Cleanor's Victory.

Otago Witness, Issue 621, 24 October 1863, Page 3

Cleanor's Victory.

Kj the Author of" Aurora Floyd," " Lady Audley'a Secret," &c.

[FIIOM " ONCE A WEEK."]

CHAPTER XXIII. — RESOLVED. Launcelot Darrell had not sailed for Calcutta in the Princess Alice. This point once established, it was utterly vain for Richard 1 hornton to argue against that sudden conviction, that indomitable belief which had taken possession of Eleanor Vane's mind, respecting the identity between the man who had won her father's money at ccartc, and Mrs Dan-ell's only son. "I tell you, Richard," she said, when the scene-painter argued with her, lv that nothing but proof positive of Lwncelot Darrell's absence in India at the date of my father's death would have dispossessed me of the idea that flashed upon me on the day I left Berkshire, lie was not in India at tliat time. He de- I ceiyed hia mother and his friends. lie remained in Europe ; and led, no doubt, an idle, clssipatcd life, lie must have lived by his wits, for he had no money from his mother ; no one to help him— no profession to support him. What is more likely than that he went to Pan?,— the paradise of scoundrels, I have heard you ray, Richard,— under an assumed name ? Whist more ,ik: Jy ? Why, Up. ?ra> Were ! The man I saw on the Boulevard, and the man I saw in the Windsor Street, are one and the same. You caij-iot argue me out of that | ?cttlcd idea, Itichard Thornton, for it is the truth. It is the truth, and it shall be the business of my life to prove that it is so." " And what then, E'eauor ? ' Mr. Thornton asked gravel y. '• .Supposing you can prove this; by such euduio.s as will be very difficult to get at ; by such an investigation as will waste your life, b'i;,ht your girlhood, warp your nature, uinex your mind, and transform you from a candid and confiding woman into an amateur detective? Suppose you do all this,— and you little guess, m y dear, the humiliating falsehood*, the pitiful deceptions, the studied has nesses, you must practise if you -ire to tread that sinuous pathway, — what then; What good is effected; what end is gained ? Are you any nearer to the accomplishment of the vow you uttered ia the Rue l'Archevoquc?"

" What do you mean, Richard?'' " I mean that to prove this man's guilt is not to avenge your f ither'g death. Neither you nor the law have any power to ptmwh him. He may or may not* have cheated your poor father. At this distance of time \ou can prove njthinar against him, except that ho played ecarie in the private room of the cafu. and that he won air your father's money, lie would only laugh in your face, my poor iSelly, if you were to bring such a charge as this against him."

" If r can once prove that, which I now believe as firmly as if every mortal proof had demonstrated its truth, I know how to punish 1 auncelot Darrell," replied the girl. "You know how to punish him?" " Yes His uncle — that is to say, his great uncle— Maurice de Crespignj', was'my fathers firmest friend. I need not ttlr you that story, Dick, for you have heard it often enough from my poor father's own lips. Launcelot Darrell expects to inherit the old man's money, aud will do so if Mr. de Crespigny dies without making a will. But if I could prove to the old man that my father died a melancholy and untimely death through his nephew's treachery Launcelot Darrell would never inherit a sixpence of that money. I know how eagerly he looks forward to it, though he affects indifference."

And you would do this, Eleanor?" asked Richard, staring aghact at his companion; "you would betray the secrets of this yonn"man's youth to his uncle, and compass his rum by that revelation ?" f "I would do what I swore to do in the Rue rArcheveque. I would avenge my father's death. The last words my poor father ever wrote appealed to me to do that. I have never forgotten those words. There may have been a deeper treachery in that night's work than you or I know of. Richard. Launcelot Dairoll krjew who my father was— he knew of the friendship between him and Mr. de Crespigny. How do we know that he did not try to goad the poor old man to that last act of his despair; how do we know that he did not plan those losses at cards, in order to remove his uncle's friend from his pathway? Oh God ! Richard, if I thought that !" ' The girl rose from her chair in a sudden tumult of passion, Avith her hands clenched and her eyes flashing. "If I could think that life treachery went beyond the baseness of cheating my father of his money for the moneys sake, I would take his life for that dear life as freely and as unhesitatingly as I lift my hand up now." She raised her clenched hand towards the ceiling as she spoke, as if to register some unuttered vow. Then, turning abruptly to the scene-painter, she said, almost imploringly : "It can't be, Richard, he cannot have been so base as that, lie held my hand in hia only a few days ago. I would cut off that hand if I could think that Launcelot Darrell had phnned my father's death." "But you cannot think it, my dear Elea-ior," Richard answered, earnestly. " How should the young man know that your father would take his loss so deeply to heart ? "We none of us calculate the consequences' of our sins, my dear. If this man cheated, lie cheated because he wanted mony. For Heaven's sake, Nelly leave him in the hands of Providence. The future is not a blank sheet of paper, Nelly, for us to write any story we p!ease upon ; but a wondeiful chart mapped out by a divine and unerring hand. Launcelot Darrell wi'l not go unpunished, Nelly. 'My faith is strong in Time,' as the poet says. Leave the young man to Time— and to Providence."

Eleanor Vane shook her head, smiiino- bitterly at her friend's philosophy. Poor mad Constance's reply rose, in some shape or other, to the girl's lips in answer to Richard's arguments. _ The Cardinal reasons with wonderful discretion, but the bereaved mother utters one sentence that is more powciful than all the worthy man's prim moralities : "He talks to mi 1 , that never had a son !"

"It is no use preaching to me," Miss Vane said. " Uyour father Lad died by this man's treacher}', you would not feel bo charitably disposed towards him. I will keep the promise made three years ago. I ivill prove Launcelot Darrell's guilt ; and that guilt shall stand between him and Maurice de Crespi<my's fortune." D

" You forget one point in this business, Eleanor.'

11 What point ?"

"It may take you a very long time to obtain the proof you want. Mr. de Crespigny is an old man, and an invalid. He may die before you are in a portion to denounce his nephew's treachery to your poor father." Eleanor was silent for a few moments. Her arched brows contracttd, and her mouth grew compressed and rigid. " I must go back to Ilnzlewood, Dick," she said, slowly. ''Yes, you are right; there is no time to be lost. I must go back to Hazlewood."

" That is not very practic ible, is it, Nell ?" " I must go b tck. If I go in some di-guise — if I go and hide myself in the village, and watch Launcelot Darrell when he least thinks he is observed. I don't care how I go, Richard, but I mu-t be there. It can only be from the discoveries I make in the present, that I shall be able to trace my way back to the history of the past. I must go there." *' And begin at once upon the business of a detective ? Eleanor, you shall not do this if I can prevent you." Richard Thornton's unavowed love gave

him a certain degree of authority over the impulsive girl. There is always a d ; gniry and power in every feeling that is really true. Throughout the story of Notre Dame de Paris the hunchback's love for Esmeralda is never once contemptible. It is only Phoebus, handsome, glittering, false, and hollow, who provokes our scorn.

Ekanor Vane did not rebel against the | young man's tone of authority. "Oh, Dick, Dick," she cried piteously, "I know how wicked I am. I have been nothing but a trouble to you and the dear Signora. But I canm.t forget my father's death. I cannot forget the letter he wrote to me. I must be true to the vow I made then, llichard, if I sacrifice my life in keeping my word." Eliza Picirillo came in before the scenepainter could reply to this speech It had been agreed between the two young people that the Signora should know nothing of Miss Vatie 1 s discoveries ; so Eleanor and llichard saluted the music-mistress in that strain of factitious gaiety generally adopted under such circumstances.

Signora Picirillo'.s perceptions were perhaps a little blunted by the wear and tear of half-a-dozen hours' labour among.-t her out-door pupild, and as Eleanor bustled about the room prepiring the tea-table and making the tea, the good music- mistress fully believed in her protjgee's simulated liveliness. When the table hal been cleaied, and llichard had gone to smoke his short meerschaum amongst the damp straw and invtrid cabi in the promenade before the Pilasters, Eleanor seated herself at the piano and practised. Her fiiuers flew over the keys in a thousand complexities of harmony', but her mind, for ever true to one idea, brooded upon the dailc scheme of-scn-geaate which she had planued fur hersplf. "Come what may," she tb.ou.jhf, again and again, '-at any price I must go back to llazlewood.''

CHAPTKB XXIV. — TIIL" OXR CHANCE.

Eleanor Vane lay awake through the greater pirt of the night which succeeded hcr°intevview with the shipbroker. Sl:e lay awake, trying to fashion for herself some scheme by which she might go b.ick to Ilnzlewoorl. Tho discovet y which she had to make, tho proof positive that she wanted to obtain of Launcelot DarrclN guilt, could only be procured by lon;j and patient watchfulness of the youn<r man himself. The evidence that was to cou° demn him must come from his own lips. Some chance admission, some accidental word, might afford a clue that would guide her back to the s.crct of the past. But to obtain this clue she must be in intimate association with the man whom she suspected. In the careless confidence of daily life, in the freedom of social intercourse, a hundred chances might occur which could never be brought about while the gates of Hazlewood were closed upon her.

There was one other chance, it was true. Launcelot Darrell had asked her to become his wife. His love, however feeble to withstand the wear and tear of time, must for the moment, at least, be real. A line from her would, no doubt, bring him to her side. Slie could lure him on by affecting to return his affection, and in the entire confidence of such an association she might discover. No ! not for the wide world— not even to be true to her deid father — could she be so false to every sentiment of womanly' honour.

_ " Rich -ml was right," she thought, as she dismissed this idea with a humiliating sense of her own baseness in having even for one brief moment entertained it. " lie was right. "What shame and degradatian I must wade through before I can keep my promise."

And to keep her promise she must go back to Hazlewood. This was the point to which she always returned. Uut was it possible for her to regain her old position in Mrs Dan-ell's house ? Would not Mrs Darrell take care to keep her away, having once succeeded in banishing her from 'Launcelot's society ?

Miss Vane was not a good schemer. Transparent, ingenuous, and impulsive, she had the will and the courage which would have prompted her to denounce Launcelot Darrell as a traitor and a cheat ; but not the slow and patient attributes which are necessary for the watcher who hopes to trace a shameful secret through all the dark intricacies of the hidden pathway that leads to it. It was long after daylight when the young lady fell asleep, worn out^ harassed, and baffled. The night had brought no counsel. Eleanor Vane dropped off into a fitful slumber, with a passionate prayer upon her lips — ■ a prayer that Providence would set her in the way of bringing vengeance upon her father's destroyer.

She flung herself upon Providence— after the manner of a great many persons — when she found her own intellect powerless to conduct her to the end she wanted to gain. Throughout the next day Miss Vane sat alone on the chintz-covered sofa by the window, looking down at the children playing hop-scotch and gambling for marbles upon the rugged flags below ; " weary of the rolling hours," and unable to brin<j herself to the frame ot mind, necessary for the ordinary purposes of life. Upon any other occasion she would have tried to do something whereby she might lighten the Signora's burden, b ing quite competent to take the pupils off her friend's hands ; but to-day Mie had suffered Eliza Picirillo to trudge out under the broiling August sky, through the stifling London streets, and had made no attempt to" lesson her labours. She seemed even incapable of performing the little domestic oilices which she had been in the habit of doing. She let the London dust accumulate upon the piano ; she left the breakfast table scattered with the debris of the morning's meal ; she nnde no effort to collect the stray sheets of music, the open books, the scraps of needlework that littered the room ; but with her elbow on the smoky sill of the window, and her head resting on her hand, she sat, looking wearily out, with eyes that saw nothing but vacancy. Kichard had gone out early, and neither he nor his annt were expected to return till dusk.

"I cm have everything ready for them when they come back," she thought, looking listlessly at the unwashed tea-things, which aeemtd to stare at her ia mute reproachfulness ; and then her eyes wandered back to the sunny window, and her mind returned with a cruel constancy to the one idea that occupied it.

Had she been really looking at the objects on which her eyes seemed to be fixed, she must have been surprised by the advent of a tall and rather distinguished-looking stranger who made his way along the straw-littered promenade between the colonnade and the stables, erasing the chalk plans of the hobscotch players with the soles of his boots, and rendering himself otherwise objectionable to the juvenile population. This stranger came straight to the shop of the shoemaker with whom Signora Picirillo lodged, and inquired for Miss Vincent. The shoemaker had only heard Eleanor's assumed name a day or two before, when Laura's letter had arrived at the Pilastei-3. He had a vague idea that the beautiful goldenhaired young woman, who had first entered his dwelling in the early freshness of budding girlhood, wa3 going to distinguish herself as a great musical genius, nnd intended to astonish the professional world under a false name. " It's Miss Eleanor you want, I suppose, sir ?" the man said, in answer to the stranger's question.

"Miss Eleanor— yes." "Then, if you'll please to step up- stairs, sir. The young lady's all alone to-day, for Mr Richard he's over the water a scenepaintin' away for dear life, and the S'nora she's out givin 1 lessons; so poor young miss is alone, and dismal enough she must be, cooped in-doors this fine weather. It'a bad enough

[ when one'-s obliged to it, you know sir, 1 ' the man added, rather obscurely. "Will you please to walk up, sir ? It's the door facing you at the top of the stairs." The- shoemaker opened a half ghss door communicating with a tiny back parlour and a steep staircase that twisted corlcscrew-wisc up to the first floor. The visitor waited for no further invitation, but ascended the stairs in a few strides, and paused for a moment before the door of bignora Picirillo'a bitting-room. " lie's one of these here London managers, I dessay," thought the simple cordwainer, as he went back to his work. "Mr Croomshaw come here one day after Mr llichard in a phaeton and pair, and no end of diamond rin.Q;s and breast-pins." Eleanor Vane had not noticed the stranger's footsteps on the unearpeted stairs, but she started when the door opened, and looked round. Her unexpected visitor was Mr. Monckton. She rose in confusion, and stood with her back to the window, looking at the lawyer. She was too much absorbed in her one idea to be troubled by the untidiness of the shabby chamber, by the disorder of her own hau' or dress, or by any of those external circumstance? which are generally so embarrassing to a woman. She only thought of Gilbert M'mckton as a link between herself and liazlewood. She did not even wonder why he had come to see her. "I may find out something, I may learn something from him." she thought. Against the givat piir[»o*c of her life, oven tlus~man, who of a 1 others shu most respected and esteemed, sank into utter insignificance. She vQxev cared to conpider what he nrght think. She only regarded him as an instrument which might happen to be of use to her. " You arc very much surprised to see me, Miss Vincent," the lawyer said, holding out las hand. The girl put her hand loosely in his, and Gilbert Monckton started as he felt the feverish heat of the slim fingers that touched his so lightly. lie looked into Eleanor's fj.ee. The intense excitement of the last three day a had left its traces on her countenance. MrsDarrdl had made a onfidant of the lawyer. It had been absolufely necessary to explain Eleanor's absence. Mrs Darrell had given her own version of the business, telling the truth, with sundry reservations. Miss Vincent u a* a handsome and agreeable "-ir), she said; it 'was of vital consequence" to Launcelofc that he should not form any attachment, or entertain any passing fancy, that might militate against his future prospects. An imprudmt marriage had separated her, Mrs Dan-ell, from her uncle, Maurice de Crcs^ny An imprudent marriage might rain the youncr man's chance of inheriting the Woodlands estate. Under these circumstances it was advisable that Mis 3 Vincent should leave Hazlewnod; and the young lady Lad very generously resigned her situation upon the matter being put before her in a proper light. Mrs Darrell took very good care not to make any allusion to that declaration of love which she had overheard through the half open door ot her son's painting room, Mr Monckton had expressed no little vexation at the suddeu departure of his ward's companion ; but his annoyance was of course felt solely on account of Miss Mason, who told him, with her eyes streaming, and her voice broken by sobs, that she could never, never be happy without her darling Eleanor. The lawyer said very little in reply to these lamentations, but took care to get Miss Vincent's address from his ward, and on the day after his visit to llaz'ewood went straight from his office to the Pilasters. ° Looking at the change in Eleanor Vane's face, Mr Monckton began to wonder very seriously if the departure from Hazlewood had been a matter of great grief to her; and whether it might not be that Mr* Darrell's alarms about her son's possible admiration for the penniless companion were founded on stronger grounds than the widow had cared toreveaf to her. " I vras afraid that Laura's frivolous fancy might be caught by this young fellow," he thought, "but I conld never have believed that this girl, who has ten times Laura's intellect, would full in love with L-uiuclot Darrell." He thought this, while Eleanor's feverish hand lay loose and passive in his own. "It was not quite kind of you to leave Itazlewood without seiing me, or consulting me, Miss Vincent," he said ; " you must re° member that I confided to you a trust. " A trust !" " Yes ; yon promised that you would look after my foolish young ward,, and take ewe that she did not fall in'love with Mr Darrell." Mr Monckfon watched the girl's face very clo«ely while he pronounced Launcelot Darrell's na-ne, but there was no revelation in that pale aii'l weaiied countenance. The grey eyes returned his gaze frankly and unhesitatingly. Their brightness was faded, but their innocent candour remained in all its virginal beauty. ■'I tried to do what you wished," Miss Vane answered. "I am af'iaid that Laura does admire Mr Darrell. But I can't quite under»t:ui'l w hether she is serious or not, and in any case nothing I could say would influence her much, though I know she loves me." "A T o, I suppose not," said Mr Monckton, rather bitterly ; " women aro not ea*Hv to be influenced in these matters. A woman's love is the sublimation of selfishness, Miss Vincent. It is delightful to a woman to throw herself away, and she is perfectly indifferent as to how many unoffending victims she drags to destruction in her downfall. An Indian woman sacrifices herself out of respect to her dead husband. An English woman offers up her husband and children on the altar of a living lover. Pardon me if I speak too plainly. We lawyers become acquainted with strange stories. I should not at all wonder if my ward were to insist upon making herself miserable for life because Launcelot Darrell

has a Grecian nose.' 1 Mr Monckton seated himself, uninvited, by the table on which the unwashed tea-things bore testimonies to Eleanor's neglect, lie looked round the room, not rudely, for in one brief observant glance he was able to see everything and to understand everything. " Have you ever lived here, Miss Vincent ?" he a<=ked. " Yes, I lived here a year and a half before I went to llazlewood. I was very happy," Eleanor added, hastily, as if in deprecation of the lawyer's look, which betrayed a halfcompassionate interest. "My friends are very good to me, and I never wish for a better home." " But you have been accustomed to a better home in your childhood ?" " Nn, not very much better. I always lived in lodgings with my poor father." " Your father was not rich then ?" " No, not at all rich." "lie was a professional man, I suppose?" " No, he had no profession. lie had been rich — very rich — once. The colour rose to Eleanor's face as she spoke, for she suddenly recollected that she had a secret to keep. The lawyer might recognise George Vane by this description, she thought. Gilbert Monckton fancied that sudden blush arose from wounded pride. " Forgive mo for asking you so many questions, Miss Vincent," he said, gently. "I am very much interested in you. 1 have been very much interested in you for a lone time." b He was silent for some minutes. Eleanor had resumed her scat near the window, and sat in a thoughtful attitude, with her eyes cast upon the ground. She was wondering how she was to make good use of this interview in discovering as much as possible of Launcelot Barrcll's antecedents. " Will you forgive me if I ask you a few

more, questions, Miss Vincent?" the lawyer asked, after the brief silence. Eleanor raised her eyes, and looked him full in the face. That bright, straight, unfaltering gaze was perhaps the greatest charm which Miss Vane possessed. She had no reason to complain that Nature had gifted her with a niggardly hand ; but this exquisitely candid expression was a rarer beauty and a higher gift.

"Believe me," said Mr Monckton, " that I am actuated by no unworthy motive when I ask you to deal frankly with me. You will understand, by-and-by why and by what right I presume to question you. " In the meantime I ask you to confide in me. You left Hazlewood at Mrs Darrell's wish, did you not ?" "Yes, it was at her wish that I left." " Her son had made you an offer of his hand?"

The question would have brought ablush to the face of an ordinary girl. But Eleanor Vane was removed from ordinary women by the exceptional story of her life. Prom the moment of her discovery of, Launcelot Darrell's identity, all thoughts of him as a lover, or an admirer, had been blotted out of her mind. He was removed from other men by the circumstances of his guilt ; as she was set apart from other women by the revengeful purpose in her breast.

" Mr Darrell asked me

"Yes," she said to be his wife." " { And did you— did you refuse him ?" " No ; I gave him no answer." " You did not love him then TJT J

" Love him ! Ob, no, no !" Her eyes dilated with a look of surprise as she spoke, as if it was most astounding to her that Gilbert Monckton should ask her such a question.

" Perhaps you do not think Launcelot Darrell worthy of a good woman's love ?" "I do not," answered Eleanor. "Don't talk of him, please. At least, I mean, don't talk of him and of— love," she added, hastily, remembering that the very thing she wished was that the lawyer should talk of Launcelot Darrell. " You— you must know a great deal of his youth. He was idle and dissipated, was he not; and — and — a card-player?" "A card-player?" "Yes — a gambler; a man who plays carda for the sake of winning money?" " I never heard any one sYv so. He was idle^no doubt, and loitered away his time in London under the pretence of studying art ; but I never remember hearing that gambling was one ofhis vices. However. I don't come here to speak of him, but of you. AVhat are you going to do, now that you have left Hazlewood?"

Eleanor y/as cruelly embarrassed by this question. Her most earnest wish was to return to llazlewood, or at least to the neighborhood. Absorbed by this wish, she had formed no scheme for the future. She had not even remembered that she stood alone in the world, with only a few pounds saved out of her slender salary, unprovided with that which is the most necessary of all weapons in any warfare, Money ! " I— l scarcely know what I shall do," she said. " Mrs Darrell promised to secure me a 3ituation.'\

But as she spoke she remembered tint to accept a situation of Mrs Darrell's getting would be in some manner to eat bread prc£ vided by the kinswoman of her father's foe, and she made a mental vow to starve rather than to receive the widow's patronage. "I do not put much confidence in Mrs. Darrell's friendship when her own end is gained," Gilbert Moncktou said, thoughtfully. "•Ellen Darrell is only eai-able of loving one person, and that person is, according to the fashion of the world, the one who has used her worst. She loves her son Launcelot, and would sacrifice a hecatomb of her fellowcreatures for his advantage. If she can get you a new home, I daresay she will do so. If she cannot, she has succeeded in removing you from her son's pathway, and will trouble herself very little about your future " Eleanor Vane lifted her head with a sudden gesture of pride. U I do not want Mrs Darrell's help," she gaid.

" But you would not refuse the counsel, or I even the help of any one you liked, would : you Eleanor?" returned the lawyer. "You \ are very young, very inexperienced— the life j at Hazlewood suited you, and it might have gone on for years without danger of unhappiness or disquiet but for the coming of Launcelot Darrell. I have known you for a year and a half, Miss Vincent, and I have watched >ou very closely. I think I know you very well. Yes, if a lawyer's powers of penetration and habit of observation are to go for anything, I must know you by this time. I may have been an egregious fool twenty years ago, but I1I 1 must be wise enough now to understand a girl of eighteen."

lie ?aid this rather as if reasoning with himself than talking to Eleanor. Miss Vane looked at him, wondering what all this talk would lead to, and what motive, under heaven, could have induced a lawyer of high standing to leave his chambers in the middle of the business day for the purpose of sitting in a shabby lodging-house chamber, with his elbow resting upon a dirty table-cloth, amid the confusion of unwashed breakfast cups and saucers.

" Eleanor Vincent," Mr Monckton said by-and-by, after a very long pause, " country people are most intolerable gossips. You cannot have lived at Hazlewood for a year and a half without having heard something of my history."

" Your history ?" "Yes, you heard that there was some secret trouble in the early part of my life— that there were some unpleasant circumstances connected with ray purchase of Tolldale."

Eleanor Vane was utterly unskilled in the art of prevarication. She could not give an evasive answer to a straight question. " Yes," she said, " I have heard people say that."

"And you have no doubt heard them say that my trouble — like every other trouble upon this earth, as it seems to me, was caused by a woman."

" Yes, I heard that."

"I was very young when that sorrow came to me, Eleanor Vincent, and very ready to believe in a beautiful face. I was deceived. My story is all told in those three words, and it is a /cry old story after all. Great tragedies aud epic poenn have been written upon the same theme until it has become so hackneyed that I have no need to enlarge upon it. I was deceived, Miss Vincent, and for twenty years I have profited by that bitter lesson. Heaven help me if I feel inclined to forget it now. lam forty years of age, but Ido not think that the brightness of my life has quite gone yet, Twenty years ago I was in love, and in the ardour and freahness of uvy youth I daresay I talked a great deal of nonsense. I am in love once more, Eleanor. "Will you forgive me if all my faculty for sentimental talk is lost ? Will you let me till you, in very few and simple words, that I love you; that I have loved you for a very long time ; and that you will make me unspeakably happy if you can think my earnest devotion worthy of some return ?"

Every vestige of colour faded slowly from Eleanor's face. There had been a time—before the return of Launcelot Darrell — when a word of praise, an expression of friendliness or regard from Gilbert Monckton had been very precious to her. She had never taken the trouble to analyse her feelings. That time, before the coming of the young man, had been the sunniest and most careless period of her youth. She had during that interval been false to the memory of her father— she had suffered herself to be happy. But now a gu'f yawned between her and that lapse of lorgetfulness. She could nor look back clearly! she could not remember or recall her former

feelings. . Gilbert Monckton's oflfrr might 1 hen have awakened 'some answering sentiment in her own breast Now his hand struck upon the slackened chords of a shattered instrument, and there was no music to respond harmoniously to the player's touch. " Can you love me, Eleanor ? Can s'oti love me ?" the lawyer - asked imploringly, taking the girl's hands in his own. " Your heart is free ; yes, I know that ; and that at least is something. Heaven forgive me if I try lo bribe you. But my youth is past, and I can scarcely expect to be loved for myself alone. Think how dreary and undefended your life must be if you refuse my love and protection. Think of that, Eleanor. Ah ! if you knew what a woman is when thrown upon the world without the shelter of a husband's love, you would think seriously. I want you to be more than my wife, Eleanor. I want you to be the guardian and protectress of that poor irivolous girl whose future has been trusted to my care. I want you to come and live at Tolldale, my darling, so as to be near that poor child at llazlewood. 1 '

.Near Hazlevvood ! The hot blood rushed into Eleanor's face at the sound of those two words, then faded suddenly away, and left her deadly white, trembling and ,'clinging to the back of her chair for support.- To all else that Gilbert Monckton had said -she had listened in a dull stupor. But now her intellect arose and grasped the full importance of the lawyer's supplication. In a moment she understood that the one chance which of all other things upon this earth- she had most desired, and which of all other things had seemed furthest removed from her, wa3 now within her reach.

She might go back to Hazlewood. She might return as Gilbert Monckton'a wife. She did not stop to consider how much was involved in this. It was her nature fo be ruled by impulse, and impulse only; and she had yet to learn submission to a better guidance. She could go back to Hazlewood. She would have returned there as a kitchenmaid, had the opportunity of so doing offered itself to her; and she was ready to return as Gilbert Monckton's wife.

"My prayers have been heard," she thought. 1 "My prayers have been heard. Providence will give me power to keep my promise. Providence will set me face to face with that man."

Eleanor "Vane stood with her hands clasped upon the back of her chair, thinking of this and looking straight before her, in utter uncousciousness of the earnest eyes that were fixed upon her face, while the lawyer waited breathlessly to hear her decision.

"Eleanor," he ctied, eutreatingly, "Eleauor, * I have been deceived once ; do not let me be a woman's dupe, now that there are streaks of grey amongst my iiair. I love you, my dear. Icm make you independent and secure ; but I do not offer you a fortune or a position of sufficient magnitude or grandeur to tempt aa ambitious woman. For God's sake, do not trifle with me. If you love me now, or can hope to love me in the future, be my wife. JBut if any other image holds the smallest place m your heart— if (here is one memory, or one regret, that can come between us, Eleanor, dismiss me from yon nnltesitatinn-Iy. It will be merciful to me— to you also, perhaps —to do so. I have seen a union in which there was love on one side, and indifference— or something worse than indifference— upon the other. Eleanor, think, of all this, and then tell me, frankly, if you can after all be mv wife." *

Eleanor Vane dimly comprehended that there was a depth of passionate feeling beneath the quiet earnestness of the lawyer's manner. She tried to listen, she tried to comprehend ; but she could not. The one idea which held possessiou_of-slier <mirtfl f * k «t»k.that mind Indeed — ---■•■■--^^glgllgLjff^pr'"" Tf i Hljf bis love, it was not his riaine, or hti fortune that Gilbert Monckton offered her— he offered her tbe chance of returning to Hazlewood.

" You are very good," she said. " I will be your wife. I will go back to Hazlewood." She held out her hand to him. No trace of womanlylconfusion, or natural coquety, betrayed itself in her manner. Pale and absorbed she held- out her hand, and offered up her future as a small and unconsidered matter, when set against the one idea of her life— the promise to her dead father.

(To ba continued.)