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in short, while the fit lasts-and no slight remedy will cure it-it is dangerous to approach her-longé fuge she is no more herself; the turtle-dove being utterly lost in the termagant. Meanwhile, it is to be understood that the one character is not less feminine and becoming than the other. All is still love, and of the right stamp: you only see on these occasions how a cross stroke of passion is apt to turn up the wrong side of the medal.

The display of this headstrong impulse, however vividly painted and rich in dramatic effect, is at first sight more startling than attractive to strangers. Viewed alone, the petulance and perversity of jealous quarrels-too often a much ado about nothing' might be (This chapter will be

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SWORD AND GOWN.

BY THE AUTHOR OF GUY LIVINGSTONE.'

CHAPTER XVI.

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found it hard to obtain his own Pontifical absolution for the poisoned wine in which he pledged the Orsini and Colonna. In these, and a hundred like instances, there was certainly the shadowy excuse of political expediency or necessity; but what shall we say of that individual who interrupts the harmony of a meeting solely to gratify his own private pique or pleasure? Truly, with such enormities, Heaven 'heads the count of crimes.' I consider the most abominable act of which Eris was ever guilty, was the selection of that particular moment for the production of the golden apple. If she was bound to make herself obnoxious, she might have waited till the Olympians were sitting in conclave, or at least at home again; it was infamous to disturb them while doing justice to

been thus endangered, embraces his appeased mistress with unqualified rapture: the very malice of her jealousy only proves the ardour of her love. Even the crimes suggested by jealous revenge will be counted virtues on certain occasions. Thus, in Boyl's Marido Asegurado, the heroine Menandra, whose trial by a sus picious husband is the subject of the play, is tempted, amongst other things by the pretence of a rival, and her endeavour to poison the cause of her jealousy, instead of revenging herself by listening to a lover, is represented as the crowning display of her virtue.

1859.]

Consequence of Mr. Fullarton's Disclosure.

the talents of Peleus's cordon-bleu. I wish very much, that injured and querulous Enone had met her somewhere on the slopes of Ida, and given her a piece of her mind.'

On these grounds, I venture to hope that all well-regulated readers will concur with me in pronouncing Mr. Fullarton's conduct totally indefensible. It would have been so easy to have communicated his intelligence to any that it might concern, discreetly, at a fitting place and time, instead of casting it into the midst of a convivial assembly like a fulminating ball. Under other circumstances he would probably have taken the quieter course; but he had been smarting for some time under a succession of provocations, real and fancied, from Royston Keene, and his own misadventure that morning had filled the cup of irritation brimful. It was the old exasperating feeling

Earl Percy sees my fall.

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Whatever might be the cost, he could not make up his mind to let slip so fair a chance of embarrassing his imperturbable enemy; there is no saying what he would have given to see that marvellous self-command for once thoroughly break down. It is unfortunate that the best laid plans cannot always ensure triumph. The Chaplain certainly did succeed in producing a situation,' and in reducing most of the party to that uncomfortable frame of mind which is popularly described as wishing oneself any. where;' but the person who seemed most completely unconcerned was the man at whom the blow was levelled.

The Major shook his head with a quick gesture of impatience, just as if some insect had lighted on his forehead; beyond this, for any evidence of his being annoyed by it, Mr. Fullarton's last remark might have related to missionary prospects or Chinese politics. The steady colour on his swarthy face neither lost nor gained a shade; there was not a sign of anger, or shame, or confusion in his clear, bold eyes; and when he answered, there was not one fresh furrow on the brow that, at lighter provocation, was so apt to frown.

VOL. LX. NO. CCCLVII.

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'I give you credit for being utterly ignorant of what you are talking about, Mr. Fullarton. You could not possibly guess how disagreeable the subject would be to me. As it can't be in the least interesting to any one else, suppose we change it?'

Just the same cold, measured voice as ever, with only a slight sarcastic inflexion to vary the deep, grave tones; but a very close observer might have seen his fingers clench the handle of a knife while he was speaking, as if their gripe would have dinted the ivory.

It was hardly to be expected that the rest of the party would emulate. the sang-froid of the Cool Captain. Sailing under false colours is a convenient practice enough, and productive sometimes of many prizes; but divers penalties attach to its detection on land as well as on sea. Indeed it involves the necessity of somebody's appearing as a convicted impostor. On the present occasion -as the actor for whom the character was cast utterly declined to play it-the part fell to poor Harry Molyneux, who certainly looked it to perfection. In all his little diffi culties and troubles, when hard pressed, he was wont to fall back upon the reserve of la mignonne, sure of meeting there with sympathy, if not with succour. dared not do so now. He dared not encounter the reproach of the beautiful, gentle eyes that had never looked into his own otherwise than trustfully, since they first told the secret that she loved him dearly. The half-smothered cry that broke from Fanny's lips when the Chaplain made his disclosure, went straight to the heart of her treacherous husband: he felt as if he deserved that those pretty lips should never smile upon him again. O all my readers!-masculine

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especially-whose patience has carried you thus far, remark, I beseech you, the dangers that attend any dereliction from the duty of matrimonial confidence. What right have we to lock up the secrets of our most intimate friends, far less our own, instead of pouring them into the bosom of the βαθύκολπος ἄκοιτις, which is capacious enough to hold them all, were they tenfold more

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numerous and weighty? Such reticence is rife with awful peril. In our folly and blindness we fancy ourselves secure, while the ground is mined under our guilty feet, and the explosion is even now preparing, from which only our disjecta membra will emerge. Of course some cold-hearted caviller will begin to quote instances of carefully planned and promising conspiracies, which miscarried solely because the details reached a feminine ear. It may have been so; but I don't see what business conspiracies have to succeed at all. Long live the Constitution! Truly, such delightful confidences must be something one-sided; for the mildest Griselda of them all would be led as a Martha to the Stakes,' sooner than concede to her husband the unrestricted supervision of her correspondence. I have indeed a dim recollection of having heard of one bride of seventeen, who, during the honeymoon, was weak and (selon les dames) wicked enough, to submit to profane male eyes epistles received from the friends of her youth, in their simple entirety, instead of reading out an expurgated edition of the same. She had been brought up in a very dungeon of decorum by a terrible grandmother, a rigid moralist whom no

man

ever yet beheld without a shiver; and during those first few weeks after her escape she was probably intoxicated by the novel sense of freedom; besides which she was perfectly infatuated about 'Reginald; but all this could not exculpate her when arraigned before her peers. She lived long enough to repent and to reassert, to some extent, her lost matronly dignity; but she died very young-let us hope in fair course of nature. She had violated the first law of a guild more numerous and influential than that of the Freemasons: examples are necessary from time to time; and though the Vehme-gericht may pity the offender, it may not therefore linger in its vengeance. Nevertheless, my brethren, our course is clear. Let us resign to the chatelaine the key of the letter-bag and the censorship thereof. If, after due warning, our light-minded

friends will write to us in terms that mislike that excellent and

punctilious inspectress, they must abye it in the cold looks and bitter inuendoes which will be their portion when they come to us in the next hunting season. Our conscience, at least, will be pure and undefiled, and we shall pass to the end of our pilgrimage sans peur, though, perchance, even then not sans reproche. Servitudes,' as Miggs, the veteran vestal, remarked, is no inheritance;' but there are natures who thrive rarely in this tranquil and inglorious condition. Such men live, as a rule, pretty contentedly, to a great old age, and die in the odour of intense respectability. Salubrious, it seems, as well as creditable to the patient, is a régime of moderate hen-pecking; only it is necessary, that he should be of the intermediate species between Socrates and Georges Dandin.

Mrs. Danvers would certainly have indulged openly in that immoderate exultation to which all minor prophets are prone when their predictions chance to be verified, but this was checked by her constitutional timidity. She was horribly afraid of the effect that the revelation might have on her patroness. Therefore what precise meaning was implied by the complicated contortions of her countenance no mortal can guess or know. sensations probably resolved themselves into an excess of admiration for the Pastor in his new character of a denouncer of detected guilt, and champion of imperilled innocence; added to which was a vague desire to launch her own Anathema Maranatha at Royston Keene.

Her

Dick Tresilyan took the whole thing with remarkable_coolness, not to say complacency. He nodded his head, and smiled, and winked cunningly aside at Molyneux, as if to intimate that he had known all about it long ago; and indeed so far he had been admitted into the Major's confidence on the night when the latter was supposed to have lost his head.' By what sophistries Royston had succeeded in masking his purpose and making his case good, even to such an unsuspicious mind and easy morality, the devil could best tell, who in such schemes had rarely failed him.

We have left Cecil to the last.

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My proud, beautiful Cecil-was she not born for better things, than to be made the prize of all those plottings and counter-plottings-to surrender the key of her heart's treasures to one who was unworthy to kiss the hem of her robe-and now, to have her self-command tried so cruelly, to gratify the wounded vanity of a weak, shallow enthusiast?

She did not flinch or start when Mr. Fullarton's words caught her ear, but a heavy, chill faintness stole over her, till she felt all her limbs benumbed, and everything before her eyes grew misty and dim. The numbness passed away almost immediately, but still the figures around her appeared distorted and fantastically exaggerated; they seemed to be tossing and whirling round one steadfast centre, as the dead leaves in winter eddy round the marble head of a statue; that single centre - object remained, throughout, distinct and unaltered in its aspect, while all else was confused and uncertain-the face of Royston Keene. The sight of that face-not defiant or even stern, but immutable in its cold tranquillityacted on Cecil as a magical restorative: it seemed as though he were able, by some mesmeric influence, to impart to her a portion of his own miraculous self-control. Before his reply to the Chaplain was ended, she threw back her proud head with the old imperial gesture, as if scorning her own momentary weakness; nomist or shadow clouded the brilliant violet eyes; she might speak safely now, without risking a false note in the music. It was no light peril that she escaped; the betrayal of emotion under such circumstances would have weighed down a meeker spirit than The Tresilyan's, with a sense of ineffaceable shame; for remember-however marked her partiality for Keene might have been-there had been no suspicion of an engagement between them. Had she broken down then, she would not have forgiven Royston to her dying day: she never did forgive the Chaplain. As it was-by a strange anomaly at the very moment when she became aware of having been deluded and misled, in inten

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333

tion if not by actually spoken words -when she had most reason to hate or despise the enemy who had done her this dishonour'-she felt his hold upon her heart strengthened, as though he had justified his right to command it. Not to women alone, but to all beautiful, wild creatures, the ancient aphorism applies the harder they are to discipline, the better they love their tamer. Cecil thought, there is not another man alive whose eyes could meet mine so daringly;' and the haughty spirit bowed itself, and did obeisance to its suzerain. Different in many respects as Good can be from Evil-in one, those two were as fairly matched as Thiodolf and Isolde. Who can tell what wealth of happiness might have been stored up for both, if they had only not met -too late?

These two words seem to me the most of any that are written or spoken. They strike the key-note of so many human agonies, that they might form a motto, apter than Dante's, for the gates of Hell. Very few may hear them without a melancholy thrill; well-if they do not bring a bitter pang. Like those awful conjurations that blanched in utterance the lips of the boldest Magi, they have a fearful power to wake the dead. Lo! they are scarcely syllabled when there is a stir in the grave-yard where sad or guilty memories lie buried; the air is alive with phantoms; the watcher may close his eyes if he will: not the less is he sensible of the presence of those pale ghosts that come trooping to their vengeance. Many, many hours must pass before the spell is learned that will send them back to their tombs again.

Not long ago I heard a story that bears upon this. The man of whom it was told lost his love after he had fairly wooed and won her. It matters not what suspicion, or misconception, or treachery parted them; but parted they were for eight miserable years. Then the lady repented or relented, and came to her lover to make her confession. When she had done speaking, she looked up into his face: she saw no light of gladness or welcome there only a deepening and darkening

of the weary look of pain: the arms whose last tender clasp she had not forgotten yet, never opened to draw her to his breast. He bent his head down upon his shaking hands, and the heavy drops that are sometimes wrung from strong men in their agony began to trickle through his fingers. In old days

he could never bear to see her sad for a moment; now, he sat as though he heard her not, while she lay at his feet, wailing to be forgiven. When he could perfectly control his voice he said

More than once, in my dreams, I have seen you so, and I have heard you say what you have said to-day. I answered then as I answer now-I never can forgive you. I do not know that you would not regain your old ascendancy: I believe you are as dangerous, and I as weak, as ever. But I do know that, the more fascinating I found you, the harder it would be to bear. Thinking of what I had missed through that accursed time of famine, would drive me mad soon. I have got used to my present burden: I wont give you the chance of making it heavier. Those tears of mine were selfish as well as childish: they were given to the happiness and hope that you killed eight years ago. Stay-we parted with a show of kindness then: we will not part in anger now.'

He laid his lips on her forehead as he raised her up-a grave, cold, passionless kiss, such as is pressed on the brow of a dear friend lying in his shroud. They never met alone again.

It is exasperating to think how long I have taken to describe events and emotions that passed in the space of a few minutes; but to place all the dramatis persona in their proper positions does take time, unless the stagemanager is very experienced. Will you be good enough to imagine the pic-nic broken up (not in confusion), and the strayed revellers' on their way to Dorade? Nothing worthy of note occurred on the spot; a commonplace conversation having been started and maintained in a way equally creditable to all parties concerned.

CHAPTER XVII.

All the inquiries that the Chaplain had felt it his duty' to make respecting the antecedents of Royston Keene had failed to elicit anything more discreditable than may be said of the generality of men who have spent a dozen years in rather a fast regiment, keeping up to the standard of the corps. Doubtless graver charges might have been imputed to him, if the whole truth had been known; but the living witnesses who could have proved them had good reasons for their silence. Whether successful or defeated, the Cool Captain was not wont to take the world into his con. fidence. As for betraying his own or another's secrets-his lips were about as likely to do that as those of an effigy on a tombstone.

Naples was a cover that the reverend investigator had not drawn ; so he was considerably startled by the following words in a letter from thence, received that morning:'I meet a lady constantly in society here, of whose history I am curious to know more. She is the wife of Major Keene, the famous Indian sabreur; but has been separated from him for several years. She never makes an allusion to his existence; it was by the merest chance that I heard this, and also that her husband is spending the winter at Dorade. Perhaps you can throw some light on the cause of the "separate maintenance ?" People are not particular here, and have no right to be; still, one would like to know. I fancy it cannot be her fault she is perfectly gentle in her manner, but rather cold-very beautiful too, in a placid, statuesque style.' It is not worth transcribing the writer's further speculations. If a silent, but ultra-fervent benediction can at all profit the person for whom it is intended, very few people have been so well paid for epistolary labour, as was, then, Mr. Fullarton's correspondent. The reason why has already been explained.

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Well, he had made his great coup without carefully counting the cost -that financial pleasure was still to come. He could not help feeling that it had been rather a fiasco.

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