As there are periods in life, quiet and tranquil periods, in which the mind reverts to the past, and dwells on bygones, so in story-telling there are little intervals in which a brief retrospect is pardonable, and it is to one of these I would now ask my reader’s attention.

There was not anything very eventful in Mr. M’Kinlay’s journey across Europe with Ada and her governess. They met with no other adventures than occur to all travellers by land or by water; but on arriving at Marseilles, a letter from Lady Vyner apprised them that Sir Gervais was slightly indisposed, and requested Mr. M’Kinlay would complete his kindness by giving them his company and protection as far as Genoa, at a short distance from which city, and in one of those little sheltered nooks of the Riviera, they had now established themselves in a villa.

It is but truthful to own, that the lawyer did not comply with this request either willingly or gracefully. He never liked the Continent, he was an indifferent linguist, he detested the cookery, and fancied that the wines poisoned him. Mademoiselle Heinzleman, too, was fussy, meddling, and officious, presuming, at least he thought so, on being in an element more her own. And as for Ada, grief at separating from Kate had made her so indifferent and apathetic, that she neither enjoyed the journey or took any interest in the new scenes and objects around her. Mr. M’Kinlay, therefore, was in no mood to proceed farther; he was tired of it all. But, besides this, he was not quite certain that he had done the right thing by placing Kate O’Hara at Dalradern; or that in so doing he had carried out the very vague instructions of Miss Courtenay. Not that the lawyer saw his way at all in the whole affair. The absurd suspicions of the old envoy about some secret contract, or marriage, or some mysterious bond, he could afford to deride; but, unhappily, he could not as easily forget, and some doubts—very ungenerous and ungallant doubts they were—would cross his mind, that Miss Georgina Courtenay’s favour to himself, in some way or other, depended on the changeful fortunes of some other “issue,” of which he knew nothing. “She means to accept me if she can get nothing better,” was the phrase that he found on his lips when he awoke, and heard himself muttering as he dropped off asleep at night; and, after all, the consideration was not either reassuring or flattering. Middle-aged gentlemen, even with incipient baldness and indolent “proclivities,” do not fancy being consigned to the category of “last resorts.” They fancy—Heaven help them!—that they have their claims on regard, esteem, and something stronger too; and doubtless the delusion has its influence in fighting off, for a year or two, the inevitable admission that they have dropped out of the “van” into that veteran battalion which furnishes no more guards of honour at the Temple of Venus, nor even a sentinel at the gate. Very ungallant little sums in arithmetic, too, used he to work about Georgina’s age; and it would seem strange to younger men the anxiety he felt to give her a year or two more than she had a right to. “I’m not sure she’s not nearer thirty-five than thirty-two,” muttered he, ill naturedly, to himself. “Rickards said, one night, she was older than her sister, though the old rascal took care to come and tell me in the morning that it was a mistake.” And then, by subtracting this thirty-five from another arbitrary sum, he obtained a result apparently satisfactory, being, as he termed it, the proper difference of age between man and wife! Why will not men, in their zeal for truth, take “evidence for the defence” occasionally, and ask a woman’s opinion on. this subject?

They arrived at last at the Villa Balbi, a grand old palace on the sea-side, where ruin and splendour were blended up together, and statues, and fountains, and frescoes struggled for the mastery over a rank growth of vegetation, that seemed to threaten enclosing the whole place in a leafy embrace. Into the deep arches that supported the terrace, the blue Mediterranean flowed with that noiseless motion of this all but tideless sea. All was silent as they drove up to the gate, for they had not been expected before the morrow-. Scarcely was the door opened than Ada sprung out and disappeared up the stairs, followed as well as she might by the governess. Mr. M’Kinlay was then left alone, or, at least, with no other companionship than some three or four servants, whose attempts at English were by no means successful.

“Ah, Miller, I’m glad to see your face at last,” said the lawyer, as Sir Gervais’s valet pushed his way through the crowd; “how are all here?”

“Sir Gervais has had a bad night, Sir, and we were expecting the doctor every moment. Indeed, when I heard your carriage, I thought it was he had come.”

“Not seriously ill, I hope?”

“Not that, perhaps, Sir; but the doctor calls it a very slow fever, and requiring great care and perfect quiet. He is not to know when Miss Ada arrives.”

“And the ladies, are they well?”

“My Lady’s greatly tired and fatigued, Sir, of course; but Miss Courtenay is well. She was just giving directions about your room, Sir. She said, ‘If Mr. M’Kinlay should be afraid of this fever, you can take him down to the fattore’s house, and make him up a room there.’”

“Is it a fever then, Miller, a real fever?”

“They call it so, Sir.”

“This is all that’s wanting,” muttered M’Kinlay to himself. “I only need to catch some confounded disorder, now, to make this the most happy exploit of my whole life! Where is this house you speak of?”

“At the foot of the hill, Sir, where you saw the clump of evergreen oaks.”

“Why, it was a dirty-looking hovel, with Indian corn hung all over it.”

“Well, Sir, it ain’t very clean to look at, but it’s not so bad inside, and you can be sure of a comfortable bed.”

“I don’t see why I am to stop at all. I have seen Miss Ada safe to her own door; I really cannot perceive that anything more is required of me,” said he to himself, as he walked up and down the terrace.

“You’d like to eat something, perhaps, Sir? Supper is ready whenever you wish it.”

“Yes, I’ll eat a morsel; I was very hungry half an hour ago, but all this tidings of illness and infection has driven away my appetite. A vast roomy old place this appears,” said he, as he followed the serrant across a hall spacious as a public square, into a salon large enough to be a church.

“We have five like this, Sir; and on the other floor there is one still larger and loftier.”

“How long are you here?” said the lawyer, abruptly, for he was not at all in love with the mansion.

“We shall be two months here on Tuesday, and her Ladyship likes it so much, Sir Gervais means to buy it.”

“Well, I hope I shall not be much more than two hours in it. Let me have something to eat, and order fresh horses at the post.”

“You’ll see my Lady, I suppose, Sir?”

“Of course, if she can receive me; but I will just send up a line on my card to say that my departure at once is imperatively necessary.”

Few as the words were that were required to convey this message, Mr. M’Kinlay could scarcely write them in a legible way. He was nervously afraid of an illness; but the thought of a foreign malady—a fever of some outlandish type—was a terror as great as the attack of a savage animal, of whose instinct and ways he knew nothing. All the speculations which had filled his head as he came along the road, were routed at once. Love-making and marriage were all very well, but they might be purchased too dearly. A dowry that was only to be won by facing a fever, was a sorry speculation. No! he would have none of such dangerous ambitions. He had gone through enough already—he had braved shipwreck—and if needs were that he must resign the agency, better that than resign life itself.

Not even the appetising supper that was now spread before him, could dispel these gloomy thoughts. He was half afraid to eat, and he could not be sure that wine was safe under the present circumstances.

“My Lady hoped to see you in the morning, Sir,” said the valet. “She has just lain down, having been up last night with Sir Gervais.”

“I am extremely sorry! I am greatly distressed! But it is impossible for me to defer my departure. I will explain it all by a letter. Just unstrap that writing-desk, and I will write a few lines. You ordered the horses, I hope?”

“Yes, Sir; they will be at the door by ten o’clock.”

“Miss Courtenay knows I am here, I suppose?” said M’Kinlay, in a tone of well put-on indifference, as he opened his writing-desk and arranged his papers.

“I don’t know, indeed, Sir; but she has the governess in her room with her, and perhaps she has heard it from her.”

Mr. M’Kinlay bit his lip with impatience; he was vexed, and he was angry. Nor altogether was it unreasonable; he had come a long journey, at considerable inconvenience, and at a time he could be ill-spared from his clients; he had undergone fatigue and annoyance—the sort of annoyance which, to men who dislike the Continent, is not a trifling matter—and here he was now, about to set out again without so much as a word of thanks, not even a word of acknowledgment. What were they, or what was he, to justify such treatment? This was the somewhat irritating query to which all his self-examination reverted. “Am I a lacquey!” cried he, as he threw down his pen in a passionate outburst that completely overcame him. “I suppose they think I am a lacquey!” and he pushed back from the table in disgust.

“Miss Courtenay, Sir, would be pleased to see you in the drawing-room, Sir, whenever it was convenient,” said a thin-looking damsel of unmistakably English mould.

“I will wait upon her now,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, with the severe accents of an injured and indignant man. In fact, he spoke like one whose coming might be supposed to evoke sentiments of trepidation, if not of awe; and yet, after he had uttered the words, he fussed and pottered amongst his papers, arranging and settling, and undoing, in a way that to any shrewder observer than the Abigail, would have discovered a mind not by any means so bent upon peremptory action as he had assumed to bespeak.

“Will you show me the way?” said he, at last, as he locked up the writing-desk, and now followed her through room after room, till the girl stopped at a door and knocked gently. No answer was returned, and she repeated the summons, on which the maid opened the door, saying, “If you’ll step inside, Sir, I’ll tell my mistress you are here;” and Mr. M’Kinlay entered into what his first footstep informed him was a lady’s boudoir. It was a small room, opening on a terrace by two windows, which were thrown wide, filling the chamber with the odour of orange-flowers to a degree positively oppressive. An alabaster lamp was the only light, and served merely to throw a sort of faint sunset-glow over the room, which seemed filled with cabinet pictures and statuettes, and had an easel in one corner with an unfinished sketch in oils upon it. The perfume of orange and magnolia was so overcoming that the lawyer moved out upon the terrace, which descended by a flight of marble steps into the sea. He sat down on these to inhale the fresh night air, for already his head was beginning to feel confused and addled by the strong odours.

He had not been many minutes there, when he heard the rustle of a lady’s dress close to him, and before he could arise, Miss Courtenay moved forward and sat down beside him.

“How are you, Mr. M’Kinlay?” said she, giving him her hand cordially. “I have come to thank you for all your care of Ada, and your kindness to us all.”

These very simple words were delivered with a most winning grace of look and manner. No wonder if he forgot all his irritation of a few moments before; no wonder if in the very unexpectedness of this pleasure, he felt somewhat confused; and it but needed that starlight hour, that perfumed air, that murmuring sea, and the light gauzy veil, which in Genoese mode Georgina wore in her hair, and which now floated carelessly half across his arm, to make Mr. M’Kinlay think this one of the happiest moments of his life.

After a few questions about the journey and its incidents, she went on to tell him of themselves, in that tone of easy confidence people use with their nearest friends. “It was a somewhat sad house,” she said, “he had come to. Gervais”—she called him Gervais—“had caught one of those low fevers of the country, and her mother was still very poorly. Her sister, however, had benefited by the climate, and this it was that decided them on remaining abroad. You knew, of course, that Gervais intends to buy this villa?”

“No; he had not heard of it.”

“Nor that he has given up his seat in the House, and retired from public life?”

“Nor that either had he heard.”

“Well, of course he means to tell you all now that he has got you out here. You will be such a comfort to him, Mr. M’Kinlay; he was longing to see an old friend again.”

Mr. M’Kinlay’s ears tingled with delight, and his heart throbbed high with hope, but he could only mutter out something that sounded like acknowledgment.

“He has so much to ask you about, besides,” she went on. “Mamma wants him to let his Wiltshire house for some years, and so retrench a little, for you know he has been rather extravagant lately.”

“I have ventured on an occasional remonstrance myself, though not without feeling what a liberty I was taking.”

“A liberty! Surely, my dear Mr. M’Kinky, the kind solicitude of friendship is not a liberty. Then there have been some mines—lead or copper, I forget which, and I don’t well remember whether in South Wales or Sardinia—but they have not turned out well.”

“Very badly, indeed, Miss Courtenay; the shares are at thirty-two, and falling still.”

“Yes; he will have to talk over all these things with you; but not for some days, of course, for he is very weak and low.”

“You don’t seem to know, then,” said he, with a smile, “that I am going off to-night; my horses are ordered for ten o’clock.”

“Impossible! Why, we have not seen you yet; surely, Mr. M’Kinlay, you couldn’t leave this without seeing Gervais and my sister?” There was a reproachful tenderness in her look, and mingled expression of wounded sensibility and shame at its being confessed, that gave some trouble to the lawyer’s heart; for there rankled in that crafty old heart some memories of the conversation at Dalradern; and, in his distrust-fulness, he would ask himself, “What does this mean?”

“Come, Mr. M’Kinlay, say this is only a threat; do confess it was only meant to terrify.”

“Oh, Miss Georgina, you cannot attach such interest to my presence here, as to speak of my departure in terms like these!”

“I don’t know how others think of these things,” said she, with a sort of pouting air, “but, for my own part, I cling very closely to old friendships.”

Had Mr. M’Kinlay been some twenty years younger, he would, doubtless, have seized on the moment to make a declaration. The conjuncture promised well, and he would not have lost it; but Mr. M’Kinlay had arrived at the time of life in which men are more prone to speculate on the consequences of failure than on the results of success, and when they never address them to jump over the narrowest ditch without a thought of the terrible splashing they shall get if they fall in, and, worse even than the wetting, the unsympathising comments of a malicious public.

“What is Mr. M’Kinlay pondering over so deeply?” said Georgina, as she turned her eyes full upon him; and very effective eyes they were at such a range.

“I can scarcely tell; that is, I don’t well know now to tell,” said he, trying to screw up his courage.

“Mr. M’Kinlay has a secret, I’m certain,” said she, with a winning coquetry she was quite mistress of.

That look she gave—it-was a long-dwelling look as though she had half forgotten, to take away her eyes, for ladies will sometimes fire after the enemy has struck—was too much for Mr. M’Kinlay; he forgot all his prudential reserves, and said, “Has not every one his secret, Miss Courtenay?”

“I suppose so,” said she, carelessly.

“Has not Miss Courtenay got one?” said he, leaning, forward, and trying to catch her eyes; but she had dropped them too suddenly for him.

“Not that I’m aware of,” said she; and if he had been gifted with a nice ear, he would have perceived: that a slight vibration marked the words as they fell.

“By the way,” said M’Kinlay—a most unlucky À propos—“have I your perfect approval in my arrangement for that young Irish lady—or girl—Miss O’Hara?”

Now the words “by the way,” had so completely touched her to the quick, that for an instant her face became crimson.

“If you will first of all tell me what the arrangements are,” said she, with a forced calm, “perhaps I may be able to say if I like them.”

“Has Mademoiselle not told you anything?”

“Mademoiselle has told me, simply, that Mr. M’Kinlay assumed the whole responsibility of the case, and neither counselled with her nor divulged his intentions.”

“Ah, that was not quite fair; I really must say, that Mademoiselle did not represent me as I think I merit. It was a sort of case perfectly new to me. It was not very easy to see one’s way. I could not make out whether you would all be better pleased by some costly arrangement for the girl, or by having her sent straight back to where she came from. The mystery that hung over——” he paused and stammered; he had said what he had not intended, and he blundered in his attempt to recal it. “I mean,” added he, “that mystery that the old diplomatist insists on connecting with her.”

“As how?” said Georgina, in a low, soft voice, intensely insinuating in its cadence—“as how?”

“It’s not very easy to say how, so much of what he said was vague, so much hypothetical; and, indeed, so much that seemed——” He stopped, confused, and puzzled how to go on.

“So that you had a long conversation together on this topic?”

“An entire evening. I dined with him alone, and we spoke of very little else as we sat over our wine.”

“I wish you could remember what he said. Don’t you think you could recal some at least of it?”

“I can’t say that I could, and for this reason: that he kept always interpolating little traits of what he knew of life, and all his vast and varied experiences of human nature. These sort of men are rather given to this.”

“Are they?” asked she; and it was not easy to say whether her accents implied a simple curiosity, or a dreamy indifference. Mr. M’Kinlay accepted them in the former sense, and with some pomposity continued:

“Yes; I have frequently remarked this tone in them, as well as the tendency to see twice as much in everything as it really contains.”

“Indeed!” said she, and now her voice unmistakably indicated one who listened with eager attention to the words of wisdom. “Did he show this tendency on the occasion you speak of?”

“Markedly, most markedly. It is very strange that I cannot give you a more accurate account of our interview; but he addled my head about pictures and early art; and then, though always temperate, his wine was exquisite. In fact, I carried away a most confused impression of all that took place between us.”

“You remember, however, the arrangements that were settled on, What were they?”

“The great point of all, the one you insisted on, I was, I may say, peremptory upon.”

“Which was that?”

“That she should not come abroad; as I said to Sir Within: ‘We must negotiate on this basis; here is Miss Courtenay’s letter, these are her words;’ and I showed him the turn-down, only the turndown, of your note.”

Had there been light enough to remark it, Mr. M’Kinlay would have seen that Miss Courtenay’s face became deadly pale, and her lips trembled with repressed anger.

“Well, and then?” said she, with a faint voice.

“He cut the Gordian knot at once, my dear Miss Courtenay,” continued he, in a sort of sprightly tone; “he said, ‘There need be no difficulty in the matter. I can act here ex-officio;’ he meant by that he was her guardian. ‘I will write to her,’ said he, ‘and if she prefers to remain here——‘”

“Remain where?” gasped she out, with a great effort to seem calm and composed.

“At Dalradern Castle, at his own house; if she likes this better than a Paris pension, or an Irish cabin, it is quite at her service.”

“But, of course, you replied the thing was impossible; such an arrangement couldn’t be. It would be indelicate, improper, indecent?”

“I didn’t say all that; but I hinted that as Sir Within was a bachelor, there were difficulties——”

“Difficulties, Sir! What do you mean by difficulties? Is it possible that one evening’s companionship with a person hardened by a long life of ‘libertinage’ can have so warped your moral sense as to render you blind to so obvious a shame as this?”

“He said his housekeeper——”

“His housekeeper! Am I to believe, Sir, that you listened to all this with the patience with which you repeat it now, and that no feeling of propriety roused you to an indignant rejection of such a scheme? Was his Claret or his Burgundy so insinuating as this?”

“When he said housekeeper——”

“Pray, Sir, do not push my endurance beyond all limits. I have given a very wide margin for the influence of Sir Within’s fascinations; but, bear in mind, that the magnetism of his wit and his wine has not extended to me.”

“If you want to imply, Miss Courtenay, that I was not in a condition to judge of——.”

“Mr. M’Kinlay, I say nothing at any time by implication. People are prone to call me too outspoken. What I say and what I mean to say is this, that I cannot imagine a person of your intelligence calmly listening to and concurring in such a project.”

“I am free to own I disliked it, and I distrusted it; the few words that your brother’s butler, Rickards, said about this girl’s craft and subtlety, the artful way she got round people, the study she made of the tempers and tastes of those about her——”

“And with all this before you, with this knowledge fresh as it was in your mind, you quietly sit down to agree to a plan which opens to these very qualities a most dangerous field of exercise. What do you mean by it? What do you intend? I can’t suppose,” said she, with a sneer, “you contemplated her being Lady Wardle?”

“I certainly did not,” said he, with a sickly smile.

“Well, Sir, you have placed yourself in a position for malevolent people to impute worse to you. Will you just tell me, who ever heard of such a thing? Is there any country, any society ever tolerated it? This girl is close on sixteen.”

“He asked particularly about her age,” said M’Kinlay, who was now so confused, that he knew not well what he said.

And, simple as the words were, they seemed to pierce to her very heart, for she sprang to her feet, and in a voice trembling with passion, said:

“I sincerely trust that you manage the material questions confided to you with more ability and tact than you do matters of social interest, and I can only say, Sir, it is the last occasion of this kind on which you will be troubled with any commission from me.”

“I believed I was strictly carrying out your intentions. You said she must not come abroad.”

“But I never said——” she stopped, and the crimson flush rose on her face and covered her whole forehead. “Now mind me, Mr. M’Kinlay, and remember, I do not intend that you should twice mistake my meaning, my wish was, and is, that this girl should go back to the place, the people, and the condition from which my brother, in a very ill-judging hour, took her. I believed, and I believe, that her presence in any, the most remote, connexion with our family, is fraught with inconvenience, or worse—do you understand me so far?”

“I do,” said he, slowly.

“Well, with this strong conviction on my mind, I desire that she should be sent home again; and I tell Mr. M’Kinlay now, that any favour he cares for or values at my hands, depends on the success with which he carries out this wish.”

“But how is this possible? What can I do?”

“That is for your consideration, Sir; you entangled the skein, you must try if you cannot undo it. Lawyers, I have always heard, have resources at their command common mortals never have dreamed of. You may discover that Sir Within has no right to exercise this guardianship. You might find out,” she smiled dubiously as she uttered the words, “that the girl’s friends disapproved of this protection,—very humble people occasionally are right-minded on these points,—you might find—how can I tell what your ingenuity could not find—excellent reasons that she should go back to Ireland and to the obscurity she should never have quitted. I don’t doubt it may be hard to do this; but until I learn that it is impossible, I will never consent to withdraw from Mr. M’Kinlay that confidence with which his character and his abilities have ever inspired me.”

“If the desire to win your favour Miss Courtenay——”

“No, no, Mr. M’Kinlay, that is not enough! We women are very practical, if we are not very logical; we ask for success from those who aspire to our good esteem.”

“To meet a difficulty, the first thing is to see where is the hitch!” said he, thoughtfully.

“I don’t believe that I apprehend you here. What is it that you mean?”

“I mean, Miss Courtenay, that it is only by learning very accurately what are the reasons for this girl’s removal—what urgent necessity, in fact, requires it—that I shall be likely to hit upon the means to affect it.”

“Suppose it to be a caprice—a mere caprice!”

“In that case, I should be powerless.”

“I don’t mean an actual caprice,” said she, hurriedly, for she saw her error; “but a sort of apprehension that this initial mistake of my brother’s would lead to worse. Great unhappiness has been caused to families by these connexions; the Irish are a very vindictive people, Sir, if they thought, as they might think, some years hence, that we should have discovered our blunder before. In short, Sir, I will not turn special pleader to show what I wish and I insist on.”

“Do you think, if I were to remain here to-morrow, Sir Gervais would be able to see me.”

“It is most improbable; I am certain the doctors would not consent to it.”

“Nor even the next day, perhaps?”

“Just as unlikely; everything like business is strictly forbidden to him.”

“Then I do not see why I should not start at once—now!”

“If I am to accept this as zeal to serve me,” said she, in a very sweet accent, “I thank you sincerely.”

“Ah, Miss Courtenay, could you only guess with what ardour I would apply myself to win your favour! If you had known how the very faintest promise of that favour——”

“Mr. M’Kinlay,” said she, stopping him, and bestowing a very captivating smile on him, “Mr. M’Kinlay belongs to a profession that never stipulates for its reward!”

“Enough, my dear Miss Courtenay,” said he, and, in his enthusiasm, he actually seized her hand and kissed it.

“Good-by,” said she, with a sort of maidenly impatience; “let me hear from you soon.” And she left him.

That same night saw Mr. M’Kinlay wearily rumbling along the same way he had lately travelled, very tired and very road-sick; but still there burned in his heart a small flame of hope, a tiny light indeed, not unlike one of the little lamps which from time to time he saw on the wayside, throwing their sickly glare over some humble shrine.

Ah, M’Kinlay! if you could but have seen the hurried impatience with which a cambric handkerchief was employed to efface, as it were, all trace of that rapturous embrace, it might have rescued you from some vain fancies, even though it made the road all the wearier and the drearier.

A very few words more will complete our account of a retrospect that has already grown longer than we wished. Mr. M’Kinlay’s first care on reaching town, was to address a very carefully-worded and respectful letter to Sir Within Wardle, stating that as the Vyner family had not fully approved of what he, M’K., had done with regard to the arrangements for Miss O’Hara, he hoped Sir Within would graciously name an early day to receive him, and explain what were the plans which they had fixed on for this young person, and by what means they purposed to relieve him from a charge which could not be other than embarrassing.

The following was the reply he received by return of post:

“Dear Sir,—Sir Within Wardle has handed me your note, and directed me to answer it. Perhaps this fact alone, and of itself, will be a sufficient reply. It will at least serve to show that while I am honoured by his entire confidence, I am not the cause of any such embarrassment as you feelingly deplore.

“Sir Within sees nothing in his present arrangements which call for the advice you are so kind as to offer, nor does he feel warranted in giving you the inconvenience of a journey, whose results would be unprofitable. Apart from this discussion, a visit from you would be always acceptable.

“Believe me, dear Sir, with every sense of esteem and respect, yours,

“Kate O’Hara.”

This short epistle, written in a bold but well-formed handwriting, and sealed with the initials of the writer, M’Kinlay forwarded by the night-mail to Miss Courtenay, and in due course received the following three lines:

“Dear Sir,—It will not be necessary in future to impose any further trouble on you in this matter. Sir Within Wardle, the young lady, and yourself, are all admirable representatives of the orders you severally pertain to.

“And I am, your faithful servant,

“Georgina Courtenay.”