CHAPTER XI.

_A FACE AT THE WINDOW._

Sympathy Must call her in love's name, and then, I know, She rises up and brightens as she should, And lights her smile for comfort, and is slow In nothing of high-hearted fortitude.

Adele kept her word. She set her wits to work with such good effect that the next morning found her and her cousin in the carriage, under the conduct of the stately coachman, on their way to that unfashionable locality, the neighborhood of Islington.

They had started, presumably, on a shopping excursion, the delusion being maintained by two or three stoppages in Regent street, after which, by Arthur's direction, they drove to the vicinity of The Angel, where carriage and coachman were left in waiting, the remainder of the way being made on foot for the sake of the preservation of their secret.

It had been agreed between them that Adele should pay a visit to Margaret, Arthur waiting for her at the entrance of the narrow street where she lodged. The object of her visit was in the present instance only to inquire after Mrs. Grey's health, to take a kindly interest in her welfare, and to try and persuade her to accept their offer of friendship: it had been decided between them that upon this occasion Arthur's name should not be mentioned. Adele had taken upon herself the office of simply paving the way for further intercourse--of preventing Mrs. Grey from escaping them altogether. This, with her quiet tact and gentle sympathy, she did not despair of accomplishing, if fate would only be commonly propitious, for Adele was really in earnest. Putting self out of the way, she had thrown herself heart and soul into her cousin's scheme, and all the more readily, it may be, from the affection which had arisen spontaneously in her own heart at the sight of Margaret's pure, calm beauty.

Adele was only eighteen, and eighteen is an impressionable age, open not only to accesses of what is called the tender passion, but to feelings perhaps much tenderer and fairer, for the souls of the very young, especially among women, are keenly susceptible to the subtle influences of beauty and grace; it is not uncommon for a young girl to be deeply, jealously enamored of one of her own sex; to experience the delights, the tremors, the anxieties of love itself, and far more palpably than in any of the necessary flirtations that diversify her budding womanhood. Beauty is the embodiment of the young girl's dream, and beauty she finds more visibly in her own sex than in the other.

The first loving emotion of Milton's Eve was for the fair watery image that represented herself in all the radiant charms of female loveliness. It was only afterward that she discovered

"How beauty is excelled by manly grace, And wisdom, which alone is truly fair."

Adele was in this first stage, and Margaret seemed to her the living embodiment of all that had so often won and fascinated her in poetry and romance. The evident mystery that surrounded the fair stranger, her sadness, her lonely friendless position, all added to the spell.

The first emotion of wounded self-love over, Adele ceased to wonder at Arthur's desertion, or even to grieve over it, and was ready to go through fire and water for their common divinity.

In spite of her grand resolutions, however, she felt rather nervous when, Arthur having been left at the top of the dull-looking row of houses, she stood alone on the doorstep of the one indicated by him, inquiring for Mrs. Grey.

Mrs. Grey was at home. The servant-girl threw open the door of the small sitting-room without previous warning, and showed Margaret herself on her knees before an obstinate trunk, which apparently refused to be fastened. At the sound of the opening door she rose in some embarrassment, looked at the card which the girl had thrust into her hand, and then at Adele, who was standing, with some hesitation in her manner, on the threshold of the room. The card had been an enigma, but Adele's pleasant girlish face solved it in a moment.

"Come in," she said warmly, going forward to meet her. "It is exceedingly kind of you to have thought of paying me a visit; but you find me in great disorder. Let me see," looking round the room; "I must try and find you an unoccupied chair."

"Forgive me," said Adele with gentle courtesy. "I know it is too early for a call, but ever since we met the other day I have been so anxious to see you once more, and this is the only time in the day when I can manage to come so far."

She blushed as she spoke, and Margaret was too kind to add to her embarrassment by any expression of surprise at her unexpected visit. She smiled pleasantly, and sat down by her side. "I am only too delighted to see you, my dear Miss Churchill; my visitors are never numerous, and they do not always come on such pleasant errands as yours. You see I am preparing for flight; I can really stand London no longer."

Adele's sympathetic eyes were fixed on Margaret's face. She gave a little sigh: "Yes, I am sure it must be very lonely for you, living all by yourself here."

"Sometimes it is, I must confess. In my present home, a seaside village, I know most of the country-people, and I have my little Laura to go about with me. Then (at least this is _my_ feeling) the loneliness of the country is very different from the loneliness of towns."

"I can _quite_ understand that," said Adele earnestly, "although I have very little experience of loneliness of any kind. I sometimes wish, indeed, to have a little more time to myself. But I must not forget what specially brought me here to-day. My cousin and I have been very anxious about you, Mrs. Grey, for your fainting-fit lasted so long we feared it was the commencement of a serious illness."

Margaret smiled: "Thanks to your timely help, my dear Miss Churchill, I have felt no after ill effects whatever. I scarcely know how it might have been with me had I had to find my way home alone; but it all arose from my own stupidity. The time passed so rapidly in the picture-galleries that I forgot all about lunch. When I reached home I remembered that breakfast had been my only meal that day. My faintness must have been caused by want of food, so you see it was not very interesting after all."

She spoke the words lightly, but Adele wondered with a sudden pang whether the want of food had anything to do with her poverty, for the interior of the shabby-looking house confirmed her worst fears. To put up with such a miserable place could be the result of nothing but dire necessity.

Her voice was very tender as she spoke again after a little pause, laying her hand affectionately on Margaret's arm and looking up earnestly into her pale, sad face: "Dear Mrs. Grey, you look very delicate, indeed you do; you should take more care of yourself."

Perhaps it was the sympathy that shone out of the young girl's glistening eyes, a human longing for something like this warm young love, that seemed to be offering itself so spontaneously, or a sudden sickness of the self-contained life she had been leading, for Adele's gentle words and gestures broke the crust of calm reserve with which Margaret had striven to surround herself. "Ah, child," she said, tears in her eyes and in her voice, "it is for the young and happy to take care of themselves; their lives are precious. From mine too much of the sweetness has gone to make it worthy of preservation. How strange it is! I used to live and to enjoy life; now, even pleasures are like apples of Sodom--they turn to dust and ashes in my mouth. I feel inclined to write 'Vanity of vanities' upon everything." She smiled through her tears: "I should not speak of such things to you."

But tears, real, large, glistening tears, were in Adele's eyes. "Why not?" she said impetuously. Then, after another pause, for though the young can give tears to sorrow, they are helpless very often to give words (if they only knew it, how much more eloquent those tears are than the after commonplaces with which the world teaches them to treat suffering!), "Oh, Mrs. Grey, I wish I could help you in some way. Will you let me be your friend?"

Margaret smiled: "You have done me good already, dear; your sympathy is very sweet, and especially, I think, to me, for it brings back to my mind a time when sympathy was never wanting. I had a friend once, but she has gone, like other beautiful things, out of my life."

"Tell me about her," said Adele.

Margaret shook her head: "No, no; enough of miseries for one day. I scarcely know when I have talked so much about myself; and do you know I am the least bit in the world curious?"

"What about, Mrs. Grey?"

"I want you to tell me honestly what brought you here to-day."

Adele blushed. "Please don't be vexed with me, or think that my visit was from idle curiosity. What I say is really true," her admiration shone out of her eyes as she spoke: "ever since I saw you in the Academy, your face has haunted me. You know one reads of those kinds of attraction. Have you any spells, Mrs. Grey? I could not rest, in fact, until I had seen you once more."

Margaret was sitting near the window, a faint smile, half of pleasure, half of surprise, on her lips as she listened to Adele's impulsive words, but before she could frame an answer they both became aware by a sudden intuition--the effect of that inexplicable mesmeric power which the human eye possesses--that they were being watched. Instinctively they looked out. A tall, dark-looking man, somewhat of an _elegant_ in his appearance, was leaning quietly on the small iron railings that skirted the area and kitchen steps. In this position his chin was on a level with the top of the muslin blind; he could have a full view of all that took place in the room.

He was availing himself without stint or scruple of the advantage.