And art thou then, fond youth, secure of joy?

Can no reverse thy flattering bliss destroy?

Has treacherous Love no torment yet in store?

Or hast thou never proved his fatal power P

Whence flow’d those tears that late bedew’d thy cheek?

Why sigh’d thy heart as if it strove to break?

Why were the desert rocks invok’d to hear

The plaintive accent of thy sad despair?

Lyttleton.

It was, as we have seen, through, the remarkable and unexpected return of Colonel Mires to England, and the no less singular circumstance of the rencontre in the Queen’s Bench, that old Wilton was reinstated in the position from which years back he had been, by the harsh rigour of the law, ruthlessly expelled.

As Nathan Gomer had stated to Mr. Grahame, the Colonel not only came forward to prove the genuineness of his own signature and the integrity of the document to which it was attached, but he was able to show that a duplicate existed, to point out the solicitor in whose hands it had been placed, and to help to refresh this old man’s recollection as to what had become of that most important paper. The individual thus suddenly-dragged from his seclusion, had long retired from practice, but he yet retained many important deeds and documents, to which he had been attesting witness or a party in some way.

It was, therefore, mainly by Colonel Mires’s instrumentality that Wilton was once more a man of wealth and position; and, knowing this, the former felt no scruple in becoming a frequent visitor at Mr. Wilton’s house.

He had, indeed, a secret motive which impelled him to present himself pretty constantly at Mr. Wilton’s table.

He had, not unmoved, looked upon the face of Flora Wilton; first in the courtyard of the Queen’s Prison, and many times since when surrounded by all those accessories to personal charms which elegant dress and freedom from anxiety afford.

At first a high degree of admiration was raised in his breast by a personal beauty of rare excellence, which, at the same time, struck him as being familiar to him. A glorious star, worshipped in boyhood, since lost, and now suddenly reappearing in his sphere, which was only too sparsely studded with orbs of light.

The admiration deepened, as it was fed by frequent observation, into a more ardent emotion. Love and passion were called into being, and the Colonel had not been long the frequent guest at Wilton’s abode, ere he found himself ardently in love with Flora. He was at an age when love is a dangerous tenant in a man’s breast. In youth he had been tinged with romance, but he had had more than enough selfishness to counteract its promptings. His passions were no doubt strong while they lasted, but they were sufficiently evanescent to commit no havoc on his heart. There was one solitary case in which the love which is deaf to the urgings of self-worship, and susceptible to all that is noble, generous, and exalted, sought a home in his bosom; but the heart he coveted had been bestowed, the hand be yearned to obtain was given to another. He was compelled to subdue the fonder workings of his soul; and in a distant clime, amid the whirl of gay, heartless, frivolous society, to deaden the restless action of a sentiment he could not wholly forget. He was so far successful, that he reduced it to subordination. The stirring activity of camp life and warfare, the indolent, intriguing nature of domestic society in India, where ladies are scarce and gentlemen officers are in excess, these and many other causes peculiar to his isolation from all his English ties, kept this emotion deep beneath the surface. It was, however, like a trout in a deep and shady recess in a pool, and would spring to the surface whenever the attracting influence of a tempting object reached it.

He had, as we have said, been but a short time a partaker of the pleasant society of Flora, when he found raging in his breast a flame which burned the fiercer at every attempt he himself made to subdue it.

When it became evident to him that her beauty was the predominating object in his vision, whether absent from her or present, he determined to settle the question by widening the intervals of his visits. He shortened them, under the impression that they were lengthened.

His conduct towards her soon began to wear the colour and the impress of his feelings. His dark brown eyes settled upon her with a dreamy, fond expression. His dark visage, scarcely susceptible of change, yet showed the glow of pleasure he felt when she appeared in the room; and his voice softened to a mellow tone as he addressed her in language which often partook of the rich imagery of the East.

At first he had the field all to himself. His society, his ardent gaze, and his honeyed words did not appear distasteful to her. She did not refrain from appearing, when she knew that he was in the sitting-room, nor did she show any disposition to retire when in his society. This was gratifying to him as soon as he discovered that she had become necessary to his happiness, and yet it afforded ground for a very small congratulation.

Flora had not noticed his conduct as distinct from the manner in which she was usually accosted and regarded. From her earliest recollection, every one had looked upon her smilingly and tenderly, and spoken to her gently and fondly. Colonel Mires had done no more, and she saw nothing different in his behaviour to her to that of others at all times.

She had been grateful for this good feeling so generally evinced towards her, and had tried to repay it by being herself sweet tempered, kind mannered, and soft spoken.

Hitherto she had made no distinction between persons; now she began to perceive that there was one she should like to make; a homage it would be little short of felicity to herself to render. She began to feel that there was a voice whose music touched her brain, and thrilled the pulses of her heart; whose language, simple as it might be, bore a richer poetry than all that tongue of poet ever uttered. There was a hand whose pressure filled her with emotions no other touch could raise—there was a presence whose absence was not compensated for by the coming of all the world beside.

She began to be sensible of the new feeling growing upon her, and taking possession of her soul, after Hal Vivian paid his first visit, as distinct from, and subsequent to, that when accompanied by Lotte.

He being rather retiring by nature and abashed by the style in which the Wiltons now lived, made his appearance but seldom, though he would gladly have spent every hour of the day beneath the roof that sheltered Flora.

But if he came seldom, Colonel Mires came often, and thus Flora began to shape her first distinction between persons. She had no objection to the frequent appearance of Mires, but she would infinitely rather that Hal came oftener, even if his coming were to cause the absence of the Colonel—even if it occasioned him to stay away for ever.

She did not permit this impression in Hal’s favour to show itself; as soon as she began to recognise it, and assure herself that it was a reality, she fashioned it into her first secret, which was to be looked at with no eyes but her own.

So she came to compare the interval that passed between the visits of Hal and the space of time that elapsed during the absence of Colonel Mires, and she began to think that if Hal had ever conceived the notion of vexing her, this was just the plan that would be most successful.

At each of his last visits, Hal had met Colonel Mires; the ordinary civilities passed between them, but they looked at each other with fierce eyes.

Colonel Mires could not but regard young Vivian as a formidable rival, who must be got rid of at any cost. He had not forgotten how, when first he gazed upon the fair face of Flora, she hung upon his arm, and seemed to cling to him as if with him only was safety. He could not but see now how pleased, and even tender, was the expression of her eyes when they were turned upon him, and how sweet the smile with which she welcomed him. He could not avoid noticing that Hal was a handsome-faced, finely-formed young fellow, dressed in the latest style of fashion, in clothes of the best material, chosen with excellent taste; and that the small quantity of jewellery he displayed was of costly material and the very first workmanship.

Altogether the Colonel felt himself matched against heavy odds, and he foresaw that he would have to adopt in the coming struggle unusual weapons. It was true he had the chances that the young tradesman might not aspire to Flora’s hand; or if he had the temerity to do so, it was scarcely probable that old Wilton would give his assent to such an alliance. He had, however, but little faith in chance, and he resolved not to trust to it.

To set Wilton and young Vivian at variance, and to ruin him in Flora’s estimation were tasks to which he designed to devote himself, and to which he would have exclusively applied himself, but that Hal turned out to be not the only competitor he had to deal with.

Hal’s notion of Colonel Mires is quickly summed up—it was that the “fellow” conveyed insult in every glance he directed at Flora, and that he waited but for the opportunity in private to act as he would not dare openly.

“Some day,” thought Hal, with set teeth and a frowning brow, “I shall have to beat him to a jelly.”

He looked forward to that day not without a feeling of eager anticipation.

When old Wilton made one of the party, he engrossed the conversation of the Colonel; there was much to refer to in the events of the past, and the old man was minute in his inquiries, and pertinacious in insisting upon copious and clearly expressed details.

While thus occupied, the Colonel, with fiery eyes, would watch the movements of Hal and Flora. With sickening forebodings, he would note how completely satisfied they were with each other’s society—how unflagging their conversation—how little the outer world attracted their attention—how completely they were absorbed in gazing into each other’s eyes, and treasuring up words or observations, light and simple in themselves, which fell from the other’s lips.

“He loves her,” he grated through his compressed teeth, “but the whelp shall no more wed her than if she were a Princess Royal of England.”

It is possible that Mr. Wilton obtained some incoherent answers during the periods when the Colonel was mentally making these observations, and it is certain that the manner of the latter to Hal grew more distant, haughty, and contemptuous than ever, even as Hal’s to him grew more defiant, keeping pace with it.

It was upon a day when Flora and Vivian—while Mr. Wilton was pursuing some inquiries addressed to Colonel Mires—-were standing in the recess of a deep bay window, conversing in a low tone about Lotte, that the Colonel found his position insupportable. Old Wilton was more than usually pointed in his questions, and displayed great anxiety about the exactness of the replies he requested. The Colonel was frequently called upon to repeat his answers, and, in many instances, to explain them with deliberation and clearness. All the time he was called upon to do this, he observed Hal and Flora in close, animated converse, conducted in so low a tone that not a word could reach his ears. It was so intended. Flora did this for Lotte’s sake—the circumstances which had happened in connection with her were not of a nature to be spoken loudly, in indifferent ears; she therefore depressed her voice to so soft a tone that Hal had to bend his face near to hers, to catch the sound and comprehend its meaning.

Her warm breath must frequently have played upon his cheek.

If so, it was as balmy as the softest zephyr ever breathed upon a summer evening—as fragrant as the odour of a thousand sweet-scented flowers.

Mires rapidly lost the sound of Wilton’s voice, and heard nothing but the low, murmuring tones of the youthful pair; saw nought but that Flora’s delicately-shaped hand rested upon Vivian’s arm, and that their faces were in a proximity which maddened him to behold.

Bear it longer he could not; he was just about to betray himself by some violent, insane remark, when a servant entered, and announced to Mr. Wilton that Mr. Malcome Grahame, accompanied by the Honorable Lester Vane, would be glad of a few minutes’ conversation with him.

“Show the gentlemen in here,” Wilton returned, laconically.

At least, this interruption was, in the eyes of Colonel Mires, agreeable, for it broke up that torturing tÊte-À tÈte, and saved him from committing himself in a very ridiculous manner. He could not, however, let pass the opportunity of scowling at young Vivian, in a way highly expressive of hatred and malignity, which was responded to by the young gentleman, who saw, and rightly interpreted it, with a steadfast look of ineffable scorn.

The servant returned, and almost immediately ushered in Malcolm and Lester Vane. Young Mr. Grahame sent his eyes swiftly round the room, in search of Lotte, but was grievously disappointed not to see her. Vane looked directly in Flora’s face, and continued to do so during the interview, with but a trifling exception, causing her embarrassment, which he observed with pleasure, because, whenever he perceived that he raised an emotion in the female breast, he supposed that he had eliminated a symptom favourable to himself.

Malcolm, finding the only person he had really come to visit not present, opened his business to Mr. Wilton, who received him with sufficient coldness to have made uncomfortable a more sensitive person.

“My dear Mr. Wilton,” he said, with much awkward hesitation, “it was the intention of my good mamma, and two of my sisters, to have paid you and Miss Wilton an introductory visit, to open up a friendship between you, and to induce, if possible, Miss Wilton to form an agreeable intimacy with my sisters. But, unfortunately, my elder sister Helen, was most unaccountably and suddenly attacked with a fainting fit yesterday morning, and she is still very ill. Mamma has, therefore, been unable to carry out her wish, but fearing that you might, after your interview with my father, imagine there was some inexplicable delay in the tender of kind and social relations to you and your remarkably charming daughter, Miss Wilton, I have been—greatly to my own satisfaction—deputed to act as their avant courier, and to offer the kindest congratulations of our family.”

At the conclusion of this speech, Mr. Wilton coldly inclined his head.

“I thank Mrs. Grahame and her daughters for the honour they intend me and Miss Wilton,” he said, frigidly. “We do not at present mix much in society. We leave to a future time the desire to form new friends. Permit me, however, to thank you for the manner in which you have performed the task allotted to you.”

“Oh! there’s no credit due to me for that,” replied Malcolm—truly. “I believe,” he added, “the folks at home are animated by a wish to be on friendly terms with you and your family, and, upon my honour, I echo it. Besides, we are relatives, you know, Mr. Wilton.”

“Distant relatives, Mr. Grahame,” observed old Wilton, as though he wished that they should continue such.

He turned abruptly to Lester Vane, and continuing, said—

“Pray, Mr. Vane, are you of the Vanes of Durham?”

“A branch of my family,” replied Vane; “an uncle of mine lived on an estate in the county—Robert Tempest Vane, of Weardale——”

“An old and dear friend of mine. We were hoys and men together—friends from our first meeting until death separated us,” cried Wilton, with ardour.

“Delighted to hear this, Mr. Wilton,” exclaimed Vane, eagerly, “may I be permitted to hope that you will allow me, although I can do so but imperfectly I fear, to renew that friendship in my unworthy person?”

Wilton took his proffered hand and grasped it warmly.

“I shall have the sincerest pleasure in such an arrangement,” he responded. “It will afford me much gratification: I loved your uncle for his frank heart, his noble spirit, and his honourable manliness. I have no doubt that in you I shall find a worthy representative of him.”

“I hope I shall not wrong so generous a supposition,” said Vane, with affected modesty.

“I feel assured you will not,” rejoined Wilton, and, turning to Flora, he said—“Let me specially present the Honorable Lester Vane to you, Flo’, my darling. As the nephew of the dearest friend I ever had, I request you, out of your love for me, to render to him the warmest hospitality of our house, and such direct attention as my most valued guest is at all times entitled to.”

Flora bowed at her father’s fervidly uttered instructions, and submitted her hand to the pressure of Lester Vane’s. But she liked not his eyes, they made her—as they had done Helen Grahame—shudder. She liked not his voice; least of all, she liked the cold touch of his soft, smooth fingers.

“Miss Wilton,” he said, in a subdued, deep tone, “if I could have formed a wish, constructed so as to gain for me, in its realisation, the greatest possible amount of felicity, it should have been that which would have compassed what has come to pass. To be thrown into the society of your honoured parent, the loved friend of a relative, whose memory I reverence, is, indeed, a deep gratification, but to have to that happiness added the high privilege, commended to your best attention, of enjoying your sweet society, is to place me in a state of beatitude of which I am undeserving, but of which, in true sincerity of heart, I will strive to make myself worthy.”

Lester Vane was rather fond of this flowery style of expression. It was a mistake when adopted to create an effect on such minds as those possessed by Flora Wilton or Helen Grahame. It was as hollow to them, and as transparent, as a glass globe. Malcolm thought it a masterly power of language, “framed to make woman false.” Colonel Mires had some such thought, and gnawed his lips as he listened. Hal only smiled, and turned away. If such expressions were flowers at all, he believed them to be artificial flowers, and, at best, a bad imitation of nature.

To this rhapsody as to her father’s request. Flora only bowed; she turned her face away from Vane’s steadfast gaze, feeling that it would be a relief to her when the interview terminated, and she should be once more alone with Hal, for she imagined she had still much to say to him.

Malcolm Grahame had received special commands from his father to make himself as agreeable to Flora as circumstances would permit, and he actually made some way in her good opinion, because he spoke a little earnestly of Lotte, expressed a fear that he had startled her at the sudden meeting in the garden, and uttered a wish to see her to offer an apology for unintentional rudeness, if such were needed. He dropped no hint that he knew her to be humble in her position, spoke praisefully of her pleasant face, her smiling eyes, and her graceful figure, and he did so with such seeming frankness of tone and manner, that Flora felt absolutely gratified.

She smiled on him as she had not done on Lester Vane. She talked to him with less reserve than she would have displayed if that particular subject had not been broached; and Vane grew absolutely envious to find that Malcolm, who had not had the benefit of a friendly word from Mr. Wilton, made evidently more rapid progress in his daughter’s good graces than he who stood before her with the advantages of person, rank, and a powerful recommendation from her father. He looked on Malcolm’s claim to her favour as simply contemptible. He had a mean opinion of his intellect and of his capabilities. As a rival, he would have laughed him to scorn. He could hardly understand, therefore, the progress he had made in Flora’s good opinion. It was something of a lesson. He, however, dismissed the impression it had for a moment made upon his mind; he accounted for it, in accordance with his own low estimate of feminine truth and purity, by the conceit that Flora was playing off Malcolm against him, with the view of securing, by that small piece of coquetry, his direct attention.

Malcolm failed, notwithstanding his diligent inquiries, to learn more about Lotte than that she was no longer in the house, and that she lived in London, in the western quarter; there the conversation respecting her ceased. He had sense enough to understand that to pursue it further would be to make his notice of her too marked.

Having renewed a pressing invitation to Wilton and his daughter, if they would graciously waive the introductory visit of his mamma, on account of his sister Helen’s sudden attack, and having, as he believed—and with some show of reason—rendered himself quite as agreeable to Miss Wilton as could, under the circumstances, be expected, he took his leave, accompanied by Lester Vane.

The latter individual, wholly indifferent as to the effect he might produce upon the minds of the gentlemen there assembled, was very desirous of creating an impression upon Flora.

But he failed to attract even a glance from her, and her hand motionless under his pressure, was hastily withdrawn, even as he touched it. When he retired through the doorway, he saw that her gaze was fastened upon the face of the young and handsome person introduced to him as Mr. Vivian.

His quick eye and his experience noted all these symptoms of the small way he had made in her favour.

“Yet,” said he to himself, “she will fall far more easily into my mesh than Helen Grahame. She is so pure, so guileless, so innocent of the world’s ways, that she is without suspicion—that best defence for woman against man’s art. My heart now aches to gain her. She must be mine, my wife be it—but she shall be mine!”

He had at his departure, informed Wilton that he should take advantage of his friendly invitation, and he hoped that his occasional visits would not be deemed intrusive. The warmth with which old Wilton responded to this suggestion by repeating his desire that he would frequently test his hospitality, removed any hesitation he might have in again presenting himself there without a special invitation, and he determined quickly to avail himself of an opening so eminently favourable to his design to lay siege to Flora’s heart.

Somehow, the interruption caused by these visitors seemed to render the remaining part of the day less cheerful and happy than it had commenced.

Old Wilton sat in his easy chair, plunged in deep thought. Colonel Mires, though full of rumination, took care to prevent a repetition of Hal and Flora’s tÊte-À-tÊte, by joining them. Flora occasionally appeared abstracted, and Hal wore an expression upon his face very much as if his visions of the future were clouded and sad.

As the Colonel did not, and would not, shift his quarters, the conversation grew common-place until at length it became absolutely irksome to Hal, and he rose to depart.

Flora fancied that, as he bade her farewell, his tone was cold, and she missed the pressure of his hand. She knew, too, his eye was averted, and he lingered not as usual upon the threshold of the door, but he went away and never looked back to meet the gaze she directed to him—and which meant to say “adieu,” with an expression she could not trust to her words nor to her soft fingers—but he looked not back once—no, not once!

Yet, when without the house, he directed his steps to the nearest entry to the park, and paused not until he gained a spot, where he could look upon the lighted window of the room in which he knew she sat, thinking, perhaps, of the gentleman who had that day been first presented to her, and was shortly to be little else than a constant companion.

“Oh, Flora, dearest!” he murmured, compressing his hands tightly, “it was a dream—a happy, happy dream! I wake to misery. You can never, never be mine; it would be only mad presumption to entertain longer a hope so blissful—oh, so very blissful! You will wed some one higher, nobler than myself, for you are of proud and high descent, and I but humbly born. If in this your happiness be secured, I love you far, far too well to seek or wish a change. I can only hope and pray that he who wins you may love you as truly, as fondly, as devotedly as I do.”

He paused, for his throat swelled, and there was a gush of water in his eyes that made the lighted window upon which they rested dim and indistinct.

“What now shall be my future course?” he continued with deep emotion; “my ambition is strangled in its birth. Fame! what have I to do with fame? sought only that my hour of triumph should be rewarded by her sweet smile of joy. What to me the rank in which high success would place me, if her eyes, glowing with gratified pride at sight of the honours I had won, were lost to me? No; life hath no more a motive to render it worth its endurance. A rifle and the prairies of the Far West shall be my world; there at least in the vast solitudes I can, uninterrupted, dwell upon her memory, revel in glorious visions of her angel face”——

A hand placed lightly upon his shoulder interrupted his soliloquy.

He turned sharply to find at his side Colonel Mires.

“A word with you,” he said to Hal, abruptly. “Follow me.”

“No!” returned Hal, coldly. “What you can have to say to me can as well be said here as elsewhere. We are unobserved.”

“In sight of that window it is, perhaps, as well,” returned the Colonel.

There was a pause for a moment; Hal made no remark upon the insinuation thus conveyed, and the Colonel proceeded——

“With you I ought to have no difficulty in coming to the point,” he said. With one in a different position my task would not be so easy, therefore I at once say I perceive that you with ignorant audacity”——

“Sir,” cried Hal, fiercely.

“Hear me out”——

“Not another word, if such expressions are to be addressed to me. I will submit to insult from no man breathing; he who attempts it had need beware of a strong arm, and a spirit which never yet bent or quailed before a danger.”

“It is not my design to insult you. I gain no end by it; if I use plain terms, attribute it to my desire to describe exactly the act of one of mean birth aspiring to ally himself to a house with a pedigree extending to the Norman Conquest”——

“Colonel Mires, as few words, if you please, between us as possible; briefly state the object of your seeking this interview with me. My answer shall be clear, decided, and prompt as short.”

“Be it so. An accident has enabled you to render a service to Miss Wilton. The firemen of London nightly do the same thing to hundreds, and are content with the fee they receive as their reward. You, on the contrary, with, as I have said, ig”——

“I warn you to be choice in your terms!”

“You actually, on account of the common deed you performed, have inflated yourself with a monstrous notion that you might aspire to the hand of a young lady of birth and wealth. You have, perhaps, been led to nurse this ridiculous conception, because Miss Wilton, with the true and refined courtesy of a well-bred lady, has extended towards you a kindness of manner she would have displayed to the very fireman you forestalled, if he had been the person who rescued her from the peril she was in.”

“Have you finished?” cried Hal, impatiently.

“When I have told you to abandon for ever the wild and preposterous idea which seems to have taken possession of you, and to abstain from further visits to the house of Mr. Wilton, under the risk of my resentment, and perhaps an ignominious punishment, I have ended.”

“My reply is, sir,” returned Hal, with a swelling breast, and a sensation upon his forehead, like a burning band, “that I wholly deny your right to interfere either in Mr. Wilton’s or my affairs. I have further to inform you, that I am master of my actions, and that I intend to remain so; I conclude, sir, by telling you, in full explanation of the estimation in which I hold your resentment, that should you dare, in my hearing, speak of Miss Wilton as but now you have done, or should attempt to renew this conversation with me, I will treat you as I would a snarling, troublesome, officious hound! Stand out of my path!”

Hal placed his open hand on the breast of Colonel Mires, and thrust him back. He strode with a firm but dignified step from the spot.

“Scoundrel!” yelled Mires; “I will horsewhip you for this indignity.”

“We shall meet when you have a horsewhip,” answered Hal, scornfully. “Spare your promises until then.”

With rage and fury swelling his frame, and forming a hundred schemes of a deadly revenge, the foiled Colonel hastened in the opposite direction to that Hal had taken.

“And this dark-skinned villain hopes to take to his arms the fairest, brightest piece of Nature’s handicraft,” Hal muttered, as he pursued his way homeward. “He will vex and trouble her by his detestable addresses. Oh, Flora, dearest! if I may not aspire to your hand, or hope for your love, I may, at least, pass my life in protecting you from the machinations of such villains as this. At least I shall be near you; I will watch over you, and preserve you from ill, if I may never, never shelter you from harm within these arms as my own—my own.”