Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/614

 606 your youth is blighted by these bitter memories. Do your duty, Eleanor, in the state to which you are called. You are not called upon to sacrifice the fairest years of your life to a Quixotic scheme of vengeance.”

“Quixotic!” cried Eleanor, reproachfully, “you would not speak like this, Richard, if your father had suffered as my father suffered through the villany of a gambler and cheat. It is no use talking to me, Dick,” she added, resolutely, “if this conviction which I cannot get out of my mind is a false one, it’sits [sic] falsehood must be proved; if it is true—why then it will seem to me as if Providence had flung this man across my pathway, and that I am appointed to bring punishment upon him for his wickedness.”

“Perhaps, Eleanor; but this Mr. Darrell is not the man.”

“How do you know he is not?”

“Because, according to your own account, Launcelot was in India in the year ’53.”

“Yes, they say that he was there.”

“Have you any reason to doubt the fact?” asked Richard.

“Yes,” answered Eleanor, “when Mr. Darrell first returned to Hazlewood, Laura Mason was very anxious to hear all about what she called his ‘adventures’ in India. She asked him a great many questions, and I remember—I cannot tell you, Dick, how carelessly I listened at the time, though every word comes back to me now as vividly as if I had been a prisoner on trial for my life, listening breathlessly to the evidence of the witnesses against me—I remember now how obstinately Launcelot Darrell avoided all Laura’s questions, telling her at last, almost rudely, to change the subject. The next day Mr. Monckton came to us, and he talked about India, and Mr. Darrell again avoided the question in the same sullen, disagreeable manner. You may think me weak and foolish, Richard, and I dare say I am so, but Mr. Monckton is a very clever man. He could not be easily deceived.”

“But what of him?”

“He said, ‘Launcelot Darrell has a secret, and that secret is connected with his Indian experiences.’ I thought very little of this at the time, Dick; but I think I understand it now.”

“Indeed, and the young man’s secret—?”

“Is that he never went to India.”

“Eleanor!”

“Yes, Richard, I think and believe this, and you must help me to find out whether I am right or wrong.”

The scene-painter sighed. He had hoped that his beautiful adopted sister had long since abandoned or forgotten her Utopian scheme of vengeance, in the congenial society of a gay-hearted girl of her own age; and, behold, here she was, vindictive, resolute, as upon that Sunday evening, a year and a half ago, on which they had walked together in those dingy London streets.

Eleanor Vane interrupted her companion’s sigh.

“Remember your promise, Richard,” she said. “You promised to serve me, and you must do so—you will do so, won’t you, Dick?”

The avenging fury had transformed herself into a siren as she spoke, and looked archly up at her companion’s face, with her head on one side, and a soft light in her grey eyes.

“You won’t refuse to serve me, will you, Richard?”

“Refuse,” cried the young man. “Oh, Nelly, Nelly, you know very well there is nothing in the world I could refuse you.”

Miss Vane accepted this assurance with great composure. She had never been able to disassociate Richard Thornton with those early days in which she had accompanied him to Covent Garden to buy mulberry leaves for his silkworms, and learned to play “God save the Queen” upon the young musician’s violin. Nothing was further from her thoughts than the idea that poor Dick’s feelings could have undergone any change since those childish days in the King’s Road, Chelsea.

The letter which Eleanor so feverishly awaited from Laura Mason came by return of post. The young lady’s epistle was very long, and rather rambling in its nature. Three sheets of note-paper were covered with Miss Mason’s lamentations for her friend’s absence, reproachful complainings against her friend’s cruelty, and repeated entreaties that Eleanor would come back to Hazlewood.

George Vane’s daughter did not linger over this feminine missive. A few days ago she would have been touched by Laura’s innocent expressions of regard; now her eyes hurried along the lines, taking little note of all those simple words of affection and regret, and looking greedily forward to that one only passage in the letter which was likely to have any interest for her.

This passage did not occur until Eleanor had reached the very last of the twelve pages which Miss Mason had covered with flowing Italian characters, whose symmetry was here and there disfigured by sundry blots and erasures. But as her eyes rested upon the last page, Eleanor Vane’s hand tightened upon the paper in her grasp, and the hot blood rushed redly to her earnest face.

“And I have found out all you want to know, dear Nell,” wrote Miss Mason, “though I am puzzled out of my wits to know why you should want to know it—when I did exercises in composition at Bayswater, they wouldn’t let me put two ‘knows’ so near together; but you won’t mind it, will you, dear? Well, darling, I’m not very clever at beating about the bush or finding out anything in a diplomatic way; so this afternoon at tea—I am writing to catch the evening post, and Bob is going to take my letter to the village for sixpence—I asked Launcelot Darrell, who was not drinking his tea, like a Christian, but lolling in the window smoking a cigar: he has been as sulky as a bear ever since you left—oh, Nelly, Nelly, he isn’t in love with you, is he?—I should break my heart if I thought he was—I asked him, point blank, what year and what day he sailed for India. I suppose the question sounded rather impertinent, for he coloured up scarlet all in a minute, and shrugged his shoulders in that dear disdainful way of his that always reminds me of Lara or the Corsair—L. and the C. were the same person, though, weren’t they—and said, ‘I don’t keep a diary, Miss Mason, or I should be