CHAPTER XXI.

'THE END CROWNS ALL.'

A yellow autumn moon in a deep blue sky was pouring a flood of light over the old 'Queen of the North,' throwing the giant shadows of her rock-built fortress far athwart the dark valley below, and of the ridgy masses of the old city of mediæval times, towering high above the long white terraces of the New Town, when Leslie Fotheringhame thankfully deposited his charge—the poor waif whom he had found dying on the bank of the Morava—in one of the many stately hotels in the vicinity of Princes Street; we say thankfully, for though Cecil was recovering, he was still weak enough to render the prediction of Count Palenka something unpleasant to remember.

'Now, Cecil, a bumper of Moselle, as a refresher after our long day's journey, and then I go to meet those at the railway, whom, I suppose, you will be right glad to see!' said Fotheringhame, ere he laughingly took his departure in a cab.

Cecil drained the wine, and looked around him, half fearing that he might be dreaming—and that the spacious room, the brilliant gaselier, the Turkey carpet, the tiger-skin before the stately white marble mantelpiece, the great mirror in which his own pallid face and eyes unnaturally bright with long suffering were reflected, might pass away. How much had he seen of misery, how much bitterness of thought, and how much peril had he undergone since last he had surroundings such as these!

Could it all be real, that within an hour, perhaps, Mary's hands would be in his?

He approached one of the tall windows and looked out upon the night, and on the well-known scene, with all its familiar sights and sounds, with the moonlight streaming over steeple, tower, and dome—St. Giles's crown—the castle on its rock, so high in air that its lights seemed to mingle with the stars, and from it came the sound of the Cameronian drums, awaking the echoes of turret and battery—the drums he would soon be following again; but the heavy sigh of supreme gratitude that escaped him reminded him by a pang of the wound in his chest, and he reeled giddily.

'I would that they were come,' he muttered. 'I knew not till now that I was still so weak,' he added, as he looked at his wasted hands.

The shadow or outline of a man's figure standing in the broad iron balcony without the window now fell suddenly on a window-blind. Cecil drew it up—threw open the sash abruptly, and found himself face to face with—Hew—Hew watching him!

He seemed shabby in dress and dissipated—his hair and moustache untrimmed; his eyes were bleary, his nose pimply, and his whole air and aspect were those of a sorely broken-down tippler.

Cecil, in utter repugnance, recoiled a pace, and an ugly expression flashed in the shifty and bilious-like eyes of Hew.

'You, here!' exclaimed Cecil.

'Yes—and I saw your arrival.'

'Are you living in this hotel, Hew?'

'Well—I am, in a manner of way,' he replied, sulkily: 'I am the billiard-marker!'

'The billiard-marker? Have you fallen so far?'

'Yes,' he replied, with a fierce grimace.

'You did me an infamous and awful injury, Hew, as your own confession has shown; but,' added Cecil, in the generosity of his nature and under the impulses of the time, 'I forgive it all now.'

'Thank you—how good!' sneered the other.

'Let us forget our feud—your feud, rather; but never let me look upon your face again.'

'Only children and fools, they say, forget.'

'And what have you to remember, pray?'

'All that you have come between, and me.'

'I have only come to my own.'

'Curse you!' exclaimed Hew, hoarsely and bitterly.

'You are a rancorous fellow—begone instantly!' replied Cecil, as he closed the window; and, feeling somewhat exhausted by the emotions this most unexpected interview stirred within him, he threw himself upon a sofa to await the return of Fotheringhame with those who were to accompany him, and after a time he forgot all about Hew and his close vicinity.

Weary and weak, a drowsiness encouraged by the warmth of the room stole over him, and, in spite of his efforts to keep awake, he fell into a drowsy state between sleeping and waking; but his mind was full of Mary, who would soon be with him—the real and imaginary so blended in his vision, but indistinctly, with that vacuity which makes the dreamer sigh when his fancies have become a memory.

Hew was still watching without, and unnoticed by the crowds that passed and repassed in the lighted street below. His heart was full of the bitterest rancour, envy, and rage. His mind was full of a species of madness—but a madness with a great deal of method and cunning in it.

He peeped in from time to time at the sleeper, with a gleam of intense malice in his stealthy eyes. Cecil was alone and unattended, and he lay there apart from all, and quite unheeded amid the bustle of the great hotel.

'There is not much life left in the fellow,' muttered Hew; 'a good shake—a squeeze of the windpipe, or a few more drops in his drink than I gave him at the ball, and Eaglescraig is mine!'

The door of the apartment was shut—if he would act, it must be done promptly. He would enter and leave the room by the French window, and after all was over, leave the balcony by another apartment, and repair at once to his usual scene of work, the billiard-room.

A blindness and giddiness, with a great terror, came over him for a moment; as one in a dream, he looked at the crowds passing below—the stars above; gave a last glance to assure himself that his avenue of escape was clear, and then with a heart beating wildly, fired as it was by envy, avarice, malice, and all uncharitableness, he again drew near the window of Cecil's room and laid his stealthy hand upon it; but, as he did so, a deep hoarse malediction escaped in a kind of whisper, and shrinking back he stole softly away with all speed, and quitted the balcony—for he had seen a tableau that baffled his vengeance, and no doubt saved his soul from the perpetration of a terrible crime!

A little delay might have changed the fate of more than one person connected with our story; a great tragedy might have taken place almost without discovery, for had aught occurred to Cecil, it might have been attributed to his wounded and weak condition—so near was the prediction of Palenka being verified, not on the field of battle or in the carnage of charging squadrons, but in the quietude and seclusion, of a fashionable hotel!

From the latter, the amiable Hew took his departure on the instant, and it is very unlikely that he will ever cross the path of Cecil again.

Dreams are usually independent of all details and coherency; but Cecil, as he dozed on, seemed to become gradually aware of the dear and familiar face, of one who smiled gently upon him, as she bent over him—her very life—her treasure, and delicious was the thrill the dream gave him.

The sense of a beloved presence became more vivid and defined. He heard his name called, and started to find Mary stooping over him, her veil thrown back, and her eyes—soft and loving at all times—softer now with an infinite yearning, as she saw how weak he was, and how hard had been the struggle between youth and Death!

'Mary, Mary, let me hear your voice again!' he said, as he folded her in his arms, yet with that expression of doubt in his haggard eye, as of one who feared the joy around him might be a dream and pass away.

'Take her to your heart, my boy—the same blood runs in your veins!' said old Sir Piers, all unused to act 'the heavy parent,' but his keen bright eyes were as humid and moist as an old man's can well be, as he took Cecil's face between his withered hands, and gazed into his features as if he thought he could never look at them sufficiently; 'my own boy's eyes!' he exclaimed, with a kind of sob in his throat; 'my own boy's brow and lips—my poor Piers—you are his son—his son!'

A soft kiss was now laid upon his cheek—the kiss of Annabelle Erroll, and then the latter retired into the recess of a window, with her tall, dark lover Fotheringhame, who had no doubt a vast deal to tell her, and seemed to do so, very quietly and very softly, under the shadow of the curtains.

'My darling, my darling!' Cecil could but whisper again and again.

'Oh, Cecil—Cecil, whom I thought I was never—never to see again! How have I ever lived through all this!' she kept repeating; 'why did you go to Servia?'

'What mattered it where I went then—at the time, I mean!'

He gave a short sigh, as even her beloved cheek on his wounded chest made him wince.

'Egad, what a home-coming we'll have!' said the general; 'Rungeet entering Lahore will be nothing to it! Old John Balderstone, and Mrs. Garth, widow of Garth, of Ours—you remember her, Cecil? will be mustering the tenants and everybody—old Tunley too—what a Christmas we'll have! And there will be a bonfire on the old tower-head at Eaglescraig, that will light up the whole Firth of Clyde!'

But the lovers thought only of the future, which seemed so close and certain now.

Pillowed on Mary's breast—surrounded by friends and all the perfect safety of home and assured position, there was—to Cecil—a calm and delicious joy in existence now, after all the fierce whirl, the aching disappointment, and the wild excitement of his life recently.

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECROTYPERS, GUILDFORD.
J. W. & Sons.