text: THE ^ -^Q^^i Kafhari7te Wylde, iVU 1 /IL. ^ ^^^. Bryaiifs Mistake,'' etc. In Three Volumes. Vol. III. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, PUBLISHERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY the QUEEN J 89.1 (All rights reserved. ) mc^^'i.m^fmmmF'ms: CONTENTS OF VOL. III. PART VII. D I LEM MA — CO?/ tin 21 ed ... . : . PAGE 3 PART VIII. The Relics •• 34 PART IX. The Tragedy of Grace ... ... 79 PART X. The Tragedy of Gracy. {continued) ... ... 203 VOL. Ill, 41 " Time, which perfects some things, imperfects also others." " There is but One, the eternal Love, who knoweth The fond-eyed hopes we bury silently ; He knows the graveyard where the violet groweth, He knows the graveyards too of memory. " There blooms no violet, there no lamp is burning, No priest shall pray for these poor souls' release ; Be Thou their priest, O Lord, and stay their yearning, Speak Thou the word, O Lord, and grant us peace." iiiimiiiiiifiiiimfiiiJSJmfliiJiDffiiooQD ^^ THE PRINCESS ROYAL, PART VII. DILEMMA— contimied. CHAPTER VII. HE funeral took place, and all the county assembled to see the old man laid in the family vault. A few people won- dered at Gilbert's evident dejection, and remarked too on Lilith's controlled excite- ment. She was closely attended by Edward Vane, and that was remarked on too. After the breakfast the will was to be read in the library, and a large number of relatives were gathered to hear it. THE PRINCESS ROYAL. ** Do you wish the young man to be here ? " asked Mr. Wilkinson of Gilbert. Mr. Turold led the man of law aside. " You honestly believe the fellow's claim indisputable '^. " he questioned. '* I do ; unless the papers of which I hold copies are not forthcoming. If that were so you might get up a case. But he has the documents, Mr. Turold ; I have seen them." " He said something about possibly not presenting his claim. What should make him do that .^ " " I cannot imaoflne." " A flaw in it, eh .? " •' There is no flaw in it, I fear. I have looked into the matter according to your instructions. If he does not present his claim, I should say he was voluntarily re- nouncing In your favour." ** Pshaw ! We are not on those terms. But he might think I should expect him to renew his engagement Well, let DILEMMA. 5 him be fetched. We may as well get it over." Mr. Wilkinson went himself for Tom, whom he found superintending an auction of the furniture at Silcote Dene. The Turold relations meantime were very tired of the delay, and had discussed the position of Gilbert the heir, and of Lilith the heiress, and the prospects of little Mrs. Gascoigne, and of Edward Vane, and of the bourgeois lover who had lost his fortune and doubtless his bride, till they were sick of the family affairs and only longing for escape. At last, however, the door opened and the lawyer and the important people came in ; first, Lilith, very pretty in her crape and a little rosier than usual ; then her father, with his eyes on the ground and closely followed by Edward ; then, unaccountably, Tom Palmer, with his blind and impoverished father leaning on him ; and, lastly, the lawyers with the will. THE PRINCESS RO VAL. " I am requested by Mr. Gilbert Turold," said Mr. Wilkinson, *' to state that there is a surprise here. He has been informed of its nature himself ; so has Miss Turold, and, I believe, one or two others." Then the reading, wearisome enough, began; and it was announced that all the money (which was uncommonly little, less even than had been supposed), and all the heir- looms, and all the collections, and everything in the power of the testator, were to follow the real property to the heir of entail, with the exception of a few jewels bequeathed directly to Lilith, and certain very trifling legacies to servants and dependents. There was no surprise in all this, and the various cousins looked at each other and nodded, not disappointed, because they had had no expectations. The lawyer made a pause, and Lilith was pinching her fingers and wishing that the blood would bound a little less wildly through her veins; and both Gilbert Turold, from DILEMMA. the post of honour, and Tom Palmer, from his obscurity in the window, were looking straight before them and seeing nothing. The measured voice read on. The testator, who two hours before his death had added this statement to the tes- tament just read, pointed out that the heir of entail (here every one stared) was Thomas, born in the year 186-, only son of the testator's third son, Stephen, and of Catharine his wife, both deceased. The silence which followed this announce- ment was oppressive as a break in a clap of thunder, and no one dared to look at Gilbert Turold. But presently there was heard the blind man's voice, for, unable to see what was going on, the silence agitated him. *' My dear boy .-* my dear boy ? " said Mr. Palmer, inquiringly. Gilbert rose after this. '* I understand," he said, " that my father was satisfied by the claim of this person who represents himself to be the son of my THE PRINCESS ROYAL. elder brother. As the next heir, I must of course see that his claim is indisputable before I relinquish mine." "The testator," said Wilkinson, ''put into my hands copies of certain documents, the originals being, I believe, in possession of the claimant. I will read the copies aloud, premising that I find no reason for suspecting the correctness of the information they fur- nish. You will form your own conclusions, gentlemen." He read on ; and no sooner was the name of Palmer mentioned than every one ven- tured to look at Tom, who flushed under this fire of eyes, but still stared straight before him into the grate. " All this goes for little, if the originals of these documents are not produced," ended Mr. Wilkinson, looking at Sir James Hun- tingtower, a renowned Q.C., and a cousin of Gilbert's. **The gentleman named is present," said Sir James ; " let him inform us." DILEMMA. Mr. Palmer, however, rose instead of Tom. He felt his way hesitatingly to the middle of the room, and stood leaning on the back of the Lady Caroline Vane's chair, rather to her disgust. " I'm come here with Tom," said Mr. Palmer, speaking with difficulty, for emotion made him hesitate, and his blindness bothered him, hiding from him the expression of the surrounding faces as well as their number, " to swear he's the same lad. He was left a h'orphan, and destitute, and my wife and me, who had no child, took him and bred him up as our own. We knew his father's name was Turold, and that he belonged to this family here, but we never told Tom ; and before God, I never knew till a twelvemonth ago that Tom was the heir or like to be, or had any claims for money or anything else from his father's family. Maybe I was careless not to make inquiries ; but he was a true son to me, and his own father was a disgrace to him, and I never meant anything lO THE PRINCESS ROYAL. but the best ; and the moment I found I had gone down in the world, and couldn't do for him so well as I had 'oped, I gave him up to his own people." Mr. Wilkinson listened to this with some impatience. '' You are prepared," he said, '' to swear that he is the son of the late Stephen Turold ? — And you, sir," he turned to Tom, " can you produce the originals of the docu- ments I have just read } " Lilith felt nearly sick with excitement. The tone of respect in which the lawyer spoke to her lover, the silence and attention of all in the room, convinced her that no one was going to dispute his claim, and that he was already recognized as the head of the family. He was known now like the dis- guised prince of a fairy tale, and her choice was vindicated. But would Tom produce the papers } He had spoken to her of burning them ; of abolishing his claim, and leaving her father at Turold Royal, content DILEMMA. n himself eventually to gain his own place there by his wife's right, not his own. Lilith had thought the matter over long and anxiously ; she was romantic, and she had quite decided that this was what she hoped her lover would do. It would show Tom to be magnanimous ; it would gain him the admiration of the whole world ; it would leave her father on the throne which he became so well. And somehow — so at least it seemed to Lilith — it would prove that she and her betrothed saw things from the same point of view, and that he didXov^ her, and did mean to marry her. She listened with the keenest attention, hoping against hope ; and ready, when he had made his gene- rous renouncement, his great self-sacrifice, to reward him by falling publicly into his arms and vowing that, penniless or not, Turold or Palmer, she would be his wife on the morrow — if he wished it. Why, oh ! why did that hateful little con- dition start up in her mind even at this 12 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, minute ? Why could she not believe in his love as she had done a year ago ? Tom was speaking now. *' It has been a great blow to me," he said, "to find I am not Mr. Palmer's son. I shall never think of any one else as my father. But here are the papers ; and on the faith of them and of his word, I present myself as Thomas Charles Turold, and claim to be acknowledged as my grandfather's heir." He handed the documents to Gilbert, who, after a glance shared by Edward, passed them on to Sir James Huntingtower ; and the various relatives all crowded together to look. Tom, having made his statement, was waiting quietly and looking out of the window, so that he did not observe poor Lilith's disappointment. The tears slowly filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. He was not magnanimous ! he had not uttered even a word of demur, or an expres- sion of regret, or of sympathy with the man DILEMMA. 13 he was displacing ; he was acting just as Mr. Anybody-out-of-the-Street might have done. The haughty, supercilious relatives, whom Lillth half reverenced and half de- tested, would see In him nothing more than a tiresome Interloper, when he might have appeared before them as a hero. She was disappointed ; and yet, and yet, she would have acquiesced in his attitude and forgiven him everything, If at that moment he would have turned round and smiled at her, and claimed her before all these people as his own, with eyes of love. But Tom was paying no attention to his sweetheart, nor attempting In any way to associate her In his triumph ; he was look- ing out of the window. And he saw two curious-looking men advancing to the en- trance. Presently he heard a ring. Oddly observant, considering how involuntary was his attention, Tom next heard a colloquy with Yates ; then the library door was opened a very little, and the two men peeped in, 14 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. and then they took up a station beside it, watching all that went on in the room, while Yates, with a disturbed air, hovered around them. " I suppose, Gilbert, you don't think of disputing this?" said Sir James Hunting- tower at last, handing the precious papers back to Tom. '' Not at present," replied Gilbert, dryly. " To avoid possible future trouble," con- tinued Sir James, addressing the claimant, ** it will be well to take the matter into court and get your position publicly recog- nized ; but it will be a mere form. It only remains for us now," he continued rather loudly, ''to shake hands with Mr. Turold and offer him our congratulations." Tom bowed his acknowledgments, but stiffly, and did not seem inclined to shake hands with any one. The impression he made was not particularly favourable. '' There is one thing I should like to explain," said Gilbert, having sent Lilith DILEMMA. T 5 from the room ; " I had no suspicion of my nephew's existence till five days ago, and was no party to the proposed patching up of the affair by marrying him to my daughter. You are aware," he said, ad- dressing Tom, " how strenuously I all along opposed that engagement ? " Tom bowed again. '* But now, Gilbert," said Lord Erping- ham, who always took a great interest in other men's matters, *' that romantic affair will no doubt assume a different and a more attractive complexion." Silence on Tom's part at this juncture was a little surprising. " Would it be indiscreet," continued the nobleman, with the rather patronizing air of an arbitrator, '* to inquire how much of this you, sir, knew yourself when you courted your cousin } " Tom resented the interference. " Yes," he said with some temper, " I am afraid it might be a little indiscreet." 1 6 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Perhaps, uncle, I may answer your ques- tion without indiscretion," said Edward Vane, in his usual covertly sneering tone. " Old Mr. Turold's ingenuity could never have commended itself to Tom. He has no yearning to hide his light under a bushel. As soon as he knew of his claim he hurried to present it." "And quite right too," said Sir James, who detested Edward. ** I resolved to take m.y place," flashed out Tom. A little group, of which he was the tallest, had formed round him, and for some reason they all, and Edward foremost, seemed to him enemies. " To my thinking," observed Lord Erping- ham, "it's a charming thing that you are engaged td your cousin." " If he is," said Edward. " My dear Ned," urged Lord Erpingham, quickly, "every one must see it's desirable. Even a rival suitor must acknowledge that." DILEMMA. 1 7 Tom still said nothing, and Lord Erping- ham felt inclined to shake him. Edward laughed a little. " Gilbert had broken the engagement off," he said to his uncle, Lord Erpingham, in a low, explanatory voice, which was yet dis- tinctly audible ; '' that must have been irri- tating to the new cousin, and there would be a slight temptation to the carnal man to show Gilbert that he had cut his nose by spiting his face." " Oh, nonsense ! " said Lord Erpingham, aloud ; " motives of that sort do not obtain among fair-minded people. The matter must be viewed with common sense. If Gilbert was a little hot — all these Turolds are hot — he had provocation. The tables have been so completely turned, that he deserves a little generosity. Don't you agree with me ? " he said, addressing Tom, who in his opinion was not showing the alacrity be- coming in a member of the family. "• There is no one who would not like to see our VOL. ni. 42 l8 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. pretty princess still at Turold Royal, and — God bless my soul ! — it was supposed to be a love affair ! " Tom felt a stab at his heart ; he could have made a hundred gentle answers had he been quite certain that Lilith trusted and wholly loved him. "Certainly, it was a love affair," he answered; "but Mr. Turold told me his daughter could not marry the son of a bank- rupt tradesman. I wish it to be clearly understood that I am the son of the bank- rupt tradesman still." "Oh," cried the nobleman, "but that's absurd to take offence at an expression when the whole circumstances are changed. Here, Gilbert, if you have offended your nephew, even though offence is unreason- able, you must apologize, my dear fellow. It will be a deuced pity if you two begin by malice and uncharitableness. Let me have the pleasure of blighting this incipient quarrel ; for the sake of pretty Miss Lilith's DILEMMA. 19 bright eyes, eh ? Here, Ned, you are intimate with both parties ; join me in making peace, eh ? " "Not I," said Edward; "the peacemaker always gets his head smashed, especially when he doesn't know how far the quarrel has gone nor what it s about." *' There has been no quarrel," said Tom ; *' and Lilith is still wearing the ring I gave her." '• Not with my consent," said Gilbert Turold, quickly. " I ended the engagement for excellent reasons, which are not proved insufficient. The leopard doesn't change his spots even when he changes his name." " My dear Gilbert," cried the peacemaker, " what an unlucky simile ! Spots sound something disagreeable ; though, when you come to think of It, they are the leopard's beauty. Come, come, come, everything is changed. Let me beg you both — for the family credit, eh ?— to let bygones be bygones, to wipe out old scores, and to start afresh 20 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. on good terms with each other, and above all with the heroine of the love-story, poor child." '* There was a whisper of two heroines," murmured Edward. '' Would you speak a little louder, Mr. Vane ? " said Tom, taking a step towards him. *' What did you say ? " " I ? oh, nothing, nothing ! I don't sympa- thize in the least with Lord Erpingham. I think he's fighting in the dark, and will have his head smashed. Does it strike you, uncle, that Mr. Turold looks grateful for your advice ? " " I should like him to realize," said Lord Erpingham, pompously, "that he has great moral obligations towards our old friend. Legal obligations there appear to be none ; but in every branch of our family, I am glad to say debts of honour have been considered first." " Take care how you prove too much," said Tom, bitterly. '* For Heaven's sake, let DILEMMA. 21 me go ! My lord, I am not ungrateful for advice, but I fear you won't think I have remembered it when I begin to take the advantages this position offers me. Mr. Vane, there never were two heroines, as you know better than any one." " Did I say something about two heroines ? " said Edward ; '' stay a minute, and let me think." " Think as long as you choose ; but if you repeat the expression," said Tom, '' I shall answer you in a way you will resent." He was silent for a moment, looking down upon Edward's contemplative coun- tenance. '' Upon my soul, I forget all about it," said Edward, in his most natural manner. '*That is very wise of you," returned Tom, stepping out of the group which parted to let him pass. " Come, father, let us get home," he said with involuntary sternness, as he drew the blind man's arm in his. And they went out together, all the 2 2 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. relations following them with their eyes, and far from sure that in this new head of the family they had found an agreeable addition to their number. " I hope we have done nothing rash," said Sir James. " He must be made to marry Gilbert's daughter," returned Lord Erpingham. *' Oh, you know," said Edward, *' he never really meant to marry her. It was all part of a plot. There was some understanding with the Kidsons all along, and now the very modern Miss Kidson is to be mistress at the Court, and good Sir Joseph is to see old Palmer out of his difficulties." " Then the young man is a scoundrel ! " cried Lord Erpingham, '* as might be ex- pected of Stephen's descendant. But what's all this noise in the hall ? " Tom and the man whom he still called his father had left the library together. They were stopped by Yates. " Beg pardon, sir " he began apologeti- DILEMMA. cally ; but the blind man, not noticing the interruption, was for passing on. One of the two persons whom Tom had seen watching through the door checked him. '• Are you John Palmer ? " asked this man, roughly seizing his arm. As by a flash of lightning, Tom understood. " For God's sake, Mr. Tom, be careful ! " said Yates, striking the son's arm up when he would have interfered ; *' they've got the law of him." Then the library door re-opened, and the relatives looked out to see what the talking was. " I arrest you, John Palmer," said the constable, "on a warrant at the instance of George Stirke of Leadenhall Street. You will please to follow me quietly, sir." " Heaven s will be done ! " said the victim, faintly. " Good God ! " ejaculated Tom, aware that resistance would be as vain as in- judicious. " Show me your warrant, man." 24 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Tom," said Mr. Palmer, " it's the Lord's will, and we must bear it. I've seen you righted first, my dear lad, and in your own house." " And is this the first thing to happen in my own house '^. " said Tom. ''What is the matter?" asked Gilbert Turold, advancing. *' I assure you, gentlemen, we are doing no more than our duty," said the constable, angrily. They hustled him off, one of the men dragging him by the arm, the other guarding against what might be interference from Tom ; while all the Turold relatives hung together in a knot watching this strange termination of their meeting. The officer was either unaware of his prisoners blind- ness or ignorant how to treat it ; he hurried Mr. Palmer along in a manner which terrified and made him awkward. Arrived at the flight of stone steps, he had no warning ; consequently lost his footing and fell heavily, DILEMMA. 25 Still held by the arm, and rolling round to his captor s feet. A curse burst from Tom's lips. Thrust- ing the officers aside, he raised the shaken and trembling man like a child, and set him on his feet, still supporting him. ''Yates, get me some wine," he said authoritatively. " I'm none the worse, Tom," gasped poor Mr. Palmer. "• I beg your pardon, my men, for being so clumsy. I'll go on, my dear boy, now ; but they'll let you give me a hand down the steps.'' Presently the cab, with the prisoner and the two constables, had driven away; and the young master of the house was standing in the Tudor hall, leaning against the panel- ling, sick at heart as he faced the whole wondering group of his new-found relatives. He wanted to explain to them that Mr. Palmer was as innocent as a child, but no words came to his lips. At this juncture they all felt a little sorry for him, and 26 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Gilbert was even debating if he might not say something avuncular and kind. At last Edward's clear, polite, mock sym- pathetic voice was heard. " You've arranged with Kidson to bail him out, haven't you, Tom ? Gilbert, you look anxious ; don't you think some of Tom's enigmas are explained now ? We have seen Mr. Palmer arrested for these frauds, but I fancy — I hope — there is no ground for apprehension of any further arrest ? " A sentence scarcely more lucid than some of Tom's own ; but the latter saw through it so clearly as to suppose its insulting tenor patent to every one. He retorted at once by striking Edward lightly in the face. " The word ' fraud ' shall not be used in my hearing in connection with my father," he said. Edward laughed. CHAPTER VIII. ONSTERNATION is the only word to describe the feelings of the party left behind at Turold Royal, when they were rid of the presence of the heir. Upstairs in her room, Lilith had cried her eyes red, and was now ashamed to go down again among the guests. But she could not avoid an interview with Lady Caroline Vane and Lady Huntingtower, who gave her a garbled and alarming account of what had taken place, and especially of the insult to Edward. A blow was a thing gentle Lilith had never even heard of in polite circles, and she reiterated with an emphasis which showed her dismay : 2S THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " But it must have been an accident. Tom couldn't possibly have done any such thing. He couldn't indeed : it's Impossible. You must have misunderstood. I am quite sure if you ask Edward he will tell you it was an accident." " Certainly Edward laughed and pre- tended to think it an accident," said Lady Caroline ; " Edward is all kindness and for- bearance, and had been in the very act of expressing sympathy." " I am quite sure you are mistaken," cried Lilith, again ; " I know Tom better than any of you. I know he couldn't have done it." ** I never saw him till to-day," said the languid Lady Huntingtower ; '' after being prepared, my dear Lilith, to like him for your sake, I must confess to finding him a deplorably rough diamond." '* I am thankful to hear from your father, my dear," added Lady Caroline, ** that your engagement is broken off. My own firm DILEMMA, 29 conviction all along has been that that young man drinks. I remember thinking so the first day I saw him, and of course if he's poor wretched Stephen's son, it's as good as proved." ** My engagement is not broken off!" cried Lilith, her blue eyes flaming ; '' and it is simply silly. Lady Caroline, to say such things of Tom ! " "Certainly," observed Lady Huntingtower, " your supposition, Caroline, might account for his behaviour to your son." " I shall tell your father, Lilith," said Lady Caroline, rising, " that in my judgment it would be ruinous to let you marry such a person for the sake of the estate. If Gilbert should be tempted, let him remember that his motives and his conduct will be most severely criticized throughout the family." ** Oh, do please go away," said Lilith ; *' none of you understand, none of you understand I '' 30 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Tom meantime had returned alone to Silcote Dene. At a little distance from the Court he had paused and looked back at the house ; studying the windows, and chiefly that one from which, in happier times, Lilith had watched his coming and going. She was not there to-day. He went home and found the house at Silcote Dene dismantled, dark, desolate, with straws lying about in the hall ; while the blue satin, the gilt mirrors, the Turkey carpets, the orchids he used to pick for his sweetheart, the palms under which she had sat with him not a week ago, were all gone, or in progress of going, which was more dreary still. Mrs. Palmer, weary and, untidy, sat in the morning-room, shorn of its splendour, but still habitable ; Louisa was cutting out a dress by the help of crackling paper patterns ; Norah reading aloud in the dramatic-by-recipe manner inculcated at the High School. To Tom, whose thoughts were all with Lilith, these three seemed at that moment strangely DILEMMA, 31 unlovely specimens of womanhood. But it was these three who belono^ed to him. Did Lilith ? '' Mother," said Tom, the blood mounting slowly in his face as he spoke, " did they come here to look for him ? Father has not come home with me. I'd have cut my arm off rather than have seen it, but it has happened. He has been arrested. Mother ! neither he nor you seem to understand one thing. It is hateful to admit that you are not my parents ; but the fact gives me power to help him now. Don't be too much dis- tressed, mother ; we shall have him back with us very soon, and his name shall be cleared ; as sure as " — he bent over the weeping woman and kissed her, smiling cheerfully, "as sure as my name is — Tom Palmer." Before going to bed that night and not without hesitation and the writing of several rough copies, Tom accomplished a letter to Mr. Wilkinson. This is what he wrote. THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " As it had been my grandfather's dying intention to put a charge on the property for the benefit of my uncle Mr. Gilbert Turold, I propose to arrange with the executors that his wish should be carried out ; and I shall be glad if you will ascertain as early as possible what sum would meet my uncle's wishes, and be just and fair to all parties. I have other matters on which I must speak to Mr. Turold, but I want this question between us settled first." Tom sat for a long time with the pen in his hand before he could bring himself to write his own signature : Thomas Charles Turold. At the Court, Lord Erpingham was still labouring in the interests of peace, and he held up the above communication as eminently satisfactory, eventually indeed persuading Gilbert to accept the offer it contained of a younger son's portion. Tom breathed a little more freely. Then he spent a long time with Mr. Wilkinson and his partner and learned a great deal of the family circumstances. And then he had consultations with the DILEMMA. Zl executors and trustees and other people, till he had arrived at a tolerably clear conception of his position, its possibilities and its duties. aJ*^ VOL. III. 43 PART VIII. THE RELICS. CHAPTER I. HEN Tom next presented himself at Turold Royal, he found Yates, long friendly, now obsequious ; Tamburlaine and Bajazet seemed also to have learned the facts, and they attached themselves to the steps of the new master. But he had to wait a long time in the library before Gilbert Turold came down, and to Yates's astonishment he declined to see Lllith. At last the elder man entered, looking greatly harassed, for trouble shows plainly on the faces of those no longer young. Tom was just beginning to speak, when Lilith THE RELICS. 35 also came into the room, and, as he scarcely offered to greet her, took a chair in the back- ground. She was very pale ; all her aching doubts had revived, indeed had become to her almost certainties ; and there was no- thing in Tom's manner at this moment to reassure her. Feeling that the crisis had arrived, she determined to meet it at least halfway and with courage and dignity. " Go on," said Gilbert, to his nephew, " say what you wish, and have done with it." '' I have come in the first place," said Tom, very slowly, '' and it pains me so much that I can hardly utter the words, to break off my engagement to Lilith. God help me ! " added his heart, silently. '' Well," said Mr. Turold, shrugging his shoulders, " I have so often urged you to this step, that I cannot complain. If you had done it a little sooner, it would have been more courteous to my daughter." " You think it is because I care for her 36 . THE PRINCESS ROYAL. less," said Tom, afraid to look at Lilith, yet aware that she was manifesting no surprise, but pride only, suggestive of the offended princess rather than of the tender Lilith of his love : '' it is not that. It is because I am going to do what I cannot think that she or you will like, though I do hope to show you that it is inevitable. I want Lilith to be free to judge about it ; as my cousin, nothing more." *' Well, what are you going to do ? But I know of course ; all these words are need- less. You are going to marry your friend, Miss Kidson." '' No," said Tom, coldly, from excess of emotion. '* I have no thought of marrying any one but Lilith." He did look at her this time ; but she resolutely refused to meet his eye, and Tom noticed that she had taken off the two rines he had given her and laid them on the table. *' She does not believe me," he said to him- self. THE RELICS. 37 '' Then I am at a loss," returned Mr. Turold, coldly. Tom rested his head on his hand and was silent for a moment. Should he further rebut this slander about Grace, or should he not ? " Mr. Turold, I would give a great deal to be able to say, * Stay on with Lilith in this house.' I can't. I can get a higher rent for it," said Tom, blunt in his distress, " than what you could give me, and so I am going to let it to the highest bidder." '' Let Turold Royal .^ What do you mean ? The Court has been in the occupa- tion of my family for six hundred years. How can you dream of letting it ? " " There is nothing to prevent my letting it," said Tom. " I am going to let it for the same reason that father is selling Silcote Dene. Because we want money. He has very extensive liabilities, and what is worse, his honesty has been called in question. I am thankful to be able to ri^ht him, and I 38 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. mean to do it. But I must do more than let the house ; and I don't want to damage the estate. There are things in this house, curious, useless things, but worth a great deal. I am going to sell them." ** Tom ! " exclaimed Lilith, starting up ; but her father silenced her. He had flushed strangely ; very much annoyed before, he was now furious. " You shall not do it,' he said. '' I repeat, you shall not do it. It is robbery." " Can you prevent me ? " said Tom, gravely. " I have consulted the lawyers and the trustees. The things I allude to are in my power as much as this table or this chair. Some of them — not all, I hope nothing like all — must go. I have presented my claim to this property, and I shall make it good solely with the intention of doing this, Mr. Turold, and at the earliest moment. You cannot hinder me. There is too much at stake." *' You infernal young scoundrel ! " cried THE RELICS. Gilbert, walking about in the greatest agitation. ''It is the most sacrilegious conduct I ever heard of. You are revealing yourself at last In your true colours. Every- thing Vane has told me of you Is justified." " Vane has poisoned your mind till you will not even hear what I have to say ! " cried Tom, his temper rising at the name. "Mr. Turold, you saw John Palmer arrested. He is to be prosecuted for a fraud, a bad fraud for which he Is I fear legally respon- sible, — for which, being an honest man, he holds himself responsible ; but of which he is personally innocent as a child. I say he is innocent as a child. If it comes to a trial, I have grave doubts of his escape. Whether he escape or not, he will He under a stigma of dishonour unless the money Is refunded. To me he has been, he is, he always will be " ''That Is enough," Interrupted Mr. Turold; " I understand. You are going to dissipate the treasures of my family which accident 40 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. has put in your grasp, and for which my ancestors have often paid their blood, for the screening of a common swindler " '' No ! " said Tom, striking his hand with violence on the table, '' in my house no one shall speak of screening, nor call my father a swindler ! If you repeat it you shall not stay here, not for a day." What retort Gilbert Turold might have made to this, and his eye betokened that it was about to be a very angry one, was hindered by Lilith, who now came forward, her head erect, her cheek flushed. '* You forget yourself, Tom," she said, her voice quivering. " How can you speak to my father in that manner ? I could never have believed you would have spoken so. Have you not injured papa enough without insulting him ? " "• Judge for yourself, Lilith," said Mr. Turold ; " even you can be blinded no longer. After declining to release you from an insane engagement, when you had a THE RELICS. 4 1 position and he had none, this man comes here to-day as the important landowner, openly to jilt the dowerless girl whom he has displaced " He checked himself, frightened by Lilith's pallor. But again she summoned pride to her assistance. "It is my own wish," she said, with dignity. " He does not want you, my dear," con- tinued Mr. Turold ; '* and you see he tramples on your beautiful home. Now you know the sort of man," concluded Gilbert with eloquence, *' to whom my daughter wished to sell herself ; for modern diamonds, Lilith ; false, I dare say, as his professions." " Mr. Turold," said Tom, " I have no more to explain to you. I require to be left now to speak alone with Lilith." Upon this he insisted, but not without an altercation, which agitated the girl still more and was damaging to his own self-possession and temper. 42 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, '' Tom — " said Lilith, moving towards him with her hands stretched out despairingly, " say to me at once that it is not true ! " "That the diamonds were false?" said Tom, bitterly. " I think they were false as my professions indeed ! " " Oh, Tom, you break my heart ! But is it true that you are going to sell the things I love ? " " Does that include the toys I gave you ? " " How can I love them if you are false ? But I mean the things belonging to Turold Royal, which I have known and valued and reverenced all my life, and which you, Tom, scarcely ventured to touch till a week ago." " It is true, Lilith." " It is not true that you were insolent to papa, and to the others ? It is not true that you struck Edward ? At least I may deny that ! " " I believe I did strike Edward. And he has pocketed the affront," said Tom with a laugh. THE RELICS. 43 Lillth knew little about pocketing affronts ; she did know that blows were horrible. " Oh, Tom, I have been mistaken in you. They told me you were not what I thought. It seems they were right. You are false to me ; you have insulted my cousin ; you have robbed and threatened papa ; and you are going to ruin our house and throw away our precious things. Oh, you have broken my heart. Let me go, Tom. It is over." "■ They are my things, not yours," said Tom. "It is my house, not yours. I have robbed no one ; and this is my room, and neither you nor I shall leave it, Lilith, till you have heard me speak. I am not your husband, but I have been near enough to you to insist on my right of explanation. It is easier than I expected, upon my word ; for your cruelty makes me care less about hurt- ing you." Lilith moved to the window, that he might not see her tears ; and Tom went on, after a few minutes, in a different tone : 44 , THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Lillth ! I never thought I should be angry with you. I did not mean to speak to you Hke that. Dear — forgive me. Let me try and explain quietly." Lilith was touched, and she almost came back to her lover, and threw herself into his arms. But if he were false ? She stood still at the window with her back to him. " Lilith, you heard what I said about my father. He has been accused of swindling. The charge is a lie ; but unless, in a sense, it should become true, this money must be found, not as a bribe or a screen — good God, no ! — as simple restitution to the man who has been injured. But my father is old, blind, and bankrupt. He is helpless. Lilith, he has a son : a son who finds means in his possession more than sufficient to pay the debt. What kind of son would he be who shut his hand upon riches, and left his father to bankruptcy, to shame, to imprisonment, and to forced dishonesty ? Answer me, Lilith." THE RELICS. 45 *' Your father, Tom, was my uncle Stephen," murmured the girl. "■ Do not say It ! I owe nothing to him, but my bare existence. Nor to his family. They did nothing for me. It may not have been their fault ; I don't think It was ; but they did nothing. That other did all. He saved me, fed me, gave me education, affec- tion, a home, happiness, all there is which makes existence worth having. He is my father ; and I would rather perish In hell fire than turn my back on him now when he wants assistance." "■ I know, Tom," said Lillth ; " you ought to do something for him. But not by being wicked to other people. My father has not injured you that you should harm him. Nothing can make it right that you should ruin and sell the things belonging to us — to the Turolds — for the good of Mr. Palmer, who is nothing at all to us." Lillth was not logical, but this was her own sweet voice again, and Tom felt more hopeful of 46 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. eventually making her comprehend. He came a step nearer. " If," continued Lilith, tearfully, partly turning towards him, *' you had done what you talked about, what I couldn't help hoping, Tom, that you would do, — if you hadn't insisted upon your rights, but had left all that to papa — then indeed you could have stayed with Mr. Palmer and been his son to the end, and helped him as much as you liked without injuring anybody. Oh, I would have loved you if you had done that!" '' But don't you see, Lilith ! " cried Tom, expostulatingly, '' to renounce my rights was to renounce the power of helping him, the very thing I was praying to have ! If you will think for a single moment, surely you will understand ! " Tom should of course have left it there ; but hard things had been said to him, and he went on, foolishly enough. '' Under the circum- stances, I do not expect you to marry me, Lilith ; I have given up all hope of that. THE RELICS, 47 But I think you should make some effort to understand. Have you no sense of pro- portionate values ? You want me to sacrifice the reputation of a good, brave man, to whom personally I owe everything, for a question of who shall inhabit a house, and who shall own a few odds and ends, mere luxuries, of no use to any mortal, for the most part of a purely fictitious value " Lilith dashed her tears away, and took her hands from her face. '* They are of value ! " she cried, " of the greatest value. They are symbols, history, honour, reverence " " Sentiment ! " suggested Tom. No word exists more irritatinof than senti- ment. '' What do you mean by that '^, " cried the girl. " Is everything sentiment, except pounds, shillings, and pence .'^ No wonder you have ceased to care for me. You think that * sentiment,' I suppose ? Tom, you can 48 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. help Mr. Palmer without this ! As you think Love ' sentiment,' and as you care only for money, and are tired of me, you can marry Grace Kidson and be as rich as you wish." Tom turned white and his eyes flashed. "■ What is it you say, Lilith ? You prefer my marrying Grace Kidson to selling off this rubbish ? " '' I don't care two straws whom you marry ! " cried Lilith, desperately. " Good God ! " said Tom, seizing her by the wrists and holding her at arm's length ; ''you would sell yourself, I believe, for this trash, since you are so ready to sell me!" " Let me go ! " said Lilith, frightened. " Our love is over, Tom ! " '' Over ? It has never existed. God in heaven ! You don't know what love is, child ! You bid me go and marry Grace as if you were bidding me change my coat ! You are the same girl who kissed me THE RELICS. 49 without intendinsf it, and then told me to forget because I was not one of you." ''Let me go!" repeated LiHth, striving to escape, her cheeks dyed with fright and with resentment at this allusion. " I wish I had never kissed you. Let me go ! " At the words there surged up in Tom's mind the sense of all he was losing ; though she was proved a frail creature whose kisses were meaningless and who did not know what love meant. Unheeding her protests, he strained her roughly to his heart and crushed his lips passionately upon hers. In her antagonism and her helplessness, Lilith screamed. VOL. III. 44 Eii[sJraJr^rciJrciJ[gi^RJrsJrBJrBJi^JTst^i^rBJr^f^FgjfgT5J'^ CHAPTER II. " Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part — Nay, I have done, you get no more of me : And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free ; Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again. Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And innocence is closing up his eyes, — Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st him yet recover ! " ERY true ; but then there must be no intervening of other people ; their touch is murderous. Tom kissed LiHth against her will, and THE RELICS. 5 1 very roughly. And Lilith screamed. Then came Edward Vane's clear, cold voice. '' Drop Miss Turold's arm this instant ! How dare you insult her ? " The interruption recalled Tom to his senses, and he released the girl at once, with a quick motion of penitence. The over- wrought and terrified Lilith was caught by her cousin ; her wrists were purple from her lover's grasp, and her limbs trembled. *' Curse you!" said Edward. And Tom flung him the curse back, with a sickening revulsion of feeling, an agony of remorse and jealousy. For a moment a wall of blackness rose before his eyes and a roar- ing of the sea in his ears. A pit seemed to open at his feet, into which he was falling. Were his senses leaving him, then '^ Edward always saw everything ; as he gently drew Lilith from the room, he pointed out to her that Tom staggered, and he shrugged his shoulder and glanced at a spirit-decanter on a side-table. </WIV£fiSITy Of ILUIWU 52 , THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " He has been drinking," said Edward. Revenge Is always sweet, and this was his revenge for the day when LIHth, in the temple at Koorneh, had fled from himself to Tom. '' What on earth is the matter '^. " cried Gilbert Turold, when he saw his daughter, white as a lily, and forced almost into hysterics by Edward's skilful fomenting of her agitation. " Have you had an accident, my dear love ? " " That drunken blackguard has Insulted her," said Edward. *' Drunken ! " echoed Mr. Turold, remem- bering the mare's nest of Lady Caroline's discovery ; '' Impossible ! It never even struck me ! Is that the meaning of it, then ? Ah, Stephen's son. Stephen's son ! What did he do to you, LIHth .^ " "He kissed her," said Edward, dryly, still standing over Lllith and fanning her. Mr. Turold rescued his daughter from her too solicitous cousin, and helped her to recover a little equanimity. THE RELICS. 53 "My poor child !" he said presently ; "this is very painful, Lilith, but we must bear it and help each other. We must prepare to leave the house, my darling. We cannot remain here after this." " Oh, papa," said Lilith, " I am sorry he spoke to you so. But indeed he thinks he is doing right. He is so fond of that poor blind man." " Lilith," said Edward, '' you must hear the truth. The blind man is a thief. Virtuous men do not sacrifice themselves for thieves. Tom himself is compromised ; mixed up in this swindle. That is why, at all hazards, he must stop the prosecution." Lilith looked up with a scared counte- nance ; and her father said : " Good heavens ! Edward, what have you to go upon in saying this ? " "Common sense," said Edward, un- moved, " and some acquaintance behind the scenes." Lilith was sent at once to her room, to 54 ' THE PRINCESS ROYAL. collect all Tom's letters and presents, that they might be returned to him at once. *' I wish I was dead ! " she said passion- ately, as she rose to obey. An hour later her father found her sobbing her heart out over the task, a pile of Tom's letters before her. '* Papa ! " cried Llllth, '' I want to see him again. Oh, I do ! He was wrong, I know, and angry, and all that ; but so was I angry, and I don't know what I said nor the half of what he said ; and It seems now as If It had been all my fault. Oh, do — do let me see him again ! " *' It Is quite Impossible, my love." *' His letters, papa ! I have been trying to read them ! Papa, it can't be true. When he wrote all that he meant It. I know he did ! " " Yes, yes, at first. He has taken a wrong turning, Llllth. As his poor father did. Upon my word, I don't know what to think. He is all wrong now anyhow. THE RELICS. 55 Edward has been telling me Fd rather see you in 3^our grave, Lilith, than married to a bad fellow." " You 7'eally think it ? You really, really think he is not to be trusted ? " *' I do, Lilith. You must give him up, my dear," said Mr. Turold ; but he wished she had not asked that question. Try as he would, he could not satisfy himself that Tom was a thorough-paced scoundrel. However, there was no doubt he was a sacrilegious barbarian, trampling under foot all the unwritten laws of the house of Turold. And as such Lilith must none of him. All the girl's treasures were taken from her, and Edward himself undertook to carry them to Silcote Dene. The eneaQfement was definitely ended and done with. Mr. Turold found comfort in that, and even to Lilith, crushed and miserable as she was, it was for the moment a relief. The un- certainty, the doubts and suspicions, the 56 , THE PRINCESS ROYAL. flashings and flickerings of hope, and the dull sinkings of despair which she had lived through during the last weeks, were driving her mad. Now she knew where she was. All was ended. They said he was un- worthy, and he himself had given her up. She was not to be his wife. It was decided ; and her heart was broken. In the afternoon, a couple of fat-cheeked Jews with note-books presented themselves, bearing an order from the proprietor to view, with an eye to valuation, the locked cases of relics, the cauls and snuff-boxes, the warming - pans and needlework, the mazers and gracecups, the morsels of cere cloth, the posy rings, the black-letter Bibles and the mellow-toned violin. Edward sacri- ficed himself to go round with these people, and gained much valuable information from their remarks. Dinner was served as usual, only with a little added stateliness ; the servants were more ceremonious than was their custom, THE RELICS. 57 and Mr. Turold and Edward and Princess Lilith were all dressed with extreme punctilio. When the dessert was put on the table, Gilbert Turold, as always in his family on grand occasions, gave the health of her Majesty the Queen. Lilith came near fainting once, but there was overmuch dignity in the room for any such trifling. She struggled through the courses, scalded herself with the soup, choked over the bones of the woodcock, and had a lump in her throat when she drank the toast. But all things come to an end at last, and when she had set her wine-glass down she escaped from her last dinner at Turold Royal to the blissful solitude of the big tapestried drawing-room. 1^^ ^ 1 n L»^1ig— ^^^— CHAPTER III. HE sat In a chair by the fire, Tam- burlaine by her side, who now and then gazed up with troubled face and licked her hand. But she was allowed the privilege of privacy for a few moments only. Mr. Turold sent Edward to her ; and as the young man entered, he paused for a moment to admire the slope of her white neck, the graceful pose of her drooping head, and to say to himself complacently, '' though shorn of her inheritance she is still worth the winning." Perhaps the girl guessed at once what he had come for. She evaded his opening questions so cleverly and showed so much eagerness for escape, that Edward saw if THE RELICS. 59 he were not to be entirely baffled, he must come to his point at once and insist upon her facine it. He knew his cousin accu- rately by this time. He had once laughingly compared her to a little, rounded pepper-pot of her special affection, which might quiver and shake and wobble for a quarter of an hour, but which was sure to settle itself upright at last. He knew that Lilith would eventually recover her faith in Tom, the true centre of her being. The only chance for himself was to seize her before this happened, and bind her, somehow or other, by force or by fraud, firmly to himself. *' Lilith," he said, "you know, I fancy, what I have come to ask you. Dearest, will you be my wife ? " The false and the true ! And, at least in this nineteenth century, they so often use the same words and even the same tones. Lilith y^// the difference, but at this moment she was trying to follow, not feel- ing, but reason and good advice. Women, 6o , THE PRINCESS ROYAL. who are children of instinct, make a great mess of it when they try that plan. " Really, Edward," exclaimed Lilith, '' you do choose the most unfortunate times for your proposals ! Is it kind to tease me in this way ? Be your wife ? I have said No before. How could you expect me to say Yes to-day ? " " Dear child," said Edward with the greatest gentleness, " when I allowed myself to ask you that question before, you did not answer me with No." The girl coloured indignantly. *'We talked of a business transaction, Edward. At that time I thought marriages could be business transactions. I wonder you refer to that, Edward ! You made me very angry with you that day." " I know you were angry, Lilith. I have waited all this time to ask your forgiveness and to justify myself." '' But I cannot forgive you, and I don't think any justification is possible." THE RELICS. 6 1 '' My fault, Lilith, was that I addressed you too soon. I do not expect unqualified absolution. I was carried away by my affection for you ; I lost my head. Good heavens ! how careful I have been never to lose my head again in speaking to you, dear as you have always been to me, attrac- tive as you are ! Lilith, had I guessed you so implacable, I should have been tempted to be a little less honest. I knew my freedom was coming within a post or two; I might have concealed my fault in speak- ing too soon. Or I miofht have concealed altogether, the thing which you, Lilith, would never have found out." " But, Edward, it would have been quite horrible if you hadn't told me," cried Lilith. ''So I thought. So I still think. Yet, dear child, are you so innocent as not to know that other men do worse things, things not follies but sins, and afterwards marry girls like you and ask no pardon because they make no confession ? " 62 , THE PRINCESS ROYAL. ■ Lilith made a faint protest against this turn in the conversation, but he continued : " Innocence makes women very unjust sometimes. You think I was worse than others ? Well, I was not ; I was a great deal better. What I had done was, from a moral point of view, no wrong whatever. Listen : when a mere boy I fell in love with a very handsome, very seductive woman of a different class from my own. I married her, foolishly I admit. She proved unworthy. There is the whole history. Is it so shocking ? I declare that / have no cause for shame, and that / have concealed nothing." There was a slight emphasis on these personal pronouns. '' Very well, Edward. It was not un- pardonable. Now, please, say no more about it." He replied with great gravity : *' I have spoken of it for one reason only. It is because you, Lilith, have been making THE RELICS. 63 the same error as that which bHghted my life. I have been, I am determined to rescue you, no matter what pain 1 give my- self or you.'* *' I can't imagine what you mean ! " said Lilith, startled and indignant. '' Dear child, you also have loved one with many brilliant and attractive qualities, I know ; with a veneer of education and manners, I know ; in those points superior to my poor wife ; but, for all that, absolutely beneath you " '* My own first cousin ! " cried Lilith, starting up angrily. '* — the son, as we know," continued Edward, *' of a man who, indeed, began in our rank, but who was utterly worthless ; and of a low class, improper woman ; himself reared by low class, unprincipled, dishonest people, and practically of their class " '' He isn't." " Why, he says himself he prefers to remain in that class ! You have tried, Lilith, to 64 ' THE PRINCESS ROYAL. raise him, to teach him to appreciate the privileges of your position. You have failed, and you know it, — exactly as I failed," ended Edward, dropping his voice, ''when I also attempted the hopeless task." " Edward, you are absurd !'' cried Lilith. *' As if there was ever the very slightest com- parison between Tom and that poor woman you speak of ! I didn't want to change one single thing about him. I don't believe the things you say of Tom. I trust him still, though I can't quite understand him now. I mean — it separates us. But I don't believe the things you say. I knew him better than you did." Edward shook his head. '' I think not, Lilith. Other people, I am sorry to tell you, understand him only too well. In a little while, when you can review his conduct calmly, you will understand him yourself." '* That will do now, Edward ! " sobbed Lilith. '* Perhaps you may in some ways be THE RELICS. 65 partly right. But, oh, I did love him ! I do. I shall always love him, whatever he is." '' It is impossible, Lilith. My experience at your age assures me of that." There was a long silence. Edward was patient ; at last he re- sumed : " Come, now, Lilith, have I not spoken sympathetically — like a brother ? " "You are kind enough, Edward, I sup- pose," said the girl, reluctantly. " Dearest Lilith, no, not as a brother," he said, his hand on the arm of her chair. '' I have loved you a long time, how patiently no one can know ! Once you were ready to give yourself to me. Let me claim your promise now." " Oh, no, Edward ; it is a quibble to say I promised. I can't marry you. I don't love you. I love Tom." "You will not love him, Lilith. You do not love him now. It is infatuation. I know, for I have been through it." VOL. HI. 45 66 , THE PRINCESS ROYAL. '' Ask me again, Edward, if you choose, a very great deal later. If I didn't love Tom, perhaps I could love you. Perhaps you do not want to be loved ; you only want me as a business transaction. Papa wishes It, I know, and I should like to please him. But, indeed, Edward, I can't and I won't marry you now ! " Edward rose to his feet and stood before her, studying her. The delicate face was colourless, the blue eyes still covered by their tear-stained lids, drops still hovering on their lashes. Lilith was thinking how, two weeks ago, she had sat with her lover on the green island in their sea of trouble, had felt his arm round her, and looked Into his fond eyes. Had It really been but a last poor flicker of love's candle dying out in its socket 1 Was it really all ended, and in wrath, so soon after that sweet meeting ? Edward knew not whither her thoughts had flown ; but he was far too wise to attempt the faintest approach to caress or warmth. THE RELICS. 6 J " Very well, Lilith," he said heartily ; '' I accept your terms. I don't ask you to marry me now. You shall be free ; abso- lutely free. Until you give me the signal to do so, I will neither press my suit nor ask for a single favour. If you choose, I will never be more to you than a brother, as I have been. But, my dear Lilith, the world will think we are betrothed ; and for your father's sake, if for no other reason, I think you ought not to contradict it." " Oh, Edward ! Why .? " He smiled. "Simply because I intend to help you and your father in a more substantial way than would be quite seemly for a mere distant cousin. Do you know that he is robbed of almost everything he possesses ? It is the most awkward, conceivable position for a man of his age, used to a sort of affluence and to a very great deal of consideration." " But, Edward, what can you do for us } " 68 > THE PRINCESS ROYAL. *' To-morrow I am going to take you both out of this desecrated place to my home, which will, I hope, eventually be yours." " Edward, I should not like people to think I was going to marry you if in my heart I knew I wasn't." ** Then, Lilith " — he paused, ' looking at her gravely — '' we must put it to ourselves, thus, that you do intend to marry me, unless, after two years, or whatever term you choose, you find it impossible. That will come, as far as other people are concerned, to an ordinary engagement, purposely re- vocable ; but you and I will have our secret understanding, and I will promise on my honour not to press you, nor to tease you in any way, till you wish it." She shook her head slowly, looking at him with troubled eyes. " But if Tom heard of it " " In the first place, he is not likely to hear of it," said Edward, frankly ; " in the second, he has lost his right to criticize ; THE RELICS. 69 thirdly, we shall hear almost immediately of his marriage with Miss Kidson." " Edward, he told me it wasn't true ! " . " Unfortunately he says different things to different people. To put a favourable construction on his conduct, he was not able to announce his intention until he was free of his entanglement with you. But, for all that, the marriage is an understood thing." '* I shall write to Grace Kidson and ask her ! " '' My dear Lilith, pray don't do that! It would be undignified. Besides, he ought to marry Miss Kidson. He has treated her worse even than he has treated you ; and if she is willing to forgive him — why, she's a rich woman, and it will be a most fortu- nate match for him. I do think, Lilith, it would be a little selfish of you to put spokes in the wheel by interference or even by comment." Lilith rose pettishly. " Of course I shan't interfere," she said. 70 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. and left him, Edward thinking it unwise to urge her further. But he told Gilbert Turold what he had done, and professed himself satisfied ; he had in fact entangled Lilith as surely as a spider entangles a fly in a quick-spun web for future devouring. CHAPTER IV. OM was writing a letter to Lilith ; on the table before him were spread out the broken love-links which he had received back, and those others which it was now his duty to restore to her. Achmed, his dog, laid his nose inquiringly on his knee, as if asking must he be sent away too ? Achmed was a young bloodhound of the famous breed ; a fine creature, though not the equal of Tamburlaine, his sire. One of Lilith's earliest gifts, he had now acquired a very distinct value of his own, for Tom had nursed him through distemper, and had taken him to America ; and Achmed had followed him to the fire, and had lain by his side in the hospital, and he had 72 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. watched him dumbly with the curiously human expression of these dogs, when he and Llllth had made love to each other for the last time under the palms in the now dismantled conservatory. The woe on Achmed's wrinkled countenance moved Tom strangely, and he had difficulty in getting on with his letter. " LiLITH, " I have not one word to urge in excuse. I would give much to undo what I said and did in my last talk with you. I was mad, I think. God knows I have loved you, my darling, with my whole heart, from the first moment I saw you. Let me say that, and thank you unutterably for all the happiness you have given me. It is a miserable fate that forces me to repay it by paining you ; and the sharpest sting of all is the consciousness that I made our last farewell unkind, our last kiss poisoned." Thus far Tom had written when Mrs. Palmer came softly In, bringing him a letter from Edward, and the Information that that gentleman was below waiting for an answer. Tom broke the seal impatiently and read as follows : — THE RELICS, JT) '' Sir, '* Miss Turold is astonished that you have not attended to her request and returned her letters without delay. I must beg of you to do so at once, and will myself be the bearer, waiting till you choose to comply. I beg further to state that Miss Turold has given me the right to interfere in her behalf, having promised me the honour of her hand." The letter dropped from Tom's fingers, and he covered his face. ** So soon ! Heaven knows I saw how it would be ! But now f Lilith, Lilith, w^hy did you come to me that night as if you loved me still } " Presently he descended with the things demanded and his poor friend Achmed, but without the letter he had been writing to Lilith ; that had gone into the fire. "Will you be so good as to tell Miss Turold," said Tom, '' that I have done as she asked, the first moment I had after her request reached me." " Certainly, I will tell her," said Edward ; 74 ' THE PRINCESS ROYAL. *' but you should not have waited for a re- quest ; the duty was obvious." " I am very sorry. I never once thought of it. Will you take the dog as well ? He is fierce." Edward received Achmed's chain with great deliberation. " I have been admiring the lamp," he said. ''Kidson's new oil, I believe ?" *' No," thundered Tom, " Palmer's new oil. Why Kidson is selling it and not Palmer I don't know. Perhaps you could explain if you chose." '* May I ask what you can possibly mean by that '^. " asked Edward. •'Lord love us, Tom dear!'' whispered Mrs. Palmer, alarmed. " I don't know what I mean," said Tom, hotly. " I vomited up an undigested sus- picion, that is all. Mr. Vane, for Lilith's sake I do not wish to affront you again. Will you go away ? " Edward folded his arms. '* By all means, Mr. Turold, affront me if THE RELICS. 75 you wish. I am in the position of seeing no becoming way of retaHation. You are rather big to fight with. You are a shot and a swordsman. I neglected those some- what barbarous branches of education ; and just at present my prospects being good, I don't feel inclined, for my bride's sake, to make you a present of my life. At the same time, I have too much respect for the name of Turold to put you in a police-court. So you see, sir, if you like to strike me again, I am at your mercy.'' "Tom, dear Tom!" pleaded poor Mrs. Palmer. " I had better go," said Edward, smiling at her, *' before we become even more plain- spoken. All the Turolds are hot-tempered. Good evening, Mrs. Palmer. Come, then, dog." Never before had Achmed been addressed as " dog ; " moreover he perceived that his master did not like this visitor. He growled ominously. But Mr. Vane would have died 76 , THE PRINCESS ROYAL, sooner than appear discomposed ; for Gilbert Turold had often told with admiration how Tom had daunted the formidable Tambur- laine on the day of their introduction. Achmed protested against his removal, and Tom had no sooner retired than he bit Edward Vane. However, with the groom's help he got him into the cart and safely home to Molesworthy House, where he was flung into a kennel. " Did you see Tom yourself, Edward ? " asked Lilith, anxiously, fingering her parcel. " Oh, tell me about him. What did he say ? " *'If you insist upon knowing, Lilith," said Edward, with feigned reluctance, '* well, the fact is, he set his dog at me. Oh, it's nothing — a mere scratch," he said, showing his wounded hand. Achmed did not at all like being shut up. He bit the wood and tore up the ground, and fought vv^ith every man and every beast he came near, refusing all food and growling horribly. All night he howled, waking the THE RELICS. jy echoes, and Lilith, lying awake, listened miserably. *' I can't stand it," she said ; " it isn't right to torture a dumb animal because Tom and I have quarrelled. Achmed shall go back." After breakfast she visited the poor brute, now dull and dejected, his coat staring, his pathetic eyes woestruck, his growls and his bowlings silenced alike. '' He's adying," said the old groom, who had come from Turold Royal, and who was standing near. '' Bless you, miss, he ain't never been shut up afore. He's slep' in his master's bedroom, he have, and this 'ere den is all one to him like you or me 'd feel in the poor-house." " Let him out, Masters," said Lilith. Achmed crawled into the winter sunshine, stretched himself, sniffed the air with his head on one side, then gave three weak but joyous barks and jumped at Lilith, running backwards and forwards. Then he set off 78 > THE PRINCESS ROYAL. at full speed for Silcote Dene and his master. " Happy, happy Achmed ! " sighed Lillth. After about thirty yards, the dog's pace slackened to a dismal trot, then he stopped and ran on again, stopped and ran on again. " He'll get there somehow, the beastie," said Masters, "though it's a seven mile run. At this moment the report of a gun was heard, a blue smoke was seen, and the brave hound fell over on his side, shot through the heart. " My dearest Lilith, I had no idea you were watching," said Edward, much con- cerned. " That poor brute was showing evident signs of madness, and as he had escaped, to shoot him was the only way." '* I suppose he was mad, indeed ! " said Lillth ; '* he was faithful to his master." That little tragedy was an ominous com- mencement for Edward's engagement to his cousin, Lilith Turold. PART IX. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. CHAPTER I. T is a moot question whether popularity Is any criterion of worth. The poet whose sweetest songs are never the rage like the latest music-hall ditty is doubtless tempted to find the truly glorious distinction in popular disapproval. Nevertheless it is much to be suspected that Will Shakspere got an audience from the first ; and was there ever a man who didn't think the Hallelujah Chorus a very stirring and fine sort of thing ? On the whole, evidence seems to point out that first-rate work makes its way with a good deal of ease, and only 8o THE PRINCESS ROYAL. by a series of very deplorable accidents lives under a bushel. These reflections are d propos of Sir Joseph Kidson's '* Evening Sunrise," which had no sooner appeared in the shops than it displaced every rival in the business of illumination. Gas became obsolete, the old oils went out without a flicker, tallow candles went to a * worser world,' and even the electric light though it died hard was buried without a regretful tombstone. For the new oil lamp was perfect and only out of wrong- headedness could any one have desired another. It was cheap, clean, safe and convenient ; necessitated for its employment no pulling about of a house or taking thought for a steam-engine. It brilliantly lighted the ball-room, softly the dinner table, and religiously the church ; was becoming to my lady's complexion and gentle for her lord's weak eyes. If you upset it, you neither stained your carpet nor put yourself in a blaze ; if your cook dropped the oil into your THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. S[ food you were not poisoned. The smell was very nice on your pocket-handkerchief. It was a cure for colds in the head, for chilblains and for blisters. The housemaid polished the brass with it, and the lady's- maid cleaned her mistress's gloves. People began to wonder how they had existed before its day, and Sir Joseph Kidson was an acknowledged benefactor of his species. Wealth flowed in upon him, and com- pliments ; likewise self-gratulation and vain conceit. The neat little villa at Molesworthy could no longer contain the great Sir Joseph. He resolved upon a country place and the position of a county magnate. In imagina- tion he saw himself a peer of the realm, and his beautiful daughter (who had perversely become a Roman Catholic) married to such an one as a Duke of Norfolk at least. But the country seat he required was none so very easy to find at a moment's notice ; near London, too, for Sir Joseph intended to VOL. ni. 46 82 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. look sharp after his business himself. It was by Edward Vane's advice that he at first took a house on lease ; to gain time and to try his wings ; possibly too with a notion that to become a magnate in a house already oflorious would be easier than In a creation of his own. He took Turold Royal. " Fd like to do poor Tom a good turn," he explained amiably, not hinting at ulterior motives ; and indeed he meant what he said, for his conscience was not easy about the downfall of the Palmers nor the secret bargain he had made with Edward Vane. Tom of course had an instinct against Sir Joseph as his tenant. He felt that the presence at Turold Royal of the oil merchant who was also the proprietor of the very vulgar radical Molesworthy Journal, would be the culmination of annoyance to all his Indignant relatives. But as Gilbert had found a few years ago when seeking an Indian general to buy Sllcote Dene, the desirable personage, the homeless nobleman THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, ^'^ or retired Minister of State did not turn up at the precise moment he was required. The Court had already been shut for nearly a year; it was rather a delicate matter to refuse a good offer for no ostensible reason and the rent was exceedingly badly wanted. For the luckless young heir of the Turolds, though he had got on the right side of the Stirke business, and by private arrangement with the creditors had secured Mr. Palmer from the Bankruptcy Court, was by no means out of his difficulties. He was still in debt, he had left himself personally nothing to live upon, and he had promised not to let the estate suffer. *' If this goes on," said Tom, who was living in obscurity with his adopted parents and was still on working days called Palmer, " I shall have to sell some more of their things." '* No, no, Tom, that would be drawing on your capital," said Mr. Palmer, who was 84 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, very quiet, almost apathetic nowadays, like '' a sad sea when storms are o'er." " I don't want to do it," replied Tom : and in this temper he dared not reject Sir Joseph; but came to terms with him unwillingly and instead of a twenty-one years' lease, made it seven. '' I wish I could tell Lilith that I altered it to please her," thought Tom, " and am taking Kidson at all to save the Holbein. I suppose she'd think it cant like any other regrets I may have expressed. Why doesn't Vane take the place himself and lead her back there .^ Or is that a coarse idea of mine ? They are not married yet. I wonder why not ? " But Tom held no communication with Lilith now and explanation was out of the question. He was an outcast from his family ; regarded by them as a necessary evil to be endured and ignored ; as an unseen and irremovable vampire who sucked away their life blood. But for a few THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 85 business letters between him and the trustees, some remorse, and countless annoyances, Tom might have forgotten that his name was indisputably Turold ; he was many miles farther away from Lilith's sphere and society than in the old days of Luxor and Silcote Dene, when he had his yacht and a very good coat to his back, and wrote himself plain Tom Palmer, son of the self-made man. So Sir Joseph came to Turold Royal : and very soon the place was all alive with horses and carriages, and flunkeys, and new carpets and curtains, and an air of life and bustle unknown under the sleepy rdgime of its legitimate sovereigns. But Grace had after all gone into the nunnery, a step which drove Sir Joseph nearly beside himself; and the party which came to the Court consisted of the husband and wife, her companion Miss Brown, Sir Joseph's private secretary Mr. Mankelow Smith, and his private physician Dr. Harris. Thinking Mr. 86 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Trevylyan inclined to Ritualism, he pre- sently introduced a domestic chaplain, a young gentleman named Garbett who read prayers daily and on Sunday preached in the private chapel. The Court had not been inhabited for six months before Sir Joseph realized that he had made a blunder. The historical house had no power to turn him into a personage. The neighbours did not call ; which was most unfair, considering that they had called, though shyly, on the Palmers at Silcote Dene. Sir Joseph offered to give a ball : and " to do it really handsome, you know, — not a mere dance like Palmer's ; " and the offer was declined. Though a benefactor of his species, he was not half so well liked as simple John Palmer ; Lady Kidson was detested ; and the beautiful daughter, the one bearable member of the family, had mysteriously vanished. Her parents were much too angry to confess where she was, and spoke of her so bitterly and so strangely, THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 87 that very queer stories about Grace got afloat, causing all respectable people to look askance at her name and her family. Sir Joseph could not conceive why he did not get on with the county ; he set it all down to Jack Palmer's failure — just as if all self- made men came to grief and were too easily burst to be safely touched. " I did think Vane would have introduced us," grumbled ^Sir Joseph and put no faith in Harris (who had many more acquaintances than his patron) when he said Edward Vane was an enemy. At the end of six months Sir Joseph wanted Tom to reduce the seven-years' lease to one ; and Tom's refusal was the beginning of a feud between him and his landlord. Next cropped up an overlooked question of repairs ; dilapidations as Sir Joseph called them. Not sufficiently accurately had the question of repairs been gone into when the lease was drawn up ; and Tom, with the great hole in his pocket, was glad of it; SS ' THE PRINCESS ROYAL. for the ominous word " drains " was uttered when Lady Kidson got a sore throat, and Sir Joseph insisted on a grand investigation and modern improvements. Well, if his tenant liked throwing money about in that way let him do it, said Tom who was barbarously healthy himself; but the rela- tions grew alarmed when they saw bricks and mortar pulled about at Turold Royal and got Mr. Wilkinson to write sharply to the head of the family to stop it. The letter came one day when Tom was out of humour and he sent back a sharp answer ; it arrived when Wilkinson (who was rather fond of Tom) was himself out of temper ; and he showed it to Lord Erpingham, who was not personally inimical to Tom either, but who gave him a bad mark this time and in his careless way sent another libel on him round the family. Sir Joseph spent a lot of money on the drains, but could not obtain authority to do all he wished ; and Lady Kidson's throat THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 89 got no better. She herself traced her ailments to the oak panelling on the walls and it was removed and stored, and the ceilings were whitewashed. Then her lady- ship was certain that the great old-fashioned beds in the show rooms harboured bugs, and though no one was thinking of sleep- ing in them, she had them stored also, and sundry oak chimney-pieces taken down to make room for marble, and iron grates. The things were all ticketed and put away most carefully, but still every one was very angry with the Kidsons and concluded they were acting by Tom's desire, who had shown what his own feelings were when he sold off half the relics. Then one day Sir Joseph, who w^as very heavy, heard a creak as he was mounting the staircase and stoop- ing down to examine he found one of the beautiful carved pilasters worm-eaten. " I've had a most narrow escape of my life," he said, ** the whole stair must be 90 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. removed and an Italian marble one put in its place. I'll bear the expense, Tom, my boy/' Tom refused to permit this and Sir Joseph threatened to go to law with him. No threat is more alarming from a rich man to a poor one, and Tom had to compromise the matter. The staircase was to be left, but propped up with ludicrous wooden staves ; an arrange- ment which being ugly and quite unnecessary made both landlord and tenant a laughing- stock. After this there was a chronic little quarrel going on about the repairs. Sir Joseph did a good many impertinent things without leave, and ostentatiously asked per- mission for trifles ; and if Tom made an objection, which was as seldom as possible, he set it down as a grievance. Worse followed. One day Sir Joseph thought he saw one of the family ghosts stalking about in the once opulent picture- gallery. He was dreadfully frightened and tumbling down in his agitation on the THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 9 1 polished floor, gave orders that it should never be polished again. The servants got wind of the ghost and began to see him too, and Sir Joseph who had made fuss enough about his own vision, declared it all drunken rubbish if the same mischance happened to a housemaid or a page. Then all the servants resigned at once, which caused a great upset and made the world laugh once more. And then one day, Lady Kidson saw a quite new sort of ghost, not pre- viously mentioned in the Turold annals, which only told of crusaders, and veiled Saracen dames, and long-haired cavaliers, and such - like beings, alarming perhaps but very distinctly picturesque. Lady Kidson's ghost was a colossal yellowish- green face with a likeness to her own and a smirk, which floated about in the air before her and spoke of woes with a lolling tongue. Lady Kidson described it so circumstantially that no one could disbelieve her having seen something ; and Dr. Harris's suggestion 92 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. that the vision was subjective did not seem reason for absolving the old house from a charge of witchcraft. The sore throat and the green face affected her ladyship dis- astrously and she pined away, much to her husband's annoyance, and complained that the place did not suit her. Then she went to the seaside with Miss Brown, who there got typhoid fever and declared that she had brought the infection from Turold Royal. Lady Kidson for a long time refused to return ; eventually, after a quarrel with her husband, did so ; saw the green face again, and died incontinently on the following day. Sir Joseph was very greatly shocked and indeed never quite recovered his spirits. The poor woman had doubtless succumbed to natural causes, but her husband obstinately clung to two contradictory beliefs ; one that the Turold ghost had murdered her ; the other that her death was a punishment on himself, for what misdeeds he did not THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 93 specify. After this a change was observed in Sir Joseph. He became gloomy, morose and distracted ; miserly too, and very evidently, odd and unhappy. CHAPTER II. BOUT six months after Lady Kidson's death, Grace's novitiate was coming to an end. The convent was at Bayswater, and the close London atmosphere, with never a holiday, had taken the bloom from her lovely cheeks. In its place was a clear pallor and an air of exaltation which seemed to increase the size of her dark eyes, and gave them a heavenly expression under her close cap and veil. According to the rule of that particular establishment, her novitiate had been spent chiefly in active work among the poor in a manner by no means distasteful to the enthusiastic girl. She did her work so well, submitted to all arbitrariness, fasting, penances, vigils so zealously ; was so clear THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 95 on points of doctrine ; so earnest in matters of devotion, that she was regarded as one with a most sure vocation, a very spirit-led child of the Holy Mother : while the com- fortable little income she had brought to the conventual purse and her prospective wealth gave her a certain prestige among the nuns, many of whom had relinquished singularly little in taking the vow of Eternal Poverty. Meantime, of her offended family and of the outside world Grace knew scarce anything. One day in the early spring, the novice, and an older nun her guardian, were return- ing from the East End by the Underground Railway, and having to change trains at a crowded station the two got separated : the nun was left behind altogether and the novice was thrust into a first-class carriage occupied by a solitary man. Upon recognizing Edward Vane, Grace crossed herself as if the world, the flesh, and the devil had con- fronted her in person. " It is against the rule of my Order to 96 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. enter into general conversation," said Grace's clear soft voice, which like her face seemed to have gained in expression and in harmony. '' Oh, that's nonsense," said Edward with the masculine authority which women may resent, but find it hard to resist. She raised her head and looked at him with pathetic eyes which to Edward's sur- prise moved him a little. He had always admired Grace ; to-day, as she gazed at him, his blood seemed to run a little quicker, perhaps merely because her garb pronounced her forbidden fruit. *' Tell me, Grace," he asked, " has It been a success ? " " I am Sister Athanasia," she answered quietly. " I have lost my old name." " Mightn't it be a little pleasant to hear it again?" asked Edward. He gradually drew her into conversation ; on relio^ious topics at first. Edward had been brought up in the Church and knew how to talk of it. '' I am still a sceptic," he said, '' but as one THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 97 thinks less of religious questions, I find one insensibly drifts back into religious cere- monial. It's the force of early habit, no doubt. I have to remind myself nowadays, * you don't believe such and such you know ; why act as if you did ? ' " "Oh," said Grace, ''do not resist the strivings of the Spirit." She also was feeling the force of habit ; the habit she had formed of submitting to this man's suggestions while believing her- self to be Influencing him for his good. When she told him that in a month's time she was to make her Profession, and that to-morrow would be her last day of going into the world at all, before the final pre- paratory four weeks of meditation and penitence, Edward was silent for some time, considering various things. Her replies to his adroit questions had already convinced him that she more than half regretted the step she had taken in withdrawing from the world. VOL. III. 47 98 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Would it be general conversation if I told you a little about myself and our mutual friends ? " he asked ; and without giving her time to reply, spoke of her father's wealth and of his dejected spirits. " I supposed his invention was a pleasure to him," said Grace ; " my poor father ! his affections are all in this world. He has never looked into life, as you, Mr. Vane, have done ; and I." " Perhaps not. Whose is the recommen- dation * Lift not the painted veil ' ? But, Grace " — Edward smiled — " seriously now, it was not Sir Joseph's invention. It was yours." " What can you mean ? " ** Do you remember sending me, why, I don't know, a crumpled blue paper with some scrawls on it ? " " Which you had sent to me." '' Pardon me. I never saw it before." She reflected. '* Then I must somehow have got it THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 99 from the Palmers. I was staying with them." '' The Palmers ! Good heavens ! " ex- claimed Edward, with well -feigned surprise ; '' but that complicates matters ! You see, that paper gave the clue. Your father got it, and here's the result, in the Sunrise Oil which lights up this carriage so splendidly." " Did Mr. Palmer benefit ? " " Palmer ? No. How could any one guess he had had anything to do with it ? " *' Oh, it doesn't seem fair!" exclaimed Grace; "that poor man! Do, pray Mr. Vane, tell my father." He shook his head. *' I am afraid it can't be helped now,'* he said. Then, after a few minutes, " What a pity. Miss Kidson, you decided for the convent! If you had accepted Tom's pro- posal he'd have been Sir Joseph's partner. That was your father's intention." Grace crimsoned. *' Tom never proposed for me, Mr. Vane ! lOO THE PRINCESS ROYAL. And it was only fair for him to marry Miss Turold when he was proved her cousin. Why are they not living in their own house ? " "I begin to realize," said Edward, "that people in convents are buried alive. Do you really not know the facts ? Tom still goes under an alias, but he has spent all the Turold money. He doesn't live in his own house simply because he cannot afford to do so. He's an ororanist, or a music- master or something of that sort, and lives with the Palmers in a Chelsea slum. Un- fortunately his family — the Turolds — couldn't see the obligation to the Palmers, and have one and all cut him for selling up the family treasures. He is not married to Lilith Turold. Far from it. She threw him over and is going to be married to me. Yes, to me. That was a foolish business between her and Tom. They did not care for each other, in reality. Of course too Tom had not the means to marry Lilith. What he ought to THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. lOI have done, what he must still do, if he wants to recover his position, is to marry a woman worth money. Oh, Grace— Grace ! why at the moment you were wanted did you dis- appear in a huff into a convent ? " " You must not speak to me so," inter- posed Grace. '' It was the call of religion." *' No doubt you thought so. But is it not your formula that the Spirit works by natural means .^ How many of your sisters have gone into the convent under the pressure of disappointment ? And sometimes, you know, disappointment is mere misunderstanding." " You go too far, Mr. Vane. Tom had made no advances to me." " He told Gilbert Turold that he hoped to gain your hand. Gilbert and every one felt that nothing could be more desirable, and the family was prepared to welcome you and to reinstate him in his proper position. But when you went away Tom was very much nonplussed and chagrined, and the report went about, and very damaging it has I02 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. been to him, poor fellow, that he had given you some serious cause of offence, or you would not have fled from him like that. Now Tom is not at all in the way of meeting heiresses, and I don't see how, without money, he is ever to better his position. The effect of his generosity has been abso- lutely disastrous to himself." " You have distressed me very much, Mr. Vane," said Grace ; and a red flush appeared on each of her pale cheeks, show- ing that she was thin and spoiling her beauty. After which Edward Vane ex- patiated on the happiness he was expecting as Lilith's husband, and extolled the married state as one equal if not superior to the religious life. '' I suppose," he ended cynically enough as they were parting, *' according to tempera- ment each man chooses the life easiest to himself and then comes to think the other the higher. It depends I say on tempera- ment." THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, " I cannot admit that," said Grace, steadily; " one chooses the highest ; surely — surely — the moment one recognizes it. Let me wish you and Lilith every happiness, Mr. Vane." She laid an icy hand on his for a moment and left him ; and Edward, who had gone far beyond his destination to accompany her, set about his return journey. " I have got into a very beastly habit of lying," he said to himself. Grace walked to her convent with her head bent and her frame shaken with tear- less sobs. Yet when she stood before the Mother Superior and explained how she had lost her guardian in the crowd, she looked like an aureoled saint, a Cecilia or a Catharine, enamoured of heaven without one glance to bestow upon the earth she was leaving. No one suspected that she had met a friend in the train. And she had for the moment forgotten the rules of her Order, and common sense had suddenly started into being, and was telling her that an innocent I04 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. friendship could not really concern any one except herself. But all that night she lay on her pallet bed wide awake. Long before five, the hour for prayer, the novice was up and kneeling in her coarse night-gown by the uncurtained window of her cell. Her soul was in a tumult. Not yet was she penitent for her sin in talking to a man, and on such unholy topics. No doubt later it would have to be mentioned in confession ; but confession had no charms for Grace to-night. Grace ? But she was not Grace. She was Sister Athanasia ; a lovely name chosen by herself with enthusiasm when she had put on the white veil. Yet it was Grace, not Athanasia, who had talked to Edward Vane in the railway carriage ; Grace who had suddenly sprung into life again, had looked out into the fair world of sunshine and warmth, of men and money, of children and employ- ment, home and hope, love and marriage, between which and herself was now a great THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 105 gulf fixed. Edward's sentences, common- place, cynical some of them, were ringing through her ears; Grace's imagination always ran away with her, and she saw in him to-night an ideal human being with 'a star of love on his forehead, and a beloved bride by his side, moving along with him to triumph. And she herself, who might have been that sort of human being too, was a faded broken spectre, worthless to all. That was the highly coloured background of her mind which threw into relief a few distinct thoughts : Tom had not married Lilith ; he was alone ; poor, wretched, and despised ; injured by her father ; deserted by herself ; — the man she had loved ! who had thought of marrying her ! " If I had only known ! If I had only known ! " said Grace Kidson, (Sister Athanasia fast asleep by this time). But no one knew it was not Sister Athanasia who, a few hours later, went with the other novices to receive the orders for I06 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. the day ; so pure she looked, so beautiful, so holy ; and the Mother Superior loved and admired Athanasia above any girl who had been under her orders, and revered in her a future abbess and a future saint. *' First, Sister Athanasia will go with Sister Lucia to visit the sick Italian in Bird's- eye Lane ; and between three and four she will inspect the Sacred Linen ; and the remaining hours she will spend in meditation in her private cell : " so spake the quiet chastened voice of the saintly woman who directed the convent ; and Grace turned at once to obey. She and her guardian set out early for Bird's-eye Lane ; the white veil and the black together as usual ; the w^hite veil which was so soon to be changed for the black to be worn till death. Sister Lucia was an old, hard-featured woman, a nun for ^v^ and thirty years, who had left life so far behind as to have forgotten what its pulses were like. She had the set lips and dogged THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 107 mechanical air of an automaton, and she walked through the streets not heeding her companion much ; not like the Mother Superior, reverent of Athanasia's attain- ments, nor yet jealous of the many privileges granted to this young novice and denied to others. But suddenly Sister Lucia became aware that she was alone. Athanasia had vanished, so silently and noiselessly that the nun, who was superstitious, felt her heart come Into her mouth, with the idea that this strange girl had dissolved like a witch, or been translated to heaven like holy Enoch. Lucia reached her destination alone and began her work ; but. Increasingly uneasy, she soon returned to the convent to state what had occurred, expecting reproof. The Mother Superior pondered. Yesterday also had this Athanasia been drawn aside from her companion. It could be no accident, but Divine Interposition which had thus separated her twice. It was a sign from the Virgin Io8 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, that this holy creature was not to be treated as others. It was a mark of Heaven's favour ; possibly, a miracle. The afternoon came and Grace did not return. The Superior summoned the whole convent to prayer ; that their sister might be safe, that she might be restored un- harmed, that if the Mother of God were dealing with her in some special way, Sister Athanasia might have grace to be not disobedient to the heavenly vision ; and still the long hours passed slowly on and the novice was absent still. What Grace had done was this. Having watched her opportunity she simply slipped into a dairy shop, where she saw a quiet- looking woman behind the counter, and asked for a glass of milk. She had eighteen-pence in her pocket, without which no one was sent into the streets ; the sixpence was for necessary expenditure ; the shilling for accident or emergency. A glass of milk came under none of these heads ; but THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. IO9 convent rules did not exist for Grace to- day. F'ive minutes later, when Lucia had vanished, Athanasia called a cab and got into it, looking so business - like yet so exalted that no one was surprised ; nor indeed was there any one by in a position to criticize her actions. Edward had told her Tom's address, and it was this she gave the driver ; Fitzroy Square, in a remote corner of Chelsea, where there were roomy old-fashioned houses that had once been in the country. Before one of these the cab stopped, and Grace got out, paid her shilling and rang the bell ; hurriedly, for she half fancied Sister Lucia in pursuit. B|l|l|l|l| I|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l[l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|f CHAPTER III. HERE is no one in but myself," said Tom ; " father is taking his stroll and mother is in the country for a few days. And I have an appointment. But come in, Grace, of course." He opened the door of the parlour, a very plain, slightly dingy room, where break- fast-cups still lingered, and a cat was sleep- ing on the sunniest chair. Grace dropped upon the sofa, very pale, her eyes wild and anxious. She removed her veil, disclosing her cropped hair, and making very plain that the roundness of her facial lines had vanished. To Tom there was something shocking in this rending away of her veil, and he waited for her to speak first. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, III " What would you do, Tom, if you found you had undertaken a task beyond your strength ? " asked Grace. " I suppose I should perform It very badly," said Tom. *' Oh, don't answer in that sort of way ! Would you give It up ? " ''Why, no; not If I could get through It at all." He looked at her sharply. "If It was a thing no sane person should ever have let himself in for " " Is that what you think of my vocation ? " " I know so little about It," said Tom, apologetically, " that I have no right to an opinion." The two had not met since the night when Tom's courage had faltered at the first sight of Sir Joseph's newly patented Evening Sunrise. Time had, outwardly at least, changed the girl more than the man. He was living in shadow, no doubt ; but Grace suggested darkness and artificial light. 112 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " I am going to make my Profession," she told him ; *' to take the irrevocable vows ; poverty, chastity, obedience. You remember, Tom, at Assisi, on our way home from Eg^ypt ^ the paintings on the ceiHng — the rags, the tower of imprisonment, the thorn- bush ? and how you and I talked of St. Francis and the vows then .^ " "Not very sympathetically," said the young man. " Oh, Tom ! " cried Grace, clasping her hands, " tell me how I can escape ! " Tom started ; he was astonished ; would have been more so had he not from youth up been accustomed to Grace's instability. He sat down opposite to her. " It seems rather late," he said, '' but luckily not too late. What is the difficulty.?" '* You don't know how we regard it. It is apostasy." ''What, before you have vowed '^ " " No one in our community ever draws THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, II3 back. To do it as late as this is like — like running away the day before the wedding." " Well, that is not the day after the wedding," said Tom. "Oh, the cases are not similar. Engage- ments to marry are often broken. They are not sacred." "If you come to me for advice, you must be prepared to hear some strong language. This nunnery business is not sacred : it is unnatural and horrible. I never liked it for you, Gracie." " Didn't you ? Didn't you, Tom '^. You thought of me, then .^ " Tom went on at once, instinctively on the defensive against strong emotion from Grace : " So now you want to draw back ? it seems a pity to have delayed so long ; but if you are certain " " I found it out yesterday for certain ; that I don't want to do it." " Yesterday f " VOL. III. 48 114 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Yes ; yesterday. I heard something that opened a world of possibility to me, Tom ; a world of duty." " You are so impulsive, Grace. Only yesterday ? Well, for Heaven's sake don't take vows if you are going to repent after- wards. Refuse to do it. If you like, don't go back to the place at all. It's not an ideal way of managing, but this is a free country. I will take you to your father." "• Oh no. I have no wish to 2:0 and live with papa. He never had any sympathy with me. I should rather take the vows than ever again live with papa." " My dear Grace ! But do you know, since your mother's death I fancy he is very lonely ? With his large fortune " " Tom, he has no right to it. If what Mr. Vane told me is true, it came to him by accident. Through my carelessness ; mine ! It should have been Mr. Palmer's. How, Tom, could I enjoy a fortune that has robbed yoic f " THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, II5 He was silent for a moment. " I have never undersood it exactly," said Tom at last ; '* but certainly I don't accuse Sir Joseph of robbing us. He has done a good deal for me. At the time of our smash, he offered me work." " You refused it ? " " For two or three reasons. I'm not sure I wasn't a fool, but I preferred my music. I am getting on now as well as a man trained for an amateur and without genius can expect, and I like my work very much." Grace was not to be decoyed into side paths. " Did papa only offer you work ? Tom, the only fair thing is for Mr. Palmer and iox yoiL to share success." *' Dear Grace, it is impossible." "Is there no way 1 None, Tom 1 " He felt uncomfortable and bei^an to saunter about again. ** It was only yesterday," continued Grace, '' that I heard all this. I heard yesterday Il6 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. that you were living in this wretched way. I had supposed you happy, flourishing; married to LiHth Turold." "No, that came to an end long ago," said Tom, calmly ; '* how is it you had not heard?" ** I had buried myself, not thinking these things could concern me. And now Lilith is marrying Mr. Vane immediately " '* Is that so ? I knew they were engaged.'* " You speak quietly, Tom. You do not care very much ? Why should you .-^ Why should your life be spoiled, because a heart- less girl " " Hush, Grace ; you must be careful what you say of Miss Turold. She stuck to me as long as she could." " She did not love you, Tom ! " " Indeed, Grace, if she is to marry another man it is to be hoped she loves him. Why need we discuss it ? " " Ah, Tom, you are scarred, but it is not any longer an open wound. Tom, all THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, II7 women are not alike ; there are some capable of a true, a lasting affection ; some, who, if their love is crossed, know what it is to break their heart." Tom felt himself flushing uncomfortably. " Well, Grace — and your own affairs ? Come now, am I right in conniving at your escape ? Won't you be angry with me afterwards ? A sudden freak like this " '' If I return to the convent," said Grace, stretching out her hands, but with dignity and pathos, '' I shall make the Profession. I shall doom myself to great darkness, to death in life, to suicide. At least, so It seems to me now, while I sit here in the sunshine — in an ordinary room — with you. I have brought it on myself ? Yes ; but because I was hopeless. I am not hopeless to-day. Tom, can you see no way of saving me?" He was enough moved to question his right of further affecting misunderstanding. Il8 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Moreover, he was really very fond of her. She belonged to that early home-life of his, to which he looked back as to a time of cloudless happiness. And he was not able to hear her appeal for deliverance from the consequences of her own folly, without a strong wish to come to her rescue. Appa- rently there was In Grace's mind only one way that he could do It, and it was easy for him to see that the advantages of the course proposed would be very far from Grace's alone. He left her and stood thoughtfully at the window. It was a sunny morning, still with winter's cold brilliance. The pavements were dry, and the frail skirts of a child selling daffodils fluttered in the breeze as she danced along, waylaying foot-passengers. Mr. Palmer and the little lad who led him daily for his morning walk would be return- ing presently, and both the little flower girl and Tom himself looked up and down the street for the blind man's coming. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. I19 "Hallo! what's this?" exclaimed Tom, aloud ; finding a not unwelcome interruption to the tete-d-tUe, in the sight of a cab driven up to the door, from which descended strange agitated persons, one a policeman. They were holding a consultation, apparently as to the lifting out of some one else still in the vehicle, when Tom suddenly discerned the blind man's little attendant, now in tears of sorrow and fright. *' Grace ! It is father ! " exclaimed the young man hurrying out ; " he has met with an accident." CHAPTER IV. O one could have been firmer on his legs than old Mr. Palmer when he walked with his adopted son. But Jamie, his little orphan prot^gd^ nervous himself, made the blind man unconfessedly nervous too, and their wanderings were peril-fraught when they ventured beyond the very quietest streets. Luckily the pair looked so helpless and so kind to each other, that they attracted compassion : drivers pulled up without ill-humour, and many an arm had given them unexpected aid. But to-day the long-dreaded calamity had come ; Jamie lost his head, gave contradictory directions, pulled his master in vain ; then fled to safety himself, and finally fainted with terror THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 121 and remorse. Mr. Palmer was run over ; and then the policeman and a strange man brought him and the weeping child home in a cab. "Oh, Mr. Tom, it was all my fault!" sobbed Jamie, not at all heroic, '' and I've killed dear master. Oh, whatever shall I do! Whatever shall I do!" '' Yes, it was the little boy's fault," said the strange gentleman, '* but my driver was to blame too. I had doubts of his sobriety when I took him, and I've got his name and number. Shall I fetch a doctor for you, Tom } " It was Gilbert Turold. Tom felt a rush of great pleasure, and they shook hands warmly, forgetting their differences. '* I fear he is much injured," said Mr. Turold, who seemed greatly concerned ; '' is Mrs. Palmer at home ? You will want a nurse." *' There is one here," said Sister Atha- nasia advancing, serene in her reordered 122 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. conventual garb. She at once took her post with the confidence of the trained hospital worker; Mr. Turold did not recognize her as the beautiful Miss Kidson whom he had seen a few times under different auspices. " I cannot tell you how distressed I am ! '* said Gilbert Turold ; " I fear It's a bad case — a bad case. How are you yourself, Tom ? " '' I ? " said Tom, impatiently ; a thousand things surging up in his mind which he wanted to say. He had not seen this man for two years and more ; possibly might never see him again, and he wanted to ask for Lllith. He began abruptly : " Has she ever understood that 1 did not do all that with the sole Intention of annoying her and you ? " Mr. Turold's thoughts had not gone as quickly as Tom's, and it was a moment before he understood the question. '' We never exactly thought that," said Gilbert ; " however, I dare say I did THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. I 23 misjudge you. I was misinformed on some points, and you were not yourself In the mood for making calm explanations." "■ Nor you for calmly hearing them," retorted Tom. " Well — you threw away a fine position. Have you not repented ? " " No, I have not repented." He was silent for a moment, his eyes softening as they rested on the now un- conscious sufferer for whose sake he had lost Lllith. " How is she ? " he asked in a low voice. *' My daughter ? She Is very well ; grown a little older like the rest of us. She is engaged to Vane, Tom," he said In a tone that was certainly apologetic. ** I know." *'They will be married this spring. Edward will make her a good husband, and she Is very fond of him, I believe." ''Is Lllith fond of him ? " " Still waters are the deepest." 124 '^HE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Sometimes.'* *' There has been no pressure put upon Lilith," said Mr. Turold, sternly; "if she consents to the marriage, you may be quite sure it is of her own free will." " If? Then it is not absolutely certain to take place ? " '' I consider it absolutely certain. I should be sorry to think you, or any one, meditated — a troubling of the still waters." " My only wish is for her happiness," said Tom. '' I don't like Vane myself, that is all." " My dear fellow, if you think Edward ever gave us misinformation you surely exonerate him of having done so wilfully ? I shall send him to you to explain and apologize." '' No, don't do that," said Tom. It flashed across his mind that Gilbert would not give his daughter to a man who had been a deliberate traitor, and that by this time he could almost prove the fact. But if Lilith THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 25 loved the fellow ? He went on, stammering a little. '' Mr. Vane and I are on good terms ; we meet occasionally. I hope she will be happy with him. I do indeed. He has waited a long time for her." ''And you have probably by this time formed other ties yourself ? " said Gilbert. But Tom exploded at this. '* That suggestion is a mockery. If I had nothing to offer Lilith, I had nothing to offer any one else. Or is she still to be regarded as a princess requiring ten times more than any other woman '^. I don't think it was her view of herself. Upon my word I don't." "That is a very unfriendly tone, Tom," said Mr. Turold. ''Come now, I hoped we — I hoped you were going to permit me, even if I misjudged you to — to " Tom made no effort to help his uncle through this very lame speech ; but with- out being quite aware of it, their hands met. 126 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. "■ Once Lilith is married I don't see why you shouldn't come sometimes and see me," said Gilbert Turold ; and Tom was really pleased, though quite aware of a touch of condescension in his uncle's tone, inevitable from the gentleman at ease who lived in first-floor apartments at Kensington, to the poor Chelsea musician who still called him- self the son of a bankrupt tradesman. Grace had by this time already got Mr. Palmer to bed, and he seemed fairly com- fortable when Tom went to him. " It's nothing — nothing " — he murmured, ''and I won't have little Jamie scolded. He did his best, his best." Then the doctor came, but beyond a short examination he seemed to say very little and to recommend very little treatment. He listened to the patient's murmurs without remark, and stood for a long time looking at him in silence. Then he beckoned to the son, who was slightly impatient, as an active mind easily becomes under anxiety. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 27 " The injuries are fatal," said the doctor ; *' at his age and in his low condition, I do not think he can hold out long." " Good God ! " said Tom, staring at the speaker with startled eyes. '' But you mis- take," he said hurriedly ; '' he is not old — he is not in a low condition. He has been ex- tremely well lately." The doctor returned to the patient's side, took his wrist and pushed his eyelids up a little. '* Surely you can suggest something," said Tom. And Grace looked up with tears of com- passion in her eyes, and laid her hand on his. She had replaced her veil, and was just the nun again ; heavenly in her mien, com- petent at her work. " Ah yes. I dare say he was cheerful," said the physician, still perusing the sick man ; "■ he looks to me as if he had been through great trouble. That is a kind of thing which kills elderly people ; after a little 128 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, while. And the injuries are fatal/' he re- peated, turning away. Grace, the trained nurse, and Tom were left alone with the unconscious sufferer. ** I suppose it is true," said Tom, bitterly ; " he was so cheerful, so resigned and con- siderate, one was apt to forget it, but it broke his heart, I do believe. I did all I could for him, Grace ! " The nun at one side, Tom at the other, they waited. An hour or two passed in silence, save for an occasional semi-conscious whisper. It needed no experience to see that the old man's strength was going down and very rapidly. Now and then Tom sought the nurse's opinion, hoping she would contradict his own. Then Mr. Palmer became restless, tossing himself about ; complaining even, talking wildly and unlike himself, with intervals of mere moaning weakness. " Mother ! Where is mother ? " he said petulantly, and called aloud ; "■ Polly ! I THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 29 wonder you leave me, Polly ! Is she gone out, Tom, or where is she ? " " I have telegraphed," said Tom ; *' she will be here at seven." But Grace shook her head gently, know- ing full well that the sufferer would not last till then. She laid her hand on the sick man's brow. It was the very hand for a sick-room, soft and capable, gentle and cool and untrembling. " You are making Tom unhappy, Mr. Palmer," she said ; " your wife cannot come to you just now." "Who's that ?" said Mr. Palmer, quickly; '* oh, if it would but please the Lord to give me back my sight ! " " It is Grace," said Tom. " You re- member Grace ? " " Grace ! Little Grace ! " He fell back on his pillows in an easier posture, a smile illu- minating the drawn and colourless lips. '' Grace ! Is she here ? " he said, feeling for her hand and picking at the clothes restlessly VOL. III. 49 130 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, till she Stopped him by laying her palm in his. '' I wish I could see you, Grace/* murmured the blind man ; " you had a pretty face, my dearie." '' Is my Tom here too ? " questioned Mr. Palmer, rousing himself a little and getting his son's hand at the other side, murmuring faintly, "Tom and Grace; my Tom and little Gracie. What I always thought." The girl's eyes travelled slowly to Tom's and rested there wistfully. He answered her look with a sort of deprecating appeal for silence. It was six o'clock when Mr. Palmer died. He had lain motionless for a long time, his hands held by the two he loved, his sinking frame supported by his adopted son. No physical suffering marred the peace of his day's close, and the griefs which had silently sucked away his life were all forgotten. ** Polly," he murmured once, thinking his wife beside him, *' the boy has never left me ; and Grace is come to him. It's all well, all THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 131 well, and I see light again ; and your face ; and theirs." The last words came very slow and falter- ing, and his blind eyes were already closed. From that on, he slept ; while the house and the street were so silent and quiet that the ticking of Tom's watch was plainly audible ; and while in the convent far away the nuns were praying that the Holy Mother of God would keep Sister Athanasia from temptation, and bring her home to them in safety and in peace. Grace rose at last and stood beside her fellow-watcher, who knelt on as before, his arms supporting the nerveless figure, his eyes on the untroubled sleep of the worn man who been his first and dearest friend. She waited a minute, her heart beatine strangely. '' He will turn to me now," she told herself. '' Dear Tom," she said at last, touching the young man's shoulder, '' he is gone." " I know it," said Tom. '' Grace, he was 132 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. more to me than their fathers are to most men ! " He rose slowly, crossing the poor stiffen- ing arms on the breast and laying his hand on the cold, hard forehead. Then they stood side by side looking at the dead figure and both feeling that an explanation must be made before they could part. '' I wish I could have done more for him," said Grace, agitated by the long sus- pense. ''You did all you could," replied Tom ; " the doctor told me it was quite hopeless. Those men know. I wish mother had been here, that is all." " I am so glad he knew you, Tom. And that he knew me ; and that my being here gave him comfort." Tom, still standing by the bedside, his eyes still on the dead face, folded his arms and spoke to Grace, slowly. ''Forgive me," he said; "forgive me, Grace, that knowing he was dying, I could THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. not undeceive him. He had formed a mis- taken idea ; but I could not tell him he was wrong. Can you forgive me, Grace ? " The girl had turned pale, her hands clasped, and her eyes downcast. " Do you not think," she said after a pause, " that when a dear friend is dead, his slightest wish is ennobled to a law ? " '' Father will never be dead to me," said Tom, looking at her for the first time ; " and if he can see us now, he sees why we cannot do it." Again there was a painful pause, broken by the quarter chime from a neighbouring steeple. " Because you love Lilith ? " said Grace, gently, raising her eyes to his. The colour fled from Tom's face at the words. The vision of his first love, the other man's bride, which he had been trying to banish from his eyes through all those silent hours of strono^ emotion, rose before 134 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, him with sudden distinctness ; effacing the more beautiful Grace as the girl herself had always done. '' Because I love Lilith," he repeated quietly. They said no more, and no sign of agita- tion was visible in the nun. Tom went away to meet his mother, and Sister Athanasia remained alone to perform the last offices for the dead man. She returned to her convent. The ex- citement of the last twenty-four hours was over, and had left her depressed and weak. Only in a mood of strong excitement is rebellion possible under the conventual system ; the routine of the place is strong as iron bars. Once back within the gates, Grace almost refused belief to the fact that all day she had been in the world, agitated by the passions, sharing in the labours of brother-men. No dreamer awakened from his dream, no madman recovered from his frenzy feels his past state more impossible THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 35 and absurd. Like the madman, Grace's in- stinctive wish was to conceal her outbreak. She entered with her head bent, and her eyes dim with tears. At once she was taken to the Mother Superior, the lady who regarded Athanasia as a chosen vessel, almost inspired, specially favoured by the saints. Grace knelt. " Mother, I missed Sister Lucia as we went. And there was an old man, blind, and led by a child, knocked down and run over in the street. They carried him to his home, dying ; and he lay there dying all day ; and only his son to nurse him, and no one to speak to him of the Church. So I stayed ; at the bidding of the doctor and of the old man's son. And I prayed for him aloud ; but he was never conscious for me to tell him of the Church. And at six o'clock he died. And I stayed to lay him out, and to pray for his soul." " Sister Athanasia, have you told me all V' asked the Mother Superior, very tenderly, 136 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, for the day's work seemed to have ex- hausted the sweet young saint. '* Not quite all, Mother. I had known the blind man in the days when I was in the world. I had known his son too. Mother, I had loved him ! long ago — long ago, before I was called ! " " And renounced that earthly love for the higher and the heavenly one, Sister Athanasia ? " **Yes, Mother," said Athanasia, her head bent, her voice low and sweet. The Mother Superior pondered ; but love stories are illicit in a nunnery, and she was shy herself and forebore to question the novice. " My child, if you have anything on your conscience," said the gentle elderly woman, *' you will tell it to-morrow to your Father Confessor." Whatever it was which Athanasia told, she gained absolution ; and a month later, in renewed fervour of enthusiasm, she had taken the irrevocable vows. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 137 Her reputation for salntliness grew ; and more and more as her cheek hollowed under the severer discipline of the black veil, her eyes grew brighter and larger ; shining with a radiance which was thought the trans- figuration of heavenly conversation, but in which a physician might have seen some fever and a consuming and impotent rest- lessness. CHAPTER V. R. TUROLD (who, it is needless to state, had not married Mrs. Gas- coigne) went home, thinking he would not mention what had happened. But an acci- dent is discomposing ; Lilith noticed that he was agitated, and her question soon ex- tracted the truth. " Did you see Tom, papa ? " she asked, having learned to speak her cousin's name quite calmly, for it naturally had to be sometimes said as a mere family matter. Lilith was altogether a calmer person than she used to be, so much so, that Lady Caroline thought her quite immensely im- proved, more womanly and conventional. But it is a question if Edward was alto- gether satisfied with his betrothed ; she had THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 39 lost much of her vanity, her wilfulness, her nervousness, and her folly In general ; but then half her life seemed to have gone with these bad qualities, and what remained had apparently lost all interest for herself. Her beauty too was spoiled by the extreme fragility of her appearance. Never rubicund, she had now lost colour even from her lips ; her eyes were all softness and no sparkle ; and she was the despair of her dressmaker, all her clothes having a fatal tendency to do what that lady described as *' hanging about her in bags." However she made no complaints ; she was able to take long walks, or rides when any one gave her a mount ; and If she had headaches, or finger-aches, or heart-aches, she never mentioned them. Lady Caroline declared that marriage would restore her complexion and probably make her portly and magnificent, like the other dames of the Turold race. " Did you see Tom, papa } " questioned LIHth. I40 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. ''Oh, just for an instant," replied her father. " I am so sorry about it, papa ! To think one of us should have hurt poor Mr. Palmer ! " , " That is a silly remark, my dear ; it was the merest accident. I dare say, I'll call after a few days and inquire." To Lilith it seemed shocking that her father's hansom should have been the one to run over Tom's Mr. Palmer, though by the merest accident. It did not appear to her enough that her father should call in a few days to inquire. She wanted Tom to know that she, personally, was very sorry. In these days Lilith, being no longer a princess, was in the habit of walking about the streets alone, and sometimes she went out later and strayed farther than Mr. Turold or Edward altogether approved. This evening her father was dining with a friend at his club, and Lilith, instead of sitting down to her solitary meal, took her THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, I41 hat and went out. She walked along vaguely ; but a spirit in her feet carried her to Fitzroy Square, where she knew her cousin and his adopted parents lived. Once before Lilith had gone there shivering with fear that Tom might see her and think she had done it on purpose. But he had not looked out ; nor had Lilith ever looked out when, as was by no means an infre- quent occurrence, Tom had very slowly and lingeringly passed the house where she lived. Lilith felt for her card-case. " I will inquire myself," she said ; '' it is not a strange thing to do when it was papa's hansom." The servant who opened the door cried so much as she gave an account of the occurrence and its sequel, that Lilith had difficulty in understanding what she said. But this was a terrible ending to the acci- dent of which Mr. Turold had made so little! It had never occurred to the girl 142 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. that Mr. Palmer might die ; and she could not get over the feeling that she and her father had somehow killed him. '* Let me speak to the nurse," said Lilith ; " you say there is no one else in the house ? " She walked absently up the stair, and the servant, who did not know who she was, nor what right she had to intrude, and who more- over was rather frightened by the thought of the corpse, after a few steps retreated, leaving her to her own devices. But the nurse, Sister Athanasia, having finished her work, and not wishing to see Tom again, had already left the house ; and Lilith only found little Jamie crying outside the locked door of the death-chamber. Much relieved by the coming of a lady, though a strange one, Jamie let her enter; then thought he had done wrong, ran away to the kitchen, and soon after escaped home to his mother. Lilith had supposed herself going in to THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 43 speak with the nurse ; she found herself alone in a solemn room where two tall candles were burning, and where was a bed, and on it the long, straightened figure of the dead man. The most ordinary face is beautified by death ; Mr. Palmer lay there, like Love and Peace and Happiness in bodily presence. She knelt awestruck ; unconscious of more than the sacredness of the place she had entered. She had known Mr. Palmer very slightly, but on Tom's authority had given him respect ; when he fell on blindness and on evil days she had come near to loving him, so sincere had been her pity. Now the majesty of Death had for ever hallowed him to her imagination ; he was lifted at once above the commonness of life, and become something reverend and holy : crowned with the unfading crown of mystic victory ; and, in his rapture of repose on this his first day of death, and still clad in his dim earthly part, yet revealing to her 144 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, in some strange way ** bright shoots of everlastingness." How long Lilith knelt there, she could not tell ; she had forgotten all external circumstances, her own and other people's, and did not notice that she had made herself the guardian of the death-chamber ; nor did she hear the stopping of a vehicle at the house, the opening of the hall-door, the fall of footsteps on the stair. Tom had gone to the station to meet Mrs. Palmer and to break to her the news of her bereavement ; now he had brought her home. *' Let me go straight upstairs,'* said the widow ; '' take me to him at once, my dear." And Tom, his arm round her and tears in his own honest eyes, led her through the narrow hall and up to the first floor, where the blind man had had his room ; in which he was now waiting to be carried away on his last sad journey, to return to THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 145 his home, and his wife, and his son, no more. " You will find Grace there with him," said Tom ; and he opened the door and brought his mother in. But the figure kneeling by the corpse and reverently kissing the dead hand was not Grace. Tom knew her at once, even before she had lifted her head, and looked at him. Lilith rose and stood aside, as the widow advanced. She said nothing ; but waited, her hands crossed on her breast and her eyes dim with unshed tears. She stood in the background waiting, her look on the dead man and the weeping woman ; and Tom remained by the door, and never took his eyes from his lost sweetheart's face. What wonder had brought her there ? and with that air of peace and gentleness, as if she had been holding converse with spirits from heaven while she kept watch in that dim chamber of sad death" ? VOL. III. 50 146 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, Presently poor Mrs. Palmer's grief became overpowering to her ; the shock had beeti so sudden, and the blow was to her so terrible that it seemed unbearable. Lilith came forward at last to try and help the poor thing ; she laid one hand on her shoulder, the other on her clenched fingers, saying nothing and letting her own quiet tears fall unheeded to mingle with the widow's. Mrs. Palmer had hardly listened when her son had told her about Grace ; finding not Grace but Lilith, she concluded without thinking much that she had just mistaken what he had said. Mrs. Palmer had never attained to any intimacy with Lilith, nor had even greatly liked her; but their hearts came together now. *' My dear — my dear" — murmured poor Mrs. Palmer; and let the girl raise her, and then she sank into her arms, and wept; but less terribly, and on Lilith's breast. Tom said not a word, but his eyes never THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 47 moved. That was Lilith he was watching, his lost Lilith ; and she was embracing and caring for and comforting the homely woman who had been to him a mother. Half an hour later, Lilith was preparing to go home. No one had asked an expla- nation of her presence, nor had she volun- teered it. She had indeed said very little ; nothinof to her cousin. He took her down- stairs, however, and it seemed to them both impossible that they should meet and part thus in silence. Lilith was still strangely calm, but she was more conscious of herself now, and was conscious also that she was in the presence of the man who had been her lover. The little parlour where he had sat with Grace was unlighted ; Tom took her in there, leaving the door open so that a few rays came to them from the hall lamp. She spoke first, of course. '* Oh, Tom, it was an accident ! Papa and I are so sorry. It was his driver's fault 148 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, — a cab-driver ! I came here hoping to tell you how sorry we were. I did not know he was dead, Tom ! I had no idea — papa had no idea — it would kill him." " Thank you for coming, Lilith." There was a short silence. " Lilith, may I speak of anything else "^ " *'Yes, Tom, if you wish." " I want you to forgive me for — for our last meeting. If that is possible." '' I did forgive — I wanted to tell you " She stopped, but as if she would willingly have added more could she have trusted herself. '' Thank you." " You know I am engaged to Edward ? " said Lilith, clasping her hands tightly together. '' He told me." " It — it's not quite an ordinary engage- ment," she went on, her composure shaken a little ; " he's to wait as long as I choose. I have never kissed him — never. But, yes. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 1 49 Tm to marry him, — If I marry any one. If I have your leave, that is." *' What have I to do with it, Lihth } " " True ; that was a fooHsh thing to say. I don't love Edward. I mean not much ; but I have — I suppose — agreed to marry him some time. Papa thinks it is my duty. Edward has been very good to papa — to me. You don't think it is wrong, do you ? I mean to marry a man one doesn't love ? " You said you didn't love him much',' said Tom, with a moment's bitterness : then he checked himself. " No, no ; of course it is not wrong. You have always liked him. God bless you, dear."^ " Do you say that .^ What frightens me sometimes is the thought — I mean, once a long time ago I loved — another man. I hoped he would have forgotten. I am afraid sometimes that he " " Lilith dearest," said Tom, '' I love you so much that, once married to Edward, you 150 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, shall never see me again. If it is that you are afraid of, I will put the seas between us rather than cause you one anxiety." Lilith turned away with a sob. '' Oh, Tom, you have been true, and I have not ! " she murmured ; '* you must hate me!" Tom clenched his hand, but he spoke quietly. '' No, no. I have never looked at it like that. Never, Lilith." There was another short silence. Then Lilith came forward with both her hands extended. She had recovered her calm now. *' Good-bye, Tom ! It is good-bye for ever. But I am glad to have seen you." '' Good-bye, Lilith." He held her hands for a moment, their eyes fixed on each other's, both of them very quiet and very grave. Then he raised her two hands to his lips and kissed them ; coldly he hoped ; and turned away and let THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 151 her leave him. She went out, lifting the latch and shuttinof the door herself. Afterwards alone, in the dark, Tom sank on his knees by the table and buried his head on his arms. The long terrible day, the agitation, the anxiety, the bereavement, and now — Lilith ! all following on months and years of silent suffering, had been too much for him. His hour had come of un- suspected abandonment to weakness and grief. '' Oh, my darling ! my darling ! " he mourned. *' How changed she is ! It is killing her!" It seemed to him that to-night for the first time he realized how happy he could have been with Lilith ; changed though she was ; partly perhaps because of the change. After a time he rose; and quieted himself; and prepared to take up the burden of life again, resigned and patient as usual. He sought his mother; and turned back to that other grief, the sorrow which he could 152 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. and did share with her from the bottom of his heart. Not quite as other men are to their sons had John Palmer been to him ! But all through that night, restless and sorrow-worn, he was torturing himself with the question, was he right to let Lilith marry this Edward Vane whom now he believed he knew ; and whom, in so far as he could tell, other people did not know ? Yet how was he to prevent the marriage ? If he told Lilith her betrothed was a liar and a slanderer, she would not marry him ; but Tom could not imagine himself saying this to Lilith, even though in a point or two he could offer proof positive of what he alleged. If he told Gilbert Turold ? His soul revolted from playing such a part : it was too like the part Edward had played towards himself He thought of going to Molesworthy and confronting the man in person ; of saying to him : '' You have not won her fairly. She does not love you. You have tricked her into this marriage. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. T5, Tell her the truth and see if she will marry you then. Let her take any one else — any honest fellow, and I will hold my tongue ; but do not sin against her by marrying her yourself." What would Edward reply ? Tom knew well enough, for already there had passed some cynical frankness of talk between them. " Much of what you say, Tom, is unluckily true. I did meddle with Howe and Stirke and Kidson of course. My dear fellow, if I had known who you were I shouldn't have begun it ! No one wanted to suppress Mr. Turold ; it was Tom Palmer who was the nuisance. But upon my soul, you are the only person I have treated in this manner. To Lilith I have been perfect. Ask her ; she will admit it. You can't have her ; that you know perfectly. And she will not marry any one else. Whether it's faithfulness to you or to me, no matter ; but she won't fall in love again, and she won't go through the bother of a mariage de convenance with any one but 154 ^^^ PRINCESS ROYAL. me. If you hinder my marriage — you can of course — she will die a discontented old maid. If you let me have her, she will be prosperous and approximately happy. Who in this world expects more than an approxi- mation to happiness ? Though she isn't frantically attached to me, she and I will do very well together, so long as no one sets her against me. For her sake, you had better hold your tongue." A conversation of that sort seemed to have neither point nor conclusion. Tom, however, determined to do something ; when his own passions which that five minutes with Lilith had so powerfully stirred had a little calmed down again. There was still time ; the girl had never yet even kissed her betrothed. Reflecting upon that, Tom angrily re- gretted his own heroism, and wished he had himself kissed her to-day : had at least offered to do so ; there was that in Lilith's manner which hinted to him that the offer THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 55 would not have been accepted, even though it had been refused with tears. They buried Mr. Palmer, and after that everything in the little house in Fitzroy Square became gravel and ashes to Tom. His mother did not stay long with him ; she found herself a post as matron in a Home for Friendless Girls at Barnet. Tom missed her unspeakably. He had a dumb and unreason- able complaint against his foster parents : so much he had given up for them ! and now the one he loved best had died, and the other had tossed him over for a pack of rubbishy unknown girls, superfluous, Tom thought, as Grace Kidson's nuns. There were moments in his dreams when he thought he might have arranged his life differently ; not better it is true but more pleasantly. In those dreams he was living at Turold Royal, and he had his Lilith. But it was in dreams only that he regretted what he had done or ached for the impossible. In the day time — well, he had his music. 156 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, At the end of the first three months after Mr. Palmer's death, Tom was surprised to find that he had in hand, after all claims for the moment were satisfied, more money than he quite knew what to do with. He questioned with himself whether he would take a holiday or simply buy some new clothes. He did neither. Passing a certain well-known curiosity shop, he absently ran his eye over the articles exhibited in the window, and started as if at a whiff of wind direct from the park at Turold Royal. For he saw a small, broken, travel- ling-chest, which had once it was said belonged to Lady Jane Grey, and on it a scrap of faded embroidery worked by the hand of the same hapless lady ; two ridiculous, ugly, useless things, flung into the sale at the Court without special compunction, bought by Tom knew not whom ; and now here in the market again. He went into the shop, and asked a few questions ; heard of an elderly man who had " been after the things once or twice and THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, I 57 seemed soft on 'em like," and of a handsome little gent with a longer purse than the other's, ** who meant business and was coming after 'em again to-morrow." Then and there Tom bought the two poor treasures, paying the thirty-seven guineas demanded without a murmur. For once let him have the pleasure of supplanting that little gent who meant business and had the well-filled purse ! He sent the treasures to Lilith ; and Edward got the credit of the gift ; though he smilingly disclaimed it and had his liberality and delicacy much belauded by so doing. Not even Edward himself guessed that Tom had any connection with the anonymous present which came to Lilith on her birthday morning. No one suspected him of having thirty-seven guineas loose in his pocket, nor of caring enough for Lady Jane Grey's needlework to be able to recognize it, among a crowd of dingy things in the window of a Jew's shop in Greek Street, Soho Square. CHAPTER VI. |HOUGH it was currently stated that the new and spendthrift heir of the Turolds had ruined not himself only, but also his uncle, yet Gilbert and his daughter had not descended into the obscurity which had closed over the head of the person still known as Tom Palmer. For a time indeed their misfortunes seemed almost to have increased their popularity. Lilith and her father were hardly ever at home in their Kensington apartments. They had endless invitations and the girl was still treated en princesse, though she heroically wore the same frock night after night, and it not a particularly smart one to begin with. All this time she was nominally engaged to THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 1 59 Edward Vane. How she had drifted into the engagement she hardly knew ; it seemed to have been settled for her, not by her; but still when once she had realized it as a fact, she did her best to live up to it. Edward loyally observed the terms of the compact he had made with his destined bride ; and by degrees she began to feel her partially accepted lover a protection, keeping other lovers away from her so that she had herself to herself for the present anyhow. The world did not greatly notice the cold- ness of this pair, merely supposing their familiarities reserved for private. Only Mr. Turold after a time began to feel uncomfort- able and to wish the matter had been arranged somehow differently. The present state of affairs was unnatural and the chanee in Lilith, which Lady Caroline considered such an improvement, filled her father with anxiety. Just at present they were all at Moles- worthy House for Easter, Lady Caroline l6o THE PRINCESS ROYAL, herself and her younger progeny ; Edward, a charming host ; Lilith, his bride elect and his guest ; and her father. Lilith had told no one of her visit a week or two ago to Fitzroy Square, nor that she had seen her cousin. She herself was hourly conscious of it ; it seemed to her that her frozen heart had suddenly thawed and that the streams of life and of love had begun once more to flow, though not yet under sunshine. " I don't know what to make of the child, Edward," said Mr. Turold to his prospective son-in-law, " and that's the fact. This last week or two I like her look less than ever." " This drifting is bad for her," said Edward ; " I have made up my mind to indulge her with it no longer." " Lilith," he addressed her next day, smiling pleasantly as he spoke and putting no more sentiment into his tone than if he had been consulting her as to the hour for dinner, " I have so often lately been asked THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. l6l when our marriage is to take place that I am going to request you to fix the day." Mr. Turold was in the room ; he thought of leaving it, then changed his mind and planted himself near his daughter ; such a curious couple would perhaps come to an understanding better with some one to help them." "If you are going to marry me at all," continued Edward, boldly, " you will be just as ready to do it next month as next year. Isn't that true ? " '' I dare say it is," said Lilith. '' I don't know that I care about it very much, Edward ; this marriage, I mean." " But you have given your word " ''No, no ; not absolutely." He smiled. "You have given your word that you would marry me unless you disliked me more than when we discussed the matter first. Do you .? " *' No. I like you a great deal better," VOL. III. 51 1 62 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. replied Lilith, frankly. '' You have been very patient with me, Edward, and kind and nice." " My dear child," said Mr. Turold, more than ever impressed with the unnaturalness of a pair of lovers talking like this, ** of course you are going to marry Edward. The only choice you have is about the time." '' Is that so, Edward ?" He took her hand, still smiling. " Yes ; and I shall be very grateful, Lilith, if you will name a day for this spring." Mr. Turold did leave them now, and Edward ventured to draw his bride a little nearer to him. " Edward," said Lilith, changing her tone a little, *' are you really fond of me ? " *' Moderately," replied Edward ; " you don't wish me to be too fond of you, Lilith ? " She coloured. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. l6 "You think I have been unkind, Edward." " No. Not if you will be kind to me now." His voice trembled. For a mo- ment the joy of his youth surged up and his love showed on the surface. He re- membered the day he had seen Lilith first ; the delicate, joyous, sixteen-year-old creature in her white satin ; a princess in an enchanted palace ; brought to him by her sweet, stately mother, who had- been nearer winning Edward s confidence than any person in the world. Of course the Lilith he was to ofet now was not in the very least like that. Six- teen was left far behind and the white satin was worn out, and the enchanted palace had dissolved and the sweet sympathetic mother had long lain in her grave. But memory coloured the present Lilith to her lover's eye, and his heart shot up a flame. Could he but kick the dumb devil from his breast, and tell her he had a heart ! Could he but win some affection from her ! Im- possible ; he had not been born fortunate. 1 64 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. He might have won the love of the girl of sixteen had he been free to set about it ; the Lilith of to-day was divided from him by a gulf impassable. "Come out with me, Edward," said Lilith, quietly. " I want to talk to you." He wrapped her solicitously in a soft white shawl, and took her into a remote corner of the verandah which ran along the dining and billiard-rooms. It was a fresh lovely night after a storm, and a brilliant moon with one attendant star shone in a clear sky, above a heavy bank of thunder- clouds, fantastic in shape with clearly defined edges. Lilith leaned on the latticed rail listening to the rapturous nightingales, while perfume enriched the air from leafy violet beds below. The girl looked adorable to her lover just then. A frail, spirit-like, ethereal creature, harmonious with the pale and pensive beauty of evening and moon- light. " Edward," said Lilith, addressing him THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 165 with some abruptness, ** I don't know what you will say to me. What I am going to tell you now, I should have said to you long, long ago ; but I have been weak, and oh so puzzled. I should not know how to say it at all, if it wasn't that I believe you are half prepared. Edward, I cannot, cannot be your wife." He was half prepared. He knew Lilith well ; perhaps better than she knew herself, and for long he had feared that his scheme for entangling her had failed. Still the blow fell heavily. He made no answer, but remained standing before her holding her hand, his face blanching and his eyes fixed on hers. '* Oh, Edward, I am sorry ! " cried Lilith. " I have been wrong. I have treated you very badly. But it would be worse to marry you. Edward, you said when I liked you better I would marry you. But it is not so. It is because 1 like you better — I do, Edward, I do — it is because of that, I feel I cannot 1 66 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. be your wife. It would be wrong. I should only break your heart. You love me ; and I — oh indeed I wish it was otherwise — but I do not love you ! " '' Is that all, Lilith ? " said Edward, very gently, and the sadness in his eyes moved her deeply. " Edward, I will not deceive you. A few days ago I saw Tom. I spoke to him. I know now that I love him just as much as ever, and that is why — it is the only reason, Edward — why I cannot marry you." Edward smiled bitterly, and loosed her hands. "■ He told me, Lilith, that he had seen you. I will not stop to discuss the honour of a fellow who can, so to speak, 'kiss and tell.' You have always pardoned from that man indelicacies which would be revolting to you in any other." A flush stained Lilith's brow and throat, and she faltered for a moment. *' He thought, I suppose, Edward, that THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 67 you ought to know. He thinks I am going to be your wife." " Exactly ; and the only revenge in his power was to boast that he had tempted you into a moment's unfaithfulness/' "• Oh, Edward ! you are cruel !" exclaimed the girl ; " we said about six words and so quietly. He did not kiss me. How dare you suggest such a thing ? He kissed my hands. Only that." ''Only!'' said Edward, sarcastically; " quite enough, too ! Lilith, I despise that man too much to quarrel with you about him. My dearest, I understand you perfectly. You should not have let him address you, and you know it. You are shocked ; you think you have committed a crime. Don't I know you, dear child ? You think this must separate us. No, Lilith. I am sorry for what has occurred, displeased if you like ; but I have no fear that it will be repeated or followed by any graver disloyalty. I trust you as before f implicitly, Lilith." 1 68 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. This was not at all as the girl had expected ; what could Tom have reported of their very quiet, very restrained words, to make Edward view them so seriously ? " Edward, you mean to be very good to me, I know. And I do see that I have been wrong, not once only, but all through. Edward, it is not because Tom spoke to me and kissed my hands. I hadn't thought much of that. I had so often kissed him ! and I have never kissed you, Edward, never once. What it seems is that I owe my faith to Tom and not to you. What I feel is not that I have been disloyal to you, but that through all these months, in which he has been true to me, I have been unfaithful to im. "■ True to you ? A pretty sort of truth ! Do you suppose I haven't watched him ? don't know how he lives ? But you would not believe if I told you, and it is needless that I should. Lilith, listen now. If Tom were living at Turold Royal in his legitimate THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 1 69 place ; if he were the son of an honest man Hke any of his uncles ; if he were a gentle- man himself, able and willing to treat you as a lady, Heaven knows I should give you up to him if you wished it. But, my dear child, Tom has at least the sense to know he carUt marry you ; he told me so to-day. Whether you are my wife or not, Tom Palmer (or Turold — Stephen's son) has no more right to make love to you than a shoe- black has. It is simply base of him to attempt it ; it is inconceivable that you should permit it. You would see this, my dearest Lilith, if you weren't blinded by your feelings. For Heaven's sake, do not break my heart and leave yourself in danger, for the sake of a sentiment, a phantom, a chimera, when you can do so much for my happiness, Lilith ! " Lilith buried her face in her hands, and turned from him. ** Oh, Edward, you do confuse me so ! I don't know how to ^answer you. I dare say ^ lyo THE PRINCESS ROYAL. what you say is sensible. Most probably Tom and I shall never meet again. But I am quite, quite sure of this : whatever you think of him, / respect and honour him, and I love him far too much to marry any one else. I can't do it, Edward. I can only ask you to try and forgive me. Oh, I am sorry — — I am sorry. But I have made up my mind, and nothing you can say will change me." She rose at once and moved towards the drawing-room, in which Mr. Turold and Lady Caroline were now engaged in a solemn game of chess. Edward followed her without speaking ; his lips were com- pressed, and there was rather an evil look in his eye ; but he unwrapped the white shawl quite as tenderly as he had folded it round her an hour ago, and in sight of the chess-players, he took her hand and bent over it very courteously. It was the nearest approach to a caress that had ever been seen between the two, and a tear sprang to Lilith's eye. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. I "J I She went to her father and knelt beside him, watching his game ; and Mr. Turold put his arm round her fondly. He asked Lilith no questions, and when she told him she had broken off her engagement, he said very little, and was much kinder than she had dared to hope. " You will let me live quietly with you, papa, and be an old maid," said Lilith ; " oh, I am very sorry to disappoint you. But indeed it was only to please you, that I was ever engaged to Edward at all. You will believe that I tried to please you, papa ? And now you will just let me stay with you and repent of my sins," she ended playfully, yet with a lump in her throat. " You shall do just exactly what you like, my love," said Mr. Turold. Meantime Edward had retired to his alchemist tower, which was high up above the verandah. He flung the windows open and leaned out, listening to the nightingales still singing in the btshes. He had snatched 172 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, at a spray of honeysuckle leaves which had brushed Lilith's hair, and he laid it across his knee as he sat there in solitude and gloom, thinking over his position. He had lost the game which he had played so care- fully for years, and he knew it : Edward never indulged himself with illusions. Rather suddenly another thunderstorm rolled up from behind, and the sharp patter of raindrops startled the sweet-voiced minstrels into silence. Edward rose, dis- gusted by a blinding dash of breeze-blown drops across his face. He shrugged his shoulders, flinging the honeysuckle far into the blast and shutting the window with a bang. '' I will waste no more time on her," he said ; '' after all she's a depreciated article. Good-bye, my dear ; good-bye." CHAPTER VII. If^ILITH went back to Kensington with Li^ her father, and they both of them shut their ears to the hard things said by Lady CaroHne and by the world in general of the fallen princess who had played two men false, and had lost her beauty, and had no money. She had still stout friends in the Mount Jocelyn family : Geraldine and Carry were both married by this time, but the vounof Viscount remained a bachelor and was still much of a schoolboy, and one of Lilith's dearest intimates. Having got out of her distasteful engagement, it is a fact that Lilith beean to take much amusement in Mount Jocelyn's society, and that altogether she became more cheerful, and ate twice as 174 'I^HE PRINCESS ROYAL, much breakfast and played far livelier tunes on the piano. Her father petted her im- moderately, and he began to think something of a sparkle was returning to her eye, and a faint tinge to her pale cheek. The young Viscount certainly had something to do with it, and Mr. Turold was quite touchingly grateful. But other friends had Lilith besides the Mount Jocelyn family ; and persons these w^ere of a very different stamp, such as would have made Lady Caroline's hair stand on end, to say the least of it. It stands to reason that people who live (temporarily) on the first floor don't know or care anything about the permanent lodgers in the attics. Still Lilith's landlady did once or twice mention a widow in the roof who worked as a type-writer, and had one invalid daughter, and one a teacher in a High School ; and a big boy who attended some semi-charity day school in the City. After a while Lilith met the young teacher THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. I 75 on the stairs and recognized her fine black eyes ; next morning she came face to face with the mother, Louisa Howe. There rolled over Lilith a recollection of joyous days at Luxor, and she seized Mrs. Howe by both hands and greeted her with the warmth of old friendship. After this there was acquaintance between the first floor and the attics. Perhaps in his fallen estate Gilbert Turold had grown less exclusive ; at any rate he made no complaints about Mrs. Howe, and he bestowed a good deal of notice on Milly the invalid, who was cer- tainly charming, as invalid children very frequently are. It is quite possible that on some occasion when no one was listening, Mr. Turold questioned Louisa upon the severely tabooed topic of the Palmer faction, and learned a few things about Tom and about Mr. Palmer too which raised them a little in his estimation. Lilith however kept off this subject en- tirely. Once Norah tried to approach it. 176 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. but Miss Turold's haughty Hps and flashing eyes terrified her into silence, which she further enjoined with great seriousness on the other members of the family. Lilith's friendship with Norah was almost ostentatious : she had no doubt a deep reason in it hardly to be explained ; possibly some pride in her successful moulding of the young creature, who, a thorough good creature at heart, became quite nicely mannered under Miss Turold's influence ; possibly some remaining inclination in her- self to a Court and a maid of honour ; pro- bably some obscure notion that in cultivating Norah she was expressing remorse for what, in the old days of her royalty, Tom must have considered her pretentiousness. At any rate the two girls were a great deal together. Lilith took lessons in history and Latin from the accomplished young High School teacher; and she taught Miss Howe manners, and how to do her hair and buy her hats, and how to look and to speak like a reasonable THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 77 and decent young lady, instead of a flighty barmaid. All of which Norah rewarded by extravagant gratitude, and romantic admira- tion and love for her friend and preceptress. In these days Lilith still occasionally played the harp, and Norah, who did every- thing well, was most useful as an accom- panist. One evening the young teacher returned from the meeting of a small orchestral society to which she belonged, and told Lilith that the conductor, Mr. Barnes, wanted them to learn a composition of Mozart's, which had a part for a harp ; and would Lilith like to join the society and take the part ? "To play in a band.-^" exclaimed Lilith, opening her blue eyes very wide, ''and among a set of school-girls ? " However she agreed, much to the astonishment of her father, who had his old- fashioned exclusive ideas about public per- formances, and High Schools and everything else. VOL. III. 52 i;^ THE PRINCESS ROYAL. So to the dusty hall where the weekly practice took place, Lllith's harp was carried, and Norah Howe felt two inches taller when she brought Miss Turold to play on it. The performers were not exactly a set of school- girls ; all were older than Norah, and some of them were of the male sex. Very queer they seemed to Lilith ; oddly dressed folk, with pale faces and wild hair, and a curious method of expressing themselves in their talk. They all, and the old conductor too, felt the harpist to belong to a different race from theirs ; and when, as frequently hap- pened, she played her instrument very badly, not even Mr. Barnes himself dared to observe the fact. Lilith, only half awake to her blunders and distinctly conscious of admiration, en- joyed these music meetings immensely, and had serious thought of proposing her friend Mount Jocelyn as a member, he being a very zealous and a very noisy performer on the clarionet. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 79 One day when the band arrived, it was to learn that Mr. Barnes, the amiable con- ductor, had had a paralytic stroke, and that a substitute was coming, a friend of his, a young man whom nobody knew. Great was the dissatisfaction ; the fiddlers turned up their noses and shook their pale hair, and the cornet swore he would go home at once. In the middle of which the strange conductor walked in, silenced, all murmurs with a look ; rapped authoritatively with his baton, and got the band to business four times sooner than ever had been accomplished by the too easy Mr. Barnes. The cornet did not go home, and the older violinists, who had got beyond the long-hair stage, looked at each other, and nodded with some satisfaction. In full swing was the symphony and every one exerting himself to the utmost when Lilith Turold entered ; blushing for her unpunctuality and not daring to look about her till quite satisfied that her piece was not yet being dealt with. • l8o THE PRINCESS ROYAL. A rap, too decided and too displeased to proceed from the timid Barnes made Lilith jump ; and then a sonorous voice rang out : " Second vioKns, attention if you please. And repeat from the introduction of the minor." Miss Turold looked up with amazement written on every line of her face. It was not old Barnes at all, nor any one in the least like him. It was Tom. He had had his moment of amazement two minutes ago when she had crept noise- lessly in with downcast eyes. For the first time he was unconscious of a muddle among his instruments, upon which accident the guilty bassoon heartily congratulated itself But he had recovered before Lilith looked up, and while he rated the fiddlers, there was a sort of smile curling round the corners of his lips ; he gave her one glance with the faintest movement of his eyebrows, and Lilith knew he was pleased. A sense of the greatest delight filled her breast ; almost of THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, l8l merriment. There was no hint of tragedy in that curl at the corner of Tom's lips. His eyes smiled ; and so at once did Lilith's. Long months had passed since she had enjoyed herself so much as in the two hours which followed. When the practice was over, Tom ex- changed a sentence with Norah, and then dropped into what seemed an unending con- versation with the now very respectful first violin, who had got the band together in the first instance and had long been anxious to dismiss the incompetent Barnes. Lilith went out with her friend, but she bowed to Tom as she passed him and said " How do you do ? " with great affability which apparently produced no effect upon him. Lilith felt perfectly foolish with glad- ness of heart, as in the early days at Luxor. However she held her head very high and spoke to Miss Howe with the greatest stiff- ness and offended dignity. ** Norah, pray tell me what has become 1 82 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, of Mr. Barnes, and if that Mr. Palmer is coming again ? " *' I hope not," said Norah Howe, vigo- rously, " or of course you will not be able to stay in the orchestra." '' Oh — of course not," said Lilith. '* I'd like to give Tom a bit of my mind ! " continued Miss Howe, *' in the old days when I saw how quarrelsome you two were, you and Tom, not a bit like lovers — I used to suppose it was your fault. I was all for Tom in those days. Now I know you better and I see it must have been his doing from beginning to end ; though how in the world, Lilith, any one could ever have dared to behave badly to an angel like you With great dignity, Lilith here dismissed her companion, saying she was going to make some purchases and to visit a friend in Eaton Square before she went home. And then left to her own devices, Lilith was afraid people would stare at her, so THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 83 hesitating was she for the next few minutes. She took three steps towards a shoe shop ; then three in the opposite direction ; then half hailed a hansom to take her home, then crossed the road as if making for the under- ground railway and tea with Lady Mount Jocelyn. The cause of her indecision was a burning desire to go back to the dusty music-hall and see if Tom had done talking to the first violin. Eventually, however, she got herself to the shoe shop and rather teased the salesman by her extreme particu- larity, diversified by well-marked fits of indifference and absence of mind. When she came out, lo ! there was Tom standing outside, and obviously waiting for her exit. He made no sort of apology, merely asking dryly if he might call her a vehicle. '* I always buy my shoes there," said Lilith, with great show of indifference, " it is a cheap shop and the leather is nicely seasoned and wears .well." 184 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " But you don't walk about alone ? " said Tom, as they moved on. •* Oh dear, yes. Every day." ** And carry parcels ? " he said smiling, and taking the new shoes from her. Lilith was determined nothing should make her smile. " I have become very independent," she said. '* And how in the world do you come to know Norah Howe?" " I am extremely fond of Norah," said Lilith, snubbingly. " But you aren't surely going to walk the whole way, Lil — Miss Turold ?" ** It did seem rather far to walk alone," said Lilith, coaxingly, and with a sudden ignominious fall off her high horse. She tried to remount at once. '' There is an omnibus," she said stiffly, and then glanced at him to see what he was thinking. Their eyes met, and she was nearly be- trayed into the smile. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 85 " Oh, you have taken to omnibuses ? " said Tom. '' They are more fashionable than they used to be," said Lilith. " That's a convenient theory," said Tom, laughing. Lilith pouted. " I suppose you are not going to conduct at that place always ? " '* Yes, if they will have me." " You do it very well." " Thank you, Miss Turold." '* As for me — I have only gone once or twice ; just as a favour. I shan't go again." -Why not?" " Because it's so far off." '' Because I am there ? " " Because you made me play that passage all alone before all those people ! Mr. Barnes never did that ! " ** Because I am there ? Now, please, listen: I am coming- to see you." 1 86 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. "Tom! How very strange you are, Tom ! No, please don't do that." " Then I must make the most of having met you for once, by accident. Or shall I put you into that bus, and go away. Miss Turold?" " No, no ; don't be silly. And I think you may call me Lilith ; we are cousins." *' I always think of you as Lilith," said Tom, softly. " As it's an accident, I don't think our having met does matter ; for once. Tell me all about yourself, please, Tom." He smiled. ** I am organist in a small church ; and a music-master." '* I always knew you'd be famous some day ! " cried Lilith. " As a music-master ? I began too late." " But you compose. I have one of your songs." - Have you, Lilith ? Which .? " *' And I suppose you still sing yourself ? " THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 87 *' Only in private. I tell you, I began too late to be an artist." *' Don't be cross, please. You are an artist. I have heard you play at that church, and I know what people say. I listened to the remarks made about you this afternoon. It requires an artist to conduct as well as you do. And it's affecta- tion to pretend you haven't a most beau- tiful voice and way of singing when you choose ! " ** I shall begin to believe it all, if you say so, Lillth." '^ Will you ever be rich again, Tom ? " ** No ; that isn't within the bounds of possibility, even if I were the musician you think me. I just hope to pay my father's debts and to earn a decent living." " Do you like being poor ? " " Not particularly," answered Tom. There was a short silence, and he piloted her across a crowded street. Then his manner changed a little. 1 88 THE PRINCESS ROYAL " He is dead, Lilith. That makes a great change." '* Yes, Tom, I know," said the girl, stop- ping and laying her hand for one instant on his arm. ** I know what it must be to you." ** He was friend — everything to me. There were two people I loved in this world, and he was the second. I wish you had known him better ! " " So do I wish it, Tom. But we were friends the last day ever I spoke to him. He had come to see grandpapa, and he rested a long time in my room. It made me so sad to see him, blind and old and groping about. We were great friends that day, Tom. Did he tell you ? " ** Yes, darling. He said you had been very sweet to him," said Tom, in a low voice. *' But our hearts were breaking at that time, Lilith. He never recovered it. He never was the same again. And there never was a man who deserved it all less." THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 89 " Tom, if It hadn't been for all that trouble he might never have known how fond you were of him. And at least he had you ; he never lost you ; and you bore a great deal to be with him. He must have felt that and loved you for it, Tom," said Lilith, earnestly. They walked on side by side, the girl's eyes fixed on the ground and Tom's on her. '' Do you see our house there near those plane-trees .^ " said Tom, at last. *' Suppose you come in and — see my mother ; and get a little rest, Lilith ; and then you will tell me what brought you here that night before, w^hen I was wanting you so much ; and you were such a comfort to us." *' Was I ? " said Lilith, colouring deeply, *' was I a comfort, Tom ? " He opened the door with a latchkey and led her in. CHAPTER VIII. |OM'S heart was beating fast as they entered ; when he had risen that morning, he had expected no such stroke of good fortune. LiHth was agitated also, and she shrank away from the parlour where she and Tom had said those few heart-breaking words amongst which had been good-bye and for ever. They mounted the stair silently to the rather dreary sitting-room, which had yet a pleasant view of the plane trees. Lilith dropped into a chair without quite knowing what she was doing, and Tom looked out of the window and struggled for an every- day mien and a commonplace remark. The room was meagrely furnished, untidy and THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. IQI dusty; its only conspicuous object the piano, on which sheets of music and blotted manu- script paper were littered. Lilith took up one of these songs and began playing its air with one hand on the wood- work of the piano. It seemed to Tom he must kiss her if she stood there in that contented, familiar manner for another minute. " You are hardly doing it justice," he said, smiling at her ; *' let me sing it to you." '' You are conceited, Mr. Music Master," said Lilith, and turned her back on him that he might not see how pleased she was. " Sonati sono i corni D'ogni parte a ricolta ; La stagione b rivolta : Se tornerb non so, ma credo tardi." " That's too sad a song," said Lilith, laughing off a lump in her throat. " Try this, then," said the musician ; and sang without notes now and very tenderly, watching her all the time : 192 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Quand on perd, par triste occurrence, Son espdrance Et sa gaite, Le rembde au melancolique C'est la musique Et la beaute. " Plus oblige et peut davantage Un beau visage Qu'un homme arme ; Et rien n'est meilleur que d'entendre Air doux et tendre, Jadis aime." " That's rather better," said Lilith, with some slight embarrassment however ; " and pray, Tom, where is Mrs. Palmer all this time?" Tea came in before he could answer, and they sat down, very prim and proper, oppo- site to each other. Tom was cutting thin slices of bread with great deliberation and gazing fixedly at the loaf. ** I have been dreading that question, Lilith. She is not here. She has gone away to live at Barnet." ** But you said " THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 93 '* Yes ; I know I did ! " said Tom, abjectly. *' It was very wrong of you," said Lilith ; ** of course, I shouldn't have come in. I will go away." '' Won t you just finish your tea '^. " "It was very deceitful," said the girl, severely, taking some more bread however, and not hurrying. " I am really rather sorry, Lilith. But there was something I wanted to say which did not seem as if it would say itself com- fortably in the street." "What do you want to say?'' asked Lilith, still severely. Tom relapsed into silence, however, and there was a pause, the girl's colour coming and going. " Tom, there is a thing I rather wanted to tell you too. Not that it's any business of yours at all ; but it just makes me — I mean, if it wasn't for that I should be more vexed — or rather other people would be more vexed, at the way you have decoyed me in here." VOL. III. 53 194 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. ** I know what you want to say,'* said Tom, looking at her ; '' but I have heard it already, Lilith. You wish to tell me that you have dismissed Edward Vane." *' Of course it's no business of yours," said Lilith, laughing nervously. '' Yes, that's it, Tom. How did you know ? " "■ I should have guessed it to-day anyhow. As a matter of fact I was told." " I — I — in fact there were several reasons why I couldn't marry Edward. I wish I had never let him think of it. I am afraid I have treated him rather badly." " I am afraid you have." '* Oh, Tom, don't blame me ! I was dis- tracted. Edward understands ; he is very kind about it. Who told you, Tom ? Ed- ward } " "■ No, not Edward. I was told also, Lilith," said Tom, smiling, "■ that you were giving Lord Mount Jocelyn much encourage- ment." *' That's the greatest nonsense conceiv- THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 95 able," exclaimed Lilith, jumping up, her cheeks aflame. " Jock ? Why, he's nothing in the world but a horrid schoolboy ! You surely didn't believe that, Tom ? " '' No. Edward had explained to me that there were only two men on earth at all in the running with you. He was one ; the other — was not Lord Mount Jocelyn." '' It was very rude of you and Edward to discuss me at all ! " said the girl. '' Tom, don't you think I was right to break it off with Edward ? '"' " Don't ask me. You have just said it was no business of mine. How do you like this house, Lilith ? " " Oh, you put me off " said the girl, petulantly. '' You are quite right, of course ; but " She rose and began drawing on her gloves, with a tendency to that lump in her throat again. " The trees are pretty, are they not ? " con- tinued Tom ; " it is a. good-sized house ; too 196 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. large for me now mother has gone to Barnet. Do you advise me to stay here, Lllith ? " ** I don't know. It's ridiculous your living in this sort of way at all when you should be at Turold Royal. I am going back now, Tom. Is that the bus ?" *' I had thought of giving up the house and taking two rooms at Kensington. Nearer you, perhaps. But we, musicians, don't like Kensington. It's all amateurs." ''Then I suppose you had better stay here," said Lllith, apathetically, tying her veil. " I am thinking of a companion." "Oh ! Another musician, I suppose ?" *' It was more a housekeeper sort of person I meant ; to look after the dinners, and put buttons on my shirts." *' Of course you must miss Mrs. Palmer." *' I do. But couldn't one get such a person ? " '' It would have to be a woman. Does the bus pass the door or not, Tom ? Do answer ! '' THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 97 " Certainly it would have to be a woman.'* " You might answer some old lady's advertisement." ** No ; I am not fond of old ladies." '' You are talking great nonsense, Tom," said Lilith, looking out of the window. " I have a particular person in view." " Indeed ! " '' Shall I describe her ? She is tallish ; she never was very stout, and now I think might be called thin ; scraggy perhaps. Her eyes are a sort of blue colour ; not entirely unlike my own, I believe." *' You are describing a very plain person," murmured Lilith. '' But her hair is different. It is not like any other hair in the world ; it is very black, but not heavy at all. It runs into rings and frizzes, and feels very soft " " I wonder what business you have to know how it feels ! But surely — Mr. Palmer — you are not supposing that this person 198 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. would take a situation as your housekeeper, and sew on buttons ? " " Would she not ? " said Tom ; " would she not ? " There was a long silence, Lilith looking out of the window and twisting the blind cord. The silence was so long that Tom grew frightened. He rose. " Are you angry with me, dearest ? On reflection I see it was an impertinent way of talking to you. Forgive me, Lilith ; I don't know why, but I can't be tragic to- day ! Lilith " — he joined her at the window and put his arms round her — " Lilith ! you once said you would live with me in a garret ! I hadn't even the garret then, and now, Lilith, I have too large a house." *' Oh, Tom ! " murmured Lilith, resigning herself to his encircling arm and resting her forehead against his shoulder. *' Lilith, why don't you speak .^ You love me. You know you do. You'll be far happier in this bare room, sewing on THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 1 99 buttons, than pranked up on a glistering throne " '' Tom ! that isnt the way to talk ! Did I ever want a throne ? " '* Yes ; you were displeased when I toppled your throne over." *' And I ought to be displeased still ! But I'm not a person who can keep up resent- ment ; it goes out like a bad fire." '' Am I forgiven then ? " " I don't know. I really don't know. I think not. But it is all so long ago ; I can't bend my mind to it. Oh, Tom ! " she said, her voice changing as she put her hands in his, ''you have so much more to forgive ! So much, much more. I was much worse than you. But indeed — indeed I have re- pented more," she ended half laughing ; '* I am far sorrier at this moment than you are, Tom. I think you ought to forgive me." He turned her head gently, till he had made her look at him/ 200 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. *' Are you quite certain now, my own Lilith, that I do love you ? " he asked with tender reproach. LiUth burst into tears of remorse, and he kissed them away and never reminded her of her mistrust again. Very soon afterwards they left the house and set forth together for Kensington. Per- haps the people in the 'bus detected smiles in their eyes as they looked at each other, Only one remark passed between them : Lilith leaned forward and whispered : " Tom, you will try and forgive papa and Edward too, won't you ? They didn't know you, and that's how they came to believe such dreadful things ; things that I told them even then were simply silly so much as to fancy. But you will forgive them, as you have forgiven me, won't you, Tom ? Please — for my sake." '' I am so happy to-night," said Tom, " that I can forgive anybody anything." When they were alone again, walking THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 20I the last few steps, Lilith slid her hand for a moment into his, another fear having assailed her. '' Tom, was it deliberate ? Had you meant to say it to me ? Or was it just what is called an impulse ? " '' I have meant to say it, Lilith, ever since that day you came to me and to my poor mother in our trouble. No, not quite that ; since the day I heard you had given up Edward. But tell me, my sweet, how are we to face your father without even a grandsire to help us ? " '' I am frightened to think, Tom." ''Well then, I'll let you into a secret. It was your father who told me you had broken with Edward." " Tom ! " " And he added, Lilith, that you were flirting scandalously with Mount Jocelyn." " You are not improved, Tom. You are rude." '' Perhaps my uncle wished to suggest," 202 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. said Tom, ''that I had better make haste. That's why I was coming to see you, LiHth." Tom's surmise was correct. Mr. Turold bore the news very calmly and offered no serious opposition. Probably at the bottom of his heart he had even some secret approval of his daughter's choice. At any rate he recognized that her mind was made up, and that neither persuasion nor coercion could influence her again. He attempted neither; and only allowed himself a few sarcasms on Tom's poverty and his very disreputable profes- sion ; and he made but one stipulation, that his nephew should assume his real name, the only one in the least worthy of Lilith. Tom spent the evening with them ; and Gilbert at dinner took his opinion on poli- tics, which he had not done on that long- ago day when Lilith had first brought her lover to luncheon at Turold Royal. PART X. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE— continued. CHAPTER I. p^IME passed on, and Edward Vane did ^^ not marry. Some said his heart was broken, and possibly they were right. He went abroad and did not reappear for a year : after this he seemed unable to settle down at home. He returned to America and so came and went, at intervals, for several years. He was decided to be not a marrying man, and was spoken of as an example of touching constancy in love. On the first journey of this self-imposed exile, Edward had taken his passage to Australia. He went out in a P. and O. 204 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. boat with the usual heterogeneous company scattering itself all over the world. When the Carthagena was leaving the docks, every passenger except Edward had friends to see him off. The handsome, melancholy gentle- man so solitary, so reserved, so courteous, was an object of remark, as he stood ad- miring the leave-takings and watching the crowd who had come on board. Here were mere tourists for Italy and the Nile ; there a few officers for the Rock ; an outrageous family with sun helmets and white umbrellas reminded Edward of " the Important Party.' Then there were Indian tea-planters and Chinese merchants ; an unchaperoned damsel with bright eyes on the ship's young doctor, whose duty is to amuse the passengers ; then the belle of Calcutta returning without her children, a languid lady with golden hair and a circle of admirers ; and beside her the Marchande de Modes of Cairo who called herself the widow of a General. On the second-class deck there were only THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 205 emigrants and missionaries ; the latter included two Roman Catholic nuns bound for a hospital in Ceylon, and a detachment of Salvationists who indefatigably beat hymns on a drum till they all fell very sick in the Channel. Bred a Catholic, Edward Vane felt a languid interest in the nuns, who were more dignified than the Evangelicals and gave no tracts. One was a slight insignificant little person, in appearance a frightened child, though thirty years of age. The other, younger in years, had a noble carriage, and the air of a person in authority. She was going out to ^ake a position of importance and was valued and trusted beyond prece- dent by her community. It was some time before Edward saw her face, but he had already recognized her ; Sister Athanasia. His first feeling was annoyance ; he was in a sulky mood and wanted strangers ; then he reflected that Grace even in her nun's garb was pleasant . to look upon. For a 206 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. while nothing passed between the two but bows : it was not etiquette for the nun to speak except under necessity. But Grace had broken her rule already to converse with Edward and It was not impossible that he knew she had sought out Tom. It Is common experience that what has happened once is liable to happen again ; that the first fall prepares the way for the second. Edward knew that Grace wished to avoid him, but he was in a mood of reckless maliciousness ; he wanted to punish some one because Lllith had offended him ; Grace was the first person succeptible of annoyance who turned up handy. Then the wind rose and Sister Eulalia fell sick and disappeared into her cabin ; pale- ness was on many faces, and even Edward felt the necessity for some mental excite- ment If he was to keep up. Only Sister Athanasia's health bloomed triumphant, with the roses of fifteen on her cheek, and her lovely eyes lovelier than before she had THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 207 loved and suffered. She was glorious by- contrast with the bilious-looking folk around her, and Edward was not singular in admir- ing her. As the gale increased, the stewardesses knocked up, and the doctor tumbled on the companion stair and sprained his leg. There were petty disasters in- numerable and the captain swore he always encountered gales when he had a cargo of missionaries. Grace's knowledge of healino* came in useful. She bathed and bandaged, consoled and physicked ; and was, as always, reputed a saint. But with all this going about among the passengers, some talking was inevitable ; and it scarce seemed un- natural when one day she found herself in conversation with Edward Vane, though he wanted no doctoring and was as steady on his feet as she was herself. '' You ruined me," he was saying, with his bitter smile. '' I hoped you would have tied up the wolf ; as you didn't, he stole in and carried off my one ewe lamb." 2o8 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, Grace reflected for a few moments. '' It did not seem to me Impossible," she said, slowly, " that Tom would have turned to me. He was wavering. But I retired ; and I will tell you why, Mr. Vane. First : there was my vocation ; I could not, except under the very strongest call, turn away from that. And secondly, though he was wavering, I had found out that his heart was still Lilith's ; that being so I knew the noblest course was not to tempt him to be untrue to himself and to her. I left him and returned to the convent." " Were those really your motives ? " said Edward, with apparent admiration ; though he felt rather inclined to laugh, at the brilliant colours her Imagination lent to her own behaviour as to everything else. Grace however was very serious and had no notion of deceiving herself or her companion. '' I do not think many people would under- stand motives of that sort," she returned modestly ; '' you do, I think, Mr. Vane." THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 209 "You have heard me speak of elaborate motives also ? " he said, smiling. " Oh yes, but I am not in a mood for them now. I question if they are good — outside of an American novel at least — at present I am in love with primitive instincts and simple passions. I am not concerned for Lilith's welfare or for Tom's soul. I am furious with them both and I rather hope their marriage will turn out disastrously " Grace shook her head. " You do not mean all this — is it not a pity to say it ? " ''Well, what I do mean is that I am disappointed in you. Oh you women ! you are so generous to the men you love, so false to others. Lilith belonged to me. Were you and I so unfriendly, Grace, that I deserved to be intrigued against by you ? As to Lilith — I was not greatly astonished at inconstancy from her ; she was always weak. But I did not expect you to turn against me. I had believed you superior to VOL. III. 54 2IO THE PRINCESS ROYAL, your sex, which is naturally unjust, as every philosopher has seen occasion remark." Grace had not lost the weakness of con- sidering herself above other women ; this accusation stung her. " But I did nothing," she said, expostu- latingly. '* I had no communication with Lilith." " No, but you wished for it. You cast about how you could say to her — in your sublime self-abnegation — ' Throw the other man over and give Tom what he wants.' Did you not, Grace ? You know you did. I dare say you prayed for this to happen, and thought you were praying generously. You did not think of me. I say you were unjust ; and I owe you a grudge for it." Grace felt conscious-stricken and dis- tressed. But she did not quite like Mr. Vane's calm assumption that she had loved Lilith's husband. What had she to do with love — a nun and a strong-minded woman ? It was one thing to confess to herself that THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 211 she had declined into folly ; quite another to have it mentioned by an acquaintance. She turned away coldly, resolved to prove herself independent of all the weaknesses of woman- hood, and above all independent of Tom Palmer. Next day, the only ladies visible were the golden-haired widow who had looked so delicate, and Sister Athanasia, the daughter of consolation. But she was travelling second-class and only penetrated into the nobler regions on her errands of mercy. Edward found her alone, trying to read her hours. He sat beside her for some time in silence ; then they gradually drifted into talk. It was very irregular, but who was there to care ? Sister Eulalia was seasick. Edward perhaps reflected that the superior passengers did not come into this saloon, and his contempt was supreme for mission- aries and boxwallahs. By degrees, Grace yielded to the charm of talking to a man again ; of talking as a human being to a 212 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. human being; of Influencing and being Influenced : and of being flattered by a person of intellect. After the storm was over and when the passengers had emerged again from their cabins, the two still met ; when others were at meals, In the early morning, after dark. In a ship, even if people see, they take no notice. A voyage Is a dull, dull time ; a piece cut out of one's life, apart, immemor- able, when the most strait-laced, the coldest, have licence for flirtation, pour passer le temps. To make things more comfortable still, Edward told the captain that this nun was his veritable sister after the flesh ; an easy lie, for a Sister of the Church has no surname and even Eulalia was completely ignorant of her companion's history. Grace blushed when she heard the assertion ; but she could not contradict It without making a scandal, and by degrees she took advantage of Its convenience ; under cover of It the two walked on shore together at Malta where THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. Sister Eulalia had permission to visit an aunt. Edward had long ago taken hcence to call Miss Kidson Grace ; now If he were to pass as her brother it was only natural for her to call him Edward. " I am the professed sister of all the world," said Athanasia looking at him with deprecating eyes, refusing to believe herself partaker in a lie. *' That is a very cold relation," said Edward, " do you never, Grace, wish for something warmer ? " " Oh yes. I had never any sister or brother of my own. Of course I had the wish : It was to crush these earthly wishes that I took my vows." ''If you had not hampered yourself with vows, you might have found that though one person had failed you, the wish gradually centred on some other." '' What wish ? " said Grace, and went on hastily and incoherently : " at the time it seemed to me impossible." 2 14 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Vows are a mistake," said Edward, with emphasis. '' Not all vows." "All, I think. It belongs to a vow tO' make one hate It ; as I found when I had vowed myself to Sarah, my wife." ** Alas ! I have felt what you say ! It is a confession I could not make except to one who had had a similar experience." He smiled. '' Certainly we could not make such a confession to Tom or to Lilith. They are too childish. I never recovered Lilith's esteem after she learned of my foolish marriage and my repentance." " I dare say not. Lilith's history was too unlike your own. It is failure which brings sympathy." " Say life, Grace. When I talk to you, I feel that you have lived. When I talked to Lilith, she seemed a doll — lovely to be sure — but a doll, in a doll's house." There was a short silence ; Grace was pondering. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 215 '* You kept your vow to that poor woman even after you had repented ? " she said abruptly. " Yes, I believe I kept my vow to the letter. It was not for long ; though she was a preposterous time dying, still I knew my release was certain." Grace clenched her hand passionately and turned away. " Yes, it is death which brings release ! " she said, under her breath. ** My dear Grace ! " exclaimed Edward, '' do you regret so keenly as that .^ " She left him, with a stifled groan, and laid her head on the bulwarks of the vessel. He followed her. " For Heaven's sake, Grace, confide in me ! it may be years before you speak to a friend again ! " '* I shall never speak to a friend again !" said the nun. '' If I am to tell you, Mr. Vane, it is this. I am no saint ; I am a great sinner. I^ have adopted the religious 2l6 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. profession for no religious motive. I had no vocation ; no real conviction. I did it — as I see now — in a moment of desperation. Now I would undo my vows if I could — if I could. I would be a governess, a servant, anything. I' would even live with my father as a rich and worldly woman ! " ** Without entering on the controversial question," said Edward, gently, '' you now see that the cloister existence is inferior to the worldly life of a natural, intelligent human being ? " '' Don't torture me,'' cried the unhappy girl, *'by telling me the worldly life is the higher ! Let me cling to the faith that though I am unworthy of it, I have in my ignorance and my desperation, chosen what is the highest." Edward shrugged his shoulders. '* Well, take care not to relapse into your early scepticism. To a sceptic there is absolutely no question which life is the worthiest." THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 21 7 He took a turn or two on the deck, and played for a moment with a Httle fair-haired child who had adopted him as a friend and a subject. Then he returned to the nun. "■ Is it possible, Grace — I ask as a mere interesting question — that you do not oc- casionally feel a wave of scepticism pass over you ? Do you never say to yourself, * Per- haps all this is delusion and mockery ' ? " '' I try to chase such thoughts from me as sins." " But do you always succeed ? " The girl covered her face to hide her tears ; Edward appeared unconscious of them, and went on meditatively ; '' what would happen, I wonder, if a nun were to change her creed '^ Become a Mahommedan, say ? Where would the vows be then ? " " The suggestion is horrible," said Grace. '' Yet it is only what Luther did ; a name abhorrent of course to good Catholics, yet generally considered a grand figure. Can't 2l8 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. you be openminded enough to admire him a little ? " ** Oh yes, I am not a bigot. I joined the Church too late for that. I see that Luther did a great work." " Which he began by breaking his vows. He left his convent." *' He was a heretic. How could the convent have kept him .^ " " How indeed ? The vow disappeared of itself. Grace ! " he smiled not unkindly, '' if you want to escape, you must become a Buddhist or a Parsee." " Oh, it is wrong," said Grace, *' it is pro- fane, to jest on such a subject ! " *' I spoke in parable, not in jest. Do you know that in conversation with me, you never use a popish expression ; never name the Virgin or the saints, your beads, your cross, your breviary ? Your Catholicism, in my opinion, has fallen from you like an out- grown garment. You are a thorough-going Protestant, if not a rationalist at heart ; and THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 219 if you will permit me to say so, I think that as head of this nunnery in Ceylon with a dozen sisters of the black veil under you and two dozen novices, you will be an unmitigated humbug. You, Grace, who might be such a splendid creature ! Religion or no religion, is it wise ? " " You must not tempt me," said Grace, feverishly : and he forbore to press the point then ; yet afterwards returned to it : fascinat- ing the poor victim, as the candle fascinates the silly moth, already stupefied and frightened by the darkness. At Port Said, there was coaling. The ship touched at sunset and in a moment was surrounded by the unclean barks and jetty boatmen waiting with their defiling freight. " They look like devils on a lake of fire," remarked Edward, as he and Grace stood watching the blue jelly-fish swimming in the sunlit waters, on the surface of which floated long lines and circles of black coal dust. "We must land, Grace. This is the dirtiest 220 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. coaling anywhere." And he asked of a passing officer the hour for saiHng, not yet posted up in the companion. " It's my ideal of a stupid place, though," said Edward, " shall we go to the hotel and dine there ? " *' Let us leave the town," said the nun, '' I am stared at. No, not a donkey. Not in this dress. Let us walk ; the evening is not sultry." " If we walk," said Edward, *' we have at least the advantage of going alone." Still he insisted on a meal first at the hotel which Athanasia and Eulalia ate alone together and which consumed more than an hour. Then the other nun having returned to the ship, Edward came for *' his sister " and the pair wandered away into the dull wastes of this dreariest of settlements. Grace was depressed : she had spoken deliberate untruths to Eulalia, who was beginning to ask questions about her superior's behaviour. Athanasia realized that she was sinning irretrievably against THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 22 1 her position. Her present conduct was justifiable only on the grounds that she was a captive seeking escape. '' Let us go fast and far," said Grace on setting out, but her feet dragged heavily in returning and in the darkness her guide missed the direct way to the port : purposely perhaps, though he denied it. '' A boat at once to take us to the Cartha- genal' said Edward, elbowing his way through the crowd dimly discernible in the starlight. "" Carthage7ia ship all finished two fifteen minute ago ! Gone. Baksheesh ! " yelled three little Egyptians In chorus. A cry burst from the nun's white lips and she fell at Edward's feet. She had fainted. CHAPTER II. EVERAL months later. A small house on the outskirts of an American town, elegantly furnished : a pretty room looking out over a wide and sunlit prospect. A beautiful woman dressed in a tea-gown of amber silk reclining on a sofa and languidly busying her long white fingers with trim- ming a baby's frock. The room is heavily perfumed with flowers, and a large assort- ment of sweetmeats decks the untouched tea- tray. A gentleman with his hands in his pockets is standing idly in the window munching a sugar-plum. " It is terribly hot," sighed the lady, throwing her work aside with an air of exasperation, and rising wearily. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 223 " My dear girl, of course it's hot," returned the man, sharply enough, though in a low refined voice ; " what's the good of saying it so often ? An inconstant climate is the only one worth remarking on." ** Edward," said the lady, presently. No answer, and she repeated the call more timidly. " Well, Grace ? " " You checked me before ; but I am determined to have it out with you before you leave this house to-night. I have made up my mind to go on with this no longer." '' If I checked you, Grace, it was because it is disagreeable for you to hear and for me to speak the home-truths which are I suppose what "having it out with me" imply. I strongly advise you to let it alone. I know all you have to say. I know you pretty well by this time ; you are naturally frank. I am not ; and you don't know me, Grace. Even if I speak the home-truths 224 I^HE PRINCESS ROYAL. as openly as I can, let me tell you you won't know me one whit the better." " Perhaps not. But at least I mean to try. When will you fulfil your promise to me, Edward ? " " Promise ? " " Oh, don't pretend you don't understand. When will you make me your wife '^. " He took another sweetmeat and munched it silently, sitting down slowly and watching her. His deliberation was supremely irritat- ing to Grace. " I don't think I did promise to marry you," he said at last. "In any case, I don't intend to do it." Probably this answer had been expected by Grace. " Promise or no promise," she said, be- traying no surprise, ''it is your duty and I have expected it." ** Your expectations are seldom very reasonable, my dear Grace." ''What reason have you to give, Edward ? THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 225 Do you want to marry some one else ? Are you tired of me ? " *' Not at all. Our relation is very likely to become permanent — In an Interrupted sort of way — If you will be sensible." '"■ I must hear your reasons, Edward." "Oh, very well. Take this. If I were Sir Joseph's son-in-law, I should come into favour, and share in the profits of the Sun- rise Oil, which somehow I should feel very dirtying to my fingers." ''That Is no answer." " I tell you I do not choose to be Sir Joseph's son-in-law. Isn't that enough ? When I was a boy I married beneath me, to my cost. I am not a boy to do it again." " Beneath you ? " " Are you not beneath me, Grace ? I won't Insist on your father, but If you will excuse my saying so, you are my " " Oh yes, I can excuse you. I courted that sort of speech, I suppose. It passes VOL. III. 55 226 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. comprehension, Edward, why, if the fact you refer to makes me your inferior, it does not operate equally in making you my inferior." '' Pshaw, my dear girl ! From the begin- ning of time the eame was for the man to catch the woman. If she let herself be caught it was a shame to her and a feather in the cap for him. The new moralists may prate for a century but they'll never get the fundamental rule of the game superseded." " I wish you had explained it so clearly at Port Said." " You would not have listened. You were too intent on escaping from your nunnery. Are you satisfied or shall I give you a third apology ? " " Do. Your first and your second are not very satisfactory." ''Well then, I was brought up in the Church, and though I have emancipated myself, I have still a prejudice against renegades." THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 227 " You told me my position was a folly and a lie." " So I think still. Yet an escaped nun is not a very honourable person. She. is like a divorced woman ; possibly excusable ; excellent for a mistress ; but with none of the qualifications for a wife." Grace closed her eyes wearily. " Have you no feeling for the child, Edward ? " ** None. I don't want the child. I hate children." '' Unhappy child. Heaven grant it may die ! How thankful Lilith should be, Edward, that she did not marry you." *' Oh, I should I dare say have liked Lilith's children. You will oblige me, Grace, by not talking of Lilith." '' I don't want to talk of Lilith. I hate her enough as it is. Why should she have whatever I wanted ? Edward ! I have given up everything for you " '' No cant, if you please, Grace. You are 228 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. vastly better off than in your convent cell, and you know It." " Let me speak, Edward. I have given up everything worth having. I have no one in the whole world but you. I will devote myself to you, live for you, die for you, bear reproach for you and never reproach you again ; but it must be on one condition. I cannot do It unless you will forget Llllth and love meT Edward rose with a gesture of extreme annoyance, and pushed the table from him with a jolt which sent all the sweetmeats to the floor. But he did not answer at once, and when he spoke his tone was cold as an east wind. *' You annoy me, Grace, with your Illusions. I may have loved Lilith Turold, or I may not. Love between you and me is impossible." Grace said no more. She closed her eyes and there was a long silence, the ticking of the clock growing painfully distinct and THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 229 monotonous. An hour or two later he left her for his journey, telling her he would return next week. Grace took no notice of his farewell, scarcely even looking up. But when the door had closed behind him, she slowly dragged herself from her sofa, and laying her head on the table wept long and bitterly till she was faint and sick with misery. " I will not stay with him," she said ; " but what can I do ? What can I do ? " She opened her desk and counted the money in her possession. Edward was liberal and her purse was well filled. '' There is enough to take me to England," she reflected, '' and I have still three months of strength. I will go home. I will fling myself at my unhappy father's feet and tell him all. He hated the convent. And he also thought Edward trustworthy. He will understand ; pardon ; at least support me till I have brought the child into the world and am able to earn a living. Afterwards — THE PRINCESS ROYAL. when I am strong again — oh, there are many things I can do. I will introduce myself to some of the extreme Secularists ; tell them I held unorthodox views of marriage and had the courage to act on my convictions. I will lecture for them ; on social subjects ; or perhaps against the conventual system : my experience will tell there; or if they wish^ against all bonds, conventionalities, vows, customs ; against marriage itself I must not be fastidious. I shall have the child to support and Edward will let me alone if I become a public champion of unpopular opinions. Never again will I put myself in his power. We did not love each other. Even in the eyes of the anarchists a loveless connection is sin." There was no time to lose, for next week Edward was returning. Grace packed her things, making some excuse to her servants, and came down to the coast ; then took a first-class passage to Liverpool, calling herself Mrs. Blacker, and THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. receiving much civility and admiration from her fellow-passengers. Landed in England, she met with a great misfortune. In the hotel where she spent her first night, for she disembarked late, all her money was stolen. It was the result of her own carelessness of course ; but there was little comfort and less remedy in that reflection. CHAPTER III. I'^ILITH had a son ; a great boy able to ^*==^ crawl about and to make a few sounds which might be attempts at speech. He dehghted her ; he was so unHke herself. They still lived in the Chelsea house by the plane trees, and Tom was still a music- master. Lilith sewed on buttons and ordered his dinner and copied his music as he had presupposed, and they were as happy as the day is long. Tom liked his work and when at home sang incessantly ; in her heart Lilith preferred his compositions to those of the great masters. She was "musical " enough herself not to be bored by endless concerts, rehearsals, practisings ; even by strumming out illegible scores, or THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 233 listening to abortive tunes and incipient melodies, sung a few bars at a time now in this key now in that, with hasty and violent changes, as fancy prompted and the sublime thirst for improvement. It was amusing to the young wife ; and so was the unkempt musical society which they had gathered about them, and which they good-naturedly mimicked in moments of privacy. Not having been bred to the life, they could not rid themselves of the notion that somehow they were play-acting, and in amateur theatricals whose severest labour is all the while a piece of fun. It stands to reason that Tom was no very sublime musician, or he could not have entertained so frivolous a . notion for one half-hour. '' Tom, the butcher's bill is too high this week. It is your fault. You said the beef was tough. I told the butcher, and he sent a dearer sort. Do you like paying more, or shall we go back to the tough kind ? And I have spent too much on vegetables too. 2 34 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. You liked that asparagus so much, Tom ! The upshot is, I want more money ; I haven't got any. Indeed I am generally economical, and should be more so if you weren't so greedy sometimes. Did I hear a ring, Tom ? Jane is so careless about answering that door, I think I must send her away." " I hope, Lllith," said Tom, rolling half- crowns at her one by one, *' you don't make that threat to Jane as often as you do to me, or you will lose all control over her." "■ There is the bell again. Most people would have sent Jane away long ago. I am too easy with the servants ; I know I am." '* Are you too easy with me ? " said Tom, taking her face in his hands fondly ; " do you ever wish to send me away "^ " "• Only when you are greedy, Tom. I don't mind voracity ; that's like the gods of Walhalla. But there is something so small- minded about being greedy and calling the beef tough. Tom, darling, I think Jane THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 235 must be asleep or dressing herself: wouldn't you just open the door yourself for this once ? " Tom went leisurely on this errand ; ex- pecting to find that Lilith's ears had played her false and that no one was there. He was wrong. On the step stood a woman holding on by the area rail, even supporting herself against the door so that when it was opened she fell forwards almost into his arms. " Tom ! Tom ! Thank Heaven, it is you ! " gasped Grace, seizing his arm im- pulsively, and leaning on it so heavily that he felt its withdrawal would throw her down. Till she spoke he had not known her. He supposed Sister Athanasia a nun and in Ceylon ; not this miserable woman in travel- worn raiment with scared countenance and changed shape. Something terrible had evidently happened. He took her into the dining-room at this hour empty and gloomy with twilicrht, the table laid for the modest 236 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. family dinner. Grace dropped his arm and sank in a heap on a round-backed leather chair, burying her face in her hands. For a moment Tom busied himself with the fire, partly because the room was cold, partly to observe her. "Don't— don't mind that," said Grace, incoherently, '' there is no time. Tom, listen " But the words died on her tongue and she fell back with a groan. He found some wine and watched her swallow it greedily, some pale colour returning to her lips. '* Tom — what brings me here is that I have no money. I have been robbed. I have parted from everything to finish my journey — to get to my father for help. I have been to him. He would not see me. He turned me out. I — I walked here. I had a plan. I can't do it — my strength is gone. Tom, I don't know why I came to you ! I was mad. I didn't know what I was doing. I was so terrified. All I want now is " THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 237 Her words had grown gradually less and less distinct, and as she ended her head fell forward again as if she were in a stupor. " Let me call my wife," said Tom. At this Grace started up clenching her hand. " No, no, not Lilith. She mustn't come. Lilith mustn't touch me. I am not a re- spectable woman now. I left the nuns. I ran away. With — with But I have left him. Tom, I am dying. Don't put me in the street. My father did. Don't put me in the street ! " "■ Poor dear Grace ! " said Tom, taking her hand, **you did quite right to come to Lilith and me." With some difficulty, he loosened her delirious grasp and left her. He returned to Lilith and rang at once for the nurse to take away the little boy. *' My dear Tom! What is the matter?" exclaimed Lilith, jumping up from her accounts and running to him. 238 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Tom put his arm round her and drew her to him, .kissing her. LiHth was frightened by seeing him so moved. '' Oh, what is it, Tom ? what is it ? " she cried. A few minutes after, Lihth, her husband's arm still round her, opened the dining-room door and looked in. Grace was lying back in the chair clutching Its sides with her hands, her eyes fixed and staring upwards ; then her lips parted and a long heart-rending moan burst from them. Tears sprang to Lillth's eyes. Dropping her husband's hand she went to the unhappy woman's side, knelt and drew her in her arms. '' Dear, dear Grace ! tell me all ! " said Lillth, kissing her. Grace burst into uncon- trolled weeping so violent that it seemed her very heart-strings must break. Lillth cried too, but sofdy, and holding the poor thing firmly in her arms while Tom watched them, his heart swelling. '' She has met with great cruelty or she THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 239 never would be in this state," said Lilith, with indignation as she looked up. " Tom, you must carry her upstairs to my room. I will put her to bed, and you, Tom dear, must go off at once and bring me the nearest doctor." CHAPTER IV. I^HjRACE told her story by degrees, but 1^^ neither mentioned Edward's name, nor gave any hint which could lead to his identification. Otherwise she tried to be frank and spared herself no blame. Lilith was greatly shocked, but none the less tender to the poor thing whose misery seemed the blacker by contrast with her own happiness. But it was not for long that Grace was able to answer questions or to relate anything connectedly. She had borne too much to keep her senses In this hour of anguish. All night Lilith waited upon her ; and at dawn an infant was born, which gave one shudder, one convulsive struggle for breath and then yielded back its little ghost THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 24 1 untried. After that the mother lay for hours motionless, pulseless almost ; her eyes intelligent and mournful, and still with their haunting beauty. Lilith sat stroking her hand, now and then kissing it with the tears ready to rise when she thought of the misery she could not heal. At half-past eight Lilith's boy, being carried downstairs as usual to superintend breakfast, uttered his joyous crow just outside the door of the sick- room, and at the sound Grace suddenly moved and clasped Lilith's hand nervously, with a strong shudder. **That is my little son," said Lilith, apologetically. Grace flung herself back. "• How happy you are, Lilith ! " she said, angrily ; and then insisted that her dead child should be brought for her to see. Unable to pacify her, Lilith yielded at last, and carried the little corpse to the bedside. Grace scanned the wizened and in some respects fearful baby face. She lifted the little clenched VOL, III, 56 242 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. hand ; and smiled. It was strange, Lilith thought, to see her smile ; stranger still when the smile became a laugh, a loud jarring laugh as the mother flung the dead baby's hand from her with desecrating violence. And then she laughed on, wildly, with horrible mirth. When the doctor returned an hour later, he found his patient delirious and in high fever ; singing snatches of lullabies and Latin hymns in fearful mixture, arguing incoherently with some fancied inn- keeper or railway servant suspicious of her penniless condition ; lecturing eloquently on women's rights, or murmuring with ecstatic contrition of peccadilloes to her father confessor. " She will not live," said the doctor ; '' she was hopelessly enfeebled and all the symptoms now are unfavourable." Lilith drew her husband aside and insisted that Sir Joseph Kidson should be sum- moned. '' It would be too dreadful for them both THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 243 if she died and he never forgave her ! " said Lilith. '' Men don't forgive these things in their daughters," said Tom, gloomily, ''but I will do what you wish. If I could catch the villain who is responsible, Lilith ! Who is it?" " She would not tell me," said Lilith, '' and I liked her for that. We mustn't ask her." Yet an hour later, while Tom sat alone unable to attend to his work and only languidly interested in amusing the boy, his ears acutely sensitive for every sound in the room where Lilith was watching — something like a cry not from the dying Grace, but from Lilith, reached him, and in a moment he had rushed upstairs to her side. "Tom," said Lilith, meeting him, ''it was something she said ! she does not know what she is saying, but she was talking of him ; and oh, Tom, she called him Tom, we 7nust listen now. To have half heard, to have a suspicion is worse than anything. 244 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. We must be certain. Oh, Tom, it is too dreadful ! " Tom looked at her curiously, and though Lilith had spoken no name, he guessed it, and a dark flush mounted purple to his brow. The unhappy Grace babbled on less and less distinctly, but without rest or pause : there was nothing connected, only the great misery of a striving spirit which had lost its way ; and by degrees the babbling died out in little gasping broken sentences inter- spersed with groans and fits of wild weeping. So that Lilith wondered when the dying woman suddenly started into life and clear utterance again, raising herself and tossing her hands about wildly. *' It is cruel to press me for money in this way," she said, addressing Lilith ; '' can't you understand that I did not wish to ask him for a penny again .^ Oh yes, he'll pay you, I am sure ; but you must write yourself. / cannot and I will not. His name is Edward Vane." THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 245 Lilith started back as if she received a blow ; scalding indignation filled her eyes and burned her cheeks as she stood by the fire, her head hanging. It was Tom who tried to soothe and quiet the poor sufferer and to lead her thoughts to gentler subjects. But this was her last connected speech. Early in the afternoon she fell into con- vulsions, and after that there was no more fluency of tongue or restlessness of move- ment. Once she looked at Lilith as if she recognized her, and smiled faintly ; but there was no other lifting of the gloom in which she sank to her death. At last all was ended, and they brought the dead infant and laid it in her arms. But the look on Tom's face frightened Lilith ; she clung to him, her hands on his arms, her face hidden against his breast ; only once had she seen her husband look like that before : when Edward had spoken his lies about John Palmer. " Grace was like a sister to me once, 246 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, Lillth," said Tom, sternly, " don't ask me anything for him ! " '' Tom, no," said Llllth, '' no. We could never forgive him — never. But, oh Tom, I nearly married him once ! " sobbed Llllth ; ** don't you think It may perhaps have been my fault a little ? Oh Tom, you and I got everything we wanted and we are happy — so happy ! I can't feel that we are the ones to punish him." Tom was holding his wife's hands as she stood before him and now he raised them fondly to his lips, looking down questlonlngly into her upraised eyes, still with that dark look in his own. " You have never understood him, Lilith. I never told you the cause I had " He paused. After all was there any reason for telling her now ? " Oh no, I don't understand him," said Llllth ; '' perhaps you don't either, Tom. If you were to ask Edward about this, he would smile and pretend he didn't care. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 247 But I think perhaps he does care. Oh Tom, indeed you and I are too happy to be able to understand him. It is not for us to punish him. Won't you promise me, Tom ? " ''Promise what, my sweet? No, LiHth, I will promise nothing, except to bear in mind what you say. And, oh m)^ darling, thank you for your tenderness to our poor Gracie ! " said Tom, and bowed his head on Lilith's and kissed her, her hands tightly clasped round his neck. They did not speak of Edward again. Then Sir Joseph Kidson came ; too late of course. They told him all that had happened ; Tom with indignation as he repeated Grace's ravings about her father who had put her in the street.^ ** Come and see her," said the gentler Lilith. Death had restored all her beauty to Grace ; no marble statue could have been more exquisite. " Oh my girl ! my girl ! " exclaimed Sir 248 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Joseph involuntarily, covering his face. Then he started up angrily. '' It's what comes of popery ! " he cried ; " and how did she learn popery ? I bred her a Radical. I always did my duty by her, and she turned papist. It's a punishment on me for my sins," ended Sir Joseph abruptly, and turned to leave the room, his head bowed, his step tottering. At the door he stopped suddenly and raised his head. '' But I'll make it up," he said, with vehemence, '' I'll make it up." '' You can't bring her ^live again, sir," said Tom; *'you put her from your door penniless ; and it seems she walked the twenty-four miles into London with death upon her. You can't make it up to her." Sir Joseph's head sank again on his breast; he stepped stiffly into the street and Tom closed the door on him with a sense of relief No one thought any more about Sir Joseph : nor knew that he stood for an hour at the bottom of the doorstep, inattentive to THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 249 the swift-falling rain. At last he shook him- self, called a cab and drove to Waterloo Station ; went in and took a ticket and chose a first-class seat in the train for Molesworthy. His fellow passengers stared at him a little, for he looked absent and dis- ordered. Just before the train started he got out again suddenly and left the station. He stood for a few moments as if bewildered; then walked away slowly into the dreary streets of south-west London. It was rain- ing and he had no umbrella, but he walked on. Grace also had walked through these streets ; how many days had it taken her to make the journey ? In what wretched rooms had she slept upon the road ? As Sir Joseph wandered on, his appearance changed. He relapsed somehow into the mere artisan, whose good coat had been thrown away to him by some superior. People thought him just a poor old man, rather thick of speech, rather flustered and deaf. At last he reached Turold Royal. It was 250 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. early morning and he sat outside on the wet grass afraid to enter. It seemed all wrong that he should be living in style at Turold Royal, while his outcast daughter lay waiting her burial in the meagre home of the son of Jack Palmer whom he had ruined. A few days later Tom got a queer rambling letter from Sir Joseph saying he was going away for a short time, but would pay his rents and his servants' wages as usual. Three months passed and he had not returned. Then came a few letters to Tom asking if he could oblige with Sir Joseph's address. Neither Tom nor Lilith cared enough for the man to be anxious about his disappearance, and his servants were well content with their sinecures. By this time grass was springing over the grave where lay Grace and her unwelcomed child. Lilith had talked to no one of the death in her house, and it was quickly for- gotten by the two or three strangers who THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 25 I had known of it. Grace's name had not reached even these persons. She was for- gotten ; to the world at large, she had been buried when she had gone into the convent. There is only one person in ten thousand who has a glimpse of a ghost's career sub- sequent to the funeral of its body. I B]| (c^ rB_i raJ i"cLi raJ fgjH raJ ra-i ra^-r^ "bj fg=j raJ raJ raJ pg-i i^^ifg^'fr^ raJ r^-i r^ raJ Ii^ CHAPTER V. NE day, a good many months later, passing along Pall Mall, Tom saw Edward Vane standing on the steps of his club talking to another man. Edward looked much as usual except that his hair had turned grey and that his mirthless smile seemed stereotyped. Edward prepared his customary salute ; in fact he wanted to speak to Tom and began to excuse himself to his companion. But after all he left that sentence of excuse unfinished and resumed a discussion on the next election ; for Tom had made not the faintest response to his salutation. Edward guessed from this that he knew about Grace. On her flight, Grace had sent her lover a THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 253 letter saying they should meet no more, but that she had no Intention of exposing him : she added that she was going to California, having a vague Idea of thus baffling pursuit. " She never could keep her mind for an hour together," thought Edward angrily ; '* no doubt she repented that letter, came to England and has Informed every one out of pure folly. I dare say she's In London at this very moment. Well— I don't mean to take any trouble about her," he ended philo- sophically. Meantime Tom was walking slowly along, considering what he ought to do. Merely to ignore the man was not enough ; but then there was Llllth's feeling on the matter to be considered. Tom's way led through a short cut, a narrow unfrequented passage between the walls of a workhouse and the blind side of a church. The passage was ill lit and little used. At six on this foggy January evening It was already very dark. An old, tattered, shrunken and feeble personage. 254 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, a beggar by appearance, with a thin white beard and a wandering eye, was the only person beside Tom in this passage, and he lingered there holding on with one hand to the solitary lamp-post. As Tom went by he drew out of his ragged and buttoned coat, a pocket pistol ; and presented it at him with his finger on the trigger. No result however followed, beyond a surprised start on Tom's part. He passed on safely ; after a minute or two however he returned to the beggar who stood still in his former attitude. *' What are you up to, old gentleman .^ " said Tom. The beggar laughed, turning away a little. '* It's not loaded," he said, as Tom took the weapon from him. It was of excellent workmanship and the latest pattern ; new, a most expensive article and altogether unsuitable to a ragged beggar. Tom ceased to think the man a murderer and began to suppose him a thief. He followed, as the old man stumbled away in the direction he THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 255 had himself been pursuing. Presently a clock gave the quarter after six ; and the beggar now produced a very good gold watch and set it accurately. " Thirty-three minutes to wait," he muttered to himself, shambling on again. Something in his voice seemed to Tom not unfamiliar. He followed him into an alley ; and when he had entered a shabby house Tom knocked at its door. A slattern appeared. " Who's that old fellow who has just gone in.?" ''That's the gent in No. 3 of the top. Are you the City missionary, sir .-^ " " Suppose I am ?" said Tom. " Oh well, sir, if you'd just step in. I'd like if you could catch an 'old of that hold gent, sir. They do say as he's a miser, and to my thinking he ain't right witted. And 'as no un belonging to him ; and if you're the missionary, sir, and could catch an 'old of 'im, I'd a deal sooner he was out of my 'ouse, sir." 256 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, *' Show me his room," said the supposed missionary. The slattern led him up many stairs, and pointed to a door with a crack in it. *' If you'd wish to 'vestergate a bit first, sir, you can look through 'ere. It's through 'ere Mrs. Burls see 'im a countin' gold soverings in the middle of the night." Tom took a peep through the crack, and what he saw was the old man loading the pistol. "I think I'll not go in just at present," said Tom ; ** I am not the City missionary, but I believe I know your lodger and I'll look after him." As Tom had expected, the old man after a time came out again, and made for the dark passage ; a strange, furtive, intent look in his sunken eyes. The time was nearing twelve minutes to seven. Tom made a ddtottr and reached the head of the passage without being seen. There was the old man lying in wait as before by the lamp- THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 257 post, his right hand thrust into the breast of his coat, where no doubt was the pistol. That previous silly little episode had been his dress rehearsal for the performance coming on now. The clock chimed for the three-quarters ; then a woman went down the passage ; then two men arm in arm, in earnest conver- sation. The old man never moved. Then came a single figure walking swiftly, with the upright carriage and easy gait of a gentleman. Tom understood now ; it was Edward Vane. In the fog, Edward passed Tom without seeing him ; but he quickened his step a little when presently he felt himself fol- lowed, and by a tall strong-stepping man who had sprung into being he knew not whence. That dark passage had ere now been the scene of robberies. After a minute Edward saw the old man lurking by the lamp-post, his silhouette pretty plain VOL. III. 57 258 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. in the lamplight. Was he some unclean old Jew in a mangy gaberdine ? The passage was unpleasant to-night, and he quickened his foot again. Then a word was flung across the gloomy silence, a word which seemed to echo on and on, thrown back from one blank wall to the other. "Grace!" That word, and the gleam of the pistol in the old man s hand brought Edward to a full stop. And at the same moment Tom had placed himself between the crazy assassin and the intended victim. The old man had been too much excited to observe that Edward was followed ; the moment he saw Tom he recognized that it was checkmate ; and he offered no resistance as the weapon was taken from his now nerveless grasp. No one spoke; but the three faces were pale, and each sought the others' for an explanation. Then three or four persons, one a policeman, passed without noticing THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 259 anything, for the gloom made vision diffi- cult, and there were no voices nor evidence of a row. Presently the old man shuffled off in the wake of the strangers, and neither Tom nor Edward detained him. '' It is old Kidson, isn't it ? " said Ed- ward, still rather pale, but straightening himself and speaking with his usual calm. '' His disguise is good but not impene- trable. May I ask the meaning of this tomfoolery ? " He took the pistol from Tom's hand and turned it about carelessly. '* Loaded, is it ? You seem to have a fancy for saving my life, Tom. Allow me to thank you for the second rescue of a possession I prize so highly." Tom made no response, and Edward went on, the shock to his nerves betraying him into a sort of garrulity. " It was really very dramatic ; but was old Kidson play-acting, or has he become 26o THE PRINCESS ROYAL, insane ? Not that I care ; old KIdson never had the importance of a brass farthing to me. I hear he is leaving all his money to a Protestant College in Rome : that seems hardly respectful to his daughter's religious opinions." As he spoke the last phrase he and Tom eyed each other keenly. " You speak of Grace so ? " said Tom. " By the way — I have an idea that you can inform me, Tom — where is Grace Kidson ? " The light tone was almost beyond Tom's endurance, yet there was something in the man's face which recalled to him Lilith's words — *' But I think perhaps he does care." " If you go to Kensal Green," said Tom, slowly, '' you will with a little searching find her grave — hers and her child's." Edward started visibly. " Good heavens ! Hers ? Is she dead ? Grace ? " "Is it anything to you ? " asked Tom. Edward recovered himself. '' Oh no. THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 26 1 Not much. I have no reason to suppose she valued her Hfe more than I do mine. But is she dead } " " She died in my house ; nursed by LiHth. Six months ago." " Nursed by Lilith ! " echoed Edward, faintly. *' You must do her justice," said Tom, presently ; ** so long as she was conscious she refused to tell us your name." "Oh," said Edward, quickly, ''that I con- clude was out of regard for Lilith's feelings — not for mine. Don't imagine she cared for me. I have never been so fortunate as to win a woman s love in my life. That makes me a little callous, you see. I say quite frankly, Tom, I am glad Grace Kidson is dead. And I am sorry if she gave any trouble to Lilith ; who used not to like sick people, nor intruding into improper secrets." He was leaning against the wall, and by the lamplight, Tom could see his grey hair, and his face become grey also and haggard, as 262 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. he talked so lightly. *' Good-bye, Tom ; it is late and I am going to a dinner-party. You would rather I didn't say au revoir, I think ? Give my love to your wife, please, and tell her you stepped between me and the shot. Women like that kind of thing. Look here, Tom : " he stood erect, " a truce to this cant. You wanted to fight me once and I think called me ugly names for hang- ing back. Will you meet me now ^. I am in earnest." Evidently too, he was In earnest. Tom reddened and shook his head. '' It's too late," he said, *' and would only distress Lllith. We can mend nothing now." He was angry with himself that he could not express the entire contempt and burning indignation which he felt. Edward bowed ironically, and they parted ; walking rapidly in opposite directions, each busy with his thoughts. '* I wish I could believe enough in heredity," said Edward to himself, "to think THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 263 Tom would follow his father to the dogs yet. As matters stand at present, I should like to be he. Which is saying a good deal. Let no man's statement of dissatisfaction be relied on till he can point to some other chap and say honestly, ' I'd give my soul to be he!'" But Edward Vane for once in his life felt unequal to a dinner-party, and he fled to the solitude of his house at Moles worthy. He was suffering from disgust with his present and distaste for his future. If it was not remorse it was hardly pleasanter ; and he spoke truth when he said, shrugging his shoulders, '' Of the two of us, Grace is infinitely the better off." ^^^^ CHAPTER VI. HEN Tom got home he told Llllth the whole adventure, and it seemed to her that he spoke of Edward with surprising gentleness. On the following morning his first care was to look after Sir Joseph Kidson ; indeed he blamed himself a little for the twelve hours' delay. He walked into the bare room without knocking, and found the unhappy old man just risen from a pallet bed and breakfasting on a crust. Yesterday's air of alertness and cunning had vanished from his starved and pallid countenance ; his manner now was wholly that of one dejected and spent. The poor wretch on becoming aware of a visitor rose from his only chair with just THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 265 the embarrassment which the poor old man he appeared would have felt on the un- expected intrusion of a patron. ** You know me, Sir Joseph ? " " Yes, Tom, yes. Of course I know you. What do you want ? I'm all right. It's my whim to live here." " So I see. And about that job last night, Sir Joseph ? " " I'll have him yet," shouted the old man with feeble excitement, "and you, Tom — you'd never have interfered to hinder me if you had known a little more about that dainty gentleman." " I rather think I know quite as much of him as you do," said Tom ; " my wife says we only know his black side, which I grant you is black enough. But, my dear sir, shooting won't mend anything." *' That's all very well for you. You've got nothing to make such a great grudge against him. It's different with me. It's not so much anything he's done to me himself. 266 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. But he's a tempting devil. He made my girl wicked, and he's made me wicked ; and I'm not going to try to forgive him." '' I suppose not ; but if you make a criminal of yourself you'll be playing directly into his hands ; according to your view of him," said Tom. Sir Joseph looked up weakly and whimpered a little. '' I wish I was dead," he muttered. ** This six months I've lived just for this one thing. What else is the good of me ? " Tom sat down near him on the end of the bed. '' Not much, certainly, living here. Have you lost your money. Sir Joseph, or what's the sense of it '^ " " Lost my money ? How should I lose my money ? I'm coining money, I am. I could wish I'd kept harder at work though : my brains began to woolgather as soon as I slackened off. But I'm coining money all the same. It's little I draw out of the bank, THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE. 267 but in this very room, Tom," he lowered his voice and looked round furtively, '' I've got — how much do you suppose I've got now ? " " Then why live here ? " repeated Tom, with exaggerated bluntness. The old man whimpered again, covering his face w^ith his hands. *' I couldn't bear it ; there at your place, with footmen and all that ; and my lady gone, and Jack Palmer's boy a beggar ; and my girl dead, and a bad un." '' My dear sir," said Tom, taking his hands, " Jack Palmer's boy at any rate is as contented as a king, so don't waste any pity on him. Come now — this is ridiculous, your skulking here like a miser. Go and spend your money. What was that college in Rome you were going to set on its legs again ? A very valuable institution, you told me. Suppose you set off and see it, if you want a holiday from the Court for a while ? " '' It's to convert the poor papists," said Sir 2 68 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Joseph, looking up, " it's those damned papists who got round my poor girl and did all the mischief. That Edward Vane was one of 'em : a disguised Jesuit." " Ah yes ! I knew you were interested in attacking Jesuits. Go and travel, Sir Joseph. Take Harris with you. He's a good fellow, Harris : we were always chums. And that parson chap you had at the Court with you ; take the two of them and go and rout the Pope in his capital. Don't hide here. Sir Joseph, thinking of crimes. Once you get a walk in the sunshine on the other side of the Channel, you'll see the shooting business as I do, and thank me for rooting you out. Come ! " Sir Joseph rose as if struggling to obey this masterful invader ; but fell back weakly into his one chair, nearly overturning it, for it was small and rickety. " I've grown old, Tom," murmured the poor wretch, '* and I'm h'ill." " I see you are ill. It comes of living THE TRAGEDY OF GRACE, 269 here. You want a fire, and a soft bed, and mutton chops, and some one to look after you. I'll tell you what ! Come home with me to Lilith ! " Sir Joseph shrank away. '' No — no. I never was one for women, except her lady- ship ; and my poor girl ; and they're gone, both of 'em. I wouldn't for my life have your lady see me like this. She's a proud young thing. I remember her, I do, in that hole of a place in Egypt where we saw her first, and that damned Jesuit Vane with her." ** Lilith wasn't then as proud as you thought," said Tom, "and she has been through the mill since. She nursed Grace •; and she will be very good to you, Sir Joseph, if you will come." No persuasion however would induce Sir Joseph to accept this offer. Tom had to content himself with a promise that he would look for Doctor Harris and his chaplain at Turold Royal. The unhappy dotard had kept some decent 270 ' THE PRINCESS ROYAL, clothes concealed with his bank notes in a wooden box under his bed. Tom got him dressed, though in the creased coat and with his unshaven face and wild hair he still looked strange enough. Then his deliverer took him to Waterloo and put him in the train, having telegraphed to Harris to meet him at Molesworthy. Even with this pre- caution ;Tom felt nervous about him, and tipped the guard heavily to look after the old gentleman. Afterwards he learned that Sir Joseph reached the Court safely, and that the chaplain and the private secretary and all the servants were a good deal surprised at his eccentric appearance. But they put it all down to illness, and Doctor Harris at once sent him to bed, and it is to be feared, overfed him ; not being aware that for months he had been starving himself on sixpence a day. CONCLUSION. ILBERT TUROLD, rather hard up for something to do, had made a voyage in a friend's yacht to New Zealand and back ; and though he sent Lilith regular letters, he somehow got behind- hand in the receipt of news from home. In fact, owing to a series of accidents and blunders he was left for over three months without any tidings of his daughter at all, and became not a little anxious in consequence. At last he had the pleasure of writing : " On such and such a day we hope to be in South- ampton. I shall come straight to you, my love, trusting you will have a corner to spare for a day or two." This letter he directed to Lilith's home in Chelsea. Very tedious the end of his 2 72 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. voyage seemed to Mr. Turold, but at last one particularly dark and gloomy November evening, the Navm^re sailed into port; and just as Gilbert was going to spring on shore he found his hands grasped by his son-in-law who had come to meet him. ''There is nothing wrong at home, I hope, Tom ? " '* Nothing whatever. Haven't you had our letters ? " " Nothing since July. Is Lilith well } '' " Perfectly well." " And the boy ? I am most anxious about that important boy." '' The boy is well too." ** And — he has no brother yet ? " '' Not yet." " Dear, dear ! I had hoped Well, well— then all is going on as usual ? " " Exactly as usual," said Tom. " Dear me ! I might have spared myself many anxious forebodings. Can we get to London to-night, Tom ? " CONCLUSION. 273 '* Yes, by a slow train. I have telegraphed to Lilith. She will expect us." Tom took the tickets and soon they were established in the railway carriage. " But I have quite given up travelling first-class," grumbled Gilbert; "you might have thought twice about it yourself, I should have thouorht." *' I am rather in funds at this moment," said Tom, apologetically. " Got some new pupils, eh ? " said Mr. Turold, who tried hard to take a decent interest in his son-in-law's very extraordinary profession. " That's it," replied Tom. "This compartment is certainly comfort- able. I fear I shall doze. After a cabin berth Goodness me ! It's an indignity to stow a man away on a shelf like a piece of crockery. I shall never again go to sea for pleasure. And very tired I got of my com- panions I assure you, and of their arrange- ments. I'd never have gone, if I'd known VOL. III. 58 2 74' THE PRINCESS ROYAL. they did things so badly. Well, it's over now, thank heaven." After a while he grumbled again at having only one grandson ; otherwise they talked little. Tom seemed designedly silent, and Mr. Turold began to ask himself again if anything could be wrong. Then he fell asleep, and was greatly startled when his son-in-law waked him up at a roadside station. ''We must get out," said Tom, already possessed of the rugs. '' It's an accident, I suppose ? " said Gilbert, trying to seem awake ; and was bustled on to a platform before he could collect his wits. The night was moonless, foggy and very dark ; the solitary porter in the little station obsequiously polite to Tom, as if he knew him. ''Is the carriage here ? " said Tom, and in a moment Mr. Turold and he were roll- ing away into the night in a one-horse brougham. CONCLUSION. 275 '* What in the world Is the meaning of this ? " asked the elder gentleman, rather angry. ''Did I not explain?" returned Tom, innocently. '* I forgot you had not had our letters. We have taken a cottage in the country for a few weeks." '' A cottage in the country ? Dear me ! Well, it sounds a good plan. But what becomes of your work ? " " Oh-— I go to town daily." " What, all this way ? " " It is not far. You slept longer than you thought." " Oh, I beg your pardon. I was merely shutting my eyes to keep the dust out. I was not asleep for more than five minutes." Tom let this very untrue statement pass. ''What's the name of that station you dragged me out at ? " " Hawley," said Tom, drawing on his imagination. " Never heard of it. It's too far for you 276 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, to go to town every day. That kind of thing ruins the nerves. What's the name of your house '^ " '^ It is just called— the Cottage." " You've got it by the month, I sup- pose ? " " By the week, I think. The accommoda- tion is roughish. Still we are hoping you'll stay some time " "Oh — well, thank you. But I had no idea you weren't in town : we'll see. This seems a good road we are on now. Whose carriage is this ? " " It goes with the house." '* Goes with the house ? It seems a nice new one, and a fast horse. I should say we were going too fast for such a dark night." " It's a sort of private road just here. We shan't meet anything; it's past mid- night, you know." "• Past midnight .'^ Nonsense. Well, I suppose then I did doze longer than I CONCLUSION. 277 thought. That must have been a very- slow train. I should have thought that by midnight we should have got at least as far as Molesworthy." Mr. Turold relapsed into silence and his head was beginning to nod afresh when Tom said abruptly : " Here we are ; " and the carriage stopped, and again the traveller was bustled about confusingly. He stumbled up a flight of alarming stone steps. '* Really, Tom, I'd put a light some- where. It's dangerous. And I see it's a badly built house ; only the modern specu- lative builder puts a whole staircase to the door of a cottage." Tom pushed open a door and in a moment they were in a large hall, made radiant by the beams of an Evening Sunrise Lamp. " What, in the name of heaven " began Gilbert Turold, but his exclamations were cut short by Lilith who came running 278 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. forwards and flung herself into her father's arms. Mr. Turold clasped her affection- ately, becoming gradually conscious that she was dressed in velvet, and that Tom was laughing. He dropped his daughter abruptly and looked round. The facts were indubit- able. Either he was asleep still and dream- ing, or he was in the familiar hall of the Court at Turold Royal. **What in the name of heaven " re- peated Gilbert, but got no answer, for his daughter and her husband still only laughed. Lilith was, most certainly, dressed in the best Lyons velvet, though only in a negligd sort of thing called a tea-gown ; and her hair suggested a lady's-maid ; even her delicate shoes and silk stockings were not lost upon her father, who used sometimes to think her really too shabby even for a musician's wife in Chelsea. ** You have been telling me lies the whole way up from Southampton ! " said Gilbert, indignantly turning to his son-in-law. CONCLUSION. 279 ** Oh papa dear," said Lilith, '' it was too tempting. You hadn't had our letters, and it was such a dark night, and you were sleepy." ** Then do you mean to tell me, Tom, I got out at Moles worthy ? " '* No, at Crockford. I was afraid you'd recognize Molesworthy." '' Oh, at Crockford. That explains some of it. I always hated Crockford. But not to know my own hall-door steps " At this moment a familiar voice said, " Glad to see you arrived safe home, sir," and Gilbert turned and saw Yates. So delighted was he that he shook hands with him effusively, and then was nearly knocked down by Tamburlaine who had sloped in after the butler and suddenly recognized his old orod. Tom called for supper and Lilith took her father's hand and led him gaily into the fine old dining-hall, where rather a stately repast was laid out with much of the family plate polished up to untold beauty. Tom 28o THE PRINCESS ROYAL. recklessly poured out some very choice wine and gave a toast, '' To all our healths," and Yates said '' Amen, sir. Amen," and seemed to be choking a sob. " But what in the name of heaven " began Mr. Turold again ; but they stopped his questions with food this time and allowed no explanations yet. " Really," said Gilbert, apologizing for his appetite, *' this kind of thing is very nice. They had a vile cook on that yacht, and I have not tasted venison since " '' Since we were turned out, papa," said Lilith ; " never mind, we shan't be turned out again. To-morrow you shall choose the rooms you like best for a permanence." " A permanence '^. Do you reckon on being here permanently ? Tom told me he had taken a cottage by the week." *' We are here permanently, papa. I put on my best tea-gown to show you that." '* My dear, it has impressed me greatly. But what in the name of " CONCLUSION. 281 " And papa, you know It was always my plan that you and Tom and I should live cosily here together." *' My love, that showed your childishness. It would never have answered." ** Perhaps not, then, papa. But you see everything is changed now\ It is Tom who has proposed my plan now." ''Tom and I will discuss it to-morrow," said Mr. Turold, kissing her; "I'll venture to promise, Lillth, that at least we won't quarrel about it." " And papa — It would be such a satisfac- tion to me if — ^just look at him, papa — if you would admit that Tom is nice looking. You alw^ays spoke in such an unconvinced sort of way about that." " It was a very poor thing to choose a husband for, Lillth," said her father vigor- ously. After supper they went into the library for half an hour; and Gilbert Turold was placed in his favourite chair, Lillth on the 282 ' THE PRINCESS ROYAL. floor at his knee, and Tom sitting on the table beside him. There was a roaring fire in the great fireplace ; and the iron dogs, with H. and J. on them for Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour, were in position. Tambur- laine who remembered the family changes looked graver than usual, as he studied one human countenance after another in the hope of understanding more exactly what was happening. And at last came the explanations. "We came home two months ago, papa," said Lilith, " and such a reception as we had! They took the horses out of the carriage and dragged us up from the station, and there was a triumphal arch and the children threw geraniums at us. Tom had made himself very popular here when he taught the choir and started that cricket club. No one seemed to think him a stranger and old Adam Gardener says he's the image of grandpapa. Then a great crowd came and stood under the windows CONCLUSION. 283 making a noise, and we didn't know how to get rid of them. The children scrambled for half-pence and Tom made a sort of speech ; and then they got me out and baby ; though baby was cross and I had a very ugly dress on, never thinking there was going to be any fuss. And after all that, it does seem a shame to smuggle you in like this in the middle of the night. How well Tom kept the cat in the bag ! Almost too well, when he let you say the steps must have been put up by a speculative builder ! " " But my dear child, what in the name of heaven " '* We've been in such a hurry getting ready for you, papa. There was a lot to be done. Some of the furniture had been moved and the panelling taken down. It isn't quite restored yet, but it will be all right in a week or two. And Tom has been writing to all the people who bought things in the auction and offering fabulous prices if they can get them back for us." 284 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, ** I've done nothing about the cauls yet,'* murmured Tom, *' and Perkin Warbeck's head went bad (I knew It was going) and has been burled." " And papa — it was Tom himself who bought us back that old chest and bit of tapestry before ever we were married. He has had to confess It. And oh, all the old servants have come back, papa ; even Bowles who disliked me so much : and he's quite civil now, and thinks baby beautiful." " But what in heaven's name — Lilith, I will be answered this time," said Gilbert, very angrily ; " what in the world is the meaning of It ? " Lilith glanced at her husband and kept silence. Tom took up the parable. He pointed to the tall lamp in the corner, which, turned low, was shedding its gentle lustre over the big room and the family party on the hearth-rug. '* That is the meaning of it," he said. '*0h don't be alarmed. I recognize the CONCLUSION, 285 responsibility of Turold of Turold Royal. I haven't even a share in the business now. I have sold it. It has produced quite as much as we want and may make some other folks' fortune now." " Tom is very rich, papa," put In Lllith, " much richer than you thought when you first said he might marry me. I tell you because at one time you talked as if money was so very important." *' What I want, Tom, is the explanation. The facts seem satisfactory enough," said Gilbert. " That lamp," said Tom, putting his hand on Lllith's neck and drawing her nearer to him, "that lamp was invented by a man named John Palmer, who was as you know more than a father to me. He intended to make my fortune with it. But that traitor lamp was his ruin, for another man stole his secret and secured his patent. At the time I had no idea how it happened, but I know all about It now. It's an old story — never 286 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. mind it : only henceforth that oil is to be known not as Kidson's Sunrise, but as Palmer's ; very few people will notice the change, but I have effected it, and honour shall be paid where honour is due." ** Well ? " ** Well — poor old Kidson knew he had cheated his oldest friend, and the big pile he made never comforted him. He got richer and richer, but his wife died, and his daughter left her home, and died too, very sadly ; and he had no other relations and very few friends, and the man who had made his fortune turned out his worst enemy. Kidson s heart broke, and his wits gave way, and he did queer things and lived miserably, hiding in corners and starving himself. At last he made up his mind to return to the world and cheer up a bit ; but the effort was too great, and he was one morning found dead in his bed in this very house. He had talked of leaving his money to some charity CONCLUSION. 287 he was interested in — in Rome wasn't it, Lilith ? — but when he was dead it was found he had given up that idea. It was a surprise, I may say a shock, to me when 1 learned what he had done, till I remembered how it was he had acquired so much to leave, and how remorseful he had been. He left everything, his business, his pile, every- thing he had, to me ; to the adopted son of John Palmer who made that oil and invented that lamp. It is quite true what Lilith says ; we are very rich." There was a short silence ; then Tom added in a voice of some emotion : *' My hope is that John Palmer, my dear father, from the good place he has gone to, can see us three together here, and knows that his son hasn't forgotten him." Gilbert Turold, without speaking, took his nephew's hand and pressed it. And then there was a long silence, only broken by the applauding strokes of old Tamburlaine's 288 ' THE PRINCESS ROYAL. tail on the floor. At last Lilith rose, with a little laugh and looked up in her husband's face, and said : *' Dear me, Tom ! How glad I am you tumbled off your donkey at Luxor. It was the beginning of it all. I didn't think much of you till then, sir ; whatever it may have pleased you to have been thinking of me ! " THE END. PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. St. Qj' H.