Chapter 4

Oh Lord, thou hast enlarged the grief Of this poor stricken heart, That only finds in tears relief, Which all unbidden start: Long have I borne the cruel scorn Of one I could not love nor hate; My soul, with secret anguish torn, Yields unresisting to its fate--S.M.

Mark Hurdlestone's triumph was complete; his revenge fully gratified, when he led his beautiful bride from the altar to the carriage, which was in readiness to convey her to her future home. She was his, and Algernon might return as soon as he pleased. Elinor Wildegrave was beyond his reach. She could never be his wife.

Tranquil, but not happy, Elinor viewed the change in her circumstances as an intervention of Providence to save her from a life of poverty and suffering; and she fancied that, if she did not love her benefactor, feelings of gratitude and a sense of duty would always prevent him from becoming to her an object of dislike or indifference.

How little had she studied human nature; how ignorant was she of the mysterious movements of the human heart; and when, after much painful experience, she acquired the fatal knowledge, how bitter were the effects it produced upon her own.

When once his victim was in his toils, Mr. Hurdlestone did not attempt to conceal from her his real disposition.

He laughed at her credulity in believing that love alone had actuated him in making her his wife. He related to her, with terrible fidelity, the scene he had witnessed between her and Algernon in the garden, and the agonies of jealousy that he endured when he discovered that she loved another; and he repulsed with cold and sarcastic neglect every attempt made by Elinor to render their union more tolerable, and his home more comfortable.

To Elinor his conduct was perfectly unaccountable. She could not believe that he did not love her, and she was not a little mortified at what she considered his unnatural coldness and neglect.

"Marcus," she said to him one evening, as she sat on a cushion at his feet, after making many vain attempts to attract his notice, or win from him one kind look or word, "you did not always treat me with indifference; there was a time when I thought you loved me."

"There was a time, madam, when I adored you!--when I would have given all I possessed in the world to obtain from you one smile."

"Then why this coldness? What have I done to merit your dislike?"

"You loved Algernon. You love him still. Aye, that blush! Your face tells no falsehood. You cannot conceal it from me."

"I do not deny my love. But he is dead. Why should you be jealous of the dead?"

Mark smiled a grim bitter smile. "But if he were alive?"

"Ah!" and she pressed her small white hand tightly on her heart. "But then, Marcus, I should not be your wife. It would no longer be my duty to love another."

"You think it, then, your duty to love me?"

"Yes. You are my husband. My heart is lonely and sad. It must be filled by some object. Dear Marcus, suffer me to love you."

She laid her fair cheek meekly upon his knee, but he did not answer her touching appeal to his sympathy with a single caress.

"I cannot make you happy, Elinor. Algernon alone can do that."

"Algernon! Why Algernon?" said Elinor, bursting into tears. "Is it to make me more miserable that you constantly remind me of my loss?"

"How do you know that he is dead?"

"I have your word for it; the evidence of your friend's letter; his long silence. What frightful images you conjure up! You seem determined to make me wretched to-night."

She sprang from her lowly seat, and left the room in an agony of tears. Mark looked after her for a moment:--"Aye, he still keeps your heart. But I have had my revenge."

The agony which he had endured in the garden on that memorable night, when he first discovered that Elinor loved his brother, was light in comparison to the pangs which shook the inmost soul of his unhappy wife, when time at last revealed the full extent of her misery, and of her husband's deep-laid treachery--and Algernon returned from India with an independent fortune to claim his bride, and found her the wife of his brother.

The monster who had supplanted him in his father's affections had now robbed him of his wife. Algernon did not seek an explanation from Mrs. Hurdlestone, either personally or by letter. He supposed that her present position was one of her own choosing, and he was too proud to utter a complaint. The hey-day of youth was past, and he had seen too much of the world to be surprised at the inconstancy of a poor girl, who had been offered, during her lover's absence, a splendid alliance. He considered that Elinor was sufficiently punished for her broken vows in being forced to spend her life in the society of such a sordid wretch as Mark Hurdlestone.

"God forgive her," he said; "she has nearly broken my heart, but I pity her from my very soul."

When the dreadful truth flashed upon the mind of Mrs. Hurdlestone, she bitterly accused her husband of the deception he had practised. Mr. Hurdlestone, instead of denying or palliating the charge, even boasted of his guilt, and entered into a minute detail of each revolting circumstance--the diabolical means that he had employed to destroy her peace.

This fiend, to whom in an evil hour she had united her destiny, had carefully intercepted the correspondence between herself and Algernon, and employed a friend in India to forge the plausible account he had received of her lover's death--and finally, as the finishing stroke to all this deep-laid villany, he had overcome his avaricious propensities, and made Elinor his wife, not to gratify a sensual passion, but the terrible spirit of revenge.

Poor Elinor! For a long time her reason bowed before the knowledge of these horrible facts, and when she did at last recover her senses, her beauty had faded beneath the blight of sorrow like the brilliant but evanescent glow of the evening cloud, which vanishes at the approach of night. Weary of life, she did not regret the loss of those fatal charms which had been to her a source of such misery.

The last time the rose tint ever visited her once blooming cheeks was when suddenly informed by Mr. Hurdlestone of his brother's marriage with a young lady of large fortune. "May he be happy," she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, whilst the deepest crimson suffused her face. "I was not worthy to be his wife!" Ere the sentence was concluded the color had faded from her cheek, which no after emotion recalled.

His brother's marriage produced a strange effect upon the mind of Mark Hurdlestone. It cheated him of a part of his revenge. He had expected that the loss of Elinor would have stung Algernon to madness; that his existence would have become insupportable without the woman he loved. How great was his mortification when, neither by word nor letter, nor in conversation with his friends, did his injured brother ever revert to the subject! That Algernon did not feel the blow, could scarcely be inferred from his silence. The grief he felt was too acute for words, and Algernon was still too faithful to the object of his first ardent attachment to upbraid her conduct to others. Mark, who could not understand this delicacy of sentiment, concluded that Elinor was no longer regarded with affection by her lover. Elinor comprehended his silence better, and she loved him more intensely for his forbearance.

Algernon the world reputed rich and happy, and the Squire despised Elinor when her person was no longer coveted by his rival. His temper, constitutionally bad, became intolerable, and he treated his uncomplaining wife with such unkindness, that it would have broken her heart, if the remembrance of a deeper sorrow had not rendered her indifferent to his praise or censure. She considered his kindest mercy was neglect.

Having now no other passion to gratify but avarice, Mark Hurdlestone's hoarding propensities returned with double force. He gradually retrenched his domestic expenses; laid down his carriage; sold his horses; discharged his liveried servants; and, to the astonishment of his wondering neighbors, let the noble park to a rich farmer in the parish, with permission to break it up with the plough. He no longer suffered the produce of his extensive gardens to be consumed in the house, or given to the poor; but sold the fruit and vegetables to any petty greengrocer in the village, who thought it worth his while to walk up to the Hall, and drive a bargain with the stingy Squire. He not only assisted in gathering the fruit, for fear he should be robbed, but often acted as scarecrow to the birds, whom he reviled as noisy, useless nuisances, vexatiously sent to destroy the fruits of the earth.

Elinor gently remonstrated with him on the meanness and absurdity of such conduct; but he silenced what he termed her impertinent interference in matters which did not concern her. He bade her to remember that she brought him no fortune, and he was forced to make these retrenchments in order to support her. After this confession, there was no end to his savings. He discharged his remaining domestics; sold most of the splendid furniture by public auction; and, finally, shut up the Hall to avoid paying the window-tax, only allowing the kitchen, one parlor, and two bed-rooms to be visited by the light of day. The only person whom he allowed to approach the house was the gardener, Grenard Pike, who rented a small cottage at the end of the avenue that led to the back premises of the once noble mansion.

This favored individual was the Squire in low life; and the gossip dealers in the village did not scruple to affirm that the likeness was not _merely_ accidental; that Grenard Pike was brother to the Squire in a natural way; but whether this report were true or false, he and his master, if unrelated by blood, possessed kindred spirits, and perfectly understood and appreciated each other. This man had neither wife nor child, and the whole business of his life was how to get money, and, when got, how to turn it to the best advantage. If the Squire was attached to anything in the world, it was to this faithful satellite, this humble transcript of himself.

The wretched Elinor, shut out from all society, and denied every domestic comfort, was limited by her stingy partner to the awkward attendance of a parish girl, who, together with her mistress, he contrived to half starve; as he insisted on keeping the key of the pantry, and only allowed them a scanty meal twice during the twenty-four hours, which he said, was sufficient to keep them in health; more was hurtful both to the mind and body.

Elinor had dragged on this miserable existence for twelve years, when, to her unspeakable grief, she found that she was likely to become a mother, for the prospect of this event served rather to increase, than diminish her sorrows. It was some time before she dared to communicate this unwelcome intelligence to her sordid lord. Still, she hoped, in spite of his parsimony, that he might wish for a son to heir his immense wealth. Not he! He only thought of a spendthrift, who would recklessly squander all that he toiled and starved himself to save; and he received the promise of his paternal honors with a very bad grace.

"All the world!" he exclaimed, "are conspiring together to ruin me. I shall be ate out of house and home by doctors and nurses, and my rest will be constantly disturbed by squalling brats; for I suppose, madam, that like my worthy mother, you will entail upon me two at a time. But my mother was a strong healthy woman, not delicate and puling like you. It is more than probable that the child may die."

"And the mother," sighed Elinor.

"Well if He who sends is pleased to take away, He will find me perfectly resigned to His will. You need not weep, madam. If my conduct appears unnatural, let me tell you that I consider those human beings alone fortunate who perish in their infancy. They are in no fear of coming to the gallows. They are saved from the threatened torments of hell!"

Elinor shrank from the wild flash of his keen dark eyes, and drew back with an involuntary shudder. "Happy had it been for me if I had died an infant on my mother's breast."

"Aye, if you had never seen the light. You were born to be the bane of my house. But since you have confided to me this precious secret, let me ask you what you think will be the probable expense of your confinement?"

"I really cannot tell. I must have a doctor--a nurse--and some few necessaries for the poor babe. I think, with great economy, ten pounds would be enough."

"Ten pounds!"

"It may cost more, certainly not less."

"You will never get that sum from me."

"But, Marcus, what am I to do?"

"The best way you can."

"You would not have your wife solicit charity?"

"An excellent thought. Ha! ha! you would make a first-rate beggar, with that pale sad face of yours. But, no, madam, you shall not beg. Poor as I am, I will find means to support both you and the child. But, mark me--it must not resemble Algernon."

"How is that possible? I have not seen Algernon for eighteen years."

"But he is ever in your thoughts. Let me not trace this adultery of the heart in the features of my child."

"But you are like Algernon. Not a striking likeness, but still you might be known for brothers."

"So, you are trying to find excuses in case of the worst. But, I again repeat to you, that I will not own the boy if he is like Algernon."

This whim of the miser's was a new cause of terror to Elinor; from that moment an indescribable dread lest the child should be like Algernon took possession of her breast. She perceived that her husband already calculated with selfish horror the expense of the unborn infant's food and raiment; and she began to entertain some not unreasonable fears lest the young child, if it should survive its birth, would be starved to death, as Mark barely supplied his household with the common necessaries of life; and, though Elinor bore the system of starvation with the indifference which springs from a long and hopeless continuation of suffering, the parish girl was loud in her complaints, and she was constantly annoyed with her discontented murmurings, without having it in her power to silence them in the only effective way.

The Squire told Ruth, that she consumed more food at one meal than would support him and her mistress for a week; and he thought that what was enough for them might satisfy a cormorant like her. But the poor girl could not measure the cravings of her healthy appetite by the scanty wants of a heart-broken invalid and a miser. Her hunger remained unappeased, and she continued to complain.

At this period Mark Hurdlestone was attacked, for the first time in his life, with a dangerous illness. Elinor nursed him with the greatest care, and prescribed for him as well as she could; for he would not suffer a doctor to enter the house. But finding that the disorder did not yield to her remedies, but rather that he grew daily worse, she privately sent for the doctor. When he arrived, Mr. Hurdlestone ordered him out of his room, and nearly exhausted what little strength he still possessed, in accusing Elinor of entering into a conspiracy with Mr. Moore to kill him, and, as the doctor happened to be a widower, to marry him after his death, and share the spoils between them.

"Your husband, madam, is mad--as mad as a March hare," said Mr. Moore, as he descended the stairs. "He is, however, in a very dangerous state, it is doubtful if he ever recovers."

"And what can be done for him?"

"Nothing in his present humor without you have him treated as a maniac, which, if I were in your case and in your situation, I most certainly would do."

"Oh, no, no! there is something dreadful in such a charge coming from a wife, though he often appears to me scarcely accountable for his actions; but what can I give him to allay this dreadful fever?"

"I will write you a prescription." This the doctor did on the back of a letter with his pencil, for Elinor could not furnish him with a scrap of paper.

"You must send this to the apothecary. He will make it up."

"What will it cost?"

The doctor smiled. "A mere trifle; perhaps three shillings."

"I have not had such a sum in my possession for the last three years. He will die before he will give it to me."

"Mad, mad, mad," said the doctor, shaking his head. "Well, my dear lady, if he will not give it to save his worthless life, you must steal it from him. If you fail, why let Nature take her course. His death would certainly be your gain."

Returning to the sick room, she found the patient in a better temper, evidently highly gratified at having expelled the doctor. Elinor thought this a good opportunity to urge her request for a small sum of money to procure medicines and other necessaries; but on this subject she found him inexorable.

"Give you money to buy poison!" he exclaimed. "Do you take me for a fool, or mad?"

"You are very ill, Marcus; you will die, without you follow Dr. Moore's advice."

"Don't flatter yourselves. I don't mean to die to please you. There is a great deal of vitality in me yet. Don't say another word. I will take nothing but cold water; I feel better already."

"Pray God that you may be right," said Elinor. But after this fit of rage, he fell into a stupor, and before night he was considerably worse. His unfortunate wife, worn down with watching and want of food and rest, now determined to have a regular search for the key of his strongbox, that she might procure him the medicines prescribed by the doctor, and purchase oatmeal and bread for the use of the parish girl and herself.

She carefully examined his pockets, his writing-desk, and bureau, but to no purpose--looking carefully into every drawer and chest that had not been sold by public auction or private contract. Not a corner of the chamber was left unexplored--not a closet or shelf escaped her strict examination, until, giving up the search as perfectly hopeless, she resumed her station at his bed-side, to watch through the long winter night--without a fire, and by the wan gleam that a miserable rush-light shed through the spacious and lofty room--the restless slumbers of the miser. She was ill, out of spirits, fatigued with her fruitless exertion, and deeply disappointed at her want of success.

The solitary light threw a ghastly livid hue on the strongly-marked features of the sleeper, rendered sharp and haggard by disease and his penurious habits; she could just distinguish through the gloom the spectre-like form of the invalid, and the long bony attenuated hands which grasped, from time to time, the curtains and bedclothes, as he tossed from side to side in his feverish unrest. Elinor continued to watch the dark and perturbed countenance of the sleeper, until he became an object of fear, and she fancied that it was some demon who had for a time usurped the human shape, and not the brother of Algernon--the man whom she had voluntarily attended to the altar, and in the presence of Almighty God had sworn to love, honor, and obey, and to cherish in sickness and in health.

A crushing sense of all the deception that had been practiced upon her, of her past wrongs and present misery, made her heart die within her, and her whole soul overflow with bitterness. She wrung her hands, and smote her breast in an agony of despair; but in that dark hour no tear relieved her burning brain, or moistened her eyes. She had once been under the dominion of insanity; she felt that her reason in that moment hung upon a thread; that, if she pursued much longer her present thoughts, they would drive her mad; that, if she continued to gaze much longer on the face of her husband, she would be tempted to plunge a knife, which lay on the table near her, into his breast. With a desperate effort she drew her eyes from the sleeper, and turned from the bed. Her gaze fell upon a large full-length picture in oils, which hung opposite. It was the portrait of one of Mark's ancestors, a young man who had fallen in his first battle, on the memorable field of Flodden. It bore a strong resemblance to Algernon, and Elinor prized it on that account, and would sit for hours with her head resting upon her hand, and her eyes riveted on this picture. This night it seemed to regard her with a sad and mournful aspect; and the large blue eyes appeared to return her fixed gaze with the sorrowful earnestness of life.

"My head is strangely confused," she murmured, half aloud. "Into what new extravagance will my treacherous fancy hurry me to-night? Ah me! physical wants and mental suffering, added to this long watching, will turn my brain."

She buried her face in her hands, and endeavored to shut out the grotesque and phantom-like forms that seemed to dance before her. A deathlike stillness reigned through the house, the silence alone broken by the ticking of the great dial at the head of the staircase. There is something inexpressibly awful in the ticking of a clock, when heard at midnight by the lonely and anxious watcher beside the bed of death. It is the voice of time marking its slow but certain progress towards eternity, and warning us in solemn tones that it will soon cease to number the hours for the sufferer for ever. Elinor trembled as she listened to the low monotonous measured sounds; and she felt at that moment a presentiment that her own weary pilgrimage on earth was drawing to a close.

"Oh, Algernon!" she thought; "it may be a crime, but I sometimes think that if I could see you once more--only once more--I could forget all my wrongs and sufferings, and die in peace."

The unuttered thought was scarcely formed, when a slight rustling noise shook the curtains of the bed, and the next moment a tall figure in white glided across the room. It drew nearer, and Elinor, in spite of the wish she had just dared to whisper to herself, struggled with the vision, as a sleeper does with the night-mare, when the suffocating grasp of the fiend is upon his throat. Her presence of mind forsook her, and, with a shriek of uncontrollable terror, she flung herself across the bed, and endeavored to awaken her husband. The place he had occupied a few minutes before was vacant; and, raising her fear-stricken head, she perceived, with feelings scarcely less allied to fear, that the figure she had mistaken for the ghost of Algernon was the corporeal form of the miser.

He was asleep, but his mind appeared to be actively employed. He drew near the table with a cautious step, and took from beneath a broad leathern belt, which he always wore next his skin, a small key. Elinor sat up on the bed, and watched his movements with intense interest. He next took up the candle, and glided out of the room. Slipping off her shoes she followed him with noiseless steps. He descended the great staircase, and suddenly stopped in the centre of the entrance hall. Here he put down the light on the last step of the broad oak stairs, and proceeded to remove one of the stone flags that formed the pavement of the hall. With some difficulty he accomplished his task; then kneeling down, and holding the light over the chasm, he said in hollow and unearthly tones that echoed mournfully through the empty building:

"Look! here is money; my father's savings and my own. Will this save my soul?"

Elinor leaned over the sordid wretch, and discovered with no small astonishment that the aperture contained a great quantity of gold and silver coins; and the most valuable articles of the family plate and jewels.

"Unhappy man!" she mentally cried; "dost thou imagine that these glittering heaps of metal will purchase the redemption of a soul like thine, or avert the certainty of future punishment?--for never was the parable of the servant who buried his talent in the dust more fully exemplified than in thee."

"What, not enough?" growled forth the miser. "By heavens! thou hast a human conscience. But wait patiently, and I will show you more--aye, more--my brother's portion, and my own. Ha, ha! I tricked him there. The old man's heart failed him at the last. He was afraid of you. Yes, yes, he was afraid of the devil! It was I formed the plan. It was I guided the dead hand. Shall I burn for that?"

Then, as if suddenly struck with a violent pain, he shrieked out, "Ah, ah! my brain is cloven with a bolt of fire. I cannot bear this! Algernon mocks my agonies--laughs at my cries--and tells me that he has a fair wife and plenty of gold, in spite of my malice. How did he get it? Did he rob me?"

Elinor shrunk back aghast from this wild burst of delirium; and the miser, rising from his knees, began re-ascending the stairs. This task he performed with difficulty, and often reeled forward with extreme pain and weakness. After traversing several empty chambers, he entered what had once been the state apartment, and stooping down, he drew from beneath the faded furniture of the bed a strong mahogany brass-bound chest, which he cautiously opened, and displayed to his wondering companion a richer store of wealth than that on which she had so lately gazed.

"How! not satisfied yet!" he cried in the same harsh tones, "then may I perish to all eternity if I give you one fraction more."

As he was about to close the chest, Elinor, who knew that without a necessary supply of money both her unborn infant and its avaricious father would perish for want, slid her hand into the box, and dextrously abstracted some of the broad gold pieces it contained. The coins, in coming in contact with each other, emitted a slight ringing sound, which arrested, trifling as it was, the ear of the sleeper.

"What! fingering the gold already?" he exclaimed, hastily slapping down the lid of the strong box. "Could you not wait till I am dead?"

Then staggering back to his apartment, he was soon awake, and raving under a fresh paroxysm of the fever. In his delirium he fancied himself confined to the dreary gulf of eternal woe, and from this place of torment he imagined that his brother could alone release him, and he proffered to him, while under the influence of that strong agony, all his hidden treasures if he would but intercede with Christ to save his soul.

These visions of his diseased brain were so frequent and appalling, and the near approach of death so dreadful to the guilty and despairing wretch, that they produced at last a strong desire to see his brother, that he might ask his forgiveness, and make some restitution of his property to him before he died.

"Elinor," he said, "I must see Algernon. I cannot die until I have seen him. But mark me, Elinor, you must not be present at our conference. You must not see him."

With quivering lips, and a face paler than usual, his wife promised obedience, and Grenard Pike was despatched to Norgood Hall to make known to Algernon Hurdlestone his dying brother's request, and to call in, once more, the aid of the village doctor.

As Elinor watched the grim messenger depart, she pressed her hands tightly over her breast to hide from the quick eye of the miser the violent agitation that convulsed her frame, as the recollection of former days flashed upon her too retentive memory.

"Surely, surely," she thought, "he will never come. He has been too deeply injured to attend to a verbal summons from his unnatural brother."

Although strongly impressed that this would be the case, the desire of once more beholding the love of her youth, though forbidden to speak to him, or even to hear the sound of his voice, produced a state of feverish excitement in her mind which kept alive her fears, without totally annihilating hope.

The misty, grey dawn was slowly breaking along the distant hills, when Grenard Pike, mounted upon a cart-horse which he had borrowed for the occasion, leisurely paced down the broad avenue of oaks that led through the park to the high road. Methodical in all his movements, though life and death depended upon his journey, for no earthly inducement but a handsome donation in money would Grenard Pike have condescended to quicken his pace. This Elinor had it not in her power to bestow; and she calculated with impatience the many hours which must elapse before such a tardy messenger could reach Norgood Hall. Noon was the earliest period within the range of possibility; yet the sound of the horse's hoofs, striking against the frosty ground, still vibrated upon her ear when she took her station at the chamber window, to watch for the arrival of the man whose image a separation of nearly twenty years had not been able to obliterate from her heart. Such is the weakness of human nature, that we suffer imagination to outspeed time, and compress into one little moment the hopes, the fears, the anticipations, and the events of years; but when the spoiler again overtakes us, we look back, and, forgetful of our former impatience to accelerate his pace, we are astonished at the rapidity of his flight.

Elinor thought that the long day would never come to a close; yet it was as dark and as short as a bleak, gloomy day in November could be. Evening at length came, but brought no Algernon. Mr. Moore had paid his visit, and was gone. He expected nothing less than the death of his patient, after giving his consent to such an extraordinary event; and he had even condescended to take a draught and some pills from the doctor's hands. It is true that the sight of him, and the effects of the nauseous medicines he had administered, had put the miser into a fever of ill-temper; and he sullenly watched his wife, as she lingered hour after hour at the window, till, in no very gentle accents, he called her to his bed-side.

At that moment Elinor fancied that she heard the sound of approaching wheels, and she strained her eyes to discern, through the deepening gloom, some object that might realize her hopes. "No," she sighed, "it was but the wind raving through the leafless oaks--the ticking of the old dial--the throbbing of my own heart. He will not--he cannot come!"

"Woman! what ails you?" cried the invalid. "Reach me the drink."

Elinor mechanically obeyed; but her head was turned the other way, and her eyes still fixed upon the window. A light flashed along the dark avenue, now lost, and now again revealed through the trees. The cup fell from her nerveless grasp, and faintly articulating, "Yes--'tis he!" she sank senseless across the foot of the bed, as a carriage and four drove rapidly into the court-yard.

The miser, with difficulty, reached the bell-rope that was suspended from the bed's head, and, after ringing violently for some minutes, the unusual summons was answered by the appearance of Ruth, who, thrusting her brown; curly head in at the door, said, in breathless haste:

"The company's come, ma'arm! Such a grand coach! Four beautiful hosses, and two real gemmen in black a' standing behind--and two on hossback a' riding afore. What are we to do for supper? Doubtless they maun be mortal hungry arter their long ride this cold night, and will 'spect summat to eat, and we have not a morsel of food in the house fit to set afore a cat."

"Pshaw!" muttered the sick man. "Silence your senseless prate! They will neither eat nor drink here. Tell the coachman that there are excellent accommodations at the Hurdlestone Arms for himself and his horses. But first see to your mistress--she is in a swoon. Carry her into the next room. And, mark me, Ruth--lock the door, and bring me the key."

The girl obeyed the first part of the miser's orders, but was too eager to catch another sight of the grand carriage, and the real gentlemen behind it, to remember the latter part of his injunction.