CHAPTER XXXII.

ADELA STARTLED.

In a small "appartement" in the Champs Elysées, so small, indeed, that the whole of it could almost have been put into the salon of the château in Switzerland, and in its small drawing-room sat Lady Harriet MacIvor and Monsieur le Docteur Féron. Lady Adela sat in it also; but she went for nobody now. It was a lovely April day; the sun shone through the crimson draperies of the window, the flowers were budding, the trees were already green.

Monsieur le Docteur Féron and Lady Harriet were talking partly to, partly _at_ Adela. Inert, listless, dispirited, she paid little or no attention to either of them, or to anything they might choose to say: life and its interests seemed to be no longer of moment to her.

When we saw her in January she was recovering from the low fever. But she did not grow strong. The fever subsided, but the weakness and listlessness remained. Do what they would, the MacIvors could not rouse her from her apathy. Sir Sandy tried reasoning and amusement; Lady Harriet alternately soothed and ridiculed; Darvy, even, ventured now and again on a good scolding. It was all one.

That exposé the previous summer, when she was put away by her husband, seemed to have changed Adela's very nature. At first her mood was resentful; then it became repentant: that was succeeded by one of heart-sickening remorse. Remorse for her own line of conduct during the past years. With the low fever in Switzerland, she began to think of serious things. The awakening to the responsibilities that lie upon us to remember and prepare for a future and better state--an awakening that comes to us all sooner or later, in a greater or a less degree--came to Lady Adela. She saw what her past life had been, all its mocking contempt for what was good, its supreme indifference, its intense selfishness. Night by night, on her bended knees, amid sobs and bitter tears, she besought forgiveness of the Most High. Her cheeks turned red with shame whenever she thought of her kind and good husband, and of how she had requited him. Lady Harriet was right too in her surmise--that Adela had now grown to love her husband. How full of contradictions this human heart of ours is, experience shows us more surely day by day. When she could have indulged that love, she threw it contemptuously from her; now that the time had gone by for indulging it, it was becoming something like idolatry.

Adela did not grow strong; perhaps, with this distressed frame of mind, much improvement was not to be looked for. At length the MacIvors grew alarmed, and resolved to take her to Paris for change and for better advice. Contrary to expectation, Adela made no objection; it seemed as though she no longer cared a straw where she went, or what became of her. "If we offered to box her up in a coffin and bury her for good and all, I don't believe she'd say no," said Lady Harriet one day to the laird. To Paris they went, reaching it during March, and Monsieur le Docteur Féron was at once called in, a man of great repute amongst the English. It was now April, and Monsieur le Docteur, with all his skill, had done nothing.

"But truly there's no reason in it, miladi," he was saying this fine day to Lady Harriet, in English, the language he generally chose to use with his patients, however perfectly they might speak his own. "Miladi Adela has nothing grave amiss with her; absolutely nothing. I assert that to sit as she does has no reason, no common sense in it."

"As I tell her continually," rejoined Lady Harriet, inwardly smiling at his quaint phrases.

"What illness she has, rests on the nerves," proceeded the doctor. "A little on the mind. The earliest day I saw her I asked whether she did have one great shock, or trouble: you remember, do you not, madame?"

"But--good gracious!--one ought not to give way for ever to any shock or trouble--even if one has had such a thing," remonstrated Lady Harriet.

"As I say. Can anything be more clear? Miladi has nothing to make her ill, and yet miladi sits there, ill, day after day. You hear, madame?" turning to Adela.

"Oh yes, I hear," she gently answered, lifting her wan but still lovely face for a moment and then letting it droop again.

"And it is time to end this state of things," resumed the doctor to Lady Harriet. "It must be finished, madame."

"It ought to be," acquiesced Lady Harriet. "But if she does not end it herself, how are we to do it?"

"You go out, madame, with monsieur, your husband, into a little society: is it not so?" spoke the doctor, after a pause of consideration, during which he stroked his face with his gloved hand.

"Of course we do, Monsieur Féron; we are not hermits, and Paris is gay just now," quickly answered Lady Harriet. "We go to the Blunts' tonight."

"Then take her at once also; take her with you. That may be tried. If it has no result, truly I shall not know what to propose. Drugs are hopeless in a case like this," added the doctor, as he made two elaborate bows, one to each lady, and went out.

"Now, Adela, you hear," began Lady Harriet, the moment the door closed, and her voice was sternly resolute. "We have tried everything, and now we shall try this. You go with us to Mrs. Blunt's tonight."

She did not refuse--wonderful to be able to say it. She folded her hands upon her chest and sighed in resignation: too worn out to combat longer: or, perhaps, too apathetical.

"What is it, Harriet? Not a dinner-party?"

"Oh dear, no. An evening party: a crowd, I dare say. Music, I think. And now I shall go and talk to Darvy about what you are to wear," concluded Lady Harriet, escaping from the room lest there should come a tardy opposition. But no, Adela never made it. It seemed to her that she was quite worn out with it all; with the antagonism and the preaching, and the doctors and Harriet; wearied to death. Darvy dressed her plainly enough; a black net robe with black trimmings; and Lady Adela quietly submitted, saying neither yes nor no.

"Don't let me be announced, Harriet," pleaded Adela, as they were going along. "No one cares to hear my name now. I can creep in after you and Sir Sandy."

Mr. and Mrs. Blunt's house was small and their company large. Lady Harriet expected a crowd, and she met with it. Adela, unannounced according to her wish, shook hands with Mrs. Blunt, and escaped into a small recess at the end of the further reception-room. It was draped off by crimson-and-gold curtains, and she sat down, thankful to be alone. She turned giddy: the noise, the lights, the crowd unnerved her. It was so long now since she had mingled in anything of the sort.

She sat on, and began thinking _when_ the last time had been. It came into her memory with a rush. The last time she had made one in these large gatherings was at her own home in Grosvenor Square, not very many days before she finally left it. Ay, and the attendant circumstances also came back to her, even to the words which had passed between herself and her husband. In the bitter contempt she cherished for him, she had not chosen to inform him of the assembly she purposed having, but had sent out the cards unknown to him. He knew nothing about it until the night arrived and he came home to dinner.

"What is the awning up for?" he asked of Hilson, wondering a little.

"My lady has an assembly tonight, sir," was the answer.

"A large one?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Grubb knitted his brow, and went on to his wife. It was not the fact of the assembly that vexed him: it was that she had not thought it worth her while to inform him of it. Darvy was putting the finishing touches to her hair. How well she remembered it now; every minute particular came back to her: where she sat in the room--not at the dressing-glass as usual, but before the open window, for it was intensely hot. Her robe was of costly white lace, adorned with pearls. Pearls that he had given her.

"What is this, Adela?" he had asked. "I hear you have a large assembly tonight."

"Well?" she retorted.

"Could you not have told me?"

"I did not see any especial necessity for telling you."

"I might have had an engagement. In fact, I have one. I ought to go to one of the hotels tonight to see a gentleman who has come over from India on business."

"You can go," was her scornful reply to this. "Your presence is not needed here; it is not at all necessary to the success of the evening."

"There is one, at any rate, who would not miss me," had been his reply as he left her, to go to his room to dress for dinner. Yes, it all came back vividly tonight.

She bent her face on her hand as she recalled this, hiding it in very shame that she could have been so wicked. Lady Sarah Hope had once told her the devil had got possession of her. "Not only the devil," moaned Adela now, "but all his myrmidons."

A lady was beginning to sing. She had a sweet and powerful voice, and she chose a song Mr. Grubb used to be particularly fond of--"Robin Adair."

Adela looked beyond the draperies at the crowd, gathering itself up for a momentary stillness, and disposed herself to listen. Her thoughts were full of Mr. Grubb, as the verses went on. Every word came home to her aching heart.

"But him I loved so well Still in my heart doth dwell-- Oh, I shall ne'er forget Robin Adair."

Applause ensued. It was much better deserved than that usually accorded in these cases. A minute later, and some one called out "Hush!" for the lady had consented to sing again. The noise subsided into silence; the singer was turning over the leaves of her music-book.

To this silence there arose an interruption. Mr. Blunt's English butler appeared, announcing a late guest:

"Sir Francis Netherleigh."

The man had a low, sonorous voice, and every syllable penetrated to Lady Adela's ear. The name struck on the chords of her memory. Sir Francis Netherleigh! Why, he had been dead many a year. Could another Sir Francis Netherleigh be in existence? What did it mean?--for it must be remembered that all such news had been kept and was still kept from her. Lady Adela gazed out from her obscure vantage-ground.

Not for a minute or two did she see anything: the company was dense. Then, threading his way through the line made for him, advanced a man of noble form and face, the form and face of him she had once called husband.

He was in evening-dress, and in mourning. He seemed to be making direct for the recess, and for Adela; and she shrank behind the draperies to conceal herself.

For a moment all things seemed to be in a mist, inwardly and outwardly. What brought Mr. Grubb _there_--and who was the Sir Francis Netherleigh that had been announced, and where was he?

Not to Adela had he been advancing, neither did he see her. Mrs. Blunt chanced to be standing before the recess; it was to her he was making his way.

"How do you do, Sir Francis?" she warmly exclaimed, meeting his hand. "It is so good of you to come: my husband feared you would not be able to spare the time."

"I thought so also when I spoke to him this afternoon," was the answer, given in the earnest pleasant tones Adela remembered so well. "My stay in Paris is but for a few hours this time. Where is Mr. Blunt?"

"I saw him close by a minute ago. Ah, there he is. John," called Mrs. Blunt, "here is Sir Francis Netherleigh."

They moved towards the fireplace; the crowd closed behind them, hiding them from sight, and Adela breathed again. So then, _he_ was Sir Francis Netherleigh! How had it all come about?

Gathering her shawl around her, she escaped from the recess and glided through the room with bent head. In the outer room, opening to the corridor and the staircase, she came upon her sister.

"Harriet, I must go," she feverishly uttered. "I can't stay here."

"Oh, indeed!" said Lady Harriet. "Well--I don't know."

"If there's no carriage waiting, I can have a coach. Or I can walk. It will do me no harm. I shall find my way through the streets."

She ran down the stairs. Harriet felt obliged to follow her. "Will you call up Sir Sandy MacIvor's carriage," asked Lady Harriet of the servants standing below. "Adela, do wait an instant! One would think the house was on fire."

"I must get away," was the eager, terrified interruption, and Adela bore onwards to the outer door.

The carriage was called, and came up. In point of fact, Sir Sandy and his wife had privately agreed to keep it waiting, in case Adela should turn faint in the unusual scene and have to leave. In the porte cochère they encountered a lady who was only then arriving.

"What, going already!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," replied Lady Harriet; "and I wish you would just tell Sir Sandy for me: you will be sure to see him somewhere in the rooms. Say my sister does not feel well, and we have gone home."

They passed out to the carriage and were soon bowling along the streets. Adela drew into her corner, cowering and shivering.

"Did you see him?" she gasped.

"Oh yes, I saw him," grumblingly responded Lady Harriet, who was not very pleased at having to quit the gay scene in this summary fashion. "I am sure Sandy will conclude we have been spirited away, unless Mrs. Seymour finds him. A fine flurry he'll be in."

"Harriet, what did it mean? They called him Sir Francis Netherleigh."

"He is Sir Francis Netherleigh."

"Since when? Why did you not tell me?"

"He has been Francis Netherleigh since Aunt Margery died: the name came to him with the property. He has been Sir Francis since--oh, for about six weeks now. The old Uncle Francis wished the baronetcy to be revived in him, and his wishes have been carried out."

Adela paused, apparently revolving the information. "Then his name is no longer Grubb?"

"In one sense, no. For all social uses that name has passed from him."

"Why did you never tell me this?" repeated Adela.

"From the uncertainty as to whether you would care to hear it, Adela. We decided to say nothing until you were stronger."

A second pause of thought. "If he has succeeded to the name, why, so have I. Have I not? Though he puts me away from himself, Harriet, he cannot take from me his name."

"Of course you have succeeded to it."

Pause the third. "Then I ought to have been announced tonight as Lady Adela Netherleigh!"

"Had you been announced at all. You solved the difficulty, you know, by telling me you would not be announced--you would creep in after me and Sandy."

"What difficulty?"

"Well, had you heard yourself called Netherleigh, you would have wanted to know, there and then, the why and the wherefore. It might have created a small commotion."

Pause the fourth. "Who is he in mourning for? Aunt Margery?"

"And also for his mother. Mrs. Lynn lived just long enough to see him take up the baronetcy. I think it must have gratified her--that her son should be the one to succeed at last. _She_ would have had Court Netherleigh in the old days, Adela, had she not displeased Uncle Francis by her marriage, not Margery Upton. He told Margery so when he was dying."

"The world seems full of changes," sighed Adela.

"It always was, and always will be. But I fancy the right mostly comes uppermost in the end," added Lady Harriet. "Where is Mary Lynn, you ask? She lives with Sir Francis, in Grosvenor Square; the house's mistress."

Adela ceased her questioning. Amidst the many items for reflection suggested to her by the news, was this: that the once-hated name of Grubb had been suppressed for ever. There flashed across her a reminiscence of a day in the past autumn, when she was last staying at Court Netherleigh. She had been giving some scorn to the name, after her all-frequent custom, and Miss Upton had answered it with a peculiar look. Adela did not then understand the look: she did now. That expressive look, had she been able to read it, might have told her that Mr. Grubb would not long retain the name. Adela shrank closer into the corner of the carriage and pressed her hands upon her burning eyes. Foolish, infatuated woman that she had been!

"Did you notice how noble he looked tonight?" she murmured, after awhile.

"He always did look noble, Adela. Here we are."

The carriage drew up. As Lady Harriet, after getting out herself, turned to give her hand to Adela, still weak enough to require especial care, she did not find it responded to.

"Are you asleep, Adela? Come. We are at home."

"I beg your pardon," was the meek answer.

She had only been waiting to stem the torrent of tears flowing forth. Lady Harriet saw them glistening on her wasted cheeks by the light of the carriage-lamps. Bitter tears, telling of a breaking heart.

"Sandy," observed Lady Harriet to her husband that night, "I do not see that a further stay here will be of any use to Adela. We may as well be making preparations for our journey to the Highlands."

"Just as you please," acquiesced Sir Sandy. "I, you know, would rather be in the Highlands than anywhere else. Fix your own time."

"Then we will start next week," decided Lady Harriet. But we must revert for a few moments to Sir Francis Netherleigh before closing the chapter.

His stay in Paris, a matter of business having taken him there, was limited to some four-and-twenty hours. Upon reaching Calais on his return homewards, he found one of the worst gales blowing that Calais had ever known, and he was greeted with the news that not a boat could leave the harbour. All he could do was to go to an hotel, Dessin's, and make himself comfortable until the morrow. Late in the afternoon he strolled out to take a look at the raging sea, and found it was with difficulty he could struggle against the wind. In returning, he was blown against a gentleman, or the gentleman against him; the two laughed, began an apology, and then simultaneously shook hands--for it was Gerard Hope. Sir Francis Netherleigh's heart went out in compassion; Gerard was looking so thin and careworn.

"Come to my hotel and dine with me, Gerard," he said impulsively. And Gerard went.

After dinner, they left the table d'hôte for a private room, to which a bottle of choice claret was ordered. Talking together of past times, the subject of the lost bracelet came up. Sir Francis, listening attentively to what Gerard said, looking at him keenly as he said it, drew the absolute conclusion that Gerard was not the thief: he was quick at distinguishing truth from falsehood.

"Gerard," he quietly asked, "why have you remained so long abroad? It bears a look, you see, to some people, that you are afraid to come back and face the charge."

"It's not that," returned Gerard. "What I can't face is my body of creditors. They would pretty soon lay hold of me, if I went over. As to the other affair, what could I do in it? Nothing. My uncle will never believe me not guilty; and I could not prove that I am innocent."

"Fill your glass, Gerard. How much do you owe?"

"Well, it must be as much, I'm afraid, as five hundred pounds."

"Is that all?" spoke Sir Francis, rather slightingly.

Gerard laughed. "Not much to many a man; but a very great deal to a poor one. I don't know that I should be much better off at home than here," he added in a thoughtful tone. "So long as that bracelet affair lies in doubt, the world will look askance at me: and I expect it will never be cleared up."

"It was a most singular thing, quite a mystery, as Lady Sarah always calls it. I suppose you have no suspicion yourself, Gerard, as to the culprit."

"Why, yes, I have, unfortunately."

Sir Francis caught at the words. "Who was it?"

Gerard Hope's pale face, so much paler than of yore, turned red. But that he had been in a reverie he would not have made the unguarded admission.

"I am sorry to have said so much, Sir Francis," he avowed hastily. "It is true that a doubt lies on my mind; but I ought not to have spoken of it."

"Nay, but you may trust me, Gerard."

"I don't like to," hesitated Gerard. "It was of a lady. And perhaps I was mistaken."

"Not Alice herself," cried Sir Francis, jestingly.

"No, no. I--think--Alice--holds--the--same--suspicion," he added, with a pause between each word.

"You had better trust me, Gerard. No harm shall come of it, to you or to her; I promise you that."

"I thought," breathed Gerard, "it was Selina Dalrymple."

"Selina Dalrymple!" echoed Sir Francis, utterly surprised. "Since when have you thought that?"

"Ever since."

"But why?"

"Well, partly because no one but myself and Selina went into the room; and I know that it was not I who took it. And partly because her visit to the house that evening was kept secret. Her name, as I dare say you know, was never spoken of at all in connection with the matter. Alice did not say she had been there, and of course I did not."

"But how do you know she was there?"

"I opened the door to her. As I left that back-room where the jewels lay upon the table, I looked round to speak to Alice, and I saw that self-same glistening bracelet lying on the table behind the others. I did not return into the room at all; what I had to say to Alice I said with the door in my hand. Upon opening the front-door, to let myself out, there stood Selina Dalrymple, about to ring. She asked for Alice, and ran upstairs to her quietly, as if she did not want to be heard. That Selina went into the room where the jewels were and admired them, Alice casually said to me when we met in the street next day. But her visit was never spoken of in the house, as far as I know."

Sir Francis made no remark. Gerard went on.

"In the first blush of the loss, I should as soon have suspected myself as Selina Dalrymple; sooner perhaps: but when it came to be asserted at the investigation that no other person whatever had been in the room than myself, excepting Alice, I could not see the reason of that assertion, and the doubt flashed upon me. For one thing"--Gerard dropped his voice--"we learnt how terribly hard-up poor Selina was just then. Worse than I was."

"I am very sorry to have heard this, Gerard," said Sir Francis, perceiving at once how grave were the grounds for suspicion. "Poor Selina, indeed! It must never transpire; it would kill Oscar. At heart, he is fond of her as ever."

"Of course it must not transpire," assented Gerard. "I have never breathed it, until now, to mortal man. But it has made things harder for me, you see."

"It was said at the time, I remember, that you denied the theft in a half-hearted manner. Lady Sarah herself told me that. This suspicion trammelled you?"

"To be sure it did. I vowed to them I did not take the bracelet, but in my fear of directing doubts to Selina, I was not as emphatic as I might have been. I felt just as you express it, Sir Francis--trammelled. And I fear," went on Gerard, after a pause, "that this same suspicion has been making havoc with poor Alice's heart and health. When I receive a letter from Frances, as I do now and then, she is sure to lament over Alice's low spirits and her increasing illness."

Francis Netherleigh sat thinking. "It seems to me, Gerard," he presently said, "that you are being punished unjustly. You ought to return to England."

"Ah, but I can't," answered Gerard, shaking his head. "The sharks would be on to me. Before I could turn round I should be lodged in the Queen's Bench."

"No, no; not if they saw you wished to pay them later, and that there was a fair probability of your doing so."

"My wish is good enough. As to the probability--it is nowhere."

"Creditors are not as hard as they are sometimes represented, Gerard. I can assure you of that. I have always found them reasonable."

Gerard laughed outright. "I dare _say_ you have, Sir Francis. It would be an odd creditor that would be hard to you."

"Ah, but I meant when I have dealt with them for other people," replied Sir Francis, joining in the laugh.

"And if I did get back to London, I should have nothing to live upon," resumed Gerard. "The pittance that I half starve upon in these cheap places, I might wholly starve upon there. I often wish I could get employed as a clerk; no one but myself knows how thankful I should be. But with this other thing hanging over my head, who'd give me a recommendation, and who'd take me without one!"

"Well, well, we will see, Gerard. It is a long lane that has no turning."

They talked yet further, and then Gerard said good-night. And in the morning Sir Francis Netherleigh heard the welcome tidings that the wind had gone down sufficiently to allow the mail-packet to venture out. So he went in her to England.