CHAPTER XIII.

We left Mr. Earnscliffe alone in the drawing-room waiting for the return of the ladies, and during their absence that unfinished sentence of Helena's--"Flora would not--" occupied his thoughts. "Did she mean to say that Flora Adair would not accept Mr. Lyne?" His heart beat strangely fast as the conviction that it was so began to dawn upon him, and again he felt startled at his own feelings. But he would not stop to examine them now: he must first discover the whole truth. And once again he thought, "What can Mary Elton's motive be in not letting her sister speak?" He remembered her extraordinary agitation upon seeing him, and wondered what could have caused it. It was not possible to suppose that Mary wanted him as a desirable match for herself, as with her beauty and ample fortune he knew that a suitable marriage could be no difficulty for her. Why, then, should she waste her energies in trying to catch him?... Evidently it could not be that; yet he could think of no other reason for her extraordinary conduct. He was not a vain man: so it never occurred to him that the cause of all this was love for himself; besides, he hardly believed that women ever acted from any but interested motives,--thus he missed the solution of the riddle.

His musings were interrupted by the entry into the room of the subject of them. Mary came in and threw herself into an armchair, and as she lay back in it she looked so weary that Mr. Earnscliffe said--

"You look tired, Miss Elton."

"Tired? Yes. Tell me--you who are said to be a philosopher--have you found life to be so pleasant a thing that you have never been tired of it?" She did not give him time to answer, but went on hurriedly, "Is it not, on the contrary, made up of struggles which wear one out;--of vain efforts to win some longed-for object? And how great is the weariness which follows these struggles, when one sees that object slipping from one's grasp, and about to fall into the hands of one who has, perhaps, never fought for it!"

He looked at her in amazement as he exclaimed--

"You speak almost with the bitterness of experience, Miss Elton!"

"I speak of life in general. Is it not what I have said?"

"Yes, perhaps it is so,--at least, until we have learned that there is nothing in it worth struggling for!"

"But I do not think it true that there is nothing in life worth struggling for; nor in reality do _you_. Ay, there are things worth struggling for, and at this very moment you feel that there are!"

"Miss Elton!"

"I know that I astonish you greatly. You cannot understand that I should speak thus,--I, who am generally so calm and quiet. But there are times when one forgets conventionality, and everything else;--times when life becomes a burden, and one envies the Pagans, who saw no crime in laying it down voluntarily. We are given too much or too little light and faith--enough to prevent us from choosing between life and death, as they did, but not enough to prevent us from longing that we, too, had the power so to choose.... Ah! if one did not believe in eternal happiness or misery!"

At this moment, Mrs. Elton and Helena came in, and there would have been an awkward pause, had not Mary continued, with perfect coolness--

"Yes, as I was saying, happiness and misery--or rather, prosperity and misery--come into such close contact in Italy;--the palace and the hovel lean one against the other; the lady in costly velvets and the beggar-woman in rags walk side by side. Indeed, it is in southern lands alone that you see them thus face to face."

"That is quite true," observed Mrs. Elton. "In England the proper distinction of classes is admirably well marked."

"The carriage, ma'am," announced Thomas, opening the door.

"What a strange girl that is!" thought Mr. Earnscliffe, as he looked at Mary, who was seated opposite to him in the carriage. "She was speaking with all the earnestness of excited feeling when her mother entered the room, and at once she changed her tone and manner so completely, that one could scarcely believe it to be the same person who, a moment before, was talking bitterly and eagerly, with flashing eyes and hands twitching nervously...."

When they reached the Riviera they found it already crowded with gay equipages. No sooner, however, had they taken their place among the other carriages than Helena exclaimed, "How I should like to get out and walk in the Villa Reale; then I could see the programme of the music, and one enjoys listening to a band so much more when one knows what it is playing."

"And why do you not gratify your desire? I need scarcely say that I should be most happy to escort you," said Mr. Earnscliffe.

"Thank you! Thomas, open the door."

"I will go with you," said Mary.

"But," interposed Mrs. Elton, "you surely will not leave me quite alone; you may as well stay with me now, Mary, and when Helena comes back you can take a turn, if Mr. Earnscliffe should not be tired of handing young ladies about."

"On the contrary, Miss Elton may count upon my being ready to accompany her."

Mary felt that she could not persist, so she reseated herself, saying, "Thank you, but I dare say that by the time Helena returns I may not feel inclined to trespass upon your readiness to oblige. You know that it is a woman's privilege to change her mind as often as she likes, and we have so few privileges that it would be unwise not to avail ourselves of them."

He merely smiled as he handed Helena out of the carriage, and offering her his arm, he led her into the Villa in order to see the programme, which was posted up close to where the band was playing. Mary soon lost sight of them amidst the crowd. Before they had come out she had given Helena a lecture upon her thoughtless way of speaking, and cited as an example of this what she was about to say on that very morning about Mr. Lyne and Flora Adair, declaring that even if she positively knew--which she could not--that Flora had refused Mr. Lyne, it was not right of her to speak of it.

"You are mistaken, Mary," answered Helena, "in saying that I could not know it. I _do_ know it, for Harry's answers were so confused and contradictory when I asked him about his friend, that it was just as plain to me that he had been refused as if Harry had admitted it in so many words. Poor Harry! he thinks that it would be betraying his friend to tell even me; but with all his determination he has 'let the cat out of the bag'--he would have done much better to have told me in confidence; I should then be bound in honour not to divulge it."

"It matters not--you ought not to speak of it. What would Mr. Lyne think if he should hear it said that Flora Adair had refused him, and that the Misses Elton had said so? So please, Lena, to be more cautious in future."

"I will not speak of it, Mary, because it would, I see, annoy you; but why not have said candidly, 'Do not tell _Mr. Earnscliffe_,' for you know that it is not my saying generally that Mr. Lyne has been rejected which displeases you."

"What possible advantage could it be to me, Helena, that Mr. Earnscliffe should not know this? Do you suppose that it would make him like me any better? Absurd! But we must not get the character of being _mauvaises langues_. You said you would not speak of it again, and therefore I am sure you will not." So saying she left the room.

Even to Helena she could not bring herself to acknowledge to what meanness she could descend in order to keep Mr. Earnscliffe away from Flora Adair, and it was after this conversation that she went into the drawing-room looking so weary.

As she saw Mr. Earnscliffe and Helena leave the carriage together she thought, "What Lena said of Mr. Caulfield--that his very determination not to speak betrayed the secret--will be her own case now. She will mean to keep her word, yet Mr. Earnscliffe will know it, for he is determined to know as much as possible."

She was right: Mr. Earnscliffe was determined to find out the truth, yet he felt awkward about asking Helena; so by way of introduction he led the conversation back to Rome, and their ball, and chance favoured him. Helena inadvertently disclosed all that he wished to know. He exerted all his power to be agreeable in order to amuse her, and drew such laughable caricatures of the different people there that Helena forgot all restraint, and yielding to her natural delight in ridicule, she added many an absurd feature to Mr. Earnscliffe's pictures, until, carried away by the subject, she exclaimed, "But the hero of the night was Mr. Lyne. His air of confidence and triumph as he danced that last quadrille before the cotillon with Flora was delicious; then afterwards the poor rejected creature looked so crestfallen as he sneaked away that I could not help laughing at him. I met him near the door, and was so tempted to cut off his retreat and make him dance with me for the fun of teazing him; but I took pity upon him and let him escape."

"Then he did propose for Flo----, for Miss Adair, and she refused him?" said Mr. Earnscliffe, in a low thrilling tone.

"I said nothing about Mr. Lyne's proposing to Flora Adair," retorted Helena eagerly, and blushing deeply as she felt how imprudent she had been--that she had told the very thing which she had been desired not to tell.

"It is quite needless to make any explanations about it, Miss Elton. I am aware that you did not _say_ that Mr. Lyne had been refused by Miss Adair," he answered, smiling.

Helena grew still more flushed as she cried out hotly, "You are unkind, ungenerous, man----" she was going to say manoeuvring, but she stopped suddenly, feeling that getting angry about it was only betraying herself still further.

"How many more evil qualities have I displayed, Miss Elton?" he replied, with a slight laugh. "But here are two friends of yours."

She looked up and saw Mr. Lyne and Mr. Caulfield standing before her, the latter gazing at her with somewhat of a displeased air. A lover is not often particularly well pleased to see his beloved walking alone with another, and that a handsome, man! Helena understood it all at a glance; it quite restored her gaiety, and for the time being made her forget her vexation with herself and Mr. Earnscliffe. As she shook hands with the new-comers she thought to herself, "So you are jealous, Master Harry, are you?--then I shall have grand fun in teazing you." She had drawn her arm from Mr. Earnscliffe's, and stood with downcast eyes before Mr. Caulfield. Mr. Earnscliffe proposed that they should return to the carriage, but Helena objected, saying, "Surely it is pleasanter to walk about a little longer; and now that these gentlemen have joined us, one of them I dare say will allow me to walk with him, so that you, Mr. Earnscliffe, will be freed from the wearisome task of _making me talk_." She emphasised the latter words, and again an expression of annoyance passed over her features.

"It was not a wearisome task I assure you, Miss Elton,--very far from it; your conversation was most interesting to me."

"True, I suppose you did find it interesting for once." She turned away impatiently, and said in a low tone to Mr. Caulfield, "Come."

He required no second summons to join her, and they walked on together, Mr. Lyne and Mr. Earnscliffe following.

From what Helena had said Mr. Earnscliffe felt certain that Flora had refused Mr. Lyne, yet he wanted to have assurance made doubly sure; he longed to hear Mr. Lyne himself confirm it, for he found it very difficult to believe that a woman had acted so disinterestedly, and at the same time he wished ardently to be compelled to believe that _Flora Adair_ had done so. But the difficulty was to make Mr. Lyne speak--how indirectly soever it might be--on the subject.... Again chance favoured him.

An Italian lady with her two daughters passed them and bowed to Mr. Lyne. Turning to his companion, he said, "Did you observe the plainer of those two girls? She has just returned from a convent for her month of probation before she enters as a nun."

"Indeed! poor girl! so she is to be a victim to this horrible custom in your Catholic countries of sending plain or portionless girls into a convent! Yet, after all, I don't know that it is a great deal worse than our own system of selling women in marriage, save inasmuch as that we use no force. But then--alas that it should be so!--it is not necessary for us to use force,--our women are only too ready to be sold if the bidding be but high enough, too ready to become the property of any man who can give them wealth or position, with or without love on their sides. To me, this appears to be the lowest of all degradation, and the sanction which the world's rules gives to it can make no real difference. It is merely _legitimatized_ degradation, yet I half believe that _all_ women are capable of submitting to it."

"Surely you are mistaken," answered Mr. Lyne earnestly; "there are many women far above anything of that kind. You must not forget that, on principle, many persons disapprove of ardent love as an ill-regulated feeling; therefore women often marry without what is called _love_, but they would not for worlds accept one whom they did not respect and look up to; and these surely are not to be condemned. There are others again whom no possible advantage would induce to marry without that intense love of which they dream."

"This is all very well in theory, but does not experience teach us the contrary? Could we name one woman out of all those whom we know who would really act so? Lives there the girl who, without an independence of her own, ever refused a rich man merely because she did not love him intensely? You know you could not point out one."

"Pardon me, I could."

"Really? truly?"--exclaimed Mr. Earnscliffe, laying his hand upon Mr. Lyne's arm.

"As really, as truly, as that I am walking with you."

"Thank you, Lyne, you don't know how much good you have done me; you have restored my belief in the truth and beauty of woman's nature, for even one true woman is sufficient to redeem the sex from general contempt.... Yet God knows I had reason to distrust them."

"Still you ought not to distrust all because some are unworthy."

"I feel that you are right, and again I thank you for having given back to me one of the old feelings of my youth."

To Mr. Lyne's calm, passionless temperament this lively gratitude seemed uncalled for, and he made no answer. After a few moments' silence Mr. Earnscliffe said, "We must return to the carriage. Mrs. Elton will think I have eloped with her daughter." Quickening his pace, he joined Mr. Caulfield and Helena, saying, "Miss Elton, I regret to break in upon a conversation which seems to engross you so much, but I really think we ought to return to Mrs. Elton."

"Very well," answered Helena in an impatient tone.

Mr. Earnscliffe fell back to his place by Mr. Lyne, but before they got within sight of the carriage Helena and her cavalier stopped apparently to examine a flower, and when the others came up she said, "Mr Lyne, I believe you are a good botanist, so come and tell me the name of this flower; and I also want to hear about your proposed tour in Sicily."

It was easy to see that the object of all this was to change the order of the procession, accordingly Mr. Earnscliffe walked on with Mr. Caulfield, while Helena and Mr. Lyne were occupied with the flower.

When they reached the carriage neither Mrs. Elton nor Mary seemed pleased at the addition to their party in the persons of Mr. Caulfield and Mr. Lyne. The two gentlemen, however, appeared not to observe it, and went up and shook hands with them. Mr. Earnscliffe handed Helena into the carriage, then said to Mary, "Now, Miss Elton, shall we have our walk?"

"Thank you, not now; I do not feel inclined to walk; but if you will return to dinner with us we can have a stroll in the evening."

"You are very kind," he replied, "and I shall be delighted to do so, if you will permit me to say adieu for the present. I must see my boatman and tell him at what hour to be ready for me."

"Could not Thomas do that?"

"No. I must go myself, for I promised to buy a present for my boatman's little daughter."

"Well then, _au revoir_! We dine at half-past six to-day, on account of some national fête to which our cook wants to go, so you have not too much time to spare."

"Nevertheless I shall be punctual--adieu."

Mrs. Elton turned to Mary and asked, "Is Mr. Earnscliffe gone?"

"For the present, yes; but he will return to dinner."

"Oh, that is all right," answered Mrs. Elton, without taking the trouble of lowering her voice so as to prevent the other gentlemen from hearing that Mr. Earnscliffe was going to dine with her; indeed she was rather glad to make Mr. Caulfield feel that he was in the way; had it not been for him she would have asked Mr. Lyne to dine, but, as it was, she could not ask him and leave his friend uninvited; it would have been _too_ much.

At six the band went away, and the Eltons immediately afterwards.... When they reached home Mrs. Elton told Thomas that Mr. Earnscliffe was coming to dinner, and desired that as soon as he arrived he should be shown into a dressing-room. The ladies then disappeared.

Helena dreaded the dressing beyond measure, for she was sure that Mary would at once ask her about her walk, and what could she answer? In fear and trembling she entered her own and her sister's room; but Mary asked no questions: the mischief, she instinctively felt, had been done, and it was useless to reproach Helena. She dressed herself in silence; but her varying colour, and the trembling of her hands, showed how excited she was. Helena looked on with dismay. She found this silence worse than any scolding could have been, yet she was afraid to break it. To her great relief the bell rang for dinner, and she hastened downstairs. Mary followed her in a few moments, but went direct to the dining-room, and there she found the rest of the party.

It is said that "drowning people will catch at straws." Mary caught at the shred of a hope that, perhaps, after all, Mr. Earnscliffe was not quite lost to her, since he had accepted _her_ invitation to dinner; especially as he had, no doubt, gained all the information he required; and, moreover, as he generally disliked society so much, there must be some motive for his staying.... It was a straw, indeed!

What would she have said if she had known that Mr. Earnscliffe only stayed from curiosity as to what her motive could be in trying to conceal from him the truth about Flora, as he thought it possible that during the evening something might occur to throw light upon it?

After dinner the girls proposed going out, to which their guest gladly assented. Mrs. Elton said she would remain in the house, as she felt a little tired. At the foot of the steps they met a peasant girl with bouquets, and Helena stopped to speak to her, as she had a shrewd suspicion that the bouquet girl did not come unsent. Mr. Earnscliffe and Mary went on and strolled into the alley where they had met in the morning.

Mary looked very handsome. The blue opera cloak which she had thrown round her shoulders showed off to advantage her brilliantly fair skin and auburn hair; and she could not help thinking, as she looked at herself in a glass on passing out, "How strange that _he_ should prefer Flora Adair to me!... I am far more beautiful than she is. What _can_ I do to keep him from her?"

With this question ringing in her ears she went out as we have said. She broke the silence after they entered the alley by saying "Are you going to remain at Capri?"

"I think not--I shall probably start in a day or two."

"And where do you intend to go?"

"I have not fixed upon any place as yet, but southern Italy is becoming too hot."

"And Venice, I suppose, will be cooler!" she answered, bitterly.

"I did not say that I was going to Venice?"

"Of course you did not--you did not wish to acknowledge that you were going to meet the _Adairs_!"

"Really, Miss Elton, for the third time to-day you astound me more than I can say; but as you _have_ named the Adairs, will you tell me why you took such trouble to make me believe that Mr. Lyne was to be married to Miss Adair,--and, of course, you knew as well as your sister that she had refused him?"

"Are you blind, that you do not see what has urged me to this?"--She had evidently lost all self-control, as she stopped walking, and stood opposite to him with her flashing eyes fixed on his face. What more she might have said or done, had not the sound of an approaching step caught her ear, it would be difficult to tell. She added hurriedly, "Go now to Flora Adair, and win her love if you can; but in the hour when you feel most sure of her, or when you only wait for religious rites to make her yours for ever, may she be torn from you--more, may _she_ play you false--may her hand strike the blow which shall crush your heart, even as mine has been crushed to-day! Now go!" She seized his hand, and for an instant her fingers closed upon it like a vice; then she let it go with a start as if it had burned her, and, turning away, she darted down a side walk.

Mr. Earnscliffe stood like one transfixed, until the step which had been heard in the distance now sounded close to him. Looking round, he saw Helena Elton, who exclaimed, in a frightened tone, "Mr. Earnscliffe! what does all this mean? Where is Mary?"

"Go to her as quickly as you can," was his answer,--"she left me in a state of fearful agitation; but believe me that, intentionally, I would not have caused her a moment's pain." He put out his hand absently: Helena understood that he meant to take leave of her, and placing hers in it, she said, "I do believe it, Mr. Earnscliffe, and do not judge poor Mary harshly; _you_ at least should be indulgent towards her."

"Fear not, Miss Elton; as you say, _I_ at least can never use her harshly." He pressed Helena's hand and left her. She went to seek her sister, while he walked slowly back to the house.

That day had been a day of revelations to him, and pain and pleasure were so strangely mingled in those revelations, that he preserved his calmness only with a strong effort. He entered the drawing-room to say good-bye to Mrs. Elton, but she was not there; then he rang for the servant, and said, "Will you be so good as to tell Mrs. Elton that I came in to say good-night to her as I am obliged to go at once; but as she is not downstairs I do not wish to disturb her."

"Please, sir, let me tell Mrs. Elton that you are going."

"Thank you, no, I cannot wait." So saying, he walked into the hall. Thomas opened the door, and as it closed behind him, he felt that he had crossed the Eltons' threshold for the last time.

The carriage was at the gate, and he drove direct to the shore.