CHAPTER XVII.

JACK MAKES A LAST APPEAL.

It was the morning appointed for the marriage.

Harkaway was miserable and disconsolate.

He had not seen Mr. Mole since the day before, and had only heard that he was hurt and had been taken to the hospital.

So he said to Harvey: "Morris Hart tells me that old Mole got his leg broken playing base-ball. I suppose it is not very serious or we should have heard from him. Won't you go and see him, Dick?"

"Certainly," replied Harvey.

Scarcely had he gone, when Alfred Van Hoosen came in. Jack eagerly grasped his hand.

"Will she see me?" he asked.

"Yes. I have sufficient influence over her to induce her to do that," was the reply. "I have induced her to consent to breakfast with us at the Brunswick."

They quitted the house together and Jack went on to the Brunswick, while Alfred Van Hoosen engaged a carriage to go to the house and bring his sister.

It was in a private room that Jack awaited their coming. Slowly passed the minutes.

At length there was a rustle of silk, that indescribable _frou-frou_ which the skirts of a woman always make, and Lena Van Hoosen, looking pale and with traces of tears on her cheeks entered.

"Lena!" exclaimed Jack.

She extended her hand which Jack grasped warmly.

"I have come at the solicitation of my brother," she replied, "to bid you farewell."

"Forever?" he asked.

"Yes. I thought I owed this much to you, but I wish it understood that we can only meet in future as strangers.

"I am to be married to Lord Maltravers. It is against my will, I admit that--"

"Oh! Lena," interrupted her brother, passionately. "You always professed some liking for me. Why will you persist in this ill-advised match?"

"Simply because it is my duty. My mother insists upon it. I sacrifice my inclination and my love."

It was evident from her manner and appearance that the poor girl was suffering terribly.

"Is there no hope for me?" asked Jack, as he choked back a sob.

"None," she answered in a stony voice. "Learn to forget me."

"I cannot do it. I have every reason to believe that I have been something to you. Can you so easily forget me?"

She dared not look him in the face.

"Do not ask me," she said. "I have come at your wish and my brother's to wish you farewell."

At this moment an organ in the street began to play a funereal dirge, and it sounded like the knell of all his hopes.

Alfred offered his arm to his sister and they passed out together.

For some time Jack remained in an attitude of passive despair, then he walked down-stairs.

In his preoccupied state, he did not see where he was going, and in the corridor he pushed against a man.

The man was Lord Maltravers who had come there to breakfast.

"Harkaway," said his lordship.

"Yes, and your enemy," was the reply.

"I know it, my good fellow, and I'm proud of it."

"Don't call me your 'good fellow,'" said Jack, while the blood rushed to his face.

"I shall call you what I please," exclaimed Lord Maltravers, with cool insolence.

Jack controlled himself, and the two men stood glaring at one another. Under no circumstances can men hate so intensely as when they are rivals for the affections of a woman.

"Isn't it about time, Mr. Harkaway, that you returned to England?" said Lord Maltravers, with his glass in his eye.

Jack gnashed his teeth.

"You are trying to insult me," he exclaimed.

"I hoped I had succeeded," was the reply.

"By Heaven you have," Jack cried, unable to control himself any longer.

Clinching his broad sledge-hammer fist, he stepped back a pace and dealt the peer a heavy blow in the face.

Maltravers rolled over and fell on the floor.

Striding over his prostrate body with a contemptuous air, Jack quitted the place.

When he reached home he found Harvey in the hall.

"I was waiting for you, Jack," he said. "Had any luck?"

"None at all."

"Couldn't you persuade the lady that you were better than that fellow Maltravers?"

"No. She would obey her mother."

"Never mind. There are as good fish in the sea, as ever."