Kitabı oku: «The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2», sayfa 28

CHAPTER XXXV. AN AWKWARD DINNER-PARTY

When the reader is informed that Lady Eleanor had not found a fitting moment to communicate to the Knight respecting Forester, nor had Helen summoned courage to reveal the circumstances of their late interview, it may be imagined that the dinner itself was as awkward a thing as need be. It was, throughout, a game of cross purposes, in which Darcy alone was not a player, and therefore more puzzled than the rest, at the constraint and reserve of his companions, whose efforts at conversation were either mere unmeaning commonplaces, or half-concealed retorts to inferred allusions.

However quick to perceive, Darcy was too well versed in the tactics of society to seem conscious of this, and merely redoubled his efforts to interest and amuse. Never had his entertaining qualities less of success. He could scarcely obtain any acknowledgment from his hearers; and stores of pleasantry, poured out in rich profusion, were listened to with a coldness bordering upon apathy.

He tried to interest them by talking over the necessity of their speedy removal to the capital, where, for the advantage of daily consultation, Bicknell desired the Knight’s presence. He spoke of the approaching journey to the West, for the trial itself; he talked of Lionel, of Daly, of their late campaigns; in fact, he touched on everything, hoping by some passing gleam of interest to detect a clew to their secret thoughts. To no avail. They listened with decorous attention, but no signs of eagerness or pleasure marked their features; and when Forester rose to take his leave, it was full an hour and a half before his usual time of going.

“Now for it, Eleanor,” said the Knight, as Helen soon after quitted the room; “what’s your secret, for all this mystery must mean something? Nay, don’t look so in-penetrable, my dear; you’ll never persuade any man who displayed all his agreeability to so little purpose, that his hearers had not a hidden source of preoccupation to account for their indifference. What is it, then?”

“I am really myself in the dark, without my conjectures have reason, and that Lord Wallincourt may have renewed to Helen the proposal he once made her, and with the same fortune.”

“Renewed – proposal!”

“Yes, my dear Darcy, it was a secret I had intended to have told you this very day, and went for the very purpose of doing so, when I found you engaged with Bicknell’s letters and advices, and scrupled to break in upon your occupied thoughts. Captain Forester did seek Helen’s affections, and was refused; and I now suspect Lord Wallincourt may have had a similar reverse.”

“This last is, however, mere guess,” said Darcy.

“No more. Of the former Helen herself told me; she frankly acknowledged that her affections were disengaged, but that he had not touched them. It would seem that he was deeper in love than she gave him credit for. His whole adventure as a Volunteer sprang out of this rejected suit, and higher fortunes have not changed his purpose.”

“Then Helen did not care for him?”

“That she did not once, I am quite certain; that she does not now, is not so sure. But I know that even if she were to do so, the disparity of condition would be an insurmountable barrier to her assent.”

Darcy walked up and down with a troubled and anxious air, and at length said, —

“Thus is it that the pride we teach our children, as the defence against low motives and mean actions, displays its false and treacherous principles; and all our flimsy philosophy is based less on the affections of the human heart than on certain conventional usages we have invented for our own enslavement. There is but one code of right and wrong, Eleanor, and that one neither recognizes the artificial distinctions of grade, nor makes a virtue of the self-denial; that is a mere offering to worldly pride.”

“You would scarcely have our daughter accept an alliance with a house that disdains our connection?” said Lady Eleanor, proudly.

“Not, certainly, when the consideration had been once brought before her mind. It would then be but a compromise with principle. But why should she have ever learned the lesson? Why need she have been taught to mingle notions of worldly position and aggrandizement with the emotions of her heart? It was enough – it should have been enough – that his rank and position were nearly her own, not to trifle with feelings immeasurably higher and holier than these distinctions suggest.”

“But the world, my dear Darcy; the world would say – ”

“The world would say, Eleanor, that her refusal was perfectly right; and if the world’s judgments were purer, they might be a source of consolation against the year-long bitterness of a sinking heart. Well, well!” said he, with a sigh, “I would hope that her heart is free: go to her, Eleanor, – learn the truth, and if there be the least germ of affection there, I will speak to Wallincourt to-morrow, and tell him to leave us. These half-kindled embers are the slow poison of many a noble nature, and need but daily intercourse to make them deadly.”

While Lady Eleanor retired to communicate with her daughter, the Knight paced the little chamber in moody reverie. As he passed and repassed before the window, he suddenly perceived the shadow of a man’s figure as he stood beside a rock near the beach. Such an apparition was strange enough to excite curiosity in a quiet, remote spot, where the few inhabitants retired to rest at sunset. Darcy therefore opened the window, and moved towards him; but ere he had gone many paces, he was addressed by Forester’s voice, – “I was about to pay you a visit, Knight, and only waited till I saw you alone.”

“Let us stroll along the sands, then,” said Darcy; “the night is delicious.” And so saying, he drew his arm within Forester’s, and walked along at his side.

“I have been thinking,” said Forester, in a low, sad accent, – “I have been thinking over the advice you lately gave me; and although I own at the time it scarcely chimed in with my own notions, now the more I reflect upon it the more plausible does it seem. I have lived long enough out of fashionable life to make the return to it anything but a pleasure; for politics I have neither talent nor temper; and soldiering, if it does not satisfy every condition of my ambition, offers more to my capacity and my hopes than any other career.”

“I would that you were more enthusiastic in the cause,” said Darcy, who was struck by the deep depression of his manner; “I would that I saw you embrace the career more from a profound seuse of duty and devotion, than as a ‘pis aller.’”

“Such it is,” sighed Forester; and his arm trembled within Darcy’s as he spoke. “I own it frankly, save in actual conflict itself, I have no military ardor in my nature. I accept the road in life, because one must take some path.”

“Then, if this be so,” said Darcy, “I recall my counsels. I love the service, and you also, too well to wish for such a mésalliance; no, campaigning will never do with a spirit that is merely not averse. Return to London, consult your relative, Lord Castlereagh, – I see you smile at my recommendation of him, but I have learned to read his character very differently from what I once did. I can see now, that however the tortuous course of a difficult policy may have condemned him to stratagems wherein he was an agent, – often an unwilling one, – that his nature is eminently chivalrous and noble. His education and his prejudices have made him less rash than we, in our nationality, like to pardon, but the honor of the empire lies next his heart Political profligacy, like any other, may be leniently dealt with while it is fashionable; but there are minds that never permit themselves to be enslaved by fashion, when once they have gained a consciousness of their own power: such is his. He is already beyond it; and ere many years roll over, he will be equally beyond his competitors too. And now to yourself. Let him be your guide. Once launched in public life, its interests will soon make themselves felt, and you are young enough to be plastic. I know that every man’s early years, particularly those who are the most favored by fortune, have their clouds and dark shadows. You must not seek an exemption from the common lot; remember how much you have to be grateful for; think of the advantages for which others strive a life long, and never reach, – all yours, at the very outset; and then, if there be some sore spots, some secret sorrows under all, take my advice and keep them for your own heart. Confessions are admirable things for old ladies, who like the petty martyrdom of small sufferings, but men should be made of sterner stuff. There is a high pride in bearing one’s load alone; don’t forget that.”

Forester felt that if the Knight had read his inmost feelings, his counsel could not have been more directly addressed to his condition; he had, indeed, a secret sorrow, and one which threw its gloom over all his prosperity. He listened attentively to Darcy’s reasonings, and followed him, as in the full sincerity of his nature he opened up the history of his own life, now commenting on the circumstances of good fortune, now adverting to the mischances which had befallen him. Never had the genial kindness of the old man appeared more amiable. The just judgments, the high and honorable sentiments, not shaken by what he had seen of ingratitude and wrong, but hopefully maintained and upheld, the singular modesty of his character, were all charms that won more and more upon Forester; and when, after a tête-à-tête prolonged till late in the night, they parted, Forester’s muttered ejaculation was, “Would that I were his son!”

“It is as I guessed,” said Lady Eleanor, when the Knight re-entered the chamber; “Helen has refused him. I could not press her on the reasons, nor ask whether her heart approved all that her head determined. But she seemed calm and tranquil; and if I were to pronounce from appearance, I should say that the rejection has not cost her deeply.”

“How happy you have made me, Eleanor!” exclaimed Darcy, joyfully; “for while, perhaps, there is nothing in this world I should like better than to see such a man my son-in-law, there is no misery I would not prefer to witnessing my child’s affections engaged where any sense of duty or pride rendered the engagement hopeless. Now, the case is this: Helen can afford to be frank and sisterly towards the poor fellow, who really did love her, and after a few days he leaves us.”

“I thought he would go to-morrow,” said Lady Eleanor, somewhat anxiously.

“No; I half hinted to him something of the kind, but he seemed bent on accompanying me to the West, and really I did not know how to say nay.”

Lady Eleanor appeared not quite satisfied with an arrangement that promised a continuation of restraint, if not of positive difficulty, but made no remark about it, and turned the conversation on their approaching removal to Dublin.

CHAPTER XXXVI. AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL

Our time is now brief with our reader, and we would not trespass on him longer by dwelling on the mere details of those struggles to which Helen and Forester were reduced by daily association and companionship.

One hears much of Platonism, and, occasionally, of those brother and sisterly affections which are adopted to compensate for dearer and tenderer ties. Do they ever really exist? Has the world ever presented one single successful instance of the compact? We are far, very far, from doubting that friendship, the truest and closest, can subsist between individuals of opposite sex. We only hazard the conjecture that such friendships must not spring out of “Unhappy Love.” They must not be built out of the ruins of wrecked affection. No, no; when Cupid is bankrupt, there is no use in attempting to patch up his affairs by any composition with the creditors.

We are not quite so sure that this is exactly the illustration Forester would have used to convey his sense of our proposition; but that he was thoroughly of our opinion, there is no doubt. Whether Helen was one of the same mind or not, she performed her task more easily and more gracefully. We desire too sincerely to part with our fair readers on good terms, to venture on the inquiry whether there is not more frankness and candor in the character of men than women? There is certainly a greater difficulty in the exercise of this quality in the gentler sex, from the many restraints imposed by delicacy and womanly feeling; and the very habit of keeping within this artificial barrier of reserve gives an ease and tranquillity to female manner under circumstances where men would expose their troubled and warring emotions. So much, perhaps, for the reason that Miss Darcy displayed an equanimity of temper very different from the miserable Forester, and exerted powers of pleasing and fascination which, to him at least, had the singular effect of producing even more suffering than enjoyment. The intimacy hitherto subsisting between them was rather increased than otherwise. It seemed as if their relations to each other had been fixed by a treaty, and now that transgression or change was impossible. If this was slavery in its worst form to Forester, to Helen it was liberty unbounded. No longer restrained by any fear of misconception, absolved, in her own heart, of any designs upon his, she scrupled not to display her capacity for thinking and reflecting with all the openness she would have done to her brother Lionel; while, to relieve the deep melancholy that preyed upon him, she exerted herself by a thousand little stratagems of caprice or fancy, that, however successful at the time, were sure to increase his gloom when he quitted her presence. Such, then, with its varying vicissitudes of pleasure and pain, was the condition of their mutual feeling for the remainder of their stay on the northern coast Many a time had Forester resolved on leaving her forever, rather than perpetuate the lingering torture of an affection that increased with every hour; but the effort was more than his strength could compass, and he yielded, as it were, to a fate, until at last her companionship had become the whole aim and object of his existence.

As winter closed in, they removed to Dublin, and established themselves temporarily in an old-fashioned family hotel, selected by Bicknell, in a quiet, unpretending street. Neither their means nor inclination would have prompted them to select a more fashionable resting-place, while the object of strict seclusion was here secured. The ponderous gloom of the staid old house, where, from the heavy sideboard of almost black mahogany to the wrinkled visage of the grim waiter, all seemed of a bygone century, were rather made matters of mutual pleasantry among the party than sources of dissatisfaction; while the Knight assured them that this was in his younger days the noisy resort of the gay and fashionable of the capital.

“Indeed,” added he, “I am not quite sure that this is not where the ‘Townsends,’ as the club was then called, used to meet in Swift’s time. Bicknell will tell us all about it, for he’s coming to dine with us.”

Forester was the first to appear in the drawing-room before dinner. It is possible that he hurried his toilet in the hope of speaking a few words to Helen, who not un-frequently came down before her mother. If so, he was doomed to disappointment, as the room was empty when he entered; and there was nothing for it but to wait, impatiently indeed, and starting at every footstep on the stairs and every door that shut or opened.

At last he heard the sound of approaching steps, softened by the deep old carpet. They came, – he listened, – the door opened, and the waiter announced a name, what and whose Forester paid no attention to, in his annoyance that it was not hers he expected. The stranger-a very plump, joyous little personage in deep black – did not appear quite unknown to Forester; but as the recognition interested him very little, he merely returned a formal bow to the other’s more cordial salute, and turned to the window where he was standing.

“The Knight, I believe, is dressing?” said the new arrival, advancing towards Forester.

“Yes; but I have no doubt he will be down in a few moments.”

“Time enough, – no hurry in life. They told me below stairs that you were here, and so I came up at once. I thought that I might introduce myself. Paul Dempsey, – Dempsey’s Grove. You’ve heard of me before, eh?”

“I have had that pleasure,” said Forester, with more animation of manner; for now he remembered the face and figure of the worthy Paul, as he had seen both in the large mirror of his mother’s drawing-room.

“Ha! I guessed as much,” rejoined Paul, with a chuckling laugh; “the ladies are here, too, ain’t they?”

Forester assented, and Paul went on.

“Only heard of it from Bicknell half an hour ago. Took a car, and came off at once. And when did you come?”

Forester stared with amazement at a question whose precise meaning he could not guess at, and to which he could only reply by a half-smile, expressive of his difficulty.

“You were away, weren’t you?” asked Dempsey.

“Yes; I have been out of England,” replied Forester, more than ever puzzled how this fact could or ought to have any interest for the other.

“Never be ashamed of it. Soldiering ‘s very well in its way, though I ‘d never any taste for it myself, – none of that martial spirit that stirred the bumpkin as he sang, —

 
Perhaps a recruit
Might chance to shoot
Great General Buonaparte.
 

Well, well! it seems you soon got tired of glory, of which, from all I hear, a little goes very far with any man’s stomach; and no wonder. Except a French bayonet, there ‘s nothing more indigestible than commissary bread.”

“The service is not without some hardships,” said Forester, blandly, and preferring to shelter himself under generality than invite further inquisitiveness.

“Cruelties you might call them,” rejoined Dempsey, with energy. “The frightful stories we read in the papers! – and I suppose they are all true. Were you ever touched up a bit yourself?” This Paul said in his most insinuating manner; and as Forester’s stare showed a total ignorance of his meaning, he added, “A little four-and-twenty, I mean,” mimicking, as he spoke, the action of flogging.

“Sir!” exclaimed Forester, with an energy almost ferocious; and Dempsey made a spring backwards, and intrenched himself behind a sofa-table.

“Blood alive!” he exclaimed, “don’t be angry. I wouldn’t offend you for the world; but I thought – ”

“Never mind, sir, – your apology is quite sufficient,” said Forester, who had no small difficulty to repress laughing at the terrified face before him. “I am quite convinced there was no intention to give offence.”

“Spoke like a man,” said Dempsey, coming out from his ambush with an outstretched hand; and Forester, not usually very unbending in such cases, could not help accepting the salutation so heartily proffered.

“Ah, my excellent friend, Mr. Dempsey!” said the Knight, entering at the same moment, and gayly tapping him on the shoulder. “A man I have long wished to see, and thank for many kind offices in my absence. – I ‘m glad to see you are acquainted with Mr. Dempsey. – Well, and how fares the world with you?”

“Better, rather better, Knight,” said Paul, who had scarcely recovered the fright Forester had given him. “You’ve heard that old Bob’s off? Didn’t go till he could n’t help it, though; and now your humble servant is the head of the house.”

While the Knight expressed his warm congratulations, Lady Eleanor and Helen came in; and by their united invitation Paul was persuaded to remain for dinner, – an event which, it must be owned, Forester could not possibly comprehend.

Bicknell’s arrival soon after completed the party, which, however discordant in some respects, soon exhibited signs of perfect accordance and mutual satisfaction. Mr. Dempsey’s presence having banished all business topics for discussion, he was permitted to launch out into his own favorite themes, not the least amusing feature of which was the perfect amazement of Forester at the man and his intimacy.

As the ladies withdrew to the drawing-room, Paul became more moody and thoughtful, now and then interchanging glances with Bicknell, and seeming as if on the verge of something, and yet half doubting how to approach it. Two or three hastily swallowed bumpers, and a look, which he believed of encouragement, from Bicknell, at length rallied Mr. Dempsey, and after a slight hesitation, he said, —

“I believe, Knight, we are all friends here; it is, strictly speaking, a cabinet council?”

If Darcy did not fathom the meaning of the speech, he had that knowledge of the speaker which made his assent to it almost a matter of course.

“That’s what I thought,” resumed Paul; “and it is a moment I have been anxiously looking for. Has our friend here said anything?” added he, with a gesture towards Bicknell.

“I, sir? I said nothing, I protest!” exclaimed the man of law, with an air of deprecation. “I told you, Mr. Dempsey, that I would inform the Knight of the generous proposition you made about the loan; but, till the present moment, I have not had the opportunity.”

“Pooh, pooh! a mere trifle,” interrupted Paul. “It is not of that I was thinking: it is of a very different subject I would speak. Has Lady Eleanor or Miss Darcy – has she told you nothing of me?” said he, addressing the Knight.

“Indeed they have, Mr. Dempsey, both spoken of you repeatedly, and always in the same terms of grateful remembrance.”

“It isn’t that, either,” said Paul, with a half-sigh of disappointment.

“You are unjust to yourself, Mr. Dempsey,” said Darcy, good-humoredly, “to rest a claim to our gratitude on any single instance of kindness; trust me that we recognize the whole debt.”

“But it’s not that,” rejoined Paul, with a shake of the head. “Lord bless us! how close women are about these things,” muttered he to himself. “There is nothing for it but candor, I suppose, eh?”

This being put in the form of a direct question, and the Knight having as freely assented, Paul resumed, – “Well, here it is. Being now at the head of an ancient name, and very pretty independence, – Bicknell has seen the papers, – I have been thinking of that next step a man takes who would wish to – wish to-hand down a little race of Dempseys. You understand?” Darcy smiled approvingly, and Paul continued: “And as conformity of temper, taste, and habits are the surest pledges of such felicity, I have set the eyes of my affections upon – Miss Darcy.”

So little prepared was the Knight for what was coming, that up to that moment he had been listening with a smile of easy enjoyment; but when the last word was spoken, he started as if he had been stung by a reptile, nor could all his habitual self-control master the momentary flush of irritation that covered his face.

“I know,” said Paul, with a dim consciousness that his proposition was but half acceptable, “that we are not exactly, so to say, the same rank and class; but the Dempseys are looking up, and – ”

“‘The Darcys looking down,’ you would add,” said the Knight, with a gleam of his habitual humor in his eye.

“And, like the buckets in a well, the full and empty ones meet half-way,” added Dempsey, laughing. “I know well, as I said before, we are not the same kind of people, and perhaps this would have deterred me from indulging any thoughts on the subject, but for a chance, a bit of an accident, as a body may call it, that gave me courage.”

“This is the very temple of candor, Mr. Dempsey,” said the Knight, smiling. “Pray proceed, and let us hear the source of your encouragement; what was it?”

“Say, who was it, rather,” interposed Paul.

“Be it so, then. Who was it? You have only made my curiosity stronger.”

“Lady Eleanor, – ay, and Miss Helen herself.”

A start of anger and a half-spoken exclamation were as quickly interrupted by a fit of laughing; and the Knight leaned back in his chair, and shook with the emotion.

“You doubt it; you think it absurd,” said Dempsey, himself laughing, and not exhibiting the slightest irritation. “What if they say it’s true, – will that content you?”

“I’m afraid it would not,” said Darcy, equivocally; “there’s nothing less likely to do so. Still, I assure you, Mr. Dempsey, if the ladies are of the mind you attribute to them, I shall find it very difficult to disbelieve anything I ever hear hereafter.”

“I’m satisfied to stand or fall by their verdict,” said Paul, resolutely. “I’m not a fool, exactly; and do you think if I had not something stronger than mere suspicion to guide me, that I’d have gone that same journey to London? Oh, I forgot – I did not tell you about my going to Lord Netherby.”

“You went to Lord Netherby, and on this subject?” said Darcy, whose face became suffused with shame, an emotion doubly painful from Forester’s presence.

“That I did,” rejoined the unabashed Paul, “and a long conversation we had over the matter. He introduced me to his wife too. Lord bless us, but that is a bit of pride!”

“You are aware that the lady is Lord Wallincourt’s mother,” interposed Darcy, sternly.

“Faith, so that she is n’t mine,” said the inexorable Paul, “I don’t care! There she was, lying in state, with a greyhound with silver bells on his neck at her feet; and when I came into the room, she lifts up her head and gives me a look, as much as to say, ‘Oh, that’s him.’ – ‘Mr. Dempsey, of Dempsey’s Hole,’ – for hole he would call it, in spite of me, – ‘Mr. Dempsey, my love,’ said my Lord, bowing as ceremoniously as if he never saw her before; and so, taking the hint, I began a little course of salutations, when she called out, ‘Tell him not to do that, Netherby, – tell him not to do that-’”

This was too much for Mr. Dempsey’s hearers, who, however differently minded as to the narrative, now concurred in one outbreak of hearty laughter.

“Well, my Lord,” said Darcy, turning to Forester, “you certainly have shown evidence of a most enviable good temper. Had your Lordship – ”

“His Lordship!” exclaimed Paul, in amazement. “Is n’t that your son, – Captain Darcy?”

“No, indeed, Mr. Dempsey,” said the Knight; “I thought, as I came into the drawing-room, that you were acquainted, or I should have presented you to the Earl of Wallincourt.”

“Oh, ain’t I in for it now!” cried Paul, in an accent of grief most ludicrously natural. “Oh! by the powers, I ‘m up to the knees in trouble! And that was your mother! oh dear! oh dear!”

“You see, my worthy friend,” said Darcy, smiling, “how easy a thing deception is. Is it not possible that your misconceptions do not end here?”

“I ‘ll never get over it, I know I’ll not!” exclaimed Paul, wringing his hands as he arose from the table. “Bad luck to it for grandeur!” muttered he between his teeth; “I never had a minute’s happiness since I got the taste for it.” And with this honest avowal he rushed out of the room.

It was some time before the party in the dining-room adjourned upstairs; but when they did, they found Mr. Dempsey seated at the fire, recounting to the ladies his late unhappy discomfiture, – a narrative which even Lady Eleanor’s gravity was not enabled to withstand. A kind audience was always a boon of the first water to honest Paul; and very little pressing was needed to induce him to continue his revelations, for the Knight wisely felt that such pretensions as his could not be buried so satisfactorily as beneath the load of ridicule.

Mr. Dempsey’s scruples soon vanished and thawed under the warmth of encouraging voices and smiles, and he began the narrative of his night at “The Corvy,” his painful durance in the canoe, his escape, the burning of the law papers, and each step of his progress to the very moment that he stood a listener at Lady Eleanor’s door. Then he halted abruptly and said, “Now I’m dumb! racks and thumbscrews wouldn’t get more out of me.”

“You cannot mean, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, calmly but haughtily, “that you overheard the conversation that passed between my daughter and myself?”

“Every word of it!” replied Paul, bluntly.

“Oh, really, sir, I can scarcely compliment you on the spirit of your curiosity; for although the theme we talked on, if I remember aright, was the speedy necessity of removing, – the urgency of seeking some place of refuge – ”

“If I had n’t heard which, I could not have assisted you in your departure,” rejoined the unabashed Paul: “the old Loyola maxim, ‘Evil, that Good may come of it.’”

Helen sat pale and terrified all this time; for although Lady Eleanor had forgotten the discussion of any other topic on that night save that of their legal difficulties, she well remembered a theme nearer and dearer to her heart. Whether from the distress of these thoughts, or in the hope of propitiating Mr. Dempsey to silence, so it was, she fixed her eyes upon him with an expression Paul thought he could read, and he gave a look of such conscious intelligence in return as brought the blush to her cheek. “I ‘m not going to say one word about it,” said he, in a stage whisper that even the Knight himself overheard.

“Then I must myself insist upon Mr. Dempsey’s revelations,” said Darcy, not at all satisfied with the air of mystery Dempsey threw around his intercourse.

Another look from Helen here met Paul’s, and he stood uncertain how to act.

“Really, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, “however little the subject we discussed was intended for other ears than our own, I must beg of you now to repeat what you remember of it.”

“Well, what can I do?” exclaimed Paul, looking at Helen with an expression of the most helpless misery; “I know you are angry, and I know that when you like it, you can blaze up like a Congreve rocket. Oh, faith! I don’t forget the day I showed you the newspaper about the English officer thrashing O’Halloran!”

Helen grew scarlet, and turned away, but not before Forester had caught her eyes, and read in them more of hope than his heart had known for many a day before.

“These are more mysteries, Mr. Dempsey; and if you continue to scatter riddles as you go, we shall never get to the end of this affair.”