George Manville Fenn

“ No, it wasn’t Miss Ruth that time; it was Miss Marie. Yes, of course it was; and Captain Glen was saying:
“No, Marie; I hope I am too much of a man to break my heart about a weak, vain woman. You saw how I behaved this morning? Well, I behaved as I felt—a little hurt, but heart-whole. Poor foolish girl! I trust that she will be happy.”
“I hope so, too,” Marie had answered. “I am sorry, Captain Glen, and I am very glad.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I am sure that Clotilde would never have made you happy.” ”

“ Lord Henry Moorpark sighed with relief and pleasure, and soon after, fighting bravely to crush down her own agony of heart, Marie wrote a note to ask her aunts’ permission for Ruth to come, and another to request her to be ready—and all the time with an intensity of sorrow striving with her wild and passionate love. She seemed to see in Ruth one who was to save her from the commission of a crime from which she shrank in horror. Ruth would be her protector. Ruth should be always with her, and she would learn from her sweet, innocent young heart how to school her own. ”

“ Marie—my cousin—Lady Henry—Oh, Captain Glen!”
“Is she ill? Has she sent you? Do you know?” he whispered hoarsely.
“She has not sent me,” cried Ruth. “She does not know I have come. Oh, Captain Glen!” she cried, sobbing violently as she threw herself upon her knees and clasped his feet, “for heaven’s sake, spare her! Do not bring down such misery upon that home.”
“Ruth, my child, hush! for heaven’s sake!”
“No, no, no, no!” sobbed Ruth, and she went on incoherently as she clung to his feet: “You are not thinking of the horror of your crime. ”

“ Where’s our spirit, that we don’t rebel?”
“Where could we go? What could we do?” replied Marie. “It’s horrible. How could we bear it all these weary years?”
She clasped her hands, and threw herself into her chair, rocking herself to and fro, while Ruth crept softly to her side, and placed her blonde face against the riper, rounder cheek of her cousin.
It was a mute way of showing her sympathy, and Marie felt it to be so, for she turned quickly and kissed her just as the loud jangle of a large hand-bell was heard from below, and Clotilde returned from the open window. ”

“ Who is it?”
“Lord Henry Moorpark.”
“A man nearly three times her age. It would be a crime. You will not permit such an outrage against her youth. Moorpark must be mad.”
“What can I do, sir?” cried Huish. “That is why I ask your help and counsel.”
“Bah!” said the voice contemptuously. “You are young and strong; you have your wits; Gertrude loves you, and you ask me for help and counsel! John Huish, at your age, under such circumstances, it would have been a bold man who would have robbed me of my prize. There, go—go, young man, and think and act. Poor Gertrude! ”

“ Lord Henry had murmured to himself a good deal about being dragged down all the way from Saint James’s Square to Hampton just at a time when his heart told him that he ought to be married, and though terribly dissatisfied with the success which had attended his attentions to Gertrude Millet, his brain was full of her bright, refined features. He, however, now advanced, quite the handsome, stately gentleman, with a pleasant, benevolent look upon his thin face, and at once entered into conversation with the dark beauty to whom he had been introduced. ”

“ Ah, how I hate them both!”
“Oh, Marie,” said Ruth reproachfully, “how can you say so!”
“Because I do—I do,” she cried. “I’m not a soft, smooth thing like you. If this lasts much longer I shall poison them, so as to be hung out of my misery.”
“I shan’t,” said Clotilde. “I say I’ll marry the first man who asks me. I will marry him; I’ll make him marry me; and then—ah,” she cried fiercely, as she started up, and began pacing up and down, beautiful as some caged leopard, “once I am free, what I will do! We might as well be nuns.” ”

“ Vidler hastened up to open the door, and uttered a cry of dismay which brought down Renée, for Gertrude Huish fell forward fainting into his arms, to lie where she was carried hour after hour, now awakening to a wild hysterical fit, now sinking back into semi-unconsciousness, and always unable to respond to the eager queries, till at last she started up wildly, and on recognising her sister, flung her arms round her neck, exclaiming:
“Oh, Ren, Ren! is there no more happiness on earth? My poor heart’s broken: I shall die?” ”

“ He put that five-pound note, crumpled as it was, either in his breeches or his behind coat-pocket, but what became of it afterwards he could not tell. He might have taken it out to hold a hot plate, to use as a d’oyley, or to wipe his nose, or to dab up the wine that Mr Elbraham spilt when he upset his champagne-glass. He might or he mightn’t. He couldn’t say then. All he knew was that it muddled him, and that the dinner-bell hadn’t been rung, nor the form carried in for prayers. ”

“ She shrank from him for a moment as she saw his look; but her jealous rage mastered her fear, and she stepped farther into the room.
Huish seemed undecided what to do; he glanced at Gertrude, then at the woman, and then back to see that the former was looking at him imploringly, as if asking him to end the scene.
“Go back to bed,” he said firmly; “you are ill!” and he laid his hand upon the woman’s arm.
“Worse in mind than in body!” she cried, starting away. “Girl,” she continued passionately, “you look truthful and unspoiled; tell me who you are.” ”

“ Glen’s folly, as he considered it, increased in intensity like a fever. For years past he had trifled with the complaint—rather laughed at it, in fact; but now he had it badly, and, with the customary unreason of men in his condition, he saw nothing but perfection in the lady who had made his pulses throb.
Certainly, as far as appearance went, he was right, for nature could have done no more to make her attractive. To what art had made her he was perfectly blind, and, intoxicated by his new delight, he began to think of how he should contrive to see her again. ”

“ Miles away in the pleasant Surrey lane John Huish lay in happy ignorance of the fate of the man who had been his bitterest foe. He was very weak; but an awful load had been taken from his brain—the dread of insanity—and beside his bed knelt Gertrude, holding his hand with both of hers, and humbly asking his forgiveness for the doubts she had had.
“My darling!” he whispered, as he laid his other hand upon her soft, fair hair. “I am so happy, and life seems so bright before me that I cannot bear for you to lay one cloud upon its sunshine. ”

“ Everything was so chilly, in spite of its being a warm spring morning, that the advent of a very old and battered but very hot bronze urn seemed quite to send a glow through the room as it was whisked in by the thin young man and placed upon the table, to hurry out and return directly with a crockery toast-rack, full of thin, dry husks of mortified half-burned bread.
Meanwhile, Sister Philippa unlocked a tea-caddy, while Sister Isabella let some hot water run into the pot, and poured it out into the pale blue-and-white cups. ”

“ Frank Morrison stood motionless till he heard the front door close; then with a moan of anguish he turned towards where Renée still lay insensible upon the couch.
“My punishment!” he groaned: “and I believed in her so thoroughly; I thought her so pure, so sweet that—out upon me! I left her, dog that I was, for garbage. Curse him!” he cried in a paroxysm of rage, “curse her, with her smooth, white, innocent looks! The whole world is blasted with villainy, and there is not one among us worthy of a moment’s faith.” ”

“ I wouldn’t marry a yellow, snuffy old man, if he were ten thousand lords. There!”
“Who’s going to marry him?” said Marie scornfully.
“You are. You’ll be obliged to,” retorted Clotilde.
“I wonder,” said Marie, “whether Mr Elbraham is going to buy you of aunties, and if so, how much he is going to give.”
Clotilde faced round at this sting.
“If you think I’m going to marry him, or if aunts think so, they are mistaken!” she cried. “I know what I am going to do. I know something that you would give your ears to know, my lady.” ”

“ Marie, my child, Lord Henry Moorpark is most gentlemanly, is he not?”
“Oh yes, I like him very much,” replied Marie, with animation, and a slight flush in her cheek, for she had been suddenly appealed to when thinking about Marcus Glen, and the way he had glanced at her more than once. “He seems a very nice old gentleman.”
“Hem!” coughed the Honourable Philippa austerely. “I do not think him old.”
“Certainly not!” exclaimed the Honourable Isabella; “hardly elderly.”
“Decidedly no,” continued the Honourable Philippa. “By the way, Clotilde, my love, you found Mr Elbraham very pleasant?” ”

“ The next moment he had thrust her into a heavy doorway, there was a rattle of a latch-key, and Gertrude felt herself drawn into a dark passage, and the door was closed.
“John!” she whispered, as the tremor which had before attacked her returned.
“Safe at last!” he muttered, drawing his breath with a low hiss, and not heeding her. “Tired?”
“Rather, dear,” she panted. “But, John, what place is this?”
“My sanctuary,” he said, in a peculiar voice. “Give me your hand. Come along. I’ll tell you when the stairs begin.” ”

“ That’s why you refused Lord Henry at first, so that you might win Marcus, as you thought. Do you think I was blind?”
“Clotilde,” said Marie, “this is terrible to me! Did you ask me here to-night to insult me?”
“Not I, my dear, only to congratulate you on being such a good, dutiful girl, and obeying our sweetly-affectionate, care-taking, washed-out old aunts. It is so pleasant to see you like I am, and well out in society. I meant that you should be, and so you are. Why, you are ever so much better off than I am—Lady Henry Moorpark. I ought to rise and make obeisance to you, but I am too lazy. ”

“ Women who marry as we have done, for money, have no dignity—they have sold it.”
“Clotilde!”
“Well, it’s quite true, and you know it. Trash! As if we either of us ever had any. It was nipped in the bud by our dear aunts. No, my dear Rie, we have no dignity, either of us. Slaves have no such commodity. We are only white slaves, the property of the dreadful old men who took a fancy to us and bought us!”
“For heaven’s sake, Clo, be silent,” cried Marie, who had to fight hard to keep down her agitation. ”

“ The two men were face to face; and with a cry of savage delight John Huish sprang at his semblance’s throat, but to be met by a blinding flash and a tremendous blow, which sent him staggering back, clutching vainly at the railings before he fell upon the pavement and rolled over and over half stunned.
He sprang to his feet, though, and gnashed his teeth with rage as he looked up and down and saw that a couple of the very few people about, alarmed by the shot, were coming to his assistance, but him he sought was gone. ”