"Oh, Douglas!" exclaimed Paulina, "why do you imagine such things? Why should death assail you?"

"Why, indeed, dearest," returned Douglas, with a smile. "Do not think that I anticipate so sad a close to our engagement. But it is the duty of a man to look sharply out for every danger in the pathway of the woman he is bound to protect. I am a lawyer, remember, Paulina, and I contemplate the future with the eye of a lawyer. So far as I can secure you from even the possibility of misfortune, I will do it. I have brought a solicitor here to-day, in order that he may read you a will which I have this morning executed in your favour."

"A will!" repeated Madame Durski; "you are only too good to me. But there is something horrible to my mind in these legal formalities."

"That is only a woman's prejudice. It is the feminine idea that a man must needs be at the point of death when he makes his will. And now let me explain the nature of this will," continued Douglas. "I have told you that if I should happen to die without direct heirs, the estate left me by Sir Oswald Eversleigh will go to my cousin Reginald. That estate, from which is derived my income, I have no power to alienate; I am a tenant for life only. But my income has been double, and sometimes treble, my expenditure, for my habits have been very simple, and my life only that of a student in the Temple. My sole extravagance, indeed, has been the collection of a library. I have, therefore, been able to save twelve thousand pounds, and this sum is my own to bequeath. I have made a will, leaving this amount to you, Paulina--charged only with a small annuity to a faithful old servant--together with my personal property, consisting only of a few good Italian pictures, a library of rare old books, and the carvings and decorations of my roams--all valuable in their way. This is all the law allows me to give you, Paulina; but it will, at least, secure you from want."

Madame Durski tried to speak; but she was too deeply affected by this new proof of her lover's generosity. Tears choked her utterance; she took Douglas Dale's hand in both her own, and lifted it to her lips; and this silent expression of gratitude touched his heart more than the most eloquent speech could have affected it.

He led her into the room where the attorney awaited her.

"This gentleman is Mr. Horley," he said, "a friend and adviser in whom you may place unbounded confidence. My will is to remain in his possession; and should any untimely fate overtake me, he will protect your interests. And now, Mr. Horley, will you be good enough to read the document to Madame Durski, in order that she may understand what her position would be in case of the worst?"

Mr. Horley read the will. It was as simple and concise as the law allows any legal document to be; and it made Paulina Durski mistress of twelve thousand pounds, and property equal to two or three thousand more, in the event of Douglas Dale's death.

CHAPTER XXXI.

"A WORTHLESS WOMAN, MERE COLD CLAY."

Neither Lydia Graham nor her brother were quick to recover from the disappointment caused by the untimely fate of Lionel Dale. Miss Graham endeavoured to sustain her failing spirits with the hope that in Douglas she might find a wealthier prize than his brother; but Douglas was yet to be enslaved by those charms which Lydia herself felt were on the wane, and by fascinations which twelve years of fashionable existence had rendered somewhat stale even to the fair Lydia's most ardent admirers.

It was very bitter--the cup had been so near her lips, when an adverse destiny had dashed it from her. The lady's grief was painfully sincere.

She did not waste one lamentation on her lover's sad fate, but she most bitterly regretted her own loss of a rich husband.

She watched and hoped day after day for the promised visit from Douglas Dale, but he did not come. Every day during visiting hours she wore her most becoming toilets; she arranged her small drawing-room with the studied carelessness of an elegant woman; she seated herself in her most graceful attitudes every time the knocker heralded the advent of a caller; but it was all so much wasted labour. The only guest whom she cared to see was not among those morning visitors; and Lydia's heart began to be oppressed by a sense of despair.

"Well, Gordon, have you heard anything of Douglas Dale?" she asked her brother, day after day.

One day he came home with a very gloomy face, and when she uttered the usual question, he answered her in his gloomiest tone.

"I've heard something you'll scarcely care to learn," he said, "as it must sound the death-knell of all your hopes in that quarter. You know, Douglas Dale is a member of the Phoenix, as well as the Forum. I don't belong to the Phoenix, as you also know, but I meet Dale occasionally at the Forum. Yesterday I lunched with Lord Caversham, a member of the Phoenix, and an acquaintance of Dale's; and from him I learned that Douglas Dale has publicly announced his intended marriage with Paulina Durski."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Lydia.

She had heard of Paulina and the villa at Fulham from her brother, and she hated the lovely Austrian for the beauty and the fascination which won her a kind of renown amongst the fops and lordlings--the idlers and spendthrifts of the fashionable clubs.

"It cannot be true," cried Miss Graham, flushing crimson with anger.

"It is one of Lord Caversham's absurd stories; and I dare say is without the slightest foundation. I cannot and will not believe that Douglas Dale would throw himself away upon such a woman as this Madame Durski."

"You have never seen her?"

"Of course not."

"Then don't speak so very confidently," said Captain Graham, who was malicious enough to take some pleasure in his sister's discomfiture.

"Paulina Durski is one of the handsomest women I ever saw; not above five-and-twenty years of age--elegant, fascinating, patrician--a woman for whose sake a wiser man than Douglas Dale might be willing to sacrifice himself."

"I will see Mr. Dale," exclaimed Lydia. "I will ascertain from his own lips whether there is any foundation for this report."

"How will you contrive to see him?" "You must arrange that for me. You can invite him to dinner."

"I can invite him; but the question is whether he will come. Perhaps, if you were to write him a note, he would be more flattered than by any verbal invitation from me."

Lydia was not slow to take this hint. She wrote one of those charming and flattering epistles which an artful and self-seeking woman of the world so well knows how to pen. She expressed her surprise and regret at not having seen Mr. Dale since her return to town--her fear that he might be ill, her hope that he would accept an invitation to a friendly dinner with herself and her brother, who was also most anxious about him.

She was not destined to disappointment. On the following day she received a brief note from Mr. Dale, accepting her invitation for the next evening.

The note was very stiffly--nay, almost coldly worded; but Lydia attributed the apparent lack of warmth to the reserved nature of Douglas Dale, rather than to any failure of her own scheme.

The fact that he accepted her invitation at all, she considered a proof of the falsehood of the report about his intended marriage, and a good omen for herself.

She took care to provide a _recherche_ little dinner for her important guest, low as the finances of herself and her brother were--and were likely to be for some time to come. She invited a dashing widow, who was her obliging friend and neighbour, and who was quite ready to play propriety for the occasion. Lydia Graham looked her handsomest when Douglas Dale was ushered into her presence that evening; but she little knew how indifferent were the eyes that contemplated her bold, dark beauty; and how, even as he looked at her, Douglas Dale's thoughts wandered to the fair, pale face of Paulina Durski--that face, which for him was the loveliest that had ever beamed with light and beauty below the stars.

The dinner was to all appearance a success. Nothing could be more cordial or friendly, as it seemed, than that party of four, seated at a prettily decorated circular table, attended by a well-trained man-servant--the dashing widow's butler and factotum, borrowed for the occasion.

Mrs. Marmaduke, the dashing widow, made herself very agreeable, and took care to engage Captain Graham in conversation all the evening, leaving Lydia free to occupy the entire attention of Douglas Dale.

That young lady made excellent use of her time. Day by day her chances of a rich marriage had grown less and less, and day by day she had grown more and more anxious to secure a position and a home. She had a very poor opinion of Mr. Dale's intellect, for she believed only in the cleverness of those bolder and more obtrusive men who make themselves prominent in every assembly. She thought him a man easily to be beguiled by honeyed words and bewitching glances, and she had, therefore, determined to play a bold, if not a desperate game. While Mrs. Marmaduke and Captain Graham were talking in the front drawing-room, Lydia contrived to detain her guest in the inner apartment--a tiny chamber, just large enough to hold a small cottage piano, a stand of music-books, and a couple of chairs.

Miss Graham seated herself at the piano, and played a few bars with an absent and somewhat pensive air.

"That is a mournful melody," said Douglas. "I don't think I ever heard it before."

"Indeed!" murmured Lydia; "and yet I think it is very generally known.

The air is pretty, is it not? But the words are ultra-sentimental."

And then she began to sing softly--

"I do not ask to offer thee A timid love like mine; I lay it, as the rose is laid, On some immortal shrine."

"I think the words are rather pretty," said Douglas.

"Do you?" murmured Miss Graham; and then she stopped suddenly, looking downward, with one of those conscious blushes which were always at her command.

There was a pause. Douglas Dale stood by the music-stand, listlessly turning over a volume of songs.

Lydia was the first to break the silence.

"Why did you not come to see us sooner, Mr. Dale?" she asked. "You promised me you would come."

"I have been too much engaged to come," answered Douglas.