CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

TEMPTED OF THE DEVIL.

Una lay awake through the early part of the hot summer night, with her mind full of the crisis in Amethyst's fate.

She was sad and anxious; all the sweetness of her life was owing to Amethyst's tenderness, and how long would the loving sister be left beside her?

She could not guess at all what choice Amethyst would be impelled to make, what effect the sight of Lucian would have upon her. She had hardly seemed to heed the discovery that Sylvester Riddell was her lover too. Had she made up her mind to marry Sir Richard Grattan at all costs? Was not Oliver Carisbrooke more to her than she knew? Una believed that her own life had been shipwrecked for ever. She longed with all her heart to see Amethyst steer clear of the treacherous rocks in her way.

She lay awake in the sultry air, listening till the sound of the expected step on the stairs made her heart throb till she was faint.

The step was slow and lingering--would it pass by? No, the door was softly opened, and Amethyst came in. She stood at the foot of the bed, in the flood of summer moonlight, so that her face looked as white as her gown, and her amethysts glittered with a colourless gleam. She looked at Una with cold heavy eyes, and her voice was dull and lifeless.

"Are you having a bad night, dear?" she said.

"Yes--never mind. What has happened to you?"

"Nothing," said Amethyst.

"Didn't he come after all?"

"Oh yes! But I can't tell why I used to think him so interesting. He's a very handsome boy, but I can't fall in love now with a straight nose and good intentions. If I lived fifty years with him, he would never know what I was thinking of."

She laughed as she spoke, a short bitter little laugh. "He has done his best--done his duty by me. But he can't put the clock back."

"I said that you were never really in love with him!" said Una, after a moment's startled silence.

"I was, with every thought and feeling and part of me! But I've forgotten him. I'm not made of the stuff to be constant and faithful-- as he has been. He was a fool not to know I was a good girl then! I believe I'm a very bad one now!"

"You looked so happy, when you thought he was coming."

"Yes, I thought if the sight of him brought it all back, I could even forgive him--and his mother--and mine! I was as much a fool then as he was, not to force him to believe in me. But if I had, and had found out by this time that he was stupid?"

"He must have loved you very much."

"He loved his duty or his honour, or whatever it was, better than he loved me," said Amethyst. "He has done his duty by me now, and satisfied his sense of honour. But what am I talking about? What is the use of feelings? And what is the use of keeping you awake and making you ill? Lie down, my sweet, I shall be in my senses to-morrow, and then you shall hear some news."

"Oh, Amethyst, don't do it!" cried Una. "Whether you have forgotten Lucian or not, if you can't care for any one again--"

"Oh, but I guess I could," said Amethyst, recklessly. "There's the very thing--there's the rub."

"But not Sir Richard?"

"As to that," said Amethyst, "in all honour I am bound to him. I have been meaning it. I _can_ do it. And we are all bound to him. I should as good as jilt him if I threw him over now. But--if Lucian had brought my heart back to me--I would have broken through it all! Though I would have begged Sir Richard's pardon on my knees. But there's nothing strong enough in me to do it now."

"Oh, my darling," cried Una, starting up and clinging to her, "there can be! I told you how it was with me--me--that am so weak and so bad. It is quite true. I don't understand it--at other times--I'm just my foolish self. But just now and then--as that poem you used to be fond of says--`My strength is as the strength of ten.' But it's not because my heart is pure--for it's not, it's not--but because He is stronger than I am! The `Spirit of the Lord came upon me.' I know what that means, Amethyst, though He does go quite away, quite--quite!"

Amethyst was somewhat awe-struck.

"But He doesn't come to me, Una," she said in a subdued voice, "and I can't even ask Him. Because whatever I do can't be really right, I've tied the knots too tight."

"But I suppose God thinks that one way would be more right than another," said Una.

Childish as was the form of speech, it struck an answering chord in Amethyst's soul; but Una's tone was so faint with weariness that she refused to go on talking, made her lie back on the pillows, and left her as soon as possible, to think the problem out for herself.

"`My dismal scene I needs must act alone,'" she thought, as she slowly undressed herself, and lay down in bed.

She lay on her back, with her hands clasped over the top of her head, and watched the moonlight on the opposite wall. She had her fate in life to decide. At twenty years old, "half-grown as yet, a child and vain," she had so strong a principle of growth within her, that her true self had hardly yet begun to be. She _had_ decided. She had made up her mind, long ago, that she would marry Sir Richard Grattan. As his wife she would belong to good and honourable people; all her tastes and faculties would have full scope; a great career would be before herself, and she could always be a stand-by to her sisters. She was desirous of doing right, though she could not realise Una's experience otherwise than as an impression on the girl's mind. But it had not ceased to be the best thing for herself to marry Sir Richard, because she had discovered that a great impulse--a great passion, would induce her to break free from him. For no great impulse was there.

She did pray for help, though with a cold and wavering spirit, and she made up her mind to her course of action. She went down-stairs in the morning, in the full conviction that she would accept Sir Richard before the day was out Breakfast was an irregular meal, and no one was there but Tory, who attended an early French class, and was sitting with her hat on.

"Amethyst," she said, "I believe there's something up. Father came in last night after you went up-stairs, and he and my lady talked for hours in the dressing-room. She actually cried."

"Did she?" said Amethyst, startled.

"Yes. Whichever of them you mean to say `yes' to, you had better get it done with a clear conscience before you know of anything to stop you."

"But what do you think?"

"I think we've come to smash. But if it's Sir Richard, he must have known we soon should." Before Amethyst could reply, a message came to say that her ladyship wanted to speak to Miss Haredale. She went up-stairs with a beating heart, and found her mother, to her surprise, up and dressed, with the marks of tears on her face.

"Amethyst," she said, "I believe the game is up. Your engagement must be announced to-day, and we must leave town at once. Is Sir Richard coming this morning? Don't let there be another hour's delay."

"What has happened?" stammered Amethyst. "Now don't be frightened," said Lady Haredale, "and to be shocked is no use. You know that your father raised money on the Haredale farms, with Charles's consent Sir Richard bought them. Some of it we were to spend in coming to London-- on your account, Amethyst. With the rest he was to pay off a mortgage which, through various changes, had come into the hands of Blanche's husband, Sir Edward Clyste. Well, he didn't do it, but risked the money on a horse at Epsom, and lost it. Now that's not all, it's a very ugly story, and I'm sorry to have to tell you. It seems my lord's affairs at Epsom were mixed up with _the other man's_,--you know."

"What other man, mother?"

"Why, Captain Vincent--the man Blanche was so imprudent about. He behaved scandalously, and of course we were supposed to cut him. But it's always forgive and forget with my lord, and--if any one would give him any advantage in a racing matter, his character wouldn't count for much. Well, the connection was kept a secret, but it's come out apparently in that set, and Sir Edward--who is on the turf too--when he finds that the money, which really was pledged to him, has been lost in connection with Vincent, isn't likely to have much mercy. Moreover, Vincent, it seems, has done something which steps over the line which racing men think fair and square. Myself, I don't see much difference between what they will do and what they won't, but men feel differently. So he's to be sent to Coventry, and though my lord knew nothing about that, mixing up his money matters with Vincent's, under the circumstances, isn't thought the thing. And things will be made very uncomfortable for us. Now, we must get Sir Richard to advance the money to pay off the mortgage, and no doubt he will, it's only 6,000 pounds, but even that won't set everything straight again."

Lady Haredale spoke with a certain hard, practical cynicism which was the skeleton on which her sweet, shallow gaiety was grown, and Amethyst answered in the same tone.

"No. Nothing can alter the fact that my father has done a dishonourable thing."

"Well--it's come to be dishonourable--doubtful, certainly; but I don't suppose it looked so, step by step. He is very miserable, my poor old lord, I assure you. You know he has hardly ever come near us, or gone about with us. But what with this, and what with the drawback of Charles, and that odious Mrs Saint George, who hates me, and contrives to make every one think there was something queer about the debts which were paid when I took your amethysts, poor child! (not that there was anything but a few harmless fibs)--what with all this, though I've as much pluck as most women, and though people will swallow a great deal to have you at their parties, I really don't think I can fight it out any longer."

"But when Sir Richard Grattan knows all this, will he still choose to connect himself with my father--and Charles--and--the rest of us?"

"Why, Amethyst," said Lady Haredale, "that's what you have got to secure. You know we can't tell him any lies, because other men will tell him the truth. But he's very much infatuated with you, stiff as you have always been. Encourage him, be kind and loving to him, and he won't break your heart or give you up."

Amethyst leant back in her chair with her hands lying on her lap. She was pale and very still, and when she spoke, her voice had a clear, satirical ring, as if she had been saying something clever in society. But, in truth, she was at the white heat of passion, so that she defied every instinct of natural reverence and shame. There is a sort of truth-speaking, of calling things by their right names, that means the entire rebellion of the soul.

"I don't see much difference between any of us," she said. "My father condones his daughter's disgrace for the sake of a money advantage, and continues under an obligation to his son-in-law who has been wronged; you tell harmless fibs, and, among other things, you think it a trifle that a man like Major Fowler should have destroyed all Una's peace and freshness; Charles does things which I am never supposed to hear of, and besides, gets drunk in society. My half-sister married one man when she loved another, and I suppose never troubled to avoid him afterwards. I am going to marry a man for whom I don't care a straw, because he has money and can help my family, and I am to take advantage of having the sort of beauty which makes fools of men, to get him to take a burden on his shoulders of which he's sure to repent in future. Which is the worst of us? Even Aunt Anna will let that poor girl marry Charles `for the honour of the family.'"

"Amethyst," exclaimed Lady Haredale, really shocked, "you never heard me say anything of that sort."

"No--you _do_ it."

"That is quite a different thing. Pray never let your sisters hear you talk in such a manner. And as for Blanche, she never saw Captain Vincent before she was married. I don't know who her old love was, she would never tell us. But she was a girl who couldn't do without something of the kind going on. If you knew how hard it has been to get on at all, you would not make matters worse by speaking to me in that way."

Amethyst was silent. She had burnt her ships, and outraged all her natural instincts, and she felt impenitent and strong.

"A gentleman, asking for Miss Haredale," said a servant at the door.

"Sir Richard, I suppose," said Amethyst, standing up. "Well, mother, I'm going down-stairs to accept him--if he asks me. But I'll take care he knows the worst of my family, and I shall tell him that I don't yet know the worst of myself."

She went down-stairs, with the evil power still in her heart. The inward force had come to her, not in love, but in hate. There are inspirations from the land of darkness, and these too can make strong. They find their opportunity in self-despair.

"Nothing and no one will interfere to save _me_," she thought.

She opened the drawing-room door, and found herself face to face, not with Sir Richard Grattan, but with Sylvester Riddell.