in this great london world of ours it is our boast that we live free and unfettered by the opinions of our neighbours; that we may be unacquainted with those persons who for a score of years have resided on either side of us; that our sayings and doings, our "goings on," the company we keep, the lives we lead, and the pursuits we follow, are nothing to anybody, and are consequently unnoticed. we pride ourselves on this not a little; we shrug our shoulders and elevate our eyebrows when we talk of the small scandal and the petty spite of provincial towns; we are grateful that, in whatever state the larger vices may be, the smaller ones, at all events, do not flourish among us; and, in short, we take to ourselves enormous credit for the possession of something which has not the slightest real existence, and for the absence of something else which is of daily growth. it is true that in london a man need not be particular about the shape of his hat or the cut of his coat, so far as london itself is concerned, any more than he need fear that his having taken too much wine at a public dinner, or held a lengthened flirtation with a barmaid, will appear in the public prints; but in his own circle, be it high or low, large or small, pharisaical or liberal-minded, as much attention will be paid to all he does, his speeches, actions, and mode of life will be the subject of as much spiteful comment, as if he lived at hull or vegetated at york. the insane desire to talk about trifles, to indulge in childish chit-chat and terrible twaddle, to erect mole-hills into mountains, and to find spots in social suns, exists everywhere amongst people who have nothing to do, and who carry out the doctrine laid down by dr. watts by applying their "idle hands" to "some mischief still." the duke of dilworth, interested in the management of his own estates, looking after the race-horses under his trainer's care, hunting up his political influence, and seeing that it sustains no diminution, marking catalogues of coming picture-sales for purchases which he has long expected must enter the market, devising alterations in his highland shooting-box, planning yachting expeditions, going through, in fact, that business of pleasure which is the real business of his life, has no time for profitless talk and ridiculous gossip, which, as his grace says, "he leaves for women." but the women like what is left for them. the duchess and the ladies daffy have none of these occupations to fill the "fallow leisure of their lives"--their calls and visits, their fête-attendances and garden-parties, their play at poor-visitings and high-church-service frequentings, leave them yet an enormous margin of waste time, which is more or less filled up by tattle of a generally derogatory nature. it is the same in nearly every class of life: men must work, and women must talk; and when they talk, their conversation is robbed of half its zest and point if it be not disparaging and detrimental to their dearest friends.

it was not to be imagined that the ramsay-caird ménage, even had it been very differently constituted, could have escaped criticism; as it was, it courted it. the mere fact of ramsay caird himself having somehow or other slipped into the society of nous autres (it was solely through the kilsyths that he was known in the set), and having had the audacity to carry away one of the prizes, would in itself have attracted sufficient attention to him and his, had other inducements been wanting. but other inducements were not wanting. the alteration which had taken place in madeleine since her illness in scotland, more especially since the time of the announcement of her engagement, was matter of public comment; and all kinds of stories were set afloat by her dearest friends to account for it. that she had had some dreadful love-affair, highly injudicious, impossible of achievement, was one of the most romantic; and being one of the most mischievous, consequently became one of the most popular theories, the only difficulty being to find for this desperate affair--which, it was said, had superinduced her illness, scarlet-fever being, as is well known to the faculty, essentially a mental disease--a hero. the list of visitors to the house was discussed in half-a-dozen different places; but no one at all likely to fill the character could be found, until colonel jefferson was accidentally hit upon. this, coupled with the fact that colonel jefferson's mad pursuit of lady emily fairfax, which everyone knew had so long existed, had ceased about that time, was extensively promulgated, and pretty generally accepted. so extensively promulgated, that it reached the ears of colonel jefferson himself, and elicited from him an expression of opinion couched in language rather stronger than that gallant officer usually permitted himself the use of--to the effect that, if he found anyone engaged in the fetching and carrying of such infernal lies, he, colonel jefferson, should make it his business to inflict personal chastisement on him, the said fetcher and carrier. a representation of this kind coming from a very big and strong man, who in such matters had the reputation of keeping his promise, had the effect of doing away with all identification of mrs. ramsay caird's supposed heartbroken lover, and of restoring him his anonymity, but the fact of his existence, still was whispered abroad; else why had one of the brightest girls of the past season--not that there was ever anything in her very clever, or that she was ever anything but extremely "missy," but still a pleasant, cheerful kind of girl in her way--why had she become dull and triste, and obviously uncaring for anything? that was what society wanted to know.

as for her husband, as for ramsay caird, society's tongue said very little about him; but society's shoulders, and eyebrows, and hands, and fluttering fans, hinted a great deal. society was divided on the subject of mr. ramsay caird. one portion of it threw out nebulous allusions to the fascinations of madame favorita of the italian opera, suggested the usual course pursued by beggars who had been set upon horseback, wondered how madeleine's relations could endure the state of things which existed under their very eyes, and thought that the time could not be very far distant when captain kilsyth--who had the name, as you very well know, my dear, for being so very particular in such matters, not to say strait-laced--would call his brother-in-law to account for his goings on. the other portion of society was more liberal, so far at least as the gentleman was concerned. what, it asked, was the position of a man who found his newly-married wife evidently preoccupied with the loss of some previous flirtation? what was to be expected from a man who had found dead-sea apples instead of fruit, and utter indifference instead of conjugal love and domestic happiness? the nous-autres feeling penetrated into the discussion. it was not likely that a young man who had been brought up in a different sphere, who had been, if what people said was correct, a clerk or something of the kind to a lawyer in edinburgh, could comprehend the necessity for such a course of conduct under the circumstances as the belonging to their class would naturally dictate. if mr. caird had made a mistake--well, mistakes were often made, often without getting the equivalent which he, in allying himself with an old family in the position of the kilsyths, had secured for himself. but they were always borne sub silentio--at all events the sufferer, however he might seek for distraction in private, did not let the mistake which he had made, and the means he had adopted for his own compensation, become such common gossip-matter for the world at large.

such conversation as this is not indulged in without its reaching the ears of those most concerned. when one says most concerned, one means those likely to take most concern in it. it is doubtful if madeleine's ears were ever disturbed by any of the rumours in which she played so prominent a part. it is certain that her husband never knew of the interest which he excited in so many of his acquaintances; equally certain that if he had known it, the knowledge thus gained would not have caused him an emotion. lady muriel, however, was fully acquainted with all that was said. the world, which did her homage as one of its queens of fashion, took every possible occasion to remind her that she was mortal, and found no better opportunity than in pointing out the mistake which she had made in the marriage of her stepdaughter and the settlement in life of her protégé. odd words dropped here and there, sly hints, innuendoes, phrases capable of double meaning, and always receiving the utmost perversion which could be employed in their warping, nay, in some instances, anonymous letters--the basest shifts to which treachery can stoop,--all these ingredients were made use of for the poisoning of lady muriel's cup of life, and for the undermining of that pinnacle to which society had raised her.

nor was ronald kilsyth ignorant of the world's talk and the world's expressions. isolate himself as much as he would, be as self-contained and as solitary as an oyster, fend off confidence, shut his ears to gossip,--all he could do was to exclude pleasant things from him; the unpleasant had penetrating qualities, and invariably made their way. he knew well enough what was said in every kind of society about mr. and mrs. ramsay caird. when he dined away from the mess, he had a curiously unpleasant feeling that advantage would be taken of his absence to discuss that unfortunate ménage. when he dined at his club, he had a morbid horror lest the two men seated at the next table should begin to talk about it. the disappointment about the whole thing had been so great as to make him morbidly sensitive on the point, to ascribe to it far greater interest than it really possessed for the world in general, and to allow it to prey on his mind, and seriously to influence his health. it had been such a consummate failure! and he, as he owned to himself,--he was primarily responsible for the marriage! if lady muriel had not had his assistance, she would never have carried her point of getting madeleine for ramsay caird; one word from him would have nipped that acquaintance in the bud, would have stopped the completion of the project, no matter how far it had advanced. and he had never said that word. why? he comforted himself by thinking that caird had never shown himself in his real character before his marriage; but the fact was, although ronald would not avow it, that he had been hoodwinked by the deference so deftly paid to him both by his stepmother and her confederate, who had consulted him on all points, and cajoled him and used him as a tool in their hands. he thought over all this very bitterly now; he saw how he had been treated, and stamped and raved in impotent fury as he remembered how he had been led on step by step, and how weak and vacillating he must have appeared in a matter in which he was most deeply interested, and which, during the whole of its progress, he thought he was managing so well.

to no man in london could such a fiasco as his sister's marriage had turned out be more oppressively overwhelming, productive of more thorough disgust and annoyance than to ronald kilsyth. the fiasco was so glaring, that at once two points on which the young man most prided himself stood impugned. everyone knew that dear old kilsyth himself would not have interfered in such a matter, and that the final settlement of it, after lady muriel's light skirmishing had been done, must have been left to ronald, who was the sensible one of the family. he had then, in the eyes of the world, either had so little care for his sister's future as to sanction her marriage with a very ineligible man, or so little natural perspicacity and sharpness as to be deceived by such a shallow pretender as caird. that anyone should entertain either of these suppositions was gall and wormwood to ronald. he whose reputation forclear-headedness and far-seeing had only been equalled by the esteem in which by all men he had been held for his strict honesty and probity and the spartan quality of his virtue,--that he should be suspected--more than suspected, in certain quarters accused--of folly or want of proper caution where his sister was concerned, was to him inexpressibly painful. perhaps the worst thing of all was to know that people knew that he was aware of what was said, and that he suffered under the tittle-tattle and the gossip. he tried to forget that idea, to dispel and do away with it by changing his usual habits; he went about; he was seen--for one week--oftener in society than he had been for months previously: but the morbid feeling came upon him there; he fancied that people noticed his presence, and attributed it to its right cause; that every whisper which was uttered in the room had madeleine for its burden; that the whole company had their minds filled with him, and were thinking of him either pityingly, sarcastically, or angrily, according to their various temperaments.

he avoided brook-street at this time as religiously as he avoided the little residence in squab-street. he did not particularly care about meeting his father, though he thought kilsyth would probably know nothing of what so many were talking of; and he had resolutely shunned a meeting with lady muriel, for ronald in his inmost heart did his stepmother a gross injustice. he fully believed that she was perfectly cognisant of ramsay caird's real character; whereas, in truth, no one had been more astonished at what her protégé had proved himself than lady muriel--and very few more distressed. ronald, however, thought otherwise; and being a gentleman, he carefully avoided meeting her ladyship, lest he might lose his temper and forget himself. the kilsyth blood was hot, and even in the heir to the name there had been occasions when it was pretty nearly up to boiling-point.

for the same reason he avoided all chance of running across his brother-in-law. in common with most men of strong feelings always kept in a state of repression, ronald kilsyth was particularly sensitive; and the idea of the publicity already accruing to this wretched business being increased by any possible tattle of open rupture between members of the family horrified him dreadfully. if he did not dare trust himself with lady muriel, he should certainly have to exercise a much stronger command over himself in the event of his ever meeting ramsay caird. every governing principle of his life rose up within him against that young man; and on the first occasion of his hearing--accidentally, as men often hear things of the greatest import to themselves--of mr. caird's doings, ronald kilsyth had for the whole night paced his barrack-room, trying in every possible form to pick such a quarrel with caird as might leave no real clue to its origin, and enable him to work out his revenge without compromising anyone. but he soon saw the futility of any such proceeding, which, carried out between sous-officiers, might form the basis of a french drama, but which was impossible of execution between english gentlemen, and elected absence from squab-street, and total ignorance of mr. caird's mode of procedure, as his best aids to a tolerably quiet life for himself. besides, absence from squab-street meant absence from madeleine; and absence from madeleine meant a great deal to ronald kilsyth. he, in his self-examination found madeleine's behaviour since her marriage the one point on which he could neither satisfy himself by a feeling of pity nor bluster himself into a fit of indignation. he knew well enough what her abstracted manner, her dulness, her sad weary preoccupied mind, her impossibility to join in the nonsensical talk floating around her,--he knew well enough what all these symptoms meant. . if he had ever doubted that his sister had a strong affection for wilmot--and it is due to his perspicacity to say that no such doubt ever crossed his mind--he would have been certain of it now. if he had ever hoped--and he had hoped very earnestly--that any girlish predilection which his sister might have entertained for wilmot was merely girlish and evanescent, and would pass away with her marriage, he could not more effectually have blighted any such chance than by marrying her to the man whose suit he, her brother, had himself urged her to accept perhaps under happier circumstances that childish dream would have passed away, merged into a more happy realisation; but as it had eventuated, ronald knew perfectly well that madeleine could not but contrast the blank loveless present with the bright past, could not but compare the days when she now sat solitary and uncared for with those when the man for whom she had such intense veneration--for whom, as she doubtless had afterwards discovered, she had such honest, earnest love--had given up everything else to attend to her and shield her in the hour of danger. with such feelings as these at his heart, it was but little wonder that ronald sedulously avoided being thrown in madeleine's way.

he had always been so "odd;" his comings, and goings in brook-street had been so uncertain; it was so utterly impossible to tell when he might or might not be expected at his father's house, that his prolonged absence caused no astonishment to any of the members of the family, nor to any one of their regular visitors. lady muriel, indeed, with a kind of guilty consciousness of participation in his feelings, guessed the reason why her step-son eschewed their society; but no one else. and lady muriel, who from her first suspicion of ramsay caird's conduct--suspicion not entertained, be it understood, until some time after the marriage--had looked forward with great fear and trembling to a grand éclaircissement, a searching explanation with ronald, in which she would have to undergo an amount of cross-questioning in his hardest manner, and a judgment which would inevitably be pronounced against her, was rather glad that this whim had taken possession of ronald, and that her dies irae was consequently indefinitely deferred. but it happened one day that ronald, walking down to knightsbridge barracks, came upon his father waiting to cross the road at the corner of sloane-street, and came upon him so "plump" and so suddenly, that retreat was impossible. the young man accordingly, seeing how matters stood, advanced, and took his father by the hand.

in an instant he saw that one other, at all events, had suffered from the--well, there was no other word for it--the disgrace, the discredit, to say the least of it, which had fallen on the family during the past few months. kilsyth seemed aged by ten years. the light had died out of his bright blue eyes, and left them glassy and colourless, with red rims and heavy dark "pads" underneath each. the bright healthy colour had faded from his cheeks, and few would have recognised the lithe and active mountaineer, the never-tiring pedestrian, and the keen shot, in the bent and shrunken form which stood half-leaning on, half-idly dallying with, its stick. he pressed his son's hand warmly, however; and something like his well-known kind old smile lighted up his face as he exclaimed--

"ronald, i'm glad to see you, my boy! very glad! you've not been near us for ages! and not merely that--i can understand that--we're not very good company for young people now in brook-street; there's little inducement to come there now since poor maddy has left us. but i don't think that i was ever half so long in london without dining with you as your guest over there at the barracks. i used to like an outing with your fellows there; it brisked me up, and made me forget what an old fogie i am growing; but--but you haven't given me the chance this time, sir,--you haven't given me the chance!"

there was something in the evidently strained attempt at cheeriness with which his father said these words which contrasted so strongly with the depression under which it was impossible for him to prevent showing he was labouring, and with the marked alteration in his personal appearance, that touched ronald deeply. his heart sank within him, and his tongue grew dry; he had to clear his throat before he replied--and even then huskily--

"it is a long time since we've met, sir; and i confess the fault is mine--entirely mine. the fact is i've been very much engaged lately--regimental duty, and--and some business in which i've been particularly interested--business which i fear you would hardly care about--and--"

"likely enough, my dear boy!" said kilsyth, coming to his rescue, as he floundered about in a way very unusual to him. "likely enough! i never did care particularly for a good many of your pursuits, you know, ronald, though i tried very hard at one time--when you were quite a lad, i recollect--to understand them and share in them. but that was not to be. i was not bright enough. i'm of the old school, and what we old fellows cared about seems to have died out with our youth, and never to have interested anybody ever since. i don't say this complainingly--not in the least--but it was deuced odd. however, i'm very glad i've met you, ronald, for i have long wished--and lately, within the last few days more especially--to have a talk with you, a serious talk, my boy, which will take up some little time. have you half-an-hour you can give me now? i shall be very glad if you have."

it was coming at last. he had but put off the evil day, and now it was upon him. well--better to hear himself condemned by his father than by anyone else. let it come.

"my time is yours, sir," said ronald, almost echoing wilmot, as he remembered, on the day of that eventful interview in charles-street. "i shall of course be delighted to give my best attention to anything you may have to say."

"well, then, let's take a turn in the park opposite," said kilsyth, hooking his arm into his son's. "not among the people there, where we should be perpetually interrupted by having to speak to those folks who bail one so good-naturedly at every step, but away on the grass there, by ourselves."

the two men passed through the albert gate, and turning to the right, struck on to the piece of turf lying between the row and the drive. a few children were playing about, a few nurse-maids were here and there gossiping together; else they had it all to themselves.

"i want to talk to you," commenced kilsyth, "about your sister--about maddy. i have been a good deal to squab-street in the last few weeks, and i've thought maddy looks anything but as i should wish her to look. has that struck you, ronald?"

"i--i'm sorry to say that i haven't seen madeleine for some little time, sir. the business which, as i just explained to you, has prevented my coming to brook-street has equally prevented me from calling on her."

"of course, yes! i beg pardon--i forgot! well, maddy looks anything but well. for a long time past--indeed ever since her marriage--she has been singularly low-spirited and dull; very unlike her usual self."

"i don't know that that is much to be wondered at. madeleine was always a peculiar girl, in the sense that she had an extraordinary attachment for her home; and the fact of being parted from you, with whom all her life has been passed, and to whom she is devotedly attached, may explain the cause of any little temporary lowness of spirits."

"ye-es, that's true so far; but it's not that; i wish i could think it was. what you say, though, ronald, i think gets somewhat near the real cause. maddy has been unlike most other girls of her class; much more home-y and domestic, thinking much more of those around her with whom she has been brought into daily contact than of the outside pleasures, if i may so call them. and she's had a great deal of love. she's accustomed to it, and can't get on without it. love's just as essential to madeleine as light to the flowers, or the keen clear air to the stags. she's had it all her life, and she would die without it. and, ronald, i'll say to you what i'd not say to another soul upon earth, but what's lying heavy on my heart this month past--i doubt much whether she gets it, my boy; i doubt much whether she gets it."

the old man stopped suddenly in his walk, and clutched his son's arm, and looked up earnestly into his son's fade. there was so much sharp agony in the glance, hurried and fleeting though it was, that ronald scarcely knew what to say in reply to the quivering jerky speech.

his father saved him from his embarrassment by continuing: "i don't think she gets the love that she's been accustomed to, and that she had a right to expect. i tell you that maddy is not happy, ronald; that her little heart aches and pines for want of sympathy, for want of appreciation, for want of love. i'm an old fellow; but in this case i suppose my affection for my darling has opened my eyes, and i can see it all plainly."

"don't you think, sir, that your undoubted devotion to madeleine may, on the other hand, have had the effect of warping your judgment a little, and prejudicing you in the matter? though i've not seen my sister very lately, when i did see her i confess i did not observe any marked difference in her--any difference at all from what she has been during the last few months."

"the last few months! that's just it; that's just what--however, we'll come to that presently. i know you're wrong, ronald; i know that madeleine is thoroughly changed and altered from the bright darling girl of the old days. and i know why, my boy! god help me, i know why!"

again ronald essayed to speak, and again he only muttered unintelligibly.

"because her home is unhappy," said kilsyth, stopping short in his walk, and dropping his voice to a whisper; "because the marriage into which she was--was persuaded--i will use no harsh words--has proved a wretched one for her; because her husband has proved himself to be--god forgive me--a scoundrel!"

"you speak strongly, sir, notwithstanding your professions," said ronald, on whom warm words of any kind had always the effect of rendering him even more cold and stoical than was his wont.

"i speak strongly because i feel strongly, ronald! i don't expect you to share my feelings in this matter, but i do expect you to have some of your own, although you may not show them. for god's sake cast aside for a few minutes that cloak of frost in which you always shroud yourself, and let us talk as father and son about one who is daughter to the one and sister to the other!"

ronald looked up in surprise. he had never seen his father so much excited before.

"i have no doubt about this," continued kilsyth. "i have hoped against hope, and i have shut my eyes against what i have seen, hoping they might be fancies; and my ears against what i have heard, hoping they might be lies. but i can befool myself in this manner no longer. ah! to think of my darling thus--to think of my darling thus!" tears started to the old man's eyes, and he smote fiercely with his stick upon the ground.

"if you are really persuaded of this, sir," said ronald, "it is our duty to take immediate measures. mr. caird must be taught--"

"who brought him to our house?" asked kilsyth in a storm of passion; "or rather--not that--but when he was brought, who backed him up and encouraged him in every way? you, ronald! you--you--you! by your advice he was permitted free access to the house, was constantly thrown in madeleine's company, and gave the world to understand that he was going to marry her. i postponed the settling of the engagement once; but the second time, when--when i fancied that the child might have had some other views--might have formed some other fancy--you persuaded me to agree, and--"

"you should apportion the blame properly, sir," said ronald in his coldest tones. "i did not introduce caird to your house, nor was i the principal advocate of his cause."

"you're quite right, ronald, quite right--and i've been hasty and passionate and inconsiderate, i know; but if you knew how utterly heartbroken i am--"

"i think, with regard to mr. caird," interrupted ronald, "the best plan will be--"

"no, no; not caird now--leave him for the present; afterwards we'll do for him. now about maddy--nothing but about maddy--and not about her dulness, or anything of that kind, nor--worse, much worse--you recollect--no, you didn't know; i think you weren't there--what wilmot, dr. wilmot, said to me at kilsyth about her chest? he told me that one of her lungs was threatened--that the lungs were her weak point; and he asked me whether any of our family had suffered from such disease."

"well, sir," said ronald, anxiously now.

"this disease has been gaining ground for months past; i'm sure of it. i have had my opinions for some time; but maddy never complains, you know, and i didn't like to ask her about her symptoms, lest she might be frightened. but within the last few days she has been so bad that it has been evident to us all, to myself and--and lady muriel that the disease was on the increase. she caught cold at the theatre the other night, and her cough is now frightful. i have seen her just now, poor darling! she was on the sofa, but very weak--all they could do to get her there--and when the paroxysms of coughing come on it's awful to see her--she hardly seems to have the strength to live through them. my poor darling maddy!"

"what do the doctors say, sir? who is attending her?"

"whittaker--dr. whittaker--a very good man in his way, i daresay but--i don't know--somehow i don't think much of him. now that is the very point i wanted to talk to you about. somehow--how, i never understood--somebody--i don't know who--offended dr. wilmot, a man to whom we were under the greatest obligation for kindness rendered; and though he has been back in england for some time, he has never called in brook-street, nor on madeleine even, since his return. there is no one in whom i have such faith; there is no one, i am convinced, who understands madeleine's constitution like wilmot; and i want to know what is the best method for us to put our pride in our pockets and implore him to come and see her."

"you were not thinking of asking dr. wilmot to visit madeleine?"

"i was indeed. what objection could there possibly be?"

"i suppose you know that he has retired from practice, that he even declines to attend consultations, since he inherited mr. foljambe's money?"

"i know that; but i am perfectly certain, from what i saw of him at kilsyth, that if i were to go to him and tell him the state of affairs, he would overlook anything that may have annoyed him, and come and see maddy at once."

"that would be a condescension!" said ronald. "perhaps it might be on the other side that the 'overlooking' might be required. however, there are other reasons, sir, why i, for one, should think it highly inadvisable that dr. wilmot should be requested to visit my sister."

"what are they, then, in heaven's name, man?" said kilsyth petulantly. "you don't seem to see that the matter is of the utmost urgency."

"it is because of its urgency that i speak of it at all; it is by no means a pleasant topic for me or for any of us. you spoke to me just now, sir, in warm words of the part i took in pressing ramsay caird to visit at your house, and supporting his claims for madeleine. i don't know that i was at all eager for it at first; i'm certain i never cared particularly for ramsay caird; but i freely own that latterly i did my best for him, convinced that a speedy alliance with him was the only chance of rescuing madeleine from another offer which i was sure was impending--which would have been far more objectionable, and yet which she would have accepted."

"another offer?--from whom?"

"from the gentleman of whom you entertain so high an opinion--from dr. wilmot."

"from wilmot! an offer from wilmot to madeleine! you must be mad, ronald!"

"i never was more sane in my life, sir. i repeat, i am perfectly certain dr. wilmot was in love with madeleine, that he would have made her an offer, and that she would have accepted him."

"and why should she not have accepted him? god knows i would have welcomed him for a son-in-law, and--"

"i scarcely think this is the time to enter into that subject, sir; but now that i have enlightened you, i presume you see the objection to calling in dr. wilmot to my sister."

"i see the difficulty, ronald; but the objection and the difficulty shall be overcome. you shall yourself go and see wilmot; and i know he'll not refuse you."

"don't you think, sir, before i take upon myself to do that, it would be, to say the least of it, desirable that we should consult madeleine's husband?"

"indeed i do not, ronald," said kilsyth; "indeed i do not. in giving up my daughter to mr. caird i yielded privileges which i alone had enjoyed from her birth, and which i would gladly have retained until her death or mine. but i did not give up the privilege of watching over her health, more especially when it has been so shamefully neglected; and i shall claim the power to use it now."

"and you think, after all i have told you, that there is no objection to asking dr. wilmot to visit madeleine?"

"see here, ronald!--i will be very frank with you in this matter--i think that if i had known all you have told me now seven or eight months ago, we should never have had this conversation. for i firmly believe that--granting your ideas were correct--if my darling had married wilmot, he would have taken care both of her health and her happiness, both of which have been so grossly neglected."

the father and son took their way in silence back across the grass, each filled with his own reflections. they had only reached the albert gate, and were about to pass through it into the street, when a brougham passed them, and a gentleman sitting in it gravely saluted them.

"good heavens!" exclaimed kilsyth; "there's wilmot!"

"yes," said ronald. he was surprised, and secretly agitated by the sight of the man towards whom his feelings had insensibly changed, and was hardly master of his emotion.

the carriage had passed on, but kilsyth was standing still at the crossing.

"what an extraordinary chance--what a wonderful providence, i should say!" said kilsyth; "the only man i have confidence in--fancy his passing by just at this time! thank god! no chance of his calling at brook-street before he goes home, as he used to do; we must go on to his house at once and leave a message for him." here the impetuous old gentleman hailed a hansom, which drew up abruptly in dangerous proximity to his toes.

"stop a moment," said ronald. "you had better get home, in case i can persuade dr. wilmot to call, and tell lady muriel; it will save time. i will go on to his house."

"all right," said kilsyth in a voice of positive cheerfulness. the mere sight of wilmot had acted like a strong cordial upon him--had restored his strength and his confidence.

"don't i recollect how he saved her before, when she was much worse, when she was actually in the clutch of a mortal disease? and he will save her again! he will save her again!" said the old man to himself as he drove homewards. he went directly to lady muriel's boudoir, and communicated to her the glad tidings of ronald's mission, which had filled him with hope and joy.

the rich red colour flew to lady muriel's cheek, and the light shone in her dark eyes. to her too the news was precious, delicious; but not so the intelligence which formed its corollary. what! ronald kilsyth gone to solicit dr. wilmot's attendance on his sister! ronald kilsyth bringing about the renewal of this danger which she, apparently ably assisted by fate, had put far from her! what availed wilmot's return, if he might see madeleine again--might be with her? what availed it that madeleine was no longer in the house with him, that she was free to see him, to enjoy his society undisputed? as kilsyth saw how her face lighted up, how her colour rose, he rejoiced in her sympathy with his feelings; with his hope and relief, he blessed her in his heart for her love for his madeleine. and she listened to him, dominated in turn by irresistible joy and by burning anger.