Upon the 18th of January, 1815, did I commit that most irreparable of all follies; then by my own hand I killed fair Molly de Savenaye, who was so happy, so free, so much in love with life, and whom I loved so dearly, and in her stead called into existence Molly Landale, a poor-spirited miserable creature who has not given me one moment's amusement. How could I have been so stupid?

Let me examine.

It is only a month ago, only a month, 4 weeks, 31 days, millions of horrible dreary minutes, Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly! since you stood, that snowy day, in the great drawing-room (

drawing-room now, I hate it), and vowed twice over, once before the Jesuit father from Stonyhurst, once before jolly, hunting heretical parson Cochrane to cleave to Adrian Landale till death bid you part! Brr – what ghastly words and with what a light heart I said them, tripped them out,

ma foi

, as gaily as "good-morning" or "good-night!" They were to be the

open sesame

to joys untold, to lands flowing with milk and honey, to romance, adventure, splendour – and what have they brought me?

It is a cold day, sleeting, snowing, blowing, all that is abominable. My lord and master has ridden off, despite it, to some distant farm where there has been a fire. The "Good Sir Adrian," as they call him now – he is

that

; but, oh dear me – there! I must yawn, and I'll say no more on this head, at present, for I want to think and work my wretched problem out in earnest, and not go to sleep.

It is the first time I have taken heart to write since yonder day of doom, and God knows when I shall have heart again! Upon such an afternoon there is nothing better to do, since Sir Adrian would have none of my company – he is so precious of me that he fears I should melt like sugar in the wet – he never guessed that it was just because of the storm I wished the ride! Were we to live a hundred years together – which, God forfend – he would never understand me.

Ah, lack-a-day, oh, misery me! (My lady, you are wandering; come back to business.)

What, then, has marriage brought me? First of all a husband. That is to say, another person, a man who has the right to me – to whom I myself have given that right – to have me, to hold me, as it runs in the terrible service, the thunders of which were twice rolled out upon my head, and which have been ringing there ever since. And I, Molly, gave of my own free will, that best and most blessed of all gifts, my own free will, away. I am surrounded, as it were, by barriers; hemmed in, bound up, kept in leading strings. I mind me of the seagull on the island. 'Tis all in the most loving care in the world, of course, but oh! the oppression of it! I must hide my feelings as well as I can, for in my heart I would not grieve that good man, that

excellent

man, that pattern of kind gentleman – oh, oh, oh – it will out – that

dreary

man, that dull man, that most melancholy of all men! Who sighs more than he smiles, and, I warrant, of the two, his sighs are the more cheerful; who looks at his beautiful wife as if he saw a ghost, and kisses her as if he kissed a corpse!

There is a mate for Molly! the mate she chose for herself!

So much for the husband. What else has marriage brought her?

Briefly I will capitulate.

A title – I am

my lady

. For three days it sounded prettily in my ears. But to the girl who refused a duchess' coronet, who was born comtesse – to be the baronet's lady – Tanty may say what she likes of the age of creation, and all the rest of it – that advantage cannot weigh heavy in the balance. Again then, I have a splendid house – which is my prison, and in which, like all prisoners, I have not the right to choose my company – else would Sophia and Rupert still be here? They are going, I am told occasionally; but my intimate conviction is, however often they may be going,

they will never go

Item four:

I have money, and nothing to spend it on – but the poor.

What next? What next? – alas, I look and I find nothing! This is all that marriage has brought me; and what has it not taken from me?

My delight in existence, my independence, my hopes, my belief in the future, my belief in

love

. Faith, hope, and charity, in fact, destroyed at one fell sweep. And all, to gratify my curiosity as to a romantic mystery, my vanity as to my own powers of fascination! Well, I have solved the mystery, and behold it was nothing. I have eaten of the fruit of knowledge, and it is tasteless in my mouth.

I have made my capture with my little bow and spear, and I am as embarrassed of my captive as he of me. We pull at the chain that binds us together; nay, such being the law of this world between men and women, the positions are reversed, my captive is now my master, and Molly is the slave.

Tanty, I could curse thee for thy officiousness, from the tip of thy coal black wig to the sole of thy platter shoe – but that I am too good to curse thee at all!

Poor book of my life that I was so eager to fill in, that was to have held a narrative all thrilling, and all varied, now will I set forth in thee, my failure, my hopelessness, and after that close thee for ever.

Of what use indeed to chronicle, when there is nought to tell but flatness, chill monotony, on every side; when even the workings of my soul cannot interest me to follow, since they can now foreshadow nothing, lead to nothing but fruitless struggle or tame resignation!

I discovered my mistake – not the whole of it, but enough to give me a dreadful foreboding of its hideousness, not two hours after the nuptial ceremony.

Adrian had borne himself up to that with the romantic, mysterious dignity of presence that first caught my silly fancy; behind which I had pictured such fascinating depths of passion – of fire – Alas! When he looked at me it was with that air of wondering, almost timid, affection battling with I know not what flame of rapture, with which look I have become so fatally familiar since – without the flame of rapture, be it understood, which seems to have rapidly burnt away to a very ash of grey despondency and self-reproach. I could have sworn even as he gave me his arm to meet and receive the congratulations of our guests, that the glow upon his cheek, the poise of his head denoted the pride any man, were he not an idiot nor a brute, must feel in presenting his bride – such a bride! – to the world. Then we went in to the great dining hall where the wedding feast, a very splendid one, was spread. All the gentlemen looked with admiration at me; many with envy at Adrian. I knew that I was beautiful in my fine white satin with my veil thrown back, without the flattering whispers that reached me now and again; but these were sweet to hear nevertheless. I knew myself the centre of all eyes, and it elated me. So too did the tingling flavour of the one glass of sparkling wine I drank to my fortunes. Immediately upon this silent toast of Lady Landale to herself, Rupert rose and in choice words and silver-ringing voice proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom. There was a merry bustling pause while the glasses were filled; then rising to their feet as with one man, all the gentlemen stood with brimming goblets one instant extended, the next emptied to the last drop; and then the cheers rang out, swelling up the rafters, three times three, seeming to carry my soul along with them. I felt my heart expand and throb with an emotion I never knew in it before, which seemed to promise vast future capacities of pain and delight. I turned to my husband instinctively; looking for, expecting, I could not explain why, an answering fire in his eyes. This was the last moment of my illusions. From thence they began to shrivel away with a terrifying rapidity.

Adrian sat with a face that looked old and lined and grey; with haggard unseeing eyes gazing forth into space as though fixing some invisible and spectre show. He seemed as if wrapt in a world of his own, to which none of us had entrance; least of all, I, his wife.

The shouts around us died away, there were cries upon him for "Speech – speech," then playful queries – "How is this, Sir Adrian? So bashful, egad!" next nudges were exchanged, looks of wonder, and an old voice speaking broadly:

"Yes, by George,"

it was saying,

"I remember it well, by George, in this very room, now twenty years ago, 'Here, gentlemen,' says old Sir Tummas, 'Here's to Madam de Savenaye,' and gad, ma'am, we all yelled, – she was a lovely creature – Eh – Eh?"

"Hush," said some one, and there was a running circle of frowns and the old voice ceased as abruptly as if its owner had been seized by the weasand. In the heavy embarrassed silence, I caught Tanty's red perturbed look and Rupert's smile.

But Adrian sat on – like a ghost among the living, or a live man among the dead. And this was my gallant bridegroom! I seized him by the hand – "Are you ill, Adrian?"

He started and looked round at me – Oh that look! It seemed to burn into my soul, I shall never forget the hopelessness, the dull sadness of it, and then – I don't know what he read in my answering glance – the mute agonised question, followed by a terror.

"They want you to speak," I whispered, and shook the cold hand I held in a fury of impatience.

His lips trembled: he stared at me blankly. "My God, my God, what have I done?" he muttered to himself, "Cécile's child – Cécile's child!"

I could have burst out sobbing. But seeing Rupert's face bent down towards his plate, demure and solemn, yet stamped, for all his cleverness, with an almost devilish triumph, my pride rose and my courage. Every one else seemed to be looking towards us: I stood up.

"Good friends," I said, "I see that my husband is so much touched by the welcome that you are giving his bride, the welcome that you are giving him after his long exile from his house, that he is quite unable to answer you as he would wish. But lest you should misunderstand this silence of his, I am bold enough to answer you in his name, and – since it is but a few moments ago that you have seen us made one, I think I have the right to do so… We thank you."

My heart was beating to suffocation – but I carried bravely on till I was drowned in a storm of acclamations to which the first cheers were as nothing.

They drank my health again, and again I heard the old gentleman of the indiscreet voice – I have learned since he is stone deaf, and I daresay he flattered himself he spoke in a whisper – proclaim that I was

my mother all over again: begad – so had she spoken to them twenty years ago in this very room!

Here Tanty came to the rescue and carried me off.

I dared not trust myself to look at Adrian as I left, but I knew that he followed me to the door, from which I presumed that he had recovered his presence of mind in some degree.

Since that day we have been like two who walk along on opposite banks of a widening stream – ever more and more divided.

I have told no one of my despair. It is curious, but, little wifely as I feel towards him, there is something in me that keeps me back from the disloyalty of discussing my husband with other people.

And it is not even as it might have been – this is what maddens me.

We are always at cross purposes.

Some wilful spirit wakes in me, at the very sound of his voice (always gentle and restrained, and echoing of past sadness); under his mild, tender look; at the every fresh sign of his perpetual watchful anxiety – I give him wayward answers, frowning greetings, sighs, pouts; I feel at times a savage desire to wound, to anger him, and as far as I dare venture I have ventured, yet could not rouse in him one spark, even of proper indignation.

The word of the riddle lay in that broken exclamation of his at our wedding feast.

"Cécile's child!"

His wife, then, is only Cécile's child to him. I have failed when I thought to have conquered – and with the consciousness of failure have lost my power, even to the desire of regaining it. My dead mother is my rival; her shade rises between me and my husband's love. Could he have loved me, I might perhaps have loved him – and now – now I,

Molly

, I, shall perhaps go down to my grave without having known

love

I thought I had found it on that day when he took me in his arms in that odious library – my heart melted when he so tenderly kissed my lips. And now the very remembrance of that moment angers me. Tenderness! Am I only a weak, helpless child that I can arouse no more from the man to whom I have given myself! I thought the gates of life had been opened to me – behold, they led me to a warm comfortable prison! And this is Molly's end!

There is a light in Madeleine's eyes, a ring in her voice, a smile upon her lip. She has bloomed into a beauty that I could hardly have imagined, and this is because of this unknown whom she

loves

. She breathes the fulness of the flower; and by-and-by, no doubt, she will taste the fulness of the fruit; she will be complete; she will be fed and I am to starve. What is coming to me? I do not know myself. I feel that I could grudge her these favours, that I

grudge them to her. I am sick at heart.

And she – even she has proved false to me. I know that she meets this man. Adrian too knows it, and more of him than he will tell me; and he approves. I am treated like a child. The situation is strange upon every side; Madeleine loving a plebeian – a sailor, not a king's officer – stooping to stolen interviews! Adrian the punctilious, in whose charge Tanty solemnly left her, pretending ignorance, virtually condoning my sister's behaviour! For though he has distinctly refused to enlighten me or help me to enlighten myself, he could not, upon my taxing him with it, deny that he was in possession of facts ignored by me.

Then there is Rupert paying now open court to this sly damsel – for the sake of her beautiful eyes, or for the beautiful eyes of her casket? And last and strangest, the incongruous friendship struck up this week between her and that most irritating of melancholy fools, Sophia. The latter bursts with suppressed importance, she launches glances of understanding at my sister; sighs, smiles (when Rupert's eye is not on her), starts mysteriously. One would say that Madeleine had made a confidant of her – only that it would be too silly. What? Make a confidant of that funereal mute and deny

the truth! If I had the spirit for it I would set myself to discovering this grand mystery; and then let them beware! They would have none of Molly as a friend: perhaps she will yet prove one too many upon the other side.

If I have grown bitter to Madeleine, it is her own fault; I would have been as true as steel to her if she had but trusted me. Now and again, when a hard word and look escape me, she gives me a great surprised, reproachful glance, as of a petted child that has been hurt; but mostly she scarcely seems to notice the change in me – Moonlike in dreamy serenity she sails along, wrapt in her own thoughts, and troubles no more over Molly's breaking her heart than over Rupert's determined suit. To me when she remembers me, she gives the old caresses, the old loving words; to him smiles and pretty courtesy. Oh, she keeps her secret well! But I came upon her in the woods alone, last Friday, fresh, no doubt, from her lover's arms; tremulous, smiling, yet tearful, with face dyed rose. And when to my last effort to attain the right of sisterhood she would only stammer the tell-tale words:

she had promised!

and press her hot cheeks against mine, I thrust her from me, indignant, and from my affections for ever. Yet I hold her in my power, I could write to Tanty, put Rupert on the track… Nay, I have not fallen so low as to become Rupert's accomplice yet!

And so the days go on. Between my husband's increasing melancholy, my own mad regrets, Rupert's watchfulness, Madeleine's absorption and Sophia's twaddle, my brain reels. I feel sometimes as if I could scream aloud, as we all sit round the table, and I know that

this

is the life that I am doomed to, and that the days may go on, go on thus, till I am old. Poor Murthering Moll the second! Why even the convent, where at least I knew nothing, would have been better! No, it is not possible! Something is still to come to me. Like a bird, my heart rises within me. I have the right to my life, the right to my happiness, say what they may.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DAWN OF AN EVENTFUL DAY

Rupert's behaviour at home, since his brother's wedding, had been, as even Molly was bound to admit to herself, beyond reproach in tactfulness, quiet dignity, and seeming cheerfulness.

He abdicated from his position of trust at once and without the smallest reservation; wooed Madeleine with so great a discretion that her dreamy eyes saw in him only a kind relative; and he treated his sister-in-law, for all her freaks of bearing to him, with a perfect gentleness and gentility.

At times Sir Adrian would watch him with great eyes. What meant this change? the guileless philosopher would ask himself, and wonder if he had judged his brother too harshly all through life; or if it was his plain speaking in their last quarrel which had put things in their true light to him, and awakened some innate generosity of feeling; or yet if – this with misgiving – it was love for pretty Madeleine that was working the marvel. If so, how would this proud rebellious nature bear another failure?

Rupert spoke with unaffected regret about leaving Pulwick, at the same time, in spite of Molly's curling lip, giving it to be understood that his removal was only a matter of time.

For the ostensible purpose, indeed, of finding himself another home he made, in the beginning of March, the second month after his brother's marriage, several absences which lasted a couple of days or more, and from which he would return with an eager sparkle in his eye, almost a brightness on his olive cheek, to sit beside Madeleine's embroidery frame, pulling her silks and snipping with her scissors, and talking gaily, persistently, with such humour and colour as at last to draw that young lady's attention from far off musings to his words with smiles and laughter.

Meanwhile, Molly would sit unoccupied, brooding, watching them, now fiercely, from under her black brows, now scornfully, now abstractedly; the while she nibbled at her delicate finger-nails, or ruthlessly dragged them along the velvet arms of her chair with the gesture of a charming, yet distracted, cat.

Sir Adrian would first tramp the rooms with unwitting restlessness, halting, it might be, beside his wife to strive to engage her into speech with him; and, failing, would betake himself at length with a heavy sigh to solitude; or, yet, he would sit down to his organ – the new one in the great hall which had been put up since his marriage, at Molly's own gay suggestion, during their brief betrothal – and music would peal out upon them till Lady Landale's stormy heart could bear it no longer, and she would rise in her turn, fly to the shelter of her room and roll her head in the pillows to stifle the sound of sobs, crying from the depths of her soul against heaven's injustice; anon railing in a frenzy of impotent anger against the musician, who had such passion in him and gave it to his music alone.

During Rupert's absences that curious intimacy which Molly had contemptuously noted between her sister and sister-in-law displayed itself in more conspicuous manner.

Miss Landale's long sallow visage sported its airs of mystery and importance, its languishing leers undisguisedly, so long as her brother Rupert's place was empty; and though her visits to the rector's grave were now almost quotidian, she departed upon them with looks of wrapt importance, and, returning, sought Madeleine's chamber (when that maiden did not herself stroll out to meet her in the woods), her countenance invariably wreathed with suppressed, yet triumphant smiles, instead of the old self-assertive dejection.

The 15th of March of that year was to be a memorable day in the lives of so many of those who then either dwelt in Pulwick, or had dealings on that wide estate.

Miss Landale, who had passed the midnight hour in poring over the delightful wickedness of Lara, and, upon at length retiring to her pillow, had had a sentimental objection to shutting out the romantic light of the moon by curtain or shutter, was roused into wakefulness soon after dawn by a glorious white burst of early sunshine. As a rule, the excellent soul liked to lie abed till the last available moment; but that morning she was up with the sun. When dressed she drew a letter from a secret casket with manifold precautions as though she were surrounded with prying eyes, and, placing it in her reticule, hastened forth to seek the little lonely disused churchyard by the shore. She afterwards remarked that she could never forget in what agitation of spirits and with what strange presentiment of evil she was led to this activity at so unwonted an hour. The truth was, however, that Miss Landale tripped along through the damp wooded path as gaily as if she were going to visit her living lover instead of his granite tomb; and that in lieu of evil omens a hundred fantastically sentimental thoughts floated through her brain, as merrily and irresponsibly as the motes in the long shafts of brilliancy that cleaved, sword-like through the mists, upon her from out the east. Visions of Madeleine's face when she would learn before breakfast that Sophia had actually been to the churchyard already; visions of whom she might meet there; rehearsals of a romantic scene upon that hallowed spot, of her own blushes, her knowing looks, her playful remonstrances, with touching allusions to one who had loved and lost, herself, and who thus, &c. &c.

Miss Landale tossed her long faded ringlets quite coquettishly, turned one slim bony hand with coy gesture before her approving eyes. Then she patted her reticule and hurried on with fresh zest, enjoying the tart whisper of the wind against her well bonneted face, the exquisite virginal beauty of the earth in the early spring of the day and of the year.

As she stepped out of the shadow of the trees, her heart leaped and then almost stood still as she perceived in the churchyard lying below her, beside the great slab of granite which lay over the remains of her long-departed beloved one, the figure of a man, whose back was turned towards her, and whose erect outline was darkly silhouetted against the low, dazzling light.

Then a simper of exceeding archness crept upon Miss Landale's lips; and with as genteel an amble as the somewhat precipitate nature of the small piece of ground that yet divided her from the graveyard would allow, she proceeded on her way.

At the click of the lych-gate under her hand the man turned sharply round and looked at her without moving further. An open letter fluttered in his hand.

His face was still against the light, and Miss Landale's eyes had wept so many tears by day and night that her sight was none of the best. She dropped a very elegant curtsey, simpered, drew nearer, and threw a fetching glance upwards. Then her shrill scream rang through the still morning air and frightened the birds in the ruined church.

"You are early this morning, Sophia," said Mr. Landale.

Sophia sank upon the tombstone. To say that she was green or yellow would ill describe the ghastliness of the tint that suffused her naturally bilious countenance; still speechless, she made a frantic plunge towards the great urn that adorned the head of the grave. Mr. Landale looked up from his reading again with a quiet smile.

"I shall have done in one minute," he remarked, "It is a fine production, egad! full of noble protestations and really high-sounding words. And then, my dear Sophia, you can take charge of it, and I shall be quite ready for the other, which I presume you have as usual with you – ah, in your bag! Thanks."

"Rupert?" ejaculated the unfortunate lady, first in agonised query, and next in agonised reproach, clasping her hands over the precious reticule – "Rupert!"

Mr. Landale neatly folded the sheet he had been reading, moistened with his tongue a fresh wafer which he drew from his waistcoat pocket, and, deftly placing it upon the exact spot from which the original one had been removed, handed the letter to his sister with a little bow. But, as with a gesture of horror the latter refused to take it, he shrugged his shoulders and tossed it carelessly into the urn.

"Now give me Madeleine's," he said, peremptorily.

Rolling upwards eyes of appeal the unhappy Iris called upon heaven to witness that she would die a thousand deaths rather than betray her solemn trust. But even as she spoke the fictitious flame of courage withered away in her shrinking frame; and at the mere touch of her brother's finger and thumb upon her wrist, the mere sight of his face bending masterfully over her with white teeth just gleaming between his twisting smile and half-veiled eyes of insolent determination, she allowed him, unresisting, to take the bag from her side; protesting against the breach of faith only by her moans and the inept wringing of her hands.

Mr. Landale opened the bag, tossed with cynical contempt upon the flat tombstone, sundry precious relics of the mouldering bones within, and discovered at length in an inner pocket a dainty flower-scented note. Then he flung down the bag and proceeded with the same deliberation to open the letter and peruse its delicate flowing handwriting.

"Upon my word," he vowed, "I think this is the prettiest she has written yet! What a sweet soul it is! Listen, Sophia: 'You praise me for my trust in you – but, Jack, dear love, my trust is so much a part of my love that the one would not exist without the other. Therefore, do not give me any credit, for you know I could not help loving you.' Poor heart! poor confiding child! Oh!" ejaculated Mr. Landale as if to himself, carefully proceeding the while with his former manœuvres to end by placing the violated missive, to all appearance intact, beside its fellow, "we have here a rank fellow, a foul traitor to deal with!"

Then, wheeling round to his sister, and fixing her with piercing eyes: "Sophia," he exclaimed, in tones of sternest rebuke, "I am surprised at you. I am, indeed!"

Miss Landale raised mesmerised, horror-stricken eyes upon him; his dark utterances had already filled her foolish soul with blind dread. He sat down beside her, and once more enclosed the thin arm in his light but warning grasp.

"Sophia," he said solemnly, "you little guess the magnitude of the harm you have been doing; the frightful fate you have been preparing for an innocent and trusting girl; the depth of the villainy you are aiding and abetting. You have been acting, as I say, in ignorance, without realising the awful consequences of your folly and duplicity. But that you should have chosen

this

sacred place for such illicit and reprehensible behaviour; that by the grave of this worthy man who loved you, by the stones chosen and paid for by my fraternal af

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