It was about five o’clock in the evening of the second day after the incidents just related, that the Earl of Ellingham received a note, the address of which was written in a feigned hand, and with the word “private” marked in the corner.

The messenger, who left it at the mansion in Pall-mall, had departed immediately his errand was discharged, and without waiting for any reply.

Lord Ellingham happened to be alone in the library when the missive was placed in his hands, and on opening it he recognised the writing of his half-brother; for the address only was disguised—a precaution adopted in case the letter should be observed by the ladies before it reached the hands of the earl.

The contents convoyed a brief intimation that Mr. Hatfield had returned to London with his son, and that they had put up temporarily at the Trafalgar Hotel, Spring-gardens, where the presence of the nobleman was anxiously expected.

Thither the earl accordingly repaired, and a waiter conducted him to an apartment, in which he was received by his half-brother alone—the father having deemed it prudent that the son should not be present while the necessary explanations were being given.

The meeting between the nobleman and Mr. Hatfield was cordial, and even affectionate: how different from that of the mother and daughter in Paris, as described in the preceding chapter!

“You have recovered your son, Thomas,” said the earl; “and under any circumstances I congratulate you. The fact that he has returned to London with you convinces me that the paternal authority is once more recognised.”

“Yes—he is here—in an adjacent room, Arthur,” replied Mr. Hatfield. “I thought it prudent, for many reasons, to send for you privately, and consult you before I ventured to take him back to his mother’s presence. Indeed I know not, after all that has occurred, whether you will permit him to cross your threshold again—whether you can ever forgive him.”

“He is your son, Thomas, and that is sufficient,” interrupted the generous, noble-hearted earl. “Whatever he may have done, I promise to pardon him: however gravely he may have erred, I will yield him my forgiveness. Nay, more—I will undertake to promise the same for my wife, who you know is not a woman that harbours rancour.”

“The amiable, the excellent Esther! Oh! no, no—she would not refuse pardon or sympathy to a living soul!” exclaimed Mr. Hatfield. “And you, my generous brother—my never-failing friend—how can I sufficiently thank you for these assurances which you give me, and which so materially tend to lighten the sorrow that weighs upon my heart! I have suffered and undergone much during the few days of my absence from London.”

“But you have recovered your son,” hastily interrupted the earl, pressing his half-brother’s hand with a fervour that was indeed consolatory; “and I am sure that, although his errors may have been great, he has not committed any thing dishonourable. He may have been self-willed—rebellious against the paternal authority—ungrateful—unmindful of those who wish him well; he may have yielded himself up to the wiles of an infamous woman——”

“All that has he assuredly done, Arthur,” said Mr. Hatfield, in a melancholy tone; “and more still! For, as you yourself suspected on that day when we made so many distressing discoveries in the library, he found out who I was—who I am,—he believed himself to be my legitimate son—he even raised money by the name of Viscount Marston—he dared to contemplate measures to force me to assume your title, and claim your estates; and he would have sacrificed you—me—his mother—the countess—aye, and the amiable, excellent Frances—he would have sacrificed us all,” added Mr. Hatfield, profoundly excited, “to his inordinate ambition! Now, my dear Arthur,” he asked, in a milder and more measured tone—“now, can you forgive my son all this?”

“Yes—and more—ten thousand times more!” ejaculated the earl, emphatically. “Had he possessed the right to accomplish all he devised—aye, had he carried out his designs to the very end—even then, Thomas, would I have forgiven him for your sake.”

“It is a god—an angel who speaks thus; and not a mere human being!” exclaimed Mr. Hatfield, embracing his half-brother with an enthusiasm and a fervour amounting almost to a worship. “Oh! why are not all men like you?—the world would then know not animosity, nor rancour, nor strife; and earth would be heaven!”

“Thomas, Thomas,” cried the earl, reproachfully, “attach not too much importance to a feeling on my part which you yourself would show under similar circumstances! But let us speak of your son. He has erred, and you have forgiven him—you, his father, who are the most deeply wounded by his temporary ingratitude, have pardoned him and taken him again to your heart. Shall not I, then, who look upon him in the light of a nephew—shall not I, an uncle, forgive and forget what a father can pardon and obliterate from his memory? Yes—and I will even find extenuating circumstances in his favour: I will search out and conjure up excuses for him! Endowed with an enthusiastic disposition—an ardent longing to render himself conspicuous in the world—a fervid craving to earn distinction and acquire a proud name,—he paused not to reflect whether it were well to shine with an adventitious lustre, or to win for himself and by himself the glory that should encircle his brow. The splendid career of the Prince of Montoni dazzled—nay, almost blinded him; and while he contemplated the eminence on which that illustrious personage stands, he forgot that his Royal Highness obtained not rank and power by hereditary right, but by his great deeds, his steady perseverance in the course of rectitude, and his ennobling virtues. While filled with lofty aspirations, your son suddenly made the discovery of certain family secrets which appeared to place a title within his reach. Ah! pardon him if he stretched out his hand to grasp the visionary coronet,—pardon him, I say—and wonder not if in the eagerness of his desire to clutch the dreamy bauble, he thrust parents, relatives, and friends rudely aside.”

“The generosity which prompts you to extenuate his grievous faults shall not be cooled nor marred by any opposite opinion on my part,” said Mr. Hatfield. “And, my God! is he not my son?—and have I not already—yes, already—while we were still in Paris—promised to forgive him every thing. But when I think of all the misery his insane ambition would have brought upon you and yours——”

“Oh! the loss of title and wealth would not interfere with my happiness, Thomas,” interrupted the earl, smiling.

“And that loss you cannot now sustain—no—never, never!” exclaimed Mr. Hatfield, impetuously; “and I thank God that I am enabled to give you this assurance! For the papers—the fatal papers—the family documents, are all burnt—burnt with my own hand, and in the presence of that young man who dared to take them from the secret recess where you had deposited them.”

“Ere now you called me generous, Thomas,” said the earl,—“and for the performance of a common Christian duty—I mean, the forgiveness of one who has offended and who is penitent. But you, my brother—what generosity have you not shown towards me,—yes—and for years—long years;—and now, to crown it all, you have destroyed those evidences which would make you great at any moment. Oh! as the world’s ambition goes, and as human hearts are constituted, your generosity outvalues mine as immeasurably as the boundless Pacific exceeds the stagnant puddle in the street!”

And, as the earl spoke these words with an enthusiasm and a sincerity that came from the inmost recesses of his heart, he dashed away a tear.

Then, as if suddenly animated by the same sentiment—a sentiment of mutual regard, devotion, and admiration,—the half-brothers grasped each other’s hands; and the pressure was long and fervid—a profound silence reigning between them the while,—for, men of years and worldly experience though they were, their souls’ emotions were deeply stirred and their finest feelings were aroused.

“I have not yet told you all—perhaps scarcely even the worst, relative to my unfortunate son,” said Mr. Hatfield, after a long pause. “That vile woman of whom Villiers spoke—that Perdita Slingsby—or Torrens—or Fitzhardinge—whichever her name may be——”

“Ah! I understand you already,” interrupted the earl, in a tone of deep commiseration: “the artful creature has inveigled your son into a hasty marriage. Is it not so?”

“Alas! it is too true, Arthur,” said Mr. Hatfield; and he then proceeded to narrate to his brother all that had occurred during his absence from London,—the accident near Greenwich—the adventure with the officers at Dover—the interview with his son in Paris—the negotiations with Perdita—and the terms which he had finally settled with that designing woman.

“Oh! that you had been one day earlier,” exclaimed Lord Ellingham; “and this odious marriage would not have occurred. It is lamentable indeed, Thomas—and the more so, in consequence of the hopes that I had founded on the attachment which until lately existed between Charles and my daughter.”

“Ah! it is that—it is that which cuts me to the very soul!” cried Mr. Hatfield, with exceeding bitterness of tone and manner.

“And yet there is hope—there is hope for us yet!” exclaimed the earl, who, after pacing the room in deep thought for a few minutes, turned suddenly towards his half-brother.

“Hope do you say?” demanded the latter, his countenance brightening up—though he could not as yet conjecture, much less perceive the source whence the gleam of hope could possibly emanate.

“Yes—hope,” repeated the earl emphatically, but sinking his voice almost to a whisper, as if he were afraid that the very walls should hear the words he was uttering. “Did not that woman tell you she should contract another marriage——”

“She assuredly intimated as much,” answered Mr. Hatfield; “and by her words and manner I have no doubt that the intention was uppermost in her mind.”

“And from the knowledge which we now possess of her character,” added the earl, “we may rest satisfied that she will not refuse the first good offer that presents itself. Well, then—on the day that she contracts another marriage, Charles may consider himself absolved from the alliance which he so unhappily formed.”

“Ah! I comprehend you, my dear Arthur!” exclaimed Mr. Hatfield, his heart already feeling lighter. “But the legal tie will still exist,” he added an instant afterwards, his voice again becoming solemn and mournful.

“The law is an unnatural—a vile—and a miserable one, which would for ever exclude either that woman or your son from the portals of the matrimonial temple!” said the earl, speaking with impassioned emphasis, though still in a subdued tone, “Charles has discarded her—and she has consented never more to molest him. Already, then, are they severed in a moral point of view. But should that woman contract another marriage—take unto herself another husband—and thereby prove that her severance from the young man whom she ensnared and inveigled, is complete,—should she adopt the initiative in that respect, it would be a despicable fastidiousness and a contemptible affectation on the part of any one to say to Charles Hatfield, ‘You must never know matrimonial happiness: but you must remain in your present false position, a husband without a wife, for the remainder of your days!’ It were inhuman—base—and unnatural thus to address your son, when once the woman herself shall have ratified by her actions that compact which her words and her signature have already sanctioned. Were a father to consult me under such circumstances, and ask my advice whether he should bestow his daughter on a young man situated as your son will then be,—my counsel would be entirely in the affirmative. Can you therefore suppose for a moment that I shall shrink from acting in accordance with the advice I should assuredly give to another man who is likewise a father? No—no! If then, in the course of time, this Perdita shall contract a new marriage,—and if your son manifest, as I hope and believe he will do, contrition for the past—if his conduct be such as to afford sure guarantees for the future—and if his attachment for Frances should revive, as I am certain that hers, poor girl! will continue unimpaired,—under all these circumstances, Thomas, I should not consider myself justified in stamping the unhappiness of that pair by refusing my consent to their union.”

“Most solemnly do I assure you, Arthur,” exclaimed Mr. Hatfield, “that, as an impartial person, and supposing I were disinterested in the matter, I should view it precisely in the same light: but I should not have dared to express those sentiments before you, had you not been the first to give utterance to them.”

“It is, after all, the mere common-sense aspect of the question,” said the earl. “A young man is inveigled into a marriage with a woman whom he looks upon as an angel of purity; and in a few hours he discovers her to be a demon of pollution. They separate upon positive and written conditions. The tribunals would take cognizance of the affair, and grant a legal divorce were they appealed to: but a private arrangement is deemed preferable to a public scandal. Well, the woman marries again—and every remaining shadow of claim which she might still have had upon the individual whom she had entrapped and deluded, ceases at once. The complete snapping of the bond—the total severance of the tie, is her own doing. It is true that the law may proclaim the first marriage to be the only legal one: but morality revolts against such an unnatural averment. These are my solemn convictions;—and, were I to ponder upon them for a hundred years, I should not waver one tittle in my belief.”

“There is more injustice committed by a false morality—more unhappiness inflicted by a ridiculous fastidiousness, than the world generally would believe,” observed Mr. Hatfield.

“Yes—and there is another consideration which weighs with me, Thomas!” exclaimed the earl, turning once more, and now with a smiling countenance, towards his half-brother. “You have shewn so much generosity towards me—you have annihilated documents which ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have prized and availed themselves of—and you have exhibited so much noble feeling in all your actions respecting myself and our family honour, that I consider myself bound to effect the union of my daughter and your son, if it be practicable. This, then, I propose—that the unfortunate marriage of Charles shall be kept a profound secret, and that he shall leave England for a short time, so that active employment may completely and radically wean his mind from any lingering attachment that he may entertain for the polluted Perdita. With regard to this latter suggestion I have a project which I will presently explain to you. Respecting the maintenance of the secret of his unhappy marriage, I should recommend its propriety even were there no ulterior considerations of the nature already stated. For of what avail can it be to distress my wife or yours—much less my daughter—by a revelation of the sad circumstance? In any case, Frances would not be permitted to learn that secret; and I should be loth indeed to afflict Lady Ellingham by the narration of such a history.”

“And you may be wall assured, Arthur,” observed Mr. Hatfield, “that it would prove no pleasant task for me to inform Lady Georgiana that her son, by his mad ambition and his fatal misconceptions, had compelled me to make known to him the fact of his illegitimacy. Neither should I wish to distress her by unfolding to her the secret of this most miserable marriage.”

“It is fortunate that we were so guarded with our wives on that morning when we made such alarming discoveries in the library,” observed Lord Ellingham: “it is a subject for self-congratulation that we merely intimated the fact of Charles’s departure that day with an abandoned woman——”

“Yes—and it was to your prudent representations that I yielded, when I was about to commit the folly of imparting every thing to my wife,—the loss of the papers—the certainty that Charles had not only taken them, but had likewise discovered every thing relating to my own past life——”

“It was scarcely my advice, Thomas, which prevented you from making all those revelations to Georgiana,” said the earl: “but it was when——”

“Yes—I remember: it was when we resolved to depart in search of the fugitive, that I found my wife was so overcome by the first word I uttered—the word which told her he was gone—that I could not feel it in my heart to afflict her by farther revelations.”

“You scarcely require to be informed that Villiers and myself each pursued the road that we respectively took, until we acquired the certainty that no travellers of the description given had passed that way; but it was late at night when I returned to London, and Villiers was an hour or two later still. While we are, however, conversing in this desultory manner,” said the earl, “we forget that Charles is waiting for us in another room.”

“And you forget, my dear Arthur,” observed Mr. Hatfield, “that you have a project respecting him, but which you have not as yet revealed to me.”

“True!” ejaculated Lord Ellingham; “and the explanation can be speedily given. Yesterday afternoon I received a hastily written note from the Prince of Montoni, stating the melancholy intelligence that his illustrious father-in-law, Alberto I., expired after a short illness twelve days ago. The Prince received the news yesterday morning by special courier——”

“And he is now Grand Duke of Castelcicala?” exclaimed Mr. Hatfield.

“Yes—he is a sovereign prince,” returned the nobleman,—“and one who will not only make his people happy, but who, I venture to predict, will be the means of regenerating Italy. His Sovereign Highness departs to-morrow for Castelcicala; and, although it be scarcely consistent with propriety to accost him with a request under such circumstances, yet I will do so—trusting that the explanations which I shall give, may excuse the apparent importunity at the present moment.”

“And that request?” said Mr. Hatfield, interrogatively.

“Is that the Grand Duke—for by this proud title must we now denominate him—will permit Charles to accompany him in the capacity of one of his aides-de-camp. Your son can speak the Italian language as fluently as his own; and his long residence in Castelcicala will have fitted him for the situation I propose to procure for him. Moreover, that aspiring nature—that ardent ambition which has already manifested itself, will be gratified and will find congenial associations and emulative stimulants In the career thus opened to him. If his ambition, in its first strugglings, have unfortunately led him into error, it was on account of the misconceptions to which he yielded, and the baleful influence which a designing woman exercised over him: but, with such a glorious example before him as the illustrious personage into whose service I propose that he shall enter, and keeping in view such legitimate aims as that service naturally suggests, I am much deceived indeed if your son do not prove himself a good, an estimable, and, perhaps, a great man.”

“Your advice is as excellent as your purpose is generous and kind,” exclaimed Mr. Hatfield, overjoyed at the prospects thus held out.

“We may now release Charles,” said the earl, “from the suspense which he is doubtless enduring.”

Mr. Hatfield left the room, and shortly afterwards returned, accompanied by the young man, whose face was pale and whose looks were downcast, as he advanced towards the earl.

“My dear Charles,” said the good nobleman, embracing him,—“not a word relative to the past! All is forgiven—all forgotten, as far as the memory can forget.”

Charles shed tears, while his heart was agitated with many conflicting emotions,—gratitude for the assurance thus given to him—joy that he was so completely pardoned—bitter regret that he should have ever contemplated aught prejudicial to the interests of the generous earl—vexation on account of the facility with which he had been led astray—and shame at the deplorable errors he had committed.

But when he heard the kind, affectionate, and re-assuring language addressed to him alike by his father and Lord Ellingham,—when he learnt that the main particulars of his late proceedings were to be kept a solemn secret in respect to his mother, the countess, and Lady Frances,—and when he was made acquainted with the project which the earl had suggested relative to placing him about the person of the idol of his heroic worship—the new Grand Duke of Castelcicala,—a genial tide of consolation was poured into his soul; and he felt that the future might yet teem with bright hopes for him!

But not a word was breathed either by Mr. Hatfield or Lord Ellingham respecting that other prospect which had evoked so much enlightened reasoning and such liberal sentiments from the lips of the earl: we mean the probability of a marriage eventually taking place between the young man and the beautiful Lady Frances Ellingham.

With the proposal that he should enter the service of the Grand Duke, Charles was delighted; and the earl promised to visit his Sovereign Highness early in the morning, at Markham Place, to proffer the request which he had to make as the necessary preliminary.

The nobleman, Mr. Hatfield, and Charles now repaired to the mansion in Pall Mall, where the presence of the two latter, especially of the last-mentioned, caused feelings of joy which we must leave the reader to imagine.