CHAPTER XVI.

THE LOVER AND THE UNCLE.

A few minutes brought Arthur to the residence of Lady Hatfield; and his hand was already upon the knocker, when a sudden idea struck him—and he asked himself, "How can I demand admission to the bed-chamber of Georgiana?"

The madness of his project now being evident to him, he mournfully turned away, when the door suddenly opened, and a tall, stout, fine-looking man, dressed as a country squire, issued from the house.

Lord Ellingham immediately recognised Sir Ralph Walsingham, Georgiana's uncle, with whom he was well acquainted. The baronet also perceived the Earl; and they shook each other cordially by the hand.

"Were you about to call?" inquired Sir Ralph.

"I was," answered Lord Ellingham. "Hearing of Lady Hatfield's illness——"

"She is better—much better," interrupted the baronet. "I have just left her; and she has not long awoke from a profound and refreshing slumber."

"I am delighted to hear these tidings," said the nobleman.

The servant, seeing that Sir Ralph had stopped to converse with the Earl, still kept the door open; and, as Arthur had admitted that he was about to call, there was now no alternative save for him to leave his card.

The baronet then took his arm; and they walked away together.

"Georgiana is a singular being," observed Sir Ralph; "and although she is my niece, yet there are times when I hardly know what to make of her. She is too intellectual—too steady—to be capricious; and still——"

"My dear Sir Ralph," interrupted the Earl, "you have touched upon the very topic concerning which I longed to speak the moment I met you. Will you accompany me to my abode, and favour me for a short period with your attention to what I am so anxious to confide to you?"

"With pleasure," was the reply. "But I have already learnt from Georgiana's lips the principal fact to which your lordship doubtless alludes; and it was indeed for the purpose of introducing the subject that I ere now made the remark relative to the occasional incomprehensibility of her character. Let us not, however, continue the discourse in the public street."

The nobleman and the baronet speedily reached the mansion of the former in Pall-Mall West; and when they were seated in an elegantly furnished apartment, with a bottle of claret before them, they renewed the conversation.

"Georgiana," said the baronet, "has informed me that your lordship has honoured her by the offer of your hand; and I need hardly assure you how rejoiced I should feel to welcome as a relative one whom I already esteem as a friend. But—to my inexpressible surprise—I find that—that——"

"That she has refused me," exclaimed the Earl;—"refused me without assigning any reason."

"I cannot think how it is to be accounted for," continued the baronet; "but Georgiana has invariably manifested a repugnance to the topic of marriage whenever I have urged it upon her. Of course, as her uncle—and double her age, my lord—I can give her advice just as if I were her father; and for some years past I have recommended her to consider well the propriety of obtaining a legal protector, her natural ones being no more. But all my reasoning has proved unavailing; and if your lordship cannot persuade my obstinate niece," he added, with a sly laugh, "then no one must hope to do so."

"I will frankly admit to you," said the Earl, "that my happiness depends on your niece's decision. I am no hero of romance—but I entertain so sincere, so ardent an affection for Lady Hatfield, that my life will be embittered by a perseverance in her refusal to allow me to call her mine."

"She will not persist in this folly—she cannot," exclaimed Sir Ralph emphatically. "It is a mere whim—a caprice; and indeed I have often thought that her disposition has somewhat altered ever since a dreadful fright which she sustained six or seven years ago——"

"Ah!" said the Earl. "What was the nature of the incident to which you allude?"

"I must tell your lordship," returned the baronet,—"unless, indeed, you are already acquainted with the fact,—that Hampshire was for three or four years—between 1818 and 1821 or 22—the scene of the exploits of a celebrated highwayman——"

"You allude to the Black Mask, no doubt?" interrupted Lord Ellingham interrogatively.

"Precisely so," answered the baronet. "The Black Mask—as the villain was called—was one of the most desperate robbers that ever infested the highways. He would stop the stage-coach as readily as he would a single traveller on horseback; and such was his valour as well as his extraordinary skill, that he defied all attempts to capture him."

"I remember reading his exploits at the time," said the Earl. "The most conflicting accounts were reported concerning him. Some declared he was an old man—others that he was quite young; but I believe that all agreed in ascribing to him a more forbearing disposition than usually characterises persons of his class."

"I will even go so far as to assert that there was something chivalrous in his character," exclaimed the baronet. "He invariably assured travellers whom he stopped, that he should be grieved to harm them; but that if they provoked him by resistance, he would not hesitate to punish them severely. If he fell in with a carriage containing ladies, he never attempted to rifle them of their jewellery and trinkets, but contented himself with simply demanding their purses. Those being surrendered, he would gallop away. I never heard of any unnecessary violence—nor of any act of cruelty which he perpetrated. Neither did I ever meet a soul who could give anything like a credible description of his countenance. The invariable black mask which concealed his features, and from the use of which he derived his name, seemed a portion of himself; and although gossips did now and then tell strange tales about his appearance, they were all too contradictory to allow a scintillation of the real truth to transpire."

"But in what manner was the Black Mask connected with the fright which Lady Hatfield experienced some years ago?" asked the Earl impatiently.

"You are perhaps aware that the late Earl and Countess of Mauleverer possessed a country-seat between Winchester and New Alresford—not very far distant from Walsingham Manor, my own rural abode," said Sir Ralph. "It must have been seven years ago that Georgiana, who always preferred Mauleverer Lodge to the town-mansion—even during the London season,—was staying alone there—I mean so far alone, that at the time there were no other persons at the Lodge save the servants. Well, one night the Black Mask broke into the place—the only time he was ever known to commit a burglary—and such was the fright which Georgiana experienced, that for weeks and months afterwards her family frequently trembled lest her reason had received a shock."

"It must indeed have been an alarming situation for a young lady—alone, as it were, in a spacious and secluded country dwelling——"

"And Georgiana was but eighteen, I think, at the time," interrupted Sir Ralph Walsingham. "She certainly experienced a dreadful fright; and although, thank God! her reason is as unimpaired as ever it was, still we cannot say that the sudden shock might not have produced some strange effect which may probably account for the otherwise inexplicable whimsicality—for I can denominate it nothing else——"

"Oh! I thank you, my dear Sir Ralph, for this explanation," cried Lord Ellingham, in the joy of reviving hope. "Yes—I see it all: your niece experienced a shock which has produced a species of idiosyncratic effect upon her; but the constant kindness—the unwearied attention of one who loves her, and whom she loves in return, will restore her mind to its vigorous and healthy condition. To-morrow will I visit her again:—Oh! how unkind—how ungenerous of me to remain away so long!"

There was a pause, during which Arthur gave way to all the bright allurements of the pleasing vision which he now conjured up to his imagination.

At length Sir Ralph Walsingham felt the silence to be irksome and awkward; and he ventured to break it.

"We were talking just now, my lord," he said, "of the famous highwayman known as the Black Mask. He disappeared from Hampshire very suddenly; and the old women declared that his time being out, he was carried off by the Devil, who had protected him against all the devices and snares imagined by the authorities to capture him."

"And perhaps the highwayman who robbed Lady Hatfield the other day," observed Lord Ellingham, "may be the very one who rendered himself so notorious in Hampshire a few years ago?"

"Your lordship judges by the fact that the scoundrel who stopped my niece near Hounslow wore a black mask," said the baronet; "but the generality of robbers on the high roads adopt that mode of disguise. Thank heaven! public depredators of the kind are becoming very scarce in this country!"

In such conversation did the nobleman and the baronet while away the time until eleven o'clock, when the latter took his leave, and Arthur retired to his chamber to dream of the charming but incomprehensible lady who had obtained such empire over his soul.