"Has she heard the news yet?"

"No, nor Sir William either. The widow cautioned me strictly not to say a word about it. Of course, it will be all over the city in an hour or so, from other sources."

"What do you mean to do, then?"

"Twist is trying to convert some of our paper into cash, at a heavy sacrifice. If he succeed, we can stand it; if not, we must bolt to-night." He paused for a few seconds, and then, in a lower whisper, said, "Is n't she game, that widow? What do you think she said? 'This is mere panic, Trover,' said she; 'it's a Yankee roguery, and nothing more. If I could command a hundred thousand pounds this minute, I 'd invest every shilling of it in their paper; and if May Leslie will let me, you 'll see whether I 'll be true to my word.'"

"It's easy enough to play a bold game on one's neighbor's money," said Stocmar.

"She'd have the same pluck if it were her own, or I mistake her much.

Has _he_ got any disposable cash?" whispered Trover, with a jerk of his thumb towards Paten.

"Not a sixpence in the world."

"What a situation!" said Trover, in a whisper, trembling with agitation. "Oh, there's Heathcote's brougham,--stopping here too! See!

that's Mrs. Morris, giving some directions to the servant. She wants to see you, I'm sure."

Stocmar, making a sign to Trover to keep Paten in conversation, hurried from the room just in time to meet the footman in the corridor. It was, as the banker supposed, a request that Mr. Stocmar would favor her with "one minute" at the door. She lifted her veil as he came up to the window of the carriage, and in her sweetest of accents said,--

[Illustration: 358]

"Can you take a turn with me? I want to speak to you."

He was speedily beside her; and away they drove, the coachman having received orders to make one turn of the Cascine, and back to the hotel.

"I'm deep in affairs this morning, my dear Mr. Stocmar," began she, as they drove rapidly along, "and have to bespeak your kind aid to befriend me. You have not seen Clara yet, and consequently are unable to pronounce upon her merits in any way, but events haye occurred which require that she should be immediately provided for. Could you, by any possibility, assume the charge of her to-day,--this evening? I mean, so far as to convey her to Milan, and place her at the Conservatoire."

"But, my dear Mrs. Morris, there is an arrangement to be fulfilled,--there is a preliminary to be settled. No young ladies are received there without certain stipulations made and complied with."

"All have been provided for; she is admitted as the ward of Mr.

Stocmar. Here is the document, and here the amount of the first half-year's pension."

"'Clara Stocmar,'" read he. "Well, I must say, madam, this is going rather far."

"You shall not be ashamed of your niece, sir," said she, "or else I mistake greatly your feeling for her aunt." Oh! Mr. Stocmar, how is it that all your behind-scene experiences have not hardened you against such a glance as that which has now set your heart a-beating within that embroidered waistcoat? "My dear Mr. Stocmar," she went on, "if the world has taught me any lesson, it has been to know, by an instinct that never deceives, the men I can dare to confide in. You had not crossed the room, where I received you, till I felt you to be such. I said to myself, 'Here is one who will not want to make love to me, who will not break out into wild rhapsodies of passion and professions, but who will at once understand that I need his friendship and his counsel, and that'"--here she dropped her eyes, and, gently suffering her hand to touch his, muttered, "and that I can estimate their value, and try to repay it." Poor Mr. Stocmar, your breathing is more flurried than ever.

So agitated, indeed, was he, that it was some seconds ere he became conscious that she had entered upon a narrative for which she had bespoken his attention, and whose details he only caught some time after their commencement. "You thus perceive, sir," said she, "the great importance of time in this affair. Sir William is confined to his room with gout, in considerable pain, and, naturally enough, far too much engrossed by his sufferings to think of anything else; Miss Leslie has her own preoccupations, and, though the loss of a large sum of money may not much increase them, the disaster will certainly serve to engage her attention. This is precisely the moment to get rid of Clara with the least possible _eclat_; we shall all be in such a state of confusion that her departure will scarcely be felt or noticed."

"Upon my life, madam," said Stocmar, drawing a long breath, "you frighten--you actually terrify me; you go to every object you have in view with such energy and decision, noting every chance circumstance which favors you, so nicely balancing motives, and weighing probabilities with such cool accuracy, that I feel how we men are mere puppets, to be moved about the board at your will."

"And for what is the game played, my dear Mr. Stocmar?" said she, with a seductive smile. "Is it not to win some one amongst you?"

"Oh, by Jove! if a man could only flatter himself that he held the right number, the lottery would be glorious sport."

"If the prize be such as you say, is not the chance worth something?"

And these words were uttered with a downcast shyness that made every syllable of them thrill within him.

"What does she mean?" thought he, in all the flurry of his excited feelings. "Is she merely playing me off to make use of me, or am I to believe that she really will--after all? Though I confess to thirty-eight--I am actually no more than forty-two--only a little bald and gray in the whiskers, and--confound it, she guesses what is passing through my head.--What _are_ you laughing at; do, I beg of you, tell me truly what it is?" cried he, aloud.

"I was thinking of an absurd analogy, Mr. Stocmar; some African traveller--I'm not sure that it is not Mungo Park--mentions that he used to estimate the depth of the rivers by throwing stones into them, and watching the time it took for the air bubbles to come up to the surface.

Now, I was just fancying what a measure of human motives might be fashioned out of the interval of silence which intervenes between some new impression and the acknowledgment of it You were gravely and seriously asking yourself, 'Am I in love with this woman?'"

"I was," said he, solemnly.

"I knew it," said she, laughing. "I knew it."

"And what was the answer--do you know _that_ too?" asked he, almost sternly.

"Yes, the answer was somewhat in this shape: 'I don't half trust her!'"

They both laughed very joyously after this, Stocmar breaking out into a second laugh after he had finished.

"Oh! Mr. Stocmar," cried she, suddenly, and with an impetuosity that seemed beyond her control, "I have no need of a declaration on your part. I can read what passes in _your_ heart by what I feel in my own.

We have each of us seen that much of life to make us afraid of rash ventures. We want better security for our investments in affection than we used to do once on a time, not alone because we have seen so many failures, but that our disposable capital is less. Come now, be frank, and tell me one thing,--not that I have a doubt about it, but that I 'd like to hear it from yourself,--confess honestly, you know who I am and all about me?"

So sudden and so unexpected was this bold speech, that Stocmar, well versed as he was in situations of difficulty, felt actually overcome with confusion; he tried to say something, but could only make an indistinct muttering, and was silent.

"It required no skill on my part to see it," continued she. "Men so well acquainted with life as you, such consummate tacticians in the world's strategies, only make one blunder, but you all of you make _that_: you always exhibit in some nameless little trait of manner a sense of ascendancy over the woman you deem in your power. You can't help it.

It's not through tyranny, it's not through insolence,--it is just the man-nature in you, that's all."

"If you read us truly, you read us harshly too," began he. But she cut him short, by asking,--

"And who was your informant? Paten, was n't it?"

"Yes, I heard everything from _him_," said he, calmly.

"And my letters--have you read _them_ too?"

"No. I have heard him allude to them, but never saw them."

"So, then, there is some baseness yet left for him," said she, bitterly, "and I 'm almost sorry for it. Do you know, or will you believe me when I tell it, that, after a life with many reverses and much to grieve over, my heaviest heart-sore was ever having known that man?"

"You surely cared for him once?"

"Never, never!" burst she out, violently. "When we met first, I was the daily victim of more cruelties than might have crushed a dozen women.

His pity was very precious, and I felt towards him as that poor prisoner we read of felt towards the toad that shared his dungeon. It was one living thing to sympathize with, and I could not afford to relinquish it, and so I wrote all manner of things,--love-letters I suppose the world would call them, though some one or two might perhaps decipher the mystery of their meaning, and see in them all the misery of a hopeless woman's heart. No matter, such as they were, they were confessions wrung out by the rack, and need not have been recorded as calm avowals, still less treasured up as bonds to be paid off."

"But if you made him love you--"

"Made him love me!" repeated she, with insolent scorn; "how well you know your friend! But even _he_ never pretended _that_. My letters in his eyes were I O U's, and no more. Like many a one in distress, I promised any rate of interest demanded of me; he saw my misery, and dictated the terms."

"I think you judge him hardly."

"Perhaps so. It is little matter now. The question is, will he give up these letters, and on what conditions?"

"I think if you were yourself to see him--"

"_I_ to see him! Never, never! There is no consequence I would not accept rather than meet that man again."