Read the book: «The House of Armour», page 22

CHAPTER XXXVII
ADIEU TO FRISPI

Zilla Camperdown was strutting up and down Hollis Street after the fashion of a small peacock airing itself. Back and forth she went, now in front of the shops, now passing hotels where gentlemen smoking and lounging stared curiously at the well-plumaged little creature in her white and black garments.

She was doing wrong to be parading the streets alone, that she very well knew, but she was enjoying herself so hugely that she made no haste to go home, and continued to complacently spread the tail of her little white dress while sunning herself in the glances of admiration bestowed upon her dark, piquante face.

Her only fear was that her adopted brother might suddenly come upon her. If he did she knew that she would receive a sharp scolding and would probably be sent to bed, but willing to snatch the present moment she did not allow this to interfere with her enjoyment. A strict rule with regard to her was that she must never set foot in the street alone. Her idle, dissolute father still haunted the streets of Halifax, and although he was too wise to attempt any interference with her, knowing that he might stop the supplies of food and clothing that he received from Camperdown, he often lurked about waiting for a chance to hold some conversation with her. Hence the order that she should always be accompanied during her walks abroad.

The child’s punishment came swiftly upon her. Sauntering up the hill from Water Street with his monkey on his shoulder and a troop of children at his heels, Gilberto Frispi suddenly appeared and came face to face with his daughter.

“Ah, little bird,” he ejaculated in Italian patois, while the monkey screamed and chattered in delight and clutched its tiny hands toward Zilla’s lace hat; “is it thou at last? I have longed to see thee, but thou art not allowed to fly far from thy nest.”

Scarcely knowing what she did the girl turned and walked back toward the hotels. Her mortification was intense, and if a glance could have killed the smiling Frispi he would have fallen dead by the side of the daughter whom he presumed to address. She was exasperated too, almost beyond endurance, at the children who were hooting and shrieking with delight at the acrobatic feats of the monkey on Frispi’s shoulder.

“Send them away,” she exclaimed, stopping short.

“Scatta, my children,” said Frispi in English, “go roun’ de corna. I come lata.”

“With your organ?” inquired his expectant youthful followers, to whom an Italian with a monkey and minus an organ partook of the nature of a phenomenon.

“Yes, yes. I got organ,” said the man mendaciously. “Five, six organ. I bring. Go ’long.”

They looked at him as trustingly as if they expected to find musical instruments issuing from his pockets, then went to peep around the corner and listen surreptitiously to the conversation between him and his elegant companion.

“What do you wish?” asked Zilla sharply.

“Oh ze beauty clothes!” exclaimed Frispi spreading his hands over her in delight. Then relapsing into Italian he told her in eager tones of his longing to have her with him. “Could she not leave her fine friends and run away with him?”

“Hold thy tongue,” said Zilla scornfully interrupting him. “I wish no more of thee. Thou must leave this town.”

“No, no, my loved one, not till thou canst go.”

“Thou shalt go alone—at once, never to return,” she said, hissing the words through her pointed white teeth that looked as if they might bite him. “I hate thee and thy poverty; and art thou not a thief?”

“Si, si,” he said blandly; “and thou also?”

“Thou art worse,” she said furiously, but in a low tone, for she was desperately aware that she was being surveyed curiously not only by the children, but also by some of the gentlemen in the hotel windows.

“I am thy father,” said the man with a flash of anger, for he rarely relapsed into a passion unless he had been drinking.

“Who stabbed Constante?” breathed the girl. “Ah, thou startest! I did not always sleep when thou entertainedst thy friends. And if thou dost not leave here, I write at once to the Mafia and thou wilt be declared infamous. A cross will be drawn on thy door,” and she made gestures with her hands signifying the choking of a person.

The man’s olive skin turned to a greenish pallor and he kept his small black eyes fixed pleadingly on her face. “Surely thou wouldst not do that, my daughter. The Mafia is implacable and the companions would consider me a traitor and put me to sleep for what was a mistake. It was not in my heart to kill Constante.”

“Thou hast soft shoes; thou canst walk backward,” said Zilla inexorably. “By sundown if thou art here I write to Guglielmo Barzoni, and thou art doomed.”

“Enough,” replied the man with a gesture of resignation. “Thou art thy mother’s child. Thou canst do all and more than thou promisest. Thou wilt never see me more,” and with no other sign of emotion beyond his unusual pallor, he noiselessly left her and in polite broken English postponed his engagement with the children until the next day, at which time they would return and wait anxiously for the man whose shadow would fall no more on the streets of Halifax.

Zilla began to tremble as soon as he left her. The interview with him had been a terrible strain on her, yet she courageously tried to make her way home. At the street corner she paused and leaned against a house. One of the gentlemen at the window seeing this, left his station there and came slowly sauntering up to her.

“Good-morning,” he said kindly. “Do you remember me?”

“Yes; you are Mr. Patrick Macartney’s brother,” she said, “and I am Dr. Camperdown’s little girl, and that bad beggar-man frightened me.”

“Will you come into the hotel and rest?” he asked, noting in some anxiety that her two small feet were braced against the pavement to keep her from falling.

She drew herself up suspiciously: “No, thank you.”

“There is a ladies’ entrance,” he said, pulling severely at his moustache.

“I am going to see my brother,” she said loftily, and leaving him without a word she, by a severe effort, managed to walk as far as the door having on it the brass plate, “Dr. Camperdown, Surgeon.” Arrived there, she tottered inside and seated herself on the lowest step of the staircase, while Captain Macartney, passing by the open doorway, knew that she would be safe now, and went on his way muttering thoughtfully, “Poor child!”

After she had rested sufficiently Zilla, with lips firmly compressed, climbed the steps to the waiting room and seated herself among her adopted brother’s patients.

The next time Camperdown opened the door he saw her and called her into the inner room. “Now, birdling, what is it? Be quick, for I am rushed this morning. What’s the matter with your cheeks? Have you seen a ghost?”

“I have done a bad thing,” said the little girl deliberately.

“Indeed! An unusual confession for you. I thought that you and the pope had the infallibility of the world between you. Out with it.”

“I have told my father to leave Halifax.”

“H’m—well, yes, that was bad—for you. What was the occasion of it?” and by means of questions he drew from her an account of her meeting with Frispi after she had run away from Mrs. Trotley, who had gone shopping with her.

“What do you know about the Mafia, Zilla?”

With a reluctance that she would not have displayed three months earlier in her career, Zilla gave a child’s account of low brigandage according to her observation of her father and his associates.

“Stop,” said Camperdown at last, when she was describing the disarticulation of the fingers of the “picciotti” so that they might be more expert at stealing, “never mention this again, Zilla. Don’t let a living soul know that you were familiar with such iniquities. The Lord in his mercy has delivered you from them. Now, what do you want me to do about your father?”

The child hung her head. “Tell him to stay, for I do not wish Stargarde to know that I would do so bad a thing. Tears will come in her eyes and she will say: ‘Your father is all that you have; do not send him away as a dog’.”

Camperdown’s thoughts ran back to the day when he had acquainted Zilla with her relationship to Stargarde. The child’s passion of astonishment and joy when she found that she was connected with a woman whom she not only loved and admired, but who was the acme of respectability to her, had not seemed to decrease as time went by. She still loved him more intensely perhaps, but Stargarde was her pride and delight, her own blood relation, and the person in the world for whom she had the most reverence.

“Run home and tell her all about it,” said Camperdown softly. “In the meantime I will look up Frispi,” and patting Zilla’s relieved face, he sent her away.

“Ha, sir, were you addressing me?” said his next patient fiercely, as he hobbled into the room.

Camperdown stared blankly at a choleric old gentleman. “No—was talking aloud as I have a habit of doing. What was I saying?”

“‘Low, stealthy brute,’ sir, you said, ‘and a constant worry to me.’”

Camperdown threw back his head and laughed heartily. “I crave your pardon. I was thinking of a pensioner of my wife’s—a miserable foreigner that I hope has been frightened from the town.”

Long after his usual lunch time Camperdown arrived home to find Stargarde and Zilla waiting for him—the latter hanging about her half—sister with red eyes and glances of suppressed adoration.

“Have been all over the town,” said Camperdown; “there’s no trace of Frispi to be had. He went to his lodging, gathered up his few belongings, and left. The police are on his track–”

“He will not be found,” said Zilla quietly and despairingly. “He knows how to run away.”

“I propose,” said Camperdown, seating himself at the table, “to have something to eat now. Subsequently, to take my wife and Zilla and Mrs. Trotley for a drive to Cow Bay. Don’t carry your bathing suit, Zilla; it’s too late in the day for a plunge in the breakers. We’ll have a run over the sands. Then I propose two weeks hence to take my wife and Zilla vagabondizing—that is, in the earliest sense of the word. We’ll stroll about this continent and see if we can’t pick up some trace of the runaway–”

He was interrupted by Zilla, who precipitated herself into his arms.

“A little girl with a sleeping conscience is rather a ticklish possession, isn’t she?” he said, addressing his smiling wife over Zilla’s bent head. “A little girl with an awakened conscience is something very precious and must be treated with very great care.”

CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE GHOST FLOWER

“Me no diggum up,” said Joe decidedly. He stood knee deep in pale green ferns growing among heavy shadows formed by the interlaced branches of trees overhead, his eyes fixed on a group of etherially white flowers springing up from the richest of leaf mould on a mossy bank at a little distance from him.

Vivienne knelt by the wax-like cluster of flower interrogation points in speechless delight, while Armour stood above her saying in quiet amusement, “Why don’t you dig it up, Joe?”

“Callum ghos’ flower,” said Joe doggedly; “spirits angry when touchum. Come ’way, Miss Debbiline.”

His voice was really concerned, but Vivienne looked at him with a gay laugh and continued to touch with caressing finger tips the beautiful, unearthly flower, which was furnished with colorless bracts in place of green leaves.

“If I were to wear a few of these to the ‘drawing room’ my decoration would be unique, would it not?” she said to Armour.

“Decidedly unique,” he said. “Have you ever heard any poetry about this curious flower?”

“No, never.”

“Then let me repeat to you some exquisite lines by a Canadian poet, impressed by observing that the stalks and blossoms form interrogation points. Remember that this determines the cast of the sonnet,” and he recited with great taste:

 
“Like Israel’s seer I come from out the earth,
Confronting with the question air and sky,
Why dost thou bring me up? White ghost am I
Of that which was God’s beauty at its birth.
In eld the sun kissed me to ruby red,
I held my chalice up to heaven’s full view,
The August stars dropped down their golden dew,
The skyey balms exhaled about my bed.
Alas, I loved the darkness, not the light;
The deadly shadows, not the bending blue,
Spoke to my trancëd heart, made false seem true,
And drowned my spirit in the deeps of night.
O Painter of the flowers, O God, most sweet,
Dost say my spirit for the light is meet?”
 

“Alas, the poor flower!” said Vivienne. “Like some mortals it loved the darkness rather than the light. And yet how touching the final question.”

“Yes,” said Armour quietly, “a regret has been born even among ‘the deadly shadows.’”

“Will you not repeat to me some more of those things that you repeat so well?” asked Vivienne demurely.

Bareheaded and standing with his back against a tree, Armour murmured to her the praises of another fairy glen in far-distant Wales, a place peopled with shy winds,

 
“Whose fitful plumes waft dewy balm
From all the wildwood, and let fall
An incommunicable calm.”
 

Then dropping on his knees on the ground he said, “Give me your clasp knife, Joe.”

“Me no give you big knife,” said the superstitious Christmas; “me ’fraid for Miss Debbiline. Spirits killum if touch ghos’ flower,” and he retreated farther among the ferns.

Armour laughed as he bent his light head over the flower that he was about to wrest from its home among the “sweet wood’s golden glooms.”

“Do you think it will grow if we plant it in the greenhouse?” asked Vivienne, as she watched her lover carefully insinuating a sharp-pointed stone among the decayed leaves of many seasons.

“I scarcely think so, but we can try it,” and Armour carefully carrying the fragile ghost flower in his handkerchief walked by her side down the woodland path to the shore of a tiny cove where Joe’s canoe lay drawn up on the grass.

“Where is that Indian?” he said, looking about him when after the lapse of a few minutes Joe did not appear. “He is as subtle as a snake.”

“One can’t expect obedience from a Micmac,” observed Vivienne gently.

“No; he hates coercion, and too many orders would drive him from us. I don’t suppose there is another Micmac in Nova Scotia who serves white people as he serves us. It is phenomenal to get anything from them beyond assistance in hunting. We had better go on. He is evidently afraid to venture in the canoe with this flower. Ah, there he is. Joe, aren’t you coming?”

The Indian was lazily drawing his long legs over the pebbly beach. “No; me stay.”

“Surely you are not afraid of this,” said Armour, teasingly holding up the ghost flower.

“Me no ’fraid for Joe. Me ’fraid spirits makeum Miss Debbiline bad luck.”

“Say a prayer to keep the trouble away. You are a good Catholic.”

“Wirgin no hearum. She angry when spirits angry.”

“You have your new religion mixed with old superstitions, Joe,” said Mr. Armour as he assisted Vivienne into the canoe and placed himself in the stern. “I’ll send Jerry back for you,” and he pushed out from the shore.

While they were crossing the Arm, Armour looked thoughtfully from the flowers at his feet across to the Pinewood beach where Mrs. Colonibel was walking up and down in the warm sunlight.

“Suppose the Indian is right,” he said jestingly, “what new calamity do you suppose is overshadowing us?”

“The postponement of our marriage.”

“No, Vivienne; this day fortnight we shall be away from here.”

“Ah, yes; do not let us think of the contrary,” she said wistfully. Then wishing to change the subject she continued, “Flora seems quiet and distraite lately.”

“She is ashamed of herself. I think that she is going to be a better woman in the future.”

“She does not seem unhappy,” said Vivienne thoughtfully.

“No, nor does she make you unhappy; if she did–”

“You would forgive her,” said Vivienne quickly. “How fortunate for Valentine that she will be here while we are away; and she must not leave when we come back.”

“She will not; you need not fear. She is too comfortable here, and while she is agreeable to you she may stay.”

“Why are you so kind to me?” asked Vivienne with a sudden accession of mischief.

He looked steadily at her. “There has been a good deal of mutual kindness between maids and men since the world began. It is the natural thing.”

“And when one grows old,” pursued the girl, “how is it then? Do old people love each other?”

“Sometimes, not always.”

“Often, very often they do, misguided man,” she said warmly. “Love does not end with youth. When I am old and feeble, and sitting helpless in my chair, you will still call me ‘darling’ and will wrap me in shawls and bring me cups of tea.”

“If I am able to get about,” he said with a comical grimace. “Remember that I am the elder.”

The girl was sitting cross-legged in the canoe, the tips of her shoes just peeping from beneath her white gown. At his words she laid a hand on her side, leaned back, and burst into gay and spontaneous laughter.

“I forgot,” she said; “you will be in the chair. It will be I who must serve you and call you my dearest of old men. I will do it, Stanton,” demurely sobering herself; “and when you wish to hobble to and fro I will offer you my shoulder to lean upon.”

“Thank you; I have no doubt but that we shall be an amiable pair.”

“It seems strange, does it not?” said Vivienne wonderingly, “to think of the time of old age. We are both young and strong now, yet the day will come when we must give place to others. I think that I shall enjoy being an old lady, Stanton, your old lady, not another man’s.”

He opened his mouth to answer her, then closed it again and began paddling more vigorously, for on lifting up his eyes he had seen his father standing beside Mrs. Colonibel and watching them. He could no longer enjoy Vivienne’s girlish chatter, and in silence steered toward the landing place.

The girl too saw her prospective father-in-law and slightly shivered. His affectionately familiar manner since her engagement was not pleasing to her, and she avoided all intercourse with him beyond that which was strictly necessary.

“I must become sober,” she said, “in preparation for this evening. It is a very solemn affair that we are to attend, is it not?”

“Not solemn, but a trifle ceremonious. You do not dread it, do you?”

“A little. You know that I have not cared to appear in public since my unhappy experience the night of your ball.”

“I know, but we are rarely honored by the presence of our governor-general, and I thought the opportunity of being presented too valuable a one to lose. However, if you do not care to go, we shall stay at home.”

“I wish to go, Stanton.”

“And remember, your father will soon be reinstated in public opinion. MacDaly sticks to it that he accidentally burnt the warehouse, though he will tell me nothing more. As soon as I work up this latest clue to your father’s whereabouts I shall make public MacDaly’s confession and state that I have good reason to believe that your father is guiltless of the other charge against him.”

“But will you be believed, Stanton?”

“I think so.”

“You are so much respected,” she said, “every one will trust you, though you have no positive proof.”

“Yet I wish I had it, Vivienne.”

“You sigh,” she returned, “and yet you are not unhappy, are you?”

“Unhappy? No; I was never so near happiness in my life.”

“Near it and not quite there,” she responded, as they glided into the shadow of the boat-house.

She it was who usually did the talking when they were together. Armour had a way of listening to her and looking unutterable things. Just now he took her hand and held it a minute in silence.

“Just think that thought aloud,” she said curiously.

He seemed to be overcoming some scruple to voice his emotion, then he said in a choking voice: “I may be foolish, but there is a horrible suspicion upon me that we are at a crisis in our affairs. I may have to give you up. If I do—if I do, Vivienne, it will kill me as surely as if–”

“Stop, stop,” she said, playfully putting her hands up to her ears. “I will not hear such tragic nonsense. Who is there that would come between us?”

“Your father.”

“Then he will be no father of mine.” And proudly tossing her dark head, she sprang from the canoe and ran away from him to hide her tearful eyes.

A few hours later Judy Colonibel was tiptoeing about a group of three people who stood with more or less agitated faces in the Pinewood drawing room. They had not yet become fully accustomed to Valentine’s blindness, and upon this, the first occasion of leaving him to go to one of the scenes of festivity in which he had formerly taken so much pleasure, two at least of the group of three felt their hearts wrung with compassion.

His face, however, was perfectly calm as he sat astride a chair listening to Judy’s description of their appearance.

“They are all in white, Valentine,” she said enthusiastically, “and they look, as MacDaly says, ‘deliciously delicate and palatably perfect.’ What are you saying? That you think it must be rather trying to Stanton? Foolish boy, he has on his usual evening clothes. Mamma’s dress is satin, Vivienne’s silk, and they both have little white plumes in their hair—mamma three with lace, and Vivienne two with a veil. Why, Flora Colonibel, where are your diamonds? You ought to be in a blaze, to-night.”

A painful color overspread Mrs. Colonibel’s face.

“Flora,” said Armour, “go and put on your jewels. I insist.” And his eyes followed her in satisfaction as she slowly left the room.

“And our dear blackbird wears her pearls,” continued Judy, squeezing Vivienne’s hand, “a beautiful string that I fancy a man soon to become a relation by marriage has given her, and–”

“Has she no flowers?” inquired Valentine with animation.

“My ghost flowers!” exclaimed Vivienne. “Where are they?”

“I was hoping that you would forget them,” said Armour with a laugh.

“Have you too become superstitious?” asked Vivienne. “What did you do with the plant?”

“I sent it to the cellar to be kept cool. I will ring for it.”

“Here is the carriage,” said Judy skipping to the window; “and here comes Uncle Colonel. Let me put on your cloak, Vivienne. Good-bye, Miss Polar Bear from the frozen North, you are all white and glittering. Take good care of her and mamma, Stanton. Valentine and I are going to have a good time practising.”

It was a very gay and excited city that the Pinewood party drove through on their way to the Provincial building. Nowhere is there a more loyal province than Nova Scotia. Any representative of her majesty is duly honored, but on this occasion the citizens had risen with one accord to welcome a man who was popular among them not only on account of his social position, but because he had shown himself to be a true and wise friend to the Nova Scotian people.

Therefore houses were illuminated, decorations were displayed, and troops of citizens and country visitors paraded the streets, or sat at the windows awaiting the arrival of a torchlight procession that was escorting the vice-regal party about the city.

On nearing the Provincial building the Armours’ carriage was obliged to move more slowly on account of the dense throng of sightseers, and upon a sign from a policeman the coachman drew up his horses and they came to a standstill.

Lusty cheering and a salute from a guard of honor explained the cause of the delay to the occupants of the carriage. Their excellencies were arriving, and Mrs. Colonibel, who had participated in several functions of the kind before, drew back to allow Vivienne to see the striking effect of the entrance into the old stone building of the representative of royalty, his wife, and his suite, and their reception by the premier of the province and the members of the government.

As soon as there was a passage made through the crowd, Armour preceded the two ladies up the crimson-decorated stairway to the dressing rooms. Very soon they were with him and Colonel Armour again, and as they stood waiting for the line of people before them to pass on, Armour whispered to Vivienne, “You are not nervous, are you?”

“No, not very,” she replied smilingly.

“Keep behind Flora, and do as she does. The first aide-de-camp will pass up your card.”

Vivienne had a dazzling impression of a lofty apartment hung with large oil paintings and having groups of plants and masses of flowers here and there, a number of officers in brilliant uniform on her left hand, and on the other a flock of snowy dames and gentlemen in sombre garments who had already been presented.

Immediately before her was the attraction for all eyes in the room—a dais on which the central figures were a dark, vivacious man in the court uniform of an imperial councillor, and a bejeweled woman, who was smiling and bowing her gracious head not alone with precision and accuracy, but with a quickness of intelligence and apprehension that caught the individual characteristics of each person that passed before her.

Lord Vaulabel, when he heard the clear, distinct enunciation of Vivienne’s name, turned ever so slightly toward the lieutenant-governor who supported him on his right hand. There was an almost imperceptible smile and a glance of intelligence which Vivienne did not perceive while making graceful courtesies before the dais.

Drawing a breath of relief she took her station beside her chaperon and watched other people going through the ceremony of presentation.

“There are some handsome gowns here this evening,” murmured Mrs. Colonibel to Vivienne.

“And handsome women,” responded the girl, surveying in approbation some of her clear-skinned, finely proportioned countrywomen; “we are so much out of doors—women here take so much exercise—their appearance of perfect health is owing to that, do you not think so?”

“I suppose so,” said her companion absently. “What a delicious bow the consul’s daughter makes, and her gown is a dream. I am so glad that she is to be one of your bridesmaids. Do look at old Daddy Fayley pulling his forelock at his excellency. This is an omnium gatherum,” and the lady looked about her a trifle disdainfully.

“A new country has not the polish of an old one, Flora,” said Vivienne; "it would be unnatural if it had, and Lord and Lady Vaulabel do not expect it.”

“There is Uncle Colonel,” said Mrs. Colonibel; “I thought he came in with us.”

“He stopped to speak to some one,” said Vivienne; and her eyes followed Colonel Armour with painful interest as he entered the room, remarked by all on account of his handsome, courtly appearance and the indomitable youthfulness of his old age. When he paused to bow with inimitable grace and respect before Lord and Lady Vaulabel they observed him attentively, and Vivienne noticed their glances subsequently wandering to him.

“A glorious devil,” quoted a gentleman behind Vivienne, who was staring at Colonel Armour and keeping up a series of remarks unheard by any one but the friend into whose ears they were confided; “large in heart and brain,” he went on, “that did love beauty only.”

“Devil indeed,” murmured the other; “no saint would live on as he does. He’s outlasted all his generation. He reminds me of an old rat in one of my father’s vessels plying between here and Boston. Nothing would kill him, not even a change of cargo to tar paper and paraffin oil, which knocked off all the others. This old fellow wouldn’t give in and never would be caught, till one day a sailor found him behind a box in the forecastle, his head nodding till finally he fell over dead.”

“No such luck with Holy Jim,” said the other with a suppressed laugh. “He’s good for twenty years yet. Have you heard his latest?” and he began to retail a morsel of savory scandal.

Sometime after midnight the last presentation was made; Lord and Lady Vaulabel were escorted to the ballroom, and the official quadrille was formed. A little later, when some members of the vice-regal party had seated themselves in a number of high-backed chairs provided for them, Lord Vaulabel with one of his quick, eager gestures that made him seem more like a French than an English nobleman, bent over his wife and said in a low voice, “Winifred, you will not forget?”

She smiled at him. “No, I will not.” Then as he left her she turned and spoke to the lieutenant-governor, who immediately started on what seemed to be an aimless wandering about the ballroom and the adjoining corridor. Presently he came upon the person that he was seeking, as she stood with upturned face looking at the paintings in the legislative chamber.

“Mr. Armour,” he said politely to her companion, “will you surrender Miss Delavigne to my charge for a while? Lady Vaulabel expresses a wish to see her.”

Very willingly Mr. Armour saw his fiancée led away and sauntered closely enough behind her to see her raise her dark eyes in reverence to the face of one of the most distinguished women in the British Empire.

Lady Vaulabel would not permit a second courtesy, and taking the girl’s hand seated her beside her own chair. Charmed with her sweetness, her kindness, her unmistakable air of distinction, and the affability of her manner, Vivienne gazed at her in admiration and in pleased surprise at the honor conferred upon her, an honor presently explained by a few words from Lady Vaulabel.

“Your ancestors were the Delavignes of Orléans, were they not?” she asked.

“Yes, your excellency, they were.”

“His excellency wishes to speak to you of them. Possibly you may have heard some tradition of a relation once existing between the two families—that of my husband and the Delavignes?”

“No, your excellency, I have not; but I know that the earls of Vaulabel are of French origin.”

Lady Vaulabel smiled graciously and was about to make some further observations when she was interrupted by a plaintive ejaculation that made her raise her eyes quickly.

“Madeleine, Madeleine,” the voice was murmuring; “Madeleine, my beloved.”

The sentimental tones issued from the mouth of an old gentleman who had an air of being one of the fathers of the town—a father who had evidently not been confining himself to the ice cream and cooling drinks served before the supper, but had been indulging in something stronger.