CHAPTER XXXVII

A knock at Merthyr's chamber called him out while he sat writing to

Marini on the national business. He heard Georgiana's voice begging him

to come to her quickly. When he saw her face the stain of tears was

there.

"Anything the matter with Charlotte?" was his first question.

"No. But, come: I will tell you on the way. Do not look at me."

"No personal matter of any kind?"

"Oh, no! I can have none;" and she took his hand for a moment.

They passed into the dark windy street smelling of the sea.

"Emilia is here," said Georgiana. "I want you to persuade her--you will

have influence with her. Oh, Merthyr! my darling brother! I thank God I

love my brother with all my love! What a dreadful thing it is for a woman

to love a man:"

"I suppose it is, while she has nothing else to do," said Merthyr. "How

did she come?--why?"

"If you had seen Emilia to-night, you would have felt that the difference

is absolute." Georgiana dealt first with the general case, "she came, I

think, by some appointment."

"Also just as absolute between her and her sex," he rejoined, controlling

himself, not to be less cool. "What has happened?"

Georgiana pointed to the hotel whither their steps were bent. "That is

where Charlotte sleeps. Her going there was not a freak; she had an

object. She wished to cure Emilia of her love for Mr. Wilfrid Pole.

Emilia had come down to see him. Charlotte put her in an adjoining room

to hear him say--what I presume they do say when the fit is on them! Was

it not singular folly?"

It was a folly that Merthyr could not understand in his friend Charlotte.

He said so, and then he gave a kindly sad exclamation of Emilia's name.

"You do pity her still!" cried Georgiana, her heart leaping to hear it

expressed so simply.

"Why, what other feeling can I have?" said he unsuspiciously.

"No, dear Merthyr," she replied; and only by her tone he read the guilty

little rejoicing in her heart, marvelling at jealousy that could twist so

straight a stem as his sister's spirit. This had taught her, who knew

nothing of love, that a man loving does not pity in such a ease."

"I hope you will find her here:" Georgiana hurried her steps. "Say

anything to comfort her. I will have her with me, and try and teach her

what self-control means, and how it is to be won. If ever she can act on

the stage as she spoke to-night, she will be a great dramatic genius. She

was transformed. She uses strange forcible expressions that one does not

hear in every-day life. She crushed Charlotte as if she had taken her up

in one hand, and without any display at all: no gesture, or spasm. I

noticed, as they stood together, that there is such a contrast between

animal courage and imaginative fire."

"Charlotte could meet a great occasion, I should think," said Merthyr;

and, taking his sister by the elbow: "You speak as if you had observed

very coolly. Did Emilia leave you so cold? Did she seem to speak from

head, not from heart?"

"No; she moved me--poor child! Only, how humiliating to hear her beg for

love!--before us."

Merthyr smiled: "I thought it must be the woman's feeling that would

interfere to stop a natural emotion. Is it true--or did I not see that

certain eyes were red just now?"

"That was for him," said Georgiana, hastily. "I am sure that no man has

stood in such a position as he did. To see a man made publicly ashamed,

and bearing it. I have never had to endure so painful a sight."

"To stand between two women, claimed by both, like Solomon's babe! A man

might as well at once have Solomon's judgement put into execution upon

him. You wept for him! Do you know, Georgey, that charity of your sex,

which makes you cry at any 'affecting situation,' must have been designed

to compensate to us for the severities of Providence."

"No, Merthyr;" she arrested his raillery. "Do I ever cry? But I

thought--if it had been my brother! and almost at the thought I felt the

tears rush at my eyelids, as if the shame had been mine."

"The probability of its not being your brother seemed distant at the

moment," said Merthyr, with his half-melancholy smile. "Tell me--I can

conjure up the scene: but tell me whether you saw more passions than one

in her face?"

"Emilia's? No. Her face reminded me of the sombre--that dull glow of a

fire that you leave burning in the grate late on winter nights. Was that

natural? It struck me that her dramatic instinct was as much alive as her

passion."

"Had she been clumsy, would you not have been less suspicious of her? And

if she had only shown the accustomed northern retenue, and merely looked

all that she had to say 'preserved her dignity'--our womanly critic would

have been completely satisfied."

"But, Merthyr, to parade her feelings, and then to go on appealing!"

"On the principle that she ought to be ashamed of them, she was wrong."

"If you had heard her utter abandonment!"

"I can believe that she did not blush."

"It seems to me to belong to those excesses that prompt--that are in

themselves a species of suicide."

"Love is said to be the death of self."

"No; but I must use cant words, Merthyr; I do wish to see modesty. Yes, I

know I must be right."

"There is very little of it to be had in a tropical storm."

"You admit, then, that this sort of love is a storm that passes?"

"It passes, I hope."

"But where is your defence of her now?"

"Have I defended her? I need not try. A man has deceived her, and she

doesn't think it possible; and has said so, I presume. When she sees it,

she will be quieter than most. She will not reproach him subsequently.

Here is the hotel, and that must be Charlotte's room, if I may judge by

the lights. What pranks will she always be playing! We seem to have

brought new elements into the little town. Do you remember Bergamo the

rainy night the Austrian trooped out of Milan?--one light that was a

thousand in the twinkling of an eye!"

Having arrived, he ran hastily up to the room, expecting to find the

three; but Lady Charlotte was alone, sitting in her chair with knotted

arms. "Ah, Merthyr!" she said, "I'm sorry you should have been disturbed.

I perceive what Georgey's leaving the room meant. I suppose the hotel

people are used to yachting-parties." And then, not seeing any friendly

demonstration on his part, she folded her arms in another knot. Georgiana

asked where Emilia was. Lady Charlotte replied that Emilia had gone, and

then Wilfrid had followed her, one minute later, to get her into shelter

somewhere. Or put penknives out of her way. "I am rather fatigued with a

scene, Merthyr. I never had an idea before of what your Southern women

were. One plays decidedly second to them while the fit lasts. Of course,

you have a notion that I planned the whole of the absurd business. This

is the case:--I found the girl on the beach: she follows him everywhere,

which is bad for her reputation, because in this climate people suspect,

positive reasons for that kind of female devotedness. So, to put an end

to it--really for her own sake, quite as much as anything else--am I a

monster of insensibility, Merthyr?--I made her swear an oath: one must be

a point above wild animals to feel that to be binding, however! I made

her swear to listen and remain there silent till I opened the door to set

her at liberty. She consented--gave her word solemnly. I calculated that

she might faint, and fixed her in an arm-chair. Was that cruel? Merthyr,

you have called me Austrian more than once; but, upon my honour, I wanted

her to get over her delusion comfortably. I thought she would have kept

the oath, I confess; she looked up like a child when she was making it.

You have heard the rest from Georgey. I must say the situation was rather

hard on Wilfrid. If he blames me it will be excuseable, though what I did

plan was to save him from a situation somewhat worse. So now you know the

whole, Merthyr. Commence your lecture. Make me a martyr to the sorrows of

Italy once more."

Merthyr took her wrist, feeling the quick pulse, and dropped it. She was

effectually humbled by this direct method of dealing with her secret

heart. After some commonplace remarks had passed, she herself urged him

to send out men in search for Emilia. Before he went, she murmured a soft

"Forgive me." The pressure of her fingers was replied to, but the words

were not spoken.

"There," she cried to Georgiana, "I have offended the only man for whose

esteem I care one particle! Devote yourself to your friends!"

"How? 'devote yourself!'" murmured Georgiana, astonished.

"Do you think I should have got into this hobble if I hadn't wished to

serve some one else? You must have seen that Merthyr has a sentimental

sort of fondness--call it passion--for this girl. She's his Italy in the

flesh. Is there a more civilized man in the world than Merthyr? So he

becomes fascinated by a savage. We all play the game of opposites--or

like to, and no woman in his class will ever catch him. I couldn't have

believed that he was touched by a girl, but for two or three recent

indications. You must have noticed that he has given up reading others,

and he objected the other day to a responsible office which would have

thrown him into her neighbourhood alone. These are unmistakeable signs in

Merthyr, though he has never been in love, and doesn't understand his

case a bit. Tell me, do you think it impossible?"

Georgiana answered dryly, "You have fallen into a fresh mistake."

Exactly. Then let me rescue you from a similar fatality, Georgey. If your

eyes are bandaged now..."

"Are you going to be devoted to me also, Charlotte?"

"I believe I'm a miracle of devotion," said the lady, retiring into

indifferent topics upon that phrase. She had at any rate partially

covered the figure of ridicule presented to her feminine imagination by

the aspect of her fair self exposed in public contention with one of her

sex--and for a man. It was enough to make her pulse and her brain lively.

On second thoughts, too, it had struck her that she might be serving

Merthyr in disengaging Emilia; and undoubtedly she served Georgiana by

giving her a warning. Through this silliness went the current of a clear

mind, nevertheless. The lady's heart was justified in crying out: "What

would I not abandon for my friend in his need?" Meantime her battle in

her own behalf looked less pleasing by the light of new advantages. The

question recurred: "Shall I care to win at all?" She had to force the

idea of a violent love to excuse her proceedings. To get up any flame

whatsoever, an occasional blast of jealousy had to be called for.

Jealousy was a quality she could not admit as possible to her. So she

acted on herself by an agent she repudiated, and there was no help for

it. Had Wilfrid loved her the woman's heart was ready. It was ready with

a trembling tenderness, softer and deeper than a girl's. For Charlotte

would have felt: "With this love that I have craved for, you give me

life." And she would have thanked him for both, exultingly, to feel: "I

can repay you as no girl could do;" though she had none of the rage of

love to give; as it was, she thought conscientiously that she could help

him. She liked him: his peculiar suppleness of a growing mind, his

shrouded sensibility, in conjunction with his reputation for an evidently

quite reliable prompt courage, and the mask he wore, which was to her

transparent, pleased her and touched her fancy.

Nor was he so vain of his person as to make him seem like a boy to her.

He affected maturity. He could pass a mirror on his right or his left

without an abstracted look over either shoulder;--a poor example, but

worth something to a judge of young men. Indeed, had she chosen from a

crowd, the choice would have been one of his age. She was too set for an

older man; but a youth aspiring to be older than he was; whose faults she

saw and forgave; whose merits supplied two or three of her own

deficiencies; whom her station might help to elevate; to whom she might

come as a benefactress; feeling so while she accomplished her own

desire;--such a youth was everything to her, as she awoke to discover

after having played with him a season. If she lost him, what became of

her? Even if she had rejoiced in a mother to plot and play,--to bait and

snare for her, her time was slipping, and the choosers among her class

were wary. Her spirit, besides, was high and elective. It was gradually

stooping to nature, but would never have bowed to a fool, or, save under

protest, to one who gave all. On Wilfrid she had fixed her mind: so,

therefore, she bore the remembrance of the recent scene without much

fretting at her burdens;--the more, that Wilfrid had in no way shamed

her; and the more, that the heat of Emilia's love played round him and

illumined him. This borrowing of the passion of another is not uncommon.

At daybreak Mrs. Chump was abroad. She had sat up for Wilfrid almost

through the night. "Oh! the arr'stocracy!" she breathed exclamations, as

she swept along the esplanade. "I'll be killed and murdered if I tell a

word." Meeting Captain Gambier, she fell into a great agitation, and

explained it as an anxiety she entertained for Wilfrid; when, becoming

entangled in the mesh of questions, she told all she knew, and nearly as

much as she suspected: which fatal step to retrieve, she entreated his

secresy. Adela was now seen fluttering hastily up the walk, fresh as a

creature of the sea-wave. Before Mrs. Chump could summon her old wrath of

yesterday, she was kissed, and to the arch interrogation as to what she

had done with this young lady's brother, replied by telling the tale of

the night again. Mrs. Chump was ostentatiously caressed into a more

comfortable opinion of the world's morality, for the nonce. Invited by

them to breakfast at the hotel, she hurried back to her villa for a

flounced dress and a lace cap of some pretensions, while they paced the

shore.

"See what may be said!" Adela's countenance changed as she muttered it.

"Thought, would be enough," she added, shuddering.

"Yes; if one is off guard--careless," the captain assented, flowingly.

"Can one in earnest be other than careless? I shall walk on that line up

to the end. Who makes me deviate is my enemy!"

The playful little person balanced herself to make one foot follow the

other along a piece of washed grey rope on the shingle. Soon she had to

stretch out her hand for help, and the captain at full arm's length

conducted her to the final knot.

"Arrived safe!" she said, smiling.

"But not disengaged," he rejoined, in similar style.

"Please!" She doubled her elbow to give a little tug for her fingers.

"No." He pressed them tighter.

"Pray?"

"No."

"Must I speak to somebody else to get me released?"

"Would you?"

"Must I?"

"Thank heaven, he is not yet in existence!"

'Husband' being implied. Games of this sweet sort are warranted to carry

little people as far as they may go swifter than any other invention of

lively Satan.

The yachting party, including Mrs. Chump, were at the breakfast-table,

and that dumb guest had done all the blushing for Lady Charlotte, when

Wilfrid entered, neat, carefully brushed, and with ready answers, though

his face could put on no fresh colours. To Mrs. Chump he bent, passing,

and was pushed away and drawn back. "Your eyes!" she whispered.

"My--yeyes!" went Wilfrid, in schoolboy style; and she, who rarely

laughed, was struck by his humorous skill, saying to Sir Twickenham,

beside her: "He's as cunnin' as a lord!"

Sir Twickenham expressed his ignorance of lords having usurped priority

in that department. Frightened by his portentous parliamentary

phraseology, she remained tolerably demure till the sitting was over: now

sidling in her heart to the sins of the great, whom anon she angrily

reproached. Her principal idea was, that as the world was discovered to

be so wicked, they were all in a boat going to perdition, and it would be

as well to jump out immediately: but while so resolving, she hung upon

Lady Charlotte's looks and little speeches, altogether seduced by so

fresh and frank a sinner. If safe from temptation, here was the soul of a

woman in great danger of corruption.

"Among the aristocracy," thought Mrs. Chump, "it's just the male that

hangs his head, and the female struts and is sprightly." The contrast

between Lady Charlotte and Wilfrid (who when he ceased to set

outrageously, sat like a man stricken by a bolt), produced this

reflection: and in spite of her disastrous vision of the fate of the boat

they were in, Mrs. Chump owned to the intoxication of gliding

smoothly--gliding on the rapids.

The breakfast was coming to an end, when Braintop's name was sent in to

Mrs. Chump. She gave a cry of motherly compassion for Braintop, and began

to relate the little deficiencies of his temper, while, as it were,

simmering on her seat to go to him. Wilfrid sent out word for him to

appear, which he did, unluckily for himself, even as Mrs. Chump wound up

the public description of his character by remarking: "He's just the

opposite of a lord, now, in everything." Braintop stood bowing like the

most faithful confirmation of an opinion ever seen. He looked the victim

of fatigue, in the bargain. A light broke on Mrs. Chump.

"I'll never forgive myself, ye poor gentle heart, to throw pens and

pen-wipers at ye, that did your best, poor boy! What have ye been doin'?

and why didn't ye return, and not go hoppin' about about all night like a

young kangaroo, as they say they do? Have ye read the 'Arcana of Nature

and Science,' ma'am?"

The Hon. Mrs. Bayruffle, thus abruptly addressed, observed that she had

not, and was it an amusing book?

"Becas it'll open your mind," pursued Mrs. Chump; "and there, he's

eatin'! and when a man takes to eatin', ye'll never have any fear about

his abouts. And if ye read the 'Arcana of Nature and Science,' ma'am,

ye'll first feel that ye've gone half mad. For it contains averything in

the world; and ye'll read ut ten times all through, and not remember five

lines runnin'! Oh, it's a dreadful book: and that's the book to read to

your husband when he's got a fit o' the gout. He's got nothin' to do but

swallow knolludge then. Now, Mr. Braintop, don't stop, but tell me as ye

go on what ye did with yourself all night."

A slight hesitation in Braintop caused her to cross-examine him rigidly,

suggesting that he might not dare to tell, and he, exercising some

self-command, adopted narrative as the less ignominious form of

confession. No one save Mrs. Chump listened to him until he mentioned the

name Miss Belloni; and then it was curious to see the steadiness with

which certain eyes, feigning abstraction, fixed in his direction. He had

met Emilia on the outskirts of the town, and unable to persuade her to

take shelter anywhere, had walked on with her in dead silence through the

night, to the third station of the railway for London.

"Is this a mad person?" asked the Hon. Mrs. Bayruffle.

Adela shrugged. "A genius."

"Don't eat with the tips of your teeth, like a bird, Mr. Braintop, for no

company minds your eatin'," cried Mrs. Chump, angrily and encouragingly;

"and this little Belloni--my belief is that she came after you; and what

have ye done with her?"

It was queerly worried out of Braintop, who was trying his best all the

time to be obedient to Wilfrid's direct eye, that the two wanderers by

night had lost themselves in lanes, refreshed themselves with purloined

apples from the tree at dawn, obtained a draught of morning milk, with a

handful of damsons apiece, and that nothing would persuade Emilia to turn

back from the route to London. Braintop bit daintily at his toast,

unwilling to proceed under the discouraging expression of Wilfrid's face,

and the meditative silence of two or three others. The discovery was

forcibly extracted that Emilia had no money;--that all she had in her

possession was sevenpence and a thimble; and that he, Braintop, had but a

few shillings, which she would not accept.

"And what has become of her?" was asked.

Braintop stated that she had returned to London, and, blushing, confessed

that he had given her his return ticket.

Georgiana here interposed to save him from the awful encomiums of Mrs.

Chump, by desiring to know whether Emilia seemed unhappy or distressed.

Braintop's spirited reply, "Not at all," was corrected to: "She did not

cry;" and further modified: "That is, she called out sharply when I

whistled an opera tune."

Lady Charlotte put a stop to the subject by rising pointedly. Watch in

hand, she questioned the ladies as to their occupations, and told them

what time they had to dispose of. Then Baynes, captain of the yacht,

heard to be outside, was summoned in. He pronounced doubtfully about the

weather, but admitted that there was plenty of wind, and if the ladies

did not mind it a little fresh, he was sure he did not. Wind was

favourable for the island head-quarters of the yacht. "We'll see who gets

there first," she said to Wilfrid, and the company learnt that Wilfrid

was going to other head-quarters on special business, whereupon there

followed chatter and exclamations. Wilfrid quickly explained that his

father's condition called him away imperiously. To Adela and Mrs. Chump,

demanding peculiar personal explanations, he gave reassuring reasons

separately, aside. Mrs. Chump understood that this was merely his excuse

to get away, that he might see her safe to Brookfield. Adela only

required a look and a gesture. Merthyr and Georgiana likewise spoke

expected adieux, as did Sir Twickenham, who parted company in his own

little yawl. Lady Charlotte, with her head over a map, and one hand

arranging an eye-glass, hastily nodded them off, scarcely looking at

them. She allowed herself to be diverted from this study for an instant

by the unbefitting noise made by Adela for the loss of her brother; not

that she objected to the noise particularly (it was modulated and

delicate in tone), but that she could not understand it. Seeing Sir

Twickenham, however, in a leave-taking attitude, she uttered an easy

"Oh!" to herself, and diligently recommenced spying at ports and

harbours, and following the walnut thumb of Baynes on the map. All seemed

to be perfectly correct in the arrangements. To go to London was

Wilfrid's thought; and the rest were almost as much occupied with their

own ideas. Captain Gambier received their semi-ironical congratulations

and condolences incident to the man who is left alone in the charge of

sweet ladies; and the Hon. Mrs. Bayruffle remarked, that she supposed ten

hours not a long period of time, though her responsibility was onerous.

"Lady Gosstre is at the island," said Lady Charlotte, to show where it

might end, if she pleased. Within an hour the yacht was flying for the

island with a full Western breeze: and Mrs. Chump and Wilfrid were

speeding to Brookfield, as the latter permitted her to imagine. Braintop

realized the fruits of the sacrifice of his return ticket by facing Mrs.

Chump in the train. Merthyr had telegraphed to Marini to meet Emilia at

the station in London, and instructed Braintop to deliver a letter for

her at Marini's house. To Marini he wrote: "Let Giulia guard her as no

one but a woman can in such a case. By this time Giulia will know her

value. There is dangerous stuff in her now, and my anxiety is very great.

Have you seen what a nature it is? You have not alluded to her beyond

answers to instructions, but her character cannot have escaped you. I am

never mistaken in my estimates of Italian and Cymric blood. Singularly,

too, she is part Welsh on the mother's side, to judge by the name. Leave

her mind entirely free till it craves openly for some counteraction. Her

Italy and her music will not do. Let them be. My fear is that you have

seen too clearly what a daughter of Italy I have found for you. But

whatever you put up now to distract her, you sacrifice. My good Marini!

bear that in mind. It will be a disgust in her memory, and I wish her to

love her country and her Art when she recovers. So we treat the disease,

dear friend. Let your Italy have no sorrows for her ears till the storm

within is tranquil. I am with you speedily."

Marini's reply said: "Among all the things we have to thank our Merthyr

for, this treasure, if it is not the greatest he has given to us, makes

us grateful the most. We met her at the station. Ah! there was an elbow

when she gave her hand. She thought to be alone, and started, and hated,

till Giulia smothered her face. And there was dead fire in the eyes,

which is powder when you spring it. We go with her to her new lodging,

and the track is lost. This is your wish? It is pitching new camps to

avoid the enemy. But so! a man takes this disease and his common work at

once of a woman--she is all the disease, till it is extinct, or she! What

is this disease but a silly, a senseless waste? Giulia--woman that she

is!--will not call it so. See her eyes doze and her voice go a soft buzz

when she speaks it! As a dove of the woods! That it almost makes it sweet

to me! Yes, a daughter of Italy! So Giulia has been:--will be? I know

not! So will this your Emilia be in the time that comes to the young

people, she has this, as you say, malady very strong--ma, ogni male ha la

sua ricetta; I can say it of persons. Of nations to think my heart is as

an infidel--very heavy. Ah! till I turn to you--who revive to the

thought, as you were an army of deliverance. For you are Hope. You know

not Despair. You are Hope. And you love as myself a mother whose son you

are not! 'Oh!' is Giulia's cry, 'will our Italy reward him with a

daughter?'--the noblest that we have. Yes, for she would be Italian

always through you. We pray that you may not get old too soon, before she

grows for you and is found, only that you may know in her our love. See!

I am brought to talk this language. The woman is in me."

Merthyr said, as he read this, "I could wish no better." His feeling for

Emilia waxed toward a self-avowal as she advanced to womanhood; and the

last stage of it had struck among trembling strings in the inmost

chambers of his heart. That last stage of it--her passionate claiming of

Wilfrid before two women, one her rival--slept like a covered furnace

within him. "Can you remember none of her words?" he said more than once

to Georgiana, who replied: "I would try to give you an idea of what she

said, but I might as well try to paint lightning."

"'My lover'?" suggested Merthyr.

"Oh, yes; that she said."

"It sounded oddly to your ears?"

"Very, indeed."

"What more?"

"--did she say, do you mean?"

"Is my poor sister ashamed to repeat it?"

"I would repeat anything that would give you pleasure to hear."

"Sometimes pain, you know, is sweet."

Little by little, and with a contest at each step, Georgiana coasted the

conviction that her undivided reign was over. Then she judged Emilia by

human nature's hardest standard: the measure of the qualities brought as

usurper and successor. Unconsciously she placed herself in the seat of

one who had fulfilled all the great things demanded of a woman for

Merthyr, and it seemed to her that Emilia exercised some fatal

fascination, girl though she was, to hurl her from that happy

sovereignty.

But Emilia's worst crime before the arraigning lady was that Wilfrid had

cast her off. Female justice, therefore, said: "You must be unworthy of

my brother;" and female delicacy thought: "You have been soiled by a

previous history." She had pitied Wilfrid: now she held him partially

blameless: and while love was throbbing in many pulses all round her. The

man she had seen besieged by passionate love, touched her cold

imagination with a hue of fire, as Winter dawn lies on a frosty field.

She almost conceived what this other, not sisterly, love might be; though

not as its victim, by any means. She became, as she had never before

been, spiritually tormented and restless. The thought framed itself that

Charlotte and Wilfrid were not, by any law of selection, to match. What

mattered it? Simply that it in some way seemed to increase the merits of

one of the two. The task, moreover, of avoiding to tease her brother was

made easier to her by flying to this new refuge of mysterious reflection.

At times she poured back the whole flood of her heart upon Merthyr, and

then in alarm at the host of little passions that grew cravingly alive in

her, she turned her thoughts to Wilfrid again; and so, till they turned

wittingly to him. That this host of little passions will invariably

surround a false great one, she learnt by degrees, by having to quell

them and rise out of them. She knew that now she occasionally forced her

passion for Merthyr; but what nothing could teach her was, that she did

so to eject another's image. On the contrary, her confession would have

been: "Voluntarily I dwell upon that other, that my love for Merthyr may

avoid excess." To such a state of clearness much self-questioning brought

her: but her blood was as yet unwarmed; and that is a condition fostering

self-deception as much as when it rages.

Madame Marini wrote to ask whether Emilia might receive the visits of a

Sir Purcell Barrett, whom they had met, and whom Emilia called her

friend; adding: "The other gentleman has called at our old lodgings three

times. The last time our landlady says, he wept. Is it an Englishman,

really?"

Merthyr laughed at this, remarking: "Charlotte is not so vigilant, after

all."

"He wept." Georgiana thought and remembered the cold self-command that

his face had shown when Emilia claimed him, and his sole reply was, "I am

engaged to this lady," designating Lady Charlotte. Now, too, some of

Emilia's phrases took life in her memory. She studied them, thinking over

them, as if a voice of nature had spoken. Less and less it seemed to her

that a woman need feel shame to utter them. She interpreted this as her

growth of charity for a girl so violently stricken with love. "In such a

case, the more she says the more is she to be excused; for nothing but a

frenzy of passion could move her to speak so," thought Georgiana.

Accepting the words, and sanctioning the passion, the person of him who

had inspired it stood magnified in its light. She believed that if he had

played with the girl, he repented, and the idea of a man shedding tears

burnt to her heart.

Merthyr and Georgiana remained in Devonshire till a letter from Madame

Marini one morning told them that Emilia had disappeared.

"You delayed too long to go to her, Merthyr," said his sister,

astonishing him. "I understand why; but you may trust to time and scorn

chance too much. Let us go now and find her, if it is not too late."

Marini met them at the station in London, and they heard that Wilfrid had

discovered Marini's new abode, and had called there that morning. "I had

my eye on him. It was not a piece of love-play," said Marini: "and today

she should have seen my Chief, which would have cured her of sis

pestilence of a love, to give her sublime thoughts. Do you love her, Miss

Ford? Aha! it will be Christian names in Italy again."

"I like her very much," said Georgiana; "but I confess it mystifies me to

see you all so excited about her. It must be some attraction possessed by

her--what, I cannot say. I like her, certainly."

"Figlia mia! she is an element--she is fire!" said Marini. "My sought,

when our Mertyr brought her, was, it is Italy he sees in her face--her

voice--name--anysing! And a day passed, and I could not lose her for my

own sake, and felt a somesing, too! She is half man."

"A singular reason for an attraction." Georgiana smiled.

"She is not," Marini put out his fingers like claws to explain, while his

eyelashes met over his eyes--"she is not what man has made of your sex;

and she is brave of heart."

"Can you possibly tell what such a child can be?" questioned Georgiana,

almost irritably.

Marini did not reply to her.

"A face to find a home in!--eh, Mertyr?"

"Let's discover where that face has found a home," said Merthyr. "She is

a very plain and unpretending person, if people will not insist upon her

being more. This morbid admiration of heroines puts a trifle too much

weight upon their shoulders, does it not?"

Georgiana knew that to call Emilia 'child' was to wound the most

sensitive nerve in Merthyr's system, if he loved her, and she had

determined to try harshly whether he did. Nevertheless, though the

expression succeeded, and was designedly cruel, she could not forgive the

insincerity of his last speech; craving in truth for confidence as her

smallest claim on him now. So, at all the consultations, she acquiesced

in any scheme that was proposed; the advertizings and the use of

detectives; the communication with Emilia's mother and father; and the

callings at suburban concert-rooms. Sir Purcell Barrett frequently called

to assist in the discovery. At first he led them to suspect Mr. Pericles;

but a trusty Italian playing spy upon that gentleman soon cleared him,

and they were more in the dark than ever. It was only when at last

Georgiana heard Merthyr, the picture of polished self-possession, giving

way to a burst of disappointment in the room before them all: "Are we

sure that she lives?" he cried:--then Georgiana, looking at the firelight

over her joined fingers, said:--

"But, have you forgotten the serviceable brigade you have in your

organ-boys, Marini? If Emilia sees one, be sure she will speak to him."

"Have I not said she is a General?" Marini pointed at Georgiana with a

gleam of his dark eyes, and Merthyr squeezed his sister's hand, thanking

her; by which he gave her one whole night of remorse, because she had not

spoken earlier.