CHAPTER LXVII.--RELATES HOW, THE ECLIPSE BEING OVER, THE SUN BEGAN TO

SHINE AGAIN.

In the meantime, Lewis having awoke from his long sleep, and finding himself all the better and stronger for his nap, had just breakfasted with much appetite when Antonelli appeared and handed him a note. It was from Laura (written before her interview with Frere), informing him of their intended departure on the morrow, begging him to call upon her immediately he returned to England, which, as soon as his health would permit, she advised him to do without loss of time, and winding up with a hint that, in regard to the matter which especially interested him, he might make himself quite easy, for that everything could be most satisfactorily explained.

Lewis read and re-read the note. “The matter that especially interested him!”--that could have but one meaning. Oh, yes I Annie had cleared herself--she had never accepted Lord Bellefield; or, if she had, she had been cheated into doing so. Annie was good and true--the Annie of his imagination--the bright, fair, loving, gentle being his soul worshipped! But he must have certainty--he must not again be the dupe of his own wishes; no, he must have certainty, and he must have it at once. Wait till his return to England? Why, that might be days, weeks hence! And was he all that time to suffer the tortures of suspense? It was not to be thought of. He must see Laura before her departure and learn the truth. But this would necessitate a visit to the Palazzo Grassini, in which he must run the chance of encountering the General or Annie. And as his thoughts reverted to her, the idea for the first time occurred to him of the mental suffering she must have undergone if, as he now believed, she had indeed truly loved him, and been in some unaccountable manner forced by circumstances to consent to the engagement with her cousin. Then he remembered the scene in the Square of St. Mark, and a sense of the cruelty of his own conduct towards her overwhelmed him. This decided the question. He would at all risks see Laura; and if--as he now did not for a moment doubt--her explanation proved satisfactory, he would entreat her to obtain Annie’s forgiveness. She _must_ forgive him when she came to know all he had suffered--when she heard how ill he had been: and as he thought of his illness the somewhat perplexing question occurred to him how he was to reach the Palazzo Grassini in his present weak state? Never mind; where there was a will there was a way. He _would_ do it, he was determined; and so he summoned Antonelli, and to the alarm of that worthy man, who fancied the fever had again flown to the brain, and that his beloved master was delirious, announced that he was going out to pay a visit, and requested his assistance in dressing himself.

It was not till his toilet was completed and he attempted to walk downstairs that he became aware how weak and helpless his illness had left him, and it required all his resolution to persevere in his expedition. Luckily the distance was short, and he was enabled to perform some part of it in a gondola; still, by the time he reached the Palazzo Grassini his strength was so completely exhausted that if he had been required to proceed a hundred yards further he would have been unable to accomplish the task. Having inquired if Mrs. Leicester was at home and received an answer in the affirmative, he continued--

“Then show me up to her boudoir unannounced; I will hold you blameless for doing so.”

The servant, who knew how intimate Lewis had been there before the coming of the Grant party, and how his visits had ceased with their arrival, naturally enough conjectured that the young painter was for some reason desirous to avoid encountering any of the General’s family, and complied with his request unhesitatingly. But the domestic in question, who chanced to be the same individual who had admitted Frere, was not aware of the additional and, to the parties concerned, somewhat important fact, that since he had performed that service Miss Grant and his mistress had changed places, and that at the moment he was conducting Lewis to the boudoir that apartment was tenanted by Annie Grant, while Laura was engaged in solemn conclave with Richard Frere in the library. Thus it fell out that when the door of the boudoir was noiselessly opened, Annie Grant, who had remained there after she had despatched Laura on her difficult mission to Ursa Major, and _more majorum_, from the time of Niobe downwards, had indulged her feelings with a hearty cry, was wiping her eyes and trying to make herself believe that her troubles must be “working to an end,” and that dim on the horizon of her future fate there might be discerned a good time coming. Annie thus pondering, and thus engaged, saw a tall, bending figure enter, in whose well-known features, their expression softened and spiritualised by severe illness, she needed no announcement to recognise Lewis Arundel.

The windows of Laura’s boudoir were shaded from the burning rays of an Italian sun by (literally) Venetian blinds, which kept out not only the heat, but in great measure the light also; and Lewis, whose eyes were dizzy and his head swimming from weakness, perceiving a female figure advancing towards him, naturally conjectured it to be Laura, and accosted her as follows--

“You are no doubt surprised to see me here, but after perusing your note I could not rest till I had learned the truth from your own lips, and as you are to quit Venice to-morrow, there was no time to lose; so I resolved, _coûte qui coûte_, to make the effort, and here I am.”

He paused for a reply, but obtaining none, looked up in surprise, and perceived Annie Grant standing pale and trembling before him. Completely overcome by this unexpected encounter, he contrived to stammer out--

“I beg pardon, I believed I was addressing Mrs. Leicester. I must go and seek her,” and turned to put his design into execution; but his strength was unequal to the task, and leaning against a marble slab, he remained motionless, utterly unable to proceed. For a moment Annie paused as if thunder-stricken, then her woman’s heart awoke within her, and in an instant she was by his side, bringing a chair for him to sit down.

“Oh, Mr. Arundel, how wrong, how mad of you to venture out,” she exclaimed, her anxiety for him overpowering every other feeling; “you will bring on a return of the fever. Why, you are so weak that you can scarcely stand; pray sit down.”

Advancing a step, Lewis took the chair from her, and leaning on the back for support, said with a faint smile--

“I have indeed somewhat miscalculated my strength, Miss Grant; I am very, very weak,” and as he spoke he sank upon the seat, while the bright flush, which the excitement of beholding Annie had called into his cheeks, faded to the most deathlike paleness: his companion became alarmed.

“You are faint,” she said; “let me ring for assistance.”

A tray, with a decanter of water and some glasses, stood upon a table near; Lewis’s eye fell upon them.

“It is merely the unaccustomed exertion,” he said feebly, “it will pass away in a moment.”

Annie caught the direction of his glance. “You would like a glass of water,” she exclaimed, “let me give you one;” and suiting the action to the word, she filled a glass with the sparkling liquid and handed it to him. He took it with a slight inclination of the head, drank it eagerly, and was about to rise, in order to put down the glass, when Annie, by a deprecating gesture, prevented him, and taking it from his trembling fingers replaced it on the table. As she turned from doing so, their eyes met, and she perceived that his were fixed on her features with a deep, earnest, scrutinising gaze, as though he strove to read in her countenance the history of her inner life. For a moment she met his gaze with a bright, truthful, unshrinking look; then, unable to bear the power of his eagle eye, she turned away with a blush and a smile, half tender, half reproachful, for Annie was no stoic, and every feeling of her heart revealed itself in her tell-tale countenance. Lewis could bear it no longer--speak he must.

“Miss Grant--Annie,” he said, and as he pronounced her Christian name his deep voice trembled with suppressed emotion, “when I came here to-day I had no thought of seeing you; but accident (if, indeed, in this strange, complicated life anything may be so considered) has determined it otherwise, and the opportunity shall not be lost. Not very many days since I was so grievously ill that the chances were strongly against my rallying; it has pleased God to spare my life a little longer; but such an escape as this gives rise to deep and solemn thoughts. While I lay upon the bed of sickness, which had so nearly proved the bed of death, I learned to read my own heart--my past life glided as it were in review before me, and my faults and errors, no longer hidden by the mists of self-deceit or of passion, revealed themselves clearly in the light of an awakened conscience: above them all stood forth in its evil beauty the master-demon pride, and I saw how it had embittered my whole existence, and how, if ever I hoped to obtain even peace of mind, much more happiness, I must relax no effort until I should subdue it. Annie, I have loved you long; you cannot, _do_ not doubt it; but because I deemed you richer than I was, and of higher rank, I was too proud to own it to you. Years of mental torture have been my punishment: I do not complain that this should have been so--I do not impugn the justice of the decree; on the contrary, I acknowledge it with deep contrition. I sinned, and it was fitting I should pay the penalty, however bitter; but there was a grief I was not prepared for, and in which I could not discern retributive justice; for whatever a slanderous world may say, my love for you has been deep, pure, and disinterested, the truest, most earnest feeling of my inmost soul. Annie, I will be frank with you, and even if my presumption ruins my cause, I have suffered too much from concealment not to tell you the whole truth. When, distracted by my hopeless passion for you, and maddened by the insults of one who is now no more, I tore myself away from Broadhurst, and left you, as I deemed, for ever, the most bitter pang proceeded from a secret belief, which even despair could not banish, that I read in your soft glances assurance that had I dared to urge my suit, I might have learned I had not loved in vain; and in the midst of my desolation I was happy, deeply happy, in the thought. Then a ray of light broke in upon the darkness--a strange chain of events led to the discovery that I was heir to an ancient and honourable name and an ample fortune, and I waited but to obtain legal evidence of the fact, ere I hastened to tell you of my affection, in the fond hope of eliciting that I was beloved again: once assured of that, I determined that _nothing_ should prevent my winning your hand--all obstacles must yield before such a love as mine. With these feelings burning in my breast, imagine the dismay which overwhelmed me on learning by a letter from your father that scarcely twenty-four hours after I had quitted Broadhurst, you, of your own free will, had renewed your engagement with your cousin. Hear me out,” he continued, as Annie, who with blushing cheeks and tearful eyes, had remained as though spell-bound, drinking in his every tone, attempted eagerly to interrupt him--“hear me out, and then if you can explain this mystery, the devotion of a life-time shall plead forgiveness for my having misjudged you. How I lived through the wretchedness that letter caused me, I do not know. I believed I was going mad, for a time I _was_ mad, and railed at Heaven for having created a being so fair and false as then I deemed you. Oh! the misery, the heavy, crushing grief, when the heart adores, with all its faculty of loving, one whom the reason points out as light, fickle, and all unworthy to have called forth such true affection. For two years this black veil of doubt and mistrust hung between your image and my spirit--I cast from me any idea of claiming the rank and riches that were my birthright, for I valued them only as they could bring me nearer to you; and went forth a wanderer, tormented by the consciousness, doubly humiliating to one of my proud nature, that although I believed you unworthy of my affection, I still loved you devotedly as ever. The first person who won me from my gloomy thoughts, and led me to hope your conduct might be satisfactorily explained, was your kind friend Laura, who in her honest singleness of heart could not believe in the possibility of the fickleness of which I imagined you. guilty--and I (though her arguments failed to convince my reason), how I loved her for her unbelief! I could say much more--could tell you of the agony of mind I endured, when unseen by you I watched you leaning on _his_ arm and smiling upon him, and deemed my worst fears realised, and that you loved him; but it is needless--Annie, I cannot look on you and believe you false; if indeed you ever loved me, I _know_ that, despite appearances, you have been true to that affection, and that you love me still. Annie, dearest, tell me that it is so?”

He ceased, and with his hands clasped, as those of some votary adoring his saint, sat gazing on the April of smiles and tears that played over the expressive features of her he loved, until reading in her tender glances the secret her lips refused to speak, happiness lent him strength, and springing to her side, he drew her unresistingly towards him, and reproved the coral lips for their silence by sealing his forgiveness upon them with a loving kiss. And as Annie, albeit there is no reason to doubt that she was an exceedingly moral and well-conducted young lady, did not appear to discern any great impropriety in this act, but, on the contrary, disengaged herself from his embrace gently and tenderly, the probabilities are, looking at the matter in a correct light, and with an artist eye (an optical delusion, popularly supposed to fulfil one of the main duties of charity by clothing the naked), that the view she took of the affair was a right one. And then by degrees, having declared that it was impossible she could ever tell him anything about it, but that Laura knew--would not he go and ask Laura at once? (a proposition Lewis coolly but decidedly rejected), she contrived, she never knew how, to enable him to guess the truth, which he did very quickly and cleverly, and found so perfectly satisfactory that his anger (such mild anger!) instantly changed to the most unmitigated pity, an emotion so nearly akin to that other Christian virtue, love, that we fear we shall lay ourselves open to the charge of writing an actual love scene if we pursue the subject any further. And as it is a well-ascertained fact that young persons strictly brought up and never allowed to inflame their imaginations and gain perverted views of life by perusing those inventions of the enemy of man- (and woman-) kind, works of fiction, either never fall in love at all or do so according to parental act of parliament, passed in the year one of the reign of good king Mammon, we (lest we incur the high displeasure of any of this monarch’s respectable subjects) will say no more about it. But when Laura, grieved at what she considered the unsatisfactory issue of her interview with Richard Frere, returned to her boudoir to make the best report her conscience would allow of to Annie, she was especially surprised, and a little frightened, to discover her friend, with heightened colour, downcast eyes, and a bright smile playing about the corners of her mouth, sitting on a sofa by the side of what Laura would have taken for the ghost of Lewis Arundel, only that ghosts do not in a general way look intensely happy, and are not usually addicted to holding young ladies’ hands caressingly between their spectral fingers. However, the ghost soon vindicated his claim to the protection of the Habeas Corpus Act by rising and shaking Laura’s hand cordially, and taking the initiative in conversation by exclaiming--

“My dear, kind Mrs. Leicester, I owe all my happiness to you.” Then Laura began to surmise what had happened, and in the excess of her joy scolded Lewis so vigorously for his madness in venturing out, and Annie for her folly in allowing him to talk, that she was forced to stop in the midst of her harangue to declare herself a virago, and to laugh so heartily at her own vehemence that in order to save herself from becoming hysterical she was fain to betake herself to her own bedroom and indulge in the feminine luxury of a good cry. And then Lewis and Annie sat and looked into each other’s eyes; their joy was too full for words, but such silence as theirs is far more eloquent, for as there is a grief too deep for tears, so is there happiness which language is powerless to express, and such happiness did they experience at that moment. At length Lewis spoke.

“Dearest,” he said, in a low, soft voice that trembled with the tenderness which filled his soul, “I must leave you now; there are many reasons which forbid my meeting your father till we reach England and I am prepared to _prove_ to him all that your trustful, loving heart believes because I tell you that it is so. Until we meet in our own happy country, which for the future will be as dear to me for your sake as lately it has been for the same cause hateful, our engagement must remain a secret from all but Laura.”

“But will that be right?” pleaded Annie, looking up wistfully into the face of him who would be from thenceforth her oracle.

It is a fearful responsibility when, through the affections, we gain such a hold over a living soul that the judgment lies dormant, and the thing which seems good in our eyes appears so in theirs also; such influence is indeed a mighty talent committed to our charge, and most careful should we be lest we abuse the trust reposed in us. Lewis felt this strongly, and paused to reconsider his decision. His chief reason for wishing that General Grant might not be immediately informed of his declaration was the difficult position in which it would place that gallant officer in regard to Lord Bellefield’s relations. How could he, for instance, expect Lord Ashford to believe that his brother-in-law had used all possible exertion to secure the murderer of his son when Annie Grant, that son’s destined bride, was affianced to a man who, but for the catastrophe which had taken place, would have met Lord Bellefield in a duel? the altercation and subsequent challenge being so completely a matter of notoriety in Venice that it was certain that some account of them, probably an exaggerated and distorted one, would find its way to England. But this was a reason which he could not give Annie, as he correctly imagined that the affair at the Casino had been kept from her knowledge. Thus the more he reflected the more certain he became that his original determination was a right one. Accordingly he replied--

“Trust me, dear one; concealment is as foreign to my nature as to your own. My faults (and I have only too many) do not lie in that direction; but, to the best of my judgment, I believe that in wishing your father should, for the present, remain ignorant of our engagement, I am consulting your interest and his quite as much as my own. Believe me, love, I would sacrifice anything, even the cherished hope of one day calling you my own, rather than influence you to do aught for which your conscience could afterwards upbraid you.”

And Annie did believe him, with the strong, unhesitating faith of perfect love. Had he advanced the most incredible assertion--declared, for instance, that he had discovered perpetual motion, squared the circle, and set the Thames on fire, Annie would equally and implicitly have believed him. Had he deceived her, her only refuge from a universal scepticism would have been to die. Then came the “sweet sorrow” of a lovers’ parting--sweet in the many evidences of affection which the occasion calls forth, and sorrowful by reason of the anxious thoughts to which quitting those we love, even under the happiest auspices, necessarily gives rise. Annie’s bright eyes were dim with tears, and Lewis’s mouth, no longer sternly compressed, trembled with the emotion he in vain attempted to conceal, as, with a murmured “God bless and protect you, my own darling!” he tore himself away.

In the meanwhile, scarcely had Richard Frere quitted the Grassini Palace than he encountered General Grant, fretting and fuming under the weight of a burden of minor miseries, and full of complaints of the abominable misdemeanours of the Venetian officials, amongst which, by no means the lightest, was the culpable stupidity which prevented them from speaking or understanding English, together with the obstinate prejudice with which they refused to acknowledge that by adding the letter O to the termination of words in that language they immediately became Italian--

“I said ‘_requiro uno passporto_’ to them, sir, half-a-dozen times over, and nobody shall ever make me believe they did not know what _that_ meant!” was his indignant complaint.

Of course Frere’s ready sympathy entailed on him a request that if he could spare the time to go back to the office with him, the General would esteem it such a great favour, and of course, though his conscience reproached him for being away from “poor, solitary. Lewis” for so many hours, he did what was required of him; and of course, having said A,--B, C, and D followed as a matter of necessity, until, before he had gone through the alphabet of the General’s commissions, several hours had elapsed, and Lewis, having found his way back to his lodgings, was reclining in an easy-chair enjoying a feast of happy memories and bright anticipations, when Frere, hot, tired, and dissatisfied with his morning’s work, flung down his cotton umbrella, and throwing himself, very much unbuttoned, in a kind of dishevelled heap upon the nearest chair, began--

“Well, confound this climate, say I, where a man can’t get through a morning’s business without coming home more like a piece of hot boiled beef than a temperate Christian--here’s a state of dissolution for a free-born Briton to be in. I tell you what it is, young man, if you keep me here much longer I shall become a mere walking skeleton--flesh and blood literally can’t stand it, and I shall have to go home and be married in my bones.”

“By which ceremony I suppose you hope to become possessed of an additional rib to make up for your loss of substance,” suggested Lewis, smiling at the odd, quaint way in which his friend described his troubles.

“Yes, it’s all very well for you to sit there and laugh at a fellow,” returned Frere grumpily, “but if you had been parading about this oven of a place for two hours, tied like a kettle to Governor Grant’s tail, as I have been, you would find it no such laughing matter, I can tell you. He is obstinate and wrong-headed as an elderly mule too, making a fuss about trifles that do not signify a bit one way or the other. Why cannot he take life coolly and quietly as--as----?”

Here he came to an abrupt conclusion, having discovered that the grumbling tenor of the speech was somewhat at variance with the ending he had intended to make to it--viz., “as I do.” Lewis finished it for him.

“As a sensible man should do, I suppose you were going to observe.”

Frere detected the covert satire and shook his fist threateningly at his friend.

“You had better be civil, you know, or I may be tempted to give you the thrashing I have owed you so long. I could not have a better opportunity than now, when you are so weak that you can scarcely walk across the room alone.”

“Perhaps I may be stronger than you are aware of,” returned Lewis; “what do you think about my being able to go out, for instance----?”

“Think,” replied Frere dogmatically; “why, I think that if you attempt it a week hence it will be too soon. Dr. Grabafee says a fortnight, but his is scarcely an unprejudiced opinion; however, I’ll take care you don’t set foot outside this room within a week.”

Lewis turned away to hide a smile, while Frere, still suffering from heat, and not having another available button which could be respectably unfastened, pulled off his neckcloth, and thus relieved, resumed--“Who do you think I have been lecturing this morning?”

Lewis professed his ignorance, and Frere continued--

“Only a certain young lady, in whose proceedings I’ve an idea you take particular interest--one Miss Annie Grant.”

Lewis started as Frere pronounced this name, but recovering himself, asked in an elaborately indifferent tone of voice, “Pray when did this interesting colloquy take place, and what might be the subject thereof?”

“The colloquy, as you call it, took place some four hours ago; and the subject thereof was the young woman’s conduct towards your precious self. Now, don’t go and fly into a passion,” continued Frere, as Lewis coloured and seemed about to make some hasty rejoinder; “remember, life ought to be taken easily and quietly by a sensible man, and of course you consider yourself one: however, I took the liberty to tell Miss General Grant a few home truths that she will be none the worse for hearing.”

He then proceeded, after his own fashion, to give an account of his conversation with Annie, and his subsequent interview with Laura, concluding his recital thus--

“So the upshot of the whole affair, and a very unsatisfactory one I’m afraid you’ll think it, is this. When you had left Broadhurst, Ma’amselle Annie found herself in a bit of a fix, and not being a man or Rose Arundel, she, after the fashion of her silly sex, did a weak and injudicious thing; but as I said to the other young woman, who, by the way, seems to have the best sense of the two, that’s very different from doing a deliberately wicked one, and therefore, perhaps, Lewis may be induced to look over it.”

“For Heaven’s sake, my dear fellow, don’t tell me any more about it, you will drive me frantic with your detestable common-sense platitudes,” exclaimed Lewis, springing from his chair impatiently; “at least you would have done so,” he continued more quietly, “if I had not happened to have seen Miss Grant myself since your well-meant but somewhat unnecessary interview with her, and learned from her own sweet lips that she forgives me for having so hastily and ungenerously misjudged her.”

“Eh! what! has the young woman been here in my absence?” returned Frere, greatly scandalised. “Oh! this will never do! I don’t allow such liberties to be taken with my patient; besides, I don’t consider the proceeding by any means a correct one; she might have found you in bed, with your nightcap on, for aught she could tell to the contrary.”

“Do you know what is reported to have occurred when a mountain objected to come at Mahomet’s bidding?” asked Lewis quietly.

“Why, Mahomet went to the mountain, to be sure, like an arrant humbug as he was; but what has that got to do with the case in question? Why, you don’t mean to say,” continued Frere, as a sudden light broke in upon him--“you don’t mean to say that _you’ve_ been to call upon _her?_”

“I am afraid I must confess that such is the alarming fact,” was the cool reply.

“Well! I have known many insane actions in my life, certainly,” growled Frere, making fruitless attempts to re-unbutton his already enfranchised garments, “but this”--here he nearly tore a wristband off his shirt in his pursuit of coolness under difficulties--“is the very maddest thing I ever did hear of--a man that was on the point of death here not ten days ago to rush out of bed the moment one’s back is turned for the sake of seeing----”

“She is looking so sweetly pretty, Frere,” interrupted Lewis; “and those eyes--there never were such eyes seen in the world before.”

“Oh, of course not,” returned Frere viciously. “Patent double-actioned, high-pressure, sky-blue revolvers, made to look every way at once, see through mill-stones, and peep round the corner into the bargain, _they_ are, no doubt; but if she could use them to no better purpose than to lure out, at the risk of his life, a foolish boy that ought to have had more sense--but it’s a mere waste of words talking to you,” he continued, catching a smile on Lewis’s features; “and here have I gone and ruined my other shirt, and this one is at the wash--psha! I mean to say, ruined my other wash--that is, washed my other ruin--hang me if I know what I mean to say--only if you’re not the worse for this--bother the boy, how absurdly happy he’s looking! So it’s all right between you, eh! Lewis? Well, Heaven knows, you have suffered enough to deserve that it should be so, my poor fellow, and though you must have been mad to go out, and I ought to be very angry with you, yet, as it has ended, and always supposing it does not do you any harm, why I am heartily glad you did it;” and so saying, Frere, whose feelings, and the heat together, were decidedly too many for him, made a precipitate retreat into the bedroom, where, for the present, we will leave him.