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DUKE
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
Treasure %oom
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AURORA FLOYD.
gi |il«wl.
BY M. E. BRADDOJS",
AUTHOR OF
"LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET,
^
V
125795
EI^-HMOND:
WEST k john;ston, 145 main street.
1863.
Evans & Cogswell, Printers,
No. 3 BKOAD street, CHARLESTOy, S. C.
\
\
AURORA FLO Y D.
CHAPTER T.
HOW A KICII nANKKK MAllRIKO AN ACTUKSS.
Faint stroaks of crimson gliinmor licre and
tliei'd amid tlic, ricli darkni'ss of the Kentish
■woods. Autiinin'.s red finivor has been lij2;htly
laid upon the foliajze — s])arint>;ly, as tlie artist
pnts the lirijrliter tints into his picture; but
the grandeur of an Au;;nst sunset blazes upon
the peaceful landscape, and lip;hts all into
jrlorv.
The cncirclin^j; woo JJarn-
\ tvell and Jane S/iore were among the favorite
I works of art of a play-goiug public. How sad
, that we should have dcgenerateil since those
I classic days, and that the graceful story of
I Milwood and her apprenticc-adnn'rer is now
I .so rarely set before us! Imbued, therefore,
I with the solemnity of Shake.-pearc and the
- drama, Mr. Floyd, stopjiing for a night at this
second-rate Lancashire town, dropped into
^ the dusty boxes of the theatre to witness the
performance of Romrn and Juliet — the heiress
' of the Capulets being represented by Mi.ss
I Eliza Percival, alias Prodder.
1 do not believe that Miss Percival was a
AURORA FLOYD.
{rood actress, or that she would ever become j
distinguished in her profession ; but she liad '
a deep, melodious 7oiee, which rolled out the j
words of her author in a certain rich though [
rather monotonous music, pleasant to hear ;|
and upon the stage she was very beautiful to |
look at, for lier face lighted up the little thea- j
tre better than all the gas that the manager
grudged to his scanty audiences. |
It was not the fashion in those days to j
make ".sensation" dramas of Shakespeare's |
plays. There was no Hamlet with the cele- l
brated water-scene, and the Danish prince i
taking a "header" to save poor wcak-witted j
Ophelia. In the little Lancashire theatre it
would have been thought a terril)lc sin against t
all canons of dramatic art had Othello or his 1
Ancient attempted to sit down during any j
part of the solemn performance. The hoj)e
of Denmark was no long -robed Norseman:
with flowing flaxen hair, but an individual {
Avlio wore a short, rusty black cotton velvet j
garment, shaped like a child's frock and
trimmed with bugles, which dropped off and
were trodden upon at intervals throughout
the performance. The simple actors held,
that tragedy, to be tragedy, must be utterly ]
unlike anything that ever happened beneath j
the sun. And Eliza Prodder patiently trod \
the old and beaten track, far too good-nat- }
ured, light-hearted, and easy-going a creature |
to attempt any foolish interference with the j
crookedness of the times, which she was not j
born to set right.
AVhat can I say, then, about her perform-
ance of the impassioned Italian girl V She
wore white satin and spangles, the spangles
sewn upon the dirty hem of her dress, in the
firm belief, common to all provincial actresses,
that spangles are an antidote to dirt. She
was laughing and talking in the whitewashed
little green-room the very minute before she
ran on to the stage to wail for her murdered
kinsman and her banished lover. They tell
us that Macready began to be Richelieu at
three o'clock in the ai'ternoon, and that it was
dangerous to approach or to speak to him
between that hour and the close ol the per-
ibrmance. So dangerous, indeed, that surely
none but the dai'ing and misguided gentle-
man who once met the great tragedian in a
dark passage, and gave him '• (iood-morrow,
' Mac,' " would have had the temerity to at-
tempt it. But Miss Percival did not take her
profession very deeply to heart; the J^anca-
shire salaries barely paid for the physical
wear and tear of early rehearsals and long
performances; how, then, for that snental ex-
haustion of the true artist who lives in the
character he represents ?
The easy-going comediaTis with whom Eliza
acted made friendly renun-ks to each other on
their private affairs in the intervals of the
most vengeful discourse ; speculated upon the
amount of money in the house in audible un-
dertones during the pauses of the scene ; and
when Hamlet wanted Horatio down at the
foot-lights to ask him if he " marked that," it
was likely enough that the prince's confidant
was up the stage telling Polonius of the shame-
ful way in which his landlady stole the tea and
sugar.
It was not, therefore, IMiss Percival's acting
that fascinated the banker. Archibald Floyd
knew that she was as bad an actress as ever
played the leading tragedy and comedy for
five-and-twenty shillings a week. He had
seen Miss O'Neil in that very character, and
it moved him to a pitying smile as the factory
hands a])plauded poor Eliza's poison -scene.
But, lor all this, he fell in love with her. It
was a repetition of the old story. It was Ai--
thur Pendennis at the little Chatteris Theatre
bewitched and bewildered by Lliss Fotherin-
gay all over again — only that instead of a
feeble, impressionaljle boy, it was a sober,
steady-going business-man of seven-and-fbrty,
who had never felt one thrill of emotion in
looking on a woman's face until that night —
until that night — and from that night to him
the world only held one being, and life only
had one object. lie went the ne.xt evening,
and the next, and then contrived to scrape
acquaintance with some of the actors at a tav-
ern next the theatre. They sponged upon
liim cruelly, these seedy comedians, and al-
lowed him to pay lor unlimited glasses of
brandy and water, and flattered and cajoled
him, and plucked out the heart of his myste-
ry; and then went back to Eliza Percival,
and told her that she had dropped into a good
thing, for that an old chap with no end of
money had ftxllen over head and ears in love
with her, and that if she played her cards
well, he would marry her to-morrow. They
pointed him out to her through a hole in the
green curtain, sitting £ilmost alone in the shab-
by boxes, waiting for the play to begin and
her black eyes to shine upon him once more.
Eliza laughed at her conquest ; it was only
one among many such, which had all ended
alike — leading to nothing better than the pur-
chase of a box on her benefit night, or a bou-
quet left for her at the stage-door. She did
not know the power of 'first love upon a man
of seven-and-forty. Before the week was out,
Archibald Floyd had made her a solemn offer
of his hand and fortune.
He had heai'd a great deal about her from
her fellow-performerg, and had heard nothing
but good. Temptations resisted ; diamond
bracelets indignantly declined; graceful acts
of gentltt womanly charity done in secret; in-
dependence preserved through all poverty
and trial — they told him a hundrctd stories of
her goodness, that brought the blood to his
face with proud and generous emotion. And
slie herself told him the sim})le history of her
life — told him that she was the daughter of a
merchant-captain called Prodder; that she
AURORA FLOYD.
was born at Liverpool ; that she remembered
little of her father, who was almost always at
sea ; nor of a brother, three years older than
herself, who quarrelled with his father, the
merchant -faptain, and ran away, and was
never heard- of ajjain ; nor of her mother, wlio
died when she, Eliza, was ten years old.
Tiie rest was told in a few words. She was
taken into the family of an aunt Avho kept a
grocer's shop in Miss Prodder's native town.
She learned artificial flower-making, and did
not take to the business. She went often to
the Liverpool theatres, and thought she would
like to go upon the stage. Being a daring
and energetic }'oung person, she left her aunt's
house one day, walked straight to the stage-
manager of one of the minor theatres, and
a^ed him to let her appear as Lady Macbeth.
The man laughed at her, but told her that, in
oonsideration of lier fine figure and black eyes,
he would give her fifteen shillings a week to
" walk on," as he technically called the busi-
ness of the ladies wlio wander on to the stage,
sometimes dressed as villagers, sometimes in
court costume of calico trmimed with gold,
and stare vaguely at whatever may be taking
]>lace in the scene. From " walking on "
Eliza came to play minor parts, indignantly
refused by her superiors ; from these she
plunged ambitiously into the tragic lead, and
thus, for nine years, pursued the even tenor of
her way, until, close upon her nine-and-twen-
tieth birthday. Fate threw the wealthy bank-
er across her })athway, and in the parish
church of a small town in the Potteries the
black-eyed actress exchanged the name of
Pi-odder for that of F'loyd. "
She had accepted the rich man partly be-
cause, moved by a sentiment of gratitude for
the generous ardor of his affection, she was
inclined to like him better than any one else
she knew, and partly in accordanee with the
advice of her theatrical friends, who told her,
with more candor than elegance, that she
would be a jolly fool to let such a chance es-
cape her ; but at the time she gave her hand
to Archibald Martin Floyd she had no idea
whatever of the magnitude of the fortune he
had invited her to "share. He told her that
he was a banker, and her active mind imme-
diately evoked the image of the only banker's
wife she had ever known — a portly lady, who
wore silk gowns, lived in a square, stuccoed
house with green blinds, kept a cook and
house-maid, and took three box tickets tor ^liss
Percival's benefit.
When, therefore, the doting hiuband loaded
his handsome bride with diamond bracelets
and necklace*!, and with silks ami brocades
that were stiiV and unmanageable tVom their
very richness — when he carried her straight
from the Potteries to the Isle of Wight, and
lodged her in spacious apartments at the best
hotel in Ryde, and Hung his money here and
there as if he had carried the lamp of Aladdin
in his coat-pocket — Eliza remonstrated with
her new master, fearing that his love had
driven him mad, and that this alarming ex-
travagance was the first outburst of insanity.
It seemed a repetition of the dear old Bur-
leigh story when Archibald Floyd took his
wife into the long picture-gallery at Felden
Woods. She clasped her liands for frank,
womanly joy, as she looked at the magnifi-
cence about her. She compared herself to
the humble bride of the marquis, and fell on
her knees, and did theatrical homage to her
lord. " Oh, Archy," she said, "it is all too
good for me. I am afraid I shall die of my
grandeur, as the poor girl pined away at
Burleigh House."
In the full maturity of womanly loveliness,
rich in healtJi, freshness, and high spirits, how
little could Eliza dream that she would hold
even a briefer lease of these costly splendors
than the Bride of Burleigh had done before
her.
Now the reader, being acquainted with
Eliza's antecedents, may perhaps find in them
some clew to the insolent ease and well-bred
audacity with which Mrs. Floyd treated the
second-rate county families who were bent
upon putting her to confusion. She was an
actress; for nine years she had lived in that
ideal world in which dukes and marquises
arc as common as butchers and bakers in
work-a-day life, in which, indeed, a noble-
man is generally a poor, mean-spirited indi-
vidual, who gets the worst of it on e very-
hand, and is contemptuously entreated by the
audience on account of his rank. How should
she be abashed on entering the drawing-rooms
of these Kentish mansions, when for nine
years she had walked nightly on to a stage to
be the focus for every eye, and to entertain
her guests the evening through ? Was it .
likely she was to be overawed by the Len-
fields, who were coach-builders in Park Lane,
or the Miss Manderlys, whose father had
made his money by a patent for starch — she,
who had received King Duncan at the gates
of her castle, and had sat on her throne dis-
pensing condescending hospitality to the ob-
sequious Thanes at Dunsinane ? So, do what
they would, tkey were unable to subdue this
base intruder ; while, to add to their mortifi-
{;ation, it every day became more obvious
that Mr. and Mrs. Floyd made one of the
hapjiiest couples who had ever worn the bonds
of matrimony, and changed them into gar-
lands of roses. If this were a very romantic
story, it woidd be perhaps only proper for
Eliza Floyd to pine in her gilded bower, and
misapply her energies in weeping for some
abandoned lover, deserted in an evil hour of
ambitious madness. But as my story is a
true one — not only true in a general sense,
but strictly true tis to the leading tacts which
T am about to relat© — and as I could point
out, in a certain county, far northward of the
8
AURORA FLOYD.
lovely Kentish Avoods, the very house in which
the events I shall describe took place, I am
bound also to be truthful here, and to set
down as a fact that the love M^hich Eliza
Floyd, bore for her husband was as pure and
sincere an affection as ever man need hope
to win from the generous heart of a good
woman. Wiiat share gratitude may have
had in that love I can not tell. If she lived
in a handsome house, and was waited on by
attentive and deferential servants ; if she ate
of delicate dishes, and drank costly wines;
if she wore rich dresses and splendid jewels,
and lolled on the downy cushions of a car-
riage, drawn by high -mettled horses, and
driven by a coachman with powdered hair ;
if, wherever she went, all outward semblance
of homage was paid to her ; if she had but to
utter a Avish, and, swift as the stroke of some
enchanter's wand, that wish was gratified,
she knew that she owed all to her husband,
Archibald Floyd ; and it may be that she
grew, not unnaturally, to associate him with
every advantage she enjoyed, and to love
him for the sake of these things. Such a
love as this may appear a low and despicable
affection when compared to the noble senti-
ment entertained by the Nancys of modern
romance for the Bill Sykeses of their choice ;
and no doubt Eliza Floyd ought to have felt
a sovereign contempt for the man who watch-
ed her every whim, who gratified her every
caprice, and who loved and honored her as
much, ci-devant provincial actress as she was,
as he could have done had she descended the
steps of the loftiest throne in Christendom to
give him her hand.
She was grateful to him, she loved him, she
made him perfectly happy — so happy that
the strong-hearted Scotchman was sometimes
almost panic stricken at the contemplation
of his own prosperity, and would fall down
on his knees and pray that this blessing might
not be taken from him ; that, if it pleased
Providence to afllict him, he might be stripped
of every shilling of his wealth, and left pen-
niless, to begin the world anew — but with
her. Alas ! it was this blessing, of all others,
that he was to lose.
For a year Eliza and her husband lived
this happy life at Felden Woods. He wished
to take her on the Continent, or to London
for the season ; but she could not bear to
leave her lovely Kentish home. She was
happier than the day was long among her
gardens, and pineries, and graperies, her
dogs and horses, and her poor. To these
last she seemed an angel, descended from
the skies to comfort them. There were cot-
tages from which the prim daughters of the
second-rate county families fled, tract in
hand, discomfited and abashed by the black
looks of the half-starved inmates, but upon
whose doorways the sHadow of Mrs. Floyd
was as the shadow of a priest in a Catholic
country — always sacred, yet ever welcome
and familiar. She had the trick of making
these people like her before she set tb work
to reform their evil habits. At an early
stage of her acquaintance with them, she
was as blind to the dirt and disorder of their
cottages as she would have been to a shabby
carpet in the drawing-room of a poor duchess ;
but by and by she would artfully hint at this
and that little improvement in the menages
of her pensioners, until, in less than a month,
without having either lectured or offended,
she had worked an entire transformation.
Mrs. Floyd Avas frightfully artful in her deal-
ings with these erring peasants. Insteaii of
telling them at once in a candid and Chris-
tian-like manner that they Avere all dirty,
degraded, ungrateful, and irreligious, she di-
plomatized and finessed with them as if she
had been canvassing the county. She made
the girls regular in their attendance at church
by means of new bonnets ; she kept married
men out of the public houses by bribes of
tobacco to smoke at home, and once (oh,
horror!) by the gift of a bottle of gin. She
cured a dirty chimney-piece by the present
of a gaudy china vase to its proprietress, and
a slovenly hearth by means of a brass fender.
She repaired a shrcAvish temper Avith a new
gOAvn, and patched up a family breach of
long standing with a chintz Avaistcoat. But
one brief year after her marriage — Avhile
busy landscape-gardeners Avere Avorking at
the improverhents she had planned ; Avhile
the steady process of reformation Avas slowly
but surely progressing among the grateful
recipients of her bounty ; Avhile the eager
tongues of her detractors Averc .still waging
war upon her fair fame ; while Archibald
Floyd rejoiced aa he held a l)aby-daughter in
his arms — without one forewarning symptom
to break the force of the blow, the light
slowly faded out of those glorious eves, never
to shine again on this side of etei-nity, and
Archibald Martin Floyd Avas a AvidoAver.
CHAPTER IL
AURORA.
The child which Eliza Floyd left behind
her, when she Avas so suddenly taken away
from all earthly prosperity and happiness,
was christened Aurora. The romantic-sound-
ing name had been a fancy of poor Eliza's ;
and there Avas no caprice of hers, however
trifling, that had not alwajs been sacred Avith
her adoring husband, and that Avas not doubly
sacred noAv. The actual intensity of the
Avidowei''s grief Avas knoAvn to no creature
in this lower world. His nephews and his
nephews' Avives paid him pertinacious visits
of condolence ; nay, one of these nieces by
marriage, a good, motherly creature, devoted
AURORA. FLOYD.
to her liusbaiul, insisted on seeing and com-
forting tlie stricken man. Heaven knoAvs
whether her tenderness did convey any com-
fort to that shipwrecked soul. She found
him like a man who had suffered from a stroke
of paralysis, torpid, almost imbecile. Per-
haps she took tlie wisest course that could
possibly be taken. 8he said little to him
upon the subject of his affliction, but visited
him frequently, jiatiently sitting opposite to
him for hovirs at a time, lie and she talking of
all manner of easy conventional topics — the
state of the country, the weather, a change
in the ministry, and such subjects as were so
far remote from the grief of his life, that a
less careful hand than Mrs. Alexander Floyd's
could have scarcely touched u])on the broken
chords of that I'uined Instrument, the widow-
er's heart.
It wa.s not until six months after Eliza's
death that Mrs. Alexander ventured to utter
her name; but when she did speak of her, it
was with no solemn hesitation, but tenderly
and familiarly, as if she had been accustomed
to talk of the dead. She saw at once that
she harK OV THE DIAMOND JiKACKI.KT.
Aurora's aunt.«, uncles, and cousins were
not slow to e.xclaim upon the change for the
worse which a twelvemonth in I'aris had
made in their young kinswoman. I fear that
the Demoiselles Les))ard sufl'ered consider-
ably in reputation among the circle round
Felden Woods from Miss I'^loyd's imjiaired
good looks. She was out of spirits too, had
no appetite, slept badly, was nervous and
hysterical, no longer took any interest in her
dogs and horses, and was altogether an al-
tered creature. Mrs. Alexandttr Floyd de-
clared it was perfeyd, when a
man hurrying by was attracted by her face at
the carriage- window, and started, as if at
some great surprise. He passed on, however,
and walked rapidly toward the Horse Guards;
I but, before he turned the corner, came to a
dead stop, stood still for two or three minutes
scratching the back of his head reflectively
with his big bai*e hand, and then walked
slowly back toward Mr. Dent's emporium. He
was a broad-shouldered, bull -necked, sandy-
whiskered fellow, wearing a cut-away coat
and a gaudy neckerchief, and smoking a huge
cigar, the rank fumes of which struggled with
a very powerful odor of rum and water re-
cently imbibed. This gentleman's standing
in society was betrayed by the smooth head of
a bull-terrier, whose round eyes peeped out of
the pocket of his cut - away coat, and by a
Blenheim sj)aniel can-ied under his arm. He
was the very last person, among all the souls
between Cocksf)ur street and the statue ot
King Charles, who seemed likely to have
anvthing to say to Miss Aurora Floyd; never-
theless, he walked deliberately up to the car-
riage, and, planting his elbows upon the door,
nodded to her with friendly familiarity.
" Well," he said, without inconveniencing
himself by the removal of the rank cigar,
*' how do ?"
After which brief salutation he relapsed
into silence, and rolled his great brown eyes
slowly here and there, in contemplative ex-
AURORA Fl.OYD.
13
aiyination of Miss Floyd and the vehicle in
Avhich she sat — even carrving his powers of
observation so far as to take ])articular notice
of a plethoric morocco bag lyinir on the back
seat, and to inquire casnally ■whether there
was " anythink wallable in the old party's red-
icule."
But Aurora did not allow him long for this
leisurely employment; for, looking at him
witli iuT eyes Hashing forked lightnings of"
Avomanly fury, and her face crimson with in-
dignation, she asked him, in a sharp, s])as-
modic tone, Avhether he had anything to say
to her.
He had a great deal to say to her ; but as
he put his htvul in at the carriage- window
and made his comiyunication, whatever it
might be, in a rum and watery whisper, it
reached no ears but those of Aurora herself
When he had done whispering, he took a
greasy, leather-covered account-book, and a
short stump of lead pencil, considerably the
worse for chewing, from his waistcoat-pocket,
and wrote two or three lines upon a leaf,
which he tore out and handed to Aurora.
" This is tlie address," he said ; " you won't
forget to send V"
She shook her liead, and looked away from
liim — looked away with an irrej)ressible gest-
ure of disgust and loathing.
" You wouldn't like to buy a spannel dawg,''
said the man, liolding the sleek, curly, black
and tan animal up to the carriage-window,
" or a French poodle what '11 balance a bit of
bread r>n his nose while you count ten ? Iley V
You sliould have him a bargain — say fifteen
pound the two."
" No !"
At this moment Mrs. Alexanrler emerged
from the watchmaker's, just in time to catch
a glimpse of the man's broad shoulders as he
moved sulkily away from the carriage.
" Has tliat ])ersou been begging of you,
Aurora?" she asked, as they drove off.
" No. 1 once bought a dog of him, and he
recognized me."
" And wanted vou to Imv one to-dav V '
"Yes.''
Miss Floyd sat gloomily silent during the
whole of the honiewarst of us ;
but Mr.<. .'Mexander and licr fair -haired
daughter always paid mute reverence to tin;
banker's Iniress, and were sih'ut M-hen it
pleased her, or i on versed at her royal will.
I verily beli(\e that it wa^ Aurora's eyes
rather than Archibald Martin Floyd's ti)OU-
sands that overawed all her kinsfolk; and
that if she had been a street-sweeper dressed
in rags and begging for half-pence, people
would have feared her and made wny for her,
and bated their breath when slu> was angry.
The trees in the long avenue of Felden
Woods were hung with sparkling colored
lamps, to light the guests who came to Auro-
ra's birthday festival. The long range _ot
windows on the ground-floor was ablaze with
light; the crash of the band burst every now
and then above the perpetual roll of carriage-
wheels, and the slioutcd repetition of visitors'
names, and pealed acro.arson
of the pax'ish, in the south drawing-room at
Bulstrode Castle. Pie had a peculiar aversion
to all games of chance and skill, contending
that it was beneath a gentleman to employ,
even for amusement, the im})lements of the
sharper's pitiful trade. His rooms were as
neatly ke})t as those of a woma?i. Cases of
mathematical instimments took the place of
cigar -boxes; proof impressions of Raphael
adorned the walls ordinarily covered with
French prints, and water- coloreed hair seemed lifted
from his head as he listened to this terrible
address. Good heavens! Avliat a horrible
Avoman ! The hu.ssar's vivid imagination pic-
tured the heir of all the Raleigli Bulstrodes
receiving his infantine impressions from such
a mother. She Avould teach him to I'ead out
of the Racing CalcMidar; she Avonld invent a
royal alphabet of the turf, and tell him that
"]) stands for Derby, old England's great
race," and " E stands for Epsom, a crack
meeting- place," etc He told Miss Floyd
that he had never ixcn to Doiuaster in his
life, that he had never read a sporting paper,
and that he kncAv no more of Thunderbolt
than of King Cheops.
She looked at him rather contemptuously.
16
AURORA FLOYD.
" Cheops wasn't mut-h," she said ; " but he |
won the Liverpool Autumn Cup in Blink
Bonny's year." •
Talbot Bulstrode shuddered afresh ; but a j
feeling of pity niingk;il with his horror. " If I
I had a .sister," he thought, " I would get her [
to talk to this miserable girl, and bring her to
a sense of her iniquity."'
Aurora said no more to the Captain of
Hussars, but relapsed into the old far-away
gaze into vacaney, and sat twisting a brace-
let round and round upon her finely-modelled
wrist. It was a diamond bracelet, worth a
couple of hundred pounds, which had been
given her that day by her father. He would
have invested all his fortune in Messrs. Hunt
and Roskell's cunning handiwork if Aurora
liad sighed for gems and gewgaws. Miss
Floyd's glance fell upon the glittering orna-
ment, and she looked at it long and earnestly,
ratlier as if she were calculating the value of
the stones than admiring the taste of the
workmanship.
While Talbot was watching her, full of
wondering pity and horror, a young man
hurried up to the spot where she was seated,
and remindt'd her of an engagement for the
quadrille that was forming. She looked at
her tablets of ivory, gold, and turquoise, and
with a certain disdainful weariness rose and
took his arm. Talbot followed her receding
form. Taller than most among the throng,
her queenly head was not soon lost sight of.
" A Cleopatra with a snub nose two sizes
too small for her face, and a taste for horse-
flesh!" said Talbot Bulstrode, ruminating
upon the departed divinity. " She ought to
carry a betting-book instead of those ivory
tablets. How distraile she was all the time
she sat here ! I dare say she has made a
book for the Leger, and was calculating bow
much she stands to lose. What will this poor
old banker do with her V put her into a mad-
house, or get her elected a member of the
jockey club ? With her black eyes and iifty
thousand pounds, she might lead the sporting
world. There has been a female pope, why
should there not be a female ' Napoleon of
the Turf?' "
Later, wdien the i-ustling leaves of the
trees in Beekenham Woods were shivering
in that cold gray hour which precedes the
advcHt of the dawn, Talbot Bulstrode drove
his friend away from the bankei-'s lighted
mansion. lie talked of Aurora Floyd during
the whole of that long cross-country drive.
He was merciless to her follies ; he ridiculed,
he abused, he sneered at and condemned her
questionable taste. He bade Francis Louis
Maldon marry her at his peril, and wished
liim joy of such a wife. He declared that 'if
he had sueh a sister he would shoot her, un-
less she reformed and burnt her betting-book.
He worked himself up into a savagehumor
about the young lady's delinquencies, and
talked of her as if she had done him an un-
pardonable injury by entertaining a taste for
the turf ; till at last the poor meek young en-
sign plucked up a spirit, and told his superior
otHcer that Aurora Floyd was a very jolly
girl, and a good girl, and a perfect lady, and
that if she did want to know who won the
Leger, it was no business of Captain Bul-
strode's, and that he, Bulstrode, needn't make
such a howling about it.
While the two jnen are getting to high
words about her, Aurora is seated in her
dressing-room, listening to Lucy Floyd's bab-
ble about the ball.
" There was never such a delightful party,"
that young lady said; "and did Aurora see
so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so? and
above all, did she observe Captain Bulstrode,
who had served all through the Crimean war,
and who walked lame, and was the son of
Sir John Walter Raleig'u Bulstrode, of Bul-
strode Castle, near Camelford V"
Aurora shook her head with a weary gest-
ure. No, she hadn't noticed any of these
people. Poor Lucy's childish talk was stopped
in a moment.
" You are tired, Aurora dear," she said ;
" how cruel I am to worry you!"
Aurora threw her arms about her cousin's
neck, and hid her face upon Lucy's white
shoulder.
" I ara'tired," she said, "very, very tired."
She spoke with such an utterly despairing
weariness in her tone, that her gentle cousin
was alarmed by her words.
" You are not unhappy, dear Aurora ?"
she asked, anxiously.
" No, no, only tired. There, go, Lucy.
Good-night, good-night."
She gently pushed her cousin from the
room, rejected the services of her maid, and
dismissed her also. Then, tired as she was,
she removed the candle from the dressing-
table to a desk on the other .side of the room,
and, seating herself at this desk, unlocked it,
and took fi'om one of its inmost recesses the
soiled pencil scrawl which had been given
her a week before by the man who tried to
sell her a dog in Cockspur street.
The diamond bracelet, Archibald Floyd's
birthday gift to his daughter, lay in its nest
of satin and velvet upon Aurora's dressing-
table. She took the morocco case in her
hand, looked for a few moments at the jewel,
and then shut the lid of the little casket with
a sharp metallic snap.
" The tears were in my father's eyes when
he elapsed the bracelet on my ai'm," she said,
as she reseated herself at the desk. " If he
could see me now !"
She wrai")ped the case in a sheet of foolscap,
secured the parcel in several places with red
wax and a plain seal, and directed it thus :
"J. C,
Care of Mr. Joseph Green,
Bell Inn,
Doncaster."
AURORA FLOYD.
Early the next morning Miss Floyd drove
hf*r aunt and cousin iuto Croydon, and, leav-
ing them at a Berlin wool-shop, went alone to
the post-office, where she registered and post-
ed this valuable parcel.
CHAPTER IV.
A F T K R T H K « A I. L .
Two days after Aurora's birthnight festival,
Talbot Bulstrode's phaeton dashecl once more
into tlie avenue at Felden Woods. Again
the captain made a sacrifice on the shrine of
friendsliip, and drove Francis Maldon from
Windsor to Beclcenham, in order tliat the
young cornet miglit make those an.xious in-
quiries about tlie health of the ladies of Mr.
Floyd's household, which, by a pleasant social
fiction, are supposed to be necessary atler an
evening of intermittent waltzes and qua-
drilles.
The junior officer was very grateful for this
kindness ; for Talbot, though the best of fel-
lows* was not much given to putting himself
out of the way for the pleasure of other peo-
ple. It wouici have been far pleasanter to the
captain to dawdle away the day in his own
rooms, lolling over those erudite'works which
his brother officers described by the generic
title of " heavy reading,'" or, according to the
popular belief of those hare-brained young
men. employed in squaring the circle in the
solitude of his chamber.
Talbot Bulstrode was altogether an in-
.scrutable personage to his comrades of the
11th Hussars. His black-letter folios, his pol-
ished mahogany cases of mathematical instru-
ment.s, his proof- before -letters engravings,
were the fopperies of a young O.xonian
rather than an officer who had foufjht and
bled at Inkcrmann. The young men who
breakfasted with him in his rooms trem-
bled as they read the titles of the big books
on the shelves, and stared helplessly at the
"rim saints and angular angels in the pre-
Raphaclite prints upon the walls. Thev dared
not even propose to smoke in those sacred |
chambers, and were ashamed of the wet im-
pressions of the rims of the Moselle bottles '
•which they left upon the mahogany eases. I
It seemed natural t« people to be afraid of I
Talbot Bulstrode, just as little boys are I
frightened of a beadle, a policeman, and a"
8choo!-;na.ster, even before they have been {
told the attributes of these terrible beings, j
The colonel of the lUh Hussars, a portly'
gentleman, who rode fifteen stone, and wrote :
his name high in the peerage, was frightened !
of Talbot. That cold gray eye struck a silent '
awe into the hearths of men and women with \
its straight, penetrating gaze, that alwavs i
seemed to be telling them th<'y were found j
out. The colonel was afraid to tell his best I
stories wlien Talbot was at the mess-table, for
he had a dim consciousness that the captain
was aware of the discrepancies in those bnl-
liant ane(;dotes, though that officer had never
implied a doubt by" either look or cesturo.
The Irish adjutant fbi-got to brair about his
conquests among the fair se.x ; the vounwer
men dropped their voices when they talked
to each other of the side-scenes at Her Maj-
esty's Theatn;; and the cork.s Hew faster
and the laughter grew louder, when Talbot
left the room.
The captain knew that he was more re-
spected than beloved, and, like all proud
men who repel the warm feelings of oth.-rs in
utter despite of themselves, he Avas grieved
and wounded because his comrades did not
become attached to him.
" Will anybody, out of all the millions on
this wide earth, ever love me !" he thoun-ht.
" No one ever has as yet— not even my faUier
and mother. They have been proud of me,
but they have never loved me. How manv a
young ^jrofligate has brought his parents' gray
hairs with sorrow to the grave, and has been
beloved with the last heart-beat of those he
destroyed as I have never been in my life .'
Perhaps my mother would have loved me
better if I had given her more trouble; if 1
had scattered the name of Bulstrode all over
London upon post-obits and dishonored ac-
ce])tances; if I had been drummed out of my
regiment, and had walked down to Cornwall
without shoes or stockings, to fall at her feet,
and sob out my sins and sorrows in her lap,
and ask her to mortgage her jointure for the
payment of my debts. But' I have never
[ asked anything of her, dear soul, except her
j love, and that she has been unable to give
me. I suppose it is because I do not know
how to ask. How often have I sat by her
side at Bulstrode, talking of all sorts of in-
different subjects, yet with a vague vearnin'^
at my heart to throw myself upini her breasP,
and implore of her to love and bless her .son]
buthehl aloof by some icy barrier that I have
been powerless all my "life to break down
What woman has ever loved me V Not one.
They have tried to marry me because I shall
be Sir Talbot Bidstrode of Bulstrode Castle;
but how soon they have left off ant,'linrr for
the prize, and shrunk away from m7> chilled
and disheartened ! I shudder when I remem-
ber that I shall be three-and-(hirtv next
March, and that I have never been beloved.
1 shall sell out, now the fighting is over, for 1
am of no use among the fellows here ; and, if
any good little thing would fall in love with
me. I would marry her and take her down to
Bulstrode, to my mother and father, and turn
country gentleman."
Talbot Bulstrode made this declaration in
all .sincerity. He wished that some good and
pure creature would fall in love with him, in
order that he might marry her. He wanted
18
AURORA FLOYD.
some spontaneous exhibition of innocent feel-
ing which might justify him in saying "I am
beloved ! ' He folt little capacity for loving
on his own side, but he thouglit that he would
be grateful to any good woman who would
regard him with disinterested affection, and
that he would devote his life to making her
happy.
" It would be something to feel that if I
were smashed in a railway accident, or
dropped out of a balloon, some one creature
in this world would think it a lonelier place
for the lack of me. I wonder whether my
children would love me V I dare say not. I
should freeze their young afflictions with the
Latin grammar, and they would tremble as
they passed the door of my study, and hush
their voices into a Iriglitened whisper when
papa was within hearing."
Talbot Bnlstrode's ideal of woman was some
gentle and icminine creature crowned with
an aureole of pale auburn hair; some timid
soul with downcast eyes, fringed with golden-
tinted lashes; some shrinking being, as pale
and jniin as the mediseval saints in his pre-
Raphaelite engravings, spotless as her own
white robes, excelling in all womanly graces
and accomplishments, but only exhibiting
them in the narrow circle of a home.
Perhaps Talbot thought that he had met
with his ideal when he entered the long
drawing-room at Felden Woods with Cornet
Maldon, on the seventeenth of September,
1857. .
Lucy Floyd was standing by an open piano,
with her white dress and pale golden hair
bathed in a flood of autumn sunlight. That
sunlit figure came back to Talbot's memory
long afterward, after a stormy interval, in
which it had been blotted away and for-
gotten, and the long drawing-room stretched
itself out like a picture before his eyes.
Yes, this was his ideal — tliis graceful girl,
with the shinmiering light for ever playing
upon lier hair, and the motlest droop in her
white eyelids. But, undemonstrative as usual,
Captain Bulstrode seated himself near the
piano, after the brief ceremony of greeting,
and C(jntemplated Lucy with grave eyes that
betrayed no especial admiration.
lie had not taken much notice of Lucy
Floyd on the night of the ball; indeed, Lucy-
was scarcely a candle-light beauty ; her hair
wanted the sunshine gleaming through it to
light up the golden halo about her face, and
the delicate pink of her cheeks waxed pale in
the glare of the great chandeliers.
While Captain Bulstrode was watching
Lucy with that grave, eoutemplative gaze,
trying to find out whether she was in any
way different from other girls he had known,
and whether the purity of lier delicate beauty
was more than skin deep, the window opposite
to him was darkened, and Aurora Floyd stood
between him and the sunshine.
Tiie banker's daughter paused on the
threshold of the open window, holding the
collar of an immense mastiff in both her
hands, and looking irresolutely into the
room.
Miss Floyd hated morning callers, and she
was debating within herself whether she had
been seen, or whether it might be possible to
steal away unperceived.
But the dog set up a big bark, .and settled
the (uiestion.
" Quiet, Bow-wow," she said; " quiet, quiet,
boy."
" Yes, the dog was called Bow-wow. He
was twelve years old, and Aurora had so
christened him in her seventh year, when he
was a blundering, big-headed pu])py, that
sprawled upon the table during the little
girl's lessons, upset ink-bottles over her copy-
books, and ate whole chapters of PInnock's
abridged histories.
The gentlemen rose at the sound of her
voice, and Miss Floyd (;anie into the room
and sat down at a little distance from the
captaiu and her cousin, twirling a straw hat
in her hand and staring at her dog, who
seated himself resolutely by her chair, knock-
ing double knocks of good temper upon the
carpet Avith his big tail.
'Though she said very little, and seated her-
self in a careless attitude that besj)oke com-
plete indifference to her visitors, Aurora's
beauty extinguished poor Lucy as the rifeing
sun extinguishes the stars.
The thick plaits of her black hair made a
great diadem upon her low forehead, and
crowned her an Eastern empress — an em-
press with a doubtful nose, it is true, but an
empress who reigned by right divine of her
eyes and hair. For do not these wonderful
black eyes, which perhaps shine u[)on us only
once in a lifetime, in themselves constitute a
royalty?
Talbot Bulstrode turned away i'rom his
ideal to look at this dark-haired goddess, with
a coarse straw hat in her hand and a big
mastiff's head lying on her lap. Again he
perceived that abstraction in her manner
which had puzzled him upon the night of the
ball. She listened to her visitors politely,
and she answered them when they spoke to
her, but it seemed to Talbot as if she con-
strained herself to attend to them by an
effort.
" She wishes me away, I dare say," he!
thought, " and no doubt considers me a ' slow!
party' because I don't talk to her of horses
and dogs."
The captain resumed his conversation with
Lucy. He Ibund that she talked exactly as^
he had heard other young ladies talk, that she
knew all they knew, and had been to the
places they had visited. The ground theyi
went over was very old indeed, but Lucy'
traversed it with charming propriety.
AURORA FLOYD.
19
"She is a good little tiling," Talbot thought,
" and would make an admirable wife for a
country gentleman. I wish she would fall in
love with me."
Lucy told him of some excursion in Swit-
zerland, where she had been during the pre-
ceding autumn with Jier fatlier and mother.
'' And your cousin," he asked, " was she
with you ?"
" No ; Aurora was at school in Paris with
the Demoiselles Lespard."
" Lespard — Lespard !" he repeated ; " a
Protestant pension in the Faubourg Saint
Germain? Why, a cousin of mine is being
educated there — a Miss Trevyllian. Shi; iias
been there for three or four years. Do you
remember Constance Trevyllian at the De-
moiselles Lespard, Miss Floyd ?" said Talbot,
addressing himself to Aurora.
" ConstatiL-e Trevyllian ? Yes, I remember
her," answered the banker's daughter.
She said nothing more, and for a few mo-
ments there was rather an awkward pause.
" Miss Trevyllian is my cousin," said the
captain.
" Indeed !"
" I hope that you were very good friends."
" Oh, yes."
She bent over her dog, caressing his big
head, and not even looking up as she spoke of
Mis.<; Trevyllian. It seemed as if the subject
was utterly indiiTerent to her, and she dis-
dained even to afl'oct an interest in it.
Talbot liulstrode bit his lip with offended
pride. " I suppose this purse-proud heiress
looks down upon the Trevyllians of Tredeth-
lin." he thought, " because tliey can boast of
nothing better than a few hunres-
ent. And yet, how (;ould that be ? How
could that be, he asked himself, when her
■whole life only amounteil to nineteen years,
and he had heard the history of those years
over and over again ? How often he had
five minutes more the ladies appeared
upon the door-step, and Talbot, turning at
the sound of their voices, was fain to cross
the road once more for the chance of taking
Aurora's foot in his hand as she. sprang into
her saddle ; but John Mellish was bclbre him
again, and Miss Floyd's mare was curveting
under the touch of her riucy so little
years were a few broken china vases, and a j as on horseback. His pale samt with the
great deal of ink spilled over badly-written j halo of golden hair seemed to him sadly out
French exercises; and, after being educated i of place iu a side-saddle. He looked back at
at home until she was nearly eighteen, An- i the day of his morning visit to Felden, and
rora had been transferred to a Parisian fin- remembered- how he had admired her, and
■28
AURORA FLOYD.
how exactly s^he corresponded with his ideal,
and l)ow determined he was to be bewitched
with licr rather than by Aurora. " If she
had fallen in love with me," he thought, " I
would have snapped my finj^ers at the black-
browed heiress, and married this faif-haired
angel out of hand. I meant to do that when
I sold my commission. It was not for Auro-
Nra's sake 1 left the army, it was not Aurora
whom I followed down here. Which did I
follow? What did I follow, I wonder? My
destiny, I supjiose, which is leading me through
such a witch'*s dance as I never thought to
tread at the sober age of three-and-thirty.
If Lucy had only loved me, it might have
been ail different.''
He was so angry with himself that he was
half inclined to be angry with poor Lucy for
not extracting him from the snares of Aurora.
If he could have read that innocent heart as
he rode in sulky silence across the stunted
turf on the wide downs — if he could have
known the slow, sick pain in that gentle
breast, as the quiet girl by his side lifted her
blue eyes every now and then to steal a
glance at his hard profile and moody brow —
if he could have read her secret later, when,
talking of Aurora, he for the first time clearly
betrayed the mystery of his own heart — if
he could have known how the landscaj)e grew
dim before her eyes, and how the brown
moorland reeled beneath her horse's hoofs
until they seemed going down, down, down
into some fathomless depth of sorrow and
despair! But he, knew nothing of this, and
he thought Lucy Floyd a pretty, inanimate
girl, who would no doubt be delighted to
wear a becoming dress as bridesmaid at her
cousin's wedding.
There Avas a dinner-party that evening
upon the East CiilT, at which both John Mel-
lish and Talbot were to assist, and the captain
savagely detei-mined to bring matters to an
issue before the night was out.
Talbot Raleigh Bulstrode would have been
very angry with you had you watched him
too closely that evening as he fastened the
golden solitaire in his narrow cravat before
his looking-glass in the bow-window at the
Old Ship. He was ashamed of himself for
being causelessly savage with his valet, whom
he dismis.sed abruptly before he began to
dress, and had not the courage to call the
man back agaiu when his own hot hands
refused to do their otlice. He spilled half a
bottleful of perfume upon his varnished boots,
and smeared Ijis face with a terrible waxy
compoi:^nd which piomise si-arlct woollen stuiT, such a."
Semiramidc herself miglit have worn. " She
j looks like Semiraniide," Talbot thought. "How
did this Scotch banker and his Lancashim
I wife come to have an Assyrian for their
I daughter?''
j He began brilliantly, this young man, as
j lovers generally do.
" I am afraiti you must have fatigued vonr-
self this evening, Miss Floyd," he remarked.
Aurora stifled a yawn as she answered him.
"I am rather tired," she said.
It was n't very encouraging. How was he
to begin an eloijuent speech, when she might
fall asleep in the middle of it? But he did;
he dashed at once into the heart of his sub-
ject, and he told lier how he loved her; how
he had done battle with this passion, which
had been too strong for him ; iiow he loved
her as he ntiver thought to love any creature
upon this earth ; and liow he cast himself be-
j fore her in all humility, to take his sentence
j of life or death from her dear lips.
She was silent for some moments, her pro-
j file sharply distinct to him in the miwnlight.
and those dear lips trembling visibly. Then,
I with a half-averted face, and in words that
I seemed to come slowly and painfully from a
stifled throat, she gave him his answer.
That answer was a rejirction !
Not a young lady's No, which means yes
I to-morrow, or which means perhaps that you
I have not been on your knees in a passion of
I despair, like Lord Edward Fitz Morkysh in
Miss Oderose's last novel. Nothing of this
I kind ; but a calm negative, carefully and
I tersel}- worded, as if she feared to mislead
I him by so much as one syllable that could
I leave a loop-hole through which hope might
j creep into his heart. He was lejected. For
a moment it was quite as much as he could do
to believe it. He was inclined to imagine
that the signification of certain words liad
suddiuly changed, or that he hail been in the
habit of mistaking them all his lif'c. rather
than that ihose words meant this hard fact,
namely, that he, Talbot Raleigh Bulstrode, of
Bulstrode Castle, and of Saxon cxti'action,
had been rejected by the daughter of a lyom-
bard-street banker.
30
AURORA FLOYD.
lie paused — for an liour and a ha!f or so,
as it seemed to bim — in order to collect him-
self before he spoke again.
"May I — venture to inquire," he said —
how horribly commonplace the phrase seemed ;
he could have used no worse had he been
inquiring for furnished lodgings — " may I
ask if any prior attachment — to one more
worthy — "
" Oh no, no, no!"
The answer came upon him so suddenly
that it almoijt startled him as much as her re-
jection.
"And yet your decision is irrevocable ?"
"Quite irrevocable."
"Forgive me If I am intrusive; but — but
Mr. Floyd may perhaps have formed some
liigher views."
"He was interrupted by a stifled sob as she
clasped her hands over her averted face.
"Higher views!" she said; "poor, dear old
man, no, no, indeed."
"It is scarcely strange that I bore you with
these questions. It is so hai-d to think that,
meeting you with your aifections disengaged,
I have yet been utterly unable to win one
shadow of regard upon which I might build a
hope for tlie future."
Foor Talbot! Talbot, the splitter of meta-
physical straws and chopper of logic, talking
of building hopes on shadows with a lover's
delirious stupidity.
"It is so hard to resign every thought of
your ever coming to alter your decision of to-
night, Aurora" — he lingered on her name
for a moment, first because it was so sweet to
say it, and, secondly, in the hope that she
would speak — " It is so hard to remember
the fabric of happiness I had dared to build,
and to lay it down here to-night for ever "
Talbot quite forgot that, up to the time of
the arrival of John Mellish, he had been per-
petually arguing against his passion, and had
dcclareil" to himself over and over again that
he would be a consummuiate fool if he was
ever beguiled into making Aurora his wife.
He reversed the parable of the fox; for he
had been inclined to make faces at the grapes
while he fancied them within his reach, and,
now that they were removed from his grasp,
he thought that such delicious fruit had never
grown to tempt mankind.
"If — if," he said, "my fete had been hap-
pier. T know how proud my father, poor old
Sir John, would have been of his eldest son's
choice."
riow ashamed he felt of the meanness of
this speech !_ The artful sentence had been
constructed in order to remind Aurora whom
she was refusing. He was trying to bribe her
with the baronetcy which was to be his in
due time. But she made no answer to the
pitiful appeal. Talbot was almost choked with
mortification. " I see— I see," he said, "that
it Is hopeless. Good-night, Miss Floyd."
She did not even turn to look at him as he
left the balcony; but, with her red drapery
wrapped tightly round her, stood shivering in
the moonlight, with the silent tears slowly
stealing down her cheeks.
" Higher views!" she cried bitterly, repeat-
ing a phrase that Talbot used — "higher
views! God help him!"
" I must wish you good-night and good-by
at the same time," Captain Bulstrode said as
he shook hands with Lucy.
" Good-by V"
" Yes ; I l^ave Brighton early to-morrow."
" So suddenly ?"
" Why not exactly suddenly. I always
meant to travel this winter. Can I do any-
thing for you — at Cairo?"
He was so pale, and cold, and wretched-
looking that she almost pitied him In spite of
the wild joy growing up In her heart. Aurora
had refused him — it was perfectly clear —
refused A i«i/ The soft blue eyes tilled with
tears at the thought that a demigod should
have endured such humiliation. Talbot press-
ed her hand gently in his own clammy palm.
He could read pity in that tender look, but
possessed no lexicon by which he could trans-
late its deeper meaning.
"You will wish your uncle good-by for me,
Lucy," he said. He called her Lucy for the
first time ; but what did it matter now V His
great affliction set him apart from his fellow-
men, and gave him dismal privileges. "Good-
night, Lucy ; good-night and good-bj'. I —
I — shall hope to see 3'ou again In a year or
two."
The pavement of the East Cliff" seemed so
much air beneath Talbot Bulstrode's boots as
he strode back to the Old Slilp; for It is pecuV
iar to us, in our moments of supreme trouble
or joy, t6 lose all consciousness of the earth
we tread, and to float upon the atmospliei-e of
sublime egotism.
But the captain did not leave Brighton the
next day on the first stage of his J*]gyptian
journey. He staid at the fa'shlonable water-
ing-place ; but he resolutely aljured the
neighborhood of the East Chif, and, the day
being wet, took a pleasant walk to vShoreham
through the rain; and Shoreham being such
a pretty place, he was, no doubt, much en-
livened by that exercise.
Returning through the fog at about four
o'clock, the captain met Mr. John Mellish
close against the turnpike outside Cllftonville.
The two men stared aghast at each other.
" Why, where on earth are you going '?"
asked Talbot.
" Back to Yorkshire by the first train that
leaves Brighton."
" But this is n't the way to the station !"
" No ; but they 're putting the horses in my
portmanteau, and my shirts are going by the
Leeds cattle-train, and — "
Talbot Bulstrode burst into .a loud laugh, a
AURORA FLOYD.
31
harsh and bitter cachlnnation, but afFoixilng
wondrous relief to that gentleman's over-
charged breast.
"John Mellish," he said, "you have been
proposing to Aurora Floyd."
The Yorkshireman turned scarlet. " It —
it — was n't honorable of her to tell you," he
stammered.
" Sliss Floyd has never breathed a word to
me upon the subjeet. I 've just eome from
Shorcliain, and you 've only lately left the
East Cliff. You 've proposed, and you 've
been rejected."
" I have," roared John ; " and it 's doosed
hard, when I promised her she should keep a
i-aeing-stiid if slie liked, and enter as many
colts as she pleased for the Derby, and give
her own orders to the trainer, and I 'd never
interfere; and — and — JMellish Park is one
of the finest places in the county; and I 'd
iiave won lier a bit of blue ril)bon to tie up
her bonny black hair."
" That old Frenchman was riiiht." muttered
Captain Bulstrode ; "there t.v a great satis-
faction in the misfortunes of others. If I go
to my dentist, I like to find another wretch
in the waiting-room ; and I like to have ray
tooth extracted first, and to see him glare
enviously at nic as I come out of the tortnre-
chanibcr, knowing that my troubles are over,
while his are to come. Good-by, John Mel-
lish, and (rod bless 3"ou. You 're not such a
bad fellow, after all."
Talbot felt almost cheerful as he walked
back to the Ship, and he took a mutton cut-
let and tomato sauce, and a pint of Mos^dle
for his dinner; and the food and wine warmed
him ; and, not having slept a wink on the
previous niglit, he fell into a heavy indigest-
ible slumber, Avith his head hanging over the
sofa-cusliion, and dreamed that he was at
Grand Cairo (or at a place wiiicli would have
been that city had it not been now and tiien
Bulstrode Castle, and occasionally chambers
in the Aliiany), and that Aurora Floyd Avas
Avith him, clail in imperial purple, Avith hiero-
glyphics on file hem of her robe, and Avearing
a cloAvn's jacket of Avhite satin and scarlet
spots, such as he had once seen foremost in a
great race. Captain Bulstrode ai'osc early
the next morning, Avith the full intention of
departing from Sussex by the 8.4.") express;
but suddenly remembering that he had but
poorly acknoAvledged Archibald Floyd's cor-
diality, lui determined on sacrificing his in-
clinations on the shrine of courtesy, and call-
ing onct; more at the Ea.st Clift" to take leave
of the Ijaiiker. Having once resolved upon
this line ol" action, the captain would fain
have huriicd that moment to IMr. Floyd's
house; but, finding that it wa.s only half-
past seven, he Avas i;ompellcil to restrain his
impatiencre and await a more .seasonable; hour.
Could he go at nine? Scarcely. At ten V
Ye*, surely, as he could then leave by the
I eleven o'clock train. He sent his breakfast
I aAvay untouched, and sat looking at his watch
in a mad hurry for the time to pass, yet groAv-
I ing hot and uncomfortable as the hour drcAV
I near.
! At a quarter to ten he put on his hat and
j left the hotel. Mr. Floyd Avas at liome, the
servant told him — tip stairs in the little study,
I he thought. Talbot Avaited for no more.
j "You need not announce me," he .said; "I
I know Avhere to find your master."
The study Avas on the same floor as the
drawing-room, and close against the draAving-
rooin door Talbot paused ("or a moment. The
door Avas open ; the room empty — no, not
emj)ty: Aurora Floyil Avas there, seated Avith
her back toward him, and her head leaning
on the, cushions of her chair. He stojiped for
another moment to admire the back vicAV of
that small head, Avith its croAvn of lustrous
raven hair, then took a step or tAvo in the
direction of the banker's study, tlieii .slopped
again, then turned back, Avent into the draw*
ing-room, and shut the door behind him.
She did not stir as he approaclic.d her, nor
ansAver Avhcn he stammered her name. H»!r
face Avas as Avhite as the face of a dead Avoman,
and her nerveless hands hung over the cush-
ions of the arm-chair. A neAvspaper Avas
lying at her feet. She had (juletly swooned
away sitting there bj' herself, Avith no one by
to restore her to consciousness.
Talbot flung some Jlowers fi'om a vase on
the table, and dashed tin; Avater over Aurora's
I'orchead ; then, Avheellng her chair close to
the open Avindow, he set her Avith her t'ace to
the Avind. In Iavo or three moments she began
to shiver violently, and soon aftcrwai-d opened
lu!r eyes and looked at him ; as sh^ did so, she
put her hands to her head, as if trying to
remember something. " Talbot I" she said,
" Talbot !"
She called him by his Christian name, she
Avho ftve-and-thirty hours before had coldly
forbidden him to hope.
" Aurora," he cried, " Aurora, I thought I
came here to Avish your father good-by ; but I
deceived myself I came to ask you once
more, and once for all, if your decision of tho
night before last Avas irrevocable V"
" Heaven knows I thought it was when
1 uttered it."
" But it Ava« not?"
"Do you Avisli me to revoke it V"
" Do I Avish ? do I — "
" Because, if you really ilo, I Avill revoke
it; for you are a bra\'C and honorable man,
Capi'iin Bulstrode, and I love you very
dearly."
He;i\-en knoAvs into Avhat rhapi^odies he
might have fallen, but she put up her hand,
as much as to say. " Forbear to-day, if you
love me," and hurried from the room. He
had accepted the cup of haiuj which the siren
had offered, and had drained the y^^ry dregs
Zi
AURORA FLOYD.
thereof, and was drimken. He dropped into
tbe chair in which Aurora had sat, and,
absent-minded in his joyful intoxication,
picked up tlie newspaper that had lain at
her feet. He shuddered in spite of himself
swi he looked at the title of the journal; it was
Befl's Life — a dirty copy, crumpled, and beer-
stained, and emitting rank odors of inferior
tobacco. It was directed to Miss Floyd, in
such sprawling penmanship as might have
disgraced the "pot-boy of a sporting public
house :
" Miss Floid,
fell dun wodes,
kent."
The newspaper had been redirected to
Aurora by the housekeeper at Felden. Tal-
bot ran his eye eagerly over the front page;
it was almost entirely filled with advertise-
ments (and such advertisements !), but in
one column there was an account headed
" Frightful AcciDKXT in Gkkmany: an
English Jockey killkd."
Captain Bulstrode never knew wh)- he
read of this accident. It was in no way in-
teresting to him, being an account of a
steeple-chase in Prussia, in which a heavy
English rider and a crack French horse had
been killed. There was a great deal of re-
Sjret expressed for the loss of the horse, and
none (or the man who had ridden him, who,
the reporter stated, was very little known in
sporting -circles; but in a paragraph lower
down was added this information, evidently
procured at the last moment : " The jockey's
name was Convers."
CHAPTER VIT.
aukoka's strange pensioner.
Archibald Floyd received the news of his
daughter's choice with evident pride and
satisfaction. It seemed as if some heavy
Jburdon had been taken away, as if some
cruel shadow had been lifted from the lives
of father and daughter.
The banker took his family back to Felden
Woods, with Talbot Bulstrode in his train ;
and the chintz rooms — pretty, cheerful cham-
ber.s, with bow-windows that looked across
the well-kept stable-yard into long glades of
oak and beech — were prepared for the ex-
Hussar, who was to spend his Christmas at
Felden.
Mrs. Alexander and her husband were
established Avith their fomily in the western
wing ; Mr. and Mrs. Andrew were located at
the eastern angle ; for it was the hospitable
custom of the old banker to summon his kins-
folk about him early in December, and to
keep them witli him till the bells of romantic
Beckenham church had heralded in the New
Year.
Lucy Floyd's cheeks had lost much of their
delicate color when she returned to Felden,
and it was pronounced by all who observed
the change that the air of East Cliff, and the
autumn winds drifting across the bleak downs,
had been too much for the young lady's
strength.
Aurora seemed to have burst forth into
some new and more glorious beauty since the
morning upon which she had accepted tbe
hand of Talbot Bulstrode. There was a
proud defiance in her manner, which became
her better than gentleness becomes far love*-
lier women. There was a haughty i7}sou€i-
ance about this young lady which gave new
brilliancy to her great black eyes, and new
music to her joyous laugh. She was like some
beautiful, noisy, boisterous water-fall, for ever
dancing, rushing, sparkling, scintillating, and
utterly defying you to do anything but ad-
mire it. Talbot Bulst«-odc, having once aban-
doned himself to the spell of the siren, made
no farther struggle, but fairly fell into the
pitfalls of her eyes, and was entangled in th.>
meshy net-work of her blue-black hair. The
greater the tension of the bowstring, the
stronger the rebound thereof; and Talbot
Bulstrode was as weak to give way at las* as
he had long been powerful to resist. I must
write his story in the commonest words. He
could not help it ! He loved her ; not be-
cause he thought her better, or wiser, or
lovelier, or more suited to him than many
other women — indeed, he had grave doubts
upon every one of these points — but because
it was his destiny, and he loved her.
What is that hard word which M. Victor
Hugo puts into the mouth of the priest in
The Hunchback of Notre Dome a,s an excuse
for the darkness of his sin? Ai^akthe .' It
was his fate. So he wrote to his mother, and
told her that he had chosen a wife who was to
sit in the halls of Bulstrode, and whose name
was to be interwoven with the chronicles of
the house ; told her, moreover, that Miss
Floyd was a banker'.s daughter, beautiful and
fascinating, with big black eyes, and fifty
thousand pounds for her dowry. Lady Ra-
leigh Bulstrode answered her son's letter upon
a quarter of a (juire of note-paper, filled with
fearful motherl}- prayers and suggestions ;
anxious hopes that he had chosen wisely ;
questionings as to the opinions and religions
principles of the young lady -^much, indeed,
that Talbot would have been sorely puzzled
to answer. Inclosed in this was a letter to
Aurora, a womanly and tender epistle, in
which pride Avas tempered with love, and
which brought big tears welling up to Miss
Floyd's eyes, until Lady Bulstrode's firm
penmanship grew blotted and blurred be-
neath the reader's vision.
And whither went poor slaughtered John
Mellish ? He returned to Mellish Park, car-
rying with him his dogs, and horses, and
AURORA FLOYD.
3S
groonts, and phaeton, and other parapher-
nah'a; but his grief — having unluckily come
upon him after the racing season — was too
much for him, and he fled away from the
roomy old mansion, with its pleasant sur-
roundings of park and woodland : for Aurora
Floyd was not for him, and it was all flat,
stale, and unprofitable. So he went to Paris,
or Parry, as he called that imperial city, and
established himself in the biggest chambers
at Meurice's, and went backward and forward
between that establishment and (jalignani's
ten times a day in quest of the English pa-
pers. He dined drearily at Vetbur's, the
Trois Freres, and the Cafe de Paris. His big
voice was heard at every expensive dining-
place in Paris, ordering " Toox kilh/nr de
nielli/our : vnu.t navez ;" but he sent the dainti-
est dishes away untasted, and would sit lor a
quarter of an hour counting the toothpicks in
the tiny bhie ^ases, and thinking of Aurora.
He ro
himself up to his liappiness without farther I
protests j
Did Aurora love him ? Did she make him '
duo return for the passionate devotion, the '
blind adoration V She admired and esteemed
him ; she was proud of him — proud of that I
S
very pride in his nature which made him 30
difierent to herself, and she was too impulsive
and truthful a creature to keep this sentiment
a secret from her lover. She revealed, too, a
constant desire to please her beOi-othed hus-
band, suppressing, at least, all outward token
of the tastes that were so unpleasant to him.
No more copies of Bell'.t /v?ye littered the
ladies' morning-room at Felden; and when
Andrew Floyd asked Aurora to ride to meet
with him, his cousin refused the offer, which
would once have been so welcome. Instead
of following the Croydon hounds, Miss Floyd
was content to drive Talbot and Lucy in
a basket carriage through the frost-bespaiigled
country-side. Lucy was always the com-
panion and confidante of the lovers; it was
hanl for her to hear their happy talk of the
bright future stretching far away before
them — stretching down, down the shadowy
aisles of T'iine, to an escutcheoned tomb at
Bulstrode, where husband and wife would Ha
down, full of years and honors, in (lie days to
come. It was hard to have to help them
to plan a thousand schemes of pleasure, in
which — Heaven pity her ! — she was to join ;
but she bore her cross meekly, this pale
Eliiine of modern days, and she never told
Talbot Bulstrode that she had gone mad and
loved him. and was fain to die.
Talbot and Aurora wert; both concerned to
see the pale cheeks of their gentle companion ;
but everybody was ready to ascribe them to a
cold, or a cough, or constitutional debility, or
some other bodily evil, which was to be cured
by drugs and boluses ; and no one for a mo-
ment imagined that anything could possibly
be amiss with a young lady who lived in a
luxurious house, went shopping in a carriage
and pair, and had more pocket-money than
she cared to spend. But the lily maid of
Astolat lived in a lordly castle, and had
doubtless ample pocket-money to buy gor-
geous silks tor her embroidery, and had little
on earth to wish for, and nothing to do,
wliercby she fell sick for love of Sir Lancelot,
and pined and died.
Surely the secret of many sorrows lies in
this. How many a grief has been breurning coals ignoring
any easier mode of lighting it. " It 's hard,
but I .su[)po>e it's human nature."
Talbot Bnistrode went to bed in a very bad
humor. CouM it be true tiiat Lucy iovee thought; and
even in tliat sacred temple the Devil whisper-
ed to him that there were still pools, loaded
pistols, and other certain remedies for smh
calamities as those, so wicked a-s well as cow-
ardly a passion is this terrible fever, Love I
The day wa.s bright ami clear, 'the light
unow whitening the ground; every line of
hedge-top and treernatural pre-
science of the coming of all misfortune ; a
prophetic instinct, which tells us that such a
li'tter, or such a messenger, carries evil
tidings. Talliot Bulstrode had tliat prescience
as lie unfolded the jjaper in his hands. The
horrible trouble was before him — a brooding
shadow, witli a vfiied face, gliastly and unde-
fined ; but it was ihare.
" My dkar Tamjot — T know the letter I
am about to write will distress and perplex
you ; but my duty lies not the less ])lamly be-
fore me. I fear that your heart is much in-
volved in your engtagement to Miss Floyd."'
The evil tidings concerned Aurora, then ;
tlie brooding sha there was
such a fuss about ? the Miss Floyd who ran
' away from school ?' And then slie told me,
Talbot, that a Miss Floyd was brought to the
; Demoiselles Lespard by her father last June
j twelvemonth, and that less than a fortnight
I after arriving at the school she disappeared ;
: her disappearance, of course, causing a great
sensation and an immense devil of talk among
i tlie other pupils, as it was said she had rtin
aioay. The matter was hushed up as much as
i possible ; hut you know that girls will talk,
\ and from what Constance tells me, I iuiagine
I that very unpleasant things were said about
, Miss Floyd. Now you .say that the banker's
daughter only returned to Felden Woods
I in September last. Where was she in the
iiittrculf"
He read no more. One glance told him
that the rest of the letter consisted of moth-
erly cautions and admonitions as to how
he was to act in this perplexing business.
He thrust the crum[)led paper into his bos-
om, hnd dropped into a chair by the hearth.
It was so, then ! There was a mystery in
the life of this woman. The doubts and sus-
picions, the undefined fears and per])l<'xities,
which had held him back at the lirst, and
caused him to wrestle against his love, had
not been unfounded. There was good reason
for them all, amjjle reason for them, as there
is for every instinct which Providence puts
into our hearts. A black wall rose up round
about him, and shut him for ever from the
woman he loved; this woman whom he loved
so far from wi.se!y, so fearfully well ; this
woman, for whom he had thanked (Jod in the
church only a fev/ hours befoie. Ami she was
to have been his wife — the mother of his
children perhaps. He clasped his cold hands
over hi.s face, and sobbe//?/.' Why
do you not ask me ior Justice f One question,
Aurora Floyd, one more (piestion, perhaps tlie
last I evir may ask of you — Does your father
know wilt you lefr that school, and where you
were during lh:it twelvemonth V"
" He does."
'• Thank (jod, at least, for that ! Tell me,
Aurora, then, oidy tell mc this, and I will
believe your simple word as 1 would the oath
of another woman — tell me it' he approved ol'
your motive in leaving that school — if he
approved of the manner in which your life
was spent during that twelvemonth. If yon
can say yes, Aurora, there shall be no more
(piestions between us, and 1 can make you,
without fear, my loved and honored wile."
"I ':an not," she answered. "1 am only
nineteen, but within the two last years of my
life 1 have done enough to break my father s
heart — to break the Iieart of the dearest
father that evt-r breathed the breath of life."
•' Tiien all is over between us. God i'orgive
you, Aurora Floyd ; but, by your own con-
i'ession, jou are no (it wit'e for an honorable
man. I shut my mint! against all foul sus-
picions ; but the past life of my wife must be
rt while, unblemished page, which all the
world may be free to read."
He walked toward the door, and then, re-
turning, assisted the wretched girl to lii^e,
and led her back to her seat by the window,
courteously, as if she had been his partner at
a l)all. Their hands met with as icy a touch
as the hands of two corpses. Ah ! how miicii
there wa.s of death in that touch! How mucli
had died between those two within the last
few hours — hope, confidence, .security, love,
happiness, all that makes life worth the
holding.
Talbot Bnlstrode paused npon the thresh-
old of the little chamber, and .■y day and hour by hour of tin; progress oi"
the battl(! between Death and Aurora Flovd!
And ycrt, after all, what was she to him V
What did it matter to him if slu; were well or
ill V 'J'lie grave ' «
refrain, there/ore, and will set down nothin- I d Vnd 1 n^.? ' '' '"'"," '^'"'•^^' ^^'•'- J'"'^'-
but the fact that on a certain Snn'da"- td- ^Wd' c iS^ ^'"'^ ^'^r^^'""
way in the month, the cantain. sifi;,..; Jn fl.. o...i k„,i i . "^ • '""''» ^^'^'^ ^^^11 and snii^,
, • ^1 . , -^». •!.»., I crien out, s lud-
donng. that she would never enter tha hLte-
''■• 'hamber asam.
way in the month, the cantain. .sittiiuT Jn fh^ I a.,,) i,,,] ^ „ i.i '"" -"""I'l «"" snuff.
family pew at Bulstrode church. ic^Ivfo^ ' ?o the invTi "h' fT""'' *^ ^''■'^ ^"^^^* I^'«'^
.ng the monnmcnt of Admiral Hartle^^JuV ' hTw!::\Z'1kI\!'"1,^"'-"'-'-^ ^•''-l «"^ ^^''"'l"
strode, who fought and died in the rlavs of
Queen Elizabeth, registered a s^ilent oath'that,
as he was a gentleman and a Christian he
would henceforth abstain from iioldiixr "any
voluntary communication with Aurora Flovd I
tint lor this vow he must have broken down ;
and yielde.l to his yearning fear and love, '
ami gone to Fclden Woods to throw himself,
As soon as ever she was strong enough to
bear tlie latjgue of the Journey, it"was onsid'
ered advisable to remove her from Felden
and Leamm-ton was suggested by the doctors
as the best place for the chamre-a mild cT
matc and a pretty inland rcUreat, a hushed
and quiet town, peculiarly adapted to inva-
blind and unquestioning: at h feet o,.' I i ' T"' P^"'"""''^' '^'''-^Pt^'
^iok woman. ' ^-' ' '^'^ "* '^'^ ^'.^ ' f "^ almost deserted by other visitors
I alter the hunting-season.
The tender green of the earbost I.,fl , \ '':';^''*^;T7'"«'s birthday had come and -one
-a., breaking oft iu biT^'t LafS " ^pon t t wii' n Ar i'^l^ M V,''^^ .'' ^'Z'''''' --« --
l-.edge-rows round F.-kkui Woods' the a.h ^'^/^''^^^^^''^ Floyd took his pale dau^hte;
buds were no longer bla.^k upon the fronJof 1 tT/f^ n ' ^ ^""i"'^'""^ ^'""^^^ had' been
March, and pale Violets and^prinroses nruuf o^J.T'! '"'" * 1''" f ^"•''' ^l"' « »'«"out of the
exquisite tracery in the shadvTok. bene^h ' Z V ^'^ % P'^^*'- ''^''^ ^^Ha, half farm-
the oaks and beeches; all n^trwa't l^ ^ ^ nrb;:m ^j^^f ^^ P'-ter, checkered
>vmi oeams ol tMack wood, and wellni.rh bur-
;^ in thS' mil^Aprd^v^ir'wir/S; "^ l" "T "• ''''' T^^"' ^^^ -""'^^ ^
Floyd lifted her da -k everto her fat ie^ fVc ,' '" ' '"-^"'•>«"^a"'l trimly-kept rtower-c
with som.Mhiug of thei; old l^k ^^^^ImS^ - -'"^: ^ ^'''^^' place.fbrming one of a ll
I'ght Tlie battle had been a long and severe
one. but It was wellnigh over now. the physi-
o.anssaid; defeated Death drew back for a
fttf"
duster of rustic' buihii„grerowded"abou" a
gray old church in a nook of the roadway
where two or three green lanes met. and went
branching ofi between overhangin- hedges-
his fatal sprIn.r;andThe ftebi^-'vii^Lr'wn " "^^•'^'•.^''''':^'^ T"/; vet clamorous with Vhat
to be carricl down stairs to si i he, -aiin. ' Z'" tT'"f n "k ' ' f'^'^" ''■''^'«'-^"' '^^'^ J--
room for the first time since the ntht of Do' I "17 .'"^^^"b "<^ farm-yards, the ca.kle of
cember the 2r,th. '^" "^ ^^- I P^"'^r.>' .*''^ ^'r'".? "f pl.ii^'ons, the monoto-
John Mdlish, happenin.. to be at Felden I 'Tnf^^'"^ f'' "*"•"' ^"^ ^''« squabbling
ti.at day, was allow!:? the^uoreme^nS:" TT't.V!!^!'^^:^. P'^^ .A-hibald coul^
while, to wait a better opportunity for mak-
that day, was allowed the supreme privilege
ot carrying the fragile burden in his strong
arms from the door of the sick-chambor to thT
great ^sofa by the fire in the drawing-room
attenrled by' a procession of arm ^Voonr' ' ri ' ""''J^ ^'''^'*"* *" "« ^^''"''Pr
bearing shails and n llol 1 U ... r^J*^ I ^'•^^T'''' «" ^ ••»?'"tx-<'overed sofa, in the
, . » I ...^.. V,. iioiiiM people
bearing shawls and pillows, vinaiirJttes and
«-ent-bottles, and other invalid paraphernalia
h very creature at Felden was .Jevotcd to this
a.lored convalescent. Archibald Flovd live.l
only to minister to her; gentle Lucy waited
on her n.Ld.t and d that
pale shadow of propriety, the ensign's light-
haired widow, iiut they were not long with-
out a visitor. John Mcllish, artfully taking
the banker at a disadvantage in some moment
of flurry and confusion at Feldeu Woods, had
extorted from him an invitation to Leaming-
ton, and a fortnight after their arrival he pre-
sented his stalwart Ibrui and fair face at the
low. wooden gates ol' tlie checkered cottage.
Aurora laugiied (for the iirst time since her
illness) as she saw that faithful adorer come,
carpet-bag in hand, through the labyrinth of
grass and llower-beds toward the oj)en win-
dow at which she and her father sat; and
Archibald seeing that first gleam of gayety
in the beloved i'ace, could have hugged John
Mellish for being the cause of it. He would
have embraced a street-tumbler, or the low
comedian of a booth at a fair, or a troop of
performing dogs and monkeys, or anything
upon earth that could win a smile from his
sick child. Like the Eastern potentate in the
fairy tale, who always oilers half his kingdom
and his daughter's hand to asiy one who can
cure the princess of her bilious heailache, or
extract her carious tooth, Archibald would
have opened a bankei's account in Lombard
street, with a falmlous sum to start with, for
any one who could give pleasure to this black-
eyed girl, now smiling, for the first time in
that year, at sight of the big, fair-faced York-
shireman coming to pay his foolish worship at
her shrine.
It was not to be supposed that Mr. Floyd
had felt no wonder as to the cause of the rup-
ture of his daughter's engagement to Talbot
Bulstrode. The anguish and terror endured
by him during her long illness had left no
room for any other thought; but since the
pashing away of the danger he had pondered
not a little upon the abrupt rupture between
the lovers. He ventured once, in the first
week of their stay at Leamington, to speak to
her upon the subject, asking why it was she
had dismissed the captain. Now if there was
one thing more hateful than another to Aurora
Floyd, it was a lie. I do not say that she had
.never told one in the course of her life. There
are some acts of folly which carry falsehood
and di.ssimulation at their heels-as certainly as
the shadows which follow us when we walk
toward the evening sun ; and we vi\r\ rarely
swerve from the severe boundary-line of right
without being dragged ever so much farther
than we calculated upon across the border.
Alas ! my heroine is not taullless. She would
take Iier shoes off to give tJiem to the bare-
footed poor ; she would take the heart from
her breast, if she (;ould by so doing heal tiie
wounds slic has inflicted upon the loving heart
r)f her father. But a shadow of mad folly ha*
blotted her motherless youth, and she has a
terrible harvest to reap fi-om that lightly-sown
seed, and a cruel expiation to make for that
unforgotten wrong. Yet her natural disposi-
tion is all truth and candor ; and there are
many young ladies, whose lives have been as
prin)ly ruled and ordered as the fair pleasure-
gardens of a Tyburnian Scjuare, who could
tell a falsehood with a great deal better grace
than Aurora Floyd. So, when her father
asked her why she had dismisged Talbot Bul-
strode, she made no answer to that cjuestion.
but simply told him that the c|uarrel had been
a very painful one, and that she hoped never
to hear the captain's name again, although at
the same time she assured Mr. Floyd that her
lover's conduct had been in nowise unbecom-
ing a gentleman and a man of honor. ArcM-
bald implicitly obeyed his daughter in this
matter, and, the name of Talbot Bulstrode
never being spoken, it seemed as if the young
man had dropped out of their lives, or as if he
had never had any part in the destiny of
Aurora Floyd. Heaven knows what Aurora
herself i'elt and suffered in the quiet of her
low -roofed, white -
AURORA FLOYD.
And this affection was as fjenuine as all else
in that simple nature. How could he do
otlierwise than love Aurora's father? He
mas her father. He had a sublime claim upon
the devotion of the man who loved her— who
loved her as John loved — unreservedly, un-
doubtinTly, childishly; with such blind, un-
questioning love as an infant feels for its
mother. There may be better women than
that mother, perhaps, but who shall make the
child believe so? .,,.,.
John Mellish could not argue with himself
upon his passion as Talbot Bulstrode had done.
1-Ie could not separate himself from his love,
and reason with the mild madness. How could
he divide himself from that which was him-
.^,lf_-niore than himself — a diviner self? He
ftsked no questions about the past life of the
woman he loved. He never sought to know
the secret of Talbot's departure from Felden. I
He saw her, beautiful, fascinating, perfect, !
and he accepted her as a great and wonderful |
fact, like the moon and the .stars shining down I
on the rustic flower-beds and espaliered gar- '
den-walks in the balmy June nights. }
So the tranquil days glided slowly and mo- ;
notonously past that quiet circle. Aurora j
bore her silent burden — bore her trouble with
a orand courage, peculiar to such rich orgaui- j
r-alions as her own, and none knew whether j
the serpent had been rooted from her breast, j
or had made for himself a permanent home in |
her heart. The banker's most watchful care i
could not fathom the womanly mvstery ; but |
tliere were times when Archibald P^loyd ven-
tured to hope that his daughter was at peace, ;
sxnd Talbot Bulstrode wellnigh forgotten. In ]
/tny case, it was wise to keep her away from j
Felden Woods ; so Mr. Floyd proposed a tour |
through Normandy to his daughter and Mrs. j
Powell. Aurora consented, with a. tender j
smile and gentle pressure of her father's hand.
She divined the old man's motive, and recog- i
iiized the all -watchful love which sought to |
carry her from the scene of her trouble. John j
Mellish, who was not invited to join the party, j
h-arst forth into such raptures at the ])roposal j
that it would have required considerable hard-
ness of heart to have refused his escort. He i
knew every inch of Normandy, he said, and |
promised to be of infinite use to Mr. Floyd I
.ind his daugliter ; Avhich, seeing that his
knowledge of Normandy had been acquired j
in his attendance at the Dieppe steeple-chases, j
and that his acquaintance with the French |
language was very limited, seemed rather
doubtful. But, for all this, he contrived to
keep his word. He went up to town and hired
an all - accomplished courier, who conducted
tlie little party from town to village, from
cburch to ruin, and who could always find re-
lays of Normandy horses for the banker's
roomy travelling carriage. The little party
travelled from place to place until pale gleams
of color returned in transient flushes to Au-
rora's cheeks. Grief is terribly selfish. I fear
that Miss Floyd never took into consideration
the havoc that might be going on in the great,
honest heart of John Mellish. I dare say that
if she had ever considered the matter, she
would have thought that a broad - shouldered
Yorkshireman of six feet two could never suf-
fer seriously from such a passion as love. She
grew accustomed to his society ; accustomed
to have his strong arm handy for her to lean
upon when she grew tired ; accustomed to his
carrying her sketch-book, and shawls, and
camp-stools; accustomed to be waited upon
by him all day, and served faithfully by him
at every turn ; taking his homage as a thing
of course, but making him superlatively and
dangerously happy by her tacit acceptance
of it.
September was half gone when they bent
their way hom<;ward, lingering for a few days
at Dieppe, whore the bathers v/ere splashing
about in .semi - theatrical costume, and the
Etablisscment des Bains was all aflame with
colored lanterns and noisy with nightly con-
certs.
The early autumnal days were glorious in
their balmy beauty. The best part of a year
had gone by since Talbot Bulstrode had bade
Aurora that adieu which, in one sense at least,
was to be eternal. The)' two, Aurora and
Talbot, might meet again, it is true. They
might meet, ay, and even be cordial and
friendly together, and do each other good ser-
vice in some dim time to come ; but the two
lovers who had parted in the little bay -win-
dowed room at Felden Woods could ticver
meet again. Between them there was death
and the grave.
Perhaps some such thoughts as these bad
their place in the breast ot Aurora Floyd as
she sat with John Mellish at her side, looking
down upon the varied landscape from the
height updh which the ruined walls of the
Chateau d'Arques still rear the proud memo-
rials of a day that is dead. I don't supposo
that the banker's daughter troubled herself
much about Henry the Fourth, or any other
dead and gone celebrity who may have left
the impress of his name upon that spot. She
felt a tranquil sense of the exquisite purity
and softness of the air, the deep blue of the
cloudless sky, the spreading woods and grassy
plains, the orchards, where the trees were
rosy with their plenteous burden, the tiny
streamlets, the white villa - like cottages and
struggling gardens, outspread in a fair pano-
rama beneath her. Carried out of her sorrow-
by the sensuous rapture we derive from nat-
ure, and for the first time discovering in
herself a vague sense of happiness, she began
to wonder how it was she had outlived her
grief by so many months.
She had never, during those weary months,
heard of Talbot Bulstrode. Any change
might have come to him without her knowl-
AURORA FLOYD.
as
etlge. He might have married — might have '
c'hosen a prouder and worthier bride to share i
his lofty name. She mig]it meet him on her '
return to England, v.'ith that happier woman
leaning upon his arm. Would some good- \
natured friend tell the bride how Talbot had \
loved and wooed the banker's daughter ? i
Auroi'a found herself pitying this happier '
woman, who would, after all. win but the '
second love of that proud heart — the pale re- !
flection of a sun that has set; the feeble glow 1
of expiring embers when the great blaze has '.
died out. They had made her a couch with •
shawls and carriage -rugs, outspread upon a
rustic seat, for she was still far from strong,
and she lay in the bright Sej)tember sunshine, \
looking down at the fair landscape, and listen- '
ing to the hum of beetles and the chirp of
gra. rest of my life ? a broken man, fit for
nothing better than the race -course and the
betting-rooms; a reckless man, readv to go
to the bad by any road that can take me
there — worthless alike to myself and to others.
Y'ou must have seen such men, Aurora ; men
whose unblemished youth promised an honor-
able manhood, but who break up all of a su«4-
den, and go to ruin in a few years of mad
dissipation. Nine times out of ten a woman
is the cause of that sudden change. I lay my
life at your feet, Aurora ; I ofTer you more
than my heart — I offer you my destiny. Do
with it as you will."
He rose in his agitation, and walked a few
paces away from her. The grass-grown bat-
tlements sloped away from his feet; outer
and inner moat lay below him, at the bottom
of a steep declivity. What a convenient
place for suicide, if Aurora should refuse to
take pity upon him ! The reader must allow
that he had availed himself of considerable
artifice in addressing Miss Floyd. His appeal
had taken the form of an accusation rather
than a prayer, and he had duly impressed
upon this poor girl the responsibility she
would incur in refusing him. And this, 1
take it, is a meanness of which men are oftea
guilty in their dealings with the weaker sex.
Miss Floyd looked up at her lover with a
quiet, half-mournful smile.
" Sit down there, Mr. Mellish," she said,
pointing to a camp-stool at her side.
John took the indicated seat, very much
with the air of a prisoner in a criminal dock
about to answer for his life.
•' Shall I tell you a secret?" asked Aurora,
looking compassionately at his pale face.
" A secret ?"
•' Y'es; the secret of my parting with Talbot
Bulstrode. It was not I who dismissed him
from Felden ; it was he who refused to fulfil
his engagement with me."
She spoke slowly, in a low voice, as if it
were painful to her to say the words which
told of so much humiliation.
" He did !" cried John Mellish, rising, red
and furious, from his seat, eager to run to
look for Talbot Bulstrode then and there, in
order to inflict chastisement upon him.
" He did, John Mellish, and he was justified
in doing so." answered Aurora, gravely.
" Y'ou would have done the same."
*' Oh, Aurora, Aurora I"
" Y'^ou would. Y'ou are as good a man a5
he, and why shouM your sense of honor be
less strong than his ? A barrier arose be-
tween Talbot Bulstrode and me. and separat-
ed us for ever. That barrier was a secret.
She told him of the missing year in he'
young life; how Talbot had called upon her
for an explanation, and how she had refused
to give it. John listened to her with a
thoughtful face, which broke out into sun-
shine as she turned to him and said,
" How would you have acted in such a case,
Mr. Mellish ?"
"How should I have acted, Aurora ':" I
54
AURORA FLOYD.
ghould have trusted you. But I can give you
& better answer to your question, Aurora. I
can answer it by a renewal of the prayer I
made you five minutes ago. Be ray wife."'
" In spite of this secret ?"
" In spite of a hundred secrets. I could
aot love you as I do, Aurora, if I did not be-
{ieve you to be all that is best and purest iu
woman. I can not believe this one moment,
aiid doubt you the next. I give my life and
honor into your hands. I would not confide
fchem to the woman whom I could insult by a
doubt."
His handsome Saxon face was radiant with
love and trustfulness when he spoke. All
his patient devotion, so long unheeded, or
accepted as a thing of" course, recurred to
-Aurora's mind. Did he not deserve some re-
ward, some requital, for all this '? But there
was one who was nearer and dearer to her,
dearer than even Talbot Bulstrode had ever
been, and that one was the wbit'e - haired old
man pottering about among the ruins on tlie
other side of the grassy plati'orm.
" Does my father know of this, Mr. Mel-
iish ?" she asked.
" He does, Aurora. He has promised to
.v,cept me as his son ; and Heaven knows I
will try to deserve that name. Do not let me
distress you, Aurora. The murder is out
aow. You know that I still love you, still
hope. Let time do the rest."
She held out both her hands to him with a
tearful smile. He took those little hands in
his own broad palms, and, bending down,
.'u.ssed them reverently.
" Yon are right," she said ; " let time do the
rest. You are worthy of the love of a better
woman than me, John Meliish ; but, witli the
help of Heaven, I will never give you cause
to regret haviii": trusted me."
CHAPTER XIL
8TEEVE HARGRAVES, " THE .SOFTY."
' Early in October Aurora Floyd returned
(■« Felden Woods, once more " engaged."
The county families opened their eyes when
die report reached them that the 'banker's
daughter was going to be married, not to
Talbot Bulstrode, but to Mr. John Mellisli, of i
Meliish Park, near Doncaster. The unmar- ;
ried ladies — rather hanging on hand about;
Beckenham and West Wickham — did not
■rtpprove of all this chopping and changing. '
They recognized the taint of the Prodder
blood in this fickleness. The spangles and
the sawdust were breaking out, and Aurora
was, as they had always said, her mother's
own daughter. She was a very lucky young I
vyoman, they remarked, in being able, after
jilting one rich man, to pick up another; but,
of course, a young person whose fathei- could
give her fifty thousand pounds on her wed-
ding-day might be permitted to play fast and
loose with the male sex, while worthier Ma-
rianas moped in their moated granges till
gray hairs showed themselves in glistening
bandeaux, and cruel crow's-feet gathered
about the corners of bright eyes. It is well
to be merry and wise, and honest and true,
and to be olF with the old love, etc., but it is
better to be Miss Floyd, of the senior branch
of Floyd, Floyd, and Floyd, for then you need
be none of these things. At least to such
effect was the talk about Beckenham when
Archibald brought his daughter back to Fel-
den Woods, and a crowd of dressmakers and
milliners set to work at the marriage garments
as busily as if Miss Floyd had never had any
clothes in her life before.
Mrs. Alexander and Lucy came back to
Felden to assist in the preparations for the
wedding. Lucy had im[)roved very much in
appearance since the preceding winter; there
was a happier light in her soft blue eyes, and
a healthier hue in her cheeks; but she, blush-
ed crimson when she first met Aui'ora, and
hung bacjc a little from Miss Floyd's caresses.
The wedding was to take place at the end
of November. The bride and biidegroom
were to spend the winter in Paris, where
Archibahl Floyd was to join them, and return
to England ''in lime for tlu* Craven Meet-
ing," as John Meliish said ; for I am sorry to
say that, having been so happily successful in
his love-alfair, this young man's thoughts re-
turned into their accustomed channels; and
the creature he held dearest on earth, next
to Miss Floyd and those belonging to her, was
a bay filly called Aurora, and entered for the
Oaks and Leger of a future year.
Ought I to apologize for my heroine be-
cause she has forgotten Talbot Bulstrode, and
that she entertains a grateful afiection for
this adoring John Meliish ? She ought, no
doubt, to have died of shame and sorrow after
Talbot's cruel desertion : and Heaven knows
that only her youth and vitality carried her
through a very severe battle with the grim
rider of the pale horse ; but, having once
passed through that dread encounter, she
was, however feeble, in a fair way to recover.
These ])assioflate griefs, to kill at all, must
kill suddenly. The lovers who die for love in
our tragedies die in such a vast hurry that
there is generally some mistake or misappre-
hension about the business, and the tragedy
might have been a comedy if the hero or
heroine had only waited lor a quarter of an
hour. If Othello had but lingered a little
before smothering his wife. Mistress Emilia
might have come in and sworn and protest-
ed ; and Cassio, with the handkerchief about
his leg, might have b|en in time to set the
mind of the valiant Moor at rest, and put the
Venetian dog to confusion. How happily
AURORA FLOYD.
55
Mr. and Mrs. Romto Montague might have j
lived and died, thanks to the dear, good friar,
if the foolish bridegroom had iiot been in i
such a hurry to swallow the vile stufi" from i
the apothecary's; and, as people are, I hope |
and believe, a little wiser in real life than |
they appear to be upon the stage, the worms •
very rarely get an honest meal off men and
women who have died for love. So Aurora ,
walked through the rooms at Felden in which j
Talbot Bulsirodi; had so often walked by her \
*de; and, if there was any regret at her
heart, it was a fpiiet sorrow, such as we feel ,
for the dead — a sorrow not nnmingled with
pity, for she tliought that the proud son of.
Sir John Raleigli Bulstrode might have been j
a happier man if he had been as generous ,
and trusting as Jolin Melli.sh. Perhaps the !
healthiest sign of tlie >tate of her healtii was,
that she could speak of Talbot freely, cheer-
fully, and without a blush. She asked Lucy '
if slie had met Captain Bulstrode that year; j
and the little hypocrite told her cousin Yes; j
that he liad spoken to them one day in the >
Park, and that she believed he had gone into
Parliament. She helievrd! Why, she knew
his maiden speech by heart, though it was on
some ho])elessly uninteresting bill in which
the Cornish mines were in some vague manner
involved with the national survey, and she
could have repeated it as correctly as her
\ounge3t brother eoidd declaim to his " Ro-
mans, countrymen . and lover.s." Aurora
might forget him. and basely marry a fair-
haired Yoikshi reman ; but for Lucy Floyd,
t^arth only held this dark knight, with the
severe gray eyes and the stiff leg. Poor
Lucy, therefore, loved, and was grateful to
her brilliant cousin lor that fickleness which
had brought about such a change in the pro-
gramme of the gay wedding at Felden Woods.
The fair ioung confidante and bridesmaid
could assist in tiie ceremonial now with a good
grace. She no longer walked about like a
"corpse alive," but took a hearty womanly
interest in the whole affair, and was very
much concerned in a discussion as to the
merits of pink versus blue for the bonnets of
the bridesmaids.
The boisterous happiness, of John Mellish
seemed contagious, and made a genial atmos-
l)here about the great mansion at Felden.
Stalwart Antlrew Floyd was delighted with
his young cou.sin's choice. No more refusals
to join him in the hunting-field, but half the
county breakfasting at Felden. and the long
terrace ami garden luminous with "pink."
Not a ripple disturl)ed the smootli current
of that brief courtship. The Yorkshireman
contrived to make himself agreeable to every-
body belonging to his dark-eyed divinity.
He flattered their weaknesses, he gratified
their caprices, he studied their wishes, and
paid them all such insidious court, that I 'm
afraid invidious comparisons were drawn be-
tween John and Talbot, to the disadvantage
of the proud young officer.
It was impossible for any quarrel to arise
between the lovers, for John followed his
mistress about like some big slave, who only
lived to do her bidding; and Aurora accepted
his devotion with a sultana-like grace, which
became her amazingly. Once more she visit-
ed the stables and inspected her father's stud,
for the first time since she had left Felden for
the Parisian finishing school. Once more she
rode aeross country, wearing a hat which
provoked considerable criticism — a hat which
was no other than the now universal turban,
or pork-pie, but which was new to the world
in the autumn of fifty-eight. Her earlier
girlhood appeared to return to her once more.
It seemed almost as if the two years and a
half in which she had left ami returned to
her home, and had met and parted with Tal-
bot Bulstrode. had been blotted from her life,
leaving her spirits fresh a'>d bright as they
were before that stormy interview in her fath-
er's stud)- in the June of fifty-six.
The county families came to the wedding
at Beckenham church, and were fain to con-
fess that Miss Floyd looked wondrously hand-
some in her virginal crown of orange-buds and
flowers, and her voluminous Mechlin veil;
i she had pleaded hard to be married in a bon-
I net, but had been ovVhich formed a species of penthouse over
those sinister-looking eyes. He Wius the sort
of man who is generally lalled repulsive — a
man from whom you recoil with a feeling of
, instinctive dislike, which i.s, no doubt, both
wicked and unjust; for we have no right to
take objeetion to a man because he has an
; ugly glitter in Ids eyes, and shaggy tufts ol
' red hair meeting on the bridge of his nose.
I and big splay feet, which seem made to crush
and destrov whatever comes in their way ;
AURORA FLOYD.
and this was what Aurora Mellish thonght
wlieii, a few days after her arrival at the
Park, she saw Steeve Hargraves for the first
time, coming out of the harness-room with a
bridle across his room. She was angry with
herself for the invoUuitary shudder with which
she drew bav^k at the sight of this man, who
stood at a little distance polishing the brass
ornaments upon a set of harness, and furtively
regarding Mrs. Mellish as she leaned on her
husband's arm, talking to the trainer about
the foals at grass in the meadows outside the
Park.
Aurora asked who the man was.
'• Wh}-, his name is Hargraves, ma'am," an-
swered the trainer ; "but we call him Steeve.
He 's a little bit touched in tlie upper story —
a little bit ' fond,' as we call it here ; but he 's
usefnl about the stables when he pleases, for
he 's rather a (|ueer temper, and there 's none
of us has ever been able to get the upper
hand of him, as master knows."
John Mellish laughed.
"No," he said; "Steeve has pretty much
his own way in the stables, I fancy. He was
a favorite groom of my father's twenty years
ago; but he got a foil in the hunting-field,
which did him some injury about the head,
and he 's never been quite right since. Of
course this, with my poor father's regard for I
him, jiives him a claim upon us, and we put j
up with his queer ways — don't we, Langley ?" 1
" Well, we do, sir," said the trainer ; i
*• though, upon my honor, I 'm sometimes half j
afraid of him, and think he '11 get up in the I
middle of the night and murder some of us."
" Not till some of you have won a hatful of j
money, Langley. Steeve's a little too fond of }
the brass to murder any of you for nothing, j
You shall see his face light up presently, j
Aurora," s^ud John, beckoning to. the stable- 1
man. " Come here, Steeve" Mrs. Mellish '
wishes you to drink her health." {
He dropped a sovereign into the man's '
broad, muscular palm — the hand of a gladia- !
tor, with horny flesh and sinews of iron, i
Steeves red eyes glistened as his fingers j
dosed upon the money. " |
" Thank_ yon kindly, my lady," he said, i
touching his cap. ' i
He spoke in a low, subdued voice, which |
contrasted so strangely with the physical pow- I
er manifest in his appearance that Aurora j
drew back with a start.
Unhappily for this poor " fond" creature, j
whose person was in itself repulsive, there '
was somethinc^ in this inward, semi-whisper- I
iiig voice which gave rise to an instinctive!
dislike in those who heard him speak for the
first time.
He touched his greasy woollen cap once
more, and went slowly back to his work.
" How white his face is !" said Aurora.
'• Has he been ill ?"
" No. He has had that pale face ever since
his fall. I was too young when it happened
to remember much about It, but I have heard
my father say that when they brought the
poor creature home his face, which had been
; fiorid beibre, was as white as a sheet of writ-
ing-paper, and his voice, until that period
strong and gruflT, was reduced to the half-
whisper in which he now speaks. The doc-
, tors did all they could for him, and carried
him through an awful attack of brain fever,
; but they could never bring back his voice,
! nor the color to his cheeks."'
" Poor fellow !" said Mrs. Mellish, gently ;
! " he is very much to be pitied."
She was reproaching hei-self, as she said
this, for that feeling of repugnance which she
could not overcome. It was a rej)ugnance
closely allied to terror; she felt as if she
could scarcely be hajjpy at Mellish Park while
that man was on the premises. She was half
inclined to beg her indulgent husband to pen-
sion him off, and send him to the other end of
the county ; but the next moment she was
ashamed of her childish folly, and a few hours
afterward had forgotten Steeve Hargraves,
the " softy," as he was politely called in the
stables.
Reader, when any creature inspires you
with this instinctive, unreasoning abhorrence,
avoid that creature. He is dangerous. Take
warning, as you take warning by the clouds
in the sky and the ominous stillness of the
atmosphere when there is a storm coming.
Nature can not lie ; and it is nature which
has planted that shuddering terror in your
breast ; an instinct of self-preservation rather
than of cowardly fear, which, at the first
sight of some fellow-creature, tells you more
plainly than words can speak, " That man is
my enemy !"
Had Aurora suffered herself to be guided
by this instinct; had she given way to the
impulse which she despised as chihlish, and
caused Stephen Hargraves to be dismissed
from Mellish Park, what bitter misery, what
cruel anguish, might have been spared to
herself and others.
The mastiff Bow-wow had accompanied his
mistress to her new home ; but Bow-wow's
best days were done. A month before Au-
rora's marriage he had been run over by a
pony-carriage in one of the roads about Fel-
den, and had been conveyed, bleeding and
disabled, to the veterinary surgeon's, to have
one of his hind legs put into splints, and to
be carried through his sutferlngs by the high-
est available skill in the science of dog-doc-
toring. Aurora drove every day to Croydon
to see her sick favorite ; and at the worst
Bow-wow was always well enough to recog-
nize his beloved mistress, and roll his listless,
feverish tongue over her white hands, in token
of that unchanging brute affection which can
only perish with life. So the mastifi" was
quite lame as well as half blind when ho
AURORA FLOYD.
5!?
nrrived at Mellisli Park with tli<^ rest of Au-
rora's goods and cbattels. Ho was a privileged
eroature in the looniy mansion; a tiger-skiu
was spread for liini upon tlie hearth in tlie
drawing -room, and he spent his decdining
days in luxurious repose, basking in the fire-
light or sunning himself in the windows, as it
])leased his royal fancy ; but, feeble as he was,
always able to limp after JMrs. Mellish when
she walked on the lawn or in the woody
shrubberies whicdi skirted the gardens.
One (lav, when sh(> had returned from her ;
morniuii's ride with John and her father, who ;
avcompanied them sometimes upon a quiet !
gray eob, and seemed a younger man for the
exereise, she lingered on the lawn in her
riding-habit after the horses had been taken
l)ack to the stables, and Mr. Mellish and his
father-in-law had re-entered tlie house. The
mastilf saw her from the drawing-room win-
dow, and erawlcd out to welcome her. Tempt-
ed by the exquisite softness of the atmosphere,
.-he strolled, with her riding-habit gathered
under her arm and her whip in her hand,
looking for primroses under the elumps of
trees upon the lawn. She gathered a cluster
<>t" wild Howers, and wa.s returning to the
liuuse. when she remembered some directions
respecting a favorite pony that was ill, which
she had omitted to give to her groom.
She crossed the stable -yard, followed by
Bow-wow, found the groom, gave him her
orders, and went back to the gardon.s. While
talking to the man. she had recognized the
white fai-e of Steeve Ilargraves at one of the
windows of the harness-room. He came out
while she was giving her directions, and car-
rierl a set of harness across to a coach-h(juse
on the opposite side of the cpiadrangle. Au-
rora was on the threshold of the gates open-
ing from the stables into tlie gardens, when
-he was arrested by a howl of pain from the
mastiff liow-wow. Rapid as lightning in every
movcment, she turned round in time to sec
the cause of this cry. Steeve Hargravcs had
sent the animal reeling away from him with a
kick from his iron-bound clog. Cruelty to
animals was one of the failings of the "softy."
lie was not cruel to the Mellish horse.i. for he
had sense enough to know thai his daily
bread depended upon iiis attention to them ;
but Heaven help any outsider that (^ame in
his way. Aurora sprang upon him like a
Ix-autilul tigress, ami, catching the collar of
his fustian jacket in her slight hands, rootdi
him to the spot upon which he stood. The
grasp of those slender hands, convuls(!d by
pa.ssion, was not to be easily shaken off"; and
Steeve Hargravcs, taken c()mj)!ctely oil' his
guanl, stared aghast at his as.sailant. Taller
than the stable-man by a foot and a half, she
towered above him, her cheeks white with
rage, her eyes flashing fury, her hat fallen off,
and her black hair tundiiing about her nhnul-
ders, sublime in her passion.
The man crouched beneath the grasp of
the imj)crioiis creature.
" Let me go." he gasped, in his inward
whisper, which had a hissing sound in his
agitation ; " let me go, or you "11 be sorry ;
let me go !"'
"How dared you I" cried Aurora — "bow
dared you hurt him ? My pot^r dog ! My
poor, lame, feeble dog ! How n wellnigh demented by the talk
about tliis bay lilly Aurora as the spi'ing
meeting drew near. She was taken to see it
every morning by Aurora and John, who, in
their anxiety for the improvement of their
favorite, looked at the animal upon each visit
as if they expected some wonderful physical
transformation to have occurred in the" still-
ness of the night. The loose box in which
the filly Avas lodged was watched night and
day by an amateur detective i'orcc. of stable-
boys and hangers-on ; and John Mellish once
went so far as to dip a tumbler into the pail
of water provided for the bay filly Aurora, to
ascertain, of his own experience, that the
crystal fluid vvjas innocuous; for he grew ner-
vous as the eventful day drew nigh, and was
afraid of lurking danger to the filly from dark-
minded touts who might have heard of her in
London. 1 fear the touts troubled their heads
v*ry little about this graceful two-year old,
though she had the blood of Old Melbourne
and West Australian in her veins, to say
nothing of other aristocracy upon the mater-
nal side.
The suspicious gentlemen lianging jtbout
York and Doncaster in those early April day?
were a great deal too much occupied with
' Lord Glasgow's lot, and John Scott's lot, and
i Lord Zetland's, and Mr. Merry's lot, and other
lots of equal distinction, to have much time
I to prowl about Mellish Park, or peer into
that meadow which the young man had caused
i to be surrounded by an eight-foot fence for
the privacy of the Derby winner in futuro.
Lucy declared the filly to be thoi- loveliest
of creatures, and safe to win any number of
: cups and plates that might be offered for
equine competition; but she was always glad.
when the daily visit was over, to find herseli'
: safely out of reach of those high - bred hind
' legs, which seemed to possess a faculty for
i being in all four corners of the loose box at
one and the same moment.
The first day of the meeting came, and
found half the Mellish household established
at York ; John and his family at a hotel near
the betting-rooms; and the trainer, his satel-
lites, and the filly, at a little inn close to the
Knavesmire.
Archibald Floyd did his best to be interest-
ed in the event which was so interesting to
his children ; but he freely confessed to his
grand-niece Lucy that he heartily wished the
meeting over, and the merits of the bay filly
decided. She had stood her trial nobly, John
said ; not winning with a rush, it is true : in
point of fact, being in a manner beaten ; but
evincing a power to stay, which promised
better for the future than any two-year-old
velocity. When the saddling-bell rang, Au-
rora, her father, and Lucy were stationed in
the balcony, a crowd of friends about them ;
Mrs. Mellish, with a pencil in her hand, put-
ting down all manner of impossible bets in
her excitement, and making such a book as
might have been preserved as a curiosity in
sporting annals. John was pushing in ami
out of the ring below, tumbling over small
bookmen in his" agitation, dashing from the
ring to the weighing - house, and hanging
about the small, pale-faced boy who was to
ride the filly as anxiously as if the jockey had
been a prime minister, and John a family
man with half a dozen sons in need of gov-
v;rnment appointments. I tremble to think
how many bonuses, in the way of five-pound
notes, John promised the pale-faced lad on
condition that the stakes (some small matter
amounting to about A! (JO) were pulled off —
pulled off where, I wonder — by the bay filly
Aurora. If the youth had not been of that
preternatural order of being who seem born
of an emotionless character to wear silk for
the good of their fellow-men, bis brain must
certainly have been dazed by the variety ol"
AURORA FLOYD.
G3
I'onflicting directions wliirli John MelHsh j
gave him within the critical last quarter of an I
hour; but, having received his orders early |
that morning from the trainer, accompanied !
with a warning not to suffer himself to be ;
tewed (Yorkshire pafois for worried) by any- I
thing Mr. Mcllish might say. the sallow-eom- !
plexioned lad walked about in the calm j
serenity of innocence — there are honest !
jockeys in tlie world, thank Heaven ! and j
took his seat in the saddle with as even a ■
pulse as if he had been about to ride in an j
omnibus. ■
There wen^ some jteople upon the stand i
that morning who thought the face of Aurora |
Mellish as pleasant a sight as the smooth '
green sward of tlie Knavesmire, or the best |
horse-flesh in the county of York. All forget- [
ful of herself in her excitement, Avith her '•
natural vivacity multiplied by the animation
of the s<;ene before her, she was more than |
usually lovely ; and Arcliibald Floyd looked ;
at her witli a fond emotion, so intermingled I
with gratitude to Heaven for the happiness of:
his daughter's destiny a? to be almost akin to j
pain. Slie was iiai»py — she was tlun-oughly '
happy at last — the child of his dead F>liza, I
this sacred charge left to him by the woman
he had loved ; she was happy, and slie was '
safe ; he could go to his grave resignetHy to- '
morrow, if it pleased Ood, knowing this. :
Strange thoughts, perhaps, ibr a crowded '
race-course; but our most solemn fancies do i
not come always in solemn places. Xay, it is •
often in the midst of crowds and contusion
that our souls wing their lot'ticst flights, and '
the saddest memories return to us. You see a '
man sitting at some theatrical entertainment j
with a grave, abstracted face, over which no
cdiange of those around him has any influence, j
He may be thinking of his dead wife, dead
ten years ago ; he may be acting over well- I
remembercnl scenes of joy and sorrow ; he 1
may be recalling cruid words, never to be '
atoned for upon earth — angry looks, gone to
be registercti against him in the. skies, while i
his children are laughing at the clown on the I
stage below him. He may be moodily medi- i
tating inevitable bankruptcy or coining ruin, j
holding imaginary meetings with his creditors, |
and contem[)lating prussic acid upon the refu- {
sal of his certificate, while his eldest daughter
is crying with Pauline l)es( hapelles. So |
Archibald Floyd, while the numbers were j
going up, and the jockeys being weighed, and I
ihe bookmen clamoring below him, leaneil !
over the broad ledge of the stt)ne balcony, :
aud, looking far away across the grassy am- |
phitheatre. thou'^ht of his d', rather savagely, what a shame it was that
this glorious Aurora could be happy with big,
broad-shouldered, jovial-tempered John Mel-
lish. He could not understand the strange
anomaly ; he could not discover the clew to
the secret; he could not comprehend that the
devoted love of this sturdy Yorkshireman was
in itself strong enough to conquer all difficul-
ties, to outweigh all differences.
Little by little he and Lucy began to talk
of Aurora, until Miss Floyd told her compan-
ion all about that dreary time at Felden
Woods during which the life of the heiress
was wellnigh despaired of. So she had loved
him truly, then, after all ; she had loved and
had suffered, and had lived down her trouble,
and had forgotten him and was happy. The
story was all told in that one sentence. He
looked blankly back at the irrecoverable past,
and was angry with the pride of the Bul-
strodcs, which had stood between himself and
his happiness.
He told sympathizing Lucy something of
his sorrow ; told her that misapprehension —
mistaken pride — h^d parted him from Aurora.
She tried, in her gentle, innocent fashion, to
comfort the strong man in his weakness, and
in trying revealed — ah ! how simply and
transparently — the old secret, which had so
long been hidden from him.
Heaven help the man whose heart is caught
at the rebound by a fair-haired divinity, with
dove-like eyes, and a low, tremulous voice,
softly attuned to his grief. Talbot Bulstrode
saw that he was beloved, and in very grati-
tude made a dismal offer of the ashes of that
fire which had burnt so fiercely at Aurora's
shrine. Do not despise this poor Lucy if she
accepted her cousin's forgotten lover with
humble thankfulness, nay, with a tumult of
wild delight, and with joyful fear and trem-
bling. She loved him so well, and had loved
him so long. Forgive and pity her, for she
was one of those pure and innocent creatures
whose whole being resolves itself into affec-
tion ; to whom passion, anger, and pride are
unknown; who live only to love, and who
love until death. Talbot Bulstrode, told Lucy
Floyd that he had loved Aurora with the
whole strength of liis soul, but that now the
battle was over, he, the stricken warrior,
needed a consoler for his declining days ;
would she, could she, give her hand to one
who would strive to the uttermost to fulfil a
husband's duty, and to make her happy V
Happy ! She would have been happy if he
had aske«l her to be his slave — happy if she
could have been a scullery-maid at Bulstrode
Castle, so that she might have seen the dark
face she loved once or twice a day through
the obscure panes of some kitchen-window.
But she was the most undemonstrative of
women, and, except by her blushes, and her
drooping eyelids, and the teardrop trembling
upon the soft auburn lashes, she made no re-
ply to the captain's appeal, until at last, tak-
ing her hand in his, he won from her a low
consenting murmur, which meant Yes.
AURORA FLOYD.
69
Good Heavens! how hard it is upon such
women as these that they feol so much and
3'et display so little t'celinji:. The dark -eyed,
impetuous creatures, who speak out fearlessly,
and tell you that they love or hate you, Hincr-
ing their arms around your netk or throwing
the carving-knife at you, as the ease may be,
get full value for all their emotion ; but these
gentle creatures love, and make no sign.
They sit, like Patience on a monument, smil-
ing at grief, and no one reads the mournful
meaning of that sad smile. Concealment,
like the worm i' the bud, feeds on their damask
cheeks, and compassionate relatives tell them
that they are bilious, and recommend Cockle's
pills, or some other homely remedy, for their
pallid complexions. They are always at a
disadvantage. Their inner life may be a
tragedy, all blood and tears, while their out-
ward existence is some dull donieslic drama
of cvery-daj' life. The only outward sign
Lucy Floyd gave of the condition of her
h«'art was that one tremulous, half-whispered
affirmative, and yet Avhat a tempest of emo-
tion was going forward within ! The muslin
folds of her dress rose and fell with the surg-
ing billows, but for the very life of her she
could have uttered no better response to
Talbot's pleading.
It was only by and by. after she and Cap-
tain Rulstrode had wandered slowly back to
the house, that her emotion betrayed itself
Aurora met her cousin in the corridor out of
which their rooms opened, and, drawing Luc}'
into her own dressing-room, a.sked the truant
where she hail been.
" Where have you been, you runaway girl ?
John and I have wanted you half a dozen
times."
Miss Lucy Floyd explained that she had
been in the wood with tlic last new novel — a
ITigh-Church novel, in which the heroine re-
jected the clerical hero because he did not
perform the service according to the Rtibric.
Now, Miss Lucy Floyd made this confession
with so much confusion and so many blushes
that it. would have appeared as if there were
some lurking criminality in the fact of spend-
ing an April morning in a wood ; and, neing
farther examined as to why she had staid .^o
long, and whether she had been alone all the
time, poor Lucy fell into a pitiful state of em-
barrassment, saying that she had been alone,
that is to say, part of the time, or at least most
of the time. V»ut that Captain Rulstrode — "
Rut, in trying to pronounce his name — this
beloved, this sa lady's surprise.
I "Why will you be for ever bringing Auro-
ra's name into the question, mother ?" he
j cried. " Why can not you let her memory
I rest ? You parted us for ever — you and Con-
1 stance — and is not that enough? She is mar-
ried, and she and her husband are a very
happy couple. A man might have a worse
wife than Mrs. Mellish, I can tell you; and
John seems to appreciate her value in his
rough way."
" You need not be so violent, Talbot," Lady
I Bulstrode said with offended dignity. " I am
v(;ry glad to hear that Miss Floyd has altered
since her school-days, and I hope that she
may continue to be a good wife," she added,
with an emphasis which expressed that she
had no very great hopes of the continuance
of Mr. Mellish's happiness.
" My poor mother is offended with me,"
Talbot thought, as Lady Bulstrode swept out
of the room. " I know I am an abominable
bear, and that nobody will ever truly love me
so long as I live. My poor little Lucy loves
me after her fashion — loves me in fear and
trembling, as if she and I belonged to differ-
ent orders of beings — very much as the flying
woman must have loved my countryman,
Peter Wilkins, I think. But, after all, per-
haps my mother is right, and my gentle little
wife is better suited to me than Aurora woul(i
have been."
So we dismiss Talbot Bulstrode for a while,
moderately happy, and yet not quite satisfied.
What mortal ever was quite satisfied in this
world ? It is a part of our earthly nature
always to find something wanting, always to
have a vague, dull, ignorant yearning which
can not be appeased. Sometimes, indeed, we
are happy ; but in our wildest happiness wc
are still unsatisfied, for it seems then ain if
the cup of joy were too full, and we grow
cold with terror at the thought that, even bo-
cause of \ts fulness, it may po.ssibly be dashed
to the ground. What a mistake this lift
would be, what a wild, feverish dream, what
an unfinished and imperfect story, if it were-
72
AURORA FLOYD.
not a prelude to something better ! Taken
by itself, it is all trouble and eonfusion ; but,
taking the futui-e as the key-note of the pres-
ent, how wondrously harmonious the whole
bticonies ! How little does it signify that our
hearts are not complete, our wishes not fulfil-
led, if the eompleliou and the fulfilment are
to come hereafter !
Little more tiian a week after Luey's wed-
ding Aurora ordered her horse innncdiately
after breakfast, upon a sunny summer morn-
ing, and, atcompauied by the old groom who
had ridden behind John's father, went out on
an excursion among the villages round Mel-
lish Park, as it was her habit to do once or
twice a week.
The poor in the neighborhood of the York-
shire mansion had good reason to bless the com-
ing of the banker's daughter. Aurora loved
nothing better than to ride from cottage to
cottage, chatting with the simple villagers,
and finding out their Avants. She never
found the worthy creatures vtry remiss in
stating their necessities, and the housekeeper
at Mellish Park had enough to do in distrib-
uting Aurora's bounties among the cottagers
who came to the servants' hall with pencil
orders from Mrs. Mellish. Mrs. Walter Powell
sometimes ventured to take Aurora to task on
the folly and sinfulness of what she called
indiscriminate almsgiving ; but Mrs. Mellish
would pour such a flood of eloquence upon
her antagonist that the ensign's widow was
always glad to retire from the unequal eon-
test. Nobody had ever been able to argue
with Archibald Floyd's daughter. Impulsive
and impetuous, she had always taken her own
course, whether for weal or woe, and nobody
had been strong enough to hinder her.
Returning on this lovely June morning
from one of these charitable expeditions, Mrs.
Mellish dismounted from her horse at a little
turnstile leading into the wood, and ordered
the groom to take the animal home.
"I have a fancy for walking through the
wood, Joseph," she said, " it 's such a lovely
morning. Take care of Mazeppa ; and if
you see Mr. Mellish, tell him that I shall be
home directly."'
The man touched his hat, and rode off,
leading Aurora's horse.
Mrs. Mellish gathered up the folds of her
h.abit and strolled slowly into the wood under
whose shadow Tal'oot Bulstrode and Lucy
had wandered on that eventful April day
which sealed the young lady's fate.
Now, Aurora Iiatl chosen to ramble home-
ward through this Avood because, being thor-
oughly ha))py, the warm gladness of the
summer weather filled her with a sense of
delight which she was loath to curtail. The
drowsy hum of the insects, the rich coloring
of the woods, the scent of wild flowers, the
ripple of water, all blended into one delicious
wJiole, and made the earth lovely.
There is something satisfactory, too, in the
sense of possession ; and Aurora felt, as sho-
looked down tlie long avenue-!, and aT^-ay
through distant loop-holes in the wood to the
wide expanse of park and lawn, and the
picturesque irregular pile of building beyond,
half Gothic, half Elizabethan, and so lost in
a rich tangle of ivy and bright foliage as to
be beautiful at every point — she felt, I say,
that all the fair picture was her own, or her
husband's, which was the same thing. She
had never for one moment regretted her mar-
riage with John Mellish. She had never, as
I have said already, been inconstant to him
by one thought.
In one part of the wood the ground rose
considerably, so that the house, which lay
low, was distinctly visible whenever there
was a break in the trees. The I'ising ground
was considered the prettiest spot in the wood,
and here a summer-house had been erected —
a fragile wooden building, which had fallen
into decay of late years, but which was still a
pleasant resting-place upon a summer's day,
being furnished with a wooden table and a
broad bench, and sheltered fiom the sun and
wind by the lower branches of a magnificent
beech. A ^ew paces away from this summer-
house there was a pool of water, the surface
of which was so covered with lilies and tangled
weeds as to have beguiled a short-sighted
traveller into forgetfulness of the danger be-
neath. Aurora's way led her past this spot,
and she started with a momentary sensation
of terror on seeing a man lying asleep by
the side of the pool. She quickly recovered
herself, remembering that John allowed the
public to use the footpath through the wood ;
but she started again when the man, who
must have been a bad sleeper, to be aroused
by her light footstep, lifted his head and dis-
played the white face of the soity.
He rose slowly from the ground upon seeing
Mrs. Mellish, and crawled away, looking at
her as he went, but not making any acknowl-
edgment of her presence.
Aurora could not repress a brief terrified
shudder ; it seemed as if her footfall had
startled some viperish creature, some loath-
some member of the reptile race, and scared
it from its lurking-place.
Steeve Hargraves disappeared among the
trees as Mrs. Mellish walked on, her head
proudly erect, but her cheek a shade paler
than before this unexpected encounter with
the softy.
Pier joyous gladness in the bright summer's
day had forsaken her as suddenly as she had
met Stephen Hargraves; that bright smile,
which was even brighter than the morning
sunshine, faded out, and left her face unnatu-
rally grave.
" Good Heavens !" she exclaimed, " how
foolish I am ! I am actually afraid of that
man — afraid of that pitiful coward who could
AURORA FLOYD.
hurt my feiiblo old dog. As if such a creature
as that could do one any mischief!"
Of course this was very wisely arjrucd, as
no coward ever by any chance worked any
mischief upon this earth, since the Saxon
prince was stabbed in the back while drink-
ing nt his kinswoman's gate, or since brave
King John and his creature plotted together
what they should do Avith the little boy Ar-
thur.
Aurora walked slowly across the lawn tow-
ard that end of the house at which the
apartment sacred to Mr. Mellish was situated.
She entered Foftly at the open window, and
laid her hand upon John's shoulder as he sat
at a table covered with a litter of account-
books, racing-lists, and disorderly papers.
lie started at the touch of the familiar
hand.
" My darling, I 'm so glad you "ve come in.
IIow long you 've been !"
She looked at her little jewelled watch.
Poor Jolin h.id loaddl her with trinkets and
gewgaws. His chief gi'ief was that she was a
wealthy Iieiress, and that he could give her
nothing but the adoration of his simple, honest
heart.
" Only half-past one, you silly old John,"
she said. " What made you think me late ?
" Because I wanted to consult you aliout
something, and to tell you something. Such
good news !"
" About what ?"
'• About the trainer."
She shrugged her shoulders, and piu'sed up
her red lips with a bewitching little gesture of
indifference.
" Is that all ?" she said.
" Yes ; but a'n't you glad we 've got the
man at last — the very man to suit us, 1 think?
Where 's John Pastern's letter?"
Mr. Mellish searched among the litter of
])ftpers upon the table, while Aurora, leaning
against tiie frame-work of the open window,
watched him, and laughed at his embarrass-
ment.
She had recovered her spirits, and looked
the very picture of careless gladness as she
lean*!d in one of tho.se graceful and unstudied
attitudes peculiar to her, su])porte(l by the
frame -work of the window, and with the
trailing jessamine waving lound her in the
soft sununcr breeze. Slie litVed her ungloved
hand and gathered the roses above her head
as she talked to her husband.
'• You most disorderly and unmethodi(; of
men," she said, laughing, " I would n't mind
betting you won't find it."
T 'ni aftaid that Mr. Mellish muttered an
oath as he tossed about the hcterogen«'ous
ma.ss of papers in his search for the missing
document.
" I had it five minute.'' before you came in,
Aurora," he said. " and now there 's not a
sign of it — oh, here it is I"
Mr. Mellish unfolded the letter, and, smooth-
ing it out upon the table before him, cleared
his throat ])reparatory to reading the e])Istle.
Aurora still leaiu'd against the window-frame,
half in and half out of the room, singing a
snatch of a popular song, and trying to gather
an obstinate half-blown rose which grew pro-
voklnnly out of reach.
" You Ve attending, Aurora?"
" Yes, dearest and best."
" But do come in. You can't hear a word
there."
j Mrs. Mellish shrugged her shoulders, tis who
should say, "I submit to the command of a
j tyiant," and advanced a couple of paces from
the window; then, looking at John with an
enchantingly insolent toss of her head, she
I folded her hands behind iier, and told him she
would " be good." She was a careless, impet-
j uous creature, dreadfully forget ful of what
^Irs. Walf(u- Powell called her " re.sponsibili-
! ties ;" every mortal thing by turns, and never
[any one thing for two minutes together; hap-
l\y, generous, airectionate ; taking life as a
I glorious sunuuer's holiday, and thanking GckI
I for the bounty which made it so pleasant to
j her.
Mr. John Pastern began his letter with an
apology for having so long deferred writing.
' He had lost the address of" the ])erson he had
i wished to recommend, and had waited until
; the man wrote to him.
i " I think he will suit you very well," the
] letter went on to say, " as he is well up in his
j business, having had plenty of experience as
groom, jockey, and trainer. He is only thirty
j years of age, but met with an accident some
! time since, which lamed him for life. lie was
half killed in a steeple - chase in Prussia, and
! was for upward of a year in a hospital at
! Berlin. His name is James Conycrs, and he
I can have a character from — "
I The letter dropped out of John Mellish's
j hand as he looked up at Iiis wife. It was not
! a scream which she had uttered. It was a
j gasping cry, more terrible to hear than the
I shrillest scream that ever came from the throat
of woman in all the long history of womanly
I distress.
I " Aurora ! Aurora I"
He looked at iier, and his own face changed
and whitened at tlu; sight of hers. So ter-
rible a transformation had come over her
- under those glorious branches,
in the hol>- stillness of the summer sunset, his
face sometimes lighted by the low, lessening
rays, sometimes dark with the shadows from
the leaves above his head. He is wonderfully
handsome — wonderfully and perfectly hand-
some — the very perfection of physical beauty;
faultless in proportion, as if each line in his
face and form had been measured by the
sculptor's rule, and carved by the sculptor's
chisel. He is a man about whose beanty
there can be no disimte, whose perfection
servant-maids and duchesses must alike con-
fess, albeit they are not bound to admire ;
yet it is rather a sensual type of beautv, this
splendor of form and color, uuallied to aay
special charm of exi)ression. Look at him
now, as he stops to rest, leaning against the
trunk of a tree, and smoking his l)ig cimir
with easy enjoyment. He is thinking. His
dark blue eyes, deeper in color by reason of
the thick black lashes which fringe them, are
half closed, and have a dreamy, semi-senti-
mental expression, M'hich might lead you to
suppose the man was musing ujion tlie beauty
of the summer sun.set. He is thinking of his
losses on the Chester Cup, the wages he i.s to
get from John Mellish, and the perquisites
likel}' to appertain to tlie situation. You give
him credit for thoughts to match with his
dark, violet -hued eyes, and the exqui.sitt'
modelling of his mouth and chin ; j-ou give
him a mind as iust.hetically perfect as his fat'e
and figure, and you recoil on discovering
I what a vulgar every -da}- sword may lurk
\ under that beautiful .scabbard. Mr. Jamoi;
! Confers is, perhaps, no worse, than other men
' of his station, but he is decideliroflitc rising
from the mud ; that he was a bla< kh'g in the
gutter at four years of ago, and a wclshcr in
the matter of marbles and hardbake before
hip fifth birthdav. Even then he was for ever
reaping the advantage of a handsome face ;
for tender-hearted matrons, who would have
been deaf to the cries of a snub-nosed urchin,
petted and compassionated the pretty boy.
In his earliest childhood he learned there-
fore to trade upon his beauty, and to get the
nVost that he could for that merchandise; and
he grew up utterly un))rincipled, and carried
his handsome face out into the world to help
him on to fortune. He was extravagant, lazy,
luxurious, and selfish ; but he had that easy,
indifferent grace of manm.'r wliich passes
with shallow observers for good-nature. He
would not have gone three jiaces out of his
way to serve his best friend ; but he smiled
and showed his handsome white teeth with
equal liberality to all his actjuaintance, and
took credit for being a frank, generous -
hearted fellow on the strength of that smile.
He was skilled in the uses of that gilt gin-
gerbread of generosity which so of\en passes
current for sterling gold. He was dexterous
in the handling of tiiose cogged dice which
have all the rattle of the honest ivories. A
slap on the back, a hearty shake of the hand,
often went as far from him as the loan of
a sovereign from another man ; and Jim Con-
yers was firmly believed in by the doubtful
gentlemen with whom he associated as a good-
natured fellow who was nobody's enemy but
his own. He had that superficial Cockney
cleverness which is generally called knowl-
edge of the world — knowledge of the worst
side of the world — and utter ignorance of all
that is noble u[ion earth, it might perhaps be
more justly called; he had matriculated in
the streets of London, and graduated on the
race-course ; he had never read any higher
literature thaiv the Sunday papers and the
Raciufj Calendar, but he contrived to make a
very little learning go a long way, and was
generally .spoken of by his employers as a
superior young man, considerably above his
station.
Mr. Conyers expressed himself very well
contented witk the rustic lodge which had
been chosen for his dwelling-house. He con-
descendingly looked on while the stable-laifs
carried the furniture selected lor him by the
housekeeper from the spare servants' rooms
from the house to the lodge, and assisted in
the arrangement of the tiny rustic chambers,
limping about in his shirt-sleeves, and show-
ing himself wonderfully handy with a bam-
m'T and a po<^'ket full of nails. He sat upon
a table and drank beer with such charming
affability that the stable-lads were as grate-
ful to him as if he had tn ated them tmoke a cigar if
you 'II come with me, Lolly."
"You foolish old Yorksiiireinan," said Mr.v
Mellish, laughing, " I verily believe you 'd
like me to smoke one of your choice Manillao,
by way of keeping you company. '
" No, darling, I 'd never wish to see you do
anythins that did n't sfiuare — that wa.s n't
compatible,' interpose«l Mr. MellisK gravely,
86
AURORA FLOYD.
" with the manners of the noblest lady, and
the duties of the truest wife in England. If
I love to see you ride across conntry with a
red feather in your hat, it is becciuse I think
that the good old sport of English gentlemen
was meant to be shared by their wives rather
than bv people whom I would not like to name,
and because there is a fair chance that the
.•iio-ht of your Spanish hat and scarlet plume
«t the meet may go some way toward keeping
Miss Wilhelmina de Lanny (who was born
plain Scroggins, and christened Sarah) out
of the field. I think our British wives and
mothers might have the battle in their own
hands, and win the victory for themselves and
their daughters, if they were a little braver
in standing to their ground — if they were not
quite so tenderly indulgent to the sins of eli-
gible young noblemen, and, in their estimate
of a man's qualifications for the marriage
state, were not so entirely guided by the
figures in his banker's book. It 's a sad world,
Lolly, but John Mellish, of Mellish Park, was
never meant to set it right."
Mr. Mellish stood on the threshold of a
glass door which opened to a flight of steps
leading to the lawn as he delivered himself of
this homily, the gravity of which was quite at
variance with the usual tenor of his discourse.
rie had a cigar in his hand, and was going to
light it, when Aurora stopped him.
" John, dear," she said, " my most unbusi-
ness-like of darlings, have you forgotten that
poor Langley is so anxious to see you, that he
may give up your old accounts before the new
trainer takes the stable inislness into his
hands ? He was here half an hour before
(Jinner, and begged that you would see him
to-night."
Mr. Mellish slirugged his shoulders.
"* Langley 's as honest a fellow as ever
hieathed," he said. " I don't want to look
into his accounts. I know what the stable
xiosts me yearly on an average, and that 's
enough."
" But for his satisfaction, dear."
" Well, well, Lolly, to-morrow morning,
then."
" No, dear, I want you to ride out with me
to-morrow."
" To-morrow evening."
'• 'You meet the captains at the Citadel,'"
sAid Aurora, laugliing ; " tliat is to say, you
dine at Hoimbush with Colonel Pevensey.
Come, darling, I insist ou' your being business-
like for once in a way; come to your scmctvm
aanctorum, and we '11 send for Langley, and
look into the accounts."
The pretty tyrant linked her arm in his,
and led him to the other end of the house,
;!,nd into the very room in which she had
Kwooned away at the hearing of Mr. Pastern's
letter. She looked thoughtfully out at the
dull evening sky as she closed the windows.
The storm had not yet come, but the ominous
clouds still brooded low over the earth, and
the sultry atmosphere was heavy and airless.
Mrs. Mellish made a wonderful show of her
business habits, and appeared to be very much
interested in the mass of corn-chandlers', vet-
erinary surgeons', saddlers', and harness-mak-
ers' accounts with which the old trainer re-
spectfully bewildered his master. But about
ten minutes after John had settled himself to
his weary labor Aurora threw down the pen-
cil with which she had been woi'king a calcu-
lation (by a process of so wildly original a
nature as to utterly revolutionize Cocker, and
annihilate the hackneyed notion that twice
two are four), and^fioated lightly out of the
room, with some Vague promise of coming
back presently, leaving Mr. Mellish to arith-
metic and despair.
Mrs. Walter Powell was seated in the draw-
ing-room reading when Aurora entered the
apartment with a large black lace shawl
wrapped about her head and shoulders. Mrs.
Mellish had evidently e.xpected to find the
room empty, for she started and drew back at
the sight of the pale-faced widow, who Avas
seated in a dist;tnt window, making the most
of the last faint rays of summer twilight.
Aurora paused for a moment a few paces
within the door, and then walked deliberately
across the room toward the farthest window
from that at whi^h Mrs. Powell was seated.
" Are you going out in the garden this dull
evening, Mrs. Mellish ?" asked the ensign's
widow.
Aurora stopped half way between the win-
dow and the door to answer her.
" Yes," she said coldly.
"Allow me to advise you not to go far. We
are going to have a storm."
" I don't think so."
" What, my dear Mrs. Mellish, not with
that thunder-cloud yonder V"
" I will take my chance of being caught in
it, then. The weather has been threatening
all the afternoon. The house is insupportable
to-night."
" But you will not surely go far ?"
Mrs. Mellish did not appear to overhear this
remonstrance. She hurried thiough the open
window, and out upon the lawn, striking
northward toward that little iron gate across
which she had talked to the softy.
The arch of the leaden sky seemed to con-
tract above the tree-tops in the Park, shutting
in the earth as if with a roof of hot iron, after
the fashion of those cunningly contrived metal
torture-chambers w^hich we read of; but the
rain had not yet come.
" What can take her into the garden on
such an evening as this V" thought Mrs. Pow-
ell, as she watched the white dress receding
in the dusky twilight. " It will be dark in
ten minutes, and she is not usually so fond of
going out alone."
The ensign's widow laid down the book in
AURORA FLOYD.
87
which she had appeared so deeply interested,
tind went to her own room, where she select-
ed a comfortable gray cloak from a heap of
primly-foldod garments in her capacious ward-
robe. She muffled herself in this cloak, hur-
ried down sUurs with a soft but rapid step,
and wont out into the garden through a little
lobby near John Mellish's room. The blinds
in the little sanctum were not drawn down,
and Mrs. Powell could see the master of the
house betiding over his paper under the liglit
of a reading-lamp, with the rheumatic trainer
sitting by his side. It was by this time quite
dark, but Aurora's white dress was faintly
visible upon the other side of the lawn.
Mrs. Mellish was standing beside the little
iron gate when the ensign's widow emerged
from the house. Tiie white (b-ess was motion-
less for some time, and the pale watcher, lurk-
ing under thi- shade of a long veranda, began
to think that her trouble was wasted, and
tliat perhaps, after all, Aurora had no special
purpose in this ev<'ning ramble.
Mrs. Walter Powell felt cruelly disappoint-
ed. Always on the watch for some deiv to
the secret whose existence she hail discovered,
she had fondly hoped that even this unsea-
sonable ramble might be some link in the
mysttirious chain she was so anxious to fit to-
gether. But it appeared that slie was mis-
taken. The unseasonable ramble ivas very
likely nothing more than one of Aurora's
( aprices — a womanly foolishness signifying
nothing.
No ! The white dress was no longer mo-
tionless, and in the unnatural stillness of the
hot night Mrs. Powell heard the distant,
^crooping noise of a hinge revolving slowly,
as if guided by a cautious hand. Mrs. Mel-
lish had o]>ctu'd the iron gate, and had passed
to the other side of the invisible barrier which
.separated the gardens from the Park. In
another moment she had disappeared under
the shadow of the trees which made a belt
a!)Out the lawn.
Mrs. Powell paused, almost terrified by her
unlooked-for discovery.
What, in the name of all that was darkly
mysterious, could Mrs. Mellish have to do be-
tween nine and ten o'clock on the north yidc
of the Park — tlie wildly-kept, ileserted north
.side, in whicli, from year's end to year's end,
no one but the keepers ever walked.
The blooil rushed hotly u]> to Mrs. Powell's
pah' face as she suddenly remembered that the
disused, dilapidated lodge upon this north side
had been u'iven to the new trainer as a resi-
lience. Rememl)ering this was nothing, but
remenilx-ring this in connection with that
mysterious letter signed "A" was enough to
send a thrill of savage, horrible joy through
the dull veins of the dependent. What should
she doV Follow Mrs. Mellish, and discover
where she was going? How far would this be
a safe thing to attempt?
She turned back and looked once more
through the windows of John's room. He
was still bending over the papers, still in an ap-
parently hopeless confusion of mind. There
seemed little chance of his business being fin-
ished very quickly. The starless night an'
is ; but she comes to meet her husband's ser-
vant on the sly, atler dark, lor all that. May-
be the daj- is n't far off when she '11 b(! turned
away from these gates, and warned off thi^
ground, and the merciful Lord send that I
live to see it. Hush !"
With her wri.st still pinioned In his strong
grasp, he motioned her to be silent, and bent
his pale face forward, every feature rigid in
the listening expectancy of his huugiy gaze.
" Listen," he whispered ; " listen ! Every
fresh word damns her deeper tlian the last."
The trainer was the first to speak atler this
pause In the dialogue within the cottage. He
had quietly smoked out his pipe, and had
emptied the ashes of his tobacco upon the
table before he took up the thread of the
conversation at the point at which he bad
dropped it.
" Ten thousand pounds," he said ; " that is
the offer, and I think it ought to be taken
freely. Ten thousand down, in Bank of
England notes (fives and tens ; liigher figures
might be awkward), or sterling coin of the
realm. You understand ; ten thousand down.
That 's my alternative ; or I leave this plaoc
to-morrow morning, with all belonging to me."'
" By which course you would get nothing,"
said Mrs. John Mellish. quietly.
AURORA FLOYD.
89
" Should n't I ? What rioes the chap m j
the play ffct for his trouble when the blaoka- i
moor smothers his wife ? I should get noth-
inrr-but my revenjre upon a tiger-cat whose
claws have left a mark upon me that I sha I
rarry t^ mv -rave." Me lifted his hair with
a careless ic^.ture of his hand, and pointed to
a scar upon his forehead - a white mark,
barely visible in the dim light of the tallow-
candle. "I 'm a good-natured easy-going
fellow, Mrs. John Hellish, but I don I forget. I
Is it to be the ten thousand pounds, or war to ,
the knife?" , /> . • :
Mr^. Powell waited eagerly for Aurora s
answer ; but before it came a round, heavy j
rain-drop j.attered upon the light hair ot the
ensi-n's widow. Tlie hood of her cloak had ,
falkMi back, leaving her head uncovered.,
This one large drop was the warning ot the i
comin-T storm. The signal peal ot thunder ,
rumbled slowlv and hoarsely in the distance,
and a pale ilasli of liglitning trembled upon
the white faces of the two listeners.
" Let me tr->," whispered Mrs. Powell, "let
me go; T miist get back to the house before
the rain bc<;ins."
The softy slowlv relaxed his iron grip upon
her wrist. He had held it unconsciously in
hi.s utter abstraction to all things except the
two speakers in the cottage.
Mrs. Powell rose from her knees, and crept
noiselessly awav from the lodge. She remem- ^
bered the vital necessity of getting back to ,
the house bef(n-e Aurora, and of avoiding the
shower. Her wet sarmcnts would betray her ,
if she did not succeed in escaping the coming ,
storm. She was of spare, wizen figure, en-
cumbered with no superfluous flesh, and she
ran rapio much as a groom to attend upon her. She
was not strong-minded. She could be happy
without the society of Newfoundlands and
Skye terriers. She did not prefer Landseer's
dog-pictures above all other examples of mod-
ern art. She might have walked down Regent
street a hundred times without being once
tempted to loiter upon the curb-stone and
bargHin with suspicious-looking merchants for
a " noice leetle dawg." She was altogether
gentle and womanly, and Talbot had no fear
to trust lier to her own sweet will, and no need
to impress upon her the necessity of lending
her feeble little hands to the mighty task of sus-
taining the dignity of the Raleigh Bulstrodes.
She would (ding to him sometimes half
lovingly, half timidly, and, looking up with a
prett}', deprecating smile into his coldly hand-
.>ome face, ask hnn, falteringly, if he was
really, rk.\1-I-y happy.
" Yes, my darling girl," the Cornish captain
would answer, being very well accustomed to
the question, " decidedly, very happy."
His calm bu.siness- like tone would rather
disappoint poor Lucy, and she would vaguely
wish that her husband had been a little more
like the heroes in the High -Church novels,
and a little less devoted to Adam Smiti), Mc-
Culloch, and the Cornish mines.
" But you don't love me as you loved Au-
rora, Talbot ?" (Tliere wore profane jieople
who corrupted the captain's Christian name
into " Tal ;" but Mrs. Bulstrode was not more
likely to avail herself of that disrespectful
abbreviation than shr was to address her gra-
cious sovereign as "Vic") "But you don't
love me as you loved Aurora, Talbot, dear ?"
the pleasing voice would urge, so tenderly
anxious to be contradicted.
" Not as I loved Aurora, perhaps, darling."
" Not as much V"'
" As much and better, my pet; with a more
enduring and a wiser love."
If this was a little bit of a fib when the
captain first said it, i.s he to be utterly con-
demned for the falsehood? How could he
resist the loving blue eyes so ready to fill
with tears if he had answered coldly ; the
softly pensive voice, tremulous with emotion ;
the earnest face; the care.«sing hand laid so
lightly upon his coat-collar ? He must have
been more than mortal had he given any but
loving answers to those loving questions. The
day soon came when his answers were no
longer tinged with so' much as the sh.idow of
falsehood. His little wife crept stealthily,
almost imperceptibly into his heart; and if
he remembered the fever-dream of the past,
it was only to rejoice in the tranquil security
of the present.
/ Talbot Bulstrode and his wife were staying
at Felden Woods for a few days durinj^ the
burning July weather, and sat down to dinner
with Mr. Floyd upon the day succeeding the
night of the storm. They were disturbed in
the very midst of that dinner by the unex-
pected arrival of Mr. and Mr.s. Mellish, who
rattled up to the door in a hired vehicle, just
as the second course was being placed ujmjd
the table.
Archibald Floyd recognized the first mur-
mur of his daughter's voice, and ran out
into the hall to welcome her.
She showed no eagerness to throw herself
into her fat her's arms, but stood looking at John
Mellish with a weary, absent expression, while
the stalwart Yorkshireman allowed himself to
be gradually disencumbered of a chaotic load
of travelling-bags, sun-umbrellas, shawls, mag-
azines, newspapers, and overcoats.
" My darling, my darling !" exclaimed the
banker, " what a happy surprise, what an un-
expected pleasure i"
She did not answer him, but, with her arms
about his neck, looked mournfully into his
face.
" She would come," said Mr. John Mellish,
addressing himself generally; "she would
come. The doose knows why ! But she said
she must come, and wiiat could I do but bring
her ? If she asked me to take her to the
moon, what could 1 do but take her V But
she would n't biing any luggage to t-peak of,
because we "re going back to-morrow."
94
AURORA FLOYD.
. "Going back to-niorroAv !" repeated Mr.
Floyd ; " Impossible."'
"Bless your heart !" cried John, " what 's
impossible to Lolly ? If she wanted to go to
the moon, she 'd go, don't I tell you? She
'd have a special engine, or a special balloon,
or a special something or other, and she 'd go.
When we were in Paris she wanted to sec the
big fountains play, and she told me to Avrite to
the emperor and ask him to have them set
going for her. She did, by Jove I"
Lncy Bulstrode came lor ward to bid her
cousin welcome; but J fear that a sharp,
jealous pang thrilled through that innocent
hear* at the thought that those fatal black
eyes were again brought to bear upon Tal-
bot's life.
Mrs. Jlellish put her arms about her cousin
as tenderly as if she had been embracing a
child.
" You here, dearest l>ucy I" she said. " I
am so very glad."
" He loves me," whispered little Mrs. Bul-
strode, " and I never, never can tell you how
good he is."
" Of course not, my darling," answered
Aurora, drawing her cousin aside while Mr.
Mellish shook hands with his father-in-law
and Tallujt Bulstrode. " He is the most
glorious of princes, the most perfect of saints,
is he not ? and you worship him all day ; you
sing silent hymns in his praise, and perfori\
high mass in his honor, and go about telling
his virtues upon an imaginary rosary. Ah I
Lucy, how many kinds of love there are ;
and who shall say which is the best or high-
est? I see plain, blundcrinyj John Mellish
yonder with unprejudiced eyes ; I know his
every fault, I laugh at his evei-y awkward-
ness. Yes, I laugh uoav, for he is dropping
those things faster than the servants can pick
them up."
She stopped to point to poor John's chaotic
bnrdcn.
"I see all this as plainly as I sec the dcli-
ciencies of the servant who stands behind mv
chair ; and yet I love him with all my heart
and soul, and I wou|d not have one fault cor-
rected, or one virtue exaggerated, for fear it
should make him diftl-rent to what he is."
Lucy Bulstrode gave a little half-resigned
sigh.
" What a blessing that m}- poor cousin is
happy," she thought ; " and yet how can she
be otherwise than miserable with that absurd
John Mellish ?"
What Lucy meant perhaps was this. IIow
could Aurora be otherwise than wretched in
the companionship of a gentleman who had
neither a straight nose nor dark hair. Some
women never outlive that school-girl infatua-
tion for straight noses and dark hair. Some
girls would have rejected Napoleon the Great
because he was n't "tali," or would have
turned up their noses at the author of Childe
Harold if they had happened to see him in a
stand-up collar. If Lord Byron had never
turned down his collars, would his poetry
have been as popular as it was. If Mr. Al-
fred Tennyson were to cut his hair, would
that operation modify our opinion of Thf.
Queen of the M/ ? Where does that mar-
vellous power of association begin and end?
Perhaps there may have been a reason foi'
Aurora's contentment with her commonplace,
prosaic Inisband. Perhaps she had learned at
a very early period of hei- life that there are
qualities even more valuable than exquisitely
modelled features or clustering locks. Per-
haps, having begun to be foolish very early,
she had outstripped her contemporaries in the
race, and had early learned to be wise.
Archibald Floyd led his daughter and her
husband into the dining-room, and the dinner-
party sat down again with the two uuexpect-
i cd guests, and the second course was served,
and the lukewarm salmon brought in again
I for Mr. and Mrs. Mellish.
j Aurora sat in her old place on her father's
i right hand. In the old girlish days Miss
j Floyd had never occupied the l)ottom of the
, table, but had loved best to sit close to that
foolishly doting parent, pouring out hi.s wine
I for him in defiance of the servants, and doing
other loving ofiices which were deliciously in-
convenient to the old man.
To-day Aurora seemed especially affeotion-
] ate. That fondly clinging manner had all its
! ancient charm to the banker. He put down
his glass with a tremulous hand to gaze at hi.s
darling child, and was dazzled with her
beauty, and drunken with the happiness of
having her near him.
" But, my darling," he said, by and by,
" what do you mean by talking about going
back to Yorkshire to-morrow ?"
•'Xothing, papa, except thut 1 must go,"
answei-ed Mrs. Mellish. dete7'minedly.
•'But why come, dear, if you could only
stop one night ?"
" Because i wanted to si <• you, dearest
father, and to talk to you about — about money
matters."
" That 's it," exclaimed John Mellish, with
his mouth half full of salmon and lobster-
gauce. " That 's it ! Money matters ! That 'a
all I can get out of her. She goes out late
last night, and roams about the garden, and
comes in wet through and through, and aays
she must come to London about money mat-
ters. What should she want with money
matters ? If she wants money, she can have
as much as she wants. She shall write the
figures, and I '11 sign the (theck ; or she shall
have a dozen blank cheeks to fill in just as
she pleases. What is there upon this earth
that I 'd refuse her ? If she dipped a little
too deep, and put more money than she could
afford upon the bay filly, why does n't ehe
come to me, instead of bothcrinur you about
vVURORA FLOYD.
95
nonoy matters? You know T said so in tlie
rain, Aurora, ever so many times. Why
jotlier your poor papa about it ?"
The poor papa looked won(]eringly from his
laughter to his daughters husband. What
lid it all mean? Trouble, vexation, weari-
less of spirit, humiliation, disgrace ?
Ah ! Heaven lielp that enfeebled mind
whose strength has been shattered by one
jreat shock. Archibald Floyd dreaded the
;oken of a coming storm in every chance
?loud on the summer's sky.
*' Perhaps I may prefer to spend my own
nonoy, ]\Ir. John Mellish," answered Aurora,
' and pay any foolish bets I have chosen to
iiakt; out of my oirn purse, without being
indcr an ol)ligation to any one."
Mr. Mellish returned to his salmon in si-
ence.
" There is no occasion for a gniat mystery,
lapa," resumed Ain-ora ; " I want some money
or a particular purpose, and I have come to
jonsult with you about my aflairs. There is
lotliing very extraoi'dinary in that, I sup-
)Ose ?"'
Mrs. John Mellish tossed her head, and
lung this sentence at the assembly as if it
lad been a challenge. Iler manner was so
lefiant that even Talbot and Lucy felt called
ipon to respond with a gentle dissenting mur-
nur.
" No, no, of coin-se not ; nothing more natn-
•al." muttered the captain ; but he was think-
ng nil the time, " Thank God I mariicd the
)tlier one."
After dinner the little party strolled out of
;he drawing-room windows on to the lawn,
ind away toward that iron bridge upon whicli
Aurora had stood, with her dog by her side,
ess than two years ago, on the occasion of
ralbot Bulstrode's second visit to Felden
Woods. Lingering upon that bridge, on this
:ranquil summers evening, what could the
;aptain do but think of that September day,
jarely two years agone ? Barely two years !
not two years! And how much liad been
lone, and thought, and suffered since ! ITuw
:ontemptible was the narrow space of time !
V'et what terrible eternities of anguish, what
•enturies of heart-break, had been compressed
into that pitiful sum of days and weeks !
When the fraudulent partner in some house
.■)f business puts the money which is not his
)wn upon a Derby favorite, and goes home at
night a loser, it is strangely diilicult for that
wretcluMl deiaulter to believe that it is not
twelve houis since he travelled the road to
Epsom confident of suc(;e.ss, and calculating
how he should invest his winnings. Talbot
Bulstrode was very silent, thinking of the.
influence which this family of Felden Woods
had had upon his destiny. His little Lucy saw
that silence and thoughtfulness, and, stealing
soflly to her husband, linked her arm in his.
She had a right to do it now — yes, to ])H.ped her hands from before
her face, and looked at him with her eyes
flashing fire, and her cheeks in a crimson
blaze.
j " Father," she cried, " how dare you ask me
such a question ? New infatuation I New
[madness! Have I suffered so little, do you
I think, from the folly of my youth ? Have I
I paid so small a price for the mistake of my
1 girlhood that you should have cause to say
I these words to me to-night ? Do I come of so
j bad a race," she said, pointing indignantly to
her mother's portrait, " that you should think
I so vilely of me ? Do I — "
j Her tragical appeal was rising to its clima.x,
when she dropped suddenly at lier father's
i feet, and burst into a tempest of sobs.
I " Papa, papa, pity me," she cried, " pity
I me I"
' He raised her in his arms, and drew her to
] him, and comforted her, as he had comforted
her for the loss of a Scotch terrier-pup twelve
years before, when she was small enough to
I sit on his knee, and nestle her head in his
waistcoat.
" Pity you, my dear 1" he said. " What is
I there I would not do for you to save you one
I moment's sorrow '.■' If my worthless life could
I help you ; if — "
98
AURORA FLOYD.
'' You will wive mc the money, papa ?" she
asked, looking up at him half coaxingly
thi'digh her tears.
" Yes, my darling, to-morrow morning."
■' In bank-notes '?"
" In any manner you please. But, Aurora,
why sec these people ? Why listen to their
disgraceful demands ? Why notf tell the
truth ?"
" Ail ! why, indeed !" she said, thoughtfully.
" Ask me no questions, dear papa, but let me
have the money to-morrow, and I promise you
that this shall be the very last you hear of my
old troubles."
She made this promise with such perfect
confidence that her father was inspired with a
faint raj- of hope.
"Come, darling papa,"' she said, "your
room is near mine ; let us go up stairs to-
gether."
She entwined her arms in his, and led him
up the broad staircase, only parting from him
at the door of his room.
Mr. Floyd summoned his daughter into the
.•^tudy early the next morning, while Talbot
Bulstrodu was opening his letters, and Lucy
strolling up and down the terrace with John
3Iellish.
" I have telegraphed for the money, my
darling," the banker said. " One of the
ions,' he shipped his anchor without ;
st.opi)in' to ask many questions, and left me ]
hidin' in one of the little alleys which cut the
town of Yarmouth throu^ifh and across like
they cut the cakes they make there. There j
was manv in Yarmouth that knew me, and I
there was n't one that did n't say, ' Sarve him '
right,' when they heard how T 'd given father ;
the slip, and the next day Cap'en Mobley ;
irave me a berth as cabin -bo}' about the |
Mariar Annn." I
]\lr. Prodder again paused to partake ofj
refrcsinnent from his portable spirit store, and j
this time politely handed tlie pocket-pistol to j
tlie company. j
" Now, perhaps you '11 not believe me," he
r«\suined, after his friendly otfer had been re- |
fused, and tlie Avicker-covcred vessel replaced
in his capacious pocket — "you won't perluips
believe me when I tell you, as I tell you can-
did, that up to last Saturday week I never
could find the time nor tlie opportunity to go
back to Liverpool, and ask after the little sis-
ter that I 'd left no higher than the kitchen-
table, and tliat had cried fit to break her poor
little heart when I went away. But whether
yr*u believe it or whether you don"t, it 's as
true as gospel," cried the sailor, thumping
hi.s ponderous fist upon the padded elbow of
tlie compartment in which he sat ; " it 's
a.'s true as gospel. I 've coasted America,
North and South. I 've carried West-Indian
goods to the East Indies, and East-Indian
goods to the West Indies. I 've traded in
Norwegian goods between Norway and Hull.
I 've carried Sheffield goods from Hull to
South America. I 've traded between all
manner of countries and all manner of docks;
but somehow or other I 've never had the
time to spare to go on shore at Liverpool, and
find out the narrow little street in which I
left my sister Eliza, no higher than the table,
more than forty years ago, until last Saturday
was a week. Last Saturday was a week I
toucheil at Liverpool with a cargo of furs and
poll-{)arrots — what you may call fancy goods;
ajid I said to my mate, I said, ' I '11 tell you
what I '11 do. Jack; I '11 go ashore and see
my little sister Eliza.'"
He paused once more, and a softening-
change came over the brightness of his black
eyes. This time he did not apply himself
to the pocket-pistol. Tiiis time he brushed
the back of his brown hand across liis eye-
lashes, and brought it away with a drop or
two of moisture glittering upon the bronzed
skin. Even his voice was changed when he
continued, and had mellowed to a richer and
more mournful depth, until it very much re-
sembled the melodious utterance which twen-
ty-one years before had assisted to render
Mi.ss Eliza Percival the popular tragedian of
the Preston and Bradford circuit.
"God forgive me," continued the sailor, in
that altered voice; "bat throughout my voy-
ages I *d never thought of my sister Eliza
but in two ways — sometimes one, .sometimes
t' other. One way of thinking of her, and
expecting to see her, was as the little sister
that I 'd left, not altered by so much as one
lock of her hair being changed from the iden-
tical curl into which it was twisted the morn-
ing she cried and clung about me on board
the Ve7itur\'f oil-cloth.
If gave me a kind of a turn when I did n't
see this identical landlady, though she 'd have
been turned a hundred years old if she 'd
been alive; ami I might have prejiared my-
self for the disappointment if I 'd thought
of that, but I had n't ; and when the door
was opened by a A'oung woman with sandy
hair, brushed backward as if she 'd been a
Chinese, and no eyebrows to speak of, I did
feel disappointed. Tlie young woman had a
baby in her arms — a black-eyed baby, with
its eyes opened so wide that it seemed as if it
had been very muhop.
She wore black curls upon her forehead, aiul
a brooch like a brass butterfly in the niiddh-
of the curls, where the ])arting ouj^hf to have
been ; and she wore a l)earil ; and the curLs
were false, but the beard was n't; and her
voice was very deep, and rather manh'. and
she seemed to me to have grown manly alto
gether in the forty years that I *d been away.
She tied up the two ounces of tea, and then
askerl me what I pleased to want. T told her
that I was little Sam, and that I wanted my
sister Eliza."
The merchant-captain paused and and
generous friend to Aunt Sarah ; and Aunt
Sarali was to have gone to Kent to see lier,
;unl to stop all tlie summer with her. But
while aunt was getting ready to go for that
very visit, my sister Eliza died, leaving a
daughter behind hor, which is the niece that
I *m going to see. I sat down upon the three-
legged wooden stool agjiinst the counter, and
hid my face in my hands ; and I thought of
tlie little girl that I 'd seen playin' at hop-
scotcli forty years before, until I thought my
heart would burst; but I did n't shed a tear.
Aunt Sarah took a big l)i-ooeh out of lier col-
lar, and showed me a ring of l)lac-k hair be-
hind a bit of glass, witli a gohl frame round it.
' Mr Floyd had this brooch made a purpose
for me,' she said; 'he has always been a lib-
eral gentleman to me, and he comes down to
Liverpool once in two or three years, and
takes tea with me in yon back parlor; and I
've no call to keep a shop, for he allows me a
handsome income ; but I should die of the
mopes if it was n't for the business.' There
was Eliza's name and the date of her death
engraved upon the back of the brooch. I
tried to remember where I 'd been, and what
I 'd been doing that year. But I could n't,
sir. All the life that I looked back upon
seemed muddled and mi.xed up, like a dream;
and I could only think of the little sister I 'd
said good-by to aboard the Venturesome forty
years before. I got round by little and little,
and T was able half an hour afterwai'd to list-
en to Aunt Sarah's talk. 8iie was nigli upon
seventy, poor old soul, and she 'd always been
a good one to talk. She asked me if it was
n t a great thing for the family that P^liza had
made such a mat(;h; and if I was n't proud to
think that my niece was a young heiress, that
si)oke all manner of languages, and rode in
her own carriage; and if tiiat ought n't to be
a con.solation to meV But I told her that I 'd
rather have found my sister married to the
poorest man iu Liverpool, and alive and well,
to bid me welcome back to my native town.
Aunt Sarah said if those were my religious
oj)inions, she did n't know what to say to me.
And slie showed me a pictun^ of Eliza's tomb
in Beckenham chuich -yard, that had been
painted expressly for her by Mr. Floyd's or-
ders. Floyd was the name of Eliza's hus-
y)and. And then she showed me a pit.'ture of
Miss Floyd, the heiress, at the age of ten,
which was the image of Eliza, all but tlie
pinafore; and it 's that very Mi.-
at a poor old salt that has been tossed and
tumbled about in every variety of weather
for this forty year. I only want to see her
once in a way, and to hear her say, perhaps,
' Lor, uncle, what a rum old chap you are !'
There !" exclaimed Samuel Prodder, sudden-
ly, " I think, if I could only once hear her
call me uncle, I could go back to sea and die
happy, though I never came ashore again."
' CHAPTER XXI.
I
1 " HE ONLY SAID I AM A-WF.AKY."
j Mr. Jnmes Conyers found the long sum-
i mer's day hang rather heavily upon his
I hands at Mellish Park, in the society of the
I rheumatic ex-trainer, the stable-boys, and
j Steeve Ilargravcs, the softy, and with no lit-
j erary resources except tlnr last Saturday's
BdCa Liff., and sundry flimsy sheets of shiny,
I slippery tissue-pajier, forwarded him by post
from King Charles' Croft, in the busy town of
Leeds.
He might have found plenty of work to do
in the stables, perhaps, if he had ha; his full, classically-moulded lips
as he said this. He glanced through the little
casement, made smaller bv its clustering frame
of roses and clematis, jessamine and myrtle,
and looking like the port-hole of a ship that
sailed upon a sea of summer verdure. Hi;
glanced through the circular opening left by
that scented frame-work of Iea\'es and blos-
soms into the long glades, where the low sun-
light wa>< flickering upon waving fringes of
fern. He followed with liis listless glance
the wandering intricacies of the iinderwood,
until they led his weary eyes away to distant
patches of blue water, slowly changing to
0])al and rose -color in the declining light.
He saw all these things with a lazy apathy,
whicli had no power to recognize their beauty,
01" to iinj)ire one latent thrill of gratitude to
Him wlio had made them. Ife had better
have been blind; surely he had better have
been bliml.
He turned his back upon the evening sun-
shine, and looked at the while fact; of Steevi^
Hargraves, the softy, with every whit as much
pleasure as he had felt in looking at Nature
in her loveliest aspect.
" A long day," he said ; '• an infernally
tedions, wearisome day. Thank God, it 's
over."
Strange that, as he uttered this impious
thanksgiving, no subtle influence of the futiu'e
crept through his veins to chill the slackeninrr
pulses of his heart, and freeze the idle words
upon his lips. If he haord knows,"
he added, with undisguised contempt for poor
John's beloved stable. •' Is there a dog-cart,
or a tra]) of any kind, 1 can drive over in ?"
he askeil of the softy.
Mr. Hargraves said that there was a New-
port Pagnell, which was sacred to Mr. John 1
Meilish, and a gig that was at the disposal of
any of the upper servants when they had oc- '
casion to jro into Donea.stcr, a« well a« a cov- '
ered van, whieh some of the lads drove into
the town every day for the groceries and other
matters required at the house.
"Very good," said Mr. Conycrs: "you mav
run down to the stables, and tell one of the
boys to put the fastest pony of the lot into the
Newport Pagnell, and to bring it up here, and
to look sharp."
" l^it nobody but Muster Meilish rides in «
the Newport Pagnell," sugge.sted the softy,
with an accent of alarm.
" What of that, you cowardly hound ?"
cried the trainer, contemptuously. " I 'ni
going to drive it to-night, don't you hear?
D — n his Yorkshire insolence ! Am I to be
put down hy him f It 's his handsome wife
that he takes such pride in, is it? Lord help
him ! Whose money bought the dog-cart, I
wonder? Aurora Floyd's, perhap.s. And 1
'm not to ride in it, I su]»pose, because it 's
my lord's pleasure to drive liis black-eyed lady
in the sacred vehicle. Look you here, yon
brainless idiot, ami understand me, if you
can," cried Mr. James ConVers, in a sudden
rage, which crimsoned his handsome face, and
lit up his lazy eyes with a new fire — "look
you here, Stcjihen Hargraves; if it was n't
that I 'm tied hand and foot, and have been
plotted against ami thwarted by a woman's
cunning at every turn, I could smoke my
pipe in yonder house, or in a better house this
day."
He pointed with his finger to the pinnacled
roof, and the reddened windows glittci'ing in
the evening sun, visible fiw away among the
trees.
"Mr. John McHish!" lie .said. 'If his wife
was n't such a she-devil as to be too many
guns for the cleverest man in Christendom,
I 'd soon make him sing small. Fetch the
Newport Pagnell," he cried, suddenly, with
an abrupt chnngc of tone ; " fetch it, and be
quick. I 'm not safe to myself when I talk of
this. I 'm not safe when I think how near I
was to half a million of money," he muttered
under his breath.
IL' limped out into the open air, tanning
himself with the wide brim of his f«dt hat. and
wiping the jx-rspiration from his forehead.
" 15e quick," he cried, impatientlj-. to hi.s
deliberate attemlant, who had li>tened eager-
ly to every word of his master's passionate
talk, and who now stoo his olinoxious tasks of '.lish- washing'^ and j
cncher-scrajung.
He shook his fist at the unconscious sleeper
as he finished .speaking, and then stooped to
pick up the traini-r's dusty clothes, which were
seattei-ed upon the floor.
" I suppose I 'm to brush these before I go to
1 bed," he muttered, " that my lord may have
i 'em ready when he wakes in th' morning."
I He took the clothes on his arm and the
j light in his hand, and went down to the lower
i room, where he found a brush, and set to work
j sturdily, enveloping himself in a cloud of dust,
like some ugly Aiabian (/cnie who was goinf
: to transform himself into a handsome prince.
j He stopped suddenly in his brushing by and
by, and crumpled the waistcoat in hisi hand.
" There 's some paper," he exclaimed. "A
paper sewed up between stuff and linin'."
He omitted the definite article before each
of the substantives, as is a common habit with
his countrymen when at all excited.
"A bit o' paper," he repeated, " between
stufT and linin'. 1 '11 rip t' wai.stcoat open
and see what 't is."
He took his clasp-knife from his pocket,
carefully unripped a part of one of the seams
in the waistcoat, and extracted a piece of
paper folded double — a decent -sized square
of rather thick paper, pai-tiy printed, partly
writt(>n.
He leaned over the light witii his elbows on
the fable, and read the contents of this paper,
slowly and laboriously, following every word
with iiis thick fbrc/ingcj-, .sometimes stopping
a long time upon one syllable, sometimes try-
ing back half a line or so, but always plodding
patiently with his ugly forefinger.
When he came to the last woi-d, he burst
suddenly into a loud (.'huckle, as if he had just
succeeded in guc-'sing that difiicult enigma
which had puzzled him all the evening.
"] know it all now," he said. ''I can put
it all together now, his woiNls. and hers, and
the money. I can put it all together, and
make out the meaning of it. She 's going to
give him the two thousand pound to go away
from here and say nothing about this."
He refolded the jjapcr, replaced it carefully
in its hiding-place between the stufl' and lin-
ing of the waistcoat, then searched in hia
capai'ious pocket for a fat leathern book, in
which, among all sorts of odds and ends, there
were some needles and a tangled skein of
black thread. Then, stooping over the light,
he slowly sewed up the seam whicii he had
ripped o])en. dexterously and neatly enough,
in spite of the clumsiness of his big fingers.
CHAPTER XXII.
STILL CONSTANT.
Mr. .Tamcs Conyers took his breakfa.st in his
own apartment upon the morning of his visit
to Douraster, and Stephen Hargraves waited
108
AURORA FLOYD.
upon him, carryinij him a basin of ni'iddy cof-
fee, and enduring his ill humor with the lonro.
on three sides and a chapel on the fourth, and i " But I teJl you'l want to know," said M
wliich, during the September meeting, bursts . Conyers; " I want to kiiow If Mr.s. Mellish '
suddenly into life and light with huge posters ! at home, and what she 's up to, and whetht •.
flariuff against its gaunt walls, and a bright 1 there are any visitors at the hou.se, and a
blue -ink announcement of I\Ir. and Mrs. about her. Do you understand ?"
Charles Mathews, nr Mr. and Mrs. Charles' "Yes; it 's easy enough to understand, bi'-
Kean, for five nights only. Normal amuse- | it 's rare and dilfieult to do," replied St«
ment in the town of Doncaster between those j Hargraves. " How am I to find out? Wht;'
two oases in the year'.-i dreary circle, the 's to tell me ?"
spring and autumn meetings, there is none; i " How do T know ?" cried the trainer, inf
but of abnormal and special entertainment ! patiently ; for Stephen Hargrave's slow, do;'
there may be much, only known to such men j ged stupidity was throwing the dashing Jamo
as Mr. James Conyers, to whom the most sin- • Conyers into a fever of vexation. '• How d
uous alley is a jjlea.'^ant road, so long as it 1 I know? Don't you see that I 'm too ill t
leads, directly or indirectly, to the betting- j stir from this bed ? I 'd go myself if I wrtjt
man's god— Money. ' i n't. And can't you go and do what I tell yo*':
However this might be, Mr. Conyers bore i without standing arguing there utitilyou dVivfi
upon him all the symptoms of having, as the j me mad ?" «
popular phrase has it, made a night of it. ; Steeve Hargraves muttered some sulkle
His eyes were dim and glas.sy ; liis tongue hot j apology, and shuffled out of the room. M^:^
and furred, and uncomfortably large for his j Conyers' handsome eyes ibllowed him with ^■
parched mouth ; his hand so shaky that the ! dark frown. It is not a pleasant state A
operation which he performed with a razor ! health which succeeds a drunken debaucH't
before his look inn-glass was a toss-up between • and the trainer was angry with himself for tlijo.,
suicide and shaviniv. His heavv head seemed ' weakness which had taken him to Domiasttf!
to have been transformed into a leaden box j upon the preceding eveninir, and thereby iii
full of buzzing noises; and aft( -- - -- •
through his toilet, he gave it up for a bad < There is a g)-eat deal of vicarious penan
full of buzzing noises; and after getting half i dined to vent his anuer upon other people.
:f
job, and tluyw himself upon the bed he had j done in this world. Lady'.s-maids are apt t»i
just left, a victim to that biliary derangement ' suffer for the follies of their mistresses, an***
which incvjtat)ly follous an injudicious admix- I Lady Clara Vere de Vere's French ablgail H
ture of alcoholic and malt liquors.
" A tumbler of Hockhcimer," he muttered,
"or even the third-rate Chablis tliey give one
at a table d'hote, would freshen me up^^ little ;
but there 's nothing to be had in this abomi-
nable place except "brandy and water."
extremely likely to have to atone for younli'
Laurence's death by jiatient endurance of ml*
lady's ill temper, and much unpicking ank
remaking of bodices, which would have fittel'''.
her ladyship well enough in any other state d^-
mind than the remorseful miserv which i.? eilft
AURORA FLOYD.
103
!'rcrego the promised happiness, the wild de-
ght of sunny rambles on a shingly beach,
>rdered by yellow sands that stretch away
) hug an evers'hangeful and yet ever-con-
:ant ocean in their tawny arms. And not
nly mamma and the little ones, but other
lothers and otlier little ones, must help in the
eavy sum of penance for the defaulter's in-
nities. Tiie baker may have calculated
pon receiving that lung-standing account,
nd may have planned a new gown for his
ife, and a summer treat for his little ones, to
e paid for by the expected money ; and the
onest tradesman, soured by the dlsappoint-
lent of having to disappoint those he loves, is
kely to be cross to them in tiie bargain, and
ven to grudge her Sunday out to the house-
old drudge who waits at his little table. The
dluence^of the strong man's evil deed slowly
ercolatcs through insidious channels of which
.- never knows or dreams. The deed of folly
; of guilt does its fatal work when the sinner
ho connuitted it has forgotten his wicked-
jss. Who shall say where or when the
•suits of one man's evil-doing shall cease V
he seed of sin engenders no common root,
looting straight upward through the earth,
id bearing a given crop. It is the germ of a
'ul running weed, whose straggling suckers
avel underground, beyond the ken of mortal
• e, beyond the power of mortal calculation.
If Louis XV had been a conscientious man,
terror and murder, misery and confusion,
might never have reigned upon the darkened
face of beautiful France. If Eve had reject-
ed the fatal fruit, we might all have keen in
Eden to-day.
Mr. James Convers, then, after the manner
of mankind, vented his spleen upon the only
person who came in his way, and was glad to
be able to despatch the softy upon an unpleas-
ant errand, and make his attendant as un-
comfortable as he was himself.
" My head rocks as if I was on board a
steam-packet,"' he muttered, as he lay alone
in his little bedroom, " and my hand shakes
so that I can't hold my pipe steady whili> I
fill it. I 'm in a nice state to have to talk to
her. As if it was n't as much as I can do at
the best of times to be a match for her."
He flung aside his pipe half filled, and
turned his head wearily upon the j)ilIow.
The hot sun and the buzz of the insects tor-
mented him. There was a big blue-bottle fly
blundering and wheeling about among the
folds of the dimity bed-curtains — a fly which
seemed the very genius of delirium tremens;
but the trainer was too ill to do more than
swear at his purple-winged tormentor.
He was awakened from a half doze by the
treble voice of a small stable-boy in the room
below. He called out angrily tor the lad to
come up and state his business. His business
was a message from Mr. John Mellish, who
wished to see the trainer immediately.
^[>•. Mellish," muttered James Convers to
himself. "Tell your master I 'm too ill to
stir, but that I '11 wait upon him in the even-
ing," he said to the boy. " You can see 1 'm
ill, if you 've got any eyes, and you can say
tiiat you found me in bed."
The lad departed with these instructions,
and Mr. Conyers returned to his own thoughts,
whicli appeared to be by no means agreeable
to him.
To drink spirituous liquors and play all-
fours in the sanded tap-room of a sporting
public is no doubt a very delicious occupation,
and would be altogether Elysian and unob-
jectionable if one could always be drinking
spirits and playing all-fours. But as the finest
picture ever painted by Raphael or Rubens is
but a dead blank of canvas upon the reverse,
so there is generally a disagreeable other side
to all the pleasures of earth, and a certain re-
action after card-playing and brandy-drink-
ing which is more than equivalent in misery
to the pleasures which have preceded it.
Mr. Conyers, tossing his hot head from side
to side upon a pillow which seemed even hot-
ter, took a very different view of life to that
which he had expounded to his boon compan-
iuns only the night before in the tap-room of
the " Lion and Lamb, ' Doncaster.
" 1 should liked to have stopped over the
Leger," he muttered, " for I meant to make a
no
AURORA FLOYD.
hatful of. money out of tlie Conjurer; for if i
what they Bay at Richmond is anything like
truth, he 's safe to win. But there 's no going
against my lad)' when her mind 's made up. '
It '9 take it or leave it — yes or no — and be j
quick about it." i
Mr. Conyers garnifhed his speech with two '
or three expletives common enough among j
the men with whom he had lived, but not to i
be recorded here, and, closing his eyes, fell
into a doze — a half-waking, half-sleeping tor- 1
pidity, in whicii he felt as if his head had be- !
come a ton-weight of iron, and was dragging !
him backward through the pillov/ into a bot- !
tomless abj'ss. i
Whiles the trainer la}- in tlii.s comfortless '
semi-slumber, Stephen Hargraves walked j
slowly and sulkily through the wood on his '
wav to the invisible fence, from which point i
he meant to reconnoitre the premises. |
The irregular yac«(/(? of the old house front- I
ed him across the smooth breadth of lawn,
dotted and broken by parti-colored flower- !
beds; by rustic clumps of gnarled oak sup- j
porting mighty clusters of vivid scarlet gera- '
niums, all atlame in the sunshine: by troUi.scd i
arches laden wiih trailing roses of every vary- !
ing shade, from palest blush to deepest crim- [
son ; by groups of evergreens, whose tjverv '
leaf was rich 111 beauty and luxuriance, whose |
every tangled garland would have made a ]
worthy chaplet for a king. '
The softy, in the scnii-darknesses of his '
soul, had some glimmer of that light which
was altogether wanting in Mr. James Con- ,
yers. He felt that these things were beauti- I
t'ul. The broken lines of the ivy-covered !
hou^e-front, Gothic here, P>lizabethan there,
were fK.some manner pleasant to him. The
scattered rose-leaves on the lawn ; the flii-ker-
ing shadows of the evergreens upon the grass ;
the song ot a skylark too lazy to soar, and
content to warble among the bushes ; the rip- '
piing sound of a tiny water-fiiU t'ar awav in '
the wood, made a language of which he only
understood a few straggling syllables here and
there, but which was not altogether a mean-
ingless jargon to him, as it was to the trainer,
to whose mind Holboin HUl would have con-
veyed as much of the sublime as the mitrod-
deii pathways of the Jungfrau. The softy
dimly perceived that Mellish Park was beau-
tiful, and he felt a fiercer hatr^'d against the 1
person whose influence had ejected hifli from j
his old home. ]
The house fronted the south, and the Vene-
tian shuttei-s were all closed upon this hot i
summer's day. Stephen Hargraves looked ;
for his old enemy Bow-wow, who was likely '
enough to be lying on the Inoad stone steps )
before the hall-door; but there was no sif^n of j
the dog's presence anywhere about. The !
hall-door was closed, and the Venetian shut- '
ters, under tJK; rose and clematis shadowed |
veranda which sheltered John Mellilate, and the shadow upon her face
deepening every moment, that poor Mrs. Loft-
house was in utter despair of getting the sig-
nificant look which was to release her from
the bondage of hearing her father's stories of
tiger-shooting and pig-sticking for the two or
three hundredth time. IVrhaps she never
would have got that feminine signal had not
Mrs. Powell, with a little significaiit " hem,"
made some observation about the sinking sun.
The ensign's widow was one of those peo- '
pie who declare that there is a perceptible '
difference in the length of the days upon the
twenty -third or twenty-fourth of June, and ;
who go on announcing the; .«ame tact until the
long winter evenings come with the twenty-
first of December, and it is time for them to !
declare the conver., and at some distance from the
seaman's place of concealment, was heard as
Mrs. Mcllish spoke.
" 'J'littt V your dog, if you like," said the
trainer; " tlie other was a man. Come on a
little way farther, and let 's make a finish of
this business; it 's past ten o'clock."
Ml'. Conyers was right. The church clock
had struck ten five minutes before, but the
solemn chimes had fallen unheeded upon Au-
rora's ear, lost amid the angry voices raging
in her breast. S!ie started as she looked
around her at tlie summer darkness in the
woods, and tlie flaming yellow moon, which
brooded low upon the earth, and slied no
light upon the mysterious pathways and the
water-pools in the wood.
The trainer limped away. Aurora walking
by his side, yet holding herself as far aloof
from him as the grassy pathway would allow.
They were out of hearing, and almost out of
sight, before the sea-captain could emerge
from a state of utter stupefaction so far as to
be able to look at the business in its right
bearings.
" 1 ouaht to ha' knocked him down," he
muttered at last; "whether ho 's her husband
or wheth(>r he is n't. I ought to have knock-
ed him down, and I would have done it too,"
add<'d the captain, resolutely, "if it had n't
been that my niece seemed to have a good
fiery spirit of her own, and to be able to fire
a jolly good broadside in the way of hard
words. T '11 find my skull-thatcher if T can,"
said Captain Prodder. groping for his hat
among tlie brambles and the long irrass, "and
then I '11 just run up to the turnstile and tell
my mate to lay at anchor a bit longer with
the horse and shay. He "II be wonderin' what
1 'm up to: but T won't go back juet yet: I 'II
keep in flic way of my niece and that swab
with the game leg."
The captain found his hat, and walked
down to the turnstile, where he fotind the
young man from the "Ri'indeer" fast asleep,
with the reins loose in his hand-;, and liis head
upon his knees. The horse, witli his head in
an empty nose-bag, seemed as fast asleep as
the driver.
The young man woke at the sound of the
turnstile creaking upon its axis, and the step
of the sailor in the road.
" I a'n't goin' to get aboard just yet," said
Captain Prodder;' 'I '11 take another turn in
the wood, as the evenin' 's so pleasant. I
come to tell yon I would n't kec]) you much
lousier, for I thought you 'd think I was
dead."
" I did a'most." answered the charioteer,
candidly. " My word, a'n't you been a
time !"
" I met Mr. and Mrs. Mellish in the wood,"
said the captain, " and I stopped to have a look
at 'em. She 's a bit of a spitfire, a'n't she ?"
asked Samuel, with allcctcil carelessness.
The young man from the " Reindeer" shook
his head dubiously.
" I doant know about that," he said ; "she 's
a rare favorite hereabouts, with poor folks and
g(Mitry too. They do say as she horsewhipped
a poor fond chap as they 'd got in the stables
for ill-u!
that might be asked. The honest sailors sim-
ple mind was east astray in the utter bewil-
derment of this night's mysterious horror. The
story of life was changed. He had (;ome to
play his liumble part in .some sweet domestic
drama of love and confidence, and lie found
himself involved in a tragedy — a horrible
mystery of hatred, secrecy, and murder — a
dreadful maze, from whose obscurity he saw
no hope of issue.
A beacon-light glimmered in the lower win-
dow of the cottage by the north gates — a
feeble ray, that glittered like a gem from out
a bower of honeysuckle and clematis. The
little garden-gate was closed, but it only fast-
ened with a latch.
The bearers of the body paused before en-
tering the garden, and the constable stepped
aside to speak to Mr. Mellish.
"Is there anybody lives in the cottage?"
he asked.
" Yes," answered John ; " the trainer em-
ployed an old hanger-on of my own — a half-
witted fellow, called Hargraves."
" It "s him as burns the light in there most
likely, then," sai busi- ' dear, impetuous John, why do j-ou put your-
ness of life was to go on just the same though self into a })assion about this business? [f
a murder had been done upon the outskirts of they choose to call me as a witness, I will tell
the Park, and even the housekeeper, a severe all 1 know about this man's death, which is
matron at ordinary times, yielded to the com- nothing but that I heard a shot tirecl while 1
mon influence, anil forgot to drive the maids was in the grounds."
to their dormitories in the gabled roof i She was very pale, but she spoke with a
All was very (juiet in the drawing-room ' quiet determination, a calm, resolute defiance
where the visitors had left their host and ' of the worst that fate could reserve for her.
hostess to hug those ugly skeletons which are j "I will tell anything that it is necessary to
put away in tiie presence of company. John : tell," she said; "I care verv little what."
Mellish walked slowly up and down the room.
Aurora sat staring vacantly at the gutter-
tag wax candles in the old-fashioned silver
branches; and Mrs. Powell, with her em-
broidery in full working-order, threaded her
needles and snipped away the fragments of
With her hand still upon her husband'?;
shoulder, she rested her head on his breast
like some weary child nestling in its only safe
shelter.
Mrs. Powell rose, and gathered together
her embroidery in a pretty, lady-like recep-
her delicate cotton as i-arefully as it' there had ' tacle of fragile wicker-work. She glided to
been no such thing as crime or trouble in the j the door, sekicted her candlestick, and p:mscd
world, and no higher purpose in life than the ' on the threshold to bid Mr. and Mrs. Mellish
achievement of elaborate devices upon French I good-night.
cambric. ! " I am sure you must need rest after this
She paused now and then to utter some | terrible aflair," she simpered, " so I will take
polite commonplace. She regretted such an ' the initiative. Tt is nearly one o'clock. Good-
uupleasant catastrophe ; she lamented the dis- ! night."
agreeable circumstances of the trainer's death; j If she had lived in the Thane of Cawdor's
indeed, she in a manner inferred that jSIr. [ family, she would have wished Macbctii and
Conyers had shown himself wanting in good ! his wife a good night's rest after Duncan's
taste and respect for his employer by the I murder, and would have hoped they would
mode of his death; but the point to which I sleep well; she would have courtesi.'(l a.nd
she recurred most frequently was the fact of i simpered amid the tolling of alarm-bells the
Aurora's presence in the grounds at the time ! clashing of vengeful swords, and the blaoon Mrs. Powell. " I hat«
*' Then YOU \\ no busmees to imagine it, ! that woman, Lolly"
132
AURORA FLOYD.
Heaven knows I have nevci* oallcd John
Mellish a hero ; I have never set him up as a
model of manly perfection or infallible vir-
tue ; and, if he is not faultless, if he has those
flaws and blemishes which seem a constituent
part of our imperfect clay, I make no apology
for him, but trust him to the tender mercies
of those who, not being quite perfect them-
.selves, will, I am sure, be merciful to him.
He hated those who hated his wife, or did
her any wrong, however small. He loved
those who loved her. In the great power of
,'us wide affection, all self-esteem was annihi-
lated. To love her was to love him ; to serve
l;er was to do him treble service ; to praise
her was to make him vainer than the vainest
.s*^hool - girl. He freely took upon his shoul-
ders every debt that she owed, whether of love
or of hate ; and he was ready to pay either
sipecies of account to the utmost farthing, and
with no mean interest upon the sum total.
" I hate that woman, Lolly," he repeated,
" and I shan't be able to stand her much
longer."
Aurora did not answer him. She was silent
thv some moments, and when she did speak
it was evident that Mrs. Powell was very far
;iway from her thoughts.
" My poor John," she said, in a low, soft
voice, whose melancholy tenderness went
straight to her husband's heart ; " my dear,
liow happy we were together for a little time !
How very happy we were, my poor boy !"
''Always, Lolly," he answered, "always,
my darling."
" No, no, no," said Aurora, suddenly ; " only
for a little while. What a horrible fatality
has pursued us! what a frightful curse has
ctlung to me ! The curse of disobedience,
John — the curse of Heaven upon my disobe-
dience. To think that this man should have
{x^en sent here, and that he — "
Slie stopped, shivering violently, and cling-
mj' to the faithful breast that sheltered her.
John Mellish quietly led her to her dress-
ing-room, and placed her in the care of her
maid.
" Your mistress has been very mu(!h agi-
tated by this night's business," he said to the
girl; "keep her as quiet as you possibly can."
Mrs. Mellish's bedroom, a comfortable and
roomy apartment, with a low ceiling and deep
bay-windows, opened into a morning-room, in
which it was John's habit to read the news-
papers and sporting periodicals, while his wife
wrote letters, drew pencil sketches of dogs
and hoi'ses, or played with her favorite Bow-
wow. They had been very childish, and idle,
and happy in this pretty chintz-hung cham-
ber ; and, going into it to-night in utter deso-
lation of heart, Mr. Mellish felt his sorrows
all the more bitterly for the remembrance of
those by-gone joys. The shaded lamp was
Hghted on the morocco-covered writing-table,
and glimmered softly on the picture-frames.
caressing the pr*tty modern paintings, the
simple, domestic-story pictures which adorned
the subdued gray walls. This wing of the
old house had been refurnished for Aurora,
and there was not a chair or a table in the
room that had not been chosen by John Mel-
lish with a special view to the comfort and the
pleasure of his wife. The upholsterer had
found him a liberal employer, the painter and
the sculptor a noble patron. He had walked
about the Royal Academy with a catalogue
and a pencil in his hand, choosing all the
'• pretty " pictures for the beautification of
his wife's rooms. A .lady in a scarlet riding-
habit and three-cornered beaver hat, a white
pony, and a pack of greyhounds, a bit of
stone terrace and sloping turf, a flower-bed,
and a fountain made poor John's idea of a
pretty picture; and he had half a dozen vari-
ations of such familiar subjects in his spacious
mansion. He sat down to-night, and looked
hopelessly round the pleasant chamber, won-
dering whether Aui'ora and he would ever be
happy again — wondering if this dark, mys-
terious, storm -threateninsi cloud would ever
pass from the horizon of his life, and leave the
future bright and clear.
" I have not been good enouprh," he thought ;
" I have intoxicated myself with my happ't-
ness, and have made no return for it. What
am I, that 1 should have won the woman I
love for my wife, while other men are layinj;
down the best desires of their hearts a willing
sacrifice, and going out to fight the battle for
their fellow-men ? AVhat an indolent, good-
for-nothing wretch I have been ! How blind,
how ungrateful, how undeserving!"
John Mellish buried his face in his broad
hands, and repented of the carelessly happy
life which he had led for one -and- thirty
thoughtless years. He had been awakened
from his unthinking bliss by a thunder-clap,
that had shattered the fairy castle of his hap-
piness, and laid it level with the ground ; and
in his simple faith he looked into his own life
for the cause of the ruin which had overtaken
him. Yes, it must be so ; he had not deserved
his happiness, he had not earned his good for-
tune. Have you ever thought of this, ye sim-
ple country squires, who give blankets and
beef to your poor neighbors in the cruel win-
ter-time, who are good and gentle masters,
faithful husbands, and tender fathers, and
who lounge away your easy lives in the pleas-
ant places of this beautiful earth'";;' Have you
ever thought that, when all your good deeds
have been gathered together and set in the
balance, the sum of them will be very small
when set against the benefits you have receiv-
ed ? It will be a very small percentage which
you will yield your Master for the ten talenta
intrusted to your care. Remember John
Howard, fever-stricken and dying, Mrs. Fry,
laboring in criminal prisons, Florence Night-
ingale, in the bare hospital chambers, in the
AURORA FLOYD.
133
close and noxious atmosphere among the dead
and the dying. These are the people ■who
return cent per cent for the gifts intrusted to
them. These are the saints whose good deeds
shine among the stars for ever an-
pathy with you in this — "
" Let nie alone !" cried J.^lin, waving the
speaker away from him as he snatched the
paj)er froni his hand ; " lit mo alone ! Can't
you see that I 'm nearly mad ?"
He walked to the window, and with his
back to the coroner and Mr. Lofthouse, ex-
amined the blotched and blottefj dot mnent in
hik iiands. He stared for a long time at thow
blurred and hall-illegible lines before he b€-
138
AUKOllA FLOYD.
came aware of tlieir full meaning. Bnt at
last, at last, the signification of that miserable
paper grew clear to him, and with a loud cry
of anguish he di-opped into the chair from
which he had risen, and covered his face with
his strong right hand. He held the paper in
the left, crumpled and crushed by the convul-
sive pres.-^ure of his grasp.
"My God 1" he ejaculated, after that fir.-^t
cry of anguish, "my God! I never thought of
this — I never could have imagined this."
Neither the coroner nor the clersyman
spoke. What could they say to him. " Sym-
pathetic words could have no power to lessen
such a grief as this ; they would only fret and
harass the strong man in his agony ; it was
better to obey him ; it was far better to let
him alone.
He ro.se at last, after a silence that seemed
long to the spectators of his grief.
'• Gentlemen." he said, in a loud, resolute
voice that resounded through the little room,
" I give you my solemn word of honor that
■when Archibald Floyd's daughter married
me, she believed this man, James Conycrs, to
be dead."
He struck his clenched fist upon the table,
and looked with ])roud defiance at the two
men. Then, with his left hand, the hand
that grasped tlie blood-stained paper, thrust
into his breast, he walked out of the room.
He walked out of the room, and out of the
house, but not homeward. A grassy lane op-
posite the Golden Lion led away to a great
waste of brown turf called Harper's Common.
John Mellish walked slowly along this lane,
and out upon this (|uiet common-land, lonely
even in the broad summer daylight. As he
closed the five-barred gate at the end of the
lane, and emerged upon the open waste, he
seemed to shut the door of the world that lay
behind him, and to stand alone with his great
gi-ief under the low, sunless summer sky. The
dreary scene before him, and the gray^atinos-
pherc above his head, seemed in strange har-
mony with his grief. The reedy water-pools,
unbroken by a ripple ; the barren verdure,
burnt a dull grayish brown by the summer
sun ; the blooniless heather, and the flowerless
rushes — all things upon which he looked took
a di.smal coloring from his own desolation,
and seemed to inukc him the more desolate.
The spoiled child of fortune — the popular
young squire, who had never been contra-
dicted in nearly two-and-thirty years — the
happy husband, whose pride in his wife had
touched upon that narrow boundary -line
which separates the sublime from the ridicu-
lous — ah ! whither had they fled, all these
shadows of the happy days that were gone ?
They had vanished away ; they had fallen
into the black gulf of the cruel past. The
monster who devours his children had taken
back these happy ones, and a desolate man
was left in their stead — a desolate man, who
looked at a broad ditch and a rushy bank
a few j)aces from where he stood, and thought,
" Was it I who leaped that dike a month ago
to gather forget-me-nots for my wife ?'
He asked himself that question, reader,
which we must all ask ourselves sometimes.
AVas he really that creature of the irrevocable
past? Even as I write this I can see that
common-land of which I write — the low skv,
the sunbin-nt grass, the reedy water-pools,
the flat landscape stretching far away on
every side to region.s that are strange to me.
I can recall every object in that simple
scene — the atmosphere of the sunless day,
the sounds in the soft summer air, the voices
of the people near me ; I can recall every-
thing except — myself. This miserable ego is
the one thing that I can not bring back — the
one thing that seems strange to me — the one
thing that I can scarcely believe in. If I went
back to that Northern common-land to-mor-
row, I should recognize every hillock, every
scrap of furze, or patch of heather. The few
years that have gone by since I saw it will
have made a scarcely perceptible difference
in the features of the familiar place. The
slow changes of Nature, immutable in her
harmonious law, will have done their work
according to that unalterable law ; but this
wretched me has undergone so complete a
change that, if you could bring me back that
alter eyo of the past, I should be unable to
recognize the strange creature ; and yet it is
by no volcanic shocks, no rending asunder of
rocky masses, no great convulsions, or terrific
agonies of Nature, that the change has come
about; it is rather by a slow, monotonous
wearing away of salient points, an impercep-
tible adulteration of this or that constituent
part, an addition here, and a subtraction
there, that the transformation takes place. It
is hard to make a man believe in the physiolo-
gists, who declare that the hand which uses
his pen to-day is not the same hand that
guided the quill with which he wrote seven
years ago. He finds it very difficult to be-
lieve this; but let him take out of some
forgotten writing-desk, thrust into a corner of
his lumber-room, those letters which he wrote
seven years ago, and which were afterward
returned to him by the lad}- to whom they
were addressed, and the question which he
will ask himself, as he reads the faded lines,
will most surely be, " Was it I who wrote this
bosh ? Was it I who called a lady with white
eyelashes ' the guiding star of a lonely life ?'
Was it I who was ' inexpres-sibly miserable,
with one 5, and looked ' forward with unut-
terable anxiety to the party in Onslow Square,
at which I once more should look into those
soft blue eyes ?' What party in Onslow
Square ? Non tni recordo. ' Those soft blue
eyes' were garnished with white lashes, and
the lady to whom the letters were written
jilted me to marry a rich soap-boiler." Even
AURORA FLOYD.
139
the law takes cotxnizance of this wouderfnl |
transformation. The debt wliieh Smith (ton- i
tracts in 1850 it; null and void in 1857. The i
Smitli of '50 may have been an extrava«jant i
rogue; the Smith of '57 niay be a eon.scien- ,
tious man, wlio would not eheat hiti ireditors ,
of a farthing. Shall Smith the .seeond be i
called upon to |>ay the debts of Smith the i
first ? I leave that tjuestion to Smith's eon- '
seienee and the metaphysieians. Snndy tiie (
same law should hold good in breach of prom-
ise of marriage. Smith the first may have
adored Miss Brown ; Smit]\ the seeonhe left the letter upon the desk, and, ris-
ing from her seat, looked round the room —
looked with a long, lingering gaze, that dwelt
on each familiar object. How happy she had
been among all that masLuline litter! how
happy with the man she liad believed to be her
husband! how innocently haj)py l^eforv- the
coming down of that horrible storm-cloud
which had overwhelmed them both I She
turned away with a sliudder.
" I have brought disgrace and misery upon
all who have loved me," she tliought. " If I
had been less cowardly — if I had told the
truth — all this might have been avoided if I
had coiifefwd the truth to Talbot Biilstrode."
She |)au.sed at the mention of thu nam*'.
" 1 will go to Tall>ol," slie thought. " He \%
a gooil man. 1 will go to him; I shall liave no
shame now in telling him all. He will advixf
me what to do, he will brvak thi)» dipiovorj
to my poor father "
142
AURORA FLOYD.
Aurora had dimly foreseen this misery when
she had ppoken to Lney Balstrode at Feklen;
she had dhnly j'oroseen a day in whieh all
would be discovered, and she would fly to
Lucy to ask ibr a shelter.
She looked at her watch.
" A quarter-past three." she said. " There
is an express that leaves Doncaster at five. I
could walk the distance in tlie time."
She unlocked the door, and ran up stairs
to her own rooms. There was no one in the
dressing-room, but her maid was in the bed-
room, arranging some dresses in a huge ward-
robe.
Aurora selected her plainest bonnet and a
large gra}' cloak, and (juietly put them on
before the cheval glass in one of the pretty
French windows. The maid, busy with her
own work, did not take any particular notice
of her mistress's ac-tions ; for Jlrs. Mellish was
accustomed to wait upon herself, and disliked
any officious attention.
"How pretty the rooms look!" Aurora
thought, with a weary sigh; "how simple and
countrified! It was tor me that the new fur-
niture was chosen, ibr me that the bath-room
and conservatory were built.''
She looked through the vista of brightly-
carpeted rooms.
Would they ever seem as cheerful as they
had once done to tlieir master? Would he
still occupy them, or would he lock the doors,
and turn his back upon the olon a trusting girl ?"
It will perhaps be wondered at that John
Mellish. who suffered his servants to rule in
his household, and allowed his butler to dictate
to him what wines he should driidv, who talk-
ed freely to his grooms, and bade his trainer sit
in his presence — it will be wondered at, per-
haps, that this frank, free-spoken, simple-man-
nered young man should have felt so bitterly
the shame of Aurora's uneter that Squire
Mellish, of the Park, had no pride ; thai he
would clap poor folks on the shoulder, and give
them good -day as he lounged in the <|uiet
street ; that he would sit upou the corn-chand-
ler's counter, slashing his hunting-whip upon
those popular tops — about which a legend was
current, to the effei t that they were always
cleaned with Chamiiagne— and di>i ussing the
[irospects of the September meeting; and that
there was not within the three Ridin;xs a bet-
ter landlord or a nobh-r-hearled gcnilenien.
And all this was perfectly true. John Mel-
lish wa-i entirely without jn-rsonal pride ; but
tbeie wa,<« another pride, which was wlioily in-
separable from his education and positimi, and
this wa."* the pr!-yard into the carriage, and they talked
with that honest Northern twang which ai-
ways has a friendly sotmd to the Avriter of
this story. Aurora, with her veil drawn over
her pale fa<'e, attrai'ted very little of their .'»(,-
tention. They talked of farming-stock and
horse-racing, and looked out of the window
every now and then to shrug their shouldert
at somebodj' elses agriculture.
I believe they were acquainted with thi
capabilities of every acre of land betweto
Doncaster and Harrow, and knew how it
might have been made " worth ten shillin' an
acre more than it was, too, sir," as they per-
petually informed each other.
How wearisome their talk must have scen»-
ed to the poor lonely creature who 'was run-
ning away from the man she loved — from the
man who loved her, and would love to the end
of time.
" I did n't mean what T wrote," she thoughl.
148
AURORA FLOYD.
" My poor boy would never love me less. His
great heart is made up of unselfish love and
generous devotion. But he wouW be sorry
for me ; he would be so sorrj- ! He could
never be proud of me again; he could never
boast of me any more. He would be always
resenting some insult, or imagining some
slight. It would be too painful for him. He
would see his wife pointed at as the woman
who had married her groom. He would be
embroiled in a hundred quarrels, a hundred
miseries. I will make the only return that I
can ever make to him for his goodness to me —
I will give him up, and go away and hide my-
self from him for ever."
She tried to imagine what John's life would
be without her. She tried to think of him in
some future time, when he should have worn
out his grief, and reconciled himself to her
loss. But she could not, she could not ! She
could not endure any image of Mm in which
he was separated from his love for her.
" How should I ever think of him without
thinking of his love for me ?" she thought.
" He loved me from the lirst moment in which
he saw me. I have never known him except
as a lover — generous, pure, and true."
And in this mind Aurora watched the
smaller stations, which looked like mere
streaks of whitened wood-work as the express
tore past them, though every one of them was
a mile-stone upon the long road which was
separating her from the man she loved.
Ah I careless wives, who think it a small
thing, perhaps, that your husbands are honest
and generous, constant and true, and who are
apt to grumble because }Our next-door neigh-
bors have started a carriage, while you are
fain to be content with eighteen-penny airings
in vehicles procured at the nearest cab-stand,
stop and think of this wretched girl, who in
this hour of desolation recalled a thousand
little wrongs she had done to her husband,
and would have laid herself under his feet to
he walked over by him could she have thus
atoned for her petty tyrannies, her petty
caprices. Think of her in her loneliness,
with her heart yearning to go back to the
main she loved, and with her love arrayed
against herself, and pleading for him. She
changed her mind a hundred times during
that four hours journey, sometimes thinking
that she would go back by the next train, and
then again remembering that her first impulse
had been, perhaps, after all, only too correct,
and that John Mellish's heart had turned
against her in the cruel humiliation of that
morning's discovery.
Have you ever tried to imagine the anger
of a person whom you have never seen angry?
HaA'e you ever called up the image of a face
that has never looked on you except in love
and gentleness, and invested that familiar
countenance with the blank sternness of es-
tj'angement ? Aurora did this. She acted
over and over again in her weary brain the
scene that might have taken place between
her husband and herself. She remembered
that scene in the hackneyed stage-play, which
everybody affects to ridicule, and secretly
weeps at. She remembered Mrs. Haller and
the Stranger, the children, the countess, the
cottage, the jewels, the parchments, and all
the old familiar properties of that well-known
fifth act in the simple social tragedy, and she
pictured to herself John Hellish retiring into ,
some distant country Avitli his rheumatic train-
er Langley, and becoming a misanthropical
hermit, after the manner of the injured Ger-
man.
What was her life to be henceforth ? She
shut her eyes upon that blank future.
" I will go back to mv father,"' she thought;
"I will go back to him again, as I went before.
But this time there shall be no falsehoods,
no equivocations, and this time nothing shall
tempt me to leave him again."
Amid all her perplexities, she <'lung to the
thought that Lucy and Talbot would help her.
She would appeal to passionless Talbot Bul-
strode in liehalf of her j^oor heart-broken
John.
" Talbot will tell me what is right and
honorable to be done," she thought. " I will
hold by what he says. He shall be the arbiter
of my future."
I do not believe that Aurora had ever en--
tertained any very passionate devotion for the
handsome Cornishman, but it is very certain
that she had always respected him. It may
be that any love she had felt for him had
grown out of that very respect, and that her
reverence for his character was made all the
greater by the contrast between him and the
base-born schemer for whom her youth had
been sacrificed. She had submitted to the
decree which had separated her from her af-
fianced lover, for she had believed in its jus-
tice ; and she was ready now to submit to any
decision pronounced by the man in whose
sense of honor she had unbounded confidence.
She thought of all these things again, and
again, and again, while the farmers talked of
sheep and turnips, of Thorley's food, Swedes,
and beans, and corn, and clover, and of mys-
terious diseases, Avhich they discussed gravely,
under such terms as " red gum," " finger and
toe," etc. They alternated this talk with a
dash of turf scandal ; and even in the all-
absorbing perplexities of her domestic sor-
rows Mrs. Mellish could have turned fiercely
upon these innocent farmers when they pooh-
poohed John's stable, and made light of the
reputation of her namesake the bay filly, and
declared that no horse that came out of the
squire's stables was ever anything better than
a plater or a screw.
The journey came to an end, only too
quickly it seemed to Aurora — too quickly, for
everv mile widened the gulf she had set be-
AURORA FLOYD.
149
tween herself and the home she loved ; every
moment only brought the realization of her
loss more fully home to her mind.
" I will abide by Talbot Bulstrode's advice,"
she kept saying to herself; indeed, this
thought was tiie only reed to which she clung
in her trouble. She was not a strong-minded
woman. She had the generous, impulsive
nature which naturally turns to others for
help and comfort. Secret! veness had no part
in her organization, and the one concealment
of her life had been a perpetual i^aiii and
grief to her.
It was ])ast eight o'clock when she found
herself alone amid the bustle ami confusion of
the King's Cross terminus. She sent a porter
for a cab, and ordered the man to drive to
Halt-Moon street. It was only a few days
since she had met Lucy and Talbot at Felden
Woods, and she knew that Mr. Bulstrode and
his wife were detained in town, waiting for
the prorogation of the House.
It was Saturday evening, and therefore a
holiday for the young advocate of the Corni.sh
miners and their rights ; but Talbot spent his
leisure among P)lMc-books and Parliamentary
Minutes, and poor Lucy, who might have been
shining, a pale star, at some crowded conver-
sazione, was eomiH'Hcd to forego the pleasure
of struggling upoti the staircase of one of
those wise individuals wlio insist uj)on Inviting
their accpiaintauces to ])ack themselves into
the smallest given space consistent with the
preservation of life, and trample upon each
other's lace flounces and varnished lioots with
smiling equanimity. Perhaps, in tlie universal
fitness of things, even these fasliionable even-
ings have a certain solemn purpose, deeply
hidden under considerable sin-farc-fi'ivolity.
It may be that they serve as moral gymnasia,
in which the thews and sinews of social
amenity are racked and tortured, with a view
to their increased power of endurance. It is
good for a man to have his favorite corn trod-
den upon, and yet be compelled to smile un-
der the torture ; and a woman may leani her
first great lesson in fortitmle from the destruc-
tion of fifty guineas' worth of Mechlin, and
the necessity of assuring the destroyer that
she is rather gratified tlian otiierwise by the
sacrifice. Noblesse tihli(/e. It is good to "suf-
fer and be strong." Cold cofTee and tepid ice-
cream may not be the most strengthening or
delightful of food, but there may be a moral
diet provided at these social gatherings which
is not witliout its usefulness.
Lucy willingly abandoned her own delights,
for she had that lad)-like appreciation of so-
ciety which had been a part of her education.
Her placiid nature knew no abnormal tenden-
cies. She liked the amu.sements that other
girls of her position likcul. She hail none of
the eccentric predilections which had been so
fatal to her cousin. She was not like that
lovely and illustrious Spanish lady who is said
to love the cirque better than the opera, and
to have a more intense appreciation of a series
of flying plunges through tissue-j)aper-covered
hoops than of the most elaborate _^'.?-tV;n-e o(
tenor or soprano. She gave up something,
therefore, in resigning the stereotyped gaye-
ties of the London season. But, Heaven
knows, it was very pleasant to her to make
the sacrifice. Her inclinations were fatted
lambs, whi«h she offered willingly upon the
altar of her idol. She was never happier
than when sitting by her husband's side,
making extracts from the Blue-books, to be
quoted in some pamphlet that he was writing ;
or if she was ever happier, it was only when
she sat in the ladies' gallery, straining her
eyes athwart the floriated iron fretwork,
which screened her from any wandering
glances of distracted members, in her vain
efforts to see her husband in his place on the
government benches, and very rarely seeing
more than the crown of Mr. Bidstrode's hat.
She sat by Talbot's side upon this evening,
busy with some petty needle-work, ami listen-
ing with patient attention to her husbands
perusal of the proof-sheets of his last pamphlet.
It was a noble specimen of the stately and
ponderous stj'le of writing, and it abounded
in crushing arguments and niagnifictuit cli-
maxes, which utterly annihilated somebody
(Lucy did n't exactly make out who), and
most incontrovertibly established something,
though Mrs. Bulstrode could n't quite under-
stand what. It was enough for her that he
had written that wonderful composition, and
that it was his rich baritone voice that rolled
out the studied Johnsonianisms. If he had
pleased to read Greek to her, she would liav*
thought it pleasant to listen. Indeed, there
were pet passages of Homer which Mr. Bul-
strode now and then loved to recite to his
wife, and which the little hypocrite ])retended
to admire. No cloud had darkened the calm
heaven of Lucy's married life. She loved and
was beloved. It was a part of her natui'e tci
love in a reverential attitude, and she had no
wish to approach nearer to her idol. To sit
at her sultan's feet, and replenish the rose-
water in his <-kibori(/ue ; to watch him while
he slept, and wave the punkah above his
seraphic head ; to love, and admire, and
])ray for him, made up the sum of her heart's
desire.
It was close upon nine o'clock when Mr.
Bulstrode was Interrupted in the \i!ry crown-
ing sentence of his peroration by a double
knock at the street-door. The houses in
Half-Moon street are small, and Talbot flung
down his proof-sheet with a gesture expressive
of considerable irritation. Lucy looked up,
half sympathizlngly, iialf apologetically, at
her lord and master. She held herself in a
manner rcsj)onsible for his ease and comfort.
'■ Who can it be, dear V" she murmured ;
" at such a time, tool"'
150
AURORA FLOYD.
" Some annoyance or other, I dare say, my
dear," answered Talbot. "But, whoever it is,
I won't see them to-night. I suppose, Lucy,
T *ve given you a pretty fair idea of the eifect
of this upon my honorable friend, the member
for — "
Before Mr. Bulstrode could name the bor-
ough of which his honorable friend was the
representative, a servant announced that Mrs.
Mellish was waiting below to see the master
of the house.
"Aurora !" exclaimed Lucy, starting from
her seat and dropping the fairy implements of
her work in a little shower upon the carpet ;
"Auroral" It can't be, surely ? Why, Tal-
bot, she only went back to Yorkshire a few
days ago."
"Mr. and Mrs. Mellish are both below, I
suppose '?" Mr. Bulstrode said to the servant.
"No, sir; Mrs. Mellish came alone in a cab
from the station, I believe. Mrs. Mellish is in
the library, sir. I asked her to walk up stairs,
but she requested to see you alone, sir, if you
please."
" I 'II come directly," answei-ed Talbot.
" Tell Mrs. Mellish I will be with her immedi-
ately."
The door closed upon the servant, and Lucy
ran toward it, eager to hurry to her cousin.
" Poor Aurora," she said; "there must be
wmething wrong, surely. Uncle Archibald
has been taken ill, perhaps ; he was not look-
ing well when we left Felden. I '11 go to
lier, Talbot; I 'm sure she 'd like to see me
finst."
"No, Lucy, no," answered Mr. Bulstrode,
laying his hand upon the door, and standing
between it and his wife ; " 1 had rather yoii
did n't see your cousin until I have seen her.
It will be better for me to see her first." His
face was very grave, and his manner almost
stern as he said this. Lucy shrank fi-om him
as if he had wounded her. She understood
him very vaguely, it is true, but she under-
.stood that he had some doubt or suspicion of
her cousin, and, for the first time in his life, Mr.
Bulstrode saw an angry light kindled in his
wife's blue eyes.
" Why should you prevent my seeing Au-
rora?" Lucy asked; "she is the best and
with the few guests who came to Felden, and
162
AURORA FLOYD.
the town-bred impostor profited by compari-
son with rustic gentlemen. Why sliould I
stay to account to you for my folly, Talbot
Bulstrode? I could never succeed in doing
so, though I talked for a week ; I can not ac-
count to myself for my madness. I can only
look back to that horrible time, and wonder
why I was mad."
" My poor Aurora ! my poor Aurora !"
He spoke in the pitying tone with which he
might have comforted her had she been a
child. He was thinking of her in her childish
ignorance, exposed to the insidious advances
of an unscrupulous schemer, and his heart
bled for the motherless girl.
" My father found some letters written by
this man, and discovered that his daughter
had affianced herself to his groom. He made
this discovery while I was out riding with
James Conyers — the groom's name Avas Con-
yers — and when I came home there was a
fearful scene between us. I was mad enough
and wicked enough to defend my conduct,
and to reproach my father with the illiberality
of his sentiments. I went even farther : I
reminded him that the house of Floyd and
Floyd had had a very humble origin. He
took me to Paris upon the folloAving day. I
thought myself cruelly treated. I revolted
against the ceremonial monotony of the pen-
sloii ; I hated the studies, which were ten
times more difficult than anything I had ever
experienced with my governess; I suffered
terribly from the conventual seclusion, for I
had been used to perfect freedom among the
country roads round Felden ; and, amid all
this, the groom pursued me with letters and
messages, for he had followed me to Paris,
and spent his money recklessly in bribing the
servants and hangers-on of the school. He
was playing for a high stake, and he played
so desperately that he won. I ran away from
school, and married him at Dover, within
eight or nine hours of my escape from the
Rue Saint Dominique."
She buried her face in her hands, and was
silent for some time.
" Heaven have pity upon my wretched ig-
norance !" she said at last ; " the illusion under
which I had married this man ended in about
a week. At the end of that time I discovered
that I was the victim of a mercenary wretch,
who meant to use me to the uttermost as a
means of wringing money from my father.
For some time I submitted, and my father
paid, and paid dearly, for his daughter's folly;
out he refused to receive the man I had mar-
ried, or to see me until I separated my-
self from that man. He offered the groom
an income on the condition of his going to
Australia, and resigning all association with
me for ever. But the man had a higher game
to play. He wanted to bring about a recon-
ciliation with my father, and he thought that
in due time that tender father's resolution
would have yielded to the force of his love.
It was little better than a year after our mar-
riage that I made a discovery that transformed
me in one moment from a girl into a woman
— a revengeful woman, perhaps, Mr. Bul-
strode. I discovered that I had been wron-own. Surely .such a lesson was not
to be altogether unheeded! Surely it was
powerful enough to teach her the duty of
sacrifice! It was this thougiit that steeled
her against the pleadings of her own afiec-
tion It was for thi.s that she looked to Tal-
bot Bulstrode as the arbiter of her future.
Had .she been a Roman Catholic, she would
have gone to her confessor, and ajjpealeil to a
priest — who, having no social ties of his own.
must, of course, be the best judge of all the
duties involved in domestic relation.s — for
comfort and succor; but, In-Ing of anotiier
faith, she went to the man whom she most re-
spected, and who. being a hu.4)and himself,
might, as she thought, be able to comprehend
the duty that was due to her husband.
She went down stairs with Lucy Into a little 1
inner room upon tin- drawing-room floor — a
snug apartment, opening Into a mite of a con-
servatory. It waa Mr. and Mis. Bulstrode's
habit to breakfast In this cosy little chamber
rather than in that awful temple of slippery
morocco, i'uuereal bronze, and ghastly mahog-
any, which upholsterers insist upon as the
only legiti^nate place in which an English-
man may take his meals. Lucy loved to sit
opposite her husband at the small round table,
and minister to his morning ap])etite from her
pretty breakfast c(iulp.vge of silver and china.
Slie knew — to the smallest weight employed
at Apothecarlt^s' llall, I think — how much
sugar Mr. Bulstrode liked In his tea. She
l)Oured the cream into his cup as carefully as
if she had been making up a prescription. He
took the simi)le beverage in a great shallow
breakfast-cup of i'ragiie turquoise Sevres, that
had cost seven guineas, and had been made
for Madame du Barry, the rococo merchant
had told Tall)ot. (Mad his (.ustomer been a
lady, I fear Marie Antoinette woulil have
been described as the original possessor of
the porcelain.) Mrs. Bulstrode loved to min-
ister to her husband. She picked the bloated
livers of martyred geese out of the Strasburgh
pics for his delectation ; she spread tlie butter
upon his dry toast, and |)ampered and waited
on him, serving him as only such women serve
tho.'w i»lols. But this morning she had her
cousin's sorrows to comfort, and she establish-
ed Aurora in a capacious chintz-covered uasy-
chair on the threshold of the conservatory,
and seated herself at her fei't.
" My poor, pale darling," she said, tenderly,
"what can I do to bring the roses back to
your cheeks ?"
" Love me, and pity me, dear," Aurora an-
swered, gravely, "but don't ask me any (pies-
tions."
The two women sat thus for some time,
Aurora's haudsomi.' ln-ad bent over Lucy's
fair face, and her hand clasped in both Lucy's
hands. They talked very little, and only
spoke then of indifferent matters, or of Lucy's
happiness and Talbot's parliamentary career.
The little clock over the chlmney-[)iece struck
the quarter before eight; they were very
eai'ly, these unfashionable peojile ; and a min-
ute afterward Mrs. Bulstrode heard her hus-
band's step upon the stairs, returning from
his ante-breakfast walk. It was his liabit to
take a constitutional stroll in the (ireen Park
now and then, .so Lucy had thought nothing
of this early excursion.
" Talbot has let himself in with his latch-
key," said Mrs. Bulstrode, " and I may pour
out the tea, Aurora. But listen, dear; I
think there 's some one with him."'
There was no need to bid Aurora listen ;
she had started from her low seat, and stootl
erect and motionless, breathing in a rjuick,
agitated manner, and looking towanl the
door. Beside.s Tnlbot Bulstrode'.'* step there
was another, quicker and heavier — a step
she knew .so well.
The door was opened, and Talbot entered
156
AURORA FLOYD.
the room, followed by a visitor, who pushed
aside his host with very little attention to the
laws of civilized society, and, indeed, nearly
drove Mr. Bulstrode backward into a gilded
basket of tlowers. But this stalwart John
Mellish had no intention ofbeint; unmannerly
or brutal. He pushed aside liis friend only
as he would have pushed, or tried to push,
aside a re2;iment of soldiei-s with fixed bayo-
nets, or a Lancaster gun, or a raging ocean, or
any other impediment that had come between
him and Aurora. He had her in his arms be-
fore she could even cry his name aloud in her
glad surprise, and in another moment she was
sobbing on his breast.
" My darling! my pet! my own !" he cried,
smoothing her dark hair with his broad hand,
and blessing her, and weeping over her — " mv
own love ! How could you do this ? how
could you wrong mc so much y My own
precious darling ! had you learned to know
me no better than ihh in all our happy mar-
ried life ?"
" I came to ask Talbot's advice, John," she
said, earnestly, " and I mean to abide by it,
however cruel it may seem."
Mr. Bulstrode smiled gravely as he watched
these two foolish people. He was very much
pleased with his part in the little domestic
drama, and he contemplated them with a sub-
lime consciousness of being the author of all
this happiness; for they were happy. The
poet has said, there are some moments — very
rare, very precious, very brief — whi(di stand
by themselves, and have their perfect fulness
of joy within their own fleeting span, taking
nothing from tlie past, demanding nothing of
the future. Had John and Aurora known
that they were to be separated by the breadth
of Europe for the remainder of their several
lives, they would not the less have wejjt joyful
tears at the pure blissfulness of this meeting.
" You asked me for my advice, Aurora,"
said Talbot, " and I bring'it to you. Let the
past die with the man who died the other
night. Tiie future is not yours to dispose of;
it belongs to your husband, John Mellish."
Having delivered himself of these oracular
sentences, Mr. Bulstrode seated himself .at
the breakfast-table, and looked into the mys-
terious and cavernous interior of a raised pie
with such an intent gaze that it seemed as if
he never meant to look out of it. H(! devoted
so many minutes to this serious contempla-
tion that by the time he looked up again
Aurora had become quite calm, while "Mr.
Mellish affected an unnatural gayety, and
exhibited no stronger sign of past emotion
than a certain inflamed appearance in the
region of his eyelids.
But this stalwart, devoted, impressionable
Yorkshirenian ate a most extraordmary repast'
in honor of this reunion. He spread mustard
on his muffins. He poured Worcester sauce
into his coflfee, and cream over his deviled
cutlets. He showed his gratitude to Lucy by
loading her plate with comestibles she did n't
want. He talked perpetually, and devoured
incongruous viands in utter absence of mind.
He shook hands with Talbot so many times
across the breakfast-talile that he exposed the
lives or limbs of the whole party to imminent
peril from the boiling water in the urn. He
threw himself into a paroxysm of coughing,
and made himself scarlet in the face by an
injudicious use of Cayenne pepper ; and he ex-
hibited himself altogether in such an imbecile
light, that Talbot Bulstrode was compelled to
have recourse to all sorts of expedients to
keep the servants out of the room during the
progress of that rather noisy and bewildering
repast.
The Sunday papers were brought to the
master of the house before breakfast was over;
and while John talked, ate, and gesticulated,
Mr. Bulstrode hid himself behind the open
leaves of the Weekly •Dispatch, reading a par-
agraph that appeared in that journal.
This paragraph gave a brief account of the
murder and the inquest at Mellish, and wound
up by that rather stereotyped sentence, in
which the public are informed that " the local
police are giving unremitting attention to the
affair, and we think we may venture to affirm
that they have obtained a clew whicli will
most probably lead to the early discovery of
the guilty party."
Talbot Bulstrode, with the newspaper still
before his face, sat for some little time frown-
ing darkly at the page upon which this para-
graph api)eared. The horrible shadow, Avhose
nature he would not acknowledge even to
himself, once more lowered upon the horizon
which had just seemed so bright and clear.
" I would give a thousand pounds," he
thought, " if I could find the murderer of this
CHAPTER XXXH.
ON TUK WATCH.
Very soon after breakfast upon that happ}"
Sabbath of reunion and contentment, John
Mellish drove Aurora to Felden Woods. It
was necessary that Archibald Floyd should
hear the story of tlie trainer's deatl^ from the
lips of his own children, before newspaper
paragraphs terrified him with some imperfect
outline of the truth.
The dashing phaeton in which Mr. Bul-
strode was in the habit of driving his wife
was brought to the door as the church-bells
were calling devout citizens to their moi-ning
duties, and at that unseemly hour John Mel-
lish smacked his whip, and dashed off in the
direction of Westminster Bridge.
Talbot Bulstrode's horses soon left London
behind them, and before long the phaeton
was driving upon the trim park-like roads,
AURORA FLOYD.
157
overshadowed by luxuriant foliage, and bor-
dered here and there by exquisitely-ordered
gardens and rustic villas, that glittered whitely
in the sunshine. The holy peace of the quiet
Sabbath was upon every objeet that tliey
passed, even upon the leaves and flowers, as
it seemed to Aurora. The birds sang sub-
dued and murmuring harmonies ; the light
summer breeze soarL-ely stirreil tiie deep grass
on which the lazy cattle stood to watch the
phaeton dasli by.
Ah ! how happy Aurora was, seated by the
side of the man who'se love had outlasted
every trial ! How liappy now tliat the dark
wall that had divided them was shattered,
and they were indeed united! John IMellish
was as tender and pitying toward her as a
mother to her forgiven child. He asked no
explanations; he sought to know nothing of
the past. He was content to believe that she
had been Ibolish and mistaken, and that the
mistake and folly of her life would be buried
in the grave of the murdered trainer. .
The lodge -keeper at Fehlen Woods ex-
claimed as he opened the gates to his master's
daughter. He was an old man, and he had
opened the same gates more than twenty years
before, when the banker's re both honorable men,
and they had jiledgcd themselves to be silent.
Archibald Floyd did not obsei-ve his son-in-
law's embarrassment; and the phaeton drove
away, leaving the old man standing on the
terrace-steps looking alter his daughter.
" I must sliut up this place," he thought,
"and go to I\Iellish to finish my days. I <,'ai»
not endure these separations ; I can not bear
this suspense. It is a pitiful sham, my keep-
ing house, and living in all this dreary gran-
deur. I '11 shut up the place, and ask my
daughter to give me a (juict corner in her
Yorkshire home, and a grave in the parish
church-yard."
The lodge-keeper turn(!d out of his com-
fortable Gotliic habitation to open the clank-
selves base and spurious. The priest who is i ing iron gates for the phaeton ; but John
familiar with the altar learns no contempt ibi
its sacred images; but it is rather the ignorant
neoplnte who .sneers and sniggers at things
which he can not understand. The artist be-
comes only more reverent as toil and study
make him more familiar with his art ; its
eternal sublimity grows upon him, and he
drew up his horses before they dashed into
the road, for he saw that the man wanted to
speak to him.
" What is it, Forbes V" he asked.
" Oh, it 's nothing partiiular, sir," said the
man, '' and perhaps I ought n't to trouble
you about it ; but did you e.xpect any one
worships the far-away Goddess of Perfection j down to-day, sir ?'
as hund^ly when he drops his brush or his! " E^xpect any one here? no!" exclaimed
chisel after a life of patient labor as he did i John.
when first he ground color or pointed rough ! " There 's been a person inquirin', sir, this
blocks of marble for his master. And I can ! atlernoon— two persons, I may say, in a shay-
not believe that a -rood man's respect for the i eart — but one of 'em asked particular if you
woman he love.^ can be lessened by that sweet | was here, sir, and if Mrs. Meliish was here ;
and everyday familiarity in which a hundred | and whi-n I said yes, you was, th.; gent savs
hou.«ehold virtues and gentle beauties— never ' it was n't worth troublin' you about, the busi-
dreamed of in the ball-rooms where he first \ ness as he 'd come upon, and as he 'd call
danced witli an unknown idol in gauzy robes i another time. And he a.sked me what time
and glimmering jewels— grow upon him, until I you 'd be likely to be leavin' the Woods;
he confes.ses that the wife of ten years stand- l "and I said I made no doubt yon 'd slay to
ing is even ten times dearer than the bride of dinner up at the house. So he says ' .\11
a week's honevmoon. ' right,' and drives ofi'. '
Archibald Flovd came back from church,! " He left no message, then V"
and found his two children sitting side by side j " No. sir. He said nothin' more than what
in one of the broad windows, watching for his j I 've told you."
arrival, and whispering together like lovers, "Then his business could have been of no
as I have said they were. I gn-at importance, Forbes," answered John,
They "lined jileanantly together later in the i laiighin;:. " So we nced^n't worry our hcad-<
evening, and a little after dark the phaeton about him. Good-night."
was brought round to the terrace-steps, and { Mr. Meliish .Iropped a five-shilling piece
Aurora kissed her father as she wished him into the lodge-keeper's h.and, gave Talbot's
f'ood-night. horses their heads, and the phaeton rolled off
160
AURORA FLOYD.
Loiulonward over the crisp gravel of the well-
kept Beckeiiham roads.
" Who could the man have been ?" Aurora
asked, as they left the gates.
" Goodness knows, my dear," John answer-
ed, carelessly. " Somebody on racing busi-
ness, perhaps."
Racing business seems to be in itself such a
mysterious business that it is no strange thing
for mysterious people to be always turning up
in relation to it. Aurora, therefore, was con-
tent to accept this explanation, but not with-
out some degree of wonderment.
" I can't understand the man coming to
Felden after you, John," she said. " How
could he know that you were to be there
to-day V"
" Ah ! how indeed, Lolly ?" returned Mr.
Mellish. "He chanced it, I suppose. A sharp
customer, no doubt ; wants to sell a horse, I
dare say, and heard I did n't mind giving a
good price for a good thing."
Mr. Mellish might have gone even farther
than this, lor there were many horsey gentle-
men in his neighborhood, past masters in the
art they practised, who were wont to say that
the young squire, judiciously manipulated,
might be induced to give a remarkably good
price for a very bad thing, and there were
many broken-down, slim-legged horses in the
Mellish stables that bore witness to the same
fact. Those needy chevaliers iVeaprity who
think that Burke's landed gentry were cre-
ated by Providence and endowed with the
goods of this world for their especial benefit,
just as pigeons are made plump and nice eat-
ing for the delectation of hawks, drove a
wholesale trade upon the young man's frank
simplicity and hearty belief in his fellow-
creatures. I think it is Eliza Cook who says,
" It is better to trust and be deceived, than
own the mean, poor spirit that betrays;" and
if there is any happiness in being " done,"
poor John enjoyed that fleeting delight pretty
frequently.
There was a turn in the road between
Beckeiiham and Norwood ; and as the phae-
ton swept round, a chaise or dog -cart, a
shabby vehicle enough, with a rakish-looking
horse, drove close up, and the man who was
driving asked the scjuire to put him in the
nearest way to Loudon. The vehicle had
been behind them all the way from Felden,
but had kept at a very respectful distance
until now.
"Do you want to get to the city or tiie
West End ?" John a.sked.
" The West End."
" Then you can't do better than follow us,"
answered Mr. Mellish ; " the road 's clean
enough, and your iiorse seems a good one to
go. You can keep us In sight, I suppose ?
" Yes, sir, and thank ye."
" All right, then."
Talbot Bulstrode's thorough-breds dashed
olT, but the rakish -looking horse kept his
ground behind tliem. He had something of
the insolent, off-hand assurance of a butch-
er's horse, accustomed to whirl a bare-headed,
blue-coated master through the sharp morn-
ing air.
" I was right, Lolly,' Mr. Mellish said, as
he left the dog-cart behind.
" How do you mean, dear ?" asked Aurora.
" The man who spoke to us just now is the
man who has been inquiring for me at Felden.
He 's a Yorkshireman."
" A Yorkshireman !"
" Yes ; did n't you hear the North-country
twang? '
No; she had not listened to the man, nor
heeded him. How should she think of any-
thing but her newborn happiness — the new-
born confidence between herself and the hus-
band she loved ?
Do not think her hard-hearted or cruel if
she forgot that it was the death of a fellow-
creature, a sinful man stri<;ken down in the
prime, of youth and health, that had given
her this welcome release. She had suffered
so much that the release could not be other-
wise than welcome, let it come how it might.
j Her nature, I'rank and open as the day,
I had been dwarfed and crippled by the secret
I that had blighted her life. Can it be won-
dered, then, that she rejoiced now that all
need of secrecy was over, and this generous
spirit might expand as It pleased V
It was past ten when the phaeton turned
into Half-Moon street. The men In the dog-
cart had followed Johns directions to the
letter, for it was only in Piccadilly that Mr.
Mellish had lost sight of them among other
vehicles travelling backward and forward on
the lamplit thoroughfare.
Talbot and Lucy received their visitors
in one of the pretty little drawing-rooms.
The young husband and wife had spent a
quiet day together ; going to church in the
morning and afternoon, dining alone, and
sitting in the twilight, talking happily and
confidentially. Mr. Bulstrode was no Sab-
bath-breaker; and John Mellish had reason
to consider himself a peculiarly privileged
person, inasmuch as the thorough-breds had
been permitted to leave their stables for his
service, to say nothing of the groom, who had
been absent from his hard seat in the ser-
vants' pew at a fashionable chapel in order
that he might accompany John and Aurora to
Felden.
The little party sat up rather late, Aurora
and Lucy talking affectionately together, side
by side, upon a sofa in the shadow of the
room, while the two men lounged in the open
window. John told his host the history of
the day, and In doing so casually mentioned
the man who had asked him the way to
London.
Strange to say, Talbot Bulstrode seemed
AURORA FLOYD.
161
especially interested in this part of the story.
He asked several questions about the men.
He asked what they were like ; what was
said by eitlier of tliein ; and made many other
inquiries, wliioh seemed equally trivial.
" Then they followed you into town, John ?"
he said, finally.
'' Yes ; I only lost sight of them in Picca-
dilly, five minutes before I turned the corner
of the street."
" Do you think they had any motive in
following you ?" asked Talbot.
" Well, I fancy so ; they 're on the look-out
for information, I expect. The man who
spoke to me looked something like a tout.
I 've heard that Lord Stamford 's rather anx-
ious .about my West-Australian colt, the Pork
Butcher. Perhaps his people have set these
men to work to find out if I 'm going to run
him ill the Leger."
Talbot Bulstrode smiled bitterly, almost
mournfully, at the vanity of horseflesh. It
was painful to see this light-hearted young
squire looking in such ignorant hopefulness
toward a horizon upon which graver and
moie thoughtful men could see a dreadful
shadow lowering. Mr. Bulstrode was stand-
ing close to the balcony ; he stepped out
among the china boxes of mignonette, and
looked down into the quiet street. A man
was leaning against a lamp-post some few
paces from Talbot's house, smoking a cigar,
and with his i'ace turned toward the balcony.
He finished his cigar deliberately, threw the
end into the road, and walked away while
Talbot kept watch ; but Mr. Bulstrode did
not leave his post of observation, and about a
quarter of an hour afterward he saw the same
man lounging slowly along the pavement
upon the other side of the street. John, who
.sat within the shadow of the window-cur-
tains, lolling against them, and creasing their
delicate folds with the heavy pressure of his
broad back, was utterly unconscious of all this.
Early the next morning Mr. Bulstrode and
Mr. Mellish took a Hansom cab, and rattled
down to Doctor's Commons, where, for the
second time in his life, John gave himself up
to be fought for by Avhite - aproned eccle-
siastical touts, and eventually obtained the
Archbishop of Canterbury's gracious sanction
of his marriage with Aurora, widow of James
Conyers, only daughter of Archibald Floyd,
banker. From Doctor's Commons the two
gentlemen drove to a certain quiet, out-of-the-
vay church, within the sound of Bow bells,
but so completely hidden among piles of
warehouxs, top - heavy chimneys, sloping
roofs, and other eccentricities of masonry,
that any unhappy bridegroom who had ap-
pointed to be .married there was likely
enough to spend the whole of the wedding-
day in futile endeavors to find the church-
door. Here John discovered a mouldy clerk,
who was fetched from some habitation in the
11
neighborhood with considerable difficulty l>j
a boy, who Tolunteered to accomplish any-
thing under heaven for a certain copper con-
sideration; and to this clerk Mr. Mellish gave
notice of a marriage which was to take place
upon the following day, by special license.
" I '11 take my second marriage certificate
back with me," John said, as he lefl the
church, " and then I should like to see who 'II
dare to look me in the face, and tell me that my
darling is not my own lawfully-wedded wife."
He was thinking of Mrs. Powell as he said
this. He was thinking of the pale, spiteful
eyes tliat had looked at him, and of the
woman's tongue that had stabbed him with
all a little nature's great capacity for hate.
He would be able to defy her now; he would
be able to defy every creature in the world
who dared to breathe a syllable against his
beloved wife.
Early the next morning the marriage took
place. Archibald Floyd, Talbot Bulstrode,
and Lucy were the only witnesses — that is to
say, the only witnesses with the exception of
the clerk and the pew-opener, and a couple of
men who lounged into the church when the
ceremony was half over, and slouched about
one of the side aisles, looking at tiie monu-
ments, and talking to each other in whispers,
until the parson took off his surplice, and
John came out of the vestry with his wife
upon his arm.
Mr. and Mrs. Mellish did not return to
Half-Moou street ; they drove straight to the
(ireat Northern Station, whence they started
by the afternoon express for Doncaster. John
was anxious to return: for remember that he
had left his household under very peculiikr
circumstances, and strange reports might
have arisen in his absence.
The )Oung squire would perhaps scarcely
have thought of this had not the idea been
suggested to him by Talbot Bulstrode, who
particularly urged upon him the expediency
of returning immediately.
" Go back, John," said Mr. Bulstrode,
" without an hour's unnecessary delay. If
by any chance there should be some farther
disturbance »bout this murder, it will be
much better for you, and Aurora too, to be
on the spot. I will come down to Melliuh
myself in a day or two, and will bring Lucy
with me, if you will allow me."
"Allow yuu, my dear Talbot 1"
"1 iciU coine, then. Good -by, and God
bless you! Take care of your wife."
CHAPTER XXXIH.
s
CAPTAIN PKOPDKU OOKS BACK TO DOW-
PASTKR.
Mr. Samuel Prodder, returning to London,
after having played his insignificant part ia
1(2
AURORA FLOYD.
the tragedy at Feldeu Woods, found that eity
singularly dull and gloomy. He put up at
some dismal Hjoarding-house, situated amid a
mazy labyrinth of brick and mortar between
the Tower and Wapping, and having relations
with another boarding-house in Liverpool.
He took up his abode at this place, in which
he wa,s known and respected. He drank rum
and water, and played cribbage with other
seamen, made after the same pattern as him-
self. He even went to an East-End theatre
upon the Saturday night after the murder,
and sat out the representation of a nautical
drama, which he would have been glad to
have believed in, had it not promulgated such
wild theories in the science of navigation, and
exhibited such extraordinary experiments in
the manoeuvring of the man - of- war upon
which the action of the play took place as to
cause the captain's hair to stand on end in the
intensity of his wonder. The things people
did upon that ship curdled Samuel Prodder's
blood, as he sat In the lonely grandeur of the
eighteen-penny boxes. It was quite a common
thing for them to walk unhesHtatingly through
the bulwarks, and disappear in what ought to
have been the sea. The extent of browbeat-
ing and humiliation borne by the captain of
that noble vessel; the amount of authority
exercised by a sailor with loose legs; the ago-
nies of sea-sjckness, represented by a comic
countryman, who had no particular business
on board tlie gallant bark; the proportion of
hornpipe-dancing and nautical ballad-singing
pone tlu'ough as compared to the work that
was done, all combined to impress poor Sam-
uel with such a novel view of her majesty's
naval service that he was very glad when the
captain who had been browbeaten suddenly
repented of all his sins — not without a sharp
reminder from the prompter, who informed
the dramatis persona; tliat it was parst twelve,
and they 'd better cut it short — joined the
hands of the contumacious sailor and a young
lady in white muslin, and begged them to be
happy.
It was in vain that the captain sought dis-
traction from the one idea upon which he had
perpetually brooded since the night of his visit
to MeUish Park. He would be wanted in
Yorkshire to tell what he knew of the dark
history of that fatal night. He would be
called upon to declare at what hour he had
entered the wood, whom he had met there,
what he had seen and heard there. They
would extort from him that which he would
have died rather than tell. They would cross-
examine, and bewilder, and torment him, un-
til he told them everything — until he repeat-
ed, syllable by syllable, the passionate words
that had been said — until he told them how,
within a quarter of an hour of the firing of
the pistol, he had been the witness of a des- I
perate scene between his niece and the mur-
dered man — a scene in which concentrated
hate, vengeful fury, illimitable disdain and
detestation had been expressed by her — by
her alone: the man had been calm and mod-
erate enough. It was she who had been
angry; It was she who had given loud utter-
ance to her hate.
Now, by reason of one of those strange in-
consistencies common to weak human nature,
the captain, though possessed night and day
by a blind terror of being suddenly pounced
upon by the minions of the law, and compelled
to betray his niece's secret, could not rest in
his safe retreat amid the labyrinths of Wap-
ping, but must needs pine to return to the
scene of the murder. He wanted to know
the result of the inquest. The Sunday papers
gave a very meagre, account, only hinting
darkly at suspected parties. He wanted to
ascertain for himself what had happened at
the inquest, and whether his absence had
given rise to suspicion. He wanted to see his
niece again — to see her In the daylight, un-
disturbed by passion. He wanted to see this
beautiful tigress in her calmer moods, if she
ever had any calmer moods. Heaven knows
the simple merchant-captain was wellnigh dis-
tracted as he thought of his sister Eliza's child,
and the awful circumstances of his first and
only meeting with her.
Was sh« — that which he feared people
might be led to think her if they heard the
story of that scene in the wood? No, no, no!
She was his sister's child — the child of that
merry, impetuous little girl who had worn a
pinatbre and played hop-scotcii. He remem-
bered his sister flying into a rage with one
Tommy Barnes for unfair practices in that
very game, and upbraiding \m\\ almost as pas-
sionately as Aurora had upbraided the dead
man. But if Tommj' Barnes had been found
strangled by a skipping-rope, or shot dead
from a pea-shooter In the next street a quar-
ter of an hour afterward, would Eliza's broth-
er have thouglit that she must needs be guilty
of the boy's murder? The captain had gone
so far as to reason thus in his trouble of mind.
His sister Eliza's child would be likely to be
passionate and impetuous, but his sister Eliza's
child would be a generous, warm-hearted
creature, incapable of any cruelty in either
thought or deed. He remembered his sister
Eliza boxing his ears on the occasion of his
gouging out the eyes of her wax doll, but he
remembered the same dark-eyed sister sobbing
piteously at the spectacle of a lamb that a
heartless butcher was dragging to the slaugh-
ter-house.
But the more seriously Captain Prodder
revolved this question in his mind, the more
decidedly his inclination pointed fo Doncaster;
and early upon that very morning on which
the quiet marriage had taken place in the
obscure city church he repaired to a magnifi-
cent Israelitish temple of fashion in the Mi-
nories, and there ordered a suit of such clothes
AURORA FLOYD.
16$
fes wevo most aflTectetl by elegant landsmen.
The Israclitish salesman rec-onimcMKk'd some-
thinir liglit and lively in the faney-check lino;
and Mr. Prodder. submitting to that authority
as beyond all question, invested himself in a
suit which he had contemplated solemnly
athwart a vast expanse of piate.-glass before
entering the temple of the Graces. It was
"our ai'istocratie tourist," at seventy -seven
shillings and sixpence, and was made of a
fleecy and rather powdery-looking cloth, in
which the hues of baked and unbaked bricks
predominated over a more deli(%ate hearth-
stone tint, which latter the shopman had de-
clared to be a color that West-End tailors had
vainly striven to emulate.
The captain, dressed in "our aristocratic
tourist," Avhich suit was of the ultra cut-away
and peg-toppy order, and with his sleeves and
trowsers inflated by any chance summer's
breeze, had perhaps more of the appearance
of a tombola than is quite in accoidance with
a strictly artistic view of the human figure.
In his desire to make himself utterly irrecog-
nizable as the seafaring man who had carried
the tidings of the murder to Mellish Park, the
captain had tortured himself by substituting
a tight circular collar and a wisp of purjile
ribbon for the honest half-yard of snowy linen
which it had been his habit to wear turned
over the loose collar of his blue coat. He
sufferfid acute agonies from this modern de-
vice, but he bore them bravely; and he went
straight from the tailor's to the Great North-
ern Railway Station, where he took his ticket
for Doncaster. He meant to visit that town |
as an aristocratic tourist; he would keep him- \
self aloof from the neighborhood ot Mellish |
Park, but he would be sure to hear the result
of the in(juest, and he would be able to ascer-
tain for himself whether any trouble had come. I
upon his sister's ciiild. |
The sea-captain did not travel by that ex- !
press which carried Mr. and Mrs. Mellish to j
Doncaster, but by an uarlier and a slower j
train, which lumbered (pnetly along the road, 1
conveying inferior j)ersons, to whom time was
not measured by a golden standard, and 'who
smoked, and slept, and ate, and drank resign- |
edly enough througli the eight or nine hours
journey.
It was dusk when Samuel Prodder reached
the quiet racing-town from which he had tied
away in the dead of the night so short a time
before. He left the station, and made his i
way to the market-phace, and from the, mar- j
ket-plaee he struck into a narrow lane that !
led him to an obscure street upon the out- :
skirts of the town. He had a great terror of 1
being led by some unha})py accident into
the neighborhood of the " Reindeer," lest he
should be recognized by some hanger-on of
that hotel.
Half-way between the beginning of the
straggling street and the point at which it
dwindled and shrank away into a country
lane, the captain found a little public -house
called the "Crooked Rabbit" — such an ob-
scure and out-of-the-way place of entertain-
ment that poor Samuel thought him.self safe
in seeking for rest and refreshment within its
dingy walls. There was a framed and glazed
legend of "good beds" hanging behind -an
opaque window-pane — beds for which the
landlord of the " Crooked Rabbit" was in the
habit of asking and receiving almost fabulous
prices during the great Leger week. But
them seemed little enough doing at the hum-
ble tavern just now, and Captain Prodder
walked boldly in, ordered a steak and a pint
of ale, with a glass of rum and water, hot, to
follow, at the bar, and engaged one of the
good beds for his accommodation. The land-
lord, Avho was a fat man, lounged with his
back against the bar, reading the sporting
news in the Manchester Guardinn ; and it was
the landlady who took Mr. Proddei-'s orders,
and showed him the way into an awkwardlv-
shaped parlor, which wa^ nuich below the rest
of the house, and into which the uninitiated
visitor was apt to precipitate himsidf head
foremost, as into a well or jiit. There were
several small mahogany tables in this room, all
adorned with sticky arabesques formed by the
wet impressions of the bottom rims of pewter
pots; there were so many spittoons that it
was almost impossible to walk fii-om one end of
the room to the other without taking uninten-
tional foot-baths of sawdust; there was an
old bagatelle - table, the cloth of which had
changed from green to dingy yellow, and was
frayed and tattered like a poor man's coat;
and there was a low window, the sill of which
was almost on a level with the pavement of
the street.
The merchant-captain threw off his hat,
loosened the slip of ribbon and the torturing
circular collar supplied him by the Israelitish
outfitter, and east himself into a shining ma-
hogany arm-chair close to this window. Tlie
lower {)anes wen; shroudeant to have kep'
quiet here," cried the captain, with a vague
recollection that he had betrayed himself and
his purpose ; " but was I to keep quiet and
hear lies told of my own niece ? Take care,"
he added, shaking the .«ofty, till Mr. Har-
graves' teeth chattered in his head, " or I 'U
knock those crooked teeth of yours down
your ugly throat, to hinder yon from telling
any more lies of my dead sister's only child."
" They were n't lies," gasped the softy, dog-
gedly ; " I said I 've got the letter, and I have
got it. Let me go, and I '11 show it to you."
The sailor released the dirty wisp of cotton
neckerchief by which he had held Stephen
Margraves, but he still retained a grasp upoa
his coat-collar.
" Shall I show you the letter ?" asked the
softy.
" Yes."
168
AURORA FLOYD.
Mr. Harffraves fumbled in his pockets for
some minutes, and ultimately produced a dirty
scrap of crumpled paper.
It was the brief scrawl which Aurora had
■written to James Conyers, tellinji him to meet
her in the wood. The murdered man had
thrown it carelessly aside, after readinjr it,
and it had been picked up by Stephen Har-
graves.
He would not trust the precious document
out of his own clumsy hands, but held it be-
fore Captain Prodder for inspection.
The sailor stared at it, anxious, bewildered,
fearful; he scarcely knew how to estimate the
importance of the wretched scrap of circum-
etantial evidence. There were the words,
certainly, written in a bold, .scarcely feminine
hand. But these words in themselves proved
nothing until it could be proved that his niece
had written them.
*' How do T know as my .sister Eliza's child
wrote that ?" he asked.
" Ay, sure; but she did, though," answered
the softy. " But, coom, lot me go now, will
you ?" he added, with cringing civility ; " I
did n't know you was her uncle. How was I
to know aught about it V I dont want to
make any mischief agen Mrs. Mellish, though
she 's been no friend to me. I did n't say
anything at the inquest, did I? though I
might have said as much as I 've said to-
night, if it comes to that, and have told no
lie.s. But when folks bother me about him
that 's dead, and ask this, and that, and t'
other, and go on as if I had a right to know
all about if, I 'm free to tell my thouglUs, I
suppose — surely I 'm free to tell my thoughts?"
'• I '11 go straight to Mr. Mellish. and tell
him what you 've said, you scoundrel !" cried
the captain.
" Ay, do," whispered Stephen Hargraves,
maliciously; "there 's some of it
stale news to him, anyhow."
that '11 be
CHAPTER XXXIV.
D18COVEKT OK THK WE.\PON WITH WHICH
JAMES CONVKKS HAD BEKN SLAIH.
Mr. and Mrs. Mellish returned to the house I
in which they had been so happy; but it is not j
to be supposed that the pleasant country man- j
sion could be again, all in a moment, the home |
that it had been before the advent of James
Conyers, the trainer, and the tragedy that j
had so abruptly concluded his brief service.
No ; every pang that Aurora had felt, \
every .agony that John had endured, had
left a certain impress upon the scene in which '
it had been suffered. The subtle influences \
of association hung heavily about the familiar j
place. AVe are the slaves of such associations, :
and we are powerless to stand against their |
silent force. Scraps of color and patches of i
gilding upon the walla will bear upon them,
as plainly as if they were covered with
hieroglyphical Inscriptions, the shadow.i of
the thoughts of those who have looked upon
them. Transient and chance effects of light
or shade will recall the same effects, seen and
observed — as Fagin observed the broken
spike upon the guarded dock — in some hor-
rible crisis of misery and despair. The com-
monest household goods and chattels will bear
mute witness of your agonies: an easy-chair
will say to you, " It was upon me you cast
yourself In that paro.xysm of rage and grief;"
the pattern of a diuner-servico may recall to
you that fatal day on which you pushed your
food untasted from you, and turned your face,
like grief-stricken King David, to the wall.'
The bed you lay upon, the curtains that shel-
tered you, the pattern of the paper on the
walls, the common every-day sounds of the
household, coming muffled and far-away to
that lonely room in which you hid yourself,
all these bear record of your sorrow, and of
that liidcous double action of the mind which
Impresses these things most vividly upon you
at the very time when It would seem they
should be most IndifTereiit.
But every sorrow, every pang of wounded
love, or doubt, or jealousy, or despair, -is a
fact — a fact once, and a fact for ever ; to be
outlived, but very rarely to be forgotten ;
leaving such an impress upon our lives as
no future joys can quite wear out. The mur-
der has been done, and the hands are red.
The sorrow has been suffered ; and, however
beautiful IIaj)pine.ss may be to us, slie can
never be the bright virginal creature she once
was, for she has passed through the valley of
the shadow of death, and we have discovered
that she is not immortal.
It is not to be expected, tlien, that John
Mellish and his wife Aurora could fee! quite
the same in the pretty chambers of the York-
shire mansion as they had felt before the first
shipwreck of their happiness. They had
been saved from peril and destruction, and
landed, by the mercy of Providence, high and
dry upon a shore that seemed to promise
them pleasure and security henceforth. But
the memory of the tempest was yet new to
them ; and upon the sands that were so smooth
to-day they had seen yesterday the breakers
beating with furious menace, and hurrying
onward to destroy them.
The funeral of the trainer had not yet
taken place, and It was scarcely a pleasant
thing for Mr. Mellish to remember that the
body of the murdered man still lay, stark
and awful, in the oak coffin that stood upon
trestles in the rustic chamber at the north
lodge.
'• I '11 pull that place down, Lolly," said
John, a.s he turned away fron\ an open win-
dow, through which he could .see the Gothic
chimnevs of the trainees late habitation glim-
AURORA FLOYD.
169
mcrincr redly above tbe trees. " 1 'II pull the I
place down, my pet. The gates are never !
used, except by the stable-boys; I '11 knock
them down, and the lodge too, and build some j
loose boxe.s for the brood-mares with the ma- j
t«rials. And we '11 go away to the south of
France, darling, and run across to Italy, if
yon like, and forget all about this horrid
business."
" The funeral will take place to-morrow,
John, will it Tiot ?" Aurora asked.
" To-morrow, dear ! to-morrow is Wednes-
daVi vou know. It was upon Thursday nijjht
that-^"
" Yes, yes," she answej'ed, interrupting him,
" I know — I remember."
She shuddered as she spoke, remembering
the ghastly circumstances of the night to
which he alluded — remembering how the
dead man had stood before her, strong in
healtli and vitality, and had insolently dcfieil
her hatred. Away from Mellish Park, she
had f)n!y remembered that the burden of her
life had been removed from her, and that slie
was free. But here — here, upon the scene of
the hideous story — she recollected the manner
of her release, and that luemory op[)ressed
her even moie terribly than her old secret,
her only sorrow.
She had never seen or known in this man
who had been murdered one redeeming qual-
ity, one generous thought. Siie had known
him as a liar, a .schemer, a low and paltry
swindler, a selfish spendthrift, e.xtravagaTit to
wantonness upon himself, but meaner than
words could tell toward others ; a profligate,
a traitor, a glutton, a drunkard. This is what
she had found behind her school-girl's fancy
for a handsomer face, for violet-tinted eyes,
and ,«oft brown curling hair. Do not call her
hard, then, if sorrow had no part in the shud-
dering horror she felt as she conjured up the
image of him in his death-liour, and saw the
glazing eyes turned angrily upon her. She
v/as little more than twenty; and it had been
her fate always to take the wrong stej),
always to be misled by the vague fingei*-
post^s upon life's high - road, and to choose
the longest, and crookedest, and hardest way
toward the goal she souglit to reack.
naerhaps, to wait till Mrs. Meliish came to
them. So Lucy was fain to remain where
she was. She went to one of the open win-
dows, and pushed the shutters apart. The
blazing sunshine burst into the room, and
drowned it in liglit. The smooth lawn was
aflame with scarlet geraniums and standard
roses, and all manner of gaudily-colored blos-
soms ; but Mrs. Bulstrode looked beyond this
vividly -tinted parterre to the thick woods,
that loomed darkly purple against tiie glow-
ing^ sky.
It was in that very wood that her husband
had declared his love for her; the same wood
that iiad since been outraged by violence and
murder.
" The — the man is buried, I suppose, Tal-
bot ?" slie said to her husband.
"I believe so, my dear."
"I should never care to live in this place
again, if I were Aurora."
The door opened before Mrs. Bulstrode had
finished speaking, and the mistress of the
house came toward them. She welcomed
them affectionately and kindly, taking Lucy
in her arms, and greeting her very tenderly;
but Talbot saw that she had changed terribly \
within the lew days that had passed .since her |
return to Yorkshire, and his heart sank as he j
observed her pale face and the dark circles j
about hci- hollow eyes. I
Could she. have heard — Could anybody
have given her reason to suppose —
"You are not well, Mrs. Meliish," he said,
as he took her hand.
" No, not very well. Tliis oppressive weath-
er make^ my head ache."
"1 am sorry to see you looking ill. Where
shall I find John ?" asked Mr. Bulstrode.
Aurora's pale face flushed suddenly.
" I — 1 — don't know," she stammered. " He
is not in the house; he has gone out — to the
stables — or to the farm. I think. I '11 send for
him.'"
" No, no," Talbot said, intercepting her
hand on its way to the bell. "I '11 go and
look for him. Lucy will be glad of a chat with
you, I dare say, Aurora, and will not be sorry
to get rid of me."
Lu(n', with her arm about her cousin's
waist, assented to this arrangement. She was
grieved to see the change in Aurora's looks,
the unnatural constraint of her manner.
Mr. Bulstrode walked away, hugging him-
self upon having done a very wi.se thing.
"Lucy is a great deal more likely to find
out what is the matter than I am, ' he thought.
" There is a sort of freemasonry between
women, an electric affinity, which a man's
presence always destroys. How deathly pah-
Aurora looks! Can it be possible that the
I trouble I expected has come .so soon V"
He went to the stables, but not so much to
look tor John Meliish as in the hope of find-
ing somebody intelligent enough to furnish
him with a better account of the murder than
any he had yet heard.
" Some one else, as well as Aurora, must
have had a reason for wishing to get rid of
this man," he thouglrt,. "There must have
been some motive — revenge, gain — something
which no one has yet fathomed."
He went into tlie stable-yard; but he had
no opportunity of making his investigation, for
John Meliish was standing in a listless atti-
tude before a small forge, watching the shoe-
ing of one of his horses. The young s(juire
looked up with a start as he recognized
Talbot, and gave him his hand, with a few
straggling words of welcome. Even in that
moment Mr. liulstrode saw that there was
perhaps a greater change in John's appear-
ance than in that of Aurora. The Vork^hire-
man's blue eyes had lost their brightness, his
step its elasticity; his face seemeil sunken and
haggard, and he evidently avoided meeting
Talbot's eye. He lounged listlessly away
from the forge, walking at his guest's side, in
the direction of the .stable-gates; but he had
the air of a man who neither knows nor cares
whither he is goint be found, John ; for, so long as he
remains undiscovered, you and your wife will
be the victims of every penny-a-liner who
finds himself at a loss lor a paragraph."
" Yes," Mr. Melhsh answered bitterly, "the
papers have been hard at it already; and
there 's been a fellow hanging about the place
for the last few days whom 1 've had a very
strong inclination to thrash. Some reporter,
I suppose, come to pick up information."
" 1 suppose so," Talbot answered, thought-
fully ; " what sort of a man was he V"
"A decent- looking fellow enough; but a
Londoner, 1 fancy, and — stay!" exclaimed
John, suddenly, " there 's a man coming
toward us from the turnstile, and, unless 1 'm
considerably mistaken, it 's the very fellow."
Mr. Mellish was right.
The wood was free to any foot-passenger
who pleased to avail himself of the pleasant
shelter of spreading beeches, and the smooth
carpet of mossy turf, rather than tramp
wearily upon the dusty highway.
The stranger advancing from the turnstile
was a decent-looking person, dressed in dark,
tight-fitting clothes, and making no unneces-
sary or ostentatious display (A' linen, for his
coat was buttoned tightly to the chin. He
12
looked at Talbot and John as he passed them,
not insolently, or even inquisitiveh', but with
one brightly rapid and searching glance, which
seemed to take in the most minute details in
the appearance of both gentlemen. Then,
walking on a few paces, he stopped, and look-
ed thoughtfully at the pond, and the bank
above it.
" This is the place, I think, gentlemen ?" he
said, in a frank and rather free-and-easy man-
ner.
Talbot returned his look with interest.
" If you mean the place where the murder
was committed, it is," he said.
"Ah ! I understood so," answered the stran-
ger, by no means abashed.
He looked at the bank, regarding it, now
froni one point, now from another, like some
skilful upholsterer taking the measure of a
piece of furniture. Tlien, walking slowly
round the pond, he seemed to plumb the depth
of the stagnant water with his small gray
eyes.
Talbot Bulstrode watched the man as he
took this mental photograph of the place.
Tliere was a business-like composure in his
manner which was entirely diilcrent to the
eager curiosity of a scandal-monger and a
busybody.
Mr. Bulstrode rose as the man walked away,
and went slowly after him.
" Stop where you are, John," he said, aa he
left his companion ; ^' I '11 find out who thia
fellow is."
He walked on, and overtook tlie stranger
at about a hundred yards from the ponH.
" I want to have a few words with you be-
fore you leave the Park, my friend," he said,
quietly ; " unless I am very much mistaken, you
are a member of the detective police, and
come here with credentials from Scotland
Yard."
The man shook his head with a quiet smile.
" I 'm not obliged to tell everybody my
business," he answered, coolly ; " this footpath
is a public thoroughfare, I believe?"
" Listen to me, my good fellow," said Mr.
Bulstrode. "It may serve your purpose to
beat about the bush, but I have no reason to
do so, and therefore may as well conu; to the
point at once. If you are sent here for the
fiurpose of discovering the murderer of James
Conyers. you can bo more welcome to no one
than to the master of that house."
He pointed to the Gothic chimneys as he
spoke.
" If those who employ you have promised
you a liberal reward, Mr. Mellish will willing-
ly treble the amount they may have offered
you. He would not give you cause to complain
of his liberality should you succeed in accom-
plishing the purpose of your errand. If you
think you will gain anything by underhand
measures, and by keeping yourself re received respec-
tively by the head of the Doncaster constab-
ulary and by the chief of the Scotland- Yard
detective confederacy.
These anonymous communications — written
in a hand whii.'h, in spite of all attempt at dis-
guise, still retained the spidery peculiarities of
feminine calligraphy — pointed, by a sinuous
and inductive process of reasoning, at Aurora
Meliish as the murderess of James Couyers.
I need scarcely say that the writer was no
other than Mrs. Powell. She has disappeared
for ever from my story, and I have no wish to
blacken a character which can ill afford to be
slandered. The ensign's widow actually be-
lieved in the guilt of her beautiful patroness.
It is so easy for an envious woman to believe
horrible things of the more prosperous sister
■whom she hates.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
" We are on the verge of a precipice,"
Tajbot Bulstrode thought, as he prepared for
dinner in the comfortable dressing-room al-
lotted to him at Meliish — - " we are on the
verge of a precipice, and nothing but a bold
grapple with the worst can save us. Any
reticence, any attempt at keeping back sus-
-] picious facts, or hushing up awkward coinci-
I deuces, would be fatal to us. If John had
j made away with this pistol with which the
I deed was done, he would have inevitably fixed
j a most fearful suspicion upon his wife. Thank
God I came here to day ! We must look
matters straight in the face, and our first step
must be to secure Aurora's help. So long as
she is silent as to her share in the events of
that day and night, there is a link missing in
the chain, and we are all at sea. John must
speak to her to-night ; or perhaps it will be
better for me to speak."
Mr. Bulstrode went down to the drawing-
room, where he found his friend pacing up
and down, solitary and wretched.
" The ladies are going to dine up stairs,"
said Mr. Meliish, as Talbot joined him. " I
have just had a message to say '.so. Why
does she avoid me, Talbot? Why does my
wife avoid me like this ? We have scarcely
spoken to each other for days."
" Shall I tell you why, you foolish John ?"
answered Mr. Bulstrode. " Your wife avoids
you because you have chosen to alienate your-
self from her, and because she thinks, poor
girl, that she has lost your affection. She
fancies tiiat the discovery of her first mar-
riage has caused a revulsion of feeling, and
that you no longer love her."
"No longer love her!" cried John. "O
my God ! she ouglit to know that, if I could
give my life for her fifty times over, I would
do it, to save her one pang. I vvould do it. so
help me Heaven, though she was the guiltiest
wretch that had ever crawled the earth!"
" But no one asks you to do anything of
the kind," said Mr. Bulstrode. " You are
only requested to be reasonable and patient,
to put a proper trust in Providence, and to
be guided by people who are rather less im-
petuous than your ungovernable self."
" I will do what you like, Talbot ; I will do
what you like."
Mr. Meliish pressed his friend's hand. Had
he ever thought, when he had seen Talbot an
accepted lover at Felden, and had hated him
with a savage and wild Indian-like fury, that
he would come to be thus humbly grateful to
him — thus pitifully dependent upon his supe-
I rior wisdom ? He wrung the young politi-
I cian's hand, and promised to be as submissive
as a child beneath his guidance.
! In compliance, therefore, with Talbot's com-
1 mand, he ate a few morsels of fish, and drank
AURORA FLOYD.
179
a couple of glasses of sherry; and, having
thus gone through a sliow of dining, he went
with Mr. Bulstrode to neek Aurora.
She was sitting with lier oou?in in tlie morn-
ing-room, looking terribly pale in the dim dusk
of the August evening — pale and shadowy in
her loose white muslin dress. Slie had only
lately risen, after a long feverish slumber, and
had pretended to dine out of courtesy to her
guest. Lucy had tried in vain to comfort her
cousin. This passionate, impetuous, spoiled
child of fortune and affection refnsed all con-
solation, crying out again and again that she
had lost her husband's love, and that there
was nothing left for her upon earth.
But in the very midst of one of these de-
sponding speeches she s])rang up from her seal,
erect and trembling, with licr parted lips
quivering and her dark eyes dilated, startled
by the sound of a familiar step, which within
the last few da}"s had be(>n seldom heard in
the corridor outside her room. Siu; tried to j
speak, but her voice failed her ; and in an-
other moment the door had bci'n dasheil open
by a strong hand, and her husband stood in
the room, holding out his arms and calling to
her:
" Aurora ! Aurora. ! my own dear love, my
own poor darling !"
She was folded to his breast bclbre she
knew that Talbot Bulstrode stood close behind
him.
" My own darling," John said, " my own
dearest, you can not tell how cruelly I have
wronged you. But oh, my love, the wrong
has brouiilit unendurable torture with it. My
poor, guiltless girl! how could I — how could
I— But I was mad, and it wa^ only when
Talbot — "
Aurora lifted her head from her husband'^
breast, and looked wonderingly into his face,
utterly unable to guess the meaning of the.se
broken sentences.
Talbot laid liis hand upon his friend's .shoul-
der. " Yort will trigliten your wife if you go
on in this manner, John," he said, quietly.
" You must n't take any notice of his agita-
tion, my dear Mrs. Mellish. There is no cause,
believe me, for all this outcry. AVill you sit
down by Lucy and comj)ose yourself? It is
eight o'clock, and between this; and nine we
have some serious business to .settle."
" Serious business !'' repeated Aiu'ora, vague-
ly. She was intoxicated by her sudden hap-
piness. She had no wish to ask any explana-
tion of the mystery of the past few (la\s. It
was all over, and her faithful liusband loved
her as devotedly and tenderly as ever. How
coulil she wish to know more than this?
She seated lierself at Lucy's side, in obedi-
ence to Talbot; but she still held her hus-
band's hand, slie still l(X)ked in his face, for
the moment most supremely unconscious that
the scheme of creation included anything
beyond this stalwart Yorkshireman.
Talbot Bulstrode lighted the lamp upon
Aurora's writing-table — a shaded lamp, which
only dimly illuminated the twilight room —
and then, taking his seat near it, said gravely :
"My dear Mrs. Mellish, I shall be com-
pelled to say something which I fear may
inflict a terrible shock upon you. But this is
no time for reservation — scarcely a time for
ordinary delicacy. Will you trust in the love
and friendship of those who are around you,
and promise to bear this new trial bravely V
I believe and hope that it will be a very brief
one."
Aurora looked wonderingly at her husband,
not at Talbot.
" A new trial V" she said, inquiringly.
" Y'ou know that the murderer of James
Conyers has not yet been discovered ?" .said
Mr. Bulstrode.
" Yes, yes ; but what of that ?"
" My dear Mrs. Mellish, my dear Aurora,
the world is apt to take a morbid delight in
horrible ideas. Tliere are some people who
think that you are guiltv of this crime !''
She rose suddenly from her low seat, and
turned her face toward th'
bad you left- him when you heard the report
of the pistol ?"
•' Not more than ten minutes."
" John Mellish," exclaimed Mr. Bulstrode.
" was there any money found upon the person
of the nmrdered man ?"
" No — yes ; I believe there was a little sil-
ver," Mr. Mellish answered, vaguely.
" A little silver ! ' cried Talbot, contempt-
uously. " Aurora, what was the sum you
gave James Conyers upon the night of his
death ?"
" Two thousand pounds."
" In a check V"
" No, in notes."
"And that money has never been heard of
since ?"
No ; John Mellish declared that he had
never heard of it.
" Thank God ! " exclaimed Mr. Bulstrode ;
"we shall find the murderer."
'' What do you mean ?" asked John.
" Whoever killed James Conyers, killed
him in oi'der to rob him of the money that he
had upon him at the time of his death."
" But who could have known of the money V"
asked Aurora.
"Anybody ; the pathAvay through the wood
is a public thoroughfare. Your conversation
with the murdered man ma}- have been over-
heard. You talked about the money, I sup-
pose V"
" Yes."
" Thank God, thank God ! Ask your wife's
pardon for the cruel wrong you have done
her, John, and then come down stairs with
me. It 's past nine, and I dare say Mr.
Grimstoue is waiting for us. But stay — one
word, Aurora. The pistol with which this
man was killed was taken from this house —
from John's room. Did you know that V"
" No ; how should I know it '?" Mrs. Mel-
lish asked, naively.
" That fact is against the theory of the mur-
der having been committed by a stranger. Is
there any one of the servants whom you could
suspect of such a crime, John ?"
" No," answered Mr. Mellish, decisively,
" not one."
" And yet the person who committed the
murder must have been the person who stole
your pistol. You, John, declare that very
pistol to have been in your possession upon
the morning before the murder?"
" Most certaiidy."
" You put John's guns back into their
places upon that morning, Aurora," said Mr.
Bulstrode ; " do you remember seeing that
particular pistol ?"
" No," Mrs. Mellish answered ; •' I should
not have known it from the others."
" You did not find any of the servants ia
the room that morning ?"
" Oh, no," Aurora answered immediately ;
" Mrs. Powell came into the room while I
was there. She was always following me
about, and I suppose she had heard me talking
to — "
AURORA FLOYD.
lai
" Talking to whom ?"
*' To James Conyers' hanger-on and mes-
senger, Stephen Hargraves — the softy, as
they call him."
" You were talking to him ? Then this Ste-
phen Hargraves was in the room tliat morning ?"
" Yes ; he brought me a message from the
murdered man. and took back my answer."
" Was he alone in the room ?"
" Yes; I found him there when 1 went in
expecting to find John. I dislike the man —
unjustly, perhaps, for he is a poor, half-witted
creature, who, I dare say, scarcely knows right
from wrong, and I was angry at seeing him.
He must have come in through the window."
A servant entered the room at this mo-
ment. He came to say that Mr. Grimstone
had been waiting below for some time, and
was anxious to see Mr. Bulstrode.
Talbot and John went down stairs together.
They found Mr. Joseph Grimstone sitting at
a table in the comfortable room that had
lately been sacred to Mrs. Powell, with the
shaded lamj) drawn close to his elbow, and a
greasy little memorandum-book open before
him. He was tiiouglitfuUy employed making
notes in this memorandum-book with a slumpy
morsel of lead-pencil — when do these sort of
people begin their pencils, and how is it that
they always seem to have arrived at the
stump y — when the two gentlemen entered.
John Mellish leaned against the mantle-
piece, and eovered his face with his hand.
For any practical purpose, he might as well
have been in his own room. He knew noth-
ing of Talbot's reasons for this interview with
the detective officer. He had no shadowy idea,
no growing suspicion shaping itself slowly out
of the confusion and obscurity, of the irlcntity
of the murderer. He only knew that his Au-
rora was innocent; that she had indignantly
refuted his base suspicion ; and that h«', had
seen the truth, radiant as the light of inspira-
tion, shining out of her beautiful face.
Mr. Bulstrode rang, and ordered a bottle of
sherry for the delectation of the detective,
and then, in a careful and business-like man-
ner, he recited all that he had been able to
discover upon the subject of the murder.
Joseph Grimstone listened very quietly, fol-
lowing Talbot Bulstrode with a shining track
of lead-pencil hieroglyphics over the greasy
paper, just as Tom Thumb strewed crumbs of
bread in the forest jiatliway with a view to
his homeward guidance. The detective only
looked up now and then to drink a glass of
sherry, and smack his lij)s with the quiet ap-
proval of a connoisseur. When Talbot had
told all that he had to tell, ]\Ir. Grimstone
thrust the memorandum-book into a very tight
breast-pocket, and, taking his hat from under
the chair upon which he had been seated,
prepared to depart.
"If this information about the money is
quite correct," he said, " I think I can see
my way through the affair — that is, if we
can have the numbers of the notes. I can't
stir a peg without the numbers of the notes."
Talbot's countenance fell. Here was a
death-blow. Was it likely that Aurora, that
impetuous and unbusiness-like girl, had taken
the numbers of the notes which, in utter
scorn and loathing, she had flung as a last
bribe to the man she hated ?
" I 'II go and makounded all the out-iloor .servants at Mellish, \ had lived in it in the year 1783; and he had
but had been able to discover nothing that ' contrived, in the course of conversation, to
threw anv li^ht u])on the movements of Ste- 1 draw from the old woman, who was of a gar-
I)hen Hargraves on the night of the murder, j rulous turn, all that she had to tell about the
No one remembered having seen him: no one ! sofVy.
had been on tlie southern side of the, wood ' It was not mueh, certaiidy. Mr. Hargraves
that nii:ht. One of the lads had pa.'^.sed the ^ had never changed a bank-note with her
north lodge on his wav fiom the high-road to ' knowledge. He had paid for his bit of vict-
rhe stables^ about the time at whi0
AURORA FLOYD.
little streams were rolling down his forehead
and trickling upon his poor faded cheeks. He
mopped up these evidences of hi.s fatigue
witli a red cotton handkerchief, and gave a
deprecatory sigh.
" If there 's anybody to lay blame on, it a'n't
me,"' he said, mildly. " I said all along you
ought to have had help. A man as is on his
own ground, and knows his own ground, is
more than a match for one cove, however
hard he may work."
The detective turned fiercely ujion his meek
dependent.
" Who 's blaming you ?" he cried, impatient-
ly. " I would n't cry out before I was hurt,
if I were you."
They had reached the railway station by
this time.
" How long is it since you missed him?"
asked Mr. Grimstone of the penitent Chivers.
" lliree-quarters of a hour, or it may be
a hour," Tom added, doubtfully.
" I dare say it (V an hour," muttered the
detective.
He walked straight to one of the chief offi-
cials, and asked what trains had left within
the last hour.
"Two, both market trains; one eastward,
Selby way, the other for Penistone and the
intervening stations."
The detective looked at the time-table, run-
nin's tak*;.
John Mellish roamed about in the custody I
of this friendly keeper, with his short auburn
hair tumbled into a feverish-looking mass,
like a field of ripening corn that had been
beaten by a summer hurricane, his cheeks ,
sunken atid haggard, and a ljri.>tling yellow
Btubble upon his chin. I dare »a} he had
made a vow neither to shave nor be shaven
until the murdi-rer of James Conyi rs ghoul. i
be found. He clung dcHpcrateiy to Talbot
Bulstrode, but he clung with still wii,;
-^i»t
■is/::''
' oiiH^l
.--•if
,1 Sl'in-'Hi
mm\