IN SILK ATTIRE (continued 5)

Nothing could well be more lonely or melancholy than this dark and silent lake lying in its circular bed—evidently an extinct volcanic crater—overshadowed by tall and perpendicular crags hemming it in on every side, and scarcely ever having a breath of wind to stir its leaden-like surface. The tall thinly-clad rocks, rising to the circular breadth of white sky above, were faintly mirrored in the black water underneath; and the gloomy stillness of the quiet motionless picture was not relieved by the least stir or sound of any living thing. This hideous hole, its surface nearly four thousand feet above the level of the sea, is of unknown depth: no wonder that the superstitious Schwarzwalders have legends about it, and that the children tell you of the demon-deer that was wont to spring over the tall precipices above, and so lure on the unwary huntsman and his horse to destruction.

There was a boat lying moored in a creek at one corner of the lake, and of this Annie Brunel at once took possession. She insisted on Mrs. Christmas getting into it; and then, with a few strokes of the oars, she pulled out to the centre of the lake. Mrs. Christmas did not at all like the aspect of the place; and, if she had known that she was floating over an extinct volcano, she would probably have liked it less.

"It looks like a place for murders to be committed," she said.

When they had reached the centre of the dark water, Annie laid aside the oars, and seated herself in the stern of the boat with her companion. There was no wind, no current: the boat remained almost motionless.

The old woman took the young girl's hand, and said to her—

"Come now, Miss Annie, you must tell me what has been the matter with you lately—what has vexed you—or what troubles you?"

"I have been thinking of returning to England," she said, absently.

"Why should that trouble you?"

"I am afraid of going back."

"Bah! I have no patience with you. You are as much a child as ever—as when you used to whimper in a makebelieve way, and cause your mother to laugh and cry together over your natural turn for acting."

"My natural turn for acting is going—is nearly gone," said she, with a smile; "and that is what I am afraid about. I am beginning to fear a lot of faces."

"Then why will you remain in such a dreadfully lonely place as this mountain inn? That it is which breeds strange fancies in you, my girl, don't doubt of it. Afraid of faces! Didn't you use to tell me that you were never conscious of seeing a face at all when you were on the stage?"

"I may have said so," she replied, musingly. "I don't think I ever did see faces—except as vague orange-coloured lamps in a sort of ruddy darkness—over the blaze of the footlights, you know. Certainly I never thought of them, nor heeded them. When I went off, and heard the noise of their hands and feet, it seemed like the sound of some machine with which I had no concern. I don't think I ever feared an audience in my life. My mother used to be my audience, as she stood in the wings and looked at me with the half-smile and kindly eyes I remember so well; and then I used to try to please you, you know, and never succeeded, as you also know, Lady Jane; and lately I have not thought of pleasing anybody, but of satisfying a sort of delirium that came over me."

"You never pleased me! You wicked creature! If I were blind and came into a theatre where I heard you playing your 'Juliet,' my eyes would open of their own accord."

"That time has passed over, Lady Jane. I am afraid of going to England. I should see all the faces now, and wonder what the people were saying of my hands outstretched, or of my kneeling posture, or of my elocution. I feel that if I were to get up just now, in this boat, and speak two sentences——"

"You would have us both laughing. But did you ever try before, my dear, to act to a scene? You might as well try to speak to an empty theatre as to that horrible loneliness over there. It was Mr. Bridges, the stage-manager at N——, if you remember, Miss Annie, who used to rehearse in the morning his speech before the curtain—used to wave his hand and smile to the empty benches, and then bow himself out backward. But at night, when the people were there, he always forgot the smile and the wave of the hand, and mumbled like a schoolboy. And as for your not being able to act when you hear the stir of a crowded house on the other side of the curtain, and know there are a dozen bouquets waiting for you in the boxes, why it's nonsense, my dear."

"I am afraid of it none the less, mother, and I shall dread putting myself to the test."

"All the result of this living out of the world," said Mrs. Christmas, dogmatically. "Say, shall we start to-morrow morning, Miss Annie?"

"Yes."

When they returned to the inn there was a letter from Schönstein awaiting Miss Brunel. She knew from the peculiar handwriting who had sent it, and opened it joyfully, knowing that he was at least well enough to write. These were the words:—

"Schönstein, Thursday.

"MY DEAR MISS BRUNEL,—Ever since you left I have bitterly reproached myself for having given you so much annoyance and trouble. I hear that you are living, without amusement or companions, in the Feldberg Inn. May I beg of you to return here, adding the assurance that you will not be troubled by my presence in any way whatever? Whether you do or not, I cannot permit you to leave without bidding you good-bye—especially as we may not see each other in England—and so, if you will forgive me this once, I propose to cross over to the Feldberg to-morrow and visit you," &c., &c.

She read no more; the cramped left-hand writing had told her enough. She hurriedly wrote a reply, peremptorily forbidding him to be at the trouble and danger of such an expedition; and added that, before he could possibly be at the Feldberg, she would be on her way to Freiburg and Basle. Then she called the elder Holzmann, desired him to get a messenger to take over this letter to Schönstein that day, and informed him that on the next morning she and her companion would set out for the south.

It was a point of maidenly honour with her that she should go away with her sad secret her own; and who could tell what disclosure might happen, were she to see him suffering from the effects of the wound, entreating her to stay, and with his own love for her speaking in his eyes? He was a man, and it did not matter; as for her, she closed this fatal tenderness in her heart, and would fain have deceived herself into denying its existence. Truth to say, she felt a touch of shame at her own weakness; was dimly conscious that her virginal purity of soul was tainted by a passion which she dreamed was a guilty one; and knew that her punishment lay in the loss of that innocent gaiety and thoughtlessness which had hitherto made her life so pleasant.

"We may not see each other in England," she said to herself, gazing at the crooked and trembling lines on the paper. "Not in England, nor elsewhere, will be my constant prayer so long as I live."

So they left the gloomy mountain, and passing through the Hollenthal once more, reached Freiburg; and from thence, by easy stages, they made the round of the Swiss lakes until, as fate would have it, they came to Thun. There they rested for a day or two, preparatory to their undertaking the voyage to England.

Here a strange incident befel Annie Brunel. Their first walk lay along the shore of the lake; and no sooner had they left the side of the rapid bright-green Aar, than Mrs. Christmas noticed a strange intense look of wonder settling over her companion's face. Wistfully, and yet curiously, the dark-grey eyes dwelt on the expanding lake, on the long curving bays, on the sunlit mountains opposite, and on the far-off snow-peaks of the Bernese Alps.

"I have seen all this in a dream," she said.

"Or in a picture," suggested Mrs. Christmas.

"It is more than a dream or a picture," she continued, in a half-frightened way, as they walked along. "I know the place—I know it—the shore over there—the village down yonder at the point, and the smoke hanging over the trees;—I am getting quite giddy with—remembering——"

"My dear!" said Mrs. Christmas.

Her companion was now quite pale, and stood fixed to the spot, looking over the long scene in front of her with a wild stare. Then she turned round, as if almost in fear, and no sooner had she done so than she uttered a slight cry, and seemed ready to sink to the ground.

"I knew it!—I knew it!" she said. "I knew the house was there before I turned my head."

She looked up at the handsome building on the plateau above, as if it were some horrible thing come to torture her. It was only the house in which Harry Ormond had bidden her mother farewell.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN ENGLAND.

Mr. Melton was overjoyed to see Annie Brunel in London again. He had spent half his fortune in beautifying his theatre, in getting up elaborate scenery for the new piece with which he was to welcome the return to town of his patrons, and in providing costly properties. So long as the heroine of the piece was wandering among the mountains of the Schwarzwald, it was impossible that the manager's mind could be well at ease.

"You shall come round now, and see what we have done for you, and give us your opinion," said he, politely.

Indeed, he would like to have kissed her just then, in a fatherly way, to show how delighted he was to have her back again. He saw pictures of overflowing audiences before his mind as he looked on the quiet little figure before him, on the dark face, and the large grave eyes.

It was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. A tolerably clear light fell upon the stage, a duskier twilight hung over the rows of empty benches in the pit, and the gloomy darkness behind the galleries was here and there lit up by a solitary lamp. One or two gilders were still at work on the front of the dress-circle; overhead an echoing clang of hammer and nail told that carpenters were busy; and a vague shouting from the dusky region of the "flies" revealed the presence of human beings in those dim Olympian heights. Everywhere, as usual, the smell of escaped gas; here and there an odour of size or paint.

As they descended from the dark corridor behind the dress-circle into the wings, a mass of millinery ran full-tilt against Mr. Melton, and then started back with a slight cry and a giggle.

"God bless my soul!" said the manager, piously, although that was not the part of his body which had suffered.

The next moment Miss Featherstone had thrown her arms around Annie Brunel's neck, and was kissing her and calling her "My dear" with that profusion of sentiment which most actresses love to scatter over the object, pro tem., of their affection. Miss Featherstone was attired in a green silk dress—in many a love-scene had that rather dingy piece of costume figured, on the stage and elsewhere—a blue cloth jacket, a white hat with a scarlet feather, and yellow gloves. During this outburst of emotion, Mr. Melton had caught sight of a young gentleman—to whom he gave thirty shillings a week in order that he might dress as a gentleman should, and always have a good hat to keep on his head while walking about in a drawing-room—who had been in pursuit of Miss Featherstone, and who now sneaked away in another direction.

"And so you've come back, my dear, and none of the German princes have run away with you! And how well you look! I declare I'm quite ashamed of myself when I see the colour in your cheeks; but what with rehearsals, you know, my dear, and other troubles——"

She heaved a pretty and touching sigh. She intimated that these quarrels with the young gentleman who escorted her to and from the stage-door—quarrels which came off at a rate of about seven per week—were disturbing the serenity of her mind so far as to compel her to assist nature with violet-powder and rouge.

"Do you know, my dear," she said, in a whisper that sent Mr. Melton away on his own business, "he swears he will forsake me for ever if I accept a part in which I must wear tights. How can I help it, my dear? What is a poor girl to do?"

"Wear trousers," said Annie Brunel, with a smile.

"Nothing will please him. He would have all my comic parts played in a train half a mile long. At last I told him he had better go and help my mother to cut my skirts and petticoats of a proper length; and he pretended to be deeply hurt, and I haven't seen him since."

Then she tossed her wilful little head with an air of defiance.

"He will write to me before I write to him."

"It is too cruel of you," said her companion.

"Yes, my dear, you may laugh; but you have no burlesque parts to play. And you have nobody sitting in the stalls watching your every movement, and keeping you in a fright about what he is thinking of you."

"No," said Annie Brunel, rather absently, "I have nobody to watch me like that. If I had, I should not be able to go upon the stage, I think."

"And the bitter things he says about the profession—and particularly about Mr. Gannet, and Mr. Marks, and Mr. Jobson—all because they are young men, and he fancies they may be so polite as to lift a glove for me if I let it fall. You know, my dear, that I don't encourage them. If there's any fun at rehearsal, you know that I don't begin it."

"When we met you just now——"

"That was only some of Mr. Murphy's nonsense. Oh, I declare to you, no one knows what I have suffered. The other evening, when he and I got into a cab, he glared at the man who opened the door for us. And the fuss he makes about cosmetique and bismuth is something dreadful."

"He must be a monster."

There now ensued a little fragment of thorough comedy. For a moment the elderly young lady, who had been assuming throughout the tone of a spoiled child, stood irresolute. There was a petulance on her face, and she had half a mind to go away in high dudgeon from one who was evidently laughing at her. Then through this petulance there broke a sort of knowing smile, while a glimmer of mischievous intelligence appeared in her eyes; and then, with an unaffected comical giggle, she once more threw her arms round Annie Brunel's neck and kissed her.

"I'm very wicked, I know," she said, with a shrug of the shoulders, "but I can't help it. What's bred in the bone, you know. And it's all the men's fault, for they keep teasing one so. As for him, if he writes to me, and makes an apology, and promises to be a good boy, I'll make friends with him. And I'll be very good myself—for a week."

It was with a cold inward shiver that Annie Brunel stepped out upon the stage and looked round the empty theatre. She tried to imagine it full of people, and yellow light, and stir, and she knew within herself she dared not venture before them. Even without that solitary pair of eyes watching her movements, and without the consciousness that she might be producing a strong impression, for good or evil, on one particular person whose estimation she desired, she trembled to think of the full house, and the rows of faces, and her own individual weakness.

"What do you think of the decorations, Miss Brunel?" said Mr. Melton, coming up.

"They are very pretty," she said, mechanically.

"With your 'Rosalind,' the theatre should draw all London to it."

"It is 'Rosalind' you mean to play?" she asked, scarcely knowing what she said.

"Certainly," replied the manager, with astonishment. "Don't you remember our agreement? If you turn round, you will see the new forest-scene Mr. Gannet has painted; perhaps it may remind you of something in the Black Forest."

For a moment or two she glanced over the great breadth of canvas, covered with gnarled oaks, impossible brushwood, and a broad, smooth stream. With a short "No, it is not like the Black Forest," she turned away again.

"Miss Featherstone will play 'Celia;' and you know there is not a 'Touchstone' in the world to come near Bromley's. Mrs. Wilkes refuses to play 'Audrey,' luckily, and Miss Alford will play it a deal better. I have had several rehearsals, everybody is declared letter-perfect; and we only you to put the keystone to the arch, as one might say."

She turned quickly round and said to him—

"If I were at the last moment prevented from playing in the piece, could Miss Featherstone take 'Rosalind,' and some one else play 'Celia?'"

"What do you mean, my dear Miss Brunel?" said the manager, aghast. "You frighten me, I assure you. I calculated upon you; and after all this expense, and your agreement, and——"

"Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Melton," she said, quietly. "I mean to play the part so as to give every satisfaction both to you and myself, if I can. I only asked in the event of any accident."

"Come," said he, kindly, "I can't have you talk in that strain, with such a prospect before us. Why, we are going to set all London, as well as the Thames, on fire, and have the prices of the stalls going at a hundred per cent. premium. An accident! Bah! I wish Count Schönstein were here to laugh the notion out of your head."

So it was, therefore, that the play was put in full rehearsal for several days, and Mr. Melton looked forward hopefully to the success of his new venture. Sometimes he was a little disquieted by the remembrance of Miss Brunel's singular question; but he strove to banish it from his mind. He relied upon his new scenery and decorations, and upon Annie Brunel; the former were safe, and he would take care to secure the latter.

The gentlemen of the press had been good enough to mention the proposed revival in terms of generous anticipation. Altogether, Mr. Melton had every reason to hope for the best.

Occasionally he observed an unusual constraint in the manner of his chief favourite, and sometimes a listless indifference to what was going on around her. One or twice he had caught her standing idly behind the foot-lights, gazing into the empty theatre with a vague earnestness which revealed some inward purpose. He still trusted that all would go well; and yet he confessed to himself that there was something about the young actress's manner that he had never noticed before, and which he could not at all understand.

Mrs. Christmas seemed to share with him this uneasy feeling. He knew that the old lady was now in the habit of lecturing her pupil in a derisive way, as if trying to banish some absurd notion from her mind; and whenever he approached, Mrs. Christmas became silent.

For the first time during their long companionship Mrs. Christmas found her young friend incomprehensibly obstinate, not to say intractable. Night and day she strove to convince her that in anticipating nervousness and failure, she was rendering both inevitable; and yet she could not, by all her arguments and entreaties, remove this gloomy apprehension.

"I cannot explain the feeling," was the constant reply. "I only know it is there."

"But you, of all people, Miss Annie! Girls who have suddenly come to try the stage get fits of stage-fright naturally: but people who are born and bred to it, who have been on the stage since their childhood——"

"Why should you vex yourself, mother? I have no dread of stage-fright. I shall be as cool as I am now. Don't expect that I shall blunder in my part, or make mistakes otherwise—that is not what I mean. What I fear is, that the moment I go upon the stage, and see the men and women all around me, I shall feel that I am just like one of them, only a little lower in having to amuse them. I shall feel as if I ought to be ashamed of myself in imitating the real emotions of life."

"You never had any of those fantastic notions before. Didn't you use to pride yourself on your indifference to the people?"

"I used to."

"What has changed you?"

"My growing older," she replied, with a sad smile. "I begin to feel as if those things that make up acting had become part of my own life now, and that I had no business to burlesque them any more on the stage. I begin to wonder what the people will think of my lending myself to a series of tricks."

And here she fell into a reverie, which Mrs. Christmas saw it was useless to interrupt. The worthy old woman was sorely puzzled and grieved by the apostacy of her most promising pupil, and ceased not to speculate on what subtle poison had been allowed to creep into her mind.

Meanwhile the opening night had arrived. People had come back from the moors and Mont Blanc, and every place in the theatre had been taken. Mr. Melton already enjoyed his triumph by anticipation, and tried every means of keeping up Annie Brunel's spirits. She was bound to achieve the most brilliant of all her successes, as he confidently told her.

CHAPTER XXII.

ROSALIND.

"Ah, mon bon petit public, be kind to my leetel child!" says Achille Talma Dufard, when his daughter is about to go on the stage for the first time. The words were in the heart, if not on the lips, of Mrs. Christmas, as the kindly old woman busied herself in Annie Brunel's dressing-room, and prepared her favourite for the coming crisis. She had a vague presentiment that it was to be a crisis, though she did not know why.

By the time the inevitable farce was over, the house was full. Miss Featherstone, rushing downstairs to change her costume of a barmaid for that of 'Celia,' brought word that all the critics were present, that Royalty was expected, and that her own particular young gentleman had laughed so heartily at the farce that she was sure he was in a good humour, and inclined to let bygones be bygones.

"So you must cheer up," said Mrs. Christmas, blithely, when Nelly had gone; "you must cheer up, and do great things, my dear."

"Am I not sufficiently cheerful, Lady Jane?"

"Cheerful? Cheerful? Yes, perhaps cheerful. But you must forget all you have been saying about the people, and mind only your character, and put fire and spirit into it. Make them forget who you are, my dear, and then you'll only think of yourself as 'Rosalind.' Isn't your first cue 'Be merry'?"

"Then I will be merry, mother, or anything else you wish. So don't vex your poor little head about me. I shall add a grey hair to it if you bother yourself so much."

"You would find it hard to change it now, unless you changed it to black," said Lady Jane.

When 'Rosalind' and 'Celia' together appeared on the stage, a long and hearty welcome was given forth from every part of the house. Mr. Melton was standing in the wings with Mrs. Christmas, and his dry grey face brightened up with pleasure.

"They have not forgotten her, have they?" he said, triumphantly.

"How could they?" was the natural response.

From that moment the old woman's eyes never left the form of her scholar during the progress of the play. Keenly and narrowly she watched the expression of her face, her manner of acting, the subtle harmony of word and gesture which, in careful keeping, make the part of 'Rosalind' an artistic wonder. And the more narrowly she studied her pupil's performance, the more she convinced herself that there was nothing to be found fault with. The timid pleasantries, the tender sadness, the coy love advances, tempered and beautified by that unconscious halo of modesty and virgin grace which surrounds the gentlest of all Shakspeare's heroines, were there before her eyes, and she was forced to say to herself that no 'Rosalind' could be more charming than this 'Rosalind.' She did not reflect that never before had she been constrained so to convince herself, and that never before had she been so anxious to know the effect on the audience.

That, so far as was yet appreciable, was satisfactory. The mere charm of admirably artistic acting, combined with a graceful figure and a pretty face, was enough to captivate any body of spectators. Mrs. Christmas, however, dared not confess to herself that they seemed to want that electric thrill of sympathy which had been wont to bring them and the young actress immediately en rapport. Once only did they in the first act catch that swift contagion of delight which flashes through an audience bound by the master-spell of genius. It was where 'Rosalind,' having graced the victorious wrestler with a chain from her own neck, is about to go away with 'Celia,' and yet is loth to go without having had speech of the young man who has so awakened her interest. The half-interpreted longing, the hesitating glance, and maiden bashfulness with which she turned to him and said:

"Did you call, sir?—

Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown

More than your enemies,"

—her eyes first seeking his face, and then being cast down, as the words became almost inaudible—provoked the house into a sudden tempest of applause which covered her disappearance from the scene, Mrs. Christmas caught her as she came off, and kissed her, with nervous tears in her eyes.

At the end of the first act she was called before the curtain. Any one calmly observing the house would have seen that it was not very enthusiastic, and that it fell to talking almost before she had passed behind the curtain at the opposite side. Then she went down to her dressing-room.

Mrs. Christmas welcomed her and complimented her with an emphasis which was a little forced and unnecessary. Annie Brunel said nothing, but stood and contemplated, with her straight-looking honest eyes, the poor little woman who was courageously trying to act her part naturally. Then she sate down.

"Do you think I did my best, mother?" she said. And again she fixed her large eyes, with a kind conciliation in them, on her aged friend.

"Of course——"

"And you were watching me, I think?"

"Yes."

"And the house?"

"A little," said Mrs. Christmas, rather nervously.

"Then you know," she said, calmly, "that I have made a total failure, that the people think so, and that to-morrow every one, including the papers, will say so."

"My dear!——"

"Why should we not speak frankly, mother? I felt it within myself, and I saw it in their faces. And I knew it before I went on the stage."

"That is it! That has done it all!" exclaimed the old woman, inclined to wring her hands in despair and grief. "You convinced yourself that you were going to fail, and then, when you went on the stage, you lost command over yourself."

"Had I not command over myself?" the young girl asked, with a smile. "I had so great command of myself that I knew and was conscious of everything I did—the tiniest thing—and kept continually asking myself how it would impress the people. I was never in the least excited; had I been—but there is no use talking, Lady Jane. Help me to change my dress; I suppose I must go through with it."

So Mrs. Christmas officiated in place of Sarah, whom she always ordered out of the way on grand occasions; and, as she did so, she still administered counsel and reproof, not having quite given up hope.

Two of the most distinguished of the critics met in the lobby leading to the stalls.

"A pity, is it not?" said one.

The other merely shrugged his shoulders.

The general run of the critics fancied that Annie Brunel had added another to her list of brilliant successes, and were already shaping in their brain elaborate sentences overflowing with adjectives.

Lord Weyminster, whom people considered to have a share in the proprietary of the theatre, went behind the scenes and met Mr. Melton.

"This won't do, my boy," he said.

"Do you think not?" said the manager, anxiously. "They received her very warmly."

"They received Miss Brunel warmly, but not her 'Rosalind.'"

"What's to be done?"

"Change the piece."

"I can't. Perhaps it was only a temporary indisposition."

"Perhaps," said his lordship, carelessly. "I never saw such a difference in the acting of any woman. Formerly she was full of fire; to-night she was wooden—pretty enough, and proper enough, but wooden."

Further consolation or advice Mr. Melton could not get out of his patron. In despair, he said that his lordship was exaggerating a temporary constraint on the part of the young actress, and that the succeeding scenes would bring her out in full force.

The wood scene was of course charming. Miss Featherstone's young gentleman, sitting in the stalls, surrendered himself to the delicious intoxication of the moment ('Celia,' it will be remembered, wears long petticoats), and wondered whether he could write a poem on the forest of Ardennes. He was in that fond period of existence when the odour of escaped gas, anywhere, at once awoke for him visions of greenwood scenery and romantic love-affairs; and when the perfume of cold cream conjured up the warm touch of a certain tender cheek—for Miss Featherstone, when in a hurry to get home from the theatre, occasionally left her face unwashed.

The people never lost interest in the play. Indeed, being Londoners, they were sufficiently glad to see any character played with careful artistic propriety, and it was only as an afterthought that they missed the old thrill of Annie Brunel's acting. It could always be said of the part that it was gracefully and tenderly done, void of coarse comedy and of clap-trap effects. It struck a certain low and chastened key of sweetness and harmony that partially atoned for the absence of more daring and thrilling chords.

And yet Annie Brunel went home sick at heart. The loss of popular favour did not trouble her; for had not the people been remarkably kind, and even enthusiastic, in their final call? It was the certain consciousness that the old power had passed away from her for ever—or rather, that the intensity and emotional abandonment of her artistic nature had been sucked into her own personal nature, and was never more to be separately exhibited as a beautiful and wonderful human product.

"Mother, I am tired of acting," she said. "It has been weighing upon me ever so long; but I thought I ought to give myself one more chance, and see if the presence of a big audience would not remove my sickness. No; it has not. Everything I had anticipated occurred. I was not frightened: but I knew that all the people were there, and that I could not command them. I was not 'Rosalind' either to them or to myself; and it was not 'Rosalind' whom they applauded. The noise they made seemed to me to have a tone of pity in it, as if they were trying to deceive me into thinking well of the part."

All this she said quietly and frankly; and Mrs. Christmas sate stunned and silent. It seemed to the old woman that some terrible calamity had occurred. She could not follow the subtle sympathies and distinctions of which the young actress spoke: she knew only that something had happened to destroy the old familiar compact between them, and that the future was full of a gloomy uncertainty.

"I don't know what to say, Miss Annie. You know best what your feelings are. I know there's something wrong somewhere——"

"Don't talk so mournfully," said she. "If I don't act any more we shall find something else to keep us out of starvation."

"If you don't act any more!" said the old woman, in a bewildered way. "If you don't act any more! Tell me, Miss Annie, what you mean. You're not serious? You don't mean that because your 'Rosalind' mayn't have gone off pretty well, you intend to give up the stage altogether—at your time of life—with your prospects—my darling, tell me what you mean?"

She went over and took her companion's two hands in her own.

"Why, mother, you tremble as if you expected some terrible misfortune to happen to us. You will make me as nervous as yourself if you don't collect yourself. You have not been prepared for it as I have been. I have known for some time that I should not be able to act when I returned to London——"

With a slight scream, she started up and caught her friend, who was tottering and like to fall in her arms. The old woman had been unable to receive this intelligence all at once. It was too appalling and too sudden; and when at last some intimation of it came home to her mind, she reeled under the shock. She uttered some incoherent words—"my charge of you," "your mother," "the future"—and then she sank quite insensible upon the sofa to which Annie Brunel had half-carried her.

CHAPTER XXIII.

HOME AGAIN.

Count Schönstein was in love. His ponderous hilarity had quite gone out of him. After Miss Brunel's departure, he moved about the house alone and disconsolate; he was querulous about his meals; he forgot to tell lies about the price of his wines. He ceased to joke about marriage; he became wonderfully polite to the people about him, and above all to Will Anerley; and every evening after dinner he was accustomed to sit and smoke silently in his chair, going over in his mind all the incidents of Annie Brunel's visit, and hoping that nothing had occurred to offend her.

Sometimes, in a fit of passionate longing, he wished he was again a tea-dealer and she the daughter of one of his clerks. He grew sick of his ambitious schemes; inwardly cursed the aristocracy of this and every other country; and prayed for some humble cottage, with Annie Brunel for his wife, and with nothing for himself to do but sit and smoke, and watch the grape-clusters over the verandah.

Twenty years before he had been afflicted by the same visions. They did not alter much his course of life then; nor did he permit them to move him much now—except after dinner, when most people become generously impulsive and talkative. In one of these moods he confessed to Will the passion which disturbed his repose.

Will stared at him, for the mere thought of such a thing seemed to him a sort of sacrilege; but the next moment he asked himself what right he had to resent the Count's affection for Annie Brunel as an insult, and then he was silent.

"Tell me, have I a chance?" said the Count.

"How can I tell you?" he replied.

"You were very friendly with her. You do not imagine there is anybody else in the young lady's graces?"

"I don't know of any one whom Miss Brunel is likely to marry; but, as I say, how can I tell?"

"You imagine I have a fair field?" asked the Count, rather timidly.

"Oh, yes!" said Will, with a laugh, in which there was just a touch of bitterness. "But that is not the way you used to talk about women, and marriage, and so forth. Do you remember how you gloated over the saying of that newspaper man who was at the 'Juliet' supper—about being 'sewn up in a theological sack with a partner for life?' I suppose you were only whistling in the dark, to scare the ghosts away, and now——"

There was no need to complete the sentence. The doleful look on the Count's rubicund face told its own tale. He shook his head, rather sadly, and contemplatively stirred his Moselle with a bit of biscuit.

"It's time a man like me was married. I have plenty of money to give my wife her own way: we shan't quarrel. There's that big house standing empty; you can't expect people to come and visit you, if you've nobody to receive them. Look how perfectly Miss Brunel could do that. Look at the grace of her demeanour, and her courtesy, and all that: why, though she's ever so little a thing, she looks like an empress when she comes into a room. I never could get elsewhere such a wife as she would make."

"Doubtless not; but the point is to get her," said Will, almost defiantly—he did not know whether to laugh at or be indignant with the Count's cool assumption.

"I tell you I would marry her if she was nothing but what she is——" the Count said, vehemently, and then he suddenly paused, with a look of frightened embarrassment on his face.

"How could she be anything else than what she is?" asked Will, carelessly: he had not observed the Count's trepidation.

"Oh—well—ah—if she were nothing more than an ordinary actress, without the manners of a lady, I should be inclined to marry her, on account of her—her sweetness of disposition, you know."

"What magnanimity!" said Will.

"Laugh as you please," said the Count, with a touch of offended dignity, "there are few men in my position who would marry an actress. If I should marry Miss Brunel, I should consider that while she did me a favour I paid her quite as great a compliment. Look at the estimation in which actresses are held. Look at those women of the —— theatre; at Miss ——, and Miss ——, and Miss ——. Don't the public know all about them? And the public won't stop to pick out one respectable actress from the lot, and be just to her. They all suffer for the sins of the majority; and any actress, whatever may be her personal character, ought to know that she lies under the ban of social suspicion, and——"

"Excuse my interrupting you. But you needn't seek to lower Miss Brunel in my opinion: I am not going to marry her. And I should advise you not to attempt to lower her in her own opinion, if you mean to remain friends with her. You can't humble a woman into accepting you; you may flatter her into accepting you. If a woman does not think she is conferring a favour in marrying you, she won't at all—that is, if she is the sort of a woman any man would care to marry."

"Leave that to me, my boy, leave that to me," said the Count, with a superb smile. "I rather fancy, if flattery is to win the day, that I shall not be far behind."

"And yet I heard you one evening say to Nelly Featherstone that 'all pretty women were idiots.' How could any woman help being offended by such a remark?"

"Why, don't you see, you greenhorn, that Nelly isn't pretty——"

"And you as good as told her so," said Will. "Besides, Nelly, like every other woman, fancies she is pretty in a certain way, and would rather that you had informed her of her idiotcy than of her plainness."

The Count blushed deeply. In making the remark to Miss Featherstone, he had imagined he was exhibiting a most remarkable and subtle knowledge of human weakness; and hoped to console her for the shape of her nose by sneering at the stupidity of prettier women. But the Count was a rich man, and a great favourite of Mr. Melton; and Nelly, being a prudent young woman, pocketed the affront.

A variety of circumstances now transpired to hasten the return of both Will and the Count to England. The former could do scarcely anything to the business for which he had come, through his inability to use his right arm. There were, besides, certain growing symptoms of irritation in the wounds which he had fancied were slowly healing, which made him anxious to consult some experienced English surgeon. Such were his ostensible reasons.

Under these circumstances, what pleasure could the Count have in remaining in Schönstein alone? He preferred to have Will's company on the homeward journey; and besides, he was personally interested in learning whether the injuries his friend had suffered were likely to become more dangerous. Such were his ostensible reasons.

But the crowning thought of both of them, as they turned their back upon Schönstein, was—"I shall soon see Annie Brunel."

As they passed through the village, Margarethe Halm came out from under her father's door, and the driver stopped the carriage.

"You will see the young English lady when you return home?" said Grete to Will, with a blush on her pretty brown face.

"And if I do?"

"Will you give her this little parcel? it is my work."

With that she slipped the parcel into his hand. At this moment Hans Halm came forward and bade both the gentlemen good-bye; and in that moment Grete, unnoticed, timidly handed up to Hermann, who was seated beside the driver, another little parcel. There was a slight quivering of the lips as she did so; and then she turned away, and went up to her own room, and threw herself, sobbing, on the bed in quite a passion of grief, not daring to look after the carriage as it rolled away into the forest.

Hermann stealthily opened the packet, and found therein a little gilt Gebetbuch, with coloured pictures of the saints throughout it, and a little inscription in front in Grete's handwriting. Franz Gersbach, having been over at Donaueschingen, had secretly bought the tiny prayer-book for her; and he knew all the time for whom it was intended.

"She is a good girl," said Hermann, "and a good girl makes a good wife. I will go once more to England, but never after that—no, not if I had seven hundred Counts for my master."

They stopped a day at Strasbourg, and there they found a lot of English newspapers of recent date.

"Look what the people are saying of Miss Brunel!" said Will, utterly confounded by the tone in which the journals spoke of 'Rosalind.'

The Count took up paper after paper, and eagerly scanned such notices of the pieces as he could find.

"They are not very enthusiastic," said he; "but they are really most complimentary——"

"Complimentary? Yes; but only to Miss Brunel, not to 'Rosalind.' Don't you see in every one of them how the writer, wishing to speak as highly as possible of her, scarcely knows how to throw cold water on the play? And yet cold water is thrown abundantly. The unanimity of these critiques simply says this—that Miss Brunel's 'Rosalind' is a failure."

"How will she bear it?" said the Count.

"She will bear it with the self-possession and sweetness that always cling to her."

For a moment he thought of an old simile of his of her being like an Æolian harp, which struck harshly or softly, by the north wind or the gentle south, could only breathe harmony in return. Would that fine perfection of composure still remain with her, now that her generous artistic aspirations seemed to have been crushed in some way? He knew himself—for the divine light of her face in certain moments had taught him—that there is no joy upon earth to be compared with the joy of artistic creation. He could imagine, then, that the greatest possible misery is that which results from strong desire and impotent faculty.

"It is 'Rosalind' that is wrong, not she," he said. "Or she may be suffering from some indisposition—at any rate they may spare their half-concealed compassion. Let her get a part to suit her—and then!"

He was not quite satisfied. How was it that none of the critics—and some of them were men of the true critical, sensitive temperament, quick to discern the subtle personal relations existing between an artist and his art—dwelt upon the point that the part was obviously unsuited to her? Indeed, did not every one who had seen her in divers parts know that there were few parts which were so obviously suited to her?

"I know what it is!" said the Count. "There aren't enough people returned to town to fill the theatre, and she has been disheartened." And he already had some recklessly extravagant idea of filling the house with "paper" at his own expense.

"But there you read that the theatre was crammed," said Will.

"True," said the Count, gravely. "I hope there's nobody whom she has refused to see, or something like that, has been bribing all the papers out of spite?"

"They do that only in French plays," said Will. "I should think it more likely that the girl has been put out of sorts by some private affliction. We shall see when we get home."

Then he reflected with a bitter pang that now he was debarred from ever approaching that too dear friend of his and asking about her welfare. Whatever she might be suffering, through private sorrow or public neglect, he could no longer go forward and offer a comforting hand and a comforting word. When he thought that this privilege was now monopolised by the big, well-meaning, blundering Count, he was like to break his own resolve and vow to go straight to her the moment his feet touched English soil.

They crossed the Channel during the day; when they arrived in London, towards the evening, Will drove straight to his chambers, and the Count went home.

"You won't go down to St. Mary-Kirby," the latter had said, "to see that charming little Dove? what a devilish fine woman she'll make!—you ought to consider yourself a happy fellow."

"It is too late," said Will, "to go down to-night. Besides, they don't expect me until to-morrow."

So he went to his lodgings; and there, having changed his dress, he found himself with the evening before him. He walked round to his club, read one or two letters that awaited him, went up to the smoking-room and found not a human being in the place—nothing but empty easy-chairs, chess-board tables, dishevelled magazines, and a prevailing odour of stale cigars—and then he went out and proceeded in the direction of the theatre in which Annie Brunel was at that moment playing. That goal had been uppermost in his thoughts ever since he left Calais pier in the morning.

The tall, pale, muscular man—and people noticed that he had his right arm in a sling—who now paid his four or five shillings, walked upstairs, and slunk into the back seat of the dress-circle, was as nervous and as much afraid of being seen as a schoolboy thieving fruit. Perhaps it was the dread of seeing, as much as the fear of being seen, that made his heart beat; perhaps it was only expectation; but he bethought himself that in the twilight of the back seats of the circle his figure would be too dusky to be recognised, especially by one who had to look—if she looked at all—over the strong glare of the footlights.

The act drop was down when he entered—the orchestra playing the last instalment of Offenbach's confectionery music. The whole house was in the act of regarding two young ladies, dressed as little as possible in white silk, with wonderful complexions, towers of golden hair on their heads, and on their faces an assumed unconsciousness of being stared at, who occupied a box by themselves. The elder of them had really beautiful features of an old French type—the forehead low and narrow, the eyelids heavy, the eyes large, languid, melancholy, the nose thin and a little retroussée, the mouth small, the lips thin and rather sad, the cheeks blanched and a trifle sunken, the line of the chin and neck magnificent. The beautiful, sad woman sate and stared wistfully at the glare of the gas; sometimes smiling, in a cold way, to her companion, a plump, commonplace beauty of a coarse English type, who had far too much white on her forehead and neck. Together, however, they seemed to make a sufficiently pretty picture to provoke that stolid British gaze which has something of the idiot but more of the animal in it.

When the curtain rose again the spectators found themselves in Arden forest, with the Duke and his lords before them; and they listened to the talk of these poor actors as though they heard some creatures out of the other world converse. But from Will Anerley all the possibility of this generous delusion had fled. He shrank back, lest some of the men might have recognised him, and might carry the intelligence of his presence to Annie Brunel. Perhaps the Duke had just spoken to her; perhaps she was then looking on the scene from the wings. It was no longer Arden forest to him. The perspective of the stream and of the avenues of the trees vanished, and he saw only a stained breadth of canvas that hid her from his sight. Was she walking behind that screen? Could the actors on the stage see her in one of the entrances? And was it not a monstrous and inconceivable thing that these poor, wretched, unambitious, and not very clean-shaven men were breathing the same atmosphere with her, that they sometimes touched her dress in passing, that her soft dark eyes regarded them?

You know that 'Rosalind' comes into this forest of Arden weary, dispirited, almost broken-hearted, in company with the gentle 'Celia' and the friendly 'Touchstone.' As the moment approached for her entrance, Anerley's breath came and went all the quicker. Was she not now just behind that board or screen? What was the expression of her face; and how had she borne up against the dull welcome that awaited her in England? He thought he should see only 'Rosalind' when she came upon the stage—that Annie Brunel might now be standing in the wings, but that 'Rosalind' only would appear before him.

He never saw 'Rosalind' at all. He suddenly became conscious that Annie Brunel—the intimate companion who had sate beside him in long railway-journeys, who had taken breakfast with him, and played cards with him in the evening—had come out before all these people to amuse or interest them; and that the coarse, and stupid, and vicious, and offensive faces that had been staring a few minutes ago at the two creatures in white silk were now staring in the same manner at her—at her who was his near friend. A wonderful new throb went through his heart at that thought—a throb that reddened his pale cheek. He saw no more of 'Rosalind,' nor of Annie Brunel either. He watched only the people's faces—watched them with eyes that had no pleasant light in them. Who were these people, that they dared to examine her critically, that they presumed to look on her with interest, that they had the unfathomable audacity to look at all? He could not see the costermongers in the gallery; but he saw the dress-coated publicans and grocers around him, and he regarded their stupidly delighted features with a savage scorn. This spasm of ungovernable hatred for the stolid, good-hearted, incomprehensible British tradesman was not the result of intellectual pride; but the consequence of a far more powerful passion. How many years was it since Harry Ormond had sate in his box, and glared with a bitter fury upon the people who dared to admire and applaud Annie Brunel's mother?

In especial there were two men, occupying a box by themselves, against whom he was particularly vengeful. As he afterwards learned from Mr. Melton, they were the promoters of a company which sold the best port, sherry, champagne, hock, burgundy, and claret at a uniform rate of ten shillings a dozen; and, in respect of their long advertisements, occasionally got a box for nothing through this or that newspaper. They were never known to drink their own wines; but they were partial to the gin of the refreshment-room; and, after having drunk a sufficient quantity of that delicious and cooling beverage, they grew rather demonstrative. Your honest cad watches a play attentively; the histrionic cad assumes the part of those florid-faced gentlemen—mostly officers—who come down to a theatre after dinner and laugh and joke during the progress of the piece, with their backs turned on the performers. A gentleman who has little brains, much loquacity, and an extra bottle of claret, is bad enough; but the half-tipsy cad who imitates him is immeasurably worse. The two men in question, wishing to be considered "d—d aristocratic," talked so as to be heard across the theatre, ogled the women with their borrowed opera-glasses instead of looking at the play, and burst forth with laughter at the "sentimental" parts. It was altogether an inspiriting exhibition, which one never sees out of England.

And the gentle 'Rosalind,' too, was conscious that these men were looking at her. How could it be Arden forest to her—how could she be 'Rosalind' at all—if she was aware of the presence of such people, if she feared their inattention, and shrank from their laugh?

"What the papers have said about her is right," said Will to himself. "Something must have happened to dispirit her or upset her, and she seems not to care much about the part."

The charm of her acting was there—one could sit and watch with an extreme delight the artistic manipulation of those means which are obviously at the actor's hand—but there was a subtle something wanting in the play. It was pretty and interesting while it lasted; but one could have permitted it to drop at any moment without regret.

There is, as everybody knows, a charming scene in the drama, in which 'Rosalind,' disguised as a youth, coaxes 'Orlando' to reveal all his love for her. There is in it every variety of coy bashfulness, and wayward fun, and half-suggested tenderness which an author could conceive or the most accomplished actress desire to represent. When 'Orlando' wishes he could convince this untoward page of his extreme love for 'Rosalind,' the disguised 'Rosalind' says merrily, "Me believe it? You may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do, than to confess she does: that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth," she adds, suddenly changing her tone into tender, trustful entreaty, "are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein 'Rosalind' is so admired?" And then again she asks, "But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?"

'Rosalind' turned the side of her face to her lover, as if her ear wished to drink in the sweet assurance; and her eyes, which fronted the audience, stared vacantly before her, as if they too were only interested in listening; while a light, happy smile dawned upon her lips. Suddenly the eyes, vacantly gazing into the deep theatre, seemed to start into a faint surprise, and a deadly pallor overspread her face. She tried to collect herself—'Orlando' had already answered—she stumbled, looked half-wildly at him for a moment, and then burst into tears. The house was astonished, and then struck with a fit of admiration which expressed itself in rounds of applause. To them it was no hysterical climax to a long series of sad and solitary reveries, but a transcendant piece of stage effect. It was the over-excited 'Rosalind' who had just then burst into tears of joy on learning how much her lover loved her.

'Orlando' was for the moment taken aback; but the applause of the people gave him time to recover himself, and he took her hand, and went on with the part as if nothing had happened. He and the people in the stage-boxes saw that her tears were real, and that she could scarcely continue the part for a sort of half-hysterical sobbing; but the majority of those in the theatre were convinced that Annie Brunel was the greatest actress they had ever seen, and wondered why the newspapers had spoken so coldly of her performance.

Will knew that she had seen him; he had caught that swift, electric glance. But, not knowing any reason why the seeing him should produce such profound emotion, he, too, fancied that her bursting into tears was a novel and pretty piece of acting. However, for his own sake, he did not wish to sit longer there; and so he rose and left.

But the streets outside were so cold and dark compared with Arden! The chill night air, the gloomy shadows of the broad thoroughfare, the glare of gas-lamps on the pavement, and the chatter of cabmen, were altogether too great a change from 'Rosalind' and the poetry-haunted forest. Nor could he bear the thought of leaving her there among those happy faces, in the warm and joyous atmosphere of romance, while he walked solitarily home to his solitary chambers. He craved for her society, and was content to share it with hundreds of strangers. Merely to look upon her face was such a delight to him that he yielded himself to it irrespective of consequences. So he walked round to another entrance, and stole into a corner of the pit.

Was the delight or the torture the greater? He was now within view of the rows of well-dressed men and women in the stalls, who seemed so pleased with 'Rosalind.' It is one of the profound paradoxes of lore, that while making selfish men unselfish and generous to a degree, it begets in the most unselfish of men an unreasoning and brutal self-regard. He hated them for their admiration. He hated them the more especially that their admiration was worth having. He hated them because their admiration was likely to please Annie Brunel.

It might have been imagined that his anger would have been directed chiefly against those idiotic drapers' assistants and clerks who sate and burlesqued the piece, and sneered at the actress. But no; it was the admiration of the intelligent and accomplished part of the audience he feared; was it not sufficient to interpose between him and her a subtle barrier? He could have wished that the whole theatre was hissing her, that so his homage and tenderness and respect might be accounted as of some worth. He fancied she was in love with the theatre, and he hated all those attractions of the theatre which caused her love with a profound and jealous hatred.

At length the play came to an end, and there was no longer an excuse for his remaining, as Annie Brunel, of course, did not play in the short piece which followed. So he went outside, and in getting into the street he found himself behind the two wine-merchants who had been in the box.

"Why not?" said the one to the other, gaily.

"If she gets into a rage, so much the better fun. 'Rosalind' must be d—d pretty in a fury."

"All right," said the other, with a hiccup.

Will had heard the words distinctly; and the mere suspicion they suggested caused his blood to boil. When the two men turned into the narrow lane leading round to the stage-door of the theatre, he followed them with his mouth hard and firm, and his eyes not looking particularly amiable.

At the entrance to the lane stood Miss Brunel's cab. He recognised the face of the venerable jarvie who was accustomed to wait for her every evening.

He passed up the lane; the two men had paused in front of the small wooden door, and were trying to decipher, by the aid of the lamp overhead, the features of whomsoever passed in or out.

"She won't be here for an hour," said one of them.

"Shouldn't wonder if she went home in Rosalind's dress," said the other, with another hiccup.

"She'll 'it you, 'Arry, if you speak to her."

"Let her. I'd rather like it, 'pon my soul."

The stage-door was continually being swung to and fro by some one passing in or out, but as yet there was no sign of Annie Brunel. At length, however, some of the people who had been engaged in the play came out, and Will knew that she would soon follow.

"Was she likely to be alone? Would they dare to speak to her?" He glanced down at the sling which supported his right arm. Deprive an Englishman of the use of his right arm, and he feels himself utterly helpless. There was one happy thought, however: even if she were alone she would be closely veiled; and how were these half-tipsy cads to recognise her?

She came out; she was alone, and veiled, but Will knew the graceful figure, and the carriage of the queenly head.

By some demoniac inspiration the two men seemed also to take it for granted that the veiled face was that of Annie Brunel. The less tipsy of the two went forward, overtook her as she was going down the lane, and said to her—

"I beg your pardon, Miss—Miss Brunel——"

She turned her head, and in the gaslight Anerley saw that there was a quick, frightened look of interrogation in her eyes. She turned away again, and had hurried on almost to the open street, when the man caught her arm with his hand.

"Not so fast, my dear. Won't you look at my card——"

"Out of the way, idiot!" was the next thing she heard, in a voice that made her heart beat; and in a moment the man had been sent reeling against the opposite wall.

That was the work of an instant. Inflamed with rage and fury, he recovered himself, and was about to aim a blow at his assailant's face, when Anerley's left arm so successfully did duty without the aid of the wounded right one, that the man went down like a log, and lay there. His companion, stupefied, neither stirred nor spoke.

"Get into the cab, Miss Brunel," said Will, abruptly.

He accompanied her across the pavement: an utter stranger could not have been more calm and cold. For a second she looked into his face, with pain, and wonder, and entreaty in her eyes; and then she took his hand, which had been outstretched to bid her good-bye, and said—

"Won't you come with me? I—I am afraid——"

He got into the cab; the driver mounted his box and drove off; and so it was that Will, scarcely knowing how it had come about, found himself sitting once more beside Annie Brunel, with her hand still closed upon his.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A LAST WORD.

Every one knows Noel Paton's 'Dante and Beatrice'—the picture of the two lovers caught together in a supreme moment of passion—their faces irradiated with the magical halo of a glowing twilight. His, tender, entreating, wistful, worshipful; hers, full of the unconscious sweetness and superb repose of a rare and exalted beauty. His eyes are upturned to hers; but hers dwell vaguely on the western glow of colour. And there is in the picture more than one thing which suggests the strange dissociation and the sadness, as well as the intercommunion and fellowship, of the closest love.

Why, asks the impatient reader, should not a romance be always full of this glow, and colour, and passion? The warm light that touches the oval outline of a tender woman's face is a beautiful thing, and even the sadness of love is beautiful: why should not a romance be full of these supreme elements? Why should not the romancist cut out the long prose passages of a man's life, and give us only those wonderful moments in which being glows with a sort of transformation?

The obvious reason is, that a romance written in such an exalted key would be insufferably unreal and monotonous: even in the 'Venetianisches Grondellied,' full of pure melody as it is, one finds jarring chords, which are only introduced to heighten the keen delight of the harmony which is to follow. Add to this the difficulty of setting down in words any tolerable representation of one of those passionate joyous moments of love-delight which are the familiar theme of the musician and the painter.

That moment, however, in which Will Anerley met Annie Brunel's eyes, and took her hand, and sat down beside her, was one of these. For many past days and weeks his life had been so unbearably dull, stagnant, prosaic, that the mere glad fact of this meeting drove from his mind all consideration of consequences. He looked in her eyes—the beautiful eyes that could not conceal their pleasure—and forgot everything else. For a time, neither of them spoke—the delight of being near to each other was enough; and when they began to recall themselves to the necessity of making some excuse to each other for having broken a solemn promise, they were driving along Piccadilly; and, away down in the darkness, they could see the luminous string of orange points that encircle the Green Park.

"I only returned to London to-day," he said, and there was a smile on his face, for he half-pitied his own weakness; "and I could not help going to see you. That was how I kept my promise. But you are not very angry?"

"No," she said, looking down.

There was no smile upon her face. The events of the last few weeks had been for her too tragic to admit of humorous lights.

"You ought not to have come," she said the next minute, hurriedly. "You ought to have stayed away. You yourself spoke of what might happen; and the surprise and the pain of seeing you—I had no thought of your being there—and I was sufficiently miserable at the time not to need any other thing to disturb me—and now—and now you are here, and you and I are the friends we have been——"

The passionate earnestness of this speech, to say nothing of its words, surprised and astounded him: why should she have reason to be disturbed?

"Why should we not be friends?" he said.

She looked at him, with her big, tender, frank eyes, with a strange expression.

"You force me to speak. Because we cannot continue friends," she said, in a voice which was almost harsh in its distinctness. "After what you said to me, you have no right to see me. I cannot forget your warning; and I know where you ought to be this evening—not here, but down in St. Mary-Kirby."

"That is true enough," said Will, gloomily. "I couldn't have gone down to St. Mary-Kirby to-night: but, as you say, I have no business to be near you—none whatever. I should not have gone to the theatre; I ought to have stayed at home, and spent the time in thinking of you—why shouldn't I say it, now that you have been so frank with me? You and I know each other pretty well, do we not? There is no reason, surely, why we may not regard each other as friends, whatever may happen. And why should I not tell you that I fear to go down to St. Mary-Kirby, and meet that poor Dove who has given me her heart?"

She said nothing: what could she say? It was not for her to blame him.

"And when I went to the theatre, I said, 'It is the last time!' I could not help going. I did not intend to meet you when you came out."

"You did not?" she said.

There was, despite herself, a touch of disappointment in her tone. The strange joyous light that had passed over her face on seeing him was the result of a sudden thought that he loved her so well that he was forced to come to her.

"No," he answered, "I did not intend to meet you; but the sudden pleasure of seeing you was so great that I had not the heart to refuse to come into the cab. And, now you know my secret, you may blame me as you please. I suppose I am weaker than other men; but I did not err wilfully. And now the thing is done, it is Dove whom I most consider. How can I go to her with a lie in every word, and look, and action? Or how could I tell her the truth? Whichever way one turns, there is nothing but sadness and misery."

And still there was no word from the young girl opposite.

"I have not even the resource of blaming destiny," he continued. "I must blame my own blindness. Only you, looking at these things in your friendly and kindly way, will not blame me further for having indulged myself a last time in going to see you to-night. You will never have to complain again—never; and, indeed, I went to-night in a manner to bid you good-bye—so you won't be hard on me——"

He was surprised to see, by the gleam of the lamp they passed, that the girl was covertly sobbing, and that the large soft eyes were full of tears. At the same moment, however, the cabman pulled up at the corner of the little square in which Annie Brunel lived; and so they both got out. When Will turned from paying the cabman, she had walked on a bit in advance, and had not entered the square. He overtook her, and offered her his arm. The night was fine and still; a large lambent planet lay like a golden bell-flower in the soft purple before them, and a large harvest-moon, bronzed and discoloured, glimmered through the tall elms on the other side of the way, as it slowly rose up from the horizon.

"I have something to say to you," he heard the soft low voice say, "which I had hoped never to have said. It is better it should be said."

"If you have cause to blame me, or if you wish to prevent my seeing you again, by upbraiding me for having spoken honestly to you, I beg of you to say nothing that way. It is not needed. You will run no danger whatever of being annoyed again. I blame myself more than you can; and since we must part, let us part friends, with a kindly recollection of each other——"

"Don't speak like that!" she said, imploringly, with another convulsive sob, "or you will break my heart. Is it not enough that—that—oh! I cannot, cannot tell you, and yet I must tell you!"

"What have you to tell me?" he said, with a cold feeling creeping over him. He began to suspect what her emotion meant; and he shrank from the suggestion, as from some great evil he had himself committed.

"You will think me shameless; I cannot help it. You say this is our last meeting; and I cannot bear to have you go away from me with the thought that you have to suffer alone. You think I ought to give you my sympathy, because I am your friend, and you will not be happy. But—but I will suffer too; and I am a woman—and alone—and whom have I to look to——?"

He stopped her, and looked down into her face.

"Annie, is this true?" he said, sadly and gravely.

He got no answer beyond the sight of her streaming eyes and quivering lips.

"Then are we the two wretchedest of God's creatures," he said.

"Ah, don't say that," she murmured, venturing to look up at him through her tears. "Should we not be glad to know that we can think kindly of each other, without shame? Unhappy, yes!—but surely not the very wretchedest of all. And you won't misunderstand me? You won't think, afterwards, that it was because I was an actress that I confessed this to you——?"

Even in such a moment a touch of Bohemianism!—a fear that her mother's profession should suffer by her weakness.

"Dearest!" he said, tenderly—"for you are, God help me! my very, very dearest—we now know each other too well to have to make excuses for our confidence in each other."

They walked on now quite silently; there was too much for both of them to think about to admit of speech. As they walked southward, down the long and sombre thoroughfares, the large moon on their left slowly rose, and still rose, at every minute losing its ruddy hues, and gaining in clear, full light. They knew not whither they were going. There was no passer-by to stare at them; they were alone in the world, with the solitary houses, and the great moon.

"You have not told me a minute too soon," he said, suddenly, with a strange exultation in his tone.

"What do you mean?"

"You and I, Annie, love each other. If the future is to be taken from us, let us recompense ourselves now. When you walk back to your house to-night and the door closes, you and I see each other no more. To-morrow, and all the to-morrows after that, we are only strangers. But for the next half-hour—my dearest, my dearest! show me your face, and let me see what your eyes say!—why should we not forget all these coming days, and live that half-hour for ourselves? It is but a little time; the sweetness of it will be a memory to us. Let us be lovers, Annie!—only for this little time we shall be together, my dearest! Let us try to imagine that you and I are to be married to-morrow—that all the coming years we are to be together—that now we have nothing to do but to yield ourselves up to our love——"

"I am afraid," she said, in a low voice, trembling.

"Why afraid, then?"

"That afterwards the recollection will be too bitter."

"Darling, nothing that you can imagine is likely to be more bitter than what you and I must bear. Just now, we have a little time our own; let us forget what is to come, and——"

"Whisper, then," she said.

He bent down his head to her, and she came close to his ear:

"Will, I love you, and if I could I would be your wife to-morrow."

"And you will kiss me, too," he said.

He felt a slight, warm touch on his lips; and when he raised his head his face was quite white, and his eyes were wild.

"Why, we are to be married to-morrow!" he said. "It will be about eleven when I reach the church, and I shall walk up and down between the empty pews until you come. I see the whole thing now—you walking in at the door with your friends, your dear eyes a little frightened, looking at me as if you wanted me to take you away at once from among the people. Then we shall be off, dearest, sharp and fast, up to your house; you will hurry to change your things, and then, with a good-bye to everybody, we are off—we two, you and I, Annie, away anywhere, so that we may be alone together. And I wish to God, Annie, that you and I were lying down there beneath that water, dead and drowned!"

They had come to the river—the broad smooth river, with the wonderful breadths of soft light upon it, and the dark olive-green shadows of the sombre wharves and buildings on the other side.

"Will, Will, you frighten me so!" she said, clinging to his arm.

"You needn't be frightened," he said, sadly. "I am only telling you what might happen. Can't you see all these things when you try to see them? For many a night past—ever since the evening we spent overlooking the Rhine—I have seen that marriage-scene before my eyes, and it is always you who are there. You remember that evening when you sate up in the balcony, among the vine-leaves, with the moon hanging up over the river? There's a German song I once heard that warns you never to go near the Rhine, because life is too sweet there; and we have been there, and have received the curse of this discontent and undying regret."

Then he broke out into a bitter laugh.

"We were to be lovers; and this is pretty lovers' talk."

"You really do frighten me, Will," she said. "I never saw you look so before. Oh, my dear, don't be so very, very sad and despairing, for I have nothing to comfort you with—not even one poor word; and it seems so wretched that we two should not be able to comfort each other."

He was fighting with the bonds of circumstance; and his impotence embittered him. The spectacle of these two wretched creatures—despairing, rebellious, and driven almost beyond the bounds of reason by their perplexity—walking along the side of the still and peaceful stream, was one to have awakened the compassion, or at least the sympathetic merriment, of the most careless of the gods. What a beautiful night it was! The deep olive shadows of the moonlight hid away the ragged and tawdry buildings that overhung the river; and the flood of yellow-tinged light touched only here and there on the edge of a bank or the stem of a tree, and then fell gently on the broad bosom of the stream. The gas-lamps of the nearest bridge glimmered palely in that white light; but deep in the shadows along the river, the lamps burned strong and red, and sent long quivering lines of fire down into the dark water beneath. Farther up the stream lay broad swathes of moonlight, vague and indeterminate as the grey continents visible in the world of silver overhead. In all this universe of peace, and quiet, and harmony, there seemed to be only these two beings restless—embittered, and hopeless.

"Let us go home," he said, with an effort. "I can do nothing but frighten you, and myself too. I tell you there are other things pass before my eyes as well as the marriage-scene, and I don't want to see any more of them. It will be time enough to think of what may happen when it does happen."

"And whatever happens, Will, shall we not at least know that we sometimes—occasionally—think tenderly of each other?"

"So you wish us to be lovers still!" he said. "The delusion is too difficult to keep up. Have you reflected that when once I am married, neither of us may think of each other at all?"

"Will! Will! don't talk like that! You speak as if somebody had cruelly injured you, and you were angry and revengeful. Nobody has done it. It is only our misfortune. It cannot be helped. If I am not to think of you—and I shall pray God to help me to forget you—so much the better."

"My poor darling!" he said, "I am so selfish that I think less of what your future may be than of my own. You dare not confide your secret to any one; and I, who know it, must not see you nor try to comfort you. Is not the very confidence that prompted you to tell me, a proof that we are—that we might have been happy as husband and wife?"

"Husband and wife," she repeated, musingly, as they once more drew near home. "You will be a husband, but I shall never be a wife."

"And yet, so long as you and I live," he said, quite calmly, "you will have my whole love. It cannot be otherwise: we need not seek to conceal it. Whatever happens, and wherever we may be, my love goes with you."

"And if mine," she whispered, "could go with you, and watch over you, and teach your heart to do right, it would lead your love back to the poor girl whom you are going to marry, and make her happy."

At parting he kissed her tenderly, almost solemnly. Then she quickly undid from her neck a little brooch, and put it in his hand with these words:

"Give that to her, with my love, and with yours."

CHAPTER XXV.

EVIL TIDINGS.

Very early did Dove get up that cool September morning. Away down the valley there lay a faintly yellow haze, which made one feel that the sun was behind it, and would soon drink it up. In the meantime the grass was wet. A birch-tree that almost touched her bedroom window had its drooping branches of shivering leaves glistening with moisture. The willows along the riverside were almost hid. The withered and red chestnut-leaves which floated on the pond had a cold autumn look about them. Then old Thwaites, the keeper, appeared, with a pointer and a curly black retriever; and when the old man went into the meadow, to knock down some walnuts from the trees, his breath was visible in the damp thick atmosphere. She saw these things vaguely; she only knew with certainty that the sunlight and Will were coming.

A hundred times she made up her mind as to the mood in which she ought to receive him. Indeed, for weeks back she had done nothing but mentally rehearse that meeting; and every scene that she described to herself was immediately afterwards abandoned.

She was hurt, she knew; and in her secret heart she longed to—— No! he had been very neglectful about letters, and she would—— But in the meantime it was important, whatever rôle she might assume, that she should look as pretty as possible.

This was all her immediate care—a care that had awoke her an hour too soon. But if she had changed her mind about the manner in which she should receive him, how much more about the costume which was to add effect to the scene? Every detail—every little ornament, and bit of ribbon, and dexterous fold—she studied, and altered, and studied and altered again, until she was very nearly losing temper, and wishing that people had been born to look their best without the necessity of clothing themselves.

Perhaps one might be allowed to make a remark about those ladies who, dressing for a ball or the theatre, imagine that the less they clothe themselves the better they look. It is merely a question of the relative artistic value of certain surfaces. And, as a general rule, it may be accepted that the natural complexion of women's shoulders is inferior in fineness of hue and texture to the same extent of white satin or dove-coloured silk.

Downstairs she went. Mr. Anerley was engaged in turning in the edge of his cartridges, and had succeeded in vigorously scratching the marble mantelpiece with the machine he was using.

"Good morning, papa."

She was very much embarrassed, she did not know why. She hoped he would not look at her; but he did, and kissed her, and returned to his work.

"Dear me!" he said, "that I, an old man, should have received such a compliment! A young lady getting up at a prodigiously early hour, and dressing herself in her very smartest way, in order to come down and make my breakfast!"

"Shall I pour out your coffee now, papa?" she said, with a great blush.

"Yes, you may, my dear. But don't put anchovy into it instead of cream. I make the suggestion because I see you are a little disturbed. It is the early rising; or the chill of the autumn; or the remembrance of last Sunday's sermon, I daresay."

She did not speak a word, but placed the coffee at his end of the table, and returned to her seat. When he had finished his cartridge-making, he sate down, and, as a preliminary to breakfast, swallowed a mouthful of the coffee. The next moment there was an exclamation of horror—he ran to the sideboard, seized a bottle of hock that had been left from yesterday's dinner, hurriedly filled a coffee-cup with the wine, and drank off the contents—his face all the while in contortions. Dove sat silent and wilful, with a smile on her lips, and a hot flush on her cheeks. She would neither look at him nor speak to him.

"Cayenne pepper!" he gasped, taking another gulp of the cold Rhine wine.

She only played with her teaspoon.

"You might have killed me, you malicious creature!" he cried, amid intervals of coughing. "Cayenne! Well, don't suppose that you would have got much out of my life-insurance!"

At this she rose and walked to the door—proud, spiteful, half laughing, and half crying.

"You had no business to tease me," she said.

"Come here, Dove," he said, taking her by the arm and leading her back; "do you know what the effect of cayenne is on the human throat?"

"I don't care."

"I say you might have killed me."

"I don't care."

"Now, if I were a young man, I should probably be proud of such a mark of your favour, but——"

"It served you right. I can't bear people to talk to me like that, and you always do it, papa—you know you do."

"But, as I am an old man, I mean to have my revenge. Firstly, there shall be no dogcart or other vehicle leave this house this day for Horton Station. Secondly, should any guest arrive, he will be asked to follow me over to the East Meadows, where I shall be shooting. Thirdly, should that guest dine with us, he will be confined to the dining-room during the entire evening, and any persons waiting in the drawing-room may play 'The Coulin,' or such music as they prefer, for their own benefit. Fourthly——"

"Fourthly, none of these things will happen," said Dove, with a touch of contempt in her tone.

And Dove was right. For she herself was driven in the dogcart over to Horton Station, and she took care to make the man start half an hour before the proper time. The station-master, then and now one of the civillest of men, endeavoured to relieve the tedium of waiting by chatting to her; but she only half listened to him, and talked nonsense in reply.

She walked about the station, stared up the long perspective of narrowing lines, then walked in again to the small waiting-room, and wondered why the people about did not bestir themselves to receive the coming train. Then, with a flutter of the heart, she saw the signals changed, and presently there was a far-off noise which told of Will's approach: for he had written from Paris to say, that unless they got other notice from him, he would be down by this particular train.

A railway-station is not the proper place for a piece of acting. Scenes of the most tender and tragic kind—never to be forgotten—have been witnessed there; but the gentle drawing-room comedies with which lovers amuse themselves do not harmonize with the rough-and-ready accessories of a railway line. Dove resolved to leave her proper reception of Will until they should be in the house together; at present it was to be nothing but a hurried delicious kissing, scrambling after luggage, and swift getting home.

There was no head thrust out from one of the approaching carriages—no handkerchief waved. She did not know which of the dull, dark, and heavy carriages might not have him inside; but she was sure he could not escape her at the station.

The train stopped, the guard bustled about, the people descended from the carriages, the porters looked out for luggage and sixpences. With a half-realised fear—a dread of some vague evil—Dove glanced quickly along the people, then more narrowly; finally she turned to the carriages. The doors were again shut; the guard blew his whistle, and leisurely stepped into his box; and the train moved slowly out of the station. There was no Will Anerley there.

Sick at heart she turned away, it was a cruel disappointment. For weeks she had been planning the whole scene; she had dreamt of the meeting, had thought of it during the drowsy hush of the Sunday-morning sermon, had looked forward to it as the crowning compensation for the microscopic troubles of her daily life. There was not even a letter to say that he was in England; perhaps he was still in France.

So she went home, vexed, and disappointed, and sad. Mr. Anerley was out shooting; Mrs. Anerley soothingly said that doubtless Will would be down by a later train; and then Dove went away into a corner of the drawing-room, and plunged herself into a volume of old music, turning over the leaves and supping a surfeit of sad memories.

Before going to the train that morning, Will had found it necessary to call upon a doctor. From him he learned, firstly, that the original dressing of the wounds in his arm had been far from satisfactory; and secondly, that owing to some disturbant cause renewed inflammation had set in. Indeed, the doctor gave him to understand that only prompt attention and great care could prevent the wounds assuming a very serious aspect.

"Your arm must have suffered some violence quite recently," said the doctor.

"Well, last night," said Will, "I knocked a man down with my left arm, and very likely I instinctively twitched up the right to guard myself."

"These are little amusements which a man in your condition had better forego," said the other, quietly. "The best thing you can do is go home and get to bed, give your arm perfect rest, and I will call in the afternoon and see what is to be done."

"I can't do that," said Will, "I'm going down to the country."

"You will do so at your peril."

"All the same, I must go. Nothing is likely to happen between to-day and Monday. If you had seen the leg I had in Turkey!—without any doctor but a servant who could not even infuse our tea—constant rain—walking every day—our tent letting in water at night——"

"I don't know about your leg in Turkey," said the doctor, tartly; "but I see the condition in which your arm is now. If you think it will get well by exposing it to rain, well and good——"

"Can you do anything to it now?"

"No, unless you give the limb perfect rest."

"Very well. If it gets very bad, I shall come up to town to-morrow. If not, I shall visit you on Monday, and do everything you tell me then."

He got into a cab and drove back to his chambers. The man had already taken his portmanteau downstairs, when Count Schönstein's brougham drove up, and the Count jumped out.

"Where are you going?"

"To St. Mary-Kirby."

"Not now. Come inside; I have something to tell you."

They stepped inside: never before had Will observed the Count to be so disturbed.

"Miall & Welling," he said, hurriedly, "I have just heard—not ten minutes ago—have collapsed—the announcement will be made to-day—the directors were in the place till twelve last night. It will be the most fearful crash, they say; for the bank has lately been making the wildest efforts to save itself——"

"I thought Miall & Welling's was as safe as the Bank of England," said Will—just a trifle pale.

Every farthing of his father's money was in this bank, which had never even been suspected in the most general crises.

"It may be only a rumour," continued the Count. "But you may as well wait, to see if the evening papers have anything about it."

"It will be a pretty story to carry down with me to Kent," said Will.

"That's what I was thinking of," said the Count, kindly—indeed he was not wholly a selfish man; "and I thought I might go down with you, if you liked, and try to help your father over the first shock. It will be a terrible blow to him—a man who has lived a quiet and easy life, with a little hunting, and shooting, and so on. I shouldn't wonder if it entirely upset him and did some harm——"

"You don't know my father," said Will.

They had not to wait for the evening papers. By twelve o'clock the news was current in the city. Miall & Welling had sent out their circular: the bank had suspended payment.

This was the cause of Will's missing the train. When he took his seat in the next train going down, it was with a feeling that now ill-fortune had done its worst, and there was nothing more to encounter. He thought of that wild scene of last night by the banks of the river,—of the strange, sad, unfathomable look of the young actress's eyes,—of their bitter parting, and the tender words she spoke as he left. Then he looked forward to meeting Dove with a cold fear at his heart: and he was almost glad that the more immediate and terrible business he had on hand would distract his attention.

He left his portmanteau at the station, and walked round to the brow of the hill. Before him lay the well-known valley, still and silent under the yellow autumn sunlight; and down there by the river he saw a tall spare man—accompanied by another man and a couple of dogs—whose figure he easily recognised. He walked in that direction, crossing the low-lying meadows and the river, and rounding a bit of coppice which skirted a turnip-field.

As he turned the corner, a covey of birds rose just in front of him, with a prodigious whirr of wings.

"Mark!" he called, instinctively, though he was quite unaware of the proximity of anybody with a gun.

The next second there was a double report; two of the birds came tumbling down, scattering their feathers in the air, and there was a muttered admonition to the pointer. A few steps further brought him into view of Mr. Anerley and old Thwaites, both of whom were marking down the remaining birds of the covey, as the low, swift, sailing flight seemed to near the ground.

"Why did you come round that way?" said Mr. Anerley when he saw his son. "I might have shot you."