"What is your meaning, Captain Audaine?" says the boy, sharply. "What other course is possible?"'

"O Lord!" said I, "after to-night's imbroglio I have nothing to observe concerning the possibility of anything; but if this marriage prove a legal one, I am most indissuadably resolved to rectify matters without delay in the divorce court."

Now Gerald's brows were uglily compressed. "A divorce," said he, with an extreme of deliberation, "means the airing of to-night's doings in the open. I take it, 'tis the duty of a man of honor to preserve the reputation of his grandmother stainless; whether she be a housemaid or the Queen of Portugal, her frailties are equally ent.i.tled to endurance, her eccentricities to toleration: can a gentleman, then, sanction any proceeding of a nature calculated to make his grandmother the laughing-stock of England? The point is a nice one."

"For, conceive," said Lord Humphrey, with the most knavish grin I ever knew a human countenance to pollute itself with, "that the entire matter will be convoyed by the short-hand writers to the public press, and after this will be hawked about the streets; and that the venders will yell particulars of your grandmother's folly under your very windows; and that you must hear them in impotence, and that for some months the three kingdoms will hear of nothing else. Gad, I quite feel for you, my dear."

"I have fallen into a nest of madmen," I cried. "You know, both of you, how profoundly I adore Mr. Gerald's sister, the accomplished and bewitching Miss Allonby; and in any event, I demand of you, as rational beings, is it equitable that I be fettered for life to an old woman's ap.r.o.n-strings because a doctor of divinity is parsimonious of his candles?"

But Gerald had drawn with a flourish. "You have repudiated my kinswoman,"

says he, "and you cannot deny me the customary satisfaction. Harkee, my fine fellow, Dorothy will marry my friend Lord Humphrey if she will be advised by me; or if she prefer it, she may marry the Man in the Iron Mask or the piper that played before Moses, so far as I am concerned: but as for you, I hereby offer you your choice between quitting this apartment as my grandfather or as a corpse."

"I won't fight you!" I shouted. "Keep the boy off, Degge!" But when the infuriate lad rushed upon me, I was forced, in self-protection, to draw, and after a brief engagement to knock his sword across the room.

"Gerald," I pleaded, "for the love of reason, consider! I cannot fight you.

Heaven knows this tragic farce hath robbed me of all pretension toward your sister, and that I am just now but little better than a madman; yet 'tis her blood which exhilarates your veins, and with such dear and precious fluid I cannot willingly imbrue my hands. Nay, you are no swordsman, lad,--keep off!"

And there I had blundered irretrievably.

"No swordsman! By G.o.d, I fling the words in your face, Frank Audaine! must I send the candlestick after them?" And within the instant he had caught up his weapon and had hurled himself upon me, in an abandoned fury. I had not moved. The boy spitted himself upon my sword and fell with a horrid gasping.

"You will bear me witness, Lord Humphrey," said I, "that the quarrel was not of my provokement."

But at this juncture the outer door reopened and Dorothy tripped into the room, preceding Lady Allonby and Mr. George Erwyn. They had followed in the family coach to dissuade the Marchioness from her contemplated match by force or by argument, as the cat might jump; and so it came about that my dear mistress and I stared at each other across her brother's lifeless body.

And 'twas in this poignant moment I first saw her truly. In a storm you have doubtless had some utterly familiar scene leap from the darkness, under the lash of lightning, and be for the instant made visible and strange; and I beheld her with much that awful clarity. Formerly 'twas her beauty had ensnared me, and this I now perceived to be a fortuitous and happy medley of color and glow and curve, indeed, yet nothing more. 'Twas the woman I loved, not her trappings; and her eyes were no more part of her than were the jewels in her ears. But the sweet mirth of her, the brave heart, the clean soul, the girl herself, how good and generous and kind and tender,--'twas this that I now beheld, and knew that this, too, was lost;--and, in beholding, the little love of yesterday fled whimpering before the sacred pa.s.sion which had possessed my being. And I began to laugh.

"My dear," said I, "'twas to-night that you promised me your answer, and to-night you observe in me alike your grandfather and your brother's murderer."

VII

Lady Allonby fell to wringing her hands, but Dorothy had knelt beside the prostrate form and was inspecting the ravages of my fratricidal sword. "Oh, fy! fy!" says she immediately, and wrinkles her saucy nose; "had none of you the sense to perceive that Gerald was tipsy? And as for the wound, 'tis only a scratch here on the left shoulder. Get water, somebody." And her command being obeyed, she cleansed the hurt composedly and bandaged it with the ruffle of her petticoat.

Meanwhile we hulking men stood thick about her, fidgeting and foolishly gaping like a basket of fish; and presently a sibilance of relief went about our circle as Gerald opened his eyes. "Sister," says he, with a profoundly tragic face, "remember--remember that I perished to preserve the honor of our family."

"To preserve a fiddlestick!" said my adored Dorothy. And, rising, she confronted me, a tinted statuette of decision. "Now, Frank," says she, "I would like to know the meaning of this nonsense."

And thereupon, for the second time, I recounted the dreadful and huddled action of the night.

When I had ended, "The first thing," says she, "is to let Grandmother out of that room. And the second is to show me the Parson." This was done; the Dowager entered in an extremity of sulkiness, and the Parson, on being pointed out, lowered his eyes and intensified his complexion.

"As I antic.i.p.ated," says my charmer, "you are, one and all, a parcel of credulous infants. 'Tis a parson, indeed, but merely the parson out of Vanbrugh's _Relapse_; only last Friday, sir, we heartily commended your fine performance. Why, Frank, the man is one of the play-actors."

"I fancy," Mr. Vanringham here interpolates, "that I owe the a.s.sembled company some modic.u.m of explanation. 'Tis true that at the beginning of our friendship I had contemplated matrimony with our amiable Marchioness, but, I confess, 'twas the lady's property rather than her person which was the allure. And reflection dissuaded me; a legal union left me, a young and not unhandsome man, irrevocably fettered to an old woman; whereas a mock-marriage afforded an eternal option to compound the match--for a consideration--with the lady's relatives, to whom, I had instinctively divined, her alliance with me would prove distasteful. Accordingly I had availed myself of my colleague's skill [Footnote: I witnessed this same Quarmby's hanging in 1754, and for a burglary, I think, with an extraordinary relish.--F.A.] in the portrayal of clerical parts rather than resort to any parson whose authority was unrestricted by the footlights.

And accordingly--"

"And accordingly my marriage," I interrupted, "is not binding?"

"I can a.s.sure you," he replied, "that you might trade your lawful right in the lady for a twopenny whistle and not lose by the bargain."

"And what about my marriage?" says the Marchioness--"the marriage which was never to be legalized?--'twas merely that you might sell me afterward, like so much mutton, was it, you jumping-jack--!"

But I spare you her ensuing gloss upon this text.

The man heard her through, without a muscle twitching. "It is more than probable," he conceded, "that I have merited each and every fate your Ladyship is pleased to invoke. Indeed, I consider the extent of your distresses to be equaled only by that of your vocabulary. Yet by ordinary the heart of woman is not obdurate, and upon one lady here I have some claim--"

Dorothy had drawn away from him, with an odd and frightened cry. "Not upon me, sir! I never saw you except across the footlights. You know I never saw you except across the footlights, Mr. Vanringham!"

Fixedly he regarded her, with a curious yet not unpleasing smile. "I am the more unfortunate," he said, at last. "Nay, 'twas to Lady Allonby I addressed my appeal."

The person he named had been whispering with George Erwyn, but now she turned toward the actor. "Heavens!" said Lady Allonby, "to think I should be able to repay you this soon! La, of course, you are at liberty, Mr.

Vanringham, and we may treat the whole series of events as a frolic suited to the day. For I am under obligations to you, and, besides, your punishment would breed a scandal, and, above all, anything is preferable to being talked about in the wrong way."

Having reasons of my own, I was elated by the upshot of this rather remarkable affair. Yet in justice to my own perspicacity, I must declare that it occurred to me, at this very time, that Mr. Vanringham had proven himself not entirely worthy of unlimited confidence, I reflected, however, that I had my instructions, and that, if a bad king may prove a good husband, a knave may surely carry a letter with fidelity, the more so if it be to his interest to do it.

VIII

I rode back to Tunbridge in the coach, with Dorothy at my side and with Gerald rec.u.mbent upon the front seat,--where, after ten minutes' driving the boy very philanthropically fell asleep.

"And you have not," I immediately a.s.serted--"after all, you have not given me the answer which was to-night to decide whether I be of all mankind the most fortunate or the most miserable. And 'tis nearing twelve."

"What choice have I?" she murmured; "after to-night is it not doubly apparent that you need some one to take care of you? And, besides, this is your eighth proposal, and the ninth I had always rather meant to accept, because I have been in love with you for two whole weeks."

My heart stood still. And shall I confess that for an instant my wits, too, paused to play the gourmet with my emotions? She sat beside me in the darkness, you understand, waiting, mine to touch. And everywhere the world was filled with beautiful, kind people, and overhead G.o.d smiled down upon His world, and a careless seraph had left open the door of Heaven, so that quite a deal of its splendor flooded the world about us. And the snoring of Gerald was now inaudible because of a stately music which was playing somewhere.

"Frank--!" she breathed. And I noted that her voice was no less tender than her lips.

IV

THE RHYME TO PORRINGER

_As Played at Tunbridge Wells, April 2, 1750_

"_Ye G.o.ds, why are not hearts first paired above, But still some interfere in others' love, Ere each for each by certain marks are known?

You mould them up in haste, and drop them down, And while we seek what carelessly you sort, You sit in state, and make our pains your sport._"

DRAMATIS PERSONae

CAPTAIN AUDAINE, an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman.

LORD HUMPHREY DEGGE, an airy young gentleman, loves Miss Allonby for her money.

VANRINGHAM, emissary and confederate of Audaine.