expression not its own, and produces music instead of noise. The
fine organization which can work this miracle had not been
bestowed on Mrs. Glenarm. She had been carefully taught; and she
was to be trusted to play correctly--and that was all. Julius,
hungry for music, and reigned to circumstances, asked for no
more.
The servant returned with his answer. Mrs. Glenarm would join Mr.
Delamayn in the music-room in ten minutes' time.
Julius rose, relieved, and resumed his sauntering walk; now
playing little snatches of music, now stopping to look at the
flowers on the terrace, with an eye that enjoyed their beauty,
and a hand that fondled them with caressing touch. If Imperial
Parliament had seen him at that moment, Imperial Parliament must
have given notice of a question to his illustrious father: Is it
possible, my lord, that _ you_ can have begotten such a Member as
this?
After stopping for a moment to tighten one of the strings of his
violin, Julius, raising his head from the instrument, was
surprised to see a lady approaching him on the terrace. Advancing
to meet her, and perceiving that she was a total stranger to him,
he assumed that she was, in all probability, a visitor to his
wife.
"Have I the honor of speaking to a friend of Mrs. Delamayn's?" he
asked. "My wife is not at home, I am sorry to say."
"I am a stranger to Mrs. Delamayn," the lady answered. "The
servant informed me that she had gone out; and that I should find
Mr. Delamayn here."
Julius bowed--and waited to hear more.
"I must beg you to forgive my intrusion," the stranger went on.
"My object is to ask permission to see a lady who is, I have been
informed, a guest in your house."
The extraordinary formality of the request rather puzzled Julius.
"Do you mean Mrs. Glenarm?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Pray don't think any permission necessary. A friend of Mrs.
Glenarm's may take her welcome for granted in this house."
"I am not a friend of Mrs. Glenarm. I am a total stranger to
her."
This made the ceremonious request preferred by the lady a little
more intelligible--but it left the lady's object in wishing to
speak to Mrs. Glenarm still in the dark. Julius politely waited,
until it pleased her to proceed further, and explain herself The
explanation did not appear to be an easy one to give. Her eyes
dropped to the ground. She hesitated painfully.
"My name--if I mention it," she resumed, without looking up, "may
possibly inform you--" She paused. Her color came and went. She
hesitated again; struggled with her agitation, and controlled it.
"I am Anne Silvester," she said, suddenly raising her pale face,
and suddenly steadying her trembling voice.
Julius started, and looked at her in silent surprise.
The name was doubly known to him. Not long since, he had heard it
from his father's lips, at his father's bedside. Lord Holchester
had charged him, had earnestly charged him, to bear that name in
mind, and to help the woman who bore it, if the woman ever
applied to him in time to come. Again, he had heard the name,
more lately, associated scandalously with the name of his
brother. On the receipt of the first of the anonymous letters
sent to her, Mrs. Glenarm had not only summoned Geoffrey himself
to refute the aspersion cast upon him, but had forwarded a
private copy of the letter to his relatives at Swanhaven.
Geoffrey's defense had not entirely satisfied Julius that his
brother was free from blame. As he now looked at Anne Silvester,
the doubt returned upon him strengthened--almost confirmed. Was
this woman--so modest, so gentle, so simply and unaffectedly
refined--the shameless adventuress denounced by Geoffrey, as
claiming him on the strength of a foolish flirtation; knowing
herself, at the time, to be privately married to another man? Was
this woman--with the voice of a lady, the look of a lady, the
manner of a lady--in league (as Geoffrey had declared) with the
illiterate vagabond who was attempting to extort money
anonymously from Mrs. Glenarm? Impossible! Making every allowance
for the proverbial deceitfulness of appearances, impossible!
"Your name has been mentioned to me," said Julius, answering her
after a momentary pause. His instincts, as a gentleman, made him
shrink from referring to the association of her name with the
name of his brother. "My father mentioned you," he added,
considerately explaining his knowledge of her in _that_ way,
"when I last saw him in London."
well as a look of astonishment in her face. "Your father is Lord
Holchester--is he not?"
"Yes."
"What made him speak of _me?_"
"He was ill at the time," Julius answered. "And he had been
thinking of events in his past life with which I am entirely
unacquainted. He said he had known your father and mother. He
desired me, if you were ever in want of any assistance, to place
my services at your disposal. When he expressed that wish, he
spoke very earnestly--he gave me the impression that there was a
feeling of regret associated with the recollections on which he
had been dwelling."
Slowly, and in silence, Anne drew back to the low wall of the
terrace close by. She rested one hand on it to support herself.
Julius had said words of terrible import without a suspicion of
what he had done. Never until now had Anne Silvester known that
the man who had betrayed her was the son of that other man whose
discovery of the flaw in the marriage had ended in the betrayal
of her mother before her. She felt the shock of the revelation
with a chill of superstitious dread. Was the chain of a fatality
wound invisibly round her? Turn which way she might was she still
going darkly on, in the track of her dead mother, to an appointed
and hereditary doom? Present things passed from her view as the
awful doubt cast its shadow over her mind. She lived again for a
moment in the time when she was a child. She saw the face of her
mother once more, with the wan despair on it of the bygone days
when the title of wife was denied her, and the social prospect
was closed forever.
Julius approached, and roused her.
"Can I get you any thing?" he asked. "You are looking very ill. I
hope I have said nothing to distress you?"
The question failed to attract her attention. She put a question
herself instead of answering it.
"Did you say you were quite ignorant of what your father was
thinking of when he spoke to you about me?"
"Quite ignorant."
"Is your brother likely to know more about it than you do?"
"Certainly not."
She paused, absorbed once more in her own thoughts. Startled, on
the memorable day when they had first met, by Geoffrey's family
name, she had put the question to him whether there had not been
some acquaintance between their pare
nts in the past time.
Deceiving her in all else, he had not deceived in this. He had
spoken in good faith, when he had declared that he had never
heard her father or her mother mentioned at home.
The curiosity of Julius was aroused. He attempted to lead her on
into saying more.
"You appear to know what my father was thinking of when he spoke
to me," he resumed. "May I ask--"
She interrupted him with a gesture of entreaty.
"Pray don't ask! It's past and over--it can have no interest for
you--it has nothing to do with my errand here. I must return,"
she went on, hurriedly, "to my object in trespassing on your
kindness. Have you heard me mentioned, Mr. Delamayn, by another
member of your family besides your father?"
Julius had not anticipated that sh e would approach, of her own
accord, the painful subject on which he had himself forborne to
touch. He was a little disappointed. He had expected more
delicacy of feeling from her than she had shown.
"Is it necessary," he asked, coldly, "to enter on that?"
The blood rose again in Anne's cheeks.
"If it had not been necessary," she answered, "do you think I
could have forced myself to mention it to _you?_ Let me remind
you that I am here on sufferance. If I don't speak plainly (no
matter at what sacrifice to my own feelings), I make my situation
more embarrassing than it is already. I have something to tell
Mrs. Glenarm relating to the anonymous letters which she has
lately received. And I have a word to say to her, next, about her
contemplated marriage. Before you allow me to do this, you ought
to know who I am. (I have owned it.) You ought to have heard the
worst that can be said of my conduct. (Your face tells me you
have heard the worst.) After the forbearance you have shown to
me, as a perfect stranger, I will not commit the meanness of
taking you by surprise. Perhaps, Mr. Delamayn, you understand,
_now,_ why I felt myself obliged to refer to your brother. Will
you trust me with permission to speak to Mrs. Glenarm?"
resignation of look and manner. Julius gave her back the respect
and the sympathy which, for a moment, he had unjustly withheld
from her.
"You have placed a confidence in me," he said "which most persons
in your situation would have withheld. I feel bound, in return to
place confidence in you. I will take it for granted that your
motive in this matter is one which it is my duty to respect. It
will be for Mrs. Glenarm to say whether she wishes the interview
to take place or not. All that I can do is to leave you free to
propose it to her. You _are_ free."
As he spoke the sound of the piano reached them from the
music-room. Julius pointed to the glass door which opened on to
the terrace.
"You have only to go in by that door," he said, "and you will
find Mrs. Glenarm alone."
Anne bowed, and left him. Arrived at the short flight of steps
which led up to the door, she paused to collect her thoughts
before she went in.
A sudden reluctance to go on and enter the room took possession
of her, as she waited with her foot on the lower step. The report
of Mrs. Glenarm's contemplated marriage had produced no such
effect on her as Sir Patrick had supposed: it had found no love
for Geoffrey left to wound, no latent jealousy only waiting to be
inflamed. Her object in taking the journey to Perth was completed
when her correspondence with Geoffrey was in her own hands again.
The change of purpose which had brought her to Swanhaven was due
entirely to the new view of her position toward Mrs. Glenarm
which the coarse commonsense of Bishopriggs had first suggested
to her. If she failed to protest against Mrs. Glenarm's marriage,
in the interests of the reparation which Geoffrey owed to her,
her conduct would only confirm Geoffrey's audacious assertion
that she was a married woman already. For her own sake she might
still have hesitated to move in the matter. But Blanche's
interests were concerned as well as her own; and, for Blanche's
sake, she had resolved on making the journey to Swanhaven Lodge.
At the same time, feeling toward Geoffrey as she felt
now--conscious as she was of not really desiring the reparation
on which she was about to insist--it was essential to the
preservation of her own self-respect that she should have some
purpose in view which could justify her to her own conscience in
assuming the character of Mrs. Glenarm's rival.
She had only to call to mind the critical situation of
Blanche--and to see her purpose before her plainly. Assuming that
she could open the coming interview by peaceably proving that her
claim on Geoffrey was beyond dispute, she might then, without
fear of misconception, take the tone of a friend instead of an
enemy, and might, with the best grace, assure Mrs. Glenarm that
she had no rivalry to dread, on the one easy condition that she
engaged to make Geoffrey repair the evil that he had done. "Marry
him without a word against it to dread from _me_--so long as he
unsays the words and undoes the deeds which have thrown a doubt
on the marriage of Arnold and Blanche." If she could but bring
the interview to this end--there was the way found of extricating
Arnold, by her own exertions, from the false position in which
she had innocently placed him toward his wife! Such was the
object before her, as she now stood on the brink of her interview
with Mrs. Glenarm.
Up to this moment, she had firmly believed in her capacity to
realize her own visionary project. It was only when she had her
foot on the step that a doubt of the success of the coming
experiment crossed her mind. For the first time, she saw the weak
point in her own reasoning. For the first time, she felt how much
she had blindly taken for granted, in assuming that Mrs. Glenarm
would have sufficient sense of justice and sufficient command of
temper to hear her patiently. All her hopes of success rested on
her own favorable estimate of a woman who was a total stranger to
her! What if the first words exchanged between them proved the
estimate to be wrong?
It was too late to pause and reconsider the position. Julius
Delamayn had noticed her hesitation, and was advancing toward her
from the end of the terrace. There was no help for it but to
master her own irresolution, and to run the risk boldly. "Come
what may, I have gone too far to stop _here._" With that
desperate resolution to animate her, she opened the glass door at
the top of the steps, and went into the room.
Mrs. Glenarm rose from the piano. The two women--one so richly,
the other so plainly dressed; one with her beauty in its full
bloom, the other worn and blighted; one with society at her feet,
the other an outcast living under the bleak shadow of
reproach--the two women stood face to face, and exchanged the
cold co
urtesies of salute between strangers, in silence.
The first to meet the trivial necessities of the situation was
Mrs. Glenarm. She good-humoredly put an end to the
embarrassment--which the shy visitor appeared to feel acutely--by
speaking first.
"I am afraid the servants have not told you?" she said. "Mrs.
Delamayn has gone out."
"I beg your pardon--I have not called to see Mrs. Delamayn."
Mrs. Glenarm looked a little surprised. She went on, however, as
amiably as before.
"Mr. Delamayn, perhaps?" she suggested. "I expect him here every
moment."
Anne explained again. "I have just parted from Mr. Delamayn."
Mrs. Glenarm opened her eyes in astonishment. Anne proceeded. "I
have come here, if you will excuse the intrusion--"
She hesitated--at a loss how to end the sentence. Mrs. Glenarm,
beginning by this time to feel a strong curiosity as to what
might be coming next, advanced to the rescue once more.
"Pray don't apologize," she said. "I think I understand that you
are so good as to have come to see _me._ You look tired. Won't
you take a chair?"
Anne could stand no longer. She took the offered chair. Mrs.
Glenarm resumed her place on the music-stool, and ran her fingers
idly over the keys of the piano. "Where did you see Mr.
Delamayn?" she went on. "The most irresponsible of men, except
when he has got his fiddle in his hand! Is he coming in soon? Are
we going to have any music? Have you come to play with us? Mr.
Delamayn is a perfect fanatic in music, isn't he? Why isn't he
here to introduce us? I suppose you like the classical style,
too? Did you know that I was in the music-room? Might I ask your
name?"
Frivolous as they were, Mrs. Glenarm's questions were not without
their use. They gave Anne time to summon her resolution, and to
feel the necessity of explaining herself.
"I am speaking, I believe, to Mrs. Glenarm?" she began.
The good-humored widow smiled and bowed graciously.
"I have come here, Mrs. Glenarm--by Mr. Delamayn's permission--to
ask leave to speak to you on a matter in which you are
interested."
Mrs. Glenarm's many-ringed fingers paused over the keys of the
piano. Mrs. Gle narm's plump face turned on the stranger with a
dawning expression of surprise.
"Indeed? I am interested in so many matters. May I ask what
_this_ matter is?"
The flippant tone of the speaker jarred on Anne. If Mrs.
Glenarm's nature was as shallow as it appeared to be on the
surface, there was little hope of any sympathy establishing
itself between them.
"I wished to speak to you," she answered, "about something that
happened while you were paying a visit in the neighborhood of
Perth."
The dawning surprise in Mrs. Glenarm's face became intensified
into an expression of distrust. Her hearty manner vanished under
a veil of conventional civility, drawn over it suddenly. She
looked at Anne. "Never at the best of times a beauty," she
thought. "Wretchedly out of health now. Dressed like a servant,
and looking like a lady. What _does_ it mean?"
The last doubt was not to be borne in silence by a person of Mrs.
Glenarm's temperament. She addressed herself to the solution of
it with the most unblushing directness--dextrously excused by the
most winning frankness of manner.
"Pardon me," she said. "My memory for faces is a bad one; and I
don't think you heard me just now, when I asked for your name.
Have we ever met before?"
"Never."
"And yet--if I understand what you are referring to--you wish to
speak to me about something which is only interesting to myself
and my most intimate friends."
"You understand me quite correctly," said Anne. "I wish to speak
to you about some anonymous letters--"
"For the third time, will you permit me to ask for your name?"
"You shall hear it directly--if you will first allow me to finish