many years. In fact, she had in early life been engaged to marry a young rake-he was a captain in the armynothing connected with whom came to any good. She never did marry him, but she gave birth to a child of which he was the father." By the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the moonlight. By the moonlight, Lady Dedlock can be seen in profile, perfectly still. "The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a train of circumstances with which I need not trouble you, led to discovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on her own part one day, when she was taken by surprise; which shows how difficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be always guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you may suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband's grief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. Rouncewell's townsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be patronised and honored, than he would have suffered her to be trodden underfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, that he indignantly took her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. He had no sense of the honor done him and his daughter by the lady's condescension; not the least. He resented the girl's position, as if the lady had been the commonest of commoners. There are various opinions on the merits, more or less conflicting with Volumnia's. That fair young creature cannot believe there ever was any such lady, and rejects the whole history on the threshold. The majority incline to the debilitated cousin's sentiment, which is in few words-"no businessRouncewell's fernal townsman." Sir Leicester generally refers back in his mind to Wat Tyler, and arranges a sequence of events on a plan of his own. There is not much conversation in all, for late hours have been kept at Chesney Wold since the necessary expenses elsewhere began, and this is the first night in many on which the family have been alone. It is past ten, when Sir Leicester begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to ring for candles. Then the stream of moonlight has swelled into a lake, and then Lady Dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, and comes forward to a table for a glass of water. Winking cousins, bat-like in the candle glare, crowd round to give it; Volumnia (always ready for something better if procurable) takes another, a very mild sip of which contents her; Lady Dedlock, graceful, self-possessed, looked after by admiring eyes, passes away slowly down the long perspective by the side of that Nymph, not at all improving her as a question of contrast. ago. Is it fear, or is it anger, now? He cannot be sure. Both might be as pale, both as intent. "Lady Dedlock?" She does not speak at first, nor even when she has slowly dropped into the easy chair by the table. They look at each other, like two pictures. There is a capacious writing-table in | ance-is it fear or anger?-in her eyes, the room, on which is a pretty large In her carriage and all else, she looks accumulation of papers. The green as she looked down stairs two hours lamp is lighted, his reading-glasses lie upon the desk, the easy chair is wheeled up to it, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour or so upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. But he happens not to be in a business mind. After a glance at the documents awaiting his notice with his head bent low over the table, the old man's sight for print or writing being defective at night-he opens the french window and steps out upon the leads. There he again walks slowly up and down, in the same attitude; subsiding, if a man so cool may have any need to subside, from the story he has related down-stairs. The time was once, when men as knowing as Mr. Tulkinghorn would walk on turret-tops in the star-light, and look up into the sky to read their fortunes there. Hosts of stars are visible to-night, though their brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. If he be seeking his own star, as he methodically turns and turns upon the leads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented below. If he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in other characters nearer to his hand. "" Why have you told my story to so many persons?" "Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it." "How long have you known it?" 'I have suspected it a long whilefully known it, a little while." "Months?" "Days." He stands before her, with one hand on a chair-back and the other in his old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt frill, exactly as he has stood before her at any time since her marriage. The same formal politeness, the same composed deference that might as well be defiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same distance, which nothing has ever diminished. "Is this true concerning the poor girl?" He slightly inclines and advances his head, as not quite understanding the question. "You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story also? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried in the streets?" As he paces the leads, with his eyes most probably as high above his thoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped in passing the window by two eyes that meet his own. The ceiling of his room is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is opposite the window, is So! Anger, and fear, and shame. of glass. There is an inner baize door All three contending. What power too, but the night being warm he did this woman has, to keep these raging not close it when he came up-stairs. passions down! Mr. Tulkinghorn's These eyes that meet his own, are look-thoughts take such form as he looks ing in through the glass from the cor- at her, with his ragged grey eyebrows ridor outside. He knows them well. a hair's-breadth more contracted than The blood has not flushed into his face usual, under her gaze. so suddenly and redly for many a long year, as when he recognises Lady Dedlock. He steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the doors behind her. There is a wild disturb "No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir Leicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand. But it would be a real case if they knew-what we know." "Then they do not know it yet?" "Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say a few "No." "Can I save the poor girl from words, when you have finished." injury before they know it?" "Really, Lady Dedlock," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, "I cannot give a satisfactory opinion on that point." And he thinks, with the interest of attentive curiosity, as he watches the struggle in her breast, "The power and force of this woman are astonishing!" "Sir," she says, for the moment obliged to set her lips with all the energy she has, that she may speak distinctly, "I will make it plainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it, and felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr. Rouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power of seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by having for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my great and distinguished patronage. But, I have an interest in her; or I should rather say -no longer belonging to this place- I had; and if you can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as to remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy.' Mr. Tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, throws this off with a shrug of self-depreciation, and contracts his eyebrows a little more. "You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too. Is there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim that I can release, or any charge or trouble that I can spare my husband in obtaining his release, by certifying to the exactness of your discovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will dictate. I am ready to do it." And she would do it! thinks the lawyer, watchful of the firm hand with which she takes the pen ! "I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself." "I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare myself, nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have done. Do what remains, now." The Their need for watching one another should be over now, but they do it all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened window. Away in the moonlight lie the wood • land fields at rest, and the wide house is as quiet as the narrow one. narrow one! Where are the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined to add the last great secret to the many secrets of the Tulkinghorn existence? Is the man born yet, is the spade wrought yet? Curious questions to consider, more curious perhaps not to consider, under the watching stars upon a summer night. "Of repentance or remorse, or any feeling of mine," Lady Dedlock presently proceeds, "I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you would be deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears. He makes a feint of offering a protest, but she sweeps it away with her disdainful hand. "Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels are all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there. So, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some ready money I had with me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own dress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went, to be henceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other charge with you.' "Excuse me, Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, quite unmoved. "I am not sure that I understand you. You went ? "To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this hour." Mr. Tulkinghorn shakes his head. She rises; but he, without removing hand from chair-back or from oldfashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, shakes his head. "What? Not go as I have said?" "No, Lady Dedlock," he very calmly replies. z 2 Without deigning to rejoin, she moves to the inner door and has it in her hand, when he says to her, without himself stirring hand or foot, or raising his voice : "Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and hear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the alarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out, before every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it." He has conquered her. She falters, trembles, and puts her hand confusedly to her head. Slight tokens these in any one else; but when so practised an eye as Mr. Tulkinghorn's sees indecision for a moment in such a subject, he thoroughly knows its value. وو He promptly says again, "Have the goodness to hear me, Lady Dedlock,' and motions to the chair from which she has risen. She hesitates, but he motions again, and she sits down. "The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady Dedlock; but, as they are not of my making, I will not apologise for them. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well known to you, that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery." "Sir," she returns, without looking up from the ground, on which her eyes are now fixed. "I had better have gone. It would have been far better not to have detained me. I have no more to say.' "Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add, a little more to hear." "I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can't breathe where I am." His jealous glance as she walks that way, betrays an instant's misgiving that she may have it in her thoughts to leap over, and dashing against ledge and cornice, strike her life out upon the terrace below. But, a moment's bservation of her figure as she stands in the window without any support, looking out at the stars--not upgloomily out at those stars which aro low in the heavens-reassures him. By facing round as she has moved, he stands a little behind her. "Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision satisfactory to myself, on the course before me. 1 am not clear what to do, or how to act next. I must request you, in the mean time, to keep your secret as you have kept it so long, and not to wonder that I keep it too." He pauses, but she makes no reply. "Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are honoring me with your attention ?" "I am." "Thank you. I might have known it, from what I have seen of your strength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but I have the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go on. The sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester." "Then why," she asks in a low voice, and without removing her gloomy look from those distant stars, "do you detain me in his house?" "Because he is the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion to tell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man; that his reliance upon you is implicit; that the fall of that moon out of the sky, would not amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his wife." She breathes quickly and heavily, but she stands as unflinchingly as ever he has seen her in the midst of her grandest company. "I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this case that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up, by means of my own strength and my own hands, the oldest tree on this estate, as to shake your hold upon Sir Leicester, and Sir Leicester's trust and confidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not that he could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing can prepare him for the blow.". |