"The Story of a Beauty" (continued 4)

Rather, she had hardly begun to grow, and within her were budding impulses, the nature of which she could not yet know. She had decided that the best thing she could do under the circumstances was to marry Sir Richard Grattan, and the habit she had formed, in self-defence, of keeping to the surface of life, prevented her from realising exactly what her resolution involved. In the meantime, Mr Carisbrooke lent her books and discussed them, and made her, she hardly knew how, feel that she was not cut off from the other side of life. He said daring things that stuck in her memory. He, at least, was not worldly-minded.

“Oh, the hero and heroine made a wise choice, I think,” he said, discussing a novel. “They had more—more life in one hour of each other, than in all the prosperity they sacrificed.”

“But they did wrong,” said Amethyst, who took things simply still.

“Did they? Ah, well,—perhaps that was worth while too, for each other.”

It will be seen that the discussions had become of an intimate kind.

Amethyst soon found that her friend did not bear an unblemished character. She had already learned to know that many of the men she met did not. She was told he had broken more than one heart. She smiled, and said she happily had none to break. Una, with insight sorely gained, steadily detested him. But she had no help from Amethyst in her own struggle. Her sister did not understand the hope within her, and so could not sympathise with its downfall. She merely soothed the variations of excited feeling which tried Una’s strength, and would not own that there was any adequate cause for them.

That all the girl’s emotions were violent and morbid was true enough, but Una was engaged in a real battle, and she did not yield herself captive.

For her misfortune, Major Fowler, who had always found her attractive, was caught again by her peculiar looks, and more developed character, and, though he meant nothing more than a renewal of the old sentimental relation between them, he inflicted agony on Una, to whom that relation had been so real a thing.

All the peace of her soul was gone, and as with her all was emotion, the struggle between right and wrong was a struggle between two personal loves. Her prayers seemed all in vain, no image but one haunted her visions, but she never forgot that the love that she believed herself to have lost, was the higher and the better thing; and, as she passed through the tormented weary days, she watched her sister, and wondered what fate Amethyst was preparing for herself.

In the middle of June there was to be a great ball at the Grattans’. Kattern and Tory had been by favour invited to it, and there were many who expected that the announcement of Sir Richard’s engagement would then be formally made. Although the need of fresh costumes was beginning to pinch the Miss Haredales, Amethyst prepared a new and becoming one for the occasion.

The day of the ball had been very hot. Una, as white as her gown, and very unfit for the exertion, was leaning back in a low chair in the open drawing-room window, resting till all the others were ready to go. Kattern, fresh and blooming, stood near her, buttoning the endless buttons of her long gloves. Tory was whisking about the room, and making remarks at intervals.

“I shall keep you in order, Kat,” she said, “you don’t flirt in good style. I shall tell mother to look after you.”

“You know nothing about it,” said Kattern, calmly.

“It’s quite a family affair,” pursued Tory, “even asking the children! Well, I wonder what the Leighs will think! Lucian treated Amethyst very ill. I wonder if Sylvester Riddell still thinks that Tony—”

“Tory, hold your tongue,” interposed Una, with all her old sharpness, as the door opened, and in the stream of lamp-light stood Amethyst, all pink puffs and pink roses.

“Dear me, Amethyst,” said Tory, “that’s a new style. Looks like a new beginning.”

“I had nothing else fit,” said Amethyst; but the words brought back the “new beginning” made once before, and she shrank a little, at the thought of the last ball where she had given a promise to a lover.

Tory’s words echoed in Una’s brain. She could not dance, and she sat in a corner of the great ball-room, and watched Amethyst with anxious eyes,—her beautiful, brilliant sister, who was walking down the room with her host, and looking just a little excited and unlike herself. Spite of herself, Una’s eyes wandered round the room in search of the face that made interest and excitement for her, but instead, as if in answer to her previous thoughts, they encountered Sylvester Riddell’s. He gave a little start, and came eagerly up to her.

“I am beginning my vacation with a taste of London gaiety,” he said rather nervously, as he shook hands. “Can you give me this waltz?”

“Thanks, no, it is too hot for me to dance,” said Una. “But will you take me out on the balcony? It is cooler there.”

“It certainly is too hot for dancing,” said Sylvester, as he gave her his arm, and took her out on to the covered balcony. Una sat down where the awning was lifted, so that such coolness as the London night could furnish came in over the trees of the square. Sylvester stood near her, where he could look into the lighted ball-room, secretly impatient at being kept away from it.

“Mr Riddell,” said Una, in her slow, self-possessed tones, “I want to speak to you. I have something on my mind. I don’t wish any one to be under a mistake about my sister. Perhaps you’ll think it doesn’t matter now. But you did not see Amethyst in the conservatory at Loseby. You made a mistake, as I said then. You saw me. Of course there was a mystery. It doesn’t matter a bit now what it was. My mother gave her a message for Major Fowler; there was trouble about money. Amethyst knew nothing of such things, and it made her ashamed, and that made her odd. You were all mistaken.”

Surprise, and Una’s composure of manner, kept Sylvester silent till she paused, and he said, hurriedly—

“I have long thought—long known, that, whatever the facts were, Miss Haredale was—was above—that nothing could cast a shadow on her.”

“I suppose she was judged by the facts,” said Una, “or by the mistakes about them. It was just as I say.”

“Is—is she—is she going to marry Grattan?” cried Sylvester, hardly knowing what he said.

“I suppose every one will know soon,” said Una, diplomatically; but he went on, as if he had not heard her.

“That should be nothing to me; but, Miss Haredale—it is no amends for my blind and senseless folly, nothing to set against an hour of the pain I helped to cause her;—but it is impossible that, either then or now, she can be as much to any one as she is, and ever will be, to me. Take that for what it is worth. Tell her, if she cares to know. I suppose she detests me. Let her at least know that she is my queen.”

Carried away by the sudden rush of his own emotion, Sylvester had paid no heed to Una, nor noticed how her heart was throbbing beneath her little white bodice; but now, she made a little movement.

“Mr Riddell—I am faint—I want some water—my sister—”

She looked deadly white in the half light of the balcony, as she lay back in her chair, and Sylvester rushed back into the ball-room, where, through the crowd of dancers, he made his way to Amethyst, who stood by Sir Richard’s side. He was speaking low and earnestly.

“Miss Haredale, excuse me, your sister is faint, she asked for you.”

“Una? Where is she?” said Amethyst, starting from her attentive attitude, and hurrying forward. Sir Richard followed her, and Sylvester, indicating the balcony where he had left Una, went in search of ice and wine for her.

Meanwhile, as Una, too faint to think of what had passed, was lying back, with closed eyes and panting breath, the two or three minutes during which she was left alone seemed to her endless. Would Amethyst never come?

Suddenly an arm was put round her, and a voice whispered tenderly.

“Una? What, taken bad, my poor little girl? Never mind, it’s only old Tony—you know I always take care of my little wifie.”

The words penetrated to Una’s swimming brain. To drop her head on his shoulder, and rest in his arms! How could she help it! But his last word, the pet name that had been the joy and the sting of her old relation to him, spoken in that half-caressing, half-jocose accent, roused in her the passion that was so much more than the equivalent of jesting sentiment.

“How dare you make jokes, now?” she said, panting, as she started to her feet.

“Don’t you know that I daren’t do anything else?” cried Major Fowler, suddenly and savagely, his eyes opening wide upon her with new force and fervour. “But this once more—Una—kiss me!”

“Oh—God help me!” gasped Una; and she tore herself out of his arms, and fell up against Amethyst, who came running out on to the balcony and caught her, guiding her as she sank to the ground.

There was instantly a bustle and confusion, and the balcony was full of figures,—Lady Haredale, Miss Grattan, and Sylvester, who came back with the remedies he had been to seek. He held the bowl of ice, while Amethyst dipped her handkerchief into it to bathe Una’s face, and then, as she revived, he helped Sir Richard to lift her on to a couch.

“She’s coming round,” said Major Fowler. “Poor child, the room was hot—”

Amethyst turned and faced him, as it seemed to the newly enlightened Sylvester, like a flame.

“Please find the carriage,” she said. And then there was a murmur—Lady Haredale desiring Amethyst to stay, she would take Una home, Kattern should go and help her,—Amethyst must not lose her ball.

“No, mother—I shall go with Una,” said Amethyst, “I could not stay, when she is ill.”

Major Fowler reappeared, having caught an arriving carriage, and Sir Richard offered to carry Una; but she struggled to her feet, clinging to her sister, and said that she could walk now.

He walked by her side, helping her, and Sylvester found their cloaks, and, as he brought them to the foot of the stairs, caught a murmur of “sweetest sisterly affection,” and “But you have answered me!”

“No—Sir Richard, I have not,” said Amethyst, provoked at being urged at such a moment; and, while she spoke, her eyes looked out at the door, as Oliver Carisbrooke came in from the darkness without.

He went swiftly up to the group approaching him.

“I knew,” he said to Amethyst in a low voice, “I knew this night would bring you trouble.”

How it was, Sylvester never knew, but somehow it was the new-comer who took the first place, and helped them into the carriage, though Sir Richard, as in duty bound, sprang up on to the box—“to see them home.”

Sylvester walked slowly up-stairs, and back to the balcony. There, on the floor, lay Amethyst’s long pink glove, which she had pulled off while waiting on Una.

Sylvester picked it up, and held it reverently in his hand.

“No, Mr Riddell,” and he started violently as Tory stood looking at him with her wicked eyes. “No, please don’t, it’s very expensive, and it matches her gown exactly. Please get something else, and give that to me.”

Sylvester coloured, and laughed rather foolishly, restoring the glove to Tory with an elaborate bow. Then,—for what was there now to keep him at the ball?—he went away as soon as possible, back to the lodgings which he usually occupied when in town.

Amethyst meanwhile, disregarding Una’s entreaty that she would go back to the ball, hastily divested herself of her finery, and came back in her white dressing-gown to her sister’s side.

“Are you quite comfortable now, my darling? What was I thinking of to let you go?”

Una gave a faint little laugh.

“You had plenty to think of,” she said. “Amethyst, have you quite said yes?”

“No,” said Amethyst petulantly, “I haven’t.”

“Kiss me, hold me!” whispered Una, nestling up to her. “Then I can tell you. I told Sylvester Riddell about that day, I made him believe that he saw me. And there’s not one of them as much in love with you as he is. That’s the real thing. That’s how I fainted, it was so hard.”

“Oh, my dear child, let the past alone. What does it matter?” said Amethyst, though with a great throb at her heart. “That’s all too late, all done with, that old time.”

There was a minute’s silence, then Una whispered—

“Amethyst, love me—I must tell—he came—Tony. Done with? Oh no, no,—it has been burning me up. But I cried out, and there came like a great light in my heart of a sudden, and for a moment I hated him like a fiend; and I escaped, and got to you. But oh—my life to come—my life to come! I can’t be glad that He saved me! But He did!”

She pressed her face into Amethyst’s neck, kissing her with burning lips.

“Christ came between,” she said. “He took me from him.”

The tone of intense conviction awed Amethyst all the more, that it was so quiet and sad. She was greatly shocked at the revelation of Una’s trial, and reproached herself for her failure as guard or guide. Nothing however but tender soothing was possible now, and Una lay quite passive, till her throbbing pulses grew quieter, and at last she seemed to fall asleep.

Then Amethyst stole over to the open window, and looked across the square. The midsummer dawn was stealing over the sky, the sound of the dance music at the ball mingled with the twitter of the London sparrows. She could see the blaze of light in the houses opposite.

Her own fate pressed so upon her that she could scarcely think of Una’s, save with a sort of half-incredulous surprise. If she herself was tempted—if this that she purposed was a sin against herself, no angel with a flaming sword would stop her way.

Was it indeed so? She had been stopped, with the words of self-committal upon her lips, and, in the moment’s pause, had come upon her a revulsion of feeling almost as complete as that which Una had described. Sir Richard’s momentary want of tact in pressing her, the sudden recall of the past by Una’s reference to it—Suddenly all her philosophy, her good sense, and her surface contentment fell away, and over her there came with a rush the thought, the feeling rather, of that other night,—of Lucian’s boyish wooing, of his first kiss, of her own rapturous joy. Her strong nerves gave way, and sinking into a chair she wept silently, but with a passion of anguish, for the days that were gone for ever.

A tap at the door roused her. She hurried to open it, and there stood Tory, who, at her sign of silence, caught her hand and pulled her across the passage into her own room.

“Oh, Amethyst,” she said, “I’ve got something dreadful to tell you. Charles came late to the ball—I saw Carrie looking out for him ever so often—and he talked and laughed loud as he came up-stairs, and I saw Tony and Sir Richard look at each other. But he went up to Carrie and asked her to dance, and they spun about oddly, and knocked up against the wall, and he would have thrown her down, if Tony, who was dancing with Kat, hadn’t somehow caught her; and then Sir Richard took hold of him, and pulled him into the hall, and there was a sort of row and a noise. And oh, Amethyst, he was as tipsy as ever he could be, horrid brute! He might be a bad lot, without disgracing us in that way!”

And Tory stamped her foot, and for once cried hot tears of shame and anger.

“What happened then?” said Amethyst, pale and horror-struck.

“Sir Richard took him down-stairs, and he called out that he wouldn’t be insulted, even if Grattan had lent him money.”

“What?” interrupted Amethyst.

“Why, didn’t you guess? I did. Indeed I heard my lady say so. How could Charles have shown up, else? It will be all right, I suppose, when he marries you.”

“I never thought of such a thing,” said Amethyst, utterly thrown off her balance.

“You’re very innocent still, Amethyst,” said Tory, recovering her usual manner, “you’ll never be the same as if my lady had brought you up. Why, if Charles is the only person Sir Richard gave money to, to get us all up here—which I doubt—you may be quite sure he won’t be the last.”

Tory was not an impressionable person, but she never forgot Amethyst’s face, as she turned and fled back into Una’s room.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Reparation.

When Sylvester got back to his rooms and sat down to smoke, and to reflect in solitude, his feelings were in utter confusion.

He accepted Una’s statement without a doubt, and, as was inevitable, it filled him with self-reproach, and the confession of his devotion had seemed but the poorest amends. But what good could devotion or reparation do her now? Then it struck him that this imaginary fact had been of infinitely more importance to Lucian than to himself, and that the first duty was to undeceive him.—To undeceive him when it was too late, for he had no idea where Lucian was; he could not telegraph vaguely to the Rocky Mountains, it was impossible to say when a letter would reach him, a letter that would tell him that he had been under a delusion when he flung Amethyst aside, and that would bring him back, to find her Lady Grattan. But she had not given Sir Richard her promise yet. If words had any meaning, Sylvester was sure that he had learned thus much. She was shrinking from the inevitable, her heart was not in the brilliant prospect before her. What then—what then? He could not save her from it, she was caught in the toils. Perhaps she did not wish to be rescued? Sylvester was not incapable of comprehending the complexities of another nature, and, curiously enough, now that he had heard what might restore Amethyst to the ideal heights of her girlhood, he realised more clearly that she was no ideal, but a struggling human creature, that his Iris needed help as well as worship.

He did not spend much of the short summer night in sleep, and when he came down the next morning he found on his table a letter, in Lucian’s writing, and with an English stamp, sent on from Oxbridge. He tore it open and read—

“Royal Hotel, Liverpool. June 19th. “Dear Syl,— “This letter will surprise you. We never got to the Rockies, nor saw a bear. Just as we were well out of reach of the post and every other comfort, Jackson had a nasty fall and hurt his back. There was an end of everything for him. Rochdale joined another party, and went on, but I thought I might have another chance, so I stayed to look after him, and it was soon plain that he must come home. So here we are, and his brother came to meet us, and will see to him. It was a great sell for him. Now I’m looking at a yacht here, and think of going round the north of Scotland and perhaps on to Norway. Will you come? I suppose you are free now. My mothers abroad with the girls. How is the book? “Yours ever,— “Lucian Leigh.”

Sylvester put down the letter, and felt that the hand of Fate was upon him. He despatched a telegram in haste—

“Coming. Don’t settle about the yacht till you have seen me.”

Then he got himself ready, and took the first train to Liverpool.

He arrived there in the afternoon, and found Lucian just come back from seeing off his sick friend. He looked for once a little worn and tired, and owned to having had much fatigue and anxiety.

“And now,” he said, “will you have something to eat, and then come and see the Albatross? She’s a nice little cutter, and you look as if you’d written too much poetry, and wanted sea air.”

“Not at all,” said Sylvester, with a nervous laugh. “But I’ve something to tell you. Where can we find a quiet place?”

“Up-stairs, come along. We had to have a place where poor Jackson could lie down. What’s the matter? All right at home?—What’s up, then?”

Sylvester followed him up-stairs into the hotel sitting-room, and stood in the window, looking vaguely out at the street.

“Lucy,” he said, getting quite cold with the effort, “I don’t know if you care to hear, but last night I met the Miss Haredales at a ball. Una spoke to me, and, from what she said, I now feel absolutely certain that your mother and I made a mistake. We saw Una Haredale with Major Fowler, and, for the rest, there was some trumpery mystery as to borrowing money for Lady Haredale. Amethyst was bound to secrecy, hence all that seemed suspicious.”

“Say that again,” said Lucian, hoarsely. “It was really the other girl you saw in the conservatory with Fowler?”

“Yes, no question of it.”

“Then, what a thundering fool you were to mistake them!” cried Lucian violently.

“I was,” said Sylvester, with dejection. “But I was not the only person, as you know. And I told you to trust her through thick and thin. I told you she was an angel of purity and innocence, no matter what I was fool enough to think I saw.”

“It was so, or it wasn’t,” said Lucian.

“You saw her, you questioned her,” said Sylvester. “She denied it. Una told the truth, then, and you did not believe either of them! I don’t excuse myself. I’d give my right hand not to have done her—and you—such a wrong.”

Lucian went over to the table and sat down. He trembled, and for some moments did not speak. At last he said—

“There’s no one to blame but me. If I did not know her, who should? I thought I was right, and all the time I was wrong. There’s only one thing to be done now, to go back and renew my offer at once and unconditionally, and to let every one know that I have done so.”

“If your feelings remain the same—”

“My feelings? It’s my duty.”

“But,” said Sylvester, breathlessly, “if—if you no longer loved her.—I don’t think—”

“Love her? Why, you know I do. I always did,” said Lucian.

“Then, Lucy,” said Sylvester, “I’m afraid that there’s a good deal of disappointment in store for you. If she is not engaged to Grattan, she is on the point of it, and there are scores of other men after her. She has had a great success, and all London raves about her. I doubt her father’s consent, and her pretensions are so great—”

“I can’t help that,” said Lucian. “It is my place to let every one about her know that I wish to marry her, and that, if she refuses me, it is her own doing. I’ll go up through the night, and see her to-morrow.”

He got up, and opening a travelling writing-case, took from it a little parcel, containing a photograph in a leather frame. He looked at it for a minute, then laid it before his friend.

It was the girl Amethyst, in a little country-made dress, with her hat in her hand, and her eyes looking happily out, in pleased expectation of the next thing that was coming, whatever it might be.

A deep blush coloured Sylvester’s face. He felt for his own pocket-book, and, taking from it a photograph wrapped in silver paper, he opened it, and laid it beside Lucian’s.

It was a half-length of the beautiful Miss Haredale in evening dress, the amethysts round her slender throat, her white neck and her long round arms uncovered, her face smiling and a little self-conscious; Amethyst in society. Lucian gave a slight start.

“Is she as handsome as that?” he said slowly. “It’s not like her.”

“She does not always look like it; but never like the other, now,” said Sylvester with a sigh.

“How did you get it?”

“I bought it at a bazaar where she was selling. The Princesses sold theirs there—and actresses and other celebrities—I thought you might like to see it. That is why I have it here.”

Lucian made no comment. He looked hard at the picture. It evidently made more impression on him than anything that Sylvester could say. At last he took up the two photographs together.

“Thank you for bringing it to me,” he said, and put it in his breast-pocket. Sylvester barely checked himself in his impulse to seize it, and his annoyance at Lucian’s calm conviction that it must be meant for him, gave some sharpness to his tone, as he said—

“How do you propose to act, and to get to see her?”

Lucian did not answer for some minutes, then he said slowly—

“I did not consider. There are difficulties. Perhaps she would not receive me, and through her mother I will not act. Besides, if I was asked why I had come forward, it would not be easy to explain, as it would hardly do to mention Una. And I haven’t got any clothes, so I can’t go anywhere to meet her.”

Lucian stated these various difficulties, with exactly the same tone of voice for all.

“Will you write?” said Sylvester.

“I don’t think that that’s quite the right thing. If I—insulted her, face to face—face to face I must ask her pardon. No, you know them. I suppose you can go and call, and ask her when I may come.”

“I suppose I could,” said poor Sylvester, with a pang. “Yes—I will.”

“Thank you. But understand that it is my object to make known that I put myself at her disposal. It is not a case for concealing a refusal. Every one must know that I make the offer.”

Sylvester gave a nervous laugh. Lucian’s sense of his own importance to Amethyst seemed ludicrously out of proportion to the reality. He thought of Sir Richard Grattan, and Prince Pontresina, and Lord Broadstairs, and of the various other men, who would have felt flattered by having it supposed that they had approached near enough to the beauty to propose to her.

“She has many offers,” he said, rather dryly; “I think you must be prepared for such a possibility.”

“Yes,” said Lucian. “But it won’t be worse than it has been. And if—”

He did not finish the sentence, but over the beautiful face which some people called statuesque, and others wooden, came, for once, a flush and a change, and Sylvester thought that Sir Richard might suffer in comparison.

“What’s this Grattan like?” said Lucian, presently turning away.

“Oh—he’s a commonplace beast,” said the finespun Sylvester, “an ‘oiled and curled Assyrian bull’ sort of fellow. Sir Gorgius Midas—No, that’s a libel. I don’t know that he’s a bad sort. He’s all straight, and not bad-looking, and I shouldn’t call him a cad exactly. He has as many millions as a man can want and two big estates, and a good moral character, and goes to church; and he’s safe to be made a peer some day, and—it’s blasphemy to couple him with—her!”

Lucian was not an observant person, and, while he was sadly considering, that though he was himself a moral character and a church-goer, and not bad-looking, he would never be made a peer, and had hardly as many thousands as Amethyst might want, he did not notice that Sylvester stopped short, then hurried on.

“That old scoundrel Broadstairs being out of the question, the Roman prince would be more in keeping. He is a gentleman.”

“But I suppose he’s a foreigner, and a Roman Catholic. And a foreign prince doesn’t go for much,” said Lucian anxiously.

“Depends on the breed,” said Sylvester. “But Grattan is the man.”

“I would rather not talk about her any more,” said Lucian, and, strange to say, he did not talk about her, but went with Sylvester to make a provisional arrangement with the owner of the Albatross, and then talked about his travels, and his sick friend, to whom he seemed to have become much attached. Then they went back to the hotel and had dinner, and came up to London by the night train, as Lucian had proposed.

Sylvester was tired with the two journeys, and with the strain on his mind, and went to bed for some hours. When he appeared again, Lucian, who had been to visit his tailor, and otherwise render himself fit for fashionable life, was sitting in the window reading “Iris.”

“I’ve telegraphed to Ashfield. Some of my things are there,” he said, “and I’ve got what I could. I should like to know if Iris was a real young woman. Because, if not, I don’t see why he made such a fuss about her.”

“Don’t you see,” said Sylvester, rather mistily, “she is the symbol of all that he felt to be the best—what he desired most. Perhaps at one time he desired a living Iris, but—but perhaps he had to content himself with knowing of her perfection.”

“And did he?” said Lucian.

“I suppose every Amelot must answer that question for himself,” said Sylvester.

“He never did, if there was a chance of getting the girl herself,” said Lucian. “Syl, when are you going to the Haredales’?”

“Well, I must ask after Una, in common politeness, and I’ll get in if I can. It’s twelve o’clock. I can go now. What will you do?”

“Wait.” He paused a moment, then said, rather piteously, “I don’t know why it should seem so hard, when yesterday I never thought I should see her again.”

“Poor old boy, did you think about her yesterday, before I came?”

“I always thought about her, except when I was thinking of something else,” said Lucian. “But now there’s nothing else to think of.”

“Well, I won’t leave you long in suspense, if I can help it,” said Syl, taking his hat, and going off. He was himself intensely eager to see Amethyst; must she not know, now, the confession that he had made to Una? She would know at what cost he brought Lucian’s message. Why it should seem harder to give her back to his friend, than to see her marry a man whom he detested, he could not tell, except that every day, every hour, increased his restless misery. He would be loyal to Lucian, and then he felt that he did not know what would become of him. There was never much difficulty in getting into Lady Haredale’s house, and he was at once admitted, and told that some of the ladies were at home.

As he came into the drawing-room he saw that, with better fortune than he could credit, Amethyst was there alone. She was sitting in a low chair with her hat on, and a parcel or two on the table near, as if she had just come in from doing some little errands. There was something dejected in her attitude, and, when she heard Sylvester’s name, she blushed intensely, while he was very pale.

“My sister has been doing too much, she is overtired, and will have to rest now,” she said, in answer to his stammering inquiry for Una.

“Miss Haredale,” said Sylvester, standing up before her, “I dare say your sister has told you of her kindness the other night. I do not dare even to apologise for the mistake which I made. My eyes were deceived, but my mind—never! It was of course my first duty to undeceive my friend, whom I so cruelly injured. By a strange chance, Lucian came back from America two days ago. He is in London, and he begs to be allowed to ask your pardon in person. It was not his fault.”

There was a dead silence. Amethyst’s deep blush slowly faded. Either she could not speak or did not know what to say. Then, after what seemed minutes, she spoke.

“That is all a very old story, Mr Riddell. As you may have seen, we do not wish to look back on it in a tragical manner. If Mr Leigh wishes to call here, I am sure my mother will be quite willing to receive him. Why not? As you say, he made a mistake. It was a natural one.”

She spoke with a kind of hauteur, mingling with the smiling coolness of Lady Haredale’s manner. Sylvester’s heart sank within him. Then she did not care what either of them thought of her.

“You would be at home—when?” he stammered.

“Let me see. This afternoon we go to a matinée. We expect a few friends to-night, we shall be at home after dinner. Will you come then—and Mr Leigh, if he wishes.”

Sylvester murmured thanks and acceptance, and having gained his point went away miserable.

When he got back, he did his best to make Lucian as unhappy as himself; so that it was perhaps as well that the latter went off by the next train to Cleverley to fetch the dress-clothes, which he had left behind him there.

Chapter Twenty Four.

The Dead Past.

On the morning after Miss Grattan’s great ball Miss Annabel Haredale sat alone, in the pretty sitting-room assigned to herself and Miss Carisbrooke. She was very unhappy, almost more unhappy than when, more than two years ago, she had made up her mind to give Amethyst back to her parents—and she was not now so entirely clear in conscience. She had, when something like necessity impelled her, fallen back into a way of looking at things, which she had long cast aside. For many years in her quiet untempted life, she had been in the habit of thinking whether things were right, and now she had returned to early customs of thinking whether they were expedient. As she sat reflecting on the scenes of the night before, there was a tap at the door, and Amethyst came in. Miss Haredale thought that she had come to announce her engagement, and, with a freak of memory, her thoughts flew back to the morning when the girl had rushed in upon her, full of delight to tell her that she had passed an examination!

If Amethyst had good news to tell now, she did not seem much exhilarated by it.

“Aunt Anna,” she said, “there are one or two things I want to ask you about, and I hope you will tell me nothing but the truth about them.”

“Of course, my dear. I am sure you know that I shall.”

“I think you will,” said Amethyst, “though I don’t see how any one can do them, and yet tell the truth about them. Do you mean to let Carrie marry Charles? You have intended it, I know.”

“Why, Amethyst,” said Miss Haredale, “there’s no one but Charles to keep up the family name. He must marry a girl with money, and, though Carrie wants style, he might do worse. And he is making great efforts to reform—of course last night was a sad slip. But I do think he is really anxious to settle. Imagine what it would be, if he couldn’t show when he comes to the title.”

“I want to know how he has been enabled to show now,” said Amethyst, with icy coldness. And then, after a pause—“Did Sir Richard Grattan lend him the money?”

“Well, yes—he did, my dear. He did a great deal for him. The money was nothing to him, you know, and your father was really gratified.”

“And what else has he done for us?” pursued Amethyst.

“Well—he bought the farms near Haredale. Of course, Amethyst, even with the help of Carrie’s guardians, your father couldn’t have taken this house, unless he had found a good purchaser. Sir Richard did it in the most delicate way—”

“But if Sir Richard wanted to marry me, I should have thought giving me a season in town did not improve his chances.”

“Why, Amethyst—anyhow you would have gone out with Lady Molyneux. And now, he has had every opportunity. And he improves so much on acquaintance. When you make him happy, he will never think of the trifling obligation. Of course, I suppose the matter is now settled; but he was very anxious that you should feel perfectly free.”

“And all this has been done for the honour of the family. I’ve heard my lady say, that if people had a shady sort of record, it was much better to own it and take the consequences. I think I agree with her. One other thing. Did Mr Carisbrooke make this arrangement about Carrie and Charles?”

“Well, no—but he expressed a great desire that she should join your party. And I don’t know why you speak like this, Amethyst, I never knew you take such a tone before.”

“I never heard you take such a tone in Silverfold, Aunt Annabel.”

“Ah, my dear child, Silverfold days were very happy ones. But you are young, and you can’t realise what family ruin is. You often think things bad for the girls, but they might be far worse. Last spring it was very nearly a case of going to live on the continent—cheap. Now just think of that with you four girls. What would there be for either of your parents but the gaming table, my dear child? And nothing left of mine for you to fall back upon. And the Haredales are not long-lived; if your father died, what would become of you all? Now, when you are well married—Amethyst, of course there’s a great deal I don’t like, but I really do think that there’s nothing, not absolutely criminal, that it’s not a woman’s duty to do to save her family from such a dreadful fate. Oh, my dear, you can’t remember your uncles Percy and Tom, but never shall I forget the details that came out at their deaths, nor seeing poor Percy once abroad. My dear, when one is young and hard, one may think it serves one’s brother right, but one’s nephew—oh no, my dear. And Charles would be kind to a woman who liked him.”

“And it was for the good of the family that my half-sister was made to marry a man she hated? I don’t think it answered in that case.”

“Poor Blanche had no force of character. She was not like any of you. Besides, my dear child, I am sure you do like Sir Richard. I do think your remarkable attractions are quite providential.”

“Don’t you think you had better have let me be a Saint Etheldred’s teacher?” said Amethyst, clasping her hands behind her head, and looking full at her aunt. Amethyst scarcely ever give the rein to her tongue, and poor Miss Haredale hardly knew what to make of it.

“No, my dear,” she said, puzzled, “I can’t think that.”

Amethyst looked at her with a smile like Tory’s. Then she laughed a little, and said—

“Never mind, Auntie; you see, after all, it’s you that I feel at home with, and so I behave ill. It’s such a comfort. I only wanted to know just how the land lay.” And with a kind kiss, she went away, none the happier for her knowledge.

She had not known before how near the other side of the line was, how little lay between her family and an amount of “difficulty” that would make their position untenable. Perhaps she was young and hard; but it was hardly likely she could care for Charles himself, and she distrusted him so entirely that she did not believe that the family name would ever get safe out of his hands.

As she came into the drawing-room, to her intense surprise, there the culprit sat. He never seemed at home nor in place among all the knick-knacks and pretty things, and now he looked sick, shy, and miserable. Charles had none of the nonchalance of his half-sisters, and, truth to tell, he was afraid of them.

“Look here, Amethyst,” he said, awkwardly. “It was deuced unlucky last night, I know. Do tell Grattan I apologise, and all that’s proper. Bad wine at the club, that was all—brandied sherry. Say the kind thing, there’s a good girl.”

“I did not see what passed, and I shall say nothing about it,” said Amethyst, coldly.

“You see—I don’t want Grattan to cut up rough, and though, of course, he’s put his hand in his pocket—I’ve helped him to the connection. He’s not a bad sort, but of course he ain’t a man of family. Put him up to the idea, that the correct thing is to take no notice of anything of that sort.”

“I dare say Sir Richard Grattan can judge of what’s correct,” said Amethyst.

“Then too,” said Charles, shifting a little in his chair, “there’s another thing.—I’d tackle Grattan; but girls hang by each other. You might prevent little Carrie from thinking me a reprobate.”

“How?” said Amethyst.

“Well—tell her it’s nothing uncommon. Might happen to any gentleman. ‘As drunk as a lord’ is a proverb, you know. I shan’t make a bad husband—assure you I shan’t.”

Amethyst stood by the table, perfectly silent. She felt that, if she spoke, her tongue would sting worse than ever Tory’s could.

“But of course,” said Charles, more freely, and getting a little angry, “if you tell her that when a fellow’s once down he’s always down, she’ll give me the sack. And that’s what all you women do think, specially the religious ones. You think yourselves so much better than other people!”

“No, Charles, we don’t,” said another voice; and Una, who had come into the room while he was speaking, came forward, and stood near him, her slight swaying figure leaning against the table, and her large melancholy eyes fixed on his face. “Indeed we don’t think that. We know—religion—will help every one.”

“Hallo!” said Charles, “little Una talking goody! What? Do you think I shall turn pious?”

“I think,” said Una, “that God will help you just as much as He helps me. And, indeed, we don’t despise you.”

“Oh, Una!” said Charles, in an odd, simple voice, “He’ll punish me. Why, I never said my prayers since I went to school. But I should go to church, if my wife wanted me to, and I’d rather she was strict. You can tell little Carrie so, Una. And look here—a man don’t mean anything, you know, if a word slips out ladies aren’t accustomed to, specially after dinner. Tell her so—there’s a good girl. You mean to say a kind thing.”

What Una might have answered was interrupted by the entrance of Lord Haredale, who called his son away, rather curtly, and Amethyst broke out—

“Una! How can you. How can any one like that repent? Why, I don’t believe that he has left himself all his senses!”

“I am so sorry for him,” said Una.

“I cannot be, when I think of his wanting a good girl to marry him!”

“But, Amethyst, he might be changed. You believe that?”

“Well, yes—in a way, of course, I believe it. But people after all are what they have made themselves. He can’t repent, so as to be much good, in this world, at any rate.”

Amethyst spoke harshly and recklessly. There was something in Charles’s half-ruffianly, half-foolish manner, that revolted her past any sense of pity for him, and she was in no mood for toleration. She had no great inward impulse to set against the force of circumstances, and to be driven by necessity is a very different thing from being urged forward by a force within.

There was nothing for it but to marry Sir Richard Grattan, she had scarcely a choice left. She believed that she should always be mistress enough of herself to play her part with success; and interests, such as her friendship with Mr Carisbrooke, who happily did not want to marry her, might keep her spirit alive. Yes, she was acting rightly, and yet she felt it utterly impossible to ask for the help of which Una had spoken.

Still in this humour on the next morning, while she had so far managed to avoid the actual, final “Yes” to Sir Richard’s suit, she heard Sylvester’s announcement and request, which she answered with a certain sense of defiance both of herself and of him.

But, when he was gone, she knew that she was shaken almost to pieces by her interview with him, and she could hardly string herself up to go, as arranged, with her aunt and Carrie, to a fashionably patronised matinée in which a débutante, in whose performance Mr Carisbrooke was interested, was to play Juliet.

Amethyst was too high-strung a creature not to be susceptible to dramatic excitement; she was no critic of acting, and was not perhaps so familiar with the play, that it did not come upon her with some freshness. Its influence seized her like a sort of madness, possessing and changing her. Whether the spirit breathed airs from heaven or blasts from hell, it was absolute. Given a Romeo, Juliet’s was the only course—the charnel-house rather than the County. This was a force to which her own nature answered, which Mr Carisbrooke had already done something to awaken. Here was a great and mighty impulse, which would make life worth living, or death worth dying. She did not cry, or melt with pity over the woes of Juliet, she felt the force of such passion in herself, she saw the power of such self-devotion. Her real self seemed to flash into life, as she recalled her own brief love-story, her own young love. And to-night she was to see her old lover again. Not only prudence, expediency, worldly wisdom, would go down before the flood, but right and wrong, if there was any right but allowing such a force of nature to have its way.

She went home, and put on her simplest white dress, and clasped the amethysts round her neck, and put the purple stars in her hair, just as she had worn them at Cleverley more than two years ago.

When she went in to Una, who was glad enough to make her health an excuse for not meeting the two young men, the girl looked at her half frightened.

“Amethyst,” she said, “you never looked so lovely in your life.”

So thought Sylvester Riddell, as he came into the drawing-room among the other guests of the evening, with Lucian Leigh by his side. He was pale and nervous, and felt intensely the awkwardness of the situation as they walked up to Lady Haredale. Lucian’s extreme straightforwardness saved him from the difficulty.

“Lady Haredale,” he said very low, “I have to beg your pardon.”

“What for, Mr Leigh? Oh, I haven’t at all a good memory, but all our Cleverley friends are welcome, as I told my daughter when she happened to mention that you were coming. Mrs Leigh is not in town?”

She smiled with cheerful sweetness, but Lucian felt as if she had dashed a cup of cold water in his face.

He looked handsome and striking, with his tall slight figure, and his delicate, regular face bronzed with travel, and marked by an intense gravity of expression.

“Oh, my stars,” whispered Tory to Kattern, “he’s a deal more thorough-bred than Sir Richard!” While Miss Haredale sighed over the wild insanity that had allowed him to appear at this juncture.

Amethyst was standing under a chandelier; she had the faculty of being able to stand perfectly still. Several people were round her, among them Sir Richard, and Oliver Carisbrooke. A lady congratulated Sir Richard on his delightful ball.

“It was not a success for me,” he said carelessly, “but my sister is thinking of a big water-party, if this fine weather continues. That, I hope, will go off better.”

Lucian began to cross the room.

“Where shall you go?” said the lady.

Lucian was close at hand.

“No,” said Oliver Carisbrooke, in a low full voice, which only Amethyst heard. “No, it will not be.”

Lucian bowed, and Amethyst held out her hand to him.

“Thank you for allowing me to come,” he said. He did not try to look unconscious. He meant every one to see that he came with an object. Sylvester, at once admiring and suffering, owned that he could not have done it half so well.

“You have come back suddenly to England,” said Amethyst.

“Yes, my friend had an accident.”

“That was very unfortunate for you?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“But weren’t you going to the Rocky Mountains? Haven’t you brought back any bears?” said Amethyst.

She was of course obliged to say something, and her manner grew easier as the light slowly faded out of her face.

Here Mr Carisbrooke claimed Lucian’s acquaintance, and a few courtesies passed. Sylvester wondered what next. Even Lucian could hardly go down on his knees under the chandelier. He spoke a few needful words, but Sylvester, rather to his surprise, saw that he had turned conspicuously pale. He barely waited till the bystanders were not absolutely looking and listening, then said abruptly—

“May I speak to you?”

She hesitated a moment, and then skilfully moved a little away into the window, with a few light words about the lovely night which gave him a chance to follow, while Sylvester dashed at Sir Richard, and told him that he considered the leader of his political party a drag on the wheels of progress, and likely at the same time to plunge the country into anarchy.

Lucian and Amethyst stood in the open window. The trees in the square were motionless as pictures in the utter stillness of a London summer night, the flowers on the balcony were colourless in a flood of moonlight. There was a great silence, in which the roar of the traffic was but as the roar of the sea.

“Amethyst,” said Lucian, “can you forgive me? I was wrong.”

“Oh yes,” said Amethyst, “I have long known that you could not help it.”

“Of course,” he said, “I have always loved you exactly the same. Nothing could change that, I want you to understand at once that I am just the same. Will you go back?”

“But I am not at all the same,” said Amethyst. “I can’t say that I have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.”

“Have you forgotten that time?”

“No,” said Amethyst, with passion in her voice.

“Then you can’t have forgotten me? Are you too angry?”

“No, no.”

“Two years wouldn’t seem like two minutes, if we come together.”

“Two minutes—two ages! Lucian, I might say fifty things and put you off, and leave it doubtful. But I’ll only say one, and I surely know it. I don’t love you now.”

“You love some other man?”

“No, I don’t, but,”—with a sudden outburst, “you killed my love for you, dead, and it won’t come to life again. It’s no good—no good—for I shall never have it again—never!”

“I—surely you cannot tell. I will wait—let me come again. I had to let you know I was yours—but on your side—when I knew you had been true to me, and that I wronged you—that you really loved me, I never thought it possible your love could change.”

“Well, I have changed,” said Amethyst. “It is all gone by, I can’t go back. I had to turn into a different person, and I can’t put back the clock. I shouldn’t fall in love with you, if I met you now. But I wish I had died when I did love you.”

She darted back into the shelter of the lights and the crowd, and soon she saw Lucian and his friend bow to her mother and go. Sir Richard Grattan came up to her to say good-night.

“May I come to-morrow?” he said, with meaning.

Amethyst looked full at him, as if she were then and there appraising him, and making up her mind. Then, very slowly and distinctly, she said—

“Yes.”

No! Lucian was not her Romeo, and she was not to find her deliverance in the flood-tide of passion. A girl with weaker brain, or of less concentrated feeling, might have doubted and wondered, and tried to conjure up the old magic, but Amethyst was too clever and too intense for self-deception.

Lucian was nothing to her but a handsome boy, and the love of her girlhood was gone for ever. She had left it behind her.

Chapter Twenty Five.

Tempted of the Devil.

Una lay awake through the early part of the hot summer night, with her mind full of the crisis in Amethyst’s fate.

She was sad and anxious; all the sweetness of her life was owing to Amethyst’s tenderness, and how long would the loving sister be left beside her?

She could not guess at all what choice Amethyst would be impelled to make, what effect the sight of Lucian would have upon her. She had hardly seemed to heed the discovery that Sylvester Riddell was her lover too. Had she made up her mind to marry Sir Richard Grattan at all costs? Was not Oliver Carisbrooke more to her than she knew? Una believed that her own life had been shipwrecked for ever. She longed with all her heart to see Amethyst steer clear of the treacherous rocks in her way.

She lay awake in the sultry air, listening till the sound of the expected step on the stairs made her heart throb till she was faint.

The step was slow and lingering—would it pass by? No, the door was softly opened, and Amethyst came in. She stood at the foot of the bed, in the flood of summer moonlight, so that her face looked as white as her gown, and her amethysts glittered with a colourless gleam. She looked at Una with cold heavy eyes, and her voice was dull and lifeless.

“Are you having a bad night, dear?” she said.

“Yes—never mind. What has happened to you?”

“Nothing,” said Amethyst.

“Didn’t he come after all?”

“Oh yes! But I can’t tell why I used to think him so interesting. He’s a very handsome boy, but I can’t fall in love now with a straight nose and good intentions. If I lived fifty years with him, he would never know what I was thinking of.”

She laughed as she spoke, a short bitter little laugh. “He has done his best—done his duty by me. But he can’t put the clock back.”

“I said that you were never really in love with him!” said Una, after a moment’s startled silence.

“I was, with every thought and feeling and part of me! But I’ve forgotten him. I’m not made of the stuff to be constant and faithful—as he has been. He was a fool not to know I was a good girl then! I believe I’m a very bad one now!”

“You looked so happy, when you thought he was coming.”

“Yes, I thought if the sight of him brought it all back, I could even forgive him—and his mother—and mine! I was as much a fool then as he was, not to force him to believe in me. But if I had, and had found out by this time that he was stupid?”

“He must have loved you very much.”

“He loved his duty or his honour, or whatever it was, better than he loved me,” said Amethyst. “He has done his duty by me now, and satisfied his sense of honour. But what am I talking about? What is the use of feelings? And what is the use of keeping you awake and making you ill? Lie down, my sweet, I shall be in my senses to-morrow, and then you shall hear some news.”

“Oh, Amethyst, don’t do it!” cried Una. “Whether you have forgotten Lucian or not, if you can’t care for any one again—”

“Oh, but I guess I could,” said Amethyst, recklessly. “There’s the very thing—there’s the rub.”

“But not Sir Richard?”

“As to that,” said Amethyst, “in all honour I am bound to him. I have been meaning it. I can do it. And we are all bound to him. I should as good as jilt him if I threw him over now. But—if Lucian had brought my heart back to me—I would have broken through it all! Though I would have begged Sir Richard’s pardon on my knees. But there’s nothing strong enough in me to do it now.”

“Oh, my darling,” cried Una, starting up and clinging to her, “there can be! I told you how it was with me—me—that am so weak and so bad. It is quite true. I don’t understand it—at other times—I’m just my foolish self. But just now and then—as that poem you used to be fond of says—‘My strength is as the strength of ten.’ But it’s not because my heart is pure—for it’s not, it’s not—but because He is stronger than I am! The ‘Spirit of the Lord came upon me.’ I know what that means, Amethyst, though He does go quite away, quite—quite!”

Amethyst was somewhat awe-struck.

“But He doesn’t come to me, Una,” she said in a subdued voice, “and I can’t even ask Him. Because whatever I do can’t be really right, I’ve tied the knots too tight.”

“But I suppose God thinks that one way would be more right than another,” said Una.

Childish as was the form of speech, it struck an answering chord in Amethyst’s soul; but Una’s tone was so faint with weariness that she refused to go on talking, made her lie back on the pillows, and left her as soon as possible, to think the problem out for herself.

”‘My dismal scene I needs must act alone,’” she thought, as she slowly undressed herself, and lay down in bed.

She lay on her back, with her hands clasped over the top of her head, and watched the moonlight on the opposite wall. She had her fate in life to decide. At twenty years old, “half-grown as yet, a child and vain,” she had so strong a principle of growth within her, that her true self had hardly yet begun to be. She had decided. She had made up her mind, long ago, that she would marry Sir Richard Grattan. As his wife she would belong to good and honourable people; all her tastes and faculties would have full scope; a great career would be before herself, and she could always be a stand-by to her sisters. She was desirous of doing right, though she could not realise Una’s experience otherwise than as an impression on the girl’s mind. But it had not ceased to be the best thing for herself to marry Sir Richard, because she had discovered that a great impulse—a great passion, would induce her to break free from him. For no great impulse was there.

She did pray for help, though with a cold and wavering spirit, and she made up her mind to her course of action. She went down-stairs in the morning, in the full conviction that she would accept Sir Richard before the day was out Breakfast was an irregular meal, and no one was there but Tory, who attended an early French class, and was sitting with her hat on.

“Amethyst,” she said, “I believe there’s something up. Father came in last night after you went up-stairs, and he and my lady talked for hours in the dressing-room. She actually cried.”

“Did she?” said Amethyst, startled.

“Yes. Whichever of them you mean to say ‘yes’ to, you had better get it done with a clear conscience before you know of anything to stop you.”

“But what do you think?”

“I think we’ve come to smash. But if it’s Sir Richard, he must have known we soon should.” Before Amethyst could reply, a message came to say that her ladyship wanted to speak to Miss Haredale. She went up-stairs with a beating heart, and found her mother, to her surprise, up and dressed, with the marks of tears on her face.

“Amethyst,” she said, “I believe the game is up. Your engagement must be announced to-day, and we must leave town at once. Is Sir Richard coming this morning? Don’t let there be another hour’s delay.”

“What has happened?” stammered Amethyst. “Now don’t be frightened,” said Lady Haredale, “and to be shocked is no use. You know that your father raised money on the Haredale farms, with Charles’s consent Sir Richard bought them. Some of it we were to spend in coming to London—on your account, Amethyst. With the rest he was to pay off a mortgage which, through various changes, had come into the hands of Blanche’s husband, Sir Edward Clyste. Well, he didn’t do it, but risked the money on a horse at Epsom, and lost it. Now that’s not all, it’s a very ugly story, and I’m sorry to have to tell you. It seems my lord’s affairs at Epsom were mixed up with the other man’s,—you know.”

“What other man, mother?”

“Why, Captain Vincent—the man Blanche was so imprudent about. He behaved scandalously, and of course we were supposed to cut him. But it’s always forgive and forget with my lord, and—if any one would give him any advantage in a racing matter, his character wouldn’t count for much. Well, the connection was kept a secret, but it’s come out apparently in that set, and Sir Edward—who is on the turf too—when he finds that the money, which really was pledged to him, has been lost in connection with Vincent, isn’t likely to have much mercy. Moreover, Vincent, it seems, has done something which steps over the line which racing men think fair and square. Myself, I don’t see much difference between what they will do and what they won’t, but men feel differently. So he’s to be sent to Coventry, and though my lord knew nothing about that, mixing up his money matters with Vincent’s, under the circumstances, isn’t thought the thing. And things will be made very uncomfortable for us. Now, we must get Sir Richard to advance the money to pay off the mortgage, and no doubt he will, it’s only 6,000 pounds, but even that won’t set everything straight again.”

Lady Haredale spoke with a certain hard, practical cynicism which was the skeleton on which her sweet, shallow gaiety was grown, and Amethyst answered in the same tone.

“No. Nothing can alter the fact that my father has done a dishonourable thing.”

“Well—it’s come to be dishonourable—doubtful, certainly; but I don’t suppose it looked so, step by step. He is very miserable, my poor old lord, I assure you. You know he has hardly ever come near us, or gone about with us. But what with this, and what with the drawback of Charles, and that odious Mrs Saint George, who hates me, and contrives to make every one think there was something queer about the debts which were paid when I took your amethysts, poor child! (not that there was anything but a few harmless fibs)—what with all this, though I’ve as much pluck as most women, and though people will swallow a great deal to have you at their parties, I really don’t think I can fight it out any longer.”

“But when Sir Richard Grattan knows all this, will he still choose to connect himself with my father—and Charles—and—the rest of us?”

“Why, Amethyst,” said Lady Haredale, “that’s what you have got to secure. You know we can’t tell him any lies, because other men will tell him the truth. But he’s very much infatuated with you, stiff as you have always been. Encourage him, be kind and loving to him, and he won’t break your heart or give you up.”

Amethyst leant back in her chair with her hands lying on her lap. She was pale and very still, and when she spoke, her voice had a clear, satirical ring, as if she had been saying something clever in society. But, in truth, she was at the white heat of passion, so that she defied every instinct of natural reverence and shame. There is a sort of truth-speaking, of calling things by their right names, that means the entire rebellion of the soul.

“I don’t see much difference between any of us,” she said. “My father condones his daughter’s disgrace for the sake of a money advantage, and continues under an obligation to his son-in-law who has been wronged; you tell harmless fibs, and, among other things, you think it a trifle that a man like Major Fowler should have destroyed all Una’s peace and freshness; Charles does things which I am never supposed to hear of, and besides, gets drunk in society. My half-sister married one man when she loved another, and I suppose never troubled to avoid him afterwards. I am going to marry a man for whom I don’t care a straw, because he has money and can help my family, and I am to take advantage of having the sort of beauty which makes fools of men, to get him to take a burden on his shoulders of which he’s sure to repent in future. Which is the worst of us? Even Aunt Anna will let that poor girl marry Charles ‘for the honour of the family.’”

“Amethyst,” exclaimed Lady Haredale, really shocked, “you never heard me say anything of that sort.”

“No—you do it.”

“That is quite a different thing. Pray never let your sisters hear you talk in such a manner. And as for Blanche, she never saw Captain Vincent before she was married. I don’t know who her old love was, she would never tell us. But she was a girl who couldn’t do without something of the kind going on. If you knew how hard it has been to get on at all, you would not make matters worse by speaking to me in that way.”

Amethyst was silent. She had burnt her ships, and outraged all her natural instincts, and she felt impenitent and strong.

“A gentleman, asking for Miss Haredale,” said a servant at the door.

“Sir Richard, I suppose,” said Amethyst, standing up. “Well, mother, I’m going down-stairs to accept him—if he asks me. But I’ll take care he knows the worst of my family, and I shall tell him that I don’t yet know the worst of myself.”

She went down-stairs, with the evil power still in her heart. The inward force had come to her, not in love, but in hate. There are inspirations from the land of darkness, and these too can make strong. They find their opportunity in self-despair.

“Nothing and no one will interfere to save me,” she thought.

She opened the drawing-room door, and found herself face to face, not with Sir Richard Grattan, but with Sylvester Riddell.

Chapter Twenty Six.

According to his Light.

Amethyst’s two lovers went out from her presence into the gaslight and the moonlight, and walked through the still busy streets of the West End, hardly exchanging a word with each other.

Neither of them had eaten much that day, and Sylvester took Lucian to his club and ordered supper, but he looked white and wretched, and shook his head when his friend pressed him to eat and drink. He hated the public place, the sense of homelessness, he wanted to hide himself like an unhappy dog. At last he said,—

“I can do nothing to make up for the past.”

“Well, two years is a long time,” said Sylvester, whose own feelings were too exacting just then to leave space for much sympathy with Lucian.

“Is it? I’ve done a great many things since we parted; but I’ve never felt anything but—wanting her. She seems a thousand times more glorious than ever to me, and I am nothing to her—now.”

“But you didn’t think, before you saw her again, that, after all that passed, she had continued to care for you?” said Syl, curiously.

“I did not know then, if she ever had truly cared for me,” said Lucian. “I supposed that she had not, that it had all been a delusion. What else could I think? Even then, I did not forget her. But when I found, when she herself says now, that in that old time, she was real and true—I don’t see how any one can change a true love once given. It’s a thing I can’t conceive possible. It would have seemed a fresh wrong to her to fear it.”

“Did it never occur to you,” said Sylvester impatiently, “that she was not half-grown-up, two years ago, and that now she may see that you are not the kind of person to suit her?”

“I never could have outgrown her,” said Lucian. “And did you never think that she has never forgiven us—you—for misjudging her?”

“That is a different thing. That is not how it is,” said Lucian, positively; then, standing up, “I want to get back to your rooms, Syl. I can’t stand anything more. I’ll go to bed, I feel done for.” There was something pathetic in the faithfulness that could not imagine the possibility of change in the love that had once been proved worthy; but naturally Lucian’s self-confidence struck Sylvester forcibly, and as they walked away together once more, he suddenly lost the remains of his patience, and broke out—

“Can’t you see that a creature like that has a thousand needs and possibilities that have developed in her since she belonged to you? It may be for good, or it may be for evil, but she cannot go back. Did it never strike you then that you had got hold of a being all force and fire, a splendid goddess, altogether out of your ken?”

“No,” said Lucian, “I meant to take care of her, and I hoped we should go on, and lead the right sort of lives together.”

“Well, we are each shut up in the bounds of our own nature,” said Sylvester, shortly.

“I think,” said Lucian, after a pause, “that you are trying to make me see that I never was good enough for her.”

“Who could be?”

“If it has been all my fault,” said Lucian, in a shaken voice, “it is a hard thing to know. For—it is not all right with her now. Good-night, Syl,”—for by this time they had reached the lodgings—“I’m going to bed. You think I’m not enough of a fellow for her, but she has all there is of me, and it’s no good to her.”

He hurried away, and shut himself into his room. His words hardly did him justice; for his thoughts were crude and one-sided; but the entire trust in the word once given, the love that had survived even the loss of faith, were feelings of heroic size.

Lucian really had few faults, and such as he had, he guarded against with dutiful, if somewhat formal, technical conscientiousness. Defects of nature, as distinct from acts of sin, he did not recognise.

When he found that he had been led to misjudge Amethyst, his conscience, as well as his heart, was shocked, he felt that he ought not to have been deceived, and, whether he could understand it or no, he knew that she was lost to him for ever. She was not for him. He saw too that she was changed. She was not what he had expected to find her. He was bewildered by her, and he had to live without her.

Lucian’s religion, was as simple as his view of life. Under its dictates, he had abstained from the ordinary sins of school and college life, and had framed his view of what was becoming to a young man of property. Like the young ruler, he kept the Commandments. He distinctly believed that his life was ordered for him, and, in this fresh agony, which had brought a certainty, which, while the separation from Amethyst had been his own doing, he had never really felt, he recognised that he must not throw it away.

The right thing to do, soon, was to go and live at Toppings by himself, or with his mother and sisters. There would never be any one else now. He would go for his three months’ cruise in the Albatross, and get over the worst of his trouble. He thought that he would rather be alone, at first, than with Sylvester. Somehow, his old companion jarred upon him. Perhaps friend, as well as love, had outgrown him.

Meanwhile, Sylvester had been haunted by the echo of one of Lucian’s sentences, “All is not right with her now.” No, indeed, and the lover of her girlhood was powerless to help. Could his own love, so much more full, as it seemed to him, of comprehending in sight, do nothing? He would have been wretched if she had turned back to Lucian’s love. That could not have sufficed her; but it was far worse that she should choose the lower part, defy and ignore all the imperious demands of her fine spirit. And he must stand by and see it—He who had watched her course, and read her needs and her dangers, from the very first day that, behind the beauty that had captivated his senses, he had seen the aspiring soul look out from her eyes.

Through the short hours of darkness Sylvester lay in helpless rage and despair; but suddenly, when the light of the summer dawn came through his open window, and the London sparrows began to twitter, and the life of London to wake up with the roll of the market waggons and the tread of the earliest passing feet, he started up, inspired with a sudden purpose.

“I will not stand by, and see it. What matter what she may think of me or of my doings? I have no hope of her. She is not for me. But my soul shall tell her soul the truth. She, her true self, shall not fight the battle alone, with every one around her on the side of the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

Sylvester Riddell was not a person who led an ardent or strenuous life. His professional duties at the University were not very arduous, his literary work was of a somewhat dilettante nature, his mind was full of conflicting theories.

But though he wrote verse that was not quite poetry, though he was inconsistent, and harmlessly self-indulgent, he had moments of inspiration, when the “demon” that speaks to prophet and poet would speak to him. Such a moment came now. A purpose, impossible conventionally, but which, nevertheless, he would carry out, had come to him, and he called down all power in earth and heaven, every force which he believed to make for righteousness, to fight on his side and to help him. Never had such real prayer gone forth from his soul, as now when he determined to reinforce with every particle of spiritual strength within him, the wavering spirit of the woman he loved. He felt ashamed of his irritation against Lucian, who, after all, had served Amethyst as well as he knew how, though he did not wish him to guess either his feelings or his purpose, thinking, rather unjustly, that Lucian would not be able to understand him, and would suppose that he meant to make Amethyst an offer.

Lucian was very quiet, and seemed to find breakfast a difficulty. After a silence he said—

“There’s one thing, Syl, I think should be done, and it would be best for you to do it. Will you write to my mother, and undeceive her? She will believe you. It is all gone by, but I cannot have one shadow left upon her which can be removed.”

“Yes, I will,” said Sylvester. “What shall you do now yourself?”

“I think I shall close with the man who owns the Albatross—for three months only. Will you come?”

“I hardly know. I ought to go to Cleverley first. Perhaps I might join you later.”

“I’ve got a note from Jackson,” said Lucian; “he wants me to run down and see him first. He misses me—I got to know his ways.”

He did not get very steadily to the end of the sentence, he was touched at finding himself satisfactory to some one.

“Could he go with you?” said Sylvester. “Oh no. He ought to be perfectly quiet. But I shall ask him to come to Toppings in the autumn. I must make a beginning there some time. I’ll do it then.”

“Well, Lucy, I dare say that’s quite right.”

“I shall go off this morning,” said Lucian. “Jackson’s father lives near Chester. Then on to Liverpool. I’ll leave word there about letters. Tell me if—when—when anything happens. I’m very much obliged to you for having given me the chance of contradicting my former conduct. I think, perhaps, in time to come, she may like to remember that I did it. And tell your father, please, that I renewed my offer, and that she refused me. I can’t think of anything else that I can do or say.”

“It has been hard lines on you, my dear old boy.”

“Yes. But that’s no matter, if I have in any way repaired the injustice. I’ve seen her; I suppose I never shall again. She did say a hard thing. But—well, Syl, good-bye, I’ll go and look after a train to suit me. Thank you. I’m glad it’s all happened. Good-bye. When your time comes, I hope you’ll have better luck.”

He smiled ruefully enough, and held out his hand. Sylvester took it.

“Say one thing more, Lucy,” he said; “wish me as single a purpose as your own.”

Lucian looked puzzled. Sylvester’s lips were set and pale, and his eyes very bright.

“I’ll wish you anything I can,” he said, and went off to collect his belongings.

He was longer about it than Sylvester had expected; the hansom he had ordered waited, before he came in again ready to start.

He put something down on the table.

“I don’t think you brought that photograph to Liverpool for me, Syl,” he said, and was gone before a word could be spoken.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

A Faithful Servant.

When Amethyst found herself, with a shock of surprise, in Sylvester’s presence, her first thought was that he had come to plead the cause of Lucian Leigh, and there was a certain distance in her tone as she said—

“Mr Riddell!”

“Miss Haredale,” said Sylvester, standing up before her, “I have come to beg you not to marry Sir Richard Grattan. Forgive me—forgive me. I am so beyond defence on any ground but one, that no beating about the bush will soften my actions. I love you, therefore I understand you. Your heart is not in this marriage. If you give away your freedom, all the best part of you will die. I am pleading for no one, not for myself nor for Lucian. Oh, don’t deny your heart—your soul—don’t do this thing.”

His voice was full of such strong vibration, though he spoke low, his eyes so full of passionate purpose, the astonishment at his words was so great, that Amethyst stood looking at him for a moment, with wide-open eyes and parted lips. He took courage and went on—

“I know it would be all well enough for some women. I know how often it is done. But it is not right for you—not for you. That which you defy—you don’t think it is your conscience—but it is—it is—it is the Voice of God within you. It is the highest claim that He can make on you.” Sylvester came close to her and grasped her hands. In her wide startled eyes, he seemed to read what he must say. Not one thought of himself marred the intensity of his appeal, and she made no attempt to fence with him, forgot how easily, with one conventional word, she could have put him aside. He seized upon her and dominated her, as no one else had ever done.

“I did not think God ever spoke to me,” she said.

“Oh yes, He does,” answered Sylvester. “I have seen your eyes listen.”

“But,” said Amethyst, “I don’t think you can know. My romance is over. I—till a few days back—I was quite content to marry him. He is quite good. And I am almost bound. It would do such dreadful harm to draw back. It would be wrong just to follow a feeling—a fear—”

“No, no!” cried Sylvester. “Ten thousand times—no! If so, every martyr, every patriot, who followed his highest instincts, regardless of old ties, every soul that had to save itself at any price, every one who has cut off the right hand, put out the right eye, has been wrong. Oh, the right hand, the right eye, are always so good. There is so much to be said for them! You can make out so good a case! Oh, you are so young, you seem but a child, you don’t know really what you are doing. You think of your duty to others. No one has taught you your duty to yourself.”

“Oh,” said Amethyst, with a sort of sad dignity, “I know much more about it all than you think.” She moved a little away from him, and sat down, then presently went on speaking out her thoughts. Sylvester seemed to her almost like an incarnation of the opposing force within her.

“I don’t think it was wrong as I was—at least for some people there does not seem anything very right. Your father said I was to try for the least wrong—the rather better.”

“Yes,” said Sylvester, “the least wrong—the most right for you!”

“Then—something came over me. It all went flat. Then, you came and told me Lucian was coming back—and—and—I found out in another way, that if—if he brought back my feelings—I could and I would fight it all through—and nothing would stand against me. But oh—the feelings are all gone. I’ve forgotten him! So my feelings can’t be worth much, and—and there doesn’t seem enough to fight about—to give it all up and condemn myself and my sisters to a bad, miserable life—oh, so many degradations!”

“Lucian knows now how deeply he offended you,” said Sylvester, swerving a little from his point, so much did he care what her feelings were.

“It’s not that. It is that I have changed. But I—I couldn’t wrong him. I couldn’t marry him for—for an establishment!”

The last word burst out as if in quotation marks, with a passionate accent of self-contempt and scorn.

“What I want to say is,” said Sylvester, “don’t wrong yourself. Listen!—I believe in counsels of perfection. I don’t judge all the women who have married as you say, and been good and saint-like and self-denying, for other people’s sake. But you—you hear another Voice. Even for your sisters’ sake—listen to it.”

Amethyst turned away, and hid her face against the back of her chair. She was not crying,—but a sense of being overwhelmed was coming upon her. The situation was beginning to make itself felt.

“When one has no feelings,” she said, after a minute—“neither religious nor any others—there is nothing left but doing right.”

“There is that left,” he answered, coming nearer. Another silence, then she faltered out—

“Of course—I haven’t got my eyes shut. I do know all you mean—what marrying would be.—You think I couldn’t expect to be helped to be good afterwards—doing it against my instincts. You think it would be so wrong, that it’s worth turning life upside down to stop it—worth what it will be like, not to do it?”

“So wrong,” said Sylvester, kneeling beside her chair, “that I would rather see you die than do it.”

Another pause, then suddenly she stood up, and looked down into his face.

“I will not do it,” she said. “I said no one helped me. That’s not true. You have done a tremendous thing for me. Thank you!”

She held out her hands, and he put them to his lips; then, as he rose up, the inspiration that had brought him there seemed to die out, and left only trembling human passion in its stead. Nothing more was given him to say. He had really spoken in utter singleness of heart, altogether for her sake. Now, he felt that every word would be for his own.

He murmured an echo of her thanks—looked at her for a moment with white face and shining eyes, and went, without one conventional word of apology, or of parting.

When he got out into the street, he found that he could hardly stand. With an instinct of avoiding notice, he crossed over towards the railing of the square garden, and, finding the gate open, went in and managed to reach a bench close by, and sat there, till his head ceased to swim, and he could see and think clearly once more.

He almost felt as if he were waking from a dream. How could he have faced her with such daring words, and how had she come to listen with so much patience?

If he had saved her, he had done it at a cruel cost. He had not looked into her eyes, and touched her soul, without such growth of the passion within him as made his yearning a living pain, instead of a tender dream, or at least an endurable desire. His love had grown a thousandfold in that short quarter of an hour. And she had listened to him as if he had been a voice in the air! And to what a struggle had he persuaded her!—he who took his own life so easily.

As Sylvester sat musing, he knew that his own words, or the love that had prompted them, had changed himself. He had no need to make any outward change in his life, but he knew, as he got up and walked slowly out of the garden and up the square, that his appeal to Amethyst had bound him to live it in a much more strenuous way.

Amethyst, when he left her, stood still, while a crimson blush spread over face, neck, and arms—a deep glow of shame, the reaction from the utter absence of self-consciousness with which she had listened. She had never thought of Sylvester Riddell, while his eyes were shining into hers, and his voice thrilling into her ears; now she felt as if the eyes and the voice would never leave her. Three times he had been concerned in her fate.

Now, he had told her nothing that she did not know before, but he had given her the impulse to act upon her own inner convictions.

Amethyst was a strong and resolute person, but she shuddered as she thought of the battle that lay before her. She had allowed the brilliant and delightful present to distract her mind from its issues, and to blind her eyes to the vanishing point of all her success. She had been so taken up with interests and amusements, and with the triumph of her beauty, that she had suffered herself to forget the nature of the act to which all was tending, had talked, and thought, and prepared for a worldly marriage, without allowing herself to realise what a marriage without love meant. The pomps and vanities of this wicked world had caught her in their toils.

So she had tied her own hands, and put herself in a false position, entangled herself in all sorts of counter obligations, which must be broken through at the cost of honour and faith.

When she turned round, not five minutes after Sylvester had left her, and saw Sir Richard Grattan coming into the room, she felt that in another five minutes all her power of resistance would be gone. She clasped her hands together behind her back, and stood straight up and waited. Sir Richard’s face was disturbed, and not quite that of an eager lover.

“Miss Haredale,” he said, in his harsh, full, resolute voice, “I have heard a good deal this morning to surprise me. But I am a man of honour, and in the face of these distressing circumstances, I come to renew the offer I have more than once made you, and I hope for a favourable answer.”

“You have laid us under great obligations,” said Amethyst, a little more proudly than she would have dared to speak, if he had not referred to his own honour.

“I have acted pretty much with my eyes open, though I did not know of this last—misfortune. I consider it all quite worth my while. It won’t be the last time, I dare say, that difficulties may arise, but I considered all that, or most of it, before I began to address you. I don’t consider that my credit is in any way affected by other people’s conduct. I have acted all through in the hope, the determination to win you, and, as my wife, no annoyances shall be suffered to approach you.”

“Sir Richard,” said Amethyst, “I wish to tell you the truth. I have been meaning to—to accept your proposals for a long time. Certainly I have given you reason to think I should. I have to tell you that I find, now, that it is utterly impossible. I beg your pardon. I have behaved very ill. But I cannot fulfil my intention.”

Sir Richard gave a great start.

“I know what this means,” he said abruptly; “some one has come between us. It is your old lover.”

“No,” said Amethyst, “the truth is your due. I refused Mr Leigh’s proposals. I solemnly assure you that you have no rival. There is no one else. I don’t prefer any one. But—it is myself. I have found out that I cannot return your feelings—I never told you that I could. And I know now that I could not make you a good wife. If I married only for the sake of outside things, all the good part of me would die out I never—never ought to have entertained the idea.”

“I am quite aware,” said Sir Richard, somewhat hotly, “that I am not the first in the field, nor the only one. But I was given to understand that your early attachment was entirely at an end.”

“It is so. There is no one that I wish to marry.” When Amethyst had made this assertion to Lucian Leigh, he had implicitly believed her, but as she raised her eyes to Sir Richard, she saw that he did not think that she was telling the truth. Probably he did not expect truth on such a subject from a young lady. She saw that it would be absolutely hopeless to make him understand the real state of her mind, and a sudden sense of violent recoil came to the aid of her courage.

He was very angry, but he made a strong effort to control himself and to behave well.

“I don’t think I have deserved this caprice,” he said.

“No, I don’t think you have,” said Amethyst, “you have offered me much more than I deserve. I have been very wrong; I will not pretend to you that I did not once mean to accept you. But I never shall do so now—never.”

“It would be very unbecoming in me,” said Sir Richard, “if I recalled any of the means by which I have endeavoured to recommend myself. Amethyst, don’t drive me crazy. Don’t you know that I worship you? I will not give you up. I’ve swallowed everything about your family. I am prepared to make a queen of you. There’s nothing my money and your beauty won’t command. You shall be the greatest lady, short of royalty, in England in five years’ time. You’ll take the lead in the county, and with it all, you’ll never have reason to be ashamed of your husband. I’ve a fair square past behind me. My money’s honestly come by, and, by heaven, there’s a great future before me—and my wife. And I love you.”

It was not badly done. It was all true. It was what she had meant her beauty to win for her.

“I can’t,” she said, turning white, and trembling; “you don’t understand what I’m made of. If I loved you, I could be the splendid wife you want, but as I don’t—I should hate all that—and very soon I should hate you?”

She spoke low, but in a voice full of passion. His colour rose, and he came close to her side.

“Who is it? Who has come between us?” he said, when there was the sound of a soft sweep and rustle, and Lady Haredale’s light sweet voice was heard saying—

“Well, I think you have had time enough to settle it, Sir Richard. Am I to give up my little girl?”

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Escaped.

There ensued for Amethyst some hours which were terrible to endure, and more terrible still to remember. Sir Richard Grattan, not without some dignity, withdrew to lay his case before Lord Haredale, and left the mother to plead his cause with her child. They had already told each other cynical truths, and now mother and daughter stood face to face, and Lady Haredale told Amethyst the truth without a softening word, without an ambiguous phrase. She told the facts of Lord Haredale’s life, and the causes of his money troubles, and also of those of his son. She told her how he was likely to seek consolation for his disgraceful misfortunes, and made her understand the kind of company to which, if their heads once sank below water, they would be condemned. And then, did Amethyst suppose that she herself had been in love with Lord Haredale when she married him at eighteen, for his title, and because she knew her own fortune was all a myth? Amethyst was more lucky, she had got over her romance, Lady Haredale had had to manage hers after marriage, and Sir Richard was a much better man than Lord Haredale had ever pretended to be.

And then the daughter replied that she was not likely to be better than father or mother; she was quite capable of another “romance,” and what then?

“Then,” said Lady Haredale, “you must do as others have done. Get out of it without a scandal, and stop in time.”