CHAPTER XVIII.

"He has mounted her on a milk-white steed, Himself on a dappled gray; And a bugelet-horn hung down by his side As lightly they rode away."

It is hard to describe the terrible _prestige_ which, after the event I have been speaking of, attached itself to Ralph Mohun. As for attempting a second attack on the fatal house, the peasantry would as soon have thought of storming the bottomless pit. They did not even try a shot at him from behind a wall; considering him perfectly invulnerable, they deemed it a pity to waste good powder and lead that might be usefully employed on an agent or process server. As his gaunt, erect figure went by, the men shrunk out of his path, and the women called their children in hastily, and shut their cabin doors; the very beggars, who are tolerably unscrupulous, gave his gate a wide berth, crossing themselves, with a muttered prayer, "G.o.d stand betwixt us and harm." If Ralph perceived this, I think he rather liked it; at all events, he made no attempt, either by softening his manner or by any act of benevolence, to win the popular favor.

Before going to the Lodge I had heard from Livingstone. He said that his cousin's affair with Charley was progressing satisfactorily (I knew what that meant), and that he was going himself to sell out. I was not surprised at this; for some time past even the light restraint of service in the Household Brigade had begun to bore him. But the intelligence conveyed in a brief note from him during my stay with Mohun startled me very much. It announced, without any preface or explanation, that he was engaged to Constance Brandon.

I had observed that lately he never mentioned or alluded to Miss Bellasys, but he had been equally silent about his present betrothed. I told my host of the news directly.

"I am very glad to hear it," he said. "I never heard any thing but good of his _fiancee_. She is wonderfully beautiful, too, I believe, and her blood is unexceptionable. And yet," he went on musingly, "I should hardly have fancied that she would quite suit Guy. I don't know any one who would exactly. By-the-by, was there not a strong flirtation with a Miss Bellasys?"

"Yes; so strong that I should have been less surprised to have seen her name in this letter."

"Then he has not got out of that sc.r.a.pe yet," Mohun observed. "That girl comes of the wrong stock to give up any thing she has fancied without a struggle. I knew her father, d.i.c.k Bellasys, well. He contrived to compress as much mischief into his five-and-thirty years, before De Launy shot him, as most strong men can manage in double the time. He was like the Visconti--never sparing man in his anger, or woman in his love."

I felt that he was right. I did not fancy the idea of Flora's state of mind when she heard that all her fascinations had failed, and that her rival had won the day.

"I think I must leave you sooner than I had intended," I said; "I should like to be in England to see how things are going on."

"You are right," answered Ralph, "though I shall be sorry to lose you.

You have some influence with Livingstone, I know, though he is so hard to guide and self-reliant that advice is almost useless. If I had to give you a _consigne_, it would be--Distrust. If Miss Bellasys seems to take things pleasantly, be still more wary. I never saw a peculiarly frank, winning smile on her father's face without there being ruin to some one in the background. After all, you can do but little, I suppose.

_Che sara, sara_." He said this drearily, and with something like a sigh.

I had some business which detained me in Dublin, and it was nearly a fortnight after I received Guy's letter before I reached London.

Early on the morning after my arrival I went down to his lodgings in Piccadilly. I found him at breakfast; after the first greetings, before I could say one word about his own affairs, he began to speak eagerly.

"What a pity you should have come too late for the catastrophe, when you had seen all the preface! Five days ago Bella and Charley made their great _coup_, and were married in Paris."

"And Bruce?" I said, recovering from the intelligence, which was not so unexpected, after all.

"Ah! Bruce"--Guy replied; "I should be very glad if I knew what he _was_ doing at this moment. I have been expecting him every day; but nothing has been heard of him since he left my mother's presence in a rabid state of fury. Did I tell you it was from Kerton they fled? I thought he must have come to me for an explanation, knowing that I was an accessory before the fact. Indeed, I lent Charley the sinews of war in the shape of a blank check, which I see this morning he has filled up for a thousand--just like his modesty. Well, I hope they'll amuse themselves! Bruce has never been near me. Suicide is the most charitable suggestion I've heard yet; but coroners are silent, and the Thames, if it is conscious of that unlucky though disagreeable man, keeps his secret so far!"

Then he went on to give me more particulars of the _escapade_. It seems that Miss Raymond had gone out to walk alone, after luncheon, and that nothing more was heard of her till dinner-time, when a note was found on her dressing-table, addressed to her aunt, containing the intelligence of her flight with Forrester, and a little piece of ready-made penitence--the first for all whom it might concern, the second for her father.

That placid Lord Ullin received the news by telegraph when he was well into his second rubber at the "Travelers;" he put the message into his pocket without remark, and won the rubber before he rose. It has been reported that he was somewhat absent during its progress, so much so as to rough his partner's strongest suit; but this I conceive to have been an after-thought of some one's, or a _canard_ of the club. Impavid as the Horatian model-man--(just in all his _dealings_, and tenacious of the odd trick)--I can not imagine the convulsion of nature which would have made him jeopardize by any sin of omission or commission the winning of the long odds.

He found Bruce that night, and told him all. He never would give an account of that interview: it must have been a curious one.

_"xunomosan gar, ontes echtistoi to prin, pur kai thala.s.sa--"_

Fancy the well-iced conventionalities of the one brought in contact with the other's savage temperament, maddened by baffled desires and the sense of shameful defeat.

Before noon the next day it was announced to Lady Catharine, at Kerton Manor, that Bruce was waiting for her in the drawing-room. It was with a diffidence and sense of guilt very strange to her pure, straightforward nature that she obeyed the summons.

His back was to the door as she entered.

"I can not tell you how sorry I am," she began.

Bruce turned toward her his ghastly face, ravaged and deformed by pa.s.sion and sleeplessness, like a cane-brake in the Western Indies over which a tornado has pa.s.sed. He did not appear to notice her words or her offered hand, but spoke in a strange, broken voice, after clearing his parched throat once or twice, huskily:

"When did they go? At what hour?"

She told him as well as she could.

"Where have they gone to?"

"I have not the least idea. Bella gave no hint of this. Would you like to see her note?" and she held it out to him.

The name appeared to sting him like the cut of a whip, for he started convulsively as he took the sc.r.a.p of paper. He read it through more than once, as if unable to comprehend it; the power of discrimination seemed blasted in his dry, red eyeb.a.l.l.s; they could only glare.

He made it out at last, and crumpled it up in his hand, clenching it till the knuckles became dead-white under the strain.

"We were to have been married this day month," he said to himself, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper; then raising his voice, "You can guess, at least, which route they have taken?"

"Indeed I can not," she answered; "I would have done any thing to prevent this; but you must see that pursuit now would be worse than useless; it could only lead to fresh evils."

Then the smouldering pa.s.sion burst into a flame.

"It is false," he cried out; "you would have done nothing. It is a plot.

You are all in it; you, your son, and more that I will know soon. I saw it from the first moment I set foot in this cursed house. And you think I will not be revenged? Wait--wait and see!" He spoke rapidly, but it seemed as if the words could hardly force their way through his gnashing teeth.

Good and kind-hearted as she was, there breathed no prouder woman than Lady Catharine Livingstone. Before he had ended her hand was on the bell.

"Not even your disappointment can excuse your language," she said, in her clear, vibrating tones; "our interview is ended. I have pitied you hitherto, and blamed my niece; I do neither now: she knew you better than I. Not one word more. Mr. Bruce's carriage."

Bruce glared at her savagely. He would have sold his soul, I believe, to have strangled her where she stood; but Guy's own peculiar look was in the cold, disdainful eyes, which met his without flinching or faltering. He knew that look very well, and quailed under it now, as he had done many times before.

"A last piece of advice," Lady Catharine said, as he turned to go; "you had better curb your temper if you think of seeing my son. He may scarcely be so patient with you as I have been."

If he heard it he did not notice the remark, but left the room slowly.

He lifted his hand, but not his head, in a stealthy gesture of menace as he reached the door.

Lady Catharine stood for some moments after his departure as if in thought, unconsciously retaining her somewhat haughty att.i.tude and expression. Then she went to her room, and prayed, with many tears, that Isabel Raymond might never have to repent the step she had taken so rashly. I think a presentiment of danger made her pray for Guy too. But did she ever forget him when she was on her knees?

Nevertheless, Bruce had not shown upon the scene since, so that they could not convey to him the intelligence when Isabel Forrester wrote from Paris to communicate her marriage.

Guy went to Mr. Raymond as a plenipotentiary from the recently allied powers, to obtain, if possible, fair conditions of peace. His uncle was breakfasting alone, and received him with perfect good-temper.

"My dear boy," he said, "it was a match of your poor aunt's making, not mine. If she had lived to see it broken off, I think she would have been very much provoked. (He gave a slight shudder of reminiscence here, and finished his chocolate.) But they say there is no marrying or giving in marriage where she is gone, so let us hope it will not seriously affect her now. As to me, I have never been angry since I was twenty-two.

Personally, I very much prefer Forrester to Bruce as a connection. I should have allowed Bella 300 a year, and I suppose the necessary outfit and presents would have cost me about 500. I will do just the same now--neither more nor less. You can tell Charley he may draw for the last sum and for the first quarter when he pleases. They had better travel for a year or so, I think, till the people have stopped talking about them. Charley will sell out, of course?"

"His papers are sent in," Guy replied.

"Just so," Raymond went on. "If they are in a pleasant place, I may very likely go and see them this summer. Suggest Hombourg. I should like to try the waters. And tell Charley not to go about too much alone after nightfall. The deserted one is capable of laying a trap for him. I didn't like his look when I saw him last. That is all, I think. Do you go to Lady Featherstone's to-night?"

Raymond appeared at his clubs and elsewhere with a face so impenetrably cheerful and complacent that his bitterest friend dared not venture on a condolence.