I. THE DOCTOR'S WIFE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S XXXV. ""TWERE BEST AT ONCE TO SINK TO PEACE." V. BROKEN TO HARNESS. A STORY OF ENGLISH DOMESTIC LIFE. XXXIV. ET TU, BRUTE! XXXV. BALTHAZAR. VI. DE MORTUIS. No. IV. VII. THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE VIII. PAID IN FULL. BY HENRY J. BYRON CHAPTER XXII. IN COONEY'S FIRST-Floor. IX. TRIPPING IT LIGHTLY X. THE EQUINOX . PAGE 455 . 477 484 499 NOTICE.-" Family Club-Life in England." In answer to numerous correspondents, the Editor begs to state that an explanatory article, "Where is Belair?” will appear in the January number of the Magazine. COMPLETION OF "BROKEN TO HARNESS." On November 15th, at all Libraries, in 3 vols. BROKEN TO HARNESS. BY EDMUND YATES. [Reprinted from "TEMPLE BAR" Magazine.] LONDON: TEMPLE BAR OFFICE, 122 FLEET STREET. The right of publishing translations of articles in this Magazine is reserved b ONLY PRIZE MEDAL At the Great Exhibition, 1862. Sold by all Grocers, Druggists, &c., throughout the United Kingdom. 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HE moon was slowly rising behind a black belt of dense foliage, THE a noble screen of elm and beech that sheltered Lord Ruysdale's domain from the common world without,—as Roland Lansdell crossed the lawn, and went in amongst the thickest depths of the park. At Lowlands there were no smooth glades and romantic waterfalls, no wonderful effects of landscape-gardening, such as adorned Mordred Priory. The Earls of Ruysdale had been more or less behind the world for the last century and a half; and the land about the old red-brick mansion was only a tangled depth of forest, in which the deer browsed peacefully, undisturbed by the ruthless handiwork of trim modern improve ment. The lonely wildness of the place suited Roland Lansdell's mood tonight. At first he had walked very rapidly, even breaking into a run now and then; so feverishly and desperately did he desire to reach the spot where he might perhaps find that which would confirm his despair. But all at once, when he had gone some distance from the house, and the lights in Lady Gwendoline's drawing-room were shut from him by half the width of the park, he stopped suddenly, leaning against a tree, faint and almost breathless. He stopped for the first time to think of what he had heard. The hot passion of anger, the fierce sense of outraged pride, had filled his breast so entirely as to sweep away every softer feeling; as flowers growing near a volcanic mountain may be scattered by the rolling lava-flood that passes over them. Now, for the first time, he lingered a little to reflect upon what he had heard. Could it be true? Could it be that this woman had deceived him,—this woman for whom he had been false to all the teaching of his life,—this woman, at whose feet he had offered up that comfortable philosophy which found an infallible armour against sorrow in supreme indifference to all things under heaven,-this woman, for whose sake he had con VOL. XII. II sented to reassume the painful heritage of humanity, the faculty of suffering? "And she is like the rest, after all," he thought; or only a little worse than the rest. And I had forgotten so much for her sake. I had blotted out the experience of a decade in order that I might believe in the witchery of her dark eyes. I, the man of half-a-dozen seasons in London and Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg, had sponged away every base record in the book of my memory, so that I might scrawl her name upon the blank pages; and now I am angry with her—with her, poor pitiful creature, who I suppose is only true to her nature when she is base and false. I am angry with her, when I have only my own folly to blame for the whole miserable business. I am angry with her, just as if she were a responsible being; as if she could be any thing but what she is. And yet there have been good women in the world," he thought, sadly. "My mother was a good woman. I used to fancy sometimes what might have happened if I had known her in my mother's lifetime. I have even made a picture in my mind of the two women, happy together, and loving each other. Heaven forgive me! And after all her pretty talk about platonism and poetry, she betrays me for a low intrigue, and a rendezvous kept at an ale-house." In all his anger against the Doctor's Wife, no thought of her husband's far deeper wrong ever entered into Mr. Lansdell's mind. It was he-Roland-who had been betrayed: it was he whose love was outraged, whose pride was humiliated to the very dust. That there was a man, now lying ill and helpless at Graybridge, who had a better right to resent Isabel Gilbert's treachery, and wreak vengeance upon the unknown wretch for whose sake she was thus base and guilty, never occurred to this angry young man. It had been, for a long time past, his habit to forget George Gilbert's existence; he had resolutely shut from his mind the image of the Graybridge surgeon ever since his return to Midlandshire; ever since the wrong he was doing against George Gilbert had fallen into a deliberate and persistent course, leading steadily to a foregone conclusion. He had done this, and little by little it had become very easy for him to forget so insignificant and unobtrusive a person as the simple-hearted parish surgeon, whose only sin against mankind was that he had chosen a pretty woman for his wife. So now it was of his own wrongs, and of those wrongs alone, that Mr. Lansdell thought. All the circumstances of Isabel's visit to the Priory came back to him. Came back? When had they left his mind, except for that brief interval of passion during which his mind had been a chaos? "The money she wanted was for this man, of course!" he thought. "For whom else should it be? for whom else should she come to ask for money-of her rejected lover-in the dead of the night, with all the mean miserable circumstances of a secret and guilty action? If she had wanted money from me for any legitimate purpose-foolish femi nine confusion of debt and difficulty-why should she not have written to me boldly for the sum she required? She must have known that my purse was hers to command whenever she required it. But that she should come secretly, trembling like a guilty creature, compromising herself and me by a midnight visit,―afraid to confess why she wanted the money,―answering my straight questions by hesitation and prevarication! What construction can I put upon her conduct of last night except one-except one? And yet, even after last night, I believed in her. I thought that she might have wanted the money for some relation. Some relation! What relation should she meet alone, secretly, late at night, in such a place as Nessborough Hollow? She who never, in all the course of our acquaintance, mentioned a living creature beyond her stepmother who had any claim upon her; and all at once some one comes-some one for whom she must have fifty pounds; not in the form of a cheque, which might be traced home to the person who received it. I cannot forget that; I cannot forget that she refused to take my cheque for the money she wanted. That alone makes a mystery of the business; and the meeting that Raymond witnessed tells all the rest. This strange man is some old lover; some jilted admirer of a bygone era, who comes now and is clamorous and dangerous, and will only be bought-off by a bribe. Oh, shame, shame, shame upon her, and upon my own folly! And I thought her an innocent child, who had ignorantly broken a strong man's heart!" He walked on slowly now, and with his head bent, no longer trying to make a short cut for himself among the trees, but absently following a narrow winding path worn by slow peasants' feet upon the grass. "What "Why should I be so eager to see this man?" he thought. can I discover that I do not already know? If there is any one upon earth whose word I can trust in, it is Raymond. He would be the very last to slander this wretched woman, or to be self-deluded by a prejudice; and he saw her-he saw her. And even beyond this, the base intrigue has become common talk. Gwendoline would not have dared to say what she said to-day without good grounds for her statement. It is only I,-I who have lived apart from all the world to think and dream about her, it is only I who am the last to be told of her shame. But I will try to see this fellow notwithstanding. I should like to see the man who has been preferred to me." Nessborough Hollow was some distance from Lowlands; and Mr. Lansdell, who was familiar with almost every inch of his native county, made his way thither by shadowy lanes and rarely trodden byways, where the summer wild-flowers smelt sweetly in the dewy night. Never surely had brighter heavens shone upon a fairer earth. The leaves and blossoms, the long lush grasses faintly stirred by lazy summer winds, made a perpetual whisper that scarcely broke the general stillness: and now and then the gurgling notes of a nightingale sounded amongst the VOL. XII. KK |