WE may assume, for the present, that Mr. Grant’s object in calling upon Sir Francis Bendibow was to make arrangements whereby the bank might charge itself with the investment and care of his property. Meanwhile we shall have time to review what had been happening during the previous week at Mrs. Lockhart’s. Philip Lancaster and Mr. Grant, having passed their first night at the “Plough and Harrow,” returned to the widow’s with their luggage the next morning. Their reception on this occasion was much more cordial and confident than it had been the day before. The chance which had brought Lancaster into relations with the family of the gallant old soldier, whose body he had rescued from an unmarked grave, gave him a lien upon the interest and gratitude of the two women such as he might not otherwise have acquired at all. The whole history of his acquaintance with Major Lockhart had to be told many times over to listeners who could never hear it often enough; and the narrator ransacked his memory to reproduce each trifling word and event that had belonged to their intercourse. The hearers, for their part, commented on and discussed the story with a minuteness so loving and unweariable as to move Lancaster to say privately to Mr. Grant, “Damme, sir, if it doesn’t make me wish that I had been the Major, and the Major me. I shall never have a widow and daughter to mourn me so!”

“It is one of the ills of this life,” Mr. Grant returned with a smile, “that while your mourners are your only honest flatterers, their flattery always comes a day too late. If you had been the Major you would have missed hearing his praises. Being yourself, you miss the praises themselves; but upon the whole I think you have the best of it. The love of these good women for their departed father and husband is like yonder ray of sunshine which falls upon his portrait. It falls only there, but see how it brightens and warms the whole room—and your own countenance, I fancy, especially. In some measure, sir, you are heir of that wealth of affection which was the Major’s while he lived. Your news of him has partly made you his substitute in the eyes of those who loved him. Non omnis moriatur.”

“I wish you would take my poem in hand and put some poetry into it. ’Tis true the wreath of fame, as well as the brand of infamy, is laid only on dead brows. If a man could but return to life long enough to admire his own statue, or read his damnation in the Quarterly!”

“The damnation is swifter of foot than the statue, and sometimes overtakes us on this side of the grave,” said Mr. Grant. “But your aspiration may be realized. I have known the dead to come to life.”

“To find, probably, that the reality of dead features is less comely than the remembrance?”

“As for that, the dead man, if he be wise, will so disguise himself as to avoid recognition. He will renew his life only so far as to be a spectator, not a participant. So that, after all, he is not himself again, nor any other man either, and that is the same as to say that he is nobody, which is as much as a dead body has any right to be.”

“I’m not sure of that,” said Lancaster, folding his arms and leaning back his head. “There is a fellow in Weimar by the name of Goethe—you may have heard of him—who has written a poem called ‘Faust.’ Faust comes back to life, or to youth, which amounts to the same thing, and proves to be anything but a mere spectator. He gets caught in a love-scrape, and there is the devil to pay. There is something attractive in this human life which grapples us whether we will or no, and makes us dance to one tune or another. On second thoughts I withdraw my aspiration; one life is enough for me, and may be too much. To live again would be to wear the same old cap and bells, only jingling them to another measure. No man with any self-respect or sense of the ridiculous would do it.”

“I apprehend you may be familiar with an earlier work of M. Goethe’s, which I also have read, called the ‘Sorrows of Werther.’ But I question seriously whether mankind are really the poor puppet-show that you speak of. Life is unreal and bootless only so long as you make yourself the centre and hero of it. As soon as you begin to help on the others with their parts, both they and you cease to be puppets. For no man can live in himself, but only in his acts; and if his acts are just, so much the more fragrantly will they survive him.”

“I believe that theoretically; but practically I am persuaded that to fall passionately in love is the only way to become alive: and selfishness is the very essence of love.”

“Ha!” ejaculated Mr. Grant stroking his chin. “You have been in love no doubt?”

“I have been like other men, or as much worse than the average as my intellectual capacity may be superior to theirs. But—no; I have never been alive in the sense I speak of.”

“Too unselfish, eh?”

“Well—not quite selfish enough, I suppose; or too cautious to venture on a final plunge into the abyss. The puppet business is less arduous, and gives a man a better opinion of himself, by lowering his opinion of his fellow-actors.”

“Ha! and it’s too late to expect you to lose your caution, now, of course?”

“I have experimented too much!” replied Lancaster, getting up and going to the window.

Mr. Grant took a pinch of snuff and said nothing.

Things went on very quietly in the old brick house. Both the older and the younger man were regular in their habits, and gave their hostesses no trouble. In the mornings after breakfast, Lancaster, who was of an athletic complexion, took a walk of an hour or two along the London road, returning toward noon, and shutting himself up in his room, where he occupied himself in writing. Mr. Grant commonly spent the forenoon in-doors, either busying himself about his private affairs, or reading, or chatting intermittently with Mrs. Lockhart or Marion, as they passed in and out of the sitting-room. In the afternoon he sometimes walked out to get the air, and may occasionally have ridden a horse as far as London. But the after-dinner hours were the pleasantest of the day, from a social point of view. Neither Mr. Grant nor Lancaster were heavy drinkers, and seldom remained at table more than a quarter of an hour after the ladies had left it. Then the four remained together in the sitting-room till bed-time; sometimes playing cards, as was the custom of the time; sometimes content to entertain one another with conversation; sometimes having music, when Lancaster would second Marion’s soprano with his baritone. Mrs. Lockhart and Mr. Grant had most of the conversation between themselves; Lancaster, save upon the special topic of the Major, seldom doing more than to throw in an occasional remark or comment, generally of a witty or good-humoredly cynical tendency; Marion being the most uniformly silent of the four, though she possessed rare eloquence as a listener. At cards, Mrs. Lockhart and Lancaster were apt to be partners against Marion and Mr. Grant. The latter would then display a polished and charming gallantry toward his young vis-À-vis, of a kind that belonged rather to the best fashion of the last century than to this; and which was all the pleasanter because it was more the reticence of a sincere and kindly disposition than the pretense of a cold and unsympathetic one. Marion reciprocated his advances with a certain arch cordiality which characterized her when her mind was at ease and her surroundings agreeable; and thus a species of chivalrous-playful courtship was established between the elderly gentleman and the young gentlewoman, which was a source of mild entertainment to everybody. The widow and Philip Lancaster, on the other hand, were unscrupulously romantic and informal in their intercourse; Philip paying rosy compliments to Mrs. Lockhart, with earnest gravity, and she expressing her affectionate admiration of him in a manner worthy of simple-hearted Fanny Pell. In a certain sense, this pairing-off was grounded upon a natural and genuine attraction between the respective partners. For there was a child-like element in Mrs. Lockhart which was absent from her daughter; and Mr. Grant had a boyish straightforwardness which was not apparent in Lancaster; and thus the balance was better preserved than had the two younger people contended against the two elder. The former were old where the latter were young. In another point of view, the normal sympathy of youth with youth, conditioned upon the lack of actual experience and the anticipation of an indefinite future, was not to be denied; so that what Lancaster said to Mrs. Lockhart may have had an oblique significance for Marion; and Marion’s replies to Mr. Grant could be construed as veiled rejoinders to Lancaster. At the same time it need not be inferred that anything serious was intended on the part of any of the four.

As regards success in card-playing, it commonly fell to Mrs. Lockhart and Lancaster. “And yet I may say, without vanity, that I was accounted a fair hand at it in

my earlier days,” Mr. Grant once remarked apologetically to his partner.

“Cards are not played where you have been living?” Marion suggested.

“No; at least I devoted myself to other games, and my Hoyle was forgotten.”

“I think cards are less popular in society than they used to be five-and-twenty years ago,” remarked Mrs. Lockhart.

“Oh, it is in many ways a different England from that old one,” Mr. Grant said, stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “A great rage for balloons at that time, I recollect. And for boxing—there was the Prince of Wales boxing with Lord Hervey one night after the opera. Dueling, too; why, in 1786 ’twas almost a distinction for a man not to have fought a duel; the point of honor was much oftener vindicated than the point of the argument. No wonder; to be drunk at a certain hour of the day was accounted a mark of breeding among gentlemen. Charles Fox was a terrible fellow for drinking and dicing; used to see him at Watthier’s.”

“Watthier’s? Mr. Tom Grantley used to go there a great deal,” said Mrs. Lockhart, blushing a little after she had spoken.

“Aye, so he was; I have seen him, too—a very handsome man. But I was still quite young when he died. You knew him, madam?”

“I believe mamma knew him very well,” put in Marion, with a touch of mischief. “He was to have danced at your wedding, was he not, mamma?”

“He was very kind to me when I was very young and foolish,” replied her mother, with quiet simplicity. “He was not in England when I married.”

“Grantley was a relative of mine—or would have been, if he had lived ten years longer,” Lancaster remarked. “My father and he both married daughters of old Seabridge. By-the-by, didn’t he have a daughter who disappeared, or something of that sort?”

“It was a son. I believe he was a very promising young gentleman, but he came to a sad end. Probably you may have met him, Mr. Grant?”

“Never, madam.”

“What end was that?” Lancaster demanded.

“He was discovered in some crime about money—embezzlement, I think. He was a junior partner in the bank; Sir Francis Bendibow trusted him entirely. It almost broke his heart when Charles ran away. But Sir Francis behaved very nobly about it.”

“Ah! he had been recently ennobled, had he not?” inquired Mr. Grant in a dry tone. But if he intended any innuendo, Mrs. Lockhart did not perceive it.

“He made good the loss out of his own private property,” she went on; “and he supported Mrs. Grantley as long as she lived. Poor woman, she was his sister, and of course knew nothing about her husband’s wickedness.”

“’Tis indeed a romantic story,” said Mr. Grant thoughtfully. “Sir Francis, I presume, took all means to trace the fugitive?”

“I think he did all that he honestly could to let him escape. They had been such friends, you know. Besides, if the unfortunate young man had any feeling left, he must have been punished enough in losing his honor and his family.”

“Ha! no doubt. He has never been heard from since?”

“No; except that Sir Francis gave me to know that he died a few years afterwards.”

“I don’t believe that Sir Francis Bendibow was so wonderfully generous,” exclaimed Marion, who had been manifesting some signs of restiveness. “You always think a person is good if they say they are. I dare say the Bendibows were very grateful to Charles Grantley for marrying into their family; he had earls and barons for his kinsmen, and the Bendibows have always courted the great. As to Sir Francis, ’tis true his manners are very soft and courteous; but my father has told me he was very unsteady in his youth, and I think my father meant more than he said.”

“Yet, admitting that, still the defaulter would not be excused,” observed Mr. Grant.

“Since he was not brought to his trial, it cannot be said how much or how little he was a criminal,” returned Marion, turning her eyes upon the speaker and kindling with her cause. “He was the son of a man who had nothing ignoble in him, whatever else he may have had. You have told me that yourself, mother. And his mother was noble of birth, and I have heard, noble of nature, too.”

“I can confirm you in that,” said Lancaster. “My father used to say that if Edith Seabridge had been born a man instead of a woman, she would have made herself the foremost man in England. But it showed no less nobleness in her to give up everything to the love and service of her husband.”

“And the son of such a father and mother should not be judged a thief and coward except upon clear evidence,” Marion continued, acknowledging Lancaster’s support only by a heightened color. “He died before I was born, I suppose, but I have always thought that perhaps he was not so much to blame—not in any dastardly way, I mean. He was not a rake and a gambler as Sir Francis was; but a man who cared for learning, and for freedom, and the thoughts that make people better. ’Tis not that kind of man that would steal money for himself: if he committed a crime, I can only think it must have been for the good of some one he loved—not for his own good. You say he and Sir Francis were dear friends; perhaps it was for Sir Francis’ own sake that he did it—to help him through some strait. And then it would be no wonder that Sir Francis let him escape so easily!”

“But,” said Mr. Grant, who had listened with attention to Marion’s advocacy, with a curious smile occasionally glimmering across his face, “but, my dear, that is a doubtful cause that can be maintained only on the discredit of the other side. How could this man have embezzled for the benefit of Sir Francis if, as I am given to understand, he absconded with the proceeds of his robbery?”

“No one knows whether he had the money with him,” answered Marion, driven to bay. “All that is known is, that he disappeared, and that Sir Francis said the bank was robbed. You say that Sir Francis replaced the loss from his private purse; but perhaps his purse had first been filled for him by the very man he denounced as a defaulter!”

At this audacious hypothesis Mr. Grant laughed, though with so kindly an expression that Marion could not feel she was being ridiculed. “You go near to make me wish, my dear,” he said, “that I might be unjustly accused, if I might hope to have you for my defender.”

“How fortunate, then, was this questionable cousin of mine, to have made good his embezzlement and his escape, and withal to have found such a defender!” said Lancaster. “You see, Miss Lockhart, my cousinhood with him allows me the liberty of reviling him quietly if I choose. Whatever your cousin has done, you are liable to do yourself; so I am only whipping myself across my cousin’s back.”

“If you need whipping at all, why don’t you whip yourself directly?” Marion demanded, quick to resent whatever seemed to her patronizing or artificial in another’s tone.

“Oh, Marion!” exclaimed Mrs. Lockhart, under her breath.

“I only meant,” said Lancaster smiling, “that whenever I hear of a man committing a crime, I have a fellow-feeling for him: I believe there is the making of a capital criminal in me, if I am only given fair opportunities.”

It was not the first time Lancaster had spoken in this way, and Marion had not made up her mind how to understand him. She looked away and made no reply.

After a moment Mr. Grant said, “You spoke of Charles Grantley having left a family behind him; is one to infer from that there were children?”

“There was a daughter, I think,” said Mrs. Lockhart, relieved at the change of subject; “didn’t you know her, Marion?”

“She was at the same school with me for a little while; but she was much older than I; she was just leaving when I began. She was very pretty and very genteel; much more genteel than I ever thought of being. She never spoke to me but once, and then she told me to go up-stairs and fetch her slippers.”

“Did you obey?” asked Lancaster.

“No. At first she looked at me very indignantly; but soon she laughed and said, ‘You don’t mind me, because I am a woman; but the day will come when you will fetch a man’s slippers for him, and kiss them after he has put them on.’ She was not like any other girl I ever saw; but almost every one was fond of her; she could do so much—and yet she was always waited on.”

“I should like to know how she turned out. She evidently had a character,” remarked Lancaster.

“She married very well, I believe,” said Mrs. Lockhart.

“Yes; he was three times her age, and very rich, and so fond of her that he didn’t care whether her name was Bendibow or Grantley,” rejoined Marion, rather harshly. “She was always called Miss Bendibow, by the way, and she may have been Sir Francis’ real daughter for aught I know; she seemed to think so herself, and she certainly didn’t speak of any other father. I suppose she didn’t much care who her father was. At any rate she became the Marquise Desmoines.”

Lancaster moved suddenly in his chair, and seemed about to speak, but checked himself.

Mr. Grant took snuff, and asked, after a pause, “You say he was very fond of her?”

“Yes, I am sure he was,” said Mrs. Lockhart; “he often talked to me about her—for he was a friend of ours, and used to visit us often; because my husband saved his life in France, when the Marquis could not have escaped but for his assistance and protection; and after that he lived in London, and was sometimes so poor as to be forced to give lessons in French and in music; for all this time his estates in France were in jeopardy, and he did not know whether he would ever recover them. But he did, at last; and then he entered society, though he was no longer a young man; and it was then that he met Perdita Bendibow, as she was called. He proposed to her and she accepted him; she could scarce have helped but like him, I am sure. After their marriage they went to France, but I have heard nothing of her since.”

“There is one thing you have forgotten, mamma,” said Marion; “it is another proof how much the Marquis cared for her. Sir Francis gave her no dowry. I suppose he thought it no more than just to save the money out of what her father had cost him.”

“It is not charitable to say so, Marion; and I am sure one could not expect that Sir Francis would give her a dowry, when her husband was so wealthy.”

“So the girl never knew her real father? Well, doubtless it was better so; doubtless he would have wished it so himself, if he retained any unselfish and noble feelings—as you, my dear child, have been charitable enough to imagine may have been the case. And perhaps Perdita’s lot was the one best suited to her—she being as you have described her. For my part, having once had a child of my own, I may hope that she is happy—and that she deserves to be.” Mr. Grant uttered all this in a musing tone, as though his mind was dwelling upon other things than those immediately under discussion; but there was much grave tenderness in the sort of benediction with which he concluded. It made Marion’s heart go out toward him. She felt sure that he had known some deep love, and grievous sorrow, in his day. Now he was a lonely old man, but she resolved to be in the place of a daughter to him. She leaned her cheek upon her hand, and fell into a revery, in the midst of which the clock struck eleven.

“Bless me! how late we are keeping you up, Mrs. Lockhart,” exclaimed Mr. Grant, shutting up his snuff-box and putting it in his pocket. “The truth is, I have been so long deprived of ladies’ society, that now I am prone to presume too much on my good fortune. In future, you must help me to keep myself within bounds. Good-night, madam—I am your most obedient servant. Good-night, my dear Miss Marion; your father must have been a good man; I wish I might have known him. Mr. Lancaster, do you go with me?” The old gentleman was always thus ceremonious in his leave-takings.

“Yes, I’m with you,” said Lancaster, breaking out of a brown study into which he had subsided, and getting briskly to his feet. “I have to thank you for a strange story—an interesting one, I mean.”

“Is there so much in it?” said Marion, as she gave him her hand.

“I fancy I see a good deal in it,” answered he; adding with a smile, “but then, you know, I call myself a poet!”

The ladies courtseyed; the gentlemen bowed, and went up-stairs together.