It was about eight o'clock in the evening of the day on which so many strange incidents occurred at Bow Street, that Lady Hatfield was reclining in a melancholy mood upon the sofa in the drawing-room of her splendid mansion.

She was dressed in black satin, which set off the beauty of her complexion to the greatest advantage.

One of her fair hands drooped over the back of the sofa: the other listlessly held a book, to the perusal of which she had vainly endeavoured to settle herself.

There was a mysterious air of mournfulness about her that contrasted strangely with the elegance of the apartment, the cheerful blaze of the fire, the brilliant lustre of the lamps, and the general appearance of wealth and luxury by which she was surrounded.

That sorrowful expression, too, was the more unaccountable, inasmuch as the social position of Georgiana Hatfield seemed to be enviable in the extreme. Beautiful in person, possessing rank and wealth, and free to follow her own inclinations, she might have shone the star of fashion—the centre of that human galaxy whose sphere is the West End of London.

Oh! bright—gloriously bright are the planets which move in that heaven of their own:—and yet how useless is their brilliancy! The planets of God's own sky are made to bestow their light upon the orbs which without them would revolve in darkness; but the planets of the sphere of aristocracy and fashion throw not a single ray upon the millions of inferior stars which are compelled to circle around them!

To Lady Hatfield the pleasures and dissipation of the West End were unwelcome; and she seldom entered into society, save when a refusal would prove an offence. Up to the age of seventeen or eighteen she had been remarkable for a happy, joyous, and gay disposition: but a sudden change came over her at that period of her life; and since then her habits had grown retired—her disposition mournful.

But let us return to her, as she lay reclining on the sofa in the drawing-room.

The robbery of the preceding night and the events of the morning had evidently produced a powerful impression upon her mind. At times an expression of acute anguish distorted her fair countenance for a moment; and once or twice she compressed her lips forcibly, as if to restrain a burst of mental agony.

The time-piece upon the mantel had just proclaimed the hour of eight, when a domestic entered the room and announced the Earl of Ellingham.

Georgiana started up—assumed a placid expression of countenance—and advanced to receive the young nobleman, who, as he took her hand, respectfully pressed it to his lips.

"Your ladyship will, I hope, pardon me for intruding at this hour," he said, as he conducted her back to the sofa, and then took a chair at a short distance; "but I was not aware of your return to town until an hour ago, when I perused in the evening paper an account of the outrage of last night and the investigation at Bow Street this morning. How annoying it must have been to you, my dear Lady Hatfield, to have gone through the ordeal of a visit to a police-court!"

"There is something gloomy and dispiriting in the aspect of these tribunals which the crimes of the human race have rendered necessary," observed Georgiana. "The countenances of those persons whom I beheld at the police-office this morning, had all a certain sinister expression which I cannot define, but which seemed to proclaim that they never contemplated aught save the dark side of society."

"The same idea struck me this day," said Lord Ellingham: "for I also paid a visit to Bow Street—and scarcely an hour, I should conceive, after you must have left the office. But enough of this subject: the words Bow Street—Police—and Tribunal grate painfully upon the ear even of the innocent,—that is, if they possess hearts capable of sorrowing for the woes and crimes of their fellow-creatures. Lady Hatfield," continued the Earl, drawing his chair a little closer, "it was to converse upon another topic—yes, another and a more tender topic—that I have hastened to your presence this evening."

Georgiana was about to reply;—but the words died upon her quivering lips—and an oppressive feeling kept her silent.

"Yes, my dear Lady Hatfield," continued the Earl, drawing his chair still more nigh,—"I can no longer exist in this state of suspense. During the whole of last winter I was often in your society: you were kind enough to permit my visits—and it was impossible to be much with you, and not learn to love you. You departed suddenly for the country last July: but I dared not follow—for you had not even informed me of your intended retirement from London at so early a period. Pardon me if I say I felt hurt,—yes, hurt, Lady Hatfield,—because I loved you! And yet never—during that interval of four months—has your image been absent from my mind: and now I am again attracted towards you by a spell stronger than my powers of resistance. Oh! you must long ago have read my heart, Georgiana:—say, then—can you, do you love me in return?"

There was something so sincere—so earnest—and yet so manly in the fluent language of the Earl of Ellingham,—his fine countenance was lighted up with so animated an expression of hope and love,—and his eyes bore such complete testimony to the candour of his speech,—that Georgiana must have been ungenerous indeed had she heard that appeal with coldness.

Nor was it so; and the Earl read in the depths of her melting blue orbs a sentiment reciprocal with his own.

"My lord—Arthur," she murmured, "you ask me if I can love—if I do love you:—and, oh! you know not the pang which that question excites in my heart! Yes," she added hastily, seeing that the Earl was astonished at her words, "I do love you, Arthur—for you are all that is good, generous, and handsome! But—my God!—how can I force my lips to utter the sad avowal——"

"Speak, Georgiana—speak, I conjure you!" exclaimed Lord Ellingham: "you alarm me! Oh! keep me not in suspense! You say that you love me——"

"I never loved until I knew you—I shall never love another," answered Georgiana, fixing her deep, silently expressive, and intellectual eyes upon the countenance of the Earl.

"A thousand thanks for that declaration, my heart's sole joy!" he cried in an impassioned tone; and, falling on his knees by the side of the sofa, he threw his arms around her—he clasped her to his breast—his lips pressed hers for the first time.

But that joy lasted only for a moment.

With rebounding heart—and with almost a scream of anguish—Georgiana drew herself back, and abruptly repulsed her ardent lover: then, covering her face with her hands, she burst into a flood of tears.

"My God! what signifies this strange conduct?" ejaculated the Earl, as, with wounded pride, he retreated a few paces from the weeping lady.

"Forgive me—forgive me, Arthur!" she wildly cried, turning her streaming eyes towards him in a beseeching manner. "I am unhappy—very unhappy—and you should pity me!"

"Pity you!" exclaimed the Earl, again approaching the sofa, and taking her hand, which she did not attempt to withdraw: "how can you be an object of pity? Beautiful—beloved by one whose life shall be devoted to ensure the felicity of yours——"

"Oh! your generous affection, Arthur, gives me more pain than all the rest!" cried Georgiana, in a rapid—half-hysterical tone. "As a weak woman, I have dared to love you—as an imprudent one, I have confessed that love;—but now," she added, in a slower and firmer tone, while her vermilion lips quivered with a bitter smile,—"now, as a strong woman—as a woman restored to a sense of duty—do I make the avowal—and my heart is ready to break as I thus speak——"

"Good heavens! relieve me from this cruel—this agonizing suspense!" passionately exclaimed the Earl.

"I will—I will," returned Lady Hatfield. "Arthur—dearly, fondly, devotedly as I love you,—proud as I should be to call you my husband,—happy, happy as I should feel to link my fate with yours,—alas! it cannot be:—never—never!" she added with a frantic vehemence that caused every chord to thrill in the heart of her admirer.

"Georgiana, is this possible?" he asked, in a faint tone, while a deadly pallor overspread his countenance.

"Would that it were not!" she murmured, clasping her hands together in visible anguish of soul.

"And yet it is incomprehensible!" cried the Earl, starting back, and even manifesting somewhat of impatience. "You are not a foolish girl who takes delight in trifling with the sincere attachment of an honest man who adores her:—you are not a heartless coquette, looking upon her admirer as a slave whom she is justified to torture. No—no: you yourself possess a generous soul—you have no sympathy with the frivolous portion of your sex—you are as strong-minded, as sincere as you are beautiful. Tell me, then, Georgiana—what signifies this strange contradiction? You love me—you would be happy and proud to become mine;—and yet—my God!—and yet you the next moment annihilate every hope in my breast!"

"Alas! how unpardonable must my conduct seem—how inexplicable my behaviour!" exclaimed Lady Hatfield, in a tone of despair. "I am not indeed a heartless coquette—nor a weak frivolous girl:—in the sincerity of my heart do I speak, Arthur;—and if you be generous you will forgive me—but I never can be thine!"

"Then you love another!" cried the Earl, impatiently.

"Have I not solemnly assured you that I never loved till I knew you—and shall never, never love again!" she added, with a convulsive sob, as if her heart were breaking.

"But perhaps you were betrothed to another in your youth:—peradventure that other has some sacred pledge—some irrevocable bond——"

"No—no: I am my own mistress—none can control me!" interrupted Georgiana, her nervous state of excitement growing each moment more painful.

"And your uncle—your friends—your advisers?" said the Earl,—"it is possible that they have become acquainted with my attachment towards you—that they have some motive to counsel you against my suit?"

"On the contrary——But, my God! do not question me thus!" almost shrieked the unhappy lady. "I shall go mad—I shall go mad!"

"Oh! there is some dreadful mystery in all this!" cried the Earl; "and I too shall go mad if it be not explained! Merciful heavens! a terrible suspicion flashes across my mind. And yet—no—no, it cannot be,—for you declare that you never loved another! Still—still, what motive, save that, can render you thus resolute not to become mine? Georgiana," he said, sinking his voice to a low tone, and speaking with a solemn seriousness which had something even awful in its effect,—"Georgiana, I conjure you to answer me,—me, who am your devoted lover and your sincerest friend,—as you would reply to your God! Say—if in your giddy and inexperienced girlhood—ignorant through extreme innocence of the snare spread for you—and in a moment of weakness—you——"

"Just heavens! that you should suppose me criminal—guilty!" shrieked Georgiana, covering her face with her hands.

"Pardon—pardon!" cried the Earl, again falling on his knees at the feet of her whom he adored; and, forcibly possessing himself of one of her hands, he conveyed it to his lips. "Pardon me for the outrageous idea that I dared to express—forgive the insulting suspicion which for a moment occupied my mind! Alas! alas! that I should have provoked the look of indignation which you ere now cast upon me, when I withdrew your hand from before your eyes! But, ah—now you smile—and I am forgiven!"

Georgiana did smile—but in a manner so plaintively melancholy, that, although it implied forgiveness for the injurious suspicion, it still conveyed no hope!

There was a long and mournful pause.

The Earl of Ellingham burned to penetrate the deep mystery in which the conduct of Lady Hatfield was shrouded; and yet he knew not what other hypothesis to suggest.

He had no rival in her affections—her friends offered no objection to his suit—she was under no pledge to bestow her hand upon any particular individual—and the evanescent suspicion that she might have once been frail and was too honourable to bring a polluted person to the marriage-bed, had been banished beyond the possibility of return:—what, then, could influence her conduct?

He knew not how to elicit the truth; and yet his happiness was too deeply interested to permit him to depart in uncertainty and suspense.

"Georgiana," he said, at length, and speaking in a tone which showed how profoundly his feelings were excited,—"I appeal to your sense of justice whether you have acted candidly and generously in respect to me? Throughout the whole of last winter you permitted my visits—I will not say encouraged them, because you have too much delicacy to have done that. But you were never denied to me; and you gave me not to understand that my calls were unwelcome, when they began to exceed the usual limits of mere friendly visits. At length my attentions became marked towards you,—and you must have read my feelings in my manner—my language—and my attentions. Alas! why did you permit me to encourage the blossoming of hopes which are now so cruelly blighted by the unaccountable decision that you have uttered to-day?"

"Oh! do not reproach me, Arthur!" exclaimed Georgiana: "and yet I know that I have acted imprudently. But it was so sweet to be beloved by you, that I had not courage to destroy the charming vision! At length I took a decided step—or at least what seemed to me to be so: I departed suddenly to my uncle's country-seat, without previously intimating my resolution to you. And remember—no avowal of affection on your part had then met my ears; and it was impossible that I could have acquainted you with my proposed departure, even if I had wished so to do—because I did not see you on the day when I determined to quit London: and had I written to you then, would you not have thought that my note conveyed a hint for you to follow me?"

"Fool—idiot that I was not to have declared my passion months and months ago!" ejaculated the Earl. "But say, Georgiana—had I solicited your hand last summer, ere you left London, would those reasons which influence you now——"

"Yes—they were in existence then," was the hasty reply.

"And am I to remain in ignorance of the motives which compel you to refuse my suit?" asked Lord Ellingham bitterly. "Is there no chance of their influence ceasing? Oh! give me but a glimpse of hope, and so powerful is my attachment—so devoted my love——"

"Merciful heavens!" exclaimed Georgiana wildly,—"am I then to lose such a man as this?"

And again she clasped her hands convulsively together.

"Oh! you love me—you do love me, my angel," cried the Earl; "and yet you refuse me! What stern fate—what terrible destiny can possibly separate us! This mystery is appalling!"

"And a mystery it must remain," said Georgiana, suddenly assuming that quiet and passive manner which indicated despair.

"Then farewell, Lady Hatfield," exclaimed the Earl; "and be not surprised if I must attribute the disappointment—the anguish—the deep humiliation which I now experience, to some inexplicable caprice of the female mind. But, madam," he added, drawing himself up haughtily, and speaking in a tone of offended pride, "the Earl of Ellingham, whose wealth and rank may enable him to vie with the mightiest peers of England, will not be made the sport of the whims and wavering fancies of even the beautiful Lady Hatfield."

Thus speaking, the nobleman bowed coldly, and advanced towards the door.

"Oh! this is cruel—this is cruel!" cried Georgiana, throwing herself hysterically back upon the sofa.

"No, madam—it is you who are cruel to reject the honourable suit of one like me without deigning to vouchsafe an explanation," said the Earl, persisting in his severity of tone and manner against the promptings of his generous nature, but with the hope of eliciting a satisfactory reply.

"Then go, my lord—depart—leave me!" cried Georgiana; "for I never can be yours!"

The Earl lingered for a moment: convulsive sobs broke from the lips of the unhappy Lady Hatfield—but not a word to invite him to remain!

His pride would not permit him to offer farther entreaty;—and, suffering cruelly at heart, he rushed from the room.

In less than a minute Georgiana heard the street-door close; and then, burying her face in the cushion of the sofa, she gave way unrestrainedly to all the violence of her grief.