T. W. Speight

“ And she still believes that Jacob Lloyd was her father?"
"I am not aware that anyone has undeceived her on that point."
"Why should I be the first to undeceive her?"
"Jacob Lloyd is dead. You are her father, and you are now a free man."
"Precisely so. I am a free man because I have broken my prison bonds. I am a free man who is liable to recapture at any moment. I am a free man to whose name the stain of murder still clings."
"But Eleanor would never believe you to be guilty, as I have never believed you, to be guilty." ”

“ It was surely better to have a husband and a home, and to be the recognized leader of middle-class Pembridge society, than to live and die in single blessedness, a wretched nobody, in her uncle's grand cold mansion at Wemley. Like a sensible woman, she made the best of her position. She had her little re-unions, her Tuesdays, when everybody that was worth knowing in Pembridge, met in the little drawing-room over her husband's office, and where her simple hospitalities were dispensed with a grace and refinement that would have done no discredit to Wemley itself. ”

“ I am a patient man. I waited six months, and then I spoke to Miss Lloyd again--spoke more warmly and strongly than a less infatuated man would have done. Again she rejected me; this time in a way that I can neither forget nor forgive. I vowed that I would some day humble her haughty pride--and that day has come. Six months ago Jacob Lloyd died without a will. He had been speculating greatly for years, and Eleanor Lloyd, much to her own surprise and that of everyone else, found herself an heiress to the amount of something over twenty thousand pounds. ”

“ Jacob having been considerably bruised and knocked about in his struggle with the ponies, Lady Dudgeon could do no less than call several times at Bridgeley to inquire after his health. There it was that she first saw Eleanor, at that time a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed child of eight, in short frocks and pinafores. She drew the child to her, looked her fixedly in the face for a moment or two, and then stooped and kissed her. Impulsive Nelly at once flung her arms round Lady Dudgeon's neck. "You are pretty, and I do love you!" she cried; and from that moment her ladyship's heart was won. ”

“ When Miss Deane did see Eleanor, she could not help acknowledging to herself that Matthew Kelvin's violent passion for that lady was not without some justification. That Miss Lloyd was indeed very lovely, she at once admitted; for Olive was free from that common feminine failing which refuses to acknowledge that another, and more especially a rival, can be the possessor of superior charms, either of person or mind; and she told herself at once that, as far as mere good looks went, she could not hope to stand the slightest chance in a comparison with Miss Lloyd. ”

“ Gerald Warburton did not leave London for Pembridge next day, nor for several days afterwards.
When Ambrose Murray learned that Gerald was the nephew of Jacob Lloyd, the man who had so befriended his daughter, and that Gerald's mother was the Minna Lloyd whom he remembered, and who had been one of his wife's dearest friends, he clung to him as a man who is being carried away by the tide will cling to the life-buoy which his hands have unexpectedly grasped. ”

“ Matthew Kelvin shrugged his shoulders, but did not rejoin.
"But why call up such reminiscences?" said Olive. "I want to hear about yourself. A rising man like you, Matthew--a man born to fight his way upward--how is it that you are still unmarried? A rich wife would do so much to help forward your ambitious schemes!"
"My ambitious schemes, indeed;" said Kelvin, with a sly twinkle in his eye. "What has a simple-minded country lawyer like me to do with ambition?" ”

“ He would not have cared half so much had he been seen by anyone else--even by Kelvin himself. But to have been seen thus ignominiously engaged by the elegant, the scented, the fastidious Mr. Hammond! Besides which, this was not the first occasion on which Mr. Hammond had found him engaged in a pursuit derogatory to that assumption of manhood and gentility which it was the secret ambition of his life to maintain in the eyes of his patron. On his way home, one evening, Pod had been overtaken by a temptation which he found it impossible to resist. ”

“ He could asseverate earnestly enough that Jacoby was the murderer, and that the sole object for which he now lived was to bring the crime home to him; but when asked by what means that was to be done, he was like a child who had lost itself in some dark place. He could only cling to Gerald, and ask him to think, to devise, to scheme for him. "I have faith--faith the most intense," he would sometimes say, "that the world will know me for what I am before I die. ”

“ This conversation it was that Mr. Piper thought it worth his while to take down in shorthand.
"My cousin Matthew's revenge shall be worthy of the name," said Olive to herself; as soon as she was alone. "Let this Eleanor Lloyd but engage herself to Pomeroy--let her marry him if she will--and on the day that Matthew tells her the secret of her birth, he can tell her also that the man to whom she has given her heart is but a sorry impostor, whose sole object in marrying her was to obtain possession of that money which is hers no longer. ”

“ At length Miss Bellamy roused herself with a sigh, and turned on Gerald a face that seemed suddenly to have grown five years older.
"Twenty years ago, this very month," she said, "a terrible murder was committed. All murders are terrible in a greater or a lesser degree, but this one was terrible, not merely from the crime itself, but from the after consequences that arose out of it. The name of the murdered man was Paul Stilling; the place where he was murdered was the Pelican Hotel, Tewkesbury; and the name of the man who was accused of the crime was Ambrose Murray." ”

“ Jack did not answer, but his heart gave a little sigh. "What a darling she is!" he thought. "I wonder whether Eleanor Lloyd is half as pretty. And yet, why wonder, for what is Eleanor Lloyd to me, or I to Eleanor Lloyd?"
He could not keep his eyes off her, and Miss Lloyd could not keep hers off the baby. "If it were a duchess's child she couldn't take to it more kindly," said Jack to himself. "What strange creatures women are!" ”

“ Sir Thomas sat staring at his wife in speechless dismay. After a little while he got up and walked to the window, and stood there jingling his loose silver.
"What a pity it is, Matilda, that you are not the member for Pembridge instead of me! You would have done far more justice to the position than I can ever hope to do."
"Tut! tut! my dear. You must not talk so foolishly," said her ladyship, complacently. "I know your abilities far better than you do yourself. ”

“ Olive Deane had taken to teaching as naturally as a duck takes to water. She had had five years at a really good French school before her father's death, but everything else she owed to her own love of knowledge and indomitable perseverance. The wasteful extravagance of which she had been a witness when a child at home, had not been without its effect upon her. She grew up thrifty, self-denying, economical in every way; and now, at twenty-eight years of age, she was mistress of four hundred pounds, which her cousin Matthew had advantageously invested for her in Pembridge gas shares. ”

“ She had caught herself thinking about him several times: daydreaming, Lady Dudgeon called it. And why should she not think about him? she asked herself. He interested her. There was about him something different from anyone she had ever met before. If only she could have assisted him to get into Parliament, how happy that would have made her! Despite his careless, easy way of talking, she felt sure that he was ambitious. But with only a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and no friends to push him forward, a man's ambitious dreams must perforce be buried in his heart. ”

“ The young lady you have hitherto believed to be your cousin, is no relation whatever to you, neither was she any relation to your uncle, Jacob Lloyd. She was simply his adopted daughter."
After hearing this startling news, Gerald's silence was not to be wondered at. He woke up like a man rousing himself from a dream.
"You have all along known what you have just told me, Miss Bellamy?"
"Yes, I have known it all along. But to no one else was the secret ever imparted by your uncle and aunt. ”

“ And, oh, Gerald! why has an over-ruling Intelligence sent to me you, the son of my lost darling's oldest friend--you, with your kind heart, and clear brain, and knowledge of the world and its ways--except to assist me, to give to my forlorn weakness that strong helping hand, without which I can do nothing! Other men might ask: Why should I help this escaped lunatic? Why should I trouble myself about this criminal madman, on whose head the guilt of blood still rests? But not you--not you! You and I, Gerald, have been mysteriously drawn together by the bonds of an invisible sympathy. ”

“ Inside his own packet is a second packet, sealed up and directed to Eleanor, and to be opened by her alone. This packet will tell her everything."
"What a shock for a girl like her!"
"You are right, Gerald; it will be a terrible shock. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that I have been spared the pain of enlightening her."
"About her father. Did you believe him to be guilty or innocent?"
"I would stake my life on Ambrose Murray's innocence. No one who ever knew him would for a single moment believe in his guilt. He was one of the gentlest-hearted men I ever met. ”

“ Kelvin was thoroughly startled, is to say no more than the truth. Olive was right. There would be a refinement--a subtlety--about such a scheme which his own scheme altogether lacked. But, would it not be a mean and dastardly advantage to take of an innocent girl like Eleanor Lloyd? He got up from his chair and crossed to the window, and then walked slowly back again and sat down without a word. He was a man whom circumstances had never before tempted to step out of the beaten track of morality. ”

“ There are too many empty-headed speakers, too many frothy orators, in Parliament already. All the more will your grand faculty of silence be invaluable to your country. We want men of profound thought, with the ability to express themselves in the fewest possible words. When once it is understood by the House that you are not a speaker, but a thinker, you cannot fail to be appreciated. Am I not right, Mr. Pomeroy?"
"Undoubtedly you are right, madam. The House will soon learn to appraise Sir Thomas at his proper value." ”

“ The house to which Byrne had brought his companions was built into the graveyard, and its front door was in a line with the raised wall already spoken of. It was an old-fashioned, red-brick house, and had doubtless at one time been the residence of the rector, or of some other functionary connected with the church that was no longer there. From the windows, both back and front, the view must have been dismal in the extreme. To-night the whole house looked as dark and deserted as the graveyard in which it stood. Not a single glimmer of light was visible in any of its windows. ”

“ He was one of those men who never think of saving--of putting away for a "rainy day," as the phrase goes--and who never can save, not even when their incomes are doubled or trebled, unless some pressure of an extreme kind (a thrifty wife, for instance, who has a will of her own) is brought to bear upon them.
As a matter of course, despite all Gerald's unpracticality, one of the most frequent thoughts in his mind just now--a thought turned over and over in his brain during his long solitary walks through London streets--was what he should do with the ten thousand pounds that was coming to him. ”

“ What Sophia had just stated she had hitherto fondly believed to be a secret known to her husband and her maid alone.
"You naughty, vile girl," she stammered out. "I will send you right away from home to a school on the Continent, and you shall not come back any more until you are quite grown up."
"All right, mamma; I'll go," said the undaunted girl; "but I'll write to everybody by post and tell them about the wig and the teeth;" and, as Lady Dudgeon knew, her daughter was just the girl to carry out the threat. Her ladyship was puzzled. ”

“ Murray had been ill-fitted to withstand the rubs of fortune, it was hardly to be expected that his armour should be stronger or his sword brighter after his twenty years of incarceration from the world. It was, indeed, evident from the first, both to Miss Bellamy and to Gerald, that he would have to be treated in many ways as if he were neither more nor less than a grown-up child. ”

“ Eleanor is to accompany her ladyship to London in the spring, and will then make her début."
"To how many people is Miss Lloyd's true parentage known?"
"Not a soul in the world knows of it except myself--and you."
"Good. And your idea of revenge is to break this news to Miss Lloyd suddenly here--this very morning--and so crush her?"
"It is."
"A man's idea--poor and commonplace. Shall I tell you what mine--a woman's idea of revenge--would be in such a case?"
"You are a clever girl, Olive, and you pique my curiosity." ”

“ Gerald looked upon them in the light of warnings. "How terrible and strange it is to think," he said to himself one day, "that each one of these gages d'amour represents a most foolish moment in my life, a moment that might have been the turning-point of my existence: such a moment as has been the turning-point of many a man's existence! ”

“ No mere drawing-room doll must be your wife, but a woman fitted in heart and brain to be your companion."
"I won't say that you are not right," said Mr. Kelvin. "But in these matters men rarely do that which their friends think they ought to do. Cupid, you know, never went to school, and his problems cannot be worked out by rule-of-three."
"That may apply to a very young man, who lacks sense to know what is best for him and where to look for it; but not to you."
"That is just where you make a mistake, Olive. ”

“ I will go to him as the Jack Pomeroy in whose society he once spent three days of bad weather. I will even pretend to be hard up, and to stand in need of a helping-hand. Probably he will order me out of the office; perchance he will ask me to dinner and put a sovereign into my hand at parting. It will be time enough to tell him my real business after I have put him to the test. Besides which, by concealing my identity for a little while, I may perhaps be able to glean some information as to his reason for keeping back for so long a time the contents of the sealed packet from Eleanor. ”

“ Pomeroy will be there also!" said Mr. Kelvin, like a man who could hardly believe his ears. "Who says that Mr. Pomeroy is going to Stammars?"
In the pressure of far more important matters, he had almost forgotten the existence of an individual of so little consequence as Jack Pomeroy.
"Why, Matthew, dear, I thought it was all arranged that as soon as you came home, Mr. Pomeroy was to be made Sir Thomas Dudgeon's secretary, or something of that kind; and Olive and I have advanced him fifty pounds to provide him with an outfit. ”

“ There was an outcry of horror, accompanied by a turning up of eyes and a holding up of hands, as the news spread from one country house to another; but nothing could be done save to excommunicate the late Miss Carstairs, with "bell, book, and candle," and try to forget that any such creature had ever had an existence.
Whether, when the romance of girlhood was over, Mrs. Kelvin ever regretted that she had forgotten the obligations of caste in order to become the wife of a provincial lawyer, was a fact best known to herself ”

“ From Harley Street, Cavendish Square, to Ormond Square, Bayswater, is but a short distance as the crow flies, but it was enough to transform the John Pomeroy of one place into the Gerald Warburton of the other. And such transformations were very frequent with Gerald just at this time. Now that he had learned to love Ambrose Murray's daughter, Ambrose Murray himself had acquired a fresh interest in his eyes, and he very rarely let more than two days pass over without finding himself in Miss Bellamy's sitting-room. From Miss Bellamy he had but one secret--his love for Eleanor. ”

“ The fame denied to her during her lifetime would be hers after death. After this fashion it was that Lady Dudgeon fed her imagination: and yet there were not wanting people who denied her the possession of any such commodity, and who mentally catalogued her as one of the most prosaic and commonplace of her sex.
"I hope you have not forgotten our conversation in my cousin's office at Pembridge?" said Olive suddenly to Jack, as she shut down the lid of the box and put her own two particular volumes under her arm, preparatory to leaving the room. ”

“ Mrs. Kelvin was not a woman to readily abandon any point that she had set her mind on carrying. Before bidding her son goodnight, she won from him a promise that he would do his best to obtain for Mr. Pomeroy the coveted situation.
Olive Deane was quite aware that her cousin would be greatly annoyed when he should come to ascertain what had been done during his absence, and she wisely left to his mother the task of telling him. Certainly she would have been anything but satisfied--anything but pleased--had she heard the conversation between her aunt and her cousin. ”

“ The more beefsteak he ate and the more tea he drank, the more Miss Bellamy admired him, from which we may conclude that she at least was thoroughly English. Gerald had just reached London, after twenty-four hours of unbroken travelling.
"I wish I could induce you to take another lump of sugar in your tea," said Miss Bellamy. "I never think that you get the real flavour of the leaf without plenty of sugar to assist it."
"There you must allow me to differ from you," said Gerald. "To put sugar in tea seems to me simply to spoil it." Miss Bellamy smiled and shook her head. ”

“ We have been brought together, not that we may be to each other as mere touch-and-go acquaintances, but for the working out of some hidden purpose. For good or for evil, the issues of your life and mine are inextricably mingled; like streams from two distant sources, they have met, never again to be disunited, till they fall into the far-off Hidden Sea!"
Mr. Frodsham had been too well known in the legal profession for Gerald to experience much difficulty in obtaining answers to his inquiries respecting that gentleman. ”

“ I should make a very poor guardian, I am afraid, for such a wee morsel of humanity."
"I have regular accounts from Mrs. Nixon every two or three days, and next week I am going down to Stammars to see her."
"I wish she only thought half as much of me as she does of that young customer down at Stammars!" said Gerald, rather disconsolately, to himself, when he had parted from Eleanor.
"What has come over you, child?" said Lady Dudgeon to Eleanor, two or three days afterwards. "This is the third time this morning that I have caught you in a day-dream. ”