Mrs. J. M. Simpson

“ Udo Brand and Margaret Walsingham should marry.
"You shall lure St. Udo back from the gates of hell," quoth the grandmother, with an inspired enthusiasm. "You are just the woman to impress that high and royal heart with a true sense of your own pure goodness; you can lead him captive by a secret power; you can lead him where you will. You shall dispute with vice and fatal atheism for that magnificent soul, and when you have routed your foes, you shall be rewarded by his life-long gratitude, and his gratitude is more precious far, my girl, than is the languid love of millions of other men. ”

“ Margaret, my dear, so you are afraid of his old flame! Well, it isn't surprising. Everybody gets jealous of me. I am considered so very pretty, and I vow I have become so accustomed to being envied that I don't feel comfortable unless half a dozen women are glaring at me with jealousy!"
"Heartless as ever, my Lady Julie."
"Portentous as ever, my tragic muse. Well, well, don't be so stiff with me, your Julie—why should you? I am so curious to know something about you. I think you are a most extraordinary woman. Are you going to be the mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste after all?" ”

“ Mais Voila, you shall say, 'Go on, mon ami, and accept your thousand pounds,' or shall I say no more of my colonel, and let the naughty convict go hang?"
"He is alive—go on," breathed Margaret to the pirouetting geni of her fairy-tale.
"What! and loose monsieur's neck-cloth, which was to strangle him?"
"Yes yes; tell me of St. Udo Brand, that we may bring him home to his own."
"Mademoiselle is magnificent. She forgives like an angel, and pays like an empress. I bow before so grand a demoiselle, the effulgence of her nature dazzles me, and Voila! ”

“ What better life does a brave soldier expect? Do your duty in the field and don't growl in the camp, and when good luck comes you will deserve it," replied St. Udo, laughing.
"Pardieu! I shall be too old to see him when he comes!" grumbled the chevalier. "Three months of glory without gold is enough for me."
"You are a mercenary dog," cried St. Udo; "and I know you are an implacable devil. I have not forgotten Madam Estvan."
"Diable! nor I," hissed Calembours. "Mon ami, let us forget her. La! there she has vanished forever. But, Monsieur St. Udo, I have not been mercenary with you, have I?" ”

“ Surely we are old friends by this time?"
"My Perdita?"
"Why, darling, do you know me, then? Now I shall dare to hope. Oh, thank Heaven!"
"How strange that she should look so joyful at any good befalling me! Am I St. Udo Brand, who was at odds with all the world? or have I been changed into a man with a human heart, to be prized by a noble woman? Is this a revised and improved edition of St. Udo? Have I got out of that bitter, reckless being, and, after ages of toiling in a black, demon-crowded abyss for my sins have I re-entered the world to be simple, and beloved, and happy? ”

“ Udo threw back his, gesticulating with his long, brown hand as St. Udo waved his, his lurid eyes fixed in a hound-like gaze upon St. Udo Brand, aping every motion like a haggard shadow of himself.
The Chevalier de Calembours, following St. Udo's stare of astonishment, caught the man's antics mid-air, and burst into a volley of oaths in every known language.
"The man's possessed! My life on it, he is a lunatic!" cried St. Udo, laughing till the tears stood in his eyes. "To see him roll his head, and wave his hand, and mouth after me my very words. Ha! ha! ha!" shouted St. Udo. "Thoms, you dog! ”

“ A man at his prime! Where are my brilliant prospects now? My visions of fame—of love—of happiness? Lost in the quicksand of Time. Is there in the whole world a more useless, ruined wretch than myself? I am famous but for my misdeeds. My intellect has been squandered upon worthless objects; love has cheated me; I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage."
Margaret could not respond to this half-earnest, half-bitter appeal.
How often she had imagined just such words in the mouth of St. Udo Brand, with a yearning thrill, as if Heaven itself would have been opened to her. ”

“ Udo Brand should fear nothing," mocked Margaret.
His eyeballs quivered and fell; the veins grew black upon his brow.
"One of your silly women had a narrow escape from being torn to pieces," he said, sourly, changing the subject.
"Yes," retorted Margaret, "I hear you keep a dangerous dog—the sooner you stab him the safer we shall feel."
His hand dropped from his bosom as if an adder had bitten him; her meaning was unmistakable.
"Tell the woman not to venture upon dangerous ground," he growled from beneath his closed teeth. "Argus is a fierce brute, and hates a spy." ”

“ Margaret drew nearer and tenderly smoothed the hair back from my lady's brow.
"Dear me!" cried Lady Juliana, looking at her, "how pale and exhausted you look, Miss Blair. Why, of course you must feel so—you have been up with me all night, and—good gracious!" becoming suddenly filled with compunction, "how coolly I have taken your great service!"
Her ladyship sat upright, flushed by a sudden impulse of gratitude.
"Who are your friends?" she asked, with a bright look.
"I have none, Lady Juliana. I am looking for some situation by which to be independent of friends." ”

“ Brand, I would have married the clever adventuress, Miss Margaret Walsingham, who I firmly believe plotted to supplant me as she has done, and I would have thus shared the estate. But love, one thing held me back. I have pinned my faith in woman's purity to Juliana Ducie's sleeve, for I think, my child, you are about the best of your sex; and honor forbade me to retract my faith to you. So the future I offer you is this: Will you wait patiently and constantly for the man you swore to be true to forever? ”

“ Stupid devil, to throw away such a birthright! Lucky dog, who is to be his successor? Let the rogue win the race. I am so tired of the dodges, the twists, the aliases, the lurkings, that I will put on the greatest disguise of all, a gentleman swell, and try what freedom is like, and the sea-captain's daughter, and Seven-Oak Waaste. St. U. sails to-morrow for the United States, and I send company with him which will twist him into shape more than the haughty dog expects. Be kind to him, oh, captivating chevalier! be attentive to him, oh, patient Thoms! ”

“ A wild, wan moon came out through a riven cloud and shone on Castle Brand. The man on the lowest step and the woman on the highest, gazed fixedly into each other's faces; his, fierce, envious, and distrustful, hers, watchful, cold, and unflinching.
Waiting breathlessly for that wave of memory to beat upon the sands again, it came with the grouping of certain incidents, and with the magic spell of association.
The time had come when the false seeming of this man should drop like a garment. The time had come when a light from the past should break upon Margaret with the suddenly shining moon. ”

“ Her sense of womanly honor had been trampled upon; her unapproachable self-respect had been bandied about by impure hands. Margaret felt that she was forever disgraced. To have been thrown at his feet, to suffer his eyes to scorn her, to see the wicked mouth sneer—the reckless head thrown back—to hear the muttered "Ye gods! what a Medusa!" to be stunned by the loud "ha! ha!" to be consorted with a monster of dissipation, such as he was—and to be scorned. Oh, cruel Ethel Brand: to force a friendless girl into such a position! ”

“ Udo, gazing with consternation at the parchment.
"But will you allow her to do it?"
A keen pang struck to the heart of St. Udo; his merciless scorn of her came back to him as expressed only the day before; her mournful words; "She will never marry you," recurred like a death-knell to his memory.
Now he understood the cause of her gentle tears—of her clinging wistfulness, of her sweet and humble timidity; he comprehended all, and covered his eyes with a remorseful moan.
"I have ruined all, and lost her!" he thought. "Where is the noble girl?" ”

“ Oh, madam, you have been cruel!"
She wept wildly, she raised him in her arms and kissed him many times, but her lips framed no excuse.
"To think that I should find you here, my boy," moaned she, "when I sent you North expressly for safety's sake. Why—why did you enter the army, Edgar?"
"To find death," said the calm, dying voice.
She laid him down upon the straw, and raised her streaming eyes to St. Udo Brand. They recognized him now, and grew hard and fierce. She rose, and clutched him by the arm.
"Where is that fiend in human shape who calls himself Colonel Calembours?" ”

“ We hadn't been a day on board until he was thrown into lockjaw, or fits, by that little vision of a Chevalier, or whatever they call him, jabbering about Miss Walsingham; and since then it's a queer life I've led walking the deck, under the stars, with him, for all the world as if he was my lover, only that his talk's about you. I'll tell you what it is, Miss Margaret, darling! he's bound to you, body and soul, and I'll think it a burning shame if you turn from him to any other man that breathes. ”

“ The chevalier examined them through his glass with smiling nonchalance; but Captain Brand looked over the scene with thoughtful brow.
"What is monsieur's programme?" chirped the chevalier. "Does he dally with Fortune's train, or does he brush by her robes and seize the treasure which she guards? Shall mon ami live the short and merry life of conviviality with me in New York, or shall he choose the short and beastly bad career of a soldier?"
St. Udo Brand laughed bitterly.
"What is my life worth to me without fame to gild it?" growled he. "I have no gold to make it shine." ”