lord sandilands was looking and feeling ill and feeble, and was mainly occupied, as he hobbled across the not-magnificently-proportioned drawing-room of that most desirable lodging-house, with an unrivalled view of the esplanade, in so putting down and moving his feet as to cause himself the least possible pain, when he came, leaning on the arm of his housekeeper, to meet mrs. bloxam and miss lambert. but he was a man of too quick perception at all times, and his mind had been dwelling of late with so much anxiety upon gertrude and her interests, that he was additionally keen in remarking every incident in which she was concerned. as he put out his disengaged hand and took gertrude's, he glanced from her face to that of the housekeeper, and back to hers again, and saw that each recognised the other.

"you know mrs. bush?" he asked, still holding gertrude's hand in one of his, still leaning with the other on mrs. bush's arm.

"mrs. bush and i have met before," gertrude answered calmly; "but she does not know my stage name. i am a singer, mrs. bush," she added; "and my stage name is lambert."

"o, indeed, ma'am!" said mrs. bush, in a singularly unsympathetic voice, and with an expression which said pretty plainly that she did not think it signified much what the speaker called herself.--"shall i put your lordship in the chair near the window?"

"yes, yes," said lord sandilands testily; and then he added, with the perversity of age and illness, "and where did you know miss keith, mrs. bush?" he seated himself as he spoke, drew the skirts of his gray dressing-gown over his knees, and again looked from one to the other. mrs. bloxam, to whom the scene had absolutely no meaning, stood by in silence. gertrude was very calm, very pale, and her eyes shone with a disdainful, defiant light, as they had shone on the fatal day of which this meeting so vividly reminded her. mrs. bush smiled, a dubious kind of smile, and rubbed her hands together very slowly and deliberately, as she answered:

"if you please, my lord, i didn't never know a miss keith. it were when the young lady was mrs. lloyd as she come to my house at brighton."

"when the young lady was mrs. lloyd!" repeated lord sandilands in astonishment, and now including mrs. bloxam, who looked extremely embarrassed and uncomfortable in the searching gaze he directed towards the housekeeper and gertrude. "what does this mean?"

"i will explain it to you," said gertrude firmly but very gently, and bending over him as she spoke; "but there is no occasion to detain mrs. bush." the tone and manner of her words were tantamount to a dismissal, and so mrs. bush received them. she immediately retreated to the door, with an assumption of not feeling the smallest curiosity concerning the lady with whom she was thus unexpectedly brought into contact, and left the room, murmuring an assurance that she should be within call when his lordship might want her. a few moments' pause followed her departure. the astonishment and vague uneasiness with which lord sandilands had heard what mrs. bush had said kept him silent, while gertrude was agitated and puzzled--the first by the imminent danger of discovery of her carefully-kept secret, and the second by hearing lord sandilands allude to her as "miss keith." when she thought over this strange and critical incident in her life afterwards, it seemed to her that something like a perception of the truth about to be imparted to her came into her mind as lord sandilands spoke. mrs. bloxam experienced a sensation unpleasantly akin to threatened fainting. what was coming? must all indeed be told? must her conduct be put in its true light before both gertrude and lord sandilands? could she not escape either of the extremes which, in her mental map of the straits in which she found herself, she had laid down? but she was a strong woman by nature, and a quiet, self-repressed woman by habit, and in the few moments' interval of silence she did not faint, but sat down a little behind lord sandilands, and with her face turned away from the light. as for the old nobleman himself, the mere shock of the dim suspicion, the vague possibility which suggested itself, shook his composure severely, through all the restraint which his natural manliness and the acquired impassiveness of good breeding imposed. gertrude was the first to speak. she stood in her former attitude, slightly leaning over him, and he sat, his head back against the chair, and his keen, gray, anxious eyes raised to her handsome, haughty face.

"you sent for me, my dear lord, my good friend," she said,--and there was a tone in the rich, sweet voice which the old man had never heard in it before, and in which his ear caught and carried to his heart the echo of one long silent and almost forgotten,--"and i have come; in the first place to see you, to know how you are, and to satisfy myself that this illness has had nothing alarming in it. in the second place, that i may hear all you mean to say to me; i know about what,"--her eyes drooped and her colour rose--"mrs. bloxam has told me; she has fully explained all your kindness, all your goodness and generosity to me. will you tell me all you intended to say to me, and let me say what i meant to say to you, just as if mrs. bush had never called me by that strange name in your hearing, and then i will explain all." the lustrous earnestness of her face rendered it far more beautiful than lord sandilands had ever before seen it. her mother had never looked at him with that purposeful expression, with that look which told of sorrow and knowledge, and the will and resolution to live them down.

"i will do anything you wish, my dear," said the old nobleman; and it was remarkable that he discarded in that moment all the measured courtesy a manner which he had hitherto sedulously preserved, and adopted in its stead the deep and warm interest, the partial judgment, the protecting tone of his true relationship to her. "sit here beside me, and listen. i have some painful things to say, but they will soon be said; and i hope--i hope happy days are in store for you;" but his face was clouded, and doubt, even dread, expressed itself in his voice. gertrude did not exactly obey him. instead of taking a seat, she placed herself on her knees beside his chair; and in this attitude she listened to his words.

"i know how it is with you and miles challoner, my dear, and miles is dearer to me than any person in the world except one,--and that one is you."

"i!" said gertrude, amazed. "i dearer to you than miles challoner, your old friend's child!"

"yes," he said, with a faint smile, "for you are my own child, gertrude; that is what i sent for you to tell you, and i want to make you happy if i can." so saying, the old man took her bent head between his hands, and kissed her. gertrude did not evince any violent emotion--she turned extremely pale, and her eyes filled with tears; but she did not say anything for a little while, and she afterwards wondered at the quietness with which the revelation was made and received. she was not even certain that she had been very much surprised. mrs. bloxam rose, opened the window, stepped out upon the balcony, and carefully closed the window behind her. during a considerable time she might have been observed by the numerous promenaders on the esplanade, leaning over the railing, which was more ornamental than solid, in an attitude of profound abstraction. by those within the room her very existence was forgotten until, in the course of their mutual interrogation, her name came to be mentioned. still kneeling beside him, but now with her head resting against his breast, and one long thin white hand laid tenderly upon the bright masses of her chestnut hair, gertrude heard from her father the story of her mother's brief happy life and early death;--and the sternest might have forgiven the old man the unintentional, deception which was self-delusion, which made him tell his daughter how only that early death had prevented his making gertrude gautier his wife. for the first time he realised now in the keenness of his longing, in the misery of his dreaded powerlessness to secure the happiness of his child, the full extent of the injury inflicted upon her by her illegitimate birth.

"i know," he said, "that miles loves you, and i think you love him, and i know you would be happy. i have lived long enough in the world, and seen enough of it, to know how rarely one can say that with common sense and justice of any two human beings. tell me, gertrude, why it is that you have refused miles,--why it is that you seem determined not to let me smooth away all obstacles to your marrying him?"

the conversation had lasted long, and had embraced many subjects, before it reached this point. gertrude had undergone much and varying emotion, but she had not lost her calmness, partly because of her exceptional strength of mind and body, and partly because she never suffered herself to forget the danger of over-excitement to lord sandilands. she had listened quietly to the story of her mother (the idea of actually learning about her own parentage, and being able to realise it, was quite new to her--and abstract sentiment was not in gertrude's way), and had rendered to it the tribute of silent tears. she had heard her father tell how he had first recognised her at lady carabas' concert, and how he had felt the strong instinctive interest in which he had never believed, and which he had never practically experimented in, arise at the sight of her; how he had found, first with misgiving, and afterwards with increasing pleasure, ratified and approved by his conscience because of his knowledge of miles challoner's tastes and character, that his young friend and companion was attached to her. she had heard him tell how he had watched the ill-success of lord ticehurst's suit with pleasure, and how he had won miles to confide to him his hopes and plans, and encouraged him to hope for success, and then had been induced by her refusal of miles and his belief that that refusal was dictated by disinterested regard for challoner's worldly interests, and in no degree by her own feelings, to take the resolution of telling her all the truth--upon which resolution he was now acting.

so far gertrude had been wonderfully composed. her father had said to her all he had urged with himself, when he had been first assailed by misgivings that his old friend would have resented his endeavouring to bring about a marriage between miles and a woman to whom the disadvantage of illegitimate birth attached; and she had assented, adding that while she only knew herself utterly obscure, she had felt and acted upon the sense of her own inferiority. the conversation had strayed away from gertrude's early life--the father met his acknowledged daughter for the first time as a woman, and they made haste to speak of present great interests. mrs. bloxam might have been quite easy in her mind about the amount of notice her share in any of the transactions of the past would be likely to excite. but now, when lord sandilands pleaded earnestly the cause of miles challoner, and in arguing it argued in favour of the weakness of gertrude's own heart, her fortitude gave way, and a full and overwhelming knowledge of the bitterness of her fate rushed in upon her soul. the veil fell from her eyes; she knew herself for the living lie she was; she realised that the unjustifiable compact she had made with her husband was a criminal, an accursed convention, bearing more and more fruit of bitterness and shame and punishment, as her father unfolded the scheme of a bright and happy future which he had formed for her.

"if he had been any other than miles challoner," she had said to mrs. bloxam, she would have married him, would have incurred the risk for rank and money--or she had thought so, had really believed it of herself. what had possessed her with such an idea? what had made her contemplate in herself a creature so lost, so utterly, coldly wicked? it was so long since she had permitted herself to think of her real position; she had deliberately blinded, voluntarily stultified her mind for so long, that she had ceased to feel that she was playing a part as fictitious off, as any she performed on the stage. but now, as her father's voice went on, speaking lovingly, hopefully, telling her how conventionalities should be disregarded and wealth supplied in her interests; telling her she need have no fear in the case of such a man as miles--had he not known him all his life?--of any late regret or after reproach; now the tide of anguish rushed over her, and with choking sobs she implored him to desist.

"don't, don't!" she said. "you don't know--o my god!--you don't know--and how shall i ever tell you? there is another reason, ten thousand times stronger; all the others i gave were only pretences, anything to keep him from suspecting, from finding out the truth; there is a reason which makes it altogether impossible."

"another reason! what is it? tell me at once--tell me," said lord sandilands; and he raised himself in his chair, and held her by the shoulders at arms' length from him. dread, suspicion, pain were in his face; and under the influence of strong emotion, which reflected itself in her features, the father and daughter, with all the difference of colouring and of form, were wonderfully like each other.

"i will tell you," she said; but she shut her eyes, and then hid them with her hand while she spoke, shrinking from his gaze. "i will tell you. i am not free to be miles challoner's wife. i am married to another man."

"married! you married?"

"yes," she said, "i am married. your housekeeper knows me as a married woman. the name she called me by is my real name. you know the man who is my husband, unhappy wretch that i am!"

"who is he?" said lord sandilands hoarsely, his nerveless hands falling from her shoulders as he spoke. she looked at him, was alarmed at the paleness of his face, and rose hurriedly from her knees.

"you are ill," she said. "i will go--" but he caught her dress, and held it.

"tell me who he is."

"gilbert lloyd!"

gertrude was horrified at the effect which the communication she had made to her father had upon him. he had set his heart strongly indeed upon her marriage with miles challoner, she thought, when the frustration of the project had the power to plunge him into a state of prostration and misery. as for herself, the alarm she experienced, and the great excitement she had undergone in the revelation made to her by her father, the agony of mind she had suffered in the desperate necessity for avowing the truth, were quickly succeeded by such physical exhaustion as she had never before felt. this effect of mental excitement was largely assisted by the weakness still remaining after her illness, and was so complete and irresistible, that when she had seen the doctor hurriedly summoned to lord sandilands by mrs. bloxam's orders--that lady's meditations on the balcony had been terminated by gertrude's cry for help--and learned that the patient was not in danger, but must be kept absolutely quiet, she yielded to it at once.

not a word was said by mrs. bloxam to gertrude concerning the disclosure made by lord sandilands. in the confusion and distress which ensued on the sudden attack of violent pain with which her father was seized, gertrude lost sight of time and place, and thought of nothing but him so long as she was able to think of anything. little more than an hour had elapsed since lord sandilands had told her the secret of his life, and she was speaking of him freely to mrs. bloxam as her father, and the word hardly sounded strange. she could not return to hardriggs; she was not able, even if she would have left lord sandilands. there was no danger of her seeing miles if she remained at st. leonards. lord sandilands had told her early in their interview that he had sent miles up to town, and procured his absence until he should summon him back by promising to plead his cause in his absence. she and mrs. bloxam must remain--not in the house, indeed, but at the nearest hotel. she would send a message to that effect to lady belwether, and inform mrs. bush of her intention.

mrs. bush had not relaxed her suspicious reserve during all the bustle and confusion which had ensued on the sudden illness of lord sandilands. she had been brought into contact with gertrude frequently as they went from room to room in search of remedies, and ultimately met by the old nobleman's bedside after the doctor's visit. mrs. bush did not indeed call gertrude "mrs. lloyd" again, but she scrupulously addressed her as "madam;" and there was an unpleasant, though not distinctly offensive, significance about her manner which convinced gertrude that not an incident of the terrible time at brighton had been forgotten by the ci-devantlodging-house keeper, whose changed position had set her free from the necessity of obsequiousness.

gertrude had taken a resolution on the subject of mrs. bush, on which she acted with characteristic decision, when at length her father was sleeping under the influence of opiates, and she and mrs. bloxam had agreed that their remaining at st. leonards was inevitable. she asked mrs. bush to accompany her to the drawing-room, and then said to her at once:

"you are surprised to see me here, mrs. bush, no doubt; and as i understand from lord sandilands that he has great confidence in you, and values your services highly, i think it right to explain to you what may seem strange in the matter."

mrs. bush looked at the young lady a little more kindly than before, and muttered something about being much obliged, and hoping she should merit his lordship's good opinion. gertrude continued:

"it will displease lord sandilands, to whom i am closely related, if the fact of my being married is talked about. i am separated from mr. lloyd, and it is customary for singers to retain their own names. mine is grace lambert. if you desire to please his lordship, you may do so by keeping silence on this subject, by not telling anyone that you ever saw me at brighton under another name."

with the shrewdness which most women of her class and calling possess by nature, and which the necessities of her struggling career as a lodging-housekeeper had developed, mrs. bush instantly perceived her own interest in this affair, and replied very civilly that she was sure she should never mention anything his lordship would wish concealed; and that she was not given to gossip, thank goodness! never had been when she had a house herself, and which her opinion had always been as lodgers' business was their own and not hers. consequent, she had never said a word about the poor dear gentleman what had died so sudden,--at this point of her discourse gertrude's jaded nerves thrilled again with pain,--although it had injured her house serious. with a last effort of self-command, gertrude listened to her apparently unmoved, and dismissed her, with an intimation that she should return in the morning to take her place by lord sandilands. mrs. bush had both a talent and a taste for nursing invalids, and she established herself in the darkened room, there to watch the troubled sleeper, with cheerful alacrity. her thoughts were busy with gertrude, however, and with what she had said to her. "so she's his near relation, is she?" thus ran mrs. bush's cogitations. "whatrelation now, i wonder? lambert is not a family name on any side, and he called her miss keith too--and i'll be hanged if he knew she was married! i'm sure he didn't. there's something queer in all this; but it's not my affair. however, if his lordship asks me any questions, i'm not going to hold my tongue to him. separated from mr. lloyd! i wonder was she ever really married to him? she looked like it, and spoke like it, though; a more respectable young woman in her ways never came to my place, for the little time she was in it. i wonder what she has left him for?--though in my belief it's a good job for her, and he's a bad lot."

the hours of the night passed over the heads of the father and the daughter unconsciously. with the morning came the renewed sense of something important and painful having taken place. on the preceding evening, gertrude had entreated mrs. bloxam to refrain from questioning her. "i am too tired," she had said. "i cannot talk about it; let me rest now, and i will tell you everything in the morning." to this mrs. bloxam had gladly assented; she was naturally very anxious, and not a little curious; but anxiety and curiosity were both held in abeyance by the satisfaction she experienced in perceiving that the revelations which had been made had not seriously injured her position with lord sandilands or with gertrude. the mutual recognition between gertrude and mrs. bush had been unintelligible to her. that it had produced important results she could not doubt; but on the whole, she did not regret them. the acknowledgment of gertrude's marriage might prevent future mischief, in which she (mrs. bloxam) might possibly be unpleasantly involved, and at present it was evident that, in the overwhelming agitation and surprise of the discovery, her conduct had been entirely forgotten or overlooked. that she might continue to occupy a position of such safe obscurity was, for herself, mrs. bloxam's dearest wish; and mrs. bloxam's wishes seldom extended, at all events with any animation, beyond herself.

lord sandilands awoke free from pain, but so weak and confused that it was some time before he could bring up the occurrences of yesterday, in their due order and weight of import, before his mind. he had received a shock from which his physical system could hardly be expected to recover; but the extent of the mental effect--the fear, the horror, the awakening of remorse, not yet to be softened into abiding and availing repentance--none but he could ever estimate. the past, the present, and the future alike menaced, alike tortured him: the dead friend, the sole sharer of whose confidence he was; the dead man's son, whom he loved almost as well as if he were of his own flesh and blood; the dead woman, whom he had deceived and betrayed (in the wholesome bitterness of his awakened feelings lord sandilands was hard upon himself, and ready to ignore the ignorance which had made her a facile victim); the dreadful combination of fate which had made the daughter whom he had neglected and disowned the wife of a man whose tremendous guilt her father alone of living creatures knew, and had thrown her in the path of that same guilty man's brother, to love him and be beloved by him. in so dire a distress was he; and this girl whom he loved with an anxious intensity which surprised himself, imprisoned in the hopeless meshes of the net in which his feet were involved. no wonder he found it hard, with all his natural courage, and all the acquired calmness of his caste, to marshal these facts in their proper order, and make head against the dismay they caused him. but this was no time for dismay. he had to act in a terrible emergency of his daughter's life, and to act, if indeed it were possible for any ingenuity or prudence to enable him to do so, so that the real truth of the emergency, the full extent of its terrible nature, should be known to himself alone, never suspected by her. the housekeeper came softly to the old nobleman's bedside while his mind was working busily at this problem, the most difficult which life had ever set him for solution; and seeing his eyes closed and his face quiet, believed him to be still sleeping, and withdrew gently.

by degrees, the facts and the necessities of the case arranged themselves somewhat in this order. gertrude had told her father of her marriage, of the misery which had speedily resulted from it, and of the strange bargain made between her husband and herself. she knew lloyd's worthlessness then, though she had spoken but vaguely of him as a gambler and a reckless, unprincipled man, not giving lord sandilands any reason to think she could regard him as capable of actual crime. the shock of the disclosure gertrude had imputed simply to his horror of the clandestine nature of her marriage, and the moral blindness and deadness which had made the bargain between her and lloyd present itself as possible to their minds (the light of a true and pure love had shone on gertrude now, and shown her the full turpitude of the transaction); his sudden seizure had prevented his hearing more than a brief, bare outline of the dreadful episode of his daughter's marriage. she knew nothing of the real, appalling truth; she was ignorant that the man she had married was a criminal of the deepest dye, the secret of his crime in her father's hands, his own brother the object of her affections, and the only possible issue out of all this complication and misery one involving utter and eternal separation between her and miles challoner. if he and gertrude ever met again, she must learn the truth; she must learn that gilbert lloyd was geoffrey challoner, and an additional weight of horror and anguish be added to the load of sorrow her unfortunate marriage--in which lord sandilands humbly and remorsefully recognised the consequence, the direct result, of his own sin--had laid upon her. if she could be prevented from ever knowing the worst? if he, invested with the authority and with the affection of a parent, could induce her to consent to an immediate separation from miles challoner, to a prompt removal from the possibility of seeing him, by strengthening her own views of the insuperable nature of the barrier between them? she would not, however, yield to miles's prayer for their marriage; but that would not be sufficient for her safety: she must never see him more; she must be kept from the misery of learning the truth. how was this to be done? for some time lord sandilands found no answer to that question; but at last it suggested itself. miles--yes, he would make an appeal to him; he would tell him all the truth--to him who knew that lord sandilands also possessed that other secret, which, to judge by its consequences, must be indeed a terrible one; and miles would be merciful to this woman, who, though she had sinned by the false pretence under which she lived, was so much more sinned against; and, appearing to accept her decision, miles would not ask to see her again. yes, that would do; he was sure that would succeed. and then he would acknowledge gertrude as his daughter to all who had any claim to an explanation of any proceedings of his--the number was satisfactorily small--and he would leave england for ever, with gertrude. it was wonderful with how strong and irresistible a voice nature was now speaking to the old man's heart; how all the habits and conventionalities of his life seemed to be dropping suddenly away from him, and something new, but far more powerful, establishing itself in their stead as a law of his being. the tremendous truth and extent of his responsibility as regarded gertrude presented themselves to him now in vivid reality, and the strongest desire of his heart was for strength, skill, and patience, to carry out the plan which presented itself for her benefit. he felt no anger towards her for what she had done. poor motherless, fatherless, unprotected girl, how was she to understand the moral aspect of such a deed? he pitied the folly, but he did not seriously regard the guilt, while he deplored the consequences. gertrude's professional career, he saw at once, must come to an immediate and abrupt close. there was no safety for her in the terrible unexplained attitude of the brothers challoner, and her total unconsciousness of it and its bearing upon her own fate, but absence from the scene of the secret drama. with the grief of her hopeless, impossible love at her heart, and with the help and safety of her new-discovered relationship to him, security for her future and escape from the present, gertrude would not hesitate about abandoning her career as a singer. it had never had for her the intoxicating delight and excitement with which such a success is invested for the fortunate few who attain it; and as for the world, the lapse of the brilliant star from the operatic firmament would be a nine-days' wonder, and no more, like such other of the episodes of her story and his as the world might come to learn. that part of the business hardly deserved, and certainly did not receive, more than the most passing consideration from lord sandilands. it was all dreadfully painful, and full of complications which involved infinite distress; but lord sandilands began to see light in his difficult way. it was not until he had thought long and anxiously of gertrude and of miles that his mind turned in the direction of gilbert lloyd; and then it was with inexpressible pain that he contemplated the fact that this man, whom of all men he most abhorred, was the husband of his daughter; had had the power to make her girlhood miserable, to blight her life in its bloom, and to continue to blight it to the end. how great a villain gilbert lloyd was, he alone knew; but no doubt gertrude had had considerable experience of his character. on this point he would find out all the truth by degrees. his thoughts glanced for a moment at the probable effect it would have on lloyd when he should discover that the one man in the world in whose power he was, was the father of his wife, and had constituted himself her protector. at least there was one bright spot in all this mass of misery: knowing this, lloyd would never dare to molest gertrude, would never venture to seek her or trouble her, in any straits, however severe, to which his unprincipled life might drive him. in this perfectly reasonable calculation there was but one item astray: lord sandilands had no suspicion of the state of feeling in which gilbert lloyd now was with respect to his wife. if he had known the fierce revival of passion for her, and the rage which filled his baffled and desperate heart, lord sandilands would not have looked with so much confidence upon the prospect of suffering no molestation from lloyd. whether his tigerish nature could ever be wholly controlled by fear, was a question to which no answer could yet be given. but lord sandilands did not ask it, and his thoughts had again reverted to miles, and were dwelling sadly on the caprice of fate which had brought his brother once more so fatally across his track, and had erected so strange a link between the calamity which had overshadowed his dead friend's life and that which must now be the abiding sorrow of his own, when the arrival of the doctor interrupted his musings, and obliged him to confess to being awake.

when the visit was concluded, with a favourable report but many cautions on the part of the medical attendant, lord sandilands inquired of mrs. bush when the arrival of the two ladies might be looked for. they had already sent to ask how his lordship was, and would be there at eleven. lord sandilands then bethought him that the recognition of the preceding day, which had no doubt led to his receiving his daughter's confidence, and being preserved from blindly pursuing a course of persuasion and advocacy of miles challoner's suit, which might have led to most disastrous consequences, could now be made still more useful, as affording him an opportunity of learning more about his daughter's married life than she had had time or probably inclination to tell him.

the old man looked very weak and curiously older all of a sudden, and mrs. bush, a kind-hearted woman in her narrow little way, was sorry to see the change. the sympathy in her manner and voice inspired lord sandilands with a resolution somewhat similar to that one which gertrude had noted on the previous day. he asked mrs. bush to take a seat, requested her best attention to what he was going to say, and then told her without any circumlocution that the lady called grace lambert, whom she had known as mrs. lloyd, was his daughter, whom he intended to acknowledge and to take abroad with him. the housekeeper showed very plainly the astonishment which this communication occasioned her, and her embarrassment was extreme when lord sandilands continued: "and now, mrs. bush, i wish you to tell me all you know about my daughter, and all that occurred while mr. lloyd, from whom she separated immediately afterwards, lodged at your house at brighton."

"of course, my lord," replied mrs. bush, in a nervous and hesitating manner, "i cannot refuse to do as your lordship wishes, nor do i wish so to do; but mrs. lloyd did not lodge at my house at all in a manner; she only came there unexpected, and went away at night, after the poor gentleman died, as were took so sudden--dear, dear, how sudden he were took, to be sure!"

"what gentleman? i don't understand you. pray tell me the whole story, mrs. bush; don't omit any particulars you can remember; it is of great importance to me."

mrs. bush possessed no ordinary share of that very common gift of persons of her class--circumlocution, and she told her story with a delightful sense of revelling in the fullest details. her hearer, not under ordinary circumstances distinguished for patience, neither hurried nor interrupted her, but, on the contrary, when he asked her any questions at all, put to her such as induced her to lengthen and amplify the narrative. when the housekeeper took her seat beside his bed, lord sandilands had been lying with his face towards her. as she progressed in her account of the sojourn of gilbert lloyd and harvey gore at her house, he turned away, and lay towards the wall against which his bed was placed, so that at the conclusion of the story she did not see his face. ashy pale that face was, and it bore a fixed look of horror; for, bringing his own secret knowledge of gilbert lloyd to bear upon the story told by the housekeeper, lord sandilands readily divined what was that swift, unaccountable illness of which lloyd's friend had died, what the irresistible power his wife had wielded in insisting upon the separation which had taken place. "the wretched girl! what must she not have suffered!" the father thought. "alone, in the power of such a man, in possession of such a secret, whether by positive knowledge or only strong suspicion, no matter. good god, what must she not have suffered! what has she not yet before her to suffer!"

here, as he afterwards thought, in reflecting upon the unconscious disclosure which mrs. bush had made to him--here was another barrier against any possible molestation of gertrude by her husband, a horrible truth to grasp at with something like ghastly satisfaction. but horrible truths were all around them in this miserable complication, on every side.

"thank you," said lord sandilands, when mrs. bush had concluded her narrative. "i am much indebted to you for telling me all these particulars. you will oblige me very materially by not mentioning the subject in any way to anyone."

mrs. bush was aware that lord sandilands not only possessed the means but the inclination to make it very well worth anyone's while to oblige him, so she immediately resolved upon maintaining undeviating fidelity to the obligation he imposed upon her; and she afterwards kept her resolution, which she found profitable.

when gertrude arrived, mrs. bush met her with a request that she would go to his lordship at once, which implied that mrs. bloxam was to remain in the drawing-room. this she did, composedly occupying herself with needlework, and feeling her hopes that she should be entirely overlooked in the crisis of affairs growing stronger and stronger. it may as well be said here, once for all, that these hopes were justified. mrs. bloxam was never called to account by lord sandilands for his money, or her own conduct.

"i take it upon myself, my dear," said lord sandilands to his daughter, when many hours passed in close and mournful consultation between them had gone by; "as soon as i am able to move--and, you see, i am greatly better already--the arrangements shall all be made."

from the bed where he lay, the old man's eyes were turned anxiously, sadly, towards the figure of his daughter. gertrude was seated in a deep chintz-covered chair, in the bay of the window, which overlooked a small garden of the sterile and sandy order, familiar to the memory of occasional dwellers in seaside lodging-houses. she was leaning forward, her head resting on her hands, her arms supported by a little three-legged table, her attitude full of grace and dejection. the afternoon sun tinged her pale cheek and her clustering hair, but for the moment the brilliance that was so characteristic of her appearance was gone. but she touched the old man's heart all the more keenly for the lack of brilliancy, for she was more like her mother without it,--the dead mother whom she had never seen, and whose name had as yet been barely mentioned between them.

"yes," she said absently, drearily, "i must leave it all to you. how strange it is to me to know that i have you to help me, to leave it all to!"

"you will not pine for the excitement and applause to which you are so accustomed, gertrude?"

"no; they have been very wearisome to me of late, since i have known how much might have been mine that never can be now."

"no indeed, my dear," said her father earnestly, "it never, never can be now; and your true courage, your true good sense is in acknowledging this at once, and consenting to turn your back upon it all promptly. you shall have none of the misery of severing these ties; i will write to munns, and tell him i am ready to indemnify his real or imaginary losses."

"it will cost you a great deal of money," she said, still absently, still drearily.

"it is almost time that i began to spend it on you," said her father, with a very unsuccessful attempt at a smile.

the past, the present, and the future had been discussed during the hours they had passed together, and emotion had worn itself out. steadily keeping in mind the concealment he desired to practise, and the effect he designed to produce, the old nobleman had received the confidences which his daughter--who more and more strongly felt the tie between them hour by hour, and softened under its influence--imparted to him with the utmost tenderness and indulgence, but with as little effusion as possible. he had induced her to tell him the whole truth concerning her separation from her husband; and had received the terrible revelation with calmness which would have perhaps shocked gertrude had she not been too much absorbed in the newer, sacred sorrow of her hopeless love to perceive as keenly as was her wont, had she not also been much exhausted physically, and thus mercifully less sensible to impressions. she had also told him of gilbert lloyd's late pursuit of her; and at that portion of her narrative lord sandilands ground his still strong white teeth with furious anger, and a thrill of exultation mingled with the rage and misery of the circumstances, as he thought how utterly this villain was in his power, how soon he would set his foot upon his neck and see him writhe in impotent anguish and humiliation. but this was one of the feelings which he had to conceal from gertrude, and he did effectually conceal it.

the plan decided upon was that gertrude and mrs. bloxam should return on that evening to hardriggs, and terminate their stay there as soon as possible; and then go to london and occupy the interval which must elapse before lord sandilands could travel, in making preparations for departure. the pretty villa was to be given up; the household gods which gertrude had gathered around her were to be dispersed, and her life was "to begin over again." is there any drearier phrase than that? can words represent any harder fact, any more painful idea? then lord sandilands and his daughter would go abroad, and leave the english world behind them, to think and say just what it might please. the place of their abode was not even discussed. all foreign countries were alike new to gertrude, and old to lord sandilands. one little point of detail had been mentioned between them. if gertrude wished it, her father would take mrs. bloxam with them. he inclined to the belief that it would be butter not; better to be away from everyone connected with the past, from which it was their wish, their object to escape. and his daughter agreed with him, as did mrs. bloxam, when the matter was mentioned to her. she hated foreign countries--her trip to italy was a standing grievance--and she was very glad to retire from her post of chaperone to miss lambert, with such a handsome present in money from lord sandilands--an ill-deserved acknowledgment of her services--as, added to the savings she had accumulated at the vale house, rendered her free from the presence or the apprehension of poverty. when the time of parting came, this lady, on the whole a not unfortunate member of society as human affairs are constituted, took leave of lord sandilands and his daughter with the utmost propriety; and it is more than probable that by this time she has ceased to remember their existence.

gertrude took leave of her father, when the appointed time came for her return to hardriggs, with little visible emotion. she was dazed and exhausted; and it was not until the events of the last few days were weeks old, and she passed them in review under a foreign sky, in a distant land, far away from the man she loved and the man she bated, that she began to realise them in detail, and to feel that she had, indeed, "begun life over again."

when lord sandilands contemplated the prospect of the interview he was about to have with miles challoner, he shrunk from it with dread. but he had to go through with it; and perhaps the most painful moment of the many painful hours he and his friend passed together was that in which the young man advanced to him with beaming looks, with outstretched hand, with agitated voice, and said, "you have sent for me? you have good news for me?"

the task was done the task in which the old man felt the hand of retribution striking him heavily through the suffering of those he loved--the pain was borne, and the day after that which witnessed the arrival of gertrude and mrs. bloxam in london saw miles challoner leaving the great city for rowley court, where he shut himself up in such gloomy seclusion that the people about began to talk oddly of it. somehow the court seemed an unlucky place, they said. first, the mysterious disgrace and banishment of the younger son; then the lonely, moping, moody life of the squire; and now here was the young squire going the same gait. there was surely something in it which was not lucky, that there was, and time would tell.

the world did talk, as they had anticipated, of the departure of lord sandilands and miss lambert for foreign parts; and as it was some little time before it got hold, of anything like a correct version of the story, it started some very pretty and ingenious theories to account for that "unaccountable" proceeding. managers were savage, débutantesdelighted, and lady carabas, who knew nothing whatever of the matter, was charmingly mysterious, and assured everyone that her dear grace had been guided in everything by her advice, and that that dear lord sandilands was the most perfect of creatures, and had behaved like an angel. and then, in even a shorter time than lord sandilands and gertrude had calculated upon, the world, including lady carabas, forgot them.