But the driving-party did not come off. The ruins of Eastlake Abbey were unvisited that day, at least. For while Edith and Trixy's somewhat unpleasant interview was taking place in one part of the house, an equally unpleasant, and much more mysterious, interview was taking place in another, and on the same subject.

Lady Helena had left the guests for awhile and gone to her own rooms. The morning post had come in, bringing her several letters. One in particular she seized, and read with more eagerness than the others, dated London, beginning "My Dear Aunt," and signed "Inez." While she sat absorbed over it, in deep and painful thought evidently, there came a tap at the door; then it opened, and her nephew came in.

She crumpled her letter hurriedly in her hand, and put it out of sight. She looked up with a smile of welcome; he was the "apple of her eye," the darling of her life, the Benjamin of her childless old age—the fair-haired, pleasant-faced young baronet.

"Do I intrude?" he asked. "Are you busy? Are your letters very important this morning? If so—"

"Not important at all. Come in, Victor. I have been wishing to speak to you of the invitations for next week's ball. Is it concerning the driving-party this afternoon you want to speak?"

"No, my dear aunt; something very much pleasanter than all the driving-parties in the world; something much more important to me."

She looked at him more closely. His face was flushed, his eyes bright, a happy smile was on his lips. He had the look of a man to whom some great good fortune had suddenly come.

"Agreeably important, then, I am sure, judging by your looks. What a radiant face the lad has!"

"I have reason to look radiant. Congratulate me, Aunt Helena; I am the happiest man the wide earth holds."

"My dear Victor!"

"Cannot you guess?" he said, still smiling; "I always thought female relatives were particularly sharp-sighted in these matters. Must I really tell you? Have you no suspicions of my errand here?"

"I have not, indeed;" but she sat erect, and her fresh-colored, handsome old face grew pale. "Victor, what is it? Pray speak out."

"Very well. Congratulate me once more; I am going to be married."

He stopped short, for with a low cry that was like a cry of fear, Lady Helena rose up. If he had said "I am going to be hanged," the consternation of her face could not have been greater. She put out her hand as though to ward off a blow.

"No, no!" she said, in that frightened voice; "not married. For God's sake, Victor, don't say that!"

"Lady Helena!"

He sat looking at her, utterly confounded.

"It can't be true," she panted. "You don't mean that. You don't want to be married. You are too young—you are. I tell you I won't hear of it! What do boys like you want of wives!—only three-and-twenty!"

He laughed good-humoredly.

"My dear aunt, boys of three-and-twenty are tolerably well-grown; it isn't a bad age to marry. Why, according to Debrett, my father was only three-and-twenty when he brought home a wife and son to Catheron Royals."

She sat down suddenly, her head against the back of a chair, her face quite white.

"Aunt Helena," the young man said anxiously, approaching her, "I have startled you; I have been too sudden with this. You look quite faint; what shall I get you?"

He seized a carafe of water, but she waved it away.

"Wait," she said, with trembling lips; "wait. Give me time—let me think. It was sudden; I will be better in a moment."

He sat down feeling uncommonly uncomfortable. He was a practical sort of young man, with, a man's strong dislike of scenes of all kinds, and this interview didn't begin as promisingly as he had hoped.

She remained pale and silent for upward of five very long minutes; only once her lips whispered, as if unconsciously:

"The time has come—the time has come."

It was Sir Victor himself who broke the embarrassing pause.

"Aunt Helena," he said pettishly, for he was not accustomed to have his sovereign will disputed, "I don't understand this, and you will pardon me if I say I don't like it. It must have entered your mind that sooner or later I would fall in love and marry a wife, like other men. That time has come, as you say yourself. There is nothing I can see to be shocked at."

"But not so soon," she answered brokenly. "O Victor, not so soon."

"I don't consider twenty-three years too soon. I am old-fashioned, very likely, but I do believe in the almost obsolete doctrine of early marriage. I love her with all my heart." His kindling eyes and softened voice betrayed it. "Thank Heaven she has accepted me. Without her my life would not be worth the having."

"Who is she?" she asked, without looking up. "Lady Gwendoline, of course."

"Lady Gwendoline?" He smiled and lifted his eyebrows.

"No, my dear aunt; a very different person from Lady Gwendoline. Miss
Darrell."

She sat erect and gazed at him—stunned.

"Miss Darrell! Edith Darrell—the American girl, the—Victor, if this is a jest—"

"Lady Helena, am I likely to jest on such a subject? It is the truth.
This morning Miss Darrell—Edith—has made me the happiest man in
England by promising to be my wife. Surely, aunt, you must have
suspected—must have seen that I loved her."

"I have seen nothing," she answered blankly, looking straight before her—"nothing. I am only an old woman—I am growing blind and stupid, I suppose. I have seen nothing."

There was a pause. At no time was Sir Victor Catheron a fluent or ready speaker—just at present, perhaps, it was natural he should be rather at a loss for words. And her ladyship's manner was the reverse of reassuring.

"I have loved her from the first," he said, breaking once more the silence—"from the very first night of the party, without knowing it. In all the world, she is the only one I can ever marry. With her my life will be supremely happy, superbly blessed; without her—but no! I do not choose to think what my life would be like without her. You, who have been as a mother to me all my life, will not mar my perfect happiness on this day of days by saying you object."

"But I do object!" Lady Helena exclaimed, with sudden energy and anger. "More—I absolutely refuse. I say again, you are too young to want to marry at all. Why, even your favorite Shakespeare says: 'A young man married, is a man that's marred.' When you are thirty it will be quite time enough to talk of this. Go abroad again—see the world—go to the East, as you have often talked of doing—to Africa—anywhere! No man knows himself or his own heart at the ridiculous age of twenty-three!"

Sir Victor Catheron smiled, a very quiet and terribly obstinate smile.

"My extreme youth, then, is your only objection?"

"No, it is not—I have a hundred objections—it is objectionable from every point. I object to her most decidedly and absolutely. You shall not marry this American girl without family or station, and of whom you know absolutely nothing—with whom you have not been acquainted four weeks. Oh, it is absurd—it is ridiculous—it is the most preposterous folly I ever heard of in my life."

His smile left his face—a frown came instead. His lips set, he looked at her with a face of invincible determination.

"Is this all?" he demanded. "I will answer your objections when I have thoroughly heard them. I am my own master—but—that much is due to you."

"I tell you she is beneath you—beneath you!" Lady Helena said vehemently. "The Catherons have always married well—into ducal families. Your grandmother—my sister—was, as I am, the daughter of a marquis."

"And my mother was the daughter of a soap-boiler," he said with bitterness. "Don't let us forget that."

"Why do you speak to me of her? I can't bear it. You know I cannot. You do well to taunt me with the plebeian blood in your veins—you, of all men alive. Oh! why did you ever see this designing girl? Why did she ever come between us?"

She was working herself up to a pitch of passionate excitement, quite incomprehensible to her nephew, and as displeasing as it was incomprehensible.

"When you call her designing, Lady Helena," he said, in slow, angry tones, "you go a little too far. In no way has Miss Darrell tried to win me—'tis the one drawback to my perfect happiness now that she does not love me as I love her. She has told me so frankly and bravely. But it will come. I feel that such love as mine must win a return. For the rest, I deny that she is beneath me; in all things—beauty, intellect, goodness—she is my superior. She is the daughter of a scholar and a gentleman; her affection would honor the best man on earth. I deny that I am too young—I deny that she is my inferior—I deny even your right, Lady Helena, to speak disparagingly of her. And, in conclusion, I say, that it is my unalterable determination to marry Edith Darrell at the earliest possible hour that I can prevail upon her to fix our wedding-day."

She looked at him; the unalterable determination he spoke of was printed in every line of his set face.

"I might have known it," she said, with suppressed bitterness; "he is his father's son. The same obstinacy—the same refusal to listen to all warning. Sooner or later I knew it must come, but not so soon as this."

The tears coursed slowly over her cheeks, and moved him as nothing she ever could have said would have done.

"For Heaven's sake, aunt, don't cry," he said hurriedly. "You distress me—you make me feel like a brute, and I—really now, I don't think you ought to blame me in this way. Miss Darrell is not a Lady Gwendoline, certainly—she has neither rank nor wealth, but in my sight their absence is no objection whatever. And I love her; everything is said in that."

"You love her," she repeated mournfully. "O my poor boy, my poor boy!"

"I don't think I deserve pity," Sir Victor said, smiling again. "I don't feel as though I did. And now tell me the real reason of all this."

"The real reason?"

"Certainly; you don't suppose I do not see it is something besides those you have given. There is something else under all this. Now let us hear it, and have done with it."

He took both her hands in his and looked at her—a resolute smile on his fair blonde face.

"Troubles are like certain wild animals," he said; "look them straight in the eye and they turn and take to flight. Why should I not marry at twenty-three? If I were marrying any one else—Lady Gwendoline for instance—would my extreme juvenility still be an obstacle?"

"You had much better not marry at all."

"What! live a crusty old bachelor! Now, now, my good aunt, this is a little too much, and not at all what I expected from a lady of your excellent common-sense."

"There is nothing to make a jest of, Victor. It is better you should not marry—better the name of Catheron should die out and be blotted from the face of the earth."

"Lady Helena!"

"I know what I am saying, Victor. You would say it too, perhaps, if you knew all."

"You will tell me all. Oh yes, you will. You have said too much or too little, now. I must hear 'all,' then I shall judge for myself. I may be in love—still I am amenable to reason. If you can show me any just cause or impediment to my marriage—if you can convince me it will be wrong in the sight of Heaven or man, then, dearly as I love her, I will give her up. But your proof must be strong indeed."

She looked at him doubtfully—wistfully.

"Would you do this, Victor? Would you have strength to give up the girl you love? My boy, my son, I don't want to be hard on you. I want to see you happy, Heaven knows, and yet—"

"I will be happy—only tell me the truth and let me judge for myself."

He was smiling—he was incredulous. Lady Helena's mountain, seen by his eyes, no doubt, would turn out the veriest molehill.

"I don't know what to do," she answered, in agitated tones. "I promised her to tell you if this day ever came, and now it is here and I—oh!" she cried out passionately, "I can't tell you!"

He grew pale himself, with fear of he knew not what.

"You can, you will—you must!" he said resolutely. "I am not a child to be frightened of a bogy. What terrible secret is there hidden behind all this?"

"Terrible secret—yes, that is it. Terrible secret—you have said it!"

"Do you, by any chance, refer to my mother's death? Is it that you knew all these years her murderer and have kept it secret?"

There was no reply. She covered her face with her hands and turned away.

"Am I right?" he persisted.

She rose to her feet, goaded, it seemed, by his persistent questioning into a sort of frenzy.

"Let me alone, Victor Catheron," she cried. "I have kept my secret for twenty-three years—do you think you will wring it from me all in a moment now? What right have you to question me—to say I shall tell, or shall not? If you knew all you would know you have no rights whatever—none—no right to ask any woman to share, your life—no right, if it comes to that, even to the title you bear!"

He rose up too—white to the lips. Was Lady Helena going mad? Had the announcement of his marriage turned her brain? In that pause, before either could speak again, a knock that had been twice given unheard, was repeated a third time. It brought both back instantly from the tragic, to the decorum of every-day life. Lady Helena sat down; Sir Victor opened the door. It was a servant with a note on a salver.

"Well, sir," the baronet demanded abruptly. "What do you want?"

"It's her ladyship, Sir Victor. A lady to see your ladyship on very important business."

"I can see no one this morning," Lady Helena responded; "tell her so."

"My lady, excuse me; this lady said your ladyship would be sure to see her, if your ladyship would look at this note. It's the lady in mourning, my lady, who has been here to see your ladyship before. Which this is the note, my lady."

Lady Helena's face lit up eagerly now. She tore open the note at once.

"You may go, Nixon," she said. "Show the lady up immediately."

She ran over the few brief lines the note contained, with a look of unutterable relief. Like the letter, it was signed "Inez."

"Victor," she said, turning to her nephew and holding out her hand, "forgive me, if in my excitement and haste I have said what I should not. Give me a little time, and everything will be explained. The coming of In—this lady—is the most opportune thing in the world. You shall be told all soon."

"I am to understand then," Sir Victor said coldly, "that this stranger, this mysterious lady, is in your confidence; that she is to be received into mine—that she is to be consulted before you can tell me this secret which involves the happiness of my life?"

"Precisely! You look angry and incredulous, but later you will understand. She is one of our family—more at present I cannot say. Go, Victor; trust me, believe me, neither your honor nor your love shall suffer at our hands. Postpone the driving-party, or make my excuses; I shall not leave my rooms to-day. To-morrow, if it be possible, the truth shall be yours as well as mine."

He bowed coldly—annoyed, amazed, and went. What did all this mean? Up to the present, his life had flowed peacefully, almost sluggishly, without family secrets or mystifications of any kind. And now all at once here were secrets and mysteries cropping up. What was this wonderful secret—who was this mysterious lady? He must wait until to-morrow, it appeared, for the answer to both.

"One thing is fixed as fate," he said to himself as he left the room, "I won't give up Edith, for ten thousand family secrets—for all the mysterious ladies on earth! Whatever others may have done, I at least have done nothing to forfeit my darling's hand. The doctrine that would make us suffer for the sins of others, is a mistaken doctrine. Let to-morrow bring forth what it may, Edith Darrell shall be my wife."