"Good-night, dear old Donnie."

"And you'll promise me you'll read a bit in it every night."

"Where's the use in promising, Donnie? Don't we promise everything--the whole Christian religion, at our baptism--and how do we keep it?"

"You must promise you'll read, if 'twas only a verse every night, Miss Jennie, dear--it may be the makin' o' ye. I hear Lady Alice a-calling."

"You're a good old thing--I like you, Donnie--you'd like to make me better--happier, that is--and I love you--and I promise for this night, at all events, I will read a verse, and maybe more, if it turns out good-natured, as you say. Good-night."

And she shook old Gwynn by both hands, and kissed her; and as she parted with her, said--

"And, Donnie, you must tell my maid I shan't want her to-night--and I _will_ read, Donnie--and now, good-night again."

So handsome Lady Jane was alone.

"It seems to me as if I had not time to think--G.o.d help me, G.o.d help me," said Lady Jane. "Shall I read it? That odious book, that puts impossibilities before us, and calls eternal d.a.m.nation eternal justice!"

"Good-night, Jane," croaked Lady Alice's voice, and the key turned in the door.

With a pallid glance from the corners of her eyes, of intense contempt--_hatred_, even, at the moment, she gazed on the door, as she sate with her fingers under her chin; and if a look could have pierced the panels, hers would have shot old Lady Alice dead at the other side.

For about a minute she sat so, and then a chilly little laugh rang from her lips; and she thought no more for a while of Lady Alice, and her eyes wandered again to her Bible.

"Yes, that odious book! with just power enough to distract us, without convincing--to embitter our short existence, without directing it; I _hate_ it."

So she said, and looked as if she would have flung it into the farthest corner of the room. She was spited with it, as so many others are, because it won't do for us what we must do for ourselves.

"When sorrow comes, poor Donnie says--_when_ it comes--little she knows how long it has been here! Life--such a dream--such an agony often.

Surely it pays the penalty of all its follies. Judgment indeed! The all-wise Creator sitting in judgment upon creatures like us, living but an hour, and walking in a dream!"

This kind of talk with her, as with many others, was only the expression of a form of pain. She was perhaps in the very mood to read, that is, with the keen and anxious interest that accompanies and indicates a deep-seated grief and fear.

It was quite true what she said to old Donica. These pages had long been sealed for her. And now, with a mixture of sad antipathy and interest, as one looks into a coffin, she did open the book, and read here and there in a desultory way, and then, leaning on her hand, she mused dismally; then made search for a place she wanted, and read and wept, wept aloud and long and bitterly.

The woman taken, and "set in the midst," the dreadful Pharisees standing round. The Lord of life, who will judge us on the last day, hearing and _saving_! Oh, blessed Prince, whose service is perfect freedom, how wise are thy statutes! "More to be desired are they than gold--_sweeter_ also than honey." Standing between thy poor tempted creatures and the worst sorrow that can befall them--a sorrow that softens, not like others, as death approaches, but is transformed, and stands like a giant at the bedside. May they see thy interposing image--may they see thy face now and for ever.

Rest for the heavy-laden! The broken and the contrite he will not despise. Read and take comfort, how he dealt with that poor sinner.

Perfect purity, perfect mercy. Oh, n.o.blest vision that ever rose before contrite frailty! Lift up the downcast head--let the poor heart break no more--you shall rise from the dust an angel.

Suddenly she lifted up her pale face, with an agony and a light on her countenance, with hands clasped, and such a look from the abyss, in her upturned eyes.

Oh! was it possible--could it be true? A _friend_--such a _friend_!

Then came a burst of prayer--wild resolutions--agonised tears. She knew that in all s.p.a.ce, for her, was but one place of safety--to lie at the wounded feet of her Saviour, to clasp them, to bathe them with her tears. An hour--more--pa.s.sed in this agony of stormy hope breaking in gleams through despair. Prayer--cries for help, as from the drowning, and vows frantic--holy, for the future.

"Yes, once more, thank G.o.d, I can dare with safety--here and now--to see him for the last time. In the morning I will conjure old Lady Alice to take me to Wardlock. I will write to London. Arthur will join me there.

I'd like to go abroad--never into the world again--never--never--never.

He will be pleased. I'll try to make amends. He'll never know what a wretch I've been. But he shall see the change, and be happier. Yes, yes, yes." Her beautiful long hair was loose, its rich folds clasped in her strained fingers--her pale upturned face bathed in tears and quivering--"The Saviour's feet!--No happiness but there--wash them with my tears--dry them with this hair." And she lifted up her eyes and hands to heaven.

Poor thing! In the storm, as cloud and rack fly by, the momentary gleam that comes--what is it? Do not often these agitations subside in darkness? Was this to be a lasting sunshine, though saddened for her?

Was she indeed safe now and for ever?

But is there any promise that repentance shall arrest the course of the avenger that follows sin on earth? Are broken health or blighted fame restored when the wicked man "turneth away from the wickedness that he hath committed;" and do those consequences that dog iniquity with "feet of wool and hands of iron," stay their sightless and soundless march so soon as he begins to do "that which is lawful and right?" It is enough for him to know that he that does so "shall save his soul alive."

CHAPTER XIX.

Varbarriere the Tyrant debates with the weaker Varbarrieres.

"May I see you, Monsieur Varbarriere, to-morrow, in the room in which I saw you to-day, at any hour you please after half-past eleven?" inquired Lady Alice, a few minutes after that gentleman had approached her.

"Certainly, madam; perhaps I can at this moment answer you upon points which cause you anxiety; pray command me."

And he sate like a corpulent penitent on a low prie-dieu chair beside her knee, and inclined his ear to listen.

"It is only to learn whether my--my poor boy's son, my grandson, the young man in whom I must feel so deep an interest, is about to return here?"

"I can't be quite certain, madam, of that; but I can promise that he will do himself the honour to present himself before you, whenever you may please to appoint, at your house of Wardlock."

"Yes, that would be better still. He could come there and see his old grandmother. I would like to see him soon. I have a great deal to say to him, a great deal to tell him that would interest him; and the pictures; I know you will let him come. Do you really mean it, Monsieur Varbarriere?"

M. Varbarriere smiled a little contemptuously, and bowed most deferentially.

"Certainly madam, I mean what I say; and if I did _not_ mean it, still I would say I do."

There was something mazy in this sentence which a little bewildered old Lady Alice's head, and she gazed on Varbarriere with a lack-l.u.s.tre frown.

"Well, then, sir, the upshot of the matter is that _I may_ rely on what you say, and expect my grandson's visit at Wardlock?"

"Certainly, madam, you _may_ expect it," rejoined Varbarriere, oracularly.

"And pray, Monsieur Varbarriere, are you married?" inquired the old lady, with the air of a person who had a right to be informed.

"Alas, madam, may I say Latin?--Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem; you stir up my deepest grief. I am, indeed, what you call an old bachelor."

"Well, so I should suppose; I don't see what business you would have had to marry."

"Nor I either," he replied.

"And you are very rich, I suppose."

"The rich man never says he is rich, and the poor man never says he is poor. What shall I say? Pretty well! Will that do?"

"H'm, yes; you ought to make a settlement, Monsieur Varbarriere."

"On your grandson, madam?"