"I certainly should never leave you, sir," said Myra, "and I told Nigel so; but that contingency had nothing to do with my decision. I declined his offer, because I have no wish to marry."

"Women are born to be married," said Mr. Ferrars.

"And yet I believe most marriages are unhappy," said Myra.

"Oh! if your objection to marry Nigel arises from an abstract objection to marriage itself," said Mr. Ferrars, "it is a subject which we might talk over calmly, and perhaps remove your prejudices."

"I have no objection against marriage," rejoined Myra. "It is likely enough that I may marry some day, and probably make an unhappy marriage; but that is not the question before us. It is whether I should marry Nigel. That cannot be, my dear father, and he knows it. I have a.s.sured him so in a manner which cannot be mistaken."

"We are a doomed family!" exclaimed the unhappy Mr. Ferrars, clasping his hands.

"So I have long felt," said Myra. "I can bear our lot; but I want no strangers to be introduced to share its bitterness, and soothe us with their sympathy."

"You speak like a girl," said Mr. Ferrars, "and a headstrong girl, which you always have been. You know not what you are talking about. It is a matter of life or death. Your decorous marriage would have saved us from absolute ruin."

"Alone, I can meet absolute ruin," said Myra. "I have long contemplated such a contingency, and am prepared for it. My marriage with Nigel could hardly save you, sir, from such a visitation, if it be impending. But I trust in that respect, if in no other, you have used a little of the language of exaggeration. I have never received, and I have never presumed to seek, any knowledge of your affairs; but I have a.s.sumed, that for your life, somehow or other, you would be permitted to exist without disgrace. If I survive you, I have neither care nor fear."

CHAPTER XXVIII

In the following spring a vexatious incident occurred in Warwick Street.

The highly-considered county member, who was the yearly tenant of Mr.

Rodney"s first floor, and had been always a valuable patron, suddenly died. An adjourned debate, a tough beefsteak, a select committee still harder, and an influenza caught at three o"clock in the morning in an imprudent but irresistible walk home with a confidential Lord of the Treasury, had combined very sensibly to affect the income of Mr. Rodney.

At first he was sanguine that such a desirable dwelling would soon find a suitable inhabitant, especially as Mr. Waldershare a.s.sured him that he would mention the matter to all his friends. But time rolled on, and the rooms were still vacant; and the fastidious Rodneys, who at first would only listen to a yearly tenant, began to reduce their expectations.

Matters had arrived at such a pa.s.s in May, that, for the first time in their experience, they actually condescended to hoist an announcement of furnished apartments.

In this state of affairs a cab rattled up to the house one morning, out of which a young gentleman jumped briskly, and, knocking at the door, asked, of the servant who opened it, whether he might see the apartments. He was a young man, apparently not more than one or two and twenty, of a graceful figure, somewhat above the middle height, fair, with a countenance not absolutely regular, but calm and high-bred. His dress was in the best taste, but to a practised eye had something of a foreign cut, and he wore a slight moustache.

"The rooms will suit me," he said, "and I have no doubt the price you ask for them is a just one;" and he bowed with high-bred courtesy to Sylvia, who was now in attendance on him, and who stood with her pretty hands in the pretty pockets of her pretty ap.r.o.n.

"I am glad to hear that," said Sylvia. "We have never let them before, except to a yearly tenant."

"And if we suit each other," said the gentleman, "I should have no great objection to becoming such."

"In these matters," said Sylvia, after a little hesitation, "we give and receive references. Mr. Rodney is well known in this neighbourhood and in Westminster generally; but I dare say," she adroitly added, "he has many acquaintances known to you, sir."

"Not very likely," replied the young gentleman; "for I am a foreigner, and only arrived in England this morning;" though he spoke English without the slightest accent.

Sylvia looked a little perplexed; but he continued: "It is quite just that you should be a.s.sured to whom you are letting your lodgings. The only reference I can give you is to my banker, but he is almost too great a man for such matters. Perhaps," he added, pulling out a case from his breast pocket, and taking out of it a note, which he handed to Sylvia, "this may a.s.sure you that your rent will be paid."

Sylvia took a rapid glance at the hundred-pound-note, and twisting it into her little pocket with apparent _sangfroid_, though she held it with a tight grasp, murmured that it was quite unnecessary, and then offered to give her new lodger an acknowledgment of it.

"That is really unnecessary," he replied. "Your appearance commands from me that entire confidence which on your part you very properly refuse to a stranger and a foreigner like myself."

"What a charming young man!" thought Sylvia, pressing with emotion her hundred-pound-note.

"Now," continued the young gentleman, "I will return to the station to release my servant, who is a prisoner there with my luggage. Be pleased to make him at home. I shall myself not return probably till the evening; and in the meantime," he added, giving Sylvia his card, "you will admit anything that arrives here addressed to Colonel Albert."

The settlement of Colonel Albert in Warwick Street was an event of no slight importance. It superseded for a time all other topics of conversation, and was discussed at length in the evenings, especially with Mr. Vigo. Who was he? And in what service was he colonel? Mr.

Rodney, like a man of the world, a.s.sumed that all necessary information would in time be obtained from the colonel"s servant; but even men of the world sometimes miscalculate. The servant, who was a Belgian, had only been engaged by the colonel at Brussels a few days before his departure for England, and absolutely knew nothing of his master, except that he was a gentleman with plenty of money and sufficient luggage.

Sylvia, who was the only person who had seen the colonel, was strongly in his favour. Mr. Rodney looked doubtful, and avoided any definite opinion until he had had the advantage of an interview with his new lodger. But this was not easy to obtain. Colonel Albert had no wish to see the master of the house, and, if he ever had that desire, his servant would accordingly communicate it in the proper quarter. At present he was satisfied with all the arrangements, and wished neither to make nor to receive remarks. The habits of the new lodger were somewhat of a recluse. He was generally engaged in his rooms the whole day, and seldom left them till the evening, and n.o.body, as yet, had called upon him. Under these circ.u.mstances, Imogene was instructed to open the matter to Mr. Waldershare when she presided over his breakfast-table; and that gentleman said he would make inquiries about the colonel at the Travellers" Club, where Waldershare pa.s.sed a great deal of his time. "If he be anybody," said Mr. Waldershare, "he is sure in time to be known there, for he will be introduced as a visitor." At present, however, it turned out that the "Travellers"" knew nothing of Colonel Albert; and time went on, and Colonel Albert was not introduced as a visitor there.

After a little while there was a change in the habits of the colonel.

One morning, about noon, a groom, extremely well appointed, and having under his charge a couple of steeds of breed and beauty, called at Warwick Street, and the colonel rode out, and was long absent, and after that, every day, and generally at the same hour, mounted his horse.

Mr. Rodney was never wearied of catching a glimpse of his distinguished lodger over the blinds of the ground-floor room, and of admiring the colonel"s commanding presence in his saddle, distinguished as his seat was alike by its grace and vigour.

In the course of a little time, another incident connected with the colonel occurred which attracted notice and excited interest. Towards the evening a brougham, marked, but quietly, with a foreign coronet, stopped frequently at Mr. Rodney"s house, and a visitor to the colonel appeared in the form of a middle-aged gentleman who never gave his name, and evaded, it seemed with practised dexterity, every effort, however adroit, to obtain it. The valet was tried on this head also, and replied with simplicity that he did not know the gentleman"s name, but he was always called the Baron.

In the middle of June a packet arrived one day by the coach, from the rector of Hurstley, addressed to Endymion, announcing his father"s dangerous illness, and requesting him instantly to repair home. Myra was too much occupied to write even a line.

CHAPTER XXIX

It was strange that Myra did not write, were it only a line. It was so unlike her. How often this occurred to Endymion during his wearisome and anxious travel! When the coach reached Hurstley, he found Mr. Penruddock waiting for him. Before he could inquire after his father, that gentleman said, "Myra is at the rectory; you are to come on there."

"And my father?"----

"Matters are critical," said Mr. Penruddock, as it were avoiding a direct answer, and hastening his pace.

It was literally not a five minutes" walk from the village inn to the rectory, and they walked in silence. The rector took Endymion at once into his study; for we can hardly call it a library, though some shelves of books were there, and many stuffed birds.

The rector closed the door with care, and looked distressed; and, beckoning to Endymion to be seated, he said, while still standing and half turning away his head, "My dear boy, prepare yourself for the worst."

"Ah! he is gone then! my dear, dear father!" and Endymion burst into pa.s.sionate tears, and leant on the table, his face hid in his hands.

The rector walked up and down the room with an agitated countenance. He could not deny, it would seem, the inference of Endymion; and yet he did not proffer those consolations which might be urged, and which it became one in his capacity peculiarly to urge.

"I must see Myra," said Endymion eagerly, looking up with a wild air and streaming eyes.

"Not yet," said the rector; "she is much disturbed. Your poor father is no more; it is too true; but," and here the rector hesitated, "he did not die happily."

"What do you mean?" said Endymion.

"Your poor father had much to try him," said the rector. "His life, since he was amongst us here, was a life, for him, of adversity--perhaps of great adversity--yet he bore up against it with a Christian spirit; he never repined. There was much that was n.o.ble and exalted in his character. But he never overcame the loss of your dear mother. He was never himself afterwards. He was not always master of himself. I could bear witness to that," said the rector, talking, as it were, to himself.

"Yes; I could conscientiously give evidence to that effect"----

"What effect?" asked Endymion, with a painful scrutiny.

"I could show," said the rector, speaking slowly, and in a low voice, "and others could show, that he was not master of himself when he committed the rash act."

"O Mr. Penruddock!" exclaimed Endymion, starting from his chair, and seizing the rector by the arm. "What is all this?"

"That a great sorrow has come upon you, and your sister, and all of us,"

said Mr. Penruddock; "and you, and she, and all of us must bow before the Divine will in trembling, though in hope. Your father"s death was not natural."

Such was the end of William Pitt Ferrars, on whom nature, opportunity, and culture appeared to have showered every advantage. His abilities were considerable, his ambition greater. Though intensely worldly, he was not devoid of affections. He found refuge in suicide, as many do, from want of imagination. The present was too hard for him, and his future was only a chaotic nebula.