"I have eloped from my mother's house, Lady Harrington."

"But you have eloped alone, Helen?"

"Yes! alone."

"Well then, my dear, I will give you absolution for that. Perhaps there are those among us who may not find it so easy to absolve you from all blame for not doing it before. But now for particulars.--Will you have a gla.s.s of water, Helen? Mercy on me! I believe it must be a gla.s.s of wine. What can you have got to tell? You change colour every moment, my dear child."

Helen's narrative, however, being of necessity less full then that contained in the preceding pages, need not be repeated. It was given indeed with all the force and simplicity of truth and deep feeling, and told all she knew of Mr. Cartwright's plans and projects; but, excepting what she had that day learned during her dreadful interview with Corbold, she had little to add to what Lady Harrington knew before.

This interview, however, was itself fully enough to justify the "elopement," of which Helen still spoke with such dismay; and, together with the fact, again asked for, and again repeated, that no letter from Colonel Harrington had reached her hands, was sufficient to make her ladyship burst forth into a pa.s.sion of indignation against the Vicar of Wrexhill, and to make her, while overpowering Helen with the tenderest caresses, bless her again and again for having at last flown to seek shelter where it would be given with such heartfelt joy.

Soothed, consoled, and almost happy as Helen was made by this recovered kindness, her anxiety to know why, and upon what subject Colonel Harrington could have written to her, was becoming every moment more powerful. There was something so very fond, so very maternal in Lady Harrington's manner to her,--something that seemed to say that she was of more consequence to her now than she had ever been before,--something, in short, quite indescribable, but which gave birth to such delicious hopes in the breast of Helen, that she almost feared to meet the eye of the old lady, lest all she guessed, and all she wished, should be read in her own.

It is possible, that with all the care she took to avoid the betraying this anxiety, she did not succeed; for, in answer to some very delicate and very distant hint, that it was extremely disagreeable to have one's letters intercepted, Lady Harrington, though she only replied, "Yes, it is, Helen," rose and left the room, only adding as she closed the door, "Keep yourself quiet, my dear child: I shall return to you presently."

"Presently" is a word that certainly appears, by common usage, to admit of very considerable variety of interpretation; and it was evident that on the present occasion the two parties between whom it pa.s.sed understood it differently. Long before Lady Harrington again appeared, Helen felt persuaded that some important circ.u.mstance must have occurred to make her so completely change her purpose; yet the good lady herself, when she re-entered the room, looked and was perfectly unconscious of having made any delay at all inconsistent with her "presently."

She held a folded paper in her hand. "You have not asked me, Helen," she said, "on what subject it was that my son wrote to you; and yet I suspect that you have some wish to know. I have been down stairs to consult him on the best mode of repairing your precious vicar's treachery, and he suggested my putting into your hands the copy of the letter which has been so basely intercepted; which copy, it seems, has remained safely in his desk, while its original has probably fed the flames in Mr. Cartwright's secret chamber, kindling thereby a sympathetic and very consuming fire in the breast of the writer."

Helen stretched forth a very trembling hand to receive the paper; her eyes were fixed upon it, either to read through its enclosure the characters within, or to avoid at that moment meeting the eye of her G.o.dmother.

"I shall leave you, my love, to peruse it alone; and presently, when I think you have done so, will return to ask if you cannot in some degree comprehend what must have been felt at its not obtaining an answer."

Having said this, Lady Harrington retired without waiting for a reply, and leaving Helen unable for a moment to learn what her heart throbbed with such violence to know.

The letter of which Helen now held the copy has been already presented to the reader; and if she chance to be one of Helen's age, having at her heart a love unbreathed to any human ear, she may guess what my Helen's feelings were at finding such love had met an equal, an acknowledged return. Such a one may guess Helen's feelings;--but no other can.

Lady Harrington's _presently_ now seemed to Helen as much shorter than it really was as the last had seemed longer. She had read the letter but four times through, and pressed it to her heart, kissed it, and so forth, not half so much as she desired, and it deserved, when a knock was heard at the door, and the old lady again entered.

The happy, but agitated girl stood up to receive her, and though she spoke not a single word, the manner in which she rushed into her maternal arms, and hid her face upon her bosom, spoke plainly enough that the gallant colonel had no reason to despair.

"What must he have thought of me!" were Helen's first words--"And you?--and Sir Gilbert?--Such a letter! Dearest, dearest Lady Harrington, you could not really think I had ever received it!"

"You have struck the right chord there, my Helen. We all deserve to have suffered ten thousand times more than we have done, for having for a moment believed it possible you should have received that letter and not invented some means to answer it--let the answer be what it might. And this answer?--you have not yet told me what it is to be. I do not know how much, or how little, you may happen to like William, my dear; but in case you should have no insuperable aversion to him, the business is made delightfully easy by this adventure. The elopement is done and over already."

Helen only pressed Lady Harrington's hand to her heart, but said nothing.

"Yes,--you have found the way to let me into your secret, without speaking. This little heart throbs violently enough to prevent any suspicion of indifference. But what am I to say to my impatient hero below?--That you will, or you won't marry him, as soon as the lawyers will let you?"

"Oh! Lady Harrington!"

"Come down stairs, my dear;--you had better come down, I do a.s.sure you; for I expect Sir Gilbert will be up in a moment, and you cannot suppose that William will remain behind; and my bed-room would by no means be so dignified a scene for the denouement as the great saloon. Come, dear, come."

And Helen went--trembling, blushing, with tears in her eyes, and such palpitation at her heart that she was very sure she could not p.r.o.nounce a word. But what need was there of words? The happy colonel was soon perfectly satisfied, and thanked her on his bended knee for a consent more looked than spoken.

Even Sir Gilbert himself, though singularly attached to plain speaking, seemed well content on the present occasion to dispense with it; and pressed Helen to his heart, and kissed her forehead, and called her his dear daughter, apparently with as much satisfaction as if she had declared herself ready to accept of his son in the very best arranged words ever spoken upon such an occasion.

When the first few decisive moments were past, and each one of the party felt that all things were settled, or about to be settled, in exact conformity to their most inward and earnest desires, and when Helen was placed as the centre of the six loving and admiring eyes that were fixed upon her, she closed her own; but it was neither to faint, nor to sleep, but to meditate for a moment with the more intensity upon the miraculous change wrought in her destiny within the last few hours.

"What are you thinking of, my Helen?" said the colonel, jealous, as it should seem, of losing sight of those dear eyes, even for a moment.

"I am endeavouring to believe that it is all real," replied Helen with beautiful simplicity.

"Bless you, my darling child," said the rough baronet, greatly touched.

"What an old villain I have been to you, Helen!--abusing you, hating you, calling you all manner of hard names,--and your little heart as true as steel all the time."

"Real?--real that you are beloved by me, Helen?" cried Colonel Harrington, absolutely forgetting that he was not tete-a-tete with his fair mistress.

"And how is she to answer him, with you and me peering in her face, my lady? Ought we not to be ashamed of ourselves?--Come along this moment."

"Very well,--I will go, but only upon one condition, Helen. Remember, William, she is to indulge in no disagreeable reminiscences, and no melancholy antic.i.p.ations, but look just as beautiful and as happy when I come back, as she does now."

This farewell advice was not thrown away; for it a.s.sisted Colonel Harrington to baffle, or to banish, all the fears and regrets respecting her mother's displeasure at her conduct, which came like a cloud across the bright perspective of Helen's hopes for the future. Her lover showed himself, indeed, sufficiently adroit, both in turning to account all the favourable circ.u.mstances attending their sudden engagement, and in using his mother's authority to prevent her dwelling upon what was unfavourable. "Might not a second home," he asked, "be of great advantage both to f.a.n.n.y and Miss Torrington? Might not the connexion tend to keep Mr. Cartwright in order, and prevent his finally injuring Charles? And lastly, did she not think it would give pleasure to that Charles himself?"

To Lady Harrington Helen had frankly recounted the history of Corbold's hateful persecution, from its first beginning in London, to the fearful outrage it had led to on that eventful day; but she had begged her to repeat no more of it to Sir Gilbert and the colonel than might be sufficient to render her running away intelligible; and this request having been strictly complied with, for Lady Harrington seemed as unwilling as Helen to trust her men-folk with this history, Colonel Harrington, in conversing with her on all she had felt and suffered since her mother's marriage, spoke of him only as a presumptuous man who had dared to persevere in addressing her after she had refused him.

It was, probably, the heightened colour of Helen as she listened to this mention of his name that excited a greater degree of interest and curiosity concerning him than her lover had at first bestowed upon him.

"Were these hateful addresses repeated by letter or in person, Helen?"

said he, fixing his eyes upon her agitated face.

"In person--in person," answered Helen, impatiently.

"Did your mother know, Helen, how greatly these addresses annoyed you?"

"I have often attempted to tell her; but she has always evaded the subject, telling me strangely enough, and Heaven knows not very correctly, that it was plain I did not know my own mind, or else that I was guilty of affectation."

"Your mother, then, Helen, would have approved of this man's addresses?"

"I fear so."

"It was, then, to avoid her importunity that you left her house to-day?"

Helen looked uneasy and distressed under this questioning, but answered, "No, Colonel Harrington; not her importunity, but his own."

The blood mounted to the young soldier's face, and an angry glance shot from his eye, as if he suspected something approaching--but at great distance--to the truth.

"He surely did not dare to be impertinent? Helen, you have not told me all: you came here in a state of dreadful agitation; tell me, I conjure you, all that has happened to you.--You will not, Helen? What am I to think of this?--that you have been insulted in a manner that you will not repeat to your affianced husband? For Heaven's sake, put an end to this torture; I must know all."

"Your mother does know all, Colonel Harrington; make me not repeat the hateful history again."

"Will you refer me to my mother? Will you permit me to tell her that you have done so?"

"Why, Colonel Harrington," replied Helen, "should you wish to know more than I have told you? But of course I cannot object to your knowing all that has pa.s.sed between us,--only I think he does not deserve the trouble you take in speaking of him."

Much to the surprise of Sir Gilbert and his lady, who were very amiably undergoing a real penance, by absenting themselves from the sight of happiness which touched them so nearly, Colonel Harrington was seen hurrying towards them, where they were beguiling the time as they could, by inhaling the cool breath of evening under the cedar-tree.

"Take a turn with me, mother, will you?" said he in a voice not quite so gay as they expected to hear from him.