A LIFE SENTENCE.

A NOVEL.

BY
ADELINE SERGEANT,
Author of "The Luck of the House," "Under False
Pretences," etc., etc.

MONTREAL:
JOHN LOVELL & SON,
23 St. Nicholas Street.

Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year 1889, by John Lovell & Son, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics at Ottawa.

A LIFE SENTENCE.

CHAPTER I.

"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"

"We find the prisoner guilty, my lord."

A curious little thrill of emotion—half sigh, half sob—ran through the crowded court. Even the most callous, the most world-hardened, of human beings cannot hear unmoved the verdict which condemns a fellow-creature to a shameful death. The spectators of Andrew Westwood's trial for the murder of Sydney Vane had expected, had predicted, the result; yet it came with the force of a shock to their excited nerves. The trial had lasted for two whole days already, and the level rays of sunshine that streamed through the west windows of the court-house showed that the afternoon of a third day was drawing to a close. The attention of the patient sitters with whom the seats were closely packed had been strained to the uttermost; the faces of many were white and weary, or flushed with excitement and fatigue. The short absence of the jurymen had only strung their nerves to a higher pitch; and the slight murmur that passed through the heavy air when the verdict was made known showed the tension which had been reached.

The prisoner was well known in the locality, and so also had been his victim. This fact accounted for the crowding of the court by friends and acquaintances of the man murdered and his murderer, and for the breathless interest with which every step of the legal process had been followed. Apart from this, the case had excited much attention all over England; the papers had been filled with its details, and a good deal of discussion on the laws of circumstantial evidence had arisen during its course. Not that there could be any reasonable doubt as to the prisoner's guilt. True, nobody had seen him commit the crime. But he was a poacher of evil character and violent disposition; he had been sent to gaol for snaring rabbits by Mr. Vane, and had repeatedly vowed vengeance upon him; there was a presumption against him from the very first. Then one evening he had been seen lurking about a covert near which Mr. Vane passed shortly afterwards; shots were heard by passers-by and Mr. Vane was discovered lying amongst the springing bracken in the depths of a shadowy copse, shot through the heart. A scrap of rough tweed found in the dead man's hand was said to correspond with a torn corner of Westwood's coat, and the murder was supposed to have been committed by the poacher with a gun which was afterwards found in Westwood's cottage. Several persons testified that they had seen Andrew issuing from the copse or walking along the neighboring road, before or after the hour when Mr. Vane met his fate, that he had his gun in his hand, that his demeanor was strange, and that his clothes seemed to have been torn in a scuffle. Little by little the evidence accumulated against him until it proved irresistible. Facts which seemed small in themselves became large and black, and charged with damnatory significance in the lawyer's hands. The best legal talent of the country was used with crushing effect against poor Andrew Westwood. Sydney Vane had been a popular man; he belonged to a well-known county family, and had left a widow and child. His friends would have moved heaven and earth to bring his murderer to justice. After all—as was said later—the man Westwood never had a chance. What availed his steady sullen denial against the mass of circumstantial evidence accumulated against him? The rope was round his neck from the time when that morsel of cloth was found clasped close in the dead man's hand.

If there had been a moment when the hearts of his enemies were softened, when a throb of pity was felt even by Sydney Vane's elder brother, the implacable old General who had vowed that he would pursue Andrew Westwood to the death, it was when the prisoner's little daughter had been put into the witness-box to give evidence against her father. Every one felt that the moment was terrible, the situation almost unbearable. The child was eleven years old, a brown, thin, frightened-looking little creature, with unnaturally large dark eyes and masses of thick dark hair. Her appearance evidently agitated the prisoner. He looked at her with an expression of anguish, and wrung his gaunt nervous hands together with a groan that haunted for many a long year the memories of those who heard it. The child's dilated black eyes fixed themselves upon him, and her lips, drawn back a little from her teeth, turned ashy white. No one who saw her pathetic little face could feel anything but compassion for her, and a wish to spare her as much as possible.

The counsel certainly wished to spare her. Only one or two questions were to be asked, and these were not of great importance; but at the very outset a difficulty occurred. She was small for her age, and the judge chose to ask whether she was aware of the nature of an oath. He got no answer but a frightened stare. A few more questions plainly revealed a state of extraordinary ignorance on the child's part. Did she know who made her? No. Had she not heard of God? No. Did she attach any meaning to the words "heaven" or "hell?" Not in the very least. By her own showing, Andrew Westwood's little daughter was no better than a heathen.

The judge decided that her evidence need not be taken, and made a severe remark about the unwisdom of bringing so young and untaught a witness into court, especially when—as appeared to him—the child was of feeble intellect and weakly constitution.

It was murmured in reply that the girl had previously shown herself quick-witted and ready of tongue, and that it was only since the shock of her father's arrest that she had lapsed into her present state of apparent semi-imbecility. No further attempt was made however to bring her forward; and little Jenny Westwood, as she was usually called, on stepping down from the box, was bidden to go away, as the court in which her father was being tried for his life was no place for her. But she did not go. She shrank into a corner, and waited until the Court rose that day. In the morning she came again, resisting all efforts made by some kindly countrywomen to take her away to their homes. She did not speak, but struggled out of their hands with so wild a look in her great black eyes that they shrank back from her aghast, whispering to each other that she was purely "not right in the head," and perhaps they had better leave her alone. They made her sit beside them, and tried to persuade her to share the food that they had brought to eat in the middle of the day; but they did not succeed in their kindly efforts. The child seemed stupefied; she had a blind look, and did not respond when spoken to.

She heard the foreman declare the finding of the jury—"Guilty, my lord," but she hardly knew at that moment what was meant. Then came the usual question. Had the prisoner anything to say? Was there any defence which even now he desired to urge, any plea in mitigation of his crime?

Andrew Westwood raised his head. He had a sullen, defiant countenance; his wild dark eyes, the shock of black hair tumbled across his lowering brows, his rugged features, had told against him in popular estimation and given him a ruffianly aspect in the eyes of the crowd; and yet, when he stood up, and with a sudden rough gesture tossed the hair back from his brows, and faced the judge with a look of unflinching resolution, it was felt that the man possessed a rude dignity which compelled something very like admiration. Courage always commands respect, and, whatever his faults, his vices, his crimes might be, Andrew Westwood was a courageous man. He gripped the rail of the dock before him with both hands, and gave a quick look round the court before he spoke. His face was a little paler than usual, but his strong, hard voice did not falter.

"I have only to say what I said before. I take God to witness that I am innocent of this murder, and I pray that He'll punish the man that did kill Mr. Vane and left me to bear the burden of his crime! That's all I have to say, my lord. You may hang me if you like—I swear that I never killed him; and I curse the hand that did!"

The hard, defiant tone of his speech effectually dissipated the momentary sympathy felt for him by his audience. The judge sternly cut him short, and said a few solemn words on the heinousness of his offence and the impenitence which he had evinced. Then came the tragic conclusion of the scene.

It had grown late; lights were brought in and placed before the judge, upon whose scarlet robes and pale, agitated face they flickered strangely in the draught from an open window at the back of the court-house. The greater part of the building was in shadow; here and there a chance ray of light rested on one or two in a row of raised faces, and threw some insignificant countenance into startling temporary distinctness. A breathless hush pervaded the whole room. Every eye was fixed on the central figures of the scene—on the criminal as he stood with hands still grasping the side of the dock, his head defiantly raised, his shoulders braced as if to support a blow; on the judge, whose pale features quivered with emotion as he donned the black cap and uttered the fatal words which condemned Andrew Westwood to meet death by the hangman's hand.

"And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"

The words were scarcely spoken before a loud scream rang through the hall. Westwood turned round sharply; his eyes roved anxiously over the throng of faces, and seemed to pierce the gloom that had gathered about the benches in the background. He saw a little group of persons gathered about the body of a child whom they were carrying into the fresh air. It was his own little daughter who had cried out and fainted at the sound of those fateful words.

The prisoner was instantly removed by two warders; but it was noted that before he left the dock he threw up his hands as if in a wild gesture of supplication to the heavens that would not hear. He made eager inquiries of the warders as to the welfare of his child; and it was perhaps owing to the compassion of one of them that the chaplain came to him an hour later in his cell with news of her. She was better, she was in the hands of kindly women who would take care of her, and she would come to see her father by-and-bye. A convulsive twitch passed over Andrew's face.

"No, no," he said; "I don't want to see her. What good would that do?"

The chaplain, a kindly man whose sensibilities were not yet blunted by the painful scenes through which he had constantly to pass, uttered a word of remonstrance.

"Surely," he said, "you would like to see her again? She seems to love you dearly."

"I'm not saying that I don't love her myself," said the man, turning away his face. Then, after a moment's pause, and in a stifled voice—"She's dearer to me than the apple of my eye. And that's where the sting is. I'm to go out of the world, it seems, with a blot on my name, and she'll never know who put it there."

"If you saw her yourself——"

"Nay," said Westwood resolutely—"I won't see her again. She'd remember me all her life then, and she'd better forget. You're a good man, sir, and a kind—couldn't you take her away somewhere out of hearing of all this commotion, to some place where they would not know her father's story, and where she'd never hear whether he was alive or dead?"

The chaplain shook his head.

"I'm afraid not, Westwood," he said compassionately. "I know of no place where she could be safe from gossip."

"She will hear my story wherever she goes, I suppose you mean," said Westwood wearily. "Ah, well, she will learn to bear it in time, poor soul."

The chaplain looked at him curiously. There was more sincerity of tone, less cant and affectation in this man than in any criminal he had ever known.

"I suppose, sir," said the prisoner, after a short silence, during which he sat with his eyes fixed on the floor—"I suppose there is no chance of a reprieve—of the sentence being commuted?"

"I'm afraid not, Westwood. And you must let me say that your own conduct during the trial makes it more improbable that any commutation of the sentence should be obtained. If, my man, you could have shown any penitence—if you had confessed your crime——"

"The crime that I never committed?" said Westwood, with a flash of his sullen dark eyes. "Ah, you all speak alike! It's the same story—'Confess—repent.' I may have plenty to confess and repent of, but not this, for I never murdered Sydney Vane."

The chaplain shook his head.

"I am sorry that you persist in your story," he said sadly. "I had hoped that you would come to a better mind."

"Do you want me to go into eternity with a lie on my lips?" asked Westwood, fiercely. "I tell you that I am speaking the truth now. My coat was torn on a briar; I fired my gun at a crow as I went over the fields to my cottage. I saw a man go into the copse after Mr. Vane just as I came out. Find him, if you want to know who killed Mr. Vane."

"You have told us the same story before," said the chaplain, in a discouraged tone. "For your own sake, Westwood, I wish I could believe you. Who was the man? What was he like? Where did he go? Unless those questions are answered, it is impossible that your story should be believed."

"I can't answer them," said Westwood, in a sullen tone. "I did not know the man, and I did not look at him. All I know is that he has murdered me as well as Mr. Vane, and blasted the life of my innocent child. And I shall pray God night and morning as long as the breath is in my body to punish him, and to bring shame and sorrow on himself and all that he loves, as he has brought shame and sorrow on me and mine."

Then he turned his face to the wall and would say no more.

CHAPTER II.

Beechfield Hall was the name of the old manor-house in which the Vanes had lived for many generations. The present head of the family, General Richard Vane, was a man of fifty-five, a childless widower, whose interests centred in the management of his estate and the welfare of his brother Sydney and Sydney's wife and child. In the natural course of events, Sydney would eventually have succeeded to the property. It had always been a matter of regret to the General that neither he nor his brother had a son; and, when Sydney's life was prematurely cut short, the General's real grief for his brother's loss was deepened and embittered by the thought that the last chance of an heir was gone, and that the family name—one of the most ancient in the county—would soon become extinct, for a daughter did not count in the General's meditation. It did not occur to his mind as within the limits of possibility that he himself should marry again. He had always hoped that Sydney—twenty years younger than himself, and the husband of a fair and blooming wife—would have a son to bear his name. Hitherto the Sydney Vanes had been unfortunate in their offsprings. Of five beautiful children only one had lived beyond the first few months of babyhood—and that one was a girl! But father, mother, and uncle had gone on hoping for better things. Now it seemed likely that little Enid, the nine-year-old daughter, would be the last of the Vanes, and that with the General the name of the family would finally die out.

Beechfield Hall had long been known as one of the pleasantest houses in the county. It was a large red-brick, comfortable-looking mansion, made picturesque by a background of lofty trees, and by the ivy and Virginia creeper and clematis in which it was embowered, rather than by the style of its architecture. Along the front of the building ran a wide terrace, with stone balustrades and flights of steps at either end leading to the flower garden, which sloped down to an ornamental piece of water fed by springs from the rich meadow-land beyond. This terrace and the exquisitely-kept garden gave the house a stateliness of aspect, which it would have lost if severed from its surroundings; but the General was proud of every stick and stone about the place, and could never be brought to see that its beauty existed chiefly in his own fond imagination.

Whether Beechfield Hall was beautiful or not, however, mattered little to the county squires and their families, to whom it had been for many years a centre of life and gaiety. The General and his brother were hunting-men; they had a capital stud, and were always ready to give their friends a mount in the hunting season. They preserved strictly, and could offer good shooting and good fishing to their neighbors; and they were liberal of such offers—they were generous and hospitable in every sense of the word. Mrs. Sydney Vane was of a similar disposition. Her dances, her dinners, her garden-parties, were said to be the most enjoyable in the county. She was young and pretty, vivacious and agreeable, as fond of society as her husband and her brother-in-law, always ready to fill her house with guests, to make up a party or organise a pic-nic, adored by all young people in the neighborhood, the chosen friend and confidante of half the older ones. And now the innocent mirth and cordial hospitality of Beechfield Hall had come to an untimely end. Poor Sydney Vane was laid to rest in the little green churchyard behind the woodland slope which fronted the terrace and the lawn. His wife, prostrated by the shock of his death, had never left her room since the news of it was brought to her; his brother, the genial and warm-hearted General, looked for the first time like a feeble old man, and seemed almost beside himself. Even little Enid was pale and frightened, and had lost her inclination for mirth and laughter. The servants moved about in their sombre mourning garments with grave faces and hushed, awe-stricken ways. It seemed almost incredible that so great a misfortune should have fallen upon the house, that its brightness should be quenched so utterly.

As soon as the misfortune that had befallen the Vanes was made known, the General's maiden-sister descended from London upon the house, and took possession, but not in any imperious or domineering way. Miss Leonora Vane was far too shrewd and too kindly a woman to be aught but helpful and sympathetic at such a time. But it was in her nature to rule—she could not help making her influence felt wherever she went, and the reins of government fell naturally into her hands as soon as she appeared upon the scene. She was the General's junior by five years only, and had always looked on Sydney and his wife as poor, irresponsible, frivolous young creatures, quite incapable of managing their own affairs. A difference of opinion on this point had driven her to London, where she had a nice little house in Kensington, and was great on committees and boards of management. But real sorrow chased all considerations of her own dignity or comfort from her mind. She hurried down to Beechfield as soon as she knew of her brother's need; and during the weary days and weeks between Sydney's death and Westwood's trial, she had been invaluable as a friend, helper, and capable mistress of the disorganised household.

She sat one June morning at the head of the breakfast-table in the dining-room at Beechfield Hall, with an unaccustomed look of dissatisfaction and perplexity upon her handsome resolute face. Miss Vane was a woman of fifty, but her black hair showed scarcely a line of silver, and her brown eyes were as keen and bright as they had ever been. With her smooth, unwrinkled forehead, her colorless but healthy complexion, and her thin well-braced figure, she looked ten years younger than her age. Not often was her composure disturbed, but on this occasion trouble and anxiety were both evinced by the knitting of her brows and the occasional twitching of her usually firm lips. She sat behind the coffee-urn, but she had finished her own breakfast long since, and was now occupying her ever-busy fingers with some knitting until her brother should appear. But her hands were unsteady, and at last, with an exclamation of disgust, she laid down her knitting-pins, and crossed the long white fingers closely over one another in her lap.

"Surely Hubert got my telegram!" she murmured to herself. "I wish he would come—oh, how I wish that he would come!"

She moved in her seat so as to be able to see the marble clock on the massive oak mantelpiece. The hands pointed to the hour of nine. Miss Vane rose and looked out of the window.

"He might have taken the early train from town. If he had, he would be here by this time. But no doubt he did not think it worth while. 'An old woman's fancy!' he said to himself perhaps. Hubert was never very tolerant of other people's fancies, though he has plenty of his own, Heaven knows! Ah, there he comes, thank Heaven! For once he has done what I wished—dear boy!"

Miss Vane's hard countenance softened as she said the words. She sank down into her chair again, crossed her hands once more upon her knees, and assumed the attitude of impenetrable rigidity intended to impress the observer with a sense of her indifference to all mankind. But the new-comer, who entered from the terrace at that moment, was too well used to Miss Vane's ways and manners to be much impressed.

"Good morning, aunt Leo. I have obeyed your orders, you see," he said, as he bent down and touched her forehead lightly with his lips.

He was a young man, not more than one or two and twenty, but he had already lost much of the freshness and youthfulness of his years. He was of middle height, rather slenderly built, well dressed, well brushed, with the air of high-bred distinction which is never attained save by those to the manner born. His face was singularly handsome, strong, yet refined, with sharply-cut features, dark eyes and hair, a heavy black moustache, and a grave, almost melancholy expression—altogether a striking face, not one easily to be forgotten or overlooked. As he seated himself quietly at the breakfast-table, and replied to some query of his aunt's respecting the hour of his arrival, it occurred to Miss Vane that he was looking remarkably tired and unwell. The line of his cheek, always somewhat sharp, seemed to have fallen in, there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his olive complexion had assumed the slightly livid tints which sometimes mark ill-health. In spite of her preoccupation with other matters, Miss Vane could not repress a comment on his appearance.

"What have you been doing with yourself, Hubert? You look positively ghastly!"

"Do I!" said Hubert, glancing up with a ready smile. "I shouldn't wonder. I was up all last night with some fellows that I know—we made a night of it, aunt Leo—and I have naturally a headache this morning."

"You deserve it then. Surely you might have chosen a more fitting time for a carouse!"

It seemed to her, curiously enough, that he gave a little shiver and drew in his lips beneath his dark moustache. But he answered with his usual indifference of manner.

"It was hardly a carouse. I can't undertake to make a recluse of myself, my dear aunt, in spite of the family troubles."

"Hubert, don't be so heartless!" cried Miss Vane imperiously; then, checking herself, she pressed her thin lips slightly together and sat silent, with her eyes fixed on the cups before her.

"Am I heartless? Well, I suppose I am," said the young man, with a slight mocking smile in which his eyes seemed to take no part. "I am sorry, but really I can't help it. In the meantime perhaps you will give me a cup of coffee—for I am famishing after my early flight from town—and tell me why you telegraphed for me in such a hurry last night."

Miss Vane filled his cup with a hand that trembled still. Hubert Lepel watched her movements with interest. He did not often see his kinswoman display so much agitation. She was not his aunt by any tie of blood—she was a faraway cousin only; but ever since his babyhood he had addressed her by that title.

"I sent for you," she said at last, speaking jerkily and hurriedly, as if the effort were almost more than she could bear—"I sent for you to tell the General what you yourself telegraphed to me last night."

A flush of dull red color stole into the young man's face. He looked at her intently, with a contracted brow.

"Do you mean," he said, after a moment's pause, "that you have not told him yet?"

Miss Vane averted her eyes.

"No," she answered; "I have not told him. You will think me weak—I suppose I am weak, Hubert—but I dared not tell him."

"And you summoned me from London to break the news? For no other reason?"

Miss Vane nodded,—"That was all."

Hubert bit his lip and sipped his coffee before saying another word.

"Aunt Leo," he said, after a silence during which Miss Vane gave unequivocal signs of nervousness, "I really must say that I think the proceeding was unnecessary." He leaned back in his chair and toyed with his spoon, a whiteness which Miss Vane was accustomed to interpret as a sign of anger showing itself about his nostrils and his lips. She had long looked upon it as an ominous sign.

"Hubert, Hubert, don't be angry—don't refuse to help me!" she said, in pleading tones, such as he had never heard from her before. "I assure you that my post in this house is no sinecure. Poor Marion"—she spoke of Mrs. Sydney Vane—"is rapidly sinking into her grave. Ay, you may well start! She has never got over the shock of Sydney's death, and the excitement of the last few days seems to have increased her malady. She insisted on having every report of the trial read to her; and ever since the conviction she has grown weaker, until the doctor says that she can hardly outlast the week. Oh, that wicked man—that murderer—has much to answer for!" said Miss Vane, clasping her hands passionately together.

Hubert was silent; his eyebrows were drawn down over his eyes, his face was strangely white.

"Your uncle," Miss Vane continued sadly, "is nearly heart-broken. You know how much he loved poor Sydney, how much he cares for Marion. He has been a different man ever since that terrible day. I am afraid for his health—for his reason even, if——"

"For Heaven's sake, stop," said the young man hoarsely. "I can't bear this enumeration of misfortunes; it—it makes me—ill! Don't say any more."

He pushed back his chair, rose, and went to the sideboard, where he poured out a glass of water from the carafe and drank it off. Then he leaned both elbows on the damask-covered mahogany surface, and rested his forehead on his hands. Miss Vane stared at his bowed head, at his bent figure, with unfeigned amazement. She thought that she knew Hubert well, and she had never numbered over-sensitiveness amongst his virtues or vices. She concluded that the last night's dissipation had been too much for his nerves.

"Hubert," she said at length, "you must be ill."

"I believe I am," the young man answered. He raised his face from his hands, drew out his handkerchief, and wiped his forehead with it before turning round. It were well that his aunt should not see the cold drops of perspiration standing upon his brow. He tried to laugh as he came forward to the table once more. "You must excuse me," he said. "I have not been well for the last few days, and your list of disasters quite upset me."

"My poor boy," said aunt Leo, looking at him tenderly. "I am afraid that I have been very thoughtless! I should have remembered that these last few weeks have been as trying to you as to all of us. You always loved Marion and Sydney."

It would have been impossible for her to interpret aright the involuntary spasm of feeling that flashed across Hubert's face, the uncontrollable shudder that ran through all his frame. Impossible indeed! How could she fancy that he said to himself as he heard her words——

"Loved Sydney Vane! Merciful powers, I never sank to that level, at any rate! When I think of what I now know of him, I am glad to remember that he was my enemy!"

CHAPTER III.

At that moment a heavy step was heard in the hall, a hand fumbled with the lock of the door. Miss Vane glanced apprehensively at Hubert.

"He is there," she said—"he is coming in. The London papers will arrive in half an hour. Hubert, don't leave him to learn the news from the papers or from his London lawyer."

"What harm if he did?" muttered Hubert; but, before Miss Vane could reply, the door was opened and the General entered the room.

He was a tall, white-haired man, with a stoop in his shoulders which had not been perceptible a year before. His finely-cut features strongly resembled those of his sister, but there was some weakness in the slightly receding chin, some hint of irresolution in the lines of the handsome mouth, which could not be found in Leonora Vane's expressive countenance. The General's eyes were remarkably fine, clear and blue as sea-water or the sky, but their expression on this occasion was peculiar. They had a wild, wandering, irresolute look which impressed Hubert painfully. He rose respectfully from his chair as the old man came in; but for a moment or two the General gazed at him unrecognisingly.

"Hubert has come to spend the day with us, Richard," said Miss Vane.

"Hubert? Oh, yes, Hubert Lepel!" murmured the General, as if recalling a forgotten name. "Florence Lepel's brother—a cousin of ours, I believe? Glad to see you, Hubert," said the General, suddenly awakening, apparently from a dream. "Did you come down this morning? From London or from Whitminster?"

"From London, sir."

"Oh, yes—from London! I thought perhaps that you had been"—the General's voice sank to a husky whisper—"to see that fellow get his deserts. Hush—don't speak of it before Leonora; ladies should not hear about these things, you know!" He caught Hubert by the sleeve and drew him aside. "The execution was to be this morning; did you not know?" he said, fixing his wild eyes upon the young man's paling face. "Eight o'clock was the hour; it must be over by now. Well, well—the Lord have mercy upon his sinful soul!"

"Amen!" Hubert muttered between his closed teeth. Then he seemed to make a violent effort to control himself—to assume command over his kinsman's disordered mind. "Come, sir," he said—"you must not talk like that. Think no more of that wretched man. You know there was a chance—a loophole. Some people were not convinced that he was guilty. There have been petitions signed by hundreds of people, I believe, to the Home Secretary for mercy."

"Mercy—mercy!" shouted the General, his pale face growing first red and then purple from excitement. "Who talks of mercy to that ruffian? But Harbury"—naming the Home Secretary for the time being—"Harbury will stand firm; Harbury will never yield! I would take my oath that Harbury won't give in! Such a miscarriage of justice was never heard of! Don't talk to me of it! Harbury knows his duty; and the man has been punished—the man is dead!"

Hubert's voice trembled a little as he spoke.

"The man is not dead, sir," he said.

The General turned upon him fiercely.

"Was not this morning fixed for the—is this not the twenty-fifth?" he said. "What do you mean?"

There was a moment's silence, during which he read the answer to his question in Hubert's melancholy eyes. Miss Vane held her breath; she saw her brother stagger as if a sudden dizziness had seized him; he caught at the back of an antique heavily-carved oak chair for support. In the pause she noted involuntarily the beauty of the golden sunshine that filled every corner of the luxuriously-appointed room, intensifying the glow of color in the Persian carpet, illuminating as with fire the brass-work and silver-plate which decorated the table and the sideboard, vividly outlining in varied tones of delicate hues the masses of June roses that filled every vase and bowl in the room. The air was full of perfume—nothing but beauty met the eye; and yet, in spite of this material loveliness, how black and evil, how unutterably full of sadness, did the world appear to Leonora Vane just then! And, if she could have seen into the heart of one at least of the men who stood before her, she would almost have died of grief and shame.

"You don't mean," stammered the General, "that the ruffian who murdered my brother—has been—reprieved?"

"It is said, sir, that imprisonment for life is a worse punishment than death," said Hubert gently. The face of no man—even of one condemned to life-long punishment—could have expressed deeper gloom than his own as he said the words. Yet mingling with the gloom there was something inflexible that gave it almost a repellent character. It was as if he would have thrown any show or pity back into the face of those who offered it, and defied the world to sympathise with him on account of some secret trouble which he had brought upon himself.

"Worse than death—worse than death!" repeated the old man. "I do not know what you mean, sir. I shall go up to town at once and see Harbury about this matter. It is in his hands——"

"Not now," interposed Hubert. "The Queen——"

"The Queen will hear reason, sir! I will make my way to her presence, and speak to her myself. She will not refuse the prayer of an old man who has served his country as long and as faithfully as I have done. I will tell her the story myself, and she will see justice done—justice on the man who murdered my brother!"

His voice grew louder and his breath came in choking gasps between the words. His face was purple, the veins on his forehead were swollen and his eyes bloodshot; with one hand he was leaning on the table, with the other he gesticulated violently, shaking the closed fist almost in Hubert's face, as if he mistook him for the murderer himself. It was a pitiable sight. The old man had completely lost his self-command, and his venerable white hairs and bowed form accentuated the harrowing effect which his burst of passion produced upon his hearers. Hubert stood silent, spell-bound, as it seemed, with sorrow and dismay; but Miss Vane, shaking off her unwonted timidity, went up to her brother and laid her hand upon his outstretched quivering arm.

"Richard, Richard, do not speak in that way!" she said. "It is not Christian—it is not even human. You are not a man who would wish to take away a fellow-creature's life or to rob him of a chance of repentance."

The General's hand fell, but his eyes flamed with the look of an infuriated beast of prey as he turned them on Miss Leonora.

"You are a woman," he said harshly, "and, as a woman, you may be weak; but I am a man and a soldier, and would die for the honor of my family. Not take away that man's life? I swear to you that, if I had him here, I would kill him with my own hands! Does not the Scripture tell us that a life shall be given for a life?"

"It tells us that vengeance is the Lord's, Richard, and that He will repay."

"Yes—by the hands of His servants, Leonora. Are you so base as not to desire the punishment of your brother's murderer! If so, never speak to me, never come near my house again! And you, young gentleman, get ready to come with me to London at once! I will see Harbury before the day is over."

"My dear General," said Hubert, looking exceedingly perplexed, "I think that you will hardly find Harbury in town. I heard yesterday that he was leaving London for a few days."

"Nonsense, sir! Leaving London before the close of the session! Impossible! But we can get his address and follow him, I suppose? I will see Harbury to-night!"

"It will be useless," said Hubert, with resignation, "but, if you insist——"

"I do insist! The honor of my house is at stake, and I shall do my utmost to bring that ruffian to the gallows! I cannot understand you young fellows of the present day, cold-blooded, effeminate, without natural affection—I cannot understand it, I say. Ring the bell for Saunders; tell him to put up my bag. I will go at once—this very moment—this——"

The General's voice suddenly faltered and broke. For some time his words had been almost unintelligible; they ran into one another, as if his tongue was not under the control of his will. His face, first red, then purple, was nearly black, and a slight froth was showing itself upon his discolored lips. As his sister and cousin looked at him in alarm, they saw that he staggered backwards as if about to fall. Hubert sprang forward and helped him to his chair, where he lay back, with his eyes half closed, breathing stertorously, and apparently almost unconscious. The rage, the excitement, had proved too much for his physical strength; he was on the verge, if he had not absolutely succumbed to it, of an apoplectic fit.

The doctor was sent for in haste. All possibility of the General's expedition to London was out of the question, very much to Miss Vane's relief. She had been dreading an illness of this kind for some days, and it was this fear which had caused her to telegraph for Hubert before breaking to her brother the news that she herself had learned the night before. She had seen her father die of a similar attack, and had been roused to watchfulness by symptoms of excitement in her brother's manner during the last few days. The blow had fallen now, and she could only be thankful that matters were no worse.

When the doctor had come—he was met half-way up the drive by the messenger, on his way to pay a morning visit to Mrs. Sydney—and when he had superintended the removal of the General to his room, Hubert was left for a time alone. He quitted the dining-room and made his way to his favorite resort at Beechfield Hall—a spacious conservatory which ran the whole length of one side of the house. Into this conservatory, now brilliant with exotics, several rooms opened, one after another—a small breakfast-room, a study, a library, billiard-room, and smoking-room. These all communicated with each other as well as with the conservatory, and it was as easy as it was delightful to exchange the neighborhood of books or pipes or billiard-balls for that of Mrs. Vane's orchids and stephanotis-blossoms. Poor Mrs. Vane used to grumble over the conservatory. It was on the wrong side of the house—the gentlemen's side, she called it—and did not run parallel with the drawing-room; but the very oddness of the arrangement seemed to please her guests.

Hubert had always liked to smoke his morning cigar amongst the flowers, and, as he paced slowly up and down the tesselated floor, and inhaled the heavy perfume of the myrtles and the heliotrope, his features relaxed a little, his eyes grew less gloomy and his brow more tranquil. He glanced round him with an air almost of content, and drew a deep breath.

"If one could live amongst flowers all one's life, away from the crimes and follies of the rest of the world, how happy one might be!" he said to himself half cynically, half sadly, as he stooped to puff away the green-fly from a delicate plant with the smoke of his cigar. "That's impossible, however. There's no chance of a monastery in these modern days! What wouldn't I give just now to be out of all this—this misery—this deviltry?" He put a strong and bitter accent on the last word. "But I see no way out of it—none!"

"There is no way out of it—for you," a voice near him said.

Without knowing it, he had spoken aloud. This answer to his reverie startled him exceedingly. He wheeled round to discover whence it came, and, to his surprise, found himself close to the open library window, where, just inside the room, a girl was sitting in a low cushioned chair.

He took the cigar from his mouth and held it between his fingers as he looked at her, his brow contracting with anger rather than with surprise. He stood thus two or three minutes, as if expecting her to speak, but she did not even raise her eyes. She was a tall, fair girl with hair of the palest flaxen, artistically fluffed out and curled upon her forehead, and woven into a magnificent coronet upon her graceful head; her downcast eyelids were peculiarly large and white, and, when raised, revealed the greatest beauty and the greatest surprise of her face—a pair of velvety dark-brown eyes, which had the curious power of assuming a reddish tint when she was angry or disturbed. Her skin was of the perfect creaminess which sometimes accompanies red hair—and it was whispered by her acquaintances that Florence Lepel's flaxen locks had once been of a decidedly carroty tinge, and that their present pallor had been attained by artificial means. Whether this was the case or not it could not be denied that their color was now very becoming to her pale complexion, and that they constituted the chief of Miss Lepel's many acknowledged charms. For, in a rather strange and uncanny way, Florence Lepel was a beautiful woman; and, though critics said that she was too thin, that her neck was too long, her face too pale and narrow, her hair too colorless for beauty, there were many for whom a distinct fascination lay in the unusual combination of these features.

She was dressed from head to foot in sombre black, which made her neck and hands appear almost dazzlingly white. Perhaps it was also the sombreness of her attire which gave a look of fragility—an almost painful fragility—to her appearance. Hubert noted, half unconsciously, that her figure was more willowy than ever, that the veins on her temples and her long white hands were marked with extraordinary distinctness, that there were violet shadows on the large eyelids and beneath the drooping lashes. But, for all that, the bitter sternness of his expression did not change. When he spoke, it was in a particularly severe tone.

"I should be obliged to you," he said, still holding his cigar between his fingers, and looking down at her with a very dark frown upon his face, "if you would kindly tell me exactly what you mean."

CHAPTER IV.

Florence Lepel raised her beautiful eyes at last to her brother's face.

"I only repeat what you yourself have said. There is no way out of it—for you."

Her voice was quite even and expressionless, but Hubert's face contracted at the sound of her words as if they hurt him. He raised his cigar mechanically to his lips, found that it had gone out, and, instead of relighting it, threw it away angrily from him amongst the flowers. His sister, her eyes keen notwithstanding the velvety softness of their glance, saw that his hands trembled as he did so.

"I should like to have some conversation with you," he said, in a tone that betokened irritation, "if you can spare a little time from your duties."

"They are not particularly engrossing just now," said Miss Lepel evenly, indicating the book that lay upon her lap. "I am improving my mind by the study of the French language," she said. "The General knows nothing of French authors since the days of Racine, and will think me quite laudably employed in reading a modern French novel."

"The General is not likely to find you anywhere to-day, nor for many a day to come."

"Is he dead?" asked his sister, ruffling the pages of her book. She did not look as if anybody's death could disturb her perfect equanimity.

"Are you a fiend, Florence," Hubert burst out angrily, "that you can speak in that manner of a man who has been so great a benefactor, so kind a friend, to both of us? Have you no heart at all?"

"I am not sure. If ever I had one, I think that it was killed—three months ago."

Her voice sank to a whisper as she uttered the last few words. Her breath came a little faster for a second or two—then she was calm again. Her brother looked at her with an air of stupefaction.

"How dare you allude to that shameful episode in your life," he said sternly, "and to me, of all people!"

"If not to you, I should certainly speak of it to no one," she answered quietly. There was a sudden blaze of light in the red-brown eyes beneath the heavily-veined eyelids.

"You are my only safety-valve; I must speak sometimes—or die. Besides"—in a still lower tone—"I see nothing shameful about it. We have done no harm. If he loved me better than he loved his chattering commonplace little wife, I was not to blame. How could I help it if I loved him too? It was kismet—it had to be. You should not have interfered."

"And pray what would have happened if I had not interfered? What shame, what ruin, what disgrace!"

"It is useless for you to rant and rave in that manner," said Florence Lepel, letting her eyes drop once more to the open pages of her French novel. "You did interfere, and there is an end of it. And what an end! You must be proud of your work. He dead, Marion dying, the General nearly mad with grief, the man Westwood hanged for a crime that he never committed!"

"Westwood has been reprieved," said Hubert sharply.

"What a relief to you!" commented his sister, with almost incredible coolness.

He turned away from her, catching at his throat as if something rose to choke him there. His face was very pale; the lines of pain about his eyes and mouth were plainer and deeper than they had been before. Florence glanced up at him and smiled faintly. There was a strange malignity in her smile.

"You can tell me," she said, when the silence had lasted for some minutes, "what you meant by saying that the General would not find me here to-day."

"He has narrowly escaped a fit of apoplexy. He is to be kept quiet; he will not be able to see any one for some days to come."

"Oh! What brought it on?"

"The news," Hubert answered reluctantly, "of Westwood's reprieve."

Miss Lepel smiled again.

"Was he so very angry?" she said. "Ah, he would do anything in his power to bring his brother's murderer to justice—I have heard him say so a hundred times! You ought to be very grateful to me, Hubert, for remembering that you are my brother."

"I wish to Heaven I were not!" cried the young man.

"For some things I wish you were not too," said Florence slowly. She sat up, clasped her white hands round her knees, and looked at him reflectively. "If you had not been my brother, I suppose you would not have interfered," she went on. "You would have left me to pursue my wicked devices, and simply turned your back on me and Sydney Vane. I agree with you. I wish to Heaven—if you like that form of expression—that you were not my brother, Hubert Lepel! You have made the misery of my life."

"And you the disgrace of mine!" he said bitterly.

"Then we are quits," she answered, in the listless, passionless voice that she seemed especially to affect. "We need not reproach each other; we have each had something to bear at one another's hands."

"Florence," said Hubert—and his voice trembled a little as he spoke—"what are you going to do? It is, as you say, useless for us to reproach each other for the past; but for the future let me at least be certain that my sacrifice will avail to keep you in a right path, that you will not again—not again——"

"This is very edifying," said Florence quietly, as the young man broke off short in his speech, and turned away with a despairing stamp of the foot—his sister's face would have discomfited a man of far greater moral courage than poor Hubert Lepel—"it is something new for me to be lectured by my younger brother, whose course has surely not been quite irreproachable, I should imagine! Come, Hubert—do not be so absurd! You have acted according to your lights, as the old women say, and I according to mine. There is nothing more for us to talk about. Let us quit the subject; the past is dead."

"I tell you that it is the future that I concern myself about. Upon my honor, Florence, I did not know that you were here when I came down to-day! I thought that you had gone to your friend Mrs. Bartolet at Worcester, as you said to me that you would when I saw you last. Why have you not gone? You said that life here was now intolerable to you. I remember your very words, although I have not been here for weeks."

"Your memory does you credit," said the girl, with slow scorn.

"Why have you stayed?"

"For my own ends—not yours."

"So I suppose."

"My dear brother Hubert," said Florence, composing herself in a graceful attitude in the depths of her basket-chair, "can you not be persuaded to go your own way and leave me to go mine? You have done a good deal of mischief already, don't you know? You have ruined my prospects, destroyed my hopes—if I were sentimental, I might say, broken my heart! Is not that enough for you? For mercy's sake, go your own way henceforward, and let me do as I please!"

"But what is your way? What do you please?"

"Is it well for me to tell you after the warning I have had?"

"If you had a worthy plan, an honorable ambition, you could easily tell me. Again I ask, Why are you here?"

"Yes, why?" repeated Florence, her lip curling, and, for the first time, a slight color flushing her pale cheeks. "Why? Your dull wits will not even compass that, will they? Well, partly because I am a thoroughly worldly woman, or rather a woman of the world—because it is not well to give up a good home, a luxurious life, and a large salary, when they are to be had for the asking—because as Enid Vane's governess, I can have as much freedom and as little work as I choose. Is not that answer enough for you?"

"No," said Hubert doggedly, "it is not."

She shrugged her graceful shoulders.

"It should be, I think. But I will go on. I look three-and-twenty, but you know as well as I do that I am twenty-nine. In another year I shall be thirty—horrible thought! An attack of illness, even a little more trouble, such as this that I have lately undergone, will make me look my full age. Do you know what that means to a woman?" She pressed her eyelids and the hollows beneath her eyes with her fingers. "When I look in the glass, I see already what I shall be when I am forty. I must make the best of my youth and of my good looks. You spoiled one chance in life for me; I must make what I can of the other."

"You mean," said the young man, with white dry lips, which he vainly attempted to moisten as he spoke—"you mean—that you must make what the world calls a good marriage?"

She bowed her head.

"At last you have grasped my meaning," she said coldly; "you have hitherto been exceedingly slow to do so."

He looked at her silently for a moment or two, almost with abhorrence. Her fair and delicate beauty affected him with a sort of loathing; he could not believe that this woman with the cold lips and malignant eyes had been born of his mother, had played with him in childhood, had kissed him with loving kisses, and spoken to him in sisterly caressing fashion. It took him some minutes to conquer the terrible hatred which grew up within him towards her, as he remembered all that she had been and all that she had done; but, when at last he was able to speak, his voice was calm and studiously gentle.

"Florence," he said, "I will not forget that you are my sister. You bear my name, you come of my race, and, whatever you do and whatever you are, I cannot desert you. I promised our mother on her death-bed that I would care for you as long as you needed care; and, if ever you needed it in your life, you need it now! I have not done my duty to you during the past few weeks. I have left you to yourself, and thought I could never forgive you for what you had done. But now I see that I was wrong. If it would be of any service to you, I would make a home for you at once—I would place all my means at your disposal. Come back with me to London, and let us make a home for ourselves together. We are both weary, both have suffered; could we not try to console and strengthen each other?"

The wistfulness of his tone, of his looks, would have softened any heart that was not hard as stone. But Florence Lepel's pale face was utterly unmoved.

"You offer me a brilliant lot," she said—"to live in a garret, I suppose, and darn your stockings, while you earn a paltry pittance as a literary man, eked out by aunt Leo's charity! You know very well that sooner than do that I put up for two years with Marion Vane's patronage and the drudgery of the schoolroom! And now, when the woman who alternately scolded and cajoled me, the woman who once took it upon her to lecture me for my behavior to her husband, the woman whom I hated as I should hate a poisonous snake—when that woman is slowly dying and leaving the field to me, am I to throw up the game, give up my chances, and go to vegetate with you in London? You know me very little if you think I would do that."

"I seem to have known you very little all my life," said Hubert bitterly. "I certainly do not understand you now. What can you get by staying here?"

"Oh, nothing, of course!" she answered tranquilly.

"What is your scheme, Florence?"

"It is of no use telling you—you might interfere again."

The anguish of doubt and anxiety in his dark eyes, if she had looked at him, would surely have moved her. But she did not look.

"I mean to stay here," she said quietly, "teaching Enid Vane, putting up with aunt Leonora's impertinences as well as I can, until I get another chance in the world. What that chance may be of course I cannot tell, but I am certain that it will come."

"You can bear to stay in this house which I—I—infinitely less blameworthy than yourself—can hardly endure to enter?"

"The world would not call you less blameworthy. I am glad that you are so far on good terms with your conscience."

"Florence," he said, almost threateningly, "take care! I will not spare you another time. If I find you involved in any other transaction of which you ought to be ashamed, I will expose you. I will tell the world the truth—that you were on the point of leaving England with Sydney Vane when I—when I——"

"When you shot him," she said, without a trace of emotion manifest in either face or voice, "and let Andrew Westwood bear the blame."

The young man winced as if he had received a blow.

"It was to shield you that I kept silence," he said, passionate agitation showing itself in his manner. "It was to save your good name. But even for your sake I would not have let the man suffer death. If we had obtained no reprieve for him, I swear that I would have given myself up and borne the punishment!"

"You were at work then? You tried to get the reprieve for him?" said his sister, with the faintest possible touch of eagerness.

"I did indeed." Hubert's voice fell into a lower key, as if he were trying, miserably enough, to justify to himself, rather than to her, what he had done. "It would be almost useless to confess my own guilt. It would be thought that I was beside myself. Who would believe me—unless you—you yourself corroborated my story? The man Westwood was a poacher, a thief, wretchedly poor and in ill-health; he has no character to lose, no friends to consider. Besides, he was morally guiltier than I. I know that he was lying in wait for Sydney Vane; I know that he had resolved to be revenged on him. Now I—I met my enemy in fair fight; I did not lie in ambush for him."

But from the darkness of his countenance it was plain that the young man's conscience was not deceived by the specious plea that he had set up for himself. Beneath her drooping eyelids Florence watched him narrowly. She read him in his weakness, his bitterness of spirit, more clearly than he could read himself. Suddenly she sat up and leaned forward so that she could touch him with one of her soft cold hands—her hands were always cold.

"Hubert," she said, with a gentle inflection of her voice which took him by surprise, "I am perhaps not as bad as you think me, dear. I do not want to quarrel with you—you are my only friend. You have saved me from worse than death. I will not be ungrateful. I will do exactly as you wish."

He looked bewildered, almost dismayed.

"Do you mean it, Florence?" he asked doubtingly.

"I do indeed. And, in return, oh, Hubert, will you set my mind at rest by promising me one thing? You will give me another chance to retrieve my wasted, ruined life, will you not? You will never tell to another what you and I know alone? You will still shield me—from—from—disgrace, Hubert—for our mother's sake?"

The tears trembled on her lashes; she slipped down from her low chair and knelt by his side, clasping her hands over his half-reluctant fingers, appealing to him with voice and look alike; and, in an evil hour for himself, he promised at any cost to shield her from the consequences of her folly and his sin.

CHAPTER V.

"Oh, you two are here together!" There was a note of surprise in Miss Vane's voice as she turned the corner of a great group of foliage-plants, and came upon brother and sister at the open library window. "I could not tell what had become of either of you. If you have finished your conversation"—with a sharp glance from Florence's wet eyelashes to Hubert's pale agitated face—"I have work for both of you. Florence, Enid has been alone all the morning; do take the child for a walk and let her have a little fresh air! And I want you to go for a stroll with me, Hubert; the General is sleeping quietly, and I have two or three things to consult you about before I go up to Marion."

The sudden gleam in Florence's eyes, quickly as it was concealed, did not escape Miss Leonora's notice as she moved away.

"What's the matter with Flossy?" she asked abruptly, stopping to throw over her head a black-lace scarf which she had been carrying on her arm. "She has been crying."

"She feels the trouble that has come upon us all, I suppose," said Hubert rather awkwardly. He pressed forward a little, so as to hold open the conservatory door for his aunt. He was glad of the opportunity of averting his face for a moment from the scrutiny of her keen eyes.

"That is not all," said Miss Vane, as she quitted the great glass-house, with its wealth of bloom and perfume, for the freshness of the outer air. She struck straight across the sunny lawn, leaving the house behind. "That is not all. Come away from the house—I don't want what I have to say to you to be overheard, and walls have ears sometimes. Your sister Florence, Hubert, was never remarkable for a very feeling heart. She is, and always was, the most unsympathetic person I ever knew."

"She has perhaps greater depth of feeling than we give her credit for," said Hubert, thinking of certain words that had been said, of certain scenes on which his eyes had rested in by-gone days.

"Not she—excuse me! Hubert, I know that she is your sister, and that men do not like to hear their sisters spoken against; but I must remind you that Florence lived ten years under my roof, and that a woman is more likely to understand a girl's nature than a young man."

"I never pretended to understand Florence," said Hubert helplessly; "she got beyond me long ago."

"She is a good deal older than you, my dear, and she has had more experiences than she would like to have known. How do I know? I only guess, but I am certain of what I say. She is nine-and-twenty, and she has been out in the world for the last eight years. There is no telling what she may not have gone through in that space of time."

Hubert was dumb—it was not in his power just then to contradict his aunt's assertions.

"I would gladly have kept her under the shelter of my roof," said Miss Vane, pursuing the tenor of her thoughts without much reference to her listener's condition of mind; "but you know as well as I do that she refused to live with me after she was twenty-one—would be a governess. Ugh! Wonder how she liked it?"

"She seemed to like it very well; she stayed four years in Russia."

"Yes, and hoped to get married there, but failed. I know Flossy. She must have mismanaged matters frightfully, for she is an attractive girl. She went to Scotland then for a year or two, you know, and was engaged for a time to that young Scotch laird—I never heard why the engagement was broken off."

"Why are you deep in these reminiscences, aunt Leonora?" asked Hubert, with an uneasiness which he tried to conceal by a nervous little laugh. "I should have thought that you would be absorbed in anxiety for the General; and, as for me, I want to know what the doctor says about the dear old boy."

"I am absorbed in anxiety for him," said Miss Vane decisively; "and that is just why I am calling these little details of Florence's history to your mind. As to the General's health, the doctor says that we may be easier about it now than we have been for many a day. The crisis that we have been expecting has come and passed, and we may be thankful that he is no worse. If he keeps quiet, he will be about again in a few days, and may not have another attack for years."

"And Marion?"

"Ah, poor Marion! She is not long for this world, Hubert. I must be back with her at twelve. Till then the nurse has possession and I am free. Poor soul! It is a dark ending to what seemed a bright enough life. Her mind has failed of late as much as her body."

Hubert could not reply.

"Sit down here," said Miss Vane, as they reached a rustic seat beneath a great copper-beech-tree on the farther side of the lawn. "Here we can see the house and be seen from it; if they want me, they will know where to find me. I am not speaking at random, Hubert; there is a thing that I want to say to you about your sister Florence."

Hubert seated himself at her side with a thrill of positive fear. Had she some accusation to bring against his sister? He was miserably conscious that he was quite unprepared to defend her against any accusation whatsoever.

"What I mean first of all to say," Miss Vane proceeded, looking straight before her at the house, "is that Florence is a girl of an unusual character. She looks very mild and meek, but she is not mild and meek at all. Most girls are, on the whole, affectionate and well-principled and timid; Flossy is not one of the three."

"You are surely hard on her!"

"No, I am not. Long ago I made up my mind that she wanted to get married; that is nothing—every girl of her disposition wants more or less to be married. But I came across a piece of information the other day which made me feel almost glad that poor Sydney's life ended as it did. There was danger ahead."

"It is all done with now," said Hubert hurriedly; "why should you rake up the past? Cannot it be left alone?"

He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his chin supported by his hands, a look of settled gloom upon his face. Miss Vane's eyes flashed.

"You know what I mean then?" she said sharply.

Hubert started into an upright position, crossed his arms, and looked her imperturbably in the face.

"I have not the slightest idea of what you are going to say."

"You know something, nevertheless," said Miss Vane, with equal composure. "Well, I don't ask you to betray your sister. I only wish to mention that, in looking over my brother Sydney's papers the other day, I came across a letter from Florence which I consider extremely compromising. It was written from Scotland while she was still engaged to that young laird, but it showed plainly that some sort of understanding subsisted between her and Sydney Vane. They must have met several times without the knowledge of any other member of our family; and it seems that she proffered her services to Marion as Enid's governess at his instigation. What do you think of that?"

"I think," said Hubert deliberately, "that Florence has always proved herself something of a plotter, and that the letter shows that she was scheming to get a good situation. You can't possibly make anything more out of it, aunt Leonora"—with a stormy glance. "I think you had better not try."

Miss Vane sat for a moment or two in deep meditation.

"Well," she said at length, "that may be true, and I may be an old fool. Perhaps I ought not to betray the girl to her brother either; but——"

"Oh, say the worst and get it over, by all means!" said Hubert desperately, "Out with your accusation, if you have any to make!"

Leonora Vane studied his face for a minute or two before replying. She did not like the withered paleness about his mouth, the look of suffering that was so evident in his haggard eyes.

"It is hardly an accusation, Hubert," she said, with sudden gentleness. "I mean that I believe that she was in love—as far as a girl of her disposition can be in love—with my brother Sydney. I need not tell you how I have come to think so. In the first hours of our great loss she betrayed herself. To me only—you need not be afraid that she would ever wear her heart upon her sleeve, but to me she did betray her secret. Whether Sydney returned her affection or not I am not quite sure—for his wife's sake, I hope not."

Again she looked keenly at her young kinsman; but he, with his eyes fixed upon the ground and his lips compressed, did not seem disposed to make any remark on what she had said.

"I felt sorry for the girl," Miss Vane went on, "although I despised her weakness in yielding to an affection for a married man. Still I thought that her folly had brought its own punishment, and that I ought not to be hard on her. Otherwise I should have recommended her to leave Sydney's daughter alone, and get a situation in another house. I wish I had. I cannot express too strongly to you, Hubert, how much I now wish I had!"

"Why?"

"I misunderstood her," said his cousin slowly. "I thought that she had a heart, and that she was grieving—innocently perhaps—over Sydney's death."

"Well, was she not?"

"I don't think so. If she ever cared for him at all, it was because she wanted the ease and luxury that he could give her. For, if she cared for him, Hubert—I put it to you as a matter of probability—could she immediately after his death begin to plan a marriage with somebody else?"

Hubert looked up at last, with a startled expression upon his face.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, my dear boy, that your sister Florence now wants to marry the General."

In spite of his distress of mind, Hubert could not stifle a short laugh.

"Aunt Leonora, you are romancing! This is really too much!"

"I should not mention it to you if I had not good reason," said Miss Vane, with a series of mysterious nods. "I have sharp eyes, Hubert, and can see as far as most people. I repeat it—Florence wants to marry the General."

"She will not do that."

"I am not sure—if she is left here when I am gone. I must go back to London at some time or other, I suppose. But it won't do to leave Flossy in possession."

"She would not think of staying, surely, if——"

"If poor Marion died? Yes, she would. Believe me, I know what I am saying. I have watched her manner to him for the last few weeks, and I feel sure of it. She has her own ends in view."

"I have no doubt of that," said Hubert, rather bitterly. "But what are we to do?"

"Let our wits work against hers," replied Miss Vane briskly. "If poor Marion dies, we must suggest to the General that Enid should go to school. In that way we may get Florence out of the house without a scene. But—mark my words, Hubert—she will not go until she is forced. She is my second cousin once removed and your sister, but for all that she is a scheming unprincipled intriguer and adventuress, who has never brought and never will bring good to any house in which she lives. You may try to get her away to London if you like, but you'll never succeed."

"I have tried already; I thought that she would be better with me," said Hubert. "But it was of no use."

"You offered her a home? You are a good fellow, Hubert! You have always been a good brother to Florence, and I honor you for it," said Miss Vane heartily.

"Don't say so, aunt Leo; I'm not worth it," said the young man, starting up and walking two or three paces from her, then returning to her side. "I only wish that I could do more for her—poor Florence!"

"Poor Florence indeed!" echoed Miss Vane, with tart significance. "But I must go, Hubert. See her again, and persuade her, if you can, to leave Beechfield. Don't tell her what I have said to you. She is suspicious already and will want to know. Did you notice the look she gave me when I said that I wished to talk to you? Be on your guard."

"I shall not have time to talk with her much. I must go back to London by the four o'clock train."

"Must you? Well, do your best. See—the blind is drawn up in Marion's dressing-room—a sign that I am wanted;" and Miss Vane turned towards the house.

Hubert's anticipations were verified. Florence was not to be persuaded by anything that he could say. And, when he begged her to tell him why she wanted so much to stay at Beechfield, and hinted at the reason that existed in Miss Leonora's mind, Florence only laughed him to scorn. He was obliged sorrowfully to confess to Miss Vane, when she walked with him that afternoon before he set out for London, that he had obtained no information concerning Flossy's plans, and that he could hope to have no influence over her movements.

He had five minutes to spare, and was urging her to walk with him a little way along the road that led to the nearest railway-station, when Miss Vane's attention was arrested by two little figures in the middle of the road. She stopped short, and pointed to them with her parasol.

"Hubert," she cried, in a voice that was hoarse with dismay, "do you see that?"

"I see Enid," said Hubert rather wonderingly. "I suppose she ought not to be here alone; she must have escaped from Florence. Why are you so alarmed? She is talking to a beggar-child—that is all."

Miss Vane pressed his arm with her hand.

"Are you blind?" she said. "Do you not know to whom she is talking? Can you bear to see it?"

"Upon my soul, aunt Leo," said the young man, "I don't know what you mean!"

He looked at the scene before him. The white country road stretched in an undulating line to right and left, its smooth surface mottled with patches of sunlight and tracts of refreshing shade. A broad margin of grass on either side, tall hedges of hawthorn and hazel, soothed the eye that might be wearied with the glare and whiteness of the road. On one of these grassy margins two children were standing face to face. Hubert recognised his little cousin Enid Vane, but the other—a sunburnt, gipsy-looking creature, with unkempt hair and ragged clothes—who could she be?

"You were at the trial," Miss Vane whispered to him, in dismayed, reproachful tones. "Do you not know her? it is no fault of hers, poor child, of course; and yet it does give me a shock to see poor little Enid talking in that friendly way with the daughter of her father's murderer."

For the child was no other than little Jenny Westwood, whom Hubert had seen for a few minutes only at her father's trial three weeks before.

CHAPTER VI.

Hubert stopped short. If Miss Vane had been looking at him, she would have seen that his face flushed deeply and then turned very pale. But she herself, with her gold eye-glasses fixed very firmly on the bridge of her high nose, was concentrating her whole attention upon the children.

"Enid," she called out rather sharply, "what are you doing there? Come to me."

Enid turned to her aunt. She was a singularly sensitive looking child, with lips that paled too rapidly and veins that showed with almost painful distinctness beneath the soft white skin. Her features were delicately cut, and gave promise of future beauty, when health should lend its vivifying touch to the white little face. Her eyes, of a tender violet-gray, were even now remarkable, and her hair was of rippling gold.

Her sombre black dress and the sunshine that poured down upon the spot where she was standing contributed to the dazzling effect produced by her golden hair and white skin. There could not have been a greater contrast than that between her and Andrew Westwood's daughter, upon whom at that moment Hubert Lepel's eyes were fixed.

Jenny Westwood, as she was generally called, although her father gave her a different name, was thinner, browner wilder-looking, than she had even been before. Miss Vane knew her by sight, but she had imagined that the child had been taken away from the village by friends, or sent to the workhouse by the authorities. It was a shock to her to find the little creature at the park gates of Beechfield Hall.

Enid did not seem to be embarrassed by her aunt's call. She ran up to her at once, dragging the ragged child with her by the hand. Her face was anxious and puzzled.

"Oh, aunt Leo," she said, "this little girl has nowhere to go to—no home—no anything!"

"Let her hand go, Enid!" said aunt Leo, with some severity. "You have no business to be out here in the road, talking to children whom you know nothing about."

Enid shrank a little, but she did not drop the child's hand.

"But, aunt Leo, she is hungry and——"

"Were you begging of this young lady?" Miss Vane said magisterially, her eyes bent full on the ragged girl's dark face.

But Andrew Westwood's daughter would not speak.

"I'll talk to her," said Hubert, in a low tone. "You take Enid back to the house, aunt Leo, and I'll send the child about her business."

"No, no; you'll miss your train. It is time for you to go. Enid can run back to the house by herself. Go, Enid!"

"Why may I not speak to the little girl too?" said Enid wistfully. It was not often that she was rebellious, but her face worked now as if she were going to cry.

"Never mind why—do as I tell you!" cried Miss Vane, who was growing exasperated by the pain and difficulty of the situation, "I will see what she wants."

Enid hesitated for a moment, then flung herself impetuously upon Hubert.

"Won't you help her?" she said, looking up into his face with sweet entreaty. "I am sure you will be kind. The poor little girl has had nothing to eat all day—I asked her. You will be kind to her, for you are always kind."

Hubert pressed her to him without speaking for a moment, then answered gently—

"Both your aunt and I will be kind to her and help her, Enid—you may be sure of that. Now run away home and leave us; we will do all we can."

For the first time, the little outcast who had excited Enid's pity broke the silence.

"I don't want nothing; I wasn't begging, nor meaning to beg. She found me asleep by the road and asked me if I was hungry—that was all."

"And she is hungry," said Enid, with passion, "and you don't want me to help her. You are unkind! Here, little girl—here is my shilling; it's the only one I've got, and it has a hole in it, but you may have it, and then you can get yourself something to eat in the village."

She dashed forward with the coin, eluding a movement of Miss Vane's hand designed to stop her in her course. The shilling lay in Jenny Westwood's grimy little hand before the lady could interfere.

"Don't take it away," Hubert whispered in his aunt's ear; "it will only make her remember the scene for a longer time."

"I know," Miss Vane answered grimly; and she stood still.

Enid turned sorrowfully, half ashamed of her momentary rebellion, towards the park gate. The other child seemed dazed by the excitement of the speakers, and only half understood what had been going on. She stood looking first at the coin in her hand and then at the donor, with a strange questioning expression on her little brown face. Miss Vane and Hubert also waited in silence, until Enid was out of hearing. Then, as if by the same instinct, each drew a long breath and looked doubtfully at the other and then at the child.