Never, in his brightest dreams, had Valentine Hawkehurst imagined the stream of life so fair and sunny a river as it seemed to him now. Fortune had treated him so scurvily for seven-and-twenty years of his life, only to relent of a sudden and fling all her choicest gifts into his lap.
“I must be the prince in the fairy tale who begins life as a revolting animal of the rhinoceros family, and ends by marrying the prettiest princess in Elfindom,” he said to himself gaily, is he paced the broad walks of Kensington-gardens, where the bare trees swung their big black branches in the wintry blast, and the rooks cawed their loudest at close of the brief day.
What, indeed, could this young adventurer demand from benignant Fortune above and beyond the blessings she had given, him? The favoured suitor of the fairest and brightest woman he had ever looked upon, received by her kindred, admitted to her presence, and only bidden to serve a due apprenticeship before he claimed her as his own for ever. What more could he wish? what further boon could he implore from the Fates?
Yes, there was one thing more — one thing for which Mr. Hawkehurst pined, while most thankful for his many blessings. He wanted a decent excuse for separating himself most completely from Horatio Paget. He wanted to shake himself free from all the associations of his previous existence. He wanted to pass through the waters of Jordan, and to emerge purified, regenerate, leaving his garments on the furthermost side of the river; and, with all other things appertaining to the past, he would fain have rid himself of Captain Paget.
“‘Be sure your sin will find you out,’” mused the young man; “and having found you, be sure that it will stick to you like a leech, if your sin takes the shape of an unprincipled acquaintance, as it does in my case. I may try my hardest to cut the past, but will Horatio Paget let me alone in the future? I doubt it. The bent of that man’s genius shows itself in his faculty for living upon other people. He knows that I am beginning to earn money regularly, and has begun to borrow of me already. When I can earn more, he will want to borrow more; and although it is very sweet to work for Charlotte Halliday, it would not be by any means agreeable to slave for my friend Paget. Shall I offer him a pound a week, and ask him to retire into the depths of Wales or Cornwall, amend his ways, and live the life of a repentant hermit? I think I could bring myself to sacrifice the weekly sovereign, if there were any hope that Horatio Paget could cease to be — Horatio Paget, on this side the grave. No, I have the misfortune to be intimately acquainted with the gentleman. When he is in the swim, as he calls it, and is earning money on his own account, he will give himself cosy little dinners and four-and-sixpenny primrose gloves; and when he is down on his luck, he will come whining to me.”
This was by no means a pleasant idea to Mr. Hawkehurst. In the old days he had been distinguished by all the Bohemian’s recklessness, and even more than the Bohemian’s generosity in his dealings with friend or companion. But now all was changed. He was no longer reckless. A certain result was demanded from him as the price of Charlotte Halliday’s hand, and he set himself to accomplish his allotted task with all due forethought and earnestness of purpose. He had need even to exercise restraint over himself, lest, in his eagerness, he should do too much, and so lay himself prostrate from the ill effects of overwork; so anxious was he to push on upon the road whose goal was so fair a temple, so light seemed that labour of love which was performed for the sake of Charlotte.
He communed with himself very often on the subject of that troublesome question about Captain Paget. How was he to sever his frail skiff from that rakish privateer? What excuse could he find for renouncing his share in the Omega-street lodgings, and setting up a new home elsewhere?
“Policy might prompt me to keep my worthy friend under my eye,” he said to himself, “in order that I may be sure there is no underhand work going on between him and Philip Sheldon. But I can scarcely believe that Philip Sheldon has any inkling about the Haygarthian fortune. If he had, he would surely not receive me as Charlotte’s suitor. What possible motive could he have for doing so?”
This was a question which Mr. Hawkehurst had frequently put to himself; for his confidence in Mr. Sheldon was not of that kind which asks no questions. Even while most anxious to believe in that gentleman’s honesty of purpose, he was troubled by occasional twinges of unbelief.
During the period which had elapsed since his return from Yorkshire, he had been able to discover nothing of any sinister import from the proceedings of Captain Paget. That gentleman appeared to be still engaged upon the promoting business, although by no means so profitably as heretofore. He went into the City every day, and came home in the evening toilworn and out of spirits. He talked freely of his occupation — how he had done much or done nothing, during the day; and Valentine was at a loss to perceive any further ground for the suspicion that had arisen in his mind after the meeting at the Ullerton station, and the shuffling of the sanctimonious Goodge with regard to Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth’s letters.
Mr. Hawkehurst therefore determined upon boldly cutting the knot that tied him to the familiar companion of his wanderings.
“I am tired of watching and suspecting,” he said to himself. “If my dear love has a right to this fortune, it will surely come to her; or if it should never come, we can live very happily without it. Indeed, for my own part, I am inclined to believe that I should be prouder and happier as the husband of a dowerless wife, than as prince-consort to the heiress of the Haygarths. We have built up such a dear, cheery, unpretentious home for ourselves in our talk of the future, that I doubt if we should care to change it for the stateliest mansion in Kensington Palace-gardens or Belgrave-square. My darling could not be my housekeeper, and make lemon cheese-cakes in her own pretty little kitchen, if we lived in Belgrave-square; and how could she stand at one of those great Birmingham ironwork gates in the Palace-gardens to watch me ride away to my work?”
To a man as deeply in love as Mr. Hawkehurst, the sordid dross which other people prize so highly is apt to become daily more indifferent; a kind of colour-blindness comes over the vision of the true lover, and the glittering yellow ore seems only so much vulgar earth, too mean a thing to be regarded by any but the mean of soul. Thus it was that Mr. Hawkehurst relaxed his suspicion of Captain Paget, and neglected his patron and ally of Gray’s Inn, much to the annoyance of that gentleman, who tormented the young man with little notes demanding interviews.
These interviews had of late been far from agreeable to either of the allies. George Sheldon urged the necessity of an immediate marriage; Valentine declined to act in an underhand manner, after the stockbroker’s unexpected generosity.
“Generosity!” echoed George Sheldon, when Valentine had given him this point-blank refusal at the close of a stormy argument. “Generosity! My brother Phil’s generosity! Egad, that is about the best thing I’ve heard for the last ten years. If I pleased, Mr. Valentine Hawkehurst, I could tell you something about my brother which would enable you to estimate his generosity at its true value. But I don’t please; and if you choose to run counter to me and my interests, you must pay the price of your folly. You may think yourself uncommonly lucky if the price isn’t a stiff one.”
“I am prepared to abide by my decision,” answered Valentine. “Miss Halliday without a shilling is so dear to me, that I don’t care to commit a dishonourable action in order to secure my share of the fortune she may claim. I turned over a new leaf on the day when I first knew myself possessed of her affection. I don’t want to go back to the old leaves.”
George Sheldon gave himself an impatient shrug. “I have heard of a great many fools,” he said, “but I never heard of a fool who would play fast-and-loose with a hundred thousand pounds, and until to-day I couldn’t have believed there was such an animal.”
Mr. Hawkehurst did not deign to notice this remark.
“Do be reasonable, Sheldon,” he said. “You ask me to do what my sense of right will not permit me to do, and you ask me that which I fully believe to be impossible. I cannot for a moment imagine that any persuasion of mine would induce Charlotte to consent to a secret marriage, after your brother’s fair and liberal conduct.”
“Of course not,” cried George, with savage impatience; “that’s my brother Phil all over. He is so honourable, so plain and straightforward in all his dealings, that he would get the best of Lucifer himself in a bargain. I tell you, Hawkehurst, you don’t know how deep he is — as deep as the bottomless pit, by Jove! His very generosity makes me all the more afraid of him. I don’t understand his game. If he consented to your marriage in order to get rid of Charlotte, he would let you marry her off-hand; but instead of doing that, he makes conditions which must delay your marriage for years. There is the point that bothers me.”
“You had better pursue your own course, without reference to me or my marriage with Miss Halliday,” said Valentine.
“That is exactly what I must do. I can’t leave the Haygarth estate to the mercy of Tom, Dick, and Harry, while you try to earn thirty pounds a month by scribbling for the magazines. I must make my bargain with Philip instead of with you, and I can tell you that you’ll be the loser by the transaction.”
“I don’t quite see that.”
“Perhaps not. You see, you don’t quite understand my brother Phil. If this money gets into his hands, be sure some of it will stick to them.”
“Why should the money get into his hand?”
“Because, so long as Charlotte Halliday is under his roof, she is, to a certain extent, under his authority. And then, I tell you again, there is no calculating the depth of that man. He has thrown dust in your eyes already. He will make that poor girl believe him the most disinterested of mankind.”
“You can warn her.”
“Yes; as I have warned you. To what purpose? You are inclined to believe in Phil rather than to believe in me, and you will be so inclined to the end of the chapter. You remember that man Palmer, at Rugely, who used to go to church, and take the sacrament?”
“Yes; of course I remember that case. What of him?”
“Why, people believed in him, you know, and thought him a jolly good fellow, up to the time when they discovered that he had poisoned a few of his friends in a quiet gentlemanly way.”
Mr. Hawkehurst smiled at the irrelevance of this remark. He could not perceive the connection of ideas between Palmer the Rugely poisoner, and Philip Sheldon the stockbroker.
“That was an extreme case,” he said.
“Yes; of course that was an extreme case,” answered George, carelessly. “Only it goes far to prove that a man may be gifted with a remarkable genius for throwing dust in the eyes of his fellow-creatures.”
There was no further disputation between the lawyer and Valentine. George Sheldon began to understand that a secret marriage was not to be accomplished in the present position of affairs.
“I am half inclined to suspect that Phil knows something about that money,” he said presently, “and is playing some artful game of his own.”
“In that case your better policy would be to take the initiative,” answered Valentine.
“I have no other course.”
“And will Charlotte know — will she know that I have been concerned in this business?” asked Valentine, growing very pale all of sudden. He was thinking how mean he must appear in Miss Halliday’s eyes, if she came to understand that he had known her to be John Haygarth’s heiress at the time he won from her the sweet confession of her love. “Will she ever believe how pure and true my love has been, if she comes to know this?” he asked himself despairingly, while George Sheldon deliberated in silence for a few moments.
“She need know nothing until the business comes to a head,” replied George at last. “You see, there may be no resistance on the part of the Crown lawyers; and, in that case, Miss Halliday will get her rights after a moderate amount of delay. But if they choose to dispute her claim, it will be quite another thing — Halliday versus the Queen, and so on — with no end of swell Q.O.‘s against us. In the latter case you’ll have to put all your adventures at Ullerton and Huxter’s Cross into an affidavit, and Miss H. must know everything.”
“Yes; and then she will think — ah, no; I do not believe she can misunderstand me, come what may.”
“All doubt and difficulty might be avoided if you would manage a marriage on the quiet off-hand,” said George. “I tell you again that I cannot do that; and that, even if it were possible, I would not attempt it.”
“So be it. You elect to ride the high horse; take care that magnificent animal doesn’t give you an ugly tumble.”
“I can take my chance.”
“And I must take my chance against that brother of mine. The winning cards are all in my own hand this time, and it will be uncommonly hard if he gets the best of me.”
On this the two gentlemen parted. Valentine went to look at a bachelor’s lodging in the neighbourhood of the Edgeware-road, which he had seen advertised in that morning’s Times; and George Sheldon started for Bayswater, where he was always sure of a dinner and a liberal allowance of good wine from the hospitality of his prosperous kinsman.
Valentine found the apartments near the Edgeware-road in every manner eligible. The situation was midway between his reading-room in Great Russell-street and the abode of his delight — a half-way house on the road between business and pleasure. The terms were very moderate, the rooms airy and pleasant; so he engaged them forthwith, his tenancy to commence at the end of the following week; and having settled this matter, he went back to Omega-street, bent on dissolving partnership with the Captain in a civil but decided manner.
A surprise, and a very agreeable one, awaited him at Chelsea. He found the sitting-room strewn with Captain Paget’s personal property, and the Captain on his knees before a portmanteau, packing.
“You’re just in time to give me a hand, Val,” he said in his most agreeable manner. “I begin to find out my age when I put my poor old bones into abnormal attitudes. I daresay packing a trunk or two will be only child’s-play to you.”
“I’ll pack half a dozen trunks if you like,” replied Valentine. “But what is the meaning of this sudden move? I did not know you were going to leave town.”
“Neither did I when you and I breakfasted together. I got an unexpected offer of a very decent position abroad this morning; a kind of agency, that will be much better than the hand-to-mouth business I’ve been doing lately.”
“What kind of agency, and where?”
“Well, so far as I can make out at present, it is something in the steam navigation way. My head-quarters will be at Rouen.” “Rouen! Well, it’s a pleasant lively old city enough, and as mediaeval as one of Sir Walter’s novels, provided they haven’t Haussmanised it by this time. I am very glad to hear you have secured a comfortable berth.”
“And I am not sorry to leave England, Yal,” answered the Captain, in rather a mournful tone.
“Why not?”
“Because I think it’s time you and I parted company. Our association begins to be rather disadvantageous to you, Val. We’ve had our ups and downs together, and we’ve got on very pleasantly, take it for all in all. But now that you’re settling down as a literary man, engaged to that young woman, hand-in-glove with Philip Sheldon, and so on, I think it’s time for me to take myself off. I’m not wanted; and sooner or later I should begin to feel myself in the way.”
The Captain grew quite pathetic as he said this; and little pangs of remorse shot through Valentine’s heart as he remembered how eager he had been to rid himself of this Old Man of the Mountain. And here was the poor old creature offering to take himself out of the way of his own accord.
Influenced by this touch of remorse, Mr. Hawkehurst held out his hand, and grasped that of his comrade and patron.
“I hope you may do well, in some — comfortable kind of business,” he said heartily. That adjective “comfortable” was a hasty substitute for the adjective “honest,” which had been almost on his lips as he uttered his friendly wish. He was too well disposed to all the world not to feel profound pity for this white-headed old man, who for so many years had eaten the bread of rogues and scoundrels.
“Come,” he cried cheerily, “I’ll take all the packing off your hands, Captain; and we’ll eat our last dinner and drink our last bottle of sparkling together at my expense, at any place you please to name.”
“Say Blanchard’s,” replied Horatio Paget. “I like a corner-window, looking out upon the glare and bustle of Regent-street. It reminds one just a little of the Maison Dorée and the boulevard. We’ll drink Charlotte Halliday’s health, Val, in bumpers. She’s a charming young person, and I only wish she were an heiress, for your sake.”
The eyes of the two men met as the Captain said this; and there was a twinkle in the cold gray orbs of that gentleman which had a very unpleasant effect upon Valentine.
“What treachery is he engaged in now?” he asked himself. “I know that look in my Horatio’s eyes; and I know it always means mischief.”
George Sheldon made his appearance at the Lawn five minutes after his brother came home from the City. He entered the domestic circle in his usual free-and-easy manner, knowing himself to be endured, rather than liked, by the two ladies, and to be only tolerated as a necessary evil by the master of the house.
“I’ve dropped in to eat a chop with you, Phil,” he said, “in order to get an hour’s comfortable talk after dinner. There’s no saying half a dozen consecutive words to you in the City, where your clerks seem to spend their lives in bouncing in upon you when you don’t want them.”
There was very little talk during dinner. Charlotte and her stepfather were thoughtful. Diana was chiefly employed in listening to the sotto voce inanities of Mrs. Sheldon, for whom the girl showed herself admirably patient. Her forbearance and gentleness towards Georgy constituted a kind of penitential sacrifice, by which she hoped to atone for the dark thoughts and bitter feelings that possessed her mind during those miserable hours in which she was obliged to witness the happiness of Charlotte and her lover.
George Sheldon devoted himself chiefly to his dinner and a certain dry sherry, which he particularly affected. He was a man who would have dined and enjoyed himself at the table of Judas Iscariot, knowing the banquet to be provided out of the thirty pieces of silver.
“That’s as good a pheasant as I ever ate, Phil,” he said, after winding up with the second leg of the bird in question. “No, Georgy; no macaroni, thanks. I don’t care about kickshaws after a good dinner. Has Hawkehurst dined with you lately, by the way, Phil?”
Charlotte blushed red as the holly-berries that decorated the chandelier. It was Christmas-eve, and her own fair hands had helped to bedeck the rooms with festal garlands of evergreen and holly.
“He dines with us to-morrow,” replied the stockbroker. “You’ll come, I suppose, as usual, George?”
“Well, I shall be very glad, if I’m not in the way.”
Mrs. Sheldon murmured some conventional protestation of the unfailing delight afforded to her by George’s society.
“Of course we’re always glad to see you,” said Philip in his most genial manner; “and now, if you’ve anything to say to me about business, the sooner you begin the better. — You and the girls needn’t stay for dessert, Georgy. Almonds and raisins can’t be much of a novelty to you; and as none of you take any wine, there’s not much to stop for. George and I will come in to tea.”
The ladies departed, by no means sorry to return to their Berlin-wool and piano. Diana took up her work with that saintly patience with which she performed all the duties of her position; and Charlotte seated herself before the piano, and began to play little bits of waltzes, and odds and ends of polkas, in a dreamy mood, and with a slurring over of dominant bass notes, which would have been torture to a musician’s ear.
She was wondering whether Valentine would call that evening, Christmas-eve — a sort of occasion for congratulation of some kind from her lover, she fancied. It was the first Christmas-eve on which she had been “engaged.” She looked back to the same period last year, and remembered herself sitting in that very room strumming on that very piano, and unconscious that there was such a creature as Valentine Hawkehurst upon this earth. And, strange to say, even in that benighted state, she had been tolerably happy.
“Now, George,” said Mr. Sheldon, when the brothers had filled their glasses and planted their chairs on the opposite sides of the hearth-rug, “what’s the nature of this business that you want to talk about?”
“Well, it is a business of considerable importance, in which you are only indirectly concerned. The actual principal in the affair is your stepdaughter, Miss Halliday.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes. You know how you have always ridiculed my fancy for hunting up heirs-at-law and all that kind of thing, and you know how I have held on, hoping against hope, starting on a new scent when the old scent failed, and so on.”
“And you have got a chance at last, eh?”
“I believe that I have, and a tolerably good one; and I think you will own that it is rather extraordinary that my first lucky hit should bring luck your way.”
“That is to say, to my stepdaughter?” remarked Mr. Sheldon, without any appearance of astonishment.
“Precisely,” said George, somewhat disconcerted by his brother’s coolness. “I have lately discovered that Miss Halliday is entitled to a certain sum of money, and I pledge myself to put her in possession of that money — on one condition.”
“And that is —”
“That she executes a deed promising to give me half of the amount she may recover by my agency.”
“Suppose she can recover it without your agency?”
“That I defy her to do. She does not even know that she has any claim to the amount in question.”
“Don’t be too sure of that. Or even supposing she knows nothing, do you think her friends are as ignorant as she is? Do you think me such a very bad man of business as to remain all this time unaware of the fact that my stepdaughter, Charlotte Halliday, is next of kin to the Rev. John Haygarth, who died intestate, at Tilford Haven, in Kent, about a year ago?”
This was a cannon-shot that almost knocked George Sheldon off his chair; but after that first movement of surprise, he gave a sigh, or almost a groan, expressive of resignation.
“Egad, Phil Sheldon,” he said, “I ought not to be astonished at this. Knowing you as well as I do, I must have been a confounded fool not to expect some kind of underhand work from you.”
“What do you mean by underhand work?” exclaimed Mr. Sheldon. “The same newspapers that were open to you were open to me, and I had better opportunities for tracking my stepdaughter’s direct descent from John Haygarth’s father.”
“How did you discover Miss Halliday’s descent from Matthew Haygarth?” asked George, very meekly. He was quite crestfallen. He began to feel that his brother would have the upper hand of him in this business as in all other business of this world.
“That is my secret,” replied Mr. Sheldon, with agreeable tranquillity of manner. “You have kept your secrets, and I shall keep mine. Your policy has been the policy of distrust. Mine shall be the same. When you were starting this affair, I offered to go into it with you — to advance whatever money you needed, in a friendly manner. You declined my offer, and chose to go in for the business on your own hook. You have made a very good thing for yourself, no doubt; but you are not quite clever enough to keep me altogether in the dark in a matter which concerns a member of my own family.”
“Yes,” said George, with a sigh, “that’s where you hold the winning cards. Miss Halliday is your ace of trumps.”
“Depend upon it, I shall know how to hold my strength in reserve, and when to play my leading trump.”
“And how to collar my king,” muttered George between his set teeth.
“Come,” exclaimed Philip presently, “we may as well discuss this matter in a friendly spirit. What do you mean to propose?”
“I have only one proposition to make,” answered the lawyer, with decision. “I hold every link of the chain of evidence, without which Miss Halliday might as well be a native of the Fiji islands for any claim she can assert to John Haygarth’s estate. I am prepared to carry this matter through; but I will only do it on the condition that I receive half the fortune recovered from the Crown by Miss Halliday.”
“A very moderate demand, upon my word!”
“I daresay I shall be able to make my bargain with Miss Halliday.” “Very likely,” replied Mr. Sheldon; “and I shall be able to get that bargain set aside as illegal.”
“I doubt that. I have a deed of agreement drawn up here which would hold water in any court of equity.”
And hereupon Mr. Sheldon the younger produced and read aloud one of those dry as dust documents by which the legal business of life is carried on. It was a deed to be executed by Charlotte Halliday, spinster, of Bayswater, on the one part, and George Sheldon, solicitor, of Gray’s Inn, on the other part; and it gave to the said George Sheldon, as securely as any deed can give anything, one half of any property, not now in her possession or control, which the said Charlotte Halliday might obtain by the agency of the above-mentioned George Sheldon.
“And pray, who is to find the costs for this business?” asked the stockbroker. “I don’t feel by any means disposed to stake my money on such a hazardous game. Who knows what other descendants of Matthew Haygarth may be playing at hide-and-seek in the remotest corners of the earth, ready to spring out upon us when we’ve wasted a small fortune upon law-proceedings.”
“I shan’t ask you to risk your money,” replied George, with sullen dignity. “I have friends who will back me when they see that agreement executed.”
“Very well, then, all you have to do is to alter your half share to one-fifth, and I will undertake that Miss Halliday shall sign the agreement before the week is out.”
“One-fifth?”
“Yes, my dear George. Twenty thousand pounds will pay you very handsomely for your trouble. I cannot consent to Miss Halliday ceding more than a fifth.”
“A fig for your consent! The girl is of age, and can act upon her own hook. I shall go to Miss Halliday herself,” exclaimed the indignant lawyer.
“O no, you won’t. You must know the danger of running counter to me in this business. That agreement is all very well; but there is no kind of document more easy to upset if one only goes about it in the right way. Play your own game, and I will upset that agreement, as surely as I turn this wine-glass bowl downwards.”
Mr. Sheldon’s action and Mr. Sheldon’s look expressed a determination which George knew how to estimate by the light of past experience.
“It is a hard thing to find you against me, after the manner in which I have toiled and slaved for your stepdaughter’s interests.”
“I am bound to hold my stepdaughter’s interests paramount over every consideration.” “Yes, paramount over brotherly feeling and all that sort of thing. I say that it is more than hard that you should be against me, considering the special circumstances and the manner in which I have kept my own counsel ——”
“You will take a fifth share, or nothing, George,” said Mr. Sheldon, with a threatening contraction of his black brows.
“If I have any difficulty in arranging matters with you, I will go into this affair myself, and carry it through without your help.”
“That I defy you to do.”
“You had better not defy me.”
“Pray how much do you expect to get out of Miss Halliday’s fortune?” demanded the aggravated George.
“That is my business,” answered Philip. “And now we had better go into the drawing-room for our tea. O, by the bye, George,” he added, carelessly, “as Miss Halliday is quite a child in all business matters, she had better be treated like a child. I shall tell her that she has a claim to a certain sum of money; but I shall not tell her what sum. Her disappointment will be less in the event of a failure, if her expectations are not large.”
“You are always so considerate, my dear Phil,” said George, with a malignant grin. “May I ask how it is you have taken it into your head to play the benevolent father in the matter of Valentine Hawkehurst and Miss Halliday?”
“What can it signify to me whom my stepdaughter marries?” asked Philip, coolly. “Of course I wish her well; but I will not have the responsibility of controlling her choice. If this young man suits her, let her marry him.”
“Especially when he happens to suit you so remarkably well. I think I can understand your tactics, Phil.”
“You must understand or misunderstand me, just as you please. And now come to tea.”
Valentine Hawkehurst did not make his appearance at the Lawn on Christmas-eve. He devoted that evening to the service of his old ally. He performed all friendly offices for the departing Captain, dined with him very pleasantly in Regent-street, and accompanied him to the London-bridge terminus, where he beheld the voyager comfortably seated in a second-class carriage of the night-train for Newhaven.
Mr. Hawkehurst had seen the Captain take a through ticket for Rouen, and he saw the train leave the terminus. This he held to be ocular demonstration of the fact that Captain Paget was really going to the Gallic Manchester.
“That sort of customer is so uncommonly slippery,” the young man said to himself as he left the station; “nothing but the evidence of my own eyes would have convinced me of my friend’s departure. How pure and fresh the London atmosphere seems now that the perfume of Horatio Paget is out of it! I wonder what he is going to do at Rouen? Very little good, I daresay. But why should I wonder about him, or trouble myself about him? He is gone, and I have set myself free from the trammels of the past.”
The next day was Christmas-day. Mr. Hawkehurst recited scraps of Milton’s glorious hymn as he made his morning toilet. He was very happy. It was the first Christmas morning on which he had ever awakened with this sense of supreme happiness, or with the consciousness that the day was brighter, or grander, or more holy than other days. It seemed to him to-day, more than ever, that he was indeed a regenerate creature, purified by the influence of a good woman’s love.
He looked back at his past existence, and the vision of many Christmas-days arose before him: a Christmas in Paris, amidst unutterable rain and mud; a Christmas-night spent in roaming the Boulevards, and in the consumption of cognac and tobacco at a third-rate café; a Christmas in Germany; more than one Christmas in the Queen’s Bench; one especially dreary Christmas in a long bare ward at Whitecross-street — how many varied scenes and changing faces arose before his mental vision associated with that festive time! And yet among them all there was not one on which there shone the faintest glimmer of that holy light which makes the common holiday a sacred season.
It was a pleasant thing to breakfast without the society of the brilliant Horatio, whose brilliancy was apt to appear somewhat ghastly at that early period of the morning. It was pleasant to loiter over the meal, now meditating on the happy future, now dipping into a tattered copy of Southey’s “Doctor;” with the consciousness that the winds and waves had by this time wafted Captain Paget to a foreign land.
Valentine was to spend the whole of Christmas-day with Charlotte and her kindred. He was to accompany them to a fashionable church in the morning, to walk with them after church, to dine and tell ghost-stories in the evening. It was to be his first day as a recognised member of that pleasant family at Bayswater; and in the fulness of his heart he felt affectionately disposed to all his adopted relations; even to Mr. Sheldon, whose very noble conduct had impressed him strongly, in spite of the bitter sneers and covert slanders of George. Charlotte had told her lover that her stepfather was a very generous and disinterested person, and that there was a secret which she would have been glad to tell him, had she not been pledged to hold it inviolate, that would have gone far to place Mr. Sheldon in a very exalted light before the eyes of his future son-in-law.
And then Miss Halliday had nodded and smiled, and had informed her lover, with a joyous little laugh, that he should have a horse to ride, and an edition of Grote’s “Greece” bound in dark-brown calf with bevelled edges, when they were married; this work being one which the young author had of late languished to possess.
“Dear foolish Lotta, I fear there will be a new history of Greece, based on new theories, before that time comes,” said the lover.
“O no, indeed; that time will come very soon. See how industriously you work, and how well you succeed. The magazine people will soon give you thirty pounds a month. Or who knows that you may not write some book that will make you suddenly famous, like Byron, or the good-natured fat little printer who wrote those long, long, long novels that no one reads nowadays?”
Influenced by Charlotte’s hints about her stepfather, Mr. Hawkehurst’s friendly feeling for that gentleman grew stronger, and the sneers and innuendoes of the lawyer ceased to have the smallest power over him.
“The man is such a thorough-going schemer himself, that he cannot bring himself to believe in another man’s honesty,” thought Mr. Hawkehurst, while meditating upon his experience of the two brothers. “So far as I have had any dealings with Philip Sheldon, I have found him straightforward enough. I can imagine no hidden motive for his conduct in relation to Charlotte. The test of his honesty will be the manner in which he is acted upon by Charlotte’s position as claimant of a great fortune. Will he throw me overboard, I wonder? or will my dear one believe me an adventurer and fortune-hunter? Ah, no, no, no; I do not think in all the complications of life there could come about a state of events which would cause my Charlotte to doubt me. There is no clairvoyance so unerring as true love.”
Mr. Hawkehurst had need of such philosophy as this to sustain him in the present crisis of his life. He was blest with a pure delight which excelled his wildest dreams of happiness; but he was not blest with any sense of security as to the endurance of that exalted state of bliss.
Mr. Sheldon would learn Charlotte’s position, would doubtless extort from his brother the history of those researches in which Valentine had been engaged; and then, what then? Alas! hereupon arose incalculable dangers and perplexities.
Might not the stockbroker, as a man of the world, take a sordid view of the whole transaction, and consider Valentine in the light of a shameless adventurer, who had traded on his secret knowledge in the hope of securing a rich wife? Might he not reveal all to Charlotte, and attempt to place her lover before her in this most odious aspect? She would not believe him base; her faith would be unshaken, her love unchanged; but it was odious, it was horrible, to think that her ears should be sullied, her tender heart fluttered, by the mere suggestion of such baseness.
It was during the Christmas-morning sermon that Mr. Hawkehurst permitted his mind to be disturbed by these reflections. He was sitting next his betrothed, and had the pleasure of contemplating her fair girlish face, with the rosy lips half parted in reverent attention as she looked upward to her pastor. After church there was the walk home to the Lawn: and during this rapturous promenade Valentine put away from him all shadow of doubt and fear, in order to bask in the full sunshine of his Charlotte’s presence. Her pretty gloved hand rested confidingly on his arm, and the supreme privilege of carrying a dainty blue-silk umbrella and an ivory-bound church-service was awarded him. With what pride he accepted the duty of convoying his promised wife over the muddy crossings! Those brief journeys seemed to him in a manner typical of their future lives. She was to travel dry-shod over the miry ways of this world, supported by his strong arm. How fondly he surveyed her toilet! and what a sudden interest he felt in the fashions, that had until lately seemed so vulgar and frivolous!
“I will never denounce the absurdity of those little bonnets again, Lotta,” he cried; “that conglomeration of black velvet and maiden’s-hair fern is divine. Do you know that in some places they call that fern Maria’s hair, and hold it sacred to the mother of Him who was born to-day? so you see there is an artistic fitness in your head-dress. Yes, your bonnet is delicious, darling; and though the diminutive size of that velvet jacket would lead me to suppose you had borrowed it from some juvenile sister, it seems the very garment of all garments best calculated to render you just one hair’s-breadth nearer perfection than you were made by Nature.”
“Valentine, don’t be ridiculous!” giggled the young lady.
“How can I help being ridiculous? Your presence acts upon my nerves like laughing-gas. Ah, you do not know what cares and perplexities I have to make me serious. Charlotte,” exclaimed the young man, with sudden energy, “do you think you could ever come to distrust me?”
“Valentine! Do I think I shall ever be Queen of England? One thing is quite as likely as the other.”
“My dear angel, if you will only believe in me always, there is no power upon earth that can make us unhappy. Suppose you found yourself suddenly possessed of a great fortune, Charlotte; what would you do with it?”
“I would buy you a library as good as that in the British Museum; and then you would not want to spend the whole of your existence in Great Russell-street.”
“But if you had a great fortune, Lotta, don’t you think you would be very much disposed to leave me to plod on at my desk in Great Russell-street? Possessed of wealth, you would begin to languish for position; and you would allow Mr. Sheldon to bring you some suitor who could give you a name and a rank in society worthy of an angelic creature with a hundred thousand pounds or so.”
“I should do nothing of the kind. I do not care for money. Indeed, I should be almost sorry to be very rich.”
“Why, dearest?”
“Because, if I were very rich, we could not live in the cottage at Wimbledon, and I could not make lemon cheese-cakes for your dinner.”
“My own true-hearted darling!” cried Valentine; “the taint of worldliness can never touch your pure spirit.”
They were at the gates of Mr. Sheldon’s domain by this time. Diana and Georgy had walked behind the lovers, and had talked a little about the sermon, and a good deal about the bonnets; poor Diana doing her very uttermost to feign an interest in the finery that had attracted Mrs. Sheldon’s wandering gaze.
“Well, I should have thought you couldn’t fail to see it,” said the elder lady, as they approached the gate; “a leghorn, very small, with holly-berries and black ribbon — quite French, you know, and so stylish. I was thinking, if I had my Tuscan cleaned and altered, it might ——” And here the conversation became general, as the family party entered the drawing-room, where Mr. Sheldon was reading his paper by a roaring fire.
“Talking about the bonnets, as per usual,” said the stockbroker. “What an enormous amount of spiritual benefit you women must derive from church-going! — Consols have fallen another eighth since Tuesday afternoon, George,” added Mr. Sheldon, addressing himself to his brother, who was standing on the hearth-rug, with his elbow on the chimney-piece.
“Consols are your ‘bonnets,’ papa,” cried Charlotte, gaily; “I don’t think there is a day upon which you do not talk about their having gone up, or gone down, or gone somewhere.”
After luncheon the lovers went for a walk in Kensington-gardens, with Diana Paget to play propriety. “You will come with us, won’t you, dear Di?” pleaded Charlotte. “You have been looking pale and ill lately, and I am sure a walk will do you good.”
Valentine seconded his liege lady’s request; and the three spent a couple of hours pacing briskly to and fro in the lonelier parts of the gardens, leaving the broad walks for the cockneys, who mustered strong upon this seasonable Christmas afternoon.
For two out of those three that wintry walk was rapture only too fleeting. For the third it was passive endurance. The agonies that had but lately rent Diana’s breast when she had seen those two together no longer tortured her. The scorpion sting was beginning to lose its venomous power. She suffered still, but her suffering was softened by resignation. There is a limit to the capacity for pain in every mind. Diana had borne her share of grief; she had, in Homeric phrase, satiated herself with anguish and tears; and to those sharp throes and bitter torments there had succeeded a passive sense of sorrow that was almost peace.
“I have lost him,” she said to herself. “Life can never bring me much joy; but I should be worse than weak if I spent my existence in the indulgence of my sorrow. I should be one of the vilest wretches upon this earth if I could not teach myself to witness the happiness of my friend without repining.”
Miss Paget had not arrived at this frame of mind without severe struggles. Many times, in the long wakeful nights, in the slow, joyless days, she had said to herself, “Peace, peace, when there was no peace.” But at last the real peace, the true balm of Gilead, was given in answer to her prayers, and the weary soul tasted the sweetness of repose. She had wrestled with, and had vanquished, the demon.
To-day, as she walked beside the lovers, and listened to their happy frivolous talk, she felt like a mother who had seen the man she loved won from her by her own daughter, and who had resigned herself to the ruin of all her hopes for love of her child.
There was more genial laughter and pleasant converse at Mr. Sheldon’s dinner-table that evening than was usual at that hospitable board; but the stockbroker himself contributed little to the merriment of the party. He was quiet, and even thoughtful, and let the talk and laughter go by him without any attempt to take part in it. After dinner he went to his own room; while Valentine and the ladies sat round the fire in the orthodox Christmas manner, and after a good deal of discursive conversation, subsided into the telling of ghost-stories.
George Sheldon sat apart from the circle, turning over the books upon the table, or peering into a stereoscope with an evident sense of weariness. This kind of domestic evening was a manner of life which Mr. Sheldon of Gray’s Inn denounced as “slow;” and he submitted himself to the endurance of it this evening only because he did not know where else to bestow his presence.
“I don’t think papa cares much about ghost-stories, does he, uncle George?” Charlotte asked, by way of saying something to the gentleman, who seemed so very dreary as he sat yawning over the books and stereoscopes.
“I don’t suppose he does, my dear.”
“And do you think he believes in ghosts?” the young lady demanded, laughingly.
“No, I am sure he doesn’t,” replied George, very seriously.
“Why, how seriously you say that!” cried Charlotte, a little startled by George Sheldon’s manner, in which there had been an earnestness not quite warranted by the occasion.
“I was thinking of your father — not my brother Phil. He died in Philip’s house, you know; and if Phil believed in ghosts, he would scarcely have liked living in that house afterwards, you see, and so on. But he went on living there for a twelvemonth longer. It seemed just as good as any other house to him, I suppose.”
Hereupon Georgy dissolved into tears, and told the company how she had fled, heartbroken, from the house in which her first husband had died, immediately after the funeral.
“And I’m sure the gentlemanly manner in which your step-papa behaved during all that dreadful time, Charlotte, is beyond all praise,” continued the lady, turning to her daughter; “so thoughtful, so kind, so patient. What I should have done if poor Tom’s illness had happened in a strange house, I don’t know. And I have no doubt that the new doctor, Mr. Burkham, did his duty, though his manner was not as decided as I should have wished.”
“Mr. Burkham!” cried Valentine. “What Burkham is that? We’ve a member of the Ragamuffins called Burkham, a surgeon, who does a little in the literary line.”
“The Mr. Burkham who attended my poor dear husband was a very young man,” answered Georgy; “a fair man, with a fresh colour and a hesitating manner. I should have been so much better satisfied if he had been older.”
“That is the man,” said Valentine. “The Burkham I know is fresh-coloured and fair, and cannot be much over thirty.”
“Are you and he particularly intimate?” asked George Sheldon, carelessly.
“O dear no, not at all. We speak to each other when we happen to meet — that’s all. He seems a nice fellow enough; and he evidently hasn’t much practice, or he couldn’t afford to be a Ragamuffin, and to write farces. He looks to me exactly the kind of modest deserving man who ought to succeed, and who so seldom does.”
This was all that was said about Mr. Burkham; but there was no more talk of ghost-stories, and a temporary depression fell upon the little assembly. The memory of her father had always a saddening influence on Charlotte; and it needed many tender sotto-voce speeches from Valentine to bring back the smiles to her fair young face.
The big electro-plated tea-tray and massive silver teapot made their appearance presently, and immediately after came Mr. Sheldon.
“I want to have a little talk with you after tea, Hawkehurst,” he said, as he took his own cup from Georgy’s hand, and proceeded to imbibe the beverage standing. “If you will come out into the garden and have a cigar, I can say all I have to say in a very few minutes; and then we can come in here for a rubber. Georgy is a very decent player; and my brother George plays as good a hand at whist as any man at the Conservative or the Reform.”
Valentine’s heart sank within him. What could Mr. Sheldon want with a few minutes’ talk, if not to revoke his gracious permission of some days before — the permission that had been accorded in ignorance of Charlotte’s pecuniary advantages? The young man looked very pale as he went to smoke his cigar in Mr. Sheldon’s garden. Charlotte followed him with anxious eyes, and wondered at the sudden gravity of his manner. George Sheldon also was puzzled by his brother’s desire for a tête-à-tête.
“What new move is Phil going to make?” he asked himself. The two men lit their cigars, and got them well under weigh before Mr. Sheldon began to talk.
“When I gave my consent to receive you as Miss Halliday’s suitor, my dear Hawkehurst,” he said, at last, “I told you that I was acting as very few men of the world would act, and I only told you the truth. Since giving you that consent I have made a very startling discovery, and one that places me in quite a new position in regard to this matter.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, Mr. Hawkehurst, I have become aware of the fact that Miss Halliday, the girl whom I thought entirely dependent upon my generosity, is heir-at-law to a large fortune. You will, of course, perceive how entirely this alters the position of affairs.”
“I do perceive,” Valentine answered earnestly; “but I trust you will believe that I had not the faintest idea of Miss Halliday’s position when I asked her to be my wife. As to my love for her, I can scarcely tell you when that began; but I think it must have dated from the first hour in which I saw her, for I can remember no period at which I did not love her.”
“If I did not believe you superior to any mercenary motives, you would not have been under my roof to-day, Mr. Hawkehurst,” said the stockbroker, with extreme gravity. “The discovery of my stepdaughter’s position gives me no pleasure. Her claim to this wealth only increases my responsibility with regard to her, and responsibility is what I would willingly avoid. After all due deliberation, therefore, I have decided that this discovery need make no alteration in your position as Charlotte’s future husband. If you were worthy of her when she was without a fortune, you are not less worthy now.”
“Mr. Sheldon,” cried Valentine, with considerable emotion, “I did not expect so much generosity at your hands!”
“No,” replied the stockbroker, “the popular idea of a business man is not particularly agreeable. I do not, however, pretend to anything like generosity; I wish to take a common-sense view of the affair, but not an illiberal one.”
“You have shown so much generosity of feeling, that I can no longer sail under false colours,” said Valentine, after a brief pause. “Until a day or two ago I was bound to secrecy by a promise made to your brother. But his communication of Miss Halliday’s rights to you sets me at liberty, and I must tell you that which may possibly cause you to withdraw your confidence.”
Hereupon Mr. Hawkehurst revealed his share in the researches that had resulted in the discovery of Miss Halliday’s claim to a large fortune. He entered into no details. He told Mr. Sheldon only that he had been the chief instrument in the bringing about of this important discovery.
“I can only repeat what I said just now,” he added, in conclusion. “I have loved Charlotte Halliday from the beginning of our acquaintance, and I declared myself some days before I discovered her position. I trust this confession will in nowise alter your estimate of me.”
“It would be a poor return for your candour if I were to doubt your voluntary statement, Hawkehurst,” answered the stockbroker. “No; I shall not withdraw my confidence. And if your researches should ultimately lead to the advancement of my stepdaughter, there will be only poetical justice in your profiting more or less by that advancement. In the mean tune we cannot take matters too quietly. I am not a sanguine person, and I know how many hearts have been broken by the High Court of Chancery. This grand discovery of yours may result in nothing but disappointment and waste of money, or it may end as pleasantly as my brother and you seem to expect. All I ask is, that poor Charlotte’s innocent heart may not be tortured by a small lifetime of suspense. Let her be told nothing that can create hope in the present or disappointment in the future. She appears to be perfectly happy in her present position, and it would be worse than folly to disturb her by vague expectations that may never be realised. She will have to make affidavits, and so on, by-and-by, I daresay; and when that time comes she must be told there is some kind of suit pending in which she is concerned. But she need not be told how nearly that suit concerns her, or the extent of her alleged claim. You see, my dear sir, I have seen so much of this sort of thing, and the misery involved in it, that I may be forgiven if I am cautious.”
This was putting the whole affair in a new light. Until this moment Valentine had fancied that, the chain of evidence once established, Charlotte’s claim had only to be asserted in order to place her in immediate possession of the Haygarth estate. But Mr. Sheldon’s cool and matter-of-fact discussion of the subject implied all manner of doubt and difficulty, and the Haygarthian thousands seemed carried away to the most remote and shadowy regions of Chanceryland, as by the waves of some legal ocean.
“And you really think it would be better not to tell Charlotte?”
“I am sure of it. If you wish to preserve her from all manner of worry and annoyance, you will take care to keep her in the dark until the affair is settled — supposing it ever should be settled. I have known such an affair to outlast the person interested.”
“You take a very despondent view of the matter.”
“I take a practical view of it. My brother George is a monomaniac on the next-of-kin subject.”
“I cannot quite reconcile myself to the idea of concealing the truth from Charlotte.”
“That is because you do not know the world as well as I do,” answered Mr. Sheldon, coolly.
“I cannot imagine that the idea of this claim would have any disturbing influence upon her,” Valentine argued, thoughtfully. “She is the last person in the world to care about money.”
“Perhaps so. But there is a kind of intoxication in the idea of a large fortune — an intoxication that no woman of Charlotte’s age could stand against. Tell her that she has a claim to considerable wealth, and from that moment she will count upon the possession of that wealth, and shape all her plans for the future upon that basis. ‘When I get my fortune, I will do this, that, and the other.’ That is what she will be continually saying to herself; and by-and-by, when the affair results in failure, as it very likely will, there will remain a sense of disappointment which will last for a lifetime, and go far to embitter all the ordinary pleasures of her existence.”
“I am inclined to think you are right,” said Valentine, after some little deliberation. “My darling girl is perfectly happy as it is. It may be wisest to tell her nothing.”
“I am quite sure of that,” replied Mr. Sheldon. “Of course her being enlightened or not can be in no way material to me. It is a subject upon which I can afford to be entirely disinterested.”
“I will take your advice, Mr. Sheldon.”
“So be it. In that case matters will remain in statu quo. You will be received in this house as my stepdaughter’s future husband, and it is an understood thing that your marriage is not to take place without due consultation, with me. I am to have a voice in the business.”
“Most decidedly. It is only right that you should be deferred to.”
This brought the interview to a close very pleasantly. The gentlemen went back to the house, and Valentine found himself presently seated at a whist-table with the brothers Sheldon, and Georgy, who played very well, in a feeble kind of way, holding religiously by all the precepts of Hoyle, and in evident fear of her husband and brother-in-law. Charlotte and Diana played duets while the whist progressed, with orthodox silence and solemnity on the part of the four players. Valentine’s eyes wandered very often to the piano, and he was in nowise sorry when the termination of a conquering rubber set him at liberty. He contrived to secure a brief tête-à-tête with Charlotte while he helped her in the arrangement of the books on the music-stand, and then the shrill chime of the clock on the mantelpiece, and an audible yawn from Philip Sheldon, told him that he must go.
“Providence has been very good to us,” he said, in an undertone, as he bade Miss Halliday good night. “Your stepfather’s conduct is all that is kind and thoughtful, and there is not a cloud upon our future. Good night, and God bless you, my dearest! I think I shall always consider this my first Christmas-day. I never knew till to-day how sweet and holy this anniversary can be.”
He walked to Cumberland-gate in company with George Sheldon, who preserved a sulky gravity, which was by no means agreeable.
“You have chosen your own course,” he said at parting, “and I only hope the result may prove your wisdom. But, as I think I may have remarked before, you don’t know my brother Phil as well as I do.” “Your brother has behaved with such extreme candour and good feeling towards me, that I would really rather not hear any of your unpleasant innuendoes against him. I hate that ‘I could an if I would’ style of talk, and while I occupy my present position in your brother’s house I cannot consent to hear anything to his discredit.”
“That’s a very tall animal you’ve taken to riding lately, my friend Hawkehurst,” said George, “and when a man rides the high horse with me I always let him have the benefit of his monture. You have served yourself without consideration for me, and I shall not trouble myself in the future with any regard for you or your interests. But if harm ever comes to you or yours, through my brother Philip, remember that I warned you. Good night.”
In Charlotte’s room the cheery little fire burned late upon that frosty night, while the girl sat in her dressing-gown dreamily brushing her soft brown hair, and meditating upon the superhuman merits and graces in her lover.
It was more than an hour after the family had retired, when there came a cautious tapping at Charlotte’s door. “It is only I, dear,” said a low voice; and before Charlotte could answer, the door was opened, and Diana came in, and went straight to the hearth, by which her friend was sitting.
“I am so wakeful to-night, Lotta,” she said; “and the light under your door tempted me to come in for a few minutes’ chat.”
“My dearest Di, you know how glad I always am to see you.”
“Yes, dear, I know that you are only too good to me — and I have been so wayward, so ungracious. O, Charlotte, I know my coldness has wounded you during the last few months.”
“I have been just a little hurt now and then, dear, when you have seemed not to care for me, or to sympathise with me in all my joys and sorrows; but then it has been selfish of me to expect so much sympathy, and I know that, if your manner is cold, your heart is noble.”
“No, Lotta, it is not noble. It is a wicked heart.”
“Diana!”
“Yes,” said Miss Paget, kneeling by her friend’s chair, and speaking with suppressed energy; “it has been a wicked heart — wicked because your happiness has been torture to it.”
“Diana!”
“O, my dearest one, do not look at me with those innocent, wondering eyes. You will hate me, perhaps, when you know all. O, no, no, no, you will not hate — you will pity and forgive me. I loved him, dear; he was my companion, my only friend; and there was a time — long ago — before he had ever seen your face, when I fancied that he cared for me, and would get to love me — as I loved him — unasked, uncared for. O, Charlotte, you can never know what I have suffered. It is not in your nature to comprehend what such a woman as I can suffer. I loved him so dearly, I clung so wickedly, so madly to my old hopes, my old dreams, long after they had become the falsest hopes, the wildest dreams that ever had power over a distracted mind. But, my darling, it is past, and I come to you on this Christmas night to tell you that I have conquered my stubborn heart, and that from this time forward there shall be no cloud between you and me.”
“Diana, my dear friend, my poor girl!” cried Charlotte, quite overcome, “you loved him, you — as well as I— and I have robbed you of his heart!”
“No, Charlotte, it was never mine.”
“You loved him — all the time you spoke so harshly of him!”
“When I seemed most harsh, I loved him most. But do not look at me with such distress in your sweet face, my dear. I tell you that the worst pain is past and gone. The rest is very easy to bear, and to outlive. These things do not last for ever, Charlotte, whatever the poets and novelists may tell us. If I had not lived through the worst, I should not be here to-night, with your arm round my neck and his name upon my lips. I have never wished you joy until to-night, Charlotte, and now for the first time I can wish you all good things, in honesty and truth. I have conquered myself. I do not say that to me Valentine Hawkehurst can ever be quite what other men are. I think that to the end of my life there will be a look in his face, a tone of his voice, that will touch me more deeply than any other look or tone upon earth; but my love for you has overcome my love for him, and there is no hidden thought in my mind to-night, as I sit here at your feet, and pray for God’s blessing on your choice.”
“My darling Diana, I know not how to thank you, how to express my faith and my love.”
“I doubt if I am worthy of your love, dear; but, with God’s help, I will be worthy of your trust; and if ever there should come a day in which my love can succour or my devotion serve you, there shall be no lack of either. Listen, dear; there are the waits playing the sweet Christmas hymn. Do you remember what Shakespeare says about the ‘bird of dawning’ singing all night long, and how no evil spirit roams abroad at this dear season —
‘So hallowed and so gracious is the time?’
“I have conquered my evil spirit, Lotta, and there shall be peace and true love between us for evermore, shall there not, dearest friend?”
And thus ends the story of Diana Paget’s girlish love — the love that had grown up in secret, to be put away from her heart in silence, and buried with the dead dreams and fancies that had fostered it. For her to-night the romance of life closed for ever. For Charlotte the sweet story was newly begun, and the opening chapters were very pleasant — the mystic volume seemed all delight. Blessed with her lover’s devotion, her mother’s approval, and even Mr. Sheldon’s benign approbation, what more could she ask from Providence — what lurking dangers could she fear — what storm-cloud could she perceive upon the sunlit heavens?
There was a cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, but the harbinger of tempest and terror. It yet remains to be shown what form that cloud assumed, and from what quarter the tempest came. The history of Charlotte Halliday has grown upon the writer; and the completion of that history, with the fate of John Haygarth’s fortune, will be found under the title of, CHARLOTTE’S INHERITANCE.
The End