Mr. Tremain, after leaving Miss Darling in the safe custody of George Newbold, walked hastily out of the theatre by a side entrance, and making his way along a narrow and dimly lighted corridor, came to a small door opening on to an outside terrace which ran beneath the library windows, and from which a flight of steps led to the large flower garden—Esther Newbold's particular hobby.

He stepped out on to the terrace, shutting the door behind him, and drawing a deep breath of relief at being once more alone. It was a charming night; the cool fresh west wind swept by him in fitful gusts, touched with a warmer breath of the south, and laden with all the mystery of the thousands of miles it had travelled ere it reached this fair spot of God's creation. It could not linger to unfold its burden of knowledge; it could but flutter its dark soft wings and pass on in the orbit of its destiny, leaving its mystery unsolved, its secrets unrevealed, and murmuring ever as it went, sweeping up amidst the tall, waving trees, or bending low to caress the sleeping flowers, telling its message always and ever—its message of the passing of Time, of the coming of Eternity.

Only man, whose ears are not as yet finely enough attuned to the music of the spheres, heard no hidden meaning in its gentle voice, no celestial trumpet-call in its rude blasts.

Why should Nature reveal her most priceless secrets to man, since as yet, his highest attainment is a disbelief in all things beyond his finite wisdom, and a cavilling at what he calls the useless machinery of organic life? Nature is as shy as she is beautiful; generous when trusted, but niggardly when discredited. How shall the wilfully blind expect to see into her mysteries, or the wilfully deaf hear the lilt of her charming?

Below the terrace lay the garden beds, wrapt about in a dreamy haze, out of which the crescent moon, set high in the intense blue of the heavens, evoked spectral gleams of gold and silver as it fell athwart the yellow daffodils, hanging their heavy heads down to their shrouding green sheath-like leaves; or where the sweet narcissus raised its white disk, distilling its rich perfume far into the night, and recalling the beautiful Boeotian youth, whose tragic fate seemed written on each silver petal.

Here, too, blossomed the luscious double violet, hidden beneath its close growing leaves, mingling its dainty perfume with the more pungent exhalations of the tiny musk plant and lily-of-the-valley, while the pale blue-eyed forget-me-not was lost in the shadows, as were the star of Bethlehem, and the delicate classic cups of the crocus, only their bolder yellow rims catching, now and then, a fleeting moonbeam.

A grove of sycamore trees threw up their graceful branches against the luminous darkness, while the chestnuts swayed their half-opened downy pink and white buds, and the maples fluttered their long, tendril-like pods, cased in verdant green, and as rhythmical as lightly strung Eastern prayer-beads. The faint early verdure of the lilac was just discernible, and in one of the dark oak-trees a little mother bird, wakened by the brilliant moonlight, crooned out a plaintive note to her mate, who answered her by the soft fluttering of his brown wings.

And then all was still, but not silent; for the great wonderful night is filled with the sweet harmonies of the invisible world, whose cadences are too faint and tender to be heard among the clarion chords of the day, but which possess an infinitude of euphony that seems borrowed from the heavenly choirs of the New Jerusalem.

Mr. Tremain coming suddenly—from the artificiality of the miniature La Scala, with its rose-coloured hangings, its wax tapers, its atmosphere laden with the manufactured perfumes of chypre, jockey-club, duchesse; and its stage, on which the mimic actors travestied the passions of real life; its audience, made up of fair women, whose costly robes were more priceless in their eyes than the ruder virtues of truth and honour; of men, whose natural abilities were buried beneath a fashionable languor, and whose moral nature was stunted and undeveloped by the blighting curse of their century, love of gold and desire of its possession—into the immensity and candour of the night—felt as if dealt a blow, and stopped involuntarily, swayed by some unknown emotion that strove against the one influence and yearned towards the other.

He stepped down from the terrace, and wandered aimlessly along the broad garden paths, his hands clasped loosely behind him, his bare head bent forward, the April wind stirring the short brown locks that fell over his forehead. Now and then he stooped down and looked carefully at some half-hidden blossom, drawing back the leaves with heedful fingers, and smiling at his own childishness as he passed on, not rifling even one bud from the parent stem.

The garden paths were all broad and straight, and Philip walked on, unheeding his steps and unmindful of his course. He was very deep in thought, so deep that presently he forgot to notice the flowers on either side, passing on without halting at any favoured one. Dick Darling's bald news—that Mdlle. Lamien had left the Folly—and her apparent ignorance as to her return, had opened Philip's eyes with a start, and revealed to him the distance he had already travelled in the primrose path of dalliance and uncertainty.

He acknowledged to himself, with a twinge of mortification, that her leaving the house in such a manner, and without any word to him as to her intention, was a wound to his self-love and self-esteem. Though, indeed, why Mdlle. Lamien should have confided her plans to him was an open question. He had met her but once face to face since the accident, and that opportunity had resolved itself into the unsatisfactory interview in the corridor, when she had scorned his hand, and swept by him down the stairs without a word.

Poor Philip! it was rather rough treatment, as he said to himself, to have his hand refused twice in the same evening by two different women! A smile of self-scorn and amusement came to his lips as he recalled the incident; fate was not usually so unkind, he was not accustomed to such churlish treatment at her hands, and the very novelty set him speculating as to the motives that incited two such opposite natures to a similarity of action.

Self analysis is a very deceitful occupation, and Mr. Tremain, who had set about an interior examination as to his own feelings and intentions regarding Mdlle. Lamien, was soon wandering far afield in the realms of speculation regarding the ulterior motives of these two women, comparing their various attributes, contrasting their characteristics, finding subtle likenesses between them, and antagonistic points of approachment. Then he recalled the little pink note, and the bouquet of jacque roses, and Dick Darling's sarcastic criticism upon them. Why should Mdlle. Lamien use coroneted note-paper if it was not her own? And why should Mimi's governess waste her scanty substance upon hot-house flowers for Esther Newbold, who certainly could better afford the luxury than her paid dependent? And did not Mdlle. Lamien know the meaning hidden in the blossoms? Had she some reason for selecting red roses and white hyacinths, or was it only a coincidence, an accident?

"Were I a little more of a fatalist," thought Philip, "I should answer my own question by reminding myself that nothing is accident in life. In their cult, kismet overrules and becomes destiny."

Meantime, taking no heed to his steps, Mr. Tremain was surprised into consciousness by a sharp blow in the face, which recalled him to a survey of his surroundings. He found he had wandered far beyond the garden precincts, down a gentle declivity ending in a lightly-wooded copse, to which a low-hanging hazel-tree branch barred his entrance. Putting this aside, he entered the small enclosure; it was not more than an acre in extent, the trees with which it was planted being still young, and standing rather wide apart. The ground beneath was of yielding though uneven turf, and quite at the far end of the tiny wood a rustic bench was placed near a small fountain with a marble basin, into which the water, trickling from a vase held in the marble boy Narcissus's uplifted hands, made a pleasant murmur in the stillness of the night.

A gleam of white drapery falling across the bench warned Philip that he was trespassing upon a rendezvous, that had all the recognised characteristics of an assignation. He had gone too far, however, to retreat, since his presence must have been already announced by the harsh crackling of the offending hazel-bough, some of the twigs having broken in his hand as he pushed it back.

The white figure neither moved nor showed any knowledge of his approach, but remained absolutely motionless, the head and shoulders in deep shadow, only the gloved hands and the sweeping draperies catching reflections from the fitful moonlight. If it was an assignation, the lady apparently was the only one faithful to the tryst, for there was no manly form beside her, nor manly accents raised in pleading or caress; indeed, voices of any timbre there were not. A silence, deep and profound, held the little wood as in a spell, and the white-robed figure with the folded hands might have been the enchanted Princess, and Philip the Prince who was to wake her with a kiss, whose very sweetness would open the door once again to the outside world of romance, and passion, and disappointment.

Poor Princess! let her dream on a little longer, wrapped in her unconscious, visionless slumber; the malignant fairy's curse of a hundred years ago is fast wearing itself away, and with love's awakening who can banish the twin sisters of jealousy and suspicion? Does not the fairest rose of all the garden fair bear within its flushing bosom the canker worm of deceit and decay?

Treading noiselessly upon the short turf, Mr. Tremain came close upon the fair intriguer before she heard his footsteps, or was aware of his presence. The moon, which had been slightly obscured by the passing of some hazy clouds, now broke forth and shone down full upon the slight upright figure that had arisen hastily, and taken a forward step or two, as Philip's approach became known. The silver rays touched with seeming tenderness the dark hair rolled high upon the little head, and fell across the white neck, half concealed by a fleecy drapery, gathered together carelessly, and held by one slender hand in a long loose glove; they struck cool and sharp on the sweeping lines of the dress, accentuating each fold of the silken texture, and threw into bold relief the soft pallor of the delicately-rounded face, lingering longest where the dark brows made a mystery of the eyes, and kissing the curved lips that now were set and defiant; illuminating and defining each gracious curve and outline of the graceful form, with the same ethereal brilliancy that transformed the trickling fountain into an elixir of life, and awakened the boy-god Narcissus into perennial youthfulness.

Mr. Tremain stopped spell-bound; and for a moment's space, in the hush that fell between them, each could hear the quick-drawn breath of the other, while the tinkling drops from Narcissus's vase became a Niagara in sound and volume. Then the spell was broken, as both, with involuntary impulse, spoke the other's name.

"Patricia!"

"Philip!"

The woman was the first to recover her composure; with a nervous laugh, that rang a little untrue, and in a slightly strained voice, she broke the embarrassment of the moment.

"So you, too, have caught the fever of unrest, Mr. Tremain, and become moon-struck under the influence of Luna's fool's month. For myself, I have always asserted that the blood of the wandering tribes flows in my veins, the night-time and the dark hours have always been my favourite times for——"

"A rendezvous," struck in Philip, sharply. "I have not forgotten any of your pet peculiarities, you see. Perhaps I intrude, however; the hour and scene demand a Romeo for your Juliet, and I can scarcely hope to fill the part to your liking."

She started as though he had struck her, but made answer calmly enough:

"You are too modest, Mr. Tremain, by far; it is a new development in your character, pardon me if it strikes me as somewhat ludicrous." And she laughed lightly and coldly, though with a ring of bitterness below the mocking notes.

But Philip was not angered by her words or her laughter; he scarcely heard the latter, so eagerly were his eyes devouring each feature and line of the once dearly worshipped face and form.

Surely the cheeks were a trifle more wan and hollow than in the old days, despite the delicate rouge tinting that lay upon them; and the eyes were deeper set, the shadows beneath them darker, their expression more weary and unsatisfied than when last he had looked into their violet depths; and had not the perfect modelling of her figure grown somewhat thinner and more shrunken?

He, who remembered her in the full glory and pride of her youthful beauty, and who had loved her in it, noted now with keenest vision each change that time had wrought upon it. And as he gazed the old old passion leapt into life again; his heart grew tender and longing, his love of ten years ago awoke from its long slumber, and clamoured for its resurrection. And yet, mingling with this tumult of emotion, overweighing it, and pressing it back, was a strange, intangible, inexplicable power that evolved itself out of a future of unknown presentiment, even as it seemed but the forecast of a dread calamity.

But Philip was not one to be swayed by unseen influences; he shook off the impression of supernatural agencies and resolved to snatch at this one hour, which chance had thrown in his way, and wring from it whatever of joy or sweetness could be gathered from the withered blossoms and crushed buds of the past.

He stood face to face with Patricia once more; might not he, remembering Esther Newbold's pleadings, even now after ten long years of separation, gather sufficient fruit from off the golden trees of past youth and love, to make happy and contented the downward years of life? Could a man stand thus, looking into the eyes of the woman of his life-long devotion, and remain indifferent? Would not any sop from out that gilded past, if thrown to him by her hand, prove of sufficient value to be worth his glad acceptance?

All this time his eyes had never left her face, and she grew restive under the intensity of his scrutiny, flushing and paling, while the hand that held the fleecy drapery about her throat and neck trembled.

"Patty," he said at last, in a voice set in a lower key than usual. "Patty, it is ten long years since we stood thus, alone together. Do you remember the last time we met and—parted?"

She did not answer him at first, but moved away from him some paces, and halted beside the fountain; the marble rim that surrounded the basin was broad and high, she seated herself upon it, and turning her face looked upward at Philip, who had followed her.

Not more cold, or hard, or irresponsive was the face of the boy Narcissus behind her, than was the fair impassive beauty of her face. The springing jet of water had ceased to flow, and only a few drops fell now and then from the upheld vase; they seemed like echoes from the past years falling slowly, slowly, one by one.

When she spoke her voice was calm and composed, though Philip, accustomed to its fuller cadences, caught here and there a flat note in its ebb and flow.

"I find you are as inconsequent and as tactless as ever, Philip," she said; and though she dropped her previous formality of address, his name gained nothing in her using of it. "You were always a sad bungler; fancy reminding a woman of her existence ten years ago! And then expecting her to remember her words and actions at that time! My dear Philip you are speaking of ancient history; why not tell me at once that Queen Anne is dead, and expect me to be astonished? A woman remembers nothing of her past, save her conquests and her gowns. The one tells upon her vanity, the other tells upon her purse."

She laughed again, lightly; and drawing off her glove dipped one hand in the dark water, stirring its surface into a hundred rippling smiles, and scattering the drops in a shower of prismatic spherules.

"I know it is the fashion of your world, Patricia," Philip replied, quietly, "to scoff at all things; so narrow are the limits of this nineteenth-century philosophy that what we cannot understand we disbelieve, what we do not wish to recall we deny, and what we are forced to accept we despise. It is a cruel creed even for men, on the lips of a woman it becomes detestable. You may scoff as you please, Patricia, you cannot change or alter the old laws of God; as long as man is man and woman, woman, memory and remorse must have a place within their consciousness; and no matter how hard or callous you may have grown, or how learned in the world's theology, you cannot entirely quench the attributes bestowed upon you, when you became not only a beautiful creation, but a woman of soul and reason. The last ten years cannot be a blank to you, any more than our last meeting and parting can be."

Miss Hildreth laughed again, and wiping her slender finger-tips upon a tiny square of lace and muslin, from whose folds an odour of violets stole forth, she answered in an even lighter tone:

"My dear Philip, let me recommend to you a certain essay on the 'Art of Forgetting,' if you have not already read it. It is written by a modern philosopher, it is true, but nevertheless, he sounds the heights and depths of our social system, and evolves a theory therefrom for which he should receive an universal peerage, bestowed upon him by his indebted fellow-sufferers. In the art of forgetting lies one's only chance of freedom from remorse for the past, and the inconveniences of the future. Believe me, if we can only master thoroughly this hitherto neglected art, we need have no further fears either for our digestions or complexions. It was, I think, old Sir Piers who said that all one's nightmares, physical or moral, arose from one of two causes, an unruly liver, or a too vivid memory; let us give the old man the credit of the aphorism, in any case."

"Since you are so willingly blind, Patricia," cried Philip, roused from his apparent calm by the cool impertinence of her replies, "it seems a pity to force you to recall a past that dates back ten years. And yet I fear I must do so, for there are certain things that had better be explained between us now. Who knows but twice ten years may come and go before we meet again?"

He paused for a moment, but she made him no reply; her face and slim graceful figure were thrown into high relief against the dark hazel-trees, her silks and laces lay about her feet in careless profusion across the short green turf, her hands were folded in the lace scarf that wrapped her neck in its fleecy folds. Afar off in the darkness of the drooping branches, an owl hooted, and a bird or two answered in sleepy half-notes.

"It is not so very long ago," Philip continued, "since a letter came to me from you."

She shivered a little and drew her laces about her more closely.

"In that letter, Patricia, you had forgotten nothing; not one detail of the dream we dreamed together ten years ago. You wrote from your heart then; your heart that will sometimes make its cry heard, despite the crust of worldly artifice and selfishness you have built up upon it, and you appealed to me to recall the old days, 'to fold back the cere-cloth from the face of our dead past,' and see if something of beauty and sentiment did not still cling to its memory."

She put up one hand to her face and passed it hurriedly across her trembling lips; she did not speak, but her eyes grew large and dark in their entreaty. Mr. Tremain continued, unheeding either her eyes or gesture.

"I am not going to quote further from that letter, Patricia, and I will only tax your patience a very little longer, while I describe to you two visions conjured up by your appeal. I saw once more you, in your first fresh loveliness and beauty, radiant with youth, transformed by love; and I saw myself, as yet a raw, unfinished, unformed specimen of manhood; the Creighton of a suburban society, it is true, but nevertheless the veriest tyro in the affectations and niceties of town etiquette. You came within my circle, and you charmed me by the sweet graciousness of your beauty, the blue fire of your eyes, the frank candour of your witcheries. And you—you were content to let me play Strephon to your Chloe. And so that vision faded; and when next I saw you in fancy, you came towards me, from out a world of light beyond, from whence came also the echo of gay laughter and light jest; the silks and laces of your dress fell about you jealously, I remember their colour and their sheen, as you crept up to me, trembling. There was no glad exclamation on your lips, no joy in your eyes, no hand held out in welcome; hesitating and uncertain you stood before me, looking at me from under your downcast lids, and drawing one hand slowly over the other. And I, loving and eager, I, a very fool in love, never dreamed the reason of your changed demeanour; no, not until hours afterwards, when the night and the falling rain had cooled my passion. You were ashamed of me, Patty, ashamed of your rustic lover, who came into your presence with a heart on fire, but wearing an ill-fitting coat, and with manners more pronounced and enthusiastic than those of your little court in the room beyond."

He stopped and walked away from her a few paces. The woman thus left alone seated on the marble fountain rim, never moved or spoke; only a low cry burst from her lips, smothered as soon as born, otherwise she remained as still and silent as the Boeotian marble god behind her, whose prototype had lived out all the passion and the pain of loving so many centuries ago.

The moon above drifted from cloud to cloud, flinging its silver fire down recklessly upon the sheltered nook, and upon the fair woman miserable in the midst of her loveliness. Mr. Tremain turned and came back, he drew close to her and stood silent for some moments; the pity that filled his soul, revealed in his eyes down bent upon her. After a time he spoke, and his voice had regained its usual level tones.

"That was all, Patty, a very commonplace ending. You were ashamed of me; ashamed of my outward appearance, which lacked the correct finish of a Bond Street tailor; ashamed of my eagerness and my passion, and my open adoration; ashamed of my poverty, and afraid of it. Poor pretty Patty! poor little butterfly of fashion! What should it know of the coarser insects of creation, whose existence was as necessary perhaps, but less ornamental, than its own? Why should it break its pretty painted wings in trying to soar above the sunshine of the hour? You rejected me, Patricia, that was the end of our last interview; you rejected me and scorned me, and cast me from you when tired of your toy, and when you had wounded me beyond healing, and flouted my love and constancy. You asked me to kiss you for good-bye; I think that was the bitterest moment of all my life, Patty, it was such wanton cruelty, such selfish triumphing. And I went from you with all the love and hope and trust and belief of youth crushed out of my heart by your two soft little hands. Who could have thought they had the strength to deal one such a coward's blow?"

Again he stopped, but still she remained still and silent, the whiteness of her face growing strange and unfamiliar in the fitful moonbeams.

"That was our last meeting and parting, Patricia, and it happened ten years ago. And you would have me believe that you have so mastered the art of forgetting as to make of it all only a blank chaos!"

He came nearer to her, and moving with careful hand the folds of her dress sat down beside her on the broad marble brim. Seated thus, side by side, his eyes were on a level with hers, and he read within their depths so great a misery as to call forth a fuller pity in his own.

"Patty," he said, very quietly, "Patty, my answer to your letter was cold and hard, unworthy of me. Will you forget it, my dear, and let me give you my true answer now, with your head upon my heart, and my lips on yours, as in the old days, Patty? The old beautiful days when the world and our love was young. Patty, my little wayward Patty, come back to my love and to me."

He held out his arms and would have drawn her to him, so sure was he of her answer. But she, springing up, stood tall and dignified before him, her bosom, from which the lace wrap had fallen, heaving with her hurriedly drawn breath, the whiteness of her uncovered neck and arms gleaming like alabaster, as she stood silhouetted against the sombre boughs of the hazel-trees behind her. Her eyes flashed with their old fire, she raised one hand in her old favourite imperious gesture, and when she spoke the tones of her voice had grown round and full and musical.

"No, Philip," she cried, "you come too late. What! you think you have but to throw the handkerchief and I will run gladly to pick it up? You are willing to accept me now, because for some concealed reason of your own, I appear more desirable in your eyes, better worth the having, and so you read me a long monologue on your constancy and love, and my faithlessness and cruelty. But you forget to put in the finer shading to the picture, Philip; you forget the part you played in our drama À deux; you forget how eagerly you snatched at the freedom I offered; you forget your harsh words, your rough manners, your imperious demands, your impatient flying to conclusions. You wilfully misunderstood me then, Philip, you wilfully misread a girl's most natural shrinking from the unknown and the untried, and put it down to heartless coquetry and deceit. Was it for me to set you right? Was I to plead my own cause? No, Philip, you have scorned me twice; once when you refused my kiss, ten years ago, and again when you refused my offer in my letter. I will not accept now a love born out of pity, an interest created by desire. I will have all or nothing; pity shall have nothing to say or plead on my behalf."

She threw out her hands passionately.

"Take back your offer, Philip; make it to some less jealous, less wise woman. I will have none of it. I have seen many strange things in my wanderings of ten years, gained many bitter experiences, mingled with many strange people, touched close on terrible tragedies; but one thing I have never lost throughout all—my pride and my freedom. Go, Philip, you have your answer in my farewell words of ten years ago. I have no room to remember. I have mastered the art of forgetfulness and oblivion."

With one quick movement she stooped, drew the long folds of her shining draperies about her, gathering her laces in one hand, and swept by him swiftly; the moonlight clinging to her as she moved, surrounded her as with a halo, and lighted up the fine scorn that curved her lips and glowed in her deep eyes.

In another moment the elastic swaying hazel-boughs parted to receive her, and then springing back, hid the slight graceful figure from Philip's sight.

And still the drops falling from the vase, held high in the hands of the boy-god Narcissus, counted out the moments, and the moonbeams fell straight and long, in narrow shafts, across the spot where Patricia had leant her fair form, stirring to sudden life with her jewelled fingers the water's placid dark surface.

Now she was gone, and the radiance departed with her.

END OF VOL. I.

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.