THE LILY OF MORDAUNT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7222, 10 January 1885, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE LILY OF MORDAUNT.

BY MRS. GEO KG IE SII3LDON, Author of "The Forsaken Brido," "Brownie's Triumph/' "Dorothy Arnold's Escape."

CHAPTER XXVIII. ADDING INSULT TO INJURY. Philip was amazed. . Lady Elaine had almost given him the cut direct. She had been so gracious to him of late, so kind and even sympathetic in her manner, that he had begun to hope that time and patience would yet award him the prize he so coveted. He had consulted an eminent and not overscrupulous brother lawyer—laid his case before him, and learned that it would not be a very difficult matter to obtain a divorce from Arley, and without any unpleasant publicity, too; meanwhile he intended to make the most of his opportunities, and cultivate the favour of the beautiful and wealthy Countess of Mordaunt. Hut now, just as he had every reason, as he thought, to believe that his wooing was progressing favourably, she hnd suddenly become like an iceberg to him. He stood looking after her as she swept up the grand staircase, blank dismay pictured upon his face, and a feeling almost of suffocation in his throat. He resolved, however, to sift the matter forthwith, and as soon after their dinner hour as he thought it would do, he presented : himself at the Hamiltous' parlour door. Lady Hamilton was there alone, Sir Anthony having lingered in the smokingroom below after dinner, and she received , him with her usual gracious hospitality,

Ere long he succeeded in engaging her in her favourite game—chess—and prepared to make a long siege of it, for he was determined to have an interview with Lady Elaine before he left, if possible.

She had retired to her own chamber immediately after dinner to write some letters, and to record in her diary the important facts which she had that afternoon gleaned from Jane Collins. So she knew nothing of Philip's visit, and was entirely unconscious of the uncomfortable state of unrest and nervous expectation in which he sat watching the door leading to her room, hopiDg every moment to see it open, and its fair occupant come forth.

He played with Lady Hamilton until she grew so sleepy that she nodded over the game, frequently making mistakes in her moves, but he prolonged it by every device he could think of, stubbornly resolved not to relinquish his purpose. Lady Elaine at last made her appearance, and his faco cleared instantly. She btopped upon the threshold, and seemed half tempted to retreat when she saw him; then appearing to change her mind, she came forward and seated herself before the glowing grate, but merely recognising him by a grave bend of her fair head. Now, with a few quick, decisive moves, Philip brought a knight, bishop, and a pawn to bear upon Lady Hamilton's king, and an immediate " checkmate" was the result.

" I am very stupid to-night, I fear, Mr. Paxton," his opponent smilingly affirmed, as she began to arrange the exquisite men in their beautiful inlaid box. " I think we shall have to postpone the 'rubber' until another evening. I wonder," she added, "where Sir Anthony is at this hour— seldom goes out after dinner." She arose, and going to a window, looked out upon the street, but a moment after her maid came into the room to ask her some question, and then excusing herself, she retired to her own apartment with her. Philip heaved a sigh of relief as mistress and maid disappeared. He had seen nothing, scarely been conscious of anything, save that quiet figure, with its grave, sweet face, sitting in the firelight, ever since Lady Elaine entered ; and now, as the door closed after Lady Hamilton, he arose abruptly, crossed the space between them, and stood before her on the rag. Lady Elaine's lovely face flashed crimson, and then grow strangely pale at his approach, yet she did not raise her eyes from the fantastic flashes of the light which were playing over the consuming logs upon the hearth, though a close observer migbt have seen that little resolute lines were settling about her mouth, and an ominous flash flickering in the blue orbs that were only half concealed by their white, golden-fringed lids.

" Lady Elaine," Philip began, with that air of proud humility which he knew so well how to assume, while he bens his dark, magnetic eyes upon her, "the very atmosphere is heavy with censure, oppressing me with the conviction that I have done something either to annoy or offend you. Tell me of what I have been guilty, that I may atone to the extent of my power." She turned her grave glance upon him—a clear, searching, -accusing glance, that, though he did not once mistrust her knowledge of his perfidy, made his heart throb with a strange, depressing heaviness. The question is whether you would be willing to atone if I should tell you," she said, slowly, and with a seriousness that sent a chill of foreboding creeping along hist nerves.

Ah, then you have something against me!" he .said, with a quick, long-drawn breath, it was strange how he seemed to dread incurring her displeasure. " Yea, I have something against you," she repeated, as slowly as before, and still keeping her grave, sweet eyes upon his face.

What a look it was 1 It filled him with a mysterious pain. He felt something as a spirit of evil must feel in the presence of an angel of light. " What have I done ?" he demanded, in a thick, husky voice; " tell me ! 1 cannot endure the suspense ; no one could be more sorry; than I am to offend you, though I am ignorant of any sin, and there is no atonemeat that I will not make ; try me, and see : there is nothing that I would not do for you, Lady Elaine." Again a beautiful flush crimsoned her whole face, but she straightened herself slightly in her chair; and there was something in his look and in the emphasis which he had employed that offended her. u But aside from that slight change of position, she gave no sign that his words had moved her in the least.

After a moment of thought she replied : " If I thought that you really would atone — I could believe it, it would change my opinion of you greatly." " Can you not believe it?" he cried, a dark flush mounting to his brow at the lack of respect which her words seemed to imply, while he became greatly excited. " I told you to try me : no test will be too severe to prove my sincerity. I— He hesitated a moment, then with a gesture as if he was driven to desperation, as if he must leap every barrier and learn his fate, he took a step forward, and went on, passionately :

"I cannot keep silence any longer; I must speak. Have you not seen, Lady Elaine, what a captive I have become?how I cannot keep away from you. Can you not see how all the old passion, which I once betrayed to you, has revived?—no. that word I should not use, for it has never waned, though, when I found that you loved another, I strove io crash it out of my heart; but it was of no use, and now I lovo—l idolise you a hundred fold. You have become the one hope of my life, and though I may be premature in this declaration, yet the thought of your displeasure, the fear that I have offended you, has driven me to it, and forced it from my lips. Oh, my beautiful beloved, will you doubt now that I will stand any test ? Try me and see ; but pray give me a crumb of comfort to feed upon, and I will try to be content with whatever probation you may see fib to put me on. Dearest, tell me that I may hope for your love, and you will give me an incentive that will make me courageous to scale the loftiest heights, or dig to the lowest depths for treasures to lay at your feet."

What An actor ho would have made! Whit power he had over himself to be able to thus throw into his every look and gesture such eloquence and pathos, such passion and seeming sincerity 1 Had not Lady Elaine known beyond a doubt how basely treacherous and unprincipled he had been; if the facts to which she had listened had come to her only as floating rumours, instead of being related by an eye-witness, ho might have deceived her ; he might have won something of sympathy for his unfortunate passion—something of commiseration for its hopelessness. As it was, she knew that every word he had uttered was as false as the vows which he had spoken to Arley when he had won her trusting heart. She read him like a printed page, and she knew that instead of experiencing any real affection for her, be was now, as before, simply seeking to obtain a fortune to gratify his ambition for position and his love of ease, while she was to be but the stepping-stoue by which he hoped to secure it. She arose and stood before him pale as snow, and looking, in her long mourning robes, like Bome piece of statuary draped in " blackest samite."

She raised her head with a haughty air, and looked straight into the eyes of the man before her, her own fairly glittering with the scorn aud indignation which quivered through every fibre of her being. " Qeavon ! how beautiful she is," thought Philip Paxton, as he gazed upon her; but he looked and trembled. " I am afraid, sir, that I cannot find words with which to answer you properly," she began, in a clear, cold tone which actually made him shiver. "I do not believe there is a language spoken which contains words sufficiently fluent to express what I would like to say to you. One would suppose that a sense of delicacy would have prevented you from intruding such protestations upon one who is sorrowing as you must know I sorrow. I have not forgotten how you spoke in the same way to me once before, nor She spirit which you manifested upon my refusal of your proposals. I bore with you then, but now 1 have no patience with you. If your heart, with all its purposes and schemes, could be photographed, what do you suppose it would be like, Philip Paxton ? Where is your honour, your truth, your manhood? Do you ever ask yourself what you were made for—what Heaven gave you an immortal soul for ? Was it that you might abuse it, mar and disfigure it until no trace of the divine nature should remain upon it, and when it went back to its Maker it would be unrecognisable, and only fit to be cast into 4 outer darkness ?' " How could you dare," she went on, seeming almost to tower above him in her

righteous wrath, to come to me this evening and say what you have said to me ? I wonder that the words did not paralyze your tongue as you uttered them. You ask with such an injured, innocent air what you have done to offend me. What have you not done ? All your treachery of the past year has been revealed to me, and you seem so little, and mean, and ignoble to me that I could almost trample upon you. That is not right, I know, for you are one of God's creatures, and if He sees fit to let you live among respectable people I have no right to question His wisdom ; but my patience and charity have been sadly tried by what I have learned to-day of your treatment of my dearest friend. You won her, a noble, trusting girla girl so true and upright, 80 sensitively conscious by nature, that she preferred to endure any amount of personal humiliation and self-denial rather than be guilty of a wrong toward any one, or commit a mean or unworthy act. She became your wife, believing that you loved her, and would fulfil to the letter the vows which you spoke so solemnly when you stood by her side before the altar? But how have you kept those promises? You took her away from her friends, from her home and country ; yon dragged her to a foreign city, where among those almost barbarous people, she must have been more desolate than language can describe; while your treatment of her drove her to desperation—drove her to the necessity of working to pay for the bread which she ate, and for the roof which sheltered her ! And then, when she had worn herself out, when heart and nature both failed her, and sha lay sick, week after week—some of the time almost unto death —you never went to her assistance; you never exerted yourself to see that she had proper care or attendance, or the comforts which, in her helplessness, she needed." "Great heavens 1 how do you know ? Who has told you this ?" burst from Philip Paxton's white lips, while he stood staring almost wildly at the girl before him, great drops of cold perspiration beading his forehead. " It does not signify how I know it," Lady Elaine returned, with curling lips; you perceive that I do know it." "Has Arley written to yoa? Have you heard from her?" he interrupted, feeling sure that she could never have learned so much from any other source. "No, Arley has not written me one word ; she has been heroically silent throughout all her trouble. I think not even Miss McAllister mistrusts the terrible ordeal to which you have subjected the dear child whom she loved so fondly, and to whom she would have flown on the wings of love had she even dreamed of what she was suffering. I would have gone to her; nothing should have kept me from her had I known. Philip Paxton, if Arley had died when she was so sick there in Madrid, you would have been—her murderer !

" Don't," he cried, putting out his hand with an appealing gesture, while a shudder of repulsion ran over him at the sound of that startling word. Standing there in Lady Elaine's pure presence, while her scathing words rained, like sharp hailstones, fast' and thick upon him, he began to see himself something as she saw him, while the scorn and contempt which pervaded her every word and gesture actually made him feel faint and sick.

" Don't," she repeated, with such stinging sarcasm that he cringed as if she had struck him a sharp blow. "Is impossible that after having used your wife so heartlessly—after realising her wretchedness day after day, and looking unmoved upon her sufferings, you can shrink like this from the mere mention of them ?"

" How will you answer, Philip Paxton," she continued, in stern, accusing accents, " for the life that you have ruined—for the love that you have scorned and trampled upon as a thing of no value. ? If you should go into eternity to-night and the questions were put to you, ' Where is your wife—where is the true-hearted woman who trusted herself to your keeping ?how have you fulfilled your solemn vows to love, cherish, and protect her?' what could you. say for yourself?"

" Nay," she cried, as he appeared about to defend himself, "I will listen to no more falsehoods from you ; you can have nothing to offer in extenuation of your conduct. I know enough to brand you as a traitor to your plighted vows ; as a coward, too weak and mean to face disappointment and adversity for tho woman who loved him ; and as a villain, too heartless to be tolerated by auyone who has an atom of self-respect. Those are sharp sentences, I know" —as she ■aw his eyelids quiver and his lips twitch— " but you deserve them ; you need the lash ; the goad to arouse you to a sense of your wickedness. The pitiful lies you have told me regarding Arley leaving you; of her appointments with another, and the money she received from him, are all explained, and I doubt not that the Englishman whom you, with such pretended righteous wrath, named as her ' champion,' was some noble man who, pitying her helplessness, offered her his protection, and will show her every respect which a pure woman should command. If you have woven this tangled, miserable web around her, for the purpose of obtaining the divorce of which you have boasted to me, you have truly achieved a deed worthy of a hero, and muoh comfort may you derive from it. Were I in Arley'B place, 1 should consider it a happy release; but," and for the first time during all her denunciations an angry flash swept over Lady Elaine's face and gleamed in her eyes, while she drew her perfect form haughtily erect, '' that you should supplement such an act with words of love and proposals of marriage to mc, is a measure too contemptible for words to express. Do you suppose that I have the slightest faith in your protestations 1 No your heart is too calloused, your nature too narrow to admit of your loving anyone but yourself, your own pleasure and ease. Money and position are the height of your ambition. You failed in securing them with Arley, as you expected, and so you sacrificed her without a compunction of conscience, employing the meanest of strategy and villainy to free yourself from her, and now you have come to me, hoping, no doubt, to secure another glittering prize. What an exhaustless amount of self-conceit you must possess. If you could be made to regard your actions as .any pure-minded person would regard them, how you would shrink with horror and disgust from yourself. Why could you not have been a man, Philip Paxton, and worthy of a sweet, true woman like Arley Went worth?

He stood before her abashed at last, his head bowed upon his chest, his arms folded so tightly across it, that his every breath was laboured, while his face, even to his lips, was as colourless as his shirt-bosom.

How Lady Elaine could have become possessed of the facts which she hurled at him with such frightful rapidity and truthfulness he could not imagine; but it was very evident that her informant, whoever he or she might have been, was well posted upon all the circumstances of Arley's trouble, and he saw that all his baseness was revealed. "I have been mad!" he muttered, under his breath, but Lady Elaine heard him. "You have been wicked," she returned, relentlessly. "1 did believe, when I first met you at Hazelmere, that there was "a noble manhood within you, for the stamp of it seemed to rest upon your face ; but how deceitful appearances are has been proved by your conduct since. Ah ! !: with a regretful sigh, "is it not a pity that; a. soul should become so warped and defiled ? Why will mankind go so wrong, when the right way— even though difficulties seem to hedge it about— always the better way?" Philip lifted his head eagerly, and seemed about to reply as she ceased; then a deep flush suffused his whole face, and he dropped again into his former position. Something in his look made Lady Elaine think that his better nature had been aroused at last, and a feeling of pity began to crowd some of the bitterness out of her heart.

The "lash" of her sorrowful tongue, the "goad" of her contempt had shocked his conscience into something like life at last— had torn away the mask from his soul, making him see himself as she saw him. Her sarcasms, her contempt and forcible denunciations, together with that final appeal to his manhood, had stripped him of all his arrogance, revealing the rags and filthiness of his nature in all their repulsiveness, until, carried out and beyond himself for the moment, he seemed to be looking down upon a wretch too vile and mean to be allowed a place among men. 1 ' Why cannot you do right, Mr. Paxton ; will you not try to atone ?" she pleaded, in a softened tone ; but he interrupted her with an almost despairing gesture. " It is too late for that," he said, bitterly. " I fear it is," she answered, sadly. "I believe if I were in Arley's place, I should feol that there could be no atonement; and of course, if you do not love her—" "Who says I do not love her?" he inruptcd again, and almost fiercely; and Lady

Elaine was dumb from wonder at his words. "I do not wonder that you look astonished," be went on, half defiant, half ashamed; "but if an evil spirit had not possessed me, I should never have led the life which I have during the past twelve months. But my game is up, and I might as well make a clean breast of it ; all I have won for my folly and sin is your contempt and aversion and the loss of my wife's love and respect. It cannot add to my humiliation to tell you that I have loved Arley from the very first, but my antagonism had been aroused by being told that I must not aspire to your hand, while I had sworn to myself that I would be a rich and prosperous man at any cost, and that I would marry the richest woman I could find to achieve my object. • You may curl your lip, Lady Elaine," ho want on, flushing again at her involuntary act; "I deserve it, but I tell you I have been mad. I was honest enough in telling her that I loved her, for she was bright and beautiful, and attracted me as no other woman had ever done, and when I found that your fortune was beyond my reach, my whole heart was set upon winning her. Had she contested Ina Wentworth's claim and kept her fortune, we might have been happy in each other to this day. But she would not keep it, and my cursed avarice and wilfulness, my intolerance of being thwarted, ha 3 been my ruin." He paused a moment, and Lady Elaine saw that his face was fixed and stony a3 that of a statue.

Presently he resumed: " I did not, however, expect to be brought up in my career with such a round turn as you have given me to-night. There was, I believe, and as you have said, something of manhood within me once ; but whether the germ remains, and will ever thrive, I suppose only time will show. Certainly in my present mood I can neither form resolutions nor make promises. Regarding my presumption and folly to night in renewing my offensive proposals to you, I fear it would only be adding insult to injury, and you would feel even more contempt for me toan you have already manifested, if I should express regret and ask your pardon. The question would naturally arise whether J was most sorry for my sin, or for having been detected in it. But you have read me a bitter lesson. You have told me wholesome, though nauseous truths, and have aroused my almost torpid conscience at last. Perhaps some time—for I know you have a tender heart—if I am able to prove to you that I am truly repentant, you will not then scorn to say that you forgive me. Till then, Lady Elaine, adieu."

CHAPTER XXIX. PHILIP I'AXTON'S LETTER.

With those last words, Philip made a low obeisance, and was gone from the room almost before Lady Elaine could collect her scattered, astonished senses. But his white, agonised face, his trembling, pallid lips, his suppressed tones, and the convulsive heaving of his chest, haunted her the whole night through. She could not sleep, but lay tossing rest* lessly upon her pillow hour after hoar. She reproached herself over and over 3gain far the harsh and scornful language which she had used to him, and felt condemned for having manifested so much aversion and so little Christian charity. Yet, when she reviewed all Arley'a sad story, she could not feel that anything, however severe, was too bad to say to the author of her misery. He deserved to be deeply humiliated, if it was possible for him to experience any such feeling. His treatment of Arley had been too shameful, too heartless and reprehensible to be ever forgiven ; yet there had been one redeemable thing in his confession of his love for her. And still what sort of love could it be that could neglect and ignore a sick and almost dying wife—that could turn a cold shoulder and a deaf ear to her every need and appeal, leaving her to the questionable mercy of strangers in a foreign country. She was beset and harassed with conflicting emotions — with pity and sorrow for his evidently awakened and smarting conscience, then with hot indignation and scorn for what he had done.

The next morning she told Lady Hamilton that she was going on a little trip out if London; that she should take her maid, and be gone a couple of days, perhaps longer. Lady Hamilton questioned her as to the object of her journey, and she evasively replied that it was something in connection with Jane Collins. She took the afternoon train for Portsmouth, that famous seaport town, which is the home of so many captains and men who follow the ocean.

She feared that it might be a" wild-goose chase" that she was bent upon, and she was somewhat oppressed with the weight of her mission ; but she fait that it was one of vital importance, and she had resolved to leave no stone unturned until she had accomplished it, or the hope of its accomplishment should be utterly blasted. She was in search of the captain of the vesselthe Black Swan, Jane Collins told her was the name of it—which had picked up that unhappy father and mother so many years ago, alter being wrecked on their return from India, and who might prove— was barely possible—to bo Arley's parents. She took a room in one of the hotels upon arriving at Portsmouth, and after a few hours' rest, set diligently about her inquiries. She was more successful than she dared to hope she should be, for she found that Captain Conway—the former commander of the Black Swanwas well known, since Ilia home had been in that city for many years. He was old and infirm now, she was told, and had given up a seafaring life and settled down in his cozy home to spend the remainder of his days with his good wife and children.

Lady Elaine's object in coming to him was to learn, if possible, the name of the couple whom he had rescued, and also the name of the vessel on which they had sailed from India ; and having obtained his address, she drove directly to his house. She was told upon her arrival that the old Bailor was quite sick, but upon sending word to him what the nature of her errand was, he said he would gladly see her and relate to her all that he knew regarding the sad circumstance to which she referred.

She became quite nervous and excited while the servant was conducting her to his chamber; she had hoped so much from this interview, and now she began to fear lest it should amount to nothing. We may not go with her into that sick chamber, for we cannot know, just yet, the nature of the conference which followed ; but when the fair Lily of Mordaunt came forth again, her lovely face was flushed and her eyes swollen with weeping, and yet there was a smile of ineffable tenderness and happiness wreathing her sweet lips. As she took her seat in the carriage to be driven away, another burst of tears overpowered her, but it soon passed, and sh« looked like some lovely flower refreshed after a shower.

" Arley, Arley, my darling, if everything proves to be as 1 have reason to hope, and if I can only find you," she murmured, in such a tender, yearning voice, "you need be nameless no longer : and, oh ! how glad I am that I can be the one to bring these blessed tidings to you."

After leaving Lady Elaine, Philip Paxton rushed madly from the hotel, and hastening to his lodgings, buried himself in his own rooms. Throwing himself prone upon his bed, just as he was, he spent the night in an agony of remorse, such as a thoroughlyawakened guilty conscience is alone capable of, and, as he afterwards confessed, "ia hating himself with all his might." Morning found him wan and haggard, but with a better light in his eye than had shone there for many a long month. " Is my manhood or my honour all gone ?" he groaned, as he arose and looked at himself in the glass, and wondered if it could be possible that he was the same being that he had been two years before, when, with a light heart and a clear conscience, he had worked from morning till night, his chief aim being to build up a practice of which he should be proud, and be able to say in future years, as he looked back from a high position in the world : " See to what I have attained by my own efforts and my integrity." But how he had been tempted, and to what depths had he fallen ! [To be continued.]