Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/39

Rh of eight and twenty, determined to do his best to perform even the impossible. Having built and furnished his castle in the air, Brian naturally thought of giving it a mistress, and this time actual appearance took the place of vision.

He fell in love with Madge Frettlby, and having decided in his own mind that she and none other was fitted to grace the visionary halls of his renovated castle, he watched his opportunity and declared himself. She, woman-like, coquetted with him for some time, but at last, unable to withstand the impetuosity of her Irish lover, confessed in a low voice, with a pretty smile on her face, that she could not live without him. Whereupon—well—lovers being of a conservative turn of mind, and accustomed to observe the traditional forms of wooing, the result can easily be guessed. Brian hunting all over the jewelers' shops in Melbourne with love-like assiduity, and having obtained a ring wherein were set some turquoise stones, as blue as his own eyes, he placed it on her slender finger, and at last felt that his engagement was an accomplished fact. This being satisfactorily arranged, he next proceeded to interview the father, and had just screwed his courage up to the awful ordeal, when something occurred which postponed the interview indefinitely. Mrs. Frettlby was out driving, when the horses took fright and bolted. The coachman and groom both escaped unhurt, but Mrs. Frettlby was thrown out and killed instantaneously. This was the first really great trouble which had fallen on Mark Frettlby, and he seemed to be stunned by it.

Shutting himself up in his room, he refused to see any one, even his daughter, and appeared at the funeral with white and haggard face, which shocked every one. When everything was over, and the body of the late Mrs. Frettlby was consigned to the earth, with all the pomp and ceremony which money could give, the bereaved husband rode home and resumed his old life. But he was never the same again. His face, which had always been so genial and bright, became stern and sad. He seldom smiled, and when he did, it was a faint, wintry smile, which seemed mechanical. His whole heart seemed centered in his daughter. She became the sole mistress of the St. Kilda mansion, and her father idolized her. She seemed to be the one thing left to him which gave him an interest in