"Well, then I'll take my chance once more. Zoe, will you try and love me?"

"Try? I believe I do love you, or nearly. I think of you very often."

"Then you will do something to make me happy."

"Anything; everything."

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes, that I will," said Zoe, almost impetuously; "and then," with a grand look of conscious beauty, "I can _make_ you forgive me."

Uxmoor, on this, caught her in his arms, and kissed her with such fire that she uttered a little stifled cry of alarm; but it was soon followed by a sigh of complacency, and she sunk, resistless, on his manly breast.

So, after two sieges, he carried that fair citadel by a.s.sault.

Then let not the manly heart despair, nor take a mere brace of "Noes"

from any woman. Nothing short of three negatives is serious.

They walked out in arm-in-arm and very close to each other; and he left her, solemnly engaged.

Leaving this pair to the delights of courtship, and growing affection on Zoe's side--for a warm attachment of the n.o.blest kind did grow, by degrees, out of her penitence, and esteem, and desire to repair her fault--I must now take up the other thread of this narrative, and apologize for having inverted the order of events; for it was, in reality, several days after this happy scene that Mademoiselle Klosking sent for Miss Gale.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

VIZARD, then, with Ashmead, returned home in despair; and Zoe, now happy in her own mind, was all tenderness and sisterly consolation. They opened their hearts to each other, and she showed her wish to repay the debt she owed him. How far she might have succeeded, in time, will never be known.

For he had hardly been home a week, when Miss Gale returned, all in black, and told him Severne was dead and buried.

He was startled, and even shocked, remembering old times; but it was not in human nature he should be sorry. Not to be indecorously glad at so opportune an exit was all that could be expected from him.

When she had given him the details, his first question was, "How did she bear it?"

"She is terribly cut up--more than one would think possible; for she was ice and marble to him before he was hurt to death."

"Where is she?"

"Gone to London. She will write to me, I suppose--poor dear. But one must give her time."

From that hour Vizard was in a state of excitement, hoping to hear from Ina Klosking, or about her; but unwilling, from delicacy, to hurry matters.

At last he became impatient, and wrote to Ashmead, whose address he had, and said, frankly, he had a delicacy in intruding on Mademoiselle Klosking, in her grief. Yet his own feelings would not allow him to seem to neglect her. Would Mr. Ashmead, then, tell him where she was, as she had not written to any one in Barfordshire--not even to her tried friend, Miss Gale.

He received an answer by return of post.

"DEAR SIR--I am grieved to tell you that Mademoiselle Klosking has retired from public life. She wrote to me, three weeks ago, from Dover, requesting me to accept, as a token of her esteem, the surplus money I hold in hand for her--I always drew her salary--and bidding me farewell.

The sum included her profits by psalmody, minus her expenses, and was so large it could never have been intended as a mere recognition of my humble services; and I think I have seldom felt so down-hearted as on receiving this princely donation. It has enabled me to take better offices, and it may be the foundation of a little fortune; but I feel that I have lost the truly great lady who has made a man of me. Sir, the relish is gone for my occupation: I can never be so happy as I was in working the interests of that great genius, whose voice made our leading soprani sound like whistles, and who honored me with her friendship. Sir, she was not like other leading ladies. She never bragged, never spoke ill of any one; and _you_ can testify to her virtue and her discretion.

"I am truly sorry to learn from you that she has written to no one in Barfordshire. I saw, by her letter to me, she had left the stage; but her dropping you all looks as if she had left the world. I do hope she has not been so mad as to go into one of those cursed convents.

"Mr. Vizard, I will now write to friends in all the Continental towns where there is good music. She will not be able to keep away from that long. I will also send photographs; and hope we may hear something. If not, perhaps a _judicious advertis.e.m.e.nt_ might remind her that she is inflicting pain upon persons to whom she is dear. I am, sir, your obliged and grateful servant,

"JOSEPH ASHMEAD."

Here was a blow. I really believe Vizard felt this more deeply than all his other disappointments.

He brooded over it for a day or two; and then, as he thought Miss Gale a very ill-used person, though not, of course, so ill-used as himself, he took her Ashmead's letter.

"This is nice!" said she. "There--I must give up loving women. Besides, they throw me over the moment a man comes, if it happens to be the right one."

"Unnatural creatures!" said Vizard.

"Ungrateful, at all events."

"Do you think she has gone into a convent?"

"Not she. In the first place, she is a Protestant; and, in the second, she is not a fool."

"I will advertise."

"The idea!"

"Do you think I am going to sit down with my hands before me, and lose her forever?"

"No, indeed; I don't think you are that sort of a man at all, ha! ha!"

"Oh, Miss Gale, pity me. Tell me how to find her. That f.a.n.n.y Dover says women are only enigmas to men; they understand one another."

"What," said Rhoda, turning swiftly on him; "does that little chit pretend to read my n.o.ble Ina?"

"If she cannot, perhaps you can. You are so shrewd. Do tell me, what does it all mean?"

"It means nothing at all, I dare say; only a woman's impulse. They are such geese at times, every one of them."

"Oh, if I did but know what country she is in, I would ransack it."

"Hum!--countries are biggish places."

"I don't care."

"What will you give me to tell you where she is at this moment?"

"All I have in the world."

"That is sufficient. Well, then, first a.s.sign me your estates; then fetch me an ordnance map of creation, and I will put my finger on her."

"You little mocking fiend, you!"