Kitabı oku: «The Three Miss Kings», sayfa 19

"Come and have some lunch," she said to Paul (Mr. Brion was already at the table, deprecating the trouble that his dear Patty was taking). "I don't think you will find anything more."

The young man stood up with his brows knitted over his keen eyes, and glanced askance at the group by the window. "We have not done yet," he said decisively; "and we have learned quite enough, in what we haven't found, to justify us in consulting Mr. Yelverton's solicitors."

"No," she said, "I'll have nothing said to Mr. Yelverton, unless the whole thing is proved first."

Never thinking that the thing would be proved, first or last, she advanced to the extemporised lunch table, and dispensed the modest hospitalities of the establishment with her wonted simple grace. Mr. Brion was accommodated with an arm-chair and a music-book to lay across his knees, whereon Patty placed the tit-bits of the chicken and the knobby top-crust of the loaf, waiting upon him with that tender solicitude to which he had grown accustomed, but which was so astonishing, and so interesting also, to his son.

"She has spoiled me altogether," said the old man fondly, laying his hand on her bright head as she knelt before him to help him to mustard and salt. "I don't know how I shall ever manage to get along without her now."

"Has this sad fate overtaken you in one short week?" inquired Paul, rather grimly. "Your sister should be labelled like an explosive compound, Miss King – 'dangerous,' in capital letters." Paul was sitting in a low chair by Elizabeth, with his plate on his knee, and he thawed a good deal, in spite of fierce intentions to the contrary, under the influence of food and wine and the general conversation. He looked at Patty now and then, and by-and-bye went so far as to address a remark to her. "What did she think of the caves?" he asked, indifferently, offering her at the same moment a glass of sherry, which, though unaccustomed to fermented liquors, she had not the presence of mind to refuse – and which she took with such a shaking hand that she spilled some of it over her apron. And she plunged at once into rapid and enthusiastic descriptions of the caves and the delights of their expedition thereto, absurdly uplifted by this slight token of interest in her proceedings.

When luncheon was over, Elizabeth culled Eleanor – who, too restless to eat much herself, was hovering about the bureau, tapping it here and there with a chisel – to take her turn to be useful by clearing the table; and then, as if business were of no consequence, bade her guests rest themselves for a little and smoke a cigarette if they felt inclined.

"Smoke!" exclaimed Paul, with a little sarcastic laugh. "Oh, no, Miss King, that would never do. What would Mrs. Duff-Scott say if she were to smell tobacco in your sitting-room?"

"Well, what would she say?" returned Elizabeth, gently – she was very gentle with Paul to-day. "Mrs. Duff-Scott, I believe, is rather fond of the smell of tobacco, when it is good."

Mr. Brion having satisfied the demands of politeness with profuse protestations, suffered himself to indulge in a mild cigarette; but Paul would not be persuaded. He resumed his study of the manuscripts with an air of determination, as of a man who had idled away precious time. He conscientiously endeavoured to fix his attention on the important business that he had undertaken, and to forget everything else until he had finished it. For a little while Patty wandered up and down in an aimless manner, making neat heaps of the various articles scattered about the room and watching him furtively; then she softly opened the piano, and began to play, just above a whisper, the "Sonata Pathetique."

CHAPTER XXXVII.
DISCOVERY

It was between two and three o'clock; Mr. Brion reposed in his arm-chair, smoking a little, talking a little to Elizabeth who sat beside him, listening dreamily to the piano, and feeling himself more and more inclined to doze and nod his head in the sleepy warmth of the afternoon, after his glass of sherry and his recent severe fatigues. Elizabeth, by way of entertaining him, sat at his elbow, thinking, thinking, with her fingers interlaced in her lap and her gaze fixed upon the floor. Patty, intensely alert and wakeful, but almost motionless in her straight back and delicately poised head, drooped over the keyboard, playing all the "soft things" that she could remember without notes; and Paul, who had resisted her enchantments as long as he could, leaned back in his chair, with his hand over his eyes, having evidently ceased to pay any attention to his papers. And, suddenly, Eleanor, who was supposed to be washing plates and dishes in the kitchen, flashed into the room, startling them all out of their dreams.

"Elizabeth, dear," she exclaimed tremulously, "forgive me for meddling with your things. But I was thinking and thinking what else there was that we had not examined, and mother's old Bible came into my head – the little old Bible that she always used, and that you kept in your top drawer. I could not help looking at it, and here" – holding out a small leather-bound volume, frayed at the corners and fastened with silver clasps – "here is what I have found. The two first leaves are stuck together – I remembered that – but they are only stuck round the edges; there is a little piece in the middle that is loose and rattles, and, see, there is writing on it." The girl was excited and eager, and almost pushed the Bible into Paul Brion's hands. "Look at it, look at it," she cried. "Undo the leaves with your knife and see what the writing is."

Paul examined the joined leaves attentively, saw that Eleanor was correct in her surmise, and looked at Elizabeth. "May I, Miss King?" he asked, his tone showing that he understood how sacred this relic must be, and how much it would go against its present possessor to see it tampered with.

"I suppose you had better," said Elizabeth.

He therefore sat down, laid the book before him, and opened his sharp knife. A sense that something was really going to happen now – that the secret of all this careful effacement of the little chronicles common and natural to every civilised family would reveal itself in the long-hidden page which, alone of all the records of the past, their mother had lacked the heart to destroy – fell upon the three girls; and they gathered round to watch the operation with pale faces and beating hearts. Paul was a long time about it, for he tried to part the leaves without cutting them, and they were too tightly stuck together. He had at last to make a little hole in which to insert his knife, and then it was a most difficult matter to cut away the plain sheet without injuring the written one. Presently, however, he opened a little door in the middle of the page, held the flap up, glanced at what was behind it for a moment, looked significantly at his father, and silently handed the open book to Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, trembling with excitement and apprehension, lifting up the little flap in her turn, read this clear inscription —

"To my darling child, ELIZABETH,

From her loving mother,

ELEANOR D'ARCY LEIGH

Bradenham Abbey. Christmas, 1839

Psalm xv., 1, 2."

There was a dead silence while they all looked at the fine brown writing – that delicate caligraphy which, like fine needlework, went out of fashion when our grandmothers passed away – of which every letter, though pale, was perfectly legible. A flood of recollection poured into the minds of the three girls, especially the elder ones, at the sight of those two words, "Bradenham Abbey," in the corner of the uncovered portion of the page. "Leigh" and "D'Arcy" were both unfamiliar names – or had been until lately – but Bradenham had a place in the archives of memory, and came forth at this summons from its dusty and forgotten nook. When they were children their mother used to tell them stories by the firelight in winter evenings, and amongst those stories were several whose scenes were laid in the tapestried chambers and ghostly corridors, and about the parks and deer-drives and lake-shores of a great "place" in an English county – a place that had once been a famous monastery, every feature and aspect of which Mrs. King had at various times described so minutely that they were almost as familiar with it as if they had seen it for themselves. These stories generally came to an untimely end by the narrator falling into an impenetrable brown study or being overtaken by an unaccountable disposition to cry – which gave them, of course, a special and mysterious fascination for the children. While still little things in pinafores, they were quick enough to perceive that mother had a personal interest in that wonderful place of which they never tired of hearing, and which evidently did not belong to the realms of Make-believe, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty and Blue-beard's castle; and therefore they were always, if unconsciously, trying to understand what that interest was. And when, one day when she was painting a wreath of forget-me-nots on some little trifle intended for a bazaar, and, her husband coming to look over her, she said to him impulsively, "Oh, do you remember how they grew in the sedges round the Swan's Pool at Bradenham?" – and when he sternly bade her hush, and not speak of Bradenham unless she wished to drive him mad – then Patty and Elizabeth, who heard them both, knew that Bradenham was the name of the great house where monks had lived, in the grounds of which, as they had had innumerable proofs, pools and swans abounded. It was the first time they had heard it, but it was too important a piece of information to be forgotten. On this memorable day, so many years after, when they read "Bradenham Abbey" in the well-worn Bible, they looked at each other, immediately recalling that long-ago incident; but their hearts were too full to speak. It was Mr. Brion who broke the silence that had fallen upon them all.

"This, added to our other discoveries, is conclusive, I think," said the old lawyer, standing up in order to deliver his opinion impressively, and resting his hands on the table. "At any rate, I must insist on placing the results of our investigation before Mr. Yelverton – yes, Elizabeth, you must forgive me, my dear, if I take the matter into my own hands. Paul will agree with me that we have passed the time for sentiment. We will have another look into the bureau – because it seems incredible that any man should deliberately rob his children of their rights, even if he repudiated his own, and therefore I think there must be legal instruments somewhere; but, supposing none are with us, it will not be difficult, I imagine, to supply what is wanting to complete our case from other sources – from other records of the family, in fact. Mr. Yelverton himself, in five minutes, would be able to throw a great deal of light upon our discoveries. It is absolutely necessary to consult him."

"I would not mind so much," said Elizabeth, who was deadly pale, "if it were to be fought out with strangers. But he would give it all up at once, without waiting to see – without asking us to prove – that we had a strictly legal title."

"Don't you believe it," interposed Paul sententiously.

She rose from her chair in majestic silence, and moved towards the bureau. She would not bandy her lover's name nor discuss his character with those who did not know him as she did. Paul followed her, with his chisel in his hand.

"Let us look for that secret drawer, at any rate," he said. "I feel pretty certain there must be one, now. Mr. King took great pains to prevent identification during his lifetime, but, as my father says, that is a very different thing from disinheriting you. If you will allow me, I'll take every moveable part out first."

He did so, while she watched and assisted him. All the brass-handled drawers, and sliding shelves, and partitions were withdrawn from their closely-fitting sockets, leaving a number of holes and spaces each differing in size and shape from the rest. Then he drew up a chair in front of the exposed skeleton, and gazed at it thoughtfully; after which he began to make careful measurements inside and out, to tap the woodwork in every direction, and to prise some of its strong joints asunder. This work continued until four o'clock, when, notwithstanding the highly stimulating excitement of the day's proceedings, the girls began to feel that craving for a cup of tea which is as strong upon the average woman at this time as the craving for a nobbler of whisky is upon the – shall I say average man? – when the sight of a public-house appeals to his nobler appetite. Not that they wanted to eat and drink – far from it; the cup of tea was the symbol of rest and relief for a little while from the stress and strain of labour and worry, and that was what they were in need of. Elizabeth looked at her watch and then at Patty, and the two girls slipped out of the room together, leaving Eleanor to watch operations at the bureau. Reaching their little kitchen, they mechanically lit the gas in the stove, and set the kettle on to boil; and then they went to the open window, which commanded an unattractive view of the back yard, and stood there side by side, leaning on each other.

"In 1839," said Patty, "she must have been a girl, a child, and living at Bradenham at home. Think of it, Elizabeth – with a mother loving her and petting her as she did us. She was twenty-five when she married; she must have been about sixteen when that Bible was given to her – ever so much younger than any of us are now. She lived in those beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish leather on the walls —she danced in that long gallery with the painted windows and the slippery oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a row – no doubt she rode about herself with those hunting parties in the winter, and rowed and skated on the lake – I can imagine it, what a life it must have been. Can't you see her, before she grew stout and careworn, and her bright hair got dull, and her pretty hands rough with hard work – young, and lovely, and happy, and petted by everybody – wearing beautiful clothes, and never knowing what it was to have to do anything for herself? I can. And it seems dreadful to think that she had to remember all that, living as she did afterwards. If only he had made it up to her! – but I don't think he did, Elizabeth – I don't think he did. He used to be so cross to her sometimes. Oh, bless her, bless her! Why didn't she tell us, so that we could have done more to comfort her?"

"I don't think she ever repented," said Elizabeth, who remembered more about her mother than Patty could do. "She did it because she loved him better than Bradenham and wealth and her own personal comfort; and she loved him like that always, even when he was cross. Poor father! No wonder he was cross!"

"Why didn't he go back – for her sake, if not for ours – when he saw the advertisements? Elizabeth, my idea is that the death of his brother gave a permanent shock to his brain. I think he could never have been quite himself afterwards. It was a sort of mania with him to disconnect himself from everything that could suggest the tragedy – to get as far away as possible from any association with it."

"I think so, too," said Elizabeth.

Thus they talked by the kitchen window until the kettle bubbled on the stove; and then, recalled to the passing hour and their own personal affairs, they collected cups and saucers, sugar-basin and milk-jug, and cut bread and butter for the afternoon repast. Just as their preparations were completed, Eleanor came flying along the passage from the sitting-room. "They have found a secret drawer," she cried in an excited whisper. "At least not a drawer, but a double partition that seems to have been glued up; and Mr. Brion is sure, by the dull sound of the wood, that there are things in it. Come and see!"

She flew back again, not even waiting to help her sisters with the tea. Silently Elizabeth took up the tray of cups and saucers, and Patty the teapot and the plate of bread and butter; and they followed her with beating hearts. This was the crisis of their long day's trial. Paul was tearing at the intestines of the bureau like a cat at the wainscot that has just given sanctuary to a mouse, and his father was too much absorbed in helping him to notice their return.

"Now, pull, pull!" cried the old man, at the moment when the sisters closed the door behind them. "Break it, if it won't come. A – a – ah!" as a sudden crash of splintered wood resounded through the room, "there they are at last! I thought they must be here somewhere!"

"What is it?" inquired Elizabeth, setting down her tea-tray, and hastily running to his side. He was stripping a pink tape from a thin bundle of blue papers in a most unprofessional state of excitement and agitation.

"What is it?" he echoed triumphantly. "This is what it is, my dear" – and he began in a loud voice to read from the outside of the blue packet, to which he pointed with a shaking finger – "The will of Kingscote Yelverton, formerly of Yelverton, in the county of Kent – Elizabeth Yelverton, sole executrix."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE TIME FOR ACTION

Yes, it was their father's will – the will they had vainly hunted for a year ago, little thinking what manner of will it was; executed when Eleanor was a baby in long clothes, and providing for their inheritance of that enormous English fortune. When they were a little recovered from the shock of this last overwhelming surprise, Mr. Brion broke the seal of the document, and formally and solemnly read it to them. It was very short, but perfectly correct in form, and the testator (after giving to his wife, in the event of her surviving him, the sole control of the entire property, which was unentailed, for her lifetime) bequeathed to his younger daughters, and to any other children who might have followed them, a portion of thirty thousand pounds apiece, and left the eldest, Elizabeth, heiress of Yelverton and residuary legatee. Patty and Eleanor were thus to be made rich beyond their dreams of avarice, but Elizabeth, who had been her father's favourite, was to inherit a colossal fortune. That was, of course, supposing such wealth existed in fact as well as in the imagination of this incredible madman. Paul and his father found themselves unable to conceive of such a thing as that any one in his senses should possess these rare and precious privileges, so passionately desired and so recklessly sought and sinned for by those who had them not, and should yet abjure, them voluntarily, and against every natural temptation and moral obligation to do otherwise. It was something wholly outside the common course of human affairs, and unintelligible to men of business. Both of them felt that they must get out of the region of romance and into the practical domain of other lawyers' offices before they could cope effectively with the anomalies of the case. As it stood, it was beyond their grasp. While the girls, sitting together by the table, strove to digest the meaning of the legal phrases that had fallen so strangely on their ears, Mr. Brion and Paul exchanged sotto voce suggestions and opinions over the parchment spread out before them. Then presently the old man opened a second document, glanced silently down the first page, cleared his throat, and looking over his spectacles, said solemnly, "My dears, give me your attention for a few minutes."

Each changed her position a little, and looked at him steadily. Paul leaned back in his chair, and put his hand over his eyes.

"What I have just been reading to you," said Mr. Brion, "is your father's last will and testament, as I believe. It appears that his surname was Yelverton, and that King was only an abbreviation of his Christian name – assumed as the surname for the purpose of eluding the search made for him by his family. Now, certain circumstances have come to our knowledge lately, referring, apparently, to this inexplicable conduct on your father's part." He paused, coughed, and nervously smoothed out the sheets before him, glancing hither and thither over their contents. "Elizabeth, my dear," he went on, "I think you heard Mr. Yelverton's account of his uncle's strange disappearance after – ahem – after a certain unfortunate catastrophe?"

"Yes," said Elizabeth. "We all know about that."

"Well, it seems – of course we must not jump at conclusions too hastily, but still it appears to me a reasonable conjecture – that your father and Mr. Yelverton's lost uncle were one and the same person. The affair altogether is so extraordinary, so altogether unaccountable, on the face of it, that we shall require a great deal of proof – and of course Mr. Yelverton himself will require the very fullest and most absolute legal proof – before we can accept the theory as an established fact – "

"Did I not say so?" Elizabeth interrupted eagerly, surprised by the old man's sudden assumption of scepticism now that all doubt and uncertainty seemed to be over. "I wish that nothing should be done – that no steps of any sort should be taken – until it is all proved to the last letter."

"Well," said Mr. Brion, at once abandoning his cautious attitude, "we must take steps to obtain proof before we can obtain it. And, as it providentially happens, we have received the most opportune and, as I believe, the most unimpeachable testimony from Mr. Yelverton himself, who is the loser by our gain, and who gave us the information which is so singularly corroborated in these documents before the existence of such documents was known to anybody. But if more were wanted – "

"More is wanted," urged Elizabeth. "We cannot take advantage of his own admissions to ruin him."

"If more were wanted," Mr. Brion repeated, with growing solemnity of manner, "we have here a paper under your father's hand, and duly witnessed by the same persons who witnessed the will – where are you going, Paul?" For at this point Paul rose and walked quietly towards the door.

"Go on," said the young man. "I will come back presently."

"But where are you going?" his father repeated with irritation. "Can't you wait until this business is finished?"

"I think," said Paul, "that the Miss Kings – the Miss Yelvertons, I suppose I ought to say – would rather be by themselves while you read that paper. It is not just like the will, you know; it is a private matter – not for outsiders to listen to."

Elizabeth rose promptly and went towards him, laying her hand on his arm. "Do you think we consider you an outsider?" she said, reproachfully. "You are one of us – you are in the place of our brother – we want you to help us now more than we have ever done. Come and sit down – that is, of course, if you can spare time for our affairs when you have so many important ones of your own."

He went and sat down, taking the seat by Patty to which Elizabeth pointed him. Patty looked up at him wistfully, and then leaned her elbows on the table and put her face in her hands. Her lover laid his arm gently on the back of her chair.

"Shall I begin, my dear?" asked the lawyer hesitatingly. "I am afraid it will be painful to you, Elizabeth. Perhaps, as Paul says, it would be better for you to read it by yourselves. I will leave it with you for a little while, if you promise faithfully to be very careful with it."

But Elizabeth wished it to be read as the will was read, and the old man, vaguely suspecting that she might be illegally generous to the superseded representative of the Yelverton name and property, was glad to keep the paper in his own hands, and proceeded to recite its contents. "I, Kingscote Yelverton, calling myself John King, do hereby declare," &c.

It was the story of Kingscote Yelverton's unfortunate life, put on record in the form of an affidavit for the benefit of his children, apparently with the intention that they should claim their inheritance when he was gone. The witnesses were an old midwife, long since dead, and a young Scripture reader, now a middle-aged and prosperous ecclesiastic in a distant colony; both of whom the lawyer remembered as features of the "old days" when he himself was a new-comer to the out-of-the-world place that counted Mr. King as its oldest inhabitant. It was a touching little document, in the sad story that it told and the severe formality of the style of telling it. Kingscote Yelverton, it was stated, was the second of three brothers, sons of a long line of Yelvertons of Yelverton, of which three, however, according to hereditary custom, only one was privileged to inherit the ancestral wealth. This one, Patrick, a bachelor, had already come into his kingdom; the youngest, a briefless barrister in comfortable circumstances, had married a farmer's daughter in very early youth (while reading for university honours during a long vacation spent in the farmer's house), and was the father of a sturdy schoolboy while himself not long emancipated from the rule of pastors and masters; and Kingscote was a flourishing young captain in the Guards – when the tragedy which shattered the family to pieces, and threw its vast property into Chancery, took place. Bradenham Abbey was neighbour to Yelverton, and Cuthbert Leigh of Bradenham was kin to the Yelvertons of Yelverton. Cuthbert Leigh had a beautiful daughter by his first wife, Eleanor D'Arcy; when this daughter was sixteen her mother died, and a stepmother soon after took Eleanor D'Arcy's place; and not long after the stepmother came to Bradenham Cuthbert Leigh himself died, leaving an infant son and heir; and not long after that Mrs. Cuthbert Leigh married again, and her new husband administered Bradenham – in the interest of the heir eventually, but of himself and his own children in the meantime. So it happened that Elizabeth Leigh was rather elbowed out of her rights and privileges as her father's daughter; which being the case, her distant cousin and near friend, Mrs. Patrick Yelverton, mother of the ill-fated brothers (who lived, poor soul, to see her house left desolate), fetched the girl away from the home which was hers no more, and took her to live under her own wing at Yelverton. Then the troubles began. Elizabeth was young and fair; indeed, all accounts of her agreed in presenting the portrait of a woman who must have been irresistible to the normal and unappropriated man brought into close contact with her. At Yelverton she was the daily companion of the unwedded master of the house, and he succumbed accordingly. As an impartial chronicler, I may hazard the suggestion that she enjoyed a flirtation within lady-like limits, and was not without some responsibility in the matter. It was clear also that the dowager Mrs. Patrick, anxious to see her first-born suitably married and settled, and placed safely beyond the reach of designing farmers' daughters, contrived her best to effect a union between the two. But while Patrick was over head and ears in love, and Elizabeth was dallying with him, and the old mother planning new furniture for the stately rooms where the queen was to reign who should succeed her, Kingscote the guardsman – Kingscote, the handsome, strong-willed, fiery-tempered second son – came home. To him the girl's heart, with the immemorial and incurable perversity of hearts, turned forthwith, like a flower to the sun; and a very short furlough had but half run out when she was as deeply over head and ears in love with Kingscote as Patrick was with her. Kingscote also loved her passionately – on his own testimony, he loved her as never man loved before, though he made a proud confession that he had still been utterly unworthy of her; and so the materials for the tragedy were laid, like a housemaid's fire, ready for the match that kindled them. Elizabeth found her position untenable amid the strenuous and conflicting attentions bestowed on her by the mother and sons, and went away for a time to visit some of her other relatives; and when her presence and influence were withdrawn from Yelverton, the smothered enmity of the brothers broke out, and they had their first and last and fatal quarrel about her. She had left a miniature of herself hanging in their mother's boudoir; this miniature Patrick laid hands on, and carried off to his private rooms; wherefrom Kingscote, in a violent passion (as Elizabeth's accepted lover), abstracted it by force. Then the master of the house, always too much inclined to assert himself as such, being highly incensed in his turn at the liberty that had been taken with him, marched into his brother's bedroom, where the disputed treasure was hidden, found it, and put it in his breast until he could discover a safer place for it. They behaved like a pair of ill-regulated schoolboys, in short, as men do when love and jealousy combine to derange their nervous systems, and wrought their own irreparable ruin over this miserable trifle. Patrick, flushed with a lurid triumph at his temporary success, strolled away from the house for an aimless walk, but afterwards went to a gamekeeper's cottage to give some instructions that occurred to him. The gamekeeper was not at home, and the squire returned by way of a lonely track through a thick plantation, where some of the keeper's work had to be inspected. Here he met Kingscote, striding along with his gun over his shoulder. The guardsman had discovered his loss, and was in search of his brother, intending to make a calm statement of his right to the possession of the picture by virtue of his rights in the person of the fair original, but at the same time passionately determined that this sort of thing should be put a stop to. There was a short parley, a brief but fierce altercation, a momentary struggle – on one side to keep, on the other to take, the worthless little bone of contention – and it was all over. Patrick, sent backward by a sweep of his strong brother's arm, fell over the gun that had been carelessly propped against a sapling; the stock of the gun, flying up, was caught by a tough twig which dragged across the hammers, and as the man and the weapon tumbled to the ground together one hammer fell, and the exploded charge entered the squire's neck, just under the chin, and, passing upward to the brain, killed him. It was an accident, as all the family believed; but to the author of the mischance it was nothing less than murder. He was guilty of his brother's blood, and he accepted the portion of Cain – to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the face of the earth – in expiation of it. Partly with the idea of sparing pain and disgrace to his family (believing that the only evidence available would convict him of murder in a court of law), and partly because he felt that, if acquitted, it would be too horrible and impossible to take an inheritance that had come to him by such means, in the overwhelming desperation of his remorse and despair he took that determination to blot himself out which was never afterwards revoked. Returning to the house, he collected some money and a few valuables, and, unsuspected and unnoticed, took leave of his home, and his name, and his place in the world, and was half way to London, and beyond recall, before the dead body in the plantation was discovered. In London Elizabeth Leigh was staying with an old Miss D'Arcy, quietly studying her music and taking a rest while the society which was so fond of her was out of town; and the stricken man could not carry out his resolve without bidding farewell to his beloved. He had a clandestine interview with Elizabeth, to whom alone he confided the circumstances of his wretched plight. The girl, of course, advised him to return to Yelverton, and bravely meet and bear whatever might befall; and it would have been well for him and for her if he had taken that advice. But he would not listen to it, nor be turned from his fixed purpose to banish and efface himself, if possible, for the rest of his life; seeing which, the devoted woman chose to share his fate. Whether he could and should have spared her that enormous sacrifice, or whether she was happier in making it than she would otherwise have been, only themselves ever knew. She did her woman's part in helping and sustaining and consoling him through all the blighted years that he was suffered to live and fret her with his brooding melancholy and his broken-spirited moroseness, and doubtless she found her true vocation in that thorny path of love.