After that dance Alice thought much about Lucian, and also about the
way in which society regulated marriages. Before Miss Carew sent
for her she had often sighed because all the nice men she knew of
moved in circles into which an obscure governess had no chance of
admission. She had received welcome attentions from them
occasionally at subscription balls; but for sustained intimacy and
proposals of marriage she had been dependent on the native youth of
Wiltstoken, whom she looked upon as louts or prigs, and among whom
Wallace Parker had shone pre-eminent as a university man, scholar,
and gentleman. And now that she was a privileged beauty in society
which would hardly tolerate Wallace Parker, she found that the nice
men were younger sons, poor and extravagant, far superior to Lucian
Webber as partners for a waltz, but not to be thought of as partners
in domestic economy. Alice had experienced the troubles of poverty,
and had never met with excellence in men except in poems, which she
had long ago been taught to separate from the possibilities of
actual life. She had, therefore, no conception of any degree of
merit in a husband being sufficient to compensate for slender means
of subsistence. She was not base-minded; nothing could have induced
her to marry a man, however rich, whom she thought wicked. She
wanted money; but she wanted more than money; and here it was that
she found supply failing to answer the demand. For not only were all
the handsome, gallant, well-bred men getting deeply into debt by
living beyond smaller incomes than that with which Wallace Parker
had tempted her, but many of those who had inherited both riches and
rank were as inferior to him, both in appearance and address, as
they were in scholarship. No man, possessing both wealth and
amiability, had yet shown the least disposition to fall in love with
her.

One bright forenoon in July, Alice, attended by a groom, went to the
park on horseback. The Row looked its best. The freshness of morning
was upon horses and riders; there were not yet any jaded people
lolling supine in carriages, nor discontented spectators sitting in
chairs to envy them. Alice, who was a better horsewoman than might
have been expected from the little practice she had had, appeared to
advantage in the saddle. She had just indulged in a brisk canter
from the Corner to the Serpentine, when she saw a large white horse
approaching with Wallace Parker on its back.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, expertly wheeling his steed and taking off his
hat at the same time with an intentional display of gallantry and
horsemanship. "How are you, Alice?"

"Goodness!" cried Alice, forgetting her manners in her astonishment.
"What brings you here; and where on earth did you get that horse?"

"I presume, Alice," said Parker, satisfied with the impression he
had made, "that I am here for much the same reason as you are--to
enjoy the morning in proper style. As for Rozinante, I borrowed him.
Is that chestnut yours? Excuse the rudeness of the question."

"No," said Alice, coloring a little. "This seems such an unlikely
place to meet you."

"Oh, no. I always take a turn in the season. But certainly it would
have been a very unlikely place for us to meet a year ago."

So far, Alice felt, she was getting the worst of the conversation.
She changed the subject. "Have you been to Wiltstoken since I last
saw you?"

"Yes. I go there once every week at least."

"Every week! Janet never told me."

Parker implied by a cunning air that he thought he knew the reason
of that; but he said nothing. Alice, piqued, would not condescend to
make inquiries. So he said, presently,

"How is Miss Thingumbob?"

"I do not know any one of that name."

"You know very well whom I mean. Your aristocratic patron, Miss
Carew."

Alice flushed. "You are very impertinent, Wallace," she said,
grasping her riding-whip. "How dare you call Miss Carew my patron?"

Wallace suddenly became solemn. "I did not know that you objected to
be reminded of all you owe her," he said. "Janet never speaks
ungratefully of her, though she has done nothing for Janet."

"I have not spoken ungratefully," protested Alice, almost in tears.
"I feel sure that you are never tired of speaking ill of me to them
at home."

"That shows how little you understand my real character. I always
make excuses for you."

"Excuses for what? What have I done? What do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't mean anything, if you don't. I thought from your
beginning to defend yourself that you felt yourself to be in the
wrong."

"I did not defend myself; and I won't have you say so, Wallace."

"Always your obedient, humble servant," he replied, with complacent
irony.

She pretended not to hear him, and whipped up her horse to a smart
trot. The white steed being no trotter, Parker followed at a
lumbering canter. Alice, possessed by a shamefaced fear that he was
making her ridiculous, soon checked her speed; and the white horse
subsided to a walk, marking its paces by deliberate bobs of its
unfashionably long mane and tail.

"I have something to tell you," said Parker at last.

Alice did not deign to reply.

"I think it better to let you know at once," he continued. "The fact
is, I intend to marry Janet."

"Janet won't," said Alice, promptly, retorting first, and then
reflecting on the intelligence, which surprised her more than it
pleased her.

Parker smiled conceitedly, and said, "I don't think she will raise
any difficulty if you give her to understand that it is all over
between US."

"That what is all over?"

"Well, if you prefer it, that there never has been anything between
us. Janet believes that we were engaged. So did a good many other
people until you went into high life."

"I cannot help what people thought."

"And they all know that I, at least, was ready to perform my part of
the engagement honorably."

"Wallace," she said, with a sudden change of tone; "I think we had
better separate. It is not right for me to be riding about the park
with you when I have nobody belonging to me here except a
man-servant."

"Just as you please," he said, coolly, halting. "May I assure Janet
that you wish her to marry me?"

"Most certainly not. I do not wish anyone to marry you, much less my
own sister. I am far inferior to Janet; and she deserves a much
better husband than I do."

"I quite agree with you, though I don't quite see what that has to
do with it. As far as I understand you, you will neither marry me
yourself--mind, I am quite willing to fulfil my engagement
still--nor let any one else have me. Is that so?"

"You may tell Janet," said Alice, vigorously, her face glowing,
"that if we--you and I--were condemned to live forever on a desert
isl--No; I will write to her. That will be the best way.
Good-morning."

Parker, hitherto imperturbable, now showed signs of alarm. "I beg,
Alice," he said, "that you will say nothing unfair to her of me. You
cannot with truth say anything bad of me."

"Do you really care for Janet?" said Alice, wavering.

"Of course," he replied, indignantly. "Janet is a very superior
girl."

"I have always said so," said Alice, rather angry because some one
else had forestalled her with the meritorious admission. "I will
tell her the simple truth--that there has never been anything
between us except what is between all cousins; and that there never
could have been anything more on my part. I must go now. I don't
know what that man must think of me already."

"I should be sorry to lower you in his esteem," said Parker,
maliciously. "Good-bye, Alice." Uttering the last words in a
careless tone, he again pulled up the white horse's head, raised his
hat, and sped away. It was not true that he was in the habit of
riding in the park every season. He had learned from Janet that
Alice was accustomed to ride there in the forenoon; and he had hired
the white horse in order to meet her on equal terms, feeling that a
gentleman on horseback in the road by the Serpentine could be at no
social disadvantage with any lady, however exalted her associates.

As for Alice, she went home with his reminder that Miss Carew was
her patron rankling in her. The necessity for securing an
independent position seemed to press imminently upon her. And as the
sole way of achieving this was by marriage, she felt for the time
willing to marry any man, without regard to his person, age, or
disposition, if only he could give her a place equal to that of Miss
Carew in the world, of which she had lately acquired the manners and
customs.






CHAPTER XII





When the autumn set in, Alice was in Scotland learning to shoot; and
Lydia was at Wiltstoken, preparing her father's letters and memoirs
for publication. She did not write at the castle, all the rooms in
which were either domed, vaulted, gilded, galleried, three-sided,
six-sided, anything except four-sided, or in some way suggestive of
the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," and out of keeping with the
associations of her father's life. In her search for a congruous
room to work in, the idea of causing a pavilion to be erected in the
elm vista occurred to her. But she had no mind to be disturbed just
then by the presence of a troop of stone-masons, slaters, and
carpenters, nor any time to lose in waiting for the end of their
operations. So she had the Warren Lodge cleansed and lime washed,
and the kitchen transformed into a comfortable library, where, as
she sat facing the door at her writing-table, in the centre of the
room, she could see the elm vista through one window and through
another a tract of wood and meadow land intersected by the high-road
and by a canal, beyond which the prospect ended in a distant green
slope used as a sheep run. The other apartments were used by a
couple of maid-servants, who kept the place well swept and dusted,
prepared Miss Carew's lunch, answered her bell, and went on her
errands to the castle; and, failing any of these employments, sat
outside in the sun, reading novels. When Lydia had worked in this
retreat daily for two months her mind became so full of the old life
with her father that the interruptions of the servants often
recalled her to the present with a shock. On the twelfth of August
she was bewildered for a moment when Phoebe, one of the maids,
entered and said,

"If you please, miss, Bashville is wishful to know can he speak to
you a moment?"

Permission being given, Bashville entered. Since his wrestle with
Cashel he had never quite recovered his former imperturbability. His
manner and speech were as smooth and respectful as before, but his
countenance was no longer steadfast; he was on bad terms with the
butler because he had been reproved by him for blushing. On this
occasion he came to beg leave to absent himself during the
afternoon. He seldom asked favors of this kind, and was of course
never refused.

"The road is quite thronged to-day," she observed, as he thanked
her. "Do you know why?"

"No, madam," said Bashville, and blushed.

"People begin to shoot on the twelfth," she said; "but I suppose it
cannot have anything to do with that. Is there a race, or a fair, or
any such thing in the neighborhood?"

"Not that I am aware of, madam."

Lydia dipped her pen in the ink and thought no more of the subject.
Bashville returned to the castle, attired himself like a country
gentleman of sporting tastes, and went out to enjoy his holiday.

The forenoon passed away peacefully. There was no sound in the
Warren Lodge except the scratching of Lydia's pen, the ticking of
her favorite skeleton clock, an occasional clatter of crockery from
the kitchen, and the voices of the birds and maids without. The hour
for lunch approached, and Lydia became a little restless. She
interrupted her work to look at the clock, and brushed a speck of
dust from its dial with the feather of her quill. Then she looked
absently through the window along the elm vista, where she had once
seen, as she had thought, a sylvan god. This time she saw a less
romantic object--a policeman. She looked again, incredulously, there
he was still, a black-bearded, helmeted man, making a dark blot in
the green perspective, and surveying the landscape cautiously. Lydia
rang the bell, and bade Phoebe ask the man what he wanted.

The girl soon returned out of breath, with the news that there were
a dozen more constables hiding in the road, and that the one she had
spoken to had given no account of himself, but had asked her how
many gates there were to the park; whether they were always locked,
and whether she had seen many people about. She felt sure that a
murder had been committed somewhere. Lydia shrugged her shoulders,
and ordered luncheon, during which Phoebe gazed eagerly through the
window, and left her mistress to wait on herself.

"Phoebe," said Lydia, when the dishes were removed; "you may go to
the gate lodge, and ask them there what the policemen want. But do
not go any further. Stay. Has Ellen gone to the castle with the
things?"

Phoebe reluctantly admitted that Ellen had.

"Well, you need not wait for her to return; but come back as quickly
as you can, in case I should want anybody."

"Directly, miss," said Phoebe, vanishing.

Lydia, left alone, resumed her work leisurely, occasionally pausing
to gaze at the distant woodland, and note with transient curiosity a
flock of sheep on the slope, or a flight of birds above the
tree-tops. Something more startling occurred presently. A man,
apparently half-naked, and carrying a black object under his arm,
darted through a remote glade with the swiftness of a stag, and
disappeared. Lydia concluded that he had been disturbed while
bathing in the canal, and had taken flight with his wardrobe under
his arm. She laughed at the idea, turned to her manuscript again,
and wrote on. Suddenly there was a rustle and a swift footstep
without. Then the latch was violently jerked up, and Cashel Byron
rushed in as far as the threshold, where he stood, stupefied at the
presence of Lydia, and the change in the appearance of the room.

He was himself remarkably changed. He was dressed in a pea-jacket,
which evidently did not belong to him, for it hardly reached his
middle, and the sleeves were so short that his forearms were half
bare, showing that he wore nothing beneath this borrowed garment.
Below it he had on white knee-breeches, with green stains of bruised
grass on them. The breeches were made with a broad ilap in front,
under which, and passing round his waist, was a scarf of crimson
silk. From his knees to his socks, the edges of which had fallen
over his laced boots, his legs were visible, naked, and muscular. On
his face was a mask of sweat, dust, and blood, partly rubbed away in
places by a sponge, the borders of its passage marked by black
streaks. Underneath his left eye was a mound of bluish flesh nearly
as large as a walnut. The jaw below it, and the opposite cheek, were
severely bruised, and his lip was cut through at one corner. He had
no hat; his close-cropped hair was disordered, and his ears were as
though they had been rubbed with coarse sand-paper.

Lydia looked at him for some seconds, and he at her, speechless.
Then she tried to speak, failed, and sunk into her chair.

"I didn't know there was any one here," he said, in a hoarse,
panting whisper. "The police are after me. I have fought for an
hour, and run over a mile, and I'm dead beat--I can go no farther.
Let me hide in the back room, and tell them you haven't seen any
one, will you?"

"What have you done?" she said, conquering her weakness with an
effort, and standing up.

"Nothing," he replied, groaning occasionally as he recovered breath.
"Business, that's all."

"Why are the police pursuing you? Why are you in such a dreadful
condition?"

Cashel seemed alarmed at this. There was a mirror in the lid of a
paper-case on the table. lie took it up and looked at himself
anxiously, but was at once relieved by what he saw. "I'm all right,"
he said. "I'm not marked. That mouse"--he pointed gayly to the lump
under his eye-"will run away to-morrow. I am pretty tidy,
considering. But it's bellows to mend with me at present. Whoosh! My
heart is as big as a bullock's after that run."

"You ask me to shelter you," said Lydia, sternly. "What have you
done? Have you committed murder?"

"No!" exclaimed Cashel, trying to open his eyes widely in his
astonishment, but only succeeding with one, as the other was
gradually closing. "I tell you I have been fighting; and it's
illegal. You don't want to see me in prison, do you? Confound him,"
he added, reverting to her question with sudden wrath; "a
steam-hammer wouldn't kill him. You might as well hit a sack of
nails. And all my money, my time, my training, and my day's trouble
gone for nothing! It's enough to make a man cry."

"Go," said Lydia, with uncontrollable disgust. "And do not let me
see which way you go. How dare you come to me?"

The sponge-marks on Cashel's face grew whiter, and he began, to pant
heavily again. "Very well," he said. "I'll go. There isn't a boy in
your stables that would give me up like that."

As he spoke, he opened the door; but he involuntarily shut it again
immediately. Lydia looked through the window, and saw a crowd of
men, police and others, hurrying along the elm vista. Cashel cast a
glance round, half piteous, half desperate, like a hunted animal.
Lydia could not resist it. "Quick!" she cried, opening one of the
inner doors. "Go in there, and keep quiet--if you can." And, as he
sulkily hesitated a moment, she stamped vehemently. He slunk in
submissively. She shut the door and resumed her place at the
writing-table, her heart beating with a kind of excitement she had
not felt since, in her early childhood, she had kept guilty secrets
from her nurse.

There was a tramping without, and a sound of voices. Then two
peremptory raps at the door.

"Come in," said Lydia, more composedly than she was aware of. The
permission was not waited for. Before she ceased speaking a
policeman opened the door and looked quickly round the room. He
seemed rather taken aback by what he saw, and finally touched his
helmet to signify respect for Lydia. He was about to speak, when
Phoebe, flushed with running, pushed past him, put her hand on the
door, and pertly asked what he wanted.

"Come away from the door, Phoebe," said Lydia. "Wait here with me
until I give you leave to go," she added, as the girl moved towards
the inner door. "Now," she said, turning courteously to the
policeman, "what is the matter?"

"I ask your pardon, mum," said the constable, agreeably. "Did you
happen to see any one pass hereabouts lately?"

"Do you mean a man only partly dressed, and carrying a black coat?"
said Lydia.

"That's him, miss," said the policeman, greatly interested." Which
way did he go?"

"I will show you where I saw him," said Lydia, quietly rising and
going with the man to the door, outside which she found a crowd of
rustics, and five policemen, having in custody two men, one of whom
was Mellish (without a coat), and the other a hook-nosed man, whose
like Lydia had seen often on race-courses. She pointed out the glade
across which she had seen Cashel run, and felt as if the guilt of
the deception she was practising was wrenching some fibre in her
heart from its natural order. But she spoke with apparent
self-possession, and no shade of suspicion fell on the minds of the
police.

Several peasants now came forward, each professing to know exactly
whither Cashel had been making when he crossed the glade. While they
were disputing, many persons resembling the hook-nosed captive in
general appearance sneaked into the crowd and regarded the police
with furtive hostility. Soon after, a second detachment of police
came up, with another prisoner and another crowd, among whom was
Bashville.

"Better go in, mum," said the policeman who had spoken to Lydia
first. "We must keep together, being so few, and he ain't fit for
you to look at."

But Lydia had looked already, and had guessed that the last prisoner
was Paradise, although his countenance was damaged beyond
recognition. His costume was like that of Cashel, except that he was
girt with a blue handkerchief with white spots, and his shoulders
were wrapped in a blanket, through one of the folds of which his
naked ribs could be seen, tinged with every hue that a bad bruise
can assume. A shocking spectacle appeared where his face had
formerly been. A crease and a hole in the midst of a cluster of
lumps of raw flesh indicated the presence of an eye and a mouth; the
rest of his features were indiscernible. He could still see a
little, for he moved his puffed and lacerated hand to arrange his
blanket, and demanded hoarsely, and with greatly impeded
articulation, whether the lady would stand a dram to a poor fighting
man wot had done his best for his backers. On this some one produced
a flask, and Mellish volunteered, provided he were released for a
moment, to get the contents down Paradise's throat. As soon as the
brandy had passed his swollen lips he made a few preliminary sounds,
and then shouted,

"He sent for the coppers because he couldn't stand another round. I
am ready to go on."

The policemen bade him hold his tongue, closed round him, and hid
him from Lydia, who, without showing the mingled pity and loathing
with which his condition inspired her, told them to bring him to the
castle, and have him attended to there. She added that the whole
party could obtain refreshment at the same time. The sergeant, who
was very tired and thirsty, wavered in his resolution to continue
the pursuit. Lydia, as usual, treated the matter as settled.

"Bashville," she said, "will you please show them the way, and see
that they are satisfied."

"Some thief has stole my coat," said Mellish, sullenly, to
Bashville. "If you'll lend me one, governor, and these blessed
policemen will be so kind as not to tear it off my back, I'll send
it down to you in a day or two. I'm a respectable man, and have been
her ladyship's tenant here."

"Your pal wants it worse than you," said the sergeant. "If there was
an old coachman's cape or anything to put over him, I would see it
returned safe. I don't want to bring him round the country in a
blanket, like a wild Injin."

"I have a cloak inside," said Bashville. "I'll get it for you." And
before Lydia could devise a pretext for stopping him, he went out,
and she heard him reentering the lodge by the back door. It seemed
to her that a silence fell on the crowd, as if her deceit were
already discovered. Then Mellish, who had been waiting for an
opportunity to protest against the last remark of the policeman,
said, angrily,

"Who are you calling my pal? I hope I may be struck dead for a liar
if ever I set my eyes on him in my life before."

Lydia looked at him as a martyr might look at a wretch to whom she
was to be chained. He was doing as she had done--lying. Then
Bashville, having passed through the other rooms, came into the
library by the inner door, with an old livery cloak on his arm.

"Put that on him," he said, "and come along to the castle with me.
You can see the roads for five miles round from the south tower, and
recognize every man on them, through the big telescope. By your
leave, madam, I think Phoebe had better come with us to help."

"Certainly," said Lydia, looking steadfastly at him.

"I'll get clothes at the castle for the man that wants them," he
added, trying to return her gaze, but failing with a blush. "Now
boys. Come along."

"I thank your ladyship," said the sergeant. "We have had a hard
morning of it, and we can do no more at present than drink your
health." He touched his helmet again, and Lydia bowed to him. "Keep
close together, men," he shouted, as the crowd moved off with
Bashville.

"Ah," sneered Mellish, "keep close together like the geese do.
Things has come to a pretty pass when an Englishman is run in for
stopping when he sees a crowd."

"All right," said the sergeant. "I have got that bundle of colored
handkerchiefs you were selling; and I'll find the other man before
you're a day older. It's a pity, seeing how you've behaved so well
and haven't resisted us, that you won't drop a hint of where those
ropes and stakes are hid. I might have a good word at the sessions
for any one who would put me in the way of finding them."

"Ropes and stakes! Fiddlesticks and grandmothers! There weren't no
ropes and stakes. It was only a turn-up--that is, if there was any
fighting at all. _I_ didn't see none; but I s'pose you did. But then
you're clever, and I'm not."

By this time the last straggler of the party had disappeared from
Lydia, who had watched their retreat from the door of the Warren
Lodge. When she turned to go in she saw Cashel cautiously entering
from the room in which he had lain concealed. His excitement had
passed off; he looked cold and anxious, as if a reaction were
setting in.

"Are they all gone?" he said. "That servant of yours is a good sort.
He has promised to bring me some clothes. As for you, you're better
than--What's the matter? Where are you going to?"

Lydia had put on her hat, and was swiftly wrapping herself in a
shawl. Wreaths of rosy color were chasing each other through her
cheeks; and her eyes and nostrils, usually so tranquil, were
dilated.

"Won't you speak to me?" he said, irresolutely.

"Just this," she replied, with passion. "Let me never see you again.
The very foundations of my life are loosened: I have told a lie. I
have made my servant--an honorable man--an accomplice in a lie. We
are worse than you; for even your wild-beast's handiwork is a less
evil than the bringing of a falsehood into the world. This is what
has come to me out of our acquaintance. I have given you a
hiding-place. Keep it. I will never enter it again."

Cashel, appalled, shrank back with an expression such as a child
wears when, in trying to steal sweet-meats from a high shelf, it
pulls the whole cupboard down about its ears. He neither spoke nor
stirred as she left the lodge.

Finding herself presently at the castle, she went to her boudoir,
where she found her maid, the French lady, from whose indignant
description of the proceedings below she gathered that the policemen
were being regaled with bread and cheese, and beer; and that the
attendance of a surgeon had been dispensed with, Paradise's wounds
having been dressed skilfully by Mellish. Lydia bade her send
Bashville to the Warren Lodge to see that there were no strangers
loitering about it, and ordered that none of the female servants
should return there until he came back. Then she sat down and tried
not to think. But she could not help thinking; so she submitted and
tried to think the late catastrophe out. An idea that she had
disjointed the whole framework of things by creating a false belief
filled her imagination. The one conviction that she had brought out
of her reading, observing, reflecting, and living was that the
concealment of a truth, with its resultant false beliefs, must
produce mischief, even though the beginning of that mischief might
be as inconceivable as the end. She made no distinction between the
subtlest philosophical misconception and the vulgarest lie. The evil
of Cashel's capture was measurable, the evil of a lie beyond all
measure. She felt none the less assured of that evil because she
could not foresee one bad consequence likely to ensue from what she
had done. Her misgivings pressed heavily upon her; for her father, a
determined sceptic, had taught her his own views, and she was,
therefore, destitute of the consolations which religion has for the
wrongdoer. It was plainly her duty to send for the policeman and
clear up the deception she had practised on him. But this she could
not do. Her will, in spite of her reason, acted in the opposite
direction. And in this paralysis of her moral power she saw the evil
of the lie beginning. She had given it birth, and nature would not
permit her to strangle the monster.

At last her maid returned and informed her that the canaille had
gone away. When she was again alone, she rose and walked slowly to
and fro through the room, forgetting the lapse of time in the
restless activity of her mind, until she was again interrupted, this
time by Bashville.

"Well?"

He was daunted by her tone; for he had never before heard her speak
haughtily to a servant. He did not understand that he had changed
subjectively, and was now her accomplice.

"He's given himself up."

"What do you mean?" she said, with sudden dismay.

"Byron, madam. I brought some clothes to the lodge for him, but when
I got there he was gone. I went round to the gates in search of him,
and found him in the hands of the police. They told me he'd just
given himself up. He wouldn't give any account of himself; and he
looked--well, sullen and beaten down like."

"What will they do with him?" she asked, turning quite pale.

"A man got six weeks' hard labor, last month, for the same offence.
Most probably that's what he'll get. And very little for what's he's
done, as you'd say if you saw him doing it, madam."

"Then," said Lydia, sternly, "it was to see this"--she shrank from
naming it--"this fight, that you asked my permission to go out!"

"Yes, madam, it was," said Bashville, with some bitterness. "I
recognized Lord Worthington and plenty more noblemen and gentlemen
there."

Lydia was about to reply sharply; but she checked herself; and her
usual tranquil manner came back as she said, "That is no reason why
you should have been there."

Bashville's color began to waver, and his voice to need increased
control. "It's in human nature to go to such a thing once," he said;
"but once is enough, at least for me. You'll excuse my mentioning
it, madam; but what with Lord Worthington and the rest of Byron's
backers screaming oaths and abuse at the other man, and the opposite
party doing the same to Byron--well, I may not be a gentleman; but I
hope I can conduct myself like a man, even when I'm losing money."

"Then do not go to such an exhibition again, Bashville. I must not
dictate to you what your amusements shall be; but I do not think you
are likely to benefit yourself by copying Lord Worthington's
tastes."

"I copy no lord's tastes," said Bashville, reddening. "You hid the
man that was fighting, Miss Carew. Why do you look down on the man
that was only a bystander?"

Lydia's color rose, too. Her first impulse was to treat this
outburst as rebellion against her authority, and crush it. But her
sense of justice withheld her.

"Would you have had me betray a fugitive who took refuge in my
house, Bashville? YOU did not betray him."

"No," said Bashville, his expression subdued to one of rueful pride.
"When I am beaten by a better man, I have courage enough to get out
of his way and take no mean advantage of him."

Lydia, not understanding, looked inquiringly at him. He made a
gesture as if throwing something from him, and continued recklessly,

"But one way I'm as good as he, and better. A footman is held more
respectable than a prize-fighter. He's told you that he's in love
with you; and if it is to be my last word, I'll tell you that the
ribbon round your neck is more to me than your whole body and soul
is to him or his like. When he took an unfair advantage of me, and
pretended to be a gentleman, I told Mr. Lucian of him, and showed
him up for what he was. But when I found him to-day hiding in the
pantry at the Lodge, I took no advantage of him, though I knew well
that if he'd been no more to you than any other man of his sort,
you'd never have hid him. You know best why he gave himself up to
the police after your seeing his day's work. But I will leave him to
his luck. He is the best man: let the best man win. I am sorry,"
added Bashville, recovering his ordinary suave manner with an
effort, "to inconvenience you by a short notice, but I should take
it as a particular favor if I might go this evening."

"You had better," said Lydia, rising quite calmly, and keeping
resolutely away from her the strange emotional result of being
astonished, outraged, and loved at one unlooked-for stroke. "It is
not advisable that you should stay after what you have just--"

"I knew that when I said it," interposed Bashville hastily and
doggedly.

"In going away you will be taking precisely the course that would be
adopted by any gentleman who had spoken to the same effect. I am not
offended by your declaration: I recognize your right to make it. If
you need my testimony to further your future arrangements, I shall
be happy to say that I believe you to be a man of honor."

Bashville bowed, and said in a low voice, very nervously, that he
had no intention of going into service again, but that he should
always be proud of her good opinion.

"You are fitted for better things," she said. "If you embark in any
enterprise requiring larger means than you possess, I will be your
security. I thank you for your invariable courtesy to me in the
discharge of your duties. Good-bye."

She bowed to him and left the room. Bashville, awestruck, returned
her salutation as best he could, and stood motionless after she
disappeared; his mind advancing on tiptoe to grasp what had just
passed. His chief sensation was one of relief. He no longer dared to
fancy himself in love with such a woman. Her sudden consideration
for him as a suitor overwhelmed him with a sense of his unfitness
for such a part. He saw himself as a very young, very humble, and
very ignorant man, whose head had been turned by a pleasant place
and a kind mistress. Wakened from his dream, he stole away to pack
his trunk, and to consider how best to account to his
fellow-servants for his departure.






CHAPTER XIII





Lydia resumed her work next day with shaken nerves and a longing for
society. Many enthusiastic young ladies of her acquaintance would
have brought her kisses and devotion by the next mail in response to
a telegram; and many more practical people would have taken
considerable pains to make themselves agreeable to her for the sake
of spending the autumn at Wiltstoken Castle. But she knew that they
would only cause her to regret her former solitude. She shrank from
the people who attached themselves to her strength and riches even
when they had not calculated her gain, and were conscious only of
admiration and gratitude. Alice, as a companion, had proved a
failure. She was too young, and too much occupied with the propriety
of her own behavior, to be anything more to Lydia than an occasional
tax upon her patience. Lydia, to her own surprise, thought several
times of Miss Gisborne, and felt tempted to invite her, but was
restrained by mistrust of the impulse to communicate with Cashel's
mother, and reluctance to trace it to its source. Eventually she
resolved to conquer her loneliness, and apply herself with increased
diligence to the memoir of her father. To restore her nerves, she
walked for an hour every day in the neighborhood, and drove out in a
pony carriage, in the evening. Bashville's duties were now fulfilled
by the butler and Phoebe, Lydia being determined to admit no more
young footmen to her service.

One afternoon, returning from one of her daily walks, she found a
stranger on the castle terrace, in conversation with the butler. As
it was warm autumn weather, Lydia was surprised to see a woman
wearing a black silk mantle trimmed with fur, and heavily decorated
with spurious jet beads. However, as the female inhabitants of
Wiltstoken always approached Miss Carew in their best raiment,
without regard to hours or seasons, she concluded that she was about
to be asked for a subscription to a school treat, a temperance
festival, or perhaps a testimonial to one of the Wiltstoken curates.

When she came nearer she saw that the stranger was an elderly
lady--or possibly not a lady--with crimped hair, and ringlets
hanging at each ear in a fashion then long obsolete.

"Here is Miss Carew," said the butler, shortly, as if the old lady
had tried his temper. "You had better talk to her yourself."

At this she seemed fluttered, and made a solemn courtesy. Lydia,
noticing the courtesy and the curls, guessed that her visitor kept a
dancing academy. Yet a certain contradictory hardihood in her frame
and bearing suggested that perhaps she kept a tavern. However, as
her face was, on the whole, an anxious and a good face, and as her
attitude towards the lady of the castle was one of embarrassed
humility, Lydia acknowledged her salutation kindly, and waited for
her to speak.

"I hope you won't consider it a liberty," said the stranger,
tremulously. "I'm Mrs. Skene."

Lydia became ominously grave; and Mrs. Skene reddened a little. Then
she continued, as if repeating a carefully prepared and rehearsed
speech, "It would be esteemed a favor if I might have the honor of a
few words in private with your ladyship."

Lydia looked and felt somewhat stern; but it was not in her nature
to rebuff any one without strong provocation. She invited her
visitor to enter, and led the way to the circular drawing-room, the
strange decorations of which exactly accorded with Mrs. Skene's
ideas of aristocratic splendor. As a professor of deportment and
etiquette, the ex-champion's wife was nervous under the observation
of such an expert as Lydia; but she got safely seated without having
made a mistake to reproach herself with. For, although entering a
room seems a simple matter to many persons, it was to Mrs. Skene an
operation governed by the strict laws of the art she professed, and
one so elaborate that few of her pupils mastered it satisfactorily
with less than a month's practice. Mrs Skene soon dismissed it from
her mind. She was too old to dwell upon such vanities when real
anxieties were pressing upon her.

"Oh, miss," she began, appealingly, "the boy!"

Lydia knew at once who was meant. But she repeated, as if at a loss,
"The boy?" And immediately accused herself of insincerity.

"Our boy, ma'am. Cashel."

"Mrs. Skene!" said Lydia, reproachfully.

Mrs. Skene understood all that Lydia's tone implied. "I know,
ma'am," she pleaded. "I know well. But what could I do but come to
you? Whatever you said to him, it has gone to his heart; and he's
dying."

"Pardon me," said Lydia, promptly; "men do not die of such things;
and Mr. Cashel Byron is not so deficient either in robustness of
body or hardness of heart as to be an exception to THAT rule."

"Yes, miss," said Mrs. Skene, sadly. "You are thinking of the
profession. You can't believe he has any feelings because he fights.
Ah, miss, if you only knew them as I do! More tender-hearted men
don't breathe. Cashel is like a young child, his feelings are that
easily touched; and I have known stronger than he to die of broken
hearts only because they were unlucky in their calling. Just think
what a high-spirited young man must feel when a lady calls him a
wild beast. That was a cruel word, miss; it was, indeed."

Lydia was so disconcerted by this attack that she had to pause
awhile before replying. Then she said, "Are you aware, Mrs. Skene,
that my knowledge of Mr. Byron is very slight--that I have not seen
him ten times in my life? Perhaps you do not know the circumstances
in which I last saw him. I was greatly shocked by the injuries he
had inflicted on another man; and I believe I spoke of them as the
work of a wild beast. For your sake, I am sorry I said so; for he
has told me that he regards you as his mother; and--"

"Oh, no! Far from it, miss. I ask your pardon a thousand times for
taking the word out of your mouth; but me and Ned is no more to him
than your housekeeper or governess might be to you. That's what I'm
afraid you don't understand, miss. He's no relation of ours. I do
assure you that he's a gentleman born and bred; and when we go back
to Melbourne next Christmas, it will be just the same as if he had
never known us."

"I hope he will not be so ungrateful as to forget you. He has told
me his history."

"That's more than he ever told me, miss; so you may judge how much
he thinks of you."

A pause followed this. Mrs. Skene felt that the first exchange was
over, and that she had got the better in it.

"Mrs. Skene," said Lydia then, penetratingly; "when you came to pay
me this visit, what object did you propose to yourself? What do you
expect me to do?"

"Well, ma'am," said Mrs. Skene, troubled, "the poor lad has had
crosses lately. There was the disappointment about you--the first
one, I mean--that had been preying on his mind for a long time. Then
there was that exhibition spar at the Agricultural Hall, when
Paradise acted so dishonorable. Cashel heard that you were looking
on; and then he read the shameful way the newspapers wrote of him;
and he thought you'd believe it all. I couldn't get that thought out
of his head. I said to him, over and over again--"

"Excuse me," said Lydia, interrupting. "We had better be frank with
one another. It is useless to assume that he mistook my feeling on
that subject. I WAS shocked by the severity with which he treated
his opponent."

"But bless you, that's his business," said Mrs. Skone, opening her
eyes widely. "I put it to you, miss," she continued, as if mildly
reprobating some want of principle on Lydia's part, "whether an
honest man shouldn't fulfil his engagements. I assure you that the
pay a respectable professional usually gets for a spar like that is
half a guinea; and that was all Paradise got. But Cashel stood on
his reputation, and wouldn't take less than ten guineas; and he got
it, too. Now many another in his position would have gone into the
ring and fooled away the time pretending to box, and just swindling
those that paid him. But Cashel is as honest and high-minded as a
king. You saw for yourself the trouble he took. He couldn't have
spared himself less if he had been fighting for a thousand a side
and the belt, instead of for a paltry ten guineas. Surely you don't
think the worse of him for his honesty, miss?"

"I confess," said Lydia, laughing in spite of herself, "that your
view of the transaction did not occur to me."

"Of course not, ma'am; no more it wouldn't to any one, without they
were accustomed to know the right and wrong of the profession. Well,
as I was saying, miss, that was a fresh disappointment to him. It
worrited him more than you can imagine. Then came a deal of bother
about the match with Paradise. First Paradise could only get five
hundred pounds; and the boy wouldn't agree for less than a thousand.
I think it's on your account that he's been so particular about the
money of late; for he was never covetous before. Then Mellish was
bent on its coming off down hereabouts; and the poor lad was so
mortal afraid of its getting to your ears, that he wouldn't consent
until they persuaded him you would be in foreign parts in August.
Glad I was when the articles were signed at last, before he was
worrited into his grave. All the time he was training he was longing
for a sight of you; but he went through with it as steady and
faithful as a man could. And he trained beautiful. I saw him on the
morning of the fight; and he was like a shining angel; it would have
done a lady's heart good to look at him. Ned went about like a
madman offering twenty to one on him: if he had lost, we should have
been ruined at this moment. And then to think of the police coming
just as he was finishing Paradise. I cried like a child when I heard
of it: I don't think there was ever anything so cruel. And he could
have finished him quarter of an hour sooner, only he held back to
make the market for Ned." Here Mrs. Skene, overcome, blew her nose
before proceeding. "Then, on the top of that, came what passed
betwixt you and him, and made him give himself up to the police.
Lord Worthington bailed him out; but what with the disgrace and the
disappointment, and his time and money thrown away, and the sting of
your words, all coming together, he was quite broken-hearted. And
now he mopes and frets; and neither me nor Ned nor Fan can get any
good of him. They tell me that he won't be sent to prison; but if he
is"--here Mrs. Skene broke down and began to cry--"it will be the
death of him, and God forgive those that have brought it about."

Sorrow always softened Lydia; but tears hardened her again; she had
no patience with them.

"And the other man?" she said. "Have you heard anything of him? I
suppose he is in some hospital."

"In hospital!" repeated Mrs. Skene, checking her tears in alarm.
"Who?"

"Paradise," replied Lydia, pronouncing the name reluctantly.

"He in hospital! Why, bless your innocence, miss, I saw him
yesterday, looking as well as such an ugly brute could look--not a
mark on him, and he bragging what he would have done to Cashel if
the police hadn't come up. He's a nasty, low fighting man, so he is;
and I'm only sorry that our boy demeaned himself to strip with the
like of him. I hear that Cashel made a perfect picture of him, and
that you saw him. I suppose you were frightened, ma'am, and very
naturally, too, not being used to such sights. I have had my Ned
brought home to me in that state that I have poured brandy into his
eye, thinking it was his mouth; and even Cashel, careful as he is,
has been nearly blind for three days. It is not to be expected that
they could have all the money for nothing. Don't let it prey on your
mind, miss. If you married--I am only supposing it," said Mrs.
Skene in soothing parenthesis as she saw Lydia shrink from the
word--"if you were married to a great surgeon, as you might be
without derogation to your high rank, you'd be ready to faint if you
saw him cut off a leg or an arm, as he would have to do every day
for his livelihood; but you'd be proud of his cleverness in being
able to do it. That's how I feel with regard to Ned. I tell you the
truth, ma'am, I shouldn't like to see him in the ring no more than
the lady of an officer in the Guards would like to see her husband
in the field of battle running his sword into the poor blacks or
into the French; but as it's his profession, and people think so
highly of him for it, I make up my mind to it; and now I take quite
an interest in it, particularly as it does nobody any harm. Not that
I would have you think that Ned ever took the arm or leg off a man:
Lord forbid--or Cashel either. Oh, ma'am, I thank you kindly, and
I'm sorry you should have given yourself the trouble." This referred
to the entry of a servant with tea.

"Still," said Lydia, when they were at leisure to resume the
conversation, "I do not quite understand why you have come to me.
Personally you are quite welcome; but in what way did you expect to
relieve Mr. Byron's mind by visiting me? Did he ask you to come?"

"He'd have died first. I came down of my own accord, knowing what
was the matter with him."

"And what then?"

Mrs. Skene looked around to satisfy herself that they were alone.
Then she leaned towards Lydia, and said in an emphatic whisper,

"Why won't you marry him, miss?"

"Because I don't choose, Mrs. Skene," said Lydia, with perfect
good-humor.

"But consider a little, miss. Where will you ever get such another
chance? Only think what a man he is! champion of the world and a
gentleman as well. The two things have never happened before, and
never will again. I have known lots of champions, but they were not
fit company for the like of you. Ned was champion when I married
him; and my family thought that I lowered myself in doing it,
although I was only a professional dancer on the stage. The men in
the ring are common men mostly; and so, though they are the best men
in the kingdom, ladies are cut off from their society. But it has
been your good luck to take the fancy of one that's a gentleman.
What more could a lady desire? Where will you find his equal in
health, strength, good looks, or good manners? As to his character,
I can tell you about that. In Melbourne, as you may suppose, all the
girls and women were breaking their hearts for his sake. I declare
to you that I used to have two or three of them in every evening
merely to look at him, and he, poor innocent lad, taking no more
notice of them than if they were cabbages. He used to be glad to get
away from them by going into the saloon and boxing with the
gentlemen; and then they used to peep at him through the door. They
never got a wink from him. You were the first, Miss Carew; and,
believe me, you will be the last. If there had ever been another he
couldn't have kept it from me; because his disposition is as open as
a child's. And his honesty is beyond everything you can imagine. I
have known him to be offered eight hundred pounds to lose a fight
that he could only get two hundred by winning, not to mention his
chance of getting nothing at all if he lost honestly. You know--for
I see you know the world, ma'am--how few men would be proof against
such a temptation. There are men high up in their profession--so
high that you'd as soon suspect the queen on her throne of selling
her country's battles as them--that fight cross on the sly when it's
made worth their while. My Ned is no low prize-fighter, as is well
known; but when he let himself be beat by that little Killarney
Primrose, and went out and bought a horse and trap next day, what
could I think? There, ma'am, I tell you that of my own husband; and
I tell you that Cashel never was beaten, although times out of mind
it would have paid him better to lose than to win, along of those
wicked betting men. Not an angry word have I ever had from him, nor
the sign of liquor have I ever seen on him, except once on Ned's
birthday; and then nothing but fun came out of him in his cups, when
the truth comes out of all men. Oh, do just think how happy you
ought to be, miss, if you would only bring yourself to look at it in
the proper light. A gentleman born and bred, champion of the world,
sober, honest, spotless as the unborn babe, able to take his own
part and yours in any society, and mad in love with you! He thinks
you an angel from heaven and so I am sure you are, miss, in your
heart. I do assure you that my Fan gets quite put out because she
thinks he draws comparisons to her disadvantage. I don't think you
can be so hard to please as to refuse him, miss."