Their feet were on the stairs.

"Mabel," he said, almost breathlessly, as he released her waist, and drew her hand within his arm, "there is no mistake between us--you will be my wife--say you will?"

He bent his head to catch the murmured reply, and, at the same moment, the door was thrown open, and Mrs. Villars and her daughters stood aghast at the spectacle that presented itself.

How beautiful Mabel looked, clinging to his arm, blushing, and trembling, and shrinking from the astonished gaze of her aunt and cousins. But for one moment only, and then, flitting past them, she was gone.

"Sir!" said Mrs. Villars, drawing herself up and advancing to the attack, "your conduct surprises me."

"Stay, madam," said Hargrave, with manly honesty, "I owe you an explanation for my strange inconsistency, and I am ready to give it at once. Mabel Lesly and I were lovers from children, till we parted six years ago; she then refused to be my wife, because she disapproved of my ideas on religion, and, with much violence on my side, we parted. The obstacle is now removed, and she will be mine. Why I delayed the explanation till this night, and why I waited to see her tried to the very last, is a matter of which my feelings must alone judge."

"Whatever your feelings may be, you certainly have no right to trifle with those of my daughter."

"_I_ trifle with your daughter's feelings!" said Hargrave, as his dark eye flashed fire, and made her almost quail before it. "There is not one word, or look, or action of mine that will bear such an interpretation.

I should despise myself had I been guilty of such meanness. I might as well be accused of paying attention to all four of your daughters; I am grieved that you should think me worthy of such an accusation. I hear Mr. Villars, let me ask him--let me clear myself at once."

"No, no," said Mrs. Villars, in alarm, throwing herself before him, "say nothing to him, and I will not say another word about it."

"But, if I have done so, it is fit that her father should know it, and redress her injuries. Let me call him."

He attempted to pa.s.s her, but she held him back, and burst into tears.

"Not for worlds," she said; "he will never forget it."

"Then you retract what you said," he replied, sternly.

"Yes, yes, I do," she cried.

And Hargrave walked back to where he had before been standing, and instantly recovered his good humour. Mrs. Villars soon followed her daughters, who had retreated, from different reasons, before; while he, late as it was, went down to the study, where he found Mr. Villars, and fully acquainted him with the facts and feelings which had led to this unlooked-for change in Mabel's life--over which he most heartily rejoiced.

Meanwhile, burning with ungovernable pa.s.sion, Caroline pursued Mabel to the garret chamber, and, after insisting on her opening the door, attacked her with such rapid accusations of cunning, meanness, and duplicity, and in language so loud and inflamed, that Mabel felt powerless to answer her. It seemed as if all the malice of the last few months had been concentrated in that moment, when she stood at her open door, loading her with invectives, almost as inappropriate as they were undeserved. Where she would have stopped the mad pa.s.sion which overcame her, it is difficult to say, but the stealthy opening of the doors of the servants' rooms, which were close by, and the suppressed t.i.ttering and whispering which issued from them, recalled her to something like a sense of what she was doing, and, pulling the door to with violence, that sent an echo down all the long stair case, she descended, to revenge herself further on her mother. But Mrs. Villars had taken the precaution of entrenching herself behind a carefully fastened door, and though she could not shut her ears to the distant rumbling of the storm, she escaped its first fury.

Poor Mabel, spite of all her happiness, cried herself to sleep, that night.

CHAPTER IX.

Yet must my soul unveiled to thee be shown, And all its dreams and all its pa.s.sions known, Thou shalt not be deceived, for pure as Heaven, Is thy young love in faith and fervour given.

HEMANS.

What a breakfast they had next morning! Mabel agitated; Lucy frightened and silent; and the rest tired and wofully cross.

If Caroline had looked most beautiful the night before, she was now quite the reverse. Some indeed say, that there were lines made by pa.s.sion on her face, which never quite wore away again, but grew deeper as she grew older. However this may be, there she sat that morning, looking, every minute, ready to break out afresh with some bitter remark, should occasion offer; particularly, as, under the impression of happy circ.u.mstances, Mabel's countenance seemed to grow more and more beautiful.

Colonel Hargrave, the servant told them, had taken his breakfast with Mr. Villars, and had since gone out.

This was a momentary relief to Caroline, it seemed like coldness or inconstancy; and whenever she saw Mabel's eyes turn anxiously to the door, she caught the glance, and returned it with one of malicious exultation. At length, however, he came in, looking so happy, that all her short-lived triumph was over.

Gently, and un.o.btrusively pressing Mabel's hand, and bidding the others good morning, with cheerfulness which was not responded to--he told her, that he had been to place a letter, written by her uncle, in the hands of the Weymouth coachman, for Mrs. n.o.ble, and that he had received many promises of its safe delivery.

Mabel thanked him, and waited anxiously for even a ceremonious invitation from her aunt to remain with them, but none came, and no one spoke. Lucy, vexed and ashamed, stole away, and her sisters remained, in perfect silence, secretly determined to put the lovers out of countenance. Mabel could scarcely believe how very happy and how very uncomfortable she felt at that moment.

"I came in partly to ask you to take a short stroll with me, Mabel,"

said Hargrave, turning to his betrothed, and looking, in truth, rather impatient to be gone.

She got up instantly, and went to put on her bonnet, while the mother and sisters remained in the same dead silence, till her return, seeming determined to keep aloof from all their proceedings.

But they were quickly gone, and pa.s.sing by the busy streets, were soon on their way to the country--where they seemed to breathe freely, and insensibly slackened their pace. How gloriously the sun shone that day, over the green hills and valleys--and what sweet odours did the earth yield back as willing incense. They felt, and enjoyed every thing, even while they seemed to have no thought for any thing but each other.

"I tremble to feel so happy," said Hargrave, at length, speaking almost for the first time, as they lingered by a low stile which interrupted their walk, and turned to gaze around them; "knowing myself to be so unworthy--but I am, really, very, very happy; and at this moment, when I have regained all that impenitence had lost, I feel, indeed, forgiven.

I have a hundred things to say, and yet, while we are alone, it seems happiness enough to be silent."

"It has all come so rapidly," said Mabel, "that I feel in some fairy dream. Do tell me how, and why,"--she hesitated.

"How, and why, we are standing here as we are," he replied, with a smile; "but, tell me first, do you not feel as you used, when we wandered on the hills, at Aston. I scarcely think six years have pa.s.sed as they have done."

"Come, talk seriously, dear Henry," said Mabel, "or my heart will break for very happiness; tell me what has worked this blessed change."

"It is a long and painful story, love," returned Hargrave, "but I will tell it now, and then we shall quite understand each other. Do you remember that dark day on which we parted; when, with all the pride which made my spirit so cruel, I cast you from me, and saw you fall against your mother's knee, as if a look of mine might crush, but could not turn you, because you would not follow my free spirit in the unfettered liberty it had made for itself?

"They tell me, that, after that day, sickness laid you low, but only strengthened the principles for which you had martyred your affections.

They tell me, that, in watching her child, your mother grew ill, and that you rose from sickness to be her nurse, and that you managed her affairs, and once more became the light of that loved home; they tell me poverty came, year by year, and that the little which had been saved became the prey, of a rapacious woman. That then came sickness, and trial, and death, in all its gloom--your home destroyed, nothing left but blackened ruins to remind you of the past. I know that you have since been subject to a thousand little vexations, and annoyances; a cold welcome, and a zealous watch. Now, tell me, have you never repented the hour which parted us?"

Mabel looked up timidly.

"Nay, never fear me; I can bear the truth, now."

"No, Henry; you know I have never repented."

"Ah, well I do," he said; "there could not have been such an angel calm round your whole being, had there been an unsettled principle within.

"Now, listen; when I turned my back upon Aston, as I believed, for ever, in my mad fury, I might have kept my purpose, had you turned upon me, in your beauty, and spurned me as I had spurned you; but that deep, beseeching look, that prostrate form clinging to the earth in its wretchedness, but, without a frown or reproach for me--I carried it away--that last glance of yours; it haunted me, and would not let me go, though I turned upon it in fury, and would have beaten it madly back.

"I need not tell you with what haste I exchanged my place in the English army, to one in a regiment starting for India; or, how I fought upon its burning plains, amongst the brave and the victorious. Even then, that last look pursued me. I studied with the learned, in Eastern lore. I was praised for my knowledge. Learning and enterprise were my pursuits--my society, the bold, and free-thinking; and my mind and imagination unfettered. But, what the world calls vice, that I knew not--there was something in the long forgotten, but not unfelt, impressions of childhood, and a mother's purity and love, that kept me back from that--and, while my charity was profuse, and my hand dealt bountifully to mankind, I proudly turned upon the professors of religion, and, as I held their weak points up to scandal, I bade them acknowledge the superiority of my moral code."

"Oh, Henry, say no more," cried Mabel.

"Do not shrink from me, because my confession is unreserved, but hear it to the very end. All this time, I forgot that pride and malice were in my heart, though I did sometimes feel what I have since seen expressed by Luther: 'An evil conscience is like a tormenting spirit, it is alarmed in the midst of outward prosperity.'

"So I continued till about a year since, when, one evening, I was at supper with a large party of friends, whose views corresponded with my own. With them there were some strangers, and amongst them, a strange old man, who regarded me attentively. I remember speaking more freely than I used, that night; and, conscious that I had done so, I left the party earlier than I had intended, partly because I was anxious to escape from the eyes of that strange man.

"The evening was delightful, and, instead of returning to my tent, I took a stroll in the moonlight. Much to my annoyance, I soon perceived that I was followed by the very man it had been my whim to avoid.

Turning round, to confront him, our eyes met again, and I stood transfixed by the strange expression of his face.