The household of the Palazzo Balbi was unusually busy and active. There was a coming and a parting guest. Sir William himself was far too much occupied by the thoughts of his son's arrival to bestow much interest upon the departure of Captain Holmes. Not that this ingenious gentleman had failed in any of the requirements of his parasitical condition, nay, he had daily improved the occasion of his presence, and ingratiated himself considerably in the old Baronet's favor; but it is, happily, the lot of such people to be always forgotten where the real affections are in play. They while away a weary day, they palliate the small irritations of daily life, they suggest devices to cheat ennui, but they have no share in deeper sentiments; we neither rejoice nor weep with them.

“Sorry for your friend's illness!”—“Sincerely trust you may find him better!”—or, “Ah, it is a lady, I forgot; and that we may soon see you on this side of the Alps again!”—“Charming weather for your journey! “—“Good-bye, good-bye!”

And with this he shook his hand cordially enough, and forgot him.

“I'm scarcely sorry he's gone,” said May, “he was so deaf! And besides, papa, he was too civil,—too complaisant. I own I had become a little impatient of his eternal compliments, and the small scraps out of Shelley and Keats that he adapted to my address.”

“All the better for Charley, that,” said the old Baronet “You'll bear his rough frankness with more forgiveness after all this sugary politeness.” He never noticed how this random speech sent the blood to her cheeks, and made her crimson over face and neck; nor, indeed, had he much time to bestow on it, for the servant opened the door at the instant, and announced, “Captain Heathcote.” In a moment the son was in his father's arms. “My boy, my dear boy,” was all the old man could say; and Charles, though determined to maintain the most stoical calm throughout the whole visit, had to draw his hand across his eyes in secret.

“How well you look, Charley,—stouter and heavier than when here. English life and habits have agreed with you, boy.”

“Yes, sir. If I can manage to keep my present condition, I 'm in good working trim for a campaign; and you—tell me of yourself.”

“There is little to say on that subject. When men live to my term, about the utmost they can say is, that they are here.”

Though he tried to utter these words in a half-jocular tone, his voice faltered, and his lips trembled; and as the young man looked, he saw that his father's face was careworn and sad, and that months had done the work of years on him since they parted. Charles did his utmost to treat these signs of sorrow lightly, and spoke cheerfully and even gayly.

“I'd go with your merry humor, boy, with all my heart, if you were not about to leave us.”

Was it anything in the interests thus touched on, or was it the chance phrase, “to leave us,” that made young Heathcote become pale as death while he asked, “How is May?”

“Well,—quite well; she was here a moment back. I fancied she was in the room when you came in. I'll send for her.”

“No, no; time enough. Let us have a few more minutes together.”

In a sort of hurried and not very collected way, he now ran on to talk of his prospects and the life before him. It was easy to mark how the assumed slap-dash manner was a mere mask to the bitter pain he felt and that he knew he was causing. He talked of India as though a few days' distance,—of the campaign like a hunting-party; the whole thing was a sort of eccentric ramble, to have its requital in plenty of incident and adventure. He even assumed all the vulgar slang about “hunting down the niggers,” and coming back loaded with “loot,” when the old man threw his arm around him, and said,—

“But not to me, Charley,—not to me.”

The chord was touched at last. All the pretended careless ease was gone, and the young man sobbed aloud as he pressed his father to his breast. The secret which each wanted to keep to his own heart was out, and now they must not try any longer a deception.

“And why must it be, Charley? what is the urgent cause for deserting me? I have more need of you than ever I had. I want your counsel and your kindness; your very presence—as I feel it this moment—is worth all my doctors.”

“I think you know—I think I told you, I mean—that you are no stranger to the position I stood in here. You never taught me, father, that dependence was honorable. It was not amongst your lessons that a life of inglorious idleness was becoming.” As with a faltering and broken utterance he spoke these words, his confusion grew greater and greater, for he felt himself on the very verge of a theme that he dreaded to touch; and at last, with a great effort, he said, “And besides all this, I had no right to sacrifice another to my selfishness.”

“I don't understand you, Charley.”

“Maybe not, sir; but I am speaking of what I know for certain. But let us not go back on these things.”

“What are they? Speak out, boy,” cried he, more eagerly.

“I see you are not aware of what I thought you knew. You do not seem to know that May's affections are engaged,—that she has given her heart to that young college man who was here long ago as Agincourt's tutor. They have corresponded.”

“Corresponded!”

“Yes, I know it all, and she will not deny it,—nor need she, from all I can learn. He is a fine-hearted fellow, worthy of any girl's love. Agincourt has told me some noble traits of him, and he deserves all his good fortune.”

“But to think that she should have contracted this engagement without consulting me,—that she should have written to him—”

“I don't see how you can reproach her, a poor motherless girl. How could she go to you with her heart full of sorrows and anxieties? She was making no worldly compact in which she needed your knowledge of life to guide her.”

“It was treachery to us all!” cried the old man, bitterly, for now he saw to what he owed his son's desertion of him.

“It was none to me; so much I will say, father. A stupid compact would have bound her to her unhappiness, and this she had the courage to resist.”

“And it is for this I am to be forsaken in my old age!” exclaimed he, in an accent of deep anguish. “I can never forgive her,—never!”

Charles sat down beside him, and, with his arm on the old man's shoulder, talked to him long in words of truest affection. He recalled to his mind the circumstances under which May Leslie first came amongst them, the daughter of his oldest, dearest friend, intrusted to his care, to become one day his own daughter, if she willed it.

“Would you coerce her to this? Would you profit by the authority you possess over her to constrain her will? Is it thus you would interpret the last dying words of your old companion? Do not imagine, father, that I place these things before you in cold blood or indifference. I have my share of sorrow in the matter.” He was going to say more, but he stopped himself, and, arising, walked towards the window. “There she is!” cried he, “on the terrace; I'll go and meet her.” And with this he went out.

It is not impossible that the generous enthusiasm into which Charles Heathcote had worked himself to subdue every selfish feeling about May enabled him to meet her with less constraint and difficulty. At all events, he came towards her with a manner so like old friendship that, though herself confused, she received him with equal cordiality.

“How like old times, May, is all this!” said he, as, with her arm within his own, they strolled under a long vine trellis. “If I had not to remember that next Wednesday I most be at Malta, I could almost fancy I had never been away. I wonder when we are to meet again? and where, and how?”

“I'm sure it is not I that can tell you,” said she, painfully; for in the attempt to conceal his emotion his voice had assumed a certain accent of levity that wounded her deeply.

“The where matters little, May,” resumed he; “but the when is much, and the how still more.”

“It is fortunate, then, that this is the only point I can at all answer for, for I think I can say that we shall meet pretty much as we part.”

“What am I to understand by that, May?” asked he, with an eagerness that forgot all dissimulation.

“How do you find papa looking?” asked she, hurriedly, as a deep blush covered her face. “Is he as well as you hoped to see him?”

“No,” said he, bluntly; “he has grown thin and careworn. Older by ten years than I expected to find him.”

“He has been much fretted of late; independently of being separated from you, he has had many anxieties.”

“I have heard something of this; more, indeed, than I like to believe true. Is it possible, May, that he intends to marry?”

She nodded twice slowly, without speaking.

“And his wife is to be this Mrs. Morris,—this widow that I remember at Marlia, long ago?”

“And who is now here domesticated with us.”

“What do you know of her? What does any one know of her?” asked he, impatiently.

“Absolutely nothing,—that is, of her history, her family, or her belongings. Of herself I can only say that she is supreme in this house; her orders alone are obeyed. I have reason to believe that papa confides the gravest interests to her charge, and for myself, I obey her by a sort of instinct.”

“But you like her, May?”

“I am too much afraid of her to like her. I was at first greatly attracted by fascinations perfectly new to me, and by a number of graceful accomplishments, which certainly lent a great charm to her society. But after a while I detected, or I fancied that I detected, that all these attractions were thrown out as lures to amuse and occupy us, while she was engaged in studying our dispositions and examining our natures. Added to this, I became aware of the harshness she secretly bestowed upon poor Clara, whose private lectures were little else than tortures. This latter completely estranged me from her, and, indeed, was the first thing which set me at work to consider her character. From the day when Clara left this—”

“Left this, and for where?” cried he.

“I cannot tell you; we have never heard of her since. She was taken away by a guardian, a certain Mr. Stocmar, whom papa seemed to know, or at least thought he had met somewhere, many years ago. It was shortly after the tidings of Captain Morris's death this gentleman arrived here to claim her.”

“And her mother,—was she willing to part with her?”

“She affected great sorrow—fainted, I think—when she read the letter that apprised her of the necessity; but from Clara herself I gathered that the separation was most grateful to her, and that for some secret cause I did not dare to ask—even had she known to tell—they were not to meet again for many, many years.”

“But all that you tell me is unnatural, May. Is there not some terrible mystery in this affair? Is there not some shameful scandal beneath it all?”

A heavy sigh seemed to concur with what he said.

“And can my father mean to marry a woman of whose past life he knows nothing? Is it with all these circumstances of suspicion around her that he is willing to share name and fortune with her?”

“As to that, such is her ascendancy over him, that were she to assure him of the most improbable or impossible of events he 'd not discredit her. Some secret dread of what you would say or think has delayed the marriage hitherto; but once you have taken your leave and are fairly off,—not to return for years,—the event will no longer be deferred.”

“Oh, May, how you grieve me! I cannot tell you the misery you have put into my heart.”

“It is out of my own sorrow I have given you to drink,” said she, bitterly. “You are a man, and have a man's career before you, with all its changeful chances of good or evil; I, as a woman, must trust my hazard of happiness to a home, and very soon I shall have none.”

He tried to speak, but a sense of choking stopped him, and thus, without a word on either side, they walked along several minutes.

“May,” said he, at last, “do you remember the line of the poet,—

“I never heard it before; but why do you ask me?”

“I was just thinking that in parting moments like this, as on a death-bed, one dares to speak of things which from some sense of shame one had never dared to touch on before. Now, I want to carry away with me over the seas the thought that your lot in life is assured, and your happiness, so far as any one's can be, provided for. To know this, I must force a confidence which you may not wish to accord me; but bethink you, dear May, that you will never see me more. Will you tell me if I ask about him?”

“About whom?” asked she, in unfeigned astonishment, for never were her thoughts less directed to Alfred Layton.

“May,” said he, almost angrily, “refuse me if you will, but let there be no deceit between us. I spoke of Layton.”

“Ask what you please, and I will answer you,” said she, boldly.

“He is your lover, is he not? You have engaged yourself to him?”

“No.”

“It is the same thing. You are to be his wife, when this, that, or t'other happens?”

“No.”

“In a word, if there be no compact, there is an understanding between you?”

“Once more, no!” said she, in the same firm voice.

“Will you deny that you have received letters from him, and have written to him again?”

An angry flush covered the girl's cheek, and her lip trembled. For an instant it seemed as if an indignant answer would break from her; but she repressed the impulse, and coolly said, “There is no need to deny it. I have done both.”

“I knew it,—I knew it!” cried he, in a bitter exultation. “You might have dealt more frankly with me, or might have said, 'I am in no wise accountable to you, I recognize no right in you to question me.' Had you done this, May, it would have been a warning to me; but to say, 'Ask me freely, I will tell you everything,'—was this fair, was this honest, was it true-hearted?”

“And yet I meant it for such,” said she, sorrowfully. “I may have felt a passing sense of displeasure that you should have heard from any other than myself of this correspondence; but even that is passed away, and I care not to learn from whom you heard it. I have written as many as three letters to Mr. Layton. This is his last to me.” She took at the same moment a letter from her pocket, and handed it towards him.

“I have no presumption to read your correspondence, May Leslie,” said he, red with shame and anger together. “Your asking me to do so implies a rebuke in having dared to speak on the subject, but it is for the last time.”

“And is it because we are about to part, Charles, that it must be in anger?” said she; and her voice faltered and her lip trembled. “Of all your faults, Charles, selfishness was not one, long ago.”

“No matter what I was long ago; we have both lived to see great changes in ourselves.”

“Come, let us be friends,” said she, taking his hand cordially. “I know not how it is with you, but never in my life did I need a friend so much.”

“Oh, May, how can I serve you?”

“First read that letter, Charles. Sit down there and read it through, and I 'll come back to you by the time you 've finished it.”

With a sort of dogged determination to sacrifice himself, no matter at what cost, Charles Heathcote took the letter from her, and turned away into another alley of the garden.