"Let me in!" cried Edward Arundel. "Man alive! do you think I came down here to stand all night staring through these iron bars? Is Marchmont Towers a prison, that you shut your gates as if they were never to be opened until the Day of Judgment?"

The old man responded with a feeble, chirpy laugh, an audible grin, senile and conciliatory.

"We've no need to keep t' geates open arter dark," he said; "folk doan't coome to the Toowers arter dark."

He had succeeded by this time in turning the key in the lock; one of the gates rolled slowly back upon its rusty hinges, creaking and groaning as if in hoarse protest against all visitors to the Towers; and Edward Arundel entered the dreary domain which John Marchmont had inherited from his kinsman.

The postillion turned his horses from the highroad without the gates into the broad drive leading up to the mansion. Far away, across the wet flats, the broad western front of that gaunt stone dwelling-place frowned upon the travellers, its black grimness only relieved by two or three dim red patches, that told of lighted windows and human habitation. It was rather difficult to associate friendly flesh and blood with Marchmont Towers on this dark November night. The nervous traveller would have rather expected to find diabolical denizens lurking within those black and stony walls; hideous enchantments beneath that rain-bespattered roof; weird and incarnate horrors brooding by deserted hearths, and fearful shrieks of souls in perpetual pain breaking upon the stillness of the night.

Edward Arundel had no thought of these things. He knew that the place was darksome and gloomy, and that, in very spite of himself, he had always been unpleasantly impressed by it; but he knew nothing more. He only wanted to reach the house without delay, and to ask for the young wife whom he had parted with upon a balmy August evening three months before. He wanted this passionately, almost madly; and every moment made his impatience wilder, his anxiety more intense. It seemed as if all the journey from Dangerfield Park to Lincolnshire was as nothing compared to the space that still lay between him and Marchmont Towers.

"We've done it in double-quick time, sir," the postillion said, complacently pointing to the steaming sides of his horses. "Master'll gie it to me for driving the beasts like this."

Edward Arundel looked at the panting animals. They had brought him quickly, then, though the way had seemed so long.

"You shall have a five-pound note, my lad," he said, "if you get me up to yonder house in five minutes."

He had his hand upon the door of the carriage, and was leaning against it for support, while he tried to recover enough strength with which to clamber into the vehicle, when his eye was caught by some white object flapping in the rain against the stone pillar of the gate, and made dimly visible in a flickering patch of light from the lodge-keeper's lantern.

"What's that?" he cried, pointing to this white spot upon the moss-grown stone.

The old man slowly raised his eyes to the spot towards which the soldier's finger pointed.

"That?" he mumbled. "Ay, to be sure, to be sure. Poor young lady! That's the printed bill as they stook oop. It's the printed bill, to be sure, to be sure. I'd a'most forgot it. It ain't been much good, anyhow; and I'd a'most forgot it."

"The printed bill! the young lady!" gasped Edward Arundel, in a hoarse, choking voice.

He snatched the lantern from the lodge-keeper's hand with a force that sent the old man reeling and tottering several paces backward; and, rushing to the stone pillar, held the light up above his head, on a level with the white placard which had attracted his notice. It was damp and dilapidated at the edges; but that which was printed upon it was as visible to the soldier as though each commonplace character had been a fiery sign inscribed upon a blazing scroll.

This was the announcement which Edward Arundel read upon the gate-post of Marchmont Towers: —

"ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD. – Whereas Miss Mary Marchmont left her home on Wednesday last, October 17th, and has not since been heard of, this is to give notice that the above reward will be given to any one who shall afford such information as will lead to her recovery if she be alive, or to the discovery of her body if she be dead. The missing young lady is eighteen years of age, rather below the middle height, of fair complexion, light-brown hair, and hazel eyes. When she left her home, she had on a grey silk dress, grey shawl, and straw bonnet. She was last seen near the river-side upon the afternoon of Wednesday, the 17th instant. "Marchmont Towers, October 20_th_, 1848."

CHAPTER VII.
FACE TO FACE

It is not easy to imagine a lion-hearted young cavalry officer, whose soldiership in the Punjaub had won the praises of a Napier and an Outram, fainting away like a heroine of romance at the coming of evil tidings; but Edward Arundel, who had risen from a sick-bed to take a long and fatiguing journey in utter defiance of the doctors, was not strong enough to bear the dreadful welcome that greeted him upon the gate-post at Marchmont Towers.

He staggered, and would have fallen, had not the extended arms of his father's confidential servant been luckily opened to receive and support him. But he did not lose his senses.

"Get me into the carriage, Morrison," he cried. "Get me up to that house. They've tortured and tormented my wife while I've been lying like a log on my bed at Dangerfield. For God's sake, get me up there as quick as you can!"

Mr. Morrison had read the placard on the gate across his young master's shoulder. He lifted the Captain into the carriage, shouted to the postillion to drive on, and took his seat by the young man's side.

"Begging you pardon, Mr. Edward," he said, gently; "but the young lady may be found by this time. That bill's been sticking there for upwards of a month, you see, sir, and it isn't likely but what Miss Marchmont has been found between that time and this."

The invalid passed his hand across his forehead, down which the cold sweat rolled in great beads.

"Give me some brandy," he whispered; "pour some brandy down my throat, Morrison, if you've any compassion upon me; I must get strength somehow for the struggle that lies before me."

The valet took a wicker-covered flask from his pocket, and put the neck of it to Edward Arundel's lips.

"She may be found, Morrison," muttered the young man, after drinking a long draught of the fiery spirit; he would willingly have drunk living fire itself, in his desire to obtain unnatural strength in this crisis. "Yes; you're right there. She may be found. But to think that she should have been driven away! To think that my poor, helpless, tender girl should have been driven a second time from the home that is her own! Yes; her own by every law and every right. Oh, the relentless devil, the pitiless devil! – what can be the motive of her conduct? Is it madness, or the infernal cruelty of a fiend incarnate?"

Mr. Morrison thought that his young master's brain had been disordered by the shock he had just undergone, and that this wild talk was mere delirium.

"Keep your heart up, Mr. Edward," he murmured, soothingly; "you may rely upon it, the young lady has been found."

But Edward was in no mind to listen to any mild consolatory remarks from his valet. He had thrust his head out of the carriage-window, and his eyes were fixed upon the dimly-lighted casements of the western drawing-room.

"The room in which John and Polly and I used to sit together when first I came from India," he murmured. "How happy we were! – how happy we were!"

The carriage stopped before the stone portico, and the young man got out once more, assisted by his servant. His breath came short and quick now that he stood upon the threshold. He pushed aside the servant who opened the familiar door at the summons of the clanging bell, and strode into the hall. A fire burned on the wide hearth; but the atmosphere of the great stone-paved chamber was damp and chilly.

Captain Arundel walked straight to the door of the western drawing-room. It was there that he had seen lights in the windows; it was there that he expected to find Olivia Marchmont.

He was not mistaken. A shaded lamp burnt dimly on a table near the fire. There was a low invalid-chair beside this table, an open book upon the floor, and an Indian shawl, one he had sent to his cousin, flung carelessly upon the pillows. The neglected fire burned low in the old-fashioned grate, and above the dull-red blaze stood the figure of a woman, tall, dark, and gloomy of aspect.

It was Olivia Marchmont, in the mourning-robes that she had worn, with but one brief intermission, ever since her husband's death. Her profile was turned towards the door by which Edward Arundel entered the room; her eyes were bent steadily upon the low heap of burning ashes in the grate. Even in that doubtful light the young man could see that her features were sharpened, and that a settled frown had contracted her straight black brows.

In her fixed attitude, in her air of deathlike tranquillity, this woman resembled some sinful vestal sister, set, against her will, to watch a sacred fire, and brooding moodily over her crimes.

She did not hear the opening of the door; she had not even heard the trampling of the horses' hoofs, or the crashing of the wheels upon the gravel before the house. There were times when her sense of external things was, as it were, suspended and absorbed in the intensity of her obstinate despair.

"Olivia!" said the soldier.

Mrs. Marchmont looked up at the sound of that accusing voice, for there was something in Edward Arundel's simple enunciation of her name which seemed like an accusation or a menace. She looked up, with a great terror in her face, and stared aghast at her unexpected visitor. Her white cheeks, her trembling lips, and dilated eyes could not have more palpably expressed a great and absorbing horror, had the young man standing quietly before her been a corpse newly risen from its grave.

"Olivia Marchmont," said Captain Arundel, after a brief pause, "I have come here to look for my wife."

The woman pushed her trembling hands across her forehead, brushing the dead black hair from her temples, and still staring with the same unutterable horror at the face of her cousin. Several times she tried to speak; but the broken syllables died away in her throat in hoarse, inarticulate mutterings. At last, with a great effort, the words came.

"I – I – never expected to see you," she said; "I heard that you were very ill; I heard that you – "

"You heard that I was dying," interrupted Edward Arundel; "or that, if I lived, I should drag out the rest of my existence in hopeless idiocy. The doctors thought as much a week ago, when one of them, cleverer than the rest I suppose, had the courage to perform an operation that restored me to consciousness. Sense and memory came back to me by degrees. The thick veil that had shrouded the past was rent asunder; and the first image that came to me was the image of my young wife, as I had seen her upon the night of our parting. For more than three months I had been dead. I was suddenly restored to life. I asked those about me to give me tidings of my wife. Had she sought me out? – had she followed me to Dangerfield? No! They could tell me nothing. They thought that I was delirious, and tried to soothe me with compassionate speeches, merciful falsehoods, promising me that I should see my darling. But I soon read the secret of their scared looks. I saw pity and wonder mingled in my mother's face, and I entreated her to be merciful to me, and to tell me the truth. She had compassion upon me, and told me all she knew, which was very little. She had never heard from my wife. She had never heard of any marriage between Mary Marchmont and me. The only communication which she had received from any of her Lincolnshire relations had been a letter from my uncle Hubert, in reply to one of hers telling him of my hopeless state.

"This was the shock that fell upon me when life and memory came back. I could not bear the imprisonment of a sick-bed. I felt that for the second time I must go out into the world to look for my darling; and in defiance of the doctors, in defiance of my poor mother, who thought that my departure from Dangerfield was a suicide, I am here. It is here that I come first to seek for my wife. I might have stopped in London to see Richard Paulette; I might sooner have gained tidings of my darling. But I came here; I came here without stopping by the way, because an uncontrollable instinct and an unreasoning impulse tells me that it is here I ought to seek her. I am here, her husband, her only true and legitimate defender; and woe be to those who stand between me and my wife!"

He had spoken rapidly in his passion; and he stopped, exhausted by his own vehemence, and sank heavily into a chair near the lamplit table.

Then for the first time that night Olivia Marchmont plainly saw her cousin's face, and saw the terrible change that had transformed the handsome young soldier, since the bright August morning on which he had gone forth from Marchmont Towers. She saw the traces of a long and wearisome illness sadly visible in his waxen-hued complexion, his hollow cheeks, the faded lustre of his eyes, his dry and pallid lips. She saw all this, the woman whose one great sin had been to love this man wickedly and madly, in spite of her better self, in spite of her womanly pride; she saw the change in him that had altered him from a young Apollo to a shattered and broken invalid. And did any revulsion of feeling arise in her breast? Did any corresponding transformation in her own heart bear witness to the baseness of her love?

No; a thousand times, no! There was no thrill of disgust, how transient soever; not so much as one passing shudder of painful surprise, one pang of womanly regret. No! In place of these, a passionate yearning arose in this woman's haughty soul; a flood of sudden tenderness rushed across the black darkness of her mind. She fain would have flung herself upon her knees, in loving self-abasement, at the sick man's feet. She fain would have cried aloud, amid a tempest of passionate sobs, —

"O my love, my love! you are dearer to me a hundred times by this cruel change. It was not your bright-blue eyes and waving chestnut hair, – it was not your handsome face, your brave, soldier-like bearing that I loved. My love was not so base as that. I inflicted a cruel outrage upon myself when I thought that I was the weak fool of a handsome face. Whatever I have been, my love, at least, has been pure. My love is pure, though I am base. I will never slander that again, for I know now that it is immortal."

In the sudden rush of that flood-tide of love and tenderness, all these thoughts welled into Olivia Marchmont's mind. In all her sin and desperation she had never been so true a woman as now; she had never, perhaps, been so near being a good woman. But the tender emotion was swept out of her breast the next moment by the first words of Edward Arundel.

"Why do you not answer my question?" he said.

She drew herself up in the erect and rigid attitude that had become almost habitual to her. Every trace of womanly feeling faded out of her face, as the sunlight disappears behind the sudden darkness of a thundercloud.

"What question?" she asked, with icy indifference.

"The question I have come to Lincolnshire to ask – the question I have perilled my life, perhaps, to ask," cried the young man. "Where is my wife?"

The widow turned upon him with a horrible smile.

"I never heard that you were married," she said. "Who is your wife?"

"Mary Marchmont, the mistress of this house."

Olivia opened her eyes, and looked at him in half-sardonic surprise.

"Then it was not a fable?" she said.

"What was not a fable?"

"The unhappy girl spoke the truth when she said that you had married her at some out-of-the-way church in Lambeth."

"The truth! Yes!" cried Edward Arundel. "Who should dare to say that she spoke other than the truth? Who should dare to disbelieve her?"

Olivia Marchmont smiled again, – that same strange smile which was almost too horrible for humanity, and yet had a certain dark and gloomy grandeur of its own. Satan, the star of the morning, may have so smiled despairing defiance upon the Archangel Michael.

"Unfortunately," she said, "no one believed the poor child. Her story was such a very absurd one, and she could bring forward no shred of evidence in support of it."

"O my God!" ejaculated Edward Arundel, clasping his hands above his head in a paroxysm of rage and despair. "I see it all – I see it all! My darling has been tortured to death. Woman!" he cried, "are you possessed by a thousand fiends? Is there no one sentiment of womanly compassion left in your breast? If there is one spark of womanhood in your nature, I appeal to that; I ask you what has happened to my wife?"

"My wife! my wife!" The reiteration of that familiar phrase was to Olivia Marchmont like the perpetual thrust of a dagger aimed at an open wound. It struck every time upon the same tortured spot, and inflicted the same agony.

"The placard upon the gates of this place can tell you as much as I can," she said.

The ghastly whiteness of the soldier's face told her that he had seen the placard of which she spoke.

"She has not been found, then?" he said, hoarsely.

"No."

"How did she disappear?"

"As she disappeared upon the morning on which you followed her. She wandered out of the house, this time leaving no letter, nor message, nor explanation of any kind whatever. It was in the middle of the day that she went out; and for some time her absence caused no alarm. But, after some hours, she was waited for and watched for very anxiously. Then a search was made."

"Where?"

"Wherever she had at any time been in the habit of walking, – in the park; in the wood; along the narrow path by the water; at Pollard's farm; at Hester's house at Kemberling, – in every place where it might be reasonably imagined there was the slightest chance of finding her."

"And all this was without result?"

"It was."

"Why did she leave this place? God help you, Olivia Marchmont, if it was your cruelty that drove her away!"

The widow took no notice of the threat implied in these words. Was there anything upon earth that she feared now? No – nothing. Had she not endured the worst long ago, in Edward Arundel's contempt? She had no fear of a battle with this man; or with any other creature in the world; or with the whole world arrayed and banded together against her, if need were. Amongst all the torments of those black depths to which her soul had gone down, there was no such thing as fear. That cowardly baseness is for the happy and prosperous, who have something to lose. This woman was by nature dauntless and resolute as the hero of some classic story; but in her despair she had the desperate and reckless courage of a starving wolf. The hand of death was upon her; what could it matter how she died?

"I am very grateful to you, Edward Arundel," she said, bitterly, "for the good opinion you have always had of me. The blood of the Dangerfield Arundels must have had some drop of poison intermingled with it, I should think, before it could produce so vile a creature as myself; and yet I have heard people say that my mother was a good woman."

The young man writhed impatiently beneath the torture of his cousin's deliberate speech. Was there to be no end to this unendurable delay? Even now, – now that he was in this house, face to face with the woman he had come to question – it seemed as if he could not get tidings of his wife.

So, often in his dreams, he had headed a besieging-party against the Affghans, with the scaling-ladders reared against the wall; he had seen the dark faces grinning down upon him – all savage glaring eyes and fierce glistening teeth – and had heard the voices of his men urging him on to the encounter, but had felt himself paralysed and helpless, with his sabre weak as a withered reed in his nerveless hand.

"For God's sake, let there be no quarrelling with phrases between you and me, Olivia!" he cried. "If you or any other living being have injured my wife, the reckoning between us shall be no light one. But there will be time enough to talk of that by-and-by. I stand before you, newly risen from a grave in which I have lain for more than three months, as dead to the world, and to every creature I have ever loved or hated, as if the Funeral Service had been read over my coffin. I come to demand from you an account of what has happened during that interval. If you palter or prevaricate with me, I shall know that it is because you fear to tell me the truth."

"Fear!"

"Yes; you have good reason to fear, if you have wronged Mary Arundel.

Why did she leave this house?"

"Because she was not happy in it, I suppose. She chose to shut herself up in her own room, and to refuse to be governed, or advised, or consoled. I tried to do my duty to her; yes," cried Olivia Marchmont, suddenly raising her voice, as if she had been vehemently contradicted; – "yes, I did try to do my duty to her. I urged her to listen to reason; I begged her to abandon her foolish falsehood about a marriage with you in London."

"You disbelieved in that marriage?"

"I did," answered Olivia.

"You lie!" cried Edward Arundel. "You knew the poor child had spoken the truth. You knew her – you knew me – well enough to know that I should not have detained her away from her home an hour, except to make her my wife – except to give myself the strongest right to love and defend her."

"I knew nothing of the kind, Captain Arundel; you and Mary Marchmont had taken good care to keep your secrets from me. I knew nothing of your plots, your intentions. I should have considered that one of the Dangerfield Arundels would have thought his honour sullied by such an act as a stolen marriage with an heiress, considerably under age, and nominally in the guardianship of her stepmother. I did, therefore, disbelieve the story Mary Marchmont told me. Another person, much more experienced than I, also disbelieved the unhappy girl's account of her absence."

"Another person! What other person?"

"Mr. Marchmont."

"Mr. Marchmont!"

"Yes; Paul Marchmont, – my husband's first-cousin."

A sudden cry of rage and grief broke from Edward Arundel's lips.

"O my God!" he exclaimed, "there was some foundation for the warning in John Marchmont's letter, after all. And I laughed at him; I laughed at my poor friend's fears."

The widow looked at her kinsman in mute wonder.

"Has Paul Marchmont been in this house?" he asked.

"Yes."

"When was he here?"

"He has been here often; he comes here constantly. He has been living at Kemberling for the last three months."

"Why?"

"For his own pleasure, I suppose," Olivia answered haughtily. "It is no business of mine to pry into Mr. Marchmont's motives."

Edward Arundel ground his teeth in an access of ungovernable passion. It was not against Olivia, but against himself this time that he was enraged. He hated himself for the arrogant folly, the obstinate presumption, with which he had ridiculed and slighted John Marchmont's vague fears of his kinsman Paul.

"So this man has been here, – is here constantly," he muttered. "Of course, it is only natural that he should hang about the place. And you and he are stanch allies, I suppose?" he added, turning upon Olivia.

"Stanch allies! Why?"

"Because you both hate my wife."

"What do you mean?"

"You both hate her. You, out of a base envy of her wealth; because of her superior rights, which made you a secondary person in this house, perhaps, – there is nothing else for which you could hate her. Paul Marchmont, because she stands between him and a fortune. Heaven help her! Heaven help my poor, gentle, guileless darling! Surely Heaven must have had some pity upon her when her husband was not by!"

The young man dashed the blinding tears from his eyes. They were the first that he had shed since he had risen from that which many people had thought his dying-bed, to search for his wife.

But this was no time for tears or lamentations. Stern determination took the place of tender pity and sorrowful love. It was a time for resolution and promptitude.

"Olivia Marchmont," he said, "there has been some foul play in this business. My wife has been missing a month; yet when I asked my mother what had happened at this house during my illness, she could tell me nothing. Why did you not write to tell her of Mary's flight?"

"Because Mrs. Arundel has never done me the honour to cultivate any intimacy between us. My father writes to his sister-in-law sometimes; I scarcely ever write to my aunt. On the other hand, your mother had never seen Mary Marchmont, and could not be expected to take any great interest in her proceedings. There was, therefore, no reason for my writing a special letter to announce the trouble that had befallen me."

"You might have written to my mother about my marriage. You might have applied to her for confirmation of the story which you disbelieved."

Olivia Marchmont smiled.

"Should I have received that confirmation?" she said. "No. I saw your mother's letters to my father. There was no mention in those letters of any marriage; no mention whatever of Mary Marchmont. This in itself was enough to confirm my disbelief. Was it reasonable to imagine that you would have married, and yet have left your mother in total ignorance of the fact?"

"O God, help me!" cried Edward Arundel, wringing his hands. "It seems as if my own folly, my own vile procrastination, have brought this trouble upon my wife. Olivia Marchmont, have pity upon me. If you hate this girl, your malice must surely have been satisfied by this time. She has suffered enough. Pity me, and help me; if you have any human feeling in your breast. She left this house because her life here had grown unendurable; because she saw herself doubted, disbelieved, widowed in the first month of her marriage, utterly desolate and friendless. Another woman might have borne up against all this misery. Another woman would have known how to assert herself, and to defend herself, even in the midst of her sorrow and desolation. But my poor darling is a child; a baby in ignorance of the world. How should sheprotect herself against her enemies? Her only instinct was to run away from her persecutors, – to hide herself from those whose pretended doubts flung the horror of dishonour upon her. I can understand all now; I can understand. Olivia Marchmont, this man Paul has a strong reason for being a villain. The motives that have induced you to do wrong must be very small in comparison to his. He plays an infamous game, I believe; but he plays for a high stake."

A high stake! Had not she perilled her soul upon the casting of this die? Had she not flung down her eternal happiness in that fatal game of hazard?

"Help me, then, Olivia," said Edward, imploringly; "help me to find my wife; and atone for all that you have ever done amiss in the past. It is not too late."

His voice softened as he spoke. He turned to her, with his hands clasped, waiting anxiously for her answer. Perhaps this appeal was the last cry of her good angel, pleading against the devils for her redemption. But the devils had too long held possession of this woman's breast. They arose, arrogant and unpitying, and hardened her heart against that pleading voice.

"How much he loves her!" thought Olivia Marchmont; "how dearly he loves her! For her sake he humiliates himself to me."

Then, with no show of relenting in her voice or manner, she said deliberately:

"I can only tell you again what I told you before. The placard you saw at the park-gates can tell you as much as I can. Mary Marchmont ran away. She was sought for in every direction, but without success. Mr. Marchmont, who is a man of the world, and better able to suggest what is right in such a case as this, advised that Mr. Paulette should be sent for. He was accordingly communicated with. He came, and instituted a fresh search. He also caused a bill to be printed and distributed through the country. Advertisements were inserted in the 'Times' and other papers. For some reason – I forget what reason – Mary Marchmont's name did not appear in these advertisements. They were so worded as to render the publication of the name unnecessary."

Edward Arundel pushed his hand across his forehead.

"Richard Paulette has been here?" he murmured, in a low voice.

He had every confidence in the lawyer; and a deadly chill came over him at the thought that the cool, hard-headed solicitor had failed to find the missing girl.

"Yes; he was here two or three days."

"And he could do nothing?"

"Nothing, except what I have told you."

The young man thrust his hand into his breast to still the cruel beating of his heart. A sudden terror had taken possession of him, – a horrible dread that he should never look upon his young wife's face again. For some minutes there was a dead silence in the room, only broken once or twice by the falling of some ashes on the hearth. Captain Arundel sat with his face hidden behind his hand. Olivia still stood as she had stood when her cousin entered the room, erect and gloomy, by the old-fashioned chimney-piece.

"There was something in that placard," the soldier said at last, in a hoarse, altered voice, – "there was something about my wife having been seen last by the water-side. Who saw her there?"

"Mr. Weston, a surgeon of Kemberling, – Paul Marchmont's brother-in-law."

"Was she seen by no one else?"

"Yes; she was seen at about the same time – a little sooner or later, we don't know which – by one of Farmer Pollard's men."

"And she has never been seen since?"

"Never; that is to say, we can hear of no one who has seen her."

"At what time in the day was she seen by this Mr. Weston?"

"At dusk; between five and six o'clock."

Edward Arundel put his hand suddenly to his throat, as if to check some choking sensation that prevented his speaking.