara again, and learn the worst that fate had in store for him.

How little could he imagine, that all he was suffering—the keenest pangs of doubt, anxiety, sorrow, and disappointment—were suffered by Clara. Ignorant of his precise address and whereabouts, the poor girl wrote to him in secrecy again and again—wrote to him lovingly, then despondently, and anon with surprise and upbraiding, under cover to Rookleigh, posting her epistles with her own hand, and trusting none other—posting them with a prayer on her lips; and to the recipient—the supposed medium of their love affair—the mutual correspondence proved a source of supreme merriment, and even to his mother too; and in the end the fire received it all.

At last Clara knew not what to think; she could but wait and hope, but ceased to use her pen. The conviction that she had stooped—actually condescended—in the acceptance of his love, added to the poignancy of what felt, and filled her, at times, with indignation at conduct so singular and unwarrantable.

Fear of Derval's vengeance, if his duplicity ever came to light, the malevolent Rookleigh had none; but he laughed curiously when he thought of the folly of which his sailor brother had been guilty in signing the unread document! And as for the loss of his lady-love, "Derval," he thought with a chuckle, "will no doubt take to poetry, and writing sonnets on female inconstancy."

A somewhat unexpected turn was given to the then state of the affair, by Lord Oakhampton once more taking up his abode temporarily at Bayview, in Finglecombe, the saline air of which he rightly or wrongly—for our story it matters little which—conceived to be beneficial to his health. This to Clara was most distasteful, as the entire locality was—for her—full of associations of the past, that the sooner she forgot the better for her own happiness.

It was about this time that Derval's last letter from Clara, written before his illness at the Cape, came to the hands of Rookleigh, and conceiving, from the animus of that in which it was enclosed, it might seem to widen the breach between the lovers, he, by the assistance of little hot water to moisten the envelope, made himself master of the contents, and adding a bitter postscript in imitation of Derval's writing, he reclosed it, and, aware that Lord Oakhampton was absent in London, resolved to deliver it in person, and thus achieve, perhaps, an introduction to Clara.

Inspired by a new and very remarkable scheme, he repaired to Bayview Villa, and sending up his card, was ushered into the drawing-room.

The apartment was a double one, divided by an archway, in which hung curtains of blue silk, edged with silver lace, and festooned partly with white silk cord and tassels. There was a sound, the rustling of a dress in the inner room; but at first Rookleigh saw only a white hand and arm—an arm so taper round and marvellously beautiful that he had never before seen anything like it. A diamond bracelet clasped the wrist. The hand slightly parted the curtains—for Clara was there, with his card in her hand, striving to still the painful beating of her heart.

Then her whole figure appeared: a girl tall, slender, perfect in grace and symmetry, her dark violet eyes full of earnest inquiry, the sweet lips and mignonne face, all expressive of it too. Lovely, dainty, and refined, Clara Hampton stood before him.

Would she offer him that lovely hand, permit him to touch it? was his first thought; but in a second more it was placed confidingly within his own; while Clara, who blushed deeply at first, now grew pale as the new-fallen snow.

Never before had he stood in the presence of a girl so quietly patrician in bearing and appearance.

"Mr. Rookleigh Hampton?" said she, glancing at the card, and with enforced calmness of tone and manner.

"Derval's brother," replied the traitor, and no other introduction was necessary, though at the mention of Derval's name, he could see how anxiety mingled with hauteur in her sensitive lips and eyes.

"You are, of course, aware of the arrangement my brother made about—about your letters?" said Rookleigh.

"You sent him all mine?" asked Clara in a breathless voice.

"All—and I have one here for you—whether a reply, or not, I cannot say."

"Only one!"

"The first and only one," replied Rookleigh, who, with all his effrontery and duplicity, felt that he never before stood in such a presence, and could scarcely remember how he answered her; for his mind was filling fast with admiration, his heart beat fast, and his brain seemed to burn.